14526	----	The Little City of Hope A CHRISTMAS STORY BY F. MARION CRAWFORD MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1907 _Copyright in the United States America, 1907_ CONTENTS PAGE 1. HOW JOHN HENRY OVERHOLT SAT ON PANDORA'S BOX 1 2. HOW A MAN AND A BOY FOUNDED THE LITTLE CITY OF HOPE 19 3. HOW THEY MADE BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW 35 4. HOW THERE WAS A FAMINE IN THE CITY 49 5. HOW THE CITY WAS BESIEGED AND THE LID OF PANDORA'S BOX CAME OFF 63 6. HOW A SMALL BOY DID A BIG THING AND NAILED DOWN THE LID OF THE BOX 74 7. HOW A LITTLE WOMAN DID A GREAT DEED TO SAVE THE CITY 87 8. HOW THE WHEELS WENT ROUND AT LAST 105 9. HOW THE KING OF HEARTS MADE A FEAST IN THE CITY OF HOPE 116 I HOW JOHN HENRY OVERHOLT SAT ON PANDORA'S BOX "Hope is very cheap. There's always plenty of it about." "Fortunately for poor men. Good morning." With this mild retort and civil salutation John Henry Overholt rose and went towards the door, quite forgetting to shake hands with Mr. Burnside, though the latter made a motion to do so. Mr. Burnside always gave his hand in a friendly way, even when he had flatly refused to do what people had asked of him. It was cheap; so he gave it. But he was not pleased when they did not take it, for whatever he chose to give seemed of some value to him as soon as it was offered; even his hand. Therefore, when his visitor forgot to take it, out of pure absence of mind, he was offended, and spoke to him sharply before he had time to leave the private office. "You need not go away like that, Mr. Overholt, without shaking hands." The visitor stopped and turned back at once. He was thin and rather shabbily dressed. I know many poor men who are fat, and some who dress very well; but this was not that kind of poor man. "Excuse me," he said mildly. "I didn't mean to be rude. I quite forgot." He came back, and Mr. Burnside shook hands with becoming coldness, as having just given a lesson in manners. He was not a bad man, nor a miser, nor a Scrooge, but he was a great stickler for manners, especially with people who had nothing to give him. Besides, he had already lent Overholt money; or, to put it nicely, he had invested a little in his invention, and he did not see any reason why he should invest any more until it succeeded. Overholt called it selling shares, but Mr. Burnside called it borrowing money. Overholt was sure that if he could raise more funds, not much more, he could make a success of the "Air-Motor"; Mr. Burnside was equally sure that nothing would ever come of it. They had been explaining their respective points of view to each other, and in sheer absence of mind Overholt had forgotten to shake hands. Mr. Burnside had no head for mechanics, but Overholt had already made an invention which was considered very successful, though he had got little or nothing for it. The mechanic who had helped him in its construction had stolen his principal idea before the device was patented, and had taken out a patent for a cheap little article which every one at once used, and which made a fortune for him. Overholt's instrument took its place in every laboratory in the world; but the mechanic's labour-saving utensil took its place in every house. It was on the strength of the valuable tool of science that Mr. Burnside had invested two thousand dollars in the Air-Motor without really having the smallest idea whether it was to be a machine that would move the air, or was to be moved by it. A number of business men had done the same thing. Then, at a political dinner in a club, three of the investors had dined at the same small table, and in an interval between the dull speeches, one of the three told the others that he had looked into the invention and that there was nothing in Overholt's motor after all. Overholt was crazy. "It's like this," he had said. "You know how a low-pressure engine acts; the steam does a part of the work and the weight of the atmosphere does the rest. Now this man Overholt thinks he can make the atmosphere do both parts of the work with no steam at all, and as that's absurd, of course, he won't get any more of my money. It's like getting into a basket and trying to lift yourself up by the handles." Each of the two hearers repeated this simple demonstration to at least a dozen acquaintances, who repeated it to dozens of others; and after that John Henry Overholt could not raise another dollar to complete the Air-Motor. Mr. Burnside's refusal had been definite and final, and he had been the last to whom the investor had applied, merely because he was undoubtedly the most close-fisted man of business of all who had invested in the invention. Overholt saw failure before him at the very moment of success, with the not quite indifferent accompaniment of starvation. Many a man as good as he has been in the same straits, even more than once in life, and has succeeded after all, and Overholt knew this quite well, and therefore did not break down, nor despair, nor even show distinct outward signs of mental distress. Metaphorically, he took Pandora's box to the Park, put it in a sunny corner, and sat upon it, to keep the lid down, with Hope inside, while he thought over the situation. It was not at all a pleasant one. It is one thing to have no money to spare, but it is quite another to have none at all, and he was not far from that. He had some small possessions, but those with which he was willing to part were worth nothing, and those which would bring a little money were the expensive tools and valuable materials with which he was working. For he worked alone, profiting by his experience with the mechanic who had robbed him of one of his most profitable patents. When the idea of the Air-Motor had occurred to him he had gone into a machine-shop and had spent nearly two years in learning the use of fine tools. Then he had bought what he needed out of the money invested in his idea, and had gone to work himself, sending models of such castings as he required to different parts of the United States, that the pieces might be made independently. He was not an accomplished workman, and he made slow progress with only his little son to help him when the boy was not at school. Often, through lack of skill, he wasted good material, and more than once he spoiled an expensive casting, and was obliged to wait till it could be made again and sent to him. Besides, he and the boy had to live, and living is dear nowadays, even in a cottage in an out-of-the-way corner of Connecticut; and he needed fire and light in abundance for his work, besides something to eat and decent clothes to wear and somebody to cook the dinner; and when he took out his diary note-book and examined the figures on the page near the end, headed "Cash Account, November," he made out that he had three hundred and eighteen dollars and twelve cents to his credit, and nothing to come after that, and he knew that the men who had believed in him had invested, amongst them, ten thousand dollars in shares, and had paid him the money in cash in the course of the past three years, but would invest no more; and it was all gone. One thousand more, clear of living expenses, would do it. He was positively sure that it would be enough, and he and the boy could live on his little cash balance, by great economy, for four months, at the end of which time the Air-Motor would be perfected. But without the thousand the end of the four months would be the end of everything that was worth while in life. After that he would have to go back to teaching in order to live, and the invention would be lost, for the work needed all his time and thought. He was a mathematician, and a very good one, besides being otherwise a man of cultivated mind and wide reading. Unfortunately for himself, or the contrary, if the invention ever succeeded, he had given himself up to higher mathematics when a young man, instead of turning his talent to account in an architect's office, a shipbuilding yard, or a locomotive shop. He could find the strain at any part of an iron frame building by the differential and integral calculus to the millionth of an ounce, but the everyday technical routine work with volumes of ready-made tables was unfamiliar and uncongenial to him; he would rather have calculated the tables themselves. The true science of mathematics is the most imaginative and creative of all sciences, but the mere application of mathematics to figures for the construction of engines, ships, or buildings is the dullest sort of drudgery. Rather than that, he had chosen to teach what he knew and to dream of great problems at his leisure when teaching was over for the day or for the term. He had taught in a small college, and had known the rare delight of having one or two pupils who were really interested. It had been a good position, and he had married a clever New England girl, the daughter of his predecessor, who had died suddenly. They had been very happy together for years, and one boy had been born to them, whom his father insisted on christening Newton. Then Overholt had thrown up his employment for the sake of getting freedom to perfect his invention, though much against his wife's advice, for she was a prudent little woman, besides being clever, and she thought of the future of the two beings she loved, and of her own, while her husband dreamed of hastening the progress of science. Overholt came to New York because he could work better there than elsewhere, and could get better tools made, and could obtain more easily the materials he wanted. For a time everything went well enough, but when the investors began to lose faith in him things went very badly. Then Mrs. Overholt told her husband that two could live where three could not, especially when one was a boy of twelve; and as she would not break his heart by teasing him into giving up the invention as a matter of duty, she told him that she would support herself until it was perfected or until he abandoned it of his own accord. She was very well fitted to be a governess; she was thirty years old and as strong as a pony, she said, and she had friends in New England who could find her a situation. He should see her whenever it was possible, she added, but there was no other way. Now it is not easy to find a thoroughly respectable married governess of unexceptionably good manners, who comes of a good stock and is able to teach young ladies. Such a person is a treasure to rich people who need somebody to take charge of their girls while they fly round and round the world in automobiles, seeking whom they may destroy. Therefore Mrs. Overholt obtained a very good place before long, and when the family in which she taught had its next attack of European fever and it was decided that the girls must stay in Munich to improve their German and their music, Mrs. Overholt was offered an increase of salary if she would take them there and see to it, while their parents quartered Germany, France, Spain, and Austria at the rate of forty miles an hour, or even fifty and sixty where the roads were good. If the parents broke their necks, Mrs. Overholt would take the children home; but this was rather in the understanding than in the agreement. Such was the position when John Henry sat down upon the lid of Pandora's box in a sunny corner of the Central Park and reflected on Mr. Burnside's remark that "there was plenty of hope about." The inventor thought that there was not much, but such as it was, he did not mean to part with it on the ground that the man of business had called it "cheap." He resolved his feelings into factors and simplified the form of each; and this little mathematical operation showed that he was miserable for three reasons. The first was that there was no money for the tangent balance of the Air-Motor, which was the final part, on which he had spent months of hard work and a hundred more than half sleepless nights. The second was that he had not seen his wife for nearly a year, and had no idea how long it would be before he saw her again, and he was just as much in love with her as he had been fourteen years ago, when he married her. The third, and not the least, was that Christmas was coming, and he did not see how in the world he was to make a Christmas out of nothing for Newton, seeing that a thirteen-year-old boy wants everything under the sun to cheer him up when he has no brothers and sisters, and school is closed for the holidays, and his mother is away from home, and there is nobody but a dear old tiresome father who has his nose over a lathe all day long unless he is blinding himself with calculating quaternions for some reason that no lad, and very few men, can possibly understand. John Henry was obliged to confess that hope was not much of a Christmas present for a boy in Newton's surroundings. For the surroundings would be dismal in the extreme. A rickety cottage on an abandoned Connecticut farm that is waiting for a Bohemian emigrant to make it pay is not a gay place, especially when two-thirds of the house has been turned into a workshop that smells everlastingly of smith's coal, brass filings, and a nauseous chemical which seemed to be necessary to the life of the Air-Motor, and when the rest of the house is furnished in a style that would make a condemned cell look attractive by contrast. Besides, it would rain or snow, and it rarely snowed in a decent Christian manner by Christmas. It snowed slush, as Newton expressed it. A certain kind of snow-slush makes nice hard snowballs, it is true, just like stones, but when there is no other boy to fight, it is no good. Overholt had once offered to have a game of snow-balling with his son on a Saturday afternoon in winter; and the invitation was accepted with alacrity. But it was never extended again. The boy was a perfect terror at that form of diversion. Yet so distressed was Overholt at the prospect of a sad Christmas for his son that he even thought of voluntarily giving up his thin body to the torment again on the 25th of December, if that would amuse Newton and make it seem less dull for him. Good-will towards men, and even towards children, could go no further than that, even at Christmas time. At least Overholt could think of no greater sacrifice that might serve. For what are toys to a boy of thirteen? He wants a gun and something to kill, or he wants a boat in which he can really sail, or a live pony with a real head, a real tail, and four real legs, one at each corner. That had been Newton's definition of the desired animal when he was six years old, and some one had given him a wooden one on rockers with the legs painted on each side. Girls of thirteen can still play with dolls, and John Henry had read that, far away in ancient times, girls dedicated their dolls, with all the dolls' clothes, to Artemis on the eve of their wedding-day. But no self-respecting boy of thirteen cares a straw for anything that is not real, except an imaginary pain that will keep him away from school without cutting down his rations; and in the invention and presentation of such fictitious suffering he beats all the doll-makers in Germany and all the playwrights and actors in the world. You must have noticed that the pain is always as far from the stomach as is compatible with probability. Toothache is a grand thing, for nobody can blame a healthy boy for eating then, if he can only bear the pain. And he can, and does, bear it nobly, though with awful faces. The little beast knows that all toothaches do not make your cheek swell. Then there is earache; that is a splendid invention; it goes through your head like a red-hot corkscrew with a powerful brakeman at the other end, turning it steadily--between meals. Only certain kinds of things really serve to make him stop. Ice-cream is one, and it takes a great deal of it. It is well known that ice will cool a red-hot corkscrew. But this is a digression, for no boy ever has any pain at Christmas; it is only afterwards that it comes on; usually about ten days. After an hour Overholt came to the conclusion that he had better take Pandora's box out to the cottage and sit on it there, since nothing suggested itself to him, in spite of his immense good-will to accept any suggestion which the spirit of coming Christmas might be kind enough to offer; and if he could do nothing else, he could at least work at his machine, and try to devise some means of constructing the tangent-balance, with the materials he had left, and perhaps, by the time he was thoroughly grimy and the workshop smelt like the Biblical bottomless pit, something would occur to him for Newton. He could also write a letter to his wife, a sort of anticipatory Christmas letter, and send her the book he had bought as a little gift, wrapping it in nice white paper first, tied with a bit of pale green ribband which she had left behind her, and which he had cherished nearly a year, and marking it "to be opened on Christmas morning"; and the parcel should then be done up securely in good brown grocer's paper and addressed to her, and even registered, so that it could not possibly be lost. It was a pretty book, and also a very excellent book, which he knew she wanted and would read often, so it was as well to take precautions. He wished that Newton wanted a book, or even two or three, or magazines with gaily coloured pictures, or anything that older or younger boys would have liked a little. But Newton was at that age which comes sooner or later to every healthy boy, and the sight of a book which he was meant to read and ought to read was infinitely worse than the ugliest old toad that ever flops out of a hollow tree at dusk, spitting poison and blinking his devilish little eyes at you when you come too near him. Overholt had been brought up by people who lived in peace and good-will towards men, in a city where the spirit of Christmas still dwells, and sleeps most of the time, but wakens every year, like a giant of good courage and good cheer, at the sound of the merry bells across the snow, and to the sweet carol under the windows in the frosty night. The Germans say that bad men have no songs; and we and all good fellows may say that bad people have no Christmas, and though they copy the letter they know not the spirit; and I say that a copied Christmas is no Christmas at all, because Christmas is a feast of hearts and not of poor bits of cut-down trees stuck up in sawdust and covered with lights and tinsel, even if they are hung with the most expensive gewgaws and gimcracks that ever are bought for gifts by people who are expected to give, whether they like or not. But when the heart for Christmas is there and is beating, then a very little tree will do, if there be none better to the hand. Overholt thought so, while the train rumbled, creaked, and clattered and jerked itself along, as only local trains can, probably because they are old and rheumatic and stiff and weak in the joints, like superannuated crocodiles, though they may have once been young express trains, sleek and shiny, and quick and noiseless as bright snakes. Overholt thought so, too; but the trouble was that he saw not even the least little mite of a tree in sight for his boy when the 25th of December should come. And it was coming, and was only a month away; and time is not a local train that stops at every station, and then kicks itself on a bit to stop at the next; it is the "Fast Limited," and, what is more, it is the only one we can go by; and we cannot get out, because it never stops anywhere. II HOW A MAN AND A BOY FOUNDED THE LITTLE CITY OF HOPE Overholt's boy came home from school at the usual hour with his books buckled together in an old skate strap, which had never been very good because the leather was too soft and tore from one hole to the next; but it served very well for the books, as no great strain was caused by an arithmetic thumbed to mushiness, a history in the same state, and a geography of which the binding gave in and doubled up from sheer weariness, while the edges were so worn that the eastern coast of China and Siberia had quite disappeared. He was a good-looking lad, not tall for his age, but as tough as a street cat in hard training. He had short and thick brown hair, a clear complexion, his father's energetically intellectual features, though only half developed yet, a boldly-set mouth, and his mother's kindly, practical blue eyes. For surely the eyes of practical people are always quite different from those of all others; and not many people are practical, though I never knew anybody who did not think he or she was, except pinchbeck artists, writers, and players, who are sure that since they must be geniuses, it is necessary to be Bohemians in order to show it. The really big ones are always trying to be practical, like Sir Isaac Newton when he ordered a good-sized hole to be cut in his barn door for the cat, and a little one next it for the kitten. But Newton Overholt did not at all resemble his great namesake. He was a practical young soul, and had not yet developed the American disease which consists in thinking of two things at the same time. John Henry had it badly, for he had been thinking of the tangent-balance, his wife, his boy, and the coming Christmas, all together, since he had got home, and the three problems had got mixed and had made his head ache. Nevertheless he looked up from his work-table and smiled when his son came in. "Everything all right?" he asked, with an attempt to be cheerful. "Oh yes, fine," answered the boy, looking at the motionless model for the five-hundredth time, and sticking his hands into his pockets. "I'm only third in mathematics yet, but I'm head in everything else. I wish I had your brains, father! I'd be at the head of the arithmetic class in half a shake of a lamb's tail if I had your brains." So far as mathematics were concerned this sounded probable to John Henry, who would have considered the speed of the tail to be a variable function of lamb, depending on the value of mother, plus or minus milk. "Well," he said in an encouraging tone, "I never could remember geography, so it makes us even." "I'd like to know how!" cried the boy in a tone of protest. "You could do sums, and you grew up to be a great mathematician and inventor. But what is the good of a geographician, anyway? They can only make school-books. They never invent anything, do they? You can't invent geography, can you? At least you can, and some boys do, but they go to the bottom of the class like lead. It's safer to invent history than geography, isn't it, father?" Overholt's clever mouth twitched. "It's much safer, my boy. Almost all historians have found it so." "There! I said so to-day, and now you say just the same thing. I don't believe one word of ancient history. Not--one--word! They wrote it about their own nations, didn't they? All right. Then you might just as well expect them to tell what really happened, as think that I'd tell on another boy in my own school. I must say it would be as mean as dog pie of them if they did, but all the same that does not make history true, does it?" Newton had a practical mind. His father, who had not, meditated with unnecessary gravity on the boy's point of view and said nothing. "For instance," continued the lad, sitting down on the high stool before the lathe Overholt was not using, "the charge of Balaclava's a true story, because it's been told by both sides; but they all say that it did no good, anyway, except to make poetry of. But Marathon! Nobody had a chance to say a word about it except the Greeks themselves, and they weren't going to allow that the Persians wiped up the floor with them, were they? Why should they? And if Balaclava had happened then, those Greek fellows would have told us that the Light Brigade carried the Russian guns back with them across their saddles, wouldn't they? I say, father!" "What is it?" asked Overholt, looking up, for he had gone back to his work and was absorbed in it. "The boys are all beginning to talk about Christmas down at the school. Now what are we going to do at Christmas? I've been wondering." "So have I!" responded the man, laying down the screw-plate with which he was about to cut a fine thread on the end of a small brass rod for the tangent-balance. "I've been thinking about it a good deal to-day, and I haven't decided on anything." "Let's have turkey and cranberry sauce, anyway," said Newton thoughtfully, for he had a practical mind. "And I suppose we can have ice-cream if it freezes and we can get some ice. Snow does pretty well if you pack it down tight enough with salt, and go on putting in more when it melts. Barbara doesn't make ice-cream as well as they do in New York. She puts in a lot of winter-green and too little cocoanut. But it's not so bad. We can have it, can't we, father?" "Oh yes. Turkey, cranberry sauce, and ice-cream. But that isn't a whole Christmas!" "I don't see what else you want, I'm sure," answered the boy thoughtfully. "I mean if it's a big turkey and there's enough ice-cream--cream-cakes, maybe. You get good cream-cakes at Bangs's, two for five cents. They're not very big, but they're all right inside--all gooey, you know. Can you think of anything else?" "Not to eat!" "Oh, well then, what's the matter with our Christmas? I can't see. No school and heaps of good gobbles." "Good what?" Overholt looked at the boy with an inquiring glance, and then understood. "I see! Is that the proper word?" "When there's lots, it is," answered Newton with conviction. "Of course, there are all sorts of things I'd like to have, but it's no good wishing you could lay Columbus's egg and hatch the American eagle, is it?[Footnote: The writer acknowledges his indebtedness for this fact in natural and national history to his aunt, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, to whom it was recently revealed in the course of making an excellent speech.] What would you like, father, if you could choose?" "Three things," answered Overholt promptly. "I should like to see that wheel going round, softly and steadily, all Christmas Day. I should like to see that door open and your mother coming in." "You bet I would too!" cried Newton, dropping from bold metaphor to vulgar vernacular. "Well, what's the third thing? You said there were three." "I should like you to have a real, old-fashioned, glorious Christmas, my boy, such as you had when you were smaller, before we left the house where you were born." "Oh well, you mustn't worry about me, father; if there's plenty of turkey and ice-cream and the cream-cakes, I can stand it. Mother can't come, anyhow, so that's settled, and it's no use to think about it. But the motor--that's different. There's hope, anyway. The wheel may go round. If you didn't hope so, you wouldn't go on fussing over it, would you? You'd go and do something else. They always say hope's better than nothing." "It's about all we shall have left for Christmas, so we may as well build as much on it as we can." "I love building," said Newton. "I like to stand and watch a bricklayer just putting one brick on another and making the wall grow." "Perhaps you'll turn out an architect." "I'd like to. I never showed you my city, did I?" He knew very well that he had not, and his father looked at him inquiringly. "No. Oh well, you won't care to see it." "Yes, I should! But I don't understand. What sort of a city do you mean?" "Oh, it's nothing," answered the boy, affecting carelessness. "It's only a little paper city on a board. I don't believe you'd care to see it, father. Let's talk about Christmas." "No. I want to see what you have made. Where is it? I'll go with you." Newton laughed. "I'll bring it, if you really want me to. It's easy enough to carry. The whole thing's only paper!" He left the workshop and returned before Overholt had finished cutting the thread of the screw he was making. The man turned as the boy pushed the door open with his foot, and came in carrying what had evidently once been the top of a deal table. On the board he had built an ingenious model of a town, or part of one, but it was not finished. It was entirely made of bits of cardboard, chips of wood, the sides of match-boxes, and odds and ends of all sorts, which he picked up wherever he saw them and brought home in his pocket for his purpose. He had an immense supply of such stuff stored away, much more than he could ever use. Overholt looked at it with admiration, but said nothing. It was the college town where he had lived so happily and hoped to live again. It was distinctly recognisable, and many of the buildings were not only cleverly made, but were coloured very like the originals. He was so much interested that he forgot to say anything. "It's a silly thing, anyway," said Newton, disappointed by his silence. "It's like toys!" Overholt looked up, and the boy saw his pleased face. "It's very far from silly," he said. "I believe you're born to be a builder, boy! It's not only not silly, but it's very well done indeed!" "I'll bet you can't tell what the place is," observed Newton, a secret joy stealing through him at his father's words. "Know it? I should think I did, and I wish we were there now! Here's the College, and there's our house in the street on the other side of the common. The church is first-rate, it's really like it--and there's the Roman Catholic Chapel and the Public Library in Main Street." "Why, you really do recognise the places!" cried Newton in delight. "I didn't think anybody'd know them!" "One would have to be blind not to, if one knew the town," said Overholt. "And there's the dear old lane!" He was absorbed in the model. "And the three hickory trees, and even the little bench!" "Why, do you remember that bench, father?" Overholt looked up again, quickly and rather dreamily. "Yes. It was there that I asked your mother to marry me," he said. "Not really? Then I'm glad I put it in!" "So am I, for the dear old time's sake and for her sake, and for yours, my boy. Tell me when you made this, and how you can remember it all so well." The lad sat down on the high stool again before the lathe and looked through the dingy window at the scraggy trees outside, beyond the forlorn yard. "Oh, I don't know," he said. "I kind of remember it, I suppose, because I liked it better than this. And when I first had the idea I was sitting out there in the yard looking at this board. It belongs to a broken table that had been thrown out there. And I carried it up to my room when you were out. I thought you wouldn't mind my taking it. And I picked up scraps that might be useful, and got some gum, and old Barbara made me some flour paste. It's got green now, and it smells like thunder, but it's good still. That's about all, I suppose. Now I'll take it away again. I keep it in the dark closet behind my room, because that doesn't leak when it rains." "Don't take it away," said Overholt suddenly. "I'll make room for it here, and you can work at it while I'm busy, and in the evenings I'll try and help you, and we'll finish it together." Newton was amazed. "Why, father, it's playing! How can you go to work at play? It would be so funny! But, of course, if you really would help me a little--you've got such lots of nice things!" He wistfully eyed a little coil of some very fine steel wire which would make a beautiful telegraph. Newton even dreamt of making the trolley, too, in the Main Street, but that would be a very troublesome job; and as for the railway station, it was easy enough to build a shed and a platform, but what is a railway station without a train? Overholt did not answer the boy at once, and when he spoke there was a queer little quaver in his voice. "We'll call it our little City of Hope," he said, "and perhaps we can 'go to work to play,' as you call it, so hard that Hope will really come and live in the City." "Well," said Newton, "I never thought you'd ever care to see it! Shall I go up and get my stuff, and the gum and the flour paste, and bring them down here, father? But the flour paste smells pretty bad--it might give you a headache." "Bring it down, my boy. My headaches don't come from such things." "Don't they? It's true that stuff you use here's about as bad as anything, till you get used to it. What is it, anyway?" Overholt gave him the almost unpronounceable name of some recently discovered substance, and smiled at his expression as he listened. "If that's its name," said the boy gravely, "it sounds like the way it smells. I wonder what a skunk's name is in science. But the flour paste's pretty bad too. You'll see!" He went off, and his father finished cutting the little screw while he was gone, and then turned to look at the model again, and became absorbed in tracing the well-known streets and trying to recall the shops and houses in each, and the places where his friends had lived, and no doubt lived still, for college towns do not change as fast as others. He was amazed at the memory the boy had shown for details; if the lad had not yet developed any special talent, he had at least proved that he possessed one of those natural gifts which are sometimes alone enough to make success. The born builder's eye is like an ear for music, a facility for languages, or the power of drawing from nature; all the application in the world will not do in years what any one of these does instantly, spontaneously, instinctively, without the smallest effort. You cannot make talent out of a combination of taste and industry. You cannot train a cart-horse to trot a mile in a little over a minute. Newton returned, bringing his materials, to describe which would be profitless, if it were possible. He had everything littered together in two battered deal candle-boxes, including the broken soup-plate containing the flour paste, a loathely, mouldering little mess that diffused a nauseous odour, distinctly perceptible through that of the unpronounceable chemical on which the Air-Motor was to depend for its existence. The light outside was failing in the murky November air, and Overholt lit the big reflecting lamp that hung over the work-table. There was another above the lathe, for no gas or electricity was to be had so far from the town, and one of old Barbara's standing causes of complaint against Overholt was his reckless use of kerosene--she thought it would be better if he had more fat turkeys and rump-steaks and less light. So the man and the boy "went to work to play" at building the City of Hope, for at least an hour before supper and half an hour after it, almost every day; and with the boy's marvellous memory and the father's skill, and the delicious profusion of fresh material which Newton kept finding in every corner of the workshop, it grew steadily, till it was a little work of art in its way. There were the ups and downs, the crooked old roads and lanes and the straight new streets, the little wooden cottages and the big brick houses, and there was the grassy common with its trees and its tiny iron railing; and John Henry easily made posts to carry the trolley wires, which had seemed an impossible dream to the boy, beyond all realisation; and one day, when the inventor seemed farther from the tangent-balance than ever, he spent a whole afternoon in making a dozen little trolley-cars that ran on real wheels, made by sawing off little sections from a lead pencil, which is the best thing in the world for that, because the lead comes out and leaves nice round holes for the axles. When the first car was painted red and yellow and ran up and down Main Street, guided by the wire above and only needing one little artificial push to send it either way, it looked so real that the boy was in ecstasies of delight. "It's worth while to be a great inventor to be able to make things like that!" he cried, and Overholt was as much pleased by the praise as an opera singer is who is called out three times before the curtain after the first act. So the little City of Hope grew, and they both felt that Hope herself was soon coming to dwell therein, if she had not come already. III HOW THEY MADE BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW But then something happened; for Overholt was tormented by the vague consciousness of a coming idea, so that he had headaches and could not sleep at night. It flashed upon him at last one evening when Newton was in bed and he was sitting before his motor, wishing he had the thousand dollars which would surely complete it, even if he used the most expensive materials in the market. The idea which developed suddenly in all its clearness was that he had made one of the most important parts of the machine exactly the converse of what it should be; what was on the right should have been on the left, and what was down should certainly have been up. Then the engine would work, even if the tangent-balance were a very poor affair indeed. The particular piece of brass casting which was the foundation of that part had been made in New York, and, owing to the necessity for its being finished very accurately and machine planed and turned, it had cost a great deal of money. Already it had been made and spoilt three times over, and now it was perfectly clear that it must be cast over again in a reversed form. It was quite useless to make the balance yet, for it would be of no use till the right casting was finished; it would have to be reversed too, and the tangent would apply to a reversed curve. He had no money for the casting, but even before trying to raise the cash it was necessary to make the wooden model. He could do that, and he set to work to sketch the drawing within five minutes after the idea had once flashed upon him. As his eye followed the lines made by his pencil, he became more and more convinced that he was right. When the rough sketch was done he looked up at the engine. Its familiar features seemed to be drawn into a diabolical grimace of contempt at his stupidity, and it looked as if it were conscious and wanted to throw the wrongly-made piece at his head. But he was overwrought just then and could have fancied any folly. He rose, shook himself, and then took a long pull at a black bottle that always stood on a shelf. When a man puts a black bottle to his lips, tips it up, and takes down several good pulls almost without drawing breath, most people suppose that he is a person of vicious habits. In Overholt's case most people would have been wrong. The black bottle contained cold tea; it was strong, but it was only tea, and that is the finest drink in the world for an inventor or an author to work on. When I say an author I mean a poor writer of prose, for I have always been told that all poets are either mad, or bad, or both. Many of them must be bad, or they could not write such atrocious poems; but madness is different; perhaps they read their own verses. When Overholt had swallowed his cold tea, he got out his drawing materials, stretched a fresh sheet of thick draughtsman's paper on the board, and sat down between the motor that would not move and the little city in which Hope had taken lodgings for a while, and he went to work with ruler, scale and dividers, and the hard wood template for drawing the curves he had constructed for the tangent-balance by a very abstruse mathematical calculation. That was right, at all events, only, as it was to be reversed, he laid it on the paper with the under-side up. He worked nearly all night to finish the drawing, slept two hours in a battered Shaker rocking-chair by the fire, woke in broad daylight, drank more cold tea, and went at once to his lathe, for the new piece was in the nature of a cylinder, and a good deal of the work could be done by turning. The chisel and the lathe seemed to be talking to each other over the block of wood, and what they said rang like a tune in John Henry's head. "Bricks without straw, bricks without straw, bricks without straw," repeated the lathe regularly, at each revolution, and when it said "bricks" the treadle was up, and when it said "straw" the treadle was down, for of course it was only a foot lathe, though a good one. "Sh--sh--sh--ever so much better than no bricks at all--sh--sh--sh," answered the sharp chisel as it pressed and bit the wood, and made a little irregular clattering when it was drawn away, and then came forward against the block again with a long hushing sound; and Overholt was inclined to accept its opinion, and worked on as if an obliging brassfounder were waiting outside to take the model away at once and cast it for nothing, or at least on credit. But no such worthy and confiding manufacturer appeared, even on the evening of the second day, when the wooden model was beautifully finished and ready for the foundry. While the inventor was busy, Newton had worked alone in a corner when he had time to spare from his lessons, but he understood what was going on, and he did not accomplish much beyond painting the front of the National Bank in the City of Hope and planning a possible Wild West Show to be set up on the outskirts; the tents would be easy to make, but the horses were beyond his skill, or his father's; it would not be enough that they should have a leg at each corner and a head and a tail. He understood well enough what was the matter, for he had seen similar things happen before. A pessimist is defined to be a person who has lived with an optimist, and every inventor is that. Poor Newton had seen that particular part of the engine spoiled and made over three times, and he understood perfectly that it was all wrong again and must be cast once more. But he kept his reflections to himself and tried to think about the City of Hope. "I wish," said John Henry, sitting down opposite the boy at last, and looking at what he had done, "that the National Bank in Main Street were real!" He eyed it wistfully. "Oh well," answered the boy, "we couldn't rob it, because that's stealing, so I don't see what particular good it would do!" "Perhaps the business people in the City of Hope would be different from the bankers in New York," observed Overholt, thoughtfully. "I don't believe it, father," Newton answered in a sceptical tone. "If they were bankers they'd be rich, and you remember the sermon Sunday before last, about it's being easier for the camel to get through the rich man--no, which is it? I forget. It doesn't matter, anyway, because we can imagine any kind of people we choose in our city, can't we? Say, father, what's the matter? Are you going to cast that piece over again? That'll be the fourth time, won't it?" "It would be, my boy, but it won't be. They won't cast it for nothing, and I cannot raise the money. You cannot make bricks without straw." He looked steadily down at the tiny front of the Bank in Main Street, and a hungry look came into his eyes. But Newton had a practical mind, even at thirteen. "I was thinking," he said presently. "It looks as if we were going to get stuck some day. What are we going to do then, father? I was thinking about it just now. How are we going to get anything to eat if we have no money?" "I shall have to go back to teaching mathematics for a living, I suppose." "And give up the Motor?" Newton had never yet heard him suggest such a thing. "Yes," Overholt answered in a low tone; and that was all he said. "Oh, that's ridiculous. You'd just die, that's all!" Newton stared at the engine that was a failure. It looked as if it ought to work, he thought, with its neat cylinders, its polished levers, its beautifully designed gear. It stood under a big case made of thick glass plates set in an iron frame with a solid top; a chain ran through two cast-iron wheels overhead to a counterpoise in the corner, by which device it was easily raised and lowered. The Motor was a very expensive affair, and had to be carefully protected from dust and all injury, though it was worth nothing at present except for old brass and iron, unless the new part could be made. "Come, my boy, let's think of something more cheerful!" Overholt said, making an effort to rouse himself and concentrated his attention on the paper model. "Christmas is coming in three weeks, you know, and it will come just the same in the little City. I'm sure the people will decorate their houses and the church. Of course we cannot see the insides of the houses, but in Boston they put wreaths in the windows. And we'll have a snowstorm, just as we used to have, and we can clear it away afterwards! Wasn't there a holly tree somewhere near the College? You haven't put that in yet. You have no idea how cheerful it will look! To-morrow we'll find a very small sprig with berries on it, and plant it just in the right place. I'm sure you remember where it stood." "Real leaves would be too big," observed the boy. "They wouldn't look right. Of course, one could cut the branches out of tin and paint 'em green with red spots, and stick them into a twig for the trunk. But it's rather hard to do." "Let's try," said Overholt. "I've got some fine chisels and some very thin brass, but I don't think I could draw the branches as well as you could." "Oh, I can draw them something like, if you'll only cut 'em out," the boy answered cheerfully. "Come on, father! Who says we can't make bricks without straw? I'll bet anything we can!" So they worked together steadily, and for an hour or two the inventor was so busy in cutting out tiny branches of imaginary holly with a very small chisel that he did not look once at the plate glass from which his engine seemed to be grinning at him, in fiendish delight over his misfortunes. There were times when he was angry with it, outright, as if it knew what he was doing and did not mean to give in to him and let itself be invented. But now the tune of the lathe and the chisel still ran on in his head, for he had heard it through two whole days and could not get rid of it. "Bricks without straw, bricks without straw!" repeated the lathe viciously. "Ever so much better than no bricks at all, sh--sh--sh!" answered the chisel, gibbering and hissing like an idiot. "You will certainly be lying on straw before long, and then I suppose you'll wish you had something else!" squeaked the little chisel with which he was cutting out holly leaves, as it went through the thin plates into the wood of the bench under each push of his hand. The things in the workshop all seemed to be talking to him together, and made his head ache. "I had a letter from your mother to-day," he said, because it was better to hear his own voice say anything than to listen to such depressing imaginary conversations. "I'm sorry to say she sees no chance of getting home before the spring." "I don't know where you'd put her if she came here," answered the practical Newton. "Your room leaks when it rains, and so does mine. You two would have to sleep in the parlour. I guess it'll be better if she doesn't come now." "Oh, for her, far better," assented Overholt. "They've got a beautiful flat in Munich, and everything they can possibly think of. Your mother's only complaint, so far as that goes, is that those girls are completely spoilt by too much luxury!" "What is luxury, exactly, father?" asked Newton, who always wanted to know things. "I shall never know myself, and perhaps you never will either!" The wretched inventor tried to laugh. "But that's no answer to your question, is it? I suppose luxury means always having twice as much of everything as you can possibly use, and having it about ten times as fine and expensive as other people can afford." "I don't see any use in that," said the boy. "Now I know just how much turkey and cranberry sauce and ice-cream I really need, and if I get just a little more than that, it's Christmas. I don't mean much more, but about half a helping. I know all about proverbs. Haven't I copied millions of 'em in learning to write. One reason why it's so slow to learn is that the things you have to write are perfect nonsense. 'Enough is as good as a feast!' All I can say is, the man who made that proverb never had a feast, or he'd have known better! This green paint doesn't dry very quick, father. We'll have to wait till to-morrow before we put in the red spots for the berries. I wish I had some little red beads. They'd stick on the wet paint now, like one o'clock." There were no red beads, so he rose to go to bed. When he had said good-night and had reached the door, he stopped and looked back again. "Say, father, haven't you anything you can sell to get some more money for the Motor?" John Henry shook his weary head and smiled sadly. "Nothing that would bring nearly enough to pay for the casting," he answered. "Don't worry about it, boy. Leave that to me--I'm used to it. Go to bed and sleep, and you'll feel like an Air-Motor yourself in the morning!" "That's the worst of it," returned the boy. "Just to sit there under a glass case and have you take care of me and do nothing, like a girl. That's the way I feel sometimes." He shook his young head quite as gravely as the inventor had shaken his own, and went quietly to bed without saying anything more. "I don't know what to do, I'm sure," he said to himself as he got into bed, "but I'm sure there's something. Maybe I'll dream it, and then I'll do just the contrary and it'll come all right." But boys of practical minds and sound bodies do not dream at all, unless it be after a feast, and most of them can stand even that without having nightmare, unless two feasts come near together, like Christmas and a birthday within the week. A great-uncle of mine was once taken for a clergyman at a public dinner nearly a hundred years ago, and he was asked to say grace; he was a good man, and also practical, and had a splendid appetite, but he was not eloquent, and this is what he said:-- "The Lord give us appetites to enjoy, and strength to digest ALL the good things set before us. Amen!" And everybody said "Amen" very cheerfully and fell to. IV HOW THERE WAS A FAMINE IN THE CITY It rained in New York and it "snowed slush" in Connecticut, after its manner, and the world was a very dreary place, especially all around the dilapidated cottage where everything was going to pieces, including John Henry Overholt's last hopes. If he had been alone in the world he would have taken his small cash balance and his model to the foundry, quite careless as to whether he ever got a meal again until the Motor worked. But there was the boy to be thought of, and desperate as the unhappy inventor was, he would not starve his son as well as himself. He was quite sure of his little balance, though he had never had any head for figures of that sort. It was an easy affair in his eyes to handle the differential calculus, which will do anything, metaphorically speaking, from smashing a rock as flat and thin as a postage stamp, to regulating an astronomical clock; but to understand the complication of a pass-book and a bank account was a matter of the greatest possible difficulty. Newton would have done it much better, though he could not get to the head of his class in arithmetic. That is the difference between being an inventor and having a practical mind. As for Mrs. Overholt, she was perfectly wonderful at keeping accounts; but then she had been taught a great many things, from music and drawing to compound interest and double entry, and she had been taught them all just so far as to be able to do them nicely without understanding at all what she did; which is sound modern education, and no mistake. The object of music is to make a cheerful noise, which can be done very well without pencil and paper and the rules of harmony. But Overholt could neither make a cheerful noise, nor draw a holly leaf, nor speak French, nor even understand a pass-book, though he had invented an Air-Motor which would not work, but was a clear evidence of genius. The only business idea he had was to make his little balance last as long as possible, in spite of the terrible temptation to take it and offer it to the founder as a cash advance, if only he might have his piece of casting done. Where the rest of the money would come from he did not know; probably out of the Motor. It looked so easy; but there was the boy, and it might happen that there would be no dinner for several days. On the first of December he cashed a cheque in the town, as usual; and he paid Barbara's wages and the coal merchant, and the month's bill for kerosene, and the butcher and the grocer, and the baker, and that was practically all; and he went to bed that night feeling that whatever happened there was a whole month before another first came round, and he owed no one anything more for the present, and Newton would not starve, and could have his Christmas turkey, if it was to be the last he ever ate, poor boy. On the morning of December third it was still snowing slush, though it was more like real snow now, and the air was much colder; and by and by, when Overholt had read a letter that Barbara brought him, he felt so terribly cold all at once that his teeth chattered, and then he was so hot that the perspiration ran down his forehead, and he steadied himself against the heavy glass case of the Motor a moment and then almost tumbled into a sitting posture on the stool before his work-table, and his head fell forward on his hands, as if he were fainting. The letter said that his account was overdrawn to the extent of three hundred and fifty-two dollars and thirteen cents, including the cheque he had drawn on the thirty-first, and would he please make a deposit at his earliest convenience? It had been just a little mistake in arithmetic, that was all. He had started with the wrong balance in his note-book, and what he thought was credit was debit, but the bank where he had kept all the money that had been put up for the Motor, had wished to be friendly and good-natured to the great inventor and had not returned his cheques with N.G. on them; and if his attention had already been called to his deficit, he must have forgotten to open the letter. Like all men who are much talked of in the newspapers, though they may be as poor as Job's turkey, he received a great many circulars addressed by typewriter, and the only letters he really cared for were from his wife, so that when he was very hard at work or much preoccupied the others accumulated somewhere in the workshop, and were often forgotten. What was perfectly clear this morning was that starvation was sitting on the doorstep and that he had no moral right whatever to the dinner Barbara was already beginning to cook, nor to another to-morrow, nor to any more; for he was a proud man, and ashamed of debt, though he mixed up debit and credit so disgracefully. He sat there half an hour, as he had let himself fall forward, only moving a little, so that his forehead rested on his arm instead of his hands, because that was a little more comfortable, and just then he did not want to see anything, least of all the Motor. When he rose at last the sleeve of his coat was all wet with the perspiration from his forehead. He left the workshop, half shutting his eyes in order not to see the Motor; he was sure the thing was grinning at him behind the plate glass. It had two round brass valves near the top that looked like yellow eyeballs, and a lever at the bottom with double arms and a cross-bar, which made him think of an iron jaw when he was in one of his fits of nervous depression. But John Henry Overholt was a man, and an honest one. He went straight to the writing-table in the next room and sat down, and though his hand shook, he wrote a clear and manly letter to the President of the College where he had taught so well, stating his exact position, acknowledging the failure of his invention, and asking help to find immediate employment as a teacher, even in the humblest capacity which would afford bread for his boy and himself. Presidents and principals of colleges are in constant communication with other similar institutions, and generally know of vacant positions. When he had written his letter and read it over carefully, Overholt looked at his timetable, got his hat, coat, and umbrella, and trudged off through the slushy snow to the station, on his way to New York. It was raining there, but it was not dismal; hurry, confusion, and noise can never be that. He had not been in the city since the day when he made his last attempt to raise money, and in his present state the contrast was overwhelming. The shopkeepers would have told him that it was a dull day for business, and that the rain was costing them hundreds of dollars every hour, because there are a vast number of people who buy things within the month before Christmas, if it is convenient and the weather is fine, but will not take the trouble if the weather is bad; and afterwards they are so glad to have saved their money that they buy nothing of that sort till the following year. For Christmas shopping is largely a matter of temptation on the one side and of weakness on the other, and you cannot tempt a man to buy your wares if he will not even go out and look at your shop window. At Christmas time every shopkeeper turns into a Serpent, with a big S and a supply of apples varying, with his capital, from a paper-bagful to a whole orchard, and though the ladies are the more easily tempted, nine generous men out of ten show no more sense just at that time than Eve herself did. The very air has temptation in it when they see the windows full of pretty things and think of their wives and their children and their old friends. Even misers relax a little then, and a famous statesman, who was somewhat close-fisted in his day, is reported to have given his young coloured servant twenty-five cents on Christmas Eve, telling him to go out to Mount Auburn Cemetery and see where the great men of New England lie buried. And the man, I believe, went there; but he was an African, and the spirit of Christmas was not in his race, for if it had moved him he would have wasted that money on cream-cakes and cookies, reflecting that the buried worthies of Massachusetts could not tell tales on him. Overholt went down town to the bank where he kept his account and explained his little mistake very humbly, and asked for time to pay up. The teller looked at him as if he were an escaped lunatic, but on account of his great reputation as an inventor he was shown to the desk of one of the partners, which stood in a corner of the vast place, where one could converse confidentially if one did not speak above a whisper; but the stenographer girl could hear even whispering distinctly, and perhaps she sometimes took down what she heard, if the partner made a signal to her by carelessly rolling his pencil across his table. The partner whom Overholt saw was not ill-natured, and besides, it was near Christmas, and he had been poor himself when he was young. If Overholt would kindly sign a note at sixty days for the overdraft it would be all right. The banker was sorry he could not authorise him to overdraw any further, but it was strictly against the rules, an exception had been made because Mr. Overholt was such a well-known man, and so forth. But the inventor explained that he had not meant to ask any favour, and had come to explain how he had made such a strange mistake. The banker, like the teller, thought that a man who could not count money must be mad, but was too civil, or too good-natured, to say so. Overholt signed the note, thanked him warmly, and went away. He and his old umbrella looked very dejected as he left the building and dived into the stream of men in the street, but if he had paid any attention to his fellow-beings he would have seen here and there a number who looked quite as unhappy as he did. He had come all the way from the country expressly to explain his error, and had been in the greatest haste to get down town and have the interview over. To go home with the prospect of trying to eat a dinner that would be cold, and of sitting in his workshop all the afternoon just to stare at his failure until Newton came home, was quite another matter. If the weather had been less disagreeable he would have gone to the Central Park, to sit in a quiet corner and think matters over. As that seemed out of the question, he walked from the bank to Forty-Second Street, taking an hour and a half over it. It was better to go on foot than to sit in a car facing a dozen or twenty strangers, who would wonder why he looked so miserable. Sensitive people always fancy that everybody is looking at them and criticising them, when in fact no one cares a straw how they look or what they do. Then, too, he was in such a morbid state of mind about his debt that it looked positively wrong to spend five cents on a car-fare; even the small change in his pocket was not his own, and that, and hundreds of dollars besides, must be paid back in sixty days. Otherwise he supposed he would be bankrupt, which, to his simple mind, meant disgrace as well as ruin. It had stopped raining before he reached Grace Church, and as he crossed Madison Square the sun shone out, the wind had veered to the west, and the sky was clearing all round. The streets had seemed full before, but they were positively choking with people now. The shops drew them in and blew them out again with much less cash about them, as a Pacific whale swallows water and spouts it out, catching the little fish by thousands with his internal whalebone fishing-net. But, unlike the fishes, the people were not a whit less pleased. On the contrary, there was something in the faces of almost all that is only seen once a year in New York, and then only for certain hours; and that is real good-will. For whatever the most home-loving New Yorker may say of his own great city, good-will to men is not its dominant characteristic, nor peace its most remarkable feature. Even poor Overholt, half crazy with disappointment and trouble, could not help noticing the difference between the expressions of the men he had seen down town and of those who were thronging the shops and the sidewalks in Fifth Avenue. In Wall Street and adjacent Broadway a great many looked like more or less discontented birds of prey looking out for the next meal, and a few might have been compared to replete vultures; but here all those who were not alone were talking with their companions, and many were smiling, and now and then a low laugh was heard, which is a very rare thing in Fifth Avenue, though you may often hear children laughing in the Park and sometimes in the cross streets up-town. Then there was another eagerness in the faces, that was not for money, but was the anticipation of giving pleasure before long, and of being pleased too; and that is a great part of the Christmas spirit, if it is not the spirit itself. It is doubtless more blessed to give than to receive, but the receiving is very delightful, and it is cruel to teach children that they must not look forward to having pretty presents. What is Christmas Day to a happy child but a first glimpse of heaven on earth? Overholt glanced at the faces of the passers-by with a sort of vague surprise, wondering why they looked so happy; and then he remembered what they were doing, and all at once his heart sank like lead. What was to become of the turkey and the ice-cream on which Newton had built his hopes for Christmas? Would there be any dinner at all? Or any one to cook it? How could he go and get things which he would not be able to pay for on the first of next month, exactly a week after the feast? His imagination could glide lightly over three weeks of starvation, but at the thought of his boy's disappointment everything went to pieces, the present, the future, everything. He would have walked all the way down town again to beg for a loan of only a few dollars, enough for that one Christmas dinner; but he knew from the banker's face that such a request would be refused, as such, and he dreaded in his misery lest the money should be offered him as a charity. He got home at last, weary and wretched, and then for the first time he remembered the letter he had written asking for employment as a teacher. He had been a very good one, and the College had been sorry to lose him; in two days he might get an answer; all hope was not gone yet, at least not quite all, and his spirits revived a little. Besides, the weather was fine now, even in Connecticut; there would be a sharp frost in the night, and Newton would soon get some skating. V HOW THE CITY WAS BESIEGED AND THE LID OF PANDORA'S BOX CAME OFF Almost the worst part of it was that he had to tell his boy about his dreadful mistake, and that it was all over with the Motor and with everything, and that until he could get something to do they were practically starving; and that he could not possibly see how there was ever to be ice-cream for Christmas, let alone such an expensive joy as, a turkey. He knew that Newton would not pucker up his mouth and screw his eyes to keep the tears in, like a girl; and he was quite sure that the boy would not reproach him for having been so careless. He might not seem to care very much, but he would be terribly disappointed; that was the worst of it all, next to owing money that he had no hope of paying. Indeed, he hardly knew which hurt him more than the other, for the disgrace of debt, as he called it, was all his own, but the bitter disappointment was on Newton too. The latter listened in silence till his father had finished, and his boyish face was preternaturally thoughtful. "I've seen boys make just such mistakes at the blackboard," he observed in a tone of melancholy reflection. "And they generally catch it afterwards too," he added. "It's natural." "I've 'caught it,'" Overholt answered. "You have too, my dear boy, though you didn't make the mistake--that's not just." "Well, father, I don't know what we're going to do, but something has got to be done right away, and we've got to find out what it is." "Thank goodness you're not a girl!" cried Overholt fervently. "I'm glad too; only, if I were one, I should most likely die young and go to heaven, and you'd have me off your mind all right. The girls always do in storybooks." He made this startling and general observation quite naturally. Of course girls died and went to heaven when there was nothing to eat; he secretly thought it would be better if more of them did, even without starvation. "Let's work, anyhow," he added, as his father said nothing. "Maybe we'll think of something while we're building that railroad depôt. Don't you suppose that now you've got so far the Motor would keep while you taught, and you could go at it again in the vacations? That's an idea, father, come now!" He was already in his place before the board on which the little City was built, and his eyes were fixed on the lines his father had drawn as a plan for the station and the diverging tracks. But Overholt did not sit down. His usual place was opposite the Motor, where he could see it, but he did not want to look at it now. "Change seats with me, boy," he said. "I cannot stand the sight of it. I suppose I'm imaginative. All this has upset me a good deal." He wished he had the lad's nerves, the solid nerves of hungry and sleepy thirteen. Newton got up at once and changed places, and for a few minutes Overholt tried to concentrate his mind on the little City, but it was of no use. If he did not think of the Motor, he thought of what was much worse, for the little streets and models of the familiar places brought back the cruel memory of happier things so vividly that it was torment. All his faculties of sensation were tense and vibrating; he could hear his wife's gentle and happy voice, her young girl's voice, when he looked at the little bench in the lane where he had asked her to marry him, and an awful certainty came upon him that he was never to hear her speak again on this side of the grave; there was the house they had lived in; from that window he had looked out on a May morning at the budding trees half an hour after his boy had been born; there, in the pretty garden, the young mother had sat with her baby in the lovely June days--it was full of her. Or if he looked at the College, he knew every one of the steps, and the entrance, and the tall windows of the lecture-rooms, where he had taught so contentedly, year after year, till the terrible Motor had taken possession of him, the thing that was driving him mad; and, strangely enough, what hurt him most and brought drops of perspiration to his forehead was the National Bank in Main Street; it made him remember his debt, and that he had no money at all--nothing whatsoever but the few dollars in his pocket left after paying the bills on the first of the month. "It's of no use!" he cried, suddenly rising and turning away. "I cannot stand it. I'm sorry, but it's too awful!" Never before had he felt so thoroughly ashamed of himself. He was breaking down before his son, to whom he knew he ought to be setting an example of fortitude and common sense. He had forgotten the very names of such qualities; the mere thought of Hope, whenever it crossed his mind, mocked him maddeningly, and he hated the little City for the name he had given it. Hope was his enemy since she had left him, and he was hers; he could have found it in his heart to crush the poor little paper town to pieces, and then to split up the very board itself for firewood. The years that had been so full of belief were all at once empty, and the memory of them rang hollow and false, because Hope had cheated him, luring him on, only to forsake him at the great moment. Every hour he had spent on the work had been misspent; he saw it all now, and the most perfect of his faultless calculations only proved that science was a blatant fraud and a snare that had cost him all he had, his wife, his boy's future, and his own self-respect. How could he ever look at his wretched failure again? How could he sit down opposite the son he had cheated, and who was going to starve with him, and play with a little City of Hope, when Hope herself was the lying enemy that had coaxed him to the destruction of his family and to his own disgrace? As for teaching again, who ever got back a good place after he had voluntarily given it up for a wild dream! Men who had such dreams were not fit to teach young men in any case! That was the answer he would get by post in a day or two. Newton watched his father anxiously, for he had heard that people sometimes went mad from disappointment and anxiety. The pale intellectual face wore a look of horror, as if the dark eyes saw some dreadful sight; the thin figure moved nervously, the colourless lips twitched, the lean fingers opened and shut spasmodically on nothing. It was enough to scare the boy, who had always known his father gentle, sweet-tempered, and hopeful even under failure; but Overholt was quite changed now, and looked as if he were either very ill or very crazy. It is doubtful whether boys ever love their fathers as most of them love their mothers at one time, or all their lives. The sort of attachment there often is between father and son is very different from that, and both feel that it is; there is more of alliance and friendship in it than of anything like affection, even when it is at its best, with a strong instinct to help one another and to stand by each other in a fight. Newton Overholt did not feel any sympathetic thrill of pain for his father's sufferings; not in the least; he would perhaps have said that he was "sorry for him" without quite knowing what that meant. But he was very strongly moved to help him in some way, seeing that he was evidently getting the worst of it in a big fight. Newton soon became entirely possessed by the idea that "something ought to be done," but what it was he did not know. The lid of Pandora's box had flown open and had come off suddenly after smashing the hinges, and Hope had flown out of the window. The boy thought it was clearly his duty to catch her and get her into prison again, and then to nail down the lid. He had not the smallest doubt that this was what he ought to do, but the trouble lay in finding out how to do it, a little difficulty that humanity has faced for a good many thousand years. On the other hand, if he failed, as seemed probable, he was almost sure that his father would fall ill and die, or go quite mad in a few hours. He wished his mother were there; she would have known how to cheer the desperate man, and could probably have made him smile in a few minutes without really doing anything at all. Those were the things women could do very well, the boy thought, and they ought always to be at hand to do them when wanted. He himself could only sit there and pretend to be busy, as children mostly do when they see their elders in trouble. But that made him wild. "I say, father," he broke out suddenly, "can't I do anything? Try and think!" "That's what I'm trying to do," answered Overholt, sitting down at last on the stool before the work-bench and staring at the wall, with his back turned to his son. "But I can't! There's something wrong with my head." "You want to see a doctor," said the boy. "I'll go and see if I can get one of them to come out here." He rose as if to go at once. "No! Don't!" cried Overholt, much distressed by the mere suggestion. "He could only tell me to rest, and take exercise and sleep at night and not worry!" He laughed rather wildly. "He would tell me not to worry! They always say that! A doctor would tell a man 'not to worry' if he was to be hanged the next morning!" "Well," said Newton philosophically, "I suppose a man who's going to be hung needn't worry much, anyway. He's got the front seat at the show and nothing particular to do!" This was sound, so far as it went, but insufficient as consolation. Overholt either did not hear, or paid no heed to the boy. He left the room a moment later without shutting the door, and threw himself down on the old black horsehair sofa in the parlour. Presently the lad rose again and covered up the City of Hope with the big brown paper case he had made to fit down over the board and keep the dust off. "This isn't your day," he observed as he did so, and the remark was certainly addressed to the model of the town. He went into the other room and stood beside his father, looking down at his drawn face and damp forehead. "Say, father, really, isn't there anything I can do to help?" Overholt answered with an effort. "No, my boy, there's nothing, thank you. You cannot find money to pay my debts, can you?" "Have you got no money at all?" asked Newton, very gravely. "Four or five dollars! That's all! That's all you and I have got left in the world to live on, and even that's not mine!" His voice shook with agony, and he raised one hand to his forehead, not dramatically, as many foreigners would do, but quietly and firmly, and he pressed and kneaded the surface as if he were trying to push his brains back into the right place, so that they would work, or at least keep quiet. After that answer Newton was too sensible to ask any more questions, and perhaps he was also a little afraid to, because questions might make his father worse. "Well," he said vaguely, "if I can't work at the City I suppose I may as well go out before it's dark and take a look at the pond. It's going to freeze hard to-night, and maybe there'll be black ice that'll bear by to-morrow." Overholt was glad to be left alone, for he could not help being ashamed of having broken down so completely before the boy, and he felt that he could not recover his self-control unless he were left to himself. He heard Newton go up the rickety stairs to his own room, where he seemed to be rummaging about for some time, judging from the noises overhead; then the strong shoes clattered on the staircase again, the house door was opened and shut, and the boy was off. VI HOW A SMALL BOY DID A BIG THING AND NAILED DOWN THE LID OF THE BOX Newton went to the pond, because he said he was going out for that purpose, and it might be convenient to be able to swear that he had really been down to the water's edge. As if to enjoy the pleasure of anticipation, too, he had his skates with him in a green flannel bag, though it was quite out of the question that the ice should bear already, and it was not even likely that the water would be already frozen over. However, he took the skates with him, a very good pair, of a new model, which his father had given him towards the end of the previous winter, so that he had not used them more than half a dozen times. It was very cold, but of course the ice would not bear yet. The sun had not set, and as he was already half-way to the town, the boy apparently thought he might as well go on instead of returning at once to the cottage, where he would have to occupy himself with his books till supper-time, supposing that it occurred to his father to have any supper in his present condition. The prospect was not wildly gay, and besides, something must be done at once. Newton was possessed by that idea. When Overholt had been alone for some time, he got up from the horsehair sofa and crept up the stairs, leaning on the shaky bannister like an old man. In his own room he plunged his face into icy cold water again and again, as if it were burning, and the sharp chill revived his nerves a little. There was no stove in the room, and before midnight the water would be frozen in the pitcher. He sat down and rubbed his forehead and wondered whether he was really any better, or was only imagining or even pretending that he was, because he wanted to be. Our own reflections about our own sensations are never so silly as at the greatest moments in our lives, because the tremendous strain on the higher faculties releases all the little ones, as in sleep, and they behave and reason as idiotically as they do in dreams, which is saying a good deal. Perhaps lunatics are only people who are perpetually asleep and dreaming with one part of their brains while the other parts are awake. They certainly behave as if that were the matter, and it seems a rational explanation of ordinary insanity, curable or incurable. Did you ever talk to a lunatic? On the subject on which he is insane he thinks and talks as you do when you are dreaming; but he may be quite awake and sensible about all other matters. He dreams he is rich, and he goes out and orders cartloads of things from shops. Pray, have you never dreamt that you were rich? Or he dreams that he is a poached egg, and must have a piece of toast to sit down upon. I believe that well-known story of a lunatic to be founded on fact. Have you never dreamt that you were somebody or something quite different from yourself? Have you never dreamt that you were an innocent man, persecuted, tried for a crime, and sentenced to prison, or even death? And yet, at the same time, in your dream, you were behaving with the utmost good sense about everything else. When you are dreaming, you are a perfect lunatic; why may it not be true that the waking lunatic is really dreaming all the time, with one part of his brain? John Henry Overholt was apparently wide awake, but he had been morally stunned that day; he was dreaming that he was going crazy, and he could not, for the life of him, tell whether he really felt any better after cooling his head in the basin than before, though it seemed immensely important to find out, just then. Afterwards, when it was all over, and things were settled again, he remembered only a blank time, which had lasted from the moment when he had broken down before the little City until he found himself sitting in the parlour alone before the supper table with a bright lamp burning, and wondering why his boy did not come home. The dream was over then; his head ached a good deal and he did not feel hungry, but that was all; burning anxiety had cooled to leaden care. He knew quite well that it was all over with the Motor, that his friends at the College would find him some sort of employment, and that in due time he would succeed in working off his debt to the bank, dollar by dollar. He had got his soul back out of the claws of despair that had nearly flown away with it. There was no hope, but he could live without it because he must not only live himself, but keep his boy alive. Somehow, he would get along on credit for a week or two, till he could get work. At all events there were his tools to sell, and the Motor must go for old brass, bronze, iron, and steel. He would see about selling the stuff the next day, and with what it would bring he could at least pay cash for necessaries, and the bank must wait. There was no hope in that, but there was the plain sense of an honest man. He was not a coward; he had only been brutally stunned, and now that he had recovered from the blow he would do his duty. But an innocent man who walks steadily to endure an undeserved death is not a man that hopes for anything, and it was like death to Overholt to give up his invention. The door opened and Newton came in quietly. His face was flushed with the cold and his eyes were bright. What was the weight of leaden care to the glorious main-spring of healthy thirteen? Overholt was proud of his boy, nevertheless, for facing the dreary prospect of no Christmas so bravely. Then he had a surprise. "I've got a little money, father. It's not much, I know, but it's something to go on with for a day or two. There it is." Newton produced three well-worn dollar bills and some small change, which his father stared at in amazement. "There's three dollars and seventy cents," he said. "And you told me you had four or five dollars left." Before he sat down he piled the change neatly on the bills beside his father's plate; then he took his seat, very red indeed and looking at the table-cloth. "Where on earth did you get it?" asked Overholt, leaning back in his chair. "Well"--the boy hesitated and got redder still--"I didn't steal it, anyway," he said. "It's mine all right. I mean it's yours." "Of course you didn't steal it!" cried John Henry. "But where did you get it? You haven't had more than a few cents at a time for weeks and weeks, so you can't have saved it!" "I didn't beg it either," Newton answered. "Or borrow it, my boy?" "No! I wasn't going to borrow money I couldn't pay! I'd rather not tell you, all the same, father! At least, I earned twenty cents of it. That's the odd twenty, that makes the three seventy. I don't mind telling you that." "Oh, you earned twenty cents of it? Well, I'm glad of that, anyhow. What did you do?" "I sort of hung round the depôt till the train came in, and I carried a man's valise across to the hotel for him. He gave me ten cents. Some of the boys do that, you know, but I thought you wouldn't care to have me do it till I had to!" "That's all right. It does you credit. How about the other ten cents?" "Old Bangs saw me pass his shop, and he asked me to come in and said he'd give me ten cents if I'd do some sums for him. I guess he's pretty busy just now. He said he'd give me ten cents every day till Christmas if I'd come in after school and do the sums. His boy's got mumps or something, and can't. There's no harm in that, is there, father?" "Harm! I'm proud of you, my boy. You'll win through--some day!" It was the first relief from his misery the poor man had felt since he had read the letter about the overdraft in the morning. "What I can't understand is the rest of the money," said Overholt. Newton looked very uncomfortable again, and moved uneasily on his chair. "Oh well, I suppose I've got to tell you," he said, looking down into his plate and very busy with his knife and fork. "Say, you won't tell mother, will you? She wouldn't like it." "I won't tell her." "Well"--the boy hesitated--"I sold some things," he said at last, in a low voice. "Oh! There's no great harm in that, my boy. What did you sell?" "My skates and my watch," said Newton, just audibly. "You see I didn't somehow feel as if I were going to skate much this winter--and I don't really need to know what time it is if I start right by the clock to go to school. I say, don't tell mother. She gave me the watch, you know, last Christmas. Of course, you gave me the skates, but you'll understand better than she would." Overholt was profoundly touched, for he knew what delight the good skates meant in the cold weather, and the pride the boy had felt in the silver watch that kept such excellent time. But he could not think of much to say just then, for the sight of the poor little pile of dirty money that was the sordid price of so much pleasure and satisfaction half-choked him. "You're a brave boy," he said in a low tone. But Newton was indefinitely far from understanding that he had done anything brave; he merely felt much better now, because he had confessed and had the matter off his mind. "Oh well, you see, something had to be done quick," he said, "and I couldn't think of anything else. But I'll go and earn that ten cents of Bangs every afternoon, you bet! And I guess I can pick up a quarter at the depôt now and then; that is, if you don't mind. It isn't much, I know, but it'll help a little." "It's helped already, more than you have any idea," said Overholt. He remembered with bitter shame how he had completely broken down before his son that afternoon, and how quietly the lad had gone off to make his great sacrifice, pretending that he only wanted to see whether the pond was freezing. "Well," said Newton, "I'm glad you don't think it was mean of me to go and sell the watch mother gave me. And I'm glad you feel better. You do feel a good deal better, don't you?" "A thousand times better!" answered Overholt, almost cheerfully. "I'm glad. Maybe you'll feel like working on the City a little after supper." "I was afraid Hope had given us up to-day, and had flown away for good and all," said the inventor. "But you've brought her home with you again, bless you! Yes, we'll do some work after supper, and after you go to bed I'll just have one more good evening with the Motor before I give it up for ever." Newton looked up. "You aren't going to give it up for ever," he said in a tone of conviction. "You can't." Overholt explained calmly enough that he must sell the machine for old metal the very next day, and sell the tools too. But the boy shook his head. "You'll curl up and die if you do that," he said. "Besides, if mother were here she wouldn't let you do it, so you oughtn't to. The reason why she's gone to be a governess is because she wouldn't let you give up the Motor, father. You know it is." "Yes. It's true--but--" he hesitated. "You simply can't do it, that's all. So I'm perfectly certain you won't! I believe everything will come round all right, anyway, if you only don't worry. That's what I believe, father." "It's a hopeful view, at all events. The only objection to it is that it's a good deal like dreaming, and I've no right to dream any more. When you see that I'm going to, you must make me sit up and mind my lesson!" He even laughed a little, and it was not badly done, considering that he did it on purpose to show how he meant to make the best of it all, though Hope would not do anything for him. He ate something too, if only to keep the hungry boy company. They went into the workshop, and found the bright moonlight streaming through the window that looked east. It fell full on the motionless Motor, under its plate-glass case, and turned all the steel and brass to silver and gold, and from the clean snow that covered the desolateness of the yard outside the moon sent a white reflection upwards that mingled with the direct moonlight in a ghostly sort of way. Newton stood still and looked at the machine, while Overholt felt about for matches. "If only it would begin to move now, just of itself!" The man knew that it would not, and wished that the boy would not even suggest such a thing, and he sighed as he lit the lamp. But all the same he meant to spend half the night in taking a last farewell of the engine, and of all the parts on which he had spent months and years, only to let them be broken up for old metal in the end. The two sat down on each side of the little City and went to work to build the railway station; and after all, when Overholt looked at the Common and the College and remembered how happy he had been there, he began to feel that since dreams were nothing but dreams, except that they were a great waste of time and money, and of energy and endurance, he might possibly find some happiness again in the old life, if he could only get back to it. So Hope came back, rather bedraggled and worn out after her long excursion, and took a very humble lodging in the little City which had once been all hers and the capital of her kingdom. But she was there, all the same, peeping out of a small window to see whether she would be welcome if she went out and took a little walk in the streets. For the blindest of all blind people are those who have quite made up their minds not to see; and the most miserable of all the hopeless ones are those that wilfully turn their backs on Hope when she stands at the next corner holding out her hand rather timidly. But Overholt was not one of these, and he took it gladly when it was offered, and stood ready to be led away by a new path, which was not the road to fame or wealth, but which might bring him to a quiet little place where he could live in peace with those he loved, and after all that would be a great deal. VII HOW A LITTLE WOMAN DID A GREAT DEED TO SAVE THE CITY A fortnight earlier Mrs. Overholt had been much disturbed in her mind, for she read each of her husband's letters over at least three times, and Newton's fortnightly scrawls even oftener, because it was less easy to make them out; but she had understood one thing very well, and that was that there was no more money for the invention, and very little cash for the man and the boy to live on. If she had known what a dreadful mistake John Henry had made about debit and credit, the little woman would have been terribly anxious; but as it was, she was quite unhappy enough. Overholt had written repeatedly of his attempts to raise just a little more money with which to finish the invention, and he had explained very clearly what there was to do, and somehow she had always believed in the idea, because he had invented that beautiful scientific instrument with which his name was connected, but she was almost sure that in working out his theory he was quite on the wrong track. She did not really understand the engine at all, but she was quite certain that when a thing was going to succeed, it succeeded from the first, without many hitches or drawbacks. Most women are like that. She had never written this to her husband, because she would do anything rather than discourage him; but she had almost made, up her mind to write him a letter of good advice at last, begging him to go back to teaching for the present, and only to work at the invention in his spare time. Just then, however, she came across a paragraph in a German newspaper in Munich which said that a great scientific man in Berlin had completed an air-motor at last, after years of study, and that it worked tolerably, enough to demonstrate the principle, but could never be of any practical use because the chemical product on which it ultimately depended was so enormously expensive. Now Mrs. Overholt knew one thing certainly about her husband's engine, namely, that the chemical he meant to use cost next to nothing, so that if the principle were sound, the Motor would turn out to be the cheapest in existence; and she was a practical person, like her boy Newton. Moreover, she loved John Henry with all her heart and soul, and thought him one of the greatest geniuses in the world, and she simply could not bear the idea that he should not have a fair chance to finish the machine and try it. Lastly, Christmas was coming; the girls she was educating talked of nothing else, and counted the days, and sat up half the night on the edges of each other's beds discussing the beautiful presents they were sure to receive; and a great deal might be written about what they said, but it has nothing to do with this story, except that their chatter helped to fill the air with the Christmas spirit, and with thoughts of giving as well as of receiving. Though they were rather spoiled children, they were generous too, and they laid all sorts of little traps in order to find out what their governess would like best from each of them, for they were fond of her in their way. Also, Munich is one of the castles which King Christmas still holds in absolute sway and calls his own, and long before he is really awake after his long rest he begins to stir and laugh in his sleep, and the jolly colour creeps up and spreads over his old cheeks before he thinks of opening his eyes, much less of getting up and putting on his crown. And now that he was waking, Helen Overholt felt the old loving longing for her dear ones rising to her womanly heart, and she planned little plans for another and a happier year to come, and meanwhile she bought two or three little gifts to send to the cottage in far Connecticut. But when she had read about the Berlin professor and his motor and thought of her own John Henry making bricks without straw and bearing up bravely against disappointment, and still writing so cheerfully and hopefully in spite of everything, she simply could not stand it another day. As I have said, King Christmas turned over just before waking, and he put out a big generous hand in his sleep and laid it on her heart. Whenever he does that to anybody, man, woman, or child, a splendid longing seizes them to give all they have to the one child, or woman, or man that each loves best, or to the being of all others that is most in need, or to help the work which seems to each of them the noblest and the best, if they are grown up and are lonely. This is what happened to Helen Overholt, in spite of her good sense and all her practical resolutions. As long as she had anything to give, John Henry should have it and be happy, and succeed, if success were possible. She had saved most of her salary for a long time past, spending as little as she well could on herself. He should have it all, for love's sake, and because she believed in him, and because Christmas was waking up, and had laid his great affectionate old hand on her. So it came to pass that when Overholt was pottering over the beautiful motionless Motor, late at night, sure that it would work if he had a little more money, but still more sure that it must be sold for old metal the next morning, to buy bread for the boy, even at that hour help was near, and from the hand he loved best in the world, which would make it ten thousand times sweeter when it reached him. It was going to be an awful wrench to give up the invention, for now, at the moment of abandoning it, he saw, or thought he saw, that he was right at last, and that it could not fail. It was useless to try it as it was, yet he would, just once more. He adjusted the tangent-balance and the valves; he put in the supply of the chemical with the long name and screwed down the hermetic plug. With the small hand air-pump he produced the first vacuum which was necessary; all was ready, every joint and stuffing-box was lubricated, the spring of the balance was adjusted to a nicety. But the engine would not start, though he turned the fly-wheel with his hand again and again, as if to encourage it. Of course it would not turn alone! He understood perfectly that the one piece on which all depended must be made over again, exactly the other way. That was all! There was the wooden model of it, all ready for the foundry that would not cast it for nothing. If only the wooden piece would serve for a moment's trial! But he knew that this was folly; it would not stand the enormous strain an instant, and the joints could not possibly be made air-tight. He was utterly worn out by all he had been through during the long day, and he fell asleep in his chair towards morning, his head on his breast, his feet struck out straight before him, one arm hanging down beside him and his other hand thrust into his pocket. He looked more like a shabby lay figure stuffed with sawdust than like a living man. If Newton had come down and found him lying there under the lamplight he would have started back and shuddered, and waited a while before he could find courage to come nearer. But the man was only very sound asleep, and he did not wake till the December dawn gleamed through the clear winter's sky and made the artificial light look dim and smoky; and when he opened his eyes it was he himself who started to find himself there in the cold before his great failure, in broad daylight. Nevertheless, he had slept soundly, and felt better able to face all the trouble that was in store for him. He stirred the embers in the stove, put in some kindling and a supply of coal, and warmed himself, still heavy with sleep, and glad to waken consciously, by degrees, and to feel that his resolution was not going to break down. When he felt quite himself he left the room and went upstairs cautiously, lest he should wake the boy, though it was really time to get up, and Newton was already dressing. "I'll walk into town with you," said Overholt when they were at breakfast in the parlour. "It will do me good to get some air, and I must see about selling those things. There's no time to be lost." Newton swallowed his hominy and bread and butter and milk, and reflected on the futility of the sacrifice he had made, since his father insisted on selling everything for old metal; but he said nothing, because he was dreadfully disappointed. Near the town they met the postman. As a rule Barbara got the mail when she went to market, and Overholt was not even going to ask the man if there were any letters for him. But the postman stopped him. There was one from his wife, and it was registered. He signed the little receipt for it, the man passed them on his rounds, and they slackened their pace as Overholt broke the seal. He uttered a loud exclamation when he had glanced at the contents, and he stood still in the road. Newton stared at him in surprise. "A thousand dollars!" he cried, overcome with amazement. "A thousand dollars! Oh, Helen, Helen--you've saved my life!" He got to the side of the road and leaned against the fence, clutching the letter and the draft in his hand, and gazing into his son's face, half crazy with delight. "She's saved it all for me, boy. Do you understand? Your mother has saved all her salary for the Motor, and here it is! Look at it, look at it! It's success, it's fame, it's fortune for us all! Oh, if she were only here!" Newton understood and rejoiced. He forgot his poor little attempt to help, and his own disappointment, and everything except the present glorious truth--not unadorned by the pleasant vision of the Christmas turkey, vast now, and smoking, and flanked by perfect towers of stiff cranberry jelly, ever so much better than mere liquid cranberry sauce; in the middle distance, behind the noble dish, a noble pyramid of ice-cream raised its height, and yellow cream-cakes rose beyond, like many little suns on the far horizon. In that first moment of delight there was almost a Christmas tree, and the mother's face beside it; but that was too much; they faded, and the rest remained, no mean forecast of a jolly time. "That's perfectly grand!" Newton cried when he got his breath after his surprise at the announcement. "Besides, I told you so. What did I say? She wouldn't let you give up the Motor! I knew she wouldn't! Who's right now, father? That's something like what I call a mother! But then she always was!" He was slightly incoherent, but that did not matter at all. Nothing mattered. In his young beatific vision he saw the bright wheel going round and round in a perfect storm of turkeys, and it was all his mother's doing. Overholt only half heard, for he had been reading the letter; the letter of a loving wife who believes in her husband and gives him all she has for his work, with every hope, every encouragement, and every blessing and Christmas wish. "There's no time to be lost!" Overholt said, repeating the words he had spoken in a very different mood and tone half an hour earlier. "I won't walk on with you, my boy, for I must go back and get the wooden model for the foundry. They'll do it for me now, fast enough! And I can pay what I owe at the bank, and there will be plenty left over for your Christmas too!" "Oh, bother my Christmas, father!" answered Newton with a fine indifference which he did not feel. "The Motor's the thing! I want to see that wheel go round for a Christmas present!" "It will! It shall! It must! I promise you that!" The man was almost beside himself with joy. No misgiving disturbed him. He had the faith that tosses mountains aside like pebbles, now that the means were in his hand. He had the little fulcrum for his lever, which was all Archimedes required to move the world. He had in him the certainty of being right that has sent millions of men to glory or destruction. That day was one of the happiest in all his life, either before or, afterwards. He could have believed that he had fallen asleep at the moment when he had quite broken down, and that a hundred years of change had glided by, like a watch in the night, when he opened his wife's letter and wakened in a blaze of joy and hope and glorious activity. Nothing he could remember of that kind could compare with his pride and honourable satisfaction when he walked into the bank two hours afterwards, with his head high, and said he should be glad to take up the note he had signed yesterday and have the balance of the cheque placed to his credit; and few surprises which the partner who had obliged him could recollect, had equalled that worthy gentleman's amazement when the debt was paid so soon. "If you had only told me that you would be in funds so soon, Mr. Overholt," he said, "I should not have thought of troubling you. Here is your note. Will you kindly look at it and tear it up?" "I did not know," answered Overholt, doing as he was told. It is a curious fact that the little note lay in a locked drawer of the partner's magnificent table, instead of being put away in the safe with other and larger notes, where it belonged. It may seem still stranger that, on the books, Overholt's account showed that it had been balanced by a deposit exactly equal to the deficit, made by the partner himself, instead of by crediting the amount of the note. But Overholt never knew this, for a pass-book had always been a mystery to him, and made his head ache. The banker had thought of his face some time after he had gone out with his battered umbrella and his shabby shoulders rounded as under a burden, and somehow the Christmas spirit must have come in quietly and touched the rich man too, though even the stenographer did not see what happened. For he had once been in terrible straits himself, a quarter of a century ago, and some one had helped him just in time, and he knew what it meant to slink out of a big bank, in shabby clothes, his back bowed under the heavy weight of debt and failure. Overholt never knew; but he expressed his warm thanks for what now seemed a small favour, and with his wooden model of the casting, done up in brown paper, under his arm, he went off to the foundry in Long Island. Much careful work had been done for him there, and the people were willing to oblige him, and promised that the piece should certainly be ready before Christmas Day, and as much earlier as possible, and should be made with the greatest exactness which the most precise machinery and the most careful work could ensure. This being settled, Overholt returned to New York and went to two or three places in the Bowery, well known to him, where he bought certain fine tools and pieces of the most perfectly turned steel spring, and several other small objects, which he needed for the construction of the new tangent-balance he had to make for the reversed curve. Finally, he bought a silver watch like the one Newton had sold, and a new pair of skates, presents which the boy certainly deserved, and which would make a very good show at Christmas, when they were to be produced. He felt as if he had come into a large fortune. Moreover, when he got out of the train at his own station he went into the town, and ordered beforehand the good things for the feast, though there were three weeks still, and he wanted to pay for them in advance, because he felt inside of himself that no one could be quite sure of what might happen in twenty-one days; but the dealers flatly refused to take his money, though they told him what the things would cost. Then Overholt did almost the only prudent thing he had done in his life, for he took the necessary money and five dollars more and sealed it up in an envelope, which he put away in a safe place. The only difficulty would lie in remembering where the place was, so he told Newton about it, and the boy wrote it down on a piece of paper which he pinned up in his own room, where he could see it. There was nothing like making sure of that turkey, he thought. And I may as well say at once that in this matter, at least, no untoward accident occurred, and the money was actually there at the appointed time. What happened was something quite different, and much more unexpected, not to say extraordinary and even amazing; and in spite of all that, it will not take very long to tell. Meanwhile, before it happened, Overholt and the boy were perfectly happy. All day long the inventor worked at the tangent-balance, till he had brought it to such perfection that it would be affected by a variation of one-tenth of one second in the aggregate speed of ten revolutions, and an increase or decrease of a tenth of a grain in the weight of the volume of the compressed air. It was so sensitive that John Henry and Newton trod cautiously on the floor of the workshop so as not to set it vibrating under the glass clock-shade, where it was kept safe from dust and dampness. After it had been placed there to wait for the casting, the inventor took the engine to pieces and made the small changes that would be necessary before finally putting it together again, which would probably occupy two days. Meanwhile the little City of Hope grew rapidly, and was becoming an important centre of civilisation and commerce, though it was only made of paper and chips, and bits of matchboxes and odds and ends cleverly put together with glue and painted; except the people in the street. For it was inhabited now, and though the men and women did not move about, they looked as if they might, if they were only bigger. Overholt had seen the population in the window of a German toy-shop one day when he was in New York to get a new crocusing wheel for polishing some of the small parts of the engine. They were the smallest doll-people he had ever seen, and were packed by dozens and dozens in Nuremberg toy-boxes, and cost very little, so he bought a quantity of them. At first Newton rather resented them, just because they were only toys, but his father explained to him that models of human figures were almost necessary to models of buildings, to give an idea of the population, and that when architects make coloured sketches of projected houses, they generally draw in one or two people for that reason; and this was perfectly satisfactory to the boy, and saved his dignity from the slight it would have suffered if he had been actually seen amusing himself with mere playthings. Overholt was divinely happy in anticipation of the final success that was so near, and in the daily work that was making it more and more a certainty, as he thought; and then, when the day was over, he was just as happy with the little City, which was being decorated for Christmas, with wreaths in the windows of the houses, and a great many more holly-trees than had at first been thought of, and numberless little Christmas booths round the common, like those in Avenue A, south of Tompkins Square, in New York, which make you fancy you are in Munich or Prague if you go and see them at the right hour on Christmas Eve. Before long Overholt received a short note from the President of his old College, simply saying that the latter knew of no opening at present, but would bear him in mind. But that did not matter now. So the two spent their time very pleasantly during the next weeks; but though Overholt was so hopeful and delighted with his work, he knew that he was becoming nervous and overwrought by the great anticipation, and that he could not stand such a strain very long. Then, two days before Christmas, he received a note saying that the new piece was finished and had been sent to him by express. That was almost too much happiness to bear, and when he found the heavy case at the station the next morning, and got it put on a cart, his heart was doing queer things, and he was as white as a sheet. VIII HOW THE WHEELS WENT ROUND AT LAST The hush of Christmas Eve lay upon the tumble-down cottage, and on the soft fresh snow outside, and the lamps were burning quietly in the workshop, where father and son were sitting before the finished Motor. The little City was there too, but not between them now, though Newton had taken off its brown paper cover in honour of the great event which was about to take place. In order to be doubly sure of the result, and dreading even the possibility of a little disappointment, Overholt had decided that he would subject the only chemical substance which the machine consumed to a final form of refinement by heat, melting, boiling and cooling it, all of which would require an hour or more before it was quite ready. He felt like a man who is going to risk his life over a precipice, trusting to a single rope for safety; that one rope must not be even a little chafed; if possible each strand must be perfect in itself, and all the strands must be laid up without a fault. Of the rest, of the machine itself, Overholt felt absolutely sure; yet although a slight impurity in the chemical could certainly not hinder the whole from working, it might interfere with the precision of the revolutions, or even cause the engine to stop after a few hours instead of going on indefinitely, as long as the supply of the substance produced the alternate disturbance of equilibrium which was the main principle on which the machine depended. That sweetly prophetic evening silence, before the great feast of Good Will, does not come over everything each year, even in a lonely cottage in an abandoned farm in Connecticut, than which you cannot possibly imagine anything more silent or more remote from the noise of the world. Sometimes it rains in torrents just on that night, sometimes it blows a raging gale that twists the leafless birches and elms and hickory trees like dry grass and bends the dark firs and spruces as if they were feathers, and you can hardly be heard unless you shout, for the howling and screaming and whistling of the blast. But now and then, once in four or five years perhaps, the feathery snow lies a foot deep, fresh-fallen, on the still country-side and in the woods; and the waxing moon sheds her large light on all, and Nature holds her breath to wait for the happy day, and tries to sleep but cannot, from sheer happiness and peace. Indoors the fire is glowing on the wide hearth, a great bed of coals that will last all night, because it is not bitter weather, but only clear and cold and still, as it should be; or if there is only a poor stove, like Overholt's, the wide door is open, and a comfortable and cheery red light shines out from within upon the battered iron plate and the wooden floor beyond; and the older people sit round it, not saying much, but thinking with their hearts rather than with their heads; but small boys and girls know that interesting things have been happening in the kitchen all the afternoon, and are rather glad that the supper was not very good, because there will be the more room for good things to-morrow; and the grown-ups and the children have made up any little differences of opinion they may have had before supper-time, because Good Will must reign, and reign alone, like Alexander; so that there is nothing at all to regret, and nothing hurts anybody any more, and they are all happy in just wishing for King Christmas to open the door softly and make them all great people in his kingdom. But if it is the right sort of house, he is already looking in through the window, to be sure that every one is all ready for him, and that nothing has been forgotten. Now, although Overholt's cottage was a miserable place for a professor who had lived very comfortably and well in a College town, and although the thirteen-year-old boy could remember several pretty trees, lighted up with coloured candles and gleaming with tinsel and gilt apples, they both felt that this was going to be the greatest Christmas in their lives, because the motionless Motor was going to move, and that would mean everything--most of all to both of them, the end of the mother's exile, and her speedy home-coming. Therefore neither said anything for a long time while the chemical stuff was slowly warming itself and getting ready, inside a big iron pot, of which the cover was screwed on with a high-temperature thermometer sealed in it, and which stood on the top of the stove where Overholt could watch the scale. He would really have preferred to be alone for the first trial, but it was utterly impossible to think of sending the boy to bed. He was sure of success, it is true, yet he would far rather have been left to himself till that success was no longer in the future, but present; then at last, even if Newton had been asleep, he would have waked him and brought him downstairs again to see his triumph. The lad's presence made him nervous, and suggested a failure which was all but impossible. More than once he was on the point of trying to explain this to Newton, but when he glanced at the young face he could not find it in his heart to speak. If he only asked the boy, as a kindness, to go into the next room for five minutes while the machine was being started, he knew what would happen. Newton would go quietly, without a word, and wait till he was called; but half his Christmas would be spoilt by the disappointment he would try hard to hide. Had they not suffered together, and had not the boy sacrificed the best of his small possessions, dearly treasured, to help in their joint distress? It would be nothing short of brutal to deprive him of the first moment of triumphant surprise, that was going to mean so much hereafter. Yet the inventor would have given anything to be alone. He was overwrought by the long strain that had so often seemed unbearable, and when the liquid that was heating had reached the right temperature and the iron pot had to be taken off the stove, his hands shook so that he nearly dropped it; but Newton did not see that. "It's wonderful how everything has come out just right!" the boy exclaimed as he looked at the machine. "Out of your three wishes you'll get two, father, for the wheel will go round and I'm going to have a regular old patent, double-barrelled Christmas with a gilt edge!" His similes were mixed, but effective in their way. "And you'll probably get the other wish in half a shake now, for mother'll come right home, won't she?" "If the trial succeeds," Overholt said, still instinctively seeking to forestall a disappointment he did not expect. "Nothing is a fact until it has happened, you know!" "Well," said Newton, "if I had anything to bet with, and somebody to bet against, I'd bet, that's all. But I haven't. It's a pity too, now that everything's coming out right. Do you remember how we were trying to make bricks without straw less than a month ago, father? It didn't look just then as if we were going to have a roaring old Christmas this year, did it?" He chattered on happily, looking at the Motor all the time, and Overholt tried to smile and answered him with a word or two now and then, though he was becoming more and more nervous as the minutes passed and the supreme moment came nearer. In his own mind he was going over the simple operations he had to perform to start the engine; yet easy as they were he was afraid that he might make some fatal mistake. He did not let himself think of failure; he did not dare to wonder how he should tell his wife if anything went wrong and all her hard-saved earnings were lost in the general ruin that must follow if the thing would not move. There was next to nothing left of what she had sent, now that everything was paid for; it would support him and the boy for a month, if so long, but certainly no more. He was ready at last, but, strange to say, he would gladly have put off the great moment for half an hour now that there was no reason for waiting another moment. He sat down again in his chair and folded his hands. "Aren't you going to begin, father?" asked Newton. "What are you waiting for?" Overholt pulled himself together, rose with a pale face, and laid his shaking hands on the heavy plate-glass case. It moved upwards by its chain and counterpoise, almost at a touch, till it was near the low ceiling, quite clear of the machine. He was very slow in doing what was still necessary, and the boy watched him in breathless suspense, for he had seen other trials that had failed--more than two or three, perhaps half a dozen. Every one who has lived with an inventor, even a boy, has learned to expect disappointment as inevitable; only the seeker himself is confident up to a certain point, and then his own hand trembles, when the moment of trial is come. Overholt poured the chemical into the chamber at the base, screwed down the air-tight plug, and opened the communication between the reservoir and the machine. Then he took out his watch and waited four minutes, that being twice the time he had ascertained to be necessary for a sufficient quantity of the liquid to penetrate into the distributors beyond. He next worked the hand air-pump, keeping his eye on the vacuum gauge, and lastly, as soon as the needle marked the greatest exhaustion he knew to be obtainable, he moved the starting lever to the proper position, and then stepped back to watch the result. For a moment, in the joy of anticipation, a strange light illuminated his face, his lips parted as in a foretasted wonder, and he forgot even to drop the hand he had just withdrawn. The boy held his breath unconsciously till he was nearly dizzy. Then a despairing cry burst from the wretched man's lips, he threw up his hands as if he had been shot through the heart, and stumbled backwards. The Motor stood still, motionless as ever, and gleaming under the brightly shining lamps. "Oh, Helen! God forgive me!" With the words he fell heavily to the floor, and lay there, a nerveless, breathless heap. Newton was kneeling beside him in an instant. "Father!" cried the boy in agony, bending over the still white face. "Father! Speak to me! You can't be dead--you can't--" In his mortal terror the lad held each breath till it seemed as if his head must burst, then breathed once and shut his lips again with all his strength. Some instinct made him lay his ear to the man's chest to listen for the beatings of his heart, but he could hear nothing. Half-suffocated with sudden mingled grief and fright, he straightened himself on his knees and looked up at the cursed machine that had wrought such awful destruction. Then he in turn uttered a cry, but it was low and full of wonder, long drawn out and trembling as the call of a frightened young wild animal. The thing was moving, steadily, noiselessly moving in the bright light; the double levers worked like iron jaws opening and shutting regularly, the little valve-rods rose and sank, and the heavy wheel whirled round and round. The boy was paralysed with amazement, and for ten seconds he forgot that he was kneeling beside his father's fallen body on the floor; then he felt it against him and it was no longer quite still. Overholt groaned and turned upon his side as his senses slowly came back and his agony tortured him to life again. Instantly the boy bent over him. "Father! It's going! Wake up, father! The wheel's going round at last!" IX HOW THE KING OF HEARTS MADE A FEAST IN THE CITY OF HOPE When Overholt understood what he heard, he opened his eyes and looked up into his son's face, moving his head mournfully from side to side as it lay on the boards. But suddenly he caught sight of the engine. He gasped for breath, his jaw dropped, and his eyes were starting from their sockets as he struggled to get up with the boy's help. His voice came with a sort of rasping scream that did not sound human, and then broke into wild laughter, interrupted by broken words. "Mad!" he cried. "I knew it--it had to come--my boy--help me to get away from that thing--I'm raving mad--I see it moving--" "But it really is moving, father! Wake up! Look at it! The wheel is going round and round!" Then Overholt was silent, sitting up on the floor and leaning against his arm. Slowly he realised that he was in his senses, and that the dream of long years had come true. Not a sound broke the stillness, so perfect was the machinery, except a kind of very soft hum made by the heavy fly-wheel revolving in the air. "Are you sure, boy? Aren't we dreaming?" he asked in a low tone. "It's going like clock-work, as sure as you're born," the lad answered. "I think your falling down shook it up and started it. That was all it wanted." The inventor got up slowly, first upon his knees, at last to his feet, never once taking his eyes from the beautiful engine. He went close to it, and put out his hand, till he felt the air thrown off by the wheel, and he gently touched the smooth, swift-turning rim with one finger, incredulous still. "There's no doubt about it," he said at last, yielding to the evidence of touch and sight. "It works, and it works to perfection. If it doesn't stop soon, it will go on for twenty-four hours!" Almost as much overcome by joy as he had been by despair, he let himself sink into his seat. "Get me that tea-bottle," he said unsteadily. "Quick! I feel as if I were going to faint again!" The draught he swallowed steadied his nerves, and then he sat a long time quite silent in his unutterable satisfaction, and Newton stood beside him watching the moving levers, the rising and sinking valve rods, and the steadily whirling wheel. "She did it, my boy," Overholt said at last, very softly. "Your mother did it! Without her help the Motor would have been broken up for old metal three weeks ago." "It's something like a Christmas present," Newton answered. "But then I always said she wouldn't let you give it up. Do you know, father, when you fell just now, I thought you were dead, you looked just awful! And it was quite a long time before I saw that the Motor was moving. And then, when I did see it, and thought you were dead--well, I can't tell you--" "Poor little chap! But it's all right now, my boy, and I haven't spoilt your Christmas, after all!" "Not quite!" Newton laughed joyfully, and, turning round, he saw the little City smiling on its board in the strong light, with the tiny red and green wreaths in the windows and the pretty booths, and the crowds of little people buying Christmas presents at them. "They're going to have a pretty good time in the City too," the boy observed. "They know just as well as we do that Hope has come to stay now!" But Overholt did not hear. Silent and rapt he sat in his old Shaker rocking-chair gazing steadily at the great success of his life, that was moving ceaselessly before his eyes, where motionless failure had sat mocking him but a few minutes ago; and as the wheel whirled steadily round and round, throwing off a little breeze like a fan, the cruel past was wafted away like a mist by a morning wind, and the bright future floated in and filled its place altogether and more also, as daylight shows the distance which was all hidden from us by the close darkness we groped in before it rose. Overholt sat still, and saw, and wondered, and little by little the wheel and the soft vision of near happiness hypnotised him, for his body and brain were weary beyond words to tell, so that all at once his eyes were shut and he was sleeping like a child, as happy in dreamland as he had just been awake; and happier far, for there was a dear presence with him now, a hand he loved lay quietly in his, and he heard a sweet low voice that was far away. The boy saw, and understood, for ever since he had been very small he had been taught that he must not wake his father, who slept badly at all times, and little or not at all when he was anxious. So Newton would not disturb him now, and at once formed a brave resolution to sit bolt upright all night, if necessary, for fear of making any noise. Besides, he did not feel at all sleepy. There was the Motor to look at, and there was Christmas to think of, and it was bright and clear outside where the snow was like silver, under the young moon. He could look out of the window as he sat, or at his father, or at the beautiful moving engine, or at the little City of Hope, all without doing more than just turning his head. To tell the truth, it was not really a great sacrifice he was making, for if there is anything that strikes a boy of thirteen as more wildly exciting than anything else in the world, it is to sit up all night instead of going to bed like a Christian child; moreover, the workshop was warm, and his own room would be freezing cold, and he was so well used to the vile odour of the chemical stuff, that he did not notice it at all. It was even said to be healthy to breathe the fumes of it, as the air of a tannery is good for the lungs, or even London coal smoke. But it is one thing to resolve to keep awake, even with many delightful things to think about; it is quite another to keep one's eyes open when they are quite sure that they ought to be shut, and that you ought to be tucked up in bed. The boy found it so, and in less than half an hour his arm had got across the back of the chair, his cheek was resting on it quite comfortably, and he was in dreamland with his father, and quite as perfectly happy. So the two slept in their chairs under the big bright lamps; and while they rested the Air-Motor worked silently, hour after hour, and the heavy wheel whirled steadily on its axle, and only its soft and drowsy humming was heard in the still air. That was the most refreshing sleep Overholt remembered for a long time. When he stirred at last and opened his eyes, he did not even know that he had slept, and forgot that he had closed his eyes when he saw the engine moving. He thought it was still nine o'clock in the evening, and that the boy might as well finish his little nap where he was, before going to bed. Newton might sleep till ten o'clock if he liked. The lamps burned steadily, for they held enough oil to last sixteen hours when the winter darkness is longest, and they had not been lighted till after supper. But all at once Overholt was aware of a little change in the colour of things, and he slowly rubbed his eyes and looked about him, and towards the window. The moon had set long ago; there was a grey light on the snow outside and in the clear air, and Overholt knew that it was the dawn. He looked at his watch then, and it was nearly seven o'clock; for in New York and Connecticut, as you may see by your pocket calendar, the sun rises at twenty-three minutes past seven on Christmas morning. He sprang to his feet in astonishment, and at the sound Newton awoke and looked up in blank and sleepy surprise. "Merry Christmas, my boy!" cried Overholt, and he laughed happily. "Not yet," answered Newton in a disappointed tone, and rubbing his arm, which was stiff. "I've got to go to bed first, I suppose." "Oh no! You and I have slept in our chairs all night and the sun is rising, so it's merry Christmas in earnest! And the Motor is running still, after nine or ten hours. What a sleep we've had!" The boy looked out of the window stupidly, and vaguely wished that his father would not make fun of him. Then he saw the dawn, and jumped up in wild delight. "Hurrah!" he shouted. "Merry Christmas! Hurrah! hurrah!" If anything could make that morning happier than it had promised to be, it was to have actually cheated bed for the first time in his life. They were gloriously happy, as people have a right to be, and should be, when they have been living in all sorts of trouble, with a great purpose before them, and have won through and got all they hoped for, if not quite all they could have wished--because there is absolutely no limit to wishing if you let it go on. The people watched them curiously in church, for they looked so happy; and for a long time the man's expression had always been anxious, if it had no longer been sad of late, and the boy's young face had been preternaturally grave; yet every one saw that neither of them even had a new coat for Christmas Day, and that both needed one pretty badly. But no one thought the worse of them for that, and in the generous Good Will that was everywhere that morning everybody was glad to see that every one else looked happy. In due time the two got home again; the Motor was still working to perfection, as if nothing could ever stop it again, and Overholt oiled the bearings carefully, passed a leather over the fixed parts, and examined the whole machine minutely before sitting down to the feast, while Newton stood beside him, looking on and hoping that he would not be long. The boy had his new watch in his pocket, and it told him that it was time for that turkey at last, and his new skates were in the parlour, and there was splendid ice on the pond where the boys had cleared away the snow, and it was the most perfect Christmas weather that ever was; and in order to enjoy everything it would be necessary to get to work soon. The two were before the Air-Motor, turning their backs to the door; and they heard it open quietly, for old Barbara always came to call Overholt to his meals, because he was very apt to forget them. "We are just coming," he said, without turning round. But the boy turned, for he was hungry for the good things; and suddenly a perfect yell of joy rent the air, and he dashed forward as Overholt turned sharp round. "Mother!" "Helen!" And there she was, instead of in Munich. For the rich people she was with had happily smashed their automobile without hurting themselves, and had taken a fancy to spend Christmas at home; and, after the manner of very rich people, they had managed everything in a moment, had picked up their children and the governess, had just caught the fastest steamer afloat at Cherbourg, and had arrived in New York late on Christmas Eve. And Helen Overholt had taken the earliest train that she could manage to get ready for, and had come out directly to surprise her two in their lonely cottage. So John Henry Overholt had his three wishes after all on Christmas Day. And everybody had helped to bring it all about, even Mr. Burnside, who had said that Hope was cheap and that there was plenty of it to be had. But as for the little Christmas City in which Hope had dwelt and waited so long, they all three put the last touches to it together, and carried it with them when they went back to the College town, where they felt that they would be happier than anywhere else in the world, even if they were to grow very rich, which seems quite likely now. That is how it all happened. _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. THE NOVELS OF F. MARION CRAWFORD _Crown 8vo. 6s._ ARETHUSA. A LADY OF ROME. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._ MR. ISAACS: A TALE OF MODERN INDIA. DR. CLAUDIUS: A TRUE STORY. ROMAN SINGER. ZOROASTER. TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. MARZIO'S CRUCIFIX. PAUL PATOFF. WITH THE IMMORTALS. GREIFENSTEIN. SANT' ILARIO. CIGARETTE-MAKER'S ROMANCE. KHALED: A TALE OF ARABIA. WITCH OF PRAGUE. THREE FATES. DON ORSINO. CHILDREN OF THE KING. MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. THE NOVELS OF F. MARION CRAWFORD _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._ PIETRO GHISLERI. MARION DARCHE: A STORY WITHOUT COMMENT. KATHARINE LAUDERDALE. RALSTONS. CASA BRACCIO. ADAM JOHNSTONE'S SON. TAQUISARA. A NOVEL. ROSE OF YESTERDAY. CORLEONE. VIA CRUCIS: A ROMANCE OF THE SECOND CRUSADE. IN THE PALACE OF THE KING. MARIETTA: A MAID OF VENICE. CECILIA: A STORY OF MODERN ROME. THE HEART OF ROME. WHOSOEVER SHALL OFFEND... SOPRANO: A PORTRAIT. _Pott 8vo. 2s. net._ MAN OVERBOARD! _Fcap. 8vo. 2s._ LOVE IN IDLENESS. A BAR HARBOUR TALE. MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. 
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10521	----	THE PRIMADONNA A SEQUEL TO "FAIR MARGARET" BY F. MARION CRAWFORD AUTHOR OF "SARACINESCA," "SANT' ILARIO," "FAIR MARGARET," ETC., ETC. 1908 [Illustration] CHAPTER I When the accident happened, Cordova was singing the mad scene in _Lucia_ for the last time in that season, and she had never sung it better. _The Bride of Lammermoor_ is the greatest love-story ever written, and it was nothing short of desecration to make a libretto of it; but so far as the last act is concerned the opera certainly conveys the impression that the heroine is a raving lunatic. Only a crazy woman could express feeling in such an unusual way. Cordova's face was nothing but a mask of powder, in which her handsome brown eyes would have looked like two holes if she had not kept them half shut under the heavily whitened lids; her hands were chalked too, and they were like plaster casts of hands, cleverly jointed at the wrists. She wore a garment which was supposed to be a nightdress, which resembled a very expensive modern shroud, and which was evidently put on over a good many other things. There was a deal of lace on it, which fluttered when she made her hands shake to accompany each trill, and all this really contributed to the general impression of insanity. Possibly it was overdone; but if any one in the audience had seen such a young person enter his or her room unexpectedly, and uttering such unaccountable sounds, he or she would most assuredly have rung for a doctor and a cab, and for a strait-jacket if such a thing were to be had in the neighbourhood. An elderly man, with very marked features and iron-grey hair, sat in the fifth row of the stalls, on the right-hand aisle. He was a bony man, and the people behind him noticed him and thought he looked strong. He had heard Bonanni in her best days and many great lyric sopranos from Patti to Melba, and he was thinking that none of them had sung the mad scene better than Cordova, who had only been on the stage two years, and was now in New York for the first time. But he had already heard her in London and Paris, and he knew her. He had first met her at a breakfast on board Logotheti's yacht at Cap Martin. Logotheti was a young Greek financier who lived in Paris and wanted to marry her. He was rather mad, and had tried to carry her off on the night of the dress rehearsal before her _début_, but had somehow got himself locked up for somebody else. Since then he had grown calmer, but he still worshipped at the shrine of the Cordova. He was not the only one, however; there were several, including the very distinguished English man of letters, Edmund Lushington, who had known her before she had begun to sing on the stage. But Lushington was in England and Logotheti was in Paris, and on the night of the accident Cordova had not many acquaintances in the house besides the bony man with grey hair; for though society had been anxious to feed her and get her to sing for nothing, and to play bridge with her, she had never been inclined to accept those attentions. Society in New York claimed her, on the ground that she was a lady and was an American on her mother's side. Yet she insisted on calling herself a professional, because singing was her profession, and society thought this so strange that it at once became suspicious and invented wild and unedifying stories about her; and the reporters haunted the lobby of her hotel, and gossiped with their friends the detectives, who also spent much time there in a professional way for the general good, and were generally what English workmen call wet smokers. Cordova herself was altogether intent on what she was doing and was not thinking of her friends, of Lushington, or Logotheti, nor of the bony man in the stalls; certainly not of society, though it was richly represented by diamonds in the subscriber's tier. Indeed the jewellery was so plentiful and of such expensive quality that the whole row of boxes shone like a vast coronet set with thousands of precious stones. When the music did not amuse society, the diamonds and rubies twinkled and glittered uneasily, but when Cordova was trilling her wildest they were quite still and blazed with a steady light. Afterwards the audience would all say again what they had always said about every great lyric soprano, that it was just a wonderful instrument without a particle of feeling, that it was an over-grown canary, a human flute, and all the rest of it; but while the trills ran on the people listened in wonder and the diamonds were very quiet. 'A-a--A-a--A-a--A-a--' sang Cordova at an inconceivable pitch. A terrific explosion shook the building to its foundations; the lights went out, and there was a long grinding crash of broken glass not far off. In the momentary silence that followed before the inevitable panic the voice of Schreiermeyer, the manager, rang out through the darkness. 'Ladies and gentlemen! There's no danger! Keep your seats! The lights will be up directly.' And indeed the little red lamps over each door that led out, being on another circuit, were all burning quietly, but in the first moment of fright no one noticed them, and the house seemed to be quite dark. Then the whole mass of humanity began to writhe and swell, as a frightened crowd does in the dark, so that every one feels as if all the other people were growing hugely big, as big as elephants, to smother and crush him; and each man makes himself as broad as he can, and tries to swell out his chest, and squares his elbows to keep the weight off his sides; and with the steady strain and effort every one breathes hard, and few speak, and the hard-drawn breath of thousands together makes a sound of rushing wind like bellows as enormous as houses, blowing steadily in the darkness. 'Keep your seats!' yelled Schreiermeyer desperately. He had been in many accidents, and understood the meaning of the noises he heard. There was death in them, death for the weak by squeezing, and smothering, and trampling underfoot. It was a grim moment, and no one who was there has forgotten it, the manager least of all. 'It's only a fuse gone!' he shouted. 'Only a plug burnt out!' But the terrified throng did not believe, and the people pressed upon each other with the weight of hundreds of bodies, thronging from behind, towards the little red lights. There were groans now, besides the strained breathing and the soft shuffling of many feet on the thick carpets. Each time some one went down there was a groan, stifled as instantly and surely as though the lips from which it came were quickly thrust under water. Schreiermeyer knew well enough that if nothing could be done within the next two minutes there would be an awful catastrophe; but he was helpless. No doubt the electricians were at work; in ten minutes the damage would be repaired and the lights would be up again; but the house would be empty then, except for the dead and the dying. Another groan was heard, and another quickly after it. The wretched manager yelled, stormed, stamped, entreated, and promised, but with no effect. In the very faint red light from the doors he saw a moving sea of black and heard it surging to his very feet. He had an old professional's exact sense of passing time, and he knew that a full minute had already gone by since the explosion. No one could be dead yet, even in that press, but there were few seconds to spare, fewer and fewer. Then another sound was heard, a very pure strong note, high above his own tones, a beautiful round note, that made one think of gold and silver bells, and that filled the house instantly, like light, and reached every ear, even through the terror that was driving the crowd mad in the dark. A moment more, an instant's pause, and Cordova had begun Lucia's song again at the beginning, and her marvellous trills and staccato notes, and trills again, trills upon trills without end, filled the vast darkness and stopped those four thousand men and women, spellbound and silent, and ashamed too. It was not great music, surely; but it was sung by the greatest living singer, singing alone in the dark, as calmly and as perfectly as if all the orchestra had been with her, singing as no one can who feels the least tremor of fear; and the awful tension of the dark throng relaxed, and the breath that came was a great sigh of relief, for it was not possible to be frightened when a fearless woman was singing so marvellously. Then, still in the dark, some of the musicians struck in and supported her, and others followed, till the whole body of harmony was complete; and just as she was at the wildest trills, at the very passage during which the crash had come, the lights went up all at once; and there stood Cordova in white and lace, with her eyes half shut and shaking her outstretched hands as she always made them shake in the mad scene; and the stage was just as it had been before the accident, except that Schreiermeyer was standing near the singer in evening dress with a perfectly new and shiny high hat on the back of his head, and his mouth wide open. The people were half hysterical from the past danger, and when they saw, and realised, they did not wait for the end of the air, but sent up such a shout of applause as had never been heard in the Opera before and may not be heard there again. Instinctively the Primadonna sang the last bars, though no one heard her in the din, unless it was Schreiermeyer, who stood near her. When she had finished at last he ran up to her and threw both his arms round her in a paroxysm of gratitude, regardless of her powder and chalk, which came off upon his coat and yellow beard in patches of white as he kissed her on both cheeks, calling her by every endearing name that occurred to his polyglot memory, from Sweetheart in English to Little Cabbage in French, till Cordova laughed and pushed him away, and made a tremendous courtesy to the audience. Just then a man in a blue jacket and gilt buttons entered from the left of the stage and whispered a few words into Schreiermeyer's ear. The manager looked grave at once, nodded and came forward to the prompter's box. The man had brought news of the accident, he said; a quantity of dynamite which was to have been used in subterranean blasting had exploded and had done great damage, no one yet knew how great. It was probable that many persons had been killed. But for this news, Cordova would have had one of those ovations which rarely fall to the lot of any but famous singers, for there was not a man or woman in the theatre who had not felt that she had averted a catastrophe and saved scores of lives. As it was, several women had been slightly hurt and at least fifty had fainted. Every one was anxious to help them now, most of all the very people who had hurt them. But the news of an accident in the city emptied the house in a few minutes; even now that the lights were up the anxiety to get out to the street and to know more of the truth was great enough to be dangerous, and the strong crowd heaved and surged again and pushed through the many doors with little thought for the weak or for any who had been injured in the first panic. But in the meantime Cordova had reached her dressing-room, supported by the enthusiastic Schreiermeyer on one side, and by the equally enthusiastic tenor on the other, while the singular family party assembled in the last act of _Lucia di Lammermoor_ brought up the rear with many expressions of admiration and sympathy. As a matter of fact the Primadonna needed neither sympathy nor support, and that sort of admiration was not of the kind that most delighted her. She did not believe that she had done anything heroic, and did not feel at all inclined to cry. 'You saved the whole audience!' cried Signor Pompeo Stromboli, the great Italian tenor, who presented an amazing appearance in his Highland dress. 'Four thousand seven hundred and fifty-three people owe you their lives at this moment! Every one of them would have been dead but for your superb coolness! Ah, you are indeed a great woman!' Schreiermeyer's business ear had caught the figures. As they walked, each with an arm through one of the Primadonna's, he leaned back and spoke to Stromboli behind her head. 'How the devil do you know what the house was?' he asked sharply. 'I always know,' answered the Italian in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone. 'My dresser finds out from the box-office. I never take the C sharp if there are less than three thousand.' 'I'll stop that!' growled Schreiermeyer. 'As you please!' Stromboli shrugged his massive shoulders. 'C sharp is not in the engagement!' 'It shall be in the next! I won't sign without it!' 'I won't sign at all!' retorted the tenor with a sneer of superiority. 'You need not talk of conditions, for I shall not come to America again!' 'Oh, do stop quarrelling!' laughed Cordova as they reached the door of her box, for she had heard similar amenities exchanged twenty times already, and she knew that they meant nothing at all on either side. 'Have you any beer?' inquired Stromboli of the Primadonna, as if nothing had happened. 'Bring some beer, Bob!' Schreiermeyer called out over his shoulder to some one in the distance. 'Yes, sir,' answered a rough voice, far off, and with a foreign accent. The three entered the Primadonna's dressing-room together. It was a hideous place, as all dressing-rooms are which are never used two days in succession by the same actress or singer; very different from the pretty cells in the beehive of the Comédie Française where each pensioner or shareholder is lodged like a queen bee by herself, for years at a time. The walls of Cordova's dressing-room were more or less white-washed where the plaster had not been damaged. There was a dingy full-length mirror, a shabby toilet-table; there were a few crazy chairs, the wretched furniture which is generally to be found in actresses' dressing-rooms, notwithstanding the marvellous descriptions invented by romancers. But there was light in abundance and to excess, dazzling, unshaded, intolerable to any but theatrical eyes. There were at least twenty strong electric lamps in the miserable place, which illuminated the coarsely painted faces of the Primadonna and the tenor with alarming distinctness, and gleamed on Schreiermeyer's smooth fair hair and beard, and impassive features. 'You'll have two columns and a portrait in every paper to-morrow,' he observed thoughtfully. 'It's worth while to engage such people. Oh yes, damn it, I tell you it's worth while!' The last emphatic sentence was intended for Stromboli, as if he had contradicted the statement, or were himself not 'worth while.' 'There's beer there already,' said the tenor, seeing a bottle and glass on a deal table, and making for them at once. He undid the patent fastening, stood upright with his sturdy stockinged legs wide apart, threw his head back, opened his huge painted mouth to the necessary extent, but not to the full, and without touching his lips poured the beer into the chasm in a gurgling stream, which he swallowed without the least apparent difficulty. When he had taken down half the contents of the small bottle he desisted and poured the rest into the glass, apparently for Cordova's benefit. 'I hope I have left you enough,' he said, as he prepared to go. 'My throat felt like a rusty gun-barrel.' 'Fright is very bad for the voice,' Schreiermeyer remarked, as the call-boy handed him another bottle of beer through the open door. Stromboli took no notice of the direct imputation. He had taken a very small and fine handkerchief from his sporran and was carefully tucking it into his collar with some idea of protecting his throat. When this was done his admiration for his colleague broke out again without the slightest warning. 'You were superb, magnificent, surpassing!' he cried. He seized Cordova's chalked hands, pressed them to his own whitened chin, by sheer force of stage habit, because the red on his lips would have come off on them, and turned away. 'Surpassing! Magnificent! What a woman!' he roared in tremendous tones as he strode away through the dim corridor towards the stage and his own dressing-room on the other side. Meanwhile Schreiermeyer, who was quite as thirsty as the tenor, drank what the latter had left in the only glass there was, and set the full bottle beside the latter on the deal table. 'There is your beer,' he said, calling attention to what he had done. Cordova nodded carelessly and sat down on one of the crazy chairs before the toilet-table. Her maid at once came forward and took off her wig, and her own beautiful brown hair appeared, pressed and matted close to her head in a rather disorderly coil. 'You must be tired,' said the manager, with more consideration than he often showed to any one whose next engagement was already signed. 'I'll find out how many were killed in the explosion and then I'll get hold of the reporters. You'll have two columns and a picture to-morrow.' Schreiermeyer rarely took the trouble to say good-morning or good-night, and Cordova heard the door shut after him as he went out. 'Lock it,' she said to her maid. 'I'm sure that madman is about the theatre again.' The maid obeyed with alacrity. She was very tall and dark, and when she had entered Cordova's service two years ago she had been positively cadaverous. She herself said that her appearance had been the result of living many years with the celebrated Madame Bonanni, who was a whirlwind, an earthquake, a phenomenon, a cosmic force. No one who had lived with her in her stage days had ever grown fat; it was as much as a very strong constitution could do not to grow thin. Madame Bonanni had presented the cadaverous woman to the young Primadonna as one of the most precious of her possessions, and out of sheer affection. It was true that since the great singer had closed her long career and had retired to live in the country, in Provence, she dressed with such simplicity as made it possible for her to exist without the long-faithful, all-skilful, and iron-handed Alphonsine; and the maid, on her side, was so thoroughly a professional theatrical dresser that she must have died of inanition in what she would have called private life. Lastly, she had heard that Madame Bonanni had now given up the semblance, long far from empty, but certainly vain, of a waist, and dressed herself in a garment resembling a priest's cassock, buttoned in front from her throat to her toes. Alphonsine locked the door, and the Primadonna leaned her elbows on the sordid toilet-table and stared at her chalked and painted face, vaguely trying to recognise the features of Margaret Donne, the daughter of the quiet Oxford scholar, her real self as she had been two years ago, and by no means very different from her everyday self now. But it was not easy. Margaret was there, no doubt, behind the paint and the 'liquid white,' but the reality was what the public saw beyond the footlights two or three times a week during the opera season, and applauded with might and main as the most successful lyric soprano of the day. There were moments when she tried to get hold of herself and bring herself back. They came most often after some great emotion in the theatre, when the sight of the painted mask in the glass shocked and disgusted her as it did to-night; when the contrasts of life were almost more than she could bear, when her sensibilities awoke again, when the fastidiousness of the delicately nurtured girl revolted under the rough familiarity of such a comrade as Stromboli, and rebelled against the sordid cynicism of Schreiermeyer. She shuddered at the mere idea that the manager should have thought she would drink out of the glass he had just used. Even the Italian peasant, who had been a goatherd in Calabria, and could hardly write his name, showed more delicacy, according to his lights, which were certainly not dazzling. A faint ray of Roman civilisation had reached him through generations of slaves and serfs and shepherds. But no such traditions of forgotten delicacy disturbed the manners of Schreiermeyer. The glass from which he had drunk was good enough for any primadonna in his company, and it was silly for any of them to give themselves airs. Were they not largely his creatures, fed from his hand, to work for him while they were young, and to be turned out as soon as they began to sing false? He was by no means the worst of his kind, as Margaret knew very well. She thought of her childhood, of her mother and of her father, both dead long before she had gone on the stage; and of that excellent and kind Mrs. Rushmore, her American mother's American friend, who had taken her as her own daughter, and had loved her and cared for her, and had shed tears when Margaret insisted on becoming a singer; who had fought for her, too, and had recovered for her a small fortune of which her mother had been cheated. For Margaret would have been more than well off without her profession, even when she had made her _début_, and she had given up much to be a singer, believing that she knew what she was doing. But now she was ready to undo it all and to go back; at least she thought she was, as she stared at herself in the glass while the pale maid drew her hair back and fastened it far above her forehead with a big curved comb, as a preliminary to getting rid of paint and powder. At this stage of the operation the Primadonna was neither Cordova nor Margaret Donne; there was something terrifying about the exaggeratedly painted mask when the wig was gone and her natural hair was drawn tightly back. She thought she was like a monstrous skinned rabbit with staring brown eyes. At first, with the inexperience of youth, she used to plunge her painted face into soapsuds and scrub vigorously till her own complexion appeared, a good deal overheated and temporarily shiny; but before long she had yielded to Alphonsine's entreaties and representations and had adopted the butter method, long familiar to chimney-sweeps. The butter lay ready; not in a lordly dish, but in a clean tin can with a cover, of the kind workmen use for fetching beer, and commonly called a 'growler' in New York, for some reason which escapes etymologists. Having got rid of the upper strata of white lace and fine linen, artfully done up so as to tremble like aspen leaves with Lucia's mad trills, Margaret proceeded to butter her face thoroughly. It occurred to her just then that all the other artists who had appeared with her were presumably buttering their faces at the same moment, and that if the public could look in upon them it would be very much surprised indeed. At the thought she forgot what she had been thinking of and smiled. The maid, who was holding her hair back where it escaped the comb, smiled too, and evidently considered that the relaxation of Margaret's buttered features was equivalent to a permission to speak. 'It was a great triumph for Madame,' she observed. 'All the papers will praise Madame to-morrow. Madame saved many lives.' 'Was Mr. Griggs in the house?' Margaret asked. 'I did not see him.' Alphonsine did not answer at once, and when she spoke her tone had changed. 'Yes, Madame. Mr. Griggs was in the house.' Margaret wondered whether she had saved his life too, in his own estimation or in that of her maid, and while she pondered the question she buttered her nose industriously. Alphonsine took a commercial view of the case. 'If Madame would appear three times more in New York, before sailing, the manager would give ten thousand francs a night,' she observed. Margaret said nothing to this, but she thought it would be amusing to show herself to an admiring public in her present condition. 'Madame is now a heroine,' continued Alphonsine, behind her. 'Madame can ask anything she pleases. Several milliardaires will now offer to marry Madame.' 'Alphonsine,' answered Margaret, 'you have no sense.' The maid smiled, knowing that her mistress could not see even the reflection of the smile in the glass; but she said nothing. 'No sense,' Margaret repeated, with conviction. 'None at all' The maid allowed a few seconds to pass before she spoke again. 'Or if Madame would accept to sing in one or two private houses in New York, we could ask a very great price, more than the manager would give.' 'I daresay.' 'It is certain,' said Alphonsine. 'At the French ball to which Madame kindly allowed me to go, the valet of Mr. Van Torp approached me.' 'Indeed!' exclaimed Cordova absently. 'How very disagreeable!' 'I see that Madame is not listening,' said Alphonsine, taking offence. What she said was so true that Margaret did not answer at all. Besides, the buttering process was finished, and it was time for the hot water. She went to the ugly stationary washstand and bent over it, while the maid kept her hair from her face. Alphonsine spoke again when she was sure that her mistress could not possibly answer her. 'Mr. Van Torp's valet asked me whether I thought Madame would be willing to sing in church, at the wedding, the day after to-morrow,' she said, holding the Primadonna's back hair firmly. The head moved energetically under her hands. Margaret would certainly not sing at Mr. Van Torp's wedding, and she even tried to say so, but her voice only bubbled and sputtered ineffectually through the soap and water. 'I was sure Madame would not,' continued the maid, 'though Mr. Van Torp's valet said that money was no object. He had heard Mr. Van Torp say that he would give five thousand dollars to have Madame sing at his wedding.' Margaret did not shake her head this time, nor try to speak, but Alphonsine heard the little impatient tap of her slipper on the wooden floor. It was not often that the Primadonna showed so much annoyance at anything; and of late, when she did, the cause had been connected with this same Mr. Van Torp. The mere mention of his name irritated her, and Alphonsine seemed to know it, and to take an inexplicable pleasure in talking about him--about Mr. Rufus Van Torp, formerly of Chicago, but now of New York. He was looked upon as the controlling intellect of the great Nickel Trust; in fact, he was the Nickel Trust himself, and the other men in it were mere dummies compared with him. He had sailed the uncertain waters of finance for twenty years or more, and had been nearly shipwrecked more than once, but at the time of this story he was on the top of the wave; and as his past was even more entirely a matter of conjecture than his future, it would be useless to inquire into the former or to speculate about the latter. Moreover, in these break-neck days no time counts but the present, so far as reputation goes; good fame itself now resembles righteousness chiefly because it clothes men as with a garment; and as we have the highest authority for assuming that charity covers a multitude of sins, we can hardly be surprised that it should be so generally used for that purpose. Rufus Van Torp's charities were notorious, aggressive, and profitable. The same sums of money could not have bought as much mingled advertisement and immunity in any other way. 'Of course,' observed Alphonsine, seeing that Margaret would soon be able to speak again, 'money is no object to Madame either!' This subtle flattery was evidently meant to forestall reproof. But Margaret was now splashing vigorously, and as both taps were running the noise was as loud as that of a small waterfall; possibly she had not even heard the maid's last speech. Some one knocked at the door, and knocked a second time almost directly. The Primadonna pushed Alphonsine with her elbow, speaking being still impossible, and the woman understood that she was to answer the summons. She asked who was knocking, and some one answered. 'It is Mr. Griggs,' said Alphonsine. 'Ask him to wait,' Margaret succeeded in saying. Alphonsine transmitted the message through the closed door, and listened for the answer. 'He says that there is a lady dying in the manager's room, who wants Madame,' said the maid, repeating what she heard. Margaret stood upright, turned quickly, and crossed the room to the door, mopping her face with a towel. 'Who is it?' she asked in an anxious tone. 'I'm Griggs,' said a deep voice. 'Come at once, if you can, for the poor girl cannot last long.' 'One minute! Don't go away--I'm coming out.' Alphonsine never lost her head. A theatrical dresser who does is of no use. She had already brought the wide fur coat Margaret always wore after singing. In ten seconds the singer was completely clothed in it, and as she laid her hand on the lock to let herself out, the maid placed a dark Russian hood on her head from behind her and took the long ends twice round her throat. Mr. Griggs was a large bony man with iron-grey hair, who looked very strong. He had a sad face and deep-set grey eyes. He led the way without speaking, and Cordova walked quickly after him. Alphonsine did not follow, for she was responsible for the belongings that lay about in the dressing-room. The other doors on the women's side, which is on the stage left and the audience's right at the Opera, were all tightly closed. The stage itself was not dark yet, and the carpenters were putting away the scenery of the last act as methodically as if nothing had happened. 'Do you know her?' Margaret asked of her companion as they hurried along the passage that leads into the house. 'Barely. She is a Miss Bamberger, and she was to have been married the day after to-morrow, poor thing--to a millionaire. I always forget his name, though I've met him several times.' 'Van Torp?' asked Margaret as they hastened on. 'Yes. That's it--the Nickel Trust man, you know.' 'Yes,' Margaret answered in a low tone. 'I was asked to sing at the wedding.' They reached the door of the manager's room. The clerks from the box-office and several other persons employed about the house were whispering together in the little lobby. They made way for Cordova and looked with curiosity at Griggs, who was a well-known man of letters. Schreiermeyer stood at the half-closed inner door, evidently waiting. 'Come in,' he said to Margaret. 'The doctor is there.' The room was flooded with electric light, and smelt of very strong Havana cigars and brandy. Margaret saw a slight figure in a red silk evening gown, lying at full length on an immense red leathern sofa. A young doctor was kneeling on the floor, bending down to press his ear against the girl's side; he moved his head continually, listening for the beating of her heart. Her face was of a type every one knows, and had a certain half-pathetic prettiness; the features were small, and the chin was degenerate but delicately modelled. The rather colourless fair hair was elaborately done; her thin cheeks were dreadfully white, and her thin neck shrank painfully each time she breathed out, though it grew smooth and full as she drew in her breath. A short string of very large pearls was round her throat, and gleamed in the light as her breathing moved them. Schreiermeyer did not let Griggs come in, but went out to him, shut the door and stood with his back to it. Margaret did not look behind her, but crossed directly to the sofa and leaned over the dying girl, who was conscious and looked at her with inquiring eyes, not recognising her. 'You sent for me,' said the singer gently. 'Are you really Madame Cordova?' asked the girl in a faint tone. It was as much as she could do to speak at all, and the doctor looked up to Margaret and raised his hand in a warning gesture, meaning that his patient should not be allowed to talk. She saw his movement and smiled faintly, and shook her head. 'No one can save me,' she said to him, quite quietly and distinctly. 'Please leave us together, doctor.' 'I am altogether at a loss,' the doctor answered, speaking to Margaret as he rose. 'There are no signs of asphyxia, yet the heart does not respond to stimulants. I've tried nitro-glycerine--' 'Please, please go away!' begged the girl. The doctor was a young surgeon from the nearest hospital, and hated to leave his case. He was going to argue the point, but Margaret stopped him. 'Go into the next room for a moment, please,' she said authoritatively. He obeyed with a bad grace, and went into the empty office which adjoined the manager's room, but he left the door open. Margaret knelt down in his place and took the girl's cold white hand. 'Can he hear?' asked the faint voice. 'Speak low,' Margaret answered. 'What can I do?' 'It is a secret,' said the girl. 'The last I shall ever have, but I must tell some one before I die. I know about you. I know you are a lady, and very good and kind, and I have always admired you so much!' 'You can trust me,' said the singer. 'What is the secret I am to keep for you?' 'Do you believe in God? I do, but so many people don't nowadays, you know. Tell me.' 'Yes,' Margaret answered, wondering. 'Yes, I do.' 'Will you promise, by the God you believe in?' 'I promise to keep your secret, so help me God in Heaven,' said Margaret gravely. The girl seemed relieved, and closed her eyes for a moment. She was so pale and still that Margaret thought the end had come, but presently she drew breath again and spoke, though it was clear that she had not much strength left. 'You must not keep the secret always,' she said. 'You may tell him you know it. Yes--let him know that you know--if you think it best--' 'Who is he?' 'Mr. Van Torp.' 'Yes?' Margaret bent her ear to the girl's lips and waited. Again there was a pause of many seconds, and then the voice came once more, with a great effort that only produced very faint sounds, scarcely above a whisper. 'He did it.' That was all. At long intervals the dying girl drew deep breaths, longer and longer, and then no more. Margaret looked anxiously at the still face for some time, and then straightened herself suddenly. 'Doctor! Doctor!' she cried. The young man was beside her in an instant. For a full minute there was no sound in the room, and he bent over the motionless figure. 'I'm afraid I can't do anything,' he said gently, and he rose to his feet. 'Is she really dead?' Margaret asked, in an undertone. 'Yes. Failure of the heart, from shock.' 'Is that what you will call it?' 'That is what it is,' said the doctor with a little emphasis of offence, as if his science had been doubted. 'You knew her, I suppose?' 'No. I never saw her before. I will call Schreiermeyer.' She stood still a moment longer, looking down at the dead face, and she wondered what it all meant, and why the poor girl had sent for her, and what it was that Mr. Van Torp had done. Then she turned very slowly and went out. 'Dead, I suppose,' said Schreiermeyer as soon as he saw the Primadonna's face. 'Her relations won't get here in time.' Margaret nodded in silence and went on through the lobby. 'The rehearsal is at eleven,' the manager called out after her, in his wooden voice. She nodded again, but did not look back. Griggs had waited in order to take her back to her dressing-room, and the two crossed the stage together. It was almost quite dark now, and the carpenters were gone away. 'Thank you,' Margaret said. 'If you don't care to go all the way back you can get out by the stage door.' 'Yes. I know the way in this theatre. Before I say good-night, do you mind telling me what the doctor said?' 'He said she died of failure of the heart, from shock. Those were his words. Why do you ask?' 'Mere curiosity. I helped to carry her--that is, I carried her myself to the manager's room, and she begged me to call you, so I came to your door.' 'It was kind of you. Perhaps it made a difference to her, poor girl. Good-night.' 'Good-night. When do you sail?' 'On Saturday. I sing "Juliet" on Friday night and sail the next morning.' 'On the _Leofric_?' 'Yes.' 'So do I. We shall cross together.' 'How delightful! I'm so glad! Good-night again.' Alphonsine was standing at the open door of the dressing-room in the bright light, and Margaret nodded and went in. The maid looked after the elderly man till he finally disappeared, and then she went in too and locked the door after her. Griggs walked home in the bitter March weather. When he was in New York, he lived in rooms on the second floor of an old business building not far from Fifth Avenue. He was quite alone in the house at night, and had to walk up the stairs by the help of a little electric pocket-lantern he carried. He let himself into his own door, turned up the light, slipped off his overcoat and gloves, and went to the writing-table to get his pipe. That is very often the first thing a man does when he gets home at night. The old briar pipe he preferred to any other lay on the blotting-paper in the circle where the light was brightest. As he took it a stain on his right hand caught his eye, and he dropped the pipe to look at it. The blood was dark and was quite dry, and he could not find any scratch to account for it. It was on the inner side of his right hand, between the thumb and forefinger, and was no larger than an ordinary watch. 'How very odd!' exclaimed Mr. Griggs aloud; and he turned his hand this way and that under the electric lamp, looking for some small wound which he supposed must have bled. There was a little more inside his fingers, and between them, as if it had oozed through and then had spread over his knuckles. But he could find nothing to account for it. He was an elderly man who had lived all over the world and had seen most things, and he was not easily surprised, but he was puzzled now. Not the least strange thing was that the stain should be as small as it was and yet so dark. He crossed the room again and examined the front of his overcoat with the most minute attention. It was made of a dark frieze, almost black, on which a red stain would have shown very little; but after a very careful search Griggs was convinced that the blood which had stained his hand had not touched the cloth. He went into his dressing-room and looked at his face in his shaving-glass, but there was certainly no stain on the weather-beaten cheeks or the furrowed forehead. 'How very odd!' he exclaimed a second time. He washed his hands slowly and carefully, examining them again and again, for he thought it barely possible that the skin might have been cracked somewhere by the cutting March wind, and might have bled a little, but he could not find the least sign of such a thing. When he was finally convinced that he could not account for the stain he had now washed off, he filled his old pipe thoughtfully and sat down in a big shabby arm-chair beside the table to think over other questions more easy of solution. For he was a philosophical man, and when he could not understand a matter he was able to put it away in a safe place, to be kept until he got more information about it. The next morning, amidst the flamboyant accounts of the subterranean explosion, and of the heroic conduct of Madame Margarita da Cordova, the famous Primadonna, in checking a dangerous panic at the Opera, all the papers found room for a long paragraph about Miss Ida H. Bamberger, who had died at the theatre in consequence of the shock her nerves had received, and who was to have married the celebrated capitalist and philanthropist, Mr. Van Torp, only two days later. There were various dramatic and heart-rending accounts of her death, and most of them agreed that she had breathed her last amidst her nearest and dearest, who had been with her all the evening. But Mr. Griggs read these paragraphs thoughtfully, for he remembered that he had found her lying in a heap behind a red baize door which his memory could easily identify. After all, the least misleading notice was the one in the column of deaths:-- BAMBERGER.--On Wednesday, of heart-failure from shock, IDA HAMILTON, only child of HANNAH MOON by her former marriage with ISIDORE BAMBERGER. California papers please copy. CHAPTER II In the lives of professionals, whatever their profession may be, the ordinary work of the day makes very little impression on the memory, whereas a very strong and lasting one is often made by circumstances which a man of leisure or a woman of the world might barely notice, and would soon forget. In Margaret's life there were but two sorts of days, those on which she was to sing and those on which she was at liberty. In the one case she had a cutlet at five o'clock, and supper when she came home; in the other, she dined like other people and went to bed early. At the end of a season in New York, the evenings on which she had sung all seemed to have been exactly alike; the people had always applauded at the same places, she had always been called out about the same number of times, she had always felt very much the same pleasure and satisfaction, and she had invariably eaten her supper with the same appetite. Actors lead far more emotional lives than singers, partly because they have the excitement of a new piece much more often, with the tremendous nervous strain of a first night, and largely because they are not obliged to keep themselves in such perfect training. To an actor a cold, an indigestion, or a headache is doubtless an annoyance; but to a leading singer such an accident almost always means the impossibility of appearing at all, with serious loss of money to the artist, and grave disappointment to the public. The result of all this is that singers, as a rule, are much more normal, healthy, and well-balanced people than other musicians, or than actors. Moreover they generally have very strong bodies and constitutions to begin with, and when they have not they break down young. Paul Griggs had an old traveller's preference for having plenty of time, and he was on board the steamer on Saturday a full hour before she was to sail; his not very numerous belongings, which looked as weather-beaten as himself, were piled up unopened in his cabin, and he himself stood on the upper promenade deck watching the passengers as they came on board. He was an observant man, and it interested him to note the expression of each new face that appeared; for the fact of starting on a voyage across the ocean is apt to affect people inversely as their experience. Those who cross often look so unconcerned that a casual observer might think they were not to start at all, whereas those who are going for the first time are either visibly flurried, or are posing to look as if they were not, though they are intensely nervous about their belongings; or they try to appear as if they belonged to the ship, or else as if the ship belonged to them, making observations which are supposed to be nautical, but which instantly stamp them as unutterable land-lubbers in the shrewd estimation of the stewards; and the latter, as every old hand is aware, always know everything much better than the captain. Margaret Donne had been the most sensible and simple of young girls, and when she appeared at the gangway very quietly dressed in brown, with a brown fur collar, a brown hat, a brown veil, and a brown parasol, there was really nothing striking to distinguish her from other female passengers, except her good looks and her well-set-up figure. Yet somehow it seems impossible for a successful primadonna ever to escape notice. Instead of one maid, for instance, Cordova had two, and they carried rather worn leathern boxes that were evidently heavy jewel-cases, which they clutched with both hands and refused to give up to the stewards. They also had about them the indescribable air of rather aggressive assurance which belongs especially to highly-paid servants, men and women. Their looks said to every one: 'We are the show and you are the public, so don't stand in the way, for if you do the performance cannot go on!' They gave their orders about their mistress's things to the chief steward as if he were nothing better than a railway porter or a call-boy at the theatre; and, strange to say, that exalted capitalist obeyed with a docility he would certainly not have shown to any other passenger less than royal. They knew their way everywhere, they knew exactly what the best of everything was, and they made it clear that the great singer would have nothing less than the very, very best. She had the best cabin already, and she was to have the best seat at table, the best steward and the best stewardess, and her deck-chair was to be always in the best place on the upper promenade deck; and there was to be no mistake about it; and if anybody questioned the right of Margarita da Cordova, the great lyric soprano, to absolute precedence during the whole voyage, from start to finish, her two maids would know the reason why, and make the captain and all the ship's company wish they were dead. That was their attitude. But this was not all. There were the colleagues who came to see Margaret off and wished that they were going too. In spite of the windy weather there was Signor Pompeo Stromboli, the tenor, as broad as any two ordinary men, in a fur coat of the most terribly expensive sort, bringing an enormous box of chocolates with his best wishes; and there was the great German dramatic barytone, Herr Tiefenbach, who sang 'Amfortas' better than any one, and was a true musician as well as a man of culture, and he brought Margaret a book which he insisted that she must read on the voyage, called _The Genesis of the Tone Epos_; and there was that excellent and useful little artist, Fräulein Ottilie Braun, who never had an enemy in her life, who was always ready to sing any part creditably at a moment's notice if one of the leading artists broke down, and who was altogether one of the best, kindest, and least conceited human beings that ever joined an opera company. She brought her great colleague a little bunch of violets. Least expected of them all, there was Schreiermeyer, with a basket of grape fruit in his tightly-gloved podgy hands; and he was smiling cheerfully, which was an event in itself. They followed Margaret up to the promenade deck after her maids had gone below, and stood round her in a group, all talking at once in different languages. Griggs chanced to be the only other passenger on that part of the deck and he joined the party, for he knew them all. Margaret gave him her hand quietly and nodded to him. Signor Stromboli was effusive in his greeting; Herr Tiefenbach gave him a solemn grip; little Fräulein Ottilie smiled pleasantly, and Schreiermeyer put into his hands the basket he carried, judging that as he could not get anything else out of the literary man he could at least make him carry a parcel. 'Grape fruit for Cordova,' he observed. 'You can give it to the steward, and tell him to keep the things in a cool place.' Griggs took the basket with a slight smile, but Stromboli snatched it from him instantly, and managed at the same time to seize upon the book Herr Tiefenbach had brought without dropping his own big box of sweetmeats. 'I shall give everything to the waiter!' he cried with exuberant energy as he turned away. 'He shall take care of Cordova with his conscience! I tell you, I will frighten him!' This was possible, and even probable. Margaret looked after the broad figure. 'Dear old Stromboli!' she laughed. 'He has the kindest heart in the world,' said little Fräulein Ottilie Braun. 'He is no a musician,' observed Herr Tiefenbach; 'but he does not sing out of tune.' 'He is a lunatic,' said Schreiermeyer gravely. 'All tenors are lunatics--except about money,' he added thoughtfully. 'I think Stromboli is very sensible,' said Margaret, turning to Griggs. 'He brings his little Calabrian wife and her baby out with him, and they take a small house for the winter and Italian servants, and live just as if they were in their own country and see only their Italian friends--instead of being utterly wretched in a horrible hotel.' 'For the modest consideration of a hundred dollars a day,' put in Griggs, who was a poor man. 'I wish my bills were never more than that!' Margaret laughed. 'Yes,' said Schreiermeyer, still thoughtful. 'Stromboli understands money. He is a man of business. He makes his wife cook for him.' 'I often cook for myself,' said Fräulein Ottilie quite simply. 'If I had a husband, I would cook for him too!' She laughed like a child, without the slightest sourness. 'It is easier to cook well than to marry at all, even badly!' 'I do not at all agree with you,' answered Herr Tiefenbach severely. 'Without flattering myself, I may say that my wife married well; but her potato dumplings are terrifying.' 'You were never married, were you?' Margaret asked, turning to Griggs with a smile. 'No,' he answered. 'Can you make potato dumplings, and are you in search of a husband?' 'It is the other way,' said Schreiermeyer, 'for the husbands are always after her. Talking of marriage, that girl who died the other night was to have been married to Mr. Van Torp yesterday, and they were to have sailed with you this morning.' 'I saw his name on the--' Schreiermeyer began, but he was interrupted by a tremendous blast from the ship's horn, the first warning for non-passengers to go ashore. Before the noise stopped Stromboli appeared again, looking very much pleased with himself, and twisting up the short black moustache that was quite lost on his big face. When he was nearer he desisted from twirling, shook a fat forefinger at Margaret and laughed. 'Oh, well, then,' he cried, translating his Italian literally into English, 'I've been in your room, Miss Cordova! Who is this Tom, eh? Flowers from Tom, one! Sweets from Tom, two! A telegram from Tom, three! Tom, Tom, Tom; it is full of Tom, her room! In the end, what is this Tom? For me, I only know Tom the ruffian in the _Ballo in Maschera_. That is all the Tom I know!' They all looked at Margaret and laughed. She blushed a little, more out of annoyance than from any other reason. 'The maids wished to put me out,' laughed Stromboli, 'but they could not, because I am big. So I read everything. If I tell you I read, what harm is there?' 'None whatever,' Margaret answered, 'except that it is bad manners to open other people's telegrams.' 'Oh, that! The maid had opened it with water, and was reading when I came. So I read too! You shall find it all well sealed again, have no fear! They all do so.' 'Pleasant journey,' said Schreiermeyer abruptly. 'I'm going ashore. I'll see you in Paris in three weeks.' 'Read the book,' said Herr Tiefenbach earnestly, as he shook hands. 'It is a deep book.' 'Do not forget me!' cried Stromboli sentimentally, and he kissed Margaret's gloves several times. 'Good-bye,' said Fräulein Ottilie. 'Every one is sorry when you go!' Margaret was not a gushing person, but she stooped and kissed the cheerful little woman, and pressed her small hand affectionately. 'And everybody is glad when you come, my dear,' she said. For Fräulein Ottilie was perhaps the only person in the company whom Cordova really liked, and who did not jar dreadfully on her at one time or another. Another blast from the horn and they were all gone, leaving her and Griggs standing by the rail on the upper promenade deck. The little party gathered again on the pier when they had crossed the plank, and made farewell signals to the two, and then disappeared. Unconsciously Margaret gave a little sigh of relief, and Griggs noticed it, as he noticed most things, but said nothing. There was silence for a while, and the gangplank was still in place when the horn blew a third time, longer than before. 'How very odd!' exclaimed Griggs, a moment after the sound had ceased. 'What is odd?' Margaret asked. She saw that he was looking down, and her eyes followed his. A square-shouldered man in mourning was walking up the plank in a leisurely way, followed by a well-dressed English valet, who carried a despatch-box in a leathern case. 'It's not possible!' Margaret whispered in great surprise. 'Perfectly possible,' Griggs answered, in a low voice. 'That is Rufus Van Torp.' Margaret drew back from the rail, though the new comer was already out of sight on the lower promenade deck, to which the plank was laid to suit the height of the tide. She moved away from the door of the first cabin companion. Griggs went with her, supposing that she wished to walk up and down. Numbers of other passengers were strolling about on the side next to the pier, waiting to see the start. Margaret went on forward, turned the deck-house and walked to the rail on the opposite side, where there was no one. Griggs glanced at her face and thought that she seemed disturbed. She looked straight before her at the closed iron doors of the next pier, at which no ship was lying. 'I wish I knew you better,' she said suddenly. Griggs looked at her quietly. It did not occur to him to make a trivial and complimentary answer to this advance, such as most men of the world would have made, even at his age. 'I shall be very glad if we ever know each other better,' he said after a short pause. 'So shall I.' She leaned upon the rail and looked down at the eddying water. The tide had turned and was beginning to go out. Griggs watched her handsome profile in silence for a time. 'You have not many intimate friends, have you?' she asked presently. 'No, only one or two.' She smiled. 'I'm not trying to get confidences from you. But really, that is very vague. You must surely know whether you have only one, or whether there is another. I'm not suggesting myself as a third, either!' 'Perhaps I'm over-cautious,' Griggs said. 'It does not matter. You began by saying that you wished you knew me better. You meant that if you did, you would either tell me something which you don't tell everybody, or you would come to me for advice about something, or you would ask me to do something for you. Is that it?' 'I suppose so.' 'It was not very hard to guess. I'll answer the three cases. If you want to tell me a secret, don't. If you want advice without telling everything about the case, it will be worthless. But if there is anything I can do for you, I'll do it if I can, and I won't ask any questions.' 'That's kind and sensible,' Margaret answered. 'And I should not be in the least afraid to tell you anything. You would not repeat it.' 'No, certainly not. But some day, unless we became real friends, you would think that I might, and then you would be very sorry.' A short pause followed. 'We are moving,' Margaret said, glancing at the iron doors again. 'Yes, we are off.' There was another pause. Then Margaret stood upright and turned her face to her companion. She did not remember that she had ever looked steadily into his eyes since she had known him. They were grey and rather deeply set under grizzled eyebrows that were growing thick and rough with advancing years, and they met hers quietly. She knew at once that she could bear their scrutiny for any length of time without blushing or feeling nervous, though there was something in them that was stronger than she. 'It's this,' she said at last, as if she had been talking and had reached a conclusion. 'I'm alone, and I'm a little frightened.' 'You?' Griggs smiled rather incredulously. 'Yes. Of course I'm used to travelling without any one and taking care of myself. Singers and actresses are just like men in that, and it did not occur to me this morning that this trip could be different from any other.' 'No. Why should it be so different? I don't understand.' 'You said you would do something for me without asking questions. Will you?' 'If I can.' 'Keep Mr. Van Torp away from me during the voyage. I mean, as much as you can without being openly rude. Have my chair put next to some other woman's and your own on my other side. Do you mind doing that?' Griggs smiled. 'No,' he said, 'I don't mind.' 'And if I am walking on deck and he joins me, come and walk beside me too. Will you? Are you quite sure you don't mind?' 'Yes.' He was still smiling. 'I'm quite certain that I don't dislike the idea.' 'I wish I were sure of being seasick,' Margaret said thoughtfully. 'It's bad for the voice, but it would be a great resource.' 'As a resource, I shall try to be a good substitute for it,' said Griggs. Margaret realised what she had said and laughed. 'But it is no laughing matter,' she answered, her face growing grave again after a moment. Griggs had promised not to ask questions, and he expressed no curiosity. 'As soon as you go below I'll see about the chair,' he said. 'My cabin is on this deck,' Margaret answered. 'I believe I have a tiny little sitting-room, too. It's what they call a suite in their magnificent language, and the photographs in the advertisements make it look like a palatial apartment!' She left the rail as she spoke, and found her own door on the same side of the ship, not very far away. 'Here it is,' she said. 'Thank you very much.' She looked into his eyes again for an instant and went in. She had forgotten Signor Stromboli and what he had said, for her thoughts had been busy with a graver matter, but she smiled when she saw the big bunch of dark red carnations in a water-jug on the table, and the little cylinder-shaped parcel which certainly contained a dozen little boxes of the chocolate 'oublies' she liked, and the telegram, with its impersonal-looking address, waiting to be opened by her after having been opened, read, and sealed again by her thoughtful maids. Such trifles as the latter circumstance did not disturb her in the least, for though she was only a young woman of four and twenty, a singer and a musician, she had a philosophical mind, and considered that if virtue has nothing to do with the greatness of princes, moral worth need not be a clever lady's-maid's strong point. 'Tom' was her old friend Edmund Lushington, one of the most distinguished of the younger writers of the day. He was the only son of the celebrated soprano, Madame Bonanni, now retired from the stage, by her marriage with an English gentleman of the name of Goodyear, and he had been christened Thomas. But his mother had got his name and surname legally changed when he was a child, thinking that it would be a disadvantage to him to be known as her son, as indeed it might have been at first; even now the world did not know the truth about his birth, but it would not have cared, since he had won his own way. Margaret meant to marry him if she married at all, for he had been faithful in his devotion to her nearly three years; and his rivalry with Constantine Logotheti, her other serious adorer, had brought some complications into her life. But on mature reflection she was sure that she did not wish to marry any one for the present. So many of her fellow-singers had married young and married often, evidently following the advice of a great American humorist, and mostly with disastrous consequences, that Margaret preferred to be an exception, and to marry late if at all. In the glaring light of the twentieth century it at last clearly appears that marriageable young women have always looked upon marriage as the chief means of escape from the abject slavery and humiliating dependence hitherto imposed upon virgins between fifteen and fifty years old. Shakespeare lacked the courage to write the 'Seven Ages of Woman,' a matter the more to be regretted as no other writer has ever possessed enough command of the English language to describe more than three out of the seven without giving offence: namely, youth, which lasts from sixteen to twenty; perfection, which begins at twenty and lasts till further notice; and old age, which women generally place beyond seventy, though some, whose strength is not all sorrow and weakness even then, do not reach it till much later. If Shakespeare had dared he would have described with poetic fire the age of the girl who never marries. But this is a digression. The point is that the truth about marriage is out, since the modern spinster has shown the sisterhood how to live, and an amazing number of women look upon wedlock as a foolish thing, vainly imagined, never necessary, and rarely amusing. The state of perpetual unsanctified virginity, however, is not for poor girls, nor for operatic singers, nor for kings' daughters, none of whom, for various reasons, can live, or are allowed to live, without husbands. Unless she be a hunchback, an unmarried royal princess is almost as great an exception as a white raven or a cat without a tail; a primadonna without a husband alive, dead, or divorced, is hardly more common; and poor girls marry to live. But give a modern young woman a decent social position, with enough money for her wants and an average dose of assurance, and she becomes so fastidious in the choice of a mate that no man is good enough for her till she is too old to be good enough for any man. Even then the chances are that she will not deeply regret her lost opportunities, and though her married friends will tell her that she has made a mistake, half of them will envy her in secret, the other half will not pity her much, and all will ask her to their dinner-parties, because a woman without a husband is such a convenience. In respect to her art Margarita da Cordova was in all ways a thorough artist, endowed with the gifts, animated by the feelings, and afflicted with the failings that usually make up an artistic nature. But Margaret Donne was a sound and healthy English girl who had been brought up in the right way by a very refined and cultivated father and mother who loved her devotedly. If they had lived she would not have gone upon the stage; for as her mother's friend Mrs. Rushmore had often told her, the mere thought of such a life for their daughter would have broken their hearts. She was a grown woman now, and high on the wave of increasing success and celebrity, but she still had a childish misgiving that she had disobeyed her parents and done something very wrong, just as when she had surreptitiously got into the jam cupboard at the age of five. Yet there are old-fashioned people alive even now who might think that there was less harm in becoming a public singer than in keeping Edmund Lushington dangling on a string for two years and more. Those things are matters of opinion. Margaret would have answered that if he dangled it was his misfortune and not her fault, since she never, in her own opinion, had done anything to keep him, and would not have been broken-hearted if he had gone away, though she would have missed his friendship very much. Of the two, the man who had disturbed her maiden peace of mind was Logotheti, whom she feared and sometimes hated, but who had an inexplicable power over her when they met: the sort of fateful influence which honest Britons commonly ascribe to all foreigners with black hair, good teeth, diamond studs, and the other outward signs of wickedness. Twice, at least, Logotheti had behaved in a manner positively alarming, and on the second occasion he had very nearly succeeded in carrying her off bodily from the theatre to his yacht, a fate from which Lushington and his mother had been instrumental in saving her. Such doings were shockingly lawless, but they showed a degree of recklessly passionate admiration which was flattering from a young financier who was so popular with women that he found it infinitely easier to please than to be pleased. Perhaps, if Logotheti could have put on a little Anglo-Saxon coolness, Margaret might have married him by this time. Perhaps she would have married Lushington, if he could have suddenly been animated by a little Greek fire. As things stood, she told herself that she did not care to take a man who meant to be not only her master but her tyrant, nor one who seemed more inclined to be her slave than her master. Meanwhile, however, it was the Englishman who kept himself constantly in mind with her by an unbroken chain of small attentions that often made her smile but sometimes really touched her. Any one could cable 'Pleasant voyage,' and sign the telegram 'Tom,' which gave it a friendly and encouraging look, because somehow 'Tom' is a cheerful, plucky little name, very unlike 'Edmund.' But it was quite another matter, being in England, to take the trouble to have carnations of just the right shade fresh on her cabin table at the moment of her sailing from New York, and beside them the only sort of chocolates she liked. That was more than a message, it was a visit, a presence, a real reaching out of hand to hand. Logotheti, on the contrary, behaved as if he had forgotten Margaret's existence as soon as he was out of her sight; and they now no longer met often, but when they did he had a way of taking up the thread as if there had been no interval, which was almost as effective as his rival's method; for it produced the impression that he had been thinking of her only, and of nothing else in the world since the last meeting, and could never again give a thought to any other woman. This also was flattering. He never wrote to her, he never telegraphed good wishes for a journey or a performance, he never sent her so much as a flower; he acted as if he were really trying to forget her, as perhaps he was. But when they met, he was no sooner in the same room with her than she felt the old disturbing influence she feared and yet somehow desired in spite of herself, and much as she preferred the companionship of Lushington and liked his loyal straightforward ways, and admired his great talent, she felt that he paled and seemed less interesting beside the vivid personality of the Greek financier. He was vivid; no other word expresses what he was, and if that one cannot properly be applied to a man, so much the worse for our language. His colouring was too handsome, his clothes were too good, his shoes were too shiny, his ties too surprising, and he not only wore diamonds and rubies, but very valuable ones. Yet he was not vulgarly gorgeous; he was Oriental. No one would say that a Chinese idol covered with gold and precious stones was overdressed, but it would be out of place in a Scotch kirk; the minister would be thrown into the shade and the congregation would look at the idol. In society, which nowadays is far from a chiaroscuro, everybody looked at Logotheti. If he had come from any place nearer than Constantinople people would have smiled and perhaps laughed at him; as it was, he was an exotic, and besides, he had the reputation of being dangerous to women's peace, and extremely awkward to meddle with in a quarrel. Margaret sat some time in her little sitting-room reflecting on these things, for she knew that before many days were past she must meet her two adorers; and when she had thought enough about both, she gave orders to her maids about arranging her belongings. By and by she went to luncheon and found herself alone at some distance from the other passengers, next to the captain's empty seat; but she was rather glad that her neighbours had not come to table, for she got what she wanted very quickly and had no reason for waiting after she had finished. Then she took a book and went on deck again, and Alphonsine found her chair on the sunny side and installed her in it very comfortably and covered her up, and to her own surprise she felt that she was very sleepy; so that just as she was wondering why, she dozed off and began to dream that she was Isolde, on board of Tristan's ship, and that she was singing the part, though she had never sung it and probably never would. When she opened her eyes again there was no land in sight, and the big steamer was going quietly with scarcely any roll. She looked aft and saw Paul Griggs leaning against the rail, smoking; and she turned her head the other way, and the chair next to her own on that side was occupied by a very pleasant-looking young woman who was sitting up straight and showing the pictures in a book to a beautiful little girl who stood beside her. The lady had a very quiet healthy face and smooth brown hair, and was simply and sensibly dressed. Margaret at once decided that she was not the child's mother, nor an elder sister, but some one who had charge of her, though not exactly a governess. The child was about nine years old; she had a quantity of golden hair that waved naturally, and a spiritual face with deep violet eyes, a broad white forehead and a pathetic little mouth. She examined each picture, and then looked up quickly at the lady, keeping her wide eyes fixed on the latter's face with an expression of watchful interest. The lady explained each picture to her, but in such a soft whisper that Margaret could not hear a sound. Yet the child evidently understood every word easily. It was natural to suppose that the lady spoke under her breath in order not to disturb Margaret while she was asleep. 'It is very kind of you to whisper,' said the Primadonna graciously, 'but I am awake now.' The lady turned with a pleasant smile. 'Thank you,' she answered. The child did not notice Margaret's little speech, but looked up from the book for the explanation of the next picture. 'It is the inside of the Colosseum in Rome, and you will see it before long,' said the lady very distinctly. 'I have told you how the gladiators fought there, and how Saint Ignatius was sent all the way from Antioch to be devoured by lions there, like many other martyrs.' The little girl watched her face intently, nodded gravely, and looked down at the picture again, but said nothing. The lady turned to Margaret. 'She was born deaf and dumb,' she said quietly, 'but I have taught her to understand from the lips, and she can already speak quite well. She is very clever.' 'Poor little thing!' Margaret looked at the girl with increasing interest. 'Such a little beauty, too! What is her name?' 'Ida--' The child had turned over the pages to another picture, and now looked up for the explanation of it. Griggs had finished his cigar and came and sat down on Margaret's other side. CHAPTER III The _Leofric_ was three days out, and therefore half-way over the ocean, for she was a fast boat, but so far Griggs had not been called upon to hinder Mr. Van Torp from annoying Margaret. Mr. Van Torp had not been on deck; in fact, he had not been seen at all since he had disappeared into his cabin a quarter of an hour before the steamer had left the pier. There was a good deal of curiosity about him amongst the passengers, as there would have been about the famous Primadonna if she had not come punctually to every meal, and if she had not been equally regular in spending a certain number of hours on deck every day. At first every one was anxious to have what people call a 'good look' at her, because all the usual legends were already repeated about her wherever she went. It was said that she was really an ugly woman of thirty-five who had been married to a Spanish count of twice that age, and that he had died leaving her penniless, so that she had been obliged to support herself by singing. Others were equally sure that she was a beautiful escaped nun, who had been forced to take the veil in a convent in Seville by cruel parents, but who had succeeded in getting herself carried off by a Polish nobleman disguised as a priest. Every one remembered the marvellous voice that used to sing so high above all the other nuns, behind the lattice on Sunday afternoons at the church of the Dominican Convent. That had been the voice of Margarita da Cordova, and she could never go back to Spain, for if she did the Inquisition would seize upon her, and she would be tortured and probably burnt alive to encourage the other nuns. This was very romantic, but unfortunately there was a man who said he knew the plain truth about her, and that she was just a good-looking Irish girl whose father used to play the flute at a theatre in Dublin, and whose mother kept a sweetshop in Queen Street. The man who knew this had often seen the shop, which was conclusive. Margaret showed herself daily and the myths lost value, for every one saw that she was neither an escaped Spanish nun nor the gifted offspring of a Dublin flute-player and a female retailer of bull's-eyes and butterscotch, but just a handsome, healthy, well-brought-up young Englishwoman, who called herself Miss Donne in private life. But gossip, finding no hold upon her, turned and rent Mr. Van Torp, who dwelt within his tent like Achilles, but whether brooding or sea-sick no one was ever to know. The difference of opinion about him was amazing. Some said he had no heart, since he had not even waited for the funeral of the poor girl who was to have been his wife. Others, on the contrary, said that he was broken-hearted, and that his doctor had insisted upon his going abroad at once, doubtless considering, as the best practitioners often do, that it is wisest to send a patient who is in a dangerous condition to distant shores, where some other doctor will get the credit of having killed him or driven him mad. Some said that Mr. Van Torp was concerned in the affair of that Chinese loan, which of course explained why he was forced to go to Europe in spite of the dreadful misfortune that had happened to him. The man who knew everything hinted darkly that Mr. Van Torp was not really solvent, and that he had perhaps left the country just at the right moment. 'That is nonsense,' said Miss More to Margaret in an undertone, for they had both heard what had just been said. Miss More was the lady in charge of the pretty deaf child, and the latter was curled up in the next chair with a little piece of crochet work. Margaret had soon found out that Miss More was a very nice woman, after her own taste, who was given neither to flattery nor to prying, the two faults from which celebrities are generally made to suffer most by fellow-travellers who make their acquaintance. Miss More was evidently delighted to find herself placed on deck next to the famous singer, and Margaret was so well satisfied that the deck steward had already received a preliminary tip, with instructions to keep the chairs together during the voyage. 'Yes,' said Margaret, in answer to Miss More's remark. 'I don't believe there is the least reason for thinking that Mr. Van Torp is not immensely rich. Do you know him?' 'Yes.' Miss More did not seem inclined to enlarge upon the fact, and her face was thoughtful after she had said the one word; so was Margaret's tone when she answered: 'So do I.' Each of the young women understood that the other did not care to talk of Mr. Van Torp. Margaret glanced sideways at her neighbour and wondered vaguely whether the latter's experience had been at all like her own, but she could not see anything to make her think so. Miss More had a singularly pleasant expression and a face that made one trust her at once, but she was far from beautiful, and would hardly pass for pretty beside such a good-looking woman as Margaret, who after all was not what people call an out-and-out beauty. It was odd that the quiet lady-like teacher should have answered monosyllabically in that tone. She felt Margaret's sidelong look of inquiry, and turned half round after glancing at little Ida, who was very busy with her crochet. 'I'm afraid you may have misunderstood me,' she said, smiling. 'If I did not say any more it is because he himself does not wish people to talk of what he does.' 'I assure you, I'm not curious,' Margaret answered, smiling too. 'I'm sorry if I looked as if I were.' 'No--you misunderstood me, and it was a little my fault. Mr. Van Torp is doing something very, very kind which it was impossible that I should not know of, and he has asked me not to tell any one.' 'I see,' Margaret answered. 'Thank you for telling me. I am glad to know that he--' She checked herself. She detested and feared the man, for reasons of her own, and she found it hard to believe that he could do something 'very, very kind' and yet not wish it to be known. He did not strike her as being the kind of person who would go out of his way to hide his light under a bushel. Yet Miss More's tone had been quiet and earnest. Perhaps he had employed her to teach some poor deaf and dumb child, like little Ida. Her words seemed to imply this, for she had said that it had been impossible that she should not know; that is, he had been forced to ask her advice or help, and her help and advice could only be considered indispensable where her profession as a teacher of the deaf and dumb was concerned. Miss More was too discreet to ask the question which Margaret's unfinished sentence suggested, but she would not let the speech pass quite unanswered. 'He is often misjudged,' she said. 'In business he may be what many people say he is. I don't understand business! But I have known him to help people who needed help badly and who never guessed that he even knew their names.' 'You must be right,' Margaret answered. She remembered the last words of the girl who had died in the manager's room at the theatre. There had been a secret. The secret was that Mr. Van Torp had done the thing, whatever it was. She had probably not known what she was saying, but it had been on her mind to say that Mr. Van Torp had done it, the man she was to have married. Margaret's first impression had been that the thing done must have been something very bad, because she herself disliked the man so much; but Miss More knew him, and since he often did 'very, very kind things,' it was possible that the particular action of which the dying girl was thinking might have been a charitable one; possibly he had confided the secret to her. Margaret smiled rather cruelly at her own superior knowledge of the world--yes, he had told the girl about that 'secret' charity in order to make a good impression on her! Perhaps that was his favourite method of interesting women; if it was, he had not invented it. Margaret thought she could have told Miss More something which would have thrown another light on Mr. Van Torp's character. Her reflections had led her back to the painful scene at the theatre, and she remembered the account of it the next day, and the fact that the girl's name had been Ida. To change the subject she asked her neighbour an idle question. 'What is the little girl's full name?' she inquired. 'Ida Moon,' answered Miss More. 'Moon?' Margaret turned her head sharply. 'May I ask if she is any relation of the California Senator who died last year?' 'She is his daughter,' said Miss More quietly. Margaret laid one hand on the arm of her chair and leaned forward a little, so as to see the child better. 'Really!' she exclaimed, rather deliberately, as if she had chosen that particular word out of a number that suggested themselves. 'Really!' she repeated, still more slowly, and then leaned back again and looked at the grey waves. She remembered the notice of Miss Bamberger's death. It had described the deceased as the only child of Hannah Moon by her former marriage with Isidore Bamberger. But Hannah Moon, as Margaret happened to know, was now the widow of Senator Alvah Moon. Therefore the little deaf child was the half-sister of the girl who had died at the theatre in Margaret's arms and had been christened by the same name. Therefore, also, she was related to Margaret, whose mother had been the California magnate's cousin. 'How small the world is!' Margaret said in a low voice as she looked at the grey waves. She wondered whether little Ida had ever heard of her half-sister, and what Miss More knew about it all. 'How old is Mrs. Moon?' she asked. 'I fancy she must be forty, or near that. I know that she was nearly thirty years younger than the Senator, but I never saw her.' 'You never saw her?' Margaret was surprised. 'No,' Miss More answered. 'She is insane, you know. She went quite mad soon after the little girl was born. It was very painful for the Senator. Her delusion was that he was her divorced husband, Mr. Bamberger, and when the child came into the world she insisted that it should be called Ida, and that she had no other. Mr. Bamberger's daughter was Ida, you know. It was very strange. Mrs. Moon was convinced that she was forced to live her life over again, year by year, as an expiation for something she had done. The doctors say it is a hopeless case. I really think it shortened the Senator's life.' Margaret did not think that the world had any cause to complain of Mrs. Moon on that account. 'So this child is quite alone in the world,' she said. 'Yes. Her father is dead and her mother is in an asylum.' 'Poor little thing!' The two young women were leaning back in their chairs, their faces turned towards each other as they talked, and Ida was still busy with her crochet. 'Luckily she has a sunny nature,' said Miss More. 'She is interested in everything she sees and hears.' She laughed a little. 'I always speak of it as hearing,' she added, 'for it is quite as quick, when there is light enough. You know that, since you have talked with her.' 'Yes. But in the dark, how do you make her understand?' 'She can generally read what I say by laying her hand on my lips; but besides that, we have the deaf and dumb alphabet, and she can feel my fingers as I make the letters.' 'You have been with her a long time, I suppose,' Margaret said. 'Since she was three years old.' 'California is a beautiful country, isn't it?' asked Margaret after a pause. She put the question idly, for she was thinking how hard it must be to teach deaf and dumb children. Miss More's answer surprised her. 'I have never been there.' 'But, surely, Senator Moon lived in San Francisco,' Margaret said. 'Yes. But the child was sent to New England when she was three, and never went back again. We have been living in the country near Boston.' 'And the Senator used to pay you a visit now and then, of course, when he was alive. He must have been immensely pleased by the success of your teaching.' Though Margaret felt that she was growing more curious about little Ida than she often was about any one, it did not occur to her that the question she now suggested, rather than asked, was an indiscreet one, and she was surprised by her companion's silence. She had already discovered that Miss More was one of those literally truthful people who never let an inaccurate statement pass their lips, and who will be obstinately silent rather than answer a leading question, quite regardless of the fact that silence is sometimes the most direct answer that can be given. On the present occasion Miss More said nothing and turned her eyes to the sea, leaving Margaret to make any deduction she pleased; but only one suggested itself, namely, that the deceased Senator had taken very little interest in the child of his old age, and had felt no affection for her. Margaret wondered whether he had left her rich, but Miss More's silence told her that she had already asked too many questions. She glanced down the long line of passengers beyond Miss More and Ida. Men, women, and children lay side by side in their chairs, wrapped and propped like a row of stuffed specimens in a museum. They were not interesting, Margaret thought; for those who were awake all looked discontented, and those who were asleep looked either ill or apoplectic. Perhaps half of them were crossing because they were obliged to go to Europe for one reason or another; the other half were going in an aimless way, because they had got into the habit while they were young, or had been told that it was the right thing to do, or because their doctors sent them abroad to get rid of them. The grey light from the waves was reflected on the immaculate and shiny white paint, and shed a cold glare on the commonplace faces and on the plaid rugs, and on the vivid magazines which many of the people were reading, or pretending to read; for most persons only look at the pictures nowadays, and read the advertisements. A steward in a very short jacket was serving perfectly unnecessary cups of weak broth on a big tray, and a great number of the passengers took some, with a vague idea that the Company's feelings might be hurt if they did not, or else that they would not be getting their money's worth. Between the railing and the feet of the passengers, which stuck out over the foot-rests of their chairs to different lengths according to the height of the possessors, certain energetic people walked ceaselessly up and down the deck, sometimes flattening themselves against the railing to let others who met them pass by, and sometimes, when the ship rolled a little, stumbling against an outstretched foot or two without making any elaborate apology for doing so. Margaret only glanced at the familiar sight, but she made a little movement of annoyance almost directly, and took up the book that lay open and face downwards on her knee; she became absorbed in it so suddenly as to convey the impression that she was not really reading at all. She had seen Mr. Van Torp and Paul Griggs walking together and coming towards her. The millionaire was shorter than his companion and more clumsily made, though not by any means a stout man. Though he did not look like a soldier he had about him the very combative air which belongs to so many modern financiers of the Christian breed. There was the bull-dog jaw, the iron mouth, and the aggressive blue eye of the man who takes and keeps by force rather than by astuteness. Though his face had lines in it and his complexion was far from brilliant he looked scarcely forty years of age, and his short, rough, sandy hair had not yet begun to turn grey. He was not ugly, but Margaret had always seen something in his face that repelled her. It was some lack of proportion somewhere, which she could not precisely define; it was something that was out of the common type of faces, but that was disquieting rather than interesting. Instead of wondering what it meant, those who noticed it wished it were not there. Margaret was sure she could distinguish his heavy step from Griggs's when he was near her, but she would not look up from her book till he stopped and spoke to her. 'Good-morning, Madame Cordova; how are you this morning?' he inquired, holding out his hand. 'You didn't expect to see me on board, did you?' His tone was hard and business-like, but he lifted his yachting cap politely as he held out his hand. Margaret hesitated a moment before taking it, and when she moved her own he was already holding his out to Miss More. 'Good-morning, Miss More; how are you this morning?' Miss More leaned forward and put down one foot as if she would have risen in the presence of the great man, but he pushed her back by her hand which he held, and proceeded to shake hands with the little girl. 'Good-morning, Miss Ida; how are you this morning?' Margaret felt sure that if he had shaken hands with a hundred people he would have repeated the same words to each without any variation. She looked at Griggs imploringly, and glanced at his vacant chair on her right side. He did not answer by sitting down, because the action would have been too like deliberately telling Mr. Van Torp to go away, but he began to fold up the chair as if he were going to take it away, and then he seemed to find that there was something wrong with one of its joints, and altogether it gave him a good deal of trouble, and made it quite impossible for the great man to get any nearer to Margaret. Little Ida had taken Mr. Van Torp's proffered hand, and had watched his hard lips when he spoke. She answered quite clearly and rather slowly, in the somewhat monotonous voice of those born deaf who have learned to speak. 'I'm very well, thank you, Mr. Van Torp. I hope you are quite well.' Margaret heard, and saw the child's face, and at once decided that, if the little girl knew of her own relationship to Ida Bamberger, she was certainly ignorant of the fact that her half-sister had been engaged to Mr. Van Torp, when she had died so suddenly less than a week ago. Little Ida's manner strengthened the impression in Margaret's mind that the millionaire was having her educated by Miss More. Yet it seemed impossible that the rich old Senator should not have left her well provided. 'I see you've made friends with Madame Cordova,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'I'm very glad, for she's quite an old friend of mine too.' Margaret made a slight movement, but said nothing. Miss More saw her annoyance and intervened by speaking to the financier. 'We began to fear that we might not see you at all on the voyage,' she said, in a tone of some concern. 'I hope you have not been suffering again.' Margaret wondered whether she meant to ask if he had been sea-sick; what she said sounded like an inquiry about some more or less frequent indisposition, though Mr. Van Torp looked as strong as a ploughman. In answer to the question he glanced sharply at Miss More, and shook his head. 'I've been too busy to come on deck,' he said, rather curtly, and he turned to Margaret again. 'Will you take a little walk with me, Madame Cordova?' he asked. Not having any valid excuse for refusing, Margaret smiled, for the first time since she had seen him on deck. 'I'm so comfortable!' she answered. 'Don't make me get out of my rug!' 'If you'll take a little walk with me, I'll give you a pretty present,' said Mr. Van Torp playfully. Margaret thought it best to laugh and shake her head at this singular offer. Little Ida had been watching them both. 'You'd better go with him,' said the child gravely. 'He makes lovely presents.' 'Does he?' Margaret laughed again. '"A fortress that parleys, or a woman who listens, is lost,'" put in Griggs, quoting an old French proverb. 'Then I won't listen,' Margaret said. Mr. Van Torp planted himself more firmly on his sturdy legs, for the ship was rolling a little. 'I'll give you a book, Madame Cordova,' he said. His habit of constantly repeating the name of the person with whom he was talking irritated her extremely. She was not smiling when she answered. 'Thank you. I have more books than I can possibly read.' 'Yes. But you have not the one I will give you, and it happens to be the only one you want.' 'But I don't want any book at all! I don't want to read!' 'Yes, you do, Madame Cordova. You want to read this one, and it's the only copy on board, and if you'll take a little walk with me I'll give it to you.' As he spoke he very slowly drew a new book from the depths of the wide pocket in his overcoat, but only far enough to show Margaret the first words of the title, and he kept his aggressive blue eyes fixed on her face. A faint blush came into her cheeks at once and he let the volume slip back. Griggs, being on his other side, had not seen it, and it meant nothing to Miss More. To the latter's surprise Margaret pushed her heavy rug from her knees and let her feet slip from the chair to the ground. Her eyes met Griggs's as she rose, and seeing that his look asked her whether he was to carry out her previous instructions and walk beside her, she shook her head. 'Nine times out of ten, proverbs are true,' he said in a tone of amusement. Mr. Van Torp's hard face expressed no triumph when Margaret stood beside him, ready to walk. She had yielded, as he had been sure she would; he turned from the other passengers to go round to the weather side of the ship, and she went with him submissively. Just at the point where the wind and the fine spray would have met them if they had gone on, he stopped in the lee of a big ventilator. There was no one in sight of them now. 'Excuse me for making you get up,' he said. 'I wanted to see you alone for a moment.' Margaret said nothing in answer to this apology, and she met his fixed eyes coldly. 'You were with Miss Bamberger when she died,' he said. Margaret bent her head gravely in assent. His face was as expressionless as a stone. 'I thought she might have mentioned me before she died,' he said slowly. 'Yes,' Margaret answered after a moment's pause; 'she did.' 'What did she say?' 'She told me that it was a secret, but that I was to tell you what she said, if I thought it best.' 'Are you going to tell me?' It was impossible to guess whether he was controlling any emotion or not; but if the men with whom he had done business where large sums were involved had seen him now and had heard his voice, they would have recognised the tone and the expression. 'She said, "he did it,"' Margaret answered slowly, after a moment's thought. 'Was that all she said?' 'That was all. A moment later she was dead. Before she said it, she told me it was a secret, and she made me promise solemnly never to tell any one but you.' 'It's not much of a secret, is it?' As he spoke, Mr. Van Torp turned his eyes from Margaret's at last and looked at the grey sea beyond the ventilator. 'Such as it is, I have told it to you because she wished me to,' answered Margaret. 'But I shall never tell any one else. It will be all the easier to be silent, as I have not the least idea what she meant.' 'She meant our engagement,' said Mr. Van Torp in a matter-of-fact tone. 'We had broken it off that afternoon. She meant that it was I who did it, and so it was. Perhaps she did not like to think that when she was dead people might call her heartless and say she had thrown me over; and no one would ever know the truth except me, unless I chose to tell--me and her father.' 'Then you were not to be married after all!' Margaret showed her surprise. 'No. I had broken it off. We were going to let it be known the next day.' 'On the very eve of the wedding!' 'Yes.' Mr. Van Torp fixed his eyes on Margaret's again. 'On the very eve of the wedding,' he said, repeating her words. He spoke very slowly and without emphasis, but with the greatest possible distinctness. Margaret had once been taken to see a motor-car manufactory and she remembered a machine that clipped bits off the end of an iron bar, inch by inch, smoothly and deliberately. Mr. Van Torp's lips made her think of that; they seemed to cut the hard words one by one, in lengths. 'Poor girl!' she sighed, and looked away. The man's face did not change, and if his next words echoed the sympathy she expressed his tone did not. 'I was a good deal cut up myself,' he observed coolly. 'Here's your book, Madame Cordova.' 'No,' Margaret answered with a little burst of indignation, 'I don't want it. I won't take it from you!' 'What's the matter now?' asked Mr. Van Torp without the least change of manner. 'It's your friend Mr. Lushington's latest, you know, and it won't be out for ten days. I thought you would like to see it, so I got an advance copy before it was published.' He held the volume out to her, but she would not even look at it, nor answer him. 'How you hate me! Don't you, Madame Cordova?' Margaret still said nothing. She was considering how she could best get rid of him. If she simply brushed past him and went back to her chair on the lee side, he would follow her and go on talking to her as if nothing had happened; and she knew that in that case she would lose control of herself before Griggs and Miss More. 'Oh, well,' he went on, 'if you don't want the book, I don't. I can't read novels myself, and I daresay it's trash anyhow.' Thereupon, with a quick movement of his arm and hand, he sent Mr. Lushington's latest novel flying over the lee rail, fully thirty feet away, and it dropped out of sight into the grey waves. He had been a good baseball pitcher in his youth. Margaret bit her lip and her eyes flashed. 'You are quite the most disgustingly brutal person I ever met,' she said, no longer able to keep down her anger. 'No,' he answered calmly. 'I'm not brutal; I'm only logical. I took a great deal of trouble to get that book for you because I thought it would give you pleasure, and it wasn't a particularly legal transaction by which I got it either. Since you didn't want it, I wasn't going to let anybody else have the satisfaction of reading it before it was published, so I just threw it away because it is safer in the sea than knocking about in my cabin. If you hadn't seen me throw it overboard you would never have believed that I had. You're not much given to believing me, anyway. I've noticed that. Are you, now?' 'Oh, it was not the book!' Margaret turned from him and made a step forward so that she faced the sharp wind. It cut her face and she felt that the little pain was a relief. He came and stood beside her with his hands deep in the pockets of his overcoat. 'If you think I'm a brute on account of what I told you about Miss Bamberger,' he said, 'that's not quite fair. I broke off our engagement because I found out that we were going to make each other miserable and we should have had to divorce in six months; and if half the people who are just going to get married would do the same thing there would be a lot more happy women in the world, not to say men! That's all, and she knew it, poor girl, and was just as glad as I was when the thing was done. Now what is there so brutal in that, Madame Cordova?' Margaret turned on him almost fiercely. 'Why do you tell me all this?' she asked. 'For heaven's sake let poor Miss Bamberger rest in her grave!' 'Since you ask me why,' answered Mr. Van Torp, unmoved, 'I tell you all this because I want you to know more about me than you do. If you did, you'd hate me less. That's the plain truth. You know very well that there's nobody like you, and that if I'd judged I had the slightest chance of getting you I would no more have thought of marrying Miss Bamberger than of throwing a million dollars into the sea after that book, or ten million, and that's a great deal of money.' 'I ought to be flattered,' said Margaret with scorn, still facing the wind. 'No. I'm not given to flattery, and money means something real to me, because I've fought for it, and got it. Your regular young lover will always call you his precious treasure, and I don't see much difference between a precious treasure and several million dollars. I'm logical, you see. I tell you I'm logical, that's all.' 'I daresay. I think we have been talking here long enough. Shall we go back?' She had got her anger under again. She detested Mr. Van Torp, but she was honest enough to realise that for the present she had resented his saying that Lushington's book was probably trash, much more than what he had told her of his broken engagement. She turned and came back to the ventilator, meaning to go around to her chair, but he stopped her. 'Don't go yet, please!' he said, keeping beside her. 'Call me a disgusting brute if you like. I sha'n't mind it, and I daresay it's true in a kind of way. Business isn't very refining, you know, and it was the only education I got after I was sixteen. I'm sorry I called that book rubbish, for I'm sure it's not. I've met Mr. Lushington in England several times; he's very clever, and he's got a first-rate position. But you see I didn't like your refusing the book, after I'd taken so much trouble to get it for you. Perhaps if I hadn't thrown it overboard you'd take it, now that I've apologised. Would you?' His tone had changed at last, as she had known it to change before in the course of an acquaintance that had lasted more than a year. He put the question almost humbly. 'I don't know,' Margaret answered, relenting a little in spite of herself. 'At all events I'm sorry I was so rude. I lost my temper.' 'It was very natural,' said Mr. Van Torp meekly, but not looking at her, 'and I know I deserved it. You really would let me give you the book now, if it were possible, wouldn't you?' 'Perhaps.' She thought that as there was no such possibility it was safe to say as much as that. 'I should feel so much better if you would,' he answered. 'I should feel as if you'd accepted my apology. Won't you say it, Madame Cordova?' 'Well--yes--since you wish it so much,' Margaret replied, feeling that she risked nothing. 'Here it is, then,' he said, to her amazement, producing the new novel from the pocket of his overcoat, and enjoying her surprise as he put it into her hand. It looked like a trick of sleight of hand, and she took the book and stared at him, as a child stares at the conjuror who produces an apple out of its ear. 'But I saw you throw it away,' she said in a puzzled tone. 'I got two while I was about it,' said Mr. Van Torp, smiling without showing his teeth. 'It was just as easy and it didn't cost me any more.' 'I see! Thank you very much.' She knew that she could not but keep the volume now, and in her heart she was glad to have it, for Lushington had written to her about it several times since she had been in America. 'Well, I'll leave you now,' said the millionaire, resuming his stony expression. 'I hope I've not kept you too long.' Before Margaret had realised the idiotic conventionality of the last words her companion had disappeared and she was left alone. He had not gone back in the direction whence they had come, but had taken the deserted windward side of the ship, doubtless with the intention of avoiding the crowd. Margaret stood still for some time in the lee of the ventilator, holding the novel in her hand and thinking. She wondered whether Mr. Van Torp had planned the whole scene, including the sacrifice of the novel. If he had not, it was certainly strange that he should have had the second copy ready in his pocket. Lushington had once told her that great politicians and great financiers were always great comedians, and now that she remembered the saying it occurred to her that Mr. Van Torp reminded her of a certain type of American actor, a type that has a heavy jaw and an aggressive eye, and strongly resembles the portraits of Daniel Webster. Now Daniel Webster had a wide reputation as a politician, but there is reason to believe that the numerous persons who lent him money and never got it back thought him a financier of undoubted ability, if not a comedian of talent. There were giants in those days. The English girl, breathing the clean air of the ocean, felt as if something had left a bad taste in her mouth; and the famous young singer, who had seen in two years what a normal Englishwoman would neither see, nor guess at, nor wish to imagine in a lifetime, thought she understood tolerably well what the bad taste meant. Moreover, Margaret Donne was ashamed of what Margarita da Cordova knew, and Cordova had moments of sharp regret when she thought of the girl who had been herself, and had lived under good Mrs. Rushmore's protection, like a flower in a glass house. She remembered, too, how Lushington and Mrs. Rushmore had warned her and entreated her not to become an opera-singer. She had taken her future into her own hands and had soon found out what it meant to be a celebrity on the stage; and she had seen only too clearly where she was classed by the women who would have been her companions and friends if she had kept out of the profession. She had learned by experience, too, how little real consideration she could expect from men of the world, and how very little she could really exact from such people as Mr. Van Torp; still less could she expect to get it from persons like Schreiermeyer, who looked upon the gifted men and women he engaged to sing as so many head of cattle, to be driven more or less hard according to their value, and to be turned out to starve the moment they were broken-winded. That fate is sure to overtake the best of them sooner or later. The career of a great opera-singer is rarely more than half as long as that of a great tragedian, and even when a primadonna or a tenor makes a fortune, the decline of their glory is far more sudden and sad than that of actors generally is. Lady Macbeth is as great a part as Juliet for an actress of genius, but there are no 'old parts' for singers; the soprano dare not turn into a contralto with advancing years, nor does the unapproachable Parsifal of eight-and-twenty turn into an incomparable Amfortas at fifty. For the actor, it often happens that the first sign of age is fatigue; in the singer's day, the first shadow is an eclipse, the first false note is disaster, the first breakdown is often a heart-rending failure that brings real tears to the eyes of younger comrades. The exquisite voice does not grow weak and pathetic and ethereal by degrees, so that we still love to hear it, even to the end; far more often it is suddenly flat or sharp by a quarter of a tone throughout whole acts, or it breaks on one note in a discordant shriek that is the end. Down goes the curtain then, in the middle of the great opera, and down goes the great singer for ever into tears and silence. Some of us have seen that happen, many have heard of it; few can think without real sympathy of such mortal suffering and distress. Margaret realised all this, without any illusion, but there was another side to the question. There was success, glorious and far-reaching, and beyond her brightest dreams; there was the certainty that she was amongst the very first, for the deafening ring of universal applause was in her ears; and, above all, there was youth. Sometimes it seemed to her that she had almost too much, and that some dreadful thing must happen to her; yet if there were moments when she faintly regretted the calmer, sweeter life she might have led, she knew that she would have given that life up, over and over again, for the splendid joy of holding thousands spellbound while she sang. She had the real lyric artist's temperament, for that breathless silence of the many while her voice rang out alone, and trilled and died away to a delicate musical echo, was more to her than the roar of applause that could be heard through the walls and closed doors in the street outside. To such a moment as that Faustus himself would have cried 'Stay!' though the price of satisfied desire were his soul. And there had been many such moments in Cordova's life. They satisfied something much deeper than greedy vanity and stronger than hungry ambition. Call it what you will, according to the worth you set on such art, it is a longing which only artists feel, and to which only something in themselves can answer. To listen to perfect music is a feast for gods, but to be the living instrument beyond compare is to be a god oneself. Of our five senses, sight calls up visions, divine as well as earthly, but hearing alone can link body, mind, and soul with higher things, by the word and by the word made song. The mere memory of hearing when it is lost is still enough for the ends of genius; for the poet and the composer touch the blind most deeply, perhaps, when other senses do not count at all; but a painter who loses his sight is as helpless in the world of art as a dismasted ship in the middle of the ocean. Some of these thoughts passed through Margaret's brain as she stood beside the ventilator with her friend's new book in her hand, and, although her reflections were not new to her, it was the first time she clearly understood that her life had made two natures out of her original self, and that the two did not always agree. She felt that she was not halved by the process, but doubled. She was two women instead of one, and each woman was complete in herself. She had not found this out by any elaborate self-study, for healthy people do not study themselves. She simply felt it, and she was sure it was true, because she knew that each of her two selves was able to do, suffer, and enjoy as much as any one woman could. The one might like what the other disliked and feared, but the contradiction was open and natural, not secret or morbid. The two women were called respectively Madame Cordova and Miss Donne. Miss Donne thought Madame Cordova very showy, and much too tolerant of vulgar things and people, if not a little touched with vulgarity herself. On the other hand, the brilliantly successful Cordova thought Margaret Donne a good girl, but rather silly. Miss Donne was very fond of Edmund Lushington, the writer, but the Primadonna had a distinct weakness for Constantine Logotheti, the Greek financier who lived in Paris, and who wore too many rubies and diamonds. On two points, at least, the singer and the modest English girl agreed, for they both detested Rufus Van Torp, and each had positive proof that he was in love with her, if what he felt deserved the name. For in very different ways she was really loved by Lushington and by Logotheti; and since she had been famous she had made the acquaintance of a good many very high and imposing personages, whose names are to be found in the first and second part of the _Almanack de Gotha_, in the Olympian circle of the reigning or the supernal regions of the Serene Mediatized, far above the common herd of dukes and princes; they had offered her a share in the overflowing abundance of their admirative protection; and then had seemed surprised, if not deeply moved, by the independence she showed in declining their intimacy. Some of them were frankly and contentedly cynical; some were of a brutality compared with which the tastes and manners of a bargee would have seemed ladylike; some were as refined and sensitive as English old maids, though less scrupulous and much less shy; the one was as generous as an Irish sailor, the next was as mean as a Normandy peasant; some had offered her rivers of rubies, and some had proposed to take her incognito for a drive in a cab, because it would be so amusing--and so inexpensive. Yet in their families and varieties they were all of the same species, all human and all subject to the ordinary laws of attraction and repulsion. Rufus Van Torp was not like them. Neither of Margaret's selves could look upon him as a normal human being. At first sight there was nothing so very unusual in his face, certainly nothing that suggested a monster; and yet, whatever mood she chanced to be in, she could not be with him five minutes without being aware of something undefinable that always disturbed her profoundly, and sometimes became positively terrifying. She always felt the sensation coming upon her after a few moments, and when it had actually come she could hardly hide her repulsion till she felt, as to-day, that she must run from him, without the least consideration of pride or dignity. She might have fled like that before a fire or a flood, or from the scene of an earthquake, and more than once nothing had kept her in her place but her strong will and healthy nerves. She knew that it was like the panic that seizes people in the presence of an appalling disturbance of nature. Doubtless, when she had talked with Mr. Van Torp just now, she had been disgusted by the indifferent way in which he spoke of poor Miss Bamberger's sudden death; it was still more certain that what he said about the book, and his very ungentlemanly behaviour in throwing it into the sea, had roused her justifiable anger. But she would have smiled at the thought that an exhibition of heartlessness, or the most utter lack of manners, could have made her wish to run away from any other man. Her life had accustomed her to people who had no more feeling than Schreiermeyer, and no better manners than Pompeo Stromboli. Van Torp might have been on his very best behaviour that morning, or at any of her previous chance meetings with him; sooner or later she would have felt that same absurd and unreasoning fear of him, and would have found it very hard not to turn and make her escape. His face was so stony and his eyes were so aggressive; he was always like something dreadful that was just going to happen. Yet Margarita da Cordova was a brave woman, and had lately been called a heroine because she had gone on singing after that explosion till the people were quiet again; and Margaret Donne was a sensible girl, justly confident of being able to take care of herself where men were concerned. She stood still and wondered what there was about Mr. Van Torp that could frighten her so dreadfully. After a little while she went quietly back to her chair, and sat down between Griggs and Miss More. The elderly man rose and packed her neatly in her plaid, and she thanked him. Miss More looked at her and smiled vaguely, as even the most intelligent people do sometimes. Then Griggs got into his own chair again and took up his book. 'Was that right of me?' he asked presently, so low that Miss More did not hear him speak. 'Yes,' Margaret answered, under her breath, 'but don't let me do it again, please.' They both began to read, but after a time Margaret spoke to him again without turning her eyes. 'He wanted to ask me about that girl who died at the theatre,' she said, just audibly. 'Oh--yes!' Griggs seemed so vague that Margaret glanced at him. He was looking at the inside of his right hand in a meditative way, as if it recalled something. If he had shown more interest in what she said she would have told him what she had just learned, about the breaking off of the engagement, but he was evidently absorbed in thought, while he slowly rubbed that particular spot on his hand, and looked at it again and again as if it recalled something. Margaret did not resent his indifference, for he was much more than old enough to be her father; he was a man whom all younger writers looked upon as a veteran, he had always been most kind and courteous to her when she had met him, and she freely conceded him the right to be occupied with his own thoughts and not with hers. With him she was always Margaret Donne, and he seldom talked to her about music, or of her own work. Indeed, he so rarely mentioned music that she fancied he did not really care for it, and she wondered why he was so often in the house when she sang. Mr. Van Torp did not show himself at luncheon, and Margaret began to hope that he would not appear on deck again till the next day. In the afternoon the wind dropped, the clouds broke, and the sun shone brightly. Little Ida, who was tired of doing crochet work, and had looked at all the books that had pictures, came and begged Margaret to walk round the ship with her. It would please her small child's vanity to show everybody that the great singer was willing to be seen walking up and down with her, although she was quite deaf, and could not hope ever to hear music. It was her greatest delight to be treated before every one as if she were just like other girls, and her cleverness in watching the lips of the person with her, without seeming too intent, was wonderful. They went the whole length of the promenade deck, as if they were reviewing the passengers, bundled and packed in their chairs, and the passengers looked at them both with so much interest that the child made Margaret come all the way back again. 'The sea has a voice, too, hasn't it?' Ida asked, as they paused and looked over the rail. She glanced up quickly for the answer, but Margaret did not find one at once. 'Because I've read poetry about the voices of the sea,' Ida explained. 'And in books they talk of the music of the waves, and then they say the sea roars, and thunders in a storm. I can hear thunder, you know. Did you know that I could hear thunder?' Margaret smiled and looked interested. 'It bangs in the back of my head,' said the child gravely. 'But I should like to hear the sea thunder. I often watch the waves on the beach, as if they were lips moving, and I try to understand what they say. Of course, it's play, because one can't, can one? But I can only make out "Boom, ta-ta-ta-ta," getting quicker and weaker to the end, you know, as the ripples run up the sand.' 'It's very like what I hear,' Margaret answered. 'Is it really?' Little Ida was delighted. 'Perhaps it's a language after all, and I shall make it out some day. You see, until I know the language people are speaking, their lips look as if they were talking nonsense. But I'm sure the sea could not really talk nonsense all day for thousands of years.' 'No, I'm sure it couldn't!' Margaret was amused. 'But the sea is not alive,' she added. 'Everything that moves is alive,' the child said, 'and everything that is alive can make a noise, and the noise must mean something. If it didn't, it would be of no use, and everything is of some use. So there!' Delighted with her own argument, the beautiful child laughed and showed her even teeth in the sun. They were standing at the end of the promenade deck, which extended twenty feet abaft the smoking-room, and took the whole beam; above the latter, as in most modern ships, there was the boat deck, to the after-part of which passengers had access. Standing below, it was easy to see and talk with any one who looked over the upper rail. Ida threw her head back and looked up as she laughed, and Margaret laughed good-naturedly with her, thinking how pretty she was. But suddenly the child's expression changed, her face grew grave, and her eyes fixed themselves intently on some point above. Margaret looked in the same direction, and saw that Mr. Van Torp was standing alone up there, leaning against the railing and evidently not seeing her, for he gazed fixedly into the distance; and as he stood there, his lips moved as if he were talking to himself. Margaret gave a little start of surprise when she saw him, but the child watched him steadily, and a look of fear stole over her face. Suddenly she grasped Margaret's arm. 'Come away! Come away!' she cried in a low tone of terror. CHAPTER IV Margaret was sorry to say good-bye to Miss More and little Ida when the voyage was over, three days later. She was instinctively fond of children, as all healthy women are, and she saw very few of them in her wandering life. It is true that she did not understand them very well, for she had been an only child, brought up much alone, and children's ways are only to be learnt and understood by experience, since all children are experimentalists in life, and what often seems to us foolishness in them is practical wisdom of the explorative kind. When Ida had pulled Margaret away from the railing after watching Mr. Van Torp while he was talking to himself, the singer had thought very little of it; and Ida never mentioned it afterwards. As for the millionaire, he was hardly seen again, and he made no attempt to persuade Margaret to take another walk with him on deck. 'Perhaps you would like to see my place,' he said, as he bade her good-bye on the tender at Liverpool. 'It used to be called Oxley Paddox, but I didn't like that, so I changed the name to Torp Towers. I'm Mr. Van Torp of Torp Towers. Sounds well, don't it?' 'Yes,' Margaret answered, biting her lip, for she wanted to laugh. 'It has a very lordly sound. If you bought a moor and a river in Scotland, you might call yourself the M'Torp of Glen Torp, in the same way.' 'I see you're laughing at me,' said the millionaire, with a quiet smile of a man either above or beyond ridicule. 'But it's all a game in a toy-shop anyway, this having a place in Europe. I buy a doll to play with when I have time, and I can call it what I please, and smash its head when I'm tired of it. It's my doll. It isn't any one's else's. The Towers is in Derbyshire if you want to come.' Margaret did not 'want to come' to Torp Towers, even if the doll wasn't 'any one's else's.' She was sorry for any person or thing that had the misfortune to be Mr. Van Torp's doll, and she felt her inexplicable fear of him coming upon her while he was speaking. She broke off the conversation by saying good-bye rather abruptly. 'Then you won't come,' he said, in a tone of amusement. 'Really, you are very kind, but I have so many engagements.' 'Saturday to Monday in the season wouldn't interfere with your engagements. However, do as you like.' 'Thank you very much. Good-bye again.' She escaped, and he looked after her, with an unsatisfied expression that was almost wistful, and that would certainly not have been in his face if she could have seen it. Griggs was beside her when she went ashore. 'I had not much to do after all,' he said, glancing at Van Torp. 'No,' Margaret answered, 'but please don't think it was all imagination. I may tell you some day. No,' she said again, after a short pause, 'he did not make himself a nuisance, except that once, and now he has asked me to his place in Derbyshire.' 'Torp Towers,' Griggs observed, with a smile. 'Yes. I could hardly help laughing when he told me he had changed its name.' 'It's worth seeing,' said Griggs. 'A big old house, all full of other people's ghosts.' 'Ghosts?' 'I mean figuratively. It's full of things that remind one of the people who lived there. It has one of the oldest parks in England. Lots of pheasants, too--but that cannot last long.' 'Why not?' 'He won't let any one shoot them! They will all die of overcrowding in two or three years. His keepers are three men from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.' 'What a mad idea!' Margaret laughed. 'Is he a Buddhist?' 'No.' Paul Griggs knew something about Buddhism. 'Certainly not! He's eccentric. That's all.' They were at the pier. Half-an-hour later they were in the train together, and there was no one else in the carriage. Miss More and little Ida had disappeared directly after landing, but Margaret had seen Mr. Van Torp get into a carriage on the window of which was pasted the label of the rich and great: 'Reserved.' She could have had the same privilege if she had chosen to ask for it or pay for it, but it irritated her that he should treat himself like a superior being. Everything he did either irritated her or frightened her, and she found herself constantly thinking of him and wishing that he would get out at the first station. Griggs was silent too, and Margaret thought he really might have taken some trouble to amuse her. She had Lushington's book on her knee, for she had found it less interesting than she had expected, and was rather ashamed of not having finished it before meeting him, since it had been given to her. She thought he might come down as far as Rugby to meet her, and she was quite willing that he should find her with it in her hand. A literary man is always supposed to be flattered at finding a friend reading his last production, as if he did not know that the friend has probably grabbed the volume with undignified haste the instant he was on the horizon, with the intention of being discovered deep in it. Yet such little friendly frauds are sweet compared with the extremes of brutal frankness to which our dearest friends sometimes think it their duty to go with us, for our own good. After a time Griggs spoke to her, and she was glad to hear his voice. She had grown to like him during the voyage, even more than she had ever thought probable. She had even gone so far as to wonder whether, if he had been twenty-five years younger, he might not have been the one man she had ever met whom she might care to marry, and she had laughed at the involved terms of the hypothesis as soon as she thought of it. Griggs had never been married, but elderly people remembered that there had been some romantic tale about his youth, when he had been an unknown young writer struggling for life as a newspaper correspondent. 'You saw the notice of Miss Bamberger's death, I suppose,' he said, turning his grey eyes to hers. He had not alluded to the subject during the voyage. 'Yes,' Margaret answered, wondering why he broached it now. 'The notice said that she died of heart failure, from shock,' Griggs continued. 'I should like to know what you think about it, as you were with her when she died. Have you any idea that she may have died of anything else?' 'No.' Margaret was surprised. 'The doctor said it was that.' 'I know. I only wanted to have your own impression. I believe that when people die of heart failure in that way, they often make desperate efforts to explain what has happened, and go on trying to talk when they can only make inarticulate sounds. Do you remember if it was at all like that?' 'Not at all,' Margaret said. 'She whispered the last words she spoke, but they were quite distinct. Then she drew three or four deep breaths, and all at once I saw that she was dead, and I called the doctor from the next room.' 'I suppose that might be heart failure,' said Griggs thoughtfully. 'You are quite sure that you thought it was only that, are you not?' 'Only what?' Margaret asked with growing surprise. 'Only fright, or the result of having been half-suffocated in the crowd.' 'Yes, I think I am sure. What do you mean? Why do you insist so much?' 'It's of no use to tell other people,' said Griggs, 'but you may just as well know. I found her lying in a heap behind a door, where there could not have been much of a crowd.' 'Perhaps she had taken refuge there, to save herself,' Margaret suggested. 'Possibly. But there was another thing. When I got home I found that there was a little blood on the palm of my hand. It was the hand I had put under her waist when I lifted her.' 'Do you mean to say you think she was wounded?' Margaret asked, opening her eyes wide. 'There was blood on the inside of my hand,' Griggs answered, 'and I had no scratch to account for it. I know quite well that it was on the hand that I put under her waist--a little above the waist, just in the middle of her back.' 'But it would have been seen afterwards.' 'On the dark red silk she wore? Not if there was very little of it. The doctor never thought of looking for such a wound. Why should he? He had not the slightest reason for suspecting that the poor girl had been murdered.' 'Murdered?' Margaret looked hard at Griggs, and then she suddenly shuddered from head to foot. She had never before had such a sensation; it was like a shock from an electric current at the instant when the contact is made, not strong enough to hurt, but yet very disagreeable. She felt it at the moment when her mind connected what Griggs was saying with the dying girl's last words, 'he did it'; and with little Ida's look of horror when she had watched Mr. Van Torp's lips while he was talking to himself on the boat-deck of the _Leofric_; and again, with the physical fear of the man that always came over her when she had been near him for a little while. When she spoke to Griggs again the tone of her voice had changed. 'Please tell me how it could have been done,' she said. 'Easily enough. A steel bodkin six or seven inches long, or even a strong hat-pin. It would be only a question of strength.' Margaret remembered Mr. Van Torp's coarse hands, and shuddered again. 'How awful!' she exclaimed. 'One would bleed to death internally before long,' Griggs said. 'Are you sure?' 'Yes. That is the reason why the three-cornered blade for duelling swords was introduced in France thirty years ago. Before that, men often fought with ordinary foils filed to a point, and there were many deaths from internal hemorrhage.' 'What odd things you always know! That would be just like being run through with a bodkin, then?' 'Very much the same.' 'But it would have been found out afterwards,' Margaret said, 'and the papers would have been full of it.' 'That does not follow,' Griggs answered. 'The girl was an only child, and her mother had been divorced and married again. She lived alone with her father, and he probably was told the truth. But Isidore Bamberger is not the man to spread out his troubles before the public in the newspapers. On the contrary, if he found out that his daughter had been killed--supposing that she was--he probably made up his mind at once that the world should not know it till he had caught the murderer. So he sent for the best detective in America, put the matter in his hands, and inserted a notice of his daughter's death that agreed with what the doctor had said. That would be the detective's advice, I'm sure, and probably Van Torp approved of it.' 'Mr. Van Torp? Do you think he was told about it? Why?' 'First, because Bamberger is Van Torp's banker, broker, figure-head, and general representative on earth,' answered Griggs. 'Secondly, because Van Torp was engaged to marry the girl.' 'The engagement was broken off,' Margaret said. 'How do you know that?' asked Griggs quickly. 'Mr. Van Torp told me, on the steamer. They had broken it off that very day, and were going to let it be known the next morning. He told me so, that afternoon when I walked with him.' 'Really!' Griggs was a little surprised, but as he did not connect Van Torp with the possibility that Miss Bamberger had been murdered, his thoughts did not dwell on the broken engagement. 'Why don't you try to find out the truth?' Margaret asked rather anxiously. 'You know so many people everywhere--you have so much experience.' 'I never had much taste for detective work,' answered the literary man, 'and besides, this is none of my business. But Bamberger and Van Torp are probably both of them aware by this time that I found the girl and carried her to the manager's room, and when they are ready to ask me what I know, or what I remember, the detective they are employing will suddenly appear to me in the shape of a new acquaintance in some out-of-the-way place, who will go to work scientifically to make me talk to him. He will very likely have a little theory of his own, to the effect that since it was I who brought Miss Bamberger to Schreiermeyer's room, it was probably I who killed her, for some mysterious reason!' 'Shall you tell him about the drop of blood on your hand?' 'Without the slightest hesitation. But not until I am asked, and I shall be very glad if you will not speak of it.' 'I won't,' Margaret said; 'but I wonder why you have told me if you mean to keep it a secret!' The veteran man of letters turned his sad grey eyes to hers, while his lips smiled. 'The world is not all bad,' he said. 'All men are not liars, and all women do not betray confidence.' 'It's very good to hear a man like you say that,' Margaret answered. 'It means something.' 'Yes,' assented Griggs thoughtfully. 'It means a great deal to me to be sure of it, now that most of my life is lived.' 'Were you unhappy when you were young?' She asked the question as a woman sometimes does who feels herself strongly drawn to a man much older than she. Griggs did not answer at once, and when he spoke his voice was unusually grave, and his eyes looked far away. 'A great misfortune happened to me,' he said. 'A great misfortune,' he repeated slowly, after a pause, and his tone and look told Margaret how great that calamity had been better than a score of big words. 'Forgive me,' Margaret said softly; 'I should have known.' 'No,' Griggs answered after a moment. 'You could not have known. It happened very long ago, perhaps ten years before you were born.' Again he turned his sad grey eyes to hers, but no smile lingered now about the rather stern mouth. The two looked at each other quietly for five or six seconds, and that may seem a long time. When Margaret turned away from the elderly man's more enduring gaze, both felt that there was a bond of sympathy between them which neither had quite acknowledged till then. There was silence after that, and Margaret looked out of the window, while her hand unconsciously played with the book on her knee, lifting the cover a little and letting it fall again and again. Suddenly she turned to Griggs once more and held the book out to him with a smile. 'I'm not an autograph-hunter,' she said, 'but will you write something on the fly-leaf? Just a word or two, without your name, if you like. Do you think I'm very sentimental?' She smiled again, and he took the book from her and produced a pencil. 'It's a book I shall not throw away,' she went on, 'because the man who wrote it is a great friend of mine, and I have everything he has ever written. So, as I shall keep it, I want it to remind me that you and I grew to know each other better on this voyage.' It occurred to the veteran that while this was complimentary to himself it was not altogether promising for Lushington, who was the old friend in question. A woman who loves a man does not usually ask another to write a line in that man's book. Griggs set the point of the pencil on the fly-leaf as if he were going to write; but then he hesitated, looked up, glanced at Margaret, and at last leaned back in the seat, as if in deep thought. 'I didn't mean to give you so much trouble,' Margaret said, still smiling. 'I thought it must be so easy for a famous author like you to write half-a-dozen words!' 'A "sentiment" you mean!' Griggs laughed rather contemptuously, and then was grave again. 'No!' Margaret said, a little disappointed. 'You did not understand me. Don't write anything at all. Give me back the book.' She held out her hand for it; but as if he had just made up his mind, he put his pencil to the paper again, and wrote four words in a small clear hand. She leaned forwards a little to see what he was writing. 'You know enough Latin to read that,' he said, as he gave the book back to her. She read the words aloud, with a puzzled expression. '"Credo in resurrectionem mortuorum."' She looked at him for some explanation. 'Yes,' he said, answering her unspoken question. '"I believe in the resurrection of the dead."' 'It means something especial to you--is that it?' 'Yes.' His eyes were very sad again as they met hers. 'My voice?' she asked. 'Some one--who sang like me? Who died?' 'Long before you were born,' he answered gently. There was another little pause before she spoke again, for she was touched. 'Thank you,' she said. 'Thank you for writing that.' CHAPTER V Mr. Van Torp arrived in London alone, with one small valise, for he had sent his man with his luggage to the place in Derbyshire. At Euston a porter got him a hansom, and he bargained with the cabman to take him and his valise to the Temple for eighteenpence, a sum which, he explained, allowed sixpence for the valise, as the distance could not by any means be made out to be more than two miles. Such close economy was to be expected from a millionaire, travelling incognito; what was more surprising was that, when the cab stopped before a door in Hare Court and Mr. Van Torp received his valise from the roof of the vehicle, he gave the man half-a-crown, and said it was 'all right.' 'Now, my man,' he observed, 'you've not only got an extra shilling, to which you had no claim whatever, but you've had the pleasure of a surprise which you could not have bought for that money.' The cabman grinned as he touched his hat and drove away, and Mr. Van Torp took his valise in one hand and his umbrella in the other and went up the dark stairs. He went up four flights without stopping to take breath, and without so much as glancing at any of the names painted in white letters on the small black boards beside the doors on the right and left of each landing. The fourth floor was the last, and though the name on the left had evidently been there a number of years, for the white lettering was of the tint of a yellow fog, it was still quite clear and legible. MR.I. BAMBERGER. That was the name, but the millionaire did not look at it any more than he had looked at the others lower down. He knew them all by heart. He dropped his valise, took a small key from his pocket, opened the door, picked up his valise again, and, as neither hand was free, he shut the door with his heel as he passed in, and it slammed behind him, sending dismal echoes down the empty staircase. The entry was almost quite dark, for it was past six o'clock in the afternoon, late in March, and the sky was overcast; but there was still light enough to see in the large room on the left into which Mr. Van Torp carried his things. It was a dingy place, poorly furnished, but some one had dusted the table, the mantelpiece, and the small bookcase, and the fire was laid in the grate, while a bright copper kettle stood on a movable hob. Mr. Van Torp struck a match and lighted the kindling before he took off his overcoat, and in a few minutes a cheerful blaze dispelled the gathering gloom. He went to a small old-fashioned cupboard in a corner and brought from it a chipped cup and saucer, a brown teapot, and a cheap japanned tea-caddy, all of which he set on the table; and as soon as the fire burned brightly, he pushed the movable hob round with his foot till the kettle was over the flame of the coals. Then he took off his overcoat and sat down in the shabby easy-chair by the hearth, to wait till the water boiled. His proceedings, his manner, and his expression would have surprised the people who had been his fellow-passengers on the _Leofric_, and who imagined Mr. Van Torp driving to an Olympian mansion, somewhere between Constitution Hill and Sloane Square, to be received at his own door by gravely obsequious footmen in plush, and to drink Imperial Chinese tea from cups of Old Saxe, or Bleu du Roi, or Capo di Monte. Paul Griggs, having tea and a pipe in a quiet little hotel in Clarges Street, would have been much surprised if he could have seen Rufus Van Torp lighting a fire for himself in that dingy room in Hare Court. Madame Margarita da Cordova, waiting for an expected visitor in her own sitting-room, in her own pretty house in Norfolk Crescent, would have been very much surprised indeed. The sight would have plunged her into even greater uncertainty as to the man's real character, and it is not unlikely that she would have taken his mysterious retreat to be another link in the chain of evidence against him which already seemed so convincing. She might naturally have wondered, too, what he had felt when he had seen that board beside the door, and she could hardly have believed that he had gone in without so much as glancing at the yellowish letters that formed the name of Bamberger. But he seemed quite at home where he was, and not at all uncomfortable as he sat before the fire, watching the spout of the kettle, his elbows on the arms of the easy-chair and his hands raised before him, with the finger-tips pressed against each other, in the attitude which, with most men, means that they are considering the two sides of a question that is interesting without being very important. Perhaps a thoughtful observer would have noticed at once that there had been no letters waiting for him when he had arrived, and would have inferred either that he did not mean to stay at the rooms twenty-four hours, or that, if he did, he had not chosen to let any one know where he was. Presently it occurred to him that there was no longer any light in the room except from the fire, and he rose and lit the gas. The incandescent light sent a raw glare into the farthest corners of the large room, and just then a tiny wreath of white steam issued from the spout of the kettle. This did not escape Mr. Van Torp's watchful eye, but instead of making tea at once he looked at his watch, after which he crossed the room to the window and stood thoughtfully gazing through the panes at the fast disappearing outlines of the roofs and chimney-pots which made up the view when there was daylight outside. He did not pull down the shade before he turned back to the fire, perhaps because no one could possibly look in. But he poured a little hot water into the teapot, to scald it, and went to the cupboard and got another cup and saucer, and an old tobacco-tin of which the dingy label was half torn off, and which betrayed by a rattling noise that it contained lumps of sugar. The imaginary thoughtful observer already mentioned would have inferred from all this that Mr. Van Torp had resolved to put off making tea until some one came to share it with him, and that the some one might take sugar, though he himself did not; and further, as it was extremely improbable, on the face of it, that an afternoon visitor should look in by a mere chance, in the hope of finding some one in Mr. Isidore Bamberger's usually deserted rooms, on the fourth floor of a dark building in Hare Court, the observer would suppose that Mr. Van Torp was expecting some one to come and see him just at that hour, though he had only landed in Liverpool that day, and would have been still at sea if the weather had been rough or foggy. All this might have still further interested Paul Griggs, and would certainly have seemed suspicious to Margaret, if she could have known about it. Five minutes passed, and ten, and the kettle was boiling furiously, and sending out a long jet of steam over the not very shapely toes of Mr. Van Torp's boots, as he leaned back with his feet on the fender. He looked at his watch again and apparently gave up the idea of waiting any longer, for he rose and poured out the hot water from the teapot into one of the cups, as a preparatory measure, and took off the lid to put in the tea. But just as he had opened the caddy, he paused and listened. The door of the room leading to the entry was ajar, and as he stood by the table he had heard footsteps on the stairs, still far down, but mounting steadily. He went to the outer door and listened. There was no doubt that somebody was coming up; any one not deaf could have heard the sound. It was more strange that Mr. Van Torp should recognise the step, for the rooms on the other side of the landing were occupied, and a stranger would have thought it quite possible that the person who was coming up should be going there. But Mr. Van Torp evidently knew better, for he opened his door noiselessly and stood waiting to receive the visitor. The staircase below was dimly lighted by gas, but there was none at the upper landing, and in a few seconds a dark form appeared, casting a tall shadow upwards against the dingy white paint of the wall. The figure mounted steadily and came directly to the open door--a lady in a long black cloak that quite hid her dress. She wore no hat, but her head was altogether covered by one of those things which are neither hoods nor mantillas nor veils, but which serve women for any of the three, according to weather and circumstances. The peculiarity of the one the lady wore was that it cast a deep shadow over her face. 'Come in,' said Mr. Van Torp, withdrawing into the entry to make way. She entered and went on directly to the sitting-room, while he shut the outer door. Then he followed her, and shut the second door behind him. She was standing before the fire spreading her gloved hands to the blaze, as if she were cold. The gloves were white, and they fitted very perfectly. As he came near, she turned and held out one hand. 'All right?' he inquired, shaking it heartily, as if it had been a man's. A sweet low voice answered him. 'Yes--all right,' it said, as if nothing could ever be wrong with its possessor. 'But you?' it asked directly afterwards, in a tone of sympathetic anxiety. 'I? Oh--well--' Mr. Van Torp's incomplete answer might have meant anything, except that he too was 'all right.' 'Yes,' said the lady gravely. 'I read the telegram the next day. Did you get my cable? I did not think you would sail.' 'Yes, I got your cable. Thank you. Well--I did sail, you see. Take off your things. The water's boiling and we'll have tea in a minute.' The lady undid the fastening at her throat so that the fur-lined cloak opened and slipped a little on her white shoulders. She held it in place with one hand, and with the other she carefully turned back the lace hood from her face, so as not to disarrange her hair. Mr. Van Torp was making tea, and he looked up at her over the teapot. 'I dressed for dinner,' she said, explaining. 'Well,' said Mr. Van Torp, looking at her, 'I should think you did!' There was real admiration in his tone, though it was distinctly reluctant. 'I thought it would save half an hour and give us more time together,' said the lady simply. She sat down in the shabby easy-chair, and as she did so the cloak slipped and lay about her waist, and she gathered one side of it over her knees. Her gown was of black velvet, without so much as a bit of lace, except at the sleeves, and the only ornament she wore was a short string of very perfect pearls clasped round her handsome young throat. She was handsome, to say the least. If tired ghosts of departed barristers were haunting the dingy room in Hare Court that night, they must have blinked and quivered for sheer pleasure at what they saw, for Mr. Van Torp's visitor was a very fine creature to look at; and if ghosts can hear, they heard that her voice was sweet and low, like an evening breeze and flowing water in a garden, even in the Garden of Eden. She was handsome, and she was young; and above all she had the freshness, the uncontaminated bloom, the subdued brilliancy of nature's most perfect growing things. It was in the deep clear eyes, in the satin sheen of her bare shoulders under the sordid gaslight; it was in the strong smooth lips, delicately shaded from salmon colour to the faintest peach-blossom; it was in the firm oval of her face, in the well-modelled ear, the straight throat and the curving neck; it was in her graceful attitude; it was everywhere. 'No doubt,' the ghosts might have said, 'there are more beautiful women in England than this one, but surely there is none more like a thoroughbred and a Derby winner!' 'You take sugar, don't you?' asked Mr. Van Torp, having got the lid off the old tobacco-tin with some difficulty, for it had developed an inclination to rust since it had last been moved. 'One lump, please,' said the thoroughbred, looking at the fire. 'I thought I remembered,' observed the millionaire. 'The tea's good,' he added, 'and you'll have to excuse the cup. And there's no cream.' 'I'll excuse anything,' said the lady, 'I'm so glad to be here!' 'Well, I'm glad to see you too,' said Mr. Van Torp, giving her the cup. 'Crackers? I'll see if there're any in the cupboard. I forgot.' He went to the corner again and found a small tin of biscuits, which he opened and examined under gaslight. 'Mouldy,' he observed. 'Weevils in them, too. Sorry. Does it matter much?' 'Nothing matters,' answered the lady, sweet and low. 'But why do you put them away if they are bad? It would be better to burn them and be done with it.' He was taking the box back to the cupboard. 'I suppose you're right,' he said reluctantly. 'But it always seems wicked to burn bread, doesn't it?' 'Not when it's weevilly,' replied the thoroughbred, after sipping the hot tea. He emptied the contents of the tin upon the coal fire, and the room presently began to smell of mouldy toast. 'Besides,' he said, 'it's cruel to burn weevils, I suppose. If I'd thought of that, I'd have left them alone. It's too late now. They're done for, poor beasts! I'm sorry. I don't like to kill things.' He stared thoughtfully at the already charred remains of the holocaust, and shook his head a little. The lady sipped her tea and looked at him quietly, perhaps affectionately, but he did not see her. 'You think I'm rather silly sometimes, don't you?' he asked, still gazing at the fire. 'No,' she answered at once. 'It's never silly to be kind, even to weevils.' 'Thank you for thinking so,' said Mr. Van Torp, in an oddly humble tone, and he began to drink his own tea. If Margaret Donne could have suddenly found herself perched among the chimney-pots on the opposite roof, and if she had then looked at his face through the window, she would have wondered why she had ever felt a perfectly irrational terror of him. It was quite plain that the lady in black velvet had no such impression. 'You need not be so meek,' she said, smiling. She did not laugh often, but sometimes there was a ripple in her fresh voice that would turn a man's head. Mr. Van Torp looked at her in a rather dull way. 'I believe I feel meek when I'm with you. Especially just now.' He swallowed the rest of his tea at a gulp, set the cup on the table, and folded his hands loosely together, his elbows resting on his knees; in this attitude he leaned forward and looked at the burning coals. Again his companion watched his hard face with affectionate interest. 'Tell me just how it happened,' she said. 'I mean, if it will help you at all to talk about it.' 'Yes. You always help me,' he answered, and then paused. 'I think I should like to tell you the whole thing,' he added after an instant. 'Somehow, I never tell anybody much about myself.' 'I know.' She bent her handsome head in assent. Just then it would have been very hard to guess what the relations were between the oddly assorted pair, as they sat a little apart from each other before the grate. Mr. Van Torp was silent now, as if he were making up his mind how to begin. In the pause, the lady quietly held out her hand towards him. He saw without turning further, and he stretched out his own. She took it gently, and then, without warning, she leaned very far forward, bent over it and touched it with her lips. He started and drew it back hastily. It was as if the leaf of a flower had settled upon it, and had hovered an instant, and fluttered away in a breath of soft air. 'Please don't!' he cried, almost roughly. 'There's nothing to thank me for. I've often told you so.' But the lady was already leaning back in the old easy-chair again as if she had done nothing at all unusual. 'It wasn't for myself,' she said. 'It was for all the others, who will never know.' 'Well, I'd rather not,' he answered. 'It's not worth all that. Now, see here! I'm going to tell you as near as I can what happened, and when you know you can make up your mind. You never saw but one side of me anyhow, but you've got to see the other sooner or later. No, I know what you're going to say--all that about a dual nature, and Jekyll and Hyde, and all the rest of it. That may be true for nervous people, but I'm not nervous. Not at all. I never was. What I know is, there are two sides to everybody, and one's always the business side. The other may be anything. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. Sometimes it cares for a woman, sometimes it's a collector of art things, Babylonian glass, and Etruscan toys and prehistoric dolls. It may gamble, or drink, or teach a Sunday school, or read Dante, or shoot, or fish, or anything that's of no use. But one side's always the business side. That's certain.' Mr. Van Torp paused, and looked at his companion's empty cup. Seeing that he was going to get up in order to give her more, she herself rose quickly and did it for herself. He sat still and watched her, probably because the business side of his nature judged that he could be of no use. The fur-lined cloak was now lying in the easy-chair, and there was nothing to break the sweeping lines of the black velvet from her dazzling shoulders to her waist, to her knee, to her feet. Mr. Van Torp watched her in silence, till she sat down again. 'You know me well enough to understand that,' he said, going on. 'My outside's my business side, and that's what matters most. Now the plain truth is this. My engagement to Miss Bamberger was just a business affair. Bamberger thought of it first, and suggested it to me, and he asked her if she'd mind being engaged to me for a few weeks; and she said she wouldn't provided she wasn't expected to marry me. That was fair and square, anyway, on both sides. Wasn't it?' 'It depends on why you did it,' said the lady, going to the point directly. 'That was the business side,' answered her companion. 'You see, a big thing like the Nickel Trust always has a lot of enemies, besides a heap of people who want to get some of it cheap. This time they put their heads together and got up one of the usual stories. You see, Isidore H. Bamberger is the president and I only appear as a director, though most of it's mine. So they got up a story that he was operating on his own account to get behind me, and that we were going to quarrel over it, and there was going to be a slump, and people began to believe it. It wasn't any use talking to the papers. We soon found that out. Sometimes the public won't believe anything it's told, and sometimes it swallows faster than you can feed to it. I don't know why, though I've had a pretty long experience, but I generally do know which state it's in. I feel it. That's what's called business ability. It's like fishing. Any old fisherman can judge in half an hour whether the fish are going to bite all day or not. If he's wrong once, he'll be right a hundred times. Well, I felt talking was no good, and so did Bamberger, and the shares began to go down before the storm. If the big slump had come there'd have been a heap of money lost. I don't say we didn't let the shares drop a couple of points further than they needed to, and Bamberger bought any of it that happened to be lying around, and the more he bought the quicker it wanted to go down, because people said there was going to be trouble and an investigation. But if we'd gone on, lots of people would have been ruined, and yet we didn't just see how to stop it sharp, till Bamberger started his scheme. Do you understand all that?' The lady nodded gravely. 'You make it clear,' she said. 'Well, I thought it was a good scheme,' continued her companion, 'and as the girl said she didn't mind, we told we were engaged. That settled things pretty quick. The shares went up again in forty-eight hours, and as we'd bought for cash we made the points, and the other people were short and lost. But when everything was all right again we got tired of being engaged, Miss Bamberger and I; and besides, there was a young fellow she'd a fancy for, and he kept writing to her that he'd kill himself, and that made her nervous, you see, and she said if it went on another day she knew she'd have appendicitis or something. So we were going to announce that the engagement was broken. And the very night before--' He paused. Not a muscle of the hard face moved, there was not a change in the expression of the tremendous mouth, there was not a tremor in the tone; but the man kept his eyes steadily on the fire. 'Oh, well, she's dead now, poor thing,' he said presently. 'And that's what I wanted to tell you. I suppose it's not a very pretty story, is it? But I'll tell you one thing. Though we made a little by the turn of the market, we saved a heap of small fry from losing all they'd put in. If we'd let the slump come and then bought we should have made a pile; but then we might have had difficulty in getting the stock up to anywhere near par again for some time.' 'Besides,' said the lady quietly, 'you would not have ruined all those little people if you could help it.' 'You think I wouldn't?' He turned his eyes to her now. 'I'm sure you would not,' said the lady with perfect confidence. 'I don't know, I'm sure,' answered Mr. Van Torp in a doubtful tone. 'Perhaps I wouldn't. But it would only have been business if I had. It's not as if Bamberger and I had started a story on purpose about our quarrelling in order to make things go down. I draw the line there. That's downright dishonest, I call it. But if we'd just let things slide and taken advantage of what happened, it would only have been business after all. Except for that doubt about getting back to par,' he added, as an afterthought. 'But then I should have felt whether it was safe or not.' 'Then why did you not let things slide, as you call it?' 'I don't know, I'm sure. Maybe I was soft-hearted. We don't always know why we do things in business. There's a great deal more in the weather where big money is moving than you might think. For instance, there was never a great revolution in winter. But as for making people lose their money, those who can't keep it ought not to have it. They're a danger to society, and half the time it's they who upset the market by acting like lunatics. They get a lot of sentimental pity sometimes, those people; but after all, if they didn't try to cut in without capital, and play the game without knowing the rules, business would be much steadier and there would be fewer panics. They're the people who get frightened and run, not we. The fact is, they ought never to have been there. That's why I believe in big things myself.' He paused, having apparently reached the end of his subject. 'Were you with the poor girl when she died?' asked the lady presently. 'No. She'd dined with a party and was in their box, and they were the last people who saw her. You read about the explosion. She bolted from the box in the dark, I was told, and as she couldn't be found afterwards they concluded she had rushed out and taken a cab home. It seemed natural, I suppose.' 'Who found her at last?' 'A man called Griggs--the author, you know. He carried her to the manager's room, still alive. They got a doctor, and as she wanted to see a woman, they sent for Cordova, the singer, from her dressing-room, and the girl died in her arms. They said it was heart failure, from shock.' 'It was very sad.' 'I'm sorry for poor Bamberger,' said Mr. Van Torp thoughtfully. 'She was his only child, and he doted on her. I never saw a man so cut up as he looked. I wanted to stay, but he said the mere sight of me drove him crazy, poor fellow, and as I had business over here and my passage was taken, I just sailed. Sometimes the kindest thing one can do is to get out. So I did. But I'm very sorry for him. I wish I could do anything to make it easier for him. It was nobody's fault, I suppose, though I do think the people she was with might have prevented her from rushing out in the dark.' 'They were frightened themselves. How could any one be blamed for her death?' 'Exactly. But if any one could be made responsible, I know Bamberger would do for him in some way. He's a resentful sort of man if any one does him an injury. Blood for blood is Bamberger's motto, every time. One thing I'm sure of. He'll run down whoever was responsible for that explosion, and he'll do for him, whoever he is, if it costs one million to get a conviction. I wouldn't like to be the fellow!' 'I can understand wishing to be revenged for the death of one's only child,' said the lady thoughtfully. 'Cannot you?' The American turned his hard face to her. 'Yes,' he said, 'I can. It's only human, after all.' She sighed and looked into the fire. She was married, but she was childless, and that was a constant regret to her. Mr. Van Torp knew it and understood. 'To change the subject,' he said cheerfully, 'I suppose you need money, don't you?' 'Oh yes! Indeed I do!' Her momentary sadness had already disappeared, and there was almost a ripple in her tone again as she answered. 'How much?' asked the millionaire smiling. She shook her head and smiled too; and as she met his eyes she settled herself and leaned far back in the shabby easy-chair. She was wonderfully graceful and good to look at in her easy attitude. 'I'm afraid to tell you how much!' She shook her head again, as she answered. 'Well,' said Mr. Van Torp in an encouraging tone, 'I've brought some cash in my pocket, and if it isn't enough I'll get you some more to-morrow. But I won't give you a cheque. It's too compromising. I thought of that before I left New York, so I brought some English notes from there.' 'How thoughtful you always are for me!' 'It's not much to do for a woman one likes. But I'm sorry if I've brought too little. Here it is, anyway.' He produced a large and well-worn pocket-book, and took from it a small envelope, which he handed to her. 'Tell me how much more you'll need,' he said, 'and I'll give it to you to-morrow. I'll put the notes between the pages of a new book and leave it at your door. He wouldn't open a package that was addressed to you from a bookseller's, would he?' 'No,' answered the lady, her expression changing a little, 'I think he draws the line at the bookseller.' 'You see, this was meant for you,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'There are your initials on it.' She glanced at the envelope, and saw that it was marked in pencil with the letters M.L. in one corner. 'Thank you,' she said, but she did not open it. 'You'd better count the notes,' suggested the millionaire. 'I'm open to making mistakes myself.' The lady took from the envelope a thin flat package of new Bank of England notes, folded together in four. Without separating them she glanced carelessly at the first, which was for a hundred pounds, and then counted the others by the edges. She counted four after the first, and Mr. Van Torp watched her face with evident amusement. 'You need more than that, don't you?' he asked, when she had finished. 'A little more, perhaps,' she said quietly, though she could not quite conceal her disappointment, as she folded the notes and slipped them into the envelope again. 'But I shall try to make this last. Thank you very much.' 'I like you,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'You're the real thing. They'd call you a chief's daughter in the South Seas. But I'm not so mean as all that. I only thought you might need a little cash at once. That's all.' A loud knocking at the outer door prevented the lady from answering. She looked at Mr. Van Torp in surprise. 'What's that?' she asked, rather anxiously. 'I don't know,' he answered. 'He couldn't guess that you were here, could he?' 'Oh no! That's quite out of the question!' 'Then I'll open the door,' said the millionaire, and he left the sitting-room. The lady had not risen, and she still leaned back in her seat. She idly tapped the knuckles of her gloved hand with the small envelope. The knocking was repeated, she heard the outer door opened, and the sound of voices followed directly. 'Oh!' Mr. Van Torp exclaimed in a tone of contemptuous surprise, 'it's you, is it? Well, I'm busy just now. I can't see you till to-morrow.' 'My business will not keep till to-morrow,' answered an oily voice in a slightly foreign accent. At the very first syllables the lady rose quickly to her feet, and resting one hand on the table she leant forward in the direction of the door, with an expression that was at once eager and anxious, and yet quite fearless. 'What you call your business is going to wait my convenience,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'You'll find me here to-morrow morning until eleven o'clock.' From the sounds the lady judged that the American now attempted to shut the door in his visitor's face, but that he was hindered and that a scuffle followed. 'Hold him!' cried the oily voice in a tone of command. 'Bring him in! Lock the door!' It was clear enough that the visitor had not come alone, and that Mr. Van Torp had been overpowered. The lady bit her salmon-coloured lip angrily and contemptuously. A moment later a tall heavily-built man with thick fair hair, a long moustache, and shifty blue eyes, rushed into the room and did not stop till there was only the small table between him and the lady. 'I've caught you! What have you to say?' he asked. 'To you? Nothing!' She deliberately turned her back on her husband, rested one elbow on the mantelpiece and set one foot upon the low fender, drawing up her velvet gown over her instep. But a moment later she heard other footsteps in the room, and turned her head to see Mr. Van Torp enter the room between two big men who were evidently ex-policemen. The millionaire, having failed to shut the door in the face of the three men, had been too wise to attempt any further resistance. The fair man glanced down at the table and saw the envelope with his wife's initials lying beside the tea things. She had dropped it there when she had risen to her feet at the sound of his voice. He snatched it away as soon as he saw the pencilled letters on it, and in a moment he had taken out the notes and was looking over them. 'I should like you to remember this, please,' he said, addressing the two men who had accompanied him. 'This envelope is addressed to my wife, under her initials, in the handwriting of Mr. Van Torp. Am I right in taking it for your handwriting?' he inquired, in a disagreeably polite tone, and turning towards the millionaire. 'You are,' answered the American, in a perfectly colourless voice and without moving a muscle. 'That's my writing.' 'And this envelope,' continued the husband, holding up the notes before the men, 'contains notes to the amount of four thousand one hundred pounds.' 'Five hundred pounds, you mean,' said the lady coldly. 'See for yourself!' retorted the fair man, raising his eyebrows and holding out the notes. 'That's correct,' said Mr. Van Torp, smiling and looking at the lady. 'Four thousand one hundred. Only the first one was for a hundred, and the rest were thousands. I meant it for a little surprise, you see.' 'Oh, how kind! How dear and kind!' cried the lady gratefully, and with amazing disregard of her husband's presence. The two ex-policemen had not expected anything so interesting as this, and their expressions were worthy of study. They had been engaged, through a private agency, to assist and support an injured husband, and afterwards to appear as witnesses of a vulgar clandestine meeting, as they supposed. It was not the first time they had been employed on such business, but they did not remember ever having had to deal with two persons who exhibited such hardened indifference; and though the incident of the notes was not new to them, they had never been in a case where the amount of cash received by the lady at one time was so very large. 'It is needless,' said the fair man, addressing them both, 'to ask what this money was for.' 'Yes,' said Mr. Van Torp coolly. 'You needn't bother. But I'll call your attention to the fact that the notes are not yours, and that I'd like to see them put back into that envelope and laid on that table before you go. You broke into my house by force anyhow. If you take valuables away with you, which you found here, it's burglary in England, whatever it may be in your country; and if you don't know it, these two professional gentlemen do. So you just do as I tell you, if you want to keep out of gaol.' The fair man had shown a too evident intention of slipping the envelope into his own pocket, doubtless to be produced in evidence, but Mr. Van Torp's final argument seemed convincing. 'I have not the smallest intention of depriving my wife of the price of my honour, sir. Indeed, I am rather flattered to find that you both value it so highly.' Mr. Van Torp's hard face grew harder, and a very singular light came into his eyes. He moved forwards till he was close to the fair man. 'None of that!' he said authoritatively. 'If you say another word against your wife in my hearing I'll make it the last you ever said to anybody. Now you'd better be gone before I telephone for the police. Do you understand?' The two ex-policemen employed by a private agency thought the case was becoming more and more interesting; but at the same time they were made vaguely nervous by Mr. Van Torp's attitude. 'I think you are threatening me,' said the fair man, drawing back a step, and leaving the envelope on the table. 'No,' answered his adversary, 'I'm warning you off my premises, and if you don't go pretty soon I'll telephone for the police. Is that a threat?' The last question was addressed to the two men. 'No, sir,' answered one of them. 'It would hardly be to your advantage to have more witnesses of my wife's presence here,' observed the fair man coldly, 'but as I intend to take her home we may as well go at once. Come, Maud! The carriage is waiting.' The lady, whose name was now spoken for the first time since she had entered Mr. Van Torp's lodging, had not moved from the fireplace since she had taken up her position there. Women are as clever as Napoleon or Julius Caesar in selecting strong positions when there is to be an encounter, and a fireplace, with a solid mantelpiece to lean against, to strike, to cry upon or to cling to, is one of the strongest. The enemy is thus reduced to prowling about the room and handling knick-knacks while he talks, or smashing them if he is of a violent disposition. The lady now leant back against the dingy marble shelf and laid one white-gloved arm along it, in an attitude that was positively regal. Her right hand might appropriately have been toying with the orb of empire on the mantelpiece, and her left, which hung down beside her, might have loosely held the sceptre. Mr. Van Torp, who often bought large pictures, was reminded of one recently offered to him in America, representing an empress. He would have bought the portrait if the dealer could have remembered which empress it represented, but the fact that he could not had seemed suspicious to Mr. Van Torp. It was clearly the man's business to know empresses by sight. From her commanding position the Lady Maud refused her husband's invitation to go home with him. 'I shall certainly not go with you,' she said. 'Besides, I'm dining early at the Turkish Embassy and we are going to the play. You need not wait for me. I'll take care of myself this evening, thank you.' 'This is monstrous!' cried the fair man, and with a peculiarly un-English gesture he thrust his hand into his thick hair. The foreigner in despair has always amused the genuine Anglo-Saxon. Lady Maud's lip did not curl contemptuously now, she did not raise her eyebrows, nor did her eyes flash with scorn. On the contrary, she smiled quite frankly, and the sweet ripple was in her voice, the ripple that drove some men almost crazy. 'You needn't make such a fuss,' she said. 'It's quite absurd, you know. Mr. Van Torp is an old friend of mine, and you have known him ever so long, and he is a man of business. You are, are you not?' she asked, looking to the American for assent. 'I'm generally thought to be that,' he answered. 'Very well. I came here, to Mr. Van Torp's rooms in the Temple, before going to dinner, because I wished to see him about a matter of business, in what is a place of business. It's all ridiculous nonsense to talk about having caught me--and worse. That money is for a charity, and I am going to take it before your eyes, and thank Mr. Van Torp for being so splendidly generous. Now go, and take those persons with you, and let me hear no more of this!' Thereupon Lady Maud came forward from the mantelpiece and deliberately took from the table the envelope which contained four thousand one hundred pounds in new Bank of England notes; and she put it into the bosom of her gown, and smiled pleasantly at her husband. Mr. Van Torp watched her with genuine admiration, and when she looked at him and nodded her thanks again, he unconsciously smiled too, and answered by a nod of approval. The fair-haired foreign gentleman turned to his two ex-policemen with considerable dignity. 'You have heard and seen,' he said impressively. 'I shall expect you to remember all this when you are in the witness-box. Let us go.' He made a sweeping bow to his wife and Mr. Van Torp. 'I wish you an agreeable evening,' he said. Thereupon he marched out of the room, followed by his men, who each made an awkward bow at nothing in particular before going out. Mr. Van Torp followed them at some distance towards the outer door, judging that as they had forced their way in they could probably find their way out. He did not even go to the outer threshold, for the last of the three shut the door behind him. When the millionaire came back Lady Maud was seated in the easy-chair, leaning forward and looking thoughtfully into the fire. Assuredly no one would have suspected from her composed face that anything unusual had happened. She glanced at her friend when he came in, but did not speak, and he began to walk up and down on the other side of the table, with his hands behind him. 'You've got pretty good nerves,' he said presently. 'Yes,' answered Lady Maud, still watching the coals, 'they really are rather good.' A long silence followed, during which she did not move and Mr. Van Torp steadily paced the floor. 'I didn't tell a fib, either,' she said at last. 'It's charity, in its way.' 'Certainly,' assented her friend. 'What isn't either purchase-money or interest, or taxes, or a bribe, or a loan, or a premium, or a present, or blackmail, must be charity, because it must be something, and it isn't anything else you can name.' 'A present may be a charity,' said Lady Maud, still thoughtful. 'Yes,' answered Mr. Van Torp. 'It may be, but it isn't always.' He walked twice the length of the room before he spoke again. 'Do you think it's really to be war this time?' he asked, stopping beside the table. 'Because if it is, I'll see a lawyer before I go to Derbyshire.' Lady Maud looked up with a bright smile. Clearly she had been thinking of something compared with which the divorce court was a delightful contrast. 'I don't know,' she answered. 'It must come sooner or later, because he wants to be free to marry that woman, and as he has not the courage to cut my throat, he must divorce me--if he can!' 'I've sometimes thought he might take the shorter way,' said Van Torp. 'He?' Lady Maud almost laughed, but her companion looked grave. 'There's a thing called homicidal mania,' he said. 'Didn't he shoot a boy in Russia a year ago?' 'A young man--one of the beaters. But that was an accident.' 'I'm not so sure. How about that poor dog at the Theobalds' last September?' 'He thought the creature was mad,' Lady Maud explained. 'He knows as well as you do that there's no rabies in the British Isles,' objected Mr. Van Torp. 'Count Leven never liked that dog for some reason, and he shot him the first time he got a chance. He's always killing things. Some day he'll kill you, I'm afraid.' 'I don't think so,' answered the lady carelessly. 'If he does, I hope he'll do it neatly! I should hate to be maimed or mangled.' 'Do you know it makes me uncomfortable to hear you talk like that? I wish you wouldn't! You can't deny that your husband's half a lunatic, anyway. He was behaving like one here only a quarter of an hour ago, and it's no use denying it.' 'But I'm not denying anything!' 'No, I know you're not,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'If you don't know how crazy he is, I don't suppose any one else does. But your nerves are better than mine, as I told you. The idea of killing anything makes me uncomfortable, and when it comes to thinking that he really might murder you some day--well, I can't stand it, that's all! If I didn't know that you lock your door at night I shouldn't sleep, sometimes. You do lock it, always, don't you?' 'Oh yes!' 'Be sure you do to-night. I wonder whether he is in earnest about the divorce this time, or whether the whole scene was just bluff, to get my money.' 'I don't know,' answered Lady Maud, rising. 'He needs money, I believe, but I'm not sure that he would try to get it just in that way.' 'Too bad? Even for him?' 'Oh dear, no! Too simple! He's a tortuous person.' 'He tried to pocket those notes with a good deal of directness!' observed Mr. Van Torp. 'Yes. That was an opportunity that turned up unexpectedly, but he didn't know it would. How could he? He didn't come here expecting to find thousands of pounds lying about on the table! It was easy enough to know that I was here, of course. I couldn't go out of my own house on foot, in a dinner-gown, and pick up a hansom, could I? I had one called and gave the address, and the footman remembered it and told my husband. There's nothing more foolish than making mysteries and giving the cabman first one address and then another. If Boris is really going to bring a suit, the mere fact that there was no concealment as to where I was going this evening would be strong evidence, wouldn't it? Evidence he cannot deny, too, since he must have learnt the address from the footman, who heard me give it! And people who make no secret of a meeting are not meeting clandestinely, are they?' 'You argue that pretty well,' said Mr. Van Torp, smiling. 'And besides,' rippled Lady Maud's sweet voice, as she shook out the folds of her black velvet, 'I don't care.' Her friend held up the fur-lined cloak and put it over her shoulders. She fastened it at the neck and then turned to the fire for a moment before leaving. 'Rufus,' she said gravely, after a moment's pause, and looking down at the coals, 'you're an angel.' 'The others in the game don't think so,' answered Mr. Van Torp. 'No one was ever so good to a woman as you've been to me,' said Maud. And all at once the joyful ring had died away from her voice and there was another tone in it that was sweet and low too, but sad and tender and grateful, all at once. 'There's nothing to thank me for,' answered Mr. Van Torp. 'I've often told you so. But I have a good deal of reason to be grateful to you for all you've given me.' 'Nonsense!' returned the lady, and the sadness was gone again, but not all the tenderness. 'I must be going,' she added a moment later, turning away from the fire. 'I'll take you to the Embassy in a hansom,' said the millionaire, slipping on his overcoat. 'No. You mustn't do that--we should be sure to meet some one at the door. Are you going anywhere in particular? I'll drop you wherever you like, and then go on. It will give us a few minutes more together.' 'Goodness knows we don't get too many!' 'No, indeed!' So the two went down the dismal stairs of the house in Hare Court together. CHAPTER VI The position of a successful lyric primadonna with regard to other artists and the rest of the world is altogether exceptional, and is not easy to explain. Her value for purposes of advertisement apparently exceeds that of any other popular favourite, not to mention the majority of royal personages. A respectable publisher has been known to bring out a book in which he did not believe, solely because a leading lyric soprano promised him to say in an interview that it was the book of the year. Countless brands of cigars, cigarettes, wines and liquors, have been the fashion with the flash crowd that frequents public billiard-rooms and consumes unlimited tobacco and drink, merely because some famous 'Juliet' or 'Marguerite' has 'consented' to lend her name to the articles in question; and half the grog-shops on both sides of the Atlantic display to the admiring street the most alarming pink and white caricatures, or monstrously enlarged photographs, of the three or four celebrated lyric sopranos who happen to be before the public at any one time. In the popular mind those artists represent something which they themselves do not always understand. There is a legend about each; she is either an angel of purity and light, or a beautiful monster of iniquity; she has turned the heads of kings--'kings' in a vaguely royal plural--completely round on their shoulders, or she has built out of her earnings a hospital for crippled children; the watery-sentimental eye of the flash crowd in its cups sees in her a Phryne, a Mrs. Fry, or a Saint Cecilia. Goethe said that every man must be either the hammer or the anvil; the billiard-room public is sure that every primadonna is a siren or a martyred wife, or else a public benefactress, unless she is all three by turns, which is even more interesting. In any case, the reporters are sure that every one wants to know just what she thinks about everything. In the United States, for instance, her opinion on political matters is often asked, and is advertised with 'scare-heads' that would stop a funeral or arrest the attention of a man on his way to the gallows. Then, too, she has her 'following' of 'girls,' thousands of whom have her photograph, or her autograph, or both, and believe in her, and are ready to scratch out the eyes of any older person who suggests that she is not perfection in every way, or that to be a primadonna like her ought not to be every girl's highest ambition. They not only worship her, but many of them make real sacrifices to hear her sing; for most of them are anything but well off, and to hear an opera means living without little luxuries, and sometimes without necessaries, for days together. Their devotion to their idol is touching and true; and she knows it and is good-natured in the matter of autographs for them, and talks about 'my matinée girls' to the reporters, as if those eleven thousand virgins and more were all her younger sisters and nieces. An actress, even the most gifted, has no such 'following.' The greatest dramatic sopranos that ever sing Brunhilde and Kundry enjoy no such popularity. It belongs exclusively to the nightingale primadonnas, whose voices enchant the ear if they do not always stir the blood. It may be explicable, but no explanation is at all necessary, since the fact cannot be disputed. To this amazing popularity Margaret Donne had now attained; and she was known to the matinée girls' respectful admiration as Madame Cordova, to the public generally and to her comrades as Cordova, to sentimental paragraph-writers as Fair Margaret, and to her friends as Miss Donne, or merely as Margaret. Indeed, from the name each person gave her in speaking of her, it was easy to know the class to which each belonged. She had bought a house in London, because in her heart she still thought England the finest country in the world, and had never felt the least desire to live anywhere else. She had few relations left and none whom she saw; for her father, the Oxford scholar, had not had money, and they all looked with disapproval on the career she had chosen. Besides, she had been very little in England since her parents' death. Her mother's American friend, the excellent Mrs. Rushmore, who had taken her under her wing, was now in Versailles, where she had a house, and Margaret actually had the audacity to live alone, rather than burden herself with a tiresome companion. Her courage in doing so was perhaps mistaken, considering what the world is and what it generally thinks of the musical and theatrical professions; and Mrs. Rushmore, who was quite powerless to influence Margaret's conduct, did not at all approve of it. The girl's will had always been strong, and her immense success had so little weakened her belief in herself, or softened her character, that she had grown almost too independent. The spirit of independence is not a fault in women, but it is a defect in the eyes of men. Darwin has proved that the dominant characteristic of male animals is vanity; and what is to become of that if women show that they can do without us? If the emancipation of woman had gone on as it began when we were boys, we should by this time be importing wives for our sons from Timbuctoo or the Friendly Islands. Happily, women are practical beings who rarely stray far from the narrow path along which usefulness and pleasure may still go hand in hand; for considering how much most women do that is useful, the amount of pleasure they get out of life is perfectly amazing; and when we try to keep up with them in the chase after amusement we are surprised at the number of useful things they accomplish without effort in twenty-four hours. But, indeed, women are to us very like the moon, which has shown the earth only one side of herself since the beginning, though she has watched and studied our world from all its sides through uncounted ages. We men are alternately delighted, humiliated, and terrified when women anticipate our wishes, perceive our weaknesses, and detect our shortcomings, whether we be frisky young colts in the field or sober stagers plodding along between the matrimonial shafts in harness and blinkers. We pride ourselves on having the strength to smash the shafts, shake off the harness, and kick the cart to pieces if we choose, and there are men who can and do. But the man does not live who knows what the dickens women are up to when he is going quietly along the road, as a good horse should. Sometimes they are driving us, and then there is no mistake about it; and sometimes they are just sitting in the cart and dozing, and we can tell that they are behind us by their weight; but very often we are neither driven by them nor are we dragging them, and we really have not the faintest idea where they are, so that we are reduced to telling ourselves, with a little nervousness which we do not care to acknowledge, that it is noble and beautiful to trust what we love. A part of the great feminine secret is the concealment of that independence about which there has been so much talk in our time. As for suffrage, wherever there is such a thing, the woman who does not vote always controls far more men's votes than the woman who goes to the polls, and has only her own vote to give. Margaret, the primadonna, did not want to vote for or against anything; but she was a little too ready to assert that she could and would lead her own life as she pleased, without danger to her good name, because she had never done anything to be ashamed of. The natural consequence was that she was gradually losing something which is really much more worth having than commonplace, technical independence. Her friend Lushington realised the change as soon as she landed, and it hurt him to see it, because it seemed to him a great pity that what he had thought an ideal, and therefore a natural manifestation of art, should be losing the fine outlines that had made it perfect to his devoted gaze. But this was not all. His rather over-strung moral sense was offended as well as his artistic taste. He felt that Margaret was blunting the sensibilities of her feminine nature and wronging a part of herself, and that the delicate bloom of girlhood was opening to a blossom that was somewhat too evidently strong, a shade too vivid and more brilliant than beautiful. There were times when she reminded him of his mother, and those were some of the most painful moments of his present life. It is true that compared with Madame Bonanni in her prime, as he remembered her, Margaret was as a lily of the valley to a giant dahlia; yet when he recalled the sweet and healthy English girl he had known and loved in Versailles three years ago, the vision was delicate and fairy-like beside the strong reality of the successful primadonna. She was so very sure of herself now, and so fully persuaded that she was not accountable to any one for her doings, her tastes, or the choice of her friends! If not actually like Madame Bonanni, she was undoubtedly beginning to resemble two or three of her famous rivals in the profession who were nearer to her own age. Her taste did not run in the direction of white fox cloaks, named diamonds, and imperial jade plates; she did not use a solid gold toothbrush with emeralds set in the handle, like Ismail Pacha; bridge did not amuse her at all, nor could she derive pleasure from playing at Monte Carlo; she did not even keep an eighty-horse-power motor-car worth five thousand pounds. Paul Griggs, who was old-fashioned, called motor-cars 'sudden-death carts,' and Margaret was inclined to agree with him. She cared for none of these things. Nevertheless there was a quiet thoroughgoing luxury in her existence, an unseen private extravagance, such as Rufus Van Torp, the millionaire, had never dreamt of. She had first determined to be a singer in order to support herself, because she had been cheated of a fortune by old Alvah Moon; but before she had actually made her _début_ a handsome sum had been recovered for her, and though she was not exactly what is now called rich, she was at least extremely well off, apart from her professional earnings, which were very large indeed. In the certainty that if her voice failed she would always have a more than sufficient income for the rest of her life, and considering that she was not under the obligation of supporting a number of poor relations, it was not surprising that she should spend a great deal of money on herself. It is not every one who can be lavish without going a little beyond the finely-drawn boundary which divides luxury from extravagance; for useless profusion is by nature as contrary to what is aesthetic as fat in the wrong place, and is quite as sure to be seen. To spend well what rich people are justified in expending over and above an ample provision for the necessities and reasonable comforts of a large existence is an art in itself, and the modest muse of good taste loves not the rich man for his riches, nor the successful primadonna for the thousands she has a right to throw away if she likes. Mr. Van Torp vaguely understood this, without at all guessing how the great artist spent her money. He had understood at least enough to hinder him from trying to dazzle her in the beginning of the New York season, when he had brought siege against her. A week after her arrival in London, Margaret was alone at her piano and Lushington was announced. Unlike the majority of musicians in real fiction she had not been allowing her fingers to 'wander over the keys,' a relaxation that not seldom leads to outer darkness, where the consecutive fifth plays hide-and-seek with the falling sub-tonic to superinduce gnashing of teeth in them that hear. Margaret was learning her part in the _Elisir d'Amore_, and instead of using her voice she was whistling from the score and playing the accompaniment. The old opera was to be revived during the coming season with her and the great Pompeo Stromboli, and she was obliged to work hard to have it ready. The music-room had a polished wooden floor, and the furniture consisted chiefly of a grand piano and a dozen chairs. The walls were tinted a pale green; there were no curtains at the windows, because they would have deadened sound, and a very small wood fire was burning in an almost miniature fireplace quite at the other end of the room. The sun had not quite set yet, and as the blinds were still open, a lurid glare came in from the western sky, over the houses on the opposite side of the wide square. There had been a heavy shower, but the streets were already drying. One shaded electric lamp stood on the desk of the piano, and the rest of the room was illuminated by the yellowish daylight. Margaret was very much absorbed in her work, and did not hear the door open; but the servant came slowly towards her, purposely making his steps heard on the wooden floor in order to attract her attention. When she stopped playing and whistling, and looked round, the man said that Mr. Lushington was downstairs. 'Ask him to come up,' she answered, without hesitation. She rose from the piano, went to the window and looked out at the smoky sunset. Lushington entered the room in a few moments and saw only the outline of her graceful figure, as if she were cut out in black against the glare from the big window. She turned, and a little of the shaded light from the piano fell upon her face, just enough to show him her expression, and though her glad smile welcomed him, there was anxiety in her brown eyes. He came forward, fair and supernaturally neat, as ever, and much more self-possessed than in former days. It was not their first meeting since she had landed, for he had been to see her late in the afternoon on the day of her arrival, and she had expected him; but she had felt a sort of constraint in his manner then, which was new to her, and they had talked for half an hour about indifferent things. Moreover, he had refused a second cup of tea, which was a sure sign that something was wrong. So she had asked him to come again a week later, naming the day, and she had been secretly disappointed because he did not protest against being put off so long. She wondered what had happened, for his letters, his cable to her when she had left America, and the flowers he had managed to send on board the steamer, had made her believe that he had not changed since they had parted before Christmas. As she was near the piano she sat down on the stool, while he took a small chair and established himself near the corner of the instrument, at the upper end of the keyboard. The shaded lamp cast a little light on both their faces, as the two looked at each other, and Margaret realised that she was not only very fond of him, but that his whole existence represented something she had lost and wished to get back, but feared that she could never have again. For many months she had not felt like her old self till a week ago, when he had come to see her after she had landed. They had been in love with each other before she had begun her career, and she would have married him then, but a sort of quixotism, which was highly honourable if nothing else, had withheld him. He had felt that his mother's son had no right to marry Margaret Donne, though she had told him as plainly as a modest girl could that she was not of the same opinion. Then had come Logotheti's mad attempt to carry her off out of the theatre, after the dress rehearsal before her début, and Madame Bonanni and Lushington between them had spirited her away just in time. After that it had been impossible for him to keep up the pretence of avoiding her, and a sort of intimacy had continued, which neither of them quite admitted to be love, while neither would have called it mere friendship. The most amazing part of the whole situation was that Margaret had continued to see Logotheti as if he had not actually tried to carry her off in his motor-car, very much against her will. And in spite of former jealousies and a serious quarrel Logotheti and Lushington spoke to each other when they met. Possibly Lushington consented to treat him civilly because the plot for carrying off Margaret had so completely failed that its author had got himself locked up on suspicion of being a fugitive criminal. Lushington, feeling that he had completely routed his rival on that occasion, could afford to be generous. Yet the man of letters, who was a born English gentleman on his father's side, and who was one altogether by his bringing up, was constantly surprised at himself for being willing to shake hands with a Greek financier who had tried to run away with an English girl; and possibly, in the complicated workings of his mind and conflicting sensibilities, half Anglo-Saxon and half Southern French, his present conduct was due to the fact that Margaret Donne had somehow ceased to be a 'nice English girl' when she joined the cosmopolitan legion that manoeuvres on the international stage of 'Grand Opera.' How could a 'nice English girl' remain herself if she associated daily with such people as Pompeo Stromboli, Schreiermeyer, Herr Tiefenbach and Signorina Baci-Roventi, the Italian contralto who could pass for a man so well that she was said to have fought a real duel with sabres and wounded her adversary before he discovered that she was the very lady he had lately left for another--a regular Mademoiselle de Maupin! Had not Lushington once seen her kiss Margaret on both cheeks in a moment of enthusiastic admiration? He was not the average young man who falls in love with a singer, either; he knew the stage and its depths only too well, for he had his own mother's life always before him, a perpetual reproach. Though Margaret had at first revolted inwardly against the details of her professional surroundings, she had grown used to them by sure and fatal degrees, and things that would once have disgusted her were indifferent to her now. Men who have been educated in conditions of ordinary refinement and who have volunteered in the ranks or gone to sea before the mast have experienced something very like what befell Margaret; but men are not delicately nurtured beings whose bloom is damaged by the rough air of reality, and the camp and the forecastle are not the stage. Perhaps nothing that is necessary shocks really sensible people; it is when disagreeable things are perfectly useless and quite avoidable--in theory--that they are most repugnant to men like Edmund Lushington. He had warned Margaret of what was in store for her, before she had taken the final step; but he had not warned himself that in spite of her bringing-up she might get used to it all and end by not resenting it any more than the rest of the professionals with whom she associated. It was this that chilled him. 'I hope I'm not interrupting your work,' he said as he sat down. 'My work?' 'I heard you studying when they let me in.' 'Oh!' His voice sounded very indifferent, and a pause followed Margaret's mild ejaculation. 'It's rather a thankless opera for the soprano, I always think,' he observed. 'The tenor has it all his own way.' '_The Elisir d'Amore_?' 'Yes.' 'I've not rehearsed it yet,' said Margaret rather drearily. 'I don't know.' He evidently meant to talk of indifferent things again, as at their last meeting, and she felt that she was groping in the dark for something she had lost. There was no sympathy in his voice, no interest, and she was inclined to ask him plainly what was the matter; but her pride hindered her still, and she only looked at him with an expression of inquiry. He laid his hand on the corner of the piano, and his eyes rested on the shaded lamp as if it attracted him. Perhaps he wondered why he had nothing to say to her, and why she was unwilling to help the conversation a little, since her new part might be supposed to furnish matter for a few commonplace phrases. The smoky sunset was fading outside and the room was growing dark. 'When do the rehearsals begin?' he asked after a long interval, and as if he was quite indifferent to the answer. 'When Stromboli comes, I suppose.' Margaret turned on the piano stool, so as to face the desk, and she quietly closed the open score and laid it on the little table on her other side, as if not caring to talk of it any more, but she did not turn to him again. 'You had a great success in New York,' he said, after some time. To this she answered nothing, but she shrugged her shoulders a little, and though he was not looking directly at her he saw the movement, and was offended by it. Such a little shrug was scarcely a breach of manners, but it was on the verge of vulgarity in his eyes, because he was persuaded that she had begun to change for the worse. He had already told himself that her way of speaking was not what it had been last year, and he felt that if the change went on she would set his teeth on edge some day; and that he was growing more and more sensitive, while she was continually becoming less so. Margaret could not have understood that, and would have been hurt if he had tried to explain it. She was disappointed, because his letters had made her think that she was going to find him just as she had left him, as indeed he had been till the moment when he saw her after her arrival; but then he had changed at once. He had been disappointed then, as she was now, and chilled, as she was now; he had felt that he was shrinking from her then, as she now shrank from him. He suffered a good deal in his quiet way, for he had never known any woman who had moved him as she once had; but she suffered too, and in a much more resentful way. Two years of maddening success had made her very sure that she had a prime right to anything she wanted--within reason! If she let him alone he would sit out his half-hour's visit, making an idle remark now and then, and he would go away; but she would not let him do that. It was too absurd that after a long and affectionate intimacy they should sit there in the soft light and exchange platitudes. 'Tom,' she said, suddenly resolving to break the ice, 'we have been much too good friends to behave in this way to each other. If something has come between us, I think you ought to tell me--don't you?' 'I wish I could,' Lushington answered, after a moment's hesitation. 'If you know, you can,' said Margaret, taking the upper hand and meaning to keep it. 'That does not quite follow.' 'Oh yes, it does,' retorted Margaret energetically. 'I'll tell you why. If it's anything on your side, it's not fair and honest to keep it from me after writing to me as you have written all winter. But if it's the other way, there's nothing you can possibly know about me which you cannot tell me, and if you think there is, then some one has been telling you what is not true.' 'It's nothing against you; I assure you it's not.' 'Then there is a woman in the case. Why should you not say so frankly? We are not bound to each other in any way, I'm sure. I believe I once asked you to marry me, and you refused!' She laughed rather sharply. 'That does not constitute an engagement!' 'You put the point rather brutally, I think,' said Lushington. 'Perhaps, but isn't it quite true? It was not said in so many words, but you knew I meant it, and but for a quixotic scruple of yours we should have been married. I remember asking you what we were making ourselves miserable about, since we both cared so much. It was at Versailles, the last time we walked together, and we had stopped, and I was digging little round holes in the road with my parasol. I'm not going to ask you again to marry me, so there is no reason in the world why you should behave differently to me if you have fallen in love with some one else.' 'I'm not in love with any one,' said Lushington sharply. 'Then something you have heard about me has changed you in spite of what you say, and I have a right to know what it is, because I've done nothing I'm ashamed of.' 'I've not heard a word against you,' he answered, almost angrily. 'Why do you imagine such things?' 'Because I'm honest enough to own that your friendship has meant a great deal to me, even at a distance; and as I see that it has broken its neck at some fence or other, I'm natural enough to ask what the jump was like!' He would not answer. He only looked at her suddenly for an instant, with a slight pinching of the lids, and his blue eyes glittered a little; then he turned away with a displeased air. 'Am I just or not?' Margaret asked, almost sternly. 'Yes, you are just,' he said, for it was impossible not to reply. 'And do you think it is just to me to change your manner altogether, without giving me a reason? I don't!' 'You will force me to say something I would rather not say.' 'That is what I am trying to do,' Margaret retorted. 'Since you insist on knowing the truth,' answered Lushington, yielding to what was very like necessity, 'I think you are very much changed since I saw you last. You do not seem to me the same person.' For a moment Margaret looked at him with something like wonder, and her lips parted, though she said nothing. Then they met again and shut very tight, while her brown eyes darkened till they looked almost black; she turned a shade paler, too, and there was something almost tragic in her face. 'I'm sorry,' Lushington said, watching her, 'but you made me tell you.' 'Yes,' she answered slowly. 'I made you tell me, and I'm glad I did. So I have changed as much as that, have I? In two years!' She folded her hands on the little shelf of the empty music desk, bent far forwards and looked down between the polished wooden bars at the strings below, as if she were suddenly interested in the mechanism of the piano. Lushington turned his eyes to the darkening windows, and both sat thus in silence for some time. 'Yes,' she repeated at last, 'I'm glad I made you tell me. It explains everything very well.' Still Lushington said nothing, and she was still examining the strings. Her right hand stole to the keys, and she pressed down one note so gently that it did not strike; she watched the little hammer that rose till it touched the string and then fell back into its place. 'You said I should change--I remember your words.' Her voice was quiet and thoughtful, whatever she felt. 'I suppose there is something about me now that grates on your nerves.' There was no resentment in her tone, nor the least intonation of sarcasm. But Lushington said nothing; he was thinking of the time when he had thought her an ideal of refined girlhood, and had believed in his heart that she could never stand the life of the stage, and would surely give it up in sheer disgust, no matter how successful she might be. Yet now, she did not even seem offended by what he had told her. So much the better, he thought; for he was far too truthful to take back one word in order to make peace, even if she burst into tears. Possibly, of the two, his reflections were sadder than hers just then, but she interrupted them with a question. 'Can you tell me of any one thing I do that jars on you?' she asked. 'Or is it what I say, or my way of speaking? I should like to know.' 'It's nothing, and it's everything,' answered Lushington, taking refuge in a commonplace phrase, 'and I suppose no one else would ever notice it. But I'm so awfully sensitive about certain things. You know why.' She knew why; yet it was with a sort of wonder that she asked herself what there was in her tone or manner that could remind him of his mother; but though she had spoken quietly, and almost humbly, a cold and secret anger was slowly rising in her. The great artist, who held thousands spellbound and breathless, could not submit easily to losing in such a way the only friendship that had ever meant much to her. The man who had just told her that she had lost her charm for him meant that she was sinking to the level of her surroundings, and he was the only man she had ever believed that she loved. Two years ago, and even less, she would have been generously angry with him, and would have spoken out, and perhaps all would have been over; but those two years of life on the stage had given her the self-control of an actress when she chose to exercise it, and she had acquired an artificial command of her face and voice which had not belonged to her original frank and simple self. Perhaps Lushington knew that too, as a part of the change that offended his taste. At twenty-two, Margaret Donne would have coloured, and would have given him a piece of her young mind very plainly; Margarita da Cordova, aged twenty-four, turned a trifle paler, shut her lips, and was frigidly angry, as if some ignorant music-hall reporter had attacked her singing in print. She was convinced that Lushington was mistaken, and that he was merely yielding to that love of finding fault with what he liked which a familiar passage in Scripture attributes to the Divinity, but with which many of us are better acquainted in our friends; in her opinion, such fault-finding was personal criticism, and it irritated her vanity, over-fed with public adulation and the sincere praise of musical critics. 'If you don't like me as I am, there are so many people who do that you don't count!' That was the sub-conscious form of her mental retort, and it was in the manner of Cordova, and not of Margaret. Once upon a time, when his exaggerated sense of honour was driving him away, she had said rather foolishly that if he left her she would not answer for herself. She had felt a little desperate, but he had told her quietly that he, who knew her, would answer for her, and her mood had changed, and she had been herself again. But it was different this time. He meant much more than he said; he meant that she had lowered herself, and she was sure that he would not 'answer' for her now. On the contrary, it was his intention to let her know that he no longer believed in her, and perhaps no longer respected or trusted her. Yet, little by little, during their last separation, his belief in her, and his respect for her, had grown in her estimation, because they alone still connected her with the maidenliness and feminine refinement in which she had grown up. Lushington had broken a link that had been strong. She was at one of the cross-roads of her life; she was at a turning point in the labyrinth, after passing which it would be hard to come back and find the right way. Perhaps old Griggs could help her if it occurred to him; but that was unlikely, for he had reached the age when men who have seen much take people as they find them. Logotheti would certainly not help her, though she knew instinctively that she was still to him what she had always been, and that if he ever had the opportunity he sought, her chances of escape would be small indeed. Therefore she felt more lonely after Lushington had spoken than she had ever felt since her parents had died, and much more desperate. But nothing in the world would have induced her to let him know it, and her anger against him rose slowly, and it was cold and enduring, as that sort of resentment is. She was so proud that it gave her the power to smile carelessly after a minute's silence, and she asked him some perfectly idle questions about the news of the day. He should not know that he had hurt her very much; he should not suspect for a moment that she wished him to go away. She rose presently and turned up the lights, rang the bell, and when the window curtains were drawn, and tea was brought, she did everything she could to make Lushington feel at his ease; she did it out of sheer pride, for she did not meditate any vengeance, but was only angry, and wished to get rid of him without a scene. At last he rose to go away, and when he held out his hand there was a dramatic moment. 'I hope you're not angry with me,' he said with a cheerful smile, for he was quite sure that she bore him no lasting grudge. 'I?' She laughed so frankly and musically after pronouncing the syllable, that he took it for a disclaimer. So he went away, shutting the door after him in a contented way, not sharply as if he were annoyed with her, nor very softly and considerately as if he were sorry for her, but with a moderate, businesslike snap of the latch as if everything were all right. She went back to the piano when she was alone, and sat down on the music-stool, but her hands did not go to the keys till she was sure that Lushington was already far from the house. A few chords, and then she suddenly began to sing with the full power of her voice, as if she were on the stage. She sang Rosina's song in the _Barbiere di Siviglia_ as she had never sung it in her life, and for the first time the words pleased her. '... una vipera sarò!' What 'nice English girl' ever told herself or any one else that she would be a 'viper'? CHAPTER VII Two days later Margaret was somewhat surprised by an informal invitation to dine at the Turkish Embassy. The Ambassador had lately been transferred to London from Paris, where she had known him through Logotheti and had met him two or three times. The latter, as a Fanariote Greek, was a Turkish subject, and although he had once told Margaret that the Turks had murdered his father in some insurrection, and though he himself might have hesitated to spend much time in Constantinople, he nevertheless maintained friendly relations with the representatives of what was his country; and for obvious reasons, connected with Turkish finance, they treated him with marked consideration. On general principles and in theory Turks and Greeks hate each other; in practice they can live very amicably side by side. In the many cases in which Armenians have been attacked and killed by the Turks no Greek has ever been hurt except by accident; on the other hand, none has lifted a hand to defend an Armenian in distress, which sufficiently proves that the question of religion has not been concerned at all. Margaret accepted the Ambassador's invitation, feeling tolerably sure of meeting Logotheti at the dinner. If there were any other women they would be of the meteoric sort, the fragments of former social planets that go on revolving in the old orbit, more or less divorced, bankrupt, or otherwise unsound, though still smart, the kind of women who are asked to fill a table on such occasions 'because they won't mind'--that is to say, they will not object to dining with a primadonna or an actress whose husband has become nebulous and whose reputation is mottled. The men, of whom there might be several, would be either very clever or overpoweringly noble, because all geniuses and all peers are supposed to like their birds of paradise a little high. I wonder why. I have met and talked with a good many men of genius, from Wagner and Liszt to Zola and some still living contemporaries, and, really, their general preference for highly correct social gatherings has struck me as phenomenal. There are even noblemen who seem to be quite respectable, and pretend that they would rather talk to an honest woman at a dinner party than drink bumpers of brut champagne out of Astarte's satin slipper. Mustapha Pasha, the Turkish Ambassador, was a fair, pale man of fifty, who had spiritual features, quiet blue eyes, and a pleasant smile. His hands were delicately made and very white, but not effeminate. He had been educated partly in England, and spoke English without difficulty and almost without accent, as Logotheti did. He came forward to meet Margaret as she entered the room, and he greeted her warmly, thanking her for being so good as to come at short notice. Logotheti was the next to take her hand, and she looked at him attentively when her eyes met his, wondering whether he, too, would think her changed. He himself was not, at all events. Mustapha Pasha, a born Musalman and a genuine Turk, never arrested attention in an English drawing-room by his appearance; but Constantino Logotheti, the Greek, was an Oriental in looks as well as in character. His beautiful eyes were almond-shaped, his lips were broad and rather flat, and the small black moustache grew upwards and away from them so as not to hide his mouth at all. He had an even olive complexion, and any judge of men would have seen at a glance that he was thoroughly sound and as strong as a professional athlete. His coat had a velvet collar; a single emerald stud, worth several thousand pounds, diffused a green refulgence round itself in the middle of his very shiny shirt front; his waistcoat was embroidered and adorned with diamond buttons, his trousers were tight, and his name, with those of three or four other European financiers, made it alternately possible or impossible for impecunious empires and kingdoms to raise money in England, France and Germany. In matters of business, in the East, the Jew fears the Greek, the Greek fears the Armenian, the Armenian fears the Persian, and the Persian fears only Allah. One reason why the Jews do not care to return to Palestine and Asia Minor is that they cannot get a living amongst Christians and Mohammedans, a plain fact which those eminent and charitable European Jews who are trying to draw their fellow-believers eastward would do well to consider. Even in Europe there are far more poor Jews than Christians realise; in Asia there are hardly any rich ones. The Venetians were too much for Shylock, and he lost his ducats and his daughter; amongst Christian Greeks, Christian Armenians, and Musalman Persians, from Constantinople to Tiflis, Teheran, Bagdad and Cairo, the poor man could not have saved sixpence a year. This is not a mere digression, since it may serve to define Logotheti's position in the scale of the financial forces. Margaret took his hand and looked at him just a little longer than she had looked at Mustapha Pasha. He never wrote to her, and never took the trouble to let her know where he was; but when they met his time was hers, and when he could be with her he seemed to have no other pre-occupation in life. 'I came over from Paris to-day,' he said. 'When may I come and see you?' That was always the first question, for he never wasted time. 'To-morrow, if you like. Come late--about seven.' The Ambassador was on her other side. A little knot of men and one lady were standing near the fire in an expectant sort of way, ready to be introduced to Margaret. She saw the bony head of Paul Griggs, and she smiled at him from a distance. He was talking to a very handsome and thoroughbred looking woman in plain black velvet, who had the most perfectly beautiful shoulders Margaret had ever seen. Mustapha Pasha led the Primadonna to the group. 'Lady Maud,' he said to the beauty, 'this is my old friend Señorita da Cordova. Countess Leven,' he added, for Margaret's benefit. She had not met him more than three times, but she did not resent being called his old friend. It was well meant, she thought. Lady Maud held out her hand cordially. 'I've wanted to know you ever so long,' she said, in her sweet low voice. 'That's very kind of you,' Margaret answered. It is not easy to find a proper reply to people who say they have long hoped to meet you, but Griggs came to the rescue, as he shook hands in his turn. 'That was not a mere phrase,' he said with a smile. 'It's quite true. Lady Maud wanted me to give her a letter to you a year ago.' 'Indeed I did,' asseverated the beauty, nodding, 'but Mr. Griggs said he didn't know you well enough!' 'You might have asked me,' observed Logotheti. 'I'm less cautious than Griggs.' 'You're too exotic,' retorted Lady Maud, with a ripple in her voice. The adjective described the Greek so well that the others laughed. 'Exotic,' Margaret repeated the word thoughtfully. 'For that matter,' put in Mustapha Pasha with a smile, 'I can hardly be called a native!' The Countess Leven looked at him critically. 'You could pass for one,' she said, 'but Monsieur Logotheti couldn't.' The other men, whom Margaret did not know, had been listening in silence, and maintained their expectant attitude. In the pause which followed Lady Maud's remark the Ambassador introduced them in foreign fashion: one was a middle-aged peer who wore gold-rimmed spectacles and looked like a student or a man of letters; another was the most successful young playwright of the younger generation, and he wore a very good coat and was altogether well turned out, for in his heart he prided himself on being the best groomed man in London; a third was a famous barrister who had a crisp and breezy way with him that made flat calms in conversation impossible. Lastly, a very disagreeable young man, who seemed a mere boy, was introduced to the Primadonna. 'Mr. Feist,' said the Ambassador, who never forgot names. Margaret was aware of a person with an unhealthy complexion, thick hair of a dead-leaf brown colour, and staring blue eyes that made her think of glass marbles. The face had an unnaturally youthful look, and yet, at the same time, there was something profoundly vicious about it. Margaret wondered who in the world the young man might be and why he was at the Turkish Embassy, apparently invited there to meet her. She at once supposed that in spite of his appearance he must have some claim to celebrity. 'I'm a great admirer of yours, Señorita,' said Mr. Feist in a womanish voice and with a drawl. 'I was in the Metropolitan in New York when you sang in the dark and prevented a panic. I suppose that was about the finest thing any singer ever did.' Margaret smiled pleasantly, though she felt the strongest repulsion for the man. 'I happened to be on the stage,' she said modestly. 'Any of the others would have done the same.' 'Well,' drawled Mr. Feist, 'may be. I doubt it.' Dinner was announced. 'Will you keep house for me?' asked the Ambassador of Lady Maud. 'There's something rather appropriate about your playing Ambassadress here,' observed Logotheti. Margaret heard but did not understand that her new acquaintance was a Russian subject. Mustapha Pasha held out his arm to take her in to dinner. The spectacled peer took in Lady Maud, and the men straggled in. At table Lady Maud sat opposite the Pasha, with the peer on her right and the barrister on her left. Margaret was on the right of the Ambassador, on whose other side Griggs was placed, and Logotheti was Margaret's other neighbour. Feist and the young playwright were together, between Griggs and the nobleman. Margaret glanced round the table at the people and wondered about them. She had heard of the barrister and the novelist, and the peer's name had a familiar sound that suggested something unusual, though she could not quite remember what it was. It might be pictures, or the north pole, or the divorce court, or a new idiot asylum; it would never matter much. The new acquaintances on whom her attention fixed itself were Lady Maud, who attracted her strongly, and Mr. Feist, who repelled her. She wished she could speak Greek in order to ask Logotheti who the latter was and why he was present. To judge by appearances he was probably a rich young American who travelled and frequented theatres a good deal, and who wished to be able to say that he knew Cordova. He had perhaps arrived lately with a letter of introduction to the Ambassador, who had asked him to the first nondescript informal dinner he gave, because the man would not have fitted in anywhere else. Logotheti began to talk at once, while Mustapha Pasha plunged into a political conversation with Griggs. 'I'm much more glad to see you than you can imagine,' the Greek said, not in an undertone, but just so softly that no one else could hear him. 'I'm not good at imagining,' answered Margaret. 'But I'm glad you are here. There are so many new faces.' 'Happily you are not shy. One of your most enviable qualities is your self-possession.' 'You're not lacking in that way either,' laughed Margaret. 'Unless you have changed very much.' 'Neither of us has changed much since last year. I only wish you would!' Margaret turned her head to look at him. 'So you think I am not changed!' she said, with a little pleased surprise in her tone. 'Not a bit. If anything, you have grown younger in the last two years.' 'Does that mean more youthful? More frisky? I hope not!' 'No, not at all. What I see is the natural effect of vast success on a very, nice woman. Formerly, even after you had begun your career, you had some doubts as to the ultimate result. The future made you restless, and sometimes disturbed the peace of your face a little, when you thought about it too much. That's all gone now, and you are your real self, as nature meant you to be.' 'My real self? You mean, the professional singer!' 'No. A great artist, in the person of a thoroughly nice woman.' Margaret had thought that blushing was a thing of the past with her, but a soft colour rose in her cheeks now, from sheer pleasure at what he had said. 'I hope you don't think it impertinent of me to tell you so,' said Logotheti with a slight intonation of anxiety. 'Impertinent!' cried Margaret. 'It's the nicest thing any one has said to me for months, and thank goodness I'm not above being pleased.' Nor was Logotheti above using any art that could please her. His instinct about women, finding no scruples in the way, had led him into present favour by the shortest road. It is one thing to say brutally that all women like flattery; it is quite another to foresee just what form of flattery they will like. People who do not know professional artistic life from the inner side are much too ready to cry out that first-class professionals will swallow any amount of undiscriminating praise. The ability to judge their own work is one of the gifts which place them above the second class. 'I said what I thought,' observed Logotheti with a sudden air of conscientious reserve. 'For once in our acquaintance, I was not thinking of pleasing you. And then I was afraid that I had displeased you, as I so often have.' The last words were spoken with a regret that was real. 'I have forgiven you,' said Margaret quietly; 'with conditions!' she added, as an afterthought, and smiling. 'Oh, I know--I'll never do it again.' 'That's what a runaway horse seems to say when he walks quietly home, with his head down and his ears limp, after nearly breaking one's neck!' 'I was a born runaway,' said Logotheti meekly, 'but you have cured me.' In the pause that followed this speech, Mr. Feist leaned forward and spoke to Margaret across the table. 'I think we have a mutual friend, Madame,' he said. 'Indeed?' Margaret spoke coolly; she did not like to be called 'Madame' by people who spoke English. 'Mr. Van Torp,' explained the young man. 'Yes,' Margaret said, after a moment's hesitation, 'I know Mr. Van Torp; he came over on the same steamer.' The others at the table were suddenly silent, and seemed to be listening. Lady Maud's clear eyes rested on Mr. Feist's face. 'He's quite a wonderful man, I think,' observed the latter. 'Yes,' assented the Primadonna indifferently. 'Don't you think he is a wonderful man?' insisted Mr. Feist, with his disagreeable drawl. 'I daresay he is,' Margaret answered, 'but I don't know him very well.' 'Really? That's funny!' 'Why?' 'Because I happen to know that he thinks everything of you, Madame Cordova. That's why I supposed, you were intimate friends.' The others had listened hitherto in a sort of mournful silence, distinctly bored. Lady Maud's eyes now turned to Margaret, but the latter still seemed perfectly indifferent, though she was wishing that some one else would speak. Griggs turned to Mr. Feist, who was next to him. 'You mean that he is a wonderful man of business, perhaps,' he said. 'Well, we all know he's that, anyway,' returned his neighbour. 'He's not exactly a friend of mine, not exactly!' A meaning smile wrinkled the unhealthy face and suddenly made it look older. 'All the same, I think he's quite wonderful. He's not merely an able man, he's a man of powerful intellect.' 'A Nickel Napoleon,' suggested the barrister, who was bored to death by this time, and could not imagine why Lady Maud followed the conversation with so much interest. 'Your speaking of nickel,' said the peer, at her elbow, 'reminds me of that extraordinary new discovery--let me see--what is it?' 'America?' suggested the barrister viciously. 'No,' said his lordship, with perfect gravity, 'it's not that. Ah yes, I remember! It's a process for making nitric acid out of air.' Lady Maud nodded and smiled, as if she knew all about it, but her eyes were again scrutinising Mr. Feist's face. Her neighbour, whose hobby was applied science, at once launched upon a long account of the invention. From time to time the beauty nodded and said that she quite understood, which was totally untrue, but well meant. 'That young man has the head of a criminal,' said the barrister on her other side, speaking very low. She bent her head very slightly, to show that she had heard, and she continued to listen to the description of the new process. By this time every one was talking again. Mr. Feist was in conversation with Griggs, and showed his profile to the barrister, who quietly studied the retreating forehead and the ill-formed jaw, the latter plainly discernible to a practised eye, in spite of the round cheeks. The barrister was a little mad on the subject of degeneracy, and knew that an unnaturally boyish look in a grown man is one of the signs of it. In the course of a long experience at the bar he had appeared in defence of several 'high-class criminals.' By way of comparing Mr. Feist with a perfectly healthy specimen of humanity, he turned to look at Logotheti beside him. Margaret was talking with the Ambassador, and the Greek was just turning to talk to his neighbour, so that their eyes met, and each waited for the other to speak first. 'Are you a judge of faces?' asked the barrister after a moment. 'Men of business have to be, to some extent,' answered Logotheti. 'So do lawyers. What should you say was the matter with that one?' It was impossible to doubt that he was speaking of the only abnormal head at the table, and Logotheti looked across the wide table at Mr. Feist for several seconds before he answered. 'Drink,' he said in an undertone, when he had finished his examination. 'Yes. Anything else?' 'May go mad any day, I should think,' observed Logotheti. 'Do you know anything about him?' 'Never saw him before.' 'And we shall probably never see him again,' said the Englishman. 'That's the worst of it. One sees such heads occasionally, but one very rarely hears what becomes of them.' The Greek did not care a straw what became of Mr. Feist's head, for he was waiting to renew his conversation with Margaret. Mustapha Pasha told her that she should go to Constantinople some day and sing to the Sultan, who would give her a pretty decoration in diamonds; and she laughed carelessly and answered that it might be very amusing. 'I shall be very happy to show you the way,' said the Pasha. 'Whenever you have a fancy for the trip, promise to let me know.' Margaret had no doubt that he was quite in earnest, and would enjoy the holiday vastly. She was used to such kind offers and knew how to laugh at them, though she was very well aware that they were not made in jest. 'I have a pretty little villa on the Bosphorus,' said the Ambassador, 'If you should ever come to Constantinople it is at your disposal, with everything in it, as long as you care to use it.' 'It's too good of you!' she answered. 'But I have a small house of my own here which is very comfortable, and I like London.' 'I know,' answered the Pasha blandly; 'I only meant to suggest a little change.' He smiled pleasantly, as if he had meant nothing, and there was a pause, of which Logotheti took advantage. 'You are admirable,' he said. 'I have had much more magnificent invitations,' she answered. 'You once wished to give me your yacht as a present if I would only make a trip to Crete--with a party of archaeologists! An archduke once proposed to take me for a drive in a cab!' 'If I remember,' said Logotheti, 'I offered you the owner with the yacht. But I fancy you thought me too "exotic," as Countess Leven calls me.' 'Oh, much!' Margaret laughed again, and then lowered her voice, 'by the bye, who is she?' 'Lady Maud? Didn't you know her? She is Lord Creedmore's daughter, one of seven or eight, I believe. She married a Russian in the diplomatic service, four years ago--Count Leven--but everybody here calls her Lady Maud. She hadn't a penny, for the Creedmores are poor. Leven was supposed to be rich, but there are all sorts of stories about him, and he's often hard up. As for her, she always wears that black velvet gown, and I've been told that she has no other. I fancy she gets a new one every year. But people say--' Logotheti broke off suddenly. 'What do they say?' Margaret was interested. 'No, I shall not tell you, because I don't believe it.' 'If you say you don't believe the story, what harm can there be in telling it?' 'No harm, perhaps. But what is the use of repeating a bit of wicked gossip?' Margaret's curiosity was roused about the beautiful Englishwoman. 'If you won't tell me, I may think it is something far worse!' 'I'm sure you could not imagine anything more unlikely!' 'Please tell me! Please! I know it's mere idle curiosity, but you've roused it, and I shall not sleep unless I know.' 'And that would be bad for your voice.' 'Of course! Please--' Logotheti had not meant to yield, but he could not resist her winning tone. 'I'll tell you, but I don't believe a word of it, and I hope you will not either. The story is that her husband found her with Van Torp the other evening in rooms he keeps in the Temple, and there was an envelope on the table addressed to her in his handwriting, in which there were four thousand one hundred pounds in notes.' Margaret looked thoughtfully at Lady Maud before she answered. 'She? With Mr. Van Torp, and taking money from him? Oh no! Not with that face!' 'Besides,' said Logotheti, 'why the odd hundred? The story gives too many details. People never know as much of the truth as that.' 'And if it is true,' returned Margaret, 'he will divorce her, and then we shall know.' 'For that matter,' said the Greek contemptuously, 'Leven would not be particular, provided he had his share of the profits.' 'Is it as bad as that? How disgusting! Poor woman!' 'Yes. I fancy she is to be pitied. In connection with Van Torp, may I ask an indiscreet question?' 'No question you can ask me about him can be indiscreet. What is it?' 'Is it true that he once asked you to marry him and you refused him?' Margaret turned her pale face to Logotheti with a look of genuine surprise. 'Yes. It's true. But I never told any one. How in the world did you hear it?' 'And he quite lost his head, I heard, and behaved like a madman--' 'Who told you that?' asked Margaret, more and more astonished, and not at all pleased. 'He behaved so strangely that you ran into the next room and bolted the door, and waited till he went away--' 'Have you been paying a detective to watch me?' There was anger in her eyes for a moment, but she saw at once that she was mistaken. 'No,' Logotheti answered with a smile, 'why should I? If a detective told me anything against you I should not believe it, and no one could tell me half the good I believe about you!' 'You're really awfully nice,' laughed Margaret, for she could not help being flattered. 'Forgive me, please!' 'I would rather that the Nike of Samothrace should think dreadful things of me than that she should not think of me at all!' 'Do I still remind you of her?' asked Margaret. 'Yes. I used to be quite satisfied with my Venus, but now I want the Victory from the Louvre. It's not a mere resemblance. She is you, and as she has no face. I see yours when I look at her. The other day I stood so long on the landing where she is, that a watchman took me for an anarchist waiting to deposit a bomb, and he called a policeman, who asked me my name and occupation. I was very near being arrested--on your account again! You are destined to turn the heads of men of business!' At this point Margaret became aware that she and Logotheti were talking in undertones, while the conversation at the table had become general, and she reluctantly gave up the idea of again asking where he had got his information about her interview with Mr. Van Torp in New York. The dinner came to an end before long, and the men went out with the ladies, and began to smoke in the drawing-room, standing round the coffee. Lady Maud put her arm through Margaret's. 'Cigarettes are bad for your throat, I'm sure,' she said, 'and I hate them.' She led the Primadonna away through a curtained door to a small room furnished according to Eastern ideas of comfort, and she sat down on a low, hard divan, which was covered with a silk carpet. The walls were hung with Persian silks, and displayed three or four texts from the Koran, beautifully written in gold on a green ground. Two small inlaid tables stood near the divan, one at each end, and two deep English easy-chairs, covered with red leather, were placed symmetrically beside them. There was no other furniture, and there were no gimcracks about, such as Europeans think necessary in an 'oriental' room. With her plain black velvet, Lady Maud looked handsomer than ever in the severely simple surroundings. 'Do you mind?' she asked, as Margaret sat down beside her. 'I'm afraid I carried you off rather unceremoniously!' 'No,' Margaret answered. 'I'm glad to be quiet, it's so long since I was at a dinner-party.' 'I've always hoped to meet you,' said Lady Maud, 'but you're quite different from what I expected. I did not know you were really so young--ever so much younger than I am.' 'Really?' 'Oh, yes! I'm seven-and-twenty, and I've been married four years.' 'I'm twenty-four,' said Margaret, 'and I'm not married yet.' She was aware that the clear eyes were studying her face, but she did not resent their scrutiny. There was something about her companion that inspired her with trust at first sight, and she did not even remember the impossible story Logotheti had told her. 'I suppose you are tormented by all sorts of people who ask things, aren't you?' Margaret wondered whether the beauty was going to ask her to sing for nothing at a charity concert. 'I get a great many begging letters, and some very amusing ones,' she answered cautiously. 'Young girls, of whom I never heard, write and ask me to give them pianos and the means of getting a musical education. I once took the trouble to have one of those requests examined. It came from a gang of thieves in Chicago.' Lady Maud smiled, but did not seem surprised. 'Millionaires get lots of letters of that sort,' she said. 'Think of poor Mr. Van Torp!' Margaret moved uneasily at the name, which seemed to pursue her since she had left New York; but her present companion was the first person who had applied to him the adjective 'poor.' 'Do you know him well?' she asked, by way of saying something. Lady Maud was silent for a moment, and seemed to be considering the question. 'I had not meant to speak of him,' she answered presently. 'I like him, and from what you said at dinner I fancy that you don't, so we shall never agree about him.' 'Perhaps not,' said Margaret. 'But I really could not have answered that odious man's question in any other way, could I? I meant to be quite truthful. Though I have met Mr. Van Torp often since last Christmas, I cannot say that I know him very well, because I have not seen the best side of him.' 'Few people ever do, and you have put it as fairly as possible. When I first met him I thought he was a dreadful person, and now we're awfully good friends. But I did not mean to talk about him!' 'I wish you would,' protested Margaret. 'I should like to hear the other side of the case from some one who knows him well.' 'It would take all night to tell even what I know of his story,' said Lady Maud. 'And as you've never seen me before you probably would not believe me,' she added with philosophical calm. 'Why should you? The other side of the case, as I know it, is that he is kind to me, and good to people in trouble, and true to his friends.' 'You cannot say more than that of any man,' Margaret observed gravely. 'I could say much more, but I want to talk to you about other things.' Margaret, who was attracted by her, and who was sure that the story Logotheti had told was a fabrication, as he said it was, wished that her new acquaintance would leave other matters alone and tell her what she knew about Van Torp. 'It all comes of my having mentioned him accidentally,' said Lady Maud. 'But I often do--probably because I think about him a good deal.' Margaret thought her amazingly frank, but nothing suggested itself in the way of answer, so she remained silent. 'Did you know that your father and my father were friends at Oxford?' Lady Maud asked, after a little pause. 'Really?' Margaret was surprised. 'When they were undergrads. Your name is Donne, isn't it? Margaret Donne? My father was called Foxwell then. That's our name, you know. He didn't come into the title till his uncle died, a few years ago.' 'But I remember a Mr. Foxwell when I was a child,' said Margaret. 'He came to see us at Oxford sometimes. Do you mean to say that he was your father?' 'Yes. He is alive, you know--tremendously alive!--and he remembers you as a little girl, and wants me to bring you to see him. Do you mind very much? I told him I was to meet you this evening.' 'I should be very glad indeed,' said Margaret. 'He would come to see you,' said Lady Maud, rather apologetically, 'but he sprained his ankle the other day. He was chivvying a cat that was after the pheasants at Creedmore--he's absurdly young, you know--and he came down at some hurdles.' 'I'm so sorry! Of course I shall be delighted to go.' 'It's awfully good of you, and he'll be ever so pleased. May I come and fetch you? When? To-morrow afternoon about three? Are you quite sure you don't mind?' Margaret was quite sure; for the prospect of seeing an old friend of her father's, and one whom she herself remembered well, was pleasant just then. She was groping for something she had lost, and the merest thread was worth following. 'If you like I'll sing for him,' she said. 'Oh, he simply hates music!' answered Lady Maud, with unconscious indifference to the magnificence of such an offer from the greatest lyric soprano alive. Margaret laughed in spite of herself. 'Do you hate music too?' she asked. 'No, indeed! I could listen to you for ever. But my father is quite different. I believe he hears half a note higher with one ear than with the other. At all events the effect of music on him is dreadful. He behaves like a cat in a thunderstorm. If you want to please him, talk to him about old bindings. Next to shooting he likes bindings better than anything in the world--in fact he's a capital bookbinder himself.' At this juncture Mustapha Pasha's pale and spiritual face appeared between the curtains of the small room, and he interrupted the conversation by a single word. 'Bridge?' Lady Maud was on her feet in an instant. 'Rather!' 'Do you play?' asked the Ambassador, turning to Margaret, who rose more slowly. 'Very badly. I would rather not.' The diplomatist looked disappointed, and she noticed his expression, and suspected that he would feel himself obliged to talk to her instead of playing. 'I'm very fond of looking on,' she added quickly, 'if you will let me sit beside you.' They went back to the drawing-room, and presently the celebrated Señorita da Cordova, who was more accustomed to being the centre of interest than she realised, felt that she was nobody at all, as she sat at her host's elbow watching the game through a cloud of suffocating cigarette smoke. Even old Griggs, who detested cards, had sacrificed himself in order to make up the second table. As for Logotheti, he was too tactful to refuse a game in which every one knew him to be a past master, in order to sit out and talk to her the whole evening. Margaret watched the players with some little interest at first. The disagreeable Mr. Feist lost and became even more disagreeable, and Margaret reflected that whatever he might be he was certainly not an adventurer, for she had seen a good many of the class. The Ambassador lost even more, but with the quiet indifference of a host who plays because his guests like that form of amusement. Lady Maud and the barrister were partners, and seemed to be winning a good deal; the peer whose hobby was applied science revoked and did dreadful things with his trumps, but nobody seemed to care in the least, except the barrister, who was no respecter of persons, and had fought his way to celebrity by terrorising juries and bullying the Bench. At last Margaret let her head rest against the back of her comfortable chair, and when she closed her eyes because the cigarette smoke made them smart, she forgot to open them again, and went sound asleep; for she was a healthy young person, and had eaten a good dinner, and on evenings when she did not sing she was accustomed to go to bed at ten o'clock, if not earlier. No one even noticed that she was sleeping, and the game went on till nearly midnight, when she was awakened by the sound of voices, and sprang to her feet with the impression of having done something terribly rude. Every one was standing, the smoke was as thick as ever, and it was tempered by a smell of Scotch whisky. The men looked more or less tired, but Lady Maud had not turned a hair. The peer, holding a tall glass of weak whisky and soda in his hand, and blinking through his gold-rimmed spectacles, asked her if she were going anywhere else. 'There's nothing to go to yet,' she said rather regretfully. 'There are women's clubs,' suggested Logotheti. 'That's the objection to them,' answered the beauty with more sarcasm than grammatical sequence. 'Bridge till all hours, though,' observed the barrister. 'I'd give something to spend an evening at a smart women's club,' said the playwright in a musing tone. 'Is it true that the Crown Prince of Persia got into the one in Mayfair as a waiter?' 'They don't have waiters,' said Lady Maud. 'Nothing is ever true. I must be going home.' Margaret was only too glad to go too. When they were downstairs she heard a footman ask Lady Maud if he should call a hansom for her. He evidently knew that she had no carriage. 'May I take you home?' Margaret asked. 'Oh, please do!' answered the beauty with alacrity. 'It's awfully good of you!' It was raining as the two handsome women got into the singer's comfortable brougham. 'Isn't there room for me too?' asked Logotheti, putting his head in before the footman could shut the door. 'Don't be such a baby,' answered Lady Maud in a displeased tone. The Greek drew back with a laugh and put up his umbrella; Lady Maud told the footman where to go, and the carriage drove away. 'You must have had a dull evening,' she said. 'I was sound asleep most of the time,' Margaret answered. 'I'm afraid the Ambassador thought me very rude.' 'Because you went to sleep? I don't believe he even noticed it. And if he did, why should you mind? Nobody cares what anybody does nowadays. We've simplified life since the days of our fathers. We think more of the big things than they did, and much less of the little ones.' 'All the same, I wish I had kept awake!' 'Nonsense!' retorted Lady Maud. 'What is the use of being famous if you cannot go to sleep when you are sleepy? This is a bad world as it is, but it would be intolerable if one had to keep up one's school-room manners all one's life, and sit up straight and spell properly, as if Society, with a big S, were a governess that could send us to bed without our supper if we didn't!' Margaret laughed a little, but there was no ripple in Lady Maud's delicious voice as she made these singular statements. She was profoundly in earnest. 'The public is my schoolmistress,' said Margaret. 'I'm so used to being looked at and listened to on the stage that I feel as if people were always watching me and criticising me, even when I go out to dinner.' 'I've no right at all to give you my opinion, because I'm nobody in particular,' answered Lady Maud, 'and you are tremendously famous and all that! But you'll make yourself miserable for nothing if you get into the way of caring about anybody's opinion of you, except on the stage. And you'll end by making the other people uncomfortable too, because you'll make them think that you mean to teach them manners!' 'Heaven forbid!' Margaret laughed again. The carriage stopped, and Lady Maud thanked her, bade her good-night, and got out. 'No,' she said, as the footman was going to ring the bell, 'I have a latch-key, thank you.' It was a small house in Charles Street, Berkeley Square, and the windows were quite dark. There was not even a light in the hall when Margaret saw Lady Maud open the front door and disappear within. Margaret went over the little incidents of the evening as she drove home alone, and felt better satisfied with herself than she had been since Lushington's visit, in spite of having deliberately gone to sleep in Mustapha Pasha's drawing-room. No one had made her feel that she was changed except for the better, and Lady Maud, who was most undoubtedly a smart woman of the world, had taken a sudden fancy to her. Margaret told herself that this would be impossible if she were ever so little vulgarised by her stage life, and in this reflection she consoled herself for what Lushington had said, and nursed her resentment against him. The small weaknesses of celebrities are sometimes amazing. There was a moment that evening, as she stood before her huge looking-glass before undressing and scrutinised her face in it, when she would have given her fame and her fortune to be Lady Maud, who trusted to a passing hansom or an acquaintance's carriage for getting home from an Embassy, who let herself into a dark and cheerless little house with a latch-key, who was said to be married to a slippery foreigner, and about whom the gossips invented unedifying tales. Margaret wondered whether Lady Maud would ever think of changing places with her, to be a goddess for a few hours every week, to have more money than she could spend on herself, and to be pursued with requests for autographs and grand pianos, not to mention invitations to supper from those supernal personages whose uneasy heads wear crowns or itch for them; and Señorita da Cordova told herself rather petulantly that Lady Maud would rather starve than be the most successful soprano that ever trilled on the high A till the house yelled with delight, and the royalties held up their stalking-glasses to watch the fluttering of her throat, if perchance they might see how the pretty noise was made. But at this point Margaret Donne was a little ashamed of herself, and went to bed; and she dreamt that Edmund Lushington had suddenly taken to wearing a little moustache, very much turned up and flattened on his cheeks, and a single emerald for a stud, which cast a greenish refulgence round it upon a shirt-front that was hideously shiny; and the effect of these changes in his appearance was to make him perfectly odious. CHAPTER VIII Lord Creedmore had begun life as a poor barrister, with no particular prospects, had entered the House of Commons early, and had been a hard-working member of Parliament till he had inherited a title and a relatively exiguous fortune when he was over fifty by the unexpected death of his uncle and both the latter's sons within a year. He had married young; his wife was the daughter of a Yorkshire country gentleman, and had blessed him with ten children, who were all alive, and of whom Lady Maud was not the youngest. He was always obliged to make a little calculation to remember how old she was, and whether she was the eighth or the ninth. There were three sons and seven daughters. The sons were all in the army, and all stood between six and seven feet in their stockings; the daughters were all good-looking, but none was as handsome as Maud; they were all married, and all but she had children. Lady Creedmore had been a beauty too, but at the present time she was stout and gouty, had a bad temper, and alternately soothed and irritated her complaint and her disposition by following cures or committing imprudences. Her husband, who was now over sixty, had never been ill a day in his life; he was as lean and tough as a greyhound and as active as a schoolboy, a good rider, and a crack shot. His connection with this tale, apart from the friendship which grew up between Margaret and Lady Maud, lies in the fact that his land in Derbyshire adjoined the estate which Mr. Van Torp had bought and re-named after himself. It was here that Lady Maud and the American magnate had first met, two years after her marriage, when she had come home on a long visit, very much disillusionised as to the supposed advantages of the marriage bond as compared with the freedom of a handsome English girl of three-and-twenty, who is liked in her set and has the run of a score of big country houses without any chaperonial encumbrance. For the chaperon is going down to the shadowy kingdom of the extinct, and is already reckoned with dodos, stagecoaches, muzzle loaders, crinolines, Southey's poems, the Thirty-nine Articles, Benjamin Franklin's reputation, the British workman, and the late Herbert Spencer's philosophy. On the previous evening Lady Maud had not told Margaret that Lord Creedmore lived in Surrey, having let his town house since his youngest daughter had married. She now explained that it would be absurd to think of driving such a distance when one could go almost all the way by train. The singer was rather scared at the prospect of possibly missing trains, waiting in draughty stations, and getting wet by a shower; she was accustomed to think nothing of driving twenty miles in a closed carriage to avoid the slightest risk of a wetting. But Lady Maud piloted her safely, and showed an intimate knowledge of the art of getting about by public conveyances which amazed her companion. She seemed to know by instinct the difference between one train and another, when all looked just alike, and when she had to ask a question of a guard or a porter her inquiry was met with business-like directness and brevity, and commanded the respect which all officials feel for people who do not speak to them without a really good reason--so different from their indulgent superiority when we enter into friendly conversation with them. The journey ended in a walk of a quarter of a mile from the station to the gate of the small park in which the house stood. Lady Maud said she was sorry she had forgotten to telephone for a trap to be sent down, but added cheerfully that the walk would do Margaret good. 'You know your way wonderfully well,' Margaret said. 'Yes,' answered her companion carelessly. 'I don't think I could lose myself in London, from Limehouse to Wormwood Scrubs.' She spoke quite naturally, as if it were not in the least surprising that a smart woman of the world should possess such knowledge. 'You must have a marvellous memory for places,' Margaret ventured to say. 'Why? Because I know my way about? I walk a great deal, that's all.' Margaret wondered whether the Countess Leven habitually took her walks in the direction of Limehouse in the east or Shepherd's Bush in the west; and if so, why? As for the distance, the thoroughbred looked as if she could do twenty miles without turning a hair, and Margaret wished she would not walk quite so fast, for, like all great singers, she herself easily got out of breath if she was hurried; it was not the distance that surprised her, however, but the fact that Lady Maud should ever visit such regions. They reached the house and found Lord Creedmore in the library, his lame foot on a stool and covered up with a chudder. His clear brown eyes examined Margaret's face attentively while he held her hand in his. 'So you are little Margery,' he said at last, with a very friendly smile. 'Do you remember me at all, my dear? I suppose I have changed almost more than you have.' Margaret remembered him very well indeed as Mr. Foxwell, who used always to bring her certain particularly delicious chocolate wafers whenever he came to see her father in Oxford. She sat down beside him and looked at his face--clean-shaven, kindly, and energetic--the face of a clever lawyer and yet of a keen sportsman, a type you will hardly find out of England. Lady Maud left the two alone after a few minutes, and Margaret found herself talking of her childhood and her old home, as if nothing very much worth mentioning had happened in her life during the last ten or a dozen years. While she answered her new friend's questions and asked others of him she unconsciously looked about the room. The writing-table was not far from her, and she saw on it two photographs in plain ebony frames; one was of her father, the other was a likeness of Lady Maud. Little by little she understood that her father had been Lord Creedmore's best friend from their schoolboy days till his death. Yet although they had constantly exchanged short visits, the one living in Oxford and the other chiefly in town, their wives had hardly known each other, and their children had never met. 'Take him all in all,' said the old gentleman gravely, 'Donne was the finest fellow I ever knew, and the only real friend I ever had.' His eyes turned to the photograph on the table with a far-away manly regret that went to Margaret's heart. Her father had been a reticent man, and as there was no reason why he should have talked much about his absent friend Foxwell, it was not surprising that Margaret should never have known how close the tie was that bound them. But now, coming unawares upon the recollection of that friendship in the man who had survived, she felt herself drawn to him as if he were of her own blood, and she thought she understood why she had liked his daughter so much at first sight. They talked for more than half an hour, and Margaret did not even notice that he had not once alluded to her profession, and that she had so far forgotten herself for the time as not to miss the usual platitudes about her marvellous voice and her astoundingly successful career. 'I hope you'll come and stop with us in Derbyshire in September,' he said at last. 'I'm quite ashamed to ask you there, for we are dreadfully dull people; but it would give us a great deal of pleasure.' 'You are very kind indeed,' Margaret said. 'I should be delighted to come.' 'Some of our neighbours might interest you,' said Lord Creedmore. 'There's Mr. Van Torp, for instance, the American millionaire. His land joins mine.' 'Really?' Margaret wondered if she should ever again go anywhere without hearing of Mr. Van Torp. 'Yes. He bought Oxley Paddox some time ago and promptly re-christened it Torp Towers. But he's not a bad fellow. Maud likes him, though Lady Creedmore calls him names. He has such a nice little girl--at least, it's not exactly his child, I believe,' his lordship ran on rather hurriedly; 'but he's adopted her, I understand--at least, I fancy so. At all events she was born deaf, poor little thing; but he has had her taught to speak and to understand from the lips. Awfully pretty child! Maud delights in her. Nice governess, too--I forget her name; but she's a faithful sort of woman. It's a dreadfully hard position, don't you know, to be a governess if you're young and good-looking, and though Van Torp is rather a decent sort, I never feel quite sure--Maud likes him immensely, it's true, and that is a good sign; but Maud is utterly mad about a lot of things, and besides, she's singularly well able to take care of herself.' 'Yes,' said Margaret; but she thought of the story Logotheti had told her on the previous evening. 'I know Mr. Van Torp, and the little girl and Miss More,' she said after a moment. 'We came over in the same steamer.' She thought it was only fair to say that she had met the people of whom he had been speaking. There was no reason why Lord Creedmore should be surprised by this, and he only nodded and smiled pleasantly. 'All the better. I shall set Maud on you to drag you down to Derbyshire in September,' he said. 'Women never have anything to do in September. Let me see--you're an actress, aren't you, my dear?' Margaret laughed. It was positively delightful to feel that he had never heard of her theatrical career. 'No; I'm a singer,' she said. 'My stage name is Cordova.' 'Oh yes, yes,' answered Lord Creedmore, very vaguely. 'It's the same thing--you cannot possibly have anything to do in September, can you?' 'We shall see. I hope not, this year.' 'If it's not very indiscreet of me, as an old friend, you know, do you manage to make a living by the stage?' 'Oh--fair!' Margaret almost laughed again. Lady Maud returned at this juncture, and Margaret rose to go, feeling that she had stayed long enough. 'Margery has half promised to come to us in September,' said Lord Creedmore to his daughter, 'You don't mind if I call you Margery, do you?' he asked, turning to Margaret. 'I cannot call you Miss Donne since you really remember the chocolate wafers! You shall have some as soon as I can go to see you!' Margaret loved the name she had been called by as a child. Mrs. Rushmore had severely eschewed diminutives. 'Margery,' repeated Lady Maud thoughtfully. 'I like the name awfully well. Do you mind calling me Maud? We ought to have known each other when we were in pinafores!' In this way it happened that Margaret found herself unexpectedly on something like intimate terms with her father's friend and the latter's favourite child less than twenty-four hours after meeting Lady Maud, and this was how she was asked to their place in the country for the month of September. But that seemed very far away. Lady Maud took Margaret home, as she had brought her, without making her wait more than three minutes for a train, without exposing her to a draught, and without letting her get wet, all of which would seem easy enough to an old Londoner, but was marvellous in the eyes of the young Primadonna, and conveyed to her an idea of freedom that was quite new to her. She remembered that she used to be proud of her independence when she first went into Paris from Versailles alone for her singing lessons; but that trip, contrasted with the one from her own house to Lord Creedmore's on the Surrey side, was like going out for an hour's sail in a pleasure-boat on a summer's afternoon compared with working a sea-going vessel safely through an intricate and crowded channel at night. Margaret noticed, too, that although Lady Maud was a very striking figure, she was treated with respect in places where the singer knew instinctively that if she herself had been alone she would have been afraid that men would speak to her. She knew very well how to treat them if they did, and was able to take care of herself if she chose to travel alone; but she ran the risk of being annoyed where the beautiful thoroughbred was in no danger at all. That was the difference. Lady Maud left her at her own door and went off on foot, though the hansom that had brought them from the Baker Street Station was still lurking near. Margaret had told Logotheti to come and see her late in the afternoon, and as she entered the hall she was surprised to hear voices upstairs. She asked the servant who was waiting. With infinite difficulty in the matter of pronunciation the man informed her that the party consisted of Monsieur Logotheti, Herr Schreiermeyer, Signor Stromboli, the Signorina Baci-Roventi, and Fräulein Ottilie Braun. The four professionals had come at the very moment when Logotheti had gained admittance on the ground that he had an appointment, which was true, and they had refused to be sent away. In fact, unless he had called the police the poor footman could not have kept them out. The Signorina Baci-Roventi alone, black-browed, muscular, and five feet ten in her shoes, would have been almost a match for him alone; but she was backed by Signor Pompeo Stromboli, who weighed fifteen stone in his fur coat, was as broad as he was long, and had been seen to run off the stage with Madame Bonanni in his arms while he yelled a high G that could have been heard in Westminster if the doors had been open. Before the onslaught of such terrific foreigners a superior London footman could only protest with dignity and hold the door open for them to pass. Braver men than he had quailed before Schreiermeyer's stony eye, and gentle little Fräulein Ottilie slipped in like a swallow in the track of a storm. Margaret felt suddenly inclined to shut herself up in her room and send word that she had a headache and could not see them. But Schreiermeyer was there. He would telephone for three doctors, and would refuse to leave the house till they signed an assurance that she was perfectly well and able to begin rehearsing the _Elisir d'Amore_ the next morning. That was what Schreiermeyer would do, and when she next met him he would tell her that he would have 'no nonsense, no stupid stuff,' and that she had signed an engagement and must sing or pay. She had never shammed an illness, either, and she did not mean to begin now. It was only that for two blessed hours and more, with her dead father's best friend and Maud, she had felt like her old self again, and had dreamt that she was with her own people. She had even disliked the prospect of seeing Logotheti after that, and she felt a much stronger repugnance for her theatrical comrades. She went to her own room before meeting them, and she sighed as she stood before the tall looking-glass for a moment after taking off her coat and hat. In pulling out the hat-pins her hair had almost come down, and Alphonsine proposed to do it over again, but Margaret was impatient. 'Give me something--a veil, or anything,' she said impatiently. 'They are waiting for me.' The maid instantly produced from a near drawer a peach-coloured veil embroidered with green and gold. It was a rather vivid modern Turkish one given her by Logotheti, and she wrapped it quickly over her disordered hair, like a sort of turban, tucking one end in, and left the room almost without glancing at the glass again. She was discontented with herself now for having dreamt of ever again being anything but what she was--a professional singer. The little party greeted her noisily as she entered the music-room. Her comrades had not seen her since she had left them in New York, and the consequence was that Signorina Baci-Roventi kissed her on both cheeks with dramatic force, and she kissed Fräulein Ottilie on both cheeks, and Pompeo Stromboli offered himself for a like favour and had to be fought off, while Schreiermeyer looked on gravely, very much as a keeper at the Zoo watches the gambols of the animals in his charge; but Logotheti shook hands very quietly, well perceiving that his chance of pleasing her just then lay in being profoundly respectful while the professionals were overpoweringly familiar. His almond-shaped eyes asked her how in the world she could stand it all, and she felt uncomfortable at the thought that she was used to it. Besides, these good people really liked her. The only members of the profession who hated her were the other lyric sopranos. Schreiermeyer, rapacious and glittering, had a photograph of her hideously enamelled in colours inside the cover of his watch, and the facsimile of her autograph was engraved across the lid of his silver cigarette-case. Pompeo Stromboli carried some of her hair in a locket which he wore on his chain between two amulets against the Evil Eye. Fräulein Ottilie treasured a little water-colour sketch of her as Juliet on which Margaret had written a few friendly words, and the Baci-Roventi actually went to the length of asking her advice about the high notes the contralto has to sing in such operas as _Semiramide_. It would be hard to imagine a more sincere proof of affection and admiration than this. Margaret knew that the greeting was genuine and that she ought to be pleased, but at the first moment the noise and the kissing and the rough promiscuity of it all disgusted her. Then she saw that all had brought her little presents, which were arranged side by side on the piano, and she suddenly remembered that it was her birthday. They were small things without value, intended to make her laugh. Stromboli had sent to Italy for a Neapolitan clay figure of a shepherd, cleverly modelled and painted, and vaguely resembling himself--he had been a Calabrian goatherd. The contralto, who came from Bologna, the city of sausages, gave Margaret a tiny pig made of silver with holes in his back, in which were stuck a number of quill toothpicks. 'You will think of me when you use them at table,' she said, charmingly unconscious of English prejudices. Schreiermeyer presented her with a bronze statuette of Shylock whetting his knife upon his thigh. 'It will encourage you to sign our next agreement,' he observed with stony calm. 'It is the symbol of business. We are all symbolic nowadays.' Fräulein Ottilie Braun had wrought a remarkable little specimen of German sentiment. She had made a little blue pin-cushion and had embroidered some little flowers on it in brown silk. Margaret had no difficulty in looking pleased, but she also looked slightly puzzled. 'They are forget-me-nots,' said the Fräulein, 'but because my name is Braun I made them brown. You see? So you will remember your little Braun forget-me-not!' Margaret laughed at the primitively simple little jest, but she was touched too, and somehow she felt that her eyes were not quite dry as she kissed the good little woman again. But Logotheti could not understand at all, and thought it all extremely silly. He did not like Margaret's improvised turban, either, though he recognised the veil as one he had given her. The headdress was not classic, and he did not think it becoming to the Victory of Samothrace. He also had remembered her birthday and he had a small offering in his pocket, but he could not give it to her before the others. Schreiermeyer would probably insist on looking at it and would guess its value, whereas Logotheti was sure that Margaret would not. He would give it to her when they were alone, and would tell her that it was nothing but a seal for her writing-case, a common green stone of some kind with a little Greek head on it; and she would look at it and think it pretty, and take it, because it did not look very valuable to her unpractised eye. But the 'common green stone' was a great emerald, and the 'little Greek head' was an intaglio of Anacreon, cut some two thousand and odd hundred years ago by an art that is lost; and the setting had been made and chiselled for Maria de' Medici when she married Henry the Fourth of France. Logotheti liked to give Margaret things vastly more rare than she guessed them to be. Margaret offered her visitors tea, and she and Logotheti took theirs while the others looked on or devoured the cake and bread and butter. 'Tea?' repeated Signor Stromboli. 'I am well. Why should I take tea? The tea is for to perspire when I have a cold.' The Signorina Baci-Roventi laughed at him. 'Do you not know that the English drink tea before dinner to give themselves an appetite?' she asked. 'It is because they drink tea that they eat so much.' 'All the more,' answered Stromboli. 'Do you not see that I am fat? Why should I eat more? Am I to turn into a monument of Victor Emanuel?' 'You eat too much bread,' said Schreiermeyer in a resentful tone. 'It is my vice,' said the tenor, taking up four thin slices of bread and butter together and popping them all into his mouth without the least difficulty. 'When I see bread, I eat it. I eat all there is.' 'We see you do,' returned Schreiermeyer bitterly. 'I cannot help it. Why do they bring bread? They are in league to make me fat. The waiters know me. I go into the Carlton; the head-waiter whispers; a waiter brings a basket of bread; I eat it all. I go into Boisin's, or Henry's; the head-waiter whispers; it is a basket of bread; while I eat a few eggs, a chicken, a salad, a tart or two, some fruit, cheese, the bread is all gone. I am the tomb of all the bread in the world. So I get fat. There,' he concluded gravely, 'it is as I tell you. I have eaten all.' And in fact, while talking, he had punctuated each sentence with a tiny slice or two of thin bread and butter, and everybody laughed, except Schreiermeyer, as the huge singer gravely held up the empty glass dish and showed it. 'What do you expect of me?' he asked. 'It is a vice, and I am not Saint Anthony, to resist temptation.' 'Perhaps,' suggested Fräulein Ottilie timidly, 'if you exercised a little strength of character--' 'Exercise?' roared Stromboli, not understanding her, for they spoke a jargon of Italian, German, and English. 'Exercise? The more I exercise, the more I eat! Ha, ha, ha! Exercise, indeed! You talk like crazy!' 'You will end on wheels,' said Schreiermeyer with cold contempt. 'You will stand on a little truck which will be moved about the stage from below. You will be lifted to Juliet's balcony by a hydraulic crane. But you shall pay for the machinery. Oh yes, oh yes! I will have it in the contract! You shall be weighed. So much flesh to move, so much money.' 'Shylock!' suggested Logotheti, glancing at the statuette and laughing. 'Yes, Shylock and his five hundred pounds of flesh,' answered Schreiermeyer, with a faint smile that disappeared again at once. 'But I meant character--' began Fräulein Ottilie, trying to go back and get in a word. 'Character!' cried the Baci-Roventi with a deep note that made the open piano vibrate. 'His stomach is his heart, and his character is his appetite!' She bent her heavy brows and fixed her gleaming black eyes on him with a tragic expression. '"Let them cant about decorum who have characters to lose,"' quoted Logotheti softly. This delicate banter went on for twenty minutes, very much to Schreiermeyer's inward satisfaction, for it proved that at least four members of his company were on good terms with him and with each other; for when they had a grudge against him, real or imaginary, they became sullen and silent in his presence, and eyed him with the coldly ferocious expression of china dogs. At last they all rose and went away in a body, leaving Margaret with Logotheti. 'I had quite forgotten that it was my birthday,' she said, when they were gone. 'I've brought you a little seal,' he answered, holding out the intaglio. She took it and looked at it. 'How pretty!' she exclaimed. 'It's awfully kind of you to have remembered to-day, and I wanted a seal very much.' 'It's a silly little thing, just a head on some sort of green stone. But I tried it on sealing-wax, and the impression is not so bad. I shall be very happy if it's of any use, for I'm always puzzling my brain to find something you may like.' 'Thanks very much. It's the thought I care for.' She laid the seal on the table beside her empty cup. 'And now that we are alone,' she went on, 'please tell me.' 'What?' 'How you found out what you told me at dinner last night.' She leant back in the chair, raising her arms and joining her hands above her head against the high top of the chair, and stretching herself a little. The attitude threw the curving lines of her figure into high relief, and was careless enough, but the tone in which she spoke was almost one of command, and there was a sort of expectant resentfulness in her eyes as they watched his face while she waited for his answer. She believed that he had paid to have her watched by some one who had bribed her servants. 'I did not find out anything,' he said quietly. 'I received an anonymous letter from New York giving me all the details of the scene. The letter was written with the evident intention of injuring Mr. Van Torp. Whoever wrote it must have heard what you said to each other, and perhaps he was watching you through the keyhole. It is barely possible that by some accident he overheard the scene through the local telephone, if there was one in the room. Should you care to see that part of the letter which concerns you? It is not very delicately worded!' Margaret's expression had changed; she had dropped her hands and was leaning forward, listening with interest. 'No,' she said, 'I don't care to see the letter, but who in the world can have written it? You say it was meant to injure Mr. Van Torp--not me.' 'Yes. There is nothing against you in it. On the contrary, the writer calls attention to the fact that there never was a word breathed against your reputation, in order to prove what an utter brute Van Torp must be.' 'Tell me,' Margaret said, 'was that story about Lady Maud in the same letter?' 'Oh dear, no! That is supposed to have happened the other day, but I got the letter last winter.' 'When?' 'In January, I think.' 'He came to see me soon after New Year's Day,' said Margaret.' I wish I knew who told--I really don't believe it was my maid.' 'I took the letter to one of those men who tell character by handwriting,' answered Logotheti. 'I don't know whether you believe in that, but I do a little. I got rather a queer result, considering that I only showed half-a-dozen lines, which could not give any idea of the contents.' 'What did the man say?' 'He said the writer appeared to be on the verge of insanity, if not actually mad; that he was naturally of an accurate mind, with ordinary business capacities, such as a clerk might have, but that he had received a much better education than most clerks get, and must at one time have done intellectual work. His madness, the man said, would probably take some violent form.' 'There's nothing very definite about all that,' Margaret observed. 'Why in the world should the creature have written to you, of all people, to destroy Mr. Van Torp's character?' 'The interview with you was only an incident,' answered Logotheti. 'There were other things, all tending to show that he is not a safe person to deal with.' 'Why should you ever deal with him?' Logotheti smiled. 'There are about a hundred and fifty men in different countries who are regarded as the organs of the world's financial body. The very big ones are the vital organs. Van Torp has grown so much of late that he is probably one of them. Some people are good enough to think that I'm another. The blood of the financial body--call it gold, or credit, or anything you like--circulates through all the organs, and if one of the great vital ones gets out of order the whole body is likely to suffer. Suppose that Van Torp wished to do something with the Nickel Trust in Paris, and that I had private information to the effect that he was not a man to be trusted, and that I believed this information, don't you see that I should naturally warn my friends against him, and that our joint weight would be an effective obstacle in his way?' 'Yes, I see that. But, dear me! do you mean to say that all financiers must be strictly virtuous, like little woolly white lambs?' Margaret laughed carelessly. If Lushington had heard her, his teeth would have been set on edge, but Logotheti did not notice the shade of expression and tone. 'I repeat that the account of the interview with you was a mere incident, thrown in to show that Van Torp occasionally loses his head and behaves like a madman.' 'I don't want to see the letter,' said Margaret, 'but what sort of accusations did it contain? Were they all of the same kind?' 'No. There was one other thing--something about a little girl called Ida, who is supposed to be the daughter of that old Alvah Moon who robbed your mother. You can guess the sort of thing the letter said without my telling you.' Margaret leaned forward and poked the small wood fire with a pair of unnecessarily elaborate gilt tongs, and she nodded, for she remembered how Lord Creedmore had mentioned the child that afternoon. He had hesitated a little, and had then gone on speaking rather hurriedly. She watched the sparks fly upward each time she touched the log, and she nodded slowly. 'What are you thinking of?' asked Logotheti. But she did not answer for nearly half a minute. She was reflecting on a singular little fact which made itself clear to her just then. She was certainly not a child; she was not even a very young girl, at twenty-four; she had never been prudish, and she did not affect the pre-Serpentine innocence of Eve before the fall. Yet it was suddenly apparent to her that because she was a singer men treated her as if she were a married woman, and would have done so if she had been even five years younger. Talking to her as Margaret Donne, in Mrs. Rushmore's house, two years earlier, Logotheti would not have approached such a subject as little Ida Moon's possible relation to Mr. Van Torp, because the Greek had been partly brought up in England and had been taught what one might and might not say to a 'nice English girl.' Margaret now reflected that since the day she had set foot upon the stage of the Opera she had apparently ceased to be a 'nice English girl' in the eyes of men of the world. The profession of singing in public, then, presupposed that the singer was no longer the more or less imaginary young girl, the hothouse flower of the social garden, whose perfect bloom the merest breath of worldly knowledge must blight for ever. Margaret might smile at the myth, but she could not ignore the fact that she was already as much detached from it in men's eyes as if she had entered the married state. The mere fact of realising that the hothouse blossom was part of the social legend proved the change in herself. 'So that is the secret about the little girl,' she said at last. Then she started a little, as if she had made a discovery. 'Good heavens!' she exclaimed, poking the fire sharply. 'He cannot be as bad as that--even he!' 'What do you mean?' asked Logotheti, surprised. 'No--really--it's too awful,' Margaret said slowly, to herself. 'Besides,' she added, 'one has no right to believe an anonymous letter.' 'The writer was well informed about you, at least,' observed Logotheti. 'You say that the details are true.' 'Absolutely. That makes the other thing all the more dreadful.' 'It's not such a frightful crime, after all,' Logotheti answered with a little surprise. 'Long before he fell in love with you he may have liked some one else! Such things may happen in every man's life.' 'That one thing--yes, no doubt. But you either don't know, or you don't realise just what all the rest has been, up to the death of that poor girl in the theatre in New York.' 'He was engaged to her, was he not?' 'Yes.' 'I forget who she was.' 'His partner's daughter. She was called Ida Bamberger.' 'Ida? Like the little girl?' 'Yes. Bamberger divorced his wife, and she married Senator Moon. Don't you see?' 'And the girls were half-sisters--and--?' Logotheti stopped and stared. 'Yes.' Margaret nodded slowly again and poked the fire. 'Good heavens!' The Greek knew something of the world's wickedness, but his jaw dropped. 'Oedipus!' he ejaculated. 'It cannot be true,' Margaret said, quite in earnest. 'I detest him, but I cannot believe that of him.' For in her mind all that she knew and that Griggs had told her, and that Logotheti did not know yet, rose up in orderly logic, and joined what was now in her mind, completing the whole hideous tale of wickedness that had ended in the death of Ida Bamberger, who had been murdered, perhaps, in desperation to avert a crime even more monstrous. The dying girl's faint voice came back to Margaret across the ocean. 'He did it--' And there was the stain on Paul Griggs' hand; and there was little Ida's face on the steamer, when she had looked up and had seen Van Torp's lips moving, and had understood what he was saying to himself, and had dragged Margaret away in terror. And not least, there was the indescribable fear of him which Margaret felt when he was near her for a few minutes. On the other side, what was there to be said for him? Miss More, quiet, good, conscientious Miss More, devoting her life to the child, said that he was one of the kindest men living. There was Lady Maud, with her clear eyes, her fearless ways, and her knowledge of the world and men, and she said that Van Torp was kind, and good to people in trouble and true to his friends. Lord Creedmore, the intimate friend of Margaret's father, a barrister half his life, and as keen as a hawk, said that Mr. Van Torp was a very decent sort of man, and he evidently allowed his daughter to like the American. It was true that a scandalous tale about Lady Maud and the millionaire was already going from mouth to mouth, but Margaret did not believe it. If she had known that the facts were accurately told, whatever their meaning might be, she would have taken them for further evidence against the accused. As for Miss More, she was guided by her duty to her employer, or her affection for little Ida, and she seemed to be of the charitable sort, who think no evil; but after what Lord Creedmore had said, Margaret had no doubt but that it was Mr. Van Torp who provided for the child, and if she was his daughter, the reason for Senator Moon's neglect of her was patent. Then Margaret thought of Isidore Bamberger, the hard-working man of business who was Van Torp's right hand and figure-head, as Griggs had said, and who had divorced the beautiful, half-crazy mother of the two Idas because Van Torp had stolen her from him--Van Torp, his partner, and once his trusted friend. She remembered the other things Griggs had told her: how old Bamberger must surely have discovered that his daughter had been murdered, and that he meant to keep it a secret till he caught the murderer. Even now the detectives might be on the right scent, and if he whose child had been killed, and whose wife had been stolen from him by the man he had once trusted, learnt the whole truth at last, he would not be easily appeased. 'You have had some singular offers of marriage,' said Logotheti in a tone of reflection. 'You will probably marry a beggar some day--a nice beggar, who has ruined himself like a gentleman, but a beggar nevertheless!' 'I don't know,' Margaret said carelessly. 'Of one thing I am sure. I shall not marry Mr. Van Torp.' Logotheti laughed softly. 'Remember the French proverb,' he said. '"Say not to the fountain, I will not drink of thy water."' 'Proverbs,' returned Margaret, 'are what Schreiermeyer calls stupid stuff. Fancy marrying that monster!' 'Yes,' assented Logotheti, 'fancy!' CHAPTER IX Three weeks later, when the days were lengthening quickly and London was beginning to show its better side to the cross-grained people who abuse its climate, the gas was lighted again in the dingy rooms in Hare Court. No one but the old woman who came to sweep had visited them since Mr. Van Torp had gone into the country in March, after Lady Maud had been to see him on the evening of his arrival. As then, the fire was laid in the grate, but the man in black who sat in the shabby arm-chair had not put a match to the shavings, and the bright copper kettle on the movable hob shone coldly in the raw glare from the incandescent gaslight. The room was chilly, and the man had not taken off his black overcoat or his hat, which had a broad band on it. His black gloves lay on the table beside him. He wore patent leather boots with black cloth tops, and he turned in his toes as he sat. His aquiline features were naturally of the melancholic type, and as he stared at the fireplace his expression was profoundly sad. He did not move for a long time, but suddenly he trembled, as a man does who feels the warning chill in a malarious country when the sun goes down, and two large bright tears ran down his lean dark cheeks and were quickly lost in his grizzled beard. Either he did not feel them, or he would not take the trouble to dry them, for he sat quite still and kept his eyes on the grate. Outside it was quite dark and the air was thick, so that the chimney-pots on the opposite roof were hardly visible against the gloomy sky. It was the time of year when spring seems very near in broad daylight, but as far away as in January when the sun goes down. Mr. Isidore Bamberger was waiting for a visitor, as his partner Mr. Van Torp had waited in the same place a month earlier, but he made no preparations for a cheerful meeting, and the cheap japanned tea-caddy, with the brown teapot and the chipped cups and saucers, stood undisturbed in the old-fashioned cupboard in the corner, while the lonely man sat before the cold fireplace and let the tears trickle down his cheeks as they would. At the double stroke of the spring door-bell, twice repeated, his expression changed as if he had been waked from a dream. He dried his cheeks roughly with the back of his hand, and his very heavy black eyebrows were drawn down and together, as if the tension of the man's whole nature had been relaxed and was now suddenly restored. The look of sadness hardened to an expression that was melancholy still, but grim and unforgiving, and the grizzled beard, clipped rather close at the sides, betrayed the angles of the strong jaw as he set his teeth and rose to let in his visitor. He was round-shouldered and slightly bow-legged when he stood up; he was heavily and clumsily built, but he was evidently strong. He went out into the dark entry and opened the door, and a moment later he came back with Mr. Feist, the man with the unhealthy complexion whom Margaret had seen at the Turkish Embassy. Isidore Bamberger sat down in the easy-chair again without ceremony, leaving his guest to bring up a straight-backed chair for himself. Mr. Feist was evidently in a very nervous condition. His hand shook perceptibly as he mopped his forehead after sitting down, and he moved his chair uneasily twice because the incandescent light irritated his eyes. He did not wait for Bamberger to question him, however. 'It's all right,' he said, 'but he doesn't care to take steps till after this season is over. He says the same thing will happen again to a dead certainty, and that the more evidence he has the surer he'll be of the decree. I think he's afraid Van Torp has some explanation up his sleeve that will swing things the other way.' 'Didn't he catch her here?' asked the elder man, evidently annoyed. 'Didn't he find the money on this table in an envelope addressed to her? Didn't he have two witnesses with him? Or is all that an invention?' 'It happened just so. But he's afraid there's some explanation--' 'Feist,' said Isidore Bamberger slowly, 'find out what explanation the man's afraid of, pretty quick, or I'll get somebody who will. It's my belief that he's just a common coward, who takes money from his wife and doesn't care how she gets it. I suppose she refused to pay one day, so he strengthened his position by catching her; but he doesn't want to divorce the goose that lays the golden egg as long as he's short of cash. That's about the measure of it, you may depend.' 'She may be a goose,' answered Feist, 'but she's a wild one, and she'll lead us a chase too. She's up to all sorts of games, I've ascertained. She goes out of the house at all hours and comes home when she's ready, and it isn't to meet your friend either, for he's not been in London again since he landed.' 'Then who else is it?' asked Bamberger. Feist smiled in a sickly way. 'Don't know,' he said. 'Can't find out.' 'I don't like people who don't know and can't find out,' answered the other. 'I'm in a hurry, I tell you. I'm employing you, and paying you a good salary, and taking a great deal of trouble to have you pushed with letters of introduction where you can see her, and now you come here and tell me you don't know and you can't find out. It won't do, Feist. You're no better than you used to be when you were my secretary last year. You're a pretty bright young fellow when you don't drink, but when you do you're about as useful as a painted clock--and even a painted clock is right twice in twenty-four hours. It's more than you are. The only good thing about you is that you can hold your tongue, drunk or sober. I admit that.' Having relieved himself of this plain opinion Isidore Bamberger waited to hear what Feist had to say, keeping his eyes fixed on the unhealthy face. 'I've not been drinking lately, anyhow,' he answered, 'and I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Bamberger, and that is, that I'm just as anxious as you can be to see this thing through, every bit.' 'Well, then, don't waste time! I don't care a cent about the divorce, except that it will bring the whole affair into publicity. As soon as all the papers are down on him, I'll start in on the real thing. I shall be ready by that time. I want public opinion on both sides of the ocean to run strong against him, as it ought to, and it's just that it should. If I don't manage that, he may get off in the end in spite of your evidence.' 'Look here, Mr. Bamberger,' said Feist, waking up, 'if you want my evidence, don't talk of dropping me as you did just now, or you won't get it, do you understand? You've paid me the compliment of telling me that I can hold my tongue. All right. But it won't suit you if I hold my tongue in the witness-box, will it? That's all, Mr. Bamberger. I've nothing more to say about that.' There was a sudden vehemence in the young man's tone which portrayed that in spite of his broken nerves he could still be violent. But Isidore Bamberger was not the man to be brow-beaten by any one he employed. He almost smiled when Feist stopped speaking. 'That's all right,' he said half good-naturedly and half contemptuously. 'We understand each other. That's all right.' 'I hope it is,' Feist answered in a dogged way. 'I only wanted you to know.' 'Well, I do, since you've told me. But you needn't get excited like that. It's just as well you gave up studying medicine and took to business, Feist, for you haven't got what they call a pleasant bedside manner.' Mr. Feist had once been a medical student, but had given up the profession on inheriting a sum of money with which he at once began to speculate. After various vicissitudes he had become Mr. Bamberger's private secretary, and had held that position some time in spite of his one failing, because he had certain qualities which made him invaluable to his employer until his nerves began to give away. One of those qualities was undoubtedly his power of holding his tongue even when under the influence of drink; another was his really extraordinary memory for details, and especially for letters he had written under dictation, and for conversations he had heard. He was skilful, too, in many ways when in full possession of his faculties; but though Isidore Bamberger used him, he despised him profoundly, as he despised every man who preferred present indulgence to future profit. Feist lit a cigarette and blew a vast cloud of smoke round him, but made no answer to his employer's last observation. 'Now this is what I want you to do,' said the latter. 'Go to this Count Leven and tell him it's a cash transaction or nothing, and that he runs no risk. Find out what he'll really take, but don't come talking to me about five thousand pounds or anything of that kind, for that's ridiculous. Tell him that if proceedings are not begun by the first of May his wife won't get any more money from Van Torp, and he won't get any more from his wife. Use any other argument that strikes you. That's your business, because that's what I pay you for. What I want is the result, and that's justice and no more, and I don't care anything about the means. Find them and I'll pay. If you can't find them I'll pay somebody who can, and if nobody can I'll go to the end without. Do you understand?' 'Oh, I understand right enough,' answered Feist, with his bad smile.' If I can hit on the right scheme I won't ask you anything extra for it, Mr. Bamberger! By the bye, I wrote you I met Cordova, the Primadonna, at the Turkish Embassy, didn't I? She hates him as much as the other woman likes him, yet she and the other have struck up a friendship. I daresay I shall get something out of that too.' 'Why does Cordova hate him?' asked Bamberger. 'Don't quite know. Thought perhaps you might.' 'No.' 'He was attentive to her last winter,' Feist said. 'That's all I know for certain. He's a brutal sort of man, and maybe he offended her somehow.' 'Well,' returned Isidore Bamberger, 'maybe; but singers aren't often offended by men who have money. At least, I've always understood so, though I don't know much about that side of life myself.' 'It would be just one thing more to break his character if Cordova would say something against him,' suggested Feist. 'Her popularity is something tremendous, and people always believe a woman who says that a man has insulted her. In those things the bare word of a pretty lady who's no better than she should be is worth more than an honest man's character for thirty years.' 'That's so,' said Bamberger, looking at him attentively. 'That's quite true. Whatever you are, Feist, you're no fool. We may as well have the pretty lady's bare word, anyway.' 'If you approve, I'm nearly sure I can get it,' Feist answered. 'At least, I can get a statement which she won't deny if it's published in the right way. I can furnish the materials for an article on her that's sure to please her--born lady, never a word against her, highly connected, unassailable private life, such a contrast to several other celebrities on the stage, immensely charitable, half American, half English--every bit of that all helps, you see--and then an anecdote or two thrown in, and just the bare facts about her having had to escape in a hurry from a prominent millionaire in a New York hotel--fairly ran for her life and turned the key against him. Give his name if you like. If he brings action for libel, you can subpoena Cordova herself. She'll swear to it if it's true, and then you can unmask your big guns and let him have it hot.' 'No doubt, no doubt. But how do you propose to find out if it is true?' 'Well, I'll see; but it will answer almost as well if it's not true,' said Feist cynically. 'People always believe those things.' 'It's only a detail,' said Bamberger, 'but it's worth something, and if we can make this man Leven begin a suit against his wife, everything that's against Van Torp will be against her too. That's not justice, Feist, but it's fact. A woman gets considerably less pity for making mistakes with a blackguard than for liking an honest man too much, Feist.' Mr. Bamberger, who had divorced his own wife, delivered these opinions thoughtfully, and, though she had made no defence, he might be supposed to know what he was talking about. Presently he dismissed his visitor with final injunctions to lose no time, and to 'find out' if Lady Maud was interested in any one besides Van Torp, and if not, what was at the root of her eccentric hours. Mr. Feist went away, apparently prepared to obey his employer with all the energy he possessed. He went down the dimly-lighted stairs quickly, but he glanced nervously upwards, as if he fancied that Isidore Bamberger might have silently opened the door again to look over the banister and watch him from above. In the dark entry below he paused a moment, and took a satisfactory pull at a stout flask before going out into the yellowish gloom that had settled on Hare Court. When he was in the narrow alley he stopped again and laughed, without making any sound, so heartily that he had to stand still till the fit passed; and the expression of his unhealthy face just then would have disturbed even Mr. Bamberger, who knew him well. But Mr. Bamberger was sitting in the easy-chair before the fireplace, and his eyes were fixed on the bright point at which the shiny copper kettle reflected the gaslight. His head had fallen slightly forward, so that his bearded chin was out of sight below the collar of his overcoat, leaving his eagle nose and piercing eyes above it. He was like a bird of prey looking down over the edge of its nest. He had not taken off his hat for Mr. Feist, and it was pushed back from his bony forehead now, giving his face a look that would have been half comic if it had not been almost terrifying: a tall hat set on a skull, a little back or on one side, produces just such an effect. There was no moisture in the keen eyes now. In the bright spot on the copper kettle they saw the vision of the end towards which he was striving with all his strength, and all his heart, and all his wealth. It was a grim little picture, and the chief figure in it was a thick-set man who had a queer cap drawn down over his face and his hands tied; and the eyes that saw it were sure that under the cap there were the stony features of a man who had stolen his friend's wife and killed his friend's daughter, and was going to die for what he had done. Then Isidore Bamberger's right hand disappeared inside the breast of his coat and closed lovingly upon a full pocket-book; but there was only a little money in it, only a few banknotes folded flat against a thick package of sheets of notepaper all covered with clear, close writing, some in ink and some in pencil; and if what was written there was all true, it was enough to hang Mr. Rufus Van Torp. There were other matters, too, not written there, but carefully entered in the memory of the injured man. There was the story of his marriage with a beautiful, penniless girl, not of his own faith, whom he had taken in the face of strong opposition from his family. She had been an exquisite creature, fair and ethereal, as degenerates sometimes are; she had cynically married him for his money, deceiving him easily enough, for he was willing to be blinded; but differences had soon arisen between them, and had turned to open quarrelling, and Mr. Van Torp had taken it upon himself to defend her and to reconcile them, using the unlimited power his position gave him over his partner to force the latter to submit to his wife's temper and caprice, as the only alternative to ruin. Her friendship for Van Torp grew stronger, till they spent many hours of every day together, while her husband saw little of her, though he was never altogether estranged from her so long as they lived under one roof. But the time came at last when Bamberger had power too, and Van Torp could no longer hold him in check with a threat that had become vain; for he was more than indispensable, he was a part of the Nickel Trust, he was the figure-head of the ship, and could not be discarded at will, to be replaced by another. As soon as he was sure of this and felt free to act, Isidore Bamberger divorced his wife, in a State where slight grounds are sufficient. For the sake of the Nickel Trust Van Torp's name was not mentioned. Mrs. Bamberger made no defence, the affair was settled almost privately, and Bamberger was convinced that she would soon marry Van Torp. Instead, six weeks had not passed before she married Senator Moon, a man whom her husband had supposed she scarcely knew, and to Bamberger's amazement Van Torp's temper was not at all disturbed by the marriage. He acted as if he had expected it, and though he hardly ever saw her after that time, he exchanged letters with her during nearly two years. Bamberger's little daughter Ida had never been happy with her beautiful mother, who had alternately spoilt her and vented her temper on her, according to the caprice of the moment. At the time of the divorce the child had been only ten years old; and as Bamberger was very kind to her and was of an even disposition, though never very cheerful, she had grown up to be extremely fond of him. She never guessed that he did not love her in return, for though he was cynical enough in matters of business, he was just according to his lights, and he would not let her know that everything about her recalled her mother, from her hair to her tone of voice, her growing caprices, and her silly fits of temper. He could not believe in the affection of a daughter who constantly reminded him of the hell in which he had lived for years. If what Van Torp told Lady Maud of his own pretended engagement to Ida was true, it was explicable only on that ground, so far as her father was concerned. Bamberger felt no affection for his daughter, and saw no reason why she should not be used as an instrument, with her own consent, for consolidating the position of the Nickel Trust. As for the former Mrs. Bamberger, afterwards Mrs. Moon, she had gone to Europe in the autumn, not many months after her marriage, leaving the Senator in Washington, and had returned after nearly a year's absence, bringing her husband a fine little girl, whom she had christened Ida, like her first child, without consulting him. It soon became apparent that the baby was totally deaf; and not very long after this discovery, Mrs. Moon began to show signs of not being quite sane. Three years later she was altogether out of her mind, and as soon as this was clear the child was sent to the East to be taught. The rest has already been told. Bamberger, of course, had never seen little Ida, and had perhaps never heard of her existence, and Senator Moon did not see her again before he died. Bamberger had not loved his own daughter in her life, but since her tragic death she had grown dear to him in memory, and he reproached himself unjustly with having been cold and unkind to her. Below the surface of his money-loving nature there was still the deep and unsatisfied sentiment to which his wife had first appealed, and by playing on which she had deceived him into marrying her. Her treatment of him had not killed it, and the memory of his fair young daughter now stirred it again. He accused himself of having misunderstood her. What had been unreal and superficial in her mother had perhaps been true and deep in her. He knew that she had loved him; he knew it now, and it was the recollection of that one being who had been devoted to him for himself, since he had been a grown man, that sometimes brought the tears from his eyes when he was alone. It would have been a comfort, now, to have loved her in return while she lived, and to have trusted in her love then, instead of having been tormented by the belief that she was as false as her mother had been. But he had been disappointed of his heart's desire; for, strange as it may seem to those who have not known such men as Isidore Bamberger, his nature was profoundly domestic, and the ideal of his youth had been to grow old in his own home, with a loving wife at his side, surrounded by children and grandchildren who loved both himself and her. Next to that, he had desired wealth and the power money gives; but that had been first, until the hope of it was gone. Looking back now, he was sure that it had all been destroyed from root to branch, the hope and the possibility, and even the memory that might have still comforted him, by Rufus Van Torp, upon whom he prayed that he might live to be revenged. He sought no secret vengeance, either, no pitfall of ruin dug in the dark for the man's untimely destruction; all was to be in broad daylight, by the evidence of facts, under the verdict of justice, and at the hands of the law itself. It had not been very hard to get what he needed, for his former secretary, Mr. Feist, had worked with as much industry and intelligence as if the case had been his own, and in spite of the vice that was killing him had shown a wonderful power of holding his tongue. It is quite certain that up to the day when Feist called on his employer in Hare Court, Mr. Van Torp believed himself perfectly safe. CHAPTER X A fortnight later Count Leven informed his wife that he was going home on a short leave, but that she might stay in London if she pleased. An aunt of his had died in Warsaw, he said, leaving him a small property, and in spite of the disturbed state of his own country it was necessary that he should go and take possession of the land without delay. Lady Maud did not believe a word of what he said, until it became apparent that he had the cash necessary for his journey without borrowing of her, as he frequently tried to do, with varying success. She smiled calmly as she bade him good-bye and wished him a pleasant journey; he made a magnificent show of kissing her hand at parting, and waved his hat to the window when he was outside the house, before getting into the four-wheeler, on the roof of which his voluminous luggage made a rather unsafe pyramid. She was not at the window, and he knew it; but other people might be watching him from theirs, and the servant stood at the open door. It was always worth while, in Count Leven's opinion, to make an 'effect' if one got a chance. Three days later Lady Maud received a document from the Russian Embassy informing her that her husband had brought an action to obtain a divorce from her in the Ecclesiastical Court of the Patriarch of Constantinople, on the ground of her undue intimacy with Rufus Van Torp of New York, as proved by the attested depositions of detectives. She was further informed that unless she appeared in person or by proxy before the Patriarch of Constantinople within one month of the date of the present notice, to defend herself against the charges made by her husband, judgment would go by default, and the divorce would be pronounced. At first Lady Maud imagined this extraordinary document to be a stupid practical joke, invented by some half-fledged cousin to tease her. She had a good many cousins, among whom were several beardless undergraduates and callow subalterns in smart regiments, who would think it no end of fun to scare 'Cousin Maud.' There was no mistaking the official paper on which the document was written, and it bore the seal of the Chancery of the Russian Embassy; but in Lady Maud's opinion the mention of the Patriarch of Constantinople stamped it as an egregious hoax. On reflection, however, she decided that it must have been perpetrated by some one in the Embassy for the express purpose of annoying her, since no outsider could have got at the seal, even if he could have obtained possession of the paper and envelope. As soon as this view presented itself, she determined to ascertain the truth directly, and to bring down the ambassadorial wrath on the offender. Accordingly she took the paper to the Russian clerk who was in charge of the Chancery, and inquired who had dared to concoct such a paper and to send it to her. To her stupefaction, the man smiled politely and informed her that the document was genuine. What had the Patriarch to do with it? That was very simple. Had she not been married to a Russian subject by the Greek rite in Paris? Certainly. Very well. All marriages of Russian subjects out of their own country took place under the authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople, and all suits for divorcing persons thus married came under his jurisdiction. That was all. It was such a simple matter that every Russian knew all about it. The clerk asked if he could be of service to her. He had been stationed in Constantinople, and knew just what to do; and, moreover, he had a friend at the Chancery there, who would take charge of the case if the Countess desired it. Lady Maud thanked him coldly, replaced the document in its envelope, and left the Embassy with the intention of never setting foot in it again. She understood why Leven had suddenly lost an aunt of whom she had never heard, and had got out of the way on pretence of an imaginary inheritance. The dates showed plainly that the move had been prepared before he left, and that he had started when the notice of the suit was about to be sent to her. The only explanation that occurred to her was that her husband had found some very rich woman who was willing to marry him if he could free himself; and this seemed likely enough. She hesitated as to how she should act. Her first impulse was to go to her father, who was a lawyer and would give her good advice, but a moment's thought showed her that it would be a mistake to go to him. Being no longer immobilised by a sprained ankle, Lord Creedmore would probably leave England instantly in pursuit of Leven himself, and no one could tell what the consequences might be if he caught him; they would certainly be violent, and they might be disastrous. Then Lady Maud thought of telegraphing to Mr. Van Torp to come to town to see her about an urgent matter; but she decided against that course too. Whatever her relations were with the American financier this was not the moment to call attention to them. She would write to him, and in order to see him conveniently she would suggest to her father to have a week-end house party in the country, and to ask his neighbour over from Oxley Paddox. Nobody but Mr. Van Torp and the post-office called the place Torp Towers. She had taken a hansom to the Embassy, but she walked back to Charles Street because she was angry, and she considered nothing so good for a rage as a stiff walk. By the time she reached her own door she was as cool as ever, and her clear eyes looked upon the wicked world with their accustomed calm. As she laid her hand on the door-bell, a smart brougham drove up quickly and stopped close to the pavement, and as she turned her head Margaret was letting herself out, before the footman could get round from the other side to open the door of the carriage. 'May I come in?' asked the singer anxiously, and Lady Maud saw that she seemed much disturbed, and had a newspaper in her hand. 'I'm so glad I just caught you,' Margaret added, as the door opened. They went in together. The house was very small and narrow, and Lady Maud led the way into a little sitting-room on the right of the hall, and shut the door. 'Is it true?' Margaret asked as soon as they were alone. 'What?' 'About your divorce--' Lady Maud smiled rather contemptuously. 'Is it already in the papers?' she asked, glancing at the one Margaret had brought. 'I only heard of it myself an hour ago!' 'Then it's really true! There's a horrid article about it--' Margaret was evidently much more disturbed than her friend, who sat down in a careless attitude and smiled at her. 'It had to come some day. And besides,' added Lady Maud, 'I don't care!' 'There's something about me too,' answered Margaret, 'and I cannot help caring.' 'About you?' 'Me and Mr. Van Torp--the article is written by some one who hates him--that's clear!--and you know I don't like him; but that's no reason why I should be dragged in.' She was rather incoherent, and Lady Maud took the paper from her hand quietly, and found the article at once. It was as 'horrid' as the Primadonna said it was. No names were given in full, but there could not be the slightest mistake about the persons referred to, who were all clearly labelled by bits of characteristic description. It was all in the ponderously airy form of one of those more or less true stories of which some modern weeklies seem to have an inexhaustible supply, but it was a particularly vicious specimen of its class so far as Mr. Van Torp was concerned. His life was torn up by the roots and mercilessly pulled to pieces, and he was shown to the public as a Leicester Square Lovelace or a Bowery Don Juan. His baleful career was traced from his supposed affair with Mrs. Isidore Bamberger and her divorce to the scene at Margaret's hotel in New York, and from that to the occasion of his being caught with Lady Maud in Hare Court by a justly angry husband; and there was, moreover, a pretty plain allusion to little Ida Moon. Lady Maud read the article quickly, but without betraying any emotion. When she had finished she raised her eyebrows a very little, and gave the paper back to Margaret. 'It is rather nasty,' she observed quietly, as if she were speaking of the weather. 'It's utterly disgusting,' Margaret answered with emphasis. 'What shall you do?' 'I really don't know. Why should I do anything? Your position is different, for you can write to the papers and deny all that concerns you if you like--though I'm sure I don't know why you should care. It's not to your discredit.' 'I could not very well deny it,' said the Primadonna thoughtfully. Almost before the words had left her lips she was sorry she had spoken. 'Does it happen to be true?' asked Lady Maud, with an encouraging smile. 'Well, since you ask me--yes.' Margaret felt uncomfortable. 'Oh, I thought it might be,' answered Lady Maud. 'With all his good qualities he has a very rough side. The story about me is perfectly true too.' Margaret was amazed at her friend's quiet cynicism. 'Not that about the--the envelope on the table--' She stopped short. 'Oh yes! There were four thousand one hundred pounds in it. My husband counted the notes.' The singer leaned back in her chair and stared in unconcealed surprise, wondering how in the world she could have been so completely mistaken in her judgment of a friend who had seemed to her the best type of an honest and fearless Englishwoman. Margaret Donne had not been brought up in the gay world; she had, however, seen some aspects of it since she had been a successful singer, and she did not exaggerate its virtues; but somehow Lady Maud had seemed to be above it, while living in it, and Margaret would have put her hand into the fire for the daughter of her father's old friend, who now acknowledged without a blush that she had taken four thousand pounds from Rufus Van Torp. 'I suppose it would go against me even in an English court,' said Lady Maud in a tone of reflection. 'It looks so badly to take money, you know, doesn't it? But if I must be divorced, it really strikes me as delightfully original to have it done by the Patriarch of Constantinople! Doesn't it, my dear?' 'It's not usual, certainly,' said Margaret gravely. She was puzzled by the other's attitude, and somewhat horrified. 'I suppose you think I'm a very odd sort of person,' said Lady Maud, 'because I don't mind so much as most women might. You see, I never really cared for Leven, though if I had not thought I had a fancy for him I wouldn't have married him. My people were quite against it. The truth is, I couldn't have the husband I wanted, and as I did not mean to break my heart about it, I married, as so many girls do. That's my little story! It's not long, is it?' She laughed, but she very rarely did that, even when she was amused, and now Margaret's quick ear detected here and there in the sweet ripple a note that did not ring quite like the rest. The intonation was not false or artificial, but only sad and regretful, as genuine laughter should not be. Margaret looked at her, still profoundly mystified, and still drawn to her by natural sympathy, though horrified almost to disgust at what seemed her brutal cynicism. 'May I ask one question? We've grown to be such good friends that perhaps you won't mind.' Lady Maud nodded. 'Of course,' she said. 'Ask me anything you please. I'll answer if I can.' 'You said that you could not marry the man you liked. Was he--Mr. Van Torp?' Lady Maud was not prepared for the question. 'Mr. Van Torp?' she repeated slowly. 'Oh dear no! Certainly not! What an extraordinary idea!' She gazed into Margaret's eyes with a look of inquiry, until the truth suddenly dawned upon her. 'Oh, I see!' she cried. 'How awfully funny!' There was no minor note of sadness or regret in her rippling laughter now. It was so exquisitely true and musical that the great soprano listened to it with keen delight, and wondered whether she herself could produce a sound half so delicious. 'No, my dear,' said Lady Maud, as her mirth subsided. 'I never was in love with Mr. Van Torp. But it really is awfully funny that you should have thought so! No wonder you looked grave when I told you that I was really found in his rooms! We are the greatest friends, and no man was ever kinder to a woman than he has been to me for the last two years. But that's all. Did you really think the money was meant for me? That wasn't quite nice of you, was it?' The bright smile was still on her face as she spoke the last words, for her nature was far too big to be really hurt; but the little rebuke went home sharply, and Margaret felt unreasonably ashamed of herself, considering that Lady Maud had not taken the slightest pains to explain the truth to her. 'I'm so sorry,' she said contritely. 'I'm dreadfully sorry. It was abominably stupid of me!' 'Oh no. It was quite natural. This is not a pretty world, and there's no reason why you should think me better than lots of other women. And besides, I don't care!' 'But surely you won't let your husband get a divorce for such a reason as that without making a defence?' 'Before the Patriarch of Constantinople?' Lady Maud evidently thought the idea very amusing. 'It sounds like a comic opera,' she added. 'Why should I defend myself? I shall be glad to be free; and as for the story, the people who like me will not believe any harm of me, and the people who don't like me may believe what they please. But I'm very glad you showed me that article, disgusting as it is.' 'I was beginning to be sorry I had brought it.' 'No. You did me a service, for I had no idea that any one was going to take advantage of my divorce to make a cowardly attack on my friend--I mean Mr. Van Torp. I shall certainly not make any defence before the Patriarch, but I shall make a statement which will go to the right people, saying that I met Mr. Van Torp in a lawyer's chambers in the Temple, that is, in a place of business, and about a matter of business, and that there was no secret about it, because my husband's servant called the cab that took me there, and gave the cabman the address. I often do go out without telling any one, and I let myself in with a latch-key when I come home, but on that particular occasion I did neither. Will you say that if you hear me talked about?' 'Of course I will.' Nevertheless, Margaret thought that Lady Maud might have given her a little information about the 'matter of business' which had involved such a large sum of money, and had produced such important consequences. CHAPTER XI Mr. Van Torp was walking slowly down the Elm Walk in the park at Oxley Paddox. The ancient trees were not in full leaf yet, but there were myriads of tiny green feather points all over the rough brown branches and the smoother twigs, and their soft colour tinted the luminous spring air. High overhead all sorts and conditions of little birds were chirping and trilling and chattering together and by turns, and on the ground the sparrows were excessively busy and talkative, while the squirrels made wild dashes across the open, and stopped suddenly to sit bolt upright and look about them, and then dashed on again. Little Ida walked beside the millionaire in silence, trustfully holding one of his hands, and as she watched the sparrows she tried to make out what sort of sound they could be making when they hopped forward and opened their bills so wide that she could distinctly see their little tongues. Mr. Van Torp's other hand held a newspaper, and he was reading the article about himself which Margaret had shown to Lady Maud. He did not take that particular paper, but a marked copy had been sent to him, and in due course had been ironed and laid on the breakfast-table with those that came regularly. The article was marked in red pencil. He read it slowly with a perfectly blank expression, as if it concerned some one he did not know. Once only, when he came upon the allusion to the little girl, his eyes left the page and glanced quietly down at the large red felt hat with its knot of ribbands that moved along beside him, and hid all the child's face except the delicate chin and the corner of the pathetic little mouth. She did not know that he looked down at her, for she was intent on the sparrows, and he went back to the article and read to the end. Then, in order to fold the paper, he gently let go of Ida's hand, and she looked up into his face. He did not speak, but his lips moved a little as he doubled the sheet to put it into his pocket; and instantly the child's expression changed, and she looked hurt and frightened, and stretched up her hand quickly to cover his mouth, as if to hide the words his lips were silently forming. 'Please, please!' she said, in her slightly monotonous voice. 'You promised me you wouldn't any more!' 'Quite right, my dear,' answered Mr. Van Torp, smiling, 'and I apologise. You must make me pay a forfeit every time I do it. What shall the forfeit be? Chocolates?' She watched his lips, and understood as well as if she had heard. 'No,' she answered demurely. 'You mustn't laugh. When I've done anything wicked and am sorry, I say the little prayer Miss More taught me. Perhaps you'd better learn it too.' 'If you said it for me,' suggested Mr. Van Torp gravely, 'it would be more likely to work.' 'Oh no! That wouldn't do at all! You must say it for yourself. I'll teach it to you if you like. Shall I?' 'What must I say?' asked the financier. 'Well, it's made up for me, you see, and besides, I've shortened it a wee bit. What I say is: "Dear God, please forgive me this time, and make me never want to do it again. Amen." Can you remember that, do you think?' 'I think I could,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'Please forgive me and make me never do it again.' 'Never want to do it again,' corrected little Ida with emphasis. 'You must try not even to want to say dreadful things. And then you must say "Amen." That's important.' 'Amen,' repeated the millionaire. At this juncture the discordant toot of an approaching motor-car was heard above the singing of the birds. Mr. Van Torp turned his head quickly in the direction of the sound, and at the same time instinctively led the little girl towards one side of the road. She apparently understood, for she asked no questions. There was a turn in the drive a couple of hundred yards away, where the Elm Walk ended, and an instant later an enormous white motor-car whizzed into sight, rushed furiously towards the two, and was brought to a standstill in an uncommonly short time, close beside them. An active man, in the usual driver's disguise of the modern motorist, jumped down, and at the same instant pushed his goggles up over the visor of his cap and loosened the collar of his wide coat, displaying the face of Constantino Logotheti. 'Oh, it's you, is it?' Mr. Van Torp asked the wholly superfluous question in a displeased tone. 'How did you get in? I've given particular orders to let in no automobiles.' 'I always get in everywhere,' answered Logotheti coolly. 'May I see you alone for a few minutes?' 'If it's business, you'd better see Mr. Bamberger,' said Van Torp. 'I came here for a rest. Mr. Bamberger has come over for a few days. You'll find him at his chambers in Hare Court.' 'No,' returned Logotheti, 'it's a private matter. I shall not keep you long.' 'Then run us up to the house in your new go-cart.' Mr. Van Torp lifted little Ida into the motor as if she had been a rather fragile china doll instead of a girl nine years old and quite able to get up alone, and before she could sit down he was beside her. Logotheti jumped up beside the chauffeur and the machine ran up the drive at breakneck speed. Two minutes later they all got out more than a mile farther on, at the door of the big old house. Ida ran away to find Miss More; the two men entered together, and went into the study. The room had been built in the time of Edward Sixth, had been decorated afresh under Charles the Second, the furniture was of the time of Queen Anne, and the carpet was a modern Turkish one, woven in colours as fresh as paint to fit the room, and as thick as a down quilt: it was the sort of carpet which has come into existence with the modern hotel. 'Well?' Mr. Van Torp uttered the monosyllable as he sat down in his own chair and pointed to a much less comfortable one, which Logotheti took. 'There's an article about you,' said the latter, producing a paper. 'I've read it,' answered Mr. Van Torp in a tone of stony indifference. 'I thought that was likely. Do you take the paper?' 'No. Do you?' 'No, it was sent to me,' Logotheti answered. 'Did you happen to glance at the address on the wrapper of the one that came to you?' 'My valet opens all the papers and irons them.' Mr. Van Torp looked very bored as he said this, and he stared stonily at the pink and green waistcoat which his visitor's unfastened coat exposed to view. Hundreds of little gold beads were sewn upon it at the intersections of the pattern. It was a marvellous creation. 'I had seen the handwriting on the one addressed to me before,' Logotheti said. 'Oh, you had, had you?' Mr. Van Torp asked the question in a dull tone without the slightest apparent interest in the answer. 'Yes,' Logotheti replied, not paying any attention to his host's indifference. 'I received an anonymous letter last winter, and the writing of the address was the same.' 'It was, was it?' The millionaire's tone did not change in the least, and he continued to admire the waistcoat. His manner might have disconcerted a person of less assurance than the Greek, but in the matter of nerves the two financiers were well matched. 'Yes,' Logotheti answered, 'and the anonymous letter was about you, and contained some of the stories that are printed in this article.' 'Oh, it did, did it?' 'Yes. There was an account of your interview with the Primadonna at a hotel in New York. I remember that particularly well.' 'Oh, you do, do you?' 'Yes. The identity of the handwriting and the similarity of the wording make it look as if the article and the letter had been written by the same person.' 'Well, suppose they were--I don't see anything funny about that.' Thereupon Mr. Van Torp turned at last from the contemplation of the waistcoat and looked out of the bay-window at the distant trees, as if he were excessively weary of Logotheti's talk. 'It occurred to me,' said the latter, 'that you might like to stop any further allusions to Miss Donne, and that if you happened to recognize the handwriting you might be able to do so effectually.' 'There's nothing against Madame Cordova in the article,' answered Mr. Van Torp, and his aggressive blue eyes turned sharply to his visitor's almond-shaped brown ones. 'You can't say there's a word against her.' 'There may be in the next one,' suggested Logotheti, meeting the look without emotion. 'When people send anonymous letters about broadcast to injure men like you and me, they are not likely to stick at such a matter as a woman's reputation.' 'Well--maybe not.' Mr. Van Torp turned his sharp eyes elsewhere. 'You seem to take quite an interest in Madame Cordova, Mr. Logotheti,' he observed, in an indifferent tone. 'I knew her before she went on the stage, and I think I may call myself a friend of hers. At all events, I wish to spare her any annoyance from the papers if I can, and if you have any regard for her you will help me, I'm sure.' 'I have the highest regard for Madame Cordova,' said Mr. Van Torp, and there was a perceptible change in his tone; 'but after this, I guess the best way I can show it is to keep out of her track. That's about all there is to do. You don't suppose I'm going to bring an action against that paper, do you?' 'Hardly!' Logotheti smiled. 'Well, then, what do you expect me to do, Mr. Logotheti?' Again the eyes of the two men met. 'I'll tell you,' answered the Greek. 'The story about your visit to Miss Donne in New York is perfectly true.' 'You're pretty frank,' observed the American. 'Yes, I am. Very good. The man who wrote the letter and the article knows you, and that probably means that you have known him, though you may never have taken any notice of him. He hates you, for some reason, and means to injure you if he can. Just take the trouble to find out who he is and suppress him, will you? If you don't, he will throw more mud at honest women. He is probably some underling whose feelings you have hurt, or who has lost money by you, or both.' 'There's something in that,' answered Mr. Van Torp, showing a little more interest. 'Do you happen to have any of his writing about you? I'll look at it.' Logotheti took a letter and a torn piece of brown paper from his pocket and handed both to his companion. 'Read the letter, if you like,' he said. 'The handwriting seems to be the same as that on the wrapper.' Mr. Van Torp first compared the address, and then proceeded to read the anonymous letter. Logotheti watched his face quietly, but it did not change in the least. When he had finished, he folded the sheet, replaced it in the envelope, and returned it with the bit of paper. 'Much obliged,' he said, and he looked out of the window again and was silent. Logotheti leaned back in his chair as he put the papers into his pocket again, and presently, as Mr. Van Torp did not seem inclined to say anything more, he rose to go. The American did not move, and still looked out of the window. 'You originally belonged to the East, Mr. Logotheti, didn't you?' he asked suddenly. 'Yes. I'm a Greek and a Turkish subject.' 'Do you happen to know the Patriarch of Constantinople?' Logotheti stared in surprise, taken off his guard for once. 'Very well indeed,' he answered after an instant. 'He is my uncle.' 'Why, now, that's quite interesting!' observed Mr. Van Torp, rising deliberately and thrusting his hands into his pockets. Logotheti, who knew nothing about the details of Lady Maud's pending divorce, could not imagine what the American was driving at, and waited for more. Mr. Van Torp began to walk up and down, with his rather clumsy gait, digging his heels into vivid depths of the new Smyrna carpet at every step. 'I wasn't going to tell you,' he said at last, 'but I may just as well. Most of the accusations in that letter are lies. I didn't blow up the subway. I know it was done on purpose, of course, but I had nothing to do with it, and any man who says I had, takes me for a fool, which you'll probably allow I'm not. You're a man of business, Mr. Logotheti. There had been a fall in Nickel, and for weeks before the explosion I'd been making a considerable personal sacrifice to steady things. Now you know as well as I do that all big accidents are bad for the market when it's shaky. Do you suppose I'd have deliberately produced one just then? Besides, I'm not a criminal. I didn't blow up the subway any more than I blew up the Maine to bring on the Cuban war! The man's a fool.' 'I quite agree with you,' said the Greek, listening with interest. 'Then there's another thing. That about poor Mrs. Moon, who's gone out of her mind. It's nonsense to say I was the reason of Bamberger's divorcing his wife. In the first place, there are the records of the divorce, and my name was never mentioned. I was her friend, that's all, and Bamberger resented it--he's a resentful sort of man anyway. He thought she'd marry me as soon as he got the divorce. Well, she didn't. She married old Alvah Moon, who was the only man she ever cared for. The Lord knows how it was, but that wicked old scarecrow made all the women love him, to his dying day. I had a high regard for Mrs. Bamberger, and I suppose she was right to marry him if she liked him. Well, she married him in too much of a hurry, and the child that was born abroad was Bamberger's and not his, and when he found it out he sent the girl East and would never see her again, and didn't leave her a cent when he died. That's the truth about that, Mr. Logotheti. I tell you because you've got that letter in your pocket, and I'd rather have your good word than your bad word in business any day.' 'Thank you,' answered Logotheti. 'I'm glad to know the facts in the case, though I never could see what a man's private life can have to do with his reputation in the money market!' 'Well, it has, in some countries. Different kinds of cats have different kinds of ways. There's one thing more, but it's not in the letter, it's in the article. That's about Countess Leven, and it's the worst lie of the lot, for there's not a better woman than she is from here to China. I'm not at liberty to tell you anything of the matter she's interested in and on which she consults me. But her father is my next neighbour here, and I seem to be welcome at his house; he's a pretty sensible man, and that makes for her, it seems to me. As for that husband of hers, we've a good name in America for men like him. We'd call him a skunk over there. I suppose the English word is polecat, but it doesn't say as much. I don't think there's anything else I want to tell you.' 'You spoke of my uncle, the Patriarch,' observed Logotheti. 'Did I? Yes. Well, what sort of a gentleman is he, anyway?' The question seemed rather vague to the Greek. 'How do you mean?' he inquired, buttoning his coat over the wonderful waistcoat. 'Is he a friendly kind of a person, I mean? Obliging, if you take him the right way? That's what I mean. Or does he get on his ear right away?' 'I should say,' answered Logotheti, without a smile, 'that he gets on his ear right away--if that means the opposite of being friendly and obliging. But I may be prejudiced, for he does not approve of me.' 'Why not, Mr. Logotheti?' 'My uncle says I'm a pagan, and worship idols.' 'Maybe he means the Golden Calf,' suggested Mr. Van Torp gravely. Logotheti laughed. 'The other deity in business is the Brazen Serpent, I believe,' he retorted. 'The two would look pretty well out there on my lawn,' answered Mr. Van Torp, his hard face relaxing a little. 'To return to the point. Can I be of any use to you with the Patriarch? We are not on bad terms, though he does think me a heathen. Is there anything I can do?' 'Thank you, not at present. Much obliged. I only wanted to know.' Logotheti's curiosity was destined to remain unsatisfied. He refused Mr. Van Torp's not very pressing invitation to stay to luncheon, given at the very moment when he was getting into his motor, and a few seconds later he was tearing down the avenue. Mr. Van Torp stood on the steps till he was out of sight and then came down himself and strolled slowly away towards the trees again, his hands behind him and his eyes constantly bent upon the road, three paces ahead. He was not always quite truthful. Scruples were not continually uppermost in his mind. For instance, what he had told Lady Maud about his engagement to poor Miss Bamberger did not quite agree with what he had said to Margaret on the steamer. In certain markets in New York, three kinds of eggs are offered for sale, namely, Eggs, Fresh Eggs, and Strictly Fresh Eggs. I have seen the advertisement. Similarly in Mr. Van Torp's opinion there were three sorts of stories, to wit, Stories, True Stories, and Strictly True Stories. Clearly, each account of his engagement must have belonged to one of these classes, as well as the general statement he had made to Logotheti about the charges brought against him in the anonymous letter. The reason why he had made that statement was plain enough; he meant it to be repeated to Margaret because he really wished her to think well of him. Moreover, he had recognised the handwriting at once as that of Mr. Feist, Isidore Bamberger's former secretary, who knew a good many things and might turn out a dangerous enemy. But Logotheti, who knew something of men, and had dealt with some very accomplished experts in fraud from New York and London to Constantinople, had his doubts about the truth of what he had heard, and understood at once why the usually reticent American had talked so much about himself. Van Torp, he was sure, was in love with the singer; that was his weak side, and in whatever affected her he might behave like a brute or a baby, but would certainly act with something like rudimentary simplicity in either case. In Logotheti's opinion Northern and English-speaking men might be as profound as Persians in matters of money, and sometimes were, but where women were concerned they were generally little better than sentimental children, unless they were mere animals. Not one in a thousand cared for the society of women, or even of one particular woman, for its own sake, for the companionship, and the exchange of ideas about things of which women know how to think. To the better sort, that is, to the sentimental ones, a woman always seemed what she was not, a goddess, a saint, or a sort of glorified sister; to the rest, she was an instrument of amusement and pleasure, more or less necessary and more or less purchasable. Perhaps an Englishman or an American, judging Greeks from what he could learn about them in ordinary intercourse, would get about as near the truth as Logotheti did. In his main conclusion the latter was probably right; Mr. Van Torp's affections might be of such exuberant nature as would admit of being divided between two or three objects at the same time, or they might not. But when he spoke of having the 'highest regard' for Madame Cordova, without denying the facts about the interview in which he had asked her to marry him and had lost his head because she refused, he was at least admitting that he was in love with her, or had been at that time. Mr. Van Torp also confessed that he had entertained a 'high regard' for the beautiful Mrs. Bamberger, now unhappily insane. It was noticeable that he had not used the same expression in speaking of Lady Maud. Nevertheless, as in the Bamberger affair, he appeared as the chief cause of trouble between husband and wife. Logotheti was considered 'dangerous' even in Paris, and his experiences had not been dull; but, so far, he had found his way through life without inadvertently stepping upon any of those concealed traps through which the gay and unwary of both sexes are so often dropped into the divorce court, to the surprise of everybody. It seemed the more strange to him that Rufus Van Torp, only a few years his senior, should now find himself in that position for the second time. Yet Van Torp was not a ladies' man; he was hard-featured, rough of speech, and clumsy of figure, and it was impossible to believe that any woman could think him good-looking or be carried away by his talk. The case of Mrs. Bamberger could be explained; she might have had beauty, but she could have had little else that would have appealed to such a man as Logotheti. But there was Lady Maud, an acknowledged beauty in London, thoroughbred, aristocratic, not easily shocked perhaps, but easily disgusted, like most women of her class; and there was no doubt but that her husband had found her under extremely strange circumstances, in the act of receiving from Van Torp a large sum of money for which she altogether declined to account. Van Torp had not denied that story either, so it was probably true. Yet Logotheti, whom so many women thought irresistible, had felt instinctively that she was one of those who would smile serenely upon the most skilful and persistent besieger from the security of an impregnable fortress of virtue. Logotheti did not naturally feel unqualified respect for many women, but since he had known Lady Maud it had never occurred to him that any one could take the smallest liberty with her. On the other hand, though he was genuinely in love with Margaret and desired nothing so much as to marry her, he had never been in the least afraid of her, and he had deliberately attempted to carry her off against her will; and if she had looked upon his conduct then as anything more serious than a mad prank, she had certainly forgiven it very soon. The only reason for his flying visit to Derbyshire had been his desire to keep Margaret's name out of an impending scandal in which he foresaw that Mr. Van Torp and Lady Maud were to be the central figures, and he believed that he had done something to bring about that result, if he had started the millionaire on the right scent. He judged Van Torp to be a good hater and a man of many resources, who would not now be satisfied till he had the anonymous writer of the letter and the article in his power. Logotheti had no means of guessing who the culprit was, and did not care to know. He reached town late in the afternoon, having covered something like three hundred miles since early morning. About seven o'clock he stopped at Margaret's door, in the hope of finding her at home and of being asked to dine alone with her, but as he got out of his hansom and sent it away he heard the door shut and he found himself face to face with Paul Griggs. 'Miss Donne is out,' said the author, as they shook hands. 'She's been spending the day with the Creedmores, and when I rang she had just telephoned that she would not be back for dinner!' 'What a bore!' exclaimed Logotheti. The two men walked slowly along the pavement together, and for some time neither spoke. Logotheti had nothing to do, or believed so because he was disappointed in not finding Margaret in. The elder man looked preoccupied, and the Greek was the first to speak. 'I suppose you've seen that shameful article about Van Torp,' he said. 'Yes. Somebody sent me a marked copy of the paper. Do you know whether Miss Donne has seen it?' 'Yes. She got a marked copy too. So did I. What do you think of it?' 'Just what you do, I fancy. Have you any idea who wrote it?' 'Probably some underling in the Nickel Trust whom Van Torp has offended without knowing it, or who has lost money by him.' Griggs glanced at his companion's face, for the hypothesis struck him as being tenable. 'Unless it is some enemy of Countess Leven's,' he suggested. 'Her husband is really going to divorce her, as the article says.' 'I suppose she will defend herself,' said Logotheti. 'If she has a chance.' 'What do you mean?' 'Do you happen to know what sort of man the present Patriarch of Constantinople is?' Logotheti's jaw dropped, and he slackened his pace. 'What in the world--' he began, but did not finish the sentence. 'That's the second time to-day I've been asked about him.' 'That's very natural,' said Griggs calmly. 'You're one of the very few men in town who are likely to know him.' 'Of course I know him,' answered Logotheti, still mystified. 'He's my uncle.' 'Really? That's very lucky!' 'Look here, Griggs, is this some silly joke?' 'A joke? Certainly not. Lady Maud's husband can only get a divorce through the Patriarch because he married her out of Russia. You know about that law, don't you?' Logotheti understood at last. 'No,' he said, 'I never heard of it. But if that is the case I may be able to do something--not that I'm considered orthodox at the Patriarchate! The old gentleman has been told that I'm trying to revive the worship of the Greek gods and have built a temple to Aphrodite Xenia in the Place de la Concorde!' 'You're quite capable of it,' observed Griggs. 'Oh, quite! Only, I've not done it yet. I'll see what I can do. Are you much interested in the matter?' 'Only on general principles, because I believe Lady Maud is perfectly straight, and it is a shame that such a creature as Leven should be allowed to divorce an honest Englishwoman. By the bye--speaking of her reminds me of that dinner at the Turkish Embassy--do you remember a disagreeable-looking man who sat next to me, one Feist, a countryman of mine?' 'Rather! I wondered how he came there.' 'He had a letter of introduction from the Turkish Minister in Washington. He is full of good letters of introduction.' 'I should think they would need to be good,' observed Logotheti. 'With that face of his he would need an introduction to a Port Said gambling-hell before they would let him in.' 'I agree with you. But he is well provided, as I say, and he goes everywhere. Some one has put him down at the Mutton Chop. You never go there, do you?' 'I'm not asked,' laughed Logotheti. 'And as for becoming a member, they say it's impossible.' 'It takes ten or fifteen years,' Griggs answered, 'and then you won't be elected unless every one likes you. But you may be put down as a visitor there just as at any other club. This fellow Feist, for instance--we had trouble with him last night--or rather this morning, for it was two o'clock. He has been dropping in often of late, towards midnight. At first he was more or less amusing with his stories, for he has a wonderful memory. You know the sort of funny man who rattles on as if he were wound up for the evening, and afterwards you cannot remember a word he has said. It's all very well for a while, but you soon get sick of it. Besides, this particular specimen drinks like a whale.' 'He looks as if he did.' 'Last night he had been talking a good deal, and most of the men who had been there had gone off. You know there's only one room at the Mutton Chop, with a long table, and if a man takes the floor there's no escape. I had come in about one o'clock to get something to eat, and Feist poured out a steady stream of stories as usual, though only one or two listened to him. Suddenly his eyes looked queer, and he stammered, and rolled off his chair, and lay in a heap, either dead drunk or in a fit, I don't know which.' 'And I suppose you carried him downstairs,' said Logotheti, for Griggs was known to be stronger than other men, though no longer young. 'I did,' Griggs answered. 'That's usually my share of the proceedings. The last person I carried--let me see--I think it must have been that poor girl who died at the Opera in New York. We had found Feist's address in the visitors' book, and we sent him home in a hansom. I wonder whether he got there!' 'I should think the member who put him down would be rather annoyed,' observed Logotheti. 'Yes. It's the first time anything of that sort ever happened at the Mutton Chop, and I fancy it will be the last. I don't think we shall see Mr. Feist again.' 'I took a particular dislike to his face,' Logotheti said. 'I remember thinking of him when I went home that night, and wondering who he was and what he was about.' 'At first I took him for a detective,' said Griggs. 'But detectives don't drink.' 'What made you think he might be one?' 'He has a very clever way of leading the conversation to a point and then asking an unexpected question.' 'Perhaps he is an amateur,' suggested Logotheti. 'He may be a spy. Is Feist an American name?' 'You will find all sorts of names in America. They prove nothing in the way of nationality, unless they are English, Dutch, or French, and even then they don't prove much. I'm an American myself, and I feel sure that Feist either is one or has spent many years in the country, in which case he is probably naturalised. As for his being a spy, I don't think I ever came across one in England.' 'They come here to rest in time of peace, or to escape hanging in other countries in time of war,' said the Greek. 'His being at the Turkish Embassy, of all places in the world, is rather in favour of the idea. Do you happen to remember the name of his hotel?' 'Are you going to call on him?' Griggs asked with a smile. 'Perhaps. He begins to interest me. Is it indiscreet to ask what sort of questions he put to you?' 'He's stopping at the Carlton--if the cabby took him there! We gave the man half-a-crown for the job, and took his number, so I suppose it was all right. As for the questions he asked me, that's another matter.' Logotheti glanced quickly at his companion's rather grim face, and was silent for a few moments. He judged that Mr. Feist's inquiries must have concerned a woman, since Griggs was so reticent, and it required no great ingenuity to connect that probability with one or both of the ladies who had been at the dinner where Griggs and Feist had first met. 'I think I shall go and ask for Mr. Feist,' he said presently. 'I shall say that I heard he was ill and wanted to know if I could do anything for him.' 'I've no doubt he'll be much touched by your kindness!' said Griggs. 'But please don't mention the Mutton Chop Club, if you really see him.' 'Oh no! Besides, I shall let him do the talking.' 'Then take care that you don't let him talk you to death!' Logotheti smiled as he hailed a passing hansom; he nodded to his companion, told the man to go to the Carlton, and drove away, leaving Griggs to continue his walk alone. The elderly man of letters had not talked about Mr. Feist with any special intention, and was very far from thinking that what he had said would lead to any important result. He liked the Greek, because he liked most Orientals, under certain important reservations and at a certain distance, and he had lived amongst them long enough not to be surprised at anything they did. Logotheti had been disappointed in not finding the Primadonna at home, and he was not inclined to put up with the usual round of an evening in London during the early part of the season as a substitute for what he had lost. He was the more put out, because, when he had last seen Margaret, three or four days earlier, she had told him that if he came on that evening at about seven o'clock he would probably find her alone. Having nothing that looked at all amusing to occupy him, he was just in the mood to do anything unusual that presented itself. Griggs guessed at most of these things, and as he walked along he vaguely pictured to himself the interview that was likely to take place. CHAPTER XII Opinion was strongly against Mr. Van Torp. A millionaire is almost as good a mark at which to throw mud as a woman of the world whose reputation has never before been attacked, and when the two can be pilloried together it is hardly to be expected that ordinary people should abstain from pelting them and calling them bad names. Lady Maud, indeed, was protected to some extent by her father and brothers, and by many loyal friends. It is happily still doubtful how far one may go in printing lies about an honest woman without getting into trouble with the law, and when the lady's father is not only a peer, but has previously been a barrister of reputation and a popular and hard-working member of the House of Commons during a long time, it is generally safer to use guarded language; the advisability of moderation also increases directly as the number and size of the lady's brothers, and inversely as their patience. Therefore, on the whole, Lady Maud was much better treated by the society columns than Margaret at first expected. On the other hand, they vented their spleen and sharpened their English on the American financier, who had no relations and scarcely any friends to stand by him, and was, moreover, in a foreign country, which always seems to be regarded as an aggravating circumstance when a man gets into any sort of trouble. Isidore Bamberger and Mr. Feist had roused and let loose upon him a whole pack of hungry reporters and paragraph writers on both sides of the Atlantic. The papers did not at first print his name except in connection with the divorce of Lady Maud. But this was a landmark, the smallest reference to which made all other allusions to him quite clear. It was easy to speak of Mr. Van Torp as the central figure in a _cause célèbre_: newspapers love the French language the more as they understand it the less; just as the gentle amateur in literature tries to hide his cloven hoof under the thin elegance of italics. Particular stress was laid upon the millionaire's dreadful hypocrisy. He taught in the Sunday Schools at Nickelville, the big village which had sprung up at his will and which was the headquarters of his sanctimonious wickedness. He was compared to Solomon, not for his wisdom, but on account of his domestic arrangements. He was indeed a father to his flock. It was a touching sight to see the little ones gathered round the knees of this great and good man, and to note how an unconscious and affectionate imitation reflected his face in theirs. It was true that there was another side to this truly patriarchal picture. In a city of the Far West, wrote an eloquent paragraph writer, a pale face, once divinely beautiful, was often seen at the barred window of a madhouse, and eyes that had once looked too tenderly into those of the Nickelville Solomon stared wildly at the palm-trees in the asylum grounds. This paragraph was rich in sentiment. There were a good many mentions of the explosion in New York, too, and hints, dark, but uncommonly straight, that the great Sunday School teacher had been the author and stage-manager of an awful comedy designed expressly to injure a firm of contractors against whom he had a standing grudge. In proof of the assertion, the story went on to say that he had written four hours before the 'accident' happened to give warning of it to the young lady whom he was about to marry. She was a neurasthenic young lady, and in spite of the warning she died very suddenly at the theatre from shock immediately after the explosion, and his note was found on her dressing-table when she was brought home dead. Clearly, if the explosion had not been his work, and if he had been informed of it beforehand, he would have warned the police and the Department of Public Works at the same time. The young lady's untimely death had not prevented him from sailing for Europe three or four days later, and on the trip he had actually occupied alone the same 'thousand dollar suite' which he had previously engaged for himself and his bride. From this detail the public might form some idea of the Nickelville magnate's heartless character. In fact, if one-half of what was written, telegraphed, and printed about Rufus Van Torp on both sides of the Atlantic during the next fortnight was to be believed, he had no character at all. To all this he answered nothing, and he did not take the trouble to allude to the matter in the few letters he wrote to his acquaintances. Day after day numbers of marked papers were carefully ironed and laid on the breakfast-table, after having been read and commented on in the servants' hall. The butler began to look askance at him, Mrs. Dubbs, the housekeeper, talked gloomily of giving warning, and the footmen gossiped with the stable hands; but the men all decided that it was not derogatory to their dignity to remain in the service of a master who was soon to be exhibited in the divorce court beside such a 'real lady' as Lord Creedmore's daughter; the housemaids agreed in this view, and the housekeeper consulted Miss More. For Mrs. Dubbs was an imposing person, morally and physically, and had a character to lose; and though the place was a very good one for her old age, because the master only spent six weeks or two months at Oxley Paddox each year, and never found fault, yet Mrs. Dubbs was not going to have her name associated with that of a gentleman who blew up underground works and took Solomon's view of the domestic affections. She came of very good people in the north; one of her brothers was a minister, and the other was an assistant steward on a large Scotch estate. Miss More's quiet serenity was not at all disturbed by what was happening, for it could hardly be supposed that she was ignorant of the general attack on Mr. Van Torp, though he did not leave the papers lying about, where little Ida's quick eyes might fall on a marked passage. The housekeeper waited for an occasion when Mr. Van Torp had taken the child for a drive, as he often did, and Miss More was established in her favourite corner of the garden, just out of sight of the house. Mrs. Dubbs first exposed the situation, then expressed a strong opinion as to her own respectability, and finally asked Miss More's advice. Miss More listened attentively, and waited till her large and sleek interlocutor had absolutely nothing more to say. Then she spoke. 'Mrs. Dubbs,' she said, 'do you consider me a respectable young woman?' 'Oh, Miss More!' cried the housekeeper. 'You! Indeed, I'd put my hand into the fire for you any day!' 'And I'm an American, and I've known Mr. Van Torp several years, though this is the first time you have seen me here. Do you think I would let the child stay an hour under his roof, or stay here myself, if I believed one word of all those wicked stories the papers are publishing? Look at me, please. Do you think I would?' It was quite impossible to look at Miss More's quiet healthy face and clear eyes and to believe she would. There are some women of whom one is sure at a glance that they are perfectly trustworthy in every imaginable way, and above even the suspicion of countenancing any wrong. 'No,' answered Mrs. Dubbs, with honest conviction, 'I don't, indeed.' 'I think, then,' said Miss More, 'that if I feel I can stay here, you are safe in staying too. I do not believe any of these slanders, and I am quite sure that Mr. Van Torp is one of the kindest men in the world.' 'I feel as if you must be right, Miss More,' replied the housekeeper. 'But they do say dreadful things about him, indeed, and he doesn't deny a word of it, as he ought to, in my humble opinion, though it's not my business to judge, of course, but I'll say this, Miss More, and that is, that if the butler's character was publicly attacked in the papers, in the way Mr. Van Torp's is, and if I were Mr. Van Torp, which of course I'm not, I'd say "Crookes, you may be all right, but if you're going to be butler here any longer, it's your duty to defend yourself against these attacks upon you in the papers, Crookes, because as a Christian man you must not hide your light under a bushel, Crookes, but let it shine abroad." That's what I'd say, Miss More, and I should like to know if you don't think I should be right.' 'If the English and American press united to attack the butler's character,' answered Miss More without a smile, 'I think you would be quite right, Mrs. Dubbs. But as regards Mr. Van Torp's present position, I am sure he is the best judge of what he ought to do.' These words of wisdom, and Miss More's truthful eyes, greatly reassured the housekeeper, who afterwards upbraided the servants for paying any attention to such wicked falsehoods; and Mr. Crookes, the butler, wrote to his aged mother, who was anxious about his situation, to say that Mr. Van Torp must be either a real gentleman or a very hardened criminal indeed, because it was only forgers and real gentlemen who could act so precious cool; but that, on the whole, he, Crookes, and the housekeeper, who was a highly respectable person and the sister of a minister, as he wished his mother to remember, had made up their minds that Mr. V.T. was Al, copper-bottomed--Mrs. Crookes was the widow of a seafaring man, and lived at Liverpool, and had heard Lloyd's rating quoted all her life--and that they, the writer and Mrs. Dubbs, meant to see him through his troubles, though he was a little trying at his meals, for he would have butter on the table at his dinner, and he wanted two and three courses served together, and drank milk at his luncheon, like no Christian gentleman did that Mr. Crookes had ever seen. The financier might have been amused if he could have read this letter, which contained no allusion to the material attractions of Torp Towers as a situation; for like a good many American millionaires, Mr. Van Torp had a blind spot on his financial retina. He could deal daringly and surely with vast sums, or he could screw twice the normal quantity of work out of an underpaid clerk; but the household arithmetic that lies between the two was entirely beyond his comprehension. He 'didn't want to be bothered,' he said; he maintained that he 'could make more money in ten minutes than he could save in a year by checking the housekeeper's accounts'; he 'could live on coffee and pie,' but if he chose to hire the chef of the Cafe Anglais to cook for him at five thousand dollars a year he 'didn't want to know the price of a truffled pheasant or a chaudfroid of ortolans.' That was his way, and it was good enough for him. What was the use of having made money if you were to be bothered? And besides, he concluded, 'it was none of anybody's blank blank business what he did.' Mr. Van Torp did not hesitate to borrow similes from another world when his rather limited command of refined language was unequal to the occasion. But at the present juncture, though his face did not change, and though he slept as soundly and had as good an appetite as usual, no words with which he was acquainted could express his feelings at all. He had, indeed, consigned the writer of the first article to perdition with some satisfaction; but after his interview with Logotheti, when he had understood that a general attack upon him had begun, he gathered his strength in silence and studied the position with all the concentration of earnest thought which his exceptional nature could command. He had recognised Feist's handwriting, and he remembered the man as his partner's former secretary. Feist might have written the letter to Logotheti and the first article, but Van Torp did not believe him capable of raising a general hue and cry on both sides of the Atlantic. It undoubtedly happened sometimes that when a fire had been smouldering long unseen a single spark sufficed to start the blaze, but Mr. Van Torp was too well informed as to public opinion about him to have been in ignorance of any general feeling against him, if it had existed; and the present attack was of too personal a nature to have been devised by financial rivals. Besides, the Nickel Trust had recently absorbed all its competitors to such an extent that it had no rivals at all, and the dangers that threatened it lay on the one hand in the growing strength of the Labour Party in its great movement against capital, and on the other in its position with regard to recent American legislation about Trusts. From the beginning Mr. Van Torp had been certain that the campaign of defamation had not been begun by the Unions, and by its nature it could have no connection with the legal aspect of his position. It was therefore clear that war had been declared upon him by one or more individuals on purely personal grounds, and that Mr. Feist was but the chief instrument in the hands of an unknown enemy. But at first sight it did not look as if his assailant were Isidore Bamberger. The violent attack on him might not affect the credit of the Nickel Trust, but it was certainly not likely to improve it and Mr. Van Torp believed that if his partner had a grudge against him, any attempt at revenge would be made in a shape that would not affect the Trust's finances. Bamberger was a resentful sort of man, but on the other hand he was a man of business, and his fortune depended on that of his great partner. Mr. Van Torp walked every morning in the park, thinking over these things, and little Ida tripped along beside him watching the squirrels and the birds, and not saying much; but now and then, when she felt the gentle pressure of his hand on hers, which usually meant that he was going to speak to her, she looked up to watch his lips, and they did not move; only his eyes met hers, and the faint smile that came into his face then was not at all like the one which most people saw there. So she smiled back, happily, and looked at the squirrels again, sure that a rabbit would soon make a dash over the open and cross the road, and hoping for the rare delight of seeing a hare. And the tame red and fallow deer looked at her suspiciously from a distance, as if she might turn into a motor-car. In those morning walks she did not again see his lips forming words that frightened her, and she began to be quite sure that he had stopped swearing to himself because she had spoken to him so seriously. Once he looked at her so long and with so much earnestness that she asked him what he was thinking of, and he gently pushed back the broad-brimmed hat she wore, so as to see her forehead and beautiful golden hair. 'You are growing very like your mother,' he said, after a little while. They had stopped in the broad drive, and little Ida gazed gravely up at him for a moment. Then she put up her arms. 'I think I want to give you a kiss, Mr. Van Torp,' she said with the utmost gravity. 'You're so good to me.' Mr. Van Torp stooped, and she put her arms round his short neck and kissed the hard, flat cheek once, and he kissed hers rather awkwardly. 'Thank you, my dear,' he said, in an odd voice, as he straightened himself. He took her hand again to walk on, and the great iron mouth was drawn a little to one side, and it looked as if the lips might have trembled if they had not been so tightly shut. Perhaps Mr. Van Torp had never kissed a child before. She was very happy and contented, for she had spent most of her life in a New England village alone with Miss More, and the great English country-house was full of wonder and mystery for her, and the park was certainly the Earthly Paradise. She had hardly ever been with other children and was rather afraid of them, because they did not always understand what she said, as most grown people did; so she was not at all lonely now. On the contrary, she felt that her small existence was ever so much fuller than before, since she now loved two people instead of only one, and the two people seemed to agree so well together. In America she had only seen Mr. Van Torp at intervals, when he had appeared at the cottage near Boston, the bearer of toys and chocolates and other good things, and she had not been told till after she had landed in Liverpool that she was to be taken to stop with him in the country while he remained in England. Till then he had always called her 'Miss Ida,' in an absurdly formal way, but ever since she had arrived at Oxley Paddox he had dropped the 'Miss,' and had never failed to spend two or three hours alone with her every day. Though his manner had not changed much, and he treated her with a sort of queer formality, much as he would have behaved if she had been twenty years old instead of nine, she had been growing more and more sure that he loved her and would give her anything in the world she asked for, though there was really nothing she wanted; and in return she grew gratefully fond of him by quick degrees, till her affection expressed itself in her solemn proposal to 'give him a kiss.' Not long after that Mr. Van Torp found amongst his letters one from Lady Maud, of which the envelope was stamped with the address of her father's country place, 'Craythew.' He read the contents carefully, and made a note in his pocket-book before tearing the sheet and the envelope into a number of small bits. There was nothing very compromising in the note, but Mr. Van Torp certainly did not know that his butler regularly offered first and second prizes in the servants' hall, every Saturday night, for the 'best-put-together letters' of the week--to those of his satellites, in other words, who had been most successful in piecing together scraps from the master's wastepaper basket. In houses where the post-bag has a patent lock, of which the master keeps the key, this diversion has been found a good substitute for the more thrilling entertainment of steaming the letters and reading them before taking them upstairs. If Mrs. Dubbs was aware of Mr. Crookes' weekly distribution of rewards she took no notice of it; but as she rarely condescended to visit the lower regions, and only occasionally asked Mr. Crookes to dine in her own sitting-room, she may be allowed the benefit of the doubt; and, besides, she was a very superior person. On the day after he had received Lady Maud's note, Mr. Van Torp rode out by himself. No one, judging from his looks, would have taken him for a good rider. He rode seldom, too, never talked of horses, and was never seen at a race. When he rode he did not even take the trouble to put on gaiters, and, after he had bought Oxley Paddox, the first time that his horse was brought to the door, by a groom who had never seen him, the latter could have sworn that the millionaire had never been on a horse before and was foolishly determined to break his neck. On that occasion Mr. Van Torp came down the steps, with a big cigar in his mouth, in his ordinary clothes, without so much as a pair of straps to keep his trousers down, or a bit of a stick in his hand. The animal was a rather ill-tempered black that had arrived from Yorkshire two days previously in charge of a boy who gave him a bad character. As Mr. Van Torp descended the steps with his clumsy gait, the horse laid his ears well back for a moment and looked as if he meant to kick anything within reach. Mr. Van Torp looked at him in a dull way, puffed his cigar, and made one remark in the form of a query. 'He ain't a lamb, is he?' 'No, sir,' answered the groom with sympathetic alacrity, 'and if I was you, sir, I wouldn't--' But the groom's good advice was checked by an unexpected phenomenon. Mr. Van Torp was suddenly up, and the black was plunging wildly as was only to be expected; what was more extraordinary was that Mr. Van Torp's expression showed no change whatever, the very big cigar was stuck in his mouth at precisely the same angle as before, and he appeared to be glued to the saddle. He sat perfectly erect, with his legs perpendicularly straight, and his hands low and quiet. The next moment the black bolted down the drive, but Mr. Van Torp did not seem the least disturbed, and the astonished groom, his mouth wide open and his arms hanging down, saw that the rider gave the beast his head for a couple of hundred yards, and then actually stopped him short, bringing him almost to the ground on his haunches. 'My Gawd, 'e's a cowboy!' exclaimed the groom, who was a Cockney, and had seen a Wild West show and recognised the real thing. 'And me thinkin' 'e was goin' to break his precious neck and wastin' my bloomin' sympathy on 'im!' Since that first day Mr. Van Torp had not ridden more than a score of times in two years. He preferred driving, because it was less trouble, and partly because he could take little Ida with him. It was therefore always a noticeable event in the monotonous existence at Torp Towers when he ordered a horse to be saddled, as he did on the day after he had got Lady Maud's note from Craythew. He rode across the hilly country at a leisurely pace, first by lanes and afterwards over a broad moor, till he entered a small beech wood by a bridle-path not wide enough for two to ride together, and lined with rhododendrons, lilacs, and laburnum. A quarter of a mile from the entrance a pretty glade widened to an open lawn, in the middle of which stood a ruin, consisting of the choir and chancel arch of a chapel. Mr. Van Torp drew rein before it, threw his right leg over the pommel before him, and remained sitting sideways on the saddle, for the very good reason that he did not see anything to sit on if he got down, and that it was of no use to waste energy in standing. His horse might have resented such behaviour on the part of any one else, but accepted the western rider's eccentricities quite calmly and proceeded to crop the damp young grass at his feet. Mr. Van Torp had come to meet Lady Maud. The place was lonely and conveniently situated, being about half-way between Oxley Paddox and Craythew, on Mr. Van Torp's land, which was so thoroughly protected against trespassers and reporters by wire fences and special watchmen that there was little danger of any one getting within the guarded boundary. On the side towards Craythew there was a gate with a patent lock, to which Lady Maud had a key. Mr. Van Torp was at the meeting-place at least a quarter of an hour before the appointed time. His horse only moved a short step every now and then, eating his way slowly across the grass, and his rider sat sideways, resting his elbows on his knees and staring at nothing particular, with that perfectly wooden expression of his which indicated profound thought. But his senses were acutely awake, and he caught the distant sound of hoofs on the soft woodland path just a second before his horse lifted his head and pricked his ears. Mr. Van Torp did not slip to the ground, however, and he hardly changed his position. Half a dozen young pheasants hurled themselves noisily out of the wood on the other side of the ruin, and scattered again as they saw him, to perch on the higher boughs of the trees not far off instead of settling on the sward. A moment later Lady Maud appeared, on a lanky and elderly thoroughbred that had been her own long before her marriage. Her old-fashioned habit was evidently of the same period too; it had been made before the modern age of skirted coats, and fitted her figure in a way that would have excited open disapproval and secret admiration in Rotten Row. But she never rode in town, so that it did not matter; and, besides, Lady Maud did not care. Mr. Van Torp raised his hat in a very un-English way, and at the same time, apparently out of respect for his friend, he went so far as to change his seat a little by laying his right knee over the pommel and sticking his left foot into the stirrup, so that he sat like a woman. Lady Maud drew up on his off side and they shook hands. 'You look rather comfortable,' she said, and the happy ripple was in her voice. 'Why, yes. There's nothing else to sit on, and the grass is wet. Do you want to get off?' 'I thought we might make some tea presently,' answered Lady Maud. 'I've brought my basket.' 'Now I call that quite sweet!' Mr. Van Torp seemed very much pleased, and he looked down at the shabby little brown basket hanging at her saddle. He slipped to the ground, and she did the same before he could go round to help her. The old thoroughbred nosed her hand as if expecting something good, and she produced a lump of sugar from the tea-basket and gave it to him. Mr. Van Torp pulled a big carrot from the pocket of his tweed jacket and let his horse bite it off by inches. Then he took the basket from Lady Maud and the two went towards the ruin. 'We can sit on the Earl,' said Lady Maud, advancing towards a low tomb on which was sculptured a recumbent figure in armour. 'The horses won't run away from such nice grass.' So the two installed themselves on each side of the stone knight's armed feet, which helped to support the tea-basket, and Lady Maud took out her spirit-lamp and a saucepan that just held two cups, and a tin bottle full of water, and all the other things, arranging them neatly in order. 'How practical women are!' exclaimed Mr. Van Torp, looking on. 'Now I would never have thought of that.' But he was really wondering whether she expected him to speak first of the grave matters that brought them together in that lonely place. 'I've got some bread and butter,' she said, opening a small sandwich-box, 'and there is a lemon instead of cream.' 'Your arrangements beat Hare Court hollow,' observed the millionaire. 'Do you remember the cracked cups and the weevilly biscuits?' 'Yes, and how sorry you were when you had burnt the little beasts! Now light the spirit-lamp, please, and then we can talk.' Everything being arranged to her satisfaction, Lady Maud looked up at her companion. 'Are you going to do anything about it?' she asked. 'Will it do any good if I do? That's the question.' 'Good? What is good in that sense?' She looked at him a moment, but as he did not answer she went on. 'I cannot bear to see you abused in print like this, day after day, when I know the truth, or most of it.' 'It doesn't matter about me. I'm used to it. What does your father say?' 'He says that when a man is attacked as you are, it's his duty to defend himself.' 'Oh, he does, does he?' Lady Maud smiled, but shook her head in a reproachful way. 'You promised me that you would never give me your business answer, you know!' 'I'm sorry,' said Mr. Van Torp, in a tone of contrition. 'Well, you see, I forgot you weren't a man. I won't do it again. So your father thinks I'd better come out flat-footed with a statement to the press. Now, I'll tell you. I'd do so, if I didn't feel sure that all this circus about me isn't the real thing yet. It's been got up with an object, and until I can make out what's coming I think I'd best keep still. Whoever's at the root of this is counting on my losing my temper and hitting out, and saying things, and then the real attack will come from an unexpected quarter. Do you see that? Under the circumstances, almost any man in my position would get interviewed and talk back, wouldn't he?' 'I fancy so,' answered Lady Maud. 'Exactly. If I did that, I might be raising against another man's straight flush, don't you see? A good way in a fight is never to do what everybody else would do. But I've got a scheme for getting behind the other man, whoever he is, and I've almost concluded to try it.' 'Will you tell me what it is?' 'Don't I always tell you most things?' Lady Maud smiled at the reservation implied in 'most.' 'After all you have done for me, I should have no right to complain if you never told me anything,' she answered. 'Do as you think best. You know that I trust you.' 'That's right, and I appreciate it,' answered the millionaire. 'In the first place, you're not going to be divorced. I suppose that's settled.' Lady Maud opened her clear eyes in surprise. 'You didn't know that, did you?' asked Mr. Van Torp, enjoying her astonishment. 'Certainly not, and I can hardly believe it,' she answered. 'Look here, Maud,' said her companion, bending his heavy brows in a way very unusual with him, 'do you seriously think I'd let you be divorced on my account? That I'd allow any human being to play tricks with your good name by coupling it with mine in any sort of way? If I were the kind of man about whom you had a right to think that, I wouldn't deserve your friendship.' It was not often that Rufus Van Torp allowed his face to show feeling, but the look she saw in his rough-hewn features for a moment almost frightened her. There was something Titanic in it. 'No, Rufus--no!' she cried, earnestly. 'You know how I have believed in you and trusted you! It's only that I don't see how--' 'That's a detail,' answered the American. 'The "how" don't matter when a man's in earnest.' The look was gone again, for her words had appeased him instantly. 'Well,' he went on, in his ordinary tone, 'you can take it for granted that the divorce will come to nothing. There'll be a clear statement in all the best papers next week, saying that your husband's suit for a divorce has been dismissed with costs because there is not the slightest evidence of any kind against you. It will be stated that you came to my partner's chambers in Hare Court on a matter of pure business, to receive certain money, which was due to you from me in the way of business, for which you gave me the usual business acknowledgment. So that's that! I had a wire yesterday to say it's as good as settled. The water's boiling.' The steam was lifting the lid of the small saucepan, which stood securely on the spirit-lamp between the marble knight's greaved shins. But Lady Maud took no notice of it. 'It's like you,' said she. 'I cannot find anything else to say!' 'It doesn't matter about saying anything,' returned Mr. Van Torp. 'The water's boiling.' 'Will you blow out the lamp?' As she spoke she dropped a battered silver tea-ball into the water, and moved it about by its little chain. Mr. Van Torp took off his hat, and bent down sideways till his flat cheek rested on the knight's stone shin, and he blew out the flame with one well-aimed puff. Lady Maud did not look at the top of his head, nor steal a furtive glance at the strong muscles and sinews of his solid neck. She did nothing of the kind. She bobbed the tea-ball up and down in the saucepan by its chain, and watched how the hot water turned brown. 'But I did not give you a "business acknowledgment," as you call it,' she said thoughtfully. 'It's not quite truthful to say I did, you know.' 'Does that bother you? All right.' He produced his well-worn pocket-book, found a scrap of white paper amongst the contents, and laid it on the leather. Then he took his pencil and wrote a few words. 'Received of R. Van Torp £4100 to balance of account.' He held out the pencil, and laid the pocket-book on his palm for her to write. She read the words with out moving. '"To balance of account"--what does that mean?' 'It means that it's a business transaction. At the time you couldn't make any further claim against me. That's all it means.' He put the pencil to the paper again, and wrote the date of the meeting in Hare Court. 'There! If you sign your name to that, it just means that you had no further claim against me on that day. You hadn't, anyway, so you may just as well sign!' He held out the paper, and Lady Maud took it with a smile and wrote her signature. 'Thank you,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'Now you're quite comfortable, I suppose, for you can't deny that you have given me the usual business acknowledgment. The other part of it is that I don't care to keep that kind of receipt long, so I just strike a match and burn it.' He did so, and watched the flimsy scrap turn black on the stone knight's knee, till the gentle breeze blew the ashes away. 'So there!' he concluded. 'If you were called upon to swear in evidence that you signed a proper receipt for the money, you couldn't deny it, could you? A receipt's good if given at any time after the money has been paid. What's the matter? Why do you look as if you doubted it? What is truth, anyhow? It's the agreement of the facts with the statement of them, isn't it? Well, I don't see but the statement coincides with the facts all right now.' While he had been talking Lady Maud had poured out the tea, and had cut some thin slices from the lemon, glancing at him incredulously now and then, but smiling in spite of herself. 'That's all sophistry,' she said, as she handed him his cup. 'Thanks,' he answered, taking it from her. 'Look here! Can you deny that you have given me a formal dated receipt for four thousand one hundred pounds?' 'No--' 'Well, then, what can't be denied is the truth; and if I choose to publish the truth about you, I don't suppose you can find fault with it.' 'No, but--' 'Excuse me for interrupting, but there is no "but." What's good in law is good enough for me, and the Attorney-General and all his angels couldn't get behind that receipt now, if they tried till they were black in the face.' Mr. Van Torp's similes were not always elegant. 'Tip-top tea,' he remarked, as Lady Maud did not attempt to say anything more. 'That was a bright idea of yours, bringing the lemon, too.' He took several small sips in quick succession, evidently appreciating the quality of the tea as a connoisseur. 'I don't know how you have managed to do it,' said Lady Maud at last. 'As you say, the "how" does not matter very much. Perhaps it's just as well that I should not know how you got at the Patriarch. I couldn't be more grateful if I knew the whole story.' 'There's no particular story about it. When I found he was the man to be seen, I sent a man to see him. That's all.' 'It sounds very simple,' said Lady Maud, whose acquaintance with American slang was limited, even after she had known Mr. Van Torp intimately for two years. 'You were going to tell me more. You said you had a plan for catching the real person who is responsible for this attack on you.' 'Well, I have a sort of an idea, but I'm not quite sure how the land lays. By the bye,' he said quickly, correcting himself, 'isn't that one of the things I say wrong? You told me I ought to say how the land "lies," didn't you? I always forget.' Lady Maud laughed as she looked at him, for she was quite sure that he had only taken up his own mistake in order to turn the subject from the plan of which he did not mean to speak. 'You know that I'm not in the least curious,' she said, 'so don't waste any cleverness in putting me off! I only wish to know whether I can help you to carry out your plan. I had an idea too. I thought of getting my father to have a week-end party at Craythew, to which you would be asked, by way of showing people that he knows all about our friendship, and approves of it in spite of what my husband has been trying to do. Would that suit you? Would it help you or not?' 'It might come in nicely after the news about the divorce appears,' answered Mr. Van Torp approvingly. 'It would be just the same if I went over to dinner every day, and didn't sleep in the house, wouldn't it?' 'I'm not sure,' Lady Maud said. 'I don't think it would, quite. It might seem odd that you should dine with us every day, whereas if you stop with us people cannot but see that my father wants you.' 'How about Lady Creedmore?' 'My mother is on the continent. Why in the world do you not want to come?' 'Oh, I don't know,' answered Mr. Van Torp vaguely. 'Just like that, I suppose. I was thinking. But it'll be all right, and I'll come any way, and please tell your father that I highly appreciate the kind invitation. When is it to be?' 'Come on Thursday next week and stay till Tuesday. Then you will be there when the first people come and till the last have left. That will look even better.' 'Maybe they'll say you take boarders,' observed Mr. Van Torp facetiously. 'That other piece belongs to you.' While talking they had finished their tea, and only one slice of bread and butter was left in the sandwich-box. 'No,' answered Lady Maud, 'it's yours. I took the first.' 'Let's go shares,' suggested the millionaire. 'There's no knife.' 'Break it.' Lady Maud doubled the slice with conscientious accuracy, gently pulled the pieces apart at the crease, and held out one half to her companion. He took it as naturally as if they had been children, and they ate their respective shares in silence. As a matter of fact Mr. Van Torp had been unconsciously and instinctively more interested in the accuracy of the division than in the very beautiful white fingers that performed it. 'Who are the other people going to be?' he asked when he had finished eating, and Lady Maud was beginning to put the tea-things back into the basket. 'That depends on whom we can get. Everybody is awfully busy just now, you know. The usual sort of set, I suppose. You know the kind of people who come to us--you've met lots of them. I thought of asking Miss Donne if she is free. You know her, don't you?' 'Why, yes, I do. You've read those articles about our interview in New York, I suppose.' Lady Maud, who had been extremely occupied with her own affairs of late, had almost forgotten the story, and was now afraid that she had made a mistake, but she caught at the most evident means of setting it right. 'Yes, of course. All the better, if you are seen stopping in the same house. People will see that it's all right.' 'Well, maybe they would. I'd rather, if it'll do her any good. But perhaps she doesn't want to meet me. She wasn't over-anxious to talk to me on the steamer, I noticed, and I didn't bother her much. She's a lovely woman!' Lady Maud looked at him, and her beautiful mouth twitched as if she wanted to laugh. 'Miss Donne doesn't think you're a "lovely" man at all,' she said. 'No,' answered Mr. Van Torp, in a tone of child-like and almost sheepish regret, 'she doesn't, and I suppose she's right. I didn't know how to take her, or she wouldn't have been so angry.' 'When? Did you really ask her to marry you?' Lady Maud was smiling now. 'Why, yes, I did. Why shouldn't I? I guess it wasn't very well done, though, and I was a fool to try and take her hand after she'd said no.' 'Oh, you tried to take her hand?' 'Yes, and the next thing I knew she'd rushed out of the room and bolted the door, as if I was a dangerous lunatic and she'd just found it out. That's what happened--just that. It wasn't my fault if I was in earnest, I suppose.' 'And just after that you were engaged to poor Miss Bamberger,' said Lady Maud in a tone of reflection. 'Yes,' answered Mr. Van Torp slowly. 'Nothing mattered much just then, and the engagement was the business side. I told you about all that in Hare Court.' 'You're a singular mixture of several people all in one! I shall never quite understand you.' 'Maybe not. But if you don't, nobody else is likely to, and I mean to be frank to you every time. I suppose you think I'm heartless. Perhaps I am. I don't know. You have to know about the business side sometimes; I wish you didn't, for it's not the side of myself I like best.' The aggressive blue eyes softened a little as he spoke, and there was a touch of deep regret in his harsh voice. 'No,' answered Lady Maud, 'I don't like it either. But you are not heartless. Don't say that of yourself, please--please don't! You cannot fancy how it would hurt me to think that your helping me was only a rich man's caprice, that because a few thousand pounds are nothing to you it amused you to throw the money away on me and my ideas, and that you would just as soon put it on a horse, or play with it at Monte Carlo!' 'Well, you needn't worry,' observed Mr. Van Torp, smiling in a reassuring way. 'I'm not given to throwing away money. In fact, the other people think I'm too much inclined to take it. And why shouldn't I? People who don't know how to take care of money shouldn't have it. They do harm with it. It is right to take it from them since they can't keep it and haven't the sense to spend it properly. However, that's the business side of me, and we won't talk about it, unless you like.' 'I don't "like"!' Lady Maud smiled too. 'Precisely. You're not the business side, and you can have anything you like to ask for. Anything I've got, I mean.' The beautiful hands were packing the tea-things. 'Anything in reason,' suggested Lady Maud, looking into the shabby basket. 'I'm not talking about reason,' answered Mr. Van Torp, gouging his waistcoat pockets with his thick thumbs, and looking at the top of her old grey felt hat as she bent her head. 'I don't suppose I've done much good in my life, but maybe you'll do some for me, because you understand those things and I don't. Anyhow, you mean to, and I want you to, and that constitutes intention in both parties, which is the main thing in law. If it happens to give you pleasure, so much the better. That's why I say you can have anything you like. It's an unlimited order.' 'Thank you,' said Lady Maud, still busy with the things. 'I know you are in earnest, and if I needed more money I would ask for it. But I want to make sure that it is really the right way--so many people would not think it was, you know, and only time can prove that I'm not mistaken. There!' She had finished packing the basket, and she fastened the lid regretfully. 'I'm afraid we must be going. It was awfully good of you to come!' 'Wasn't it? I'll be just as good again the day after to-morrow, if you'll ask me!' 'Will you?' rippled the sweet voice pleasantly. 'Then come at the same time, unless it rains really hard. I'm not afraid of a shower, you know, and the arch makes a very fair shelter here. I never catch cold, either.' She rose, taking up the basket in one hand and shaking down the folds of her old habit with the other. 'All the same, I'd bring a jacket next time if I were you,' said her companion, exactly as her mother might have made the suggestion, and scarcely bestowing a glance on her almost too visibly perfect figure. The old thoroughbred raised his head as they crossed the sward, and made two or three steps towards her of his own accord. Her foot rested a moment on Mr. Van Torp's solid hand, and she was in the saddle. The black was at first less disposed to be docile, but soon yielded at the sight of another carrot. Mr. Van Torp did not take the trouble to put his foot into the stirrup, but vaulted from the ground with no apparent effort. Lady Maud smiled approvingly, but not as a woman who loves a man and feels pride in him when he does anything very difficult. It merely pleased and amused her to see with what ease and indifference the rather heavily-built American did a thing which many a good English rider, gentleman or groom, would have found it hard to do at all. But Mr. Van Torp had ridden and driven cattle in California for his living before he had been twenty. He wheeled and came to her side, and held out his hand. 'Day after to-morrow, at the same time,' he said as she took it. 'Good-bye!' 'Good-bye, and don't forget Thursday!' They parted and rode away in opposite directions, and neither turned, even once, to look back at the other. CHAPTER XIII The _Elisir d'Amore_ was received with enthusiasm, but the tenor had it all his own way, as Lushington had foretold, and when Pompeo Stromboli sang 'Una furtiva lacrima' the incomparable Cordova was for once eclipsed in the eyes of a hitherto faithful public. Covent Garden surrendered unconditionally. Metaphorically speaking, it rolled over on its back, with its four paws in the air, like a small dog that has got the worst of a fight and throws himself on the bigger dog's mercy. Margaret was applauded, but as a matter of course. There was no electric thrill in the clapping of hands; she got the formal applause which is regularly given to the sovereign, but not the enthusiasm which is bestowed spontaneously on the conqueror. When she buttered her face and got the paint off, she was a little pale, and her eyes were not kind. It was the first time that she had not carried everything before her since she had begun her astonishing career, and in her first disappointment she had not philosophy enough to console herself with the consideration that it would have been infinitely worse to be thrown into the shade by another lyric soprano, instead of by the most popular lyric tenor on the stage. She was also uncomfortably aware that Lushington had predicted what had happened, and she was informed that he had not even taken the trouble to come to the first performance of the opera. Logotheti, who knew everything about his old rival, had told her that Lushington was in Paris that week, and was going on to see his mother in Provence. The Primadonna was put out with herself and with everybody, after the manner of great artists when a performance has not gone exactly as they had hoped. The critics said the next morning that the Señorita da Cordova had been in good voice and had sung with excellent taste and judgment, but that was all: as if any decent soprano might not do as well! They wrote as if she might have been expected to show neither judgment nor taste, and as if she were threatened with a cold. Then they went on to praise Pompeo Stromboli with the very words they usually applied to her. His voice was full, rich, tender, vibrating, flexible, soft, powerful, stirring, natural, cultivated, superb, phenomenal, and perfectly fresh. The critics had a severe attack of 'adjectivitis.' Paul Griggs had first applied the name to that inflammation of language to which many young writers are subject when cutting their literary milk-teeth, and from which musical critics are never quite immune. Margaret could no longer help reading what was written about her; that was one of the signs of the change that had come over her, and she disliked it, and sometimes despised herself for it, though she was quite unable to resist the impulse. The appetite for flattery which comes of living on it may be innocent, but it is never harmless. Dante consigned the flatterers to Inferno, and more particularly to a very nasty place there: it is true that there were no musical critics in his day; but he does not say much about the flattered, perhaps because they suffer enough when they find out the truth, or lose the gift for which they have been over-praised. The Primadonna was in a detestably uncomfortable state of mind on the day after the performance of the revived opera. Her dual nature was hopelessly mixed; Cordova was in a rage with Stromboli, Schreiermeyer, Baci-Roventi, and the whole company, not to mention Signor Bambinelli the conductor, the whole orchestra, and the dead composer of the _Elisir d'Amore_; but Margaret Donne was ashamed of herself for caring, and for being spoilt, and for bearing poor Lushington a grudge because he had foretold a result that was only to be expected with such a tenor as Stromboli; she despised herself for wickedly wishing that the latter had cracked on the final high note and had made himself ridiculous. But he had not cracked at all; in imagination she could hear the note still, tremendous, round, and persistently drawn out, as if it came out of a tenor trombone and had all the world's lungs behind it. In her mortification Cordova was ready to give up lyric opera and study Wagner, in order to annihilate Pompeo Stromboli, who did not even venture _Lohengrin_. Schreiermeyer had unkindly told him that if he arrayed his figure in polished armour he would look like a silver teapot; and Stromboli was very sensitive to ridicule. Even if he had possessed a dramatic voice, he could never have bounded about the stage in pink tights and the exiguous skin of an unknown wild animal as Siegfried, and in the flower scene of _Parsifal_ he would have looked like Falstaff in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_. But Cordova could have made herself into a stately Brunhilde, a wild and lovely Kundry, or a fair and fateful Isolde, with the very least amount of artificial aid that theatrical illusion admits. Margaret Donne, disgusted with Cordova, said that her voice was about as well adapted for one of those parts as a sick girl's might be for giving orders at sea in a storm. Cordova could not deny this, and fell back upon the idea of having an opera written for her, expressly to show off her voice, with a _crescendo_ trill in every scene and a high D at the end; and Margaret Donne, who loved music for its own sake, was more disgusted than ever, and took up a book in order to get rid of her professional self, and tried so hard to read that she almost gave herself a headache. Pompeo Stromboli was really the most sweet-tempered creature in the world, and called during the afternoon with the idea of apologising for having eclipsed her, but was told that she was resting and would see no one. Fräulein Ottilie Braun also came, and Margaret would probably have seen her, but had not given any special orders, so the kindly little person trotted off, and Margaret knew nothing of her coming; and the day wore on quickly; and when she wanted to go out, it at once began to rain furiously; and, at last, in sheer impatience at everything, she telephoned to Logotheti, asking him to come and dine alone with her if he felt that he could put up with her temper, which, she explained, was atrocious. She heard the Greek laugh gaily at the other end of the wire. 'Will you come?' she asked, impatient that anybody should be in a good humour when she was not. 'I'll come now, if you'll let me,' he answered readily. 'No. Come to dinner at half-past eight.' She waited a moment and then went on. 'I've sent down word that I'm not at home for any one, and I don't like to make you the only exception.' 'Oh, I see,' answered Logotheti's voice. 'But I've always wanted to be the only exception. I say, does half-past eight mean a quarter past nine?' 'No. It means a quarter past eight, if you like. Good-bye!' She cut off the communication abruptly, being a little afraid that if she let him go on chattering any longer she might yield and allow him to come at once. In her solitude she was intensely bored by her own bad temper, and was nearer to making him the 'only exception' than she had often been of late. She said to herself that he always amused her, but in her heart she was conscious that he was the only man in the world who knew how to flatter her back into a good temper, and would take the trouble to do so. It was better than nothing to look forward to a pleasant evening, and she went back to her novel and her cup of tea already half reconciled with life. It rained almost without stopping. At times it poured, which really does not happen often in much-abused London; but even heavy rain is not so depressing in spring as it is in winter, and when the Primadonna raised her eyes from her book and looked out of the big window, she was not thinking of the dreariness outside but of what she should wear in the evening. To tell the truth, she did not often trouble herself much about that matter when she was not going to sing, and all singers and actresses who habitually play 'costume parts' are conscious of looking upon stage-dressing and ordinary dressing from totally different points of view. By far the larger number of them have their stage clothes made by a theatrical tailor, and only an occasional eccentric celebrity goes to Worth or Doucet to be dressed for a 'Juliet,' a 'Tosca,' or a 'Doña Sol.' Margaret looked at the rain and decided that Logotheti should not find her in a tea-gown, not because it would look too intimate, but because tea-gowns suggest weariness, the state of being misunderstood, and a craving for sympathy. A woman who is going to surrender to fate puts on a tea-gown, but a well-fitting body indicates strength of character and virtuous firmness. I remember a smart elderly Frenchwoman who always bestowed unusual care on every detail of her dress, visible and invisible, before going to church. Her niece was in the room one Sunday while she was dressing for church, and asked why she took so much trouble. 'My dear,' was the answer, 'Satan is everywhere, and one can never know what may happen.' Margaret was very fond of warm greys, and fawn tints, and dove colour, and she had lately got a very pretty dress that was exactly to her taste, and was made of a newly invented thin material of pure silk, which had no sheen and cast no reflections of light, and was slightly elastic, so that it fitted as no ordinary silk or velvet ever could. Alphonsine called the gown a 'legend,' but a celebrated painter who had lately seen it said it was an 'Indian twilight,' which might mean anything, as Paul Griggs explained, because there is no twilight to speak of in India. The dress-maker who had made it called the colour 'fawn's stomach,' which was less poetical, and the fabric, 'veil of nun in love,' which showed little respect for monastic institutions. As for the way in which the dress was made, it is folly to rush into competition with tailors and dress-makers, who know what they are talking about, and are able to say things which nobody can understand. The plain fact is that the Primadonna began to dress early, out of sheer boredom, had her thick brown hair done in the most becoming way in spite of its natural waves, which happened to be unfashionable just then, and she put on the new gown with all the care and consideration which so noble a creation deserved. 'Madame is adorable,' observed Alphonsine. 'Madame is a dream. Madame has only to lift her little finger, and kings will fall into ecstasy before her.' 'That would be very amusing,' said Margaret, looking at herself in the glass, and less angry with the world than she had been. 'I have never seen a king in ecstasy.' 'The fault is Madame's,' returned Alphonsine, possibly with truth. When Margaret went into the drawing-room Logotheti was already there, and she felt a thrill of pleasure when his expression changed at sight of her. It is not easy to affect the pleased surprise which the sudden appearance of something beautiful brings into the face of a man who is not expecting anything unusual. 'Oh, I say!' exclaimed the Greek. 'Let me look at you!' And instead of coming forward to take her hand, he stepped back in order not to lose anything of the wonderful effect by being too near. Margaret stood still and smiled in the peculiar way which is a woman's equivalent for a cat's purring. Then, to Logotheti's still greater delight, she slowly turned herself round, to be admired, like a statue on a pivoted pedestal, quite regardless of a secret consciousness that Margaret Donne would not have done such a thing for him, and probably not for any other man. 'You're really too utterly stunning!' he cried. In moments of enthusiasm he sometimes out-Englished Englishmen. 'I'm glad you like it,' Margaret said. 'This is the first time I've worn it.' 'If you put it on for me, thank you! If not, thank you for putting it on! I'm not asking, either. I should think you would wear it if you were alone for the mere pleasure of feeling like a goddess.' 'You're very nice!' She was satisfied, and for a moment she forgot Pompeo Stromboli, the _Elisir d'Amore_, the public, and the critics. It was particularly 'nice' of him, too, not to insist upon being told that she had put on the new creation solely for his benefit. Next to not assuming rashly that a woman means anything of the sort expressly for him, it is wise of a man to know when she really does, without being told. At least, so Margaret thought just then; but it is true that she wanted him to amuse her and was willing to be pleased. She executed the graceful swaying movement which only a well-made woman can make just before sitting down for the first time in a perfectly new gown. It is a slightly serpentine motion; and as there is nothing to show that Eve did not meet the Serpent again after she had taken to clothes, she may have learnt the trick from him. There is certainly something diabolical about it when it is well done. Logotheti's almond-shaped eyes watched her quietly, and he stood motionless till she was established on her chair. Then he seated himself at a little distance. 'I hope I was not rude,' he said, in artful apology, 'but it's not often that one's breath is taken away by what one sees. Horrid weather all day, wasn't it? Have you been out at all?' 'No. I've been moping. I told you that I was in a bad humour, but I don't want to talk about it now that I feel better. What have you been doing? Tell me all sorts of amusing things, where you have been, whom you have seen, and what people said to you.' 'That might be rather dull,' observed the Greek. 'I don't believe it. You are always in the thick of everything that's happening.' 'We have agreed to-day to lend Russia some more money. But that doesn't interest you, does it? There's to be a European conference about the Malay pirates, but there's nothing very funny in that. It would be more amusing to hear the pirates' view of Europeans. Let me see. Some one has discovered a conspiracy in Italy against Austria, and there is another in Austria against the Italians. They are the same old plots that were discovered six months ago, but people had forgotten about them, so they are as good as new. Then there is the sad case of that Greek.' 'What Greek? I've not heard about that. What has happened to him?' 'Oh, nothing much. It's only a love-story--the same old thing.' 'Tell me.' 'Not now, for we shall have to go to dinner just when I get to the most thrilling part of it, I'm sure.' Logotheti laughed. 'And besides,' he added, 'the man isn't dead yet, though he's not expected to live. I'll tell you about your friend Mr. Feist instead. He has been very ill too.' 'I would much rather know about the Greek love-story,' Margaret objected. 'I never heard of Mr. Feist.' She had quite forgotten the man's existence, but Logotheti recalled to her memory the circumstances under which they had met, and Feist's unhealthy face with its absurdly youthful look, and what he had said about having been at the Opera in New York on the night of the explosion. 'Why do you tell me all this?' Margaret asked. 'He was a disgusting-looking man, and I never wish to see him again. Tell me about the Greek. When we go to dinner you can finish the story in French. We spoke French the first time we met, at Madame Bonanni's. Do you remember?' 'Yes, of course I do. But I was telling you about Mr. Feist--' 'Dinner is ready,' Margaret said, rising as the servant opened the door. To her surprise the man came forward. He said that just as he was going to announce dinner Countess Leven had telephoned that she was dining out, and would afterwards stop on her way to the play in the hope of seeing Margaret for a moment. She had seemed to be in a hurry, and had closed the communication before the butler could answer. And dinner was served, he added. Margaret nodded carelessly, and the two went into the dining-room. Lady Maud could not possibly come before half-past nine, and there was plenty of time to decide whether she should be admitted or not. 'Mr. Feist has been very ill,' Logotheti said as they sat down to table under the pleasant light, 'and I have been taking care of him, after a fashion.' Margaret raised her eyebrows a little, for she was beginning to be annoyed at his persistency, and was not much pleased at the prospect of Lady Maud's visit. 'How very odd!' she said, rather coldly. 'I cannot imagine anything more disagreeable.' 'It has been very unpleasant,' Logotheti answered, 'but he seemed to have no particular friends here, and he was all alone at an hotel, and really very ill. So I volunteered.' 'I've no objection to being moderately sorry for a young man who falls ill at an hotel and has no friends,' Margaret said, 'but are you going in for nursing? Is that your latest hobby? It's a long way from art, and even from finance!' 'Isn't it?' 'Yes. I'm beginning to be curious!' 'I thought you would be before long,' Logotheti answered coolly, but suddenly speaking French. 'One of the most delightful things in life is to have one's curiosity roused and then satisfied by very slow degrees!' 'Not too slow, please. The interest might not last to the end.' 'Oh yes, it will, for Mr. Feist plays a part in your life.' 'About as distant as Voltaire's Chinese Mandarin, I fancy,' Margaret suggested. 'Nearer than that, though I did not guess it when I went to see him. In the first place, it was owing to you that I went to see him the first time.' 'Nonsense!' 'Not at all. Everything that happens to me is connected with you in some way. I came to see you late in the afternoon, on one of your off-days not long ago, hoping that you would ask me to dine, but you were across the river at Lord Creedmore's. I met old Griggs at your door, and as we walked away he told me that Mr. Feist had fallen down in a fit at a club, the night before, and had been sent home in a cab to the Carlton. As I had nothing to do, worth doing, I went to see him. If you had been at home, I should never have gone. That is what I mean when I say that you were the cause of my going to see him.' 'In the same way, if you had been killed by a motor-car as you went away from my door, I should have been the cause of your death!' 'You will be in any case,' laughed Logotheti, 'but that's a detail! I found Mr. Feist in a very bad way.' 'What was the matter with him?' asked Margaret. 'He was committing suicide,' answered the Greek with the utmost calm. 'If I were in Constantinople I should tell you that this turbot is extremely good, but as we are in London I suppose it would be very bad manners to say so, wouldn't it? So I am thinking it.' 'Take the fish for granted, and tell me more about Mr. Feist!' 'I found him standing before the glass with a razor in his hand and quite near his throat. When he saw me he tried to laugh and said he was just going to shave; I asked him if he generally shaved without soap and water, and he burst into tears.' 'That's rather dreadful,' observed Margaret. 'What did you do?' 'I saved his life, but I don't think he's very grateful yet. Perhaps he may be by and by. When he stopped sobbing he tried to kill me for hindering his destruction, but I had got the razor in my pocket, and his revolver missed fire. That was lucky, for he managed to stick the muzzle against my chest and pull the trigger just as I got him down. I wished I had brought old Griggs with me, for they say he can bend a good horse-shoe double, even now, and the fellow had the strength of a lunatic in him. It was rather lively for a few seconds, and then he broke down again, and was as limp as a rag, and trembled with fright, as if he saw queer things in the room.' 'You sent for a doctor then?' 'My own, and we took care of him together that night. You may laugh at the idea of my having a doctor, as I never was ill in my life. I have him to dine with me now and then, because he is such good company, and is the best judge of a statue or a picture I know. The habit of taking the human body to pieces teaches you a great deal about the shape of it, you see. In the morning we moved Mr. Feist from the hotel to a small private hospital where cases of that sort are treated. Of course he was perfectly helpless, so we packed his belongings and papers.' 'It was really very kind of you to act the Good Samaritan to a stranger,' Margaret said, but her tone showed that she was disappointed at the tame ending of the story. 'No,' Logotheti answered. 'I was never consciously kind, as you call it. It's not a Greek characteristic to love one's neighbour as one's self. Teutons, Anglo-Saxons, Latins, and, most of all, Asiatics, are charitable, but the old Greeks were not. I don't believe you'll find an instance of a charitable act in all Greek history, drama, and biography! If you did find one I should only say that the exception proves the rule. Charity was left out of us at the beginning, and we never could understand it, except as a foreign sentiment imported with Christianity from Asia. We have had every other virtue, including hospitality. In the _Iliad_ a man declines to kill his enemy on the ground that their people had dined together, which is going rather far, but it is not recorded that any ancient Greek, even Socrates himself, ever felt pity or did an act of spontaneous kindness! I don't believe any one has said that, but it's perfectly true.' 'Then why did you take all that trouble for Mr. Feist?' 'I don't know. People who always know why they do things are great bores. It was probably a caprice that took me to see him, and then it did not occur to me to let him cut his throat, so I took away his razor; and, finally, I telephoned for my doctor, because my misspent life has brought me into contact with Western civilisation. But when we began to pack Mr. Feist's papers I became interested in him.' 'Do you mean to say that you read his letters?' Margaret inquired. 'Why not? If I had let him kill himself, somebody would have read them, as he had not taken the trouble to destroy them!' 'That's a singular point of view.' 'So was Mr. Feist's, as it turned out. I found enough to convince me that he is the writer of all those articles about Van Torp, including the ones in which you are mentioned. The odd thing about it is that I found a very friendly invitation from Van Torp himself, begging Mr. Feist to go down to Derbyshire and stop a week with him.' Margaret leaned back in her chair and looked at her guest in quiet surprise. 'What does that mean?' she asked. 'Is it possible that Mr. Van Torp has got up this campaign against himself in order to play some trick on the Stock Exchange?' Logotheti smiled and shook his head. 'That's not the way such things are usually managed,' he answered. 'A hundred years ago a publisher paid a critic to attack a book in order to make it succeed, but in finance abuse doesn't contribute to our success, which is always a question of credit. All these scurrilous articles have set the public very much against Van Torp, from Paris to San Francisco, and this man Feist is responsible for them. He is either insane, or he has some grudge against Van Torp, or else he has been somebody's instrument, which looks the most probable.' 'What did you find amongst his papers?' Margaret asked, quite forgetting her vicarious scruples about reading a sick man's letters. 'A complete set of the articles that have appeared, all neatly filed, and a great many notes for more, besides a lot of stuff written in cypher. It must be a diary, for the days are written out in full and give the days of the week.' 'I wonder whether there was anything about the explosion,' said Margaret thoughtfully. 'He said he was there, did he not?' 'Yes. Do you remember the day?' 'It was a Wednesday, I'm sure, and it was after the middle of March. My maid can tell us, for she writes down the date and the opera in a little book each time I sing. It's sometimes very convenient. But it's too late now, of course, and, besides, you could not have read the cypher.' 'That's an easy matter,' Logotheti answered. 'All cyphers can be read by experts, if there is no hurry, except the mechanical ones that are written through holes in a square plate which you turn round till the sheet is full. Hardly any one uses those now, because when the square is raised the letters don't form words, and the cable companies will only transmit real words in some known language, or groups of figures. The diary is written hastily, too, not at all as if it were copied from the sheet on which the perforated plate would have had to be used, and besides, the plate itself would be amongst his things, for he could not read his own notes without it.' 'All that doesn't help us, as you have not the diary, but I should really be curious to know what he had to say about the accident, since some of the articles hint that Mr. Van Torp made it happen.' 'My doctor and I took the liberty of confiscating the papers, and we set a very good man to work on the cypher at once. So your curiosity shall be satisfied. I said it should, didn't I? And you are not so dreadfully bored after all, are you? Do say that I'm very nice!' 'I won't!' Margaret answered with a little laugh. 'I'll only admit that I'm not bored! But wasn't it rather a high-handed proceeding to carry off Mr. Feist like that, and to seize his papers?' 'Do you call it high-handed to keep a man from cutting his throat?' 'But the letters--?' 'I really don't know. I had not time to ask a lawyer's opinion, and so I had to be satisfied with my doctor's.' 'Are you going to tell Mr. Van Torp what you've done?' 'I don't know. Why should I? You may if you like.' Logotheti was eating a very large and excellent truffle, and after each short sentence he cut off a tiny slice and put it into his mouth. The Primadonna had already finished hers, and watched him thoughtfully. 'I'm not likely to see him,' she said. 'At least, I hope not!' 'My interest in Mr. Feist,' answered Logotheti, 'begins and ends with what concerns you. Beyond that I don't care a straw what happens to Mr. Van Torp, or to any one else. To all intents and purposes I have got the author of the stories locked up, for a man who has consented to undergo treatment for dipsomania in a private hospital, by the advice of his friends and under the care of a doctor with a great reputation, is as really in prison as if he were in gaol. Legally, he can get out, but in real fact nobody will lift a hand to release him, because he is shut up for his own good and for the good of the public, just as much as if he were a criminal. Feist may have friends or relations in America, and they may come and claim him; but as there seems to be nobody in London who cares what becomes of him, it pleases me to keep him in confinement, because I mean to prevent any further mention of your name in connection with the Van Torp scandals.' His eyes rested on Margaret as he spoke, and lingered afterwards, with a look that did not escape her. She had seen him swayed by passion, more than once, and almost mad for her, and she had been frightened though she had dominated him. What she saw in his face now was not that; it was more like affection, faithful and lasting, and it touched her English nature much more than any show of passion could. 'Thank you,' she said quietly. They did not talk much more while they finished the short dinner, but when they were going back to the drawing-room Margaret took his arm, in foreign fashion, which she had never done before when they were alone. Then he stood before the mantelpiece and watched her in silence as she moved about the room; for she was one of those women who always find half a dozen little things to do as soon as they get back from dinner, and go from place to place, moving a reading lamp half an inch farther from the edge of a table, shutting a book that has been left open on another, tearing up a letter that lies on the writing-desk, and slightly changing the angle at which a chair stands. It is an odd little mania, and the more people there are in the room the less the mistress of the house yields to it, and the more uncomfortable she feels at being hindered from 'tidying up the room,' as she probably calls it. Logotheti watched Margaret with keen pleasure, as every step and little movement showed her figure in a slightly different attitude and light, indiscreetly moulded in the perfection of her matchless gown. In less than two minutes she had finished her trip round the room and was standing beside him, her elbows resting on the mantelpiece, while she moved a beautiful Tanagra a little to one side and then to the other, trying for the twentieth time how it looked the best. 'There is no denying it,' Logotheti said at last, with profound conviction. 'I do not care a straw what becomes of any living creature but you.' She did not turn her head, and her fingers still touched the Tanagra, but he saw the rare blush spread up the cheek that was turned to him; and because she stopped moving the statuette about, and looked at it intently, he guessed that she was not colouring from annoyance at what he had said. She blushed so very seldom now, that it might mean much more than in the old days at Versailles. 'I did not think it would last so long,' she said gently, after a little while. 'What faith can one expect of a Greek!' He laughed, too wise in woman's ways to be serious too long just then. But she shook her head and turned to him with the smile he loved. 'I thought it was something different,' she said. 'I was mistaken. I believed you had only lost your head for a while, and would soon run after some one else. That's all.' 'And the loss is permanent. That's all!' He laughed again as he repeated her words. 'You thought it was "something different"--do you know that you are two people in one?' She looked a little surprised. 'Indeed I do!' she answered rather sadly. 'Have you found it out?' 'Yes. You are Margaret Donne and you are Cordova. I admire Cordova immensely, I am extremely fond of Margaret, and I'm in love with both. Oh yes! I'm quite frank about it, and it's very unlucky, for whichever one of your two selves I meet I'm just as much in love as ever! Absurd, isn't it?' 'It's flattering, at all events.' 'If you ever took it into your handsome head to marry me--please, I'm only saying "if"--the absurdity would be rather reassuring, wouldn't it? When a man is in love with two women at the same time, it really is a little unlikely that he should fall in love with a third!' 'Mr. Griggs says that marriage is a drama which only succeeds if people preserve the unities!' 'Griggs is always trying to coax the Djin back into the bottle, like the fisherman in the _Arabian Nights_,' answered Logotheti. 'He has read Kant till he believes that the greatest things in the world can be squeezed into a formula of ten words, or nailed up amongst the Categories like a dead owl over a stable door. My intelligence, such as it is, abhors definitions!' 'So do I. I never understand them.' 'Besides, you can only define what you know from past experience and can reflect upon coolly, and that is not my position, nor yours either.' Margaret nodded, but said nothing and sat down. 'Do you want to smoke?' she asked. 'You may, if you like. I don't mind a cigarette.' 'No, thank you.' 'But I assure you I don't mind it in the least. It never hurts my throat.' 'Thanks, but I really don't want to.' 'I'm sure you do. Please--' 'Why do you insist? You know I never smoke when you are in the room.' 'I don't like to be the object of little sacrifices that make people uncomfortable.' 'I'm not uncomfortable, but if you have any big sacrifice to suggest, I promise to offer it at once.' 'Unconditionally?' Margaret smiled. 'Anything I ask?' 'Yes. Do you want my statue?' 'The Aphrodite? Would you give her to me?' 'Yes. May I telegraph to have her packed and brought here from Paris?' He was already at the writing-table looking for a telegraph form. Margaret watched his face, for she knew that he valued the wonderful statue far beyond all his treasures, both for its own sake and because he had nearly lost his life in carrying it off from Samos, as has been told elsewhere. As Margaret said nothing, he began to write the message. She really had not had any idea of testing his willingness to part with the thing he valued most, at her slightest word, and was taken by surprise; but it was impossible not to be pleased when she saw that he was in earnest. In her present mood, too, it restored her sense of power, which had been rudely shaken by the attitude of the public on the previous evening. It took some minutes to compose the message. 'It's only to save time by having the box ready,' he said, as he rose with the bit of paper in his hand. 'Of course I shall see the statue packed myself and come over with it.' She saw his face clearly in the light as he came towards her, and there was no mistaking the unaffected satisfaction it expressed. He held out the telegram for her to read, but she would not take it, and she looked up quietly and earnestly as he stood beside her. 'Do you remember Delorges?' she asked. 'How the lady tossed her glove amongst the lions and bade him fetch it, if he loved her, and how he went in and got it--and then threw it in her face? I feel like her.' Logotheti looked at her blankly. 'Do you mean to say you won't take the statue?' he asked in a disappointed tone. 'No, indeed! I was taken by surprise when you went to the writing-table.' 'You did not believe I was in earnest? Don't you see that I'm disappointed now?' His voice changed a little. 'Don't you understand that if the world were mine I should want to give it all to you?' 'And don't you understand that the wish may be quite as much to me as the deed? That sounds commonplace, I know. I would say it better if I could.' She folded her hands on her knee, and looked at them thoughtfully while he sat down beside her. 'You say it well enough,' he answered after a little pause. 'The trouble lies there. The wish is all you will ever take. I have submitted to that; but if you ever change your mind, please remember that I have not changed mine. For two years I've done everything I can to make you marry me whether you would or not, and you've forgiven me for trying to carry you off against your will, and for several other things, but you are no nearer to caring for me ever so little than you were the first day we met. You "like" me! That's the worst of it!' 'I'm not so sure of that,' Margaret answered, raising her eyes for a moment and then looking at her hands again. He turned his head slowly, but there was a startled look in his eyes. 'Do you feel as if you could hate me a little, for a change?' he asked. 'No.' 'There's only one other thing,' he said in a low voice. 'Perhaps,' Margaret answered, in an even lower tone than his. 'I'm not quite sure to-day.' Logotheti had known her long, and he now resisted the strong impulse to reach out and take the hand she would surely have let him hold in his for a moment. She was not disappointed because he neither spoke nor moved, nor took any sudden advantage of her rather timid admission, for his silence made her trust him more than any passionate speech or impulsive action could have done. 'I daresay I am wrong to tell you even that much,' she went on presently, 'but I do so want to play fair. I've always despised women who cannot make up their minds whether they care for a man or not. But you have found out my secret; I am two people in one, and there are days when each makes the other dreadfully uncomfortable! You understand.' 'And it's the Cordova that neither likes me nor hates me just at this moment,' suggested Logotheti. 'Margaret Donne sometimes hates me and sometimes likes me, and on some days she can be quite indifferent too! Is that it?' 'Yes. That's it.' 'The only question is, which of you is to be mistress of the house,' said Logotheti, smiling, 'and whether it is to be always the same one, or if there is to be a perpetual hide-and-seek between them!' 'Box and Cox,' suggested Margaret, glad of the chance to say something frivolous just then. 'I should say Hera and Aphrodite,' answered the Greek, 'if it did not look like comparing myself to Adonis!' 'It sounds better than Box and Cox, but I have forgotten my mythology.' 'Hera and Aphrodite agreed that each should keep Adonis one-third of the year, and that he should have the odd four months to himself. Now that you are the Cordova, if you could come to some such understanding about me with Miss Donne, it would be very satisfactory. But I am afraid Margaret does not want even a third of me!' Logotheti felt that it was rather ponderous fun, but he was in such an anxious state that his usually ready wit did not serve him very well. For the first time since he had known her, Margaret had confessed that she might possibly fall in love with him; and after what had passed between them in former days, he knew that the smallest mistake on his part would now be fatal to the realisation of such a possibility. He was not afraid of being dull, or of boring her, but he was afraid of wakening against him the wary watchfulness of that side of her nature which he called Margaret Donne, as distinguished from Cordova, of the 'English-girl' side, of the potential old maid that is dormant in every young northern woman until the day she marries, and wakes to torment her like a biblical devil if she does not. There is no miser like a reformed spendthrift, and no ascetic will go to such extremes of self-mortification as a converted libertine; in the same way, there are no such portentously virginal old maids as those who might have been the most womanly wives; the opposite is certainly true also, for the variety 'Hemiparthenos,' studied after nature by Marcel Prévost, generally makes an utter failure of matrimony, and becomes, in fact, little better than a half-wife. Logotheti took it as a good sign that Margaret laughed at what he said. He was in the rather absurd position of wishing to leave her while she was in her present humour, lest anything should disturb it and destroy his advantage; yet, after what had just passed, it was next to impossible not to talk of her, or of himself. He had exceptionally good nerves, he was generally cool to a fault, and he had the daring that makes great financiers. But what looked like the most important crisis of his life had presented itself unexpectedly within a few minutes; a success which he reckoned far beyond all other successes was almost within his grasp, and he felt that he was unprepared. For the first time he did not know what to say to a woman. Happily for him, Margaret helped him unexpectedly. 'I shall have to see Lady Maud,' she said, 'and you must either go when she comes or leave with her. I'm sorry, but you understand, don't you?' 'Of course. I'll go a moment after she comes. When am I to see you again? To-morrow? You are not to sing again this week, are you?' 'No,' the Primadonna answered vaguely, 'I believe not.' She was thinking of something else. She was wondering whether Logotheti would wish her to give up the stage, if by any possibility she ever married him, and her thoughts led her on quickly to the consideration of what that would mean, and to asking herself what sort of sacrifice it would really mean to her. For the recollection of the _Elisir d'Amore_ awoke and began to rankle again just then. Logotheti did not press her for an answer, but watched her cautiously while her eyes were turned away from him. At that moment he felt like a tamer who had just succeeded in making a tiger give its paw for the first time, and has not the smallest idea whether the creature will do it again or bite off his head. She, on her side, being at the moment altogether the artist, was thinking that it would be pleasant to enjoy a few more triumphs, to make the tour of Europe with a company of her own--which is always the primadonna's dream as it is the actress's--and to leave the stage at twenty-five in a blaze of glory, rather than to risk one more performance of the opera she now hated. She knew quite well that it was not at all an impossibility. To please her, and with the expectation of marrying her in six months, Logotheti would cheerfully pay the large forfeit that would be due to Schreiermeyer if she broke her London engagement at the height of the season, and the Greek financier would produce all the ready money necessary for getting together an opera company. The rest would be child's play, she was sure, and she would make a triumphant progress through the capitals of Europe which should be remembered for half a century. After that, said the Primadonna to herself, she would repay her friend all the money he had lent her, and would then decide at her leisure whether she would marry him or not. For one moment her cynicism would have surprised even Schreiermeyer; the next, the Primadonna herself was ashamed of it, quite independently of what her better self might have thought. Besides, it was certainly not for his money that her old inclination for Logotheti had begun to grow again. She could say so, truly enough, and when she felt sure of it she turned her eyes to see his face. She did not admire him for his looks, either. So far as appearance was concerned, she preferred Lushington, with his smooth hair and fair complexion. Logotheti was a handsome and showy Oriental, that was all, and she knew instinctively that the type must be common in the East. What attracted her was probably his daring masculineness, which contrasted so strongly with Lushington's quiet and rather bashful manliness. The Englishman would die for a cause and make no noise about it, which would be heroic; but the Greek would run away with a woman he loved, at the risk of breaking his neck, which was romantic in the extreme. It is not easy to be a romantic character in the eyes of a lady who lives on the stage, and by it, and constantly gives utterance to the most dramatic sentiments at a pitch an octave higher than any one else; but Logotheti had succeeded. There never was a woman yet to whom that sort of thing has not appealed once; for one moment she has felt everything whirling with her as if the centre of gravity had gone mad, and the Ten Commandments might drop out of the solid family Bible and get lost. That recollection is probably the only secret of a virtuously colourless existence, but she hides it, like a treasure or a crime, until she is an old and widowed woman; and one day, at last, she tells her grown-up granddaughter, with a far-away smile, that there was once a man whose eyes and voice stirred her strongly, and for whom she might have quite lost her head. But she never saw him again, and that is the end of the little story; and the tall girl in her first season thinks it rather dull. But it was not likely that the chronicle of Cordova's youth should come to such an abrupt conclusion. The man who moved her now had been near her too often, the sound of his voice was too easily recalled, and, since his rival's defection, he was too necessary to her; and, besides, he was as obstinate as Christopher Columbus. 'Let me see,' she said thoughtfully. 'There's a rehearsal to-morrow morning. That means a late luncheon. Come at two o'clock, and if it's fine we can go for a little walk. Will you?' 'Of course. Thank you.' He had hardly spoken the words when a servant opened the door and Lady Maud came in. She had not dropped the opera cloak she wore over her black velvet gown; she was rather pale, and the look in her eyes told that something was wrong, but her serenity did not seem otherwise affected. She kissed Margaret and gave her hand to Logotheti. 'We dined early to go to the play,' she said, 'and as there's a curtain-raiser, I thought I might as well take a hansom and join them later.' She seated herself beside Margaret on one of those little sofas that are measured to hold two women when the fashions are moderate, and are wide enough for a woman and one man, whatever happens. Indeed they must be, since otherwise no one would tolerate them in a drawing-room. When two women instal themselves in one, and a man is present, it means that he is to go away, because they are either going to make confidences or are going to fight. Logotheti thought it would be simpler and more tactful to go at once, since Lady Maud was in a hurry, having stopped on her way to the play, presumably in the hope of seeing Margaret alone. To his surprise she asked him to stay; but as he thought she might be doing this out of mere civility he said he had an engagement. 'Will it keep for ten minutes?' asked Lady Maud gravely. 'Engagements of that sort are very convenient. They will keep any length of time.' Logotheti sat down again, smiling, but he wondered what Lady Maud was going to say, and why she wished him to remain. 'It will save a note,' she said, by way of explanation. 'My father and I want you to come to Craythew for the week-end after this,' she continued, turning to Margaret. 'We are asking several people, so it won't be too awfully dull, I hope. Will you come?' 'With pleasure,' answered the singer. 'And you too?' Lady Maud looked at Logotheti. 'Delighted--most kind of you,' he replied, somewhat surprised by the invitation, for he had never met Lord and Lady Creedmore. 'May I take you down in my motor?' he spoke to Margaret. 'I think I can do it under four hours. I'm my own chauffeur, you know.' 'Yes, I know,' Margaret answered with a rather malicious smile. 'No, thank you!' 'Does he often kill?' inquired Lady Maud coolly. 'I should be more afraid of a runaway,' Margaret said. 'Get that new German brake,' suggested Lady Maud, not understanding at all. 'It's quite the best I've seen. Come on Friday, if you can. You don't mind meeting Mr. Van Torp, do you? He is our neighbour, you remember.' The question was addressed to Margaret, who made a slight movement and unconsciously glanced at Logotheti before she answered. 'Not at all,' she said. 'There's a reason for asking him when there are other people. I'm not divorced after all--you had not heard? It will be in the _Times_ to-morrow morning. The Patriarch of Constantinople turns out to be a very sensible sort of person.' 'He's my uncle,' observed Logotheti. 'Is he? But that wouldn't account for it, would it? He refused to believe what my husband called the evidence, and dismissed the suit. As the trouble was all about Mr. Van Torp my father wants people to see him at Craythew. That's the story in a nutshell, and if any of you like me you'll be nice to him.' She leaned back in her corner of the little sofa and looked first at one and then at the other in an inquiring way, but as if she were fairly sure of the answer. 'Every one likes you,' said Logotheti quietly, 'and every one will be nice to him.' 'Of course,' chimed in Margaret. She could say nothing else, though her intense dislike of the American millionaire almost destroyed the anticipated pleasure of her visit to Derbyshire. 'I thought it just as well to explain,' said Lady Maud. She was still pale, and in spite of her perfect outward coolness and self-reliance her eyes would have betrayed her anxiety if she had not managed them with the unconscious skill of a woman of the world who has something very important to hide. Logotheti broke the short silence that followed her last speech. 'I think you ought to know something I have been telling Miss Donne,' he said simply. 'I've found the man who wrote all those articles, and I've locked him up.' Lady Maud leaned forward so suddenly that her loosened opera-cloak slipped down behind her, leaving her neck and shoulders bare. Her eyes were wide open in her surprise, the pupils very dark. 'Where?' she asked breathlessly. 'Where is he? In prison?' 'In a more convenient and accessible place,' answered the Greek. He had known Lady Maud some time, but he had never seen her in the least disturbed, or surprised, or otherwise moved by anything. It was true that he had only met her in society. He told the story of Mr. Feist, as Margaret had heard it during dinner, and Lady Maud did not move, even to lean back in her seat again, till he had finished. She scarcely seemed to breathe, and Logotheti felt her steady gaze on him, and would have sworn that through all those minutes she did not even wink. When he ceased speaking she drew a long breath and sank back to her former attitude; but he saw that her white neck heaved suddenly again and again, and her delicate nostrils quivered once or twice. For a little while there was silence in the room. Then Lady Maud rose to go. 'I must be going too,' said Logotheti. Margaret was a little sorry that she had given him such precise instructions, but did not contradict herself by asking him to stay longer. She promised Lady Maud again to be at Craythew on Friday of the next week if possible, and certainly on Saturday, and Lady Maud and Logotheti went out together. 'Get in with me,' she said quietly, as he helped her into her hansom. He obeyed, and as he sat down she told the cabman to take her to the Haymarket Theatre. Logotheti expected her to speak, for he was quite sure that she had not taken him with her without a purpose; the more so, as she had not even asked him where he was going. Three or four minutes passed before he heard her voice asking him a question, very low, as if she feared to be overheard. 'Is there any way of making that man tell the truth against his will? You have lived in the East, and you must know about such things.' Logotheti turned his almond-shaped eyes slowly towards her, but he could not see her face well, for it was not very light in the broad West End street. She was white; that was all he could make out. But he understood what she meant. 'There is a way,' he answered slowly and almost sternly. 'Why do you ask?' 'Mr. Van Torp is going to be accused of murder. That man knows who did it. Will you help me?' It seemed an age before the answer to her whispered question came. 'Yes.' CHAPTER XIV When Logotheti and his doctor had taken Mr. Feist away from the hotel, to the no small satisfaction of the management, they had left precise instructions for forwarding the young man's letters and for informing his friends, if any appeared, as to his whereabouts. But Logotheti had not given his own name. Sir Jasper Threlfall had chosen for their patient a private establishment in Ealing, owned and managed by a friend of his, a place for the treatment of morphia mania, opium-eating, and alcoholism. To all intents and purposes, as Logotheti had told Margaret, Charles Feist might as well have been in gaol. Every one knows how indispensable it is that persons who consent to be cured of drinking or taking opium, or whom it is attempted to cure, should be absolutely isolated, if only to prevent weak and pitying friends from yielding to their heart-rending entreaties for the favourite drug and bringing them 'just a little'; for their eloquence is often extraordinary, and their ingenuity in obtaining what they want is amazing. So Mr. Feist was shut up in a pleasant room provided with double doors and two strongly barred windows that overlooked a pretty garden, beyond which there was a high brick wall half covered by a bright creeper, then just beginning to flower. The walls, the doors, the ceiling, and the floor were sound-proof, and the garden could not in any way be reached without passing through the house. As only male patients were received, the nurses and attendants were all men; for the treatment needed more firmness and sometimes strength than gentleness. It was uncompromising, as English methods often are. Except where life was actually in danger, there was no drink and no opium for anybody; when absolutely necessary the resident doctor gave the patient hypodermics or something which he called by an unpronounceable name, lest the sufferer should afterwards try to buy it; he smilingly described it as a new vegetable poison, and in fact it was nothing but dionine, a preparation of opium that differs but little from ordinary morphia. Now Sir Jasper Threlfall was a very great doctor indeed, and his name commanded respect in London at large and inspired awe in the hospitals. Even the profession admitted reluctantly that he did not kill more patients than he cured, which is something for one fashionable doctor to say of another; for the regular answer to any inquiry about a rival practitioner is a smile--'a smile more dreadful than his own dreadful frown'--an indescribable smile, a meaning smile, a smile that is a libel in itself. It had been an act of humanity to take the young man into medical custody, as it were, and it had been more or less necessary for the safety of the public, for Logotheti and the doctor had found him in a really dangerous state, as was amply proved by his attempting to cut his own throat and then to shoot Logotheti himself. Sir Jasper said he had nothing especial the matter with him except drink, that when his nerves had recovered their normal tone his real character would appear, so that it would then be possible to judge more or less whether he had will enough to control himself in future. Logotheti agreed, but it occurred to him that one need not be knighted, and write a dozen or more mysterious capital letters after one's name, and live in Harley Street, in order to reach such a simple conclusion; and as Logotheti was a millionaire, and liked his doctor for his own sake rather than for his skill, he told him this, and they both laughed heartily. Almost all doctors, except those in French plays, have some sense of humour. On the third day Isidore Bamberger came to the door of the private hospital and asked to see Mr. Feist. Not having heard from him, he had been to the hotel and had there obtained the address. The doorkeeper was a quiet man who had lost a leg in South Africa, after having been otherwise severely wounded five times in previous engagements. Mr. Bamberger, he said, could not see his friend yet. A part of the cure consisted in complete isolation from friends during the first stages of the treatment. Sir Jasper Threlfall had been to see Mr. Feist that morning. He had been twice already. Dr. Bream, the resident physician, gave the doorkeeper a bulletin every morning at ten for the benefit of each patient's friend; the notes were written on a card which the man held in his hand. At the great man's name, Mr. Bamberger became thoughtful. A smart brougham drove up just then and a tall woman, who wore a thick veil, got out and entered the vestibule where Bamberger was standing by the open door. The doorkeeper evidently knew her, for he glanced at his notes and spoke without being questioned. 'The young gentleman is doing well this week, my lady,' he said. 'Sleeps from three to four hours at a time. Is less excited. Appetite improving.' 'Can I see him?' asked a sad and gentle voice through the veil. 'Not yet, my lady.' She sighed as she turned to go out, and Mr. Bamberger thought it was one of the saddest sighs he had ever heard. He was rather a soft-hearted man. 'Is it her son?' he asked, in a respectful sort of way. 'Yes, sir.' 'Drink?' inquired Mr. Bamberger in the same tone. 'Not allowed to give any information except to family or friends, sir,' answered the man. 'Rule of the house, sir. Very strict.' 'Quite right, of course. Excuse me for asking. But I must see Mr. Feist, unless he's out of his mind. It's very important.' 'Dr. Bream sees visitors himself from ten to twelve, sir, after he's been his rounds to the patients' rooms. You'll have to get permission from him.' 'But it's like a prison!' exclaimed Mr. Bamberger. 'Yes, sir,' answered the old soldier imperturbably. 'It's just like a prison. It's meant to be.' It was evidently impossible to get anything more out of the man, who did not pay the slightest attention to the cheerful little noise Mr. Bamberger made by jingling sovereigns in his waistcoat pocket; there was nothing to do but to go away, and Mr. Bamberger went out very much annoyed and perplexed. He knew Van Torp well, or believed that he did, and it was like the man whose genius had created the Nickel Trust to have boldly sequestrated his enemy's chief instrument, and in such a clever way as to make it probable that Mr. Feist might be kept in confinement as long as his captor chose. Doubtless such a high-handed act would ultimately go against the latter when on his trial, but in the meantime the chief witness was locked up and could not get out. Sir Jasper Threlfall would state that his patient was in such a state of health, owing to the abuse of alcohol, that it was not safe to set him at liberty, and that in his present condition his mind was so unsettled by drink that he could not be regarded as a sane witness; and if Sir Jasper Threlfall said that, it would not be easy to get Charles Feist out of Dr. Bream's establishment in less than three months. Mr. Bamberger was obliged to admit that his partner, chief, and enemy had stolen a clever march on him. Being of a practical turn of mind, however, and not hampered by much faith in mankind, even in the most eminent, who write the mysterious capital letters after their names, he wondered to what extent Van Torp owned Sir Jasper, and he went to see him on pretence of asking advice about his liver. The great man gave him two guineas' worth of thumping, auscultating, and poking in the ribs, and told him rather disagreeably that he was as healthy as a young crocodile, and had a somewhat similar constitution. A partner of Mr. Van Torp, the American financier? Indeed! Sir Jasper had heard the name but had never seen the millionaire, and asked politely whether he sometimes came to England. It is not untruthful to ask a question to which one knows the answer. Mr. Bamberger himself, for instance, who knew that he was perfectly well, was just going to put down two guineas for having been told so, in answer to a question. 'I believe you are treating Mr. Feist,' he said, going more directly to the point. 'Mr. Feist?' repeated the great authority vaguely. 'Yes. Mr. Charles Feist. He's at Dr. Bream's private hospital in West Kensington.' 'Ah, yes,' said Sir Jasper. 'Dr. Bream is treating him. He's not a patient of mine.' 'I thought I'd ask you what his chances are,' observed Isidore Bamberger, fixing his sharp eyes on the famous doctor's face. 'He used to be my private secretary.' He might just as well have examined the back of the doctor's head. 'He's not a patient of mine,' Sir Jasper said. 'I'm only one of the visiting doctors at Dr. Bream's establishment. I don't go there unless he sends for me, and I keep no notes of his cases. You will have to ask him. If I am not mistaken his hours are from ten to twelve. And now'--Sir Jasper rose--'as I can only congratulate you on your splendid health--no, I really cannot prescribe anything--literally nothing--' Isidore Bamberger had left three patients in the waiting-room and was obliged to go away, as his 'splendid health' did not afford him the slightest pretext for asking more questions. He deposited his two guineas on the mantelpiece neatly wrapped in a bit of note-paper, while Sir Jasper examined the handle of the door with a stony gaze, and he said 'good morning' as he went out. 'Good morning,' answered Sir Jasper, and as Mr. Bamberger crossed the threshold the single clanging stroke of the doctor's bell was heard, summoning the next patient. The American man of business was puzzled, for he was a good judge of humanity, and was sure that when the Englishman said that he had never seen Van Torp he was telling the literal truth. Mr. Bamberger was convinced that there had been some agreement between them to make it impossible for any one to see Feist. He knew the latter well, however, and had great confidence in his remarkable power of holding his tongue, even when under the influence of drink. When Tiberius had to choose between two men equally well fitted for a post of importance, he had them both to supper, and chose the one who was least affected by wine, not at all for the sake of seeing the match, but on the excellent principle that in an age when heavy drinking was the rule the man who could swallow the largest quantity without becoming talkative was the one to be best trusted with a secret; and the fact that Tiberius himself had the strongest head in the Empire made him a good judge. Bamberger, on the same principle, believed that Charles Feist would hold his tongue, and he also felt tolerably sure that the former secretary had no compromising papers in his possession, for his memory had always been extraordinary. Feist had formerly been able to carry in his mind a number of letters which Bamberger 'talked off' to him consecutively without even using shorthand, and could type them afterwards with unfailing accuracy. It was therefore scarcely likely that he kept notes of the articles he wrote about Van Torp. But his employer did not know that Feist's memory was failing from drink, and that he no longer trusted his marvellous faculty. Van Torp had sequestrated him and shut him up, Bamberger believed; but neither Van Torp nor any one else would get anything out of him. And if any one made him talk, what great harm would be done, after all? It was not to be supposed that such a man as Isidore Bamberger had trusted only to his own keenness in collecting evidence, or to a few pencilled notes as a substitute for the principal witness himself, when an accident might happen at any moment to a man who led such a life. The case for the prosecution had been quietly prepared during several months past, and the evidence that was to send Rufus Van Torp to execution, or to an asylum for the Criminal Insane for life, was in the safe of Isidore Bamberger's lawyer in New York, unless, at that very moment, it was already in the hands of the Public Prosecutor. A couple of cables would do the rest at any time, and in a few hours. In murder cases, the extradition treaty works as smoothly as the telegraph itself. The American authorities would apply to the English Home Secretary, the order would go to Scotland Yard, and Van Torp would be arrested immediately and taken home by the first steamer, to be tried in New York. Six months earlier he might have pleaded insanity with a possible chance, but in the present state of feeling the plea would hardly be admitted. A man who has been held up to public execration in the press for weeks, and whom no one attempts to defend, is in a bad case if a well-grounded accusation of murder is brought against him at such a moment; and Isidore Bamberger firmly believed in the truth of the charge and in the validity of the evidence. He consoled himself with these considerations, and with the reflection that Feist was actually safer where he was, and less liable to accident than if he were at large. Mr. Bamberger walked slowly down Harley Street to Cavendish Square, with his head low between his shoulders, his hat far back on his head, his eyes on the pavement, and the shiny toes of his patent leather boots turned well out. His bowed legs were encased in loose black trousers, and had as many angles as the forepaws of a Dachshund or a Dandie Dinmont. The peculiarities of his ungainly gait and figure were even more apparent than usual, and as he walked he swung his long arms, that ended in large black gloves which looked as if they were stuffed with sawdust. Yet there was something in his face that set him far beyond and above ridicule, and the passers-by saw it and wondered gravely who and what this man in black might be, and what great misfortune and still greater passion had moulded the tragic mark upon his features; and none of those who looked at him glanced at his heavy, ill-made figure, or noticed his clumsy walk, or realised that he was most evidently a typical German Jew, who perhaps kept an antiquity shop in Wardour Street, and had put on his best coat to call on a rich collector in the West End. Those who saw him only saw his face and went on, feeling that they had passed near something greater and sadder and stronger than anything in their own lives could ever be. But he went on his way, unconscious of the men and women he met, and not thinking where he went, crossing Oxford Street and then turning down Regent Street and following it to Piccadilly and the Haymarket. Just before he reached the theatre, he slackened his pace and looked about him, as if he were waking up; and there, in the cross street, just behind the theatre, he saw a telegraph office. He entered, pushed his hat still a little farther back, and wrote a cable message. It was as short as it could be, for it consisted of one word only besides the address, and that one word had only two letters: 'Go.' That was all, and there was nothing mysterious about the syllable, for almost any one would understand that it was used as in starting a footrace, and meant, 'Begin operations at once!' It was the word agreed upon between Isidore Bamberger and his lawyer. The latter had been allowed all the latitude required in such a case, for he had instructions to lay the evidence before the District Attorney-General without delay, if anything happened to make immediate action seem advisable. In any event, he was to do so on receiving the message which had now been sent. The evidence consisted, in the first place, of certain irrefutable proofs that Miss Bamberger had not died from shock, but had been killed by a thin and extremely sharp instrument with which she had been stabbed in the back. Isidore Bamberger's own doctor had satisfied himself of this, and had signed his statement under oath, and Bamberger had instantly thought of a certain thin steel letter-opener which Van Torp always had in his pocket. Next came the affidavit of Paul Griggs. The witness knew the Opera House well. Had been in the stalls on the night in question. Had not moved from his seat till the performance was over, and had been one of the last to get out into the corridor. There was a small door in the corridor on the south side which was generally shut. It opened upon a passage communicating with the part of the building that is let for business offices. Witness's attention had been attracted by part of a red silk dress which lay on the floor outside the door, the latter being ajar. Suspecting an accident, witness opened door, found Miss Bamberger, and carried her to manager's room not far off. On reaching home had found stains of blood on his hands. Had said nothing of this, because he had seen notice of the lady's death from shock in next morning's paper. Was nevertheless convinced that blood must have been on her dress. The murder was therefore proved. But the victim had not been robbed of her jewellery, which demonstrated that, if the crime had not been committed by a lunatic, the motive for it must have been personal. With regard to identity of the murderer, Charles Feist deposed that on the night in question he had entered the Opera late, having only an admission to the standing room, that he was close to one of the doors when the explosion took place and had been one of the first to leave the house. The emergency lights in the corridors were on a separate circuit, but had been also momentarily extinguished. They were up again before those in the house. The crowd had at once become jammed in the doorways, so that people got out much more slowly than might have been expected. Many actually fell in the exits and were trampled on. Then Madame Cordova had begun to sing in the dark, and the panic had ceased in a few seconds. The witness did not think that more than three hundred people altogether had got out through the several doors. He himself had at once made for the main entrance. A few persons rushed past him in the dark, descending the stairs from the boxes. One or two fell on the steps. Just as the emergency lights went up again, witness saw a young lady in a red silk dress fall, but did not see her face distinctly; he was certain that she had a short string of pearls round her throat. They gleamed in the light as she fell. She was instantly lifted to her feet by Mr. Rufus Van Torp, who must have been following her closely. She seemed to have hurt herself a little, and he almost carried her down the corridor in the direction of the carriage lobby on the Thirty-Eighth Street side. The two then disappeared through a door. The witness would swear to the door, and he described its position accurately. It seemed to have been left ajar, but there was no light on the other side of it. The witness did not know where the door led to. He had often wondered. It was not for the use of the public. He frequently went to the Opera and was perfectly familiar with the corridors. It was behind this door that Paul Griggs had found Miss Bamberger. Questioned as to a possible motive for the murder, the witness stated that Rufus Van Torp was known to have shown homicidal tendencies, though otherwise perfectly sane. In his early youth he had lived four years on a cattle-ranch as a cow-puncher, and had undoubtedly killed two men during that time. Witness had been private secretary to his partner, Mr. Isidore Bamberger, and while so employed Mr. Van Torp had fired a revolver at him in his private office in a fit of passion about a message witness was sent to deliver. Two clerks in a neighbouring room had heard the shot. Believing Mr. Van Torp to be mad, witness had said nothing at the time, but had left Mr. Bamberger soon afterwards. It was always said that, several years ago, on board of his steam yacht, Mr. Van Torp had once violently pulled a friend who was on board out of his berth at two in the morning, and had dragged him on deck, saying that he must throw him overboard and drown him, as the only way of saving his soul. The watch on deck had had great difficulty in overpowering Mr. Van Torp, who was very strong. With regard to the late Miss Bamberger the witness thought that Mr. Van Torp had killed her to get rid of her, because she was in possession of facts that would ruin him if they were known and because she had threatened to reveal them to her father. If she had done so, Van Torp would have been completely in his partner's power. Mr. Bamberger could have made a beggar of him as the only alternative to penal servitude. Questioned as to the nature of this information, witness said that it concerned the explosion, which had been planned by Van Torp for his own purposes. Either in a moment of expansion, under the influence of the drug he was in the habit of taking, or else in real anxiety for her safety, he had told Miss Bamberger that the explosion would take place, warning her to remain in her home, which was situated on the Riverside Drive, very far from the scene of the disaster. She had undoubtedly been so horrified that she had thereupon insisted upon dissolving her engagement to marry him, and had threatened to inform her father of the horrible plot. She had never really wished to marry Van Torp, but had accepted him in deference to her father's wishes. He was known to be devoting himself at that very time to a well-known primadonna engaged at the Metropolitan Opera, and Miss Bamberger probably had some suspicion of this. Witness said the motive seemed sufficient, considering that the accused had already twice taken human life. His choice lay between killing her and falling into the power of his partner. He had injured Mr. Bamberger, as was well known, and Mr. Bamberger was a resentful man. The latter part of Charles Feist's deposition was certainly more in the nature of an argument than of evidence pure and simple, and it might not be admitted in court; but Isidore Bamberger had instructed his lawyer, and the Public Prosecutor would say it all, and more also, and much better; and public opinion was roused all over the United States against the Nickel Tyrant, as Van Torp was now called. In support of the main point there was a short note to Miss Bamberger in Van Torp's handwriting, which had afterwards been found on her dressing-table. It must have arrived before she had gone out to dinner. It contained a final and urgent entreaty that she would not go to the Opera, nor leave the house that evening, and was signed with Van Torp's initials only, but no one who knew his handwriting would be likely to doubt that the note was genuine. There were some other scattered pieces of evidence which fitted the rest very well. Mr. Van Torp had not been seen at his own house, nor in any club, nor down town, after he had gone out on Wednesday afternoon, until the following Friday, when he had returned to make his final arrangements for sailing the next morning. Bamberger had employed a first-rate detective, but only one, to find out all that could be discovered about Van Torp's movements. The millionaire had been at the house on Riverside Drive early in the afternoon to see Miss Bamberger, as he had told Margaret on board the steamer, but Bamberger had not seen his daughter after that till she was brought home dead, for he had been detained by an important meeting at which he presided, and knowing that she was dining out to go to the theatre he had telephoned that he would dine at his club. He himself had tried to telephone to Van Torp later in the evening but had not been able to find him, and had not seen him till Friday. This was the substance of the evidence which Bamberger's lawyer and the detective would lay before the District Attorney-General on receiving the cable. CHAPTER XV When Lady Maud stopped at Margaret's house on her way to the theatre she had been dining at Princes' with a small party of people, amongst whom Paul Griggs had found himself, and as there was no formality to hinder her from choosing her own place she had sat down next to him. The table was large and round, the sixty or seventy other diners in the room made a certain amount of noise, so that it was easy to talk in undertones while the conversation of the others was general. The veteran man of letters was an old acquaintance of Lady Maud's; and as she made no secret of her friendship with Rufus Van Torp, it was not surprising that Griggs should warn her of the latter's danger. As he had expected when he left New York, he had received a visit from a 'high-class' detective, who came to find out what he knew about Miss Bamberger's death. This is a bad world, as we all know, and it is made so by a good many varieties of bad people. As Mr. Van Torp had said to Logotheti, 'different kinds of cats have different kinds of ways,' and the various classes of criminals are pursued by various classes of detectives. Many are ex-policemen, and make up the pack that hunts the well-dressed lady shop-lifter, the gentle pickpocket, the agile burglar, the Paris Apache, and the common murderer of the Bill Sykes type; they are good dogs in their way, if you do not press them, though they are rather apt to give tongue. But when they are not ex-policemen, they are always ex-something else, since there is no college for detectives, and it is not probable that any young man ever deliberately began life with the intention of becoming one. Edgar Poe invented the amateur detective, and modern writers have developed him till he is a familiar and always striking figure in fiction and on the stage. Whether he really exists or not does not matter. I have heard a great living painter ask the question: What has art to do with truth? But as a matter of fact Paul Griggs, who had seen a vast deal, had never met an amateur detective; and my own impression is that if one existed he would instantly turn himself into a professional because it would be so very profitable. The one who called on Griggs in his lodgings wrote 'barrister-at-law' after his name, and had the right to do so. He had languished in chambers, briefless and half starving, either because he had no talent for the bar, or because he had failed to marry a solicitor's daughter. He himself was inclined to attribute his want of success to the latter cause. But he had not wasted his time, though he was more than metaphorically threadbare, and his waist would have made a sensation at a staymaker's. He had watched and pondered on many curious cases for years; and one day, when a 'high-class' criminal had baffled the police and had well-nigh confounded the Attorney-General and proved himself a saint, the starving barrister had gone quietly to work in his own way, had discovered the truth, had taken his information to the prosecution, had been the means of sending the high-class one to penal servitude, and had covered himself with glory; since when he had grown sleek and well-liking, if not rich, as a professional detective. Griggs had been perfectly frank, and had told without hesitation all he could remember of the circumstances. In answer to further questions he said he knew Mr. Van Torp tolerably well, and had not seen him in the Opera House on the evening of the murder. He did not know whether the financier's character was violent. If it was, he had never seen any notable manifestation of temper. Did he know that Mr. Van Torp had once lived on a ranch, and had killed two men in a shooting affray? Yes, he had heard so, but the shooting might have been in self-defence. Did he know anything about the blowing up of the works of which Van Torp had been accused in the papers? Nothing more than the public knew. Or anything about the circumstances of Van Torp's engagement to Miss Bamberger? Nothing whatever. Would he read the statement and sign his name to it? He would, and he did. Griggs thought the young man acted more like an ordinary lawyer than a detective, and said so with a smile. 'Oh no,' was the quiet answer. 'In my business it's quite as important to recognise honesty as it is to detect fraud. That's all.' For his own part the man of letters did not care a straw whether Van Torp had committed the murder or not, but he thought it very unlikely. On general principles, he thought the law usually found out the truth in the end, and he was ready to do what he could to help it. He held his tongue, and told no one about the detective's visit, because he had no intimate friend in England; partly, too, because he wished to keep his name out of what was now called 'the Van Torp scandal.' He would never have alluded to the matter if he had not accidentally found himself next to Lady Maud at dinner. She had always liked him and trusted him, and he liked her and her father. On that evening she spoke of Van Torp within the first ten minutes, and expressed her honest indignation at the general attack made on 'the kindest man that ever lived.' Then Griggs felt that she had a sort of right to know what was being done to bring against her friend an accusation of murder, for he believed Van Torp innocent, and was sure that Lady Maud would warn him; but it was for her sake only that Griggs spoke, because he pitied her. She took it more calmly than he had expected, but she grew a little paler, and that look came into her eyes which Margaret and Logotheti saw there an hour afterwards; and presently she asked Griggs if he too would join the week-end party at Craythew, telling him that Van Torp would be there. Griggs accepted, after a moment's hesitation. She was not quite sure why she had so frankly appealed to Logotheti for help when they left Margaret's house together, but she was not disappointed in his answer. He was 'exotic,' as she had said of him; he was hopelessly in love with Cordova, who disliked Van Torp, and he could not be expected to take much trouble for any other woman; she had not the very slightest claim on him. Yet she had asked him to help her in a way which might be anything but lawful, even supposing that it did not involve positive cruelty. For she had not been married to Leven four years without learning something of Asiatic practices, and she knew that there were more means of making a man tell a secret than by persuasion or wily cross-examination. It was all very well to keep within the bounds of the law and civilisation, but where the whole existence of her best friend was at stake, Lady Maud was much too simple, primitive, and feminine to be hampered by any such artificial considerations, and she turned naturally to a man who did not seem to be a slave to them either. She had not quite dared to hope that he would help her, and his readiness to do so was something of a surprise; but she would have been astonished if he had been in the least shocked at the implied suggestion of deliberately torturing Charles Feist till he revealed the truth about the murder. She only felt a little uncomfortable when she reflected that Feist might not know it after all, whereas she had boldly told Logotheti that he did. If the Greek had hesitated for a few seconds before giving his answer, it was not that he was doubtful of his own willingness to do what she wished, but because he questioned his power to do it. The request itself appealed to the Oriental's love of excitement and to his taste for the uncommon in life. If he had not sometimes found occasions for satisfying both, he could not have lived in Paris and London at all, but would have gone back to Constantinople, which is the last refuge of romance in Europe, the last hiding-place of mediaeval adventure, the last city of which a new Decameron of tales could still be told, and might still be true. Lady Maud had good nerves, and she watched the play with her friends and talked between the acts, very much as if nothing had happened, except that she was pale and there was that look in her eyes; but only Paul Griggs noticed it, because he had a way of watching the small changes of expression that may mean tragedy, but more often signify indigestion, or too much strong tea, or a dun's letter, or a tight shoe, or a bad hand at bridge, or the presence of a bore in the room, or the flat failure of expected pleasure, or sauce spilt on a new gown by a rival's butler, or being left out of something small and smart, or any of those minor aches that are the inheritance of the social flesh, and drive women perfectly mad while they last. But Griggs knew that none of these troubles afflicted Lady Maud, and when he spoke to her now and then, between the acts, she felt his sympathy for her in every word and inflection. She was glad when the evening was over and she was at home in her dressing-room, and there was no more effort to be made till the next day. But even alone, she did not behave or look very differently; she twisted up her thick brown hair herself, as methodically as ever, and laid out the black velvet gown on the lounge after shaking it out, so that it should be creased as little as possible; but when she was ready to go to bed she put on a dressing-gown and sat down at her table to write to Rufus Van Torp. The letter was begun and she had written half a dozen lines when she laid down the pen, to unlock a small drawer from which she took an old blue envelope that had never been sealed, though it was a good deal the worse for wear. There was a photograph in it, which she laid before her on the letter; and she looked down at it steadily, resting her elbows on the table and her forehead and temples in her hands. It was a snapshot photograph of a young officer in khaki and puttees, not very well taken, and badly mounted on a bit of white pasteboard that might have been cut from a bandbox with a penknife; but it was all she had, and there could never be another. She looked at it a long time. 'You understand, dear,' she said at last, very low; 'you understand.' She put it away again and locked the drawer before she went on with her letter to Van Torp. It was easy enough to tell him what she had learned about Feist from Logotheti; it was even possible that he had found it out for himself, and had not taken the trouble to inform her of the fact. Apart from the approval that friendship inspires, she had always admired the cool discernment of events which he showed when great things were at stake. But it was one thing, she now told him, to be indifferent to the stupid attacks of the press, it would be quite another to allow himself to be accused of murder; the time had come when he must act, and without delay; there was a limit beyond which indifference became culpable apathy; it was clear enough now, she said, that all these attacks on him had been made to ruin him in the estimation of the public on both sides of the Atlantic before striking the first blow, as he himself had guessed; Griggs was surely not an alarmist, and Griggs said confidently that Van Torp's enemies meant business; without doubt, a mass of evidence had been carefully got together during the past three months, and it was pretty sure that an attempt would be made before long to arrest him; would he do nothing to make such an outrage impossible? She had not forgotten, she could never forget, what she owed him, but on his side he owed something to her, and to the great friendship that bound them to each other. Who was this man Feist, and who was behind him? She did not know why she was so sure that he knew the truth, supposing that there had really been a murder, but her instinct told her so. Lady Maud was not gifted with much power of writing, for she was not clever at books, or with pen and ink, but she wrote her letter with deep conviction and striking clearness. The only point of any importance which she did not mention was that Logotheti had promised to help her, and she did not write of that because she was not really sure that he could do anything, though she was convinced that he would try. She was very anxious. She was horrified when she thought of what might happen if nothing were done. She entreated Van Torp to answer that he would take steps to defend himself; and that, if possible, he would come to town so that they might consult together. She finished her letter and went to bed; but her good nerves failed her for once, and it was a long time before she could get to sleep. It was absurd, of course, but she remembered every case she had ever heard of in which innocent men had been convicted of crimes they had not committed and had suffered for them; and in a hideous instant, between waking and dozing, she saw Rufus Van Torp hanged before her eyes. The impression was so awful that she started from her pillow with a cry and turned up the electric lamp. It was not till the light flooded the room that the image quite faded away and she could let her head rest on the pillow again, and even then her heart was beating violently, as it had only beaten once in her life before that night. CHAPTER XVI Sir Jasper Threlfall did not know how long it would be before Mr. Feist could safely be discharged from the establishment in which Logotheti had so kindly placed him. Dr. Bream said 'it was as bad a case of chronic alcoholism as he often saw.' What has grammar to do with the treatment of the nerves? Mr. Feist said he did not want to be cured of chronic alcoholism, and demanded that he should be let out at once. Dr. Bream answered that it was against his principles to discharge a patient half cured. Mr. Feist retorted that it was a violation of personal liberty to cure a man against his will. The physician smiled kindly at a view he heard expressed every day, and which the law shared, though it might not be very ready to support it. Physically, Mr. Feist was afraid of Dr. Bream, who had played football for Guy's Hospital and had the complexion of a healthy baby and a quiet eye. So the patient changed his tone, and whined for something to calm his agitated nerves. One teaspoonful of whisky was all he begged for, and he promised not to ask for it to-morrow if he might have it to-day. The doctor was obdurate about spirits, but felt his pulse, examined the pupils of his eyes, and promised him a calming hypodermic in an hour. It was too soon after breakfast, he said. Mr. Feist only once attempted to use violence, and then two large men came into the room, as quiet and healthy as the doctor himself, and gently but firmly put him to bed, tucking him up in such an extraordinary way that he found it quite impossible to move or to get his hands out; and Dr. Bream, smiling with exasperating calm, stuck a needle into his shoulder, after which he presently fell asleep. He had been drinking hard for years, so that it was a very bad case; and besides, he seemed to have something on his mind, which made it worse. Logotheti came to see him now, and took a vast deal of trouble to be agreeable. At his first visit Feist flew into a rage and accused the Greek of having kidnapped him and shut him up in a prison, where he was treated like a lunatic; but to this Logotheti was quite indifferent; he only shook his head rather sadly, and offered Feist a very excellent cigarette, such as it was quite impossible to buy, even in London. After a little hesitation the patient took it, and the effect was very soothing to his temper. Indeed it was wonderful, for in less than two minutes his features relaxed, his eyes became quiet, and he actually apologised for having spoken so rudely. Logotheti had been kindness itself, he said, had saved his life at the very moment when he was going to cut his throat, and had been in all respects the good Samaritan. The cigarette was perfectly delicious. It was about the best smoke he had enjoyed since he had left the States, he said. He wished Logotheti to please to understand that he wanted to settle up for all expenses as soon as possible, and to pay his weekly bills at Dr. Bream's. There had been twenty or thirty pounds in notes in his pocket-book, and a letter of credit, but all his things had been taken away from him. He concluded it was all right, but it seemed rather strenuous to take his papers too. Perhaps Mr. Logotheti, who was so kind, would make sure that they were in a safe place, and tell the doctor to let him see any other friends who called. Then he asked for another of those wonderful cigarettes, but Logotheti was awfully sorry--there had only been two, and he had just smoked the other himself. He showed his empty case. 'By the way,' he said, 'if the doctor should happen to come in and notice the smell of the smoke, don't tell him that you had one of mine. My tobacco is rather strong, and he might think it would do you harm, you know. I see that you have some light ones there, on the table. Just let him think that you smoked one of them. I promise to bring some more to-morrow, and we'll have a couple together.' That was what Logotheti said, and it comforted Mr. Feist, who recognised the opium at once; all that afternoon and through all the next morning he told himself that he was to have another of those cigarettes, and perhaps two, at three o'clock in the afternoon, when Logotheti had said that he would come again. Before leaving his own rooms on the following day, the Greek put four cigarettes into his case, for he had not forgotten his promise; he took two from a box that lay on the table, and placed them so that they would be nearest to his own hand when he offered his case, but he took the other two from a drawer which was always locked, and of which the key was at one end of his superornate watch-chain, and he placed them on the other side of the case, conveniently for a friend to take. All four cigarettes looked exactly alike. If any one had pointed out to him that an Englishman would not think it fair play to drug a man deliberately, Logotheti would have smiled and would have replied by asking whether it was fair play to accuse an innocent man of murder, a retort which would only become unanswerable if it could be proved that Van Torp was suspected unjustly. But to this objection, again, the Greek would have replied that he had been brought up in Constantinople, where they did things in that way; and that, except for the trifling obstacle of the law, there was no particular reason for not strangling Mr. Feist with the English equivalent for a bowstring, since he had printed a disagreeable story about Miss Donne, and was, besides, a very offensive sort of person in appearance and manner. There had always been a certain directness about Logotheti's view of man's rights. He went to see Mr. Feist every day at three o'clock, in the most kind way possible, made himself as agreeable as he could, and gave him cigarettes with a good deal of opium in them. He also presented Feist with a pretty little asbestos lamp which was constructed to purify the air, and had a really wonderful capacity for absorbing the rather peculiar odour of the cigarettes. Dr. Bream always made his round in the morning, and the men nurses he employed to take care of his patients either did not notice anything unusual, or supposed that Logotheti smoked some 'outlandish Turkish stuff,' and, because he was a privileged person, they said nothing about it. As he had brought the patient to the establishment to be cured, it was really not to be supposed that he would supply him with forbidden narcotics. Now, to a man who is poisoned with drink and is suddenly deprived of it, opium is from the beginning as delightful as it is nauseous to most healthy people when they first taste it; and during the next four or five days, while Feist appeared to be improving faster than might have been expected, he was in reality acquiring such a craving for his daily dose of smoke that it would soon be acute suffering to be deprived of it; and this was what Logotheti wished. He would have supplied him with brandy if he had not been sure that the contraband would be discovered and stopped by the doctor; but opium, in the hands of one who knows exactly how it is used, is very much harder to detect, unless the doctor sees the smoker when he is under the influence of the drug, while the pupils of the eye are unnaturally contracted and the face is relaxed in that expression of beatitude which only the great narcotics can produce--the state which Baudelaire called the Artificial Paradise. During these daily visits Logotheti became very confidential; that is to say, he exercised all his ingenuity in the attempt to make Feist talk about himself. But he was not very successful. Broken as the man was, his characteristic reticence was scarcely at all relaxed, and it was quite impossible to get beyond the barrier. One day Logotheti gave him a cigarette more than usual, as an experiment, but he went to sleep almost immediately, sitting up in his chair. The opium, as a moderate substitute for liquor, temporarily restored the habitual tone of his system and revived his natural self-control, and Logotheti soon gave up the idea of extracting any secret from him in a moment of garrulous expansion. There was the other way, which was now prepared, and the Greek had learned enough about his victim to justify him in using it. The cypher expert, who had been at work on Feist's diary, had now completed his key and brought Logotheti the translation. He was a rather shabby little man, a penman employed to do occasional odd jobs about the Foreign Office, such as engrossing documents and the like, by which he earned from eighteenpence to half-a-crown an hour, according to the style of penmanship required, and he was well known in the criminal courts as an expert on handwriting in forgery cases. He brought his work to Logotheti, who at once asked for the long entry concerning the night of the explosion. The expert turned to it and read it aloud. It was a statement of the circumstances to which Feist was prepared to swear, and which have been summed up in a previous chapter. Van Torp was not mentioned by name in the diary, but was referred to as 'he'; the other entries in the journal, however, fully proved that Van Torp was meant, even if Logotheti had felt any doubt of it. The expert informed him, however, that the entry was not the original one, which had apparently been much shorter, and had been obliterated in the ordinary way with a solution of chloride of lime. Here and there very pale traces of the previous writing were faintly visible, but there was not enough to give the sense of what was gone. This proved that the ink had not been long dry when it had been removed, as the expert explained. It was very hard to destroy old writing so completely that neither heat nor chemicals would bring it out again. Therefore Feist must have decided to change the entry soon after he had made it, and probably on the next day. The expert had not found any other page which had been similarly treated. The shabby little man looked at Logotheti, and Logotheti looked at him, and both nodded; and the Greek paid him generously for his work. It was clear that Feist had meant to aid his own memory, and had rather clumsily tampered with his diary in order to make it agree with the evidence he intended to give, rather than meaning to produce the notes in court. What Logotheti meant to find out was what the man himself really knew and what he had first written down; that, and some other things. In conversation, Logotheti had asked him to describe the panic at the theatre, and Cordova's singing in the dark, but Feist's answers had been anything but interesting. 'You can't remember much about that kind of thing,' he had said in his drawling way, 'because there isn't much to remember. There was a crash and the lights went out, and people fought their way to the doors in the dark till there was a general squash; then Madame Cordova began to sing, and that kind of calmed things down till the lights went up again. That's about all I remember.' His recollections did not at all agree with what he had entered in his diary; but though Logotheti tried a second time two days later, Feist repeated the same story with absolute verbal accuracy. The Greek asked him if he had known 'that poor Miss Bamberger who died of shock.' Feist blew out a cloud of drugged tobacco smoke before he answered, with one of his disagreeable smiles, that he had known her pretty well, for he had been her father's private secretary. He explained that he had given up the place because he had come into some money. Mr. Bamberger was 'a very pleasant gentleman,' Feist declared, and poor Miss Bamberger had been a 'superb dresser and a first-class conversationalist, and was a severe loss to her friends and admirers.' Though Logotheti, who was only a Greek, did not understand every word of this panegyric, he perceived that it was intended for the highest praise. He said he should like to know Mr. Bamberger, and was sorry that he had not known Miss Bamberger, who had been engaged to marry Mr. Van Torp, as every one had heard. He thought he saw a difference in Feist's expression, but was not sure of it. The pale, unhealthy, and yet absurdly youthful face was not naturally mobile, and the almost colourless eyes always had rather a fixed and staring look. Logotheti was aware of a new meaning in them rather than of a distinct change. He accordingly went on to say that he had heard poor Miss Bamberger spoken of as heartless, and he brought out the word so unexpectedly that Feist looked sharply at him. 'Well,' he said, 'some people certainly thought so. I daresay she was. It don't matter much, now she's dead, anyway.' 'She paid for it, poor girl,' answered Logotheti very deliberately. 'They say she was murdered.' The change in Feist's face was now unmistakable. There was a drawing down of the corners of the mouth, and a lowering of the lids that meant something, and the unhealthy complexion took a greyish shade. Logotheti was too wise to watch his intended victim, and leaned back in a careless attitude, gazing out of the window at the bright creeper on the opposite wall. 'I've heard it suggested,' said Mr. Feist rather thickly, out of a perfect storm of drugged smoke. It came out of his ugly nostrils, it blew out of his mouth, it seemed to issue even from his ears and eyes. 'I suppose we shall never know the truth,' said Logotheti in an idle tone, and not seeming to look at his companion. 'Mr. Griggs--do you remember Mr. Griggs, the author, at the Turkish Embassy, where we first met? Tall old fellow, sad-looking, bony, hard; you remember him, don't you?' 'Why, yes,' drawled Feist, emitting more smoke, 'I know him quite well.' 'He found blood on his hands after he had carried her. Had you not heard that? I wondered whether you saw her that evening. Did you?' 'I saw her from a distance in the box with her friends,' answered Feist steadily. 'Did you see her afterwards?' The direct question came suddenly, and the strained look in Feist's face became more intense. Logotheti fancied he understood very well what was passing in the young man's mind; he intended to swear in court that he had seen Van Torp drag the girl to the place where her body was afterwards found, and if he now denied this, the Greek, who was probably Van Torp's friend, might appear as a witness and narrate the present conversation; and though this would not necessarily invalidate the evidence, it might weaken it in the opinion of the jury. Feist had of course suspected that Logotheti had some object in forcing him to undergo a cure, and this suspicion had been confirmed by the opium cigarettes, which he would have refused after the first time if he had possessed the strength of mind to do so. While Logotheti watched him, three small drops of perspiration appeared high up on his forehead, just where the parting of his thin light hair began; for he felt that he must make up his mind what to say, and several seconds had already elapsed since the question. 'As a matter of fact,' he said at last, with an evident effort, 'I did catch sight of Miss Bamberger later.' He had been aware of the moisture on his forehead, and had hoped that Logotheti would not notice it, but the drops now gathered and rolled down, so that he was obliged to take out his handkerchief. 'It's getting quite hot,' he said, by way of explanation. 'Yes,' answered Logotheti, humouring him, 'the room is warm. You must have been one of the last people who saw Miss Bamberger alive,' he added. 'Was she trying to get out?' 'I suppose so.' Logotheti pretended to laugh a little. 'You must have been quite sure when you saw her,' he said. Feist was in a very overwrought condition by this time, and Logotheti reflected that if his nerve did not improve he would make a bad impression on a jury. 'Now I'll tell you the truth,' he said rather desperately. 'By all means!' And Logotheti prepared to hear and remember accurately the falsehood which would probably follow immediately on such a statement. But he was disappointed. 'The truth is,' said Feist, 'I don't care much to talk about this affair at present. I can't explain now, but you'll understand one of these days, and you'll say I was right.' 'Oh, I see!' Logotheti smiled and held out his case, for Feist had finished the first cigarette. He refused another, however, to the other's surprise. 'Thanks,' he said, 'but I guess I won't smoke any more of those. I believe they get on to my nerves.' 'Do you really not wish me to bring you any more of them?' asked Logotheti, affecting a sort of surprised concern. 'Do you think they hurt you?' 'I do. That's exactly what I mean. I'm much obliged, all the same, but I'm going to give them up, just like that.' 'Very well,' Logotheti answered. 'I promise not to bring any more. I think you are very wise to make the resolution, if you really think they hurt you--though I don't see why they should.' Like most weak people who make good resolutions, Mr. Feist did not realise what he was doing. He understood horribly well, forty-eight hours later, when he was dragging himself at his tormentor's feet, entreating the charity of half a cigarette, of one teaspoonful of liquor, of anything, though it were deadly poison, that could rest his agonised nerves for a single hour, for ten minutes, for an instant, offering his life and soul for it, parching for it, burning, sweating, trembling, vibrating with horror, and sick with fear for the want of it. For Logotheti was an Oriental and had lived in Constantinople; and he knew what opium does, and what a man will do to get it, and that neither passion of love, nor bond of affection, nor fear of man or God, nor of death and damnation, will stand against that awful craving when the poison is within reach. CHAPTER XVII The society papers printed a paragraph which said that Lord Creedmore and Countess Leven were going to have a week-end party at Craythew, and the list of guests included the names of Mr. Van Torp and Señorita da Cordova, 'Monsieur Konstantinos Logotheti' and Mr. Paul Griggs, after those of a number of overpoweringly smart people. Lady Maud's brothers saw the paragraph, and the one who was in the Grenadier Guards asked the one who was in the Blues if 'the Governor was going in for zoology or lion-taming in his old age'; but the brother in the Blues said it was 'Maud who liked freaks of nature, and Greeks, and things, because they were so amusing to photograph.' At all events, Lady Maud had studiously left out her brothers and sisters in making up the Craythew party, a larger one than had been assembled there for many years; it was so large indeed that the 'freaks' would not have been prominent figures at all, even if they had been such unusual persons as the young man in the Blues imagined them. For though Lord Creedmore was not a rich peer, Craythew was a fine old place, and could put up at least thirty guests without crowding them and without causing that most uncomfortable condition of things in which people run over each other from morning to night during week-end parties in the season, when there is no hunting or shooting to keep the men out all day. The house itself was two or three times as big as Mr. Van Torp's at Oxley Paddox. It had its hall, its long drawing-room for dancing, its library, its breakfast-room and its morning-room, its billiard-room, sitting-room, and smoking-room, like many another big English country house; but it had also a picture gallery, the library was an historical collection that filled three good-sized rooms, and it was completed by one which had always been called the study, beyond which there were two little dwelling-rooms, at the end of the wing, where the librarian had lived when there had been one. For the old lord had been a bachelor and a book lover, but the present master of the house, who was tremendously energetic and practical, took care of the books himself. Now and then, when the house was almost full, a guest was lodged in the former librarian's small apartment, and on the present occasion Paul Griggs was to be put there, on the ground that he was a man of letters and must be glad to be near books, and also because he could not be supposed to be afraid of Lady Letitia Foxwell's ghost, which was believed to have spent the nights in the library for the last hundred and fifty years, more or less, ever since the unhappy young girl had hanged herself there in the time of George the Second, on the eve of her wedding day. The ancient house stood more than a mile from the high road, near the further end of such a park as is rarely to be seen, even in beautiful Derbyshire, for the Foxwells had always loved their trees, as good Englishmen should, and had taken care of them. There were ancient oaks there, descended by less than four tree-generations from Druid times; all down the long drive the great elms threw their boughs skywards; there the solemn beeches grew, the gentler ash, and the lime; there the yews spread out their branches, and here and there the cedar of Lebanon, patriarch of all trees that bear cones, reared his royal crown above the rest; in and out, too, amongst the great boulders that strewed the park, the sharp-leaved holly stood out boldly, and the exquisite white thorn, all in flower, shot up to three and four times a man's height; below, the heather grew close and green to blossom in the summer-time; and in the deeper, lonelier places the blackthorn and hoe ran wild, and the dog-rose in wild confusion; the alder and the gorse too, the honeysuckle and ivy, climbed up over rocks and stems; you might see a laurel now and then, and bilberry bushes by thousands, and bracken everywhere in an endless profusion of rich, dark-green lace. Squirrels there were, dashing across the open glades and running up the smooth beeches and chestnut trees, as quick as light, and rabbits, dodging in and out amongst the ferns, and just showing the snow-white patch under their little tails as they disappeared, and now and again the lordly deer stepping daintily and leisurely through the deep fern; all these lived in the wonderful depths of Craythew Park, and of birds there was no end. There were game birds and song birds, from the handsome pheasants to the modest little partridges, the royalists and the puritans of the woods, from the love-lorn wood-pigeon, cooing in the tall firs, to the thrush and the blackbird, making long hops as they quartered the ground for grubs; and the robin, the linnet, and little Jenny Wren all lived there in riotous plenty of worms and snails; and nearer to the great house the starlings and jackdaws shot down in a great hurry from the holes in old trees where they had their nests, and many of them came rushing from their headquarters in the ruined tower by the stream to waddle about the open lawns in their ungainly fashion, vain because they were not like swallows, but could really walk when they chose, though they did it rather badly. And where the woods ended they were lined with rhododendrons, and lilacs, and laburnum. There are even bigger parks in England than Craythew, but there is none more beautiful, none richer in all sweet and good things that live, none more musical with song of birds, not one that more deeply breathes the world's oldest poetry. Lady Maud went out on foot that afternoon and met Van Torp in the drive, half a mile from the house. He came in his motor car with Miss More and Ida, who was to go back after tea. It was by no means the first time that they had been at Craythew; the little girl loved nature, and understood by intuition much that would have escaped a normal child. It was her greatest delight to come over in the motor and spend two or three hours in the park, and when none of the family were in the country she was always free to come and go, with Miss More, as she pleased. Lady Maud kissed her kindly and shook hands with her teacher before the car went on to leave Mr. Van Torp's things at the house. Then the two walked slowly along the road, and neither spoke for some time, nor looked at the other, but both kept their eyes on the ground before them, as if expecting something. Mr. Van Torp's hands were in his pockets, his soft straw hat was pushed rather far back on his sandy head, and as he walked he breathed an American tune between his teeth, raising one side of his upper lip to let the faint sound pass freely without turning itself into a real whistle. It is rather a Yankee trick, and is particularly offensive to some people, but Lady Maud did not mind it at all, though she heard it distinctly. It always meant that Mr. Van Torp was in deep thought, and she guessed that, just then, he was thinking more about her than of himself. In his pocket he held in his right hand a small envelope which he meant to bring out presently and give to her, where nobody would be likely to see them. Presently, when the motor had turned to the left, far up the long drive, he raised his eyes and looked about him. He had the sight of a man who has lived in the wilderness, and not only sees, but knows how to see, which is a very different thing. Having satisfied himself, he withdrew the envelope and held it out to his companion. 'I thought you might just as well have some more money,' he said, 'so I brought you some. I may want to sail any minute. I don't know. Yes, you'd better take it.' Lady Maud had looked up quickly and had hesitated to receive the envelope, but when he finished speaking she took it quickly and slipped it into the opening of her long glove, pushing it down till it lay in the palm of her hand. She fastened the buttons before she spoke. 'How thoughtful you always are for me!' She unconsciously used the very words with which she had thanked him in Hare Court the last time he had given her money. The tone told him how deeply grateful she was. 'Well,' he said in answer, 'as far as that goes, it's for you yourself, as much as if I didn't know where it went; and if I'm obliged to sail suddenly I don't want you to be out of your reckoning.' 'You're much too good, Rufus. Do you really mean that you may have to go back at once, to defend yourself?' 'No, not exactly that. But business is business, and somebody responsible has got to be there, since poor old Bamberger has gone crazy and come abroad to stay--apparently.' 'Crazy?' 'Well, he behaves like it, anyway. I'm beginning to be sorry for that man. I'm in earnest. You mayn't believe it, but I really am. Kind of unnatural, isn't it, for me to be sorry for people?' He looked steadily at Lady Maud for a moment, then smiled faintly, looked away, and began to blow his little tune through his teeth again. 'You were sorry for little Ida,' suggested Lady Maud. 'That's different. I--I liked her mother a good deal, and when the child was turned adrift I sort of looked after her. Anybody'd do that, I expect.' 'And you're sorry for me, in a way,' said Lady Maud. 'You're different, too. You're my friend. I suppose you're about the only one I've got, too. We can't complain of being crowded out of doors by our friends, either of us, can we? Besides, I shouldn't put it in that way, or call it being sorry, exactly. It's another kind of feeling I have. I'd like to undo your life and make it over again for you, the right way, so that you'd be happy. I can do a great deal, but all the cursed nickel in the world won't bring back the--' he checked himself suddenly, shutting his hard lips with an audible clack, and looking down. 'I beg your pardon, my dear,' he said in a low voice, a moment later. For he had been very near to speaking of the dead, and he felt instinctively that the rough speech, however kindly meant, would have pained her, and perhaps had already hurt her a little. But as she looked down, too, her hand gently touched the sleeve of his coat to tell him that there was nothing to forgive. 'He knows,' she said, more softly than sadly. 'Where he is, they know about us--when we try to do right.' 'And you haven't only tried,' Van Torp answered quietly, 'you've done it.' 'Have I?' It sounded as if she asked the question of herself, or of some one to whom she appealed in her heart. 'I often wonder,' she added thoughtfully. 'You needn't worry,' said her companion, more cheerily than he had yet spoken. 'Do you want to know why I think you needn't fuss about your conscience and your soul, and things?' He smiled now, and so did she, but more at the words he used than at the question itself. 'Yes,' she said. 'I should like to know why.' 'It's a pretty good sign for a lady's soul when a lot of poor creatures bless her every minute of their lives for fishing them out of the mud and landing them in a decent life. Come, isn't it now? You know it is. That's all. No further argument's necessary. The jury is satisfied and the verdict is that you needn't fuss. So that's that, and let's talk about something else.' 'I'm not so sure,' Lady Maud answered. 'Is it right to bribe people to do right? Sometimes it has seemed very like that!' 'I don't set up to be an expert in morality,' retorted Van Torp, 'but if money, properly used, can prevent murder, I guess that's better than letting the murder be committed. You must allow that. The same way with other crimes, isn't it? And so on, down to mere misdemeanours, till you come to ordinary morality. Now what have you got to say? If it isn't much better for the people themselves to lead decent lives just for money's sake, it's certainly much better for everybody else that they should. That appears to me to be unanswerable. You didn't start in with the idea of making those poor things just like you, I suppose. You can't train a cart-horse to win the Derby. Yet all their nonsense about equality rests on the theory that you can. You can't make a good judge out of a criminal, no matter how the criminal repents of his crimes. He's not been born the intellectual equal of the man who's born to judge him. His mind is biassed. Perhaps he's a degenerate--everything one isn't oneself is called degenerate nowadays. It helps things, I suppose. And you can't expect to collect a lot of poor wretches together and manufacture first-class Magdalens out of ninety-nine per cent of them, because you're the one that needs no repentance, can you? I forget whether the Bible says it was ninety-nine who did or ninety-nine who didn't, but you'll understand my drift, I daresay. It's logic, if it isn't Scripture. All right. As long as you can stop the evil, without doing wrong yourself, you're bringing about a good result. So don't fuss. See?' 'Yes, I see!' Lady Maud smiled. 'But it's your money that does it!' 'That's nothing,' Van Torp said, as if he disliked the subject. He changed it effectually by speaking of his own present intentions and explaining to his friend what he meant to do. His point of view seemed to be that Bamberger was quite mad since his daughter's death, and had built up a sensational but clumsy case, with the help of the man Feist, whose evidence, as a confirmed dipsomaniac, would be all but worthless. It was possible, Van Torp said, that Miss Bamberger had been killed; in fact, Griggs' evidence alone would almost prove it. But the chances were a thousand to one that she had been killed by a maniac. Such murders were not so uncommon as Lady Maud might think. The police in all countries know how many cases occur which can be explained only on that theory, and how diabolically ingenious madmen are in covering their tracks. Lady Maud believed all he told her, and had perfect faith in his innocence, but she knew instinctively that he was not telling her all; and the certainty that he was keeping back something made her nervous. In due time the other guests came; each in turn met Mr. Van Torp soon after arriving, if not at the moment when they entered the house; and they shook hands with him, and almost all knew why he was there, but those who did not were soon told by the others. The fact of having been asked to a country house for the express purpose of being shown by ocular demonstration that something is 'all right' which has been very generally said or thought to be all wrong, does not generally contribute to the light-heartedness of such parties. Moreover, the very young element was hardly represented, and there was a dearth of those sprightly boys and girls who think it the acme of delicate wit to shut up an aunt in the ice-box and throw the billiard-table out of the window. Neither Lady Maud nor her father liked what Mr. Van Torp called a 'circus'; and besides, the modern youths and maids who delight in practical jokes were not the people whose good opinion about the millionaire it was desired to obtain, or to strengthen, as the case might be. The guests, far from being what Lady Maud's brothers called a menagerie, were for the most part of the graver sort whose approval weighs in proportion as they are themselves social heavyweights. There was the Leader of the House, there were a couple of members of the Cabinet, there was the Master of the Foxhounds, there was the bishop of the diocese, and there was one of the big Derbyshire landowners; there was an ex-governor-general of something, an ex-ambassador to the United States, and a famous general; there was a Hebrew financier of London, and Logotheti, the Greek financier from Paris, who were regarded as colleagues of Van Torp, the American financier; there was the scientific peer who had dined at the Turkish Embassy with Lady Maud, there was the peer whose horse had just won the Derby, and there was the peer who knew German and was looked upon as the coming man in the Upper House. Many had their wives with them, and some had lost their wives or could not bring them; but very few were looking for a wife, and there were no young women looking for husbands, since the Señorita da Cordova was apparently not to be reckoned with those. Now at this stage of my story it would be unpardonable to keep my readers in suspense, if I may suppose that any of them have a little curiosity left. Therefore I shall not narrate in detail what happened on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, seeing that it was just what might have been expected to happen at a week-end party during the season when there is nothing in the world to do but to play golf, tennis, or croquet, or to ride or drive all day, and to work hard at bridge all the evening; for that is what it has come to. Everything went very well till Sunday night, and most of the people formed a much better opinion of Mr. Van Torp than those who had lately read about him in the newspapers might have thought possible. The Cabinet Ministers talked politics with him and found him sound--for an American; the M.F.H. saw him ride, and felt for him exactly the sympathy which a Don Cossack, a cowboy, and a Bedouin might feel for each other if they met on horseback, and which needs no expression in words; and the three distinguished peers liked him at once, because he was not at all impressed by their social greatness, but was very much interested in what they had to say respectively about science, horse-breeding, and Herr Bebel. The great London financier, and he, and Monsieur Logotheti exchanged casual remarks which all the men who were interested in politics referred to mysterious loans that must affect the armaments of the combined powers and the peace of Europe. Mr. Van Torp kept away from the Primadonna, and she watched him curiously, a good deal surprised to see that most of the others liked him better than she had expected. She was rather agreeably disappointed, too, at the reception she herself met with Lord Creedmore spoke of her only as 'Miss Donne, the daughter of his oldest friend,' and every one treated her accordingly. No one even mentioned her profession, and possibly some of the guests did not quite realise that she was the famous Cordova. Lady Maud never suggested that she should sing, and Lord Creedmore detested music. The old piano in the long drawing-room was hardly ever opened. It had been placed there in Victorian days when 'a little music' was the rule, and since the happy abolition of that form of terror it had been left where it stood, and was tuned once a year, in case anybody should want a dance when there were young people in the house. A girl might as well master the Assyrian language in order to compose hymns to Tiglath-Pileser as learn to play the piano nowadays, but bridge is played at children's parties; let us not speak ill of the Bridge that has carried us over. Margaret was not out of her element; on the contrary, she at first had the sensation of finding herself amongst rather grave and not uncongenial English people, not so very different from those with whom she had spent her early girlhood at Oxford. It was not strange to her, but it was no longer familiar, and she missed the surroundings to which she had grown accustomed. Hitherto, when she had been asked to join such parties, there had been at least a few of those persons who are supposed to delight especially in the society of sopranos, actresses, and lionesses generally; but none of them were at Craythew. She was suddenly transported back into regions where nobody seemed to care a straw whether she could sing or not, where nobody flattered her, and no one suggested that it would be amusing and instructive to make a trip to Spain together, or that a charming little kiosk at Therapia was at her disposal whenever she chose to visit the Bosphorus. There was only Logotheti to remind her of her everyday life, for Griggs did not do so at all; he belonged much more to the 'atmosphere,' and though she knew that he had loved in his youth a woman who had a beautiful voice, he understood nothing of music and never talked about it. As for Lady Maud, Margaret saw much less of her than she had expected; the hostess was manifestly preoccupied, and was, moreover, obliged to give more of her time to her guests than would have been necessary if they had been of the younger generation or if the season had been winter. Margaret noticed in herself a new phase of change with regard to Logotheti, and she did not like it at all: he had become necessary to her, and yet she was secretly a little ashamed of him. In that temple of respectability where she found herself, in such 'a cloister of social pillars' as Logotheti called the party, he was a discordant figure. She was haunted by a painful doubt that if he had not been a very important financier some of those quiet middle-aged Englishmen might have thought him a 'bounder,' because of his ruby pin, his summer-lightning waistcoats, and his almond-shaped eyes. It was very unpleasant to be so strongly drawn to a man whom such people probably thought a trifle 'off.' It irritated her to be obliged to admit that the London financier, who was a professed and professing Hebrew, was in appearance an English gentleman, whereas Konstantinos Logotheti, with a pedigree of Christian and not unpersecuted Fanariote ancestors, that went back to Byzantine times without the least suspicion of any Semitic marriage, might have been taken for a Jew in Lombard Street, and certainly would have been thought one in Berlin. A man whose eyes suggested dark almonds need not cover himself with jewellery and adorn himself in naming colours, Margaret thought; and she resented his way of dressing, much more than ever before. Lady Maud had called him exotic, and Margaret could not forget that. By 'exotic' she was sure that her friend meant something like vulgar, though Lady Maud said she liked him. But the events that happened at Craythew on Sunday evening threw such insignificant details as these into the shade, and brought out the true character of the chief actors, amongst whom Margaret very unexpectedly found herself. It was late in the afternoon after a really cloudless June day, and she had been for a long ramble in the park with Lord Creedmore, who had talked to her about her father and the old Oxford days, till all her present life seemed to be a mere dream; and she could not realise, as she went up to her room, that she was to go back to London on the morrow, to the theatre, to rehearsals, to Pompeo Stromboli, Schreiermeyer, and the public. She met Logotheti in the gallery that ran round two sides of the hall, and they both stopped and leaned over the balustrade to talk a little. 'It has been very pleasant,' she said thoughtfully. 'I'm sorry it's over so soon.' 'Whenever you are inclined to lead this sort of life,' Logotheti answered with a laugh, 'you need only drop me a line. You shall have a beautiful old house and a big park and a perfect colonnade of respectabilities--and I'll promise not to be a bore.' Margaret looked at him earnestly for some seconds, and then asked a very unexpected and frivolous question, because she simply could not help it. 'Where did you get that tie?' The question was strongly emphasised, for it meant much more to her just then than he could possibly have guessed; perhaps it meant something which was affecting her whole life. He laughed carelessly. 'It's better to dress like Solomon in all his glory than to be taken for a Levantine gambler,' he answered. 'In the days when I was simple-minded, a foreigner in a fur coat and an eyeglass once stopped me in the Boulevard des Italiens and asked if I could give him the address of any house where a roulette-table was kept! After that I took to jewels and dress!' Margaret wondered why she could not help liking him; and by sheer force of habit she thought that he would make a very good-looking stage Romeo. While she was thinking of that and smiling in spite of his tie, the old clock in the hall below chimed the hour, and it was a quarter to seven; and at the same moment three men were getting out of a train that had stopped at the Craythew station, three miles from Lord Creedmore's gate. CHAPTER XVIII The daylight dinner was over, and the large party was more or less scattered about the drawing-room and the adjoining picture-gallery in groups of three and four, mostly standing while they drank their coffee, and continued or finished the talk begun at table. By force of habit Margaret had stopped beside the closed piano, and had seated herself on the old-fashioned stool to have her coffee. Lady Maud stood beside her, leaning against the corner of the instrument, her cup in her hand, and the two young women exchanged rather idle observations about the lovely day that was over, and the perfect weather. Both were preoccupied and they did not look at each other; Margaret's eyes watched Logotheti, who was half-way down the long room, before a portrait by Sir Peter Lely, of which he was apparently pointing out the beauties to the elderly wife of the scientific peer. Lady Maud was looking out at the light in the sunset sky above the trees beyond the flower-beds and the great lawn, for the piano stood near an open window. From time to time she turned her head quickly and glanced towards Van Torp, who was talking with her father at some distance; then she looked out of the window again. It was a warm evening; in the dusk of the big rooms the hum of voices was low and pleasant, broken only now and then by Van Torp's more strident tone. Outside it was still light, and the starlings and blackbirds and thrushes were finishing their supper, picking up the unwary worms and the tardy little snails, and making a good deal of sweet noise about it. Margaret set down her cup on the lid of the piano, and at the slight sound Lady Maud turned towards her, so that their eyes met. Each noticed the other's expression. 'What is it?' asked Lady Maud, with a little smile of friendly concern. 'Is anything wrong?' 'No--that is--' Margaret smiled too, as she hesitated--'I was going to ask you the same question,' she added quickly. 'It's nothing more than usual,' returned her friend. 'I think it has gone very well, don't you, these three days? He has made a good impression on everybody--don't you think so?' 'Oh yes!' Margaret answered readily. 'Excellent! Could not be better! I confess to being surprised, just a little--I mean,' she corrected herself hastily, 'after all the talk there has been, it might not have turned out so easy.' 'Don't you feel a little less prejudiced against him yourself?' asked Lady Maud. 'Prejudiced!' Margaret repeated the word thoughtfully. 'Yes, I suppose I'm prejudiced against him. That's the only word. Perhaps it's hateful of me, but I cannot help it--and I wish you wouldn't make me own it to you, for it's humiliating! I'd like him, if I could, for your sake. But you must take the wish for the deed.' 'That's better than nothing!' Lady Maud seemed to be trying to laugh a little, but it was with an effort and there was no ripple in her voice. 'You have something on your mind, too,' she went on, to change the subject. 'Is anything troubling you?' 'Only the same old question. It's not worth mentioning!' 'To marry, or not to marry?' 'Yes. I suppose I shall take the leap some day, and probably in the dark, and then I shall be sorry for it. Most of you have!' She looked up at Lady Maud with a rather uncertain, flickering smile, as if she wished her mind to be made up for her, and her hands lay weakly in her lap, the palms almost upwards. 'Oh, don't ask me!' cried her friend, answering the look rather than the words, and speaking with something approaching to vehemence. 'Do you wish you had waited for the other one till now?' asked Margaret softly, but she did not know that he had been killed in South Africa; she had never seen the shabby little photograph. 'Yes--for ever!' That was all Lady Maud said, and the two words were not uttered dramatically either, though gravely and without the least doubt. The butler and two men appeared, to collect the coffee cups; the former had a small salver in his hand and came directly to Lady Maud. He brought a telegram for her. 'You don't mind, do you?' she asked Margaret mechanically, as she opened it. 'Of course,' answered the other in the same tone, and she looked through the open window while her friend read the message. It was from the Embassy in London, and it informed her in the briefest terms that Count Leven had been killed in St. Petersburg on the previous day, in the street, by a bomb intended for a high official. Lady Maud made no sound, but folded the telegram into a small square and turned her back to the room for a moment in order to slip it unnoticed into the body of her black velvet gown. As she recovered her former attitude she was surprised to see that the butler was still standing two steps from her where he had stopped after he had taken the cups from the piano and set them on the small salver on which he had brought the message. He evidently wanted to say something to her alone. Lady Maud moved away from the piano, and he followed her a little beyond the window, till she stopped and turned to hear what he had to say. 'There are three persons asking for Mr. Van Torp, my lady,' he said in a very low tone, and she noticed the disturbed look in his face. 'They've got a motor-car waiting in the avenue.' 'What sort of people are they?' she asked quietly; but she felt that she was pale. 'To tell the truth, my lady,' the butler spoke in a whisper, bending his head, 'I think they are from Scotland Yard.' Lady Maud knew it already; she had almost guessed it when she had glanced at his face before he spoke at all. 'Show them into the old study,' she said, 'and ask them to wait a moment.' The butler went away with his two coffee cups, and scarcely any one had noticed that Lady Maud had exchanged a few words with him by the window. She turned back to the piano, where Margaret was still sitting on the stool with her hands in her lap, looking at Logotheti in the distance and wondering whether she meant to marry him or not. 'No bad news, I hope?' asked the singer, looking up as her friend came to her side. 'Not very good,' Lady Maud answered, leaning her elbow on the piano. 'Should you mind singing something to keep the party together while I talk to some tiresome men who are in the old study? On these June evenings people have a way of wandering out into the garden after dinner. I should like to keep every one in the house for a quarter of an hour, and if you will only sing for them they won't stir. Will you?' Margaret looked at her curiously. 'I think I understand,' Margaret said. 'The people in the study are asking for Mr. Van Torp.' Lady Maud nodded, not surprised that Logotheti should have told the Primadonna something about what he had been doing. 'Then you believe he is innocent,' she said confidently. 'Even though you don't like him, you'll help me, won't you?' 'I'll do anything you ask me. But I should think--' 'No,' Lady Maud interrupted. 'He must not be arrested at all. I know that he would rather face the detectives than run away, even for a few hours, till the truth is known. But I won't let him. It would be published all over the world to-morrow morning that he had been arrested for murder in my father's house, and it would never be forgotten against him, though he might be proved innocent ten times over. That's what I want to prevent. Will you help me?' As she spoke the last words she raised the front lid of the piano, and Margaret turned on her seat towards the instrument to open the keyboard, nodding her assent. 'Just play a little, till I am out of the room, and then sing,' said Lady Maud. The great artist's fingers felt the keys as her friend turned away. Anything theatrical was natural to her now, and she began to play very softly, watching the moving figure in black velvet as she would have watched a fellow singer on the stage while waiting to go on. Lady Maud did not speak to Van Torp first, but to Griggs, and then to Logotheti, and the two men slipped away together and disappeared. Then she came back to Van Torp, smiling pleasantly. He was still talking with Lord Creedmore, but the latter, at a word from his daughter, went off to the elderly peeress whom Logotheti had abruptly left alone before the portrait. Margaret did not hear what Lady Maud said to the American, but it was evidently not yet a warning, for her smile did not falter, and he looked pleased as he came back with her, and they passed near the piano to go out through the open window upon the broad flagged terrace that separated the house from the flower-beds. The Primadonna played a little louder now, so that every one heard the chords, even in the picture-gallery, and a good many men were rather bored at the prospect of music. Then the Señorita da Cordova raised her head and looked over the grand piano, and her lips parted, and boredom vanished very suddenly; for even those who did not take much pleasure in the music were amazed by the mere sound of her voice and by its incredible flexibility. She meant to astonish her hearers and keep them quiet, and she knew what to sing to gain her end, and how to sing it. Those who have not forgotten the story of her beginnings will remember that she was a thorough musician as well as a great singer, and was one of those very few primadonnas who are able to accompany themselves from memory without a false note through any great piece they know, from _Lucia_ to _Parsifal_. She began with the waltz song in the first act of _Romeo and Juliet_. It was the piece that had revealed her talent to Madame Bonanni, who had accidentally overheard her singing to herself, and it suited her purpose admirably. Such fireworks could not fail to astound, even if they did not please, and half the full volume of her voice was more than enough for the long drawing-room, into which the whole party gathered almost as soon as she began to sing. Such trifles as having just dined, or having just waked up in the morning, have little influence on the few great natural voices of the world, which begin with twice the power and beauty that the 'built-up' ones acquire in years of study. Ordinary people go to a concert, to the opera, to a circus, to university sports, and hear and see things that interest or charm, or sometimes surprise them; but they are very much amazed if they ever happen to find out in private life what a really great professional of any sort can do at a pinch, if put to it by any strong motive. If it had been necessary, Margaret could have sung to the party in the drawing-room at Craythew for an hour at a stretch with no more rest than her accompaniments afforded. Her hearers were the more delighted because it was so spontaneous, and there was not the least affectation about it. During these days no one had even suggested that she should make music, or be anything except the 'daughter of Lord Creedmore's old friend.' But now, apparently, she had sat down to the piano to give them all a concert, for the sheer pleasure of singing, and they were not only pleased with her, but with themselves; for the public, and especially audiences, are more easily flattered by a great artist who chooses to treat his hearers as worthy of his best, than the artist himself is by the applause he hears for the thousandth time. So the Señorita da Cordova held the party at Craythew spellbound while other things were happening very near them which would have interested them much more than her trills, and her 'mordentini,' and her soaring runs, and the high staccato notes that rang down from the ceiling as if some astounding and invisible instrument were up there, supported by an unseen force. Meanwhile Paul Griggs and Logotheti had stopped a moment in the first of the rooms that contained the library, on their way to the old study beyond. It was almost dark amongst the huge oak bookcases, and both men stopped at the same moment by a common instinct, to agree quickly upon some plan of action. They had led adventurous lives, and were not likely to stick at trifles, if they believed themselves to be in the right; but if they had left the drawing-room with the distinct expectation of anything like a fight, they would certainly not have stopped to waste their time in talking. The Greek spoke first. 'Perhaps you had better let me do the talking,' he said. 'By all means,' answered Griggs. 'I am not good at that. I'll keep quiet, unless we have to handle them.' 'All right, and if you have any trouble I'll join in and help you. Just set your back against the door if they try to get out while I am speaking.' 'Yes.' That was all, and they went on in the gathering gloom, through the three rooms of the library, to the door of the old study, from which a short winding staircase led up to the two small rooms which Griggs was occupying. Three quiet men in dark clothes were standing together in the twilight, in the bay window at the other side of the room, and they moved and turned their heads quickly as the door opened. Logotheti went up to them, while Griggs remained near the door, looking on. 'What can I do for you?' inquired the Greek, with much urbanity. 'We wished to speak with Mr. Van Torp, who is stopping here,' answered the one of the three men who stood farthest forward. 'Oh yes, yes!' said Logotheti at once, as if assenting. 'Certainly! Lady Maud Leven, Lord Creedmore's daughter--Lady Creedmore is away, you know--has asked us to inquire just what you want of Mr. Van Torp.' 'It's a personal matter,' replied the spokesman. 'I will explain it to him, if you will kindly ask him to come here a moment.' Logotheti smiled pleasantly. 'Quite so,' he said. 'You are, no doubt, reporters, and wish to interview him. As a personal friend of his, and between you and me, I don't think he'll see you. You had better write and ask for an appointment. Don't you think so, Griggs?' The author's large, grave features relaxed in a smile of amusement as he nodded his approval of the plan. 'We do not represent the press,' answered the man. 'Ah! Indeed? How very odd! But of course--' Logotheti pretended to understand suddenly--'how stupid of me! No doubt you are from the bank. Am I not right?' 'No. You are mistaken. We are not from Threadneedle Street.' 'Well, then, unless you will enlighten me, I really cannot imagine who you are or where you come from!' 'We wish to speak in private with Mr. Van Torp.' 'In private, too?' Logotheti shook his head, and turned to Griggs. 'Really, this looks rather suspicious; don't you think so?' Griggs said nothing, but the smile became a broad grin. The spokesman, on his side, turned to his two companions and whispered, evidently consulting them as to the course he should pursue. 'Especially after the warning Lord Creedmore has received,' said Logotheti to Griggs in a very audible tone, as if explaining his last speech. The man turned to him again and spoke in a gravely determined tone-- 'I must really insist upon seeing Mr. Van Torp immediately,' he said. 'Yes, yes, I quite understand you,' answered Logotheti, looking at him with a rather pitying smile, and then turning to Griggs again, as if for advice. The elder man was much amused by the ease with which the Greek had so far put off the unwelcome visitors and gained time; but he saw that the scene must soon come to a crisis, and prepared for action, keeping his eye on the three, in case they should make a dash at the door that communicated with the rest of the house. During the two or three seconds that followed, Logotheti reviewed the situation. It would be an easy matter to trick the three men into the short winding staircase that led up to the rooms Griggs occupied, and if the upper and lower doors were locked and barricaded, the prisoners could not forcibly get out. But it was certain that the leader of the party had a warrant about him, and this must be taken from him before locking him up, and without any acknowledgment of its validity; for even the lawless Greek was aware that it was not good to interfere with officers of the law in the execution of their duty. If there had been more time he might have devised some better means of attaining his end than occurred to him just then. 'They must be the lunatics,' he said to Griggs, with the utmost calm. The spokesman started and stared, and his jaw dropped. For a moment he could not speak. 'You know Lord Creedmore was warned this morning that a number had escaped from the county asylum,' continued Logotheti, still speaking to Griggs, and pretending to lower his voice. 'Lunatics?' roared the man when he got his breath, exasperated out of his civil manner. 'Lunatics, sir? We are from Scotland Yard, sir, I'd have you know!' 'Yes, yes,' answered the Greek, 'we quite understand. Humour them, my dear chap,' he added in an undertone that was meant to be heard. 'Yes,' he continued in a cajoling tone, 'I guessed at once that you were from police headquarters. If you'll kindly show me your warrant--' He stopped politely, and nudged Griggs with his elbow, so that the detectives should be sure to see the movement. The chief saw the awkwardness of his own position, measured the bony veteran and the athletic foreigner with his eye, and judged that if the two were convinced that they were dealing with madmen they would make a pretty good fight. 'Excuse me,' the officer said, speaking calmly, 'but you are under a gross misapprehension about us. This paper will remove it at once, I trust, and you will not hinder us in the performance of an unpleasant duty.' He produced an official envelope, handed it to Logotheti, and waited for the result. It was unexpected when it came. Logotheti took the paper, and as it was now almost dark he looked about for the key of the electric light. Griggs was now close to him by the door through which they had entered, and behind which the knob was placed. 'If I can get them upstairs, lock and barricade the lower door,' whispered the Greek as he turned up the light. He took the paper under a bracket light on the other side of the room, beside the door of the winding stair, and began to read. His face was a study, and Griggs watched it, wondering what was coming. As Logotheti read and reread the few short sentences, he was apparently seized by a fit of mirth which he struggled in vain to repress, and which soon broke out into uncontrollable laughter. 'The cleverest trick you ever saw!' he managed to get out between his paroxysms. It was so well done that the detective was seriously embarrassed; but after a moment's hesitation he judged that he ought to get his warrant back at all hazards, and he moved towards Logotheti with a menacing expression. But the Greek, pretending to be afraid that the supposed lunatic was going to attack him, uttered an admirable yell of fear, opened the door close at his hand, rushed through, slammed it behind him, and fled up the dark stairs. The detective lost no time, and followed in hot pursuit, his two companions tearing up after him into the darkness. Then Griggs quietly turned the key in the lock, for he was sure that Logotheti had reached the top in time to fasten the upper door, and must be already barricading it. Griggs proceeded to do the same, quietly and systematically, and the great strength he had not yet lost served him well, for the furniture in the room was heavy. In a couple of minutes it would have needed sledge-hammers and crowbars to break out by the lower entrance, even if the lock had not been a solid one. Griggs then turned out the lights, and went quietly back through the library to the other part of the house to find Lady Maud. Logotheti, having meanwhile made the upper door perfectly secure, descended by the open staircase to the hall, and sent the first footman he met to call the butler, with whom he said he wished to speak. The butler came at once. 'Lady Maud asked me to see those three men,' said Logotheti in a low tone. 'Mr. Griggs and I are convinced that they are lunatics escaped from the asylum, and we have locked them up securely in the staircase beyond the study.' 'Yes, sir,' said the butler, as if Logotheti had been explaining how he wished his shoe-leather to be treated. 'I think you had better telephone for the doctor, and explain everything to him over the wire without speaking to Lord Creedmore just yet.' 'Yes, sir.' 'How long will it take the doctor to get here?' 'Perhaps an hour, sir, if he's at home. Couldn't say precisely, sir.' 'Very good. There is no hurry; and of course her ladyship will be particularly anxious that none of her friends should guess what has happened; you see there would be a general panic if it were known that there are escaped lunatics in the house.' 'Yes, sir.' 'Perhaps you had better take a couple of men you can trust, and pile up some more furniture against the doors, above and below. One cannot be too much on the safe side in such cases.' 'Yes, sir. I'll do it at once, sir.' Logotheti strolled back towards the gallery in a very unconcerned way. As for the warrant, he had burnt it in the empty fireplace in Griggs' room after making all secure, and had dusted down the black ashes so carefully that they had quite disappeared under the grate. After all, as the doctor would arrive in the firm expectation of finding three escaped madmen under lock and key, the Scotland Yard men might have some difficulty in proving themselves sane until they could communicate with their headquarters, and by that time Mr. Van Torp could be far on his way if he chose. When Logotheti reached the door of the drawing-room, Margaret was finishing Rosina's Cavatina from the _Barbiere di Siviglia_ in a perfect storm of fireworks, having transposed the whole piece two notes higher to suit her own voice, for it was originally written for a mezzo-soprano. Lady Maud and Van Torp had gone out upon the terrace unnoticed a moment before Margaret had begun to sing. The evening was still and cloudless, and presently the purple twilight would pale under the summer moon, and the garden and the lawns would be once more as bright as day. The friends walked quickly, for Lady Maud set the pace and led Van Torp toward the trees, where the stables stood, quite hidden from the house. As soon as she reached the shade she stood still and spoke in a low voice. 'You have waited too long,' she said. 'Three men have come to arrest you, and their motor is over there in the avenue.' 'Where are they?' inquired the American, evidently not at all disturbed. 'I'll see them at once, please.' 'And give yourself up?' 'I don't care.' 'Here?' 'Why not? Do you suppose I am going to run away? A man who gets out in a hurry doesn't usually look innocent, does he?' Lady Maud asserted herself. 'You must think of me and of my father,' she said in a tone of authority Van Torp had never heard from her. 'I know you're as innocent as I am, but after all that has been said and written about you, and about you and me together, it's quite impossible that you should let yourself be arrested in our house, in the midst of a party that has been asked here expressly to be convinced that my father approves of you. Do you see that?' 'Well--' Mr. Van Torp hesitated, with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets. Across the lawn, from the open window, Margaret's voice rang out like a score of nightingales in unison. 'There's no time to discuss it,' Lady Maud said. 'I asked her to sing, so as to keep the people together. Before she has finished, you must be out of reach.' Mr. Van Torp smiled. 'You're remarkably positive about it,' he said. 'You must get to town before the Scotland Yard people, and I don't know how much start they will give you. It depends on how long Mr. Griggs and Logotheti can keep them in the old study. It will be neck and neck, I fancy. I'll go with you to the stables. You must ride to your own place as hard as you can, and go up to London in your car to-night. The roads are pretty clear on Sundays, and there's moonlight, so you will have no trouble. It will be easy to say here that you have been called away suddenly. Come, you must go!' Lady Maud moved towards the stables, and Van Torp was obliged to follow her. Far away Margaret was singing the last bars of the waltz song. 'I must say,' observed Mr. Van Torp thoughtfully, as they walked on, 'for a lady who's generally what I call quite feminine, you make a man sit up pretty quick.' 'It's not exactly the time to choose for loafing,' answered Lady Maud. 'By the bye,' she added, 'you may as well know. Poor Leven is dead. I had a telegram a few minutes ago. He was killed yesterday by a bomb meant for somebody else.' Van Torp stood still, and Lady Maud stopped with evident reluctance. 'And there are people who don't believe in Providence,' he said slowly. 'Well, I congratulate you anyway.' 'Hush, the poor man is dead. We needn't talk about him. Come, there's no time to lose!' She moved impatiently. 'So you're a widow!' Van Torp seemed to be making the remark to himself without expecting any answer, but it at once suggested a question. 'And now what do you propose to do?' he inquired. 'But I expect you'll be a nun, or something. I'd like you to arrange so that I can see you sometimes, will you?' 'I'm not going to disappear yet,' Lady Maud answered gravely. They reached the stables, which occupied three sides of a square yard. At that hour the two grooms and the stable-boy were at their supper, and the coachman had gone home to his cottage. A big brown retriever on a chain was sitting bolt upright beside his kennel, and began to thump the flagstones with his tail as soon as he recognised Lady Maud. From within a fox-terrier barked two or three times. Lady Maud opened a door, and he sprang out at her yapping, but was quiet as soon as he knew her. 'You'd better take the Lancashire Lass,' she said to Van Torp. 'You're heavier than my father, but it's not far to ride, and she's a clever creature.' She had turned up the electric light while speaking, for it was dark inside the stable; she got a bridle, went into the box herself, and slipped it over the mare's pretty head. Van Torp saw that it was useless to offer help. 'Don't bother about a saddle,' he said; 'it's a waste of time.' He touched the mare's face and lips with his hand, and she understood him, and let him lead her out. He vaulted upon her back, and Lady Maud walked beside him till they were outside the yard. 'If you had a high hat it would look like the circus,' she said, glancing at his evening dress. 'Now get away! I'll be in town on Tuesday; let me know what happens. Good-bye! Be sure to let me know.' 'Yes. Don't worry. I'm only going because you insist, anyhow. Good-bye. God bless you!' He waved his hand, the mare sprang forward, and in a few seconds he was out of sight amongst the trees. Lady Maud listened to the regular sound of the galloping hoofs on the turf, and at the same time from very far off she heard Margaret's high trills and quick staccato notes. At that moment the moon was rising through the late twilight, and a nightingale high overhead, no doubt judging her little self to be quite as great a musician as the famous Cordova, suddenly began a very wonderful piece of her own, just half a tone higher than Margaret's, which might have distressed a sensitive musician, but did not jar in the least on Lady Maud's ear. Now that she had sent Van Torp on his way, she would gladly have walked alone in the park for half an hour to collect her thoughts; but people who live in the world are rarely allowed any pleasant leisure when they need it, and many of the most dramatic things in real life happen when we are in such a hurry that we do not half understand them. So the moment that should have been the happiest of all goes dashing by when we are hastening to catch a train; so the instant of triumph after years of labour or weeks of struggling is upon us when we are perhaps positively obliged to write three important notes in twenty minutes; and sometimes, too, and mercifully, the pain of parting is numbed just as the knife strikes the nerve, by the howling confusion of a railway station that forces us to take care of ourselves and our belongings; and when the first instant of joy, or victory, or acute suffering is gone in a flash, memory never quite brings back all the happiness nor all the pain. Lady Maud could not have stayed away many minutes longer. She went back at once, entered by the garden window just as Margaret was finishing Rosina's song, and remained standing behind her till she had sung the last note. English people rarely applaud conventional drawing-room music, but this had been something more, and the Craythew guests clapped their hands loudly, and even the elderly wife of the scientific peer emitted distinctly audible sounds of satisfaction. Lady Maud bent her handsome head and kissed the singer affectionately, whispering words of heartfelt thanks. CHAPTER XIX Through the mistaken efforts of Isidore Bamberger, justice had got herself into difficulties, and it was as well for her reputation, which is not good nowadays, that the public never heard what happened on that night at Craythew, how the three best men who had been available at headquarters were discomfited in their well-meant attempt to arrest an innocent man, and how they spent two miserable hours together locked up in a dark winding staircase. For it chanced, as it will chance to the end of time, that the doctor was out when the butler telephoned to him; it happened, too, that he was far from home, engaged in ushering a young gentleman of prosperous parentage into this world, an action of which the kindness might be questioned, considering that the poor little soul presumably came straight from paradise, with an indifferent chance of ever getting there again. So the doctor could not come. The three men were let out in due time, however, and as no trace of a warrant could be discovered at that hour, Logotheti and Griggs being already sound asleep, and as Lord Creedmore, in his dressing-gown and slippers, gave them a written statement to the effect that Mr. Van Torp was no longer at Craythew, they had no choice but to return to town, rather the worse for wear. What they said to each other by the way may safely be left to the inexhaustible imagination of a gentle and sympathising reader. Their suppressed rage, their deep mortification, and their profound disgust were swept away in their overwhelming amazement, however, when they found that Mr. Rufus Van Torp, whom they had sought in Derbyshire, was in Scotland Yard before them, closeted with their Chief and explaining what an odd mistake the justice of two nations had committed in suspecting him to have been at the Metropolitan Opera-House in New York at the time of the explosion, since he had spent that very evening in Washington, in the private study of the Secretary of the Treasury, who wanted his confidential opinion on a question connected with Trusts before he went abroad. Mr. Van Torp stuck his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets and blandly insisted that the cables should be kept red-hot--at international expense--till the member of the Cabinet in Washington should answer corroborating the statement. Four o'clock in the morning in London was only eleven o'clock of the previous evening, Mr. Van Torp explained, and it was extremely unlikely that the Secretary of the Treasury should be in bed so early. If he was, he was certainly not asleep; and with the facilities at the disposal of governments there was no reason why the answer should not come back in forty minutes. It was impossible to resist such simple logic. The lines were cleared for urgent official business between London and Washington, and in less than an hour the answer came back, to the effect that Mr. Rufus Van Torp's statement was correct in every detail; and without any interval another official message arrived, revoking the request for his extradition, which 'had been made under a most unfortunate misapprehension, due to the fact that Mr. Van Torp's visit to the Secretary of the Treasury had been regarded as confidential by the latter.' Scotland Yard expressed its regret, and Mr. Van Torp smiled and begged to be allowed, before leaving, to 'shake hands' with the three men who had been put to so much inconvenience on his account. This democratic proposal was promptly authorised, to the no small satisfaction and profit of the three haggard officials. So Mr. Van Torp went away, and in a few minutes he was sound asleep in the corner of his big motor-car on his way back to Derbyshire. Lady Maud found Margaret and Logotheti walking slowly together under the trees about eleven o'clock on the following morning. Some of the people were already gone, and most of the others were to leave in the course of the day. Lady Maud had just said good-bye to a party of ten who were going off together, and she had not had a chance to speak to Margaret, who had come down late, after her manner. Most great singers are portentous sleepers. As for Logotheti, he always had coffee in his room wherever he was, he never appeared at breakfast, and he got rid of his important correspondence for the day before coming down. 'I've had a letter from Threlfall,' he said as Lady Maud came up. 'I was just telling Miss Donne about it. Feist died in Dr. Bream's Home yesterday afternoon.' 'Rather unfortunate at this juncture, isn't it?' observed Margaret. But Lady Maud looked shocked and glanced at Logotheti as if asking a question. 'No,' said the Greek, answering her thought. 'I did not kill him, poor devil! He did it himself, out of fright, I think. So that side of the affair ends. He had some sealed glass capsules of hydrocyanide of potassium in little brass tubes, sewn up in the lining of a waistcoat, and he took one, and must have died instantly. I believe the stuff turns into prussic acid, or something of that sort, when you swallow it--Griggs will know.' 'How dreadful!' exclaimed Lady Maud. 'I'm sure you drove him to it!' 'I'll bear the responsibility of having rid the world of him, if I did. But my share consisted in having given him opium and then stopped it suddenly, till he surrendered and told the truth--or a large part of it--what I have told you already. He would not own that he killed Miss Bamberger himself with the rusty little knife that had a few red silk threads sticking to the handle. He must have put it back into his case of instruments as it was, and he never had the courage to look at it again. He had studied medicine, I believe. But he confessed everything else, how he had been madly in love with the poor girl when he was her father's secretary, and how she treated him like a servant and made her father turn him out, and how he hated Van Torp furiously for being engaged to marry her. He hated the Nickel Trust, too, because he had thought the shares were going down and had risked the little he had as margin on a drop, and had lost it all by the unexpected rise. He drank harder after that, till he was getting silly from it, when the girl's death gave him his chance against Van Torp, and he manufactured the evidence in the diary he kept, and went to Bamberger with it and made the poor man believe whatever he invented. He told me all that, with a lot of details, but I could not make him admit that he had killed the girl himself, so I gave him his opium and he went to sleep. That's my story. Or rather, it's his, as I got it from him last Thursday. I supposed there was plenty of time, but Mr. Bamberger seems to have been in a hurry after we had got Feist into the Home.' 'Had you told Mr. Van Torp all this?' asked Lady Maud anxiously. 'No,' Logotheti answered. 'I was keeping the information ready in case it should be needed.' A familiar voice spoke behind them. 'Well, it's all right as it is. Much obliged, all the same.' All three turned suddenly and saw that Mr. Van Torp had crept up while they were talking, and the expression of his tremendous mouth showed that he had meant to surprise them, and was pleased with his success in doing so. 'Really!' exclaimed Lady Maud. 'Goodness gracious!' cried the Primadonna. 'By the Dog of Egypt!' laughed Logotheti. 'Don't know the breed,' answered Van Torp, not understanding, but cheerfully playful. 'Was it a trick dog?' 'I thought you were in London,' Margaret said. 'I was. Between one and four this morning, I should say. It's all right.' He nodded to Lady Maud as he spoke the last words, but he did not seem inclined to say more. 'Is it a secret?' she asked. 'I never have secrets,' answered the millionaire. 'Secrets are everything that must be found out and put in the paper right away, ain't they? But I had no trouble at all, only the bother of waiting till the office got an answer from the other side. I happened to remember where I'd spent the evening of the explosion, that's all, and they cabled sharp and found my statement correct.' 'Why did you never tell me?' asked Lady Maud reproachfully. 'You knew how anxious I was!' 'Well,' replied Mr. Van Torp, dwelling long on the syllable, 'I did tell you it was all right anyhow, whatever they did, and I thought maybe you'd accept the statement. The man I spent that evening with is a public man, and he mightn't exactly think our interview was anybody else's business, might he?' 'And you say you never keep a secret!' The delicious ripple was in Lady Maud's sweet voice as she spoke. Perhaps it came a little in spite of herself, and she would certainly have controlled her tone if she had thought of Leven just then. But she was a very natural creature, after all, and she could not and would not pretend to be sorry that he was dead, though the manner of his end had seemed horrible to her when she had been able to think over the news, after Van Torp had got safely away. So far there had only been three big things in her life: her love for a man who was dead, her tremendous determination to do some real good for his memory's sake, and her deep gratitude to Van Torp, who had made that good possible, and who, strangely enough, seemed to her the only living person who really understood her and liked her for her own sake, without the least idea of making love. And she saw in him what few suspected, except little Ida and Miss More--the real humanity and faithful kindness that dwelt in the terribly hard and coarse-grained fighting financier. Lady Maud had her faults, no doubt, but she was too big, morally, to be disturbed by what seemed to Margaret Donne an intolerable vulgarity of manner and speech. As for Margaret, she now felt that painful little remorse that hurts us when we realise that we have suspected an innocent person of something dreadful, even though we may have contributed to the ultimate triumph of the truth. Van Torp unconsciously deposited a coal of fire on her head. 'I'd just like to say how much I appreciate your kindness in singing last night, Madame da Cordova,' he said. 'From what you knew and told me on the steamer, you might have had a reasonable doubt, and I couldn't very well explain it away before. I wish you'd some day tell me what I can do for you. I'm grateful, honestly.' Margaret saw that he was much in earnest, and as she felt that she had done him great injustice, she held out her hand with a frank smile. 'I'm glad I was able to be of use,' she said. 'Come and see me in town.' 'Really? You won't throw me out if I do?' Margaret laughed. 'No, I won't throw you out!' 'Then I'll come some day. Thank you.' Van Torp had long given up all hope that she would ever marry him, but it was something to be on good terms with her again, and for the sake of that alone he would have risked a good deal. The four paired off, and Lady Maud walked in front with Van Torp, while Margaret and Logotheti followed more slowly; so the couples did not long keep near one another, and in less than five minutes they lost each other altogether among the trees. Margaret had noticed something very unusual in the Greek's appearance when they had met half an hour earlier, and she had been amazed when she realised that he wore no jewellery, no ruby, no emeralds, no diamonds, no elaborate chain, and that his tie was neither green, yellow, sky-blue, nor scarlet, but of a soft dove grey which she liked very much. The change was so surprising that she had been on the point of asking him whether anything dreadful had happened; but just then Lady Maud had come up with them. They walked a little way now, and when the others were out of sight Margaret sat down on one of the many boulders that strewed the park. Her companion stood before her, and while he lit a cigarette she surveyed him deliberately from head to foot. Her fresh lips twitched as they did when she was near laughing, and she looked up and met his eyes. 'What in the world has happened to you since yesterday?' she asked in a tone of lazy amusement. 'You look almost like a human being!' 'Do I?' he asked, between two small puffs of smoke, and he laughed a little. 'Yes. Are you in mourning for your lost illusions?' 'No. I'm trying "to create and foster agreeable illusions" in you. That's the object of all art, you know.' 'Oh! It's for me, then? Really?' 'Yes. Everything is. I thought I had explained that the other night!' His tone was perfectly unconcerned, and he smiled carelessly as he spoke. 'I wonder what would happen if I took you at your word,' said Margaret, more thoughtfully than she had spoken yet. 'I don't know. You might not regret it. You might even be happy!' There was a little silence, and Margaret looked down. 'I'm not exactly miserable as it is,' she said at last. 'Are you?' 'Oh no!' answered Logotheti. 'I should bore you if I were!' 'Awfully!' She laughed rather abruptly. 'Should you want me to leave the stage?' she asked after a moment. 'You forget that I like the Cordova just as much as I like Margaret Donne.' 'Are you quite sure?' 'Absolutely!' 'Let's try it!' 
13340	----	MR. ISAACS A TALE OF MODERN INDIA BY F. MARION CRAWFORD 1882 BY F. MARION CRAWFORD CHAPTER I. In spite of Jean-Jacques and his school, men are not everywhere born free, any more than they are everywhere in chains, unless these be of their own individual making. Especially in countries where excessive liberty or excessive tyranny favours the growth of that class most usually designated as adventurers, it is true that man, by his own dominant will, or by a still more potent servility, may rise to any grade of elevation; as by the absence of these qualities he may fall to any depth in the social scale. Wherever freedom degenerates into license, the ruthless predatory instinct of certain bold and unscrupulous persons may, and almost certainly will, place at their disposal the goods, the honours, and the preferment justly the due of others; and in those more numerous and certainly more unhappy countries, where the rule of the tyrant is substituted for the law of God, the unwearying flatterer, patient under blows and abstemious under high-feeding, will assuredly make his way to power. Without doubt the Eastern portion of the world, where an hereditary, or at least traditional, despotism has never ceased since the earliest social records, and where a mode of thought infinitely more degrading than any feudalism has become ingrained in the blood and soul of the chief races, presents far more favourable conditions to the growth and development of the true adventurer than are offered in any free country. For in a free country the majority can rise and overthrow the favourite of fortune, whereas in a despotic country they cannot. Of Eastern countries in this condition, Russia is the nearest to us; though perhaps we understand the Chinese character better than the Russian. The Ottoman empire and Persia are, and always have been, swayed by a clever band of flatterers acting through their nominal master; while India, under the kindly British rule, is a perfect instance of a ruthless military despotism, where neither blood nor stratagem have been spared in exacting the uttermost farthing from the miserable serfs--they are nothing else--and in robbing and defrauding the rich of their just and lawful possessions. All these countries teem with stories of adventurers risen from the ranks to the command of armies, of itinerant merchants wedded to princesses, of hardy sailors promoted to admiralties, of half-educated younger sons of English peers dying in the undisputed possession of ill-gotten millions. With the strong personal despotism of the First Napoleon began a new era of adventurers in France; not of elegant and accomplished adventurers like M. de St. Germain, Cagliostro, or the Comtesse de la Motte, but regular rag-tag-and-bobtail cut-throat moss-troopers, who carved and slashed themselves into notice by sheer animal strength and brutality. There is infinitely more grace and romance about the Eastern adventurer. There is very little slashing and hewing to be done there, and what there is, is managed as quietly as possible. When a Sultan must be rid of the last superfluous wife, she is quietly done up in a parcel with a few shot, and dropped into the Bosphorus without more ado. The good old-fashioned Rajah of Mudpoor did his killing without scandal, and when the kindly British wish to keep a secret, the man is hanged in a quiet place where there are no reporters. As in the Greek tragedies, the butchery is done behind the scenes, and there is no glory connected with the business, only gain. The ghosts of the slain sometimes appear in the columns of the recalcitrant Indian newspapers and gibber a feeble little "Otototoi!" after the manner of the shade of Dareios, but there is very little heed paid to such visitations by the kindly British. But though the "raw head and bloody bones" type of adventurer is little in demand in the East, there is plenty of scope for the intelligent and wary flatterer, and some room for the honest man of superior gifts, who is sufficiently free from Oriental prejudice to do energetically the thing which comes in his way, distancing all competitors for the favours of fortune by sheer industry and unerring foresight. I once knew a man in the East who was neither a flatterer nor freebooter, but who by his own masterly perseverance worked his way to immense wealth, and to such power as wealth commands, though his high view of the social aims of mankind deterred him from mixing in political questions. _Bon chien chasse de race_ is a proverb which applies to horses, cattle, and men, as well as to dogs; and in this man, who was a noble type of the Aryan race, the qualities which have made that race dominant were developed in the highest degree. The sequel, indeed, might lead the ethnographer into a labyrinth of conjecture, but the story is too tempting a one for me to forego telling it, although the said ethnographer should lose his wits in striving to solve the puzzle. In September, 1879, I was at Simla in the lower Himalayas,--at the time of the murder of Sir Louis Cavagnari at Kabul,--being called there in the interests of an Anglo-Indian newspaper, of which I was then editor. In other countries, notably in Europe and in America, there are hundreds of spots by the sea-shore, or on the mountain-side, where specific ills may be cured by their corresponding antidotes of air or water, or both. Following the aristocratic and holy example of the Bishops of Salzburg for the last eight centuries, the sovereigns of the Continent are told that the air and waters of Hofgastein are the only nenuphar for the over-taxed brain in labour beneath a crown. The self-indulgent sybarite is recommended to Ems, or Wiesbaden, or Aix-la-Chapelle, and the quasi-incurable sensualist to Aix in Savoy, or to Karlsbad in Bohemia. In our own magnificent land Bethesdas abound, in every state, from the attractive waters of lotus-eating Saratoga to the magnetic springs of Lansing, Michigan; from Virginia, the carcanet of sources, the heaving, the warm, the hot sulphur springs, the white sulphur, the alum, to the hot springs of Arkansas, the Ultima Thule of our migratory and despairing humanity. But in India, whatever the ailing, low fever, high fever, "brandy pawnee" fever, malaria caught in the chase of tigers in the Terai, or dysentery imbibed on the banks of the Ganges, there is only one cure, the "hills;" and chief of "hill-stations" is Simla. On the hip rather than on the shoulder of the aspiring Himalayas, Simla--or Shumla, as the natives call it--presents during the wet monsoon period a concourse of pilgrims more varied even than the Bagnères de Bigorre in the south of France, where the gay Frenchman asks permission of the lady with whom he is conversing to leave her abruptly, in order to part with his remaining lung, the loss of the first having brought him there. "Pardon, madame," said he, "je m'en vais cracher mon autre poumon." To Simla the whole supreme Government migrates for the summer--Viceroy, council, clerks, printers, and hangers-on. Thither the high official from the plains takes his wife, his daughters, and his liver. There the journalists congregate to pick up the news that oozes through the pent-house of Government secrecy, and failing such scant drops of information, to manufacture as much as is necessary to fill the columns of their dailies. On the slopes of "Jako"--the wooded eminence that rises above the town--the enterprising German establishes his concert-hall and his beer-garden; among the rhododendron trees Madame Blavatzky, Colonel Olcott and Mr. Sinnett move mysteriously in the performance of their wonders; and the wealthy tourist from America, the botanist from Berlin, and the casual peer from Great Britain, are not wanting to complete the motley crowd. There are no roads in Simla proper where it is possible to drive, excepting one narrow way, reserved when I was there, and probably still set apart, for the exclusive delectation of the Viceroy. Every one rides--man, woman, and child; and every variety of horseflesh may be seen in abundance, from Lord Steepleton Kildare's thoroughbreds to the broad-sterned equestrian vessel of Mr. Currie Ghyrkins, the Revenue Commissioner of Mudnugger in Bengal. But I need not now dwell long on the description of this highly-favoured spot, where Baron de Zach might have added force to his demonstration of the attraction of mountains for the pendulum. Having achieved my orientation and established my servants and luggage in one of the reputed hotels, I began to look about me, and, like an intelligent American observer, as I pride myself that I am, I found considerable pleasure in studying out the character of such of the changing crowd on the verandah and on the mall as caught my attention. At last the dinner-hour came. With the rest I filed into the large dining-room and took my seat. The place allotted to me was the last at one side of the long table, and the chair opposite was vacant, though two remarkably well-dressed servants, in turbans of white and gold, stood with folded arms behind it, apparently awaiting their master. Nor was he long in coming. I never remember to have been so much struck by the personal appearance of any man in my life. He sat down opposite me, and immediately one of his two servants, or _khitmatgars_, as they are called, retired, and came back bearing a priceless goblet and flask of the purest old Venetian mould. Filling the former, he ceremoniously presented his master with a brimming beaker of cold water. A water-drinker in India is always a phenomenon, but a water-drinker who did the thing so artistically was such a manifestation as I had never seen. I was interested beyond the possibility of holding my peace, and as I watched the man's abstemious meal,--for he ate little,--I contrasted him with our neighbours at the board, who seemed to be vying, like the captives of Circe, to ascertain by trial who could swallow the most beef and mountain mutton, and who could absorb the most "pegs"--those vile concoctions of spirits, ice, and soda-water, which have destroyed so many splendid constitutions under the tropical sun. As I watched him an impression came over me that he must be an Italian. I scanned his appearance narrowly, and watched for a word that should betray his accent. He spoke to his servant in Hindustani, and I noticed at once the peculiar sound of the dental consonants, never to be acquired by a northern-born person. Before I go farther, let me try and describe Mr. Isaacs; I certainly could not have done so satisfactorily after my first meeting, but subsequent acquaintance, and the events I am about to chronicle, threw me so often in his society, and gave me such ample opportunities of observation, that the minutest details of his form and feature, as well as the smallest peculiarities of his character and manner, are indelibly graven in my memory. Isaacs was a man of more than medium stature, though he would never be spoken of as tall. An easy grace marked his movements at all times, whether deliberate or vehement,--and he often went to each extreme,--a grace which no one acquainted with the science of the human frame would be at a loss to explain for a moment. The perfect harmony of all the parts, the even symmetry of every muscle, the equal distribution of a strength, not colossal and overwhelming, but ever ready for action, the natural courtesy of gesture--all told of a body in which true proportion of every limb and sinew were at once the main feature and the pervading characteristic. This infinitely supple and swiftly-moving figure was but the pedestal, as it were, for the noble face and nobler brain to which it owed its life and majestic bearing. A long oval face of a wondrous transparent olive tint, and of a decidedly Oriental type. A prominent brow and arched but delicate eyebrows fitly surmounted a nose smoothly aquiline, but with the broad well-set nostrils that bespeak active courage. His mouth, often smiling, never laughed, and the lips, though closely meeting, were not thin and writhing and cunning, as one so often sees in eastern faces, but rather inclined to a generous Greek fullness, the curling lines ever ready to express a sympathy or a scorn which, the commanding features above seemed to control and curb, as the stern, square-elbowed Arab checks his rebellious horse, or gives him the rein, at will. But though Mr. Isaacs was endowed with exceptional gifts of beauty by a bountiful nature, those I have enumerated were by no means what first attracted the attention of the observer. I have spoken of his graceful figure and perfect Iranian features, but I hardly noticed either at our first meeting. I was enthralled and fascinated by his eyes. I once saw in France a jewel composed of six precious stones, each a gem of great value, so set that they appeared to form but one solid mass, yielding a strange radiance that changed its hue at every movement, and multiplied the sunlight a thousand-fold. Were I to seek a comparison for my friend's eyes, I might find an imperfect one in this masterpiece of the jeweler's art. They were dark and of remarkable size; when half closed they were long and almond-shaped; when suddenly opened in anger or surprise they had the roundness and bold keenness of the eagle's sight. There was a depth of life and vital light in them that told of the pent-up force of a hundred generations of Persian magii. They blazed with the splendour of a god-like nature, needing neither meat nor strong drink to feed its power. My mind was made up. Between his eyes, his temperance, and his dental consonants, he certainly might be an Italian. Being myself a native of Italy, though an American by parentage, I addressed him in the language, feeling comparatively sure of his answer. To my surprise, and somewhat to my confusion, he answered in two words of modern Greek--"[Greek: _den enoêsa_]"--"I do not understand." He evidently supposed I was speaking a Greek dialect, and answered in the one phrase of that tongue which he knew, and not a good phrase at that. "Pardon me," said I in English, "I believed you a countryman, and ventured to address you in my native tongue. May I inquire whether you speak English?" I was not a little astonished when he answered me in pure English, and with an evident command of the language. We fell into conversation, and I found him pungent, ready, impressive, and most entertaining, thoroughly acquainted with Anglo-Indian and English topics, and apparently well read. An Indian dinner is a long affair, so that we had ample time to break the ice, an easy matter always for people who are not English, and when, after the fruit, he invited me to come down and smoke with him in his rooms, I gladly availed myself of the opportunity. We separated for a few moments, and I despatched my servant to the manager of the hotel to ascertain the name of the strange gentleman who looked like an Italian and spoke like a fellow of Balliol. Having discovered that he was a "Mr. Isaacs," I wended my way through verandahs and corridors, preceded by a _chuprassie_ and followed by my pipe-bearer, till I came to his rooms. The fashion of the hookah or narghyle in India has long disappeared from the English portion of society. Its place has been assumed and usurped by the cheroot from Burmah or Trichinopoli, by the cigarette from Egypt, or the more expensive Manilla and Havana cigars. I, however, in an early burst of Oriental enthusiasm, had ventured upon the obsolete fashion, and so charmed was I by the indolent aromatic enjoyment I got from the rather cumbrous machine, that I never gave it up while in the East. So when Mr. Isaacs invited me to come and smoke in his rooms, or rather before his rooms, for the September air was still warm in the hills, I ordered my "bearer" to bring down the apparatus and to prepare it for use. I myself passed through the glass door in accordance with my new acquaintance's invitation, curious to see the kind of abode in which a man who struck me as being so unlike his fellows spent his summer months. For some minutes after I entered I did not speak, and indeed I hardly breathed. It seemed to me that I was suddenly transported into the subterranean chambers whither the wicked magician sent Aladdin in quest of the lamp. A soft but strong light filled the room, though I did not immediately comprehend whence it came, nor did I think to look, so amazed was I by the extraordinary splendour of the objects that met my eyes. In the first glance it appeared as if the walls and the ceiling were lined with gold and precious stones; and in reality it was almost literally the truth. The apartment, I soon saw, was small,--for India at least,--and every available space, nook and cranny, were filled with gold and jeweled ornaments, shining weapons, or uncouth but resplendent idols. There were sabres in scabbards set from end to end with diamonds and sapphires, with cross hilts of rubies in massive gold mounting, the spoil of some worsted rajah or Nawab of the mutiny. There were narghyles four feet high, crusted with gems and curiously wrought work from Baghdad or Herat; water flasks of gold and drinking cups of jade; yataghans from Bourn and idols from the far East. Gorgeous lamps of the octagonal Oriental shape hung from the ceiling, and, fed by aromatic oils, shed their soothing light on all around. The floor was covered with a rich soft pile, and low divans were heaped with cushions of deep-tinted silk and gold. On the floor, in a corner which seemed the favourite resting-place of my host, lay open two or three superbly illuminated Arabic manuscripts, and from a chafing dish of silver near by a thin thread of snow-white smoke sent up its faint perfume through the still air. To find myself transported from the conventionalities of a stiff and starched Anglo-Indian hotel to such a scene was something novel and delicious in the extreme. No wonder I stood speechless and amazed. Mr. Isaacs remained near the door while I breathed in the strange sights to which he had introduced me. At last I turned, and from contemplating the magnificence of inanimate wealth I was riveted by the majestic face and expression of the beautiful living creature who, by a turn of his wand, or, to speak prosaically, by an invitation to smoke, had lifted me out of humdrum into a land peopled with all the effulgent phantasies and the priceless realities of the magic East. As I gazed, it seemed as if the illumination from the lamps above were caught up and flung back with the vitality of living fire by his dark eyes, in which more than ever I saw and realised the inexplicable blending of the precious stones with the burning spark of a divine soul breathing within. For some moments we stood thus; he evidently amused at my astonishment, and I fascinated and excited by the problem presented me for solution in his person and possessions. "Yes," said Isaacs, "you are naturally surprised at my little Eldorado, so snugly hidden away in the lower story of a commonplace hotel. Perhaps you are surprised at finding me here, too. But come out into the air, your hookah is blazing, and so are the stars." I followed him into the verandah, where the long cane chairs of the country were placed, and taking the tube of the pipe from the solemn Mussulman whose duty it was to prepare it, I stretched myself out in that indolent lazy peace which is only to be enjoyed in tropical countries. Silent and for the nonce perfectly happy, I slowly inhaled the fragrant vapour of tobacco and aromatic herbs and honey with which the hookah is filled. No sound save the monotonous bubbling and chuckling of the smoke through the water, or the gentle rustle of the leaves on the huge rhododendron-tree which reared its dusky branches to the night in the middle of the lawn. There was no moon, though the stars were bright and clear, the foaming path of the milky way stretching overhead like the wake of some great heavenly ship; a soft mellow lustre from the lamps in Isaacs' room threw a golden stain half across the verandah, and the chafing dish within, as the light breeze fanned the coals, sent out a little cloud of perfume which mingled pleasantly with the odour of the _chillum_ in the pipe. The turbaned servant squatted on the edge of the steps at a little distance, peering into the dusk, as Indians will do for hours together. Isaacs lay quite still in his chair, his hands above his head, the light through the open door just falling on the jeweled mouthpiece of his narghyle. He sighed--a sigh only half regretful, half contented, and seemed about to speak, but the spirit did not move him, and the profound silence continued. For my part, I was so much absorbed in my reflections on the things I had seen that I had nothing to say, and the strange personality of the man made me wish to let him begin upon his own subject, if perchance I might gain some insight into his mind and mode of thought. There are times when silence seems to be sacred, even unaccountably so. A feeling is in us that to speak would be almost a sacrilege, though we are unable to account in any way for the pause. At such moments every one seems instinctively to feel the same influence, and the first person who breaks the spell either experiences a sensation of awkwardness, and says something very foolish, or, conscious of the odds against him, delivers himself of a sentiment of ponderous severity and sententiousness. As I smoked, watching the great flaming bowl of the water pipe, a little coal, forced up by the expansion of the heat, toppled over the edge and fell tinkling on the metal foot below. The quick ear of the servant on the steps caught the sound, and he rose and came forward to trim the fire. Though he did not speak, his act was a diversion. The spell was broken. "The Germans," said Isaacs, "say that an angel is passing over the house. I do not believe it." I was surprised at the remark. It did not seem quite natural for Mr. Isaacs to begin talking about the Germans, and from the tone of his voice I could almost have fancied he thought the proverb was held as an article of faith by the Teutonic races in general. "I do not believe it," he repeated reflectively. "There is no such thing as an angel 'passing'; it is a misuse of terms. If there are such things as angels, their changes of place cannot be described as motion, seeing that from the very nature of things such changes must be instantaneous, not involving time as a necessary element. Have you ever thought much about angels? By-the-bye, pardon my abruptness, but as there is no one to introduce us, what is your name?" "My name is Griggs--Paul Griggs. I am an American, but was born in Italy. I know your name is Isaacs; but, frankly, I do not comprehend how you came by the appellation, for I do not believe you are either, English, American, or Jewish of origin." "Quite right," he replied, "I am neither Yankee, Jew, nor beef-eater; in fact, I am not a European at all. And since you probably would not guess my nationality, I will tell you that I am a Persian, a pure Iranian, a degenerate descendant of Zoroaster, as you call him, though by religion I follow the prophet, whose name be blessed," he added, with an expression of face I did not then understand. "I call myself Isaacs for convenience in business. There is no concealment about it, as many know my story; but it has an attractive Semitic twang that suite my occupation, and is simpler and shorter for Englishmen to write than Abdul Hafizben-Isâk, which is my lawful name." "Since you lay sufficient store by your business to have been willing to change your name, may I inquire what your business is? It seems to be a lucrative one, to judge by the accumulations of wealth you have allowed me a glimpse of." "Yes. Wealth is my occupation. I am a dealer in precious stones and similar objects of value. Some day I will show you my diamonds; they are worth seeing." It is no uncommon thing to meet in India men of all Asiatic nationalities buying and selling stones of worth, and enriching themselves in the business. I supposed he had come with a caravan by way of Baghdad, and had settled. But again, his perfect command of English, as pure as though he had been educated at Eton and Oxford, his extremely careful, though quiet, English dress, and especially his polished manners, argued a longer residence in the European civilisation of his adopted home than agreed with his young looks, supposing him to have come to India at sixteen or seventeen. A pardonable curiosity led me to remark this. "You must have come here very young," I said. "A thoroughbred Persian does not learn to speak English like a university man, and to quote German proverbs, in a residence of a few years; unless, indeed, he possess the secret by which the initiated absorb knowledge without effort, and assimilate it without the laborious process of intellectual digestion." "I am older than I look--considerably. I have been in India twelve years, and with a natural talent for languages, stimulated by constant intercourse with Englishmen who know their own speech well, I have succeeded, as you say, in acquiring a certain fluency and mastery of accent. I have had an adventurous life enough. I see no reason why I should not tell you something of it, especially as you are not English, and can therefore hear me with an unprejudiced ear. But, really, do you care for a yarn?" I begged him to proceed, and I beckoned the servant to arrange our pipes, that we might not be disturbed. When this was done, Isaacs began. "I am going to try and make a long story short. We Persians like to listen to long stories, as we like to sit and look on at a wedding nautch. But we are radically averse to dancing or telling long tales ourselves, so I shall condense as much as possible. I was born in Persia, of Persian parents, as I told you, but I will not burden your memory with names you are not familiar with. My father was a merchant in prosperous circumstances, and a man of no mean learning in Arabic and Persian literature. I soon showed a strong taste for books, and every opportunity was given me for pursuing my inclinations in this respect. At the early age of twelve I was kidnapped by a party of slave-dealers, and carried off into Roum--Turkey you call it. I will not dwell upon my tears and indignation. We travelled rapidly, and my captors treated me well, as they invariably do their prizes, well knowing how much of the value of a slave depends on his plump and sleek condition when brought to market. In Istamboul I was soon disposed of, my fair skin and accomplishments as a writer and a singer of Persian songs fetching a high price. "It is no uncommon thing for boys to be stolen and sold in this way. A rich pacha will pay almost anything. The fate of such slaves is not generally a happy one." Isaacs paused a moment, and drew in two or three long breaths of smoke. "Do you see that bright star in the south?" he said, pointing with his long jewel-set mouthpiece. "Yes. It must be Sirius." "That is my star. Do you believe in the agency of the stars in human affairs? Of course you do not; you are a European: how should you? But to proceed. The stars, or the fates or Kâli, or whatever you like to term your kismet, your portion of good and evil, allotted me a somewhat happier existence than generally falls to the share of young slaves in Roum. I was bought by an old man of great wealth and of still greater learning, who was so taken with my proficiency in Arabic and in writing that he resolved to make of me a pupil instead of a servant to carry his coffee and pipe, or a slave to bear the heavier burden of his vices. Nothing better could have happened to me. I was installed in his house and treated with exemplary kindness, though he kept me rigorously at work with my books. I need not tell you that with such a master I made fair progress, and that at the age of twenty-one I was, for a Turk, a young man of remarkably good education. Then my master died suddenly, and I was thrown into great distress. I was of course nothing but a slave, and liable to be sold at any time. I escaped. Active and enduring, though never possessing any vast muscular strength, I bore with ease the hardships of a long journey on foot with little food and scant lodging. Falling in with a band of pilgrims, I recognised the wisdom of joining them on their march to Mecca. I was, of course, a sound Mohammedan, as I am to this day, and my knowledge of the Koran soon gained me some reputation in the caravan. I was considered a creditable addition, and altogether an eligible pilgrim. My exceptional physique protected me from the disease and exhaustion of which not a few of our number died by the wayside, and the other pilgrims, in consideration of my youth and piety, gave me willingly the few handfuls of rice and dates that I needed to support life and strength. "You have read about Mecca; and your _hadji_ barber, who of course has been there, has doubtless related his experiences to you scores of times in the plains, as he does everywhere. As you may imagine, I had no intention of returning towards Roum with my companions. When I had fulfilled all the observances required, I made my way to Yeddah and shipped on board an Arabian craft, touching at Mocha, and bearing coffee to Bombay. I had to work my passage, and as I had no experience of the sea, save in the caïques of the Golden Horn, you will readily conceive that the captain of the vessel had plenty of fault to find. But my agility and quick comprehension stood me in good stead, and in a few days I had learned enough to haul on a rope or to reef the great latteen sails as well as any of them. The knowledge that I was just returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca obtained for me also a certain respect among the crew. It makes very little difference what the trade, business, or branch of learning; in mechanical labour, or intellectual effort, the educated man is always superior to the common labourer. One who is in the habit of applying his powers in the right way will carry his system into any occupation, and it will help him as much to handle a rope as to write a poem. "At last we landed in Bombay. I was in a wretched condition. What little clothes I had had were in tatters; hard work and little food had made me even thinner than my youthful age and slight frame tolerated. I had in all about three pence money in small copper coins, carefully hoarded against a rainy day. I could not speak a word of the Indian dialects, still less of English, and I knew no one save the crew of the vessel I had come in, as poor as I, but saved from starvation by the slender pittance allowed them on land. I wandered about all day through the bazaars, occasionally speaking to some solemn looking old shopkeeper or long-bearded Mussulman, who, I hoped, might understand a little Arabic. But not one did I find. At evening I bathed in the tank of a temple full from the recent rains, and I lay down supperless to sleep on the steps of the great mosque. As I lay on the hard stones I looked up to my star, and took comfort, and slept. That night a dream came to me. I thought I was still awake and lying on the steps, watching the wondrous ruler of my fate. And as I looked he glided down from his starry throne with an easy swinging motion, like a soap-bubble settling to the earth. And the star came and poised among the branches of the palm-tree over the tank, opalescent, unearthly, heart shaking. His face was as the face of the prophet, whose name be blessed, and his limbs were as the limbs of the Hameshaspenthas of old. Garments he had none, being of heavenly birth, but he was clothed with light as with a garment, and the crest of his silver hair was to him a crown of glory. And he spoke with the tongues of a thousand lutes, sweet strong tones, that rose and fell on the night air as the song of a lover beneath the lattice of his mistress, the song of the mighty star wooing the beautiful sleeping earth. And then he looked on me and said: 'Abdul Hafiz, be of good cheer. I am with thee and will not forsake thee, even to the day when thou shalt pass over the burning bridge of death. Thou shalt touch the diamond of the rivers and the pearl of the sea, and they shall abide with thee, and great shall be thy wealth. And the sunlight which is in the diamond shall warm thee and comfort thy heart; and the moonlight which is in the pearl shall give thee peace in the night-time, and thy children shall be to thee a garland of roses in the land of the unbeliever.' And the star floated down from the palm-branches and touched me with his hand, and breathed upon my lips the cool breath of the outer firmament, and departed. Then I awoke and saw him again in his place far down the horizon, and he was alone, for the dawn was in the sky and the lesser lights were extinguished. And I rose from the stony stairway that seemed like a bed of flowers for the hopeful dream, and I turned westward, and praised Allah, and went my way. "The sun being up, all was life, and the life in me spoke of a most capacious appetite. So I cast about for a shop where I might buy a little food with my few coppers, and seeing a confectioner spreading out his wares, I went near and took stock of the queer balls of flour and sugar, and strange oily-looking sweetmeats. Having selected what I thought would be within my modest means, I addressed the shopkeeper to call his attention, though I knew he would not understand me, and I touched with my hand the article I wanted, showing with the other some of the small coins I had. As soon as I touched the sweetmeats the man became very angry, and bounding from his seat called his neighbours together, and they all shouted and screamed at me, and called a man I thought to be a soldier, though he looked more like an ape in his long loose trousers of dirty black, and his untidy red turban, under which cumbrous garments his thin and stunted frame seemed even blacker and more contemptible than nature had made them. I afterwards discovered him to be one of the Bombay police. He seized me by the arm, and I, knowing I had done no wrong, and curious to discover, if possible, what the trouble was, accompanied him whither he led me. After waiting many hours in a kind of little shed where there were more policemen, I was brought before an Englishman. Of course all attempts at explanation were useless. I could speak not a word of anything but Arabic and Persian, and no one present understood either. At last, when I was in despair, trying to muster a few words of Greek I had learned in Istamboul, and failing signally therein, an old man with a long beard looked curiously in at the door of the crowded court. Some instinct told me to appeal to him, and I addressed him in Arabic. To my infinite relief he replied in that tongue, and volunteered to be interpreter. In a few moments I learned that my crime was that I had _touched_ the sweetmeats on the counter. "In India, as you who have lived here doubtless know, it is a criminal offence, punishable by fine or imprisonment, for a non-Hindu person to defile the food of even the lowest caste man. To touch one sweetmeat in a trayful defiles the whole baking, rendering it all unfit for the use of any Hindu, no matter how mean. Knowing nothing of caste and its prejudices, it was with the greatest difficulty that the _moolah_, who was trying to help me out of my trouble, could make me comprehend wherein my wrong-doing lay, and that the English courts, being obliged in their own interest to uphold and protect the caste practices of the Hindus, at the risk of another mutiny, could not make any exception in favour of a stranger unacquainted with Indian customs. So the Englishman who presided said he would have to inflict a fine, but being a very young man, not yet hardened to the despotic ways of Eastern life, he generously paid the fine himself, and gave me a rupee as a present into the bargain. It was only two shillings, but as I had not had so much money for months I was as grateful as though it had been a hundred. If I ever meet him I will requite him, for I owe him all I now possess. "My case being dismissed, I left the court with the old _moolah_, who took me to his house and inquired of my story, having first given me a good meal of rice and sweetmeats, and that greatest of luxuries, a little pot of fragrant Mocha coffee; he sat in silence while I ate, ministering to my wants, and evidently pleased with the good he was doing. Then he brought out a package of _birris_, those little cigarettes rolled in leaves that they smoke in Bombay, and I told him what had happened to me. I implored him to put me in the way of obtaining some work by which I could at least support life, and he promised to do so, begging me to stay with him until I should be independent. The day following I was engaged to pull a punkah in the house of an English lawyer connected with an immense lawsuit involving one of the Mohammedan principalities. For this irksome work I was to receive six rupees--twelve shillings--monthly, but before the month was up I was transferred, by the kindness of the English lawyer and the good offices of my co-religionist the _moolah_, to the retinue of the Nizam of Haiderabad, then in Bombay. Since that time I have never known want. "I soon mastered enough of the dialects to suit my needs, and applied myself to the study of English, for which opportunities were not lacking. At the end of two years I could speak the language enough to be understood, and my accent from the first was a matter of surprise to all; I had also saved out of my gratuities about one hundred rupees. Having been conversant with the qualities of many kinds of precious stones from my youth up, I determined to invest my economies in a diamond or a pearl. Before long I struck a bargain with an old _marwarri_ over a small stone, of which I thought he misjudged the value, owing to the rough cutting. The fellow was cunning and hard in his dealings, but my superior knowledge of diamonds gave me the advantage. I paid him ninety-three rupees for the little gem, and sold it again in a month for two hundred to a young English 'collector and magistrate,' who wanted to make his wife a present. I bought a larger stone, and again made nearly a hundred per cent on the money. Then I bought two, and so on, until having accumulated sufficient capital, I bade farewell to the Court of the Nizam, where my salary never exceeded sixteen rupees a month as scribe and Arabic interpreter, and I went my way with about two thousand rupees in cash and precious stones. I came northwards, and finally settled in Delhi, where I set up as a dealer in gems and objects of intrinsic value. It is now twelve years since I landed in Bombay. I have never soiled my hands with usury, though I have twice advanced large sums at legal interest for purposes I am not at liberty to disclose; I have never cheated a customer or underrated a gem I bought of a poor man, and my wealth, as you may judge from what you have seen, is considerable. Moreover, though in constant intercourse with Hindus and English, I have not forfeited my title to be called a true believer and a follower of the prophet, whose name be blessed." Isaacs ceased speaking, and presently the waning moon rose pathetically over the crest of the mountains with that curiously doleful look she wears after the full is past, as if weeping over the loss of her better half. The wind rose and soughed drearily through the rhododendrons and the pines; and Kiramat Ali, the pipe-bearer, shivered audibly as he drew his long cloth uniform around him. We rose and entered my friend's rooms, where the warmth of the lights, the soft rugs and downy cushions, invited us temptingly to sit down and continue our conversation. But it was late, for Isaacs, like a true Oriental, had not hurried himself over his narrative, and it had been nine o'clock when we sat down to smoke. So I bade him good-night, and, musing on all I had heard and seen, retired to my own apartments, glancing at Sirius and at the unhappy-looking moon before I turned in from the verandah. * * * * * CHAPTER II. In India--in the plains--people rise before dawn, and it is not till after some weeks' residence in the cooler atmosphere of the mountains that they return to the pernicious habit of allowing the sun to be before them. The hours of early morning, when one either mopes about in loose flannel clothes, or goes for a gallop on the green _maidán_, are without exception the most delicious of the day. I shall have occasion hereafter to describe the morning's proceedings in the plains. On the day after the events recorded in the last chapter I awoke as usual at five o'clock, and meandered out on to the verandah to have a look at the hills, so novel and delicious a sight after the endless flats of the northwest provinces. It was still nearly dark, but there was a faint light in the east, which rapidly grew as I watched it, till, turning the angle of the house, I distinguished a snow-peak over the tops of the dark rhododendrons, and, while I gazed, the first tinge of distant dawning caught the summit, and the beautiful hill blushed, as a fair woman, at the kiss of the awakening sun. The old story, the heaven wooing the earth with a wondrous shower of gold. "Prati 'shya sunarî janî"--the exquisite lines of the old Vedic hymn to the dawn maiden, rose to my lips. I had never appreciated or felt their truth down in the dusty plains, but here, on the free hills, the glad welcoming of the morning light seemed to run through every fibre, as thousands of years ago the same joyful thrill of returning life inspired the pilgrim fathers of the Aryan race. Almost unconsciously, I softly intoned the hymn, as I had heard my old Brahmin teacher in Allahabad when he came and sat under the porch at daybreak, until I was ready for him-- The lissome heavenly maiden here, Forth flashing from her sister's arms, High heaven's daughter, now is come. In rosy garments, shining like A swift bay mare; the twin knights' friend, Mother of all our herds of kine. Yea, thou art she, the horseman's friend; Of grazing cattle mother thou, All wealth is thine, thou blushing dawn. Thou who hast driven the foeman back, With praise we call on thee to wake In tender reverence, beauteous one. The spreading beams of morning light Are countless as our hosts of kine, They fill the atmosphere of space. Filling the sky, thou openedst wide The gates of night, thou glorious dawn-- Rejoicing-run thy daily race! The heaven above thy rays have filled, The broad belovèd room of air, O splendid, brightest maid of morn! I went indoors again to attend to my correspondence, and presently a gorgeously liveried white-bearded _chuprassie_ appeared at the door, and bending low as he touched his hand to his forehead, intimated that "if the great lord of the earth, the protector of the poor, would turn his ear to the humblest of his servants, he would hear of something to his advantage." So saying, he presented a letter from the official with whom I had to do, an answer to my note of the previous afternoon, requesting an interview. In due course, therefore, the day wore on, and I transacted my business, returned to "tiffin," and then went up to my rooms for a little quiet. I might have been there an hour, smoking and dreaming over a book, when the servant announced a sahib who wanted to see me, and Isaacs walked in, redolent of the sunshine without, his luminous eyes shining brightly in the darkened room. I was delighted, for I felt my wits stagnating in the unwonted idleness of the autumn afternoon, and the book I had taken up was not conducive to wakefulness or brilliancy. It was a pleasant surprise too. It is not often that an hotel acquaintance pushes an intimacy much, and besides I had feared my silence during the previous evening might have produced the impression of indifference, on which reflection I had resolved to make myself agreeable at our next meeting. Truly, had I asked myself the cause of a certain attraction I felt for Mr. Isaacs, it would have been hard to find an answer. I am generally extremely shy of persons who begin an acquaintance by making confidences, and, in spite of Isaacs' charm of manner, I had certainly speculated on his reasons for suddenly telling an entire stranger his whole story. My southern birth had not modified the northern character born in me, though it gave me the more urbane veneer of the Italian; and the early study of Larochefoucauld and his school had not predisposed me to an unlimited belief in the disinterestedness of mankind. Still there was something about the man which seemed to sweep away unbelief and cynicism and petty distrust, as the bright mountain freshet sweeps away the wretched little mud puddles and the dust and impurities from the bed of a half dry stream. It was a new sensation and a novel era in my experience of humanity, and the desire to get behind that noble forehead, and see its inmost workings, was strong beyond the strength of puny doubts and preconceived prejudice. Therefore, when Isaacs appeared, looking like the sun-god for all his quiet dress of gray and his unobtrusive manner, I felt the "little thrill of pleasure" so aptly compared by Swinburne to the soft touch of a hand stroking the outer hair. "What a glorious day after all that detestable rain!" were his first words. "Three mortal months of water, mud, and Mackintoshes, not to mention the agreeable sensation of being glued to a wet saddle with your feet in water-buckets, and mountain torrents running up and down the inside of your sleeves, in defiance of the laws of gravitation; such is life in the monsoon. Pah!" And he threw himself down on a cane chair and stretched out his dainty feet, so that the sunlight through the crack of the half-closed door might fall comfortingly on his toes, and remind him that it was fine outside. "What have you been doing all day?" I asked, for lack of a better question, not having yet recovered from the mental stagnation induced by the last number of the serial story I had been reading. "Oh--I don't know. Are you married?" he asked irrelevantly. "God forbid!" I answered reverently, and with some show of feeling. "Amen," was the answer. "As for me--I am, and my wives have been quarreling." "Your wives! Did I understand you to use the plural number?" "Why, yes. I have three; that is the worst of it. If there were only two, they might get on better. You know 'two are company and three are none,' as your proverb has it." He said this reflectively, as if meditating a reduction in the number. The application of the proverb to such a case was quite new in my recollection. As for the plurality of my friend's conjugal relations, I remembered he was a Mohammedan, and my surprise vanished. Isaacs was lost in meditation. Suddenly he rose to his feet, and took a cigarette from the table. "I wonder"--the match would not light, and he struggled a moment with another. Then he blew a great cloud of smoke, and sat down in a different chair--"I wonder whether a fourth would act as a fly-wheel," and he looked straight at me, as if asking my opinion. I had never been in direct relations with a Mussulman of education and position. To be asked point-blank whether I thought four wives better than three on general principles, and quite independently of the contemplated spouse, was a little embarrassing. He seemed perfectly capable of marrying another before dinner for the sake of peace, and I do not believe he would have considered it by any means a bad move. "Diamond cut diamond," I said. "You too have proverbs, and one of them is that a man is better sitting than standing; better lying than sitting; better dead than lying down. Now I should apply that same proverb to marriage. A man is, by a similar successive reasoning, better with no wife at all than with three." His subtle mind caught the flaw instantly. "To be without a wife at all would be about as conducive to happiness as to be dead. Negative happiness, very negative." "Negative happiness is better than positive discomfort." "Come, come," he answered, "we are bandying terms and words, as if empty breath amounted to anything but inanity. Do you really doubt the value of the institution of marriage?" "No. Marriage is a very good thing when two people are so poor that they depend on each other, mutually, for daily bread, or if they are rich enough to live apart. For a man in my own position marriage would be the height of folly; an act of rashness only second to deliberate suicide. Now, you are rich, and if you had but one wife, she living in Delhi and you in Simla, you would doubtless be very happy." "There is something in that," said Isaacs. "She might mope and beat the servants, but she could not quarrel if she were alone. Besides, it is so much easier to look after one camel than three. I think I must try it." There was a pause, during which he seemed settling the destiny of the two who were to be shelved in favour of a monogamic experiment. Presently he asked if I had brought any horses, and hearing I had not, offered me a mount, and proposed we should ride round Jako, and perhaps, if there were time, take a look at Annandale in the valley, where there was polo, and a racing-ground. I gladly accepted, and Isaacs despatched one of my servants, the faithful Kiramat Ali, to order the horses. Meantime the conversation turned on the expedition to Kabul to avenge the death of Cavagnari. I found Isaacs held the same view that I did in regard to the whole business. He thought the sending of four Englishmen, with a handful of native soldiers of the guide regiment to protect them, a piece of unparalleled folly, on a par with the whole English policy in regard to Afghanistan. "You English--pardon me, I forgot you did not belong to them--the English, then, have performed most of their great acts of valour as a direct consequence of having wantonly exposed themselves in situations where no sane man would have placed himself. Look at Balaclava; think of the things they did in the mutiny, and in the first Afghan war; look at the mutiny itself, the result of a hair-brained idea that a country like India could be held for ever with no better defences than the trustworthiness of native officers, and the gratitude of the people for the 'kindly British rule.' Poor Cavagnari! when he was here last summer, before leaving on his mission, he said several times he should never came back. And yet no better man could have been chosen, whether for politics or fighting; if only they had had the sense to protect him." Having delivered himself of this eulogy, my friend dropped his exhausted cigarette, lit another, and appeared again absorbed in the triangulation of his matrimonial problem. I imagined him weighing the question whether he should part with Zobeida and Zuleika and keep Anima, or send Zuleika and Amina about their business, and keep Zobeida to be a light in his household. At last Kiramat Ali, on the watch in the verandah, announced the saices with the horses, and we descended. I had expected that a man of Isaacs' tastes and habits would not be stingy about his horseflesh, and so was prepared for the character of the animals that awaited us. They were two superb Arab stallions, one of them being a rare specimen of the weight-carrying kind, occasionally seen in the far East. Small head, small feet, and feather-tailed, but broad in the quarters and deep in the chest, able to carry a twelve-stone man for hours at the stretching, even gallop, that never trembles and never tires; surefooted as a mule, and tender-tempered as a baby. So we mounted the gentle creatures and rode away. The mountain on which Simla is situated has a double summit, like a Swiss peak, the one higher than the other. On the lower height and the neck between the two is built the town, and the bungalows used as offices and residences for the Government officials cover a very considerable, area. "Jako," the higher eminence, is thickly covered with a forest of primeval rhododendrons and pines, and though there are outlying bungalows and villas scattered about among the trees near the town, they are so far back from the main road, reserved as I have said for the use of the Viceroy, as far as driving is concerned, that they are not seen in riding along the shady way; and on the opposite side, where the trees are thin, the magnificent view looks far out over the spurs of the mountains, the only human habitation visible being a Catholic convent, which rears its little Italian _campanile_ against the blue sky, and rather adds to the beauty of the scene than otherwise. As we rode along we continued our talk about the new Afghan war, though neither of us was very much in the humour for animated conversation. The sweet scent of the pines, the matchless motion of the Arab, and the joyous feeling that the worst part of the tropical year was passed, were enough for me, and I drank in the high, rarefied air, with the intense delight of a man who has been smothered with dust and heat, and then steamed to a jelly by a spring and summer in the plains of Hindustan. The road abounds in sharp turns, and I, as the heavier mount, rode on the inside as we went round the mountain. On reaching the open part on the farther side, we drew rein for a moment to look down at the deep valleys, now dark with the early shade, at the higher peaks red with the westering sun, and at the black masses of foliage, through which some giant trunk here and there caught a lingering ray of the departing light. Then, as we felt the cool of the evening coming on, we wheeled and scampered along the level stretch, stirrup to stirrup and knee to knee. The sharp corner at the end pulled us up, but before we had quite reined in our horses, as delighted as we to have a couple of minutes' straight run, we swung past the angle and cannoned into a man ambling peaceably along with his reins on one finger and his large gray felt hat flapping at the back of his neck. There was a moment's confusion, profuse apologies on our part, and some ill-concealed annoyance on the part of the victim, who was, however, only a little jostled and taken by surprise. "Really, sir," he began. "Oh! Mr. Isaacs. No harm done, I assure you, that is, not much. Bad thing riding fast round corners. No harm, no harm, not much. How are you?" all in a breath. "How d'ye do! Mr. Ghyrkins; my friend Mr. Griggs." "The real offender," I added in a conciliatory tone, for I had kept my place on the inside. "Mr. Griggs?" said Mr. Currie Ghyrkins. "Mr. Griggs of Allahabad? _Daily Howler?_ Yes, yes, corresponded; glad to see you in the flesh." I did not think he looked particularly glad. He was a Revenue Commissioner residing in Mudnugger; a rank Conservative; a regular old "John Company" man, with whom I had had more than one tiff in the columns of the _Howler,_ leading to considerable correspondence. "I trust that our collision in the flesh has had no worse results than our tilts in print, Mr. Ghyrkins?" "Not at all. Oh don't mention it. Bad enough, though, but no harm done, none whatever," pulling up and looking at me as he pronounced the hist two words with a peculiarly English slowness after a very quick sentence. While he was speaking, I was aware of a pair of riders walking their horses toward us, and apparently struggling to suppress their amusement at the mishap to the old gentleman, which they must have witnessed. In truth, Mr. Ghyrkins, who was stout and rode a broad-backed obese "tat," can have presented no very dignified appearance, for he was jerked half out of the saddle by the concussion, and his near leg, returning to its place, had driven his nether garment half way to his knee, while the large felt hat was settling back on to his head at a rakish angle, and his coat collar had gone well up the back of his neck. "Dear uncle," said the lady as she rode up, "I hope you are not hurt?" She was very handsome as she sat there trying not to laugh. A lithe figure in a gray habit and a broad-brimmed hat, fair as a Swede, but with dark eyes and heavy lashes. Just then she was showing her brilliant teeth, ostensibly in delight at her dear uncle's escape, and her whole expression was animated and amused. Her companion was a soldierly looking young Englishman, with a heavy moustache and a large nose. A certain devil-may-care look about his face was attractive as he sat carelessly watching us. I noticed his long stirrups and the curb rein hanging loose, while he held the snaffle, and concluded he was a cavalry officer. Isaacs bowed low to the lady and wheeled his horse. She replied by a nod, indifferent enough; but as he turned, her eyes instantly went back to him, and a pleasant thoughtful look passed over her face, which betrayed at least a trifling interest in the stranger, if stranger he were. All this time Mr. Ghyrkins was talking and asking questions of me. When had I come? what brought me here? how long would I stay? and so on, showing that whether friendly or not he had an interest in my movements. In answering his questions I found an opportunity of calling the Queen the "Empress," of lauding Lord Beaconsfield's policy in India, and of congratulating Mr. Ghyrkins upon the state of his district, with which he had nothing to do, of course; but he swallowed the bait, all in a breath, as he seemed to do everything. Then he introduced us. "Katharine, you know Mr. Isaacs; Mr. Griggs, Miss Westonhaugh, Lord Steepleton Kildare, Mr. Isaacs." We bowed and rode back together over the straight piece we passed before the encounter. Isaacs and the Englishman walked their horses on each side of Miss Westonhaugh, and Ghyrkins and I brought up the rear. I tried to turn the conversation to Isaacs, but with little result. "Yes, yes, good fellow Isaacs, for a fire-worshipper, or whatever he is. Good judge of a horse. Lots of rupees too. Queer fish. By-the-bye, Mr. Griggs, this new expedition is going to cost us something handsome, eh?" "Why, yes. I doubt whether you will get off under ten millions sterling. And where is it to come from? You will have a nice time making your assessments in Bengal, Mr. Ghyrkins, and we shall have an income-tax and all sorts of agreeable things." "Income-tax? Well, I think not. You see, Mr. Griggs, it would hit the members of the council, so they won't do it, for their own sakes, and the Viceroy too. Ha, ha, how do you think Lord Lytton would like an income-tax, eh?" And the old fellow chuckled. We reached the end of the straight, and Isaacs reined in and bid Miss Westonhaugh and her companion good evening. I bowed from where I was, and took Mr. Ghyrkins' outstretched hand. He was in a good humour again, and called out to us to come and see him, as we rode away. I thought to myself I certainly would; and we paced back, crossing the open stretch for the third time. It was almost dark under the trees as we re-entered the woods; I pulled out a cheroot and lit it. Isaacs did the same, and we walked our horses along in silence. I was thinking of the little picture I had just seen. The splendid English girl on her thoroughbred beside the beautiful Arab steed and his graceful rider. What a couple, I thought: what noble specimens of great races. Why did not this fiery young Persian, with his wealth, his beauty, and his talents, wed some such wife as that, some high-bred Englishwoman, who should love him and give him home and children--and, I was forced to add, commonplace happiness? How often does it happen that some train of thought, unacknowledged almost to ourselves, runs abruptly into a blind alley; especially when we try to plan out the future life of some one else, or to sketch for him what we should call happiness. The accidental confronting of two individuals pleases the eye, we unite them in our imagination, carrying on the picture before us, and suddenly we find ourselves in a quagmire of absurd incongruities. Now what could be more laughable than to suppose the untamed, and probably untameable young man at my side, with his three wives, his notions about the stars and his Mussulman faith, bound for life to a girl like Miss Westonhaugh? A wise man of the East trying to live the life of an English country gentleman, hunting in pink and making speeches on the local hustings! I smiled to myself in the dark and puffed at my cigar. Meanwhile Isaacs was palpably uneasy. First he kicked his feet free of the stirrups, and put them back again. Then he hummed a few words of a Persian song and let his cigar go out, after which he swore loudly in Arabic at the eternal matches that never would light. Finally he put his horse into a hand gallop, which could not last on such a road in the dark, and at last he broke down completely in his efforts to do impossible things, and began talking to me. "You know Mr. Ghyrkins by correspondence, then?" "Yes, and by controversy. And you, I see, know Miss Westonhaugh?" "Yes; what do you think of her?" "A charming creature of her type. Fair and English, she will be fat at thirty-five, and will probably paint at forty, but at present she is perfection--of her kind of course," I added, not wishing to engage my friend in the defence of his three wives on the score of beauty. "I see very little of Englishwomen," said Isaacs. "My position is peculiar, and though the men, many of whom I know quite intimately, often ask me to their houses, I fancy when I meet their women I can detect a certain scorn of my nationality, a certain undefinable manner toward me, by which I suppose they mean to convey to my obtuse comprehension that I am but a step better than a 'native'--a 'nigger' in fact, to use the term they love so well. So I simply avoid them, as a rule, for my temper is hasty. Of course I understand it well enough; they are brought up or trained by their fathers and husbands to regard the native Indian as an inferior being, an opinion in which, on the whole, I heartily concur. But they go a step farther and include all Asiatics in the same category. I do not choose to be confounded with a race I consider worn out and effete. As for the men, it is different. They know I am rich and influential in many ways that are useful to them now, and they hope that the fortunes of war or revolution may give them a chance of robbing me hereafter, in which they are mistaken. Now there is our stout friend, whom we nearly brought to grief a few minutes ago; he is always extremely civil, and never meets me that he does not renew his invitation to visit him." "I should like to see something more of Mr. Currie Ghyrkins myself. I do not believe he is half as bad as I thought. Do you ever go there?" "Sometimes. Yes, on second thoughts I believe I call on Mr. Currie Ghyrkins pretty often." Then after a pause he added, "I like her." I pointed out the confusion of genders. Isaacs must have smiled to himself in the gloom, but he answered quietly-- "I mean Miss Westonhaugh. I like her--yes, I am quite sure I do. She is beautiful and sensible, though if she stays here much longer she will be like all the rest. We will go and see them to-morrow. Here we are; just in time for dinner. Come and smoke afterwards." * * * * * CHAPTER III. A loose robe of light material from Kashmir thrown around him, Isaacs half sat, half lay, on the soft dark cushions in the corner of his outer room. His feet were slipperless, Eastern fashion, and his head covered with an embroidered cap of curious make. By the yellow light of the hanging lamps he was reading an Arabic book, and his face wore a puzzled look that sat strangely on the bold features. As I entered the book fell back on the cushion, sinking deep into the down by its weight, and one of the heavy gold clasps clanged sharply as it turned. He looked up, but did not rise, and greeted me, smiling, with the Arabic salutation-- "Peace be with you!" "And with you, peace," I answered in the same tongue. He smiled again at my unfamiliar pronunciation. I established myself on the divan near him, and inquired whether he had arrived at any satisfactory solution of his domestic difficulties. "My father," he said, "upon whom be peace, had but one wife, my mother. You know Mussulmans are allowed four lawful wives. Here is the passage in the beginning of the fourth chapter, 'If ye fear that ye shall not act with equity towards orphans of the female sex, take in marriage of such other women as please you, two, or three, or four, and not more. But, if ye fear that ye cannot act equitably towards so many, marry one only, or the slaves which ye shall have acquired.' "The first part of this passage," continued Isaacs, "is disputed; I mean the words referring to orphans. But the latter portion is plain enough. When the apostle warns those who fear they 'cannot act equitably towards so many,' I am sure that in his wisdom he meant something more by 'equitable' treatment than the mere supplying of bodily wants. He meant us to so order our households that there should be no jealousies, no heart-burnings, no unnecessary troubling of the peace. Now woman is a thing of the devil, jealous; and to manage a number of such creatures so that they shall be even passably harmonious among themselves is a fearful task, soul-wearying, heart-hardening, never-ending, leading to no result." "Just what I told you; a man is better with no wife at all than with three. But why do you talk about such matters with me, an unbeliever, a Christian, who, in the words of your prophet, 'shall swallow down nothing but fire into my belly, and shall broil in raging flames' when I die? Surely it is contrary to the custom of your co-religionists; and how can you expect an infidel Frank to give you advice?" "I don't," laconically replied my host. "Besides, with your views of women in general, their vocation, their aims, and their future state, is it at all likely that we should ever arrive at even a fair discussion of marriage and marriage laws? With us, women have souls, and, what is a great deal more, seem likely to have votes. They certainly have the respectful and courteous service of a large proportion of the male sex. You call a woman a thing of the devil; we call her an angel from heaven; and though some eccentric persons like myself refuse to ally themselves for life with any woman, I confess, as far as I am concerned, that it is because I cannot contemplate the constant society of an angel with the degree of appreciation such a privilege justly deserves; and I suspect that most confirmed bachelors, knowingly or unconsciously, think as I do. The Buddhists are not singular in their theory that permanent happiness should be the object." "They say," said Isaacs, quickly interrupting, "that the aim of the ignorant is pleasure; the pursuit of the wise, happiness. Pray, under which category would you class marriage? I suppose it comes under one or the other." "I cannot say I see the force of that. Look at your own case, since you have introduced it." "Never mind my own case. I mean with your ideas of one wife, and heavenly woman, and voting, and domestic joy, and all the rest of it. Take the ideal creature you rave about--" "I never rave about anything." "Take the fascinating female you describe, and for the sake of argument imagine yourself very poor or very rich, since you would not enter wedlock in your present circumstances. Suppose you married your object of 'courteous service and respectful adoration;' which should you say you would attain thereby, pleasure or happiness?" "Pleasure is but the refreshment that cheers us in the pursuit of true happiness," I answered, hoping to evade the direct question by a sententious phrase. "I will not let you off so easily. You shall answer my question," he said. He looked full at me with a deep searching gaze that seemed hardly warranted by the lightness of the argument. I hesitated, and he impatiently leaned forward, uncrossing his legs and clasping his hands over one knee to bring himself nearer to me. "Pleasure or happiness?" he repeated, "which is it to be?" A sudden light flashed over my obscured intellect. "Both," I answered. "Could you see the ideal woman as I would fain paint her to you, you would understand me better. The pleasure you enjoy in the society of a noble and beautiful woman should be but the refreshment by the wayside as you journey through life together. The day will come when she will be beautiful no longer, only noble and good, and true to you as to herself; and then, if pleasure has been to you what it should be, you will find that in the happiness attained it is no longer counted, or needed, or thought of. It will have served its end, as the crib holds the ship in her place while she is building; and when your white-winged vessel has smoothly glided off into the great ocean of happiness, the crib and the stocks and the artificial supports will fall to pieces and be forgotten for ever. Yet have they had a purpose, and have borne a very important part in the life of your ship." Having heard me attentively till I had finished, Isaacs relaxed his hold on his knee and threw himself back on the cushions, as if to entrench himself for a better fight. I had made an impression on him, but he was not the man to own it easily. Presumably to gain time, he called for hookahs and sherbet, and though the servants moved noiselessly in preparing them, their presence was an interruption. When we were settled again he had taken a nearly upright position on the couch, and as he pulled at the long tube his face assumed that stolid look of Oriental indifference which is the most discouraging shower-bath to the persuasive powers. I had really no interest in converting him to my own point of view about women. Honestly, was it my own point of view at all? Would anything under heaven induce me, Paul Griggs, rich, or poor, or comfortably off, to marry any one--Miss Westonhaugh, for instance? Probably not. But then my preference for single blessedness did not prevent me from believing that women have souls. That morning the question of the marriage of the whole universe had been a matter of the utmost indifference, and now I, a confirmed and hopelessly contented bachelor, was trying to convince a man with three wives that matrimony was a most excellent thing in its way, and that the pleasure of the honeymoon was but the faint introduction to the bliss of the silver wedding. It certainly must be Isaacs' own doing. He had launched on a voyage of discovery and had taken me in tow. I had a strong suspicion that he wanted to be convinced, and was playing indifference to soothe his conscience. "Well," said I at last, "have you any fault to find with my reasoning or my simile?" "With your simile--none. It is faultlessly perfect. You have not mixed up your metaphors in the least. Crib, stocks, ocean, ship--all correct, and very nautical. As for your reasoning, I do not believe there is anything in it. I do not believe that pleasure leads to happiness; I do not believe that a woman has a soul, and I deny the whole argument from beginning to end. There," he added with a smile that belied the brusqueness of his words, "that is my position. Talk me out of it if you can; the night is long, and my patience as that of the ass." "I do not think this is a case for rigid application of logic. When the feelings are concerned--and where can they be more concerned than in our intercourse with women?--the only way to arrive at any conclusion is by a sort of trying-on process, imagining ourselves in the position indicated, and striving to fancy how it would suit us. Let us begin in that way. Suppose yourself unmarried, your three wives and their children removed--" "Allah in his mercy grant it!" ejaculated Isaacs with great fervour. "--removed from the question altogether. Then imagine yourself thrown into daily conversation with some beautiful woman who has read what you have read, thought what you have thought, and dreamed the dreams of a nobler destiny that have visited you in waking and sleeping hours. A woman who, as she learned your strange story, should weep for the pains you suffered and rejoice for the difficulties overcome, who should understand your half spoken thoughts and proudly sympathise in your unuttered aspirations; in whom you might see the twin nature to your own, and detect the strong spirit and the brave soul, half revealed through the feminine gentleness and modesty that clothe her as with a garment. Imagine all this, and then suppose it lay in your power, was a question of choice, for you to take her hand in yours and go through life and death together, till death seem life for the joy of being united for ever. Suppose you married her--not to lock her up in an indolent atmosphere of rosewater, narghyles, and sweetmeats, to die of inanition or to pester you to death with complaints and jealousies and inopportune caresses; but to be with you and help your life when you most need help, by word and thought and deed, to grow more and more a part of you, an essential element of you in action or repose, to part from which would be to destroy at a blow the whole fabric of your existence. Would you not say that with such a woman the transitory pleasure of early conversation and intercourse had been the stepping-stone to the lasting happiness of such a friendship as you could never hope for in your old age among your sex? Would not her faithful love and abounding sympathy be dearer to you every day, though the roses in her cheek should fade and the bright hair whiten with the dust of life's journey? Would you not feel that when you died your dearest wish must be to join her where there should be no parting--her from whom there could be no parting here, short of death itself? Would you not believe she had a soul?" "There is no end of your 'supposing,' but it is quite pretty. I am half inclined to 'suppose' too." He took a sip of sherbet from the tall crystal goblet the servant had placed on a little three-legged stool beside him, and as he drank the cool liquid slowly, looked over the glass into my eyes, with a curious, half earnest, half smiling glance; I could not tell whether my enthusiastic picture of conjugal bliss amused him or attracted him, so I waited for him to speak again. "Now that you have had your cruise in your ship of happiness on the waters of your cerulean imagination, permit me, who am land-born and a lover of the chase, to put my steed at a few fences in the difficult country of unadorned facts over which I propose to hunt the wily fox, matrimony. I have never hunted a fox, but I can quite well imagine what it is like. "In the first place, it is all very well to suppose that it had pleased Allah in his goodness to relieve me of my three incumbrances--meanwhile, there they are, and they are very real difficulties I assure you. Nevertheless are there means provided us by the foresight of the apostle, by which we may ease ourselves of domestic burdens when they are too heavy for us to bear. It would be quite within the bounds of possibility for me to divorce them all three, without making any special scandal. But if I did this thing, do you not think that my experience of married life has given me the most ineradicable prejudices against women as daily companions? Am I not persuaded that they all bicker and chatter and nibble sweetmeats alike--absolutely alike? Or if I looked abroad--" "Stop," I said, "I am not reasoner enough to persuade you that all women have souls. Very likely in Persia and India they have not. I only want you to believe that there may be women so fortunate as to possess a modicum of immortality. Well, pardon my interruption, 'if you looked abroad,' as you were saying?--" "If I looked abroad, I should probably discover little petty traits of the same class, if not exactly identical. I know little of Englishmen, and might be the more readily deceived. Supposing, if you will, that, after freeing myself from all my present ties, in order to start afresh, I were to find myself attracted by some English girl here"--there must have been something wrong with the mouthpiece of his pipe, for he examined it very attentively-- "attracted," he continued, "by some one, for instance, by Miss Westonhaugh--" he stopped short. So my inspiration was right. My little picture, framed as we rode homeward, and indignantly scoffed at by my calmer reason, had visited his brain too. He had looked on the fair northern woman and fancied himself at her side, her lover, her husband. All this conversation and argument had been only a set plan to give himself the pleasure of contemplating and discussing such a union, without exciting surprise or comment. I had been suspecting it for some time, and now his sudden interest in his mouthpiece, to conceal a very real embarrassment, put the matter beyond all doubt. He was probably in love, my acquaintance of two days. He saw in me a plain person, who could not possibly be a rival, having some knowledge of the world, and he was in need of a confidant, like a school-girl. I reflected that he was probably a victim for the first time. There is very little romance in India, and he had, of course, married for convenience and respectability rather than for any real affection. His first passion! This man who had been tossed about like a bit of driftwood, who had by his own determination and intelligence carved his way to wealth and power in the teeth of every difficulty. Just now, in his embarrassment, he looked very boyish. His troubles had left no wrinkles on his smooth forehead, his bright black hair was untinged by a single thread of gray, and as he looked up, after the pause that followed when he mentioned the name of the woman he loved, there was a very really youthful look of mingled passion and distress in his beautiful eyes. "I think, Mr. Isaacs, that you have used a stronger argument against the opinions you profess to hold than I could have found in my whole armoury of logic." As he looked at me, the whole field of possibilities seemed opened. I must have been mistaken in thinking this marriage impossible and incongruous. What incongruity could there be in Isaacs marrying Miss Westonhaugh? My conclusions were false. Why must he necessarily return with her to England, and wear a red coat, and make himself ridiculous at the borough elections? Why should not this ideal couple choose some happy spot, as far from the corrosive influence of Anglo-Saxon prejudice as from the wretched sensualism of prosperous life east of the Mediterranean? I was carried away by the idea, returning with redoubled strength as a sequel to what I had argued and to what I had guessed. "Why not?" was the question I repeated to myself over and over again in the half minute's pause after Isaacs finished speaking. "You are right," he said slowly, his half-closed eyes fixed on his feet. "Yes, you are right. Why not? Indeed, indeed, why not?" It must have been pure guess-work, this reading of my thoughts. When he was last speaking his manner was all indifference, scorn of my ideas, and defiance of every western mode of reasoning. And now, apparently by pure intuition, he gave a direct answer to the direct question I had mentally asked, and, what is more, his answer came with a quiet, far-away tone of conviction that had not a shade of unbelief in it. It was delivered as monotonously and naturally as a Christian says "Credo in unum Deum," as if it were not worth disputing; or as the devout Mussulman says "La Illah illallah," not stooping to consider the existence of any one bold enough to deny the dogma. No argument, not hours of patient reasoning, or weeks of well directed persuasion, could have wrought the change in the man's tone that came over it at the mere mention of the woman he loved. I had no share in his conversion. My arguments had been the excuse by which he had converted himself. Was he converted? was it real? "Yes--I think I am," he replied in the same mechanical monotonous accent. I shook myself, drank some sherbet, and kicked off one shoe impatiently. Was I dreaming? or had I been speaking aloud, really putting the questions he answered so quickly and appositively? Pshaw! a coincidence. I called the servant and ordered my hookah to be refilled. Isaacs sat still, immovable, lost in thought, looking at his toes; an expression, almost stupid in its vacancy, was on his face, and the smoke curled slowly up in lazy wreaths from his neglected narghyle. "You are converted then at last?" I said aloud. No answer followed my question; I watched him attentively. "Mr. Isaacs!" still silence, was it possible that he had fallen asleep? his eyes were open, but I thought he was very pale. His upright position, however, belied any symptoms of unconsciousness. "Isaacs! Abdul Hafiz! what is the matter!" He did not move. I rose to my feet and knelt beside him where he sat rigid, immovable, like a statue. Kiramat Ali, who had been watching, clapped his hands wildly and cried, "Wah! wah! Sahib margyâ!"--"The lord is dead." I motioned him away with a gesture and he held his peace, cowering in the corner, his eyes fixed on us. Then I bent low as I knelt and looked under my friend's brows, into his eyes. It was clear he did not see me, though he was looking straight at his feet. I felt for his pulse. It was very low, almost imperceptible, and certainly below forty beats to the minute. I took his right arm and tried to put it on my shoulder. It was perfectly rigid. There was no doubt about it--the man was in a cataleptic trance. I felt for the pulse again; it was lost. I was no stranger to this curious phenomenon, where the mind is perfectly awake, but every bodily faculty is lulled to sleep beyond possible excitation, unless the right means be employed. I went out and breathed the cool night air, bidding the servants be quiet, as the sahib was asleep. When sufficiently refreshed I re-entered the room, cast off my slippers, and stood a moment by my friend, who was as rigid as ever. Nature, in her bountiful wisdom, has compensated me for a singular absence of beauty by endowing me with great strength, and with one of those exceptional constitutions which seem constantly charged with electricity. Without being what is called a mesmerist, I am possessed of considerable magnetic power, which I have endeavoured to develop as far as possible. In many a long conversation with old Manu Lal, my Brahmin instructor in languages and philosophy while in the plains, we had discussed the trance state in all its bearings. This old pundit was himself a distinguished mesmerist, and though generally unwilling to talk about what is termed occultism, on finding in me a man naturally endowed with the physical characteristics necessary to those pursuits, he had given me several valuable hints as to the application of my powers. Here was a worthy opportunity. I rubbed my feet on the soft carpet, and summoning all my strength, began to make the prescribed passes over my friend's head and body. Very gradually the look of life returned to his face, the generous blood welled up under the clear olive skin, the lips parted, and he sighed softly. Animation, as always happens in such cases, began at the precise point at which it had been suspended, and his first movement was to continue his examination of the mouthpiece in his hand. Then he looked up suddenly, and seeing me standing over him, gave a little shake, half turning his shoulders forward and back, and speaking once more in his natural voice, said-- "I must have been asleep! Have I? What has happened? Why are you standing there looking at me in that way?" Then, after a short interrogatory silence, his face changed and a look of annoyance shaded his features as he added in a low tone, "Oh! I see. It has happened to me once before. Sit down. I am all right now." He sipped a little sherbet and leaned back in his old position. I begged him to go to bed, and prepared to withdraw, but he would not let me, and he seemed so anxious that I should stay, that I resumed my place. The whole incident had passed in ten minutes. "Stay with me a little longer," he repeated. "I need your company, perhaps your advice. I have had a vision, and you must hear about it." "I thought as I sat here that my spirit left my body and passed out through the night air and hovered over Simla. I could see into every bungalow, and was conscious of what passed in each, but there was only one where my gaze rested, for I saw upon a couch in a spacious chamber the sleeping form of one I knew. The masses of fair hair were heaped as they fell upon the pillow, as if she had lain down weary of bearing the burden of such wealth of gold. The long dark lashes threw little shadows on her cheeks, and the parted lips seemed to smile at the sweetness of the gently heaving breath that fanned them as it came and went. And while I looked, the breath of her body became condensed, as it were, and took shape and form and colour, so that the image of herself floated up between her body and my watching spirit. Nearer and nearer to me came the exquisite vision of beauty, till we were face to face, my soul and hers, high up in the night. And there came from her eyes, as the long lids lifted, a look of perfect trust, and of love, and of infinite joy. Then she turned her face southward and pointed to my life star burning bright among his lesser fellows; and with a long sweet glance that bid me follow where she led, her maiden soul floated away, half lingering at first, as I watched her; then, with dizzy speed, vanishing in the firmament as a falling star, and leaving no trace behind, save an infinitely sad regret, and a longing to enter with her into that boundless empire of peace. But I could not, for my spirit was called back to this body. And I bless Allah that he has given me to see her once so, and to know that she has a soul, even as I have, for I have looked upon her spirit and I know it." Isaacs rose slowly to his feet and moved towards the open door. I followed him, and for a few moments we stood looking out at the scene below us. It was near midnight, and the ever-decreasing moon was dragging herself up, as if ashamed of her waning beauty and tearful look. "Griggs," said my friend, dropping the formal prefix for the first time, "all this is very strange. I believe I am in love!" "I have not a doubt of it," I replied. "Peace be with you!" "And with you peace." So we parted. * * * * * CHAPTER IV. In Simla people make morning calls in the morning instead of after dark, as in more civilised countries. Soon after dawn I received a note from Isaacs, saying that he had business with the Maharajah of Baithopoor about some precious stones, but that he would be ready to go with me to call on Mr. Currie Ghyrkins at ten o'clock, or soon after. I had been thinking a great deal about the events of the previous evening, and I was looking forward to my next meeting with Isaacs with intense interest. After what had passed, nothing could be such a test of his true feelings as the visit to Miss Westonhaugh, which we proposed to make together, and I promised myself to lose no gesture, no word, no expression, which might throw light on the question that interested me--whether such a union were practical, possible, and wise. At the appointed time, therefore, I was ready, and we mounted and sallied forth into the bright autumn day. All visits are made on horseback in Simla, as the distances are often considerable. You ride quietly along, and the saice follows you, walking or keeping pace with your gentle trot, as the case may be. We rode along the bustling mall, crowded with men and women on horseback, with numbers of gorgeously arrayed native servants and _chuprassies_ of the Government offices hurrying on their respective errands, or dawdling for a chat with some shabby-looking acquaintance in private life; we passed by the crowded little shops on the hill below the church, and glanced at the conglomeration of grain-sellers, jewellers, confectioners, and dealers in metal or earthen vessels, every man sitting knee-deep in his wares, smoking the eternal "hubble-bubble;" we noted the keen eyes of the buyers and the hawk's glance of the sellers, the long snake-like fingers eagerly grasping the passing coin, and seemingly convulsed into serpentine contortion when they relinquished their clutch on a single "pi;" we marked this busy scene, set down, like a Punch and Judy show, in the midst of the trackless waste of the Himalayas, as if for the delectation and pastime of some merry _genius loci_ weary of the solemn silence in his awful mountains, and we chatted carelessly of the sights animate and inanimate before us, laughing at the asseverations of the salesmen, and at the hardened scepticism of the customer, at the portentous dignity of the superb old messenger, white-bearded and clad in scarlet and gold, as he bombastically described to the knot of poor relations and admirers that elbowed him the splendours of the last entertainment at "Peterhof," where Lord Lytton still reigned. I smiled, and Isaacs frowned at the ancient and hairy ascetic believer, who suddenly rose from his lair in a corner, and bustled through the crowd of Hindoos, shouting at the top of his voice the confession of his faith--"Beside God there is no God, and Muhammad is his apostle!" The universality of the Oriental spirit is something amazing. Customs, dress, thought, and language, are wonderfully alike among all Asiatics west of Thibet and south of Turkistan. The greatest difference is in language, and yet no one unacquainted with the dialects could distinguish by the ear between Hindustani, Persian, Arabic, and Turkish. So we moved along, and presently found ourselves on the road we had traversed the previous evening, leading round Jako. On the slope of the hill, hidden by a dense growth of rhododendrons, lay the bungalow of Mr. Currie Ghyrkins, and a board at the entrance of the ride--drive there was none--informed us that the estate bore the high-sounding title of "Carisbrooke Castle," in accordance with the Simla custom of calling little things by big names. Having reached the lawn near the house, we left our horses in charge of the saice and strolled up the short walk to the verandah. A charming picture it was, prepared as if on purpose for our especial delectation. The bungalow was a large one for Simla, and the verandah was deep and shady; many chairs of all sorts and conditions stood about in natural positions, as if they had just been sat in, instead of being ranged in stiff rows against the wall, and across one angle hung a capacious hammock. Therein, swinging her feet to the ground, and holding on by the edge rope, sat the beautiful Miss Westonhaugh, clad in one of those close-fitting unadorned costumes of plain dark-blue serge, which only suit one woman in ten thousand, though, when they clothe a really beautiful young figure, I know of no garment better calculated to display grace of form and motion. She was kicking a ball of worsted with her dainty toes, for the amusement and instruction of a small tame jackal--the only one I ever saw thoroughly domesticated. A charming little beast it was, with long gray fur and bright twinkling eyes, mischievous and merry as a gnome's. From a broad blue ribbon round its neck was suspended a small silver bell that tinkled spasmodically, as the lively little thing sprang from side to side in pursuit of the ball, alighting with apparent indifference on its head or its heels. So busy was the girl with her live plaything that she had not seen us dismount and approach her, and it was not till our feet sounded on the boards of the verandah that she looked up with a little start, and tried to rise to her feet. Now any one who has sat sideways in a netted hammock, with feet swinging to the ground, and all the weight in the middle of the thing, knows how difficult it is to get out with grace, or indeed in any way short of rolling out and running for luck. You may break all your bones in the feat, and you both look and feel as if you were going to. Though we both sprang forward to her assistance, Miss Westonhaugh had recognised the inexpediency of moving after the first essay, and, with a smile of greeting, and the faintest tinge of embarrassment on her fair cheek, abandoned the attempt; the quaint little jackal sat up, backing against the side of the house, and, eyeing us critically, growled a little. "I'm so glad to see you, Mr. Isaacs. How do you do, Mr.----" "Griggs," murmured Isaacs, as he straightened a rope of the hammock by her side. "Mr. Griggs?" she continued. "We met last night, briefly, but to the point, or at least you and my uncle did. I am alone; my uncle is gone down towards Kalka to meet my brother, who is coming up for a fortnight at the end of the season to get rid of the Bombay mould. Bring up some of those chairs and sit down. I cannot tell what has become of the 'bearer' and the 'boy,' and the rest of the servants, and I could not make them understand me if they were here. So you must wait on yourselves." I was the first to lay hands on a chair, and as I turned to bring it I noticed she was following Isaacs with the same expression I had seen on her face the previous evening; but I could see it better now. A pleasant friendly look, not tender so much as kind, while the slightest possible contraction of the eyes showed a feeling of curiosity. She was evidently going to speak to him as soon as he turned his face. "You see I have been giving him lessons," she said, as he brought back the seat he had chosen. Isaacs looked at the queer small beast sitting up against the boards under the window, his brush tail curled round him, and his head turned inquiringly on one side. "He seems to be learning manners, at all events," said my friend. "Yes; I think I may say now, with safety, that his bark is worse than his bite." "I am sure you could not have said so the last time I came. Do you remember what fearful havoc he made among my nether garments? And yet he is my god-child, so to speak, for I gave him into your care, and named him into the bargain." "Don't suppose I am ungrateful for the gift," answered Miss Westonhaugh. "Snap! Snap! here! come here, darling, to your mistress, and be petted!" In spite of this eloquent appeal Snap, the baby jackal, only growled pleasantly and whisked his brush right and left. "You see," she went on, "your sponsorship has had no very good results. He will not obey any more than you yourself." Her glance, turning towards Isaacs, did not reach him, and, in fact, she could not have seen anything beyond the side of his chair. Isaacs, on the contrary, seemed to be counting her eyelashes, and taking a mental photograph of her brows. "Snap!" said he. The jackal instantly rose and trotted to him, fawning on his outstretched hand. "You malign me, Miss Westonhaugh. Snap is no less obedient than I." "Then why did you insist on playing tennis left-handed the other day, though you know very well how it puzzles me?" "My dear Miss Westonhaugh," he answered, "I am not a tennis-player at all, to begin with, and as I do not understand the _finesse_ of the game, to use a word I do not understand either, you must pardon my clumsiness in employing the hand most convenient and ready." "Some people," I began, "are what is called ambidexter, and can use either hand with equal ease. Now the ancient Persians, who invented the game of polo----" "I do not quarrel so much with you, Mr. Isaacs--" as she said this, she looked at me, though entirely disregarding and interrupting my instructive sentence--"I don't quarrel with you so much for using your left hand at tennis as for employing left-handed weapons when you speak of other things, or beings, for you are never so left-handed and so adroit as when you are indulging in some elaborate abuse of our sex." "How can you say that?" protested Isaacs. "You know with what respectful and almost devotional reverence I look upon all women, and," his eyes brightening perceptibly, "upon you in particular." English women, especially in their youth, are not used to pretty speeches. They are so much accustomed to the men of their own nationality that they regard the least approach to a compliment as the inevitable introduction to the worst kind of insult. Miss Westonhaugh was no exception to this rule, and she drew herself up proudly. There was a moment's pause, during which Isaacs seemed penitent, and she appeared to be revolving the bearings of the affront conveyed in his last words. She looked along the floor, slowly, till she might have seen his toes; then her eyes opened a moment and met his, falling again instantly with a change of colour. "And pray, Mr. Isaacs, would you mind giving us a list of the ladies you look upon with 'respectful and devotional reverence?'" One of the horses held by the saice at the corner of the lawn neighed lowly, and gave Isaacs an opportunity of looking away. "Miss Westonhaugh," he said quietly, "you know I am a Mussulman, and that I am married. It may be that I have borrowed a phrase from your language which expresses more than I would convey, though it would ill become me to withdraw my last words, since they are true." It was my turn to be curious now. I wondered where his boldness would carry him. Among his other accomplishments, this man was capable of speaking the truth even to a woman, not as a luxury and a _bonne bouche_, but as a matter of habit. As I looked, the hot blood mantled up to his brows. She was watching him, and womanlike, seeing he was in earnest and embarrassed, she regained her perfect natural composure. "Oh, I had forgotten!" she said. "I forgot about your wife in Delhi." She half turned in the hammock, and after some searching, during which we were silent, succeeded in finding a truant piece of worsted work behind her. The wool was pulled out of the needle, and she held the steel instrument up against the light, as she doubled the worsted round the eye and pushed it back through the little slit. I observed that Isaacs was apparently in a line with the light, and that the threading took some time. "Mr. Griggs," she said slowly, and by the very slowness of the address I knew she was going to talk to me, and at my friend, as women will; "Mr. Griggs, do you know anything about Mohammedans?" "That is a very broad question," I answered; "almost as broad as the Mussulman creed." She began making stitches in the work she held, and with a little side shake settled herself to listen, anticipating a discourse. The little jackal sidled up and fawned on her feet. I had no intention, however, of delivering a lecture on the faith of the prophet. I saw my friend was embarrassed in the conversation, and I resolved, if possible, to interest her. "Among primitive people and very young persons," I continued, "marriage is an article of faith, a moral precept, and a social law." "I suppose you are married, Mr. Griggs," she said, with an air of childlike simplicity. "Pardon me, Miss Westonhaugh, I neither condescend to call myself primitive, nor aspire to call myself young." She laughed. I had put a wedge into my end of the conversation. "I thought," said she, "from the way in which you spoke of 'primitive and young persons' that you considered their opinion in regard to--to this question, as being the natural and proper opinion of the original and civilised young man." "I repeat that I do not claim to be very civilised, or very young--certainly not to be very original, and my renunciation of all these qualifications is my excuse for the confirmed bachelorhood to which I adhere. Many Mohammedans are young and original; some of them are civilised, as you see, and all of them are married. 'There is no God but God, Muhammad is his prophet, and if you refuse to marry you are not respectable,' is their full creed." Isaacs frowned at my profanity, but I continued--"I do not mean to say anything disrespectful to a creed so noble and social. I think you have small chance of converting Mr. Isaacs." "I would not attempt it," she said, laying down her work in her lap, and looking at me for a moment. "But since you speak of creeds, to what confession do you yourself belong, if I may ask?" "I am a Roman Catholic," I answered; adding presently--"Really, though, I do not see how my belief in the papal infallibility affects my opinion of Mohammedan marriages." "And what _do_ you think of them?" she inquired, resuming her work and applying herself thereto with great attention. "I think that, though justified in principle by the ordinary circumstances of Eastern life, there are cases in which the system acts very badly. I think that young men are often led by sheer force of example into marrying several wives before they have sufficiently reflected on the importance of what they are doing. I think that both marriage and divorce are too easily managed in consideration of their importance to a man's life, and I am convinced that no civilised man of Western education, if he were to adopt Islam, would take advantage of his change of faith to marry four wives. It is a case of theory _versus_ practice, which I will not attempt to explain. It may often be good in logic, but it seems to me it is very often bad in real life." "Yes," said Isaacs; "there are cases----" He stopped, and Miss Westonhaugh, who had been very busy over her work, looked quietly up, only to find that he was profoundly interested in the horses cropping the short grass, as far as the saice would let them stretch their necks, on the other side of the lawn. "I confess," said Miss Westonhaugh, "that my ideas about Mohammedans are chiefly the result of reading the Arabian Nights, ever so long ago. It seems to me that they treat women as if they had no souls and no minds, and were incapable of doing anything rational if left to themselves. It is a man's religion. My uncle says so too, and he ought to know." The conversation was meandering in a kind of vicious circle. Both Isaacs and I were far too deeply interested in the question to care for such idle discussion. How could this beautiful but not very intellectual English girl, with her prejudices and her clumsiness at repartee or argument, ever comprehend or handle delicately so difficult a subject? I was disappointed in her. Perhaps this was natural enough, considering that with two such men as we she must be entirely out of her element. She was of the type of brilliant, healthy, northern girls, who depend more on their animal spirits and enjoyment of living for their happiness than upon any natural or acquired mental powers. With a horse, or a tennis court, or even a ball to amuse her, she would appear at her very best; would be at ease and do the right thing. But when called upon to sustain a conversation, such as that into which her curiosity about Isaacs had plunged her, she did not know what to do. She was constrained, and even some of her native grace of manner forsook her. Why did she avoid his eyes and resort to such a petty little trick as threading a needle in order to get a look at him? An American girl, or a French woman, would have seen that her strength lay in perfect frankness; that Isaacs' straightforward nature would make him tell her unhesitatingly anything she wanted to know about himself, and that her position was strong enough for her to look him in the face and ask him what she pleased. But she allowed herself to be embarrassed, and though she had been really glad to see him, and liked him and thought him handsome, she was beginning to wish he would go, merely because she did not know what to talk about, and would not give him a chance to choose his own subject. As neither of us were inclined to carry the analysis of matrimony any farther, nor to dispute the opinions of Mr. Currie Ghyrkins as quoted by his niece, there was a pause. I struck in and boldly changed the subject. "Are you going to see the polo this afternoon, Miss Westonhaugh? I heard at the hotel that there was to be a match to-day of some interest." "Oh yes, of course. I would not miss it for anything. Lord Steepleton is coming to tiffin, and we shall ride down together to Annandale. Of course you are going too; it will be a splendid thing. Do you play polo, Mr. Griggs? Mr. Isaacs is a great player, when he can be induced to take the trouble. He knows more about it than he does about tennis." "I am very fond of the game," I answered, "but I have no horses here, and with my weight it is not easy to get a mount for such rough work." "Do not disturb yourself on that score," said Isaacs; "you know my stable is always at your disposal, and I have a couple of ponies that would carry you well enough. Let us have a game one of those days, whenever we can get the ground. We will play on opposite sides and match the far west against the far east." "What fun!" cried Miss Westonhaugh, her face brightening at the idea, "and I will hold the stakes and bestow the crown on the victor." "What is to be the prize?" asked Isaacs, with a smile of pleasure. He was very literal and boyish sometimes. "That depends on which is the winner," she answered. There was a noise among the trees of horses' hoofs on the hard path, and presently we heard a voice calling loudly for a saice who seemed to be lagging far behind. It was a clear strong voice, and the speaker abused the groom's female relations to the fourth and fifth generations with considerable command of the Hindustani language. Miss Westonhaugh, who had not been in the country long, did not understand a word of the very free swearing that was going on in the woods, but Isaacs looked annoyed, and I registered a black mark against the name of the new-comer, whoever he might be. "Oh! it is Lord Steepleton," said the young girl. "He seems to be always having a row with his servants. Don't go," she went on as I took up my hat; "he is such a good fellow, you ought to know him." Lord Steepleton Kildare now appeared at the corner of the lawn, hotly pursued by his breathless groom, who had been loitering on the way, and had thus roused his master's indignation. He was, as I have said, a fine specimen of a young Englishman, though being Irish by descent he would have indignantly denied any such nationality. I saw when he had dismounted that he was tall and straight, though not a very heavily built man. He carried his head high, and looked every inch a soldier as he strode across the grass, carefully avoiding the pegs of the tennis net. He wore a large gray felt hat, like every one else, and he shook hands all round before he took it off, and settled himself in an easy chair as near as he could get to Miss Westonhaugh's hammock. "How are ye? Ah--yes, Mr. Isaacs, Mr. Griggs of Allahabad. Jolly day, isn't it?" and he looked vaguely at the grass. "Really, Miss Westonhaugh, I got in such a rage with my rascal of a saice that I did not remember I was so near the house. I am really very sorry I talked like that. I hope you did not think I was murdering him?" Isaacs looked annoyed. "Yes," said he, "we thought Mahmoud was going to have a bad time of it. I believe Miss Westonhaugh does not understand Hindustani." A look of genuine distress came into the Englishman's face. "Really," said he, very simply. "You don't know how sorry I am that any one should have heard me. I am so hasty. But let me apologise to you all most sincerely for disturbing you with my brutal temper." His misdeed had not been a very serious crime after all, and there was something so frank and honest about his awkward little apology that I was charmed. The man was a gentleman. Isaacs bowed in silence, and Miss Westonhaugh had evidently never thought much about it. "We were talking about polo when you came, Lord Steepleton; Mr. Isaacs and Mr. Griggs are going to play a match, and I am to hold the stakes. Do you not want to make one in the game?" "May I?" said the young man, grateful to her for having helped him out. "May I? I should like it awfully. I so rarely get a chance of playing with any except the regular set here." And he looked inquiringly at us. "We should be delighted, of course," said Isaacs. "By the way, can you help us to make up the number? And when shall it be?" He seemed suddenly very much interested in this projected contest. "Oh yes," said Kildare, "I will manage to fill up the game, and we can play next Monday. I know the ground is free then." "Very good; on Monday. We are at Laurie's on the hill." "I am staying with Jack Tygerbeigh, near Peterhof. Come and see us. I will let you know before Monday. Oh, Mr. Griggs, I saw such a nice thing about me in the _Howler_ the other day--so many thanks. No, really, greatly obliged, you know; people say horrid things about me sometimes. Good-bye, good-bye, delighted to have seen you." "Good morning, Miss Westonhaugh." "Good morning; so good of you to take pity on my solitude." She smiled kindly at Isaacs and civilly at me. And we went our way. As we looked back after mounting to lift our hats once more, I saw that Miss Westonhaugh had succeeded in getting out of the hammock and was tying on a pith hat, while Lord Steepleton had armed himself with balls and rackets from a box on the verandah. As we bowed they came down the steps, looking the very incarnation of animal life and spirits in the anticipation of the game they loved best. The bright autumn sun threw their figures into bold relief against the dark shadow of the verandah, and I thought to myself they made a very pretty picture. I seemed to be always seeing pictures, and my imagination was roused in a new direction. We rode away under the trees. My impression of the whole visit was unsatisfactory. I had thought Mr. Currie Ghyrkins would be there, and that I would be able to engage him in a political discussion. We could have talked income-tax, and cotton duties, and Kabul by the hour, and Miss Westonhaugh and Isaacs would have had a pleasant _tête-à-tête._ Instead of this I had been decidedly the unlucky third who destroys the balance of so much pleasure in life, for I felt that Isaacs was not a man to be embarrassed if left alone with a woman, or to embarrass her. He was too full of tact, and his sensibilities were so fine that, with his easy command of language, he must be agreeable _quand même_; and such an opportunity would have given him an easy lead away from the athletic Kildare, whom I suspected strongly of being a rival for Miss Westonhaugh's favour. There is an easy air of familiar proprietorship about an Englishman in love that is not to be mistaken. It is a subtle thing, and expresses itself neither in word nor deed in its earlier stages of development; but it is there all the same, and the combination of this possessive mood, with a certain shyness which often goes with it, is amusing. "Griggs," said Isaacs, "have you ever seen the Rajah of Baithopoor?" "No; you had some business with him this morning, had you not?" "Yes--some--business--if you call it so. If you would like to see him I can take you there, and I think you would be interested in the--the business. It is not often such gems are bought and sold in such a way, and besides, he is very amusing. He is at least two thousand years old, and will go to Saturn when he dies. His fingers are long and crooked, and that which he putteth into his pockets, verily he shall not take it out." "A pleasing picture; a good contrast to the one we have left behind us. I like contrasts, and I should like to see him." "You shall." And we lit our cheroots. * * * * * CHAPTER V. "We will go there at four," said Isaacs, coming into my rooms after tiffin, a meal of which I found he rarely partook. "I said three, this morning, but it is not a bad plan to keep natives waiting. It makes them impatient, and then they commit themselves." "You are Machiavellian. It is pretty clear which of you is asking the favour." "Yes, it is pretty clear." He sat down and took up the last number of the _Howler_ which lay on the table. Presently he looked up. "Griggs, why do you not come to Delhi? We might start a newspaper there, you know, in the Conservative interest." "In the interest of Mr. Algernon Currie Ghyrkins?" I inquired. "Precisely. You anticipate my thoughts with a true sympathy. I suppose you have no conscience?" "Political conscience? No, certainly not, out of my own country, which is the only one where that sort of thing commands a high salary. No, I have no conscience." "You would really write as willingly for the Conservatives as you do for the Liberals?" "Oh yes. I could not write so well on the Conservative side just now, because they are 'in,' and it is more blessed to abuse than to be abused, and ever so much easier. But as far as any prejudice on the subject is concerned, I have none. I had as lief defend a party that robs India 'for her own good,' as support those who would rob her with a more cynical frankness and unblushingly transfer the proceeds to their own pockets. I do not care a rush whether they rob Peter to pay Paul, or fraudulently deprive Paul of his goods for the benefit of Peter." "That is the way to look at it. I could tell you some very pretty stories about that kind of thing. As for the journalistic enterprise, it is only a possible card to be played if the old gentleman is obdurate." "Isaacs," said I, "I have only known you three days, but you have taken me into your confidence to some extent; probably because I am not English. I may be of use to you, and I am sure I sincerely hope so. Meanwhile I want to ask you a question, if you will allow me to." I paused for an answer. We were standing by the open door, and Isaacs leaned back against the door-post, his eyes fixed on me, half closed, as he threw his head back. He looked at me somewhat curiously, and I thought a smile flickered round his mouth, as if he anticipated what the question would be. "Certainly," he said slowly. "Ask me anything you like. I have nothing to conceal." "Do you seriously think of marrying, or proposing to marry, Miss Katharine Westonhaugh?" "I do seriously think of proposing to marry, and of marrying, Miss Westonhaugh." He looked very determined as he thus categorically affirmed his intention. I knew he meant it, and I knew enough of Oriental character to understand that a man like Abdul Hafizben-Isâk, of strong passions, infinite wit, and immense wealth, was not likely to fail in anything he undertook to do. When Asiatic indifference gives way under the strong pressure of some master passion, there is no length to which the hot and impetuous temper beneath may not carry the man. Isaacs had evidently made up his mind. I did not think he could know much about the usual methods of wooing English girls, but as I glanced at his graceful figure, his matchless eyes, and noted for the hundredth time the commanding, high-bred air that was the breath of his character, I felt that his rival would have but a poor chance of success. He guessed my thoughts. "What do you think of me?" he asked, smiling. "Will you back me for a place? I have advantages, you must allow--and worldly advantages too. They are not rich people at all." "My dear Isaacs, I will back you to win. But as far as 'worldly advantages' are concerned, do not trust to wealth for a moment. Do not flatter yourself that there will be any kind of a bargain, as if you were marrying a Persian girl. There is nothing venal in that young lady's veins, I am sure." "Allah forbid! But there is something very venal in the veins of Mr. Currie Ghyrkins. I propose to carry the outworks one by one. He is her uncle, her guardian, her only relation, save her brother. I do not think either of those men would be sorry to see her married to a man of stainless name and considerable fortune." "You forget your three incumbrances, as you called them last night." "No--I do not forget them. It is allowed me by my religion to marry a fourth, and I need not tell you that she would be thenceforth my only wife." "But would her guardian and brother ever think of allowing her to take such a position?" "Why not? You know very well that the English in general hardly consider our marriages to be marriages at all--knowing the looseness of the bond. That is the prevailing impression." "Yes, I know. But then they would consider your marriage with Miss Westonhaugh in the same light, which would not make matters any easier, as far as I can see." "Pardon me. I should marry Miss Westonhaugh by the English marriage service and under English law. I should be as much bound to her, and to her alone, as if I were an Englishman myself." "Well, you have evidently thought it out and taken legal advice; and really, as far as the technical part of it goes, I suppose you have as good a chance as Lord Steepleton Kildare." Isaacs frowned, and his eyes flashed. I saw at once that he considered the Irish officer a rival, and a dangerous one. I did not think that if Isaacs had fair play and the same opportunities Kildare had much chance. Besides there was a difficulty in the way. "As far as religion is concerned, Lord Steepleton is not much better off than you, if he wants to marry Miss Westonhaugh. The Kildares have been Roman Catholics since the memory of man, and they are very proud of it. Theoretically, it is as hard for a Roman Catholic man to marry a Protestant woman, as for a Mussulman to wed a Christian of any denomination. Harder, in fact, for your marriage depends upon the consent of the lady, and his upon the consent of the Church. He has all sorts of difficulties to surmount, while you have only to get your personality accepted--which, when I look at you, I think might be done," I added, laughing. "_Jo hoga, so hoga_--what will be, will be," he said; "but religion or no religion, I mean to do it." Then he lighted a cigarette and said, "Come, it is time to go and see his Saturnine majesty, the Maharajah of Baithopoor." I called for my hat and gloves. "By-the-bye, Griggs, you may as well put on a black coat. You know the old fellow is a king, after all, and you had better produce a favourable impression." I retired to comply with his request, and as I came back he turned quickly and came towards me, holding out both hands, with a very earnest look in his face. "Griggs, I care for that lady more than I can tell you," he said, taking my hands in his. "My dear fellow, I am sure you do. People do not go suddenly into trances at a name that is indifferent to them. I am sure you love her very honestly and dearly." "You and she have come into my life almost together, for it was not until I talked with you last night that I made up my mind. Will you help me? I have not a friend in the world." The simple, boyish look was in his eyes, and he stood holding my hands and waiting for my answer. I was so fascinated that I would have then and there gone through fire and water for him, as I would now. "Yes. I will help you. I will be a friend to you." "Thank you. I believe you." He dropped my hands, and we turned and went out, silent. In all my wanderings I had never promised any man my friendship and unconditional support before. There was something about Isaacs that overcame and utterly swept away preconceived ideas, rules, and prejudices. It was but the third day of our acquaintance, and here was I swearing eternal friendship like a school-girl; promising to help a man, of whose very existence I knew nothing three days ago, to marry a woman whom I had seen for the first time yesterday. But I resolved that, having pledged myself, I would do my part with my might, whatever that part might be. Meanwhile we rode along, and Isaacs began to talk about the visit we were going to make. "I think," he said, "that you had better know something about this matter beforehand. The way is long, and we cannot ride fast over the steep roads, so there is plenty of time. Do not imagine that I have idly asked you to go with me because I supposed it would amuse you. Dismiss also from your mind the impression that it is a question of buying and selling jewels. It is a very serious matter, and if you would prefer to have nothing to do with it, do not hesitate to say so. I promised the maharajah this morning that I would bring, this afternoon, a reliable person of experience, who could give advice, and who might be induced to give his assistance as well as his counsel. I have not known you long, but I know you by reputation, and I decided to bring you, if you would come. From the very nature of the case I can tell you nothing more, unless you consent to go with me." "I will go," I said. "In that case I will try and explain the situation in as few words as possible. The maharajah is in a tight place. You will readily understand that the present difficulties in Kabul cause him endless anxiety, considering the position of his dominions. The unexpected turn of events, following now so rapidly on each other since the English wantonly sacrificed Cavagnari and his friends to a vainglorious love of bravado, has shaken the confidence of the native princes in the stability of English rule. They are frightened out of their senses, having the fear of the tribes before them if the English should be worsted; and they dread, on the other hand, lest the English, finding themselves in great straits, should levy heavy contributions on them--the native princes--for the consolidation of what they term the 'Empire.' They have not much sense, these poor old kings and boy princes, or they would see that the English do not dare to try any of those old-fashioned Clive tactics now. But old Baithopoor has heard all about the King of Oude, and thinks he may share the same fate." "I think he may make his mind easy on that score. The kingdom of Baithopoor is too inconveniently situated and too full of mosquitoes to attract the English. Besides, there are more roses than rubies there just now." "True, and that question interests me closely, for the old man owes me a great deal of money. It was I who pulled him through the last famine." "Not a very profitable investment, I should think. Shall you ever see a rupee of that money again?" "Yes; he will pay me; though I did not think so a week ago, or indeed yesterday. I lent him the means of feeding his people and saving many of them from actual death by starvation, because there are so many Mussulmans among them, though the maharajah is a Hindoo. As for him, he might starve to-morrow, the infidel hound; I would not give him a _chowpatti_ or a mouthful of _dal_ to keep his wretched old body alive." "Do I understand that this interview relates to the repayment of the moneys you have advanced?" "Yes; though that is not the most interesting part of it. He wanted to pay me in flesh--human flesh, and he offered to make me a king into the bargain, if I would forgive him the debt. The latter part of the proposal was purely visionary. The promise to pay in so much humanity he is able to perform. I have not made up my mind." I looked at Isaacs in utter astonishment. What in the world could he mean? Had the maharajah offered him some more wives--creatures of peerless beauty and immense value? No; I knew he would not hesitate now to refuse such a proposition. "Will you please to explain what you mean by his paying you in man?" I asked. "In two words. The Maharajah of Baithopoor has in his possession a man. Safely stowed away under a triple watch and carefully tended, this man awaits his fate as the maharajah may decide. The English Government would pay an enormous sum for this man, but Baithopoor fears that they would ask awkward questions, and perhaps not believe the answers he would give them. So, as he owes me a good deal, he thinks I might be induced to take his prisoner and realise him, so to speak; thus cancelling the debt, and saving him from the alternative of putting the man to death privately, or of going through dangerous negotiations with the Government. Now this thing is perfectly feasible, and it depends upon me to say 'yes' or 'no' to the proposition. Do you see now? It is a serious matter enough." "But the man--who is he? Why do the English want him so much?" Isaacs pressed his horse close to mine, and looking round to see that the saice was a long way behind, he put his hand on my shoulder, and, leaning out of the saddle till his mouth almost touched my ear, he whispered quickly-- "Shere Ali." "The devil, you say!" I ejaculated, surprised out of grammar and decorum by the startling news. Persons who were in India in 1879 will not have forgotten the endless speculation caused by the disappearance of the Emir of Afghanistan, Shere Ali, in the spring of that year. Defeated by the English at Ali Musjid and Peiwar, and believing his cause lost, he fled, no one knew whither; though there is reason to think that he might have returned to power and popularity among the Afghan tribes if he had presented himself after the murder of Cavagnari. "Yes," continued Isaacs, "he has been a prisoner in the palace of Baithopoor for six weeks, and not a soul save the maharajah and you and I know it. He came to Baithopoor, humbly disguised as a Yogi from the hills, though he is a Mussulman, and having obtained a private hearing, disclosed his real name, proposing to the sovereign a joint movement on Kabul, then just pacified by the British, and promising all manner of things for the assistance. Old Baitho, who is no fool, clapped him into prison under a guard of Punjabi soldiers who could not speak a word of Afghan, and after due consideration packed up his traps and betook himself to Simla by short stages, for the journey is not an easy one for a man of his years. He arrived the day before yesterday, and has ostensibly come to congratulate the Viceroy on the success of the British arms. He has had to modify the enthusiasm of his proposed address, in consequence of the bad news from Kabul. Of course, his first move was to send for me, and I had a long interview this morning, in which he explained everything. I told him that I would not move in the matter without a third person--necessary as a witness when dealing with such people--and I have brought you." "But what was his proposal to invest you with a crown? Did he think you were a likely person for a new Emir of Kabul?" "Exactly. My faith, and above all, my wealth, suggested to him that I, as a born Persian, might be the very man for the vacant throne. No doubt, the English would be delighted to have me there. But the whole thing is visionary and ridiculous. I think I shall accept the other proposition, and take the prisoner. It is a good bargain." I was silent. The intimate way in which I had seen Isaacs hitherto had made me forget his immense wealth and his power. I had not realised that he could be so closely connected with intrigues of such importance as this, or that independant native princes were likely to look upon him as a possible Emir of Afghanistan. I had nothing to say, and I determined to keep to the part I was brought to perform, which was that of a witness, and nothing more. If my advice were asked, I would speak boldly for Shere Ali's liberation and protest against the poor man being bought and sold in this way. This train of thought reminded me of Isaacs' words when we left Miss Westonhaugh that morning. "It is not often," he had said, "that you see such jewels bought and sold." No, indeed! "You see," said Isaacs, as we neared our destination, "Baithopoor is in my power, body and soul, for a word from me would expose him to the British Government as 'harbouring traitors,' as they would express it. On the other hand, the fact that you, the third party, are a journalist, and could at a moment's notice give publicity to the whole thing, will be an additional safeguard. I have him as in a vice. And now put on your most formal manners and look as if you were impenetrable as the rock and unbending as cast iron, for we have reached his bungalow." I could not but admire the perfect calm and caution with which he was conducting an affair involving millions of money, a possible indictment for high treason, and the key-note of the Afghan question, while I knew that his whole soul was absorbed in the contemplation of a beautiful picture ever before him, sleeping or waking. Whatever I might think of his bargaining for the possession of Shere Ali, he had a great, even untiring, intellect. He had the elements of a leader of men, and I fondly hoped he might be a ruler some day. The bungalow in which the Maharajah of Baithopoor had taken up his residence during his visit was very much like all the rest of the houses I saw in Simla. The verandah, however, was crowded with servants and sowars in gorgeous but rather tawdry liveries, not all of them as clean as they should have been. Horses with elaborate high saddles and embroidered trappings rather the worse for wear were being led up and down the walk. As we neared the door there was a strong smell of rosewater and native perfumes and hookah tobacco--the indescribable odour of Eastern high life. There was also a general air of wasteful and tawdry dowdiness, if I may coin such a word, which one constantly sees in the retinues of native princes and rich native merchants, ill contrasting with the great intrinsic value of some of the ornaments worn by the chief officers of the train. Isaacs spoke a few words in a low voice to the jemadar at the door, and we were admitted into a small room in the side of the house, opening, as all rooms do in India, on to the verandah. There were low wooden charpoys around the walls, and we sat down, waiting till the maharajah should be advised of our arrival. Very soon a jemadar came in and informed us that "if the _sahib log_, who were the protectors of the poor, would deign to be led by him," we should be shown into the royal presence. So we rose and followed the obsequious official into another apartment. The room where the maharajah awaited us was even smaller than the one into which we had been first shown. It was on the back of the house, and only half lighted by the few rays of afternoon sun that struggled through the dense foliage outside. I suppose this apartment had been chosen as the scene of the interview on account of its seclusion. Outside the window, which was closed, a sowar paced slowly up and down to keep away any curious listeners. A heavy curtain hung before the door through which we had entered. I thought that on the whole the place seemed pretty safe. The old maharajah sat cross-legged upon a great pile of dark-red cushions, his slippers by his side, and a huge hookah before him. He wore a plain white pugree with a large jewel set on one side, and his body was swathed and wrapped in dark thick stuffs, as if he felt keenly the cold autumn air. His face was long, of an ashy yellowish colour, and an immense white moustache hung curling down over his sombre robe. One hand protruded from the folds and held the richly-jewelled mouthpiece of the pipe to his lips, and I noticed that the fingers were long and crooked, winding themselves curiously round the gold stem, as if revelling in the touch of the precious metal and the gems. As we came within his range of vision, his dark eyes shot a quick glance of scrutiny at me and then dropped again. Not a movement of the head or body betrayed a consciousness of our presence. Isaacs made a long salutation in Hindustani, and I followed his example, but he did not take off his shoes or make anything more than an ordinary bow. It was quite evident that he was master of the situation. The old man took the pipe from his mouth and replied in a deep hollow voice that he was glad to see us, and that, in consideration of our wealth, fame, and renowned wisdom, he would waive all ceremony and beg us to be seated. We sat down cross-legged on cushions before him, and as near as we could get, so that it seemed as if we three were performing some sacred rite of which the object was the tall hookah that stood in the centre of our triangle. Being seated, Isaacs addressed the prince, still in Hindustani, and said that the splendour of his sublime majesty, which was like the sun dispelling the clouds, so overcame him with fear and trembling, that he humbly implored permission to make use of the Persian tongue, which, he was aware, the lord of boundless wisdom spoke with even greater ease than himself. Without waiting for an answer, and with no perceptible manifestation of any such "fear and trembling" as he professed, Isaacs at once began to speak in his native tongue, and dropping all forms of ceremony or circumlocution plunged boldly into business. He did not hesitate to explain to the maharajah the strength of his position, dwelling on the fact that, by a word to the English of the whereabouts of Shere Ali, he could plunge Baithopoor into hopeless and endless entanglements, to which there could be but one issue--absorption into the British Râj. He dwelt on the large sums the maharajah owed him for assistance lent during the late famine, and he skilfully produced the impression that he wanted the money down, then and there. "If your majesty should refuse to satisfy my just claims, I have ample weapons by which to satisfy them for myself, and no considerations of mercy or pity for your majesty will tempt me to abate one rupee in the account of your indebtedness, which, as you well know, is not swelled by any usurious interest. You could not have borrowed the money on such easy terms from any bank in India or England, and if I have been merciful hitherto, I will be so no longer. What saith the Apostle of Allah? 'Verily, life for life, and eye for eye, and nose for nose, and ear for ear, and tooth for tooth, and for wounding retaliation.' And the time of your promise is expired and you shall pay me. And is not the wise Frank, who sitteth at my right hand, the ready writer, who giveth to the public every day a new book to read, the paper of news, _Khabar-i-Khagaz_ wherein are written the misdeeds of the wicked, and the dealings of the fraudulent and the unwary receive their just reward? And think you he will not make a great writing, several columns in length, and deliver it to the devils that perform his bidding, and shall they not multiply what he hath written, and sow it broadcast over the British Râj for the minor consideration of one anna a copy, that all shall see how the Maharajah of Baithopoor doth scandalously repudiate his debts, and harbour traitors to the Râj in his palace?" Isaacs said all this in a solemn and impressive manner, calculated to inspire awe and terror in the soul of the unhappy debtor. As for the maharajah, the cold sweat stood on his face, and at the last words his anxiety was so great that the long fingers uncurled spasmodically and the jewelled mouthpiece fell back, as the head of a snake, among the silken coils of the tube at his feet. Instantly, on feeling the grasping hand empty, his majesty, with more alacrity than I would have expected, darted forward with outstretched claws, as a hawk on his prey, and seizing the glittering thing returned it to his lips with a look of evident relief. It was habit, of course, for we were not exactly the men to plunder him of his toy, but there was a fierceness about the whole action that spoke of the real miser. Then there was silence for a moment. The old man was evidently greatly impressed by the perils of his situation. Isaacs continued. "Your majesty well perceives that you have surrounded yourself with dangers on all sides. No danger threatens me. I could buy you and Baithopoor to-morrow if I chose. But I am a just man. When the prophet, whose name be blessed, saith that we shall have eye for eye, and nose for nose, and for wounding retaliation, he saith also that 'he that remitteth the same as alms it shall be an atonement unto him.' Now your majesty is a hard man, and I well know that if I force you to pay me now you will cruelly tax and oppress your subjects to refill your coffers. And many of your subjects are true believers, following the prophet, upon whom be peace; and it is also written 'Thou shalt rob a stranger, but thou shalt not rob a brother,'--and if I cause you to rob my brethren is not the sin mine, and the atonement thereof? Now also has the lawful interest on your bond mounted up to several lakhs of rupees. But for the sake of my brethren who are in bondage to you, who are an unbeliever and shall broil everlastingly in raging flames, I will yet make a covenant with you, and the agreement thereof shall be this: "You shall deliver into my hand, before the dark half of the next moon, the man"--Isaacs lowered his voice to a whisper, barely audible in the still room, where the only sound heard as he paused was the tread of the sowar on the verandah outside-- "the man Shere Ali, formerly Emir of Afghanistan, now hidden in your palace of Baithopoor. Him you shall give to me safe and untouched at the place which I shall choose, northwards from here, in the pass towards Keitung. And there shall not be an hair of his head touched, and if it is good in my eyes I will give him up to the British; and if it is good in my eyes, I will slay him, and you shall ask no questions. And if you refuse to do this I will go to the great lord sahib and tell him of your doings, and you will be arrested before this night and shall not escape. But if you consent and put your hand to this agreement, I will speak no word, and you shall depart in peace; and moreover, for the sake of the true believers in your kingdom I will remit to you the whole of the interest on your debt; and the bond you shall pay at your convenience. I have spoken, do you answer me." Isaacs calmly took from his pocket two rolls covered with Persian writing, and lighting a cigarette, proceeded to peruse them carefully, to detect any flaw or error in their composition. The face of the old maharajah betrayed great emotion, but he bravely pulled away at his hookah and tried to think over the situation. In the hope of delivering himself from his whole debt he had rashly given himself into the hands of a man who hated him, though he had discovered that hatred too late. He had flattered himself that the loan had been made out of friendly feeling and a desire for his interest and support; he found that Isaacs had lent the money, for real or imaginary religious motives, in the interest of his co-religionists. I sat silently watching the varying passions as they swept over the repulsive face of the old man. The silence must have lasted a quarter of an hour. "Give me the covenant," he said at last, "for I am in the tiger's clutches. I will sign it, since I must. But it shall be requited to you, Abdul Hafiz; and when your body has been eaten of jackals and wild pigs in the forest, your soul shall enter into the shape of a despised sweeper, and you and your off-spring shall scavenge the streets of the cities of my kingdom and of the kingdom of my son, and son's son, to ten thousand generations." A Hindoo cannot express scorn more deadly or hate more lasting than this. Isaacs smiled, but there was a concentrated look in his face, relentless and hard, as he answered the insult. "I am not going to bandy words with you. But if you are not quick about signing that paper I may change my mind, and send for the Angrezi sowars from Peterhof. So you had better hurry yourself." Isaacs produced a small inkhorn and a reed pen from his pocket. "Sign," he said, rising to his feet "before that soldier outside passes the window three times, or I will deliver you to the British." Trembling in every joint, and the perspiration standing on his face like beads, the old man seized the pen and traced his name and titles at the foot, first of one copy, and then of the other. Isaacs followed, writing his full name in the Persian character, and I signed my name last, "Paul Griggs," in large letters at the bottom of each roll, adding the word "witness," in case of the transaction becoming known. "And now," said Isaacs to the maharajah, "despatch at once a messenger, and let the man here mentioned be brought under a strong guard and by circuitous roads to the pass of Keitung, and let them there encamp before the third week from to-day, when the moon is at the full. And I will be there and will receive the man. And woe to you if he come not; and woe to you if you oppress the true believers in your realm." He turned on his heel, and I followed him out of the room after making a brief salutation to the old man, cowering among his cushions, a ceremony which Isaacs omitted, whether intentionally or from forgetfulness, I could not say. We passed through the house out into the air, and mounting our horses rode away, leaving the double row of servants salaaming to the ground. The duration of our private interview with the maharajah had given them an immense idea of our importance. We had come at four and it was now nearly five. The long pauses and the Persian circumlocutions had occupied a good deal of time. "You do not seem to have needed my counsel or assistance much," I said. "With such an armoury of weapons you could manage half-a-dozen maharajahs." "Yes--perhaps so. But I have strong reasons for wishing this affair quickly over, and the editor of a daily paper is a thing of terror to a native prince; you must have seen that." "What do you mean to do with your man when he is safely in your hands, if it is not an indiscreet question?" "Do with him?" asked Isaacs with some astonishment. "Is it possible you have not guessed? He is a brave man, and a true believer. I will give him money and letters, that he may make his way to Baghdad, or wherever he will be safe. He shall depart in peace, and be as free as air." I had half suspected my friend of some such generous intention, but he had played his part of unrelenting hardness so well in our late interview with the Hindoo prince that it seemed incomprehensible that a man should be so pitiless and so kind on the same day. There was not a trace of hardness on his beautiful features now, and as we rounded the hill and caught the last beams of the sun, now sinking behind the mountains, his face seemed transfigured as with a glory, and I could hardly bear to look at him. He held his hat in his hand and faced the west for an instant, as though thanking the declining day for its freshness and beauty; and I thought to myself that the sun was lucky to see such an exquisite picture before he bid Simla good-night, and that he should shine the brighter for it the next day, since he would look on nothing fairer in his twelve hours' wandering over the other half of creation. "And now," said he, "it is late, but if we ride towards Annandale we may meet them coming back from the polo match we have missed." His eyes glowed at the thought. Shere Ali, the maharajah, bonds, principal, and interest, were all forgotten in the anticipation of a brief meeting with the woman he loved. * * * * * CHAPTER VI. "Why did you not come and see the game? After all your enthusiasm about polo this morning, I did not think you would miss anything so good," were the first words of Miss Westonhaugh as we met her and Kildare in the narrow path that leads down to Annandale. Two men were riding behind them, who proved to be Mr. Currie Ghyrkins and Mr. John Westonhaugh. The latter was duly introduced to us; a quiet, spare man, with his sister's features, but without a trace of her superb colour and animal spirits. He had the real Bombay paleness, and had been steamed to the bone through the rains. As we were introduced, Isaacs started and said quickly that he believed he had met Mr. Westonhaugh before. "It is possible, quite possible," said that gentleman affably, "especially if you ever go to Bombay." "Yes--it was in Bombay--some twelve years ago. You have probably forgotten me." "Ah, yes. I was young and green then. I wonder you remember me." He did not show any very lively interest in the matter, though he smiled pleasantly. Miss Westonhaugh must have been teasing Lord Steepleton, for he looked flushed and annoyed, and she was in capital spirits. We turned to go back with the party, and by a turn of the wrist Isaacs wheeled his horse to the side of Miss Westonhaugh's, a position he did not again abandon. They were leading, and I resolved they should have a chance, as the path was not broad enough for more than two to ride abreast. So I furtively excited my horse by a touch of the heel and a quick strain on the curb, throwing him across the road, and thus producing a momentary delay, of which the two riders in front took advantage to increase their distance. Then we fell in, Mr. Ghyrkins and I in front, while the dejected Kildare rode behind with Mr. John Westonhaugh. Ghyrkins and I, being heavy men, heavily mounted, controlled the situation, and before long Isaacs and Miss Westonhaugh were a couple of hundred yards ahead, and we only caught occasional glimpses of them through the trees as they wound in and out along the path. "What are those youngsters talking about, back there? Tigers, I'll be bound," said Mr. Ghyrkins to me. Sure enough, they were. "What do you suppose I found when we got back this afternoon, Mr. Griggs? Why, this hair-brained young Kildare has been proposing to my niece----" his horse stumbled, but recovered himself in a moment. "You don't mean it," said I, rather startled. "Oh no, no, no. I don't mean that at all. Ha! ha! ha! very good, very good. No, no. Lord Steepleton wants us all to go on a tiger-hunt to amuse John, and he proposes--ha! ha!--really too funny of me--that Miss Westonhaugh should go with us." "I suppose you have no objection, Mr. Ghyrkins? Ladies constantly go on such expeditions, and they do not appear to be the least in the way." "Objections? Of course I have objections. Do you suppose I want to drag my niece to a premature grave? Think of the fever and the rough living and all, and she only just out from England." "She looks as if she could stand anything," I said, as just then an open space in the trees gave us a glimpse of Miss Westonhaugh and Isaacs ambling along and apparently in earnest conversation. She certainly looked strong enough to go tiger-hunting that minute, as she sat erect but half turned to the off side, listening to what Isaacs seemed to be saying. "I hope you will not go and tell her so," said Ghyrkins. "If she gets an idea that the thing is possible, there will be no holding her. You don't know her. I hardly know her myself. Never saw her since she was a baby till the other day. Now you are the sort of person to go after tigers. Why do you not go off with my nephew and Mr. Isaacs and Kildare, and kill as many of them as you like?" "I have no objection, I am sure. I suppose the _Howler_ could spare me for a fortnight, now that I have converted the Press Commissioner, your new _deus ex machina_ for the obstruction of news. What a motley party we should be. Let me see.--a Bombay Civil Servant, an Irish nobleman, a Persian millionaire, and a Yankee newspaper man. By Jove! add to that a famous Revenue Commissioner and a reigning beauty, and the sextett is complete." Mr. Ghyrkins looked pleased at the gross flattery of himself. I recollected suddenly that, though he was far from famous as a revenue commissioner, I had read of some good shooting he had done in his younger days. Here was a chance. "Besides, Mr. Ghyrkins, a tiger-hunting party would not be the thing without some seasoned Nimrod to advise and direct us. Who so fitted for the post as the man of many a chase, the companion of Maori, the slayer of the twelve foot tiger in the Nepaul hills in 1861?" "You have a good memory, Mr. Griggs," said the old fellow, perfectly delighted, and now fairly launched on his favourite topic. "By Gad, sir, if I thought I should get such another chance I would go with you to-morrow!" "Why not? there are lots of big man-eaters about," and I incontinently reeled off half a page of statistics, more or less accurate, about the number of persons destroyed by snakes and wild beasts in the last year. "Of course most of those deaths were from tigers, and it is a really good action to kill a few. Many people can see tigers but cannot shoot them, whereas your deeds of death amongst them ate a matter of history. You really ought to be philanthropic, Mr. Ghyrkins, and go with us. We might stand a chance of seeing some real sport then." "Why, really, now that you make me think of it, I believe I should like it amazingly, and I could leave my niece with Lady--Lady--Stick-in-the-mud; what the deuce is her name? The wife of the Chief Justice, you know. You ought to know, really--I never remember names much;" he jerked out his sentences irately. "Certainly, Lady Smith-Tompkins, you mean. Yes, you might do that--that is, if Miss Westonhaugh has had the measles, and is not afraid of them. I heard this morning that three of the little Smith-Tompkinses had them quite badly." "You don't say so! Well, well, we shall find some one else, no doubt." I was certain that at that very moment Isaacs and Miss Westonhaugh were planning the whole expedition, and so I returned to the question of sport and inquired where we should go. This led to considerable discussion, and before we arrived at Mr. Ghyrkins' bungalow--still in the same order--it was very clear that the old sportsman had made up his mind to kill one more tiger at all events; and that, rather than forego the enjoyment of the chase, he would be willing to take his niece with him. As for the direction of the expedition, that could be decided in a day or two. It was not the best season for tigers--the early spring is better--but they are always to be found in the forests of the Terai, the country along the base of the hills, north of Oude. When we reached the house it was quite dark, for we had ridden slowly. The light from the open door, falling across the verandah, showed us Miss Westonhaugh seated in a huge chair, and Isaacs standing by her side slightly bending, and holding his hat in his hand. They were still talking, but as we rode up to the lawn and shouted for the saices, Isaacs stood up and looked across towards us, and their voices ceased. It was evident that he had succeeded in thoroughly interesting her, for I thought--though it was some distance, and the light on them was not strong--that as he straightened himself and stopped speaking, she looked up to his face as if regretting that he did not go on. I dismounted with the rest and walked up to bid Miss Westonhaugh good-night. "You must come and dine to-morrow night," said Mr. Ghyrkins, "and we will arrange all about it. Sharp seven. To-morrow is Sunday, you know. Kildare, you must come too, if you mean business. Seven. We must look sharp and start, if we mean to come back here before the Viceroy goes." "Oh in that case," said Kildare, turning to me, "we can settle all about the polo match for Monday, can't we?" "Of course, very good of you to take the trouble." "Not a bit of it. Good-night." We bowed and went back to find our horses in the gloom. After some fumbling, for it was intensely dark after facing the light in the doorway of the bungalow, we got into the saddle and turned homeward through the trees. "Thank you, Griggs," said Isaacs. "May your feet never weary, and your shadow never be less." "Don't mention it, and thanks about the shadow. Only it is never likely to be less than at the present moment. How dark it is, to be sure!" I knew well enough what he was thanking me for. I lit a cheroot. "Isaacs," I said, "you are a pretty cool hand, upon my word." "Why?" "Why, indeed! Here you and Miss Westonhaugh have been calmly planning an extensive tiger-hunt, when you have promised to be in the neighbourhood of Keitung in three weeks, wherever that may be. I suppose it is in the opposite direction from here, for you will not find any tigers nearer than the Terai at this time of year." "I do not see the difficulty," he answered. "We can be in Oude in two days from here; shoot tigers for ten days, and be here again in two days more. That is just a fortnight. It will not take me a week to reach Keitung. I am much mistaken if I do not get there in three days. I shall lay a _dâk_ by messengers before I go to Oude, and between a double set of coolies and lots of ponies wherever the roads are good enough, I shall be at the place of meeting soon enough, never fear." "Oh, very well; but I hardly think Ghyrkins will want to return under three weeks; and--I did not think you would want to leave the party." He had evidently planned the whole three weeks' business carefully. I did not continue the conversation. He was naturally absorbed in the arrangement of his numerous schemes--no easy matter, when affairs of magnitude have to be ordered to suit the exigencies of a _grande passion_. I shrank from intruding on his reflections, and I had quite enough to do in keeping my horse on his feet in the thick darkness. Suddenly he reared violently, and then stood still, quivering in every limb. Isaacs' horse plunged and snorted by my side, and cannoned heavily against me. Then all was quiet. I could see nothing. Presently a voice, low and musical, broke on the darkness, and I thought I could distinguish a tall figure on foot at Isaacs' knee. Whoever the man was he must be on the other side of my companion, but I made out a head from which the voice proceeded. "Peace, Abdul Hafiz!" it said. "Aleikum Salaam, Ram Lal!" answered Isaacs. He must have recognised the man by his voice. "Abdul," continued the stranger, speaking Persian. "I have business with thee this night; thou art going home. If it is thy pleasure I will be with thee in two hours in thy dwelling." "Thy pleasure is my pleasure. Be it so." I thought the head disappeared. "Be it so," the voice echoed, growing faint, as if moving rapidly away from us. The horses, momentarily startled by the unexpected pedestrian, regained their equanimity. I confess the incident gave me a curiously unpleasant sensation. It was so very odd that a man on foot--a Persian, I judged, by his accent--should know of my companion's whereabouts, and that they should recognise each other by their voices. I recollected that our coming to Mr. Ghyrkins' bungalow was wholly unpremeditated, and I was sure Isaacs had spoken to none but our party--not even to his saice--since our meeting with the Westonhaughs on the Annandale road an hour and a half before. "I wonder what he wants," said my friend, apparently soliloquising. "He seems to know where to find you, at all events," I answered. "He must have second sight to know you had been to Carisbrooke." "He has. He is a very singular personage altogether. However, he has done me more than one service before now, and though I do not comprehend his method of arriving at conclusions, still less his mode of locomotion, I am always glad of his advice." "But what is he? Is he a Persian?--you called him by an Indian name, but that may be a disguise--is he a wise man from Iran?" "He is a very wise man, but not from Iran. No. He is a Brahmin by birth, a Buddhist by adopted religion, and he calls himself an 'adept' by profession, I suppose, if he can be said to have any. He comes and goes unexpectedly, with amazing rapidity. His visits are brief, but he always seems to be perfectly conversant with the matter in hand, whatever it be. He will come to-night and give me about twenty words of advice, which I may follow or may not, as my judgment dictates; and before I have answered or recovered from my surprise, he will have vanished, apparently into space; for if I ask my servants where he is gone they will stare at me as if I were crazy, until I show them that the room is empty, and accuse them of going to sleep instead of seeing who goes in and out of my apartment. He speaks more languages than I do, and better. He once told me he was educated in Edinburgh, and his perfect knowledge of European affairs and of European topics leads me to think he must have been there a long time. Have you ever looked into the higher phases of Buddhism? It is a very interesting study." "Yes, I have read something about it. Indeed I have read a good deal, and have thought more. The subject is full of interest, as you say. If I had been an Asiatic by birth, I am sure I should have sought to attain _moksha_, even if it required a lifetime to pass through all the degrees of initiation. There is something so rational about their theories, disclaiming, as they do, all supernatural power; and, at the same time, there is something so pure and high in their conception of life, in their ideas about the ideal, if you will allow me the expression, that I do not wonder Edwin Arnold has set our American transcendentalists and Unitarians and freethinkers speculating about it all, and wondering whether the East may not have had men as great as Emerson and Channing among its teachers." I paused. My greatest fault is that if any one starts me upon a subject I know anything about, I immediately become didactic. So I paused and reflected that Isaacs, being, as he himself declared, frequently in the society of an "adept" of a high class, was sure to know a great deal more than I. "I too," he said, "have been greatly struck, and sometimes almost converted, by the beauty of the higher Buddhist thoughts. As for their apparently supernatural powers and what they do with them, I care nothing about phenomena of that description. We live in a land where marvels are common enough. Who has ever explained the mango trick, or the basket trick, or the man who throws a rope up into the air and then climbs up it and takes the rope after him, disappearing into blue space? And yet you have seen those things--I have seen them, every one has seen them,--and the performers claim no supernatural agency or assistance. It is merely a difference of degree, whether you make a mango grow from the seed to the tree in half an hour, or whether you transport yourself ten thousand miles in as many seconds, passing through walls of brick and stone on your way, and astonishing some ordinary mortal by showing that you know all about his affairs. I see no essential difference between the two 'phenomena,' as the newspapers call them, since Madame Blavatsky has set them all by the ears in this country. It is just the difference in the amount of power brought to bear on the action. That is all. I have seen, in a workshop in Calcutta, a hammer that would crack an eggshell without crushing it, or bruise a lump of iron as big as your head into a flat cake. 'Phenomena' may amuse women and children, but the real beauty of the system lies in the promised attainment of happiness. Whether that state of supreme freedom from earthly care gives the fortunate initiate the power of projecting himself to the antipodes by a mere act of volition, or of condensing the astral fluid into articles of daily use, or of stimulating the vital forces of nature to an abnormal activity, is to me a matter of supreme indifference. I am tolerably happy in my own way as things are. I should not be a whit happier if I were able to go off after dinner and take a part in American politics for a few hours, returning to business here to-morrow morning." "That is an extreme case," I said. "No man in his senses ever connects the idea of happiness with American politics." "Of one thing I am sure, though." He paused as if choosing his words. "I am sure of this. If any unforeseen event, whether an act of folly of my own, or the hand of Allah, who is wise, should destroy the peace of mind I have enjoyed for ten years, with very trifling interruption,--if anything should occur to make me permanently unhappy, beyond the possibility of ordinary consolation,--I should seek comfort in the study of the pure doctrines of the higher Buddhists. The pursuit of a happiness, so immeasurably beyond all earthly considerations of bodily comfort or of physical enjoyment, can surely not be inconsistent with my religion--or with yours." "No indeed," said I. "But, considering that you are the strictest of Mohammedans, it seems to me you are wonderfully liberal. So you have seriously contemplated the possibility of your becoming one of the 'brethren'--as they style themselves?" "It never struck me until to-day that anything might occur by which my life could be permanently disturbed. Something to-day has whispered to me that such an existence could not be permanent. I am sure that it cannot be. The issue must be either to an infinite happiness or to a still more infinite misery. I cannot tell which." His clear, evenly modulated voice trembled a little. We were in sight of the lights from the hotel. "I shall not dine with you to-night, Griggs. I will have something in my own rooms. Come in as soon as you have done--that is if you are free. There is no reason why you should not see Ram Lal the adept, since we think alike about his religion, or school, or philosophy--find a name for it while you are dining." And we separated for a time. It had been a long and exciting day to me. I felt no more inclined than he did for the din and racket and lights of the public dining-room. So I followed his example and had something in my own apartment. Then I settled myself to a hookah, resolved not to take advantage of Isaacs' invitation until near the time when he expected Ram Lal. I felt the need of an hour's solitude to collect my thoughts and to think over the events of the last twenty-four hours. I recognised that I was fast becoming very intimate with Isaacs, and I wanted to think about him and excogitate the problem of his life; but when I tried to revolve the situation logically, and deliver to myself a verdict, I found myself carried off at a tangent by the wonderful pictures that passed before my eyes. I could not detach the events from the individual. His face was ever before me, whether I thought of Miss Westonhaugh, or of the wretched old maharajah, or of Ram Lal the Buddhist. Isaacs was the central figure in every picture, always in the front, always calm and beautiful, always controlling the events around him. Then I entered on a series of trite reflections to soothe my baffled reason, as a man will who is used to understanding what goes on before him and suddenly finds himself at a loss. Of course, I said to myself, it is no wonder he controls things, or appears to. The circumstances in which I find this three days' acquaintance are emphatically those of his own making. He has always been a successful man, and he would not raise spirits that he could not keep well in hand. He knows perfectly well what he is about in making love to that beautiful creature, and is no doubt at this moment laughing in his sleeve at my simplicity in believing that he was really asking my advice. Pshaw! as if any advice could influence a man like that! Absurd. I sipped my coffee in disgust with myself. All the time, while trying to persuade myself that Isaacs was only a very successful schemer, neither better nor worse than other men, I was conscious of the face that would not be banished from my sight. I saw the beautiful boyish look in his deep dark eyes, the gentle curve of the mouth, the grand smooth architrave of the brows. No--I was a fool! I had never met a man like him, nor should again. How could Miss Westonhaugh save herself from loving such a perfect creature? I thought, too, of his generosity. He would surely keep his promise and deliver poor Shere Ali, hunted to death by English and Afghan foes, from all his troubles. Had he not the Maharajah of Baithopoor in his power? He might have exacted the full payment of the debt, principal and interest, and saved the Afghan chief into the bargain. But he feared lest the poor Mohammedans should suffer from the prince's extortion, and he forgave freely the interest, amounting now to a huge sum, and put off the payment of the bond itself to the maharajah's convenience. Did ever an Oriental forgive a debt before even to his own brother? Not in my experience. I rose and went down to Isaacs. I found him as on the previous evening, among his cushions with a manuscript book. He looked up smiling and motioned me to be seated, keeping his place on the page with one finger. He finished the verse before he spoke, and then laid the book down and leaned back. "So you have made up your mind that you would like to see Ram Lal. He will be here in a minute, unless he changes his mind and does not come after all." There was a sound of voices outside. Some one asked if Isaacs were in, and the servant answered. A tall figure in a gray _caftán_ and a plain white turban stood in the door. "I never change my mind," said the stranger, in excellent English, though with an accent peculiar to the Hindoo tongue when struggling with European languages. His voice was musical and high in pitch, though soft and sweet in tone. The quality of voice that can be heard at a great distance, with no apparent effort to the speaker. "I never change my mind. I am here. Is it well with you?" "It is well, Ram Lal. I thank you. Be seated, if you will stay with us a while. This is my friend Mr. Griggs, of whom you probably know. He thinks as I do on many points, and I was anxious that you should meet." While Isaacs was speaking, Ram Lal advanced into the room and stood a moment under the soft light, a gray figure, very tall, but not otherwise remarkable. He was all gray. The long _caftán_ wrapped round him, the turban which I had first thought white, the skin of his face, the pointed beard and long moustache, the heavy eyebrows--a study of grays against the barbaric splendour of the richly hung wall--a soft outline on which the yellow light dwelt lovingly, as if weary of being cast back and reflected from the glory of gold and the thousand facets of the priceless gems. Ram Lal looked toward me, and as I gazed into his eyes I saw that they too were gray--a very singular thing in the East--and that they were very far apart, giving his face a look of great dignity and fearless frankness. To judge by his features he seemed to be very thin, and his high shoulders were angular, though the long loose garment concealed the rest of his frame from view. I had plenty of time to note these details, for he stood a full minute in the middle of the room, as if deciding whether to remain or to go. Then he moved quietly to a divan and sat down cross-legged. "Abdul, you have done a good deed to-day, and I trust you will not change your mind before you have carried out your present intentions." "I never change my mind, Bam Lai," said Isaacs, smiling as he quoted his visitor's own words. I was startled at first. What good deed was the Buddhist referring to if not to the intended liberation of Shere Ali? How could he know of it? Then I reflected that this man was, according to Isaacs' declaration, an adept of the higher grades, a seer and a knower of men's hearts. I resolved not to be astonished at anything that occurred, only marvelling that it should have pleased this extraordinary man to make his entrance like an ordinary mortal, instead of through the floor or the ceiling. "Pardon me," answered Ram Lal, "if I venture to contradict you. You do change your mind sometimes. Who was it who lately scoffed at women, their immortality, their virtue, and their intellect? Will you tell me now, friend Abdul, that you have not changed your mind? Do you think of anything, sleeping or waking, but the one woman for whom you _have_ changed your mind? Is not her picture ever before you, and the breath of her beauty upon your soul? Have you not met her in the spirit as well as in the flesh? Surely we shall hear no more of your doubts about women for some time to come. I congratulate you, as far as that goes, on your conversion. You have made a step towards a higher understanding of the world you live in." Isaacs did not seem in the least surprised at his visitor's intimate acquaintance with his affairs. He bowed his head in silence, acquiescing to what Bam Lai had said, and waited for him to proceed. "I have come," continued the Buddhist, "to give you some good advice--the best I have for you. You will probably not take it, for you are the most self-reliant man I know, though you have changed a little since you have been in love, witness your sudden intimacy with Mr. Griggs." He looked at me, and there was a faint approach to a smile in his gray eyes. "My advice to you is, do not let this projected tiger-hunt take place if you can prevent it. No good can come of it, and harm may. Now I have spoken because my mind would not be at rest if I did not warn you. Of course you will do as you please, only never forget that I pointed out to you the right course in time." "Thank you, Ram Lal, for your friendly concern in my behalf. I do not think I shall act as you suggest, but I am nevertheless grateful to you. There is one thing I want to ask you, and consult you about, however." "My friend, what is the use of my giving you advice that you will not follow? If I lived with you, and were your constant companion, you would ask me to advise you twenty times a day, and then you would go and do the diametric opposite of what I suggested. If I did not see in you something that I see in few other men, I would not be here. There are plenty of fools who have wit enough to take counsel of a wise man. There are few men of wit wise enough to be guided by their betters, as if they were only fools for the time. Yet because you are so wayward I will help you once or twice more, and then I will leave you to your own course--which you, in your blindness, will call your kismet, not seeing that your fate is continually in your own hands--more so at this moment than ever before. Ask, and I will answer." "Thanks, Ram Lal. It is this I would know. You are aware that I have undertaken a novel kind of bargain. The man you wot of is to be delivered to me near Keitung. I am anxious for the man's safety afterwards, and I would be glad of some hint about disposing of him. I must go alone, for I do not want any witness of what I am going to do, and as a mere matter of personal safety for myself and the man I am going to set free, I must decide on some plan of action when I meet the band of sowars who will escort him. They are capable of murdering us both if the maharajah instructs them to. As long as I am alive to bring the old man into disgrace with the British, the captive is safe; but it would be an easy matter for those fellows to dispose of us together, and there would be an end of the business." "Of course they could," replied Ram Lal, adding in an ironical tone "and if you insist upon putting your head down the tiger's throat, how do you expect me to prevent the brute from snapping it off? That would be a 'phenomenon,' would it not? And only this evening you were saying that you despised 'phenomena.'" "I said that such things were indifferent to me. I did not say I despised them. But I think that this thing may be done without performing any miracles." "If it were not such a good action on your part I would have nothing to do with it. But since you mean to risk your neck for your own peculiar views of what is right, I will endeavour that you shall not break it. I will meet you a day's journey before you reach Keitung, somewhere on the road, and we will go together and do the business. But if I am to help you I will not promise not to perform some miracles, as you call them, though you know very well they are no such thing. Meanwhile, do as you please about the tiger-hunt; I shall say no more about it." He paused, and then, withdrawing one delicate hand from the folds of his _caftán_, he pointed to the wall behind Isaacs and me, and said, "What a very singular piece of workmanship is that yataghan!" We both naturally turned half round to look at the weapon he spoke of, which was the central piece in a trophy of jewelled sabres and Afghan knives. "Yes," said Isaacs, turning back to answer his guest, "it is a ----" He stopped, and I, who had not seen the weapon before, lost among so many, and was admiring its singular beauty, turned too; to my astonishment I saw that Isaacs was gazing into empty space. The divan where Ram Lal had been sitting an instant before, was vacant. He was gone. "That is rather sudden," I said. "More so than usual," was the reply. "Did you see him go? Did he go out by the door?" "Not I," I answered, "when I looked round at the wall he was placidly sitting on that divan pointing with one hand at the yataghan. Does he generally go so quickly?" "Yes, more or less. Now I will show you some pretty sport." He rose to his feet and went to the door. "Narain!" he cried. Narain, the bearer, who was squatting against the door-post outside, sprang up and stood before his master. "Narain, why did you not show that pundit the way downstairs? What do you mean? have you no manners?" Narain stood open mouthed. "What pundit, sahib?" he asked. "Why, the pundit who came a quarter of an hour ago, you donkey! He has just gone out, and you did not even get up and make a salaam, you impertinent vagabond!" Narain protested that no pundit, or sahib, or any one else, had passed the threshold since Ram Lal had entered. "Ha! you _budmash_. You lazy dog of a Hindoo! you have been asleep again, you swine, you son of a pig, you father of piglings! Is that the way you do your work in my service?" Isaacs was enjoying the joke in a quiet way immensely. "Sahib," said the trembling Narain, apparently forgetting the genealogy his master had thrust upon him, "Sahib, you are protector of the poor, you are my father and my mother, and my brother, and all my relations," the common form of Hindoo supplication, "but, Sri Krishnaji! by the blessed Krishna, I have not slept a wink." "Then I suppose you mean me to believe that the pundit went through the ceiling, or is hidden under the cushions. Swear not by your false idols, slave; I shall not believe you for that, you dog of an unbeliever, you soor-be-iman, you swine without faith!" "Han, sahib, han!" cried Narain, seizing at the idea that the pundit had disappeared mysteriously through the walls. "Yes, sahib, the pundit is a great yogi, and has made the winds carry him off." The fellow thought this was a bright idea, not by any means beneath consideration. Isaacs appeared somewhat pacified. "What makes you think he is a yogi, dog?" he inquired in a milder tone. Narain had no answer ready, but stood looking rather stupidly through the door at the room whence the unearthly visitor had so suddenly disappeared. "Well," continued Isaacs, "you are more nearly right than you imagine. The pundit is a bigger yogi than any your idiotic religion can produce. Never mind, there is an eight anna bit for you, because I said you were asleep when you were not." Narain bent to the ground in thanks, as his master turned on his heel. "Not that he minds being told that he is a pig, in the least," said Isaacs. "I would not call a Mussulman so, but you can insult these Hindoos so much worse in other ways that I think the porcine simile is quite merciful by comparison." He sat down again among the cushions, and putting off his slippers, curled himself comfortably together for a chat. "What do you think of Ram Lal?" he asked, when Narain had brought hookahs and sherbet. "My dear fellow, I have hardly made up my mind what to think. I have not altogether recovered from my astonishment. I confess that there was nothing startling about his manner or his person. He behaved and talked like a well educated native, in utter contrast to the amazing things he said, and to his unprecedented mode of leave-taking. It would have seemed more natural--I would say, more fitting--if he had appeared in the classic dress of an astrologer, surrounded with zodiacs, and blue lights, and black cats. Why do you suppose he wants you to abandon the tiger-hunt?" "I cannot tell. Perhaps he thinks something may happen to me to prevent my keeping the other engagement. Perhaps he does not approve----" he stopped, as if not wanting to approach the subject of Ram Lal's disapprobation. "I intend, nevertheless, that the expedition come off, and I mean, moreover, to have a very good time, and to kill a tiger if I see one." "I thought he seemed immensely pleased at your conversion, as he calls it. He said that your newly acquired belief in woman was a step towards a better understanding of life." "Of the world, he said," answered-Isaacs, correcting me. "There is a great difference between the 'world' and 'life.' The one is a finite, the other an infinite expression. I believe, from what I have learned of Ram Lal, that the ultimate object of the adepts is happiness, only to be attained by wisdom, and I apprehend that by wisdom they mean a knowledge of the world in the broadest sense of the word. The world to them is a great repository of facts, physical and social, of which they propose to acquire a specific knowledge by transcendental methods. If that seems to you a contradiction of terms, I will try and express myself better. If you understand me, I am satisfied. Of course I use transcendental in the sense in which it is applied by Western mathematicians to a mode of reasoning which I very imperfectly comprehend, save that it consists in reaching finite results by an adroit use of the infinite." "Not a bad definition of transcendental analysis for a man who professes to know nothing about it," said I. "I would not accuse you of a contradiction of terms, either. I have often thought that what some people call the 'philosophy of the nineteenth century,' is nothing after all but the unconscious application of transcendental analysis to the everyday affairs of life. Consider the theories of Darwin, for instance. What are they but an elaborate application of the higher calculus? He differentiates men into protoplasms, and integrates protoplasms into monkeys, and shows the caudal appendage to be the independent variable, a small factor in man, a large factor in monkey. And has not the idea of successive development supplanted the early conception of spontaneous perfection? Take an illustration from India--the new system of competition, which the natives can never understand. Formerly the members of the Civil Service received their warrants by divine authority, so to speak. They were born perfect, as Aphrodite from the foam of the sea; they sprang armed and ready from the head of old John Company as Pallas Athene from the head of Zeus. Now all that is changed; they are selected from a great herd of candidates by methods of extreme exactness, and when they are chosen they represent the final result of infinite probabilities for and against their election. They are all exactly alike; they are a formula for taxation and the administration of justice, and so long as you do not attempt to use the formula for any other purpose, such, for instance, as political negotiation or the censorship of the public press, the equation will probably be amenable to solution." "As I told you," said Isaacs, "I know nothing, or next to nothing, of Western mathematics, but I have a general idea of the comparison you make. In Asia and in Asiatic minds, there prevails an idea that knowledge can be assimilated once and for all. That if you can obtain it, you immediately possess the knowledge of everything--the pass-key that shall unlock every door. That is the reason of the prolonged fasting and solitary meditation of the ascetics. They believe that by attenuating the bond between soul and body, the soul can be liberated and can temporarily identify itself with other objects, animate and inanimate, besides the especial body to which it belongs, acquiring thus a direct knowledge of those objects, and they believe that this direct knowledge remains. Western philosophers argue that the only acquaintance a man can have with bodies external to his mind is that which he acquires by the medium of his bodily senses--though these, are themselves external to his mind, in the truest sanse. The senses not being absolutely reliable, knowledge acquired by means of them is not absolutely reliable either. So the ultimate difference between the Asiatic saint and the European man of science is, that while the former believes all knowledge to be directly within the grasp of the soul, under certain conditions, the latter, on the other hand, denies that any knowledge can be absolute, being all obtained indirectly through a medium not absolutely reliable. The reasoning, by which the Western mind allows itself to act fearlessly on information which is not (according to its own verdict) necessarily accurate, depends on a clever use of the infinite in unconsciously calculating the probabilities of that accuracy--and this entirely falls in with what you said about the application of transcendental analysis to the affairs of everyday life." "I see you have entirely comprehended me," I said. "But as for the Asiatic mind--you seem to deny to it the use of the calculus of thought, and yet you denned adepts as attempting to acquire specific knowledge by general and transcendental methods. Here is a real contradiction." "No; I see no confusion, for I do not include the higher adepts in either class, since they have the wisdom to make use of the learning and of the methods of both. They seem to me to be endeavouring, roughly speaking, to combine the two. They believe absolute knowledge attainable, and they devote much time to the study of nature, in which pursuit they make use of highly analytical methods. They subdivide phenomena to an extent that would surprise and probably amuse a Western thinker. They count fourteen distinct colours in the rainbow, and invariably connect sound, even to the finest degrees, with shades of colour. I could name many other peculiarities of their mode of studying natural phenomena, which displays a much more minute subdivision and classification of results than you are accustomed to. But beside all this they consider that the senses of the normal man are susceptible of infinite refinement, and that upon a greater or less degree of acquired acuteness of perception the value of his results must depend. To attain this high degree of sensitiveness, necessary to the perception of very subtle phenomena, the adepts find it necessary to train their faculties, bodily and mental, by a life of rigid abstention from all pleasures or indulgences not indispensable in maintaining the relation between the physical and intellectual powers." "The common _fakir_ aims at the same thing," I remarked. "But he does not attain it. The common _fakir_ is an idiot. He may, by fasting and self-torture, of a kind no adept would approve, sharpen his senses till he can hear and see some sounds and sights inaudible and invisible to you and me. But his whole system lacks any intellectual basis: he regards knowledge as something instantaneously attainable when it comes at last; he believes he will have a vision, and that everything will be revealed to him. His devotion to his object is admirable, when he is a genuine ascetic and not, as is generally the case, a good-for-nothing who makes his piety pay for his subsistence; but it is devotion of a very low intellectual order. The true adept thinks the training of the mind in intellectual pursuits no less necessary than the moderate and reasonable mortification of the flesh, and higher Buddhism pays as much attention to the one as to the other." "Excuse me," said I, "if I make a digression. I think there are two classes of minds commonly to be found among thinkers all over the world. The one seek to attain to knowledge, the others strive to acquire it. There is a class of commonplace intellects who regard knowledge of all kinds in the light of a ladder; one ladder for each science, and the rungs of the ladders are the successive facts mastered by an effort and remembered in the order they have been passed. These persons think it is possible to attain to high eminence on one particular ladder, that is, in one particular science, without having been up any of the other ladders, that is, without a knowledge of other branches of seience. This is the mind of the plodder, the patient man who climbs, step by step, in his own unvarying round of thought; not seeing that it is but the wheel of a treadmill over which he is labouring, and that though every step may pass, and repass, beneath his toiling feet, he can never obtain a birdseye view of what he is doing, because his eyes are continually fixed on the step in front." "But," I continued, as Isaacs assented to my simile by a nod, "there is another class of minds also. There are persons who regard the whole imaginable and unimaginable knowledge of mankind, past, present, and future, as a boundless plain over which they hang suspended and can look down. Immediately beneath them there is a map spread out which represents, in the midst of the immense desert, the things they themselves know. It is a puzzle map, like those they make for children, where each piece fits into its appointed place, and will fit nowhere else; every piece of knowledge acquired fits into the space allotted to it, and when there is a piece, that is, a fact, wanting, it is still possible to define its extent and shape by the surrounding portions, though all the details of colour and design are lacking. These are the people who regard knowledge as a whole, harmonious, when every science and fragment of a science has its appointed station and is necessary to completeness of perfect knowledge. I hope I have made clear to you what I mean, though I am conscious of only sketching the outlines of a distinction which I believe to be fundamental." "Of course it is fundamental. Broadly, it is the difference between analytic and synthetic thought; between the subjective and the objective views; between the finite conception of a limited world and the infinite ideal of perfect wisdom. I understand you perfectly." "You puzzle me continually, Isaacs. Where did you learn to talk about 'analytic' and 'synthetic,' and 'subjective' and 'objective,' and transcendental analysis, and so forth?" It seemed so consistent with his mind that he should understand the use of philosophical terms, that I had not realised how odd it was that a man of his purely Oriental education should know anything about the subject. His very broad application of the words 'analytic' and 'synthetic' to my pair of illustrations attracted my attention and prompted the question I had asked. "I read a good deal," he said simply. Then he added in a reflective tone, "I rather think I have a philosophical mind. The old man who taught me theology in Istamboul when I was a boy used to talk philosophy to me by the hour, though I do not believe he knew much about it. He was a plodder, and went up ladders in search of information, like the man you describe. But he was very patient and good to me; the peace of Allah be with him." It was late, and soon afterwards we parted for the night. The next day was Sunday, and I had a heap of unanswered letters to attend to, so we agreed to meet after tiffin and ride together before dining with Mr. Ghyrkins and the Westonhaughs. I went to my room and sat a while over a volume of Kant, which I always travel with--a sort of philosopher's stone on which to whet the mind's tools when they are dulled with boring into the geological strata of other people's ideas. I was too much occupied with the personality of the man I had been talking with to read long, and so I abandoned myself to a reverie, passing in review the events of the long day. * * * * * CHAPTER VII. The Sabbatarian tendency of the English mind at home and abroad is proverbial, and if they are well-behaved on Sunday in London they are models of virtue in Simla on the same day. Whether they labour and are well-fed and gouty in their island home, or suffer themselves to be boiled for gain in the tropical kettles of Ceylon and Singapore; whether they risk their lives in hunting for the north pole or the northwest passage, or endanger their safety in the pursuit of tigers in the Terai, they will have their Sunday, come rain, come shine. On the deck of the steamer in the Red Sea, in the cabin of the inbound Arctic explorer, in the crowded Swiss hotel, or the straggling Indian hill station, there is always a parson of some description, in a surplice of no description at all, who produces a Bible and a couple of well-thumbed sermons from the recesses of his trunk or his lunch basket, or his gun-case, and goes at the work of weekly redemption with a will. And, what is more, he is listened to, and for the time being--though on week days he is styled a bore by the old and a prig by the young--he becomes temporarily invested with a dignity not his own, with an authority he could not claim on any other day. It is the dignity of a people who with all their faults have the courage of their opinions, and it is the authority that they have been taught from their childhood to reverence, whenever their traditions give it the right to assert itself. Not otherwise. It is a fine trait of national character, though it is one which has brought upon the English much unmerited ridicule. One may differ from them in faith and in one's estimate of the real value of these services, which are often only saved from being irreverent in their performance by the perfect sincerity of parson and congregation. But no one who dispassionately judges them can deny that the custom inspires respect for English consistency and admiration for their supreme contempt of surroundings. I presume that the periodical manifestations of religious belief to which I refer are intimately and indissolubly connected with the staid and funereal solemnity which marks an Englishman's dress, conversation, and conduct on Sunday. He is a different being for the nonce, and must sustain the entire character of his dual existence, or it will fall to the ground and forsake him altogether. He cannot take his religion in the morning and enjoy himself the rest of the day. He must abstain from everything that could remind him that he has a mind at all, besides a soul. No amusement will he tolerate, no reading of even the most harmless fiction can he suffer, while he is in the weekly devotional trance. I cannot explain these things; they are race questions, problems for the ethnologist. Certain it is, however, that the partial decay of strict Sabbatarianism which seems to have set in during the last quarter of a century has not been attended by any notable development of power in English thought of that class. The first Republic tried the experiment of the decimal week, and it was a failure. The English who attempt to put off even a little of the quaint armour of righteousness, which they have been accustomed to buckle on every seventh day for so many generations, are not so successful in the attempt as to attract many to follow them. They are not graceful in their holiday gambols. Meditating somewhat on this wise I lay in my long chair by the open door that Sunday morning in September. It was a little warmer again and the sun shone pleasantly across the lawn on the great branches and bright leaves of the rhododendron. The house was very quiet. All the inmates were gone to the church on the mall, and the servants were basking in the last few days of warmth they would enjoy before their masters returned to the plains. The Hindoo servant hates the cold. He fears it as he fears cobras, fever, and freemasons. His ideal life is nothing to do, nothing to wear, and plenty to eat, with the thermometer at 135 degrees in the verandah and 110 inside. Then he is happy. His body swells with much good rice and _dal_, and his heart with pride; he will wear as little as you will let him, and whether you will let him or not, he will do less work in a given time than any living description of servant. So they basked in rows in the sunshine, and did not even quarrel or tell yarns among themselves; it was quiet and warm and sleepy. I dozed lazily, dropped my book in my lap, struggled once, and then fairly fell asleep. I was roused by Kiramat Ali pulling at my foot, as natives will when they are afraid of the consequences of waking their master. When I opened my eyes he presented a card on a salver, and explained that the gentleman wanted to see me. I looked, and was rather surprised to see it was Kildare's card. "Lord Steepleton Kildare, 33d Lancers "--there was no word in pencil, or any message. I told Kiramat to show the sahib in, wondering why he should call on me. By Indian etiquette, if there was to be any calling, it was my duty to make the first visit. Before I had time to think more I heard the clanking of spurs and sabre on the verandah, and the young man walked in, clad in the full uniform of his regiment. I rose to greet him, and was struck by his soldierly bearing and straight figure, as I had been at our first meeting. He took off his bearskin --for he was in the fullest of full dress--and sat down. "I am so glad to find you at home," he said: "I feared you might have gone to church, like everybody else in this place." "No. I went early this morning. I belong to a different persuasion. I suppose you are on your way to Peterhof?" "Yes. There is some sort of official reception to somebody,--I forget who,--and we had notice to turn out. It is a detestable nuisance." "I should think so." "Mr. Griggs, I came to ask you about something. You heard of my proposal to get up a tiger-hunt? Mr. Ghyrkins was speaking of it." "Yes. He wanted us to go,--Mr. Isaacs and me,--and suggested leaving his niece, Miss Westonhaugh, with Lady Smith-Tompkins." "It would be so dull without a lady in the party. Nothing but tigers and shikarries and other native abominations to talk to. Do you not think so?" "Why, yes. I told Mr. Ghyrkins that all the little Smith-Tompkins children had the measles, and the house was not safe. If they have not had them, they will, I have no doubt. Heaven is just, and will not leave you to the conversational mercies of the entertaining tiger and the engaging shikarry." "By Jove, Mr. Griggs, that was a brilliant idea: and, as you say, they may all get the measles yet. The fact is, I have set my heart on this thing. Miss Westonhaugh said she had never seen a tiger, except in cages and that kind of thing, and so I made up my mind she should. Besides, it will be no end of a lark; just when nobody is thinking about tigers, you go off and kill a tremendous fellow, fifteen or sixteen feet long, and come back covered with glory and mosquito bites, and tell everybody that Miss Westonhaugh shot him herself with a pocket pistol. That will be glorious!" "I should like it very much too; and I really see no reason why it should not be done. Mr. Ghyrkins seemed in a very cheerful humour about tigers last night, and I have no doubt a little persuasion from you will bring him to a proper view of his obligations to Miss Westonhaugh." He looked pleased and bright and hopeful, thoroughly enthusiastic, as became his Irish blood. He evidently intended to have quite as "good" a "time" as Isaacs proposed to enjoy. I thought the spectacle of those rivals for the beautiful girl's favour would be extremely interesting. Lord Steepleton was doubtless a good shot and a brave man, and would risk anything to secure Miss Westonhaugh's approval; Isaacs, on the other hand, was the sort of man who is very much the same in danger as anywhere else. "That is what I came to ask you about. We shall all meet there at dinner this evening, and I wanted to secure as many allies as possible." "You may count on me, Lord Steepleton, at all events. There is nothing I should enjoy better than such a fortnight's holiday, in such good company." "All right," said Lord Steepleton, rising, "I must be off now to Peterhof. It is an organised movement on Mr. Ghyrkins this evening, then. Is it understood?" He took his bearskin from the table, and prepared to go, pulling his straps and belts into place, and dusting a particle of ash from his sleeve. "Perfectly," I answered. "We will drag him forth into the arena before three days are past." We shook hands, and he went out. I was glad he had come, though I had been waked from a pleasant nap to receive him. He was so perfectly gay, and natural, and healthy, that one could not help liking him. You felt at once that he was honest and would do the right thing in spite of any one, according to his light; that he would stand by a friend in danger, and face any odds in fight, with as much honest determination to play fair and win, as he would bring to a cricket match or a steeple-chase. His Irish blood gave him a somewhat less formal manner than belongs to the Englishman; more enthusiasm and less regard for "form," while his good heart and natural courtesy would lead him right in the long-run. He seemed all sunshine, with his bright blue eyes and great fair moustache and brown face; the closely fitting uniform showed off his erect figure and elastic gait, and the whole impression was fresh and exhilarating in the extreme. I was sorry he had gone. I would have liked to talk with him about boating and fishing and shooting; about athletics and horses and tandem-driving, and many things I used, to like years ago at college, before I began my wandering life. I watched him as he swung himself into the military saddle, and he threw up his hand in a parting salute as he rode away. Poor fellow! was he, too, going to be food for powder and Afghan knives in the avenging army on its way to Kabul? I went back to my books and remained reading until the afternoon sun slanted in through the open door, and falling across my book warned me it was time to keep my appointment with Isaacs. As we passed the church the people were coming out from the evening service, and I saw Kildare, once more in the garb of a civilian, standing near the door, apparently watching for some one to appear. I knew that, with his strict observance of Catholic rules--often depending more on pride of family than on religious conviction, in the house of Kildare--he would not have entered the English Church at such a time, and I was sure he was lying in wait for Miss Westonhaugh, probably intending to surprise her and join her on her homeward ride. The road winds down below the Church, so that for some minutes after passing the building you may get a glimpse of the mall above and of the people upon it--or at least of their heads--if they are moving near the edge of the path. I was unaccountably curious this evening, and I dropped a little behind Isaacs, craning my neck and turning back in the saddle as I watched the stream of heads and shoulders, strongly foreshortened against the blue sky above, moving ceaselessly along the parapet over my head. Before long I was rewarded; Miss Westonhaugh's fair hair and broad hat entered the field of my vision, and a moment later Lord Steepleton, who must have pushed through the crowd from the other side, appeared struggling after her. She turned quickly, and I saw no more, but I did not think she had changed colour. I began to be deeply interested in ascertaining whether she had any preference for one or the other of the two young men. Kildare's visit in the morning--though he had said very little--had given me a new impression of the man, and I felt that he was no contemptible rival. I saw from the little incident I had just witnessed that he neglected no opportunity of being with Miss Westonhaugh, and that he had the patience to wait and the boldness to find her in a crowd. I had seen very little of her myself; but I had been amply satisfied that Isaacs was capable of interesting her in a _tête-à-tête_ conversation. "The talker has the best chance, if he is bold enough," I said to myself; but I was not satisfied, and I resolved that if I could manage it Isaacs should have another chance that very evening after the dinner. Meanwhile I would involve Isaacs in a conversation on some one of those subjects that seemed to interest him most. He had not seen the couple on the mall, and was carelessly ambling along with his head in the air and one hand in the pocket of his short coat, the picture of unconcern. I was trying to make up my mind whether I would open fire upon the immortality of the soul, matrimony, or the differential calculus, when, as we passed from the narrow street into the road leading sound Jako, Isaacs spoke. "Look here, Griggs," said he, "there is something I want to impress upon your mind." "Well, what is it?" "It is all very well for Ram Lal to give advice about things he understands. I have a very sincere regard for him, but I do not believe he was ever in my position. I have set my heart on this tiger-hunt. Miss Westonhaugh said the other day that she had never seen a tiger, and I then and there made up my mind that she should." I laughed. There seemed to be no essential difference of opinion between the Irishman and the Persian in regard to the pleasures of the chase. Miss Westonhaugh was evidently anxious to see tigers, and meant to do it, since she had expressed her wish to the two men most likely to procure her that innocent recreation. Lord Steepleton Kildare by his position, and Isaacs by his wealth, could, if they chose, get up such a tiger-hunt for her benefit as had never been seen. I thought she might have waited till the spring--but I had learned that she intended to return to England in April, and was to spend the early months of the year with her brother in Bombay. "You want to see Miss Westonhaugh, and Miss Westonhaugh wants to see tigers! My dear fellow, go in and win; I will back you." "Why do you laugh, Griggs?" asked Isaacs, who saw nothing particularly amusing in what he had said. "Oh, I laughed because another young gentleman expressed the same opinions to me, in identically the same words, this morning." "Mr. Westonhaugh?" "No. You know very well that Mr. Westonhaugh cares nothing about it, one way or the other. The little plan for 'amusing brother John' is a hoax. The thing cannot be done. You might as well try to amuse an undertaker as to make a man from Bombay laugh. The hollowness of life is ever upon them. No. It was Kildare; he called and said that Miss Westonhaugh had never seen a tiger, and he seemed anxious to impress upon me his determination that she should. Pshaw! what does Kildare care about brother John?" "Brother John, as you call him, is a better fellow than he looks. I owe a great deal to brother John." Isaacs' olive skin flushed a little, and he emphasised the epithet by which I had designated Mr. John Westonhaugh as if he were offended by it. "I mean nothing against Mr. Westonhaugh," said I half apologetically. "I remember when you met yesterday afternoon you said you had seen him in Bombay a long time ago." "Do you remember the story I told you of myself the other night?" "Perfectly." "Westonhaugh was the young civil servant who paid my fine and gave me a rupee, when I was a ragged sailor from a Mocha craft, and could not speak a word of English. To that rupee I ultimately owe my entire fortune. I never forget a face, and I am sure it is he--do you understand me now? I owe to his kindness everything I possess in the world." "The unpardonable sin is ingratitude," I answered, "of which you will certainly not be accused. That is a very curious coincidence." "I think it is something more. A man has always at least one opportunity of repaying a debt, and, besm Illah! I will repay what I can of it. By the beard of the apostle, whose name is blessed, I am not ungrateful!" Isaacs was excited as he said this. He was no longer the calm Mr. Isaacs, he was Abdul Hafiz the Persian, fiery and enthusiastic. "You say well, my friend," he continued earnestly, "that the unpardonable sin is ingratitude. Doubtless, had the blessed prophet of Allah lived in our day, he would have spoken of the doom that hangs over the ungrateful. It is the curse of this age; for he who forgets or refuses to remember the kindness done to him by others sets himself apart, and worships his miserable self, and he makes an idol of himself, saying, 'I am of more importance than my fellows in the world, and it is meet and right that they should give and that I should receive.' Ingratitude is selfishness, and selfishness is the worship of oneself, the setting of oneself higher than man and goodness and God. And when man perishes and the angel Al Sijil, the recorder, rolls up his scroll, what is written therein is written; and Israfil shall call men to judgment, and the scrolls shall be unfolded, and he that has taken of others and not given in return, but has ungratefully forgotten and put away the remembrance of the kindness received, shall be counted among the unbelievers and the extortioners and the unjust, and shall broil in raging flames. By the hairs of the prophet's beard, whose name is blessed." I had not seen Isaacs so thoroughly roused before upon any subject. The flush had left his face and given place to a perfect paleness, and his eyes shone like coals of fire as he looked upward in pronouncing the last words. I said to myself that there was a strong element of religious exaltation in all Asiatics, and put his excitement down to this cause. His religion was a very beautiful and real thing to him, ever present in his life, and I mused on the future of the man, with his great endowments, his exquisite sensitiveness, and his high view of his obligations to his fellows. I am not a worshipper of heroes, but I felt that, for the first time in my life, I was intimate with a man who was ready to stand in the breach and to die for what he thought and believed to be right. After a pause of some minutes, during which we had ridden beyond the last straggling bungalows of the town, he spoke again, quietly, his temporary excitement having subsided. "I feel very strongly about these things," he said, and then stopped short. "I can see you do, and I honour you for it. I think you are the first grateful person I have ever met; a rare and unique bird in the earth." "Do not say that." "I do say it. There is very little of the philosophy of the nineteenth century about you, Isaacs. Your belief in the obligations of gratitude and in the general capacity of the human race for redemption, savours little of 'transcendental analysis.'" "You have too much of it," he answered seriously. "I do not think you see how much your cynicism involves. You would very likely, if you are the man I take you for, be very much offended if I accused you of not believing any particular dogma of your religion. And yet, with all your faith, you do not believe in God." "I cannot see how you get at that conclusion," I replied. "I must deny your hypothesis, at the risk of engaging you in an argument." I could not see what he was driving at. "How can you believe in God, and yet condemn the noblest of His works as altogether bad? You are not consistent." "What makes you think I am so cynical?" I inquired, harking back to gain time. "A little cloud, a little sultriness in the air, is all that betrays the coming _khemsin_, that by and by shall overwhelm and destroy man and beast in its sandy darkness. You have made one or two remarks lately that show little faith in human nature, and if you do not believe in human nature what is there left for you to believe in? You said a moment ago that I was the first grateful person you had ever met. Then the rest of humanity are all selfish, and worshippers of themselves, and altogether vile, since you yourself say, as I do, that ingratitude is the unpardonable sin; and God has made a world full of unpardonable sinners, and unless you include yourself in the exception you graciously make in my favour, no one but I shall be saved. And yet you say also with me that God is good. Do you deny that you are utterly inconsistent?" "I may make you some concession in a few minutes, but I am not going to yield to such logic. You have committed the fallacy of the undistributed middle term, if you care to know the proper name for it. I did not say that all men, saving you, were ungrateful. I said that, saving you, the persons I have met in my life have been ungrateful. You ought to distinguish." "All I can say is, then, that you have had a very unfortunate experience of life," retorted Isaacs warmly. "I have," said I, "but since you yield the technical point of logic, I will confess that I made the assertion hastily and overshot the mark. I do not remember, however, to have met any one who felt so strongly on the point as you do." "Now you speak like a rational being," said Isaacs, quite pacified. "Extraordinary feelings are the result of unusual circumstances. I was in such distress as rarely falls to the lot of an innocent man of fine temperament and good abilities. I am now in a position of such wealth and prosperity as still more seldom are given to a man of my age and antecedents. I remember that I obtained the first step on my road to fortune through the kindness of John Westonhaugh, though I could never learn his name, and I met him at last, as you saw, by an accident. I call that accident a favour, and an opportunity bestowed on me by Allah, and the meeting has roused in me those feelings of thankfulness which, for want of an object upon which to show them, have been put away out of sight as a thing sacred for many years. I am willing you should say that, were my present fortune less, my gratitude would be proportionately less felt--it is very likely--though the original gift remain the same, one rupee and no more. You are entitled to think of any man as grateful in proportion to the gift, so long as you allow the gratitude at all." He made this speech in a perfectly natural and unconcerned way, as if he were contemplating the case of another person. "Seriously, Isaacs, I would not do so for the world. I believe you were as grateful twelve years ago, when you were poor, as you are now that you are rich." Isaacs was silent, but a look of great gentleness crossed his face. There was at times something almost angelic in the perfect kindness of his eyes. "To return," I said at last, "to the subject from which we started, the tigers. If we are really going, we must leave here the day after to-morrow morning--indeed, why not to-morrow?" "No; to-morrow we are to play that game of polo, which I am looking forward to with pleasure. Besides, it will take the men three days to get the elephants together, and I only telegraphed this morning to the collector of the district to make the arrangements." "So you have already taken steps? Does Kildare know you have sent orders?" "Certainly. He came to me this morning at daybreak, and we determined to arrange everything and take uncle Ghyrkins for granted. You need not look astonished; Kildare and I are allies, and very good friends." What a true Oriental! How wise and far-sighted was the Persian, how bold and reckless the Irishman! It was odd, I thought, that Kildare had not mentioned the interview with Isaacs. Yet there was a certain rough delicacy--contradictory and impulsive--in his silence about this coalition with his rival. We rode along and discussed the plans for the expedition. All the men in the party, except Lord Steepleton, who had not been long in India, had killed tigers before. There would be enough of us, without asking any one else to join. The collector to whom Isaacs had telegraphed was an old acquaintance of his, and would probably go out for a few days with us. It all seemed easy enough and plain sailing. In the course of time we returned to our hotel, dressed, and made our way through the winding roads to Mr. Currie Ghyrkins' bungalow. We were met on the verandah by the old commissioner, who welcomed us warmly and praised our punctuality, for the clock was striking seven in the drawing-room, as we divested ourselves of our light top-coats. In the vestibule, Miss Westonhaugh and her brother came forward to greet us. "John," said the young lady, "you know I told you there was some one here whom you got out of trouble ever so many years ago in Bombay. Here he is. This is a new introduction. Mr. John Westonhaugh, Mr. Abdul Hafiz-ben-Isâk, commonly known to his friends as Mr. Isaacs." Her face beamed with pleasure, and I thought with pride, as she led her brother to Isaacs, and her eyes rested long on the Persian with a look that, to me, argued something more than a mere interest. The two men clasped hands and stood for some seconds looking at each other in silence, but with very different expressions. Westonhaugh wore a look of utter amazement, though he certainly seemed pleased. The good heart that had prompted the good action twelve years before was still in the right place, above any petty considerations about nationality. His astonishment gradually changed to a smile of real greeting and pleasure, as he began to shake the hand he still held. I thought that even the faintest tinge of blood coloured his pale cheek. "God bless my soul," said he, "I remember you perfectly well now. But it is so unexpected; my sister reminded me of the story, which I had not forgotten, and now I look at you I remember you perfectly. I am so glad." As Isaacs answered, his voice trembled, and his face was very pale. There was a moisture in the brilliant eyes that told of genuine emotion. "Mr. Westonhaugh, I consider that I owe to you everything I have in the world. This is a greater pleasure than I thought was in store for me. Indeed I thank you again." His voice would not serve him. He stopped short and turned away to look for something in his coat. "Indeed," said Westonhaugh, "it was a very little thing I did for you." And presently the two men went together into the drawing-room, Westonhaugh asking all manner of questions, which Isaacs, who was himself again, began to answer. The rest of us remained in the vestibule to meet Lord Steepleton, who at that moment came up the steps. There were more greetings, and then the head _khitmatgar_ appeared and informed the "_Sahib log_, protectors of the poor, that their meat was ready." So we filed into the dining-room. Isaacs was placed at Miss Westonhaugh's right, and her brother sat on his other side. Ghyrkins was opposite his niece at the other end, and Kildare and I were together, facing Westonhaugh and Isaacs, a party of six. Of course Kildare sat beside the lady. The dinner opened very pleasantly. _I_ could see that Isaacs' undisguised gratitude and delight in having at last met the man who had helped him had strongly predisposed John Westonhaugh in his favour. Who is it that is not pleased at finding that some deed of kindness, done long ago with hardly a thought, has borne fruit and been remembered and treasured up by the receiver as the turning-point in his life? Is there any pleasure greater than that we enjoy through the happiness of others--in those rare cases where kindness is not misplaced? I had had time to reflect that Isaacs had most likely told a part of his story to Miss Westonhaugh on the previous afternoon as soon as he had recognised her brother. He might have told her before; I did not know how long he had known her, but it must have been some time. Presently she turned to him. "Mr. Isaacs," said she, "some of us know something of your history. Why will you not tell us the rest now? My uncle has heard nothing of it, and I know Lord Steepleton is fond of novels." Isaacs hesitated long, but as every one pressed him in turn, he yielded at last. And he told it well. It was exactly the narrative he had given me, in every detail of fact, but the whole effect was different. I saw how true a mastery he had of the English language, for he knew his audience thoroughly, and by a little colour here and an altered expression there he made it graphic and striking, not without humour, and altogether free of a certain mystical tinge he had imparted to it when we were alone. He talked easily, with no more constraint than on other occasions, and his narrative was a small social success. I had not seen him in evening dress before, and I could not help thinking how much more thoroughly he looked the polished man of the world than the other men. Kildare never appeared to greater advantage than in the uniform and trappings of his profession. In a black coat and a white tie he looked like any other handsome young Englishman, utterly without individuality. But Isaacs, with his pale complexion and delicate high-bred features, bore himself like a noble of the old school. Westonhaugh beside him looked washed-out and deathly, Kildare was too coarsely healthy, and Ghyrkins and I, representing different types of extreme plainness, served as foils to all three. I watched Miss Westonhaugh while Isaacs was speaking. She had evidently heard the whole story, for her expression showed beforehand the emotion she expected to feel at each point. Her colour came and went softly, and her eyes brightened with a warm light beneath the dark brows that contrasted so strangely yet delightfully with the mass of flaxen-white hair. She wore something dark and soft, cut square at the neck, and a plain circlet of gold was her only ornament. She was a beautiful creature, certainly; one of those striking-looking women of whom something is always expected, until they drop quietly out of youth into middle age, and the world finds out that they are, after all, not heroines of romance, but merely plain, honest, good women; good wives and good mothers who love their homes and husbands well, though it has pleased nature in some strange freak to give them the form and feature of a Semiramis, a Cleopatra, or a Jeanne d'Arc. "Dear me, how very interesting!" exclaimed Mr. Ghyrkins, looking up from his hill mutton as Isaacs finished, and a little murmur of sympathetic applause went round the table. "I would give a great deal to have been through all that," said Lord Steepleton, slowly proceeding to sip a glass of claret. "Just think!" ejaculated John Westonhaugh. "And I was entertaining such a Sinbad unawares!" and he took another green pepper from the dish his servant handed him. "Upon my word, Isaacs," I said, "some one ought to make a novel of that story; it would sell like wildfire." "Why don't you do it yourself, Griggs?" he asked. "You are a pressman, and I am sure you are welcome to the whole thing." "I will," I answered. "Oh do, Mr. Griggs," said the young lady, "and make it wind up with a tiger-hunt. You could lay the scene in Australia or the Barbadoes, or some of those places, and put us all in--and kill us all off, if you like, you know. It would be such fun." Poor Miss Westonhaugh! "It is easy to see what you are thinking about most, Miss Westonhaugh," said Lord Steepleton: "the tigers are uppermost in your mind; and therefore in mine also," he added gallantly. "Indeed, no--I was thinking about Mr. Isaacs." She blushed scarlet--the first time I had ever seen her really embarrassed. It was very natural that she should be thinking of Isaacs and the strange adventures he had just recounted; and if she had not cared about him she would not have changed colour. So I thought, at all events. "My dear, drink some water immediately, this curry is very hot--deuced hot, in fact," said Mr. Ghyrkins, in perfectly good faith. John Westonhaugh, who was busy breaking up biscuits and green peppers and "Bombay ducks" into his curry, looked up slowly at his sister and smiled. "Why, you are quite a griffin, Katharine," said he, "how they will laugh at you in Bombay!" I was amused; of course the remarks of her uncle and brother did not make the blush subside--on the contrary. Kildare was drinking more claret, to conceal his annoyance. Isaacs had a curious expression. There was a short silence, and for one instant he turned his eyes to Miss Westonhaugh. It was only a look, but it betrayed to me--who knew what he felt--infinite surprise, joy, and sympathy. His quick understanding had comprehended that he had scored his first victory over his rival. As her eyes met those of Isaacs, the colour left her cheeks as suddenly as it had come, leaving her face dead white. She drank a little water, and presently seemed at ease again. I was beginning to think she cared for him seriously. "And pray, John," she asked, "what may a griffin be? It is not a very pretty name to call a young lady, is it?" "Why, a griffin," put in Mr. Ghyrkins, "is the 'Mr. Verdant Green' of the Civil Service. A young civilian--or anybody else--who is just out from home is called a griffin. John calls you a griffin because you don't understand eating pepper. You don't find it as _chilly_ as he does! Ha! ha! ha!" and the old fellow laughed heartily, till he was red in the face, at his bleared old pun. Of course every one was amused or professed to be, for it was a diversion welcomed by the three men of us who had seen the young girl's embarrassment. "A griffin," said I, "is a thing of joy. Mr. Westonhaugh was a griffin when he gave Mr. Isaacs that historical rupee." I cast my little bombshell into the conversation, and placidly went on manipulating my rice. Isaacs was in too gay a humour to be offended, and he only said, turning to Miss Westonhaugh-- "Mr. Griggs is a cynyic, you know. You must not believe anything he says." "If doing kind things makes one a griffin, I hope I may be one always," said Miss Westonhaugh quickly, "and I trust my brother is as much a griffin as ever." "I am, I assure you," said he. "But Mr. Griggs is quite right, and shows a profound knowledge of Indian life. No one but a griffin of the greenest ever gave anybody a rupee in Bombay--or ever will now, I should think." "Oh, John, are you going to be cynical too?" "No, Katharine, I am not cynical at all. I do not think you are quite sure what a 'cynic' is." "Oh yes, I know quite well. Diogenes was a cynic, and Saint Jerome, and other people of that class." "A man who lives in a tub, and abuses Alexander the Great, and that sort of thing," remarked Kildare, who had not spoken for some time. "Mr. Griggs," said John Westonhaugh, "since you are the accused, pray define what you mean by a cynic, and then Mr. Isaacs, as the accuser, can have a chance too." "Very well, I will. A man is a cynic if he will do no good to any one because he believes every one past improvement. Most men who do good actions are also cynics, because they well know that they are doing more harm than good by their charity. Mr. Westonhaugh has the discrimination to appreciate this, and therefore he is not a cynic." "It is well you introduced the saving clause, Griggs," said Isaacs to me from across the table. "I am going to define you now; for I strongly suspect that you are the very ideal of a philosopher of that class. You are a man who believes in all that is good and beautiful in theory, but by too much indifference to good in small measures--for you want a thing perfect, or you want it not at all--you have abstracted yourself from perceiving it anywhere, except in the most brilliant examples of heroism that history affords. You set up in your imagination an ideal which you call the good man, and you are utterly dissatisfied with anything less perfect than perfection. The result is that, though you might do a good action from your philosophical longing to approach the ideal in your own person, you will not suffer yourself to believe that others are consciously or unconsciously striving to make themselves better also. And you do not believe that any one can be made a better man by any one else, by any exterior agency, by any good that you or others may do to him. What makes you what you are is the fact that you really cherish this beautiful ideal image of your worship and reverence, and love it; but for this, you would be the most insufferable man of my acquaintance, instead of being the most agreeable." Isaacs was gifted with a marvellous frankness of speech. He always said what he meant, with a supreme indifference to consequences; but he said it with such perfect honesty and evident appreciation of what was good, even when he most vehemently condemned what he did not like, that it was impossible to be annoyed. Every one laughed at his attack on me, and having satisfied my desire to observe Miss Westonhaugh, which had prompted my first remark about griffins, I thought it was time to turn the conversation to the projected hunt. "My dear fellow," I said, "I think that in spite of your Parthian shaft, your definition of a cynic is as complimentary to the school at large as to me in particular. Meanwhile, however," I added, turning to Mr. Ghyrkins, "I am inclined to believe with Lord Steepleton that the subject uppermost in the thoughts of most of us is the crusade against the tigers. What do you say? Shall we not all go as we are, a neat party of six?" "Well, well, Mr. Griggs, we shall see, you know. Now, if we are going at all, when do you mean to start?" "The sooner the better of course," broke in Kildare, and he launched into a host of reasons for going immediately, including the wildest statistics about the habits of tigers in winter. This was quite natural, however, as he was a thorough Irishman and had never seen a tiger in his life. Mr. Currie Ghyrkins vainly attempted to stem the torrent of his eloquence, but at last pinned him on some erratic statement about tigers moulting later in the year and their skins not being worth taking. Kildare would have asserted with equal equanimity that all tigers shed their teeth and their tails in December; he was evidently trying to rouse Mr. Ghyrkins into a discussion on the subject of tiger shooting in general, a purpose very easily accomplished. The old gentleman was soon goaded to madness by Kildare's wonderful opinions, and before long he vowed that the youngster had never seen a tiger,--not one in his whole life, sir,--and that it was high time he did, high time indeed, and he swore he should see one before he was a week older. Yes, sir, before he was a week older, "if I have to carry you among 'em like a baby in arms, sir, by gad, sir--I should think so!" This was all we wanted, and in another ten minutes we were drinking a bumper to the health of the whole tiger-hunt and of Miss Westonhaugh in particular. Isaacs joined with the rest, and though he only drank some sherbet, as I watched his bright eyes and pale cheek, I thought that never knight drank truer toast to his lady. Miss Westonhaugh rose and went out, leaving us to smoke for a while. The conversation was general, and turned on the chase, of course. In a few minutes Isaacs dropped his cigarette and went quietly out. I determined to detain the rest as long as possible, and I seconded Mr. Ghyrkins in passing the claret briskly round, telling all manner of stories of all nations and peoples--ancient tales that would not amuse a schoolboy in America, but which were a revelation of profound wit and brilliant humour to the unsophisticated British mind. By immense efforts--and I hate to exert myself in conversation--I succeeded in prolonging the session through a cigar and a half, but at last I was forced to submit to a move; and with a somewhat ancient remark from Mr. Ghyrkins, to the effect that all good things must come to an end, we returned to the drawing-room. Isaacs and Miss Westonhaugh were looking over some English photographs, and she was enthusiastically praising the beauties of Gothic architecture, while Isaacs was making the most of his opportunity, and taking a good look at her as she bent over the album. After we came in, she made a little music at the tuneless piano--there never was a piano in India yet that had any tune in it--playing and singing a little, very prettily. She sang something about a body in the rye, and then something else about drinking only with the eyes, to which her brother sang a sort of second very nicely. I do not understand much about music, but I thought the allusion to Isaacs' temperance in only drinking with his eyes was rather pointed. He said, however, that he liked it even better with a second than when she sang it alone, so I argued that it was not the first time he had heard it. "Mr. Isaacs," said she, "you have often promised to sing something Persian for us. Will you not keep your word now?" "When we are among the tigers, Miss Westonhaugh, next week. Then I will try and borrow a lute and sing you something." It was late for an Indian dinner-party, so we took our departure soon afterwards, having agreed to meet the following afternoon at Annandale for the game of polo, in which Westonhaugh said he would also play. He and Isaacs made some appointment for the morning; they seemed to be very sympathetic to each other. Kildare mounted and rode homeward with us, though he had much farther to go than we. If he felt any annoyance at the small successes Isaacs had achieved during the evening, he was far too courteous a gentleman to show it; and so, as we groped our way through the trees by the starlight, chiefly occupied in keeping our horses on their legs, the snatches of conversation that were possible were pleasant, if not animated, and there was a cordial "Good-night" on both sides, as we left Kildare to pursue his way alone. * * * * * CHAPTER VIII. It was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon when Isaacs and I emerged from the narrow road upon the polo ground. We were clad in the tight-fitting garments which are necessary for the game, and wrapped in light top-coats; as we came out on the green we saw a number of other men in similar costume standing about, and a great many native grooms leading ponies up and down. Miss Westonhaugh was there in her gray habit and broad hat, and by her side, on foot, Lord Steepleton Kildare was making the most of his time, as he waited for the rest of the players. Mr. Currie Ghyrkins was ambling about on his broad little horse, and John Westonhaugh stood with his hands in his pockets and a large Trichinopoli cheroot between his lips, apparently gazing into space. Several other men, more or less known to us and to each other, moved about or chatted disconnectedly, and one or two arrived after us. Some of them wore coloured jerseys that showed brightly over the open collars of their coats, others were in ordinary dress and had come to see the game. Farther off, at one side of the ground, one or two groups of ladies and their escorting cavaliers haunted at a short distance by their saices in many-coloured turbans and belts, or _cummer-bunds,_ as the sash is called in India, moved slowly about, glancing from time to time towards the place where the players and their ponies were preparing for the contest. Few games require so little preparation and so few preliminaries as polo, descended as it is from an age when more was thought of good horsemanship and quick eye than of any little refinements depending on an accurate knowledge of fixed rules. Any one who is a firstrate rider and is quick with his hands can learn to play polo. The stiffest of arms can be limbered and the most recalcitrant wrist taught to turn nimbly in its socket; but the essential condition is, that the player should know how to ride. This being established, there is no reason why anybody who likes should not play the game, if he will only use a certain amount of caution, and avoid braining the other players and injuring the ponies by too wild a use of his mallet. Presently it was found that all who were to play had arrived--eight of us all told. Kildare had arranged the sides and had brought the other men necessary to make the number complete, so we mounted and took up our positions on the ground. Kildare and Isaacs were together, and Westonhaugh and I on the other side, with two men I knew slightly. We won the charge, and Westonhaugh, who was a celebrated player, struck the ball off cleverly, and I followed him up with a rush as he raced after it. Isaacs, on the other side, swept along easily, and as the ball swerved on striking the ground bent far over till he looked as though he were out of the saddle and stopped it cleverly, while Kildare, who was close behind, got a good stroke in just in time, as Westonhaugh and I galloped down on him, and landed the ball far to the rear near our goal. As we wheeled quickly, I saw that one of the other two men on our side had stopped it and was beginning to "dribble" it along. This was very bad play, both Westonhaugh and I being so far forward, and it met its reward. Isaacs and Kildare raced down on him, but the latter soon pulled up on finding himself passed, and waited. Isaacs rushed upon the temporising player and got the ball away from him in no time; eluded the other man, and with a neat stroke sent the ball right between the poles. The game had hardly lasted three minutes, and a little sound of clapping was heard from where the spectators were standing, far off on one side. I could see Miss Westonhaugh plainly, as she cantered with her uncle to where the victors were standing together on the other side, patting their ponies and adjusting stirrup and saddle. Isaacs had his back turned, but wheeled round as he heard the sound of hoofs behind him and bowed low in his saddle to the fair girl, whose face, I could see even at that distance, was flushed with pleasure. They remained a few minutes in conversation, and then the two spectators rode away, and we took up our positions once more. The next game was a much longer one. It was the turn of the other party to hit off, for Kildare won the charge. There were encounters of all kinds; twice the ball was sent over the line, but outside the goal, by long sweeping blows from Isaacs, who ever hovered on the edge of the scrimmage, and, by his good riding, and the help of a splendid pony, often had a chance where another would have had none. At last it happened that I was chasing the ball back towards our goal, from one of his hits, and he was pursuing me. I had the advantage of a long start, and before he could reach me I got in a heavy "backhander" that sent the ball far away to one side, where, as good luck would have it, Westonhaugh was waiting. Quick as thought he carried it along, and in another minute we had scored a goal, amidst enthusiastic shouts from the spectators, who had been kept long in suspense by the protracted game. This time it was to our side that the young girl came, riding up to her brother to congratulate him on his success. I thought she had less colour as she came nearer, and though she smiled sweetly as she said, "It was splendidly played, John," there was not so much enthusiasm in her voice as the said John, who had really won the game with masterly neatness, might have expected. Then she sat quietly looking over the ground, while we dismounted from our ponies, breathless, and foaming, and lathery, from the hard-fought battle. The grooms ran up with blankets and handfuls of grass to give the poor beasts a rub, and covering them carefully after removing the saddles, led them away. The sun leaves Annandale early, and I put on a coat and lit a cigarette, while the saice saddled our second mounts. There are few prettier sights than an English game, of any kind, on a beautiful stretch of turf. The English live, and move and have their being out of doors. A cricket-match, tennis, a racecourse, or a game of polo, show them at their greatest advantage, whether as players or spectators. Their fresh complexions suit the green of the grass and of the trees as naturally as a bed of roses, or cyclamens, or any fresh and healthy flower will combine with the grass and the ferns in garden or glen. The glorious vitality that belongs to their race seems to blossom freshly in the contact with their mother earth, and the physical capacity for motion with which nature endows them makes them graceful and fascinating to watch, when in some free and untrammelled dress of white they are at their games, batting and bowling and galloping and running; they have the same natural grace then as a herd of deer or antelopes; they are beautiful animals in the full enjoyment of life and vigour, of health and strength; they are intensely alive. Something of this kind passed through my mind, in all probability, and, combined with the delightful sensation any strong man feels in the pause after great exertion, disposed me well towards my fellows and towards mankind at large. Besides we had won the last game. "You look pleased, Mr. Griggs," said Miss Westonhaugh, who had probably been watching me for a moment or two. "I did not know cynics were ever pleased." "I remember who it was that promised to crown the victors of this match, Miss Westonhaugh, and I cherish some hopes of being one of them. Would you mind very much?" "Mind? Oh dear no; you had better try. But if you stand there with your coat on, you will not have much chance. They are all mounted, and waiting for you." "Well, here goes," I said to myself, as I got into the saddle again. "I hope he may win, but he would find me out in a minute if I tried to play into his hands." We were only to play the best out of three goals, and the score was "one all." All eight of us had fresh mounts, and the experience of each other's play we had got in the preceding games made it likely that the game would be a long one. And so it turned out. From the first things went badly. John Westonhaugh's fresh pony was very wild, and he had to take him a breather half over the ground before he could take his place for the charge. When at last the first stroke was made, the ball went low along the ground, spinning and twisting to right and left. Both Kildare and Isaacs missed it and wheeled across to return, when a prolonged scrimmage ensued less than thirty yards from their goal. Every one played his best, and we wheeled and spun round in a way that reminded one of a cavalry skirmish. Strokes and back-strokes followed quickly, till at last I got the ball as it came rolling out between my horse's legs, and, hotly pursued, beyond the possibility of making a fair stroke, I moved away with it in front of me. Then began one of those interminable circular games that all polo players know so well, round and round the battlefield, riding close together, sometimes one succeeding in driving the ball a little, only to be foiled by the next man's ill-delivered back-stroke; racing, and pulling up short, and racing again, till horses and riders were in a perspiration and a state of madness not to be attained by any peaceful means. At last, as we were riding near our own goal, some one, I could not see who, struck the ball out into the open. Isaacs, who had just missed, and was ahead, rode for it like a madman, his club raised high for a back-stroke. He was hotly pressed by the man who had roused my wrath in the first game by his "dribbling" policy. He was a light weight and had kept his best horse for the last game, so that as Isaacs spun along at lightning speed the little man was very close to him, his club well back for a sweeping hit. He rode well, but was evidently not so old a hand in the game as the rest of us. They neared the ball rapidly and Isaacs swerved a little to the left in order to get it well under his right hand, thus throwing himself somewhat across the track of his pursuer. As the Persian struck with all his force downwards and backwards, his adversary, excited by the chase, beyond all judgment or reckoning of his chances, hit out wildly, as beginners will. The long elastic handle of his weapon struck Isaacs' horse on the flank and glanced upward, the head of the club striking Isaacs just above the back of the neck. We saw him throw up his arms, the club in his right hand hanging to his wrist by the strap. The infuriated little arab pony tore on, and in a moment more the iron grip of the rider's knees relaxed, Isaacs swayed heavily in the saddle and fell over on the near side, his left foot hanging in the stirrup and dragging him along some paces before the horse finally shook himself clear and scampered away across the turf. The whole catastrophe occurred in a moment; the man who had done the mischief threw away his club to reach the injured player the sooner, and as we thundered after him, my pony stumbled over the long handle, and falling, threw me heavily over his head. I escaped with a very slight kick from one of the other horses, and leaving my beast to take care of himself, ran as fast as I could to where Isaacs lay, now surrounded by the six players as they dismounted to help him. But there was some one there before them. The accident had occurred near the middle of the ground, and opposite the place where Miss Westonhaugh and her uncle had taken up their stand to watch the contest. With a shake of the reins and a blow of the hand that made the thoroughbred bound his length as he plunged into a gallop, the girl rode wildly to where Isaacs lay, and reining the animal back on his haunches, sprang to the ground and knelt quickly down, so that before the others had reached them she had propped up his head and was rubbing his hands in hers. There was no mistaking the impulse that prompted her. She had seen many an accident in the hunting-field, and knew well that when a man fell like that it was ten to one he was badly hurt. Isaacs was ghastly pale, and there was a little blood on Miss Westonhaugh's white gauntlet. Her face was whiter even than his, though not a quiver of mouth or eyelash betrayed emotion. The man who had done it knelt on the other side, rubbing one of the hands. Kildare and Westonhaugh galloped off at full speed, and presently returned bearing a brandy-flask and a smelling-bottle, and followed by a groom with some water in a native _lota_. I wanted to make him swallow some of the liquor, but Miss Westonhaugh took the flask from my hands. "He would not like it. He never drinks it, you know," she said in a quiet low voice, and pouring some of the contents on her handkerchief, moistened all his brows and face and hair with the powerful alcohol. "Loosen his belt! pull off his boots, some of you!" cried Mr. Currie Ghyrkins, as he came up breathless. "Take off his belt--damn it, you know! Dear, dear!" and he got off his _tat_ with all the alacrity he could muster. Miss Westonhaugh never took her eyes from the face of the prostrate man--pressing the wet handkerchief to his brow, and moistening the palm of the hand she held with brandy. In a few minutes Isaacs breathed a long heavy breath, and opened his eyes. "What is the matter?" he said; then, recollecting himself and trying to move his head--"Oh! I have had a tumble. Give me some water to drink." There was a sigh of relief from every one present as he spoke, quite naturally, and I held the _lota_ to his lips. "What became of the ball?" he asked quickly, as he sat up. Then turning round, he saw the beautiful girl kneeling at his side. The blood rushed violently to his face, and his eyes, a moment ago dim with unconsciousness, flashed brightly. "What! Miss Westonhaugh--you?" he bounded to his feet, but would have fallen back if I had not caught him in my arms, for he was still dizzy from the heavy blow that had stunned him. The blood came and went in his cheeks, and he hung on my arm confused and embarrassed, looking on the ground. "I really owe you all manner of apologies--" he began. "Not a bit of it, my dear boy," broke in Ghyrkins, "my niece was nearest to you when you fell, and so she came up and did the right thing, like the brave girl she is." The old fellow helped her to rise as he said this, and he looked so pleased and proud of her that I was delighted with him. "And now," he went on, "we must see how much you are hurt--the deuce of a knock, you know, enough to kill you--and if you are not able to ride, why, we will carry you home, you know; the devil of a way off it is, too, confound it all." As he jerked out his sentences he was feeling the back of Isaacs' head, to ascertain, if he could, how much harm had been done. All this time the man who had done the mischief was standing by, looking very penitent, and muttering sentences of apology as he tried to perform any little office for his victim that came in his way. Isaacs stretched out his arm, while Ghyrkins was feeling and twisting his head, and taking the man's hand, held it a moment. "My dear sir," he said, "I am not in the least hurt, I assure you, and it was my fault for crossing you at such a moment. Please do not think anything more about it." He smiled kindly at the young fellow, who seemed very grateful, and who from that day on would have risked everything in the world for him. I heard behind me the voice of Kildare, soliloquising softly. "Faith," said he, "that fellow is a gentleman if I ever saw one. I am afraid I should not have let that infernal duffer off so easily. By-the-bye, Isaacs," he said aloud, coming up to us, "you know you won the game. Nobody stopped the ball after you hit it, and the saices say it ran right through the goal. So cheer up; you have got something for your pains and your tumble." It was quite true; the phlegmatic saices had watched the ball instead of the falling man. Miss Westonhaugh, who was really a sensible and self-possessed young woman, and had begun to be sure that the accident would have no serious results, expressed the most unbounded delight. "Thank you, Miss Westonhaugh," said Isaacs; "you have kept your promise; you have crowned the victor." "With brandy," I remarked, folding up a scarf which somebody had given me wherewith to tie a wet compress to the back of his head. "There is nothing the matter," said Ghyrkins; "no end of a bad bruise, that's all. He will be all right in the morning, and the skin is only a little broken." "Griggs," said Isaacs, who could now stand quite firm again, "hold the wet handkerchief in place, and give me that scarf." I did as he directed, and he took the white woollen shawl, and in half a dozen turns wound it round his head in a turban, deftly and gracefully. It was wonderfully becoming to his Oriental features and dark eyes, and I could see that Miss Westonhaugh thought so. There was a murmur of approbation from the native grooms who were looking on, and who understood the thing. "You see I have done it before," he said, smiling. "And now give me my coat, and we will be getting home. Oh yes! I can ride quite well." "That man has no end of pluck in him," said John Westonhaugh to Kildare. "By Jove! yes," was the answer. "I have seen men at home make twice the fuss over a tumble in a ploughed field, when they were not even stunned. I would not have thought it." "He is not the man to make much fuss about anything of that kind." Isaacs stoutly refused any further assistance, and after walking up and down a few minutes, he said he had got his legs back, and demanded a cigarette. He lit it carefully, and mounted as if nothing had happened, and we moved homeward, followed by the spectators, many of whom, of course, were acquaintances, and who had ridden up more or less quickly to make polite inquiries about the accident. No one disputed with Isaacs the right to ride beside Miss Westonhaugh on the homeward road. He was the victor of the day, and of course was entitled to the best place. We were all straggling along, but without any great intervals between us, so that the two were not able to get away as they had done on Saturday evening, but they talked, and I heard Miss Westonhaugh laugh. Isaacs was determined to show that he appreciated his advantage, and though, for all I know, he might be suffering a good deal of pain, he talked gaily and sat his horse easily, rather a strange figure in his light-coloured English overcoat, surmounted by the large white turban he had made out of the shawl. As we came out on the mall at the top of the hill, Mr. Ghyrkins called a council of war. "Of course we shall have to put off the tiger-hunt." "I suppose so," muttered Kildare, disconsolately. "Why?" said Isaacs. "Not a bit of it. Head or no head, we will start to-morrow morning. I am well enough, never fear." "Nonsense, you know it's nonsense," said Ghyrkins, "you will be in bed all day with a raging headache. Horrid things, knocks on the back of the head." "Not I. My traps are all packed, and my servants have gone down to Kalka, and I am going to-morrow morning." "Well, of course, if you really think you can," etc. etc. So he was prevailed upon to promise that if he should be suffering in the morning he would send word in time to put off the party. "Besides," he added, "even if I could not go, that is no reason why you should not." "Stuff," said Ghyrkins. "Oh!" said Miss Westonhaugh, looking rather blank. "That would never do," said John. "Preposterous! we could not think of going without you," said Lord Steepleton Kildare loudly; he was beginning to like Isaacs in spite of himself. And so we parted. "I shall not dine to-night, Griggs," said Isaacs, as we paused before his door. "Come in for a moment: you can help me." We entered the richly carpeted room, and he went to a curious old Japanese cabinet, and after opening various doors and divisions, showed a small iron safe. This he opened by some means known to himself, for he used no key, and he took out a small vessel of jade and brought it to the light. "Now," he said, "be good enough to warm this little jar in your hands while I go into the next room and get my boots and spurs and things off. But do not open it on any account--not on any account, until I come back," he added very emphatically. "All right, go ahead," said I, and began to warm the cold thing that felt like a piece of ice between my hands. He returned in a few minutes robed in loose garments from Kashmir, with the low Eastern slippers he generally wore indoors. He sat down among his cushions and leaned back, looking pale and tired; after ordering the lamps to be lit and the doors closed, he motioned me to sit down beside him. "I have had a bad shaking," he said, "and my head is a good deal bruised. But I mean to go to-morrow in spite of everything. In that little vial there is a powerful remedy unknown in your Western medicine. Now I want you to apply it, and to follow with the utmost exactness my instructions. If you fear you should forget what I tell you, write it down, for a mistake might be fatal to you, and would certainly be fatal to me." I took out an old letter and a pencil, not daring to trust my memory. "Put the vial in your bosom while you write: it must be near the temperature of the body. Now listen to me. In that silver box is wax. Tie first this piece of silk over your mouth, and then stop your nostrils carefully with the wax. Then open the vial quickly and pour a little of the contents into your hand. You must be quick, for it is very volatile. Rub that on the back of my head, keeping the vial closed. When your hand is dry, hold the vial open to my nostrils for two minutes by your watch. By that time, I shall be asleep. Put the vial in this pocket of my _caftán_; open all the doors and windows, and tell my servant to leave them so, but not to admit any one. Then you can leave me; I shall sleep very comfortably. Come back and wake me a little before midnight. You will wake me easily by lifting my head and pressing one of my hands. Remember, if you should forget to wake me, and I should still be asleep at one o'clock, I should never open my eyes again, and should be dead before morning. Do as I tell you, for friendship's sake, and when I wake I shall bathe and sleep naturally the rest of the night." I carefully fulfilled his instructions. Before I had finished rubbing his head he was drowsy, and when I took the vial from his nostrils he was sound asleep. I placed the precious thing where he had told me, and arranged his limbs on the cushions. Then I opened everything, and leaving the servant in charge went my way to my rooms. On removing the silk and the wax which had protected me from the powerful drug, an indescribable odour which permeated my clothes ascended to my nostrils; aromatic, yet pungent and penetrating; I never smelt anything that it reminded me of, but I presume the compound contained something of the nature of an opiate. I took some books down to Isaacs' rooms and passed the evening there, unwilling to leave him to the care of an inquisitive servant, and five minutes before midnight I awoke him in the manner he had directed. He seemed to be sleeping lightly, for he was awake in a moment, and his first action was to replace the vial in the curious safe. He professed himself perfectly restored; and, indeed, on examining his bruise I found there was no swelling or inflammation. The odour of the medicament, which, as he had said, seemed to be very volatile, had almost entirely disappeared. He begged me to go to bed, saying that he would bathe and then do likewise, and I left him for the night; speculating on the nature of this secret and precious remedy. * * * * * CHAPTER IX. The Himalayan _tonga_ is a thing of delight. It is easily described, for in principle it is the ancient Persian war-chariot, though the accommodation is so modified as to allow four persons to sit in it back to back; that is, three besides the driver. It is built for great strength, the wheels being enormously heavy, and the pole of the size of a mast. Harness the horses have none, save a single belt with a sort of lock at the top, which fits into the iron yoke through the pole, and can slide from it to the extremity; there is neither breeching nor trace nor collar, and the reins run from the heavy curb bit directly through loops on the yoke to the driver's hands. The latter, a wiry, long-bearded Mohammedan, is armed with a long whip attached to a short thick stock, and though he sits low, on the same level as the passenger beside him on the front seat, he guides his half broken horses with amazing dexterity round sharp curves and by giddy precipices, where neither parapet nor fencing give the startled mind even a momentary impression of security. The road from Simla to Kalka at the foot of the hills is so narrow that if two vehicles meet, the one has to draw up to the edge of the road, while the other passes on its way. In view of the frequent encounters, every tonga-driver is provided with a post horn of tremendous power and most discordant harmony; for the road is covered with bullock carts bearing provisions and stores to the hill station. Smaller loads, such as trunks and other luggage, are generally carried by coolies, who follow a shorter path, the carriage road being ninety-two miles from Umballa, the railroad station, to Simla, but a certain amount may be stowed away in the tonga, of which the capacity is considerable. In three of these vehicles our party of six began the descent on Tuesday morning, wrapped in linen "dusters" of various shades and shapes, and armed with countless varieties of smoking gear. The roughness of the road precludes all possibility of reading, and, after all, the rapid motion and the constant appearance of danger--which in reality does not exist--prevent any overpowering _ennui_ from assailing the dusty traveller. So we spun along all day, stopping once or twice for a little refreshment, and changing horses every five or six miles. Everybody was in capital spirits, and we changed seats often, thus obtaining some little variety. Isaacs, who to every one's astonishment, seemed not to feel any inconvenience from his accident, clung to his seat in Miss Westonhaugh's tonga, sitting in front with the driver, while she and her uncle or brother occupied the seat behind, which is far more comfortable. At last, however, he was obliged to give his place to Kildare, who had been very patient, but at last said it "really wasn't fair, you know," and so Isaacs courteously yielded. At last we reached Kalka, where the tongas are exchanged for _dâk gharry_ or mail carriage, a thing in which you can sit up in the daytime and lie down at night, there being an extension under the driver's box calculated for the accommodation of the longest legs. When lying down in one of these vehicles the sensation is that of being in a hearse and playing a game of funeral. On this occasion, however, it was still early when we made the change, and we paired off, two and two, for the last part of the drive. By the well planned arrangements of Isaacs and Kildare, two carriages were in readiness for us on the express train, and though the difference in temperature was enormous between Simla and the plains, still steaming from the late rainy season, the travelling was made easy for us, and we settled ourselves for the journey, after dining at the little hotel; Miss Westonhaugh bidding us all a cheery "good-night" as she retired with her _ayah_ into the carriage prepared for her. I will not go into tedious details of the journey--we slept and woke and slept again, and smoked, and occasionally concocted iced drinks from our supplies, for in India the carriages are so large that the traveller generally provides himself with a generous basket of provisions and a travelling ice-chest full of bottles, and takes a trunk or two with him in his compartment. Suffice it to say that we arrived on the following day at Fyzabad in Oude, and that we were there met by guides and shikarries--the native huntsmen--who assured us that there were tigers about near the outlying station of Pegnugger, where the elephants, previously ordered, would all be in readiness for us on the following day. The journey from Fyzabad to Pegnugger was not a long one, and we set out in the cool of the evening, sending our servants along in that "happy-go-lucky" fashion which characterises Indian life. It has always been a mystery to me how native servants manage always to turn up at the right moment. You say to your man, "Go there and wait for me," and you arrive and find him waiting; though how he transferred himself thither, with his queer-looking bundle, and his lota, and cooking utensils, and your best teapot wrapped up in a newspaper and ready for use, and with all the other hundred and one things that a native servant contrives to carry about without breaking or losing one of them, is an unsolved puzzle. Yet there he is, clean and grinning as ever, and if he were not clean and grinning and provided with tea and cheroots, you would not keep him in your service a day, though you would be incapable of looking half so spotless and pleased under the same circumstances yourself. On the following day, therefore, we found ourselves at Pegnugger, surrounded by shikarries and provided with every instrument of the chase that the ingenuity of man and the foresight of Isaacs and Ghyrkins could provide. There were numbers of tents, sleeping tents, cooking tents, and servants' tents; guns and ammunition of every calibre likely to be useful; _kookries_, broad strong weapons not unlike the famous American bowie knives (which are all made in Sheffield, to the honour, glory, and gain, of British trade); there were huge packs of provisions edible and potable; baskets of utensils for the kitchen and the table, and piles of blankets and tenting gear for the camp. There was also the little collector of Pegnugger, whose small body housed a stout heart, for he had shot tigers on foot before now in company with a certain German doctor of undying sporting fame, whose big round spectacles seemed to direct his bullets with unerring precision. But the doctor was not here now, and so the sturdy Englishman condescended to accept a seat in the howdah, and to kill his game with somewhat less risk than usual. This first day was occupied in transferring our party, now swelled by countless beaters and numerous huntsmen, not to mention all the retinue of servants necessary for an Indian camp, to the neighbourhood of the battlefield. There is not much conversation on these occasions, for the party is apt to become scattered, and there is a general tone of expectancy in the air, the old hands conversing more with the natives who know the district than with each other, and the young ones either wondering how many tigers they will kill, or listening open mouthed to the tales of adventure reeled off by the yard by the old bearded shikarry, who has slain the king of the jungle with a _kookrie_ in hand to hand struggle when he was young, and bears the scars of the deadly encounter on his brown chest to this day. Old Ghyrkins, who was evidently in his element, rode about on a little _tat_, questioning beaters and shikarries, and coming back every now and then to bawl up some piece of information to the little collector, who had established himself on one of the elephants and looked down over the edge of the howdah, the great pith hat on his head making him look like an immense mushroom with a very thin stem sprouting suddenly from the back of the huge beast. He smiled pleasantly at the old sportsman from his elevation, and seemed to know all about it. It so chanced that when he received Isaacs' telegrams he had been planning a little excursion on his own account, and had been sending out scouts and beaters for some days to ascertain where the game lay. This, of course, was so much clear gain to us, and the little man was delighted at the opportune coincidence which enabled him, by the unlimited money supplied, to join in such a hunt as he had not seen since the time when the Prince of Wales disported himself among the royal game, three years before. As for Miss Westonhaugh, she was in the gayest of spirits, as she sat with her brother on an elephant's back, while Isaacs, who loved the saddle, circled round her and kept up a fire of little compliments and pretty speeches, to which she was fast becoming inured. Kildare and I followed them closely on another elephant, discoursing seriously about the hunt, and occasionally shouting some question to John Westonhaugh, ahead, about sport in the south. Before evening we had arrived at our first camping ground, near a small village on the outskirts of the jungle, and the tents were pitched on a little elevation covered with grass, now green and waving. The men had mowed a patch clear, and were busy with the pegs and all the paraphernalia of a canvas house, and we strolled about, some of us directing the operations, others offering a sacrifice of cooling liquids and tobacco to the setting sun. Miss Westonhaugh had heard about living in tents ever since she came to India, and had often longed to sleep in one of those temporary chambers that are set up anywhere in the "compound" of an English bungalow for the accommodation of the bachelor guests whom the house itself is too small to hold; now she was enchanted at the prospect of a whole fortnight under canvas, and watched with rapt interest the driving of the pegs, the raising of the poles, and the careful furnishing of her dwelling. There was a carpet, and armchairs, and tables, and even a small bookcase with a few favourite volumes. To us in civilised life it seems a great deal of trouble to transport a lunch basket and a novel to some shady glen to enjoy a day's rest in the open air, and we would almost rather starve than take the trouble to carry provisions. In India you speak the word, and as by magic there arises in the wilderness a little village of tents, furnished with every necessary luxury--and the luxuries necessary to our degenerate age are many--a kitchen tent is raised, and a skilled dark-skinned artist provides you in an hour with a dinner such as you could eat in no hotel. The treasures of the huge portable ice-chest reveal cooling wines and soda water to the thirsty soul, and if you are going very far beyond the reach of the large towns, a small ice-machine is kept at work day and night to increase the supply while you sleep, and to maintain it while you wake. In the _connât_ or verandah of the tent, long chairs await you after your meal, and as you smoke the fragrant cigarette and watch the stars coming out, you feel as comfortable as though you had been dining in your own spacious bungalow in Mudnugger. It was not long before all was ready, and having made many ablutions and a little toilet, we assembled round the dinner table in the eating tent, the same party that had dined at Mr. Currie Ghyrkins' house on Sunday night, with the addition of the little collector of Pegnugger, whose stories of his outlying district were full of humour and anecdote. The talk bending in the direction of adventure, Kildare, who had been lately in South Africa with his regiment, told some tales of Zulus and assegais and Boers in the Hibernian style of hyperbole. The Irish blood never comes out so strongly as when a story is to be told, and no amount of English education and Oxford accent will suppress the tendency. The brogue is gone, but the love of the marvellous is there still. Isaacs related the experience of "a man he knew," who had been pulled off his elephant, howdah and all, and had killed the tiger with a revolver at half arm's length. "Ah yes," said the little collector, who had not caught the names of all the party when introduced, "I read about it at the time; I remember it very well. It happened in Purneah two years ago. The gentleman was a Mr. Isaacs of Delhi. Queer name too--remember perfectly." There was a roar of laughter at this, in which the collector joined vociferously on being informed that the man with the "queer name" was his neighbour at table. "You see what you get for your modesty," cried old Ghyrkins, laughing to convulsions. "And is it really true, Mr. Isaacs?" asked Miss Westonhaugh, looking admiringly across at the young man, who seemed rather annoyed. And so the conversation went round and all were merry, and some were sleepy after dinner, and we sat in long chairs under the awning or _connât_. There was no moon yet, but the stars shone out as they shine nowhere save in India, and the evening breeze played pleasantly through the ropes after the long hot day. Miss Westonhaugh assured everybody for the hundredth time that day that she rather liked the smell of cigars, and so we smoked and chatted a little, and presently there was a jerk and a sputtering sneeze from Mr. Ghyrkins, who, being weary with the march and the heat and the good dinner, and on the borders of sleep, had put the wrong end of his cigar in his mouth with destructive results. Then he threw it away with a small volley of harmless expletives, and swore he would go to bed, as he could not stand our dulness any longer; but he merely shifted his position a little, and was soon snoring merrily. "What a pity it is we have no piano, Katharine," said John Westonhaugh, who was fond of music. "Could you not sing something without any accompaniment?" "Oh no. Mr. Isaacs," she said, turning her voice to where she could see the light of his cigarette and the faint outline of his chair in the starlight, "here we are in the camp. Now where is the 'lute' you promised to produce for us? I think the time has come at last for you to keep your promise." "Well," said he, "I believe there really is an old guitar or something of the kind among my traps somewhere. But it might wake Mr. Ghyrkins, who, I understand from his tones, is asleep." Various opinions were expressed to the effect that Mr. Ghyrkins was not so easily disturbed, and a voice like Kildare's was heard to mumble that "it would not hurt him if he was," a sentence no one attempted to construe. So the faithful Narain was summoned, and instructed to bring the instrument if he could find it. I was rather surprised at Isaacs' readiness to sing; but in the first place I had never heard him, and besides I did not make allowance for the Oriental courtesy of his character, which would not refuse anything, or make any show of refusal in order to be pressed. Narain returned with a very modern-looking guitar-case, and, opening the box, presented his master with the instrument, which, as Isaacs took it to the light in the door of the tent to see if it had travelled safely, appeared to be a perfectly new German guitar. I suspected him of having purchased it at the little music shop at Simla, for the especial amusement of our party. "I thought it was a lute you played on," said Miss Westonhaugh, "a real, lovely, ancient Assyrian lute, or something of that kind." "Oh, a plain guitar is infinitely better and less troublesome," said Isaacs as he returned to his seat in the dark and began to tune the strings softly. "It takes so long to tune one of those old things, and then nothing will make them stand. Now this one, you see,--or rather you cannot see,--has an ingenious contrivance of screws by which you may tune it in a moment." While he was speaking he was altering the pitch of the strings, and presently he added, "There, it is done now," and two or three sounding chords fell on the still air. "Now what shall I sing? I await your commands." "Something soft, and sweet, and gentle." "A love-song?" asked he quietly. "Well yes--a love-song if you like. Why not?" said she. "No reason in the world that I can think of," I remarked. Whereat Lord Steepleton Kildare threw his cigar away, and began lighting another a moment after, as if he had discarded his weed by mistake. Isaacs struck a few chords softly, and then began a sort of running accompaniment. His voice, which seemed to me to be very high, was wonderfully smooth and round, and produced the impression of being much more powerful than he cared to show. He sang without the least effort, and yet there was none of that effeminate character that I have noticed in European male singers when producing high notes very softly. I do not understand music, but I am sure I never heard an opera tenor with a voice of such quality. The words of his song were Persian, and the pure accents of his native tongue seemed well suited to the half passionate, half plaintive air he had chosen. I afterwards found a translation of the sonnet by an English officer, which I here give, though it conveys little idea of the music of the original verse. Last night, my eyes being closed in sleep, but my good fortune awake, The whole night, the livelong night, the image of my beloved one was the companion of my soul. The sweetness of her melodious voice still remains vibrating on my soul; Heavens! how did the sugared words fall from her sweeter lips; Alas! all that she said to me in that dream has escaped from my memory, Although it was my care till break of day to repeat over and over her sweet words. The day, unless illuminated by her beauty, is, to my eyes, of nocturnal darkness. Happy day that first I gazed upon that lovely face! May the eyes of Jami long be blessed with pleasing visions, since they presented to his view last night The object, on whose account he passed his waking life in expectation.[1] His beautiful voice ceased, and with infinite skill he wove a few strains of the melody into the final chords he played when he had finished singing. It was all so entirely novel, so unlike any music most of us had ever heard, and it was so undeniably good, that every one applauded and said something to the singer in turn, expressing the greatest admiration and appreciation. Miss Westonhaugh was the last to speak. "It is perfectly lovely," she said. "I wish I could understand the words--are they as sweet as the music?" "Sweeter," he answered, and he gave an offhand translation of two or three verses. "Beautiful indeed," she said; "and now sing me another, please." There was no resisting such an appeal, with the personal pronoun in the singular number. He moved a little nearer, and emphatically sang to her, and to no one else. A song of the same character as the first, but, I thought, more passionate and less dreamy, as his great sweet voice swelled and softened and rose again in burning vibrations and waves of sound. She did not ask a translation this time, but some one else did, after the applause had subsided. "I cannot translate these things," said Isaacs, "so as to do them justice, or give you any idea of the strength and vitality of the Persian verses. Perhaps Griggs, who understands Persian very well and is a literary man, may do it for you. I would rather not try." I professed my entire inability to comply with the request, and to turn the conversation asked him where he had learned to play the guitar so well. "Oh," he answered, "in Istamboul, years ago. Everybody plays in Istamboul--and most people sing love-songs. Besides it is so easy," and he ran scales up and down the strings with marvellous rapidity to illustrate what he said. "And do you never sing English songs, Mr. Isaacs?" asked the collector of Pegnugger, who was enchanted, not having heard a note of music for months. "Oh, sometimes," he answered. "I think I could sing 'Drink to me only with thine eyes'--do you know it?" He began to play the melody on the guitar while he spoke. "Rather--I should think so!" Kildare was heard to say. He was beginning to think the concert had lasted long enough. "Oh, do sing it, Mr. Isaacs," said the young girl, "and my brother and I will join in. It will be so pretty!" It certainly sounded very sweetly as he gave the melody in his clear, high tones, and Miss Westonhaugh and John sang with him. Having heard it several thousand times myself, I was beginning to recognise the tune well enough to enjoy it a good deal. "That is very nice," said Kildare, who was sorry he had made an impatient remark before, and wanted to atone. "Eh? what? how's that?" said Mr. Ghyrkins just waking up. "Oh! of course. My niece sings charmingly. Quite an artist, you know." And he struggled out of his chair and said it was high time we all went to bed if we meant to shoot straight in the morning. The magistrate of Pegnugger concurred in the opinion, and we reluctantly separated for the night to our respective quarters, Isaacs and I occupying a tent together, which he had caused to be sent on from Delhi, as being especially adapted to his comfort. On the following day at dawn we were roused by the sound of preparations, and before we were dressed the voices of Mr. Currie Ghyrkins and the collector were heard in the camp, stirring up the sleepy servants and ordering us to be waked. The two old sportsmen felt it their duty to be first on such an occasion as this, and in the calm security that they would do everything that was right, Isaacs and I discussed our tea and fruit--the _chota haziri_ or "little breakfast" usually taken in India on waking--sitting in the door of our tent, while Kiramat Ali and Narain and Mahmoud and the rest of the servants were giving a final rub to the weapons of the chase, and making all the little preparations for a long day. And we sat looking out and sipping our tea. In the cool of the dawn Miss Westonhaugh came tripping across the wet grass to where her uncle was giving his final directions about the furnishing of his howdah for the day; a lovely apparition of freshness in the gray morning, all dressed in dark blue, a light pith helmet-shaped hat pressing the rebellious white-gold hair almost out of sight. She walked so easily it seemed as if her dainty little feet had wings, as Hermes' of old, to ease the ground of their feather weight. A broad belt hung across her shoulder with little rows of cartridges set all along, and at the end hung a very business-like revolver case of brown leather and of goodly length. No toy miniature pistol would she carry, but a full-sized, heavy "six-shooter," that might really be of use at close quarters. She stood some minutes talking with Mr. Ghyrkins, not noticing us in the shadow of the tent some thirty yards away; Isaacs and I watched her intently--with very different feelings, possibly, but yet intensely admiring the fair creature, so strong and pliant, and yet so erect and straight. She turned half round towards us, and I saw there were flowers in the front of her dress. I wondered where they had come from; they were roses--of all flowers in the world to be blooming in the desert. Perhaps she had brought them carefully from Fyzabad, but that was improbable; or from Pegnugger--yes, there would be roses in the collector's garden there. Isaacs rose to his feet. "Oh, come along, Griggs. You have had quite enough tea!" "Go ahead; I will be with you in a moment." But a sudden thought struck me, and I went with him, bareheaded, to greet Miss Westonhaugh. She smiled brightly as she held out her hand. "Good morning, Mr. Isaacs. Thank you so much for the roses. How _did_ you do it? They are _too_ lovely!" So it was just as I thought. Isaacs had probably despatched a man back to Pegnugger in the night. "Very easy I assure you. I am so glad you like them. They are not very fresh after all though, I see," he added depreciatingly, as men do when they give flowers to people they care about. I never heard a man find fault with flowers he gave out of a sense of duty. It is perhaps that the woman best loved of all things in the world has for him a sweetness and a beauty that kills the coarser hues of the rose, and outvies the fragrance of the double violets. "Oh no!" she said, emphasising the negative vigorously. "I think they are perfectly beautiful, but I want you to tell me where you got them." I began talking to Ghyrkins, who was intent on the arrangement of his guns which was going on under his eyes, but I heard the answer, though Isaacs spoke in a low voice. "You must not say that, Miss Westonhaugh. You yourself are the most perfect and beautiful thing God ever made." By a superhuman effort I succeeded in keeping my eyes fixed on Ghyrkins, probably with a stony, unconscious stare, for he presently asked what I was looking at. I do not think Isaacs cared whether I heard him or not, knowing that I sympathised, but Mr. Ghyrkins was another matter. The Persian had made progress, for there was no trace of annoyance in Miss Westonhaugh's answer, though she entirely overlooked her companion's pretty speech. "Seriously, Mr. Isaacs, if you mean to have one of them for your badge to-day, you must tell me how you got them." I turned slowly round. She was holding a single rose in her fingers, and looking from it to him, as if to see if it would match his olive skin and his Karkee shooting-coat. He could not resist the bribe. "If you really want to know I will tell you, but it is a profound secret," he said, smiling. "Griggs, swear!" I raised my hand and murmured something about the graves of my ancestors. "Well," he continued, "yesterday morning at the collector's house I saw a garden; in the garden there were roses, carefully tended, for it is late. I took the gardener apart and said, 'My friend, behold, here is silver for thee, both rupees and pais. And if thou wilt pick the best of thy roses and deliver them to the swift runner whom I will send to thee at supper time when the stars are coming out, I will give thee as much as thou shalt earn in a month with thy English master. But if thou wilt not do it, or if thou failest to do it, having promised, I will cause the grave of thy father to be defiled with the slaughter of swine, and, moreover, I will return and beat thee with a thick stick!' The fellow was a Mussulman, and there was a merry twinkle in his eye as he took the money and swore a great oath. I left a running man at Pegnugger with a basket, and that is how you got the roses. Don't tell the collector, that is all." We all laughed, and Miss Westonhaugh gave the rose to Isaacs, who touched it to his lips, under pretence of smelling it, and put it in his buttonhole. Kildare came up at this moment and created a diversion; then the collector joined us and scattered us right and left, saying it was high time we were in the howdahs and on the way. So we buckled on our belts, and those who wore hats put them on, and those who preferred turbans bent while their bearers wound them on, and then we moved off to where the elephants were waiting and got into our places, and the _mahouts_ urged the huge beasts from their knees to their feet, and we went swinging off to the forest. The pad elephants, who serve as beaters and move between the howdah animals, joined us, and presently we went splashing through the reedy patches of fern, and crashing through the branches, towards the heart of the jungle. Mr. Currie Ghyrkins, whose long experience had made him as cool when after tigers as when reading the _Pioneer_ in his shady bungalow at Simla, had taken Miss Westonhaugh with him in his howdah, and as an additional precaution for her safety, the little collector of Pegnugger, who was a dead shot, only allowed two pad elephants to move between himself and Ghyrkins. As there were thirty-seven animals in all, the rest of the party were much scattered. I thought there were too many elephants for our six howdahs, but it turned out that I was mistaken, for we had capital sport. The magistrate of Pegnugger, who knew the country thoroughly, was made the despot of the day. His orders were obeyed unquestioningly and unconditionally, and we halted in long line or marched onwards, forcing a passage through every obstacle, at his word. We might have been out a couple of hours, watching every patch of jungle and blade of long rank grass for a sight of the striped skin, writhing through the reeds, that we so longed to see, when the quick, short crack of a rifle away to the right brought us to a halt, and every one drew a long breath and turned, gun in hand, in the direction whence the sound had come. It was Kildare; he had met his first tiger, and the first also of the hunt. He had put up the animal not five paces in front of him, stealing along in the cool grass and hoping to escape between the elephants, in the cunning way they often do. He had fired a snap shot too quickly, inflicting a wound in the flank which only served to rouse the tiger to madness. With a leap that seemed to raise its body perpendicularly from the ground, the gorgeous creature flew into the air and settled right on the head of Kildare's elephant, while the terrified _mahout_ wound himself round the howdah. It would have been a trying position for the oldest sportsman, but to be brought into such terrific encounter at arm's length, almost, at one's very first experience of the chase, was a terrible test of nerve. Those who were near said that in that awful moment Kildare never changed colour. The elephant plunged wildly in his efforts to shake off the beast from his head, but Kildare had seized his second gun the moment he had discharged the first, and aiming for one second only, as the tossing head and neck of the tusker brought the gigantic cat opposite him, fired again. The fearful claws, driven deep and sure into the thick hide of the poor elephant, relaxed their hold, the beautiful lithe limbs straightened by their own perpendicular weight, and the first prize of the day dropped to the ground like lead, dead, shot through the head. A great yell of triumph arose all along the line, and the little _mahout_ crept cautiously back from his lurking-place behind the howdah to see if the coast were clear. Kildare had behaved splendidly, and shouts of congratulation reached his ears from all sides. Miss Westonhaugh waved her handkerchief in token of approbation, every one applauded, and far away to the left Isaacs, who was in the last howdah, clapped his hands vigorously, and sent his high clear voice ringing like a trumpet down the line. "Well done, Kildare! well done, indeed!" and his rival's praise was not the least grateful to Lord Steepleton on that day. Meanwhile the shikarries gathered around the fallen beast. It proved to be a young tigress some eight feet long, and the clean bright coat showed that she was no man-eater. So the pad elephant came alongside, to use a nautical phrase not inappropriate, and kneeling down received its burden willingly, well knowing that the slain beauty was one of his deadly foes. The _mahout_ pronounced the elephant on which Kildare was mounted able to proceed, and only a few huge drops of blood marked where the tigress had kept her hold. We moved on again, beating the jungle, wheeling and doubling the long line, wherever it seemed likely that some striped monster might have eluded us. Marching and counter-marching through the heat of the day, we picked up another-prize in the afternoon. It was a large old tiger, nine feet six as he lay; he fell an easy prey to the gun of the little collector of Pegnugger, who sent a bullet through his heart at the first shot, and smiled rather contemptuously as he removed the empty shell of the cartridge from his gun. He would rather have had Kildare's chance in the morning. After all, two tigers in a day was not bad sport for the time of year. I knew Isaacs would be disappointed at not having had a shot, where his rival in a certain quarter had had so good an opportunity for displaying skill and courage; and I confessed to myself that I preferred a small party, say, a dozen elephants and three howdahs, to this tremendous and expensive _battue_. I had a shot-gun with me, and consoled myself by shooting a peacock or two as we rolled and swayed homewards. We had determined to keep to the same camp for a day or two, as we could enter the forest from another point on the morrow, and might even beat some of the same ground again with success. It was past five when we got down to the tents and descended from our howdahs, glad to stretch our stiffened limbs in a brisk walk. The dead tigers were hauled into the middle of the camp, and the servants ran together to see the result of the _sahib log's_ day out. We retired to dress and refresh ourselves for dinner. * * * * * CHAPTER X. In Isaacs' tent I was pulling off my turban, all shapeless and crumpled by the long day, while Isaacs stood disconsolately looking at the clean guns and unbroken rows of cartridges which Narain deposited on the table. The sun was very low, and shone horizontally through the raised door of the tent on my friend's rather gloomy face. At that moment something intercepted the sunshine, and a dark shadow fell across the floor. I looked, and saw a native standing on the threshold, salaaming and waiting to be spoken to. He was not one of our men, but a common ryot, clad simply in a _dhoti_ or waist-cloth, and a rather dirty turban. "Kya chahte ho?"--"What do you want?" asked Isaacs impatiently. He was not in a good humour by any means. "Wilt thou deprive thy betters of the sunlight thou enjoyest thyself?" "The sahib's face is like the sun and the moon," replied the man deprecatingly. "But if the great lord will listen I will tell him what shall rejoice his heart." "Speak, unbeliever," said Isaacs. "Protector of the poor! you are my father and my mother! but I know where there lieth a great tiger, an eater of men, hard-hearted, that delighteth in blood." "Dog," answered Isaacs, calmly removing his coat, "the tiger you speak of was seen by you many moons since; what do you come to me with idle tales for?" Isaacs was familiar with the native trick of palming off old tigers on the unwary stranger, in the hope of a reward. "Sahib, I am no liar. I saw the tiger, who is the king of the forest, this morning." Isaacs' manner relaxed a little, and he sat down and lighted the eternal cigarette. "Slave," he said meditatively, "if it is as you say, I will kill the tiger, but if it is not as you say, I will kill you, and cause your body to be buried with the carcass of an ox, and your soul shall not live." The man did not seem much moved by the threat. He moved nearer, and salaamed again. "It is near to the dwelling of the sahib, who is my father," said the man, speaking low. "The day before yesterday he destroyed a man from the village. He has eaten five men in the last moon. I have seen him enter his lair, and he will surely return before the dawn; and the sahib shall strike him by his lightning; and the sahib will not refuse me the ears of the man-eater, that I may make a _jädu_, a charm against sudden death?" "Hound! if thou speakest the truth, and I kill the tiger, the monarch of game, I will make thee a rich man; but thou shalt not have his ears. I desire the _jädu_ for myself. I have spoken; wait thou here my pleasure." The ryot bent low to the earth, and then squatted by the tent-door to wait, in the patient way that a Hindoo can, for Isaacs to go and eat his dinner. As the latter came out ten minutes later, he paused and addressed the man once more. "Speak not to any man of thy tiger while I am gone, or I will cut off thine ears with a pork knife." And we passed on. The sun was now set and hovering in the afterglow, the new moon was following lazily down. I stopped a moment to look at her, and was surprised by Miss Westonhaugh's voice close behind me. "Are you wishing by the new moon, Mr. Griggs?" she asked. "Yes," said I, "I was. And what were you wishing, Miss Westonhaugh, if I may ask?" Isaacs came up, and paused beside us. The beautiful girl stood quite still, looking to westward, a red glow on the white-gold masses of her hair. "Did you say you were wishing for something, Miss Westonhaugh?" he asked. "Perhaps I can get it for you. More flowers, perhaps? They are very easily got." "No--that is, not especially. I was wishing--well, that a tiger-hunt might last for ever; and I want a pair of tiger's ears. My old _ayah_ says they keep off evil spirits and sickness; and all sorts of things." "I know; it is a curious idea. I suppose both those beasts there have lost theirs already. These fellows cut them off in no time." "Yes. I have looked. So I suppose I must wait till to-morrow. But promise me, Mr. Isaacs, if you shoot one to-morrow, let me have the ears!" "I will promise that readily enough. I would promise anything you--" The last part of the sentence was lost to me, as I moved away and left them. At dinner, of course, every one talked of the day's sport, and compliments of all kinds were showered on Lord Steepleton, who looked very much pleased, and drank a good deal of wine. Ghyrkins and the little magistrate expressed their opinion that he would make a famous tiger-killer one of these days, when he had learned to wait. Every one was hungry and rather tired, and after a somewhat silent cigar, we parted for the night, Miss Westonhaugh rising first. Isaacs went to his quarters, and I remained alone in a long chair, by the deserted dining-tent. Kiramat Ali brought me a fresh hookah, and I lay quietly smoking and thinking of all kinds of things--things of all kinds, tigers, golden hair, more tigers, Isaacs, Shere Ali, Baithop--, what was his name--Baithop--p--. I fell asleep. Some one touched my hand, waking me suddenly. I sprang to my feet and seized the man by the throat, before I recognised in the starlight that it was Isaacs. "You are not a nice person to rouse," remarked he in a low voice, as I relaxed my grasp. "You will have fever if you sleep out-of-doors at this time of year. Now look here; it is past midnight, and I am going out a little way." I noticed that he had a _kookrie_ knife at his waist, and that his cartridge-belt was on his chest. "I will go with you," said I, guessing his intention. "I will be ready in a moment," and I began to move towards the tent. "No. I must go alone, and do this thing single-handed. I have a particular reason. I only wanted to warn you I was gone, in case you missed me. I shall take that ryot fellow with me to show me the way." "Give him a gun," I suggested. "He could not use one if I did. He has your _kookrie_ in case of accidents." "Oh, very well! do not let me interfere with any innocent and childlike pastime you may propose for your evening hours. I will attend to your funeral in the morning. Good-night." "Good-night; I shall be back before you are up." And he walked quickly off to where the ryot was waiting and holding his guns. He had the sense to take two. I was angry at the perverse temerity of the man. Why could he not have an elephant out and go like a sensible thinking being, instead of sneaking out with one miserable peasant to lie all night among the reeds, in as great danger from cobras as from the beast he meant to kill? And all for a girl --an English girl--a creature all fair hair and eyes, with no more intelligence than a sheep! Was it not she who sent him out to his death in the jungle, that her miserable caprice for a pair of tiger's ears might be immediately satisfied? If a woman ever loved me, Paul Griggs,--thank heaven no woman ever did,--would I go out into bogs and desert places and risk my precious skin to find her a pair of cat's ears? Not I;--wait a moment, though. If I were in his place, if Miss Westonhaugh loved _me_--I laughed at the conceit. But supposing she did. Just for the sake of argument, I would allow it. I think that I would risk something after all. What a glorious thing it would be to be loved by a woman, once, wholly and for ever. To meet the creature I described to him the other night, waiting for me to come into her life, and to be to her all I could be to the woman I should love. But she has never come; never will, now; still, there is a sort of rest to me in thinking of rest. Hearth, home, wife, children; the worn old staff resting in the corner, never to wander again. What a strange thing it is that men should have all these, and more, and yet never see that they have the simple elements of earthly happiness, if they would but use them. And we, outcasts and wanderers, children of sin and darkness, in whose hands one commandment seems hardly less fragile than another, would give anything--had we anything to give--for the happiness of a home, to call our own. How strange it is that what I said to Isaacs should be true. "Do not marry unless you must depend on each other for daily bread, or unless you are rich enough to live apart." Yes, it is true, in ninetynine cases out of a hundred. But then, I should add a saving clause, "and unless you are quite sure that you love each other." Ay, there is the _pons asinorum,_ the bridge whereon young asses and old fools come to such terrible grief. They are perfectly sure they love eternally; they will indignantly scorn the suggestions of prudence; love any other woman? never, while I live, answers the happy and unsophisticated youth. Be sorry I did it? Do you think I am a schoolboy in my first passion? demands the aged bridegroom. And so they marry, and in a year or two the enthusiastic young man runs away with some other enthusiastic man's wife, and the octogenarian spouse finds himself constituted into a pot of honey for his wife's swarming relations to settle on, like flies. But a man in strong middle prime of age, like me, knows his own mind; and--yes, on the whole I was unjust to Isaacs and to Miss Westonhaugh. If a woman loved me, she should have all the tiger's ears she wanted. "Still, I hope he will get back safely," I added, in afterthought to my reverie, as I turned into bed and ordered Kiramat Ali to wake me half an hour before dawn. I was restless, sleeping a little and dreaming much. At last I struck a light and looked at my watch. Four o'clock. It would not be dawn for more than an hour; I knew Isaacs had made for the place where the tiger passed his days, certain that he would return near daybreak, according to all common probability. He need not have gone so early, I thought. However, it might be a long way off. I lay still for a while, but it seemed very hot and close under the canvas. I got up and threw a _caftán_ round me, drew a chair into the _connât_ and sat, or rather lay, down in the cool morning breeze. Then I dozed again until Kiramat Ali woke me by pulling at my foot. He said it would be dawn in half an hour. I had passed a bad night, and went out, as I was, to walk on the grass. There was Miss Westonhaugh's tent away off at the other end. She was sleeping calmly enough, never doubting that at that very moment the man who loved her was risking his life for her pleasure--her slightest whim. She would be wide awake if she knew it, staring out into the darkness and listening for the crack of his rifle. A faint light appeared behind the dining-tent, over the distant trees, like the light of London seen from twenty or thirty miles' distance in the country, a faint, suggestive, murky grayness in the sky, making the stars look dimmer. The sound of a shot rang true and clear through the chill air; not far off I thought. I held my breath, listening for a second report, but none came. So it was over. Either he had killed the tiger with his first bullet, or the tiger had killed him before he could fire a second. I was intensely excited. If he were safe I wished him to have the glory of coming home quite alone. There was nothing for it but to wait, so I went into my tent and took a bath--a very simple operation where the bathing consists in pouring a huge jar of water over one's head. Tents in India have always a small side tent with a ditch dug to drain off the water from the copious ablutions of the inmate. I emerged into the room feeling better. It was now quite light, and I proceeded to dress leisurely to spin out the time. As I was drawing on my boots, Isaacs sauntered in quietly and laid his gun on the table. He was pale, and his Karkee clothes were covered with mud and leaves and bits of creeper, but his movements showed he was not hurt in any way; he hardly seemed tired. "Well?" I said anxiously. "Very well, thank you. Here they are," and he produced from the pocket of his coat the _spolia opima_ in the shape of a pair of ears, that looked very large to me. There was a little blood on them and on his hands as he handed the precious trophies to me for inspection. We stood by the open door, and while I was turning over the ears curiously in my hands, he looked down at his clothes. "I think I will take a bath," he said; "I must have been in a dirty place." "My dear fellow," I said, taking his hand, "this is absurd. I mean all this affected calmness. I was angry at your going in that way, to risk your head in a tiger's mouth; but I am sincerely glad to see you back alive. I congratulate you most heartily." "Thank you, old man," he said, his pale face brightening a little. "I am very glad myself. Do you know I have a superstition that I must fulfil every wish of--like that--even half expressed, to the very letter?" "The 'superstition,' as you call it, is worthy of the bravest knight that ever laid lance in rest. Don't part with superstitions like that. They are noble and generous things." "Perhaps," he answered, "but I really am very superstitious," he added, as he turned into the bathing _connât_. Soon I heard him splashing among the water jars. "By-the-bye, Griggs," he called out through the canvas, "I forgot to tell you. They are bringing that beast home on an elephant. It was much nearer than we supposed. They will be here in twenty minutes." A tremendous splashing interrupted him. "You can go and attend to that funeral you were talking about last night," he added, and his voice was again drowned in the swish and souse of the water. "He was rather large--over ten feet--I should say. Measure him as soon as he--" another cascade completed the sentence. I went out, taking the measuring tape from the table. In a few minutes the procession appeared. Two or three matutinal shikarries had gone out and come back, followed by the elephant, for which Isaacs had sent the ryot at full speed the moment he was sure the beast was dead. And so they came up the little hill behind the dining-tent. The great tusker moved evenly along, bearing on the pad an enormous yellow carcass, at which the little _mahout_ glanced occasionally over his shoulder. Astride of the dead king sat the ryot, who had directed Isaacs, crooning a strange psalm of victory in his outlandish northern dialect, and occasionally clapping his hands over his head with an expression of the most intense satisfaction I have ever seen on a human face. The little band came to the middle of the camp where the other tigers, now cut up and skinned elsewhere, had been deposited the night before, and as the elephant knelt down, the shikarries pulled the whole load over, pad, tiger, ryot and all, the latter skipping nimbly aside. There he lay, the great beast that had taken so many lives. We stretched him out and measured him--eleven feet from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail, all but an inch--as a little more straightening fills the measure, eleven feet exactly. Meanwhile, the servant and shikarries collected, and the noise of the exploit went abroad. The sun was just rising when Mr. Ghyrkins put his head out of his tent and wanted to know "what the deuce all this _tamäsha_ was about." "Oh, nothing especial," I called out. "Isaacs has killed an eleven foot man-eater in the night. That is all." "Well I'm damned," said Mr. Ghyrkins briefly, and to the point, as he stared from his tent at the great carcass, which lay stretched out for all to see, the elephant having departed. "Clear off those fellows and let me have a look at him, can't you?" he called out, gathering the tent curtains round his neck; and there he stood, his jolly red face and dishevelled gray hair looking as if they had no body attached at all. I went back to our quarters. Isaacs was putting the ears, which he had carefully cleansed from blood, into a silver box of beautiful workmanship, which Narain had extracted from his master's numerous traps. "Take that box to Miss Westonhaugh's tent," he said, giving it to the servant, "with a greeting from me--with 'much peace.'" The man went out. "She will send the box back," said I. "Such is the Englishwoman. She will take a pair of tiger's ears that nearly cost you your life, and she would rather die than accept the bit of silver in which you enclose them, without the 'permission of her uncle.'" "I do not care," he said, "so long as she keeps the ears. But unless I am much mistaken, she will keep the box too. She is not like other Englishwomen in the least." I was not sure of that. We had some tea in the door of our tent, and Isaacs seemed hungry and thirsty, as well he might be. Now that he was refreshed by bathing and the offices of the camp barber, he looked much as usual, save that the extreme paleness I had noticed when he came in had given place to a faint flush beneath the olive, probably due to his excitement, the danger being past. As we sat there, the rest of the party, who had slept rather later than usual after their fatigues of the previous day, came out one by one and stood around the dead tiger, wondering at the tale told by the delighted ryot, who squatted at the beast's head to relate the adventure to all comers. We could see the group from where we sat, in the shadow of the _connât_, and the different expressions of the men as they came out. The little collector of Pegnugger measured and measured again; Mr. Ghyrkins stood with his hands in his coat pockets and his legs apart, then going to the other side he took up the same position again. Lord Steepleton Kildare sauntered round and twirled his big moustache, saying nothing the while, but looking rather serious. John Westonhaugh, who seemed to be the artistic genius of the party, sent for a chair and made his servant hold an umbrella over him while he sketched the animal in his notebook, and presently his sister came out, a big bunch of roses in her belt, and a broad hat half hiding her face, and looked at the tiger and then round the party quickly, searching for Isaacs. In her hand she held a little package wrapped in white tissue paper. I strolled up to the group, leaving Isaacs in his tent. I thought I might as well play innocence. "Of course," I remarked, "those fellows have bagged his ears as usual." "They never omit that," said Ghyrkins. "Oh no, uncle," broke in Miss Westonhaugh, "he gave them to me!" "Who?" asked Ghyrkins, opening his little eyes wide. "Mr. Isaacs. Did not he kill the tiger? He sent me the ears in a little silver box. Here it is--the box, I mean. I am going to give it back to him, of course." "How did Mr. Isaacs know you wanted them?" asked her uncle, getting red in the face. "Why, we were talking about them last night before dinner, and he promised that if he shot a tiger to-day he would give me the ears." Mr. Ghyrkins was redder and redder in the morning sun. There was a storm of some kind brewing. We were collected together on the other side of the dead tiger and exchanged all kinds of spontaneous civilities and remarks, not wishing to witness Mr. Ghyrkins' wrath, nor to go away too suddenly. I heard the conversation, however, for the old gentleman made no pretence of lowering his voice. "And do you mean to say you let him go off like that? He must have been out all night. That beast of a nigger says so. On foot, too. I say on foot! Do you know what you are talking about? Eh? Shooting tigers on foot? What? Eh? Might have been killed as easily as not! And then what would you have said? Eh? What? Upon my soul! You girls from home have no more hearts than a parcel of old Juggernauts!" Ghyrkins was now furious. We edged away towards the dining-tent, making a great talk about the terrible heat of the sun in the morning. I caught the beginning of Miss Westonhaugh's answer. She had hardly appreciated the situation yet, and probably thought her uncle was joking, but she spoke very coldly, being properly annoyed at his talking in such a way. "You cannot suppose for a moment that I meant him to go," I heard her say, and something else followed in a lower tone. We then went into the dining-tent. "Now look here, Katharine," Mr. Ghyrkins' irate voice rang across the open space, "if any young woman asked me----" John Westonhaugh had risen from his chair and apparently interrupted his uncle. Miss Westonhaugh walked slowly to her tent, while her male relations remained talking. I thought Isaacs had shown some foresight in not taking part in the morning discussion. The two men went into their tents together and the dead tiger lay alone in the grass, the sun rising higher and higher, pouring down his burning rays on man and beast and green thing. And soon the shikarries came with a small elephant and dragged the carcass away to be skinned and cut up. Kildare and the collector said they would go and shoot some small game for dinner. Isaacs, I supposed, was sleeping, and I was alone in the dining-tent. I shouted for Kiramat Ali and sent for books, paper, and pens, and a hookah, resolved to have a quiet morning to myself, since it was clear we were not going out to-day. I saw Ghyrkins' servant enter his tent with bottles and ice, and I suspected the old fellow was going to cool his wrath with a "peg," and would be asleep most of the morning. John would take a peg too, but he would not sleep in consequence, being of Bombay, iron-headed and spirit-proof. So I read on and wrote, and was happy, for I like the heat of the noon-day and the buzzing of the flies, and the smell of the parched grass, being southern born. About twelve o'clock, when I was beginning to think I had done enough work for one day, I saw Miss Westonhaugh's native maid come out of her mistress's tent and survey the landscape, shading her eyes with her hand. She was dressed, of course, in spotless white drapery, and there were heavy anklets on her feet and bangles of silver on her wrist. She seemed satisfied by her inspection and went in again, returning presently with Miss Westonhaugh and a large package of work and novels and letter-writing materials. They came straight to where I was sitting under the airy tent where we dined, and Miss Westonhaugh established herself at one side of the table at the end of which I was writing. "It is so hot in my tent," she said almost apologetically, and began to unroll some worsted work. "Yes, it is quite unbearable," I answered politely, though I had not thought much about the temperature. There was a long silence, and I collected my papers in a bundle and leaned back in my chair. I did not know what to say, nor was anything expected of me. I looked occasionally at the young girl, who had laid her hat on the table, allowing the rich coils of dazzling hair to assert their independence. Her dark eyes were bent over her work as her fingers deftly pushed the needle in and out of the brown linen she worked on. "Mr. Griggs," she began at last without looking up, "did you know Mr. Isaacs was going out last night to kill that horrid thing?" I had expected the question for some time. "Yes; he told me about midnight, when he started." "Then why did you let him go?" she asked, looking suddenly at me, and knitting her dark eyebrows rather fiercely. "I do not think I could have prevented him. I do not think anybody could prevent him from doing anything he had made up his mind to. I nearly quarrelled with him, as it was." "I am sure I could have stopped him, if I had been you," she said innocently. "I have not the least doubt that you could. Unfortunately, however, you were not available at the time, or I would have suggested it to you." "I wish I had known," she went on, plunging deeper and deeper. "I would not have had him go for--for anything." "Oh! Well, I suppose not. But, seriously, Miss Westonhaugh, are you not flattered that a man should be willing and ready to risk life and limb in satisfying your lightest fancy?" "Flattered?" she looked at me with much astonishment and some anger. I was sure the look was genuine and not assumed. "At all events the tiger's ears will always be a charming reminiscence, a token of esteem that any one might be proud of." "I am not proud of them in the least, though I shall always keep them as a warning not to wish for such things. I hope that the next time Mr. Isaacs is going to do a foolish thing you will have the common sense to prevent him." She returned to her starting-point; but I saw no use in prolonging the skirmish, and turned the talk upon other things. And soon John Westonhaugh joined us, and found in me a sympathetic talker and listener, as we both cared a great deal more for books than for tigers, though not averse to a stray shot now and then. In this kind of life the week passed, shooting to-day and staying in camp to-morrow. We shifted our ground several times, working along the borders of the forest and crashing through the jungle after tiger with varying success. In the evenings, when not tired with the day's work, we sat together, and Isaacs sang, and at last even prevailed upon Miss Westonhaugh to let him accompany her with his guitar, in which he proved very successful. They were constantly together, and Ghyrkins was heard to say that Isaacs was "a very fine fellow, and it was a pity he wasn't English," to which Kildare assented somewhat mournfully, allowing that it was quite true. His chance was gone, and he knew it, and bore it like a gentleman, though he still made use of every opportunity he had to make himself acceptable to Miss Westonhaugh. The girl liked his manly ways, and was always grateful for any little attention from him that attracted her notice, but it was evident that all her interest ceased there. She liked him in the same way she liked her brother, but rather less, if anything. She hardly knew, for she had seen so little of John since she was a small child. I suppose Isaacs must have talked to her about me, for she treated me with a certain consideration, and often referred questions to me, on which I thought she might as well have consulted some one else. For my part, I served the lovers in every way I could think of. I would have done anything for Isaacs then as now, and I liked her for the honest good feeling she had shown about him, especially in the matter of the tiger's ears, for which she could not forgive herself--though in truth she had been innocent enough. And they were really lovers, those two. Any one might have seen it, and but for the wondrous fascination Isaacs exercised over every one who came near him, and the circumstances of his spotless name and reputation for integrity in the large transactions in which he was frequently known to be engaged, it is certain that Mr. Ghyrkins would have looked askance at the whole affair, and very likely would have broken up the party. In the course of time we became a little _blasé_ about tigers, till on the eighth day from the beginning of the hunt, which was a Thursday, I remember, an incident occurred which left a lasting impression on the mind of every one who witnessed it. It was a very hot morning, the hottest day we had had, and we had just crossed a _nullah_ in the forest, full from the recent rains, wherein the elephants lingered lovingly to splash the water over their heated sides, drowning the swarms of mosquitoes from which they suffer such torments, in spite of their thick skins. The collector called a halt on the opposite side; our line of march had become somewhat disordered by the passage, and numerous tracks in the pasty black mud showed that the _nullah_ was a favourite resort of tigers--though at this time of day they might be a long distance off. I had come next to the collector after we emerged from the stream, the pad elephants having lingered longer in the water, and Mr. Ghyrkins with Miss Westonhaugh was three or four places beyond me. It was shady and cool under the thick trees, and the light was not good. The collector bent over his howdah, looking at some tracks. "Those tracks look suspiciously fresh, Mr. Griggs," said the collector, scrutinising the holes, not yet filled by the oozing back water of the _nullah_. "Don't you think so?" "Indeed, yes. I do not understand it at all," I replied. At the collector's call a couple of beaters came forward and stooped down to examine the trail. One of them, a good-looking young _gowala_, or cowherd, followed along the footprints, examining each to be sure he was not going on a false spoor; he moved slowly, scrutinising each hole, as the traces grew shallower on the rising ground, approaching a bit of small jungle. My sight followed the probable course of the track ahead of him and something caught my eyes, which are remarkably good, even at a great distance. The object was brown and hairy; a dark brown, not the kind of colour one expects to see in the jungle in September. I looked closely, and was satisfied that it must be part of an animal; still more clearly I saw it, and no doubt remained in my mind; it was the head of a bullock or a heifer. I shouted to the man to be careful, to stop and let the elephants plough through the undergrowth, as only elephants can. But he did not understand my Hindustani, which was of the civilised _Urdu_ kind learnt in the North-West Provinces. The man went quickly along, and I tried to make the collector comprehend what I saw. But the pad elephants were coming out of the water and forcing themselves between our beasts, and he hardly caught what I said in the confusion. The track led away to my left, nearly opposite to the elephant bearing Mr. Ghyrkins and his niece. The little Pegnugger man was on my right. The native held on, moving more and more rapidly as he found himself following a single track. I shouted to him--to Ghyrkins--to everybody, but they could not make the doomed man understand what I saw--the freshly slain head of the tiger's last victim. There was little doubt that the king himself was near by--probably in that suspicious-looking bit of green jungle, slimy green too, as green is, that grows in sticky chocolate-coloured mud. The young fellow was courageous, and ignorant of the immediate danger, and, above all, he was on the look out for bucksheesh. He reached the reeds and unclean vegetables that grew thick and foul together in the little patch. He put one foot into the bush. A great fiery yellow and black head rose cautiously above the level of the green and paused a moment, glaring. The wretched man, transfixed with terror, stood stock still, expecting death. Then he moved, as if to throw himself on one side, and at the same instant the tiger made a dash at his naked body, such a dash as a great relentless cat makes at a gold-fish trying to slide away from its grip. The tiger struck the man a heavy blow on the right shoulder, felling him like a log, and coming down to a standing position over his prey, with one paw on the native's right arm. Probably the parade of elephants and bright coloured howdahs, and the shouts of the beaters and shikarries, distracted his attention for a moment. He stood whirling his tail to right and left, with half dropped jaw and flaming eyes, half pressing, half grabbing the fleshy arm of the senseless man beneath him--impatient, alarmed, and horrible. "Pack!!! Pi-i-i-i-ing ..." went the crack and the sing of the merry rifle, and the scene changed. With a yell like a soul in everlasting torment the great beast whirled himself into the air ten feet at least, and fell dead beside his victim, shot through breast and breastbone and heart. A dead silence fell on the spectators. Then I looked, and saw Miss Westonhaugh holding out a second gun to Mr. Ghyrkins, while he, seeing that the first had done its work, leaned forward, his broad face pale with the extremity of his horror for the man's danger, and his hands gripping at the empty rifle. "You've done it this time," cried the collector from the right. "Take six to four the man's dead!" "Done," called Kildare from the other end. I was the nearest to the scene, after Ghyrkins. I dropped over the edge of the howdah and made for the spot, running. I think I reflected as I ran that it was rather low for men to bet on the poor fellow's life in that way. Tigers are often very deceptive and always die hard, and I am a cautious person, so when I was near I pulled out my long army six-shooter, and, going within arm's length, quietly put a bullet through the beast's eye as a matter of safety. When he was cut up, however, the ball from the rifle of Mr. Ghyrkins was found in his heart; the old fellow was a dead shot still. I went up and examined the prostrate man. He was lying on his face, and so I picked him up and propped his head against the dead tiger. He was still breathing, but a very little examination proved that his right collar-bone and the bone of his upper arm were broken. A little brandy revived him, and he immediately began to scream with pain. I was soon joined by the collector, who with characteristic promptitude had torn and hewed some broad slats of bamboo from his howdah, and with a little pulling and wrenching, and the help of my long, tough turban-cloth, a real native pugree, we set and bound the arm as best we could, giving the poor fellow brandy all the while. The collar-bone we left to its own devices; an injury there takes care of itself. An elephant came up and received the dead tiger, and the man was carried off and placed in my howdah. The other animals with their riders had gathered near the scene, and every one had something to say to Ghyrkins, who by his brilliant shot and the life he had saved, had maintained his reputation, and come off the hero of the whole campaign. Miss Westonhaugh was speechless with horror at the whole thing, and seemed to cling to her uncle, as if fearing something of the same kind might happen to her at any moment. Isaacs, as usual the last on the line of beating, came up and called out his congratulations. "After saving a life so well, Mr. Ghyrkins, you will not grudge me the poor honour of risking one, will you?" "Not I, my boy!" answered the delighted old sportsman, "only if that mangy old man-eater had got you down the other day, I should not have been there to pot him!" "Great shot, sir! I envy you," said Kildare. "Splendid shot. A hundred yards at least," said John Westonhaugh meditatively, but in a loud voice. So we swung away toward the camp, though it was early. Ghyrkins chuckled, and the man with the broken bones groaned. But between the different members of the party he would be a rich man before he was well. I amused myself with my favourite sport of potting peacocks with bullets; it is very good practice. Isaacs had told me that morning when we started that he would leave us the next day to meet Shere Ali near Keitung. We reached camp about three o'clock, in the heat of the afternoon. The injured beater was put in a servant's tent to be sent off to Pegnugger in a litter in the cool of the night. There was a doctor there who would take care of him under the collector's written orders. The camp was in a shady place, quite unlike the spot where we had first pitched our tents. There was a little grove of mango-trees, rather stunted, as they are in the north, and away at one corner of the plantation was a well with a small temple where a Brahmin, related to all the best families in the neighbouring village, dwelt and collected the gifts bestowed on him and his simple shrine by the superstitious, devout, or worldly pilgrims who yearly and monthly visited him in search of counsel, spiritual or social. The men had mowed the grass smooth under the trees, and the shade was not so close as to make it damp. Some ryots had been called in to dig a ditch and raised a rough _chapudra_ or terrace, some fifteen feet in diameter, opposite the dining-tent, on which elevation we could sit, even late at night, in reasonable security from cobras and other evil beasts. It was a pleasant place in the afternoon, and pleasanter still at night. As I turned into our tent after we got back, I thought I would go and sit there when I had bathed, and send for a hookah and a novel, and go to sleep. * * * * * CHAPTER XI. I observed that Isaacs was very quick about his toilet, and when I came out and ascended the terrace, followed by Kiramat Ali with books and tobacco, I glanced lazily over the quiet scene, settling myself in my chair, and fully expecting to see my friend somewhere among the trees, not unaccompanied by some one else. I was not mistaken. Turning my eyes towards the corner of the grove where the old Brahmin had his shrine, I saw the two well-known figures of Isaacs and Miss Westonhaugh sauntering towards the well. Having satisfied the expectations of my curiosity, I turned over the volume of philosophy, well thumbed and hard used as a priest's breviary, and I inhaled long draughts of tobacco, debating whether I should read, or meditate, or dream. Deciding in favour of the more mechanical form of intellectuality, I fixed on a page that looked inviting, and followed the lines, from left to right, lazily at first, then with increased interest, and finally in that absorbed effort of continued comprehension which constitutes real study. Page after page, syllogism after syllogism, conclusion after conclusion, I followed for the hundredth time in the book I love well--the book of him that would destroy the religion I believe, but whose brilliant failure is one of the grandest efforts of the purely human mind. I finished a chapter and, in thought still, but conscious again of life, I looked up. They were still down there by the well, those two, but while I looked the old priest, bent and white, came out of the little temple where he had been sprinkling his image of Vishnu, and dropped his aged limbs from one step to the other painfully, steadying his uncertain descent with a stick. He went to the beautiful couple seated on the edge of the well, built of mud and sun-dried bricks, and he seemed to speak to Isaacs, I watched, and became interested in the question whether Isaacs would give him a two-anna bit or a copper, and whether I could distinguish with the naked eye at that distance between the silver and the baser metal. Curious, thought I, how odd little trifles will absorb the attention. The interview which was to lead to the expected act of charity seemed to be lasting a long time. Suddenly Isaacs turned and called to me; his high, distinct tones seeming to gather volume from the hollow of the well. He was calling me to join them. I rose, rather reluctantly, from my books and moved through the trees to where they were. "Griggs," Isaacs called out before I had reached him, "here is an old fellow who knows something. I really believe he is something of a yogi." "What ridiculous nonsense," I said impatiently, "who ever heard of a yogi living in a temple and feeding on the fat of the land in the way all these men do? Is that all you wanted?" Miss Westonhaugh, peering down into the depths of the well, laughed gaily. "I told you so! Never try to make Mr. Griggs swallow that kind of thing. Besides, he is a 'cynic' you know." "As far as personal appearance goes, Miss Westonhaugh, I think your friend the Brahmin there stands more chance of being taken for a philosopher of that school. He really does not look particularly well fed, in spite of the riches I thought he possessed." He was a strange-looking old man, with a white beard and a small badly-rolled pugree. His black eyes were filmy and disagreeable to look at. I addressed him in Hindustani, and told him what Isaacs said, that he thought he was a yogi. The old fellow did not look at me, nor did the bleared eyes give any sign of intelligence. Nevertheless he answered my question. "Of what avail that I do wonders for you who believe not?" he asked, and his voice sounded cracked and far off. "It will avail thee several coins, friend," I answered, "both rupees and pais. Reflect that there may be bucksheesh in store for thee, and do a miracle." "I will not do wonders for bucksheesh," said the priest, and began to hobble away. Isaacs stepped lightly to his side and whispered something in his ear. The ancient Brahmin turned. "Then I will do a wonder for you, but I want no bucksheesh. I will do it for the lady with white hair, whose face resembles Chunder." He looked long and fixedly at Miss Westonhaugh. "Let the _sáhib log_ come with me a stone's throw from the well, and let one sáhib call his servant and bid him draw water that he may wash his hands. And I will do this wonder; the man shall not draw any water, though he had the strength of Siva, until I say the word." So we moved away under the trees, and I shouted for Kiramat Ali, who came running down, and I told him to send a _bhisti_, a water-carrier, with his leathern bucket. Then we waited. Presently the man came, with bucket and rope. "Draw water, that I may wash my hands," said I. "Achhá, sáhib," and he strode to the well and lowered his pail by the rope. The priest looked intently at him as he shook the rope to turn the bucket over and let it fill; then he began to pull. The bucket seemed to be caught. He jerked, and then bent his whole weight back, drawing the rope across the edge of the brickwork. The thing was immovable. He seemed astonished and looked down into the well, thinking the pail was caught in a stone. I could not resist the temptation to go down and inspect the thing. No. The bucket was full and lying in the middle of the round sheet of water at the bottom of the well. The man tugged, while the Brahmin never took his eyes, now bright and fiery, off him. I went back to where they all stood. The thing had lasted five minutes. Then the priest's lips moved silently. Instantly the strain was released and the stout water-carrier fell headlong backwards on the grass, his heels in the air, jerking the bucket right over the edge of the well. He bounded to his feet and ran up the grove, shouting "Bhût, Bhût," "devils, devils," at the top of his voice. His obstinacy had lasted so long as the bucket would not move, but then his terror got the better of him and he fled. "Did you ever see anything of that kind before, Miss Westonhaugh?" I inquired. "No indeed; have you? How is it done?" "I have seen similar things done, but not often. There are not many of them that know how. But I cannot tell you the process any more than I can explain the mango trick, which belongs, distantly, to the same class of phenomena." The Brahmin, whose eyes were again dim and filmy, turned to Isaacs. "I have done a wonder for you. I will also tell you a saying. You have done wrong in not taking the advice of your friend. You should not have come forth to kill the king of game, nor have brought the white-haired lady into the tiger's jaws. I have spoken. Peace be with you." And he moved away. "And with you peace, friend," answered Isaacs mechanically, but as I looked at him he turned white to the very lips. Miss Westonhaugh did not understand the language, and Isaacs would have been the last person to translate such a speech as the Brahmin had made. We turned and strolled up the hill, and presently I bethought me of some errand, and left them together under the trees. They were so happy and so beautiful together, the fair lily from the English dale and the deep red rose of Persian Gulistán. The sun slanted low through the trees and sank in rose-coloured haze, and the moon, now just at the half, began to shine out softly through the mangoes, and still the lovers walked, pacing slowly to and fro near the well. No wonder they dallied long; it was their last evening together, and I doubted not that Isaacs was telling her of his sudden departure, necessary for reasons which I knew he would not explain to her or to any one else. At last we all assembled in the dining-tent. Mr. Currie Ghyrkins was among the first, and his niece was the last to enter the room. He was glorious that evening, his kindly red face beamed on every one, and he carried himself like a victorious general at a ladies' tea-party. He had reason to be happy, and his jerky good spirits were needed to counterbalance the deep melancholy that seemed to have settled upon his niece. The colour was gone from her cheeks, and her dark eyes, heavily fringed by the black brows and lashes, shone out strangely; the contrast between the white flaxen hair, drawn back in simple massive waves like a Greek statue, and the broad level eyes as dark as night, was almost startling this evening in the singularity of its beauty. She sat like a queenly marble at the end of the table, not silent, by any means, but so evidently out of spirits that John Westonhaugh, who did not know that Isaacs was going in the morning, and would not have supposed that his sister could care so much, if he had known, remarked upon her depression. "What is the matter, Katharine?" he asked kindly. "Have you a headache this evening?" She was just then staring rather blankly into space. "Oh no," she said, trying to smile. "I was thinking." "Ah," said Mr. Ghyrkins merrily, "that is why you look so unlike yourself, my dear!" And he laughed at his rough little joke. "Do I?" asked the girl absently. But Ghyrkins was not to be repressed, and as Kildare and the Pegnugger man were gay and wide awake, the dinner was not as dull as might have been expected. When it was over, Isaacs announced his intention of leaving early the next morning. Very urgent business recalled him suddenly, he explained. A messenger had arrived just before dinner. He must leave without fail in the morning. Miss Westonbaugh of course was forewarned; but the others were not. Lord Steepleton Kildare, in the act of lighting a cheroot, dropped the vesuvian incontinently, and stood staring at Isaacs with an indescribable expression of empty wonder in his face, while the match sputtered and smouldered and died away in the grass by the door. John Westonhaugh, who liked Isaacs sincerely, and had probably contemplated the possibility of the latter marrying Katharine, looked sorry at first, and then a half angry expression crossed his face, which softened instantly again. Currie Ghyrkins swore loudly that it was out of the question--that it would break up the party--that he would not hear of it, and so on. "I must go," said Isaacs quietly. "It is a very serious matter. I am sorry--more sorry than I can tell you; but I must." "But you cannot, you know. Damn it, sir, you are the life of the party, you know! Come, come, this will never do!" "My dear sir," said Isaacs, addressing Ghyrkins, "if, when you were about to fire this morning to save that poor devil's life, I had begged you not to shoot, would you have complied?" "Why, of course not," ejaculated Ghyrkins angrily. "Well, neither can I comply, though I would give anything to stay with you all." "But nobody's life depends on your going away to-morrow morning. What do you mean? The deuce and all, you know, I don't understand you a bit." "I cannot tell you, Mr. Ghyrkins; but something depends on my going, which is of as great importance to the person concerned as life itself. Believe me," he said, going near to the old gentleman and laying a hand on his arm, "I do not go willingly." "Well, I hope not, I am sure," said Ghyrkins gruffly, though yielding. "If you will, you will, and there's no holding you; but we are all very sorry. That's all. Mahmoud! bring fire, you lazy pigling, that I may smoke." And he threw himself into a chair, the very creaking of the cane wicker expressing annoyance and dissatisfaction. So there was an end of it, and Isaacs strode off through the moonlight to his quarters, to make some arrangement, I supposed. But he did not come back. Miss Westonhaugh retired also to her tent, and no one was surprised to see her go. Kildare rose presently and asked if I would not stroll to the well, or anywhere, it was such a jolly night. I went with him, and arm in arm we walked slowly down. The young moon was bright among the mango-trees, striking the shining leaves, that reflected a strange greenish light. We moved leisurely, and spoke little. I understood Kildare's silence well enough, and I had nothing to say. The ground was smooth and even, for the men had cut the grass close, and the little humped cow that belonged to the old Brahmin cropped all she could get at. We skirted round the edge of the grove, intending to go back to the tents another way. Suddenly I saw something in front that arrested my attention. Two figures, some thirty yards away. They stood quite still, turned from us. A man and a woman between the trees, an opening in the leaves just letting a ray of moonlight slip through on them. His arm around her, the tall lissome figure of her bent, and her head resting on his shoulder. I have good eyes and was not mistaken, but I trusted Kildare had not seen. A quick twitch of his arm, hanging carelessly through mine, told me the mischief was done before I could turn his attention. By a common instinct we wheeled to the left, and passing into the open strolled back in the direction whence we had come. I did not look at Kildare, but after a minute he began to talk about the moonlight and tigers, and whether tigers were ever shot by moonlight, and altogether was rather incoherent; but I took up the question, and we talked bravely till we got back to the dining-tent, where we sat down again, secretly wishing we had not gone for a stroll after all. In a few minutes Isaacs came from his tent, which he must have entered from the other side. He was perfectly at his ease, and at once began talking about the disagreeable journey he had before him. Then, after a time, we broke up, and he said good-bye to every one in turn, and Ghyrkins told John to call his sister, if she were still visible, for "Mr. Isaacs wanted to say good-bye." So she came and took his hand, and made a simple speech about "meeting again before long," as she stood with her uncle; and my friend and I went away to our tent. We sat long in the _connât_. Isaacs did not seem to want rest, and I certainly did not. For the first half hour he was engaged in giving directions to the faithful Narain, who moved about noiselessly among the portmanteaus and gun-cases and boots which strewed the floor. At last all was settled for the start before dawn, and he turned to me. "We shall meet again in Simla, Griggs, of course?" "I hope so. Of course we shall, unless you are killed by those fellows at Keitung. I would not trust them." "I do not trust them in the least, but I have an all-powerful ally in Ram Lal. Did you not think it very singular that the Brahmin should know all about Ram Lal's warning? and that he should have the same opinion?" "We live in a country where nothing should astonish us, as I remember saying to you a fortnight ago, when we first met," I answered. "That the Brahmin possesses some knowledge of _yog-vidya_ is more clearly shown by his speech about Ram Lal than by that ridiculous trick with my water-carrier." "You are not easily astonished, Griggs. But I agree with you as to that. I am still at a loss to understand why I should not have come or let the others come. I was startled at the Brahmin." "I saw you were; you were as white as a sheet, and yet you turned up your nose at Ram Lal when he told you not to come." "The Brahmin said something more than Ram Lal. He said I should not have brought the white-haired lady into the tiger's jaws. I saw that the first warning had been on her account, and I suppose the impression of possible danger for her frightened me." "It would not have frightened you three weeks ago about any woman," I said. "It appears to me that your ideas in certain quarters have undergone some little change. You are as different from the Isaacs I knew at first as Philip drunk was different from Philip sober. Such is human nature--scoffing at women the one day, and risking life and soul for their whims the next." "I hate your reflections about the human kind, Griggs, and I do not like your way of looking at women. You hate women so!" "No. You like my descriptions of the 'ideal creatures I rave about' much better, it seems. Upon my soul, friend, if you want a criterion of yourself, take this conversation. A fortnight ago to-day--or to-morrow, will it be?--I was lecturing you about the way to regard women; begging you to consider that they had souls and were capable of loving, as well as of being loved. And here you are accusing me of hating the whole sex, and without the slightest provocation on my part, either. Here is Birnam wood coming to Dunsinane with a vengeance!" "Oh, I don't deny it. I don't pretend to argue about it. I have changed a good deal in the last month." He pensively crossed one leg over the other as he lay back on the long chair and pulled at his slipper. "I suppose I have--changed a good deal." "No wonder. I presume your views of immortality, the future state of the fair sex, and the application of transcendental analysis to matrimony, all changed about the same time?" "Don't be unreasonable," he answered. "It all dates from that evening when I had that singular fit and the vision I related to you. I have never been the same man since; and I am glad of it. I now believe women to be much more adorable than you painted them, and not half enough adored." Suddenly he dropped the extremely English manner which he generally affected in the idiom and construction of his speech, and dropped back into something more like his own language. "The star that was over my life is over it no longer. I have no life-star any longer. The jewel of the southern sky withdraws his light, paling before the white gold from the northern land. The gold that shall be mine through all the cycles of the sun, the gold that neither man nor monarch shall take from me. What have I to do with stars in heaven? Is not my star come down to earth to abide with me through life? And when life is over and the scroll is full, shall not my star bear me hence, beyond the fiery foot-bridge, beyond the paradise of my people and its senseless sensuality of houris and strong wine? Beyond the very memory of limited and bounded life, to that life eternal where there is neither limit, nor bound, nor sorrow? Shall our two souls not unite and be one soul to roam through the countless circles of revolving outer space? Not through years, or for times, or for ages--but for ever? The light of life is woman, the love of life is the love of woman; the light that pales not, the life that cannot die, the love that can know not any ending; _my_ light, _my_ life, and _my_ love!" His whole soul was in his voice, and his whole heart; the twining white fingers, the half-closed eyes, and the passionate quivering tone, told all he had left unsaid. It was surely a high and a noble thing that he felt, worthy of the man in his beauty of mind and body. He loved an ideal, revealed to him, as he thought, in the shape of the fair English girl; he worshipped his ideal through her, without a thought that he could be mistaken. Happy man! Perhaps he had a better chance of going through life without any cruel revelation of his mistake than falls to the lot of most lovers, for she was surpassingly beautiful, and most good and true hearted. But are not people always mistaken who think to find the perfect comprehended in the imperfect, the infinite enchained and made tangible in the finite? Bah! The same old story, the same old vicious circle, the everlastingly recurring mathematical view of things that cannot be treated mathematically; the fruitless attempt to measure the harmonious circle of the soul by the angular square of the book. What poor things our minds are, after all. We have but one way of thinking derived from what we know, and we incontinently apply it to things of which we can know nothing, and then we quarrel with the result, which is a mere _reductio ad absurdum_, showing how utterly false and meagre are our hypotheses, premisses, and so-called axioms. Confucius, who began his system with the startling axiom that "man is good," arrived at much more really serviceable conclusions than Schopenhauer and all the pessimists put together. Meanwhile, Isaacs was in love, and, I supposed, expected me to say something appreciative. "My dear friend," I began, "it is a rare pleasure to hear any one talk like that; it refreshes a man's belief in human nature, and enthusiasm, and all kinds of things. I talked like that some time ago because you would not. I think you are a most satisfactory convert." "I am indeed a convert. I would not have believed it possible, and now I cannot believe that I ever thought differently. I suppose it is the way with all converts--in religion as well--and with all people who are taken up by a fair-winged genius from an arid desert and set down in a garden of roses." He could not long confine himself to ordinary language. "And yet the hot sand of the desert, and the cool of the night, and the occasional patch of miserable, languishing green, with the little kindly spring in the camel-trodden oasis, seemed all so delightful in the past life that one was quite content, never suspecting the existence of better things. But now--I could almost laugh to think of it. I stand in the midst of the garden that is filled with all things fair, and the tree of life is beside me, blossoming straight and broad with the flowers that wither not, and the fruit that is good to the parched lips and the thirsty spirit. And the garden is for us to dwell in now, and the eternity of the heavenly spheres is ours hereafter." He was all on fire again. I kept silence for some time; and his hands unfolded, and he raised them and clasped them under his head, and drew a deep long breath, as if to taste the new life that was in him. "Forgive my bringing you down to earth again," I said after a while, "but have you made all necessary arrangements? Is there anything I can do, after you are gone? Anything to be said to these good people, if they question me about your sudden departure?" "Yes. I was forgetting. If you will be so kind, I wish you would see the expedition out, and take charge of the expenses. There are some bags of rupees somewhere among my traps. Narain knows. I shall not take him with me--or, no; on second thoughts I will hand you over the money, and take him to Simla. Then, about the other thing. Do not tell any one where I have gone, unless it be Miss Westonhaugh, and use your own discretion about her. We shall all be in Simla in ten days, and I do not want this thing known, as you may imagine. I do not think there is anything else, thanks." He paused, as if thinking. "Yes, there is one more consideration. If anything out of the way should occur in this transaction with Baithopoor, I should want your assistance, if you will give it. Would you mind?" "Of course not. Anything----" "In that case, if Ram Lal thinks you are wanted, he will send a swift messenger to you with a letter signed by me, in the Persian _shikast_--which you read.--Will you come by the way he will direct you, if I send? He will answer for your safety." "I will come," I said, though I thought it was rather rash of me, who am a cautious man, to trust my life in the hands of a shadowy person like Ram Lal, who seemed to come and go in strange ways, and was in communication with suspicious old Brahmin jugglers. But I trusted Isaacs better than his adept friend. "I suppose," I said, vaguely hoping there might yet be a possibility of detaining him, "that there is no way of doing this business so that you could remain here." "No, friend Griggs. If there were any other way, I would not go now. I would not go to-day, of all days in the year--of all days in my life. There is no other way, by the grave of my father, on whom be the peace of Allah." So we went to bed. At four o'clock Narain waked us, and in twenty minutes Isaacs was on horseback. I had ordered a _tat_ to be in readiness for me, thinking I would ride with him an hour or two in the cool of the morning. So we passed along by the quiet tents, Narain disappearing in the manner peculiar to Hindoo servants, to be found at the end of the day's march, smiling as ever. The young moon had set some time before, but the stars were bright, though it was dark under the trees. Twenty yards beyond the last tent, a dark figure swept suddenly out from the blackness and laid a hand on Isaacs' rein. He halted and bent over, and I heard some whispering. It only lasted a moment, and the figure shot away again. I was sure I heard something like a kiss, in the gloom, and there was a most undeniable smell of roses in the air. I held my peace, though I was astonished. I could not have believed her capable of it. Lying in wait in the dusk of the morning to give her lover a kiss and a rose and a parting word. She must have taken me for his servant in the dark. "Griggs," said Isaacs as we parted some six or seven miles farther on,--"an odd thing happened this morning. I have left something more in your keeping than money." "I know. Trust me. Good-bye," and he cantered off. I confess I was very dejected and low-spirited when I came back into camp. My acquaintance with Isaacs, so suddenly grown into intimacy, had become a part of my life. I felt a sort of devotion to him that I had never felt for any man in my life before. I would rather have gone with him to Keitung, for a presentiment told me there was trouble in the wind. He had not talked to me about the Baithopoor intrigue, for everything was as much settled beforehand as it was possible to settle anything. There was nothing to be said, for all that was to come was action; but I knew Isaacs distrusted the maharajah, and that without Ram Lal's assistance--of whatever nature that might prove to be--he would not have ventured to go alone to such a tryst. When I returned the camp was all alive, for it was nearly seven o'clock. Kildare and the collector, my servant said, had gone off on _tats_ to shoot some small game. Mr. Ghyrkins was occupied with the shikarries in the stretching and dressing of the skin he had won the previous day. Neither Miss Westonhaugh nor her brother had been seen. So I dressed and rested myself and had some tea, and sat wondering what the camp would be like without Isaacs, who, to me and to one other person, was emphatically, as Ghyrkins had said the night before, the life of the party. The weather was not so warm as on the previous day, and I was debating whether I should not try and induce the younger men to go and stick a pig--the shikarry said there were plenty in some place he knew of--or whether I should settle myself in the dining-tent for a long day with my books, when the arrival of a mounted messenger with some letters from the distant post-office decided me in favour of the more peaceful disposition of my time. So I glanced at the papers, and assured myself that the English were going deeper and deeper into the mire of difficulties and reckless expenditure that characterised their campaign in Afghanistan in the autumn of 1879; and when I had assured myself, furthermore, by the perusal of a request for the remittance of twenty pounds, that my nephew, the only relation, male or female, that I have in the world, had not come to the untimely death he so richly deserved, I fell to considering what book I should read. And from one thing to another, I found myself established about ten o'clock at the table in the dining-tent, with Miss Westonhaugh at one side, worsted work, writing materials and all, just as she had been at the same table a week or so before. At her request I had continued my writing when she came in. I was finishing off a column of a bloodthirsty article for the _Howler_; it probably would come near enough to the mark, for in India you may print a leader anywhere within a month of its being written, and if it was hot enough to begin with, it will still answer the purpose. Journalism is not so rapid in its requirements as in New York, but, on the other hand, it is more lucrative. "Mr. Griggs, are you _very_ busy?" "Oh dear, no--nothing to speak of," I went on writing--the unprecedented--folly--the--blatant--charlatanism---- "Mr. Griggs, do you understand these things?" ----Lord Beaconsfield's--"I think so, Miss Westonhaugh"--Afghan policy----There, I thought, I think that would rouse Mr. Currie Ghyrkins, if he ever saw it, which I trust he never will. I had done, and I folded the numbered sheets in an oblong bundle. "I beg your pardon, Miss Westonhaugh; I was just finishing a sentence. I am quite at your service." "Oh no! I see you are too busy." "Not in the least, I assure you. Is it that tangled skein? Let me help you." "Oh thank you. It is so tiresome, and I am not in the least inclined to be industrious." I took the wool and set to work. It was very easy, after all; I pulled the loops through, and back again and through from the other side, and I found the ends, and began to wind it up on a piece of paper. It is singular, though, how the unaided wool can tie itself into every kind of a knot--reef, carrick bend, bowline, bowline in a bight, not to mention a variety of hitches and indescribable perversions of entanglement. I was getting on very well, though. I looked up at her face, pale and weary with a sleepless night, but beautiful--ah yes--beautiful beyond compare. She smiled faintly. "You are very clever with your fingers. Where did you learn it? Have you a sister who makes you wind her wool for her at home?" "No. I have no sister. I went to sea once upon a time." "Were you ever in the navy, Mr. Griggs?" "Oh no. I went before the mast." "But you would not learn to unravel wool before the mast. I suppose your mother taught you when you were small--if you ever were small." "I never had a mother that I can remember--I learned to do all those things at sea." "Forgive me," she said, guessing she had struck some tender chord in my existence. "What an odd life you must have had." "Perhaps. I never had any relations that I can remember, except a brother, much older than I. He died years ago, and his son is my only living relation. I was born in Italy." "But when did you learn so many things? You seem to know every language under the sun." "I had a good education when I got ashore. Some one was very kind to me, and I had learned Latin and Greek in the common school in Rome before I ran away to sea." I answered her questions reluctantly. I did not want to talk about my history, especially to a girl like her. I suppose she saw my disinclination, for as I handed her the card with the wool neatly wound on it, she thanked me and presently changed the subject, or at least shifted the ground. "There is something so free about the life of an adventurer--I mean a man who wanders about doing brave things. If I were a man I would be an adventurer like you." "Not half so much of an adventurer, as you call it, as our friend who went off this morning." It was the first mention of Isaacs since his departure. I had said the thing inadvertently, for I would not have done anything to increase her trouble for the world. She leaned back, dropping her hands with her work in her lap, and stared straight out through the doorway, as pale as death--pale as only fair-skinned people are when they are ill, or hurt. She sat quite still. I wondered if she were ill, or if it were only Isaacs' going that had wrought this change in her brilliant looks. "Would you like me to read something to you, Miss Westonhaugh? Here is a comparatively new book--_The Light of Asia_, by Mr. Edwin Arnold. It is a poem about India. Would it give you any pleasure?" She guessed the kind intention, and a little shadow of a smile passed over her lips. "You are so kind, Mr. Griggs. Please, you are so very kind." I began to read, and read on and on through the exquisite rise and fall of the stanzas, through the beautiful clear high thoughts which seem to come as a breath and a breeze from an unattainable heaven, from the Nirvana we all hope for in our inmost hearts, whatever our confession of faith. And the poor girl was soothed, and touched and lulled by the music of thought and the sigh of verse that is in the poem; and the morning passed. I suppose the quiet and the poetry wrought up in her the feeling of confidence she felt in me, as being her lover's friend, for after I had paused a minute or two, seeing some one coming toward the tent, she said quite simply-- "Where is he gone?" "He is gone to do a very noble deed. He is gone to save the life of a man he never saw." A bright light came into her face, and all the chilled heart's blood, driven from her cheeks by the weariness of her first parting, rushed joyously back, and for one moment there dwelt on her features the glory and bloom of the love and happiness that had been hers all day yesterday, that would be hers again--when? Poor Miss Westonhaugh, it seemed so long to wait. The day passed somehow, but the dinner was dismal. Miss Westonhaugh was evidently far from well, and I could not conceive that the pain of a temporary parting should make so sudden a change in one so perfectly strong and healthy--even were her nature ever so sensitive. Kildare and the Pegnugger magistrate tried to keep up the spirits of the party, but John Westonhaugh was anxious about his sister, and even old Mr. Currie Ghyrkins was beginning to fancy there must be something wrong. We sat smoking outside, and the young girl refused to leave us, though John begged her to. As we sat, it may have been half an hour after dinner, a messenger came galloping up in hot haste, and leaping to the ground asked for "Gurregis Sahib," with the usual native pronunciation of my euphonious name. Being informed, he salaamed low and handed me a letter, which I took to the light. It was in _shikast_ Persian, and signed "Abdul Hafiz-ben-Isâk." "Ram Lal," he said, "has met me unexpectedly, and sends you this by his own means, which are swift as the flight of the eagle. It is indispensable that you meet us below Keitung, towards Sultanpoor, on the afternoon of the day when the moon is full. Travel by Julinder and Sultanpoor; you will easily overtake me, since I go by Simla. For friendship's sake, for love's sake, come. It is life and death. Give the money to the Irishman. Peace be with you." I sighed a sigh of the most undetermined description. Was I glad to rejoin my friend? or was I pained to leave the woman he loved in her present condition? I hardly knew. "I think we had all better go back to Simla," said John, when I explained that the most urgent business called me away at dawn. "There will be none of us left soon," said Ghyrkins quite quietly and mournfully. I found means to let Miss Westonhaugh understand where I was going. I gave Kildare the money in charge. In the dark of the morning, as I cleared the tents, the same shadow I had seen before shot out and laid a hand on my rein. I halted on the same spot where Isaacs had drawn rein twenty-four hours before. "Give him this from me. God be with you!" She was gone in a moment, leaving a small package in my right hand. I thrust it in my bosom and rode away. "How she loves him," I thought, wondering greatly. * * * * * CHAPTER XII. It was not an agreeable journey I had undertaken. In order to reach the inaccessible spot, chosen by Isaacs for the scene of Shere Ali's liberation, in time to be of any use, it was necessary that I should travel by a more direct and arduous route than that taken by my friend. He had returned to Simla, and by his carefully made arrangements would be able to reach Keitung, or the spot near it, where the transaction was to take place, by constant changes of horses where riding was possible, and by a strong body of dooly-bearers wherever the path should prove too steep for four-footed beasts of burden. I, on the other hand, must leave the road at Julinder, a place I had never visited, and must trust to my own unaided wits and a plentiful supply of rupees to carry me over at least two hundred miles of country I did not know--difficult certainly, and perhaps impracticable for riding. The prospect was not a pleasant one, but I was convinced that in a matter of this importance a man of Isaacs' wit and wealth would have made at least some preliminary arrangements for me, since he probably knew the country well enough himself. I had but six days at the outside to reach my destination. I had resolved to take one servant, Kiramat Ali, with me as far as Julinder, whence I would send him back to Simla with what slender luggage we carried, for I meant to ride as light as possible, with no encumbrance to delay me when once I left the line of the railway. I might have ridden five miles with Kiramat Ali behind me on a sturdy _tat_, when I was surprised by the appearance of an unknown saice in plain white clothes, holding a pair of strong young ponies by the halter and salaaming low. "Pundit Ram Lal sends your highness his peace, and bids you ride without sparing. The _dâk_ is laid to the fire-carriages." The saddles were changed in a moment, Kiramat Ali and I assisting in the operation. It was clear that Ram Lal's messengers were swift, for even if he had met Isaacs when the latter reached the railroad, no ordinary horse could have returned with the message at the time I had received it. Still less would any ordinary Hindus be capable of laying a _dâk_, or post route of relays, over a hundred miles long in twelve hours. Once prepared, it was a mere matter of physical endurance in the rider to cover the ground, for the relays were stationed every five or six miles. It was well known that Lord Steepleton Kildare had lately ridden from Simla to Umballa one night and back the next day, ninety-two miles each way, with constant change of cattle. What puzzled me was the rapidity with which the necessary dispositions had been made. On the whole, I was reassured. If Ram Lal had been able to prepare my way at such short notice here, with two more days at his disposal he would doubtless succeed in laying me a _dâk_ most of the way from Julinder to Keitung. I will not dwell upon the details of the journey. I reached the railroad and prepared for forty-eight hours of jolting and jostling and broken sleep. It is true that railway travelling is nowhere so luxurious as in India, where a carriage has but two compartments, each holding as a rule only two persons, though four can be accommodated by means of hanging berths. Each compartment has a spacious bathroom attached, where you may bathe as often as you please, and there are various contrivances for ventilating and cooling the air. Nevertheless the heat is sometimes unbearable, and a journey from Bombay to Calcutta direct during the warm months is a severe trial to the strongest constitution. On this occasion I had about forty-eight hours to travel, and I was resolved to get all the rest in that time that the jolting made possible; for I knew that once in the saddle again it might be days before I got a night's sleep. And so we rumbled along, through the vast fields of sugar-cane, now mostly tied in huge sheaves upright, through boundless stretches of richly-cultivated soil, intersected with the regularity of a chess-board by the rivulets and channels of a laborious irrigation. Here and there stood the high frames made by planting four bamboos in a square and wickering the top, whereon the ryots sit when the crops are ripening, to watch against thieves and cattle, and to drive away the birds of the air. On we spun, past Meerut and Mozuffernugger, past Umballa and Loodhiana, till we reached our station of Julinder at dawn. Descending from the train, I was about to begin making inquiries about my next move, when I was accosted by a tall and well-dressed Mussulman, in a plain cloth _caftán_ and a white turban, but exquisitely clean and fresh looking, as it seemed to me, for my eyes were smarting with dust and wearied with the perpetual shaking of the train. The courteous native soon explained that he was Isaacs' agent in Julinder, and that a _târ ki khaber_, a telegram in short, had warned him to be on the lookout for me. I was greatly relieved, for it was evident that every arrangement had been made for my comfort, so far as comfort was possible. Isaacs had asked my assistance, but he had taken every precaution against all superfluous bodily inconvenience to me, and I felt sure that from this point I should move quickly and easily through every difficulty. And so it proved. The Mussulman took me to his house, where there was a spacious apartment, occupied by Isaacs when he passed that way. Every luxury was prepared for the enjoyment of the bath, and a breakfast of no mean taste was served me in my own room. Then my host entered and explained that he had been directed to make certain arrangements for my journey. He had laid a _dâk_ nearly a hundred miles ahead, and had been ordered to tell me that similar steps had been taken beyond that point as far as my ultimate destination, of which, however, he was ignorant. My servant, he said, must stay with him and return to Simla with my traps. So an hour later I mounted for my long ride, provided with a revolver and some rupees in a bag, in case of need. The country, my entertainer informed me, was considered perfectly safe, unless I feared the _tap_, the bad kind of fever which infests all the country at the base of the hills. I was not afraid of this. My experience is that some people are predisposed to fever, and will generally be attacked by it in their first year in India, whether they are much exposed to it or not, while others seem naturally proof against any amount of malaria, and though they sleep out of doors through the whole rainy season, and tramp about the jungles in the autumn, will never catch the least ague, though they may have all other kinds of ills to contend with. On and on, galloping along the heavy roads, sometimes over no road at all, only a broad green track, where the fresh grass that had sprung up after the rains was not yet killed by the trampling of the bullocks and the grinding jolt of the heavy cart. At intervals of seven or eight miles I found a saice with a fresh pony picketed and grazing at the end of the long rope. The saice was generally squatting near by, with his bag of food and his three-sided kitchen of stones, blackened with the fire from his last meal, beside him; sometimes in the act of cooking his chowpatties, sometimes eating them, according to the time of day. Several times I stopped to drink some water where it seemed to be good, and I ate a little chocolate from my supply, well knowing the miraculous, sustaining powers of the simple little block of "Menier," which, with its six small tablets, will not only sustain life, but will supply vigour and energy, for as much as two days, with no other food. On and on, through the day and the night, past sleeping villages, where the jackals howled around the open doors of the huts; and across vast fields of late crops, over hills thickly grown with trees, past the broad bend of the Sutlej river, and over the plateau toward Sultanpoor, the cultivation growing scantier and the villages rarer all the while, as the vast masses of the Himalayas defined themselves more and more distinctly in the moonlight. Horses of all kinds under me, lean and fat, short and high, roman-nosed and goose-necked, broken and unbroken; away and away, shifting saddle and bridle and saddle-bag as I left each tired mount behind me. Once I passed a stream, and pulling off my boots to cool my feet, the temptation way too strong, so I hastily threw off my clothes and plunged in and had a short refreshing bath. Then on, with, the galloping even triplet of the house's hoofs beneath me, as they came down in quick succession, as if the earth were a muffled drum and we were beating an untiring _rataplan_ on her breast. I must have ridden a hundred and thirty miles before dawn, and the pace was beginning to tell, even on my strong frame. True, to a man used to the saddle, the effort of riding is reduced to a minimum when every hour or two gives him a fresh horse. There is then no heed for the welfare of the animal necessary; he has but his seven or eight miles to gallop, and then his work is done; there are none of those thousand little cares and sympathetic shiftings and adjustings of weight and seat to be thought of, which must constantly engage the attention of a man who means to ride the same horse a hundred miles, or even fifty or forty. Conscious that a fresh mount awaits him, he sits back lazily and never eases his weight for a moment; before he has gone thirty miles he will kick his feet out of the stirrups about once in twenty minutes, and if he has for the moment a quiet old stager who does not mind tricks, he will probably fetch one leg over and go a few miles sitting sideways. He will go to sleep once or twice, and wake up apparently in the very act to fall--though I believe that a man will sleep at a full gallop and never loosen his knees until the moment of waking startles him. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding Lord Steepleton Kildare and his ride to Umballa and back in twenty-four hours, when a man, be he ever so strong, has ridden over a hundred miles, he feels inclined for a rest, and a walk, and a little sleep. Once more an emissary of Ram Lal strode to my side as I rolled off the saddle into the cool grass at sunrise in a very impracticable-looking country. The road had been steeper and less defined during the last two hours of the ride, and as I crossed one leg high over the other lying on my back in the grass, the morning light caught my spur, and there was blood on it, bright and red. I had certainly come as fast as I could; if I should be too late, it would not be my fault. The agent, whoever he might be, was a striking-looking fellow in a dirty brown cloth _caftán_ and an enormous sash wound round his middle. A pointed cap with some tawdry gold lace on it covered his head, and greasy black love-locks writhed filthily over his high cheek bones and into his scanty tangled beard; a suspicious hilt bound with brass wire reared its snake-like head from the folds of his belt, and his legs, terminating in thick-soled native shoes, reminded one of a tarantula in boots. He salaamed awkwardly with a tortuous grin, and addressed me with the northern salutation, "May your feet never be weary with the march." Having been twenty-four hours in the saddle, my feet were not that portion of my body most wearied, but I replied to the effect that I trusted the shadow of the greasy gentleman might not diminish a hairsbreadth in the next ten thousand years. We then proceeded to business, and I observed that the man spoke a very broken and hardly intelligible Hindustani. I tried him in Persian, but it was of no avail. He spoke Persian, he said, but it was not of the kind that any human being could understand; so we returned to the first language, and I concluded that he was a wandering kábuli. As an introduction of himself he mentioned Isaacs, calling him Abdul Hafiz Sáhib, and he seemed to know him personally. Abdul, he said, was not far off as distances go in the Himalayas. He thought I should find him the day after to-morrow, _mungkul_. He said I should not be able to ride much farther, as the pass beyond Sultanpoor was utterly impracticable for horses; coolies, however, awaited me with a dooly, one of those low litters slung on a bamboo, in which you may travel swiftly and without effort, but to the destruction of the digestive organs. He said also that he would accompany me the next stage as far as the doolies, and I thought he showed some curiosity to know whither I was going; but he was a wise man in his generation, and knowing his orders, did not press me overmuch with questions. I remarked in a mild way that the saddle was the throne of the warrior, and that the air of the black mountains was the breath of freedom; but I added that the voice of the empty stomach was as the roar of the king of the forest. Whereupon the man replied that the forest was mine and the game therein, whereof I was lord, as I probably was of the rest of the world, since I was his father and mother and most of his relations; but that, perceiving that I was occupied with the cares of a mighty empire, he had ventured to slay with his own hand a kid and some birds, which, if I would condescend to partake of them, he would proceed to cook. I replied that the light of my countenance would shine upon my faithful servant to the extent of several coins, both rupees and pais, but that the peculiar customs of my caste forbid me to touch food cooked by any one but myself. I would, however, in consideration of his exertions and his guileless heart, invite the true follower of the prophet, whose name is blessed, to partake with me of the food which I should presently prepare. Whereat he was greatly delighted, and fetched the meat, which he had stowed away in a kind of horse-cloth, for safety against ants. I am not a bad cook at a pinch, and so we sat down and made a cooking-place with stones, and built a fire, and let the flame die down into coals, and I dressed the meat as best I could, and flavoured it with gunpowder and pepper, and we were merry. The man was thenceforth mine, and I knew I could trust him; a bivouac in the Himalayas, when one is alone and far from any kind of assistance, is not the spot to indulge in any prejudice about colour. I did not think much about it as I hungrily gnawed the meat and divided the birds with my pocket-knife. The lower Himalayas are at first extremely disappointing. The scenery is enormous but not grand, and at first hardly seems large. The lower parts are at first sight a series of gently undulating hills and wooded dells; in some places it looks as if one might almost hunt the country. It is long before you realise that it is all on a gigantic scale; that the quickset hedges are belts of rhododendrons of full growth, the water-jumps rivers, and the stone walls mountain-ridges; that to hunt a country like that you would have to ride a horse at least two hundred feet high. You cannot see at first, or even for some time, that the gentle-looking hill is a mountain of five or six thousand feet; in Simla you will not believe you are three thousand feet above the level of the Rhigi Kulm in Switzerland. Persons who are familiar with the aspect of the Rocky Mountains are aware of the singular lack of dignity in those enormous elevations. They are merely big, without any superior beauty, until you come to the favoured spots of nature's art, where some great contrast throws out into appalling relief the gulf between the high and the low. It is so in the Himalayas. You may travel for hours and days amidst vast forests and hills without the slightest sensation of pleasure or sense of admiration for the scene, till suddenly your path leads you out on to the dizzy brink of an awful precipice--a sheer fall, so exaggerated in horror that your most stirring memories of Mont Blanc, the Jungfrau, and the hideous _arête_ of the Pitz Bernina, sink into vague insignificance. The gulf that divides you from the distant mountain seems like a huge bite taken bodily out of the world by some voracious god; far away rise snow peaks such as were not dreamt of in your Swiss tour; the bottomless valley at your feet is misty and gloomy with blackness, streaked with mist, while the peaks above shoot gladly to the sun and catch his broadside rays like majestic white standards. Between you, as you stand leaning cautiously against the hill behind you, and the wonderful background far away in front, floats a strange vision, scarcely moving, but yet not still. A great golden shield sails steadily in vast circles, sending back the sunlight in every tint of burnished glow. The golden eagle of the Himalayas hangs in mid-air, a sheet of polished metal to the eye, pausing sometimes in the full blaze of reflection, as ages ago the sun and the moon stood still in the valley of Ajalon; too magnificent for description, as he is too dazzling to look at. The whole scene, if no greater name can be given to it, is on a scale so Titanic in its massive length and breadth and depth, that you stand utterly trembling and weak and foolish as you look for the first time. You have never seen such masses of the world before. It was in such a spot as this that, nearly at noon on the appointed day, my dooly-bearers set me down and warned me I was at my journey's end. I stepped out and stood on the narrow way, pausing to look and to enjoy all that I saw. I had been in other parts of the lower Himalayas before, and the first sensations I had experienced had given way to those of a contemplative admiration. No longer awed or overpowered or oppressed by the sense of physical insignificance in my own person, I could endure to look on the stupendous panorama before me, and could even analyse what I felt. But before long my pardonable reverie was disturbed by a well-known voice. The clear tones rang like a trumpet along the mountain-side in a glad shout of welcome. I turned and saw Isaacs coming quickly towards me, bounding along the edge of the precipice as if his life had been passed in tending goats and robbing eagles' nests. I, too, moved on to meet him, and in a moment we clasped hands in unfeigned delight at being again together. What was Ghyrkins or his party to me? Here was the man I sought; the one man on earth who seemed worth having for a friend. And yet it was but three weeks since we first met, and I am not enthusiastic by temperament. "What news, friend Griggs?" "She greets you and sends you this," I said, taking from my bosom the parcel she had thrust into my hand as I left in the dark. His face fell suddenly. It was the silver box he had given her; was it possible she had taken so much trouble to return it? He turned it over mournfully. "You had better open it. There is probably something in it." I never saw a more complete change in a man's face during a single second than came over Isaacs' in that moment. He had not thought of opening it, in his first disappointment at finding it returned. He turned back the lid. Bound with a bit of narrow ribbon and pressed down carefully, he found a heavy lock of gold-white hair, so fair that it made everything around it seem dark--the grass, our clothes, and even the white streamer that hung down from Isaacs' turban. It seemed to shed a bright light, even in the broad noon-day, as it lay there in the curiously wrought box--just as the body of some martyred saint found jealously concealed in the dark corner of an ancient crypt, and broken in upon by unsuspecting masons delving a king's grave, might throw up in their dusky faces a dazzling halo of soft radiance--the glory of the saint hovering lovingly by the body wherein the soul's sufferings were perfected. The moment Isaacs realised what it was, he turned away, his face all gladness, and moved on a few steps with bent head, evidently contemplating his new treasure. Then he snapped the spring, and putting the casket in his vest turned round to me. "Thank you, Griggs; how are they all?" "It was worth a two-hundred mile ride to see your face when you opened that box. They are pretty well. I left them swearing that the party was broken up, and that they would all go back to Simla." "The sooner the better. We shall be there in three days from here, by the help of Ram Lal's wonderful post." "Between you I managed to get here quite well. How did you do it? I never missed a relay all the way from Julinder." "Oh, it is very easy," answered Isaacs. "You could have a _dâk_ to the moon from India if you would pay for it; or any other thing in heaven or earth or hell that you might fancy. Money, that is all. But, my dear fellow, you have lost flesh sensibly since we parted. You take your travelling hard." "Where is Ram Lal?" I asked, curious to learn something of our movements for the night. "Oh, I don't know. He is probably somewhere about the place charming cobras or arresting avalanches, or indulging in some of those playful freaks he says he learned in Edinburgh. We have had a great good time the last two days. He has not disappeared, or swallowed himself even once, or delivered himself of any fearful and mysterious prophecies. We have been talking transcendentalism. He knows as much about 'functional gamma' and 'All X is Y' and the rainbow, and so on, as you do yourself. I recommend him. I think he would be a charming companion for you. There he is now, with his pockets full of snakes and evil beasts. I wanted him to catch a golden eagle this morning, and tame it for Miss Westonhaugh, but he said it would eat the jackal and probably the servants, so I have given it up for the present." Isaacs was evidently in a capital humour. Ram Lal approached us. I saw at a glance that Ram Lal the Buddhist, when on his beats in the civilisation of Simla, was one person. Ram Lal, the cultured votary of science, among the hills and the beasts and the specimens that he loved, was a very different man. He was as gray as ever, it is true, but better defined, the outlines sharper, the features more Dantesque and easier to discern in the broad light of the sun. He did not look now as if he could sit down and cross his legs and fade away into thin air, like the Cheshire cat. He looked more solid and fleshly, his voice was fuller, and sounded close to me as he spoke, without a shadow of the curious distant ring I had noticed before. "Ah!" he said in English, "Mr. Griggs, at last! Well, you are in plenty of time. The gentleman who is not easily astonished. That is just as well, too. I like people with quiet nerves. I see by your appearance that you are hungry, Mr. Griggs. Abdul Hafiz, why should we not dine? It is much better to get that infliction of the flesh over before this evening." "By all means. Come along. But first send those dooly-bearers about their business. They can wait till to-morrow over there on the other side. They always carry food, and there is any amount of fuel." Just beyond the shoulder of the hill, sheltered from the north by the projecting boulders, was a small tent, carefully pitched and adjusted to stand the storms if any should come. Thither we all three bent our steps and sat down by the fire, for it was chilly, even cold, in the passes in September. Food was brought out by Isaacs, and we ate together as if no countless ages of different nationalities separated us. Ram Lal was perfectly natural and easy in his manners, and affable in what he said. Until the meal was finished no reference was made to the strange business that brought us from different points of the compass to the Himalayan heights. Then, at last, Ram Lal spoke; his meal had been the most frugal of the three, and he had soon eaten his fill, but he employed himself in rolling cigarettes, which he did with marvellous skill, until we two had satisfied our younger and healthier appetites. "Abdul Hafiz," he said, his gray face bent over his colourless hands as he twisted the papers, "shall we not tell Mr. Griggs what is to be done? Afterward he can lie in the tent and sleep until evening, for he is weary and needs to recruit his strength." "So be it, Ram Lal," answered Isaacs. "Very well. The position is this, Mr. Griggs. Neither Mr. Isaacs nor I trust those men that we are to meet, and therefore, as we are afraid of being killed unawares, we thought we would send for you to protect us." He smiled pleasantly as he saw the blank expression in my face. "Certainly, and you shall hear how it is to be done. The place is not far from here in the valley below. The band are already nearing the spot, and at midnight we will go down and meet them. The meeting will be, of course, like all formal rendezvous for the delivery of prisoners. The captain of the band will come forward accompanied by his charge, and perhaps by a sowar. We three will stand together, side by side, and await their coming. Now the plot is this. They have determined if possible to murder both Shere Ali and Isaacs then and there together. They have not counted on us, but they probably expect that our friend will arrive guarded by a troop of horse. The maharajah's men will try and sneak up close to where we stand, and at a signal, which the leader, in conversation with Isaacs, will give by laying his hand on his shoulder, the men will rush in and cut Shere Ali to pieces, and Isaacs too if the captain cannot do it alone. Now look here, Mr. Griggs. What we want you to do is this. Your friend--my friend--wants no miracles, so that you have got to do by strength what might be done by stratagem, though not so quickly. When you see the leader lay his hand on Isaacs' shoulder, seize him by the throat and mind his other arm, which will be armed. Prevent him from injuring Isaacs, and I will attend to the rest, who will doubtless require my whole attention." "But," I objected, "supposing that this captain turned out to be stronger or more active than I. What then?" "Never fear," said Isaacs, smiling. "There aren't any." "No," continued Ram Lal, "never disturb yourself about that, but just knock your man down and be done with it. I will guarantee you can do it well enough, and if he gives you trouble I may be able to help you." "All right; give me some cigarettes;" and before I had smoked one I was asleep. When I awoke the sun was down, but there was a great light over everything. The full moon had just risen above the hills to eastward and bathed every object in silver sheen. The far peaks, covered with snow, caught the reflection and sent the beams floating across the deep dark valleys between. The big boulder, against which the tent was pitched, caught it too, and seemed changed from rough stone to precious metal; it was on the tent-pegs and the ropes, it was upon Isaacs' lithe figure, as he tightened his sash round his waist and looked to his pocket-book for the agreement. It made Ram Lal, the gray and colourless, look like a silver statue, and it made the smouldering flame of the watch-fire utterly dim and faint. It was a wonderful moon. I looked at my watch; it was eight o'clock. "Yes," said Isaacs, "you were tired and have slept long. It is time to be off. There is some whiskey in that flask. I don't take those things, but Ram Lal says you had better have some, as you might get fever." So I did. Then we started, leaving everything in the tent, of which we pegged down the flap. There were no natives about, the dooly-bearers having retired to the other side of the valley, and the jackals would find nothing to attract them, as we had thrown the remainder of our meal over the edge. As for weapons, I had a good revolver and a thick stick; Isaacs had a revolver and a vicious-looking Turkish knife; and Ram Lal had nothing at all, as far as I could see, except a long light staff. The effect of the moonlight was wild in the extreme, as we descended the side of the mountain by paths which were very far from smooth or easy. Every now and then, as we neared the valley, we turned the corner of some ridge and got a fair view of the plain. Then a step farther, and we were in the dark again, behind boulders and picking our way over loose stones, or struggling with the wretched foothold afforded by a surface of light gravel, inclined to the horizontal at an angle of forty-five degrees. Then, with a scramble, a jump, and a little swearing in a great many languages--I think we counted that we spoke twenty-seven between us--we were on firm soil again, and swinging along over the bit of easy level path. It would have been out of the question to go in doolies, and no pony could keep a foothold for five minutes on the uncertain ground. At last, as we emerged into the bright moonlight on a little platform of rock at an angle of the path, we paused. Ram Lal, who seemed to know the way, was in front, and held up his hand to silence us; Isaacs and I kneeled down and looked over the brink. Some two hundred feet below, on a broad strip of green bordering the steep cliffs, was picketed a small body of horse. We could see the men squatting about in their small compact turbans and their shining accoutrements; the horses tethered at various distances on the sward, cropping so vigorously that even at that height we could hear the dull sound as they rhythmically munched the grass. We could see in the middle of the little camp a man seated on a rug and wrapped in a heavy garment of some kind, quietly smoking a common hubble-bubble. Beside him stood another who reflected more moonlight than the rest, and who was therefore, by his trappings, the captain of the band. The seated smoker could be no other than Shere Ali. Cautiously we descended the remaining windings of the steep path, turning whenever we had a chance, to look down on the horsemen and their prisoner below, till at last we emerged in the valley a quarter of a mile or so beyond where they were stationed. Here on the level of the plain we stopped a moment, and Ram Lal renewed his instructions to me. "If the captain," he said, "lays his hand on Isaacs' shoulder, seize him and throw him. If you cannot get him down kill him--any way you can--shoot him under the arm with your pistol. It is a matter of life and death." "All right." And we walked boldly along the broad strip of sward. The moon was now almost immediately overhead, for it was midnight, or near it. I confess the scene awed me, the giant masses of the mountains above us, the vast distances of mysterious blue air, through which the snow-peaks shone out with a strange look that was not natural. The swish of the quickly flowing stream at the edge of the plot we were walking over sounded hollow and unearthly; the velvety whirr of the great mountain bats as they circled near us, stirred from the branches as we passed out, was disagreeable and heavy to hear. The moon shone brighter and brighter. We were perhaps thirty yards from the little camp, in which there might be fifty men all told. Isaacs stood still and sung out a greeting. "Peace to you, men of Baithopoor!" he shouted. It was the preconcerted form of address. Instantly the captain turned and looked toward us. Then he gave some orders in a low voice, and taking his prisoner by the hand assisted him to rise. There was a scurrying to and fro in the camp. The men seemed to be collecting, and moving to the edge of the bivouac. Some began to saddle the horses. The moon was so intensely bright that their movements were as plain to us as though it had been broad daylight. Two figures came striding toward us--the captain and Shere Ali. As I looked at them, curiously enough, as may be imagined, I noticed that the captain was the taller man by two or three inches, but Shere Ali's broad chest and slightly-bowed legs produced an impression of enormous strength. He looked the fierce-hearted, hard-handed warrior, from head to heel; though in accordance with Isaacs' treaty he had been well taken care of and was dressed in the finest stuffs, his beard carefully clipped and his Indian turban rolled with great neatness round his dark and prominent brows. The first thing for the captain was to satisfy himself as far as possible that we had no troops in ambush up there in the jungle on the base of the mountain. He had probably sent scouts out before, and was pretty sure there was no one there. To gain time, he made a great show of reading the agreement through from beginning to end, comparing it all the while with a copy he held. While this was going on, and I had put myself as near as possible to the captain, Isaacs and Shere Ali were in earnest conversation in the Persian tongue. Shere Ali told Abdul that the captain's perusal of the contract must be a mere empty show, since the man did not know a word of the language. Isaacs, on hearing that the captain could not understand, immediately warned Shere Ali of the intended attempt to murder them both, of which Ram Lal, his friend, had heard, and I could see the old soldier's eye flash and his hand feel for his weapon, where there was none, at the mere mention of a fight. The captain began to talk to Isaacs, and I edged as near as I could to be ready for my grip. Still it did not come. He talked on, very civilly, in intelligible Hindustani. What was the matter with the moon? A few minutes before it had seemed as if there would be neither cloud nor mist in such a sky; and now a light filmy wreath was rising and darkening the splendour of the wonderful night. I looked across at Ram Lal. He was standing with one hand on his hip, and leaning with the other on his staff, and he was gazing up at the moon with as much interest as he ever displayed about anything. At that moment the captain handed Isaacs a prepared receipt for signature, to the effect that the prisoner had been duly delivered to his new owner. The light was growing dimmer, and Isaacs could hardly see to read the characters before he signed. He raised the scroll to his eyes and turned half round to see it better. At that moment the tall captain stretched forth his arm and laid his hand on Isaacs' shoulder, raising his other arm at the same time to his men, who had crept nearer and nearer to our group while the endless talking was going on. I was perfectly prepared, and the instant the soldier's hand touched Isaacs I had the man in my grip, catching his upraised arm in one hand and his throat with the other. The struggle did not last long, but it was furious in its agony. The tough Punjabi writhed and twisted like a cat in my grasp, his eyes gleaming like living coals, springing back and forward in his vain and furious efforts to reach my feet and trip me. But it was no use. I had his throat and one arm well in hand, and could hold him so that he could not reach me with the other. My fingers sank deeper and deeper in his neck as we swayed backwards and sideways tugging and hugging, breast to breast, till at last, with a fearful strain and wrench of every muscle in our two bodies, his arm went back with a jerk, broken like a pipe-stem, and his frame collapsing and bending backwards, fell heavily to the ground beneath me. The whole strength of me was at work in the struggle, but I could get a glimpse of the others as we whirled and swayed about. Like the heavy pall of virgin white that is laid on the body of a pure maiden; of velvet, soft and sweet but heavy and impenetrable as death, relentless, awful, appalling the soul, and freezing the marrow in the bones, it came near the earth. The figure of the gray old man grew mystically to gigantic and unearthly size, his vast old hands stretched forth their skinny palms to receive the great curtain as it descended between the moonlight and the sleeping earth. His eyes were as stars, his hoary head rose majestically to an incalculable height; still the thick, all-wrapping mist came down, falling on horse and rider and wrestler and robber and Amir; hiding all, covering all, folding all, in its soft samite arms, till not a man's own hand was visible to him a span's length from his face. I could feel the heaving chest of the captain beneath my knee; I could feel the twitching of the broken arm tortured under the pressure of my left hand; but I could see neither face nor arm nor breast, nor even my own fingers. Only above me, as I stared up, seemed to tower the supernatural proportions of Ram Lal, a white apparition visible through the opaque whiteness that hid everything else from view. It was only a moment. A hand was on my shoulder, Isaacs' voice was in my ear, speaking to Shere Ali. Ram Lal drew me away. "Be quick," he said; "take my hand, I will lead you to the light." We ran along the soft grass, following the sound of each other's feet, swiftly. A moment more and we were in the pass; the mist was lighter, and we could see our way. We rushed up the stony path fast and sure, till we reached the clear bright moonlight, blazing forth in silver splendour again. Far down below the velvet pall of mist lay thick and heavy, hiding the camp and its horses and men from our sight. "Friend," said Isaacs, "you are as free as I. Praise Allah, and let us depart in peace." The savage old warrior grasped the outstretched hand of the Persian and yelled aloud-- "Illallaho-ho-ho-ho!" His throat was as brass. "La illah ill-allah!" repeated Isaacs in tones as of a hundred clarions, echoing by tree and mountain and river, down the valley. "Thank God!" I said to Ram Lal. "Call Him as you please, friend Griggs," answered the pundit. It was daylight when we reached the tent at the top of the pass. * * * * * CHAPTER XIII. "Abdul Hafiz," said Ram Lal, as we sat round the fire we had made, preparing food, "if it is thy pleasure I will conduct thy friend to a place of safety and set his feet in the paths that lead to pleasant places. For thou art weary and wilt take thy rest until noon, but I am not weary and the limbs of the Afghan are as iron." He spoke in Persian, so that Shere Ali could understand what he said. The latter looked uneasy at first, but soon perceived that his best chance of safety lay in immediately leaving the neighbourhood, which was unpleasantly near Simla on the one side and the frontiers of Baithopoor on the other. "I thank thee, Ram Lal," replied Isaacs, "and I gladly accept thy offer. Whither wilt thou conduct our friend the Amir?" "I will lead him by a sure road into Thibet, and my brethren shall take care of him, and presently he shall journey safely northwards into the Tartar country, and thence to the Russ people, where the followers of your prophet are many, and if thou wilt give him the letters thou hast written, which he may present to the principal moolahs, he shall prosper. And as for money, if thou hast gold, give him of it, and if not, give him silver; and if thou hast none, take no thought, for the freedom of the spirit is better than the obesity of the body." "Bishmillah! Thou speakest with the tongue of wisdom, old man," said Shere Ali; "nevertheless a few rupees--" "Fear nothing," broke in Isaacs. "I have for thee a store of a few rupees in silver, and there are two hundred gold mohurs in this bag. They are scarce in Hind and pass not as money, but the value of them whither thou goest shall buy thee food many days. Take also this diamond, which if thou be in want thou shalt sell and be rich." Shere Ali, who had been suspicious of treachery, or at least was afraid to believe himself really free, was convinced by this generosity. The great rough warrior, the brave patriot who had shut the gates of Kabul in the face of Sir Neville Chamberlain, and who had faced every danger and defeat, rather than tamely suffer the advance of the all-devouring English into his dominions, was proud and unbending still, through all his captivity and poverty and trouble, and weariness of soul and suffering of body; he could bear his calamities like a man, the unrelenting chief of an unrelenting race. But when Isaacs stretched forth his hand and freed him, and bestowed upon him, moreover, a goodly stock of cash, and bid him go in peace, his gratitude got the better of him, and he fairly broke down. The big tears coursed down over his rough cheeks, and his face sank between his hands, which trembled violently for a moment. Then his habitual calm of outward manner returned. "Allah requite thee, my brother," he said, "I can never hope to." "I have done nothing," said Isaacs. "Shall believers languish and perish in the hands of swine without faith? Verily it is Allah's doing, whose name is great and powerful. He will not suffer the followers of His prophet to be devoured of jackals and unclean beasts. Masallah! There is no God but God." Therefore, when they had eaten some food, Ram Lal and Shere Ali departed, journeying north-east towards Thibet, and Isaacs and I remained sleeping in the tent until past noon. Then we arose and went our way, having packed up the little canvas house and the utensils and the pole into a neat bundle which we carried by turns along the steep rough paths, until we found the dooly-bearers squatting round the embers after their mid-day meal. As we journeyed we talked of the events of the night. It seemed to me that the whole thing might have been managed very much more simply. Isaacs did things in his own way, however, and, after all, he generally had a good reason for his actions. "I think not," he said in reply to my question. "While you were throwing that ruffian, who would have overmatched me in an instant, Shere Ali and I disposed of the sowars who ran up at the captain's signal. Shere Ali says he killed one of them with his hands, and my little knife here seems to have done some damage." He produced the vicious-looking dagger, stained above the hilt with dark blood, which he began to scrape off with a bit of stick. "My dear fellow," I objected, "I am delighted to have served you, and I see that since Shere Ali could not be warned of the signal, I was the only person there who could tackle that Punjabi man; yet I am completely at a loss to explain why, if Ram Lal can command the forces of nature to the extent of calling down a thick mist under the cover of which we might escape, he could not have calmly destroyed the whole band by lightning, or indigestion, or some simple and efficacious means, so that we need not have risked our lives in supplementing what he only half did." "There are plenty of answers to that question," Isaacs answered. "In the first place, how do you know that Ram Lal could do anything more than discover the preconcerted signal and bring down that fog? He pretends to no supernatural power; he only asserts that he understands the workings of nature better than you do. How do you know that the fog was his doing at all? Your excited imagination, developed suddenly by the tussle with the captain, which undoubtedly sent the blood to your head, made you think you saw Ram Lal's figure magnified beyond human proportion. If there had been no mist at all, we should most likely have got away unhurt all the same. Those fellows would not fight after their leader was down. Again, I like to let Ram Lal feel that I am able to do something for myself, and that I have other friends as powerful. He aims at obtaining too much ascendency over me. I do not like it." "Oh--if you look at it in that light, I have nothing to say. It has been a very pleasant and interesting excursion to me, and I am rather glad I only broke that fellow's arm instead of killing him, as you and Shere Ali did your sowars." "I don't know whether I killed him. I suppose I did. Poor fellow. However, he would certainly have killed me." "Of course. No use crying over spilt milk," I answered. So we got into the doolies and swung away. As we neared Simla my friend's spirits rose, and he chanted wild Persian and Arabic love-songs, and kept up a fire of conversation all day and all night, singing and talking alternately. "Griggs," he said, as we approached the end of our journey, "did you have occasion to tell Miss Westonhaugh where I had gone?" "Yes. She asked me, and I answered that you had gone to save a man's life. She looked very much pleased, I thought, but just then somebody came up, and we did not talk any more about it. I got your message the evening of the day you left." "She looked pleased?" "Very much. I remember the colour came into her cheeks." "Was she so pale, then?" he asked anxiously. "Why, yes. You remember how she looked the night before you left? She was even paler the next day, but when I said you had gone to do a good deed, the light came into her face for a moment." "Do you think she was ill, Griggs?" "She did not look well, but of course she was anxious about you, and a good deal cut up about your going." "No; but did you really think she was ill?" he insisted. "Oh no, nothing but your going." His spirits were gone again, and he said very little more that day. As we were ascending the last hills, some eight or nine hours from Simla, the moon rose majestically behind us. It must have been ten o'clock, for she could not have been seen above the notch in the mountains to eastward until she had been risen an hour at least. "I wonder where they are now, those two," said Isaacs. "Shere Ali and Ram Lal?" "Yes. They are probably across the borders into Thibet, watching the moon rise from the door of some Buddhist monastery. I am glad I am not there." "Isaacs," I said, "I would really like to know why you took so much trouble about Shere Ali. It seems to me you might have procured his liberation in some simpler way, if it was merely an act of charity that you contemplated." "Call it anything you like. I had read about the poor man until my imagination was wrought up, and I could not bear to think of a man so brave and patriotic and at the same time a true believer, lying in the clutches of that old beast of a maharajah. And as for the method of my procedure, do you realise the complete secrecy of the whole affair? Do you see that no one but you and I and the Baithopoor people know anything of the transaction? Do you suppose that I should be tolerated a day in the country if the matter were known? Above all, what do you imagine Mr. Currie Ghyrkins would think of me if he knew I had been liberating and enriching the worst foe of his little god, Lord Beaconsfield?" There was truth in what he said. By no arrangement could the liberation of Shere Ali have been effected with such secrecy and despatch as by the simple plan of going ourselves. And now we toiled up the last hills, vainly attempting to keep our horses in a canter; long before the relay was reached they had relapsed into a dogged jog-trot. So we reached Simla at sunrise, and crawled wearily up the steps of the hotel to our rooms, tired with the cramp of dooly and saddle for so many days, and longing for the luxury of the bath, the civilised meal, and the arm-chair. Of course I did not suppose Isaacs would go to bed. He expected that the Westonhaughs would have returned by this time, and he would doubtless go to them as soon as he had breakfasted. So we separated to dress and be shaved--my beard was a week old at least--and to make ourselves as comfortable as we deserved to be after our manifold exertions. We had been three days and a half from Keitung to Simla. At my door stood the faithful Kiramat Ali, salaaming and making a pretence of putting dust on his head according to his ideas of respectful greeting. On the table lay letters; one of these, a note, lay in a prominent position. I took it instinctively, though I did not know the hand. It was from Mr. Currie Ghyrkins. _Saturday morning_. MY DEAR MR. GRIGGS--If you have returned to Simla, I should be glad to see you for half an hour on a matter of urgent importance. I would come to you if I could. My niece, Miss Westonhaugh, is, I am sorry to say, dangerously ill.--Sincerely yours, A. CURRIE GHYRKINS. It was dated two days before, for to-day was Monday. I made every possible haste in my toilet and ordered a horse. I wondered whether Isaacs had received a similar missive. What could be the matter? What might not have happened in those two days since the note was written? I felt sure that the illness had begun before I left them in the Terai, hastened probably by the pain she had felt at Isaacs' departure; there is nothing like a little mental worry to hasten an illness, if it is to come at all. Poor Miss Westonhaugh! So, after all her gaiety and all the enjoyment she had from the tiger-hunt on which she had set her heart, she had come back to be ill in Simla. Well, the air was fresh enough now--almost cold, in fact. She would soon be well. Still, it was a great pity. We might have had such a gay week before breaking up. I was dressed, and I went down the steps, passing Isaacs' open door. He was calmly reading a newspaper and having a morning smoke, until it should be time to go out. Clearly he had not heard anything of Miss Westonhaugh's illness. I resolved I would say nothing until I knew the worst, so I merely put my head in and said I should be back in an hour to breakfast with him, and passed on. Once on horseback, I galloped as hard as I could, scattering chuprassies and children and marketers to right and left in the bazaar. It was not long before I left my horse at the corner of Mr. Currie Ghyrkins' lawn, and walking to the verandah, which looked suspiciously neat and unused, inquired for the master of the house. I was shown into his bedroom, for it was still very early and he was dressing. I noticed a considerable change in the old gentleman's manner and appearance in the last ten days. His bright red colour was nearly faded, his eyes had grown larger and less bright, he had lost flesh, and his tone was subdued in the extreme. He came from his dressing-glass to greet me with a ghost of the old smile on his face, and his hand stretched eagerly out. "My dear Mr. Griggs, I am sincerely glad to see you." "I have not been in Simla two hours," I answered, "and I found your note. How is Miss Westonhaugh? I am so sorry to----" "Don't talk about her, Griggs. I am afraid she's g--g--goin' to die." He nearly broke down, but he struggled bravely. I was terribly shocked, though a moment's reflection told me that so strong and healthy a person would not die so easily. I expressed my sympathy as best I could. "What is it? What is the illness?" I asked when he was quieter. "Jungle fever, my dear fellow, jungle fever; caught in that beastly tiger-hunt. Oh! I wish I had never taken her. I wish we had never gone. Why wasn't I firm? Damn it all, sir, why wasn't I firm, eh?" In his anger at himself something of the former jerky energy of the man showed itself. Then it faded away into the jaded sorrowful look that was on his face when I came in. He sat down with his elbows on his knees and his hands in his scanty gray hair, his suspenders hanging down at his sides--the picture of misery. I tried to console him, but I confess I felt very much like breaking down myself. I did not see what I could do, except break the bad news to Isaacs. "Mr. Griggs," he said at last, "she has been asking for you all the time, and the doctor thought if you came she had best see you, as it might quiet her. Understand?" I understood better than he thought. People who are dangerously ill have no morning and no evening. Their hours are eternally the same, save for the alternation of suffering and rest. The nurse and the doctor are their sun and moon, relieving each other in the watches of day and night. As they are worse--as they draw nearer to eternity, they are less and less governed by ideas of time. A dying person will receive a visit at midnight or at mid-day with no thought but to see the face of friend--or foe--once more. So I was not surprised to find that Miss Westonhaugh would see me; in an interval of the fever she had been moved to a chair in her room, and her brother was with her. I might go in--indeed she sent a very urgent message imploring that I would go. I went. The morning sun was beating brightly on the shutters, and the room looked cheerful as I entered. John Westonhaugh, paler than death, came quickly to the door and grasped my hand. On a long cane-chair by the window, carefully covered from the possible danger of any insidious draught, with a mass of soft white wraps and shawls, lay Katharine Westonhaugh--the transparant phantasm of her brilliant self. The rich masses of pale hair were luxuriously nestled around her shoulders and the blazing eyes flamed, lambently, under the black brows--but that was all. Colour, beside the gold hair and the black eyes, there was hardly any. The strong clean-cut outline of the features was there, but absolutely startling in emaciation, so that there seemed to be no flesh at all; the pale lips scarcely closed over the straight white teeth. A wonderful and a fearful sight to see, that stately edifice of queenly strength and beauty thus laid low and pillaged and stript of all colour save purple and white--the hues of mourning--the purple lips and the white cheek. I have seen many people die, and the moment I looked at Katharine Westonhaugh I felt that the hand of death was already closed over her, gripped round, never to relax. John led me to her side, and a faint smile showed she was glad to see me. I knelt reverently down, as one would kneel beside one already dead. She spoke first, clearly and easily, as it seemed. People who are ill from fever seldom lose the faculty of speech. "I am so glad you are come. There are many things I want you to do." "Yes, Miss Westonhaugh. I will do everything." "Is he come back?" she asked--then, as I looked at her brother, she added, "John knows, he is very glad." "Yes, we came back this morning together; I came here at once." "Thank you--it was kind. Did you give him the box?" "Yes--he does not know you are ill. He means to come at eleven." "Tell him to come now. _Now_--do you understand?" Then she added in a low tone, for my ear only, "I don't think they know it; I am dying. I shall be dead before to-night. Don't tell him that. Make him come now. John knows. Now go. I am tired. No--wait! Did he save the man's life?" "Yes; the man is safe and free in Thibet." "That was nobly done. Now go. You have always been kind to me, and you love him. When you see me again I shall be gone." Her voice was perceptibly weaker, though still clearly audible. "When I am gone, put some flowers on me for friendship's sake. You have always been so kind. Good-bye, dear Mr. Griggs. Good-bye. God keep you." I moved quickly to the door, fearing lest the piteous sight should make a coward of me. It was so ineffably pathetic--this lovely creature, just tasting of the cup of life and love and dying so. "Bring him here at once, Griggs, please. I know all about it. It may save her." John Westonhaugh clasped my hand in his again, and pushed me out to speed me on my errand. I tore along the crooked paths and the winding road, up through the bazaar, past the church and the narrow causeway beyond to the hotel. I found him still smoking and reading the paper. "Well?" said he cheerfully, for the morning sun had dispelled the doubts of the night. "My dear friend," I said, "Miss Westonhaugh wants to see you immediately." "How? What? Of course; I will go at once, but how did you know?" "Wait a minute, Isaacs; she is not well at all--in fact, she is quite ill." "What's the matter--for God's sake--Why, Griggs, man, how white you are--O my God, my God--she is dead!" I seized him quickly in my arms or he would have thrown himself on the ground. "No," I said, "she is not dead. But, my dear boy, she is dying. I do not believe she will live till this evening. Therefore get to horse and ride there quickly, before it is too late." Isaacs was a brave man, and of surpassing strength to endure. After the first passionate outburst, his manner never changed as he mechanically ordered his horse and pulled on his boots. He was pale naturally, and great purple rings seemed to come out beneath his eyes--as if he had received a blow--from the intensity of his suppressed emotion. Once only he spoke before he mounted. "What is it?" he asked. "Jungle fever," I answered. He groaned. "Shall I go with you?" asked I, thinking it might be as well. He shook his head, and was off in a moment. I turned to my rooms and threw myself on my bed. Poor fellow; was there ever a more piteous case? Oh the cruel misery of feeling that nothing could save her! And he--he who would give life and wealth and fortune and power to give her back a shade of colour--as much as would tinge a rose-leaf, even a very little rose-leaf--and could not. Poor fellow! What would he do to-night--to-morrow. I could see him kneeling by her side and weeping hot tears over the wasted hands. I could almost hear his smothered sob--his last words of speeding to the parting soul--the picture grew intensely in my thoughts. How beautiful she would look when she was dead! I started as the thought came into my mind. How superficial was my acquaintance with her, poor girl,--how little was she a part of my life, since I could really so heartlessly think of her beauty when her breath should be gone! Of course, though, it was natural enough, why should I feel any personal pang for her? It was odd that I should even expect to--I, who never felt a "personal pang" of regret for the death of any human creature, excepting poor dear old Lucia, who brought me up, and sent me to school, and gave me roast chestnuts when I knew my lessons, in the streets of Rome, thirty years ago. When she died, I was there; poor old soul, how fond she was of me! And I of her! I remember the tears I shed, though I was a bearded man even then. How long is that? Since she died, it must be ten years. My thoughts wandered about among all sorts of _bric-à-brac_ memories. Presently something brought me back to the present. Why must this fair girl from the north die miserably here in India? Ah yes! the eternal why. Why did we go at such a season into the forests of the Terai? it was madness; we knew it was, and Ram Lal knew it too. Hence his warning. O Ram Lal, you are a wise old man, with your gray beard and you mists of wet white velvet and your dark sayings! Ram Lal, will you riddle me, also, my weird that I must dree? A cold draught passed over my head, and I turned on my couch to see whence it came. I started bolt upright, and my hair stood on end with sudden terror. I had uttered the name of Ram Lal aloud in my reverie, and there he sat on a chair by the door, as gray as ever, with his long staff leaning from his feet across his breast and shoulder. He looked at me quietly. "I come opportunely, Mr. Griggs, it seems. _Lupus in fabula._ I hear my name pronounced as I enter the door. This is flattering to a man of my modest pretensions to social popularity. You would like me to tell you your fortune? Well, I am not a fortune-teller." "Never mind my fortune. Will Miss Westonhaugh recover?" "No. She will die at sundown." "How do you know, since you say you are no prophet?" "Because I am a doctor of medicine. M.D. of Edinburgh." "Why can you not save her then? A man who is a Scotch doctor, and who possesses the power of performing such practical jokes on nature as you exhibited the other night, might do something. However, I suppose I am not talking to you at all. You are in Thibet with Shere Ali. This is your astral body, and if I were near enough, I could poke my fingers right through you, as you sit there, telling me you are an Edinburgh doctor, forsooth." "Quite right, Mr. Griggs. At the present moment my body is quietly asleep in a lamastery in Thibet, and this is my astral shape, which, from force of habit, I begin to like almost as well. But to be serious----" "I think it is very serious, your going about in this casual manner." "To be serious. I warned Isaacs that he should not allow the tiger-hunt to come off. He would not heed my warning. It is too late now. I am not omnipotent." "Of course not. Still, you might be of some use if you went there. While there is life there is hope." "Proverbs," said Earn Lai scornfully, "are the wisdom of wise men prepared in portable doses for the foolish; and the saying you quote is one of them. There is life yet, but there is no hope." "Well, I am afraid you are right. I saw her this morning--I suppose I shall never see her again, not alive, at least. She looked nearly dead then. Poor girl; poor Isaacs, left behind!" "You may well say that, Mr. Griggs," said the adept. "On the whole, perhaps he is to be less pitied than she; who knows? Perhaps we should pity neither, but rather envy both." "Why? Either you are talking the tritest of cant, or you are indulging in more of your dark sayings, to be interpreted, _post facto_, entirely to your own satisfaction, and to every one else's disgust." I was impatient with the man. If he had such extraordinary powers as were ascribed to him--I never heard him assert that he possessed any; if he could prophesy, he might as well do so to some purpose. Why could he not speak plainly? He could not impose on me, who was ready to give him credit for what he really could do, while finding fault with the way he did it. "I understand what passes in your mind, friend Griggs," he said, not in the least disconcerted at my attack. "You want me to speak plainly to you, because you think you are a plain-spoken, clear-headed man of science yourself. Very well, I will. I think you might yourself become a brother some day, if you would. But you will not now, neither will in the future. Yet you understand some little distant inkling of the science. When you ask your scornful questions of me, you know perfectly well that you are putting an inquiry which you yourself can answer as well as I. I am not omnipotent. I have very little more power than you. Given certain conditions and I can produce certain results, palpable, visible, and appreciable to all; but my power, as you know, is itself merely the knowledge of the laws of nature, which Western scientists, in their wisdom, ignore. I can replenish the oil in the lamp, and while there is wick the lamp shall burn--ay, even for hundreds of years. But give me a lamp wherein the wick is consumed, and I shall waste my oil; for it will not burn unless there be the fibre to carry it. So also is the body of man. While there is the flame of vitality and the essence of life in his nerves and finer tissues, I will put blood in his veins, and if he meet with no accident he may live to see hundreds of generations pass by him. But where there is no vitality and no essence of life in a man, he must die; for though I fill his veins with blood, and cause his heart to beat for a time, there is no spark in him--no fire, no nervous strength. So is Miss Westonhaugh now--dead while yet breathing, and sighing her sweet farewells to her lover." "I know. I understand you very well. But do not deny that you might have saved her. Why did you not?" Ram Lal smiled a strange smile, which I should have described as self-satisfied, had it not been so gentle and kind. "Ah yes!" he said, with something like a sigh, though there was no sorrow or regret in it. "Yes, Griggs, I might have saved her life. I would certainly have saved her--well, if he had not persuaded her to go down into that steaming country at this time of year, since it was my advice to remain here. But it is no use talking about it." "I think you might have conveyed your meaning to him a little more clearly. He had no idea that you meant danger to her." "No, very likely not. It is not my business to mould men's destinies for them. If I give them advice that is good, it is quite enough. It is like a man playing cards: if he does not seize his chance it does not return. Besides, it is much better for him that she should die." "Your moral reflections are insufferable. Can you not find some one else to whom you may confide your secret joy of my friend's misfortunes?" "Calm yourself. I say it is better for her, better for him, better for both. Remember what you said to him yourself about the difference between pleasure and happiness. They shall be one yet, their happiness shall not be less eternal because their pleasure in this life has been brief. Can you not conceive of immortal peace and joy without the satisfaction of earthly lust?" "I would not call such a beautiful union as theirs might have been by such a name. For myself, I confess to a very real desire for pleasure first and happiness afterwards." "I know you better than you think, Mr. Griggs. You are merely argumentative, rarely sceptical. If I had begun by denying what I instead asserted, you would by this time have been arguing as strongly on my side as you now are on yours. You are often very near degenerating into a common sophist." "Very likely, it was a charming profession. Meanwhile, by going to the very opposite extreme from sophistry, I mean by a more than Quixotic veneration for an abstract dogma you hold to be true, and by your determination to make people die for it, you are causing fearful misery of body, untold agony of soul, to a woman and a man whom you should have every reason to like. Go to, Ram Lal, adept, magician, enthusiast, and prophet, you are mistaken, like all your kind!" "No, I am not mistaken, time will show. Moreover, I would have you remark that the lady in question is not suffering at all, and that the 'untold agony of soul' you attribute to Isaacs is a wholesome medicine for one with such a soul as his. And now I am going, for you are not the sort of person with whom I can enjoy talking very long. You are violent and argumentative, though you are sometimes amusing. I am rarely violent, and I never argue: life is too short. And yet I have more time for it than you, seeing my life will be indefinitely longer than yours. Good-bye, for the present; and believe me, those two will be happier far, and far more blessed, in a few short years hence, than ever you or I shall be in all the unreckonable cycles of this or any future world." Ram Lal sighed as he uttered the last words, and he was gone; yet the musical cadence of the deep-drawn breath of a profound sorrow, vibrated whisperingly through the room where I lay. Poor Ram Lal, he must have had some disappointment in his youth, which, with all his wisdom and superiority over the common earth, still left a sore place in his heart. I was not inclined to move. I knew where Isaacs was, where he would remain to the bitter end, and I would not go out into the world that day, while he was kneeling in the chamber of death. He might come back at any time. How long would it last? God in his mercy grant it might be soon and quickly over, without suffering. Oh! but those strong people die so deathly hard. I have seen a man--No, I was sure of that. She would not suffer any more now. I lay thinking. Would Isaacs send for me when he returned, or would he face his grief alone for a night before he spoke? The latter, I thought; I hoped so too. How little sympathy there must be for any one, even the dearest, in our souls and hearts, when it is so hard to look forward to speaking half-a-dozen words of comfort to some poor wretch of a friend who has lost everything in the wide world that is dear to him. We would rather give him all we possess outright than attempt to console him for the loss. And yet--what is there in life more sweet than to be consoled and comforted, and to have the true sympathy of some one, even a little near to us, when we ourselves are suffering. The people we do not want shower cards of condolence on us, and carriage-loads of flowers on the poor dead thing; the ones who could be of some help to the tortured soul are afraid to speak; the very delicacy of kind-heartedness in them, which makes us wish they would come, makes them stay away. I hope Isaacs will not send for me, poor fellow. If he does, what shall I say? God help me. * * * * * CHAPTER XIV. The hours came and went, and though worn out with the exertions of the past days, and with the emotions of the morning, I lay in my rooms, unable to sleep even for a moment. I went down once or twice to Isaacs' rooms to know whether he had returned, but he had not, nor had any one heard from him. At last the evening shadows crept stealthily up, darkening first one room, then another, until there was not light enough to read by. Then I dropped my book and went out to breathe the cold air on the verandah. Wearily the hours went by, and still there was no sign of my friend. Towards eleven o'clock the moon, now waning, once more rose above the hills and shed her light across the lawn, splendid still, but with the first tinge of melancholy that clouds her departing glory. Exhausted nature asserted herself, and chilled to the bone I went to bed, and, at last, to sleep. I slept peacefully at first, but soon the events that had come over my life began to weave themselves in wild disharmony through my restful visions, and the events that were to come cast their lengthening shadows before them. The world of past, present, and future thoughts, came into my soul, distorted, without perspective, nothing to help me to discern the good from the evil, the suffering gone and long-forgotten from the pain in store. The triumph of discrepancy over waking reason, the fancied victories of the sleep-dulled intellect over the outrageous discord of the wakeful imagination. I passed a most miserable night. It seemed rest to wake, until I was awake, and then it seemed rest to sleep again, until my eyes were closed. At last it came, no dream this time; Isaacs stood by my bed-side in the gray of the morning, himself grayer than the soft neutral-tinted dawn. It was a terrible moment to me, though I had expected it since yesterday. I felt like the condemned criminal in France, who does not know the day or hour of his death. The first intimation is when the executioner at daybreak enters his cell and bids him come forth to die, sometimes in less than sixty seconds from his waking.[2] How gray he looked, and how infinitely tried. I rose swiftly and took his hands, which were deadly cold, and led him to the outer room. I could not say anything, for I did not know how such a terribly sudden blow would affect him; he was so unlike any one else. Why is it so hard to comfort the afflicted? Why should the most charitable duty it is ever given us to perform be, without exception, the hardest of tasks? I am sure most people feel as I do. It is far less painful to suffer wounds and sickness in one's own body than to stand by and see the cold clean knife go through skin and flesh and cartilage; it is surely easier to suffer disease than to smooth daily and hourly the bed and pillows of some poor tormented wretch, calling on God and man to end his misery. There is a hidden instinct--of a low and cowardly kind, but human nevertheless--which bids us turn away from spectacles of agony whether harrowing or repulsive, until the good angel comes and whispers that we must trample on such coarse impulse and do our duty. "Show pity," said the wise old Frenchman, "do anything to alleviate distress, but avoid actually feeling either compassion or sympathy. They can lead to no good." That was only his way of making to himself an excuse for doing a good action, for Larochefoucauld was a man who really possessed every virtue that he disclaimed for himself and denied in others. I felt much of this as I led Isaacs to the outer room, not knowing what form his sorrow might take, but feeling in my own person a grief as poignant, perhaps, for the moment, as his own. I had known he would come, that was all, though I had hoped he would not, and I knew that I must do my best to send him away a little less sorrowful than he had come. I was not prepared for the extreme calm of voice and manner that marked his first words, coming with measured rhythm and even cadence from his pale lips. "It is all over, my friend," he said. "It has but begun," said the solemn tones of Ram Lal, the Buddhist, from the door. He entered and approached us. "Friend Isaacs," he continued, "I am not here to mock at your grief or to weary your strained heartstrings with such petty condolence as well-nigh drove Ayoub of old to impatience. But I love you, my brother, and I have somewhat to say to you in your trouble, some advice to give you in your distress. You are suffering greatly, past the power of reason to alleviate, for you no longer know yourself, nor are aware what you really think. But I will show to you three pictures of yourself that shall rouse you to what you are, to what you were, and to what you shall be. "I found you, not many years ago, a very young man, most exceptionally placed in regard to the world. You were even then rich, though not so rich as you now are. You were beautiful and full of vigour, but you have now upon you the glow of a higher beauty, the overflowing promise of a more glorious life. You were happy because you thought you were, but such happiness as you had proceeded from without rather than from within. You were a materially thinking man. Your thoughts were of the flesh, and your delights--harmless it is true--were in the things that were under your eyes--wealth, power, book knowledge, and perhaps woman, if you can call the creatures you believed in women. "You gathered wealth in great heaps, and your precious stones in storehouses. You laid your hand upon the diamond of the river and upon the pearl of the sea, and they abode with you, as the light of the sun and the moon. And you said, 'Behold it is my star, which is the lord of the dog-heat in summer, and it is my kismet.' You also took to yourself wives of rare qualities, having both golden and raven black hair, whose skin was as fine silk, and their breath as the freshness of the dawning, and their eyes as jewels. Then said you, rejoicing in your heart, that you were happy; and so you dwelt in peace and plenty, and waxed glad. "Therefore you accomplished your first destiny, and you drank of the cup that was filled to overflowing. And if it had been the law of nature that from pleasure man should derive permanent lasting peace, you had been happy so long as you lived. But, though you have the faultless life of the body to enjoy all things of the earth, even as other men, though in another degree, you have within you something more. There is in your breast a heart beating--an organ so wonderful in its sensitiveness, so perfect in its consciousness of good, that the least throb and thrill of pleasure that it feels is worth years and ages of mere sensual life enjoyment. The body having tasted of all happiness whereof it is capable, and having found that it is good, is saturated with its own ease and enjoys less keenly. But the heart is the border-land between body and soul. The heart can love and the body can love, but the body can only love itself; the heart is the wellspring of the lore that goes beyond self. Therefore your heart awoke. "Shall I tell you of the first early stirrings of your love? Think you, because I am gray and loveless, that I have never known youth and gladness of heart? Ah, I know, better than you can think. It is not sudden, really, the blossoming out of the tree of life. The small leaves grow larger and stronger though still closely folded in the bud, until the bright warmth of the spring makes them burst into bloom. The little lark in the nest among the grass grows beneath the mother's wing and idly moves, now and then, unconscious of the cloud-cleaving gift of flight, until all at once, in the fair dawning, there wells up in his tiny breast the mighty sense of power to rise. "The human heart is like the budded folded leaves, and like the untaught lark. The quiet sleep before the day of blooming is, while it lasts, a state of happiness. But it is not comparable with the breathing joy of the leaf that feels and sees the wonderful life around it, whispering divine answers to the wooing breeze. The humble nest where it has first seen light is for many days a happy home to the tender songster, soon left behind, when the first wing-strokes waft the small body upwards to the sky, and forgotten as the first glad trill and quaver of the new-found voice roll out the prelude to the glorious life-long hymn of praise. The heart of man--your heart, my dear friend--gave a great leap from earth to sky, when first it felt the magic of the other life. The grosser scales of material vision fell away from your inner sight on the day when you met, and knew you had met, the woman you were to love. "I found you again, a different man, a far happier man, though you would hardly allow that. A sweet uncertainty of the future half-tinged your joy with a shadow of sadness, which you had not known before: but love sadness is only the shading and gentle pencilling in love's wondrous picture, whereby the whole light of the painting is made clearer and stronger. A new world opened out before you in endless vistas of untold and undreamed bliss. You looked back at your former self, so careless and sunny, so consciously happy in the strong sense of life and power, and you wondered how you could have been even contented through so many years. The good and evil deeds of your past life lost colour and perspective, and fell back into a dull, flat background, against which the ineffable vision of beautiful and immortal womanhood stood forth in transcendent glory. The eternal womanly element of the great universe beckoned you on, as it did Doctor Faustus of old. You had hitherto accepted woman and ignored womanhood, as so many of the followers of the prophet have always done. Henceforth there was to be a change, entire, complete, and enduring. No doubts now, or careless scepticism; no cant about women having no souls and no individual being; you had made a great step to a better understanding of the world you live in. Filled with a new life, you went on your way rejoicing and longing to do great deeds for her who had come into your destiny. From dawn to sunset, and from evening to dawn, one picture ever was before you leading you on. You were ready to run any risk for a smile and a blush of pleasure, you were willing to sacrifice anything and everything for her praise. And when, down there among the mango-trees in the Terai, your lips first touched hers and your arm pressed her to your side, the joy that was yours was as the joy of the immortals." Ram Lal paused, and Isaacs, who had been sitting by the table, stony and dry-eyed, hid his face in his hands, clutching with his white fingers among his bright black hair--all that seemed left to him of life, so dead and ashy was his face. He remained thus without looking up, as the old man continued. "Think not, dear friend and brother, that I have come here to dwell needlessly on your grief, to rouse again the keen agonies that have so lately burned through and through you to the quick. I love you well, and would but trace the past in order to paint the future. All that you felt and knew in those short days of perfect love on earth was good and true and noble, and shall not be forgotten hereafter. But last night closed the second of your three destinies--as true love always must close on earth--in bitter grief and sorrow because the one is gone before. Rather should you rejoice, Abdul Hafiz, that she is gone in virgin whiteness, whither ere long you shall follow and be with her till time shall chase the crumbling world out over the broad quicksands of eternity, and nought shall survive of all this but the pure and the constant and the faithful to death. There is before you a third, destiny, great and awful, but grand beyond power of telling. Body and heart have had their full cup of happiness, have enjoyed to the full what has been set in their way to enjoy. To the full you have enjoyed wealth and success and the sensuality of a refined and artistic luxury; to the full, as only a few rarely-gifted men can, you have enjoyed the purest and highest love that earth can give. Think not that all ends here. The greatest of destinies is but begun, and it is the destiny of the soul. Two days ago if I had told you there was something higher in you than the loving heart, you would not have believed me; now you do. It is the ethereal portion of the heart, that which longs to be loosed from the body and floating upwards to rejoin its other half. "Your love has been of the best kind that falls to the lot of man. Not a single shadow of doubting fell between you. It has been sweet if it has seemed short--but it has really lasted a long time, as long as some people's lives. You are many years older than you were when it began, for a month or two ago--or whenever it was that your heart first awoke--you were entirely immersed in the material view of things that belonged naturally enough to your position and mode of life. Now you have passed the critical border-land wherein love wanders, himself not knowing whither he shall lead his followers, whether back to the thick green pasture and heavy-scented groves of sensual existence or forward to free wind-swept heights of spiritual blessedness, where those who are true until they die walk forth into truth everlasting. Yours is the faith and the truth that abide always, yours henceforward shall be the perfect union of souls, yours the ethereal range of the outer firmament. Take my hand, brother, in yours, and seek with me the path to those heights--to that pinnacle of paradise where you shall meet once more the spirit elected to yours." Ram Lal stood beside Isaacs, whose face was still hidden, and laid his hand with tender gentleness on the weary head. The old man looked kindly down as he touched the thick black hair, and then raised his eyes and looked out through the door at the brightening landscape over which the morning sun was shedding warmth and beauty once more. "Brother," he continued, "come forth with me. You have suffered too much to mix again with the world, even if you wished it. Come forth, and your soul shall live for ever. Your grief shall be turned to joy, and the sinking heart shall be lifted to heights untried. As now the sun steadily rises in his unerring course, following the pale footsteps of the fleet dawning, and fulfilling her half spoken promises a million-fold in his goodness; as now the all-muffling heaviness of the sad dark night is forgotten in the gladness of day--so shall your brief time of darkness and dull distress perish and vanish swiftly at the first glimpses of the heavenly day on which follows no creeping night nor shadow of earthly care. I come not to bid you forget; I come to bid you remember. Remember all that is past, treasure it in the secret storehouse of the soul where the few flowers culled from life's abundant thorn are laid in their fragrance and garnered up. Remember also the future. Think that your time is short, and that the labour shall be sweet; so that in a few quick years you shall reap a harvest of unearthly blooming. Fear not to tread boldly in the tracks of those who have climbed before you, and who have attained and have conquered. What can anything earthly ever be to you? What can you ever care again for gold, or gem, or horse, or slave? Do with those things as it may seem good in your eyes, but leave them behind. The weight of the money-bags is a weariness and soreness to the feet that toil to overtake eternity. The flesh itself is weariness to the spirit, and soon leaves it to wing its flight untrammelled and untiring. Come, I will give you of my poor strength what shall carry your uncertain steps over the first great difficulties, or at least over so many as you have not yet surmounted. Be bold, aspiring, fearless, and firm of purpose. What guerdon can man or Heaven offer, higher than eternal communion with the bright spirit that waits and watches for your coming? With her--you said it while she lived--was your life, your light, and your love; it is true tenfold now, for with her is life eternal, light ethereal, and love spiritual. Come, brother, come with me!" Slowly Isaacs raised his head from his hands and gazed long on the old man. And while he gazed it was as if his pale face were transparent and the whiteness of the burning spirit, dazzling to see, came and went quickly and came again as flashes in the northern sky. Slowly he rose to his feet, and laying his hand in the Buddhist's, spoke at last. "Brother, I come," he said. "Show me the way." "Right gladly will I be thy guide, Abdul," Ram Lal gave answer. "Right willingly will I go with thee whither thou wouldest. Never was teacher sought by more worthy pupil; never did man embrace the pure life of the brethren with more single heart or truer purpose. The way shall be short that leads thee upward, the stones that are therein shall be as wings to lift thy feet instead of stumbling-blocks for thy destruction. The hidden forces of nature shall lend thee strength, and her secrets wisdom; the deep sweet springs of the eternal water shall refresh thee and the food of the angels shall be thine. Thy sorrows shall turn from bitter into sweet, and from the stings of thy past agonies shall grow up the golden flowers of thy future crown. Thou shalt not tire in the way, nor crave rest by the wayside." "Friend, tell me what I shall do that I may attain all this." "Be faithful to her who has preceded you, and learn of us, who know it, wherein consists true happiness. You need but little help, dear friend. Banish only from your thoughts the human suggestion that what you love most is lost, gone irrevocably. Rejoice, and mourn not, that she has entered in already where all your striving is to follow. Be glad because she looks on those sights and hears those sounds which are too bright and strong yet for your eyes and ears. Some of these unspeakable things you shall perceive with your perishable body; but the more perfect and glorious remain hidden to our mortal senses, be they ever so keen and exquisite. Believe me, you shall reach that state before I do. My poor soul is still bound to earth by some slender bonds of pleasure and contemptible pain, fine indeed as threads of gossamer, and soon, I trust, to be shaken off for ever. Yet am I bound and not utterly free. You, my brother, have been wrenched suddenly from the life of the body to the life of the soul. In you the vile desire to live for living's sake will soon be dead, if it is not dead already. Your soul, drawn strongly upward to other spheres, is well nigh loosed from love of life and fear of death. If at this moment you could lie down and die, you would meet your end joyfully. Very subtle are the fast-vanishing links between you and the world; very thin and impalpable the faint shadows that mar to your vision those transcendent hues of heavenly glory you shall so soon behold. Look forward, look upward, look onward--never once look back, and your waiting shall not be long, nor her watching many days. She stands before you, beckoning and praying that you tarry not. See that you do her bidding faithfully, as being near the blessed end, and fearful of losing even one moment in the attainment of what you seek." "Fear not, Ram Lal. My determination shall not fail me, nor my courage waver, until all is reached." The light of another world was on the beautiful brow and features as he looked full at his future teacher. What strange powers these adept brethren have! What marvellous magnetism over the souls of lesser men--whereby they turn sorrow into gladness, and defeat into triumph by mere words. I myself, bound by thought and word and deed to the lesser life, was not unmoved by the glorious promises that flowed with glowing eloquence from the lips of that gray old man in the early morning. They moved toward the door. Ram Lal spoke as he turned away. "We leave you, friend Griggs, but we will return this evening and bid you farewell." So I was left alone. Another comforter had taken my place; one knowing human nature better, and well versed in the learning of the spirit. One of that small band of high priests who in all ages and nations and religions and societies have been the mediators between time and eternity, to cheer and comfort the broken-hearted, to rebuke him who would lose his own soul, to speed the awakening spirit in its heavenward flight. * * * * * As I sat in my room that night the door opened and they were with me, standing hand in hand. "My friend," said Isaacs, "I have come to bid you farewell. You will never see me again. I am here once more to thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your friendship and kind offices, for the strength of your arm in the hour of need, and for the gold of your words in time of uncertainty." "Isaacs," I said, "I know little of the journey you are undertaking, and I cannot go with you. This I know, that you are very near to a life I cannot hope for; and I pray God that you may speed quickly to the desired end, that you may attain that happiness which your brave soul and honest heart so well deserve. Once more, then, I offer you my fullest service, if there is anything that I still can do." "There is nothing," he answered, "though if there were I know you would do it gladly and entirely. I have bestowed all my worldly possessions on the one man besides yourself to whom I owe a debt of gratitude--John Westonhaugh. Had I known you less well, I would have made you a sharer in my forsaken wealth. Only this I beg of you. Take this gem and keep it always for my sake. No--do not look at it in that way. Do not consider its value. It is to recall one who will often think of you, for you have been a great deal to me in this month." "I would I might have been more," I said, and it was all I could say, for my voice failed me. "Think of me," he continued, and the bright light shone through his face in the dusk, "think of me, not as you see me now, or as I was this morning, bowed beneath a great sorrow, but as looking forward to a happiness that transcends this mortal joy that I have lost, even as the glory of things celestial transcends the glory of the terrestrial. Think of me, not as mourning the departed day, but as watching longingly for the first faint dawn of the day eternal. Above all, think of me not as alone but as wedded for all ages to her who has gone before me." Ram Lal laid his hand on my arm and looked long into my eyes. "Farewell for the present, my chance acquaintance," he said, "and remember that in me you have a friend. The day may come when you too will be in dire distress, beyond the skill of mere solitude and books to soothe. Farewell, and may all good things be with you." Isaacs laid his two hands on my shoulders, and once more I met the wondrous lustre of his eyes, now veiled but not darkened with the last look of his tender friendship. "Good-bye, my dear Griggs. You have been the instructor and the genius of my love. Learn yourself the lessons you can teach others so well. Be yourself what you would have made me." One last loving look--one more pressure of the reluctant fingers, and those two went out, hand in hand, under the clear stars, and I saw them no more. THE END. Footnote 1: Sir Gore Ousely, _Notices of the Persian Poets_. Footnote 2: A fact, as is well known. 
13243	----	Proofreading Team IN THE PALACE OF THE KING A LOVE STORY OF OLD MADRID BY F. MARION CRAWFORD 1900 To my old friend GEORGE P. BRETT New York, October, 1906 CONTENTS CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVII CHAPTER XVIII CHAPTER XIX CHAPTER XX * * * * * CHAPTER I Two young girls sat in a high though very narrow room of the old Moorish palace to which King Philip the Second had brought his court when he finally made Madrid his capital. It was in the month of November, in the afternoon, and the light was cold and grey, for the two tall windows looked due north, and a fine rain had been falling all the morning. The stones in the court were drying now, in patches, but the sky was like a smooth vault of cast lead, closing over the city that lay to the northward, dark, wet and still, as if its life had shrunk down under ground, away from the bitter air and the penetrating damp. The room was scantily furnished, but the few objects it contained, the carved table, the high-backed chairs and the chiselled bronze brazier, bore the stamp of the time when art had not long been born again. On the walls there were broad tapestries of bold design, showing green forests populated by all sorts of animals in stiff attitudes, staring at one another in perpetual surprise. Below the tapestry a carved walnut wainscoting went round the room, and the door was panelled and flanked by fluted doorposts of the same dark wood, on which rested corbels fashioned into curling acanthus leaves, to hold up the cornice, which itself made a high shelf over the door. Three painted Italian vases, filled with last summer's rose leaves and carefully sealed lest the faint perfume should be lost, stood symmetrically on this projection, their contents slowly ripening for future use. The heap of white ashes, under which the wood coals were still alive in the big brazier, diffused a little warmth through the chilly room. The two girls were sitting at opposite ends of the table. The one held a long goose-quill pen, and before her lay several large sheets of paper covered with fine writing. Her eyes followed the lines slowly, and from time to time she made a correction in the manuscript. As she read, her lips moved to form words, but she made no sound. Now and then a faint smile lent singular beauty to her face, and there was more light in her eyes, too; then it disappeared again, and she read on, carefully and intently, as if her soul were in the work. She was very fair, as Spaniards sometimes are still, and were more often in those days, with golden hair and deep grey eyes; she had the high features, the smooth white throat, and the finely modelled ears that were the outward signs of the lordly Gothic race. When she was not smiling, her face was sad, and sometimes the delicate colour left her clear cheek and she grew softly pale, till she seemed almost delicate. Then the sensitive nostrils quivered almost imperceptibly, and the curving lips met closely as if to keep a secret; but that look came seldom, and for the most part her eyes were quiet and her mouth was kind. It was a face that expressed devotion, womanly courage, and sensitiveness rather than an active and dominating energy. The girl was indeed a full-grown woman, more than twenty years of age, but the early bloom of girlhood was on her still, and if there was a little sadness in the eyes, a man could guess well enough that it rose from the heart, and had but one simple source, which was neither a sudden grief nor a long-hidden sorrow, but only youth's one secret--love. Maria Dolores de Mendoza knew all of fear for the man she loved, that any woman could know, and much of the hope that is love's early life; but she knew neither the grief, nor the disappointment, nor the shame for another, nor for herself, nor any of the bitterness that love may bring. She did not believe that such things could be wrung from hearts that were true and faithful; and in that she was right. The man to whom she had given her heart and soul and hope had given her his, and if she feared for him, it was not lest he should forget her or his own honour. He was a man among men, good and true; but he was a soldier, and a leader, who daily threw his life to the battle, as Douglas threw the casket that held the Bruce's heart into the thick of the fight, to win it back, or die. The man she loved was Don John of Austria, the son of the great dead Emperor Charles the Fifth, the uncle of dead Don Carlos and the half brother of King Philip of Spain--the man who won glory by land and sea, who won back Granada a second time from the Moors, as bravely as his great grandfather Ferdinand had won it, but less cruelly, who won Lepanto, his brother's hatred and a death by poison, the foulest stain in Spanish history. It was November now, and it had been June of the preceding year when he had ridden away from Madrid to put down the Moriscoes, who had risen savagely against the hard Spanish rule. He had left Dolores de Mendoza an hour before he mounted, in the freshness of the early summer morning, where they had met many a time, on a lonely terrace above the King's apartments. There were roses there, growing almost wild in great earthen jars, where some Moorish woman had planted them in older days, and Dolores could go there unseen with her blind sister, who helped her faithfully, on pretence of taking the poor girl thither to breathe the sweet quiet air. For Inez was painfully sensitive of her affliction, and suffered, besides blindness, all that an over-sensitive and imaginative being can feel. She was quite blind, with no memory of light, though she had been born seeing, as other children. A scarlet fever had destroyed her sight. Motherless from her birth, her father often absent in long campaigns, she had been at the mercy of a heartless nurse, who had loved the fair little Dolores and had secretly tormented the younger child, as soon as she was able to understand, bringing her up to believe that she was so repulsively ugly as to be almost a monster. Later, when the nurse was gone, and Dolores was a little older, the latter had done all she could to heal the cruel wound and to make her sister know that she had soft dark hair, a sad and gentle face, with eyes that were quite closed, and a delicate mouth that had a little half painful, half pathetic way of twitching when anything hurt her,--for she was easily hurt. Very pale always, she turned her face more upwards than do people who have sight, and being of good average woman's height and very slender and finely made, this gave her carriage an air of dignity that seemed almost pride when she was offended or wounded. But the first hurt had been deep and lasting, and she could never quite believe that she was not offensive to the eyes of those who saw her, still less that she was sometimes almost beautiful in a shadowy, spiritual way. The blind, of all their sufferings, often feel most keenly the impossibility of knowing whether the truth is told them about their own looks; and he who will try and realize what it is to have been always sightless will understand that this is not vanity, but rather a sort of diffidence towards which all people should be very kind. Of all necessities of this world, of all blessings, of all guides to truth, God made light first. There are many sharp pains, many terrible sufferings and sorrows in life that come and wrench body and soul, and pass at last either into alleviation or recovery, or into the rest of death; but of those that abide a lifetime and do not take life itself, the worst is hopeless darkness. We call ignorance 'blindness,' and rage 'blindness,' and we say a man is 'blind' with grief. Inez sat opposite her sister, at the other end of the table, listening. She knew what Dolores was doing, how during long months her sister had written a letter, from time to time, in little fragments, to give to the man she loved, to slip into his hand at the first brief meeting or to drop at his feet in her glove, or even, perhaps, to pass to him by the blind girl's quick fingers. For Inez helped the lovers always, and Don John was very gentle with her, talking with her when he could, and even leading her sometimes when she was in a room she did not know. Dolores knew that she could only hope to exchange a word with him when he came back, and that the terrace was bleak and wet now, and the roses withered, and that her father feared for her, and might do some desperate thing if he found her lover talking with her where no one could see or hear. For old Mendoza knew the world and the court, and he foresaw that sooner or later some royal marriage would be made for Don John of Austria, and that even if Dolores were married to him, some tortuous means would be found to annul her marriage, whereby a great shame would darken his house. Moreover, he was the King's man, devoted to Philip body and soul, as his sovereign, ready to give his life ten times for his sovereign's word, and thinking it treason to doubt a royal thought or motive. He was a rigid old man, a Spaniard of Spain's great days, fearless, proud, intolerant, making Spain's honour his idol, capable of gentleness only to his children, and loving them dearly, but with that sort of severity and hardness in all questions where his authority was concerned which can make a father's true affection the most intolerable burden to a girl of heart, and which, where a son is its object, leads sooner or later to fierce quarrels and lifelong estrangement. And so it had happened now. For the two girls had a brother much older than they, Rodrigo; and he had borne to be treated like a boy until he could bear no more, and then he had left his father's house in anger to find out his own fortune in the world, as many did in his day,--a poor gentleman seeking distinction in an army of men as brave as himself, and as keen to win honour on every field. Then, as if to oppose his father in everything, he had attached himself to Don John, and was spoken of as the latter's friend, and Mendoza feared lest his son should help Don John to a marriage with Dolores. But in this he was mistaken, for Rodrigo was as keen, as much a Spaniard, and as much devoted to the honour of his name as his father could be; and though he looked upon Don John as the very ideal of what a soldier and a prince should be, he would have cut off his own right hand rather than let it give his leader the letter Dolores had been writing so long; and she knew this and feared her brother, and tried to keep her secret from him. Inez knew all, and she also was afraid of Rodrigo and of her father, both for her sister's sake and her own. So, in that divided house, the father was against the son, and the daughters were allied against them both, not in hatred, but in terror and because of Dolores' great love for Don John of Austria. As they sat at the table it began to rain again, and the big drops beat against the windows furiously for a few minutes. The panes were round and heavy, and of a greenish yellow colour, made of blown glass, each with a sort of knob in the middle, where the iron blowpipe had been separated from the hot mass. It was impossible to see through them at all distinctly, and when the sky was dark with rain they admitted only a lurid glare into the room, which grew cold and colourless again when the rain ceased. Inez had been sitting motionless a long time, her elbow on the table, her chin resting upon her loosely clasped white hands, her blind face turned upward, listening to the turning of the pages and to the occasional scratching of her sister's pen. She sighed, moved, and let her hands fall upon the table before her in a helpless, half despairing way, as she leaned back in the big carved chair. Dolores looked up at once, for she was used to helping her sister in her slightest needs and to giving her a ready sympathy in every mood. "What is it?" she asked quickly. "Do you want anything, dear?" "Have you almost finished?" The girl's voice would almost have told that she was blind. It was sweet and low, but it lacked life; though not weak, it was uncertain in strength and full of a longing that could never be satisfied, but that often seemed to come within possible reach of satisfaction. There was in the tones, too, the perpetual doubt of one from whom anything might be hidden by silence, or by the least tarn of words. Every passing hope and fear, and every pleasure and pain, were translated into sound by its quick changes. It trusted but could not always quite promise to believe; it swelled and sank as the sensitive heart beat faster or slower. It came from a world without light, in which only sound had meaning, and only touch was certainty. "Yes," answered Dolores. "I have almost finished--there is only half a page more to read over." "And why do you read it over?" asked Inez. "Do you change what you have written? Do you not think now exactly as you did when you wrote?" "No; I feel a great deal more--I want better words! And then it all seems so little, and so badly written, and I want to say things that no one ever said before, many, many things. He will laugh--no, not that! How could he? But my letter will seem childish to him. I know it will. I wish I had never written it I Do you think I had better give it to him, after all?" "How can I tell?" asked Inez hopelessly. "You have never read it to me. I do not know what you have said to him." "I have said that I love him as no man was ever loved before," answered Dolores, and the true words seemed to thrill with a life of their own as she spoke them. Then she was silent for a moment, and looked down at the written pages without seeing them. Inez did not move, and seemed hardly to breathe. Then Dolores spoke again, pressing both her hands upon the paper before her unconsciously. "I have told him that I love him, and shall love him for ever and ever," she said; "that I will live for him, die for him, suffer for him, serve him! I have told him all that and much more." "More? That is much already. But he loves you, too. There is nothing you can promise which he will not promise, and keep, too, I think. But more! What more can you have said than that?" "There is nothing I would not say if I could find words!" There was a fullness of life in her voice which, to the other's uncertain tones, was as sunshine to moonlight. "You will find words when you see him this evening," said Inez slowly. "And they will be better than anything you can write. Am I to give him your letter?" Dolores looked at her sister quickly, for there was a little constraint in the accent of the last phrase. "I do not know," she answered. "How can I tell what may happen, or how I shall see him first?" "You will see him from the window presently. I can hear the guards forming already to meet him--and you--you will be able to see him from the window." Inez had stopped and had finished her speech, as if something had choked her. She turned sideways in her chair when she had spoken, as if to listen better, for she was seated with her back to the light. "I will tell you everything," said Maria Dolores softly. "It will be almost as if you could see him, too." "Almost--" Inez spoke the one word and broke off abruptly, and rose from her chair. In the familiar room she moved almost as securely as if she could see. She went to the window and listened. Dolores came and stood beside her. "What is it, dear?" she asked. "What is the matter? What has hurt you? Tell me!" "Nothing," answered the blind girl, "nothing, dear. I was thinking--how lonely I shall be when you and he are married, and they send me to a convent, or to our dismal old house in Valladolid." A faint colour came into her pale face, and feeling it she turned away from Dolores; for she was not speaking the truth, or at least not half of it all. "I will not let you go!" answered Dolores, putting one arm round her sister's waist. "They shall never take you from me. And if in many years from now we are married, you shall always be with us, and I will always take care of you as I do now." Inez sighed and pressed her forehead and blind eyes to the cold window, almost withdrawing herself from the pressure of Dolores' arm. Down below there was tramping of heavy feet, as the companies of foot guards took their places, marching across the broad space, in their wrought steel caps and breastplates, carrying their tasselled halberds on their shoulders. An officer's voice gave sharp commands. The gust that had brought the rain had passed by, and a drizzling mist, caused by a sudden chill, now completely obscured the window. "Can you see anything?" asked Inez suddenly, in a low voice. "I think I hear trumpets far away." "I cannot see--there is mist on the glass, too. Do you hear the trumpets clearly?" "I think I do. Yes--I hear them clearly now." She stopped. "He is coming," she added under her breath. Dolores listened, but she had not the almost supernatural hearing of the blind, and could distinguish nothing but the tramping of the soldiers below, and her sister's irregular breathing beside her, as Inez held her breath again and again in order to catch the very faint and distant sound. "Open the window," she said almost sharply, "I know I hear the trumpets." Her delicate fingers felt for the bolts with almost feverish anxiety. Dolores helped her and opened the window wide. A strain of distant clarions sounding a triumphant march came floating across the wet city. Dolores started, and her face grew radiant, while her fresh lips opened a little as if to drink in the sound with the wintry air. Beside her, Inez grew slowly pale and held herself by the edge of the window frame, gripping it hard, and neither of the two girls felt any sensation of cold. Dolores' grey eyes grew wide and bright as she gazed fixedly towards the city where the avenue that led to the palace began, but Inez, bending a little, turned her ear in the same direction, as if she could not bear to lose a single note of the music that told her how Don John of Austria had come home in triumph, safe and whole, from his long campaign in the south. Slowly it came nearer, strain upon strain, each more clear and loud and full of rejoicing. At first only the high-pitched clarions had sent their call to the window, but now the less shrill trumpets made rich harmonies to the melody, and the deep bass horns gave the marching time to the rest, in short full blasts that set the whole air shaking as with little peak of thunder. Below, the mounted officers gave orders, exchanged short phrases, cantered to their places, and came back again a moment later to make some final arrangement--their splendid gold-inlaid corslets and the rich caparisons of their horses looking like great pieces of jewelry that moved hither and thither in the thin grey mist, while the dark red and yellow uniforms of the household guards surrounded the square on three sides with broad bands of colour. Dolores could see her father, who commanded them and to whom the officers came for orders, sitting motionless and erect on his big black horse--a stern figure, with close-cut grey beard, clad all in black saving his heavily gilded breastplate and the silk sash he wore across it from shoulder to sword knot. She shrank back a little, for she would not have let him see her looking down from an upper window to welcome the returning visitor. "What is it? Do you see him? Is he there?" Inez asked the questions in a breath, as she heard her sister move. "No--our father is below on his horse. He must not see us." And she moved further into the embrasure. "You will not be able to see," said Inez anxiously. "How can you tell me--I mean, how can you see, where you are?" Dolores laughed softly, but her laugh trembled with the happiness that was coming so soon. "Oh, I see very well," she answered. "The window is wide open, you know." "Yes--I know." Inez leaned back against the wall beside the window, letting her hand drop in a hopeless gesture. The sample answer had hurt her, who could never see, by its mere thoughtlessness and by the joy that made her sister's voice quaver. The music grew louder and louder, and now there came with it the sound of a great multitude, cheering, singing the march with the trumpets, shouting for Don John; and all at once as the throng burst from the street to the open avenue the voices drowned the clarions for a moment, and a vast cry of triumph filled the whole air. "He is there! He is there!" repeated Inez, leaning towards the window and feeling for the stone sill. But Dolores could not hear for the shouting. The clouds had lifted to the westward and northward; and as the afternoon sun sank lower they broke away, and the level rays drank up the gloom of the wintry day in an instant. Dolores stood motionless before the window, undazzled, like a statue of ivory and gold in a stone niche. With the light, as the advancing procession sent the people before it, the trumpets rang high and clear again, and the bright breastplates of the trumpeters gleamed like dancing fire before the lofty standard that swayed with the slow pace of its bearer's horse. Brighter and nearer came the colours, the blazing armour, the standard, the gorgeous procession of victorious men-at-arms; louder and louder blew the trumpets, higher and higher the clouds were lifted from the lowering sun. Half the people of Madrid went before, the rest flocked behind, all cheering or singing or shouting. The stream of colour and light became a river, the river a flood, and in the high tide of a young victor's glory Don John of Austria rode onward to the palace gate. The mounted trumpeters parted to each side before him, and the standard-bearer ranged his horse to the left, opposite the banner of the King, which held the right, and Don John, on a grey Arab mare, stood out alone at the head of his men, saluting his royal brother with lowered sword and bent head. A final blast from the trumpets sounded full and high, and again and again the shout of the great throng went up like thunder and echoed from the palace walls, as King Philip, in his balcony above the gate, returned the salute with his hand, and bent a little forward over the stone railing. Dolores de Mendoza forgot her father and all that he might say, and stood at the open window, looking down. She had dreamed of this moment; she had seen visions of it in the daytime; she had told herself again and again what it would be, how it must be; but the reality was beyond her dreams and her visions and her imaginings, for she had to the full what few women have in any century, and what few have ever had in the blush of maidenhood,--the sight of the man she loved, and who loved her with all his heart, coming home in triumph from a hard-fought war, himself the leader and the victor, himself in youth's first spring, the young idol of a warlike nation, and the centre of military glory. When he had saluted the King he sat still a moment on his horse and looked upward, as if unconsciously drawn by the eyes that, of all others, welcomed him at that moment; and his own met them instantly and smiled, though his face betrayed nothing. But old Mendoza, motionless in his saddle, followed the look, and saw; and although he would have praised the young leader with the best of his friends, and would have fought under him and for him as well as the bravest, yet at that moment he would gladly have seen Don John of Austria fall dead from his horse before his eyes. Don John dismounted without haste, and advanced to the gate as the King disappeared from the balcony above. He was of very graceful figure and bearing, not short, but looking taller than he really was by the perfection of his proportions. The short reddish brown hair grew close and curling on his small head, but left the forehead high, while it set off the clear skin and the mobile features. A very small moustache shaded his lip without hiding the boyish mouth, and at that time he wore no beard. The lips, indeed, smiled often, and the expression of the mouth was rather careless and good-humoured than strong. The strength of the face was in the clean-cut jaw, while its real expression was in the deep-set, fiery blue eyes, that could turn angry and fierce at one moment, and tender as a woman's the next. He wore without exaggeration the military dress of his time,--a beautifully chiselled corslet inlaid with gold, black velvet sleeves, loose breeches of velvet and silk, so short that they did not descend half way to the knees, while his legs were covered by tight hose and leather boots, made like gaiters to clasp from the knee to the ankle and heel. Over his shoulder hung a short embroidered cloak, and his head covering was a broad velvet cap, in which were fastened the black and yellow plumes of the House of Austria. As he came near to the gate, many friends moved forward to greet him, and he gave his hand to all, with a frank smile and words of greeting. But old Mendoza did not dismount nor move his horse a step nearer. Don John, looking round before he went in, saw the grim face, and waved his hand to Dolores' father; but the old man pretended that he saw nothing, and made no answering gesture. Some one in the crowd of courtiers laughed lightly. Old Mendoza's face never changed; but his knees must have pressed the saddle suddenly, for his black horse stirred uneasily, and tried to rear a little. Don John stopped short, and his eyes hardened and grew very light before the smile could fade from his lips, while he tried to find the face of the man whose laugh he had heard. But that was impossible, and his look was grave and stern as he went in under the great gate, the multitude cheering after him. From her high window Dolores had seen and heard also, for she had followed every movement he made and every change of his expression, and had faithfully told her sister what she saw, until the laugh came, short and light, but cutting. And Inez heard that, too, for she was leaning far forward upon the broad stone sill to listen for the sound of Don John's voice. She drew back with a springing movement, and a sort of cry of pain. "Some one is laughing at me!" she cried. "Some one is laughing because I am trying to see!" Instantly Dolores drew her sister to her, kissing her tenderly, and soothing her as one does a frightened child. "No, dear, no! It was not that--I saw what it was. Nobody was looking at you, my darling. Do you know why some one laughed? It hurt me, too. He smiled and waved his hand to our father, who took no notice of him. The laugh was for that--and for me, because the man knew well enough that our father does not mean that we shall ever marry. Do you see, dear? It was not meant for you." "Did he really look up at us when you said so?" asked Inez, in a smothered voice. "Who? The man who laughed?" "No. I mean--" "Don John? Yes. He looked up to us and smiled--as he often does at me--with his eyes only, while his face was quite grave. He is not changed at all, except that he looks more determined, and handsomer, and braver, and stronger than ever! He does each time I see him!" But Inez was not listening. "That was worth living for--worth being blind for," she said suddenly, "to hear the people shout and cheer for him as he came along. You who can see it all do not understand what the sound means to me. For a moment--only for a moment--I saw light--I know I saw a bright light before my eyes. I am not dreaming. It made my heart beat, and it made my head dizzy. It must have been light. Do you think it could be, Dolores?" "I do not know, dear," answered the other gently. But as the day faded and they sat together in the early dusk, Dolores looked long and thoughtfully at the blind face. Inez loved Don John, though she did not know it, and without knowing it she had told her sister. * * * * * CHAPTER II When Don John had disappeared within the palace the people lingered a little while, hoping that something might happen which would be worth seeing, and then, murmuring a little in perfectly unreasonable disappointment, they slowly dispersed. After that old Mendoza gave his orders to the officers of the guards, the men tramped away, one detachment after another, in a regular order; the cavalry that had ridden up with Don John wheeled at a signal from the trumpets, and began to ride slowly back to the city, pressing hard upon the multitude, and before it was quite dark the square before the palace was deserted again. The sky had cleared, the pavement was dry again, and the full moon was rising. Two tall sentinels with halberds paced silently up and down in the shadow. Dolores and her sister were still sitting in the dark when the door opened, and a grey-haired servant in red and yellow entered the room, bearing two lighted wax candles in heavy bronze candlesticks, which he set upon the table. A moment later he was followed by old Mendoza, still in his breastplate, as he had dismounted, his great spurs jingling on his heavy boots, and his long basket-hilted sword trailing on the marble pavement. He was bareheaded now, and his short hair, smooth and grizzled, covered his energetic head like a close-fitting skull cap of iron-grey velvet. He stood still before the table, his bony right hand resting upon it and holding both his long gloves. The candlelight shone upward into his dark face, and gleamed yellow in his angry eyes. Both the girls rose instinctively as their father entered; but they stood close together, their hands still linked as if to defend each other from a common enemy, though the hard man would have given his life for either of them at any moment since they had come into the world. They knew it, and trembled. "You have made me the laughing-stock of the court," he began slowly, and his voice shook with anger. "What have you to say in your defence?" He was speaking to Dolores, and she turned a little pale. There was something so cruelly hard in his tone and bearing that she drew back a little, not exactly in bodily fear, but as a brave man may draw back a step when another suddenly draws a weapon upon him. Instantly Inez moved forward, raising one white hand in protest, and turning her blind face to her father's gleaming eyes. "I am not speaking to you," he said roughly, "but you," he went on, addressing Dolores, and the heavy table shook under his hand. "What devil possessed you that you should shame me and yourself, standing at your window to smile at Don John, as if he were the Espadero at a bull fight and you the beauty of the ring--with all Madrid there to look on, from his Majesty the King to the beggar in the road? Have you no modesty, no shame, no blood that can blush? And if not, have you not even so much woman's sense as should tell you that you are ruining your name and mine before the whole world?" "Father! For the sake of heaven do not say such words--you must not! You shall not!" Dolores' face was quite white now, as she gently pushed Inez aside and faced the angry man. The table was between them. "Have I said one word more than the very truth?" asked Mendoza. "Does not the whole court know that you love Don John of Austria--" "Let the whole world know it!" cried the girl bravely. "Am I ashamed to love the best and bravest man that breathes?" "Let the whole world know that you are willing to be his toy, his plaything--" "His wife, sir!" Dolores' voice was steady and clear as she interrupted her father. "His wife," she repeated proudly; "And to-morrow, if you and the King will not hinder us. God made you my father, but neither God nor man has given you the right to insult me, and you shall not be unanswered, so long as I have strength and breath to speak. But for you, I should be Don John of Austria's wife to-day--and then, then his 'toy,' his 'plaything'--yes, and his slave and his servant--what you will! I love him, and I would work for him with my hands, as I would give my blood and my life for his, if God would grant me that happiness and grace, since you will not let me be his wife!" "His wife!" exclaimed Mendoza, with a savage sneer. "His wife--to be married to-day and cast off to-morrow by a turn of the pen and the twisting of a word that would prove your marriage void, in order that Don John may be made the husband of some royal widowed lady, like Queen Mary of the Scots! His wife!" He laughed bitterly. "You have an exalted opinion of your King, my father, since you suppose that he would permit such deeds in Spain!" Dolores had drawn herself up to her full height as she spoke, and she remained motionless as she awaited the answer to what she had said. It was long in coming, though Mendoza's dark eyes met hers unflinchingly, and his lips moved more than once as if he were about to speak. She had struck a blow that was hard to parry, and she knew it. Inez stood beside her, silent and breathing hard as she listened. "You think that I have nothing to say," he began at last, and his tone had changed and was more calm. "You are right, perhaps. What should I say to you, since you have lost all sense of shame and all thought of respect or obedience? Do you expect that I shall argue with you, and try to convince you that I am right, instead of forcing you to respect me and yourself? Thank Heaven, I have never yet questioned my King's thoughts, nor his motives, nor his supreme right to do whatsoever may be for the honour and glory of Spain. My life is his, and all I have is his, to do with it all as he pleases, by grace of his divine right. That is my creed and my law--and if I have failed to bring you up in the same belief, I have committed a great sin, and it will be counted against me hereafter, though I have done what I could, to the best of my knowledge." Mendoza lifted his sheathed sword and laid his right hand upon the cross-bar of the basket hilt. "God--the King--Spain!" he said solemnly, as he pressed his lips to it once for each article of his faith. "I do not wish to shake your belief," said Dolores coldly. "I daresay that is impossible!" "As impossible as it is to make me change my determination," answered Mendoza, letting his long sword rest on the pavement again. "And what may your determination be?" asked the girl, still facing him. Something in his face forewarned her of near evil and danger, as he looked at her long without answering. She moved a little, so as to stand directly in front of Inez. Taking an attitude that was almost defiant, she began to speak rapidly, holding her hands behind her and pressing herself back against her sister to attract the latter's attention; and in her hand she held the letter she had written to Don John, folded into the smallest possible space, for she had kept it ready in the wrist of her tight sleeve, not knowing what might happen any moment to give her an opportunity of sending it. "What have you determined?" she asked again, and then went on without waiting for a reply. "In what way are you going to exhibit your power over me? Do you mean to take me away from the court to live in Valladolid again? Are you going to put me in the charge of some sour old woman who will never let me out of her sight from morning till morning?" She had found her sister's hand behind hers and had thrust the letter into the fingers that closed quickly upon it. Then she laughed a little, almost gaily. "Do you think that a score of sour old duennas could teach me to forget the man I love, or could prevent me from sending him a message every day if I chose? Do you think you could hinder Don John of Austria, who came back an hour ago from his victory the idol of all Spain, the favourite of the people--brave, young, powerful, rich, popular, beloved far more than the King himself, from seeing me every day if he chose, so long as he were not away in war? And then--I will ask you something more--do you think that father, or mother, or king, or law, or country has power to will away the love of a woman who loves with all her heart and soul and strength? Then answer me and tell me what you have determined to do with me, and I will tell you my determination, too, for I have one of my own, and shall abide by it, come what may, and whatsoever you may do!" She paused, for she had heard Inez softly close the door as she went out. The letter at least was safe, and if it were humanly possible, Inez would find a means of delivering it; for she had all that strange ingenuity of the blind in escaping observation which it seems impossible that they should possess, but of which every one who has been much with them is fully aware. Mendoza had seen Inez go out, and was glad that she was gone, for her blind face sometimes disturbed him when he wished to assert his authority. "Yes," he said, "I will tell you what I mean to do, and it is the only thing left to me, for you have given me no choice. You are disobedient and unruly, you have lost what little respect you ever had--or showed--for me. But that is not all. Men have had unruly daughters before, and yet have married them well, and to men who in the end have ruled them. I do not speak of my affection for you both, since you have none for me. But now, you are going beyond disobedience and lawlessness, for you are ruining yourself and disgracing me, and I will neither permit the one nor suffer the other." His voice rose harshly. "Do you understand me? I intend to protect my name from you, and yours from the world, in the only way possible. I intend to send you to Las Huelgas to-morrow morning. I am in earnest, and unless you consent to give up this folly and to marry as I wish, you shall stay there for the rest of your natural life. Do you understand? And until to-morrow morning you shall stay within these doors. We shall see whether Don John of Austria will try to force my dwelling first and a convent of holy nuns afterwards. You will be safe from him, I give you my word of honour,--the word of a Spanish gentleman and of your father. You shall be safe forever. And if Don John tries to enter here to-night, I will kill him on the threshold. I swear that I will." He ceased speaking, turned, and began to walk up and down the small room, his spurs and sword clanking heavily at every step. He had folded his arms, and his head was bent low. A look of horror and fear had slowly risen in Dolores' face, for she knew her father, and that he kept his word at every risk. She knew also that the King held him in very high esteem, and was as firmly opposed to her marriage as Mendoza himself, and therefore ready to help him to do what he wished. It had never occurred to her that she could be suddenly thrust out of sight in a religious institution, to be kept there at her father's pleasure, even for her whole life. She was too young and too full of life to have thought of such a possibility. She had indeed heard that such things could be done, and had been done, but she had never known such a case, and had never realized that she was so completely at her father's mercy. For the first time in her life she felt real fear, and as it fell upon her there came the sickening conviction that she could not resist it, that her spirit was broken all at once, that in a moment more she would throw herself at her father's feet and implore mercy, making whatever promise he exacted, yet making it falsely, out of sheer terror, in an utter degradation and abasement of all moral strength, of which she had never even dreamed. She grew giddy as she felt it coming upon her, and the lights of the two candles moved strangely. Already she saw herself on her knees, sobbing with fear, trying to take her father's hand, begging forgiveness, denying her love, vowing submission and dutiful obedience in an agony of terror. For on the other side she saw the dark corridors and gloomy cells of Las Huelgas, the veiled and silent nuns, the abomination of despair that was before her till she should die and escape at last,--the faint hope which would always prevent her from taking the veil herself, yet a hope fainter and fainter, crossed by the frightful uncertainty in which she should be kept by those who guarded her. They would not even tell her whether the man she loved were alive or dead, she could never know whether he had given up her love, himself in despair, or whether, then, as years went by, he would not lose the thread that took him back to the memory of her, and forget--and love again. But then her strong nature rose again, and the vision of fear began to fade as her faith in his love denied the last thought with scorn. Many a time, when words could tell no more, and seemed exhausted just when trust was strongest, he had simply said, "I love you, as you love me," and somehow the little phrase meant all, and far more than the tender speeches that sometimes formed themselves so gracefully, and yet naturally and simply, because they, too, came straight from the heart. So now, in her extreme need, the plain words came back to her in his voice, "I love you, as you love me," with a sudden strength of faith in him that made her live again, and made fear seem impossible. While her father slowly paced the floor in silence, she thought what she should do, and whether there could be anything which she would not do, if Don John of Austria were kept a prisoner from her; and she felt sure that she could overcome every obstacle and laugh at every danger, for the hope of getting to him. If she would, so would he, since he loved her as she loved him. But for all the world, he would not have her throw herself upon her father's mercy and make false promises and sob out denials of her love, out of fear. Death would be better than that. "Do as you will with me, since you have the power," she said at last, quite calmly and steadily. Instantly the old man stopped in his walk, and turned towards her, almost as if he himself were afraid now. To her amazement she saw that his dark eyes were moist with tears that clung but half shed to the rugged lids and rough lashes. He did not speak for some moments, while she gazed at him in wonder, for she could not understand. Then all at once he lifted his brown hands and covered his face with a gesture of utter despair. "Dolores! My child, my little girl!" he cried, in a broken voice. Then he sat down, as it overcome, clasped his hands on the hilt of his sword, and rested his forehead against them, rocking himself with a barely perceptible motion. In twenty years, Dolores had never understood, not even guessed, that the hard man, ever preaching of wholesome duty and strict obedience, always rebuking, never satisfied, ill pleased almost always, loved her with all his heart, and looked upon her as the very jewel of his soul. She guessed it now, in a sudden burst of understanding; but it was so new, so strange, that she could not have told what she felt. There was at best no triumph at the thought that, of the two, he had broken down first in the contest. Pity came first, womanly, simple and kind, for the harsh nature that was so wounded at last. She came to his side, and laid one hand upon his shoulder, speaking softly. "I am very, very sorry that I have hurt you," she said, and waited for him to speak, pressing his shoulder with a gentle touch. He did not look up, and still he rocked himself gently, leaning on his sword. The girl suffered, too, to see him suffering so. A little while ago he had been hard, fierce, angry, cruel, threatening her with a living death that had filled her with horror. It had seemed quite impossible that there could be the least tenderness in him for any one--least of all for her. "God be merciful to me," he said at length in very low tones. "God forgive me if it is my fault--you do not love me--I am nothing to you but an unkind old man, and you are all the world to me, child!" He raised his head slowly and looked into her face. She was startled at the change in his own, as well as deeply touched by what he said. His dark cheeks had grown grey, and the tears that would not quite fall were like a glistening mist under the lids, and almost made him look sightless. Indeed, he scarcely saw her distinctly. His clasped hands trembled a little on the hilt of the sword he still held. "How could I know?" cried Dolores, suddenly kneeling down beside him. "How could I guess? You never let me see that you were fond of me--or I have been blind all these years--" "Hush, child!" he said. "Do not hurt me any more--it must have been my fault." He grew more calm, and though his face was very grave and sad, the natural dark colour was slowly coming back to it now, and his hands were steady again. The girl was too young, and far too different from him, to understand his nature, but she was fast realizing that he was not the man he had always seemed to her. "Oh, if I had only known!" she cried, in deep distress. "If I had only guessed, I would have been so different! I was always frightened, always afraid of you, since I can remember--I thought you did not care for us and that we always displeased you--how could we know?" Mendoza lifted one of his hands from the sword hilt, and took hers, with as much gentleness as was possible to him. His eyes became clear again, and the profound emotion he had shown subsided to the depths whence it had risen. "We shall never quite understand each other," he said quietly. "You cannot see that it is a man's duty to do what is right for his children, rather than to sacrifice that in order to make them love him." It seemed to Dolores that there might be a way open between the two, but she said nothing, and left her hand in his, glad that he was kind, but feeling, as he felt, that there could never be any real understanding between them. The breach had existed too long, and it was far too wide. "You are headstrong, my dear," he said, nodding at each word. "You are very headstrong, if you will only reflect." "It is not my head, it is my heart," answered Dolores. "And besides," she added with a smile, "I am your daughter, and you are not of a very gentle and yielding disposition, are you?" "No," he answered with hesitation, "perhaps not." Then his face relaxed a little, and he almost smiled too. It seemed as if the peace were made and as if thereafter there need not be trouble again. But it was even then not far off, for it was as impossible for Mendoza to yield as it would have been for Dolores to give up her love for Don John. She did not see this, and she fancied that a real change had taken place in his disposition, so that he would forget that he had threatened to send her to Las Huelgas, and not think of it again. "What is done cannot be undone," he said, with renewed sadness. "You will never quite believe that you have been everything to me during your life. How could you not be, my child? I am very lonely. Your mother has been dead nearly eighteen years, and Rodrigo--" He stopped short suddenly, for he had never spoken his son's name in the girl's hearing since Rodrigo had left him to follow his own fortunes. "I think Rodrigo broke my heart," said the old man, after a short pause, controlling his voice so that it sounded dry and indifferent. "And if there is anything left of it, you will break the rest." He rose, taking his hand from hers, and turning away, with the roughness of a strong, hard man, who has broken down once under great emotion and is capable of any harshness in his fear of yielding to it again. Dolores started slightly and drew back. In her the kindly impression was still strong, but his tone and manner wounded her. "You are wrong," she said earnestly. "Since you have shown me that you love me, I will indeed do my best not to hurt you or displease you. I will do what I can--what I can." She repeated the last words slowly and with unconscious emphasis. He turned his face to her again instantly. "Then promise me that you will never see Don John of Austria again, that you will forget that you ever loved him, that you will put him altogether out of your thoughts, and that you will obediently accept the marriage I shall make for you." The words of refusal to any such obedience as that rose to the girl's lips, ready and sharp. But she would not speak them this time, lest more angry words should answer hers. She looked straight at her father's eyes, holding her head proudly high for a moment. Then, smiling at the impossibility of what he asked, she turned from him and went to the window in silence. She opened it wide, leaned upon the stone sill and looked out. The moon had risen much higher now, and the court was white. She had meant to cut short the discussion without rousing anger again, but she could have taken no worse way to destroy whatever was left of her father's kindlier mood. He did not raise his voice now, as he followed her and spoke. "You refuse to do that?" he said, with an already ominous interrogation in his tone. "You ask the impossible," she answered, without looking round. "I have not refused, for I have no will in this, no choice. You can do what you please with me, for you have power over my outward life--and if you lacked it, the King would help you. But you have no power beyond that, neither over my heart nor over my soul. I love him--I have loved him long, and I shall love him till I die, and beyond that, forever and ever, beyond everything--beyond the great to-morrow of God's last judgment! How can I put him out of my thoughts, then? It is madness to ask it of me." She paused a moment, while he stood behind her, getting his teeth and slowly grinding the heel of one heavy boot on the pavement. "And as for threatening me," she continued, "you will not kill Don John, nor even try to kill him, for he is the King's brother. If I can see him this evening, I will--and there will be no risk for him. You would not murder him by stealth, I suppose? No! Then you will not attack him at all, and if I can see him, I will--I tell you so, frankly. To-morrow or the next day, when the festivities they have for him are over, and you yourself are at liberty, take me to Las Huelgas, if you will, and with as little scandal as possible. But when I am there, set a strong guard of armed men to keep me, for I shall escape unless you do. And I shall go to Don John. That is all I have to say. That is my last word." "I gave you mine, and it was my word of honour," said Mendoza. "If Don John tries to enter here, to see you, I will kill him. To-morrow, you shall go to Las Huelgas." Dolores made no answer and did not even turn her head. He left her and went out. She heard his heavy tread in the hall beyond, and she heard a bolt slipped at the further door. She was imprisoned for the night, for the entrance her father had fastened was the one which cut off the portion of the apartment in which the sisters lived from the smaller part which he had reserved for himself. These rooms, from which there was no other exit, opened, like the sitting-room, upon the same hall. When Dolores knew that she was alone, she drew back from the window and shut it. It had served its purpose as a sort of refuge from her father, and the night air was cold. She sat down to think, and being in a somewhat desperate mood, she smiled at the idea of being locked into her room, supperless, like a naughty child. But her face grew grave instantly as she tried to discover some means of escape. Inez was certainly not in the apartment--she must have gone to the other end of the palace, on pretence of seeing one of the court ladies, but really in the hope of giving Don John the letter. It was more than probable that she would not be allowed to enter when she came back, for Mendoza would distrust her. That meant that Dolores could have no communication with any one outside her rooms during the evening and night, and she knew her father too well to doubt that he would send her to Las Huelgas in the morning, as he had sworn to do. Possibly he would let her serving-woman come to her to prepare what she needed for the journey, but even that was unlikely, for he would suspect everybody. The situation looked hopeless, and the girl's face grew slowly pale as she realized that after all she might not even exchange a word with Don John before going to the convent--she might not even be able to tell him whither they were sending her, and Mendoza might keep the secret for years--and she would never be allowed to write, of course. She heard the further door opened again, the bolt running back with a sharp noise. Then she heard her father's footsteps and his voice calling to Inez, as he went from room to room. But there was no answer, and presently he went away, bolting the door a second time. There could be no more doubt about it now. Dolores was quite alone. Her heart beat heavily and slowly. But it was not over yet. Again the bolt slipped in the outer hall, and again she heard the heavy steps. They came straight towards the door. He had perhaps changed his mind, or he had something more to say; she held her breath, but he did not come in. As if to make doubly sure, he bolted her into the little room, crossed the hall a last time, and bolted it for the night, perfectly certain that Dolores was safely shut off from the outer world. For some minutes she sat quite still, profoundly disturbed, and utterly unable to find any way out of her difficulty, which was, indeed, that she was in a very secure prison. Then again there was a sound at the door, but very soft this time, not half as loud in her ears as the beating of her own heart. There was something ghostly in it, for she had heard no footsteps. The bolt moved very slowly and gently--she had to strain her ears to hear it move. The sound ceased, and another followed it--that of the door being cautiously opened. A moment later Inez was in the room--turning her head anxiously from side to side to hear Dolores' breathing, and so to find out where she was. Then as Dolores rose, the blind girl put her finger to her lips, and felt for her sister's hand. "He has the letter," she whispered quickly. "I found him by accident, very quickly. I am to say to you that after he has been some time in the great hall, he will slip away and come here. You see our father will be on duty and cannot come up." Dolores' hand trembled violently. "He swore to me that he would kill Don John if he came here," she whispered. "He will do it, if it costs his own life! You must find him again--go quickly, dear, for the love of Heaven!" Her anxiety increased. "Go--go, darling--do not lose a moment--he may come sooner--save him, save him!" "I cannot go," answered Inez, in terror, as she understood the situation. "I had hidden myself, and I am locked in with you. He called me, but I kept quiet, for I knew he would not let me stay." She buried her face in her hands and sobbed aloud in an agony of fear. Dolores' lips were white, and she steadied herself against a chair. * * * * * CHAPTER III Dolores stood leaning against the back of the chair, neither hearing nor seeing her sister, conscious only that Don John was in danger and that she could not warn him to be on his guard. She had not believed herself when she had told her father that he would not dare to lift his hand against the King's half brother. She had said the words to give herself courage, and perhaps in a rush of certainty that the man she loved was a match for other men, hand to hand, and something more. It was different now. Little as she yet knew of human nature, she guessed without reasoning that a man who has been angry, who has wavered and given way to what he believes to be weakness, and whose anger has then burst out again, is much more dangerous than before, because his wrath is no longer roused against another only, but also against himself. More follies and crimes have been committed in that second tide of passion than under a first impulse. Even if Mendoza had not fully meant what he had said the first time, he had meant it all, and more, when he had last spoken. Once more the vision of fear rose before Dolores' eyes, nobler now; because it was fear for another and not for herself, but therefore also harder to conquer. Inez had ceased from sobbing now, and was sitting quietly in her accustomed seat, in that attitude of concentrated expectancy of sounds which is so natural to the blind, that one can almost recognize blindness by the position of the head and body without seeing the face. The blind rarely lean back in a chair; more often the body is quite upright, or bent a little forward, the face is slightly turned up when there is total silence, often turned down when a sound is already heard distinctly; the knees are hardly ever crossed, the hands are seldom folded together, but are generally spread out, as if ready to help the hearing by the sense of touch--the lips are slightly parted, for the blind know that they hear by the mouth as well as with their ears--the expression of the face is one of expectation and extreme attention, still, not placid, calm, but the very contrary of indifferent. It was thus that Inez sat, as she often sat for hours, listening, always and forever listening to the speech of things and of nature, as well as for human words. And in listening, she thought and reasoned patiently and continually, so that the slightest sounds had often long and accurate meanings for her. The deaf reason little or ill, and are very suspicious; the blind, on the contrary, are keen, thoughtful, and ingenious, and are distrustful of themselves rather than of others. Inez sat quite still, listening, thinking, and planning a means of helping her sister. But Dolores stood motionless as if she were paralyzed, watching the picture that «he could not chase away. For she saw the familiar figure of the man she loved coming down the gloomy corridor, alone and unarmed, past the deep embrasures through which the moonlight streamed, straight towards the oak door at the end; and then, from one of the windows another figure stood out, sword in hand, a gaunt man with a grey beard, and there were few words, and an uncertain quick confounding of shadows with a ray of cold light darting hither and thither, then a fall, and then stillness. As soon as it was over, it began again, with little change, save that it grew more distinct, till she could see Don John's white face in the moonlight as he lay dead on the pavement of the corridor. It became intolerable at last, and she slowly raised one hand and covered her eyes to shut out the sight. "Listen," said Inez, as Dolores stirred. "I have been thinking. You must see him to-night, even if you are not alone with him. There is only one way to do that; you must dress yourself for the court and go down to the great hall with the others and speak to him--then you can decide how to meet to-morrow." "Inez--I have not told you the rest! To-morrow I am to be sent to Las Huelgas, and kept there like a prisoner." Inez uttered a low cry of pain. "To a convent!" It seemed like death. Dolores began to tell her all Mendoza had said, but Inez soon interrupted her. There was a dark flush in the blind girl's face. "And he would have you believe that he loves you?" she cried indignantly. "He has always been hard, and cruel, and unkind, he has never forgiven me for being blind---he will never forgive you for being young! The King! The King before everything and every one--before himself, yes, that is well, but before his children, his soul, his heart--he has no heart! What am I saying--" She stopped short. "And yet, in his strange way, he loves us both," said Dolores. "I cannot understand it, but I saw his face when there were tears in his eyes, and I heard his voice. He would give his life for us." "And our lives, and hearts, and hopes to feed his conscience and to save his own soul!" Inez was trembling with anger, leaning far forward, her face flushed, one slight hand clenched, the other clenching it hard. Dolores was silent. It was not the first time that Inez had spoken in this way, for the blind girl could be suddenly and violently angry for a good cause. But now her tone changed. "I will save you," she said suddenly, "but there is no time to be lost. He will not come back to our rooms now, and he knows well enough that Don John cannot come here at this hour, so that he is not waiting for him. We have this part of the place to ourselves, and the outer door only is bolted now. It will take you an hour to dress--say three-quarters of an hour. As soon as you get out, you must go quickly round the palace to the Duchess Alvarez. Our father will not go there, and you can go down with her, as usual--but tell her nothing. Our father will be there, and he will see you, but he will not care to make an open scandal in the court. Don John will come and speak to you; you must stay beside the Duchess of course--but you can manage to exchange a few words." Dolores listened intently, and her face brightened a little as Inez went on, only to grow sad and hopeless again a moment later. It was all an impossible dream. "That would be possible if I could once get beyond the door of the hall," she said despondently. "It is of no use, dear! The door is bolted." "They will open it for me. Old Eudaldo is always within hearing, and he will do anything for me. Besides, I shall seem to have been shut in by mistake, do you see? I shall say that I am hungry, thirsty, that I am cold, that in locking you in our father locked me in, too, because I was asleep. Then Eudaldo will open the door for me. I shall say that I am going to the Duchess's." "Yes--but then?" "You will cover yourself entirely with my black cloak and draw it over your head and face. We are of the same height--you only need to walk as I do--as if you were blind--across the hall to the left. Eudaldo will open the outer door for you. You will just nod to thank him, without speaking, and when you are outside, touch the wall of the corridor with your left hand, and keep close to it. I always do, for fear of running against some one. If you meet any of the women, they will take you for me. There is never much light in the corridor, is there? There is one oil lamp half way down, I know, for I always smell it when I pass in the evening." "Yes, it is almost dark there--it is a little lamp. Do you really think this is possible?" "It is possible, not sure. If you hear footsteps in the corridor beyond the corner, you will have time to slip into one of the embrasures. But our father will not come now. He knows that Don John is in his own apartments with many people. And besides, it is to be a great festival to-night, and all the court people and officers, and the Archbishop, and all the rest who do not live in the palace will come from the city, so that our father will have to command the troops and give orders for the guards to march out, and a thousand things will take his time. Don John cannot possibly come here till after the royal supper, and if our father can come away at all, it will be at the same time. That is the danger." Dolores shivered and saw the vision in the corridor again. "But if you are seen talking with Don John before supper, no one will suppose that in order to meet him you would risk coming back here, where you are sure to be caught and locked up again. Do you see?" "It all depends upon whether I can get out," answered Dolores, but there was more hope in her tone. "How am I to dress without a maid?" she asked suddenly. "Trust me," said Inez, with a laugh. "My hands are better than a serving-woman's eyes. You shall look as you never looked before. I know every lock of your hair, and just how it should be turned and curled and fastened in place so that it cannot possibly get loose. Come, we are wasting time. Take off your slippers as I have done, so that no one shall hear us walking through the hall to your room, and bring the candles with you if you choose--yes, you need them to pick out the colours you like." "If you think it will be safer in the dark, it does not matter," said Dolores. "I know where everything is." "It would be safer," answered Inez thoughtfully. "It is just possible that he might be in the court and might see the light in your window, whereas if it burns here steadily, he will suspect nothing. We will bolt the door of this room, as I found it. If by any possibility he comes back, he will think you are still here, and will probably not come in." "Pray Heaven he may not!" exclaimed Dolores, and she began to go towards the door. Inez was there before her, opening it very cautiously. "My hands are lighter than yours," she whispered. They both passed out, and Inez slipped the bolt back into its place with infinite precaution. "Is there light here?" she asked under her breath. "There is a very small lamp on the table. I can just see my door." "Put it out as we pass," whispered Inez. "I will lead you if you cannot find your way." They moved cautiously forward, and when they reached the table, Dolores bent down to the small wick and blew out the flame. Then she felt her sister's hand taking hers and leading her quickly to the other door. The blind girl was absolutely noiseless in her movements, and Dolores had the strange impression that she was being led by a spirit through the darkness. Inez stopped a moment, and then went slowly on; they had entered the room though Dolores had not heard the door move, nor did she hear it closed behind her again. Her own room was perfectly dark, for the heavy curtain that covered the window was drawn; she made a step alone, and cautiously, and struck her knee against a chair. "Do not move," whispered Inez. "You will make a noise. I can dress you where you stand, or if you want to find anything, I will lead you to the place where it is. Remember that it is always day for me." Dolores obeyed, and stood still, holding her breath a little in her intense excitement. It seemed impossible that Inez could do all she promised without making a mistake, and Dolores would not have been a woman had she not been visited just then by visions of ridicule. Without light she was utterly helpless to do anything for herself, and she had never before then fully realized the enormous misfortune with which her sister had to contend. She had not guessed, either, what energy and quickness of thought Inez possessed, and the sensation of being advised, guided, and helped by one she had always herself helped and protected was new. They spoke in quick whispers of what she was to wear and of how her hair was to be dressed, and Inez found what was wanted without noise, and almost as quickly as Dolores could have done in broad daylight, and placed a chair for her, making her sit down in it, and began to arrange her hair quickly and skilfully. Dolores felt the spiritlike hands touching her lightly and deftly in the dark--they were very slight and soft, and did not offend her with a rough movement or a wrong turn, as her maid's sometimes did. She felt her golden hair undone, and swiftly drawn out and smoothed without catching, or tangling, or hurting her at all, in a way no woman had ever combed it, and the invisible hands gently divided it, and turned it upon her head, slipping the hairpins into the right places as if by magic, so that they were firm at the first trial, and there was a faint sound of little pearls tapping each other, and Dolores felt the small string laid upon her hair and fastened in its place,--the only ornament a young girl could wear for a headdress,--and presently it was finished, and Inez gave a sigh of satisfaction at her work, and lightly felt her sister's head here and there to be sure that all was right. It felt as if soft little birds were just touching the hair with the tips of their wings as they fluttered round it. Dolores had no longer any fear of looking ill dressed in the blaze of light she was to face before long. The dressing of her hair was the most troublesome part, she knew, and though she could not have done it herself, she had felt that every touch and turn had been perfectly skilful. "What a wonderful creature you are!" she whispered, as Inez bade her stand up. "You have beautiful hair," answered the blind girl, "and you are beautiful in other ways, but to-night you must be the most beautiful of all the court, for his sake--so that every woman may envy you, and every man envy him, when they see you talking together. And now we must be quick, for it has taken a long time, and I hear the soldiers marching out again to form in the square. That is always just an hour and a half before the King goes into the hall. Here--this is the front of the skirt." "No--it is the back!" Inez laughed softly, a whispering laugh that Dolores could scarcely hear. "It is the front," she said. "You can trust me in the dark. Put your arms down, and let me slip it over your head so as not to touch your hair. No---hold your arms down!" Dolores had instinctively lifted her hands to protect her headdress. Then all went quickly, the silence only broken by an occasional whispered word and by the rustle of silk, the long soft sound of the lacing as Inez drew it through the eyelets of the bodice, the light tapping of her hands upon the folds and gatherings of the skirt and on the puffed velvet on the shoulders and elbows. "You must be beautiful, perfectly beautiful to-night," Inez repeated more than once. She herself did not understand why she said it, unless it were that Dolores' beauty was for Don John of Austria, and that nothing in the whole world could be too perfect for him, for the hero of her thoughts, the sun of her blindness, the immeasurably far-removed deity of her heart. She did not know that it was not for her sister's sake, but for his, that she had planned the escape and was taking such infinite pains that Dolores might look her best. Yet she felt a deep and delicious delight in what she did, like nothing she had ever felt before, for it was the first time in her life that she had been able to do something that could give him pleasure; and, behind that, there was the belief that he was in danger, that she could no longer go to him nor warn him now, and that only Dolores herself could hinder him from coming unexpectedly against old Mendoza, sword in hand, in the corridor. "And now my cloak over everything," she said. "Wait here, for I must get it, and do not move!" Dolores hardly knew whether Inez left the room or not, so noiselessly did the girl move. Then she felt the cloak laid upon her shoulders and drawn close round her to hide her dress, for skirts were short in those days and easily hidden. Inez laid a soft silk handkerchief upon her sister's hair, lest it should be disarranged by the hood which she lightly drew over all, assuring herself that it would sufficiently hide the face. "Now come with me," she whispered. I will lead you to the door that is bolted and place you just where it will open. Then I will call Eudaldo and speak to him, and beg him to let me out. If he does, bend your head and try to walk as I do. I shall be on one side of the door, and, as the room is dark, he cannot possibly see me. While he is opening the outer door for you, I will slip back into my own room. Do you understand? And remember to hide in an embrasure if you hear a man's footsteps. Are you quite sure you understand?" "Yes; it will be easy if Eudaldo opens. And I thank you, dear; I wish I knew how to thank you as I ought! It may have saved his life--" "And yours, too, perhaps," answered Inez, beginning to lead her away. "You would die in the convent, and you must not come back--you must never come back to us here--never till you are married. Good-by, Dolores--dear sister. I have done nothing, and you have done everything for me all your life. Good-by--one kiss--then we must go, for it is late." With her soft hands she drew Dolores' head towards her, lifted the hood a little, and kissed her tenderly. All at once there were tears on both their faces, and the arms of each clasped the other almost desperately. "You must come to me, wherever I am," Dolores said. "Yes, I will come, wherever you are. I promise it." Then she disengaged herself quickly, and more than ever she seemed a spirit as she went before, leading her sister by the hand. They reached the door, and she made Dolores stand before the right hand panel, ready to slip out, and once more she touched the hood to be sure it hid the face. She listened a moment. A harsh and regular sound came from a distance, resembling that made by a pit-saw steadily grinding its way lengthwise through a log of soft pine wood. "Eudaldo is asleep," said Inez, and even at this moment she could hardly suppress a half-hysterical laugh. "I shall have to make a tremendous noise to wake him. The danger is that it may bring some one else,---the women, the rest of the servants." "What shall we do?" asked Dolores, in a distressed whisper. She had braced her nerves to act the part of her sister at the dangerous moment, and her excitement made every instant of waiting seem ten times its length. Inez did not answer the question at once. Dolores repeated it still more anxiously. "I was trying to make up my mind," said the other at last. "You could pass Eudaldo well enough, I am sure, but it might be another matter if the hall were full of servants, as it is certain that our father has given a general order that you are not to be allowed to go out. We may wait an hour for the man to wake." Dolores instinctively tried the door, but it was solidly fastened from the outside. She felt hot and cold by turns as her anxiety grew more intolerable. Each minute made it more possible that she might meet her father somewhere outside. "We must decide something!" she whispered desperately. "We cannot wait here." "I do not know what to do," answered Inez. "I have done all I can; I never dreamt that Eudaldo would be asleep. At least, it is a sure sign that our father is not in the house." "But he may come at any moment! We must, we must do something at once!" "I will knock softly," said Inez. "Any one who hears it will suppose it is a knock at the hall door. If he does not open, some one will go and wake him up, and then go away again so as not to be seen." She clenched her small hand, and knocked three times. Such a sound could make not the slightest impression upon Eudaldo's sound sleep, but her reasoning was good, as well as ingenious. After waiting a few moments, she knocked again, more loudly. Dolores held her breath in the silence that followed. Presently a door was opened, and a woman's voice was heard, low but sharp. "Eudaldo, Eudaldo! Some one is knocking at the front door!" The woman probably shook the old man to rouse him, for his voice came next, growling and angry. "Witch! Hag! Mother of malefactors! Let me alone--I am asleep. Are you trying to tear my sleeve off with your greasy claws? Nobody is knocking; you probably hear the wine thumping in your ears!" The woman, who was the drudge and had been cleaning the kitchen, was probably used to Eudaldo's manner of expressing himself, for she only laughed. "Wine makes men sleep, but it does not knock at doors," she answered. "Some one has knocked twice. You had better go and open the door." A shuffling sound and a deep yawn announced that Eudaldo was getting out of his chair. The two girls heard him moving towards the outer entrance. Then they heard the woman go away, shutting the other door behind her, as soon as she was sure that Eudaldo was really awake. Then Inez called him softly. "Eudaldo? Here--it was I that knocked--you must let me out, please--come nearer." "Doña Inez?" asked the old man, standing still. "Hush!" answered the girl. "Come nearer." She waited, listening while he approached. "Listen to me," she continued. "The General has locked me in, by mistake. He did not know I was here when he bolted the door. And I am hungry and thirsty and very cold, Eudaldo--and you must let me out, and I will run to the Duchess Alvarez and stay with her little girl. Indeed, Eudaldo, the General did not mean to lock me in, too." "He said nothing about your ladyship to me," answered the servant doubtfully. "But I do not know--" he hesitated. "Please, please, Eudaldo," pleaded Inez, "I am so cold and lonely here--" "But Doña Dolores is there, too," observed Eudaldo. Dolores held her breath and steadied herself against the panel. "He shut her into the inner sitting-room. How could I dare to open the door! You may go in and knock--she will not answer you." "Is your ladyship sure that Doña Dolores is within?" asked Eudaldo, in a more yielding tone. "Absolutely, perfectly sure!" answered Inez, with perfect truth. "Oh, do please let me out." Slowly the old man drew the bolt, while Dolores' heart stood still, and she prepared herself for the danger; for she knew well enough that the faithful old servant feared his master much more than he feared the devil and all evil spirits, and would prevent her from passing, even with force, if he recognized her. "Thank you, Eudaldo--thank you!" cried Inez, as the latch turned. "And open the front door for me, please," she said, putting her lips just where the panel was opening. Then she drew back into the darkness. The door was wide open now, and Eudaldo was already shuffling towards the entrance. Dolores went forward, bending her head, and trying to affect her sister's step. No distance had ever seemed so long to her as that which separated her from the hall door which Eudaldo was already opening for her. But she dared not hasten her step, for though Inez moved with perfect certainty in the house, she always walked with a certain deliberate caution, and often stopped to listen, while crossing a room. The blind girl was listening now, with all her marvellous hearing, to be sure that all went well till Dolores should be outside. She knew exactly how many steps there were from where she stood to the entrance, for she had often counted them. Dolores must have been not more than three yards from the door, when Inez started involuntarily, for she heard a sound from without, far off--so far that Dolores could not possibly have heard it yet, but unmistakable to the blind girl's keener ear. She listened intently--there were Dolores' last four steps to the open doorway, and there were others from beyond, still very far away in the vaulted corridors, but coming nearer. To call her sister back would have made all further attempt at escape hopeless--to let her go on seemed almost equally fatal--Inez could have shrieked aloud. But Dolores had already gone out, and a moment later the heavy door swung back to its place, and it was too late to call her. Like an immaterial spirit, Inez slipped away from the place where she stood and went back to Dolores' room, knowing that Eudaldo would very probably go and knock where he supposed her sister to be a prisoner, before slipping the outer bolt again. And so he did, muttering an imprecation upon the little lamp that had gone out and left the small hall in darkness. Then he knocked, and spoke through the door, offering to bring her food, or fire, and repeating his words many times, in a supplicating tone, for he was devoted to both the sisters, though terror of old Mendoza was the dominating element in his existence. At last he shook his head and turned despondently to light the little lamp again; and when he had done that, he went away and bolted the door after him, convinced that Inez had gone out and that Dolores had stayed behind in the last room. When she had heard him go away the last time, the blind girl threw herself upon Dolores' bed, and buried her face in the down cushion, sobbing bitterly in her utter loneliness; weeping, too, for something she did not understand, but which she felt the more painfully because she could not understand it, something that was at once like a burning fire and an unspeakable emptiness craving to be filled, something that longed and feared, and feared longing, something that was a strong bodily pain but which she somehow knew might have been the source of all earthly delight,--an element detached from thought and yet holding it, above the body and yet binding it, touching the soul and growing upon it, but filling the soul itself with fear and unquietness, and making her heart cry out within her as if it were not hers and were pleading to be free. So, as she could not understand that this was love, which, as she had heard said, made women and men most happy, like gods and goddesses, above their kind, she lay alone in the darkness that was always as day to her, and wept her heart out in scalding tears. In the corridor outside, Dolores made a few steps, remembering to put out her left hand to touch the wall, as Inez had told her to do; and then she heard what had reached her sister's ears much sooner. She stood still an instant, strained her eyes to see in the dim light of the single lamp, saw nothing, and heard the sound coming nearer. Then she quickly crossed the corridor to the nearest embrasure to hide herself. To her horror she realized that the light of the full moon was streaming in as bright as day, and that she could not be hid. Inez knew nothing of moonlight. She pressed herself to the wall, on the side away from her own door, making herself as small as she could, for it was possible that whoever came by might pass without turning his head. Nervous and exhausted by all she had felt and been made to feel since the afternoon, she held her breath and waited. The regular tread of a man booted and spurred came relentlessly towards her, without haste and without pause. No one who wore spurs but her father ever came that way. She listened breathlessly to the hollow echoes, and turned her eyes along the wall of the embrasure. In a moment she must see his gaunt figure, and the moonlight would be white on his short grey beard. * * * * * CHAPTER IV Dolores knew that there was no time to reflect as to what she should do, if her father found her hiding in the embrasure, and yet in those short seconds a hundred possibilities flashed through her disturbed thoughts. She might slip past him and run for her life down the corridor, or she might draw her hood over her face and try to pretend that she was some one else,--but he would recognize the hood itself as belonging to Inez,--or she might turn and lean upon the window-sill, indifferently, as if she had a right to be there, and he might take her for some lady of the court, and pass on. And yet she could not decide which to attempt, and stood still, pressing herself against the wall of the embrasure, and quite forgetful of the fact that the bright moonlight fell unhindered through all the other windows upon the pavement, whereas she cast a shadow from the one in which she was standing, and that any one coming along the corridor would notice it and stop to see who was there. There was something fateful and paralyzing in the regular footfall that was followed instantly by the short echo from the vault above. It was close at hand now she was sure that at the very next instant she should see her father's face, yet nothing came, except the sound, for that deceived her in the silence and seemed far nearer than it was. She had heard horrible ghost stories of the old Alcazar, and as a child she had been frightened by tales of evil things that haunted the corridors at night, of wraiths and goblins and Moorish wizards who dwelt in secret vaults, where no one knew, and came out in the dark, when all was still, to wander in the moonlight, a terror to the living. The girl felt the thrill of unearthly fear at the roots of her hair, and trembled, and the sound seemed to be magnified till it reëchoed like thunder, though it was only the noise of an advancing footfall, with a little jingling of spurs. But at last there was no doubt. It was close to her, and she shut her eyes involuntarily. She heard one step more on the stones, and then there was silence. She knew that her father had seen her, had stopped before her, and was looking at her. She knew how his rough brows were knitting themselves together, and that even in the pale moonlight his eyes were fierce and angry, and that his left hand was resting on the hilt of his sword, the bony brown fingers tapping the basket nervously. An hour earlier, or little more, she had faced him as bravely as any man, but she could not face him now, and she dared not open her eyes. "Madam, are you ill, or in trouble?" asked a young voice that was soft and deep. She opened her eyes with a sharp cry that was not of fear, and she threw back her hood with one hand as the looked. Don John of Austria was there, a step from her, the light full on his face, bareheaded, his cap in his hand, bending a little towards her, as one does towards a person one does not know, but who seems to be in distress and to need help. Against the whiteness without he could not see her face, nor could he recognize her muffled figure. "Can I not help you, Madam?" asked the kind voice again, very gravely. Then she put out her hands towards him and made a step, and as the hood fell quite back with the silk kerchief, he saw her golden hair in the silver light. Slowly and in wonder, and still not quite believing, he moved to meet her movement, took her hands in his, drew her to him, turned her face gently, till he saw it well. Then he, too, uttered a little sound that was neither a word nor a syllable nor a cry--a sound that was half fierce with strong delight as his lips met hers, and his hands were suddenly at her waist lifting her slowly to his own height, though he did not know it, pressing her closer and closer to him, as if that one kiss were the first and last that ever man gave woman. A minute passed, and yet neither he nor she could speak. She stood with her hands clasped round his neck, and her head resting on his breast just below the shoulder, as if she were saying tender words to the heart she heard beating so loud through the soft black velvet. She knew that it had never beaten in battle as it was beating now, and she loved it because it knew her and welcomed her; but her own stood still, and now and then it fluttered wildly, like a strong young bird in a barred cage, and then was quite still again. Bending his face a little, he softly kissed her hair again and again, till at last the kisses formed themselves into syllables and words, which she felt rather than heard. "God in heaven, how I love you--heart of my heart--life of my life--love of my soul!" And again he repeated the same words, and many more like them, with little change, because at that moment he had neither thought nor care for anything else in the world, not for life nor death nor kingdom nor glory, in comparison with the woman he loved. He could not hear her answers, for she spoke without words to his heart, hiding her face where she heard it throbbing, while her lips pressed many kisses on the velvet. Then, as thought returned, and the first thought was for him, she drew back a little with a quick movement, and looked up to him with frightened and imploring eyes. "We must go!" she cried anxiously, in a very low voice. "We cannot stay here. My father is very angry--he swore on his word of honour that he would kill you if you tried to see me to-night!" Don John laughed gently, and his eyes brightened. Before she could speak again, he held her close once more, and his kisses were on her cheeks and her eyes, on her forehead and on her hair, and then again upon her lips, till they would have hurt her if she had not loved them so, and given back every one. Then she struggled again, and he loosed his hold. "It is death to stay here," she said very earnestly. "It is worse than death to leave you," he answered. "And I will not," he added an instant later, "neither for the King, nor for your father, nor for any royal marriage they may try to force upon me." She looked into his eyes for a moment, before she spoke, and there was deep and true trust in her own. "Then you must save me," she said quietly. "He has vowed that I shall be sent to the convent of Las Huelgas to-morrow morning. He locked me into the inner room, but Inez helped me to dress, and I got out under her cloak." She told him in a few words what she had done and had meant to do, in order to see him, and how she had taken his step for her father's. He listened gravely, and she saw his face harden slowly in an expression she had scarcely ever seen there. When she had finished her story he was silent for a moment. "We are quite safe here," he said at last, "safer than anywhere else, I think, for your father cannot come back until the King goes to supper. For myself, I have an hour, but I have been so surrounded and pestered by visitors in my apartments that I have not found time to put on a court dress--and without vanity, I presume that I am a necessary figure at court this evening. Your father is with Perez, who seems to be acting as master of ceremonies and of everything else, as well as the King's secretary--they have business together, and the General will not have a moment. I ascertained that, before coming here, or I should not have come at this hour. We are safe from him here, I am sure." "You know best," answered Dolores, who was greatly reassured by what he said about Mendoza. "Let us sit down, then. You must be tired after all you have done. And we have much to say to each other." "How could I be tired now?" she asked, with a loving smile; but she sat down on the stone seat in the embrasure, close to the window. It was just wide enough for two to sit there, and Don John took his place beside her, and drew one of her hands silently to him between both his own, and kissed the tips of her fingers a great many times. But he felt that she was watching his face, and he looked up and saw her eyes--and then, again, many seconds passed before either could speak. They were but a boy and girl together, loving each other in the tender first love of early youth, for the victor of the day, the subduer of the Moors, the man who had won back Granada, who was already High Admiral of Spain, and who in some ten months from that time was to win a decisive battle of the world at Lepanto, was a stripling of twenty-three summers--and he had first seen Dolores when he was twenty and she seventeen, and now it was nearly two years since they had met. He was the first to speak, for he was a man of quick and unerring determinations that led to actions as sudden as they were bold and brilliant, and what Dolores had told him of her quarrel with her father was enough to rouse his whole energy at once. At all costs she must never be allowed to pass the gates of Las Huelgas. Once within the convent, by the King's orders, and a close prisoner, nothing short of a sacrilegious assault and armed violence could ever bring her out into the world again. He knew that, and that he must act instantly to prevent it, for he knew Mendoza's character also, and had no doubt but that he would do what he threatened. It was necessary to put Dolores beyond his reach at once, and beyond the King's also, which was not an easy matter within the walls of the King's own palace, and on such a night. Don John had been but little at the court and knew next to nothing of its intrigues, nor of the mutual relations of the ladies and high officers who had apartments in the Alcazar. In his own train there were no women, of course. Dolores' brother Rodrigo, who had fought by his side at Granada, had begged to be left behind with the garrison, in order that he might not be forced to meet his father. Doña Magdalena Quixada, Don John's adoptive mother, was far away at Villagarcia. The Duchess Alvarez, though fond of Dolores, was Mistress of the Robes to the young Queen, and it was not to be hoped nor expected that she should risk the danger of utter ruin and disgrace if it were discovered that she had hidden the girl against the King's wishes. Yet it was absolutely necessary that Dolores should be safely hidden within an hour, and that she should be got out of the palace before morning, and if possible conveyed to Villagarcia. Don John saw in a moment that there was no one to whom he could turn. Again he took Dolores' hand in his, but with a sort of gravity and protecting authority that had not been in his touch the first time. Moreover, he did not kiss her fingers now, and he resolutely looked at the wall opposite him. Then, in a low and quiet voice, he laid the situation before her, while she anxiously listened. "You see," he said at last, "there is only one way left. Dolores, do you altogether trust me?" She started a little, and her fingers pressed his hand suddenly. "Trust you? Ah, with all my soul!" "Think well before you answer," he said. "You do not quite understand--it is a little hard to put it clearly, but I must. I know you trust me in many ways, to love you faithfully always, to speak truth to you always, to defend you always, to help you with my life when you shall be in need. You know that I love you so, as you love me. Have we not often said it? You wrote it in your letter, too--ah, dear, I thank you for that. Yes, I have read it--I have it here, near my heart, and I shall read it again before I sleep--" Without a word, and still listening, she bent down and pressed her lips to the place where her letter lay. He touched her hair with his lips and went on speaking, as she leaned back against the wall again. "You must trust me even more than that, my beloved," he said. "To save you, you must be hidden by some one whom I myself can trust--and for such a matter there is no one in the palace nor in all Madrid--no one to whom I can turn and know that you will be safe--not one human being, except myself." "Except yourself!" Dolores loved the words, and gently pressed his hand. "I thank you, dearest heart--but do you know what that means? Do you understand that I must hide you myself, in my own apartments, and keep you there until I can take you out of the palace, before morning?" She was silent for a few moments, turning her face away from him. His heart sank. "No, dear," he said sadly, "you do not trust me enough for that--I see it--what woman could?" Her hand trembled and started in his, then pressed it hard, and she turned her face quite to him. "You are wrong," she said, with a tremor in her voice. "I love you as no man was ever loved by any woman, far beyond all that all words can say, and I shall love you till I die, and after that, for ever--even if I can never be your wife. I love you as no one loves in these days, and when I say that it is as you love me, I mean a thousand fold for every word. I am not the child you left nearly two years ago. I am a woman now, for I have thought and seen much since then--and I love you better and more than then. God knows, there is enough to see and to learn in this court--that should be hidden deep from honest women's sight! You and I shall have a heaven on this earth, if God grants that we may be joined together--for I will live for you, and serve you, and smooth all trouble out of your way--and ask nothing of you but your love. And if we cannot marry, then I will live for you in my heart, and serve you with my soul, and pray Heaven that harm may never touch you. I will pray so fervently that God must hear me. And so will you pray for me, as you would fight for me, if you could. Remember, if you will, that when you are in battle for Spain, your sword is drawn for Spain's honour, and for the honour of every Christian Spanish woman that lives--and for mine, too!" The words pleased him, and his free hand was suddenly clenched. "You would make cowards fight like wolves, if you could speak to them like that!" he said. "I am not speaking to cowards," she answered, with a loving smile. "I am speaking to the man I love, to the best and bravest and truest man that breathes--and not to Don John of Austria, the victorious leader, but to you, my heart's love, my life, my all, to you who are good and brave and true to me, as no man ever was to any woman. No--" she laughed happily, and there were tears in her eyes--"no, there are no words for such love as ours." "May I be all you would have me, and much more," he said fervently, and his voice shook in the short speech. "I am giving you all I have, because it is not belief, it is certainty. I know you are all that I say you are, and more too. And I trust you, as you mean it, and as you need my trust to save me. Take me where you will. Hide me in your own room if you must, and bolt and bar it if need be. I shall be as safe with you as I should be with my mother in heaven. I put my hands between yours." Again he heard her sweet low laughter, full of joy and trust, and she laid her hands together between his and looked into his eyes, straight and clear. Then she spoke softly and solemnly. "Into your hands I put my life, and my faith, and my maiden honour, trusting them all to you alone in this world, as I trust them to God." Don John held her hands tightly for a moment, still looking into her eyes as if he could see her soul there, giving itself to his keeping. But he swore no great oath, and made no long speech; for a man who has led men to deeds of glory, and against whom no dishonourable thing was ever breathed, knows that his word is good. "You shall not regret that you trust me, and you will be quite safe," he said. She wanted no more. Loving as she did, she believed in him without promises, yet she could not always believe that he quite knew how she loved him. "You are dearer to me than I knew," he said presently, breaking the silence that followed. "I love you even more, and I thought it could never be more, when I found you here a little while ago--because you do really trust me." "You knew it," the said, nestling to him. "But you wanted me to tell you. Yes--we are nearer now." "Far nearer--and a world more dear," he answered. "Do you know? In all these months I have often and often again wondered how we should meet, whether it would be before many people, or only with your sister Inez there--or perhaps alone. But I did not dare hope for that." "Nor I. I have dreamt of meeting you a hundred times--and more than that! But there was always some one in the way. I suppose that if we had found each other in the court and had only been able to say a few words, it would have been a long time before we were quite ourselves together--but now, it seems as if we had never been parted at all, does it not?" "As if we could never be parted again," he answered softly. For a little while there was silence, and though there was to be a great gathering of the court, that night, all was very still where the lovers sat at the window, for the throne room and the great halls of state were far away on the other side of the palace, and the corridor looked upon a court through which few persons had to pass at night. Suddenly from a distance there came the rhythmical beat of the Spanish drums, as some detachment of troops marched by the outer gate. Don John listened. "Those are my men," he said. "We must go, for now that they are below I can send my people on errands with orders to them, until I am alone. Then you must come in. At the end of my apartments there is a small room, beyond my own. It is furnished to be my study, and no one will expect to enter it at night. I must put you there, and lock the door and take the key with me, so that no one can go in while I am at court--or else you can lock it on the inside, yourself. That would be better, perhaps," he added rather hurriedly. "No," said the girl quietly. "I prefer that you should have the key. I shall feel even safer. But how can I get there without being seen? We cannot go so far together without meeting some one." He rose, and she stood up beside him. "My apartments open upon the broad terrace on the south side," he said. "At this time there will be only two or three officers there, and my two servants. Follow me at a little distance, with your hood over your face, and when you reach the sentry-box at the corner where I turn off, go in. There will be no sentinel there, and the door looks outward. I shall send away every one, on different errands, in five minutes. When every one is gone I will come for you. Is that clear?" "Perfectly." She nodded, as if she had made quite sure of what he had explained. Then she put up her hands, as if to say good-by. "Oh, if we could only stay here in peace!" she cried. He said nothing, for he knew that there was still much danger, and he was anxious for her. He only pressed her hands and then led her away. They followed the corridor together, side by side, to the turning. Then he whispered to her to drop behind, and she let him go on a dozen paces and followed him. The way was long, and ill lighted at intervals by oil lamps hung from the vault by small chains; they cast a broad black shadow beneath them, and shed a feeble light above. Several times persons passed them, and Dolores' heart beat furiously. A court lady, followed by a duenna and a serving-woman, stopped with a winning smile, and dropped a low courtesy to Don John, who lifted his cap, bowed, and went on. They did not look at Dolores. A man in a green cloth apron and loose slippers, carrying five lighted lamps in a greasy iron tray, passed with perfect indifference, and without paying the least attention to the victor of Granada. It was his business to carry lamps in that part of the palace--he was not a human being, but a lamplighter. They went on, down a short flight of broad steps, and then through a wider corridor where the lights were better, though the night breeze was blowing in and made them flicker and flare. A corporal's guard of the household halberdiers came swinging down at a marching step, coming from the terrace beyond. The corporal crossed his halberd in salute, but Don John stopped him, for he understood at once that a sentry had been set at his door. "I want no guard," he said. "Take the man away." "The General ordered it, your Highness," answered the man, respectfully. "Request your captain to report to the General that I particularly desire no sentinel at my door. I have no possessions to guard except my reputation, and I can take care of that myself." He laughed good-naturedly. The corporal grinned--he was a very dark, broad-faced man, with high cheek bones, and ears that stuck out. He faced about with his three soldiers, and followed Don John to the terrace--but in the distance he had seen the hooded figure of a woman. Not knowing what to do, for she had heard the colloquy, Dolores stood still a moment, for she did not care to pass the soldiers as they came back. Then she turned and walked a little way in the other direction, to gain time, and kept on slowly. In less than a minute they returned, bringing the sentinel with them. She walked slowly and counted them as they went past her--and then she started as if she had been stung, and blushed scarlet under her hood, for she distinctly heard the big corporal laugh to himself when he had gone by. She knew, then, how she trusted the man she loved. When the soldiers had turned the corner and were out of sight, she ran back to the terrace and hid herself in the stone sentry-box just outside, still blushing and angry. On the side of the box towards Don John's apartment there was a small square window just at the height of her eyes, and she looked through it, sure that her face could not be seen from without. She looked from mere curiosity, to see what sort of men the officers were, and Don John's servants; for everything connected with him or belonging to him in any way interested her most intensely. Two tall captains came out first, magnificent in polished breastplates with gold shoulder straps and sashes and gleaming basket-hilted swords, that stuck up behind them as their owners pressed down the hilts and strutted along, twisting their short black moustaches in the hope of meeting some court lady on their way. Then another and older man passed, also in a soldier's dress, but with bent head, apparently deep in thought. After that no one came for some time--then a servant, who pulled something out of his pocket and began to eat it, before he was in the corridor. Then a woman came past the little window. Dolores saw her as distinctly as she had seen the four men. She came noiselessly and stealthily, putting down her foot delicately, like a cat. She was a lady, and she wore a loose cloak that covered all her gown, and on her head a thick veil, drawn fourfold across her face. Her gait told the girl that she was young and graceful--something in the turn of the head made her sure that she was beautiful, too--something in the whole figure and bearing was familiar. The blood sank from Dolores' cheeks, and she felt a chill slowly rising to her heart. The lady entered the corridor and went on quickly, turned, and was out of sight. Then all at once, Dolores laughed to herself, noiselessly, and was happy again, in spite of her danger. There was nothing to disturb her, she reflected. The terrace was long, there were doubtless other apartments beyond Don John's, though she had not known it. The lady had indeed walked cautiously, but it might well be that she had reasons for not being seen there, and that the further rooms were not hers. The Alcazar was only an old Moorish castle, after all, restored and irregularly enlarged, and altogether very awkwardly built, so that many of the apartments could only be reached by crossing open terraces. When Don John came to get her in the sentry-box, Dolores' momentary doubt was gone, though not all her curiosity. She smiled as she came out of her hiding-place and met his eyes--clear and true as her own. She even hated herself for having thought that the lady could have come from his apartment at all. The light was streaming from his open door as he led her quickly towards it. There were three windows beyond it, and there the terrace ended. She looked at the front as they were passing, and counted again three windows between the open door and the corner where the sentry-box stood. "Who lives in the rooms beyond you?" she asked quickly. "No one--the last is the one where you are to be." He seemed surprised. They had reached the open door, and he stood aside to let her go in. "And on this side?" she asked, speaking with a painful effort. "My drawing-room and dining-room," he answered. She paused and drew breath before she spoke again, and she pressed one hand to her side under her cloak. "Who was the lady who came from here when all the men were gone?" she asked, very pale. * * * * * CHAPTER V Don John was a man not easily taken off his guard, but he started perceptibly at Dolores' question. He did not change colour, however, nor did his eyes waver; he looked fixedly into her face. "No lady has been here," he answered quietly. Dolores doubted the evidence of her own senses. Her belief in the man she loved was so great that his words seemed at first to have destroyed and swept away what must have been a bad dream, or a horrible illusion, and her face was quiet and happy again as she passed him and went in through the open entrance. She found herself in a vestibule from which doors opened to the right and left. He turned in the latter direction, leading the way into the room. It was his bedchamber. Built in the Moorish manner, the vaulting began at the height of a man's head, springing upward in bold and graceful curves to a great height. The room was square and very large, and the wall below the vault was hung with very beautiful tapestries representing the battle of Pavia, the surrender of Francis the First, and a sort of apotheosis of the Emperor Charles, the father of Don John. There were two tall windows, which were quite covered by curtains of a dark brocade, in which the coats of Spain and the Empire were woven in colours at regular intervals; and opposite them, with the head to the wall, stood a vast curtained bedstead with carved posts twice a man's height. The vaulting had been cut on that side, in order that the foot of the bed might stand back against the wall. The canopy had coats of arms at the four corners, and the curtains were of dark green corded silk, heavily embroidered with gold thread in the beautiful scrolls and arabesques of the period of the Renascence. A carved table, dark and polished, stood half way between the foot of the bedstead and the space between the windows, where a magnificent kneeling-stool with red velvet cushions was placed under a large crucifix. Half a dozen big chairs were ranged against the long walls on each side of the room, and two commodious folding chairs with cushions of embossed leather were beside the table. Opposite the door by which Dolores had entered, another communicated with the room beyond. Both were carved and ornamented with scroll work of gilt bronze, but were without curtains. Three or four Eastern, rugs covered the greater part of the polished marble pavement, which here and there reflected the light of the tall wax torches that stood on the table in silver candlesticks, and on each side of the bed upon low stands. The vault above the tapestried walls was very dark blue, and decorated with gilded stars in relief. Dolores thought the room gloomy, and almost funereal. The bed looked like a catafalque, the candles like funeral torches, and the whole place breathed the magnificent discomfort of royalty, and seemed hardly intended for a human habitation. Dolores barely glanced at it all, as her companion locked the first door and led her on to the next room. He knew that he had not many minutes to spare, and was anxious that she should be in her hiding-place before his servants came back. She followed him and went in. Unlike the bedchamber, the small study was scantily and severely furnished. It contained only a writing-table, two simple chairs, a straight-backed divan covered with leather, and a large chest of black oak bound with ornamented steel work. The window was curtained with dark stuff, and two wax candles burned steadily beside the writing-materials that were spread out ready for use. "This is the room," Don John said, speaking for the first time since they had entered the apartments. Dolores let her head fall back, and began to loosen her cloak at her throat without answering him. He helped her, and laid the long garment upon the divan. Then he turned and saw her in the full light of the candles, looking at him, and he uttered an exclamation. "What is it?" she asked almost dreamily. "You are very beautiful," he answered in a low voice. "You are the most beautiful woman I ever saw." The merest girl knows the tone of a man whose genuine admiration breaks out unconsciously in plain words, and Dolores was a grown woman. A faint colour rose in her cheek, and her lips parted to smile, but her eyes were grave and anxious, for the doubt had returned, and would not be thrust away. She had seen the lady in the cloak and veil during several seconds, and though Dolores, who had been watching the men who passed, had not actually seen her come out of Don John's apartments, but had been suddenly aware of her as she glided by, it seemed out of the question that she should have come from any other place. There was neither niche nor embrasure between the door and the corridor, in which the lady could have been hidden, and it was hardly conceivable that she should have been waiting outside for some mysterious purpose, and should not have fled as soon as she heard the two officers coming out, since she evidently wished to escape observation. On the other hand, Don John had quietly denied that any woman had been there, which meant at all events that he had not seen any one. It could mean nothing else. Dolores was neither foolishly jealous nor at all suspicious by nature, and the man was her ideal of truthfulness and honour. She stood looking at him, resting one hand on the table, while he came slowly towards her, moving almost unconsciously in the direction of her exquisite beauty, as a plant lifts itself to the sun at morning. He was near to her, and he stretched out his arms as if to draw her to him. She smiled then, for in his eyes she forgot her trouble for a moment, and she would have kissed him. But suddenly his face grew grave, and he set his teeth, and instead of taking her into his arms, he took one of her hands and raised it to his lips, as if it had been the hand of his brother's wife, the young Queen. "Why?" she asked in surprise, and with a little start. "You are here under my protection," he answered. "Let me have my own way." "Yes, I understand. How good you are to me!" She paused, and then went on, seating herself upon one of the chairs by the table as she spoke. "You must leave me now," she said. "You must lock me in and keep the key. Then I shall know that I am safe; and in the meantime you must decide how I am to escape--it will not be easy." She stopped again. "I wonder who that woman was!" she exclaimed at last. "There was no woman here," replied Don John, as quietly and assuredly as before. He was leaning upon the table at the other side, with both hands resting upon it, looking at her beautiful hair as she bent her head. "Say that you did not see her," she said, "not that she was not here, for she passed me after all the men, walking very cautiously to make no noise; and when she was in the corridor she ran--she was young and light-footed. I could not see her face." "You believe me, do you not?" asked Don John, bending over the table a little, and speaking very anxiously. She turned her face up instantly, her eyes wide and bright. "Should I be here if I did not trust you and believe you?" she asked almost fiercely. "Do you think--do you dare to think--that I would have passed your door if I had supposed that another woman had been here before me, and had been turned out to make room for me, and would have stayed here--here in your room--if you had not sent her away? If I had thought that, I would have left you at your door forever. I would have gone back to my father. I would have gone to Las Huelgas to-morrow, and not to be a prisoner, but to live and die there in the only life fit for a broken-hearted woman. Oh, no! You dare not think that,--you who would dare anything! If you thought that, you could not love me as I love you,--believing, trusting, staking life and soul on your truth and faith!" The generous spirit had risen in her eyes, roused not against him, but by all his question might be made to mean; and as she met his look of grateful gladness her anger broke away, and left only perfect love and trust behind it. "A man would die for you, and wish he might die twice," he answered, standing upright, as if a weight had been taken from him and he were free to breathe. She looked up at the pale, strong features of the young fighter, who was so great and glorious almost before the down had thickened on his lip; and she saw something almost above nature in his face,--something high and angelic, yet manly and well fitted to face earthly battles. He was her sun, her young god, her perfect image of perfection, the very source of her trust. It would have killed her to doubt him. Her whole soul went up to him in her eyes; and as he was ready to die for her, she knew that for him she would suffer every anguish death could hold, and not flinch. Then she looked down, and suddenly laughed a little oddly, and her finger pointed towards the pens and paper. "She has left something behind," she said. "She was clever to get in here and slip out again without being seen." Don John looked where she pointed, and saw a small letter folded round the stems of two white carnations, and neatly tied with a bit of twisted silk. It was laid between the paper and the bronze inkstand, and half hidden by the broad white feather of a goose-quill pen, that seemed to have been thrown carelessly across the flowers. It lay there as if meant to be found, only by one who wrote, and not to attract too much attention. "Oh!" he exclaimed, in a rather singular tone, as he saw it, and a boyish blush reddened his face. Then he took the letter and drew out the two flowers by the blossoms very carefully. Dolores watched him. He seemed in doubt as to what he should do; and the blush subsided quickly, and gave way to a look of settled annoyance. The carnations were quite fresh, and had evidently not been plucked more than an hour. He held them up a moment and looked at them, then laid them down again and took the note. There was no writing on the outside. Without opening it he held it to the flame of the candle, but Dolores caught his wrist. "Why do you not read it?" she asked quickly. "Dear, I do not know who wrote it, and I do not wish to know anything you do not know also." "You have no idea who the woman is?" Dolores looked at him wonderingly. "Not the very least," he answered with a smile. "But I should like to know so much!" she cried. "Do read it and tell me. I do not understand the thing at all." "I cannot do that." He shook his head. "That would be betraying a woman's secret. I do not know who it is, and I must not let you know, for that would not be honourable." "You are right," she said, after a pause. "You always are. Burn it." He pushed the point of a steel erasing-knife through the piece of folded paper and held it over the flame. It turned brown, crackled and burst into a little blaze, and in a moment the black ashes fell fluttering to the table. "What do you suppose it was?" asked Dolores innocently, as Don John brushed the ashes away. "Dear--it is very ridiculous--I am ashamed of it, and I do not quite know how to explain it to you." Again he blushed a little. "It seems strange to speak of it--I never even told my mother. At first I used to open them, but now I generally burn them like this one." "Generally! Do you mean to say that you often find women's letters with flowers in them on your table?" "I find them everywhere," answered Don John, with perfect simplicity. "I have found them in my gloves, tied into the basket hilt of my sword--often they are brought to me like ordinary letters by a messenger who waits for an answer. Once I found one on my pillow!" "But"--Dolores hesitated--"but are they--are they all from the same person?" she asked timidly. Don John laughed, and shook his head. "She would need to be a very persistent and industrious person," he answered. "Do you not understand?" "No. Who are these women who persecute you with their writing? And why do they write to you? Do they want you to help them?" "Not exactly that;" he was still smiling. "I ought not to laugh, I suppose. They are ladies of the court sometimes, and sometimes others, and I--I fancy that they want me to--how shall I say?--to begin by writing them letters of the same sort." "What sort of letters?" "Why--love letters," answered Don John, driven to extremity in spite of his resistance. "Love letters!" cried Dolores, understanding at last. "Do you mean to say that there are women whom you do not know, who tell you that they love you before you have ever spoken to them? Do you mean that a lady of the court, whom you have probably never even seen, wrote that note and tied it up with flowers and risked everything to bring it here, just in the hope that you might notice her? It is horrible! It is vile! It is shameless! It is beneath anything!" "You say she was a lady--you saw her. I did not. But that is what she did, whoever she may be." "And there are women like that--here, in the palace! How little I know!" "And the less you learn about the world, the better," answered the young soldier shortly. "But you have never answered one, have you?" asked Dolores, with a scorn that showed how sure she was of his reply. "No." He spoke thoughtfully. "I once thought of answering one. I meant to tell her that she was out of her senses, but I changed my mind. That was long ago, before I knew you--when I was eighteen." "Ever since you were a boy!" The look of wonder was not quite gone from her face yet, but she was beginning to understand more clearly, though still very far from distinctly. It did not occur to her once that such things could be temptations to the brilliant young leader whom every woman admired and every man flattered, and that only his devoted love for her had kept him out of ignoble adventures since he had grown to be a man. Had she seen that, she would have loved him even better, if it were possible. It was all, as she had said, shameless and abominable. She had thought that she knew much of evil, and she had even told him so that evening, but this was far beyond anything she had dreamt of in her innocent thoughts, and she instinctively felt that there were lower depths of degradation to which a woman could fall, and of which she would not try to guess the vileness and horror. "Shall I burn the flowers, too?" asked Don John, taking them in his hand. "The flowers? No. They are innocent and fresh. What have they to do with her? Give them to me." He raised them to his lips, looking at her, and then held them out. She took them, and kissed them, as he had done, and they both smiled happily. Then she fastened them in her hair. "No one will see me to-night but you," she said. "I may wear flowers in my hair like a peasant woman!" "How they make the gold gleam!" he exclaimed, as he looked. "It is almost time that my men came back," he said sadly. "When I go down to the court, I shall dismiss them. After the royal supper I shall try and come here again and see you. By that time everything will be arranged. I have thought of almost everything already. My mother will provide you with everything you need. To-morrow evening I can leave this place myself to go and see her, as I always do." He always spoke of Doña Magdalena Quixada as his mother--he had never known his own. Dolores rose from her seat, for he was ready to go. "I trust you in everything," she said simply. "I do not need to know how you will accomplish it all--it is enough to know that you will. Tell Inez, if you can--protect her if my father is angry with her." He held out his hand to take hers, and she was going to give it, as she had done before. But it was too little. Before he knew it she had thrown her arms round his neck, and was kissing him, with little cries and broken words of love. Then she drew back suddenly. "I could not help it," she said. "Now lock me in. No--do not say good-by--even for two hours!" "I will come back as soon as I can," he answered, and with a long look he left her, closed the door and locked it after him, leaving her alone. She stood a few moments looking at the panels as if her sight could pierce them and reach him on the other side, and she tried to hold the last look she had seen in his eyes. Hardly two minutes had elapsed before she heard voices and footsteps in the bedchamber. Don John spoke in short sentences now and then to his servants, and his voice was commanding though it was kindly. It seemed strange to be so near him in his life; she wondered whether she should some day always be near him, as she was now, and nearer; she blushed, all alone. So many things had happened, and he and she had found so much to say that nothing had been said at all of what was to follow her flight to Villagarcia. She was to leave for the Quixadas' house before morning, but Quixada and his wife could not protect her against her father, if he found out where she was, unless she were married. After that, neither Mendoza nor any one else, save the King himself, would presume to interfere with the liberty of Don John of Austria's wife. All Spain would rise to protect her--she was sure of that. But they had said nothing about a marriage and had wasted time over that unknown woman's abominable letter. Since she reasoned it out to herself, she saw that in all probability the ceremony would take place as soon as Don John reached Villagarcia. He was powerful enough to demand the necessary permission of the Archbishop, and he would bring it with him; but no priest, even in the absence of a written order, would refuse to marry him if he desired it. Between the real power he possessed and the vast popularity he enjoyed, he could command almost anything. She heard his voice distinctly just then, though she was not listening for it. He was telling a servant to bring white shoes. The fact struck her because she had never seen him wear any that were not black or yellow. She smiled and wished that she might bring him his white shoes and hang his order of the Golden Fleece round his neck, and breathe on the polished hilt of his sword and rub it with soft leather. She had seen Eudaldo furbish her father's weapons in that way since she had been a child. It had all come so suddenly in the end. Shading her eyes from the candles with her hand, she rested one elbow on the table, and tried to think of what should naturally have happened, of what must have happened if the unknown voice among the courtiers had not laughed and roused her father's anger and brought all the rest. Don John would have come to the door, and Eudaldo would have let him in--because no one could refuse him anything and he was the King's brother. He would have spent half an hour with her in the little drawing-room, and it would have been a constrained meeting, with Inez near, though she would presently have left them alone. Then, by this time, she would have gone down with the Duchess Alvarez and the other maids of honour, and by and by she would have followed the Queen when she entered the throne room with the King and Don John; and she might not have exchanged another word with the latter for a whole day, or two days. But now it seemed almost certain that she was to be his wife within the coming week. He was in the next room. "Do not put the sword away," she heard him say. "Leave it here on the table." Of course; what should he do with a sword in his court dress? But if he had met her father in the corridor, coming to her after the supper, he would have been unarmed. Her father, on the contrary, being on actual duty, wore the sword of his rank, like any other officer of the guards, and the King wore a rapier as a part of his state dress. She was astonished at the distinctness with which she heard what was said in the next room. That was doubtless due to the construction of the vault, as she vaguely guessed. It was true that Don John spoke very clearly, but she could hear the servants' subdued answers almost as well, when she listened. It seemed to her that he took but a very short time to dress. "I have the key of that room," he said presently. "I have my papers there. You are at liberty till midnight. My hat, my gloves. Call my gentlemen, one of you, and tell them to meet me in the corridor." She could almost hear him drawing on his gloves. One of the servants went out. "Fadrique," said Don John, "leave out my riding-cloak. I may like to walk on the terrace in the moonlight, and it is cold. Have my drink ready at midnight and wait for me. Send Gil to sleep, for he was up last night." There was a strange pleasure in hearing his familiar orders and small directions and in seeing how thoughtful he was for his servants. She knew that he had always refused to be surrounded by valets and gentlemen-in-waiting, and lived very simply when he could, but it was different to be brought into such close contact with his life. There was a wonderful gentleness in his ways that contrasted widely with her father's despotic manner and harsh tone when he gave orders. Mendoza believed himself the type and model of a soldier and a gentleman, and he maintained that without rigid discipline there could be no order and no safety at home or in the army. But between him and Don John there was all the difference that separates the born leader of men from the mere martinet. Dolores listened. It was clear that Don John was not going to send Fadrique away in order to see her again before he went down to the throne room, though she had almost hoped he might. On the contrary, some one else came. She heard Fadrique announce him. "The Captain Don Juan de Escobedo is in waiting, your Highness," said the servant. "There is also Adonis." "Adonis!" Don John laughed, not at the name, for it was familiar to him, but at the mere mention of the person who bore it and who was the King's dwarf jester, Miguel de Antona, commonly known by his classic nickname. "Bring Adonis here--he is an old friend." The door opened again, and Dolores heard the well-known voice of the hunchback, clear as a woman's, scornful and full of evil laughter,--the sort of voice that is heard instantly in a crowd, though it is not always recognizable. The fellow came in, talking loud. "Ave Cæsar!" he cried from the door. "Hail, conqueror! All hail, thou favoured of heaven, of man,--and of the ladies!" "The ladies too?" laughed Don John, probably amused by the dwarfs antics. "Who told you that?" "The cook, sir. For as you rode up to the gate this afternoon a scullery maid saw you from the cellar grating and has been raving mad ever since, singing of the sun, moon, and undying love, until the kitchen is more like a mad-house than this house would be if the Day of Judgment came before or after Lent." "Do you fast in Lent, Adonis?" "I fast rigidly three times a day, my lord conqueror,--no, six, for I eat nothing either just before or just after my breakfast, my dinner, and my supper. No monk can do better than that, for at those times I eat nothing at all." "If you said your prayers as often as you fast, you would be in a good way," observed Don John. "I do, sir. I say a short grace before and after eating. Why have you come to Madrid, my lord? Do you not know that Madrid is the worst, the wickedest, the dirtiest, vilest, and most damnable habitation devised by man for the corruption of humanity? Especially in the month of November? Has your lordship any reasonable reason for this unreason of coming here, when the streets are full of mud, and men's hearts are packed like saddle-bags with all the sins they have accumulated since Easter and mean to unload at Christmas? Even your old friends are shocked to see so young and honest a prince in such a place!" "My old friends? Who?" "I saw Saint John the Conqueror graciously wave his hand to a most highly respectable old nobleman this afternoon, and the nobleman was so much shocked that he could not stir an arm to return the salutation! His legs must have done something, though, for he seemed to kick his own horse up from the ground under him. The shock must have been terrible. As for me, I laughed aloud, which made both the old nobleman and Don Julius Caesar of Austria exceedingly angry. Get before me, Don Fadrique! I am afraid of the terror of the Moors,--and no shame to me either! A poor dwarf, against a man who tears armies to shreds,--and sends scullery maids into hysterics! What is a poor crippled jester compared with a powerful scullery maid or an army of heathen Moriscoes? Give me that sword, Fadrique, or I am a dead man!" But Don John was laughing good-naturedly. "So it was you, Adonis? I might have-known your voice, I should think." "No one ever knows my voice, sir. It is not a voice, it is a freak of grammar. It is masculine, feminine, and neuter in gender, singular by nature, and generally accusative, and it is optative in mood and full of acute accents. If you can find such another voice in creation, sir, I will forfeit mine in the King's councils." Adonis laughed now, and Dolores remembered the laughter she had heard from the window. "Does his Majesty consult you on matters of state?" inquired Don John. "Answer quickly, for I must be going." "It takes twice as long to tell a story to two men, as to tell it to one,--when you have to tell them different stories," "Go, Fadrique," said Don John, "and shut the door." The dwarf, seeing the servant gone, beckoned Don John to the other side of the room. "It is no great secret, being only the King's," he said. "His Majesty bids me tell your Serene Highness that he wishes to speak with you privately about some matters, and that he will come here soon after supper, and begs you to be alone." "I will be here--alone." "Excellent, sir. Now there is another matter of secrecy which is just the contrary of what I have told you, for it is a secret from the King. A lady laid a letter and two white carnations on your writing-table. If there is any answer to be taken, I will take it." "There is none," answered Don John sternly, "Tell the lady that I burned the letter without reading it. Go, Adonis, and the next time you come here, do not bring messages from women. Fadrique!" "Your Highness burned the letter without reading it?" "Yes. Fadrique!" "I am sorry," said the dwarf, in a low voice. No more words were spoken, and in a few moments there was deep silence, for they were all gone, and Dolores was alone, locked into the little room. * * * * * CHAPTER VI The great throne room of the palace was crowded with courtiers long before the time when the King and Queen and Don John of Austria were to appear, and the entries and halls by which it was approached were almost as full. Though the late November air was keen, the state apartments were at summer heat, warmed by thousands of great wax candles that burned in chandeliers, and in huge sconces and on high candelabra that stood in every corner. The light was everywhere, and was very soft and yellow, while the odour of the wax itself was perceptible in the air, and helped the impression that the great concourse was gathered in a wide cathedral for some solemn function rather than in a throne room to welcome a victorious soldier. Vast tapestries, dim and rich in the thick air, covered the walls between the tall Moorish windows, and above them the great pointed vaulting, ornamented with the fantastically modelled stucco of the Moors, was like the creamy crests of waves lashed into foam by the wind, thrown upright here, and there blown forward in swift spray, and then again breaking in the fall to thousands of light and exquisite shapes; and the whole vault thus gathered up the light of the candles into itself and shed it downward, distributing it into every corner and lighting every face in a soft and golden glow. At the upper end, between two great doors that were like the gateways of an eastern city, stood the vacant throne, on a platform approached by three broad steps and covered with deep red cloth; and there stood magnificent officers of the guard in gilded corslets and plumed steel caps, and other garments of scarlet and gold, with their drawn swords out. But Mendoza was not there yet, for it was his duty to enter with the King's own guard, preceding the Majorduomo. Above the throne, a huge canopy of velvet, red and yellow, was reared up around the royal coat of arms. To the right and left, on the steps, stood carved stools with silken cushions--those on the right for the chief ministers and nobles of the kingdom, those on the left for the great ladies of the court. These would all enter in the King's train and take their places. For the throng of courtiers who filled the floor and the entries there were no seats, for only a score of the highest and greatest personages were suffered to sit in the royal presence. A few, who were near the windows, rested themselves surreptitiously on the high mouldings of the pilasters, pushing aside the curtains cautiously, and seeming from a distance to be standing while they were in reality comfortably seated, an object of laughing envy and of many witticisms to their less fortunate fellow-courtiers. The throng was not so close but that it was possible to move in the middle of the hall, and almost all the persons there were slowly changing place, some going forward to be nearer the throne, others searching for their friends among their many acquaintances, that they might help the tedious hour to pass more quickly. Seen from the high gallery above the arch of the great entrance the hall was a golden cauldron full of rich hues that intermingled in streams, and made slow eddies with deep shadows, and then little waves of light that turned upon themselves, as the colours thrown into the dyeing vat slowly seethe and mix together in rivulets of dark blue and crimson, and of splendid purple that seems to turn black in places and then is suddenly shot through with flashes of golden and opalescent light. Here and there also a silvery gleam flashed in the darker surface, like a pearl in wine, for a few of the court ladies were dressed all in white, with silver and many pearls, and diamonds that shed little rays of their own. The dwarf Adonis had been there for a few moments behind the lattice which the Moors had left, and as he stood there alone, where no one ever thought of going, he listened to the even and not unmusical sound that came up from the great assembly--the full chorus of speaking voices trained never to be harsh or high, and to use chosen words, with no loud exclamations, laughing only to please and little enough out of merriment; and they would not laugh at all after the King and Queen came in, but would only murmur low and pleasant flatteries, the change as sudden as when the musician at the keys closes the full organ all at once and draws gentle harmonies from softer stops. The jester had stood there, and looked down with deep-set, eager eyes, his crooked face pathetically sad and drawn, but alive with a swift and meaning intelligence, while the thin and mobile lips expressed a sort of ready malice which could break out in bitterness or turn to a kindly irony according as the touch that moved the man's sensitive nature was cruel or friendly. He was scarcely taller than a boy of ten years old, but his full-grown arms hung down below his knees, and his man's head, with the long, keen face, was set far forward on his shapeless body, so that in speaking with persons of ordinary stature he looked up under his brows, a little sideways, to see better. Smooth red hair covered his bony head, and grew in a carefully trimmed and pointed beard on his pointed chin. A loose doublet of crimson velvet hid the outlines of his crooked back and projecting breastbone, and the rest of his dress was of materials as rich, and all red. He was, moreover, extraordinarily careful of his appearance, and no courtier had whiter or more delicately tended hands or spent more time before the mirror in tying a shoulder knot, and in fastening the stiffened collar of white embroidered linen at the fashionable angle behind his neck. He had entered the latticed gallery on his way to Don John's apartments with the King's message. A small and half-concealed door, known to few except the servants of the palace, opened upon it suddenly from a niche in one of the upper corridors. In Moorish days the ladies of the harem had been wont to go there unseen to see the reception of ambassadors of state, and such ceremonies, at which, even veiled, they could never be present. He only stayed a few moments, and though his eyes were eager, it was by habit rather than because they were searching for any one in the crowd. It pleased him now and then to see the court world as a spectacle, as it delights the hard-worked actor to be for once a spectator at another's play. He was an integral part of the court himself, a man of whom most was often expected when he had the least to give, to whom it was scarcely permitted to say anything in ordinary language, but to whom almost any license of familiar speech was freely allowed. He was not a man, he was a tradition, a thing that had to be where it was from generation to generation; wherever the court had lived a jester lay buried, and often two and three, for they rarely lived an ordinary lifetime. Adonis thought of that sometimes, when he was alone, or when he looked down at the crowd of delicately scented and richly dressed men and women, every one called by some noble name, who would doubtless laugh at some jest of his before the night was over. To their eyes the fool was a necessary servant, because there had always been a fool at court; he was as indispensable as a chief butler, a chief cook, or a state coachman, and much more amusing. But he was not a man, he had no name, he had no place among men, he was not supposed to have a mother, a wife, a home, anything that belonged to humanity. He was well lodged, indeed, where the last fool had died, and richly clothed as the other had been, and he fed delicately, and was given the fine wines of France to drink, lest his brain should be clouded by stronger liquor and he should fail to make the court laugh. But he knew well enough that somewhere in Toledo or Valladolid the next court jester was being trained to good manners and instructed in the art of wit, to take the vacant place when he should die. It pleased him therefore sometimes to look down at the great assemblies from the gallery and to reflect that all those magnificent fine gentlemen and tenderly nurtured beauties of Spain were to die also, and that there was scarcely one of them, man or woman, for whose death some one was not waiting, and waiting perhaps with evil anxiety and longing. They were splendid to see, those fair women in their brocades and diamonds, those dark young princesses and duchesses in velvet and in pearls. He dreamed of them sometimes, fancying himself one of those Djin of the southern mountains of whom the Moors told blood-curdling tales, and in the dream he flew down from the gallery on broad, black wings and carried off the youngest and most beautiful, straight to his magic fortress above the sea. They never knew that he was sometimes up there, and on this evening he did not wait long, for he had his message to deliver and must be in waiting on the King before the royal train entered the throne room. After he was gone, the courtiers waited long, and more and more came in from without. Now and then the crowd parted as best it might, to allow some grandee who wore the order of the Golden Fleece or of some other exalted order, to lead his lady nearer to the throne, as was his right, advancing with measured steps, and bowing gravely to the right and left as he passed up to the front among his peers. And just behind them, on one aide, the young girls, of whom many were to be presented to the King and Queen that night, drew together and talked in laughing whispers, gathering in groups and knots of three and four, in a sort of irregular rank behind their mothers or the elder ladies who were to lead them to the royal presence and pronounce their names. There was more light where they were gathered, the shadows were few and soft, the colours tender as the tints of roses in a garden at sunset, and from the place where they stood the sound of young voices came silvery and clear. That should have been Inez de Mendoza's place if she had not been blind. But Inez had never been willing to be there, though she had more than once found her way to the gallery where the dwarf had stood, and had listened, and smelled the odour of the wax candles and the perfumes that rose with the heated air. It was long before the great doors on the right hand of the canopy were thrown open, but courtiers are accustomed from their childhood to long waiting, and the greater part of their occupation at court is to see and to be seen, and those who can do both and can take pleasure in either are rarely impatient. Moreover, many found an opportunity of exchanging quick words and of making sudden plans for meeting, who would have found it hard to exchange a written message, and who had few chances of seeing each other in the ordinary course of their lives; and others had waited long to deliver a cutting speech, well studied and tempered to hurt, and sought their enemies in the crowd with the winning smile a woman wears to deal her keenest thrust. There were men, too, who had great interests at stake and sought the influence of such as lived near the King, flattering every one who could possibly be of use, and coolly overlooking any who had a matter of their own to press, though they were of their own kin. Many officers of Don John's army were there, too, bright-eyed and bronzed from their campaigning, and ready to give their laurels for roses, leaf by leaf, with any lady of the court who would make a fair exchange--and of these there were not a few, and the time seemed short to them. There were also ecclesiastics, but not many, in sober black and violet garments, and they kept together in one corner and spoke a jargon of Latin and Spanish which the courtiers could not understand; and all who were there, the great courtiers and the small, the bishops and the canons, the stout princesses laced to suffocation and to the verge of apoplexy, and fanning themselves desperately in the heat, and their slim, dark-eyed daughters, cool and laughing--they were all gathered together to greet Spain's youngest and greatest hero, Don John of Austria, who had won back Granada from the Moors. As the doors opened at last, a distant blast of silver trumpets rang in from without, and the full chorus of speaking voices was hushed to a mere breathing that died away to breathless silence during a few moments as the greatest sovereign of the age, and one of the strangest figures of all time, appeared before his court. The Grand Master of Ceremonies entered first, in his robe of office, bearing a long white staff. In the stillness his voice rang out to the ends of the hall: "His Majesty the King! Her Majesty the Queen!" Then came a score of halberdiers of the guard, picked men of great stature, marching in even steps, led by old Mendoza himself, in his breastplate and helmet, sword in hand; and he drew up the guard at one side in a rank, making them pass him so that he stood next to the door. After the guards came Philip the Second, a tall and melancholy figure; and with him, on his left side, walked the young Queen, a small, thin figure in white, with sad eyes and a pathetic face--wondering, perhaps, whether she was to follow soon those other queens who had walked by the same King to the same court, and had all died before their time--Mary of Portugal, Mary of England, Isabel of Valois. The King was one of those men who seem marked by destiny rather than by nature, fateful, sombre, almost repellent in manner, born to inspire a vague fear at first sight, and foreordained to strange misfortune or to extraordinary success, one of those human beings from whom all men shrink instinctively, and before whom they easily lose their fluency of speech and confidence of thought. Unnaturally still eyes, of an uncertain colour, gazed with a terrifying fixedness upon a human world, and were oddly set in the large and perfectly colourless face that was like an exaggerated waxen mask. The pale lips did not meet evenly, the lower one protruding, forced, outward by the phenomenal jaw that has descended to this day in the House of Austria. A meagre beard, so fair that it looked faded, accentuated the chin rather than concealed it, and the hair on the head was of the same undecided tone, neither thin nor thick, neither long nor short, but parted, and combed with the utmost precision about the large but very finely moulded ears. The brow was very full as well as broad, and the forehead high, the whole face too large, even for a man so tall, and disquieting in its proportions. Philip bent his head forward a little when at rest; when he looked about him it moved with something of the slow, sure motion of a piece of mechanism, stopping now and then, as the look in the eyes solidified to a stare, and then, moving again, until curiosity was satisfied and it resumed its first attitude, and remained motionless, whether the lips were speaking or not. Very tall and thin, and narrow chested, the figure was clothed all in cream-coloured silk and silver, relieved only by the collar of the Golden Fleece, the solitary order the King wore. His step was ungraceful and slow, as if his thin limbs bore his light weight with difficulty, and he sometimes stumbled in walking. One hand rested on the hilt of his sword as he walked, and even under the white gloves the immense length of the fingers and the proportionate development of the long thumb were clearly apparent. No one could have guessed that in such a figure there could be much elasticity or strength, and yet, at rare moments and when younger, King Philip displayed such strength and energy and quickness as might well have made him the match of ordinary men. As a rule his anger was slow, thoughtful, and dangerous, as all his schemes were vast and far-reaching. With the utmost deliberation, and without so much as glancing at the courtiers assembled, he advanced to the throne and sat down, resting both hands on the gilded arms of the great chair; and the Queen took her place beside him. But before he had settled himself, there was a low sound of suppressed delight in the hall, a moving of heads, a brightening of women's eyes, a little swaying of men's shoulders as they tried to see better over those who stood before them; and voices rose here and there above the murmur, though not loudly, and were joined by others. Then the King's waxen face darkened, though the expression did not change and the still eyes did not move, but as if something passed between it and the light, leaving it grey in the shadow. He did not turn to look, for he knew that his brother had entered the throne room and that every eye was upon him. Don John was all in dazzling white--white velvet, white satin, white silk, white lace, white shoes, and wearing neither sword nor ornament of any kind, the most faultless vision of young and manly grace that ever glided through a woman's dream. His place was on the King's right, and he passed along the platform of the throne with an easy, unhesitating step, and an almost boyish smile of pleasure at the sounds he heard, and at the flutter of excitement that was in the air, rather to be felt than otherwise perceived. Coming up the steps of the throne, he bent one knee before his brother, who held out his ungloved hand for him to kiss--and when that was done, he knelt again before the Queen, who did likewise. Then, bowing low as he passed back before the King, he descended one step and took the chair set for him in the place that was for the royal princes. He was alone there, for Philip was again childless at his fourth marriage, and it was not until long afterwards that a son was born who lived to succeed him; and there were no royal princesses in Madrid, so that Don John was his brother's only near blood relation at the court, and since he had been acknowledged he would have had his place by right, even if he had not beaten the Moriscoes in the south and won back Granada. After him came the high Ministers of State and the ambassadors in a rich and stately train, led in by Don Antonio Perez, the King's new favourite, a man of profound and evil intelligence, upon whom Philip was to rely almost entirely during ten years, whom he almost tortured to death for his crimes, and who in the end escaped him, outlived him, and died a natural death, in Paris, when nearly eighty. With these came also the court ladies, the Queen's Mistress of the Robes, and the maids of honour, and with the ladies was Doña Ana de la Cerda, Princess of Eboli and Melito and Duchess of Pastrana, the wife of old Don Ruy Gomez de Silva, the Minister. It was said that she ruled her husband, and Antonio Perez and the King himself, and that she was faithless to all three. She was not more than thirty years of age at that time, and she looked younger when seen in profile. But one facing her might have thought her older from the extraordinary and almost masculine strength of her small head and face, compact as a young athlete's, too square for a woman's, with high cheekbones, deep-set black eyes and eyebrows that met between them, and a cruel red mouth that always curled a little just when she was going to speak, and showed extraordinarily perfect little teeth, when the lips parted. Yet she was almost beautiful when she was not angry or in a hurtful mood. The dark complexion was as smooth as a perfect peach, and tinged with warm colour, and her eyes could be like black opals, and no woman in Spain or Andalusia could match her for grace of figure and lightness of step. Others came after in the long train. Then, last of all, at a little distance from the rest, the jester entered, affecting a very dejected air. He stood still a while on the platform, looking about as if to see whether a seat had been reserved for him, and then, shaking his head sadly, he crouched down, a heap of scarlet velvet with a man's face, just at Don John's feet, and turning a little towards him, so as to watch his eyes. But Don John would not look at him, and was surprised that he should put himself there, having just been dismissed with a sharp reprimand for bringing women's messages. The ceremony, if it can be called by that name, began almost as soon as all were seated. At a sign from the King, Don Antonio Perez rose and read out a document which he had brought in his hand. It was a sort of throne speech, and set forth briefly, in very measured terms, the results of the long campaign against the Moriscoes, according high praise to the army in general, and containing a few congratulatory phrases addressed to Don John himself. The audience of nobles listened attentively, and whenever the leader's name occurred, the suppressed flutter of enthusiasm ran through the hall like a breeze that stirs forest leaves in summer; but when the King was mentioned the silence was dead and unbroken. Don John sat quite still, looking down a little, and now and then his colour deepened perceptibly. The speech did not hint at any reward or further distinction to be conferred on him. When Perez had finished reading, he paused a moment, and the hand that held the paper fell to his side. Then he raised his voice to a higher key. "God save his Majesty Don Philip Second!" be cried. "Long live the King!" The courtiers answered the cheer, but moderately, as a matter of course, and without enthusiasm, repeating it three times. But at the last time a single woman's voice, high and clear above all the rest, cried out other words. "God save Don John of Austria! Long live Don John of Austria!" The whole multitude of men and women was stirred at once, for every heart was in the cheer, and in an instant, courtiers though they were, the King was forgotten, the time, the place, and the cry went up all at once, full, long and loud, shaming the one that had gone before it. King Philip's hands strained at the arms of his great chair, and he half rose, as if to command silence; and Don John, suddenly pale, had half risen, too, stretching out his open hand in a gesture of deprecation, while the Queen watched him with timidly admiring eyes, and the dark Princess of Eboli's dusky lids drooped to hide her own, for she was watching him also, but with other thoughts. For a few seconds longer, the cheers followed each other, and then they died away to a comparative silence. The dwarf rocked himself, his head between his knees, at Don John's feet. "God save the Fool!" he cried softly, mimicking the cheer, and he seemed to shake all over, as he sat huddled together, swinging himself to and fro. But no one noticed what he said, for the King had risen to his feet as soon as there was silence. He spoke in a muffled tone that made his words hard to understand, and those who knew him best saw that he was very angry. The Princess of Eboli's red lips curled scornfully as she listened, and unnoticed she exchanged a meaning glance with Antonio Perez; for he and she were allies, and often of late they had talked long together, and had drawn sharp comparisons between the King and his brother, and the plan they had made was to destroy the King and to crown Don John of Austria in his place; but the woman's plot was deeper, and both were equally determined that Don John should not marry without their consent, and that if he did, his marriage should not hold, unless, as was probable, his young wife should fall ill and die of a sickness unknown to physicians. All had risen with the King, and he addressed Don John amidst the most profound silence. "My brother," he said, "your friends have taken upon themselves unnecessarily to use the words we would have used, and to express to you their enthusiasm for your success in a manner unknown at the court of Spain. Our one voice, rendering you the thanks that are your due, can hardly give you great satisfaction after what you have heard just now. Yet we presume that the praise of others cannot altogether take the place of your sovereign's at such a moment, and we formally thank you for the admirable performance of the task entrusted to you, promising that before long your services shall be required for an even more arduous undertaking. It is not in our power to confer upon you any personal distinction or public office higher than you already hold, as our brother, and as High Admiral of Spain; but we trust the day is not far distant when a marriage befitting your rank may place you on a level with kings." Don John had moved a step forward from his place and stood before the King, who, at the end of his short speech, put his long arms over his brother's shoulders, and proceeded to embrace him in a formal manner by applying one cheek to his and solemnly kissing the air behind Don John's head, a process which the latter imitated as nearly as he could. The court looked on in silence at the ceremony, ill satisfied with Philip's cold words. The King drew back, and Don John returned to his place. As he reached it the dwarf jester made a ceremonious obeisance and handed him a glove which he had dropped as he came forward. As he took it he felt that it contained a letter, which made a slight sound when his hand crumpled it inside the glove. Annoyed by the fool's persistence, Don John's eyes hardened as he looked at the crooked face, and almost imperceptibly he shook his head. But the dwarf was as grave as he, and slightly bent his own, clasping his hands in a gesture of supplication. Don John reflected that the matter must be one of importance this time, as Adonis would not otherwise have incurred the risk of passing the letter to him under the eyes of the King and the whole court. Then followed the long and tedious procession of the court past the royal pair, who remained seated, while all the rest stood up, including Don John himself, to whom a master of ceremonies presented the persons unknown to him, and who were by far the more numerous. To the men, old and young, great or insignificant, he gave his hand with frank cordiality. To the women he courteously bowed his head. A full hour passed before it was over, and still he grasped the glove with the crumpled letter in his hand, while the dwarf stood at a little distance, watching in case it should fall; and as the Duchess Alvarez and the Princess of Eboli presented the ladies of Madrid to the young Queen, the Princess often looked at Don John and often at the jester from beneath her half-dropped lids. But she did not make a single mistake of names nor of etiquette, though her mind was much preoccupied with other matters. The Queen was timidly gracious to every one; but Philip's face was gloomy, and his fixed eyes hardly seemed to see the faces of the courtiers as they passed before him, nor did he open his lips to address a word to any of them, though some were old and faithful servants of his own and of his father's. In his manner, in his silence, in the formality of the ceremony, there was the whole spirit of the Spanish dominion. It was sombrely magnificent, and it was gravely cruel; it adhered to the forms of sovereignty as rigidly as to the outward practices of religion; its power extended to the ends of the world, and the most remote countries sent their homage and obeisance to its head; and beneath the dark splendour that surrounded its gloomy sovereigns there was passion and hatred and intrigue. Beside Don John of Austria stood Antonio Perez, and under the same roof with Dolores de Mendoza dwelt Ana de la Cerda, Princess of Eboli, and in the midst of them all Miguel de Antona, the King's fool. * * * * * CHAPTER VII When the ceremony was over, and every one on the platform and steps of the throne moved a little in order to make way for the royal personages, making a slight momentary confusion, Adonis crept up behind Don John, and softly touched his sleeve to attract his attention. Don John looked round quickly, and was annoyed to see the dwarf there. He did not notice the fact that Doña Ana de la Cerda was watching them both, looking sideways without turning her head. "It is a matter of importance," said the jester, in a low voice. "Read it before supper if you can." Don John looked at him a moment, and turned away without answering, or even making a sign that he understood. The dwarf met Doña Ana's eyes, and grew slowly pale, till his face was a yellow mask; for he feared her. The door on the other side of the throne was opened, and the King and Queen, followed by Don John, and preceded by the Master of Ceremonies, went out. The dwarf, who was privileged, went after them with his strange, rolling step, his long arms hanging down and swinging irregularly, as if they did not belong to his body, but were only stuffed things that hung loose from his shoulders. As on all such state occasions, there were separate suppers, in separate apartments, one for the King, and one for the ministers of state and the high courtiers; thirdly, a vast collation was spread in a hall on the other side of the throne room for the many nobles who were but guests at the court and held no office nor had any special privileges. It was the custom at that time that the supper should last an hour, after which all reëntered the throne room to dance, except the King and Queen, who either retired to the royal apartments, or came back for a short time and remained standing on the floor of the hall, in order to converse with a few of the grandees and ambassadors. The royal party supped in a sombre room of oval shape, dark with tapestries and splendid with gold. The King and Queen sat side by side, and Don John was placed opposite them at the table, of which the shape and outline corresponded on a small scale with those of the room. Four or five gentlemen, whose office it was, served the royal couple, receiving the dishes and wines from the hands of the chief butler; and he, with two other servants in state liveries, waited on Don John. Everything was most exactly ordered according to the unchangeable rules of the most formal court in Europe, not even excepting that of Rome. Philip sat in gloomy silence, eating nothing, but occasionally drinking a little Tokay wine, brought with infinite precaution from Hungary to Madrid. As be said nothing, neither the Queen nor Don John could speak, it being ordained that the King must be the first to open his lips. The Queen, however, being young and of a good constitution in spite of her almost delicate appearance, began to taste everything that was set before her, glancing timidly at her husband, who took no notice of her, or pretended not to do so. Don John, soldier-like, made a sparing supper of the first thing that was offered to him, and then sat silently watching the other two. He understood very well that his brother wished to see him in private, and was annoyed that the Queen should make the meal last longer than necessary. The dwarf understood also, and smiled to himself in the corner where he stood waiting in case the King should wish to be amused, which on that particular evening seemed far from likely. But sometimes he turned pale and his lips twisted a little as if he were suffering great pain; for Don John had not yet read the letter that was hidden in his glove; and Adonis saw in the dark corners of the room the Princess of Eboli's cruel half-closed eyes, and he fancied he heard her deep voice, that almost always spoke very sweetly, telling him again and again that if Don John did not read her letter before he met the King alone that night, Adonis should before very long cease to be court jester, and indeed cease to be anything at all that 'eats and drinks and sleeps and wears a coat'--as Dante had said. What Doña Ana said she would do, was as good as done already, both then and for nine years from that time, but thereafter she paid for all her deeds, and more too. But this history is not concerned with those matters, being only the story of what happened in one night at the old Alcazar of Madrid. King Philip sat a little bent in his chair, apparently staring at a point in space, and not opening his lips except to drink. But his presence filled the shadowy room, his large and yellowish face seemed to be all visible from every part of it, and his still eyes dominated everything and every one, except his brother. It was as if the possession of some supernatural and evil being were stealing slowly upon all who were there; as if a monstrous spider sat absolutely motionless in the midst of its web, drawing everything within reach to itself by the unnatural fascination of its lidless sight--as if the gentlemen in waiting were but helpless flies, circling nearer and nearer, to be caught at last in the meshes, and the Queen a bright butterfly, and Don John a white moth, already taken and soon to be devoured. The dwarf thought of this in his corner, and his blood was chilled, for three queens lay in their tombs in three dim cathedrals, and she who sat at table was the fourth who had supped with the royal Spider in his web. Adonis watched him, and the penetrating fear he had long known crept all through him like the chill that shakes a man before a marsh fever, so that he had to set his teeth with all his might, lest they should chatter audibly. As he looked, he fancied that in the light of the waxen torches the King's face turned by degrees to an ashy grey, and then more slowly to a shadowy yellow again, as he had seen a spider's ugly body change colour when the flies came nearer, and change again when one was entangled in the threads. He thought that the faces of all the people in the room changed, too, and that he saw in them the look that only near and certain death can bring, which is in the eyes of him who goes out with bound hands, at dawn, amongst other men who will see the rising sun shine on his dead face. That fear came on the dwarf sometimes, and he dreaded always lest at that moment the King should call to him and bid him sing or play with words. But this had never happened yet. There were others in the room, also, who knew something of that same terror, though in a less degree, perhaps because they knew Philip less well than the jester, who was almost always near him. But Don John sat quietly in his place, no more realizing that there could be danger than if he had been charging the Moors at the head of his cavalry, or fighting a man hand to hand with drawn swords. But still the fear grew, and even the gentlemen and the servants wondered, for it had never happened that the King had not at last broken the silence at supper, so that all guessed trouble near at hand, and peril for themselves. The Queen grew nervous and ceased to eat. She looked from Philip to Don John, and more than once seemed about to speak, but recollected herself and checked the words. Her hand shook and her thin young nostrils quivered now and then. Evil was gathering in the air, and she felt it approaching, though she could not tell whence it came. A sort of tension took possession of every one, like what people feel in southern countries when the southeast wind blows, or when, almost without warning, the fresh sea-breeze dies away to a dead calm and the blackness rises like a tide of pitch among the mountains of the coast, sending up enormous clouds above it to the pale sky, and lying quite still below; and the air grows lurid quickly, and heavy to breathe and sultry, till the tempest breaks in lightning and-thunder and drenching rain. In the midst of the brewing storm the dwarf saw only the Spider in its web, illuminated by the unearthly glare of his own fear, and with it the frightened butterfly and the beautiful silver moth, that had never dreamed of danger. He shrank against the hangings, pressing backwards till he hurt his crooked back against the stone wall behind the tapestry, and could have shrieked with fear had not a greater fear made him dumb. He felt that the King was going to speak to him, and that he should not be able to answer him. A horrible thought suddenly seized him, and he fancied that the King had seen him slip the letter into Don John's glove, and would ask for it, and take it, and read it--and that would be the end. Thrills of torment ran through him, and he knew how it must feel to lie bound on the rack and to hear the executioner's hands on the wheel, ready to turn it again at the judge's word. He had seen a man tortured once, and remembered his face. He was sure that the King must have seen the letter, and that meant torment and death, and the King was angry also because the court had cheered Don John. It was treason, and he knew it--yet it would have been certain death, too, to refuse to obey Doña Ana. There was destruction on either side, and he could not escape. Don John had not read the writing yet, and if the King asked for it, he would probably give it to him without a thought, unopened, for he was far too simple to imagine that any one could accuse him of a treasonable thought, and too boyishly frank to fancy that his brother could be jealous of him--above all, he was too modest to suppose that there were thousands who would have risked their lives to set him on the throne of Spain. He would therefore give the King the letter unopened, unless, believing it to be a love message from some foolish woman, he chose to tear it up unread. The wretched jester knew that either would mean his own disgrace and death, and he quivered with agony from head to foot. The lights moved up and down before his sight, the air grew heavier, the royal Spider took gigantic proportions, and its motionless eyes were lurid with evil It was about to turn to him; he felt it turning already, and knew that it saw him in his corner, and meant to draw him to it, very slowly. In a moment he should fall to the floor a senseless heap, out of deadly fear--it would be well if his fear really killed him, but he could not even hope for that. His hands gripped the hangings on each side of him as he shrank and crushed his deformity against the wall. Surely the King was taming his head. Yes--he was right. He felt his short hair rising on his scalp and unearthly sounds screamed in his ears. The terrible eyes were upon him now, but he could not move hand or foot--if he had been nailed to the wall to die, he could not have been so helpless. Philip eyed him with cold curiosity, for it was not an illusion, and he was really looking steadily at the dwarf. After a long time, his protruding lower lip moved two or three times before he spoke. The jester should have come forward at his first glance, to answer any question asked him. Instead, his colourless lips were parted and tightly drawn back, and his teeth were chattering, do what he could to close them. The Queen and Don John followed the King's gaze and looked at the dwarf in surprise, for his agony was painfully visible. "He looks as if he were in an ague," observed Philip, as though he were watching a sick dog. He had spoken at last, and the fear of silence was removed. An audible sigh of relief was heard in the room. "Poor man!" exclaimed the Queen. "I am afraid he is very ill!" "It is more like--" began Don John, and then he checked himself, for he had been on the point of saying that the dwarfs fit looked more like physical fear than illness, for he had more than once seen men afraid of death; but he remembered the letter in his glove and thought the words might rouse Philip's suspicions. "What was your Serene Highness about to say?" enquired the King, speaking coldly, and laying stress on the formal title which he had himself given Don John the right to use. "As your Majesty says, it is very like the chill of a fever," replied Don John. But it was already passing, for Adonis was not a natural coward, and the short conversation of the royal personages had broken the spell that held him, or had at least diminished its power. When he had entered the room he had been quite sure that no one except the Princess had seen him slip the letter into Don John's glove. That quieting belief began to return, his jaw became steady, and he relaxed his hold on the tapestries, and even advanced half a step towards the table. "And now he seems better," said the King, in evident surprise. "What sort of illness is this, Fool? If you cannot explain it, you shall be sent to bed, and the physicians shall practise experiments upon your vile body, until they find out what your complaint is, for the advancement of their learning." "They would advance me more than their science, Sire," answered Adonis, in a voice that still quaked with past fear, "for they would send me to paradise at once and learn nothing that they wished to know." "That is probable," observed Don John, thoughtfully, for he had little belief in medicine generally, and none at all in the present case. "May it please your Majesty," said Adonis, taking heart a little, "there are musk melons on the table." "Well, what of that?" asked the King. "The sight of melons on your Majesty's table almost kills me," answered the dwarf. "Are you so fond of them that you cannot bear to see them? You shall have a dozen and be made to eat them all. That will cure your abominable greediness." "Provided that the King had none himself, I would eat all the rest, until I died of a surfeit of melons like your Majesty's great-grandsire of glorious and happy memory, the Emperor Maximilian." Philip turned visibly pale, for he feared illness and death as few have feared either. "Why has no one ever told me that?" he asked in a muffled and angry voice, looking round the room, so that the gentlemen and servants shrank back a little. No one answered his question, for though the fact was true, it had been long forgotten, and it would have been hard for any of those present to realize that the King would fear a danger so far removed. But the dwarf knew him well. "Let there be no more melons," said Philip, rising abruptly, and still pale. Don John had suppressed a smile, and was taken unawares when the King rose, so that in standing up instantly, as was necessary according to the rules, his gloves slipped from his knees, where he had kept them during supper, to the floor, and a moment passed before he realized that they were not in his hand. He was still in his place, for the King had not yet left his own, being engaged in saying a Latin grace in a low tone, He crossed himself devoutly, and an instant later Don John stooped down and picked up what he had dropped. Philip could not but notice the action, and his suspicions were instantly roused. "What have you found?" he asked sharply, his eyes fixing themselves again. "My gloves, Sire. I dropped them." "And are gloves such precious possessions that Don John of Austria must stoop to pick them up himself?" Adonis began to tremble again, and all his fear returned, so that he almost staggered against the wall. The Queen looked on in surprise, for she had not been Philip's wife many months. Don John was unconcerned, and laughed in reply to the question. "It chances that after long campaigning these are the only new white gloves Don John of Austria possesses," he answered lightly. "Let me see them," said the King, extending his hand, and smiling suddenly. With some deliberation Don John presented one of the gloves to his brother, who took it and pretended to examine it critically, still smiling. He turned it over several times, while Adonis looked on, gasping for breath, but unnoticed. "The other," said Philip calmly. Adonis tried to suppress a groan, and his eyes were fixed on Don John's face. Would he refuse? Would he try to extract the letter from the glove under his brother's eyes? Would he give it up? Don John did none of those things, and there was not the least change of colour in his cheek. Without any attempt at concealment he took the letter from its hiding-place, and held out the empty glove with his other hand. The King drew back, and his face grew very grey and shadowy with anger. "What have you in your other hand?" he asked in a voice indistinct with passion. "A lady's letter, Sire," replied Don John, unmoved. "Give it to me at once!" "That, your Majesty, is a request I will not grant to any gentleman in Spain." He undid a button of his close-fitting doublet, thrust the letter into the opening and fastened the button again, before the King could speak. The dwarf's heart almost stood still with joy,--he could have crawled to Don John's feet to kiss the dust from his shoes. The Queen smiled nervously, between fear of the one man and admiration for the other. "Your Serene Highness," answered Philip, with a frightful stare, "is the first gentleman of Spain who has disobeyed his sovereign." "May I be the last, your Majesty," said Don John, with a courtly gesture which showed well enough that he had no intention of changing his mind. The King turned from him coldly and spoke to Adonis, who had almost got his courage back a second time. "You gave my message to his Highness, Fool?" he asked, controlling his voice, but not quite steadying it to a natural tone. "Yes, Sire." "Go and tell Don Antonio Perez to come at once to me in my own apartments." The dwarf bent till his crooked back was high above his head, and he stepped backwards towards the door through which the servants had entered and gone out. When he had disappeared, Philip turned and, as if nothing had happened, gave his hand to the Queen to lead her away with all the prescribed courtesy that was her due. The servants opened wide the door, two gentlemen placed themselves on each side of it, the chief gentleman in waiting went before, and the royal couple passed out, followed at a little distance by Don John, who walked unconcernedly, swinging his right glove carelessly in his hand as he went. The four gentlemen walked last. In the hall beyond, Mendoza was in waiting with the guards. A little while after they were all gone, Adonis came back from his errand, with his rolling step, and searched for the other glove on the floor, where the King had dropped it. He found it there at once and hid it in his doubtlet. No one was in the room, for the servants had disappeared as soon as they could. The dwarf went quickly to Don John's place, took a Venetian goblet full of untasted wine that stood there and drank it at a draught. Then he patted himself comfortably with his other hand and looked thoughtfully at the slices of musk melon that lay in the golden dish flanked by other dishes full of late grapes and pears. "God bless the Emperor Maximilian!" he said in a devout tone. "Since he could not live for ever, it was a special grace of Providence that his death should be by melons." Then he went away again, and softly closed the door behind him, after looking back once more to be sure that no one was there after all, and perhaps, as people sometimes do on leaving a place where they have escaped a great danger, fixing its details unconsciously in his memory, with something almost akin to gratitude, as if the lifeless things had run the risk with them and thus earned their lasting friendship. Thus every man who has been to sea knows how, when his vessel has been hove to in a storm for many hours, perhaps during more than one day, within a few miles of the same spot, the sea there grows familiar to him as a landscape to a landsman, so that when the force of the gale is broken at last and the sea subsides to a long swell, and the ship is wore to the wind and can lay her course once more, he looks astern at the grey water he has learned to know so well and feels that he should know it again if he passed that way, and he leaves it with a faint sensation of regret. So Adonis, the jester, left the King's supper-room that night, devoutly thanking Heaven that the Emperor Maximilian had died of eating too many melons more than a hundred and fifty years ago. Meanwhile, the King had left the Queen at the door of her apartments, and had dismissed Don John in angry silence by a gesture only, as he went on to his study. And when there, he sent away his gentlemen and bade that no one should disturb him, and that only Don Antonio Perez, the new favourite, should be admitted. The supper had scarcely lasted half an hour, and it was still early in the evening when he found himself alone and was able to reflect upon what had happened, and upon what it would be best to do to rid himself of his brother, the hero and idol of Spain. He did not admit that Don John of Austria could be allowed to live on, unmolested, as if he had not openly refused to obey an express command and as if he were not secretly plotting to get possession of the throne. That was impossible. During more than two years, Don John's popularity, not only with the people, but with the army, which was a much more serious matter, had been steadily growing; and with it and even faster than it, the King's jealousy and hatred had grown also, till it had become a matter of common discussion and jest among the soldiers when their officers were out of hearing. But though it was without real cause, it was not without apparent foundation. As Philip slowly paced the floor of his most private room, with awkward, ungainly steps, stumbling more than once against a cushion that lay before his great armchair, he saw clearly before him the whole dimensions of that power to which he had unwillingly raised his brother. The time had been short, but the means used had been great, for they had been intended to be means of destruction, and the result was tremendous when they turned against him who used them. Philip was old enough to have been Don John's father, and he remembered how indifferent he had been to the graceful boy of twelve, whom they called Juan Quixada, when he had been brought to the old court at Valladolid and acknowledged as a son of the Emperor Charles. Though he was his brother, Philip had not even granted him the privilege of living in the palace then, and had smiled at the idea that he should be addressed as "Serene Highness." Even as a boy, he had been impatient to fight; and Philip remembered how he was always practising with the sword or performing wild feats of skill and strength upon half-broken horses, except when he was kept to his books by Doña Magdalena Quixada, the only person in the world whom he ever obeyed without question. Every one had loved the boy from the first, and Philip's jealousy had begun from that; for he, who was loved by none and feared by all, craved popularity and common affection, and was filled with bitter resentment against the world that obeyed him but refused him what he most desired. Little more than ten years had passed since the boy had come, and he had neither died a natural death nor fallen in battle, and was grown up to young manhood, and was by far the greatest man in Spain. He had been treated as an inferior, the people had set him up as a god. He had been sent out to command expeditions that be might fail and be disgraced; but he had shown deeper wisdom than his elders, and had come back covered with honour; and now he had been commanded to fight out the final battle of Spain with the Moriscoes, in the hope that he might die in the fight, since he could not be dishonoured, and instead he had returned in triumph, having utterly subdued the fiercest warriors in Europe, to reap the ripe harvest of his military glory at an age when other men were in the leading-strings of war's school, and to be acclaimed a hero as well as a favourite by a court that could hardly raise a voice to cheer for its own King. Ten years had done all that. Ten more, or even five, might do the rest. The boy could not be without ambition, and there could be no ambition for him of which the object should be less than a throne. And yet no word had been breathed against him,--his young reputation was charmed, as his life was. In vain Philip had bidden Antonio Perez and the Princess of Eboli use all their wits and skill to prove that he was plotting to seize the crown. They answered that he loved a girl of the court, Mendoza's daughter, and that besides war, for war's sake, he cared for nothing in the world but Dolores and his adopted mother. They spoke the truth, for they had reason to know it, having used every means in their power to find out whether he could be induced to quarrel with Philip and enter upon a civil war, which could have had but one issue, since all Spain would have risen to proclaim him king. He had been tempted by questions, and led into discussions in which it seemed certain that he must give them some hope. But they and their agents lost heart before the insuperable obstacle of the young prince's loyalty. It was simple, unaffected, and without exaggeration. He never drew his sword and kissed the blade, and swore by the Blessed Virgin to give his last drop of blood for his sovereign and his country. He never made solemn vows to accomplish ends that looked impossible. But when the charge sounded, he pressed his steel cap a little lower upon his brow, and settled himself in the saddle without any words and rode at death like the devil incarnate; and then men followed him, and the impossible was done, and that was all. Or he could wait and watch, and manoeuvre for weeks, until he had his foe in his hand, with a patience that would have failed his officers and his men, had they not seen him always ready and cheerful, and fully sure that although he might fail twenty times to drive the foe into the pen, he should most certainly succeed in the end,--as he always did. Philip paced the chamber in deep and angry thought. If at that moment any one had offered to rid him of his brother, the reward would have been ready, and worth a murderer's taking. But the King had long cherished the scheme of marrying Don John to Queen Mary of Scotland,--whose marriage with Bothwell could easily be annulled--in order that his presumptuous ambition might be satisfied, and at the same time that he might make of his new kingdom a powerful ally of Spain against Elizabeth of England. It was for this reason that he had long determined to prevent his brother's marriage with Maria Dolores de Mendoza. Perez and Doña Ana de la Cerda, on the other hand, feared that if Don John were allowed to marry the girl he so devotedly loved, he would forget everything for her, give up campaigning, and settle to the insignificance of a thoroughly happy man. For they knew the world well from their own point of view. Happiness is often like sadness, for it paralyzes those to whose lot it falls; but pain and danger rouse man's strength of mind and body. Yet though the King and his treacherous favourite had diametrically opposite intentions, a similar thought had crossed the minds of both, even before Don John had ridden up to the palace gate late on that afternoon, from his last camping ground outside the city walls. Both had reasoned that whoever was to influence a man so straightforward and fearless must have in his power and keeping the person for whom Don John would make the greatest sacrifice of his life; and that person, as both knew, was Dolores herself. Yet when Antonio Perez entered Philip's study, neither had guessed the other's thought. * * * * * CHAPTER VIII The court had been still at supper when Adonis had summoned Don Antonio Perez to the King, and the Secretary, as he was usually called, had been obliged to excuse his sudden departure by explaining that the King had sent for him unexpectedly. He was not even able to exchange a word with Doña Ana, who was seated at another of the three long tables and at some distance from him. She understood, however, and looked after him anxiously. His leaving was not signal for the others, but it caused a little stir which unhinged the solemn formality of the supper. The Ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire presently protested that he was suffering from an unbearable headache, and the Princess of Eboli, next to whom he was seated, begged him not to stand upon ceremony, since Perez was gone from the room, but to order his coach at once; she found it hot, she said, and would be glad to escape. The two rose together, and others followed their example, until the few who would have stayed longer were constrained to imitate the majority. When Mendoza, relieved at last from his duty, went towards the supper-room to take the place that was kept for him at one of the tables, he met Doña Ana in the private corridor through which the officers and ladies of the household passed to the state apartments. He stood still, surprised to see her there. "The supper is over," she said, stopping also, and trying to scrutinize the hard old face by the dim light of the lamps. "May I have a word with you, General? Let us walk together to your apartments." "It is far, Madam," observed Mendoza, who suspected at once that she wished to see Dolores. "I shall be glad to walk a little, and breathe the air," she answered. "Your corridor has arches open to the air, I remember." She began to walk, and he was obliged to accompany her. "Yes," she continued indifferently, "we have had such changeable weather to-day! This morning it almost snowed, then it rained, then it, began to freeze, and now it feels like summer! I hope Dolores has not taken cold? Is she ill? She was not at court before supper." "The weather is indeed very changeable," replied the General, who did not know what to say, and considered it beneath his dignity to lie except by order of the King. "Yes--yes, I was saying so, was I not? But Dolores--is she ill? Please tell me." The Princess spoke almost anxiously. "No, Madam, my daughters are well, so far as I know." "But then, my dear General, it is strange that you should not have sent an excuse for Dolores' not appearing. That is the rule, you know. May I ask why you ventured to break it?" Her tone grew harder by degrees. "It was very sudden," said Mendoza, trying to put her off. "I hope that your Grace will excuse my daughter." "What was sudden?" enquired Doña Ana coldly. "You say she was not taken ill." "Her--her not coming to court." Mendoza hesitated and pulled at his grey beard as they went along. "She fully intended to come," he added, with perfect truth. Doña Ana walked more slowly, glancing sideways at his face, though she could hardly see it except when they passed by a lamp, for he was very tall, and she was short, though exquisitely proportioned. "I do not understand," she said, in a clear, metallic voice. "I have a right to an explanation, for it is quite impossible to give the ladies of the court who live in the palace full liberty to attend upon the Queen or not, as they please. You will be singularly fortunate if Don Antonio Perez does not mention the matter to the King." Mendoza was silent, but the words had their effect upon him, and a very unpleasant one, for they contained a threat. "You see," continued the Princess, pausing as they reached a flight of steps which they would have to ascend, "every one acknowledges the importance of your services, and that you have been very poorly rewarded for them. But that is in a degree your own fault, for you have refused to make friends when you might, and you have little interest with the King." "I know it," said the old soldier, rather bitterly. "Princess," he continued, without giving her time to say more, "this is a private matter, which concerns only me and my daughter. I entreat you to overlook the irregularity and not to question me further. I will serve you in any way in my power--" "You cannot serve me in any way," answered Doña Ana cruelly. "I am trying to help you," she added, with a sudden change of tone. "You see, my dear General, you are no longer young. At your age, with your name and your past services, you should have been a grandee and a rich man. You have thrown away your opportunities of advancement, and you have contented yourself with an office which is highly honourable--but poorly paid, is it not? And there are younger men who court it for the honour alone, and who are willing to be served by their friends." "Who is my successor?" asked Mendoza, bravely controlling his voice though he felt that he was ruined. The skilful and cruel woman began to mount the steps in silence, in order to let him suffer a few moments, before she answered. Reaching the top, she spoke, and her voice was soft and kind. "No one," she answered, "and there is nothing to prevent you from keeping your post as long as you like, even if you become infirm and have to appoint a deputy--but if there were any serious cause of complaint, like this extraordinary behaviour of Dolores--why, perhaps--" She paused to give her words weight, for she knew their value. "Madam," said Mendoza, "the matter I keep from you does not touch my honour, and you may know it, so far as that is concerned. But it is one of which I entreat you not to force me to speak." Doña Ana softly passed her arm through his. "I am not used to walking so fast," she said, by way of explanation. "But, my dear Mendoza," she went on, pressing his arm a little, "you do not think that I shall let what you tell me go further and reach any one else--do you? How can I be of any use to you, if you have no confidence in me? Are we not relatives? You must treat me as I treat you." Mendoza wished that he could. "Madam," he said almost roughly, "I have shut my daughter up in her own room and bolted the door, and to-morrow I intend to send her to a convent, and there she shall stay until she changes her mind, for I will not change mine" "Oh!" ejaculated Doña Ana, with a long intonation, as if grasping the position of affairs by degrees. "I understand," she said, after a long time. "But then you and I are of the same opinion, my dear friend. Let us talk about this." Mendoza did not wish to talk of the matter at all, and said nothing, as they slowly advanced. They had at last reached the passage that ended at his door, and he slackened his pace still more, obliging his companion, whose arm was still in his, to keep pace with him. The moonlight no longer shone in straight through the open embrasures, and there was a dim twilight in the corridor. "You do not wish Dolores to marry Don John of Austria, then," said the Princess presently, in very low tones. "Then the King is on your side, and so am I. But I should like to know your reason for objecting to such a very great marriage." "Simple enough, Madam. Whenever it should please his Majesty's policy to marry his brother to a royal personage, such as Queen Mary of Scotland, the first marriage would be proved null and void, because the King would command that it should be so, and my daughter would be a dishonoured woman, fit for nothing but a convent." "Do you call that dishonour?" asked the Princess thoughtfully. "Even if that happened, you know that Don John would probably not abandon Dolores. He would keep her near him--and provide for her generously--" "Madam!" cried the brave old soldier, interrupting her in sudden and generous anger, "neither man nor woman shall tell me that my daughter could ever fall to that!" She saw that she had made a mistake, and pressed his arm soothingly. "Pray, do not be angry with me, my dear friend. I was thinking what the world would say--no, let me speak! I am quite of your opinion that Dolores should be kept from seeing Don John, even by quiet force if necessary, for they will certainly be married at the very first opportunity they can find. But you cannot do such things violently, you know. You will make a scandal. You cannot take your daughter away from court suddenly and shut her up in a convent without doing her a great injury. Do you not see that? People will not understand that you will not let her marry Don John--I mean that most people would find it hard to believe. Yes, the world is bad, I know; what can one do? The world would say--promise me that you will not be angry, dear General! You can guess what the world would say."' "I see--I see!" exclaimed the old man, in sudden terror for his daughter's good name. "How wise you are!" "Yes," answered Doña Ana, stopping at ten paces from the door, "I am wise, for I am obliged to be. Now, if instead of locking Dolores into her room two or three hours ago, you had come to me, and told me the truth, and put her under my protection, for our common good, I would have made it quite impossible for her to exchange a word with Don John, and I would have taken such good care of her that instead of gossiping about her, the world would have said that she was high in favour, and would have begun to pay court to her. You know that I have the power to do that." "How very wise you are!" exclaimed Mendoza again, with more emphasis. "Very well. Will you let me take her with me now, my dear friend? I will console her a little, for I daresay she has been crying all alone in her room, poor girl, and I can keep her with me till Don John goes to Villagarcia. Then we shall see." Old Mendoza was a very simple-hearted man, as brave men often are, and a singularly spotless life spent chiefly in war and austere devotion had left him more than ignorant of the ways of the world. He had few friends, chiefly old comrades of his own age who did not live in the palace, and he detested gossip. Had he known what the woman was with whom he was speaking, he would have risked Dolores' life rather than give her into the keeping of Doña Ana. But to him, the latter was simply the wife of old Don Ruy Gomez de Silva, the Minister of State, and she was the head of the Queen's household. No one would have thought of repeating the story of a court intrigue to Mendoza, but it was also true that every one feared Doña Ana, whose power was boundless, and no one wished to be heard speaking ill of her. To him, therefore, her proposition seemed both wise and kind. "I am very grateful," he said, with some emotion, for he believed that she was helping him to save his fortune and his honour, as was perhaps really the case, though she would have helped him to lose both with equally persuasive skill could his ruin have served her. "Will you come in with me, Princess?" he asked, beginning to move towards the door. "Yes. Take me to her room and leave me with her." "Indeed, I would rather not see her myself this evening," said Mendoza, feeling his anger still not very far from the surface. "You will be able to speak more wisely than I should." "I daresay," answered Doña Ana thoughtfully. "If you went with me to her, there might be angry words again, and that would make it much harder for me. If you will leave me at the door of her rooms, and then go away, I will promise to manage the rest. You are not sorry that you have told me, now, are you, my dear friend?" "I am most grateful to you. I shall do all I can to be of service to you, even though you said that it was not in my power to serve you." "I was annoyed," said Doña Ana sweetly. "I did not mean it--please forgive me." They reached the door, and as she withdrew her hand from his arm, he took it and ceremoniously kissed her gloved fingers, while she smiled graciously. Then he knocked three times, and presently the shuffling of Eudaldo's slippers was heard within, and the old servant opened sleepily. On seeing the Princess enter first, he stiffened himself in a military fashion, for he had been a soldier and had fought under Mendoza when both were younger. "Eudaldo," said the General, in the stern tone he always used when giving orders, "her Excellency the Princess of Eboli will take Doña Dolores to her own apartments this evening. Tell the maid to follow later with whatever my daughter needs, and do you accompany the ladies with a candle." But at this Doña Ana protested strongly. There was moonlight, there were lamps, there was light everywhere, she said. She needed no one. Mendoza, who had no man-servant in the house but Eudaldo, and eked out his meagre establishment by making use of his halberdiers when he needed any one, yielded after very little persuasion. "Open the door of my daughter's apartments," he said to Eudaldo. "Madam," he said, turning to the Princess, "I have the honour to wish you good-night. I am your Grace's most obedient servant. I must return to my duty." "Good-night, my dear friend," answered Doña Ana, nodding graciously. Mendoza bowed low, and went out again, Eudaldo closing the door behind him. He would not be at liberty until the last of the grandees had gone home, and the time he had consumed in accompanying the Princess was just what he could have spared for his supper. She gave a short sigh of relief as she heard his spurred heels and long sword on the stone pavement. He was gone, leaving Dolores in her power, and she meant to use that power to the utmost. Eudaldo shuffled silently across the hall, to the other door, and she followed him. He drew the bolt. "Wait here," she said quietly. "I wish to see Doña Dolores alone." "Her ladyship is in the farther room, Excellency," said the servant, bowing and standing back. She entered and closed the door, and Eudaldo returned to his big chair, to doze until she should come out. She had not taken two steps in the dim room, when a shadow flitted between her and the lamp, and it was almost instantly extinguished. She uttered an exclamation of surprise and stood still. Anywhere save in Mendoza's house, she would have run back and tried to open the door as quickly as possible, in fear of her life, for she had many enemies, and was constantly on her guard. But she guessed that the shadowy figure she had seen was Dolores. She spoke, without hesitation, in a gentle voice. "Dolores! Are you there?" she asked. A moment later she felt a small hand on her arm. "Who is it?" asked a whisper, which might have come from Dolores' lips for all Doña Ana could tell. She had forgotten the existence of Inez, whom she had rarely seen, and never noticed, though she knew that Mendoza had a blind daughter. "It is I--the Princess of Eboli," she answered in the same gentle tone. "Hush! Whisper to me." "Your father has gone back to his duty, my dear--you need not be afraid." "Yes, but Eudaldo is outside--he hears everything when he is not asleep. What is it, Princess? Why are you here?" "I wish to talk with you a little," replied Doña Ana, whispering now, to please the girl. "Can we not get a light? Why did you put out the lamp? I thought you were in another room." "I was frightened. I did not know who you were. We can talk in the dark, if you do not mind. I will lead you to a chair. I know just where everything is in this room." The Princess suffered herself to be led a few steps, and presently she felt herself gently pushed into a seat. She was surprised, but realizing the girl's fear of her father, she thought it best to humour her. So far Inez had said nothing that could lead her visitor to suppose that she was not Dolores. Intimate as the devoted sisters were, Inez knew almost as much of the Princess as Dolores herself; the two girls were of the same height, and so long as the conversation was carried on in whispers, there was no possibility of detection by speech alone. The quick-witted blind girl reflected that it was strange if Doña Ana had not seen Dolores, who must have been with the court the whole evening, and she feared some harm. That being the case, her first impulse was to help her sister if possible, but so long as she was a prisoner in Dolores' place, she could do nothing, and she resolved that the Princess should help her to escape. Doña Ana began to speak quickly and fluently in the dark. She said that she knew the girl's position, and had long known how tenderly she loved Don John of Austria, and was loved by him. She sympathized deeply with them both, and meant to do all in her power to help them. Then she told how she had missed Dolores at court that night. Inez started involuntarily and drew her breath quickly, but Doña Ana thought it natural that Dolores should give some expression to the disappointment she must have felt at being shut up a prisoner on such an occasion, when all the court was assembled to greet the man she loved. Then the Princess went on to tell how she had met Mendoza and had come with him, and how with great difficulty she had learned the truth, and had undertaken Dolores' care for a few days; and how Mendoza had been satisfied, never suspecting that she really sympathized with the lovers. That was a state secret, but of course Dolores must know it. The King privately desired the marriage, she said, because he was jealous of his brother and wished that he would tire of winning battles and live quietly, as happy men do. "Don John will tell you, when you see him," she continued. "I sent him two letters this evening. The first he burned unopened, because he thought it was a love letter, but he has read the second by this time. He had it before supper." "What did you write to him?" asked Inez, whispering low. "He will tell you. The substance was this: If he would only be prudent, and consent to wait two days, and not attempt to see you alone, which would make a scandal, and injure you, too, if any one knew it, the King would arrange everything at his own pleasure, and your father would give his consent. You have not seen Don John since he arrived, have you?" She asked the question anxiously. "Oh no!" answered the blind girl, with conviction. "I have not seen him. I wish to Heaven I had!" "I am glad of that," whispered the Princess. "But if you will come with me to my apartments, and stay with me till matters are arranged--well--I will not promise, because it might be dangerous, but perhaps you may see him for a moment." "Really? Do you think that is possible?" In the dark Inez was smiling sadly. "Perhaps. He might come to see me, for instance, or my husband, and I could leave you together a moment." "That would be heaven!" And the whisper came from the heart. "Then come with me now, my dear, and I will do my best," answered the Princess. "Indeed I will! But will you wait one moment while I dress? I am in my old frock--it is hardly fit to be seen." This was quite true; but Inez had reflected that dressed as she was she could not pass Eudaldo and be taken by him for her sister, even with a hood over her head. The clothes Dolores had worn before putting on her court dress were in her room, and Dolores' hood was there, too. Before the Princess could answer, Inez was gone, closing the door of the bedroom behind her. Doña Ana, a little taken by surprise again, was fain to wait where she was, in the dark, at the risk of hurting herself against the furniture. Then it struck her that Dolores must be dressing in the dark, for no light had come from the door as it was opened and shut. She remembered the blind sister then, and she wondered idly whether those who lived continually with the blind learned from them to move easily in the dark and to do everything without a light. The question did not interest her much, but while she was thinking of it the door opened again. A skirt and a bodice are soon changed. In a moment she felt her hand taken, and she rose to her feet. "I am ready, Princess. I will open the door if you will come with me. I have covered my head and face," she added carelessly, though always whispering, "because I am afraid of the night air." "I was going to advise you to do it in any case, my dear. It is just as well that neither of us should be recognized by any one in the corridors so far from my apartments." The door opened and let in what seemed a flood of light by comparison with the darkness. The Princess went forward, and Eudaldo got upon his legs as quickly as he could to let the two ladies out, without looking at them as they crossed the hall. Inez followed her companion's footfall exactly, keeping one step behind her by ear, and just pausing before passing out. The old servant saw Dolores' dress and Dolores' hood, which he expected to see, and no more suspected anything than he had when, as he supposed, Inez, had gone out earlier. But Inez herself had a far more difficult part to perform than her sister's. Dolores had gone out alone, and no one had watched her beyond the door, and Dolores had eyes, and could easily enough pretend that she could not see. It was another matter to be blind and to play at seeing, with a clever woman like the Princess at one's elbow, ready to detect the slightest hesitation. Besides, though she had got out of the predicament in which it had been necessary to place her, it was quite impossible to foresee what might happen when the Princess discovered that she had been deceived, and that catastrophe must happen sooner or later, and might occur at any moment. The Princess walked quickly, too, with a gliding, noiseless step that was hard to follow. Fortunately Inez was expected to keep to the left of a superior like her companion, and was accustomed to taking that side when she went anywhere alone in the palace. That made it easier, but trouble might come at one of the short flights of steps down and up which they would have to pass to reach the Princess's apartments. And then, once there, discovery must come, to a certainty, and then, she knew not what. She had not run the risk for the sake of being shut up again. She had got out by a trick in order to help her sister, if she could find her, and in order to be at liberty the first thing necessary was to elude her companion. To go to the door of her apartments would be fatal, but she had not had time to think what she should do. She thought now, with all the concentration of her ingenuity. One chance presented itself to her mind at once. They most pass the pillar behind which was the concealed entrance to the Moorish gallery above the throne room, and it was not at all likely that Doña Ana should know of its existence, for she never came to that part of the palace, and if Inez lagged a little way behind, before they reached the spot, she could slip noiselessly behind the pillar and disappear. She could always trust herself not to attract attention when she had to open and shut a door. The Princess spoke rarely, making little remarks now and then that hardly required an answer, but to which Inez answered in monosyllables, speaking in a low voice through the thick veil she had drawn over her mantle under her hood, on pretence of fearing the cold. She thought it a little safer to speak aloud in that way, lest her companion should wonder at her total silence. She knew exactly where she was, for she touched each corner as she passed, and counted her steps between one well-known point and the next, and she allowed the Princess to gain a little as they neared the last turning before reaching the place where she meant to make the attempt. She hoped in this way, by walking quite noiselessly, and then stopping suddenly just before she reached the pillar, to gain half a dozen paces, and the Princess would take three more before she stopped also. Inez had noticed that most people take at least three steps before they stop, if any one calls them suddenly when they are walking fast. It seems to need as much to balance the body when its speed is checked. She noticed everything that could be heard. She grew nervous. It seemed to her that her companion was walking more slowly, as if not wishing to leave her any distance behind. She quickened her own pace again, fearing that she had excited suspicion. Then she heard the Princess stop suddenly, and she had no choice but to do the same. Her heart began to beat painfully, as she saw her chance slipping from her. She waited for Doña Ana to speak, wondering what was the matter. "I have mistaken the way," said the Princess, in a tone of annoyance. "I do not know where I am. We had better go back and turn down the main staircase, even if we meet some one. You see, I never come to this part of the palace." "I think we are on the right corridor," said Inez nervously. "Let me go as far as the corner. There is a light there, and I can tell you in a moment." In her anxiety to seem to see, she had forgotten for the moment to muffle her voice in her veil. They went on rapidly, and the Doña Ana did what most people do when a companion offers to examine the way,--she stood still a moment and hesitated, looking after the girl, and then followed her with the slow step with which a person walks who is certain of having to turn back. Inez walked lightly to the corner, hardly touching the wall, turned by the corner, and was out of sight in a moment. The Princess walked faster, for though she believed that Dolores trusted her, it seemed foolish to give the girl a chance. She reached the corner, where there was a lamp,--and she saw that the dim corridor was empty to the very end. * * * * * CHAPTER IX The Princess was far from suspecting, even then, that she had been deceived about her companion's identity as well as tricked at the last, when Inez escaped from her. She would have laughed at the idea that any blind person could have moved as confidently as Inez, or could afterwards have run the length of the next corridor in what had seemed but an instant, for she did not know of the niche behind the pillar, and there were pilasters all along, built into the wall. The construction of the high, springing vault that covered the whole throne room required them for its solidity, and only the one under the centre of the arch was built as a detached pillar, in order to give access to the gallery. Seen from either end of the passage, it looked exactly like the rest, and few persons would have noticed that it differed from them, even in passing it. Doña Ana stood looking in the direction she supposed the girl to have taken. An angry flush rose in her cheek, she bit her lips till they almost bled, and at last she stamped once before she turned away, so that her little slipper sent a sharp echo along the corridor. Pursuit was out of the question, of course, though she could run like a deer; some one might meet her at any turning, and in an hour the whole palace would know that she had been seen running at full speed after some unknown person. It would be bad enough if she were recognized walking alone at night at a distance from her own apartments. She drew her veil over her face so closely that she could hardly see her way, and began to retrace her steps towards the principal staircase, pondering as to what she should say to Mendoza when he discovered that she had allowed his daughter to escape. She was a woman of manlike intelligence and not easily unbalanced by a single reverse, however, and before she had gone far her mind began to work clearly. Dolores, she reasoned, would do one of two things. She would either go straight to Don John's apartments, wait for him, and then tell him her story, in the hope that he would protect her, or she would go to the Duchess Alvarez and seek protection there. Under no circumstances would she go down to the throne room without her court dress, for her mere appearance there, dressed as she was, would produce the most profound astonishment, and could do her no possible good. And as for her going to the Duchess, that was impossible, too. If she had run away from Doña Ana, she had done so because the idea of not seeing Don John for two days was intolerable, and she meant to try and see him at once. The Duchess was in all probability with the Queen, in the latter's private apartments, as Dolores would know. On the whole, it seemed far more likely that she had done the rashest thing that had suggested itself to her, and had gone directly to the man she loved,--a man powerful enough to protect her against all comers, at the present time, and quite capable of facing even the King's displeasure. But the whole object of Doña Ana's manoeuvre had been to get possession of Dolores' person, as a means of strongly influencing Don John's actions, in order thus to lead him into a false position from which he should not be able to escape without a serious quarrel with King Philip, which would be the first step towards the execution of the plot elaborated by Doña Ana and Perez together. Anything which could produce an open difference between the brothers would serve to produce two parties in Spain, of which the one that would take Don John's side would be by far the stronger. His power would be suddenly much increased, an organized agitation would be made throughout the country to set him on the throne, and his popularity, like Cæsar's, would grow still more, when he refused the crown, as he would most certainly do. But just then King Philip would die suddenly of a fever, or a cold, or an indigestion, as the conspirators thought best. There would be no direct male heir to the throne but Don John himself, the acknowledged son of the Emperor Charles; and even Don John would then be made to see that he could only serve his country by ruling it, since it cried out for his rule and would have no other. It was a hard and dangerous thing to lead King Philip; it would be an easy matter to direct King John. An honest and unsuspicious soldier would be but as a child in such skilful hands. Doña Ana and Perez would rule Spain as they pleased, and by and by Don John should be chosen Emperor also by the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire, and the conspirators would rule the world, as Charles the Fifth had ruled it. There was no limit to their ambition, and no scruple would stand between them and any crime, and the stake was high and worth many risks. The Princess walked slowly, weighing in the balance all there was to lose or gain. When she reached the head of the main staircase, she had not yet altogether decided how to act, and lest she should meet some one she returned, and walked up and down the lonely corridor nearly a quarter of an hour, in deep thought. Suddenly a plan of action flashed upon her, and she went quickly on her way, to act at once. Don John, meanwhile, had read the letter she had sent him by the dwarf jester. When the King had retired into his own apartments, Don John found himself unexpectedly alone. Mendoza and the guard had filed into the antechamber, the gentlemen in waiting, being temporarily at liberty, went to the room leading out of it on one side, which was appropriated to their use. The sentries were set at the King's door, and Mendoza marched his halberdiers out again and off to their quarters, while the servants disappeared, and the hero of the day was left to himself. He smiled at his own surprise, recollecting that he should have ordered his own attendants to be in waiting after the supper, whereas he had dismissed them until midnight. He turned on his heel and walked away to find a quiet place where he might read the paper which had suddenly become of such importance, and paused at a Moorish niche, where Philip had caused a sacred picture to be placed, and before which a hanging silver lamp shed a clear light. The small sheet of paper contained but little writing. There were half a dozen sentences in a clear hand, without any signature--it was what has since then come to be called an anonymous letter. But it contained neither any threat, nor any evidence of spite; it set forth in plain language that if, as the writer supposed, Don John wished to marry Dolores de Mendoza, it was as necessary for her personal safety as for the accomplishment of his desires, that he should make no attempt to see her for at least two days, and that, if he would accept this advice, he should have the support of every noble and minister at court, including the very highest, with the certainty that no further hindrance would be set in his way; it added that the letter he had burned had contained the same words, and that the two flowers had been intended to serve as a signal which it was now too late to use. It would be sufficient if he told the bearer of the present letter that he agreed to take the advice it contained. His assent in that way would, of course, be taken by the writer to mean that he promised, on his word. That was all. He did not like the last sentence, for it placed him in an awkward position, as a man of honour, since he had already seen Dolores, and therefore could not under any circumstances agree to take advice contrary to which he had already acted. The most he could now say to the dwarf would be that he could give no answer and would act as carefully as possible. For the rest, the letter contained nothing treasonable, and was not at all what he had expected and believed it to be. It appeared to be written in a friendly spirit, and with the exception of his own brother and Mendoza, he was not aware that he had an enemy in Spain, in which he was almost right. Nevertheless, bold and frank as he was by nature, he knew enough of real warfare to distrust appearances. The writer was attached to the King's person, or the letter might have been composed, and even written in an assumed hand, by the King himself, for Philip was not above using the methods of a common conspirator. The limitation of time set upon his prudence was strange, too. If he had not seen her and agreed to the terms, he would have supposed that Dolores was being kept out of his way during those two days, whereas in that time it would be possible to send her very far from Madrid, or to place her secretly in a convent where it would be impossible to find her. It flashed upon him that in shutting up Dolores that evening Mendoza had been obeying the King's secret orders, as well as in telling her that she was to be taken to Las Huelgas at dawn. No one but Philip could have written the letter--only the dwarf's fear of Philip's displeasure could have made him so anxious that it should be read at once. It was all as clear as daylight now, and the King and Mendoza were acting together. The first letter had been brought by a woman, who must have got out through the window of the study, which was so low that she could almost have stepped from it to the terrace without springing. She had watched until the officers and the servants had gone out and the way was clear. Nothing could have been simpler or easier. He would have burnt the letter at the lamp before the picture, had he not feared that some one might see him do it, and he folded it again and thrust it back under his doublet. His face was grave as he turned away, for the position, as he understood it, was a very desperate one. He had meant to send Dolores to Villagarcia, but it was almost impossible that such a matter should remain unknown, and in the face of the King's personal opposition, it would probably ruin Quixada and his wife. He, on his side, might send Dolores to a convent, under an assumed name, and take her out again before she was found, and marry her. But that would be hard, too, for no places were more directly under the sovereign's control than convents and monasteries. Somewhere she must go, for she could not possibly remain concealed in his study more than three or four hours. Suddenly he fancied that she might be in danger even now. The woman who had brought the first letter had of course left the window unfastened. She, or the King, or any one, might get in by that way, and Dolores was alone. They might have taken her away already. He cursed himself for not having looked to see that the window was bolted. The man who had won great battles felt a chill at his heart, and he walked at the best of his speed, careless whether he met any one or not. But no place is more deserted than the more distant parts of a royal palace when there is a great assembly in the state apartments. He met no one on his way, and entered his own door alone. Ten minutes had not elapsed since the King had left the supper-room, and it was almost at that moment that Doña Ana met Mendoza. Dolores started to her feet as she heard his step in the next room and then the key in the lock, and as he entered her hands clasped themselves round his neck, and her eyes looked into his. He was very pale when he saw her at last, for the belief that she had been stolen away had grown with his speed, till it was an intolerable certainty. "What is it? What has happened?" she cried anxiously. "Why are you so white? Are you ill?" "I was frightened," he said simply. "I was afraid you were gone. Look here!" He led her to the window, and drew the curtain to one side. The cool air rushed in, for the bolts were unfastened, and the window was ajar. He closed it and fastened it securely, and they both came back. "The woman got out that way," he said, in explanation. "I understand it all now--and some one might have come back." He told her quietly what had happened, and showed her the letter, which she read slowly to the end before she gave it back to him. "Then the other was not a love letter, after all," she said, with a little laugh that had more of relief in it than amusement, though she did not know it herself. "No," he answered gravely. "I wish I had read it. I should at least have shut the window before leaving you!" Careless of any danger to herself, she sat looking up into his anxious face, her clasped hands lying in his and quite covered by them, as he stood beside her. There was not a trace of fear in her own face, nor indeed of any feeling but perfect love and confidence. Under the gaze of her deep grey eyes his expression relaxed for a moment, and grew like hers, so that it would have been hard to say which trusted the other the more. "What does anything matter, since we are together now?" she asked. "I am with you, can anything happen to me?" "Not while I am alive," he answered, but the look of anxiety for her returned at once. "You cannot stay here." "No--you will take me away. I am ready--" "I do not mean that. You cannot stay in this room, nor in my apartments. The King is coming here in a few minutes. I cannot tell what he may do--he may insist on seeing whether any one is here, listening, for he is very suspicious, and he only comes here because he does not even trust his own apartments. He may wish to open the door--" "I will lock it on the inside. You can say that it is locked, and that you have not the key. If he calls men to open it, I will escape by the window, and hide in the old sentry-box. He will not stay talking with you till morning!" She laughed, and he saw that she was right, simply because there was no other place where she could be even as safe as where she was. He slowly nodded as she spoke. "You see," she cried, with another little laugh of happy satisfaction, "you must keep me here whether you will or not! You are really afraid--frightened like a boy! You! How men would stare if they could see you afraid!" "It is true," he answered, with a faint smile. "But I will give you courage!" she said. "The King cannot come yet. Perez can only have just gone to him, you say. They will talk at least half an hour, and it is very likely that Perez will persuade him not to come at all, because he is angry with you. Perhaps Perez will come instead, and he will be very smooth and flattering, and bring messages of reconciliation, and beg to make peace. He is very clever, but I do not like his face. He makes me think of a beautiful black fox! Even if the King comes himself, we have more than half an hour. You can stay a little while with me--then go into your room and sit down and read, as if you were waiting for him. You can read my letter over, and I will sit here and say all the things I wrote, over and over again, and you will know that I am saying them--it will be almost as if I were with you, and could say them quite close to you--like this--I love you!" She had drawn his hand gently down to her while she was speaking, and she whispered the last words into his ear with a delicate little kiss that sent a thrill straight to his heart. "You are not afraid any more now, are you?" she asked, as she let him go, and he straightened himself suddenly as a man drawing back from something he both fears and loves. He opened and shut his hands quickly two or three times, as some nervous men do, as if trying to shake them clear from a spell, or an influence. Then he began to walk up and down, talking to her. "I am at my wit's end," he said, speaking fast and not looking at her face, as he turned and turned again. "I cannot send you to Villagarcia--there are things that neither you nor I could do, even for each other, things you would not have me do for you, Dolores. It would be ruin and disgrace to my adopted mother and Quixada--it might be worse, for the King can call anything he pleases high treason. It is impossible to take you there without some one knowing it--can I carry you in my arms? There are grooms, coachmen, servants, who will tell anything under examination--under torture! How can I send you there?" "I would not go," answered Dolores quietly. "I cannot send you to a convent, either," he went on, for he had taken her answer for granted, as lovers do who trust each other. "You would be found in a day, for the King knows everything. There is only one place, where I am master--" He stopped short, and grew very pale again, looking at the wall, but seeing something very far away. "Where?" asked Dolores. "Take me there! Oh, take me where you are master--where there is no king but you, where we can be together all our lives, and no one can come between us!" He stood motionless, staring at the wall, contemplating in amazement the vastness of the temptation that arose before him. Dolores could not understand, but she did what a loving women does when the man she loves seems to be in a great distress. She came and stood beside him, passing one arm through his and pressing it tenderly, without a word. There are times when a man needs only that to comfort him and give him strength. But even a woman does not always know them. Very slowly he turned to her, almost as if he were trying to resist her eyes and could not. He took his arm from hers and his hands framed her face softly, and pushed the gold hair gently back on her forehead. But she grew frightened by degrees, for there was a look in his eyes she had never seen there, and that had never been in them before, neither in love nor in battle. His hands were quite cold, and his face was like a beautiful marble, but there was an evil something in it, as in a fallen angel's, a defiance of God, an irresistible strength to do harm, a terror such as no man would dare to meet. "You are worth it," he said in a tone so different from his natural voice that Dolores started, and would have drawn back from him, but could not, for his hands held her, shaking a little fiercely. "What? What is it?" she asked, growing more and more frightened--half believing that he was going mad. "You are worth it," he repeated. "I tell you, you are worth that, and much more, and the world, and all the world holds for me, and all earth and heaven besides. You do not know how I love you--you can never guess--" Her eyes grew tender again, and her hands went up and pressed his that still framed her face. "As I love you--dear love!" she answered, wondering, but happy. "No--not now. I love you more. You cannot guess--you shall see what I will do for your sake, and then you will understand." He uttered an incoherent exclamation, and his eyes dazzled her as he seized her in his arms and pressed her to him so that she could have cried out. And suddenly he kissed her, roughly, almost cruelly, as if he meant to hurt her, and knew that he could. She struggled in his arms, in an unknown terror of him, and her senses reeled. Then all at once, he let her go, and turned from her quickly, leaving her half fainting, so that she leaned against the wall and pressed her cheek to the rough hanging. She felt a storm of tears, that she could not understand, rising in her heart and eyes and throat. He had crossed the room, getting as far as he could from her, and stood there, turned to the wall, his arms bent against it and his face buried in his sleeve. He breathed hard, and spoke as if to himself in broken words. "Worth it? My God! What are you not worth?" There was such a ring of agony and struggling in his voice that Dolores forgot herself and stood up listening, suddenly filled with anxiety for him again. He was surely going mad. She would have gone to him again, forgetting her terror that was barely past, the woman's instinct to help the suffering man overruling everything else. It was for his sake that she stayed where she was, lest if she touched him he should lose his senses altogether. "Oh, there is one place, where I am master and lord!" he was saying. "There is one thing to do--one thing--" "What is the thing?" she asked very gently. "Why are you suffering so? Where is the place?" He turned suddenly, as he would have turned in his saddle in battle at a trumpet call, straight and strong, with fixed eyes and set lips, that spoke deliberately. "There is Granada," he said. "Do you understand now?" "No," she answered timidly. "I do not understand. Granada? Why there? It is so far away--" He laughed harshly. "You do not understand? Yes, Granada is far away--far enough to be another kingdom--so far that John of Austria is master there--so far that with his army at his back he can be not only its master, but its King? Do you understand now? Do you see what I will do for your sake?" He made one step towards her, and she was very white. "I will take you, and go back to-morrow. Do you think the Moors are not men, because I beat them? I tell you that if I set up my standard in Granada and call them to me, they will follow me--if I lead them to the gate of Madrid. Yes--and so will more than half the Spanish army, if I will! But I do not want that--it is not the kingdom--what should I care for that? Could I not have taken it and held it? It is for you, dear love--for your sake only--that we may have a world of our own--a kingdom in which you are queen! Let there be war--why should I care? I will set the world ablaze and let it burn to its own ashes, but I will not let them take you from me, neither now, nor ever, while I am alive!" He came quickly towards her now, and she could not draw back, for the wall was behind her. But she thrust out her hands against him to keep him off. The gesture stopped him, just when he would have taken her in his arms. "No, no!" she cried vehemently. "You must not say such things, you must not think such thoughts! You are beside yourself, and you will drive me mad, too!" "But it will be so easy--you shall see--" She cut his words short. "It must not be easy, it must not be possible, it must not be at all! Do you believe that I love you and that I would let you do such deeds? Oh, no! That would not be love at all--it would be hate, it would be treason to you, and worse treason than yours against your brother!" The fierce light was sinking from his face. He had folded his arms and stood very still, listening to her. "You!" she cried, with rising energy. "You, the brave soldier, the spotless man, the very soul of honour made flesh and blood! You, who have but just come back in triumph from fighting your King's enemies--you against whom no living being has ever dared to breathe a slander or a slighting word. Oh, no, no, no, no! I could not bear that you should betray your faith and your country and yourself, and be called traitor for my sake! Not for ten lives of mine shall you ruin yours. And not because I might love you less if you had done that deed. God help me! I think I should love you if you committed any crime! The shame is the more to me--I know it. I am only a woman! But rather than let my love ruin you, make a traitor of you and lose you in this world and the next, my soul shall go first--life, soul, honour, everything! You shall not do it! You think that you love me more than I love you, but you do not. For to save you as you are, I love you so dearly that I will leave you--leave you to honour, leave you to your King, leave you to the undying glory of the life you have lived, and will live, in memory of my love!" The splendid words rang from her lips like a voice from heaven, and her eyes were divinely lightened. For they looked up, and not at him, calling Heaven to witness that she would keep her promise. As her open hand unconsciously went out, he took it tenderly, and felt her fingers softly closing on his own, as if she would lift him to himself again, and to the dear light of her own thoughts. There was silence for a moment. "You are better and wiser than I," he said, and his tone told her that the madness was past. "And you know that I am right? You see that I must leave you, to save you from me?" "Leave me--now?" he cried. "You only said that--you meant me to understand--you did not mean that you would leave me now?" "I do mean it," she said, in a great effort. "It is all I can do, to show you how I love you. As long as I am in your life you will be in danger--you will never be safe from yourself--I see it all now! I stand between you and all the world would give you--I will not stand between you and honour!" She was breaking down, fight as she would against the pain. He could say nothing, for he could not believe that she really was in earnest. "I must!" she exclaimed suddenly. "It is all I can do for you--it is my life--take it!" The tears broke from her eyes, but she held her head high, and let them fall unheeded. "Take it!" she repeated. "It is all I have to give for yours and your honour. Good-by--oh, love, I love you so dearly! Once more, before I go--" She almost, fell into his arms as she buried her face on his shoulder and clasped his throat as she was wont. He kissed her hair gently, and from time to time her whole frame shook with the sobs she was choking down. "It kills me," she said in a broken voice. "I cannot--I thought I was so strong! Oh, I am the most miserable living woman in the world!" She broke away from him wildly and threw herself upon a chair, turning from him to its cushion and hiding her face in her hands, choking, pressing the furious tears back upon her eyes, shaking from head to foot. "You cannot go! You cannot!" he cried, falling on his knees beside her and trying to take her hands in his. "Dolores--look at me! I will do anything--promise anything--you will believe me! Listen, love--I give you my word--I swear before God--" "No--swear nothing--" she said, between the sobs that broke her voice. "But I will!" he insisted, drawing her hands down till she looked at him. "I swear upon my honour that I will never raise my hand against the King--that I will defend him, and fight for him, and be loyal to him, whatever he may do to me--and that even for you, I will never strike a blow in battle nor speak a word in peace that is not all honourable, through and through,--even as I have fought and spoken until now!" As she listened to his words her weeping subsided, and her tearful eyes took light and life again. She drew him close, and kissed him on the forehead. "I am so glad--so happy!" she cried softly. "I should never have had strength to really say good-by!" * * * * * CHAPTER X Don John smoothed her golden hair. Never since he had known that he loved her, had she seemed so beautiful as then, and his thought tried to hold her as she was, that she might in memory be always the same. There was colour in her cheeks, a soft flush of happiness that destroyed all traces of her tears, so that they only left her grey eyes dark and tender under the long wet lashes. "It was a cruel dream, dear love! It was not true!" Finding him again, her voice was low, and sweet with joy. He smiled, too, and his own eyes were quiet and young, now that the tempest had passed away, almost out of recollection. It had raged but for a few moments, but in that time both he and she had lived and loved as it were through years, and their love had grown better and braver. She knew that his word was enough, and that he would die rather than break it; but though she had called herself weak, and had seemed to break down in despair, she would have left him for ever rather than believe that he was still in danger through her. She did not again ask herself whether her sudden resolution had been all for his sake, and had not formed itself because she dreaded to think of being bound to one who betrayed his country. She knew it and needed no further self-questioning to satisfy her. If such a man could have committed crimes, she would have hated them, not him, she would have pardoned him, not them, she would still have laid her hand in his before the whole world, though it should mean shame and infamy, because she loved him and would always love him, and could never have left him for her own sake, come all that might. She had said it was a shame to her that she would have loved him still; yet if it had been so, she would have gloried in being shamed for his sake, for even then her love might have brought him back from the depths of evil and made him again for her in truth what he had once seemed to the whole world. She could have done that, and if in the end she had saved him she would have counted the price of her name as very little to set against his salvation from himself. She would have given that and much more, for her love, as she would freely give all for him and even for his memory, if he were dead, and if by some unimaginable circumstances her ruin before the world could keep his name spotless, and his glory unsullied. For there is nothing that a true-hearted loving woman will not give and do for him she loves and believes and trusts; and though she will give the greatest thing last of all, she will give it in the end, if it can save him from infamy and destruction. For it is the woman's glory to give, as it is the man's to use strength in the hour of battle and gentleness in the day of peace, and to follow honour always. "Forget it all," answered Don John presently. "Forget it, dear, and forgive me for it all." "I can forget it, because it was only a dream," she said, "and I have nothing to forgive. Listen to me. If it were true--even if I believed that we had not been dreaming, you and I, could I have anything to forgive you? What?" "The mere thought that I could betray a trust, turn against my sovereign and ruin my country," he answered bravely, and a blush of honest shame rose in his boyish cheeks. "It was for me," said Dolores. That should explain all, her heart said. But he was not satisfied, and being a man he began to insist. "Not even for you should I have thought of it," he said. "And there is the thought to forgive, if nothing else." "No--you are wrong, love. Because it was for me, it does not need my forgiveness. It is different--you do not understand yet. It is I who should have never forgiven myself on earth nor expected pardon hereafter, if I had let myself be the cause of such deeds, if I had let my love stand between you and honour. Do you see?" "I see," he answered. "You are very brave and kind and good. I did not know that a woman could be like you." "A woman could be anything--for you--dare anything, do anything, sacrifice anything! Did I not tell you so, long ago? You only half believed me, dear--perhaps you do not quite believe me now--" "Indeed, indeed I do, with all my soul! I believe you as I love you, as I believe in your love--" "Yes. Tell me that you do--and tell me that you love me! It is so good to hear, now that the bad dream is gone." "Shall I tell you?" He smiled, playing with her hand. "How can I? There are so few words in which to say so much. But I will tell you this--I would give my word for you. Does that sound little? You should know, for you know at what price you would have saved my honour a while ago. I believe in you so truly that I would stake my word, and my honour, and my Christian oath upon your faith, and promise for you before God or man that you will always love me as you do to-day." "You may pledge all three. I will, and I will give you all I have that is not God's--and if that is not enough, I will give my soul for yours, if I may, to suffer in your stead." She spoke quietly enough, but there was a little quaver of true earnestness in her voice, that made each word a solemn promise. "And besides that," she added, "you see how I trust you." She smiled again as she looked at him, and knew how safe she was, far safer now than when she had first come with him to the door. Something told her that he had mastered himself--she would not have wished to think that she had ruled him? it was enough if she had shown him the way, and had helped him. He pressed her hand to his cheek and looked down thoughtfully, wishing that he could find such simple words that could say so much, but not trusting himself to speak. For though, in love, a man speaks first, he always finds the least to say of love when it has strongest hold of him; but a woman has words then, true and tender, that come from her heart unsought. Yet by and by, if love is not enduring, so that both tire of it, the man plays the better comedy, because he has the greater strength, and sometimes what he says has the old ring in it, because it is so well said, and the woman smiles and wonders that his love should have lasted longer than hers, and desiring the illusion, she finds old phrases again; yet there is no life in them, because when love is dead she thinks of herself, and instead, it was only of him she thought in the good days when her heart used to beat at the sound of his footfall, and the light grew dim and unsteady as she felt his kiss. But the love of these two was not born to tire; and because he was so young, and knew the world little, save at his sword's point, he was ashamed that he could not speak of love as well as she. "Find words for me," he said, "and I will say them, for yours are better than mine." "Say, 'I love you, dear,' very softly and gently--not roughly, as you sometimes do. I want to hear it gently now, that, and nothing else." She turned a little, leaning towards him, her face near his, her eyes quiet and warm, and she took his hands and held them together before her as if he were her prisoner--and indeed she meant that he should not suddenly take her in his arms, as he often did. "I love you, dear," he repeated, smiling, and pretending to be very docile. "That is not quite the way," she said, with a girlish laugh. "Say it again--quite as softly, but more tenderly! You must be very much in earnest, you know, but you must not be in the least violent." She laughed again. "It is like teaching a young lion," she added. "He may eat you up at any moment, instead of obeying you. Tell me, you have a little lion that follows you like a dog when you are in your camp, have you not? You have not told me about him yet. How did you teach him?" "I did not try to make him say 'I love you, dear,'" answered Don John, laughing in his turn. As he spoke a distant sound caught his ear, and the smile vanished from his face, for though he heard only the far off rumbling of a coach in the great court, it recalled him to reality. "We are playing with life and death," he said suddenly. "It is late, the King may be here at any moment, and we have decided nothing." He rose. "Is it late?" asked Dolores, passing her hand over her eyes dreamily. "I had forgotten--it seems so short. Give me the key on my side of the door--we had decided that, you know. Go and sit down in your room, as we agreed. Shall you read my letter again, love? It may be half an hoar still before the King comes. When he is gone, we shall have all the night in which to decide, and the nights are very long now. Oh, I hate to lose one minute of you! What shall you say to the King?" "I do not know what he may say to me," answered Don John. "Listen and you shall hear--I would rather know that you hear everything I say. It will be as if I were speaking before you, and of course I should tell you everything the King says. He will speak of you, I think." "Indeed, it would be hard not to listen," said Dolores. "I should have to stop my ears, for one cannot help hearing every word that is said in the next room. Do you know? I heard you ask for your white shoes! I hardly dared to breathe for fear the servants should find out that I was here." "So much the better then. Sit in this chair near the door. But be careful to make no noise, for the King is very suspicious." "I know. Do not be afraid; I will be as quiet as a mouse. Go, love, go! It is time--oh, how I hate to let you leave me! You will be careful? You will not be angry at what he says? You would be wiser if you knew I were not hearing everything; you will want to defend me if he says the least word you do not like, but let him say what he will! Anything is better than an open quarrel between you and the King! Promise me to be very moderate in what you say, and very patient. Remember that he is the King!" "And my brother," said Don John, with some bitterness. "Do not fear. You know what I have promised you. I will bear anything he may say that concerns me as well as I can, but if he says anything slighting of you--" "But he may--that is the danger. Promise me not to be angry--" "How can I promise that, if he insults you?" "No, I did not mean that exactly. Promise that you will not forget everything and raise your hand against him. You see I know you would." "No, I will not raise my hand against him. That was in the promise I made you. And as for being angry, I will do my best to keep my temper." "I know you will. Now you must go. Good-by, love! Good-by, for a little while." "For such a little time shall we say good-by? I hate the word; it makes me think of the day when I left you last." "How can I tell what may happen to you when you are out of my sight?" asked Dolores. "And what is 'good-by' but a blessing each prays for the other? That is all it means. It does not mean that we part for long, love. Why, I would say it for an hour! Good-by, dear love, good-by!" She put up her face to kiss him, and it was so full of trust and happiness that the word lost all the bitterness it has gathered through ages of partings, and seemed, what she said it was, a loving blessing. Yet she said it very tenderly, for it was hard to let him go even for less than an hour. He said it, too, to please her; but yet the syllables came mournfully, as if they meant a world more than hers, and the sound of them half frightened her, so that she was sorry she had asked him for the word. "Not so!" she cried, in quick alarm. "You are not keeping anything from me? You are only going to the next room to meet the King--are you sure?" "That is all. You see, the word frightened you. It seems such a sad word to me--I will not say it again." He kissed her gently, as if to soothe her fear, and then he opened the door and set the key in the lock on the inside. Then when he was outside, he lingered a moment, and their lips met once more without a word, and they nodded and smiled to one another a last time, and he closed the door and heard her lock it. When she was alone, she turned away as if he were gone from her altogether instead of being in the next room, where she could hear him moving now and then, as he placed his chair near the light to read and arranged the candlesticks on the table. Then he went to the other door and opened it and opened the one beyond upon the terrace, and she knew that he was looking out to see if any one were there. But presently he came back and sat down, and she distinctly heard the rustle of the strong writing-paper as he unfolded a letter. It was hers. He was going to read it, as they had agreed. So she sat down where she could look at the door, and she tried to force her eyes to see through it, to make him feel that she was watching him, that she came near him and stood beside him, and softly read the words for him, but without looking at them, because she knew them all by heart. But it was not the same as if she had seen him, and it was very hard to be shut off from his sight by an impenetrable piece of wood, to lose all the moments that might pass before the King chose to come. Another hour might pass. No one could even tell whether he would come at all after he had consulted with Antonio Perez. The skilful favourite desired a quarrel between his master and Don John with all his heart, but he was not ready for it yet. He must have possession of Dolores first and hide her safely; and when the quarrel came, Don John should believe that the King had stolen her and imprisoned her, and that she was treated ill; and for the woman he loved, Don John would tear down the walls of Madrid, if need be, and if at the last he found her dead, there would be no harm done, thought Perez, and Don John would hate his brother even to death, and all Spain would cry out in sympathy and horror. But all this Dolores could neither know nor even suspect. She only felt sure that the King and Perez were even now consulting together to hinder her marriage with Don John, and that Perez might persuade the King not to see his brother that night. It was almost intolerable to think that she might wait there for hours, wasting the minutes for which she would have given drops of blood. Surely they both were overcautious. The door could be left open, so that they could talk, and at the first sound without, she could lock it again and sit down. That would be quite as safe. She rose and was almost in the act of opening the door again when she stopped and hesitated. It was possible that at any moment the King might be at the door; for though she could hear every sound that came from the next room, the thick curtains that hid the window effectually shut out all sound from without. It struck her that she could go to the window, however, and look out. Yet a ray of light might betray her presence in the room to any one outside, and if she drew aside the curtain the light would shine out upon the terrace. She listened at Don John's door, and presently she heard him turn her letter in his hand, and all her heart went out to him, and she stood noiselessly kissing the panels and saying over again in her heart that she loved him more than any words could tell. If she could only see out of the window and assure herself that no one was coming yet, there would be time to go to him again, for one moment only, and say the words once more. Then she sat down and told herself how foolish she was. She had been separated from him for many long and empty months, and now she had been with him and talked long with him twice in leas than three hours, and yet she could not bear that he should be out of her sight five minutes without wishing to risk everything to see him again. She tried to laugh at herself, repeating over and over again that she was very, very foolish, and that she should have a just contempt for any woman who could be as foolish as she. For some moments she sat still, staring at the wall. In the thought of him that filled her heart and soul and mind, she saw that her own life had begun when he had first spoken to her, and she felt that it would end with the last good-by, because if he should die or cease to love her, there would be nothing more to live for. Her early girlhood seemed dim and far away, dull and lifeless, as if it had not been hers at all, and had no connection with the present. She saw herself in the past, as she could not see herself now, and the child she remembered seemed not herself but another--a fair-haired girl living in the gloomy old house in Valladolid, with her blind sister and an old maiden cousin of her father's, who had offered to bring up the two and to teach them, being a woman of some learning, and who fulfilled her promise in such a conscientious and austere way as made their lives something of a burden under her strict rule. But that was all forgotten now, and though she still lived in Valladolid she had probably changed but little in the few years since Dolores had seen her; she was part of the past, a relic of something that had hardly ever had a real existence, and which it was not at all necessary to remember. There was one great light in the girl's simple existence, it had come all at once, and it was with her still. There was nothing dim nor dark nor forgotten about the day when she had been presented at court by the Duchess Alvarez, and she had first seen Don John, and he had first seen her and had spoken to her, when he had talked with the Duchess herself. At the first glance--and it was her first sight of the great world--she had seen that of all the men in the great hall, there was no one at all like him. She had no sooner looked into his face and cast her eyes upon his slender figure, all in white then, as he was dressed to-night, than she began to compare him with the rest. She looked so quickly from one to another that any one might have thought her to be anxiously searching for a friend in the crowd. But she had none then, and she was but assuring herself once, and for all her life, that the man she was to love was immeasurably beyond all other men, though the others were the very flower of Spain's young chivalry. Of course, as she told herself now, she had not loved him then, nor even when she heard his voice speaking to her the first time and was almost too happy to understand his words. But she had remembered them. He had asked her whether she lived in Madrid. She had told him that she lived in the Alcazar itself, since her father commanded the guards and had his quarters in the palace. And then Don John had looked at her very fixedly for a moment, and had seemed pleased, for he smiled and said that he hoped he might see her often, and that if it were in his power to be of use to her father, he would do what he could. She was sure that she had not loved him then, though she had dreamed of his winning face and voice and had thought of little else all the next day, and the day after that, with a sort of feverish longing to see him again, and had asked the Duchess Alvarez so many questions about him that the Duchess had smiled oddly, and had shaken her handsome young head a little, saying that it was better not to think too much about Don John of Austria. Surely, she had not loved him already, at first sight. But on the evening of the third day, towards sunset, when she had been walking with Inez on a deserted terrace where no one but the two sisters ever went, Don John had suddenly appeared, sauntering idly out with one of his gentlemen on his left, as if he expected nothing at all; and he had seemed very much surprised to see her, and had bowed low, and somehow very soon, blind Inez, who was little more than a child three years ago, was leading the gentleman about the terrace, to show him where the best roses grew, which she knew by their touch and smell, and Don John and Dolores were seated on an old stone bench, talking earnestly together. Even to herself she admitted that she had loved him from that evening, and whenever she thought of it she smelt the first scent of roses, and saw his face with the blaze of the sunset in his eyes, and heard his voice saying that he should come to the terrace again at that hour, in which matter he had kept his word as faithfully as he always did, and presumably without any especial effort. So she had known him as he really was, without the formalities of the court life, of which she was herself a somewhat insignificant part; and it was only when he said a few words to her before the other ladies that she took pains to say 'your Highness' to him once or twice, and he called her 'Doña Dolores,' and enquired in a friendly manner about her father's health. But on the terrace they managed to talk without any such formal mode of address, and used no names at all for each other, until one day--but she would not think of that now. If she let her memory run all its course, she could not sit there with the door closed between him and her, for something stronger than she would force her to go and open it, and make sure he was there. This method, indeed, would be a very certain one, leaving no doubt whatever, but at the present moment it would be foolish to resort to it, and, perhaps, it would be dangerous, too. The past was so beautiful and peaceful; she could think its history through many times up to that point, where thinking was sure to end suddenly in something which was too present for memory and too well remembered not to be present. It came back to her so vividly that she left her seat again and went to the curtained window, as if to get as far as possible from the irresistible attraction. Standing there she looked back and saw the key in the lock. It was foolish, girlish, childish, at such a time, but she felt that as long as it was there she should want to turn it. With a sudden resolution and a smile that was for her own weakness, she went to the door again, listened for footsteps, and then quietly took the key from the lock. Instantly Don John was on the other side, calling to her softly. "What is it?" he asked. "For Heaven's sake do not come in, for I think I hear him coming." "No," she answered through the panel. "I was afraid I should turn the key, so I have taken it out." She paused. "I love you!" she said, so that he could hear, and she kissed the wood, where she thought his face must be, just above her own. "I love you with all my heart!" he answered gently. "Hush, dear love, he is coming!" They were like two children, playing at a game; but they were playing on the very verge of tragedy, playing at life with death at the door and the safety of a great nation hanging in the balance. A moment later, Dolores heard Don John opening and shutting the other doors again, and then there were voices. She heard her father's name spoken in the King's unmistakable tones, at once harsh and muffled. Every word came to her from the other room, as if she were present. "Mendoza," said Philip, "I have private matters to discuss with his Highness. I desire you to wait before the entrance, on the terrace, and to let no one pass in, as we do not wish to be disturbed." Her father did not speak, but she knew how he was bending a little stiffly, before he went backwards through the open door. It closed behind him, and the two brothers were alone. Dolores' heart beat a little faster, and her face grew paler as she concentrated her attention upon making no noise. If they could hear her as she heard them, a mere rustling of her silk gown would be enough to betray her, and if then the King bade her father take her with him, all would be over, for Don John would certainly not use any violence to protect her. "This is your bedchamber," said Philip's voice. He was evidently examining the room, as Don John had anticipated that he would, for he was moving about. There was no mistaking his heavy steps for his brother's elastic tread. "There is no one behind the curtain," said the King, by which it was clear that he was making search for a possible concealed listener. He was by no means above such precautions. "And that door?" he said, with a question. "What is there?" Dolores' heart almost stood still, as she held her breath, and heard the clumsy footfall coming nearer. "It is locked," said Don John, with undisturbed calm. "I have not the key. I do not know where it is,--it is not here." As Dolores had taken it from the lock, even the last statement was true to the letter, and in spite of her anxiety she smiled as she heard it, but the next moment she trembled, for the King was trying the door, and it shook under his hand, as if it must fly open. "It is certainly locked," he said, in a discontented tone. "But I do not like locked doors, unless I know what is beyond them." He crossed the room again and called out to Mendoza, who answered at once. "Mendoza, come here with me. There is a door here, of which his Highness has not the key. Can you open it?" "I will try, your Majesty," answered the General's hard voice. A moment later the panels shook violently under the old man's weight, for he was stronger than one might have thought, being lean and tough rather than muscular. Dolores took the moment when the noise was loudest and ran a few steps towards the window. Then the sounds ceased suddenly, and she stood still. "I cannot open it, your Majesty," said Mendoza, in a disconsolate tone. "Then go and get the key," answered the King almost angrily. * * * * * CHAPTER XI Inez remained hidden a quarter of an hour in the gallery over the throne room, before she ventured to open the door noiselessly and listen for any sound that might come from the passage. She was quite safe there, as long as she chose to remain, for the Princess had believed that she had fled far beyond and was altogether out of reach of any one whose dignity would not allow of running a race. It must be remembered that at the time she entered the gallery Mendoza had returned to his duty below, and that some time afterwards he had accompanied the King to Don John's apartments, and had then been sent in search of the key to the locked door. The blind girl was of course wholly ignorant of his whereabouts, and believed him to be in or about the throne room. Her instinct told her that since Dolores had not gone to the court, as she had intended, with the Duchess Alvarez, she must have made some last attempt to see Don John alone. In her perfect innocence such an idea seemed natural enough to Inez, and it at first occurred to her that the two might have arranged to meet on the deserted terrace where they had spent so many hours in former times. She went there first, finding her way with some little difficulty from the corridor where the gallery was, for the region was not the one to which she was most accustomed, though there was hardly a corner of the upper story where she had never been. Reaching the terrace, she went out and called softly, but there was no answer, nor could she hear any sound. The night was not cold now, but the breeze chilled her a little, and just then the melancholy cry of a screech owl pierced the air, and she shivered and went in again. She would have gone to the Duchess Alvarez had she not been sure that the latter was below with the Queen, and even as it was, she would have taken refuge in the Duchess's apartments with the women, and she might have learned something of Dolores there. But her touch reminded her that she was dressed in her sister's clothes, and that many questions might be asked her which it would be hard to answer. And again, it grew quite clear to her that Dolores must be somewhere near Don John, perhaps waiting in some concealed corner until all should be quiet. It was more than probable that he would get her out of the palace secretly during the night and send her to his adoptive mother at Villagarcia. She had not believed the Princess's words in the least, but she had not forgotten them, and had argued rightly enough to their real meaning. In the upper story all was still now. She and Dolores had known where Don John was to be lodged in the palace nearly a month before he had returned, and they had been there more than once, when no one was on the terrace, and Dolores had made her touch the door and the six windows, three on each side of it. She could get there without difficulty, provided that no one stopped her. She went a little way in the right direction and then hesitated. There was more danger to Dolores than to herself if she should be recognized, and, after all, if Dolores was near Don John she was safer than she could be anywhere else. Inez could not help her very much in any way if she found her there, and it would be hard to find her if she had met Mendoza at first and if he had placed her in the keeping of a third person. She imagined what his astonishment would have been had he found the real Dolores in her court dress a few moments after Inez had been delivered over to the Princess disguised in Dolores' clothes, and she almost smiled. But then a great loneliness and a sense of helplessness came over her, and she turned back and went out upon the deserted terrace again and sat down upon the old stone seat, listening for the screech owl and the fluttering of the bats that flew aimlessly in and out, attracted by the light and then scared away by it again because the moon was at the full. Inez had never before then wandered about the palace at night, and though darkness and daylight were one to her, there was something in the air that frightened her, and made her feel how really helpless she was in spite of her almost superhuman hearing and her wonderful sense of touch. It was very still--it was never so still by day. It seemed as if people must be lying in wait for her, holding their breath lest she should hear even that. She had never felt blind before; she had never so completely realized the difference between her life and the lives of others. By day, she could wander where she pleased on the upper story--it was cheerful, familiar; now and then some one passed and perhaps spoke to her kindly, as every one did who knew her; and then there was the warm sunlight at the windows, and the cool breath of the living day in the corridors. The sounds guided her, the sun warmed her, the air fanned her, the voices of the people made her feel that she was one of them. But now, the place was like an empty church, full of tombs and silent as the dead that lay there. She felt horribly lonely, and cold, and miserable, and she would have given anything to be in bed in her own room. She could not go there. Eudaldo would not understand her return, after being told that she was to stay with the Princess, and she would be obliged to give him some explanation. Then her voice would betray her, and there would be terrible trouble. If only she had kept her own cloak to cover Dolores' frock, she could have gone back and the servant would have thought it quite natural Indeed, by this time he would be expecting her. It would be almost better to go in after all, and tell him some story of her having mistaken her sister's skirt for her own, and beg him to say nothing. She could easily confuse him a little so that he would not really understand--and then in a few minutes she could be in her own room, safe and in bed, and far away from the dismal place where she was sitting and shivering as she listened to the owls. She rose and began to walk towards her father's quarters. But suddenly she felt that it was cowardly to go back without accomplishing the least part of her purpose, and without even finding out whether Dolores was in safety after all. There was but one chance of finding her, and that lay in searching the neighbourhood of Don John's lodging. Without hesitating any longer, she began to find her way thither at once. She determined that if she were stopped, either by her father or the Princess, she would throw back her head and show her face at once. That would be the safest way in the end. She reached Don John's windows unhindered at last. She had felt every corner, and had been into the empty sentry-box; and once or twice, after listening a long time, she had called Dolores in a very low tone. She listened by the first window, and by the second and third, and at the door, and then beyond, till she came to the last. There were voices there, and her heart beat quickly for a moment. It was impossible to distinguish the words that were spoken, through the closed window and the heavy curtains, but the mere tones told her that Don John and Dolores were there together. That was enough for her, and she could go back to her room; for it seemed quite natural to her that her sister should be in the keeping of the man she loved,--she was out of harm's way and beyond their father's power, and that was all that was necessary. She would go back to her room at once, and explain the matter of her dress to Eudaldo as best she might. After all, why should he care what she wore or where she had been, or whether in the Princess's apartments she had for some reason exchanged gowns with Dolores. Perhaps he would not even notice the dress at all. She meant to go at once, but she stood quite still, her hands resting on the low sill of the window, while her forehead pressed against the cold round panes of glass. Something hurt her which she could not understand, as she tried to fancy the two beautiful young beings who were within,--for she knew what beauty they had, and Dolores had described Don John to her as a young god. His voice came to her like strains of very distant sweet music, that connect themselves to an unknown melody in the fancy of him who faintly hears. But Dolores was hearing every word he said, and it was all for her; and Dolores not only heard, but saw; and seeing and hearing, she was loved by the man who spoke to her, as dearly as she loved him. Then utter loneliness fell upon the blind girl as she leaned against the window. She had expected nothing, she had asked nothing, even in her heart; and she had less than nothing, since never on earth, nor in heaven hereafter, could Don John say a loving word to her. And yet she felt that something had been taken from her and given to her sister,--something that was more to her than life, and dearer than the thought of sight to her blindness. She had taken what had not been given her, in innocent girlish thoughts that were only dreams, and could hurt no one. He had always spoken gently to her, and touched her hand kindly; and many a time, sitting alone in the sun, she had set those words to the well-remembered music of his voice, and she had let the memory of his light touch on her fingers thrill her strangely to the very quick. It had been but the reflection of a reflection in her darkness, wherein the shadow of a shadow seemed as bright as day. It had been all she had to make her feel that she was a part of the living, loving world she could never see. Somehow she had unconsciously fancied that with a little dreaming she could live happy in Dolores' happiness, as by a proxy, and she had never called it love, any more than she would have dared to hope for love in return. Yet it was that, and nothing else,--the love that is so hopeless and starving, and yet so innocent, that it can draw the illusion of an airy nourishment from that which to another nature would be the fountain of all jealousy and hatred. But now, without reason and without warning, even that was taken from her, and in its place something burned that she did not know, save that it was a bad thing, and made even blackness blacker. She heard their voices still. They were happy together, while she was alone outside, her forehead resting against the chill glass, and her hands half numb upon the stone; and so it would always be hereafter. They would go, and take her life with them, and she should be left behind, alone for ever; and a great revolt against her fate rose quickly in her breast like a flame before the wind, and then, as if finding nothing to consume, sank down again into its own ashes, and left her more lonely than before. The voices had ceased now, or else the lovers were speaking very low, fearing, perhaps, that some one might be listening at the window. If Inez had heard their words at first, she would have stopped her ears or gone to a distance, for the child knew what that sort of honour meant, and had done as much before. But the unformed sound had been good to hear, and she missed it. Perhaps they were sitting close and, hand in hand, reading all the sweet unsaid things in one another's eyes. There must be silent voices in eyes that could see, she thought. She took little thought of the time, yet it seemed long to her since they had spoken. Perhaps they had gone to another room. She moved to the next window and listened there, but no sound came from within. Then she heard footfalls, and one was her father's. Two men were coming out by the corridor, and she had not time to reach the sentry-box. With her hands out before her, she went lightly away from the windows to the outer side of the broad terrace, and cowered down by the balustrade as she ran against it, not knowing whether she was in the moonlight or the shade. She had crossed like a shadow and was crouching there before Mendoza and the King came out. She knew by their steady tread, that ended at the door, that they had not noticed her; and as the door closed behind them, she ran back to the window again and listened, expecting to hear loud and angry words, for she could not doubt that the King and her father had discovered that Dolores was there, and had come to take her away. The Princess must have told Mendoza that Dolores had escaped. But she only heard men's voices speaking in an ordinary tone, and she understood that Dolores was concealed. Almost at once, and to her dismay, she heard her father's step in the hall, and now she could neither pass the door nor run across the terrace again. A moment later the King called him from within. Instantly she slipped across to the other side, and listened again. They were shaking a door,--they were in the very act of finding Dolores. Her heart hurt her. But then the noise stopped, as if they had given up the attempt, and presently she heard her father's step again. Thinking that he would remain in the hall until the King called him,--for she could not possibly guess what had happened,--she stood quite still. The door opened without warning, and he was almost upon her before she knew it. To hesitate an instant was out of the question, and for the second time that night she fled, running madly to the corridor, which was not ten steps from where she had been standing, and as she entered it the light fell upon her from the swinging lamp, though she did not know it. Old as he was, Mendoza sprang forward in pursuit when he saw her figure in the dimness, flying before him, but as she reached the light of the lamp he stopped himself, staggering one or two steps and then reeling against the wall. He had recognized Dolores' dress and hood, and there was not the slightest doubt in his mind but that it was herself. In that same dress he had seen her in the late afternoon, she had been wearing it when he had locked her into the sitting-room, and, still clad in it, she must have come out with the Princess. And now she was running before him from Don John's lodging. Doubtless she had been in another room and had slipped out while he was trying the door within. He passed his hand over his eyes and breathed hard as he leaned against the wall, for her appearance there could only mean one thing, and that was ruin to her and disgrace to his name--the very end of all things in his life, in which all had been based upon his honour and every action had been a tribute to it. He was too much stunned to ask himself how the lovers had met, if there had been any agreement between them, but the frightful conviction took hold of him that this was not the first time, that long ago, before Don John had led the army to Granada, Dolores had found her way to that same door and had spent long hours with her lover when no one knew. Else she could not have gone to him without agreement, at an instant's notice, on the very night of his return. Despair took possession of the unhappy man from that moment. But that the King was with Don John, Mendoza would have gone back at that moment to kill his enemy and himself afterwards, if need be. He remembered his errand then. No doubt that was the very room where Dolores had been concealed, and she had escaped from it by some other way, of which her father did not know. He was too dazed to think connectedly, but he had the King's commands to execute at once. He straightened himself with a great effort, for the weight of his years had come upon him suddenly and bowed him like a burden. With the exertion of his will came the thirst for the satisfaction of blood, and he saw that the sooner he returned with the key, the sooner he should be near his enemy. But the pulses came and went in his throbbing temples, as when a man is almost spent in a struggle with death, and at first he walked uncertainly, as if he felt no ground under his feet. By the time he had gone a hundred yards he had recovered a sort of mechanical self-possession, such as comes upon men at very desperate times, when they must not allow themselves to stop and think of what is before them. They were pictures, rather than thoughts, that formed themselves in his brain as he went along, for he saw all the past years again, from the day when his young wife had died, he being then already in middle age, until that afternoon. One by one the years came back, and the central figure in each was the fair-haired little child, growing steadily to be a woman, all coming nearer and nearer to the end he had seen but now, which was unutterable shame and disgrace, and beyond which there was nothing. He heard the baby voice again, and felt the little hands upon his brow, and saw the serious grey eyes close to his own; and then the girl, gravely lovely--and her far-off laugh that hardly ever rippled through the room when he was there; and then the stealing softness of grown maidenhood, winning the features one by one, and bringing back from death to life the face he had loved best, and the voice with long-forgotten tones that touched his soul's quick, and dimmed his sight with a mist, so that he grew hard and stern as he fought within him against the tenderness he loved and feared. All this he saw and heard and felt again, knowing that each picture must end but in one way, in the one sight he had seen and that had told his shame--a guilty woman stealing by night from her lover's door. Not only that, either, for there was the almost certain knowledge that she had deceived him for years, and that while he had been fighting so hard to save her from what seemed but a show of marriage, she had been already lost to him for ever and ruined beyond all hope of honesty. They were not thoughts, but pictures of the false and of the true, that rose and glowed an instant and then sank like the inner darkness of his soul, leaving only that last most terrible one of all behind them, burned into his eyes till death should put out their light and bid him rest at last, if he could rest even in heaven with such a memory. It was too much, and though he walked upright and gazed before him, he did not know his way, and his feet took him to his own door instead of on the King's errand. His hand was raised to knock before he understood, and it fell to his side in a helpless, hopeless way, when he saw where he was. Then he turned stiffly, as a man turns on parade, and gathered his strength and marched away with a measured tread. For the world and what it held he would not have entered his dwelling then, for he felt that his daughter was there before him, and that if he once saw her face he should not be able to hold his hand. He would not see her again on earth, lest he should take her life for what she had done. He was more aware of outward things after that, though he almost commanded himself to do what he had to do, as he would have given orders to one of his soldiers. He went to the chief steward's office and demanded the key of the room in the King's name. But it was not forthcoming, and the fact that it could not be found strengthened his conviction that Don John had it in his keeping. Yet, for the sake of form, he insisted sternly, saying that the King was waiting for it even then. Servants were called and examined and threatened, but those who knew anything about it unanimously declared that it had been left in the door, while those who knew nothing supported their fellow-servants by the same unhesitating assertion, till Mendoza was convinced that he had done enough, and turned his back on them all and went out with a grey look of despair on his face. He walked rapidly now, for he knew that he was going back to meet his enemy, and he was trying not to think what he should do when he should see Don John before him and at arm's length, but defended by the King's presence from any sudden violence. He knew that in his heart there was the wild resolve to tell the truth before his master and then to take the payment of blood with one thrust and destroy himself with the next, but though he was half mad with despair, he would not let the thought become a resolve. In his soldier's nature, high above everything else and dominating his austere conscience of right and wrong, as well as every other instinct of his heart, there was the respect of his sovereign and the loyalty to him at all costs, good or bad, which sent self out of sight where his duty to the King was concerned. * * * * * CHAPTER XII When he had sent away Mendoza, the King remained standing and began to pace the floor, while Don John stood by the table watching him and waiting for him to speak. It was clear that he was still angry, for his anger, though sometimes suddenly roused, was very slow to reach its height, and slower still to subside; and when at last it had cooled, it generally left behind it an enduring hatred, such as could be satisfied only by the final destruction of the object that had caused it. That lasting hate was perhaps more dangerous than the sudden outburst had been, but in moments of furious passion Philip was undoubtedly a man to be feared. He was evidently not inclined to speak until he had ascertained that no one was listening in the next room, but as he looked from time to time at Don John his still eyes seemed to grow almost yellow, and his lower lip moved uneasily. He knew, perhaps, that Mendoza could not at once find the servant in whose keeping the key of the door was supposed to be, and he grew impatient by quick degrees until his rising temper got the better of his caution. Don John instinctively drew himself up, as a man does who expects to be attacked. He was close to the table, and remained almost motionless during the discussion that followed, while Philip paced up and down, sometimes pausing before his brother for a moment, and then turning again to resume his walk. His voice was muffled always, and was hard to hear; now and then it became thick and indistinct with rage, and he cleared his throat roughly, as if he were angry with it, too. At first he maintained the outward forms of courtesy in words if not in tone, but long before his wrath had reached its final climax he forgot them altogether. "I had hoped to speak with you in privacy, on matters of great importance. It has pleased your Highness to make that impossible by your extraordinary behaviour." Don John raised his eyebrows a little incredulously, and answered with perfect calmness. "I do not recollect doing anything which should seem extraordinary to your Majesty." "You contradict me," retorted Philip. "That is extraordinary enough, I should think. I am not aware that it is usual for subjects to contradict the King. What have you to say in explanation?" "Nothing. The facts explain themselves well enough." "We are not in camp," said Philip. "Your Highness is not in command here, and I am not your subordinate. I desire you to remember whom you are addressing, for your words will be remembered." "I never said anything which I wished another to forget," answered Don John proudly. "Take care, then!" The King spoke sullenly, and turned away, for he was slow at retort until he was greatly roused. Don John did not answer, for he had no wish to produce such a result, and moreover he was much more preoccupied by the serious question of Dolores' safety than by any other consideration. So far the King had said nothing which, but for some derogation from his dignity, might not have been said before any one, and Don John expected that he would maintain the same tone until Mendoza returned. It was hard to predict what might happen then. In all probability Dolores would escape by the window and endeavour to hide herself in the empty sentry-box until the interview was over. He could then bring her back in safety, but the discussion promised to be long and stormy, and meanwhile she would be in constant danger of discovery. But there was a worse possibility, not even quite beyond the bounds of the probable. In his present mood, Philip, if he lost his temper altogether, would perhaps be capable of placing Don John under arrest. He was all powerful, he hated his brother, and he was very angry. His last words had been a menace, or had sounded like one, and another word, when Mendoza returned, could put the threat into execution. Don John reflected, if such thought could be called reflection, upon the situation that must ensue, and upon the probable fate of the woman he loved. He wondered whether she were still in the room, for hearing that the door was to be opened, she might have thought it best to escape at once, while her father was absent from the terrace on his errand. If not, she could certainly go out by the window as soon as she heard him coming back. It was clearly of the greatest importance to prevent the King's anger from going any further. Antonio Perez had recognized the same truth from a very different point of view, and had spent nearly three-quarters of an hour in flattering his master with the consummate skill which he alone possessed. He believed that he had succeeded when the King had dismissed him, saying that he would not see Don John until the morning. Five minutes after Perez was gone, Philip was threading the corridors, completely disguised in a long black cloak, with the ever-loyal Mendoza at his heels. It was not the first time that he had deceived his deceivers. He paced the room in silence after he had last spoken. As soon as Don John realized that his liberty might be endangered, he saw that he must say what he could in honour and justice to save himself from arrest, since nothing else could save Dolores. "I greatly regret having done anything to anger your Majesty," he said, with quiet dignity. "I was placed in a very difficult position by unforeseen circumstances. If there had been time to reflect, I might have acted otherwise." "Might have acted otherwise!" repeated Philip harshly. "I do not like those words. You might have acted otherwise than to defy your sovereign before the Queen! I trusted you might, indeed!" He was silent again, his protruding lip working angrily, as if he had tasted something he disliked. Don John's half apology had not been received with much grace, but he saw no way open save to insist that it was genuine. "It is certainly true that I have lived much in camps of late," he answered, "and that a camp is not a school of manners, any more than the habit of commanding others accustoms a man to courtly submission." "Precisely. You have learned to forget that you have a superior in Spain, or in the world. You already begin to affect the manners and speech of a sovereign--you will soon claim the dignity of one, too, I have no doubt. The sooner we procure you a kingdom of your own, the better, for your Highness will before long become an element of discord in ours." "Rather than that," answered Don John, "I will live in retirement for the rest of my life." "We may require it of your Highness," replied Philip, standing still and facing his brother. "It may be necessary for our own safety that you should spend some time at least in very close retirement--very!" He almost laughed. "I should prefer that to the possibility of causing any disturbance in your Majesty's kingdom." Nothing could have been more gravely submissive than Don John's tone, but the King was apparently determined to rouse his anger. "Your deeds belie your words," he retorted, beginning to walk again. "There is too much loyalty in what you say, and too much of a rebellious spirit in what you do. The two do not agree together. You mock me." "God forbid that!" cried Don John. "I desire no praise for what I may have done, but such as my deeds have been they have produced peace and submission in your Majesty's kingdom, and not rebellion--" "And is it because you have beaten a handful of ill-armed Moriscoes, in the short space of two years, that the people follow you in throngs wherever you go, shouting for you, singing your praises, bringing petitions to you by hundreds, as if you were King--as if you were more than that, a sort of god before whom every one must bow down? Am I so simple as to believe that what you have done with such leisure is enough to rouse all Spain, and to make the whole court break out into cries of wonder and applause as soon as you appear? If you publicly defy me and disobey me, do I not know that you believe yourself able to do so, and think your power equal to mine? And how could that all be brought about, save by a party that is for you, by your secret agents everywhere, high and low, forever praising you and telling men, and women, too, of your graces, and your generosities, and your victories, and saying that it is a pity so good and brave a prince should be but a leader of the King's armies, and then contrasting the King himself with you, the cruel King, the grasping King, the scheming King, the King who has every fault that is not found in Don John of Austria, the people's god! Is that peace and submission? Or is it the beginning of rebellion, and revolution, and civil war, which is to set Don John of Austria on the throne of Spain, and send King Philip to another world as soon as all is ready?" Don John listened in amazement. It had never occurred to him any one could believe him capable of the least of the deeds Philip was attributing to him, and in spite of his resolution his anger began to rise. Then, suddenly, as if cold water had been dashed in his face, he remembered that an hour had not passed since he had held Dolores in his arms, swearing to do that of which he was now accused, and that her words only had held him back. It all seemed monstrous now. As she had said, it had been only a bad dream and he had wakened to himself again. Yet the thought of rebellion had more than crossed his mind, for in a moment it had taken possession of him and had seemed to change all his nature from good to bad. In his own eyes he was rebuked, and he did not answer at once. "You have nothing to say!" exclaimed Philip scornfully. "Is there any reason why I should not try you for high treason?" Don John started at the words, but his anger was gone, and he thought only of Dolores' safety in the near future. "Your Majesty is far too just to accuse an innocent man who has served you faithfully," he answered. Philip stopped and looked at him curiously and long, trying to detect some sign of anxiety if not of fear. He was accustomed to torture men with words well enough, before he used other means, and he himself had not believed what he had said. It had been only an experiment tried on a mere chance, and it had failed. At the root of his anger there was only jealousy and personal hatred of the brother who had every grace and charm which he himself had not. "More kind than just, perhaps," he said, with a slight change of tone towards condescension. "I am willing to admit that I have no proofs against you, but the evidence of circumstances is not in your favour. Take care, for you are observed. You are too much before the world, too imposing a figure to escape observation." "My actions will bear it. I only beg that your Majesty will take account of them rather than listen to such interpretation as may be put upon them by other men." "Other men do nothing but praise you," said Philip bluntly. "Their opinion of you is not worth having! I thought I had explained that matter sufficiently. You are the idol of the people, and as if that were not enough, you are the darling of the court, besides being the women's favourite. That is too much for one man to be--take care, I say, take care! Be at more pains for my favour, and at less trouble for your popularity." "So far as that goes," answered Don John, with some pride, "I think that if men praise me it is because I have served the King as well as I could, and with success. If your Majesty is not satisfied with what I have done, let me have more to do. I shall try to do even the impossible." "That will please the ladies," retorted Philip, with a sneer. "You will be overwhelmed with correspondence--your gloves will not hold it all" Don John did not answer, for it seemed wiser to let the King take this ground than return to his former position. "You will have plenty of agreeable occupation in time of peace. But it is better that you should be married soon, before you become so entangled with the ladies of Madrid as to make your marriage impossible." "Saving the last clause," said Don John boldly, "I am altogether of your Majesty's opinion. But I fear no entanglements here." "No--you do not fear them. On the contrary, you live in them as if they were your element." "No man can say that," answered Don John. "You contradict me again. Pray, if you have no entanglements, how comes it that you have a lady's letter in your glove?" "I cannot tell whether it was a lady's letter or a man's." "Have you not read it?" "Yes." "And you refused to show it to me on the ground that it was a woman's secret?" "I had not read it then. It was not signed, and it might well have been written by a man." Don John watched the King's face. It was for from improbable, he thought, that the King had caused it to be written, or had written it himself, that he supposed his brother to have read it, and desired to regain possession of it as soon as possible. Philip seemed to hesitate whether to continue his cross-examination or not, and he looked at the door leading into the antechamber, suddenly wondering why Mendoza had not returned. Then he began to speak again, but he did not wish, angry though he was, to face alone a second refusal to deliver the document to him. His dignity would have suffered too much. "The facts of the case are these," he said, as if he were recapitulating what had gone before in his mind. "It is my desire to marry you to the widowed Queen of Scots, as you know. You are doing all you can to oppose me, and you have determined to marry the dowerless daughter of a poor soldier. I am equally determined that you shall not disgrace yourself by such an alliance." "Disgrace!" cried Don John loudly, almost before the word had passed the King's lips, and he made half a step forward. "You are braver than I thought you, if you dare use that word to me!" Philip stepped back, growing livid, and his hand was on his rapier. Don John was unarmed, but his sword lay on the table within his reach. Seeing the King afraid, he stepped back. "No," he said scornfully, "I was mistaken. You are a coward." He laughed as he glanced at Philip's hand, still on the hilt of his weapon and ready to draw it. In the next room Dolores drew frightened breath, for the tones of the two men's voices had changed suddenly. Yet her heart had leapt for joy when she had heard Don John's cry of anger at the King's insulting word. But Don John was right, for Philip was a coward at heart, and though he inwardly resolved that his brother should be placed under arrest as soon as Mendoza returned, his present instinct was not to rouse him further. He was indeed in danger, between his anger and his fear, for at any moment he might speak some bitter word, accustomed as he was to the perpetual protection of his guards, but at the next his brother's hands might be on his throat, for he had the coward's true instinct to recognize the man who was quite fearless. "You strangely forget yourself," he said, with an appearance of dignity. "You spring forward as if you were going to grapple with me, and then you are surprised that I should be ready to defend myself." "I barely moved a step from where I stand," answered Don John, with profound contempt. "I am unarmed, too. There lies my sword, on the table. But since you are the King as well as my brother, I make all excuses to your Majesty for having been the cause of your fright." Dolores understood what had happened, as Don John meant that she should. She knew also that her position was growing more and more desperate and untenable at every moment; yet she could not blame her lover for what he had said. Even to save her, she would not have had him cringe to the King and ask pardon for his hasty word and movement, still less could she have borne that he should not cry out in protest at a word that insulted her, though ever so lightly. "I do not desire to insist upon our kinship," said Philip coldly. "If I chose to acknowledge it when you were a boy, it was out of respect for the memory of the Emperor. It was not in the expectation of being called brother by the son of a German burgher's daughter." Don John did not wince, for the words, being literally true and without exaggeration, could hardly be treated as an insult, though they were meant for one, and hurt him, as all reference to his real mother always did. "Yes," he said, still scornfully. "I am the son of a German burgher's daughter, neither better nor worse. But I am your brother, for all that, and though I shall not forget that you are King and I am subject, when we are before the world, yet here, we are man and man, you and I, brother and brother, and there is neither King nor prince. But I shall not hurt you, so you need fear nothing. I respect the brother far too little for that, and the sovereign too much." There was a bad yellow light in Philip's face, and instead of walking towards Don John and away from him, as he had done hitherto, he began to pace up and down, crossing and recrossing before him, from the foot of the great canopied bed to one of the curtained windows, keeping his eyes upon his brother almost all the time. "I warned you when I came here that your words should be remembered," he said. "And your actions shall not be forgotten, either. There are safe places, even in Madrid, where you can live in the retirement you desire so much, even in total solitude." "If it pleases your Majesty to imprison Don John of Austria, you have the power. For my part, I shall make no resistance." "Who shall, then?" asked the King angrily. "Do you expect that there will be a general rising of the people to liberate you, or that there will be a revolution within the palace, brought on by your party, which shall force me to set you free for reasons of state? We are not in Paris that you should expect the one, nor in Constantinople where the other might be possible. We are in Spain, and I am master, and my will shall be done, and no one shall cry out against it. I am too gentle with you, too kind! For the half of what you have said and done, Elizabeth of England would have had your life to-morrow--yes, I consent to give you a chance, the benefit of a doubt there is still in my thoughts about you, because justice shall not be offended and turned into an instrument of revenge. Yes--I am kind, I am clement. We shall see whether you can save yourself. You shall have the chance." "What chance is that?" asked Don John, growing very quiet, for he saw the real danger near at hand again. "You shall have an opportunity of proving that a subject is at liberty to insult his sovereign, and that the King is not free to speak his mind to a subject. Can you prove that?" "I cannot." "Then you can be convicted of high treason," answered Philip, his evil mouth curling. "There are several methods of interrogating the accused," he continued. "I daresay you have heard of them." "Do you expect to frighten me by talking of torture?" asked Don John, with a smile at the implied suggestion. "Witnesses are also examined," replied the King, his voice thickening again in anticipation of the effect he was going to produce upon the man who would not fear him. "With them, even more painful methods are often employed. Witnesses may be men or women, you know, my dear brother--" he pronounced the word with a sneer--"and among the many ladies of your acquaintance--" "There are very few." "It will be the easier to find the two or three, or perhaps the only one, whom it will be necessary to interrogate--in your presence, most probably, and by torture." "I was right to call you a coward," said Don John, slowly turning pale till his face was almost as white as the white silks and satins of his doublet. "Will you give me the letter you were reading when I came here?" "No." "Not to save yourself from the executioner's hands?" "No." "Not to save--" Philip paused, and a frightful stare of hatred fixed his eyes on his brother. "Will you give me that letter to save Dolores de Mendoza from being torn piecemeal?" "Coward!" By instinct Don John's hand went to the hilt of his sheathed sword this time, as he cried out in rage, and sprang forward. Even then he would have remembered the promise he had given and would not have raised his hand to strike. But the first movement was enough, and Philip drew his rapier in a flash of light, fearing for his life. Without waiting for an attack he made a furious pass at his brother's body. Don John's hand went out with the sheathed sword in a desperate attempt to parry the thrust, but the weapon was entangled in the belt that hung to it, and Philip's lunge had been strong and quick as lightning. With a cry of anger Don John fell straight backwards, his feet seeming to slip from under him on the smooth marble pavement, and with his fall, as he threw out his hands to save himself, the sword flew high into the air, sheathed as it was, and landed far away. He lay at full length with one arm stretched out, and for a moment the hand twitched in quick spasms. Then it was quite still. At his feet stood Philip, his rapier in his hand, and blood on its fine point. His eyes shone yellow in the candlelight, his jaw had dropped a little, and he bent forwards, looking intently at the still, white face. He had longed for that moment ever since he had entered his brother's room, though even he himself had not guessed that he wanted his brother's life. There was not a sound in the room as he looked at what he had done, and two or three drops of blood fell one by one, very slowly, upon the marble. On the dazzling white of Don John's doublet there was a small red stain. As Philip watched it, he thought it grew wider and brighter. Beyond the door, Dolores had fallen upon her knees, pressing her hands to her temples in an agony beyond thought or expression. Her fear had risen to terror while she listened to the last words that had been exchanged, and the King's threat had chilled her blood like ice, though she was brave. She had longed to cry out to Don John to give up her letter or the other, whichever the King wanted--she had almost tried to raise her voice, in spite of every other fear, when she had heard Don John's single word of scorn, and the quick footsteps, the drawing of the rapier from its sheath, the desperate scuffle that had not lasted five seconds, and then the dull fall which meant that one was hurt. It could only be the King,--but that was terrible enough,--and yet, if the King had fallen, Don John would have come to the door the next instant. All was still in the room, but her terror made wild noises in her ears. The two men might have spoken now and she could not have heard them,--nor the opening of a door, nor any ordinary sound. It was no longer the fear of being heard, either, that made her silent. Her throat was parched and her tongue paralyzed. She remembered suddenly that Don John had been unarmed, and how he had pointed out to Philip that his sword lay on the table. It was the King who had drawn his own, then, and had killed his unarmed brother. She felt as if something heavy were striking her head as the thoughts made broken words, and flashes of light danced before her eyes. With her hands she tried to press feeling and reason and silence back into her brain that would not be quieted, but the certainty grew upon her that Don John was killed, and the tide of despair rose higher with every breath. The sensation came upon her that she was dying, then and there, of a pain human nature could not endure, far beyond the torments Philip had threatened, and the thought was merciful, for she could not have lived an hour in such agony,--something would have broken before then. She was dying, there, on her knees before the door beyond which her lover lay suddenly dead. It would be easy to die. In a moment more she would be with him, for ever, and in peace. They would find her there, dead, and perhaps they would be merciful and bury her near him. But that would matter little, since she should be with him always now. In the first grief that struck her, and bruised her, and numbed her as with material blows, she had no tears, but there was a sort of choking fire in her throat, and her eyes burned her like hot iron. She did not know how long she knelt, waiting for death. She was dying, and there was no time any more, nor any outward world, nor anything but her lover's dead body on the floor in the next room, and his soul waiting for hers, waiting beside her for her to die also, that they might go together. She was so sure now, that she was wondering dreamily why it took so long to die, seeing that death had taken him so quickly. Could one shaft be aimed so straight and could the next miss the mark? She shook all over, as a new dread seized her. She was not dying,--her life clung too closely to her suffering body, her heart was too young and strong to stand still in her breast for grief. She was to live, and bear that same pain a lifetime. She rocked herself gently on her knees, bowing her head almost to the floor. She was roused by the sound of her father's voice, and the words he was speaking sent a fresh shock of horror through her unutterable grief, for they told her that Don John was dead, and then something else so strange that she could not understand it. Philip had stood only a few moments, sword in hand, over his brother's body, staring down at his face, when the door opened. On the threshold stood old Mendoza, half-stunned by the sight he saw. Philip heard, stood up, and drew back as his eyes fell upon the old soldier. He knew that Mendoza, if no one else, knew the truth now, beyond any power of his to conceal it. His anger had subsided, and a sort of horror that could never be remorse, had come over him for what he had done. It must have been in his face, for Mendoza understood, and he came forward quickly and knelt down upon the floor to listen for the beating of the heart, and to try whether there was any breath to dim the brightness of his polished scabbard. Philip looked on in silence. Like many an old soldier Mendoza had some little skill, but he saw the bright spot on the white doublet, and the still face and the hands relaxed, and there was neither breath nor beating of the heart to give hope. He rose silently, and shook his head. Still looking down he saw the red drops that had fallen upon the pavement from Philip's rapier, and looking at that, saw that the point was dark. With a gesture of excuse he took the sword from the King's hand and wiped it quite dry and bright upon his own handkerchief, and gave it back to Philip, who sheathed it by his side, but never spoke. Together the two looked at the body for a full minute and more, each silently debating what should be done with it. At last Mendoza raised his head, and there was a strange look in his old eyes and a sort of wan greatness came over his war-worn face. It was then that he spoke the words Dolores heard. "I throw myself upon your Majesty's mercy! I have killed Don John of Austria in a private quarrel, and he was unarmed." Philip understood well enough, and a faint smile of satisfaction flitted through the shadows of his face. It was out of the question that the world should ever know who had killed his brother, and he knew the man who offered to sacrifice himself by bearing the blame of the deed. Mendoza would die, on the scaffold if need be, and it would be enough for him to know that his death saved his King. No word would ever pass his lips. The man's loyalty would bear any proof; he could feel horror at the thought that Philip could have done such a deed, but the King's name must be saved at all costs, and the King's divine right must be sustained before the world. He felt no hesitation from the moment when he saw clearly how this must be done. To accuse some unknown murderer and let it be supposed that he had escaped would have been worse than useless; the court and half Spain knew of the King's jealousy of his brother, every one had seen that Philip had been very angry when the courtiers had shouted for Don John; already the story of the quarrel about the glove was being repeated from mouth to mouth in the throne room, where the nobles had reassembled after supper. As soon as it was known that Don John was dead, it would be believed by every one in the palace that the King had killed him or had caused him to be murdered. But if Mendoza took the blame upon himself, the court would believe him, for many knew of Dolores' love for Don John, and knew also how bitterly the old soldier was opposed to their marriage, on the ground that it would be no marriage at all, but his daughter's present ruin. There was no one else in the palace who could accuse himself of the murder and who would be believed to have done it without the King's orders, and Mendoza knew this, when he offered his life to shield Philip's honour. Philip knew it, too, and while he wondered at the old man's simple devotion, he accepted it without protest, as his vast selfishness would have permitted the destruction of all mankind, that it might be satisfied and filled. He looked once more at the motionless body at his feet, and once more at the faithful old man. Then he bent his head with condescending gravity, as if he were signifying his pleasure to receive kindly, for the giver's sake, a gift of little value. "So be it," he said slowly. Mendoza bowed his head, too, as if in thanks, and then taking up the long dark cloak which the King had thrown off on entering, he put it upon Philip's shoulders, and went before him to the door. And Philip followed him without looking back, and both went out upon the terrace, leaving both doors ajar after them. They exchanged a few words more as they walked slowly in the direction of the corridor. "It is necessary that your Majesty should return at once to the throne room, as if nothing had happened," said Mendoza. "Your Majesty should be talking unconcernedly with some ambassador or minister when the news is brought that his Highness is dead." "And who shall bring the news?" asked Philip calmly, as if he were speaking to an indifferent person. "I will, Sire," answered Mendoza firmly. "They will tear you in pieces before I can save you," returned Philip, in a thoughtful tone. "So much the better. I shall die for my King, and your Majesty will be spared the difficulty of pardoning a deed which will be unpardonable in the eyes of the whole world." "That is true," said the King meditatively. "But I do not wish you to die, Mendoza," he added, as an afterthought. "You must escape to France or to England." "I could not make my escape without your Majesty's help, and that would soon be known. It would then be believed that I had done the deed by your Majesty's orders, and no good end would have been gained." "You may be right. You are a very brave man, Mendoza--the bravest I have ever known. I thank you. If it is possible to save you, you shall be saved." "It will not be possible," replied the soldier, in a low and steady voice. "If your Majesty will return at once to the throne room, it may be soon over. Besides, it is growing late, and it must be done before the whole court." They entered the corridor, and the King walked a few steps before Mendoza, covering his head with the hood of his cloak lest any one should recognize him, and gradually increasing his distance as the old man fell behind. Descending by a private staircase, Philip reëntered his own apartments by a small door that gave access to his study without obliging him to pass through the antechamber, and by which he often came and went unobserved. Alone in his innermost room, and divested of his hood and cloak, the King went to a Venetian mirror that stood upon a pier table between the windows, and examined his face attentively. Not a trace of excitement or emotion was visible in the features he saw, but his hair was a little disarranged, and he smoothed it carefully and adjusted it about his ears. From a silver box on the table he took a little scented lozenge and put it into his mouth. No reasonable being would have suspected from his appearance that he had been moved to furious anger and had done a murderous deed less than twenty minutes earlier. His still eyes were quite calm now, and the yellow gleam in them had given place to their naturally uncertain colour. With a smile of admiration for his own extraordinary powers, he turned and left the room. He was enjoying one of his rare moments of satisfaction, for the rival he had long hated and was beginning to dread was never to stand in his way again nor to rob him of the least of his attributes of sovereignty. * * * * * CHAPTER XIII Dolores had not understood her father's words. All that was clear to her was that Don John was dead and that his murderers were gone. Had there been danger still for herself, she could not have felt it; but there was none now as she laid her hand upon the key to enter the bedchamber. At first the lock would not open, as it had been injured in some way by being so roughly shaken when Mendoza had tried it. But Dolores' desperate fingers wound themselves upon the key like little ropes of white silk, slender but very strong, and she wrenched at the thing furiously till it turned. The door flew open, and she stood motionless a moment on the threshold. Mendoza had said that Don John was dead, but she had not quite believed it. He lay on his back as he had fallen, his feet towards her, his graceful limbs relaxed, one arm beside him, the other thrown back beyond his head, the colourless fingers just bent a little and showing the nervous beauty of the hand. The beautiful young face was white as marble, and the eyes were half open, very dark under the waxen lids. There was one little spot of scarlet on the white satin coat, near the left breast. Dolores saw it all in the bright light of the candles, and she neither moved nor closed her fixed eyes as she gazed. She felt that she was at the end of life; she stood still to see it all and to understand. But though she tried to think, it was as if she had no mind left, no capacity for grasping any new thought, and no power to connect those that had disturbed her brain with the present that stared her in the face. An earthquake might have torn the world open under her feet at that moment, swallowing up the old Alcazar with the living and the dead, and Dolores would have gone down to destruction as she stood, unconscious of her fate, her eyes fixed upon Don John's dead features, her own life already suspended and waiting to follow his. It seemed as if she might stand there till her horror should stop the beating of her own heart, unless something came to rouse her from the stupor she was in. But gradually a change came over her face, her lids drooped and quivered, her face turned a little upward, and she grasped the doorpost with one hand, lest she should reel and fall. Then, knowing that she could stand no longer, instinct made a last effort upon her; its invisible power thrust her violently forward in a few swift steps, till her strength broke all at once, and she fell and lay almost upon the body of her lover, her face hidden upon his silent breast, one hand seeking his hand, the other pressing his cold forehead. It was not probable that any one should find her there for a long time. The servants and gentlemen had been dismissed, and until it was known that Don John was dead, no one would come. Even if she could have thought at all, she would not have cared who saw her lying there; but thought was altogether gone now, and there was nothing left but the ancient instinct of the primeval woman mourning her dead mate alone, with long-drawn, hopeless weeping and blinding tears. They came, too, when she had lain upon his breast a little while and when understanding had wholly ceased and given way to nature. Then her body shook and her breast heaved strongly, almost throwing her upon her side as she lay, and sounds that were hardly human came from her lips; for the first dissolving of a woman's despair into tears is most like the death agony of those who die young in their strength, when the limbs are wrung at the joints and the light breaks in the upturned eyes, when the bosom heaves and would take in the whole world at one breath, when the voice makes sounds of fear that are beyond words and worse to hear than any words could be. Her weeping was wild at first, measureless and violent, broken by sharp cries that hurt her heart like jagged knives, then strangled to a choking silence again and again, as the merciless consciousness that could have killed, if it had prevailed, almost had her by the throat, but was forced back again with cruel pain by the young life that would not die, though living was agony and death would have been as welcome as air. Then her loud grief subsided to a lower key, and her voice grew by degrees monotonous and despairing as the turning tide on a quicksand, before bad weather,--not diminished, but deeper drawn within itself; and the low moan came regularly with each breath, while the tears flowed steadily. The first wild tempest had swept by, and the more enduring storm followed in its track. So she lay a long time weeping; and then strong hands were upon her, lifting her up and dragging her away, without warning and without word. She did not understand, and she fancied herself in the arms of some supernatural being of monstrous strength that was tearing her from what was left of life and love. She struggled senselessly, but she could find no foothold as she was swept through the open door. She gasped for breath, as one does in bad dreams, and bodily fear almost reached her heart through its sevenfold armour of such grief as makes fear ridiculous and turns mortal danger to an empty show. The time had seemed an age since she had fallen upon dead Don John--it had measured but a short few minutes; it seemed as if she were being dragged the whole length of the dim palace as the strong hands bore her along, yet she was only carried from the room to the terrace; and when her eyes could see, she knew that she was in the open air on a stone seat in the moonlight, the cool night breeze fanning her face, while a gentle hand supported her head,--the same hand that had been so masterfully strong a moment earlier. A face she knew and did not dread, though it was unlike other faces, was just at the same height with her own, though the man was standing beside her and she was seated; and the moonlight made very soft shadows in the ill-drawn features of the dwarf, so that his thin and twisted lips were kind and his deep-set eyes were overflowing with human sympathy. When he understood that she saw him and was not fainting, he gently drew away his hand and let her head rest against the stone parapet. She was dazed still, and the tears veiled her sight. He stood before her, as if guarding her, ready in case she should move and try to leave him. His long arms hung by his sides, but not quite motionless, so that he could have caught her instantly had she attempted to spring past him; and he was wise and guessed rightly what she would do. Her eyes brightened suddenly, and she half rose before he held her again. "No, no!" she said desperately. "I must go to him--let me go--let me go back!" But his hands were on her shoulders in an instant, and she was in a vise, forced back to her seat. "How dare you touch me!" she cried, in the furious anger of a woman beside herself with grief. "How dare you lay hands on me!" she repeated in a rising key, but struggling in vain against his greater strength. "You would have died, if I had left you there," answered the jester. "And besides, the people will come soon, and they would have found you there, lying on his body, and your good name would have gone forever." "My name! What does a name matter? Or anything? Oh, let me go! No one must touch him--no hands that do not love him must come near him--let me get up--let me go in again!" She tried to force the dwarf from her--she would have struck him, crushed him, thrown him from the terrace, if she could. She was strong, too, in her grief; but his vast arms were like iron bars, growing from his misshapen body. His face was very grave and kind, and his eyes more tender than they had ever been in his life. "No," he said gently. "You must not go. By and by you shall see him again, but not now. Do not try, for I am much stronger than you, and I will not let you go back into the room." Then her strength relaxed, and she turned to the stone parapet, burying her face in her crossed arms, and her tears came again. For this the jester was glad, knowing that tears quench the first white heat of such sorrows as can burn out the soul and drive the brain raving mad, when life can bear the torture. He stood still before her, watching her and guarding her, but he felt that the worst was past, and that before very long he could lead her away to a place of greater safety. He had indeed taken her as far as he could from Don John's door, and out of sight of it, where the long terrace turned to the westward, and where it was not likely that any one should pass at that hour. It had been the impulse of the moment, and he himself had not recovered from the shock of finding Don John's body lifeless on the floor. He had known nothing of what had happened, but lurking in a corner to see the King pass on his way back from his brother's quarters, he had made sure that Don John was alone, and had gone to his apartment to find out, if he could, how matters had fared, and whether he himself were in further danger or not. He meant to escape from the palace, or to take his own life, rather than be put to the torture, if the King suspected him of being involved in a conspiracy. He was not a common coward, but he feared bodily pain as only such sensitive organizations can, and the vision of the rack and the boot had been before him since he had seen Philip's face at supper. Don John was kind, and would have warned him if he were in danger, and so all might have been well, and by flight or death he might have escaped being torn limb from limb. So he had gone boldly in, and had found the door ajar and had entered the bedchamber, and when he had seen what was there, he would have fled at once, for his own safety, not only because Don John's murder was sure to produce terrible trouble, and many enquiries and trials, in the course of which he was almost sure to be lost, but also for the more immediate reason that if he were seen near the body when it was discovered, he should certainly be put to the question ordinary and extraordinary for his evidence. But he was not a common coward, and in spite of his own pardonable terror, he thought first of the innocent girl whose name and fame would be gone if she were found lying upon her murdered lover's body, and so far as he could, he saved her before he thought of saving himself, though with infinite difficulty and against her will. Half paralyzed by her immeasurable grief, she lay against the parapet, and the great sobs came evenly, as if they were counted, shaking her from her head to her waist, and just leaving her a breathing space between each one and the next. The jester felt that he could do nothing. So long as she had seemed unconscious, he had tried to help her a little by supporting her head with his hand and arm, as tenderly as if she had been his own child. So long as she did not know what he was doing, she was only a human being in distress, and a woman, and deep down in the jester's nature there was a marvellous depth of pity for all things that suffered--the deeper and truer because his own sufferings in the world were great. But it was quite different now that she knew where she was and recognized him. She was no longer a woman now, but a high-born lady, one of the Queen's maids of honour, a being infinitely far removed above his sphere, and whose hand he was not worthy to touch. He would have dared to be much more familiar with the King himself than with this young girl whom fate had placed in his keeping for a moment. In the moonlight he watched her, and as he gazed upon her graceful figure and small head and slender, bending arms, it seemed to him that she had come down from an altar to suffer in life, and that it had been almost sacrilege to lay his hands upon her shoulders and keep her from doing her own will. He almost wondered how he had found courage to be so rough and commanding. He was gentle of heart, though it was his trade to make sharp speeches, and there were wonderful delicacies of thought and feeling far down in his suffering cripple's nature. "Come," he said softly, when he had waited a long time, and when he thought she was growing more quiet. "You must let me take you away, Doña Maria Dolores, for we cannot stay here." "Take me back to him," she answered. "Let me go back to him!" "No--to your father--I cannot take you to him. You will be safe there." Dolores sprang to her feet before the dwarf could prevent her. "To my father? oh, no, no, no! Never, as long as I live! I will go anywhere, but not to him! Take your hands from me--do not touch me! I am not strong, but I shall kill you if you try to take me to my father!" Her small hands grasped the dwarfs wrists and wrung them with desperate energy, and she tried to push him away, so that she might pass him. But he resisted her quietly, planting himself in a position of resistance on his short bowed legs, and opposing the whole strength of his great arms to her girlish violence. Her hands relaxed suddenly in despair. "Not to my father!" she pleaded, in a broken voice. "Oh, please, please--not to my father!" The jester did not fully understand, but he yielded, for he could not carry her to Mendoza's apartments by force. "But what can I do to put you in a place of safety?" he asked, in growing distress. "You cannot stay here." While he was speaking a light figure glided out from the shadows, with outstretched hands, and a low voice called Dolores' name, trembling with terror and emotion. Dolores broke from the dwarf and clasped her sister in her arms. "Is it true?" moaned Inez. "Is it true? Is he dead?" And her voice broke. * * * * * CHAPTER XIV The courtiers had assembled again in the great throne room after supper, and the stately dancing, for which the court of Spain was even then famous throughout Europe, had begun. The orchestra was placed under the great arch of the central window on a small raised platform draped with velvets and brocades that hung from a railing, high enough to conceal the musicians as they sat, though some of the instruments and the moving bows of the violins could be seen above it. The masked dancing, if it were dancing at all, which had been general in the days of the Emperor Maximilian, and which had not yet gone out of fashion altogether at the imperial court of Vienna, had long been relegated to the past in Spain, and the beautiful "pavane" dances, of which awkward travesties survive in our day, had been introduced instead. As now, the older ladies of the court withdrew to the sides of the hall, leaving the polished floor free for those who danced, and sets formed themselves in the order of their rank from the foot of the throne dais to the lower end. As now, too, the older and graver men congregated together in outer rooms; and there gaming-tables were set out, and the nobles lost vast sums at games now long forgotten, by the express authorization of the pious Philip, who saw that everything which could injure the fortunes of the grandees must consolidate his own, by depriving them of some of that immense wealth which was an ever-ready element of revolution. He did everything in his power to promote the ruin of the most powerful grandees in the kingdom by encouraging gaming and all imaginable forms of extravagance, and he looked with suspicion and displeasure upon those more prudent men who guarded their riches carefully, as their fathers had done before them. But these were few, for it was a part of a noble's dignity to lose enormous sums of money without the slightest outward sign of emotion or annoyance. It had been announced that the King and Queen would not return after supper, and the magnificent gravity of the most formal court in the world was a little relaxed when this was known. Between the strains of music, the voices of the courtiers rose in unbroken conversation, and now and then there was a ripple of fresh young laughter that echoed sweetly under the high Moorish vault, and died away just as it rose again from below. Yet the dancing was a matter of state, and solemn enough, though it was very graceful. Magnificent young nobles in scarlet, in pale green, in straw colour, in tender shades of blue, all satin and silk and velvet and embroidery, led lovely women slowly forward with long and gliding steps that kept perfect time to the music, and turned and went back, and wound mazy figures with the rest, under the waxen light of the waxen torches, and returned to their places with deep curtsies on the one side, and sweeping obeisance on the other. The dresses of the women were richer by far with gold and silver, and pearls and other jewels, than those of the men, but were generally darker in tone, for that was the fashion then. Their skirts were straight and barely touched the floor, being made for a time when dancing was a part of court life, and when every one within certain limits of age was expected to dance well. There was no exaggeration of the ruffle then, nor had the awkward hoop skirt been introduced in Spain. Those were the earlier days of Queen Elizabeth's reign, before Queen Mary was imprisoned; it was the time, indeed, when the rough Bothwell had lately carried her off and married her, after a fashion, with so little ceremony that Philip paid no attention to the marriage at all, and deliberately proposed to make her Don John's wife. The matter was freely talked of on that night by the noble ladies of elder years who gossiped while they watched the dancing. That was indeed such a court as had not been seen before, nor was ever seen again, whether one count beauty first, or riches and magnificence, or the marvel of splendid ceremony and the faultless grace of studied manners, or even the cool recklessness of great lords and ladies who could lose a fortune at play, as if they were throwing a handful of coin to a beggar in the street. The Princess of Eboli stood a little apart from the rest, having just returned to the ball-room, and her eyes searched for Dolores in the crowd, though she scarcely expected to see her there. It would have been almost impossible for the girl to put on a court dress in so short a time, though since her father had allowed her to leave her room, she could have gone back to dress if she had chosen. The Princess had rarely been at a loss in her evil life, and had seldom been baffled in anything she had undertaken, since that memorable occasion on which her husband, soon after her marriage, had forcibly shut her up in a convent for several months, in the vain hope of cooling her indomitable temper. But now she was nervous and uncertain of herself. Not only had Dolores escaped her, but Don John had disappeared also, and the Princess had not the least doubt but that the two were somewhere together, and she was very far from being sure that they had not already left the palace. Antonio Perez had informed her that the King had promised not to see Don John that night, and for once she was foolish enough to believe the King's word. Perez came up to her as she was debating what she should do. She told him her thoughts, laughing gaily from time to time, as if she were telling him some very witty story, for she did not wish those who watched them to guess that the conversation was serious. Perez laughed, too, and answered in low tones, with many gestures meant to deceive the court. "The King did not take my advice," he said. "I had scarcely left him, when he went to Don John's apartments." "How do you know that?" asked the Princess, with some anxiety. "He found the door of an inner room locked, and he sent Mendoza to find the key. Fortunately for the old man's feelings it could not be found! He would have had an unpleasant surprise." "Why?" "Because his daughter was in the room that was locked," laughed Perez. "When? How? How long ago was that?" "Half an hour--not more." "That is impossible. Half an hour ago Dolores de Mendoza was with me." "Then there was another lady in the room." Perez laughed again. "Better two than one," he added. "You are wrong," said the Princess, and her face darkened. "Don John has not so much as deigned to look at any other woman these two years." "You should know that best," returned the Secretary, with a little malice in his smile. It was well known in the court that two or three years earlier, during the horrible intrigue that ended in the death of Don Carlos, the Princess of Eboli had done her best to bring Don John of Austria to her feet, and had failed notoriously, because he was already in love with Dolores. She was angry now, and the rich colour came into her handsome dark face. "Don Antonio Perez," she said, "take care! I have made you. I can also unmake you." Perez assumed an air of simple and innocent surprise, as if he were quite sure that he had said nothing to annoy her, still less to wound her deeply. He believed that she really loved him and that he could play with her as if his own intelligence far surpassed hers. In the first matter he was right, but he was very much mistaken in the second. "I do not understand," he said. "If I have done anything to offend you, pray forgive my ignorance, and believe in the unchanging devotion of your most faithful slave." His dark eyes became very expressive as he bowed a little, with a graceful gesture of deprecation. The Princess laughed lightly, but there was still a spark of annoyance in her look. "Why does Don John not come?" she asked impatiently. "We should have danced together. Something must have happened--can you not find out?" Others were asking the same question in surprise, for it had been expected that Don John would enter immediately after the supper. His name was heard from end to end of the hall, in every conversation, wherever two or three persons were talking together. It was in the air, like his popularity, everywhere and in everything, and the expectation of his coming produced a sort of tension that was felt by every one. The men grew more witty, the younger women's eyes brightened, though they constantly glanced towards the door of the state apartments by which Don John should enter, and as the men's conversation became more brilliant the women paid less attention to it, for there was hardly one of them who did not hope that Don John might notice her before the evening was over,--there was not one who did not fancy herself a little in love with him, as there was hardly a man there who would not have drawn his sword for him and fought for him with all his heart. Many, though they dared not say so, secretly wished that some evil might befall Philip, and that he might soon die childless, since he had destroyed his only son and only heir, and that Don John might be King in his stead. The Princess of Eboli and Perez knew well enough that their plan would be popular, if they could ever bring it to maturity. The music swelled and softened, and rose again in those swaying strains that inspire an irresistible bodily longing for rhythmical motion, and which have infinite power to call up all manner of thoughts, passionate, gentle, hopeful, regretful, by turns. In the middle of the hall, more than a hundred dancers moved, swayed, and glided in time with the sound, changed places, and touched hands in the measure, tripped forward and back and sideways, and met and parted again without pause, the colours of their dresses mingling to rich unknown hues in the soft candlelight, as the figure brought many together, and separating into a hundred elements again, when the next steps scattered them again; the jewels in the women's hair, the clasps of diamonds and precious stones at throat, and shoulder, and waist, all moved with an intricate motion, in orbits that crossed and recrossed in the tinted sea of silk, and flashed all at once, as the returning burden of the music brought the dancers to stand and turn at the same beat of the measure. Yet it was all unlike the square dancing of these days, which is either no dancing at all, but a disorderly walk, or else is so stiffly regular and awkward that it makes one think of a squad of recruits exercising on the drill ground. There was not a motion, then, that lacked grace, or ease, or a certain purpose of beauty, nor any, perhaps, that was not a phrase in the allegory of love, from which all dancing is, and was, and always must be, drawn. Swift, slow, by turns, now languorous, now passionate, now full of delicious regret, singing love's triumph, breathing love's fire, sighing in love's despair, the dance and its music were one, so was sight intermingled with sound, and motion a part of both. And at each pause, lips parted and glance sought glance in the light, while hearts found words in the music that answered the language of love. Men laugh at dancing and love it, and women, too, and no one can tell where its charm is, but few have not felt it, or longed to feel it, and its beginnings are very far away in primeval humanity, beyond the reach of theory, unless instinct may explain all simply, as it well may. For light and grace and sweet sound are things of beauty which last for ever, and love is the source of the future and the explanation of the past; and that which can bring into itself both love and melody, and grace and light, must needs be a spell to charm men and women. There was more than that in the air on that night, for Don John's return had set free that most intoxicating essence of victory, which turns to a mad fire in the veins of a rejoicing people, making the least man of them feel himself a soldier, and a conqueror, and a sharer in undying fame. They had loved him from a child, they had seen him outgrow them in beauty, and skill, and courage, and they had loved him still the more for being the better man; and now he had done a great deed, and had fulfilled and overfilled their greatest expectations, and in an instant he leapt from the favourite's place in their hearts to the hero's height on the altar of their wonder, to be the young god of a nation that loved him. Not a man, on that night, but would have sworn that Don John was braver than Alexander, wiser than Charlemagne, greater than Cæsar himself; not a man but would have drawn his sword to prove it on the body of any who should dare to contradict him,--not a mother was there, who did not pray that her sons might be but ever so little like him, no girl of Spain but dreamt she heard his soft voice speaking low in her ear. Not often in the world's story has a man so young done such great things as he had done and was to do before his short life was ended; never, perhaps, was any man so honoured by his own people, so trusted, and so loved. They could talk only of him, wondering more and more that he stayed away from them on such a night, yet sure that he would come, and join the dancing, for as he fought with a skill beyond that of other swordsmen, so he danced with the most surpassing grace. They longed to see him, to look into his face, to hear his voice, perhaps to touch his hand; for he was free of manner and gentle to all, and if he came he would go from one to another, and remember each with royal memory, and find kind words for every one. They wanted him among them, they felt a sort of tense desire to see him again, and even to shout for him again, as the vulgar herd did in the streets,--as they themselves had done but an hour ago when he had stood out beside the throne. And still the dancers danced through the endless measures, laughing and talking at each pause, and repeating his name till it was impossible not to hear it, wherever one might be in the hall, and there was no one, old or young, who did not speak it at least once in every five minutes. There was a sort of intoxication in its very sound, and the more they heard it, the more they wished to hear it, coupled with every word of praise that the language possessed. From admiration they rose to enthusiasm, from enthusiasm to a generous patriotic passion in which Spain was the world and Don John was Spain, and all the rest of everything was but a dull and lifeless blank which could have no possible interest for natural people. Young men, darkly flushed from dancing, swore that whenever Don John should be next sent with an army, they would go, too, and win his battles and share in his immortal glory; and grand, grey men who wore the Golden Fleece, men who had seen great battles in the Emperor's day, stood together and talked of him, and praised God that Spain had another hero of the Austrian house, to strike terror to the heart of France, to humble England at last, and to grasp what little of the world was not already gathered in the hollow of Spain's vast hand. Antonio Perez and the Princess of Eboli parted and went among the courtiers, listening to all that was to be heard and feeding the fire of enthusiasm, and met again to exchange glances of satisfaction, for they were well pleased with the direction matters were taking, and the talk grew more free from minute to minute, till many, carried away by a force they could not understand and did not seek to question, were openly talking of the succession to the throne, of Philip's apparent ill health, and of the chance that they might before long be doing service to his Majesty King John. The music ceased again, and the couples dispersed about the hall, to collect again in groups. There was a momentary lull in the talk, too, as often happens when a dance is just over, and at that moment the great door beside the throne was opened, with a noise that attracted the attention of all; and all believed that Don John was returning, while all eyes were fixed upon the entrance to catch the first glimpse of him, and every one pronounced his name at once in short, glad tones of satisfaction. "Don John is coming! It is Don John of Austria! Don John is there!" It was almost a universal cry of welcome. An instant later a dead silence followed as a chamberlain's clear voice announced the royal presence, and King Philip advanced upon the platform of the throne. For several seconds not a sound broke the stillness, and he came slowly forward followed by half a dozen nobles in immediate attendance upon him. But though he must have heard his brother's name in the general chorus of voices as soon as the door had been thrown open, he seemed by no means disconcerted; on the contrary, he smiled almost affably, and his eyes were less fixed than usual, as he looked about him with something like an air of satisfaction. As soon as it was clear that he meant to descend the steps to the floor of the hall, the chief courtiers came forward, Ruy Gomez de Silva, Prince of Eboli, Alvarez de Toledo, the terrible Duke of Alva, the Dukes of Medina Sidonia and of Infantado, Don Antonio Perez the chief Secretary, the Ambassadors of Queen Elizabeth of England and of France, and a dozen others, bowing so low that the plumes of their hats literally touched the floor beside them. "Why is there no dancing?" asked Philip, addressing Ruy Gomez, with a smile. The Minister explained that one of the dances was but just over. "Let there be more at once," answered the King. "Let there be dancing and music without end to-night. We have good reason to keep the day with rejoicing, since the war is over, and Don John of Austria has come back in triumph." The command was obeyed instantly, as Ruy Gomez made a sign to the leader of the musicians, who was watching him intently in expectation of the order. The King smiled again as the long strain broke the silence and the conversation began again all through the hall, though in a far more subdued tone than before, and with much more caution. Philip turned to the English Ambassador. "It is a pity," he said, "that my sister of England cannot be here with us on such a night as this. We saw no such sights in London in my day, my lord." "There have been changes since then, Sire," answered the Ambassador. "The Queen is very much inclined to magnificence and to great entertainments, and does not hesitate to dance herself, being of a very vital and pleasant temper. Nevertheless, your Majesty's court is by far the most splendid in the world." "There you are right, my lord!" exclaimed the King. "And for that matter, we have beauty also, such as is found nowhere else." The Princess of Eboli was close by, waiting for him to speak to her, and his eyes fixed themselves upon her face with a sort of cold and snakelike admiration, to which she was well accustomed, but which even now made her nervous. The Ambassador was not slow to take up the cue of flattery, for Englishmen still knew how to flatter in Elizabeth's day. "The inheritance of universal conquest," he said, bowing and smiling to the Princess. "Even the victories of Don John of Austria must yield to that." The Princess laughed carelessly. Had Perez spoken the words, she would have frowned, but the King's eyes were watching her. "His Highness has fled from the field without striking a blow," she said. "We have not seen him this evening." As she spoke she met the King's gaze with a look of enquiry. "Don John will be here presently, no doubt," he said, as if answering a question. "Has he not been here at all since supper?" "No, Sire; though every one expected him to come at once." "That is strange," said Philip, with perfect self-possession. "He is fond of dancing, too--no one can dance better than he. Have you ever known a man so roundly gifted as my brother, my lord?" "A most admirable prince," answered the Ambassador, gravely and without enthusiasm, for he feared that the King was about to speak of his brother's possible marriage with Queen Mary of Scots. "And a most affectionate and gentle nature," said Philip, musing. "I remember from the time when he was a boy that every one loved him and praised him, and yet he is not spoiled. He is always the same. He is my brother--how often have I wished for such a son! Well, he may yet be King. Who should, if not he, when I am gone?" "Your Majesty need not anticipate such a frightful calamity!" cried the Princess fervently, though she was at that moment weighing the comparative advantage of several mortal diseases by which, in appearance at least, his exit from the world might be accelerated. "Life is very uncertain, Princess," observed the King. "My lord," he turned to the English Ambassador again, "do you consider melons indigestible in England? I have lately heard much against them." "A melon is a poor thing, of a watery constitution, your Majesty," replied the Ambassador glibly. "There can be but little sustenance in a hollow piece of water that is sucked from a marsh and enclosed in a green rind. To tell the truth, I hear it ill spoken of by our physicians, but I cannot well speak of the matter, for I never ate one in my life, and please God I never will!" "Why not!" enquired the King, who took an extraordinary interest in the subject. "You fear them, then! Yet you seem to be exceedingly strong and healthy." "Sire, I have sometimes drunk a little water for my stomach's sake, but I will not eat it." The King smiled pleasantly. "How wise the English are!" he said. "We may yet learn much of them." Philip turned away from the Ambassador and watched the dance in silence. The courtiers now stood in a wide half circle to the right and left of him as he faced the hall, and the dancers passed backwards and forwards across the open space. His slow eyes followed one figure without seeing the rest. In the set nearest to him a beautiful girl was dancing with one of Don John's officers. She was of the rarest type of Andalusian beauty, tall, pliant, and slenderly strong, with raven's-wing hair and splendidly languorous eyes, her creamy cheek as smooth as velvet, and a mouth like a small ripe fruit. As she moved she bent from the waist as easily and naturally as a child, and every movement followed a new curve of beauty from her white throat to the small arched foot that darted into sight as she stepped forward now and then, to disappear instantly under the shadow of the gold-embroidered skirt. As she glanced towards the King, her shadowy lids half hid her eyes and the long black lashes almost brushed her cheek. Philip could not look away from her. But suddenly there was a stir among the courtiers, and a shadow came between the King and the vision he was watching. He started a little, annoyed by the interruption and at being rudely reminded of what had happened half an hour earlier, for the shadow was cast by Mendoza, tall and grim in his armour, his face as grey as his grey beard, and his eyes hard and fixed. Without bending, like a soldier on parade, he stood there, waiting by force of habit until Philip should speak to him. The King's brows bent together, and he almost unconsciously raised one hand to signify that the music should cease. It stopped in the midst of a bar, leaving the dancers at a standstill in their measure, and all the moving sea of light and colour and gleaming jewels was arrested instantly in its motion, while every look was turned towards the King. The change from sound to silence, from motion to immobility, was so sudden that every one was startled, as if some frightful accident had happened, or as if an earthquake had shaken the Alcazar to its deep foundation. Mendoza's harsh voice spoke out alone in accents that were heard to the end of the hall. "Don John of Austria is dead! I, Mendoza, have killed him unarmed." It was long before a sound was heard, before any man or woman in the hall had breath to utter a word. Philip's voice was heard first. "The man is mad," he said, with undisturbed coolness. "See to him, Perez." "No, no!" cried Mendoza. "I am not mad. I have killed Don John. You shall find him in his room as he fell, with the wound in his breast." One moment more the silence lasted, while Philip's stony face never moved. A single woman's shriek rang out first, long, ear-piercing, agonized, and then, without warning, a cry went up such as the old hall had never heard before. It was a bad cry to hear, for it clamoured for blood to be shed for blood, and though it was not for him, Philip turned livid and shrank back a step. But Mendoza stood like a rock, waiting to be taken. In another moment furious confusion filled the hall. From every side at once rose women's cries, and the deep shouts of angry men, and high, clear yells of rage and hate. The men pushed past the ladies of the court to the front, and some came singly, but a serried rank moved up from behind, pushing the others before them. "Kill him! Kill him at the King's feet! Kill him where he stands!" And suddenly something made blue flashes of light high over the heads of all; a rapier was out and wheeled in quick circles from a pliant wrist. An officer of Mendoza's guard had drawn it, and a dozen more were in the air in an instant, and then daggers by scores, keen, short, and strong, held high at arm's length, each shaking with the fury of the hand that held it. "Sangre! Sangre!" Some one had screamed out the wild cry of the Spanish soldiers--'Blood! Blood!'--and the young men took it up in a mad yell, as they pushed forwards furiously, while the few who stood in front tried to keep a space open round the King and Mendoza. The old man never winced, and disdained to turn his head, though he heard the cry of death behind him, and the quick, soft sound of daggers drawn from leathern sheaths, and the pressing of men who would be upon him in another moment to tear him limb from limb with their knives. Tall old Ruy Gomez had stepped forwards to stem the tide of death, and beside him the English Ambassador, quietly determined to see fair play or to be hurt himself in preventing murder. "Back!" thundered Ruy Gomez, in a voice that was heard. "Back, I say! Are you gentlemen of Spain, or are you executioners yourselves that you would take this man's blood? Stand back!" "Sangre! Sangre!" echoed the hall. "Then take mine first!" shouted the brave old Prince, spreading his short cloak out behind him with his hands to cover Mendoza more completely. But still the crowd of splendid young nobles surged up to him, and back a little, out of sheer respect for his station and his old age, and forwards again, dagger in hand, with blazing eyes. "Sangre! Sangre! Sangre!" they cried, blind with fury. But meanwhile, the guards filed in, for the prudent Perez had hastened to throw wide the doors and summon them. Weapons in hand and ready, they formed a square round the King and Mendoza and Ruy Gomez, and at the sight of their steel caps and breastplates and long-tasselled halberds, the yells of the courtiers subsided a little and turned to deep curses and execrations and oaths of vengeance. A high voice pierced the low roar, keen and cutting as a knife, but no one knew whose it was, and Philip almost reeled as he heard the words. "Remember Don Carlos! Don John of Austria is gone to join Don Carlos and Queen Isabel!" Again a deadly silence fell upon the multitude, and the King leaned on Perez' arm. Some woman's hate had bared the truth in a flash, and there were hundreds of hands in the hall that were ready to take his life instead of Mendoza's; and he knew it, and was afraid. * * * * * CHAPTER XV The agonized cry that had been first heard in the hall had come from Inez's lips. When she had fled from her father, she had regained her hiding-place in the gallery above the throne room. She would not go to her own room, for she felt that rest was out of the question while Dolores was in such danger; and yet there would have been no object in going to Don John's door again, to risk being caught by her father or met by the King himself. She had therefore determined to let an hour pass before attempting another move. So she slipped into the gallery again, and sat upon the little wooden bench that had been made for the Moorish women in old times; and she listened to the music and the sound of the dancers' feet far below, and to the hum of voices, in which she often distinguished the name of Don John. She had heard all,--the cries when it was thought that he was coming, the chamberlain's voice announcing the King, and then the change of key in the sounds that had followed. Lastly, she had heard plainly every syllable of her father's speech, so that when she realized what it meant, she had shrieked aloud, and had fled from the gallery to find her sister if she could, to find Don John's body most certainly where it lay on the marble floor, with the death wound at the breast. Her instinct--she could not have reasoned then--told her that her father must have found the lovers together, and that in sudden rage he had stabbed Don John, defenceless. Dolores' tears answered her sister's question well enough when the two girls were clasped in one another's arms at last. There was not a doubt left in the mind of either. Inez spoke first. She said that she had hidden in the gallery. "Our father must have come in some time after the King," she said, in broken sentences, and almost choking. "Suddenly the music stopped. I could hear every word. He said that he had done it,--that he had murdered Don John,--and then I ran here, for I was afraid he had killed you, too." "Would God he had!" cried Dolores. "Would to Heaven that I were dead beside the man I love!" "And I!" moaned Inez pitifully, and she began to sob wildly, as Dolores had sobbed at first. But Dolores was silent now, as if she had shed all her tears at once, and had none left. She held her sister in her arms, and soothed her almost unconsciously, as if she had been a little child. But her own thoughts were taking shape quickly, for she was strong; and after the first paroxysm of her grief, she saw the immediate future as clearly as the present. When she spoke again she had the mastery of her voice, and it was clear and low. "You say that our father confessed before the whole court that he had murdered Don John?" she said, with a question. "What happened then? Did the King speak? Was our father arrested? Can you remember?" "I only heard loud cries," sobbed Inez. "I came to you--as quickly as I could--I was afraid." "We shall never see our father again--unless we see him on the morning when he is to die." "Dolores! They will not kill him, too?" In sudden and greater fear than before, Inez ceased sobbing. "He will die on the scaffold," answered Dolores, in the same clear tone, as if she were speaking in a dream, or of things that did not come near her. "There is no pardon possible. He will die to-morrow or the next day." The present truth stood out in all its frightful distinctness. Whoever had done the murder--since Mendoza had confessed it, he would be made to die for it,--of that she was sure. She could not have guessed what had really happened; and though the evidence of the sounds she had heard through the door would have gone to show that Philip had done the deed himself, yet there had been no doubt about Mendoza's words, spoken to the King alone over Don John's dead body, and repeated before the great assembly in the ball-room. If she guessed at an explanation, it was that her father, entering the bedchamber during the quarrel, and supposing from what he saw that Don John was about to attack the King, had drawn and killed the Prince without hesitation. The only thing quite clear was that Mendoza was to suffer, and seemed strangely determined to suffer, for what he had or had not done. The dark shadow of the scaffold rose before Dolores' eyes. It had seemed impossible that she could be made to bear more than she had borne that night, when she had fallen upon Don John's body to weep her heart out for her dead love. But she saw that there was more to bear, and dimly she guessed that there might be something for her to do. There was Inez first, and she must be cared for and placed in safety, for she was beside herself with grief. It was only on that afternoon by the window that Dolores had guessed the blind girl's secret, which Inez herself hardly suspected even now, though she was half mad with grief and utterly broken-hearted. Dolores felt almost helpless, but she understood that she and her sister were henceforth to be more really alone in what remained of life than if they had been orphans from their earliest childhood. The vision of the convent, that had been unbearable but an hour since, held all her hope of peace and safety now, unless her father could be saved from his fate by some miracle of heaven. But that was impossible. He had given himself up as if he were determined to die. He had been out of his mind, beside himself, stark mad, in his fear that Don John might bring harm upon his daughter. That was why he had killed him--there could be no other reason, unless he had guessed that she was in the locked room, and had judged her then and at once, and forever. The thought had not crossed her mind till then, and it was a new torture now, so that she shrank under it as under a bodily blow; and her grasp tightened violently upon her sister's arm, rousing the half-fainting girl again to the full consciousness of pain. It was no wonder that Mendoza should have done such a deed, since he had believed her ruined and lost to honour beyond salvation. That explained all. He had guessed that she had been long with Don John, who had locked her hastily into the inner room to hide her from the King. Had the King been Don John, had she loved Philip as she loved his brother, her father would have killed his sovereign as unhesitatingly, and would have suffered any death without flinching. She believed that, and there was enough of his nature in herself to understand it. She was as innocent as the blind girl who lay in her arms, but suddenly it flashed upon her that no one would believe it, since her own father would not, and that her maiden honour and good name were gone for ever, gone with her dead lover, who alone could have cleared her before the world. She cared little for the court now, but she cared tenfold more earnestly for her father's thought of her, and she knew him and the terrible tenacity of his conviction when he believed himself to be right. He had proved that by what he had done. Since she understood all, she no longer doubted that he had killed Don John with the fullest intention, to avenge her, and almost knowing that she was within hearing, as indeed she had been. He had taken a royal life in atonement for her honour, but he was to give his own, and was to die a shameful death on the scaffold, within a few hours, or, at the latest, within a few days, for her sake. Then she remembered how on that afternoon she had seen tears in his eyes, and had heard the tremor in his voice when he had said that she was everything to him, that she had been all his life since her mother had died--he had proved that, too; and though he had killed the man she loved, she shrank from herself again as she thought what he must have suffered in her dishonour. For it was nothing else. There was neither man nor woman nor girl in Spain who would believe her innocent against such evidence. The world might have believed Don John, if he had lived, because the world had loved him and trusted him, and could never have heard falsehood in his voice; but it would not believe her though she were dying, and though she should swear upon the most sacred and true things. The world would turn from her with an unbelieving laugh, and she was to be left alone in her dishonour, and people would judge that she was not even a fit companion for her blind sister in their solitude. The King would send her to Las Huelgas, or to some other distant convent of a severe order, that she might wear out her useless life in grief and silence and penance as quickly as possible. She bowed her head. It was too hard to bear. Inez was more quiet now, and the two sat side by side in mournful silence, leaning against the parapet. They had forgotten the dwarf, and he had disappeared, waiting, perhaps, in the shadow at a distance, in case he might be of use to them. But if he was within hearing, they did not see him. At last Inez spoke, almost in a whisper, as if she were in the presence of the dead. "Were you there, dear?" she asked. "Did you see?" "I was in the next room," Dolores answered. "I could not see, but I heard. I heard him fall," she added almost inaudibly, and choking. Inez shuddered and pressed nearer to her sister, leaning against her, but she did not begin to sob again. She was thinking. "Can we not help our father, at least?" she asked presently. "Is there nothing we can say, or do? We ought to help him if we can, Dolores--though he did it." "I would save him with my life, if I could. God knows, I would! He was mad when he struck the blow. He did it for my sake, because he thought Don John had ruined my good name. And we should have been married the day after to-morrow! God of heaven, have mercy!" Her grief took hold of her again, like a material power, shaking her from head to foot, and bowing her down upon herself and wringing her hands together, so that Inez, calmer than she, touched her gently and tried to comfort her without any words, for there were none to say, since nothing mattered now, and life was over at its very beginning. Little by little the sharp agony subsided to dull pain once more, and Dolores sat upright. But Inez was thinking still, and even in her sorrow and fright she was gathering all her innocent ingenuity to her aid. "Is there no way?" she asked, speaking more to herself than to her sister. "Could we not say that we were there, that it was not our father but some one else? Perhaps some one would believe us. If we told the judges that we were quite, quite sure that he did not do it, do you not think--but then," she checked herself--"then it could only have been the King." "Only the King himself," echoed Dolores, half unconsciously, and in a dreamy tone. "That would be terrible," said Inez. "But we could say that the King was not there, you know--that it was some one else, some one we did not know--" Dolores rose abruptly from the seat and laid her hand upon the parapet steadily, as if an unnatural strength had suddenly grown up in her. Inez went on speaking, confusing herself in the details she was trying to put together to make a plan, and losing the thread of her idea as she attempted to build up falsehoods, for she was truthful as their father was. But Dolores did not hear her. "You can do nothing, child," she said at last, in a firm tone. "But I may. You have made me think of something that I may do--it is just possible--it may help a little. Let me think." Inez waited in silence for her to go on, and Dolores stood as motionless as a statue, contemplating in thought the step she meant to take if it offered the slightest hope of saving her father. The thought was worthy of her, but the sacrifice was great even then. She had not believed that the world still held anything with which she would not willingly part, but there was one thing yet. It might be taken from her, though her father had slain Don John of Austria to save it, and was to die for it himself. She could give it before she could be robbed of it, perhaps, and it might buy his life. She could still forfeit her good name of her own free will, and call herself what she was not. In words she could give her honour to the dead man, and the dead could not rise up and deny her nor refuse the gift. And it seemed to her that when the people should hear her, they would believe her, seeing that it was her shame, a shame such as no maiden who had honour left would bear before the world. But it was hard to do. For honour was her last and only possession now that all was taken from her. It was not the so-called honour of society, either, based on long-forgotten traditions, and depending on convention for its being--not the sort of honour within which a man may ruin an honest woman and suffer no retribution, but which decrees that he must take his own life if he cannot pay a debt of play made on his promise to a friend, which allows him to lie like a cheat, but ordains that he must give or require satisfaction of blood for the imaginary insult of a hasty word--the honour which is to chivalry what black superstition is to the true Christian faith, which compares with real courage and truth and honesty, as an ape compares with a man. It was not that, and Dolores knew it, as every maiden knows it; for the honour of woman is the fact on which the whole world turns, and has turned and will turn to the end of things; but what is called the honour of society has been a fiction these many centuries, and though it came first of a high parentage, of honest thought wedded to brave deed, and though there are honourable men yet, these are for the most part the few who talk least loudly about honour's code, and the belief they hold has come to be a secret and a persecuted faith, at which the common gentleman thinks fit to laugh lest some one should presume to measure him by it and should find him wanting. Dolores did not mean to hesitate, after she had decided what to do. But she could not avoid the struggle, and it was long and hard, though she saw the end plainly before her and did not waver. Inez did not understand and kept silence while it lasted. It was only a word to say, but it was the word which would be repeated against her as long as she lived, and which nothing she could ever say or do afterwards could take back when it had once been spoken--it would leave the mark that a lifetime could not efface. But she meant to speak it. She could not see what her father would see, that he would rather die, justly or unjustly, than let his daughter be dishonoured before the world. That was a part of a man's code, perhaps, but it should not hinder her from saving her father's life, or trying to, at whatever cost. What she was fighting against was something much harder to understand in herself. What could it matter now, that the world should think her fallen from her maiden estate? The world was nothing to her, surely. It held nothing, it meant nothing, it was nothing. Her world had been her lover, and he lay dead in his room. In heaven, he knew that she was innocent, as he was himself, and he would see that she was going to accuse herself that she might save her father. In heaven, he had forgiven his murderer, and he would understand. As for the world and what it said, she knew that she must leave it instantly, and go from the confession she was about to make to the convent where she was to die, and whence her spotless soul would soon be wafted away to join her true lover beyond the earth. There was no reason why she should find it hard to do, and yet it was harder than anything she had ever dreamed of doing. But she was fighting the deepest and strongest instinct of woman's nature, and the fight went hard. She fancied the scene, the court, the grey-haired nobles, the fair and honourable women, the brave young soldiers, the thoughtless courtiers, the whole throng she was about to face, for she meant to speak before them all, and to her own shame. She was as white as marble, but when she thought of what was coming the blood sprang to her face and tingled in her forehead, and she felt her eyes fall and her proud head bend, as the storm of humiliation descended upon her. She could hear beforehand the sounds that would follow her words, the sharp, short laugh of jealous women who hated her, the murmur of surprise among the men. Then the sea of faces would seem to rise and fall before her in waves, the lights would dance, her cheeks would burn like flames, and she would grow dizzy. That would be the end. Afterwards she could go out alone. Perhaps the women would shrink from her, no man would be brave enough to lead her kindly from the room. Yet all that she would bear, for the mere hope of saving her father. The worst, by far the worst and hardest to endure, would be something within herself, for which she had neither words nor true understanding, but which was more real than anything she could define, for it was in the very core of her heart and in the secret of her soul, a sort of despairing shame of herself and a desolate longing for something she could never recover. She closed her tired eyes and pressed her hand heavily upon the stone coping of the parapet. It was the supreme effort, and when she looked down at Inez again she knew that she should live to the end of the ordeal without wavering. "I am going down to the throne room," she said, very quietly and gently. "You had better go to our apartment, dear, and wait for me there. I am going to try and save our father's life--do not ask me how. It will not take long to say what I have to say, and then I will come to you." Inez had risen now, and was standing beside her, laying a hand upon her arm. "Let me come, too," she said. "I can help you, I am sure I can help you." "No," answered Dolores, with authority. "You cannot help me, dearest, and it would hurt you, and you must not come." "Then I will stay here," said Inez sorrowfully. "I shall be nearer to him," she added under her breath. "Stay here--yes. I will come back to you, and then--then we will go in together, and say a prayer--his soul can hear us still--we will go and say good-by to him--together." Her voice was almost firm, and Inez could not see the agony in her white face. Then Dolores clasped her in her arms and kissed her forehead and her blind eyes very lovingly, and pressed her head to her own shoulders and patted it and smoothed the girl's dark hair. "I will come back," she said, "and, Inez--you know the truth, my darling. Whatever evil they may say of me after to-night, remember that I have said it of myself for our father's sake, and that it is not true." "No one will believe it," answered Inez. "They will not believe anything bad of you." "Then our father must die." Dolores kissed her once more and made her sit down, then turned and went away. She walked quickly along the corridors and descended the second staircase, to enter the throne room by the side door reserved for the officers of the household and the maids of honour. She walked swiftly, her head erect, one hand holding the folds of her cloak pressed to her bosom, and the other, nervously clenched, and hanging down, as if she were expecting to strike a blow. She reached the door, and for a moment her heart stopped beating, and her eyes closed. She heard many loud voices within, and she knew that most of the court must still be assembled. It was better that all the world should hear her--even the King, if he were still there. She pushed the door open and went in by the familiar way, letting the dark cloak that covered her court dress fall to the ground as she passed the threshold. Half a dozen young nobles, grouped near the entrance, made way for her to pass. When they recognized her, their voices dropped suddenly, and they stared after her in astonishment that she should appear at such a time. She was doubtless in ignorance of what had happened, they thought. As for the throng in the hall, there was no restraint upon their talk now, and words were spoken freely which would have been high treason half an hour earlier. There was the noise, the tension, the ceaseless talking, the excited air, that belong to great palace revolutions. The press was closer near the steps of the throne, where the King and Mendoza had stood, for after they had left the hall, surrounded and protected by the guards, the courtiers had crowded upon one another, and those near the further door and outside it in the outer apartments had pressed in till there was scarcely standing room on the floor of the hall. Dolores found it hard to advance. Some made way for her with low exclamations of surprise, but others, not looking to see who she was, offered a passive resistance to her movements. "Will you kindly let me pass?" she asked at last, in a gentle tone, "I am Dolores de Mendoza." At the name the group that barred her passage started and made way, and going through she came upon the Prince of Eboli, not far from the steps of the throne. The English Ambassador, who meant to stay as long as there was anything for him to observe, was still by the Prince's side. Dolores addressed the latter without hesitation. "Don Ruy Gomez," she said, "I ask your help. My father is innocent, and I can prove it. But the court must hear me--every one must hear the truth. Will you help me? Can you make them listen?" Ruy Gomez looked down at Dolores' pale and determined features in courteous astonishment. "I am at your service," he answered. "But what are you going to say? The court is in a dangerous mood to-night." "I must speak to all," said Dolores. "I am not afraid. What I have to say cannot be said twice--not even if I had the strength. I can save my father--" "Why not go to the King at once?" argued the Prince, who feared trouble. "For the love of God, help me to do as I wish!" Dolores grasped his arm, and spoke with an effort. "Let me tell them all, how I know that my father is not guilty of the murder. After that take me to the King if you will." She spoke very earnestly, and he no longer opposed her. He knew the temper of the court well enough, and was sure that whatever proved Mendoza innocent would be welcome just then, and though he was far too loyal to wish the suspicion of the deed to be fixed upon the King, he was too just not to desire Mendoza to be exculpated if he were innocent. "Come with me," he said briefly, and he took Dolores by the hand, and led her up the first three steps of the platform, so that she could see over the heads of all present. It was no time to think of court ceremonies or customs, for there was danger in the air. Ruy Gomez did not stop to make any long ceremony. Drawing himself up to his commanding height, he held up his white gloves at arm's length to attract the attention of the courtiers, and in a few moments there was silence. They seemed an hour of torture to Dolores. Ruy Gomez raised his voice. "Grandees! The daughter of Don Diego de Mendoza stands here at my side to prove to you that he is innocent of Don John of Austria's death!" The words had hardly left his lips when a shout went up, like a ringing cheer. But again he raised his hand. "Hear Doña Maria Dolores de Mendoza!" he cried. Then he stepped a little away from Dolores, and looked towards her. She was dead white, and her lips trembled. There was an almost glassy look in her eyes, and still she pressed one hand to her bosom, and the other hung by her side, the fingers twitching nervously against the folds of her skirt. A few seconds passed before she could speak. "Grandees of Spain!" she began, and at the first words she found strength in her voice so that it reached the ends of the hall, clear and vibrating. The silence was intense, as she proceeded. "My father has accused himself of a fearful crime. He is innocent. He would no more have raised his hand against Don John of Austria than against the King's own person. I cannot tell why he wishes to sacrifice his life by taking upon himself the guilt. But this I know. He did not do the deed. You ask me how I know that, how I can prove it? I was there, I, Dolores de Mendoza, his daughter, was there unseen in my lover's chamber when he was murdered. While he was alive I gave him all, my heart, my soul, my maiden honour; and I was there to-night, and had been with him long. But now that he is dead, I will pay for my father's life with my dishonour. He must not die, for he is innocent. Grandees of Spain, as you are men of honour, he must not die, for he is one of you, and this foul deed was not his." She ceased, her lids drooped till her eyes were half closed and she swayed a little as she stood. Roy Gomez made one long stride and held her, for he thought she was fainting. But she bit her lips, and forced her eyes to open and face the crowd again. "That is all," she said in a low voice, but distinctly, "It is done. I am a ruined woman. Help me to go out." The old Prince gently led her down the steps. The silence had lasted long after she had spoken, but people were beginning to talk again in lower tones. It was as she had foreseen it. She heard a scornful woman's laugh, and as she passed along, she saw how the older ladies shrank from her and how the young ones eyed her with a look of hard curiosity, as if she were some wild creature, dangerous to approach, though worth seeing from a distance. But the men pressed close to her as she passed, and she heard them tell each other that she was a brave woman who could dare to save her father by such means, and there were quick applauding words as she passed, and one said audibly that he could die for a girl who had such a true heart, and another answered that he would marry her if she could forget Don John. And they did not speak without respect, but in earnest, and out of the fulness of their admiration. At last she was at the door, and she paused to speak before going out. "Have I saved his life?" she asked, looking up to the old Prince's kind face. "Will they believe me?" "They believe you," he answered. "But your father's life is in the King's hands. You should go to his Majesty without wasting time. Shall I go with you? He will see you, I think, if I ask it." "Why should I tell the King?" asked Dolores. "He was there--he saw it all--he knows the truth." She hardly realized what she was saying. * * * * * CHAPTER XVI Ruy Gomez was as loyal, in his way, as Mendoza himself, but his loyalty was of a very different sort, for it was tempered by a diplomatic spirit which made it more serviceable on ordinary occasions, and its object was altogether a principle rather than a person. Mendoza could not conceive of monarchy, in its abstract, without a concrete individuality represented by King Philip; but Ruy Gomez could not imagine the world without the Spanish monarchy, though he was well able to gauge his sovereign's weaknesses and to deplore his crimes. He himself was somewhat easily deceived, as good men often are, and it was he who had given the King his new secretary, Antonio Perez; yet from the moment when Mendoza had announced Don John's death, he had been convinced that the deed had either been done by Philip himself or by his orders, and that Mendoza had bravely sacrificed himself to shield his master. What Dolores had said only confirmed his previous opinion, so far as her father's innocence was at stake. As for her own confession, he believed it, and in spite of himself he could not help admiring the girl's heroic courage. Dolores might have been in reality ten times worse than she had chosen to represent herself; she would still have been a model of all virtue compared with his own wife, though he did not know half of the Princess's doings, and was certainly ignorant of her relations with the King. He was not at all surprised when Dolores told him at the door that Philip knew the truth about the supposed murder, but he saw how dangerous it might be for Dolores to say as much to others of the court. She wished to go away alone, as she had come, but he insisted on going with her. "You must see his Majesty," he said authoritatively. "I will try to arrange it at once. And I entreat you to be discreet, my dear, for your father's sake, if not for any other reason. You have said too much already. It was not wise of you, though it showed amazing courage. You are your father's own daughter in that--he is one of the bravest men I ever knew in my life." "It is easy to be brave when one is dead already!" said Dolores, in low tones. "Courage, my dear, courage!" answered the old Prince, in a fatherly tone, as they went along. "You are not as brave as you think, since you talk of death. Your life is not over yet." "There is little left of it. I wish it were ended already." She could hardly speak, for an inevitable and overwhelming reaction had followed on the great effort she had made. She put out her hand and caught her companion's arm for support. He led her quickly to the small entrance of the King's apartments, by which it was his privilege to pass in. They reached a small waiting-room where there were a few chairs and a marble table, on which two big wax candles were burning. Dolores sank into a seat, and leaned back, closing her eyes, while Ruy Gomez went into the antechamber beyond and exchanged a few words with the chamberlain on duty. He came back almost immediately. "Your father is alone with the King," he said. "We must wait." Dolores scarcely heard what he said, and did not change her position nor open her eyes. The old man looked at her, sighed, and sat down near a brazier of wood coals, over which he slowly warmed his transparent hands, from time to time turning his rings slowly on his fingers, as if to warm them, too. Outside, the chamberlain in attendance walked slowly up and down, again and again passing the open door, through which he glanced at Dolores' face. The antechamber was little more than a short, broad corridor, and led to the King's study. This corridor had other doors, however, and it was through it that the King's private rooms communicated with the hall of the royal apartments. As Ruy Gomez had learned, Mendoza was with Philip, but not alone. The old officer was standing on one side of the room, erect and grave, and King Philip sat opposite him, in a huge chair, his still eyes staring at the fire that blazed in the vast chimney, and sent sudden flashes of yellow through the calm atmosphere of light shed by a score of tall candles. At a table on one side sat Antonio Perez, the Secretary. He was provided with writing-materials and appeared to be taking down the conversation as it proceeded. Philip asked a question from time to time, which Mendoza answered in a strange voice unlike his own, and between the questions there were long intervals of silence. "You say that you had long entertained feelings of resentment against his Highness," said the King, "You admit that, do you?" "I beg your Majesty's pardon. I did not say resentment. I said that I had long looked upon his Highness's passion for my daughter with great anxiety." "Is that what he said, Perez?" asked Philip, speaking to the Secretary without looking at him. "Read that." "He said: I have long resented his Highness's admiration for my daughter," answered Perez, reading from his notes. "You see," said the King. "You resented it. That is resentment. I was right. Be careful, Mendoza, for your words may be used against you to-morrow. Say precisely what you mean, and nothing but what you mean." Mendoza inclined his head rather proudly, for he detested Antonio Perez, and it appeared to him that the King was playing a sort of comedy for the Secretary's benefit. It seemed an unworthy interlude in what was really a solemn tragedy. "Why did you resent his Highness's courtship of your daughter?" enquired Philip presently, continuing his cross-examination. "Because I never believed that there could be a real marriage," answered Mendoza boldly. "I believed that my child must become the toy and plaything of Don John of Austria, or else that if his Highness married her, the marriage would soon be declared void, in order that he might marry a more important personage." "Set that down," said the King to Perez, in a sharp tone. "Set that down exactly. It is important." He waited till the Secretary's pen stopped before he went on. His next question came suddenly. "How could a marriage consecrated by our holy religion ever be declared null and void?" "Easily enough, if your Majesty wished it," answered Mendoza unguardedly, for his temper was slowly heating. "Write down that answer, Perez. In other words, Mendoza, you think that I have no respect for the sacrament of marriage, which I would at any time cause to be revoked to suit my political purposes. Is that what you think?" "I did not say that, Sire. I said that even if Don John married my daughter--" "I know quite well what you said," interrupted the King suavely. "Perez has got every word of it on paper." The Secretary's bad black eyes looked up from his writing, and he slowly nodded as he looked at Mendoza. He understood the situation perfectly, though the soldier was far too honourable to suspect the truth. "I have confessed publicly that I killed Don John defenceless," he said, in rough tones. "Is not that enough?" "Oh, no!" Philip almost smiled, "That is not enough. We must also know why you committed such on abominable crime. You do not seem to understand that in taking your evidence here myself, I am sparing you the indignity of an examination before a tribunal, and under torture--in all probability. You ought to be very grateful, my dear Mendoza." "I thank your Majesty," said the brave old soldier coldly. "That is right. So we know that your hatred of his Highness was of long standing, and you had probably determined some time ago that you would murder him on his return." The King paused a moment and then continued. "Do you deny that on this very afternoon you swore that if Don John attempted to see your daughter, you would kill him at once?" Mendoza was taken by surprise, and his haggard eyes opened wide as he stared at Philip. "You said that, did you not?" asked the King, insisting upon the point. "On your honour, did you say it?" "Yes, I said that," answered Mendoza at last. "But how did your Majesty know that I did?" The King's enormous under lip thrust itself forward, and two ugly lines of amusement were drawn in his colourless cheeks. His jaw moved slowly, as if he were biting something of which he found the taste agreeable. "I know everything," he said slowly. "I am well served in my own house. Perez, be careful. Write down everything. We also know, I think, that your daughter met his Highness this evening. You no doubt found that out as others did. The girl is imprudent. Do you confess to knowing that the two had met this evening?" Mendoza ground his teeth as if he were suffering bodily torture. His brows contracted, and as Perez looked up, he faced him with such a look of hatred and anger that the Secretary could hot meet his eyes. The King was a sacred and semi-divine personage, privileged to ask any question he chose and theoretically incapable of doing wrong, but it was unbearable that this sleek black fox should have the right to hear Diego de Mendoza confess his daughter's dishonour. Antonio Perez was not an adventurer of low birth, as many have gratuitously supposed, for his father had held an honourable post at court before him; but he was very far from being the equal of one who, though poor and far removed from the head of his own family, bore one of the most noble names in Spain. "Let your Majesty dismiss Don Antonio Perez," said Mendoza boldly. "I will then tell your Majesty all I know." Perez smiled as he bent over his notes, for he knew what the answer would be to such a demand. It came sharply. "It is not the privilege of a man convicted of murder to choose his hearers. Answer my questions or be silent. Do you confess that you knew of your daughter's meeting with Don John this evening?" Mendoza's lips set themselves tightly under his grey beard, and he uttered no sound. He interpreted the King's words literally. "Well, what have you to say?" "Nothing, Sire, since I have your Majesty's permission to be silent." "It does not matter," said Philip indifferently. "Note that he refuses to answer the question, Perez. Note that this is equivalent to confessing the fact, since he would otherwise deny it. His silence is & reason, however, for allowing the case to go to the tribunal to be examined in the usual way--the usual way," he repeated, looking hard at Mendoza and emphasizing the words strongly. "Since I do not deny the deed, I entreat your Majesty to let me suffer for it quickly. I am ready to die, God knows. Let it be to-morrow morning or to-night. Your Majesty need only sign the warrant for my execution, which Don Antonio Perez has, no doubt, already prepared." "Not at all, not at all," answered the King, with horrible coolness. "I mean that you shall have a fair and open trial and every possible opportunity of justifying yourself. There must be nothing secret about this. So horrible a crime must be treated in the most public manner. Though it is very painful to me to refer to such a matter, you must remember that after it had pleased Heaven, in its infinite justice, to bereave me of my unfortunate son, Don Carlos, the heir to the throne, there were not wanting ill-disposed and wicked persons who actually said that I had caused his life to be shortened by various inhuman cruelties. No, no! we cannot have too much publicity. Consider how terrible a thing it would be if any one should dare to suppose that my own brother had been murdered with my consent! You should love your country too much not to fear such a result; for though you have murdered my brother in cold blood, I am too just to forget that you have proved your patriotism through a long and hitherto honourable career. It is my duty to see that the causes of your atrocious action are perfectly clear to my subjects, so that no doubt may exist even in the most prejudiced minds. Do you understand? I repeat that if I have condescended to examine you alone, I have done so only out of a merciful desire to spare an old soldier the suffering and mortification of an examination by the tribunal that is to judge you. Understand that." "I understand that and much more besides," answered Mendoza, in low and savage tones. "It is not necessary that you should understand or think that you understand anything more than what I say," returned the King coldly. "At what time did you go to his Highness's apartments this evening?" "Your Majesty knows." "I know nothing of it," said the King, with the utmost calm. "You were on duty after supper. You escorted me to my apartments afterwards. I had already sent for Perez, who came at once, and we remained here, busy with affairs, until I returned to the throne room, five minutes before you came and confessed the murder; did we not, Perez?" "Most certainly, Sire," answered the Secretary gravely. "Your Majesty must have been at work with me an hour, at least, before returning to the throne room." "And your Majesty did not go with me by the private staircase to Don John of Austria's apartment?" asked Mendoza, thunderstruck by the enormous falsehood. "With you?" cried the King, in admirably feigned astonishment. "What madness is this? Do not write that down, Perez. I really believe the man is beside himself!" Mendoza groaned aloud, for he saw that he had been frightfully deceived. In his magnificent generosity, he had assumed the guilt of the crime, being ready and willing to die for it quickly to save the King from blame and to put an end to his own miserable existence. But he had expected death quickly, mercifully, within a few hours. Had he suspected what Philip had meant to do,--that he was to be publicly tried for a murder he had not committed, and held up to public hatred and ignominy for days and perhaps weeks together, while a slow tribunal dragged out its endless procedure,--neither his loyalty nor his desire for death could have had power to bring his pride to such a sacrifice. And now he saw that he was caught in a vise, and that no accusation he could bring against the King could save him, even if he were willing to resort to such a measure and so take back his word. There was no witness for him but himself. Don John was dead, and the infamous Perez was ready to swear that Philip had not left the room in which they had been closeted together. There was not a living being to prove that Mendoza had not gone alone to Don John's apartments with the deliberate intention of killing him. He had, indeed, been to the chief steward's office in search of a key, saying that the King desired to have it and was waiting; but it would be said that he had used the King's authority to try and get the key for himself because he knew that his daughter was hidden in the locked room. He had foolishly fancied that the King would send for him and see him alone before he died, that his sovereign would thank him for the service that was costing his life, would embrace him and send him to his death for the good of Spain and the divine right of monarchy. Truly, he had been most bitterly deceived. "You said," continued Philip mercilessly, "that you killed his Highness when he was unarmed. Is that true?" "His Highness was unarmed," said Mendoza, almost through his closed teeth, for he was suffering beyond words. "Unarmed," repeated the King, nodding to Perez, who wrote rapidly. "You might have given him a chance for his life. It would have been more soldier-like. Had you any words before you drew upon him? Was there any quarrel?" "None. We did not speak to each other." Mendoza tried to make Philip meet his eyes, but the King would not look at him. "There was no altercation," said the King, looking at Perez. "That proves that the murder was premeditated. Put it down--it is very important. You could hardly have stabbed him in the back, I suppose. He must have turned when he heard you enter. Where was the wound?" "The wound that killed his Highness will be found near the heart." "Cruel!" Philip looked down at his own hands, and he shook his head very sadly. "Cruel, most cruel," he repeated in a low tone. "I admit that it was a very cruel deed," said Mendoza, looking at him fixedly. "In that, your Majesty is right." "Did you see your daughter before or after you had committed the murder?" asked the King calmly. "I have not seen my daughter since the murder was committed." "But you saw her before? Be careful, Perez. Write down every word. You say that you saw your daughter before you did it." "I did not say that," answered Mendoza firmly. "It makes very little difference," said the King, "If you had seen her with his Highness, the murder would have seemed less cold-blooded, that is all. There would then have been something like a natural provocation for it." There was a low sound, as of some one scratching at the door. That was the usual way of asking admittance to the King's room on very urgent matters. Perez rose instantly, the King nodded to him, and he went to the door. On opening, someone handed him a folded paper on a gold salver. He brought it to Philip, dropped on one knee very ceremoniously, and presented it. Philip took the note and opened it, and Perez returned to his seat at once. The King unfolded the small sheet carefully. The room was so full of light that he could read it when he sat, without moving. His eyes followed the lines quickly to the end, and returned to the beginning, and he read the missive again more carefully. Not the slightest change of expression was visible in his face, as he folded the paper neatly again in the exact shape in which he had received it. Then he remained silent a few moments. Perez held his pen ready to write, moving it mechanically now and then as if he were writing in the air, and staring at the fire, absorbed in his own thoughts, though his ear was on the alert. "You refuse to admit that you found your daughter and Don John together, then?" The King spoke with an interrogation. "I did not find them together," answered Mendoza. "I have said so." He was becoming exasperated under the protracted cross-examination. "You have not said so. My memory is very good, but if it should fail we have everything written down. I believe you merely refused to answer when I asked if you knew of their meeting--which meant that you did know of it. Is that it, Perez?" "Exactly so, Sire." The Secretary had already found the place among his notes. "Do you persistently refuse to admit that you had positive evidence of your daughter's guilt before the murder?" "I will not admit that, Sire, for it would not be true." "Your daughter has given her evidence since," said the King, holding up the folded note, and fixing his eyes at last on his victim's face. If it were possible, Mendoza turned more ashy pale than before, and he started perceptibly at the King's words. "I shall never believe that!" he cried in a voice which nevertheless betrayed his terror for his child. "A few moments before this note was written," said Philip calmly, "your daughter entered the throne room, and addressed the court, standing upon the steps of the throne--a very improper proceeding and one which Ruy Gomez should not have allowed. Your daughter Dolores--is that the girl's name? Yes. Your daughter Dolores, amidst the most profound silence, confessed that she--it is so monstrous that I can hardly bring myself to say it--that she had yielded to the importunities of his late Highness, that she was with him in his room a long time this evening, and that, in fact, she was actually in his bedchamber when he was murdered." "It is a lie!" cried Mendoza vehemently. "It is an abominable lie--she was not in the room!" "She has said that she was," answered Philip. "You can hardly suppose a girl capable of inventing such damning evidence against herself, even for the sake of saving her own father. She added that his Highness was not killed by you. But that is puerile. She evidently saw you do it, and has boldly confessed that she was in the room--hidden somewhere, perhaps, since you absolutely refuse to admit that you saw her there. It is quite clear that you found the two together and that you killed his Highness before your daughter's eyes. Why not admit that, Mendoza? It makes you seem a little less cold-blooded. The provocation was great--" "She was not there," protested Mendoza, interrupting the King, for he hardly knew what he was doing. "She was there, since she confesses to have been in the room. I do not tolerate interruption when I am speaking. She was there, and her evidence will be considered. Even if you did not see her, how can you be sure that your daughter was not there? Did you search the room? Did you look behind the curtains?" "I did not." The stern old man seemed to shrink bodily under the frightful humiliation to which he was subjected. "Very well, then you cannot swear that she was not in the room. But you did not see her there. Then I am sorry to say that there can have been no extenuating circumstances. You entered his Highness's bedchamber, you did not even speak to him, you drew your sword and you killed him. All this shows that you went there fully determined to commit the crime. But with regard to its motive, this strange confession of your daughter's makes that quite clear. She had been extremely imprudent with Don John, you were aware of the fact, and you revenged yourself in the most brutal way. Such vengeance never can produce any but the most fatal results. You yourself must die, in the first place, a degrading and painful death on the scaffold, and you die leaving behind you a ruined girl, who must bury herself in a convent and never be seen by her worldly equals again. And besides that, you have deprived your King of a beloved brother, and Spain of her most brilliant general. Could anything be worse?" "Yes. There are worse things than that, your Majesty, and worse things have been done. It would have been a thousand times worse if I had done the deed and cast the blame of it on a man so devoted to me that he would bear the guilt in my stead, and a hundred thousand times worse if I had then held up that man to the execration of mankind, and tortured him with every distortion of evidence which great falsehoods can put upon a little truth. That would indeed have been far worse than anything I have done. God may find forgiveness for murderers, but there is only hell for traitors, and the hell of hells is the place of men who betray their friends." "His mind is unsettled, I fear," said the King, speaking to Perez. "These are signs of madness." "Indeed I fear so, Sire," answered the smooth Secretary, shaking his head solemnly. "He does not know what he says." "I am not mad, and I know what I am saying, for I am a man under the hand of death." Mendoza's eyes glared at the King savagely as he spoke, and then at Perez, but neither could look at him, for neither dared to meet his gaze. "As for this confession my daughter has made, I do not believe in it. But if she has said these things, you might have let me die without the bitterness of knowing them, since that was in your power. And God knows that I have staked my life freely for your Majesty and for Spain these many years, and would again if I had it to lose instead of having thrown it away. And God knows, too, that for what I have done, be it good or bad, I will bear whatsoever your Majesty shall choose to say to me alone in the way of reproach. But as I am a dying man I will not forgive that scribbler there for having seen a Spanish gentleman's honour torn to rags, and an old soldier's last humiliation, and I pray Heaven with my dying breath, that he may some day be tormented as he has seen me tormented, and worse, till he shall cry out for mercy--as I will not!" The cruelly injured man's prayer was answered eight years from that day, and even now Perez turned slowly pale as he heard the words, for they were spoken with all the vehemence of a dying man's curse. But Philip was unmoved. He was probably not making Mendoza suffer merely for the pleasure of watching his pain, though others' suffering seems always to have caused him a sort of morbid satisfaction. What he desired most was to establish a logical reason for which Mendoza might have committed the crime, lest in the absence of sound evidence he himself should be suspected of having instigated it. He had no intention whatever of allowing Mendoza to be subjected to torture during the trial that was to ensue. On the contrary, he intended to prepare all the evidence for the judges and to prevent Mendoza from saying anything in self-defence. To that end it was necessary that the facts elicited should be clearly connected from first cause to final effect, and by the skill of Antonio Perez in writing down only the words which contributed to that end, the King's purpose was now accomplished. He heard every word of Mendoza's imprecation and thought it proper to rebuke him for speaking so freely. "You forget yourself, sir," he said coldly. "Don Antonio Perez is my private Secretary, and you must respect him. While you belonged to the court his position was higher and more important than your own; now that you stand convicted of an outrageous murder in cold blood, you need not forget that he is an innocent man. I have done, Mendoza. You will not see me again, for you will be kept in confinement until your trial, which can only have one issue. Come here." He sat upright in his chair and held out his hand, while Mendoza approached with unsteady steps, and knelt upon one knee, as was the custom. "I am not unforgiving," said the King. "Forgiveness is a very beautiful Christian virtue, which we are taught to exercise from our earliest childhood. You have cut off my dearly loved brother in the flower of his youth, but you shall not die believing that I bear you any malice. So far as I am able, I freely forgive you for what you have done, and in token I give you my hand, that you may have that comfort at the last." With incredible calmness Philip took Mendoza's hand as he spoke, held it for a moment in his, and pressed it almost warmly at the last words. The old man's loyalty to his sovereign had been a devotion almost amounting to real adoration, and bitterly as he had suffered throughout the terrible interview, he well-nigh forgot every suffering as he felt the pressure of the royal fingers. In an instant he had told himself that it had all been but a play, necessary to deceive Perez, and to clear the King from suspicion before the world, and that in this sense the unbearable agony he had borne had served his sovereign. He forgot all for a moment, and bending his iron-grey head, he kissed the thin and yellow hand fervently, and looked up to Philip's cold face and felt that there were tears of gratitude in his own eyes, of gratitude at being allowed to leave the world he hated with the certainty that his death was to serve his sovereign idol. "I shall be faithful to your Majesty until the end," he said simply, as the King withdrew his fingers, and he rose to his feet. The King nodded slowly, and his stony look watched Mendoza with a sort of fixed curiosity. Even he had not known that such men lived. "Call the guards to the door, Perez," he said coldly. "Tell the officer to take Don Diego Mendoza to the west tower for to-night, and to treat him with every consideration." Perez obeyed. A detachment of halberdiers with an officer were stationed in the short, broad corridor that led to the room where Dolores was waiting. Perez gave the lieutenant his orders. Mendoza walked backwards to the door from the King's presence, making three low bows as he went. At the door he turned, taking no notice of the Secretary, marched out with head erect, and gave himself up to the soldiers. * * * * * CHAPTER XVII The halberdiers closed round their old chief, but did not press upon him. Three went before him, three behind, and one walked on each side, and the lieutenant led the little detachment. The men were too much accustomed to seeing courtiers in the extremes of favour and disfavour to be much surprised at the arrest of Mendoza, and they felt no great sympathy for him. He had always been too rigidly exacting for their taste, and they longed for a younger commander who should devote more time to his own pleasure and less to inspecting uniforms and finding fault with details. Yet Mendoza had been a very just man, and he possessed the eminently military bearing and temper which always impose themselves on soldiers. At the present moment, too, they were more inclined to pity him than to treat him roughly, for if they did not guess what had really taken place, they were quite sure that Don John of Austria had been murdered by the King's orders, like Don Carlos and Queen Isabel and a fair number of other unfortunate persons; and if the King had chosen Mendoza to do the deed, the soldiers thought that he was probably not meant to suffer for it in the end, and that before long he would be restored to his command. It would, therefore, be the better for them, later, if they showed him a certain deference in his misfortune. Besides, they had heard Antonio Perez tell their officer that Mendoza was to be treated with every consideration. They marched in time, with heavy tread and the swinging gait to right and left that is natural to a soldier who carries for a weapon a long halberd with a very heavy head. Mendoza was as tall as any of them, and kept their step, holding his head high. He was bareheaded, but was otherwise still in the complete uniform he wore when on duty on state occasions. The corridor, which seemed short on account of its breadth and in comparison with the great size of the halls in the palace, was some thirty paces long and lighted by a number of chandeliers that hung from the painted vault. The party reached the door of the waiting room and halted a moment, while one of the King's footmen opened the doors wide. Don Ruy Gomez and Dolores were waiting within. The servant passed rapidly through to open the doors beyond. Ruy Gomez stood up and drew his chair aside, somewhat surprised at the entrance of the soldiers, who rarely passed that way. Dolores opened her eyes at the sound of marching, but in the uncertain light of the candles she did not at first see Mendoza, half hidden as he was by the men who guarded him. She paid little attention, for she was accustomed to seeing such detachments of halberdiers marching through the corridors when the sentries were relieved, and as she had never been in the King's apartments she was not surprised by the sudden appearance of the soldiers, as her companion was. But as the latter made way for them he lifted his hat, which as a Grandee he wore even in the King's presence, and he bent his head courteously as Mendoza went by. He hoped that Dolores would not see her father, but his own recognition of the prisoner had attracted her attention. She sprang to her feet with a cry. Mendoza turned his head and saw her before she could reach him, for she was moving forward. He stood still, and the soldiers halted instinctively and parted before her, for they all knew their commander's daughter. "Father!" she cried, and she tried to take his hand. But he pushed her away and turned his face resolutely towards the door before him. "Close up! Forward--march!" he said, in his harsh tone of command. The men obeyed, gently forcing Dolores aside. They made two steps forward, but Ruy Gomez stopped them by a gesture, standing in their way and raising one hand, while he laid the other on the young lieutenant's shoulder. Ruy Gomez was one of the greatest personages in Spain; he was the majorduomo of the palace, and had almost unlimited authority. But the officer had his orders directly from the King and felt bound to carry them out to the letter. "His Majesty has directed me to convey Don Diego de Mendoza to the west tower without delay," he said. "I beg your Excellency to let us proceed." Ruy Gomez still held him by the shoulder with a gentle pressure. "That I will not," he said firmly; "and if you are blamed for being slow in the execution of your duty, say that Ruy Gomez de Silva hindered you, and fear nothing. It is not right that father and daughter should part as these two are parting." "I have nothing to say to my daughter," said Mendoza harshly; but the words seemed to hurt him. "Don Diego," answered Ruy Gomez, "the deed of which you have accused yourself is as much worse than anything your child has done as hatred is worse than love. By the right of mere humanity I take upon myself to say that you shall be left here a while with your daughter, that you may take leave of one another." He turned to the officer. "Withdraw your men, sir," he said. "Wait at the door. You have my word for the security of your prisoner, and my authority for what you do. I will call you when it is time." He spoke in a tone that admitted of no refusal, and he was obeyed. The officers and the men filed out, and Ruy Gomez closed the door after them. He himself recrossed the room and went out by the other way into the broad corridor. He meant to wait there. His orders had been carried out so quickly that Mendoza found himself alone with Dolores, almost as by a surprise. In his desperate mood he resented what Ruy Gomez had done, as an interference in his family affairs, and he bent his bushy brows together as he stood facing Dolores, with folded arms. Four hours had not passed since they had last spoken together alone in his own dwelling; there was a lifetime of tragedy between that moment and this. Dolores had not spoken since he had pushed her away. She stood beside a chair, resting one hand upon it, dead white, with the dark shadow of pain under her eyes, her lips almost colourless, but firm, and evenly closed. There were lines of suffering in her young face that looked as if they never could be effaced. It seemed to her that the worst conflict of all was raging in her heart as she watched her father's face, waiting for the sound of his voice; and as for him, he would rather have gone back to the King's presence to be tormented under the eyes of Antonio Perez than stand there, forced to see her and speak to her. In his eyes, in the light of what he had been told, she was a ruined and shameless woman, who had deceived him day in, day out, for more than two years. And to her, so far as she could understand, he was the condemned murderer of the man she had so innocently and truly loved. But yet, she had a doubt, and for that possibility, she had cast her good name to the winds in the hope of saving his life. At one moment, in a vision of dread, she saw his armed hand striking at her lover--at the next she felt that he could never have struck the blow, and that there was an unsolved mystery behind it all. Never were two innocent human beings so utterly deceived, each about the other. "Father," she said, at last, in a trembling tone, "can you not speak to me, if I can find heart to hear you?" "What can we two say to each other?" he asked sternly. "Why did you stop me? I am ready to die for killing the man who ruined you. I am glad. Why should I say anything to you, and what words can you have for me? I hope your end may come quickly, with such peace as you can find from your shame at the last. That is what I wish for you, and it is a good wish, for you have made death on the scaffold look easy to me, so that I long for it. Do you understand?" "Condemned to death!" she cried out, almost incoherently, before he had finished speaking. "But they cannot condemn you--I have told them that I was there--that it was not you--they must believe me--O God of mercy!" "They believe you--yes. They believe that I found you together and killed him. I shall be tried by judges, but I am condemned beforehand, and I must die." He spoke calmly enough. "Your mad confession before the court only made my conviction more certain," he said. "It gave the reason for the deed--and it burned away the last doubt I had. If they are slow in trying me, you will have been before the executioner, for he will find me dead--by your hand. You might have spared me that--and spared yourself. You still had the remnant of a good name, and your lover being dead, you might have worn the rag of your honour still. You have chosen to throw it away, and let me know my full disgrace before I die a disgraceful death. And yet you wish to speak to me. Do you expect my blessing?" Dolores had lost the power of speech. Passing her hand now and then across her forehead, as though trying to brush away a material veil, she stood half paralyzed, staring wildly at him while he spoke. But when she saw him turn away from her towards the door, as if he would go out and leave her there, her strength was loosed from the spell, and she sprang before him and caught his wrists with her hands. "I am as innocent as when my mother bore me," she said, and her low voice rang with the truth. "I told the lie to save your life. Do you believe me now?" He gazed at her with haggard eyes for many moments before he spoke. "How can it be true?" he asked, but his voice shook in his throat. "You were there--I saw you leave his room--" "No, that you never saw!" she cried, well knowing how impossible it was, since she had been locked in till after he had gone away. "I saw your dress--not this one--what you wore this afternoon." "Not this one? I put on this court dress before I got out of the room in which you had locked me up. Inez helped me--I pretended that I was she, and wore her cloak, and slipped away, and I have not been back again. You did not see me." Mendoza passed his hand over his eyes and drew back from her. If what she said were true, the strongest link was gone from the chain of facts by which he had argued so much sorrow and shame. Forgetting himself and his own near fate, he looked at the court dress she wore, and a mere glance convinced him that it was not the one he had seen. "But--" he was suddenly confused--"but why did you need to disguise yourself? I left the Princess of Eboli with you, and I gave her permission to take you away to stay with her. You needed no disguise." "I never saw her. She must have found Inez in the room. I was gone long before that." "Gone--where?" Mendoza was fast losing the thread of it all--in his confusion of ideas he grasped the clue of his chief sorrow, which was far beyond any thought for himself. "But if you are innocent--pray God you may be, as you say--how is it possible--oh, no! I cannot believe it--I cannot! No woman could do that--no innocent girl could stand out before a multitude of men and women, and say what you said--" "I hoped to save your life. I had the strength. I did it." Her clear grey eyes looked into his, and his doubt began to break away before the truth. "Make me believe it!" he cried, his voice breaking. "Oh, God! Make me believe it before I die!" "It is true," she cried, in a low, strong voice that carried belief to his breast in spite of such reasoning as still had some power over him. "It is true, and you shall believe it; and if you will not, the man you have killed, the man I loved and trusted, the dead man who knows the whole truth as I know it, will come back from the dead to prove it true--for I swear it upon his soul in heaven, and upon yours and mine that will not be long on earth--as I will swear it in the hour of your death and mine, since we must die!" He could not take his eyes from hers that held him, and suddenly in the pure depths he seemed to see her soul facing him without fear, and he knew that what she said was true, and his tortured heart leapt up at the good certainty. "I believe you, my child," he said at last, and then his grey lids half closed over his eyes and he bent down to her, and put his arm round her. But she shuddered at the touch of his right hand, and though she knew that he was a condemned man, and that she might never see him again, she could not bear to receive his parting kiss upon her forehead. "Oh, father, why did you kill him?" she asked, turning her head away and moving to escape from his hold. But Mendoza did not answer. His arm dropped by his side, and his face grew white and stony. She was asking him to give up the King's secret, to keep which he was giving his life. He felt that it would be treason to tell even her. And besides, she would not keep the secret--what woman could, what daughter would? It must go out of the world with him, if it was to be safe. He glanced at her and saw her face ravaged by an hour's grief. Yet she would not mourn Don John the less if she knew whose hand had done the deed. It could make but a little difference to her, though to himself that difference would be great, if she knew that he died innocent. And then began a struggle fierce and grim, that tore his soul and wounded his heart as no death agony could have hurt him. Since he had judged her unjustly, since it had all been a hideous dream, since she was still the child that had been all in all to him throughout her life, since all was changed, he did not wish to die, he bore the dead man no hatred, it was no soothing satisfaction to his outraged heart to know him dead of a sword wound in the breast, far away in the room where they had left him, there was no fierce regret that he had not driven the thrust himself. The man was as innocent as the innocent girl, and he himself, as innocent as both, was to be led out to die to shield the King--no more. His life was to be taken for that only, and he no longer set its value at naught nor wished it over. He was the mere scapegoat, to suffer for his master's crime, since crime it was and nothing better. And since he was willing to bear the punishment, or since there was now no escape from it, had he not at least the human right to proclaim his innocence to the only being he really loved? It would be monstrous to deny it. What could she do, after all, even if she knew the truth? Nothing. No one would dare to believe her if she accused the King. She would be shut up in a convent as a mad woman, but in any case, she would certainly disappear to end her life in some religious house as soon as he was dead. Poor girl--she had loved Don John with all her heart--what could the world hold for her, even if the disgrace of her father's death were not to shut her out of the world altogether, as it inevitably must. She would not live long, but she would live in the profoundest sorrow. It would be an alleviation, almost the greatest possible, to know that her father's hand was not stained by such a deed. The temptation to speak out was overwhelming, and he knew that the time was short. At any moment Ruy Gomez might open the door, and bid him part from her, and there would be small chance for him of seeing her again. He stood uncertain, with bent head and folded arms, and she watched him, trying to bring herself to touch his hand again and bear his kiss. His loyalty to the King, that was like a sort of madness, stood between him and the words he longed to say. It was the habit of his long soldier's life, unbending as the corslet he wore and enclosing his soul as the steel encased his body, proof against every cruelty, every unkindness, every insult. It was better to die a traitor's death for the King's secret than to live for his own honour. So it had always seemed to him, since he had been a boy and had learned to fight under the great Emperor. But now he knew that he wavered as he had never done in the most desperate charge, when life was but a missile to be flung in the enemy's face, and found or not, when the fray was over. There was no intoxication of fury now, there was no far ring of glory in the air, there was no victory to be won. The hard and hideous fact stared him in the face, that he was to die like a malefactor by the hangman's hand, and that the sovereign who had graciously deigned to accept the sacrifice had tortured him for nearly half an hour without mercy in the presence of an inferior, in order to get a few facts on paper which might help his own royal credit. And as if that were not enough, his own daughter was to live after him, believing that he had cruelly murdered the man she most dearly loved. It was more than humanity could bear. His brow unbent, his arms unfolded themselves, and he held them out to Dolores with a smile almost gentle. "There is no blood on these hands, my little girl," he said tenderly. "I did not do it, child. Let me hold you in my arms once, and kiss you before I go. We are both innocent--we can bless one another before we part for ever." The pure, grey eyes opened wide in amazement. Dolores could hardly believe her ears, as she made a step towards him, and then stopped, shrinking, and then made one step more. Her lips moved and wondering words came to him, so low that he could hardly understand, save that she questioned him. "You did not do it!" she breathed. "You did not kill him after all? But then--who--why?" Still she hesitated, though she came slowly nearer, and a faint light warmed her sorrowful face. "You must try to guess who and why," he said, in a tone as low as her own. "I must not tell you that." "I cannot guess," she answered; but she was close to him now, and she had taken one of his hands softly in both her own, while she gazed into his eyes. "How can I understand unless you tell me? Is it so great a secret that you must die for it, and never tell it? Oh, father, father! Are you sure--quite sure?" "He was dead already when I came into the room," Mendoza answered. "I did not even see him hurt." "But then--yes--then"--her voice sank to a whisper--"then it was the King!" He saw the words on her lips rather than heard them, and she saw in his face that she was right. She dropped his hand and threw her arms round his neck, pressing her bosom to his breastplate; and suddenly her love for him awoke, and she began to know how she might have loved him if she had known him through all the years that were gone. "It cannot be that he will let you die!" she cried softly. "You shall not die!" she cried again, with sudden strength, and her light frame shook his as if she would wrench him back from inevitable fate. "My little girl," he answered, most tenderly clasping her to him, and most thoughtfully, lest his armour should hurt her, "I can die happy now, for I have found all of you again." "You shall not die! You shall not die!" she cried. "I will not let you go--they must take me, too--" "No power can save me now, my darling," he answered. "But it does not matter, since you know. It will be easy now." She could only hold him with her small hands, and say over and over again that she would not let him go. "Ah! why have you never loved me before in all these years?" he cried. "It was my fault--all my fault." "I love you now with all my heart," she answered, "and I will save you, even from the King; and you and I and Inez will go far away, and you two shall comfort me and love me till I go to him." Mendoza shook his head sadly, looking over her shoulder as he held her, for he knew that there was no hope now. Had he known, or half guessed, but an hour or two ago, he would have turned on his heel from the door of Don John's chamber, and he would have left the King to bear the blame or shift it as he could. "It is too late, Dolores. God bless you, my dear, dear child! It will soon be over--two days at most, for the people will cry out for the blood of Don John's murderer; and when they see mine they will be satisfied. It is too late now. Good-by, my little girl, good-by! The blessing of all heaven be on your dear head!" Dolores nestled against him, as she had never done before, with the feeling that she had found something that had been wanting in her life, at the very moment when the world, with all it held for her, was slipping over the edge of eternity. "I will not leave you," she cried again. "They shall take me to your prison, and I will stay with you and take care of you, and never leave you; and at last I shall save your life, and then--" The door of the corridor opened, and she saw Ruy Gomez standing in the entrance, as if he were waiting. His face was calm and grave as usual, but she saw a profound pity in his eyes. "No, no!" she cried to him, "not yet--one moment more!" But Mendoza turned his head at her words, looking over his shoulder, and he saw the Prince also. "I am ready," he said briefly, and he tried to take Dolores' hands from his neck. "It is time," he said to her. "Be brave, my darling! We have found each other at last. It will not be long before we are together for ever." He kissed her tenderly once more, and loosed her hold, putting her two hands together and kissing them also. "I will not say good-by," she said. "It is not good-by--it shall not be. I shall be with you soon." His eyes lingered upon hers for a moment, and then he broke away, setting his teeth lest he should choke and break down. He opened the door and presented himself to the halberdiers. Dolores heard his familiar voice give the words of command. "Close up! Forward, march!" The heavy tramp she knew so well began at once, and echoed along the outer entries, growing slowly less distinct till it was only a distant and rumbling echo, and then died away altogether. Her hand was still on the open door, and Ruy Gomez was standing beside her. He gently drew her away, and closed the door again. She let him lead her to a chair, and sat down where she had sat before. But this time she did not lean back exhausted, with half-closed eyes,--she rested her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand, and she tried to think connectedly to a conclusion. She remembered all the details of the past hours one by one, and she felt that the determination to save her father had given her strength to live. "Don Ruy Gomez," she said at last, looking up to the tall old nobleman, who stood by the brazier warming his hands again, "can I see the King alone?" "That is more than I can promise," answered the Prince. "I have asked an audience for you, and the chamberlain will bring word presently whether his Majesty is willing to see you. But if you are admitted, I cannot tell whether Perez will be there or not. He generally is. His presence need make no difference to you. He is an excellent young man, full of heart. I have great confidence in him,--so much so that I recommended him to his Majesty as Secretary. I am sure that he will do all he can to be of use to you." Dolores looked up incredulously, and with a certain wonder at the Prince's extreme simplicity. Yet he had been married ten years to the clever woman who ruled him and Perez and King Philip, and made each one believe that she was devoted to him only, body and soul. Of the three, Perez alone may have guessed the truth, but though it was degrading enough, he would not let it stand in the way of his advancement; and in the end it was he who escaped, leaving her to perish, the victim of the King's implacable anger, Dolores could not help shaking her head in answer to the Prince of Eboli's speech. "People are very unjust to Perez," he said. "But the King trusts him. If he is there, try to conciliate him, for he has much influence with his Majesty." Dolores said nothing, and resuming her attitude, returned to her sad meditations, and to the study of some immediate plan. But she could think of no way. Her only fixed intention was to see the King himself. Ruy Gomez could do no more to help her than he had done already, and that indeed was not little, since it was to his kindly impulse that she owed her meeting with her father. "And if Perez is not inclined to help Don Diego," said the Prince, after a long pause which had not interrupted the slow progression of, his kindly thought, "I will request my wife to speak to him. I have often noticed that the Princess can make Perez do almost anything she wishes. Women are far cleverer than men, my dear--they have ways we do not understand. Yes, I will interest my wife in the affair. It would be a sad thing if your father--" The old man stopped short, and Dolores wondered vaguely what he had been going to say. Ruy Gomez was a very strange compound of almost childlike and most honourable simplicity, and of the experienced wisdom with regard to the truth of matters in which he was not concerned, which sometimes belongs to very honourable and simple men. "You do not believe that my father is guilty," said Dolores, boldly asserting what she suspected. "My dear child," answered Ruy Gomez, twisting his rings on his fingers as he spread his hands above the coals in the brazier, "I have lived in this court for fifty years, and I have learned in that time that where great matters are at stake those who do not know the whole truth are often greatly deceived by appearances. I know nothing of the real matter now, but it would not surprise me if a great change took place before to-morrow night. A man who has committed a crime so horrible as the one your father confessed before us all rarely finds it expedient to make such a confession, and a young girl, my dear, who has really been a little too imprudently in love with a royal Prince, would be a great deal too wise to make a dramatic statement of her fault to the assembled Grandees of Spain." He looked across at Dolores and smiled gently. But she only shook her head gravely in answer, though she wondered at what he said, and wondered, too, whether there might not be a great many persons in the court who thought as he did. She was silent, too, because it hurt her to talk when she could not draw breath without remembering that what she had lived for was lying dead in that dim room on the upper story. The door opened, and a chamberlain entered the room. "His Majesty is pleased to receive Doña Dolores de Mendoza, in private audience," he said. Ruy Gomez rose and led Dolores out into the corridor. * * * * * CHAPTER XVIII Dolores had prepared no speech with which to appeal to the King, and she had not counted upon her own feelings towards him when she found herself in the room where Mendoza had been questioned, and heard the door closed behind her by the chamberlain who had announced her coming. She stood still a moment, dazzled by the brilliant lights after having been so long in the dimmer waiting room. She had never before been in the King's study, and she had fancied it very different from what it really was when she had tried to picture to herself the coming interview. She had supposed the room small, sombre, littered with books and papers, and cold; it was, on the contrary, so spacious as to be almost a hall, it was brightly illuminated and warmed by the big wood fire. Magnificent tapestries covered the walls with glowing colour, and upon one of these, in barbaric bad taste, was hung a single great picture by Titian, Philip's favourite master. Dolores blushed as she recognized in the face of the insolent Venus the features of the Princess of Eboli. Prom his accustomed chair, the King could see this painting. Everywhere in the room there were rich objects that caught and reflected the light, things of gold and silver, of jade and lapis lazuli, in a sort of tasteless profusion that detracted from the beauty of each, and made Dolores feel that she had been suddenly transported out of her own element into another that was hard to breathe and in which it was bad to live. It oppressed her, and though her courage was undiminished, the air of the place seemed to stifle her thought and speech. As she entered she saw the King in profile, seated in his great chair at some distance from the fire, but looking at it steadily. He did not notice her presence at first. Antonio Perez sat at the table, busily writing, and he only glanced at Dolores sideways when he heard the door close after her. She sank almost to the ground as she made the first court curtsey before advancing, and she came forward into the light. As her skirt swept the ground a second time, Philip looked slowly round, and his dull stare followed her as she came round in a quarter of a wide circle and curtsied a third time immediately in front of him. She was very beautiful, as she stood waiting for him to speak, and meeting his gaze fearlessly with a look of cold contempt in her white face such as no living person had ever dared to turn to him, while the light of anger burned in her deep grey eyes. But for the presence of the Secretary, she would have spoken first, regardless of court ceremony. Philip looked at her attentively, mentally comparing her with his young Queen's placidly dull personality and with the Princess of Eboli's fast disappearing and somewhat coarse beauty. For the Princess had changed much since Titian had painted his very flattering picture, and though she was only thirty years of age, she was already the mother of many children. Philip stared steadily at the beautiful girl who stood waiting before him, and he wondered why she had never seemed so lovely to him before. There was a half morbid, half bitter savour in what he felt, too,--he had just condemned the beauty's father to death, and she must therefore hate him with all her heart. It pleased him to think of that; she was beautiful and he stared at her long. "Be seated, Doña Dolores," he said at last, in a muffled voice that was not harsh. "I am glad that you have come, for I have much to say to you." Without lifting his wrist from the arm of the chair on which it rested, the King moved his hand, and his long forefinger pointed to a low cushioned stool that was placed near him. Dolores came forward unwillingly and sat down. Perez watched the two thoughtfully, and forgot his writing. He did not remember that any one excepting the Princess of Eboli had been allowed to be seated in the King's study. The Queen never came there. Perez' work exempted him in private, of course, from much of the tedious ceremonial upon which Philip insisted. Dolores sat upon the edge of the stool, very erect, with her hands folded on her knees. "Doña Dolores is pale," observed the King. "Bring a cordial, Perez, or a glass of Oporto wine." "I thank your Majesty," said the young girl quickly. "I need nothing." "I will be your physician," answered Philip, very suavely. "I shall insist upon your taking the medicine I prescribe." He did not turn his eyes from her as Perez brought a gold salver and offered Dolores the glass. It was impossible to refuse, so she lifted it to her lips and sipped a little. "I thank your Majesty," she said again. "I thank you, sir," she said gravely to Perez as she set down the glass, but she did not raise her eyes to his face as she spoke any more than she would have done if he had been a footman. "I have much to say to you, and some questions to ask of you," the King began, speaking very slowly, but with extreme suavity. He paused, and coughed a little, but Dolores said nothing. Then he began to look at her again, and while he spoke he steadily examined every detail of her appearance till his inscrutable gaze had travelled from her headdress to the points of her velvet slippers, and finally remained fixed upon her mouth in a way that disturbed her even more than the speech he made. Perez had resumed his seat. "In my life," he began, speaking of himself quite without formality, "I have suffered more than most men, in being bereaved of the persons to whom I have been most sincerely attached. The most fortunate and successful sovereign in the world has been and is the most unhappy man in his kingdom. One after another, those I have loved have been taken from me, until I am almost alone in the world that is so largely mine. I suppose you cannot understand that, my dear, for my sorrows began before you were born. But they have reached their crown and culmination to-day in the death of my dear brother." He paused, watching her mouth, and he saw that she was making a superhuman effort to control herself, pressing the beautiful lips together, though they moved gainfully in spite of her, and visibly lost colour. "Perez," he said after a moment, "you may go and take some rest. I will send for you when I need you." The Secretary rose, bowed low, and left the room by a small masked door in a corner. The King waited till he saw it close before he spoke again. His tone changed a little then and his words came quickly, as if he felt here constraint. "I feel," he said, "that we are united by a common calamity, my dear. I intend to take you under my most particular care and protection from this very hour. Yes, I know!" he held up his hand o deprecate any interruption, for Dolores seemed about to speak. "I know why you come to me, you wish to intercede for your father. That is natural, and you are right to come to me yourself, for I would rather hear your voice than that of another speaking for you, and I would rather grant any mercy in my power to you directly than to some personage of the court who would be seeking his own interest as much as yours." "I ask justice, not mercy, Sire," said Dolores, in a firm, low voice, and the fire lightened in her eyes. "Your father shall have both," answered Philip, "for they are compatible." "He needs no mercy," returned the young girl, "for he has done no harm. Your Majesty knows that as well as I." "If I knew that, my dear, your father would not be under arrest. I cannot guess what you know or do not know--" "I know the truth." She spoke so confidently that the King's expression changed a little. "I wish I did," he answered, with as much suavity as ever. "But tell me what you think you know about this matter. You may help me to sift it, and then I shall be the better able to help you, if such a thing be possible. What do you know?" Dolores leaned forward toward him from her seat, almost rising as she lowered her voice to a whisper, her eyes fixed on his face. "I was close behind the door your Majesty wished to open," she said. "I heard every word; I heard your sword drawn and I heard Don John fall--and then it was some time before I heard my father's voice, taking the blame upon himself, lest it should be said that the King had murdered his own brother in his room, unarmed. Is that the truth, or not?" While she was speaking, a greenish hue overspread Philip's face, ghastly in the candlelight. He sat upright in his chair, his hands straining on its arms and pushing, as if he would have got farther back if he could. He had foreseen everything except that Dolores had been in the next room, for his secret spies had informed him through Perez that her father had kept her a prisoner during the early part of the evening and until after supper. "When you were both gone," Dolores continued, holding him under her terrible eyes, "I came in, and I found him dead, with the wound in his left breast, and he was unarmed, murdered without a chance for his life. There is blood upon my dress where it touched his--the blood of the man I loved, shed by you. Ah, he was right to call you coward, and he died for me, because you said things of me that no loving man would bear. He was right to call you coward--it was well said--it was the last word he spoke, and I shall not forget it. He had borne everything you heaped upon himself, your insults, your scorn of his mother, but he would not let you cast a slur upon my name, and if you had not killed him out of sheer cowardice, he would have struck you in the face. He was a man! And then my father took the blame to save you from the monstrous accusation, and that all might believe him guilty he told the lie that saved you before them all. Do I know the truth? Is one word of that not true?" She had quite risen now and stood before him like an accusing angel. And he, who was seldom taken unawares, and was very hard to hurt, leaned back and suffered, slowly turning his head from side to side against the back of the high carved chair. "Confess that it is true!" she cried, in concentrated tones. "Can you not even find courage for that? You are not the King now, you are your brother's murderer, and the murderer of the man I loved, whose wife I should have been to-morrow. Look at me, and confess that I have told the truth. I am a Spanish woman, and I would not see my country branded before the world with the shame of your royal murders, and if you will confess and save my father, I will keep your secret for my country's sake. But if not--then you must either kill me here, as you slew him, or by the God that made you and the mother that bore you, I will tell all Spain what you are, and the men who loved Don John of Austria shall rise and take your blood for his blood, though it be blood royal, and you shall die, as you killed, like the coward you are!" The King's eyes were closed, and still his great pale head moved slowly from side to side; for he was suffering, and the torture of mind he had made Mendoza bear was avenged already. But he was silent. "Will you not speak?" asked the young girl, with blazing eyes. "Then find some weapon and kill me here before I go, for I shall not wait till you find many words." She was silent, and she stood upright in the act to go. He made no sound, and she moved towards the door, stood still, then moved again and then again, pausing for his answer at each step. He heard her, but could not bring himself to speak the words she demanded of him. She began to walk quickly. Her hand was almost on the door when he raised himself by the arms of his chair, and cried out to her in a frightened voice:-- "No, no! Stay here--you must not go--what do you want me to say?" She advanced a step again, and once more stood still and met his scared eyes as he turned his face towards her. "Say, 'You have spoken the truth,'" she answered, dictating to him as if she were the sovereign and he a guilty subject. She waited a moment and then moved as if she would go out. "Stay--yes--it is true--I did it--for God's mercy do not betray me!" He almost screamed the words out to her, half rising, his body bent, his face livid in his extreme fear. She came slowly back towards him, keeping her eyes upon him as if he were some dangerous wild animal that she controlled by her look alone. "That is not all," she said. "That was for me, that I might hear the words from your own lips. There is something more." "What more do you want of me?" asked Philip, in thick tones, leaning back exhausted in his chair. "My father's freedom and safety," answered Dolores. "I must have an order for his instant release. He can hardly have reached his prison yet. Send for him. Let him come here at once, as a free man." "That is impossible," replied Philip. "He has confessed the deed before the whole court--he cannot possibly be set at liberty without a trial. You forget what you are asking--indeed you forget yourself altogether too much." He was gathering his dignity again, by force of habit, as his terror subsided, but Dolores was too strong for him. "I am not asking anything of your Majesty; I am dictating terms to my lover's murderer," she said proudly. "This is past bearing, girl!" cried Philip hoarsely. "You are out of your mind--I shall call servants to take you away to a place of safety. We shall see what you will do then. You shall not impose your insolence upon me any longer." Dolores reflected that it was probably in his power to carry out the threat, and to have her carried off by the private door through which Perez had gone out. She saw in a flash how great her danger was, for she was the only witness against him, and if he could put her out of the way in a place of silence, he could send her father to trial and execution without risk to himself, as he had certainly intended to do. On the other hand, she had been able to terrify him to submission a few moments earlier. In the instant working of her woman's mind, she recollected how his fright had increased as she had approached the door by which she had entered. His only chance of accomplishing her disappearance lay in having her taken away by some secret passage, where no open scandal could be possible. Before she answered his last angry speech, she had almost reached the main entrance again. "Call whom you will," she said contemptuously. "You cannot save yourself. Don Ruy Gomez is on the other side of that door, and there are chamberlains and guards there, too. I shall have told them all the truth before your men can lay hands on me. If you will not write the order to release my father, I shall go out at once. In ten minutes there will be a revolution in the palace, and to-morrow all Spain will be on fire to avenge your brother. Spain has not forgotten Don Carlos yet! There are those alive who saw you give Queen Isabel the draught that killed her--with your own hand. Are you mad enough to think that no one knows those things, that your spies, who spy on others, do not spy on you, that you alone, of all mankind, can commit every crime with impunity?" "Take care, girl! Take care!" "Beware--Don Philip of Austria, King of Spain and half the world, lest a girl's voice be heard above yours, and a girl's hand loosen the foundation of your throne, lest all mankind rise up to-morrow and take your life for the lives you have destroyed! Outside this door here, there are men who guess the truth already, who hate you as they hate Satan, and who loved your brother as every living being loved him--except you. One moment more--order my father to be set free, or I will open and speak. One moment! You will not? It is too late--you are lost!" Her hand went out to open, but Philip was already on his feet, and with quick, clumsy steps he reached the writing-table, seized the pen Perez had thrown down, and began to scrawl words rapidly in his great angular handwriting. He threw sand upon it to dry the ink, and then poured the grains back into the silver sandbox, glanced at the paper and held it out to Dolores without a word. His other hand slipped along the table to a silver bell, used for calling his private attendants, but the girl saw the movement and instinctively suspected his treachery. He meant her to come to the table, when he would ring the bell and then catch her and hold her by main force till help came. Her faculties were furiously awake under the strain she bore, and outran his slow cunning. "If you ring that bell, I will open," she said imperiously. "I must have the paper here, where I am safe, and I must read it myself before I shall be satisfied." "You are a terrible woman," said the King, but she did not like his smile as he came towards her, holding out the document. She took it from his hand, keeping her eyes on his, for something told her that he would try to seize her and draw her from the door while she was reading it. For some seconds they faced each other in silence, and she knew by his determined attitude that she was right, and that it would not be safe to look down. She wondered why he did not catch her in his arms as she stood, and then she realized that her free hand was on the latch of the door, and that he knew it. She slowly turned the handle, and drew the door to her, and she saw his face fall. She moved to one side so that she could have sprung out if he had tried violence, and then at last she allowed her eyes to glance at the paper. It was in order and would be obeyed; she saw that, at a glance, for it said that Don Diego de Mendoza was to be set at liberty instantly and unconditionally. "I humbly thank your Majesty, and take my leave," she said, throwing the door wide open and curtseying low. A chamberlain who had seen the door move on its hinges stepped in to shut it, for it opened inward. The King beckoned him in, and closed it, but before it was quite shut, he heard Dolores' voice. "Don Ruy Gomez," she was saying, "this is an order to set my father at liberty unconditionally and at once. I do not know to whom it should be given. Will you take it for me and see to it?" "I will go to the west tower myself," he said, beginning to walk with her. "Such good news is even better when a friend brings it." "Thank you. Tell him from me that he is safe, for his Majesty has told me that he knows the whole truth. Will you do that? You have been very kind to me to-night, Prince--let me thank you with all my heart now, for we may not meet again. You will not see me at court after this, and I trust my father will take us back to Valladolid and live with us." "That would be wise," answered Ruy Gomez. "As for any help I have given you, it has been little enough and freely given. I will not keep your father waiting for his liberty. Good-night, Doña Dolores." * * * * * CHAPTER XIX All that had happened from the time when Don John had fallen in his room to the moment when Dolores left her sister on the terrace had occupied little more than half an hour, during which the King had descended to the hall, Mendoza had claimed the guilt of Don John's murder, and the two had gone out under the protection of the guards. As soon as Dolores was out of hearing, Inez rose and crept along the terrace to Don John's door. In the confusion that had ensued upon the announcement of his death no one had thought of going to him; every one took it for granted that some one else had done what was necessary, and that his apartments were filled with physicians and servants. It was not the first time in history that a royal personage had thus been left alone an hour, either dead or dying, because no one was immediately responsible, and such things have happened since. Inez stole along the terrace and found the outer door open, as the dwarf had left it when he had carried Dolores out in his arms. She remembered that the voices she had heard earlier had come from rooms on the left of the door, and she felt her way to the entrance of the bedchamber, and then went in without hesitation. Bending very low, so that her hands touched the floor from time to time, she crept along, feeling for the body she expected to find. Suddenly she started and stood upright in an instant. She had heard a deep sigh in the room, not far off. She listened intently, but even her ears could detect no sound after that. She was a little frightened, not with any supernatural fear, for the blind, who live in the dark for ever, are generally singularly exempt from such terrors, but because she had thought herself alone with the dead man, and did not wish to be discovered. "Who is here?" she asked quickly, but there was no answer out of the dead stillness. She stood quite still a few seconds and then crept forward again, bending down and feeling before her along the floor. A moment later her hand touched velvet, and she knew that she had found what she sought. With a low moan she fell upon her knees and felt for the cold hand that lay stretched out upon the marble pavement beyond the thick carpet. Her hand followed the arm, reached the shoulder and then the face. Her fingers fluttered lightly upon the features, while her own heart almost stood still She felt no horror of death, though she had never been near a dead person before; and those who were fond of her had allowed her to feel their features with her gentle hands, and she knew beauty through her touch, by its shape. Though her heart was breaking, she had felt that once, before it was too late, she must know the face she had long loved in dreams. Her longing satisfied, her grief broke out again, and she let herself fall her length upon the floor beside Don John, one arm across his chest, her head resting against the motionless shoulder, her face almost hidden against the gathered velvet and silk of his doublet. Once or twice she sobbed convulsively, and then she lay quite still, trying with all her might to die there, on his arm, before any one came to disturb her. It seemed very simple, just to stop living and stay with him for ever. Again she heard a sound of deep-drawn breath--but it was close to her now, and her own arm moved with it on his chest--the dead man had moved, he had sighed. She started up wildly, with a sharp cry, half of paralyzing fear, and half of mad delight in a hope altogether impossible. Then, he drew his breath again, and it issued from his lips with a low groan. He was not quite dead yet, he might speak to her still, he could hear her voice, perhaps, before he really died. She could never have found courage to kiss him, even then she could have blushed scarlet at the thought, but she bent down to his face, very close to it, till her cheek almost touched his as she spoke in a very trembling, low voice. "Not yet--not yet--come back for one moment, only for one little moment! Oh, let it be God's miracle for me!" She hardly knew what she said, but the miracle was there, for she heard his breath come again and again, and as she stared into her everlasting night, strange flashes, like light, shot through her brain, her bosom trembled, and her hands stiffened in the spasm of a delirious joy. "Come back!" she cried again. "Come back!" Her hands shook as they felt his body move. His voice came again, not in a word yet, but yet not in a groan of pain. His eyes, that had been half open and staring, closed with a look of rest, and colour rose slowly in his cheeks. Then he felt her breath, and his strength returned for an instant, his arms contracted and clasped her to him violently. "Dolores!" he cried, and in a moment his lips rained kisses on her face, while his eyes were still closed. Then he sank back again exhausted, and her arm kept his head from striking the marble floor. The girl's cheek flushed a deep red, as she tried to speak, and her words came broken and indistinct. "I am not Dolores," she managed to say. "I am Inez--" But he did not hear, for he was swooning again, and the painful blush sank down again, as she realized that he was once more unconscious. She wondered whether the room were dark or whether there were lights, or whether he had not opened his eyes when he had kissed her. His head was very heavy on her arm. With her other hand she drew off the hood she wore and rolled it together, and lifting him a little she made a pillow of it so that he rested easily. He had not recognized her, and she believed he was dying, he had kissed her, and all eternity could not take from her the memory of that moment. In the wild confusion of her thoughts she was almost content that he should die now, for she had felt what she had never dared to feel in sweetest dreams, and it had been true, and no one could steal it away now, nor should any one ever know it, not even Dolores herself. The jealous thought was there, in the whirlwind of her brain, with all the rest, sudden, fierce, and strong, as if Don John had been hers in life, and as if the sister she loved so dearly had tried to win him from her. He was hers in death, and should be hers for ever, and no one should ever know. It did not matter that he had taken her for another, his kisses were her own. Once only had a man's lips, not her father's, touched her cheek, and they had been the lips of the fairest, and best, and bravest man in the world, her idol and her earthly god. He might die now, and she would follow him, and in the world beyond God would make it right somehow, and he, and she, and her sister would all be but one loving soul for ever and ever. There was no reasoning in all that--it was but the flash of wild thoughts that all seemed certainties. But Don John of Austria was neither dead nor dying. His brother's sword had pierced his doublet and run through the outer flesh beneath his left arm, as he stood sideways with his right thrust forward. The wound was a mere scratch, as soldiers count wounds, and though the young blood had followed quickly, it had now ceased to flow. It was the fall that had hurt him, not the stab. The carpet had slipped from under his feet, and he had fallen backwards to his full length, as a man falls on ice, and his head had struck the marble floor so violently that he had lain half an hour almost in a swoon, like a dead man at first, with neither breath nor beating of the heart to give a sign of life, till after Dolores had left him; and then he had sighed back to consciousness by very slow degrees, because no one was there to help him, to raise his head a few inches from the floor, to dash a little cold water into his face. He stirred uneasily now, and moved his hands again, and his eyes opened wide. Inez felt the slight motion and heard his regular breathing, and an instinct told her that he was conscious, and not in a dream as he had been when he had kissed her. "I am Inez," she said, almost mechanically, and not knowing why she had feared that he should take her for her sister. "I found your Highness here--they all think that you are dead." "Dead?" There was surprise in his voice, and his eyes looked at her and about the room as he spoke, though he did not yet lift his head from the hood on which it lay. "Dead?" he repeated, dazed still. "No--I must have fallen. My head hurts me." He uttered a sharp sound as he moved again, more of annoyance than of suffering, as strong men do who unexpectedly find themselves hurt or helpless, or both. Then, as his eyes fell upon the open door of the inner room, he forgot his pain instantly and raised himself upon his hand with startled eyes. "Where is Dolores?" he cried, in utmost anxiety. "Where have they taken her? Did she get out by the window?" "She is safe," answered Inez, hardly knowing what she said, for he turned pale instantly and had barely heard her answer, when he reeled as he half sat and almost fell against her. She held him as well as she could, but the position was strained and she was not very strong. Half mad now, between fear lest he should die in her arms and the instinctive belief that he was to live, she wished with all her heart that some one would come and help her, or send for a physician. He might die for lack of some simple aid she did not know how to give him. But he had only been dizzy with the unconscious effort he had made, and presently he rested on his own hand again. "Thank God Dolores is safe!" he said, in a weak voice. "Can you help me to get to a chair, my dear child? I must have been badly stunned. I wonder how long I have been here. I remember--" He paused and passed one hand over his eyes. The first instinct of strong persons who have been unconscious is to think aloud, and to try and recall every detail of the accident that left them unconscious. "I remember--the King was here--we talked and we quarrelled--oh!" The short exclamation ended his speech, as complete recollection returned, and he knew that the secret must be kept, for his brother's sake. He laid one head on the slight girl's shoulder to steady himself, and with his other he helped himself to kneel on one knee. "I am very dizzy," he said. "Try and help me to a chair, Inez." She rose swiftly, holding his hand, and then putting one arm round him under his own. He struggled to his feet and leaned his weight upon her, and breathed hard. The effort hurt him where the flesh was torn. "I am wounded, too," he said quietly, as he glanced at the blood on his vest. "But it is nothing serious, I think." With the instinct of the soldier hurt in the chest, he brushed his lips with the small lace ruffle of his sleeve, and looked at it, expecting to see the bright red stains that might mean death. There was nothing. "It is only a scratch," he said, with an accent of indifference. "Help me to the chair, my dear." "Where?" she asked. "I do not know the room." "One forgets that you are blind," he answered, with a smile, and leaning heavily upon her, he led her by his weight, till he could touch the chair in which he had sat reading Dolores' letter when the King had entered an hour earlier. He sat down with a sigh of relief, and stretched first one leg and then the other, and leaned back with half-closed eyes. "Where is Dolores?" he asked at last. "Why did she go away?" "The jester took her away, I think," answered Inez. "I found them together on the terrace. She was trying to come back to you, but he prevented her. They thought you were dead." "That was wise of him." He spoke faintly still, and when he opened his eyes, the room swam with him. "And then?" "Then I told her what had happened at court; I had heard everything from the gallery. And Dolores went down alone. I could not understand what she was going to do, but she is trying to save our father." "Your father!" Don John looked at her in surprise, forgetting his hurt, but it was as if some one had struck his head again, and he closed his eyes. "What has happened?" he asked faintly. "Try and tell me. I do not understand." "My father thought he had killed you," answered Inez, in surprise. "He came into the great hall when the King was there, and he cried out in a loud voice that he had killed you, unarmed." "Your father?" He forgot his suffering altogether now. "Your father was not even in the room when--when I fell! And did the King say nothing? Tell me quickly!" "There was a great uproar, and I ran away to find Dolores. I do not know what happened afterwards." Don John turned painfully in his chair and lifted his hand to the back of his head. But he said nothing at first, for he was beginning to understand, and he would not betray the secret of his accident even to Inez. "I knew he could not have done it! I thought he was mad--he most have been! But I also thought your Highness was dead." "Dear child!" Don John's voice was very kind. "You brought me to life. Your father was not here. It was some one else who hurt me. Do you think you could find Dolores or send some one to tell her--to tell every one that I am alive? Say that I had a bad fall and was stunned for a while. Never mind the scratch--it is nothing--do not speak of it. If you could find Adonis, he could go." He groaned now, for the pain of speaking was almost intolerable. Inez put out her hand towards him. "Does it hurt very much?" she asked, with a sort of pathetic, childlike sympathy. "Yes, my head hurts, but I shall not faint. There is something to drink by the bed, I think--on this side. If you could only find it. I cannot walk there yet, I am so giddy." "Some one is coming!" exclaimed Inez, instead of answering him. "I hear some one on the terrace. Hark!" she listened with bent head. "It is Adonis. I know his step. There he is!" Almost as she spoke the last words the dwarf was in the doorway. He stood still, transfixed with astonishment. "Mercy of heaven!" he exclaimed devoutly. "His Highness is alive after all!" "Yes," said Inez, in a glad tone. "The Prince was only stunned by the fall. Go and tell Dolores--go out and tell every one--bring every one here to me!" "No!" cried Don John. "Try and bring Doña Dolores alone, and let no one else know. The rest can wait." "But your Highness needs a physician," protested the dwarf, not yet recovered from his astonishment. "Your Highness is wounded, and must therefore be bled at once. I will call the Doctor Galdos--" "I tell you it is nothing," interrupted Don John. "Do as I order you, and bring Doña Dolores. Give me that drink there, first--from the little table. In a quarter of an hour I shall be quite well again. I have been as badly stunned before when my horse has fallen with me at a barrier." The jester swung quickly to the table, in his awkward, bow-legged gait, and brought the beaker that stood there. Don John drank eagerly, for his lips were parched with pain. "Go!" he said imperatively. "And come back quickly." "I will go," said Adonis. "But I may not come back quickly, for I believe that Doña Dolores is with his Majesty at this moment, or with her father, unless the three are together. Since it has pleased your Highness not to remain dead, it would have been much simpler not to die at all, for your Highness's premature death has caused trouble which your Highness's premature resurrection may not quickly set right." "The sooner you bring Doña Dolores, the sooner the tremble will be over," said Don John. "Go at once, and do your best." Adonis rolled away, shaking his head and almost touching the floor with his hands as he walked. "So the Last Trumpet is not merely another of those priests' tales!" he muttered. "I shall meet Don Carlos on the terrace, and the Emperor in the corridor, no doubt! They might give a man time to confess his sins. It was unnecessary that the end of the world should come so suddenly!" The last words of his jest were spoken to himself, for he was already outside when he uttered them, and he had no intention of wasting time in bearing the good news to Dolores. The difficulty was to find her. He had been a witness of the scene in the hall from the balcony, and he guessed that when she left the hall with Ruy Gomez she would go either to her father or the King. It would not be an easy matter to see her, and it was by no means beyond the bounds of possibility that he might be altogether hindered from doing so, unless he at once announced to every one he met the astounding fact that Don John was alive after all. He was strongly tempted to do that, without waiting, for it seemed by far the most sensible thing to do in the disturbed state of the court; but it was his business to serve and amuse many masters, and his office, if not his life, depended upon obeying each in turn and finding the right jest for each. He placed the King highest, of course, among those he had to please, and before he had gone far in the corridor he slackened his pace to give himself time to think over the situation. Either the King had meant to kill Don John himself, or he had ordered Mendoza to do so. That much was clear to any one who had known the secret of Don Carlos' death, and the dwarf had been one of the last who had talked with the unfortunate Prince before that dark tragedy. And on this present night he had seen everything, and knew more of the thoughts of each of the actors in the drama than any one else, so that he had no doubt as to his conclusions. If, then, the King had wished to get rid of Don John, he would be very much displeased to learn that the latter was alive after all. It would not be good to be the bearer of that news, and it was more than likely that Philip would let Mendoza go to the scaffold for the attempt, as he long afterwards condemned Antonio Perez to death for the murder of Escobedo, Don John's secretary, though he himself had ordered Perez to do that deed; as he had already allowed the ecclesiastic Doctor Cazalla to be burned alive, though innocent, rather than displease the judges who had condemned him. The dwarf well knew that there was no crime, however monstrous, of which Philip was not capable, and of the righteous necessity of which he could not persuade himself if he chose. Nothing could possibly be more dangerous than to stand between him and the perpetration of any evil he considered politically necessary, except perhaps to hinder him in the pursuit of his gloomy and secret pleasures. Adonis decided at once that he would not be the means of enlightening the King on the present occasion. He most go to some one else. The second person in command of his life, and whom he dreaded most after Philip himself, was the Princess of Eboli. He knew her secret, too, as he had formerly known how she had forged the letters that brought about the deaths of Don Carlos and of Queen Isabel; for the Princess ruled him by fear, and knew that she could trust him as long as he stood in terror of her. He knew, therefore, that she had not only forgiven Don John for not yielding to her charm in former days, but that she now hoped that he might ascend the throne in Philip's stead, by fair means or foul, and that the news of his death must have been a destructive blow to her hopes. He made up his mind to tell her first that he was alive, unless he could get speech with Dolores alone, which seemed improbable. Having decided this, he hastened his walk again. Before he reached the lower story of the palace he composed his face to an expression of solemnity, not to say mourning, for he remembered that as no one knew the truth but himself, he must not go about with too gay a look. In the great vestibule of the hall he found a throng of courtiers, talking excitedly in low tones, but neither Dolores nor Ruy Gomez was there. He sidled up to a tall officer of the guards who was standing alone, looking on. "Could you inform me, sir," he asked, "what became of Doña Dolores de Mendoza when she left the hall with the Prince of Eboli?" The officer looked down at the dwarf, with whom he had never spoken before, but who, in his way, was considered to be a personage of importance by the less exalted members of the royal household. Indeed, Adonis was by no means given to making acquaintance at haphazard with all those who wished to know him in the hope that he might say a good word for them when the King was in a pleasant humour. "I do not know, Master Adonis," answered the magnificent lieutenant, very politely. "But if you wish it, I will enquire." "You are most kind and courteous, sir," answered the dwarf ceremoniously. "I have a message for the lady." The officer turned away and went towards the King's apartments, leaving the jester in the corner. Adonis knew that he might wait some time before his informant returned, and he shrank into the shadow to avoid attracting attention. That was easy enough, so long as the crowd was moving and did not diminish, but before long he heard some one speaking within the hall, as if addressing a number of persons at once, and the others began to leave the vestibule in order to hear what was passing. Though the light did not fall upon him directly, the dwarf, in his scarlet dress, became a conspicuous object. Yet he did not dare to go away, for fear of missing the officer when the latter should return. His anxiety to escape observation was not without cause, since he really wished to give Don John's message to Dolores before any one else knew the truth. In a few moments he saw the Princess of Eboli coming towards him, leaning on the arm of the Duke of Medina Sidonia. She came from the hall as if she had been listening to the person who was still speaking near the door, and her handsome face wore a look of profound dejection and disappointment. She had evidently seen the dwarf, for she walked directly towards him, and at half a dozen paces she stopped and dismissed her companion, who bowed low, kissed the tips of her fingers, and withdrew. Adonis drew down the corners of his mouth, bent his head still lower, and tried to look as unhappy as possible, in imitation of the Princess's expression. She stood still before him, and spoke briefly in imperious tones. "What is the meaning of all this?" she asked. "Tell me the truth at once. It will be the better for you." "Madam," answered Adonis, with all the assurance he could muster, "I think your Excellency knows the truth much better than I." The Princess bent her black brows and her eyes began to gleam angrily. Titian would not have recognized in her stern face the smiling features of his portrait of her--of the insolently beautiful Venus painted by order of King Philip when the Princess was in the height of his favour. "My friend," she said, in a mocking tone, "I know nothing, and you know everything. At the present moment your disappearance from the court will not attract even the smallest attention compared with the things that are happening. If you do not tell me what you know, you will not be here to-morrow, and I will see that you are burned alive for a sorcerer next week. Do you understand? Now tell me who killed Don John of Austria, and why. Be quick, I have no time to lose." Adonis made up his mind very suddenly that it would be better to disobey Don John than the angry woman who was speaking to him. "Nobody killed him," he answered bluntly. The Princess was naturally violent, especially with her inferiors, and when she was angry she easily lost all dignity. She seized the dwarf by the arm and shook him. "No jesting!" she cried. "He did not kill himself--who did it?" "Nobody," repeated Adonis doggedly, and quite without fear, for he knew how glad she would be to know the truth. "His Highness is not dead at all--" "You little hound!" The Princess shook him furiously again and threatened to strike him with her other hand. He only laughed. "Before heaven, Madam," he said, "the Prince is alive and recovered, and is sitting in his chair. I have just been talking with him. Will you go with me to his Highness's apartment? If he is not there, and safe, burn me for a heretic to-morrow." The Princess's hands dropped by her sides in sheer amazement, for she saw that the jester was in earnest. "He had a scratch in the scuffle," he continued, "but it was the fall that killed him, his resurrection followed soon afterwards--and I trust that his ascension may be no further distant than your Excellency desires." He laughed at his blasphemous jest, and the Princess laughed too, a little wildly, for she could hardly control her joy. "And who wounded him?" she asked suddenly. "You know everything, you must know that also." "Madam," said the dwarf, fixing his eyes on hers, "we both know the name of the person who wounded Don John, very well indeed, I regret that I should not be able to recall it at this moment. His Highness has forgotten it too, I am sure." The Princess's expression did not change, but she returned his gaze steadily during several seconds, and then nodded slowly to show that she understood. Then she looked away and was silent for a moment. "I am sorry I was rough with you, Adonis," she said at last, thoughtfully. "It was hard to believe you at first, and if the Prince had been dead, as we all believed, your jesting would have been abominable. There,"--she unclasped a diamond brooch from her bodice--"take that, Adonis--you can turn it into money." The Princess's financial troubles were notorious, and she hardly ever possessed any ready gold. "I shall keep it as the most precious of my possessions," answered the dwarf readily. "No," she said quickly. "Sell it. The King--I mean--some one may see it if you keep it." "It shall be sold to-morrow, then," replied the jester, bending his head to hide his smile, for he understood what she meant. "One thing more," she said; "Don John did not send you down to tell this news to the court without warning. He meant that I should know it before any one else. You have told me--now go away and do not tell others." Adonis hesitated a moment. He wished to do Don John's bidding if he could, but he knew his danger, and that he should be forgiven if, to save his own head, he did not execute the commission. The Princess wished an immediate answer, and she had no difficulty in guessing the truth. "His Highness sent you to find Doña Dolores," she said. "Is that not true?" "It is true," replied Adonis. "But," he added, anticipating her wish out of fear, "it is not easy to find Doña Dolores." "It is impossible. Did you expect to find her by waiting in this corner! Adonis, it is safer for you to serve me than Don John, and in serving me you will help his interests. You know that. Listen to me--Doña Dolores must believe him dead till to-morrow morning. She must on no account find out that he is alive." At that moment the officer who had offered to get information for the dwarf returned. Seeing the latter in conversation with such a great personage, he waited at a little distance. "If you have found out where Doña Dolores de Mendoza is at this moment, my dear sir," said Adonis, "pray tell the Princess of Eboli, who is very anxious to know." The officer bowed and came nearer. "Doña Dolores de Mendoza is in his Majesty's inner apartment," he said. * * * * * CHAPTER XX Dolores and Ruy Gomez had passed through the outer vestibule, and he left her to pursue his way towards the western end of the Alcazar, which was at a considerable distance from the royal apartments. Dolores went down the corridor till she came to the niche and the picture before which Don John had paused to read the Princess of Eboli's letter after supper. She stopped a moment, for she suddenly felt that her strength was exhausted and that she must rest or break down altogether. She leaned her weight against the elaborately carved railing that shut off the niche like a shrine, and looked at the painting, which was one of Raphael's smaller masterpieces, a Holy Family so smoothly and delicately painted that it jarred upon her at that moment as something untrue and out of all keeping with possibility. Though most perfectly drawn and coloured, the spotlessly neat figures with their airs of complacent satisfaction seemed horribly out of place in the world of suffering she was condemned to dwell in, and she fancied, somewhat irreverently and resentfully, that they would look as much out of keeping with their surroundings in a heaven that must be won by the endurance of pain. Their complacent smiles seemed meant for her anguish, and she turned from the picture in displeasure, and went on. She was going back to her sister on the terrace, and she was going to kneel once more beside the dear head of the man she had loved, and to say one last prayer before his face was covered for ever. At the thought she felt that she needed no rest again, for the vision drew her to the sorrowful presence of its reality, and she could not have stopped again if she had wished to. She must go straight on, on to the staircase, up the long flight of steps, through the lonely corridors, and out at hist to the moonlit terrace where Inez was waiting. She went forward in a dream, without pausing. Since she had freed her father she had a right to go back to her grief. But as she went along, lightly and quickly, it seemed beyond her own belief that she should have found strength for what she had done that night. For the strength of youth is elastic and far beyond its own knowledge. Dolores had reached the last passage that led out upon the terrace, when she heard hurrying footsteps behind her, and a woman in a cloak slipped beside her, walking very easily and smoothly. It was the Princess of Eboli. She had left the dwarf, after frightening him into giving up his search for Dolores, and she was hastening to Don John's rooms to make sure that the jester had not deceived her or been himself deceived in some way she could not understand. Dolores had lost her cloak in the hall, and was bareheaded, in her court dress. The Princess recognized her in the gloom and stopped her. "I have looked for you everywhere," she said. "Why did you run away from me before?" "It was my blind sister who was with you," answered Dolores, who knew her voice at once and had understood from her father what had happened. "Where are you going now?" she asked, without giving the Princess time to put a question. "I was looking for you. I wish you to come and stay with me to-night--" "I will stay with my father. I thank you for your kindness, but I would not on any account leave him now." "Your father is in prison--in the west tower--he has just been sent there. How can you stay with him?" "You are well informed," said Dolores quietly. "But your husband is just now gone to release him. I gave Don Ruy Gomez the order which his Majesty had himself placed in my hands, and the Prince was kind enough to take it to the west tower himself. My father is unconditionally free." The Princess looked fixedly at Dolores while the girl was speaking, but it was very dark in the corridor and the lamp was flickering to go out in the night breeze. The only explanation of Mendoza's release lay in the fact that the King was already aware that Don John was alive and in no danger. In that case Dolores knew it, too. It was no great matter, though she had hoped to keep the girl out of the way of hearing the news for a day or two. Dolores' mournful face might have told her that she was mistaken, if there had been more light; but it was far too dark to see shades of colour or expression. "So your father is free!" she said. "Of course, that was to be expected, but I am glad that he has been set at liberty at once." "I do not think it was exactly to be expected," answered Dolores, in some surprise, and wondering whether there could have been any simpler way of getting what she had obtained by such extraordinary means. "He might have been kept under arrest until to-morrow morning, I suppose," said the Princess quietly. "But the King is of course anxious to destroy the unpleasant impression produced by this absurd affair, as soon as possible." "Absurd!" Dolores' anger rose and overflowed at the word. "Do you dare to use such a word to me to-night?" "My dear Dolores, why do you lose your temper about such a thing?" asked the Princess, in a conciliatory tone. "Of course if it had all ended as we expected it would, I never should use such a word--if Don John had died--" "What do you mean?" Dolores held her by the wrist in an instant and the maddest excitement was in her voice. "What I mean? Why--" the Princess stopped short, realizing that Dolores might not know the truth after all. "What did I say?" she asked, to gain time. "Why do you hold my hand like that?" "You called the murder of Don John an absurd affair, and then you said, 'if Don John had died'--as if he were not lying there dead in his room, twenty paces from where you stand! Are you mad? Are you playing some heartless comedy with me? What does it all mean?" The Princess was very worldly wise, and she saw at a glance that she must tell Dolores the truth. If she did not, the girl would soon learn it from some one else, but if she did, Dolores would always remember who had told her the good news. "My dear," she said very gently, "let my wrist go and let me take your arm. We do not understand each other, or you would not be so angry with me. Something has happened of which you do not know--" "Oh, no! I know the whole truth!" Dolores interrupted her, and resisted being led along in a slow walk. "Let me go to him!" she cried. "I only wish to see him once more--" "But, dearest child, listen to me--if I do not tell you everything at once, it is because the shock might hurt you. There is some hope that he may not die--" "Hope! Oh no, no, no! I saw him lying dead--" "He had fainted, dear. He was not dead--" "Not dead?" Dolores' voice broke. "Tell me--tell me quickly." She pressed her hand to her side. "No. He came to himself after you had left him--he is alive. No--listen to me--yes, dear, he is alive and not much hurt. The wound was a scratch, and he was only stunned--he is well--to-morrow he will be as well as ever--ah, dear, I told you so!" Dolores had borne grief, shame, torment of mind that night, as bravely as ever a woman bore all three, but the joy of the truth that he lived almost ended her life then and there. She fell back upon the Princess's arm and threw out her hands wildly, as if she were fighting for breath, and the lids of her eyes quivered violently and then were quite still, and she uttered a short, unnatural sound that was more like a groan of pain than a cry of happiness. The Princess was very strong, and held her, steadying herself against the wall, thinking anything better than to let her slip to the floor and lie swooning on the stone pavement. But the girl was not unconscious, and in a moment her own strength returned. "Let me go!" she cried wildly. "Let me go to him, or I shall die!" "Go, child--go," said the Princess, with an accent of womanly kindness that was rare in her voice. But Dolores did not hear it, for she was already gone. Dolores saw nothing in the room, as she entered, but the eyes of the man she loved, though Inez was still beside him. Dolores threw herself wildly into his arms and hid her face, crying out incoherent words between little showers of happy tears; and her hands softly beat upon his shoulders and against his neck, and stole up wondering to his cheeks and touched his hair, as she drew back her head and held him still to look at him and see that he was whole. She had no speech left, for it was altogether beyond the belief of any sense but touch itself that a man should rise unhurt from the dead, to go on living as if nothing not common had happened in his life, to have his strength at once, to look into her eyes and rain kisses on the lids still dark with grief for his death. Sight could not believe the sight, hearing could not but doubt the sound, yet her hands held him and touched him, and it was he, unhurt saving for a scratch and a bruise. In her overwhelming happiness, she had no questions, and the first syllables that her lips could shape made broken words of love, and of thanks to Heaven that he had been saved alive for her, while her hands still fluttered to his face and beat gently and quickly on his shoulders and his arms, as if fearing lest he should turn to incorporeal light, without substance under her touch, and vanish then in air, as happiness does in a dream, leaving only pain behind. But at last she threw back her head and let him go, and her hands brushed away the last tears from her grey eyes, and she looked into his face and smiled with parted lips, drinking the sight of him with her breath and eyes and heart. One moment so, and then they kissed as only man and woman can when there has been death between them and it is gone not to come back again. Then memory returned, though very slowly and broken in many places, for it seemed to her as if she had not been separated from him a moment, and as if he must know all she had done without hearing her story in words. The time had been so short since she had kissed him last, in the little room beyond: there had been the minutes of waiting until the King had come, and then the trying of the door, and then the quarrel, that had lasted a short ten minutes to end in Don John's fall; then the half hour during which he had lain unconscious and alone till Inez had come at the moment when Dolores had gone down to the throne room; and after that the short few minutes in which she had met her father, and then her interview with the King, which had not lasted long, and now she was with him again; and it was not two hours since they had parted--a lifetime of two hours. "I cannot believe it!" she cried, and now she laughed at last. "I cannot, I cannot! It is impossible!" "We are both alive," he answered. "We are both flesh and blood, and breathing. I feel as if I had been in an illness or in a sleep that had lasted very long." "And I in an awful dream." Her face grew grave as she thought of what was but just passed. "You must know it all--surely you know it already--oh, yes! I need not tell it all." "Something Inez has told me," he replied, "and some things I guess, but I do not know everything. You must try and tell me--but you should not be here--it is late. When my servants know that I am living, they will come back, and my gentlemen and my officers. They would have left me here all night, if I had been really dead, lest being seen near my body should send them to trial for my death." He laughed. "They were wise enough in their way. But you cannot stay here." "If the whole court found me here, it would not matter," answered Dolores. "Their tongues can take nothing from my name which my own words have not given them to feed on." "I do not understand," he said, suddenly anxious. "What have you said? What have you done?" Inez came near them from the window, by which she had been standing. She laid a hand on Dolores' arm. "I will watch," she said. "If I hear anything, I will warn you, and you can go into the small room again." She went out almost before either of them could thank her. They had, indeed, forgotten her presence in the room, being accustomed to her being near them; but she could no longer bear to stay, listening to their loving words that made her loneliness so very dark. And now, too, she had memories of her own, which she would keep secret to the end of her life,--beautiful and happy recollections of that sweet moment when the man that seemed dead had breathed and had clasped her in his arms, taking her for the other, and had kissed her as he would have kissed the one he loved. She knew at last what a kiss might be, and that was much; but she knew also what it was to kneel by her dead love and to feel his life come back, breath by breath and beat by beat, till he was all alive; and few women have felt that or can guess how great it is to feel. It was better to go out into the dark and listen, lest any one should disturb the two, than to let her memories of short happiness be marred by hearing words that were not meant for her. "She found you?" asked Dolores, when she was gone. "Yes, she found me. You had gone down, she said, to try and save your father. He is safe now!" he laughed. "She found you alive." Dolores lingered on the words. "I never envied her before, I think; and it is not because if I had stayed I should have suffered less, dear." She put up her hands upon his shoulders again. "It is not for that, but to have thought you dead and to have seen you grow alive again, to have watched your face, to have seen your eyes wake and the colour come back to your cheeks and the warmth to your dear hands! I would have given anything for that, and you would rather that I should have been there, would you not?" She laughed low and kissed away the answer from his lips. "If I had stayed beside you, it would have been sooner, love. You would have felt me there even in your dream of death, and you would have put out your hand to come back to me. Say that you would! You could not have let me lie there many minutes longer breaking my heart over you and wanting to die, too, so that we might be buried together. Surely my kisses would have brought you back!" "I dreamed they did, as mine would you." "Sit down beside me," she said presently. "It will be very hard to tell--and it cannot be very long before they come. Oh, they may find me here! It cannot matter now, for I told them all that I had been long in your room to-night." "Told them all? Told whom? The King? What did you say?" His face was grave again. "The King, the court, the whole world. But it is harder to tell you." She blushed and looked away. "It was the King that wounded you--I heard you fall." "Scratched me. I was only stunned for a while." "He drew his sword, for I heard it. You know the sound a sword makes when it is drawn from a leathern sheath? Of course--you are a soldier! I have often watched my father draw his, and I know the soft, long pull. The King drew quickly, and I knew you were unarmed, and besides--you had promised me that you would not raise your hand against him." "I remember that my sword was on the table in its scabbard. I got it into my hand, sheathed as it was, to guard myself. Where is it? I had forgotten that. It must be somewhere on the floor." "Never mind--your men will find it. You fell, and then there was silence, and presently I heard my father's voice saying that he had killed you defenceless. They went away. I was half dead myself when I fell there beside you on the floor. There--do you see? You lay with your head towards the door and one arm out. I shall see you so till I die, whenever I think of it. Then--I forget. Adonis must have found me there, and he carried me away, and Inez met me on the terrace and she had heard my father tell the King that he had murdered you--and it was the King who had done it! Do you understand?" "I see, yes. Go on!" Don John was listening breathlessly, forgetting the pain he still suffered from time to time. "And then I went down, and I made Don Ruy Gomez stand beside me on the steps, and the whole court was there--the Grandees and the great dukes--Alva, Medina Sidonia, Medina Cali, Infantado, the Princess of Eboli--the Ambassadors, everyone, all the maids of honour, hundreds and hundreds--an ocean of faces, and they knew me, almost all of them." "What did you say?" asked Don John very anxiously. "What did you tell them all? That you had been here?" "Yes--more than that, much more. It was not true, but I hoped they would believe it I said--" the colour filled her face and she caught her breath. "Oh, how can I tell you? Can you not guess what I said?" "That we were married already, secretly?" he asked. "You might have said that." "No. Not that--no one would have believed me. I told them," she paused and gathered her strength, and then the words came quickly, ashamed of being heard--"I told them that I knew my father had no share in the crime, because I had been here long to-night, in this room, and even when you were killed, and that I was here because I had given you all, my life, my soul, my honour, everything." "Great God!" exclaimed Don John starting. "And you did that to save your father?" She had covered her face with her hands for a moment. Then suddenly she rose and turned away from him, and paced the floor. "Yes. I did that. What was there for me to do? It was better that I should be ruined and end in a convent than that my father should die on the scaffold. What would have become of Inez?" "What would have become of you?" Don John's eyes followed her in loving wonder. "It would not have mattered. But I had thrown away my name for nothing. They believed me, I think, but the King, to spare himself, was determined that my father should die. We met as he was led away to prison. Then I went to the King himself--and when I came away I had my father's release in my hand. Oh, I wish I had that to do again! I wish you had been there, for you would have been proud of me, then. I told him he had killed you, I heard him confess it, I threatened to tell the court, the world, all Spain, if he would not set my father free. But the other--can you forgive me, dear?" She stood before him now, and the colour was fainter in her cheeks, for she trusted him with all her heart, and she put out her hands. "Forgive you? What? For doing the bravest thing a woman ever did?" "I thought you would know it in heaven and understand," she said. "It is better that you know it on earth--but it was hard to tell." He held her hands together and pressed them to his lips. He had no words to tell her what he thought. Again and again he silently kissed the firm white fingers folded in his own. "It was magnificent," he said at last. "But it will be hard to undo, very hard." "What will it ever matter, since we know it is not true?" she asked. "Let the world think what it will, say what it likes--" "The world shall never say a slighting word of you," he interrupted. "Do you think that I will let the world say openly what I would not hear from the King alone between these four walls? There is no fear of that, love. I will die sooner." "Oh, no!" she cried, in sudden fear. "Oh, do not speak of death again to-night! I cannot bear the word!" "Of life, then, of life together,--of all our lives in peace and love! But first this must be set right. It is late, but this must be done now--at once. There is only one way, there is only one thing to be done." He was silent for a moment, and his eyes looked quickly to the door and back to Dolores' face. "I cannot go away," she cried, nestling to him. "You will not make me go? What does it matter?" "It matters much. It will matter much more hereafter." He was on his feet, and all his energy and graceful strength came back as if he had received no hurt. "There is little time left, but what there is, is ours. Inez!" He was at the door. "Is no one there upon the terrace? Is there no servant, no sentry? Ho, there! Who are you? Come here, man! Let me see your face! Adonis?" Inez and the dwarf were in the door. Dolores was behind him, looking out, not knowing what he meant to do. He had his hand on the dwarf's arm in his haste. The crooked creature looked up, half in fear. "Quick! Go!" cried Don John. "Get me a priest, a monk, a bishop,--anything that wears a frock and can speak Latin. Bring him here. Threaten his life, in my name, if you like. Tell him Don John of Austria is in extreme need, and must have a priest. Quick, man! Fly! Your life and fortune are in your legs! Off, man! Off!" Adonis was already gone, rolling through the gloom with swinging arms, more like a huge bat than anything human, and at a rate of speed none would have guessed latent in his little twisted legs. Don John drew back within the door. "Stay within," he said to Dolores, gently pressing her backwards into the room. "I will let no one pass till the priest comes; and then the world may come, too, and welcome,--and the court and the King, and the devil and all his angels!" He laughed aloud in his excitement. "You have not told me," Dolores began, but her eyes laughed in his. "But you know without words," he answered. "When that is done which a priest can do in an instant, and no one else, the world is ours, with all it holds, in spite of men and women and Kings!" "It is ours already," she cried happily. "But is this wise, love? Are you not too quick?" "Would you have me slow when you and your name and my honour are all at stake on one quick throw? Can we play too quickly at such a game with fate? There will be time, just time, no more. For when the news is known, it will spread like fire. I wonder that no one comes yet." He listened, and Inez' hearing was ten times more sensitive than his, but there was no sound. For besides Dolores and Inez only the dwarf and the Princess of Eboli knew that Don John was living; and the Princess had imposed silence on the jester and was in no haste to tell the news until she should decide who was to know it first and how her own advantage could be secured. So there was time, and Adonis swung himself along the dim corridor and up winding stairs that be knew, and roused the little wizened priest who lived in the west tower all alone, and whose duty it was to say a mass each morning for any prisoner who chanced to be locked up there; and when there was no one in confinement he said his mass for himself in the small chapel which was divided from the prison only by a heavy iron grating. The jester sometimes visited him in his lonely dwelling and shocked and delighted him with alternate tales of the court's wickedness and with harmless jokes that made his wizened cheeks pucker and wrinkle into unaccustomed smiles. And he had some hopes of converting the poor jester to a pious life. So they were friends. But when the old priest heard that Don John of Austria was suddenly dying in his room and that there was no one to shrive him,--for that was the tale Adonis told,--he trembled from head to foot like a paralytic, and the buttons of his cassock became as drops of quicksilver and slipped from his weak fingers everywhere except into the buttonholes, so that the dwarf had to fasten them for him in a furious hurry, and find his stole, and set his hat upon his head, and polish away the tears of excitement from his cheeks with his own silk handkerchief. Yet it was well done, though so quickly, and he had a kind old face and was a good priest. But when Adonis had almost carried him to Don John's door, and pushed him into the room, and when he saw that the man he supposed to be dying was standing upright, holding a most beautiful lady by the hand, he drew back, seeing that he had been deceived, and suspecting that he was to be asked to do something for which he had no authority. The dwarf's long arm was behind him, however, and he could not escape. "This is the priest of the west tower, your Highness," said Adonis. "He is a good priest, but he is a little frightened now." "You need fear nothing," said Don John kindly. "I am Don John of Austria. This lady is Doña Maria Dolores de Mendoza. Marry us without delay. We take each other for man and wife." "But--" the little priest hesitated--"but, your Highness--the banns--or the bishop's license--" "I am above banns and licenses, my good sir," answered Don John, "and if there is anything lacking in the formalities, I take it upon myself to set all right to-morrow. I will protect you, never fear. Make haste, for I cannot wait. Begin, sir, lose no time, and take my word for the right of what you do." "The witnesses of this," faltered the old man, seeing that he must yield, but doubtful still. "This lady is Doña Inez de Mendoza," said Don John, "and this is Miguel de Antona, the court jester. They are sufficient." So it chanced that the witnesses of Don John of Austria's secret marriage were a blind girl and the King's fool. The aged priest cleared his throat and began to say the words in Latin, and Don John and Dolores held their clasped hands before him, not knowing what else to do, and each looked into the other's eyes and saw there the whole world that had any meaning for them, while the priest said things they but half understood, but that made the world's difference to them, then and afterwards. It was soon done, and he raised his trembling hand and blessed them, saying the words very softly and clearly and without stumbling, for they were familiar, and meant much; and having reached them, his haste was over. The dwarf was on his knees, his rough red head bent reverently low, and on the other side Inez knelt with joined hands, her blind eyes turned upward to her sister's face, while she prayed that all blessings of life and joy might be on the two she loved so well, and that they might have for ever and unbroken the infinite happiness she had felt for one instant that night, not meant for her, but dearer to her than all memories or hopes. Then as the priest's words died away in the silent room, there was a sound of many feet and of many voices on the terrace outside, coming nearer and nearer to the door, very quickly; and the priest looked round in terror, not knowing what new thing was to come upon him, and wishing with all his heart that he were safe in his tower room again and out of all harm's way. But Don John smiled, while he still held Dolores' hand, and the dwarf rose quickly and led the priest into the study where Dolores had been shut up so long, and closed the door behind him. That was hardly done when the outer door was opened wide, and a clear, formal voice was heard speaking outside. "His Majesty the King!" cried the chamberlain who walked before Philip. Dolores dropped Don John's hand and stood beside him, growing a little pale; but his face was serene and high, and he smiled quietly as he went forward to meet his brother. The King advanced also, with outstretched arms, and he formally embraced Don John, to exhibit his joy at such an unexpected recovery. Behind him came in torch-bearers and guards and many of the court who had joined the train, and in the front rank Mendoza, grim and erect, but no longer ashy pale, and Ruy Gomez with him, and the Princess of Eboli, and all the chief Grandees of Spain, filling the wide bedchamber from side to side with a flood of rich colour in which the little constellations of their jewels shone here and there with changing lights. Out of respect for the King they did not speak, and yet there was a soft sound of rejoicing in the room, and their very breathing was like a murmur of deep satisfaction. Then the King spoke, and all at once the silence was profound. "I wished to be the first to welcome my dear brother back to life," he said. "The court has been in mourning for you these two hours, and none has mourned you more deeply and sorrowfully than I. We would all know the cause of your Highness's accident, the meaning of our friend Mendoza's strange self-accusation, and of other things we cannot understand without a word from you." The chair in which Don John had sat to read Dolores' letter was brought forward, and the King took his seat in it, while the chief officers of the household grouped themselves round him. Don John remained standing, facing him and all the rest, while Dolores drew back a little into the shadow not far from him. The King's unmoving eyes watched him closely, even anxiously. "The story is short, Sire, and if it is not all clear, I shall crave your Majesty's pardon for being silent on certain points which concern my private life. I was alone this evening in my room here, after your Majesty had left supper, and I was reading. A man came to visit me then whom I have known and trusted long. We were alone, we have had differences before, to-night sharp words passed between us. I ask your Majesty's permission not to name that man, for I would not do him an injury, though it should cost me my life." His eyes were fixed on the King, who slowly nodded his assent. He had known that he could trust his brother not to betray him, and he wondered what was to come next. Don John smiled a little as he went on. "There were sharp words," he said, "and being men, steel was soon out, and I received this scratch here--a mere nothing. But as chance would have it I fell backward and was so stunned that I seemed dead. And then, as I learn, my friend Mendoza there came in, either while we fought, or afterwards, and understood--and so, as I suppose, in generous fear for my good name, lest it should be told that I had been killed in some dishonest brawl, or for a woman's sake--my friend Mendoza, in the madness of generosity, and because my love for his beautiful daughter might give the tale some colour, takes all the blame upon himself, owns himself murderer, loses his wits, and well-nigh loses his head, too. So I understand the matter, Sire." He paused a moment, and again the King slowly nodded, but this time he smiled also, and seemed much pleased. "For what remains," Don John continued, "that is soon explained. This brave and noble lady whom you found here, you all know. I have loved her long and faithfully, and with all my heart. Those who know me, know that my word is good, and here before your Majesty, before man and before Heaven, I solemnly swear upon my most sacred word that no harm has ever come near her, by me, or by another. Yet, in the hope of saving her father's life, believing and yet not believing that he might have hurt me in some quarrel, she went among you, and told you the tale you know. I ask your Majesty to say that my word and oath are good, and thereby to give your Majesty's authority to what I say. And if there is any man here, or in Spain, among your Majesty's subjects, who doubts the word I give, let him say so, for this is a grave matter, and I wish to be believed before I say more." A third time the King nodded, and this time not ungraciously, since matters had gone well for him. "For myself," he said, "I would take your word against another man's oath, and I think there is no one bold enough to question what we both believe." "I thank your Majesty. And moreover, I desire permission to present to your Majesty--" He took Dolores' hand and drew her forward, though she came a little unwillingly, and was pale, and her deep grey eyes gazed steadily at the King's face. "--My wedded wife," said Don John, completing the sentence. "Your wife!" exclaimed the King, in great surprise. "Are you married already?" "Wedded man and wife, Sire," answered Don John, in tones that all could hear. "And what does Mendoza say to this?" asked Philip, looking round at the veteran soldier. "That his Highness has done my house a great honour, your Majesty; and I pray that my daughter and I be not needlessly separated hereafter." His glance went to Dolores' triumphant eyes almost timidly, and then rested on her face with a look she had never seen in his, save on that evening, but which she always found there afterwards. And at the same time the hard old man drew Inez close to him, for she had found him among the officers, and she stood by him and rested her arm on his with a new confidence. Then, as the King rose, there was a sound of glad voices in the room, as all talked at once and each told the other that an evil adventure was well ended, and that Don John of Austria was the bravest and the handsomest and the most honourable prince in the world, and that Maria Dolores de Mendoza had not her equal among women for beauty and high womanly courage and perfect devotion. But there were a few who were ill pleased; for Antonio Perez said nothing, and absently smoothed his black hair with his immaculate white hand, and the Princess of Eboli was very silent, too, for it seemed to her that Don John's sudden marriage, and his reconciliation with his brother, had set back the beginning of her plan beyond the bounds of possible accomplishment; and she was right in that, and the beginning of her resentment against Don John for having succeeded in marrying Dolores in spite of every one was the beginning of the chain that led her to her own dark fate. For though she held the cards long in her hands after that, and played for high stakes, as she had done before, fortune failed her at the last, and she came to unutterable ruin. It may be, too, that Don John's splendid destiny was measured on that night, and cut off beforehand, though his most daring fights were not yet fought, nor his greatest victories won. To tell more here would be to tell too much, and much, too, that is well told elsewhere. But this is true, that he loved Dolores with all his heart; that the marriage remained a court secret; and that she bore him one fair daughter, and died, and the child grew up under another reign, a holy nun, and was abbess of the convent of Las Huelgas whither Dolores was to have gone on the morning after that most eventful night. 
18651	----	A CIGARETTE-MAKER'S ROMANCE BY F. MARION CRAWFORD AUTHOR OF "MR. ISAACS," "DR. CLAUDIUS," "A ROMAN SINGER" ETC. New York MACMILLAN AND CO. AND LONDON 1894 All rights reserved -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright, 1890, By F. MARION CRAWFORD Set up and electrotyped May, 1893. Reprinted July, 1894. Norwood Press: J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith. Boston, Mass., U.S.A. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS CHAPTER I. 1 CHAPTER II. 25 CHAPTER III. 48 CHAPTER IV. 72 CHAPTER V. 96 CHAPTER VI. 121 CHAPTER VII. 145 CHAPTER VIII. 168 CHAPTER IX. 191 CHAPTER X. 214 CHAPTER XI. 240 CHAPTER XII. 264 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A CIGARETTE-MAKER'S ROMANCE. CHAPTER I. The inner room of a tobacconist's shop is not perhaps the spot which a writer of fiction would naturally choose as the theatre of his play, nor does the inventor of pleasant romances, of stirring incident, or moving love-tales feel himself instinctively inclined to turn to Munich as to the city of his dreams. On the other hand, it is by no means certain that, if the choice of a stage for our performance were offered to the most contented among us, we should be satisfied to speak our parts and go through our actor's business upon the boards of this world. Some would prefer to take their properties, their player's crowns and robes, their aspiring expressions and their finely expressed aspirations before the audience of a larger planet; others, perhaps the majority, would choose, with more humility as well as with more common sense, the shadowy scenery, the softer footlights and the less exigent public of a modest asteroid, beyond the reach of our earthly haste, of our noisy and unclean high-roads to honour, of our furious chariot races round the goals of fame, and, especially, beyond the reach of competition. But we have no choice. We are in the world and, before we know where we are, we are on one of the paths which we must traverse in our few score years between birth and death. Moreover, each man's path leads up to the theatre on the one side and down from it on the other. The inexorable manager, Fate, requires that each should go through with his comedy or his drama, if he be judged worthy of a leading part, with his scene or his act in another man's piece, if he be fit only to play the walking gentleman, the dumb footman, or the mechanically trained supernumerary who does duty by turns as soldier, sailor, courtier, husbandman, conspirator or red-capped patriot. A few play well, many play badly, all must appear and the majority are feebly applauded and loudly hissed. He counts himself great who is received with such an uproar of clapping and shout of approval as may drown the voice of the discontented; he is called fortunate who, having missed his cue and broken down in his words, makes his exit in the triumphant train of the greater actor upon whom all eyes are turned; he is deemed happy who, having offended no man, is allowed to depart in peace upon his downward road. Yet none of these players need pride themselves much upon their success nor take to heart their failure. Long before most of them have slipped into the grave which waits at the foot of the hill, and have been wrapped comfortably in the pleasant earth, their names are forgotten by those who screamed with pleasure or hooted in disgust at their performance, their faces are no longer remembered, their great drama is become an old-fashioned mummery of the past. Why should they care? Their work is done, they have been rewarded or punished, paid with praise and gold or mulcted in the sum of their reputation and estate. Famous or infamous, in honour or in disrepute, in riches or in poverty, they have reached the end of their time, they are worn out, the world will have no more of them, they are worthless in the price-scale of men, they must be buried out of sight and they will be forgotten out of mind. The beginning is the same for all, and the end also, and as for the future, who shall tell us upon what basis of higher intelligence our brief passage across the stage is to be judged? Why then should the present trouble our vanity so greatly? And if our play is of so little importance, why should we care whether the scenery is romantic instead of commonplace, or why should we make furious efforts to shift a Gothic castle, a drawbridge, a moat and a waterfall into the slides occupied by the four walls of a Munich tobacconist's shop? There is not even anything especial in the appearance of the place to recommend it to the ready pen of the word-painter. It is an establishment of very modest pretensions situated in one of the side streets leading to a great thoroughfare. As we are in Munich, however, the side street is broad and clean, the pavement is well swept and the adjoining houses have an air of solid respectability and wealth. At the point where the street widens to an irregular shape on the downward slope there is a neat little iron kiosque completely covered with brilliant advertisements, printed in black Gothic letters upon red and yellow paper. The point of vivid colour is not disagreeable, for it relieves the neutral tints of brick and brown stone, and arrests the eye, long wearied with the respectable parade of buildings. The tobacconist's shop is, indeed, the most shabby, or, to speak more correctly, the least smartly new among its fellow-shops, wherein dwell, in consecutive order, a barber, a watchmaker, a pastry-cook, a shoemaker and a colour-man. In spite of its unattractive exterior, however, the establishment of "Christian Fischelowitz, from South Russia," enjoys a very considerable reputation. Within the high, narrow shop there is good store of rare tobaccos, from the mild Kir to the Imperial Samson, the aromatic Dubec and the pungent Swary. The dusty window beside the narrow door exhibits, it is true, only a couple of tall, dried tobacco plants set in flower-pots, a carelessly arranged collection of cedar and pasteboard boxes for cigars and cigarettes, and a fantastically constructed Swiss cottage, built entirely of cigarettes and fine cut yellow leaf, with little pieces of glass set in for windows. This effort of architecture is in a decidedly ruinous condition, the little stuffed paper cylinders are ragged and torn, some of them show signs of detaching themselves from the cardboard frame upon which they are pasted, and the dust of years has accumulated upon the bit of painted board which serves as a foundation for the chalet. In one corner of the window an object more gaudy but not more useful attracts the eye. It is the popular doll figure commonly known in Germany as the "Wiener Gigerl" or "Vienna fop." It is doubtful whether any person could appear in the public places of Vienna in such a costume without being stoned or otherwise painfully put to a shameful death. The doll is arrayed in black shorts and silk stockings, a wide white waistcoat, a scarlet evening coat, an enormous collar and a white tall hat with a broad brim. He stands upon one foot, raising the other as though in the act of beginning a minuet; he holds in one hand a stick and in the other a cigarette, a relatively monstrous eye-glass magnifies one of his painted eyes and upon his face is such an expression of combined insolence, vulgarity, dishonesty and conceit as would insure his being shot at sight in any Western American village making the least pretence to self-respect. On high days and holidays Christian Fischelowitz inserts a key into the square black pedestal whereon the doll has its being, and the thing lives and moves, turns about and cocks its impertinent head at the passers-by, while a feeble tune of uncertain rhythm is heard grating itself out upon the teeth of the metal comb in the concealed mechanism. Fischelowitz delights in this monstrosity, and is never weary of watching its detestable antics. It is doubtful whether in the simplicity of his good-natured heart he does not really believe that the Wiener Gigerl may attract a stray customer to his counter and, in the long-run, pay for itself. For it cost him money, and in itself, as a thing of beauty, it hardly covers the bad debt contracted with him by a poor fellow-countryman to whom he kindly lent fifty marks last year. He accepted the doll without a murmur, however, in full discharge of the obligation, and with an odd philosophy peculiar to himself, he does his best to get what amusement he can out of the little red-coated figure without complaining and without bitterness. Christian's wife, his larger if not his better half, is less complacent. In the publicity of the shop her small black eyes cast glances full of hate upon the innocent Gigerl, her full flat face reddens with anger when she remembers the money, and her fat hands would dash the insolent little figure into the street, if her mercantile understanding did not suggest the possibility of ultimately selling it for something. In view of such a fortunate contingency, and whenever she is alone, she carefully dusts the thing and puts it away in the cupboard in the corner, well knowing that Fischelowitz will return in an hour, will take it out, set it in its place, wind it up and watch its performance with his everlasting, good-humoured, satisfied smile. In public she ventures only to abuse the doll. In the silent watches of the night she directs her sharp speeches at Christian himself. Not that she is altogether miserly, nor by any means an ill-disposed person. Had she been of such a disposition her husband would not have married her, for he is a very good man of business and a keen judge of other wares besides tobacco. She is a good mother and a good housewife, energetic, thrifty, and of fairly even temper; but that particular piece of generosity which resulted in the acquisition of a red-coated puppet in exchange for fifty marks fills her heart with anger and her plump brown fingers with an itching desire to scratch and tear something or somebody as a means of satisfying her vengeance. For the poor fellow-countryman was one of the Count's friends, and Akulina Fischelowitz abhors the Count and loathes him, and the Wiener Gigerl was the beginning of the end. While Christian is watching his doll, and Akulina is seated behind the counter, her hands folded upon her lap, and her eyes darting unquiet glances at her husband, the Count is busily occupied in making cigarettes in the dingy back shop among a group of persons, both young and old, all similarly occupied. It is not to be expected that the workroom should be cleaner or more tastefully decorated than the counting-house, and in such a business as the manufacture of cigarettes by hand litter of all sorts accumulates rapidly. The "Famous Cigarette Manufactory of Christian Fischelowitz from South Russia" is about as dingy, as unhealthy, as untidy, as dusty a place as can be found within the limits of tidy, well-to-do Munich. The room is lighted by a window and a half-glazed door, both opening upon a dark court. The walls, originally whitewashed, are of a deep rich brown, attributable partly to the constant fumes and exhalations of tobacco, partly to the fine brown dust of the dried refuse cuttings, and partly to the admirable smoke-giving qualities of the rickety iron stove which stands in one corner, and in which a fire is daily attempted during more than half the year. There are many shelves upon the walls too, and the white wood of these has also received into itself the warm, deep colour. Upon two of these shelves there are accumulations of useless articles, a cracked glass vase, once the pride of the show window, when it was filled to overflowing with fine cut leaf, a broken-down samovar which has seen tea-service in many cities, from Kiew to Moscow, from Moscow to Vilna, from Vilna to Berlin, from Berlin to Munich; there are fragments of Russian lacquered wooden bowls, wrecked cigar-boxes, piles of dingy handbills left over from the last half-yearly advertisement, a crazy Turkish narghile, the broken stem of a chibouque, an old hat and an odd boot, besides irregularly shaped parcels, wrapped in crumpled brown paper and half buried in dust. Upon the other shelves are arranged more neatly rows of tin boxes with locks, and reams of still uncut cigarette paper, some white, some straw-coloured. Round about the room are the seats of the workers. One man alone is standing at his task, a man with a dark, Cossack face, high cheek-bones, honest, gleaming black eyes, straggling hair and ragged beard. In his shirt-sleeves, his arms bare to the elbow, he handles the heavy swivel knife, pressing the package of carefully arranged leaves forward and under the blade by almost imperceptible degrees. It is one of the most delicate operations in the art, and the man has an especial gift for the work. So sensitive is his strong right hand that as the knife cuts through the thick pile he can detect the presence of a scrap of thin paper amongst the tobacco, and not a bit of hardened stem or a twisted leaf escapes him. It is very hard work, even for a strong man, and the moisture stands in great drops on his dark forehead as he carefully presses the sharp instrument through the resisting substance, quickly lifts it up again and pushes on the package for the next cut. At a small black table near by sits a Polish girl, poorly dressed, her heavy red-brown hair braided in one long neat tress, her face deadly white, her blue eyes lustreless and sunken, her thin fingers actively rolling bits of paper round a glass tube, drawing them off as the edges are gummed together, and laying them in a prettily arranged pile before her. She is Vjera, the shell-maker, invariably spoken of as "poor Vjera." Vjera, being interpreted from the Russian, means "Faith." There is an odd and pathetic irony in the name borne by the sickly girl. Faith--faith in what? In shell-making? In Christian Fischelowitz? In Johann Schmidt, the Cossack tobacco-cutter, whose real name is lost in the gloom of many dim wanderings? In life? In death? Who knows? In God, at least, poor child--and in her wretched existence there is little else left for her to believe in. If you ask her whether she believes in the Count, she will turn away rather hastily, but in that case the wish to believe is there. Beside Vjera sits another girl, less pale perhaps, but more insignificant in feature, and similarly occupied, with this slight difference that the little cylinders she makes are straw-coloured when Vjera is making white ones, and white when her companion is using straw-coloured paper. On the opposite side of the room, also before small black tables, sit two men, to wit, Victor Ivanowitch Dumnoff and the Count. It is their business to shape the tobacco and to insert it into the shells, a process performed by rolling the cut leaf into a cylinder in a tongue-shaped piece of parchment, which, when ready, has the form of a pencil, and is slipped into the shell. The parchment is then withdrawn, and the tobacco remains behind in its place; the little bunch of threads which protrudes at each end is cut off with sharp scissors and the cigarette is finished. The Count, on the afternoon of the day on which this story opens, was sitting before his little black table in his usual attitude, his head stooping slightly forward, his elbows supported on each side of him, his long fingers moving quickly and skilfully, his greyish blue eyes fixed intently on his work. At five o'clock in the afternoon on Tuesday, the sixth of May, in the present year of grace one thousand eight hundred and ninety, the Count was rapidly approaching the two-thousandth cigarette of that day's work. Two thousand in a day was his limit; and though he boasted that he could make three thousand between dawn and midnight, if absolutely necessary, yet he confessed that among the last five hundred a few might be found in which the leaves would be too tightly rolled or too loosely packed. Up to his limit, however, he was to be relied upon, and not one of his hundred score of cigarettes would be found to differ in weight from another by a single grain. It is perhaps time to describe the outward appearance of the busy worker, out of whose life the events of some six-and-thirty hours furnish the subject of this little tale. The Count is thirty years old, but might be thought older, for there are grey streaks in his smooth black hair, and there is a grey tone in the complexion of his tired face. In figure he is thin, broad shouldered, sinewy, well made and graceful. He moves easily and with a certain elegance. His arms and legs are long in proportion to his body. His head is well shaped, bony, full of energy--his nose is finely modelled and sharply aquiline; a short, dark moustache does not quite hide the firm, well-chiselled lips, and the clean-cut chin is prominent and of the martial type. From under his rather heavy eyebrows a pair of keen eyes, full of changing light and expression, look somewhat contemptuously on the world and its inhabitants. On the whole, the Count is a handsome man and looks a gentleman, in spite of his occupation and in spite of his clothes, which are in the fashion of twenty years ago, but are carefully brushed and all but spotless. There are poor men who can wear a coat as a red Indian will ride a mustang which a white man has left for dead, beyond the period predetermined by the nature of tailoring as the natural term of existence allotted to earthly garments. We look upon a centenarian as a miracle of longevity, and he is careful to tell us his age if he have not lost the power of speech; but if the coats of poor men could speak, how much more marvellous in our eyes would their powers of life appear! A stranger would have taken the Count for a half-pay officer of good birth in straitened circumstances. The expression of his face at the time in question was grave and thoughtful, as though he were thinking of matters weightier to his happiness, if not more necessary to his material welfare than his work. He saw his fingers moving, he watched each honey-coloured bundle of cut leaf as it was rolled in the parchment tongue, and with unswerving regularity he made the motions required to slip the tobacco into the shell. But, while seeing all that he did, and seeing consciously, he looked as though he saw also through the familiar materials shaped under his fingers, into a dim distance full of a larger life and wider interests. The five occupants of the workshop had been working in silence for nearly half an hour. The two girls on the one side and the two men on the other kept their eyes bent down upon their fingers, while Johann Schmidt, the Cossack, plied his guillotine-like knife in the corner. This same Johann Schmidt, whose real name, to judge from his appearance, might have been Tarass Bulba or Danjelo Buralbash, and was probably of a similar sound, was at once the wit, the spendthrift and the humanitarian of the Fischelowitz manufactory, possessing a number of good qualities in such abundant measure as to make him a total failure in everything except the cutting of tobacco. Like many witty, generous and kind-hearted persons in a much higher rank of existence, he was cursed with a total want of tact. On the present occasion, having sliced through an unusually long package of leaves and having encountered an exceptional number of obstacles in doing so, he thought fit to pause, draw a long breath and wipe the perspiration from his sallow forehead with a pocket-handkerchief in which the neutral tints predominated. This operation, preparatory to a rest of ten minutes, having been successfully accomplished, Tarass Bulba Schmidt picked up a tiny oblong bit of paper which had found its way to his feet from one of the girls' tables, took a pinch of the freshly cut tobacco beside him and rolled a cigarette in his palm with one hand while he felt in his pocket for a match with the other. Then, in the midst of a great cloud of fragrant smoke, he sat down upon the edge of his cutting-block and looked at his companions. After a few moments of deep thought he gave expression to his meditations in bad German. It is curious to see how readily the Slavs in Germany fall into the habit of using the language of the country when conversing together. "It is my opinion," he said at last, "that the most objectless existences are those which most exactly accomplish the object set before them." Having given vent to this bit of paradox, Johann inhaled as much smoke as his leathery lungs could contain and relapsed into silence. Vjera, the Polish girl, glanced at the tobacco-cutter and went on with her work. The insignificant girl beside her giggled vacantly. Dumnoff did not seem to have heard the remark. "Nineteen hundred and twenty-three," muttered the Count between his teeth and in Russian, as the nineteenth hundred and twenty-third cigarette rolled from his fingers, and he took up the parchment tongue for the nineteenth hundred and twenty-fourth time that day. "I do not exactly understand you, Herr Schmidt," said Vjera without looking up again. "An objectless life has no object. How then--" "There is nothing to understand," growled Dumnoff, who never counted his own work, and always enjoyed a bit of conversation, provided he could abuse something or somebody. "There is nothing in it, and Herr Schmidt is a Landau moss-head." It would be curious to ascertain why the wiseacres of eastern Bavaria are held throughout South Germany in such contempt as to be a byword for dulness and stupidity. The Cossack's dark eyes shot a quick glance at the Russian, but he took no notice of the remark. "I mean," he said, after a pause, "exactly what I say. I am an honest fellow, and I always mean what I say, and no offence to anybody. Do we not all of us, here with Fischelowitz, exactly fulfil the object set before us, I would like to ask? Do we not make cigarettes from morning till night with horrible exactness and regularity? Very well. Do we not, at the same time, lead an atrociously objectless existence?" "The object of existence is to live," remarked Dumnoff, who was fond of cabbage and strong spirits, and of little else in the world. The Cossack laughed. "Do you call this living?" he asked contemptuously. Then the good-humoured tone returned to his voice, and he shrugged his bony shoulders as he crossed one leg over the other and took another puff. "Nineteen hundred and twenty-nine," said the Count. "Do you call that a life for a Christian man?" asked Schmidt again, looking at him and waving towards him the lighted cigarette he held. "Is that a life for a gentleman, for a real Count, for a noble, for an educated aristocrat, for a man born to be the heir of millions?" "Thirty," said the Count. "No, it is not. But there is no reason why you should remind us of the fact, that I know of. It is bad enough to be obliged to do the thing, without being made to talk about it. Not that it matters to me so much to-day as it did a year ago, as you may imagine. Thirty-one. It will soon be over for me, at least. In fact I only finish these two thousand out of kindness to Fischelowitz, because I know he has a large order to deliver on the day after to-morrow. And, besides, a gentleman must keep his word even--thirty-two--in the matter of making cigarettes for other people. But the work on this batch shall be a parting gift of my goodwill to Fischelowitz, who is an honest fellow and has understood my painful situation all along. To-morrow at this time, I shall be far away. Thirty-three." The Count drew a long breath of relief in the anticipation of his release from captivity and hard labour. Vjera dropped her glass tube and her little pieces of paper and looked sadly at him, while he was speaking. "By the by," observed the Cossack, "to-day is Tuesday. I had quite forgotten. So you really leave us to-morrow." "Yes. It is all settled at last, and I have had letters. It is to-morrow--and this is my last hundred." "At what time?" inquired Dumnoff, with a rough laugh. "Is it to be in the morning or in the afternoon?" "I do not know," answered the Count, quietly and with an air of conviction. "It will certainly be before night." "Provided you get the news in time to ask us to the feast," jeered the other, "we shall all be as happy as you yourself." "Thirty-four," said the Count, who had rolled the last cigarette very slowly and thoughtfully. Vjera cast an imploring look on Dumnoff, as though beseeching him not to continue his jesting. The rough man, who might have sat for the type of the Russian mujik, noticed the glance and was silent. "Who is incredulous enough to disbelieve this time?" asked the Cossack, gravely. "Besides, the Count says that he has had letters, so it is certain, at last." "Love-letters, he means," giggled the insignificant girl, who rejoiced in the name of Anna Schmigjelskova. Then she looked at Vjera as though afraid of her displeasure. But Vjera took no notice of the silly speech and sat idle for some minutes, gazing at the Count with an expression in which love, admiration and pity were very oddly mingled. Pale and ill as she looked, there was a ray of light and a movement of life in her face during those few moments. Then she took again her glass tube and her bits of paper and resumed her task of making shells, with a little heave of her thin chest that betrayed the suppression of a sigh. The Count finished his second thousand, and arranged the last hundreds neatly with the others, laying them in little heaps and patting the ends with his fingers so that they should present an absolutely symmetrical appearance. Dumnoff plodded on, in his peculiar way, doing the work well and then carelessly tossing it into a basket by his side. He was capable of working fourteen hours at a stretch when there was a prospect of cabbage soup and liquor in the evening. The Cossack cleaned his cutting-block and his broad swivel knife and emptied the cut tobacco into a clean tin box. It was clear that the day's work was almost at an end for all present. At that moment Fischelowitz entered with jaunty step and smiling face, jingling a quantity of loose silver in his hand. He is a little man, rotund and cheerful, quiet of speech and sunny in manner, with a brown beard and waving dark hair, arranged in the manner dear to barbers' apprentices. He has very soft brown eyes, a healthy complexion and a nose the inverse of aquiline, for it curves upwards to its sharp point, as though perpetually snuffing after the pleasant fragrance of his favourite "Dubec otborny." "Well, my children," he said, with a slight stammer that somehow lent an additional kindliness to his tone, "what has the day's work been? You first, Herr Graf," he added, turning to the Count. "I suppose that you have made a thousand at least?" Fischelowitz possessed in abundance the tact which was lacking in Johann Schmidt, the Cossack. He well knew that the Count had made double the quantity, but he also knew that the latter enjoyed the small triumph of producing twice what seemed to be expected of him. "Two thousand, Herr Fischelowitz," he said, proudly. Then seeing that his employer was counting out the sum of six marks, he made a deprecating gesture, as though refusing all payment. "No," he said, with great dignity, and rising from his seat. "No. You must allow me, on this occasion, to refuse the honorarium usual under the circumstances." "And why, my dear Count?" inquired Fischelowitz, shaking the six marks in one hand and the remainder of his money in the other, as though weighing the silver. "And why will you refuse me the honour--" The other working people exchanged glances of amusement, as though they knew what was coming. Vjera hid her face in her hands as she rested her elbows on the table before her. "I must indeed explain," answered the Count. "To-morrow, I shall be obliged to leave you, not to return to the occupation which has so long been a necessity to me in my troubles. Fortune at last returns to me and I am free. I think I have spoken to you in confidence of my situation, once at least, if not more often. My difficulties are at an end. I have received letters announcing that to-morrow I shall be reinstated in my possessions. You have shown me kindness--kindness, Herr Fischelowitz, and, what has been more than kindness to me, you have shown me great courtesy. Every one has not treated the poor gentleman with the same forbearance. But let bygones be bygones. On the occasion of my return to prosperity, permit me to offer you, as the only gift as yet within my means, the result of my last day's work within these walls. You have been very kind, and I thank you very sincerely." There was a tremor in the Count's voice, and a moisture in his eyes, as he drew himself up in his threadbare decent frock-coat and held out his sinewy hand, stained with the long handling of tobacco in his daily labour. Fischelowitz smiled with uncommon cheerfulness as he grasped the bony fingers heartily. "Thank you," he said. "I accept. I esteem it an honour to have been of any assistance to you in your temporary annoyances." Vjera still hid her face. The Cossack watched what was happening with an expression half sad, half curious, and Dumnoff displayed a set of ferocious white teeth as he stupidly grinned from ear to ear. CHAPTER II. Fischelowitz paid each worker for the day's work, in his quick, cheerful way, and each, being paid, passed out through the front shop into the street. Five minutes later the Count was strolling along the Maximilians-strasse in the direction of the royal palace. As he walked he drew himself up to the full height of his military figure and looked into the faces of the passers in the way with grave dignity. At that hour there were many people abroad, slim lieutenants in the green uniforms of the Uhlans and in the blue coats and crimson facings of the heavy cavalry, superior officers with silver or gold plated epaulettes, slim maidens and plump matrons, beardless students in bright, coloured caps, and solemn, elderly civilians with great beards and greater spectacles, great Munich burghers and little Munich nobles, gaily dressed children of all ages, dogs of every breed from the Saint Bernard to the crooked-jointed Dachs, perambulators not a few and legions of nursery-maids. Most of the people who passed cast a glance at the thoroughbred-looking man in the threadbare frock-coat who looked at them all with such an air of quiet superiority, carrying his head so high and putting down his feet with such a firm tread. There were doubtless those among the crowd who saw in the tired face the indications of a life-story not without interest, for the crowd was not, nor ever is, in Munich, lacking in intelligent and observant persons. But in all the multitude there was not one man or woman who knew the name of the individual to whom the face belonged, and there were few who would have risked the respectability of their social position by making the acquaintance of a man so evidently poor, even if the occasion had presented itself. But presently a figure was seen moving swiftly through the throng in the direction already taken by the Count, a figure of a type much more familiar to the sight of the Munich stroller, for it was that of a poorly dressed girl with a long plait of red-brown hair, carrying a covered brown straw basket upon one arm and hurrying along with the noiseless tread possible only in the extreme old age of shoes that were never strong. Poor Vjera had been sent by Fischelowitz with a thousand cigarettes to be delivered at one of the hotels. She was generally employed upon like errands, because she was the poorest in the establishment, and those who received the wares gave her a few pence for her trouble. She sped quickly onward, until she suddenly found herself close behind the Count. Then she slackened her pace and crept along as noiselessly as possible, her eyes fixed upon him as she walked and evidently doing her best not to overtake him nor to be seen by him. As luck would have it, however, the Count suddenly stood still before the show window of a picture-dealer's shop. A clever painting of a solitary Cossack riding along a stony mountain road, by Josef Brandt, had attracted his attention. Then as he realised that he had looked at the picture a dozen times during the previous week, his eye wandered, and in the reflection of the plate-glass window he caught sight of Vjera's slight form at no great distance from him. He turned sharply upon his heels and met her eyes, taking off his limp hat with a courteous gesture. "Permit me," he said, laying his hand upon the basket and trying to take it from her. Poor Vjera's face flushed suddenly, and her grip tightened upon the straw handle and she refused to let it go. "No, you shall never do that again," she said, quickly, trying to draw back from him. "And why not? Why should I not do you a service?" "The other day you took it--the people stared at you--they never stare at me, for I am only a poor girl--" "And what are the people or what is their staring to me?" asked the Count, quietly. "I am not afraid of being taken for a servant or a porter, because I carry a lady's parcel. Pray give me the basket." "Oh no, pray let it be," cried Vjera, in great earnest. "I cannot bear to see you with such a thing in your hand." They were still standing before the picture-dealer's window, while many people passed along the pavement. In trying to draw away, Vjera found herself suddenly in the stream, and just then a broad-shouldered officer who chanced to be looking the other way came into collision with her, so roughly that she was forced almost into the Count's arms. The latter made a step forward. "Is it your habit to jostle ladies in that way?" he asked in a sharp tone, addressing the stout lieutenant. The latter muttered something which might be taken for an apology and passed on, having no intention of being drawn into a street quarrel with an odd-looking individual who, from his accent, was evidently a foreigner. The Count's eyes darted an angry glance after the offender, and then he looked again at Vjera. In the little accident he had got possession of the basket. Thereupon he passed it to his left hand and offered Vjera his right arm. "Did the insolent fellow hurt you?" he asked anxiously, in Polish. "Oh no--only give me my basket!" Vjera's face was painfully flushed. "No, my dear child," said the Count, gravely. "You will not deny me the pleasure of accompanying you and of carrying your burden. Afterwards, if you will, we can take a little walk together, before I see you to your home." "You are always so kind to me," answered the girl, bending her head, as though to hide her burning cheeks, but submitting at last to his will. For some minutes they walked on in silence. Then Vjera showed by a gesture that she wished to cross the street, on the other side of which was situated one of the principal hotels of the city. In front of the entrance Vjera put out her hand entreatingly towards her basket, but the Count took no notice of the attempt and resolutely ascended the steps of the porch by her side. Behind the swinging glass door stood the huge porter amply endowed with that military appearance so characteristic of all men in Germany who wear anything of the nature of an official costume. "The lady has a package for some one here," said the Count, holding out the basket. "For the head waiter," said Vjera, timidly. The porter took the basket, set it down, touched the button of an electric bell and silently looked at the pair with the malignant scrutiny which is the prerogative of servants in their manner with those whom they are privileged to consider as their inferiors. Presently, however, meeting the Count's cold stare, he turned away and strolled up the vestibule. A moment later the head waiter appeared, glorious in a perfectly new evening coat and a phenomenal shirt front. "Ah, my cigarettes!" he exclaimed briskly, and the Count heard the chink of the nickel pence, as the head waiter inserted two fat white fingers into the pocket of his exceedingly fashionable waistcoat. The sight which must follow was one which the Count was anxious not to see. He therefore turned his back and pretended to brush from his sleeve a speck of dust revealed to his searching eye in the strong afternoon light which streamed through the open door. Then Vjera's low-spoken word of thanks and her light tread made him aware that she had received her little gratuity; he stood politely aside while she passed out, and then went down the half-dozen steps with her. As they began to move up the street, he did not offer her his arm again. "You are so kind, so kind to me," said poor Vjera. "How can I ever thank you!" "Between you and me there is no question of thanks," answered her companion. "Or if there is to be such a question it should arise in another way. It is for me to thank you." "For what?" "For many things, all of which have proceeded from your kindness of heart and have resulted in making my life bearable during the past months--or years. I keep little account of time. How long is it since I have been making cigarettes for Fischelowitz, at the rate of three marks a thousand?" "Ever since I can remember," answered Vjera. "It is six years since I came to work there as a little girl." "Six years? That is not possible! You must be mistaken, it cannot be so long." Vjera said nothing, but turned her face away with an expression of pain. "Yes, it is a long time, since all that happened," said the Count, thoughtfully. "I was a young man then, I am old now." "Old! How can you say anything so untrue!" Vjera exclaimed with considerable indignation. "Yes, I am old. It is no wonder. We say at home that 'strange earth dies without wind.' A foreign land will make old bones of a man without the help of years. That is what Germany has done for me. And yet, how much older I should be but for you, dear Vjera! Shall we sit down here, in this quiet place, under the trees? You know it is all over to-morrow, and I am free at last. I would like to tell you my story." Vjera, who was tired of the close atmosphere of the workroom and whose strength was not enough to let her walk far with pleasure, sat down upon the green bench willingly enough, but the nervous look of pain had not disappeared from her face. "Is it of any use to tell it to me again?" she asked, sadly, as she leaned against the painted backboard. The Count produced a cigarette and gravely lighted it, before he answered her, and when he spoke he seemed to attach little or no importance to her question. "You see," he said, "it is all different now, and I can look at it from a different point of view. Formerly when I spoke of it, I am afraid that I spoke bitterly, for, of course, I could not foresee that it could all come right again so soon, so very soon. And now that this weary time is over I can look back upon it with some pride, if with little pleasure--save for the part you have played in my life, and--may I say it?--saving the part I have played in yours." He put out his hand gently and tenderly touched hers, and there was something in the meeting of those two thin, yellow hands, stained with the same daily labour and not meeting for the first time thus, that sent a thrill to the two hearts and that might have brought a look of thoughtful interest into eyes dulled and wearied by the ordinary sights of this world. Vjera did not resent the innocent caress, but the colour that came into her face was not of the same hue as that which had burned there when he had insisted upon carrying her basket. This time the blush was not painful to see, but rather shed a faint light of beauty over the plain, pale features. Poor Vjera was happy for a moment. "I am very glad if I have been anything to you," she said. "I would I might have been more." "More? I do not see--you have been gentle, forbearing, respecting my misfortunes and trying to make others respect them. What more could you have done, or what more could you have been?" Vjera was silent, but she softly withdrew her hand from his and gazed at the people in the distance. The Count smoked without speaking, for several minutes, closing his eyes as though revolving a great problem in his mind, then glancing sidelong at his companion's face, hesitating as though about to speak, checking himself and shutting his eyes again in meditation. Holding his cigarette between his teeth he clasped his fingers together tightly, unclasped them again and let his arms fall on each side of him. At last he turned sharply, as though resolved what to do. He believed that he was on the very eve of recovering a vast fortune and of resuming a high position in the world. It was no wonder that there was a struggle in his soul, when at that moment a new complication seemed to present itself. He was indeed sure that he did not love Vjera, and in the brilliant dreams which floated before his half-closed eyes, visions of beautiful and high-born women dazzled him with their smiles and enchanted him by the perfect grace of their movements. To-morrow he might choose his wife among such as they. But to-day Vjera was by his side, poor Vjera, who alone of those he had known during the years of his captivity had stood by him, had felt for him, had given him a sense of reliance in her perfect sincerity and honest affection. And her affection had grown into something more; it had developed into love during the last months. He had seen it, had known it and had done nothing to arrest the growth. Nay, he had done worse. Only a moment ago he had taken her hand in a way which might well mislead an innocent girl. The Count, according to his lights, was the very incarnation of the theory, honour, in the practice, honesty. His path was clear. If he had deceived Vjera in the very smallest accent of word or detail of deed he must make instant reparation. This was the reason why he turned sharply in his seat and looked at her with a look which was certainly kind, but which was, perhaps, more full of determination than of lover-like tenderness. "Vjera," he said, slowly, pausing on every syllable of his speech, "will you be my wife?" Vjera looked at him long and shook her head in silence. Instead of blushing, she turned pale, changing colour with that suddenness which belongs to delicate or exhausted organisations. The Count did not heed the plain though unspoken negation and continued to speak very slowly and earnestly, choosing his words and rounding his expressions as though he were making a declaration to a young princess instead of asking a poor Polish girl to marry him. He even drew himself together, as it were, with the movement of dignity which was habitual with him, straightening his back, squaring his shoulders and leaning slightly forward in his seat. As he began to speak again, Vjera clasped her hands upon her knees and looked down at the gravel of the public path. "I am in earnest," he said. "To-morrow, all those rights to which I was born will be restored to me, and I shall enjoy what the world calls a great position. Am I so deeply indebted to the world that I must submit to all its prejudices and traditions? Has the world given me anything, in exchange for which it becomes my duty to consult its caprices, or its social superstitions? Surely not. To whom am I most indebted, to the world which has turned its back on me during a temporary embarrassment and loss of fortune, or to my friend Vjera who has been faithfully kind all along? The question itself is foolish. I owe everything to Vjera, and nothing to the world. The case is simple, the argument is short and the verdict is plain. I will not take the riches and the dignities which will be mine by this time to-morrow to the feet of some high-born lady who, to-day, would look coldly on me because I am not--not quite in the fashion, so far as outward appearance is concerned. But I will and I do offer all, wealth, title, dignity, everything to Vjera. And she shakes her head, and with a single gesture refuses it all. Why? Has she a reason to give? An argument to set up? A sensible ground for her decision? No, certainly not." As he looked gravely towards her averted face, Vjera again shook her head, slowly and thoughtfully, with an air of unalterable determination. He seemed surprised at her obstinacy and watched her in silence for a few moments. "I see," he said at last, very sadly. "You think that I do not love you." Vjera made no sign, and a long pause followed during which the Count's features expressed great perplexity. The day was drawing to its close and the low sun shot level rays through the trees of the Hofgarten, far above the heads of the laughing children, the gossiping nurses and the slowly moving crowd that filled the pavement along the drive in front of the palace. Vjera and the Count were seated on a bench which was now already in the shade. The air was beginning to grow chilly, but neither of them heeded the change. "You think that I do not love you," said the Count again. "You are mistaken, deeply mistaken, Vjera." The faint, soft colour rose in the poor girl's waxen cheeks, and there was an unaccustomed light in her weary blue eyes as they met his. "I do not say," continued her companion, "that I love you as boys love at twenty. I am past that. I am not a young man any more, and I have had misfortunes such as would have broken the hearts of most men, and of the kind that do not dispose to great love-passion. If my troubles had come to me through the love of a woman--it might have been otherwise. As it is--do you think that I have no love for you, Vjera? Do not think that, dear--do not let me see that you think it, for it would hurt me. There is much for you, much, very much." "To-day," answered Vjera, sadly, "but not to-morrow." "You are cruel, without meaning to be even unkind," said the Count in an unsteady voice. This time it was Vjera who took his hand in hers and pressed it. "God forbid that I should have an unkind thought for you," she said, very tenderly. The Count turned to her again and there was a moisture in his eyes of which he was unconscious. "Then believe that I do truly love you, Vjera," he answered. "Believe that all that there is to give you, I give, and that my all is not a little. I love you, child, in a way--ah, well, you have your girlish dreams of love, and it is right that you should have them and it would be very wrong to destroy them. But they shall not be destroyed by me, and surely not by any other man, while I live. I shall grow young again, I will grow young for you, for, in years at least, I am not old. I will be a boy for you, Vjera, and I will love as boys love, but with the strength of a man who has known sorrow and overlived it. You shall not feel that in taking me you are taking a father, a protector, a man to whom your youth seems childhood, and your youthfulness childish folly. No, no--I will be more than that to you, I will be all to you that you are to me, and more, and more, each day, till love has made us of one age, of one mind, of one heart. Do you not believe that all this shall be? Speak, dear. What is there yet behind in your thoughts?" "I cannot tell. I wish I knew." Vjera's answer was scarcely audible and she turned her face from him. "And yet, there is something, you are keeping something from me, when I have kept nothing from you. Why is it? Why do you not quite trust me and believe in me? I can make you happy, now. Yesterday it was different and so it was in all the yesterdays of yesterdays. I had nothing to offer you but myself." "It were best so," said Vjera in a low voice. The Count was silent. There was something in her manner which he could not understand, or rather, as he fancied, there was something in his own brain which prevented him from understanding a very simple matter, and he grew impatient with himself. At the same time he felt more and more strongly drawn to the young girl at his side. As the sun went down and the evening shadows deepened, he saw more in her face than he had been accustomed to see there. Every line of the pale features so familiar to his sight in his everyday life, reminded him of moments in the recent past when he had been wretchedly unhappy, and when the kindly look in Vjera's face had comforted him and made life seem less unbearable. In his dreary world she alone had shown that she cared whether he lived or died, were insulted or respected, were treated like a dog or like a Christian man. The kindness of his employer was indeed undeniable, but it was of the sort which grated upon the sensitive nature of the unfortunate cigarette-maker, for it was in itself vulgarly cheerful, assuming that, after all, the Count should be contented with his lot. But Vjera had always seemed to understand him, to feel for him, to foresee his sensibilities as it were, and to be prepared for them. In a measure appreciable to himself she admired him, and admiration alone can make pity palatable to the proud. In her eyes his constancy under misfortune was as admirable as his misfortunes themselves were worthy of commiseration. In her eyes he was a gentleman, and one who had a right to hold his head high among the best. When he was poorest, he had felt himself to be in her eyes a hero. Are there many men who can resist the charm of the one woman who believes them to be heroic? Are not most men, too, really better for the trust and faith that is placed in them by others, as the earthen vessel, valueless in itself, becomes a thing of prize and beauty under the loving hand of the artist who draws graceful figures upon it and colours it skilfully, and handles it tenderly? And now the poor man was puzzled and made anxious by the girl's obstinate rejection of his offer. A chilly thought took shape in his mind and pained him exceedingly. "Vjera," he said at last, "I see how it is. You have never loved me. You have only pitied me. You are good and kind, Vjera, but I wish it had been otherwise." He spoke very quietly, in a subdued tone, and the moisture which had been more than once in his eyes since he had sat down beside the young girl, now almost took the shape of a tear. He was wounded in his innocent vanity, in the last stronghold of his fast-fading individuality. But Vjera turned quickly at the words and a momentary fire illuminated her pale blue eyes and dispelled the misty veil that seemed to dull them. "Whatever you say, do not say that!" she exclaimed. "I love you with all my heart--I--ah, if you only understood, if you only knew, if you only guessed!" "That is it," answered the Count. "If I only could--but there is something that passes my understanding." The look of pain faded from his face and gave way to a bright smile, so bright, so rare, that it restored in the magic of an instant the freshness of early youth to the weary mask of sorrow. Then he covered his eyes with his hands as though searching his memory for something he could not find. "What is it?" he asked, after a short pause and looking suddenly at Vjera. "It is something I ought to remember and yet something I have quite forgotten. Help me, Vjera, tell me what you are thinking of, and I will explain it all." "I was thinking of this day a week ago," said Vjera, and a little sob escaped her as she quickly looked away. "A week ago? Let me see--what happened a week ago? But why should I ask? Nothing ever happens to me, nothing until now! And now, oh Vjera, it is you who do not understand, it is you who do not know, who cannot guess." As if he had forgotten everything else in the sudden realisation of his return to liberty and fortune, he began to speak quickly and excitedly in a tone louder and clearer than that of his ordinary voice. "No," he cried, "you can never guess what this change is to me. You can never know what I enjoy in the thought of being myself again, you cannot understand what it is to have been rich and great, and to be poor and wretched and to regain wealth and dignity again by the stroke of a pen in the vibration of a second. And yet it is true, all true, I tell you, to-day, at last, after so much waiting. To-morrow they will come to my lodging to fetch me--a court carriage or two, and many officials who will treat me with the old respect I was used to long ago. They will come up my little staircase, bringing money, immense quantities of money, and the papers and the parchments and the seals. How they will stare at my poor lodging, for they have never known that I have been so wretched. Yes, one will bring money in a black leathern case--I know just how it will look--and another will have with him a box full of documents--all lawfully mine--and a third will bring my orders, that I once wore, and with them the order of Saint Alexander Nevsky and a letter on broad heavy paper, signed Alexander Alexandrovitch, signed by the Tsar himself, Vjera. And I shall go with them to be received in audience by the Prince Regent here, before I leave for Petersburg. And then, after dinner, in the evening, I will get into my special carriage in the express train and my servants will make me comfortable and then away, away, a night, and a day and another night and perhaps a few hours more and I shall be at home at last, in my own great, beautiful home, far out in the glorious country among the woods and the streams and the birds; and I shall be driven in an open carriage with four horses up from the village through the great avenue of poplars to the grand old house. But before I go in I will go to the tomb--yes, I will go to the tomb among the trees, and I will say a prayer for my father and--" "Your father?" Vjera started slightly. She had listened to the long catalogue of the poor man's anticipations with a sad, unchanging face, as though she had heard it all before. But at the mention of his father's death she seemed surprised. "Yes. He is dead at last, and my brother died on the same day. I have had letters. There was a disease abroad in the village. They caught it and they died. And now everything is mine, everything, the lands and the houses and the money, all, all mine. But I will say a prayer for them, now that they are dead and I shall never see them again. God knows, they treated me ill when they were alive, but death has them at last." The Count's eyes grew suddenly cold and hard, so that Vjera shuddered as she caught the look of hatred in them. "Death, death, death!" he cried. "Death the judge, the gaoler, the executioner! He has done justice on them for me, and they will not break loose from the house he has made for them to lie in and to sleep in for ever. And now, friend Death, I am master in their stead, and you must give me time to enjoy the mastership before you serve me likewise. Oh Vjera, the joy, the delight, the ecstasy, the glory of it all!" He struck the palms of his lean hands together with the gesture of a boy, and laughed aloud in the sheer overflowing of his heart. But Vjera sat still, silent and thoughtful, beside him, watching him rather anxiously as though she feared lest the excess of his happiness might do him an injury. "You do not say anything, Vjera. You do not seem glad," he said, suddenly noticing her expression. "I am very glad, indeed I am," she answered, smiling with a great effort. "Who would not be glad at the thought of seeing you enjoy your own again?" "It is not for the money, Vjera!" he exclaimed in a lower and more concentrated tone. "It is not really for the money nor for the lands, nor even for the position or the dignity. Do you know what it is that makes me so happy? I have got the best of it. That is it. It has been a long struggle and a weary one, but I knew I should win, though I never saw how it was to be. When they turned me away from them like a dog, my father and my brother, I faced them on the threshold for the last time and I said to them, 'Look you, you have made an outcast of me, and yet I am your son, my father, and your brother, my brother, and you know it. And yet I tell you that when we meet again, I shall be master here, and not you.' And so it has turned out, Vjera, for they shall meet me--they dead, and I alive. They jeered and laughed, and sent me away with only the clothes I wore, for I would not take their money. I hear their laughter now in my ears--but I hear, too, a laugh that is louder and more pitiless than theirs was, for it is the laugh of Death!" CHAPTER III. The Count rose to his feet as he finished the last sentence. It seemed as though he were oppressed by the inaction to which he was constrained during the last hours of waiting before the great moment, and he moved nervously, like a man anxious to throw off a burden. Vjera rose also, with a slow and weary movement. "It is late," she said. "I must go home. Good-night." "No. I will go with you. I will see you to your door." "Thank you," she answered, watching his face closely. Then the two walked side by side under the lime trees in the deepening evening shadows, to the low archway by which the road leads out of the Hofgarten on the side of the city. For some minutes neither spoke, but Vjera could hear her companion's quickly drawn, irregular breath. His heart was beating fast and his thoughts were chasing each other through a labyrinth of dreams, inconsequent, unreasonable, but brilliant in the extreme. His head high, his shoulders thrown back, his eyes flashing, his lips tightly closed, the Count marched out with his companion into the broad square. He felt that this had been the last day of his slavery and that the morrow's sun was to rise upon a brighter and a happier period of his life, in which there should be no more poverty, no more manual labour, no more pinching and grinding and tormenting of himself in the hopeless effort at outward and visible respectability. Poor Vjera saw in his face what was passing in his mind, but her own expression of sadness did not change. On the contrary, since his last outbreak of triumphant satisfaction she had been more than usually depressed. For a long time the Count did not again notice her low spirits, being absorbed in the contemplation of his own splendid future. At last he seemed to recollect her presence at his side, glanced at her, made as though to say something, checked himself, and began humming snatches from an old opera. But either his musical memory did not serve him, or his humour changed all at once, for he suddenly was silent again, and after glancing once more at Vjera's downcast face his own became very grave. He had been brought back to present considerations, and he found himself in one of those dilemmas with which his genuine pride, his innocent and harmless vanity and his innate kindness constantly beset his life. He had asked Vjera to marry him, scarcely half an hour earlier, and he now found himself separated from the moment which had given birth to the generous impulse, by a lengthened contemplation of his own immediate return to wealth and importance. He was deeply attached to the poor Polish girl, as men shipwrecked upon desert islands grow fond of persons upon whom they could have bestowed no thought in ordinary life. He had grown well accustomed to his poor existence, and in the surroundings in which he found himself, Vjera was the one being in whom, besides sympathy for his misfortune, he discovered a sensibility rarer than common, and the unconscious development of a natural refinement. There are strange elements to be found in all great cities among the colonies of strangers who make their dwellings therein. Brought together by trouble, they live in tolerance among themselves, and none asks the other the fundamental question of upper society, "Whence art thou?"--nor does any make of his neighbour the inquiry which rises first to the lips of the man of action, "Whither goest thou?" They meet as the seaweed meets on the crest of the wave, of many colours from many distant depths, to intermingle for a time in the motion of the waters, to part company under the driving of the north wind, to be drifted at last, forgetful of each other, by tides and currents which wash the opposite ends of the earth. This is the life of the emigrant, of the exile, of the wanderer among men; the incongruous elements meet, have brief acquaintance and part, not to meet again. Who shall count the faces that the exile has known, the voices that have been familiar in his ear, the hands that have pressed his? In every land and in every city, he has met and talked with a score, with scores, with hundreds of men and women all leading the more or less mysterious and uncertain life which has become his own by necessity or by choice. If he be an honest man and poor, a dozen trades have occupied his fingers in half a dozen capitals; if he be dishonest, a hundred forms and varieties of money-bringing dishonesty are sheathed like arrows in his quiver, to be shot unawares into the crowd of well-to-do and unsuspecting citizens on the borders of whose respectable society the adventurer warily picks his path. It is rarely that two persons meet under such circumstances between whom the bond of a real sympathy exists and can develop into lasting friendship between man and man, or into true love between man and woman. When both feel themselves approaching such a point, they are also unconsciously returning to civilisation, and with the civilising influence arises the desire to ask the fatal question, "Whence art thou?"--or the fear lest the other may ask it, and the anxiety to find an answer where there is none that will bear scrutiny. It was therefore natural that the Count should feel disturbed at what he had done, in spite of his sincere and honourable wish to abide by his proposal and to make Vjera his wife. He felt that in returning to his own position in the world he owed it in a measure to himself to wed with a maiden of whom he could at least say that she came of honest people. Always centred in his own alternating hopes and fears, and conscious of little in the lives of others, it seemed to him that a great difficulty had suddenly revealed itself to his apprehensions. At the same time, by a self-contradiction familiar to such natures as his, he felt himself more and more strongly drawn to the girl, and more and more strictly bound in honour to marry her. As he thought of this, his habitual contempt of the world and its opinion returned. What had the world done for him? And if he had felt no obligation to consult it in his poverty, why need he bend to any such slavery in the coming days of his splendour? He stopped suddenly at the corner of the street in which the Polish girl lived. She lodged, with a little sister who was still too young to work, in a room she hired of a respectable Bohemian shoemaker. The latter's wife was of the sour-good kind, whose chief talent lies in giving their kind actions a hard-hearted appearance. "Vjera," said the Count, earnestly, "I have been talking a great deal about myself. You must forgive me, for the news I have received is so very important and makes such a sudden difference in my prospects. But you have not given me the answer I want to my question. Will you be my wife, Vjera, and come with me out of this wretched existence to share my happy life and to make it happier? Will you?" His tone was so sincere and loving that it produced a little storm of evanescent happiness in the girl's heart, and the tears started to her eyes and stained her sallow, waxen cheeks. "Ah, if it could only be true!" she exclaimed in a voice more than half full of hope, as she quickly brushed away the drops. "But it is true, indeed it is," answered the Count. "Oh, Vjera, do you think I would deceive you? Do you think I could tell you a story in which there is no truth whatever? Do not think that of me, Vjera." The tears broke out afresh, but from a different source. For some seconds she could not speak. "Why do you cry so bitterly?" he asked, not understanding at all what was passing. "I swear to you it is all true--" "It is not that--it is not that," cried Vjera. "I know--I know that you believe it--and I love you so very much--" "But then, I do not understand," said the Count in a low voice that expressed his pitiful perplexity. "How can I not believe it, when it is all in the letters? And why should you not believe it, too? Besides, Vjera dear, it will all be quite clear to-morrow. Of course--well, I can understand that having known me poor so long, it must seem strange to you to think of me as very rich. But I shall not be another man, for that. I shall always be the same for you, Vjera, always the same." "Yes, always the same," sighed the girl under her breath. "Yes, and so, if you love me to-day, you will love me just as well to-morrow--to-morrow, the great day for me. What day will it be? Let me see--to-morrow is Wednesday." "Wednesday, yes," repeated Vjera. "If only there were no to-morrow--" She checked herself. "I mean," she added, quickly, "if only it could be Thursday, without any day between." "You are a strange girl, Vjera. I do not know what you are thinking of to-day. But to-morrow you will see. I think they will come for me in the morning. You shall see, you shall see." Vjera began to move onward and the Count walked by her side, wondering at her manner and tormenting his brain in the vain effort to understand it. In front of her door he held out his hand. "Promise me one thing," he said, as she laid her fingers in his and looked up at him. Her eyes were still full of tears. "What is it?" she asked. "Promise that you will be my wife, when you are convinced that all this good fortune is real. You do not believe in it, though I cannot tell why. I only ask that when you are obliged to believe in it, you will do as I ask." Vjera hesitated, and as she stood still the hand he held trembled nervously. "I promise," she said, at last, as though with a great effort. Then, all at once, she covered her eyes and leaned against the door-post. He laid his hand caressingly upon her shoulder. "Is it so hard to say?" he asked, tenderly. "Oh, but if it should ever be indeed true!" she moaned. "If it should--if it should!" "What then? Shall we not be happy together? Will it not be even pleasant to remember these wretched years?" "But if it should turn out so--oh, how can I ever be a fitting wife for you, how can I learn all that a great lady must think, and do, and say? I shall be unworthy of you--of your new friends, of your new world--but then, it cannot really happen. No--do not speak of it any more, it hurts me too much--good-night, good-night! Let us sleep and forget, and go back to our work in the morning, as though nothing had happened--in the morning, to-morrow. Will you? Then good-night." "There will be no work to-morrow," he said, returning to his argument. But she broke away and fled from him and disappeared in the dark and narrow staircase. As he stood, he could hear her light tread on the creaking wood of the steps, fainter and fainter in the distance. Then he caught the feeble tinkle of a little bell, the opening and shutting of a door, and he was alone in the gloom of the evening. For some minutes he stood still, as though listening for some faint echo from the direction in which Vjera had disappeared, then he slowly and thoughtfully walked away. He had forgotten to eat at dinner-time, and now he forgot that the hour of the second meal had come round. He walked on, not knowing and not caring whither he went, absorbed in the contemplation of the bright pictures which framed themselves in his brain, troubled only by his ever-recurring wonder at Vjera's behaviour. Unconsciously, and from sheer force of habit, he threaded the streets in the direction of the tobacconist's shop where so much of his time was spent. If it be not true that the ghosts of the dead haunt places familiar to them in life, yet the superstition is founded upon the instincts of human nature. Men begin to haunt certain spots unconsciously while they are alive, especially those which they are obliged to visit every day and in which they are accustomed to sit, idle or at work, during the greater part of the week. The artist, when he wishes to be completely at rest, re-enters the studio he left but an hour earlier; the sailor hangs about the port when he is ashore, the shopman cannot resist the temptation to spend an hour among his wares on Sunday, the farmer is irresistibly drawn to the field to while away the time on holidays between dinner and supper. We all of us see more and understand better what we see, in those surroundings most familiar to us, and it is a general law that the average intelligence likes the best that which it understands with the least effort. The mechanical part of us, too, when free from any direct and especial impulse of the mind, does unknowingly what it has been in the habit of doing. Two-thirds of all the physical diseases in the world are caused by the disturbance of the mental habits and are vastly aggravated by the direction of the thoughts to the part afflicted. Idiots and madmen are often phenomenally healthy people, because there is in their case no unnatural effort of the mind to control and manage the body. The Count having bestowed no thought upon the direction of his walk, mechanically turned towards the scene of his daily labour. Considering that he believed himself to have abandoned for ever the irksome employment of rolling tobacco in a piece of parchment in order to slip it into a piece of paper, it might have been supposed that he would be glad to look at anything rather than the glass door of the shop in which he had repeated that operation so many hundreds of thousands of times; or, at least, it might have been expected that on realising where he was he would be satisfied with a glance of recognition and would turn away. But the Count's fate had ordained otherwise. When he reached the shop the lights were burning brightly in the show window and within. Through the glass door he could see that Fischelowitz was comfortably installed in a chair behind the counter, contentedly smoking one of his own best cigarettes, and smiling happily to himself through the fragrant cloud. If the tobacconist's wife had been present, the Count would have gone away without entering, for he did not like her, and had reason to suspect that she hated him, which was indeed the case. But Akulina was nowhere to be seen, the shop looked bright and cheerful, the Count was tired, he pushed the door and entered. Fischelowitz turned his head without modifying his smile, and seeing who his visitor was nodded familiarly. The Count raised his hat a little from his head and immediately replaced it. "Good-evening, Herr Fischelowitz," he said, speaking, as usual, in German. "Good-evening, Count," answered the tobacconist, cheerfully. "Sit down, and light a cigarette. What is the news?" "Great news with me, for to-morrow," said the other, bending his head as he stooped over the nickel-plated lamp on the counter, in which a tiny flame burned for the convenience of customers. "To-morrow, at this time, I shall be on my way to Petersburg." "Well, I hope so, for your sake," was the good-humoured reply. "But I am afraid it will always be to-morrow, Herr Graf." The Count shook his head after staring for a few seconds at his employer, and then smoked quietly, as though he attached no weight to the remark. Fischelowitz looked curiously at him, and during a brief moment the smile faded from his face. "You have not been long at supper," he remarked, after a pause. The observation was suggested by the condition of his own appetite. "Supper?" repeated the Count, rather vaguely. "I believe I had forgotten all about it. I will go presently." "The Count is reserving himself for to-morrow," said an ironical voice in the background. Akulina entered the shop from the workroom, a guttering candle in a battered candlestick in one hand, and a number of gaily coloured pasteboard boxes tucked under the other arm. "What is the use of eating to-day when there will be so many good things to-morrow?" Neither Fischelowitz nor the Count vouchsafed any answer to this thrust. For the second time, since the Count had entered, however, the tobacconist wore an expression approaching to gravity. The Count himself kept his composure admirably, only glancing coldly at Akulina, and then looking at his cigarette. Akulina is a broad, fat woman, with a flattened Tartar face, small eyes, good but short teeth, full lips and a dark complexion. She reminds one of an over-fed tabby cat, of doubtful temper, and her voice seems to reach utterance after traversing some thick, soft medium, which lends it an odd sort of guttural richness. She moves quietly but heavily and has an Asiatic second sight in the matter of finance. In matters of thrift and foresight her husband places implicit confidence in her judgment. In matters of generosity and kindness implying the use of money, he never consults her. "It is amazing to see how much people will believe," she said, putting out her candle and snuffing it with her thumb and forefinger. Then she began to arrange the boxes she had brought, setting them in order upon the shelves. Still neither of the men answered her. But she was not the woman to be reduced to silence by silence. "I am always telling you that it is all rubbish," she continued, turning a broad expanse of alpaca-covered back upon her audience. "I am always telling you that you are no more a count than Fischelowitz is a grand duke, that the whole thing is a foolish imagination which you have stuck into your head, as one sticks tobacco into a paper shell. And it ought to be burned out of your head, or starved out, or knocked out, or something, for if it stays there it will addle your brains altogether. Why cannot you see that you are in the world just like other people, and give up all these ridiculous dreams and all this chatter about counts and princes and such like people, of whom you never spoke to one in your life, for all you may say?" The Count glanced at the back of Akulina's head, which was decently covered by a flattened twist of very shining black hair, and then he looked at Fischelowitz as though to inquire whether the latter would suffer a gentleman to be thus insulted in his presence and on his premises. Fischelowitz seemed embarrassed, and coloured a little. "You might choose your language a little more carefully, wife," he observed in a rather timid tone. "And you might choose your friends with a better view to your own interests," she answered without hesitation. "If you allow this sort of thing to go on, and four children growing up, and you expecting to open another shop this summer--why, you had better turn count yourself," she concluded, triumphantly, and with that nice logical perception peculiar to her kind. "If you mean to say that the Count's valuable help has not been to our advantage--" began Fischelowitz, making a desperate effort to give a more pleasant look to things. "Oh, I know that," laughed Akulina, scornfully. "I know that the Count, as you call him, can make his two thousand a day as well as any one. I am not blind. And I know you, and I know that it is a sort of foolish pleasure to you to employ a count in the work and to pay your money to a count, though he does not earn it any better than any one else, nor any worse, to be just. And I know the Count, and I know his friends who borrow fifty marks of you and pay you back in stuffed dolls with tunes in them. I know you, Christian Gregorovitch"--at the thought of the lost money Akulina broke at last into her native language and gave the reins to her fury in good Russian--"yes, I know you, and him, and his friends and your friends, and I see the good yellow money flying out of the window like a flight of canary birds when the cage is opened, and I see you grinning like Player-Ape over the vile Vienna puppet, and winding up its abominable music as though you were turning the key upon your money in the safe instead of listening to the tune of its departure. And then because Akulina has the courage to tell you the truth, and to tell you that your fine Count is no count, and that his friends get from you ten times the money he earns, then you turn on me like a bear, ready to bite off my head, and you tell me to choose my language! Is there no shame in you, Christian Gregorovitch, or is there also no understanding? Am I the mother of your four children or not? I would like to ask. I suppose you cannot deny that, whatever else you deny which is true, and you tell me to choose my language! _Da_, I will choose my language, in truth! _Da_, I will choose out such a swarm of words as ought to sting your ears like hornets, if you had not such a leathery skin and such a soft brain inside it. But why should I? It is thrown away. There is no shame in you. You see nothing, you care for nothing, you hear no reason, you feel no argument. I will go home and make soup. I am better there than in the shop. Oh yes! it is always that. Akulina can make good things to eat, and good tea and good punch to drink, and Akulina is the Archangel Michael in the kitchen. But if Akulina says to you, 'Save a penny here, do not lend more than you have there,' Akulina is a fool and must be told to choose her language, lest it be too indelicate for the dandified ears of the high-born gentleman! I should not wonder if, by choosing her language carefully enough, Akulina ended by making the high-born gentleman understand something after all. His perception cannot possibly be so dull as yours, Christian Gregorovitch, my little husband." Akulina paused for breath after her tremendous invective, which, indeed, was only intended by her for the preface of the real discourse, so fertile was her imagination and so thoroughly roused was her eloquence by the sense of injury received. While she was speaking, Fischelowitz, whose terror of his larger half was only relative, had calmly risen and had wound up the "Wiener Gigerl" to the extreme of the doll's powers, placing it on the counter before him and sitting down before it in anticipation of the amusement he expected to derive from its performance. In the short silence which ensued while Akulina was resting her lungs for a second and more deadly effort, the wretched little musical box made itself heard, clicking and scratching and grinding out a miserable little polka. At the sound, the sunny smile returned to the tobacconist's face. He knew that no earthly eloquence, no scathing wit, no brutal reply could possibly exasperate his wife as this must. He resented everything she had said, and in his vulgar way he was ashamed that she should have said it before the Count, and now he was glad that by the mere turning of a key he could answer her storm of words in a way to drive her to fury, while at the same time showing his own indifference. As for the Count himself, he had moved nearer to the door and was looking quietly out into the irregularly lighted street, smoking as though he had not heard a word of what had been said. As he stood, it was impossible for either of the others to see his face, and he betrayed no agitation by movement or gesture. Akulina turned pale to the lips, as her husband had anticipated. It is probable that the most tragic event conceivable in her existence could not have affected her more powerfully than the twang of the musical box and the twisting and turning of the insolent little wooden head. She came round to the front of the counter with gleaming eyes and clenched fists. "Stop that thing!" she cried, "Stop it, or it will drive me mad." Fischelowitz still smiled, and the doll continued to turn round and round to the tune, while the Count looked out through the open door. Suddenly there was a quick shadow on the brightly lighted floor of the shop, followed instantly by a crash, and then with a miserable attempt to finish its tune the little instrument gave a resounding groan and was silent. Akulina had struck the Gigerl such a blow as had sent it flying, pedestal and all, past her husband's head into a dark corner behind the counter. Fischelowitz reddened with anger, and Akulina stood ready to take to flight, glad that the broad counter was between herself and her husband. Her fury had spent itself in one blow and she would have given anything to set the doll up in its place again unharmed. She realised at the same instant that she had probably destroyed any intrinsic value which the thing had possessed, and her face fell wofully. The Count turned slowly where he stood and looked at the couple. "Are you going to fight each other?" he inquired in unusually bland tones. At the sound of his voice the Russian woman's anger rose again, glad to find some new object upon which to expend itself and on which to exercise vengeance for the catastrophe its last expression had brought about. She turned savagely upon the Count and shook her plump brown fists in his face. "It is all your fault!" she exclaimed. "What business have you to come between husband and wife with your friends and your cursed dolls, the fiend take them, and you! Is it for this that Christian Gregorovitch and I have lived together in harmony these ten years and more? Is it for this that we have lived without a word of anger--" "What did you say?" asked Fischelowitz, with an angry laugh. But she did not heed him. "Without a word of anger between us, these many years?" she continued. "Is it for this? To have our peace destroyed by a couple of Wiener Gigerls, a doll and a sham count? But it is over now! It is over, I tell you--go, get yourself out of the shop, out of my sight, into the street where you belong! For honest folks to be harbouring such a fellow as you are, and not you only, but your friends and your rag and your tag! Fie! If you stay here long we shall end in dust and feathers! But you shall not stay here, whatever that soft-brained husband of mine says. You shall go and never come back. Do you think that in all Munich there is no one else who will do the work for three marks a thousand? Bah! there are scores, and honest people, too, who call themselves by plain names and speak plainly! None of your counts and your grand dukes and your Lord-knows-whats! Go, you adventurer, you disturber of--why do you look at me like that? I have always known the truth about you, and I have never been able to bear the sight of you and never shall. You have deceived my husband, poor man, because he is not as clever as he is good-natured, but you never could deceive me, try as you would, and the Lord knows, you have tried often enough. Pah! You good-for-nothing!" The poor Count had drawn back against the well-filled shop and had turned deadly pale as she heaped insult upon insult upon him in her incoherent and foul-mouthed anger. As soon as she paused, exhausted by the effort to find epithets to suit her hatred of him, he went up to the counter where Fischelowitz was sitting, very much disturbed at the course events were taking. "My dear Count," began the latter, anxious to set matters right, "pray do not pay any attention--" "I think I had better say good-bye," answered the Count in a low tone. "We part on good terms, though you might have said a word for me just now." "He dare not!" cried Akulina. "And as for the doll, if you will give it to me, I promise you that you shall have your fifty marks to-morrow." "Oho! He knows where to get fifty marks, now!" exclaimed Akulina, viciously. Fischelowitz picked up the puppet, which was broken in two in the waist, so that the upper half of the body hung down by the legs, in a limp fashion, held only by the little red coat. The tobacconist wrapped it up in a piece of newspaper without a word and handed it to the Count. He felt perhaps that the only atonement he could offer for his wife's brutal conduct was to accede to the request. "Thank you," said the Count, taking the thing. "On the word of a gentleman you shall have the money before to-morrow night." "A good riddance of both of them," snarled Akulina, as the Count lifted his hat and then, his head bent more than was his wont, passed out of the shop with the remains of the poor Gigerl under his arm. CHAPTER IV. The Count had no precise object in view when he hurriedly left the shop with the parcel containing the broken doll. What he most desired for the moment was to withdraw himself from the storm of Akulina's abuse, seeing that he had no means of checking the torrent, nor of exacting satisfaction for the insults received. However he might have acted had the aggressor been a man, he was powerless when attacked by a woman, and he was aware that he had followed the only course which had in it anything of dignity and self-respect. To stand and bandy words and epithets of abuse would have been worse than useless, to treat the tobacconist like a gentleman and to hold him responsible for his wife's language would have been more than absurd. So the Count took the remains of the puppet and went on his way. He was not, however, so superior to good and bad treatment as not to feel deeply wounded and thoroughly roused to anger. Perhaps, if he had been already in possession of the fortune and dignity which he expected on the morrow, he might have smiled contemptuously at the virago's noisy wrath, feeling nothing and caring even less what she felt towards him. But he had too long been poor and wretched to bear with equanimity any reference to his wretchedness or his poverty, and he was too painfully conscious of the weight of outward circumstances in determining men's judgments of their fellows not to be stung by the words that had been so angrily applied to him. Moreover, and worst of all, there was the fact that Fischelowitz had really lent the money to a poor countryman who had previously made the acquaintance of the Count, and had by that means induced the tobacconist to help him. It was true, indeed, that the poor Count had himself lent the fellow all he had in his pocket, which meant all that he had in the world, and had been half starved in consequence during a whole week. The man was an idle vagabond of the worst type, with a pitiful tale of woe well worded and logically put together, out of which he made a good livelihood. Nature, as though to favour his designs, had given him a face which excited sympathy, and he had the wit to cover his eyes, his own tell-tale feature, with coloured glasses. He had cheated several scores of persons in the Slav colony of Munich, and had then gone in search of other pastures. How he had obtained possession of the Wiener Gigerl was a mystery as yet unsolved. It had certainly seemed odd in the tobacconist's opinion that a man of such outward appearance should have received such an extremely improbable Christmas present, for such the adventurer declared the doll to be, from a rich aunt in Warsaw, who refused to give him a penny of ready money and had caused him to be turned from her doors by her servants when he had last visited her, on the ground that he had joined the Russian Orthodox Church without her consent. The facetious young villain had indeed declared that she had sent him the puppet as a piece of scathing irony, illustrative of his character as she conceived it. But though such an illustration would have been apt beyond question, yet it seemed improbable that the aunt would have chosen such a means of impressing it upon her nephew's mind. Fischelowitz, however, asked no questions, and took the Gigerl as payment of the debt. The thing amused him, and it diverted him to construct an imaginary chain of circumstances to explain how the man in the coloured glasses had got possession of it. It was of course wholly inconceivable that even the most accomplished shop-lifter should have carried off an object of such inconvenient proportions from the midst of its fellows and under the very eyes of the vendor. If he had supposed a theft possible, Fischelowitz would never have allowed the doll to remain on his premises a single day. He was too kind-hearted, also, to blame the Count, as his wife did, for having been the promoter of the loan, for he readily admitted that he would have lent as much, had he made the vagabond's acquaintance under any other circumstances. But the Count, since Akulina had expressed herself with so much force and precision, could not look upon the affair in the same light. However Fischelowitz regarded it, Akulina had made it clear that the Count ought to be held responsible for the loss, and it was not in the nature of such a man, no matter how wretched his own estate, to submit to the imputation of being concerned in borrowing money which was never to be repaid. His natural impulse had been to promise repayment instantly, and as he was expecting to be turned into a rich man on the morrow the engagement seemed an easy one to keep. It would be more difficult to explain why he wanted to take away the broken puppet with him. Possibly he felt that in removing it from the shop, he was taking with it even the memory of the transaction of which the blame had been so bitterly thrown on him; or, possibly, he was really attached to the toy for its associations, or, lastly, he may have felt impelled to save it from Akulina's destroying wrath, so far as it yet could be said to be saved. As has been said, he had not dined on that day, and he would very probably have forgotten to eat, even after being reminded of the meal by the tobacconist, had he not passed, on his way homeward, the obscure restaurant in which he and the other men who worked for Fischelowitz were accustomed to get their food and drink. This fifth-rate eating-house rejoiced in the attractive name of the "Green Wreath," a designation painted in large dusty green Gothic letters upon the grey walls of the dilapidated house in which it was situated. There are not to be found in respectable Munich those dens of filth and drunkenness which belong to greater cities whose vices are in proportion greater also. In Munich the strength of fiery spirits is drowned in oceans of mild beer, a liquid of which the head will stand more than the waistband and which, instead of exciting to crime, predisposes the consumer to peaceful and lengthened sleep. The worst that can be said of the poorer public-houses in Munich, is that they are frequented by the poorer people, and that as the customers bring less money than elsewhere, there is less drinking in proportion, and a greater demand for large quantities of very filling food at very low rates. As a general rule, such places are clean and decently kept, and the sight of a drunken man in the public room would excite very considerable astonishment, besides entailing upon the culprit a summary expulsion into the street and a rather forcible injunction not to repeat the offence. The four windows of the establishment which opened upon the narrow street were open, for the weather had become sultry even out of doors, and the guests wanted fresh air. At one of these windows the Count saw the heads of Dumnoff and Schmidt. With the instinct of the poor man, the Count felt in his pocket to see whether he had any money, and was somewhat disturbed to find but a solitary piece of silver, feebly supported on either side by a couple of one-penny pieces. He had forgotten that he had refused to accept his pay for the day's work, and it required an effort of memory to account for the low state of his funds. But what he had with him was sufficient for his wants, and settling his parcel under his arm he ascended the three or four steps which gave access to the inn, and entered the public room. Besides the Russian and the Cossack, there were three public porters seated at the next table, dressed in their blue blouses, their red cloth caps hanging on the pegs over their heads, all silent and similarly engaged. Each had before him a piece of that national cheese of which the smell may almost be heard, each had lately received a thick, irregularly-shaped hunch of dark bread, and they had one pot of beer and one salt-cellar amongst them. They all had honest German faces, honest blue eyes, horny hands and round shoulders. Another table, in a far corner, was occupied by a poorly-dressed old woman in black, dusty and evidently tired. A covered basket stood on a chair at her elbow, she was eating an unwholesome-looking "knödel" or boiled potato ball, and half a pint of beer stood before her still untouched. As for the Cossack and Dumnoff, they had finished their meal. The former was smoking a cigarette through a mouth-piece made by boring out the well-dried leg-bone of a chicken and was drinking nothing. Dumnoff had before him a small glass of the common whisky known as "corn-brandy" and was trying to give it a flavour resembling the vodka of his native land by stirring pepper into it with the blade of an old pocket-knife. Both looked up, without betraying any surprise, as the Count entered and sat himself down at the end of their oblong table, facing the open window and with his back to the room. A word of greeting passed on each side and the two relapsed into silence, while the Count ordered a sausage "with horse-radish" of the sour-sweet maiden of five-and-thirty who waited on the guests. The Cossack, always observant of such things, looked at the oddly-shaped package which the Count had brought with him, trying to divine its contents and signally failing in the attempt. Dumnoff, who did not like the Count's gentlemanlike manners and fine speech, sullenly stirred the fiery mixture he was concocting. The colour on his prominent cheek-bones was a little brighter than before supper, but otherwise it was impossible to say that he was the worse for the half-pint of spirits he had certainly absorbed since leaving his work. The man's strong peasant nature was proof against far greater excesses than his purse could afford. "What is the news?" inquired Johann Schmidt, still eyeing the bundle curiously, and doubtless hoping that the Count would soon inform him of the contents. But the latter saw the look and glanced suspiciously at the questioner. "No news, that I know of," he answered. "Except for me," he added, after a pause, and looking dreamily out of the window at a street lamp that was burning opposite. "To-morrow, at this time, I shall be off." "And where are you going?" asked the Cossack, good-humouredly. "Are you going for long, if I may ask?" "Yes--yes. I shall never come back to Munich." He had been speaking in German, but noticing that the other guests in the room were silent, and thinking that they might listen, he broke off into Russian. "I shall go home, at last," he said, his face brightening perceptibly as his visions of wealth again rose before his eyes. "I shall go home and rest myself for a long time in the country, and then, next winter, perhaps, I will go to Petersburg." "Well, well, I wish you a pleasant journey," said Schmidt. "So there is to be no mistake about the fortune this time?" "This time?" repeated the Count, as though not understanding. "Why do you say this time?" "Because you have so often expected it before," returned the Cossack bluntly, but without malice. "I do not remember ever saying so," said the other, evidently searching among his recollections. "Every Tuesday," growled Dumnoff, sipping his peppery liquor. "Every Tuesday since I can remember." "I think you must be mistaken," said the Count, politely. Dumnoff grunted something quite incomprehensible, and which might have been taken for the clearing of his huge throat after the inflaming draught. The Cossack was silent, and his bright eyes looked pityingly at his companion. "And you have begun to put together your parcels for the journey, I see," he observed after a time, when the Count had got his morsel of food and was beginning to eat it. His curiosity gave him no rest. "Yes," answered the Count, mysteriously. "That is something which I shall probably take with me, as a remembrance of Munich." "I should not have thought that you needed anything more than a cigarette to remind you of the place," remarked Dumnoff. The Count smiled faintly, for, considering Dumnoff's natural dulness, the remark had a savour of wit in it. "That is true," he said. "But there are other things which could remind me even more forcibly of my exile." "Well, what is it? Tell us!" cried Dumnoff, impatiently enough, but somewhat softened by the Count's appreciation of his humour. At the same time he put out his broad red hand in the direction of the parcel as though he would see for himself. "Let it be!" said Schmidt sharply, and Dumnoff withdrew his hand again. He had fallen into the habit of always doing what the Cossack told him to do, obeying mutely, like a well-trained dog, though he obeyed no one else. The descendant of freemen instinctively lorded it over the descendant of the serf, and the latter as instinctively submitted. The Count's temper, however, was singularly changeable on this day, for he did not seem to resent Dumnoff's meditated attack upon the package, as he would certainly have done under ordinary circumstances. "If you are so very curious to know what it is, I will tell you," he said. "You know the Wiener Gigerl?" "Of course," answered both men together. "Well, that is it, in that parcel." "The Gigerl!" exclaimed the Cossack. Dumnoff only opened his small eyes in stupid amazement. Both knew something of the circumstances under which Fischelowitz had come into possession of the doll, and both knew what store the tobacconist set by it. "Then you have paid the fifty marks?" asked Schmidt, whose curiosity was roused instead of satisfied. "No. I shall pay the money to-morrow. I have promised to do so. As it chances, it will be convenient." The Count smiled to himself in a meaning way, as though already enjoying the triumph of laying the gold pieces upon the counter under Akulina's flat nose. "And yet Fischelowitz has already given it to you! He must be very sure of you--" With his usual lack of tact, Schmidt had gone further than he meant to do, but the transaction savoured of the marvellous. "To be strictly truthful," said the Count, who had a Quixotic fear of misleading in the smallest degree any one to whom he was speaking, "to be exactly honest, there is a circumstance which makes it less remarkable that Fischelowitz should have given me the doll at once." "Of course, of course!" exclaimed the Cossack, anxious to appear credulous out of kindness. "Fischelowitz knows as well as you do yourself how safe you are to get the money to-morrow." "Naturally," replied the Count, with great calmness. "But besides that, the Gigerl is broken--badly broken in the middle, and the musical box is spoiled too." "Fischelowitz must have been very angry," observed Dumnoff. "Not at all. It was his wife. Akulina knocked it from the counter into the farthest corner of the shop." "Tell us all about it," said Schmidt, more interested than ever. "Ah, that--that is quite another matter," answered the Count, reddening perceptibly as he remembered Akulina's furious abuse. "If you do not, I have no doubt that she will," said Dumnoff, taking another sip. "She always gives the news of you, before you come in the morning, before we have made our first hundred." The Count grew redder still, the angry colour mantling in his lean cheeks. He hesitated a moment, and then made up his mind. "If that is likely to happen," he cried, "I had better tell you the truth myself, instead of giving her an opportunity of distorting it." "Much better," said the Cossack, eagerly. "One can believe you better than her." "That is true, at all events," chimed in Dumnoff, who was only brutal and never malicious. "Well, it happened in this way. Fischelowitz and I were talking of to-morrow, I think, when she came in from the back shop, having overheard something we had been saying. Of course she immediately took advantage of my presence to exercise her wit upon me, a proceeding to which I have grown accustomed, seeing that she is only a woman. Then Fischelowitz told her to choose her language, and that started her afresh. It was rather a fine specimen of chosen language that she gave us, for she has a good command of our beautiful mother-tongue. She found very strong words, and she said among other things that it was my fault that her husband had got a Wiener Gigerl for fifty marks of good money. And then Fischelowitz, in his easy way and while she was talking, wound the doll up and set it before him on the counter and smiled at it. But she went on, worse than before, and called me everything under the sun. Of course I could do nothing but wait until she had finished, for I could not beat her, and I would not let her think that she could drive me away by mere talk, bad as it was." "What did she call you?" asked Dumnoff, with a grin. "She called me a good-for-nothing," said the Count, reddening with anger again, so that the veins stood out on his throat above his collar. "And she called me, I think, an adventurer." "Is that all?" laughed Dumnoff. "I have been called by worse names than that in my time!" "I have not," answered the Count, with sudden coolness. "However, between me and Fischelowitz and the Gigerl, she grew so angry that she struck the only one of us three against whom she dared lift hand. That member of the company chanced to be the unfortunate doll. And then I promised that to-morrow I would pay the money, and I made Fischelowitz give it to me in a piece of newspaper, and there it is." "What a terrible smash there must have been in the shop!" said Dumnoff. "I would like to have seen the lady's face." In their Russian speech, the difference between the original social standing of the three men who now worked as equals, was well defined by their way of speaking of Fischelowitz's wife. To Dumnoff, mujik by origin and by nature, she was "barina," the town "lady," to the Cossack she was "chosjaika," the "mistress," the wife of the "patron"--to the Count she was Akulina, and when he addressed her he called her Akulina Feodorovna, adding the derivative of her father's name in accordance with the universal Russian custom. "Let us see the doll," said Schmidt, still curious. The Count, whose eating had been interrupted by the telling of his story, pushed the parcel towards the Cossack with one hand, while using his fork with the other. Johann Schmidt carefully unwrapped the newspaper and exposed the unfortunate Gigerl to view. Then with both hands he set it up before him, raising the limp figure from the waist, and trying to put it into position, until it almost recovered something of its old look of insolence, though the eye-glass was broken and the little white hat sadly battered. The three men contemplated it in silence, and the other guests turned curious glances towards it. Dumnoff, as usual, laughed hoarsely. "Rather the worse for wear," he observed. "Kreuzmillionendonnerwetter! That is my Gigerl!" roared a deep German voice across the room. The three Russians started and looked round quickly. One of the porters, a burly man with an angry scowl on his honest face, was already on his legs and was striding towards the table. "That is my Gigerl!" he repeated, laying one heavy hand upon the board, and thrusting the forefinger of the other under the doll's nose. Dumnoff stared at him with an expression which showed that he did not in the least understand what was happening. Johann Schmidt's keen black eyes looked wonderingly from the porter to the Count, while the latter leaned back in his chair, contemplating the angry man with a calm surprise which proved how little faith he placed in the assertion of possession. "You are under a mistake," he said, with great politeness. "This doll is the property of Herr Fischelowitz, the well-known tobacconist, and has stood in the window of his shop nearly four months. These gentlemen"--he waved his hand towards his two companions--"are well aware of the fact and can vouch--" "That is all the same to me," interrupted the porter. "This is the Gigerl which was stolen from me on New Year's eve--" "I repeat," said the Count, with dignity, "that you are altogether mistaken. I will trouble you to leave us in peace and to make no more disturbance, where you are evidently in error." His coolness exasperated the porter, who seemed very sure of what he asserted. "That is what we shall see," he retorted in a menacing tone. "Meanwhile it does not occur to me to leave you in peace and to make no more trouble. I tell you that this Gigerl was stolen from me on New Year's eve. I know it well enough, for I had to pay for it." "How can you prove that this is the one?" inquired the Cossack, who was beginning to lose his temper. "You have nothing to say about it," said the porter, sharply. "I have to do with this man"--he pointed down at the Count--"who has brought the doll here, and pretends to know where it comes from." "Kerl!" exclaimed the Count, angrily. "Fellow! I am not accustomed to being called 'man,' or to having my word doubted. You had better be civil." "Then it is high time that you grew used to it," returned the porter, growing more and more excited. "The police do not overwhelm fellows of your kind with politeness." "Fellows?" cried the Count, losing his self-control altogether at being called by the name he had just applied to the porter. Without a moment's hesitation, he sprang from his chair, upsetting it behind him, and took the burly German by the throat. "Call a policeman, Anton!" shouted the latter to one of his companions, as he closed with his antagonist. The two other porters had risen from their places as soon as the Count had laid his hands on their friend, and the one who answered to the name of Anton promptly trotted towards the door, his heavy tread making the whole room shake as he ran. The other came up quickly and attacked the Count from behind, when Dumnoff, aroused at last to the pleasant consciousness that a real fight was going on, brought down his clenched fist with such earnestness of purpose on the top of the second porter's crown that the latter reeled backwards and fell across the Count's chair in an attitude rendered highly uncomfortable by the fact that the said chair had been turned upside down at the beginning of the contest. Having satisfied himself that the blow had taken effect, Dumnoff proceeded to the other side of the field of battle, avoiding the quickly moving bodies of the Count and the porter as they wrestled with each other, and the mujik prepared to deal another sledge-hammer blow, in all respects comparable with the first. A pleasant smile beamed and spread over his broad, bony face as he lifted his fist, and it is comparatively certain that he would have put an effectual end to the struggle, had not Schmidt interfered with the execution of his amiable intentions by catching his arm in mid-air. Even the Cossack's wiry strength could not arrest the descent of the tremendous fist, but he succeeded at least in diverting it from its aim, so that it took effect in the middle of the porter's back, knocking most of the wind out of the man's body and causing a diversion favourable to the Count's security. Schmidt sprang in and separated the combatants. "There has been enough dancing already," he said, coolly, as he faced the porter, who was gasping for breath. "But if you have not danced enough, I shall be happy to take a turn with you round the room." The poor Count would, indeed, have been no match for his adversary without the assistance of his friends. He possessed that sort of courage which, when stung into activity by an insult, takes no account whatever of the consequences, and his thin frame was animated by very excitable nerves. But an exceedingly lean diet, and the habit of sitting during many hours in a close atmosphere, rolling tobacco with his fingers, did not constitute such a physical training as to make him a match for a rough fellow whose occupation consisted in tramping long distances and up and down long flights of stairs from morning till night, loaded with more or less heavy burdens. He was now very pale and his heart beat painfully as he endeavoured instinctively to smooth his long frock-coat, from which a button had been torn out by the roots in a very apparent place, and to settle his starched collar, which at the best of times owed its stability to the secret virtues of a pin, and which at present had made a quarter of a revolution upon itself, so that the stiffly-starched corners, the Count's chief coquetry and pride, had established themselves in an unseemly manner immediately below the left ear. Meanwhile, the little restaurant was in an uproar. The host, a thin, pale man in an apron and a shabby embroidered cap, had suddenly appeared from the depths of the taproom, accompanied by his wife, a monstrous, red-faced creature clothed in a grey flannel frock. The porter whom Dumnoff had felled, and who was not altogether stunned, was kicking violently in the attempt to gain his feet among the fallen chairs, a dozen people had come in from the street at the noise of the fight and stood near the door, phlegmatically watching the proceedings, and the poor old woman from the country, who had been supping in the corner, had got her basket on her knees, holding its handle tightly in one hand and with the other grasping her half-finished glass of beer, in terror lest some accident should cause the precious liquid to be spilled, but not calm enough to put it in a place of safety by the simple process of swallowing. "They are foreigners," remarked some one in the crowd at the door. "They are probably Bohemian journeymen," said a tinman who stood in front of the others. "It serves them right for interfering with an honest porter." The Bohemian journeymen are detested in Munich on account of their willingness to work for low prices, which perhaps accounted for the tinman's readiness to consider the strangers as worsted in the contest. "We Germans fear God, and nothing else in the world," observed a mealy-faced shoemaker, quoting Prince Bismarck's famous speech. The man who had wrestled with the Count seemed to have resigned himself to the course of awaiting the police, and leaned back against the table behind him, with folded arms, glaring at the Cossack, while the Count was vainly attempting to recover possession of the pin which had fastened his collar, and which he evidently suspected of having slipped down his back, with the total depravity peculiar to all inanimate things when they are most needed. But the second porter, having broken the chair, upset a table covered with unused saucers for beer glasses, and otherwise materially contributing to swell the din and increase the already considerable havoc, had regained his feet and lost no time in making for Dumnoff. The Russian, enchanted at the prospect of a renewal of hostilities so unfortunately interrupted, met the newcomer half-way, and, each embracing the other with cheerful alacrity, the two heavy men began to stamp and turn round and round with each other like a couple of particularly awkward bears attempting to waltz together. They were very evenly matched for a wrestling bout, for although the German was by a couple of inches the taller of the two, the Russian had the advantage in breadth of shoulder and length of arm, as well as in the enormous strength of his back. The Cossack, having assured himself that there was to be fair-play, watched the proceedings with evident interest, while the pale-faced host shambled round and round the room, imploring the combatants to respect the reputation of his house and to desist, while keeping himself at a safe distance from possible collision with the bodies of the two, as they staggered and strained, and reeled and whirled about. The Count at last abandoned the search of the lost pin, and having pulled the front of his collar into a more normal position trusted to luck to keep it there. The table at which the three had originally sat had miraculously escaped upsetting, and on it lay the poor Gigerl, stretched at full length on its back, calm and smiling in the midst of the noise and confusion, like the corpse at an Irish wake after the whisky has begun to take effect. The Count now thought it necessary to justify the unfortunate situation in which he found himself, in the judgment of the spectators. "Gentlemen," he began, very earnestly and with a dignified gesture, "I feel it necessary to explain the truth of this--" But he was interrupted by the arrival of a policeman, who pushed his way through the crowd. CHAPTER V. "What is this row?" inquired the policeman in his official voice, as he marched into the room. The man who was wrestling with Dumnoff was a German and a soldier. At the authoritative words he relaxed his hold and made an effort to free himself, a movement of which the Russian instantly took advantage by throwing his adversary heavily, upsetting another table and thereby bringing the confusion to its crisis. How far he would have gone if he had been left to himself is uncertain, for the sudden appearance of two more men in green coats, helmets and gold collars so emboldened the spectators of the fight that they advanced in a body just as Dumnoff threw himself upon the first policeman. The Russian's red face was wet with perspiration, his small eyes were gleaming ferociously and his thick hair hung in tangled locks over his forehead, producing with his fair beard the appearance of a wild animal's mane. But for the timely assistance of his colleagues, the representatives of the law, and, most likely the majority of the spectators would have found themselves in the street in an exceedingly short space of time. But Dumnoff yielded to the inevitable; a couple of well-planted blows delivered by the rescuing party on the sides of his thick skull made him shake his head as a cat does when its nose is sprinkled with water, and the mujik reluctantly relinquished the struggle. At the same time the porter who had claimed the doll came forward and touched his bare head with a military salute. "What is your name?" asked the first policeman, anxious to get to business. "Jacob Goggelmann, Dienstmann number 87, formerly private in the Fourth Artillery, lately messenger in the Thüringer Doll Manufactory." "Very good," said the policeman, anxious to take the side of his countryman from the first, and certainly justified in doing so by the circumstances. "And what is your complaint?" "That doll, there, on the table," said the porter, "was stolen from me on New Year's eve, and now that man"--he pointed to the Count, who stood stiffly looking on--"that man has got possession of it." "And who stole it from you?" inquired the policeman with that acuteness in the art of cross-examination for which the police are in all countries so justly famous. "Ja, Herr Wachtmeister, if I had known that--" suggested the porter. "Of course, of course," interrupted the other. "That man stole the doll from you, you say?" "Somebody stole it with my basket, as I stopped to drink a measure in the yard of the Hofbräuhaus, and I had to pay for it out of my caution money, and I lost my place into the bargain, and there lies the accursed thing." The policeman, apparently quite satisfied with the porter's story, turned upon the Count with a blustering and overbearing manner. "Now, then," he said, roughly, "give an account of yourself. Who are you and what are you doing here? But that is a foolish question; I know already that you are a Bohemian and a journeyman tinker." "A Bohemian? And a journeyman tinker?" repeated the Count, almost speechless with anger for a moment. "I am neither," he added, endeavouring to control himself, and settling his refractory collar with one hand. "I am a Russian gentleman." "A gentleman--and a Russian," said the policeman, slowly, as though putting no faith in the first statement and very little in the second. "I think I can provide you with a lodging for the night," he added, facetiously. "Slip past me, jump out of the window and run!" whispered the Cossack in the Count's ear, in Russian. "What are you saying in your infernal language?" asked the official. "My friend advised me to run away," said the Count, coolly sitting down, as though he were master of the situation. "Unfortunately for me, I was not taught to use my legs in that way when I was a boy." "I was," said the Cossack. "Good-evening, Master Policeman." He took his hat from the peg on the wall where it had hung undisturbed throughout the confusion, and bowing gravely to the man in uniform made as though he would go out of the room. "So, so, not quite so fast, my friend," said the policeman, putting himself in the way. "Heigh! heigh! Stop him! Don't let him go," he bawled, a second later. Schmidt had paused a minute, watching his opportunity, then, taking a quick step backwards, he had vaulted through the open window with the agility of a cat, and was flying down the empty street at the speed only attainable by that deceptive domestic animal when pressed for time and anxious for its own safety. "Sobáka!" growled Domnoff, disgusted at his companion's defection. "Either talk in a language that human beings can understand, or do not talk at all," said one of the two men who guarded him. Seeing that pursuit was useless, the spokesman of the police turned to the Count, twice as blustering and terrible as before. "This settles the question," he said. "To the police station you go, you and your bear-man of an accomplice. Potzbombardendonnerwetter! You Sappermentskerls! I will teach you to resist the police, to steal dolls and to jump out of windows! Now then, right about face--march!" The Count did not stir from his chair. Dumnoff looked at him as though to ask instructions of a superior. "If you can manage one of them, I can take these two," he said in Russian. Suiting the action to the word, he suddenly bent down, slipped his arms round the legs of the two policemen, hurled them simultaneously head over heels and then charged the crowd, head downwards, upsetting every one who came in his way, and bursting into the street by sheer superior weight and impetus. An instant later, his shock head appeared at the window through which the Cossack had escaped. "Come along!" he shouted to the Count, in his own language. "I have locked the street door and they cannot get out. Jump through the window." "Go, my friend," answered the Count, calmly. "I will not run away." "You had much better come," insisted Dumnoff, apparently indifferent to the noise of the crowd as it tried to force open the closed door, and shaking off two or three men who had made their way out into the street with him. He held the key in one hand, and his assailants had small chance of getting it away. "You will not come?" he repeated. But the Count shook his head, within the room. "Then I will not run away either," said Dumnoff, the good side of his dull nature showing itself at last. With the utmost indifference to consequences he returned to the door, unlocked it, and strode through the midst of the people, who made way readily enough before him, after their late painful experience of his manner of making way for himself. "I have changed my mind," he said, in German, quietly placing himself between his late keepers, who were alternately rubbing themselves and brushing the dust off each other's clothes after their tumble. In the astonished silence which succeeded Dumnoff's return, the Count's voice was heard again. "I am both anxious and ready to explain everything, if you will do me the civility to listen," he said. "The doll is the property of Herr Fischelowitz, the well-known tobacconist--" "We shall see presently what you have to say for yourself," interrupted the policeman. "We have had enough of these devilish fellows. Come, put them in handcuffs and off with them. And you three gentlemen," he added, turning to the three porters, "will have the goodness to accompany us to the station, in order to give your evidence." "But my furniture and my beer saucers!" exclaimed the pallid host, suddenly remembering his losses. "Who is to pay for them?" The Count answered the question for him. "You, Master Host, who know us and have had our regular custom for years, but who have not dared to say a word in our defence throughout this disgraceful affair, you, I say, deserve to lose all that you have lost. Nevertheless, I can assure you that I will myself pay for what has been broken." The host was not much consoled by this magnanimous promise, which was received with jeers by the crowd. There was no time, however, to discuss the question. Dumnoff had quietly submitted his two huge fists to the handcuffs and a second pair was produced, to fit the Count. At this indignity he drew himself up proudly. "Have I resisted the authority, or attempted to run away?" he inquired with flashing eyes. The policeman had nothing to say to this very just question. "Then I advise you to consider what you are doing. In spite of my appearance, which, I admit, is at present somewhat disorderly, I am a Russian nobleman, as you will discover so soon as I am submitted to a properly conducted examination in the presence of your officers. I have not the least intention of running away, and if this doll was stolen, I was not connected in any way with the theft. Since I respect the authorities, I insist upon being respected by them, and if I am treated in a degrading manner in spite of my protests, there are those in Munich who will bring the case to proper notice in my own country. I am ready to accompany you quietly wherever you choose to show me the way." Something in his manner impressed the officials with the possible truth of his words. They looked at each other and nodded. "Very well," said the one who was conducting the arrest. "Moreover," said the Count, "I crave permission to carry myself the object of contention, until the other claimant has established his right of possession." So saying the Count took the broken Gigerl from the table where it lay, and carrying it upon his hands before him, like a baby, he solemnly walked in the direction of the door, thus heading the procession, which was accompanied into the street by the idlers who had collected inside. "God be thanked," said the old woman in the corner devoutly, "I have yet my beer!" "And to think that only one of them has paid for his supper," moaned the pale-faced innkeeper, sitting down upon a chair and contemplating the wreck of his belongings with a haggard eye. The "Gigerl-night" was remembered for many a long year in the "Green Wreath Inn." At the police station the arresting party told their own story in their own way, very much to the disadvantage of the Russians and very much in favour of the porters and of the officials themselves. The latter, indeed, enlarged so much upon the atrocities perpetrated by Dumnoff as to weary the superior officer. The Cossack having escaped, the policemen did not mention him. The officer glanced at Dumnoff. "Your name?" he inquired. "Victor Ivanowitch Dumnoff." "Occupation?" "Cigarette-maker in the manufactory of Christian Fischelowitz." "Lock him up," said the officer. "Resisting the police in the execution of an arrest," he added, speaking to the scribe at his elbow. "Your name?" continued he, addressing the Count. "Boris Michaelovitch, Count Skariatine." "Count?" repeated the officer. "We shall see. Occupation?" "I have been occupied in the manufacture of cigarettes," answered the Count. "But as I was only engaged in this during a period of temporary embarrassment from which I shall be relieved to-morrow, I may be described as having no particular occupation." The officer stared incredulously for a moment and then nodded to the scribe in token that he was to write down what was said. "Charged with having stolen a doll, is that it?" He turned to the policeman in charge. "Jawohl, Herr Hauptmann." "May it please you, Herr Hauptmann, I did not say that," put in the porter, coming forward. "Who are you?" "The man from whom the doll was stolen. Jacob Goggelmann, Dienstmann number 87, formerly private in the Fourth Artillery, lately messenger in the Thüringer Doll Manufactory." "When was the doll stolen?" "Last New Year's eve," answered the porter. "And you have not seen it until to-day?" "No, Herr Hauptmann." "Then how do you know it is the same one? I suppose it is not the only doll of its kind in Munich." "I am sure of it. I was a messenger in the shop, Herr Hauptmann, and I knew everything there, just as though I had been one of the young ladies who serve the customers. Besides, you will find my name written in pencil under the pedestal." "That is another matter," said the officer, taking the Gigerl and holding it upside down to the gaslight. The reversing of the thing's natural position produced some mysterious effect upon the musical box, and the tune which had been so rudely interrupted by Akulina's well-aimed blow, suddenly began again from the point at which it had stopped, continuing for a few bars and then coming to an end with a sharp twang and a little click. The policemen tittered audibly, and even the captain smiled faintly in his big yellow beard. Then he knit his brows as he deciphered something which was written on the pinewood under the base. "You should have said so at once," he observed. "Your name is there, as you assert." "It was written to show that I was to take it. I had it in a basket with other things. I put it down a moment in the yard of the Hofbräuhaus, and when I came back the basket was gone." "And what do you know about it?" The question was addressed to the Count. "Seeing that the porter is evidently right," said the Count, covering with his hat the point from which the button had been torn, and holding the other hand rather nervously to his throat, as though trying to keep himself from falling to pieces, "I have nothing more to say. I will not be accused of inculpating any one in this disastrous affair. I will only say that the doll has stood since early in the year in the show window of Christian Fischelowitz, the tobacconist, who certainly had no knowledge of the way in which it was obtained by the person who brought it to him." "He is an extremely respectable person," observed the officer. "If you can prove what you say, I will not detain you further. Have you any witness here?" "There is Herr Dumnoff," said the Count. The officer smiled and perpetrated an official jest. "Herr Dumnoff has given evidence of great strength, but owing to his peculiar situation at the present time, I cannot trust to the strength of his evidence." The policemen laughed respectfully. "Have you no one else?" asked the officer. "Herr Fischelowitz will willingly vouch for what I say." "At this hour, Herr Fischelowitz is doubtless asleep, and would certainly be justified in refusing to come here out of mere complaisance. I am afraid, Count Skariatine, that I must have the honour of being your host until morning." "It is impossible to describe our relative positions with greater courtesy," answered the Count, gravely, and not taking the least notice of the officer's ironical tone. The latter looked at the speaker curiously and then suddenly changed his manner. He was convinced that he was speaking with a gentleman. "I regret that I am obliged to put you to such inconvenience," he said, politely. "Treat the gentleman with every consideration," he added, addressing the policemen in a tone of authority, "and let me have no complaints of unnecessary rudeness either." "I thank you, Herr Hauptmann," said the Count, simply. Thus was the Count deprived of his liberty on the very eve of his return to all the brilliant advantages of wealth and social station. It was certainly a most unfortunate train of circumstances which had led him by such quick stages from his parting with Vjera to the wooden bench and the board pillow of the police-station. It looked as though the Gigerl were possessed of an evil spirit determined to work out the Count's destruction, as though the wretched adventurer who had first stolen it and palmed it off upon Fischelowitz had laid a curse upon it, whereby it was destined to breed dissension and strife wherever it remained and to the direct injury of whomsoever chanced to possess it for the time being. It had been the cause of serious disaster to the porter in the first instance, it had next represented to Fischelowitz a dead loss in money of fifty marks, it had become a thorn in the side to Akulina, it had led to one of the most violent quarrels she had ever engaged in with her husband, its limp and broken form had cost much broken crockery and some broken furniture to the host of the "Green Wreath Inn," had been the cause of several ponderous blows dealt and received by Dumnoff, had produced the violent fall, upon a hard board floor, of a porter and two policemen and had ultimately brought the Count to prison for the night. Its value had become very great, for it had been paid for twice over, once by the man from whom it had been stolen, by the forfeiture of his caution money, and once by Fischelowitz in the sum of fifty marks lent to an adventurer; furthermore, the Count had solemnly pledged his word as a gentleman to pay for it a third time on the morrow, he having in his worldly possession the sum of one silver mark and two German pennies at the time of entering into the engagement. The actual sum of money paid and promised to be paid on the body of the now ruined Gigerl, now amounted, with interest, to more than four times its original value, thus constituting one of those interesting problems in real and comparative value so interesting to the ingenuous political economist, who believes that all value can be traced to supply and demand. Now, although the Gigerl was but a single doll, the supply of him, so to speak, had been surprisingly abundant, and the demand, if represented by the desire of any one person concerned to possess him, may be represented by the smallest of zeros. The consideration of so intricate a question belongs neither to the inventor of fiction nor to the historian of facts, and may therefore be abandoned to the political economist, who may, perhaps, be said to partake of the nature of both while possessing the virtues of neither. The Count was in prison, therefore, on the eve of his return to splendour, and his companion in captivity was Dumnoff the mujik. They found themselves in a well-ventilated room, having high grated windows, through which the stars were visible, and dimly lighted by a small gas flame which burned in a lantern of white ground glass. The place was abundantly, if not luxuriously, furnished with flat wooden pallets, each having at the head a slanting piece of board supposed to do duty for a pillow. Outside the open door a policeman paced the broad passage, a man taken from the mounted detachment and whose scabbard and spurs clattered and jingled, hour after hour, as he walked. The sound produced something half rhythmical, like a broken tune in search of itself, and the change of sentinels made no perceptible difference in the regular nature of the unceasing noise. Dumnoff, relieved of his handcuffs, stretched himself upon the pallet assigned to him, clasped his hands under the back of his head, and stared at the ceiling. The Count sat upon the edge of his board, crossing one knee over the other and looking at his nails, or trying to look at them in the insufficient light. In some distant part of the building a door was occasionally opened and shut, and the slight concussion sent long echoes down the stone passages. The Count sighed audibly. "It is not so bad, after all," remarked Dumnoff. "I did not expect to end the evening so comfortably." "It is bad enough," said the Count. He produced a crumpled piece of newspaper which contained a little tobacco, and rolled a cigarette thoughtfully. "It is bad enough," he repeated as he began to smoke. "It would have been very easy to get away, if you had done like that brute of a Schmidt who ran away and left us." "I do not think Schmidt is a brute," observed the other, blowing a huge ring of white smoke out into the dusk. "I did not think so either. But I had arranged it all very well for you to get away--only you would not. You see, by an accident, the key was outside the door, so I kicked the people back and locked it. It would have taken a quarter of an hour for them to open it, and if you had only jumped--" He turned his head, and glanced at the Count's spare, sinewy figure. "You are light, too," he continued, "and you could not have hurt yourself. I cannot understand why you stayed." "Dumnoff, my friend," said the Count, gravely, "we look at things in a different way. It is my duty to tell you that I think you behaved in the most honourable manner, under the circumstances, and I am deeply indebted to you for the gallant way in which you came back to stand by me, when you were yourself free. In a nobler warfare, such an action would have been rewarded with a cross of honour, as it truly deserved. It is true, as well, that you were not so intimately connected with the main question at stake, as I was, since it was I who was suspected of being in possession of unlawfully gotten goods. You were consequently, I think, at liberty to take your freedom if you could get it, without consulting your conscience further. Now my position was, and is, very different. I do not speak of any personal prejudice against the mere act of running away, considered as an immediate means of escape from disagreeable circumstances, with the hope of ultimate immunity from all unpleasant consequences. That is a matter of early education." "I had very little early education," observed Dumnoff. "And none at all afterwards." "My friend, it is not for you and me to enter into the history of our misfortunes. We have met in the vat of poverty to be seethed alike in the brew of unhappiness. We have sat at the same daily labour, we have shared often the same fare, but there is that in each of us which we can keep sacred from the contamination of confidence, and which will withstand even the thrusts of poverty. I mean our individual selves, the better part of us, the nobler element which has suffered, as distinguished from the grosser, which may yet enjoy. But I am wandering a little. I am afraid I sometimes do. I return to the point. For me to take advantage of your generous attempt to free me would have been to act as though I had a moral cause for flight. In other words, it would have been to acknowledge that I had committed some dishonourable action." "It seems to me that to get away would have been the best way out of it. They would not have caught you if you had trusted to me, and if they did not catch you they could not prove anything against you." "The suspicion would have remained, and the disgrace in my own eyes," answered the Count. "The question of physical fear is very different. I have been told that it depends upon the nerves and the action of the heart, and that courage is greatly increased by the presence of nourishment in the stomach. The same cannot be said of moral bravery, which proceeds more from the fear of seeming contemptible in our own eyes than from the wish to seem honourable in the estimation of others." "I daresay," said Dumnoff, who was growing sleepy and who understood very little of his companion's homily. "Precisely," replied the latter. "And yet even the question of physical courage is very complicated in the present case. It cannot be said, for instance, that you ran away from physical fear, after giving proof of such astonishing physical superiority. Your deeds this evening make the labours of Hercules dwindle to the proportions of mere mountebank's tricks." "Was anybody badly injured?" asked Dumnoff, suddenly aroused by the pleasing recollections of the contest. "I believe not seriously; I think I saw everybody whom you upset get on his feet sooner or later." "Well," said Dumnoff with a sigh, "it cannot be helped. I did my best." "I should think that you would be glad," suggested the Count. "You showed your prowess without any fatal result." "Anything for a change in this dull life," grumbled the peasant with an air of dissatisfaction. "With such a prospect of immediate change before me, I suppose I ought not to blame your longing for excitement. Nevertheless I consider it fortunate that nothing worse happened." "You might take me with you to Russia," said Dumnoff, with a short laugh. "That would be an excitement, at least." "After the way in which you have stood by me this evening, I will not refuse you anything. If you wish it, I will take you with me. I take it for granted that you are not prevented by any especial reason from entering our country." "Not that I am aware of," laughed Dumnoff. "Do you know how I got to Germany? A gentleman from our part of the country brought me with him as coachman. One day the horses ran away in Baden-Baden, and he turned me out of the house." "That was very inconsiderate of him," observed the Count. "It is true that both the horses were killed," said Dumnoff, thoughtfully. "And the prince broke his arm, and the carriage was in good condition for firewood, and possibly I was a little gay--just a little--though I was so much upset by the accident that I could not remember exactly what happened before. Still--" "Your conduct on that particular day seems to have left much to be desired," remarked the Count with some austerity. "It has been my bad luck to be in a great many accidents," said the other. "But that one was remarkable. As far as I can recollect, we drove into the Grand Duke's four-in-hand on one side and drove out of it on the other. I never drove through a Grand Duke's equipage on any other occasion. It was lucky that his Serenity did not happen to be in it just at the time. There you have my history in a nutshell. As you say you will take me with you, I thought you ought to know." "Certainly, certainly," answered the Count, vaguely. "I will take you with me--but not as coachman, I think, Dumnoff. We may find some more favourable sphere for your great physical strength." "Anything you like. It is a good joke to dream of such a journey, is it not? Especially when one is locked up for the night in the police-station." "It is certainly a relief to contemplate the prospect of such a change to-morrow," said the Count, his expression brightening in the gloom. For a few moments there was silence between the two men. Dumnoff's small eyes fixed themselves on the shadowy outlines of his companion's face, as though trying to solve a problem far too complicated for his dull intellect. "I wonder whether you are really mad," he said slowly, after a prolonged mental effort. The Count started slightly and stared at the ex-coachman with a frightened look. "Mad?" he repeated, nervously. "Who says I am mad? Why do you ask the question?" "Most people say so," replied the other, evidently without any intention of giving pain. "Everybody who works with us thinks so." "Everybody? Everybody? I think you are dreaming, Dumnoff. What do you mean?" "I mean that they think so because you have those queer fits of believing yourself a rich count every week, from Tuesday night till Thursday morning. Schmidt was saying only yesterday to poor Vjera--" "Vjera? Does she believe it too?" asked the Count in an unsteady voice, not heeding the rest of the speech. "Of course," said Dumnoff, carelessly. "Schmidt was saying to me only yesterday that you were going to have a worse attack of it than usual because you were so silent." "Vjera, too!" repeated the Count in a low voice. "And no one ever told me--" He passed his hand over his eyes. "Tell me"--Dumnoff began in the tone of jocular familiarity which he considered confidential--"tell me--the whole thing is just a joke of yours to amuse us all, is it not? You do not really believe that you are a count, any more than I really believe that you are mad, you know. You do not act like a madman, except when you let the police catch you and lock you up for the night, instead of running away like a sensible man." The Count's face grew bright again all at once. In the present state of his hopes no form of doubt seemed able to take a permanent hold of him. "No, I am not mad," he said. "But on the other hand, Dumnoff, it is my conviction that you are exceedingly drunk. No other hypothesis can account for your very singular remarks about me." "Oh, I am drunk, am I?" laughed the peasant. "It is very likely, and in that case I had better go to sleep. Good-night, and do not forget that you are to take me with you to Russia." "I will not forget," said the Count. Dumnoff stretched his heavy limbs on the wooden pallet, rolled his great head once or twice from side to side until his fur-like hair made something like a cushion and then, in the course of three minutes, fell fast asleep. The Count sat upright in his place, drumming with his fingers upon one knee. "It is a wonder that I am not mad," he said to himself. "But Vjera never thought it of me--and that fellow is evidently the worse for liquor." CHAPTER VI. Johann Schmidt had not fled from the scene of action out of any consideration for his personal safety. He was, indeed, a braver man than Dumnoff, in proportion as he was more intelligent, and though of a very different temper, by no means averse to a fight if it came into his way. He had foreseen what was sure to happen, and had realised sooner than any one else that the only person who could set everything straight was Fischelowitz himself. So soon as he was clear of pursuit, therefore, he turned in the direction of the tobacconist's dwelling, walking as quickly as he could where there were many people and running at the top of his speed through such empty by-streets as lay in the direct line of his course. He rushed up the three flights of steps and rang sharply at the door. Akulina's unmistakable step was heard in the passage a moment later. Schmidt would have preferred that Fischelowitz should have come himself, though he managed to live on very good terms with Akulina. Though far from tactful he guessed that in a matter concerning the Count, the tobacconist would prove more obliging than his wife. "What is the matter?" inquired the mistress of the house, opening the door wide after she had recognised the Cossack in the feeble light of the staircase, by looking through the little hole in the panel. "Good-evening, Frau Fischelowitz," said Schmidt, trying to appear as calm and collected as possible. "I would like to speak to your husband upon a little matter of business." "He is not at home yet. I left him in the shop." Almost before the words were out of her mouth, Schmidt had turned and was running down the stairs, two at a time. Akulina called him back. "Wait a minute!" she cried, advancing to the hand-rail on the landing. "What in the world are you in such a hurry about?" "Oh--nothing--nothing especial," answered the man, suddenly stopping and looking up. Akulina set her fat hands on her hips and held her head a little on one side. She had plenty of curiosity in her composition. "Well, I must say," she observed, "for a man who is not in a hurry about anything, you are uncommonly brisk with your feet. If it is only a matter of business, I daresay I will do as well as my husband." "Oh, I daresay," admitted Schmidt, scratching his head. "But this is rather a personal matter of business, you see." "And you mean that you want some money, I suppose," suggested Akulina, at a venture. "No, no, not at all--no money at all. It is not a question of money." He hoped to satisfy her by a statement which was never without charm in her ears. But Akulina was not satisfied; on the contrary, she began to suspect that something serious might be the matter, for she could see Schmidt's face better now, as he looked up to her, facing the gaslight that burned above her own head. Having been violently angry not more than an hour or two earlier, her nerves were not altogether calmed, and the memory of the scene in the shop was still vividly present. There was no knowing what the Count might not have done, in retaliation for the verbal injuries she had heaped upon him, and her quick instinct connected Schmidt's unusually anxious appearance and evident haste to be off, with some new event in which the Count had played a part. "Have you seen the Count?" she inquired, just as Schmidt was beginning to move again. "Yes," answered the latter, trying to assume a doubtful tone of voice. "I believe--in fact, I did see him--for a moment--" Akulina smiled to herself, proud of her own acuteness. "I thought so," she said. "And he has made some trouble about that wretched doll--" "How did you guess that?" asked Schmidt, turning and ascending a few steps. He was very much astonished. "Oh, I know many things--many interesting things. And now you want to warn my husband of what the Count has done, do you not? It must be something serious, since you are in such a hurry. Come in, Herr Schmidt, and have a glass of tea. Fischelowitz will be at home in a few minutes, and you see I have guessed half your story, so you may as well tell me the other half and be done with it. It is of no use for you to go to the shop after him. He has shut up by this time, and you cannot tell which way he will come home, can you? Much better come in and have a glass of tea. The samovar is lighted and everything is ready, so that you need not stay long." Schmidt lingered doubtfully a moment on the stairs. The closing hour was certainly past in early-closing Munich, and he might miss the tobacconist in the street. It seemed wiser to wait for him in his house, and so the Cossack reluctantly accepted the invitation, which, under ordinary circumstances, he would have regarded as a great honour. Akulina ushered him into the little sitting-room and prepared him a large glass of tea with a slice of lemon in it. She filled another for herself and sat down opposite to him at the table. "The poor Count!" she exclaimed. "He is sure to get himself into trouble some day. I suppose people cannot help behaving oddly when they are mad, poor things. And the Count is certainly mad, Herr Schmidt." "Quite mad, poor man. He has had one of his worst attacks to-day." "Yes," assented the wily Akulina, "and if you could have seen him and heard him in the shop this evening--" She held up her hands and shook her head. "What did he do and say?" "Oh, such things, such things! Poor man, of course I am very sorry for him, and I am glad that my husband finds room to employ him, and keep him from starving. But really, this evening he quite made me lose my temper. I am afraid I was a little rough, considering that he is sensitive. But to hear the man talk about his money, and his titles, and his dignities, when he is only just able to keep body and soul together! It is enough to irritate the seven archangels, Herr Schmidt, indeed it is! And then at the same time there was that dreadful Gigerl, and my head was splitting--I am sure there will be a thunder-storm to-night--altogether, I could not bear it any longer, and I actually upset the Gigerl out of anger, and it rolled to the floor and was broken. Of course it is very foolish to lose one's temper in that way, but after all, I am only a weak woman, and I confess it was a relief to me when I saw the poor Count take the thing away. I hope I did not really hurt his feelings, for he is an excellent workman, in spite of his madness. What did he say, Herr Schmidt? I would so like to know how he took it. Of course he was very angry. Poor man, so mad, so completely mad on that one point!" "To tell the truth," said Schmidt, who had listened attentively, "he did not like what you said to him at all." "Well, really, was it my fault, Herr Schmidt? I am only a woman, and I suppose I may be excused if I lose my temper once in a year or so. It is very wearing on the nerves. Every Tuesday evening begins the same old song about the fortune and letters, and the journey to Russia. One gets very tired of it in the long-run. At first it used to amuse me." "Do you think that Herr Fischelowitz can have gone anywhere else instead of coming home?" asked the Cossack, finishing the glass of tea, which he had swallowed burning hot out of sheer anxiety to get away. "Oh no, indeed," cried Akulina in a tone of the most sincere conviction. "He always tells me where he is going. You have no idea what a good husband he is, and what a good man--though I daresay you know that after being with us so many years. Now, I am sure that if he had the least idea that anything had happened to the poor Count, he would run all the way home in order to hear it as soon as possible." "No more tea, thank you, Frau Fischelowitz," said Schmidt, but she took his glass with a quiet smile and shredded a fresh piece of lemon into it and filled it up again, quite heedless of his protest. Schmidt resigned himself, and thanked her civilly. "Of course," she said, presently, as she busied herself with the arrangements of the samovar, "of course it is nothing so very serious, is it? I daresay the Count has told you that he would not work any more for us, and you are anxious to arrange the matter? In that case, you need have no fear. I am always ready to forgive and forget, as they say, though I am only a weak woman." "That is very kind of you," observed Schmidt, with a glitter in his eyes which Akulina did not observe. "I guessed the truth, did I not?" "Not exactly. The trouble is rather more serious than that. The fact is, as we were at supper, a man at another table saw the Gigerl in our hands and swore that it had been stolen from him some months ago." "And what happened then?" asked Akulina with sudden interest. "I suppose you may as well know," said Schmidt, regretfully. "There was a row, and the man made a great deal of trouble and at last the police were called in, and I came to get Herr Fischelowitz himself to come and prove that the Gigerl was his. You see why I am in such a hurry." "Do you think they have arrested the Count?" "I imagine that every one concerned would be taken to the police-station." "And then?" "And then, unless the affair is cleared up, they will be kept there all night." "All night!" exclaimed Akulina, holding up her hands in real or affected horror. "Poor Count! He will be quite crazy, now, I fear--especially as this is Tuesday evening." "But he must be got out at once!" cried Schmidt in a tone of decision. "Herr Fischelowitz will surely not allow--" "No indeed! You have only to wait until he comes home, and then you can go together. Or better still, if he does not come back in a quarter of an hour, and if he has really shut up the shop as usual, you might look for him at the Café Luitpold, and if he is not there, it is just possible that he may have looked in at the Gärtner Platz Theatre, for which he often has free tickets, and if the performance is over--I fancy it is, by this time--he may be in the Café Maximilian, or he may have gone to drink a glass of beer in the Platzl, for he often goes there, and--well, if you do not find him in any of those places--" "But, good Heavens, Frau Fischelowitz, you said you were quite sure he was coming home at once! Now I have lost all this time!" Schmidt had risen quickly to his feet, in considerable anxiety and haste. Akulina smiled good-humouredly. "You see," she said, "it is just possible that to-night, as he was a little annoyed with me for being sharp with the Count, he may have gone somewhere without telling me. But I really could not foresee it, because he is such a very good--" "I know," interrupted the Cossack. "If I miss him, you will tell him, will you not? Thank you, and good-night, Frau Fischelowitz, I cannot afford to wait a moment longer." So saying Johann Schmidt made for the door and got out of the house this time without any attempt on the part of his amiable hostess to detain him further. She had indeed omitted to tell him that her last speech was not merely founded on a supposition, since Fischelowitz had really been very much annoyed and had declared that he would not come home but would spend the evening with a friend of his who lived in the direction of Schwabing, one of the suburbs of Munich farthest removed from the places in which she advised Schmidt to make search. The stout housewife disliked and even detested the Count for many reasons all good in her own eyes, among which the chief one was that she did dislike him. She felt for him one of those strong and invincible antipathies which trivial and cunning natures often feel for very honourable and simple ones. To the latter the Count belonged, and Akulina was a fine specimen of the former. If the Count had been literally starving and clothed in rags, he would have been incapable of a mean thought or of a dishonest action. Whatever his origin had been, he had that, at least, of a nobility undeniable in itself. That his character was simple in reality, may as yet seem less evident. He was regarded as mad, as has been seen, but his madness was methodical and did not overstep certain very narrow bounds. Beyond those limits within which others, at least, did not consider him responsible, his chief idea seemed to be to gain his living quietly, owing no man anything, nor refusing anything to any man who asked it. This last characteristic, more than any other, seemed to prove the possibility of his having been brought up in wealth and with the free use of money, for his generosity was not that of the vulgar spendthrift who throws away his possessions upon himself quite as freely as upon his companions. He earned enough money at his work to live decently well, at least, and he spent but the smallest sum upon his own wants. Nevertheless he never had anything to spare for his own comfort, for he was as ready to give a beggar in the street the piece of silver which represented a good part of the value of his day's work as most rich people are to part with a penny. He never inquired the reason for the request of help, but to all who asked of him he gave what he had, gravely, without question, as a matter of course. If Dumnoff's pockets were empty and his throat dry, he went to the Count and got what he wanted. Dumnoff might be brutal, rude, coarse; it made no difference. The Count did not care to know where the money went nor when it would be returned, if ever. If Schmidt's wife--for he had a wife--was ill, the Count lent all he had, if the children's shoes were worn out, he lent again, and when Schmidt, who was himself extremely conscientious in his odd way, brought the money back, the Count generally gave it to the first poor person whom he met. Akulina supposed that this habit belonged to his madness. Others, who understood him better, counted it to him for righteousness, and even Dumnoff, the rough peasant, showed at times a friendly interest in him, which is not usually felt by the unpunctual borrower towards the uncomplaining lender. But Akulina could understand none of these things. She belongs by nature to the class of people whose first impulse on all occasions is to say: "Money is money." There can be no mutual attraction of intellectual sympathy between these, and those other persons who despise money in their hearts, and would rather not touch it with their hands. It has been seen also that the events connected with the Gigerl's first appearance in the shop had been of a nature to irritate Akulina still more. The dislike nourished in her stout bosom through long months and years now approached the completion of its development, and manifested itself as a form of active hatred. Akulina was delighted to learn that there was a prospect of the Count's spending the night in the police-station and she determined that Johann Schmidt should not find her husband before the next day, and that when the partner of her bliss returned--presumably pacified by the soothing converse of his friend--she would not disturb his peace of mind by any reference to the Count's adventures. It was therefore with small prospect of success that the Cossack began his search for Fischelowitz. Only a man who has sought anxiously for another, all through the late evening, in a great city, knows how hopeless the attempt seems after the first hour. The rapid motion through many dusky streets, the looking in, from time to time, upon some merry company assembled in a warm room under a brilliant light, the anxious search among the guests for the familiar figure, the disappointment, as each fancied resemblance shows, on near approach, a face unknown to the searcher, the hurried exit and the quick passage through the dark night air to the next halting-place--all these impressions, following hurriedly upon each other, confuse the mind and at last discourage hope. Schmidt did not realise how late it was, when, abandoning his search for his employer, he turned towards the police-station in the hope of still rendering some assistance to his friend. He could not gain admittance to the presence of the officer in charge, however, and was obliged to content himself with the assurance that the Count had been treated "with consideration," as the phrase was, and that there would be plenty of time for talking in the morning. The policemen in the guard-room were sleepy and not disposed to enter into conversation. Schmidt turned his steps in the direction of the tobacconist's house for the second time, in sheer despair. But he found the street door shut and the whole house was dark. Nevertheless, he pulled the little handle upon which, by the aid of a flickering match, he discovered a figure of three, corresponding to the floor occupied by Fischelowitz. Again and again he tugged vigorously at the brass knob until he could hear the bell tinkling far above. No other sound followed, however, in the silence of the night, though he strained his ears for the faintest echo of a distant footfall and the slightest noise indicating that a window or a door was about to be opened. He wondered whether Fischelowitz had come home. If he had, Akulina had surely told him the story of the evening, and he would have been heard of at the police-station, for it was incredible that he should let the night pass without making an effort to liberate the Count. Therefore the tobacconist had in all probability not yet returned. The night was fairly warm, and the Cossack sat down upon a doorstep, lighted a cigarette and waited. In spite of long years spent in the midst of German civilisation, it was still as natural to him to sit down in the open air at night and to watch the stars, as though he had never changed his own name for the plain German appellation of Johann Schmidt, nor laid aside the fur cap and the sheepskin coat of his tribe for the shabby jacket and the rusty black hat of higher social development. There was no truth in Akulina's statement that a thunder-storm was approaching. The stars shone clear and bright, high above the narrow street, and the solitary man looked up at them, and remembered other days and a freer life and a broader horizon; days when he had been younger than he was now, a life full of a healthier labour, a horizon boundless as that of the little street was limited. He thought, as he often thought when alone in the night, of his long journeys on horseback, driving great flocks of bleating sheep over endless steppes and wolds and expanses of pasture and meadow; he remembered the reddening of the sheep's woolly coats in the evening sun, the quick change from gold to grey as the sun went down, the slow transition from twilight to night, the uncertain gait of his weary beast as the darkness closed in, the soft sound of the sheep huddling together, the bark of his dog, the sudden, leaping light of the camp-fire on the distant rising ground, the voices of greeting, the bubbling of the soup kettle, the grateful rest, the song of the wandering Tchumák--the pedlar and roving newsman of the Don. He remembered on holidays the wild racing and chasing and the sports in the saddle, the picking up of the tiny ten-kopek bit from the earth at a full gallop, the startling game in which a row of fearless Cossack girls join hands together, daring the best rider to break their rank with his plunging horse if he can, the mad laughter of the maidens, the snorting and rearing of the animal as he checks himself before the human wall that will not part to make way for him. All these things he recalled, the change of the seasons, the iron winter, the scorching summer, the glory of autumn and the freshness of spring. Born to such a liberty, he had fallen into the captivity of a common life; bred in the desert, he knew that his declining years would be spent in the eternal cutting of tobacco in the close air of a back shop; trained to the saddle, he spent his days seated motionless upon a wooden chair. The contrast was bitter enough, between the life he was meant to lead by nature, and the life he was made to lead by circumstances. And all this was the result in the first instant of a girl's caprice, of her fancy for another man, so little different from himself that a Western woman could hardly have told the two apart. For this, he had left the steppe, had wandered westward to the Dnieper and southward to Odessa, northward again to Kiew, to Moscow, to Nizni-Novgorod, back again to Poland, to Krakau, to Prague, to Munich at last. Who could remember his wanderings, or trace the route of his endless journeyings? Not he himself, surely, any more than he could explain the gradual steps by which he had been transformed from a Don Cossack to a German tobacco-cutter in a cigarette manufactory. But his past life at least furnished him with memories, varied, changing, full of light and life and colour, wherewith to while away an hour's watching in the night. Still he sat upon his doorstep, watching star after star as it slowly culminated over the narrow street and set, for him, behind the nearest house-top. He might have sat there till morning had he not been at last aware that some one was walking upon the opposite pavement. His quick ear caught the soft fall of an almost noiseless footstep and he could distinguish a shadow a little darker than the surrounding shade, moving quickly along the wall. He rose to his feet and crossed the street, not believing, indeed, that the newcomer could be the man he wanted, but anxious to be fully satisfied that he was not mistaken. He found himself face to face with a young girl, who stopped at the street door of the tobacconist's house, just as he reached it. Her head was muffled in something dark and he could not distinguish her features. She started on seeing him, hesitated and then laid her hand upon the same knob which Schmidt had pulled so often in vain. "It is of no use to ring," he said, quietly. "I have given it up." "Herr Schmidt!" exclaimed the girl in evident delight. It was Vjera. "Yes--but, in Heaven's name, Vjera, what are you doing here at this hour of the night? You ought to be at home and asleep." "Oh, you have not heard the dreadful news," cried poor Vjera in accents of distress. "Oh, if we cannot get in here, come with me, for the love of Heaven, and help me to get him out of that horrible place--oh, if you only knew what has happened!" "I know all about it, Vjera," answered the Cossack. "That is the reason why I am here. I was with them when it happened and I ran off to get Fischelowitz. As ill luck would have it, he was out." In a few words Schmidt explained the whole affair and told of his own efforts. Vjera was breathless with excitement and anxiety. "What is to be done? Dear Herr Schmidt! What is to be done?" She wrung her hands together and fixed her tearful eyes on his. "I am afraid that there is nothing to be done until morning--" "But there must be something, there shall be something done! They will drive him mad in that dreadful place--he is so proud and so sensitive--you do not know--the mere idea of being in prison--" "It is not so bad as that," answered Schmidt, trying to reassure her. "They assured me that he was treated with every consideration, you know. Of course that means that he was not locked up like a common prisoner." "Do you think so?" Vjera's tone expressed no conviction in the matter. "Certainly. And it shows that he is not really suspected of anything serious--only, because Fischelowitz could not be found--" "But he is there--there in his house, asleep!" cried Vjera. "And we can wake him up--of course we can. He cannot be sleeping so soundly as not to hear if we ring hard. At least his wife will hear and look out of the window." "I am afraid not. I have tried it." But Vjera would not be discouraged and laid hold of the bell-handle again, pulling it out as far as it would come and letting it fly back again with a snap. The same results followed as when Schmidt had made the same attempt. There was a distant tinkling followed by total silence. Vjera repeated the operation. "You cannot do more than I have done," said her companion, leaning his back against the door and watching her movements. "I ought to do more." "Why, Vjera?" "Because he is more to me than to you or to any of the rest," she answered in a low voice. "Do you mean to say that you love the Count?" inquired Schmidt, surprised beyond measure by the girl's words and rendered thereby even more tactless than usual. But Vjera said nothing, having been already led into saying more than she had wished to say. She pulled the bell again. "I had never thought of that," remarked the Cossack in a musing tone. "But he is mad, Vjera, the poor Count is mad. It is a pity that you should love a madman--" "O, don't, Herr Schmidt--please don't!" cried Vjera, imploring him to be silent as much with her eyes as with her voice. "No, but really," continued the other, as though talking to himself, "there are things that go beyond all imagination in this world. Now, who would ever have thought of such a thing?" This time Vjera did not make any answer, nor repeat her request. But as she tugged with all her might at the brass handle, the Cossack heard a quick sob, and then another. "Poor Vjera!" he exclaimed kindly, and laying his hand on her shoulder. "Poor child! I am very sorry for you, poor Vjera--I would do anything to help you, indeed I would--if I only knew what it should be." "Then help me to wake up Fischelowitz," answered the girl in a shaken voice. "I am sure he is at home at this time--" "I have done all I can. If he will not wake, he will not. Or if he is awake he will not put his head out of the window, which is much the same thing so far as we are concerned. By the bye, Vjera, you have not told me how you came to hear of the row. It is queer that you should have heard of it--" "Herr Homolka--you know, my landlord--had seen the Count go by with the Gigerl and the policemen. He asked some one in the crowd and learned the story. But it was late when he came home, and he told us--I was sitting up sewing with his wife--and then I ran here. But do please help me--we can do something, I am sure." "I do not see what, short of climbing up the flat walls of the house. But I am not a lizard, you know." "We might call. Perhaps they would hear our voices if we called together," suggested Vjera, drawing back into the middle of the street and looking up at the closed windows of the third story. "Herr Fischelowitz!" she cried, in a shrill, weak tone that seemed to find no echo in the still air. "Herr Fischelowitz, Fischelowitz, Fischelowitz!" bawled the Cossack, taking up the idea and putting it into very effective execution. His brazen voice, harsh and high, almost made the windows rattle. "Somebody will hear that," he observed and cleared his throat for another effort. A number of persons heard it, and at the first repetition of the yell, two or three windows were angrily opened. A head in a white nightcap looked out from the first story. "What do you want at this hour of the night?" asked the owner of the nightcap, already in a rage. "I want Herr Fischelowitz, who lives in this house," answered the Cossack, firmly. "Do you live here? Are you shut out?" "No--we only want--" "Then go to the devil!" roared the infuriated German, shutting his window again with a vicious slam. A grunt of satisfaction from other directions was followed by the shutting of other windows, and presently all was silent again. "I am afraid they sleep at the back of the house," said Vjera, growing despondent at last. "I am afraid so, too," answered Johann Schmidt, proudly conscious that the noise he had made would have disturbed the slumbers of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. CHAPTER VII. "You had better let me take you home," said Schmidt, kindly, after the total failure of the last effort. Vjera seemed to be stupefied by the sense of disappointment. She went back to the door of the tobacconist's house and put out her hand as though to ring the bell again then, realising how useless the attempt would be, she let her arms fall by her sides and leaned against the door-post, her muffled head bent forward and her whole attitude expressing her despair. "Come, come, Vjera," said the Cossack in an encouraging tone, "it is not so bad after all. By this time the Count is fast asleep and is dreaming of his fortune, you know, so that it would be a cruelty to wake him up. In the morning we will all go with Fischelowitz and have him let out, and he will be none the worse." "I am afraid he will be--very much the worse," said Vjera. "It is Wednesday to-morrow, and if he wakes up there--oh, I do not dare think of it. It will make him quite, quite mad. Can we do nothing more? Nothing?" "I think we have done our best to wake up this quarter of the town, and yet Fischelowitz is still asleep. No one else can be of any use to us--therefore--" he stopped, for his conclusion seemed self-evident. "I suppose so," said Vjera, regretfully. "Let us go, then." She turned and with her noiseless step began to walk slowly away, Schmidt keeping close by her side. For some minutes neither spoke. The streets were deserted, dry and still. "Do you think there is any truth at the bottom of the Count's story?" asked the Cossack at last. "I do not know," Vjera answered, shaking her head. "I do not know what to think," she continued after a little pause. "He tells us all the same thing, he speaks of his letters, but he never shows them to anyone. I am afraid--" she sighed and stopped speaking. "I will tell you this much," said her companion. "That man is honest to the backbone, honest as the good daylight on the hills, where there are no houses to darken it and make shadows." "He is an angel of goodness and kindness," said Vjera softly. "I know he is. Is he not always helping others when he is starving himself? Now what I say is this. No man who is as good and as honest as he is, can have become so mad about a mere piece of fancy--about an invented lie, to be plain. What there is in his story I do not know, but I am sure that there was truth in it once. It may have been a long time ago, but there was a time once, when he had some reason to expect the money and the titles he talks of every Tuesday evening." "Do you really think that?" asked Vjera, eagerly. Her own understanding had never gone so far in its deduction. "I am sure of it. I know nothing about mad people, but I am sure that no honest man ever invented a story out of nothing and then became crazy because it did not turn out true." "But you, who have travelled so much, Herr Schmidt, have you ever heard the name before--have you ever heard of such a family?" "I have a bad memory for names, but I believe I have. I cannot be sure. It makes no difference. It is a good Russian name, in any case, and a gentleman's name, I should think. Of course I only mean that I--that you should not think that because I--in fact," blundered out the good man, "you must not suppose that you will be a real countess, you know." "I?" exclaimed Vjera, with a nervous, hysterical laugh, which the Cossack supposed to be genuine. "That is all I wanted to say," he continued in a tone of relief, as though he felt that he had done his duty in warning the poor girl of a possible disappointment. "It may be true--of course, and I am sure that it once was, or something like it, but I do not believe he has any chance of getting his own after so long." "I cannot think of it--in either way. If it is all an old forgotten tale which he believes in still-why then, he is mad. Is it not dreadful to see? So quiet and sensible all the week, and then, on Tuesday night, his farewell speech to us all--every Tuesday--and his disappointment the next day, and then a new week begun without any recollection of it all! It is breaking my heart, Herr Schmidt!" "Indeed, poor Vjera, you look as though it were." "And yet, and yet--I do not know. I think that if it were one day to turn out true--then my heart would be quite broken, for he would go away, and I should never see him again." Accustomed as she was to daily association with the man who was walking by her side, knowing his good heart and feeling his sympathy, it is small wonder that the lonely girl should have felt impelled to unburden her soul of some of its bitterness. If her life had gone on as usual, undisturbed by anything from without, the confessions which now fell from her lips so easily would never have found words. But she had been unsettled by what had happened in the early evening, and unstrung by her great anxiety for the Count's safety. Her own words sounded in her ear before she knew that she was going to speak them. "I am sure that something dreadful is going to happen," she continued after a moment's pause. "He will go mad in that horrible prison, raving mad, so that they will have to--to hold him--" she sobbed and then recovered herself by an effort. "Or else--he will fall ill and die, after it--" Here she broke down completely and stopping in the middle of the street began crying bitterly, clutching at Schmidt's arm as though to keep from falling. "I should not wonder," he said, but she fortunately did not catch the words. He was very sorry for the poor girl, and felt inclined to take her in his arms and carry her to her home, for he saw that she was weak and exhausted as well as overcome by her anxiety. Before resorting to such a measure, however, he thought it best to try to encourage her to walk on. "Nothing that one expects, ever happens," he said confidently, and passing his arm through hers, as though to lead her away. "Come, you will be at home presently and then you will go to bed and in the morning, before you are at the shop, everything will have been set right, and I daresay the Count will be there before you, and looking as well as ever." "How can you say that, when you know that he never comes on Wednesdays!" exclaimed Vjera through her tears. "I am sure something dreadful will happen to him. No, not that way--not that way!" Schmidt was trying to guide her round a sharp corner, but she resisted him. "But that is the way home," protested the Cossack. "I know, but I cannot go home, until I have seen where he is. I must go--you must not prevent me!" "To the police-station?" inquired Schmidt in considerable astonishment. "They will not let us go in, you know. You cannot possibly see him. What good can it do you to go and look at the place?" "You do not understand, Herr Schmidt! You are good and kind, but you do not understand me. Pray, pray come with me, or let me go alone. I will go alone, if you do not want to come. I am not at all afraid--but I must go." "Well, child," answered Schmidt, good-humouredly. "I will go with you, since you are so determined." "Is this the way? Are you not misleading me? Oh, I am sure I shall never see him again--quick, let us walk quickly, Herr Schmidt! Only think what he may be suffering at this very moment!" "I am sure he is asleep, my dear child. And when we are outside of the police-station we cannot know what is going on inside, whether our friend is asleep or awake, and it can do no good whatever to go. But since you really wish it so much, we are going there as fast as we can, and I promise to take you by the shortest way." Her step grew more firm as they went on and he felt that there was more life in the hand that rested on his arm. The prospect of seeing the walls of the place in which the Count was unwillingly spending the night gave Vjera fresh strength and courage. The way was long, as distances are reckoned in Munich, and more than ten minutes elapsed before they reached the building. A sentry was pacing the pavement under the glare of the gaslight, his shadow lengthening, shortening, disappearing and lengthening again on the stone-way as he walked slowly up and down. Vjera and her companion stopped on the other side of the street. The sentinel paid no attention to them. "You are quite sure it is there?" asked the girl, under her breath. Schmidt nodded instead of answering. "Then I will pray that all may be well this night," she said. She dropped the Cossack's arm and slipped away from him; then pausing at a little distance, in the deep shadow of an archway opposite the station, she knelt down upon the pavement, and taking some small object, which was indistinguishable in the darkness, from the bosom of her frock she clasped her hands together and looked upwards through the gloom at the black walls of the great building. The Cossack looked at her in a sort of half-stupid, half-awed surprise, scarcely understanding what she was doing at first, and feeling his heart singularly touched when he realised that she was praying out here in the street, kneeling on the common pavement of the city, as though upon the marble floor of a church, and actually saying prayers--he could hear low sounds of earnest tone escaping from her lips--prayers for the man she loved, because he was shut up for the night in the police-station like an ordinary disturber of the peace. He was touched, for the action, in its simplicity of faith, set in vibration the chords of a nature accustomed originally to simple things, simple hopes, simple beliefs. Instinctively, as he watched her, Johann Schmidt raised his hat from his round head for a moment, and if he had possessed any nearer acquaintance with praying in general or with any prayer in particular it is almost certain that his lips would have moved. As it was, he felt sorry for Vjera, he hoped that the Count would be none the worse for his adventure, and he took off his hat. Let it be counted to him for righteousness. As for poor Vjera herself, she was so much in earnest that she altogether forgot where she was. For love, it has been found, is a great suggester of prayer, if not of meditation, and when the beloved one is in danger a little faith seems magnified to such dimensions as would certainly accept unhesitatingly a whole mountain of dogmas. Vjera's ideas were indeed confused, and she would have found it hard to define the result which she so confidently expected. But if that result were to be in any proportion to her earnestness of purpose and sincerity of heart, it could not take a less imposing shape than a direct intervention of Providence, at the very least; and as the poor Polish girl rose from her knees she would hardly have been surprised to see the green-coated sentinel thrust aside by legions of angelic beings, hastening to restore to her the only treasure her humble life knew of, or dreamed of, or cared for. But as the visions which her prayers had called before her faded away into the night, she saw again the dingy walls of the hated building, the gilt spike on the helmet of the policeman and the shining blade that caught the light as he moved on his beat. For one moment Vjera stood quite still. Then with a passionate gesture she stretched out both arms before her, as though to draw out to herself, by sheer strength of longing, the man whose life she felt to be her own--and at last, wearied and exhausted, but no longer despairing altogether, she covered her face with her hands and repeated again and again the two words which made up the burden of her supplication. "Save him, save him, save him!" she whispered to herself. When she looked up, at last, Schmidt was by her side. There was something oddly respectful in his attitude and manner as he stood there awaiting her pleasure, ready to be guided by her whithersoever she pleased. It seemed to him that on this evening he had begun to see Vjera in a new light, and that she was by no means the poor, insignificant little shell-maker he had always supposed her to be. It seemed to him that she was transformed into a woman, and into a woman of strong affections and brave heart. And yet he knew every outline of her plain face, and had known every change of her expression for years, since she had first come to the shop, a mere girl not yet thirteen years of age. Nor had it been from lack of observation that he had misunderstood her, for like most men born and bred in the wilderness, he watched faces and tried to read them. The change had taken place in Vjera herself and it must be due, he thought, to her love for the poor madman. He smiled to himself in the dark, scarcely understanding why. It was strange to him perhaps that madness on the one side should bring into life such a world of love on the other. Vjera turned towards him and once more laid her hand upon his arm. "Thank you," she said. "I could not have slept if I had not come here first, and it was very good of you. I will go home, but do not come with me--you must be tired." "I am never tired," he answered, and they began to walk away in the direction whence they had come. For a long time neither spoke. At last Schmidt broke the silence. "Vjera," he said, "I have been thinking about it all and I do not understand it. What kind of love is it that makes you act as you do?" Vjera stood still, for they were close to her door, and there was a street lamp at hand so that she could see his face. She saw that he asked the question earnestly. "It is something that I cannot explain--it is something holy," she answered. Perhaps the forlorn little shell-maker had found the definition of true love. She let herself in with her key and Schmidt once more found himself alone in the street. If he had followed his natural instinct he would have loitered about in one of the public squares until morning, making up for the loss of his night's rest by sleeping in the daytime. But he had taken upon himself the responsibilities of marriage as they are regarded west of the Dnieper, and his union had been blessed by the subsequent appearance of a number of olive-branches. It was therefore necessary that he should sleep at night in order to work by day, and he reluctantly turned his footsteps towards home. As he walked, he thought of all that had happened since five o'clock in the afternoon, and of all that he had learned in the course of the night. Vjera's story interested him and touched him, and her acts seemed to remind him of something which he nevertheless could not quite remember. Far down in his toughened nature the strings of a forgotten poetry vibrated softly as though they would make music if they dared. Far back in the chain of memories, the memory once best loved was almost awake once more, the link of once clasped hands was almost alive again, the tender pressure of fingers now perhaps long dead was again almost a reality able to thrill body and soul. And with all that, and with the certainty that those things were gone for ever, arose the great longing for one more breath of liberty, for one more ride over the boundless steppe, for one more draught of the sour kvass, of the camp brew of rye and malt. The longing for such things, for one thing almost unattainable, is in man and beast at certain times. In the distant northern plains, a hundred miles from the sea, in the midst of the Laplander's village, a young reindeer raises his broad muzzle to the north wind, and stares at the limitless distance while a man may count a hundred. He grows restless from that moment, but he is yet alone. The next day, a dozen of the herd look up, from the cropping of the moss, snuffing the breeze. Then the Laps nod to one another, and the camp grows daily more unquiet. At times, the whole herd of young deer stand at gaze, as it were, breathing hard through wide nostrils, then jostling each other and stamping the soft ground. They grow unruly and it is hard to harness them in the light sledge. As the days pass, the Laps watch them more and more closely, well knowing what will happen sooner or later. And then at last, in the northern twilight, the great herd begins to move. The impulse is simultaneous, irresistible, their heads are all turned in one direction. They move slowly at first, biting still, here and there, at the bunches of rich moss. Presently the slow step becomes a trot, they crowd closely together while the Laps hasten to gather up their last unpacked possessions, their cooking utensils and their wooden gods. The great herd break together from a trot to a gallop, from a gallop to a break-neck race, the distant thunder of their united tread reaches the camp during a few minutes, and they are gone to drink of the polar sea. The Laps follow after them, dragging painfully their laden sledges in the broad track left by the thousands of galloping beasts--a day's journey, and they are yet far from the sea, and the trail is yet broad. On the second day it grows narrower, and there are stains of blood to be seen; far on the distant plain before them their sharp eyes distinguish in the direct line a dark, motionless object, another and then another. The race has grown more desperate and more wild as the stampede neared the sea. The weaker reindeer have been thrown down, and trampled to death by their stronger fellows. A thousand sharp hoofs have crushed and cut through hide and flesh and bone. Ever swifter and more terrible in their motion, the ruthless herd has raced onward, careless of the slain, careless of food, careless of any drink but the sharp salt water ahead of them. And when at last the Laplanders reach the shore their deer are once more quietly grazing, once more tame and docile, once more ready to drag the sledge whithersoever they are guided. Once in his life the reindeer must taste of the sea in one long, satisfying draught, and if he is hindered he perishes. Neither man nor beast dare stand between him and the ocean in the hundred miles of his arrow-like path. Something of this longing came upon the Cossack, as he suddenly remembered the sour taste of the kvass, to the recollection of which he had been somehow led by a train of thought which had begun with Vjera's love for the Count, to end abruptly in a camp kettle. For the heart of man is much the same everywhere, and there is nothing to show that the step from the sublime to the ridiculous is any longer in the Don country than in any other part of the world. But between poor Johann Schmidt and his draught of kvass there lay obstacles not encountered by the reindeer in his race for the Arctic Ocean. There was the wife, and there were the children, and there was the vast distance, so vast that it might have discouraged even the fleet-footed scourer of the northern snows. Johann Schmidt might long for his kvass, and draw in his thin, wan lips at the thought of the taste of it, and bend his black brows and close his sharp eyes as in a dream--it was all of no use, there was no change in store for him. He had cast his lot in the land of beer and sausages, and he must work out his salvation and the support of his family without a ladleful of the old familiar brew to satisfy his unreasonable caprices. So, last of all those concerned in the events of the evening, Johann Schmidt went home to bed and to rest. That power, at least, had remained with him. Whenever he lay down he could close his eyes and be asleep, and forget the troubles and the mean trifles of his thorny existence. In this respect he had the advantage of the others. Vjera lay down, indeed, but the attempt to sleep seemed more painful than the accepted reality of waking. The night was the most terrible in her remembrance, filled as it was with anxiety for the fate of the man she so dearly loved. To her still childlike inexperience of the world, the circumstances seemed as full of fear and danger as though the poor Count had been put upon his trial for a murder or a robbery on an enormous scale, instead of being merely detained because he could not give a satisfactory account of a puppet which had been found in his possession. In the poor girl's imagination arose visions of judges, awful personages in funereal robes and huge Hack caps, with cruel lips and hard, steely eyes, sitting in solemn state in a gloomy hall and dispensing death, disgrace, or long terms of prison, at the very least, to all comers. For her, the police-station was a dungeon, and she fancied the Count chained to a dank and slimy wall in a painful position, chilled to the marrow by the touch of the dripping stone, his teeth chattering, his face distorted with suffering. Of course he was in a solitary cell, behind a heavy door, braced with clamps and bolts and locks and studded with great dark iron nails. Without, the grim policemen were doubtless pacing up and down with drawn swords, listening with a murderous delight to the groans of their victim as he writhed in his chains. In the eyes of the poor and the young, the law is a very terrible thing, taking no account of persons, and very little of the relative magnitude of men's misdeeds. The province of justice, as Vjera conceived it, was to crush in its iron claws all who had the misfortune to come within its reach. Vjera had never heard of Judge Jeffreys nor of the Bloody Assizes, but the methods of procedure adopted by that eminent destroyer of his kind would have seemed mild and humane compared with what she supposed that all men, innocent or guilty, had to expect after they had once fallen into the hands of the policeman. She was not a German girl, taught in the common school to understand something of the methods by which society governs itself. Her early childhood had been spent in a Polish village, far within the Russian frontier, and though the law in Russian Poland is not exactly the irresponsible and blood-thirsty monster depicted by young gentlemen and old maids who traverse the country in search of horrors, yet it must be admitted by the least prejudiced that it sometimes moves in a mysterious way, calculated to rouse some apprehension in the minds of those who are governed by it. And Vjera had brought with her her childish impressions, and applied them in the present case as descriptive of the Munich police-station. The whole subject was to her so full of horror that she had not dared to ask Schmidt for the details of the Count's situation. To her, a revolutionary caught in the act of undermining the Tsar's bedroom, could not be in a worse case. She would not have believed Schmidt, had he told her that the Count was sitting in an attitude of calm thought upon the edge of a broad wooden bench, his hands quite free from chains and gyves, and occupied in rolling cigarettes at regular intervals of half an hour--and this, in a clean and well-ventilated room, lighted by a ground glass lantern. She would have supposed that Schmidt was inventing a description of such comfort and comparative luxury in order to calm her fears, and she would have been ten times more afraid than before. It is small wonder that she could not sleep. The Count's arrest alone would have sufficed to keep her in an agony of wakefulness, and there were other matters, besides that, which tormented the poor girl's brain. She had been long accustomed to his singular madness and to hearing from him the assurance of his returning to wealth. At first, with perfect simplicity, she had believed every word of the story he told with such evident certainty of its truth, and she had reproached her older companions, as far as she dared, for their incredulity. But at last she had herself been convinced of his madness as through the weeks, and months, and years, the state of expectation returned on Tuesday evenings, to be followed by the disappointments of Wednesday and by the oblivion which ensued on Thursday morning. Vjera, like the rest, had come to regard the regularly recurring delusion as being wholly groundless, and not to be taken into account, except inasmuch as it deprived them of the Count's company on Wednesdays, for on that day he stayed at home, in his garret room, waiting for the high personages who were to restore to him his wealth. Sometimes, indeed, when he chanced to be very sure that they would not come for him until evening, he would stroll through the town for an hour, looking into the shop windows and making up his mind what he should buy; and sometimes, on such occasions, he would visit the scene of his late labours, as he called the tobacconist's shop on that day of the week, and would exchange a few friendly words with his former companions. On Thursday morning he invariably returned to his place without remark and resumed his work, not seeming to understand any observations made about his absence or strange conduct on the previous day. So far the story he had told Vjera had always been the same. Now, however, he had introduced a new incident in the tale, which filled poor Vjera with dismay. He had never before spoken of his father and brother, except as the causes of his disasters, explaining that the powerful influence of his own friends, aided by the machinery of justice, had at last obliged them to concede him a proportional part of the fortune. Fischelowitz was accustomed to laugh at this statement, saying that if the Count were only a younger son, the law would do nothing for him and that he must continue to earn his livelihood as he could. In the course of a long time Vjera had come to the conclusion, by comparing this remark with the Count's statement when in his abnormal condition, that he was indeed the son of a great noble who had turned him out of doors for some fancied misdeed, and from whom he had in reality nothing to expect. Such was the girl's present belief. Now, however, he had suddenly declared that his father and his brother were dead. With a woman's keenness she took alarm at this new development. She really loved the poor man with all her heart. If this new addition to his story were a mere invention, it was a sign that his madness was growing upon him, and she had heard her companions discuss their comrade often enough to know that, in their opinion, if he began to grow worse, he would very soon be in the madhouse. It was bad enough to go through what she suffered so often, to see the inward struggle expressed on his face, whenever he chanced to be alone with her on a Tuesday afternoon, to hear from his lips the same assurance of love, the same offer of marriage, and to know that all would be forgotten and that his manner to her would change again, by Thursday, to that of a uniform, considerate kindness. It was bad enough, for the girl loved him and was sensitive. But it would be worse--how much worse, she dared not think--to see him go mad before her very eyes, to see him taken away at last from the midst of them all to the huge brick house in the outskirts of the city beyond the Isar. One more hypothesis remained. This time the story might turn out true. She believed in his birth and in his misfortunes, and in the existence of his father and his brother. They might indeed be dead, as he had told her, and he would then, perhaps, be sole master in their stead--she did not know how that would be, in Russia. But then, if it were all true, he must go away--and her life would be over, with its loving hope and its hopeless love. It is small wonder that Vjera did not sleep that night. CHAPTER VIII. Once or twice in the course of the night, the Count changed his position, got up, stretched himself and paced the length of the room. Dumnoff lay like a log upon his pallet, his head thrown back, his mouth open, snoring with the strong bass vibration of a thirty-two-foot organ pipe. The Count looked at him occasionally, but did not envy him his power of sleep. His own reflections were in a measure more agreeable than any dream could have been, certainly more so in his judgment than the visions of unlimited cabbage soup, vodka, and fighting which were doubtless delighting Dumnoff's slumbering soul. As the church clocks struck one hour after another, his spirits rose. He had, indeed, never had the least apprehension concerning his own liberty, since he knew himself to be perfectly innocent. He only desired to be released as soon as possible in order to repair the damage done to his coat and collar before the earliest hour at which the messengers of good news could be expected at his house. Meanwhile he cared little whether he spent the night on a bench in the police-station, or on one of the rickety wooden chairs which afforded the only sitting accommodation in his own room. He could not sleep in either case, for his brain was too wide awake with the anticipations of the morrow, and with the endless plans for future happiness which suggested themselves. At last he was aware that the nature of the light in the room was changing and that the white ground glass of the lantern was illuminated otherwise than by the little flame within. The high window, as he looked up, was like a grey figure cut out of dark paper, and the dawn was stealing in at last. "Wednesday at last!" he exclaimed softly to himself. "Wednesday at last!" A gentle smile spread over his tired face, and made it seem less haggard and drawn than it really was. The day broke, and somewhere not far from the window, the birds all began to sing at once, filling the room with a continuous strain of sound, loud, clear and jubilant. The soft spring air seemed to awake, as though it had itself been sleeping through the still night and must busy itself now in sending the sweet breezes upon their errands to the flowers. "I always thought it would come in spring," thought the Count, as he listened to the pleasant sounds, and then held one of his yellow hands up to the window to feel the freshness that was without. He wondered how long it would be before Fischelowitz would come and tell the truth of the Gigerl's story. By his knowledge of the time of daybreak, he guessed that it was not yet much past four o'clock, and he doubted whether Fischelowitz would come before eight. The tobacconist was a kind man, but a comfortable one, loving his rest and his breakfast and his ease at all times. Moreover, as the Count knew better than any one else, Akulina would be rejoiced to hear of the misadventure which had befallen her enemy and would in no way hurry her husband upon his mission of justice. She would doubtless consume an unusual amount of time in the preparation of his coffee, she would presumably tell him that the milkman had not appeared punctually, and would probably assert that there were as yet no rolls to be had. The immediate consequence of these spiteful fictions would be that Fischelowitz would dress himself very leisurely, swallowing the smoke of several cigarettes in the meanwhile, and that he would hardly be clothed, fed and out of the house before eight in the morning, instead of being on the way to the shop at seven as was his usual practice. But the Count was not at all disturbed by this. The persons whose coming he expected were not of the class who pay visits at eight o'clock. It was as pleasant to sit still and think of the glorious things in the future, as to do anything else, until the great moment came. Here, at least, he was undisturbed by the voices of men, unless Dumnoff's portentous snore could be called a voice, and to this his ear had grown accustomed. He sat down again, therefore, in his old position, crossed one knee over the other and again produced the piece of crumpled newspaper which held his tobacco. The supply was low, but he consoled himself with the belief that Dumnoff probably had some about him, and rolled what remained of his own for immediate consumption. He was quite right in his surmises concerning his late employer and the latter's wife. Akulina had in the first place let her husband sleep as long as he pleased, and had allowed a considerable time to elapse before informing him of the events of the previous evening. As was to be expected, the good man stated his intention of immediately procuring the Count's liberation, and was only prevailed upon with difficulty to taste his breakfast. One taste, however, convinced him of the necessity of consuming all that was set before him, and while he was thus actively employed Akulina entered into the consideration of the theft, recalling all the details she could remember about the intimacy supposed to exist between the Count and the swindler in coloured glasses, and conscientiously showing the matter in all its aspects. "One fact remains," she said, in conclusion, "he promised you upon his honour last night that he would pay you the fifty marks to-day, and, in my opinion, since he has been the means of your losing the Gigerl after all, he ought to be made to pay the money." "And where can he get fifty marks to pay me?" inquired Fischelowitz with careless good-humour. "Where he got the doll, I suppose," said Akulina, triumphantly completing the vicious circle in which she caused her logic to move. Fischelowitz smiled as he pushed away his cup, rose and lighted a fresh cigarette. "You are a very good housekeeper, Akulina, my love," he observed. "You always know how the money goes." "That is more than can be said for some people," laughed Akulina. "But never mind, Christian Gregorovitch, your wife is only a weak woman, but she can take care for two, never fear!" Fischelowitz was of the same opinion as he, at last, took his hat and left the house. To him, the whole affair had a pleasant savour of humour about it, and he was by no means so much disturbed as Johann Schmidt or Vjera. He had lived in Munich many years and understood very well the way in which things are managed in the good-natured Bavarian capital. A night in the police-station in the month of May seemed by no means such a terrible affair, certainly not a matter involving any great suffering to any one concerned. Moreover it could not be helped, a consideration which, when available, was a great favourite with the rotund tobacconist. Whatever the Count had done on the previous night, he said to himself, was done past undoing; and though, if he had found Akulina awake when he returned from spending the evening with his friend, and if she had then told him what had happened, he would certainly have made haste to get the Count released--yet, since Akulina had been sound asleep, he had necessarily gone to bed in ignorance of the story, to the temporary inconvenience of the arrested pair. He was not long in procuring an order for the Count's release, but Dumnoff's case seemed to be considered as by far the graver of the two, since he had actually been guilty of grasping the sacred, green legs of two policemen, at the time in the execution of their duty, and of violently turning the aforesaid policemen upside down in the public room of an eating-house. It was, indeed, reckoned as favourable to him that he had returned and submitted to being handcuffed without offering further resistance, but it might have gone hard with him if Fischelowitz had not procured the co-operation of a Munich householder and taxpayer to bail him out until the inquiry should be made. It would have been a serious matter for Fischelowitz to lose the work of Dumnoff in his "celebrated manufactory" for any length of time together, since it was all he could do to meet the increasing demands for his wares with his present staff of workers. "And how did you spend the night, Count?" he inquired as they walked quickly down the street together. Dumnoff had made off in the opposite direction, in search of breakfast, after which he intended to go directly to the shop, as though nothing had happened. "I spent it very pleasantly, thank you," answered the Count. "The fact is that, with such an interesting day before me, I should not have slept if I had been at home. I have so much to think of, as you may imagine, and so many preparations to make, that the time cannot seem long with me." "I am glad of that," said Fischelowitz, serenely. "I suppose we shall not see you to-day?" "Hardly--hardly," replied the Count, as though considering whether his engagements would allow him to look in at the shop. "You will certainly see me this evening, at the latest," he added, as if he had suddenly recollected something. "I have not forgotten that I am to hand you fifty marks--I only regret that you should have lost the Gigerl, which, I think I have heard you say, afforded you some amusement. However, the money shall be in your hands without delay, or with as little delay as possible. My friends will in all probability arrive by the mid-day train and will, of course, come to me at once. An hour or so to talk over our affairs, and I shall then have leisure to come to you for a few moments and to settle that unfortunate affair. Not indeed, my dear Herr Fischelowitz, that I have ever held myself responsible for the dishonest young man who wore green spectacles. I was, indeed, a loser by him myself, in an insignificant sum, and as he turned out to be such an indifferent character, I do not mind acknowledging the fact. I do not think it can harm him, if I do. No. I was not responsible for him to you, but since your excellent wife, Frau Fischelowitz, labours under the impression that I was, I am quite willing to accept the responsibility, and shall therefore discharge the debt before night, as a matter of honour." "It is very kind of you," remarked the tobacconist, smiling at the impressive manner in which the promise was made. "But of course, Count, if anything should prevent the arrival of your friends, you will not consider this to be an engagement." "Nothing will prevent the coming of those I expect, nor, if anything could, would such an accident prevent my fulfilling an engagement which, since your excellent wife's remarks last night, I do consider binding upon my honour. And now, Herr Fischelowitz, with my best thanks for your intervention this morning, I will leave you. After the vicissitudes to which I have been exposed during the last twelve hours, my appearance is not what I could wish it to be. I have the pleasure to wish you a very good morning." Shaking his companion heartily by the hand, the Count bowed civilly and turned into an unfrequented street. Fischelowitz looked after him a few seconds, as though expecting that he would turn back and say something more, and then walked briskly in the direction of his shop. He found Akulina standing at the door which led into the workroom, in such a position as to be able to serve a customer should any chance to enter, and yet so placed as to see the greater part of her audience. For she was holding forth volubly in her thick, strong voice, giving her very decided opinion about the events of the previous evening, the Count, considered in the first place as a specimen of the human race, and secondly, as in relation to his acts. Her hearers were poor Vjera, her insignificant companion and the Cossack who listened, so to say, without enthusiasm, unless the occasional foolish giggle of the younger girl was to be taken for the expression of applause. "I am thoroughly sick of his crazy ways," she was saying, "and if he were not really such a good workman we should have turned him out long ago. But he really does make cigarettes very well, and with the new shop about to be opened, and the demand there is already, it is all we can do to keep people satisfied. Not but what my husband has been talking lately of getting a new workman from Vilna, and if he turns out to be all that we expect, why the Count may go about his business and we shall be left in peace at last. Indeed it is high time. My poor nerves will not stand many more such scenes as last night, and as for my poor husband, I believe he has lost as much money through the Count and his friends as he has paid to him for work, and if you turn that into figures it makes the cigarettes he rolls worth six marks a thousand instead of three, which is more than any pocket can stand, while there are children to be fed at home. And if you have anything to say to that, little husband, why just say it!" Fischelowitz had entered the shop and the last words were addressed to him. "Oh, nothing, nothing," he answered, beginning to bustle cheerily about the place, setting a box straight here, removing an empty one there, opening the till and counting the small change, and, generally, doing all those things which he was accustomed to do when he appeared in the morning. Poor Vjera looked paler and more waxen than ever in her life before, so pale indeed was she that the total absence of colour lent a sort of refinement to her plain features, not often found even in really beautiful faces. She had suffered intensely and was suffering still. From the first words that Akulina had spoken she had understood that the Count had been in the station-house all night, and she found herself reviewing all the hideous visions of his cruel treatment which she had conjured up since the previous evening. Akulina of course hastened to say that Fischelowitz had lost no time in having the poor man set at liberty, and this at least was a relief to Vjera's great anxiety. But she wanted to hear far more than Akulina could or would tell, she longed to know whether he had really suffered as she fancied he had, and how he looked after spending in a prison the night that had seemed so long to her. She would have given anything to overwhelm the tobacconist with questions, to ask for a minute description of the Count's appearance, to express her past terrors to some one and to have some one tell her that they had been groundless. But she dared not open her lips to speak of the matters which filled her thoughts. She was so wretchedly nervous that she felt as though the tears would break out at the sound of her own voice, and at the same time she was disturbed by the consciousness that Johann Schmidt's eyes watched her closely from the corner in which he was steadily wielding his swivel knife. It had been almost natural to tell him of her love in the darkness of the streets, in the mad anxiety for the loved one's safety, in the weariness and the hopelessness of the night hours. But now, sitting at her little table, at her daily work, with all the trivial objects that belonged to it recalling her to the reality of things, she realised that her day-dreams were no longer her secret, and she was ashamed that any one should guess the current of her thoughts. It was hard for her to understand how she could have thus taken the Cossack into her confidence, and she would have made almost any sacrifice to take back the confession. Good he was, and honest, and kind-hearted, but she was ashamed of what she had done. It seemed to her that, besides giving up to another the knowledge of her heart, she had also done something against the dignity of him she loved. She herself felt no superiority over Johann Schmidt; they were equals in every way. But she did feel, and strongly, that the Cossack was not the equal of the Count, and she reproached herself with having made a confidant of one beneath her idol in station and refinement. This feeling sprang from such a multiplicity of sources, as almost to defy explanation. There was, at the bottom of it, the strange, unreasoning notion of the superiority of one class over another by right of blood, from which no race seems to be wholly exempt, and which has produced such surprising results in the world. Poor Vjera had been brought up in one of those countries where that tradition is still strongest. The mere sound of the word "Count" evoked a body of impressions so firmly rooted, so deeply ingrained, as necessarily to influence her judgment. The outward manner of the man did the rest, his dignity under all circumstances, his uncomplaining patience, his unquestioning generosity, his quiet courtesy to every one. There was something in every word he spoke, in his every action, which distinguished him from his companions. They themselves felt it. He was sometimes ridiculous, poor man, and they laughed together over his carefully chosen language, over the grand sweep of his bow and his punctilious attention to the smallest promise or shadow of a promise. These things amused them, but at the same time they felt that he could never be what they were, and that those manners and speeches of his, which, if they had imitated them, would have seemed in themselves so many forms of vulgarity, were somehow not vulgar in him. Vjera, as she loved him, felt all this far more keenly than the others. And besides, to add to her embarrassment at present, there was the girl's maidenly shyness and timidity. Since she had told Johann Schmidt her secret, she felt as though all eyes were upon her, and as though every one were about to turn upon her with those jesting questions which coarse natures regard as expressions of sympathy where love is concerned. And yet no one spoke to her, nor disturbed her. There was only the disquieting consciousness of the Cossack's curious scrutiny to remind her that all things were not as they had been yesterday. The hours of the morning seemed endless. On all other days, Vjera was accustomed to see the Count's quiet face opposite to her, and when she was most weary of her monotonous toil, a glance at him gave her fresh courage, and turned the currents of her thoughts into a channel not always smooth indeed, but long familiar and never wearisome to follow. The stream emptied, it is true, into the dead sea of doubt, and each time, as she ended the journey of her fancy, she felt the cruel chill of the conclusion, as though she had in reality fallen into a deep, dark water; but she was always able to renew the voyage, to return to the fountain-head of love, enjoying at least the pleasant, smooth reaches of the river, that lay between the racing rapids and the tumbling falls. But to-day there was no one at the little table opposite, and Vjera's reflections would not be guided in their familiar course. Her heart yearned for the lonely man who, on that day, sat in the solitude of his poor chamber confidently expecting the messengers of good tidings who never came. She wondered what expression was on his face, as he watched the door and listened for the fall of feet upon the stairs. She knew, for she knew his nature, that he had carefully dressed himself in what he had that was best, in order to receive decently the long-expected visit; she fancied that he would move thoughtfully about the narrow room, trying to give it a feebly festive look in accordance with his own inward happiness. He would forget to eat, as he sat there, hearing the hours chime one after another, seeing the sun rise higher and higher until noon and watching the lengthening shadows of the chimneys on the roofs as day declined. More than all, she wondered what that dreadful moment could be like when, each week, he gave up hope at last, and saw that it had all been a dream. She had seen him more than once, towards the evening of the regularly recurring day, still confidently expecting the coming of his friends, explaining that they must come by the last train, and hastening away in order to be ready to receive them. Somewhere between the Wednesday evening and the Thursday morning there must be an hour, of which she hardly dared to think, in which all was made clear to him, or in which a veil descended over all, shutting out in merciful obscurity the brilliant vision and the bitter disappointment. If she could only be with him at that moment, she thought, she might comfort him, she might make his sufferings more easy to bear, and at the idea the tears that were so near rose nearer still to the flowing, kept back only by shame of being seen. It was a terrible day, and everything jarred upon the poor girl's nature, from Akulina's thick, strong voice, continually discussing the question of marks and pennies, with occasional allusions to late events, to the disagreeable, scratching, paring sound of the Cossack's heavy knife as it cut its way through the great packages of leaves. The mid-day hour afforded no relief, for the pressure of work was great and each of the workers had brought a little food to be eaten in haste and almost without a change of position. For the work was paid for in proportion to its quantity, and the poor people were glad enough when there was so much to do, since there was then just so much more to be earned. There were times when the demand was slack and when Fischelowitz would not keep his people at their tables for more than two or three hours in a day. They might occupy the rest of their time as they could, and earn something in other ways, if they were able. When those hard times came poor Vjera picked up a little sewing, paid for at starvation rates, Johann Schmidt turned his hand to the repairing of furs, in which he had some skill, and which is an art in itself, and Dumnoff varied his existence by exercising great economy in the matter of food without making a similar reduction in the allowance of his drink. Under ordinary circumstances Vjera would have rejoiced at the quantity of work to be done, and as it was, her mental suffering did not make her fingers awkward or less nervously eager in the perpetual rolling of the little pieces of paper round the glass tube. Even acute physical pain is often powerless to affect the mechanical skill of a hand trained for many years to repeat the same little operation thousands of times in a day with unvarying perfection. Vjera worked as well and as quickly as ever, though the hours seemed so endlessly long as to make her wonder why she did not turn out more work than usual. From time to time the two men exchanged more or less personal observations after their manner. "It seems to me that you work better than usual," remarked the Cossack, looking at Dumnoff. "I feel better," laughed the latter. "I feel as though I had been having a holiday and a country dance." "For the sake of your health, you ought to have a little excitement now and then," continued Schmidt. "It is hard for a man of your constitution to be shut up day after day as you are here. A little bear-fight now and then would do you almost as much good as an extra bottle of brandy, besides being cheaper." "Yes." Dumnoff yawned, displaying all his ferocious white teeth to the assembled company. "That is true--and then, those green cloth policemen look so funny when one upsets them. I wish I had a few here." "You have not heard the last of your merry-making yet," said Fischelowitz, who was standing in the doorway. "If I had not got you out this morning you would still be in the police-station." "There is something in that," observed Schmidt. "If he were not out, he would still be in." "Well, if I were, I should still be asleep," said Dumnoff. "That would not be so bad, after all." "You may be there again before long," suggested Fischelowitz. "You know there is to be an inquiry. I only hope you will do plenty of work before they lock you up for a fortnight." "I suppose they will let me work in prison," answered Dumnoff, indifferently. "They do in some places." Vjera, whose ideas of prisons have been already explained at length, was so much surprised that she at last opened her lips. "Have you ever been in prison?" she asked in a wondering tone. "Several times," replied the other, without looking up. "But always," he added, as though suddenly anxious for his reputation, "always for that sort of thing--for upsetting somebody who did not want to be upset. It is a curious thing--I always do it in the same way, and they always tumble down. One would think people would learn--" he paused as though considering a profound problem. "Perhaps they are not always the same people," remarked the Cossack. "That is true. That may have something to do with it." The ex-coachman relapsed into silence. "But, is it not very dreadful--in prison?" asked Vjera rather timidly, after a short pause. "No--if one can sleep well, the time passes very pleasantly. Of course, one is not always as comfortable as we were last night. That is not to be expected." "Comfortable!" exclaimed the girl in surprise. "Well--we had a nice room with a good light, and there happened to be nobody else in for the night. It was dry and clean and well furnished--rather hard beds, I believe, though I scarcely noticed them. We smoked and talked some time and then I went to sleep. Oh, yes--I passed a very pleasant evening, and a comfortable night." "But I thought--" Vjera hesitated, as though fearing that she was going to say something foolish. "I thought that prisoners always had chains," she said, at last. Everybody laughed loudly at this remark and the poor girl felt very much ashamed of herself, though the question had seemed so natural and had been in her mind a long time. It was an immense relief, however, to know that things had not been so bad as she had imagined, and Dumnoff's description of the place of his confinement was certainly reassuring. As the endless day wore on, she began to glance anxiously towards the door, straining her ears for a familiar footstep in the outer shop. As has been said, the Count sometimes looked in on Wednesdays, when his calculations had convinced him that his friends, not having arrived by one train, could not be expected for several hours. But to-day he did not come, to-day when Vjera would have given heaven and earth for a sight of him. Never, in her short life, had she realised how slowly the hours could limp along from sunrise to noon, from noon to sunset, never had the little spot of sunlight which appeared in the back-shop on fine afternoons taken so long to crawl its diagonal course from the left front-leg of Dumnoff's table, where it made its appearance, to the right-hand corner of her own, at which point it suddenly went out and was seen no more, being probably intercepted by some fixed object outside. Time is the measure of most unhapppiness, for it is in sorrow and anxiety that we are most keenly conscious of it, and are oppressed by its leaden weight. When we are absorbed in work, in study, in the production of anything upon which all our faculties are concentrated, we say that the time passes quickly. When we are happy we know nothing of time nor of its movement, only, long afterwards, we look back, and we say, "How short the hours seemed then!" Vjera toiled on and on, watching the creeping sunshine on the floor, glancing at the ever-increasing heap of cut leaves that fell from the Cossack's cutting-block, noting the slow rise in the pile of paper shells before her and comparing it with that produced by the girl at her elbow, longing for the moment when she would see the freshly-made cigarettes just below the inner edge of Dumnoff's basket, taking account of every little thing by which to persuade herself that the day was declining and the evening at hand. Her life was sad and monotonous enough at the best of times. It seemed as though the accidents of the night had made it by contrast ten times more sad and monotonous and hopeless than before. CHAPTER IX. The Count, as Vjera supposed, had dressed himself with even greater care than usual in anticipation of the official visit, and while she was working through the never-ending hours of her weary day, he was calmly seated upon a chair by the open window in his little room, one leg crossed over the other, one hand thrust into the bosom of his coat and the other extended idly upon the table by his side. His features expressed the perfect calm and satisfaction of a man who knows that something very pleasant is about to happen, who has prepared himself for it, and who sits in the midst of his swept and garnished dwelling in an attitude of pleased expectancy. The Count's face was tired, indeed, and there were dark circles under his sunken grey eyes, brought there by loss of sleep as much as by an habitual facility for forgetting to eat and drink. But in the eyes themselves there was a bright, unusual light, as though some brilliant spectacle were reflected in them out of the immediate future. There was colour, too, in his lean cheeks, a slight flush like that which comes into certain dark faces with the anticipation of any keen pleasure. As he sat in his chair, he looked constantly at the door of the room, as though expecting it to open at any moment. From time to time, voices and footsteps were heard on the stairs, far below. When any of these sounds reached him, the Count rose gravely from his seat, and stood in the middle of the room, slowly rubbing his hands together, listening again, moving a step to the one side or the other and back again, in the mechanical manner of a person to whom a visitor has been announced and who expects to see him appear almost immediately. But the footsteps echoed and died away and the voices were still again. The Count stood still a few moments when this happened, satisfying himself that he had been mistaken, and then, shaking his head and once more passing his hands round each other, he resumed his seat and his former attitude. He listened also for the chiming of the hours, and when he was sure that an hour had passed since the arrival of his imaginary express train, he rose again, looked out of the window, watched the wheeling of the house swallows, and assumed an air of momentary indifference. The next ringing of the clock bells revived the illusion. Another train was doubtless just running in to the station, and in a quarter of an hour his friends might be with him. There was no time to be lost. The flush returned to his cheeks as he hastily combed his smooth hair for the twentieth time, examining his appearance minutely in the dingy, spotted mirror, brushing his clothes--far too well brushed these many years--and lastly making sure that there was no weak point in the adjustment of his false collar. He made another turn of inspection round his little room, feeling sure that there was just time to see that all was right and in order, but already beginning to listen for a noise of approaching people on the stairs. Once more he straightened and arranged the patched coverlet of Turkey red cotton upon the bed, so that it should hide the pillows and the sheets; once more he adjusted the clean towel neatly upon the wooden peg over the washing-stand, discreetly concealing the one he had used in the drawer of the table; for the last time he made sure that the chair which had the broken leg was in such close and perfect contact with the wall as to make it safely serviceable if not rashly removed into a wider sphere of action. Then, as he passed the chest of drawers, he gave a final touch to the half-dozen ragged-edged books which composed his library--three volumes of Puschkin, of three different editions, Ivan Kryloff's _Poems and Fables_, Gogol's _Terrible Revenge_, Tolstoi's _How People Live_, and two or three more, including Koltsoff, the shepherd poet, and an ancient guide to the city of Kiew--as heterogeneous a collection of works as could be imagined, yet all notable in their way, except, indeed, the guide-book, for beauty, power, or touching truth. And when he had touched and straightened everything in the room, he returned to his seat, calmly expectant as ever, to wait for the footsteps on the stairs, to rise and rub his hands, if the sound reached him, to shake his head gravely if he were again disappointed, in short to go through the same little round of performance as before until some chiming clock suggested to his imagination that the train had come and brought no one, and that he might enjoy an interval of distraction in looking out of the window until the next one arrived. The Count must have had a very exaggerated idea of the facility of communication between Munich and Russia, for he assuredly stood waiting for his friends, combed, brushed, and altogether at his best, more than twenty times between the morning and the evening. As the day declined, indeed, his imaginary railway station must have presented a scene of dangerous confusion, for his international express trains seemed to come in quicker and quicker succession, until he barely had time to look out of the window before it became necessary to comb his hair again in order to be ready for the next possible arrival. At last he walked perpetually on a monotonous beat from the window to the mirror, from the mirror to the door, and from the door to the mirror again. Suddenly he stopped and tapped his forehead with his hand. The sun was setting and the last of his level rays shot over the sea of roofs and the forest of chimneys and entered the little room in a broad red stream, illuminating the lean, nervous figure as it stood still in the ruddy light. "Good Heavens!" exclaimed the Count, in a tone of great anxiety, "I have forgotten Fischelowitz and his money." There was a considerable break in the continuity of the imaginary time-table, for he stood still a long time, in deep thought. He was arguing the case in his mind. What he had promised was, to consider the fifty marks as a debt of honour. Now a debt of honour must be paid within twenty-four hours. No doubt, thought the Count, it would not be altogether impossible to consider the twenty-four hours as extending from midnight to midnight. The Russians have an expression which means a day and a night together--they call that space of time the sutki, and it is a more or less elastic term, as we say "from day to day," "from one evening to another." Rooms in Russian hotels are let by the sutki, railway tickets are valid for one or more sutki, and the Count might have chosen to consider that his sutki extended from the time when he had spoken to Fischelowitz until twelve o'clock on the following night. But he had no means of knowing exactly what the time had been when he had been in the shop, and his punctilious ideas of honour drove him to under-estimate the number of hours still at his disposal. Moreover, and this last consideration determined his action, if he brought the money too late it was to be feared that Fischelowitz would have shut up the shop, after which there would be no certainty of finding him. The Count wished to make the restitution of the money in Akulina's presence, but he was also determined to give the fifty marks directly to the tobacconist. He saw that the sun was going down, and that there was no time to be lost. It occurred to him at the same instant that if he was to pay the debt at all, he must find money for that purpose, and although, in his own belief, he was to be master of a large fortune in the course of the evening, no scheme for raising so considerable a sum as fifty marks presented itself to his imagination. Poor as he was, he was far more used to lending than to borrowing, and more accustomed to giving than to either. He regretted, now, that he had bound himself to pay the debt to-day. It would have been so easy to name the next day but one. But who could have foreseen that his friends would miss that particular train and only arrive late in the evening? He paced his room in growing anxiety, his trouble increasing in exact proportion with the decrease of the daylight. "Fifty marks!" he exclaimed, in dismay, as he realised more completely the dilemma in which he was placed. "Fifty marks! It is an enormous sum to find at a moment's notice. If they had only telegraphed me a credit at once, I could have got it from a bank--a bank--yes--but they do not know me. That is it. They do not know me. And then, it is late." The drops of perspiration stood on his pale forehead as he began to walk again. He glanced at his possessions and turned from the contemplation of them in renewed despair. Many a time, before, he had sought among his very few belongings for some object upon which a pawnbroker might advance five marks, and he had sought in vain. The furniture of the room was not his, and beyond the furniture the room contained little enough. He had parted long ago with an old silver watch, of which the chain had even sooner found its way to the lender's. A long-cherished ring had disappeared last winter, by an odd coincidence, at the very time when Johann Schmidt's oldest child was lying ill with diphtheria. As for clothing, he had nothing to offer. The secrets of his outward appearance were known to him alone, but they were of a nature to discourage the hope of raising money on coat or trousers. A few well-thumbed volumes of Russian authors could not be expected to find a brilliant sale in Munich at a moment's notice. He looked about, and he saw that there was nothing, and he turned very pale. "And yet, before midnight, it must be paid," he said. Then his face brightened again. "Before midnight--but they will be here before then, of course. Perhaps I may borrow the money for a few hours." But in order to do this, or to attempt it, he must go out. What if his friends arrived at the moment when he was out of the house? "No," he said, consulting his imaginary time-table, "there is no train now, for a couple of hours, at least." He took up his hat and turned to go. It struck him, however, that to provide against all possible accidents it would be as well to leave some written word upon his table, and he took up a sheet of writing paper and a pen. It was remarkable that there was a good supply of the former on the table, and that the inkstand contained ink in a fluid state, as though the Count were in the habit of using it daily. He wrote rapidly, in Russian. "This line is to inform you that Count Skariatine is momentarily absent from his lodging on a matter of urgent importance, connected with a personal engagement. He will return as soon as possible and requests that you will have the goodness to wait, if you should happen to arrive while he is out." He set the piece of notepaper upright, in a prominent position upon the table, and exactly opposite to the door. He did not indeed recollect that in the course of half an hour the room would be quite dark, and he was quite satisfied that he had taken every reasonable precaution against missing his visitors altogether. Once more he seized his hat, and a moment later he was descending the long flights of stairs towards the street. As he went, the magnitude of the sum of money he needed appalled him, and by the time he stepped out upon the pavement into the fresh evening air, he was in a state of excitement and anxiety which bordered on distraction. His brain refused to act any longer, and he was utterly incapable of thinking consecutively of anything, still less of solving a problem so apparently incapable of solution as was involved in the question of finding fifty marks at an hour's notice. It was practically of little use to repeat the words "Fifty marks" incessantly and in an audible voice, to the great surprise of the few pedestrians he met. It was far from likely that any of them would consider themselves called upon to stop in their walk and to produce two large gold pieces and a small one, for the benefit of an odd-looking stranger. And yet, as he hurried along the street, the poor Count had not the least idea where he was going, and if he should chance to reach any definite destination in his erratic course he would certainly be much puzzled to decide what he was to do upon his arrival. The one thing which remained clearly defined in his shaken intelligence was that he must pay to Fischelowitz the money promised within the limit of time agreed upon, or be disgraced for ever in his own eyes, as well as in the estimation of the world at large. The latter catastrophe would be bad enough, but nothing short of self-destruction could follow upon his condemnation of himself. A special Providence is said to watch over the movements of madmen, sleep-walkers and drunkards. Those who find difficulty in believing in the direct intervention of Heaven in very trivial matters of everyday life, are satisfied to put a construction of less tremendous import upon the facts in cases concerning the preservation of their irresponsible brethren. A great deal may be accounted for by considering what are the instincts of the body when momentarily liberated from the directing guidance of the mind. It has been already noticed in the course of this story that, when the Count did not know where he was going, he was generally making the best of his way to the establishment in which so much of his time was passed. This is exactly what took place on the present occasion. Conscious only of his debt, and not knowing where to find money with which to pay it, he was unwittingly hurrying towards the very place in which the payment was to be made, and, within a quarter of an hour of his leaving his lodging, he found himself standing on the pavement, over against the tobacconist's shop, stupidly gazing at the glass door, the well-known sign and the familiar, dilapidated chalet of cigarettes which held a prominent place in the show window. No longer ago than yesterday afternoon the little Swiss cottage had been flanked by the Wiener Gigerl, whose smart red coat and insolent face had been the cause of so much disaster and anxiety during the past twenty-four hours. The very fact that the doll was no longer there, in its accustomed place, served to remind the Count of his rash promise to pay the money and dangerously increased the excitement which already possessed him. He wiped the cold drops from his brow and leaned for a moment against the brick wall behind him. He was dizzy, confused and tired. The tormenting thought that was driving him recalled his failing consciousness of outer things. He straightened himself again and made a step forward, as though he would cross the street, but paused again before his foot had left the pavement. Then he asked of his senses how he had got to the place where he stood. He did not remember traversing the familiar highways and byways by which he was accustomed daily to make his way from his lodging to the shop. Every object on the way had long been so well known to him as to cause a permanent impression in his brain, which was distinctly visible to him whenever he thought of the walk in any way, whether he had just been over the ground or not. He could not now account to himself for his being so near Fischelowitz's shop, and he found it impossible to decide whether he had come thither by his usual route or not. It was still harder to explain the reason for his coming, since the fifty marks were no nearer to his hand than before, and without them it was useless to think of entering. As he stood there, hesitating and trying to grasp the situation more clearly, it grew, on the contrary, more and more confused. At the same time the bells of a neighbouring church struck the hour, and the clanging tone revived in his mind the other impression, which had possessed it all day, the impression that his friends were at that moment arriving at the railway station. The confusion in his thoughts became intolerable, and he covered his eyes with one hand, steadying himself by pressing the other against the wall. He did not know how long he had stood thus, when an anxious voice recalled him to outer things--a voice in which love, sympathy, tenderness and anxiety for him had taken possession of the weak tones and lent them a passing thrill of touching music. "In Heaven's name--what is it? Speak to me--I am Vjera--here, beside you." He looked up suddenly, and seemed to recover his self-possession. "You came just in time, Vjera--God bless you. I--" he hesitated. "I think--I must have been a little dizzy with the heat. It is a warm evening--a very warm evening." He pressed an old silk pocket-handkerchief to his moist brow, the pocket-handkerchief which he always had about him, freshly ironed and smoothly folded, on the day when he expected his friends. Vjera, her face pale with distress, passed her arm through his and made as though she would walk with him down the gentle slope of the street, which leads in the direction of the older city. He suffered himself to be led a few steps in silence. "Where are you going, Vjera?" he asked, stopping again and looking into her face. "Wherever you like," she said, trying to speak cheerfully. She saw that something terrible was happening, and it was only by a desperate effort that she controlled the violent hysterical emotion that rose like a great lump in her throat. "Ah, that is it, Vjera," he answered. "That is it. Where shall I go, child?" Then he laughed nervously. "The fact is," he continued, "that I am in a very absurd position. I do not at all know what to do." Perhaps he had tried to give himself courage by the attempt to laugh, but, in that case, he had failed for the present. In spite of his words his despair was evident. His usually erect carriage was gone. His head sank wearily forward, his shoulders rounded themselves as though under a burden, his feet dragged a little as he tried to walk on again, and he leaned heavily on the young girl's arm. "What is it?" she asked. "Tell me--perhaps I can help you--I mean--I beg your pardon," she added, humbly, "perhaps it would help you to speak of it. That sometimes makes things seem clearer just when they have been most confused." "Perhaps so, Vjera, perhaps so. You are a very good girl, and you came just in time. I love you, Vjera--do not forget that I love you." His voice was by turns sharp and suddenly low and monotonous, like that of a man talking in sleep. Altogether his manner was so strange that poor Vjera feared the very worst. The extremity of her anxiety kept her from losing her self-possession. For the first time in her life she felt that she was the stronger of the two, and that if he was to be saved it must be by her efforts rather than by anything he was now able to do for himself. She loved him, mad or sane, with an admiration and a devotion which took no account of his intellectual state except to grieve over it for his own sake. The belief that in this crisis she might be of use to him, strongly conquered the rising hysterical passion, and drove the tears so far from her eyes that she wondered vaguely why she had been so near to shedding them a few moments sooner. She pressed his arm with her hand. "And I, too, I love you, with all my heart and soul," she said. "And if you will tell me what has happened, I will do what I can--if it were my life that were needed. I know I can help you, for God will help me." He raised his head a little and again stood still, gazing into her eyes with an odd sort of childish wonder. "What makes you so strong, Vjera? You used to be a weak little thing." "Love," she answered. It was strange to see such a man, outwardly lean, tough-looking, well put together and active, though not, indeed, powerful, looking at the poor white-faced girl and asking the secret of her strength, as though he envied it. But at that moment, the natural situation was reversed. His eyes were lustreless, tired, without energy. Hers were suddenly bright and flashing with determination, and with the expression of her new-found will. Vjera felt that all at once a change had come over her, the weak strings of her heart grew strong, the dreamy hopelessness of her thoughts fell away, leaving one clearly defined resolution in its place. The man she loved was going mad, and she would save him, cost what it might. That Faith, no larger than the tiniest mustard seed, but able to toss the mountains, as pebbles, from their foundations into the sea, is the determination to do the thing chosen to be done or to die--literally, to die--in the trying to do it. Death is farther from most of us than we fancy, and if we would but risk all, to win or lose all, we could almost always do the deed which looks so grimly impossible. Those who have faced great physical dangers, or who have been matched by fate against overwhelming odds of anxiety and trouble, alone know what great things are done when men stand at bay and face the world, and fate, and life, and death and misfortune, all banded together against them, and say in their hearts, "We will win this fight or die." Then, at that word, when it is spoken earnestly, in sincerity and truth, the iron will rises up and takes possession of the feeble body, the doubting soul shakes off its hesitating weakness, is drawn back upon itself like a strong bow bent double, is compressed and full of a terrible latent power, like the handful of deadly explosive which, buried in the bosom of the rock, will presently shake the mighty cliff to its roots, as no thunderbolt could shake it. Vjera had made up her mind that she would save the man she loved from the destruction which was coming upon him. How he was to be saved, she knew not, but then and there, on the pavement of the commonplace Munich street, she made her stand and faced the odds, as bravely as ever soldier faced the enemy's triumphant charge, though she was only a forlorn little Polish shell-maker, without much health or strength, and having very little understanding of the danger beyond that which was given to her by her love. She fixed her eyes upon the Count's face as though she would have him obey her. "I will help you, and make everything right," she said. "But you must tell me what the trouble is." "But how can you help me, child?" he asked, beginning to grow calmer under her clear gaze. "It is such a very complicated case," he continued, falling back gradually into his own natural manner. "You see, my friends have probably arrived by this train, and yet I cannot go home until I have set this other matter right with Fischelowitz. It is true, I have left a word written for them on my table, and perhaps they are there now, waiting for me, and if I went home I could have the money at once. But then--it may be too late before I get here again--" "What money?" asked Vjera, anxious to get at the truth without delay. "Oh, it is an absurd thing," he answered, growing nervous again. "Quite absurd--and yet, it is fifty marks--and until they come, I do not see what to do. Fifty marks--to-day it seems so much, and to-morrow it will seem so little!" He made a poor attempt to smile, but his voice trembled. "But these fifty marks--what do you need them for to-night?" Vjera asked, not understanding at all. "Will not to-morrow do as well?" "No, no!" he cried in renewed anxiety. "It must be to-night, now, this very hour. If I do not pay the money, I am ruined, Vjera, disgraced for ever. It is a debt of honour--you do not understand what that means, child, nor how terrible it is for a man not to pay before the day is over--ah, if it were not a debt of honour!--but there is no time to be lost. It is almost dark already. Go home, dear Vjera, go home. I cannot go with you to-night, for I must find this money. Good-night--and then to-morrow--I have not forgotten, and you must not forget--but there is no time now--good-night!" He suddenly broke away from her side and began walking quickly in the opposite direction, his head bent down, his arms swinging by his side. She ran after him and again took his arm, and looked into his face. "You must not go away like this," she said, so firmly and with so much authority that he stood still. "You have only half explained the trouble to me, but I can help you. A debt of honour, you say--what will happen if you do not pay it?" "I must die," answered the Count. "I could never respect myself again." "You have borrowed this money of Fischelowitz and promised to pay it to-day? Is that it? Tell me." "No--I never borrowed it. No, no--it was that villain, last winter, who gave him the Gigerl--" "And Fischelowitz expects you to pay that!" cried Vjera, indignantly. "It is impossible." "When I took the Gigerl away last night I promised to bring the fifty marks by to-night. I gave my word, my word as a gentleman, Vjera, which I cannot break--my word, as a gentleman," he repeated with something of his old dignity. "It is monstrous that Fischelowitz should have taken such a promise," said Vjera. "That does not alter the obligation," answered the Count proudly. "Besides, I gave it of my own accord. I did not wait for him to ask it, after his wife accused me of being the means of his losing the money." "Oh, how could she be so heartless!" Vjera exclaimed. "What was the use of telling you? I did not mean to. Good-night, Vjera dear--I must be quick." He tried to leave her, but she held him fast. "I will get you the money at once," she said desperately and without the least hesitation. He started, in the utmost astonishment, staring at her as though he fancied that she had lost her senses. "You! Why, Vjera, how can you imagine that I would take it from you, or how do you think it would be possible for you to find it? You are mad, my dear child, quite mad!" In spite of everything, the tears broke from her eyes at the words which meant so much to her and which seemed to mean so little to him. But she brushed them bravely away. "You say you love me--you know that I love you. Do you trust me? Do you believe in me? And if you do, why then believe that I will do what I say. And as for taking the fifty marks from me--will not your friends be here to-night, as you say, and will you not be able to give it all back very soon? Only wait here--or no, go into the shop and talk to Fischelowitz--I will bring it to you in less than an hour, I promise you that I will--" "But how? Oh, Vjera--I am in such trouble that I could almost bring myself to borrow it of you if you could lend it--I despise myself, but it is growing so late, and it will only be until to-morrow, only for a few hours perhaps. If you will wait to-night I may bring it to you before bedtime. But--are you sure, Vjera? Have you really got it? If I should wait here--and you should not find it--and my word should be broken--" "For your word I give you mine. You shall have it in an hour." She tried to throw so much certainty into her tone as might persuade him, and she succeeded. "Where will you wait for me? In the shop?" she asked. "No--not there. In the Café here--I am tired--I will sit down and drink a cup of coffee. I think I have a little money--enough for that." He smiled faintly as he felt in his pockets. Then his face fell. On the previous evening, when they had led him away from the eating-house, he had carelessly given all he had--a mark and two pennies--to pay for his supper, throwing it to the fat hostess without any reckoning, as he went out. "Never mind," he said, after the fruitless search. "I will wait outside." But Vjera thrust a silver piece into his hand and was gone before he could protest. And in this way she took upon herself the burden of the Count's debt of honour. CHAPTER X. Vjera turned her head when she had reached the corner of the street, and saw that the Count had disappeared. He had entered the Café, and had evidently accepted her assurance that she would bring the money without delay. So far, at least, she had been successful. Though by far the most difficult portion of the enterprise lay before her, she was convinced that if she could really produce the fifty marks, the approaching catastrophe of total madness would be averted. Her determination was still so strong that she never doubted the possibility of performing her promise. Without hesitation, she returned to the shop, in search of Johann Schmidt, to whose energies and kindness she instinctively turned for counsel and help. As she came to the door she saw that he was just bidding good-night to his employer. She waited a moment and met him on the pavement as he came out. "I must have fifty marks in an hour, Herr Schmidt," she said, boldly. "If I do not get it, something dreadful will happen." "Fifty marks!" exclaimed the Cossack in a tone of amazement. If she had said fifty millions, the shock to his financial sense could not have been more severe. "It is an enormous sum," he said, slowly, while she fixed her eyes upon him, waiting for his answer. "What is the matter, Vjera? Have you not been able to pay your rent this year, and has old Homolka threatened to turn you out?" "Oh no! It is worse than that, far worse than that! If it were only myself--" she hesitated. "What is it? Who is it? Perhaps it is not so serious as you think. Tell me all about it." "There is very little time--only an hour. He is going mad--really mad, Herr Schmidt, because he has given his word of honour to pay Herr Fischelowitz that money this evening. I only calmed him, by promising to bring the money at once." "You promised that?" exclaimed Schmidt. "It was a very wild promise--" "I will keep it, and you must help me. We have an hour. If we do not succeed he will never be himself again." "But fifty marks!" Schmidt could not recover from his astonishment. "Oh, Vjera!" he exclaimed at last, in the simplicity of his heart, "how you must love him!" "I would do more than that--if I could," she answered. "But come, you will help me, will you not? I have a ten-mark piece and an old thaler put away at home. That makes thirteen, and two I have in my pocket, fifteen and--I am afraid that is all," she concluded after a slight hesitation. "And five are twenty," said the Cossack, producing the six which he had, and taking one silver piece out of the number to be returned to his pocket. The children must not starve on the morrow. "Oh, thank you, Herr Schmidt!" cried poor Vjera in a joyful voice as she eagerly took the proffered coins. "Twenty already! Why, twenty-five will be half, will it not? And I am sure that we can find the rest, then." "There is Dumnoff," said Schmidt. "He probably has something, too." "But I could not borrow of him--besides, if he knew it was for the Count--and he is so rough--he would not give it to us." "We shall see," answered the other, who knew his man. "Wait a moment. He is still inside." He re-entered the shop, where Fischelowitz and his wife were conversing under the gaslight. "I tell you," Akulina was saying, "that it is high time you got rid of him. The new workman from Vilna will take his place, and it is positively ridiculous to be made to submit to this madman's humours, and impertinence. What sort of a man are you, Christian Gregorovitch, to let the fellow carry off your Gigerl, with his airy promise to pay you the money to-day?" "The Gigerl was broken," observed the tobacconist. "Oh, it could have been mended; and if it was really stolen, was that our business, I would like to know? Nobody would ever have supposed, seeing it in our window, that it had been stolen. And it could have been mended, as I say, and might have been worth something after all. You never really tried to sell it, as you ought to have done from the very first. And now you have got nothing at all, nothing but that insolent maniac's promise. If I were you I would take the money out of his wages, I would indeed!" "No doubt you would," said Fischelowitz, with sincere conviction. Meanwhile Schmidt had gone into the back shop, where Dumnoff was still doggedly working, making up for the time he had lost by coming late in the morning. He was alone at his little table. "How much money have you got?" asked the Cossack, briefly. Dumnoff looked up rather stupidly, dropped the cigarette he was making, and felt in his pocket for his change. He produced five marks, an unusual sum for him to have in his possession, and which would not have found itself in his hands had not his arrest on the previous evening prevented his spending considerably more than he had spent in his favourite corn-brandy. "I want it all," said Schmidt. "You are a cool-blooded fellow," laughed Dumnoff, making as though he would return the coins to his pocket. "Look here, Dumnoff," answered the Cossack, his bright eyes gleaming. "I want that money. You know me, and you had better give it to me without making any trouble." Dumnoff seemed confused by the sharpness of the demand, and hesitated. "You seem in a great hurry," he said, with an awkward laugh, "I suppose you mean to give it back to me?" "You shall have it at the rate of a mark a day in the next five work days. You will get your pay this evening and that will be quite enough for you to get drunk with to-night." "That is true," said Dumnoff, thoughtfully. "Well, take it," he added, slipping the money into the other's outstretched palm. "Thank you," said the Cossack. "You are not so bad as you look, Dumnoff. Good-night." He was gone in a moment. Dumnoff stared at the door through which he had disappeared. "After all," he muttered, discontentedly, "he could not have taken it by force. I wonder why I was such a fool as to give it to him!" "I tell you," said Akulina to her husband as Schmidt passed through the outer shop, "that he will end by costing us so much in money lent, and squandered in charity, that the business will go to dust and feathers! I am only a weak woman, Christian Gregorovitch, but I have four children--" The Cossack heard no more, for he closed the street door behind him and returned to Vjera's side. She was standing as he had left her, absorbed in the contemplation of the financial crisis. "Five more," said he, giving her the silver. "That is one half. Now for the other. But are you quite sure, Vjera, that it is as bad as you think? I know that Fischelowitz does not in the least expect the money." "No--I daresay not. But I know this, if I had not met him just now and promised to bring him the fifty marks, he would have been raving mad before morning." Schmidt saw by her look that she was convinced of the fact. "Very well," he said. "I am not going to turn back now. The poor Count has done me many a good turn in his time, and I will do my best, though I do not exactly see what more I can do, at such short notice." "Have you got anything worth pawning, Herr Schmidt?" asked Vjera, ruthless, as devoted people can be when the object of their devotion is in danger. "Well--I have not much that I can spare. There is the bed--but my wife cannot sleep on the floor, though I would myself. And there are a few pots and pans in the kitchen--not worth much, and I do not know what we should do without them. I do not know, I am sure. I cannot take the children's things, Vjera, even for you." "No," said Vjera doubtfully. "I suppose not. Of course not!" she exclaimed, immediately afterwards, with an attempt to express conviction. "There is one thing--there is the old samovar," continued the Cossack. "It has a leak in one side, and we make the tea as we can, when we have any. But I remember that I once pawned it, years ago, for five marks." "That would make thirty," said Vjera promptly. "I do not believe they would lend so much on it now, though it is good metal. It is a little battered, besides being leaky." "Let us get it," said Vjera, beginning to walk briskly on. "I have something, too, though I do not know what it is worth. It is an old skin of a wolf--my father killed it inside the village, just before we came away." "A wolf skin!" exclaimed Schmidt. "That may be worth something, if it is good." "I am afraid it is not very good," answered Vjera doubtfully. "The hair comes out. I think it must have been a mangy wolf. And there is a bad hole on one side." "It was probably badly cured," said the Cossack, who understood furs. "But I can mend the hole in five minutes, so that nobody will see it." "We will get it, too. But I am afraid that it will not be nearly enough to make up the twenty-five marks. They could not possibly give us twenty marks for the skin, could they?" "No, indeed, unless you could sell it to some one who does not understand those things. And the samovar will not bring five, as I said. We must find something else." "Let us get the samovar first," said Vjera decisively. "I will wait downstairs till you get it, and then you will wait for me where I live, and after that we will go together. I may find something else. Indeed, I must, or we shall not have enough." They walked rapidly through the deepening shadows towards Schmidt's home. Vjera moved, as people do, who are possessed by an idea which must be put into immediate execution, her head high, her eyes full of light, her lips set, her step firm. Her companion was surprised to find that he needed to walk fast in order to keep by her side. He looked at her often, as he had looked all day, with an expression that showed at once much interest, considerable admiration and some pity. If he had not been lately brought to some new opinion concerning the girl he would certainly not have entered into her wild scheme for calming the Count's excitement without at least arguing the case lengthily, and discussing all the difficulties which presented themselves to his imagination. As it was, he felt himself carried away by a sort of enthusiasm in her cause, which would have led him to make even greater sacrifices than he had it in his power to offer. So strong was this feeling that he felt called upon to make a sort of apology. "I am sorry I cannot do more to help you," he said regretfully. "It is very little I know, but then, you see I am not alone in the world, Vjera. There are others to be thought of. And besides, I have just paid the rent, and there are no savings left." "Dear Herr Schmidt," answered Vjera gratefully, "you are doing too much already--but I cannot help taking all you give me, though I can thank you for it with all my heart." They did not speak again during the next few minutes, until they reached the door of the house in which the Cossack lived. "I shall only need a moment," he said, as he dived into the dark entrance. He lost so little time, that it seemed to Vjera as though the echo of his steps had not died away upon the stairs before she heard his footfall again as he descended. This time, however, there was a rattle and clatter of metal to be heard as well as his quick tread and the loud creaking of his coarse, stiff shoes. He emerged into the street with the body of the samovar under one arm. The movable brass chimney of the machine was sticking out of one of his pockets, and in his left hand he had its little tray, with the rings and other pieces belonging to the whole. Amongst those latter objects, which he grasped tightly in his fingers, there figured also the fragment of a small spoon of which the bowl had been broken from the handle. "It is silver," he said, referring to the latter utensil, as he held up the whole handful before Vjera's eyes. "But if we can find a jeweller's shop open, we will sell it. We can get more for it in that way. And now your wolf's skin, Vjera. And be sure to bring me a needle and some strong thread when you come down. I can mend the hole by the gaslight in the street, for Homolka would not understand it if he saw me going to your room, you know." She helped him to put all the smaller things into his pockets, so that he had only the samovar itself, and its metal tray to carry in his hands, and then they went briskly on towards Vjera's lodging. "Do you think we shall get three marks for the little spoon?" she asked, constantly preoccupied by her calculations. "Oh yes," Schmidt answered cheerfully. "We may get five. It is good silver, and they buy silver by weight." A few moments later she stood still before a narrow shop which was lighted within, though there was no lamp in the windows. It was that of a small watchmaker and jeweller, and a few silver watches and some cheap chains and trinkets were visible behind the glass pane. "Perhaps he may buy the spoon," suggested Vjera, anxious to lose no time. Without a word Schmidt entered the shop, while the girl stood outside. In less than five minutes he came out again with something in his hand. "Three and a half," he said, handing her the money. "I had hoped it would be worth more," she answered, putting the coins with the rest. "No. He weighed it with silver marks. It weighed just four of them, and he said he must have half a mark to make it worth his while." "Very well," said Vjera, "it is always something. I have twenty-eight and a half now." When they reached her lodging Schmidt set down the samovar upon the pavement and made himself a cigarette, while he waited for her. She was gone a long time, as it seemed to him, and he was beginning to wonder whether anything had happened, when she suddenly made her appearance, noiseless in her walk, as always. The old wolf's skin was hung over one shoulder, and she carried besides a limp-looking brown paper parcel, tied with a bit of folded ribband. As he caught sight of her face in the light of the street lamp, Schmidt fancied that she was paler than before, and that her cheek was wet. "I am sorry I was so long," she said. "The little sister cried because I would not stay, and I had to quiet her. Here is the skin. Do you see? I am afraid this is a very big hole--and the hair comes out in handfuls. Look at it." "It was a very old wolf," remarked the Cossack, holding the skin up under the gaslight. "Does that make it worth less?" asked Vjera anxiously. "Not of itself; on the contrary. And I can mend the hole, if you have the thread and needle. The worst thing about it all is the way the hairs fall out. I am afraid the moths have been at it, Vjera." He shook his head gravely. "I am afraid the moths have done a great deal of damage." "Oh, if I had only known--I would have been so careful! And to think that it might have been worth something." "It is worth something as it is, but at the pawnbroker's they will not lend much on it." He took the threaded needle, which she had not forgotten, and sitting down upon the edge of the pavement spread the skin upon his knees with the fur downwards. Then he quickly began to draw the hole together, sewing it firmly with the furrier's cross stitch, and so neatly that the seam looked like a single straight line on the side of the leather, while it was quite invisible in the fur on the other. "What is the other thing you have brought?" he inquired without looking up from his work. The light was bad, and he had to bend his eyes close to the sewing. "It is something I may be able to sell," said Vjera in a rather unsteady voice. "Silver?" asked Schmidt, cheerfully. "Oh no--not silver--something dearer," she said, almost under her breath. "I am afraid it is very hard for you to see," she added quickly, attempting to avoid his questions. "Do you not think that I could hold a match for you, to make a little more light? You always have some with you." "Wait a moment--yes--I have almost finished the seam--here is the box. Now, if you can hold the match just there, just over the needle, and keep it from going out, I can finish the end off neatly." Vjera knelt down beside him and held the flickering bit of wood as well as she was able. They made a strange picture, out in the unfrequented street, the dim glare of the gaslight above them, and the redder flame of the match making odd tints and shadows in their faces. Vjera's shawl had slipped back from her head and her thick tress of red-brown hair had found its way over her shoulder. An artist, strolling supperwards from his studio, came down their side of the way. He stopped and looked at them. "Has anything happened?" he asked kindly. "Can I be of any use?" Vjera looked up with a frightened glance. The Cossack paid no attention to the stranger. "Oh no, thank you--thank you, sir, it is nothing--only a little piece of work to finish." The artist gave one more look and passed on, wishing that he could have had pencil and paper and light at his command for five minutes. "There," said Schmidt triumphantly. "It is done, and very well done. And now for the pawn-shop, Vjera!" Vjera took the skin over her arm and her companion picked up the samovar with its tray, and they moved on again. Vjera's face was pale and sad, but she seemed more confident of success than ever, and her step was elastic and hopeful. Johann Schmidt's curiosity was very great, as has been seen on previous occasions. He did his best to control it, for some time, only trying to guess from the general appearance of the limp parcel what it might contain. But his ingenuity failed to solve the problem. At last he could bear it no longer. They were entering the street where the pawnbroker's shop was situated when his resolution broke down. "Is it a piece of lace?" he asked at a venture. "If it is, you know, and if it is good, it may be worth all the other things together." "No. It is not a piece of lace," answered the girl. "I will tell you what it is, if we do not get enough without it." "I only thought," explained the Cossack, "that if we were going to try and pawn it, I had better know--" "We cannot pawn it," said Vjera decisively. "It will have to be sold. Let us go in together." She spoke the last words as they reached the door of the pawn-shop. "I could save you the trouble," Schmidt suggested, offering to take the wolf's skin. But Vjera would not give it up. She felt that she must see everything done herself, if only to distract her thoughts from more painful matters. The place was half full of people, most of them with anxious faces, and all having some object or other in their hands. The pawn-shops do their best business in the evening. A man and a woman, both advanced in middle age, well fed, parsimoniously washed and possessing profiles of an outline disquieting to Christian prejudices, leaned over the counter, handled the articles offered them, consulted each other in incomprehensible monosyllables, talked volubly to the customers in oily undertones and from time to time counted out small doses of change which they gave to the eager recipients, accompanied by little slips of paper on which there were both printed and written words. The room was warm and redolent of poverty. A broad flame of gas burned, without a shade, over the middle of the counter. In spite of their unctuous tones the Hebrew and his wife did their business rapidly, with sharpness and decision. Either one of them would have undertaken to name the precise pawning value of anything on earth and, possibly, of most things in heaven, provided that the universe were brought piecemeal to their counter. Both Vjera and Schmidt had been made acquainted by previous necessities with the establishment. Vjera held her paper parcel in her hand. The other things were laid together upon the counter. The Hebrew woman glanced at the samovar, felt the weight of it and turned it once round. "Leaky," she observed in her smooth voice. "Old brass. One mark and a half." Her husband put out his hand, touched the machine, lifted it, and nodded. "Only a mark and a half!" exclaimed Vjera. "And the skin, how much for that?" "It is a genuine Russian wolf," Schmidt put in. "And it is very large." "Moth-eaten," said the Jewess. "And there is a hole in the side. Five marks." Schmidt held the fur up to the light and blew into it with a professional air, as furriers do. "Look at that!" he cried, persuasively. "Why, it is worth twenty!" The Hebrew lady, instead of answering extended a fat thumb and a plump, pointed forefinger, and pinching a score of hairs between the two, pulled them out without effort, and then held them close to the Cossack's eyes. "Five marks," she repeated, getting the money out and preparing to fill in a couple of pawn-tickets. "Make it ten, with the samovar!" entreated Vjera. The Jewess smiled. "Do you think the samovar is of gold?" she inquired. "Six and a half for the two. Take it or leave it." Vjera looked at Schmidt anxiously as though to ask his opinion. "They will not give more," he said, in Russian. The girl took the money and the flimsy tickets and they went out into the street. Vjera hesitated as to the direction she should take, and Schmidt looked to her as though awaiting her orders. "Twenty-eight and a half and six and a half are thirty-five," she said, thoughtfully. "And we have nothing more to give, but this. I must sell it, Herr Schmidt." "Well, what is it?" he asked, glad to know the secret at last. "It is my mother's hair. She cut it off herself when she knew she was dying and she told me to sell it if ever I needed a little money." The girl's voice trembled violently, and she turned her head away. Schmidt was silent and very grave. Then Vjera began to move on again, clutching the precious thing to her bosom and drawing her shawl over it. "The best man for this lives in the Maffei Strasse," said Schmidt after a few minutes. "Show me the way." Vjera turned as he directed. At that moment she would have lost herself in the familiar streets, had he not been there to guide her. The hairdresser's shop was brilliantly lighted, and as good fortune would have it, there were no customers within. With an entreating glance which he obeyed, Vjera made Schmidt wait outside. "Please do not look!" she whispered. "I can bear it better alone." The good fellow nodded and began to walk up and down. As Vjera entered the shop, the chief barber in command waltzed forward, as hairdressers always seem to waltz. At the sight of the poor girl, however, he assumed a stern appearance which, to tell the truth, was out of character with his style of beauty. His rich brown locks were curled and anointed in a way that might have aroused envy in the heart of an Assyrian dandy in the palmy days of Sardanapalus. "Do you buy hair?" asked Vjera, timidly offering her limp parcel. "Oh, certainly, sometimes," answered the barber. The youth in attendance--the barber tadpole of the hairdresser frog--abandoned the cleansing of a comb and came forward with a leer, in the hope that Vjera might turn out to be pretty on a closer inspection. In this he was disappointed. The man took the parcel and laid it on one of the narrow marble tables placed before a mirror in a richly gilt frame. He pushed aside the blue glass powder-box, the vial of brilliantine and the brushes. Vjera untied the bit of faded ribband herself and opened the package. The contents exhaled a faint, sickly odour. A tress of beautiful hair, of unusual length and thickness, lay in the paper. The colour was that which is now so much sought after, and which great ladies endeavour to produce upon their own hair, when they have any, by washing it with extra-dry champagne, while little ladies imitate them with a humble solution of soda. The colour in question is a reddish-brown with rich golden lights in it, and it is very rare in nature. The barber eyed the thick plait with a businesslike expression. "The colour is not so bad," he remarked, as though suggesting that it might have been very much better. "Surely, it is very beautiful hair!" said Vjera, her heart almost breaking at the sight of the tenderly treasured heirloom. Suddenly the man snuffed the odour, lifted the tress to his nose, and smelt it. Then he laid it down again and took the thicker end, which was tied tightly with a ribband, in his hands, pulling at the short lengths of hair which projected beyond the knot. They broke very easily, with an odd, soft snap. "It is worth nothing at all," said the barber decisively. "It is a pity, for it is a very pretty colour." Vjera started, and steadied herself against the back of the professional chair which stood by the table. "Nothing?" she repeated, half stupid with the pain of her disappointment. "Nothing? not even fifteen marks?" "Nothing. It is rotten, and could not be worked. The hairs break like glass." Vjera pressed her left hand to her side as though something hurt her. The tadpole youth grinned idiotically and the barber seemed anxious to end the interview. With a look of broken-hearted despair the girl turned to the table and began to do up her parcel again. Her shawl fell to the ground as she moved. Then the tadpole nudged his employer and pointed at Vjera's long, red-brown braid, and grinned again from ear to ear. "Is it fifteen marks that you want?" asked the man. "Fifteen--yes--I must have fifteen," repeated Vjera in dull tones. "I will give it to you for your own hair," said the barber with a short laugh. "For my own?" cried Vjera, suddenly turning round. It had never occurred to her that her own tress could be worth anything. "For my own?" she repeated as though not believing her ears. "Yes--let me see," said the man. "Turn your head again, please. Let me see. Yes, yes, it is good hair of the kind, though it has not the gold lights in it that the other had. But, to oblige you, I will give you fifteen for it." "But I must have the money now," said Vjera, suspiciously. "You must give me the money now, to take with me. I cannot wait." The barber smiled, and produced a gold piece and five silver ones. "You may hold the money in your hand," he said, offering it to her, "while you sit down and I do the work." Vjera clutched the coins fiercely and placed herself in the big chair before the mirror. She could see in the glass that her eyes were on fire. The barber loosened a screw in the back of the seat and removed the block with the cushion, handing it to his assistant. "The scissors, and a comb, Anton," he said briskly, lifting at the same time the heavy tress and judging its weight. The reflection of the steel flashed in the mirror, as the artist quickly opened and shut the scissors, with that peculiar shuffling jingle which only barbers can produce. "Wait a minute!" cried Vjera, with sudden anxiety, and turning her head as though to draw away her hair from his grasp. "One minute--please--fifteen and thirty-five are really fifty, are they not?" The tadpole began to count on his fingers, whispering audibly. "Yes," answered the barber. "Fifteen and thirty-five are fifty." The tadpole desisted, having already got into mathematical difficulties in counting from one hand over to the other. "Then cut it off quickly, please!" said poor Vjera, settling herself in the chair again, and giving her head to the shears. In the silence that followed, only the soft jingle of the scissors was heard. "There!" exclaimed the hairdresser, holding up a hand-mirror behind her. "I have been generous, you see. I have not cut it very short. See for yourself." "Thank you," said Vjera. "You are very kind." She saw nothing, indeed, but she was satisfied, and rose quickly. She tied up the limp parcel with the same old piece of faded ribband, and a little colour suddenly came into her face as she pressed it to her bosom. All at once, she lost control of herself, and with a sharp sob the tears gushed out. She stooped a little and drew her shawl over her head to hide her face. The tears wet her hands and the brown paper, and fell down to the greasy marble floor of the shop. "It will grow again very soon," said the barber, not unkindly. He supposed, naturally enough, that she was weeping over her sacrifice. "Oh no! It is not that!" she cried. "I am so--so happy to have kept this!" Then, without another word, she slipped noiselessly out into the street, clasping the precious relic to her breast. CHAPTER XI. "I have got it--I have got it all!" cried Vjera, as she came up with Schmidt on the pavement. His quick eye caught sight of the parcel, only half hidden by her shawl. "But you have brought the hair away with you," he said, in some anxiety, and fearing a mistake or some new trouble. "Yes," she answered. "That is the best of it." Her tears had disappeared as suddenly as they had come, and she could now hardly restrain the nervous laughter that rose to her lips. "But how is that?" asked Schmidt, stopping. "I gave them my own," she laughed, hysterically. "I gave them my own--instead. Quick, quick--there is no time to lose. Is it an hour yet, since I left him?" She ran along, and Schmidt found it hard to keep beside her without running, too. At last he broke into a sort of jog-trot. In five minutes they were at the door of the café. The Count was sitting at a small table near the door, an empty coffee-cup before him, staring with a fixed look at the opposite wall. There were few people in the place, as the performances at the theatres had already begun. Vjera entered alone. "I have brought you the money," she said, joyfully, as she stood beside him and laid a hand upon his arm to attract his attention, for he had not noticed her coming. "The money?" he said, excitedly. "The fifty marks? You have got it?" She sat down at the table, and began to count the gold and silver, producing it from her pocket in instalments of four or five coins, and making little heaps of them before him. "It is all there--every penny of it," she said, counting the piles again. The poor man's eyes seemed starting from his head, as he leaned eagerly forward over the money. "Is it real? Is it true?" he asked in a low voice. "Oh, Vjera, do not laugh at me--is it really true, child?" "Really true--fifty marks." Her pale face beamed with pleasure. "And now you can go and pay Fischelowitz at once," she added. But he leaned back a moment in his chair, looking at her intently. Then his eyes grew moist, and, when he spoke, his voice quivered. "May God forgive me for taking it of you," he said. "You have saved me, Vjera--saved my honour, my life--all. God bless you, dear, God bless you! I am very, very thankful." He put the coins carefully together and wrapped them in his silk handkerchief, and rose from his seat. He had already paid for his cup of coffee. They went out together. The Cossack had disappeared. "You have saved my life and my honour--my honour and my life," repeated the Count, softly and dwelling on the words in a dreamy way. "I will wait outside," said Vjera as they reached the tobacconist's shop, a few seconds later. The Count turned to her and laid both hands upon her shoulders, looking into her face. "You cannot understand what you have done for me," he said earnestly. He stooped, for he was much taller than she, and closing his tired eyes for a moment, he pressed his lips upon her waxen forehead. Before he had seen the bright blush that glowed in her cheeks, he had entered the shop. Akulina was seated in one corner, apparently in a bad humour, for her dark face was flushed, and her small eyes looked up savagely at the Count. Her husband was leaning over the counter, smoking and making a series of impressions in violet ink upon the back of an old letter, with an india-rubber stamp in which the word "Celebrated Manufactory" held a prominent place. He nodded familiarly. "Herr Fischelowitz," said the Count, regaining suddenly his dignity of manner and bearing, "in the course of the conversation last evening, I said that I would to-day refund the fifty marks which you once lent to that atrocious young man who wore green glasses. I daresay you remember the circumstance?" "I had quite forgotten it," said Fischelowitz. "Please do not allow it to trouble you, my dear Count. I never considered you responsible for it, and of course you cannot--" "It is a shame!" Akulina broke in, angrily. "You ought to make him pay it out of what he earns, since he took the Gigerl!" "Madam," said the Count, addressing her with great civility, "if it is agreeable to you, we will not discuss the matter. I only reminded Herr Fischelowitz of what took place because--" "Because you have no money--of course!" interrupted Akulina. "On the contrary, because I have brought the money, and shall be obliged to you if you will count it." Akulina's jaw dropped, and Fischelowitz looked up in amazement. The Count produced his knotted handkerchief and laid it on the table. "I only wish you to understand," he said, speaking to Akulina, "that when a gentleman gives his word he keeps it. Will you do me the favour to count the money?" "Of course, it is no business of ours to find out how he got it," observed Akulina, rising and coming forward. "None whatever, madam," answered the Count, spreading out the coins which had been collected by loving hands from so many sources. "The only question is, to ascertain whether there are fifty marks here or not." Fischelowitz stood looking on. He had not yet recovered from his surprise, and was half afraid that there might be something wrong. But the practical Akulina lost no time in assuring herself that the sum was complete. As she realised this fact, her features relaxed into a pleasant smile. "Well, Count," she said, "we are very much obliged to you for this. It is very honest of you, for of course, you were not exactly called upon--" "I understood you to say that I was," replied the Count, gravely. "Oh, that was yesterday, and I am very sorry if I annoyed you. But let bygones be bygones! I hope there is no ill-will between us?" "Oh, none at all," returned the other indifferently. "I have the honour to wish you a very good evening." Without waiting for more, the Count bowed and left the shop. "Akulina," said Fischelowitz, thoughtfully, as the door closed, "that man is a gentleman, say what you please." "A pretty gentleman," laughed Akulina, putting the money into the till. "A gentleman indeed--why, look at his coat!" "And you are a fool, Akulina," added Fischelowitz, handling his india-rubber stamp. "Thank you; but for my foolery you would be fifty marks poorer to-night, Christian Gregorovitch. A gentleman, pah!" The Count had drawn Vjera's willing arm through his, and they were walking slowly away together. "I must be going home," she said, reluctantly. "The little sister will be crying for me. I cannot leave her any longer." "Not till I have thanked you, dear," he answered, pressing her arm to his side. "But I will go with you to your door, and thank you all the way--though the way is far too short for all I have to say." "I have done nothing--it has really cost me nothing." Vjera squeezed her limp parcel under her shawl, and felt that she was speaking the truth. "I cannot believe that, Vjera," said the Count. "You could not have found so much money so quickly, without making some great sacrifice. But I will give it back to you--" "Oh no--no," she cried, earnestly. "Make no promises to me. Think what this promise has cost you. When you have the money, you may give it back if you choose--but it would make me so unhappy if you promised." "Would it, child? And yet, my friends are waiting for me, and they have money for me, too. Then, I will only say that I will give it back to you as soon as possible. Is that right?" "Yes--and nothing more than that. And as for thanking me--what have I done that needs thanks? Would you not have done as much for me if--if, for instance, I had been ill, and could not pay the rent of the room? And then--think of the happiness I have had!" The words were spoken so simply and it was so clear that they were true, that the Count found it hard to answer. Not because he had nothing to express, but because the words for the expression could not be found. Again he pressed her arm. "Vjera," he said, when they had walked some distance farther, "it is of no use to speak of this. There is that between you and me which makes speech contemptible and words ridiculous. There is only one thing that I can do, Vjera dearest. I can love you, dear, with all my heart. Will you take my love for thanks--and my devotion for gratitude? Will you, dear? Will you remember what you promised and what I promised last night? As soon as all is right, to-morrow, will you be my wife?" "If it could ever be!" sighed the poor girl, recalled suddenly to the remembrance of his pitiful infirmity. "It can be, it shall be and it will be," he answered in tones of conviction. "They are waiting for me now, Vjera, in my little room--but they may wait, for I will not lose a moment of your dear company for them all. They are waiting for me with the money and the papers and the orders. I have waited long for them, they can afford to have a little patience now. And to-morrow, at this time, we shall be together, Vjera, in the train--I will have a special carriage for you and me, and then, a night and a day and another night and we shall be at home--for ever. How happy we shall be! Will you not be happy with me, darling? Why do you sigh?" "Did I sigh?" asked Vjera, trying to laugh a little. He hardly noticed the question, but began to talk again, as he had talked on the previous evening, describing all that he meant to do, and all that they would do together. Vjera heard and tried not to listen. Her joy was all gone. The great, overwhelming pleasure she had felt in dispelling his anxiety and in averting what had seemed a near and terrible catastrophe, gave place to the old, heartrending pity for him, as he rambled on in his delusion. She had hoped that, as it was late on Wednesday evening, the time of it was passed and that, for another week, he would talk no more of his friends and his money and his return to fortune. But the fixed idea was there still, as dominant as ever. Her light tread grew weary and her head sank forward as she walked. For one short hour she had felt the glory of sacrificing all she had to give, to her love. Are there many who have felt as much, with as good reason, in a whole lifetime? But the hour was gone, taking with it the reality and leaving in its place a memory, fair, brilliant, and dear as the tress of golden hair Vjera was carrying home in her parcel, but as useless perhaps and as valueless in the world of realities as that had proved to be. They reached her door and stopped in their walk. She looked up sadly into his eyes, as she held out her hand. He hesitated a moment, and then threw both his arms round her and drew her to his heart and kissed her passionately again and again. She tried to draw back. "Oh no, no!" she cried. "It cannot be so to-morrow--why should you kiss me to-day?" But he would not let her go. She loved him, though she knew he was mad, and she let her head fall upon his shoulder, and allowed herself to believe in love for a moment. Suddenly she felt that he was startled by something. "Vjera!" he cried. "Have you cut off your beautiful hair? What have you done, child? How could you do it?" "It was so heavy," she said, looking up with a bright smile. "It made my head ache--it is best so." But he was not satisfied, for he guessed something of the truth, and the pain and horror that thrilled him told him that he had guessed rightly. "You have cut it off--and you have sold it--you have sold your hair for me--" he stammered in a broken voice. She hung her head a little. "I always meant to cut it off. I did not care for it, you know. And besides," she added, suddenly looking up again, "you will not love me less, will you? They said it would grow again--you will not love me less?" "Love you less? Ah, Vjera, that promise I may make at least--never--to the end of ends!" "And yet," she answered, "if it should all be true--if it only should--you could not--oh, I should not be worthy of you--you could never marry me." The Count drew back a step and held out his right hand, with a strangely earnest look in his weary eyes. She laid her fingers in his almost unconsciously. Then, as though he were in a holy place, he took off his hat, and stood bareheaded before her. "If I forsake you, Vjera," he said very solemnly, "if I forsake you ever, in riches or in poverty, in honour or in disrepute, may the God of heaven forsake me in the hour of my death." He swore the great oath deliberately, in a strong, clear voice, and then was silent for a moment, his eyes turned upwards, his attitude unchanged. Then he raised the poor girl's thin hand to his lips and kissed it, three times, reverently, as devout persons kiss the relics of departed saints. "Good-night, Vjera," he said, quietly. "We shall meet to-morrow." Vjera was awed by his solemn earnestness, and strongly moved by his action. "Good-night," she answered, lovingly. "Heaven bless you and keep you safe." She looked for a last time into his face, as though trying to impress upon her mind the memories of that fateful evening, and then she withdrew into the house, shutting the street door behind her. The Count stood still for several minutes, unconsciously holding his hat in his hand. At last he covered his head and walked slowly away in the direction of his home. By degrees his mind fell into its old groove and he hastened his steps. From time to time, he fancied that some one was following him at no great distance, but though he glanced quickly over his shoulder he saw no one in the dimly-lighted street. The door of the house in which he lived was open, and he ran up the stairs at a great pace, sure that by this time his friends must be waiting for him in his room. When he reached it, all was dark and quiet. The echo of his own footsteps seemed still to resound in the staircase as he closed his door and struck a match. He found his small lamp in a corner, lighted it with some difficulty, set it on the table and sat down. There, beside him, propped up against two books, was the piece of paper on which he had written the few words for his friends, in case they came while he was out. He took it up, looked over it absently and began to fold it upon itself again and again. "Dear Vjera!" he exclaimed, in a low caressing tone, as he smoothed the folded strip between his fingers. He was thinking, and thinking connectedly, of all that had just taken place, and wondering how it was that he had been able to accept such a sacrifice from one so little able to sacrifice anything. It seemed as though it should have been impossible for him to let the poor little shell-maker take upon herself his burden, and free him of it and set him right again in his own eyes. "I know that I love her now," he said to himself. And he was right. There are secret humiliations to which no man would submit, as such, but from which love, when it is real, can take away the sting and the poison. The man of heart, who does not love but is loved in spite of himself, fears to accept a sacrifice, lest in so doing he should seem to declare his readiness to do as he is done by, from like motives. But when love is on both sides there is no such drawing back from love's responsibilities. The sacrifice is accepted not only with gratitude, but with joy, as a debt of which the repayment by sacrifice again constitutes in itself a happiness. And thus, perhaps, it is that they love best who love in sorrow and in want, in worldly poverty and in distress of soul, for they alone can know what joy it is to receive, and what yet infinitely greater joy lies in giving all when all is sorely needed. But as the Count dwelt on the circumstances he saw also what it was that Vjera had done, and he wondered how she could have found the strength to do it. He did not, indeed, say to himself that for his sake she had parted with her only beauty, for he had never considered whether she were good-looking or not. The bond between them was of a different nature, and would not have been less strong had Vjera been absolutely ugly instead of being merely, what is called, plain. He would have loved her as well, had she been a cripple, or deformed, just as she loved him in spite of his madness. But he knew well enough how women, even the most wretched, value their hair when it is beautiful, what care they bestow upon it and what consolation they derive from the rich, silken coil denied to fairer women than themselves. There is something in the thought of cutting off the heavy tress and selling it which appeals to the pity of most people, and which, to women themselves, is full of horror. A man might have felt the same in those days when long locks were the distinctive outward sign of nobility in man, and perhaps the respect of that obsolete custom has left in the minds of most people a sort of unconscious tradition. However that may be, we all feel that in one direction, at least, a woman's sacrifice can go no further than in giving her head to the shears. The longer the Count thought of this, the more his gratitude increased, and the more fully he realised at what great cost poor Vjera had saved him from what he considered the greatest conceivable dishonour, from the shame of breaking his word, no matter under what conditions it had been given. He could, of course, repay her the money, so soon as his friends arrived, but by no miracle whatever could he restore to her head the only beauty it had ever possessed. He had scarcely understood this at first, for he had been confused and shaken by the many emotions which had in succession played upon his nervous mind and body during the past twenty-four hours. But now he saw it all very clearly. He had taken only money, which he would be able to restore; she had given a part of herself, irrevocably. So deeply absorbed was he in his thoughts that the clocks struck many successive quarters without rousing him from his reverie, or suggesting again to him the fixed idea by which his life was governed on that day of the week. But as midnight drew near, the prolonged striking of the bells at every quarter at last attracted his attention. He started suddenly and rose from his seat, trying to count the strokes, but he had not heard the first ones and was astray in his reckoning. It was very late, that was certain, and not many minutes could elapse before the door would open and his friends would enter. He hastily smoothed his hair, looked to the flame of his bright little lamp and made a trip of inspection round the room. Everything was in order. He was almost glad that they were to come at night, for the lamplight seemed to lend a more cheerful look to the room. The Turkey-red cotton counterpane on the bed looked particularly well, the Count thought. During the next fifteen minutes he walked about, rubbing his hands softly together. At the first stroke of the following quarter he stood still and listened intently. Four quarters struck, and then the big bell began to toll the hour. It must be eleven, he thought, as he counted the strokes. Eleven--twelve--he started, and turned very white, but listened still, for he knew that he should hear another clock striking in a few seconds. As the strokes followed each other, his heart beat like a fulling-hammer, giving a succession of quick blows, and pausing to repeat the rhythmic tattoo more loudly and painfully than before. Ten--eleven--twelve--there was no mistake. The day was over. It was midnight, and no one had come. The room swam with him. Then, as in a vision of horror, he saw himself standing there, as he had stood many times before, listening for the last stroke, and suddenly awaking from the dream to the crushing disappointment of the reality. For one brief and terrible moment his whole memory was restored to him and he knew that his madness was only madness, and nothing more, and that it seized him in the same way, week by week, through the months and the years, leaving him thus on the stroke of twelve each Wednesday night, a broken, miserable, self-deceived man. As in certain dreams, we dream that we have dreamed the same things before, so with him an endless calendar of Wednesdays was unrolled before his inner sight, all alike, all ending in the same terror of conscious madness. He had dreamed it all, there was no one to come to him in his distress, no one would ever enter that lonely room to bring back to him the treasures of a glorious past, for there was no one to come. It had all been a dream from beginning to end and there was no reality in it. He staggered to his chair and sat down, pressing his lean hands to his aching temples and rocking himself to and fro, his breath hissing through his convulsively closed teeth. Still the fearful memory remained, and it grew into a prophetic vision of the future, reflecting what had been upon the distant scenery of what was yet to be. With that one deadly stroke of the great church bell, all was gone--fortune, friends, wealth, dignity. The majestic front of the palace of his hopes was but a flimsy, painted tissue. The fire that ran through his tortured brain consumed the gaudy, artificial thing in the flash and rush of a single flame, and left behind only the charred skeleton framework, which had supported the vast canvas. And then, he saw it again and again looming suddenly out of the darkness, brightening into beauty and the semblance of strength, to be as suddenly destroyed once more. With each frantic beat of his heart the awful transformation was renewed. For dreams need not time to spin out their intolerable length. With each burning throb of his raging blood, every nerve in his body, every aching recess of his brain, was pierced and twisted, and pierced again with unceasing agony. Then a new horror was added to the rest. He saw before him the poor Polish girl, her only beauty shorn away for his sake, he saw all that he had promised in return, and he knew that he had nothing to give her, nothing, absolutely, save the crazy love of a wretched madman. He could not even repay her the miserable money which had cost her so dear. Out of his dreams of fortune there was not so much as a handful of coin left to give the girl who had given all she had, who had sold her hair to save his honour. With frightful vividness the truth came over him. That honour of his, he had pledged it in the recklessness of his madness. She had saved it out of love, and he had not even--but no--there was a new memory there--love he had for her, passionate, tender, true, a love that had not its place among the terrors of the past. But--was not this a new dream, a new delusion of his shaken brain? And if he loved her, was it not yet more terrible to have deceived the loved one, more monstrous, more infamous, more utterly damnable? The figure of her rose before him, pitiful, thin, weak, with outstretched hands and trusting eyes--and he had taken of her all she had. Neither heart, nor body, nor brain could bear more. "Vjera! God! Forgive me!" With the cry of a breaking heart the poor Count fell forward from his seat and lay in a heap, motionless upon the floor. Only his stiffening fingers, crooked and contorted, worked nervously for a few minutes, scratching at the rough boards. Then all was quite still in the little room. There was a noise outside, and some one opened the door. The Cossack stood upon the threshold, holding his hand up against the lamp, for he was dazzled as he entered from the outer darkness of the stairs. He looked about, and at first saw nothing, for the Count had fallen in the shadow of the table. Then, seeing where he lay, Johann Schmidt came forward and knelt down, and with some difficulty turned his friend upon his back. "Dead--poor Count!" he exclaimed in a low voice, bending down over the ghastly face. The pale eyes were turned upward and inward, and the forehead was damp. Schmidt unbuttoned the threadbare coat from the breast. There was no waistcoat under it--nothing but a patched flannel shirt. A quantity of papers were folded neatly in a flat package in the inner pocket. Schmidt put down his head and listened for the beatings of the heart. "So it is over!" he said mournfully, as he straightened himself upon his knees. Then he took one of the extended hands in his, and pressed it, and looked into the poor man's face, and felt the tears coming into his eyes. "You were a good man," he said in sorrowful tones, "and a brave man in your way, and a true gentleman--and--I suppose it was not your fault if you were mad. Heaven give you peace and rest!" He rose to his feet, debating what he should do. "Poor Vjera!" he sighed. "Poor Vjera--she will go next!" Once more, he looked down, and his eye caught sight of the papers projecting from the inner pocket of the coat, which was still open and thrown back upon the floor. It has been noticed more than once that Johann Schmidt was a man subject to attacks of quite irresistible curiosity. He hesitated a moment, and then came to the conclusion that he was as much entitled as any one else to be the Count's executor. "It cannot harm him now," he said, as he extracted the bundle from its place. One of the letters was quite fresh. The rest were evidently very old, being yellow with age and ragged at the edges. He turned over the former. It was addressed to Count Skariatine, at his lodging, and it bore the postmark of a town in Great-Russia, between Petersburg and Moscow. Schmidt took out the sheet, and his face suddenly grew very dark and angry. The handwriting was either in reality Akulina's, or it resembled it so closely as to have deceived a better expert than the Cossack. The missive purported to be written by the wife of Count Skariatine's steward, and it set forth in rather servile and illiterate language that the said Count Skariatine and his eldest son were both dead, having been seized on the same day with the smallpox, of which there had been an epidemic in the neighbourhood, but which was supposed to have quite disappeared when they fell ill. A week later and within twenty-four hours of each other they had breathed their last. The Count Boris Michaelovitch was now the heir, and would do well to come home as soon as possible to look after his possessions, as the local authorities were likely to make a good thing out of it in his absence. The Cossack swore a terrific oath, and stamped furiously on the floor as he rose to his feet. It was evident to him that Akulina had out of spite concocted the letter, and had managed to have it posted by some friend in Russia. He was not satisfied with one expletive, nor with many. The words he used need not be translated for the reader of the English language. It is enough to say that they were the strongest in the Cossack vocabulary, that they were well selected and applied with force and precision. Johann Schmidt was exceedingly wroth with the tobacconist's wife, for it was clear that she had caused the Count's untimely death by her abominable practical joke. He went and leaned out of the window, churning and gnashing the fantastic expressions of his rage through his teeth. Suddenly there was a noise in the room, a distinct, loud noise, as of shuffling with hands and feet. The Cossack's nerves were proof against ghostly terrors, but as he turned round he felt that his hair was standing erect upon his head. The Count was on his feet and was looking at him. CHAPTER XII. "I thought you were dead!" gasped the Cossack in dismay. There was no answer. The Count did not appear to hear Schmidt's voice nor to see his figure. He acted like a man walking in his sleep, and it was by no means certain to the friend who watched him that his eyes were always open. As though nothing unusual had happened, the Count calmly undressed himself and got into bed. Three minutes later he was sound asleep and breathing regularly. For a long time Johann Schmidt stood transfixed with wonder in his place at the open window. At last it dawned upon him that his friend had not been really dead, but had fallen into some sort of fit in the course of his lonely meditations, from which he had been awakened by the Cossack's terrific swearing. Why the latter had seemed to be invisible and inaudible to him, was a matter which Schmidt did not attempt to solve. It was clear that the Count was alive, and sleeping like other people. Schmidt hesitated some time as to what he should do. It was possible that his friend might wake again, and find himself desperately ill. He had been so evidently unlike himself, that Schmidt had feared he would become a raving maniac in the night, and had entered the house at his heels, seating himself upon the stairs just outside the door to wait for events, with the odd fidelity and forethought characteristic of him. The Count's cry had warned him that all was not right and he had entered the room, as has been seen. He determined to wait some time longer, to see whether anything would happen. Meanwhile, he thrust Akulina's letter into his pocket, reflecting that as it was a forgery it would be best that the Count should not have it, lest he should be again misled by the contents. He sat down and waited. Nothing happened. The clocks chimed the quarters up to one in the morning, a quarter-past, half-past--Schmidt was growing sleepy. The Count breathed regularly and lay in his bed without moving. Then, at last, the Cossack rose, looked at his friend once more, blew out the lamp, felt his way to the door and left the room. As he walked home through the quiet streets he swore that he would take vengeance upon Akulina, by producing the letter and reading it in her husband's presence, and before the assembled establishment, before the Count made his appearance. It was indeed not probable that he would come at all, considering all that he had suffered, though Schmidt knew that he generally came on Thursday morning, evidently weary and exhausted, but unconscious of the delusion which had possessed him during the previous day. Possibly, he was subject to a similar fit every Wednesday night, and had kept the fact a secret. Schmidt had always wondered what happened to him at the moment when he suddenly forgot his imaginary fortune and returned to his everyday senses. The morning dawned at last, and it was Thursday. As there was no necessity for liberating the Count from arrest to-day, Akulina roused her husband with the lark, gave him his coffee promptly and sent him off to open the shop and catch the early customer. Before the shutters had been up more than a quarter of an hour, and while Fischelowitz was still sniffing the fresh morning air, Johann Schmidt appeared. His step was brisk, his brow was dark and his boots creaked ominously. With a very brief salutation he passed into the back shop, slipped off his coat and set to work with the determination of a man who feels that he must do something active as a momentary relief to his feelings. Next came Vjera, paler than ever, with great black rings under her tired eyes, broken with the fatigues and anxieties of the previous day, but determined to double her work, if that were possible, in order to make up for the money she had borrowed of Schmidt and, through him, of Dumnoff. As she dropped her shawl, Fischelowitz caught sight of the back of her head, and broke into a laugh. "Why, Vjera!" he cried. "What have you done? You have made yourself look perfectly ridiculous!" The poor girl turned scarlet, and busied herself at her table without answering. Her fingers trembled as she tried to handle her glass tube. The Cossack, whose anger had not been diluted by being left to boil all night, dropped his swivel knife and went up to Fischelowitz with a look in his face so extremely disagreeable that the tobacconist drew back a little, not knowing what to expect. "I will tell you something," said Schmidt, savagely. "You will have to change your manners if you expect any of us to work for you." "What do you mean?" stammered Fischelowitz, in whom nature had omitted to implant the gift of physical courage, except in such measure as saved him from the humiliation of being afraid of his wife. "I mean what I say," answered the Cossack. "And if there is anything I hate, it is to repeat what I have said before hitting a man." His fists were clenched already, and one of them looked as though it were on the point of making a very emphatic gesture. Fischelowitz retired backwards into the front shop, while Vjera looked on from within, now pale again and badly frightened. "Herr Schmidt! Herr Schmidt! Please, please be quiet! It does not matter!" she cried. "Then what does matter?" inquired the Cossack over his shoulders, "If Vjera has cut off her hair," he said, turning again to Fischelowitz, "she has had a good reason for it. It is none of your business, nor mine either." So saying he was about to go back to his work again. "Upon my word!" exclaimed the tobacconist. "Upon my word! I do not understand what has got into the fellow." "You do not understand?" cried Schmidt, facing him again. "I mean that if you laugh at Vjera I will break most of your bones." At that moment Akulina's stout figure appeared, entering from the street. The Cossack stood still, glaring at her, his face growing white and contracted with anger. He was becoming dangerous, as good-tempered men will, when roused, especially when they have been brought up among people who, as a tribe, would rather fight than eat, at any time of day, from pure love of the thing. Even Akulina, who was not timid, hesitated as she stood on the threshold. "What has happened?" she inquired, looking from Schmidt to her husband. The latter came to her side, if not for protection, as might be maliciously supposed, at least for company. "I cannot understand at all," said Fischelowitz, still edging away. "You understand well enough, I think, and as for you, Frau Fischelowitz, I have something to talk of with you, too. But we will put it off until later," he added, as though suddenly changing his mind. The Count himself had appeared in the doorway behind Akulina. Both she and her husband stood aside, looking at him curiously. "Good-morning," he said, gravely taking off his hat and inclining his head a little. He acted as though quite unconscious of what had happened on the previous day, and they watched him as he quietly went into the room beyond, into which the Cossack had retired on seeing him enter. He hung up his hat in its usual place, nodding to Schmidt, who was opposite to him. Then, as he turned, he met Vjera's eyes. It was a supreme moment for her, poor child. Would he remember anything of what had passed on the previous day? Or had he forgotten all, his debt, her saving of him and the sacrifice she had made? He looked at her so long and so steadily that she grew frightened. Then all at once he came close to her, and took her hand and kissed it as he had done when they had last parted, careless of Schmidt's presence. "I have not forgotten, dear Vjera," he whispered in her ear. Schmidt passed them quickly and again went out, whether from a sense of delicacy, or because he saw an opportunity of renewing the fight outside, is not certain. He closed the door of communication behind him. Vjera looked up into the Count's eyes and the blush that rarely came, the blush of true happiness, mounted to her face. "I have not forgotten, dearest," he said again. "There is a veil over yesterday--I think I must have been ill--but I know what you did for me and--and--" he hesitated as though seeking an expression. For a few seconds again the poor girl felt the agony of suspense she knew so well. "I do not know what right a man so poor as I has to say such a thing, Vjera," he continued. "But I love you, dear, and if you will take me, I will love you all my life, more and more. Will it be harder to be poor together than each for ourselves, alone?" Vjera let her head fall upon his shoulder, happy at last. What did his madness matter now, since the one memory she craved had survived its destroying influence? He had forgotten his glorious hopes, his imaginary wealth, his expected friends, but he had not forgotten her, nor his love for her. "Thank God!" she sighed, and the happy tears fell from her eyes upon the breast of his threadbare coat. "But we must not forget to work, dear," she said, a few moments later. "No," he answered. "We must not forget to work." As she sat down to her table he pushed her chair back for her, and put into her hands her little glass tube, and then he went and took his own place opposite. For a long time they were left alone, but neither of them seemed to wonder at it, nor to hear the low, excited tones of many voices talking rapidly and often together in the shop outside. Whenever their eyes met, they both smiled, while their fingers did the accustomed mechanical work. When Schmidt entered the outer shop for the second time, he found the tobacconist and his wife conversing in low tones together, in evident fear of being overheard. He came and stood before them, lowering his voice to the pitch of theirs, as he spoke. "It is no fault of yours that the Count was not found dead in his bed this morning," he began, fixing his fiery eyes on Akulina. "What? What? What is this?" asked Fischelowitz excitedly. "Only this," said the Cossack, displaying the letter he had brought from the Count's rooms. "Nothing more. Your wife has succeeded very well. He is quite mad now. I found him last night, helpless, in a sort of fit, stiff and stark on the floor of his room. And this was in his pocket. Read it, Herr Fischelowitz. Read it, by all means. I suppose your wife does not mind your reading the letters she writes." Fischelowitz took the letter stupidly, turned it over, saw the address, and took out the folded sheet. Akulina's face expressed a blank amazement almost comical in its vacuity. For once, she was taken off her guard. Her husband read the letter over twice and examined the handwriting curiously. "A joke is a joke, Akulina," he said at last. "But you have carried this too far. What if the Count had died?" "I would like to know what I am accused of," said Akulina, "and what all this is about." "I suppose you know your own handwriting," observed the Cossack, taking the letter from the tobacconist's hands and holding it before her eyes. "And if that is not enough to drive the poor man to the madhouse I do not know what is. Perhaps you have forgotten all about it? Perhaps you are mad, too?" Akulina read the writing in her turn. Then she grew very angry. "It is an abominable lie!" she exclaimed. "I never had anything to do with it. I do not know whence this letter comes, and I do not care. I know nothing about it." "I suppose no one can prevent your saying so, at least," retorted the Cossack. "It is very queer," observed Fischelowitz, suddenly thrusting his hands into his pockets and beginning to whistle softly as he looked through the shop window. "When I tell you that it is not my handwriting, you ought to be satisfied--" Akulina began. "And yet none of us are," interrupted the Cossack with a laugh. "Strange, is it not?" Dumnoff now came in, and a moment later the insignificant girl, who began to giggle foolishly as soon as she saw that something was happening which she could not understand. "None of us are satisfied," continued Johann Schmidt, taking the letter from Akulina. "Here, Dumnoff, here Anna Nicolaevna, is this the Chosjaika's handwriting or not? Let everybody see and judge." "It is outrageous!" exclaimed Akulina, trying to get possession of the letter again. "You see how she tries to get it," laughed the Cossack, savagely. "She would be glad to tear it to pieces--of course she would." "I wish you would all go about your business," said Fischelowitz with an approach to asperity. Akulina was furious, but she did not know what to do. Everybody began talking together. "Of course it is the Barina's handwriting," said Dumnoff confidently. He supposed it was always safe to follow Schmidt's lead, when he followed any one. "Of course it is," chimed in the insignificant Anna. "You--you minx--you flatter-cat, you little serpent!" cried Akulina, speaking three languages at once in her excitement. "Go--get along--go to your work--" "No, no, stay!" exclaimed the Cossack authoritatively. "Do you know what this is?" he asked of all present again. "Our good mistress, here, has for some reason or other been trying to make the Count worse by having sham letters posted to him from home--" "It is a lie! A base, abominable lie! Turn the man out, Christian Gregorovitch! Turn him out, or send for the police." "Turn him out yourself," answered the tobacconist phlegmatically. "Posted to him from home," continued the Cossack, "and telling him that his father and brother are dead and that he has come into property and the like. What do you think of that?" "It is a shame," growled Dumnoff, beginning to understand. The girl laughed foolishly. "I swear to you," began Akulina, crimson with anger. "I swear to you by all--" "Customers, customers!" exclaimed Fischelowitz in a stage whisper. "Quiet, I tell you!" He made a rush for the other side of the counter, and briskly assumed his professional smile. The others fell back into the corners. Two gentlemen in black entered the shop. The one was a stout, angry-looking person of middle age, very dark, and very full about the lower part of the face, which was not concealed by the closely cut black beard. His companion was a diminutive little man, very thin and very spruce, not less than fifty years old. His face was entirely shaved and was deeply marked with lines and furrows. A pair of piercing grey eyes looked through big gold-rimmed spectacles. As he took off his hat, a few thin, sandy-coloured locks fluttered a little and then settled themselves upon the smooth surface of his cranium, like autumn leaves falling upon a marble statue in a garden. "Herr Fischelowitz?" inquired the larger of the two customers, touching his hat but not removing it. "At your service," answered the tobacconist. "Cigarettes?" he inquired. "Strong? Light? Kir, Samson, Dubec?" "I am the new Russian Consul," said the stranger. "This gentleman is just arrived from Petersburg and has business with you." "My name is Konstantin Grabofsky, and I am a lawyer," observed the little man very sharply. Fischelowitz bowed till his nose almost came into collision with the counter. The others in the shop held their peace and opened their eyes. "And I am told that Count Boris Michaelovitch Skariatine is here," continued the lawyer. "Oh--the mad Count!" exclaimed Akulina with an angry laugh, and coming forward. "Yes, we can tell you all about him." "I am sorry," said Grabofsky, "to hear you call him mad, since my business is with him, Barina, and not with you." His tone was, if possible, more incisive than before. "Of course, we know that he is not a Count at all," said Akulina, somewhat annoyed by his sharpness. "Do you? Then you are singularly mistaken. I shall be obliged if you will inform Count Skariatine that Konstantin Grabofsky desires the honour of an interview with him." "Go and call him, Akulina," said Fischelowitz, "since the gentleman wishes to see him." "Go yourself," retorted his wife. "Go together, and be quick about it!" said the Consul, who was tired of waiting. "And please to say that I wait his convenience," added the lawyer. Dumnoff moved to Schmidt's side and whispered into his ear. "Do you think they have come about the Gigerl?" he inquired anxiously. "Do you think they will arrest us again?" "Durak!" laughed the Cossack. "How can two Russian gentlemen arrest you in Munich? This is something connected with the Count's friends. It is my belief that they have come at last. See--here he is." The Count now entered from the back shop, calm and collected, as though not expecting anything extraordinary. The Russian Consul took off his hat and bowed with great politeness and the Count returned the salutation with equal civility. Fischelowitz and Akulina stood in the background anxiously watching events. The lawyer also bowed and then, turning his face to the light, held his hand out. "You have not forgotten me, Count Skariatine?" he said, in a tone of inquiry. The Count stared hard at him as he took the proffered hand. Gradually, his face underwent a change. His forehead contracted, his eyes closed a little, his eyebrows rose, and an expression of quiet disdain settled about the lines of his mouth. "I know you very well," he answered. "You are Doctor Konstantin Grabofsky, my father's lawyer. Do you come from him to renew the offer you made when we parted?" "I have no offer to make," said the little man. "Will you do me the honour to indicate some place where we may be alone together for a moment?" "I have no objection to that," replied the Count. "We can go into the street." They passed out together, leaving the establishment of Christian Fischelowitz in a condition of great astonishment. The tobacconist hastily produced his best cigarettes and entreated the Consul to try one, making signs to the other occupants of the shop to return to their occupations in the inner room. "How long have you known Count Skariatine?" inquired the Consul, carelessly, when he was alone with Fischelowitz. "Six or seven years," answered the latter. "I suppose you know his story? Your wife was good enough to inform us of that fact, though Doctor Grabofsky has reason to doubt the value of her information." "We only know that he calls himself a Count." Fischelowitz held the authorities of his native country in holy awe, and was almost frightened out of his senses at being thus questioned by the Consul. "He is quite at liberty to do so," answered the latter with a laugh. "The story is simple enough," he continued, "and there is no reason why you should not know it. The late Count Skariatine had two sons, of whom the present Count was the younger. Ten years ago, when barely twenty, he quarrelled with his father and elder brother, and they parted in anger. I must say that he seems to have acted hastily, though the old gentleman's views of life were eccentric, to say the least of it. For some reason or other, the elder brother never married. I have heard it said that he was crippled in childhood. Be that as it may, he was vindictive and spiteful by nature, and prevented the quarrel from being forgotten. The younger brother left the house with the clothes on his back, and steadily refused to accept the small allowance offered him, and which was his by right. And now the father and the eldest son are dead--they died suddenly of the smallpox--and Doctor Grabofsky has come to inform the Count that he is the heir. There you have the story in a nutshell." "Then it is all true, after all!" cried Fischelowitz. "We all thought--" "Thinking, when one knows nothing, is a dangerous and useless pastime," observed the Consul. "I will take a box of these cigarettes with me. They are good." "Thank you most obediently, Milostivy Gosudar!" exclaimed Fischelowitz, bowing low. "I trust that the Gospodin Consul will honour me with his patronage. I have a great variety of tobaccos, Kir, Basma, Samson, Dubec Imperial, Swary--" While Fischelowitz was recommending the productions of his Celebrated Manufactory to the Consul, Grabofsky and the Count were walking together up and down the smooth pavement outside. "A great change has taken place in your family," Grabofsky was saying. "Had anything less extraordinary occurred, I should have written to you instead of coming in person. Your brother is dead, Count Skariatine." "Dead!" exclaimed the Count, who had no recollection of the letter abstracted from his pocket by the Cossack. It had reached him after the weekly attack had begun, and the memory of it was gone with that of so many other occurrences. "Dead," repeated the lawyer sharply, as though he would have made a nail of the word to drive it into the coffin. "And how many children has he left?" inquired the Count. "He died unmarried." "So that I--" "You are the lawful heir." "Unless my father marries again." The colour rose in the Count's lean cheeks. "That is impossible." "Why?" "Because he is dead, too." "Then--" "You are Count Skariatine, and I have the honour to offer you my services at this important juncture." The Count breathed hard. The shock, overtaking him when he was in his normal condition, was tremendous. The colour came and went rapidly in his features, and he caught his breath, leaning heavily upon the little lawyer, who watched his face with some anxiety. Akulina's remark about the Count's madness had made him more careful than he would otherwise have been in his manner of breaking the news. "I am not well," said the Count in a low voice. "To-day is Wednesday--I am never well on Wednesdays." "To-day is Thursday," answered Grabofsky. "Thursday? Thursday--" the Count reeled, and would have fallen, but for the support of the nervous little man's wiry arm. Then, in the space of a second, took place that strange phenomenon of the intelligence which is as yet so imperfectly understood. It is called the "Transfer" in the jargon of the half-developed science which deals with suggestion and the like. Its effects are strange, sudden and complete, often observed, never understood, but chronicled in hundreds of cases and analysed in every seat of physiological learning in Europe. In the twinkling of an eye, a part or the whole of the intelligence, or of the sensations, is reversed in action, and this with a logical precision of which no description can give any idea. It is universally considered as the first step in the direction of recovery. The action of the Count's mind was "transferred," therefore, since the word is consecrated by usage. Fortunately for him, the transfer coincided with a material change in his fortunes. Had this not been the case it would have had the effect of making him mad through the whole week, and sane only from Tuesday evening until the midnight of Wednesday. As it was, the result was of a contrary nature. Being now in reality restored to wealth and dignity, he was able to understand and appreciate the reality during six days, becoming again, in imagination, a cigarette-maker upon the seventh, a harmless delusion which already shows signs of disappearing, and from which the principal authorities confidently assert that he will soon be quite free. He passed but one moment in a state of semi-consciousness. Then he raised his head, and stood erect, and to the great surprise of Grabofsky, showed no further surprise at the news he had just received. "The fact is," he said, quietly, "I was expecting you yesterday. I had received a letter from the wife of the steward informing me of the death of my father and brother. I think your coming to-day must have disturbed me, as I have some difficulty in recalling the circumstances which attended our meeting here." "A passing indisposition," suggested Grabofsky. "Nothing more. The weather is warm, sultry in fact." "Yes, it must have been that. And now, we had better communicate the state of things to Herr Fischelowitz, to whom I consider myself much indebted." "Our Consul came with me," said the lawyer. "He is in the shop. Perhaps you did not notice him." "No--I do not think I did. I am afraid he thought me very careless." "Not at all, not at all." Grabofsky began to think that there had been some truth in Akulina's remarks after all, but he kept his opinion to himself, then and afterwards, a course which was justified by subsequent events. He and the Count turned towards the shop, and, entering, found Fischelowitz and the Consul conversing together. The Count bowed to the latter with much ceremony. "I fear," he said, "that you must have thought me careless just now. The suddenness of the news I have received has affected me. Pray accept my best thanks for your kindness in accompanying Doctor Grabofsky this morning." "Do not mention it, Count. I am only too glad to be of service." "You are very kind. And now, Herr Fischelowitz," he continued, turning to the tobacconist, "it is my pleasant duty to thank you also. I looked for these gentlemen yesterday. They have arrived to-day. The change which I expected would take place has come, and I am about to return to my home. The memories of poverty and exile can never be pleasant, but I do not think that I have any just reason to complain. Will it please you, Herr Fischelowitz, and you, gentlemen, to go into the next room with me? I wish to take my leave of those who have so long been my companions." Fischelowitz opened the door of communication and held it back respectfully for the Count to pass. His ideas were exceedingly confused, but his instinct told him to make all atonement in his power for his wife's outbursts of temper. The Count entered first, and the other three followed him, Grabofsky, the Consul, and Fischelowitz. The little back shop was very full. To judge from the last accents of Akulina's voice she had been repaying Johann Schmidt with compound interest, now that the right was on her side, for the manner in which he had attacked her. As the Count entered, however, all held their peace, and he began to speak in the midst of total silence. He stood by the little black table upon which his lean, stained fingers had manufactured so many hundreds of thousands of cigarettes. "Herr Fischelowitz," he began, "I am here to say good-bye to you, to your good wife, and to my companions. During a number of years you have afforded me the opportunity of earning an honest living, and I have to thank you very heartily for the forbearance you have shown me. It is not your fault if your consideration for me has sometimes taken a passive rather than an active form. It was not your business to fight my battles. Give me your hand, Herr Fischelowitz. We part, as we have lived, good friends. I wish you all possible success." The tobacconist bowed low as he respectfully shook hands. "Too much honour," he said. "Frau Fischelowitz," continued the Count, "you have acted according to your lights and your beliefs. I bear you no ill-will. I only hope that if any other poor gentleman should ever take my place you will not make his position harder than it would naturally be, and I trust that all may be well with you." "I never meant it, Herr Graf," said Akulina, awkwardly, as she took his proffered hand. He turned to the Cossack. "Good-bye, Johann Schmidt, good-bye. I shall see you again, before long. We have always helped each other, my friend. I have much to thank you for." "You have helped me, you mean," said the Cossack, in a rather shaky voice. "No, no--each other, and we will continue to do so, I hope, in a different way. Good-bye, Dumnoff. You have a better heart than people think." "Are you not going to take me to Russia, after all?" asked the mujik, almost humbly. "Did I say I would? Then you shall go. But not as coachman, Dumnoff. Not as coachman, I think. Good-bye, Anna Nicolaevna," he said, turning to the insignificant girl, who was at last too much awed to giggle. Then he came to Vjera's place. The girl was leaning forward, hiding her face in her hands, and resting her small, pointed elbows on the table. "Vjera, dear," he said, bending down to her, "will you come with me, now?" She looked up, suddenly, and her face was very white and drawn, and wet with tears. "Oh no, no!" she said in a low voice. "How can I ever be worthy of you, since it is really true?" But the Count put his arm round the poor little shell-maker's waist, and made her stand beside him in the midst of them all. "Gentlemen," he said, in his calmly dignified manner, "let me present to you the Countess Skariatine. She will bear that name to-morrow. I owe you a confession before leaving you, in her honour and to my humiliation. I had contracted a debt of honour, and I had nothing wherewith to pay it. There was but an hour left--an hour, and then my life and my honour would have been gone together." Vjera looked up into his face with a pitiful entreaty, but he would go on. "She saved me, gentlemen," he continued. "She cut off her beautiful hair from her head, and sold it for me. But that is not the reason why she is to be my wife. There is a better reason than that. I love her, gentlemen, with all my heart and soul, and she has told me that she loves me." He felt her weight upon him, and, looking down, he saw that she had fainted in his arms, with a look of joy upon her poor wan face which none there had ever seen in the face of man or woman. And so love conquered. The End. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- MR. CRAWFORD'S LAST NOVEL. KATHARINE LAUDERDALE. TWO VOLUMES. CLOTH. $2.00. The first of a series of novels dealing with New York life. PRESS COMMENTS. "Mr. Crawford at his best is a great novelist, and in _Katharine Lauderdale_ we have him at his best."--_Boston Daily Advertiser._ "A most admirable novel, excellent in style, flashing with humor, and full of the ripest and wisest reflections upon men and women."--_The Westminster Gazette._ "It is the first time, we think, in American fiction that any such breadth of view has shown itself in the study of our social framework."--_Life._ "Admirable in its simple pathos, its enforced humor, and, above all, in its truths to human nature.... There is not a tedious page or paragraph in it."--_Punch._ "It need scarcely be said that the story is skilfully and picturesquely written, portraying sharply individual characters in well-defined surroundings."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ "_Katharine Lauderdale_ is a tale of New York, and is up to the highest level of his work. In some respects it will probably be regarded as his best. None of his works, with the exception of _Mr. Isaacs_, show so clearly his skill as a literary artist."--_San Francisco Evening Bulletin._ "The book shows the inventive power, the ingenuity of plot, the subtle analysis of character, the skilfulness in presenting shifting scenes, the patient working-out of details, the aptitude of deduction, and vividness of description which characterize the Saracinesca romances."--_New York Home Journal._ "Nowhere has the author shown more admirable understanding and command of the novel-writer's art.... Whoever wants an original and fascinating book can be commended to this one."--_Philadelphia Evening Telegraph._ _IN PRESS._ A Sequel to "KATHARINE LAUDERDALE," THE RALSTONS. MACMILLAN & CO., 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- UNIFORM EDITION OF F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS. 12mo, Cloth. Price, ONE DOLLAR EACH. MARION DARCHE. A STORY WITHOUT COMMENT. PIETRO GHISLERI. CHILDREN OF THE KING. DON ORSINO. A Sequel to "Saracinesca" and "Sant' Ilario." THE THREE FATES. THE WITCH OF PRAGUE. KHALED. A CIGARETTE-MAKER'S ROMANCE. SANT' ILARIO. A Sequel to "Saracinesca." GREIFENSTEIN. WITH THE IMMORTALS. TO LEEWARD. A ROMAN SINGER. AN AMERICAN POLITICIAN. PAUL PATOFF. MARZIO'S CRUCIFIX. SARACINESCA. A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. ZOROASTER. DR. CLAUDIUS. MR. ISAACS. MACMILLAN & CO., PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES 1. Punctuation has been normalized to contemporary standards. 2. Typographic errors corrected in original: p. 30 hear to heard ("heard the chink") p. 129 Schimdt to Schmidt ("cried Schmidt in a tone of decision") p. 243 Fischelowizt to Fischelowitz ("Herr Fischelowitz") 
12346	----	Proofreading Team. A ROMAN SINGER F. MARION CRAWFORD 1909 [Illustration: "Shut the door and double turned the lock."--Chap. XXI.] CHAPTER I I, Cornelio Grandi, who tell you these things, have a story of my own, of which some of you are not ignorant. You know, for one thing, that I was not always poor, nor always a professor of philosophy, nor a scribbler of pedantic articles for a living. Many of you can remember why I was driven to sell my patrimony, the dear castello in the Sabines, with the good corn-land and the vineyards in the valley, and the olives, too. For I am not old yet; at least, Mariuccia is older, as I often tell her. These are queer times. It was not any fault of mine. But now that Nino is growing to be a famous man in the world, and people are saying good things and bad about him, and many say that he did wrong in this matter, I think it best to tell you all the whole truth and what I think of it. For Nino is just like a son to me; I brought him up from a little child, and taught him Latin, and would have made a philosopher of him. What could I do? He had so much voice that he did not know what to do with it. His mother used to sing. What a piece of a woman she was! She had a voice like a man's, and when De Pretis brought his singers to the festa once upon a time, when I was young, he heard her far down below, as we walked on the terrace of the palazzo, and asked me if I would not let him educate that young tenor. And when I told him it was one of the contadine, the wife of a tenant of mine, he would not believe it. But I never heard her sing after Serafino--that was her husband--was killed at the fair in Genazzano. And one day the fevers took her, and so she died, leaving Nino a little baby. Then you know what happened to me, about that time, and how I sold Castel Serveti and came to live here in Rome. Nino was brought to me here. One day in the autumn a carrettiere from Serveti, who would sometimes stop at my door and leave me a basket of grapes in the vintage, or a pitcher of fresh oil in winter, because he never used to pay his house-rent when I was his landlord--but he is a good fellow, Gigi--and so he tries to make amends now; well, as I was saying, he came one day and gave me a great basket of fine grapes, and he brought Nino with him, a little boy of scarce six years--just to show him to me, he said. He was an ugly little boy, with a hat of no particular shape and a dirty face. He had great black eyes, with ink-saucers under them, _calamai_, as we say, just as he has now. Only the eyes are bigger now, and the circles deeper. But he is still sufficiently ugly. If it were not for his figure, which is pretty good, he could never have made a fortune with his voice. De Pretis says he could, but I do not believe it. Well, I made Gigi come in with Nino, and Mariuccia made them each a great slice of toasted bread and spread it with oil, and gave Gigi a glass of the Serveti wine, and little Nino had some with water. And Mariuccia begged to have the child left with her till Gigi went back the next day; for she is fond of children and comes from Serveti herself. And that is how Nino came to live with us. That old woman has no principles of economy, and she likes children. "What does a little creature like that eat?" said she. "A bit of bread, a little soup--macchè! You will never notice it, I tell you. And the poor thing has been living on charity. Just imagine whether you are not quite as able to feed him as Gigi is!" So she persuaded me. But at first I did it to please her, for I told her our proverb, which says there can be nothing so untidy about a house as children and chickens. He was such a dirty little boy, with only one shoe and a battered hat, and he was always singing at the top of his voice, and throwing things into the well in the cortile. Mariuccia can read a little, though I never believed it until I found her one day teaching Nino his letters out of the _Vite dei Santi_. That was probably the first time that her reading was ever of any use to her, and the last, for I think she knows the _Lives of the Saints_ by heart, and she will certainly not venture to read a new book at her age. However, Nino very soon learned to know as much as she, and she will always be able to say that she laid the foundation of his education. He soon forgot to throw handfuls of mud into the well, and Mariuccia washed him, and I bought him a pair of shoes, and we made him look very decent. After a time he did not even remember to pull the cat's tail in the morning, so as to make her sing with him, as he said. When Mariuccia went to church she would take him with her, and he seemed very fond of going, so that I asked him one day if he would like to be a priest when he grew up, and wear beautiful robes, and have pretty little boys to wait on him with censers in their hands. "No," said the little urchin, stoutly, "I won't be a priest." He found in his pocket a roast chestnut Mariuccia had given him, and began to shell it. "Why are you always so fond of going to church then?" I asked. "If I were a big man," quoth he, "but really big, I would sing in church, like Maestro De Pretis." "What would you sing, Nino?" said I, laughing. He looked very grave, and got a piece of brown paper and folded it up. Then he began to beat time on my knees and sang out boldly, _Cornu ejus exaltabitur_. It was enough to make one laugh, for he was only seven years old, and ugly too. But Mariuccia, who was knitting in the hall-way, called out that it was just what Maestro Ercole had sung the day before at vespers, every syllable. I have an old piano in my sitting-room. It is a masterpiece of an instrument, I can tell you; for one of the legs is gone and I propped it up with two empty boxes, and the keys are all black except those that have lost the ivory--and those are green. It has also five pedals, disposed as a harp underneath; but none of them make any impression on the sound, except the middle one, which rings a bell. The sound-board has a crack in it somewhere, Nino says, and two of the notes are dumb since the great German maestro came home with my boy one night, and insisted on playing an accompaniment after supper. We had stewed chickens and a flask of Cesanese, I remember, and I knew something would happen to the piano. But Nino would never have any other, for De Pretis had a very good one; and Nino studies without anything--just a common tuning-fork that he carries in his pocket. But the old piano was the beginning of his fame. He got into the sitting-room one day, by himself, and found out that he could make a noise by striking the keys, and then he discovered that he could make tunes, and pick out the ones that were always ringing in his head. After that he could hardly be dragged away from it, so that I sent him to school to have some quiet in the house. He was a clever boy, and I taught him Latin and gave him our poets to read; and as he grew up I would have made a scholar of him, but he would not. At least, he was willing to learn and to read; but he was always singing too. Once I caught him declaiming "Arma virumque cano" to an air from Trovatore, and I knew he could never be a scholar then, though he might know a great deal. Besides, he always preferred Dante to Virgil, and Leopardi to Horace. One day, when he was sixteen or thereabouts, he was making a noise, as usual, shouting some motive or other to Mariuccia and the cat, while I was labouring to collect my senses over a lecture I had to prepare. Suddenly his voice cracked horribly and his singing ended in a sort of groan. It happened again once or twice, the next day, and then the house was quiet. I found him at night asleep over the old piano, his eyes all wet with tears. "What is the matter, Nino?" I asked. "It is time for youngsters like you to be in bed." "Ah, Messer Cornelio," he said, when he was awake, "I had better go to bed, as you say. I shall never sing again, for my voice is all broken to pieces"; and he sobbed bitterly. "The saints be praised," thought I; "I shall make a philosopher of you yet!" But he would not be comforted, and for several months he went about as if he were trying to find the moon, as we say; and though he read his books and made progress, he was always sad and wretched, and grew much thinner, so that Mariuccia said he was consuming himself, and I thought he must be in love. But the house was very quiet. I thought as he did, that he would never sing again, but I never talked to him about it, lest he should try, now that he was as quiet as a nightingale with its tongue cut out. But nature meant differently, I suppose. One day De Pretis came to see me; it must have been near the new year, for he never came often at that time. It was only a friendly recollection of the days when I had a castello and a church of my own at Serveti, and used to have him come from Rome to sing at the festa, and he came every year to see me; and his head grew bald as mine grew grey, so that at last he wears a black skull-cap everywhere, like a priest, and only takes it off when he sings the Gloria Patri, or at the Elevation. However, he came to see me, and Nino sat mutely by, as we smoked a little and drank the syrup of violets with water that Mariuccia brought us. It was one of her eternal extravagances, but somehow, though she never understood the value of economy, my professorship brought in more than enough for us, and it was not long after this that I began to buy the bit of vineyard out of Porta Salara, by instalments from my savings. And since then we have our own wine. De Pretis was talking to me about a new opera that he had heard. He never sang except in church, of course, but he used to go to the theatre of an evening; so it was quite natural that he should go to the piano and begin to sing a snatch of the tenor air to me, explaining the situation as he went along, between his singing. Nino could not sit still, and went and leaned over Sor Ercole, as we call the maestro, hanging on the notes, not daring to try and sing, for he had lost his voice, but making the words with his lips. "Dio mio!" he cried at last, "how I wish I could sing that!" "Try it," said De Pretis, laughing and half interested by the boy's earnest look. "Try it--I will sing it again." But Nino's face fell. "It is no use," he said. "My voice is all broken to pieces now, because I sang too much before." "Perhaps it will come back," said the musician kindly, seeing the tears in the young fellow's eyes. "See, we will try a scale." He struck a chord. "Now, open your mouth--so--Do-o-o-o!" He sang a long note. Nino could not resist any longer, whether he had any voice or not. He blushed red and turned away, but he opened his mouth and made a sound. "Do-o-o-o!" He sang like the master, but much weaker. "Not so bad; now the next, Re-e-e!" Nino followed him. And so on, up the scale. After a few more notes, De Pretis ceased to smile, and cried, "Go on, go on!" after every note, authoritatively, and in quite a different manner from his first kindly encouragement. Nino, who had not sung for months, took courage and a long breath, and went on as he was bid, his voice gaining volume and clearness as he sang higher. Then De Pretis stopped and looked at him earnestly. "You are mad," he said. "You have not lost your voice at all." "It was quite different when I used to sing before," said the boy. "Per Bacco, I should think so," said the maestro. "Your voice has changed. Sing something, can't you?" Nino sang a church air he had caught somewhere. I never heard such a voice, but it gave me a queer sensation that I liked--it was so true, and young, and clear. De Pretis sat open-mouthed with astonishment and admiration. When the boy had finished, he stood looking at the maestro, blushing very scarlet, and altogether ashamed of himself. The other did not speak. "Excuse me," said Nino, "I cannot sing. I have not sung for a long time. I know it is not worth anything." De Pretis recovered himself. "You do not sing," said he, "because you have not learned. But you can. If you will let me teach you, I will do it for nothing." "Me!" screamed Nino, "you teach _me_! Ah, if it were any use--if you only would!" "Any use?" repeated De Pretis half aloud, as he bit his long black cigar half through in his excitement. "Any use? My dear boy, do you know that you have a very good voice? A remarkable voice," he continued, carried away by his admiration, "such a voice as I have never heard. You can be the first tenor of your age, if you please--in three years you will sing anything you like, and go to London and Paris, and be a great man. Leave it to me." I protested that it was all nonsense, that Nino was meant for a scholar and not for the stage, and I was quite angry with De Pretis for putting such ideas into the boy's head. But it was of no use. You cannot argue with women and singers, and they always get their own way in the end. And whether I liked it or not, Nino began to go to Sor Ercole's house once or twice a week, and sang scales and exercises very patiently, and copied music in the evening, because he said he would not be dependent on me, since he could not follow my wishes in choosing a profession. De Pretis did not praise him much to his face after they had begun to study, but he felt sure he would succeed. "Caro Conte,"--he often calls me Count, though I am only plain Professore, now--"he has a voice like a trumpet and the patience of all the angels. He will be a great singer." "Well, it is not my fault," I used to answer; for what could I do? When you see Nino now, you cannot imagine that he was ever a dirty little boy from the mountains, with one shoe, and that infamous little hat. I think he is ugly still, though you do not think so when he is singing, and he has good strong limbs and broad shoulders, and carries himself like a soldier. Besides, he is always very well dressed, though he has no affectations. He does not wear his hair plastered into a love-lock on his forehead, like some of our dandies, nor is he eternally pulling a pair of monstrous white cuffs over his hands. Everything is very neat about him and very quiet, so that you would hardly think he was an artist after all; and he talks but little, though he can talk very well when he likes, for he has not forgotten his Dante nor his Leopardi. De Pretis says the reason he sings so well is because he has a mouth like the slit in an organ pipe, as wide as a letter-box at the post-office. But I think he has succeeded because he has great square jaws like Napoleon. People like that always succeed. My jaw is small, and my chin is pointed under my beard--but then, with the beard, no one can see it. But Mariuccia knows. Nino is a thoroughly good boy, and until a year ago he never cared for anything but his art; and now he cares for something, I think, a great deal better than art, even than art like his. But he is a singer still, and always will be, for he has an iron throat, and never was hoarse in his life. All those years when he was growing up, he never had a love-scrape, or owed money, or wasted his time in the caffè. "Take care," Mariuccia used to say to me, "if he ever takes a fancy to some girl with blue eyes and fair hair he will be perfectly crazy. Ah, Sor Conte, _she_ had blue eyes, and her hair was like the corn-silk. How many years is that, Sor Conte mio?" Mariuccia is an old witch. I am writing this story to tell you why Mariuccia is a witch, and why my Nino, who never so much as looked at the beauties of the generone, as they came with their fathers and brothers and mothers to eat ice-cream in the Piazza Colonna, and listen to the music of a summer's evening,--Nino, who stared absently at the great ladies as they rolled over the Pincio, in their carriages, and was whistling airs to himself for practice when he strolled along the Corso, instead of looking out for pretty faces,--Nino, the cold in all things save in music, why he fulfilled Mariuccia's prophecy, little by little, and became perfectly crazy about blue eyes and fair hair. That is what I am going to tell you, if you have the leisure to listen. And you ought to know it, because evil tongues are more plentiful than good voices in Rome, as elsewhere, and people are saying many spiteful things about him--though they clap loudly enough at the theatre when he sings. He is like a son to me, and perhaps I am reconciled, after all, to his not having become a philosopher. He would never have been so famous as he is now, and _he_ really knows so much more than Maestro De Pretis--in other ways than music--that he is very presentable indeed. What is blood, nowadays? What difference does it make to society whether Nino Cardegna, the tenor was the son of a vine-dresser? Or what does the University care for the fact that I, Cornelio Grandi, am the last of a race as old as the Colonnas, and quite as honourable? What does Mariuccia care? What does anybody care? Corpo di Bacco! if we begin talking of race we shall waste as much time as would make us all great celebrities! I am not a celebrity--I never shall be now, for a man must begin at that trade young. It is a profession--being celebrated--and it has its signal advantages. Nino will tell you so, and he has tried it. But one must begin young, very young! I cannot begin again. And then, as you all know, I never began at all. I took up life in the middle, and am trying hard to twist a rope of which I never held the other end. I feel sometimes as though it must be the life of another that I have taken, leaving my own unfinished, for I was never meant to be a professor. That is the way of it; and if I am sad and inclined to melancholy humours, it is because I miss my old self, and he seems to have left me without even a kindly word at parting. I was fond of my old self, but I did not respect him much. And my present self I respect, without fondness. Is that metaphysics? Who knows? It is vanity in either case, and the vanity of self-respect is perhaps a more dangerous thing than the vanity of self-love, though you may call it pride if you like, or give it any other high-sounding title. But the heart of the vain man is lighter than the heart of the proud. Probably Nino has always had much self-respect, but I doubt if it has made him very happy--until lately. True, he has genius, and does what he must by nature do or die, whereas I have not even talent, and I make myself do for a living what I can never do well. What does it serve, to make comparisons? I could never have been like Nino, though I believe half my pleasure of late has been in fancying how I should feel in his place, and living through his triumphs by my imagination. Nino began at the very beginning, and when all his capital was one shoe and a ragged hat, and certainly not more than a third of a shirt, he said he would be a great singer; and he is, though he is scarcely of age yet. I wish it had been something else than a singer, but since he is the first already, it was worth while. He would have been great in anything, though, for he has such a square jaw, and he looks so fierce when anything needs to be overcome. Our forefathers must have looked like that, with their broad eagle noses and iron mouths. They began at the beginning, too, and they went to the very end. I wish Nino had been a general, or a statesman, or a cardinal, or all three like Richelieu. But you want to hear of Nino, and you can pass on your ways, all of you, without hearing my reflections and small-talk about goodness, and success, and the like. Moreover, since I respect myself now, I must not find so much fault with my own doings, or you will say that I am in my dotage. And, truly, Nino Cardegna is a better man, for all his peasant blood, than I ever was; a better lover, and perhaps a better hater. There is his guitar, that he always leaves here, and it reminds me of him and his ways. Fourteen years he lived here with me, from child to boy and from boy to man, and now he is gone, never to live here any more. The end of it will be that I shall go and live with him, and Mariuccia will take her cat and her knitting, and her _Lives of the Saints_ back to Serveti, to end her life in peace, where there are no professors and no singers. For Mariuccia is older than I am, and she will die before me. At all events, she will take her tongue with her, and ruin herself at her convenience without ruining me. I wonder what life would be without Mariuccia? Would anybody darn my stockings, or save the peel of the mandarins to make cordial? I certainly would not have the mandarins if she were gone--it is a luxury. No, I would not have them. But then, there would be no cordial, and I should have to buy new stockings every year or two. No, the mandarins cost less than the stockings--and--well, I suppose I am fond of Mariuccia. CHAPTER II It was really not so long ago--only one year. The sirocco was blowing up and down the streets, and about the corners, with its sickening blast, making us all feel like dead people, and hiding away the sun from us. It is no use trying to do anything when it blows sirocco, at least for us who are born here. But I had been persuaded to go with Nino to the house of Sor Ercole to hear my boy sing the opera he had last studied, and so I put my cloak over my shoulders, and wrapped its folds over my breast, and covered my mouth, and we went out. For it was a cold sirocco, bringing showers of tepid rain from the south, and the drops seemed to chill themselves as they fell. One moment you are in danger of being too cold, and the next minute the perspiration stands on your forehead, and you are oppressed with a moist heat. Like the prophet, when it blows a real sirocco you feel as if you were poured out like water, and all your bones were out of joint. Foreigners do not feel it until they have lived with us a few years, but Romans are like dead men when the wind is in that quarter. I went to the maestro's house and sat for two hours listening to the singing. Nino sang very creditably, I thought, but I allow that I was not as attentive as I might have been, for I was chilled and uncomfortable. Nevertheless, I tried to be very appreciative, and I complimented the boy on the great progress he had made. When I thought of it, it struck me that I had never heard anybody sing like that before; but still there was something lacking; I thought it sounded a little unreal, and I said to myself that he would get admiration, but never any sympathy. So clear, so true, so rich it was, but wanting a ring to it, the little thrill that goes to the heart. He sings very differently now. Maestro Ercole De Pretis lives in the Via Paola, close to the Ponte Sant' Angelo, in a most decent little house--that is, of course, on a floor of a house, as we all do. But De Pretis is well-to-do, and he has a marble door plate, engraved in black with his name, and two sitting-rooms. They are not very large rooms, it is true, but in one of them he gives his lessons, and the grand piano fills it up entirely, so that you can only sit on the little black horsehair sofa at the end, and it is very hard to get past the piano on either side. Ercole is as broad as he is long, and takes snuff when he is not smoking. But it never hurts his voice. It was Sunday, I remember, for he had to sing in St. Peter's in the afternoon; and it was so near, we walked over with him. Nino had never lost his love for church music, though he had made up his mind that it was a much finer thing to be a primo tenore assoluto at the Apollo Theatre than to sing in the Pope's choir for thirty scudi a month. We walked along over the bridge, and through the Borgo Nuovo, and across the Piazza Rusticucci, and then we skirted the colonnade on the left, and entered the church by the sacristy, leaving De Pretis there to put on his purple cassock and his white cotta. Then we went into the Capella del Coro to wait for the vespers. All sorts of people go to St. Peter's on Sunday afternoon, but they are mostly foreigners, and bring strange little folding chairs, and arrange themselves to listen to the music as though it were a concert. Now and then one of the young gentlemen-in-waiting from the Vatican strolls in and says his prayers, and there is an old woman, very ragged and miserable, who has haunted the chapel of the choir for many years, and sits with perfect unconcern, telling her beads at the foot of the great reading-desk that stands out in the middle and is never used. Great ladies crowd in through the gate when Raimondi's hymn is to be sung, and disreputable artists make sketches surreptitiously during the benediction, without the slightest pretence at any devotion that I can see. The lights shine out more brightly as the day wanes, and the incense curls up as the little boys swing the censers, and the priests and canons chant, and the choir answers from the organ loft; and the crowd looks on, some saying their prayers, some pretending to, and some looking about for the friend or lover they have come to meet. That evening when we went over together I found myself pushed against a tall man with an immense gray moustache standing out across his face like the horns of a beetle. He looked down on me from time to time, and when I apologised for crowding him his face flushed a little, and he tried to bow as well as he could in the press, and said something with a German accent which seemed to be courteous. But I was separated from Nino by him. Maestro Ercole sang, and all the others, turn and turn about, and so at last it came to the benediction. The tall old foreigner stood erect and unbending, but most of the people around him kneeled. As the crowd sank down I saw that on the other side of him sat a lady on a small folding stool, her feet crossed one over the other, and her hands folded on her knees. She was dressed entirely in black, and her fair face stood out wonderfully clear and bright against the darkness. Truly she looked more like an angel than a woman, though perhaps you will think she is not so beautiful after all, for she is so unlike our Roman ladies. She has a delicate nose, full of sentiment, and pointed a little downward for pride; she has deep blue eyes, wide apart and dreamy, and a little shaded by brows that are quite level and even, with a straight pencilling over them, that looks really as if it were painted. Her lips are very red and gentle, and her face is very white, so that the little ringlet that has escaped control looks like a gold tracery on a white marble ground. And there she sat with the last light from the tall windows and the first from the great wax candles shining on her, while all around seemed dark by contrast. She looked like an angel; and quite as cold, perhaps most of you would say. Diamonds are cold things, too, but they shine in the dark; whereas a bit of glass just lets the light through it, even if it is coloured red and green and put in a church window, and looks ever so much warmer than the diamond. But though I saw her beauty and the light of her face, all in a moment, as though it had been a dream, I saw Nino, too; for I had missed him, and had supposed he had gone to the organ loft with De Pretis. But now, as the people kneeled to the benediction, imagine a little what he did; he just dropped on his knees with his face to the white lady, and his back to the procession; it was really disgraceful, and if it had been lighter I am sure everyone would have noticed it. At all events, there he knelt, not three feet from the lady, looking at her as if his heart would break. But I do not believe she saw him, for she never looked his way. Afterwards everybody got up again, and we hurried to get out of the Chapel; but I noticed that the tall old foreigner gave his arm to the beautiful lady, and when they had pushed their way through the gate that leads into the body of the church, they did not go away but stood aside for the crowd to pass. Nino said he would wait for De Pretis, and immediately turned his whole attention to the foreign girl, hiding himself in the shadow and never taking his eyes from her. I never saw Nino look at a woman before as though she interested him in the least, or I would not have been surprised now to see him lost in admiration of the fair girl. I was close to him and could see his face, and it had a new expression on it that I did not know. The people were almost gone and the lights were being extinguished when De Pretis came round the corner, looking for us. But I was astonished to see him bow low to the foreigner and the young lady, and then stop and enter into conversation with them. They spoke quite audibly, and it was about a lesson that the young lady had missed. She spoke like a Roman, but the old gentleman made himself understood in a series of stiff phrases, which he fired out of his mouth like discharges of musketry. "Who are they?" whispered Nino to me, breathless with excitement and trembling from head to foot. "Who are they, and how does the maestro know them?" "Eh, caro mio, what am I to know?" I answered indifferently. "They are some foreigners, some pupil of De Pretis, and her father. How should I know?" "She is a Roman," said Nino between his teeth. "I have heard foreigners talk. The old man is a foreigner, but she--she is Roman," he repeated with certainty. "Eh," said I, "for my part she may be Chinese. The stars will not fall on that account." You see, I thought he had seen her before, and I wanted to exasperate him by my indifference so that he should tell me; but he would not, and indeed I found out afterwards that he had really never seen her before. Presently the lady and gentleman went away, and we called De Pretis, for he could not see us in the gloom. Nino became very confidential and linked an arm in his as we went away. "Who are they, caro maestro, these enchanting people?" inquired the boy when they had gone a few steps, and I was walking by Nino's side, and we were all three nearing the door. "Foreigners--my foreigners," returned the singer proudly, as he took a colossal pinch of snuff. He seemed to say that he in his profession was constantly thrown with people like that, whereas I--oh, I, of course, was always occupied with students and poor devils who had no voice, nothing but brains. "But she," objected Nino,--"she is Roman, I am sure of it." "Eh," said Ercole, "you know how it is. These foreigners marry and come here and live, and their children are born here; and they grow up and call themselves Romans, as proudly as you please. But they are not really Italians, any more than the Shah of Persia." The maestro smiled a pitying smile. He is a Roman of Rome, and his great nose scorns pretenders. In his view Piedmontese, Tuscans, and Neapolitans are as much foreigners as the Germans or the English. More so, for he likes the Germans and tolerates the English, but he can call an enemy by no worse name than "Napoletano" or "Piemontese." "Then they live here?" cried Nino in delight. "Surely." "In fine, maestro mio, who are they?" "What a diavolo of a boy! Dio mio!" and Ercole laughed under his big moustache, which is black still. But he is bald, all the same, and wears a skull-cap. "Diavolo as much as you please, but I will know," said Nino sullenly. "Oh bene! Now do not disquiet yourself, Nino--I will tell you all about them. She is a pupil of mine, and I go to their house in the Corso and give her lessons." "And then?" asked Nino impatiently. "Who goes slowly goes surely," said the maestro sententiously; and he stopped to light a cigar as black and twisted as his moustache. Then he continued, standing still in the middle of the piazza to talk at his ease, for it had stopped raining and the air was moist and sultry, "They are Prussians, you must know. The old man is a colonel, retired, pensioned, everything you like, wounded at Königgratz by the Austrians. His wife was delicate, and he brought her to live here long before he left the service, and the signorina was born here. He has told me about it, and he taught me to pronounce the name Königgratz, so--Conigherazzo," said the maestro proudly, "and that is how I know." "Capperi! What a mouthful," said I. "You may well say that, Sor Conte, but singing teaches us all languages. You would have found it of great use in your studies." I pictured to myself a quarter of an hour of Schopenhauer, with a piano accompaniment and some one beating time. "But their name, their name I want to know," objected Nino, as he stepped aside and flattened himself against the pillar to let a carriage pass. As luck would have it, the old officer and his daughter were in that very cab, and Nino could just make them out by the evening twilight. He took off his hat, of course, but I am quite sure they did not see him. "Well, their name is prettier than Conigherazzo," said Ercole. "It is Lira--Erre Gheraffe fonne Lira." (Herr Graf von Lira, I suppose he meant. And he has the impudence to assert that singing has taught him to pronounce German.) "And that means," he continued, "Il Conte di Lira, as we should say." "Ah! what a divine appellation!" exclaimed Nino enthusiastically, pulling his hat over his eyes to meditate upon the name at his leisure. "And her name is Edvigia," volunteered the maestro. That is the Italian for Hedwig, or Hadwig, you know. But we should shorten it and call her Gigia just as though she were Luisa. Nino does not think it so pretty. Nino was silent. Perhaps he was always shy of repeating the familiar name of the first woman he had ever loved. Imagine! At twenty he had never been in love! It is incredible to me,--and one of our own people, too, born at Serveti. Meanwhile the maestro's cigar had gone out, and he lit it with a blazing sulphur match before he continued; and we all walked on again. I remember it all very distinctly, because it was the beginning of Nino's madness. Especially I call to mind his expression of indifference when Ercole began to descant upon the worldly possessions of the Lira household. It seemed to me that if Nino so seriously cast his eyes on the Contessina Edvigia, he might at least have looked pleased to hear she was so rich; or he might have looked disappointed, if he thought that her position was an obstacle in his way. But he did not care about it at all, and walked straight on, humming a little tune through his nose with his mouth shut, for he does everything to a tune. "They are certainly gran' signor," Ercole said. "They live on the first floor of the Palazzo Carmandola,--you know, in the Corso--and they have a carriage, and keep two men in livery, just like a Roman prince. Besides, the count once sent me a bottle of wine at Christmas. It was as weak as water, and tasted like the solfatara of Tivoli, but it came from his own vineyard in Germany, and was at least fifty years old. If he has a vineyard, he has a castello, of course. And if he has a castello, he is a gran' signor,--eh? what do you think, Sor Conte? You know about such things." "I did once, maestro mio. It is very likely." "And as for the wine being sour, it was because it was so old. I am sure the Germans cannot make wine well. They are not used to drinking it good, or they would not drink so much when they come here." We were crossing the bridge, and nearing Ercole's house. "Maestro," said Nino, suddenly. He had not spoken for some time, and he had finished his tune. "Well?" "Is not to-morrow our day for studying?" "Diavolo! I gave you two hours to-day. Have you forgotten?" "Ah,--it is true. But give me a lesson to-morrow, like a good maestro as you are. I will sing like an angel if you will give me a lesson to-morrow." "Well, if you like to come at seven in the morning, and if you promise to sing nothing but solfeggi of Bordogni for an hour, and not to strain your voice, or put too much vinegar in your salad at supper, I will think about it. Does that please you? Conte, don't let him eat too much vinegar." "I will do all that if I may come," said Nino readily, though he would rather not sing at all, at most times, than sing Bordogni, De Pretis tells me. "Meglio cosi,--so much the better. Good-night, Sor Conte. Good-night, Nino." And so he turned down the Via Paola, and Nino and I went our way. I stopped to buy a cigar at the little tobacco shop just opposite the Tordinona Theatre. They used to be only a baiocco apiece, and I could get one at a time. But now they are two for three baiocchi; and so I have to get two always, because there are no half baiocchi any more--nothing but centimes. That is one of the sources of my extravagance. Mariuccia says I am miserly; she was born poor, and never had to learn the principles of economy. "Nino mio," I said, as we went along, "you really make me laugh." "Which is to say--" He was humming a tune again, and was cross because I interrupted him. "You are in love. Do not deny it. You are already planning how you can make the acquaintance of the foreign contessa. You are a fool. Go home, and get Mariuccia to give you some syrup of tamarind to cool your blood." "Well? Now tell me, were you never in love with anyone yourself?" he asked, by way of answer; and I could see the fierce look come into his eyes in the dark as he said it. "Altro,--that is why I laugh at you. When I was your age I had been in love twenty times. But I never fell in love at first sight--and with a doll; really a wax doll, you know, like the Madonna in the presepio that they set up at the Ara Coeli, at Epiphany." "A doll!" he cried. "Who is a doll, if you please?" We stopped at the corner of the street to argue it out. "Do you think she is really alive?" I asked, laughing. Nino disdained to answer me, but he looked savagely from under the brim of his hat. "Look here," I continued, "women like that are only made to be looked at. They never love, for they have no hearts. It is lucky if they have souls, like Christians." "I will tell you what I think," said he stoutly; "she is an angel." "Oh! is that all? Did you ever hear of an angel being married?" "You shall hear of it, Sor Cornelio, and before long. I swear to you, here, that I will marry the Contessina di Lira--if that is her name--before two years are out. Ah, you do not believe me. Very well. I have nothing more to say." "My dear son," said I,--for he is a son to me,--"you are talking nonsense. How can anybody in your position hope to marry a great lady, who is an heiress? Is it not true that it is all stuff and nonsense?" "No, it is not true," cried Nino, setting his square jaw like a bit and speaking through his teeth. "I am ugly, you say; I am dark, and I have no position, or wealth, or anything of the kind. I am the son of a peasant and of a peasant's wife. I am anything you please, but I will marry her if I say I will. Do you think it is for nothing that you have taught me the language of Dante, of Petrarca, of Silvio Pellico? Do you think it is for nothing that Heaven has given me my voice? Do not the angels love music, and cannot I make as good songs as they? Or do you think that because I am bred a singer my hand is not as strong as a fine gentleman's--contadino as I am? I will--I will and I will, Basta!" I never saw him look like that before. He had folded his arms, and he nodded his head a little at each repetition of the word, looking at me so hard, as we stood under the gas lamp in the street, that I was obliged to turn my eyes away. He stared me out of countenance--he, a peasant boy! Then we walked on. "And as for her being a wax doll, as you call her," he continued after a little time, "that is nonsense, if you want the word to be used. Truly, a doll! And the next minute you compare her to the Madonna! I am sure she has a heart as big as this," and he stretched out his hands into the air. "I can see it in her eyes. Ah, what eyes!" I saw it was no use arguing on that tack, and I felt quite sure that he would forget all about it, though he looked so determined, and talked so grandly about his will. "Nino," I said, "I am older than you." I said this to impress him, of course, for I am not really so very old. "Diamini!" he cried impertinently, "I believe it!" "Well, well, do not be impatient. I have seen something in my time, and I tell you those foreign women are not like ours, a whit. I fell in love, once, with a northern fairy,--she was not German, but she came from Lombardy, you see,--and that is the reason why I lost Serveti and all the rest." "But I have no Serveti to lose," objected Nino. "You have a career as a musician to lose. It is not much of a career to be stamping about with a lot of figuranti and scene-shifters, and screaming yourself hoarse every night." I was angry because he laughed at my age. "But it is a career, after all, that you have chosen for yourself. If you get mixed up in an intrigue now, you may ruin yourself. I hope you will." "Grazie! And then?" "Eh, it might not be such a bad thing after all. For if you could be induced to give up the stage--" "I--_I_ give up singing?" he cried, indignantly. "Oh, such things happen, you know. If you were to give it up, as I was saying, you might then possibly use your mind. A mind is a much better thing than a throat, after all." "Ebbene! talk as much as you please, for, of course, you have the right, for you have brought me up, and you have certainly opposed my singing enough to quiet your conscience. But, dear professor, I will do all that I say, and if you will give me a little help in this matter, you will not repent it." "Help? Dio mio! What do you take me for? As if I could help you, or would! I suppose you want money to make yourself a dandy, a piano, to go and stand at the corner of the Piazza Colonna and ogle her as she goes by! In truth! You have fine projects." "No," said Nino quietly, "I do not want any money or anything else at present, thank you. And do not be angry, but come into the caffè and drink some lemonade; and I will invite you to it, for I have been paid for my last copying that I sent in yesterday." He put his arm in mine, and we went in. There is no resisting Nino when he is affectionate. But I would not let him pay for the lemonade. I paid for it myself. What extravagance! CHAPTER III Now I ought to tell you that many things in this story were only told me quite lately, for at first I would not help Nino at all, thinking it was but a foolish fancy of his boy's heart and would soon pass. I have tried to gather and to order all the different incidents into one harmonious whole, so that you can follow the story; and you must not wonder that I can describe some things that I did not see, and that I know how some of the people felt; for Nino and I have talked over the whole matter very often, and the baroness came here and told me her share, though I wonder how she could talk so plainly of what must have given her so much pain. But it was very kind of her to come; and she sat over there in the old green arm-chair by the glass case that has the artificial flowers under it, and the sugar lamb that the padre curato gave Nino when he made his first communion at Easter. However, it is not time to speak of the baroness yet, but I cannot forget her. Nino was very amusing when he began to love the young countess, and the very first morning--the day after we had been to St. Peter's--he went out at half-past six, though it was only just sunrise, for we were in October. I knew very well that he was going for his extra lesson with De Pretis, but I had nothing to say about it, and I only recommended him to cover himself well, for the sirocco had passed and it was a bright morning, with a clear tramontana wind blowing fresh from the north. I can always tell when it is a tramontana wind before I open my window, for Mariuccia makes such a clattering with the coffee-pot in the kitchen, and the goldfinch in the sitting-room sings very loud; which he never does if it is cloudy. Nino, then, went off to Maestro Ercole's house for his singing, and this is what happened there. De Pretis knew perfectly well that Nino had only asked for the extra lesson in order to get a chance of talking about the Contessina di Lira, and so, to tease him, as soon as he appeared, the maestro made a great bustle about singing scales, and insisted on beginning at once. Moreover, he pretended to be in a bad humour; and that is always pretence with him. "Ah, my little tenor," he began; "you want a lesson at seven in the morning, do you? That is the time when all the washerwomen sing at the fountain! Well, you shall have a lesson, and by the body of Bacchus it shall be a real lesson! Now, then! Andiamo--Do-o-o!" and he roared out a great note that made the room shake, and a man who was selling cabbage in the street stopped his hand-cart and mimicked him for five minutes. "But I am out of breath, maestro," protested Nino, who wanted to talk. "Out of breath? A singer is never out of breath. Absurd! What would you do if you got out of breath, say, in the last act of _Lucia_, so--Bell'alma ado--?? Then your breath ends, eh? Will you stay with the 'adored soul' between your teeth? A fine singer you will make! Andiamo! Do-o-o!" Nino saw he must begin, and he set up a shout, much against his will, so that the cabbage-vendor chimed in, making so much noise that the old woman who lives opposite opened her window and emptied a great dustpan full of potato peelings and refuse leaves of lettuce right on his head. And then there was a great noise. But the maestro paid no attention, and went on with the scale, hardly giving Nino time to breathe. Nino, who stood behind De Pretis while he sang, saw the copy of Bordogni's solfeggi lying on a chair, and managed to slip it under a pile of music near by, singing so lustily all the while that the maestro never looked round. When he got to the end of the scale Ercole began hunting for the music, and as he could not find it, Nino asked him questions. "Can she sing,--this contessina of yours, maestro?" De Pretis was overturning everything in his search. "An apoplexy on those solfeggi and on the man who made them!" he cried. "Sing, did you say? Yes, a great deal better than you ever will. Why can you not look for your music, instead of chattering?" Nino began to look where he knew it was not. "By the by, do you give her lessons every day?" asked the boy. "Every day? Am I crazy, to ruin people's voices like that?" "Caro maestro, what is the matter with you this morning? You have forgotten to say your prayers!" "You are a donkey, Nino; here he is, this blessed Bordogni,--now come." "Sor Ercole mio," said Nino in despair, "I must really know something about this angel, before I sing at all." Ercole sat down on the piano stool, and puffed up his cheeks, and heaved a tremendous sigh, to show how utterly bored he was by his pupil. Then he took a large pinch of snuff, and sighed again. "What demon have you got into your head?" he asked, at length. "What angel, you mean," answered Nino, delighted at having forced the maestro to a parley. "I am in love with her--crazy about her," he cried, running his fingers through his curly hair, "and you must help me to see her. You can easily take me to her house to sing duets as part of her lesson. I tell you I have not slept a wink all night for thinking of her, and unless I see her I shall never sleep again as long as I live. Ah!" he cried, putting his hands on Ercole's shoulders, "you do not know what it is to be in love! How everything one touches is fire, and the sky is like lead, and one minute you are cold and one minute you are hot, and you may turn and turn on your pillow all night and never sleep, and you want to curse everybody you see, or to embrace them, it makes no difference--anything to express the--" "Devil! and may he carry you off!" interrupted Ercole, laughing. But his manner changed. "Poor fellow," he said presently, "it appears to me you are in love." "It appears to you, does it? 'Appears'--a beautiful word, in faith. I can tell you it appears to me so, too. Ah! it 'appears' to you--very good indeed!" And Nino waxed wroth. "I will give you some advice, Ninetto mio. Do not fall in love with anyone. It always ends badly." "You come late with your counsel, Sor Ercole. In truth, a very good piece of advice when a man is fifty, and married, and wears a skull-cap. When I wear a skull-cap and take snuff I will follow your instructions." He walked up and down the room, grinding his teeth, and clapping his hands together. Ercole rose and stopped him. "Let us talk seriously," he said. "With all my heart; as seriously as you please." "You have only seen this signorina once." "Once!" cried Nino,--"as if once were not--" "Diavolo; let me speak. You have only seen her once. She is noble, an heiress, a great lady--worse than all, a foreigner; as beautiful as a statue, if you please, but twice as cold. She has a father who knows the proprieties, a piece of iron, I tell you, who would kill you just as he would drink a glass of wine, with the greatest indifference, if he suspected you lifted your eyes to his daughter." "I do not believe your calumnies," said Nino still hotly, "She is not cold, and if I can see her she will listen to me. I am sure of it." "We will speak of that by and by. You--what are you? Nothing but a singer, who has not even appeared before the public, without a baiocco in the world or anything else but your voice. You are not even handsome." "What difference does that make to a woman of heart?" retorted Nino angrily. "Let me only speak to her--" "A thousand devils!" exclaimed De Pretis impatiently; "what good will you do by speaking to her? Are you Dante, or Petrarca, or a preacher--what are you? Do you think you can have a great lady's hand for the asking? Do you flatter yourself that you are so eloquent that nobody can withstand you?" "Yes," said Nino, boldly. "If I could only speak to her--" "Then in heaven's name, go and speak to her. Get a new hat and a pair of lavender gloves, and walk about the Villa Borghese until you meet her, and then throw yourself on your knees and kiss her feet, and the dust from her shoes; and say you are dying for her, and will she be good enough to walk as far as Santa Maria del Popolo and be married to you! That is all; you see it is nothing you ask--a mere politeness on her part--oh, nothing, nothing." And De Pretis rubbed his hands and smiled, and seeing that Nino did not answer, he blew his nose with his great blue cotton handkerchief. "You have no heart at all, maestro," said Nino at last. "Let us sing." They worked hard at Bordogni for half an hour, and Nino did not open his mouth except to produce the notes. But as his blood was up from the preceding interview he took great pains, and Ercole, who makes him sing all the solfeggi he can from a sense of duty, himself wearied of the ridiculous old-fashioned runs and intervals. "Bene," he said; "let us sing a piece now, and then you will have done enough." He put an opera on the piano, and Nino lifted up his voice and sang, only too glad to give his heart passage to his lips. Ercole screwed up his eyes with a queer smile he has when he is pleased. "Capperi!" he ejaculated, when Nino had done. "What has happened?" asked the latter. "I cannot tell you what has happened," said Ercole, "but I will tell you that you had better always sing like that, and you will be applauded. Why have you never sung that piece in that way before?" "I do not know. Perhaps it is because I am unhappy." "Very well, never dare to be happy again, if you mean to succeed. You can make a statue shed tears if you please." Ercole took a pinch of snuff, and turned round to look out of the window. Nino leaned on the piano, drumming with his fingers and looking at the back of the maestro's head. The first rays of the sun just fell into the room and gilded the red brick floor. "Then instead of buying lavender kid gloves," said Nino at last, his face relaxing a little, "and going to the Villa Borghese, you advise me to borrow a guitar and sing to my statue? Is that it?" "Che Diana! I did not say that!" said Ercole, still facing the window and finishing his pinch of snuff with a certain satisfaction. "But if you want the guitar, take it--there it lies. I will not answer for what you do with it." His voice sounded kindly, for he was so much pleased. Then he made Nino sing again, a little love song of Tosti, who writes for the heart and sings so much better without a voice than all your stage tenors put together. And the maestro looked long at Nino when he had done, but he did not say anything. Nino put on his hat gloomily enough, and prepared to go. "I will take the guitar, if you will lend it to me," he said. "Yes, if you like, and I will give you a handkerchief to wrap it up with," said De Pretis, absently, but he did not get up from his seat. He was watching Nino, and he seemed to be thinking. Just as the boy was going with the instrument under his arm he called him back. "Ebbene?" said Nino, with his hand on the lock of the door. "I will make you a song to sing to your guitar," said Ercole. "You?" "Yes--but without music. Look here, Nino--sit down. What a hurry you are in. I was young myself, once upon time." "Once upon a time! Fairy stories--once upon a time there was a king, and so on." Nino was not to be easily pacified. "Well, perhaps it is a fairy tale, but it is in the future. I have an idea." "Oh, is that all? But it is the first time. I understand." Listen. Have you read Dante?" "I know the _Vita Nuova_ by heart, and some of the _Commedia_. But how the diavolo does Dante enter into this question?" "And Silvio Pellico, and a little literature?" continued Ercole, not heeding the comment. "Yes, after a fashion. And you? Do you know them?" "Che c'entro io?" cried Ercole, impatiently; "what do I want to know such things for? But I have heard of them." "I congratulate you," replied Nino, ironically. "Have patience. You are no longer an artist. You are a professor of literature." "I--a professor of literature? What nonsense are you talking?" "You are a great stupid donkey, Nino. Supposing I obtain for you an engagement to read literature with the Contessina di Lira, will you not be a professor? If you prefer singing--" But Nino comprehended in a flash the whole scope of the proposal, and threw his arm round Ercole's neck and embraced him. "What a mind! Oh, maestro mio, I will die for you! Command me, and I will do anything for you; I will run errands for you, black your boots, anything--" he cried in the ecstasy of delight that overmastered him. "Piano, piano," objected the maestro, disengaging himself from his pupil's embrace. "It is not done yet. There is much, much to think of first." Nino retreated, a little disconcerted at not finding his enthusiasm returned, but radiant still. "Calm yourself," said Ercole, smiling. "If you do this thing you must act a part. You must manage to conceal your occupation entirely. You must look as solemn as an undertaker and be a real professor. They will ultimately find you out, and throw you out of the window, and dismiss me for recommending you. But that is nothing." "No," said Nino, "that is of no importance." And he ran his fingers through his hair, and looked delighted. "You shall know all about it this evening, or to-morrow--" "This evening, Sor Ercole, this evening, or I shall die. Stay, let me go to the house with you, when you give your lesson, and wait for you at the door." "Pumpkin-head! I will have nothing to do with you," said De Pretis. "Ah, I will be as quiet as you please. I will be like a lamb, and wait until this evening." "If you will really be quiet, I will do what you wish. Come to me this evening about the Ave Maria--or a little earlier. Yes, come at twenty-three hours. In October that is about five o'clock, by French time. "And I may take the guitar?" said Nino, as he rose to go. "With all my heart. But do not spoil everything by singing to her, and betraying yourself." So Nino thanked the maestro enthusiastically and went away, humming a tune, as he now and again struck the strings of the guitar that he carried under his arm, to be sure it was there. Do not think that because De Pretis suddenly changed his mind, and even proposed to Nino a plan for making the acquaintance of the young countess, he is a man to veer about like a weather-cock, nor yet a bad man, willing to help a boy to do mischief. That is not at all like Ercole de Pretis. He has since told me he was much astonished at the way Nino sang the love song at his lesson; and he was instantly convinced that in order to be a great artist Nino must be in love always. Besides, the maestro is as liberal in his views of life as he is conservative in his ideas about government. Nino is everything the most straight-laced father could wish him to be, and as he was then within a few months of making his first appearance on the stage, De Pretis, who understands those things, could very well foresee the success he has had. Now De Pretis is essentially a man of the people, and I am not; therefore he saw no objection in the way of a match between a great singer and a noble damigelia. But had I known what was going on, I would have stopped the whole affair at that point, for I am not so weak as Mariuccia seems to think. I do not mean now that everything is settled I would wish it undone. Heaven forbid! But I would have stopped it then, for it is a most incongruous thing, a peasant boy making love to a countess. Nino, however, has one great fault, and that is his reticence. It is true, he never does anything he would not like me, or all the world, to know. But I would like to know, all the same. It is a habit I have fallen into, from having to watch that old woman, for fear she should be too extravagant. All that time he never said anything, and I supposed he had forgotten all about the contessina, for I did not chance to see De Pretis; and when I did he talked of nothing but Nino's _début_ and the arrangements that were to be made. So that I knew nothing about it, though I was pleased to see him reading so much. He took a sudden fancy for literature, and read when he was not singing, and even made me borrow Ambrosoli, in several volumes, from a friend. He read every word of it, and talked very intelligently about it too. I never thought there was any reason. But De Pretis thinks differently. He believes that a man may be the son of a ciociaro--a fellow who ties his legs up in rags and thongs, and lives on goats' milk in the mountains--and that if he has brains enough, or talent enough, he may marry any woman he likes without ever thinking whether she is noble or not. De Pretis must be old-fashioned, for I am sure I do not think in that way, and I know a hundred times as much as he--a hundred times. I suppose it must have been the very day when Nino had been to De Pretis in the morning that he had instructions to go to the house of Count von Lira on the morrow; for I remember very well that Nino acted strangely in the evening, singing and making a noise for a few minutes, and then burying himself in a book. However that may be, it was very soon afterwards that he went to the Palazzo Carmandola, dressed in his best clothes, he tells me, in order to make a favourable impression on the count. The latter had spoken to De Pretis about the lessons in literature, to which he attached great importance, and the maestro had turned the idea to account for his pupil. But Nino did not expect to see the young contessa on this first day, or at least he did not hope he would be able to speak to her. And so it turned out. The footman, who had a red waistcoat, and opened the door with authority, as if ready to close it again on the smallest provocation, did not frighten Nino at all, though he eyed him suspiciously enough, and after ascertaining his business departed to announce him to the count. Meanwhile, Nino, who was very much excited at the idea of being under the same roof with the object of his adoration, set himself down on one of the carved chests that surrounded the hall. The green baize door at the other end swung noiselessly on its hinges, closing itself behind the servant, and the boy was left alone. He might well be frightened, if not at the imposing appearance of the footman, at least at the task he had undertaken. But a boy like Nino is afraid of nothing when he is in love, and he simply looked about him, realising that he was without doubt in the house of a gran' signor, and from time to time brushing a particle of dust from his clothes, or trying to smooth his curly black hair, which he had caused to be clipped a little for the occasion; a very needless expense, for he looks better with his hair long. Before many moments the servant returned, and with some condescension said that the count awaited him. Nino would rather have faced the mayor, or the king himself, than Graf von Lira, though he was not at all frightened--he was only very much excited, and he strove to calm himself, as he was ushered through the apartments to the small sitting-room where he was expected. Graf von Lira, as I have already told you, is a foreigner of rank, who had been a Prussian colonel, and was wounded in the war of 1866. He is very tall, very thin, and very grey, with wooden features and a huge moustache that stands out like the beaks on the colonna rostrata. His eyes are small and very far apart, and fix themselves with terrible severity when he speaks, even if he is only saying "good-morning." His nails are very long and most carefully kept, and though he is so lame that he could not move a step without the help of his stick, he is still an upright and military figure. I remember well how he looked, for he came to see me under peculiar circumstances, many months after the time of which I am now speaking; and, besides, I had stood next to him for an hour in the chapel of the choir in St. Peter's. He speaks Italian intelligibly, but with the strangest German constructions, and he rolls the letter _r_ curiously in his throat. But he is an intelligent man for a soldier, though he thinks talent is a matter of education, and education a matter of drill. He is the most ceremonious man I ever saw; and Nino says he rose from his chair to meet him, and would not sit down again until Nino was seated. "The signore is the professor of Italian literature recommended to me by Signor De Pretis?" inquired the colonel in iron tones, as he scrutinised Nino. "Yes, Signor Conte," was the answer. "You are a singularly young man to be a professor." Nino trembled. "And how have you the education obtained in order the obligations and not-to-be-avoided responsibilities of this worthy-of-all-honour career to meet?" "I went to school here, Signor Conte, and the Professor Grandi, in whose house I always have lived, has taught me everything else I know." "What do you know?" inquired the count, so suddenly that Nino was taken off his guard. He did not know what to answer. The count looked very stern and pulled his moustaches. "You have not here come," he continued, seeing that Nino made no answer, "without knowing something. Evident is it, that, although a man young be, if he nothing knows, he cannot a professor be." "You speak justly, Signor Conte," Nino answered at last, "and I do know some things. I know the _Commedia_ of Alighieri, and Petrarca, and I have read the _Gerusalemme Liberata_ with Professor Grandi, and I can repeat all of the _Vita Nuova_ by heart, and some of the--" "For the present that is enough," said the count. "If you nothing better to do have, will you so kind be as to begin?" "Begin?" said Nino, not understanding. "Yes, signore; it would unsuitable be if I my daughter to the hands of a man committed unacquainted with the matter he to teach her proposes. I desire to be satisfied that you all these things really know." "Do I understand, Signor Conte, that you wish me to repeat to you some of the things I know by heart?" "You have me understood," said the count severely, "I have all the books bought of which you speak. You will repeat, and I will in the book follow. Then shall we know each other much better." Nino was not a little astonished at this mode of procedure, and wondered how far his memory would serve him in such an unexpected examination. "It will take a long time to ascertain in this way--" he began. "This," said the count coldly, as he opened a volume of Dante, "is the celestial play by Signor Alighieri. If you anything know, you will it repeat." Nino resigned himself and began repeating the first canto of the "Inferno." When he had finished it he paused. "Forwards," said the count, without any change of manner. "More?" inquired Nino. "March!" said the old gentleman in military tone, and the boy went on with the second canto. "Apparently know you the beginning." The count opened the book at random in another place. "The thirtieth canto of 'Purgatory.' You will now it repeat." "Ah!" cried Nino, "that is where Dante meets Beatrice." "My hitherto not-by-any-means-extensive, but always from-the-conscience-undertaken reading, reaches not so far. You will it repeat. So shall we know." Nino passed his hand inside his collar as though to free his throat, and began again, losing all consciousness of his tormentor in his own enjoyment of the verse. "When was the Signor Alighieri born?" inquired Graf von Lira, very suddenly, as though to catch him. "May 1265, in Florence," answered the other, as quickly. "I said when, not where. I know he was in Florence born. When _and_ where died he?" The question was asked fiercely. "Fourteenth of September 1321, at Ravenna." "I think really you something of Signor Alighieri know," said the count, and shut up the volume of the poet and the dictionary of dates he had been obliged to consult to verify Nino's answers. "We will proceed." Nino is fortunately one of those people whose faculties serve them best at their utmost need, and during the three hours--three blessed hours--that Graf von Lira kept him under his eye, asking questions and forcing him to repeat all manner of things, he acquitted himself fairly well. "I have now myself satisfied that you something know," said the count, in his snappish military fashion, and he shut the last book, and never from that day referred in any manner to Nino's extent of knowledge, taking it for granted that he had made an exhaustive investigation. "And now," he continued, "I desire you to engage for the reading of literature with my daughter, upon the usual terms." Nino was so much pleased that he almost lost his self-control, but a moment restored his reflection. "I am honoured--" he began. "You are not honoured at all," interrupted the count, coldly. "What are the usual terms?" "Three or four francs a lesson," suggested Nino. "Three or four francs are not the usual terms. I have inquiries made. Five francs are the usual terms. Three times in the week, at eleven. You will on the morrow begin. Allow me to offer you some cigars." And he ended the interview. CHAPTER IV In a sunny room overlooking the great courtyard of the Palazzo Carmandola, Nino sat down to give Hedwig von Lira her first lesson in Italian literature. He had not the remotest idea what the lesson would be like, for in spite of the tolerably wide acquaintance with the subject which he owed to my care and my efforts to make a scholar of him, he knew nothing about teaching. Nevertheless, as his pupil spoke the language fluently, though with the occasional use of words of low origin, like all foreigners who have grown up in Rome and have learned to speak from their servants, he anticipated little difficulty. He felt quite sure of being able to interpret the hard places, and he had learned from me to know the best and finest passages in a number of authors. But imagine the feelings of a boy of twenty, perfectly in love, without having the smallest right to be, suddenly placed by the side of the object of his adoration, and told to teach her all he knows--with her father in the next room and the door open between! I have always thought it was a proof of Nino's determined character, that he should have got over this first lesson without accident. Hedwig von Lira, the contessina, as we always call her, is just Nino's age, but she seemed much younger, as the children of the North always do. I have told you what she was like to look at, and you will not wonder that I called her a statue. She looked as cold as a statue, just as I said, and so I should hardly describe her as beautiful. But then I am not a sculptor, nor do I know anything about those arts, though I can tell a good work when I see it. I do not wish to appear prejudiced, and so I will not say anything more about it. I like life in living things, and sculptors may, if it please them, adore straight noses, and level brows, and mouths that no one could possibly eat with. I do not care in the least, and if you say that I once thought differently, I answer that I do not wish to change your opinion, but that I will change my own as often as I please. Moreover, if you say that the contessina did not act like a statue in the sequel, I will argue that if you put marble in the fire it will take longer to heat and longer to cool than clay; only clay is made to be put into the fire, and marble is not. Is not that a cunning answer? The contessina is a foreigner in every way, although she was born under our sun. They have all sorts of talents, these people, but so little ingenuity in using them that they never accomplish anything. It seems to amuse them to learn to do a great many things, although they must know from the beginning that they can never excel in any one of them. I dare say the contessina plays on the piano very creditably, for even Nino says she plays well; but is it of any use to her? Nino very soon found out that she meant to read literature very seriously, and, what is more, she meant to read it in her own way. She was as different from her father as possible in everything else, but in a despotic determination to do exactly as she liked, she resembled him. Nino was glad that he was not called upon to use his own judgment, and there he sat, content to look at her, twisting his hands together below the table to concentrate his attention and master himself; and he read just what she told him to read, expounding the words and phrases she could not understand. I dare say that with his hair well brushed, and his best coat, and his eyes on the book, he looked as proper as you please. But if the high-born young lady had returned the glances he could not refrain from bending upon her now and then, she would have seen a lover, if she could see at all. She did not see. The haughty Prussian damsel hardly noticed the man, for she was absorbed by the professor. Her small ears were all attention, and her slender fingers made notes with a common pencil, so that Nino wondered at the contrast between the dazzling white hand and the smooth, black, varnished instrument of writing. He took no account of time that day, and was startled by the sound of the mid-day gun and the angry clashing of the bells. The contessina looked up suddenly and met his eyes, but it was the boy that blushed. "Would you mind finishing the canto?" she asked. "There are only ten lines more--" Mind! Nino flushed with pleasure. "Anzi--by all means," he cried. "My time is yours, signorina." When they had done he rose, and his face was sad and pale again. He hated to go, but he was only a teacher, and at his first lesson, too. She also rose, and waited for him to leave the room. He could not hold his tongue. "Signorina--" he stammered, and checked himself. She looked at him, to listen, but his heart smote him when he had thus arrested her attention. What could he say as he stood bowing? It was sufficiently stupid, what he said. "I shall have the honour of returning to-morrow, the day after to-morrow, I would say." "Yes," said she, "I believe that is the arrangement. Good-morning, Signor Professore." The title of professor rang strangely in his ear. Was there the slightest tinge of irony in her voice? Was she laughing at his boyish looks? Ugh! the thought tingled. He bowed himself out. That was the first lesson, and the second was like it, I suppose, and a great many others about which I knew nothing, for I was always occupied in the middle of the day, and did not ask where he went. It seemed to me that he was becoming a great dandy, but as he never asked me for any money from the day he learnt to copy music I never put any questions. He certainly had a new coat before Christmas, and gloves, and very nice boots, that made me smile when I thought of the day when he arrived, with only one shoe--and it had a hole in it as big as half his foot. But now he grew to be so careful of his appearance that Mariuccia began to call him the "signorino." De Pretis said he was making great progress, and so I was contented, though I always thought it was a sacrifice for him to be a singer. Of course, as he went three times a week to the Palazzo Carmandola, he began to be used to the society of the contessina. I never understood how he succeeded in keeping up the comedy of being a professor. A real Roman would have discovered him in a week. But foreigners are different. If they are satisfied they pay their money and ask no questions. Besides, he studied all the time, saying that if he ever lost his voice he would turn man of letters; which sounded so prudent that I had nothing to say. Once, we were walking in the Corso, and the contessina with her father passed in the carriage. Nino raised his hat, but they did not see him, for there is always a crowd in the Corso. "Tell me," he cried, excitedly, as they went by, "is it not true that she is beautiful?" "A piece of marble, my son," said I, suspecting nothing; and I turned into a tobacconist's to buy a cigar. One day--Nino says it was in November--the contessina began asking him questions about the Pantheon, it was in the middle of the lesson, and he wondered at her stopping to talk. But you may imagine whether he was glad or not to have an opportunity of speaking about something besides Dante. "Yes, signorina," he answered, "Professor Grandi says it was built for public baths; but, of course, we all think it was a temple." "Were you ever there at night?" asked she, indifferently, and the sun through the window so played with her golden hair that Nino wondered how she could ever think of night at all. "At night, signorina? No indeed! What should I go there at night to do, in the dark! I was never there at night." "I will go there at night," she said briefly. "Ah--you would have it lit up with torches, as they do the Coliseum?" "No. Is there no moon in Italy, professore?" "The moon, there is. But there is such a little hole in the top of the Rotonda"--that is our Roman name for the Pantheon--"that it would be very dark." "Precisely," said she. "I will go there at night, and see the moon shining through the hole in the dome." "Eh," cried Nino laughing, "you will see the moon better outside in the piazza. Why should you go inside, where you can see so little of it?" "I will go," replied the contessina. "The Italians have no sense of the beautiful--the mysterious." Her eyes grew dreamy as she tried to call up the picture she had never seen. "Perhaps," said Nino humbly. "But," he added, suddenly brightening at the thought, "it is very easy, if you would like to go. I will arrange it. Will you allow me?" "Yes, arrange it. Let us go on with our lesson." I would like to tell you all about it; how Nino saw the sacristan of the Pantheon that evening, and ascertained from his little almanac--which has all kinds of wonderful astrological predictions, as well as the calendar--when it would be full moon. And perhaps what Nino said to the sacristan, and what the sacristan said to Nino, might be amusing. I am very fond of these little things, and fond of talking too. For since it is talking that distinguishes us from other animals, I do not see why I should not make the most of it. But you who are listening to me have seen very little of the Contessina Hedwig as yet, and unless I quickly tell you more, you will wonder how all the curious things that happened to her could possibly have grown out of the attempt of a little singer like Nino to make her acquaintance. Well, Nino is a great singer now, of course, but he was little once; and when he palmed himself off on the old count for an Italian master without my knowledge, nobody had ever heard of him at all. Therefore since I must satisfy your curiosity before anything else, and not dwell too long on the details--the dear, commonplace details--I will simply say that Nino succeeded without difficulty in arranging with the sacristan of the Pantheon to allow a party of foreigners to visit the building at the full moon, at midnight. I have no doubt he even expended a franc with the little man, who is very old and dirty, and keeps chickens in the vestibule--but no details! Oh the appointed night Nino, wrapped in that old cloak of mine (which is very warm, though it is threadbare), accompanied the party to the temple, or church, or whatever you like to call it. The party were simply the count and his daughter, an Austrian gentleman of their acquaintance, and the dear baroness--that sympathetic woman who broke so many hearts and cared not at all for the chatter of the people. Everyone has seen her, with her slim, graceful ways, and her face that was like a mulatto peach for darkness and fineness, and her dark eyes and tiger-lily look. They say she lived entirely on sweetmeats and coffee, and it is no wonder she was so sweet and so dark. She called me "count"--which is very foolish now, but if I were going to fall in love, I would have loved her. I would not love a statue. As for the Austrian gentleman, it is not of any importance to describe him. These four people Nino conducted to the little entrance at the back of the Pantheon, and the sacristan struck a light to show them the way to the door of the church. Then he put out his taper, and let them do as they pleased. Conceive if you can the darkness of Egypt, the darkness that can be felt, impaled and stabbed through its whole thickness by one mighty moonbeam, clear and clean and cold, from the top to the bottom. All around, in the circle of the outer black, lie the great dead in their tombs, whispering to each other of deeds that shook the world; whispering in a language all their own as yet--the language of the life to come--the language of a stillness so dread and deep that the very silence clashes against it, and makes dull, muffled beatings in ears that strain to catch the dead men's talk: the shadow of immortality falling through the shadow of death, and bursting back upon its heavenward course from the depth of the abyss; climbing again upon its silver self to the sky above, leaving behind the horror of the deep. So in that lonely place at midnight falls the moon upon the floor, and through the mystic shaft of rays ascend and descend the souls of the dead. Hedwig stood out alone upon the white circle on the pavement beneath the dome, and looked up as though she could see the angels coming and going. And, as she looked, the heavy lace veil that covered her head fell back softly, as though a spirit wooed her and would fain look on something fairer than he, and purer. The whiteness clung to her face, and each separate wave of hair was like spun silver. And she looked steadfastly up. For a moment she stood, and the hushed air trembled about her. Then the silence caught the tremor, and quivered, and a thrill of sound hovered and spread its wings, and sailed forth from the night. "Spirto gentil dei sogni miei--" Ah, Signorina Edvigia, you know that voice now, but you did not know it then. How your heart stopped, and beat, and stopped again, when you first heard that man sing out his whole heartful--you in the light and he in the dark! And his soul shot out to you upon the sounds, and died fitfully, as the magic notes dashed their soft wings against the vaulted roof above you, and took new life again and throbbed heavenward in broad, passionate waves, till your breath came thick and your blood ran fiercely--ay, even your cold northern blood--in very triumph that a voice could so move you. A voice in the dark. For a full minute after it ceased you stood there, and the others, wherever they might be in the shadow, scarcely breathed. That was how Hedwig first heard Nino sing. When at last she recovered herself enough to ask aloud the name of the singer, Nino had moved quite close to her. "It is a relation of mine, signorina, a young fellow who is going to be an artist. I asked him as a favour to come here and sing to you to-night. I thought it might please you." "A relation of yours!" exclaimed the contessina. And the others approached so that they all made a group in the disc of moonlight. "Just think, my dear baroness, this wonderful voice is a relation of Signor Cardegna, my excellent Italian master!" There was a little murmur of admiration; then the old count spoke. "Signore," said he, rolling in his gutturals, "it is my duty to very much thank you. You will now, if you please, me the honour do, me to your all-the-talents-possible-possessing relation to present." Nino had foreseen the contingency and disappeared into the dark. Presently he returned. "I am so sorry, Signor Conte," he said. "The sacristan tells me that when my cousin had finished he hurried away, saying he was afraid of taking some ill if he remained here where it is so damp. I will tell him how much you appreciated him." "Curious is it," remarked the count. "I heard him not going off." "He stood in the doorway of the sacristy, by the high altar, Signor Conte." "In that case is it different." "I am sorry," said Nino. "The signorina was so unkind as to say, lately, that we Italians have no sense of the beautiful, the mysterious--" "I take it back," said Hedwig, gravely, still standing in the moonlight. "Your cousin has a very great power over the beautiful." "And the mysterious," added the baroness, who had not spoken, "for his departure without showing himself has left me the impression of a sweet dream. Give me your arm, Professore Cardegna. I will not stay here any longer, now that the dream is over." Nino sprang to her side politely, though, to tell the truth, she did not attract him at first sight. He freed one arm from the old cloak, and reflected that she could not tell in the dark how very shabby it was. "You give lessons to the Signora von Lira?" she asked, leading him quickly away from the party. "Yes--in Italian literature, signora." "Ah--she tells me great things of you. Could you not spare me an hour or two in the week, professore?" Here was a new complication. Nino had certainly not contemplated setting up for an Italian teacher to all the world when he undertook to give lessons to Hedwig. "Signora--" he began, in a protesting voice. "You will do it to oblige me, I am sure," she said, eagerly, and her slight hand just pressed upon his arm a little. Nino had found time to reflect that this lady was intimate with Hedwig, and that he might possibly gain an opportunity of seeing the girl he loved if he accepted the offer. "Whenever it pleases you, signora," he said at length. "Can you come to me to-morrow at eleven?" she asked. "At twelve, if you please, signora, or half past. Eleven is the contessina's hour to-morrow." "At half-past twelve, then, to-morrow," said she, and she gave him her address, as they went out into the street. "Stop," she added, "where do you live?" "Number twenty-seven Santa Catarina dei Funari," he answered, wondering why she asked. The rest of the party came out, and Nino bowed to the ground, as he bid the contessina good-night. He was glad to be free of that pressure on his arm, and he was glad to be alone, to wander through the streets under the moonlight, and to think over what he had done. "There is no risk of my being discovered," he said to himself, confidently. "The story of the near relation was well imagined, and besides, it is true. Am I not my own nearest relation? I certainly have no others that I know of. And this baroness--what can she want of me? She speaks Italian like a Spanish cow, and indeed she needs a professor badly enough. But why should she take a fancy for me as a teacher. Ah! those eyes! Not the baroness'. Edvigia--Edvigia di Lira--Edvigia Ca--Cardegna! Why not?" He stopped to think, and looked long at the moonbeams playing on the waters of the fountain. "Why not? But the baroness--may the diavolo fly away with her! What should I do--I indeed! with a pack of baronesses? I will go to bed and dream--not of a baroness! Macchè, never a baroness in my dreams, with eyes like a snake, and who cannot speak three words properly in the only language under the sun worth speaking! Not I--I will dream of Edvigia di Lira--she is the spirit of my dreams. Spirto gentil--" and away he went, humming the air from the "Favorita" in the top of his head, as is his wont. The next day the contessina could talk of nothing during her lesson but the unknown singer who had made the night so beautiful for her, and Nino flushed red under his dark skin and ran his fingers wildly through his curly hair, with pleasure. But he set his square jaw, that means so much, and explained to his pupil how hard it would be for her to hear him again. For his friend, he said, was soon to make his appearance on the stage, and of course he could not be heard singing before that. And as the young lady insisted, Nino grew silent, and remarked that the lesson was not progressing. Thereupon Hedwig blushed--the first time he had ever seen her blush--and did not approach the subject again. After that he went to the house of the baroness, where he was evidently expected, for the servant asked his name and immediately ushered him into her presence. She was one of those lithe, dark women of good race, that are to be met with all over the world, and she has broken many a heart. But she was not like a snake at all, as Nino had thought at first. She was simply a very fine lady who did exactly what she pleased, and if she did not always act rightly, yet I think she rarely acted unkindly. After all, the buon Dio has not made us all paragons of domestic virtue. Men break their hearts for so very little, and, unless they are ruined, they melt the pieces at the next flame and join them together again like bits of sealing wax. The baroness sat before a piano in a boudoir, where there was not very much light. Every part of the room was crowded with fans, ferns, palms, Oriental carpets and cushions, books, porcelain, majolica, and pictures. You could hardly move without touching some ornament, and the heavy curtains softened the sunshine, and a small open fire of wood helped the warmth. There was also an odour of Russian tobacco. The baroness smiled and turned on the piano seat. "Ah, professore! You come just in time," said she. "I am trying to sing such a pretty song to myself, and I cannot pronounce the words. Come and teach me." Nino contrasted the whole air of this luxurious retreat with the prim, soldierly order that reigned in the count's establishment. "Indeed, signora, I come to teach you whatever I can. Here I am. I cannot sing, but I will stand beside you and prompt the words." Nino is not a shy boy at all, and he assumed the duties required of him immediately. He stood by her side, and she just nodded and began to sing a little song that stood on the desk of the piano. She did not sing out of tune, but she made wrong notes and pronounced horribly. "Pronounce the words for me," she repeated every now and then. "But pronouncing in singing is different from speaking," he objected at last, and, fairly forgetting himself and losing patience, he began softly to sing the words over. Little by little, as the song pleased him, he lost all memory of where he was, and stood beside her singing just as he would have done to De Pretis, from the sheet, with all the accuracy and skill that were in him. At the end, he suddenly remembered how foolish he was. But, after all, he had not sung to the power of his voice, and she might not recognise in him the singer of last night. The baroness looked up with a light laugh. "I have found you out," she cried, clapping her hands. "I have found you out!" "What, signora?" "You are the tenor of the Pantheon--that is all. I knew it. Are you so sorry that I have found you out?" she asked, for Nino turned very white, and his eyes flashed at the thought of the folly he had committed. CHAPTER V Nino was thoroughly frightened, for he knew that discovery portended the loss of everything most dear to him. No more lessons with Hedwig, no more parties to the Pantheon, no more peace, no more anything. He wrung his fingers together and breathed hard. "Ah, signora!" he found voice to exclaim, "I am sure you cannot believe it possible--" "Why not, Signor Cardegna?" asked the baroness, looking up at him from under her half-closed lids with a mocking glance. "Why not? Did you not tell me where you lived? And does not the whole neighbourhood know that you are no other than Giovanni Cardegna, commonly called Nino, who is to make his _début_ in the Carnival season?" "Dio mio!" ejaculated Nino in a hoarse voice, realising that he was entirely found out, and that nothing could save him. He paced the room in an agony of despair, and his square face was as white as a sheet. The baroness sat watching him with a smile on her lips, amused at the tempest she had created, and pretending to know much more than she did. She thought it not impossible that Nino, who was certainly poor, might be supporting himself by teaching Italian while studying for the stage, and she inwardly admired his sense and twofold talent if that were really the case. But she was willing to torment him a little, seeing that she had the power. "Signor Cardegna"--she called him in her soft voice. He turned quickly, and stood facing her, his arms crossed. "You look like Napoleon at Waterloo, when you stand like that," she laughed. He made no answer, waiting to see what she would do with her victory. "It seems that you are sorry I have discovered you," she added presently, looking down at her hands. "Is that all?" he said, with a bitter sneer on his pale young face. "Then, since you are sorry, you must have a reason for concealment," she went on, as though reflecting on the situation. It was deftly done, and Nino took heart. "Signora," he said, in a trembling voice, "it is natural that a man should wish to live. I give lessons now, until I have appeared in public, to support myself." "Ah, I begin to understand," said the baroness. In reality she began to doubt, reflecting that if this were the whole truth Nino would be too proud--or any other Italian--to say it so plainly. She was subtle, the baroness! "And do you suppose," he continued, "that if once the Conte de Lira had an idea that I was to be a public singer he would employ me as a teacher for his daughter?" "No, but others might," she objected. "But not the count--" Nino bit his lip, fearing he had betrayed himself. "Nor the contessina," laughed the baroness, completing the sentence. He saw at a glance what she suspected, and instead of keeping cool grew angry. "I came here, Signora Baronessa, not to be cross-examined, but to teach you Italian. Since you do not desire to study, I will say good-morning." He took his hat and moved proudly to the door. "Come here," she said, not raising her voice, but still commanding. He turned, hesitated, and came back. He thought her voice was changed. She rose and swept her silken morning-gown between the chairs and tables till she reached a deep divan on the other side of the room. There she sat down. "Come and sit beside me," she said, kindly, and he obeyed in silence. "Do you know what would have happened," she continued, when he was seated, "if you had left me just now? I would have gone to the Graf von Lira and told him that you were not a fit person to teach his daughter; that you are a singer, and not a professor at all; and that you have assumed this disguise for the sake of seeing his daughter." But I do not believe that she would have done it. "That would have been a betrayal," said Nino fiercely, looking away from her. She laughed lightly. "Is it not natural," she asked, "that I should make inquiries about my Italian teacher before I begin lessons with him? And if I find he is not what he pretends to be should I not warn my intimate friends?" She spoke so reasonably that he was fain to acknowledge that she was right. "It is just," he said, sullenly. "But you have been very quick to make your inquiries, as you call them." "The time was short, since you were to come this morning." "That is true," he answered. He moved uneasily. "And now, signora, will you be kind enough to tell me what you intend to do with me!" "Certainly, since you are more reasonable. You see I treat you altogether as an artist, and not at all as an Italian master. A great artist may idle away a morning in a woman's boudoir; a simple teacher of languages must be more industrious." "But I am not a great artist," said Nino, whose vanity--we all have it--began to flutter a little. "You will be one before long, and one of the greatest. You are a boy yet, my little tenor," said she, looking at him with her dark eyes, "and I might almost be your mother. How old are you, Signor Nino?" "I was twenty on my last birthday," he answered, blushing. "You see! I am thirty--at least," she added, with a short laugh. "Well, signora, what of that?" said Nino, half amused. "I wish I were thirty myself." "I am glad you are not," said she. "Now listen. You are completely in my power, do you understand? Yes. And you are apparently very much in love with my young friend, the Contessina di Lira"--Nino sprang to his feet, his face white again, but with rage this time. "Signora," he cried, "this is too much! It is insufferable! Good-morning," and he made as though he would go. "Very well," said the baroness; "then I will go to the Graf and explain who you are. Ah--you are calm again in a moment? Sit down. Now I have discovered you, and I have a right to you, do you see? It is fortunate for you that I like you." "You! You like me? In truth, you act as though you did! Besides, you are a stranger, Signora Baronessa, and a great lady. I never saw you till yesterday." But he resumed his seat. "Good," said she. "Is not the Signorina Edvigia a great lady, and was there never a day when she was a stranger too?" "I do not understand your caprices, signora. In fine, what do you want of me?" "It is not necessary that you should understand me," answered the dark-eyed baroness. "Do you think I would hurt you--or rather your voice?" "I do not know." "You know very well that I would not; and as for my caprices, as you call them, do you think it is a caprice to love music? No, of course not. And who loves music loves musicians; at least," she added, with a most enchanting smile, "enough to wish to have them near one. That is all. I want you to come here often and sing to me. Will you come and sing to me, my little tenor?" Nino would not have been human had he not felt the flattery through the sting. And I always say that singers are the vainest kind of people. "It is very like singing in a cage," he said, in protest. Nevertheless, he knew he must submit; for, however narrow his experience might be, this woman's smile and winning grace, even when she said the hardest things, told him that she would have her own way. He had the sense to understand, too, that whatever her plans might be, their object was to bring him near to herself, a reflection which was extremely soothing to his vanity. "If you will come and sing to me--only to me, of course, for I would not ask you to compromise your _début_--but if you will come and sing to me, we shall be very good friends. Does it seem to you such a terrible penance to sing to me in my solitude?" "It is never a penance to sing," said Nino simply. A shade of annoyance crossed the baroness' face. "Provided," she said, "it entails nothing. Well, we will not talk about the terms." They say women sometimes fall in love with a voice: _vox et proeterea nihil_, as the poet has it. I do not know whether that is what happened to the baroness at first, but it has always seemed strange to me that she should have given herself so much trouble to secure Nino, unless she had a very strong fancy for him. I, for my part, think that when a lady of her condition takes such a sudden caprice into her head, she thinks it necessary to maltreat the poor man a little at first, just to satisfy her conscience, and to be able to say later that she did not encourage him. I have had some experience, as everybody is aware, and so I may speak boldly. On the other hand, a man like Nino, when he is in love, is absolutely blind to other women. There is only one idea in his soul that has any life, and everyone outside that idea is only so much landscape; they are no better for him--the other women--than a museum of wax dolls. The baroness, as you have seen, had Nino in her power, and there was nothing for it but submission; he came and went at her bidding, and often she would send for him when he least expected it. He would do as she commanded, somewhat sullenly and with a bad grace, but obediently, for all that; she had his destiny in her hands, and could in a moment frustrate all his hopes. But, of course, she knew that if she betrayed him to the count, Nino would be lost to her also, since he came to her only in order to maintain his relations with Hedwig. Meanwhile the blue-eyed maiden of the North waxed fitful. Sometimes two or three lessons would pass in severe study. Nino, who always took care to know the passages they were reading, so that he might look at her instead of at his book, had instituted an arrangement by which they sat opposite each other at a small table. He would watch her every movement and look, and carry away a series of photographs of her,--a whole row, like the little books of Roman views they sell in the streets, strung together on a strip of paper,--and these views of her lasted with him for two whole days, until he saw her again. But sometimes he would catch a glimpse of her in the interval driving with her father. There were other days when Hedwig could not be induced to study, but would overwhelm Nino with questions about his wonderful cousin who sang, so that he longed with his whole soul to tell her it was he himself who had sung. She saw his reluctance to speak about it, and she blushed when she mentioned the night at the Pantheon; but for her life she could not help talking of the pleasure she had had. Her blushes seemed like the promise of spring roses to her lover, who drank of the air of her presence till that subtle ether ran like fire through his veins. He was nothing to her, he could see; but the singer of the Pantheon engrossed her thoughts and brought the hot blood to her cheek. The beam of moonlight had pierced the soft virgin darkness of her sleeping soul, and found a heart so cold and spotless that even a moon ray was warm by comparison. And the voice that sang "Spirto gentil dei sogni miei" had itself become by memory the gentle spirit of her own dreams. She is so full of imagination, this statue of Nino's, that she heard the notes echoing after her by day and night, till she thought she must go mad unless she could hear the reality again. As the great solemn statue of Egyptian Memnon murmurs sweet, soft sounds to its mighty self at sunrise, a musical whisper in the desert, so the pure white marble of Nino's living statue vibrated with strange harmonies all the day long. One night, as Nino walked homeward with De Pretis, who had come to supper with us, he induced the maestro to go out of his way at least half a mile, to pass the Palazzo Carmandola. It was a still night, not over-cold for December, and there were neither stars nor moon. As they passed the great house Nino saw a light in Hedwig's sitting-room--the room where he gave her the lessons. It was late, and she must be alone. On a sudden he stopped. "What is the matter?" asked De Pretis. For all answer, Nino, standing in the dark street below, lifted up his voice and sang the first notes of the air he always associated with his beautiful contessina. Before he had sung a dozen bars the window opened, and the girl's figure could be seen, black against the light within. He went on for a few notes, and then ceased suddenly. "Let us go," he said in a low voice to Ercole; and they went away, leaving the contessina listening in the stillness to the echo of their feet. A Roman girl would not have done that; she would have sat quietly inside, and never have shown herself. But foreigners are so impulsive! Nino never heard the last of those few notes, any more than the contessina, literally speaking, ever heard the end of the song. "Your cousin, about whom you make so much mystery, passed under my window last night," said the young lady the next day, with the usual display of carnation in her cheeks at the mention of him. "Indeed, signorina?" said Nino, calmly, for he expected the remark. "And since you have never seen him, pray how did you know it was he?" "How should one know?" she asked, scornfully. "There are not two such voices as his in Italy. He sang." "He sang?" cried Nino, with an affectation of alarm. "I must tell the maestro not to let him sing in the open air; he will lose his voice." "Who is his master?" asked Hedwig, suddenly. "I cannot remember the name just now," said Nino, looking away. "But I will find out, if you wish." He was afraid of putting De Pretis to any inconvenience by saying that the young singer was his pupil. "However," he continued, "you will hear him sing as often as you please, after he makes his _début_ next month." He sighed when he thought that it would all so soon be over. For how could he disguise himself any longer, when he should be singing in public every night? But Hedwig clapped her hands. "So soon?" she cried. "Then there will be an end of the mystery." "Yes," said Nino, gravely "there will be an end of the mystery." "At least you can tell me his name, now that we shall all know it." "Oh, his name--his name is Cardegna, like mine. He is my cousin, you know." And they went on with the lesson. But something of the kind occurred almost every time he came, so that he felt quite sure that, however indifferent he might be in her eyes, the singer, the Nino of whom she knew nothing, interested her deeply. Meanwhile he was obliged to go very often to the baroness' scented boudoir, which smelled of incense and other Eastern perfumes, whenever it did not smell of cigarettes; and there he sang little songs, and submitted patiently to her demands for more and more music. She would sit by the piano and watch him as he sang, wondering whether he were handsome or ugly, with his square face and broad throat and the black circles round his eyes. He had a fascination for her, as being something utterly new to her. One day she stood and looked over the music as he sang, almost touching him, and his hair was so curly and soft to look at that she was seized with a desire to stroke it, as Mariuccia strokes the old gray cat for hours together. The action was quite involuntary, and her fingers rested only a moment on his head. "It is so curly," she said, half playfully, half apologetically. But Nino started as though he had been stung, and his dark face grew pale. A girl could not have seemed more hurt at a strange man's touch. "Signora!" he cried, springing to his feet. The baroness, who is as dark as he, blushed almost red, partly because she was angry, and partly because she was ashamed. "What a boy you are!" she said, carelessly enough, and turned away to the window, pushing back one heavy curtain with her delicate hand, as if she would look out. "Pardon me, signora, I am not a boy," said Nino, speaking to the back of her head as he stood behind her. "It is time we understood each other better. I love like a man and I hate like a man. I love someone very, much." "Fortunate contessina!" laughed the baroness, mockingly, without turning round. "It does not concern you, signora, to know whom I love, nor, if you know, to speak of her. I ask you a simple question. If you loved a man with your whole soul and heart, would you allow another man to stand beside you and stroke your hair, and say it was curly?" The baroness burst out laughing. "Do not laugh," he continued. "Remember that I am in your power only so long as it pleases me to submit to you. Do not abuse your advantage, or I will be capable of creating for myself situations quite as satisfactory as that of Italian master to the Signorina di Lira." "What do you mean?" she asked, turning suddenly upon him. "I suppose you would tell me that you will make advantages for yourself which you will abuse against me? What do you mean?" "I do not mean that. I mean only that I may not wish to give lessons to the contessina much longer." By this time the baroness had recovered her equanimity; and as she would have been sorry to lose Nino, who was a source of infinite pleasure and amusement to her, she decided to pacify him instead of teasing him any more. "Is it not very foolish for us to quarrel about your curly hair?" said she. "We have been such good friends always." It might have been three weeks, her "always." "I think it is," answered Nino, gravely. "But do not stroke my hair again, Signora Baronessa, or I shall be angry." He was quite serious, if you believe it, though he was only twenty. He forthwith sat down to the piano again and sang on. The baroness sat very silent and scarcely looked at him; but she held her hands clasped on her knee, and seemed to be thinking. After a time Nino stopped singing and sat silent also, absently turning over the sheets of music. It was warm in the room, and the sounds from the street were muffled and far away. "Signor Nino," said the lady at last, in a different voice, "I am married." "Yes, signora," he replied, wondering what would come next. "It would be very foolish of me to care for you." "It would also be very wicked," he said, calmly; for he is well grounded in religion. The baroness stared at him in some surprise, but seeing he was perfectly serious, she went on. "Precisely, as you say, very wicked. That being the case, I have decided not to care for you any more--I mean not to care for you at all. I have made up my mind to be your friend." "I am much obliged to your ladyship," he answered, without moving a muscle. For you see, he did not believe her. "Now tell me, then, Signor Nino, are you in earnest in what you are doing? Do you really set your heart on doing this thing?" "What?" asked Nino, annoyed at the persistence of the woman. "Why need you be afraid to understand me? Can you not forgive me? Can you not believe in me that I will be your friend? I have always dreamed of being the friend of a great artist. Let me be yours, and believe me, the thing you have in your heart shall be done." "I would like to hope so," he said. But he smiled incredulously. "I can only say that if you can accomplish what it is in my heart to do, I will go through fire and water at your bidding; and if you are not mocking me, I am very grateful for the offer. But if you please, signora, we will not speak any more of this at present. I may be a great artist some day. Sometimes I feel sure that I shall. But now I am simply Giovanni Cardegna, teacher of literature; and the highest favour you can confer on me is not to deprive me of my means of support by revealing to the Conte di Lira my other occupation. I may fail hopelessly at the outset of my artistic career, and in that case I shall certainly remain a teacher of language." "Very well," said the baroness, in a subdued voice; for, in spite of her will and wilfulness, this square-faced boy of mine was more than a match for her. "Very well, you will believe me another day, and now I will ask you to go, for I am tired." I cannot be interrupted by your silly questions about the exact way in which things happened. I must tell this story in my own way or not at all; and I am sacrificing a great deal to your taste in cutting out all the little things that I really most enjoy telling. Whether you are astonished at the conduct of the baroness, after a three weeks' acquaintance, or not, I care not a fig. It is just the way it happened, and I daresay she was really madly in love with Nino. If I had been Nino I should have been in love with her. But I would like you to admire my boy's audacity, and to review the situation, before I go on to speak of that important event in his life, his first appearance on the boards of the opera. At the time of his _début_ he was still disguised as a teacher of Italian to the young contessina. She thought him interesting and intelligent, but that was all. Her thoughts were entirely, though secretly, engrossed by the mysterious singer whom she had heard twice but had not seen as far as she knew. Nino, on the other hand, loved her to desperation, and would have acted like a madman had he been deprived of his privilege of speaking to her three times a week. He loved her with the same earnest determination to win her that he had shown for years in the study of his art, and with all the rest of his nature besides, which is saying much--not to mention his soul, of which he thinks a great deal more than I do. Besides this, the baroness had apparently fallen in love with him, had made him her intimate, and flattered him in a way to turn his head. Then she seemed to have thought better of her passion, and had promised him her friendship,--a promise which he himself considered of no importance whatever. As for the old Conte de Lira, he read the German newspapers, and cared for none of these things. De Pretis took an extra pinch of his good snuff, when he thought that his liberal ideas might yet be realised, and a man from the people marry a great lady by fairly winning her. Do not, after this, complain that I have left you in the dark, or that you do not know how it happened. It is as clear as water, and it was about four months from the time Nino saw Hedwig in St. Peter's to the time when he first sang in public. Christmas passed by,--thank heaven the municipality has driven away those most detestable pifferari who played on their discordant bagpipes at every corner for a fortnight, and nearly drove me crazy,--and the Befana, as we call the Epiphany in Rome, was gone, with its gay racket, and the night fair in the Piazza Navona, and the days for Nino's first appearance drew near. I never knew anything about the business arrangements for the _début_, since De Pretis settled all that with Jacovacci, the impresario; but I know that there were many rehearsals, and that I was obliged to stand security to the theatrical tailor, together with De Pretis, in order that Nino might have his dress made. As for the cowl in the last act, De Pretis has a brother who is a monk, and between them they put together a very decent friar's costume; and Mariuccia had a good piece of rope which Nino used for a girdle. "What does it matter?" he said, with much good sense. "For if I sing well, they will not look at my monk's hood; and if I sing badly, I may be dressed like the Holy Father and they will hiss me just the same. But in the beginning I must look like a courtier, and be dressed like one." "I suppose so," said I; "but I wish you had taken to philosophy." CHAPTER VI I shall never forget the day of Nino's first appearance. You may imagine whether we were in a state of excitement or not, after all these years of studying and waiting. There was much more trouble and worry than if he had written a great book, and was just to publish it, and receive the homage of all the learning and talent in Europe; which is the kind of _début_ I had hoped he would make in life, instead of putting on a foolish dress and stamping about on a stage, and squalling love songs to a packed house, making pantomime with his hands, and altogether behaving like an idiot,--a crowd of people ready to hiss him at the slightest indication of weakness, or to carry him on their shoulders if they fancied his voice to their taste. No wonder Nino was sad and depressed all day, and when he tried his voice in the afternoon thought it was less clear than usual, and stared at himself in the looking-glass, wondering whether he were not too ugly altogether, as I always told him. To tell the truth, he was not so ugly as he had been; for the months with the contessina had refined him singularly, and perhaps he had caught a certain grace of manner from the baroness. He had grown more silent too, and seemed always preoccupied, as well he might be: but he had concealed his affair with the Lira family from me until that day, and I supposed him anxious about his appearance. Early in the morning came De Pretis, and suggested that it would be better for Nino to take a walk and breathe the fresh air a little; so I bade him go, and I did not see him again until the afternoon. De Pretis said that the only cause for anxiety was from stage fright, and went away taking snuff and flourishing his immense cotton handkerchief. I thought a man must be a fool to work for years in order to sing, and then, when he had learned to do it quite well, to be afraid of showing what he knew. I did not think Nino would be frightened. Of course there was a final rehearsal at eleven, and Nino put off the hour of the lesson with the contessina to three in the afternoon, by some excuse or other. He must have felt very much pressed for time, having to give her a lesson on the very day of his coming out; and besides, he knew very well that it might be the last of his days with her, and that a great deal would depend on the way he bore himself at his trial. He sang badly, or thought he did, at the rehearsal, and grew more and more depressed and grave as the day advanced. He came out of the little stage door of the Apollo theatre at Tor di Nona, and his eyes fell upon the broad bills and posters announcing the first appearance of "Giovanni Cardegna, the most distinguished pupil of the Maestro Ercole de Pretis, in Donizetti's opera the 'Favorita.'" His heart sank at the sight of his own name, and he turned towards the Bridge of Sant' Angelo to get away from it. He was the last to leave the theatre, and De Pretis was with him. At that moment he saw Hedwig von Lira sitting in an open carriage in front of the box office. De Pretis bowed low; she smiled; and Nino took off his hat, but would not go near her, escaping in the opposite direction. He thought she looked somewhat surprised, but his only idea was to get away, lest she should call him and put some awkward question. An hour and a half later he entered her sitting-room. There she sat, as usual, with her books, awaiting him perhaps for the last time, a fair, girlish figure with gold hair, but oh, so cold!--it makes me shiver to think of how she used to look. Possibly there was a dreaminess about her blue eyes that made up for her manner; but how Nino could love her I cannot understand. It must have been like making love to a pillar of ice. "I am much indebted to you for allowing me to come at this hour, signorina," he said, as he bowed. "Ah, professore, it looks almost as though it were you yourself who were to make your _début_" said she, laughing and leaning back in her chair. "Your name is on every corner in Rome, and I saw you coming out of a side door of the theatre this morning." Nino trembled, but reflected that if she had suspected anything she would not have made so light of it. "The fact is, signorina, my cousin is so nervous that he begged me earnestly to be present at the rehearsal this morning; and as it is the great event of his life, I could not easily refuse him. I presume you are going to hear him, since I saw your carriage at the theatre." "Yes. At the last minute my father wanted to change our box for one nearer the stage, and so we went ourselves. The baroness--you know, the lady who went with us to the Pantheon--is going with us to-night." It was the first time Hedwig had mentioned her, and it was evident that Nino's intimacy with the baroness had been kept a secret. How long would it be so? Mechanically he proceeded with the lesson, thinking mournfully that he should never give her another. But Hedwig was more animated than he had ever seen her, and often stopped to ask questions about the coming performance. It was evident that she was entirely absorbed with the thought of at last hearing to its fullest extent the voice that had haunted her dreams; most of all, with the anticipation of what this wonderful singer would be like. Dwelling on the echo of his singing for months had roused her interest and curiosity to such a pitch that she could hardly be quiet a moment, or think calmly of what she was to enjoy; and yet she looked so very cold and indifferent at most times. But Nino had noticed all this, and rejoiced at it; young as he was, however, he understood that the discovery she was about to make would be a shock that would certainly produce some palpable result, when she should see him from her box in the theatre. He trembled for the consequences. The lesson was over all too soon, and Nino lingered a moment to see whether the very last drops of his cup of happiness might not still be sweet. He did not know when he should see her again, to speak with her; and though he determined it should not be long, the future seemed very uncertain, and he would look on her loveliness while he might. "I hope you will like my cousin's singing," he said, rather timidly. "If he sings as he has sung before he is the greatest artist living," she said calmly, as though no one would dispute it. "But I am curious to see him as well as to hear him." "He is not handsome," said Nino, smiling a little. "In fact, there is a family resemblance; he is said to look like me." "Why did you not tell me that before?" she asked quickly, and fixed her blue eyes on Nino's face as though she wished to photograph the features in her mind. "I did not suppose the signorina would think twice about a singer's appearance," said Nino quietly. Hedwig blushed and turned away, busying herself with her books. At that moment Graf von Lira entered from the next room. Nino bowed. "Curious is it," said the count, "that you and the about-to-make-his- appearance tenor should the same name have." "He is a near relation, Signor Conte,--the same whom you heard sing in the Pantheon. I hope you will like his voice." "That is what we shall see, Signor Professore," answered the other severely. He had a curious way of bowing, as though he were made only in two pieces, from his waist to his heels, and from his waist to the crown of his head. Nino went his way sadly, and wondering how Hedwig would look when she should recognise him from her box in the theatre that very evening. It is a terrible and a heart-tearing thing to part from the woman one loves. That is nothing new, you say. Everyone knows that, perhaps so, though I think not. Only those can know it who have experienced it, and for them no explanations are in any way at all necessary. The mere word "parting" calls up such an infinity of sorrow that it is better to draw a veil over the sad thing and bury it out of sight and put upon it the seal on which is graven "No Hope." Moreover, when a man only supposes, as Nino did, that he is leaving the woman he loves, or is about to leave her, until he can devise some new plan for seeing her, the case is not so very serious. Nevertheless, Nino, who is of a very tender constitution of the affections, suffered certain pangs which are always hard to bear, and as he walked slowly down the street he hung his head low, and did not look like a man who could possibly be successful in anything he might undertake that day. Yet it was the most important day of his life, and had it not been that he had left Hedwig with little hope of ever giving her another lesson, he would have been so happy that the whole air would have seemed dancing with sunbeams and angels and flowers. I think that when a man loves he cares very little for what he does. The greatest success is indifferent to him, and he cares not at all for failure in the ordinary undertakings of life. These are my reflections, and they are worth something, because I once loved very much myself, and was parted from her I loved many times before the last parting. It was on this day that Nino came to me and told me all the history of the past months, of which I knew nothing; but, as you know all about it, I need not tell you what the conversation was like, until he had finished. Then I told him he was the prince and chief of donkeys, which was no more than the truth, as everybody will allow. He only spread out his palms and shrugged his shoulders, putting his head on one side, as though to say he could not help it. "Is it perhaps my fault that you are a little donkey?" I asked; for you may imagine whether I was angry or not. "Certainly not, Sor Cornelio," he said. "It is entirely my own doing; but I do not see that I am a donkey." "Blood of Bacchus!" I ejaculated, holding up my hands. "He does not believe he is a great stupid!" But Nino was not angry at all. He busied himself a little with his costume, which was laid out on the piano, with the sword and the tinsel collar and all the rest of it. "I am in love," he said. "What would you have?" "I would have you put a little giudizio, just a grain of judgment and common sense, into your love affairs. Why, you go about it as though it were the most innocent thing in the world to disguise yourself, and present yourself as a professor in a nobleman's house, in order to make love to his daughter! You, to make love to a noble damigella, a young countess, with a fortune! Go back to Serveti, and marry the first contadina girl you meet, it is much more fitting, if you must needs marry at all. I repeat it, you are an ignorant donkey!" "Eh!" cried Nino, perfectly unmoved, "if I am ignorant, it is not for lack of your teaching; and as for being the beast of burden to which you refer, I have heard it said that you were once in love yourself. Meanwhile, I have told you this, because there will perhaps be trouble, and I did not intend you to be surprised." "Surprised?" said I. "I would not be surprised at anything you might fancy doing now. No, I would not dream of being surprised!" "So much the better," answered Nino, imperturbably. He looked sad and weary, though, and as I am a prudent man I put my anger away to cool for a little while, and indulged in a cigar until it should be time to go to the theatre; for of course I went with him, and Mariuccia too, to help him with his dress. Poor old Mariuccia! she had dressed him when he was a ragged little boy, and she was determined to put the finishing touches to his appearance now that he was about to be a great man, she said. His dressing-room was a narrow little place, sufficiently ill lighted, and there was barely space to turn round. Mariuccia, who had brought the cat and had her pocket full of roasted chestnuts, sat outside on a chair until he was ready for her; and I am sure that if she had spent her life in the profession of adorning players she could not have used her fingers more deftly in the arrangement of the collar and sword. Nino had a fancy to wear a moustache and a pointed beard through the first part of the opera; saying that a courtier always had hair on his face, but that he would naturally shave if he turned monk. I represented to him that it was needless expense, since he must deposit the value of the false beard with the theatre barber, who lives opposite; and it was twenty-three francs. Besides, he would look like a different man--two separate characters. "I do not care a cabbage for that," said Nino. If they cannot recognise me with their ears, they need not trouble themselves to recognise me at all." "It is a fact that their ears are quite long enough," said Mariuccia. "Hush, Mariuccia!" I said. "The Roman public is the most intelligent public in the world." And at this she grumbled. But I knew well enough why he wanted to wear the beard. He had a fancy to put off the evil moment as long as possible, so that Hedwig might not recognise him till the last act,--a foolish fancy, in truth, for a woman's eyes are not like a man's; and though Hedwig had never thought twice about Nino's personality, she had not sat opposite him three times a week for nearly four months without knowing all his looks and gestures. It is an absurd idea, too, to attempt to fence with time, when a thing must come in the course of an hour or two. What is it, after all, the small delay you can produce? The click of a few more seconds in the clock-work, before the hammer smites its angry warning on the bell, and leaves echoes of pain writhing through the poor bronze, that is Time. As for Eternity, it is a question of the calculus, and does not enter into a singer's first appearance, nor into the recognition of a lover. If it did, I would give you an eloquent dissertation upon it, so that you would yawn and take snuff, and wish me carried off by the diavolo to some place where I might lecture on the infinite without fear of being interrupted, or of keeping sinners like you unnecessarily long awake. There will be no hurry then. Poor old diavolo! he must have a dull time of it amongst all those heretics. Perhaps he has a little variety, for they say he has written up on his door, "Ici l'on parle français," since Monsieur de Voltaire died. But I must go on, or you will never be any wiser than you are now, which is not saying overmuch. I am not going to give you a description of the "Favorita," which you may hear a dozen times a year at the theatre, for more or less money--but it is only a franc if you stand; quite enough, too. I went upon the stage before it began, and peeped through the curtain to see what kind of an audience there was. It is an old curtain, and there is a hole in it on the right-hand side, which De Pretis says was made by a foreign tenor some years ago between the acts; and Jacovacci, the impresario, tried to make him pay five francs to have it repaired, but did not get the money. It is a better hole than the one in the middle, which is so far from both sides of the house that you cannot see the people well. So I looked through, and there, sure enough, in a box very near to the stage, sat the Contessina di Lira and the baroness, whom I had never seen before, but recognised from Nino's description; and behind them sat the count himself, with his great gray moustaches and a white cravat. They made me think of the time when I used to go to the theatre myself and sit in a box, and applaud or hiss, just as I pleased. Dio mio! what changes in this world! I recognised also a great many of our noble ladies, with jewels and other ornaments, and it seemed to me that some of them were much more beautiful than the German contessina whom Nino had elected to worship, though she was well enough, to be sure, in white silk and white fur, with her little gold cross at her throat. To think that a statue like that, brought up with all the proprieties, should have such a strange chapter of life! But my eye began to smart from peering through the little hole, and just then a rough-looking fellow connected with the stage reminded me that, whatever relation I might be to the primo tenore, I was not dressed to appear in the first act; then the audience began to stamp and groan because the performance did not begin, and I went away again to tell Nino that he had a packed house. I found De Pretis giving him blackberry syrup, which he had brought in a bottle, and entreating him to have courage. Indeed, it seemed to me that Nino had the more courage of the two; for De Pretis laughed and cried and blew his nose, and took snuff with his great fat fingers, and acted altogether like a poor fool; while Nino sat on a rush-bottomed chair and watched Mariuccia, who was stroking the old cat and nibbling roasted chestnuts, declaring all the while that Nino was the most beautiful object she had ever seen. Then the bass and the baritone came together and spoke cheering words to Nino, and invited him to supper afterwards; but he thanked them kindly, and told them that he was expected at home, and would go with them after the next performance--if there ever were a "next." He thought he might fail at the last minute. Nino had judged more rightly than I when he supposed that his beard and moustaches would disguise him from Hedwig during the first two acts. She recognised the wondrous voice, and she saw the strong resemblance he had spoken of. Once or twice as he looked toward her, it seemed indeed that the eyes must be his, with their deep circles and serious gaze. But it was absurd to suppose it anything more than a resemblance. As the opera advanced, it became evident that Nino was making a success. Then in the second act it was clear that the success was growing to be an ovation, and the ovation a furore, in which the house became entirely demoralised, and vouchsafed to listen only so long as Nino was singing--screaming with delight before he had finished what he had to sing in each scene. People sent their servants away in hot haste to buy flowers wherever they could, and he came back to his dressing-room, from the second act, carrying bouquets by the dozen, small bunches and big, such as people had been able to get or had brought with them. His eyes shone like the coals in Mariuccia's scaldino, as he entered, and he was pale through his paint. He could hardly speak for joy; but, as old habits return unconsciously at great moments in a man's life, he took the cat on his knee and pulled its tail. "Sing thou also, little beast," he said, gravely; and he pulled the tail till the cat squeaked a little, and he was satisfied. "Bene!" he cried; "and now for the tonsure and the frock." So Mariuccia was turned out into the passage while he changed his dress. De Pretis came back a moment later and tried to help him, but he was so much overcome that he could only shed tears and give a last word of advice for the next act. "You must not sing it too loud, Nino mio," he said. "Diavolo!" said Nino. "I should think not!" "But you must not squeak it out in a little wee false voice, as small as this"; the maestro held up his thumb and finger, with a pinch of snuff between them. "Bah? Sor Ercole, do you take me for a soprano?" cried the boy, laughing, as he washed off the paint and the gum where the beard had stuck. Presently he got into his frock, which, as I told you, was a real one, provided by Ercole's brother, the Franciscan--quite quietly, of course, for it would seem a dreadful thing to use a real monk's frock in an opera. Then we fastened the rope round his waist, and smoothed his curly hair a little to give him a more pious aspect. He looked as white as a pillow when the paint was gone. "Tell me a little, my father," said old Mariuccia, mocking him, "do you fast on Sundays, that you look so pale?" Whereat Nino struck an attitude, and began singing a love song to the ancient woman. Indeed, she was joking about the fast, for she had expended my substance of late in fattening Nino, as she called it, for his appearance, and there was to be broiled chickens for supper that very night. He was only pale because he was in love. As for me, I made up my mind to stand in the slides, so that I could see the contessina; for Nino had whispered to me that she had not yet recognised him, though she stared hard across the footlights. Therefore I took up a good position on the left of the stage, facing the Lira box, which was on the right. The curtain went up, and Nino stood there, looking like a real monk, with a book in his hand and his eyes cast down, as he began to walk slowly along. I saw Hedwig von Lira's gaze rest on his square, pale face at least one whole minute. Then she gave a strange little cry, so that many people in the house looked towards her; and she leaned far back in the shadow of the deep box, while the reflected glare of the footlights just shone faintly on her features, making them look more like marble than ever. The baroness was smiling to herself, amused at her companion's surprise, and the old count stared stolidly for a moment or two, and then turned suddenly to his daughter. "Very curious is it," he was probably saying, "that this tenor should so much your Italian professor resemble." I could almost see his gray eyes sparkle angrily across the theatre. But as I looked, a sound rose on the heated air, the like of which I have never known. To tell the truth, I had not heard the first two acts, for I did not suppose there was any great difference between Nino's singing on the stage and his singing at home, and I still wished he might have chosen some other profession. But when I heard this I yielded, at least for the time, and I am not sure that my eyes were as clear as usual. "Spirto gentil dei sogni miei"--the long sweet notes sighed themselves to death on his lips, falling and rising magically like a mystic angel song, and swaying their melody out into the world of lights and listeners; so pathetic, so heart-breaking, so laden with death and with love, that it was as though all the sorrowing souls in our poor Rome breathed in one soft sigh together. Only a poor monk dying of love in a monastery, tenderly and truly loving to the bitter end. Dio mio! there are perhaps many such. But a monk like this, with a face like a conqueror, set square in its whiteness, and yet so wretched to see in his poor patched frock and his bare feet; a monk, too, not acting love, but really and truly ready to die for a beautiful woman not thirty feet from him in the house; above all, a monk with a voice that speaks like the clarion call of the day of judgment in its wrath, and murmurs more plaintively and sadly in sorrow than ever the poor Peri sighed at the gates of Paradise--such a monk, what could he not make people feel? The great crowd of men and women sat utterly stilled and intent till he had sung the very last note. Not a sound was heard to offend the sorrow that spoke from the boy's lips. Then all those people seemed to draw three long breaths of wonder--a pause, a thrilling tremor in the air, and then there burst to the roof such a roar of cries, such a huge thunder of hands and voices, that the whole house seemed to rock with it, and even in the street outside they say the noise was deafening. Alone on the stage stood Nino, his eyes fixed on Hedwig von Lira in her box. I think that she alone of all that multitude made no sound, but only gripped the edge of the balcony hard in her white hands, and leaned far forward with straining eyes and beating heart to satisfy her wonder. She knew well enough, now, that there was no mistake. The humble little Professor Cardegna, who had patiently explained Dante and Leopardi to her for months, bowing to the ground in her presence, and apologising when he corrected her mistakes, as though his whole life was to be devoted to teaching foreigners his language; the decently clad young man, who was always pale, and sometimes pathetic when he spoke of himself, was no other than Giovanni Cardegna the tenor, singing aloud to earth and heaven with his glorious great voice--a man on the threshold of a European fame, such as falls only to the lot of a singer or a conqueror. More, he was the singer of her dreams, who had for months filled her thoughts with music and her heart with a strange longing, being until now a voice Only. There he stood looking straight at her,--she was not mistaken,--as though to say, "I have done it for you, and for you only." A woman must be more than marble to feel no pride in the intimate knowledge that a great public triumph has been gained solely for her sake. She must be colder than ice if she cannot see her power when a conqueror loves her. The marble had felt the fire, and the ice was in the flame at last. Nino, with his determination to be loved, had put his statue into a very fiery furnace, and in the young innocence of his heart had prepared such a surprise for his lady as might have turned the head of a hardened woman of the world, let alone an imaginative German girl, with a taste for romance--or without; it matters little. All Germans are full of imagination, and that is the reason they know so much. For they not only know all that is known by other people, but also all that they themselves imagine, which nobody else can possibly know. And if you do not believe this, you had better read the works of one Fichte, a philosopher. I need not tell you any more about Nino's first appearance. It was one of those really phenomenal successes that seem to cling to certain people through life. He was very happy and very silent when it was over; and we were the last to leave the theatre, for we feared the enthusiasm of the crowd. So we waited till everyone had gone, and then marched home together, for it was a fine night. I walked on one side of Nino and De Pretis on the other, all of us carrying as many flowers as we could; Mariuccia came behind, with the cat under her shawl. I did not discover until we reached home why she had brought the beast. Then she explained that, as there was so much food in the kitchen in anticipation of our supper, she had been afraid to leave the cat alone in the house, lest we should find nothing left to eat when we returned. This was sufficiently prudent for a scatter-brained old spendthrift like Mariuccia. That was a merry supper, and De Pretis became highly dramatic when we got to the second flask. CHAPTER VII On the day following Nino's _début_, Maestro Ercole de Pretis found himself in hot water, and the choristers at St. Peter's noticed that his skull-cap was awry, and that he sang out of tune; and once he tried to take a pinch of snuff when there was only three bars' rest in the music, so that instead of singing C sharp he sneezed very loud. Then all the other singers giggled, and said, "Salute!"--which we always say to a person who sneezes--quite audibly. It was not that Ercole had heard anything from the Graf von Lira as yet; but he expected to hear, and did not relish the prospect. Indeed, how could the Prussian gentleman fail to resent what the maestro had done in introducing to him a singer disguised as a teacher? It chanced, also, that the contessina took a singing lesson that very day in the afternoon, and it was clear that the reaping of his evil deeds was not far off. His conscience did not trouble him at all, it is true, for I have told you that he has liberal ideas about the right of marriage; but his vanity was sorely afflicted at the idea of abandoning such a very noble and creditable pupil as the Contessina di Lira. He applauded himself for furthering Nino's wild schemes, and he blamed himself for being so reckless about his own interests. Every moment he expected a formal notice from the count to discontinue the lessons. But still it did not come, and at the appointed hour Ercole's wife helped him to put on his thick winter coat, and wrapped his comforter about his neck, and pulled his big hat over his eyes--for the weather was threatening, and sent him trudging off to the Palazzo Carmandola. Though Ercole is stout of heart, and has broad shoulders to bear such burdens as fall to his lot, he lingered long on the way, for his presentiments were gloomy; and at the great door of the Palazzo he even stopped to inquire of the porter whether the contessina had been seen to go out yet, half hoping that she would thus save him the mortification of an interview. But it turned out otherwise: the contessina was at home, and De Pretis was expected, as usual, to give the lesson. Slowly he climbed the great staircase, and was admitted. "Good-day, Sor Maestro," said the liveried footman, who knew him well. "The Signor Conte desires to speak with you to-day before you go to the signorina." The maestro's heart sank, and he gripped hard the roll of music in his hand as he followed the servant to the count's cabinet. There was to be a scene of explanation after all. The count was seated in his great arm-chair, in a cloud of tobacco smoke, reading a Prussian military journal. His stick leaned against the table by his side, in painful contrast with the glittering cavalry sabres crossed upon the dark red wall opposite. The tall windows looked out on the piazza, and it was raining, or just beginning to rain. The great inkstand on the table was made to represent a howitzer, and the count looked as though he were ready to fire it point blank at any intruder. There was an air of disciplined luxury in the room that spoke of a rich old soldier who fed his fancy with tit-bits from a stirring past. De Pretis felt very uncomfortable, but the nobleman rose to greet him, as he rose to greet everything above the rank of a servant, making himself steady with his stick. When De Pretis was seated he sat down also. The rain pattered against the window. "Signor De Pretis," began the count, in tones as hard as chilled steel, "you are an honourable man." There was something interrogative in his voice. "I hope so," answered the maestro modestly; "like other Christians, I have a soul--" "You will your soul take care of in your leisure moments," interrupted the count. "At present you have no leisure." "As you command, Signor Conte." "I was yesterday evening at the theatre. The professor you recommended for my daughter is with the new tenor one person." De Pretis spread out his hands and bowed, as if to deprecate any share in the transaction. The count continued, "You are of the profession, Signor De Pretis. Evidently, you of this were aware." "It is true," assented Ercole, not knowing what to say. "Of course it is true. I am therefore to hear your explanation disposed." His grey eyes fastened sternly on the maestro. But the latter was prepared, for he had long foreseen that the count would one day be disposed to hear an explanation, as he expressed it. "It is quite true," repeated De Pretis. "The young man was very poor, and desired to support himself while he was studying music. He was well fitted to teach our literature, and I recommended him. I hope that, in consideration of his poverty, and because he turned out a very good teacher, you will forgive me, Signor Conte." "This talented singer I greatly applaud," answered the count stiffly. "As a with-the-capacity-and-learning-requisite-for-teaching-endowed young man deserves he also some commendation. Also will I remember his laudable-and-not-lacking independence character. Nevertheless, unfitting would it be should I pay the first tenor of the opera five francs an hour to teach my daughter Italian literature." De Pretis breathed more freely. "Then you will forgive me, Signor Conte, for endeavouring to promote the efforts of this worthy young man in supporting himself?" "Signor De Pretis," said the count, with a certain quaint geniality, "I have my precautions observed. I examined Signor Cardegna in Italian literature in my own person, and him proficient found. Had I found him to be ignorant, and had I his talents as an operatic singer later discovered, I would you out of that window have projected." De Pretis was alarmed, for the old count looked as though he would have carried out the threat. "As it is," he concluded, "you are an honourable man, and I wish you good-morning. Lady Hedwig awaits you as usual." He rose courteously, leaning on his stick, and De Pretis bowed himself out. He expected that the contessina would immediately begin talking of Nino, but he was mistaken; she never once referred to the opera or the singer, and except that she looked pale and transparent, and sang with a trifle less interest in her music than usual, there was nothing noticeable in her manner. Indeed, she had every reason to be silent. Early that morning Nino received by messenger a pretty little note, written in execrable Italian, begging him to come and breakfast with the baroness at twelve, as she much desired to speak with him after his stupendous triumph of the previous night. Nino is a very good boy, but he is mortal, and after the excitement of the evening he thought nothing could be pleasanter than to spend a few hours in that scented boudoir, among the palms and the beautiful objects and the perfumes, talking with a woman who professed herself ready to help him in his love affair. We have no perfumes or cushions or pretty things at number twenty-seven Santa Catarina dei Funari, though everything is very bright and neat and most proper, and the cat is kept in the kitchen, for the most part. So it is no wonder that he should have preferred to spend the morning with the baroness. She was half lying, half sitting, in a deep arm-chair, when Nino entered; and she was reading a book. When she saw him she dropped the volume on her knee, and looked up at him from under her lids, without speaking. She must have been a bewitching figure. Nino advanced toward her, bowing low, so that his dark curling hair shaded his face. "Good-day, signora," said he softly, as though fearing to hurt the quiet air. "I trust I do not interrupt you?" "You never interrupt me, Nino," she said, "except--except when you go away." "You are very good, signora." "For heaven's sake, no pretty speeches," said she, with a little laugh. "It seems to me," said Nino, seating himself, "that it was you who made the pretty speech, and I who thanked you for it." There was a pause. "How do you feel!" asked the baroness at last, turning her head to him. "Grazie--I am well," he answered, smiling. "Oh, I do not mean that,--you are always well. But how do you enjoy your first triumph?" "I think," said Nino, "that a real artist ought to have the capacity to enjoy a success at the moment, and the good sense to blame his vanity for enjoying it after it is passed." "How old are you, Nino?" "Did I never tell you?" he asked innocently. "I shall be twenty-one soon." "You talk as though you were forty, at least." "Heaven save us!" quoth Nino. "But really, are you not immensely flattered at the reception you had?" "Yes." "You did not look at all interested in the public at the time," said she, "and that Roman nose of yours very nearly turned up in disdain of the applause, I thought. I wonder what you were thinking of all the while." "Can you wonder, baronessa?" She knew what he meant, and there was a little look of annoyance in her face when she answered. "Ah, well, of course not, since _she_ was there." Her ladyship rose, and taking a stick of Eastern pastil from a majolica dish in a corner made Nino light it from a wax taper. "I want the smell of the sandal-wood this morning," said she; "I have a headache." She was enchanting to look at as she bent her softly-shaded face over the flame to watch the burning perfume. She looked like a beautiful lithe sorceress making a love spell,--perhaps for her own use. Nino turned from her. He did not like to allow the one image he loved to be even for a moment disturbed by the one he loved not, however beautiful. She moved away, leaving the pastil on the dish. Suddenly she paused, and turned back to look at him. "Why did you come to-day?" she asked. "Because you desired it," answered Nino, in some astonishment. "You need not have come," she said, bending down to lean on the back of a silken chair. She folded her hands and looked at him as he stood not three paces away. "Do you not know what has happened?" she asked, with a smile that was a little sad. "I do not understand," said Nino simply. He was facing the entrance to the room, and saw the curtains parted by the servant. The baroness had her back to the door, and did not hear. "Do you not know," she continued, "that you are free now? Your appearance in public has put an end to it all. You are not tied to me any longer,--unless you wish it." As she spoke these words Nino turned white, for under the heavy curtain, lifted to admit her, stood Hedwig von Lira, like a statue, transfixed and immovable from what she had heard. The baroness noticed Nino's look, and springing back to her height from the chair on which she had been leaning, faced the door. "My dearest Hedwig!" she cried, with a magnificent readiness. "I am so very glad you have come. I did not expect you in the least. Do take off your hat, and stay to breakfast. Ah, forgive me; this is Professor Cardegna. But you know him? Yes; now that I think, we all went to the Pantheon together." Nino bowed low, and Hedwig bent her head. "Yes," said the young girl coldly. "Professor Cardegna gives me lessons." "Why, of course; how _bête_ I am! I was just telling him that, since he has been successful, and is enrolled among the great artists, it is a pity he is no longer tied to giving Italian lessons,--tied to coming here three times a week to teach me literature." Hedwig smiled a strange icy smile, and sat down by the window. Nino was still utterly astonished, but he would not allow the baroness's quibble to go entirely uncontradicted. "In truth," he said, "the Signora Baronessa's lessons consisted chiefly--" "In teaching me pronunciation," interrupted the baroness, trying to remove Hedwig's veil and hat, somewhat against the girl's inclination. "Yes, you see how it is. I know a little of singing, but I cannot pronounce--not in the least. Ah, these Italian vowels will be the death of me! But if there is anyone who can teach a poor dilettante to pronounce them," she added, laying the hat away on a chair, and pushing a footstool to Hedwig's feet, "that someone is Signor Cardegna." By this time Nino had recognised the propriety of temporising; that is to say, of letting the baroness's fib pass for what it was worth, lest the discussion of the subject should further offend Hedwig, whose eyes wandered irresolutely toward him, as though she would say something if he addressed her. "I hope, signorina," he said, "that it is not quite as the baroness says. I trust our lessons are not at an end?" He knew very well that they were. "I think, Signor Cardegna," said Hedwig, with more courage than would have been expected from such a mere child,--she is twenty, but Northern people are not grown up till they are thirty, at least,--"I think it would have been more obliging if, when I asked you so much about your cousin, you had acknowledged that you had no cousin, and that the singer was none other than yourself." She blushed, perhaps, but the curtain of the window hid it. "Alas, signorina," answered Nino, still standing before her, "such a confession would have deprived me of the pleasure--of the honour of giving you lessons." "And pray, Signor Cardegna," put in the baroness, "what are a few paltry lessons compared with the pleasure you ought to have experienced in satisfying the Contessina di Lira's curiosity. Really, you have little courtesy." Nino shrank into himself, as though he were hurt, and he gave the baroness a look which said worlds. She smiled at him, in joy of her small triumph, for Hedwig was looking at the floor again and could not see. But the young girl had strength in her, for all her cold looks and white cheek. "You can atone, Signor Cardegna," she said. Nino's face brightened. "How, signorina?" he asked. "By singing to us now," said Hedwig. The baroness looked grave, for she well knew what a power Nino wielded with his music. "Do not ask him," she protested. "He must be tired,--tired to death, with all he went through last night." "Tired?" ejaculated Nino, with some surprise. "I tired? I was never tired in my life of singing. I will sing as long as you will listen." He went to the piano. As he turned, the baroness laid her hand on Hedwig's affectionately, as though sympathising with something she supposed to be passing in the girl's mind. But Hedwig was passive, unless a little shudder at the first touch of the baroness's fingers might pass for a manifestation of feeling. Hedwig had hitherto liked the baroness, finding in her a woman of a certain artistic sense, combined with a certain originality. The girl was an absolute contrast to the woman, and admired in her the qualities she thought lacking in herself, though she possessed too much self-respect to attempt to acquire them by imitation. Hedwig sat like a Scandinavian fairy princess on the summit of a glass hill; her friend roamed through life like a beautiful soft-footed wild animal, rejoicing in the sense of being, and sometimes indulging in a little playful destruction by the way. The girl had heard a voice in the dark singing, and ever since then she had dreamed of the singer; but it never entered her mind to confide to the baroness her strange fancies. An undisciplined imagination, securely shielded from all outward disturbing causes, will do much with a voice in the dark,--a great deal more than such a woman as the baroness might imagine. I do not know enough about these blue-eyed German girls to say whether or not Hedwig had ever before thought of her unknown singer as an unknown lover. But the emotions of the previous night had shaken her nerves a little, and had she been older than she was she would have known that she loved her singer, in a distant and maidenly fashion, as soon as she heard the baroness speak of him as having been her property. And now she was angry with herself, and ashamed of feeling any interest in a man who was evidently tied to another woman by some intrigue she could not comprehend. Her coming to visit the baroness had been as unpremeditated as it was unexpected that morning, and she bitterly repented it; but being of good blood and heart, she acted as boldly as she could, and showed no little tact in making Nino sing, and thus cutting short a painful conversation. Only when the baroness tried to caress her and stroke her hand she shrank away, and the blood mantled up to her cheeks. Add to all this the womanly indignation she felt at having been so long deceived by Nino, and you will see that she was in a very vacillating frame of mind. The baroness was a subtle woman, reckless and diplomatic by turns, and she was not blind to the sudden repulse she met with from Hedwig, unspoken though it was. But she merely withdrew her hand, and sat thinking over the situation. What she thought, no one knows; or at least, we can only guess it from what she did afterwards. As for me, I have never blamed her at all, for she is the kind of woman I should have loved. In the meantime Nino carolled out one love song after another. He saw, however, that the situation was untenable, and after a while he rose to go. Strange to say, although the baroness had asked Nino to breakfast and the hour was now at hand, she made no effort to retain him. But she gave him her hand, and said many flattering and pleasing things, which, however, neither flattered nor pleased him. As for Hedwig, she bent her head a little, but said nothing, as he bowed before her. Nino therefore went home with a heavy heart, longing to explain to Hedwig why he had been tied to the baroness,--that it was the price of her silence and of the privilege he had enjoyed of giving lessons to the contessina; but knowing also that all explanation was out of the question for the present. When he was gone Hedwig and the baroness were left together. "It must have been a great surprise to you, my dear," said the elder lady kindly. "What?" "That your little professor should turn out a great artist in disguise. It was a surprise to me, too,--ah, another illusion destroyed. Dear child! You have still so many illusions,--beautiful, pure illusions. Dieu! how I envy you!" They generally talked French together, though the baroness knows German. Hedwig laughed bravely. "I was certainly astonished," she said. "Poor man! I suppose he did it to support himself. He never told me he gave you lessons too." The baroness smiled, but it was from genuine satisfaction this time. "I wonder at that, since he knew we were intimate, or, at least, that we were acquainted. Of course I would not speak of it last night, because I saw your father was angry." "Yes, he was angry. I suppose it was natural," said Hedwig. "Perfectly natural. And you, my dear, were you not angry too,--just a little?" "I? No. Why should I be angry? He was a very good teacher, for he knows whole volumes by heart; and he understands them too." Soon they talked of other things, and the baroness was very affectionate. But though Hedwig saw that her friend was kind and most friendly, she could not forget the words that were in the air when she chanced to enter, nor could she quite accept the plausible explanation of them which the baroness had so readily invented. For jealousy is the forerunner of love, and sometimes its awakener. She felt a rival and an enemy, and all the hereditary combativeness of her Northern blood was roused. Nino, who was in no small perplexity, reflected. He was not old enough or observant enough to have seen the breach that was about to be created between the baroness and Hedwig. His only thought was to clear himself in Hedwig's eyes from the imputation of having been tied to the dark woman in any way save for his love's sake. He at once began to hate the baroness with all the ferocity of which his heart was capable, and with all the calm his bold square face outwardly expressed. But he was forced to take some action at once, and he could think of nothing better to do than to consult De Pretis. To the maestro he poured out his woes and his plans. He exhibited to him his position toward the baroness and toward Hedwig in the clearest light. He conjured him to go to Hedwig and explain that the baroness had threatened to unmask him, and thus deprive him of his means of support,--he dared not put it otherwise,--unless he consented to sing for her and come to her as often as she pleased. To explain, to propitiate, to smooth,--in a word, to reinstate Nino in her good opinion. "Death of a dog!" exclaimed De Pretis; "you do not ask much! After you have allowed your lady-love, your inamorata, to catch you saying you are bound body and soul to another woman,--and such a woman! ye saints, what a beauty!--you ask me to go and set matters right! What the diavolo did you want to go and poke your nose into such a mousetrap for? Via! I am a fool to have helped you at all." "Very likely," said Nino calmly. "But meanwhile there are two of us, and perhaps I am the greater. You will do what I ask, maestro; is it not true? And it was not I who said it; it was the baroness." "The baroness--yes--and may the maledictions of the inferno overtake her," said De Pretis, casting up his eyes and feeling in his coat-tail pockets for his snuff-box. Once, when Nino was younger, he filled Ercole's snuff-box with soot and pepper, so that the maestro had a black nose and sneezed all day. What could Ercole do? It was true that he had hitherto helped Nino. Was he not bound to continue that assistance? I suppose so; but if the whole affair had ended then, and this story with it, I would not have cared a button. Do you suppose it amuses me to tell you this tale? Or that if it were not for Nino's good name I would ever have turned myself into a common storyteller? Bah! you do not know me. A page of quaternions gives me more pleasure than all this rubbish put together, though I am not averse to a little gossip now and then of an evening, if people will listen to my details and fancies. But those are just the things people will not listen to. Everybody wants sensation nowadays. What is a sensation compared with a thought? What is the convulsive gesticulation of a dead frog's leg compared with the intellect of the man who invented the galvanic battery, and thus gave fictitious sensation to all the countless generations of dead frogs' legs that have since been the objects of experiment? Or if you come down to so poor a thing as mere feeling, what are your feelings in reading about Nino's deeds compared with what he felt in doing them? I am not taking all this trouble to please you, but only for Nino's sake, who is my dear boy. You are of no more interest or importance to me than if you were so many dead frogs; and if I galvanise your sensations, as you call them, into an activity sufficient to make you cry or laugh, that is my own affair. You need not say "thank you" to me. I do not want it. Ercole will thank you, and perhaps Nino will thank me, but that is different. I will not tell you about the interview that Ercole had with Hedwig, nor how skilfully he rolled up his eyes and looked pathetic when he spoke of Nino's poverty and of the fine part he had played in the whole business. Hedwig is a woman, and the principal satisfaction she gathered from Ercole's explanation was the knowledge that her friend the baroness had lied to her in explaining those strange words she had overheard. She knew it, of course, by instinct; but it was a great relief to be told the fact by someone else, as it always is, even when one is not a woman. CHAPTER VIII Several days passed after the _début_ without giving Nino an opportunity of speaking to Hedwig. He probably saw her, for he mingled in the crowd of dandies in the Piazza Colonna of an afternoon, hoping she would pass in her carriage and give him a look. Perhaps she did; he said nothing about it, but looked calm when he was silent and savage when he spoke, after the manner of passionate people. His face aged and grew stern in those few days, so that he seemed to change on a sudden from boy to man. But he went about his business, and sang at the theatre when he was obliged to; gathering courage to do his best and to display his powers from the constant success he had. The papers were full of his praises, saying that he was absolutely without rival from the very first night he sang, matchless and supreme from the moment he first opened his mouth, and all that kind of nonsense. I dare say he is now, but he could not have been really the greatest singer living, so soon. However, he used to bring me the newspapers that had notices of him, though he never appeared to care much for them, nor did he ever keep them himself. He said he hankered for an ideal which he would never attain, and I told him that if he was never to attain it he had better abandon the pursuit of it at once. But he represented to me that the ideal was confined to his imagination, whereas the reality had a great financial importance, since he daily received offers from foreign managers to sing for them, at large advantage to himself, and was hesitating only in order to choose the most convenient. This seemed sensible, and I was silent. Soon afterwards he presented me with a box of cigars and a very pretty amber mouthpiece. The cigars were real Havanas, such as I had not smoked for years, and must have cost a great deal. "You may not be aware, Sor Cornelio," he said one evening, as he mixed the oil and vinegar with the salad, at supper, "that I am now a rich man, or soon shall be. An agent from the London opera has offered me twenty thousand francs for the season in London this spring." "Twenty thousand francs!" I cried, in amazement. "You must be dreaming, Nino. That is just about seven times what I earn in a year with my professorship and my writing." "No dreams, caro mio. I have the offer in my pocket." He apparently cared no more about it than if he had twenty thousand roasted chestnuts in his pocket. "When do you leave us?" I asked, when I was somewhat recovered. "I am not sure that I will go," he answered, sprinkling some pepper on the lettuce. "Not sure! Body of Diana, what a fool you are!" "Perhaps," said he, and he passed me the dish. Just then Mariuccia came in with a bottle of wine, and we said no more about it, for Mariuccia is indiscreet. Nino thought nothing about his riches, because he was racking his brains for some good expedient whereby he might see the contessina and speak with her. He had ascertained from De Pretis that the count was not so angry as he had expected, and that Hedwig was quite satisfied with the explanations of the maestro. The day after the foregoing conversation he wrote a note to her, wherein he said that if the Contessina de Lira would deign to be awake at midnight that evening she would have a serenade from a voice she was said to admire. He had Mariuccia carry the letter to the Palazzo Cormandola. At half-past eleven, at least two hours after supper, Nino wrapped himself in my old cloak and took the guitar under his arm. Rome is not a very safe place for midnight pranks, and so I made him take a good knife in his waistbelt; for he had confided to me where he was going. I tried to dissuade him from the plan, saying he might catch cold; but he laughed at me. A serenade is an everyday affair, and in the street one voice sounds about as well as another. He reached the palace, and his heart sank when he saw Hedwig's window dark and gloomy. He did not know that she was seated behind it in a deep chair, wrapped in white things, and listening for him against the beatings of her heart. The large moon seemed to be spiked on the sharp spire of the church that is near her house, and the black shadows cut the white light as clean as with a knife. Nino had tuned his guitar in the other street, and stood ready, waiting for the clocks to strike. Presently they clanged out wildly, as though they had been waked from their midnight sleep, and were angry; one clock answering the other, and one convent bell following another in the call to prayers. For two full minutes the whole air was crazy with ringing, and then it was all still. Nino struck a single chord. Hedwig almost thought he might hear her heart beating all the way down the street. "Ah, del mio dolce ardor bramato ogetto," he sang,--an old air in one of Gluck's operas that our Italian musicians say was composed by Alessandro Stradella, the poor murdered singer. It must be a very good air, for it pleases me; and I am not easily pleased with music of any kind. As for Hedwig, she pressed her ear to the glass of the window that she might not lose any note. But she would not open nor give any sign. Nino was not so easily discouraged, for he remembered that once before she had opened her window for a few bars he had begun to sing. He played a few chords, and breathed out the "Salve, dimora casta e pura," from _Faust_, high and soft and clear. There is a point in that song, near to the end, where the words say, "Reveal to me the maiden," and where the music goes away to the highest note that anyone can possibly sing. It always appears quite easy for Nino, and he does not squeak like a dying pig as all the other tenors do on that note. He was looking up as he sang it, wondering whether it would have any effect. Apparently Hedwig lost her head completely, for she gently opened the casement and looked out at the moonlight opposite, over the carved stone mullions of her window. The song ended, he hesitated whether to go or to sing again. She was evidently looking towards him; but he was in the light, for the moon had risen higher, and she, on the other side of the street, was in the dark. "Signorina!" he called softly. No answer. "Signorina!" he said again, coming across the empty street and standing under the window, which might have been thirty feet from the ground. "Hush!" came a whisper from above. "I thank you with all my soul for listening to me," he said, in a low voice. "I am innocent of that of which you suspect me. I love you, ah, I love you!" But at this she left the window very quickly. She did not close it, however, and Nino stood long, straining his eyes for a glimpse of the white face that had been there. He sighed, and, striking a chord, sang out boldly the old air from the _Trovatore_, "Ah, che la morte ognora è tarda nel venir." Every blind fiddler in the streets plays it, though he would be sufficiently scared if death came any the quicker for his fiddling. But old and worn as it is it has a strain of passion in it, and Nino threw more fire and voice into the ring of it than ever did famous old Boccardè, when he sang it at the first performance of the opera, thirty and odd years ago. As he played the chords after the first strophe, the voice from above whispered again: "Hush! for Heaven's sake!" Just that, and something fell at his feet, with a soft little padded sound on the pavement. He stooped to pick it up, and found a single rose; and at that instant the window closed sharply. Therefore he kissed the rose and hid it, and presently he strode down the street, finishing his song as he went, but only humming it, for the joy had taken his voice away. I heard him let himself in and go to bed, and he told me about it in the morning. That is how I know. Since the day after the _début_ Nino had not seen the baroness. He did not speak of her, and I am sure he wished she were at the very bottom of the Tiber. But on the morning after the serenade he received a note from her, which was so full of protestations of friendship and so delicately couched that he looked grave, and reflected that it was his duty to be courteous, and to answer such a call as that. She begged him earnestly to come at one o'clock; she was suffering from headache, she said, and was very weak. Had Nino loved Hedwig a whit the less he would not have gone. But he felt himself strong enough to face anything and everything, and therefore he determined to go. He found her, indeed, with the manner of a person who is ill, but not with the appearance. She was lying on a huge couch, pushed to the fireside, and there were furs about her. A striped scarf of rich Eastern silk was round her throat, and she held in her hand a new novel, of which she carelessly cut the pages with a broad-hafted Persian knife. But there was colour in her dark cheek, and a sort of angry fire in her eyes. Nino thought the clean steel in her hand looked as though it might be used for something besides cutting leaves, if the fancy took her. "So at last you have honoured me with a visit, signore," she said, not desisting from her occupation. Nino came to her, and she put out her hand. He touched it, but could not bear to hold it, for it burned him. "You used to honour my hand differently from that," she half whispered. Nino sat himself down a little way from her, blushing slightly. It was not at what she had said, but at the thought that he should ever have kissed her fingers. "Signora," he replied, "there are customs, chivalrous and gentle in themselves, and worthy for all men to practise. But from the moment a custom begins to mean what it should not, it ought to be abandoned. You will forgive me if I no longer kiss your hand." "How cold you are!--how formal! What should it mean?" "It is better to say too little than too much," he answered. "Bah!" she cried, with a bitter little laugh. "Words are silver, but silence--is very often nothing but silver-plated brass. Put a little more wood on the fire; you make me cold." Nino obeyed. "How literal you are!" said the baroness petulantly. "There is fire enough on the hearth." "Apparently, signora, you are pleased to be enigmatical," said Nino. "I will be pleased to be anything I please," she answered, and looked at him rather fiercely. "I wanted you to drive away my headache, and you only make it worse." "I am sorry, signora. I will leave you at once. Permit me to wish you a very good-morning." He took his hat and went towards the door. Before he reached the heavy curtain, she was at his side with a rush like a falcon on the wing, her eyes burning darkly between anger and love. "Nino!" She laid hold of his arm, and looked into his face. "Signora," he protested coldly, and drew back. "You will not leave me so?" "As you wish, signora. I desire to oblige you." "Oh, how cold you are!" she cried, leaving his arm, and sinking into a chair by the door, while he stood with his hand on the curtain. She hid her eyes. "Nino, Nino! You will break my heart!" she sobbed; and a tear, perhaps more of anger than of sorrow, burst through her fingers, and coursed down her cheek. Few men can bear to see a woman shed tears. Nino's nature rose up in his throat, and bade him console her. But between him and her was a fair, bright image that forbade him to move hand or foot. "Signora," he said, with all the calm he could command, "if I were conscious of having by word or deed of mine given you cause to speak thus, I would humbly implore your forgiveness. But my heart does not accuse me. I beg you to allow me to take leave of you. I will go away, and you shall have no further cause to think of me." He moved again, and lifted the curtain. But she was like a panther, so quick and beautiful. Ah, how I could have loved that woman! She held him, and would not let him go, her smooth fingers fastening round his wrists like springs. "Please to let me go," he said, between his teeth, with rising anger. "No! I will not let you!" she cried fiercely, tightening her grasp on him. Then the angry fire in her tearful eyes seemed suddenly to melt into a soft flame, and the colour came faster to her cheeks. "Ah, how can you let me so disgrace myself! how can you see me fallen so low as to use the strength of my hands, and yet have no pity? Nino, Nino, do not kill me!" "Indeed, it would be the better for you if I should," he answered bitterly, but without attempting to free his wrists from the strong, soft grip. "But you will," she murmured, passionately. "You are killing me by leaving me. Can you not see it?" Her voice melted away in the tearful cadence. But Nino stood gazing at her as stonily as though he were the Sphinx. How could he have the heart? I cannot tell. Long she looked into his eyes, silently; but she might as well have tried to animate a piece of iron, so stern and hard he was. Suddenly, with a strong convulsive movement, she flung his hands from her. "Go!" she cried hoarsely. "Go to that wax doll you love, and see whether she will love you, or care whether you leave her or not! Go, go, go! Go to her!" She had sprung far back from him, and now pointed to the door, drawn to her full height and blazing in her wrath. "I would advise you, madam, to speak with proper respect of any lady with whom you choose to couple my name." His lips opened and shut mechanically, and he trembled from head to foot. "Respect!" She laughed wildly. "Respect for a mere child whom you happen to fancy! Respect, indeed, for anything you choose to do! I--I--respect Hedwig von Lira? Ha! ha!" and she rested her hand on the table behind her, as she laughed. "Be silent, madam," said Nino, and he moved a step nearer, and stood with folded arms. "Ah! You would silence me now, would you? You would rather not hear me speak of your midnight serenades, and your sweet letters dropped from the window of her room at your feet?" But her rage overturned itself, and with a strange cry she fell into a deep chair, and wept bitterly, burying her face in her two hands. "Miserable woman that I am!" she sobbed, and her whole lithe body was convulsed. "You are indeed," said Nino, and he turned once more to go. But as he turned, the servant threw back the curtain. "The Signor Conte di Lira," he announced, in distinct tones. For a moment there was a dead silence, during which, in spite of his astonishment at the sudden appearance of the count, Nino had time to reflect that the baroness had caused him to be watched during the previous night. It might well be, and the mistake she made in supposing the thing Hedwig had dropped to be a letter told him that her spy had not ventured very near. The tall count came forward under the raised curtains, limping and helping himself with his stick. His face was as gray and wooden as ever, but his moustaches had an irritated, crimped look that Nino did not like. The count barely nodded to the young man as he stood aside to let the old gentleman pass; his eyes turned mechanically to where the baroness sat. She was a woman who had no need to simulate passion in any shape, and it must have cost her a terrible effort to control the paroxysm of anger and shame and grief that had overcome her. There was something unnatural and terrifying in her sudden calm, as she forced herself to rise and greet her visitor. "I fear I come out of season," he said, apologetically, as he bent over her hand. "On the contrary," she answered; "but forgive me if I speak one word to Professor Cardegna." She went to where Nino was standing. "Go into that room," she said, in a very low voice, glancing towards a curtained door opposite the windows, "and wait till he goes. You may listen if you choose." She spoke authoritatively. "I will not," answered Nino, in a determined whisper. "You will not?" Her eyes flashed again. He shook his head. "Count von Lira," she said aloud, turning to him, "do you know this young man?" She spoke in Italian, and Von Lira answered in the same language; but as what he said was not exactly humorous, I will spare you the strange construction of his sentences. "Perfectly," he answered. "It is precisely concerning this young man that I desire to speak with you." The count remained standing because the baroness had not told him to be seated. "That is fortunate," replied the baroness, "for I wish to inform you that he is a villain, a wretch, a miserable fellow!" Her anger was rising again, but she struggled to control it. When Nino realised what she said he came forward and stood near the count, facing the baroness, his arms folded on his breast, as though to challenge accusation. The count raised his eyebrows. "I am aware that he concealed his real profession so long as he gave my daughter lessons. That, however, has been satisfactorily explained, though I regret it. Pray inform me why you designate him as a villain." Nino felt a thrill of sympathy for this man whom he had so long deceived. "This man, sir," said she, in measured tones, "this low-born singer, who has palmed himself off on us as a respectable instructor in language, has the audacity to love your daughter. For the sake of pressing his odious suit he has wormed himself into your house as into mine; he has sung beneath your daughter's window, and she has dropped letters to him,--love-letters, do you understand? And now,"--her voice rose more shrill and uncontrollable at every word, as she saw Lira's face turn white, and her anger gave desperate utterance to the lie,--"and now he has the effrontery to come to me--to me--to me of all women--and to confess his abominable passion for that pure angel, imploring me to assist him in bringing destruction upon her and you. Oh, it is execrable, it is vile, it is hellish!" She pressed her hands to her temples as she stood, and glared at the two men. The count was a strong man, easily petulant, but hard to move to real anger. Though his face was white and his right hand clutched his crutch-stick, he still kept the mastery of himself. "Is what you tell me true, madam?" he asked in a strange voice. "Before God, it is true!" she cried, desperately. The old man looked at her for one moment, and then, as though he had been twenty years younger, he made at Nino, brandishing his stick to strike. But Nino is strong and young, and he is almost a Roman. He foresaw the count's action, and his right hand stole to the table and grasped the clean, murderous knife; the baroness had used it so innocently to cut the leaves of her book half an hour before. With one wrench he had disarmed the elder man, forced him back upon a lounge, and set the razor edge of his weapon against the count's throat. "If you speak one word, or try to strike me, I will cut off your head," he said quietly, bringing his cold, marble face close down to the old man's eyes. There was something so deathly in his voice, in spite of its quiet sound, that the count thought his hour was come, brave man as he was. The baroness tottered back against the opposite wall, and stood staring at the two, dishevelled and horrified. "This woman," said Nino, still holding the cold thing against the flesh, "lies in part, and in part tells the truth I love your daughter, it is true." The poor old man quivered beneath Nino's weight, and his eyes rolled wildly, searching for some means of escape. But it was of no use. "I love her, and have sung beneath her window; but I never had a written word from her in my life, and I neither told this woman of my love nor asked her assistance. She guessed it at the first; she guessed the reason of my disguise, and she herself offered to help me. You may speak now. Ask her." Nino relaxed his hold, and stood off, still grasping the knife. The old count breathed, shook himself and passed his handkerchief over his face before he spoke. The baroness stood as though she were petrified. "Thunder weather, you are a devilish young man!" said Von Lira, still panting. Then he suddenly recovered his dignity. "You have caused me to assault this young man by what you told me," he said, struggling to his feet. "He defended himself, and might have killed me, had he chosen. Be good enough to tell me whether he has spoken the truth or you." "He has spoken--the truth," answered the baroness, staring vacantly about her. Her fright had taken from her even the faculty of lying. Her voice was low, but she articulated the words distinctly. Then, suddenly, she threw up her hands, with a short quick scream, and fell forward, senseless, on the floor. Nino looked at the count, and dropped his knife on a table. The count looked at Nino. "Sir," said the old gentleman, "I forgive you for resisting my assault. I do not forgive you for presuming to love my daughter, and I will find means to remind you of the scandal you have brought on my house." He drew himself up to his full height. Nino handed him his crutch-stick civilly. "Signor Conte," he said simply, but with all his natural courtesy, "I am sorry for this affair, to which you forced me,--or rather the Signora Baronessa forced us both. I have acted foolishly, perhaps, but I am in love. And permit me to assure you, sir, that I will yet marry the Signorina di Lira, if she consents to marry me." "By the name of Heaven," swore the old count, "if she wants to marry a singer, she shall." He limped to the door in sullen anger, and went out. Nino turned to the prostrate figure of the poor baroness. The continued strain on her nerves had broken her down, and she lay on the floor in a dead faint. Nino put a cushion from the lounge under her head, and rang the bell. The servant appeared instantly. "Bring water quickly!" he cried. "The signora has fainted." He stood looking at the senseless figure of the woman, as she lay across the rich Persian rugs that covered the floor. "Why did you not bring salts, cologne, her maid--run, I tell you!" he said to the man, who brought the glass of water on a gilded tray. He had forgotten that the fellow could not be expected to have any sense. When her people came at last, he had sprinkled her face, and she had unconsciously swallowed enough of the water to have some effect in reviving her. She began to open her eyes, and her fingers moved nervously. Nino found his hat, and, casting one glance around the room that had just witnessed such strange doings, passed through the door and went out. The baroness was left with her servants. Poor woman! She did very wrong, perhaps, but anybody would have loved her--except Nino. She must have been terribly shaken, one would have thought, and she ought to have gone to lie down, and should have sent for the doctor to bleed her. But she did nothing of the kind. She came to see me. I was alone in the house, late in the afternoon, when the sun was just gilding the tops of the houses. I heard the door-bell ring, and I went to answer it myself. There stood the beautiful baroness, alone, with all her dark soft things around her, as pale as death, and her eyes swollen sadly with weeping. Nino had come home and told me something about the scene in the morning, and I can tell you I gave him a piece of my mind about his follies. "Does Professor Cornelio Grandi live here?" she asked, in a low, sad voice. "I am he, signora," I answered. "Will you please to come in?" And so she came into our little sitting-room, and sat over there in the old green arm-chair. I shall never forget it as long as I live. I cannot tell you all she said in that brief half-hour, for it pains me to think of it. She spoke as though I were her confessor, so humbly and quietly,--as though it had all happened ten years ago. There is no stubbornness in those tiger women when once they break down. She said she was going away; that she had done my boy a great wrong, and wished to make such reparation as she could, by telling me, at least, the truth. She did not scruple to say that she had loved him, nor that she had done everything in her power to keep him; though he had never so much as looked at her, she added, pathetically. She wished to have me know exactly how it happened, no matter what I might think of her. "You are a nobleman, count," she said to me at last, "and I can trust you as one of my own people, I am sure. Yes, I know: you have been unfortunate, and are now a professor. But that does not change the blood. I can trust you. You need not tell him I came, unless you wish it. I shall never see him again. I am glad to have been here, to see where he lives." She rose, and moved to go. I confess that the tears were in my eyes. There was a pile of music on the old piano. There was a loose leaf on the top, with his name written on it. She took it in her hand, and looked inquiringly at me out of her sad eyes. I knew she wanted to take it, and I nodded. "I shall never see him again, you know." Her voice was gentle and weak, and she hastened to the door; so that almost before I knew it she was gone. The sun had left the red-tiled roofs opposite, and the goldfinch was silent in his cage. So I sat down in the chair where she had rested, and folded my hands, and thought, as I am always thinking ever since, how I could have loved such a woman as that; so passionate, so beautiful, so piteously sorry for what she had done that was wrong. Ah me! for the years that are gone away so cruelly, for the days so desperately dead! Give me but one of those golden days, and I would make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. A greater man than I said that,--a man over the seas, with a great soul, who wrote in a foreign tongue, but spoke a language germane to all human speech. But even he cannot bring back one of those dear days. I would give much to have that one day back, when she came and told me all her woes. But that is impossible. When they came to wake her in the morning--the very morning after that--she was dead in her bed; the colour gone for ever from those velvet cheeks, the fire quenched out of those passionate eyes, past power of love or hate to rekindle. _Requiescat in pace_, and may God give her eternal rest and forgiveness for all her sins. Poor, beautiful, erring woman! CHAPTER IX At nine o'clock on the morning of the baroness' death, as Nino was busy singing scales, there was a ring at the door, and presently Mariuccia came running in as fast as her poor old legs could carry her, and whiter than a pillow-case, to say that there was a man at the door with two gendarmes, asking for Nino; and before I could question her the three men walked unbidden into the room, demanding which was Giovanni Cardegna, the singer. Nino started, and then said quietly that he was the man. I have had dealings with these people, and I know what is best to be done. They were inclined to be rough and very peremptory. I confess I was frightened; but I think I am more cunning when I am a little afraid. "Mariuccia," I said, as she stood trembling in the door-way, waiting to see what would happen, "fetch a flask of that old wine, and serve these gentlemen,--and a few chestnuts, if you have some. Be seated, signori," I said to them, "and take one of these cigars. My boy is a singer, and you would not hurt his voice by taking him out so early on this raw morning. Sit down, Nino, and ask these gentlemen what they desire." They all sat down, somewhat sullenly, and the gendarmes' sabres clanked on the brick floor. "What do you wish from me?" asked Nino, who was not much moved after the first surprise. "We regret to say," answered the man in plain clothes, "that we are here to arrest you." "May I inquire on what charge?" I asked. "But first let me fill your glasses. Dry throats make surly answers, as the proverb says." They drank. It chanced that the wine was good, being from my own vineyard,--my little vineyard that I bought outside of Porta Salara,--and the men were cold and wet, for it was raining. "Well," said the man who had spoken before,--he was clean-shaved and fat, and he smacked his lips over the wine,--"It is not our way to answer questions. But since you are so civil, I will tell you that you are arrested on suspicion of having poisoned that Russian baroness, with the long name, at whose house you have been so intimate." "Poisoned? The baroness poisoned? Is she very ill, then?" asked Nino, in great alarm. "She is dead," said the fat mat, wiping his mouth and twisting the empty glass in his hand. "Dead!" cried Nino and I together. "Dead--yes; as dead as St. Peter," he answered, irreverently. "Your wine is good, Signor Professore. Yes, I will take another glass--and my men, too. Yes, she was found dead this morning, lying in her bed. You were there yesterday, Signor Cardegna, and her servant says he saw you giving her something in a glass of water." He drank a long draught from his glass. "You would have done better to give her some of this wine, my friend. She would certainly be alive to-day." But Nino was dark and thoughtful. He must have been pained and terribly shocked at the sudden news, of course, but he did not admire her as I did. "Of course this thing will soon be over," he said at last. "I am very much grieved to hear of the lady's death, but it is absurd to suppose that I was concerned in it, however it happened. She fainted suddenly in the morning when I was there, and I gave her some water to drink, but there was nothing in it." He clasped his hands on his knee, and looked much distressed. "It is quite possible that you poisoned her," remarked the fat man, with annoying indifference. "The servant says he overheard high words between you--" "He overheard?" cried Nino, springing to his feet. "Cursed beast, to listen at the door!" He began to walk about excitedly, "How long is this affair to keep me?" he asked, suddenly; "I have to sing to-night--and that poor lady lying there dead--oh, I cannot!" "Perhaps you will not be detained more than a couple of hours," said the fat man. "And perhaps you will be detained until the Day of Judgment," he added, with a sly wink at the gendarmes, who laughed obsequiously. "By this afternoon, the doctors will know of what she died; and if there was no poison, and she died a natural death, you can go to the theatre and sing, if you have the stomach. I would, I am sure. You see, she is a great lady, and the people of her embassy are causing everything to be done very quickly. If you had poisoned that old lady who brought us this famous wine a minute ago, you might have had to wait till next year, innocent or guilty." It struck me that the wine was producing its effect. "Very well," said Nino, resolutely; "let us go. You will see that I am perfectly ready, although the news has shaken me much; and so you will permit me to walk quietly with you, without attracting any attention?" "Oh, we would not think of incommoding you," said the fat man. "The orders were expressly to give you every convenience, and we have a private carriage below. Signor Grandi, we thank you for your civility. Good-morning--a thousand excuses." He bowed, and the gendarmes rose to their feet, refreshed and ruddy with the good wine. Of course I knew I could not accompany them, and I was too much frightened to have been of any use. Poor Mariuccia was crying in the kitchen. "Send word to Jacovacci, the manager, if you do not hear by twelve o'clock," Nino called back from the landing, and the door closed behind them all. I was left alone, sad and frightened, and I felt very old--much older than I am. It was tragic. Mechanically I sank into the old green arm-chair, where she had sat but yesterday evening--she whom I had seen but twice, once in the theatre and once here, but of whom I had heard so much. And she was dead, so soon. If Nino could only have heard her last words and seen her last look he would have been more hurt when he heard of her sudden death. But he is of stone, that man, save for his love and his art. He seems to have no room left for sympathy with human ills, nor even for fear on his own account. Fear!--how I hate the word! Nino did not seem frightened at all when they took him away. But as for me--well, it was not for myself this time, at least. That is some comfort. I think one may be afraid for other people. Mariuccia was so much disturbed that I was obliged to go myself to get De Pretis, who gave up all his lessons that day and came to give me his advice. He looked grave and spoke very little, but he is a broad-shouldered, genial man, and very comforting. He insisted on going himself at once to see Nino, to give him all the help he could. He would not hear of my going, for he said I ought to be bled and have some tea of mallows to calm me. And when I offered him a cigar from the box of good ones Nino had given me he took six or seven, and put them in his pocket without saying a word. But I did not grudge them to him; for though he is very ridiculous, with his skull-cap and his snuff-box, he is a leal man, as we say, who stands by his friends and snaps his fingers at the devil. I cannot describe to you the anxiety I felt through all that day. I could not eat, nor drink, nor write. I could not smoke, and when I tried to go to sleep that cat--an apoplexy on her!--climbed up on my shoulder and clawed my hair, Mariuccia sat moaning in the kitchen and could not cook at all, so that I was half starved. At three o'clock De Pretis came back. "Courage, conte mio!" he cried; and I knew it was all right. "Courage! Nino is at liberty again, and says he will sing to-night to show them he is not a clay doll, to be broken by a little knocking about. Ah, what a glorious boy Nino is!" "But where is he!" I asked, when I could find voice to speak, for I was all trembling. "He is gone for a good walk, to freshen his nerves, poverino. I wonder he has any strength left. For Heaven's sake, give me a match that I may light my cigar, and then I will tell you all about it. Thank you. And I will sit down comfortably--so. Now you must know that the baroness--_requiescat_!--was not poisoned by Nino, or by anyone else." "Of course not! Go on." "Piano--slow and sure. They had a terrific scene yesterday. You know? Yes. Then she went out and tired herself, poor soul, so that when she got home she had an attack of the nerves. Now these foreigners, who are a pack of silly people, do not have themselves bled and drink malva water as we do when we get a fit of anger. But they take opium; that is, a thing they call chloral. God knows what it is made of, but it puts them to sleep, like opium. When the doctors came to look at the poor lady they saw at once what was the matter, and called the maid. The maid said her mistress certainly had some green stuff in a little bottle which she often used to take; and when they inquired further they heard that the baroness had poured out much more than usual the night before, while the maid was combing her hair, for she seemed terribly excited and restless. So they got the bottle and found it nearly empty. Then the doctors said, 'At what time was this young man who is now arrested seen to give her the glass of water?' The man-servant said it was about two in the afternoon. So the doctors knew that if Nino had given her the chloral she could not have gone out afterwards, and have been awake at eleven in the evening when her maid was with her, and yet have been hurt by what he gave her. And so, as Jacovacci was raising a thousand devils in every corner of Rome because they had arrested his principal singer on false pretences, and was threatening to bring suits against everybody, including the Russian embassy, the doctors, and the Government, if Nino did not appear in _Faust_ to-night, according to his agreement, the result was that, half an hour ago, Nino was conducted out of the police precincts with ten thousand apologies, and put into the arms of Jacovacci, who wept for joy, and carried him off to a late breakfast at Morteo's. And then I came here. But I made Nino promise to take a good walk for his digestion, since the weather has changed. For a breakfast at three in the afternoon may be called late, even in Rome. And that reminds me to ask you for a drop of wine; for I am still fasting, and this talking is worse for the throat than a dozen high masses." Mariuccia had been listening at the door, as usual, and she immediately began crying for joy; for she is a weak-minded old thing, and dotes on Nino. I was very glad myself, I can tell you; but I could not understand how Nino could have the heart to sing, or should lack heart so much as to be fit for it. Before the evening he came home, silent and thoughtful. I asked him whether he were not glad to be free so easily. "That is not a very intelligent question for a philosopher like you to ask," he answered. "Of course I am glad of my liberty; any man would be. But I feel that I am as much the cause of that poor lady's death as though I had killed her with my own hands. I shall never forgive myself." "Diana!" I cried, "it is a horrible tragedy; but it seems to me that you could not help it if she chose to love you." "Hush!" said he, so sternly that he frightened me. "She is dead. God give her soul rest. Let us not talk of what she did." "But," I objected, "if you feel so strongly about it, how can you sing at the opera to-night?" "There are plenty of reasons why I should sing. In the first place, I owe it to my engagement with Jacovacci. He has taken endless trouble to have me cleared at once, and I will not disappoint him. Besides, I have not lost my voice, and might be half ruined by breaking contract so early. Then, the afternoon papers are full of the whole affair, some right and some wrong, and I am bound to show the Contessina di Lira that this unfortunate accident does not touch my heart, however sorry I may be. If I did not appear all Rome would say it was because I was heart-broken. If she does not go to the theatre, she will at least hear of it. Therefore I will sing." It was very reasonable of him to think so. "Have any of the papers got hold of the story of your giving lessons?" "No, I think not; and there is no mention of the Lira family." "So much the better." Hedwig did not go to the opera. Of course she was quite right. However she might feel about the baroness, it would have been in the worst possible taste to go to the opera the very day after her death. That is the way society puts it. It is bad taste; they never say it is heartless, or unkind, or brutal. It is simply bad taste. Nino sang, on the whole, better than if she had been there, for he put his whole soul in his art and won fresh laurels. When it was over he was besieged by the agent of the London manager to come to some agreement. "I cannot tell yet," he said. "I will tell you soon." He was not willing to leave Rome--that was the truth of the matter. He thought of nothing, day or night, but of how he might see Hedwig, and his heart writhed in his breast when it seemed more and more impossible. He dared not risk compromising her by another serenade, as he felt sure that it had been some servant of the count who had betrayed him to the baroness. At last he hit upon a plan. The funeral of the baroness was to take place on the afternoon of the next day. He felt sure that the Graf von Lira would go to it, and he was equally certain that Hedwig would not. It chanced to be the hour at which De Pretis went to the Palazzo to give her the singing lesson. "I suppose it is a barbarous thing for me to do," he said to himself, "but I cannot help it. Love first, and tragedy afterwards." In the afternoon, therefore, he sallied out, and went boldly to the Palazzo Carmandola. He inquired of the porter whether the Signor Conte had gone out, and just as he had expected, so he found it. Old Lira had left the house ten minutes earlier, to go to the funeral. Nino ran up the stairs and rang the bell. The footman opened the door, and Nino quickly slipped a five-franc note into his hand, which he had no difficulty in finding. On asking if the signorina were at home, the footman nodded, and added that Professor De Pretis was with her, but she would doubtless see Professor Cardegna as well. And so it turned out. He was ushered into the great drawing-room, where the piano was. Hedwig came forward a few steps from where she had been standing beside De Pretis, and Nino bowed low before her. She had on a long dark dress, and no ornament whatever, save her beautiful bright hair, so that her face was like a jewel set in gold and velvet. But, when I think of it, such a combination would seem absurdly vulgar by the side of Hedwig von Lira. She was so pale and exquisite and sad that Nino could hardly look at her. He remembered that there were violets, rarest of flowers in Rome in January, in her belt. To tell the truth, Nino had expected to find her stern and cold, whereas she was only very quiet and sorrowful. "Will you forgive me, signorina, for this rashness?" he asked, in a low voice. "In that I receive you I forgive you, sir," she said. He glanced toward De Pretis, who seemed absorbed in some music at the piano and was playing over bits of an accompaniment. She understood, and moved slowly to a window at the other end of the great room, standing among the curtains. He placed himself in the embrasure. She looked at him long and earnestly, as if finally reconciling the singer with the man she had known so long. She found him changed, as I had, in a short time. His face was sterner and thinner and whiter than before, and there were traces of thought in the deep shadows beneath his eyes. Quietly observing him, she saw how perfectly simple and exquisitely careful was his dress, and how his hands bespoke that attention which only a gentleman gives to the details of his person. She saw that, if he were not handsome, he was in the last degree striking to the eye, in spite of all his simplicity, and that he would not lose by being contrasted with all the dandies and courtiers in Rome. As she looked, she saw his lip quiver slightly, the only sign of emotion he ever gives, unless he loses his head altogether, and storms, as he sometimes does. "Signorina," he began, "I have come to tell you a story; will you listen to it?" "Tell it me," said she, still looking in his face. "There was once a solitary castle in the mountains, with battlement and moat both high and broad. Far up in a lonely turret dwelt a rare maiden, of such surpassing beauty and fairness that the peasants thought she was not mortal, but an angel from heaven, resting in that tower from the doing of good deeds. She had flowers up there in her chamber, and the seeds of flowers; and as the seasons passed by, she took from her store the dry germs, and planted them one after another in a little earth on the window-sill. And the sun shone on them and they grew, and she breathed upon them and they were sweet. But they withered and bore no offspring, and fell away, so that year by year her store became diminished. At last there was but one little paper bag of seed left, and upon the cover was written in a strange character, 'This is the Seed of the Thorn of the World.' But the beautiful maiden was sad when she saw this, for she said 'All my flowers have been sweet, and now I have but this thing left, which is a thorn!' And she opened the paper and looked inside, and saw one poor little seed all black and shrivelled. Through that day she pondered what to do with it, and was very unhappy. At night she said to herself, 'I will not plant this one; I will throw it away rather than plant it.' And she went to the window, and tore the paper, and threw out the little seed into the darkness." "Poor little thing!" said Hedwig. She was listening intently. "She threw it out, and as it fell, all the air was full of music, sad and sweet, so that she wondered greatly. The next day she looked out of the window, and saw, between the moat and the castle wall, a new plant growing. It looked black and uninviting, but it had come up so fast that it had already laid hold on the rough gray stones. At the falling of the night it reached far up towards the turret, a great sharp-pointed vine, with only here and there a miserable leaf on it. 'I am sorry I threw it out,' said the maiden. 'It is the Thorn of the World, and the people who pass will think it defaces my castle.' But when it was dark again the air was full of music. The maiden went to the window, for she could not sleep, and she called out, asking who it was that sang. Then a sweet, low voice came up to her from the moat. 'I am the Thorn,' it said, 'I sing in the dark, for I am growing.'--'Sing on, Thorn,' said she, 'and grow if you will.' But in the morning when she awoke, her window was darkened, for the Thorn had grown to be a mighty tree, and its topmost shoots were black against the sky. She wondered whether this uncouth plant would bear anything but music. So she spoke to it. "'Thorn,' she said, 'why have you no flowers?' "'I am the Thorn of the World,' it answered, 'and I can bear no flowers until the hand that planted me has tended me, and pruned me, and shaped me to be its own. If you had planted me like the rest, it would have been easy for you. But you planted me unwillingly, down below you by the moat, and I have had far to climb.' "'But my hands are so delicate,' said the maiden. 'You will hurt me, I am sure.' "'Yours is the only hand in the world that I will not hurt,' said the voice, so tenderly and softly and sadly that the gentle fingers went out to touch the plant and see if it were real. And touching it they clung there, for they had no harm of it. Would you know, my lady, what happened then?" "Yes, yes--tell me!" cried Hedwig, whose imagination was fascinated by the tale. "As her hands rested on the spiked branches, a gentle trembling went through the Thorn, and in a moment there burst out such a blooming and blossoming as the maiden had never seen. Every prick became a rose, and they were so many that the light of the day was tinged with them, and their sweetness was like the breath of paradise. But below her window the Thorn was as black and forbidding as ever, for only the maiden's presence could make its flowers bloom. But she smelled the flowers, and pressed many of them to her cheek. "'I thought you were only a Thorn,' she said, softly. "'Nay, fairest maiden,' answered the glorious voice of the bursting blossom, 'I am the Rose of the World for ever, since you have touched me.' "That is my story, signorina. Have I wearied you?" Hedwig had unconsciously moved nearer to him as he was speaking, for he never raised his voice, and she hung on his words. There was colour in her face, and her breath came quickly through her parted lips. She had never looked so beautiful. "Wearied me, signore? Ah no; it is a gentle tale of yours." "It is a true tale--in part," said he. "In part? I do not understand--" But the colour was warmer in her cheek, and she turned her face half away, as though looking out. "I will tell you," he replied, coming closer, on the side from which she turned. "Here is the window. You are the maiden. The thorn--it is my love for you"; he dropped his voice to a whisper "You planted it carelessly, far below you in the dark. In the dark it has grown and sung to you, and grown again, until now it stands in your own castle window. Will you not touch it and make its flowers bloom for you?" He spoke fervently. She had turned her face quite from him now, and was resting her forehead against one hand that leaned upon the heavy frame of the casement. The other hand hung down by her side toward him, fair as a lily against her dark gown. Nino touched it, then took it. He could see the blush spread to her white throat, and fade again. Between the half-falling curtain and the great window he bent his knee and pressed her fingers to his lips. She made as though she would withdraw her hand, and then left it in his. Her glance stole to him as he kneeled there, and he felt it on him, so that he looked up. She seemed to raise him with her fingers, and her eyes held his and drew them; he stood up, and, still holding her hand, his face was near to hers. Closer and closer yet, as by a spell, each gazing searchingly into the other's glance, till their eyes could see no more for closeness, and their lips met in life's first virgin kiss,--in the glory and strength of a two-fold purity, each to each. Far off at the other end of the room De Pretis struck a chord on the piano. They started at the sound. "When?" whispered Nino, hurriedly. "At midnight, under my window," she answered, quickly, not thinking of anything better in her haste. "I will tell you then. You must go; my father will soon be here. No, not again," she protested. But he drew her to him, and said good-bye in his own manner. She lingered an instant, and tore herself away. De Pretis was playing loudly. Nino had to pass near him to go out, and the maestro nodded carelessly as he went by. "Excuse me, maestro," said Hedwig, as Nino bowed himself out; "it was a question of arranging certain lessons." "Do not mention it," said he, indifferently; "my time is yours, signorina. Shall we go through with this solfeggio once more?" The good maestro did not seem greatly disturbed by the interruption. Hedwig wondered, dreamily, whether he had understood. It all seemed like a dream. The notes were upside down in her sight, and her voice sought strange minor keys unconsciously, as she vainly tried to concentrate her attention upon what she was doing. "Signorina," said Ercole at last, "what you sing is very pretty, but it is not exactly what is written here. I fear you are tired." "Perhaps so," said she. "Let us not sing any more to-day." Ercole shut up the music and rose. She gave him her hand, a thing she had never done before; and it was unconscious now, as everything she did seemed to be. There is a point when dreaming gets the mastery and appears infinitely more real than the things we touch. Nino, meanwhile, had descended the steps, expecting every moment to meet the count. As he went down the street a closed carriage drove by with the Lira liveries. The old count was in it, but Nino stepped into the shadow of a doorway to let the equipage pass, and was not seen. The wooden face of the old nobleman almost betrayed something akin to emotion. He was returning from the funeral, and it had pained him; for he had liked the wild baroness in a fatherly, reproving way. But the sight of him sent a home thrust to Nino's heart. "Her death is on my soul for ever," he muttered between his set teeth. Poor innocent boy, it was not his fault if she had loved him so much. Women have done things for great singers that they have not done for martyrs or heroes. It seems so certain that the voice that sings so tenderly is speaking to them individually. Music is such a fleeting, passionate thing that a woman takes it all to herself; how could he sing like that for anyone else? And yet there is always someone for whom he does really pour out his heart, and all the rest are the dolls of life, to be looked at and admired for their dress and complexion, and to laugh at when the fancy takes him to laugh; but not to love. At midnight Nino was at his post, but he waited long and patiently for a sign. It was past two, and he was thinking it hopeless to wait longer, when his quick ear caught the sound of a window moving on its hinges, and a moment later something fell at his feet with a sharp, metallic click. The night was dark and cloudy, so that the waning moon gave little light. He picked up the thing and found a small pocket handkerchief wrapped about a minute pair of scissors, apparently to give it weight. He expected a letter, and groped on the damp pavement with his hands. Then he struck a match, shaded it from the breeze with his hand, and saw that the handkerchief was stained with ink, and that the stains were letters, roughly printed to make them distinct. He hurried away to the light of a street lamp to read the strange missive. CHAPTER X He went to the light and spread out the handkerchief. It was a small thing, of almost transparent stuff, with a plain "H.L." and a crown in the corner. The steel pen had torn the delicate fibres here and there. "They know you have been here. I am watched. Keep away from the house till you hear." That was all the message, but it told worlds. He knew from it that the count was informed of his visit, and he tortured himself by trying to imagine what the angry old man would do. His heart sank like a stone in his breast when he thought of Hedwig, so imprisoned, guarded, made a martyr of, for his folly. He groaned aloud when he understood that it was in the power of her father to take her away suddenly and leave no trace of their destination, and he cursed his haste and impetuosity in having shown himself inside the house. But with all this weight of trouble upon him, he felt the strength and indomitable determination within him which come only to a man who loves, when he knows he is loved again. He kissed the little handkerchief, and even the scissors she had used to weight it with, and he put them in his breast. But he stood irresolute, leaning against the lamppost, as a man will who is trying to force his thoughts to overtake events, trying to shape out of the present. Suddenly he was aware of a tall figure in a fur coat standing near him on the sidewalk. He would have turned to go, but something about the stranger's appearance struck him so oddly that he stayed where he was and watched him. The tall man searched for something in his pockets, and finally produced a cigarette, which he leisurely lighted with a wax match. As he did so his eyes fell upon Nino. The stranger was tall and very thin. He wore a pointed beard and a heavy moustache, which seemed almost dazzlingly white, as were the few locks that appeared, neatly brushed over his temples, beneath his opera hat. His sanguine complexion, however, had all the freshness of youth, and his eyes sparkled merrily, as though amused at the spectacle of his nose, which was immense, curved, and polished, like an eagle's beak. He wore perfectly-fitting kid gloves, and the collar of his fur wrapper, falling a little open, showed that he was in evening dress. It was so late--past two o'clock--that Nino had not expected anything more than a policeman or some homeless wanderer, when he raised his eyes to look on the stranger. He was fascinated by the strange presence of the aged dandy, for such he seemed to be, and returned his gaze boldly. He was still more astonished, however, when the old gentleman came close to him, and raised his hat, displaying, as he did so, a very high and narrow forehead, crowned with a mass of smooth white hair. There was both grace and authority in the courteous gesture, and Nino thought the old gentleman moved with an ease that matched his youthful complexion rather than his hoary locks. "Signor Cardegna, the distinguished artist, if I mistake not?" said the stranger, with a peculiar foreign accent, the like of which Nino had never heard. He also raised his hat, extremely surprised that a chance passer-by should know him. He had not yet learned what it is to be famous. But he was far from pleased at being addressed in his present mood. "The same, signore," he replied coldly. "How can I serve you?" "You can serve the world you so well adorn better than by exposing your noble voice to the midnight damps and chills of this infernal--I would say, eternal--city," answered the other. "Forgive me. I am, not unnaturally, concerned at the prospect of loosing even a small portion of the pleasure you know how to give to me and to many others." "I thank you for your flattery," said Nino, drawing his cloak about him, "but it appears to me that my throat is my own, and whatever voice there may be in it. Are you a physician, signore? And pray why do you tell me that Rome is an infernal city?" "I have had some experience of Rome, Signor Cardegna," returned the foreigner, with a peculiar smile, "and I hate no place so bitterly in all this world--save one. And as for my being a physician, I am an old man, a very singularly old man in fact, and I know something of the art of healing." "When I need healing, as you call it," said Nino, rather scornfully, "I will inquire for you. Do you desire to continue this interview amid the 'damps and chills of our 'infernal city'? If not, I will wish you good-evening." "By no means," said the other, not in the least repulsed by Nino's coldness. "I will accommpany you a little way, if you will allow me." Nino stared hard at the stranger, wondering what could induce him to take so much interest in a singer. Then he nodded gravely and turned toward his home, inwardly hoping that his aggressive acquaintance lived in the opposite direction. But he was mistaken. The tall man blew a quantity of smoke through his nose and walked by his side. He strode over the pavement with a long, elastic step. "I live not far from here," he said, when they had gone a few steps, "and if the Signor Cardegna will accept of a glass of old wine and a good cigar I shall feel highly honoured." Somehow an invitation of this kind was the last thing Nino had expected or desired, least of all from a talkative stranger who seemed determined to make his acquaintance. "I thank you, signore," he answered, "but I have supped, and I do not smoke." "Ah--I forgot. You are a singer, and must of course be careful. That is perhaps the reason why you wander about the streets when the nights are dark and damp. But I can offer you something more attractive than liquor and tobacco. A great violinist lives with me,--a queer, nocturnal bird,--and if you will come he will be enchanted to play for you. I assure you he is a very-good musician, the like of which you will hardly hear nowadays. He does not play in public any longer, from some odd fancy of his." Nino hesitated. Of all instruments he loved the violin best, and in Rome he had had but little opportunity of hearing it well played. Concerts were the rarest of luxuries to him, and violinists in Rome are rarer still. "What is his name, signore?" he asked, unbending a little. "You must guess that when you hear him," said the old gentleman, with a short laugh. "But I give you my word of honour he is a great musician. Will you come, or must I offer you still further attractions?" "What might they be?" asked Nino. "Nay; will you come for what I offer you? If the music is not good, you may go away again." Still Nino hesitated. Sorrowful and fearful of the future as he was, his love gnawing cruelly at his heart, he would have given the whole world for a strain of rare music if only he were not forced to make it himself. Then it struck him that this might be some pitfall. I would not have gone. "Sir," he said at last, "if you meditate any foul play, I would advise you to retract your invitation. I will come, and I am well armed." He had my long knife about him somewhere. It is one of my precautions. But the stranger laughed long and loud at the suggestion, so that his voice woke queer echoes in the silent street. Nino did not understand why he should laugh so much, but he found his knife under his cloak, and made sure it was loose in its leathern sheath. Presently the stranger stopped before the large door of an old palazzo,--every house is a palazzo that has an entrance for carriages, and let himself in with a key. There was a lantern on the stone pavement inside, and seeing a light, Nino followed him boldly. The old gentleman took the lantern and led the way up the stairs, apologising for the distance and the darkness. At last they stopped, and, entering another door, found themselves in the stranger's apartment. "A cardinal lives downstairs," said he, as he turned up the light of a couple of large lamps that burned dimly in the room they had reached. "The secretary of a very holy order has his office on the other side of my landing, and altogether this is a very religious atmosphere. Pray take off your cloak; the room is warm." Nino looked about him. He had expected to be ushered into some princely dwelling, for he had judged his interlocutor to be some rich and eccentric noble, unless he were an erratic scamp. He was somewhat taken aback by the spectacle that met his eyes. The furniture was scant, and all in the style of the last century. The dust lay half an inch thick on the old gilded ornaments and chandeliers. A great pier-glass was cracked from corner to corner, and the metallic backing seemed to be scaling off behind. There were two or three open valises on the marble floor, which latter, however, seemed to have been lately swept. A square table was in the centre, also free from dust, and a few high-backed leathern chairs, studded with brass nails, were ranged about it. On the table stood one of the lamps, and the other was placed on a marble column in a corner, that once must have supported a bust, or something of the kind. Old curtains, moth-eaten and ragged with age, but of a rich material, covered the windows. Nino glanced at the open trunks on the floor, and saw that they contained a quantity of wearing apparel and the like. He guessed that his acquaintance had lately arrived. "I do not often inhabit this den," said the old gentleman, who had divested himself of his furs, and now showed his thin figure arrayed in the extreme of full dress. A couple of decorations hung at his button-hole. "I seldom come here, and on my return, the other day, I found that the man I had left in charge was dead, with, all his family, and the place has gone to ruin. That is always my luck," he added, with a little laugh. "I should think he must have been dead some time," said Nino, looking about him. "There is a great deal of dust here." "Yes, as you say, it is some years," returned his acquaintance, still laughing. He seemed a merry old soul, fifty years younger than his looks. He produced from a case a bottle of wine and two silver cups, and placed them on the table. "But where is your friend, the violinist?" inquired Nino, who was beginning to be impatient; for except that the place was dusty and old, there was nothing about it sufficiently interesting to take his thoughts from the subject nearest his heart. "I will introduce him to you," said the other, going to one of the valises and taking out a violin case, which he laid on the table and proceeded to open. The instrument was apparently of great age, small and well shaped. The stranger took it up and began to tune it. "Do you mean to say that you are yourself the violinist?" he asked, in astonishment. But the stranger vouchsafed no answer, as he steadied the fiddle with his bearded chin and turned the pegs with his left hand, adjusting the strings. Then, suddenly and without any preluding, he began to make music, and from the first note Nino sat enthralled and fascinated, losing himself in the wild sport of the tones. The old man's face became ashy white as he played, and his white hair appeared to stand away from his head. The long, thin fingers of his left hand chased each other in pairs and singly along the delicate strings, while the bow glanced in the lamplight as it dashed like lightning across the instrument, or remained almost stationary, quivering in his magic hold as quickly as the wings of the humming-bird strike the summer air. Sometimes he seemed to be tearing the heart from the old violin; sometimes it seemed to murmur soft things in his old ear, as though the imprisoned spirit of the music were pleading to be free on the wings of sound: sweet as love that is strong as death; feverish and murderous as jealousy that is as cruel as the grave; sobbing great sobs of a terrible death-song, and screaming in the outrageous frenzy of a furious foe; wailing thin cries of misery, too exhausted for strong grief; dancing again in horrid madness, as the devils dance over some fresh sinner they have gotten themselves for torture; and then at last, as the strings bent to the commanding bow, finding the triumph of a glorious rest in great, broad chords, splendid in depth and royal harmony, grand, enormous, and massive as the united choirs of heaven. Nino was beside himself, leaning far over the table, straining eyes and ears to understand the wonderful music that made him drunk with its strength. As the tones ceased he sank back in his chair, exhausted by the tremendous effort of his senses. Instantly the old man recovered his former appearance. With his hand he smoothed his thick white hair; the fresh colour came back to his cheeks; and as he tenderly laid his violin on the table, he was again the exquisitely-dressed and courtly gentleman who had spoken to Nino in the street. The musician disappeared, and the man of the world returned. He poured wine into the plain silver cups, and invited Nino to drink; but the boy pushed the goblet away, and his strange host drank alone. "You asked me for the musician's name," he said, with a merry twinkle in his eye, from which every trace of artistic inspiration had faded; "can you guess it now?" Nino seemed tongue-tied still, but he made an effort. "I have heard of Paganini," he said, "but he died years ago." "Yes, he is dead, poor fellow! I am not Paganini." "I am at a loss, then," said Nino, dreamily, "I do not know the names of many violinists, but you must be so famous that I ought to know yours." "No; how should you? I will tell you. I am Benoni, the Jew." The tall man's eyes twinkled more brightly than ever. Nino stared at him, and saw that he was certainly of a pronounced Jewish type. His brown eyes were long and oriental in shape, and his nose was unmistakably Semitic. "I am sorry to seem so ignorant," said Nino, blushing, "but I do not know the name. I perceive, however, that you are indeed a very great musician,--the greatest I ever heard." The compliment was perfectly sincere, and Benoni's face beamed with pleasure. He evidently liked praise. "It is not extraordinary," he said smiling. "In the course of a very long life it has been my only solace, and if I have some skill it is the result of constant study. I began life very humbly." "So did I," said Nino, thoughtfully, "and I am not far from the humbleness yet." "Tell me," said Benoni, with a show of interest, "where you come from, and why you are a singer." "I was a peasant's child, an orphan, and the good God gave me a voice. That is all I know about it. A kind-hearted gentleman, who once owned the estate where I was born, brought me up, and wanted to make a philosopher of me. But I wanted to sing, and so I did." "Do you always do the things you want to do?" asked the other, "You look as though you might. You look like Napoleon--that man always interested me. That is why I asked you to come and see me. I have heard you sing, and you are a great artist--an additional reason. All artists should be brothers. Do you not think so?" "Indeed, I know very few good ones," said Nino simply; "and even among them I would like to choose before claiming relationship--personally. But Art is a great mother, and we are all her children." "More especially we who began life so poorly, and love Art because she loves us." Benoni seated himself on the arm of one of the old chairs, and looked down across the worm-eaten table at the young singer. "We," he continued, "who have been wretchedly poor know better than others that Art is real, true, and enduring; medicine in sickness and food in famine; wings to the feet of youth and a staff for the steps of old age. Do you think I exaggerate, or do you feel as I do?" He paused for an answer, and poured more wine into his goblet. "Oh, you know I feel as you do!" cried Nino, with rising enthusiasm. "Very good; you are a genuine artist. What you have not felt yet you will feel hereafter. You have not suffered yet." "You do not know about me," said Nino in a low voice. "I am suffering now." Benoni smiled. "Do you call that suffering? Well, it is perhaps very real to you, though I do not know what it is. But Art will help you through it all, as it has helped me." "What were you?" asked Nino. "You say you were poor." "Yes. I was a shoemaker, and a poor one at that. I have worn out more shoes than I ever made. But I was brought up to it for many years." "You did not study music from a child, then?" "No. But I always loved it; and I used to play in the evenings when I had been cobbling all day long." "And one day you found out you were a great artist and became famous. I see! What a strange beginning!" cried Nino. "Not exactly that. It took a long time. I was obliged to leave my home, for other reasons, and then I played from door to door, and from town to town, for whatever coppers were thrown to me. I had never heard any good music, and so I played the things that came into my head. By and bye people would make me stay with them awhile, for my music sake. But I never stayed long." "Why not?" "I cannot tell you now," said Benoni, looking grave and almost sad: "it is a very long story. I have travelled a great deal, preferring a life of adventure. But of late money has grown to be so important a thing that I have given a series of great concerts, and have become rich enough to play for my own pleasure. Besides, though I travel so much, I like society, and I know many people everywhere. To-night, for instance, though I have been in Rome only a week, I have been to a dinner party, to the theatre, to a reception, and to a ball. Everybody invites me as soon as I arrive. I am very popular,--and yet I am a Jew," he added, laughing in an odd way. "But you are a merry Jew," said Nino, laughing too, "besides being a great genius. I do not wonder people invite you." "It is better to be merry than sad," replied Benoni. "In the course of a long life I have found out that." "You do not look so very old," said Nino. "How old are you?" "That is a rude question," said his host, laughing. "But I will improvise a piece of music for you." He took his violin, and stood up before the broken pier-glass. Then he laid the bow over the strings and struck a chord. "What is that?" he asked, sustaining the sound. "The common chord of A minor," answered Nino immediately. "You have a good ear," said Benoni, still playing the same notes, so that the constant monotony of them buzzed like a vexatious insect in Nino's hearing. Still the old man sawed the bow over the same strings without change. On and on, the same everlasting chord, till Nino thought he must go mad. "It is intolerable; for the love of heaven, stop!" he cried, pushing back his chair and beginning to pace the room. Benoni only smiled, and went on as unchangingly as ever. Nino could bear it no longer, being very sensitive about sounds, and he made for the door. "You cannot get out,--I have the key in my pocket," said Benoni, without stopping. Then Nino became nearly frantic, and made at the Jew to wrest the instrument from his hands. But Benoni was agile, and eluded him, still playing vigorously the one chord, till Nino cried aloud, and sank in a chair, entirely overcome by the torture, that seemed boring its way into his brain like a corkscrew. "This," said Benoni, the bow still sawing the strings, "is life without laughter. Now let us laugh a little, and see the effect." It was indeed wonderful. With his instrument he imitated the sound of a laughing voice, high up above the monotonous chord: softly at first, as though far in the distance; then louder and nearer, the sustaining notes of the minor falling away one after the other and losing themselves, as the merriment gained ground on the sadness; till finally, with a burst of life and vitality of which it would be impossible to convey any idea, the whole body of mirth broke into a wild tarantella movement, so vivid and elastic and noisy that it seemed to Nino that he saw the very feet of the dancers, and heard the jolly din of the tambourine and the clattering, clappering click of the castanets. "That," said Benoni, suddenly stopping, "is life with laughter, be it ever so sad and monotonous before. Which do you prefer?" "You are the greatest artist in the world!" cried Nino, enthusiastically; "but I should have been a raving madman if you had played that chord any longer." "Of course," said Benoni, "and I should have gone mad if I had not laughed. Poor Schumann, you know, died insane because he fancied he always heard one note droning in his ears." "I can understand that," said Nino. "But it is late, and I must be going home. Forgive my rudeness and reluctance to come with you. I was moody and unhappy. You have given me more pleasure than I can tell you." "It will seem little enough to-morrow, I dare say," replied Benoni. "That is the way with pleasures. But you should get them all the same, when you can, and grasp them as tightly as a drowning man grasps a straw. Pleasures and money, money and pleasures." Nino did not understand the tone in which his host made this last remark. He had learned different doctrines from me. "Why do you speak so selfishly, after showing that you can give pleasure so freely, and telling me that we are all brothers?" he asked. "If you are not in a hurry, I will explain to you that money is the only thing in this world worth having," said Benoni, drinking another cup of the wine, which appeared to have no effect whatever on his brain. "Well?" said Nino, curious to hear what he had to say. "In the first place, you will allow that from the noblest moral standpoint a man's highest aim should be to do good to his fellow-creatures? Yes, you allow that. And to do the greatest possible good to the greatest possible number? Yes, you allow that also. Then, I say, other things being alike, a good man will do the greatest possible amount of good in the world when he has the greatest possible amount of money. The more money, the more good; the less money, the less good. Of course money is only the means to the end, but nothing tangible in the world can ever be anything else. All art is only a means to the exciting of still more perfect images in the brain; all crime is a means to the satisfaction of passion, or avarice, which is itself a king-passion; all good itself is a means to the attainment of heaven. Everything is bad or good in the world except art, which is a thing separate, though having good and bad results. But the attainment of heaven is the best object to keep in view. To that end, do the most good; and to do it, get the most money. Therefore, as a means, money is the only thing in the world worth having, since you can most benefit humanity by it, and consequently be the most sure of going to heaven when you die. Is that clear?" "Perfectly," said Nino, "provided a man is himself good." "It is very reprehensible to be bad," said Benoni, with a smile. "What a ridiculous truism!" said Nino, laughing outright. "Very likely," said the other. "But I never heard any preacher, in any country, tell his congregation anything else. And people always listen with attention. In countries where rain is entirely unknown, it is not a truism to say that 'when it rains it is damp.' On the contrary, in such countries that statement would be regarded as requiring demonstration, and once demonstrated, it would be treasured and taught as an interesting scientific fact. Now it is precisely the same with congregations of men. They were never bad, and never can be; in fact, they doubt, in their dear innocent hearts, whether they know what a real sin is. Consequently, they listen with interest to the statement that sin is bad, and promise themselves that if ever that piece of information should be unexpectedly needed by any of their friends, they will remember it." "You are a satirist, Signor Benoni," said Nino. "Anything you like," returned the other, "I have been called worse names than that in my time. So much for heaven and the prospect of it. But a gentleman has arisen in a foreign country who says that there is no heaven, anywhere, and that no one does good except in the pursuit of pleasure here or hereafter. But as his hereafter is nowhere, disregard it in the argument, and say that man should only do, or actually does, everything solely for the sake of pleasure here; say that pleasure is good, so long as it does not interfere with the pleasures of others, and good is pleasure. Money may help a man to more of it, but pleasure is the thing. Well, then, my young brother artist, what did I say?--'money and pleasure, pleasure and money.' The means are there; and as, of course, you are good, like everybody else, and desire pleasure, you will get to heaven hereafter, if there is such a place; and if not, you will get the next thing to it, which is a paradise on earth." Having reached the climax, Signor Benoni lit a cigarette, and laughed his own peculiar laugh. Nino shuddered involuntarily at the hideous sophistry. For Nino is a good boy, and believes very much in heaven, as well as in a couple of other places. Benoni's quick brown eyes saw the movement, and understood it, for he laughed longer yet, and louder. "Why do you laugh like that? I see nothing to laugh at. It is very bitter and bad to hear all this that you say. I would rather hear your music. You are badly off, whether you believe in heaven or not. For if you do, you are not likely to get there; and if you do not believe in it, you are a heretic, and will be burned for ever and ever." "Not so badly answered, for an artist; and in a few words, too," said Benoni, approvingly. "But, my dear boy, the trouble is that I shall not get to heaven either way, for it is my great misfortune to be already condemned to everlasting flames." "No one is that," said Nino, gravely. "There are some exceptions, you know," said Benoni. "Well," answered the young man thoughtfully, "of course there is the Wandering Jew, and such tales, but nobody believes in him." "Good-night," said Benoni. "I am tired and most go to bed." Nino found his way out alone, but carefully noted the position of the palazzo before he went home through the deserted streets. It was four in the morning. CHAPTER XI Early in the morning after Nino's visit to Signor Benoni, De Pretis came to my house, wringing his hands and making a great trouble and noise. I had not yet seen Nino, who was sound asleep, though I could not imagine why he did not wake. But De Pretis was in such a temper that he shook the room and everything in it, as he stamped about the brick floor. It was not long before he had told me the cause of his trouble. He had just received a formal note from the Graf von Lira, inclosing the amount due to him for lessons, and dispensing with his services for the future. Of course this was the result of the visit Nino had so rashly made; it all came out afterwards, and I will not now go through the details that De Pretis poured out, when we only half knew the truth. The count's servant who admitted Nino had pocketed the five francs as quietly as you please; and the moment the count returned he told him how Nino had come and had stayed three-quarters of an hour just as if it were an everyday affair. The count, being a proud old man, did not encourage him to make further confidences, but sent him about his business. He determined to make a prisoner of his daughter until he could remove her from Rome. He accordingly confined her in the little suite of apartments that were her own, and set an old soldier, whom he had brought from Germany, as a body-servant, to keep watch at the outer door. He did not condescend to explain even to Hedwig the cause of his conduct, and she, poor girl, was as proud as he, and would not ask why she was shut up, lest the answer should be a storm of abuse against Nino. She cared not at all how her father had found out her secret, so long as he knew it, and she guessed that submission would be the best policy. Meanwhile, active preparations were made for an immediate departure. The count informed his friends that he was going to pass Lent in Paris, on account of his daughter's health, which was very poor, and in two days everything was ready. They would leave on the following morning. In the evening the count entered his daughter's apartments, after causing himself to be formally announced by a servant, and briefly informed her that they would start for Paris on the following morning. Her maid had been engaged in the meantime in packing her effects, not knowing whither her mistress was going. Hedwig received the announcement in silence, but her father saw that she was deadly white and her eyes heavy from weeping. I have anticipated this much to make things clearer. It was on the first morning of Hedwig's confinement that De Pretis came to our house. Nino was soon waked by the maestro's noise, and came to the door of his chamber, which opens into the little sitting-room, to inquire what the matter might be. Nino asked if the maestro were peddling cabbages, that he should scream so loudly. "Cabbages, indeed! cabbage yourself, silly boy!" cried Ercole, shaking his fist at Nino's head, just visible through the crack of the door. "A pretty mess you have made with your ridiculous love affair! Here am I--" "I see you are," retorted Nino; "and do not call any affair of mine ridiculous, or I will throw you out of the window. Wait a moment!" With that he slammed his door in the maestro's face, and went on with his dressing. For a few minutes De Pretis raved at his ease, venting his wrath on me. Then Nino came out. "Now, then," said he, preparing for a tussle, "what is the matter, my dear maestro?" but Ercole had expended most of his fury already. "The matter!" he grumbled. "The matter is that I have lost an excellent pupil through you. Count Lira says he does not require my services any longer, and the man who brought the note says they are going away." "Diavolo!" said Nino, running his fingers through his curly black hair, "it is indeed serious. Where are they going?" "How should I know?" asked De Pretis angrily. "I care much more about losing the lesson than about where they are going. I shall not follow them, I promise you. I cannot take the basilica of St. Peter about with me in my pocket, can I?" And so he was angry at first, and at length he was pacified, and finally he advised Nino to discover immediately where the count and his daughter were going; and if it were to any great capital, to endeavour to make a contract to sing there. Lent came early that year, and Nino was free at the end of Carnival,--not many days longer to wait. This was the plan that had instantly formed itself in Nino's brain. De Pretis is really a most obliging man, but one cannot wonder that he should be annoyed at the result of Nino's four months' courtship under such great difficulties, when it seemed that all their efforts had led only to the sudden departure of his lady-love. As for me, I advised Nino to let the whole matter drop then and there. I told him he would soon get over his foolish passion, and that a statue like Hedwig could never suffer anything, since she could never feel. But he glared at me, and did as he liked, just as he always has done. The message on the handkerchief that Nino had received the night before warned him to keep away from the Palazzo Carmandola. Nino reflected that this warning was probably due to Hedwig's anxiety for his personal safety, and he resolved to risk anything rather than remain in ignorance of her destination. It must be a case of giving some signal. But this evening he had to sing at the theatre, and, therefore, without more ado, he left us, and went to bed again, where he stayed until twelve o'clock. Then he went to rehearsal, arriving an hour behind time, at least, a matter which he treated with the coolest indifference. After that he got a pound of small shot, and amused himself with throwing a few at a time at the kitchen window from the little court at the back of our house, where the well is. It seemed a strangely childish amusement for a great singer. Having sung successfully through his opera that night, he had supper with us, as usual, and then went out. Of course he told me afterwards what he did. He went to his old post under the windows of the Palazzo Carmandola, and as soon as all was dark he began to throw small shot up at Hedwig's window. He now profited by his practice in the afternoon, for he made the panes rattle with the little bits of lead, several times. At last he was rewarded. Very slowly the window opened, and Hedwig's voice spoke in a low tone: "Is it you?" "Ah, dear one! Can you ask?" began Nino. "Hush! I am still locked up. We are going away,--I cannot tell where." "When, dearest love?" "I cannot tell. What _shall_ we do?" very tearfully. "I will follow you immediately; only let me know when and where." "If you do not hear by some other means, come here to-morrow night. I hear steps. Go at once." "Good-night, dearest," he murmured; but the window was already closed, and the fresh breeze that springs up after one o'clock blew from the air the remembrance of the loving speech that had passed upon it. On the following night he was at his post, and again threw the shot against the pane for a signal. After a long time Hedwig opened the window very cautiously. "Quick!" she whispered down to him, "go! They are all awake," and she dropped something heavy and white. Perhaps she added some word, but Nino would not tell me, and never would read me the letter. But it contained the news that Hedwig and her father were to leave Rome for Paris on the following morning; and ever since that night Nino has worn upon his little finger a plain gold ring,--I cannot tell why, and he says he found it. The next day he ascertained from the porter of the Palazzo Carmandola that the count and contessina, with their servants, had actually left Rome that morning for Paris. From that moment he was sad as death, and went about his business heavily, being possessed of but one idea, namely, to sign an engagement to sing in Paris as soon as possible. In that wicked city the opera continues through Lent, and after some haggling, in which De Pretis insisted on obtaining for Nino the most advantageous terms, the contract was made out and signed. I see very well that unless I hurry myself I shall never reach the most important part of this story, which is after all the only part worth telling. I am sure I do not know how I can ever tell it so quickly, but I will do my best, and you must have a little patience; for though I am not old, I am not young, and Nino's departure for Paris was a great shock to me, so that I do not like to remember it, and the very thought of it sickens me. If you have ever had any education, you must have seen an experiment in which a mouse is put in a glass jar, and all the air is drawn away with a pump, so that the poor little beast languishes and rolls pitifully on its side, gasping and wheezing with its tiny lungs for the least whiff of air. That is just how I felt when Nino went away. It seemed as though I could not breathe in the house or in the streets, and the little rooms at home were so quiet that one might hear a pin fall, and the cat purring through the closed doors. Nino left at the beginning of the last ten days of Carnival, when the opera closed, so that it was soon Lent; and everything is quieter then. But before he left us there was noise enough and bustle of preparation, and I did not think I should miss him; for he always was making music, or walking about, or doing something to disturb me just at the very moment when I was most busy with my books. Mariuccia, indeed, would ask me from time to time what I should do when Nino was gone, as if she could foretell what I was to feel. I suppose she knew I was used to him, after fourteen years of it, and would be inclined to black humours for want of his voice. But she could not know just what Nino is to me, nor how I look on him as my own boy. These peasants are quick-witted and foolish; they guess a great many things better than I could, and then reason on them like idiots. Nino himself was glad to go. I could see his face grow brighter as the time approached; and though he appeared to be more successful than ever in his singing, I am sure that he cared nothing for the applause he got, and thought only of singing as well as he could for the love of it. But when it came to the parting we were left alone. "Messer Cornelio," he said, looking at me affectionately, "I have something to say to you to-night before I go away." "Speak, then, my dear boy," I answered, "for no one hears us." "You have been very good to me. A father could not have loved me better, and such a father as I had could not have done a thousandth part what you have done for me. I am going out into the world for a time, but my home is here,--or rather, where my home is will always be yours. You have been my father, and I will be your son; and it is time you should give up your professorship. No, not that you are at all old; I do not mean that." "No, indeed," said I, "I should think not." "It would be much more proper if you retired into an elegant leisure, so that you might write as many books as you desire without wearing yourself out in teaching those students every day. Would you not like to go back to Serveti?" "Serveti!--ah, beautiful, lost Serveti, with its castle and good vine-lands!" "You shall have it again before long, my father," he said. He had never called me father before, the dear boy! I suppose it was because he was going away. But Serveti again? The thing was impossible, and I said so. "It is not impossible," he answered, placidly. "Successful singers make enough money in a year to buy Serveti. A year is soon passed. But now let us go to the station, or I shall not be in time for the train." "God bless you, Nino mio," I said, as I saw him off. It seemed to me that I saw two or three Ninos. But the train rolled away and took them all from me,--the ragged little child who first came to me, the strong-limbed, dark-eyed boy with his scales and trills and enthusiasm, and the full-grown man with the face like the great emperor, mightily triumphing in his art and daring in his love. They were all gone in a moment, and I was left alone on the platform of the station, a very sorrowful and weak old man. Well, I will not think about that day. The first I heard of Nino was by a letter he wrote me from Paris, a fortnight after he had left me. It was characteristic of him, being full of eager questions about home and De Pretis and Mariuccia and Rome. Two things struck me in his writing. In the first place, he made no mention of the count or Hedwig, which led me to suppose that he was recovering from his passion, as boys do when they travel. And secondly, he had so much to say about me that he forgot all about his engagement, and never even mentioned the theatre. On looking carefully through the letter again I found he had written across the top the words, "Rehearsals satisfactory." That was all. It was not long after the letter came, however, that I was very much frightened by receiving a telegram, which must have cost several francs to send all that distance. By this he told me that he had no clue to the whereabouts of the Liras, and he implored me to make inquiries and discover where they had gone. He added that he had appeared in _Faust_ successfully. Of course he would succeed. If a singer can please the Romans, he can please anybody. But it seemed to me that if he had received a very especially flattering reception he would have said so. I went to see De Pretis, whom I found at home over his dinner. We put our heads together and debated how we might discover the Paris address of the Graf von Lira. In a great city like that it was no wonder Nino could not find them; but De Pretis hoped that some of his pupils might be in correspondence with the contessina, and would be willing to give the requisite directions for reaching her. But days passed, and a letter came from Nino written immediately after sending the telegram, and still we had accomplished nothing. The letter merely amplified the telegraphic message. "It is no use," I said to De Pretis. "And besides, it is much better that he should forget all about it." "You do not know that boy," said the maestro, taking snuff. And he was quite right, as it turned out. Suddenly Nino wrote from London. He had made an arrangement, he said, by which he was allowed to sing there for three nights only. The two managers had settled it between them, being friends. He wrote very despondently, saying that although he had been far more fortunate in his appearances than he had expected, he was in despair at not having found the contessina, and had accepted the arrangement which took him to London because he had hopes of finding her there. On the day which brought me this letter I had a visitor. Nino had been gone nearly a month. It was in the afternoon, towards sunset, and I was sitting in the old green arm-chair watching the goldfinch in his cage, and thinking sadly of the poor dear baroness, and of my boy, and of many things. The bell rang and Mariuccia brought me a card in her thick fingers which were black from peeling potatoes, so that the mark of her thumb came off on the white pasteboard. The name on the card was "Baron Ahasuerus Benoni," and there was no address. I told her to show the signore into the sitting-room, and he was not long in coming. I immediately recognised the man Nino had described, with his unearthly freshness of complexion, his eagle nose, and his snow-white hair. I rose to greet him. "Signor Grandi," he said, "I trust you will pardon my intrusion. I am much interested in your boy, the great tenor." "Sir," I replied, "the visit of a gentleman is never an intrusion. Permit me to offer you a chair." He sat down, and crossed one thin leg over the other. He was dressed in the height of the fashion; he wore patent-leather shoes, and carried a light ebony cane with a silver head. His hat was perfectly new, and so smoothly brushed that it reflected a circular image of the objects in the room. But he had a certain dignity that saved his foppery from seeming ridiculous. "You are very kind," he answered. "Perhaps you would like to hear some news of Signor Cardegna,--your boy, for he is nothing else." "Indeed" I said, "I should be very glad. Has he written to you, baron?" "Oh, no! We are not intimate enough for that. But I ran on to Paris the other day, and heard him three or four times, and had him to supper at Bignon's. He is a great genius, your boy, and has won all hearts." "That is a compliment of weight from so distinguished a musician as yourself," I answered; for, as you know, Nino had told me all about his playing. Indeed, the description was his, which is the reason why it is so enthusiastic. "Yes," said Benoni, "I am a great traveller, and often go to Paris for a day or two. I know everyone there. Cardegna had a perfect ovation. All the women sent him flowers, and all the men asked him to dinner." "Pardon my curiosity," I interrupted, "but as you know everyone in Paris, could you inform me whether Count von Lira and his daughter are there at present? He is a retired Prussian officer." Benoni stretched out one of his long arms and ran his fingers along the keys of the piano without striking them. He could just reach so far from where he sat. He gave no sign of intelligence, and I felt sure that Nino had not questioned him. "I know them very well," he said, presently, "but I thought they were here." "No, they left suddenly for Paris a month ago." "I can very easily find out for you," said Benoni, his bright eyes turning on me with a searching look. "I can find out from Lira's banker, who is probably also mine. What is the matter with that young man? He is as sad as Don Quixote." "Nino? He is probably in love," I said, rather indiscreetly. "In love? Then of course he is in love with Mademoiselle de Lira, and has gone to Paris to find her, and cannot. That is why you ask me." I was so much astonished at the quickness of his guesswork that I stared, open-mouthed. "He must have told you!" I exclaimed at last. "Nothing of the kind. In the course of a long life I have learned to put two and two together, that is all. He is in love, he is your boy, and you are looking for a certain young lady. It is as clear as day." But in reality he had guessed the secret long before. "Very well," said I, humbly, but doubting him, all the same, "I can only admire your perspicacity. But I would be greatly obliged if you would find out where they are, those good people. You seem to be a friend of my boy's, baron. Help him, and he will be grateful to you. It is not such a very terrible thing that a great artist should love a noble's daughter, after all, though I used to think so." Benoni laughed, that strange laugh which Nino had described,--a laugh that seemed to belong to another age. "You amuse me with your prejudices about nobility," he said, and his brown eyes flashed and twinkled again. "The idea of talking about nobility in this age! You might as well talk of the domestic economy of the Garden of Eden." "But you are yourself a noble--a baron," I objected. "Oh, I am anything you please," said Benoni. "Some idiot made a baron of me the other day because I lent him money and he could not pay it. But I have some right to it, after all, for I am a Jew. The only real nobles are Welshmen and Jews. You cannot call anything so ridiculously recent as the European upper classes a nobility. Now I go straight back to the creation of the world, like all my countrymen. The Hibernians get a factitious reputation for antiquity by saying that Eve married an Irishman after Adam died, and that is about as much claim as your European nobles have to respectability. Bah! I know their beginnings, very small indeed." "You also seem to have strong prejudices on the subject," said I, not wishing to contradict a guest in my house. "So strong that it amounts to having no prejudices at all. Your boy wants to marry a noble damosel. In Heaven's name let him do it. Let us manage it amongst us. Love is a grand thing. I have loved several women all their lives. Do not look surprised. I am a very old man; they have all died, and at present I am not in love with anybody. I suppose it cannot last long, however. I loved a woman once on a time"--Benoni paused. He seemed to be on the verge of a soliloquy, and his strange, bright face, which seemed illuminated always with a deathless vitality, became dreamy and looked older. But he recollected himself and rose to go. His eye caught sight of the guitar that hung on the wall. "Ah," he cried suddenly, "music is better than love, for it lasts; let us make music." He dropped his hat and stick and seized the instrument. In an instant it was tuned and he began to perform the most extraordinary feats of agility with his fingers that I ever beheld. Some of it was very beautiful, and some of it very sad and wild, but I understood Nino's enthusiasm. I could have listened to the old guitar in his hands for hours together,--I, who care little for music; and I watched his face. He stalked about the room with the thing in his hands, in a sort of wild frenzy of execution. His features grew ashy pale, and his smooth white hair stood out wildly from his head. He looked, then, more than a hundred years old, and there was a sadness and a horror about him that would have made the stones cry aloud for pity. I could not believe he was the same man. At last he was tired, and stopped. "You are a great artist, baron," I said. "Your music seems to affect you much." "Ah, yes, it makes me feel like other men for the time," said he, in a low voice. "Did you know that Paganini always practised on the guitar? It is true. Well, I will find out about the Liras for you in a day or two, before I leave Rome again." I thanked him and he took his leave. CHAPTER XII Benoni had made an impression on me that nothing could efface. His tall thin figure and bright eyes got into my dreams and haunted me, so that I thought my nerves were affected. For several days I could think of nothing else, and at last had myself bled, and took some cooling barley-water, and gave up eating salad at night, but without any perceptible effect. Nino wrote often, and seemed very much excited about the disappearance of the contessina, but what could I do? I asked everyone I knew, and nobody had heard of them, so that at last I quite gave it over, and wrote to tell him so. A week passed, then a fortnight, and I had heard nothing from Benoni. Nino wrote again, enclosing a letter addressed to the Contessina di Lira, which he implored me to convey to her, if I loved him. He said he was certain that she had never left Italy. Some instinct seemed to tell him so, and she was evidently in neither London nor Paris, for he had made every inquiry, and had even been to the police about it. Two days after this, Benoni came. He looked exactly as he did the first time I saw him. "I have news," he said, briefly, and sat down in the arm-chair, striking the dust from his boot with his little cane. "News of the Graf?" I inquired. "Yes. I have found out something. They never left Italy at all, it seems. I am rather mystified, and I hate mystification. The old man is a fool; all old men are fools, excepting myself. Will you smoke? No? Allow me, then. It is a modern invention, but a very good one." He lit a cigarette. "I wish your Liras were in Tophet," he continued, presently. "How can people have the bad taste to hide? It only makes ingenious persons the more determined to find them." He seemed talkative, and as I was so sad and lonely I encouraged him by a little stimulus of doubt. I wish I had doubted him sooner, and differently. "What is the use?" I asked. "We shall never find them." "'Never' is a great word,'" said Benoni. "You do not know what it means. I do. But as for finding them, you shall see. In the first place, I have talked with their banker. He says the count gave the strictest orders to have his address kept a secret. But, being one of my people he allowed himself to make an accidental allusion which gave me a clue to what I wanted. They are hidden somewhere in the mountains." "Diavolo! among the brigands: they will not be very well treated," said I. "The old man will be careful. He will keep clear of danger. The only thing is to find them." "And what then?" I asked. "That depends on the most illustrious Signor Cardegna," said Benoni, smiling. "He only asked you to find them. He probably did not anticipate that I would help you." It did not appear to me that Benoni had helped me much, after all. You might as well look for a needle in a haystack as try to find anyone who goes to the Italian mountains. The baron offered no further advice, and sat calmly smoking and looking at me. I felt uneasy, opposite him. He was a mysterious person, and I thought him disguised. It was really not possible that, with his youthful manner, his hair should be naturally so white, or that he should be so old as he seemed. I asked him the question we always find it interesting to ask foreigners, hoping to lead him into conversation. "How do you like our Rome, Baron Benoni?" "Rome? I loathe and detest it," he said, with a smile. "There is only one place in the whole world that I hate more." "What place is that?" I asked, remembering that he had made the same remark to Nino before. "Jerusalem," he answered, and the smile faded on his face. I thought I guessed the reason of his dislike in his religious views. But I am very liberal about those things. "I think I understand you," I said; "you are a Hebrew, and the prevailing form of religion is disagreeable to you." "No, it is not exactly that,--and yet, perhaps, it is." He seemed to be pondering on the reason of his dislike. "But why do you visit these places if they do not please you?" "I come here because I have so many agreeable acquaintances. I never go to Jerusalem. I also come here from time to time to take a bath. The water of the Trevi has a peculiarly rejuvenating effect upon me, and something impels me to bathe in it." "Do you mean in the fountain? Ah, foreigners say that if you drink the water by moonlight you will return to Rome." "Foreigners are all weak-minded fools. I like that word. The human race ought to be called fools generically, as distinguished from the more intelligent animals. If you went to England you would be as great a fool as any Englishman that comes here and drinks Trevi water by moonlight. But I assure you I do nothing so vulgar as to patronise the fountain, any more than I would patronise Mazzarino's church, hard by. I go to the source, the spring, the well where it rises." "Ah, I know the place well," I said. "It is near to Serveti." "Serveti? Is that not in the vicinity of Horace's villa?" "You know the country well, I see," said I, sadly. "I know most things," answered the Jew, with complacency. "You would find it hard to hit upon anything I do not know. Yes, I am a vain man, it is true, but I am very frank and open about it. Look at my complexion. Did you ever see anything like it? It is Trevi water that does it." I thought such excessive vanity very unbecoming in a man of his years, but I could not help looking amused. It was so odd to hear the old fellow descanting on his attractions. He actually took a small mirror from his pocket and looked at himself in most evident admiration. "I really believe," he said at length, pocketing the little looking-glass, "that a woman might love me still. What do you say?" "Doubtless," I answered politely, although I was beginning to be annoyed, "a woman might love you at first sight. But it would be more dignified for you not to love her." "Dignity!" He laughed long and loud, a cutting laugh, like the breaking of glass. "There is another of your phrases. Excuse my amusement, Signor Grandi, but the idea of dignity always makes me smile." He called that thing a smile! "It is in everybody's mouth,--the dignity of the State, the dignity of the king, the dignity of woman, the dignity of father, mother, schoolmaster, soldier. Psh! an apoplexy, as you say, on all the dignities you can enumerate. There is more dignity in a poor patient ass toiling along a rough road under a brutal burden that in the entire human race put together, from Adam to myself. The conception of dignity is notional, most entirely. I never see a poor wretch of a general, or king, or any such animal, adorned in his toggery of dignity without laughing at him, and his dignity again leads him to suppose that my smile is the result of the pleasurable sensations his experience excites in me. Nature has dignity at times; some animals have it; but man, never. What man mistakes for it in himself is his vanity,--a vanity much more pernicious than mine, because it deceives its possessor, who is also wholly possessed by it, and is its slave. I have had a great many illusions in my life, Signor Grandi." "One would say, baron, that you had parted with them." "Yes, and that is my chief vanity,--the vanity of vanities which I prefer to all the others. It is only a man of no imagination who has no vanity. He cannot imagine himself any better than he is. A creative genius makes for his own person a 'self' which he thinks he is, or desires other people to believe him to be. It makes little difference whether he succeeds or not, so long as he flatters himself he does. He complacently takes all his images from the other animals, or from natural objects and phenomena, depicting himself bold as an eagle, brave as a lion, strong as an ox, patient as an ass, vain as a popinjay, talkative as a parrot, wily as a serpent, gentle as a dove, cunning as a fox, surly as a bear; his glance is lightning, his voice thunder, his heart stone, his hands are iron, his conscience a hell, his sinews of steel, and his love like fire. In short, he is like anything alive or dead, except a man, saving when he is mad. Then he is a fool. Only man can be a fool. It distinguishes him from the higher animals." I cannot describe the unutterable scorn that blazed in his eyes as Benoni poured out the vials of his wrath on the unlucky human race. With my views, we were not likely to agree in this matter. "Who are you?" I asked. "What right can you possibly have to abuse us all in such particularly strong terms? Do you ever make proselytes to your philosophy?" "No," said he, answering my last question, and recovering his serenity with that strange quickness of transition I had remarked when he had made music during his previous visit. "No, they all die before I have taught them anything." "That does not surprise me, baron," said I. He laughed a little. "Well, perhaps it would surprise you even less if you knew me better," he replied. "But really, I came here to talk about Cardegna and not to chatter about that contemptible creature, man, who is not worth a moment's notice, I assure you. I believe I can find these people, and I confess it would amuse me to see the old man's face when we walk in upon him. I must be absent for a few days on business in Austria, and shall return immediately, for I have not taken my bath yet that I spoke of. Now, if it is agreeable to you, I would propose that we go to the hills, on my return, and prosecute our search together; writing to Nino in the meantime to come here as soon as he has finished his engagement in Paris. If he comes quickly, he may go with us; if not, he can join us. At all events, we can have a very enjoyable tour among the natives, who are charming people, quite like animals, as you ought to know." I think I must be a very suspicious person. Circumstances have made me so, and perhaps my suspicions are very generally wrong. It may be. At all events I did suspect the rich and dandified old baron of desiring to have a laugh by putting Nino into some absurd situation. He had such strange views, or, at least, he talked so oddly, that I did not believe half he said. It is not possible that anybody should seriously hold the opinions he professed. When he was gone I sat alone, pondering on this situation, which was like a very difficult problem in a nightmare, that could not or would not look sensible, do what I would. It chanced that I got a letter from Nino that evening, and I confess I was reluctant to open it, fearing that he would reproach me with not having taken more pains to help him. I felt as though, before opening the envelope, I should like to go back a fortnight and put forth all my strength to find the contessina, and gain a comforting sense of duty performed. If I had only done my best how easy it would have been to face a whole sheet of complaints! Meanwhile the letter was come, and I had done nothing worth mentioning. I looked at the back of it, and my conscience smote me; but it had to be accomplished, and at last I tore the cover off and read. Poor Nino! He said he was ill with anxiety, and feared it would injure his voice. He said that to break his engagement and come back to Rome would be ruin to him. He must face it out, or take the legal consequences of a breach of contract, which are overwhelming to a young artist. He detailed all the efforts he had made to find Hedwig, pursuing every little sign and clue that seemed to present itself; all to no purpose. The longer he thought of it, the more certain he was that Hedwig was not in Paris or London. She might be anywhere else in the whole world, but she was certainly not in either of those cities. Of that he was convinced. He felt like a man who had pursued a beautiful image to the foot of a precipitous cliff; the rock had opened and swallowed up his dream, leaving him standing alone in hopeless despair; and a great deal more poetic nonsense of that kind. I do not believe I had ever realised what he so truly felt for Hedwig until I sat at my table with his letter before me, overcome with the sense of my own weakness in not having effectually checked this mad passion at its rise; or, since it had grown so masterfully, of my wretched procrastination in not having taken my staff in my hand and gone out into the world to find the woman my boy loved and bring her to him. By this time, I thought, I should have found her. I could not bear to think of his being ill, suffering, heart-broken,--ruined, if he lost his voice by an illness,--merely because I had not had the strength to do the best thing for him. Poor Nino, I thought, you shall never say again that Cornelio Grandi has not done what was in his power to make you happy. "That baron! an apoplexy on him! has illuded me with his promises of help," I said to myself. "He has no more intention of helping me or Nino than he has of carrying off the basilica of St. Peter. Courage, Cornelio! thou must gird up thy loins, and take a little money in thy scrip, and find Hedwig von Lira." All that night I lay awake, trying to think how I might accomplish this end; wondering to which point of the compass I should turn, and, above all, reflecting that I must make great sacrifices. But my boy must have what he wanted, since he was consuming himself, as we say, in longing, for it. It seemed to me no time for counting the cost, when every day might bring upon him a serious illness. If he could only know that I was acting, he would allow his spirits to revive and take courage. In the watches of the night I thought over my resources, which, indeed, were meagre enough; for I am a very poor man. It was necessary to take a great deal of money, for once away from Rome no one could tell when I might return. My salary as professor is paid to me quarterly, and it was yet some weeks to the time when it was due. I had only a few francs remaining,--not more than enough to pay my rent and to feed Mariuccia and me. I had paid at Christmas the last instalment due on my vineyard out of Porta Salara, and though I owed no man anything I had no money, and no prospect of any for some time. And yet I could not leave home on a long journey without at least two hundred scudi in my pocket. A scudo is a dollar, and a dollar has five francs, so that I wanted a thousand francs. You see, in spite of the baron's hint about the mountains, I thought I might have to travel all over Italy before I satisfied Nino. A thousand francs is a great deal of money,--it is a Peru, as we say. I had not the first sou toward it. I thought a long time. I wondered if the old piano were worth anything; whether anybody would give me money for my manuscripts, the results of patient years of labour and study; my old gold scarf pin, my seal ring, and even my silver watch, which keeps really very good time,--what were they worth? But it would not be much, not the tenth part of what I wanted. I was in despair, and I tried to sleep. Then a thought came to me. "I am a donkey," I said. "There is the vineyard itself,--my little vineyard beyond Porta Salara. It is mine and is worth half as much again as I need." And I slept quietly till morning. It is true, and I am sure it is natural, that in the daylight my resolution looked a little differently to me than it did in the quiet night. I had toiled and scraped a great deal more than you know to buy that small piece of land, and it seemed much more my own than all Serveti had ever been in my better days. Then I shut myself up in my room and read Nino's letter over again, though it pained me very much; for I needed courage. And when I had read it, I took some papers in my pocket, and put on my hat and my old cloak, which Nino will never want any more now for his midnight serenades, and I went out to sell my little vineyard. "It is for my boy," I said, to give myself some comfort. But it is one thing to want to buy, and it is quite another thing to want to sell. All day I went from one man to another with my papers,--all the agents who deal in those things; but they only said they thought it might be sold in time; it would take many days, and perhaps weeks. "But I want to sell it to-day," I explained. "We are very sorry," said they, with a shrug of the shoulders; and they showed me the door. I was extremely down-hearted, and though I could not sell my piece of land I spent three sous in buying two cigars to smoke, and I walked about the Piazza Colonna in the sun; I would not go home to dinner until I had decided what to do. There was only one man I had not tried, and he was the man who had sold it to me. Of course I knew people who do this business, for I had had enough trouble to learn their ways when I had to sell Serveti, years ago. But this one man I had not tried yet, because I knew that he would drive a cruel bargain with me when he saw I wanted the money. But at last I went to him and told him just what my wishes were. "Well," he said, "it is a very bad time for selling land. But to oblige you, because you are a customer, I will give you eight hundred francs for your little place. That is really much more than I can afford." "Eight hundred francs!" I exclaimed, in despair. "But I have paid you nearly twice as much for it in the last three years! What do you take me for? To sell such a gem of a vineyard for eight hundred francs? If you offer me thirteen hundred I will discuss the matter with you." "I have known you a long time, Signor Grandi, and you are an honest man. I am sure you do not wish to deceive me. I will give you eight hundred and fifty." Deceive him, indeed! The very man who had received fifteen hundred from me said I deceived him when I asked thirteen hundred for the same piece of land! But I needed it very much, and so, bargaining and wrangling, I got one thousand and seventy-five francs in bank-notes; and I took care they should all be good ones too. It was a poor price, I know, but I could do no better, and I went home happy. But I dared not tell Mariuccia. She is only my servant, to be sure, but she would have torn me in pieces. Then I wrote to the authorities at the university to say that I was obliged to leave Rome suddenly, and would of course not claim my salary during my absence. But I added that I hoped they would not permanently supplant me. If they did I knew I should be ruined. Then I told Mariuccia that I was going away for some days to the country, and I left her the money to pay the rent, and her wages, and a little more, so that she might be provided for if I were detained very long. I went out again and telegraphed to Nino to say I was going at once in search of the Liras, and begging him to come home as soon as he should have finished his engagement. To tell the truth, Mariuccia was very curious to know where I was going, and asked me many questions, which I had some trouble in answering. But at last it was night again, and the old woman went to bed and left me. Then I went on tiptoe to the kitchen, and found a skein of thread and two needles, and set to work. I knew the country whither I was going very well, and it was necessary to hide the money I had in some ingenious way. So I took two waistcoats--one of them was quite good still,--and I sewed them together, and basted the bank-notes between them. It was a clumsy piece of tailoring, though it took me so many hours to do it. But I had put the larger waistcoat outside very cunningly, so that when I had put on the two, you could not see that there was anything beneath the outer one. I think I was very clever to do this without a woman to help me. Then I looked to my boots, and chose my oldest clothes,--and you may guess, from what you know of me, how old they were,--and I made a little bundle that I could carry in my hand, with a change of linen, and the like. These things I made ready before I went to bed, and I slept with the two waistcoats and the thousand francs under my pillow, though I suppose nobody would have chosen that particular night for robbing me. All these preparations had occupied me so much that I had not found any time to grieve over my poor little vineyard that I had sold; and, besides, I was thinking all the while of Nino, and how glad he would be to know that I was really searching for Hedwig. But when I thought of the vines, it hurt me; and I think it is only long after the deed that it seems more blessed to give than to receive. But at last I slept, as tired folk will, leaving care to the morrow; and when I awoke it was daybreak, and Mariuccia was clattering angrily with the tin coffee-pot outside. It was a bright morning, and the goldfinch sang, and I could hear him scattering the millet seed about his cage while I dressed. And then the parting grew very near, and I drank my coffee silently, wondering how soon it would be over, and wishing that the old woman would go out and let me have my house alone. But she would not, and, to my surprise, she made very little worry or trouble, making a great show of being busy. When I was quite ready she insisted on putting a handful of roasted chestnuts into my pocket, and she said she would pray for me. The fact is, she thought, foolish old creature, as she is, that I was old and in poor health, and she had often teased me to go into the country for a few days, so that she was not ill pleased that I should seem to take her advice. She stood looking after me as I trudged along the street, with my bundle and my good stick in my right hand, and a lighted cigar in my left. I had made up my mind that I ought first to try the direction hinted at by the baron, since I had absolutely no other clue to the whereabouts of the Count von Lira and his daughter. I therefore got into the old stage that still runs to Palestrina and the neighbouring towns, for it is almost as quick as going by rail, and much cheaper; and half-an-hour later we rumbled out of the Porta San Lorenzo, and I had entered upon the strange journey to find Hedwig von Lira, concerning which frivolous people have laughed so unkindly. And you may call me a foolish old man if you like. I did it for my boy. CHAPTER XIII I went to Palestrina because all foreigners go there, and are to be heard of from other parts of the mountains in that place. It was a long and tiresome journey; the jolting stage-coach shook me very much. There was a stout woman inside, with a baby that squealed; there was a very dirty old country curate, who looked as though he had not shaved for a week, or changed his collar for a month. But he talked intelligently, though he talked too much, and he helped to pass the time until I was weary of him. We jolted along over the dusty roads, and were at least thankful that it was not yet hot. In the evening we reached Palestrina, and stopped before the inn in the market-place, as tired and dusty as might be. The woman went one way, and the priest the other, and I was left alone. I soon found the fat old host, and engaged a room for the night. He was talkative and curious, and sat by my side when he had prepared my supper in the dingy dining-room downstairs. I felt quite sure that he would be able to tell me what I wanted, or at least to give me a hint from hearsay. But he at once began to talk of last year, and how much better his business had been then than it was now, as country landlords invariably do. It was to no purpose that I questioned him about the people that had passed during the fortnight, the month, the two months back; it was clear that no one of the importance of my friends had been heard of. At last I was tired, and he lit a wax candle, which he would carefully charge in the bill afterwards, at double its natural price, and he showed me the way to my room. It was a very decent little room, with white curtains and a good bed and a table,--everything I could desire. A storm had come up since I had been at my supper, and it seemed a comfortable thing to go to bed, although I was disappointed at having got no news. But when I had blown out my candle, determining to expostulate with the host in the morning if he attempted to make me pay for a whole one, I lay thinking of what I should do; and, turning on my side, I observed that a narrow crack of the door admitted rays of light into the darkness of my chamber. Now I am very sensitive to draughts and inclined to take cold, and the idea that there was a door open troubled me, so that at last I made up my mind to get up and close it. As I rose to my feet, I perceived that it was not the door by which I had entered; and so, before shutting it, I called out, supposing there might be someone in the next room. "Excuse me," I said, loudly, "I will shut this door." But there was no reply. Curiosity is perhaps a vice, but it is a natural one. Instead of pulling the door to its place, I pushed it a little, knocking with my knuckles at the same time. But as no one answered, I pushed it further, and put in my head. It was a disagreeable thing I saw. The room was like mine in every way, save that the bed was moved to the middle of the open space, and there were two candles on two tables. On the bed lay a dead man. I felt what we call a brivido,--a shiver like an ague. It was the body of an old man, with a face like yellow wax, and a singularly unpleasant expression even in death. His emaciated hands were crossed on his breast, and held a small black crucifix. The candles stood, one at the head and one at the foot, on little tables. I entered the room and looked long at the dead old man. I thought it strange that there should be no one to watch him, but I am not afraid of dead men after the first shudder is past. It was a ghastly sight enough, however, and the candles shed a glaring yellowish light over it all. "Poor wretch!" I said to myself, and went back to my room, closing the door carefully behind me. At first I thought of rousing the host, and explaining to him my objections to being left almost in the same room with a corpse. But I reflected that it would be foolish to seem afraid of it, when I was really not at all timid, and so I went to bed and slept until dawn. But when I went downstairs I found the innkeeper, and gave him a piece of my mind. "What sort of an inn do you keep? What manners are these?" I cried angrily. "What diavolo put into your pumpkin head to give me a sepulchre for a room?" He seemed much disturbed at what I said, and broke out into a thousand apologies. But I was not to be so easily pacified. "Do you think," I demanded, "that I will ever come here again, or advise any of my friends to come here? It is insufferable. I will write to the police--" But at this he began to shed tears and to wring his hands, saying it was not his fault. "You see, signore, it was my wife who made me arrange it so. Oh! these women--the devil has made them all! It was her father--the old dead man you saw. He died yesterday morning--may he rest!--and we will bury him to-day. You see everyone knows that unless a dead man is watched by someone from another town his soul will not rest in peace. My wife's father was a jettatore; he had the evil eye, and people knew it for miles around, so I could not persuade anyone from the other villages to sit by him and watch his body, though I sent everywhere all day yesterday. At last that wife of mine--maledictions on her folly!--said, 'It is my father, after all, and his soul must rest, at any price. If you put a traveller in the next room, and leave the door open, it will be the same thing; and so he will be in peace.' That is the way it happened, signore," he continued, after wiping away his tears; "you see I could not help it at all. But if you will overlook it, I will not make any charges for your stay. My wife shall pay me. She has poultry by the hundred. I will pay myself with her chickens." "Very good," said I, well pleased at having got so cheap a lodging. "But I am a just man, and I will pay for what I have eaten and drunk, and you can take the night's lodging out of your wife's chickens, as you say." So we were both satisfied.[Footnote: This incident actually occurred, precisely as related.] The storm of the night had passed away, leaving everything wet and the air cool and fresh. I wrapped my cloak about me and went into the market-place to see if I could pick up any news. It was already late for the country, and there were few people about. Here and there, in the streets, a wine-cart was halting on its way to Rome, while the rough carter went through the usual arrangement of exchanging some of his employer's wine for food for himself, filling up the barrel with good pure water that never hurt anyone. I wandered about, though I could not expect to see any face that I knew; it is so many years since I lived at Serveti that even were the carters from my old place I should have forgotten how they looked. Suddenly, at the corner of a dirty street, where there was a little blue and white shrine to the Madonna, I stumbled against a burly fellow with a gray beard carrying a bit of salt codfish in one hand and a cake of corn bread in the other, eating as he went. "Gigi!" I cried, in delight, when I recognised the old carrettiere who used to bring me grapes and wine, and still does when the fancy takes him. "Dio mio! Signor Conte!" he cried, with his mouth full, and holding up the bread and fish with his two hands, in astonishment. When he recovered himself he instantly offered to share his meal with me, as the poorest wretch in Italy will offer his crust to the greatest prince, out of politeness. "Vuol favorire?" he said, smiling. I thanked him and declined, as you may imagine. Then I asked him how he came to be in Palestrina; and he told me that he was often there in the winter, as his sister had married a vine-dresser of the place, of whom he bought wine occasionally. Very well-to-do people, he explained, eagerly, proud of his prosperous relations. We clambered along through the rough street together, and I asked him what was the news from Serveti and from that part of the country, well knowing that if he had heard of any rich foreigners in that neighbourhood he would at once tell me of it. But I had not much hope. He talked about the prospects of the vines, and such things, for some time, and I listened patiently. "By the by," he said at last, "there is a gran signore who is gone to live in Fillettino,--a crazy man, they say, with a beautiful daughter, but really beautiful, as an angel." I was so much surprised that I made a loud exclamation. "What is the matter?" asked Gigi. "It is nothing, Gigi," I answered, for I was afraid lest he should betray my secret, if I let him guess it. "It is nothing. I struck my foot against a stone. But you were telling about a foreigner who is gone to live somewhere. Fillettino? Where is that?" "Oh, the place of the diavolo! I do not wonder you do not know, conte, for gentlemen never go there. It is in the Abruzzi, beyond Trevi. Did you ever hear of the Serra di Sant' Antonio, where so many people have been killed?" "Diana! I should think so! In the old days--" "Bene," said Gigi, "Fillettino is there, at the beginning of the pass." "Tell me, Gigi mio," I said, "are you not very thirsty?" The way to the heart of the wine carter lies through a pint measure. Gigi was thirsty, as I supposed, and we sat down in the porch of my inn, and the host brought a stoup of his best wine and set it before us. "I would like to hear about the crazy foreigner who is gone to live in the hills among the brigand," I said, when he had wet his throat. "What I know I will tell you, Signor Conte," he answered, filling his pipe with bits that he broke off a cigar. "But I know very little. He must be a foreigner, because he goes to such a place; and he is certainly crazy, for he shuts his daughter in the old castle, and watches her as though she was made of wax, like the flowers you have in Rome under glass." "How long have they been there, these queer folks?" I asked. "What do I know? It may be a month or two. A man told me, who had come that way from Fucino, and that is all I know." "Do people often travel that way, Gigi?" "Not often, indeed," he answered, with a grin. "They are not very civil, the people of those parts." Gigi made a gesture, or a series of gestures. He put up his hands as though firing a gun. Then he opened his right hand and closed it, with a kind of insinuating twirl of the fingers, which means "to steal." Lastly he put his hand over his eyes, and looked through his fingers as though they were bars, which means "prison." From this I inferred that the inhabitants of Fillettino were addicted to murder, robbery, and other pastimes, for which they sometimes got into trouble. The place he spoke of is about thirty miles, or something more, from Palestrina, and I began planning how I should get there as cheaply as possible. I had never been there, and wondered what kind of a habitation the count had found; for I knew it must be the roughest sort of mountain town, with some dilapidated castle or other overhanging it. But the count was rich, and he had doubtless made himself very comfortable. I sat in silence while Gigi finished his wine and chatted about his affairs between the whiffs of his pipe. "Gigi," I said at last, "I want to buy a donkey." "Eh, your excellency can be accommodated: and a saddle, too, if you wish." "I think I could ride without a saddle," I said, for I thought it a needless piece of extravagance. "Madonna mia!" he cried. "The Signor Conte ride bareback on a donkey! They would laugh at you. But my brother-in-law can sell you a beast this very day, and for a mere song." "Let us go and see the beast," I said. I felt a little ashamed of having wished to ride without a saddle. But as I had sold all I had, I wanted to make the money last as long as possible; or at least I would spend as little as I could, and take something back, if I ever went home at all. We had not far to go, and Gigi opened a door in the street, and showed me a stable, in which something moved in the darkness. Presently he led out an animal and began to descant upon its merits. "Did you ever see a more beautiful donkey?" asked Gigi, admiringly. "It looks like a horse!" It was a little ass, with sad eyes, and ears as long as its tail. It was also very thin, and had the hair rubbed off its back from carrying burdens. But it had no sore places, and did not seem lame. "He is full of fire," said Gigi, poking the donkey in the ribs to excite a show of animation. "You should see him gallop uphill with my brother on his back, and a good load into the bargain. Brrrr! Stand still, will you!" he cried, holding tight by the halter, though the animal did not seem anxious to run away. "And then," said Gigi, "he eats nothing,--positively nothing." "He does not look as though he had eaten much of late," I said. "Oh, my brother-in-law is as good to him as though he were a Christian. He gives him corn bread and fish, just like his own children. But this ass prefers straw." "A frugal ass," I said, and we began to bargain. I will not tell you what I gave Gigi's brother-in-law for the beast, because you would laugh. And I bought an old saddle, too. It was really necessary, but it was a dear bargain, though it was cheaper than hiring; for I sold the donkey and the saddle again, and got back something. It is a wild country enough that lies behind the mountains towards the sources of the Aniene,--the river that makes the falls at Tivoli. You could not half understand how in these times, under the new government, and almost within a long day's ride from Rome, such things could take place as I am about to tell you of, unless I explained to you how very primitive that country is which lies to the south-east of the capital, and which we generally call the Abruzzi. The district is wholly mountainous, and though there are no very great elevations there are very ragged gorges and steep precipices, and now and then an inaccessible bit of forest far up among the rocks, which no man has ever thought of cutting down. It would be quite impossible to remove the timber. The people are mostly shepherds in the higher regions, where there are no vines, and when opportunity offers they will waylay the unwary traveller and rob him, and even murder him, without thinking very much about it. In the old days the boundary between the Papal States and the kingdom of Naples ran through these mountains, and the contrabbandieri--the smugglers of all sorts of wares--used to cross from one dominion to the other by circuitous paths and steep ways of which only a few had knowledge. The better known of these passes were defended by soldiers and police, but there have been bloody fights fought, within a few years, between the law and its breakers. Foreigners never penetrate into the recesses of these hills, and even the English guide-books, which are said to contain an account of everything that the Buon Dio ever made, compiled from notes taken at the time of the creation, make no mention of places which surpass in beauty all the rest of Italy put together. No railroad or other modern innovation penetrates into those Arcadian regions, where the goatherd plays upon his pipe all the day long, the picture of peace and innocence, or prowls in the passes with a murderous long gun, if there are foreigners in the air. The women toil at carrying their scant supply of drinking-water from great distances during a part of the day, and in the evening they spin industriously by their firesides or upon their doorsteps, as the season will have it. It is an old life, the same to-day as a thousand years ago, and perhaps as it will be a thousand years hence. The men are great travellers, and go to Rome in the winter to sell their cheese, or to milk a flock of goats in the street at daybreak, selling the foaming canful for a sou. But their visits to the city do not civilise them; the outing only broadens the horizon of their views in regard to foreigners, and makes them more ambitious to secure one, and see what he is like, and cut off his ears, and get his money. Do not suppose that the shepherd of the Abruzzi lies all day on the rocks in the sun, waiting for the foreign gentleman to come within reach. He might wait a long time. Climbing has strengthened the muscles of his legs into so much steel, and a party of herdsmen have been known to come down from the Serra to the plains around Velletri, and to return to their inaccessible mountains, after doing daring deeds of violence, in twenty-four hours from the time of starting, covering at least from eighty to ninety miles by the way. They are extraordinary fellows, as active as tigers, and fabulously strong, though they are never very big. This country begins behind the range of Sabine mountains seen from Rome across the Campagna, and the wild character of it increases as you go towards the south-east. Since I have told you this much I need not weary you with further descriptions. I do not like descriptions, and it is only when Nino gives me his impressions that I write them, in order that you may know how beautiful things impress him, and the better judge of his character. I do not think that Gigi really cheated me so very badly about the donkey. Of course I do not believe the story of his carrying the brother-in-law and the heavy load uphill at a gallop; but I am thin and not very heavy, and the little ass carried me well enough through the valleys, and when we came to a steep place I would get off and walk, so as not to tire him too much. If he liked to crop a thistle or a blade of grass, I would stop a moment, for I thought he would grow fatter in that way, and I should not lose so much when I sold him again. But he never grew very fat. Twice I slept by the way before I reached the end of my journey,--once at Olevano and once at Trevi; for the road from Olevano to Trevi is long, and some parts are very rough, especially at first. I could tell you just how every stone on the road looks--Rojate, the narrow pass beyond, and then the long valley with the vines; then the road turns away and rises as you go along the plateau of Arcinazzo, which is hollow beneath, and you can hear the echoes as you tread; then at the end of that the desperate old inn, called by the shepherds the Madre dei Briganti,--the mother of brigands,--smoke-blackened within and without, standing alone on the desolate heath; farther on, a broad bend of the valley to the left, and you see Trevi rising before you, crowned with an ancient castle, and overlooking the stream that becomes the Aniene afterwards; from Trevi through a rising valley that grows narrower at every step, and finally seems to end abruptly, as indeed it does, in a dense forest far up the pass. And just below the woods lies the town of Fillettino, where the road ends; for there is a road which leads to Tivoli, but does not communicate with Olevano, whence I had come. Of course I had made an occasional inquiry by the way, when I could do so without making people too curious. When anyone asked me where I was going, I would say I was bound for Fucino, to buy beans for seed at the wonderful model farm that Torlonia has made by draining the old lake. And then I would ask about the road; and sometimes I was told there was a strange foreigner at Fillettino, who made everybody wonder about him by his peculiar mode of life. Therefore, when I at last saw the town, I was quite sure that the count was there, and I got off my little donkey, and let him drink in the stream, while I myself drank a little higher up. The road was dusty, and my donkey and I were thirsty. I thought of all I would do, as I sat on the stone by the water and the beast cropped the wretched grass, and soon I came to the conclusion that I did not know in the least what I should do. I had unexpectedly found what I wanted, very soon, and I was thankful enough to have been so lucky. But I had not the first conception of what course I was to pursue when once I had made sure of the count. Besides, it was barely possible that it was not he, after all, but another foreigner, with another daughter. The thought frightened me, but I drove it away. If it were really old Lira who had chosen this retreat in which to imprison his daughter and himself, I asked myself whether I could do anything save send word to Nino as soon as possible. I felt like a sort of Don Quixote, suddenly chilled into the prosaic requirements of common sense. Perhaps if Hedwig had been my Dulcinea, instead of Nino's, the crazy fit would have lasted, and I would have attempted to scale the castle wall and carry off the prize by force. There is no telling what a sober old professor of philosophy may not do when he is crazy. But meanwhile I was sane. Graf von Lira had a right to live anywhere he pleased with his daughter, and the fact that I had discovered the spot where he pleased to live did not constitute an introduction. Or finally, if I got access to the old count, what had I to say to him? Ought I to make a formal request for Nino? I looked at my old clothes and almost smiled. But the weather was cold, though the roads were dusty; so I mounted my ass and jogged along, meditating deeply. CHAPTER XIV Fillettino is a trifle cleaner than most towns of the same kind. Perhaps it rains more often, and there are fewer people. Considering that its vicinity has been the scene of robbery, murder, and all manner of adventurous crime from time immemorial, I had expected to find it a villainous place. It is nothing of the kind. There is a decent appearance about it that is surprising; and though the houses are old and brown and poor, I did not see pigs in many rooms, nor did the little children beg of me, as they beg of everyone elsewhere. The absence of the pigs struck me particularly, for in the Sabine towns they live in common with the family, and go out only in the daytime to pick up what they can get. I went to the apothecary--there is always an apothecary in these places--and inquired for a lodging. Before very long I had secured a room, and it seemed that the people were accustomed to travellers, for it was surprisingly clean. The bed was so high that I could touch the ceiling when I sat on it, and the walls were covered with ornaments, such as glazed earthenware saints, each with a little basin for holy water, some old engravings of other saints, a few paper roses from the last fair, and a weather-beaten game-pouch of leather. The window looked out over a kind of square, where a great quantity of water ran into a row of masonry tanks out of a number of iron pipes projecting from an overhanging rock. Above the rock was the castle, the place I had come to see, towering up against the darkening sky. It is such a strange place that I ought to describe it to you, or you will not understand the things that happened there. There is a great rock, as I said, rising above the town, and upon this is built the feudal stronghold, so that the walls of the building do not begin less than forty feet from the street level. The height of the whole castle consequently seems enormous. The walls, for the most part, follow the lines of the gray rock, irregularly, as chance would have it, and the result is a three-cornered pile, having a high square tower at one angle, where also the building recedes some yards from the edge of the cliff, leaving on that side a broad terrace guarded by a stone parapet. On another side of the great isolated boulder a narrow roadway heads up a steep incline, impracticable for carriages but passable for four-footed beasts; and this path gives access to the castle through a heavy gate opening upon a small court within. But the rock itself has been turned to account, and there are chambers within it which formerly served as prisons, opening to the right and left of a narrow staircase, hewn out of the stone, and leading from the foot of the tower to the street below, upon which it opens through a low square door, set in the rock and studded with heavy iron rails. Below the castle hangs the town, and behind it rises the valley, thickly wooded with giant beech-trees. Of course I learned the details of the interior little by little, and I gathered also some interesting facts regarding the history of Fillettino, which are not in any way necessary to my story. The first thing I did was to find out what means of communication there were with Rome. There was a postal service twice a week, and I was told that Count von Lira, whose name was no secret in the village, sent messengers very often to Subiaco. The post left that very day, and I wrote to Nino to tell him that I had found his friends in villeggiatura at Fillettino, advising him to come as soon as he could, and recruit his health and his spirits. I learned, further, from the woman who rented me my lodging, that there were other people in the castle besides the count and his daughter. At least, she had seen a tall gentleman on the terrace with them during the last two days; and it was not true that the count kept Hedwig a prisoner. On the contrary, they rode out together almost every day, and yesterday the tall gentleman had gone with them. The woman also went into many details; telling me how much money the count had spent in a fortnight, bringing furniture and a real piano and immense loads of baskets, which the porters were told contained glass and crockery, and must be carefully handled. It was clear that the count was settled for some time. He had probably taken the old place for a year, by a lease from the Roman family to whom Fillettino and the neighbouring estates belong. He would spend the spring and the summer there, at least. Being anxious to see who the tall gentleman might be, of whom my landlady had spoken, I posted myself in the street, at the foot of the inclined bridle-path, leading to the castle gate. I walked up and down for two hours, about the time I supposed they would all ride, hoping to catch a glimpse of the party. Neither the count nor his daughter knew me by sight, I was sure, and I felt quite safe. It was a long time to wait, but at last they appeared, and I confess that I nearly fell down against the wall when I saw them. There they were on their horses, moving cautiously down the narrow way above me. First came the count, sitting in his saddle as though he were at the head of his old regiment, his great gray moustaches standing out fiercely from his severe wooden face. Then came Hedwig, whom I had not seen for a long time, looking as white and sorrowful as the angel of death, in a close black dress, or habit, so that her golden hair was all the colour there was to be seen about her. But the third rider,--there was no mistaking that thin, erect figure, dressed in the affectation of youth; those fresh pink cheeks, with the snowy moustache, and the thick white hair showing beneath the jaunty hat; the eagle nose and the bright eyes. Baron Benoni, and no other. My first instinct was to hide myself; but before I could retreat Benoni recognised me, even with my old clothes. Perhaps they are not so much older than the others, compared with his fashionable garments. He made no sign as the three rode by; only I could see by his eyes, that were fixed angrily upon me, that he knew me, and did not wish to show it. As for myself I stood stock still in amazement. I had supposed that Benoni had really gone to Austria, as he had told me he was about to do. I had thought him ignorant of the count's retreat, save for the hint which had so luckily led me straight to the mark. I had imagined him to be but a chance acquaintance of the Lira family, having little or no personal interest in their doings. Nevertheless, I had suspected him, as I have told you. Everything pointed to a deception on his part. He had evidently gone immediately from Rome to Fillettino. He must be intimate with the count, or the latter would not have invited him to share a retreat seemingly intended to be kept a secret. He also, I thought, must have some very strong reason for consenting to bury himself in the mountains in company with a father and daughter who could hardly be supposed to be on good terms with each other. But again, why had he seemed so ready to help me and to forward Nino's suit? Why had he given me the smallest clue to the count's whereabouts? Now I am not a strong man in action, but I am a very cunning reasoner. I remembered the man, and the outrageous opinions he had expressed, both to Nino and to me. Then I understood my suspicions. It would be folly to expect such a man to have any real sympathy or sense of friendship for anyone. He had amused himself by promising to come back and go with me on my search, perhaps to make a laughing-stock of me, or even of my boy, by telling the story to the Liras afterwards. He had entertained no idea that I would go alone, or that, if I went, I could be successful. He had made a mistake, and was very angry; his eyes told me that. Then I made a bold resolution. I would see him and ask him what he intended to do; in short, why he had deceived me. There would probably be no difficulty in the way of obtaining an interview, I was not known to the others of the party, and Benoni would scarcely refuse to receive me. I thought he would excuse himself, with ready cynicism, and pretend to continue his offers of friendship and assistance. I confess I regretted that I was so humbly clad, in all my old clothes; but after all, I was travelling, you know. It was a bold resolution, I think, and I revolved the situation in my mind during two days, thinking over what I should say. But with all my thought I only found that everything must depend on Benoni's answer to my own question--"Why?" On the third day, I made myself look as fine as I could, and though my heart beat loudly as I mounted the bridle-path, I put on a bold look and rang the bell. It was a clanging thing, that seemed to creak on a hinge, as I pulled the stout string from outside. A man appeared, and on my inquiry said I might wait in the porch behind the great wooden gate, while he delivered my message to his excellency the baron. It seemed to take a long time, and I sat on a stone bench, eying the courtyard curiously from beneath the archway. It was sunny and clean, with an old well in the middle, but I could see nothing save a few windows opening upon it. At last the man returned and said that I might come with him. I found Benoni, clad in a gorgeous dressing-gown, stalking up and down a large vaulted apartment, in which there were a few new arm-chairs, a table covered with books, and a quantity of ancient furniture that looked unsteady and fragile, although it had been carefully dusted. A plain green baize carpet covered about half the floor, and the remainder was of red brick. The morning sun streamed in through tall windows, and played in a rainbow-like effulgence on the baron's many-coloured dressing-gown, as he paused in his walk to greet me. "Well, my friend," said Benoni, gaily, "how in the name of the devil did you get here?" I thought I had been right; he was going to play at being my friend again. "Very easily, by the help of your little hint," I replied, and I seated myself, for I felt that I was master of the situation. "Ah, if I had suspected you of being so intelligent, I would not have given you any hint at all. You see I have not been to Austria on business, but am here in this good old flesh of mine, such as it is." "Consequently--" I began, and then stopped. I suddenly felt that Benoni had turned the tables upon me, I could not tell how. "Consequently," said he, continuing my sentence, "when I told you that I was going to Austria I was lying." "The frankness of the statement obliges me to believe that you are now telling the truth," I answered, angrily. I felt uneasy. Benoni laughed in his peculiar way. "Precisely," he continued again, "I was lying. I generally do, for so long as I am believed I deceive people; and when they find me out, they are confused between truth and lying, so that they do not know what to believe at all. By the by, I am wandering, I am sorry to see you here. I hope you understand that." He looked at me with the most cheerful expression. I believe I was beginning to be angry at his insulting calmness. I did not answer him. "Signor Grandi," he said in a moment, seeing I was silent, "I am enchanted to see you, if you prefer that I should be. But may I imagine if I can do anything more for you, now that you have heard from my own lips that I am a liar? I say it again,--I like the word,--I am a liar, and I wish I were a better one. What can I do for you?" "Tell me why you have acted this comedy," said I, recollecting at the right moment the gist of my reflections during the past two days. "Why? To please myself, good sir; for the sovereign; pleasure of myself." "I would surmise," I retorted tartly, "that it could not have been for the pleasure of anyone else." "Perhaps you mean, because no one else could be base enough to take pleasure in what amuses me?" I nodded savagely at his question. "Very good. Knowing this of me, do you further surmise that I should be so simple as to tell you how I propose to amuse myself in the future?" I recognised the truth of this, and I saw myself checkmated at the outset. I therefore smiled, and endeavoured to seem completely satisfied, hoping that his vanity would betray him into some hint of the future. He seemed to have before taken pleasure in misleading me with a fragment of truth, supposing that I could not make use of it. I would endeavour to lead him into such a trap again. "It is a beautiful country, is it not?" I remarked, going to the window before which he stood, and looking out. "You must enjoy it greatly, after the turmoil of society." You see, I was once as gay as any of them, in the old days; and so I made the reflection that seemed natural to his case, wondering how he would answer. "It is indeed a very passable landscape," he said, indifferently. "With horses and a charming companion one may kill a little time here, and find a satisfaction in killing it." I noticed the slip, by which he spoke of a single companion instead of two. "Yes," I replied, "the count is said to be a most agreeable man." He paused a moment, and the hesitation seemed to show that the count was not the companion he had in his mind. "Oh, certainly," he said at length, "the count is very agreeable, and his daughter is the paragon of all the virtues and accomplishments." There was something a little disparaging in his tone as he made the last remark, which seemed to me a clumsy device to throw me off the scent, if scent there were. Considering his surpassing personal vanity, of which I had received an ocular demonstration when he visited me in Rome, I fancied that if there were nothing more serious in his thoughts he would have given me to understand that Hedwig found him entirely irresistible. Since he was able to control his vanity, there must be a reason for it. "I should think that the contessina must be charmed at having so brilliant a companion as yourself in her solitude," I said, feeling my way to the point. "With me? I am an old man. Children of that age detest old men." I thought his manner constrained, and it was unlike him not to laugh as he made the speech. The conviction grew upon me that Hedwig was the object of his visit. Moreover, I became persuaded that he was but a poor sort of villain, for he was impulsive, as villains should never be. We leaned over the stone sill of the window, which he had opened during the conversation. There was a little trail of ants climbing up and down the wall at the side, and he watched them. One of the small creatures, heavily laden with a seed of some sort, and toiling painfully under the burden, had been separated from the rest, and clambered over the edge of the window-sill. On reaching the level surface it paused, as though very weary, and looked about, moving its tiny horns. Benoni looked at it a moment, and then with one finger he suddenly whisked the poor little thing into space. It hurt me to see it, and I knew he must be cruel, for he laughed aloud. Somehow it would have seemed less cruel to have brushed away the whole trail of insects, rather than to pitch upon this one small tired workman, overladen and forgotten by the rest. "Why did you do that?" I asked involuntarily. "Why? Why do I do anything? Because I please, the best of all reasons." "Of course; it was foolish of me to ask you. That is probably the cause of your presence here. You would like to hurl my boy Nino from the height he has reached in his love, and to satisfy your cruel instincts you have come here to attack the heart of an innocent girl." I watched him narrowly, and I have often wondered how I had the courage to insult him. It was a bold shot at the truth, and his look satisfied me that I was not very wide of the mark. To accuse a gray-haired old man of attempting to win the affections of a young girl would seem absurd enough. But if you had ever seen Benoni, you would understand that he was anything but old, save for his snowy locks. Many a boy might envy the strange activity of his thin limbs, the bloom and freshness of his eager face, and the fire of his eyes. He was impulsive, too; for instead of laughing at the absurdity of the thing, or at what should have been its absurdity, as a more accomplished villain would have done, he was palpably angry. He looked quickly at me and moved savagely, so that I drew back, and it was not till some moments later that it occurred to him that he ought to seem amused. "How ridiculous!" he cried at last, mastering his anger. "You are joking." "Oh, of course I am joking," I answered, leaving the window. "And now I must wish you good-morning, with many apologies for my intrusion." He must have been glad to be rid of me, but he politely insisted on showing me to the gate. Perhaps he wanted to be sure that I should not ask questions of the servants. As we passed through an outer hall we came suddenly upon Hedwig entering from the opposite direction, dressed in black, and looking like a beautiful shadow of pain. As I have told you, she did not know me. Benoni bowed to the ground as she went by, making some flattering speech about her appearance. She had started slightly on first seeing us, and then she went on without speaking; but there was on her face a look of such sovereign scorn and loathing as I never saw on the features of any living being. And more than scorn, for there was fear and hatred with it: so that if a glance could tell a whole history, there would have been no detail of her feeling for Benoni left to guess. This meeting produced a profound impression on me, and I saw her face in my dreams that night. Had anything been wanting to complete, in my judgment, the plan of the situation in the castle, that something was now supplied. The Jew had come there to get her for himself. She hated him for his own sake; she hated him because she was faithful to Nino; she hated him because he perhaps knew of her secret love for my boy. Poor maiden, shut up for days and weeks to come with a man she dreaded and scorned at once! The sight of her recalled to me that I had in my pocket the letter Nino had sent me for her, weeks before, and which I had found no means of delivering since I had been in Fillettino. Suddenly I was seized with a mad determination to deliver it at any cost. The baron bowed me out of the gate, and I paused outside when the ponderous door had swung on its hinges and his footsteps were echoing back through the court. I sat down on the parapet of the bridle-path, and with my knife cut some of the stitches that sewed my money between my two waistcoats. I took out one of the bills of a hundred francs that were concealed within, I found the letter Nino had sent me for Hedwig, and I once more rang the bell. The man who had admitted me came again, and looked at me in some astonishment. But I gave him no time to question me. "Here is a note for a hundred francs," I said. "Take it, and give this letter to the Signora Contessina. If you bring me a written answer here to-morrow at this hour I will give you as much more." The man was dumfounded for a moment, after which he clutched the money and the letter greedily, and hid them in his coat. "Your excellency shall be punctually obeyed," he said, with a deep bow, and I went away. It was recklessly extravagant of me to do this, but there was no other course. A small bribe would have been worse than none at all. If you can afford to pay largely it is better to bribe a servant than to trust a friend. Your friend has nothing to gain by keeping your secret, whereas the servant hopes for more money in the future, and the prospect of profit makes him as silent as the grave. I would certainly not have acted as I did had I not met Hedwig in the hall. But the sight of her pale face and heavy eyes went to my heart, and I would have given the whole of my little fortune to bring some gladness to her, even though I might not see it. The situation, too, was so novel and alarming that I felt obliged to act quickly, not knowing what evils delay might produce. On the following morning I went up to the gateway again and rang the bell. The same man appeared. He slipped a note into my hand, and I slipped a bill into his. But, to my surprise, he did not shut the door and retire. "The signorina said your excellency should read the note, and I should accompany you," he said; and I saw he had his hat in his hand as if ready to go. I tore open the note. It merely said that the servant was trustworthy, and would "instruct the Signor Grandi" how to act. "You told the contessina my name, then?" I said to the man. He had announced me to the baron, and consequently knew who I was. He nodded, closed the door behind him, and came with me. When we were in the street he explained that Hedwig desired to speak with me. He expounded the fact that there was a staircase in the rock, leading to the level of the town. Furthermore, he said that the old count and the baron occasionally drank deeply, as soldiers and adventurers will do, to pass the evening. The next time it occurred he, the faithful servant, would come to my lodging and conduct me into the castle by the aforesaid passage, of which he had the key. I confess I was unpleasantly alarmed at the prospect of making a burglarious entrance in such romantic fashion. It savoured more of the last century than of the quiet and eminently respectable age in which we live. But then, the castle of Fillettino was built hundreds of years ago, and it is not my fault if it has not gone to ruin, like so many others of its kind. The man recommended me to be always at home after eight o'clock in the evening in case I were wanted, and to avoid seeing the baron when he was abroad. He came and saw where I lived, and with many bows he left me. You may imagine in what anxiety I passed my time. A whole week elapsed, and yet I was never summoned. Every evening at seven, an hour before the time named, I was in my room waiting for someone who never came. I was so much disturbed in mind that I lost my appetite and thought of being bled again. But I thought it too soon, and contented myself with getting a little tamarind from the apothecary. One morning the apothecary, who is also the postmaster, gave me a letter from Nino, dated in Rome. His engagement was over, he had reached Rome, and he would join me immediately. CHAPTER XV As it often happens that, in affairs of importance, the minor events which lead to the ultimate result seem to occur rapidly, and almost to stumble over each other in their haste, it came to pass that on the very evening after I had got Nino's letter I was sent for by the contessina. When the man came to call me I was sitting in my room, from force of habit, though the long delay had made the possibility of the meeting seem shadowy. I was hoping that Nino might arrive in time to go in my place, for I knew that he would not be many hours behind his letter. He would assuredly travel as fast as he could, and if he had understood my directions he was not likely to go astray. But in spite of my hopes the summons came too soon, and I was obliged to go myself. Picture to yourselves how I looked and how I felt: a sober old professor, as I am, stealing out in the night, all wrapped in a cloak as dark and shabby as any conspirator's; armed with a good knife in case of accidents; with beating heart, and doubting whether I could use my weapon if needful; and guided to the place of tryst by the confidential servant of a beautiful and unhappy maiden. I have often laughed since then at the figure I must have cut, but I did not laugh at the time. It was a very serious affair. We skirted the base of the huge rock on which the castle is built, and reached the small, low door without meeting anyone. It was a moonlit night,--the Paschal moon was nearly at the full,--and the whiteness made each separate iron rivet in the door stand out distinct, thrown into relief by its own small shadow on the seamed oak. My guide produced a ponderous key, which screamed hoarsely in the lock under the pressure of his two hands, as he made it turn in the rusty wards. The noise frightened me, but the man laughed, and said they could not hear where they sat, far up in the vaulted chamber, telling long stories over their wine. We entered, and I had to mount a little way up the dark steps to give him room to close the door behind us, by which we were left in total darkness. I confess I was very nervous and frightened until he lighted a taper which he had brought and made enough light to show the way. The stairs were winding and steep, but perfectly dry, and when he had passed me I followed him, feeling that at all events the door behind was closed, and there was someone between me and any danger ahead. The man paused in front of me, and when I had rounded the corner of the winding steps I saw that a brighter light than ours shone from a small doorway opening directly upon the stair. In another moment I was in the presence of Hedwig von Lira. The man retired and left us. She stood, dressed in black, against the rough stone; the strong light of a gorgeous gilt lamp that was placed on the floor streamed upward on her white face. Her eyes caught the brightness, and seemed to burn like deep, dark gems, though they appeared so blue in the day. She looked like a person tortured past endurance, so that the pain of the soul has taken shape, and the agony of the heart has assumed substance. Tears shed had hollowed the marble cheeks, and the stronger suffering that cannot weep had chiselled out great shadows beneath her brows. Her thin clasped hands seemed wringing each other into strange shapes of woe; and though she stood erect as a slender pillar against the black rock, it was rather from the courage of despair than because she was straight and tall by her own nature. I bent low before her, awed by the extremity of suffering I saw. "Are you Signor Grandi?" she asked, in a low and trembling voice. "Most humbly at your service, Signora Contessina," I answered. She put out her hand to me, and then drew it back quickly, with a timid nervous look as I moved to take it. "I never saw you," she said, "but I feel as though you _must_ be a friend--" She paused. "Indeed, signorina, I am here for that reason," said I, trying to speak stoutly, and so to inspire her with some courage. "Tell me how I can best serve you; and though I am not young and strong like Nino Cardegna, my boy, I am not so old but that I can do whatsoever you command." "Then in God's name, save me from this--" But again the sentence died upon her lips, and she glanced anxiously at the door. I reflected that if anyone came we should be caught like mice in a trap, and I made as though I would look out upon the stairs. But she stopped me. "I am foolishly frightened," she said. "That man is faithful, and will keep watch." I thought it time to discover her wishes. "Signorina," said I, "you ask me to save you. You do not say from what. I can at least tell you that Nino Cardegna will be here in a day or two--" At this sudden news she gave a little cry, and the blood rushed to her cheeks, in strange contrast with their deathly whiteness. She seemed on the point of speaking, but checked herself, and her eyes, that had looked me through and through a moment before, drooped modestly under my glance. "Is it possible?" she said at last, in a changed voice. "Yes, if he comes, I think the Signor Cardegna will help me." "Madam," I said, very courteously, for I guessed her embarrassment, "I can assure you that my boy is ready to give you his life in return for the kindness he received at your hands in Rome." She looked up, smiling through her tears, for the sudden happiness had moistened the drooping lids. "You are very kind, Signor Grandi. Signor Cardegna is, I believe, a good friend of mine. You say he will be here?" "I received a letter from him to-day, dated in Rome, in which he tells me that he will start immediately. He may be here to-morrow morning," I answered. Hedwig had regained her composure, perhaps because she was reassured by my manner of speaking about Nino. I, however, was anxious to hear from her own lips some confirmation of my suspicions concerning the baron. "I have no doubt," I continued presently, "that, with your consent, my boy will be able to deliver you from this prison--" I used the word at a venture. Had Hedwig suffered less, and been less cruelly tormented, she would have rebuked me for the expression. But I recalled her to her position, and her self-control gave way at once. "Oh, you are right to call it a prison!" she cried. "It is as much a prison as this chamber hewed out of the rock, where so many a wretch has languished hopelessly; a prison from which I am daily taken out into the sweet sun, to breathe and be kept alive, and to taste how joyful a thing liberty must be! And every day I am brought back, and told that I may be free if I will consent. Consent! God of mercy!" she moaned, in a sudden tempest of passionate despair. "Consent ever to belong, body--and soul--to be touched, polluted, desecrated, by that inhuman monster; sold to him, to a creature without pity, whose heart is a toad, a venomous creeping thing--sold to him for this life, and to the vengeance of God hereafter; bartered, traded, and told that I am so vile and lost that the very price I am offered is an honour to me, being so much more than my value." She came toward me as she spoke, and the passionate, unshed tears that were in her seemed to choke her, so that her voice was hoarse. "And for what--for what?" she cried, wildly, seizing my arm and looking fiercely into my eyes. "For what, I say? Because I gave him a poor rose; because I let him see me once; because I loved his sweet voice; because--because--I love him, and will love him, and do love him, though I die!" The girl was in a frenzy of passion and love and hate all together, and did not count her words. The white heat of her tormented soul blazed from her pale face and illuminated every feature, though she was turned from the light, and she shook my arm in her grasp so that it pained me. The marble was burnt in the fire, and must consume itself to ashes. The white and calm statue was become a pillar of flame in the life-and-death struggle for love. I strove to speak, but could not, for fear and wonder tied my tongue. And indeed she gave me short time to think. "I tell you I love him, as he loves me," she continued, her voice trembling upon the rising cadence, "with all my whole being. Tell him so. Tell him he must save me, and that only he can: that for his sake I am tortured, and scorned, and disgraced, and sold; my body thrown to dogs, and worse than dogs; my soul given over to devils that tempt me to kill and be free,--by my own father, for his sake. Tell him that these hands he kissed are wasted with wringing small pains from each other, but the greater pain drives them to do worse. Tell him, good sir,--you are kind and love him, but not as I do,--tell him that this golden hair of mine has streaks of white in these terrible two months; that these eyes he loved are worn with weeping. Tell him--" But her voice failed her, and she staggered against the wall, hiding her face in her hands. A trembling breath, a struggle, a great wild sob: the long-sealed tears were free, and flowed fast over her hands. "Oh, no, no," she moaned, "you must not tell him that." Then choking down her agony she turned to me: "You will not--you cannot tell him of this? I am weak, ill, but I will bear everything for--for him." The great effort exhausted her, and I think that if I had not caught her she would have fallen, and she would have hurt herself very much on the stone floor. But she is young, and I am not very strong, and could not have held her up. So I knelt, letting her weight come on my shoulder. The fair head rested pathetically against my old coat, and I tried to wipe away her tears with her long golden hair; for I had not any handkerchief. But very soon I could not see to do it. I was crying myself, for the pity of it all, and my tears trickled down and fell on her thin hands. And so I kneeled, and she half lay and half sat upon the floor, with her head resting on my shoulder; I was glad then to be old, for I felt that I had a right to comfort her. Presently she looked up into my face, and saw that I was weeping. She did not speak, but found her little lace handkerchief, and pressed it to my eyes,--first to one, and then to the other; and the action brought a faint maidenly flush to her cheeks through all her own sorrow. A daughter could not have done it more kindly. "My child," I said at last, "be sure that your secret is safe in me. But there is one coming with whom it will be safer." "You are so good," she said, and her head sank once more, and nestled against my breast, so that I could just see the bright tresses through my gray beard. But in a moment she looked up again, and made as though she would rise; and then I helped her, and we both stood on our feet. Poor, beautiful, tormented Hedwig! I can remember it, and call up the whole picture to my mind. She still leaned on my arm, and looked up to me, her loosened hair all falling back upon her shoulders; and the wonderful lines of her delicate face seemed made ethereal and angelic by her sufferings. "My dear," I said at last, smoothing her golden hair with my hand, as I thought her mother would do, if she had a mother,--"my dear, your interview with my boy may be a short one, and you may not have an opportunity to meet at all for days. If it does not pain you too much, will you tell me just what your troubles are here? I can then tell him, so that you can save time when you are together." She gazed into my eyes for some seconds, as though to prove me, whether I were a true man. "I think you are right," she answered, taking courage. "I will tell you in two words. My father treats me as though I had committed some unpardonable crime, which I do not at all understand. He says my reputation is ruined. Surely that is not true?" She asked the question so innocently and simply that I smiled. "No, my dear, it is not true," I replied. "I am sure I cannot understand it," she continued; "but he says so, and insists that my only course is to accept what he calls the advantageous offer which has suddenly presented itself. He insists very roughly." She shuddered slightly. "He gives me no peace. It appears that this creature wrote to ask my father for my hand when we left Rome two months ago. The letter was forwarded, and my father began at once to tell me that I must make up my mind to the marriage. At first I used to be very angry; but seeing we were alone, I finally determined to seem indifferent, and not to answer him when he talked about it. Then he thought my spirit was broken, and he sent for Baron Benoni, who arrived a fortnight ago. Do you know him, Signor Grandi? You came to see him, so I suppose you do?" The same look of hatred and loathing came to her face that I had noticed when Benoni and I met her in the hall. "Yes, I know him. He is a traitor, a villain," I said earnestly. "Yes, and more than that. But he is a great banker in Russia--" "A banker?" I asked, in some astonishment. "Did you not know it? Yes; he is very rich, and has a great firm, if that is the name for it. But he wanders incessantly, and his partners take care of his affairs. My father says that I shall marry him or end my days here." "Unless you end his for him!" I cried, indignantly. "Hush!" said she, and trembled violently. "He is my father, you know," she added, with sudden earnestness. "But you cannot consent--" I began. "Consent!" she interrupted with a bitter laugh. "I will die rather than consent." "I mean, you cannot consent to be shut up in this valley for ever." "If need be, I will," she said, in a low voice. "There is no need," I whispered. "You do not know my father. He is a man of iron," she answered, sorrowfully. "You do not know my boy. He is a man of his word," I replied. We were both silent, for we both knew very well what our words meant. From such a situation there could be but one escape. "I think you ought to go now," she said, at last. "If I were missed it would all be over. But I am sorry to let you go, you are so kind. How can you let me know--" She stopped, with a blush, and stooped to raise the lamp from the floor. "Can you not meet here to-morrow night, when they are asleep?" I suggested, knowing what her question would have been. "I will send the same man to you to-morrow evening, and let you know what is possible," she said. "And now I will show you the way out of my house," she added, with the first faint shadow of a smile. With the slight gilt lamp in her hand she went out of the little rock chamber, listened a moment, and began to descend the steps. "But the key?" I asked, following her light footsteps with my heavier tread. "It is in the door," she answered, and went on. When we reached the bottom we found it as she had said. The servant had left the key on the inside, and with some difficulty I turned the bolts. We stood for one moment in the narrow space, where the lowest step was set close against the door. Her eyes flashed strangely in the lamplight. "How easy it would be!" I said, understanding her glance. She nodded, and pushed me gently out into the street; and I closed the door, and leaned against it as she locked it. "Good-night," she said from the other side, and I put my mouth to the key-hole. "Good-night. Courage!" I answered. I could hear her lightly mounting the stone steps. It seemed wonderful to me that she should not be afraid to go back alone. But love makes people brave. The moon had risen higher during the time I had been within, and I strolled round the base of the rock, lighting a cigar as I went. The terrible adventure I had dreaded was now over, and I felt myself again. In truth, it was a curious thing to happen to a man of my years and my habits; but the things I had heard had so much absorbed my attention that, while the interview lasted, I had forgotten the strange manner of the meeting. I was horrified at the extent of the girl's misery, more felt than understood from her brief description and passionate outbreaks. There is no mistaking the strength of a suffering that wastes and consumes the mortal part of us as wax melts at the fire. And Benoni--the villain! He had written to ask Hedwig in marriage before he came to see me in Rome. There was something fiendish in his almost inviting me to see his triumph, and I cursed him as I kicked the loose stones in the road with my heavy shoes. So he was a banker, as well as a musician and a wanderer. Who would have thought it? "One thing is clear," I said to myself, as I went to bed: "unless something is done immediately, that poor girl will consume herself and die." And all that night her poor thin face and staring eyes were in my dreams; so that I woke up several times, thinking I was trying to comfort her, and could not. But toward dawn I felt sure that Nino was coming, and that all would be well. I was chatting with my old landlady the next morning, and smoking to pass the time, when there was suddenly a commotion in the street. That is to say, someone was arriving, and all the little children turned out in a body to run after the stranger, while the old women came to their doors with their knitting, and squinted under the bright sunlight to see what was the matter. It was Nino, of course--my own boy, riding on a stout mule, with a countryman by his side upon another. He was dressed in plain gray clothes, and wore high boots. His great felt hat drooped half across his face, and hid his eyes from me; but there was no mistaking the stern square jaw and the close even lips. I ran toward him and called him by name. In a moment he was off his beast, and we embraced tenderly. "Have you seen her?" were the first words he spoke. I nodded, and hurried him into the house where I lived, fearful lest some mischance should bring the party from the castle riding by. He sent his man with the mules to the inn, and when we were at last alone together he threw himself into a chair, and took off his hat. Nino too was changed in the two months that had passed. He had travelled far, had sung lustily, and had been applauded to the skies; and he had seen the great world. But there was more than all that in his face. There were lines of care and of thought that well became his masculine features. There was a something in his look that told of a set purpose, and there was a light in his dark eyes that spoke a world of warning to anyone who might dare to thwart him. But he seemed thinner, and his cheeks were as white as the paper I write on. Some men are born masters, and never once relax the authority they exercise on those around them. Nino has always commanded me, as he seems to command everybody else, in the fewest words possible. But he is so true and honest and brave that all who know him love him; and that is more than can be said for most artists. As he sat in his chair, hesitating what question to ask first, or waiting for me to speak, I thought that if Hedwig von Lira had searched the whole world for a man able to deliver her from her cruel father and from her hated lover she could have chosen no better champion than Nino Cardegna, the singer. Of course you all say that I am infatuated with the boy, and that I helped him to do a reckless thing, simply because I was blinded by my fondness. But I maintain, and shall ever hold, that Nino did right in this matter, and I am telling my story merely in order that honest men may judge. He sat by the window, and the sun poured through the panes upon his curling hair, his travelling dress, and his dusty boots. The woman of the house brought in some wine and water; but he only sipped the water, and would not touch the wine. "You are a dear, kind father to me," he said, putting out his hand from where he sat, "and before we talk I must tell you how much I thank you." Simple words, as they look on paper; but another man could not have said so much in an hour as his voice and look told me. CHAPTER XVI "Nino mio," I began, "I saw the contessina last night. She is in a very dramatic and desperate situation. But she greets you, and looks to you to save her from her troubles." Nino's face was calm, but his voice trembled a little as he answered: "Tell me quickly, please, what the troubles are." "Softly--I will tell you all about it. You must know that your friend Benoni is a traitor to you, and is here. Do not look astonished. He has made up his mind to marry the contessina, and she says she will die rather than take him, which is quite right of her." At the latter piece of news Nino sprang from his chair. "You do not seriously mean that her father is trying to make her marry Benoni?" he cried. "It is infamous, my dear boy; but it is true." "Infamous! I should think you could find a stronger word. How did you learn this?" I detailed the circumstances of our meeting on the previous night. While I talked Nino listened with intense interest, and his face changed its look from anger to pity, and from pity to horror. When I had finished, he was silent. "You can see for yourself," I said, "that the case is urgent." "I will take her away," said Nino, at last. "It will be very unpleasant for the count. He would have been wiser to allow her to have her own way." "Do nothing rash, Nino mio. Consider a little what the consequences would be if you were caught in the act of violently carrying off the daughter of a man as powerful as Von Lira." "Bah! You talk of his power as though we lived under the Colonnesi and the Orsini, instead of under a free monarchy. If I am once married to her, what have I to fear? Do you think the count would go to law about his daughter's reputation? Or do you suppose he would try to murder me?" "I would do both, in his place," I answered. "But perhaps you are right, and he will yield when he sees that he is outwitted. Think again, and suppose that the contessina herself objects to such a step." "That is a different matter. She shall do nothing save by her own free will. You do not imagine I would try to take her away unless she were willing?" He sat down again beside me, and affectionately laid one hand on my shoulder. "Women, Nino, are women," I remarked. "Unless they are angels," he assented. "Keep the angels for Paradise, and beware of taking them into consideration in this working-day world. I have often told you, my boy, that I am older than you." "As if I doubted that!" he laughed. "Very well. I know something about women. A hundred women will tell you that they are ready to flee with you; but not more than one in the hundred will really leave everything and follow you to the end of the world when the moment comes for running away. They always make a fuss at the last and say it is too dangerous, and you may be caught. That is the way of them. You will be quite ready with a ladder of ropes, like one of Boccaccio's men, and a roll of banknotes for the journey, and smelling-salts, and a cushion for the puppy dog, and a separate conveyance for the maid, just according to the directions she has given you; then, at the very last, she will perhaps say that she is afraid of hurting her father's feelings by leaving him without any warning. Be careful, Nino!" "As for that," he answered, sullenly enough, "if she will not, she will not; and I would not attempt to persuade her against her inclination. But unless you have very much exaggerated what you saw in her face, she will be ready at five minutes' notice. It must be very like hell up there in that castle, I should think." "Messer Diavolo, who rules over the house, will not let his prey escape him so easily as you think." "Her father?" he asked. "No; Benoni. There is no creature so relentless as an old man in pursuit of a young woman." "I am not afraid of Benoni." "You need not be afraid of her father," said I, laughing. "He is lame, and cannot run after you." I do not know why it is that we Romans laugh at lame people; we are sorry for them, of course, as we are for other cripples. "There is something more than fear in the matter," said Nino, seriously. "It is a great thing to have upon one's soul." "What?" I asked. "To take a daughter away from her father without his consent,--or at least without consulting him. I would not like to do it." "Do you mean to ask the old gentleman's consent before eloping with his daughter? You are a little donkey, Nino, upon my word." "Donkey, or anything else you like, but I will act like a galantuomo. I will see the count, and ask him once more whether he is willing to let his daughter marry me. If not, so much the worse; he will be warned." "Look here, Nino," I said, astonished at the idea. "I have taught you a little logic. Suppose you meant to steal a horse instead of a woman. Would you go to the owner of the horse, with your hat in your hand, and say, 'I trust your worship will not be offended if I steal this horse, which seems to be a good animal and pleases me'; and then would you expect him to allow you to steal his horse?" "Sor Cornelio, the case is not the same. Women have a right to be free, and to marry whom they please; but horses are slaves. However, as I am not a thief, I would certainly ask the man for the horse; and if he refused it, and I conceived that I had a right to have it, I would take it by force and not by stealth." "It appears to me that if you meant to get possession of what was not yours, you might as well get it in the easiest possible way," I objected. "But we need not argue the case. There is a much better reason why you should not consult the count." "I do not believe it," said Nino, stubbornly. "Nevertheless, it is so. The Contessina di Lira is desperately unhappy, and if nothing is done she may die. Young women have died of broken hearts before now. You have no right to endanger her life by risking failure. Answer me that, if you can, and I will grant you are a cunning sophist, but not a good lover." "There is reason in what you say now," he answered. "I had not thought of that desperateness of the case which you speak of. You have seen her." He buried his face in his hand, and seemed to be thinking. "Yes, I have seen her, and I wish you had been in my place. You would think differently about asking her father's leave to rescue her." From having been anxious to prevent anything rash, it seemed that I was now urging him into the very jaws of danger. I think that Hedwig's face was before me, as it had been in reality on the previous evening. "As Curione said to Caesar, delay is injurious to anyone who is fully prepared for action. I remember also to have read somewhere that such waste of time in diplomacy and palavering is the favourite resource of feeble and timid minds, who regard the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as an evidence of the most admirable and consummate prudence." "Oh, you need not use so much learning with me," said Nino. "I assure you that I will be neither dilatory nor ambiguous. In fact, I will go at once, without even dusting my boots, and I will say, Give me your daughter, if you can; and if you cannot, I will still hope to marry her. He will probably say 'No,' and then I will carry her off. It appears to me that is simple enough." "Take my advice, Nino. Carry her off first, and ask permission afterwards. It is much better. The real master up there is Benoni, I fancy, and not the count. Benoni is a gentleman who will give you much trouble. If you go now to see Hedwig's father, Benoni will be present at the interview." Nino was silent, and sat stretching his legs before him, his head on his breast. "Benoni," I continued, "has made up his mind to succeed. He has probably taken this fancy into his head out of pure wickedness. Perhaps he is bored, and really wants a wife. But I believe he is a man who delights in cruelty, and would as lief break the contessina's heart by getting rid of you as by marrying her." I saw that he was not listening. "I have an idea," he said at last. "You are not very wise, Messer Cornelio, and you counsel me to be prudent and to be rash in the same breath." "You make very pretty compliments, Sor Nino," I answered, tartly. He put out his hand deprecatingly. "You are as wise as any man can be who is not in love," he said, looking at me with his great eyes. "But love is the best counsellor." "What is your idea?" I asked, somewhat pacified. "You say they ride together every day. Yes--very good. The contessina will not ride to-day, partly because she will be worn out with fatigue from last night's interview, and partly because she will make an effort to discover whether I have arrived to-day or not. You can count on that." "I imagine so." "Very well," he continued; "in that case, one or two things will happen: either the count will go out alone, or they will all stay at home." "Why will Benoni not go out with the count?" "Because Benoni will hope to see Hedwig alone if he stays at home, and the count will be very glad to give him the opportunity." "I think you are right, Nino. You are not so stupid as I thought." "In war," continued the boy, "a general gains a great advantage by separating his adversary's forces. If the count goes out alone, I will present myself to him in the road, and tell him what I want." "Now you are foolish again. You should, on the contrary, enter the house when the count is away, and take the signorina with you then and there. Before he could return you would be miles on the road to Rome." "In the first place, I tell you once and for all, Sor Cornelio," he said, slowly, "that such an action would be dishonourable, and I will not do anything of the kind. Moreover, you forget that, if I followed your advice, I should find Benoni at home,--the very man from whom you think I have everything to fear. No; I must give the count one fair chance." I was silent, for I saw he was determined, and yet I would not let him think I was satisfied. The idea of losing an advantage by giving an enemy any sort of warning before the attack seemed to me novel in the extreme; but I comprehended that Nino saw in his scheme a satisfaction to his conscience, and smelled in it a musty odour of forgotten knight-errantry that he had probably learned to love in his theatrical experiences. I had certainly not expected that Nino Cardegna, the peasant child, would turn out to be the pink of chivalry and the mirror of honour. But I could not help admiring his courage, and wondering if it would not play him false at the perilous moment. I did not half know him then, though he had been with me for so many years. But I was very anxious to ascertain from him what he meant to do, for I feared that his bold action would make trouble, and I had visions of the count and Benoni together taking sudden and summary vengeance on myself. "Nino," I said, "I have made great sacrifices to help you in finding these people,"--I would not tell him I had sold my vineyard to make preparations for a longer journey, though he has since found it out,--"but if you are going to do anything rash I will get on my little ass and ride a few miles from the village until it is over." Nino laughed aloud. "My dear professor," he said, "do not be afraid. I will give you plenty of time to get out of the way. Meanwhile, the contessina is certain to send the confidential servant of whom you speak to give me instructions. If I am not here, you ought to be, in order to receive the message. Now listen to me." I prepared to be attentive and to hear his scheme. I was by no means expecting the plan he proposed. "The count may take it into his head to ride at a different hour, if he rides alone," he began. "I will therefore have my mule saddled now, and will station my man--a countryman from Subiaco and good for any devilry--in some place where he can watch the entrance to the house, or the castle, or whatever you call this place. So soon as he sees the count come out he will call me. As a man can ride in only one of two directions in this valley, I shall have no trouble whatever in meeting the old gentleman, even if I cannot overtake him with my mule." "Have you any arms, Nino?" "No. I do not want weapons to face an old man in broad daylight; and he is too much of a soldier to attack me if I am defenceless. If the servant comes after I am gone, you must remember every detail of what he says, and you must also arrange a little matter with him. Here is money, as much as will keep any Roman servant quiet. The man will be rich before we have done with him. I will write a letter which he must deliver; but he must also know what he has to do. "At twelve o'clock to-night the contessina must positively be at the door of the staircase by which you entered yesterday. _Positively_--do you understand? She will then choose for herself between what she is suffering now and flight with me. If she chooses to fly, my mules and my countryman will be ready. The servant who admits me had better make the best of his way to Rome, with the money he has got. There will be difficulties in the way of getting the contessina to the staircase, especially as the count will be in a towering passion with me, and will not sleep much. But he will not have the smallest idea that I shall act so suddenly, and he will fancy that when once his daughter is safe within the walls for the night she will not think of escaping. I do not believe he even knows of the existence of this staircase. At all events, it appears, from your success in bribing the first man you met, that the servants are devoted to her interests and their own and not at all to those of her father." "I cannot conceive, Nino," said I, "why you do not put this bold plan into execution without seeing the count first, and making the whole thing so dangerous. If he takes alarm in the night he will catch you fast enough on his good horses before you are at Trevi." "I am determined to act as I propose," said Nino, "because it is a thousand times more honourable, and because I am certain that the contessina would not have me act otherwise. She will also see for herself that flight is best; for I am sure the count will make a scene of some kind when he comes home from meeting me. If she knows she can escape to-night she will not suffer from what he has to say; but she will understand that without the prospect of freedom she would suffer very much." "Where did you learn to understand women, my boy?" I asked. "I do not understand women in general," he answered, "but I understand very well the only woman who exists for me personally. I know that she is the soul of honour, and that at the same time she has enough common sense to perceive the circumstances of the situation." "But how will you make sure of not being overtaken?" I objected, making a last feeble stand against his plan. "That is simple enough. My countryman from Subiaco knows every inch of these hills. He says that the pass above Fillettino is impracticable for any animals save men, mules, and donkeys. A horse would roll down at every turn. My mules are the best of their kind, and there are none like them here. By sunrise I shall be over the Serra and well on the way to Ceprano, or whatever place I may choose for joining the railroad." "And I? Will you leave me here to be murdered by that Prussian devil?" I asked, in some alarm. "Why, no, padre mio. If you like, you can start for Rome at sunset, or as soon as I return from meeting the count; or you can get on your donkey and go up the pass, where we shall overtake you. Nobody will harm you, in your disguise, and your donkey is even more surefooted than my mules. It will be a bright night, too, for the moon is full." "Well, well, Nino," said I at last, "I suppose you will have your own way, as you always do in the world. And if it must be so, I will go up the pass alone, for I am not afraid at all. It would be against all the proprieties that you should be riding through a wild country alone at night with the young lady you intend to marry; and if I go with you there will be nothing to be said, for I am a very proper person, and hold a responsible position in Rome. But for charity's sake, do not undertake anything of this kind again--" "Again?" exclaimed Nino, in surprise. "Do you expect me to spend my life in getting married,--not to say in eloping?" "Well, I trust that you will have enough of it this time." "I cannot conceive that when a man has once married the woman he loves he should ever look at another," said Nino, gravely. "You are a most blessed fellow," I exclaimed. Nino found my writing materials, which consisted of a bad steel pen, some coarse ruled paper, and a wretched little saucer of ink, and began writing an epistle to the contessina. I watched him as he wrote, and I smoked a little to pass the time. As I looked at him I came to the conclusion that to-day, at least, he was handsome. His thick hair curled about his head, and his white skin was as pale and clear as milk. I thought that his complexion had grown less dark than it used to be, perhaps from being so much in the theatre at night. That takes the dark blood out of the cheeks. But any woman would have looked twice at him. Besides, there was, as there is now, a certain marvellous neatness and spotlessness about his dress; but for his dusty boots you would not have guessed he had been travelling. Poor Nino. When he had not a penny in the world but what he earned by copying music, he used to spend it all with the washerwoman, so that Mariuccia was often horrified, and I reproved him for the extravagance. At last he finished writing, and put his letter into the only envelope there was left. He gave it to me, and said he would go out and order his mules to be ready. "I may be gone all day," he said, "and I may return in a few hours. I cannot tell. In any case, wait for me, and give the letter and all instructions to the man, if he comes." Then he thanked me once more very affectionately, and having embraced me he went out. I watched him from the window, and he looked up and waved his hand. I remember it very distinctly--just how he looked. His face was paler than ever, his lips were close set, though they smiled, and his eyes were sad. He is an incomprehensible boy--he always was. I was left alone, with plenty of time for meditation, and I assure you my reflections were not pleasant. O love, love, what madness you drive us into, by day and night! Surely it is better to be a sober professor of philosophy than to be in love, ever so wildly, or sorrowfully, or happily. I do not wonder that a parcel of idiots have tried to prove that Dante loved philosophy and called it Beatrice. He would have been a sober professor, if that were true, and a happier man. But I am sure it is not true, for I was once in love myself. CHAPTER XVII It fell out as Nino had anticipated, and when he told me all the details, some time afterwards, it struck me that he had shown an uncommon degree of intelligence in predicting that the old count would ride alone that day. He had, indeed, so made his arrangements that even if the whole party had come out together nothing worse would have occurred than a postponement of the interview he sought. But he was destined to get what he wanted that very day, namely, an opportunity of speaking with Von Lira alone. It was twelve o'clock when he left me, and the mid-day bell was ringing from the church, while the people bustled about getting their food. Every old woman had a piece of corn cake, and the ragged children got what they could, gathering the crumbs in their mothers' aprons. A few rough fellows who were not away at work in the valley munched the maize bread with a leek and a bit of salt fish, and some of them had oil on it. Our mountain people eat scarcely anything else, unless it be a little meat on holidays, or an egg when the hens are laying. But they laugh and chatter over the coarse fare, and drink a little wine when they can get it. Just now, however, was the season for fasting, being the end of Holy Week, and the people made a virtue of necessity, and kept their eggs and their wine for Easter. When Nino went out he found his countryman, and explained to him what he was to do. The man saddled one of the mules and put himself on the watch, while Nino sat by the fire in the quaint old inn and ate some bread. It was the end of March when these things happened, and a little fire was grateful, though one could do very well without it. He spread his hands to the flame of the sticks, as he sat on the wooden settle by the old hearth, and he slowly gnawed his corn cake, as though a week before he had not been a great man in Paris, dining sumptuously with famous people. He was not thinking of that. He was looking in the flame for a fair face that he saw continually before him, day and night. He expected to wait a long time,--some hours, perhaps. Twenty minutes had not elapsed, however, before his man came breathless through the door, calling to him to come at once; for the solitary rider had gone out, as was expected, and at a pace that would soon take him out of sight. Nino threw his corn bread to a hungry dog that yelped as it hit him, and then fastened on it like a beast of prey. In the twinkling of an eye he and his man were out of the inn. As they ran to the place where the mule was tied to an old ring in the crumbling wall of a half-ruined house near to the ascent to the castle, the man told Nino that the fine gentleman had ridden toward Trevi, down the valley, Nino mounted, and hastened in the same direction. As he rode he reflected that it would be wiser to meet the count on his return, and pass him after the interview, as though going away from Fillettino. It would be a little harder for the mule; but such an animal, used to bearing enormous burdens for twelve hours at a stretch, could well carry Nino only a few miles of good road before sunset, and yet be fresh again by midnight. One of those great sleek mules, if good-tempered, will tire three horses, and never feel the worse for it. He therefore let the beast go her own pace along the road to Trevi, winding by the brink of the rushing torrent: sometimes beneath great overhanging cliffs, sometimes through bits of cultivated land, where the valley widens; and now and then passing under some beech-trees, still naked and skeleton-like in the bright March air. But Nino rode many miles, as he thought, without meeting the count, dangling his feet out of the stirrups, and humming snatches of song to himself to pass the time. He looked at his watch,--a beautiful gold one, given him by a very great personage in Paris,--and it was half-past two o'clock. Then, to avoid tiring his mule, he got off and sat by a tree, at a place where he could see far along the road. But three o'clock came, and a quarter past, and he began to fear that the count had gone all the way to Trevi. Indeed, Trevi could not be very far off, he thought. So he mounted again, and paced down the valley. He says that in all that time he never thought once of what he should say to the count when he met him, having determined in his mind once and for all what was to be asked; to which the only answer must be "yes" or "no." At last, before he reached the turn in the valley, and just as the sun was passing down behind the high mountains on the left, beyond the stream, he saw the man he had come out to meet, not a hundred yards away, riding toward him on his great horse, at a foot pace. It was the count, and he seemed lost in thought, for his head was bent on his breast, and the reins hung carelessly loose from his hand. He did not raise his eyes until he was close to Nino, who took off his hat and pulled up short. The old count was evidently very much surprised, for he suddenly straightened himself in his saddle, with a sort of jerk, and glared savagely at Nino; his wooden features appearing to lose colour, and his long moustache standing out and bristling. He also reined in his horse, and the pair sat on their beasts, not five yards apart, eying each other like a pair of duelists. Nino was the first to speak, for he was prepared. "Good day, Signor Conte," he said, as calmly as he could. "You have not forgotten me, I am sure." Lira looked more and more amazed as he observed the cool courtesy with which he was accosted. But his polite manner did not desert him even then, for he raised his hat. "Good-day," he said, briefly, and made his horse move on. He was too proud to put the animal to a brisker pace than a walk, lest he should seem to avoid an enemy. But Nino turned his mule at the same time. "Pardon the liberty, sir," he said, "but I would take advantage of this opportunity to have a few words with you." "It is a liberty, as you say, sir," replied Lira, stiffly, and looking straight before him. "But since you have met me, say what you have to say quickly." He talked in the same curious constructions as formerly, but I will spare you the grammatical vagaries. "Some time has elapsed," continued Nino, "since our unfortunate encounter. I have been in Paris, where I have had more than common success in my profession. From being a very poor teacher of Italian to the signorina, your daughter, I am become an exceedingly prosperous artist. My character is blameless and free from all stain, in spite of the sad business in which we were both concerned, and of which you knew the truth from the dead lady's own lips." "What then?" growled Lira, who had listened grimly, and was fast losing his temper. "What then? Do you suppose, Signor Cardegna, that I am still interested in your comings and goings?" "The sequel to what I have told you, sir," answered Nino, bowing again, and looking very grave, "is that I once more most respectfully and honestly ask you to give me the hand of your daughter, the Signorina Hedwig von Lira." The hot blood flushed the old soldier's hard features to the roots of his gray hair, and his voice trembled as he answered: "Do you intend to insult me, sir? If so, this quiet road is a favourable spot for settling the question. It shall never be said that an officer in the service of his majesty the King and Emperor refused to fight with anyone,--with his tailor, if need be." He reined his horse from Nino's side, and eyed him fiercely. "Signor Conte," answered Nino, calmly, "nothing could be further from my thoughts than to insult you, or to treat you in any way with disrespect. And I will not acknowledge that anything you can say can convey an insult to myself." Lira smiled in a sardonic fashion. "But," added Nino, "if it would give you any pleasure to fight, and if you have weapons, I shall be happy to oblige you. It is a quiet spot, as you say, and it shall never be said that an Italian artist refused to fight a German soldier." "I have two pistols in my holsters," said Lira, with a smile. "The roads are not safe, and I always carry them." "Then, sir, be good enough to select one and to give me the other, and we will at once proceed to business." The count's manner changed. He looked grave. "I have the pistols, Signor Cardegna, but I do not desire to use them. Your readiness satisfies me that you are in earnest, and we will therefore not fight for amusement. I need not defend myself from any charge of unwillingness, I believe," he added, proudly. "In that case, sir," said Nino, "and since we have convinced each other that we are serious and desire to be courteous, let us converse calmly." "Have you anything more to say?" asked the count, once more allowing his horse to pace along the dusty road, while Nino's mule walked by his side. "I have this to say, Signor Conte," answered Nino: "that I shall not desist from desiring the honour of marrying your daughter, if you refuse me a hundred times. I wish to put it to you whether with youth, some talent,--I speak modestly,--and the prospect of a plentiful income, I am not as well qualified to aspire to the alliance as Baron Benoni, who has old age, much talent, an enormous fortune, and the benefit of the Jewish faith into the bargain." The count winced palpably at the mention of Benoni's religion. No people are more insanely prejudiced against the Hebrew race than the Germans. They indeed maintain that they have greater cause than others, but it always appears to me that they are unreasonable about it. Benoni chanced to be a Jew, but his peculiarities would have been the same had he been a Christian or an American. There is only one Ahasuerus Benoni in the world. "There is no question of Baron Benoni here," said the count severely, but hurriedly. "Your observations are beside the mark. The objections to the alliance, as you call it, are that you are a man of the people,--I do not desire to offend you,--a plebeian, in fact; you are also a man of uncertain fortune, like all singers: and lastly, you are an artist. I trust you will consider these points as a sufficient reason for my declining the honour you propose." "I will only say," returned Nino, "that I venture to consider your reasons insufficient, though I do not question your decision. Baron Benoni was ennobled for a loan made to a Government in difficulties; he was, by his own account, a shoemaker by early occupation, and a strolling musician--a great artist if you like--by the profession he adopted." "I never heard these facts," said Lira, "and I suspect that you have been misinformed. But I do not wish to continue the discussion of the subject." Nino says that after the incident of the pistols the interview passed without the slightest approach to ill-temper on either side. They both felt that if they disagreed they were prepared to settle their difficulties then and there, without any further ado. "Then, sir, before we part, permit me to call your attention to a matter which must be of importance to you," said Nino. "I refer to the happiness of the Signorina di Lira. In spite of your refusal of my offer, you will understand that the welfare of that lady must always be to me of the greatest importance." Lira bowed his head stiffly, and seemed inclined to speak, but changed his mind, and held his tongue, to see what Nino would say. "You will comprehend, I am sure," continued the latter, "that in the course of those months, during which I was so far honoured as to be of service to the contessina, I had opportunities of observing her remarkably gifted intelligence. I am now credibly informed that she is suffering from ill health. I have not seen her, nor made any attempt to see her, as you might have supposed, but I have an acquaintance in Fillettino who has seen her pass his door daily. Allow me to remark that a mind of such rare qualities must grow sick if driven to feed upon itself in solitude. I would respectfully suggest that some gayer residence than Fillettino would be a sovereign remedy for her illness." "Your tone and manner," replied the count, "forbid my resenting your interference. I have no reason to doubt your affection for my daughter, but I must request you to abandon all idea of changing my designs. If I choose to bring my daughter to a true sense of her position by somewhat rigorous methods, it is because I am aware that the frailty of reputation surpasses the frailty of woman. I will say this to your credit, sir, that if she has not disgraced herself, it has been in some measure because you wisely forbore from pressing your suit while you were received as an instructor beneath my roof. I am only doing my duty in trying to make her understand that her good name has been seriously exposed, and that the best reparation she can make lies in following my wishes, and accepting the honourable and advantageous marriage I have provided for her. I trust that this explanation, which I am happy to say has been conducted with the strictest propriety, will be final, and that you will at once desist from any further attempts toward persuading me to consent to a union that I disapprove." Lira once more stopped his horse in the road, and taking off his hat bowed to Nino. "And I, sir," said Nino, no less courteously, "am obliged to you for your clearly-expressed answer. I shall never cease to regret your decision, and so long as I live I shall hope that you may change your mind. Good-day, Signor Conte," and he bowed to his saddle. "Good-day, Signor Cardegna." So they parted: the count heading homeward toward Fillettino, and Nino turning back toward Trevi. By this manoeuvre he conveyed to the count's mind the impression that he had been to Fillettino for the day, and was returning to Trevi for the evening; and in reality the success of his enterprise, since his representations had failed, must depend upon Hedwig being comparatively free during the ensuing night. He determined to wait by the roadside until it should be dark, allowing his mule to crop whatever poor grass she could find at this season, and thus giving the count time to reach Fillettino, even at the most leisurely pace. He sat down upon the root of a tree, and allowed his mule to graze at liberty. It was already growing dark in the valley; for between the long speeches of civility the two had employed and the frequent pauses in the interview, the meeting had lasted the greater part of an hour. Nino says that while he waited he reviewed his past life and his present situation. Indeed, since he had made his first appearance in the theatre, three months before, events had crowded thick and fast in his life. The first sensation of a great public success is strange to one who has long been accustomed to live unnoticed and unhonoured by the world. It is at first incomprehensible that one should have suddenly grown to be an object of interest and curiosity to one's fellow-creatures, after having been so long a looker-on. At first a man does not realise that the thing he has laboured over, and studied, and worked on, can be actually anything remarkable. The production of the every-day task has long grown a habit, and the details which the artist grows to admire and love so earnestly have each brought with them their own reward. Every difficulty vanquished, every image of beauty embodied, every new facility of skill acquired, has been in itself a real and enduring satisfaction for its own sake, and for the sake of its fitness to the whole,--the beautiful perfect whole he has conceived. But he must necessarily forget, if he loves his work, that those who come after, and are to see the expression of his thought, or hear the mastery of his song, see or hear it all at once; so that the assemblage of the lesser beauties, over each of which the artist has had great joy, must produce a suddenly multiplied impression upon the understanding of the outside world, which sees first the embodiment of the thought, and has then the after-pleasure of appreciating the details. The hearer is thrilled with a sense of impassioned beauty, which the singer may perhaps feel when he first conceives the interpretation of the printed notes, but which goes over farther from him as he strives to approach it and realise it; and so his admiration for his own song is lost in dissatisfaction with the failings which others have not time to see. Before he is aware of the change, a singer has become famous, and all men are striving for a sight of him, or a hearing. There are few like Nino, whose head was not turned at all by the flattery and the praise, being occupied with other things. As he sat by the roadside, he thought of the many nights when the house rang with cheers and cries and all manner of applause; and he remembered how, each time he looked his audience in the face, he had searched for the one face of all faces that he cared to see, and had searched in vain. He seemed now to understand that it was his honest-hearted love for the fair northern girl that had protected him from caring for the outer world, and he now realised what the outer world was. He fancied to himself what his first three months of brilliant success might have been, in Rome and Paris, if he had not been bound by some strong tie of the heart to keep him serious and thoughtful. He thought of the women who had smiled upon him, and of the invitations that had besieged him, and of the consternation that had manifested itself when he declared his intention of retiring to Rome, after his brilliant engagement in Paris, without signing any further contract. Then came the rapid journey, the excitement, the day in Rome, the difficulties of finding Fillettino; and at last he was here, sitting by the roadside, and waiting for it to be time to carry into execution the bold scheme he had set before him. His conscience was at rest, for he now felt that he had done all that the most scrupulous honour could exact of him. He had returned in the midst of his success to make an honourable offer of marriage, and he had been refused,--because he was a plebeian, forsooth! And he knew also that the woman he loved was breaking her heart for him. What wonder that he set his teeth, and said to himself that she should be his, at any price! Nino has no absurd ideas about the ridicule that attaches to loving a woman, and taking her if necessary. He has not been trained up in the heart of the wretched thing they call society, which ruined me long ago. What he wants he asks for, like a child, and if it is refused, and his good heart tells him that he has a right to it, he takes it like a man, or like what a man was in the old time before the Englishman discovered that he is an ape. Ah, my learned colleagues, we are not so far removed from the ancestral monkey but that there is serious danger of our shortly returning to that primitive and caudal state! And I think that my boy and the Prussian officer, as they sat on their beasts and bowed, and smiled, and offered to fight each other, or to shake hands, each desiring to oblige the other, like a couple of knights of the old ages, were a trifle farther removed from our common gorilla parentage than some of us. But it grew dark, and Nino caught his mule and rode slowly back to the town, wondering what would happen before the sun rose on the other side of the world. Now, lest you fail to understand wholly how the matter passed, I must tell you a little of what took place during the time that Nino was waiting for the count, and Hedwig was alone in the castle with Baron Benoni. The way I came to know is this: Hedwig told the whole story to Nino, and Nino told it to me,--but many months after that eventful day, which I shall always consider as one of the most remarkable in my life. It was Good Friday, last year, and you may find out the day of the month for yourselves. CHAPTER XVIII As Nino had guessed, the count was glad of a chance to leave his daughter alone with Benoni, and it was for this reason that he had ridden out so early. The baron's originality and extraordinary musical talent seemed to Lira gifts which a woman needed only to see in order to appreciate, and which might well make her forget his snowy locks. During the time of Benoni's visit the count had not yet been successful in throwing the pair together, for Hedwig's dislike for the baron made her exert her tact to the utmost in avoiding his society. It so happened that Hedwig, rising early, and breathing the sweet, cool air from the window of her chamber, had seen Nino ride by on his mule, when he arrived in the morning. He did not see her, for the street merely passed the corner of the great pile, and it was only by stretching her head far out that Hedwig could get a glimpse of it. But it amused her to watch the country people going by, with their mules and donkeys and hampers, or loads of firewood; and she would often lean over the window-sill for half an hour at a time gazing at the little stream of mountain life, and sometimes weaving small romances of the sturdy brown women and their active, dark-browed shepherd lovers. Moreover, she fully expected that Nino would arrive that day, and had some faint hope of seeing him go along the road. So she was rewarded, and the sight of the man she loved was the first breath of freedom. In a great house like the strange abode Lira had selected for the seclusion of his daughter, it constantly occurs that one person is in ignorance of the doings of the others; and so it was natural that when Hedwig heard the clatter of hoofs in the courtyard, and the echoing crash of the great doors as they opened and closed, she should think both her father and Benoni had ridden away, and would be gone for the morning. She would not look out, lest she should see them and be seen. I cannot tell you exactly what she felt when she saw Nino from her lofty window, but she was certainly glad with her whole heart. If she had not known of his coming from my visit the previous evening, she would perhaps have given way to some passionate outburst of happiness; but as it was, the feeling of anticipation, the sweet, false dawn of freedom, together with the fact that she was prepared, took from this first pleasure all that was overwhelming. She only felt that he had come, and that she would soon be saved from Benoni; she could not tell how, but she knew it, and smiled to herself for the first time in months, as she held a bit of jewelry to her slender throat before the glass, wondering whether she had not grown too thin and pale to please her lover, who had been courted by the beauties of the world since he had left her. She was ill, perhaps, and tired. That was why she looked pale; but she knew that the first day of freedom would make her as beautiful as ever. She spent the morning hours in her rooms; but when she heard the gates close she fancied herself alone in the great house, and went down into the sunny courtyard to breathe the air, and to give certain instructions to her faithful man. She sent him to my house to speak with me; and that was all the message he had for the present. However, he knew well enough what he was to do. There was a strong smell of banknotes in the air, and the man kept his nose up. Having despatched this important business, Hedwig set herself to walk up and down the paved quadrangle on the sunny side. There was a stone bench in a warm corner that looked inviting. She entered the house and brought out a book, with which she established herself to read. She had often longed to sit there in the afternoon and watch the sun creeping across the flags, pursued by the shadow, till each small bit of moss and blade of grass had received its daily portion of warmth. For though the place had been cleared and weeded, the tiny green things still grew in the chinks of the pavement. In the middle of the court was a well with a cover and yoke of old-fashioned twisted iron and a pulley to draw the water. The air was bright and fresh outside the castle, but the reverberating rays of the sun made the quiet courtyard warm and still. Sick with her daily torture of mind the fair, pale girl rested her, at last, and dreaming of liberty drew strength from the soft stillness. The book fell on her lap, her head leaned back against the rough stones of the wall, and gradually, as she watched from beneath her half-closed lids the play of the stealing sunlight, she fell into a sweet sleep. She was soon disturbed by that indescribable uneasiness that creeps through our dreams when we are asleep in the presence of danger. A weird horror possesses us, and makes the objects in the dream appear unnatural. Gradually the terror grows on us and thrills us, and we wake, with bristling hair and staring eyes, to the hideous consciousness of unexpected peril. Hedwig started and raised her lids, following the direction of her dream. She was not mistaken. Opposite her stood her arch-horror, Benoni. He leaned carelessly against the stone well, and his bright brown eyes were riveted upon her. His tall, thin figure was clad, as usual, in all the extreme of fashion, and one of his long, bony hands toyed with his watch-chain. His animated face seemed aglow with the pleasure of contemplation, and the sunshine lent a yellow tinge to his snowy hair. "An exquisite picture, indeed, countess," he said, without moving. "I trust your dreams were as sweet as they looked?" "They were sweet, sir," she answered coldly, after a moment's pause, during which she looked steadily toward him. "I regret that I should have disturbed them," he said, with a deferential bow; and he came and sat by her side, treading as lightly as a boy across the flags. Hedwig shuddered and drew her dark skirts about her as he sat down. "You cannot regret it more than I do," she said, in tones of ice. She would not take refuge in the house, for it would have seemed like an ignominious flight. Benoni crossed one leg over the other, and asked permission to smoke, which she granted by an indifferent motion of her fair head. "So we are left all alone to-day, countess," remarked Benoni, blowing rings of smoke in the quiet air. Hedwig vouchsafed no answer. "We are left alone," he repeated, seeing that she was silent, "and I make it hereby my business and my pleasure to amuse you." "You are good, sir. But I thank you. I need no entertainment of your devising." "That is eminently unfortunate," returned the baron, with his imperturbable smile, "for I am universally considered to be the most amusing of mortals,--if, indeed, I am mortal at all, which I sometimes doubt." "Do you reckon yourself with the gods, then?" asked Hedwig scornfully. "Which of them are you? Jove? Dionysus? Apollo?" "Nay, rather Phaethon, who soared too high--" "Your mythology is at fault, sir,--he drove too low; and besides, he was not immortal." "It is the same. He was wide of the mark, as I am. Tell me, countess, are your wits always so ready?" "You, at least, will always find them so," she answered, bitterly. "You are unkind. You stab my vanity, as you have pierced my heart." At this speech Hedwig raised her eyebrows and stared at him in silence. Any other man would have taken the chilling rebuke and left her. Benoni put on a sad expression. "You used not to hate me as you do now," he said. "That is true. I hated you formerly because I hated you." "And now?" asked Benoni, with a short laugh. "I hate you now because I loathe you." She uttered this singular saying indifferently, as being part of her daily thoughts. "You have the courage of your opinions, countess," he replied, with a very bitter smile. "Yes? It is only the courage a woman need have." There was a pause, during which Benoni puffed much smoke and stroked his white moustache. Hedwig turned over the leaves of her book, as though hinting to him to go. But he had no idea of that. A man who will not go because a woman loathes him will certainly not leave her for a hint. "Countess," he began again, at last, "will you listen to me?" "I suppose I must. I presume my father has left you here to insult me at your noble leisure." "Ah, countess, dear countess,"--she shrank away from him,--"you should know me better than to believe me capable of anything so monstrous. I insult you? Gracious heaven! I, who adore you; who worship the holy ground whereon you tread; who would preserve the precious air you have breathed in vessels of virgin crystal; who would give a drop of my blood for every word you vouchsafe me, kind or cruel,--I, who look on you as the only divinity in this desolate heathen world, who reverence you and do you daily homage, who adore you--" "You manifest your adoration in a singular manner, sir," said Hedwig, interrupting him with something of her father's severity. "I show it as best I can," the old scoundrel pleaded, working himself into a passion of words. "My life, my fortune, my name, my honour,--I cast them at your feet. For you I will be a hermit, a saint, dwelling in solitary places and doing good works; or I will brave every danger the narrow earth holds, by sea and land, for you. What? Am I decrepit, or bent, or misshapen, that my white hair should cry out against me? Am I hideous, or doting, or half-witted, as old men are? I am young; I am strong, active, enduring. I have all the gifts, for you." The baron was speaking French, and perhaps these wild praises of himself might pass current in a foreign language. But when Nino detailed the conversation to me in our good, simple Italian speech, it sounded so amazingly ridiculous that I nearly broke my sides with laughing. Hedwig laughed also, and so loudly that the foolish old man was disconcerted. He had succeeded in amusing her sooner than he had expected. As I have told you, the baron is a most impulsive person, though he is poisoned with evil from his head to his heart. "All women are alike," he said, and his manner suddenly changed. "I fancy," said Hedwig, recovering from her merriment, "that if you address them as you have addressed me you will find them very much alike indeed." "What good can women do in the world?" sighed Benoni, as though speaking with himself. "You do nothing but harm with your cold calculations and your bitter jests." Hedwig was silent. "Tell me," he continued presently, "if I speak soberly, by the card as it were, will you listen to me?" "Oh, I have said that I will listen to you!" cried Hedwig, losing patience. "Hedwig von Lira, I hereby offer you my fortune, my name, and myself. I ask you to marry me of your own good will and pleasure." Hedwig once more raised her brows. "Baron Benoni, I will not marry you, either for your fortune, your name, or yourself,--nor for any other consideration under heaven. And I will ask you not to address me by my Christian name." There was a long silence after this speech, and Benoni carefully lighted a second cigarette. Hedwig would have risen and entered the house, but she felt safer in the free air of the sunny court. As for Benoni, he had no intention of going. "I suppose you are aware, countess," he said at last, coldly eying her, "that your father has set his heart upon our union?" "I am aware of it." "But you are not aware of the consequences of your refusal. I am your only chance of freedom. Take me, and you have the world at your feet. Refuse me, and you will languish in this hideous place so long as your affectionate father pleases." "Do you know my father so little, sir," asked Hedwig very proudly, "as to suppose that his daughter will ever yield to force?" "It is one thing to talk of not yielding, and it is quite another to bear prolonged suffering with constancy," returned Benoni coolly, as though he were discussing a general principle instead of expounding to a woman the fate she had to expect if she refused to marry him. "I never knew anyone who did not talk bravely of resisting torture until it was applied. Oh, you will be weak at the end, countess, believe me. You are weak now; and changed, though perhaps you would be better pleased if I did not notice it. Yes, I smile now,--I laugh. I can afford to. You can be merry over me because I love you, but I can be merry at what you must suffer if you will not love me. Do not look so proud, countess. You know what follows pride, if the proverb lies not." During this insulting speech Hedwig had risen to her feet, and in the act to go she turned and looked at him in utter scorn. She could not comprehend the nature of a man who could so coldly threaten her. If ever anyone of us can fathom Benoni's strange character we may hope to understand that phase of it along with the rest. He seemed as indifferent to his own mistakes and follies as to the sufferings of others. "Sir," she said, "whatever may be the will of my father, I will not permit you to discuss it, still less to hold up his anger as a threat to scare me. You need not follow me," she added, as he rose. "I will follow you, whether you wish it or not, countess," he said, fiercely; and, as she flew across the court to the door he strode swiftly by her side, hissing his words into her ear. "I will follow you to tell you that I know more of you than you think, and I know how little right you have to be so proud. I know your lover. I know of your meetings, your comings and your goings--" They reached the door, but Benoni barred the way with his long arm, and seemed about to lay a hand upon her wrist, so that she shrank back against the heavy doorpost in an agony of horror and loathing and wounded pride. "I know Cardegna, and I knew the poor baroness who killed herself because he basely abandoned her. Ah, you never heard the truth before? I trust it is pleasant to you. As he left her he has left you. He will never come back. I saw him in Paris three weeks ago. I could tell tales not fit for your ears. And for him you will die in this horrible place unless you consent. For him you have thrown away everything,--name, fame, and happiness,--unless you will take all these from me. Oh, I know you will cry out that it is untrue; but my eyes are good, though you call me old! For this treacherous boy, with his curly hair, you have lost the only thing that makes woman human,--your reputation!" And Benoni laughed that horrid laugh of his, till the court rang again, as though there were devils in every corner, and beneath every eave and everywhere. People who are loud in their anger are sometimes dangerous, for it is genuine while it lasts. People whose anger is silent are generally either incapable of honest wrath or cowards. But there are some in the world whose passion shows itself in few words but strong ones, and proceeds instantly to action. Hedwig had stood back against the stone casing of the entrance, at first, overcome with the intensity of what she suffered. But as Benoni laughed she moved slowly forward till she was close to him, and only his outstretched arm barred the doorway. "Every word you have spoken is a lie, and you know it. Let me pass, or I will kill you with my hands!" The words came low and distinct to his excited ear, like the tolling of a passing bell. Her face must have been dreadful to see, and Benoni was suddenly fascinated and terrified at the concentrated anger that blazed in her blue eyes. His arm dropped to his side, and Hedwig passed proudly through the door, in all the majesty of innocence gathering her skirts, lest they should touch his feet or any part of him. She never hastened her step as she ascended the broad stairs within and went to her own little sitting-room, made gay with books and flowers and photographs from Rome. Nor was her anger followed by any passionate outburst of tears. She sat herself down by the window and looked out, letting the cool breeze from the open casement fan her face. Hedwig, too, had passed through a violent scene that day, and, having conquered, she sat down to think over it. She reflected that Benoni had but used the same words to her that she had daily heard from her father's lips. False as was their accusation, she submitted to hearing her father speak them, for she had no knowledge of their import, and only thought him cruelly hard with her. But that a stranger--above all, a man who aspired, or pretended to aspire, to her hand--should attempt to usurp the same authority of speech was beyond all human endurance. She felt sure that her father's anger would all be turned against Benoni when he heard her story. As for what her tormentor had said of Nino, she could have killed him for saying it, but she knew that it was a lie; for she loved Nino with all her heart, and no one can love wholly without trusting wholly. Therefore she put away the evil suggestion from herself, and loaded all its burden of treachery upon Benoni. How long she sat by the window, compelling her strained thoughts into order, no one can tell. It might have been an hour, or more, for she had lost the account of the hours. She was roused by a knock at the door of her sitting-room, and at her bidding the man entered who, for the trifling consideration of about a thousand francs, first and last made communication possible between Hedwig and myself. This man's name is Temistocle,--Themistocles, no less. All servants are Themistocles, or Orestes, or Joseph, just as all gardeners are called Antonio. Perhaps he deserves some description. He is a type, short, wiry, and broad-shouldered, with a cunning eye, a long hooked nose, and very plentiful black whiskers, surmounted by a perfectly bald crown. His motions are servile to the last degree, and he addresses everyone in authority as "excellency," on the principle that it is better to give too much titular homage than too little. He is as wily as a fox, and so long as you have money in your pocket, as faithful as a hound and as silent as the grave. I perceive that these are precisely the epithets at which the baron scoffed, saying that a man can be praised only by comparing him with the higher animals, or insulted by comparison with himself and his kind. We call a man a fool, an idiot, a coward, a liar, a traitor, and many other things applicable only to man himself. However, I will let my description stand, for it is a very good one; and Temistocle could be induced, for money, to adapt himself to almost any description, and he certainly had earned, at one time or another, most of the titles I have enumerated. He told me, months afterwards, that when he passed through the courtyard, on his way to Hedwig's apartment, he found Benoni seated on the stone bench, smoking a cigarette and gazing into space, so that he passed close before him without being noticed. CHAPTER XIX Temistocle closed the door, then opened it again, and looked out, after which he finally shut it, and seemed satisfied. He advanced with cautious tread to where Hedwig sat by the window. "Well? What have you done?" she inquired, without looking at him. It is a hard thing for a proud and noble girl to be in the power of a servant. The man took Nino's letter from his pocket, and handed it to her upon his open palm. Hedwig tried hard to take it with indifference, but she acknowledges that her fingers trembled and her heart beat fast. "I was to deliver a message to your excellency from the old gentleman," said Temistocle, coming close to her and bending down. "Ah!" said Hedwig, beginning to break the envelope. "Yes, excellency. He desired me to say that it was absolutely and most indubitably necessary that your excellency should be at the little door to-night at twelve o'clock. Do not fear, Signora Contessina; we can manage it very well." "I do not wish to know what you advise me to fear, or not to fear," answered Hedwig, haughtily; for she could not bear to feel that the man should counsel her or encourage her. "Pardon, excellency; I thought--" began Temistocle humbly; but Hedwig interrupted him. "Temistocle," she said, "I have no money to give you, as I told you yesterday. But here is another stone, like the other. Take it, and arrange this matter as best you can." Temistocle took the jewel and bowed to the ground, eying curiously the little case from which she had taken it. "I have thought and combined everything," he said. "Your excellency will see that it is best you should go alone to the staircase; for, as we say, a mouse makes less noise than a rat. When you have descended, lock the door at the top behind you; and when you reach the foot of the staircase, keep that door open. I will have brought the old gentleman by that time, and you will let me in. I shall go out by the great gate." "Why not go with me?" inquired Hedwig. "Because, your excellency, one person is less likely to be seen than two. Your excellency will let me pass you. I will mount the staircase, unlock the upper door, and change the key to the other side. Then I will keep watch, and if anyone comes I will lock the door and slip away till he is gone." "I do not like the plan," said Hedwig. "I would rather let myself in from the staircase." "But suppose anyone were waiting on the inside, and saw you come back?" "That is true. Give me the keys, Temistocle, and a taper and some matches." "Your excellency is a paragon of courage," replied the servant, obsequiously. "Since yesterday I have carried the keys in my pocket. I will bring you the taper this evening." "Bring it now. I wish to be ready." Temistocle departed on the errand. When he returned Hedwig ordered him to give a message to her father. "When the count comes home, ask him to see me," she said. Temistocle bowed once more, and was gone. Yes, she would see her father, and tell him plainly what she had suffered from Benoni. She felt that no father, however cruel, would allow his daughter to be so treated, and she would detail the conversation to him. She had not been able to read Nino's letter, for she feared the servant, knowing the writing to be Italian and legible to him. Now she hastened to drink in its message of love. You cannot suppose that I know exactly what he said, but he certainly set forth at some length his proposal that she should leave her father, and escape with her lover from the bondage in which she was now held. He told her modestly of his success, in so far as it was necessary that she should understand his position. It must have been a very eloquent letter, for it nearly persuaded her to a step of which she had wildly dreamed, indeed, but which in her calmer moments she regarded as impossible. The interminable afternoon was drawing to a close, and once more she sat by the open window, regardless of the increasing cold. Suddenly it all came over her,--the tremendous importance of the step she was about to take, if she should take Nino at his word, and really break from one life into another. The long restrained tears, that had been bound from flowing through all Benoni's insults and her own anger, trickled silently down her cheek, no longer pale, but bright and flushed at the daring thought of freedom. At first it seemed far off, as seen in the magician's glass. She looked and saw herself as another person, acting a part only half known and half understood. But gradually her own individual soul entered into the figure of her imagination; her eager heart beat fast; she breathed and moved and acted in the future. She was descending the dark steps alone, listening with supernatural sense of sound for her lover's tread without. It came; the door opened, and she was in his arms,--in those strong arms that could protect her from insult and tyranny and cruel wooing; out in the night, on the road, in Rome, married, free, and made blessed for ever. On a sudden the artificial imagery of her labouring brain fell away, and the thought crossed her mind that henceforth she must be an orphan. Her father would never speak to her again, or ever own for his a daughter that had done such a deed. Like icy water poured upon a fevered body, the idea chilled her and woke her to reality. Did she love her father? She had loved him--yes, until she crossed his will. She loved him still, when she could be so horror-struck at the thought of incurring his lasting anger. Could she bear it? Could she find in her lover all that she must renounce of a father's care and a father's affection,--stern affection, that savoured of the despot,--but could she hurt him so? The image of her father seemed to take another shape, and gradually to assume the form and features of the one man of the world whom she hated, converting itself little by little into Benoni. She hid her face in her hands and terror staunched the tears that had flown afresh at the thought of orphanhood. A knock at the door. She hastily concealed the crumpled letter. "Come in!" she answered, boldly; and her father, moving mechanically, with his stick in his hand, entered the room. He came as he had dismounted from his horse, in his riding boots, and his broad felt hat caught by the same fingers that held the stick. "You wished to see me, Hedwig," he said, coldly, depositing his hat upon the table. Then, when he had slowly sat himself down in an arm-chair, he added, "Here I am." Hedwig had risen respectfully, and stood before him in the twilight. "What do you wish to say?" he asked in German. "You do not often honour your father by requesting his society." Hedwig stood one moment in silence. Her first impulse was to throw herself at his feet and implore him to let her marry Nino. The thought swept away for the time the remembrance of Benoni and of what she had to tell. But a second sufficed to give her the mastery of her tongue and memory, which women seldom lose completely, even at the most desperate moments. "I desired to tell you," she said, "that Baron Benoni took advantage of your absence to-day to insult me beyond my endurance." She looked boldly into her father's eyes as she spoke. "Ah!" said he, with great coolness. "Will you be good enough to light one of those candles on the table, and to close the window?" Hedwig obeyed in silence, and once more planted herself before him, her slim figure looking ghostly between the fading light of the departing day and the yellow flame of the candle. "You need not assume this theatrical air," said Lira, calmly. "I presume you mean that Baron Benoni asked you to marry him?" "Yes, that is one thing, and is an insult in itself," replied Hedwig, without changing her position. "I suspect that it is the principal thing," remarked the count. "Very good; he asked you to marry him. He has my full authority to do so. What then?" "You are my father," answered Hedwig, standing like a statue before him, "and you have the right to offer me whom you please for a husband, but you have no authority to allow me to be wantonly insulted." "I think that you are out of your mind," said the count, with imperturbable equanimity. "You grant that I may propose a suitor to you, and you call it a wanton insult when that suitor respectfully asks the honour of your hand, merely because he is not young enough to suit your romantic tastes, which have been fostered by this wretched southern air. It is unfortunate that my health requires me to reside in Italy. Had you enjoyed an orderly Prussian education, you would have held different views in regard to filial duty. Refuse Baron Benoni as often as you like. I will stay here, and so will he, I fancy, until you change your mind. I am not tired of this lordly mountain scenery, and my health improves daily. We can pass the summer and winter, and more summers and winters, very comfortably here. If there is anything you would like to have brought from Rome, inform me, and I will satisfy any reasonable request." "The baron has already had the audacity to inform me that you would keep me a prisoner until I should marry him," said Hedwig; and her voice trembled as she remembered how Benoni had told her so. "I doubt not that Benoni, who is a man of consummate tact, hinted delicately that he would not desist from pressing his suit. You, well knowing my determination, and carried away by your evil temper, have magnified into a threat what he never intended as such. Pray let me hear no more about these fancied insults." The old man smiled grimly at his keen perception. "You shall hear me, nevertheless," said Hedwig, in a low voice, coming close to the table and resting one hand upon it as though for support. "My daughter," said the count, "I desire you to abandon this highly theatrical and melodramatic tone. I am not to be imposed upon." "Baron Benoni did not confine himself to the course you describe. He said many things to me that I did not understand, but I comprehended their import. He began by making absurd speeches, at which I laughed. Then he asked me to marry him, as I had long known he would do as soon as you gave him the opportunity. I refused his offer. Then he insisted, saying that you, sir, had determined on this marriage, and would keep me a close prisoner here until the torture of the situation broke down my strength. I assured him that I would never yield to force. Then he broke out angrily, telling me to my face that I had lost everything--name, fame, and honour,--how, I cannot tell; but he said those words; and he added that I could regain my reputation only by consenting to marry him." The old count had listened at first with a sarcastic smile, then with increased attention. Finally, as Hedwig repeated the shameful insult, his brave old blood boiled up in his breast, and he sat gripping the two arms of his chair fiercely, while his gray eyes shot fire from beneath the shaggy brows. "Hedwig," he cried, hoarsely, "are you speaking the truth? Did he say those words?" "Yes, my father, and more like them. Are you surprised?" she asked bitterly. "You have said them yourself to me." The old man's rage rose furiously, and he struggled to his feet. He was stiff with riding and rheumatism, but he was too angry to sit still. "I? Yes, I have tried to show you what might have happened, and to warn you and frighten you, as you should be frightened. Yes, and I was right, for you shall not drag my name in the dirt. But another man--Benoni!" He could not speak for his wrath, and his tall figure moved rapidly about the room, his heart seeking expression in action. He looked like some forgotten creature of harm, suddenly galvanised into destructive life. It was well that Benoni was not within reach. Hedwig stood calmly by the table, proud in her soul that her father should be roused to such fury. The old man paused in his walk, came to her, and with his hand turned her face to the light, gazing savagely into her eyes. "You never told me a lie," he growled out. "Never," she said, boldly, as she faced him scornfully. He knew his own temper in his child, and was satisfied. The soldier's habit of self-control was strong in him, and the sardonic humour of his nature served as a garment to the thoughts he harboured. "It appears," he said, "that I am to spend the remainder of an honourable life in fighting with a pack of hounds. I nearly killed your old acquaintance, the Signor Professore Cardegna, this afternoon." Hedwig staggered back, and turned pale. "What! Is he wounded?" she gasped out, pressing her hand to his side. "Ha! That touches you almost as closely as Benoni's insult," he said, savagely. "I am glad of it. I repent me, and wish that I had killed him. We met on the road, and he had the impertinence to ask me for your hand,--I am sick of these daily proposals of marriage; and then I inquired if he meant to insult me." Hedwig leaned heavily on the table in an agony of suspense. "The fellow answered that if I were insulted he was ready to fight then and there, in the road, with my pistols. He is no coward, your lover,--I will say that. The end of it was that I came home and he did not." Hedwig sank into the chair that her father had left, and hid her face. "Oh, you have killed him!" she moaned. "No," said the count shortly; "I did not touch a hair of his head. But he rode away toward Trevi." Hedwig breathed again. "Are you satisfied?" he asked, with a hard smile, enjoying the terror he had excited. "Oh, how cruel you are, my father!" she said, in a broken voice. "I tell you that if I could cure you of your insane passion for this singer fellow, I would be as cruel as the Inquisition," retorted the count. "Now listen to me. You will not be troubled any longer with Benoni,--the beast! I will teach him a lesson of etiquette. You need not appear at dinner to-night. But you are not to suppose that our residence here is at an end. When you have made up your mind to act sensibly, and to forget the Signor Cardegna, you shall return to society, where you may select a husband of your own position and fortune, if you choose; or you may turn Romanist, and go into a convent, and devote yourself to good works and idolatry, or anything else. I do not pretend to care what becomes of you, so long as you show any decent respect for your name. But if you persist in pining and moaning and starving yourself, because I will not allow you to turn dancer and marry a strolling player, you will have to remain here. I am not such pleasant company when I am bored, I can tell you, and my enthusiasm for the beauties of nature is probably transitory." "I can bear anything if you will remove Benoni," said Hedwig, quietly, as she rose from her seat. But the pressure of the iron keys that she had hidden in her bosom gave her a strange sensation. "Never fear," said the count, taking his hat from the table. "You shall be amply avenged of Benoni and his foul tongue. I may not love my daughter, but no one shall insult her. I will have a word with him this evening." "I thank you for that, at least," said Hedwig, as he moved to the door. "Do not mention it," said he, and put his hand on the lock. A sudden impulse seized Hedwig. She ran swiftly to him, and clasped her hands upon his arm. "Father?" she cried, pleadingly. "What?" "Father, do you love me?" He hesitated one moment. "No," he said, sternly; "you disobey me"; and he went out in rough haste. The door closed behind him, and she was left standing alone. What could she do, poor child? For months he had tormented her and persecuted her, and now she had asked him plainly if she still held a place in his heart, and he had coldly denied it. A gentle, tender maiden, love-sick and mind-sick, yearning so piteously for a little mercy, or sympathy, or kindness, and treated like a mutinous soldier, because she loved so honestly and purely,--is it any wonder that her hand went to her bosom and clasped the cold, hard keys that promised her life and freedom? I think not. I have no patience with young women who allow themselves to be carried away by an innate bad taste and love for effect, quarrelling with the peaceful destiny that a kind Providence has vouchsafed them, and with an existence which they are too dull to make interesting to themselves or to anyone else; finally making a desperate and foolish dash at notoriety by a runaway marriage with the first scamp they can find, and repenting in poverty and social ostracism the romance they conceived in wealth and luxury. They deserve their fate. But when a sensitive girl is motherless, cut off from friends and pleasures, presented with the alternative of solitude or marriage with some detested man, or locked up to forget a dream which was half realised and very sweet, then the case is different. If she breaks her bonds, and flies to the only loving heart she knows, forgive her, and pray Heaven to have mercy on her, for she takes a fearful leap into the dark. Hedwig felt the keys, and took them from her dress, and pressed them to her cheek, and her mind was made up. She glanced at the small gilt clock, and saw that the hands pointed to seven. Five hours were before her in which to make her preparations, such as they could be. In accordance with her father's orders, given when he left her, Temistocle served her dinner in her sitting-room; and the uncertainty of the night's enterprise demanded that she should eat something, lest her strength should fail at the critical moment. Temistocle volunteered the information that her father had gone to the baron's apartment, and had not been seen since. She heard in silence, and bade the servant leave her as soon as he had ministered to her wants. Then she wrote a short letter to her father, telling him that she had left him, since he had no place for her in his heart, and that she had gone to the one man who seemed ready both to love and to protect her. This missive she folded, sealed, and laid in a prominent place upon the table addressed to the count. She made a small bundle,--very neatly, for she is clever with her fingers,--and put on a dark travelling dress, in the folds of which she sewed such jewels as were small and valuable and her own. She would take nothing that her father had given her. In all this she displayed perfect coolness and foresight. The castle became intensely quiet as the evening advanced. She sat watching the clock. At five minutes before midnight she took her bundle and her little shoes in her hand, blew out her candle, and softly left the room. CHAPTER XX I need not tell you how I passed all the time from Nino's leaving me until he came back in the evening, just as I could see from my window that the full moon was touching the tower of the castle. I sat looking out, expecting him, and I was the most anxious professor that ever found himself in a ridiculous position. Temistocle had come, and you know what had passed between us, and how we had arranged the plan of the night. Most heartily did I wish myself in the little amphitheatre of my lecture-room at the University, instead of being pledged to this wild plot of my boy's invention. But there was no drawing back. I had been myself to the little stable next door, where I had kept my donkey, and visited him daily since my arrival, and I had made sure that I could have him at a moment's notice by putting on the cumbrous saddle. Moreover, I had secretly made a bundle of my effects, and had succeeded in taking it unobserved to the stall, and I tied it to the pommel. I also told my landlady that I was going away in the morning with the young gentleman who had visited me, and who, I said, was the engineer who was going to make a new road to the Serra. This was not quite true; but lies that hurt no one are not lies at all, as you all know, and the curiosity of the old woman was satisfied. I also paid for my lodging, and gave her a franc for herself, which pleased her very much. I meant to steal away about ten o'clock, or as soon as I had seen Nino and communicated to him the result of my interview with Temistocle. The hours seemed endless, in spite of my preparations, which occupied some time; so I went out when I had eaten my supper, and visited my ass, and gave him a little bread that was left, thinking it would strengthen him for the journey. Then I came back to my room, and watched. Just as the moonlight was shooting over the hill, Nino rode up the street. I knew him in the dusk by his broad hat, and also because he was humming a little tune through his nose, as he generally does. But he rode past my door without looking up, for he meant to put his mule in the stable for a rest. At last he came in, still humming, and apologised for the delay, saying he had stopped a few minutes at the inn to get some supper. It could not have been a very substantial meal that he ate in that short time. "What did the man say?" was his first question, as he sat down. "He said it should be managed as I desired," I answered. "Of course I did not mention you. Temistocle--that is his name--will come at midnight, and take you to the door. There you will find this inamorata, this lady-love of yours, for whom you are about to turn the world upside down." "What will you do yourself, Sor Cornelio?" he asked, smiling. "I will go now and get my donkey, and quietly ride up the valley to the Serra di Sant' Antonio," I said. "I am sure that the signorina will be more at her ease if I accompany you. I am a very proper person, you see." "Yes," said Nino, pensively, "you are very proper. And besides, you can be a witness of the civil marriage." "Diavolo!" I cried, "a marriage! I had not thought of that." "Blood of a dog!" exclaimed Nino, "what on earth did you think of?" He was angry all in a moment. "Piano,--do not disquiet yourself, my boy. I had not realised that the wedding was so near,--that is all. Of course you will be married in Rome, as soon as ever we get there." "We shall be married in Ceprano to-morrow night, by the sindaco, or the mayor, or whatever civil bishop they support in that God-forsaken Neopolitan town," said Nino, with great determination. "Oh, very well; manage it as you like. Only be careful that it is properly done, and have it registered," I added. "Meanwhile, I will start." "You need not go yet, caro mio; it is not nine o'clock." "How far do you think I ought to go, Nino?" I inquired. To tell the truth, the idea of going up the Serra alone was not so attractive in the evening as it had been in the morning light. I thought it would be very dark among those trees, and I had still a great deal of money sewn between my waistcoats. "Oh, you need not go so very far," said Nino. "Three or four miles from the town will be enough. I will wait in the street below, after eleven." We sat in silence for some time afterwards, and if I was thinking of the gloomy ride before me, I am sure that Nino was thinking of Hedwig. Poor fellow! I dare say he was anxious enough to see her, after being away for two months, and spending so many hours almost within her reach. He sat low in his chair, and the dismal rays of the solitary tallow candle cast deep shadows on his thoughtful face. Weary, perhaps, with waiting and with long travel, yet not sad, but very hopeful he looked. No fatigue could destroy the strong, manly expression of his features, and even in that squalid room, by the miserable light, dressed in his plain gray clothes, he was still the man of success, who could hold thousands in the suspense of listening to his slightest utterance. Nino is a wonderful man, and I am convinced that there is more in him than music, which is well enough when one can be as great as he, but is not all the world holds. I am sure that massive head of his was not hammered so square and broad by the great hands that forge the thunderbolts of nations, merely that he should be a tenor and an actor, and give pleasure to his fellow-men. I see there the power and the strength of a broader mastery than that which bends the ears of a theatre audience. One day we may see it. It needs the fire of hot times to fuse the elements of greatness in the crucible of revolution. There is not such another head in all Italy as Nino's that I have ever seen, and I have seen the best in Rome. He looked so grand, as he sat there, thinking over the future. I am not praising his face for its beauty; there is little enough of that, as women might judge. And besides, you will laugh at my ravings, and say that a singer is a singer, and nothing more, for all his life. Well, we shall see in twenty years; you will,--perhaps I shall not. "Nino," I asked, irrelevantly, following my own train of reflection, "have you ever thought of anything but music--and love?" He roused himself from his reverie, and stared at me. "How should you be able to guess my thoughts?" he asked at last. "People who have lived much together often read each other's minds. What were you thinking of?" Nino sighed, and hesitated a moment before he answered. "I was thinking," he said, "that a musician's destiny, even the highest, is a poor return for a woman's love." "You see: I was thinking of you, and wondering whether, after all, you will always be a singer." "That is singular," he answered slowly. "I was reflecting how utterly small my success on the stage will look to me when I have married Hedwig von Lira." "There is a larger stage, Nino mio, than yours." "I know it," said he, and fell back in his chair again, dreaming. I fancy that at any other time we might have fallen into conversation and speculated on the good old-fashioned simile which likens life to a comedy, or a tragedy, or a farce. But the moment was ill-chosen, and we were both silent, being much preoccupied with the immediate future. A little before ten I made up my mind to start. I glanced once more round the room to see if I had left anything. Nino was still sitting in his chair, his head bent, and his eyes staring at the floor. "Nino," I said, "I am going now. Here is another candle, which you will need before long, for these tallow things are very short." Indeed, the one that burned was already guttering low in the old brass candlestick. Nino rose and shook himself. "My dear friend," he said, taking me by both hands, "you know that I am grateful to you. I thank you and thank you again with all my heart. Yes, you ought to go now, for the time is approaching. We shall join you, if all goes well, by one o'clock." "But, Nino, if you do not come?" "I will come, alone, or with her. If--if I should not be with you by two in the morning, go on alone, and get out of the way. It will be because I am caught by that old Prussian devil. Good-bye." He embraced me affectionately, and I went out. A quarter of an hour later I was out of the town, picking my way, with my little donkey, over the desolate path that leads toward the black Serra. The clatter of the beast's hoofs over the stones kept time with the beatings of my heart, and I pressed my thin legs close to his thinner sides for company. When Nino was left alone,--and all this I know from him,--he sat again in the chair and meditated; and although the time of the greatest event in his life was very near, he was so much absorbed that he was startled when he looked at his watch and found that it was half-past eleven. He had barely time to make his preparations. His man was warned, but was waiting near the inn, not knowing where he was required, as Nino himself had not been to ascertain the position of the lower door, fearing lest he might be seen by Benoni. He now hastily extinguished the light and let himself out of the house without noise. He found his countryman ready with the mules, ordered him to come with him, and returned to the house, instructing him to follow and wait at a short distance from the door he would enter. Muffled in his cloak, he stood in the street awaiting the messenger from Hedwig. The crazy old clock of the church tolled the hour, and a man wrapped in a nondescript garment, between a cloak and an overcoat, stole along the moonlit street to where Nino stood, in front of my lodging. "Temistocle!" called Nino, in a low voice, as the fellow hesitated. "Excellency"--answered the man, and then drew back. "You are not the Signor Grandi!" he cried, in alarm. "It is the same thing," replied Nino. "Let us go." "But how is this?" objected Temistocle, seeing a new development. "It was the Signor Grandi whom I was to conduct." Nino was silent, but there was a crisp sound in the air as he took a banknote from his pocket-book. "Diavolo!" muttered the servant, "perhaps it may be right, after all." Nino gave him the note. "That is my passport," said he. "I have doubts," answered Temistocle, taking it, nevertheless, and examining it by the moonlight. "It has no _visa_," he added, with a cunning leer. Nino gave him another. Then Temistocle had no more doubts. "I will conduct your excellency," he said. They moved away, and Temistocle was so deaf that he did not hear the mules and the tramp of the man who led them not ten paces behind him. Passing round the rock they found themselves in the shadow; a fact which Nino noted with much satisfaction, for he feared lest someone might be keeping late hours in the castle. The mere noise of the mules would attract no attention in a mountain town where the country people start for their distant work at all hours of the day and night. They came to the door. Nino called softly to the man with the mules to wait in the shadow, and Temistocle knocked at the door. The key ground in the lock from within, but the hands that held it seemed weak. Nino's heart beat fast. "Temistocle!" cried Hedwig's trembling voice. "What is the matter, your excellency?" asked the servant through the keyhole, not forgetting his manners. "Oh, I cannot turn the key! What _shall_ I do?" Nino heard, and pushed the servant aside. "Courage, my dear lady," he said, aloud, that she might know his voice. Hedwig appeared to make a frantic effort, and a little sound of pain escaped her as she hurt her hands. "Oh, what _shall_ I do!" she cried, piteously. "I locked it last night, and now I cannot turn the key!" Nino pressed with all his weight against the door. Fortunately it was strong, or he would have broken it in, and it would have fallen upon her. But it opened outward, and was heavily bound with iron. Nino groaned. "Has your excellency a taper?" asked Temistocle suddenly, forcing his head between Nino's body and the door, in order to be heard. "Yes. I put it out." "And matches?" he asked again. "Yes." "Then let your excellency light the taper, and drop some of the burning wax on the end of the key. It will be like oil." There was a silence. The key was withdrawn, and a light appeared through the hole where it had been. Nino instantly fastened his eye to the aperture, hoping to catch a glimpse of Hedwig. But he could not see anything save two white hands trying to cover the key with wax. He withdrew his eye quickly, as the hands pushed the key through again. Again the lock groaned,--a little sob of effort, another trial, and the bolts flew back to their sockets. The prudent Temistocle, who did not wish to be a witness of what followed, pretended to exert gigantic strength in pulling the door open, and Nino, seeing him, drew back a moment to let him pass. "Your excellency need only knock at the upper door," he said to Hedwig, "and I will open. I will watch, lest anyone should enter from above." "You may watch till the rising of the dead," thought Nino, and Hedwig stood aside on the narrow step, while Temistocle went up. One instant more, and Nino was at her feet, kissing the hem of her dress, and speechless with happiness, for his tears of joy flowed fast. Tenderly Hedwig bent to him, and laid her two hands on his bare head, pressing down the thick and curly hair with a trembling, passionate motion. "Signor Cardegna, you must not kneel there,--nay, sir, I know you love me! Would I have come to you else? Give me your hand--now--do not kiss it so hard--no--Oh, Nino, my own dear Nino--" What should have followed in her gentle speech is lacking, for many and most sweet reasons. I need not tell you that the taper was extinguished, and they stood locked in each other's arms against the open door, with only the reflection of the moon from the houses opposite to illuminate their meeting. There was and is to me something divinely perfect and godlike in these two virgin hearts, each so new to their love, and each so true and spotless of all other. I am old to say sweet things of loving, but I cannot help it; for though I never was as they are, I have loved much in my time. Like our own dear Leopardi, I loved not the woman, but the angel which is the type of all women, and whom not finding I perished miserably as to my heart. But in my breast there is still the temple where the angel dwelt, and the shrine is very fragrant still with the divine scent of the heavenly roses that were about her. I think, also, that all those who love in this world must have such a holy place of worship in their hearts. Sometimes the kingdom of the soul and the palace of the body are all Love's, made beautiful and rich with rare offerings of great constancy and faith; and all the countless creations of transcendent genius, and all the vast aspirations of far-reaching power, go up in reverent order to do homage at Love's altar, before they come forth, like giants, to make the great world tremble and reel in its giddy grooves. And with another it is different. The world is not his; he is the world's, and all his petty doings have its gaudy stencil blotched upon them. Yet haply even he has a heart, and somewhere in its fruitless fallows stands a poor ruin, that never was of much dignity at its best,--poor and broken, and half choked with weeds and briers; but even thus the weeds are fragrant herbs, and the briers are wild roses, of few and misshapen petals, but sweet, nevertheless. For this ruin was once a shrine too, that his mean hands and sterile soul did try most ineffectually to build up as a shelter for all that was ever worthy in him. Now, therefore, I say, Love, and love truly and long,--even for ever; and if you can do other things well, do them; but if not, at least learn to do that, for it is a very gentle thing and sweet in the learning. Some of you laugh at me, and say, Behold, this old-fashioned driveller, who does not even know that love is no longer in the fashion! By Saint Peter, Heaven will soon be out of the fashion too, and Messer Satanas will rake in the just and the unjust alike, so that he need no longer fast on Fridays, having a more savoury larder! And no doubt some of you will say that hell is really so antiquated that it should be put in the museum at the University of Rome, for a curious old piece of theological furniture. Truth! it is a wonder it is not worn out with digesting the tough morsels it gets, when people like you are finally gotten rid of from this world! But it is made of good material, and it will last, never fear! This is not the gospel of peace, but it is the gospel of truth. Loving hearts and gentle souls shall rule the world some day, for all your pestiferous fashions; and old as I am,--I do not mean aged, but well on in years,--I believe in love still, and I always will. It is true that it was not given to me to love as Nino loves Hedwig, for Nino is even now a stronger, sterner man than I. His is the nature that can never do enough; his the hands that never tire for her; his the art that would surpass, for her, the stubborn bounds of possibility. He is never weary of striving to increase her joy of him. His philosophy is but that. No quibbles of "being" and "not being," or wretched speculations concerning the object of existence; he has found the true unity of unities, and he holds it fast. Meanwhile, you object that I am not proceeding with my task, and telling you more facts, recounting more conversations, and painting more descriptions. Believe me, this one fact, that to love well is to be all man can be, is greater than all the things men have ever learned and classified in dictionaries. It is, moreover, the only fact that has consistently withstood the ravages of time and social revolution; it is the wisdom that has opened, as if by magic, the treasures of genius, of goodness, and of all greatness, for everyone to see; it is the vital elixir that has made men of striplings, and giants of cripples, and heroes of the poor in heart though great in spirit. Nino is an example; for he was but a boy, yet he acted like a man; a gifted artist in a great city, courted by the noblest, yet he kept his faith. But when I have taken breath I will tell you what he and Hedwig said to each other at the gate, and whether at the last she went with him, or stayed in dismal Fillettino for her father's sake. CHAPTER XXI "Let us sit upon the step and talk," said Hedwig, gently disengaging herself from his arms. "The hour is advancing, and it is damp here, my love. You will be cold," said Nino, protesting against delay as best he could. "No; and I must talk to you." She sat down, but Nino pulled off his cloak and threw it round her. She motioned him to sit beside her, and raised the edge of the heavy mantle with her hand. "I think it is big enough," said she. "I think so," returned Nino; and so the pair sat side by side and hand in hand, wrapped in the same garment, deep in the shadow of the rocky doorway. "You got my letter, dearest?" asked Nino, hoping to remind her of his proposal. "Yes, it reached me safely. Tell me, Nino, have you thought of me in all this time?" she asked, in her turn; and there was the joy of the answer already in the question. "As the earth longs for the sun, my love, through all the dark night. You have never been out of my thoughts. You know that I went away to find you in Paris, and I went to London, too; and everywhere I sang to you, hoping you might be somewhere in the great audiences. But you never went to Paris at all. When I got Professor Grandi's letter saying that he had discovered you, I had but one night more to sing, and then I flew to you." "And now you have found me," said Hedwig, looking lovingly up to him through the shadow. "Yes, dear one; and I have come but just in time. You are in great trouble now, and I am here to save you from it all. Tell me, what is it all about?" "Ah, Nino dear, it is very terrible. My father declared I must marry Baron Benoni, or end my days here, in this dismal castle." Nino ground his teeth, and drew her even closer to him, so that her head rested on his shoulder. "Infamous wretch!" he muttered. "Hush, Nino," said Hedwig gently; "he is my father." "Oh, I mean Benoni, of course," exclaimed Nino quickly. "Yes, dear, of course you do," Hedwig responded. "But my father has changed his mind. He no longer wishes me to marry the Jew." "Why is that, sweetheart?" "Because Benoni was very rude to me to-day, and I told my father, who said he should leave the house at once." "I hope he will kill the hound!" cried Nino, with rising anger. "And I am glad your father has still the decency to protect you from insult." "My father is very unkind, Nino mio, but he is an officer and a gentleman." "Oh, I know what that means,--a gentleman! Fie on your gentleman! Do you love me less, Hedwig, because I am of the people?" For all answer Hedwig threw her arms round his neck, passionately. "Tell me, love, would you think better of me if I were noble?" "Ah, Nino, how most unkind! Oh, no: I love you, and for your sake I love the people,--the strong, brave people, whose man you are." "God bless you, dear, for that," he answered tenderly. "But say, will your father take you back to Rome, now that he has sent away Benoni?" "No, he will not. He swears that I shall stay here until I can forget you." The fair head rested again on his shoulder. "It appears to me that your most high and noble father has amazingly done perjury in his oath," remarked Nino, resting his hand on her hair, from which the thick black veil that had muffled it had slipped back. "What do you think, love?" "I do not know," replied Hedwig, in a low voice. "Why, dear, you have only to close this door behind you, and you may laugh at your prison and your jailer!" "Oh, I could not, Nino; and besides, I am weak, and cannot walk very far. And we should have to walk very far, you know." "You, darling? Do you think I would not and could not bear you from here to Rome in these arms?" As he spoke he lifted her bodily from the step. "Oh!" she cried, half frightened, half thrilled, "how strong you are, Nino!" "Not I; it is my love. But I have beasts close by, waiting even now; good stout mules, that will think you are only a little silver butterfly that has flitted down from the moon for them to carry." "Have you done that, dear?" she asked, doubtfully, while her heart leaped at the thought. "But my father has horses," she added, on a sudden, in a very anxious voice. "Never fear, my darling. No horse could scratch a foothold in the place where our mules are as safe as in a meadow. Come, dear heart, let us be going." But Hedwig hung her head, and did not stir. "What is it, Hedwig?" he asked, bending down to her and softly stroking her hair. "Are you afraid of me?" "No,--oh no! Not of you, Nino,--never of you!" She pushed her face close against him, very lovingly. "What then, dear? Everything is ready for us. Why should we wait?" "Is it quite right, Nino?" "Ah, yes, love, it is right,--the rightest right that ever was! How can such love as ours be wrong? Have I not to-day implored your father to relent and let us marry? I met him in the road--" "He told me, dear. It was brave of you. And he frightened me by making me think he had killed you. Oh, I was so frightened, you do not know!" "Cruel--" Nino checked the rising epithet. "He is your father, dear, and I must not speak my mind. But since he will not let you go, what will you do? Will you cease to love me, at his orders?" "Oh, Nino, never, never, never!" "But will you stay here, to die of solitude and slow torture?" He pleaded passionately. "I--I suppose so, Nino," she said, in a choking sob. "Now, by Heaven, you shall not!" He clasped her in his arms, raising her suddenly to her feet. Her head fell back upon his shoulder, and he could see her turn pale to the very lips, for his sight was softened to the gloom, and her eyes shone like stars of fire at him from beneath the half-closed lids. But the faint glory of coming happiness was already on her face, and he knew that the last fight was fought for love's mastery. "Shall we ever part again, love?" he whispered, close to her. She shook her head, her starry eyes still fastened on his. "Then come, my own dear one,--come," and he gently drew her with him. He glanced, naturally enough, at the step where they had sat, and something dark caught his eye just above it. Holding her hand in one of his, as though fearful lest she should escape him, he stooped quickly and snatched the thing from the stair with the other. It was Hedwig's little bundle. "What have you here?" he asked. "Oh, Hedwig, you said you would not come?" he added, half laughing, as he discovered what it was. "I was not sure that I should like you, Nino," she said, as he again put his arm about her. Hedwig started violently. "What is that?" she exclaimed, in a terrified whisper. "What, love?" "The noise! Oh, Nino, there is someone on the staircase, coming down. Quick,--quick! Save me, for love's sake!" But Nino had heard, too, the clumsy but rapid groping of heavy feet on the stairs above, far up in the winding stone steps, but momentarily coming nearer. Instantly he pushed Hedwig out to the street, tossing the bundle on the ground, withdrew the heavy key, shut the door, and double turned the lock from the outside, removing the key again at once. Nino is a man who acts suddenly and infallibly in great emergencies. He took Hedwig in his arms, and ran with her to where the mules were standing, twenty yards away. The stout countryman from Subiaco, who had spent some years in breaking stones out of consideration for the Government, as a general confession of the inaccuracy of his views regarding foreigners, was by no means astonished when he saw Nino appear with a woman in his arms. Together they seated her on one of the mules, and ran beside her, for there was no time for Nino to mount. They had to pass the door, and through all its oaken thickness they could hear the curses and imprecations of someone inside, and the wood and iron shook with repeated blows and kicks. The quick-witted muleteer saw the bundle lying where Nino had tossed it, and he picked it up as he ran. Both Nino and Hedwig recognised Benoni's voice, but neither spoke as they hurried up the street into the bright moonlight, she riding and Nino running as he led the other beast at a sharp trot. In five minutes they were out of the little town, and Nino, looking back, could see that the broad white way behind them was clear of all pursuers. Then he himself mounted, and the countryman trotted by his side. Nino brought his mule close to Hedwig's. She was an accomplished horsewoman, and had no difficulty in accommodating herself to the rough country saddle. Their hands met, and the mules, long accustomed to each other's company, moved so evenly that the gentle bond was not broken. But although Hedwig's fingers twined lovingly with his, and she often turned and looked at him from beneath her hanging veil, she was silent for a long time. Nino respected her mood, half guessing what she felt, and no sound was heard save an occasional grunt from the countryman as he urged the beasts, and the regular clatter of the hoofs on the stony road. To tell the truth, Nino was overwhelmed with anxiety; for his quick wits had told him that Benoni, infuriated by the check he had received, would lose no time in remounting the stairs, saddling a horse, and following them. If only they could reach the steeper part of the ravine they could bid defiance to any horse that ever galloped, for Benoni must inevitably come to grief if he attempted a pursuit into the desolate Serra. He saw that Hedwig had not apprehended the danger, when once the baron was stopped by the door, conceiving in her heart the impression that he was a prisoner in his own trap. Nevertheless, they urged the beasts onward hotly, if one may use the word of the long, heavy trot of a mountain mule. The sturdy countryman never paused or gasped for breath, keeping pace in a steady, determined fashion. But they need not have been disturbed, for Hedwig's guess was nearer the truth than Nino's reasoning. They knew it later, when Temistocle found them in Rome, and I may as well tell you how it happened. When he reached the head of the staircase, he took the key from the one side to the other, locked the door, as agreed, and sat down to wait for Hedwig's rap. He indeed suspected that it would never come, for he had only pretended not to see the mules; but the prospect of further bribes made him anxious not to lose sight of his mistress, and certainly not to disobey her, in case she really returned. The staircase opened into the foot of the tower, a broad stone chamber, with unglazed windows. Temistocle sat himself down to wait on an old bench that had been put there, and the light of the full moon made the place as bright as day. Now the lock on the door was rusty, like the one below, and creaked loudly every time it was turned. But Temistocle fancied it would not be heard in the great building, and felt quite safe. Sitting there, he nodded and fell asleep, tired with the watching. Benoni had probably passed a fiery half hour with the count. But I have no means of knowing what was said on either side; at all events, he was in the castle still, and, what is more, he was awake. When Hedwig opened the upper door and closed it behind her, the sound was distinctly audible to his quick ears, and he probably listened and speculated, and finally yielded to his curiosity. However that may have been, he found Temistocle asleep in the tower basement, saw the key in the lock, guessed whence the noise had come, and turned it. The movement woke Temistocle, who started to his feet, and recognised the tall figure of the baron just entering the door. Too much confused for reflection, he called aloud, and the baron disappeared down the stairs. Temistocle listened at the top, heard distinctly the shutting and locking of the lower door, and a moment afterwards Benoni's voice, swearing in every language at once, came echoing up. "They have escaped," said Temistocle to himself. "If I am not mistaken, I had better do the same." With that he locked the upper door, put the key in his pocket, and departed on tiptoe. Having his hat and his overcoat with him, and his money in his pocket, he determined to leave the baron shut up in the staircase. He softly left the castle by the front gate, of which he knew the tricks, and he was not heard of for several weeks afterwards. As for Benoni, he was completely caught, and probably spent the remainder of the night in trying to wake the inmates of the building. So you see that Nino need not have been so much disturbed after all. While these things were happening Nino and Hedwig got fairly away, and no one but a mountaineer of the district could possibly have overtaken them. Just as they reached the place where the valley suddenly narrows to a gorge, the countryman spoke. It was the first word that had been uttered by any of the party in an hour, so great had been their haste and anxiety. "I see a man with a beast," he said, shortly. "So do I," answered Nino. "I expect to meet a friend here." Then he turned to Hedwig. "Dear one," he said, "we are to have a companion now, who says he is a very proper person." "A companion?" repeated Hedwig, anxiously. "Yes. We are to have the society of no less a person than the Professor Cornelio Grandi, of the University of Rome. He will go with us, and be a witness." "Yes," said Hedwig, expecting more, "a witness--" "A witness of our marriage, dear lady; I trust to-morrow,--or to-day, since midnight is past." He leaned far over his saddle-bow, as the mules clambered up the rough place. Her hand went out to him, and he took it. They were so near that I could see them. He dropped the reins and bared his head, and so, riding, he bent himself still farther, and pressed his lips upon her hand: and that was all the marriage contract that was sealed between them. But it was enough. There I sat, upon a stone in the moonlight, just below the trees, waiting for them. And there I had been for two mortal hours or more, left to meditate upon the follies of professors in general and of myself in particular. I was beginning to wonder whether Nino would come at all, and I can tell you I was glad to see the little caravan. Ugh! it is an ugly place to be alone in. They rode up, and I went forward to meet them. "Nino mio," said I, "you have made me pass a terrible time here. Thank Heaven, you are come; and the contessina, too! Your most humble servant, signorina." I bowed low and Hedwig bent a little forward, but the moon was just behind her, and I could not see her face. "I did not think we should meet so soon, Signor Grandi. But I am very glad." There was a sweet shyness in the little speech that touched me. I am sure she was afraid that it was not yet quite right, or at least that there should be some other lady in the party. "Courage, Messer Cornelio," said Nino. "Mount your donkey, and let us be on our way." "Is not the contessina tired?" I inquired. "You might surely rest a little here." "Caro mio," answered Nino, "we must be safe at the top of the pass before we rest. We were so unfortunate as to wake his excellency the Baron Benoni out of some sweet dream or other, and perhaps he is not far behind us." An encounter with the furious Jew was not precisely attractive to me, and I was on my donkey before you could count a score. I suggested to Nino that it would be wiser if the countryman led the way through the woods, and I followed him. Then the contessina would be behind me, and Nino would bring up the rear. It occurred to me that the mules might outstrip my donkey if I went last, and so I might be left to face the attack, if any came; whereas, if I were in front, the others could not go any faster than I. CHAPTER XXII The gorge rises steep and precipitous between the lofty mountains on both sides, and it is fortunate that we had some light from the moon, which was still high at two o'clock, being at the full. It is a ghastly place enough. In the days of the Papal States the Serra di Sant' Antonio, as it is called, was the shortest passage to the kingdom of Naples, and the frontier line ran across its summit. To pass from one dominion to the other it would be necessary to go out of the way some forty or fifty miles, perhaps, unless one took this route; and the natural consequence was that outlaws, smugglers, political fugitives, and all such manner of men, found it a great convenience. Soldiers were stationed in Fillettino and on the other side, to check illicit traffic and brigandage, and many were the fights that were fought among these giant beeches. The trees are of primeval dimensions, for no one has yet been enterprising enough to attempt to fell the timber. The gorge is so steep, and in many places so abruptly precipitous, that the logs could never be removed; and so they have grown undisturbed for hundreds of years, rotting and falling away as they stand. The beech is a lordly tree, with its great smooth trunk and its spreading branches, and though it never reaches the size of the chestnut, it is far more beautiful and long-lived. Here and there, at every hundred yards or so, it seemed to me, the countryman would touch his hat and cross himself as he clambered up the rocky path, and then I did likewise; for there was always some rude cross or rough attempt at the inscription of a name at such spots, which marked where a man had met his untimely end. Sometimes the moonbeams struggled through the branches, still bare of leaves, and fell on a few bold initials and a date; and sometimes we came to a broad ledge where no trees were, but only a couple of black sticks tied at right angles for a cross. It was a dismal place, and the owls hooted at us. Besides, it grew intensely cold towards morning, so that the countryman wanted to stop and make a fire to warm ourselves. Though it was the end of March, the ground was frozen as hard as any stone wherever it was free from rocks. But Nino dismounted, and insisted upon wrapping his cloak about Hedwig; and then he walked, for fear of catching cold, and the countryman mounted his mule and clambered away in front. In this way Hedwig and Nino lagged behind, conversing in low tones that sounded very soft; and when I looked round, I could see how he held his hand on her saddle and supported her in the rough places. Poor child, who would have thought she could bear such terrible work! But she had the blood of a soldierly old race in her veins, and would have struggled on silently till she died. I think it would be useless to describe every stone on the desolate journey, but when the morning dawned we were at the top, and we found the descent much easier. The rosy streaks came first, quite suddenly, and in a few minutes the sun was up, and the eventful night was past. I was never so glad to get rid of a night in my life. It is fortunate that I am so thin and light, for I could never have reached the high-road alive had I been as fat as De Pretis is; and certainly the little donkey would have died by the way. He was quite as thin when I sold him again as when I bought him, a fortnight before, in spite of the bread I had given him. Hedwig drew her veil close about her face as the daylight broke, for she would not let Nino see how pale and tired she was. But when at last we were in the broad, fertile valley which marks the beginning of the old kingdom of Naples, we reached a village where there was an inn, and Nino turned everyone out of the best room with a high hand, and had a couch of some sort spread for Hedwig. He himself walked up and down outside the door for five whole hours, lest she should be disturbed in her sleep. As for me I lay, on a bench, rolled in my cloak, and slept as I have not slept since I was twenty. Nino knew that the danger of pursuit was past now, and that the first thing necessary was to give Hedwig rest; for she was so tired that she could not eat, though there were very good eggs to be had, of which I ate three, and drank some wine, which does not compare to that on the Roman side. The sturdy man from Subiaco seemed like iron, for he ate sparingly and drank less, and went out into the village to secure a conveyance and to inquire the nearest way to Ceprano. But when, as I have said, Nino had guarded Hedwig's door for five hours he woke me from my sleep, and by that time it was about two in the afternoon. "Hi, Messer Cornelio! wake up!" he cried pulling my arm. And I rubbed my eyes. "What do you want, Nino?" I inquired. "I want to be married immediately," he replied, still pulling at my elbow. "Well, pumpkin-head," I said angrily, "marry, then, in Heaven's name, and let me sleep! I do not want to marry anybody." "But I do," retorted Nino, sitting down on the bench and laying a hand on my shoulder. He could still see Hedwig's door from where he sat. "In this place?" I asked. "Are you serious?" "Perfectly. This is a town of some size, and there must be a mayor here who marries people when they take the fancy." "Diavolo! I suppose so," I assented. "A sindaco,--there must be one, surely." "Very well, go and find him, good-for-nothing!" I exclaimed. "But I cannot go away and leave that door until she wakes," he objected. "Dear Messer Cornelio, you have done so much for me, and are so kind,--will you not go out and find the sindaco, and bring him here to marry us?" "Nino," I said, gravely, "the ass is a patient beast, and very intelligent, but there is a limit to his capabilities. So long as it is merely a question of doing things you cannot do, very well. But if it comes to this, that I must find not only the bride, but also the mayor and the priest, I say, with good Pius IX.,--rest his soul,--_non possumus_." Nino laughed. He could afford to laugh now. "Messer Cornelio, a child could tell you have been asleep. I never heard such a string of disconnected sentences in my life. Come, be kind, and get me a mayor that I may be married." "I tell you I will not," I cried, stubbornly. "Go yourself." "But I cannot leave the door. If anything should happen to her--" "Macchè! What should happen to her, pray? I will put my bench across the door, and sit there till you come back." "I am not quite sure--" he began. "Idiot!" I exclaimed. "Well, let us see how it looks." And with that he ousted me from my bench, and carried it, walking on tiptoe, to the entrance of Hedwig's room. Then he placed it across the door. "Now sit down," he said, authoritatively, but in a whisper; and I took my place in the middle of the long seat. He stood back and looked at me with an artistic squint. "You look so proper," he said, "that I am sure nobody will think of trying the door while you sit there. Will you remain till I come back?" "Like Saint Peter in his chair," I whispered, for I wanted to get rid of him. "Well, then, I must risk whatever may happen, and leave you here." So he went away. Now I ask you if this was not a ridiculous position. But I had discovered, in the course of my fortnight's wanderings, that I was really something of a philosopher in practice, and I am proud to say that on this occasion I smoked in absolute indifference to the absurdity of the thing. People came and stood at a distance in the passage, and eyed me curiously. But they knew I belonged to the party of foreigners, and doubtless they supposed it was the custom of my country to guard doors in that way. An hour passed, and I heard Hedwig stirring in the room. After a time she came close to the door and put her hand on the lock, so that it began to rattle, but she hesitated, and went away again. I once more heard her moving about. Then I heard her open the window, and at last she came boldly and opened the door, which turned inward. I sat like a rock, not knowing whether Nino would like me to turn round and look. "Signor Grandi!" she cried at last in laughing tones. "Yes, signorina!" I replied, respectfully, without moving. She hesitated. "What are you doing in that strange position?" she asked. "I am mounting guard," I answered. "I promised Nino that I would sit here till he came back." She fairly laughed now, and it was the most airy, silvery laugh in the world. "But why do you not look at me?" "I am not sure that Nino would let me," said I. "I promised not to move, and I will keep my promise." "Will you let me out?" she asked, struggling with her merriment. "By no means," I answered; "anymore than I would let anybody in." "Then we must make the best of it," said she. "But I will bring a chair and sit down, while you tell me the news." "Will you assume all responsibility toward Nino, signorina, if I turn so that I can see you?" I asked, as she sat down. "I will say that I positively ordered you to do so," she answered, gaily. "Now look, and tell me where Signor Cardegna is gone." I looked indeed, and it was long before I looked away. The rest, the freedom, and the happiness had done their work quickly, in spite of all the dreadful anxiety and fatigue. The fresh, transparent colour was in her cheeks, and her blue eyes were clear and bright. The statue had been through the fire, and was made a living thing, beautiful, and breathing, and real. "Tell me," she said, the light dancing in her eyes, "where is he gone?" "He is gone to find the mayor of this imposing capital," I replied. Hedwig suddenly blushed, and turned her glistening eyes away. She was beautiful so. "Are you very tired, signorina? I ought not to ask the question, for you look as though you had never been tired in your life." There is no saying what foolish speeches I might have made had not Nino returned. He was radiant, and I anticipated that he must have succeeded in his errand. "Ha! Messer Cornelio, is this the way you keep watch?" he cried. "I found him here," said Hedwig, shyly, "and he would not even glance at me until I positively insisted upon it." Nino laughed, as he would have laughed at most things in that moment, for sheer superfluity of happiness. "Signorina," he said, "would it be agreeable to you to walk for a few minutes after your sleep? The weather is wonderfully fine, and I am sure you owe it to the world to show the roses which rest has given you." Hedwig blushed softly, and I rose and went away, conceiving that I had kept watch long enough. But Nino called after me, as he moved the bench from the door. "Messer Cornelio, will you not come with us? Surely you need a walk very much, and we can ill spare your company. My lady, let me offer you my arm." In this manner we left the inn, a wedding procession which could not have been much smaller, and the singing of an old woman, who sat with her distaff in front of her house, was the wedding march. Nino seemed in no great haste, I thought, and I let them walk as they would, while I kept soberly in the middle of the road, a little way behind. It was not far that we had to go, however, and soon we came to a large brick house, with an uncommonly small door, over which hung a wooden shield with the arms of Italy brightly painted in green and red and white. Nino and Hedwig entered arm in arm, and I slunk guiltily in after them. Hedwig had drawn her veil, which was the only head-dress she had, close about her face. In a quarter of an hour the little ceremony was over, and the registers were signed by us all. Nino also got a stamped certificate, which he put very carefully in his pocket-book. I never knew what it cost Nino to overcome the scruples of the sindaco about marrying a strange couple from Rome in that outlandish place, where the peasants stared at us as though we had been the most unnatural curiosities, and even the pigs in the street jogged sullenly out of our way as though not recognising that we were human. At all events, the thing was done, and Hedwig von Lira became for the rest of her life Edvigia Cardegna. And I felt very guilty. The pair went down the steps of the house together in front of me, and stopped as they reached the street; forgetting my presence, I presume. They had not forgotten me so long as I was needed to be of use to them; but I must not complain. "We can face the world together now, my dear lady," said Nino, as he drew her little hand through his arm. She looked up at him, and I could see her side face. I shall never forget the expression. There was in it something I really never saw before, which made me feel as though I were in church; and I knew then that there was no wrong in helping such love as that to its fulfilment. By the activity of the man from Subiaco a curious conveyance was ready for us, being something between a gig and a cart, and a couple of strong horses were hired for the long drive. The countryman, who had grown rich in the last three days, offered to buy the thin little ass which had carried me so far and so well. He observed that he was blind of one eye, which I had never found out, and I do not believe it was true. The way he showed it was by snapping his fingers close to the eye in question. The donkey winked, and the countryman said that if the eye were good the beast would see that the noise was made by the fingers, and would not be frightened, and would therefore not wink. "You see," said he, "he thinks it is a whip cracking, and so he is afraid." "Do donkeys always wink when they are frightened?" I inquired. "It is very interesting." "Yes," said the countryman, "they mostly do." At all events, I was obliged to take the man's own price, which was little enough,--not a third of what I had given. The roads were good, and the long and the short of the matter, without any more details, is that we reached Rome very early the next morning, having caught the night train from Naples. Hedwig slept most of the time in the carriage and all the time in the train, while Nino, who never seemed to tire or to need sleep, sat watching her with wide, happy eyes. But perhaps he slept a little too, for I did, and I cannot answer for his wakefulness through every minute of the night. Once I asked him what he intended to do in Rome. "We will go to the hotel Costanzi," he answered, which is a foreigners' resort. And if she is rested enough we will come down to you, and see what we can do about being married properly in church by the old curato." "The marriage by the sindaco is perfectly legal," I remarked. "It is a legal contract, but it is not a marriage that pleases me," he said, gravely. "But, caro mio, without offence, your bride is a Protestant, a Lutheran; not to mince matters, a heretic. They will make objections." "She is an angel," said Nino, with great conviction. "But the angels neither marry nor are given in marriage," I objected, arguing the point to pass the time. "What do you make of it, then, Messer Cornelio?" he asked, with a smile. "Why, as a heretic she ought to burn, and as an angel she ought not to marry." "It is better to marry than to burn," retorted Nino, triumphantly. "Diavolo! Have you had St. Paul for a tutor?" I asked, for I knew the quotation, being fond of Greek. "I heard a preacher cite it once at the Gesù, and I thought it a good saying." Early in the morning we rolled into the great station of Rome, and took an affectionate leave of each other, with the promise that Hedwig and Nino would visit me in the course of the day. I saw them into a carriage, with Nino's small portmanteau, and Hedwig's bundle, and then mounted a modest omnibus that runs from the termini to St. Peter's, and goes very near my house. All the bells were ringing gladly, as if to welcome us, for it was Easter morning; and though it is not so kept as it used to be, it is nevertheless a great feast. Besides, the spring was at hand, and the acacia-trees in the great square were budding, though everything was still so backward in the hills. April was at hand, which the foreigners think is our best month; but I prefer June and July, when the weather is warm, and the music plays in the Piazza Colonna of an evening. For all that, April is a glad time, after the disagreeable winter. There was with me much peace on that Easter day, for I felt that my dear boy was safe after all his troubles. At least he was safe from anything that could be done to part him from Hedwig; for the civil laws are binding, and Hedwig was of the age when a young woman is legally free to marry whom she pleases. Of course old Lira might still make himself disagreeable, but I fancied him too much a man of the world to desire a scandal, when no good could follow. The one shadow in the future was the anger of Benoni, who would be certain to seek some kind of revenge for the repulse he had suffered. I was still ignorant of his whereabouts, not yet knowing what I knew long afterwards, and have told you, because otherwise you would have been as much in the dark as he was himself, when Temistocle cunningly turned the lock of the staircase door and left him to his curses and his meditations. I have had much secret joy in thinking what a wretched night he must have passed there, and how his long limbs must have ached with sitting about on the stones, and how hoarse he must have been from the dampness and the swearing. I reached home, the dear old number twenty-seven in Santa Catarina dei Funari, by half-past seven, or even earlier; and I was glad when I rang the bell on the landing, and called through the keyhole in my impatience. "Mariuccia, Mariuccia, come quickly! It is I!" I cried. "O Madonna mia!' I heard her exclaim, and there was a tremendous clatter, as she dropped the coffee-pot. She was doubtless brewing herself a quiet cup with my best Porto-Rico, which I do not allow her to use. She thought I was never coming back, the cunning old hag! "Dio mio, Signor Professore! A good Easter to you!" she cried, as I heard the flat pattering of her old feet inside, running to the door. "I thought the wolves had eaten you, padrone mio!" And at last she let me in. CHAPTER XXIII "A tall gentleman came here late last night, Signor Professore," said Mariuccia, as I sat down in the old green arm-chair. "He seemed very angry about something, and said he must positively see you." The idea of Benoni flashed uneasily across my brain. "Was he the grave signore who came a few days before I left?" I asked. "Heaven preserve us!" ejaculated Mariuccia. "This one was much older, and seemed to be lame; for when he tried to shake his stick at me, he could not stand without it. He looked like one of the old Swiss guards at Palazzo." By which she meant the Vatican, as you know. "It must have been the count," I said, thinking aloud. "A count! A pretty sort of count, indeed, to come waking people from their beds in the night! He had not even a high hat like the one you wear when you go to the University. A count, indeed!" "Go and make me some good coffee, Mariuccia," I said, eying her severely to show I suspected her of having used mine; "and be careful to make it of my best Porto-Rico, if you have any left, without any chicory." "A count, indeed!" she muttered angrily as she hobbled away, not in the least heeding my last remark, which I believed to be withering. I had not much time for reflection that morning. My old clothes were in tatters, and the others looked very fine by contrast, so that when I had made my toilet I felt better able to show myself to the distinguished company I expected. I had seen so much extraordinary endurance in Nino and Hedwig during the last two or three days that I was prepared to see them appear at any moment, brushed and curled and ready for anything. The visit of the count, however, had seriously disturbed me, and I hardly knew what to look for from him. As it turned out, I had not long to wait. I was resting myself in the arm-chair, and smoking one of those infamous cigars that nearly suffocate me, just for company, and I was composing in my mind a letter to the authorities of the University, requesting that I might begin to lecture again. I did not find out until later that I need not have written to them at all when I went away, as ten days are always allowed at Easter, in any case. It is just like my forgetfulness, to have made such a mistake. I really only missed four lectures. But my composition was interrupted by the door-bell, and my heart sank in my breast. Mariuccia opened, and I knew by the sound of the stick on the bricks that the lame count had come to wreak his vengeance. Being much frightened, I was very polite, and bowed a great many times as he came toward me. It was he, looking much the same as ever, wooden and grizzly. "I am much honoured, sir," I began, "by seeing you here." "You are Signor Grandi?" he inquired, with a stiff bow. "The same, Signor Conte, and very much at your service," I answered, rubbing my hands together to give myself an air of satisfaction. "Let us not waste time," he said, severely but not roughly. "I have come to you on business. My daughter has disappeared with your son, or whatever relation the Signor Giovanni Cardegna is to you." "He is no relation, Signor Conte. He was an orphan, and I--" "It is the same," he interrupted. "You are responsible for his doings." I responsible! Good heavens, had I not done all in my power to prevent the rashness of that hot-headed boy? "Will you not sit down, sir?" I said, moving a chair for him. He took the seat rather reluctantly. "You do not seem much astonished at what I tell you," he remarked. "It is evident that you are in the plot." "Unless you will inform me of what you know, Signor Conte," I replied with urbanity, "I cannot see how I can be of service to you." "On the contrary," said he, "I am the person to ask questions. I wake up in the morning and find my daughter gone. I naturally inquire where she is." "Most naturally, as you say, sir. I would do the same." "And you, also very naturally, answer my questions," he continued severely. "In that case, sir," I replied, "I would call to your attention the fact that you have asked but one question,--whether I were Signor Grandi. I answered that in the affirmative." You see I was apprehensive of what he might do, and desired to gain time. But he began to lose his temper. "I have no patience with you Italians," he said, gruffly; "you bandy words and play with them as if you enjoyed it." Diavolo, thought I, he is angry at my silence. What will he be if I speak? "What do you wish to know, Signor Conte?" I inquired, in suave tones. "I wish to know where my daughter is. Where is she? Do you understand? I am asking a question now, and you cannot deny it." I was sitting in front of him, but I rose and pretended to shut the door, thus putting the table and the end of the piano between us, before I answered. "She is in Rome, Signor Conte," I said. "With Cardegna?" he asked, not betraying any emotion. "Yes." "Very well. I will have them arrested at once. That is all I wanted." He put his crutch-stick to the floor as though about to rise. Seeing that his anger was not turned against me, I grew bold. "You had better not do that," I mildly observed, across the table. "And why not, sir?" he asked, quickly, hesitating whether to get upon his feet or to remain seated. "Because they are married already," I answered, retreating toward the door. But there was no need for flight. He sank back in the chair, and the stick fell from his hands upon the bricks with a loud rattle. Poor old man! I thought he was quite overcome by the news I had communicated. He sat staring at the window, his hands lying idly on his knees. I moved to come toward him, but he raised one hand and began to twirl his great gray moustache fiercely; whereat I resumed my former position of safety. "How do you know this?" he demanded on a sudden. "I was present at the civil marriage yesterday," I answered, feeling very much scared. He began to notice my manoeuvre. "You need not be so frightened," he said, coldly. "It would be no use to kill any of you now, though I would like to." "I assure you that no one ever frightened me in my own house, sir," I answered. I think my voice must have sounded very bold, for he did not laugh at me. "I suppose it is irrevocable," he said, as if to himself. "Oh, yes--perfectly irrevocable," I answered, promptly. "They are married, and have come back to Rome. They are at the Hotel Costanzi. I am sure that Nino would give you every explanation." "Who is Nino?" he asked. "Nino Cardegna, of course--" "And do you foolishly imagine that I am going to ask him to explain why he took upon himself to carry away my daughter?" The question was scornful enough. "Signor Conte," I protested, "you would do well to see them, for she is your daughter, after all." "She is not my daughter any longer," growled the count. "She is married to a singer, a tenor, an Italian with curls and lies and grins, as you all have. Fie!" And he pulled his moustache again. "A singer," said I, "if you like, but a great singer, and an honest man." "Oh, I did not come here to listen to your praises of that scoundrel!" he exclaimed, hotly. "I have seen enough of him to be sick of him." "I wish he were in this room to hear you call him by such names," I said; for I began to grow angry, as I sometimes do, and then my fear grows small and my heart grows big. "Ah!" said he, ironically. "And pray, what would he do to me?" "He would probably ask you again for that pistol you refused to lend him the other day." I thought I might as well show that I knew all about the meeting in the road. But Lira laughed grimly, and the idea of a fight seemed to please him. "I would not refuse it this time. In fact, since you mention it, I think I will go and offer it to him now. Do you think I should be justified, Master Censor?" "No," said I, coming forward and facing him. "But if you like you can fight me. I am your own age, and a better match." I would have fought him then and there, with the chairs, if he had liked. "Why should I fight you?" he inquired, in some astonishment. "You strike me as a very peaceable person indeed." "Diavolo! do you expect me to stand quietly and hear you call my boy a scoundrel? What do you take me for, signore? Do you know that I am the last of the Conti Grandi, and as noble as any of you, and as fit to fight, though my hair is gray?" "I knew, indeed, that one member of that illustrious family survived in Rome," he answered, gravely, "but I was not aware that you were he. I am glad to make your acquaintance, and I sincerely wish that you were the father of the young man who has married my daughter. If you were, I would be ready to arrange matters." He looked at me searchingly. "Unfortunately, I am not any relation of his," I answered. "His father and mother were peasants on my estate of Serveti, when it still was mine. They died when he was a baby, and I took care of him and educated him." "Yes, he is well educated," reflected the count, "for I examined him myself. Let us talk no more about fighting. You are quite sure that the marriage is legal?" "Quite certain. You can do nothing, and any attempt would be a useless scandal. Besides, they are so happy, you do not know." "So happy, are they? Do you think I am happy too? "A man has every reason to be so, when his daughter marries an honest man. It is a piece of good luck that does not happen often." "Probably from the scarcity of daughters who are willing to drive their fathers to distraction by their disobedience and contempt of authority,'" he said, savagely. "No,--from the scarcity of honest men," I said. "Nino is a very honest man. You may go from one end of Italy to the other and not meet one like him." "I sincerely hope so," growled Lira. "Otherwise Italy would be as wholly unredeemed and unredeemable as you pretend that some parts of it are now. But I will tell you, Conte Grandi, you cannot walk across the street, in my country, without meeting a dozen men who would tremble at the idea of such depravity as an elopement." "Our ideas of honesty differ, sir," I replied. "When a man loves a woman, I consider it honest in him to act as though he did, and not to go and marry another for consolation, beating her with a thick stick whenever he chances to think of the first. That seems to be the northern idea of domestic felicity." Lira laughed gruffly, supposing that my picture was meant for a jest. "I am glad you are amused," I added. "Upon my honour, sir," he replied, "you are so vastly amusing that I am half inclined to forgive my daughter's rashness, for the sake of enjoying your company. First you entrench yourself behind your furniture; then you propose to fight me; and now you give me the most original views upon love and marriage that I ever heard. Indeed I have cause to be amused." "I am happy to oblige you," I said, tartly, for I did not like his laughter. "So long as you confine your amusement to me, I am satisfied; but pray avoid using any objectionable language about Nino." "Then my only course is to avoid the subject?" "Precisely," I replied, with a good deal of dignity. "In that case I will go," he said. I was immensely relieved, for his presence was most unpleasant, as you may readily guess. He got upon his feet, and I showed him to the door, with all courtesy. I expected that he would say something about the future before leaving me, but I was mistaken. He bowed in silence, and stumped down the steps with his stick. I sank into my arm-chair with a great sigh of relief, for I felt that, for me at least, the worst was over. I had faced the infuriated father, and I might now face anybody with the consciousness of power. I always feel conscious of great power when danger is past. Once more I lit my cigar, and stretched myself out to take some rest. The constant strain on the nerves was becoming very wearing, and I knew very well that on the morrow I should need bleeding and mallows tea. Hardly was I settled and comfortable when I heard that dreadful bell again. "This is the day of the resurrection indeed," cried Mariuccia frantically from the kitchen. And she hurried to the door. But I cannot describe to you the screams of joy and the strange sounds, between laughing and crying, that her leathern throat produced when she found Nino and Hedwig on the landing, waiting for admission. And when Nino explained that he had been married, and that this beautiful lady with the bright eyes and the golden hair was his wife, the old woman fairly gave way, and sat upon a chair in an agony of amazement and admiration. But the pair came toward me, and I met them with a light heart. "Nino," said Hedwig, "we have not been nearly grateful enough to Signor Grandi for all he has done. I have been very selfish," she said, penitently turning to me. "Ah no, signora," I replied,--for she was married now, and no longer "signorina,"--"it is never selfish of such as you to let an old man do you service. You have made me very happy." And then I embraced Nino, and Hedwig gave me her hand, which I kissed in the old fashion. "And so this is your old home, Nino?" said Hedwig presently, looking about her, and touching the things in the room, as a woman will when she makes acquaintance with a place she has often heard of. "What a dear room it is! I wish we could live here!" How very soon a woman learns that "we" that means so much! It is never forgotten, even when the love that bred it is dead and cold. "Yes," I said, for Nino seemed so enraptured, as he watched her, that he could not speak. "And there is the old piano, with the end on the boxes because it has no leg, as I dare say Nino has often told you." "Nino said it was a very good piano," said she. "And indeed it is," he said, with enthusiasm. "It is out of tune now, perhaps, but it is the source of all my fortune." He leaned over the crazy instrument and seemed to caress it. "Poor old thing!" said Hedwig, compassionately. "I am sure there is music in it still--the sweet music of the past." "Yes," said he laughing, "it must be the music of the past, for it would not stand the 'music of the future,' as they call it, for five minutes. All the strings would break." Hedwig sat down on the chair that was in front of it, and her fingers went involuntarily to the keys, though she is no great musician. "I can play a little, you know, Nino," she said shyly, and looked up to his face for a response, not venturing to strike the chords. And it would have done you good to see how brightly Nino smiled and encouraged her little offer of music--he, the great artist, in whose life music was both sword and sceptre. But he knew that she had greatness also of a different kind, and he loved the small jewels in his crown as well as the glorious treasures of its larger wealth. "Play to me, my love," he said, not caring now whether I heard the sweet words or not. She blushed a little, nevertheless, and glanced at me; then her fingers strayed over the keys, and drew out music that was very soft and yet very gay. Suddenly she ceased, and leaned forward on the desk of the piano, looking at him. "Do you know, Nino, it was once my dream to be a great musician. If I had not been so rich I should have taken the profession in earnest. But now, you see, it is different, is it not?" "Yes, it is all different now," he answered, not knowing exactly what she meant, but radiantly happy, all the same. "I mean," she said, hesitating--"I mean that now that we are to be always together, what you do I do, and what I do you do. Do you understand?" "Yes, perfectly," said Nino, rather puzzled, but quite satisfied. "Ah no, dear," said she, forgetting my presence, and letting her hand steal into his as he stood, "you do not understand--quite. I mean that so long as one of us can be a great musician it is enough, and I am just as great as though I did it all myself." Thereupon Nino forgot himself altogether, and kissed her golden hair. But then he saw me looking, for it was so pretty a sight that I could not help it, and he remembered. "Oh!" he said in a tone of embarrassment that I had never heard before. Then Hedwig blushed very much too, and looked away, and Nino put himself between her and me, so that I might not see her. "Could you play something for me to sing, Hedwig?" he asked suddenly. "Oh, yes! I can play 'Spirto gentil,' by heart," she cried, hailing the idea with delight. In a moment they were both lost, and indeed so was I, in the dignity and beauty of the simple melody. As he began to sing, Nino bent down to her, and almost whispered the first words into her ear. But soon he stood erect, and let the music flow from his lips just as God made it. His voice was tired with the long watching and the dust and cold and heat of the journey; but, as De Pretis said when he began, he has an iron throat, and the weariness only made the tones soft and tender and thrilling, that would perhaps have been too strong for my little room. Suddenly he stopped short in the middle of a note, and gazed open-mouthed at the door. And I looked, too, and was horrified; and Hedwig, looking also, screamed and sprang back to the window, overturning the chair she had sat on. In the doorway stood Ahasuerus Benoni, the Jew. Mariuccia had imprudently forgotten to shut the door when Hedwig and Nino came, and the baron had walked in unannounced. You may imagine the fright I was in. But, after all, it was natural enough that after what had occurred he, as well as the count, should seek an interview with me, to obtain what information I was willing to give. There he stood in his gray clothes, tall and thin and smiling as of yore. CHAPTER XXIV Nino is a man for great emergencies, as I have had occasion to say, and when he realised who the unwelcome visitor was, he acted as promptly as usual. With a face like marble he walked straight across the room to Benoni and faced him. "Baron Benoni," he said, in a low voice, "I warn you that you are most unwelcome here. If you attempt to say any word to my wife, or to force an entrance, I will make short work of you." Benoni eyed him with a sort of pitying curiosity as he made this speech:-- "Do not fear, Signor Cardegna. I came to see Signor Grandi, and to ascertain from him precisely what you have voluntered to tell me. You cannot suppose that I have any object in interrupting the leisure of a great artist, or the privacy of his very felicitous domestic relations. I have not a great deal to say. That is, I have always a great deal to say about everything, but I shall at present confine myself to a very little." "You will be wise," said Nino, scornfully, "and you would be wiser if you confined yourself to nothing at all." "Patience, Signor Cardegna," protested Benoni. "You will readily conceive that I am a little out of breath with the stairs, for I am a very old man." "In that case," I said, from the other side of the room, "I may as well occupy your breathing time by telling you that any remarks you are likely to make to me have been forestalled by the Graf von Lira, who has been with me this morning." Benoni smiled, but both Hedwig and Nino looked at me in surprise. "I only wished to say," returned Benoni, "that I consider you in the light of an interesting phenomenon. Nay, Signor Cardegna, do not look so fierce. I am an old man--" "An old devil," said Nino hotly. "An old fool," said I. "An old reprobate," said Hedwig, from her corner, in deepest indignation. "Precisely," returned Benoni, smilingly. "Many people have been good enough to tell me so before. Thanks, kind friends, I believe you with all my heart. Meanwhile, man, devil, fool, or reprobate, I am very old. I am about to leave Rome for St. Petersburg, and I will take this last opportunity of informing you that in a very singularly long life I have met with only two or three such remarkable instances as this of yours." "Say what you wish to say, and go," said Nino, roughly. "Certainly. And whenever I have met with such an instance I have done my very utmost to reduce it to the common level, and to prove to myself that no such thing really exists. I find it a dangerous thing, however; for an old man in love is likely to exhibit precisely the agreeable and striking peculiarities you have so aptly designated." There was something so odd about his manner and about the things he said that Nino was silent, and allowed him to proceed. "The fact is," he continued, "that love is a very rare thing, nowadays, and is so very generally an abominable sham that I have often amused myself by diabolically devising plans for its destruction. On this occasion I very nearly came to grief myself. The same thing happened to me some time ago--about forty years, I should say,--and I perceive that it has not been forgotten. It may amuse you to look at this paper, which I chance to have with me. Good-morning. I leave for St. Petersburg at once." "I believe you are really the Wandering Jew!" cried Nino, as Benoni left the room. "His name was certainly Ahasuerus," Benoni replied from the outer door. "But it may be a coincidence, after all. Good-day." He was gone. I was the first to take up the paper he had thrown upon a chair. There was a passage marked with a red pencil. I read it aloud:-- "... Baron Benoni, the wealthy banker of St. Petersburg, who was many years ago an inmate of a private lunatic asylum in Paris, is reported to be dangerously insane in Rome." That was all. The paper was the _Paris Figaro_. "Merciful Heavens!" exclaimed Hedwig, "and I was shut up with that madman in Fillettino!" Nino was already by her side, and in his strong arms she forgot Benoni, and Fillettino, and all her troubles. We were all silent for some time. At last Nino spoke. "Is it true that the count was here this morning?" he asked, in a subdued voice, for the extraordinary visit and its sequel had made him grave. "Quite true," I said. "He was here a long time. I would not spoil your pleasure by telling you of it, when you first came." "What did he--what did my father say?" asked Hedwig, presently. "My dear children," I answered, thinking I might well call them so, "he said a great many unpleasant things, so that I offered to fight him if he said any more." At this they both laid hold of me and began to caress me; and one smoothed my hair, and the other embraced me, so that I was half smothered. "Dear Signor Grandi," cried Hedwig, anxiously, "how good and brave you are!" She does not know what a coward I am, you see, and I hope she will never find out, for nothing was ever said to me that gave me half so much pleasure as to be called brave by her, the dear child; and if she never finds out she may say it again, some day. Besides, I really did offer to fight Lira, as I have told you. "And what is he going to do?" asked Nino, in some anxiety. "I do not know. I told him it was all legal, and that he could not touch you at all. I also said you were staying at the Hotel Costanzi, where he might find you if he wished." "Oh! Did you tell him that?" asked Hedwig. "It was quite right," said Nino. "He ought to know, of course. And what else did you tell him?" "Nothing especial, Nino mio. He went away in a sort of ill temper because I would not let him abuse you as much as he pleased." "He may abuse me and be welcome," said Nino. "He has some right to be angry with me. But he will think differently some day." So we chatted away for an hour, enjoying the rest and the peace and the sweet sunshine of the Easter afternoon. But this was the day of interruptions. There was one more visitor to come,--one more scene for me to tell you, and then I have done. A carriage drove down the street and seemed to stop at the door of my house. Nino looked idly out of the window. Suddenly he started. "Hedwig, Hedwig!" he cried, "here is your father coming back!" She would not look out, but stood back from the window, turning pale. If there was one thing she dreaded, it was a meeting with her father. All the old doubt as to whether she had done right seemed to come back to her face in a moment. But Nino turned and looked at her, and his face was so triumphant that she got back her courage, and, clasping his hand, bravely awaited what was to come. I went myself to the door, and heard Lira's slow tread on the stairs. Before long he appeared, and glanced up at me from the steps, which he climbed, one at a time, with his stick. "Is my daughter here?" he asked, as soon as he reached me; and his voice sounded subdued, just as Nino's did when Benoni had gone, I conducted him into the room. It was the strangest meeting. The proud old man bowed stiffly to Hedwig, as though he had never before seen her. They also bent their heads, and there was a silence as of death in the sunny room. "My daughter," said Von Lira at last, and with evident effort, "I wish to have a word with you. These two gentlemen--the younger of whom is now, as I understand it, your husband--may well hear what I wish to say." I moved a chair so that he might sit down, but he stood up to his full height, as though not deigning to be older than the rest. I watched Hedwig, and saw how with both hands she clung to Nino's arm, and her lip trembled, and her face wore the look it had when I saw her in Fillettino. As for Nino, his stern, square jaw was set, and his brow bent, but he showed no emotion, unless the darkness in his face and the heavy shadows beneath his eyes foretold ready anger. "I am no trained, reasoner, like Signor Grandi," said Lira, looking straight at Hedwig, "but I can say plainly what I mean, for all that. There was a good old law in Sparta, whereby disobedient children were put to death without mercy. Sparta was a good country,--very like Prussia, but less great. You know what I mean. You have cruelly disobeyed me,--cruelly, I say, because you have shown me that all my pains and kindness and discipline have been in vain. There is nothing so sorrowful for a good parent as to discover that he has made a mistake." (The canting old proser, I thought, will he never finish?) "The mistake I refer to is not in the way I have dealt with you," he went on, "for on that score I have nothing to reproach myself. But I was mistaken in supposing you loved me. You have despised all I have done for you." "Oh, father! How can you say that?" cried poor Hedwig, clinging closer to Nino. "At all events, you have acted as though you did. On the very day when I promised you to take signal action upon Baron Benoni you left me by stealth, saying in your miserable letter that you had gone to a man who could both love and protect you." "You did neither the one nor the other, sir," said Nino, boldly, "when you required of your daughter to marry such a man as Benoni." "I have just seen Benoni; I saw him also on the night you left me, madam,"--he looked severely at Hedwig,--"and I am reluctantly forced to confess that he is not sane, according to the ordinary standard of the mind." We had all known from the paper of the suspicion that rested on Benoni's sanity, yet somehow there was a little murmur in the room when the old count so clearly stated his opinion. "That does not, however, alter the position in the least," continued Lira, "for you knew nothing of this at the time I desired you to marry him, and I should have found it out soon enough to prevent mischief. Instead of trusting to my judgment you took the law into your own hands, like a most unnatural daughter, as you are, and disappeared in the night with a man whom I consider totally unfit for you, however superior," he added, glancing at Nino, "he may have proved himself in his own rank of life." Nino could not hold his tongue any longer. It seemed absurd that there should be a battle of words when all the realities of the affair were accomplished facts; but for his life he could not help speaking. "Sir," he said, addressing Lira, "I rejoice that this opportunity is given me of once more speaking clearly to you. Months ago, when I was betrayed into a piece of rash violence, for which I at once apologised to you, I told you under somewhat peculiar circumstances that I would yet marry your daughter, if she would have me. I stand here to-day with her by my side, my wedded wife, to tell you that I have kept my word, and that she is mine by her own free consent. Have you any cause to show why she is not my wedded wife? If so, show it. But I will not let you stand there and say bitter and undeserved things to this same wife of mine, abusing the name of father and the terms 'authority' and 'love,' forsooth! And if you wish to take vengeance on me personally, do so if you can. I will not fight duels with you now, as I was ready to do the day before yesterday. For then--so short a time ago--I had but offered her my life, and so that I gave it for her I cared not how nor when. But now she has taken me for hers, and I have no more right to let you kill me than I have to kill myself, seeing that she and I are one. Therefore, good sir, if you have words of conciliation to speak, speak them; but if you would only tell her harsh and cruel things, I say you shall not!" As Nino uttered these hot words in good, plain Italian, they had a bold and honest sound of strength that was glorious to hear. A weaker man than the old count would have fallen into a fury of rage, and perhaps would have done some foolish violence. But he stood silent, eying his antagonist coolly, and when the words were spoken he answered. "Signor Cardegna," he said, "the fact that I am here ought to be to you the fullest demonstration that I acknowledge your marriage with my daughter. I have certainly no intention of prolonging a painful interview. When I have said that my child has disobeyed me, I have said all that the question holds. As for the future of you two, I have naturally nothing more to say about it. I cannot love a disobedient child, nor ever shall again. For the present, we will part; and if at the end of a year my daughter is happy with you, and desires to see me, I shall make no objection to such a meeting. I need not say that if she is unhappy with you my house will always be open to her, if she chooses to return to it." "No, sir, most emphatically, you need not say it!" cried Nino, with blazing eyes. Lira took no notice of him, but turned to go. Hedwig would try once more to soften him, though she knew it was useless. "Father," she said, in tones of passionate entreaty, "will you not say you wish me well? Will you not forgive me?" She sprang to him and would have held him back. "I wish you no ill," he answered shortly, pushing her aside, and he marched to the door, where he paused, bowed as stiffly as ever, and disappeared. It was very rude of us, perhaps, but no one accompanied him to the stairs. As for me, I would not have believed it possible that any human being could be so hard and relentlessly virtuous; and if I had wondered at first that Hedwig should have so easily made up her mind to flight, I was no longer surprised when I saw with my own eyes how he could treat her. I cannot, indeed, conceive how she could have borne it so long, for the whole character of the man came out, hard, cold, and narrow,--such a character as must be more hideous than any description can paint it, when seen in the closeness of daily conversation. But when he was gone the sun appeared to shine again, as he had shone all day, though it had sometimes seemed so dark. The storms were in that little room. As Lira went out, Nino, who had followed Hedwig closely, caught her in his arms, and once more her face rested on his broad breast. I sat down and pretended to be busy with a pile of old papers that lay near by on the table, but I could hear what they said. The dear children, they forgot all about me. "I am so sorry, dear one," said Nino soothingly. "I know you are, Nino. But it cannot be helped." "But are you sorry, too, Hedwig?" he asked, stroking her hair. "That my father is angry? Yes. I wish he were not," said she, looking wistfully toward the door. "No, not that," said Nino. "Sorry that you left him, I mean." "Ah, no, I am not sorry for that. Oh, Nino, dear Nino, your love is best." And again she hid her face. "We will go away at once, darling," he said, after a minute, during which I did not see what was going on. "Would you like to go away?" Hedwig moved her head to say "Yes." "We will go, then, sweetheart. Where shall it be?" asked Nino, trying to distract her thoughts from what had just occurred. "London? Paris? Vienna? I can sing anywhere now, but you must always choose, love." "Anywhere, anywhere; only always with you, Nino, till we die together." "Always, till we die, my beloved," he repeated. The small white hands stole up and clasped about his broad throat, tenderly drawing his face to hers, and hers to his. And it will be "always," till they die together, I think. * * * * * This is the story of that Roman singer whose great genius is making such a stir in the world. I have told it to you, because he is my own dear boy, as I have often said in these pages; and because people must not think that he did wrong to carry Hedwig von Lira away from her father, nor that Hedwig was so very unfilial and heartless. I know that they were both right, and the day will come when old Lira will acknowledge it. He is a hard old man, but he must have some affection for her; and if not, he will surely have the vanity to own so famous an artist as Nino for his son-in-law. I do not know how it was managed, for Hedwig was certainly a heretic when she left her father, though she was an angel, as Nino said. But before they left Rome for Vienna there was a little wedding, early in the morning, in our parish church, for I was there; and De Pretis, who was really responsible for the whole thing, got some of his best singers from St. Peter and St. John on the Lateran to come and sing a mass over the two. I think that our good Mother Church found room for the dear child very quickly, and that is how it happened. They are happy and glad together, those two hearts that never knew love save for each other, and they will be happy always. For it was nothing but love with them from the very first, and so it must be to the very last. Perhaps you will say that there is nothing in this story either but love. And if so, it is well; for where there is naught else there can surely be no sinning, or wrongdoing, or weakness, or meanness; nor yet anything that is not quite pure and undefiled. Just as I finish this writing, there comes a letter from Nino to say that he has taken steps about buying Serveti, and that I must go there in the spring with Mariuccia and make it ready for him. Dear Serveti, of course I will go. THE END 
22455	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 22455-h.htm or 22455-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/2/4/5/22455/22455-h/22455-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/2/4/5/22455/22455-h.zip) The Complete Works of F. Marion Crawford ADAM JOHNSTONE'S SON by F. MARION CRAWFORD With Frontispiece [Illustration: "I SOMETIMES THINK THAT ONE'S PAST LIFE IS WRITTEN IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE," SAID MRS. BOWRING, SHUTTING THE BOOK SHE HELD.] P. F. Collier & Son New York Copyright 1895, 1896, 1897 by F. Marion Crawford All Rights Reserved ADAM JOHNSTONE'S SON CHAPTER I "I sometimes think that one's past life is written in a foreign language," said Mrs. Bowring, shutting the book she held, but keeping the place with one smooth, thin forefinger, while her still, blue eyes turned from her daughter's face towards the hazy hills that hemmed the sea thirty miles to the southward. "When one wants to read it, one finds ever so many words which one cannot understand, and one has to look them out in a sort of unfamiliar dictionary, and try to make sense of the sentences as best one can. Only the big things are clear." Clare glanced at her mother, smiling innocently and half mechanically, without much definite expression, and quite without curiosity. Youth can be in sympathy with age, while not understanding it, while not suspecting, perhaps, that there is anything to understand beyond the streaked hair and the pale glance and the little torture-lines which paint the portrait of fifty years for the eyes of twenty. Every woman knows the calendar of her own face. The lines are years, one for such and such a year, one for such and such another; the streaks are months, perhaps, or weeks, or sometimes hours, where the tear-storms have bleached the brown, the black, or the gold. "This little wrinkle--it was so very little then!" she says. "It came when I doubted for a day. There is a shadow there, just at each temple, where the cloud passed, when my sun went out. The bright hair grew lower on my forehead. It is worn away, as though by a crown, that was not of gold. There are hollows there, near the ears, on each side, since that week when love was done to death before my eyes and died--intestate--leaving his substance to be divided amongst indifferent heirs. They wrangle for what he has left, but he himself is gone, beyond hearing or caring, and, thank God, beyond suffering. But the marks are left." Youth looks on and sees alike the ill-healed wounds of the martyrdom and the rough scars of sin's scourges, and does not understand. Clare Bowring smiled, without definite expression, just because her mother had spoken and seemed to ask for sympathy; and then she looked away for a few moments. She had a bit of work in her hands, a little bag which she was making out of a piece of old Italian damask, to hold a needle-case and thread and scissors. She had stopped sewing, and instinctively waited before beginning again, as though to acknowledge by a little affectionate deference that her mother had said something serious and had a right to expect attention. But she did not answer, for she could not understand. Her own young life was vividly clear to her; so very vividly clear, that it sometimes made her think of a tiresome chromolithograph. All the facts and thoughts of it were so near that she knew them by heart, as people come to know the patterns of the wall-paper in the room they inhabit. She had nothing to hide, nothing to regret, nothing which she thought she should care very much to recall, though she remembered everything. A girl is very young when she can recollect distinctly every frock she has had, the first long one, and the second, and the third; and the first ball gown, and the second, and no third, because that is still in the future, and a particular pair of gloves which did not fit, and a certain pair of shoes she wore so long because they were so comfortable, and the precise origin of every one of the few trinkets and bits of jewellery she possesses. That was Clare Bowring's case. She could remember everything and everybody in her life. But her father was not in her memories, and there was a little motionless grey cloud in the place where he should have been. He had been a soldier, and had been killed in an obscure skirmish with black men, in one of England's obscure but expensive little wars. Death is always very much the same thing, and it seems unfair that the guns of Balaclava should still roar "glory" while the black man's quick spear-thrust only spells "dead," without comment. But glory in death is even more a matter of luck than fame in life. At all events, Captain Bowring, as brave a gentleman as ever faced fire, had perished like so many other brave gentlemen of his kind, in a quiet way, without any fuss, beyond killing half a dozen or so of his assailants, and had left his widow the glory of receiving a small pension in return for his blood, and that was all. Some day, when the dead are reckoned, and the manner of their death noted, poor Bowring may count for more than some of his friends who died at home from a constitutional inability to enjoy all the good things fortune set before them, complicated by a disposition incapable of being satisfied with only a part of the feast. But at the time of this tale they counted for more than he; for they had been constrained to leave behind them what they could not consume, while he, poor man, had left very little besides the aforesaid interest in the investment of his blood, in the form of a pension to his widow, and the small grey cloud in the memory of his girl-child, in the place where he should have been. For he had been killed when she had been a baby. The mother and daughter were lonely, if not alone in the world; for when one has no money to speak of, and no relations at all, the world is a lonely place, regarded from the ordinary point of view--which is, of course, the true one. They had no home in England, and they generally lived abroad, more or less, in one or another of the places of society's departed spirits, such as Florence. They had not, however, entered into Limbo without hope, since they were able to return to the social earth when they pleased, and to be alive again, and the people they met abroad sometimes asked them to stop with them at home, recognising the fact that they were still socially living and casting shadows. They were sure of half a hundred friendly faces in London and of half a dozen hospitable houses in the country; and that is not little for people who have nothing wherewith to buy smiles and pay for invitations. Clare had more than once met women of her mother's age and older, who had looked at her rather thoughtfully and longer than had seemed quite natural, saying very quietly that her father had been "a great friend of theirs." But those were not the women whom her mother liked best, and Clare sometimes wondered whether the little grey cloud in her memory, which represented her father, might not be there to hide away something more human than an ideal. Her mother spoke of him, sometimes gravely, sometimes with a far-away smile, but never tenderly. The smile did not mean much, Clare thought. People often spoke of dead people with a sort of faint look of uncertain beatitude--the same which many think appropriate to the singing of hymns. The absence of anything like tenderness meant more. The gravity was only natural and decent. "Your father was a brave man," Mrs. Bowring sometimes said. "Your father was very handsome," she would say. "He was very quick-tempered," she perhaps added. But that was all. Clare had a friend whose husband had died young and suddenly, and her friend's heart was broken. She did not speak as Mrs. Bowring did. When the latter said that her past life seemed to be written in a foreign language, Clare did not understand, but she knew that the something of which the translation was lost, as it were, belonged to her father. She always felt an instinctive desire to defend him, and to make her mother feel more sympathy for his memory. Yet, at the same time, she loved her mother in such a way as made her feel that if there had been any trouble, her father must have been in the wrong. Then she was quite sure that she did not understand, and she held her tongue, and smiled vaguely, and waited a moment before she went on with her work. Besides, she was not at all inclined to argue anything at present. She had been ill, and her mother was worn out with taking care of her, and they had come to Amalfi to get quite well and strong again in the air of the southern spring. They had settled themselves for a couple of months in the queer hotel, which was once a monastery, perched high up under the still higher overhanging rocks, far above the beach and the busy little town; and now, in the May afternoon, they sat side by side under the trellis of vines on the terraced walk, their faces turned southward, in the shade of the steep mountain behind them; the sea was blue at their feet, and quite still, but farther out the westerly breeze that swept past the Conca combed it to crisp roughness; then it was less blue to southward, and gradually it grew less real, till it lost colour and melted into a sky-haze that almost hid the southern mountains and the lizard-like head of the far Licosa. A bit of coarse faded carpet lay upon the ground under the two ladies' feet, and the shady air had a soft green tinge in it from the young vine-leaves overhead. At first sight one would have said that both were delicate, if not ill. Both were fair, though in different degrees, and both were pale and quiet, and looked a little weary. The young girl sat in the deep straw chair, hatless, with bare white hands that held her work. Her thick flaxen hair, straightly parted and smoothed away from its low growth on the forehead, half hid small fresh ears, unpierced. Long lashes, too white for beauty, cast very faint light shadows as she looked down; but when she raised the lids, the dark-blue eyes were bright, with wide pupils and a straight look, quick to fasten, slow to let go, never yet quite softened, and yet never mannishly hard. But, in its own way, perhaps, there is no look so hard as the look of maiden innocence can be. There can even be something terrible in its unconscious stare. There is the spirit of God's own fearful directness in it. Half quibbling with words perhaps, but surely with half truth, one might say that youth "is," while all else "has been"; and that youth alone possesses the present, too innocent to know it all, yet too selfish even to doubt of what is its own--too sure of itself to doubt anything, to fear anything, or even truly to pray for anything. There is no equality and no community in virtue; it is only original sin that makes us all equal and human. Old Lucifer, fallen, crushed, and damned, knows the worth of forgiveness--not young Michael, flintily hard and monumentally upright in his steel coat, a terror to the devil himself. And youth can have something of that archangelic rigidity. Youth is not yet quite human. But there was much in Clare Bowring's face which told that she was to be quite human some day. The lower features were not more than strong enough--the curved lips would be fuller before long, the small nostrils, the gentle chin, were a little sharper than was natural, now, from illness, but round in outline and not over prominent; and the slender throat was very delicate and feminine. Only in the dark-blue eyes there was still that unabashed, quick glance and long-abiding straightness, and innocent hardness, and the unconscious selfishness of the uncontaminated. Standing on her feet, she would have seemed rather tall than short, though really but of average height. Seated, she looked tall, and her glance was a little downward to most people's eyes. Just now she was too thin, and seemed taller than she was. But the fresh light was already in the young white skin, and there was a soft colour in the lobes of the little ears, as the white leaves of daisies sometimes blush all round their tips. The nervous white hands held the little bag lightly, and twined it and sewed it deftly, for Clare was clever with her fingers. Possibly they looked even a little whiter than they were, by contrast with the dark stuff of her dress, and illness had made them shrink at the lower part, robbing them of their natural strength, though not of their grace. There is a sort of refinement, not of taste, nor of talent, but of feeling and thought, and it shows itself in the hands of those who have it, more than in any feature of the face, in a sort of very true proportion between the hand and its fingers, between each finger and its joints, each joint and each nail; a something which says that such a hand could not do anything ignoble, could not take meanly, nor strike cowardly, nor press falsely; a quality of skin neither rough and coarse, nor over smooth like satin, but cool and pleasant to the touch as fine silk that is closely woven. The fingers of such hands are very straight and very elastic, but not supple like young snakes, as some fingers are, and the cushion of the hand is not over full nor heavy, nor yet shrunken and undeveloped as in the wasted hands of old Asiatic races. In outward appearance there was that sort of inherited likeness between mother and daughter which is apt to strike strangers more than persons of the same family. Mrs. Bowring had been beautiful in her youth--far more beautiful than Clare--but her face had been weaker, in spite of the regularity of the features and their faultless proportion. Life had given them an acquired strength, but not of the lovely kind, and the complexion was faded, and the hair had darkened, and the eyes had paled. Some faces are beautified by suffering. Mrs. Bowring's face was not of that class. It was as though a thin, hard mask had been formed and closely moulded upon it, as the action of the sea overlays some sorts of soft rock with a surface thin as paper but as hard as granite. In spite of the hardness, the features were not really strong. There was refinement in them, however, of the same kind which the daughter had, and as much, though less pleasing. A fern--a spray of maiden's-hair--loses much of its beauty but none of its refinement when petrified in limestone or made fossil in coal. As they sat there, side by side, mother and daughter, where they had sat every day for a week or more, they had very little to say. They had exhausted the recapitulation of Clare's illness, during the first days of her convalescence. It was not the first time that they had been in Amalfi, and they had enumerated its beauties to each other, and renewed their acquaintance with it from a distance, looking down from the terrace upon the low-lying town, and the beach and the painted boats, and the little crowd that swarmed out now and then like ants, very busy and very much in a hurry, running hither and thither, disappearing presently as by magic, and leaving the shore to the sun and the sea. The two had spoken of a little excursion to Ravello, and they meant to go thither as soon as they should be strong enough; but that was not yet. And meanwhile they lived through the quiet days, morning, meal times, evening, bed time, and round again, through the little hotel's programme of possibility; eating what was offered them, but feasting royally on air and sunshine and spring sweetness; moistening their lips in strange southern wines, but drinking deep draughts of the rich southern air-life; watching the people of all sorts and of many conditions, who came and stayed a day and went away again, but social only in each other's lives, and even that by sympathy rather than in speech. A corner of life's show was before them, and they kept their places on the vine-sheltered terrace and looked on. But it seemed as though nothing could ever possibly happen there to affect the direction of their own quietly moving existence. Seeing that her daughter did not say anything in answer to the remark about the past being written in a foreign language, Mrs. Bowring looked at the distant sky-haze thoughtfully for a few moments, then opened her book again where her thin forefinger had kept the place, and began to read. There was no disappointment in her face at not being understood, for she had spoken almost to herself and had expected no reply. No change of expression softened or accentuated the quiet hardness which overspread her naturally gentle face. But the thought was evidently still present in her mind, for her attention did not fix itself upon her book, and presently she looked at her daughter, as the latter bent her head over the little bag she was making. The young girl felt her mother's eyes upon her, looked up herself, and smiled faintly, almost mechanically, as before. It was a sort of habit they both had--a way of acknowledging one another's presence in the world. But this time it seemed to Clare that there was a question in the look, and after she had smiled she spoke. "No," she said, "I don't understand how anybody can forget the past. It seems to me that I shall always remember why I did things, said things, and thought things. I should, if I lived a hundred years, I'm quite sure." "Perhaps you have a better memory than I," answered Mrs. Bowring. "But I don't think it is exactly a question of memory either. I can remember what I said, and did, and thought, well--twenty years ago. But it seems to me very strange that I should have thought, and spoken, and acted, just as I did. After all isn't it natural? They tell us that our bodies are quite changed in less time than that." "Yes--but the soul does not change," said Clare with conviction. "The soul--" Mrs. Bowring repeated the word, but said nothing more, and her still, blue eyes wandered from her daughter's face and again fixed themselves on an imaginary point of the far southern distance. "At least," said Clare, "I was always taught so." She smiled again, rather coldly, as though admitting that such teaching might not be infallible after all. "It is best to believe it," said her mother quietly, but in a colourless voice. "Besides," she added, with a change of tone, "I do believe it, you know. One is always the same, in the main things. It is the point of view that changes. The best picture in the world does not look the same in every light, does it?" "No, I suppose not. You may like it in one light and not in another, and in one place and not in another." "Or at one time of life, and not at another," added Mrs. Bowring, thoughtfully. "I can't imagine that." Clare paused a moment. "Of course you are thinking of people," she continued presently, with a little more animation. "One always means people, when one talks in that way. And that is what I cannot quite understand. It seems to me that if I liked people once I should always like them." Her mother looked at her. "Yes--perhaps you would," she said, and she relapsed into silence. Clare's colour did not change. No particular person was in her thoughts, and she had, as it were, given her own general and inexperienced opinion of her own character, quite honestly and without affectation. "I don't know which are the happier," said Mrs. Bowring at last, "the people who change, or the people who can't." "You mean faithful or unfaithful people, I suppose," observed the young girl with grave innocence. A very slight flush rose in Mrs. Bowring's thin cheeks, and the quiet eyes grew suddenly hard, but Clare was busy with her work again and did not see. "Those are big words," said the older woman in a low voice. "Well--yes--of course!" answered Clare. "So they ought to be! It is always the main question, isn't it? Whether you can trust a person or not, I mean." "That is one question. The other is, whether the person deserves to be trusted." "Oh--it's the same thing!" "Not exactly." "You know what I mean, mother. Besides, I don't believe that any one who can't trust is really to be trusted. Do you?" "My dear Clare!" exclaimed Mrs. Bowring. "You can't put life into a nutshell, like that!" "No. I suppose not, though if a thing is true at all it must be always true." "Saving exceptions." "Are there any exceptions to truth?" asked Clare incredulously. "Truth isn't grammar--nor the British Constitution." "No. But then, we don't know everything. What we call truth is what we know. It is only what we know. All that we don't know, but which is, is true, too--especially, all that we don't know about people with whom we have to live." "Oh--if people have secrets!" The young girl laughed idly. "But you and I, for instance, mother--we have no secrets from each other, have we? Well? Why should any two people who love each other have secrets? And if they have none, why, then, they know all that there is to be known about one another, and each trusts the other, and has a right to be trusted, because everything is known--and everything is the whole truth. It seems to me that is simple enough, isn't it?" Mrs. Bowring laughed in her turn. It was rather a hard little laugh, but Clare was used to the sound of it, and joined in it, feeling that she had vanquished her mother in argument, and settled one of the most important questions of life for ever. "What a pretty steamer!" exclaimed Mrs. Bowring suddenly. "It's a yacht," said Clare after a moment. "The flag is English, too. I can see it distinctly." She laid down her work, and her mother closed her book upon her forefinger again, and they watched the graceful white vessel as she glided slowly in from the Conca, which she had rounded while they had been talking. "It's very big, for a yacht," observed Mrs. Bowring. "They are coming here." "They have probably come round from Naples to spend a day," said Clare. "We are sure to have them up here. What a nuisance!" "Yes. Everybody comes up here who comes to Amalfi at all. I hope they won't stay long." "There is no fear of that," answered Clare. "I heard those people saying the other day that this is not a place where a vessel can lie any length of time. You know how the sea sometimes breaks on the beach." Mrs. Bowring and her daughter desired of all things to be quiet. The visitors who came, stayed a few days at the hotel, and went away again, were as a rule tourists or semi-invalids in search of a climate, and anything but noisy. But people coming in a smart English yacht would probably be society people, and as such Mrs. Bowring wished that they would keep away. They would behave as though the place belonged to them, so long as they remained; they would get all the attention of the proprietor and of the servants for the time being; and they would make everybody feel shabby and poor. The Bowrings were poor, indeed, but they were not shabby. It was perhaps because they were well aware that nobody could mistake them for average tourists that they resented the coming of a party which belonged to what is called society. Mrs. Bowring had a strong aversion to making new acquaintances, and even disliked being thrown into the proximity of people who might know friends of hers, who might have heard of her, and who might talk about her and her daughter. Clare said that her mother's shyness in this respect was almost morbid; but she had unconsciously caught a little of it herself, and, like her mother, she was often quite uselessly on her guard against strangers, of the kind whom she might possibly be called upon to know, though she was perfectly affable and at her ease with those whom she looked upon as undoubtedly her social inferiors. They were not mistaken in their prediction that the party from the yacht would come up to the Cappuccini. Half an hour after the yacht had dropped anchor the terrace was invaded. They came up in twos and threes, nearly a dozen of them, men and women, smart-looking people with healthy, sun-burnt faces, voices loud from the sea as voices become on a long voyage--or else very low indeed. By contrast with the frequenters of Amalfi they all seemed to wear overpoweringly good clothes and perfectly new hats and caps, and their russet shoes were resplendent. They moved as though everything belonged to them, from the wild crests of the hills above to the calm blue water below, and the hotel servants did their best to foster the agreeable illusion. They all wanted chairs, and tables, and things to drink, and fruit. One very fair little lady with hard, restless eyes, and clad in white serge, insisted upon having grapes, and no one could convince her that grapes were not ripe in May. "It's quite absurd!" she objected. "Of course they're ripe! We had the most beautiful grapes at breakfast at Leo Cairngorm's the other day, so of course they must have them here. Brook! Do tell the man not to be absurd!" "Man!" said the member of the party she had last addressed. "Do not be absurd!" "Sì, Signore," replied the black-whiskered Amalfitan servant with alacrity. "You see!" cried the little lady triumphantly. "I told you so! You must insist with these people. You can always get what you want. Brook, where's my fan?" She settled upon a straw chair--like a white butterfly. The others walked on towards the end of the terrace, but the young man whom she called Brook stood beside her, slowly lighting a cigarette, not five paces from Mrs. Bowring and Clare. "I'm sure I don't know where your fan is," he said, with a short laugh, as he threw the end of the match over the wall. "Well then, look for it!" she answered, rather sharply. "I'm awfully hot, and I want it." He glanced at her before he spoke again. "I don't know where it is," he said quietly, but there was a shade of annoyance in his face. "I gave it to you just as we were getting into the boat," answered the lady in white. "Do you mean to say that you left it on board?" "I think you must be mistaken," said the young man. "You must have given it to somebody else." "It isn't likely that I should mistake you for any one else--especially to-day." "Well--I haven't got it. I'll get you one in the hotel, if you'll have patience for a moment." He turned and strode along the terrace towards the house. Clare Bowring had been watching the two, and she looked after the man as he moved rapidly away. He walked well, for he was a singularly well-made young fellow, who looked as though he were master of every inch of himself. She had liked his brown face and bright blue eyes, too, and somehow she resented the way in which the little lady ordered him about. She looked round and saw that her mother was watching him too. Then, as he disappeared, they both looked at the lady. She too had followed him with her eyes, and as she turned her face sideways to the Bowrings Clare thought that she was biting her lip, as though something annoyed her or hurt her. She kept her eyes on the door. Presently the young man reappeared, bearing a palm-leaf fan in his hand and blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke into the air. Instantly the lady smiled, and the smile brightened as he came near. "Thank you--dear," she said as he gave her the fan. The last word was spoken in a lower tone, and could certainly not have been heard by the other members of the party, but it reached Clare's ears, where she sat. "Not at all," answered the young man quietly. But as he spoke he glanced quickly about him, and his eyes met Clare's. She fancied that she saw a look of startled annoyance in them, and he coloured a little under his tan. He had a very manly face, square and strong. He bent down a little and said something in a low voice. The lady in white half turned her head, impatiently, but did not look quite round. Clare saw, however, that her expression had changed again, and that the smile was gone. "If I don't care, why should you?" were the next words Clare heard, spoken impatiently and petulantly. The man who answered to the name of Brook said nothing, but sat down on the parapet of the terrace, looking out over his shoulder to seaward. A few seconds later he threw away his half-smoked cigarette. "I like this place," said the lady in white, quite audibly. "I think I shall send on board for my things and stay here." The young man started as though he had been struck, and faced her in silence. He could not help seeing Clare Bowring beyond her. "I'm going indoors, mother," said the young girl, rising rather abruptly. "I'm sure it must be time for tea. Won't you come too?" The young man did not answer his companion's remark, but turned his face away again and looked seaward, listening to the retreating footsteps of the two ladies. On the threshold of the hotel Clare felt a strong desire to look back again and see whether he had moved, but she was ashamed of it and went in, holding her head high and looking straight before her. CHAPTER II The people from the yacht belonged to that class of men and women whose uncertainty, or indifference, about the future leads them to take possession of all they can lay hands on in the present, with a view to squeezing the world like a lemon for such enjoyment as it may yield. So long as they tarried at the old hotel, it was their private property. The Bowrings were forgotten; the two English old maids had no existence; the Russian invalid got no more hot water for his tea; the plain but obstinately inquiring German family could get no more information; even the quiet young French couple--a honeymoon couple--sank into insignificance. The only protest came from an American, whose wife was ill and never appeared, and who staggered the landlord by asking what he would sell the whole place for on condition of vacating the premises before dinner. "They will be gone before dinner," the proprietor answered. But they did not go. When it was already late somebody saw the moon rise, almost full, and suggested that the moonlight would be very fine, and that it would be amusing to dine at the hotel table and spend the evening on the terrace and go on board late. "I shall," said the little lady in white serge, "whatever the rest of you do. Brook! Send somebody on board to get a lot of cloaks and shawls and things. I am sure it is going to be cold. Don't go away! I want you to take me for a walk before dinner, so as to be nice and hungry, you know." For some reason or other, several of the party laughed, and from their tone one might have guessed that they were in the habit of laughing, or were expected to laugh, at the lady's speeches. And every one agreed that it would be much nicer to spend the evening on the terrace, and that it was a pity that they could not dine out of doors because it would be far too cool. Then the lady in white and the man called Brook began to walk furiously up and down in the fading light, while the lady talked very fast in a low voice, except when she was passing within earshot of some of the others, and the man looked straight before him, answering occasionally in monosyllables. Then there was more confusion in the hotel, and the Russian invalid expressed his opinion to the two English old maids, with whom he fraternised, that dinner would be an hour late, thanks to their compatriots. But they assumed an expression appropriate when speaking of the peerage, and whispered that the yacht must belong to the Duke of Orkney, who, they had read, was cruising in the Mediterranean, and that the Duke was probably the big man in grey clothes who had a gold cigarette case. But in all this they were quite mistaken. And their repeated examinations of the hotel register were altogether fruitless, because none of the party had written their names in it. The old maids, however, were quite happy and resigned to waiting for their dinner. They presently retired to attempt for themselves what stingy nature had refused to do for them in the way of adornment, for the dinner was undoubtedly to be an occasion of state, and their eyes were to see the glory of a lord. The party sat together at one end of the table, which extended the whole length of the high and narrow vaulted hall, while the guests staying in the hotel filled the opposite half. Most of the guests were more subdued than usual, and the party from the yacht seemed noisy by contrast. The old maids strained their ears to catch a name here and there. Clare and her mother talked little. The Russian invalid put up a single eyeglass, looked long and curiously at each of the new comers in turn, and then did not vouchsafe them another glance. The German family criticised the food severely, and then got into a fierce discussion about Bismarck and the Pope, in the course of which they forgot the existence of their fellow-diners, but not of their dinner. Clare could not help glancing once or twice at the couple that had attracted her attention, and she found herself wondering what their relation to each other could be, and whether they were engaged to be married. Somebody called the lady in white "Mrs. Crosby." Then somebody else called her "Lady Fan"--which was very confusing. "Brook" never called her anything. Clare saw him fill his glass and look at Lady Fan very hard before he drank, and then Lady Fan did the same thing. Nevertheless they seemed to be perpetually quarrelling over little things. When Brook was tired of being bullied, he calmly ignored his companion, turned from her, and talked in a low tone to a dark woman who had been a beauty and was the most thoroughly well-dressed of the extremely well-dressed party. Lady Fan bit her lip for a moment, and then said something at which all the others laughed--except Brook and the advanced beauty, who continued to talk in undertones. To Clare's mind there was about them all, except Brook, a little dash of something which was not "quite, quite," as the world would have expressed it. In her opinion Lady Fan was distinctly disagreeable, whoever she might be--as distinctly so as Brook was the contrary. And somehow the girl could not help resenting the woman's way of treating him. It offended her oddly and jarred upon her good taste, as something to which she was not at all accustomed in her surroundings. Lady Fan was very exquisite in her outward ways, and her speech was of the proper smartness. Yet everything she did and said was intensely unpleasant to Clare. The Bowrings and the regular guests finished their dinner before the yachting party, and rose almost in a body, with a clattering of their light chairs on the tiled floor. Only the English old maids kept their places a little longer than the rest, and took some more filberts and half a glass of white wine, each. They could not keep their eyes from the party at the other end of the table, and their faces grew a little redder as they sat there. Clare and her mother had to go round the long table to get out, being the last on their side, and they were also the last to reach the door. Again the young girl felt that strong desire to turn her head and look back at Brook and Lady Fan. She noticed it this time, as something she had never felt until that afternoon, but she would not yield to it. She walked on, looking straight at the back of her mother's head. Then she heard quick footsteps on the tiles behind her, and Brook's voice. "I beg your pardon," he was saying, "you have dropped your shawl." She turned quickly, and met his eyes as he stopped close to her, holding out the white chudder which had slipped to the floor unnoticed when she had risen from her seat. She took it mechanically and thanked him. Instinctively looking past him down the long hall, she saw that the little lady in white had turned in her seat and was watching her. Brook made a slight bow and was gone again in an instant. Then Clare followed her mother and went out. "Let us go out behind the house," she said when they were in the broad corridor. "There will be moonlight there, and those people will monopolise the terrace when they have finished dinner." At the western end of the old monastery there is a broad open space, between the buildings and the overhanging rocks, at the base of which there is a deep recess, almost amounting to a cave, in which stands a great black cross planted in a pedestal of whitewashed masonry. A few steps lead up to it. As the moon rose higher the cross was in the shadow, while the platform and the buildings were in the full light. The two women ascended the steps and sat down upon a stone seat. "What a night!" exclaimed the young girl softly. Her mother silently bent her head, but neither spoke again for some time. The moonlight before them was almost dazzling, and the air was warm. Beyond the stone parapet, far below, the tideless sea was silent and motionless under the moon. A crooked fig-tree, still leafless, though the little figs were already shaped on it, cast its intricate shadow upon the platform. Very far away, a boy was singing a slow minor chant in a high voice. The peace was almost disquieting--there was something intensely expectant in it, as though the night were in love, and its heart beating. Clare sat still, her hand upon her mother's thin wrist, her lips just parted a little, her eyes wide and filled with moon-dreams. She had almost lost herself in unworded fancies when her mother moved and spoke. "I had quite forgotten a letter I was writing," she said. "I must finish it. Stay here, and I will come back again presently." She rose, and Clare watched her slim dark figure and the long black shadow that moved with it across the platform towards the open door of the hotel. But when it had disappeared the white fancies came flitting back through the silent light, and in the shade the young eyes fixed themselves quietly to meet the vision and see it all, and to keep it for ever if she could. She did not know what it was that she saw, but it was beautiful, and what she felt was on a sudden as the realisation of something she had dimly desired in vain. Yet in itself it was nothing realised; it was perhaps only the certainty of longing for something all heart and no name, and it was happiness to long for it. For the first intuition of love is only an exquisite foretaste, a delight in itself, as far from the bitter hunger of love starving as a girl's faintness is from a cruel death. The light was dazzling, and yet it was full of gentle things that smiled, somehow, without faces. She was not very imaginative, perhaps, else the faces might have come too, and voices, and all, save the one reality which had as yet neither voice nor face, nor any name. It was all the something that love was to mean, somewhere, some day--the airy lace of a maiden life-dream, in which no figure was yet wrought amongst the fancy-threads that the May moon was weaving in the soft spring night. There was no sadness in it, at all, for there was no memory, and without memory there can be no sadness, any more than there can be fear where there is no anticipation, far or near. Most happiness is really of the future, and most grief, if we would be honest, is of the past. The young girl sat still and dreamed that the old world was as young as she, and that in its soft bosom there were exquisite sweetnesses untried, and soft yearnings for a beautiful unknown, and little pulses that could quicken with foretasted joy which only needed face and name to take angelic shape of present love. The world could not be old while she was young. And she had her youth and knew it, and it was almost all she had. It seemed much to her, and she had no unsatisfiable craving for the world's stuff in which to attire it. In that, at least, her mother had been wise, teaching her to believe and to enjoy, rather than to doubt and criticise, and if there had been anything to hide from her it had been hidden, even beyond suspicion of its presence. Perhaps the armour of knowledge is of little worth until doubt has shaken the heart and weakened the joints, and broken the terrible steadfastness of perfect innocence in the eyes. Clare knew that she was young, she felt that the white dream was sweet, and she believed that the world's heart was clean and good. All good was natural and eternal, lofty and splendid as an archangel in the light. God had made evil as a background of shadows to show how good the light was. Every one could come and stand in the light if he chose, for the mere trouble of moving. It seemed so simple. She wondered why everybody could not see it as she did. A flash of white in the white moonlight disturbed her meditations. Two people had come out of the door and were walking slowly across the platform side by side. They were not speaking, and their footsteps crushed the light gravel sharply as they came forward. Clare recognised Brook and Lady Fan. Seated in the shadow on one side of the great black cross and a little behind it, she could see their faces distinctly, but she had no idea that they were dazzled by the light and could not see her at all in her dark dress. She fancied that they were looking at her as they came on. The shadow of the rock had crept forward upon the open space, while she had been dreaming. The two turned, just before they reached it, and then stood still, instead of walking back. "Brook--" began Lady Fan, as though she were going to say something. But she checked herself and looked up at him quickly, chilled already by his humour. Clare thought that the woman's voice shook a little, as she pronounced the name. Brook did not turn his head nor look down. "Yes?" he said, with a sort of interrogation. "What were you going to say?" he asked after a moment's pause. She seemed to hesitate, for she did not answer at once. Then she glanced towards the hotel and looked down. "You won't come back with us?" she asked, at last, in a pleading voice. "I can't," he answered. "You know I can't. I've got to wait for them here." "Yes, I know. But they are not here yet. I don't believe they are coming for two or three days. You could perfectly well come on to Genoa with us, and get back by rail." "No," said Brook quietly, "I can't." "Would you, if you could?" asked the lady in white, and her tone began to change again. "What a question!" he laughed drily. "It is an odd question, isn't it, coming from me?" Her voice grew hard, and she stopped. "Well--you know what it means," she added abruptly. "You may as well answer it and have it over. It is very easy to say you would not, if you could. I shall understand all the rest, and you will be saved the trouble of saying things--things which I should think you would find it rather hard to say." "Couldn't you say them, instead?" he asked slowly, and looking at her for the first time. He spoke gravely and coldly. "I!" There was indignation, real or well affected, in the tone. "Yes, you," answered the man, with a shade less coldness, but as gravely as before. "You never loved me." Lady Fan's small white face was turned to his instantly, and Clare could see the fierce, hurt expression in the eyes and about the quivering mouth. The young girl suddenly realised that she was accidentally overhearing something which was very serious to the two speakers. It flashed upon her that they had not seen her where she sat in the shadow, and she looked about her hastily in the hope of escaping unobserved. But that was impossible. There was no way of getting out of the recess of the rock where the cross stood, except by coming out into the light, and no way of reaching the hotel except by crossing the open platform. Then she thought of coughing, to call attention to her presence. She would rise and come forward, and hurry across to the door. She felt that she ought to have come out of the shadows as soon as the pair had appeared, and that she had done wrong in sitting still. But then, she told herself with perfect justice that they were strangers, and that she could not possibly have foreseen that they had come there to quarrel. They were strangers, and she did not even know their names. So far as they were concerned, and their feelings, it would be much more pleasant for them if they never suspected that any one had overheard them than if she were to appear in the midst of their conversation, having evidently been listening up to that point. It will be admitted that, being a woman, she had a choice; for she knew that if she had been in Lady Fan's place she should have preferred never to know that any one had heard her. She fancied what she should feel if any one should cough unexpectedly behind her when she had just been accused by the man she loved of not loving him at all. And of course the little lady in white loved Brook--she had called him "dear" that very afternoon. But that Brook did not love Lady Fan was as plain as possible. There was certainly no mean curiosity in Clare to know the secrets of these strangers. But all the same, she would not have been a human girl, of any period in humanity's history, if she had not been profoundly interested in the fate of the woman before her. That afternoon she would have thought it far more probable that the woman should break the man's heart than that she should break her own for him. But now it looked otherwise. Clare thought there was no mistaking the first tremor of the voice, the look of the white face, and the indignation of the tone afterwards. With a man, the question of revealing his presence as a third person would have been a point of honour. In Clare's case it was a question of delicacy and kindness as from one woman to another. Nevertheless, she hesitated, and she might have come forward after all. Ten slow seconds had passed since Brook had spoken. Then Lady Fan's little figure shook, her face turned away, and she tried to choke down one small bitter sob, pressing her handkerchief desperately to her lips. "Oh, Brook!" she cried, a moment later, and her tiny teeth tore the edge of the handkerchief audibly in the stillness. "It's not your fault," said the man, with an attempt at gentleness in his voice. "I couldn't blame you, if I were brute enough to wish to." "Blame me! Oh, really--I think you're mad, you know!" "Besides," continued the young man, philosophically, "I think we ought to be glad, don't you?" "Glad?" "Yes--that we are not going to break our hearts now that it's over." Clare thought his tone horribly business-like and indifferent. "Oh no! We sha'n't break our hearts any more! We are not children." Her voice was thin and bitter, with a crying laugh in it. "Look here, Fan!" said Brook suddenly. "This is all nonsense. We agreed to play together, and we've played very nicely, and now you have to go home, and I have got to stay here, whether I like it or not. Let us be good friends and say good-bye, and if we meet again and have nothing better to do, we can play again if we please. But as for taking it in this tragical way--why, it isn't worth it." The young girl crouching in the shadow felt as though she had been struck, and her heart went out with indignant sympathy to the little lady in white. "Do you know? I think you are the most absolutely brutal, cynical creature I ever met!" There was anger in the voice, now, and something more--something which Clare could not understand. "Well, I'm sorry," answered the man. "I don't mean to be brutal, I'm sure, and I don't think I'm cynical either. I look at things as they are, not as they ought to be. We are not angels, and the millennium hasn't come yet. I suppose it would be bad for us if it did, just now. But we used to be very good friends last year. I don't see why we shouldn't be again." "Friends! Oh no!" Lady Fan turned from him and made a step or two alone, out through the moonlight, towards the house. Brook did not move. Perhaps he knew that she would come back, as indeed she did, stopping suddenly and turning round to face him again. "Brook," she began more softly, "do you remember that evening up at the Acropolis--at sunset? Do you remember what you said?" "Yes, I think I do." "You said that if I could get free you would marry me." "Yes." The man's tone had changed suddenly. "Well--I believed you, that's all." Brook stood quite still, and looked at her quietly. Some seconds passed before she spoke again. "You did not mean it?" she asked sorrowfully. Still he said nothing. "Because you know," she continued, her eyes fixed on his, "the position is not at all impossible. All things considered, I suppose I could have a divorce for the asking." Clare started a little in the dark. She was beginning to guess something of the truth she could not understand. The man still said nothing, but he began to walk up and down slowly, with folded arms, along the edge of the shadow before Lady Fan as she stood still, following him with her eyes. "You did not mean a word of what you said that afternoon? Not one word?" She spoke very slowly and distinctly. He was silent still, pacing up and down before her. Suddenly, without a word, she turned from him and walked quickly away, towards the hotel. He started and stood still, looking after her--then he also made a step. "Fan!" he called, in a tone she could hear, but she went on. "Mrs. Crosby!" he called again. She stopped, turned, and waited. It was clear that Lady Fan was a nickname, Clare thought. "Well?" she asked. Clare clasped her hands together in her excitement, watching and listening, and holding her breath. "Don't go like that!" exclaimed Brook, going forward and holding out one hand. "Do you want me?" asked the lady in white, very gently, almost tenderly. Clare did not understand how any woman could have so little pride, but she pitied the little lady from her heart. Brook went on till he came up with Lady Fan, who did not make a step to meet him. But just as he reached her she put out her hand to take his. Clare thought he was relenting, but she was mistaken. His voice came back to her clear and distinct, and it had a very gentle ring in it. "Fan, dear," he said, "we have been very fond of each other in our careless way. But we have not loved each other. We may have thought that we did, for a moment, now and then. I shall always be fond of you, just in that way. I'll do anything for you. But I won't marry you, if you get a divorce. It would be utter folly. If I ever said I would, in so many words--well, I'm ashamed of it. You'll forgive me some day. One says things--sometimes--that one means for a minute, and then, afterwards, one doesn't mean them. But I mean what I am saying now." He dropped her hand, and stood looking at her, and waiting for her to speak. Her face, as Clare saw it, from a distance now, looked whiter than ever. After an instant she turned from him with a quick movement, but not towards the hotel. She walked slowly towards the stone parapet of the platform. As she went, Clare again saw her raise her handkerchief and press it to her lips, but she did not bend her head. She went and leaned on her elbows on the parapet, and her hands pulled nervously at the handkerchief as she looked down at the calm sea far below. Brook followed her slowly, but just as he was near, she, hearing his footsteps, turned and leaned back against the low wall. "Give me a cigarette," she said in a hard voice. "I'm nervous--and I've got to face those people in a moment." Clare started again in sheer surprise. She had expected tears, fainting, angry words, a passionate appeal--anything rather than what she heard. Brook produced a silver case which gleamed in the moonlight. Lady Fan took a cigarette, and her companion took another. He struck a match and held it up for her in the still air. The little flame cast its red glare into their faces. The young girl had good eyes, and as she watched them she saw the man's expression was grave and stern, a little sad, perhaps, but she fancied that there was the beginning of a scornful smile on the woman's lips. She understood less clearly then than ever what manner of human beings these two strangers might be. For some moments they smoked in silence, the lady in white leaning back against the parapet, the man standing upright with one hand in his pocket, holding his cigarette in the other, and looking out to sea. Then Lady Fan stood up, too, and threw her cigarette over the wall. "It's time to be going," she said, suddenly. "They'll be coming after us if we stay here." But she did not move. Sideways she looked up into his face. Then she held out her hand. "Good-bye, Brook," she said, quietly enough, as he took it. "Good-bye," he murmured in a low voice, but distinctly. Their hands stayed together after they had spoken, and still she looked up to him in the moonlight. Suddenly he bent down and kissed her on the forehead--in an odd, hasty way. "I'm sorry, Fan, but it won't do," he said. "Again!" she answered. "Once more, please!" And she held up her face. He kissed her again, but less hastily, Clare thought, as she watched them. Then, without another word, they walked towards the hotel, side by side, close together, so that their hands almost touched. When they were not ten paces from the door, they stopped again and looked at each other. At that moment Clare saw her mother's dark figure on the threshold. The pair must have heard her steps, for they separated a little and instantly went on, passing Mrs. Bowring quickly. Clare sat still in her place, waiting for her mother to come to her. She feared lest, if she moved, the two might come back for an instant, see her, and understand that they had been watched. Mrs. Bowring went forward a few steps. "Clare!" she called. "Yes," answered the young girl softly. "Here I am." "Oh--I could not see you at all," said her mother. "Come down into the moonlight." The young girl descended the steps, and the two began to walk up and down together on the platform. "Those were two of the people from the yacht that I met at the door," said Mrs. Bowring. "The lady in white serge, and that good-looking young man." "Yes," Clare answered. "They were here some time. I don't think they saw me." She had meant to tell her mother something of what had happened, in the hope of being told that she had done right in not revealing her presence. But on second thoughts she resolved to say nothing about it. To have told the story would have seemed like betraying a confidence, even though they were strangers to her. "I could not help wondering about them this afternoon," said Mrs. Bowring. "She ordered him about in a most extraordinary way, as though he had been her servant. I thought it in very bad taste, to say the least of it. Of course I don't know anything about their relations, but it struck me that she wished to show him off, as her possession." "Yes," answered Clare, thoughtfully. "I thought so too." "Very foolish of her! No man will stand that sort of thing long. That isn't the way to treat a man in order to keep him." "What is the best way?" asked the young girl idly, with a little laugh. "Don't ask me!" answered Mrs. Bowring quickly, as they turned in their walk. "But I should think--" she added, a moment later, "I don't know--but I should think--" she hesitated. "What?" inquired Clare, with some curiosity. "Well, I was going to say, I should think that a man would wish to feel that he is holding, not that he is held. But then people are so different! One can never tell. At all events, it is foolish to wish to show everybody that you own a man, so to say." Mrs. Bowring seemed to be considering the question, but she evidently found nothing more to say about it, and they walked up and down in silence for a long time, each occupied with her own thoughts. Then all at once there was a sound of many voices speaking English, and trying to give orders in Italian, and the words "Good-bye, Brook!" sounded several times above the rest. Little by little, all grew still again. "They are gone at last," said Mrs. Bowring, with a sigh of relief. CHAPTER III Clare Bowring went to her room that night feeling as though she had been at the theatre. She could not get rid of the impression made upon her by the scene she had witnessed, and over and over again, as she lay awake, with the moonbeams streaming into her room, she went over all she had seen and heard on the platform. It had, at least, been very like the theatre. The broad, flat stage, the somewhat conventionally picturesque buildings, the strip of far-off sea, as flat as a band of paint, the unnaturally bright moonlight, the two chief figures going through a love quarrel in the foreground, and she herself calmly seated in the shadow, as in the darkened amphitheatre, and looking on unseen and unnoticed. But the two people had not talked at all as people talked on the stage in any piece Clare had ever seen. What would have been the "points" in a play had all been left out, and instead there had been abrupt pauses and awkward silences, and then, at what should have been the supreme moment, the lady in white had asked for a cigarette. And the two hasty little kisses that had a sort of perfunctory air, and the queer, jerky "good-byes," and the last stop near the door of the hotel--it all had an air of being very badly done. It could not have been a success on the stage, Clare thought. And yet this was a bit of life, of the real, genuine life of two people who had been in love, and perhaps were in love still, though they might not know it. She had been present at what must, in her view, have been a great crisis in two lives. Such things, she thought, could not happen more than once in a lifetime--twice, perhaps. Her mother had been married twice, so Clare admitted a second possibility. But not more than that. The situation, too, as she reviewed it, was nothing short of romantic. Here was a young man who had evidently been making love to a married woman, and who had made her believe that he loved her, and had made her love him too. Clare remembered the desperate little sob, and the handkerchief twice pressed to the pale lips. The woman was married, and yet she actually loved the man enough to think of divorcing her husband in order to marry him. Then, just when she was ready, he had turned and told her in the most heartless way that it had been all play, and that he would not marry her under any circumstances. It seemed monstrous to the innocent girl that they should even have spoken of marriage, until the divorce was accomplished. Then, of course, it would have been all right. Clare had been brought up with modern ideas about divorce in general, as being a fair and just thing in certain circumstances. She had learned that it could not be right to let an innocent woman suffer all her life because she had married a brute by mistake. Doubtless that was Lady Fan's case. But she should have got her divorce first, and then she might have talked of marriage afterwards. It was very wrong of her. But Lady Fan's thoughtlessness--or wickedness, as Clare thought she ought to call it--sank into insignificance before the cynical heartlessness of the man. It was impossible ever to forget the cool way in which he had said she ought not to take it so tragically, because it was not worth it. Yet he had admitted that he had promised to marry her if she got a divorce. He had made love to her, there on the Acropolis, at sunset, as she had said. He even granted that he might have believed himself in earnest for a few moments. And now he told her that he was sorry, but that "it would not do." It had evidently been all his fault, for he had found nothing with which to reproach her. If there had been anything, Clare thought, he would have brought it up in self-defence. She could not suspect that he would almost rather have married Lady Fan, and ruined his life, than have done that. Innocence cannot even guess at sin's code of honour--though sometimes it would be in evil case without it. Brook had probably broken Lady Fan's heart that night, thought the young girl, though Lady Fan had said with such a bitter, crying laugh that they were not children and that their hearts could not break. And it all seemed very unreal, as she looked back upon it. The situation was certainly romantic, but the words had been poor beyond her imagination, and the actors had halted in their parts, as at a first rehearsal. Then Clare reflected that of course neither of them had ever been in such a situation before, and that, if they were not naturally eloquent, it was not surprising that they should have expressed themselves in short, jerky sentences. But that was only an excuse she made to herself to account for the apparent unreality of it all. She turned her cheek to a cool end of the pillow and tried to go to sleep. She tried to bring back the white dreams she had dreamt when she had sat alone in the shadow before the other two had come out to quarrel. She did her best to bring back that vague, soft joy of yearning for something beautiful and unknown. She tried to drop the silver veil of fancy-threads woven by the May moon between her and the world. But it would not come. Instead of it, she saw the flat platform, the man and woman standing in the unnatural brightness, and the woman's desperate little face when he had told her that she had never loved him. The dream was not white any more. So that was life. That was reality. That was the way men treated women. She thought she began to understand what faithlessness and unfaithfulness meant. She had seen an unfaithful man, and had heard him telling the woman he had made love him that he never could love her any more. That was real life. Clare's heart went out to the little lady in white. By this time she was alone in her cabin, and her pillow was wet with tears. Brook doubtless was calmly asleep, unless he were drinking or doing some of those vaguely wicked things which, in the imagination of very simple young girls, fill up the hours of fast men, and help sometimes to make those very men "interesting." But after what she had seen Clare felt that Brook could never interest her under imaginable circumstances. He was simply a "brute," as the lady in white had told him, and Clare wished that some woman could make him suffer for his sins and expiate the misdeeds which had made that little face so desperate and that short laugh so bitter. She wished, though she hardly knew it, that she had done anything rather than have sat there in the shadow, all through the scene. She had lost something that night which it would be hard indeed to find again. There was a big jagged rent in the drop-curtain of illusions before her life-stage, and through it she saw things that troubled her and would not be forgotten. She had no memory of her own of which the vivid brightness or the intimate sadness could diminish the force of this new impression. Possibly, she was of the kind that do not easily fall in love, for she had met during the past two years more than one man whom many a girl of her age and bringing up might have fancied. Some of them might have fallen in love with her, if she had allowed them, or if she had felt the least spark of interest in them and had shown it. But she had not. Her manner was cold and over-dignified for her years, and she had very little vanity together with much pride--too much of the latter, perhaps, to be ever what is called popular. For "popular" persons are generally those who wish to be such; and pride and the love of popularity are at opposite poles of the character-world. Proud characters set love high and their own love higher, while a vain woman will risk her heart for a compliment, and her reputation for the sake of having a lion in her leash, if only for a day. Clare Bowring had not yet been near to loving, and she had nothing of her own to contrast with this experience in which she had been a mere spectator. It at once took the aspect of a generality. This man and this woman were probably not unlike most men and women, if the truth were known, she thought. And she had seen the real truth, as few people could ever have seen it--the supreme crisis of a love-affair going on before her very eyes, in her hearing, at her feet, the actors having no suspicion of her presence. It was, perhaps, the certainty that she could not misinterpret it all which most disgusted her, and wounded something in her which she had never defined, but which was really a sort of belief that love must always carry with it something beautiful, whether joyous, or tender, or tragic. Of that, there had been nothing in what she had seen. Only the woman's face came back to her, and hurt her, and she felt her own heart go out to poor Lady Fan, while it hardened against Brook with an exaggerated hatred, as though he had insulted and injured all living women. It was probable that she was to see this man during several days to come. The idea struck her when she was almost asleep, and it waked her again, with a start. It was quite certain that he had stayed behind, when the others had gone down to the yacht, for she had heard the voices calling out "Good-bye, Brook!" Besides he had said repeatedly to the lady in white that he must stay. He was expecting his people. It was quite certain that Clare must see him during the next day or two. It was not impossible that he might try to make her mother's acquaintance and her own. The idea was intensely disagreeable to her. In the first place, she hated him beforehand for what he had done, and, secondly, she had once heard his secret. It was one thing, so long as he was a total stranger. It would be quite another, if she should come to know him. She had a vague thought of pretending to be ill, and staying in her room as long as he remained in the place. But in that case she should have to explain matters to her mother. She should not like to do that. The thought of the difficulty disturbed her a little while longer. Then, at last, she fell asleep, tired with what she had felt, and seen, and heard. The yacht sailed before daybreak, and in the morning the little hotel had returned to its normal state of peace. The early sun blazed upon the white walls above, and upon the half-moon, beach below, and shot straight into the recess in the rocks where Clare had sat by the old black cross in the dark. The level beams ran through her room, too, for it faced south-east, looking across the gulf; and when she went to the window and stood in the sunshine, her flaxen hair looked almost white, and the good southern warmth brought soft colour to the northern girl's cheeks. She was like a thin, fair angel, standing there on the high balcony, looking to seaward in the calm air. That, at least, was what a fisherman from Praiano thought, as he turned his hawk-eyes upwards, standing to his oars and paddling slowly along, top-heavy in his tiny boat. But no native of Amalfi ever mistook a foreigner for an angel. Everything was quiet and peaceful again, and there seemed to be neither trace nor memory of the preceding day's invasion. The English old maids were early at their window, and saw with disappointment that the yacht was gone. They were never to know whether the big man with the gold cigarette case had been the Duke of Orkney or not. But order was restored, and they got their tea and toast without difficulty. The Russian invalid was slicing a lemon into his cup on the vine-sheltered terrace, and the German family, having slept on the question of the Pope and Bismarck, were ruddy with morning energy, and were making an early start for a place in the hills where the Professor had heard that there was an inscription of the ninth century. The young girl stood still on her balcony, happily dazed for a few moments by the strong sunshine and the clear air. It is probably the sensation enjoyed for hours together by a dog basking in the sun, but with most human beings it does not last long--the sun is soon too hot for the head, or too bright for the eyes, or there is a draught, or the flies disturb one. Man is not capable of as much physical enjoyment as the other animals, though perhaps his enjoyment is keener during the first moments. Then comes thought, restlessness, discontent, change, effort, and progress, and the history of man's superiority is the journal of his pain. For a little while, Clare stood blinking in the sunshine, smitten into a pleasant semi-consciousness by the strong nature around her. Then she thought of Brook and the lady in white, and of all she had been a witness of in the evening, and the colour of things changed a little, and she turned away and went between the little white and red curtains into her room again. Life was certainly not the same since she had heard and seen what a man and a woman could say and be. There were certain new impressions, where there had been no impression at all, but only a maiden readiness to receive the beautiful. What had come was not beautiful, by any means, and the thought of it darkened the air a little, so that the day was not to be what it might have been. She realised how she was affected, and grew impatient with herself. After all, it would be the easiest thing in the world to avoid the man, even if he stayed some time. Her mother was not much given to making acquaintance with strangers. And it would have been easy enough, if the man himself had taken the same view. He, however, had watched the Bowrings on the preceding evening, and had made up his mind that they were "human beings," as he put it; that is to say, that they belonged to his own class, whereas none of the people at the upper end of the table had any claim to be counted with the social blessed. He was young, and though he knew how to amuse himself alone, and had all manner of manly tastes and inclinations, he preferred pleasant society to solitude, and his experience told him that the society of the Bowrings would in all probability be pleasant. He therefore determined that he would try to know them at once, and the determination had already been formed in his mind when he had run after Clare to give her the shawl she had dropped. He got up rather late, and promptly marched out upon the terrace under the vines, smoking a briar-root pipe with that solemn air whereby the Englishman abroad proclaims to the world that he owns the scenery. There is something almost phenomenal about an Englishman's solid self-satisfaction when he is alone with his pipe. Every nation has its own way of smoking. There is a hasty and vicious manner about the Frenchman's little cigarette of pungent black tobacco; the Italian dreams over his rat-tail cigar; the American either eats half of his Havana while he smokes the other, or else he takes a frivolous delight in smoking delicately and keeping the white ash whole to the end; the German surrounds himself with a cloud, and, god-like, meditates within it; there is a sacrificial air about the Asiatic's narghileh, as the thin spire rises steadily and spreads above his head; but the Englishman's short briar-root pipe has a powerful individuality of its own. Its simplicity is Gothic, its solidity is of the Stone Age, he smokes it in the face of the higher civilisation, and it is the badge of the conqueror. A man who asserts that he has a right to smoke a pipe anywhere, practically asserts that he has a right to everything. And it will be admitted that Englishmen get a good deal. Moreover, as soon as the Englishman has finished smoking he generally goes and does something else. Brook knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and immediately went in search of the head waiter, to whom he explained with some difficulty that he wished to be placed next to the two ladies who sat last on the side away from the staircase at the public table. The waiter tried to explain that the two ladies, though they had been some time in the hotel, insisted upon being always last on that side because there was more air. But Brook was firm, and he strengthened his argument with coin, and got what he wanted. He also made the waiter point out to him the Bowrings' name on the board which held the names of the guests. Then he asked the way to Ravello, turned up his trousers round his ankles, and marched off at a swinging pace down the steep descent towards the beach, which he had to cross before climbing the hill to the old town. Nothing in his outward manner or appearance betrayed that he had been through a rather serious crisis on the preceding evening. That was what struck Clare Bowring when, to her dismay, he sat down beside her at the midday meal. She could not help glancing at him as he took his seat. His eyes were bright, his face, browned by the sun, was fresh and rested. There was not a line of care or thought on his forehead. The young girl felt that she was flushing with anger. He saw her colour, and took it for a sign of shyness. He made a sort of apologetic movement of the head and shoulders towards her which was not exactly a bow--for to an Englishman's mind a bow is almost a familiarity--but which expressed a kind of vague desire not to cause any inconvenience. The colour deepened a little in Clare's face, and then disappeared. She found something to say to her mother, on her other side, which it would hardly have been worth while to say at all under ordinary circumstances. Mrs. Bowring had glanced at the man while he was taking his seat, and her eyebrows had contracted a little. Later she looked furtively past her daughter at his profile, and then stared a long time at her plate. As for him, he began to eat with conscious strength, as healthy young men do, but he watched his opportunity for doing or saying anything which might lead to a first acquaintance. To tell the truth, however, he was in no hurry. He knew how to make himself comfortable, and it was an important element in his comfort to be seated next to the only persons in the place with whom he should care to associate. That point being gained, he was willing to wait for whatever was to come afterwards. He did not expect in any case to gain more than the chance of a little pleasant conversation, and he was not troubled by any youthful desire to shine in the eyes of the fair girl beside whom he found himself, beyond the natural wish to appear well before women in general, which modifies the conduct of all natural and manly young men when women are present at all. As the meal proceeded, however, he was surprised to find that no opportunity presented itself for exchanging a word with his neighbour. He had so often found it impossible to avoid speaking with strangers at a public table that he had taken the probability of some little incident for granted, and caught himself glancing surreptitiously at Clare's plate to see whether there were nothing wanting which he might offer her. But he could not think of anything. The fried sardines were succeeded by the regulation braised beef with the gluey brown sauce which grows in most foreign hotels. That, in its turn, was followed by some curiously dry slices of spongecake, each bearing a bit of pink and white sugar frosting, and accompanied by fresh orange marmalade, which Brook thought very good, but which Clare refused. And then there was fruit--beautiful oranges, uncanny apples, and walnuts--and the young man foresaw the near end of the meal, and wished that something would happen. But still nothing happened at all. He watched Clare's hands as she prepared an orange in the Italian fashion, taking off the peel at one end, then passing the knife twice completely round at right angles, and finally stripping the peel away in four neat pieces. The hands were beautiful in their way, too thin, perhaps, and almost too white from recent illness, but straight and elastic, with little blue veins at the sides of the finger-joints and exquisite nails that were naturally polished. The girl was clever with her fingers, she could not help seeing that her neighbour was watching her, and she peeled the orange with unusual skill and care. It was a good one, too, and the peel separated easily from the deep yellow fruit. "How awfully jolly!" exclaimed the young man, unconsciously, in genuine admiration. He was startled by the sound of his own voice, for he had not meant to speak, and the blood rushed to his sunburnt face. Clare's eyes flashed upon him in a glance of surprise, and the colour rose in her cheeks also. She was evidently not pleased, and he felt that he had been guilty of a breach of English propriety. When an Englishman does a tactless thing he generally hastens to make it worse, becomes suddenly shy, and flounders. "I--I beg your pardon," stammered Brook. "I really didn't mean to speak--that is--you did it so awfully well, you know!" "It's the Italian way," Clare answered, beginning to quarter the orange. She felt that she could not exactly be silent after he had apologised for admiring her skill. But she remembered that she had felt some vanity in what she had been doing, and had done it with some unnecessary ostentation. She hoped that he would not say anything more, for the sound of his voice reminded her of what she had heard him say to the lady in white, and she hated him with all her heart. But the young man was encouraged by her sufficiently gracious answer, and was already glad of what he had done. "Do all Italians do it that way?" he asked boldly. "Generally," answered the young girl, and she began to eat the orange. Brook took another from the dish before him. "Let me see," he said, turning it round and round. "You cut a slice off one end." He began to cut the peel. "Not too deep," said Clare, "or you will cut into the fruit." "Oh--thanks, awfully. Yes, I see. This way?" He took the end off, and looked at her for approval. She nodded gravely, and then turned away her eyes. He made the two cuts round the peel, crosswise, and looked to her again, but she affected not to see him. "Oh--might I ask you--" he began. She looked at his orange again, without a smile. "Please don't think me too dreadfully rude," he said. "But it was so pretty, and I'm tremendously anxious to learn. Was it this way?" His fingers teased the peel, and it began to come off. He raised his eyes with another look of inquiry. "Yes. That's all right," said Clare calmly. She was going to look away again, when she reflected that since he was so pertinacious it would be better to see the operation finished once for all. Then she and her mother would get up and go away, as they had finished. But he wished to push his advantage. "And now what does one do?" he asked, for the sake of saying something. "One eats it," answered Clare, half impatiently. He stared at her a moment and then broke into a laugh, and Clare, very much to her own surprise and annoyance, laughed too, in spite of herself. That broke the ice. When two people have laughed together over something one of them has said, there is no denying the acquaintance. "It was really awfully kind of you!" he exclaimed, his eyes still laughing. "It was horridly rude of me to say anything at all, but I really couldn't help it. If I could get anybody to introduce me, so that I could apologise properly, I would, you know, but in this place--" He looked towards the German family and the English old maids, in a helpless sort of way, and then laughed again. "I don't think it's necessary," said Clare rather coldly. "No--I suppose not," he answered, growing graver at once. "And I think it is allowed--isn't it?--to speak to one's neighbour at a table d'hôte, you know. Not but what it was awfully rude of me, all the same," he added hastily. "Oh no. Not at all." Clare stared at the wall opposite and leaned back in her chair. "Oh! thanks awfully! I was afraid you might think so, you know." Mrs. Bowring leaned forward as her daughter leaned back. Seeing that the latter had fallen into conversation with the stranger, she was too much a woman of the world not to speak to him at once in order to avoid any awkwardness when they next met, for he could not possibly have spoken first to her across the young girl. "Is it your first visit to Amalfi?" she inquired, with as much originality as is common in such cases. Brook leaned forward too, and looked over at the elder woman. "Yes," he answered, "I was with a party, and they dropped me here last night. I was to meet my people here, but they haven't turned up yet, so I'm seeing the sights. I went up to Ravello this morning--you know, that place on the hill. There's an awfully good view from there, isn't there?" Clare thought his fluency developed very quickly when he spoke to her mother. As he leaned forward she could not help seeing his face, and she looked at him closely, for the first time, and with some curiosity. He was handsome, and had a wonderfully frank and good-humoured expression. He was not in the least a "beauty" man--she thought he might be a soldier or a sailor, and a very good specimen of either. Furthermore, he was undoubtedly a gentleman, so far as a man is to be judged by his outward manner and appearance. In her heart she had already set him down as little short of a villain. The discrepancy between his looks and what she thought of him disturbed her. It was unpleasant to feel that a man who had acted as he had acted last night could look as fresh, and innocent, and unconcerned as he looked to-day. It was disagreeable to have him at her elbow. Either he had never cared a straw for poor Lady Fan, and in that case he had almost broken her heart out of sheer mischief and love of selfish amusement, or else, if he had cared for her at all, he was a pitiably fickle and faithless creature--something much more despicable in the eyes of most women than the most heartless cynic. One or the other he must be, thought Clare. In either case he was bad, because Lady Fan was married, and it was wicked to make love to married women. There was a directness about Clare's view which would either have made the man laugh or would have hurt him rather badly. She wondered what sort of expression would come over his handsome face if she were suddenly to tell him what she knew. The idea took her by surprise, and she smiled to herself as she thought of it. Yet she could not help glancing at him again and again, as he talked across her with her mother, making very commonplace remarks about the beauty of the place. Very much in spite of herself, she wished to know him better, though she already hated him. His face attracted her strangely, and his voice was pleasant, close to her ear. He had not in the least the look of the traditional lady-killer, of whom the tradition seems to survive as a moral scarecrow for the education of the young, though the creature is extinct among Anglo-Saxons. He was, on the contrary, a manly man, who looked as though he would prefer tennis to tea and polo to poetry--and men to women for company, as a rule. She felt that if she had not heard him talking with the lady in white she should have liked him very much. As it was, she said to herself that she wished she might never see him again--and all the time her eyes returned again and again to his sunburnt face and profile, till in a few minutes she knew his features by heart. CHAPTER IV A chance acquaintance may, under favourable circumstances, develop faster than one brought about by formal introduction, because neither party has been previously led to expect anything of the other. There is no surer way of making friendship impossible than telling two people that they are sure to be such good friends, and are just suited to each other. The law of natural selection applies to almost everything we want in the world, from food and climate to a wife. When Clare and her mother had established themselves as usual on the terrace under the vines that afternoon, Brook came and sat beside them for a while. Mrs. Bowring liked him and talked easily with him, but Clare was silent and seemed absent-minded. The young man looked at her from time to time with curiosity, for he was not used to being treated with such perfect indifference as she showed to him. He was not spoilt, as the phrase goes, but he had always been accustomed to a certain amount of attention, when he met new people, and, without being in the least annoyed, he thought it strange that this particular young lady should seem not even to listen to what he said. Mrs. Bowring, on the other hand, scarcely took her eyes from his face after the first ten minutes, and not a word he spoke escaped her. By contrast with her daughter's behaviour, her earnest attention was very noticeable. By degrees she began to ask him questions about himself. "Do you expect your people to-morrow?" she inquired. Clare looked up quickly. It was very unlike her mother to show even that small amount of curiosity about a stranger. It was clear that Mrs. Bowring had conceived a sudden liking for the young man. "They were to have been here to-day," he answered indifferently. "They may come this evening, I suppose, but they have not even ordered rooms. I asked the man there--the owner of the place, I suppose he is." "Then of course you will wait for them," suggested Mrs. Bowring. "Yes. It's an awful bore, too. That is--" he corrected himself hastily--"I mean, if I were to be here without a soul to speak to, you know. Of course, it's different, this way." "How?" asked Mrs. Bowring, with a brighter smile than Clare had seen on her face for a long time. "Oh, because you are so kind as to let me talk to you," answered the young man, without the least embarrassment. "Then you are a social person?" Mrs. Bowring laughed a little. "You don't like to be alone?" "Oh no! Not when I can be with nice people. Of course not. I don't believe anybody does. Unless I'm doing something, you know--shooting, or going up a hill, or fishing. Then I don't mind. But of course I would much rather be alone than with bores, don't you know? Or--or--well, the other kind of people." "What kind?" asked Mrs. Bowring. "There are only two kinds," answered Brook, gravely. "There is our kind--and then there is the other kind. I don't know what to call them, do you? All the people who never seem to understand exactly what we are talking about nor why we do things--and all that. I call them 'the other kind.' But then I haven't a great command of language. What should you call them?" "Cads, perhaps," suggested Clare, who had not spoken for a long time. "Oh no, not exactly," answered the young man, looking at her. "Besides, 'cads' doesn't include women, does it? A gentleman's son sometimes turns out a most awful cad, a regular 'bounder.' It's rare, but it does happen sometimes. A mere cad may know, and understand all right, but he's got the wrong sort of feeling inside of him about most things. For instance--you don't mind? A cad may know perfectly well that he ought not to 'kiss and tell'--but he will all the same. The 'other kind,' as I call them, don't even know. That makes them awfully hard to get on with." "Then, of the two, you prefer the cad?" inquired Clare coolly. "No. I don't know. They are both pretty bad. But a cad may be very amusing, sometimes." "When he kisses and tells?" asked the young girl viciously. Brook looked at her, in quick surprise at her tone. "No," he answered quietly. "I didn't mean that. The clowns in the circus represent amusing cads. Some of them are awfully clever, too," he added, turning the subject. "Some of those fiddling fellows are extraordinary. They really play very decently. They must have a lot of talent, when you think of all the different things they do besides their feats of strength--they act, and play the fiddle, and sing, and dance--" "You seem to have a great admiration for clowns," observed Clare in an indifferent tone. "Well--they are amusing, aren't they? Of course, it isn't high art, and that sort of thing, but one laughs at them, and sometimes they do very pretty things. One can't be always on one's hind legs, doing Hamlet, can one? There's a limit to the amount of tragedy one can stand during life. After all, it is better to laugh than to cry." "When one can," said Mrs. Bowring thoughtfully. "Some people always can, whatever happens," said the young girl. "Perhaps they are right," answered the young man. "Things are not often so serious as they are supposed to be. It's like being in a house that's supposed to be haunted--on All Hallow E'en, for instance--it's awfully gruesome and creepy at night when the wind moans and the owls screech. And then, the next morning, one wonders how one could have been such an idiot. Other things are often like that. You think the world's coming to an end--and then it doesn't, you know. It goes on just the same. You are rather surprised at first, but you soon get used to it. I suppose that is what is meant by losing one's illusions." "Sometimes the world stops for an individual and doesn't go on again," said Mrs. Bowring, with a faint smile. "Oh, I suppose people do break their hearts sometimes," returned Brook, somewhat thoughtfully. "But it must be something tremendously serious," he added with instant cheerfulness. "I don't believe it happens often. Most people just have a queer sensation in their throat for a minute, and they smoke a cigarette for their nerves, and go away and think of something else." Clare looked at him, and her eyes flashed angrily, for she remembered Lady Fan's cigarette and the preceding evening. He remembered it too, and was thinking of it, for he smiled as he spoke and looked away at the horizon as though he saw something in the air. For the first time in her life the young girl had a cruel impulse. She wished that she were a great beauty, or that she possessed infinite charm, that she might revenge the little lady in white and make the man suffer as he deserved. At one moment she was ashamed of the wish, and then again it returned, and she smiled as she thought of it. She was vaguely aware, too, that the man attracted her in a way which did not interfere with her resentment against him. She would certainly not have admitted that he was interesting to her on account of Lady Fan--but there was in her a feminine willingness to play with the fire at which another woman had burned her wings. Almost all women feel that, until they have once felt too much themselves. The more innocent and inexperienced they are, the more sure they are, as a rule, of their own perfect safety, and the more ready to run any risk. Neither of the women answered the young man's rather frivolous assertion for some moments. Then Mrs. Bowring looked at him kindly, but with a far-away expression, as though she were thinking of some one else. "You are young," she said gently. "It's true that I'm not very old," he answered. "I was five-and-twenty on my last birthday." "Five-and-twenty," repeated Mrs. Bowring very slowly, and looking at the distance, with the air of a person who is making a mental calculation. "Are you surprised?" asked the young man, watching her. She started a little. "Surprised? Oh dear no! Why should I be?" And again she looked at him earnestly, until, realising what she was doing, she suddenly shut her eyes, shook herself almost imperceptibly, and took out some work which she had brought out with her. "Oh!" he exclaimed. "I thought you might fancy I was a good deal older or younger. But I'm always told that I look just my age." "I think you do," answered Mrs. Bowring, without looking up. Clare glanced at his face again. It was natural, under the circumstances, though she knew his features by heart already. She met his eyes, and for a moment she could not look away from them. It was as though they fixed her against her will, after she had once met them. There was nothing extraordinary about them, except that they were very bright and clear. With an effort she turned away, and the faint colour rose in her face. "I am nineteen," she said quietly, as though she were answering a question. "Indeed?" exclaimed Brook, not thinking of anything else to say. Mrs. Bowring looked at her daughter in considerable surprise. Then Clare blushed painfully, realising that she had spoken without any intention of speaking, and had volunteered a piece of information which had certainly not been asked. It was very well, being but nineteen years old; but she was oddly conscious that if she had been forty she should have said so in just the same absent-minded way, at that moment. "Nineteen and six are twenty-five, aren't they?" asked Mrs. Bowring suddenly. "Yes, I believe so," answered the young man, with a laugh, but a good deal surprised in his turn, for the question seemed irrelevant and absurd in the extreme. "But I'm not good at sums," he added. "I was an awful idiot at school. They used to call me Log. That was short for logarithm, you know, because I was such a log at arithmetic. A fellow gave me the nickname one day. It wasn't very funny, so I punched his head. But the name stuck to me. Awfully appropriate, anyhow, as it turned out." "Did you punch his head because it wasn't funny?" asked Clare, glad of the turn in the conversation. "Oh--I don't know--on general principles. He was a diabolically clever little chap, though he wasn't very witty. He came out Senior Wrangler at Cambridge. I heard he had gone mad last year. Lots of those clever chaps do, you know. Or else they turn parsons and take pupils for a living. I'd much rather be stupid, myself. There's more to live for, when you don't know everything. Don't you think so?" Both women laughed, and felt that the man was tactful. They were also both reflecting, of themselves and of each other, that they were not generally silly women, and they wondered how they had both managed to say such foolish things, speaking out irrelevantly what was passing in their minds. "I think I shall go for a walk," said Brook, rising rather abruptly. "I'll go up the hill for a change. Thanks awfully. Good-bye!" He lifted his hat and went off towards the hotel. Mrs. Bowring looked after him, but Clare leaned back in her seat and opened a book she had with her. The colour rose and fell in her cheeks, and she kept her eyes resolutely bent down. "What a nice fellow!" exclaimed Mrs. Bowring when the young man was out of hearing. "I wonder who he is." "What difference can it make, what his name is?" asked Clare, still looking down. "What is the matter with you, child?" Mrs. Bowring asked. "You talk so strangely to-day!" "So do you, mother. Fancy asking him whether nineteen and six are twenty-five!" "For that matter, my dear, I thought it very strange that you should tell him your age, like that." "I suppose I was absent-minded. Yes! I know it was silly, I don't know why I said it. Do you want to know his name? I'll go and see. It must be on the board by this time, as he is stopping here." She rose and was going, when her mother called her back. "Clare! Wait till he is gone, at all events! Fancy, if he saw you!" "Oh! He won't see me! If he comes that way I'll go into the office and buy stamps." Clare went in and looked over the square board with its many little slips for the names of the guests. Some were on visiting cards and some were written in the large, scrawling, illiterate hand of the head waiter. Some belonged to people who were already gone. It looked well, in the little hotel, to have a great many names on the list. Some seconds passed before Clare found that of the new-comer. "Mr. Brook Johnstone." Brook was his first name, then. It was uncommon. She looked at it fixedly. There was no address on the small, neatly engraved card. While she was looking at it a door opened quietly behind her, in the opposite side of the corridor. She paid no attention to it for a moment; then, hearing no footsteps, she instinctively turned. Brook Johnstone was standing on the threshold watching her. She blushed violently, in her annoyance, for he could not doubt but that she was looking for his name. He saw and understood, and came forward naturally, with a smile. He had a stick in his hand. "That's me," he said, with a little laugh, tapping his card on the board with the head of his stick. "If I'd had an ounce of manners I should have managed to tell you who I was by this time. Won't you excuse me, and take this for an introduction? Johnstone--with an E at the end--Scotch, you know." "Thanks," answered Clare, recovering from her embarrassment. "I'll tell my mother." She hesitated a moment. "And that's us," she added, laughing rather nervously and pointing out one of the cards. "How grammatical we are, aren't we?" she laughed, while he stooped and read the name which chanced to be at the bottom of the board. "Well--what should one say? 'That's we.' It sounds just as badly. And you can't say 'we are that,' can you? Besides, there's no one to hear us, so it makes no difference. I don't suppose that you--you and Mrs. Bowring--would care to go for a walk, would you?" "No," answered Clare, with sudden coldness. "I don't think so, thank you. We are not great walkers." They went as far as the door together. Johnstone bowed and walked off, and Clare went back to her mother. "He caught me," she said, in a tone of annoyance. "You were quite right. Then he showed me his name himself, on the board. It's Johnstone--Mr. Brook Johnstone, with an E--he says that he is Scotch. Why--mother! Johnstone! How odd! That was the name of--" She stopped short and looked at her mother, who had grown unnaturally pale during the last few seconds. "Yes, dear. That was the name of my first husband." Mrs. Bowring spoke in a low voice, looking down at her work. But her hands trembled violently, and she was clearly making a great effort to control herself. Clare watched her anxiously, not at all understanding. "Mother dear, what is it?" she asked. "The name is only a coincidence--it's not such an uncommon name, after all--and besides--" "Oh, of course," said Mrs. Bowring, in a dull tone. "It's a mere coincidence--probably no relation. I'm nervous, to-day." Her manner seemed unaccountable to her daughter, except on the supposition that she was ill. She very rarely spoke of her first husband, by whom she had no children. When she did, she mentioned his name gravely, as one speaks of dead persons who have been dear, but that was all. She had never shown anything like emotion in connection with the subject, and the young girl avoided it instinctively, as most children, of whose parents the one has been twice married, avoid the mention of the first husband or wife, who was not their father or mother. "I wish I understood you!" exclaimed Clare. "There's nothing to understand, dear," said Mrs. Bowring, still very pale. "I'm nervous--that's all." Before long she left Clare by herself and went indoors, and locked herself into her room. The rooms in the old hotel were once the cells of the monks, small vaulted chambers in which there is barely space for the most necessary furniture. During nearly an hour Mrs. Bowring paced up and down, a beat of fourteen feet between the low window and the locked door. At last she stopped before the little glass, and looked at herself, and smoothed her streaked hair. "Nineteen and six--are twenty-five," she said slowly in a low voice, and her eyes stared into their own reflection rather wildly. CHAPTER V Brook Johnstone's people did not come on the next day, nor on the day after that, but he expressed no surprise at the delay, and did not again say that it was a bore to have to wait for them. Meanwhile he spent a great deal of his time with the Bowrings, and the acquaintance ripened quickly towards intimacy, without passing near friendship, as such acquaintance sometimes will, when it springs up suddenly in the shallow ground of an out-of-the-way hotel on the Continent. "For Heaven's sake don't let that man fall in love with you, Clare!" said Mrs. Bowring one morning, with what seemed unnecessary vehemence. Clare's lip curled scornfully as she thought of poor Lady Fan. "There isn't the slightest danger of that!" she answered. "Any more than there is of my falling in love with him," she added. "Are you sure of that?" asked her mother. "You seem to like him. Besides, he is very nice, and very good-looking." "Oh yes--of course he is. But one doesn't necessarily fall in love with every nice and good-looking man one meets." Thereupon Clare cut the conversation short by going off to her own room. She had been expecting for some time that her mother would make some remark about the growing intimacy with young Johnstone. To tell the truth, Mrs. Bowring had not the slightest ground for anxiety in any previous attachment of her daughter. She was beginning to wonder whether Clare would ever show any preference for any man. But she did not at all wish to marry her at present, for she felt that life without the girl would be unbearably lonely. On the other hand, Clare had a right to marry. They were poor. A part of their little income was the pension that Mrs. Bowring had been fortunate enough to get as the widow of an officer killed in action, but that would cease at her death, as poor Captain Bowring's allowance from his family had ceased at his death. The family had objected to the marriage from the first, and refused to do anything for his child after he was gone. It would go hard with Clare if she were left alone in the world with what her mother could leave her. On the other hand, that little, or the prospect of it, was quite safe, and would make a great difference to her, as a married woman. The two lived on it, with economy. Clare could certainly dress very well on it if she married a rich man, but she could as certainly not afford to marry a poor one. As for this young Johnstone, he had not volunteered much information about himself, and, though Mrs. Bowring sometimes asked him questions, she was extremely careful not to ask any which could be taken in the nature of an inquiry as to his prospects in life, merely because that might possibly suggest to him that she was thinking of her daughter. And when an Englishman is reticent in such matters, it is utterly impossible to guess whether he be a millionaire or a penniless younger son. Johnstone never spoke of money, in any connection. He never said that he could afford one thing or could not afford another. He talked a good deal of shooting and sport, but never hinted that his father had any land. He never mentioned a family place in the country, nor anything of the sort. He did not even tell the Bowrings to whom the yacht belonged in which he had come, though he frequently alluded to things which had been said and done by the party during a two months' cruise, chiefly in eastern waters. The Bowrings were quite as reticent about themselves, and each respected the other's silence. Nevertheless they grew intimate, scarcely knowing how the intimacy developed. That is to say, they very quickly became accustomed, all three, to one another's society. If Johnstone was out of the hotel first, of an afternoon, he moped about with his pipe in an objectless way, as though he had lost something, until the Bowrings came out. If he was writing letters and they appeared first, they talked in detached phrases and looked often towards the door, until he came and sat down beside them. On the third evening, at dinner, he seemed very much amused at something, and then, as though he could not keep the joke to himself, he told his companions that he had received a telegram from his father, in answer to one of his own, informing him that he had made a mistake of a whole fortnight in the date, and must amuse himself as he pleased in the interval. "Just like me!" he observed. "I got the letter in Smyrna or somewhere--I forget--and I managed to lose it before I had read it through. But I thought I had the date all right. I'm glad, at all events. I was tired of those good people, and it's ever so much pleasanter here." Clare's gentle mouth hardened suddenly as she thought of Lady Fan. Johnstone had been thoroughly tired of her. That was what he meant when he spoke of "those good people." "You get tired of people easily, don't you?" she inquired coldly. "Oh no--not always," answered Johnstone. By this time he was growing used to her sudden changes of manner and to the occasional scornful speeches she made. He could not understand them in the least, as may be imagined, and having considerable experience he set them down to the score of a certain girlish shyness, which showed itself in no other way. He had known women whose shyness manifested itself in saying disagreeable things for which they were sometimes sorry afterwards. "No," he added reflectively. "I don't think I'm a very fickle person." Clare turned upon him the terrible innocence of her clear blue eyes. She thought she knew the truth about him too, and that he could not look her in the face. But she was mistaken. He met her glance fearlessly and quietly, with a frank smile and a little wonder at its fixed scrutiny. She would not look away, rude though she might seem, nor be stared out of countenance by a man whom she believed to be false and untrue. But his eyes were very bright, and in a few seconds they began to dazzle her, and she felt her eyelids trembling violently. It was a new sensation, and a very unpleasant one. It seemed to her that the man had suddenly got some power over her. She made a strong effort and turned away her face, and again she blushed with annoyance. "I beg your pardon," Johnstone said quickly, in a very low voice. "I didn't mean to be so rude." Clare said nothing as she sat beside him, but she looked at the opposite wall, and her hand made an impatient little gesture as the fingers lay on the edge of the table. Possibly, if her mother had not been on her other side, she might have answered him. As it was, she felt that she could not speak just then. She was very much disturbed, as though something new and totally unknown had got hold of her. It was not only that she hated the man for his heartlessness, while she felt that he had some sort of influence over her, which was more than mere attraction. There was something beyond, deep down in her heart, which was nameless, and painful, but which she somehow felt that she wanted. And aside from it all, she was angry with him for having stared her out of countenance, forgetting that when she had turned upon him she had meant to do the same by him, feeling quite sure that he could not look her in the face. They spoke little during the remainder of the meal, for Clare was quite willing to show that she was angry, though she had little right to be. After all, she had looked at him, and he had looked at her. After dinner she disappeared, and was not seen during the remainder of the evening. When she was alone, however, she went over the whole matter thoughtfully, and she made up her mind that she had been hasty. For she was naturally just. She said to herself that she had no claim to the man's secrets, which she had learned in a way of which she was not at all proud; and that if he could keep his own counsel, he, on his side, had a right to do so. The fact that she knew him to be heartless and faithless by no means implied that he was also indiscreet, though when an individual has done anything which we think bad we easily suppose that he may do every other bad thing imaginable. Johnstone's discretion, at least, was admirable, now that she thought of it. His bright eyes and frank look would have disarmed any suspicion short of the certainty she possessed. There had not been the least contraction of the lids, the smallest change in the expression of his mouth, not the faintest increase of colour in his young face. So much the worse, thought the young girl suddenly. He was not only bad. He was also an accomplished actor. No doubt his eyes had been as steady and bright and his whole face as truthful when he had made love to Lady Fan at sunset on the Acropolis. Somehow, the allusion to that scene had produced a vivid impression on Clare's mind, and she often found herself wondering what he had said, and how he had looked just then. Her resentment against him increased as she thought it all over, and again she felt a longing to be cruel to him, and to make him suffer just what he had made Lady Fan endure. Then she was suddenly and unexpectedly overcome by a shamed sense of her inability to accomplish any such act of justice. It was as though she had already tried, and had failed, and he had laughed in her face and turned away. It seemed to her that there could be nothing in her which could appeal to such a man. There was Lady Fan, much older, with plenty of experience, doubtless; and she had been deceived, and betrayed, and abandoned, before the young girl's very eyes. What chance could such a mere girl possibly have? It was folly, and moreover it was wicked of her to think of such things. She would be willingly lowering herself to his level, trying to do the very thing which she despised and hated in him, trying to outwit him, to out-deceive him, to out-betray him. One side of her nature, at least, revolted against any such scheme. Besides, she could never do it. She was not a great beauty; she was not extraordinarily clever--not clever at all, she said to herself in her sudden fit of humility; she had no "experience." That last word means a good deal more to most young girls than they can find in it after life's illogical surprises have taught them the terrible power of chance and mood and impulse. She glanced at her face in the mirror, and looked away. Then she glanced again. The third time she turned to the glass she began to examine her features in detail. Lady Fan was a fair woman, too. But, without vanity, she had to admit that she was much better-looking than Lady Fan. She was also much younger and fresher, which should be an advantage, she thought. She wished that her hair were golden instead of flaxen; that her eyes were dark instead of blue; that her cheeks were not so thin, and her throat a shade less slender. Nevertheless, she would have been willing to stand any comparison with the little lady in white. Of course, compared with the famous beauties, some of whom she had seen, she was scarcely worth a glance. Doubtless, Brook Johnstone knew them all. Then she gazed into her own eyes. She did not know that a woman, alone, may look into her own eyes and blush and turn away. She looked long and steadily, and quite quietly. After all, they looked dark, for the pupils were very large and the blue iris was of that deep colour which borders upon violet. There was something a little unusual in them, too, though she could not quite make out what it was. Why did not all women look straight before them as she did? There must be some mysterious reason. It was a pity that her eyelashes were almost white. Yet they, too, added something to the peculiarity of that strange gaze. "They are like periwinkles in a snowstorm!" exclaimed Clare, tired of her own face; and she turned from the mirror and went to bed. CHAPTER VI The first sign that two people no longer stand to each other in the relation of mere acquaintances is generally that the tones of their voices change, while they feel a slight and unaccountable constraint when they happen to be left alone together. Two days passed after the little incident which had occurred at dinner before Clare and Johnstone were momentarily face to face out of Mrs. Bowring's sight. At first Clare had not been aware that her mother was taking pains to be always present when the young man was about, but when she noticed the fact she at once began to resent it. Such constant watchfulness was unlike her mother, un-English, and almost unnatural. When they were all seated together on the terrace, if Mrs. Bowring wished to go indoors to write a letter or to get something she invented some excuse for making her daughter go with her, and stay with her till she came out again. A French or Italian mother could not have been more particular or careful, but a French or Italian girl would have been accustomed to such treatment, and would not have seen anything unusual in it. But Mrs. Bowring had never acted in such a way before now, and it irritated the young girl extremely. She felt that she was being treated like a child, and that Johnstone must see it and think it ridiculous. At last Clare made an attempt at resistance, out of sheer contrariety. "I don't want to write letters!" she answered impatiently. "I wrote two yesterday. It is hot indoors, and I would much rather stay here!" Mrs. Bowring went as far as the parapet, and looked down at the sea for a moment. Then she came back and sat down again. "It's quite true," she said. "It is hot indoors. I don't think I shall write, after all." Brook Johnstone could not help smiling a little, though he turned away his face to hide his amusement. It was so perfectly evident that Mrs. Bowring was determined not to leave Clare alone with him that he must have been blind not to see it. Clare saw the smile, and was angry. She was nineteen years old, she had been out in the world, the terrace was a public place, Johnstone was a gentleman, and the whole thing was absurd. She took up her work and closed her lips tightly. Johnstone felt the awkwardness, rose suddenly, and said he would go for a walk. Clare raised her eyes and nodded as he lifted his hat. He was still smiling, and her resentment deepened. A moment later, mother and daughter were alone. Clare did not lay down her work, nor look up when she spoke. "Really, mother, it's too absurd!" she exclaimed, and a little colour came to her cheeks. "What is absurd, my dear?" asked Mrs. Bowring, affecting not to understand. "Your abject fear of leaving me for five minutes with Mr. Johnstone. I'm not a baby. He was laughing. I was positively ashamed! What do you suppose could have happened, if you had gone in and written your letters and left us quietly here? And it happens every day, you know! If you want a glass of water, I have to go in with you." "My dear! What an exaggeration!" "It's not an exaggeration, mother--really. You know that you wouldn't leave me with him for five minutes, for anything in the world." "Do you wish to be left alone with him, my dear?" asked Mrs. Bowring, rather abruptly. Clare was indignant. "Wish it? No! Certainly not! But if it should happen naturally, by accident, I should not get up and run away. I'm not afraid of the man, as you seem to be. What can he do to me? And you have no idea how strangely you behave, and what ridiculous excuses you invent for me. The other day you insisted on my going in to look for a train in the time-tables when you know we haven't the slightest intention of going away for ever so long. Really--you're turning into a perfect duenna. I wish you would behave naturally, as you always used to do." "I think you exaggerate," said Mrs. Bowring. "I never leave you alone with men you hardly know--" "You can't exactly say that we hardly know Mr. Johnstone, when he has been with us, morning, noon, and night, for nearly a week, mother." "My dear, we know nothing about him--" "If you are so anxious to know his father's Christian name, ask him. It wouldn't seem at all odd. I will, if you like." "Don't!" cried Mrs. Bowring, with unusual energy. "I mean," she added in a lower tone and looking away, "it would be very rude--he would think it very strange. In fact, it is merely idle curiosity on my part--really, I would much rather not know." Clare looked at her mother in surprise. "How oddly you talk!" she exclaimed. Then her tone changed. "Mother dear--is anything the matter? You don't seem quite--what shall I say? Are you suffering, dearest? Has anything happened?" She dropped her work, and leaned forward, her hand on her mother's, and gazing into her face with a look of anxiety. "No, dear," answered Mrs. Bowring. "No, no--it's nothing. Perhaps I'm a little nervous--that's all." "I believe the air of this place doesn't suit you. Why shouldn't we go away at once?" Mrs. Bowring shook her head and protested energetically. "No--oh no! I wouldn't go away for anything. I like the place immensely, and we are both getting perfectly well here. Oh no! I wouldn't think of going away." Clare leaned back in her seat again. She was devotedly fond of her mother, and she could not but see that something was wrong. In spite of what she said, Mrs. Bowring was certainly not growing stronger, though she was not exactly ill. The pale face was paler, and there was a worn and restless look in the long-suffering, almost colourless eyes. "I'm sorry I made such a fuss about Mr. Johnstone," said Clare softly, after a short pause. "No, darling," answered her mother instantly. "I dare say I have been a little over careful. I don't know--I had a sort of presentiment that you might take a fancy to him." "I know. You said so the first day. But I sha'n't, mother. You need not be at all afraid. He is not at all the sort of man to whom I should ever take a fancy, as you call it." "I don't see why not," said Mrs. Bowring thoughtfully. "Of course--it's hard to explain." Clare smiled. "But if that is what you are afraid of, you can leave us alone all day. My 'fancy' would be quite, quite different." "Very well, darling. At all events, I'll try not to turn into a duenna." Johnstone did not appear again until dinner, and then he was unusually silent, only exchanging a remark with Clare now and then, and not once leaning forward to say a few words to Mrs. Bowring as he generally did. The latter had at first thought of exchanging places with her daughter, but had reflected that it would be almost a rudeness to make such a change after the second day. They went out upon the terrace, and had their coffee there. Several of the other people did the same, and walked slowly up and down under the vines. Mrs. Bowring, wishing to destroy as soon as possible the unpleasant impression she had created, left the two together, saying that she would get something to put over her shoulders, as the air was cool. Clare and Johnstone stood by the parapet and looked at each other. Then Clare leaned with her elbows on the wall and stared in silence at the little lights on the beach below, trying to make out the shapes of the boats which were hauled up in a long row. Neither spoke for a long time, and Clare, at least, felt unpleasantly the constraint of the unusual silence. "It is a beautiful place, isn't it?" observed Johnstone at last, for the sake of hearing his own voice. "Oh yes, quite beautiful," answered the young girl in a half-indifferent, half-discontented tone, and the words ended with a sort of girlish sniff. Again there was silence. Johnstone, standing up beside her, looked towards the hotel, to see whether Mrs. Bowring were coming back. But she was anxious to appear indifferent to their being together, and was in no hurry to return. Johnstone sat down upon the wall, while Clare leaned over it. "Miss Bowring!" he said suddenly, to call her attention. "Yes?" She did not look up; but to her own amazement she felt a queer little thrill at the sound of his voice, for it had not its usual tone. "Don't you think I had better go to Naples?" he asked. Clare felt herself start a little, and she waited a moment before she said anything in reply. She did not wish to betray any astonishment in her voice. Johnstone had asked the question under a sudden impulse; but a far wiser and more skilful man than himself could not have hit upon one better calculated to precipitate intimacy. Clare, on her side, was woman enough to know that she had a choice of answers, and to see that the answer she should choose must make a difference hereafter. At the same time, she had been surprised, and when she thought of it afterwards it seemed to her that the question itself had been an impertinent one, merely because it forced her to make an answer of some sort. She decided in favour of making everything as clear as possible. "Why?" she asked, without looking round. At all events she would throw the burden of an elucidation upon him. He was not afraid of taking it up. "It's this," he answered. "I've rather thrust my acquaintance upon you, and, if I stay here until my people come, I can't exactly change my seat and go and sit at the other end of the table, nor pretend to be busy all day, and never come out here and sit with you, after telling you repeatedly that I have nothing on earth to do. Can I?" "Why should you?" "Because Mrs. Bowring doesn't like me." Clare rose from her elbows and stood up, resting her hands upon the wall, but still looking down at the lights on the beach. "I assure you, you're quite mistaken," she answered, with quiet emphasis. "My mother thinks you're very nice." "Then why--" Johnstone checked himself, and crumbled little bits of mortar from the rough wall with his thumbs. "Why what?" "I don't know whether I know you well enough to ask the question, Miss Bowring." "Let's assume that you do--for the sake of argument," said Clare, with a short laugh, as she glanced at his face, dimly visible in the falling darkness. "Thanks awfully," he answered, but he did not laugh with her. "It isn't exactly an easy thing to say, is it? Only--I couldn't help noticing--I hope you'll forgive me, if you think I'm rude, won't you? I couldn't help noticing that your mother was most awfully afraid of leaving us alone for a minute, you know--as though she thought I were a suspicious character, don't you know? Something of that sort. So, of course, I thought she didn't like me. Do you see? Tremendously cheeky of me to talk in this way, isn't it?" "Do you know? It is, rather." Clare was more inclined to laugh than before, but she only smiled in the dark. "Well, it would be, of course, if I didn't happen to be so painfully respectable." "Painfully respectable! What an expression!" This time, Clare laughed aloud. "Yes. That's just it. Well, I couldn't exactly tell Mrs. Bowring that, could I? Besides, one isn't vain of being respectable. I couldn't say, Please, Mrs. Bowring, my father is Mr. Smith, and my mother was a Miss Brown, of very good family, and we've got five hundred a year in Consols, and we're not in trade, and I've been to a good school, and am not at all dangerous. It would have sounded so--so uncalled for, don't you know? Wouldn't it?" "Very. But now that you've explained it to me, I suppose I may tell my mother, mayn't I? Let me see. Your father is Mr. Smith, and your mother was a Miss Brown--" "Oh, please--no!" interrupted Johnstone. "I didn't mean it so very literally. But it is just about that sort of thing--just like anybody else. Only about our not being in trade, I'm not so sure of that. My father is a brewer. Brewing is not a profession, so I suppose it must be a trade, isn't it?" "You might call it a manufacture," suggested Clare. "Yes. It sounds better. But that isn't the question, you know. You'll see my people when they come, and then you'll understand what I mean--they really are tremendously respectable." "Of course!" assented the young girl. "Like the party you came with on the yacht. That kind of people." "Oh dear no!" exclaimed Johnstone. "Not at all those kind of people. They wouldn't like it at all, if you said so." "Ah! indeed!" Clare was inclined to laugh again. "The party I came with belong rather to a gay set. Awfully nice, you know," he hastened to add, "and quite the people one knows at home. But my father and mother--oh no! they are quite different--the difference between whist and baccarat, you know, if you understand that sort of thing--old port and brandy and soda--both very good in their way, but quite different." "I should think so." "Then--" Johnstone hesitated again. "Then, Miss Bowring--you don't think that your mother really dislikes me, after all?" "Oh dear no! Not in the least. I've heard her say all sorts of nice things about you." "Really? Then I think I'll stay here. I didn't want to be a nuisance, you know--always in the way." "You're not in the way," answered Clare. Mrs. Bowring came back with her shawl, and the rest of the evening passed off as usual. Later, when she was alone, the young girl remembered all the conversation, and she saw that it had been in her power to make Johnstone leave Amalfi. While she was wondering why she had not done so, since she hated him for what she knew of him, she fell asleep, and the question remained unanswered. In the morning she told the substance of it all to her mother, and ended by telling her that Johnstone's father was a brewer. "Of course," answered Mrs. Bowring absently. "I know that." Then she realised what she had said, and glanced at Clare with an odd, scared look. Clare uttered an exclamation of surprise. "Mother! Why, then--you knew all about him! Why didn't you tell me?" A long silence followed, during which Mrs. Bowring sat with her face turned from her daughter. Then she raised her hand and passed it slowly over her forehead, as though trying to collect her thoughts. "One comes across very strange things in life, my dear," she said at last. "I am not sure that we had not better go away, after all. I'll think about it." Beyond this Clare could get no information, nor any explanation of the fact that Mrs. Bowring should have known something about Brook Johnstone's father. The girl made a guess, of course. The elder Johnstone must be a relation of her mother's first husband; though, considering that Mrs. Bowring had never seen Brook before now, and that the latter had never told her anything about his father, it was hard to see how she could be so sure of the fact. Possibly, Brook strongly resembled his father's family. That, indeed, was the only admissible theory. But all that Clare knew and could put together into reasonable shape could not explain why her mother so much disliked leaving her alone with the man, even for five minutes. In this, however, Mrs. Bowring changed suddenly, after the first evening when she had left them on the terrace. She either took a totally different view of the situation, or else she was ashamed of seeming to watch them all the time, and the consequence was that during the next three or four days they were very often together without her. Johnstone enjoyed the young girl's society, and did not pretend to deny the fact in his own thoughts. Whatever mischief he might have been in while on the yacht, his natural instincts were simple and honest. In a certain way, Clare was a revelation to him of something to which he had never been accustomed, and which he had most carefully avoided. He had no sisters, and as a boy he had not been thrown with girls. He was an only son, and his mother, a very practical woman, had warned him as he grew up that he was a great match, and had better avoid young girls altogether until he saw one whom he should like to marry, though how he was to see that particular one, if he avoided all alike, was a question into which his mother did not choose to enter. Having first gone into society upon this principle, however, and having been at once taken up and made much of by an extremely fashionable young woman afflicted with an elderly and eccentric husband, it was not likely that Brook would return to the threshold of the schoolroom for women's society. He went on as he had begun in his first "salad" days, and at five-and-twenty he had the reputation of having done more damage than any of his young contemporaries, while he had never once shown the slightest inclination to marry. His mother, always a practical woman, did not press the question of marriage, deeming that with his disposition he would stand a better chance of married peace when he had expended a good deal of what she called his vivacity; and his father, who came of very long-lived people, always said that no man should take a wife before he was thirty. As Brook did not gamble immoderately, nor start a racing stable, nor propose to manage an opera troupe, the practical lady felt that he was really a very good young man. His father liked him for his own sake; but as Adam Johnstone had been gay in his youth, in spite of his sober Scotch blood, even beyond the bounds of ordinary "fastness," the fact of his being fond of Brook was not of itself a guarantee that the latter was such a very good young man as his mother said that he was. Somehow or other Brook had hitherto managed to keep clear of any entanglement which could hamper his life, probably by virtue of that hardness which he had shown to poor Lady Fan, and which had so strongly prejudiced Clare Bowring against him. His father said cynically that the lad was canny. Hitherto he had certainly shown that he could be selfish; and perhaps there is less difference between the meanings of the Scotch and English words than most people suppose. Daily and almost hourly intercourse with such a young girl as Clare was a totally new experience to Brook Johnstone, and there were moments when he hardly recognised himself for the man who had landed from the yacht ten days earlier, and who had said good-bye to Lady Fan on the platform behind the hotel. Hitherto he had always known in a day or two whether he was inclined to make love to a woman or not. An inclination to make love and the satisfaction of it had been, so far, his nearest approach to being in love at all. Nor, when he had felt the inclination, had he ever hesitated. Like a certain great English statesman of similar disposition, he had sometimes been repulsed, but he never remembered having given offence. For he possessed that tactful intuition which guides some men through life in their intercourse with women. He rarely spoke the first word too soon, and if he were going to speak at all he never spoke too late--which error is, of the two, by far the greater. He was young, perhaps, to have had such experience; but in the social world of to-day it is especially the fashion for men to be extremely young, even to youthfulness, and lack of years is no longer the atrocious crime which Pitt would neither attempt to palliate or deny. We have just emerged from a period of wrinkles and paint, during which we were told that age knew everything and youth nothing. The explosion into nonsense of nine tenths of all we were taught at school and college has given our children a terrible weapon against us; and women, who are all practical in their own way, prefer the blundering whole-heartedness of youth to the skilful tactics and over-effective effects of the middle-aged love-actor. In this direction, at least, the breeze that goes before the dawn of a new century is already blowing. Perhaps it is a good sign--but a sign of some sort it certainly is. Brook Johnstone felt that he was in an unfamiliar position, and he tried to analyse his own feelings. He was perfectly honest about it, but he had very little talent for analysis. On the other hand, he had a very keen sense of what we roughly call honour. Clare was not Lady Fan, and would probably never get into that category. Clare belonged amongst the women whom he respected, and he respected them all, with all his heart. They included all young girls, and his mother, and all young women who were happily married. It will be admitted that, for a man who made no pretence to higher virtues, Brook was no worse than his contemporaries, and was better than a great many. Be that as it may, in lack of any finer means of discrimination, he tried to define his own position with regard to Clare Bowring very simply and honestly. Either he was falling in love, or he was not. Secondly, Clare was either the kind of girl whom he should like to marry, spoken of by his practical mother--or she was not. So far, all was extremely plain. The trouble was that he could not find any answers to the questions. He could not in the least be sure that he was falling in love, because he knew that he had never really been in love in his life. And as for saying at once that Clare was, or was not, the girl whom he should like to marry, how in the world could he tell that, unless he fell in love with her? Of course he did not wish to marry her unless he loved her. But he conceived it possible that he might fall in love with her and then not wish to marry her after all, which, in his simple opinion, would have been entirely despicable. If there were any chance of that, he ought to go away at once. But he did not know whether there were any chance of it or not. He could go away in any case, in order to be on the safe side; but then, there was no reason in the world why he should not marry her, if he should love her, and if she would marry him. The question became very badly mixed, and under the circumstances he told himself that he was splitting hairs on the mountains he had made of his molehills. He determined to stay where he was. At all events, judging from all signs with which he was acquainted, Clare was very far indeed from being in love with him, so that in this respect his sense of honour was perfectly safe and undisturbed. Having set his mind at rest in this way, he allowed himself to talk with her as he pleased. There was no reason why he should hamper himself in conversation, so long as he said nothing calculated to make an impression--nothing which could come under the general head of "making love." The result was that he was much more agreeable than he supposed. Clare's innocent eyes watched him, and her mind was divided about him. She was utterly young and inexperienced, but she was a woman, and she believed him to be false, faithless, and designing. She had no idea of the broad distinction he drew between all good and innocent women like herself, and all the rest whom he considered lawful prey. She concluded therefore, very rashly, that he was simply pursuing his usual tactics, a main part of which consisted in seeming perfectly unaffected and natural while only waiting for a faint sign of encouragement in order then to play the part of the passionate lover. The generalisations of youth are terrible. What has failed once is despicably damned for ever. What is true to-day is true enough to-morrow to kill all other truths outright. The man whose hand has shaken once is a coward; he who has fought one battle is to be the hero of seventy. Life is a forest of inverted pyramids, for the young; upon every point is balanced a gigantic weight of top-heavy ideals, spreading base-upwards. To Clare, everything Johnstone said or did was the working of a faithless intention towards its end. It was clear enough that he sought her and stayed with her as long as he could, day by day. Therefore he intended to make love to her, sooner or later, and then, when he was tired, he would say good-bye to her just as he had said good-bye to Lady Fan, and break her heart, and have one story more to laugh over when he was alone. It was quite clear that he could not mean anything else, after what she had seen. All the same, he pleased her when he was with her, and attracted her oddly. She told herself that unless he had some unusual qualities he could not possibly break hearts for pastime, as he undoubtedly did, from year's end to year's end. She studied the question, and reached the conclusion that his strength was in his eyes. They were the most frank, brave, good-humoured, clear, unaffected eyes she had ever seen, but she could not look at them long. There was no reason why she should, indeed, but she hated to feel that she could not, if she chose. Whenever she tried, she at once had the feeling that he had power over her, to make her do things she did not wish to do. That was probably the way in which he had influenced Lady Fan and the other women, probably a dozen, thought Clare. If they were really as honest as they seemed, she thought she should have been able to meet them without the least sensation of nervousness. One day she caught herself wishing that he had never done the thing she so hated. She was too honest to attribute to him outward defects which he did not possess, and she could not help thinking what a fine fellow he would be if he were not so bad. She might have liked him very much, then. But as it was, it was impossible that she should ever not hate him. Then she smiled to herself, as she thought how surprised he would be if he could guess what she thought of him. But there was no probability of that, for she felt that she had no right to know what she knew, and so she treated him always, as she thought, with the same even, indifferent civility. But not seldom she knew that she was wickedly wishing that he might really fall in love with her and find out that men could break their hearts as well as women. She should like to fight with him, with his own weapons, for the glory of all her sex, and make him thoroughly miserable for his sins. It could not be wrong to wish that, after what she had seen, but it would be very wrong to try and make him fall in love, just with that intention. That would be almost as bad as what he had done; not quite so bad, of course, because it would serve him right, but yet a deed which she might be ashamed to remember. She herself felt perfectly safe. She was neither sentimental nor susceptible, for if she had been one or the other she must by this time have had some "experience," as she vaguely called it. But she had not. She had never even liked any man so much as she liked this man whom she hated. This was not a contradiction of facts, which, as Euclid teaches us, is impossible. She liked him for what she saw, and she hated him for what she knew. One day, when Mrs. Bowring was present, the conversation turned upon a recent novel in which the hero, after making love to a woman, found that he had made a mistake, and promptly made love to her sister, whom he married in the end. "I despise that sort of man!" cried Clare, rather vehemently, and flashing her eyes upon Johnstone. For a moment she had thought that she could surprise him, that he would look away, or change colour, or in some way betray his most guilty conscience. But he did not seem in the least disturbed, and met her glance as calmly as ever. "Do you?" he asked with an indifferent laugh. "Why? The fellow was honest, at all events. He found that he didn't love the one to whom he was engaged, and that he did love the other. So he set things straight before it was too late, and married the right one. He was a very sensible man, and it must have taken courage to be so honest about it." "Courage!" exclaimed the young girl in high scorn. "He was a brute and a coward!" "Dear me!" laughed Brook. "Don't you admit that a man may ever make a mistake?" "When a man makes a mistake of that sort, he should either cut his throat, or else keep his word to the woman and try to make her happy." "That's a violent view--really! It seems to me that when a man has made a mistake the best thing to do is to go and say so. The bigger the mistake, the harder it is to acknowledge it, and the more courage it needs. Don't you think so, Mrs. Bowring?" "The mistake of all mistakes is a mistake in marriage," said the elder woman, looking away. "There is no remedy for that, but death." "Yes," answered Clare. "But don't you think that I'm right? It's what you say, after all--" "Not exactly, my dear. No man who doesn't love a woman can make her happy for long." "Well--a man who makes a woman think that he loves her, and then leaves her for some one else, is a brute, and a beast, and a coward, and a wretch, and a villain--and I hate him, and so do all women!" "That's categorical!" observed Brook, with a laugh. "But I dare say you are quite right in theory, only practice is so awfully different, you know. And a woman doesn't thank a man for pretending to love her." Clare's eyes flashed almost savagely, and her lip curled in scorn. "There's only one right," she said. "I don't know how many wrongs there are--and I don't want to know!" "No," answered Brook, gravely enough. "And there is no reason why you ever should." CHAPTER VII "You seemed to be most tremendously in earnest yesterday, when we were talking about that book," observed Brook on the following afternoon. "Of course I was," answered Clare. "I said just what I thought." They were walking together along the high road which leads from Amalfi towards Salerno. It is certainly one of the most beautiful roads in Europe, and in the whole world. The chain of rocky heights dashes with wild abruptness from its five thousand feet straight to the dark-blue sea, bristling with sharp needles and spikes of stone, rough with a chaos of brown boulders, cracked from peak to foot with deep torn gorges. In each gorge nestles a garden of orange and lemons and pomegranates, and out of the stones there blows a perfume of southern blossom through all the month of May. The sea lies dark and clear below, ever tideless, often still as a woodland pool; then, sometimes, it rises suddenly in deep-toned wrath, smiting the face of the cliff, booming through the low-mouthed caves, curling its great green curls and combing them out to frothing ringlets along the strips of beach, winding itself about the rock of Conca in a heavily gleaming sheet and whirling its wraith of foam to heaven, the very ghost of storm. And in the face of those rough rocks, high above the water, is hewn a way that leads round the mountain's base, many miles along it, over the sharp-jutting spurs, and in between the boulders and the needles, down into the gardens of the gorges and past the dark towers whence watchmen once descried the Saracen's ill-boding sail and sent up their warning beacon of smoke by day and fire by night. It is the most beautiful road in the world, in its infinite variety, in the grandeur above and the breadth below, and the marvellous rich sweetness of the deep gardens--passing as it does out of wilderness into splendour, out of splendour into wealth of colour and light and odour, and again out to the rugged strength of the loneliness beyond. Clare and Johnstone had exchanged idle phrases for a while, until they had passed Atrani and the turn where the new way leads up to Ravello, and were fairly out on the road. They were both glad to be out together and walking, for Clare had grown stronger, and was weary of always sitting on the terrace, and Johnstone was tired of taking long walks alone, merely for the sake of being hungry afterwards, and of late had given it up altogether. Mrs. Bowring herself was glad to be alone for once, and made little or no objection, and so the two had started in the early afternoon. Johnstone's remark had been premeditated, for his curiosity had been aroused on the preceding day by Clare's words and manner. But after she had given him her brief answer she said no more, and they walked on in silence for a few moments. "Yes," said Johnstone at last, as though he had been reflecting, "you generally say what you think. I didn't doubt it at the time. But you seem rather hard on the men. Women are all angels, of course--" "Not at all!" interrupted Clare. "Some of us are quite the contrary." "Well, it's a generally accepted thing, you know. That's what I mean. But it isn't generally accepted that men are. If you take men into consideration at all, you must make some allowances." "I don't see why. You are much stronger than we are. You all think that you have much more pride. You always say that you have a sense of honour which we can't understand. I should think that with all those advantages you would be much too proud to insist upon our making allowances for you." "That's rather keen, you know," answered Brook, with a laugh. "All the same, it's a woman's occupation to be good, and a man has a lot of other things to do besides. That's the plain English of it. When a woman isn't good she falls. When a man is bad, he doesn't--it's his nature." "Oh--if you begin by saying that all men are bad! That's an odd way out of it." "Not at all. Good men and bad women are the exceptions, that's all--in the way you mean goodness and badness." "And how do you think I mean goodness and badness? It seems to me that you are taking a great deal for granted, aren't you?" "Oh, I don't know," said Brook, growing vague on a sudden. "Those are rather hard things to talk about." "I like to talk about them. How do you think I understand those two words?" "I don't know," repeated Johnstone, still more vaguely. "I suppose your theory is that men and women are exactly equal, and that a man shouldn't do what a woman ought not to do--and all that, you know. I don't exactly know how to put it." "I don't see why what is wrong for a woman should be right for a man," said Clare. "The law doesn't make any difference, does it? A man goes to prison for stealing or forging, and so does a woman. I don't see why society should make any distinction about other things. If there were a law against flirting, it would send the men to prison just like the women, wouldn't it?" "What an awful idea!" laughed Brook. "Yes, but in theory--" "Oh, in theory it's all right. But in practice we men are not wrapped in cotton and tied up with pink ribbons from the day we are born to the day we are married. I--I don't exactly know how to explain what I mean, but that's the general idea. Among poor people--I believe one mustn't say the lower classes any more--well, with them it isn't quite the same. The women don't get so much care and looking after, when they are young, you know--that sort of thing. The consequence is, that there's much more equality between men and women. I believe the women are worse, and the men are better--it's my opinion, at all events. I dare say it isn't worth much. It's only what I see at home, you know." "But the working people don't flirt!" exclaimed Clare. "They drink, and that sort of thing--" "Yes, lots of them drink, men and women. And as for flirting--they don't call it flirting, but in their way I dare say it's very much the same thing. Only, in our part of the country, a man who flirts, if you call it so, gets just as bad a name as a woman. You see, they have all had about the same bringing up. But with us it's quite different. A girl is brought up in a cage, like a turtle dove, with nothing to do except to be good, while a boy is sent to a public school when he is eleven or twelve, which is exactly the same as sending him to hell, except that he has the certainty of getting away." "But boys don't learn to flirt at Eton," observed the young girl. "Well--no," answered Johnstone. "But they learn everything else, except Latin and Greek, and they go to a private tutor to learn those things before they go to the university." "You mean that they learn to drink and gamble, and all that?" asked Clare. "Oh--more or less--a little of everything that does no good--and then you expect us afterwards to be the same as you are, who have been brought up by your mothers at home. It isn't fair, you know." "No," answered Clare, yielding. "It isn't fair. That strikes me as the best argument you have used yet. But it doesn't make it right, for all that. And why shouldn't men be brought up to be good, just as women are?" Brook laughed. "That's quite another matter. Only a paternal government could do that--or a maternal government. We haven't got either, so we have to do the best we can. I only state the fact, and you are obliged to admit it. I can't go back to the reason. The fact remains. In certain ways, at a certain age, all men as a rule are bad, and all women, on the whole, are good. Most of you know it, and you judge us accordingly and make allowances. But you yourself don't seem inclined to be merciful. Perhaps you'll be less hard-hearted when you are older." "I'm not hard-hearted!" exclaimed Clare, indignantly. "I'm only just. And I shall always be the same, I'm sure." "If I were a Frenchman," said Brook, "I should be polite, and say that I hoped so. As I'm not, and as it would be rude to say that I didn't believe it, I'll say nothing. Only to be what you call just, isn't the way to be liked, you know." "I don't want to be liked," Clare answered, rather sharply. "I hate what are called popular people!" "So do I. They are generally awful bores, don't you know? They want to keep the thing up and be liked all the time." "Well--if one likes people at all, one ought to like them all the time," objected Clare, with unnecessary contrariety. "That was the original point," observed Brook. "That was your objection to the man in the book--that he loved first one sister and then the other. Poor chap! The first one loved him, and the second one prayed for him! He had no luck!" "A man who will do that sort of thing is past praying for!" retorted the young girl. "It seems to me that when a man makes a woman believe that he loves her, the best thing he can do is to be faithful to her afterwards." "Yes--but supposing that he is quite sure that he can't make her happy--" "Then he had no right to make love to her at all." "But he didn't know it at first. He didn't find out until he had known her a long time." "That makes it all the worse," exclaimed Clare with conviction, but without logic. "And while he was trying to find out, she fell in love with him," continued Brook. "That was unlucky, but it wasn't his fault, you know--" "Oh yes, it was--in that book at least. He asked her to marry him before he had half made up his mind. Really, Mr. Johnstone," she continued, almost losing her temper, "you defend the man almost as though you were defending yourself!" "That's rather a hard thing to say to a man, isn't it?" Johnstone was young enough to be annoyed, though he was amused. "Then why do you defend the man?" asked Clare, standing still at a turn of the road and facing him. "I won't, if we are going to quarrel about a ridiculous book," he answered, looking at her. "My opinion's not worth enough for that." "If you have an opinion at all, it's worth fighting for." "I don't want to fight, and I won't fight with you," he answered, beginning to laugh. "With me or with any one else--" "No--not with you," he said with sudden emphasis. "Why not with me?" "Because I like you very much," he answered boldly, and they stood looking at each other in the middle of the road. Clare had started in surprise, and the colour rose slowly to her face, but she would not take her eyes from his. For the first time it seemed to her that he had no power over her. "I'm sorry," she answered. "For I don't like you." "Are you in earnest?" He could not help laughing. "Yes." There was no mistaking her tone. Johnstone's face changed, and for the first time in their acquaintance he was the one to turn his eyes away. "I'm sorry too," he said quietly. "Shall we turn back?" he asked after a moment's pause. "No, I want to walk," answered Clare. She turned from him, and began to walk on in silence. For some time neither spoke. Johnstone was puzzled, surprised, and a little hurt, but he attributed what she had said to his own roughness in telling her that he liked her, though he could not see that he had done anything so very terrible. He had spoken spontaneously, too, without the least thought of producing an impression, or of beginning to make love to her. Perhaps he owed her an apology. If she thought so, he did, and it could do no harm to try. "I'm very sorry, if I have offended you just now," he said gently. "I didn't mean to." "You didn't offend me," answered Clare. "It isn't rude to say that one likes a person." "Oh--I beg your pardon--I thought perhaps--" He hesitated, surprised by her very unexpected answer. He could not imagine what she wanted. "Because I said that I didn't like you?" she asked. "Well--yes." "Then it was I who offended you," answered the young girl. "I didn't mean to, either. Only, when you said that you liked me, I thought you were in earnest, you know, and so I wanted to be quite honest, because I thought it was fairer. You see, if I had let you think that I liked you, you might have thought we were going to drift into being friends, and that's impossible, you know--because I never did like you, and I never shall. But that needn't prevent our walking together, and talking, and all that. At least, I don't mean that it should. That's the reason why I won't turn back just yet--" "But how in the world can you enjoy walking and talking with a man you don't like?" asked Johnstone, who was completely at sea, and began to think that he must be dreaming. "Well--you are awfully good company, you know, and I can't always be sitting with my mother on the terrace, though we love each other dearly." "You are the most extraordinary person!" exclaimed Johnstone, in genuine bewilderment. "And of course your mother dislikes me too, doesn't she?" "Not at all," answered Clare. "You asked me that before, and I told you the truth. Since then, she likes you better and better. She is always saying how nice you are." "Then I had better always talk to her," suggested Brook, feeling for a clue. "Oh, I shouldn't like that at all!" cried the young girl, laughing. "And yet you don't like me. This is like twenty questions. You must have some very particular reason for it," he added thoughtfully. "I suppose I must have done some awful thing without knowing it. I wish you would tell me. Won't you, please? Then I'll go away." "No," Clare answered. "I won't tell you. But I have a reason. I'm not capricious. I don't take violent dislikes to people for nothing. Let it alone. We can talk very pleasantly about other things. Since you are good enough to like me, it might be amusing to tell me why. If you have any good reason, you know, you won't stop liking me just because I don't like you, will you?" She glanced sideways at him as she spoke, and he was watching her and trying to understand her, for the revelation of her dislike had come upon him very suddenly. She was on the right as they walked, and he saw her against the light sky, above the line of the low parapet. Perhaps the light behind her dazzled him; at all events, he had a strange impression for a moment. She seemed to have the better of him, and to be stronger and more determined than he. She seemed taller than she was, too, for she was on the higher part of the road, in the middle of it. For an instant he felt precisely what she so often felt with him, that she had power over him. But he did not resent the sensation as she did, though it was quite as new to him. Nevertheless, he did not answer her, for she had spoken only half in earnest, and he himself was not just then inclined to joke for the mere sake of joking. He looked down at the road under his feet, and he knew all at once that Clare attracted him much more than he had imagined. The sidelong glance she had bestowed upon him had fascination in it. There was an odd charm about her girlish contrariety and in her frank avowal that she did not like him. Her dislike roused him. He did not choose to be disliked by her, especially for some absurd trifle in his behaviour, which he had not even noticed when he had made the mistake, whatever it might be. He walked along in silence, and he was aware of her light tread and the soft sound of her serge skirt as she moved. He wished her to like him, and wished that he knew what to do to change her mind. But that would not be easy, since he did not know the cause of her dislike. Presently she spoke again, and more gravely. "I should not have said that. I'm sorry. But of course you knew that I wasn't in earnest." "I don't know why you should not have said it," he answered. "As a matter of fact, you are quite right. I don't like you any the less because you don't like me. Liking isn't a bargain with cash on delivery. I think I like you all the more for being so honest. Do you mind?" "Not in the least. It's a very good reason." Clare smiled, and then suddenly looked grave again, wondering whether it would not be really honest to tell him then and there that she had overheard his last interview with Lady Fan. But she reflected that it could only make him feel uncomfortable. "And another reason why I like you is because you are combative," he said thoughtfully. "I'm not, you know. One always admires the qualities one hasn't oneself." "And you are not combative? You don't like to be in the opposition?" "Not a bit! I'm not fond of fighting. I systematically avoid a row." "I shouldn't have thought that," said Clare, looking at him again. "Do you know? I think most people would take you for a soldier." "Do I look as though I would seek the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth?" Brook laughed. "Am I full of strange oaths?" "Oh, that's ridiculous, you know!" exclaimed Clare. "I mean, you look as though you would fight." "I never would if I could help it. And so far I have managed 'to help it' very well. I'm naturally mild, I think. You are not, you know. I don't mean to be rude, but I think you are pugnacious--'combative' is prettier." "My father was a soldier," said the girl, with some pride. "And mine is a brewer. There's a lot of inheritable difference between handling gunpowder and brewing mild ale. Like father, like son. I shall brew mild ale too. If you could have charged at Balaclava, you would. By the way, it isn't the beer that you object to? Please tell me. I shouldn't mind at all, and I'd much rather know that it was only that." "How absurd!" cried Clare with scorn. "As though it made any difference!" "Well--what is it, then?" asked Brook with sudden impatience. "You have no right to hate me without telling me why." "No right?" The young girl turned on him half fiercely, and then laughed. "You haven't a standing order from Heaven to be liked by the whole human race, you know!" "And if I had, you would be the solitary exception, I suppose," suggested Johnstone with a rather discontented smile. "Perhaps." "Is there anything I could do to make you change your mind? Because, if it were anything in reason, I'd do it." "It's rather a pity that you should put in the condition of its being in reason," answered Clare, as her lip curled. "But there isn't anything. You may just as well give it up at once." "I won't." "It's a waste of time, I assure you. Besides, it's mere vanity. It's only because everybody likes you--so you think that I should too." "Between us, we are getting at my character at last," observed Brook with some asperity. "You've discovered my vanity, now. By-and-by we shall find out some more good qualities." "Perhaps. Each one will be a step in our acquaintance, you know. Steps may lead down, as well as up. We are walking down hill on this road just now, and it's steep. Look at that unfortunate mule dragging that cart up hill towards us! That's like trying to be friends, against odds. I wish the man would not beat the beast like that, though! What brutes these people are!" Her dark blue eyes fixed themselves keenly on the sight, and the pupils grew wide and angry. The cart was a hundred yards away, coming up the road, piled high with sacks of potatoes, and drawn by one wretched mule. The huge carter was sprawling on the front sacks, yelling a tuneless chant at the top of his voice. He was a black-haired man, with a hideous mouth, and his face was red with wine. As he yelled his song he flogged his miserable beast with a heavy whip, accenting his howls with cruel blows. Clare grew pale with anger as she came nearer and saw it all more distinctly. The mule's knees bent nearly double at every violent step, its wide eyes were bright red all round, its white tongue hung out, and it gasped for breath. The road was stony, too, besides being steep, for it had been lately mended and not rolled. "Brute!" exclaimed Clare, in a low voice, and her face grew paler. Johnstone said nothing, and his face did not change as they advanced. "Don't you see?" cried the young girl. "Can't you do anything? Can't you stop him?" "Oh yes. I think I can do that," answered Brook indifferently. "It is rather rough on the mule." "Rough! It's brutal, it's beastly, it's cowardly, it's perfectly inhuman!" At that moment the unfortunate animal stumbled, struggled to recover itself as the lash descended pitilessly upon its thin flanks, and then fell headlong and tumbled upon its side. The heavy cart pulled back, half turning, so that the shafts were dragged sideways across the mule, whose weight prevented the load from rolling down hill. The carrier stopped singing and swore, beating the beast with all his might, as it lay still gasping for breath. "Ah, assassin! Ah, carrion! I will teach thee! Curses on the dead of thy house!" he roared. Brook and Clare were coming nearer. "That's not very intelligent of the fellow," observed Johnstone indifferently. "He had much better get down." "Oh, stop it, stop it!" cried the young girl, suffering acutely for the helpless creature. But the man had apparently recognised the impossibility of producing any impression unless he descended from his perch. He threw the whip to the ground and slid off the sacks. He stood looking at the mule for a moment, and then kicked it in the back with all his might. Then, just as Johnstone and Clare came up, he went round to the back of the cart, walking unsteadily, for he was evidently drunk. The two stopped by the parapet and looked on. "He's going to unload," said Johnstone. "That's sensible, at all events." The sacks, as usual in Italy, were bound to the cart by cords, which were fast in front, but which wound upon a heavy spindle at the back. The spindle had three holes in it, in which staves were thrust as levers, to turn it and hold the ropes taut. Two of the staves were tightly pressed against the load, while the third stood nearly upright in its hole. The man took the third stave, a bar of elm four feet long and as thick as a man's wrist, and came round to the mule again on the side away from Clare and Johnstone. He lifted the weapon high in air, and almost before they realised what horror he was perpetrating he had struck three or four tremendous blows upon the creature's back, making as many bleeding wounds. The mule kicked and shivered violently, and its eyes were almost starting from its head. Johnstone came up first, caught the stave in air as it was about to descend again, wrenched it out of the man's hands, and hurled it over Clare's head, across the parapet and into the sea. The man fell back a step, and his face grew purple with rage. He roared out a volley of horrible oaths, in a dialect perfectly incomprehensible even to Clare, who knew Italian well. "You needn't yell like that, my good man," said Johnstone, smiling at him. The man was big and strong, and drunk. He clenched his fists, and made for his adversary, head down, in the futile Italian fashion. The Englishman stepped aside, landed a left-handed blow behind his ear, and followed it up with a tremendous kick, which sent the fellow upon his face in the ditch under the rocks. Clare looked on, and her eyes brightened singularly, for she had fighting blood in her veins. The man seemed stunned, and lay still where he had fallen. Johnstone turned to the fallen mule, which lay bleeding and gasping under the shafts, and he began to unbuckle the harness. "Could you put a big stone behind the wheel?" he asked, as Clare tried to help him. He knew that the cart must roll back if it were not blocked, for he had noticed how it stood. Clare looked about for a stone, picked one up by the roadside, and went to the back of the cart, while Johnstone patted the mule's head, and busied himself with the buckles of the harness, bending low as he did so. Clare also bent down, trying to force the stone under the wheel, and did not notice that the carter was sitting up by the roadside, feeling for something in his pocket. An instant later he was on his feet. When Clare stood up, he was stepping softly up behind Johnstone. As he moved, she saw that he had an open clasp-knife in his right hand. Johnstone was still bending down unconscious of his danger. The young girl was light on her feet and quick, and not cowardly. The man was before her, halfway between her and Brook. She sprang with all her might, threw her arms round the drunken man's neck from behind, and dragged him backward. He struck wildly behind him with the knife, and roared out curses. "Quick!" cried Clare, in her high, clear voice. "He's got a knife! Quick!" But Johnstone had heard their steps, and was already upon him from before, while the young girl's arms tightened round his neck from behind. The fellow struck about him wildly with his blade, staggering backwards as Clare dragged upon him. "Let go, or you'll fall!" Brook shouted to her. As he spoke, dodging the knife, he struck the man twice in the face, left and right, in an earnest, business-like way. Clare caught herself by the wheel of the cart as she sprang aside, almost falling under the man's weight. A moment later, Brook was kneeling on his chest, having the knife in his hand and holding it near the carter's throat. "Lie still!" he said rather quietly, in English. "Give me the halter, please!" he said to Clare, without looking up. "It's hanging to the shaft there in a coil." Kneeling on the man's chest--to tell the truth, he was badly stunned, though not unconscious--Brook took two half-hitches with the halter round one wrist, passed the line under his neck as he lay, and hauled on it till the arm came under his side, then hitched the other wrist, passed the line back, hauled on it, and finally took two turns round the throat. Clare watched the operation, very pale and breathing hard. "He's drunk," observed Johnstone. "Otherwise I wouldn't tie him up, you know. Now, if you move," he said in English to his prisoner, "you'll strangle yourself." Thereupon he rose, forced the fellow to roll over, and hitched the fall of the line round both wrists again, and made it fast, so that the man lay, with his head drawn back by his own hands, which he could not move without tightening the rope round his neck. "He's frightened now," said Brook. "Let's get the poor mule out of that." In a few minutes he got the wretched beast free. It was ready enough to rise as soon as it felt that it could do so, and it struggled to its feet, badly hurt by the beating and bleeding in many places, but not seriously injured. The carter watched them as he lay on the road, half strangled, and cursed them in a choking voice. "And now, what in the world are we going to do with them?" asked Brook, rubbing the mule's nose. "It's a pretty bad case," he continued, thoughtfully. "The mule can't draw the load, the carter can't be allowed to beat the mule, and we can't afford to let the carter have his head. What the dickens are we to do?" He laughed a little. Then he suddenly looked hard at Clare, as though remembering something. "It was awfully plucky of you to jump on him in that way," he said. "Just at the right moment, too, by Jove! That devil would have got at me if you hadn't stopped him. Awfully plucky, upon my word! And I'm tremendously obliged, Miss Bowring, indeed I am!" "It's nothing to be grateful for, it seems to me," Clare answered. "I suppose there's nothing to be done but to sit down and wait until somebody comes. It's a lonely road, of course, and we may wait a long time." "I say," exclaimed Johnstone, "you've torn your frock rather badly! Look at it!" She drew her skirt round with her hand. There were long, clean rents in the skirt, on her right side. "It was his knife," she said, thoughtfully surveying the damage. "He kept trying to get at me with it. I'm sorry, for I haven't another serge skirt with me." Then she felt herself blushing, and turned away. "I'll just pin it up," she said, and she disappeared behind the cart rather precipitately. "By Jove! You have pretty good nerves!" observed Johnstone, more to himself than to her. "Shut up!" he cried to the carter, who was swearing again. "Stop that noise, will you?" He made a step angrily towards the man, for the sight of the slit frock had roused him again, when he thought what the knife might have done. The fellow was silent instantly, and lay quite still, for he knew that he should strangle himself if he moved. "I'll have you in prison before night," continued Johnstone, speaking English to him. "Oh yes! the _carabinieri_ will come, and you will go to _galera_--do you understand that?" He had picked up the words somewhere. The man began to moan and pray. "Stop that noise!" cried Brook, with slow emphasis. He was not far wrong in saying that the carabineers would come. They patrol the roads day and night, in pairs, as they patrol every high road and every mountain path in Italy, all the year round. And just then, far up the road down which Johnstone and Clare had come, two of them appeared in sight, recognisable a mile away by their snow-white crossbelts and gleaming accoutrements. There are twelve or fourteen thousand of them in the country, trained soldiers and picked men, by all odds the finest corps in the army. Until lately no man could serve in the carabineers who could not show documentary evidence that neither he nor his father nor his mother had ever been in prison even for the smallest offence. They are feared and respected, and it is they who have so greatly reduced brigandage throughout the country. Clare came back to Johnstone's side, having done what she could to pin the rents together. "It's all right now," she cried. "Here come the carabineers. They will take the man and his cart to the next village. Let me talk to them--I can speak Italian, you know." She was pale again, and very quiet. She had noticed that her hands trembled violently when she was pinning her frock, though they had been steady enough when they had gone round the man's throat. When the patrol men came up, she stepped forward and explained what had happened, clearly and briefly. There was the bleeding mule, Johnstone standing before it and rubbing its dusty nose; there was the knife; there was the man. With a modest gesture she showed them where her frock had been cut to shreds. Johnstone made remarks in English, reflecting upon the Italian character, which she did not think fit to translate. The carabineers were silent fellows with big moustaches--the one very dark, the other as fair as a Swede--they were clean, strong, sober men, with frank eyes, and they said very little. They asked the strangers' names, and Johnstone, at Clare's request, wrote her name on his card, and the address in Amalfi. One of them knew the carter for a bad character. "We will take care of him and his cart," said the dark man, who was the superior. "The signori may go in quiet." They untied the rope that bound the man. He rose trembling, and stood on his feet, for he knew that he was in their power. But they showed no intention of putting him in handcuffs. "Turn the cart round!" said the dark man. They helped the carter to do it, and blocked it with stones. "Put in the mule!" was the next order, and the carabineers held up the shafts while the man obeyed. Then both saluted Johnstone and Clare, and shouldered their short carbines, which had stood against the parapet. "Forward!" said the dark man, quietly. The carter took the mule by the head and started it gently enough. The creature understood, and was glad to go down hill; the wheels creaked, the cart moved, and the party went off, one of the carabineers marching on either side. Clare drew a long breath as she stood looking after them for a moment. "Let us go home," she said at last, and turned up the road. For some minutes they walked on in silence. "I think you probably saved my life at the risk of yours, Miss Bowring," said Johnstone, at last, looking up. "Thank you very much." "Nonsense!" exclaimed the young girl, and she tried to laugh. "But you were telling me that you were not combative--that you always avoided a fight, you know, and that you were so mild, and all that. For a very mild man, Mr. Johnstone, who hates fighting, you are a good 'man of your hands,' as they say in the _Morte d'Arthur_." "Oh, I don't call that a fight!" answered Johnstone, contemptuously. "Why, my collar isn't even crumpled. As for my hands, if I could find a spring I would wash them, after touching that fellow." "That's the advantage of wearing gloves," observed Clare, looking at her own. They were both very young, and though they knew that they had been in great danger they affected perfect indifference about it to each other, after the manner of true Britons. But each admired the other, and Brook was suddenly conscious that he had never known a woman whom, in some ways, he thought so admirable as Clare Bowring, but both felt a singular constraint as they walked homeward. "Do you know?" Clare began, when they were near Amalfi, "I think we had better say nothing about it to my mother--that is, if you don't mind." "By all means," answered Brook. "I'm sure I don't want to talk about it." "No, and my mother is very nervous--you know--about my going off to walk without her. Oh, not about you--with anybody. You see, I'd been very ill before I came here." CHAPTER VIII In obedience to Clare's expressed wish, Johnstone made no mention that evening of the rather serious adventure on the Salerno road. They had fallen into the habit of shaking hands when they bade each other good-night. When it was time, and the two ladies rose to withdraw, Johnstone suddenly wished that Clare would make some little sign to him--the least thing to show that this particular evening was not precisely what all the other evenings had been, that they were drawn a little closer together, that perhaps she would change her mind and not dislike him any more for that unknown reason at which he could not even guess. They joined hands, and his eyes met hers. But there was no unusual pressure--no little acknowledgment of a common danger past. The blue eyes looked at him straight and proudly, without softening, and the fresh lips calmly said good-night. Johnstone remained alone, and in a singularly bad humour for such a good-tempered man. He was angry with Clare for being so cold and indifferent, and he was ashamed of himself for wishing that she would admire him a little for having knocked down a tipsy carter. It was not much of an exploit. What she had done had been very much more remarkable. The man would not have killed him, of course, but he might have given him a very dangerous wound with that ugly clasp-knife. Clare's frock was cut to pieces on one side, and it was a wonder that she had escaped without a scratch. He had no right to expect any praise for what he had done, when she had done so much more. To tell the truth, it was not praise that he wanted, but a sign that she was not indifferent to him, or at least that she no longer disliked him. He was ashamed to own to himself that he was half in love with a young girl who had told him that she did not like him and would never even be his friend. Women had not usually treated him in that way, so far. But the fact remained, that she had got possession of his thoughts, and made him think about his actions when she was present. It took a good deal to disturb Brook Johnstone's young sleep, but he did not sleep well that night. As for Clare, when she was alone, she regretted that she had not just nodded kindly to him, and nothing more, when she had said good-night. She knew perfectly well that he expected something of the sort, and that it would have been natural, and quite harmless, without any possibility of consequence. She consoled herself by repeating that she had done quite right, as the vision of Lady Fan rose distinctly before her in a flood of memory's moonlight. Then it struck her, as the vision faded, that her position was a very odd one. Personally, she liked the man. Impersonally, she hated and despised him. At least she believed that she did, and that she should, for the sake of all women. To her, as she had known him, he was brave, kind, gentle in manner and speech, boyishly frank. As she had seen him that once, she had thought him heartless, cowardly, and cynical. She could not reconcile the two, and therefore, in her thoughts, she unconsciously divided him into two individualities--her Mr. Johnstone and Lady Fan's Brook. There was very little resemblance between them. Oddly enough, she felt a sort of pang for him, that he could ever have been the other man whom she had first seen. She was getting into a very complicated frame of mind. They met in the morning and exchanged greetings with unusual coldness. Brook asked whether she were tired; she said that she had done nothing to tire her, as though she resented the question; he said nothing in answer, and they both looked at the sea and thought it extremely dull. Presently Johnstone went off for a walk alone, and Clare buried herself in a book for the morning. She did not wish to think, because her thoughts were so very contradictory. It was easier to try and follow some one else's ideas. She found that almost worse than thinking, but, being very tenacious, she stuck to it and tried to read. At the midday meal they exchanged commonplaces, and neither looked at the other. Just as they left the dining-room a heavy thunderstorm broke overhead with a deluge of rain. Clare said that the thunder made her head ache, and she disappeared on pretence of lying down. Mrs. Bowring went to write letters, and Johnstone hung about the reading-room, and smoked a pipe in the long corridor, till he was sick of the sound of his own footsteps. Amalfi was all very well in fine weather, he reflected, but when it rained it was as dismal as penny whist, Sunday in London, or a volume of sermons--or all three together, he added viciously, in his thoughts. The German family had fallen back upon the guide book, Mommsen's _History of Rome_, and the _Gartenlaube_. The Russian invalid was presumably in his room, with a teapot, and the two English old maids were reading a violently sensational novel aloud to each other by turns in the hotel drawing-room. They stopped reading and got very red, when Johnstone looked in. It was a dreary afternoon, and he wished that something would happen. The fight on the preceding day had stirred his blood--and other things perhaps had contributed to his restless state of mind. He thought of Clare's torn frock, and he wished he had killed the carter outright. He reflected that, as the man was attacking him with a knife, he himself would have been acquitted. Late in the afternoon the sky cleared and the red light of the lowering sun struck the crests of the higher hills to eastward. Brook went out and smelled the earth-scented air, and the damp odour of the orange-blossoms. But that did not please him either, so he turned back and went through the long corridor to the platform at the back of the hotel. To his surprise he came face to face with Clare, who was walking briskly backwards and forwards, and saw him just as he emerged from the door. They both stood still and looked at each other with an odd little constraint, almost like anxiety, in their faces. There was a short, awkward silence. "Well?" said Clare, interrogatively, and raising her eyebrows a very little, as though wondering why he did not speak. "Nothing," Johnstone answered, turning his face seaward. "I wasn't going to say anything." "Oh!--you looked as though you were." "No," he said. "I came out to get a breath of air, that's all." "So did I. I--I think I've been out long enough. I'll go in." And she made a step towards the door. "Oh, please, don't!" he cried suddenly. "Can't we walk together a little bit? That is, if you are not tired." "Oh no! I'm not tired," answered the young girl with a cold little laugh. "I'll stay if you like--just a few minutes." "Thanks, awfully," said Brook in a shy, jerky way. They began to walk up and down, much less quickly than Clare had been walking when alone. They seemed to have nothing to say to each other. Johnstone remarked that he thought it would not rain again just then, and after some minutes of reflection Clare said that she remembered having seen two thunderstorms within an hour, with a clear sky between, not long ago. Johnstone also thought the matter over for some time before he answered, and then said that he supposed the clouds must have been somewhere in the meantime--an observation which did not strike either Clare or even himself as particularly intelligent. "I don't think you know much about thunderstorms," said Clare, after another silence. "I? No--why should I?" "I don't know. It's supposed to be just as well to know about things, isn't it?" "I dare say," answered Brook, indifferently. "But science isn't exactly in my line, if I have any line." They recrossed the platform in silence. "What is your line--if you have any?" Clare asked, looking at the ground as she walked, and perfectly indifferent as to his answer. "It ought to be beer," answered Brook, gravely. "But then, you know how it is--one has all sorts of experts, and one ends by taking their word for granted about it. I don't believe I have any line--unless it's in the way of out-of-door things. I'm fond of shooting, and I can ride fairly, you know, like anybody else." "Yes," said Clare, "you were telling me so the other day, you know." "Yes," Johnstone murmured thoughtfully, "that's true. Please excuse me. I'm always repeating myself." "I didn't mean that." Her tone changed a little. "You can be very amusing when you like, you know." "Thanks, awfully. I should like to be amusing now, for instance, but I can't." "Now? Why now?" "Because I'm boring you to madness, little by little, and I'm awfully sorry too, for I want you to like me--though you say you never will--and of course you can't like a bore, can you? I say, Miss Bowring, don't you think we could strike some sort of friendly agreement--to be friends without 'liking,' somehow? I'm beginning to hate the word. I believe it's the colour of my hair or my coat--or something--that you dislike so. I wish you'd tell me. It would be much kinder. I'd go to work and change it--" "Dye your hair?" Clare laughed, glad that the ice was broken again. "Oh yes--if you like," he answered, laughing too. "Anything to please you." "Anything 'in reason'--as you proposed yesterday." "No--anything in reason or out of it. I'm getting desperate!" He laughed again, but in his laughter there was a little note of something new to the young girl, a sort of understreak of earnestness. "It isn't anything you can change," said Clare, after a moment's hesitation. "And it certainly has nothing to do with your appearance, or your manners, or your tailor," she added. "Oh well, then, it's evidently something I've done, or said," Brook murmured, looking at her. But she did not return his glance, as they walked side by side; indeed, she turned her face from him a little, and she said nothing, for she was far too truthful to deny his assertion. "Then I'm right," he said, with an interrogation, after a long pause. "Don't ask me, please! It's of no importance after all. Talk of something else." "I don't agree with you," Brook answered. "It is very important to me." "Oh, nonsense!" Clare tried to laugh. "What difference can it make to you, whether I like you or not?" "Don't say that. It makes a great difference--more than I thought it could, in fact. One--one doesn't like to be misjudged by one's friends, you know." "But I'm not your friend." "I want you to be." "I can't." "You won't," said Brook, in a lower tone, and almost angrily. "You've made up your mind against me, on account of something you've guessed at, and you won't tell me what it is, so I can't possibly defend myself. I haven't the least idea what it can be. I never did anything particularly bad, I believe, and I never did anything I should be ashamed of owning. I don't like to say that sort of thing, you know, about myself, but you drive me to it. It isn't fair. Upon my word, it's not fair play. You tell a man he's a bad lot, like that, in the air, and then you refuse to say why you think so. Or else the whole thing is a sort of joke you've invented--if it is, it's awfully one-sided, it seems to me." "Do you really think me capable of anything so silly?" asked Clare. "No, I don't. That makes it all the worse, because it proves that you have--or think you have--something against me. I don't know much about law, but it strikes me as something tremendously like libel. Don't you think so yourself?" "Oh no! Indeed I don't. Libel means saying things against people, doesn't it? I haven't done that--" "Indeed you have! I mean, I beg your pardon for contradicting you like that--" "Rather flatly," observed Clare, as they turned in their walk, and their eyes met. "Well, I'm sorry, but since we are talking about it, I've got to say what I think. After all, I'm the person attacked. I have a right to defend myself." "I haven't attacked you," answered the young girl, gravely. "I won't be rude, if I can help it," said Brook, half roughly. "But I asked you if you disliked me for something I had done or said, and you couldn't deny it. That means that I have done or said something bad enough to make you say that you will never be my friend--and that must be something very bad indeed." "Then you think I'm not squeamish? It would have to be something very, very bad." "Yes." "Thank you. Well, I thought it very bad. Anybody would, I should fancy." "I never did anything very, very bad, so you must be mistaken," answered Johnstone, exasperated. Clare said nothing, but walked along with her head rather high, looking straight before her. It had all happened before her eyes, on the very ground under her feet, on that platform. Johnstone knew that he had spoken roughly. "I say," he began, "was I rude? I'm awfully sorry." Clare stopped and stood still. "Mr. Johnstone, we sha'n't agree. I will never tell you, and you will never be satisfied unless I do. So it's a dead-lock." "You are horribly unjust," answered Brook, very much in earnest, and fixing his bright eyes on hers. "You seem to take a delight in tormenting me with this imaginary secret. After all, if it's something you saw me do, or heard me say, I must know of it and remember it, so there's no earthly reason why we shouldn't discuss it." There was again that fascination in his eyes, and she felt herself yielding. "I'll say one thing," she said. "I wish you hadn't done it!" She felt that she could not look away from him, and that he was getting her into his power. The colour rose in her face. "Please don't look at me!" she said suddenly, gazing helplessly into his eyes, but his steady look did not change. "Please--oh, please look away!" she cried, half-frightened and growing pale again. He turned from her, surprised at her manner. "I'm afraid you're not in earnest about this, after all," he said, thoughtfully. "If you meant what you said, why shouldn't you look at me?" She blushed scarlet again. "It's very rude to stare like that!" she said, in an offended tone. "You know that you've got something--I don't know what to call it--one can't look away when you look at one. Of course you know it, and you ought not to do it. It isn't nice." "I didn't know there was anything peculiar about my eyes," said Brook. "Indeed I didn't! Nobody ever told me so, I'm sure. By Jove!" he exclaimed, "I believe it's that! I've probably done it before--and that's why you--" he stopped. "Please don't think me so silly," answered Clare, recovering her composure. "It's nothing of the sort. As for that--that way you have of looking--I dare say I'm nervous since my illness. Besides--" she hesitated, and then smiled. "Besides, do you know? If you had looked at me a moment longer I should have told you the whole thing, and then we should both have been sorry." "I should not, I'm sure," said Brook, with conviction. "But I don't understand about my looking at you. I never tried to mesmerise any one--" "There is no such thing as mesmerism. It's all hypnotism, you know." "I don't know what they call it. You know what I mean. But I'm sure it's your imagination." "Oh yes, I dare say," answered the young girl with affected carelessness. "It's merely because I'm nervous." "Well, so far as I'm concerned, it's quite unconscious. I don't know--I suppose I wanted to see in your eyes what you were thinking about. Besides, when one likes a person, one doesn't think it so dreadfully rude to look at them--at him--I mean, at you--when one is in earnest about something--does one?" "I don't know," said Clare. "But please don't do it to me. It makes me feel awfully uncomfortable somehow. You won't, will you?" she asked, with a sort of appeal. "You would make me tell you everything--and then I should hate myself." "But I shouldn't hate you." "Oh yes, you would! You would hate me for knowing." "By Jove! It's too bad!" cried Brook. "But as for that," he added humbly, "nothing would make me hate you." "Nothing? You don't know!" "Yes, I do! You couldn't make me change my mind about you. I've grown to--to like you a great deal too much for that in this short time--a great deal more than is good for me, I believe," he added, with a sort of rough impulsiveness. "Not that I'm at all surprised, you know," he continued with an attempt at a laugh. "One can't see a person like you, most of the day, for ten days or a fortnight, without--well, you know, admiring you most tremendously--can one? I dare say you think that might be put into better English. But it's true all the same." A silence followed. The warm blood mantled softly in the girl's fair cheeks. She was taken by surprise with an odd little breath of happiness, as it were, suddenly blowing upon her, whence she knew not. It was so utterly new that she wondered at it, and was not conscious of the faint blush that answered it. "One gets awfully intimate in a few days," observed Brook, as though he had discovered something quite new. She nodded, but said nothing, and they still walked up and down. Then his words made her think of that sudden intimacy which had probably sprung up between him and Lady Fan on board the yacht, and her heart was hardened again. "It isn't worth while to be intimate, as you call it," she said at last, with a little sudden sharpness. "People ought never to be intimate, unless they have to live together--in the same place, you know. Then they can't exactly help it, I suppose." "Why should they? One can't exactly intrench oneself behind a wall with pistols and say 'Be my friend if you dare.' Life would be very uncomfortable, I should think." "Oh, you know what I mean! Don't be so awfully literal." "I was trying to understand," said Johnstone, with unusual meekness. "I won't, if you don't want me to. But I don't agree with you a bit. I think it's very jolly to be intimate--in this sort of way--or perhaps a little more so." "Intimate enemies? Enemies can be just as intimate as friends, you know." "I'd rather have you for my intimate enemy than not know you at all," said Brook. "That's saying a great deal, Mr. Johnstone." Again she was pleased in a new way by what he said. And a temptation came upon her unawares. It was perfectly clear that he was beginning to make love to her. She thought of her reflections after she had seen him alone with Lady Fan, and of how she had wished that she could break his heart, and pay him back with suffering for the pain he had given another woman. The possibility seemed nearer now than then. At least, she could easily let him believe that she believed him, and then laugh at him and his acting. For of course it was acting. How could such a man be earnest? All at once the thought that he should respect her so little as to pretend to make love to her incensed her. "What an extraordinary idea!" she exclaimed rather scornfully. "You would rather be hated, than not known!" "I wasn't talking generalities--I was speaking of you. Please don't misunderstand me on purpose. It isn't kind." "Are you in need of kindness just now? You don't exactly strike one in that way, you know. But your people will be coming in a day or two, I suppose. I've no doubt they'll be kind to you, as you call it--whatever that may mean. One speaks of being kind to animals and servants, you know--that sort of thing." Nothing can outdo the brutality of a perfectly unaffected young girl under certain circumstances. "I don't class myself with either, thank you," said Brook, justly offended. "You certainly manage to put things in a new light sometimes. I feel rather like that mule we saw yesterday." "Oh--I thought you didn't class yourself with animals!" she laughed. "Have you any particular reason for saying horridly disagreeable things?" asked Brook coldly. There was a pause. "I didn't mean to be disagreeable--at least not so disagreeable as all that," said Clare at last. "I don't know why it is, but you have a talent for making me seem rude." "Force of example," suggested Johnstone. "No, I'll say that for you--you have very good manners." "Thanks, awfully. Considering the provocation, you know, that's an immense compliment." "I thought I would be 'kind' for a change. By the bye, what are we quarrelling about?" She laughed. "You began by saying something very nice to me, and then I told you that you were like the mule, didn't I? It's very odd! I believe you hypnotise me, after all." "At all events, if we were not intimate, you couldn't possibly say the things you do," observed Brook, already pacified. "And I suppose you would not take the things I say, so meekly, would you?" "I told you I was a very mild person," said Johnstone. "We were talking about it yesterday, do you remember?" "Oh yes! And then you illustrated your idea of meekness by knocking down the first man we met." "It was your fault," retorted Brook. "You told me to stop his beating the mule. So I did. Fortunately you stopped him from sticking a knife into me. Do you know? You have awfully good nerves. Most women would have screamed and run up a tree--or something. They would have got out of the way, at all events." "I think most women would have done precisely what I did," said Clare. "Why should you say that most women are cowards?" "I didn't," answered Brook. "But I refuse to quarrel about it. I meant to say that I admired you--I mean, what you did--well, more than anything." "That's a sweeping sort of compliment. Am I to return it?" She glanced at him and smiled. "You couldn't, with truth." "Of course I could. I don't remember ever seeing anything of that sort before, but I don't believe that anybody could have done it better. I admired you more than anything just then, you know." She laughed once more as she added the last words. "Oh, I don't expect you to go on admiring me. I'm quite satisfied, and grateful, and all that." "I'm glad you're so easily satisfied. Couldn't we talk seriously about something or other? It seems to me that we've been chaffing for half an hour, haven't we?" "It hasn't been all chaff, Miss Bowring," said Johnstone. "At least, not on my side." "Then I'm sorry," Clare answered. They relapsed into silence, as they walked their beat, to and fro. The sun had gone down, and it was already twilight on that side of the mountains. The rain had cooled the air, and the far land to southward was darkly distinct beyond the purple water. It was very chilly, and Clare was without a shawl, and Johnstone was hatless, but neither of them noticed that it was cool. Johnstone was the first to speak. "Is this sort of thing to go on for ever, Miss Bowring?" he asked gravely. "What?" But she knew very well what he meant. "This--this very odd footing we are on, you and I--are we never going to get past it?" "Oh--I hope not," answered Clare, cheerfully. "I think it's very pleasant, don't you? And most original. We are intimate enough to say all sorts of things, and I'm your enemy, and you say you are my friend. I can't imagine any better arrangement. We shall always laugh when we think of it--even years hence. You will be going away in a few days, and we shall stay here into the summer and we shall never see each other again, in all probability. We shall always look back on this time--as something quite odd, you know." "You are quite mistaken if you think that we shall never meet again," said Johnstone. "I mean that it's very unlikely. You see we don't go home very often, and when we do we stop with friends in the country. We don't go much into society. And the rest of the time we generally live in Florence." "There is nothing to prevent me from coming to Florence--or living there, if I choose." "Oh no--I suppose not. Except that you would be bored to death. It's not very amusing, unless you happen to be fond of pictures, and you never said you were." "I should go to see you." "Oh--yes--you could call, and of course if we were at home we should be very glad to see you. But that would only occupy about half an hour of one day. That isn't much." "I mean that I should go to Florence simply for the sake of seeing you, and seeing you often--all the time, in fact." "Dear me! That would be a great deal, wouldn't it? I thought you meant just to call, don't you know?" "I'm in earnest, though it sounds very funny, I dare say," said Johnstone. "It sounds rather mad," answered Clare, laughing a little. "I hope you won't do anything of the kind, because I wouldn't see you more than once or twice. I'd have headaches and colds and concerts--all the things one has when one isn't at home to people. But my mother would be delighted. She likes you tremendously, you know, and you could go about to galleries together and read Ruskin and Browning--do you know the Statue and the Bust? And you could go and see Casa Guidi, where the Brownings lived, and you could drive up to San Miniato, and then, you know, you could drive up again and read more Browning and more Ruskin. I'm sure you would enjoy it to any extent. But I should have to go through a terrific siege of colds and headaches. It would be rather hard on me." "And harder on me," observed Brook, "and quite fearful for Mrs. Bowring." "Oh no! She would enjoy every minute of it. You forget that she likes you." "You are afraid I should forget that you don't." "I almost--oh, a long way from quite! I almost liked you yesterday when you thrashed the carter and tied him up so neatly. It was beautifully done--all those knots! I suppose you learned them on board of the yacht, didn't you?" "I've yachted a good deal," said Brook. "Generally with that party?" inquired Clare. "No. That was the first time. My father has an old tub he goes about in, and we sometimes go together." "Is he coming here in his 'old tub'?" "Oh no--he's lent her to a fellow who has taken her off to Japan, I believe." "Japan! Is it safe? In an 'old tub'!" "Oh, well--that's a way of talking, you know. She's a good enough boat, you know. My father went to New York in her, last year. She's a steamer, you know. I hate steamers. They are such dirty noisy things! But of course if you are going a long way, they are the only things." He spoke in a jerky way, annoyed and discomfited by her forcing the conversation off the track. Though he was aware that he had gone further than he intended, when he proposed to spend the winter in Florence. Moreover, he was very tenacious by nature, and had rarely been seriously opposed during his short life. Her persistent refusal to tell him the cause of her deep-rooted dislike exasperated him, while her frank and careless manner and good-fellowship fascinated him more and more. "Tell me all about the yacht," she said. "I'm sure she is a beauty, though you call her an old tub." "I don't want to talk about yachts," he answered, returning to the attack in spite of her. "I want to talk about the chances of seeing you after we part here." "There aren't any," replied the young girl carelessly. "What is the name of the yacht?" "Very commonplace--'Lucy,' that's all. I'll make chances if there are none--" "You mustn't say that 'Lucy' is commonplace. That's my mother's name." "I beg your pardon. I couldn't know that. It always struck me that it wasn't much of a name for a yacht, you know. That was all I meant. He's a queer old bird, my father; he always says he took it from the Bride of Lammermoor, Heaven knows why. But please--I really can't go away and feel that I'm not to see you again soon. You seem to think that I'm chaffing. I'm not. I'm very serious. I like you very much, and I don't see why one should just meet and then go off, and let that be the end--do you?" "I don't see why not," exclaimed Clare, hating the unexpected longing she felt to agree with him, and tell him to come and stay in Florence as much as he pleased. "Come--it's too cold here. I must be going in." CHAPTER IX Brook Johnstone had never been in the habit of observing his sensations nor of paying any great attention to his actions. He was not at all an actor, as Clare believed him to be, and the idea that he could ever have taken pleasure in giving pain would have made him laugh. Possibly, it would have made him very angry, but it certainly had no foundation at all in fact. He had been liked, loved, and made much of, not for anything he had ever taken the trouble to do, but partly for his own sake, and partly on account of his position. Such charm as he had for women lay in his frankness, good humour, and simplicity of character. That he had appeared to be changeable in his affection was merely due to the fact that he had never been in love. He vaguely recognised the fact in his inner consciousness, though he would have said that he had been in love half a dozen times; which only amounted to saying that women he had liked had been in love with him or had thought that they were, or had wished to have it thought that he loved them or had perhaps, like poor Lady Fan, been willing to risk a good deal on the bare chance of marrying one of the best of society's matches in the end. He was too young to look upon such affairs very seriously. When he had been tired of the game he had not lacked the courage to say so, and in most cases he had been forgiven. Lady Fan might prove an exception, but he hoped not. He was enormously far removed from being a saint, it is true, but it is due to him to repeat that he had drawn the line rigidly at a certain limit, and that all women beyond that line had been to him as his own mother, in thought and deed. Let those who have the right to cast stones--and the cruelty to do so--decide for themselves whether Brook Johnstone was a bad man at heart, or not. It need not be hinted that a proportion of the stone-throwing Pharisees owe their immaculate reputation to their conspicuous lack of attraction; the little band has a place apart and they stand there and lapidate most of us, and secretly wish that they had ever had the chance of being as bad as we are without being found out. But the great army of the pure in heart are mixed with us sinners in the fight, and though they may pray for us, they do not carp at our imperfections--and occasionally they get hit by the Pharisees just as we do, being rather whiter than we and therefore offering a more tempting mark for a jagged stone or a handful of pious mud. You may know the Pharisee by his intimate knowledge of the sins he has never committed. Besides, though the code of honour is not worth much as compared with the Ten Commandments, it is notably better than nothing, in the way of morality. It will keep a man from lying and evil speaking as well as from picking and stealing, and if it does not force him to honour all women as angels, it makes him respect a very large proportion of them as good women and therefore sacred, in a very practical way of sacredness. Brook Johnstone always was very careful in all matters where honour and his own feeling about honour were concerned. For that reason he had told Clare that he had never done anything very bad, whereas what she had seen him do was monstrous in her eyes. She had not reflected that she knew nothing about Lady Fan; and if she had heard half there was to be known she would not have understood. That night on the platform Lady Fan had given her own version of what had taken place on the Acropolis at sunset, and Brook had not denied anything. Clare did not reflect that Lady Fan might very possibly have exaggerated the facts very much in her statement of them, and that at such a time Brook was certainly not the man to argue the case, since it had manifestly been his only course to take all the apparent blame on himself. Even if he had known that Clare had heard the conversation, he could not possibly have explained the matter to her--not even if she had been an old woman--without telling all the truth about Lady Fan, and he was too honourable a man to do that, under any conceivable circumstances. He was decidedly and really in love with the girl. He knew it, because what he felt was not like anything he had ever felt before. It was anything but the pleasurable excitement to which he was accustomed. There might have been something of that if he had received even the smallest encouragement. But, do what he would, he could find none. The attraction increased, and the encouragement was daily less, he thought. Clare occasionally said things which made him half believe that she did not wholly dislike him. That was as much as he could say. He cudgelled his brains and wrung his memory to discover what he could have done to offend her, and he could not remember anything--which was not surprising. It was clear that she had never heard of him before he had come to Amalfi. He had satisfied himself of that by questions, otherwise he would naturally enough have come near the truth and guessed that she must have known of some affair in which he had been concerned, which she judged harshly from her own point of view. He was beginning to suffer, and he was not accustomed to suffering, least of all to any of the mental kind, for his life had always gone smoothly. He had believed hitherto that most people exaggerated, and worried themselves unnecessarily, but when he found it hard to sleep, and noticed that he had a dull, unsatisfied sort of misery with him all day long, he began to understand. He did not think that Clare could really enjoy teasing him, and, besides, it was not like mere teasing, either. She was evidently in earnest when she repeated that she did not like him. He knew her face when she was chaffing, and her tone, and the little bending of the delicate, swan-like throat, too long for perfect beauty, but not for perfect grace. When she was in earnest, her head rose, her eyes looked straight before her, and her voice sank to a graver note. He knew all the signs of truth, for with her it was always very near the surface, dwelling not in a deep well, but in clear water, as it were, open to the sky. Her truth was evidently truth, and her jesting was transparent as a child's. It looked a hopeless case, but he had no intention of considering it without hope, nor any inclination to relinquish his attempts. He did not tell himself in so many words that he wished to marry her, and intended to marry her, and would marry her, if it were humanly possible, and he assuredly made no such promises to himself. Nor did he look at her as he had looked at women in whom he had been momentarily interested, appreciating her good points of face and figure, cataloguing and compiling her attractions so as to admire them all in turn, forget none, and receive their whole effect. He had a restless, hungry craving that left him no peace, and that seemed to desire only a word, a look, the slightest touch of sympathy, to be instantly satisfied. And he could not get from her one softened glance, nor one sympathetic pressure of the hand, nor one word spoken more gravely than another, except the assurance of her genuine dislike. That was the only thing he had to complain of, but it was enough. He could not reproach her with having encouraged him, for she had told him the truth from the first. He had not quite believed her. So much the worse for him. If he had, and if he had gone to Naples to wait for his people, all this would not have happened, for he had not fallen in love at first sight. A fortnight of daily and almost hourly intercourse was very good and reasonable ground for being in love. He grew absent-minded, and his pipe went out unexpectedly, which always irritated him, and sometimes he did not take the trouble to light it again. He rose at dawn and went for long walks in the hills, with the idea that the early air and the lofty coolness would do him good, and with the acknowledged intention of doing his walking at an hour when he could not possibly be with Clare. For he could not keep away from her, whether Mrs. Bowring were with her or not. He was too much a man of the world to sit all day long before her, glaring at her in shy silence, as a boy might have done, and as he would have been content to do; so he took immense pains to be agreeable, when her mother was present, and Mrs. Bowring liked him, and said that he had really a most extraordinary talent for conversation. It was not that he ever said anything very memorable; but he talked most of the time, and always pleasantly, telling stories about people and places he had known, discussing the lighter books of the day, and affecting that profound ignorance of politics which makes some women feel at their ease, and encourages amusing discussion. Mrs. Bowring watched him when she was there with a persistency which might have made him nervous if he had not been wholly absorbed in her daughter. She evidently saw something in him which reminded her of some one or something. She had changed of late, and Clare was beginning to think that she must be ill, though she scouted the suggestion, and said that she was growing daily stronger. She had altogether relaxed her vigilance with regard to the two young people, and seemed willing that they should go where they pleased together, and sit alone together by the hour. "I dare say I watched him a good deal at first," she said to her daughter. "But I have made up my mind about him. He's a very good sort of young fellow, and I'm glad that you have a companion. You see I can't walk much, and now that you are getting better you need exercise. After all, one can always trust the best of one's own people. He's not falling in love with you, is he, dear? I sometimes fancy that he looks at you as though he were." "Nonsense, mother!" and Clare laughed intentionally. "But he's very good company." "It would be very unfortunate if he did," said Mrs. Bowring, looking away, and speaking almost to herself. "I am not sure that we should not have gone away--" "Really! If one is to be turned out of the most beautiful place in the world because a young Englishman chooses to stop in the same hotel! Besides, why in the world should he fall in love with me? He's used to a very different kind of people, I fancy." "What do you mean?" "Oh--the gay set--'a' gay set, I suppose, for there are probably more than one of them. They are quite different from us, you know." "That is no reason. On the contrary--men like variety and change--change, yes," repeated Mrs. Bowring, with an odd emphasis. "At all events, child, don't take a fancy to him!" she added. "Not that I'm much afraid of that. You are anything but 'susceptible,' my dear!" she laughed faintly. "You need not be in the least afraid," answered Clare. "But, after all, mother--just supposing the case--I can't see why it should be such an awful calamity if we took a fancy to each other. We belong to the same class of people, if not to the same set. He has enough money, and I'm not absolutely penniless, though we are as poor as church mice--" "For Heaven's sake, don't suggest such a thing!" cried Mrs. Bowring. Her face was white, and her lips trembled. There was a frightened look in her pale eyes, and she turned her face quickly to her daughter, and quickly away again. "Mother!" exclaimed the young girl, in surprise. "What in the world is the matter? I was only laughing--besides--" she stopped, puzzled. "Tell me the truth, mother," she continued suddenly. "You know about his people--his father is some connection of--of your first husband--there's some disgraceful story about them--tell me the truth. Why shouldn't I know?" "I hope you never will!" answered Mrs. Bowring, in a low voice that had a sort of horror in it. "Then there is something?" Clare herself turned a little paler as she asked the question. "Don't ask me--don't ask me!" "Something disgraceful?" The young girl leaned forward as she spoke, and her eyes were wide and anxious, forcing her mother to speak. "Yes--no," faltered Mrs. Bowring. "Nothing to do with this one--something his father did long ago." "Dishonourable?" asked Clare, her voice sinking lower and lower. "No--not as men look at it--oh, don't ask me! Please don't ask me--please don't, darling!" "Then his yacht is named after you," said the young girl in a flash of intelligence. "His yacht?" asked the elder woman excitedly. "What? I don't understand." "Mr. Johnstone told me that his father had a big steam yacht called the 'Lucy'--mother, that man loved you, he loves you still." "Me? Oh no--no, he never loved me!" She laughed wildly, with quivering lips. "Don't, child--don't! For God's sake don't ask questions--you'll drive me mad! It's the secret of my life--the only secret I have from you--oh, Clare, if you love me at all--don't ask me!" "Mother, sweet! Of course I love you!" The young girl, very pale and wondering, kneeled beside the elder woman and threw her arms round her and drew down her face, kissing the white cheeks and the starting tears and the faded flaxen hair. The storm subsided, almost without breaking, for Mrs. Bowring was a brave woman and, in some ways, a strong woman, and whatever her secret might be, she had kept it long and well from her daughter. Clare knew her, and inwardly decided that the secret must have been worth keeping. She loved her mother far too well to hurt her with questions, but she was amazed at what she herself felt of resentful curiosity to know the truth about anything which could cast a shadow upon the man she disliked, as she thought so sincerely. Her mind worked like lightning, while her voice spoke softly and her hands sought those thin, familiar, gentle fingers which were an integral part of her world and life. Two possibilities presented themselves. Johnstone's father was a brother or near connection of her mother's first husband. Either she had loved him, been deceived in him, and had married the brother instead; or, having married, this man had hated her and fought against her, and harmed her, because she was his elder brother's wife, and he coveted the inheritance. In either case it was no fault of Brook's. The most that could be said would be that he might have his father's character. She inclined to the first of her theories. Old Johnstone had made love to her mother and had half broken her heart, before she had married his brother. Brook was no better--and she thought of Lady Fan. But she was strangely glad that her mother had said "not dishonourable, as men look at it." It had been as though a cruel hand had been taken from her throat, when she had heard that. "But, mother," she said presently, "these people are coming to-morrow or the next day--and they mean to stay, he says. Let us go away, before they come. We can come back afterwards--you don't want to meet them." Mrs. Bowring was calm again, or appeared to be so, whatever was passing in her mind. "I shall certainly not run away," she answered in a low, steady voice. "I will not run away and leave Adam Johnstone's son to tell his father that I was afraid to meet him, or his wife," she added, almost in a whisper. "I've been weak, sometimes, my dear--" her voice rose to its natural key again, "and I've made a mistake in life. But I won't be a coward--I don't believe I am, by nature, and if I were I wouldn't let myself be afraid now." "It would not be fear, mother. Why should you suffer, if you are going to suffer in meeting him? We had much better go away at once. When they have all left, we can come back." "And you would not mind going away to-morrow, and never seeing Brook Johnstone again?" asked Mrs. Bowring, quietly. "I? No! Why should I?" Clare meant to speak the truth, and she thought that it was the truth. But it was not. She grew a little paler a moment after the words had passed her lips, but her mother did not see the change of colour. "I'm glad of that, at all events," said the elder woman. "But I won't go away. No--I won't," she repeated, as though spurring her own courage. "Very well," answered the young girl. "But we can keep very much to ourselves all the time they are here, can't we? We needn't make their acquaintance--at least--" she stopped short, realising that it would be impossible to avoid knowing Brook's people if they were stopping in the same hotel. "Their acquaintance!" Mrs. Bowring laughed bitterly at the idea. "Oh--I forgot," said Clare. "At all events, we need not meet unnecessarily. That's what I mean, you know." There was a short pause, during which her mother seemed to be thinking. "I shall see him alone, for I have something to say to him," she said at last, as though she had come to a decision. "Go out, my dear," she added. "Leave me alone a little while. I shall be all right when it is time for luncheon." Her daughter left her, but she did not go out at once. She went to her own room and sat down to think over what she had seen and heard. If she went out she should probably find Johnstone waiting for her, and she did not wish to meet him just then. It was better to be alone. She would find out why the idea of not seeing him any more had hurt her after she had spoken. But that was not an easy matter at all. So soon as she tried to think of herself and her own feelings, she began to think of her mother. And when she endeavoured to solve the mystery and guess the secret, her thoughts flew off suddenly to Brook, and she wished that she were outside in the sunshine talking to him. And again, as the probable conversation suggested itself to her, she was glad that she was not with him, and she tried to think again. Then she forced herself to recall the scene with Lady Fan on the terrace, and she did her best to put him in the worst possible light, which in her opinion was a very bad light indeed. And his father before him--Adam--her mother had told her the name for the first time, and it struck her as an odd one--old Adam Johnstone had been a heart-breaker, and a faith-breaker, and a betrayer of women before Brook was in the world at all. Her theory held good, when she looked at it fairly, and her resentment grew apace. It was natural enough, for in her imagination she had always hated that first husband of her mother's who had come and gone before her father; and now she extended her hatred to this probable brother, and it had much more force, because the man was alive and a reality, and was soon to come and be a visible talking person. There was one good point about him and his coming. It helped her to revive her hatred of Brook and to colour it with the inheritance of some harm done to her own mother. That certainly was an advantage. But she should be very sorry not to see Brook any more, never to hear him talk to her again, never to look into his eyes--which, all the same, she so unreasonably dreaded. It was beyond her powers of analysis to reconcile her like and dislike. All the little logic she had said that it was impossible to like and dislike the same person at the same time. She seemed to have two hearts, and the one cried "Hate," while the other cried "Love." That was absurd, and altogether ridiculous, and quite contemptible. There they were, however, the two hearts, fighting it out, or at least altercating and threatening to fight and hurt her. Of course "love" meant "like"--it was a general term, well contrasting with "hate." As for really caring, beyond a liking for Brook Johnstone, she was sure that it was impossible. But the liking was strong. She exploded her difficulty at last with the bomb of a splendidly youthful quibble. She said to herself that she undoubtedly hated him and despised him, and that he was certainly the very lowest of living men for treating Lady Fan so badly--besides being a black sinner, a point which had less weight. And then she told herself that the cry of something in her to "like" instead of hating was simply the expression of what she might have felt, and should have felt, and should have had a right to have felt, had it not been for poor Lady Fan; but also of something which she assuredly did not feel, never could feel, and never meant to feel. In other words, she should have liked Brook if she had not had good cause to dislike him. She was satisfied with this explanation of her feelings, and she suddenly felt that she could go out and see him and talk to him without being inconsistent. She had forgotten to explain to herself why she wished him not to go away. She went out accordingly, and sat down on the terrace in the soft air. She glanced up and down, but Johnstone was not to be seen anywhere, and she wished that she had not come out after all. He had probably waited some time and had then gone for a walk by himself. She thought that he might have waited just a little longer before giving it up, and she half unconsciously made up her mind to requite him by staying indoors after luncheon. She had not even brought a book or a piece of work, for she had felt quite sure that he would be walking up and down as usual, with his pipe, looking as though he owned the scenery. She half rose to go in, and then changed her mind. She would give him one more chance and count fifty, before she went away, at a good quick rate. She began to count. At thirty-five her pace slackened. She stopped a long time at forty-five, and then went slowly to the end. But Johnstone did not come. Once again, she reluctantly decided--and she began slowly; and again she slackened speed and dragged over the last ten numbers. But he did not come. "Oh, this is ridiculous!" she exclaimed aloud to herself, as she rose impatiently from her seat. She felt injured, for her mother had sent her away, and there was no one to talk to her, and she did not care to think any more, lest the questions she had decided should again seem open and doubtful. She went into the hotel and walked down the corridor. He might be in the reading-room. She walked quickly, because she was a little ashamed of looking for him when she felt that he should be looking for her. Suddenly she stopped, for she heard him whistling somewhere. Whistling was his solitary accomplishment, and he did it very well. There was no mistaking the shakes and runs, and pretty bird-like cadences. She listened, but she bit her lip. He was light-hearted, at all events, she thought. The sound came nearer, and Brook suddenly appeared in the corridor, his hat on the back of his head, his hands in his pockets. As he caught sight of Clare the shrill tune ceased, and one hand removed the hat. "I've been looking for you everywhere, for the last two hours," he cried as he came along. "Good morning," he said as he reached her. "I was just going back to the terrace in despair." "It sounded more as though you were whistling for me," answered Clare, with a laugh, for she was instantly happy, and pacified, and peaceful. "Well--not exactly!" he answered. "But I did hope that you would hear me and know that I was about--wishing you would come." "I always come out in the morning," she replied with sudden demureness. "Indeed--I wondered where you were. Let us go out, shall we?" "We might go for a walk," suggested Brook. "It is too late." "Just a little walk--down to the town and across the bridge to Atrani, and back. Couldn't we?" "Oh, we could, of course. Very well--I've got a hat on, haven't I? All right. Come along!" "My people are coming to-day," said Brook, as they passed through the door. "I've just had a telegram." "To-day!" exclaimed Clare in surprise, and somewhat disturbed. "Yes, you know I have been expecting them at any moment. I fancy they have been knocking about, you know--seeing Pæstum and all that. They are such queer people. They always want to see everything--as though it mattered!" "There are only the two? Mr. and Mrs. Johnstone?" "Yes--that's all." Brook laughed a little as though she had said something amusing. "What are you laughing at?" asked Clare, naturally enough. "Oh, nothing. It's ridiculous--but it sounded funny--unfamiliar, I mean. My father has fallen a victim to knighthood, that's all. The affliction came upon him some time ago, and his name is Adam--of all the names in the world." "It was the first," observed Clare reassuringly. "It doesn't sound badly either--Sir Adam. I beg his pardon for calling him 'Mr.'" She laughed in her turn. "Oh, he wouldn't mind," said Brook. "He's not at all that sort. Do you know? I think you'll like him awfully. He's a fine old chap in his way, though he is a brewer. He's much bigger than I am, but he's rather odd, you know. Sometimes he'll talk like anything, and sometimes he won't open his lips. We aren't at all alike in that way. I talk all the time, I believe--rain or shine. Don't I bore you dreadfully sometimes?" "No--you never bore me," answered Clare with perfect truth. "I mean, when I talk as I did yesterday afternoon," said Johnstone with a shade of irritation. "Oh, that--yes! Please don't begin again, and spoil our walk!" But the walk was not destined to be a long one. A narrow, paved footway leads down from the old monastery to the shore, in zigzag, between low whitewashed walls, passing at last under some houses which are built across it on arches. Just as they came in sight a tall old man emerged from this archway, walking steadily up the hill. He was tall and bony, with a long grey beard, shaggy bent brows, keen dark eyes, and an eagle nose. He wore clothes of rough grey woollen tweed, and carried a grey felt hat in one long hand. A moment after he had come out of the arch he caught sight of Brook, and his rough face brightened instantly. He waved the grey hat and called out. "Hulloa, my boy! There you are, eh!" His voice was thin, like many Scotch voices, but it carried far, and had a manly ring in it. Brook did not answer, but waved his hat. "That's my father," he said in a low tone to Clare. "May I introduce him? And there's my mother--being carried up in the chair." A couple of lusty porters were carrying Lady Johnstone up the steep ascent. She was a fat lady with bright blue eyes, like her son's, and a much brighter colour. She had a parasol in one hand and a fan in the other, and she shook a little with every step the porters made. In the rear, a moment later, came other porters, carrying boxes and bags of all sizes. Then a short woman, evidently Lady Johnstone's maid, came quietly along by herself, stopping occasionally to look at the sea. Clare looked curiously at the party as they approached. Her first impulse had been to leave Brook and go back alone to warn her mother. It was not far. But she realised that it would be much better and wiser to face the introduction at once. In less than five minutes Sir Adam had reached them. He shook hands with Brook vigorously, and looked at him as a man looks who loves his son. Clare saw the glance, and it pleased her. "Let me introduce you to Miss Bowring," said Brook. "Mrs. Bowring and Miss Bowring are staying here, and have been awfully good to me." Sir Adam turned his keen eyes to Clare, as she held out her hand. "I beg your pardon," he said, "but are you a daughter of Captain Bowring who was killed some years ago in Africa?" "Yes." She looked up to him inquiringly and distrustfully. His face brightened again and softened--then hardened singularly, all at once. She could not have believed that such features could change so quickly. "And my son says that your mother is here! My dear young lady--I'm very glad! I hope you mean to stay." The words were cordial. The tone was cold. Brook stared at his father, very much surprised to find that he knew anything of the Bowrings, for he himself had not mentioned them in his letters. But the porters, walking more slowly, had just brought his mother up to where the three stood, and waited, panting a little, and the chair swinging slightly from the shoulder-straps. "Dear old boy!" cried Lady Johnstone. "It is good to see you. No--don't kiss me, my dear--it's far too hot. Let me look at you." Sir Adam gravely introduced Clare. Lady Johnstone's fat face became stony as a red granite mummy case, and she bent her apoplectic neck stiffly. "Oh!" she ejaculated. "Very glad, I'm sure. Were you going for a walk?" she asked, turning to Brook, severely. "Yes, there was just time. I didn't know when to expect you. But if Miss Bowring doesn't mind, we'll give it up, and I'll install you. Your rooms are all ready." It was at once clear to Clare that Lady Johnstone had never heard the name of Bowring, and that she resented the idea of her son walking alone with any young girl. CHAPTER X Clare went directly to her mother's room. She had hardly spoken again during the few minutes while she had necessarily remained with the Johnstones, climbing the hill back to the hotel. At the door she had stood aside to let Lady Johnstone go in, Sir Adam had followed his wife, and Brook had lingered, doubtless hoping to exchange a few words more with Clare. But she was preoccupied, and had not vouchsafed him a glance. "They have come," she said, as she closed Mrs. Bowring's door behind her. Her mother was seated by the open window, her hands lying idly in her lap, her face turned away, as Clare entered. She started slightly, and looked round. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Already! Well--it had to come. Have you met?" Clare told her all that had happened. "And he said that he was glad?" asked Mrs. Bowring, with the ghost of a smile. "He said so--yes. His voice was cold. But when he first heard my name and asked about my father his face softened." "His face softened," repeated Mrs. Bowring to herself, just above a whisper, as the ghost of the smile flitted about her pale lips. "He seemed glad at first, and then he looked displeased. Is that it?" she asked, raising her voice again. "That was what I thought," answered Clare. "Why don't you have luncheon in your room, mother?" she asked suddenly. "He would think I was afraid to meet him," said the elder woman. A long silence followed, and Clare sat down on a stiff straw chair, looking out of the window. At last she turned to her mother again. "You couldn't tell me all about it, could you, mother dear?" she asked. "It seems to me it would be so much easier for us both. Perhaps I could help you. And I myself--I should know better how to act." "No. I can't tell you. I only pray that I may never have to. As for you, darling--be natural. It is a very strange position to be in, but you cannot know it--you can't be supposed to know it. I wish I could have kept my secret better--but I broke down when you told me about the yacht. You can only help me in one way--don't ask me questions, dear. It would be harder for me, if you knew--indeed it would. Be natural. You need not run after them, you know--" "I should think not!" cried Clare indignantly. "I mean, you need not go and sit by them and talk to them for long at a time. But don't be suddenly cold and rude to their son. There's nothing against--I mean, it has nothing to do with him. You mustn't think it has, you know. Be natural--be yourself." "It's not altogether easy to be natural under the circumstances," Clare answered, with some truth, and a great deal of repressed curiosity which she did her best to hide away altogether for her mother's sake. At luncheon the Johnstones were all three placed on the opposite side of the table, and Brook was no longer Clare's neighbour. The Bowrings were already in their places when the three entered, Sir Adam giving his arm to his wife, who seemed to need help in walking, or at all events to be glad of it. Brook followed at a little distance, and Clare saw that he was looking at her regretfully, as though he wished himself at her side again. Had she been less young and unconscious and thoroughly innocent, she must have seen by this time that he was seriously in love with her. Sir Adam held his wife's chair for her, with somewhat old-fashioned courtesy, and pushed it gently as she sat down. Then he raised his head, and his eyes met Mrs. Bowring's. For a few moments they looked at each other. Then his expression changed and softened, as it had when he had first met Clare, but Mrs. Bowring's face grew hard and pale. He did not sit down, but to his wife's surprise walked quietly all round the end of the table and up the other side to where Mrs. Bowring sat. She knew that he was coming, and she turned a little to meet his hand. The English old maids watched the proceedings with keen interest from the upper end. Sir Adam held out his hand, and Mrs. Bowring took it. "It is a great pleasure to me to meet you again," he said slowly, as though speaking with an effort. "Brook says that you have been very good to him, and so I want to thank you at once. Yes--this is your daughter--Brook introduced me. Excuse me--I'll get round to my place again. Shall we meet after luncheon?" "If you like," said Mrs. Bowring in a constrained tone. "By all means," she added nervously. "My dear," said Sir Adam, speaking across the table to his wife, "let me introduce you to my old friend Mrs. Bowring, the mother of this young lady whom you have already met," he added, glancing down at Clare's flaxen head. Again Lady Johnstone slightly bent her apoplectic neck, but her expression was not stony, as it had been when she had first looked at Clare. On the contrary, she smiled very pleasantly and naturally, and her frank blue eyes looked at Mrs. Bowring with a friendly interest. Clare thought that she heard a faint sigh of relief escape her mother's lips just then. Sir Adam's heavy steps echoed upon the tile floor, as he marched all round the table again to his seat. The table itself was narrow, and it was easy to talk across it, without raising the voice. Sir Adam sat on one side of his wife, and Brook on the other, last on his side, as Clare was on hers. There was very little conversation at first. Brook did not care to talk across to Clare, and Sir Adam seemed to have said all he meant to say for the present. Lady Johnstone, who seemed to be a cheerful, conversational soul, began to talk to Mrs. Bowring, evidently attracted by her at first sight. "It's a beautiful place when you get here," she said. "Isn't it? The view from my window is heavenly! But to get here! Dear me! I was carried up by two men, you know, and I thought they would have died. I hope they are enjoying their dinner, poor fellows! I'm sure they never carried such a load before!" And she laughed, with a sort of frank, half self-commiserating amusement at her own proportions. "Oh, I fancy they must be used to it," said Mrs. Bowring, reassuringly, for the sake of saying something. "They'll hate the sight of me in a week!" said Lady Johnstone. "I mean to go everywhere, while I'm here--up all the hills, and down all the valleys. I always see everything when I come to a new place. It's pleasant to sit still afterwards, and feel that you've done it all, don't you know? I shall ruin you in porters, Adam," she added, turning her large round face slowly to her husband. "Certainly, certainly," answered Sir Adam, nodding gravely, as he dissected the bones out of a fried sardine. "You're awfully good about it," said Lady Johnstone, in thanks for unlimited porters to come. Like many unusually stout people, she ate very little, and had plenty of time for talking. "You knew my husband a long time ago, then!" she began, again looking across at Mrs. Bowring. Sir Adam glanced at Mrs. Bowring sharply from beneath his shaggy brows. "Oh yes," she said calmly. "We met before he was married." The grey-headed man slowly nodded assent, but said nothing. "Before his first marriage?" inquired Lady Johnstone gravely. "You know that he has been married twice." "Yes," answered Mrs. Bowring. "Before his first marriage." Again Sir Adam nodded solemnly. "How interesting!" exclaimed Lady Johnstone. "Such old friends! And to meet in this accidental way, in this queer place!" "We generally live abroad," said Mrs. Bowring. "Generally in Florence. Do you know Florence?" "Oh yes!" cried the fat lady enthusiastically. "I dote on Florence. I'm perfectly mad about pictures, you know. Perfectly mad!" The vision of a woman cast in Lady Johnstone's proportions and perfectly mad might have provoked a smile on Mrs. Bowring's face at any other time. "I suppose you buy pictures, as well as admire them," she said, glad of the turn the conversation had taken. "Sometimes," answered the other. "Sometimes. I wish I could buy more. But good pictures are getting to be most frightfully dear. Besides, you are hardly ever sure of getting an original, unless there are all the documents--and that means thousands, literally thousands of pounds. But now and then I kick over the traces, you know." Clare could not help smiling at the simile, and bent down her head. Brook was watching her, he understood and was annoyed, for he loved his mother in his own way. "At all events you won't be able to ruin yourself in pictures here," said Mrs. Bowring. "No--but how about the porters?" suggested Sir Adam. "My dear Adam," said Lady Johnstone, "unless they are all Shylocks here, they won't exact a ducat for every pound of flesh. If they did, you would certainly never get back to England." It was impossible not to laugh. Lady Johnstone did not look at all the sort of person to say witty things, though she was the very incarnation of good humour--except when she thought that Brook was in danger of being married. And every one laughed, Sir Adam first, then Brook, and then the Bowrings. The effect was good. Lady Johnstone was really afflicted with curiosity, and her first questions to Mrs. Bowring had been asked purely out of a wish to make advances. She was strongly attracted by the quiet, pale face, with its excessive refinement and delicately traced lines of suffering. She felt that the woman had taken life too hard, and it was her instinct to comfort her, and warm her and take care of her, from the first. Brook understood and rejoiced, for he knew his mother's tenacity about her first impressions, and he wished to have her on his side. After that the ice was broken and the conversation did not flag. Sir Adam looked at Mrs. Bowring from time to time with an expression of uncertainty which sat strangely on his determined features, and whenever any new subject was broached he watched her uneasily until she had spoken. But Mrs. Bowring rarely returned his glances, and her eyes never lingered on his face even when she was speaking to him. Clare, for her part, joined in the conversation, and wondered and waited. Her theory was strengthened by what she saw. Clearly Sir Adam felt uncomfortable in her mother's presence; therefore he had injured her in some way, and doubted whether she had ever forgiven him. But to the girl's quick instinct it was clear that he did not stand to Mrs. Bowring only in the position of one who had harmed her. In some way of love or friendship, he had once been very fond of her. The youngest woman cannot easily mistake the signs of such bygone intercourse. When they rose, Mrs. Bowring walked slowly, on her side of the table, so as not to reach the door before Lady Johnstone, who could not move fast under any circumstances. They all went out together upon the terrace. "Brook," said the fat lady, "I must sit down, or I shall die. You know, my dear--get me one that won't break!" She laughed a little, as Brook went off to find a solid chair. A few minutes later she was enthroned in safety, her husband on one side of her and Mrs. Bowring on the other, all facing the sea. "It's too perfect for words!" she exclaimed, in solid and peaceful satisfaction. "Adam, isn't it a dream? You thin people don't know how nice it is to come to anchor in a pleasant place after a long voyage!" She sighed happily and moved her arms so that their weight was quite at rest without an effort. Clare and Johnstone walked slowly up and down, passing and repassing, and trying to talk as though neither were aware that there was something unusual in the situation, to say the least of it. At last they stopped at the end farthest away from the others. "I had no idea that my father had known your mother long ago," said Brook suddenly. "Had you?" "Yes--of late," answered Clare. "You see my mother wasn't sure, until you told me his first name," she hastened to add. "Oh--I see. Of course. Stupid of me not to try and bring it into the conversation sooner, wasn't it? But it seems to have been ever so long ago. Don't you think so?" "Yes. Ever so long ago." "When they were quite young, I suppose. Your mother must have been perfectly beautiful when she was young. I dare say my father was madly in love with her. It wouldn't be at all surprising, you know, would it? He was a tremendous fellow for falling in love." "Oh! Was he?" Clare spoke rather coldly. "You're not angry, are you, because I suggested it?" asked Brook quickly. "I don't see that there's any harm in it. There's no reason why a young man as he was shouldn't have been desperately in love with a beautiful young girl, is there?" "None whatever," answered Clare. "I was only thinking--it's rather an odd coincidence--do you mind telling me something?" "Of course not! What is it?" "Had your father ever a brother--who died?" "No. He had a lot of sisters--some of them are alive still. Awful old things, my aunts are, too. No, he never had any brother. Why do you ask?" "Nothing--it's a mere coincidence. Did I ever tell you that my mother was married twice? My father was her second husband. The first had your name." "Johnstone, with an E on the end of it?" "Yes--with an E." "Gad! that's funny!" exclaimed Brook. "Some connection, I dare say. Then we are connected too, you and I, not much though, when one thinks of it. Step-cousin by marriage, and ever so many degrees removed, too." "You can't call that a connection," said Clare with a little laugh, but her face was thoughtful. "Still, it is odd that she should have known your father well, and should have married a man of the same name--with the E--isn't it?" "He may have been an own cousin, for all I know," said Brook. "I'll ask. He's sure to remember. He never forgets anything. And it's another coincidence too, that my father should have been married twice, just like your mother, and that I should be the son of the second marriage, too. What odd things happen, when one comes to compare notes!" While they had walked up and down, Lady Johnstone had paid no attention to them, but she had grown restless as soon as she had seen that they stood still at a distance to talk, and her bright blue eyes turned towards them again and again, with sudden motherly anxiety. At last she could bear it no longer. "Brook!" she cried. "Brook, my dear boy!" Brook and Clare walked back towards the little group. "Brook, dear," said Lady Johnstone. "Please come and tell me the names of all the mountains and places we see from here. You know, I always want to know everything as soon as I arrive." Sir Adam rose from his chair. "Should you like to take a turn?" he asked, speaking to Mrs. Bowring and standing before her. She rose in silence and stepped forward, with a quiet, set face, as though she knew that the supreme moment had come. "Take our chairs," said Sir Adam to Clare and Brook. "We are going to walk about a little." Mrs. Bowring turned in the direction whence the young people had come, towards the end of the terrace. Sir Adam walked erect beside her. "Is there a way out at that end?" he asked in a low voice, when they had gone a little distance. "No." "We can't stand there and talk. Where can we go? Isn't there a quiet place somewhere?" "Do you want to talk to me?" asked Mrs. Bowring, looking straight before her. "Yes, please," answered Sir Adam, almost sharply, but still in a low tone. "I've waited a long time," he added. Mrs. Bowring said nothing in answer. They reached the end of the walk, and she turned without pausing. "The point out there is called the Conca," she said, pointing to the rocks far out below. "It curls round like a shell, you know. Conca means a sea-shell, I think. It seems to be a great place for fishing, for there are always little boats about it in fine weather." "I remember," replied Sir Adam. "I was here thirty years ago. It hasn't changed much. Are there still those little paper-mills in the valley on the way to Ravello? They used to be very primitive." They kept up their forced conversation as they passed Lady Johnstone and the young people. Then they were silent again, as they went towards the hotel. "We'll go through the house," said Mrs. Bowring, speaking low again. "There's a quiet place on the other side--Clare and your son will have to stay with your wife." "Yes, I thought of that, when I told them to take our chairs." In silence they traversed the long tiled corridor with set faces, like two people who are going to do something dangerous and disagreeable together. They came out upon the platform before the deep recess of the rocks in which stood the black cross. There was nobody there. "We shall not be disturbed out here," said Mrs. Bowring, quietly. "The people in the hotel go to their rooms after luncheon. We will sit down there by the cross, if you don't mind--I'm not so strong as I used to be, you know." They ascended the few steps which led up to the bench where Clare had sat on that evening which she could not forget, and they sat down side by side, not looking at each other's faces. A long silence followed. Once or twice Sir Adam shifted his feet uneasily, and opened his mouth as though he were going to say something, but suddenly changed his mind. Mrs. Bowring was the first to speak. "Please understand," she said slowly, glancing at him sideways, "I don't want you to say anything, and I don't know what you can have to say. As for my being here, it's very simple. If I had known that Brook Johnstone was your son before he had made our acquaintance, and that you were coming here, I should have gone away at once. As soon as I knew him I suspected who he was. You must know that he is like you as you used to be--except your eyes. Then I said to myself that he would tell you that he had met us, and that you would of course think that I had been afraid to meet you. I'm not. So I stayed. I don't know whether I did right or wrong. To me it seemed right, and I'm willing to abide the consequences, if there are to be any." "What consequences can there be?" asked the grey-bearded man, turning his eyes slowly to her face. "That depends upon how you act. It might have been better to behave as though we had never met, and to let your son introduce you to me as he introduced you to Clare. We might have started upon a more formal footing, then. You have chosen to say that we are old friends. It's an odd expression to use--but let it stand. I won't quarrel with it. It does well enough. As for the position, it's not pleasant for me, but it must be worse for you. There's not much to choose. But I don't want you to think that I expect you to talk about old times unless you like. If you have anything which you wish to say, I'll hear it all without interrupting you. But I do wish you to believe that I won't do anything nor say anything which could touch your wife. She seems to be happy with you. I hope she always has been and always will be. She knew what she was doing when she married you. God knows, there was publicity enough. Was it my fault? I suppose you've always thought so. Very well, then--say that it was my fault. But don't tell your wife who I am unless she forces you to it out of curiosity." "Do you think I should wish to?" asked Sir Adam, bitterly. "No--of course not. But she may ask you who I was and when we met, and all about it. Try and keep her off the subject. We don't want to tell lies, you know." "I shall say that you were Lucy Waring. That's true enough. You were christened Lucy Waring. She need never know what your last name was. That isn't a lie, is it?" "Not exactly--under the circumstances." "And your daughter knows nothing, of course? I want to know how we stand, you see." "No--only that we have met before. I don't know what she may suspect. And your son?" "Oh, I suppose he knows. Somebody must have told him." "He doesn't know who I am, though," said Mrs. Bowring, with conviction. "He seems to be more like his mother than like you. He couldn't conceal anything long." "I wasn't particularly good at that either, as it turned out," said Sir Adam, gravely. "No, thank God!" "Do you think it's something to be thankful for? I don't. Things might have gone better afterwards--" "Afterwards!" The suffering of the woman's life was in the tone and in her eyes. "Yes, afterwards. I'm an old man, Lucy, and I've seen a great many things since you and I parted, and a great many people. I was bad enough, but I've seen worse men since, who have had another chance and have turned out well." "Their wives did not love them. I am almost old, too. I loved you, Adam. It was a bad hurt you gave me, and the wound never healed. I married--I had to marry. He was an honest gentleman. Then he was killed. That hurt too, for I was very fond of him--but it did not hurt as the other did. Nothing could." Her voice shook, and she turned away her face. At least, he should not see that her lip trembled. "I didn't think you cared," said Sir Adam, and his own voice was not very steady. She turned upon him almost fiercely, and there was a blue light in her faded eyes. "I! You thought I didn't care? You've no right to say that--it's wicked of you, and it's cruel. Did you think I married you for your money, Adam? And if I had--should I have given it up to be divorced because you gave jewels to an actress? I loved you, and I wanted your love, or nothing. You couldn't be faithful--commonly, decently faithful, for one year--and I got myself free from you, because I would not be your wife, nor eat your bread, nor touch your hand, if you couldn't love me. Don't say that you ever loved me, except my face. We hadn't been divorced a year when you married again. Don't say that you loved me! You loved your wife--your second wife--perhaps. I hope so. I hope you love her now--and I dare say you do, for she looks happy--but don't say that you ever loved me--just long enough to marry me and betray me!" "You're hard, Lucy. You're as hard as ever you were twenty years ago," said Adam Johnstone. As he leaned forward, resting an elbow on his knee, he passed his brown hand across his eyes, and then stared vaguely at the white walls of the old hotel beyond the platform. "But you know that I'm right," answered Mrs. Bowring. "Perhaps I'm hard, too. I'm sorry. You said that you had been mad, I remember--I don't like to think of all you said, but you said that. And I remember thinking that I had been much more mad than you, to have married you, but that I should soon be really mad--raving mad--if I remained your wife. I couldn't. I should have died. Afterwards I thought it would have been better if I had died then. But I lived through it. Then, after the death of my old aunt, I was alone. What was I to do? I was poor and lonely, and a divorced woman, though the right had been on my side. Richard Bowring knew all about it, and I married him. I did not love you any more, then, but I told him the truth when I told him that I could never love any one again. He was satisfied--so we were married." "I don't blame you," said Sir Adam. "Blame me! No--it would hardly be for you to blame me, if I could make anything of the shreds of my life which I had saved from yours. For that matter--you were free too. It was soon done, but why should I blame you for that? You were free--by the law--to go where you pleased, to love again, and to marry at once. You did. Oh no! I don't blame you for that!" Both were silent for some time. But Mrs. Bowring's eyes still had an indignant light in them, and her fingers twitched nervously from time to time. Sir Adam stared stolidly at the white wall, without looking at his former wife. "I've been talking about myself," she said at last. "I didn't mean to, for I need no justification. When you said that you wanted to say something, I brought you here so that we could be alone. What was it? I should have let you speak first." "It was this." He paused, as though choosing his words. "Well, I don't know," he continued presently. "You've been saying a good many things about me that I would have said myself. I've not denied them, have I? Well, it's this. I wanted to see you for years, and now we've met. We may not meet again, Lucy, though I dare say we may live a long time. I wish we could, though. But of course you don't care to see me. I was your husband once, and I behaved like a brute to you. You wouldn't want me for a friend now that I am old." He waited, but she said nothing. "Of course you wouldn't," he continued. "I shouldn't, in your place. Oh, I know! If I were dying or starving, or very unhappy, you would be capable of doing anything for me, out of sheer goodness. You're only just to people who aren't suffering. You were always like that in the old days. It's so much the worse for us. I have nothing about me to excite your pity. I'm strong, I'm well, I'm very rich, I'm relatively happy. I don't know how much I cared for my wife when I married her, but she has been a good wife, and I'm very fond of her now, in my own way. It wasn't a good action, I admit, to marry her at all. She was the beauty of her year and the best match of the season, and I was just divorced, and every one's hand was against me. I thought I would show them what I could do, winged as I was, and I got her. No; it wasn't a thing to be proud of. But somehow we hit it off, and she stuck to me, and I grew fond of her because she did, and here we are as you see us, and Brook is a fine fellow, and likes me. I like him too. He's honest and faithful, like his mother. There's no justice and no logic in this world, Lucy. I was a good-for-nothing in the old days. Circumstances have made me decently good, and a pretty happy man besides, as men go. I couldn't ask for any pity if I tried." "No; you're not to be pitied. I'm glad you're happy. I don't wish you any harm." "You might, and I shouldn't blame you. But all that isn't what I wished to say. I'm getting old, and we may not meet any more after this. If you wish me to go away, I'll go. We'll leave the place tomorrow." "No. Why should you? It's a strange situation, as we were to-day at table. You with your wife beside, and your divorced wife opposite you, and only you and I knowing it. I suppose you think, somehow--I don't know--that I might be jealous of your wife. But twenty-seven years make a difference, Adam. It's half a lifetime. It's so utterly past that I sha'n't realise it. If you like to stay, then stay. No harm can come of it, and that was so very long ago. Is that what you want to say?" "No." He hesitated. "I want you to say that you forgive me," he said, in a quick, hoarse voice. His keen dark eyes turned quickly to her face, and he saw how very pale she was, and how the shadows had deepened under her eyes, and her fingers twitched nervously as they clasped one another in her lap. "I suppose you think I'm sentimental," he said, looking at her. "Perhaps I am; but it would mean a good deal to me if you would just say it." There was something pathetic in the appeal, and something young too, in spite of his grey beard and furrowed face. Still Mrs. Bowring said nothing. It meant almost too much to her, even after twenty-seven years. This old man had taken her, an innocent young girl, had married her, had betrayed her while she dearly loved him, and had blasted her life at the beginning. Even now it was hard to forgive. The suffering was not old, and the sight of his face had touched the quick again. Barely ten minutes had passed since the pain had almost wrung the tears from her. "You can't," said the old man, suddenly. "I see it. It's too much to ask, I suppose, and I've never done anything to deserve it." The pale face grew paler, but the hands were still, and grasped each other, firm and cold. The lips moved, but no sound came. Then a moment, and they moved again. "You're mistaken, Adam. I do forgive you." He caught the two hands in his, and his face shivered. "God bless you, dear," he tried to say, and he kissed the hands twice. When Mrs. Bowring looked up he was sitting beside her, just as before; but his face was terribly drawn, and strange, and a great tear had trickled down the furrowed brown cheek into the grey beard. CHAPTER XI Lady Johnstone was one of those perfectly frank and honest persons who take no trouble to conceal their anxieties. From the fact that when she had met him on the way up to the hotel Brook had been walking alone with Clare Bowring, she had at once argued that a considerable intimacy existed between the two. Her meeting with Clare's mother, and her sudden fancy for the elder woman, had momentarily allayed her fears, but they revived when it became clear to her that Brook sought every possible opportunity of being alone with the young girl. She was an eminently practical woman, as has been said, which perhaps accounted for her having made a good husband out of such a man as Adam Johnstone had been in his youth. She had never seen Brook devote himself to a young girl before now. She saw that Clare was good to look at, and she promptly concluded that Brook must be in love. The conclusion was perfectly correct, and Lady Johnstone soon grew very nervous. Brook was too young to marry, and even if he had been old enough his mother thought that he might have made a better choice. At all events he should not entangle himself in an engagement with the girl; and she began systematically to interfere with his attempts to be alone with her. Brook was as frank as herself. He charged her with trying to keep him from Clare, and she did not deny that he was right. This led to a discussion on the third day after the Johnstones' arrival. "You mustn't make a fool of yourself, Brook, dear," said Lady Johnstone. "You are not old enough to marry. Oh, I know, you are five-and-twenty, and ought to have come to years of discretion. But you haven't, dear boy. Don't forget that you are Adam Johnstone's son, and that you may be expected to do all the things that he did before I married him. And he did a good many things, you know. I'm devoted to your father, and if he were in the room I should tell you just what I am telling you now. Before I married him he had about a thousand flirtations, and he had been married too, and had gone off with an actress--a shocking affair altogether! And his wife had divorced him. She must have been one of those horrible women who can't forgive, you know. Now, my dear boy, you aren't a bit better than your father, and that pretty Clare Bowring looks as though she would never forgive anybody who did anything she didn't like. Have you asked her to marry you?" "Good heavens, no!" cried Brook. "She wouldn't look at me!" "Wouldn't look at you? That's simply ridiculous, you know! She'd marry you out of hand--unless she's perfectly idiotic. And she doesn't look that. Leave her alone, Brook. Talk to the mother. She's one of the most delightful women I ever met. She has a dear, quiet way with her--like a very thoroughbred white cat that's been ill and wants to be petted." "What extraordinary ideas you have, mother!" laughed Brook. "But on general principles I don't see why I shouldn't marry Miss Bowring, if she'll have me. Why not? Her father was a gentleman, you like her mother, and as for herself--" "Oh, I've nothing against her. It's all against you, Brook dear. You are such a dreadful flirt, you know! You'll get tired of the poor girl and make her miserable. I'm sure she isn't practical, as I am. The very first time you look at some one else she'll get on a tragic horse and charge the crockery--and there will be a most awful smash! It's not easy to manage you Johnstones when you think you are in love. I ought to know!" "I say, mother," said Brook, "has anybody been telling you stories about me lately?" "Lately? Let me see. The last I heard was that Mrs. Crosby--the one you all call Lady Fan--was going to get a divorce so as to marry you." "Oh--you heard that, did you?" "Yes--everybody was talking about it and asking me whether it was true. It seems that she was with that party that brought you here. She left them at Naples, and came home at once by land, and they said she was giving out that she meant to marry you. I laughed, of course. But people wouldn't talk about you so much, dear boy, if there were not so much to talk about. I know that you would never do anything so idiotic as that, and if Mrs. Crosby chooses to flirt with you, that's her affair. She's older than you, and knows more about it. But this is quite another thing. This is serious. You sha'n't make love to that nice girl, Brook. You sha'n't! I'll do something dreadful, if you do. I'll tell her all about Mrs. Leo Cairngorm or somebody like that. But you sha'n't marry her and ruin her life." "You're going in for philanthropy, mother," said Brook, growing red. "It's something new. You never made a fuss before." "No, of course not. You never were so foolish before, my dear boy. I'm not bad myself, I believe. But you are, every one of you, and I love you all, and the only way to do anything with you is to let you run wild a little first. It's the only practical, sensible way. And you've only just begun--how in the world do you dare to think of marrying? Upon my word, it's too bad. I won't wait. I'll frighten the girl to death with stories about you, until she refuses to speak to you! But I've taken a fancy to her mother, and you sha'n't make the child miserable. You sha'n't, Brook. Oh, I've made up my mind! You sha'n't. I'll tell the mother too. I'll frighten them all, till they can't bear the sight of you." Lady Johnstone was energetic, as well as original, in spite of her abnormal size, and Brook knew that she was quite capable of carrying out her threat, and more also. "I may be like my father in some ways," he answered. "But I'm a good deal like you too, mother. I'm rather apt to stick to what I like, you know. Besides, I don't believe you would do anything of the kind. And she isn't inclined to like me, as it is. I believe she must have heard some story or other. Don't make things any worse than they are." "Then don't lose your head and ask her to marry you after a fortnight's acquaintance, Brook, because she'll accept you, and you will make her perfectly wretched." He saw that it was not always possible to argue with his mother, and he said nothing more. But he reflected upon her point of view, and he saw that it was not altogether unjust, as she knew him. She could not possibly understand that what he felt for Clare Bowring bore not the slightest resemblance to what he had felt for Lady Fan, if, indeed, he had felt anything at all, which he considered doubtful now that it was over, though he would have been angry enough at the suggestion a month earlier. To tell the truth, he felt quite sure of himself at the present time, though all his sensations were more or less new to him. And his mother's sudden and rather eccentric opposition unexpectedly strengthened his determination. He might laugh at what he called her originality, but he could not afford to jest at the prospect of her giving Clare an account of his life. She was quite capable of it, and would probably do it. These preoccupations, however, were as nothing compared with the main point--the certainty that Clare would refuse him, if he offered himself to her, and when he left his mother he was in a very undetermined state of mind. If he should ask Clare to marry him now, she would refuse him. But if his mother interfered, it would be much worse a week hence. At last, as ill-luck would have it, he came upon her unexpectedly in the corridor, as he came out, and they almost ran against each other. "Won't you come out for a bit?" he asked quickly and in a low voice. "Thanks--I have some letters to write," answered the young girl. "Besides, it's much too hot. There isn't a breath of air." "Oh, it's not really hot, you know," said Brook, persuasively. "Then it's making a very good pretence!" laughed Clare. "It's ever so much cooler out of doors. If you'll only come out for one minute, you'll see. Really--I'm in earnest." "But why should I go out if I don't want to?" asked the young girl. "Because I asked you to--" "Oh, that isn't a reason, you know," she laughed again. "Well, then, because you really would, if I hadn't asked you, and you only refuse out of a spirit of opposition," suggested Brook. "Oh--do you think so? Do you think I generally do just the contrary of what I'm asked to do?" "Of course, everybody knows that, who knows you." Brook seemed amused at the idea. "If you think that--well, I'll come, just for a minute, if it's only to show you that you are quite wrong." "Thanks, awfully. Sha'n't we go for the little walk that was interrupted when my people came the other day?" "No--it's too hot, really. I'll walk as far as the end of the terrace and back--once. Do you mind telling me why you are so tremendously anxious to have me come out this very minute?" "I'll tell you--at least, I don't know that I can--wait till we are outside. I should like to be out with you all the time, you know--and I thought you might come, so I asked you." "You seem rather confused," said Clare gravely. "Well, you know," Brook answered as they walked along towards the dazzling green light that filled the door, "to tell the truth, between one thing and another--" He did not complete the sentence. "Yes?" said Clare, sweetly. "Between one thing and another--what were you going to say?" Brook did not answer as they went out into the hot, blossom-scented air, under the spreading vines. "Do you mean to say it's cooler here than indoors?" asked the young girl in a tone of resignation. "Oh, it's much cooler! There's a breeze at the end of the walk." "The sea is like oil," observed Clare. "There isn't the least breath." "Well," said Brook, "it can't be really hot, because it's only the first week in June after all." "This isn't Scotland. It's positively boiling, and I wish I hadn't come out. Beware of first impulses--they are always right!" But she glanced sideways at his face, for she knew that something was in the air. She was not sure what to expect of him just then, but she knew that there was something to expect. Her instinct told her that he meant to speak and to say more than he had yet said. It told her that he was going to ask her to marry him, then and there, in the blazing noon, under the vines, but her modesty scouted the thought as savouring of vanity. At all events she would prevent him from doing it if she could. "Lady Johnstone seems to like this place," she said, with a sudden effort at conversation. "She says that she means to make all sorts of expeditions." "Of course she will," answered Brook, in a half-impatient tone. "But, please--I don't want to talk about my mother or the landscape. I really did want to speak to you, because I can't stand this sort of thing any longer, you know." "What sort of thing?" asked Clare innocently, raising her eyes to his, as they reached the end of the walk. It was very hot and still. Not a breath stirred the young vine-leaves overhead, and the scent of the last orange-blossoms hung in the motionless air. The heat rose quivering from the sea to southward, and the water lay flat as a mirror under the glory of the first summer's day. They stood still. Clare felt nervous, and tried to think of something to say which might keep him from speaking, and destroy the effect of her last question. But it was too late now. He was pale, for him, and his eyes were very bright. "I can't live without you--it comes to that. Can't you see?" The short plain words shook oddly as they fell from his lips. The two stood quite still, each looking into the other's face. Brook grew paler still, but the colour rose in Clare's cheeks. She tried to meet his eyes steadily, without feeling that he could control her. "I'm sorry," she said, "I'm very sorry." "You sha'n't say that," he answered, cutting her words with his, and sharply. "I'm tired of hearing it. I'm glad I love you, whatever you do to me; and you must get to like me. You must. I tell you I can't live without you." "But if I can't--" Clare tried to say. "You can--you must--you shall!" broke in Brook, hoarsely, his eyes growing brighter and fiercer. "I didn't know what it was to love anybody, and now that I know, I can't live without it, and I won't." "But if--" "There is no 'if,'" he cried, in his low strong voice, fixing her eyes with his. "There's no question of my going mad, or dying, or anything half so weak, because I won't take no. Oh, you may say it a hundred times, but it won't help you. I tell you I love you. Do you understand what that means? I'm in God's own earnest. I'll give you my life, but I won't give you up. I'll take you somehow, whether you will or not, and I'll hide you somewhere, but you sha'n't get away from me as long as you live." "You must be mad!" exclaimed the young girl, scarcely above her breath, half-frightened, and unable to loose her eyes from the fascination of his. "No, I'm not mad; only you've never seen any one in earnest before, and you've been condemning me without evidence all along. But it must stop now. You must tell me what it is, for I have a right to know. Tell me what it all is. I will know--I will. Look at me; you can't look away till you tell me." Clare felt his power, and felt that his eyes were dazzling her, and that if she did not escape from them she must yield and tell him. She tried, and her eyelids quivered. Then she raised her hand to cover her own eyes, in a desperate attempt to keep her secret. He caught it and held it, and still looked. She turned pale suddenly. Then her words came mechanically. "I was out there when you said 'good-bye' to Lady Fan. I heard everything, from first to last." He started in surprise, and the colour rose suddenly to his face. He did not look away yet, but Clare saw the blush of shame in his face, and felt that his power diminished, while hers grew all at once, to overmaster him in turn. "It's scarcely a fortnight since you betrayed her," she said, slowly and distinctly, "and you expect me to like you and to believe that you are in earnest." His shame turned quickly to anger. "So you listened!" he exclaimed. "Yes, I listened," she answered, and her words came easily, then, in self-defence--for she had thought of it all very often. "I didn't know who you were. My mother and I had been sitting beside the cross in the shadow of the cave, and she went in to finish a letter, leaving me there. Then you two came out talking. Before I knew what was happening you had said too much. I felt that if I had been in Lady Fan's place I would far rather never know that a stranger was listening. So I sat still, and I could not help hearing. How was I to know that you meant to stay here until I heard you say so to her? And I heard everything. You are ashamed now that you know that I know. Do you wonder that I disliked you from the first?" "I don't see why you should," answered Brook stubbornly. "If you do--you do. That doesn't change matters--" "You betrayed her!" cried Clare indignantly. "You forgot that I heard all you said--how you promised to marry her if she could get a divorce. It was horrible, and I never dreamt of such things, but I heard it. And then you were tired of her, I suppose, and you changed your mind, and calmly told her that it was all a mistake. Do you expect any woman, who has seen another treated in that way, to forget? Oh, I saw her face, and I heard her sob. You broke her heart for your amusement. And it was only a fortnight ago!" She had the upper hand now, and she turned from him with a last scornful glance, and looked over the low wall at the sea, wondering how he could have held her with his eyes a moment earlier. Brook stood motionless beside her, and there was silence. He might have found much in self-defence, but there was not one word of it which he could tell her. Perhaps she might find out some day what sort of person Lady Fan was, but his own lips were closed. That was his view of what honour meant. Clare felt that her breath came quickly, and that the colour was deep in her cheeks as she gazed at the flat, hot sea. For a moment she felt a woman's enormous satisfaction in being absolutely unanswerable. Then, all at once, she had a strong sensation of sickness, and a quick pain shot sharply through her just below the heart. She steadied herself by the wall with her hands, and shut her lips tightly. She had refused him as well as accused him. He would go away in a few moments, and never try to be alone with her again. Perhaps he would leave Amalfi that very day. It was impossible that she should really care for him, and yet, if she did not care, she would not ask the next question. Then he spoke to her. His voice was changed and very quiet now. "I'm sorry you heard all that," he said. "I don't wonder that you've got a bad opinion of me, and I suppose I can't say anything just now to make you change it. You heard, and you think you have a right to judge. Perhaps I shouldn't even say this--you heard me then, and you have heard me now. There's a difference, you'll admit. But all that you heard then, and all that you have told me now, can't change the truth, and you can't make me love you less, whatever you do. I don't believe I'm that sort of man." "I should have thought you were," said Clare bitterly, and regretting the words as soon as they were spoken. "It's natural that you should think so. At the same time, it doesn't follow that because a man doesn't love one woman he can't possibly love another." "That's simply brutal!" exclaimed the young girl, angry with him unreasonably because the argument was good. "It's true, at all events. I didn't love Mrs. Crosby, and I told her so. You may think me a brute if you like, but you heard me say it, if you heard anything, so I suppose I may quote myself. I do love you, and I have told you so--the fact that I can't say it in choice language doesn't make it a lie. I'm not a man in a book, and I'm in earnest." "Please stop," said Clare, as she heard the hoarse strength coming back in his voice. "Yes--I know. I've said it before, and you don't care to hear it again. You can't kill it by making me hold my tongue, you know. It only makes it worse. You'll see that I'm in earnest in time--then you'll change your mind. But I can't change mine. I can't live without you, whatever you may think of me now." It was a strange wooing, very unlike anything she had ever dreamt of, if she had allowed herself to dream of such things. She asked herself whether this could be the same man who had calmly and cynically told Lady Fan that he did not love her and could not think of marrying her. He had been cool and quiet enough then. That gave strength to the argument he used now. She had seen him with another woman, and now she saw him with herself and heard him. She was surprised and almost taken from her feet by his rough vehemence. He surely did not speak as a man choosing his words, certainly not as one trying to produce an effect. But then, on that evening at the Acropolis--the thought of that scene pursued her--he had doubtless spoken just as roughly and vehemently to Lady Fan, and had seemed just as much in earnest. And suddenly Lady Fan was hateful to her, and she almost ceased to pity her at all. But for Lady Fan--well, it might have been different. She should not have blamed herself for liking him, for loving him perhaps, and his words would have had another ring. He still stood beside her, watching her, and she was afraid to turn to him lest he should see something in her face which she meant to hide. But she could speak quietly enough, resting her hands on the wall and looking out to sea. It would be best to be a little formal, she thought. The sound of his own name spoken distinctly and coldly would perhaps warn him not to go too far. "Mr. Johnstone," she said, steadying her voice, "this can't go on. I never meant to tell you what I knew, but you have forced me to it. I don't love you--I don't like a man who can do such things, and I never could. And I can't let you talk to me in this way any more. If we must meet, you must behave just as usual. If you can't, I shall persuade my mother to go away at once." "I shall follow you," said Brook. "I told you so the other day. You can't possibly go to any place where I can't go too." "Do you mean to persecute me, Mr. Johnstone?" she asked. "I love you." "I hate you!" "Yes, but you won't always. Even if you do, I shall always love you just as much." Her eyes fell before his. "Do you mean to say that you can really love a woman who hates you?" she asked, looking at one of her hands as it rested on the wall. "Of course. Why not? What has that to do with it?" The question was asked so simply and with such honest surprise that Clare looked up again. He was smiling a little sadly. "But--I don't understand--" she hesitated. "Do you think it's like a bargain?" he asked quietly. "Do you think it's a matter of exchange--'I will love you if you'll love me'? Oh no! It's not that. I can't help it. I'm not my own master. I've got to love you, whether I like it or not. But since I do--well, I've said the rest, and I won't repeat it. I've told you that I'm in earnest, and you haven't believed me. I've told you that I love you, and you won't even believe that--" "No--I can believe that, well enough, now. You do to-day, perhaps. At least you think you do." "Well--you don't believe it, then. What's the use of repeating it? If I could talk well, it would be different, but I'm not much of a talker, at best, and just now I can't put two words together. But I--I mean lots of things that I can't say, and perhaps wouldn't say, you know. At least, not just now." He turned from her and began to walk up and down across the narrow terrace, towards her and away from her, his hands in his pockets, and his head a little bent. She watched him in silence for some time. Perhaps if she had hated him as much as she said that she did, she would have left him then and gone into the house. Something, good or evil, tempted her to speak. "What do you mean, that you wouldn't say now?" she asked. "I don't know," he answered gruffly, still walking up and down, ten steps each way. "Don't ask me--I told you one thing. I shall follow you wherever you go." "And then?" asked Clare, still prompted by some genius, good or bad. "And then?" Brook stopped and stared at her rather wildly. "And then? If I can't get you in any other way--well, I'll take you, that's all! It's not a very pretty thing to say, is it?" "It doesn't sound a very probable thing to do, either," answered Clare. "I'm afraid you are out of your mind, Mr. Johnstone." "You've driven most things out of it since I loved you," answered Brook, beginning to walk again. "You've made me say things that I shouldn't have dreamed of saying to any woman, much less to you. And you've made me think of doing things that looked perfectly mad a week ago." He stopped before her. "Can't you see? Can't you understand? Can't you feel how I love you?" "Don't--please don't!" she said, beginning to be frightened at his manner again. "Don't what? Don't love you? Don't live, then--don't exist--don't anything! What would it all matter, if I didn't love you? Meanwhile, I do, and by the--no! What's the use of talking? You might laugh. You'd make a fool of me, if you hadn't killed the fool out of me with too much earnest--and what's left can't talk, though it can do something better worth while than a lot of talking." Clare began to think that the heat had hurt his head. And all the time, in a secret, shame-faced way, she was listening to his incoherent sentences and rough exclamations, and remembering them one by one, and every one. And she looked at his pale face, and saw the queer light in his blue eyes, and the squaring of his jaw--and then and long afterwards the whole picture, with its memory of words, hot, broken, and confused, meant earnest love in her thoughts. No man in his senses, wishing to play a part and produce an impression upon a woman, would have acted as he did, and she knew it. It was the rough, real thing--the raw strength of an honest man's uncontrolled passion that she saw--and it told her more of love in a few minutes than all she had heard or read in her whole life. But while it was before her, alive and throbbing and incoherent of speech, it frightened her. "Come," she said nervously, "we mustn't stay out here any longer, talking in this way." He stopped again, close before her, and his eyes looked dangerous for an instant. Then he straightened himself, and seemed to swallow something with an effort. "All right," he answered. "I don't want to keep you out here in the heat." He faced about, and they walked slowly towards the house. When they reached the door he stood aside. She saw that he did not mean to go in, and she paused an instant on the threshold, looked at him gravely, and nodded before she entered. Again he bent his head, and said nothing. She left him standing there, and went straight to her room. Then she sat down before a little table on which she wrote her letters, near the window, and she tried to think. But it was not easy, and everything was terribly confused. She rested her elbows upon the small desk and pressed her fingers to her eyes, as though to drive away the sight that would come back. Then she dropped her hands suddenly and opened her eyes wide, and stared at the wall-paper before her. And it came back very vividly between her and the white plaster, and she heard his voice again--but she was smiling now. She started violently, for she felt two hands laid unexpectedly upon her shoulders, and some one kissed her hair. She had not heard her mother's footstep, nor the opening and shutting of the door, nor anything but Brook Johnstone's voice. "What is it, my darling?" asked the elder woman, bending down over her daughter's shoulder. "Has anything happened?" Clare hesitated a moment, and then spoke, for the habit of her confidence was strong. "He has asked me to marry him, mother--" In her turn Mrs. Bowring started, and then rested one hand on the table. "You? You?" she repeated, in a low and troubled voice. "You marry Adam Johnstone's son?" "No, mother--never," answered the young girl. "Thank God!" And Mrs. Bowring sank into a chair, shivering as though she were cold. CHAPTER XII Brook felt in his pocket mechanically for his pipe, as a man who smokes generally takes to something of the sort at great moments in his life, from sheer habit. He went through the operation of filling and lighting with great precision, almost unconscious of what he was doing, and presently he found himself smoking and sitting on the wall just where Clare had leaned against it during their interview. In three minutes his pipe had gone out, but he was not aware of the fact, and sat quite still in his place, staring into the shrubbery which grew at the back of the terrace. He was conscious that he had talked and acted wildly, and quite unlike the self with which he had been long acquainted; and the consciousness was anything but pleasant. He wondered where Clare was, and what she might be thinking of him at that moment. But as he thought of her his former mood returned, and he felt that he was not ashamed of what he had done and said. Then he realised, all at once, for the second time, that Clare had been on the platform on that first night, and he tried to recall everything that Lady Fan and he had said to each other. No such thing had ever happened to him before, and he had a sensation of shame and distress and anger, as he went over the scene, and thought of the innocent young girl who had sat in the shadow and heard it all. She had accidentally crossed the broad, clear line of demarcation which he drew between her kind and all the tribe of Lady Fans and Mrs. Cairngorms whom he had known. He felt somehow as though it were his fault, and as though he were responsible to Clare for what she had heard and seen. The sensation of shame deepened, and he swore bitterly under his breath. It was one of those things which could not be undone, and for which there was no reparation possible. Yet it was like an insult to Clare. For a man who had lately been rough to the girl, almost to brutality, he was singularly sensitive perhaps. But that did not strike him. When he had told her that he loved her, he had been too much in earnest to pick and choose his expressions. But when he had spoken to Lady Fan, he might have chosen and selected and polished his phrases so that Clare should have understood nothing--if he had only known that she had been sitting up there by the cross in the dark. And again he cursed himself bitterly. It was not because her knowing the facts had spoilt everything and given her a bad impression of him from the first: that might be set right in time, even now, and he did not wish her to marry him believing him to be an angel of light. It was that she should have seen something which she should not have seen, for her innocence's sake--something which, in a sense, must have offended and wounded her maidenliness. He would have struck any man who could have laughed at his sensitiveness about that. The worst of it--and he went back to the idea again and again--was that nothing could be done to mend matters, since it was all so completely in the past. He sat on the wall and pulled at his briar-root pipe, which had gone out and was quite cold by this time, though he hardly knew it. He had plenty to think of, and things were not going straight at all. He had pretended indifference when his mother had told him how Lady Fan meant to get a divorce and how she was telling her intimate friends under the usual vain promises of secrecy that she meant to marry Adam Johnstone's son as soon as she should be free. Brook had told her plainly enough that he would not marry her in any case, but he asked himself whether the world might not say that he should, and whether in that case it might not turn out to be a question of honour. He had secretly thought of that before now, and in the sudden depression of spirits which came upon him as a reaction he cursed himself a third time for having told Clare Bowring that he loved her, while such a matter as Lady Fan's divorce was still hanging over him as a possibility. Sitting on the wall, he swung his legs angrily, striking his heels against the stones in his perplexed discontent with the ordering of the universe. Things looked very black. He wished that he could see Clare again, and that, somehow, he could talk it all over with her. Then he almost laughed at the idea. She would tell him that she disliked him--he was sick of the sound of the word--and that it was his duty to marry Lady Fan. What could she know of Lady Fan? He could not tell her that the little lady in the white serge, being rather desperate, had got herself asked to go with the party for the express purpose of throwing herself at his head, as the current phrase gracefully expresses it, and with the distinct intention of divorcing her husband in order to marry Brook Johnstone. He could not tell Clare that he had made love to Lady Fan to get rid of her, as another common expression put it, with a delicacy worthy of modern society. He could not tell her that Lady Fan, who was clever but indiscreet, had unfolded her scheme to her bosom friend Mrs. Leo Cairngorm, or that Mrs. Cairngorm, unknown to Lady Fan, had been a very devoted friend of Brook's, and was still fond of him, and secretly hated Lady Fan, and had therefore unfolded the whole plan to Brook before the party had started; or that on that afternoon at sunset on the Acropolis he had not at all assented to Lady Fan's mad proposal, as she had represented that he had when they had parted on the platform at Amalfi; he could not tell Clare any of these things, for he felt that they were not fit for her to hear. And if she knew none of them she must judge him out of her ignorance. Brook wished that some supernatural being with a gift for solving hard problems would suddenly appear and set things straight. Instead, he saw the man who brought the letters just entering the hotel, and he rose by force of habit and went to the office to see if there were anything for him. There was one, and it was from Lady Fan, by no means the first she had written since she had gone to England. And there were several for Sir Adam and two for Lady Johnstone. Brook took them all, and opened his own at once. He did not belong to that class of people who put off reading disagreeable correspondence. While he read he walked slowly along the corridor. Lady Fan was actually consulting a firm of solicitors with a view to getting a divorce. She said that she of course understood his conduct on that last night at Amalfi--the whole plan must have seemed unrealisable to him then--she would forgive him. She refused to believe that he would ruin her in cold blood, as she must be ruined if she got a divorce from Crosby, and if Brook would not marry her; and much more. Why should she be ruined? Brook asked himself. If Crosby divorced her on Brook's account, it would be another matter altogether. But she was going to divorce Crosby, who was undoubtedly a beast, and her reputation would be none the worse for it. People would only wonder why she had not done it before, and so would Crosby, unless he took it into his head to examine the question from a financial point of view. For Crosby was, or had been, rich, and Lady Fan had no money of her own, and Crosby was quite willing to let her spend a good deal, provided she left him in peace. How in the world could Clare ever know all the truth about such people? It would be an insult to her to think that she could understand half of it, and she would not think the better of him unless she could understand it all. The situation did not seem to admit of any solution in that way. All he could hope for was that Clare might change her mind. When she should be older she would understand that she had made a mistake, and that the world was not merely a high-class boarding-school for young ladies, in which all the men were employed as white-chokered professors of social righteousness. That seemed to be her impression, he thought, with a resentment which was not against her in particular, but against all young girls in general, and which did not prevent him from feeling that he would not have had it otherwise for anything in the world. He stuffed the letter into his pocket, and went in search of his father. He was strongly inclined to lay the whole matter before him, and to ask the old gentleman's advice. He had reason to believe that Sir Adam had been in worse scrapes than this when he had been a young man, and somehow or other nobody had ever thought the worse of him. He was sure to be in his room at that hour, writing letters. Brook knocked and went in. It was about eleven o'clock. Sir Adam, gaunt and grey, and clad in a cashmere dressing-jacket, was extended upon all the chairs which the little cell-like room contained, close by the open window. He had a very thick cigarette between his lips, and a half-emptied glass of brandy and soda stood on the corner of a table at his elbow. He had not failed to drink one brandy and soda every morning at eleven o'clock for at least a quarter of a century. His keen old eyes turned sharply to Brook as the latter entered, and a smile lighted up his furrowed face, but instantly disappeared again; for the young man's features betrayed something of what he had gone through during the last hour. "Anything wrong, boy?" asked Sir Adam quickly. "Have a brandy and soda and a pipe with me. Oh, letters! It's devilish hard that the post should find a man out in this place! Leave them there on the table." Brook relighted his pipe. His father took one leg from one of the chairs, which he pushed towards his son with his foot by way of an invitation to sit down. "What's the matter?" he asked, renewing his question. "You've got into another scrape, have you? Mrs. Crosby--of all women in the world. Your mother told me that ridiculous story. Wants to divorce Crosby and marry you, does she? I say, boy, it's time this sort of nonsense stopped, you know. One of these days you'll be caught. There are cleverer women in the world than Mrs. Crosby." "Oh! she's not clever," answered Brook thoughtfully. "Well, what's the foundation of the story? What the dickens did you go with those people for, when you found out that she was coming? You knew the sort of woman she was, I suppose? What happened? You made love to her, of course. That was what she wanted. Then she talked of eternal bliss together, and that sort of rot, didn't she? And you couldn't exactly say that you only went in for bliss by the month, could you? And she said, 'By Jove, as you don't refuse, you shall have it for the rest of your life,' and she said to herself that you were richer than Crosby, and a good deal younger, and better-looking, and better socially, and that if you were going to make a fool of yourself she might as well get the benefit of it as well as any other woman. Then she wrote to a solicitor--and now you are in the devil of a scrape. I fancy that's the history of the case, isn't it?" "I wish you wouldn't talk about women in that sort of way, Governor!" exclaimed Brook, by way of answer. "Don't be an ass!" answered Sir Adam. "There are women one can talk about in that way, and women one can't. Mrs. Crosby is one of the first kind. I distinguish between 'women' and 'woman.' Don't you? Woman means something to most of us--something a good deal better than we are, which we treat properly and would cut one another's throats for. We sinners aren't called upon to respect women who won't respect themselves. We are only expected to be civil to them because they are things in petticoats with complexions. Don't be an ass, Brook. I don't want to know what you said to Mrs. Crosby, nor what she said to you, and you wouldn't be a gentleman if you told me. That's your affair. But she's a woman with a consumptive reputation that's very near giving up the ghost, and that would have departed this life some time ago if Crosby didn't happen to be a little worse than she is. She wants to get a divorce and marry my son--and that's my affair. Do you remember the Arab and his slave? 'You've stolen my money,' said the sheikh. 'That's my business,' answered the slave. 'And I'm going to beat you,' said the sheikh. 'That's your business,' said the slave. It's a similar case, you know, only it's a good deal worse. I don't want to know anything that happened before you two parted. But I've a right to know what Mrs. Crosby has done since, haven't I? You don't care to marry her, do you, boy?" "Marry her! I'd rather cut my throat." "You needn't do that. Just tell me whether all this is mere talk, or whether she has really been to the solicitor's. If she has, you know, she will get her divorce without opposition. Everybody knows about Crosby." "It's true," said Brook. "I've just had a letter from her again. I wish I knew what to do!" "You can't do anything." "I can refuse to marry her, can't I?" "Oh--you could. But plenty of people would say that you had induced her to get the divorce, and then had changed your mind. She'll count on that, and make the most of it, you may be sure. She won't have a penny when she's divorced, and she'll go about telling everybody that you have ruined her. That won't be pleasant, will it?" "No--hardly. I had thought of it." "You see--you can't do anything without injuring yourself. I can settle the whole affair in half an hour. By return of post you'll get a letter from her telling you that she has abandoned all idea of proceedings against Crosby." "I'll bet you she doesn't," said Brook. "Anything you like. It's perfectly simple. I'll just make a will, leaving you nothing at all, if you marry her, and I'll send her a copy to-day. You'll get the answer fast enough." "By Jove!" exclaimed Brook, in surprise. Then he thoughtfully relighted his pipe and threw the match out of the window. "I say, Governor," he added after a pause, "do you think that's quite--well, quite fair and square, you know?" "What on earth do you mean?" cried Sir Adam. "Do you mean to tell me that I haven't a perfect right to leave my money as I please? And that the first adventuress who takes a fancy to it has a right to force you into a disgraceful marriage, and that it would be dishonourable of me to prevent it if I could? You're mad, boy! Don't talk such nonsense to me!" "I suppose I'm an idiot," said Brook. "Things about money so easily get a queer look, you know. It's not like other things, is it?" "Look here, Brook," answered the old man, taking his feet from the chair on which they rested, and sitting up straight in the low easy chair. "People have said a lot of things about me in my life, and I'll do the world the credit to add that it might have said twice as much with a good show of truth. But nobody ever said that I was mean, nor that I ever disappointed anybody in money matters who had a right to expect something of me. And that's pretty conclusive evidence, because I'm a Scotch-man, and we are generally supposed to be a close-fisted tribe. They've said everything about me that the world can say, except that I've told you about my first marriage. She--she got her divorce, you know. She had a perfect right to it." The old man lit another cigarette, and sipped his brandy and soda thoughtfully. "I don't like to talk about money," he said in a lower tone. "But I don't want you to think me mean, Brook. I allowed her a thousand a year after she had got rid of me. She never touched it. She isn't that kind. She would rather starve ten times over. But the money has been paid to her account in London for twenty-seven years. Perhaps she doesn't know it. All the better for her daughter, who will find it after her mother's death, and get it all. I only don't want you to think I'm mean, Brook." "Then she married again--your first wife?" asked the young man, with natural curiosity. "And she's alive still?" "Yes," answered Sir Adam, thoughtfully. "She married again six years after I did--rather late--and she had one daughter." "What an odd idea!" exclaimed Brook. "To think that those two people are somewhere about the world. A sort of stray half-sister of mine, the girl would be--I mean--what would be the relationship, Governor, since we are talking about it?" "None whatever," answered the old man, in a tone so extraordinarily sharp that Brook looked up in surprise. "Of course not! What relation could she be? Another mother and another father--no relation at all." "Do you mean to say that I could marry her?" asked Brook idly. Sir Adam started a little. "Why--yes--of course you could, as she wouldn't be related to you." He suddenly rose, took up his glass, and gulped down what was left in it. Then he went and stood before the open window. "I say, Brook," he began, his back turned to his son. "What?" asked Brook, poking his knife into his pipe to clean it. "Anything wrong?" "I can't stand this any longer. I've got to speak to somebody--and I can't speak to your mother. You won't talk, boy, will you? You and I have always been good friends." "Of course! What's the matter with you, Governor? You can tell me." "Oh--nothing--that is--Brook, I say, don't be startled. This Mrs. Bowring is my divorced wife, you know." "Good God!" Sir Adam turned on his heels and met his son's look of horror and astonishment. He had expected an exclamation of surprise, but Brook's voice had fear in it, and he had started from his chair. "Why do you say 'Good God'--like that?" asked the old man. "You're not in love with the girl, are you?" "I've just asked her to marry me." The young man was ghastly pale, as he stood stock-still, staring at his father. Sir Adam was the first to recover something of equanimity, but the furrows in his face had suddenly grown deeper. "Of course she has accepted you?" he asked. "No--she knew about Mrs. Crosby." That seemed sufficient explanation of Clare's refusal. "How awful!" exclaimed Brook hoarsely, his mind going back to what seemed the main question just then. "How awful for you, Governor!" "Well--it's not pleasant," said Sir Adam, turning to the window again. "So the girl refused you," he said, musing, as he looked out. "Just like her mother, I suppose. Brook"--he paused. "Yes?" "So far as I'm concerned, it's not so bad as you think. You needn't pity me, you know. It's just as well that we should have met--after twenty-seven years." "She knew you at once, of course?" "She knew I was your father before I came. And, I say, Brook--she's forgiven me at last." His voice was low and unsteady, and he resolutely kept his back turned. "She's one of the best women that ever lived," he said. "Your mother's the other." There was a long silence, and neither changed his position. Brook watched the back of his father's head. "You don't mind my saying so to you, Brook?" asked the old man, hitching his shoulders. "Mind? Why?" "Oh--well--there's no reason, I suppose. Gad! I wish--I suppose I'm crazy, but I wish to God you could marry the girl, Brook! She's as good as her mother." Brook said nothing, being very much astonished, as well as disturbed. "Only--I'll tell you one thing, Brook," said the voice at the window, speaking into space. "If you do marry her--and if you treat her as I treated her mother--" he turned sharply on both heels and waited a minute--"I'll be damned if I don't believe I'd shoot you!" "I'd spare you the trouble, and do it myself," said Brook, roughly. They were men, at all events, whatever their faults had been and might be, and they looked at the main things of life in very much the same way, like father like son. Another silence followed Brook's last speech. "It's settled now, at all events," he said in a decided way, after a long time. "What's the use of talking about it? I don't know whether you mean to stay here. I shall go away this afternoon." Sir Adam sat down again in his low easy chair, and leaned forward, looking at the pattern of the tiles in the floor, his wrists resting on his knees, and his hands hanging down. "I don't know," he said slowly. "Let us try and look at it quietly, boy. Don't do anything in a hurry. You're in love with the girl, are you? It isn't a mere flirtation? How the deuce do you know the difference, at your age?" "Gad!" exclaimed Brook, half angrily. "I know it! that's all. I can't live without her. That is--it's all bosh to talk in that way, you know. One goes on living, I suppose--one doesn't die. You know what I mean. I'd rather lose an arm than lose her--that sort of thing. How am I to explain it to you? I'm in earnest about it. I never asked any girl to marry me till now. I should think that ought to prove it. You can't say that I don't know what married life means." "Other people's married life," observed Sir Adam, grimly. "You know something about that, I'm afraid." "What difference does it make?" asked Brook. "I can't marry the daughter of my father's divorced wife." "I never heard of a case, simply because such cases don't arise often. But there's no earthly reason why you shouldn't. There is no relationship whatever between you. There's no mention of it in the table of kindred and affinity, I know, simply because it isn't kindred or affinity in any way. The world may make its observations. But you may do much more surprising things than marry the daughter of your father's divorced wife when you are to have forty thousand pounds a year, Brook. I've found it out in my time. You'll find it out in yours. And it isn't as though there were the least thing about it that wasn't all fair and square and straight and honourable and legal--and everything else, including the clergy. I supposed that the Archbishop of Canterbury wouldn't have married me the second time, because the Church isn't supposed to approve of divorces. But I was married in church all right, by a very good man. And Church disapproval can't possibly extend to the second generation, you know. Oh no! So far as its being possible goes, there's nothing to prevent your marrying her." "Except Mrs. Crosby," said Brook. "You'll prove that she doesn't exist either, if you go on. But all that doesn't put things straight. It's a horrible situation, no matter how you look at it. What would my mother say if she knew? You haven't told her about the Bowrings, have you?" "No," answered Sir Adam, thoughtfully. "I haven't told her anything. Of course she knows the story, but--I'm not sure. Do you think I'm bound to tell her that--who Mrs. Bowring is? Do you think it's anything like not fair to her, just to leave her in ignorance of it? If you think so, I'll tell her at once. That is, I should have to ask Mrs. Bowring first, of course." "Of course," assented Brook. "You can't do that, unless we go away. Besides, as things are now, what's the use?" "She'll have to know, if you are engaged to the daughter." "I'm not engaged to Miss Bowring," said Brook, disconsolately. "She won't look at me. What an infernal mess I've made of my life!" "Don't be an ass, Brook!" exclaimed Sir Adam, for the third time that morning. "It's all very well to tell me not to be an ass," answered the young man gravely. "I can't mend matters now, and I don't blame her for refusing me. It isn't much more than two weeks since that night. I can't tell her the truth--I wouldn't tell it to you, though I can't prevent your telling it to me, since you've guessed it. She thinks I betrayed Mrs. Crosby, and left her--like the merest cad, you know. What am I to do? I won't say anything against Mrs. Crosby for anything--and if I were low enough to do that I couldn't say it to Miss Bowring. I told her that I'd marry her in spite of herself--carry her off--anything! But of course I couldn't. I lost my head, and talked like a fool." "She won't think the worse of you for that," observed the old man. "But you can't tell her--the rest. Of course not! I'll see what I can do, Brook. I don't believe it's hopeless at all. I've watched Miss Bowring, ever since we first met you two, coming up the hill. I'll try something--" "Don't speak to her about Mrs. Crosby, at all events!" "I don't think I should do anything you wouldn't do yourself, boy," said Sir Adam, with a shade of reproval in his tone. "All I say is that the case isn't so hopeless as you seem to think. Of course you are heavily handicapped, and you are a dog with a bad name, and all the rest of it. The young lady won't change her mind to-day, nor to-morrow either, perhaps. But she wouldn't be a human woman if she never changed it at all." "You don't know her!" Brook shook his head and began to refill his refractory pipe. "And I don't believe you know her mother either, though you were married to her once. If she is at all what I think she is, she won't let her daughter marry your son. It's not as though anything could happen now to change the situation. It's an old one--it's old, and set, and hard, like a cast. You can't run it into a new mould and make anything else of it. Not even you, Governor--and you are as clever as anybody I know. It's a sheer question of humanity, without any possible outside incident. I've got two things against me which are about as serious as anything can be--the mother's prejudice against you, and the daughter's prejudice against me--both deuced well founded, it seems to me." "You forget one thing, Brook," said Sir Adam, thoughtfully. "What's that?" "Women forgive." Neither spoke for some time. "You ought to know," said Brook in a low tone, at last. "They forgive when they love--or have loved. That's the right way to put it, I think." "Well--put it in that way, if you like. It will just cover the ground. Whatever that young lady may say, she likes you very much. I've seen her watch you, and I'm sure of it." "How can a woman love a man and hate him at the same time?" "Why do jealous women sometimes kill their husbands? If they didn't love them they wouldn't care; and if they didn't hate them, they wouldn't kill them. You can't explain it, perhaps, but you can't deny it either. She'll never forgive Mrs. Crosby--perhaps--but she'll forgive you, when she finds out that she can't be happy without you. Stay here quietly, and let me see what I can do." "You can't do anything, Governor. But I'm grateful to you all the same. And--you know--if there's anything I can do on my side to help you, just now, I'll do it!" "Thank you, Brook," said the old man, leaning back, and putting up his feet again. Brook rose and left the room, slowly shutting the door behind him. Then he got his hat and went off for a solitary walk to think matters over. They were grave enough, and all that his father had said could not persuade him that there was any chance of happiness in his future. There was a sort of horror in the situation, too, and he could not remember ever to have heard of anything like it. He walked slowly, and with bent head. CHAPTER XIII Sir Adam sat still in his place and smoked another thick cigarette before he moved. Then he roused himself, got up, sat down at his table, and took a large sheet of paper from a big leather writing-case. He had no hesitation about what he meant to put down. In a quarter of an hour he had written out a new will, in which he left his whole fortune to his only son Brook, on condition that Brook did not marry Mrs. Crosby. But if he married her before his father's death he was to have nothing, and if he married her afterwards he was to forfeit the whole, to the uttermost farthing. In either of these cases the property was to go to a third person. Sir Adam hesitated a moment, and then wrote the name of one of his sisters as the conditional legatee. His wife had plenty of money of her own, and besides, the will was a mere formality, drawn up and to be executed solely with a view to checking Lady Fan's enthusiasm. He did not sign it, but folded it smoothly and put it into his pocket. He also took his own pen, for he was particular in matters appertaining to the mechanics of writing, and very neat in all he did. He went out and wandered up and down the terrace in the heat, but no one was there. Then he knocked at his wife's door, and found her absorbed in an interesting conversation with her maid in regard to matters of dress, as connected with climate. Lady Johnstone at once appealed to him, and the maid eyed him with suspicion, fearing his suggestions. He satisfied her, however, by immediately suggesting that she should go away, whereat she smiled and departed. Lady Johnstone at once understood that something very serious was in the air. A wonderful good fellowship existed between husband and wife; but they very rarely talked of anything which could not have been discussed, figuratively, on the housetops. "Brook has got himself into a scrape with that Mrs. Crosby, my dear," said Sir Adam. "What you heard is all more or less true. She has really been to a solicitor, and means to take steps to get a divorce. Of course she could get it easily enough. If she did, people would say that Brook had let her go that far, telling her that he would marry her, and then had changed his mind and left her to her fate. We can't let that happen, you know." Lady Johnstone looked at her husband with anxiety while he was speaking, and then was silent for a few seconds. "Oh, you Johnstones! You Johnstones!" she cried at last, shaking her head. "You're perfectly incorrigible!" "Oh no, my dear," answered Sir Adam; "don't forget me, you know." "You, Adam!" Her tone expressed an extraordinary conflict of varying sentiment--amusement, affection, reproach, a retrospective distrust of what might have been, but could not be, considering Sir Adam's age. "Never mind me, then," he answered. "I've made a will cutting Brook off with nothing if he marries Mrs. Crosby, and I'm going to send her a copy of it to-day. That will be enough, I fancy." "Adam!" "Yes--what? Do you disapprove? You always say that you are a practical woman, and you generally show that you are. Why shouldn't I take the practical method of stopping this woman as soon as possible? She wants my money--she doesn't want my son. A fortune with any other name would smell as sweet." "Yes--but--" "But what?" "I don't know--it seems--somehow--" Lady Johnstone was perplexed to express what she meant just then. "I mean," she added suddenly, "it's treating the woman like a mere adventuress, you know--" "That's precisely what Mrs. Crosby is, my dear," answered Sir Adam calmly. "The fact that she comes of decent people doesn't alter the case in the least. Nor the fact that she has one rich husband, and wishes to get another instead. I say that her husband is rich, but I'm very sure he has ruined himself in the last two years, and that she knows it. She is not the woman to leave him as long as he has money, for he lets her do anything she pleases, and pays her well to leave him alone. But he has got into trouble--and rats leave a sinking ship, you know. You may say that I'm cynical, my dear, but I think you'll find that I'm telling you the facts as they are." "It seems an awful insult to the woman to send her a copy of your will," said Lady Johnstone. "It's an awful insult to you when she tries to get rid of her husband to marry your only son, my dear." "Oh--but he'd never marry her!" "I'm not sure. If he thought it would be dishonourable not to marry her, he'd be quite capable of doing it, and of blowing out his brains afterwards." "That wouldn't improve her position," observed the practical Lady Johnstone. "She'd be the widow of an honest man, instead of the wife of a blackguard," said Sir Adam. "However, I'm doing this on my own responsibility. What I want is that you should witness the will." "And let Mrs. Crosby think I made you do this? No--" "Nonsense. I sha'n't copy the signatures--" "Then why do you need them at all?" "I'm not going to write to her that I've made a will, if I haven't," answered Sir Adam. "A will isn't a will unless it's witnessed. I'm not going to lie about it, just to frighten her. So I want you and Mrs. Bowring to witness it." "Mrs. Bowring?" "Yes--there are no men here, and Brook can't be a witness, because he's interested. You and Mrs. Bowring will do very well. But there's another thing--rather an extraordinary thing--and I won't let you sign with her until you know it. It's not a very easy thing to tell you, my dear." Lady Johnstone shifted her fat hands and folded them again, and her frank blue eyes gazed at her husband for a moment. "I can guess," she said, with a good-natured smile. "You told me you were old friends--I suppose you were in love with her somewhere!" She laughed and shook her head. "I don't mind," she added. "It's one more, that's all--one that I didn't know of. She's a very nice woman, and I've taken the greatest fancy to her!" "I'm glad you have," said Sir Adam, gravely. "I say, my dear--don't be surprised, you know--I warned you. We knew each other very well--it's not what you think at all, and she was altogether in the right and I was quite in the wrong about it. I say, now--don't be startled--she's my divorced wife--that's all." "She! Mrs. Bowring! Oh, Adam--how could you treat her so!" Lady Johnstone leaned back in her chair and slowly turned her head till she could look out of the window. She was almost rosy with surprise--a change of colour in her sanguine complexion which was equivalent to extreme pallor in other persons. Sir Adam looked at her affectionately. "What an awfully good woman you are!" he exclaimed, in genuine admiration. "I! No, I'm not good at all. I was thinking that if you hadn't been such a brute to her I could never have married you. I don't suppose that is good, is it? But you were a brute, all the same, Adam, dear, to hurt such a woman as that!" "Of course I was! I told you so when I told you the story. But I didn't expect that you'd ever meet." "No, it is an extraordinary thing. I suppose that if I had any nerves I should faint. It would be an awful thing if I did; you'd have to get those porters to pick me up!" She smiled meditatively. "But I haven't fainted, you see. And, after all, I don't see why it should be so very dreadful, do you? You see, you've rather broken me in to the idea of lots of other people in your life, and I've always pitied her sincerely. I don't see why I should stop pitying her because I've met her and taken such a fancy to her without knowing who she was. Do you?" "Most women would," observed Sir Adam. "It's lucky that you and she happen to be the two best women in the world. I told Brook so this morning." "Brook? Have you told him?" "I had to. He wants to marry her daughter." "Brook! It's impossible!" Lady Johnstone's tone betrayed so much more surprise and displeasure than when her husband had told her of Mrs. Bowring's identity that he stared at her in surprise. "I don't see why it's impossible," he said, "except that she has refused him once. That's nothing. The first time doesn't count." "He sha'n't!" said the fat lady, whose vivid colour had come back. "He'll make her miserable--just as you--no, I won't say that! But they are not in the least suited to one another--he's far too young; there are fifty reasons." "Brook won't act as I did, my dear," said Sir Adam. "He's like you in that. He'll make as good a husband as you have been a good wife--" "Nonsense!" interrupted Lady Johnstone. "You're all alike, you Johnstones! I was talking to him this morning about her--I knew there was the beginning of something--and I told him what I thought. You're all bad, and I love you all; but if you think that Clare Bowring is as practical as I am, you're very much mistaken, Adam, dear! She'll break her heart--" "If she does, I'll shoot him," answered the old man with a grim smile. "I told him so." "Did you? Well, I am glad you take that view of it," said Lady Johnstone, thoughtfully, and not at all realising what she was saying. "I'm glad I'm not a nervous woman," she added, beginning to fan herself. "I should be in my grave, you know." "No--you are not nervous, my dear, and I'm very glad of it. I suppose it really is rather a trying situation. But if I didn't know you, I wouldn't have told you all this. You've spoiled me, you know--you really have been so tremendously good to me--always, dear." There was a rough, half unwilling tenderness in his voice, and his big bony hand rested gently on the fat lady's shoulder, as he spoke. She bent her head to one side, till her large red cheek touched the brown knuckles. It was, in a way, almost grotesque. But there was that something in it which could make youth and beauty and passion ridiculous--the outspoken truthful old rake and the ever-forgiving wife. Who shall say wherein pathos lies? And yet it seems to be something more than a mere hack-writer's word, after all. The strangest acts of life sometimes go off in such an oddly quiet humdrum way, and then all at once there is the little quiver in the throat, when one least expects it--and the sad-eyed, faithful, loving angel has passed by quickly, low and soft, his gentle wings just brushing the still waters of our unwept tears. Sir Adam left his wife to go in search of Mrs. Bowring. He sent a message to her, and she came out and met him in the corridor. They went into the reading-room together, and he shut the door. In a few words he told her all that he had told his wife about Mrs. Crosby, and asked her whether she had any objection to signing the document as a witness, merely in order that he might satisfy himself by actually executing it. "It is high handed," said Mrs. Bowring. "It is like you--but I suppose you have a right to save your son from such trouble. But there is something else--do you know what has happened? He has been making love to Clare--he has asked her to marry him, and she has refused. She told me this morning--and I have told her the truth--that you and I were once married." She paused, and watched Sir Adam's furrowed face. "I'm glad of that," he said. "I'm glad that it has all come out on the same day. He knows everything, and he has told me everything. I don't know how it's all going to end, but I want you to believe one thing. If he had guessed the truth, he would never have said a word of love to her. He's not that kind of boy. You do believe me, don't you?" "Yes, I believe you. But the worst of it is that she cares for him too--in a way I can't understand. She has some reason, or she thinks she has, for disliking him, as she calls it. She wouldn't tell me. But she cares for him all the same. She has told him, though she won't tell me. There is something horrible in the idea of our children falling in love with each other." Mrs. Bowring spoke quietly, but her pale face and nervous mouth told more than her words. Sir Adam explained to her shortly what had happened on the first evening after Brook's arrival, and how Clare had heard it all, sitting in the shadow just above the platform. Mrs. Bowring listened in silence, covering her eyes with her hands. There was a long pause after he had finished speaking, but still she said nothing. "I should like him to marry her," said Sir Adam at last, in a low voice. She started and looked at him uneasily, remembering how well she had once loved him, and how he had broken her heart when she was young. He met her eyes quietly. "You don't know him," he said. "He loves her, and he will be to her--what I wasn't to you." "How can you say that he loves her? Three weeks ago he loved that Mrs. Crosby." "He? He never cared for her--not even at first." "He was all the more heartless and bad to make her think that he did." "She never thought so, for a moment. She wanted my money, and she thought that she could catch him." "Perhaps--I saw her, and I did not like her face. She had the look of an adventuress about her. That doesn't change the main facts. Your son and she were--flirting, to say the least of it, three weeks ago. And now he thinks himself in love with my daughter. It would be madness to trust such a man--even if there were not the rest to hinder their marriage. Adam--I told you that I forgave you. I have forgiven you--God knows. But you broke my life at the beginning like a thread. You don't know all there has been to forgive--indeed, you don't. And you are asking me to risk Clare's life in your son's hands, as I risked mine in yours. It's too much to ask." "But you say yourself that she loves him." "She cares for him--that was what I said. I don't believe in love as I did. You can't expect me to." She turned her face away from him, but he saw the bitterness in it, and it hurt him. He waited a moment before he answered her. "Don't visit my sins on your daughter, Lucy," he said at last. "Don't forget that love was a fact before you and I were born, and will be a fact long after we are dead. If these two love each other, let them marry. I hope that Clare is like you, but don't take it for granted that Brook is like me. He's not. He's more like his mother." "And your wife?" said Mrs. Bowring suddenly. "What would she say to this?" "My wife," said Sir Adam, "is a practical woman." "I never was. Still--if I knew that Clare loved him--if I could believe that he could love her faithfully--what could I do? I couldn't forbid her to marry him. I could only pray that she might be happy, or at least that she might not break her heart." "You would probably be heard, if anybody is. And a man must believe in God to explain your existence," added Sir Adam, in a gravely meditative tone. "It's the best argument I know." CHAPTER XIV Brook Johnstone had gone to his room when he had left his father, and was hastily packing his belongings, for he had made up his mind to leave Amalfi at once without consulting anybody. It is a special advantage of places where there is no railway that one can go away at a moment's notice, without waiting tedious hours for a train. Brook did not hesitate, for it seemed to him the only right thing to do, after Clare's refusal, and after what his father had told him. If she had loved him, he would have stayed in spite of every opposition. If he had never been told her mother's history, he would have stayed and would have tried to make her love him. As it was, he set his teeth and said to himself that he would suffer a good deal rather than do anything more to win the heart of Mrs. Bowring's daughter. He would get over it somehow in the end. He fancied Clare's horror if she should ever know the truth, and his fear of hurting her was as strong as his love. He made no phrases to himself, and he thought of nothing theatrical which he should like to say. He just set his teeth and packed his clothes alone. Possibly he swore rather unmercifully at the coat which would not fit into the right place, and at the starched shirt-cuffs which would not lie flat until he smashed them out of shape with unsteady hands. When he was ready, he wrote a few words to Clare. He said that he was going away immediately, and that it would be very kind of her to let him say good-bye. He sent the note by a servant, and waited in the corridor at a distance from her door. A moment later she came out, very pale. "You are not really going, are you?" she asked, with wide and startled eyes. "You can't be in earnest?" "I'm all ready," he answered, nodding slowly. "It's much better. I only wanted to say good-bye, you know. It's awfully kind of you to come out." "Oh--I wouldn't have--" but she checked herself, and glanced up and down the long corridor. "We can't talk here," she added. "It's so hot outside," said Brook, remembering how she had complained of the heat an hour earlier. "Oh no--I mean--it's no matter. I'd rather go out for a moment." She began to walk towards the door while she was speaking. They reached it in silence, and went out into the blazing sun. Clare had Brook's note still in her hand, and held it up to shield the glare from the side of her face as they crossed the platform. Then she realised that she had brought him to the very spot whereon he had said good-bye to Lady Fan. She stopped, and he stood still beside her. "Not here," she said. "No--not here," he answered. "There's too much sun--really," said she, as the colour rose faintly in her cheeks. "It's only to say good-bye," Brook answered sadly. "I shall always remember you just as you are now--with the sun shining on your hair." It was so bright that it dazzled him as he looked. In spite of the heat she did not move, and their eyes met. "Mr. Johnstone," Clare began, "please stay. Please don't let me feel that I have sent you away." There was a shade of timidity in the tone, and the eyes seemed brave enough to say something more. Brook hesitated. "Well--no--it isn't that exactly. I've heard something--my father has told me something since I saw you--" He stopped short and looked down. "What have you heard?" she asked. "Something dreadful about us?" "About us all--about him, principally. I can't tell you. I really can't." "About him--and my mother? That they were married and separated?" The steady innocent eyes had waited for him to look up again. He started as he heard her words. "You don't mean to say that you know it too?" he cried. "Who has dared to tell you?" "My mother--she was quite right. It's wrong to hide such things--she ought to have told me at once. Why shouldn't I have known it?" "Doesn't it seem horrible to you? Don't you dislike me more than ever?" "No. Why should I? It wasn't your fault. What has it to do with you? Or with me? Is that the reason why you are going away so suddenly?" Brook stared at her in surprise, and the dawn of returning gladness was in his face for a moment. "We have a right to live, whatever they did in their day," said Clare. "There is no reason why you should go away like this, at a moment's notice." With an older woman he would have understood the first time, but he did not dare to understand Clare, nor to guess that there was anything to be understood. "Of course we have a right to live," he answered, in a constrained tone. "But that does not mean that I may stay here and make your life a burden. So I'm going away. It was quite different before I knew all this. Please don't stay out here--you'll get a sunstroke. I only wanted to say good-bye." Man-like, having his courage at the striking-point, he wished to get it all over quickly and be off. The colour sank from Clare's face again, and she stood quite still for a moment, looking at him. "Good-bye," he said, holding out his hand, and trying hard to smile a little. Clare looked at him still, but her hand did not meet his, though he waited, holding it out to her. Her face hardened as though she were making an effort, then softened again, and still he waited. "Won't you say good-bye to me?" he asked unsteadily. She hesitated a moment longer. "No!" she answered suddenly. "I--I can't!" * * * * * And here the story comes to its conclusion, as many stories out of the lives of men and women seem to end at what is only their turning-point. For real life has no conclusion but real death, and that is a sad ending to a tale, and one which may as well be left to the imagination when it is possible. Stories of strange things, which really occur, very rarely have what used to be called a "moral" either. All sorts of things happen to people who afterwards go on living just the same, neither much better nor much worse than they were in the beginning. The story is a slice, as it were, cut from the most interesting part of a life, generally at the point where that life most closely touches another, so that the future of the two momentarily depends upon each separately, and upon both together. The happiness or unhappiness of both, for a long time to come, is founded upon the action of each just at those moments. And sometimes, as in the tale here told, the least promising of all the persons concerned is the one who helps matters out. The only logical thing about life is the certainty that it must end. If there were any logic at all about what goes between birth and death, men would have found it out long ago, and we should all know how to live as soon as we leave school; whereas we spend our lives under Fate's ruler, trying to understand, while she raps us over the knuckles every other minute because we cannot learn our lesson and sit up straight, and be good without being prigs, and do right without sticking it through other people's peace of mind as one sticks a pin through a butterfly. 
22246	----	THE UPPER BERTH BY F. MARION CRAWFORD G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK 27 West Twenty-third St. LONDON 24 Bedford St., Strand The Knickerbocker Press 1894 COPYRIGHT, 1894 BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS PUBLISHERS' NOTE. The two stories by Mr. Crawford, presented in this volume, have been in print before, having been originally written for two Christmas annuals which were issued some years back. With the belief that the stories are, however, still unknown to the larger portion of Mr. Crawford's public, and in the opinion that they are well worthy of preservation in more permanent form, the publishers have decided to reprint them as the initial volume of the "Autonym" library. THE AUTONYM LIBRARY. Small works by representative writers, whose contributions will bear their signatures. 32mo, limp cloth, each 50 cents. The Autonym Library is published in co-operation with Mr. T. Fisher Unwin, of London. I. THE UPPER BERTH, by F. Marion Crawford. II. BY REEF AND PALM, by Louis Becke. With Introduction by the Earl of Pembroke. This will be followed by volumes by S. R. Crockett, and others. THE UPPER BERTH _The Upper Berth._ Somebody asked for the cigars. We had talked long, and the conversation was beginning to languish; the tobacco smoke had got into the heavy curtains, the wine had got into those brains which were liable to become heavy, and it was already perfectly evident that, unless somebody did something to rouse our oppressed spirits, the meeting would soon come to its natural conclusion, and we, the guests, would speedily go home to bed, and most certainly to sleep. No one had said anything very remarkable; it may be that no one had anything very remarkable to say. Jones had given us every particular of his last hunting adventure in Yorkshire. Mr. Tompkins, of Boston, had explained at elaborate length those working principles, by the due and careful maintenance of which the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railroad not only extended its territory, increased its departmental influence, and transported live stock without starving them to death before the day of actual delivery, but, also, had for years succeeded in deceiving those passengers who bought its tickets into the fallacious belief that the corporation aforesaid was really able to transport human life without destroying it. Signor Tombola had endeavoured to persuade us, by arguments which we took no trouble to oppose, that the unity of his country in no way resembled the average modern torpedo, carefully planned, constructed with all the skill of the greatest European arsenals, but, when constructed, destined to be directed by feeble hands into a region where it must undoubtedly explode, unseen, unfeared, and unheard, into the illimitable wastes of political chaos. It is unnecessary to go into further details. The conversation had assumed proportions which would have bored Prometheus on his rock, which would have driven Tantalus to distraction, and which would have impelled Ixion to seek relaxation in the simple but instructive dialogues of Herr Ollendorff, rather than submit to the greater evil of listening to our talk. We had sat at table for hours; we were bored, we were tired, and nobody showed signs of moving. Somebody called for cigars. We all instinctively looked towards the speaker. Brisbane was a man of five-and-thirty years of age, and remarkable for those gifts which chiefly attract the attention of men. He was a strong man. The external proportions of his figure presented nothing extraordinary to the common eye, though his size was above the average. He was a little over six feet in height, and moderately broad in the shoulder; he did not appear to be stout, but, on the other hand, he was certainly not thin; his small head was supported by a strong and sinewy neck; his broad muscular hands appeared to possess a peculiar skill in breaking walnuts without the assistance of the ordinary cracker, and, seeing him in profile, one could not help remarking the extraordinary breadth of his sleeves, and the unusual thickness of his chest. He was one of those men who are commonly spoken of among men as deceptive; that is to say, that though he looked exceedingly strong he was in reality very much stronger than he looked. Of his features I need say little. His head is small, his hair is thin, his eyes are blue, his nose is large, he has a small moustache, and a square jaw. Everybody knows Brisbane, and when he asked for a cigar everybody looked at him. "It is a very singular thing," said Brisbane. Everybody stopped talking. Brisbane's voice was not loud, but possessed a peculiar quality of penetrating general conversation, and cutting it like a knife. Everybody listened. Brisbane, perceiving that he had attracted their general attention, lit his cigar with great equanimity. "It is very singular," he continued, "that thing about ghosts. People are always asking whether anybody has seen a ghost. I have." "Bosh! What, you? You don't mean to say so, Brisbane? Well, for a man of his intelligence!" A chorus of exclamations greeted Brisbane's remarkable statement. Everybody called for cigars, and Stubbs the butler suddenly appeared from the depths of nowhere with a fresh bottle of dry champagne. The situation was saved; Brisbane was going to tell a story. I am an old sailor, said Brisbane, and as I have to cross the Atlantic pretty often, I have my favourites. Most men have their favourites. I have seen a man wait in a Broadway bar for three-quarters of an hour for a particular car which he liked. I believe the bar-keeper made at least one-third of his living by that man's preference. I have a habit of waiting for certain ships when I am obliged to cross that duck-pond. It may be a prejudice, but I was never cheated out of a good passage but once in my life. I remember it very well; it was a warm morning in June, and the Custom House officials, who were hanging about waiting for a steamer already on her way up from the Quarantine, presented a peculiarly hazy and thoughtful appearance. I had not much luggage--I never have. I mingled with the crowd of passengers, porters, and officious individuals in blue coats and brass buttons, who seemed to spring up like mushrooms from the deck of a moored steamer to obtrude their unnecessary services upon the independent passenger. I have often noticed with a certain interest the spontaneous evolution of these fellows. They are not there when you arrive; five minutes after the pilot has called "Go ahead!" they, or at least their blue coats and brass buttons, have disappeared from deck and gangway as completely as though they had been consigned to that locker which tradition unanimously ascribes to Davy Jones. But, at the moment of starting, they are there, clean-shaved, blue-coated, and ravenous for fees. I hastened on board. The _Kamtschatka_ was one of my favourite ships. I say was, because she emphatically no longer is. I cannot conceive of any inducement which could entice me to make another voyage in her. Yes, I know what you are going to say. She is uncommonly clean in the run aft, she has enough bluffing off in the bows to keep her dry, and the lower berths are most of them double. She has a lot of advantages, but I won't cross in her again. Excuse the digression. I got on board. I hailed a steward, whose red nose and redder whiskers were equally familiar to me. "One hundred and five, lower berth," said I, in the businesslike tone peculiar to men who think no more of crossing the Atlantic than taking a whisky cocktail at downtown Delmonico's. The steward took my portmanteau, great coat, and rug. I shall never forget the expression of his face. Not that he turned pale. It is maintained by the most eminent divines that even miracles cannot change the course of nature. I have no hesitation in saying that he did not turn pale; but, from his expression, I judged that he was either about to shed tears, to sneeze, or to drop my portmanteau. As the latter contained two bottles of particularly fine old sherry presented to me for my voyage by my old friend Snigginson van Pickyns, I felt extremely nervous. But the steward did none of these things. "Well, I'm d----d!" said he in a low voice, and led the way. I supposed my Hermes, as he led me to the lower regions, had had a little grog, but I said nothing, and followed him. One hundred and five was on the port side, well aft. There was nothing remarkable about the state-room. The lower berth, like most of those upon the _Kamtschatka_, was double. There was plenty of room; there was the usual washing apparatus, calculated to convey an idea of luxury to the mind of a North-American Indian; there were the usual inefficient racks of brown wood, in which it is more easy to hang a large-sized umbrella than the common tooth-brush of commerce. Upon the uninviting mattresses were carefully folded together those blankets which a great modern humorist has aptly compared to cold buckwheat cakes. The question of towels was left entirely to the imagination. The glass decanters were filled with a transparent liquid faintly tinged with brown, but from which an odor less faint, but not more pleasing, ascended to the nostrils, like a far-off sea-sick reminiscence of oily machinery. Sad-coloured curtains half-closed the upper berth. The hazy June daylight shed a faint illumination upon the desolate little scene. Ugh! how I hate that state-room! The steward deposited my traps and looked at me, as though he wanted to get away--probably in search of more passengers and more fees. It is always a good plan to start in favour with those functionaries, and I accordingly gave him certain coins there and then. "I'll try and make yer comfortable all I can," he remarked, as he put the coins in his pocket. Nevertheless, there was a doubtful intonation in his voice which surprised me. Possibly his scale of fees had gone up, and he was not satisfied; but on the whole I was inclined to think that, as he himself would have expressed it, he was "the better for a glass." I was wrong, however, and did the man injustice. II. Nothing especially worthy of mention occurred during that day. We left the pier punctually, and it was very pleasant to be fairly under way, for the weather was warm and sultry, and the motion of the steamer produced a refreshing breeze. Everybody knows what the first day at sea is like. People pace the decks and stare at each other, and occasionally meet acquaintances whom they did not know to be on board. There is the usual uncertainty as to whether the food will be good, bad, or indifferent, until the first two meals have put the matter beyond a doubt; there is the usual uncertainty about the weather, until the ship is fairly off Fire Island. The tables are crowded at first, and then suddenly thinned. Pale-faced people spring from their seats and precipitate themselves towards the door, and each old sailor breathes more freely as his sea-sick neighbour rushes from his side, leaving him plenty of elbow room and an unlimited command over the mustard. One passage across the Atlantic is very much like another, and we who cross very often do not make the voyage for the sake of novelty. Whales and icebergs are indeed always objects of interest, but, after all, one whale is very much like another whale, and one rarely sees an iceberg at close quarters. To the majority of us the most delightful moment of the day on board an ocean steamer is when we have taken our last turn on deck, have smoked our last cigar, and having succeeded in tiring ourselves, feel at liberty to turn in with a clear conscience. On that first night of the voyage I felt particularly lazy, and went to bed in one hundred and five rather earlier than I usually do. As I turned in, I was amazed to see that I was to have a companion. A portmanteau, very like my own, lay in the opposite corner, and in the upper berth had been deposited a neatly folded rug with a stick and umbrella. I had hoped to be alone, and I was disappointed; but I wondered who my room-mate was to be, and I determined to have a look at him. Before I had been long in bed he entered. He was, as far as I could see, a very tall man, very thin, very pale, with sandy hair and whiskers and colourless grey eyes. He had about him, I thought, an air of rather dubious fashion; the sort of man you might see in Wall Street, without being able precisely to say what he was doing there--the sort of man who frequents the Café Anglais, who always seems to be alone and who drinks champagne; you might meet him on a race-course, but he would never appear to be doing anything there either. A little over-dressed--a little odd. There are three or four of his kind on every ocean steamer. I made up my mind that I did not care to make his acquaintance, and I went to sleep saying to myself that I would study his habits in order to avoid him. If he rose early, I would rise late; if he went to bed late, I would go to bed early. I did not care to know him. If you once know people of that kind they are always turning up. Poor fellow! I need not have taken the trouble to come to so many decisions about him, for I never saw him again after that first night in one hundred and five. I was sleeping soundly when I was suddenly waked by a loud noise. To judge from the sound, my room-mate must have sprung with a single leap from the upper berth to the floor. I heard him fumbling with the latch and bolt of the door, which opened almost immediately, and then I heard his footsteps as he ran at full speed down the passage, leaving the door open behind him. The ship was rolling a little, and I expected to hear him stumble or fall, but he ran as though he were running for his life. The door swung on its hinges with the motion of the vessel, and the sound annoyed me. I got up and shut it, and groped my way back to my berth in the darkness. I went to sleep again; but I have no idea how long I slept. When I awoke it was still quite dark, but I felt a disagreeable sensation of cold, and it seemed to me that the air was damp. You know the peculiar smell of a cabin which has been wet with sea water. I covered myself up as well as I could and dozed off again, framing complaints to be made the next day, and selecting the most powerful epithets in the language. I could hear my room-mate turn over in the upper berth. He had probably returned while I was asleep. Once I thought I heard him groan, and I argued that he was sea-sick. That is particularly unpleasant when one is below. Nevertheless I dozed off and slept till early daylight. The ship was rolling heavily, much more than on the previous evening, and the grey light which came in through the porthole changed in tint with every movement according as the angle of the vessel's side turned the glass seawards or skywards. It was very cold--unaccountably so for the month of June. I turned my head and looked at the porthole, and saw to my surprise that it was wide open and hooked back. I believe I swore audibly. Then I got up and shut it. As I turned back I glanced at the upper berth. The curtains were drawn close together; my companion had probably felt cold as well as I. It struck me that I had slept enough. The state-room was uncomfortable, though, strange to say, I could not smell the dampness which had annoyed me in the night. My room-mate was still asleep--excellent opportunity for avoiding him, so I dressed at once and went on deck. The day was warm and cloudy, with an oily smell on the water. It was seven o'clock as I came out--much later than I had imagined. I came across the doctor, who was taking his first sniff of the morning air. He was a young man from the West of Ireland--a tremendous fellow, with black hair and blue eyes, already inclined to be stout; he had a happy-go-lucky, healthy look about him which was rather attractive. "Fine morning," I remarked, by way of introduction. "Well," said he, eying me with an air of ready interest, "it's a fine morning and it's not a fine morning. I don't think it's much of a morning." "Well, no--it is not so very fine," said I. "It's just what I call fuggly weather," replied the doctor. "It was very cold last night, I thought," I remarked. "However, when I looked about, I found that the porthole was wide open. I had not noticed it when I went to bed. And the state-room was damp, too." "Damp!" said he. "Whereabouts are you?" "One hundred and five----" To my surprise the doctor started visibly, and stared at me. "What is the matter?" I asked. "Oh--nothing," he answered; "only everybody has complained of that state-room for the last three trips." "I shall complain too," I said. "It has certainly not been properly aired. It is a shame!" "I don't believe it can be helped," answered the doctor. "I believe there is something--well, it is not my business to frighten passengers." "You need not be afraid of frightening me," I replied. "I can stand any amount of damp. If I should get a bad cold I will come to you." I offered the doctor a cigar, which he took and examined very critically. "It is not so much the damp," he remarked. "However, I dare say you will get on very well. Have you a room-mate?" "Yes; a deuce of a fellow, who bolts out in the middle of the night and leaves the door open." Again the doctor glanced curiously at me. Then he lit the cigar and looked grave. "Did he come back?" he asked presently. "Yes. I was asleep, but I waked up and heard him moving. Then I felt cold and went to sleep again. This morning I found the porthole open." "Look here," said the doctor, quietly, "I don't care much for this ship. I don't care a rap for her reputation. I tell you what I will do. I have a good-sized place up here. I will share it with you, though I don't know you from Adam." I was very much surprised at the proposition. I could not imagine why he should take such a sudden interest in my welfare. However, his manner as he spoke of the ship was peculiar. "You are very good, doctor," I said. "But really, I believe even now the cabin could be aired, or cleaned out, or something. Why do you not care for the ship?" "We are not superstitious in our profession, sir," replied the doctor. "But the sea makes people so. I don't want to prejudice you, and I don't want to frighten you, but if you will take my advice you will move in here. I would as soon see you overboard," he added, "as know that you or any other man was to sleep in one hundred and five." "Good gracious! Why?" I asked. "Just because on the last three trips the people who have slept there actually have gone overboard," he answered, gravely. The intelligence was startling and exceedingly unpleasant, I confess. I looked hard at the doctor to see whether he was making game of me, but he looked perfectly serious. I thanked him warmly for his offer, but told him I intended to be the exception to the rule by which every one who slept in that particular state-room went overboard. He did not say much, but looked as grave as ever, and hinted that before we got across I should probably reconsider his proposal. In the course of time we went to breakfast, at which only an inconsiderable number of passengers assembled. I noticed that one or two of the officers who breakfasted with us looked grave. After breakfast I went into my state-room in order to get a book. The curtains of the upper berth were still closely drawn. Not a word was to be heard. My room-mate was probably still asleep. As I came out I met the steward whose business it was to look after me. He whispered that the captain wanted to see me, and then scuttled away down the passage as if very anxious to avoid any questions. I went toward the captain's cabin, and found him waiting for me. "Sir," said he, "I want to ask a favour of you." I answered that I would do anything to oblige him. "Your room-mate has disappeared," he said. "He is known to have turned in early last night. Did you notice anything extraordinary in his manner?" The question coming, as it did, in exact confirmation of the fears the doctor had expressed half an hour earlier, staggered me. "You don't mean to say he has gone overboard?" I asked. "I fear he has," answered the captain. "This is the most extraordinary thing----" I began. "Why?" he asked. "He is the fourth, then?" I explained. In answer to another question from the captain, I explained, without mentioning the doctor, that I had heard the story concerning one hundred and five. He seemed very much annoyed at hearing that I knew of it. I told him what had occurred in the night. "What you say," he replied, "coincides almost exactly with what was told me by the room-mates of two of the other three. They bolt out of bed and run down the passage. Two of them were seen to go overboard by the watch; we stopped and lowered boats, but they were not found. Nobody, however, saw or heard the man who was lost last night--if he is really lost. The steward, who is a superstitious fellow, perhaps, and expected something to go wrong, went to look for him this morning, and found his berth empty, but his clothes lying about, just as he had left them. The steward was the only man on board who knew him by sight, and he has been searching everywhere for him. He has disappeared! Now, sir, I want to beg you not to mention the circumstance to any of the passengers; I don't want the ship to get a bad name, and nothing hangs about an ocean-goer like stories of suicides. You shall have your choice of any one of the officers' cabins you like, including my own, for the rest of the passage. Is that a fair bargain?" "Very," said I; "and I am much obliged to you. But since I am alone, and have the state-room to myself, I would rather not move. If the steward will take out that unfortunate man's things, I would as leave stay where I am. I will not say anything about the matter, and I think I can promise you that I will not follow my room-mate." The captain tried to dissuade me from my intention, but I preferred having a state-room alone to being the chum of any officer on board. I do not know whether I acted foolishly, but if I had taken his advice I should have had nothing more to tell. There would have remained the disagreeable coincidence of several suicides occurring among men who had slept in the same cabin, but that would have been all. That was not the end of the matter, however, by any means. I obstinately made up my mind that I would not be disturbed by such tales, and I even went so far as to argue the question with the captain. There was something wrong about the state-room, I said. It was rather damp. The porthole had been left open last night. My room-mate might have been ill when he came on board, and he might have become delirious after he went to bed. He might even now be hiding somewhere on board, and might be found later. The place ought to be aired and the fastening of the port looked to. If the captain would give me leave, I would see that what I thought necessary were done immediately. "Of course you have a right to stay where you are if you please," he replied, rather petulantly; "but I wish you would turn out and let me lock the place up, and be done with it." I did not see it in the same light, and left the captain, after promising to be silent concerning the disappearance of my companion. The latter had had no acquaintances on board, and was not missed in the course of the day. Towards evening I met the doctor again, and he asked me whether I had changed my mind. I told him I had not. "Then you will before long," he said, very gravely. III. We played whist in the evening, and I went to bed late. I will confess now that I felt a disagreeable sensation when I entered my state-room. I could not help thinking of the tall man I had seen on the previous night, who was now dead, drowned, tossing about in the long swell, two or three hundred miles astern. His face rose very distinctly before me as I undressed, and I even went so far as to draw back the curtains of the upper berth, as though to persuade myself that he was actually gone. I also bolted the door of the state-room. Suddenly I became aware that the porthole was open, and fastened back. This was more than I could stand. I hastily threw on my dressing-gown and went in search of Robert, the steward of my passage. I was very angry, I remember, and when I found him I dragged him roughly to the door of one hundred and five, and pushed him towards the open porthole. "What the deuce do you mean, you scoundrel, by leaving that port open every night? Don't you know it is against the regulations? Don't you know that if the ship heeled and the water began to come in, ten men could not shut it? I will report you to the captain, you blackguard, for endangering the ship!" I was exceedingly wroth. The man trembled and turned pale, and then began to shut the round glass plate with the heavy brass fittings. "Why don't you answer me?" I said, roughly. "If you please, sir," faltered Robert, "there's nobody on board as can keep this 'ere port shut at night. You can try it yourself, sir. I ain't a-going to stop hany longer on board o' this vessel, sir; I ain't, indeed. But if I was you, sir, I'd just clear out and go and sleep with the surgeon, or something, I would. Look 'ere, sir, is that fastened what you may call securely, or not, sir? Try it, sir, see if it will move a hinch." I tried the port, and found it perfectly tight. "Well, sir," continued Robert, triumphantly, "I wager my reputation as a A1 steward, that in 'arf an hour it will be open again; fastened back, too, sir, that's the horful thing--fastened back!" I examined the great screw and the looped nut that ran on it. "If I find it open in the night, Robert, I will give you a sovereign. It is not possible. You may go." "Soverin' did you say, sir? Very good, sir. Thank ye, sir. Good night, sir. Pleasant reepose, sir, and all manner of hinchantin' dreams, sir." Robert scuttled away, delighted at being released. Of course, I thought he was trying to account for his negligence by a silly story, intended to frighten me, and I disbelieved him. The consequence was that he got his sovereign, and I spent a very peculiarly unpleasant night. I went to bed, and five minutes after I had rolled myself up in my blankets the inexorable Robert extinguished the light that burned steadily behind the ground-glass pane near the door. I lay quite still in the dark trying to go to sleep, but I soon found that impossible. It had been some satisfaction to be angry with the steward, and the diversion had banished that unpleasant sensation I had at first experienced when I thought of the drowned man who had been my chum; but I was no longer sleepy, and I lay awake for some time, occasionally glancing at the porthole, which I could just see from where I lay, and which, in the darkness, looked like a faintly-luminous soup-plate suspended in blackness. I believe I must have lain there for an hour, and, as I remember, I was just dozing into sleep when I was roused by a draught of cold air and by distinctly feeling the spray of the sea blown upon my face. I started to my feet, and not having allowed in the dark for the motion of the ship, I was instantly thrown violently across the state-room upon the couch which was placed beneath the porthole. I recovered myself immediately, however, and climbed upon my knees. The porthole was again wide open and fastened back! Now these things are facts. I was wide awake when I got up, and I should certainly have been waked by the fall had I still been dozing. Moreover, I bruised my elbows and knees badly, and the bruises were there on the following morning to testify to the fact, if I myself had doubted it. The porthole was wide open and fastened back--a thing so unaccountable that I remember very well feeling astonishment rather than fear when I discovered it. I at once closed the plate again and screwed down the loop nut with all my strength. It was very dark in the state-room. I reflected that the port had certainly been opened within an hour after Robert had at first shut it in my presence, and I determined to watch it and see whether it would open again. Those brass fittings are very heavy and by no means easy to move; I could not believe that the clump had been turned by the shaking of the screw. I stood peering out through the thick glass at the alternate white and grey streaks of the sea that foamed beneath the ship's side. I must have remained there a quarter of an hour. Suddenly, as I stood, I distinctly heard something moving behind me in one of the berths, and a moment afterwards, just as I turned instinctively to look--though I could, of course, see nothing in the darkness--I heard a very faint groan. I sprang across the state-room, and tore the curtains of the upper berth aside, thrusting in my hands to discover if there were any one there. There was some one. I remember that the sensation as I put my hands forward was as though I were plunging them into the air of a damp cellar, and from behind the curtain came a gust of wind that smelled horribly of stagnant sea-water. I laid hold of something that had the shape of a man's arm, but was smooth, and wet, and icy cold. But suddenly, as I pulled, the creature sprang violently forward against me, a clammy, oozy mass, as it seemed to me, heavy and wet, yet endowed with a sort of supernatural strength. I reeled across the state-room, and in an instant the door opened and the thing rushed out. I had not had time to be frightened, and quickly recovering myself, I sprang through the door and gave chase at the top of my speed, but I was too late. Ten yards before me I could see--I am sure I saw it--a dark shadow moving in the dimly lighted passage, quickly as the shadow of a fast horse thrown before a dog-cart by the lamp on a dark night. But in a moment it had disappeared, and I found myself holding on to the polished rail that ran along the bulkhead where the passage turned towards the companion. My hair stood on end, and the cold perspiration rolled down my face. I am not ashamed of it in the least: I was very badly frightened. Still I doubted my senses, and pulled myself together. It was absurd, I thought. The Welsh rare-bit I had eaten had disagreed with me. I had been in a nightmare. I made my way back to my state-room, and entered it with an effort. The whole place smelled of stagnant sea-water, as it had when I had waked on the previous evening. It required my utmost strength to go in and grope among my things for a box of wax lights. As I lighted a railway reading lantern which I always carry in case I want to read after the lamps are out, I perceived that the porthole was again open, and a sort of creeping horror began to take possession of me which I never felt before, nor wish to feel again. But I got a light and proceeded to examine the upper berth, expecting to find it drenched with sea-water. But I was disappointed. The bed had been slept in, and the smell of the sea was strong; but the bedding was as dry as a bone. I fancied that Robert had not had the courage to make the bed after the accident of the previous night--it had all been a hideous dream. I drew the curtains back as far as I could and examined the place very carefully. It was perfectly dry. But the porthole was open again. With a sort of dull bewilderment of horror, I closed it and screwed it down, and thrusting my heavy stick through the brass loop, wrenched it with all my might, till the thick metal began to bend under the pressure. Then I hooked my reading lantern into the red velvet at the head of the couch, and sat down to recover my senses if I could. I sat there all night, unable to think of rest--hardly able to think at all. But the porthole remained closed, and I did not believe it would now open again without the application of a considerable force. The morning dawned at last, and I dressed myself slowly, thinking over all that had happened in the night. It was a beautiful day and I went on deck, glad to get out in the early, pure sunshine, and to smell the breeze from the blue water, so different from the noisome, stagnant odour from my state-room. Instinctively I turned aft, towards the surgeon's cabin. There he stood, with a pipe in his mouth, taking his morning airing precisely as on the preceding day. "Good-morning," said he, quietly, but looking at me with evident curiosity. "Doctor, you were quite right," said I. "There is something wrong about that place." "I thought you would change your mind," he answered, rather triumphantly. "You have had a bad night, eh? Shall I make you a pick-me-up? I have a capital recipe." "No, thanks," I cried. "But I would like to tell you what happened." I then tried to explain as clearly as possible precisely what had occurred, not omitting to state that I had been scared as I had never been scared in my whole life before. I dwelt particularly on the phenomenon of the porthole, which was a fact to which I could testify, even if the rest had been an illusion. I had closed it twice in the night, and the second time I had actually bent the brass in wrenching it with my stick. I believe I insisted a good deal on this point. "You seem to think I am likely to doubt the story," said the doctor, smiling at the detailed account of the state of the porthole. "I do not doubt it in the least. I renew my invitation to you. Bring your traps here, and take half my cabin." "Come and take half of mine for one night," I said. "Help me to get at the bottom of this thing." "You will get to the bottom of something else if you try," answered the doctor. "What?" I asked. "The bottom of the sea. I am going to leave the ship. It is not canny." "Then you will not help me to find out----" "Not I," said the doctor, quickly. "It is my business to keep my wits about me--not to go fiddling about with ghosts and things." "Do you really believe it is a ghost?" I inquired, rather contemptuously. But as I spoke I remembered very well the horrible sensation of the supernatural which had got possession of me during the night. The doctor turned sharply on me---- "Have you any reasonable explanation of these things to offer?" he asked. "No; you have not. Well, you say you will find an explanation. I say that you won't, sir, simply because there is not any." "But, my dear sir," I retorted, "do you, a man of science, mean to tell me that such things cannot be explained?" "I do," he answered, stoutly. "And, if they could, I would not be concerned in the explanation." I did not care to spend another night alone in the state-room, and yet I was obstinately determined to get at the root of the disturbances. I do not believe there are many men who would have slept there alone, after passing two such nights. But I made up my mind to try it, if I could not get any one to share a watch with me. The doctor was evidently not inclined for such an experiment. He said he was a surgeon, and that in case any accident occurred on board he must always be in readiness. He could not afford to have his nerves unsettled. Perhaps he was quite right, but I am inclined to think that his precaution was prompted by his inclination. On inquiry, he informed me that there was no one on board who would be likely to join me in my investigations, and after a little more conversation I left him. A little later I met the captain, and told him my story. I said that if no one would spend the night with me I would ask leave to have the light burning all night, and would try it alone. "Look here," said he, "I will tell you what I will do. I will share your watch myself, and we will see what happens. It is my belief that we can find out between us. There may be some fellow skulking on board, who steals a passage by frightening the passengers. It is just possible that there may be something queer in the carpentering of that berth." I suggested taking the ship's carpenter below and examining the place; but I was overjoyed at the captain's offer to spend the night with me. He accordingly sent for the workman and ordered him to do anything I required. We went below at once. I had all the bedding cleared out of the upper berth, and we examined the place thoroughly to see if there was a board loose anywhere, or a panel which could be opened or pushed aside. We tried the planks everywhere, tapped the flooring, unscrewed the fittings of the lower berth and took it to pieces--in short, there was not a square inch of the state-room which was not searched and tested. Everything was in perfect order, and we put everything back in its place. As we were finishing our work, Robert came to the door and looked in. "Well, sir--find anything, sir?" he asked with a ghastly grin. "You were right about the porthole, Robert," I said, and I gave him the promised sovereign. The carpenter did his work silently and skilfully, following my directions. When he had done he spoke. "I'm a plain man, sir," he said. "But it's my belief you had better just turn out your things and let me run half a dozen four inch screws through the door of this cabin. There's no good never came o' this cabin yet, sir, and that's all about it. There's been four lives lost out o' here to my own remembrance, and that in four trips. Better give it up, sir--better give it up!" "I will try it for one night more," I said. "Better give it up, sir--better give it up! It's a precious bad job," repeated the workman, putting his tools in his bag and leaving the cabin. But my spirits had risen considerably at the prospect of having the captain's company, and I made up my mind not to be prevented from going to the end of the strange business. I abstained from Welsh rare-bits and grog that evening, and did not even join in the customary game of whist. I wanted to be quite sure of my nerves, and my vanity made me anxious to make a good figure in the captain's eyes. IV. The captain was one of those splendidly tough and cheerful specimens of seafaring humanity whose combined courage, hardihood, and calmness in difficulty leads them naturally into high positions of trust. He was not the man to be led away by an idle tale, and the mere fact that he was willing to join me in the investigation was proof that he thought there was something seriously wrong, which could not be accounted for on ordinary theories, nor laughed down as a common superstition. To some extent, too, his reputation was at stake, as well as the reputation of the ship. It is no light thing to lose passengers overboard, and he knew it. About ten o'clock that evening, as I was smoking a last cigar, he came up to me and drew me aside from the beat of the other passengers who were patrolling the deck in the warm darkness. "This is a serious matter, Mr. Brisbane," he said. "We must make up our minds either way--to be disappointed or to have a pretty rough time of it. You see, I cannot afford to laugh at the affair, and I will ask you to sign your name to a statement of whatever occurs. If nothing happens to-night we will try it again to-morrow and next day. Are you ready?" So we went below, and entered the state-room. As we went in I could see Robert the steward, who stood a little further down the passage, watching us, with his usual grin, as though certain that something dreadful was about to happen. The captain closed the door behind us and bolted it. "Supposing we put your portmanteau before the door," he suggested. "One of us can sit on it. Nothing can get out then. Is the port screwed down?" I found it as I had left it in the morning. Indeed, without using a lever, as I had done, no one could have opened it. I drew back the curtains of the upper berth so that I could see well into it. By the captain's advice I lighted my reading-lantern, and placed it so that it shone upon the white sheets above. He insisted upon sitting on the portmanteau, declaring that he wished to be able to swear that he had sat before the door. Then he requested me to search the state-room thoroughly, an operation very soon accomplished, as it consisted merely in looking beneath the lower berth and under the couch below the porthole. The spaces were quite empty. "It is impossible for any human being to get in," I said, "or for any human being to open the port." "Very good," said the captain, calmly. "If we see anything now, it must be either imagination or something supernatural." I sat down on the edge of the lower berth. "The first time it happened," said the captain, crossing his legs and leaning back against the door, "was in March. The passenger who slept here, in the upper berth, turned out to have been a lunatic--at all events, he was known to have been a little touched, and he had taken his passage without the knowledge of his friends. He rushed out in the middle of the night, and threw himself overboard, before the officer who had the watch could stop him. We stopped and lowered a boat; it was a quiet night, just before that heavy weather came on; but we could not find him. Of course his suicide was afterwards accounted for on the ground of his insanity." "I suppose that often happens?" I remarked, rather absently. "Not often--no," said the captain; "never before in my experience, though I have heard of it happening on board of other ships. Well, as I was saying, that occurred in March. On the very next trip--What are you looking at?" he asked, stopping suddenly in his narration. I believe I gave no answer. My eyes were riveted upon the porthole. It seemed to me that the brass loop-nut was beginning to turn very slowly upon the screw--so slowly, however, that I was not sure it moved at all. I watched it intently, fixing its position in my mind, and trying to ascertain whether it changed. Seeing where I was looking, the captain looked too. "It moves!" he exclaimed, in a tone of conviction. "No, it does not," he added, after a minute. "If it were the jarring of the screw," said I, "it would have opened during the day; but I found it this evening jammed tight as I left it this morning." I rose and tried the nut. It was certainly loosened, for by an effort I could move it with my hands. "The queer thing," said the captain, "is that the second man who was lost is supposed to have got through that very port. We had a terrible time over it. It was in the middle of the night, and the weather was very heavy; there was an alarm that one of the ports was open and the sea running in. I came below and found everything flooded, the water pouring in every time she rolled, and the whole port swinging from the top bolts--not the porthole in the middle. Well, we managed to shut it, but the water did some damage. Ever since that the place smells of sea-water from time to time. We supposed the passenger had thrown himself out, though the Lord only knows how he did it. The steward kept telling me that he could not keep anything shut here. Upon my word--I can smell it now, cannot you?" he inquired, sniffing the air suspiciously. "Yes--distinctly," I said, and I shuddered as that same odour of stagnant sea-water grew stronger in the cabin. "Now, to smell like this, the place must be damp," I continued, "and yet when I examined it with the carpenter this morning everything was perfectly dry. It is most extraordinary--hallo!" My reading-lantern, which had been placed in the upper berth, was suddenly extinguished. There was still a good deal of light from the pane of ground glass near the door, behind which loomed the regulation lamp. The ship rolled heavily, and the curtain of the upper berth swung far out into the state-room and back again. I rose quickly from my seat on the edge of the bed, and the captain at the same moment started to his feet with a loud cry of surprise. I had turned with the intention of taking down the lantern to examine it, when I heard his exclamation, and immediately afterwards his call for help. I sprang towards him. He was wrestling with all his might, with the brass loop of the port. It seemed to turn against his hands in spite of all his efforts. I caught up my cane, a heavy oak stick I always used to carry, and thrust it through the ring and bore on it with all my strength. But the strong wood snapped suddenly, and I fell upon the couch. When I rose again the port was wide open, and the captain was standing with his back against the door, pale to the lips. "There is something in that berth!" he cried, in a strange voice, his eyes almost starting from his head. "Hold the door, while I look--it shall not escape us, whatever it is!" But instead of taking his place, I sprang upon the lower bed, and seized something which lay in the upper berth. It was something ghostly, horrible beyond words, and it moved in my grip. It was like the body of a man long drowned, and yet it moved, and had the strength of ten men living; but I gripped it with all my might--the slippery, oozy, horrible thing. The dead white eyes seemed to stare at me out of the dusk; the putrid odour of rank sea-water was about it, and its shiny hair hung in foul wet curls over its dead face. I wrestled with the dead thing; it thrust itself upon me and forced me back and nearly broke my arms; it wound its corpse's arms about my neck, the living death, and overpowered me, so that I, at last, cried aloud and fell, and left my hold. As I fell the thing sprang across me, and seemed to throw itself upon the captain. When I last saw him on his feet his face was white and his lips set. It seemed to me that he struck a violent blow at the dead being, and then he, too, fell forward upon his face, with an inarticulate cry of horror. The thing paused an instant, seeming to hover over his prostrate body, and I could have screamed again for very fright, but I had no voice left. The thing vanished suddenly, and it seemed to my disturbed senses that it made its exit through the open port, though how that was possible, considering the smallness of the aperture, is more than any one can tell. I lay a long time upon the floor, and the captain lay beside me. At last I partially recovered my senses and moved, and I instantly knew that my arm was broken--the small bone of the left forearm near the wrist. I got upon my feet somehow, and with my remaining hand I tried to raise the captain. He groaned and moved, and at last came to himself. He was not hurt, but he seemed badly stunned. * * * * * Well, do you want to hear any more? There is nothing more. That is the end of my story. The carpenter carried out his scheme of running half a dozen four-inch screws through the door of one hundred and five; and if ever you take a passage in the _Kamtschatka_, you may ask for a berth in that state-room. You will be told that it is engaged--yes--it is engaged by that dead thing. I finished the trip in the surgeon's cabin. He doctored my broken arm, and advised me not to "fiddle about with ghosts and things" any more. The captain was very silent, and never sailed again in that ship, though it is still running. And I will not sail in her either. It was a very disagreeable experience, and I was very badly frightened, which is a thing I do not like. That is all. That is how I saw a ghost--if it was a ghost. It was dead, anyhow. BY THE WATERS OF PARADISE _By the Waters of Paradise._ I remember my childhood very distinctly. I do not think that the fact argues a good memory, for I have never been clever at learning words by heart, in prose or rhyme; so that I believe my remembrance of events depends much more upon the events themselves than upon my possessing any special facility for recalling them. Perhaps I am too imaginative, and the earliest impressions I received were of a kind to stimulate the imagination abnormally. A long series of little misfortunes, connected with each other as to suggest a sort of weird fatality, so worked upon my melancholy temperament when I was a boy that, before I was of age, I sincerely believed myself to be under a curse, and not only myself, but my whole family, and every individual who bore my name. I was born in the old place where my father, and his father, and all his predecessors had been born, beyond the memory of man. It is a very old house, and the greater part of it was originally a castle, strongly fortified, and surrounded by a deep moat supplied with abundant water from the hills by a hidden aqueduct. Many of the fortifications have been destroyed, and the moat has been filled up. The water from the aqueduct supplies great fountains, and runs down into huge oblong basins in the terraced gardens, one below the other, each surrounded by a broad pavement of marble between the water and the flower-beds. The waste surplus finally escapes through an artificial grotto, some thirty yards long, into a stream, flowing down through the park to the meadows beyond, and thence to the distant river. The buildings were extended a little and greatly altered more than two hundred years ago, in the time of Charles II., but since then little has been done to improve them, though they have been kept in fairly good repair, according to our fortunes. In the gardens there are terraces and huge hedges of box and evergreen, some of which used to be clipped into shapes of animals, in the Italian style. I can remember when I was a lad how I used to try to make out what the trees were cut to represent, and how I used to appeal for explanations to Judith, my Welsh nurse. She dealt in a strange mythology of her own, and peopled the gardens with griffins, dragons, good genii and bad, and filled my mind with them at the same time. My nursery window afforded a view of the great fountains at the head of the upper basin, and on moonlight nights the Welshwoman would hold me up to the glass and bid me look at the mist and spray rising into mysterious shapes, moving mystically in the white light like living things. "It's the Woman of the Water," she used to say; and sometimes she would threaten that if I did not go to sleep the Woman of the Water would steal up to the high window and carry me away in her wet arms. The place was gloomy. The broad basins of water and the tall evergreen hedges gave it a funereal look, and the damp-stained marble causeways by the pools might have been made of tombstones. The gray and weather-beaten walls and towers without, the dark and massively-furnished rooms within, the deep, mysterious recesses and the heavy curtains, all affected my spirits. I was silent and sad from my childhood. There was a great clock tower above, from which the hours rang dismally during the day, and tolled like a knell in the dead of night. There was no light nor life in the house, for my mother was a helpless invalid, and my father had grown melancholy in his long task of caring for her. He was a thin, dark man, with sad eyes; kind, I think, but silent and unhappy. Next to my mother, I believe he loved me better than anything on earth, for he took immense pains and trouble in teaching me, and what he taught me I have never forgotten. Perhaps it was his only amusement, and that may be the reason why I had no nursery governess or teacher of any kind while he lived. I used to be taken to see my mother every day, and sometimes twice a day, for an hour at a time. Then I sat upon a little stool near her feet, and she would ask me what I had been doing, and what I wanted to do. I daresay she saw already the seeds of a profound melancholy in my nature, for she looked at me always with a sad smile, and kissed me with a sigh when I was taken away. One night, when I was just six years old, I lay awake in the nursery. The door was not quite shut, and the Welsh nurse was sitting sewing in the next room. Suddenly I heard her groan, and say in a strange voice, "One--two--one--two!" I was frightened, and I jumped up and ran to the door, barefooted as I was. "What is it, Judith?" I cried, clinging to her skirts. I can remember the look in her strange dark eyes as she answered. "One--two leaden coffins, fallen from the ceiling!" she crooned, working herself in her chair. "One--two--a light coffin and a heavy coffin, falling to the floor!" Then she seemed to notice me, and she took me back to bed and sang me to sleep with a queer old Welsh song. I do not know how it was, but the impression got hold of me that she had meant that my father and mother were going to die very soon. They died in the very room where she had been sitting that night. It was a great room, my day nursery, full of sun when there was any: and when the days were dark it was the most cheerful place in the house. My mother grew rapidly worse, and I was transferred to another part of the building to make place for her. They thought my nursery was gayer for her, I suppose; but she could not live. She was beautiful when she was dead, and I cried bitterly. "The light one, the light one--the heavy one to come," crooned the Welshwoman. And she was right. My father took the room after my mother was gone, and day by day he grew thinner and paler and sadder. "The heavy one, the heavy one--all of lead," moaned my nurse, one night in December, standing still, just as she was going to take away the light after putting me to bed. Then she took me up again and wrapped me in a little gown, and led me away to my father's room. She knocked, but no one answered. She opened the door, and we found him in his easy-chair before the fire, very white, quite dead. So I was alone with the Welshwoman till strange people came, and relations whom I had never seen; and then I heard them saying that I must be taken away to some more cheerful place. They were kind people, and I will not believe that they were kind only because I was to be very rich when I grew to be a man. The world never seemed to be a very bad place to me, nor all the people to be miserable sinners, even when I was most melancholy. I do not remember that any one ever did me any great injustice, nor that I was ever oppressed or ill-treated in any way, even by the boys at school. I was sad, I suppose, because my childhood was so gloomy, and, later, because I was unlucky in everything I undertook, till I finally believed I was pursued by fate, and I used to dream that the old Welsh nurse and the Woman of the Water between them had vowed to pursue me to my end. But my natural disposition should have been cheerful, as I have often thought. Among lads of my age I was never last, or even among the last, in anything; but I was never first. If I trained for a race, I was sure to sprain my ankle on the day when I was to run. If I pulled an oar with others, my oar was sure to break. If I competed for a prize, some unforeseen accident prevented my winning it at the last moment. Nothing to which I put my hand succeeded, and I got the reputation of being unlucky, until my companions felt it was always safe to bet against me, no matter what the appearances might be. I became discouraged and listless in everything. I gave up the idea of competing for any distinction at the University, comforting myself with the thought that I could not fail in the examination for the ordinary degree. The day before the examination began I fell ill; and when at last I recovered, after a narrow escape from death, I turned my back upon Oxford, and went down alone to visit the old place where I had been born, feeble in health and profoundly disgusted and discouraged. I was twenty-one years of age, master of myself and of my fortune; but so deeply had the long chain of small unlucky circumstances affected me that I thought seriously of shutting myself up from the world to live the life of a hermit, and to die as soon as possible. Death seemed the only cheerful possibility in my existence, and my thoughts soon dwelt upon it altogether. I had never shown any wish to return to my own home since I had been taken away as a little boy, and no one had ever pressed me to do so. The place had been kept in order after a fashion, and did not seem to have suffered during the fifteen years or more of my absence. Nothing earthly could affect those old grey walls that had fought the elements for so many centuries. The garden was more wild than I remembered it; the marble causeways about the pools looked more yellow and damp than of old, and the whole place at first looked smaller. It was not until I had wandered about the house and grounds for many hours that I realised the huge size of the home where I was to live in solitude. Then I began to delight in it, and my resolution to live alone grew stronger. The people had turned out to welcome me, of course, and I tried to recognise the changed faces of the old gardener and the old housekeeper, and to call them by name. My old nurse I knew at once. She had grown very grey since she heard the coffins fall in the nursery fifteen years before, but her strange eyes were the same, and the look in them woke all my old memories. She went over the house with me. "And how is the Woman of the Water?" I asked, trying to laugh a little. "Does she still play in the moonlight?" "She is hungry," answered the Welshwoman, in a low voice. "Hungry? Then we will feed her." I laughed. But old Judith turned very pale, and looked at me strangely. "Feed her? Ay--you will feed her well," she muttered, glancing behind her at the ancient housekeeper, who tottered after us with feeble steps through the halls and passages. I did not think much of her words. She had always talked oddly, as Welshwomen will, and though I was very melancholy I am sure I was not superstitious, and I was certainly not timid. Only, as in a far-off dream, I seemed to see her standing with the light in her hand and muttering, "The heavy one--all of lead," and then leading a little boy through the long corridors to see his father lying dead in a great easy-chair before a smouldering fire. So we went over the house, and I chose the rooms where I would live; and the servants I had brought with me ordered and arranged everything, and I had no more trouble. I did not care what they did provided I was left in peace, and was not expected to give directions; for I was more listless than ever, owing to the effects of my illness at college. I dined in solitary state, and the melancholy grandeur of the vast old dining-room pleased me. Then I went to the room I had selected for my study, and sat down in a deep chair, under a bright light, to think, or to let my thoughts meander through labyrinths of their own choosing, utterly indifferent to the course they might take. The tall windows of the room opened to the level of the ground upon the terrace at the head of the garden. It was in the end of July, and everything was open, for the weather was warm. As I sat alone I heard the unceasing plash of the great fountains, and I fell to thinking of the Woman of the Water. I rose, and went out into the still night, and sat down upon a seat on the terrace, between two gigantic Italian flower-pots. The air was deliciously soft and sweet with the smell of the flowers, and the garden was more congenial to me than the house. Sad people always like running water and the sound of it at night, though I cannot tell why. I sat and listened in the gloom, for it was dark below, and the pale moon had not yet climbed over the hills in front of me, though all the air above was light with her rising beams. Slowly the white halo in the eastern sky ascended in an arch above the wooded crests, making the outlines of the mountains more intensely black by contrast, as though the head of some great white saint were rising from behind a screen in a vast cathedral, throwing misty glories from below. I longed to see the moon herself, and I tried to reckon the seconds before she must appear. Then she sprang up quickly, and in a moment more hung round and perfect in the sky. I gazed at her, and then at the floating spray of the tall fountains, and down at the pools, where the water-lilies were rocking softly in their sleep on the velvet surface of the moon-lit water. Just then a great swan floated out silently into the midst of the basin, and wreathed his long neck, catching the water in his broad bill, and scattering showers of diamonds around him. Suddenly, as I gazed, something came between me and the light. I looked up instantly. Between me and the round disk of the moon rose a luminous face of a woman, with great strange eyes, and a woman's mouth, full and soft, but not smiling, hooded in black, staring at me as I sat still upon my bench. She was close to me--so close that I could have touched her with my hand. But I was transfixed and helpless. She stood still for a moment, but her expression did not change. Then she passed swiftly away, and my hair stood up on my head, while the cold breeze from her white dress was wafted to my temples as she moved. The moonlight, shining through the tossing spray of the fountain, made traceries of shadow on the gleaming folds of her garments. In an instant she was gone and I was alone. I was strangely shaken by the vision, and some time passed before I could rise to my feet, for I was still weak from my illness, and the sight I had seen would have startled any one. I did not reason with myself, for I was certain that I had looked on the unearthly, and no argument could have destroyed that belief. At last I got up and stood unsteadily, gazing in the direction in which I thought the face had gone; but there was nothing to be seen--nothing but the broad paths, the tall, dark evergreen hedges, the tossing water of the fountains and the smooth pool below. I fell back upon the seat and recalled the face I had seen. Strange to say, now that the first impression had passed, there was nothing startling in the recollection; on the contrary, I felt that I was fascinated by the face, and would give anything to see it again. I could retrace the beautiful straight features, the long dark eyes, and the wonderful mouth most exactly in my mind, and when I had reconstructed every detail from memory I knew that the whole was beautiful, and that I should love a woman with such a face. "I wonder whether she is the Woman of the Water!" I said to myself. Then rising once more, I wandered down the garden, descending one short flight of steps after another, from terrace to terrace by the edge of the marble basins, through the shadow and through the moonlight; and I crossed the water by the rustic bridge above the artificial grotto, and climbed slowly up again to the highest terrace by the other side. The air seemed sweeter, and I was very calm, so that I think I smiled to myself as I walked, as though a new happiness had come to me. The woman's face seemed always before me, and the thought of it gave me an unwonted thrill of pleasure, unlike anything I had ever felt before. I turned, as I reached the house, and looked back upon the scene. It had certainly changed in the short hour since I had come out, and my mood had changed with it. Just like my luck, I thought, to fall in love with a ghost! But in old times I would have sighed, and gone to bed more sad than ever, at such a melancholy conclusion. To-night I felt happy, almost for the first time in my life. The gloomy old study seemed cheerful when I went in. The old pictures on the walls smiled at me, and I sat down in my deep chair with a new and delightful sensation that I was not alone. The idea of having seen a ghost, and of feeling much the better for it, was so absurd that I laughed softly, as I took up one of the books I had brought with me and began to read. That impression did not wear off. I slept peacefully, and in the morning I threw open my windows to the summer air and looked down at the garden, at the stretches of green and at the coloured flower-beds, at the circling swallows and at the bright water. "A man might make a paradise of this place," I exclaimed. "A man and a woman together!" From that day the old castle no longer seemed gloomy, and I think I ceased to be sad; for some time, too, I began to take an interest in the place, and to try and make it more alive. I avoided my old Welsh nurse, lest she should damp my humour with some dismal prophecy, and recall my old self by bringing back memories of my dismal childhood. But what I thought of most was the ghostly figure I had seen in the garden that first night after my arrival. I went out every evening and wandered through the walks and paths; but, try as I might, I did not see my vision again. At last, after many days, the memory grew more faint, and my old moody nature gradually overcame the temporary sense of lightness I had experienced. The summer turned to autumn, and I grew restless. It began to rain. The dampness pervaded the gardens, and the outer halls smelled musty, like tombs; the grey sky oppressed me intolerably. I left the place as it was and went abroad, determined to try anything which might possibly make a second break in the monotonous melancholy from which I suffered. II. Most people would be struck by the utter insignificance of the small events which, after the death of my parents, influenced my life and made me unhappy. The gruesome forebodings of a Welsh nurse, which chanced to be realised by an odd coincidence of events, should not seem enough to change the nature of a child, and to direct the bent of his character in after years. The little disappointments of schoolboy life, and the somewhat less childish ones of an uneventful and undistinguished academic career, should not have sufficed to turn me out at one-and-twenty years of age a melancholic, listless idler. Some weakness of my own character may have contributed to the result, but in a greater degree it was due to my having a reputation for bad luck. However, I will not try to analyse the causes of my state, for I should satisfy nobody, least of all myself. Still less will I attempt to explain why I felt a temporary revival of my spirits after my adventure in the garden. It is certain that I was in love with the face I had seen, and that I longed to see it again; that I gave up all hope of a second visitation, grew more sad than ever, packed up my traps, and finally went abroad. But in my dreams I went back to my home, and it always appeared to me sunny and bright, as it had looked on that summer's morning after I had seen the woman by the fountain. I went to Paris. I went further, and wandered about Germany. I tried to amuse myself, and I failed miserably. With the aimless whims of an idle and useless man, come all sorts of suggestions for good resolutions. One day I made up my mind that I would go and bury myself in a German university for a time, and live simply like a poor student. I started with the intention of going to Leipsic, determined to stay there until some event should direct my life or change my humour, or make an end of me altogether. The express train stopped at some station of which I did not know the name. It was dusk on a winter's afternoon, and I peered through the thick glass from my seat. Suddenly another train came gliding in from the opposite direction, and stopped alongside of ours. I looked at the carriage which chanced to be abreast of mine, and idly read the black letters painted on a white board swinging from the brass handrail: BERLIN--COLOGNE--PARIS. Then I looked up at the window above. I started violently, and the cold perspiration broke out upon my forehead. In the dim light, not six feet from where I sat, I saw the face of a woman, the face I loved, the straight, fine features, the strange eyes, the wonderful mouth, the pale skin. Her head-dress was a dark veil, which seemed to be tied about her head and passed over the shoulders under her chin. As I threw down the window and knelt on the cushioned seat, leaning far out to get a better view, a long whistle screamed through the station, followed by a quick series of dull, clanking sounds; then there was a slight jerk, and my train moved on. Luckily the window was narrow, being the one over the seat, beside the door, or I believe I would have jumped out of it then and there. In an instant the speed increased, and I was being carried swiftly away in the opposite direction from the thing I loved. For a quarter of an hour I lay back in my place, stunned by the suddenness of the apparition. At last one of the two other passengers, a large and gorgeous captain of the White Konigsberg Cuirassiers, civilly but firmly suggested that I might shut my window, as the evening was cold. I did so, with an apology, and relapsed into silence. The train ran swiftly on, for a long time, and it was already beginning to slacken speed before entering another station, when I roused myself and made a sudden resolution. As the carriage stopped before the brilliantly lighted platform, I seized my belongings, saluted my fellow-passengers, and got out, determined to take the first express back to Paris. This time the circumstances of the vision had been so natural that it did not strike me that there was anything unreal about the face, or about the woman to whom it belonged. I did not try to explain to myself how the face, and the woman, could be travelling by a fast train from Berlin to Paris on a winter's afternoon, when both were in my mind indelibly associated with the moonlight and the fountains in my own English home. I certainly would not have admitted that I had been mistaken in the dusk, attributing to what I had seen a resemblance to my former vision which did not really exist. There was not the slightest doubt in my mind, and I was positively sure that I had again seen the face I loved. I did not hesitate, and in a few hours I was on my way back to Paris. I could not help reflecting on my ill luck. Wandering as I had been for many months, it might as easily have chanced that I should be travelling in the same train with that woman, instead of going the other way. But my luck was destined to turn for a time. I searched Paris for several days. I dined at the principal hotels; I went to the theatres; I rode in the Bois de Boulogne in the morning, and picked up an acquaintance, whom I forced to drive with me in the afternoon. I went to mass at the Madeleine, and I attended the services at the English Church. I hung about the Louvre and Notre Dame. I went to Versailles. I spent hours in parading the Rue de Rivoli, in the neighbourhood of Meurice's corner, where foreigners pass and repass from morning till night. At last I received an invitation to a reception at the English Embassy. I went, and I found what I had sought so long. There she was, sitting by an old lady in grey satin and diamonds, who had a wrinkled but kindly face and keen grey eyes that seemed to take in everything they saw, with very little inclination to give much in return. But I did not notice the chaperon. I saw only the face that had haunted me for months, and in the excitement of the moment I walked quickly towards the pair, forgetting such a trifle as the necessity for an introduction. She was far more beautiful than I had thought, but I never doubted that it was she herself and no other. Vision or no vision before, this was the reality, and I knew it. Twice her hair had been covered, now at last I saw it, and the added beauty of its magnificence glorified the whole woman. It was rich hair, fine and abundant, golden, with deep ruddy tints in it like red bronze spun fine. There was no ornament in it, not a rose, not a thread of gold, and I felt that it needed nothing to enhance its splendour; nothing but her pale face, her dark strange eyes, and her heavy eyebrows. I could see that she was slender too, but strong withal, as she sat there quietly gazing at the moving scene in the midst of the brilliant lights and the hum of perpetual conversation. I recollected the detail of introduction in time, and turned aside to look for my host. I found him at last. I begged him to present me to the two ladies, pointing them out to him at the same time. "Yes--uh--by all means--uh--" replied his Excellency with a pleasant smile. He evidently had no idea of my name, which was not to be wondered at. "I am Lord Cairngorm," I observed. "Oh--by all means," answered the Ambassador with the same hospitable smile. "Yes--uh--the fact is, I must try and find out who they are; such lots of people, you know." "Oh, if you will present me, I will try and find out for you," said I, laughing. "Ah, yes--so kind of you--come along," said my host. We threaded the crowd, and in a few minutes we stood before the two ladies. "'Lowmintrduce L'd Cairngorm," he said; then, adding quickly to me, "Come and dine to-morrow, won't you?" he glided away with his pleasant smile and disappeared in the crowd. I sat down beside the beautiful girl, conscious that the eyes of the duenna were upon me. "I think we have been very near meeting before," I remarked, by way of opening the conversation. My companion turned her eyes full upon me with an air of inquiry. She evidently did not recall my face, if she had ever seen me. "Really--I cannot remember," she observed, in a low and musical voice. "When?" "In the first place, you came down from Berlin by the express, ten days ago. I was going the other way, and our carriages stopped opposite each other. I saw you at the window." "Yes--we came that way, but I do not remember----" She hesitated. "Secondly," I continued, "I was sitting alone in my garden last summer--near the end of July--do you remember? You must have wandered in there through the park; you came up to the house and looked at me----" "Was that you?" she asked, in evident surprise. Then she broke into a laugh. "I told everybody I had seen a ghost; there had never been any Cairngorms in the place since the memory of man. We left the next day, and never heard that you had come there; indeed, I did not know the castle belonged to you." "Where were you staying?" I asked. "Where? Why, with my aunt, where I always stay. She is your neighbour, since it _is_ you." "I--beg your pardon--but then--is your aunt Lady Bluebell? I did not quite catch----" "Don't be afraid. She is amazingly deaf. Yes. She is the relict of my beloved uncle, the sixteenth or seventeenth Baron Bluebell--I forget exactly how many of them there have been. And I--do you know who I am?" She laughed, well knowing that I did not. "No," I answered frankly. "I have not the least idea. I asked to be introduced because I recognised you. Perhaps--perhaps you are a Miss Bluebell?" "Considering that you are a neighbour, I will tell you who I am," she answered. "No; I am of the tribe of Bluebells, but my name is Lammas, and I have been given to understand that I was christened Margaret. Being a floral family, they call me Daisy. A dreadful American man once told me that my aunt was a Bluebell and that I was a Harebell--with two l's and an e--because my hair is so thick. I warn you, so that you may avoid making such a bad pun." "Do I look like a man who makes puns?" I asked, being very conscious of my melancholy face and sad looks. Miss Lammas eyed me critically. "No; you have a mournful temperament. I think I can trust you," she answered. "Do you think you could communicate to my aunt the fact that you are a Cairngorm and a neighbour? I am sure she would like to know." I leaned towards the old lady, inflating my lungs for a yell. But Miss Lammas stopped me. "That is not of the slightest use," she remarked. "You can write it on a bit of paper. She is utterly deaf." "I have a pencil," I answered; "but I have no paper. Would my cuff do, do you think?" "Oh, yes!" replied Miss Lammas, with alacrity; "men often do that." I wrote on my cuff: "Miss Lammas wishes me to explain that I am your neighbour, Cairngorm." Then I held out my arm before the old lady's nose. She seemed perfectly accustomed to the proceeding, put up her glasses, read the words, smiled, nodded, and addressed me in the unearthly voice peculiar to people who hear nothing. "I knew your grandfather very well," she said. Then she smiled and nodded to me again, and to her niece, and relapsed into silence. "It is all right," remarked Miss Lammas. "Aunt Bluebell knows she is deaf, and does not say much, like the parrot. You see, she knew your grandfather. How odd, that we should be neighbours! Why have we never met before?" "If you had told me you knew my grandfather when you appeared in the garden, I should not have been in the least surprised," I answered rather irrelevantly. "I really thought you were the ghost of the old fountain. How in the world did you come there at that hour?" "We were a large party and we went out for a walk. Then we thought we should like to see what your park was like in the moonlight, and so we trespassed. I got separated from the rest, and came upon you by accident, just as I was admiring the extremely ghostly look of your house, and wondering whether anybody would ever come and live there again. It looks like the castle of Macbeth, or a scene from the opera. Do you know anybody here?" "Hardly a soul! Do you?" "No. Aunt Bluebell said it was our duty to come. It is easy for her to go out; she does not bear the burden of the conversation." "I am sorry you find it a burden," said I. "Shall I go away?" Miss Lammas looked at me with a sudden gravity in her beautiful eyes, and there was a sort of hesitation about the lines of her full, soft mouth. "No," she said at last, quite simply, "don't go away. We may like each other, if you stay a little longer--and we ought to, because we are neighbours in the country." I suppose I ought to have thought Miss Lammas a very odd girl. There is, indeed, a sort of freemasonry between people who discover that they live near each other, and that they ought to have known each other before. But there was a sort of unexpected frankness and simplicity in the girl's amusing manner which would have struck any one else as being singular, to say the least of it. To me, however, it all seemed natural enough. I had dreamed of her face too long not to be utterly happy when I met her at last, and could talk to her as much as I pleased. To me, the man of ill luck in everything, the whole meeting seemed too good to be true. I felt again that strange sensation of lightness which I had experienced after I had seen her face in the garden. The great rooms seemed brighter, life seemed worth living; my sluggish, melancholy blood ran faster, and filled me with a new sense of strength. I said to myself that without this woman I was but an imperfect being, but that with her I could accomplish everything to which I should set my hand. Like the great Doctor, when he thought he had cheated Mephistopheles at last, I could have cried aloud to the fleeting moment, _Verweile doch, du bist so schön!_ "Are you always gay?" I asked, suddenly. "How happy you must be!" "The days would sometimes seem very long if I were gloomy," she answered, thoughtfully. "Yes, I think I find life very pleasant, and I tell it so." "How can you 'tell life' anything?" I inquired. "If I could catch my life and talk to it, I would abuse it prodigiously, I assure you." "I daresay. You have a melancholy temper. You ought to live out of doors, dig potatoes, make hay, shoot, hunt, tumble into ditches, and come home muddy and hungry for dinner. It would be much better for you than moping in your rook tower, and hating everything." "It is rather lonely down there," I murmured, apologetically, feeling that Miss Lammas was quite right. "Then marry, and quarrel with your wife," she laughed. "Anything is better than being alone." "I am a very peaceable person. I never quarrel with anybody. You can try it. You will find it quite impossible." "Will you let me try?" she asked, still smiling. "By all means--especially if it is to be only a preliminary canter," I answered, rashly. "What do you mean?" she inquired, turning quickly upon me. "Oh--nothing. You might try my paces with a view to quarrelling in the future. I cannot imagine how you are going to do it. You will have to resort to immediate and direct abuse." "No. I will only say that if you do not like your life, it is your own fault. How can a man of your age talk of being melancholy, or of the hollowness of existence? Are you consumptive? Are you subject to hereditary insanity? Are you deaf, like Aunt Bluebell? Are you poor, like--lots of people? Have you been crossed in love? Have you lost the world for a woman, or any particular woman for the sake of the world? Are you feeble-minded, a cripple, an outcast? Are you--repulsively ugly?" She laughed again. "Is there any reason in the world why you should not enjoy all you have got in life?" "No. There is no reason whatever, except that I am dreadfully unlucky, especially in small things." "Then try big things, just for a change," suggested Miss Lammas. "Try and get married, for instance, and see how it turns out." "If it turned out badly it would be rather serious." "Not half so serious as it is to abuse everything unreasonably. If abuse is your particular talent, abuse something that ought to be abused. Abuse the Conservatives--or the Liberals--it does not matter which, since they are always abusing each other. Make yourself felt by other people. You will like it, if they don't. It will make a man of you. Fill your mouth with pebbles, and howl at the sea, if you cannot do anything else. It did Demosthenes no end of good you know. You will have the satisfaction of imitating a great man." "Really, Miss Lammas, I think the list of innocent exercises you propose----" "Very well--if you don't care for that sort of thing, care for some other sort of thing. Care for something, or hate something. Don't be idle. Life is short, and though art may be long, plenty of noise answers nearly as well." "I do care for something--I mean, somebody," I said. "A woman? Then marry her. Don't hesitate." "I do not know whether she would marry me," I replied. "I have never asked her." "Then ask her at once," answered Miss Lammas. "I shall die happy if I feel I have persuaded a melancholy fellow-creature to rouse himself to action. Ask her, by all means, and see what she says. If she does not accept you at once, she may take you the next time. Meanwhile, you will have entered for the race. If you lose, there are the 'All-aged Trial Stakes,' and the 'Consolation Race.'" "And plenty of selling races into the bargain. Shall I take you at your word, Miss Lammas?" "I hope you will," she answered. "Since you yourself advise me, I will. Miss Lammas, will you do me the honour to marry me?" For the first time in my life the blood rushed to my head and my sight swam. I cannot tell why I said it. It would be useless to try to explain the extraordinary fascination the girl exercised over me, nor the still more extraordinary feeling of intimacy with her which had grown in me during that half-hour. Lonely, sad, unlucky as I had been all my life, I was certainly not timid, nor even shy. But to propose to marry a woman after half an hour's acquaintance was a piece of madness of which I never believed myself capable, and of which I should never be capable again, could I be placed in the same situation. It was as though my whole being had been changed in a moment by magic--by the white magic of her nature brought into contact with mine. The blood sank back to my heart, and a moment later I found myself staring at her with anxious eyes. To my amazement she was as calm as ever, but her beautiful mouth smiled, and there was a mischievous light in her dark-brown eyes. "Fairly caught," she answered. "For an individual who pretends to be listless and sad you are not lacking in humour. I had really not the least idea what you were going to say. Wouldn't it be singularly awkward for you if I had said 'Yes'? I never saw anybody begin to practise so sharply what was preached to him--with so very little loss of time!" "You probably never met a man who had dreamed of you for seven months before being introduced." "No, I never did," she answered, gaily. "It smacks of the romantic. Perhaps you are a romantic character, after all. I should think you were if I believed you. Very well; you have taken my advice, entered for a Stranger's Race and lost it. Try the All-aged Trial Stakes. You have another cuff, and a pencil. Propose to Aunt Bluebell; she would dance with astonishment, and she might recover her hearing." III. That was how I first asked Margaret Lammas to be my wife, and I will agree with any one who says I behaved very foolishly. But I have not repented of it, and I never shall. I have long ago understood that I was out of my mind that evening, but I think my temporary insanity on that occasion has had the effect of making me a saner man ever since. Her manner turned my head, for it was so different from what I had expected. To hear this lovely creature, who, in my imagination, was a heroine of romance, if not of tragedy, talking familiarly and laughing readily was more than my equanimity could bear, and I lost my head as well as my heart. But when I went back to England in the spring, I went to make certain arrangements at the Castle--certain changes and improvements which would be absolutely necessary. I had won the race for which I had entered myself so rashly, and we were to be married in June. Whether the change was due to the orders I had left with the gardener and the rest of the servants, or to my own state of mind, I cannot tell. At all events, the old place did not look the same to me when I opened my window on the morning after my arrival. There were the grey walls below me, and the grey turrets flanking the huge building; there were the fountains, the marble causeways, the smooth basins, the tall box hedges, the water-lilies and the swans, just as of old. But there was something else there, too--something in the air, in the water, and in the greenness that I did not recognise--a light over everything by which everything was transfigured. The clock in the tower struck seven, and the strokes of the ancient bell sounded like a wedding chime. The air sang with the thrilling treble of the songbirds, with the silvery music of the plashing water and the softer harmony of the leaves stirred by the fresh morning wind. There was a smell of new-mown hay from the distant meadows, and of blooming roses from the beds below, wafted up together to my window. I stood in the pure sunshine and drank the air and all the sounds and the odours that were in it; and I looked down at my garden and said: "It is Paradise, after all." I think the men of old were right when they called heaven a garden, and Eden, a garden inhabited by one man and one woman, the Earthly Paradise. I turned away, wondering what had become of the gloomy memories I had always associated with my home. I tried to recall the impression of my nurse's horrible prophecy before the death of my parents--an impression which hitherto had been vivid enough. I tried to remember my old self, my dejection, my listlessness, my bad luck, and my petty disappointments. I endeavoured to force myself to think as I used to think, if only to satisfy myself that I had not lost my individuality. But I succeeded in none of these efforts. I was a different man, a changed being, incapable of sorrow, of ill luck, or of sadness. My life had been a dream, not evil, but infinitely gloomy and hopeless. It was now a reality, full of hope, gladness, and all manner of good. My home had been like a tomb; to-day it was paradise. My heart had been as though it had not existed; to-day it beat with strength and youth, and the certainty of realised happiness. I revelled in the beauty of the world, and called loveliness out of the future to enjoy it before time should bring it to me, as a traveller in the plains looks up to the mountains, and already tastes the cool air through the dust of the road. Here, I thought, we will live and live for years. There we will sit by the fountain towards evening and in the deep moonlight. Down those paths we will wander together. On those benches we will rest and talk. Among those eastern hills we will ride through the soft twilight, and in the old house we will tell tales on winter nights, when the logs burn high, and the holly berries are red, and the old clock tolls out the dying year. On these old steps, in these dark passages and stately rooms, there will one day be the sound of little pattering feet, and laughing child-voices will ring up to the vaults of the ancient hall. Those tiny footsteps shall not be slow and sad as mine were, nor shall the childish words be spoken in an awed whisper. No gloomy Welshwoman shall people the dusky corners with weird horrors, nor utter horrid prophecies of death and ghastly things. All shall be young, and fresh, and joyful, and happy, and we will turn the old luck again, and forget that there was ever any sadness. So I thought, as I looked out of my window that morning and for many mornings after that, and every day it all seemed more real than ever before, and much nearer. But the old nurse looked at me askance, and muttered odd sayings about the Woman of the Water. I cared little what she said, for I was far too happy. At last the time came near for the wedding. Lady Bluebell and all the tribe of Bluebells, as Margaret called them, were at Bluebell Grange, for we had determined to be married in the country, and to come straight to the Castle afterwards. We cared little for travelling, and not at all for a crowded ceremony at St. George's in Hanover Square, with all the tiresome formalities afterwards. I used to ride over to the Grange every day, and very often Margaret would come with her aunt and some of her cousins to the Castle. I was suspicious of my own taste, and was only too glad to let her have her way about the alterations and improvements in our home. We were to be married on the thirtieth of July, and on the evening of the twenty-eighth Margaret drove over with some of the Bluebell party. In the long summer twilight we all went out into the garden. Naturally enough, Margaret and I were left to ourselves, and we wandered down by the marble basins. "It is an odd coincidence," I said; "it was on this very night last year that I first saw you." "Considering that it is the month of July," answered Margaret with a laugh, "and that we have been here almost every day, I don't think the coincidence is so extraordinary, after all." "No, dear," said I, "I suppose not. I don't know why it struck me. We shall very likely be here a year from to-day, and a year from that. The odd thing, when I think of it, is that you should be here at all. But my luck has turned. I ought not to think anything odd that happens now that I have you. It is all sure to be good." "A slight change in your ideas since that remarkable performance of yours in Paris," said Margaret. "Do you know, I thought you were the most extraordinary man I had ever met." "I thought you were the most charming woman I had ever seen. I naturally did not want to lose any time in frivolities. I took you at your word, I followed your advice, I asked you to marry me, and this is the delightful result--what's the matter?" Margaret had started suddenly, and her hand tightened on my arm. An old woman was coming up the path, and was close to us before we saw her, for the moon had risen, and was shining full in our faces. The woman turned out to be my old nurse. "It's only old Judith, dear--don't be frightened," I said. Then I spoke to the Welshwoman: "What are you about, Judith? Have you been feeding the Woman of the Water?" "Ay--when the clock strikes, Willie--my lord, I mean," muttered the old creature, drawing aside to let us pass, and fixing her strange eyes on Margaret's face. "What does she mean?" asked Margaret, when we had gone by. "Nothing, darling. The old thing is mildly crazy, but she is a good soul." We went on in silence for a few moments, and came to the rustic bridge just above the artificial grotto through which the water ran out into the park, dark and swift in its narrow channel. We stopped, and leaned on the wooden rail. The moon was now behind us, and shone full upon the long vista of basins and on the huge walls and towers of the Castle above. "How proud you ought to be of such a grand old place!" said Margaret, softly. "It is yours now, darling," I answered. "You have as good a right to love it as I--but I only love it because you are to live in it, dear." Her hand stole out and lay on mine, and we were both silent. Just then the clock began to strike far off in the tower. I counted--eight--nine--ten--eleven--I looked at my watch--twelve--thirteen--I laughed. The bell went on striking. "The old clock has gone crazy, like Judith," I exclaimed. Still it went on, note after note ringing out monotonously through the still air. We leaned over the rail, instinctively looking in the direction whence the sound came. On and on it went. I counted nearly a hundred, out of sheer curiosity, for I understood that something had broken, and that the thing was running itself down. Suddenly there was a crack as of breaking wood, a cry and a heavy splash, and I was alone, clinging to the broken end of the rail of the rustic bridge. I do not think I hesitated while my pulse beat twice. I sprang clear of the bridge into the black rushing water, dived to the bottom, came up again with empty hands, turned and swam downwards through the grotto in the thick darkness, plunging and diving at every stroke, striking my head and hands against jagged stones and sharp corners, clutching at last something in my fingers, and dragging it up with all my might. I spoke, I cried aloud, but there was no answer. I was alone in the pitchy blackness with my burden, and the house was five hundred yards away. Struggling still, I felt the ground beneath my feet, I saw a ray of moonlight--the grotto widened, and the deep water became a broad and shallow brook as I stumbled over the stones and at last laid Margaret's body on the bank in the park beyond. "Ay, Willie, as the clock struck!" said the voice of Judith, the Welsh nurse, as she bent down and looked at the white face. The old woman must have turned back and followed us, seen the accident, and slipped out by the lower gate of the garden. "Ay," she groaned, "you have fed the Woman of the Water this night, Willie, while the clock was striking." I scarcely heard her as I knelt beside the lifeless body of the woman I loved, chafing the wet white temples, and gazing wildly into the wide-staring eyes. I remember only the first returning look of consciousness, the first heaving breath, the first movement of those dear hands stretching out towards me. * * * * * That is not much of a story, you say. It is the story of my life. That is all. It does not pretend to be anything else. Old Judith says my luck turned on that summer's night, when I was struggling in the water to save all that was worth living for. A month later there was a stone bridge above the grotto, and Margaret and I stood on it and looked up at the moonlit Castle, as we had done once before, and as we have done many times since. For all those things happened ten years ago last summer, and this is the tenth Christmas Eve we have spent together by the roaring logs in the old hall, talking of old times; and every year there are more old times to talk of. There are curly-headed boys, too, with red-gold hair and dark-brown eyes like their mother's, and a little Margaret, with solemn black eyes like mine. Why could not she look like her mother, too, as well as the rest of them? The world is very bright at this glorious Christmas time, and perhaps there is little use in calling up the sadness of long ago, unless it be to make the jolly firelight seem more cheerful, the good wife's face look gladder, and to give the children's laughter a merrier ring, by contrast with all that is gone. Perhaps, too, some sad-faced, listless, melancholy youth, who feels that the world is very hollow, and that life is like a perpetual funeral service, just as I used to feel myself, may take courage from my example, and having found the woman of his heart, ask her to marry him after half an hour's acquaintance. But, on the whole, I would not advise any man to marry, for the simple reason that no man will ever find a wife like mine, and being obliged to go further, he will necessarily fare worse. My wife has done miracles, but I will not assert that any other woman is able to follow her example. Margaret always said that the old place was beautiful, and that I ought to be proud of it. I daresay she is right. She has even more imagination than I. But I have a good answer and a plain one, which is this--that all the beauty of the Castle comes from her. She has breathed upon it all, as the children blow upon the cold glass window-panes in winter; and as their warm breath crystallises into landscapes from fairyland, full of exquisite shapes and traceries upon the blank surface, so her spirit has transformed every grey stone of the old towers, every ancient tree and hedge in the gardens, every thought in my once melancholy self. All that was old is young, and all that was sad is glad, and I am the gladdest of all. Whatever heaven may be, there is no earthly paradise without woman, nor is there anywhere a place so desolate, so dreary, so unutterably miserable that a woman cannot make it seem heaven to the man she loves and who loves her. I hear certain cynics laugh, and cry that all that has been said before. Do not laugh, my good cynic. You are too small a man to laugh at such a great thing as love. Prayers have been said before now by many, and perhaps you say yours, too. I do not think they lose anything by being repeated, nor you by repeating them. You say that the world is bitter, and full of the Waters of Bitterness. Love, and so live that you may be loved--the world will turn sweet for you, and you shall rest like me by the Waters of Paradise. THE INCOGNITO LIBRARY. A series of small books by representative writers, whose names will for the present not be given. In this series will be included the authorized American editions of the future issues of Mr. Unwin's "PSEUDONYM LIBRARY," which has won for itself a noteworthy prestige. I. THE SHEN'S PIGTAIL, and other cues of Anglo-China Life, by Mr. M----. II. YOUNG SAM AND SABINA, by the author of "Gentleman Upcott's Daughter." These will be followed by THE HON. STANBURY AND OTHERS, by Two. HELEN, by Vocs. LESSER'S DAUGHTER, etc. 32mo, limp cloth, each 50 cents. 
11050	----	Proofreaders [Transcriber's note: Both "Matilde" and "Matilda" appear in the source text.] TAQUISARA BY F. MARION CRAWFORD 1895 CHAPTER I. "Where shall I sign my name?" Veronica Serra's thin, dark fingers rolled the old silver penholder nervously as she sat at one end of the long library table, looking up at the short, stout man who stood beside her. "Here, if you please, Excellency," answered Lamberto Squarci, with an affable smile. His fingers were dark, too, but not thin, and they were smooth and dingy and very pointed, a fact which the young princess noticed with dislike, as he indicated the spot on the broad sheet of rough, hand-made paper, where he wished her to sign. A thrill of repulsion that was strong enough to be painful ran through her, and she rolled the penholder still more quickly and nervously, so that she almost dropped it, and a little blot of ink fell upon the sheet before she had begun to write. "Oh! It is of no importance!" said the Neapolitan notary, in a reassuring tone. "A little ink more or less!" He had some pink blotting-paper ready, and was already applying a corner of it to the ink-spot, with the neat skill of a professional scribe. "I will erase it when it is dry," he said. "You will not even see it. Now, if your Excellency will sign--that will make the will valid." Three other persons stood around Donna Veronica as she set the point of her pen to the paper, and two of them watched the characters she traced, with eager, unwinking eyes. The third was a very insignificant personage just then, being but the notary's clerk; but his signature was needed as a witness to the will, and he patiently waited for his turn. The other two were husband and wife, Gregorio and Matilde, Count and Countess Macomer; and the countess was the young girl's aunt, being the only sister of Don Tommaso Serra, Prince of Acireale, Veronica's dead father. She looked on, with an eager, pleased expression, standing upright and bending her head in order to see the point of the pen as it moved over the rough paper. Her hands were folded before her, but the uppermost one twitched and moved once or twice, as though it would go out to get possession of the precious document which left her all the heiress's great possessions in case of Donna Veronica's death. It was a bit of paper well worth having. The girl rose, slight and graceful, when she had written her name, and the finely chiselled lips had an upward curve of young scorn, as she turned from the table, while the notary and his clerk proceeded to witness the will. Immediately, the countess smiled, very brightly, showing beautiful teeth between smooth red lips, and her strong arms went round her young niece. She was a woman at least forty years of age, but still handsome. "I thank you with all my heart!" she cried. "It is a proof of affection which I shall never forget! You will live a hundred years--a thousand, if God will it! But the mere wish to leave me your fortune is a token of love and esteem which I shall know how to value." Donna Veronica kissed her aunt's fresh cheek coldly, and drew back as soon as she could. "I am glad that you are pleased," she answered in a cool and colourless voice. She felt that she had said enough, and, so far as she expected any thanks, her aunt had said too much. She had made the will and had signed it, for the sake of peace, and she asked nothing but peace in return. Ever since she had left the convent in which she had been educated and had come to live with her aunt, the question of this will had arisen at least once every day, and she knew by heart every argument which had been invented to induce her to make it. The principal one had always been the same. She had been told that if, in the inscrutable ways of Providence, she should chance to die young, unmarried and childless, the whole of the great Acireale property would go to relations whom she had never seen and of whom she scarcely knew the names. This, the Countess Macomer had insisted, would be a terrible misfortune, and as human life was uncertain, even when one was very young, it was the duty of Veronica to provide against it, by leaving everything to the one remaining member of the Serra family who, with herself, represented the direct line, who had taken a mother's place and duties in bringing up the orphan girl, and who had been ready to sacrifice every personal consideration for the sake of the child's welfare. Veronica did not see clearly that the Countess Macomer had ever really sacrificed anything at all in the execution of her trust as guardian, any more than the count himself, who, with Cardinal Campodonico, was a joint trustee, had ever been put to any inconvenience, beyond that of being the uncle by marriage of one of the richest heiresses in Italy. It was natural that when she had signed the will at last, she should receive her aunt's effusive thanks rather coldly, and that she should show very little enthusiasm when her uncle kissed her forehead and expressed his appreciation of her loving intention. The plain truth was that if she had refused any longer to sign the will, the two would have made her life even more unbearable than it was already. She knew that there was no reason why her life should be made hard to bear. She was not only rich, and a princess in her own right. She was young and, if not pretty, at least fairly well endowed with those gifts which attract and please, and bring their possessor the daily little satisfactions that make something very like happiness, before passion throws its load into the scales of life on the right side or the wrong. She knew that, at her age, she might have been married already, and she wondered that her aunt should not have proposed to marry her before now. Yet in this she was not displeased, for her best friend, Bianca Campodonico, had been married two years already to Corleone, of evil fame, and was desperately unhappy. Veronica dreaded a like fate, and was in no haste to find a husband. The countess told her always that she should be free to choose one for herself within reasonable limits of age, name, and fortune. Such an heiress, with such a fortune, said Matilde Macomer, could marry whom she pleased. But so far as Veronica had been allowed to see the world, the choice seemed anything but large. The count and countess had always been very careful in the selection of their intimate associates--they could hardly be said to have any intimate friends. Since Veronica had come to them from the convent in Rome, where she had been educated according to her dead father's desire, they had been doubly cautious and trebly particular as to the persons they chose to receive. Their responsibility, they said openly, was very great. The child's happiness, was wholly in their hands. They would be held accountable if she should form an unfortunate attachment for some ineligible young man who might chance to dine at their table. The responsibility, they repeated with emphasis, was truly enormous. It was also an unfortunate fact that in their Neapolitan society there were many young men, princes and dukes by the score, who had nothing but their names and titles to recommend them, and who would have found it very hard to keep body and title together, so to say, if gambling had suddenly been abolished, or had gone out of fashion unexpectedly. Then, too, the Macomer couple had always led a retired life and had kept aloof from the very gay portion of society. They lived well, according to their station, and so far as any one could see; but it had always been said that Gregorio Macomer was miserly. At the same time it suited his wife, for reasons of her own, not to be conspicuous in the world, and she encouraged him to lead a quiet existence, spending half the year in the country, and receiving very few people when in Naples during the winter and spring. Gregorio had one brother, Bosio, considerably younger than himself and very different in character, who was not married and who lived at the Palazzo Macomer, on excellent terms both with Gregorio and the countess, as well as with Veronica herself. The young girl was inclined to like him, though she felt dimly that she could never understand him as she believed that she understood her aunt and uncle. He was, indeed, almost the only man, excepting her uncle, whom she could be said to know tolerably well. He was not present on that afternoon when she signed the will, but his absence did not surprise her, for he had always abstained from any remarks about her property or his brother's and sister-in-law's guardianship, in such a marked way as to make her understand that he really wished to know nothing about the management or disposal of her fortune. She liked him for several reasons,--for his non-interference in discussions about her affairs, for a certain quiet consideration, just a shade more friendly than deference, which he showed for her slightest wishes, and chiefly, perhaps, for his conversation and perfectly even temper. Her uncle Macomer was not always good-tempered and he was never considerate. He was a stiff man, of impenetrable face, much older than his wife, cold when he was pleased, and harsh as rough ice when he was annoyed; a tall, bony man, with flattened lips, from which the grey moustaches and the beard were brushed smoothly away in all directions. He had very small eyes--a witty enemy of his said they were so small that one could not find them in his face, and those who knew him laughed at the jest, for they always seemed hard to find when one wished to meet them. His shoulders were unusually high and narrow, but he did not stoop. On the contrary, he habitually threw back his head, with a certain coldly aggressive stiffness, so that he easily looked above the person with whom he was talking. Though he had never been given to any sort of bodily exercise, his hands were naturally horny, and they were almost always cold. For the rest, he was careful of his appearance and scrupulous in matters of dress, like many of his fellow-countrymen. In his household he insisted upon a neatness as fastidious as his own, and nothing could have induced him to employ a Neapolitan servant. His family colours were green and black, and the green of his servants' liveries was of the very darkest that could be had. He imposed his taste upon his household, and gave it a certain marked respectability which betrayed no information about his fortune. To all appearances he was not poor; but it would have been impossible to say with certainty whether he were rich or only in moderate circumstances. He was undoubtedly more careful than ninety-nine out of a hundred of his fellow-citizens, in getting the value of what he spent, to the uttermost splitting of farthings; and when he spoke of money there was a certain cruel hardening of the hard lines in his face, which Veronica never failed to notice with dislike. She wondered how her aunt could have led an apparently tranquil life with such a man during more than twenty years. Doubtless, she thought, Bosio's presence acted as a palliative in the somewhat grim atmosphere of the Palazzo Macomer. He was utterly different from his brother. In the first place, he was gentle and kind in speech and manner, though apparently rather sad than gay. He was different in face, in figure, in voice, in carriage--having quiet brown eyes, and brown hair only streaked with grey, with a full, silky beard; a clear pale complexion; in frame shorter than Gregorio, with smaller bones, slightly inclined to stoutness, but rather graceful than stiff; small feet and well-shaped hands of pleasant texture; a clear, low voice that never jarred upon the ear, and a kindly, half-sad laugh in which there was a singular refinement, of the sort which shows itself more in laughter than in speech. Laughter is, indeed, a terrible betrayer of the character, and a surer guide in judgment than most people know. For men learn to use their voices skilfully and to govern their tones as well as their words; but, beyond not laughing too loud for ordinary decency of behaviour, there are few people who care, or realize, how they laugh; and those who do, and who, being aware that there is room for improvement, endeavour to improve, very generally produce either a semi-musical noise, which is false and affected, or a perfectly inane cachinnation which has nothing human in it at all. Bosio Macomer was a refined man, not only by education and outward contact with the refinements he sought in others, but within himself and by predisposition of nature. He read much, and found beauties in books which his friends thought dull, but which appealed tenderly to his innate love of tenderness. He had probably lost many illusions, but the sweetest of them all was still fresh in him, for he loved nature unaffectedly. In an unobtrusive way he was something of an artist, and was fond of going out by himself, when in the country, to sketch and dream all day. Veronica did not understand how with such tastes he could bear the life in the Palazzo Macomer, for months at a time. He was free to go and come as he pleased, and since he preferred the country, she wondered why he did not live out of town altogether. His existence was the more incomprehensible to her, as he rarely lost an opportunity of finding fault with Naples as a city and with the Neapolitans as human beings. Sometimes he did not leave the house for many days, as he frankly admitted, preferring the little apartment in the upper story of the house, where he lived independently, with one old servant, amongst his books and his pictures, appearing downstairs only at dinner, and not always then. His place was always ready for him, but no one ever remarked his absence, nor inquired where he might be when he chose to stay away. He was on excellent terms with every one. The servants adored him, while they feared his brother and disliked the countess; when he appeared he never failed to kiss the countess's hand, and to exchange a friendly word or two with Gregorio; but as for the latter, Bosio made no secret of the fact that he preferred the society of the ladies of the household to that of the count, with whom he had little in common. He certainly admired his sister-in-law, and more than once frankly confessed to Veronica that in his opinion Matilde Macomer was still the most beautiful woman in the world. Yet Veronica had observed that he was critical of looks in other women, and she thought his criticisms generally just and in good taste. For her part, however, if he chose to consider her middle-aged aunt lovely, Veronica would not contradict him, for she was cautious in a certain degree, and in spite of herself she distrusted her surroundings. There were times when the Countess Macomer inspired her with confidence. Those very beautiful dark eyes of hers had but one defect, namely, that they were quite too near together; but they were still the best features in the elder woman's face, and when Veronica looked at them from such an angle as not to notice their relative position, she almost believed that she could trust them. But she never liked the smooth red lips, nor the over-pointed nose, which had something of the falcon's keenness without its nobility. The thick and waving brown hair grew almost too low on the white forehead, and, whether by art or nature, the eyebrows were too broad and too dark for the face, though they were so well placed as to greatly improve the defect of the close-set eyes. There was a marvellous genuine freshness of colour in the clear complexion, and the woman carried her head well upon a really magnificent neck. She was strong and vital and healthy, and her personality was as distinctly dominating as her physical self. Yet she was generally very careful not to displease her husband, even when he was capricious, and Veronica was sometimes surprised by the apparent weakness with which she yielded to him in matters about which she had as good a right as he to an opinion and a decision. The girl supposed that her aunt was not so strong as she seemed to be, when actually brought face to face with the rough ice of Gregorio Macomer's character. Veronica made her observations discreetly and kept them to herself, as was not only becoming but wise. At first the change from the semi-cloistered existence of the convent in Rome to the life at the Palazzo Macomer had dazzled the girl and had confused her ideas. But with the natural desire of the very young to seem experienced, she had begun by manifesting no surprise at anything she saw; and she had soon discovered that, although she was supposed to be living in the society of the most idle and pleasure-loving city in the world, her surroundings were in reality neither gay nor dazzling, but decidedly monotonous and dull. She had dim, childish memories of magnificent things in her father's house, though the main impression was that of his death, following closely, as she had been told, upon her mother's. Of the latter, she could remember nothing. In dreams she saw beautiful things, and brilliant light and splendid pictures and enchanted gardens, and when she awoke she felt that the dreams had been recollections of what she had seen, and of what still belonged to her. But she sought the reality in vain. The grand old palace in the Toledo was hers, she was told, but it was let for a term of years to the municipality and was filled with public offices; the marble staircases were black and dingy with the passing of many feet that tracked in the mud in winter and the filthy dust of Naples in summer. Dark, poor faces and ill-clad forms moved through the halls, and horrible voices echoed perpetually in the corridors, where those who waited discussed taxes, and wrangled, and cursed those in power, and cheated one another, and picked a pocket now and then, and spat upon the marble pavement whereon royal and lordly feet had so often trod in days gone by. It had all become a great nest of dirt and stealing and busy chicanery, where dingy, hawk-eyed men with sodden white faces and disgusting hands lay in wait for the unwary who had business with the city government, to rob them on pretence of facilitating their affairs, to cringe for a little coin flung them in scorn sometimes by one who had grown rich in greater robbery than they could practise--sometimes, too, springing aside to escape a kick or a blow as ill-tempered success went swinging by, high-handed and vulgarly cruel, a few degrees less filthy and ten thousand times more repulsive. Once, Veronica had insisted upon going through the palace. She would never enter it again, and after that day, when she passed it, she turned her face from it and looked away. Vaguely, she wondered whether they were not deceiving her and whether it were really the home she dimly remembered. There had been splendid things in it, then--she would not ask what had become of them, but without asking, she was told that they had been wisely disposed of, and that instead of paying people for keeping an uninhabited palace in order, she was receiving an enormous rent for it from the city. Then she had wished to see the lovely villa that came back in the pictures of her dreams, and she had been driven out into the country according to her desire. From a distance, as the carriage approached it, she recognized the lordly poplars, and far at the end of the avenue the elaborately stuccoed front and cornices of the old-fashioned "barocco" building. But the gardens were gone. Files of neatly trimmed vines, trained upon poles stuck in deep furrows, stretched away from the avenue on either side. The flower garden was a vegetable garden now, and the artichokes and the cabbages and the broccoli were planted with mathematical regularity up to the very walls. There were hens and chickens on the steps and running in and out of the open door, and from a near sty the grunt of many pigs reached her ears. A pale, earthy-skinned peasant, scantily clad in dusty canvas, grinned sadly and kissed the hem of her skirt, calling her 'Excellency' and beginning at once to beg for reduction of rent. A field-worn woman, filthy and dishevelled, drove back half a dozen nearly naked children whose little legs were crusted with dry mud, and whose faces had not been washed for a long time. And within, there was no furniture. In the rooms upstairs were stores of grain and potatoes, and red peppers and grapes hanging on strings. The cracked mirrors, built into the gilded stucco, were coated with heavy unctuous dust, and the fine old painted tiles on the floor were loose and broken in places. In the ceiling certain pink and well-fed cherubs still supported unnatural thunderclouds through which Juno forever drove her gold-wheeled car and team of patient peacocks, smiling high and goddess-like at the squalor beneath. Still Diana bent over Endymion cruelly foreshortened in his sleep, beyond the possibility of a waking return to human proportions. Mars frowned, Jove threatened, Venus rose glowing from the sea; and below, the unctuous black dust settled and thickened on everything except the cracked floors piled with maize and beans and lupins, and rubbed bright between the heaps by the peasants' naked feet. Veronica turned her back upon the villa, as she had turned from the great palace in the Toledo. They whispered to her that the peasant's rent must not be reduced, for he was well able to pay, and they pointed to the closely planted vines and vegetables and olives that stretched far away to right and left, where she remembered in her dreams of far childhood that there had been lawns and walks and flowers. The man, she was told, was not the only peasant on the place. There were other houses now, and huts that could shelter a family, and there was land, land, always more land, as far as she could see, all as closely and neatly and regularly planted with vegetables and grain, vines and olives; and it was all hers, and yielded enormous rents which were wisely invested. She was very rich indeed, but to her it all seemed horribly sordid and grinding and mean--and the peasants looked prematurely old, labour-worn, filthy, wretchedly poor. If she had even had any satisfaction from so much wealth, it might have seemed different. She said so, in her heart. She was accustomed to tell her confessor that she was proud and uncharitable and unfeeling--not finding any real misdeeds to confess. She was willing to believe that she was all that and much more. If she had been living in the whirling, golden pleasure-storm of an utterly thoughtless world, she believed herself bad enough to have shut her memory's eyes to the haggard peasant-mother of the dirty half-clad children--to all the hundreds of them who doubtless lived just like the one she had seen, all upon her lands; she could have forgotten the busy-thieving, sodden-faced crowd that thronged the chambers wherein her fathers had been born and had feasted kings and had died--the very room where her own father had lain dead. She could have shut it all out, she thought, if she had held in her hands the gold that all this brought, to scatter it at her will; for she was sure that she had not a better heart than other girls of her age. But she had never seen it. The reality of her own life was too weak and colourless, by contrast, to make the name of fortune an excuse for the sordid facts of meanness. There was no splendour about her, no wild gaiety, none of the glorious extravagance of conscious young wealth, and there was very little amusement to divert her thoughts. The people she would have liked to know were kept at a distance from her. She was advised not to buy the things which attracted her eyes, and was told that they were not so good as they looked, and that on the whole it was better to keep money than to spend it--but that, of course, she might do as she pleased, and that when she wanted money her uncle Macomer would give it to her. It all passed through his hands, and he managed everything, with the assistance of Lamberto Squarci the notary and of other men of business--mostly shabby-looking men in black, with spectacles and unhealthy complexions, who came and went in the morning when old Macomer was in his study attending to affairs. Veronica knew none but Squarci by name, and never spoke with any of them. There seemed to be no reason why she should. The count had told her that when she wished it, he was ready to render an account of the estates and would be happy to explain everything to her at length. She understood nothing of business and was content to accept the roughest statement as he chose to give it to her. She was far too young to distrust the man whom she had been taught to respect as her guardian and as a person of scrupulous honesty. She was completely in his power, and she was accustomed to ask him for any little sums she needed. It never really struck her that he might misuse the authority she indifferently left in his hands. It was her aunt who had induced her to make the will, and for whose conduct she felt a sort of undefined resentment and contempt. Considering, she thought, how improbable it was that she herself should die before Matilde Macomer, the latter had shown an absurd anxiety about the disposal of the fortune. If Veronica had yielded the point, she had done so in order to get rid of an importunity which wearied her perpetually. She was to marry, of course, in due time. God would give her children, and they would inherit her wealth. It was really ridiculous of her aunt to be so anxious lest it should all go to those distant relations in Sicily and Spain. Nevertheless, in order to have peace, she signed the will, and her aunt thanked her effusively, and old Macomer's flat lips touched her forehead while he spoke a few words of gratified approval. In the evening she told Bosio, the count's brother, of what she had done. His gentle eyes looked at her thoughtfully for a few seconds, and he did not smile, nor did he make any observation. A few minutes later he was talking of a picture he had seen for sale--a mere sketch, but by Ribera, called the Spagnoletto. She made up her mind to buy it for him as a surprise, for it pleased her to give him pleasure. But when she was alone in her room that night she recalled Bosio's expression when she had told him about the will. She was sure that he was not pleased, and she wondered why he had not at least said something in reply--something quite indifferent perhaps, but yet something, instead of looking at her in total silence, just for those few seconds. After all, she was really more intimate with him than with her aunt and uncle, and liked him better than either of them, so that she had a right to expect that he should have answered with something more than silence when she told him of such a matter. She sat a long time in a deep chair near her toilet table, thinking about her own life, in the great dim room which half a dozen candles barely lighted; and perhaps it was the first time that she had really asked herself how long her present mode of existence was to continue, how long she was to lie half-hidden, as it were, in the sombrely respectable dimness of the Macomer establishment, how long she was to remain unmarried. Knowing the customs of her own people in regard to marriage, as she did, it was certainly strange that she should not have heard of any offer made to her uncle and aunt for her hand. Surely the mothers of marriageable sons knew of her existence, of her fortune, of the titles she held in her own right and could confer upon her husband and leave to her children. It was not natural that no one should wish to marry her, that no mother should desire such an heiress for her son. With the distrustful introspection of maiden youth, she suddenly asked herself whether by any possibility she were different from other girls and whether she had not some strange defect, physical or mental, of which the existence had been most carefully concealed from her all her life. In the quick impulse she rose and brought all the burning candles to the toilet table, and lighted others, and stood before the mirror, in the yellow light, gazing most critically at her own reflexion. She looked long and earnestly and quite without vanity. She told herself, cataloguing her looks, that her hair was neither black nor brown, but that it was very thick and long and waved naturally; that her eyes were very dark, with queer little angles just above the lids, under the prominent brows; that her nose, seen in full face, looked very straight and rather small, though she had been told by the girls in the convent that it was aquiline and pointed; that her cheeks were thin and almost colourless; that her chin was round and smooth and prominent, her lips rather dark than red, and modelled in a high curve; that her ears were very small--she threw back the heavy hair to see them better, turning her face sideways to the glass; that her throat was over-slender, and her neck and arms far too thin for beauty, but with a young leanness which might improve with time, though nothing could ever make them white. She was dark, on the whole. She was willing to admit that she was sallow, that her eyes had a rather sad look in them, and even that one was almost imperceptibly larger than the other, though the difference was so small that she had never noticed it before, and it might be due to the uncertain light of the candles in the dim room. But most assuredly there was no physical defect to be seen. She was not beautiful like poor Bianca Corleone; but she was far from ugly--that was certain. And in mind--she laughed as she looked at herself in the glass. Bosio Macomer told her that she was clever, and he certainly knew. But her own expression pleased her when she laughed, and she laughed again with pleasure, and watched herself in a sort of girlish and innocent satisfaction. Then her eyes met their own reflexion, and she grew suddenly grave again, and something in them told her that they were not laughing with her lips, and might not often look upon things mirthful. But she was not stupid, and she was not ugly. She had assured herself of that. The worst that could be said was that she was a very thin girl and that her complexion was not brilliant, though it was healthy enough, and clear. No--there was certainly no reason why her aunt should not have received offers of marriage for her, and many people would have thought it strange that she should be still unmarried--with her looks, her name, and that great fortune of which Gregorio Macomer was taking such good care. CHAPTER II. On that same night, when Veronica had gone to her room, Bosio Macomer remained alone with the countess in the small drawing-room in which the family generally spent the evening. Gregorio was presumably in his study, busy with his perpetual accounts or otherwise occupied. He very often spent the hours between dinner and bed-time by himself, leaving his brother to keep his wife company if Veronica chose to retire early. The room was small and the first impression of colour which it gave was that of a strong, deep yellow. There was yellow damask on the walls, the curtains were of an old sort of silk material in stripes of yellow and chocolate, and most of the furniture was covered with yellow satin. The whole was in the style of the early part of this century, modified by the bad taste of the Second Empire, with much gilded carving about the doors and the corners of the big panels in which the damask was stretched, while the low, vaulted ceiling was a mass of gilt stucco, modelled in heavy acanthus leaves and arabesques, from the centre of which hung a chandelier of white Venetian glass. There were no pictures on the walls, and there were no flowers nor plants in pots, to relieve the strong colour which filled the eye. Nevertheless the room had the air of being inhabited, and was less glaring and stiff and old-fashioned than it might seem from this description. There were a good many books on the tables, chiefly French novels, as yellow as the hangings; and there were writing materials and a couple of newspapers and two or three open notes. A small wood fire burned in a deep, low fireplace adorned with marble and gilt brass. Matilde Macomer sat, leaning back, upon a little sofa which stood across a corner of the room far from the fire. One hand lay idly in her lap, the other, as she stretched out her arm, lay upon the back of the sofa, and her head with its thick, brown hair was bent down. She had fixed her eyes upon a point of the carpet and had not moved from her position for a long time. The folds of her black gown made graceful lines from her knees to her feet, and her imposing figure was thrown into strong relief against the yellow background as she leaned to the corner, one foot just touching the floor. Bosio sat at a distance from her, on a low chair, his elbows on his knees, staring at the fire. Neither had spoken for several minutes. Matilde broke the silence first, her eyes still fixed on the carpet. "You must marry Veronica," she said slowly; "nothing else can save us." It was clear that the idea was not new to Bosio, for he showed no surprise. But he turned deliberately and looked at the countess before he answered her. There were unusual lines in his quiet face--lines of great distress and perplexity. "It is a crime," he said in a low voice. Matilda raised her eyes, with an almost imperceptible movement of the shoulders. "Murder is a crime," she answered simply. Then Bosio started violently and turned very white, almost rising from his seat. "Murder?" he cried; "what do you mean?" Matilde's smooth red lips smiled. "I merely mentioned it as an instance of a crime," she said, without any change of tone. "You said it would be a crime for you to marry Veronica. It did not strike me that it could be called by that name. Crimes are murder, stealing, forgery--such things. Who would say that it was criminal for Bosio Macomer to marry Veronica Serra? There is no reason against it. I daresay that many people wonder why you have not married her already, and that many others suppose that you will before long. You are young, you have never been married, you have a very good name and a small fortune of your own." "Take it, then!" exclaimed Bosio, impulsively. "You shall have it all to-morrow--everything I possess. God knows, I am ready to give you all I have. Take it. I can live somehow. What do I care? I have given you my life--what is a little money? But do not ask me to marry her, your niece, here, under your very roof. I am not a saint, but I cannot do that!" "No," answered the countess, "we are not saints, you and I, it is true. For my part, I make no pretences. But the trouble is desperate, Bosio. I do not know what to do. It is desperate!" she repeated with sudden energy. "Desperate, I tell you!" "I suppose that all I have would be of no use, then?" asked Bosio, disheartened. "It would pay the interest for a few months longer. That would be all. Then we should be where we are now, or shall be in three weeks." "Throw yourself upon her mercy. Ask her to forgive you and to lend you money," suggested Bosio. "She is kind--she will do it, when she knows the truth." "I had thought of that," answered Matilde. "But, in the first place, you do not know her. Secondly, you forget Cardinal Campodonico." "Since he has left the management of her fortune in Gregorio's hands, he will not begin to ask questions at this point. Besides, the guardianship is at an end--" "The estate has not been made over. He will insist upon seeing the accounts--that is no matter, for they will bear his inspection well enough. Squarci is clever! But Veronica sees him. She would tell him of our trouble, if we went to her. If not, she would certainly tell Bianca Corleone, who is his niece. If he suspected anything, let alone knowing the truth, that would be the end of everything. It would be better for us to escape before the crash--if we could. It comes to that--unless you will help us." "By marrying Veronica?" asked Bosio, with a bitterness not natural to him. "I see no other way. The cardinal could see the accounts. You could be married, and the fortune could be made over to you. She would never know, nor ask questions. You could set our affairs straight, and still be the richest man in Naples or Sicily. It would all be over. It would be peace--at last, at last!" she repeated, with a sudden change of tone that ended in a deep-drawn sigh of anticipated relief. "You do not know half there is to tell," she continued, speaking rapidly after a moment's pause. "We are ruined, and worse than ruined. We have been, for years. Gregorio got himself into that horrible speculation years and years ago, though I knew nothing about it. While Veronica was a minor, he helped himself, as he could--with her money. It was easy, for he controlled everything. But now he can do nothing without her signature. Squarci said so last week. He cannot sell a bit of land, a stick of timber, anything, without her name. And we are ruined, Bosio. This house is mortgaged, and the mortgage expires on the first of January, in three weeks. We have nothing left--nothing but the hope of Veronica's charity--or the hope that you will marry her and save us from starvation and disgrace. I got her to sign the will. There was--" The countess checked herself and stopped short, turning an emerald ring which she wore. She was pale. "There was what?" asked Bosio, in an unsteady tone. "There was just the bare possibility that she might die before January," said Matilde, almost in a whisper. "People die young sometimes, you know--very young. It pleases Providence to do strange things. Of course it would be most dreadful, if she were to die, would it not? It would be lonely in the house, without her. It seems to me that I should see her at night, in the dark corners, when I should be alone. Ugh!" Matilde Macomer shivered suddenly, and then stared at Bosio with frightened eyes. He glanced at her nervously. "I am afraid of you," he said. "Of me?" Her presence of mind returned. "What an idea! just because I suggested that poor little Veronica might catch a cold or a fever in this horrible weather and might die of the one or the other? And just because I am fond of her, and said that I should be afraid of seeing her in the dark! Heaven give her a hundred years of life! Why should we talk of such sad things?" "It is certainly not I who wish to talk of them, or think of them," answered Bosio, thoughtfully, and turning once more to the fire. "You are overwrought, Matilde--you are unhappy, afraid of the future--what shall I say? Sometimes you speak in a strange way." "Is it any wonder? The case is desperate, and I am desperate, too--" "Do not say it--" "Then say that you will marry Veronica, and save us all, and bring peace into the house--for my sake, Bosio--for me!" She leaned forward, and her hands met upon her knee in something like a gesture of supplication, while she sought his eyes. "For your sake," repeated Bosio, dreamily. "For your sake? But you ask the impossible, Matilde. Besides, she would not marry me. She would laugh at the idea. And then--for you and me--it is horrible! You have no right to ask it." "No right? Ah, Bosio! Have I not the right to ask anything of you, after all these years?" "Anything--but not that! Your niece--under your roof! No--no--no! I cannot, even if she would consent." "Not even--" Matilda's splendid eyes, so cruelly close together, fastened themselves upon the weak man's face, and she frowned. "Not even if you thought it would be much better for her?" she asked very slowly, completing the sentence. Again he started and shrank from her. "Just God!" he exclaimed under his breath. "That a woman should have such thoughts!" Then he turned upon her with an instinctive revival of manhood and honour. "You shall not hurt her!" he cried, as fiercely as his voice could speak. "You shall not hurt a hair of her head, not even to save yourself! I will warn her--I will have her protected--I will tell everything! What is my life worth?" "You would merely be told that you were mad, and we should have you taken out to the asylum at Aversa--as mad as I am, or soon shall be, if this goes on! You are mad to believe that I could do such things--I, a woman! And yet, I know I say words that have no reason in them! And I think crimes--horrible crimes, when I am alone--and I can tell no one but you. Have pity on me, Bosio! I was not always what I am now--" She spoke incoherently, and her steadiness broke down all at once, for she had been living long under a fearful strain of terror and anxiety. The consciousness that she could say with safety whatever came first to her lips helped to weaken her. She half expected that Bosio would rise, and come to her and comfort her, perhaps, as she hid her face in her hands, shivering in fear of herself and shaking a little with the convulsive sob that was so near. But Bosio did not move from his seat. He sat quite still, staring at the fire. He was not a physical coward, but, morally speaking, he was terrified and stunned by what he had understood her to say. Probably no man of any great strength of character, however bad, could have lived the life he had led in that house for many years, dominated by such a woman as Matilde Macomer. And now his weakness showed itself, to himself and to her, in what he felt, and in what he did, respectively. A strong man, having once felt that revival of manly instinct, would have turned upon her and terrified her and mastered her; and, within himself, his heart might have broken because he had ever loved such a woman. But Bosio sat still in his seat and said nothing more, though his brow was moist with a creeping, painful, trembling emotion that twisted his heart and tore his delicate nerves. He felt that his hands were very cold, but that he could not speak. She dominated him still, and he was ashamed of the weakness, and of his own desire to go and comfort her and forget the things she had said. If he had spoken to her, she would have burst into tears; but his silence betrayed that he had no strength, and she suddenly felt that she was strong again, and that there was hope, and that he might marry Veronica, after all. A woman rarely breaks down to very tears before a man weaker than herself, though she may be near it. "You must marry her," said Matilde, with returning steadiness. "You owe it to your brother and to me. Should I say, 'to me,' first? It is to save us from disgrace--from being prosecuted as well as ruined, from being dragged into court to answer for having wilfully defrauded--that is the word they would use!--for having wilfully defrauded Veronica Serra of a great deal of money, when we were her guardians and responsible for everything she had. My hands are clean of that--your brother did it without my knowledge. But no judge living would believe that I, being a guardian with my husband, could be so wholly ignorant of his affairs. There are severe penalties for such things, Bosio--I believe that we should both be sent to penal servitude; for no power on earth could save us from a conviction, any more than anything but Veronica's money can save us from ruin now. Gregorio has taken much, but it has been, nothing compared with the whole fortune. If you marry her, she will never know--no one will know--no one will ever guess. As her husband you will have control of everything, and no one then will blame you for taking a hundredth part of your wife's money to save your brother. You will have the right to do it. Your hands will be clean, too, as they are to-day. What is the crime? What is the difficulty? What is the objection? And on the other side there is ruin, a public trial, a conviction and penal servitude for your own brother, Gregorio, Count Macomer, and Matilde Serra, his wife." "My God! What a choice!" exclaimed Bosio, pressing both his cold hands to his wet forehead. "There is no choice!" answered the woman, with low, quick emphasis. "Your mind is made up, and we will announce the engagement at once. I do not care what objection Veronica makes. She likes you, she is half in love with you--what other man does she know? And if she did--she would not repent of marrying you rather than any one else. You will make her happy--as for me, I shall at least not die a disgraced woman. You talk of choice! Mine would be between a few drops of morphia and the galleys,--a thousand times more desperate than yours, it seems to me!" Her large eyes flashed with the furious determination to make him do what she desired. His hands had fallen from his face, and he was looking at her almost quietly, not yielding so much as she thought, but at least listening gravely instead of telling her that she asked the impossible. The door opened discreetly, and a servant appeared upon the threshold. "The Signor Duca della Spina begs your Excellency to receive him for a moment, if it is not too late." "Certainly," answered the countess, instantly, and with perfect self-control. The servant closed the door and went back to deliver the short message. Matilde threw the folds of her black gown away from her feet, so that she might rise to meet the visitor, who was an old man and a person of importance. She looked keenly at Bosio. "Do not go away," she said quickly, in a low voice. "Your forehead is wet--dry it--compose yourself--be natural!" Before Bosio had returned his handkerchief to his pocket the door opened again, and a tall old man entered with a stooping gait. He had weak and inquiring eyes that looked about the room as he walked. His head was bald, and shone like a skull in the yellow reflexion from the damask hangings. His gait was not firm, and as he passed Bosio in order to reach the countess, he had an uncertain movement of head and hand, as though he were inclined to speak to him first. Matilde had risen, however, and had moved a step forward to meet the visitor, speaking at the same time, as though to direct him to herself, with the somewhat maternal air which even young women sometimes assume in greeting old men. The Duca della Spina smiled rather feebly as he took the outstretched hand, and slowly sat down upon the sofa beside Matilde. "I feared it might be too late," he began, and his watery blue eyes sought her face anxiously. "But my son insisted that I should come this evening, when he found that I had not been able to see you this afternoon." "How is he?" asked the countess, suddenly assuming an expression of great concern. "Eh! How he is! He is--so," answered the Duca, with a gesture which meant uncertainty. "Signora Contessa," he added, "he is not well at all. It is natural with the young. It is passion. What else can I tell you? He is impatient. His nerves shake him, and he does not eat. Morning and evening he asks, 'Father, what will it be?' So, to content him, I have come to disturb you." "Not in the least, dear Duca!" The door opened again, and Gregorio Macomer entered the room, having been informed of the presence of a visitor. The Duca looked up, and his head shook involuntarily, as he at once began the slow process of getting upon his legs. But Macomer was already pressing him into his seat again, holding the old hand in both of his with an appearance of much cordiality. "I hope that Gianluca is no worse?" he said, with an interrogation that expressed friendly interest. "Better he is not," answered the Duca, sadly. "What would you? It is passion. That is why I have come at this hour, and I have made my excuses to the Signora Contessa for disturbing her." "Excuses?" cried Gregorio, promptly. "We are delighted to see you, dear friend!" But as he spoke he turned a look of inquiry upon his wife, and she answered by a scarcely perceptible sign of negation. They had been taken by surprise, for they had not expected the Duca's visit. Not heeding them, his heart full of his son, the old man continued to speak, in short, almost tremulous sentences. "It is certain that Gianluca is very ill," he said. "Taquisara has been with him to-day, and Pietro Ghisleri--but Taquisara is his best friend. You know Taquisara, do you not?" "A Sicilian?" asked the countess, encouraging the old man to go on. "Yes," said Macomer, answering for the Duca, for he was proud of his genealogical knowledge, "The only son of the old Baron of Guardia. But every one calls him Taquisara, though his father is dead. There is a story which says that they are descended from Tancred." "It may be," said the old Duca. "There are so many legends--but he is Gianluca's best friend, and he comes to see him every day. The boy is ill--very ill." He shook his head, and bent it almost to his breast. "He wastes away, and I do not know what to do for him." The Count and Countess Macomer also shook their heads gravely, but said nothing. Bosio, seated at a little distance, looked on, his brain still disturbed by what had gone before, and wondering at Matilde's power of seeming at her ease in such a desperate situation; wondering, too, at his brother's hard, cold face--the mask that had so well hidden the passion of the gambler, and perhaps many other passions as well, of which even Bosio knew nothing, nor cared to know anything, having secrets of his own to keep. All at once, and without warning, after the short pause, the old man broke out in tremulous entreaty. "Oh! my friends!" he cried. "Do not say no! I shall not have the courage to take such a message to my poor son! Eh, they say that nowadays old-fashioned love is not to be found. But look at Gianluca--he consumes himself, he wastes away before my eyes, and one day follows another, and I can do nothing. You do not believe? Go and see! One day follows another--he is always in his room, consuming himself for love! He is pale--paler than a sheet. He does not eat, he does not drink, he does not smoke--he, who smoked thirty cigarettes a day! As for the theatre, or going out, he will not hear of it. He says, 'I will not see her, for if she will not have me, it is better to die quickly.' A father's heart, dear Macomer--think of what I suffer, and have compassion! He is my only one--such a beautiful boy, and so young--" "We are sorry," said Matilde, with firm-voiced sympathy that was already a refusal. "You will not!" cried the old man, shakily, in his distress. "Say you will not--but not that you are sorry! And Heaven knows it is not for Donna Veronica's money! The contract shall be as you please--we do not need--" "Who has spoken of money?" The countess's tone expressed grave indifference to such a trifle. "Dear Duca, do not be distressed. We cannot help it. We cannot dictate to Providence. Had circumstances been different, what better match could we have found for her than your dear son? But I told you that the girl's inclinations must be consulted, and that we had little hope of satisfying you. And now--" She looked earnestly at her husband, as though to secure his consent beforehand--"and now it has turned out as we foresaw. Courage, dear Duca! Your son is young. He has seen Veronica but a few times, and they have certainly never been alone together--what can it really be, such love-passion as that? Veronica has made her choice." Not a muscle of Macomer's hard face moved. He knew that if his wife had a surprise for him on the spur of the moment, it must be for their joint interest. But the Duca della Spina's jaw dropped, and his hands shook. "Yes,"--continued the countess, calmly, "Veronica has made her choice. It is hard for us to tell you, knowing how you feel for your son. Veronica is engaged to be married to Bosio, here." Bosio started violently, for he was a very nervously organized man; but his brother's face did not change, though the small eyes suddenly flashed into sight brightly from beneath the drooping, concealing lids. A dead silence followed, which lasted several seconds. Matilde had laid her hand upon the Duca's arm, as though to give him courage, and she felt it tremble under her touch, for he loved his son very dearly. "You might have written me this news," he said at last, in a low voice and with a dazed look. "You might--you might have spared me--oh, my son! My poor Gianluca!" His voice broke, and the weak, sincere tears broke from the watery eyes and trickled down the wasted cheeks piteously, while his head turned slowly from side to side in sorrowfully hopeless regret. "It has only been decided this evening," said Matilde. "We should have written to you in the morning." "Of course," echoed her husband, gravely. "It was our duty to let you know at once." The Duca della Spina rose painfully to his feet. He seemed quite unconscious of the tears he had shed, and too much shaken to take leave with any formality. Bosio stood quite still, when he had risen too, and his face was white. The old man passed him without a word, going to the door. "My poor son! my poor Gianluca!" he repeated to himself, as Gregorio Macomer accompanied him. Matilde and Bosio were left alone for a moment, but they knew that the count would return at once. They stood still, looking each at the other, with very different expressions. Bosio felt that, in his place, a strong, brave man would have done something, would have stood up to deny the engagement, perhaps, or would have left the room rather than accept the situation in submissive silence, protesting in some way, though only Matilde should have understood the protest. She, on her side, slowly nodded her approval of his conduct, and in her dark eyes there was a yellow reflexion from the predominating colour of the room; there was triumph and satisfaction, and there was the threat of the woman who dominates the man and is sure of doing with him as she pleases. Yet she was not so sure of herself as she seemed, and wished to seem, for she dreaded Bosio's sense of honour, which was not wholly dead. "Do not deny it to Gregorio," she said, in a low tone, when she heard her husband's footstep returning through the room beyond. Old Macomer came back and closed the door behind him. "What is this?" he asked, at once; but though his voice was hard, it was trembling with the anticipation of a great victory. "Has Veronica consented?" "No one has spoken to her," answered Bosio, before Matilde could speak. "As though that mattered!" cried the countess, with contempt. "There is time for that!" Gregorio's eyelids contracted with an expression of cunning. "Oh!" he exclaimed thoughtfully, "I understand." He began to walk up and down in the narrow space between the furniture of the small sitting-room, bending his head between his high shoulders. "I see," he repeated. "I understand. But if Veronica refuses? You have been rash, Matilde." "Veronica loves him," answered the countess. "And of course you know that he loves her," she added, and her smooth lips smiled. "You need not deny it before us, Bosio. You have loved her ever since she came from the convent--" "I?" Bosio's pale face reddened with anger. "See how he blushes!" laughed Matilde. "As for Veronica, she will talk to no one else. They are made for each other. She will die if she does not marry Bosio soon." The yellow reflexion danced in her eyes, as she fastened them upon her brother-in-law's face, and he shuddered, remembering what she had said before the Duca had come. "If that is the case," said Macomer, "the sooner they are married, the better. Save her life, Bosio! Save her life! Do not let her die of love for you!" He, who rarely laughed, laughed now, and the sound was horrible in his brother's ears. Then he suddenly turned away and left the room, still drily chuckling to himself. It was quite unconscious and an effect of his overwrought and long-controlled nerves. Matilde and Bosio were alone again, and they knew that he would not come back. Bosio sank into his chair again, and pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes, resting his elbows on his knees. "The infamy of it!" he groaned, in the bitterness of his weak misery. Matilde stood beside him, and gently stroked his hair where it was streaked with grey. He moved impatiently, as though to shake off her strong hand. "No," she said, and her voice grew as soft as velvet. "It is to save me--to save us all." He shook her off, and rose to his feet with spasmodic energy. "I cannot--I will not--never!" he cried, walking away from her with irregular steps. "But it will be so much better--for Veronica, too," she said softly, for she knew how to frighten him. He turned with startled eyes. Then, with the impulse of a man escaping from something which he is not strong enough to face, he reached the door in two quick strides, and went out without looking back. Matilde watched the door, as it closed, and stood still a few seconds before she left the room. Her eyes wandered to the clock, and she saw that it was nearly midnight. The look of triumph faded slowly from her face, and the brows contracted in a look which no one could easily have understood, except Bosio himself, perhaps, had he still been there. The smooth lips were drawn in and tightly compressed; and she held her breath, while her right hand strained upon her left with all her might. Then the lips parted with a sort of little snap as she drew breath again; and she turned her head suddenly, and looked behind her, growing a trifle paler, as though she expected to see something startling. She tried to smile, and roused herself, rang the bell for the servant to put out the lights, and left the room. It was long before she slept that night. In the next room she could hear Gregorio's slow and regular footsteps, as he walked up and down without ceasing. In his own room upstairs, Bosio Macomer sat staring at the ashes of the burnt-out fire on his hearth. Only Veronica was asleep, dreamless, young, and restful. CHAPTER III. Naples, more than any other city of Italy, is full of the violent contrasts which belong to great old cities everywhere, and the absence of which makes new cities dull, be they as well built, as well situated, as civilized and as beautiful as they can be made by art handling nature for the greater glory of modern humanity. In Naples, there is a fashionable new quarter, swept, watered, and garnished with plants and trees, but many of the great palaces stand in old and narrow streets, rising up, grim and solemn and proud, out of the recklessly vital life of one of the worst populaces in the world. Fifty paces away, again, is a wide thoroughfare, perhaps, raging and roaring with traffic from the port. A hundred yards in another direction, and there is a clean, deserted court, into which the midday sun pours itself as into a reservoir of light,--a court with a quiet church and simple old houses, through the doors of which pale-faced ecclesiastics silently come and go. Round the next corner leads a dark lane, between hugely high buildings that press the air and keep out the sun and all sky but a thin ribband of blue. And the air is heavy with all vile things, from the ill-washed linen that hangs, slowly drying, from the upper windows, thrust out into the draught with sticks, to the rotting garbage in the gutters below. The low-arched doors open directly upon the slimy, black pavement; and in the deep shadows within sit strange figures with doughy faces and glassy eyes, breathing in the stench of the nauseous, steamy air,--working a little, perhaps, at some one of the shadowy, back-street trades of a great city, but poisoned to death from birth by the air they live in, diseased of the diseased, from very childhood, and prolific as disease itself, multiplying to fatten death at the next pestilence. And then, again, a vast square, gaudy with coloured handbills, noisy with wheels and the everlasting Neapolitan chattering of a thick-lipped, loud, degenerate dialect. There the little one-horse cabs tear hither and thither, drivers lashing their wretched beasts, wheels whirling, arms gesticulating, bad eyes flashing and leering, thick lips chattering everlastingly: and the tram-cars roll along, crowded till the people cling to one another on the steps; and the small boys dodge in and out between the cars and the carriages and the horses and the foot-passengers, some screaming out papers for sale, some looking for pockets to pick, some hunting for stumps of cigars in the dust,--dirty, ragged, joyous, foul-mouthed, God-forsaken little boys; and then through the midst of all, as a black swan swimming stately through muddy waters, comes a splendid, princely equipage, all in mourning, from the black horses to the heavy veil just raised across a young widow's white face--and so, from contrast to contrast, through the dense city, and down to the teeming port, and out at last to the magic southern sea, where the clean life of the white-sailed ships passes silently, and scarce leaves a momentary wake to mar the pure waters of the tideless bay. But there is life everywhere,--reckless, excessive, and the desire for life as a supreme good, worth living for its own sake--even if it is to be food for the next year's pestilence--a life that can support itself on anything, and thrive in its own fashion in the flashing sun, and the dust and the dirt, and multiply beyond measure and mysteriously fast. Only here and there in the swarm something permanent and fossilized stands solid and unchanging, and divides the flight of the myriad ephemeral lives--a monument, a church, a fortress, a palace: or, perhaps, the figure of some man of sterner race, with grave eyes and strong, thin lips, and manly carriage, looms in the crowd, and by its mere presence seems to send all the rest down a step to a lower level of humanity. Such a man was Taquisara, the Sicilian, of whom the old Duca della Spina had spoken. He had no permanent abode in Naples, but lived in a hotel down by the public gardens, beyond Santa Lucia; and on the day after the Duca had been to see the Countess Macomer, he strolled up as usual, by short cuts and narrow streets, to see his friend Gianluca in the Spina palace, in the upper part of the city. Many people looked at him, as he went by, and some knew him for a Sicilian, by his face, while some took him for a foreigner, and pressed upon him to beg, or made faces and vile gestures at him, as soon as he could not see, after the manner of the lower Neapolitans. But he passed calmly on, supremely indifferent, his handsome, manly face turning neither to the right nor the left. He might have stood for the portrait of a Saracen warrior of the eleventh century, with his high, dark features and keen eyes, his even lips, square jaw, and smooth, tough throat. He had, too, something of the Arabian dignity in his bearing, and he walked with long, well-balanced steps, swiftly, but without haste, as the Arab walks barefooted in the sand, not even suspecting that weariness can ever come upon him; erect, proud, without self-consciousness, elastic; collected and ever ready, in his easy and effortless movement, for sudden and violent action. He was not pale, as dark Italians are, but his skin had the colour and look of fresh light bronze, just chiselled, and able to reflect the sun, while having a light of its own from the strong blood beneath. That was the reason why the Neapolitans who did not chance to have seen Sicilians often, took him for a foreigner and got into his way, holding out their hands to beg, and making ape-like grimaces at him behind his back. But those who knew the type of his race and recognized it, did nothing of that sort. On the contrary, they were careful not to molest him. The friend whom he sought, high up in the city, in a luxurious, sunlit room overlooking the harbour and the wide bay, was as unlike him as one man could be unlike another--white, fair-haired, delicate, with soft blue eyes and silken lashes, and a passive hand that accepted the pressure of Taquisara's rather than returned it--the pale survival of another once conquering race. Gianluca was evidently ill and weak, though few physicians could have defined the cause of his weakness. He moved easily enough when he rose to greet his friend, but there was a mortal languor about him, and an evident reluctance to move again when he had resumed his seat in the sun. He was muffled in a thickly wadded silk coat of a dark colour. His fair, straight hair was brushed away from his thin, bluish temples, and the golden young beard could not conceal the emaciation of his throat when his head leaned against the back of his easy-chair. Taquisara sat down and looked at him, lighted a black cigar and looked again, got up, stirred the fire and then went to the window. "You are worse to-day," he said, looking out. "What has happened?" He turned again, for the answer. "It is all over," said Gianluca. "My father was there last night. She is betrothed to Bosio Macomer." His voice sank low, and his head fell forward a little, so that his chin rested upon his folded hands. Taquisara uttered an exclamation of surprise, and bit the end of his cigar. "She? To marry Bosio Macomer? No--no--I do not believe it." "Ask my father," said Gianluca, without raising his eyes. "Bosio was there, in the room, when they told my father the news." "No doubt," said Taquisara, beginning to walk up and down. "No doubt," he repeated. "But--" He lit his cigar instead of finishing the sentence, and his eyes were thoughtful. "But--what?" asked his friend, dejectedly. "If it had not been true, they would not have said it. It is all over." "Life, you mean? I doubt that. Nothing is over, for nothing is done. They are not married yet, are they?" "No, of course not!" "Then they may never marry." "Who can prevent it? You? I? My father? It is over, I tell you. There is no hope. I will see her once more, and then I shall die. But I must see her once more. You must help me to see her." "Of course," answered Taquisara. "But what strange people you are!" he exclaimed, after a moment's pause. "Who can understand you? You are dying for love of her. That is curious, in the first place. I understand killing for love, but not dying oneself, just by folding one's hands and looking at the stars and repeating her name. Then, you do nothing. You do not say, 'She shall not marry Macomer, because I, I who speak, will prevent it, and get her for myself.' No. Because some one has said that she will marry him, you feel sure that she will, and that ends the question. For the word of a man or a woman, all is to be finished. You are all contemplation, no action--all heart, no hands--all love, no anger! You deserve to die for love. I am sorry that I like you." "You always talk in that way!" said Gianluca, with a wearily sad intonation. "I suppose that life is different in Sicily." "Life is life, everywhere," returned the Sicilian. "If I love a woman, it is not for the pleasure of loving her, nor for the glory of having it written on my tombstone that I have died for her. It is better that some one else should die and that I should have what I want. How does that seem to you? Is it not logic? It is true that I have never loved any woman in that way. But then, I am young, though I am older than you are." "What can I do?" The pale young man smiled sadly and shook his head. "You do not understand our society. I cannot even see her except at a distance, unless they choose to permit it. I cannot write love letters to her, can I? In our world one cannot do such things, and it would be of no use if I could--" "I would," said Taquisara. "I would write. I would see her--I would empty hell and drag Satan out by the hair to help me, if the saints would not. But you! You sit still and die of love. And when you are dead, what will you have? A fine tomb out in the country, and lights, and crowns, and some masses--but you will not get the woman you love. It is not love that consumes you. It is imagination. You imagine that you are going to die, and unless you recover from this, you probably will. With your temperament, the best thing you can do is to come with me to Sicily and forget all about Donna Veronica Serra. No woman would ever look at a man who loves as you do. She might pity you enough to marry you, if no one else presented himself just then; but when she was tired of pitying you she would love some one else. It is not life to be always pitying. That is the business of saints and nuns--not of men and women." Gianluca was hurt by his friend's tone. "You admit that you never were in love," he said; "how can you understand me?" "That is just it! I do not understand you. But if I were you, I would take matters into my own hands. I will wager anything you please that Donna Veronica has never so much as heard that you wish to marry her--" "But they have told her, of course!" interrupted Gianluca. "They have asked her--" "Who told you so?" inquired Taquisara, incredulously. "And if any one has told you, why should you believe it? There are several millions on the one side, which Macomer wishes to possess, and there can be nothing on the other but the word of one of the interested persons. You have met her in the world and exchanged a few words--that has been all--" "I have spoken with her five times," said Gianluca, thoughtfully. "Have you counted?" Taquisara smiled. "Very good--five times--seventeen, if you like--you, sitting on the edge of your chair and opening your eyes wide to see her profile while she was looking at her aunt--you, saying that it was a fine day, or that Tamagno was a great singer; and she, saying 'yes' to everything. And you love her. Well, no doubt. I could love a woman with whom I might never have spoken at all--surely--and why not? But you take it for granted that she knows you love her and expects you to ask for her, and has been told that you have done so and has herself dictated the refusal. You are credulous and despondent, and you are not strong. Besides, you sit here all day long, brooding and doing nothing but expecting to die, and hoping that she will shed a tear when she hears of your untimely end. Is that what you call making love in Naples?" "I have told you that I can do nothing." "It does not follow that there is nothing to be done." "What is there, for instance?" "Go to the Palazzo Macomer and find out the truth yourself. Write to her--take your place before the door and stand there day and night until she sees you and notices you." Taquisara laughed. "Do anything--but do not sit here waiting to die in cotton wool with your feet to the fire and your head in the clouds." "All that is absurd!" answered Gianluca, petulantly. "Is it absurd? Then I will begin by doing it for you, and see what happens." "You?" The younger man turned in surprise. "I. Yes. All the more, as I have nothing to lose. I will go and find Bosio Macomer and talk with him--" "You will insult him," said Gianluca, anxiously. "There will be a quarrel--I know you--and a quarrel about her." "Why should we quarrel?" asked Taquisara. "I will congratulate him on his betrothal. I know him well enough for that, and in the course of conversation something may appear which we do not know. Besides, if I go to the house, I may possibly meet Donna Veronica; if I do, I shall soon know everything, for I will speak to her of you. I know her." "One sees that you are not a Neapolitan," said Gianluca, smiling faintly. "No," answered the other, "I am not." And he laughed with a sort of quiet consciousness of strength which his friend secretly envied. "It is true," he added, "that things look easy to me here, which would be utterly impossible in Palermo. We are different with our women--and we are different when we love. Thank Heaven, for the present--I am as I am." He smiled and relit his cigar, which had gone out. "No," said Gianluca. "You have never been in love, I think." His fair young head leaned back wearily against the chair, and his eyes were half closed as he spoke. "Nor ever shall be, in your way, my friend," answered the Sicilian, rising from his seat. "I suppose it is because we are so different that we have always been such good friends. But then--one need not look for reasons. It is enough that it is so." Again he took the delicate, thin hand in his and pressed it, and went away, much more anxious about Gianluca than he was willing to show. For though he had suspected much of what he now saw, as a possibility, it was a phase too new and startling not to trouble him greatly. It will readily be conceived that if Gianluca had always been the weak and dejected and despairing individual from whom Taquisara parted that morning, there could never have been much friendship between the two. But Gianluca, not in love, had been a very different person. With an extremely delicate organization and a very sensitive nature, he was naturally of a gay and sunny temper. The two had done voluntary military service in the same regiment during more than a year, and their rank, together with the fact that they were both from the south, had in the first place drawn them together. Before long they had become firm friends. In his normal condition Gianluca, though never strong, was brave, frank, and cheerful. Taquisara thought him at times poetic and visionary, but liked the impossible loftiness of his young ideals, because Taquisara himself was naturally attracted by all that looked impossible. Amongst a number of rather gay and thoughtless young men, who jested at everything, Gianluca adhered to his faith openly, and no one thought of laughing at him. He must have possessed something of that wonderful simplicity, together with much of the extraordinary tact, which helped some of the early saints to be what they were--the saints who were beloved rather than those who were persecuted. Not, indeed, that his conduct was always saintly, by any means, nor his life without reproach. But in an existence which ruins many young men forever he preserved an absolutely unaffected admiration for everything good and high and true, and had the rare power of asserting the fact, now and then, without being offensive to others. Taquisara had no desire to imitate him, but was nevertheless very strongly attracted by him, and if Gianluca had ever needed a defender, the Sicilian would have silenced his enemies at the risk of his own life. Gianluca, however, was universally liked, and had never been in need of any such old-fashioned assistance. Since he had been in love with Veronica Serra, he was completely changed, and it was no wonder that his friend was anxious about him. Taquisara, like most men of perfectly healthy mind and body, would have found it hard to believe that Gianluca was merely love-sick, and was literally 'consuming himself,' even to the point of death, in an unrequited passion. It was certainly true, however, that he had lost strength rapidly and without the influence of any illness which could be defined, ever since the negotiations for Veronica's hand had shown signs of coming to an unsatisfactory conclusion. And they had lasted long. Many letters had been exchanged. The old Duca had been several times to the Palazzo Macomer, and the count and countess had found many reasons by which to put off their decision. For Gianluca was a good match, and altogether an exceedingly desirable young man, and the countess had always thought that if she could not marry Veronica to Bosio, it might be wisest to accept Gianluca. He was always in delicate health, Matilda reflected, and he might possibly die and leave his wife still absolute mistress of her fortune, if the marriage contract were cleverly framed with a view to that contingency. But the young man himself had been diffident from the beginning, and at the first hesitation on the other side he had taken it for granted that all was lost. His slight vitality sank instantly under the disappointment, he refused to eat, he could not sleep, and he was in a really dangerous state before ten days had passed. Then he had sent for Taquisara, who visited him daily for nearly a week, encouraging him in every way, until to-day, when the news of the refusal was no more to be denied. It was characteristic of the Sicilian that he at once attempted to interfere with destiny in favour of his friend. He was not a man to lose time when time was precious. His ardent temper loved difficulties, even when they were not his own. Bold, untiring, discreet, and loyal, if there were anything to be done in Gianluca's case, he was the man to do it. Bosio Macomer was somewhat surprised that morning, when his old servant informed him that Taquisara was at the door. He knew him but slightly in the way of acquaintance, though very well by name and reputation, and he wondered what had brought him at that hour. He was inclined to say that he could not receive him, offering as an excuse that he was ill, which was almost true. But he reflected that such a man must have a good reason for wishing to see him. He remembered, too, that the Duca had spoken of him as Gianluca's friend, and in the terrible position in which Bosio himself was placed, it seemed to him possible that one of Gianluca's friends might help him,--how, he had not the power of concentrating his mind enough to guess,--and he ordered the servant to admit him. Bosio had not slept that night. He had spent the six hours between midnight and the December dawn in his easy-chair before the fireplace. Once or twice, towards morning, he had felt sleep creeping upon him through sheer physical exhaustion, but he had fought it off, afraid to lose one of the precious moments which he still had before him in which to think over what he should do. They were few enough, for a man of his nature. He knew the absolute truth of all that Matilde had told him, and he had even suspected much of it before she had first spoken. He knew that his brother had secretly ruined himself in financial speculations, in which he had employed Lamberto Squarci as his agent, and that, with Squarci's assistance, Gregorio had staved off the consequences of his actions by a fraudulent use of Veronica's fortune,--of such part of it as he could control, of course,--absorbing much of the enormous income, and even, from time to time, obtaining the consent of Cardinal Campodonico for the sale of certain lands, on pretence of making more profitable investments. During fully ten years, Gregorio's management of the estate must have been a systematic fraud upon Veronica Serra, carried on with sufficient skill to evade all inquiry from the cardinal. Gregorio's fictitious reputation as a strictly honourable man had helped him, together with the fact that his wife was the ward's own aunt, which was a strong presumption in favour of her honesty as a guardian. Then, too, it was generally believed that Macomer was a miser, and much richer than he allowed any one to suppose. As for the accounts of the estate, they could bear inspection, as Matilde had said, provided that no attempt were made to verify the existence of all the property therein described. The worst of the case was that Squarci had been an accomplice from the beginning, and had doubtless enriched himself while Macomer had lost everything. In the event of a suit brought by the ward against the guardians, it would be in Squarci's power to turn evidence in favour of Veronica, and expose the whole enormous theft; and it would be like him to keep on the side of wealth against ruin. For Veronica was still very rich, in spite of all that had been stolen. There could be little doubt but that in the event of an action, Gregorio and Matilde Macomer would be condemned to penal servitude, as the countess herself anticipated. It was equally certain that if Veronica married any one but Bosio, her husband and his family would demand that the accounts of the estate should be formally audited and the property scheduled; this must ultimately lead to the dreaded prosecution, which could have no possible conclusion but conviction and infamy. Whatever Bosio's true relations with Matilde had been in the course of the last ten years, he had at least loved her faithfully, with the complete devotion of a man who not only loves a woman, but is morally dominated by her in all the circumstances of life. He had not the character which seeks ideals, and he asked for none. Matilde's beauty and conversation had sufficed him, for in his opinion he had never known any one to be compared with her; and on her side she had been strong enough to make a slave of him from the first. To the extent of his weak character and considerable physical courage, there was no sacrifice which Bosio would not have been ready to make for her, and few dangers which he would not at least have attempted to face for her sake. But where all moral sense of right and all natural action of conscience were gone, there remained in the man an inheritance of traditional feeling, which even Matilde's influence could not make him wittingly violate any further,--a remnant of honour, a thread, as it were, by which his soul was still held above the level of total destruction. There was nothing, perhaps, involving himself alone, which he would have refused to do for Matilde's sake, under the pressure of her strong will. But what she required of him now was more than that, and worse. After a night of thought, he still felt that he could not do it. Of course, there was the possibility that Veronica herself might absolutely refuse to marry him, and thus save his weakness from the necessity of trying to be strong. But Bosio thought this improbable. The fatherless and motherless girl had been purposely kept from all outside influences by Gregorio and Matilde, in order that they might control her disposition for their own interests. She had been taught to expect that in due time they would select a husband for her from the men who might offer themselves, and that it would be more or less her duty to accept their decision, as being really the best for her own happiness. They had hindered her from forming friendships with girls of her own age, and altogether from acquaintanceship with young married women, excepting Bianca Corleone, who had been her friend in the convent. In society, when she went with them, men were introduced to her very rarely. Bosio had been present once or twice on such occasions, and he remembered having seen her with Gianluca. It had been very much as Taquisara had described it to Gianluca himself--a mere exchange of a few words, while the girl watched her aunt almost all the time with a sort of childish fear of doing something not quite right. Veronica could not be said to know any man to the extent of exchanging ideas with him, except her uncle and Bosio himself. And she liked Bosio very much. It was not at all improbable, considering all the circumstances, that she might be delighted with the idea of marrying him, merely because she liked him, and he was familiar in her daily life. Bosio knew that Matilde would speak to her about it at once; and when he tried to think what he should do if Veronica readily accepted the proposition, the pain in his head grew intolerable, and he found it impossible to think connectedly. The horrible dishonour of it stared him in the face--and beyond the dishonour, still more fearfully imposing, rose the vision of sure disgrace and infamy for the woman he loved, if he himself refused to do this vile deed. He looked ill, worn out with mental distress and physical exhaustion, when Taquisara entered the room, and the servant closed the door. The Sicilian came forward, and Bosio rose to meet him, still wondering why he had come, but far too much disturbed by his own troubles to care. Nevertheless, he supposed that the matter must be of some importance. Taquisara was surprised by his appearance, for he was evidently suffering. "I ought almost to ask you to excuse me for having received you, in my condition," said Bosio, politely. "I have a violent headache. But I am wholly at your service. In what can I be of use to you?" Taquisara found himself in an awkward position. He had expected to find Bosio Macomer radiant and ready to be congratulated by any one who chose to knock at his door. Instead, he found a man apparently both ill and distressed. He hesitated a moment, for he knew Bosio but slightly, after all. "I do not know whether you will think it strange that I should come," he said, and his square face grew more square as he looked straight at Bosio. "I am Gianluca della Spina's best friend." "Ah! Yes--I think I have heard so," answered Bosio, not startled, but considerably disturbed, as his gentle eyes met Taquisara's bold glance. "I have come, as a friend, to ask whether it is really true that you are to marry Donna Veronica Serra," continued Taquisara, feeling that after all he might as well go straight to the point. Bosio straightened himself a little in his chair, and there was a look of surprise in his face. But he hesitated an instant, in his turn. "That was the answer which my brother and his wife gave to the Duca della Spina," he replied coldly. "Yes," said Taquisara. "I know it was. That is the reason why I have come to you, directly, as Gianluca's friend." "Does Don Gianluca propose to call me out, because he cannot marry Donna Veronica?" asked Bosio, in surprise, and in a tone which showed that he was already offended. "No. He is very ill, and in no condition for that sort of amusement." "I am sorry to hear it," said Bosio, with cold civility. "But you come to represent him, in some way. Do I understand?" "He is ill--of love, as they say." Taquisara smiled at the idea, in spite of himself. "It is serious, at all events--so serious, that I have come in person to ask whether it is really true that you are betrothed to Donna Veronica, in order that I may take him the truth as I hear it from your lips. I daresay you think me indiscreet, Count Macomer, for I am only slightly acquainted with you. But I am sincerely devoted to Gianluca, and if you were a total stranger to me, I should come to you as I have come now." "And if I refuse to answer your question, Baron Taquisara--what then?" "As the answer--yes or no--cannot possibly involve anything in the slightest degree indelicate, I shall of course infer that you have no answer to give, and that the matter is not yet really settled." Bosio's eyebrows contracted spasmodically, and his white hand stroked his silky beard, while his eyes turned quickly from his guest and looked down at the carpet. In two passes, as though they had been fencing together, this singularly direct man had thrust him to the wall, and was forcing him to make a decision. Of course it was still in his power to answer in one way or the other, though he was yet undecided. But he honestly could not bring himself to say that he would marry Veronica, and yet, if he denied that he was betrothed to her, he must put his brother and Matilde in the position of having told a deliberate lie to Gianluca's father. He felt that he was growing confused, and that his hesitation and confusion were every moment making it clearer to Taquisara that the betrothal was by no means as yet a fact. He tried to temporize. "It depends upon what you understand by an engagement," he said. "With us, here in Naples, the betrothal means the signing of the marriage contract. Now, the contract has not even been discussed. I think that my brother's announcement was premature, though it was perhaps justifiable, as he wished to discourage any false expectations on the part of Don Gianluca." "I am not a diplomatist," answered the Sicilian. "The statement was categorical--that you were betrothed to Donna Veronica. For the sake of my friend, I am indiscreet enough to wish to hear the confirmation of the statement from your own lips, without in the least questioning the right of the Count Macomer to make it last night. Gianluca is honestly and very deeply in love. The happiness of his whole life is involved. With his delicate constitution and sensitive temper, I believe that his life itself is in danger. You will be doing him an honourable kindness in letting him know the truth, through me." "I will," said Bosio, absently, "I will--as soon as--" He checked himself and glanced nervously at Taquisara. "As soon as you yourself have decided," said the latter, quietly. "I think I understand. Your brother and the countess feel quite sure of the fact, as though it had already taken place, but for some reason which does not concern me, you yourself are not so certain of the result. To be plain, there is still a possibility that the marriage may not take place. I need not tell you that in speaking to Gianluca I shall be very careful not to raise any false hopes in his mind. But I am exceedingly indebted to you for being so honourably frank with me." Taquisara repressed a smile at his own words as he rose from his seat, for he was very far from wishing to offend Bosio. The latter rose, too, and looked at him with a dazed, uncertain expression, like a man not quite sure of being in his senses. He put out his hand mechanically, without speaking, and a moment later he was alone with the horror of his desperate difficulty. The Sicilian descended the stairs slowly, and paused to look out of one of the big windows at a landing, which offered nothing in the way of a view but an almost blank wall on the other side of the narrow street. He did not know what to do next, and yet, being eminently a man of action, rather than of reflexion, he knew that he must do more to satisfy himself, for his suspicions were aroused. He had expected to find Bosio jubilant. From what he had seen, he had understood well enough that there was some mysterious trouble. He could not hope to extort any information from Macomer or his wife, and he had no means of reaching Veronica, nor could he have asked direct questions if he had succeeded in seeing her. Suddenly, he thought of the young Princess Corleone, whom he knew tolerably well, Corleone being a Sicilian like himself. She was Veronica's only intimate friend. She was the niece of Cardinal Campodonico, one of Veronica's guardians. If any one knew the truth, she might be expected to know it. Taquisara looked at his watch, lit a cigar, and left the gloomy Palazzo Macomer, glad to be outside and to turn his face to the sunshine, and his back upon all the wickedness of which its old walls kept the secret. CHAPTER IV. The villas along the shore towards Posilippo face the sun all day in winter, for they look due south from the water's edge, and their marble steps lead down into the tideless sea, as though it were a landlocked lagoon or a Swiss lake. In winter the roses blossom amongst the laurels, and before the rose leaves are all fallen the violets peep out in the borders; the broad, fan-like palms stand unsheltered in the south wind, and the oranges and lemons are left hanging on the trees for beauty's sake. There are but two changes in the year, from spring to summer, and from summer back to spring. It is sometimes cold in Naples, high up in the city, when the northeast wind comes screaming from the snowy Abruzzi, and when Vesuvius is clad in white almost to the lower villages. In Naples it is sometimes dreary when the water-laden southwest sends up its mountains of black clouds. But somehow in soft Posilippo the wind is tempered and the rain seems but a shower, and spring and summer, summer and spring, ever join hands amongst the ilexes and the laurels and the orange trees. On this day it was all summer, for there was not a cloud in the air nor a whitecap on the sea as the water gently lapped against the steps at the foot of Bianca Corleone's garden. It was so warm that she was sitting there herself, a book unread on her knees, her marvellous face towards the day, her small feet resting on the lower rail of another chair before her, just because the gravel might possibly be damp. Beside her, and turned towards her, looking earnestly to her averted eyes, sat Pietro Ghisleri, the man who many years afterwards married Lady Herbert Arden, of whom many have heard,--a man young at that time and not world-worn as he was later, nor prematurely gaunt and weather-beaten. He was only five-and-twenty years of age, then, and the beautiful Bianca was but twenty-one, and had already been married two years to Corleone. But the suffering of a lifetime had been crushed into those two years; for Corleone was bad, from his head to his heart, all through, and she had believed that she loved him. Then, half broken-hearted, she had listened to Ghisleri; and he loved her truly, with all his heart. Even society found little to say at that, and perhaps there was little enough to be said. To all intents and purposes, Corleone had abandoned her, and Ghisleri was often with her. It was not until later that her brother, Gianforte Campodonico, lifted up his hand against Ghisleri for the first time. So Ghisleri was sitting beside Bianca on that morning, in her garden, when there was a sound of wheels, behind the house; and then, unannounced, as one familiar with the place, Veronica Serra came swiftly down the walk towards the pair. Ghisleri rose to his feet,--a tall, fair man, sunburnt, lean and strong, with bright blue eyes,--and Bianca turned in her chair, with a smile, and held out her hand, as she sat, to the young girl. "You do not mind?" asked Veronica, smiling innocently. "Am I not interrupting you?" "No, dear--no." A very faint dawn of colour rose in Bianca's almost unnatural pallor. "Something so strange has happened," said Veronica. Then she nodded to Pietro Ghisleri, realizing that she had forgotten him. He moved forward for her the chair on which he had been sitting, while he continued to stand. Veronica had often met him there before. "Donna Veronica has something to say to you," he said to Bianca. "If you will allow me, I will go up to the stable and look at that dog." Bianca nodded, as though it were a matter of course that Pietro should look after her dogs when there was anything the matter with them, and Veronica sat down. Her expression was strange, Bianca thought, as though she did not know whether to laugh or cry. Yet she looked fresh and well and not tired. The girl told her story in half a dozen words, as soon as Ghisleri was out of hearing. "They want me to marry Bosio," she said, and then drew breath, holding both of Bianca's hands and looking into her eyes. "You? Marry Bosio Macomer? Oh! no--Veronica--no!" Bianca's voice expressed the greatest apprehension, for Veronica was almost her only intimate friend. Veronica seemed surprised. "Why not?" she asked. "That is, if I wished to. Why do you speak in that way? Do you know anything about him which I do not know? You must have some reason." Bianca's exquisite face grew calm and grave, and she looked away, and waited some seconds before she spoke. The sins of the earth were familiar to her before her time, and suffering and the payment. But Veronica was a child. "It seems unfitting," she said quietly. "He is almost like your uncle. Of course, one may marry one's uncle--but he is too old for you, dear. And, after all, with your name, and all you have--" "But I like Bosio," answered Veronica, simply. "He is always good to me. I talk with him a great deal. And he is really not old, though his hair is a little grey. I think I would perhaps rather have him just for a friend, instead of a husband. But then, he would be both. I do not know what to do, so I came to you for advice." "Why do you not marry Gianluca della Spina?" asked Bianca, suddenly. "Don Gianluca?" repeated Veronica, rather blankly. "Why him, particularly? I have only seen him three or four times." "He is dying of love for you, my dear," said Bianca. "At least, every one says so. I have heard it from Taquisara and from Signor Ghisleri, who are friends of his." "Dying of love for me?" Veronica broke out in a girlish laugh. "How absurd! Why does he not ask for me, if that is true? Not that I would ever marry him! He is like a Perugino angel, with his yellow hair and blue eyes." She laughed again. Bianca knew from Ghisleri that Gianluca's father had done his best to bring about the marriage. She was amazed to find that Veronica knew nothing of the negotiations. "It is very strange," she said thoughtfully, and hesitating as to how much she should tell of what she had heard. "What is strange?" asked the young girl. "That you should not have known about Gianluca. They go to see him every day. He is really madly in love with you, and is positively ill about it. That is why I say that you should marry him, if you marry at all--but not your uncle Bosio." "He is not my uncle," said Veronica. "He is my aunt's brother-in-law." "It is the same thing--" "No. It is not the same. Tell me all about Don Gianluca. It is interesting--I feel like a heroine in a book--a man dying for love of me, whom I scarcely know! It is too ridiculous! He must be in love with my fortune, as my aunt says that so many people are." "No, dear," said Bianca, gravely, "do not say that. It is for yourself, and he does not need your fortune." "I did not mean to say anything unkind," answered Veronica. "But I scarcely know him--and I have heard nothing about it. Have they spoken of the marriage?" "Yes." They were interrupted by a servant, who came quickly down from the house. The man asked if the princess would receive Baron Taquisara. Bianca ordered him to be admitted, and told the man to ask Ghisleri to come back from the stables. "Do you know Taquisara?" she asked Veronica. "A Sicilian? With a bronze face and fiery eyes? I have seen him once or twice at balls, I think. Yes--he was introduced to me somewhere. I remember him because they say he is descended from Tancred." "Yes," said Bianca. "I could not refuse to receive him, because Signor Ghisleri is here. They will both go away before long, and then we can talk. Can you stay to breakfast with me?" "Oh, no! I should not dare to do that!" Veronica laughed a little. "No one knows where I am," she added. "My aunt thinks I have gone for a drive to think over the matter. I just pulled down the curtain of the brougham and told the man to bring me here--all alone." At this moment Taquisara and Ghisleri appeared on the gravel path, walking side by side, two men strongly contrasted with each other, Italians of the Lombard and the Saracen types, fine specimens both, in the prime of youth and strength. Bianca gave the Sicilian her hand, and he bowed gravely to Veronica. Ghisleri brought out more chairs, and without the slightest hesitation sat down beside Bianca, forcing Taquisara to place himself near the young girl. Taquisara was a man almost incapable of anything like social timidity, in whatever position he might be placed, and he was in reality delighted at thus being thrust upon Donna Veronica, from whom he felt sure that he should learn something about the projected marriage. For he had great and unaffected confidence in himself. But he hesitated a moment before he spoke, for he did not now remember that he had ever before entered intentionally into a serious conversation with a young girl, in the whole course of his life. The customs of the society in which he lived made such things well-nigh impossible. As usual with him, he meditated going straight to the matter in hand, and he only paused to consider what words he should use. Veronica, as she had been taught to do in such a position, looked vacantly before her at the roots of the trees, waiting for him to say something. He had not seen her, except from a distance, since Gianluca had fallen so madly in love with her, and while she looked away from him, his bold eyes scrutinized her face. He saw what she had seen, when she had looked into the glass on the previous evening--neither more nor less, except that she was dressed for walking, and something feathery was around her slender throat--and she wore a hat, which, in her own opinion, changed her appearance very much. But, as he looked, he was aware that there was more in her face than he had supposed. There was something in the expression which was, all at once, far more beautiful to him, than anything he had ever discovered in the sad and faultless features of the already famous beauty who sat beside her. Unconsciously, as he realized it, he forgot that he was expected to speak. Then, wondering at his silence, and conscious of his gaze, Veronica turned her face to his, with a shy look of girlish inquiry, and their eyes met. Taquisara was too dark to blush, but to his own surprise he felt that the blood had mounted in his face, and in Veronica's own thin, young cheeks there was a faint and lovely tinge which lasted but a moment and then faded, coming again more strongly as she turned her eyes away. Then he felt that he must speak. Ghisleri and Bianca, on the other side, had begun at once to talk, and their voices, unknown to themselves, had sunk to a low key. "I am very glad I have met you here, this morning, Donna Veronica," said Taquisara, leaning forward so as to speak close to her, but looking down at the gravel under his feet. "I had something especial to say to you." Veronica glanced at him, half startled. His tone and manner were quite different from anything she had hitherto heard and seen. She saw that he was not looking at her, and her eyes went back to the roots of the trees. "Yes," she said, almost inaudibly, for she did not know whether he expected her to say anything. "I have a very good friend, Donna Veronica," he continued; "I have been with him this morning. You have heard his name often of late, I think, and you know him--Gianluca della Spina." Veronica started a little, and again the colour came and went in her delicate face. "Yes," she said. "I--I know him a little." "He loves you, Donna Veronica," Taquisara said, his voice softening almost to a whisper, for he did not wish Bianca Corleone to hear him. "He loves you so much that he is almost dangerously ill--indeed, I think it is dangerous--because you will not marry him." He paused to see what she would do. She quickly turned her startled eyes to him, and her lips parted, but she said nothing. He raised his face and met her look as he went on. "Last night, his father was at your house, and he was told that there was no hope, because you were betrothed to Count Bosio Macomer." "They told him that?" asked Veronica, quickly, and the colour mounted a third time in her cheeks. "But it is not true!" she added; and her eyes set themselves sharply, for she was angry. "No," said Taquisara, "I know that it is not quite true, for I have been to see Count Bosio. I was there half an hour ago." "You have quarrelled?" asked Veronica, in sudden anxiety. "Quarrelled? no. Why should we quarrel? He gave me to understand that nothing was settled. I thanked him, and came away. I did not hope to see you; but I knew that the Princess Corleone was your best friend, as I am Gianluca's. I thought I would speak to her. Since, by a miracle, we have met, I have spoken directly to you. Do you forgive me? I hope so, though I daresay that no mere acquaintance has ever talked as I am talking. If you blame me, remember that it is for Gianluca, that he is my friend, that he knows nothing of my speaking to you, since you and I have met by chance, and that he is perhaps dying--dying for you, Donna Veronica." The girl's face was white and grave now, for Taquisara spoke in earnest. "How dreadful!" she exclaimed. Bianca turned her head, for she was not so much absorbed in her conversation with Ghisleri as not to have noticed that Veronica and Taquisara were speaking almost in whispers, which was strange conduct for a young girl with a mere acquaintance, to say the least of it. "What is so dreadful?" she asked, with a smile. "Oh!--nothing," answered Veronica, glancing at her, and turning back instantly to Taquisara. A shade of annoyance was in his face, and Veronica felt suddenly that this was the first real crisis in her life, and that she must hear all he had to say, to the end, at any cost of propriety. "Come!" she said to Taquisara. She rose as calmly as a married woman, many years older than she, might have done, and Taquisara was on his feet at the same moment. She led the way down to the marble steps that descended to the sea, and stood on the uppermost one, looking out. Bianca and Ghisleri watched her in surprise and Bianca made a slight movement, as though to follow, but then leaned back again. There was then, and still is, a very strong feeling in Southern Italy against allowing a young girl to be out of earshot with a man. Though Bianca and Veronica had been children, together, and there was little difference of age between them, Bianca felt that, as the married woman, she was responsible for the observance of social custom. But in a moment she realized that Taquisara was talking of Gianluca, and that anything would be better than to allow Veronica to marry Bosio Macomer. "I understand," she said to Ghisleri; "let them alone. It is better, so long as only you and I see it." Down by the steps, Veronica stood very still, looking out over the blue water, and Taquisara was beside her. She waited for him to speak again, sure that he had not said all. "Such things seem improbable in these days," he said quietly. "You say that it is dreadful. It is. I have seen it, and have been with him day after day. I am not very sensitive, as a rule, but I have had a strange impression which I shall never forget. Gianluca and I met when we were serving our time as volunteers. He was unlike the rest of us, even then. That was why we became friends--because he was unlike me, I suppose." "Unlike--in what way?" asked Veronica, still looking at the sea. "It is hard to explain. He is a man of ideals, a religious man, a good man." Taquisara smiled gravely. "That was enough to make him quite different from us all, was it not?" "I do not know," said the young girl. "Are all men bad, as a rule?" "Perhaps," answered the Sicilian, shortly. "At all events, Gianluca was not. One saw that all the little that was bad in his life was only a jest, while all the much that was good was real and true." "You are indeed his friend," said Veronica, softly. She was struck by the beauty of what the man had said so plainly and unaffectedly. "Yes, I am his friend," replied Taquisara. "One of his friends, say,--for he has many. I am his friend as you are the friend of Donna Bianca. You understand that, do you not? And you understand that there is nothing you would not do for a friend? Not out of mere obligation, because your friend has done much for you, but just for friendship--love, if you choose to call it so. I have heard people speak eloquently of friendship--so have you perhaps. And we both understand what it means, though many do not. That is why I speak as I do, and if I do not speak well, you must forgive me, and feel the meaning I cannot express to your ears. Gianluca loves you, Donna Veronica, as men very rarely love women, so immensely, so strongly, that his love is burning up his life in him--and it has all been kept from you for some reason or other, while your relations are doing their best to make you marry Bosio Macomer, who can no more be compared with Gianluca della Spina than--" He checked himself, for he felt that his tone was contemptuous, and remembered that Veronica might perhaps like Bosio. She was listening, her eyes fixed on the distance, her mind wide open to the new experience of life which had come so unexpectedly. "He cannot be compared with Gianluca," continued Taquisara, modifying his sentence and omitting whatever simile had presented itself in his thoughts. "If you knew Gianluca, you would understand. It is because I know him well that I speak for him, that I implore you, pray you, beseech you, to see him before you consent to marry Count Bosio--" "To see him!" exclaimed Veronica, startled at the sudden proposition, which was a blow to every tradition she had ever learned. But the Sicilian was not a man to hesitate at trifles where women were concerned, nor men either. "Yes--to see him!" he answered with a certain vehemence. "Is it a sin? Is it a crime? Is it dishonourable? Why should you cry out? What is society that it should take you young girls by the throat, like martyrs, and chain you with proprieties to the stake of its rigid law--to be burnt to death afterwards by slow fire, like your best friend there, Donna Bianca? Ah--you understand that. You know her life, and I know it too. It is the life--or the death--to which you may look forward if you will neither open your eyes to see, nor raise your hand to guard yourself. And you cry out in outraged horror at the idea of seeing Gianluca della Spina here, in this garden, by these steps, under God's sunlight, as you see me here to-day by accident. It seems to you--what shall I say?--unladylike!" Taquisara laughed scornfully. "What does it matter whether you are unladylike or not, so long as you are womanly, and kind, and brave? I am telling you truths you have never heard, but you have a woman's right to hear them, whatever you may think of me. And I speak for another. I have the holy right to say for him, for his life, for his happiness, all that I would not say for myself, perhaps. And I do say, what is to prevent Gianluca from being here to-morrow, or this very afternoon, as I am here now, and why should it be such a dreadful thing for you to come here, knowing that you will meet him? Do you think that he would not give the last drop of his blood, at one word from your lips, to save you from trouble, or danger, or insult? Do you think, if he knew how I am speaking to you--speaking roughly, perhaps, because I am rough--he would not turn upon me, his friend, who am fighting for his life, and quarrel with me, and disown me, because my roughness comes near you and may offend you? You do not know him. How should you? But because you do not know him and cannot guess how he loves you, do not throw his life away without seeing it, without understanding what you despise, and learning that it is far above your contempt--a noble life, an honest life, a true-hearted young life, which may be lived out for you only--and, for you, I think it would be worth living." Taquisara was a man who could be in earnest for his friend, and there was a strong vibration in his low voice which few could have heard with indifference. While he was speaking and forcing the appeal of his honest black eyes upon Veronica's face, she could not help slowly turning to meet them, and her lips parted a little as though in wonder, while she drank in eagerly the words he spoke. It was the first time in her life that she had ever heard a man speak to her of love, and, in his rough eloquence, he spoke well and strongly, though it was not for himself. In his own cause, the words might not have come so readily, but they were not now the less evidently sincere, because they were many. She was glad that she had boldly risen, and left Bianca's side, in order to hear him. But when he paused, she scarcely knew what to answer. She wanted to hear more. It was as though a dawn were rising, high and clear, in the dim country through which childhood had led her, and she longed suddenly for the full light of broad day. "Indeed, you speak as though you loved him," she said. "Yes, but I am trying to tell you how he loves you, and I cannot, though I know it all. You must hear it for yourself, you must see him, you must know him--" "But it is impossible--" Veronica's protest broke off rather weakly in the middle. "It is impossible that you should be here to-morrow at this hour? Perhaps--I do not know. But to-morrow at this hour Gianluca will be here, though he has not been able to leave the house for a week; and if you come, all the impossibility is gone. It is as simple as that--" "That is an appointment--with a man--" Again the blood rushed to the young girl's face but this time it was genuine shame of doing a thing which she had been taught to think the most dreadful in the whole world. "An appointment!" Taquisara laughed contemptuously. "Do you not come often to see the Princess Corleone? You will come again. And Gianluca will come often, too--and if you chance to meet to-morrow, it will be an accident of fate, that is all, as you chanced to see me here to-day. You cannot forbid him to come here. You cannot, without a reason, ask Donna Bianca to refuse to receive him--" "Oh!--if she ever guessed--" Veronica checked herself, still blushing, but Taquisara was too sincerely in earnest to smile at the slip she had made. "That is all," he said. "There is neither appointment, nor engagement, nor anything but the possibility of a meeting which you cannot be sure of avoiding, unless you never come to see your friend, or unless you give her some unjust reason for not letting him come, in case he calls. There is nothing but chance. How can I tell whether you will come to-morrow, or not? I shall perhaps never know, for I shall not come with him. I have been here to-day--what excuse could I give for calling again to-morrow? Donna Bianca would think it strange. I can hope, for his sake. I can tell you that no woman has the right to throw away such love as his, to ruin such a life as his, to break such a heart without a thought and without so much as hearing the man speak--whatever this wretched society in which we live may say about proprieties and rights and wrongs, and the difference between the proper behaviour for young girls and married women. This is God's earth, Donna Veronica--not society's!" Veronica said nothing; but there was perplexity in her face, and she looked down, and pulled at one finger of her glove. She was wondering whether, if she came on the next day, and stood with Gianluca della Spina on that very spot, he would speak for himself as strongly and well as his friend had been speaking for him. Somehow, she doubted it, and somehow, too, she knew that if by magic Taquisara should all at once turn out to be the real Gianluca,--not the Gianluca she knew,--she should be better satisfied with the world. For as things seemed just then, she was not satisfied at all, and the future was more dim and uncertain than ever. Still she looked down, thinking, and Taquisara glanced at her occasionally, and respected her silence. "You do not know Bosio Macomer," she said, at last. "Or you know him little. If you chanced to be his friend, instead of Don Gianluca's, you could speak as eloquently for him." "I think not," answered Taquisara. And his lip curled a little, though she did not see the expression. "Why not? You do not know him. How can you tell? A little while ago, you said that he was not to be compared to your friend. How can you be so sure? Everything is not written in men's faces." "I judge as I can, from what I see and know." "So do I." "From seeing and knowing the one and not the other. That is it. All I ask is that you will wait until you know both, before you make up your mind--a week--no more, if you can spare no more. It is not for me to tell you what your rights are, that you are not in the position of the average young girl, just from the convent, who accepts the choice her father and mother make for her--because, perhaps, she may never have another; and, at all events, because she cannot choose. You have the world to choose from, and--forgive me for saying it--you have no one to choose for you but those who are interested in the choice. May I speak?" She hesitated, and their eyes met for a moment. "Yes," she said suddenly. "Count Bosio may be the best of men. I do not know. But he is the middle-aged, younger brother of Count Macomer, with a very slender fortune of his own and a position no better than the rest of us. If he marries you, he becomes Prince of Acireale, a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, a Grandee of Spain of the First Class--and many times a millionnaire. For you have all that to give the man you marry. Grant that he is the best of men. Is his brother wholly disinterested? I speak plainly. It is rumoured that Count Macomer has lost most of his fortune in speculations. I do not know whether that is true. Even if it is not, what was all his fortune compared to what it would mean to him if his brother held yours?" "My uncle never speculated in his life!" answered Veronica, rather indignantly. "Grant that. The other side remains. And the countess? Is she wholly disinterested? Has she been disappointed by the marriage she made, or not? She was born a Serra, like yourself, and she married Macomer in the days of the old court, when he was a favourite with the old king and had a brilliant position, and people said that he might be one of the first men in the kingdom. But Garibaldi swept all that away, and Macomer's chances with it, and the countess is a disappointed woman, for her husband has remained just what he always was--plain Count Macomer, with his name and his palace, neither of them extraordinary. Truly, Donna Veronica, though you may refuse to speak to me again for what I say, I will dare to tell you that you must be very unsuspicious! They conceal from you the honourable offer of such a man as Gianluca della Spina, the eldest son of a great old house, and they announce your betrothal with Count Bosio before either you or he know of it. One need not be very distrustful to think all that strange--even granting that Count Bosio is the best of men, a matter of which you are a judge." "I would rather that you should not say those things to me," said Veronica, a little pale, and turning half round as though she would go back to Bianca and Ghisleri. "Forgive me--for I have risked such opinion of me as you may have, to say them. There may be reasonable doubt about them. But of the rest--there is no doubt. There is a man's life in it, and death is beyond doubts, and a love that can take a man and tear him and hurt him until he dies has a right to a woman's hearing--and to her charity--before she throws it away. I ask no forgiveness of you for saying that. Gianluca will come to-morrow at this time, and he will come again until he sees you. I have kept you too long, Donna Veronica, and you have been kind in listening to me. If you need service in your life, use mine." She said nothing, but gravely inclined her head a little when she had once more looked into his eyes, before she turned towards Bianca and walked slowly up the short, broad path by his side. CHAPTER V. Bosio felt that if he remained in his room alone with the horror of his position, he should go mad before night. He was weakly resolved not to marry Veronica, but he knew and for the first time dreaded the power Matilde had over his thoughts as well as his actions. He felt that if he could avoid her, he could still cling to the remnant of honour, but that she would tear it from him if she could and cast it to the winds. The whole card-house of his ill-founded life was trembling under the breath of fate, and its near fall seemed to threaten its existence. He went out and walked slowly through sunny, unfrequented places, high up in the city, trying to shake off the chill of his fear as a man hopes to rid himself of an ague by sitting in the sun. But the chill was in his heart, and it was his soul that shivered. He weakly wished that he were wholly bad, that he might feel less. Then, in true Italian humour, he tried to think of something which might divert his thoughts from the duty of facing their own terrible perplexity. If it had been evening, he would have strolled into the theatre; had it been already afternoon, he would have had himself driven out along the public garden towards Posilippo, to see the faces of his friends go by. But it was morning. There was nothing but the club, and he cared little for the men he might meet there. There was nothing to do, and his eyes did not help him to forget his troubles. He wandered on through ways broad and narrow, climbing up one steep lane and descending again by the next, hardly aware of direction and not noticing whether he went east or west, north or south, up or down. At last, at a corner, he chanced to read the name of a street. It was familiar enough to him, as a Neapolitan, but just now it reminded him of something which might possibly help to distract his attention. He stopped and got out his pocket-book, and found in it a card, glanced at the address on it, and then once more at the name of the street. Then he went on till he came to the right number, entered a gloomy doorway, black with dampness and foul air, ascended four flights of dark stone steps, and stopped before a small brown door. The card nailed upon it was like the one he had in his pocket-book. The name was 'Giuditta Astarita,' and under it, in another character, was printed the word 'Somnambulist.' There was nothing at all unnatural in the name or the profession, in Naples, where somnambulists are plentiful enough. And the name itself was a Neapolitan one, and by no means uncommon. The card, however, was white and clean, which argued either that Giuditta Astarita had not long been a professional clairvoyante, or else that she had recently changed her lodgings. Bosio knew nothing about her, except that she had suddenly acquired an extraordinary reputation as a seer, and that many people in society had lately visited her, and had come away full of extraordinary stories about her power. He rang the little tinkling bell, which was answered by a very respectably dressed woman servant with only one eye,--a fact which Bosio noticed because it was the blind side of her face which first appeared as the door opened. The Signora Giuditta Astarita was at home, and there was no other visitor. Bosio, without giving his name, was ushered into a small sitting-room, of which the only window opened upon a narrow court opposite a blank wall. The furniture was scant and stiff, and such of it as was upholstered was covered with a cheap cotton corded material of a spurious wine colour. There were small square antimacassars on the chairs, and two of them, side by side, on the back of the sofa. The single window had heavy curtains, now drawn aside, but evidently capable of shutting out all light. A solid, square, walnut table stood before the sofa, without any table-cloth, and upon it were arranged half a dozen large books, bound with a good deal of gilding, and which looked as though they had never been opened. Bosio was standing before the window, looking out at the blank wall, when he heard some one enter the room and softly close the door. Giuditta Astarita came forward as he turned round. He saw a heavy, phlegmatic woman, still very young, though abnormally stout, with an unhealthy face, thin black hair and large weak eyes of a light china blue. Her lips were parted in a sort of chronic sad smile, which showed uneven and discoloured teeth. She wore a long trailing garment of heavy black silk, not gathered to the figure at the waist, but loose from the shoulders down, and buttoned from throat to feet in front, with small buttons, like a cassock. From one of the upper buttonholes dangled a thin gold chain, supporting a bunch of small charms against the evil eye, a little coral horn, a tiny silver hunchback, a miniature gilt bell, and two or three coins of gold and silver, besides an Egyptian scarabee in a gold setting. The woman remained standing before Bosio. "You wish to consult me, Signore?" she inquired, in a professional tone, through the chronic smile, as it were. Her voice was very hoarse. Bosio bowed gravely, whereupon she pointed to a chair for him, drew another into position for herself, opposite his, and at some distance from it, and then fumbled in the curtains for the cord that pulled them. "If you will sit down," she said, "I will darken the room." Bosio seated himself, and in a moment the light was shut out as the heavy curtains ran together. Then he heard the rustle of the woman's silk dress as she sat down opposite to him in the dark. He felt unaccountably nervous, and her china blue eyes had made a disagreeable impression upon him. He expected something to happen. "I see a name over your head," said a clear, bell-like voice, certainly not Giuditta Astarita's. "It is Veronica." Bosio started uneasily, though like most Neapolitans, he had visited somnambulists more than once. "Who is speaking?" he asked quickly. "It is the spirit," said the woman's hoarse tones. "That is his voice. Is there such a person as Veronica in your life? Is it about her that you wish to consult the spirits?" "Yes," said the spirit voice, before Bosio could answer. "You are afraid that they will murder her, if you do not marry her--or if she will not marry you." Bosio uttered a loud exclamation of alarm and astonishment, for this was altogether beyond anything in his experience. "Is it so?" asked Giuditta Astarita. "Yes. It is true," said Bosio, in uncertain tones. "And I wish to know--whether--" he stopped. "Whether the grey-faced man and the handsome woman whose eyes are near together will really kill her?" asked the spirit voice. Bosio felt his soft hair rising on his head. "Do you know who I am?" he asked nervously. "No," replied the voice of Giuditta. "The spirits know everything, but I do not. They only speak through me with another voice. I do not know what they are going to say. You need have no apprehension. This is more sacred than the confessional, Signore, more secret than the tomb." The phrase sounded as though it had been carefully studied and often repeated, but the dramatic tone in which it was uttered produced a certain reassuring effect upon Bosio, in his half-frightened state. "Do you wish to tell whether they will really kill Veronica?" inquired Giuditta. "If you have any question to ask, you must put it quickly. I cannot keep the spirits waiting. They exhaust me when they are impatient." "What shall I do to avoid marrying her?" asked Bosio, suddenly springing to the main point of his doubts. "The handsome woman whose eyes are near together will make you marry Veronica," said the spirit voice. "But if I refuse? If I say that I will not? What then? Is her life really in danger?" "Yes. They wish to kill her to get her money. The handsome woman has her will leaving her everything if she dies." "But will they really kill her?" insisted Bosio, half breathless in his fear and nervous excitement. The spirit voice did not answer. In the silence Bosio heard Giuditta Astarita's breathing opposite to him. "Will they really kill her?" he asked again. Still there was silence, and Bosio held his breath. Then Giuditta spoke hoarsely. "The spirit is gone," she said. "He will not answer any more questions to-day." "Can you not call it back?" asked Bosio, anxiously, and peering into the blackness before him, as though hoping to see something. "No. When he is gone he never comes back for the same person. He answered you many things, Signore. You must have patience." He heard her rise, and a moment later the light dazzled him as he looked up and met her china blue eyes. He was dazed as well as dazzled, for there had been an extraordinary directness and accuracy about the few questions and answers he had heard in the clear voice which was so utterly unlike Giuditta's, though quite human and natural. He was certain that he had not heard the door open after she had drawn the curtains. He looked about the scantily furnished room, in search of some corner in which some third person might have been hidden. Giuditta Astarita's chronic smile was momentarily intensified. "There was no one else here," she said, answering his unspoken question. "You heard the spirit's voice through my ears." "How can that be?" "I do not know. But what the spirit says is true. You may rely upon it. I do not know what it said, for when I return from the trance state I remember nothing I have heard or seen while I have been in it. If you wish to ask more, you must have the kindness to come again. It is very fatiguing to me. You can see that I am not in good health. The hours are from ten till three." The smile had subsided within its usual limits, and the china blue eyes stared coldly. She was evidently waiting to be paid. "What do I owe you?" asked Bosio, with a certain considerateness of tone, so to say. "It is twenty-five lire," answered Giuditta Astarita. "I have but one price. Thank you," she added, as he laid the notes upon the polished walnut table. "Do you wish a few of my cards? For your friends, perhaps. I shall be grateful for your patronage." "Thank you," said Bosio, taking his hat and going towards the door. "I have one of your cards. It is enough. Good morning." As he opened the door, he found the one-eyed serving-woman in the passage, ready to show him out. Instinctively he looked at the single eye as he glanced at her face, and he was surprised to notice that it was of the same uncommon china blue colour as Giuditta's own. The woman who did duty as a servant to admit visitors was undoubtedly Giuditta's mother or elder sister, or some very near relative. It would be natural enough, amongst such people, as Bosio knew, but he wondered how many more of the same family lived in the rooms beyond the one in which he had received spirit-communications, and whether Giuditta Astarita supported them all by her extraordinary talents. He descended the damp stone stairs and passed out into the street again, dazed and disturbed in mind. He had been to such people before, as has been said, and he had generally seen or heard something which had either interested or amused him. He had never had such an experience as this. He had never heard a voice of which he had been so certain that it did not come from any one in the room, and he had never found any somnambulist who had so instantly grasped his most secret thoughts, without the slightest assistance or leading word from himself. Yet at the crucial test--the question of a certainty in the future, this one had stopped short as all stopped, or failed in their predictions of what was to come. He had been startled and almost frightened. Like many Southern Italians, he was at once credulous and sceptical--a superstitious unbeliever, if one may couple the two words into one expression. His intelligence bade him deny what his temperament inclined him to accept. Besides, on the present occasion, no theory which he could form could account for the woman's knowledge of his life. She had never seen him. He had no extraordinary peculiarity by which she might have recognized him at first sight from hearsay, nor was he in any way connected with public affairs. He had come quite unexpectedly and had not given his name, and the spirit, or whatever it might be, had instantly told him of Veronica, of her danger, of his brother and sister-in-law and of the will. Moreover, the friends who had spoken to him of Giuditta Astarita had told him similar tales within a few days. The spirit had said that the handsome woman would make him marry Veronica. But what had the silence meant, when he had asked more? That was the question. Did it mean that the spirit was unwilling to affirm that Veronica must die if he refused to marry her? He passed his hand over his eyes as he walked. This was the end of the nineteenth century; he was in Naples, in the largest city of an enlightened country. And yet, the situation might have been taken from the times of the Medici, of Paolo Giordano Orsini, of Beatrice Cenci, of the Borgia. There was a frightful incongruity between civilization and his life--between broad, flat, comfortable, every-day, police-regulated civilization, and the hideous drama in which he was suddenly a principal actor. More than once he told himself that he was mistaken and that such things could not possibly be; that it was all a feverish dream and that he should soon wake to see that there was a perfectly simple, natural and undramatic solution before him. But turn the facts as he would, he could not find that easy way. If he refused to marry Veronica and attempted to get legal protection for her, the inevitable result would be the prosecution, conviction, and utter ruin of his brother and of the woman he loved. If he refused to marry Veronica and did nothing to protect her, Matilde's eyes had told him what Matilde would do to escape public shame and open infamy. If he married Veronica and saved his brother--he was still man enough to feel that he could not do that. He could die. That was a possibility of which he had thought. But would his death, which would save him from committing the last and greatest baseness, save Veronica? She would have one friend less in the world, and she had not many. With a half-childish smile on his pale face, he wondered what such a man as Taquisara would do, if he were so placed, and the Sicilian's manly face and bold eyes rose up contemptuously before him. To such a depth as Bosio had already reached, Taquisara could never have fallen. Bosio's instinct told him that. If he had been able to find one friend in all his acquaintance to whom he might turn and ask advice, it would have been an infinite relief. But such friends were rare, he knew, and he had never made one. Pleasant acquaintances he had, by the score and the hundred, in society, and amongst artists and men of letters. But the life he had led had shut out friendship. To have a friend would have been to let some one into his life, and that would have meant, sooner or later, the betrayal of the woman he loved. Yet, though he felt that Taquisara was his enemy and not his friend, he had such sudden confidence in the man's honour and truth that he was insanely impelled to go to him and tell him all, and implore him to save Veronica at any cost, no matter what, or to whom. Then of course, a moment later, the thought seemed madness, and he only felt that he was losing hold more quickly upon his saner sense. His visit to the somnambulist, too, had helped to unnerve him, and as he wandered through the streets he forgot that it was time to eat, so that physical faintness came upon him unawares and suddenly. He did not wish to go home; for if he did, the final decision would be thrust upon him by Matilde, and he did not feel that he could face another scene with her yet. When he found himself near the Palazzo Macomer, he turned back, walking slowly, and went towards the sea, till he came to the vast Piazza San Ferdinando, beyond San Carlo. He went into a café and sat down in a corner to drink a cup of chocolate by way of luncheon. The seat he had chosen was at the end of one of the long red velvet divans close to a big window looking upon the square. There were little marble tables in a row, and at the one before that which Bosio chose, a priest was seated, reading, with an empty cup before him. He was evidently near-sighted, for he held his newspaper so near his eyes that Bosio could not have seen his face even had he thought of looking at it. The priest had thrown back his heavy black cloak after he had sat down, so that it fell in wide folds upon the seat, on each side of him. His hands, which held up the paper, while he seemed to be searching for something in the columns, were thin to emaciation, almost transparent, and very carefully kept,--a fact which might have argued that he was not an ordinary, hard-working parish priest of the people, even if his presence in a fashionable café had not of itself made that seem improbable. On the other hand, he wore heavy, coarse shoes; his clothes, though well brushed, were visibly threadbare, and his clean white stock was frayed at the edge and almost worn out. He had taken off his three-cornered hat, and his high peaked head was barely covered with scanty silver-grey hair. When he dropped his paper and looked about him for the waiter, evidently wishing to pay for his coffee, he showed a face sufficiently remarkable to deserve description. The prominent feature was the enormous, beak-like nose--the nose of the fanatic which is not to be mistaken amongst thousands, with its high, arching bridge, its wide, sensitive nostrils, and its preternaturally sharp, down-turning point. But the rest of the priest's face was not in keeping with what was most striking in it. The forehead was not powerful, narrow, prominent--but rather, broad and imaginative. The chin was round and not enough developed; the clean-shaven lips had a singularly gentle expression, and the very near-sighted blue eyes were not set deeply enough to give strength to the look. The priest carried his head somewhat bent and forward, in a sort of deprecating way, which made his long nose seem longer, and his short chin more retreating. The skull was unusually high and peaked at the point where phrenologists place the organ of veneration. The man himself was tall and exceedingly thin, and looked as though he fasted too often and too long. He was certainly a very ugly man, judged according to the standards of human beauty; and yet there was about him an air of kindness and sincerity which had in it something almost saintly, together with a very unmistakable individual identity. He was one of those men whom one can neither forget nor mistake when one has met them once. Bosio did not notice him, being much absorbed by his own thoughts. The waiter came to ask what he wished, and was stopped on his way back by the priest, who desired to pay for what he had taken. But Bosio had turned to the window again, and sat looking out and watching the people in the broad semicircular Piazza. The priest, having paid his little score, carefully folded his newspaper and put it into the wide pocket of his cassock. Then he gathered up the collar of his big cloak behind him, as he sat, and began to edge his way out from behind the little marble table. But the long folds had fallen far on each side--so far that Bosio had unawares sat down upon the cloth, and as the priest tried to get out, he felt the cloak being dragged from under him. The priest stopped and turned, just as Bosio rose with an apology on his lips, which became an exclamation of surprise, as he began to speak. "Don Teodoro!" he cried. "You were next to me, and I did not see you!" The priest's eyelids contracted to help his imperfect sight, and he smiled as he moved nearer to Bosio. "Bosio!" he exclaimed, when he had recognized him. "I am almost blind, but I was sure I knew your voice." "You are in Naples, and you have not let me know it?" said Bosio, reproachfully and interrogatively. "I have not been in Naples two hours, and have just left my bag at my usual quarters with Don Matteo. Then I came here to get a cup of coffee, and now I was going to you. Besides, it is the tenth of December. You know that I always come on the tenth every year, and stay until the twentieth, in order to be back in Muro four days before Christmas. But I am glad I have met you here, for I should have missed you at the Palazzo." "Yes," said Bosio, "I am glad that we have met. Sit with me, now, while I drink a cup of chocolate. Then we will do whatever you wish." He sat down again. "I am glad you have come, Don Teodoro," he added thoughtfully. "I am very glad you have come." Don Teodoro produced a pair of silver spectacles as he reseated himself, and proceeded to settle them very carefully on his enormous nose. Then he turned to Bosio, and looked at him. "Have you been ill?" he asked, after a careful scrutiny of the pallid, nervous face. "No." Bosio looked out of the window, avoiding the other's gaze. "I am nervous to-day. I slept badly; and I have been walking, and have not breakfasted. Oh! no--I am not ill. I am never ill. I have excellent health. And you?" He turned to his companion again. "How are you? Always the same?" "Always the same," answered the priest. "I grow old, that is the only change. After all, it is not a bad one, since we must change in some way. It is better than growing young--better than growing young again," he repeated, shaking his head sadly. "Since the payment must be made, it is better that the day of reckoning should come nearer, year by year." "For me it has come," said Bosio, in a low voice, and his chin sank upon his breast, as he leaned back, clasping his hands before him on the edge of the marble table. The priest looked at him anxiously and in silence. The two would certainly have met later in the day, or on the morrow, and the accident of their meeting at the café had only brought them together a few hours earlier. For the hard-working country parish priest came yearly to Naples for a few days before Christmas, as he had said, and the first visit he made, after depositing his slender luggage at the house of the ecclesiastic with whom he always stopped, was to Bosio Macomer, his old pupil. In his loneliness, that morning, Bosio had thought of Don Teodoro and had wished to see him. It had occurred vaguely to him that the priest generally made a visit to the city about that time of the year, but he had never realized that Don Teodoro always arrived on the same day, the tenth of December, and had done so unfailingly for many years past. Before he had been curate of the distant village of Muro, which belonged to the Serra family, Don Teodoro had been tutor to Bosio Macomer. He had lived in Naples as a priest at large, a student, and in those days, to some extent, a man of the world. When Bosio was grown up, his tutor had remained his friend--the only really intimate friend he had in the world, and a true and devoted one. It was perhaps because he was too much attached to Bosio that Matilde Macomer had induced him at last to accept the parish in the mountains with the chaplaincy of the ancestral castle of the Serra,--an office which was a total sinecure, as the family had rarely gone thither to spend a few weeks, even in the days of the late prince. Matilde hated the place for its appalling gloominess and wild scenery, and Veronica, to whom it now belonged, had never seen it at all. It had the reputation of being haunted by all manner of ghosts and goblins, and during the first ten years following the Italian annexation of Naples, the surrounding mountains had been infested by outlaws and brigands. But Don Teodoro, as curate and chaplain, received a considerable stipend which enabled him to procure for himself books at his pleasure, when he could bring himself to curtail the daily and yearly charities in which he spent almost all he received. He was, indeed, a man torn between two inclinations which almost amounted to passions,--charity and the love of learning,--and their action was so evenly balanced that it was a real pain to him either to deny himself the book he coveted, or to forfeit the pleasure of giving the money it would cost to the poor. He had sometimes kept the last note he had left at the end of the month for many days, quite unable to decide whether he should send it to Naples for a new volume, or buy clothes with it for some half-clad child. So sincere was he in both longings, that after he had disposed of the money in one way or the other, he almost invariably had an acute fit of self-reproach. His common sense alone told him that when he had given away nine-tenths of all he received, he had the right to spend the other tenth upon such food for his mind as was almost more indispensable to him than bread. But, besides this, he had been engaged for twenty years upon a history of the Church, in compiling which he believed he was doing a work of the highest importance to mankind; so that it appeared to him a duty to expend, from time to time, a certain amount of money in order to procure such books, old and new, as were necessary for his studies. As a matter of fact, the seasons themselves decided his conduct in these difficulties; for in cold weather, or times of scarcity, his charity outran his desire for books; whereas, in the warm weather, and when there was plenty, and no pitiful starved faces gathered about his door, he bought books, instead of searching for the few who were still in need. In his youth, Don Teodoro had travelled much. He had accompanied a mission to Africa at the beginning of his life, and had afterwards wandered about Europe, being at that time, as yet, more studious than charitable, and possessed of a small independence left him by his father, who had been an officer in the Neapolitan army in the old days. He had seen many things and known many men of many nations, before he had at last settled in Muro, in the little priest's house, under the shadow of the dismal castle, and close to the church. There he lived now, all the year round, excepting the ten days which he annually spent in Naples. The little house was full of books, and there was a big, old shaky press, containing his manuscripts, the work of his whole life. He had neither friends nor companions of his own class, but he was beloved by all the people. Playing on his name, Teodoro, in their dialect, they called him, O prevete d'oro'--'the priest of gold.' And many said that he had performed miracles, when he had fasted in Lent. This was practically Bosio Macomer's only intimate friend. For although the intimacy had been interrupted for years, by circumstances, it had never been checked by any action or word of either. It is true that neither was, as a rule, in need of friendship, nor desirous of cultivating it. Learning and charity absorbed the priest's whole life. Bosio's existence, of which Don Teodoro knew in reality nothing, had moved in the vicious circle of a single passion, which he could never acknowledge, and which excluded, for common caution's sake, anything like intimacy with other men. But Bosio had not ceased to look upon the priest as the best man he had ever known, and in spite of his own errings, he was still quite able to appreciate goodness in others; and Don Teodoro had always remembered his pupil as one of the few men to whom he had been accustomed to speak freely of his hopes, and sympathies, and aspirations, feeling sure of appreciation from a nature at once refined and reticent, though itself hard to understand. For Don Teodoro was, strange to say, painfully sensitive to ridicule, though in all other respects a singularly brave man, morally and physically. As a child or as a boy, he had been laughed at by his companions for his extraordinary nose and his short sight; and he had never recovered from the childish suffering thus inflicted upon him by thoughtless children. The fear of being ridiculous had largely influenced him through life, and had really contributed much towards deciding him to accept the cure of the wild mountain town. Bosio's almost solemn words, as his chin fell upon his breast, and he clasped his hands before him, suddenly recalled to the priest the years they had spent together, the confidence there had been between them, the interest he had once felt in Bosio's fortune,--as an object once daily familiar, and fresh once and not without beauty, then long hidden for years, and coming suddenly to sight again, moth-eaten, dusty, and all but destroyed, is oddly painful to him who used it long ago, and then sees it when it is fit only to be thrown away. "You are suffering," said Don Teodoro, leaning forward upon the marble table and peering through his silver-rimmed spectacles into Bosio's pale face, and gentle, exhausted eyes. The priest's nervous, emaciated hand softly pressed the sleeve of the younger man's coat, and the fantastic features grew wonderfully gentle and kind. It was the transformation that came over them whenever any one was visibly poor, or starving, or sorrowing, or hurt,--the change which a beautiful passion brings to the ugliest face in the world. Bosio smiled faintly as he saw it, and a little hope was breathed into his heart, as though somewhere, at some immeasurable distance, there might be a possibility of salvation from the ruin and wreck of his horrible life. "Yes," he said. "I am suffering. It is a great suffering. I do not think that I can live much longer." "Can I do nothing?" asked Don Teodoro. Bosio still smiled, as a man smiles in torture when one speaks to him of peace. "If I believed that anything could be done," he said, "I should not suffer as I do. I have lived a bad life, and the time has come when I must pay the score. But it is not my fault if things are as they are--it is not all my fault." The priest sighed, and looked away after a moment. "We have all done some one great wrong thing in our lives," he said gently. "The price may perhaps be paid to God in good, as well as to man in pain." CHAPTER VI. Bosio shook his head, and a long silence followed. Once or twice he roused himself, stirred the cup of chocolate which the waiter had set before him, and sipped a teaspoonful of it absently. The corner where the two men sat together was quiet, but from the front of the café came the continual clatter of plates and glasses, the echo of feet, and the ring of voices; for it was just midday, and the place was full of its habitual frequenters. "If we were in church," said Bosio at last, "and if you were in a confessional--" He stopped, and glanced at his companion without completing the sentence. "You would make a confession? There are churches near," said Don Teodoro. "I am ready. Will you come?" Bosio hesitated. "No," he said at last. "I could tell you nothing without betraying others." "Betraying! Is it a crime that you have on your conscience?" The priest's voice was low and troubled. "Many crimes," answered Bosio. "The crimes that must come, and that I cannot prevent by living, nor hinder by dying." Again there was silence during several minutes. "You may trust me as a friend, even if, as a priest, you could not confess all the circumstances to me," said Don Teodoro, after the long pause. "I do not wish you to make confidences to me, unless you are impelled to do so. But you are in that frame of mind, my dear Bosio, in which a man will sooner or later unburden himself to some one. You might do worse than choose me. I am your friend, I am old, and I know that I am discreet. I am extraordinarily discreet. It may seem strange that I should say so myself, but my own life has taught me that I am to be trusted with secrets." "Yes," replied Bosio. "You must have heard strange things sometimes under the seal of confession." "I have known of strange things." Don Teodoro's face grew sad and thoughtful, and Bosio, seeing it, suddenly made up his mind. He leaned far back against the painted wall for a moment, with half-closed eyes. Then he drew nearer to his friend, so that he spoke close to the latter's ear, though he looked down at the table before him. His nervous fingers played with the teaspoon in the saucer of his cup. It was a strange confession, there in the corner of the crowded café at midday, and those who glanced idly at the two men from a distance would hardly have guessed that an act in a mysterious life was before their eyes--an act which was itself but a verbal recapitulation of many actions past, but which to the speaker had an enormous importance of its own, and an influence on the future of all concerned. Not much had been needed to break through the barrier of Bosio's reticence. Walking through the streets that morning he had for a moment even thought of telling some of his story to Taquisara. It was far easier to tell it to the only true friend he had in the world, to one in whom he had confided as a boy and had trusted as a young man. He told almost all. He confessed that his love of many years had been his brother's wife, and though he spoke no word of her love for him, the old priest knew the evil truth from the man's tone and look. For the rest he spared neither Matilde nor any one else, but told Don Teodoro all the truth, and all his anxious fears for Veronica's safety, if he should not marry her, with all his horror of his own shame if he should yield to the pressure brought upon him. Don Teodoro's expression changed more than once while he listened, but he never turned his head nor moved in his seat. "You see what I am," said Bosio, at last. "You see what my people are. Indeed, I need a confessor, if one could save my soul; but I need a friend even more, for through me that poor girl is in danger of her life. That is her choice--to die or to be my wife. Mine is, to see her murdered or to do an unutterably shameful thing--or to see the woman I love driven out of the world with infamy for the crimes she has not committed, and the fear of that disgrace is making her mad. It is for her, and for Veronica! What do I care about myself? What have I left to care for? What I have done, I have done. I am not good, I am not religious, I am perhaps a worse sinner than most men, and a poorer believer than many. But I will not be the instrument of these deeds--and yet, if I refuse--there is death, or shame, or both, to those I love! At least I have spoken, and you will not betray me. It has been a relief, a moment's respite from torture. I thank you for it, my friend, and I wish I could repay you. You cannot give me advice, for I have twisted and turned it all in fifty ways, and there is no escape. You cannot help me, for no one can. But you have done me some little momentary good, just by sitting there and hearing my story. Beyond that there is nothing to be done." The wretched man closed his eyes, and again leaned back against the bright red wall, which threw his white face and dark-ringed eyes into strong and painful relief. Don Teodoro was silent, bending his mind upon the hideous problem. Bosio misunderstood him and spoke again without moving. "I know," he said. "You need not speak. I know by heart all the reproaches I deserve, and I know that no human being, much less a holy man like yourself, could possibly feel anything but horror at all this--" "I am very far from being a holy man," interrupted the priest. "If I feel horror, it is for what has been, and may be, but not for you. Bosio--" he hesitated a moment. "Will you come with me to Muro, and leave all this?" he asked suddenly. "Will you come out of the world for a while? No--I am not proposing to you to make a religious retreat. I wish I could. I know the world, and you, and your people, for I lived long among you, and I know that one cannot change one's soul, as one changes one's coat--nor enter upon a retreat as one springs into the sea for a bath in hot weather. What you have made yourself, you are. Heaven itself would need time to unmake you. I speak just as one man to another. Come with me to the mountains for a week, a month--as long as you will. It is dreary and cold, and you will have to eat what you can get; but you will have peace, for nobody will come up there to disturb you. Meanwhile, something may happen. You are overwrought by all you have seen and heard and felt. Whatever the countess may have said, Donna Veronica is quite safe. My dear Bosio, people in your rank of life do not murder one another for money nowadays. It is laughable, the mere idea of it--" "Laughable!" Bosio turned and looked at him. "If you had seen her eyes, you would find it hard to laugh, I think. Such things happen rarely, perhaps, but they happen sometimes." Don Teodoro was not persuaded. He thought that Bosio, in his excited state, very much overestimated the danger. "At all events," he said, "nothing will happen, so long as there is the possibility that you may marry her. If you come with me, you will at least have time to think before acting. But here, you may be forced to act before you have been able to think." But Bosio shook his head slowly. "There are difficulties which can be helped by putting them off," he answered. "This is not one. You forget that in just three weeks my brother will be ruined--absolutely ruined--if he cannot pay. If I stayed that time with you, I should come back to find him a beggar--or obliged to throw himself upon Veronica's mercy and charity for his daily bread and for a roof to cover him." "There is one other way," said the priest, thoughtfully. "There is one thing left for you to do, if you have courage to do it. And you know better than I what chance there would be of success. It is what I should do myself. It is a heroic remedy, but it may save everything yet." Bosio's eyes turned anxiously to his friend, by way of question. "Find Veronica alone," said Don Teodoro. "Take all rights into your own hands and tell her everything, just as you have told me. You know her well. If she is kind-hearted, as I think she is, she will pay your brother's debts, take over the estates herself, since it is time, and manage that Cardinal Campodonico shall never suspect that there has been anything wrong with the administration. If she is not so charitable as to do that of her own free will, why then, since you believe it, tell her that she must do it to save her life. It is most unlikely that she will refuse and take refuge with the cardinal in order to bring public disgrace upon her father's sister. And even that, horrible as it seems to you--if it must be, it will be, and it will not be your fault--" "But Matilde--" Bosio began in troubled tones. "And yet, perhaps, it is possible. Veronica would not be so cruel as to ruin them--the money is nothing to her. And, after all, she will hardly feel the loss out of her immense fortune. Yes--" his face brightened slowly with the rays of hope. "Yes--it may be possible, after all. I had thought of going to her, but not of telling her the whole truth. It did not seem as though I could, until I had heard myself tell it to you. It will be hard, but it seems possible, and it will save her--and then--" His face changed again, as he broke off in the sentence, and his melancholy eyes turned slowly to his friend. "And then," said Don Teodoro, "perhaps you will go back with me to Muro, and rest and forget it all." "Yes," answered Bosio, sadly and dreamily, "perhaps I shall go to Muro with you. I wonder," he continued, after a short pause, "that you should want such a man as I am in your priest's house there." "Oh! I am glad of a little society when I can get it, and I have much to show you which might interest you. I have worked perpetually for many years, since we used to talk about my history of the Church." He checked himself. In spite of all he had just heard, and the real distress and sympathy he had felt for Bosio, the one of his dominant passions which was uppermost just then had almost made him forget everything, and launch into an account of his work and studies. Men who, intellectually, are deeply engrossed in one matter, and who, socially, have long lived very lonely lives, are not generally able to lose themselves in sympathy for others. As Bosio was not exactly an object for Don Teodoro's charity, he was in some danger of being made a listener for the outpouring of the priest's tremendous intellectual enthusiasm. But the latter checked himself. The things he had heard were indeed of a nature not so easily forgotten. He went back to them at once. "My dear Bosio," he began again, "do not put yourself down as the worst of men. It is just as bad to go too far in one direction as in the other. There is undoubtedly, in theory, the man in the world, at any given moment, who must be a little worse than any other living man; but though he might be our next-door neighbour, we have no means whatever of knowing that he is the greatest sinner alive, because we do not know all about all existing sinners. Consequently, and for the same reason, no man has any right to assume that he is worst of men. And as far as that goes, many men have done worse things, even in the religious view, than you have done, and very much worse things, in the opinion of society. You are not responsible for all that the others have done. You are only responsible in the immediate future for your share of duty, in doing the wisest and best thing which may present itself. And if you can induce Donna Veronica to forgive your brother and your brother's wife, by telling her the truth without prevarication, you will have done something to atone for the past evil which, you cannot undo. I am not preaching to you, my dear friend. Pray look upon me as a man and not as a priest. Indeed, I would rather that you should never think of me as a priest at all. If you need spiritual help, there are many better men than I, who can give it to you. But as a man and a friend, come to me if you will. You are to me also a man and a friend, and not a penitent." He finished speaking, took off his spectacles, and rested his head against the wall behind him, as Bosio had done, and the younger man glanced sideways at his friend's extraordinary profile. Its fantastic outline had a moral effect upon him; for it recalled, as nothing else could, the early days of his life before he had been what he now was, when he had known what hope meant, and had understood aspirations in others which had no meaning for him now. He was very grateful, too, for Don Teodoro's words, which certainly comforted him in a way he had not expected. "Thank you," he said, "I will think of it. I think I shall take your advice and speak to Veronica. She can save us all, if she will." "Yes," said Don Teodoro. "She can save you all--and she will." Then they sat a long time in silence in their corner, and the priest's mind wandered occasionally to the thought of his manuscript, and of the many points he intended to discuss with his friend Don Matteo, a man as learned as himself, but indolent instead of active, one of those passive, living treasuries of thought upon which the active worker fastens greedily when he has a chance, to extract all the riches he can in the shortest possible time, in any shape, to carry the gold away with him to his workshop and fashion it to his wish. And Bosio, whose intelligence was essentially dramatic and given to throwing future interviews into an imaginary dramatic shape, thought over and over what he would say to Veronica and what she might be expected to say to him. But he was terribly exhausted and harassed, and by degrees as the stimulant of recent comfort lost its cheering warmth within him, he silently grew despondent again within himself, and his dramatic fancies of fear became near and tragic realities. He thought he could hear the clear, bell-like voice of the somnambulist telling him that he should be forced to marry Veronica. At last, realizing that he was probably detaining Don Teodoro, he roused himself, and the two went out together into the broad light of the Piazza San Ferdinando. "I will go home," Bosio said. "I will think of it all. At this time I can easily be alone with Veronica." His voice sounded as though he were speaking to himself, and his head was bent, so that he stooped from the neck as Don Teodoro did. But the latter, as he walked, his silver-rimmed spectacles balanced on his great nose, thrust his bent head more forward. Or rather, it was as though his head moved first in the direction he meant to follow, while his thin legs had difficulty in keeping up with it. Bosio was willing to put off the moment of going home as long as possible, and he accompanied his friend to the door of Don Matteo's lodging, which was in a clean, quiet, sunlit street, behind the Piazza--in one of those oases of light and cleanliness upon which one sometimes comes in the heart of Naples. The little green door was reached by a couple of steps up from the level of the street. Don Teodoro had a key and stood on the upper step, holding it in his hand and blinking in the warm sunshine. "You know this house," he said. "You have been to see me here once or twice. If you want me, you can always send for me in the afternoon, for I only go out in the morning. But I will come and see you. When? To-morrow, before noon?" "Yes," Bosio answered. "By to-morrow at midday something will be decided." They shook hands and parted, Bosio turning eastward in the direction of his home. The priest absently tried to insert the key in the lock of the door, while his eyes followed his friend to the corner of the street. Then, as Bosio's still graceful figure disappeared, he turned from the keyhole with a sigh, and let himself in. Bosio walked rapidly at first, and then more slowly as he came nearer to the old quarter in which the Palazzo Macomer was situated. As with all men of such character, his irresolution increased just when he fancied that he was about to do something decisive. He would not have hesitated in the same way, if he had been called upon to face a physical danger; for though he was certainly no hero, he was by no means a physical coward, and in a quarrel he would have stood up bravely enough to face his antagonist. But this was very different. He had been ruled by Matilde Macomer through many years, and when he thought of meeting her he had a deadly presentiment of assured defeat. She would extract from him something more than the silent assent which he had been forced into giving on the previous evening, and she could not let him go till he promised to marry Veronica. He walked more slowly, as he felt the fear and uncertainty twisting his scant courage from his heart. Then he was ashamed of himself, and in a sudden attempt to be brave he hailed a passing cab and drove rapidly to the Palazzo Macomer. He asked for Veronica and was told that she was in her room. He did not wish to send her a message. Gregorio had gone out immediately after the midday breakfast. Bosio was glad of that. He had not seen his brother since the previous evening, and he did not wish to see him alone. There were monstrous wrongs on both sides, and it was better to pretend mutual ignorance, and keep up the ghastly farce, pretending that nothing was the matter. The very smallest incautious word would crack the swaying bubble that was blown to bursting with hell's breath. Bosio had entered the main apartments in order to inquire for Veronica, had passed through the long outer hall with its red walls, its matted floor and its great table covered with green baize, to the antechamber within, where, with some ostentation, as Bosio had always thought, Gregorio had hung up the escutcheon with the quartered arms of Macomer and Serra, flanked by half a dozen big old family portraits on either side, opposite the three windows. He had waited there until the footman returned after looking for Veronica in the drawing-room, and when he heard that she was not there, he turned to reach the staircase again and go up to his own bachelor's quarters, for he feared to meet Matilde and hoped to put off seeing her until dinner-time, when he might so manoeuvre as not to be left alone with her. But the footman had hardly delivered his answer, and Bosio was in the act of turning, when one of the two masked doors under the pictures opened suddenly, and Matilde spoke into the room, calling him by name. He turned pale and stopped short, as though a cold hand had taken him by the throat. The footman went out to the hall, as Bosio met Matilde's eyes. "Come," she said briefly, "I want to speak to you." He obeyed silently, and followed her through the narrow door and through a passage beyond, to her own morning-room. Matilde shut the door. The afternoon sun streamed in through two high windows, filling every corner with light and turning the crimson carpet blood red, where Matilde stood, all round her feet and the folds of her loose dark gown, so that she seemed to rise out of a pool of vivid colour, a dark, strong figure with the brightness all behind her and the gleam of her eyes just lightening in the shadow of her face. "Why did you go out without seeing me this morning?" she asked in a hard tone. "And why did Taquisara come to see you early? You scarcely know him--" "I certainly did not send for him," said Bosio, uneasily. "He did not come for nothing," retorted Matilde. "He is no friend of yours. He must have come for some particular reason." Bosio said nothing, but turned from her and moved towards a table covered with books. In an objectless way he opened a volume and looked at the title page. Matilde followed him with her eyes. "Well?" she said presently, "I am waiting. What did Taquisara have to say? He is Gianluca's friend--he came with a message. That is clear. What did he say? I am waiting to hear." "He came because he chose to come," answered Bosio, still looking at the title page of the book. "Gianluca did not send him. He wished to know whether it were true that I was to marry Veronica." "I thought so. And what did you answer? Of course you told him that it was quite settled." "We had a long conversation--I do not remember all that we said--" "You do not remember whether you told him that you were to marry Veronica or not?" Matilde laughed angrily and came forward. "Let that book alone!" she said imperiously. "Look at me--so--now tell me the truth!" She laid her hand upon his arm, and not gently, and she made him turn to her. Bosio felt that shock of shame which smites a man in the back, as it were, when a woman is too strong for him and orders him brutally to do her will. "I told him the truth," he answered, and his pale cheeks reddened with futile anger. "The truth!" Matilde's face darkened. "What? What did you tell him?" Bosio was weakly glad to have frightened her a little. "The truth," he said, trying to assume a certain indifference. "Just that. I let him understand that nothing is definitely settled yet, and that there is no contract--" Matilde was silent, and her eyes seemed to draw nearer together, while the smooth red lips curled scornfully. "Oh, what a coward you are!" she cried in a low voice, in deep disgust, and as she spoke she dropped his arm in contempt, though she still held his face with her angry gaze. "You have no right to call me a coward," answered Bosio, defending his manhood. "I told you that I could not do it. The man put it in such a way that I had to give him a definite answer. For your sake I would not deny the engagement altogether--" "For my sake!" exclaimed Matilde. "Do not use such phrases to me. They mean nothing. For some wretched quibble of your miserable conscience--as you still have the assumption to call it--you will ruin us in another day." "Yes, I still have some conscience," replied Bosio, trying to be bold under her scornful eyes. "I would not let Taquisara think that you and Gregorio had lied, and I would not lie myself--" "You are reforming, then? You choose the moment well!" "I have told you what passed between Taquisara and me," said Bosio. "That was what you wished to know. I will judge of myself whether I did right or not." He turned from her and walked away, towards the door. "Well?" she said, not moving, for she knew that her voice would stop him. "Is there anything else?" he asked, turning again and standing still. "There is much more. Come back! Sit down and talk to me like a sensible being. There is much to be said. The matter is all but settled in spite of the account which Taquisara frightened you into giving him. I like that man, he is so brave! He is not at all like you." "If you wish me to stay longer, you must not insult me again," said Bosio, not yet seating himself, but resting his hands on the back of a chair as he stood. "You know very well that I am no more a coward, if it comes to fighting men, than others are. One need not be cowardly to dread doing such a thing as you are trying to force me to." "It does not seem such a very terrible thing," said Matilde, her tone suddenly changing and growing thoughtful. "It really does not seem to me such a dreadful thing that you should be Veronica's husband. Of course I do not speak of the material advantages. You were always an idealist, Bosio--you do not care for those things, and I daresay that when you are married you will not even care to take her titles, nor to spend much of her money. I know well enough what passes in your mind. Sit down. Let us talk about it. We cannot afford to quarrel, you and I, can we? I am sorry I spoke as I did--and I never meant that you were cowardly in the ordinary sense. I was angry about Taquisara. What right had he to come here, to pry into our affairs? I should think you would have resented it, too." "I did," said Bosio, somewhat sullenly. "But I could not turn him out, nor get into a quarrel with him. It would have made a useless scandal and would have set every one talking." "Certainly," assented Matilde. "Perhaps you did right, after all--at least, you thought you did. I am sure of that. I do not know why I was so angry at you. I am unstrung, and nervous, I suppose. Did I say very dreadful things to you, dear? I do not know what I said--" "You called me a coward several times," replied Bosio, thinking to show a little strength by relenting slowly. "Oh! but I did not mean it!" cried the countess. "Bosio, forgive me. I did not mean to say such things--indeed, I did not. But do you wonder that I am nervous? Say that you forgive me--" "Of course I forgive you," answered Bosio, raising his eyebrows rather wearily. "I know that you are under a terrible strain--but you say things sometimes which are unjust and hard. I know what all this means to us both--but there must be some other way." Matilde shook her head mournfully, as Bosio sat down beside her, already sinking back to his long-learned docility. "There is no other way," she said. "There is certainly none, that is sure. I have thought it all over, as one thinks of everything when everything is in danger. The only other course is to throw ourselves upon Veronica's mercy--" "Well? Why not?" asked Bosio, eagerly, as Don Teodoro's advice gained instant plausibility again. "She is kind, she is charitable, she will forgive everything and save you--" "The shame of it, Bosio! Of confessing it all--and she may refuse. Veronica is not all kindness and charity. She is a Serra, as I am, and though she is a mere girl, if she takes it into her head to be hard and unforgiving, there would be no power on earth that could move her. She is not so unlike me, Bosio. You may think so because she is so unlike me in looks. She has the type of her father, poor Tommaso. But we Serra are all Serra--there is not much difference. No--do not interrupt me, dear. And as for your marriage, there is much to be said for it. It is time that you were married, you know. You and I have lived our lives, and we are not what we were. I shall always be fond of you--we shall always be more than friends--but always less than what we have been. It must have come sooner or later, Bosio, and it may as well come now. You know--we cannot be always young. And as for me, if I am not already old, I soon shall be." The woman who had held him so long knew how to tempt him, sacrificing everything in the desperate straits to which she was reduced. Though he had loved her well, and sinfully, but truly, for so many years, his love had sometimes seemed an unbearable thraldom, to escape from which he would have given his heart piecemeal, though he should lose all the happiness life held for him, for the sake of a momentary freedom. Possibly, too, she knew that he never longed for that freedom so much as when she had just been most violent and despotic. She was prepared for the feeble dissent with which he answered her suggestion of separation. He would be the more easily persuaded to yield and marry Veronica. "As for your being old," he said, "it is absurd. It is I who have grown old of late. But our being friends--" he paused thoughtfully. "A man is never too old to marry," answered Matilde. "It is only women who grow too old to be loved. You will begin your life all over again with Veronica. You and she will go away together--you can live in Rome, when you are tired of Paris. It will be better. You and I will see each other seldom at first. By and by it will be so easy for us to be good friends after we have been separated some time." "Friends?" Bosio spoke the one word again, with a sad and dreamy intonation. "I asked Veronica this morning," continued Matilde, not heeding him, and beginning to speak more rapidly. "You have no idea how very fond she is of you. When I spoke of the marriage, she seemed to think it the most natural thing in the world. She found arguments for it herself." "She?" "Yes. She said--what I have said to you--that there was no man whom she knew so well and liked so much as you, that of course she had never thought of marrying you, nor, indeed, of being married at all, but that, at the same time, she should think that you would make a very good husband. She wished to think of it--that is as much as to say that she will not even make any serious objections. You have no idea how young girls feel about marriage, Bosio. How should you? You cannot comprehend the horror a girl like Veronica feels of a stranger, of a man like Gianluca, even, whom she has met half a dozen times and talked with. It seems so dreadful to think of spending a lifetime with a man about whom she knows nothing, or next to nothing. And yet it is the custom, and most of them accept it and are happy. But the idea of marrying some one with whom she is really intimate, whom she really likes, who really understands her, places marriage in a new light for a young girl. Without knowing it, Veronica is half in love with you. It is no wonder that she likes the thought of being your wife--apart from the fact that you are a very desirable husband." "I cannot believe that," said Bosio. "That you are desirable as a husband? My dear Bosio, do not pretend to be so absurdly modest! Any woman would be glad to marry you. But for me, you could have made the best match in Naples years ago--" "Not even years ago. Much less now. But that was not what I meant. I cannot believe that Veronica is really inclined to marry me. It seems to me that she might be my daughter--" "If you had been married at fifteen," suggested Matilde, laughing softly. "Because you feel tired and harassed to-day, you feel a hundred years old. It is no compliment to me to say so, for I am even a little older than you, I think. And you--you are young, you are handsome, you are talented, you have the manners that women love--" "It is not many minutes since you were saying that we were both growing old--" "No, no! I said that we could not always be young. That is very different. And that we have lived our lives--our lives so long as they can be lived together--that is what I meant. You are young! How many men marry at fifty! And you are not forty yet. You have ten years of youth before you. That is not the question. So far as that is concerned, say that you are old to-night, at dinner, and you shall see how Veronica will laugh at you! But that you and I should part, Bosio--and yet, it is far better, if you have the courage." "Have you?" he asked sadly. "Yes--I have, for your sake, since I see how you look at this. And you are right. I know you are, though I am only a woman, and cannot have a man's ideas about honour. For my own part--well, I am a woman, and I have loved you long. But you are the one to be thought of. You shall be free, as though I had never lived. You shall be able to say to yourself that in marrying Veronica you are not doing anything in the least dishonourable. I shall not exist for you. I shall not feel that I have the right to think of you and for you as I always have. I shall never ask you to do anything for me, lest you should feel that I were asserting some claim to you, as though you were still mine. It will be hard at first. But I can do it, and I will do it, in order that your conscience may be free. You shall marry her, as though you had never known me, and hereafter I will always be the same. Only--" She fixed her eyes upon him with a look which, whether genuine or assumed, was fierce and tender-- "Only--if you are not true to her, Bosio--if you leave her and go after some other woman--then I will turn upon you!" Bosio met her glance with a look of something like astonishment, wondering how in a few sentences she had got herself into a position to threaten him with vengeance if he were unfaithful to Veronica. "We will not speak of that," she exclaimed before he said anything in answer or protest. "We have harder things to do than to imagine evil in the future. Since we are decided--since it is to be the end--let it be now, quickly! You shall not have it on your mind that you belong to me in any way, from now. No--you are right--you must feel free. You must feel free, besides really being free. You must feel, when you speak to Veronica to-night or to-morrow, as she expects you to speak, that all our life together is utterly past and swept away, and that I only exist henceforth as a relative--as--as your wife's aunt, Bosio!" She laughed, half-bitterly, half-nervously, at the idea, and turning away her face she held out her hand to him. He took it, and held it, pressing it between both his own. "Do you mean this, Matilde?" he asked in a low voice. "Yes, I mean it," she answered, speaking away from him with averted face. He could not see, but she was biting her lip till it almost bled. In her own strange way she loved him with all her evil nature, and if she were breaking with him now, it was to save herself from something worse than death. It was the hardest thing she had ever done. He hesitated: there was the mean prompting of the spirit, to take her at her word and to set himself free, since she offered him freedom, caring not whether she might repent to-morrow; and there was the instinct of fidelity which in so much dishonour had remained with him through so many years. "Besides," she said hoarsely, "I do not love you any more. I would not keep you longer, if I could. Oh--we shall be friends! But the other--no! Good bye, Bosio--good bye." Something moved him, as she had not meant that anything should. "I do not believe you," he said. "You love me still--I will not leave you!" "No, no! I do not--but if you still care at all, save me. Say good bye, but do the rest also. You are free now. You are an honourable man again. Bosio, look at my hair. You used to love it. Would you have it cut off and cropped by the convict's shears? My hands that you are holding--dear--would you love them galled by the irons, riveted upon them for years? Save me, Bosio! You are free now--save me, for the dear sake of all that has been!" Still she turned her face away, and as Bosio saw the waving richness of her brown hair and heard her words, he felt a desperate thrust of pain in his heart. It was all so fearfully true and possible. "But do not say that you do not love me," he pleaded, in low tones, bending to her ear. There was a moment's silence, and he thought he saw a convulsive movement of her throat--he guessed it rather than saw it. "It is true!" she cried, with an effort, drawing her hands from him and turning her pale face fiercely. "If I loved you still, do you think I would give you to Veronica Serra, or to any living woman? Was that the way I loved you? Was that how you loved me?" "Ah no! But now--" She would not let him speak. "Do you think that if I loved you, as I have loved you--as I did once--I should be so ready to give you up? Do you know me so little? Do you think that I have no pride?" asked Matilde Macomer, holding him at arm's length from her with her strong hands and throwing back her head, while the lids half veiled her eyes, and her face grew paler still. The words that were so strange, spoken by such a woman, fell from her lips with force and earnest conviction, whether she truly believed that they had meaning for her, or not. Then her voice changed and softened again. "But your friend--yes, always, as you must be mine--that and nothing more. We have said good bye to all the rest--now go, for I would rather be alone for a little while. Go, Bosio--please go!" "As you will," he answered. Then he kissed her hand and looked into her face for a moment, as though expecting that she should speak again. But she only shook her head, and her hand gave his no pressure. He kissed it again. There were tears in his eyes when he left the room. CHAPTER VII. Love is not the privilege of the virtuous, nor the exclusive right of the weak man and woman. The earth brings forth the good thing and the bad thing with equal strength to grow great and multiply side by side, and it is not the privilege of the good thing to live forever because it is good, nor is it the condemnation of the bad to die before its time, perishing in its own evil. A moment after Bosio had left the room, Matilde rose to her feet, very pale and unsteady, and locked the door. Then, as though she were groping her way in darkness, she got back to the sofa, and falling upon it, buried her face in the cushions, and bit them, lest she should cry out. She felt that it would have been easier, after all, to have killed Veronica Serra, than it had been to part with the one thing she had loved in her life. She had not loved him better than herself, perhaps, since it was to save herself that she had driven him away. But it had not been to save herself from so small and insignificant a thing as death, though she was vital and loved life for its own sake. She had not realized, either, until it had been almost done, how necessary it was. Yesterday she had been more cynical. Her own wickedness was teaching her the necessity of some good, and she saw now clearly that Bosio was one degree less base than herself. She believed that he would now be willing to marry Veronica, but she understood that until now he would not have done it--unless she had freed him from the galling remnant of his own conscience, and had formally given him his liberty. To give him that, in order that he might save her, she had torn out her heart by the roots. The bitterest of all was this, that he had scarcely struggled against her will, when she had left him to himself. He had said a few words, indeed, but he could hardly have said less, if he had meant nothing. She knew well enough that at almost any point she could have brought him back, playing upon the fidelity of habit. At her voice, at her glance, for one word of her pleading, he would have come back to her feet, willing to remain. But there was no vital strength of passion in him to keep him to her against her mere spoken will. Once or twice, in spite of herself, her voice had softened; she had felt that her face betrayed her, and had turned it away; she had known that her hands were icy cold in his, and had hoped that he would not notice it and understand, and feel, perhaps, that his accursed habit of fidelity would not let him take the freedom she thrust upon him. He had not seen, he had not felt, he had noticed nothing; and he was gone, glad to be free from her at last, willing to marry another woman, ready to forget what had held him by a thread which he respected, but not by a bond which he could not break. She had long guessed how it was; she knew it now--she had known the truth last night, when she had smoothed his soft hair with her hand and had spoken softly to him, but had not got from him the promise that meant salvation to her and her husband. Then she had known what she must do. Once more she had tried to impose her strength upon his weakness, and had failed. Then, almost without an outward sign, she had made up her mind. And now--he was gone. That was all she knew, or remembered, for an hour, as she lay there on the sofa, biting the cushions. It would have been far easier to kill Veronica, than to let him go. It was not her conscience that suffered, but her heart, and it could suffer still. It would have been worse, had that been possible, if she had known what Bosio felt at that moment. Happily for her, she never knew. For in the midst of the life-and-death terror of the situation, he was conscious that he rejoiced at being unexpectedly free at last from the slavery of her power. It was perhaps the satisfaction of an aspiration, good in itself, of a long-smouldering revolt against the life of deception she had imposed upon him; but in respect of his manhood, it was mean. For good is what men are, when they are doing good. It cannot be the good itself, which, though it profit many, may be so done as to stab and wound the secret enemy of the man's own heart. The good such a man does the whole world is but the knife in his hand wherewith to hurt the one. But Bosio hurt only himself, and little, at that, for he was almost past hurting; and Matilde never knew what he felt. And though he suffered most of all, perhaps, between the beginning and the end, there was no one moment of all his suffering which was like the agony of the strong and evil woman when she had driven him away, and was quite alone. She knew, now, what it meant to be alone. When she rose at last, her face was changed; there was a keen, famished look in her eyes, and her movements were steady and direct. Her nature was very unlike Bosio's, for she was able to drive her will into action, as it were, and she could be sure that it would not turn and bend, and disappoint her. But, for the present, she could do little more, and she knew it. She could only hope that all things might go well, standing ready at hand to throw her weight upon the scale-beam if fate alone would not bear down the side that bore her safety. She had said all that she could say to Veronica and to Bosio. Gregorio Macomer, her husband, whom she hated and despised, but whom she was saving, or trying to save, with herself, carried the effrontery of his sham-honest face and cold manner through it all, unmoved, so far as she could see. Only once or twice in the course of the day he had laughed suddenly and nervously, with a contraction of the face and a raising of the flat upper lip that showed his sharp yellow teeth. No one noticed it but Matilde, and it frightened her. But hitherto he had said nothing more since he had first confided to her, as to his only possible helper, the nature of his danger. She had not reproached him with what he had done. The danger itself was too great for that, and perhaps she had suspected its approach too long to be surprised at his confession. She had paid very little attention to the words he used; for, considering his nature, it was natural that he should, even in such extremity, attempt to throw a side-light of dignity upon his misfortunes, and should call crimes by names which suggested honest dealing to the ordinary hearer, such as 'transference of title,' 'reinvestment,' 'realization,' and the like; all of which, in plain language, meant that he had taken what was not his, without the shadow of authorization from any one, in the quite indefensible way which the law calls 'stealing.' Matilde had been amazed, however, at the impunity he had hitherto enjoyed. The mere fact that the estate had never been handed over by the guardians, of whom she was one and Cardinal Campodonico the third, was probably in itself actionable, had Veronica chosen to protest; and it was an indubitable fact that Gregorio Macomer had taken large sums after the guardianship had legally expired. There had been none to hinder him and Lamberto Squarci from doing as they pleased. The cardinal was deeply engaged in other matters, and was, moreover, not at all a man of business. He believed Gregorio to be honest, and now and then, when he talked with Veronica, he applauded her wisdom in leaving the management of her affairs in such experienced hands. Matilde unlocked her door when she felt that she was once more mistress of herself and able to face the world. A woman does not lead the life she had led for years without at least knowing herself well and understanding exactly how far she can rely upon her face and voice. She knew when she rose from the sofa that she could go through the remainder of the day well enough; and though her eyes gleamed hungrily, there was a cynical smile on her lips as she turned over the red cushion, on which there were marks where she had bitten it, and softly unlocked the door. She went into her dressing-room, beyond, for a moment, to smooth her hair. That was all, for there had been no tears in her eyes. When she returned, she was surprised to see her husband standing before the window, with his back to the broad sunshine, peacefully smoking a cigarette. The smoke curled lazily about his grey head, in the quiet air, as he allowed it to issue from his parted lips almost without the help of his breath. His face was like stone, but as he opened his mouth to let out the wreathing smoke, his lips smiled in an unnatural way. Matilde half unconsciously compared him to one of those grimacing Chinese monsters of grey porcelain, made for burning incense and perfumes, from whose stony jaws the thick smoke comes out on the right and left in slowly curling strings. His expression did not change when he saw her, and as he stood with his back to the light, his small eyes were quite invisible in his face. "What news?" he asked calmly, as he closed the door and came forward into the room. "Is all going well?" His breath, as he spoke, blew the clouds of smoke from his face in thin puffs. "If you wish things to go well," answered Matilde, "leave everything to me. Do not interfere. You have an unlucky hand." She sat down in the corner of the sofa, taking a book from the table, but not yet opening it. He smoked in silence for a moment. "Yes," he said, presently. "I have been unfortunate. But I have great confidence in you, Matilde--great confidence." "That is fortunate," replied his wife, coldly. "It would be hard, if there were no confidence on either side." "Yes. Of course, you have none in me?" He laughed suddenly, and the sound was jarring and startling, like the unexpected breaking of plates in a quiet room. Matilde's lips quivered and her brow contracted spasmodically. She hated his voice at all times, as she hated him and all that belonged to him and his being; but during the past twenty-four hours he had developed this strange laugh which set her teeth on edge every time she heard it. "What is the matter with you?" she asked impatiently. "Why do you laugh in that way?" "Did I laugh?" he inquired, by way of answer. "It was unconscious. But my voice was never musical. However, in the present state of our family affairs, a little laughter might divert our thoughts. Have you seen Bosio to-day? Why did he not come to luncheon? I hope he is not ill, just at this moment." Matilda 'placed' her voice carefully, as a singer would do, before she answered. "He is not ill," she said. "He was here an hour ago. I did not ask him why he did not come to luncheon, because it did not concern me." "Well? And the rest?" "The rest? How anxious you are!" she exclaimed scornfully. "The rest is as well as ill can be. I think he will marry Veronica." "I should suppose so, if she will marry him," observed Macomer. "It would be as sensible to doubt that a starving man would take bread, as to question whether a poor man will accept a fortune, especially in such an agreeable shape. It is quite another matter, whether the fortune will give itself to the poor man. What does Veronica say? Is she pleased with the idea?" "Moderately. She has not refused. She wishes to think about it." "I hope that she will not think too long. To-day is the tenth of December. There are just three weeks. By the bye, Matilde, I hope you have put the will in a safe place. Where is it?" Matilde paused two seconds before she answered. Though she could not imagine in what way Gregorio could improve his desperate position by getting the will out of her hands, nor by tampering with it, of which she knew him to be quite capable, yet, on general principles, she distrusted him so wholly and profoundly that she determined to deceive him as to the place in which she kept it. Being clever at concealing things, she began by showing it to him. She rose, took a key from behind a photograph on the mantelpiece, and unlocked the drawer of her writing-table. The will lay there, folded in a big envelope. "Here it is," she said. "Do you wish to look over it again?" She drew it half out of the cover and held it up before him. He recognized the document and seemed satisfied. "Oh! no," he answered. "I know it by heart. I only wished to know where it was." "Very well; it is here," said Matilde, putting it back and locking the drawer again. "I generally carry the key about with me," she added carelessly, "but I have no pocket in this gown, so I laid it behind that photograph. It is not a very good place for it, is it?" She hesitated, holding the key in her hand, and looking about the room while he watched her. The woman's enormous power of deception showed itself in the spontaneous facility with which she went through a complicated little scene, quite improvised, in order to mislead her husband. She knew that he himself would suggest some place for the key to lie in. "Put it under the edge of the carpet in the corner near the door," he suggested. "You can easily turn the carpet up a little between the rings." "That is a good idea," she said. "It is as well that you should know where it is, in case anything were to happen to me." She was already in the corner, and she thrust the key under the doubled edge of the crimson carpet. "You are ingenious," she observed drily, as she rose to her feet. "I should not have thought of that. It is a pity that you have not been able to apply your ingenuity better in other ways, too. It has been wasted." "I am not sure," answered Macomer, thoughtfully. "If Bosio marries Veronica, our position will be a very good one, considering the misfortunes through which we have passed. If he should not, and if Veronica should die, it will be much better. I am not sure but that, if I had no affection for the girl, I might prefer that she should die." Matilde glanced at him sideways, uneasily. "We will not speak of that," she said, as though it were a disagreeable subject. "No." Then, without warning, his jarring, crashing laughter filled the room again for a moment, and she started as she heard it, and looked round nervously. "I really wish you would not laugh in that way," she said, with a frown. "There is nothing to laugh at, I assure you." "I did not know that I laughed," said Macomer, indifferently. "That is the second time in a quarter of an hour. How odd it would be if I were to laugh unconsciously in that way when--" He seemed to check the words that were coming. "When, for instance?" asked Matilde, not guessing what was passing in his mind. "At the funeral," he answered shortly. Matilde started again, and looked at him anxiously. She had resumed her seat after she had hidden the key, but she now rose and went to him. He was still standing before the window, though he had finished his cigarette and had thrown away the end of it. She stood before him a moment before she spoke, fixing her eyes severely on his face. "Control yourself!" she said sternly. "I understand that you are nervous and over-strained. That is no reason for behaving like a fool." He also paused an instant before speaking. Then, all at once, his features assumed an expression of docility, not at all natural to him. "Yes," he answered, "I will try. I think you are quite right. I really am very much over-strained in these days." Matilde was surprised by his change of manner, but was glad to find that she could control him so easily. "It will pass," she said more gently. "You will be better in a day or two, when everything is settled." "Yes--when everything is settled. But meanwhile, my dear, perhaps it would be better, if you should notice anything strange in my behaviour, like my laughing in this absurd way, for instance, just to look at me without saying anything--you understand--it will recall me to myself. I am convinced that it is only absence of mind, brought on by great anxiety. But people are spiteful, you know, and somebody might think that I was losing my mind." "Yes," she answered gravely. "If you laugh in that way, without any reason, somebody might think so. I will try and call your attention to it, if I can." "Thank you," said Macomer, with his unpleasant smile. "I think I will go and lie down now, for I feel tired." He turned from her, and made a few steps towards the door. He did not walk like a man tired, for he held himself as erect as ever, with his head thrown back, and his narrow shoulders high and square. Nevertheless, Matilde was anxious. "You do not feel ill, do you?" she asked, before he had reached the door. He stopped, half turning back. "No--oh, no! I do not feel ill. Pray do not be anxious, my dear. I will take a little aconite for my heart, and then I will lie down for an hour or two." "I did not know that you had been converted to homoeopathy," said Matilde, indifferently. "But, of course, if it does you good, take the aconite, by all means." "I do not take it in homoeopathic doses," answered Gregorio. "It is the tincture, and I sometimes take as much as thirty or forty drops of it in water. Of course, that would be too much for a person not used to taking it. But it is a very good medicine. Indeed, I should advise you to take it, too, if you ever have any trouble with your heart." "How does it affect one?" asked Matilde, turning her face from him, and speaking indifferently. "It lowers the action of the heart. Of course, one has to be careful. I suppose that one or two hundred drops would stop the heart altogether, but a little of it is excellent for palpitations. Do you suffer from them? Should you like some? I have a large supply, for I always use it. I can give you a small bottle, if you like." "No," answered Matilde, still looking away from him, towards the photographs on the mantelpiece. "I am afraid of those things. They get into the system, as arsenic does, and mercury, and such things." "Not at all," said Macomer. "You are quite mistaken. That is the peculiarity of those vegetable--those strong vegetable medicines. They are quite untraceable in the system, and altogether defy chemistry." Matilde was silent a moment. "Well," she answered, with an air of indifference, "I have a tendency to a little palpitation of the heart, and if you will give me a bottle of your medicine, I will try it once. It can do no harm, I suppose." "Not in small quantities. I will bring it to you by and by." "Very well." He went out, and a moment later she heard his dreadful laugh outside. In an instant she reached the door, opened it, and called after him:-- "Gregorio! Do not laugh!" But he was gone, and there was no one in the passage. CHAPTER VIII. Veronica did not appear at dinner that evening, but remained in her room, sending word to the countess that she had a headache and wished to be alone. Matilde thought it not unnatural that the girl should wish to reflect in solitude upon the grave problem which had been given her for consideration. It would be wiser, too, not to disturb her, but to leave her to herself to reach her own conclusions. Matilde knew that Veronica had considerable gifts of contrariety, and that it would be a mistake to press her too closely for a definite answer. Besides, it was always a tradition in such cases that a young girl should have, in name at least, perfect independence of action, and the ultimate right to refuse an offer or accept it. It was hard to sit still at the dinner table and behave with an appearance of being reasonable, while knowing that the fate of the household depended upon the answer of the young girl--from the personal liberty of two out of the three persons who sat at the meal, to the disposal of the forks and spoons with which they were eating, and the roof over their heads. It was very hard even to make a pretence of swallowing a little food, when all three knew the truth, and none dared to refer to it in any way lest the servants should guess at what was taking place. They spent a terribly uncomfortable hour in one another's society. The two men exchanged indifferent remarks. Matilde occasionally said something, but her mind ran constantly on absurd details, such as the incident of the hiding of the will. As soon as her husband had left her, she had taken it from the drawer, relocking the latter, and again placing the key under the carpet. Then she had taken the will into her dressing-room and had hidden it temporarily in another drawer. To distract her mind during dinner, she tried to think of a better place for it, and at last determined to unscrew the wooden back of a large old silver mirror which stood on her dressing-table, and to lay the two open sheets of the document upon the back of the looking-glass. When it was all screwed up again, it would not be easy to find Veronica's will. Matilde also thought of the aconite which Gregorio had recommended her to keep, and of where she could put it, out of the way of the servants. Once, towards the end of dinner, Gregorio's terrifying laugh broke out suddenly, as the butler was offering him something. The man started back a little and stared, and the spoon and fork clattered to the ground over the edge of the silver dish. Bosio started, too, but Matilde fixed her eyes sternly on Gregorio's face. He saw that she looked at him, and he nodded, suddenly assuming the expression of docility she had noticed for the first time in the afternoon. Before they left the table they were all three in that excruciating state of rawness of the nerves, in which a man has the sensation that his brain is a violent explosive which a single jarring sound or word must ignite and blow to atoms, like a bomb-shell. And all the while Veronica sat peacefully in her room, before her fire, wrapped in a loose soft dressing-gown, her little feet upon the fender before her and a book in her hand. A lamp in an upright sliding stand was on one side of her, and on the other stood a small table. From time to time her maid brought her something from dinner, of which she ate a mouthful or two between two paragraphs of her novel. It was a great pleasure to her to dine in this way, alone, but it was one she rarely had an opportunity of indulging. Even when her aunt and uncle dined out she generally had her dinner in the dining-room with Bosio, who scarcely ever went into society at all. On such occasions they generally sat together half an hour after the meal was over, before separating, and it was then that they really enjoyed each other's conversation. It was very rarely that Veronica yielded to her wish to be alone and pleaded a more or less imaginary indisposition in order to stay in her room. Even then, she was not quite sure of being alone for the whole evening, for Matilde sometimes came in after dinner and remained with her for half an hour. It had always been the countess's habit to show the greatest concern and consideration for her niece. But to-night Veronica knew that she should not be disturbed; for she understood that this was to be an important epoch in her life, upon which all the future must depend, and that, since she had asked time for consideration, Matilde would not intrude upon her solitude. Knowing that she had as many hours before her as she pleased to take, she began the arduous task of self-examination by greedily reading a novel which Bosio had given her two days earlier, and which she had not opened. Somehow, she fancied that while she was reading her mind would decide itself. The immediate question was not really whether she should accept Bosio or not, but whether she should go again on the morrow to her friend Bianca Corleone, between eleven and, twelve o'clock. That Gianluca della Spina would be there, she had not a doubt, and the idea of going there to meet him presented itself to her mind as a dangerous and mad adventure. If she hesitated, however, it was not on account of meeting the man who was dying of love for her, but rather for fear of what Taquisara might think of her if she thus answered his summons to the interview. He had promised that he would not be present, and this gave her courage; but Bianca would see and understand, for Bianca had first spoken to her of Gianluca, that very morning, and as for Taquisara, he would, of course, soon know all about it from his friend. The arguments in favour of going were very strong, since she was asked to say, at short notice, whether she would marry Bosio Macomer or not. In all that Matilde had told Bosio the elder woman had been quite right. Veronica was strongly prejudiced in his favour, and what Taquisara had managed to say in a few words about the interested nature of the proposal, not only had little weight with Veronica, but was the only point which had not pleased her in her interview with the Sicilian. After all, he had attacked her only near relatives in hinting, and more than hinting, that they wished to gain possession of her wealth. She was really ignorant of the fact that Cardinal Campodonico had so rarely even made a pretence of inquiring about the state of her fortune. She met him occasionally, and he never failed to say something pleasant to her, which she afterwards remembered. Whenever Gregorio Macomer spoke to her of business, he used the cardinal's name to give weight to his statements, and Veronica naturally supposed that the princely prelate was informed of all that took place, and approved of everything which Macomer did. It was no wonder that she turned a deaf ear to Taquisara's warning, which, as coming from Gianluca's friend, seemed calculated purposely to influence her against marrying Bosio. In reality, and apart from the little superficial argumentation with which Veronica had diverted her own mind during the late hours of the afternoon, she had made up her mind that before seriously considering the question of marrying Bosio, she would see Gianluca and give him just such an opportunity of speaking with her alone, as she had given his friend Taquisara. There was really much directness of understanding and purpose in her young character, together with a fair share of tenacity; for, as Matilde had told Bosio, Veronica was a Serra, which was at least equivalent to saying that she was not an insignificant person of weak will and feeble intelligence. She was indeed the last of her name, but the race had not decayed. It was by accident and by force of circumstances that it had come to be represented by the solitary young girl who sat reading a novel over her fire on that evening, caring very little for the fact that she was a very great personage, related to many royal families, a Grandee of Spain and a Princess of the Holy Roman Empire, all in her own right alone, as Veronica Serra--all of which advantages Taquisara had hastily recapitulated to her that morning. So long as she should live, the race was certainly not extinct, nor worn out; for she had as much vitality as all the tribe of the Spina family taken together. She was not, indeed, conscious of her untried strength, for she had never yet had any opportunity of using it; and in the matter of the will, which was the only one that had yet arisen in which she might have tried herself, she had yielded in the simple desire to get rid of a perpetual importunity. Beyond that she had attached very little importance to it. Her aunt might be miserly, but Veronica, in her youth and health, could not think it even faintly probable that she should die before the elder woman and leave the latter her fortune. Taquisara's hasty counsel had therefore fallen in barren ground. She scouted the idea that Gregorio Macomer had ruined himself in speculations, for she believed him to be a man of extraordinary caution, and probably something of a miser. Taquisara had therefore not prejudiced her at all against Bosio, nor against the idea of marrying the latter. And Matilde, as has been said, was quite right in supposing that Veronica would see much in favour of the marriage. Bosio was distinctly a desirable man for a husband. Nine women out of ten would have admitted this without hesitation. The strongest argument against the statement seemed to lie in the fact that there were a few faintly grey streaks in his thick and silky hair. For the rest, whatever he chose to say of himself, he was still within the limits of what one may call second youth. He was only between fifteen and sixteen years older than Veronica, and such a difference of age between man and wife does not generally begin to be felt as a disadvantage until the man is nearly sixty. He was not at all a worn-out dandy, with no illusions, and no constitution to speak of; for circumstances, as well as his own sober tastes, had caused him to lead a quiet and restful life, admirably adapted to his sound but delicately organized nature. He was decidedly good-looking, especially in a city where beauty is almost the exclusive distinction of the other sex. His figure, though slightly inclined to stoutness, was still graceful, and he carried himself with a good bearing and a quiet manner, which, might well pass for dignity. So much for his appearance. Intellectually, in Veronica's narrow experience of the world, he was quite beyond comparison with any one she knew. It is true that she really knew hardly any one. But her own intelligence enabled her to judge with tolerable fairness of his capacities, and she had found these varied and broadly developed, precisely in the direction of her own tastes. Lastly, Matilde was right in counting upon the existing intimacy as a factor in the case. The idea of being suddenly betrothed to marry an almost total stranger was as strongly repugnant to Veronica as it seems to be attractive to most girls of her age and class in Southern Italy. The fact is, perhaps, that the majority of such young girls learn to think of themselves as being sure to lead hopeless and helpless lives, unless they are married; and as very few of them possess such attractions or advantages as to make it a positive certainty that they can marry well, they grow up with the idea that it is better to take the first chance than to risk waiting for a second, which may never come. To these, marriage is a very uncertain lottery; and if they draw a prize, they are not easily persuaded to throw it back into fate's bag, and play for another. The very element of uncertainty lends excitement to the game, and they readily attribute all sorts of perfections to the imaginary stranger who is to be the partner of their lives. But in this, Veronica's ideas were quite different. She had assuredly not been brought up in vanity and pride of station, and though naturally proud, she was not at all vain. From her childhood, however, she had received something of that sort of constant consideration which is the portion of those born to exalted fortunes. She had never had less of it, perhaps, than in her aunt's house; for the Countess Macomer was not only of her own race and name, and therefore too near to her to show her any such little formalities of respect, but had also, as a matter of policy and with considerable tact, managed to keep the dominant position in her own house. She had shut out the little court of young friends who would very probably have gathered round her niece--acquaintances of Veronica's convent days, older than herself, but anxious enough to be called her friends--and the tribe of men, old and young, who, in the extremely complicated relationships of the Neapolitan nobility, claimed some right to be treated as cousins and connexions of the family. All these Matilde had strenuously kept away, isolating Veronica as much as possible from young people of her own age, and proportionately diminishing both the girl's power to choose a husband for herself and her appreciation of her own right to make the choice. Nevertheless, Veronica knew that she had that right, and she intended to exercise it. Unconsciously, however, her judgment had been guided towards the selection of Bosio, so that she was now by no means so free an agent as she supposed herself to be. She did not love him at all; but she liked him very much, and admired him, and since it was time for her to be married, she was strongly inclined to choose for her husband the only man of her acquaintance whom she both admired and liked. These long and tedious explanations are necessary in order to explain how it came about that Veronica Serra, with her great position and vast estates, seriously thought of uniting herself with such a comparatively obscure personage as Count Bosio Macomer. Taquisara had very fairly described the latter's position to her that morning as that of an insignificant poor gentleman, in no point of name or fortune the superior of five hundred others, and who might naturally be supposed to covet the dignities and the wealth which Veronica could confer upon him. But Veronica had resented both the description and the suggestions which had accompanied it, which showed well enough, how strong her inclination really was. On the other side, there remained the impression made upon her by what Taquisara had said for Gianluca, and last of all the impression made upon her by Taquisara himself, as a man, and as a standard by which to measure other men in the future. With regard to Gianluca, Veronica was indeed curious, but she was also somewhat sceptical. She could not, of course, say surely that a young man might not die of love for a girl whom he scarcely knew; and among the acquaintances of her family she remembered at least one case in converse, where a morbid maiden of eighteen years had died because she was not allowed to marry the man she loved. Even there, it had been hinted that the girl had caught a bad cold which had fastened upon her delicate lungs. It was doubtless a romantic story, and if anything appealed to her for Gianluca, it was the romance in his case. Her reading had been very limited as yet, and the book she was reading so eagerly was a French translation of the Bride of Lammermoor. The romance of it spoke directly to her imagination; but when the book was closed she did not believe that she had a romantic disposition. It is an indisputable fact that the people to whom the strangest things happen never regard themselves as romantic characters, whatever others may think of them. They are, indeed, more often active and daring people, to whom what others think extraordinary seems quite natural and easy. They make the events out of which humanity's appetite for romance is fed, and become, to humanity, themselves the unconscious embodiments of romance itself. In her heart, therefore, Veronica was a little sceptical about the reality of the terrific passion by which, according to Taquisara, his friend was consumed. She recalled his face distinctly, as she had seen him half a dozen times in the world, and she thought the definition of him which she had given Bianca Corleone a very just one. He reminded her of one of Perugino's angels--with a youthful beard. If angels had beards, she thought, without a smile, they would have beards like Gianluca della Spina's, very youthful, scanty, curling, and so fair as to be almost colourless. She remembered that he had looked at her rather sadly, and had spoken little and to no purpose, making futile remarks about juvenile amusements, and one or two harmless little jokes which she had quite forgotten, but to which he had referred at the next short meeting, at some other house, on the corner of some other similar sofa. That was all that she could call up out of her memories. She had thought him insipid. Once she remembered distinctly that while he had been talking to her, she had been watching Bianca Corleone's handsome brother, Gianforte, whom she had seen only once before, and that when her companion had asked her to agree with him, she had said 'yes,' without having the least idea of what he had been saying. He had produced only a very slight and transparent shadow amongst the figures of her recollections. It was a severe tax on her credulity to try and believe that he was dying for love of her. If it were true, she thought, why had he not had the courage to make her understand it? The fact that the offer made by his family had not been communicated to her might have been hard to explain, but she was not disturbed for want of an explanation. She did not care for the man in the least, and there might be fifty reasons why her aunt and uncle should think him undesirable. On the whole, she believed that Taquisara had enormously exaggerated the state of the case. The Sicilian himself impressed her as singularly honest and bold, but she was much more ready to believe that the friend who had sent him might have interested views, than that Bosio Macomer, whom she liked and admired, was anxious to get possession of her fortune. Taquisara himself had struck her as something new in the way of a man, of a sort such as she had never seen nor dreamt of, and her mind dwelt long on the recollection of the interview. In some way which she could not explain, she vaguely connected him with the book she was now reading--the Bride of Lammermoor; in other words, he appeared to her in the light of a romantic character, and the first that had ever come within the circle of her experience. His recklessness of formalities, of all the limits supposed to be set upon the conversation of mere acquaintance, of what she might or might not think of him individually, so long as she would listen to what he had to say for his friend, seemed to her to belong to a type of humanity with which she had never come in contact. He, and he only, as yet had stirred some thought of another existence than the one which seemed to lie straight before her,--a broad, plain road, as the wife of Bosio. Of love, indeed, there was nothing in her heart, for any man. Within her all was yet dim and still as a sweet summer's night before the dawning. In her firmament still shone the myriad stars that were her maiden thoughts, not yet lost in the high twilight, to be forgotten when love's sun should rise, in peace, or storm, as rise he must. Under her feet, low, virgin flowers still bloomed in dusk, such as she should find not again in the rose gardens or the thorn-land that lay before her. In maidenhood's tender eyes the greater tenderness of woman awaited still the coming day. CHAPTER IX. The weather changed during the night, and when Veronica awoke in the morning the gusty southwest was driving the rain from the roof of the opposite house into a grey whirl of spray that struck across swiftly, to scourge the thick panes with a thousand lashes of watery lace. As Veronica watched her maid opening the heavy old-fashioned shutters, one by one, the sight of each wet window hurt her a little more, progressively, until, when all were visible, she could have cried out of sheer disappointment. For she had unconsciously been looking forward to another day like yesterday, calm and clear and peaceful with much sunshine. But even in Naples it cannot always be spring in December--though it generally is in January. She had hoped for just such another day as the preceding one. She had remembered how she and Taquisara had stood in the sunlight by the marble steps in Bianca Corleone's garden, and she had expected to stand there again this morning with Gianluca, to hear what he had to say. That was impossible, however, and while she was slowly dressing she tried to decide what she should do. It was easy enough to make up her mind that she must see Gianluca, but it was much more difficult to determine exactly how she should find an excuse for going out alone on such a morning. It seemed probable that, whatever she might propose as a reason, her aunt would immediately wish to accompany her. They had given her the afternoon and the evening of the previous day in which to think over her answer, and Matilde might naturally enough expect to hear it this morning. In any case she should not be able to order the carriage and slip out alone as she had done the first time. She had meant to go out on foot with her maid, and then to take a cab in the street and drive to the villa. But in such weather as this she could not do such a thing without exciting remark. It was a week-day, and there were no masses to hear, as an excuse, by the time she was dressed. She watched herself in the glass, while her maid was doing her hair. The dull light of the rainy morning made her own face look grey and sallow. She had not slept very well, and her eyes were heavy, she thought. The glaring whiteness of the thing she had thrown over her shoulders while her hair was being brushed made her look worse. She had little vanity about her appearance, as a rule, but on that particular day she would have been glad to look her best. Not that she at all believed that Gianluca was dying for her; but he was certainly in love with her. Of that she felt sure, for she could not suppose that Taquisara himself was not convinced of the fact. Nor had she the smallest beginning of a tender sentimentality about the fair-haired young man. Nevertheless, if she was to meet him, she did not wish to be positively ugly, as she seemed to be to herself when she looked into the mirror, facing the dulness of the rain-beaten window. Whether she herself was ever to care for him or not, she somehow did not wish to disappoint him by her appearance, and the undefined fear lest she might affected her spirits. Then, before she had quite finished dressing, Matilde Macomer knocked at the door and came in. She was looking far worse than Veronica, and from the absence of colour in her face, her eyes seemed to be more near together than ever. Her appearance made Veronica feel a little more hopeful, and the young girl said to herself that after all the light of a rainy day was unbecoming to every one, and much more so to a woman of forty than to a girl of twenty. She did not wish to be alone with her aunt if she could help it, and she promptly invented several little things for her maid to do, in order to keep the latter in the room. The maid was a thin, dark woman of middle age, from the mountains. She was a widow, and her husband had been an under-steward on the Serra estate at Muro, who had been brutally murdered five years earlier by half a dozen peasants whose rents had been raised, when he endeavoured to exact payment. The rents had been raised by Gregorio Macomer, and the woman knew it, and remembered. But she was very quiet and grave, and seemed to be satisfied with her position. She was certainly devoted to Veronica. Matilde glanced at her two or three times, as though wishing her to go, but Veronica paid no attention to the hint. After exchanging a few words with her niece the countess began to walk up and down nervously and seeming to hesitate as to what she should say. She was horribly anxious, and very much afraid of betraying her anxiety. She knew how dangerous it might be to press Veronica for an answer before it was ready. And Veronica stood before a tall dressing-mirror, making disjointed remarks about the weather, between her instructions to her maid, while apparently altogether dissatisfied with her appearance. First she wished a little pin at her throat, and then she gave it back to the woman and told her to look for another which she well knew would be hard to find. Then she quarrelled with a belt she wore,--for just then belts were in fashion, as they are periodically without the slightest reason,--and she thought that perhaps she would not wear one at all, and she asked Matilde's opinion. The countess forced herself to consider the matter with an appearance of interest. But she was not without resources, and she suddenly bethought her of a belt of her own which Veronica might try, and sent the maid for it, apparently oblivious of the fact that, being fitted to her own imposing figure, it would be far too long for her niece. As soon as the woman had shut the door Matilde seized her opportunity. "Have you come to any conclusion, Veronica dear?" she asked, making her voice full of a gentle preoccupation. "I have not seen Bosio," answered the young girl. "How can I decide, until I have seen him?" "I thought that you did not wish to see him last night--" "No--not last night. I wished to be alone--but--one of these days, I should like to talk to him." "One of these days! To-day, dear. Why not? He is naturally anxious for your answer--" "Is he? It seems so strange! We have seen each other every day, for so long--and I never supposed--" She broke off, not, apparently, from any shyness about going into the subject, but because she was very much interested in the fastening of the second pin she had tried. "I suppose it is much better not to wear any jewelry at all," she said, with exasperating indifference. "Until you are married!" answered Matilde, who was not to be kept from the matter in hand. "You see, everything turns upon that," she continued, with a low laugh. "The sooner it is decided, the sooner you may wear your jewels. No," she went on rapidly. "Of course you never suspected that Bosio loved you, and he would have been very wrong to let you know it, until your uncle and I had given our permission. But he was diffident even about mentioning the matter to us. You cannot have known him so long without having discovered that he has great delicacy of feeling. He did not like to suggest the marriage. You will see when you talk with him after this. I have very much doubt whether he will have the boldness to speak very directly--" "How absurd!" exclaimed Veronica. "As though we did not know each other intimately!" "Yes, but that is the man's nature, and I like it in him. You can easily manage to let him understand at the first word what you have decided. But if you would tell me first,--especially if you mean to refuse,--it would be better. I myself wish only the happiness of you both. You must be absolutely free in your decision. After all, I daresay that you will refuse him." With great mastery of her tone and manner, she spoke in an indifferent way. She was trying the dangerous experiment of playing a little upon Veronica's contrariety. The young girl laughed. "That is not at all certain!" she answered. "Only I do not see why you should all be in such a hurry. If Bosio has been in love with me so long as you say, he will remain in love long enough for me to think over the matter, will he not? If he has been in a state of anxiety for weeks, it will not hurt him to be anxious for one day more--or a week more--or even a month. After all, it is for all my life, you know, Aunt Matilde. I must see how the idea looks when I am used to it. I am not a child, and I am not foolishly frightened at the idea of being married, nor out of my mind with joy at it, either, like a girl of the people." "Of course not," said Matilde, growing a little pale with sheer nervousness. "I daresay that we should be very happy together," continued Veronica. "But how can I possibly be sure of it? No--I suppose that one is never sure of anything until one has tried, but one may feel almost sure that one is going to be sure; that is what I want, before I say 'yes.' Do you wonder?" "Oh, no!" answered the countess, quickly agreeing with her. "On the contrary--" At this point the conversation was interrupted by the return of the maid. The belt, as was to be expected, did not fit at all, and Veronica put on her own again. The maid moved about the room, setting things in order. "Give him a sign, if you wish him to speak when you meet," said Matilde, in a low voice. "It will be so much easier for him. Wear a flower in your frock to-night at dinner--any flower. May I tell him that?" "Yes," answered Veronica, for it seemed a charitable suggestion so far as Bosio was concerned. "I am going out, now," she added suddenly. "May I have the carriage?" "Certainly. Shall we go together?" "Oh, no! I do not want you at all!" cried the young girl, frankly and laughing. "I have a secret. I will take Elettra with me." Elettra was the name of the maid. "Very well," replied Matilde. "I suppose you will tell me the secret some day. Is it connected with New Year's presents? There are three weeks yet. You have plenty of time." Veronica laughed again, which was undoubtedly equivalent to admitting her aunt's explanation, and therefore not, in theory, perfectly truthful. But she did not wish the countess to know that she was going to Bianca Corleone's house, since Matilde would of course suppose, if she knew it, that she was going to consult Bianca about accepting Bosio, which was not true either. She laughed, therefore, and said nothing, having got the use of the carriage, which was all she wanted. "It is horrible weather," observed Matilde, looking at the window, upon which the rain was beating like wet whips, making the panes rattle and shake. "Yes, but I want some air," answered Veronica, in a tone of decision. At such a time it was not safe to irritate the girl even about the smallest matter, and Matilde said nothing more, though under other circumstances she would have made objections. As it was not yet time to go out, and in order to get rid of her aunt, Veronica bade Elettra take out a ball gown which needed some change and improvement, Matilde understood well enough that it was useless to wait longer for the chance of being again alone with her niece, and in a few minutes she went away. On the whole, she had the impression that the prospect was very good. But after she had closed the door, she turned in the outer room, stood still a moment and looked back, allowing her face for a moment to betray what she felt. The expression was a strange one; for it showed doubt, fear, conditional hatred, and potential vengeance--a complicated state of mind, which the cleverest judge of human faces could hardly have understood from Matilde's features. Then, with bent head, and closed hands hanging by her sides, she went on her way. An hour later Veronica and her maid were driving through the rain westward, towards Bianca's villa. As they approached their destination, Veronica felt that she was by no means as calm and indifferent as she had expected to be. Yesterday, it had seemed a very simple matter to go to the garden, to find Gianluca there, to walk ten or twenty paces with him out of hearing of Bianca, and to listen to what he had to say. In a manner it had seemed, indeed, a wild and romantic adventure, which she should remember all her life. But it had looked easy to do, whereas now, all at once, it looked very hard. Again and again, on the way, she was on the point of stopping the carriage and returning. It all looked so different, at the last minute, from what she had expected. It was raining, and she should find Bianca indoors. Probably she would be sitting in her boudoir, beyond the drawing-room, and Pietro Ghisleri would be with her. Veronica would have to give some little excuse or reason for coming, on his account, even though Bianca was her intimate friend. Probably Gianluca would be there already, for it was past eleven o'clock, and Bianca would understand that his coming was the result of what Taquisara had said to Veronica on the previous day. She would not show that she understood, even to Veronica, because she was tactful, but Veronica knew that she was sure to blush, in spite of herself, at the thought that Bianca knew why she had come. Then, too, in the drawing-room, or the boudoir, it would not be easy to be alone with Gianluca. She could not get up and go and stare stupidly out of the window at the rain, taking him with her. She was naturally too obstinate to change her mind, and turn back; yet by the time the brougham drove into Bianca's gate, she really hoped that Gianluca might not come at all. But when she crossed the threshold of the house, she already hoped that he might be there. Her doubts were soon set at rest by the sight of his thin face and almost colourless beard, in the distance, as the servant opened the door of the drawing-room. Bianca was seated at the piano, and Gianluca was standing on one side of her, while Ghisleri bent over her on the other, looking at the sheet of music before her. She rose, as Veronica entered,--a queenly young figure, with a lovely, fateful face. To-day her eyes were dark and shadowy, and Veronica thought that she must have been crying in the night. Gianluca had started visibly when Veronica had appeared, but she did not look at him until she had kissed Bianca, and had spoken to Ghisleri, who now, for the first time, understood the meaning of Gianluca's unexpected morning visit. Bianca had guessed it almost immediately, and had purposely sat down to the piano to look over the music. It would seem natural, she thought, when Veronica came, that she should resume her seat, and play or sing, with Ghisleri to turn over the pages for her, while Veronica and Gianluca could talk. She was too loyal to her friend, and too discreet, to have given Ghisleri a hint, even had she been able to do so after Gianluca had come. But events proved to her that she was right. When Veronica, at last, spoke to the younger man, there was an evident constraint in her manner. He, on his part, blushed suddenly pink, and then turned white again, almost in a moment. He put out his hand nervously, and then withdrew it, not finding Veronica's, but before he had quite taken it back, hers came forward, and hesitated in the air. Then he took it, and both smiled in momentary embarrassment over the incident, and a little at the thought of having shaken hands at all, for it is a custom reserved in the south for married women. "Do you mind if I go on trying this song?" asked Bianca, sitting down to the piano again. "Talk as much as you please," she added. "I do not know it--I only wish to look it over." Veronica was surprised at the ease and simplicity with which matters were arranged, and in a few seconds she found herself sitting beside Gianluca, on a narrow sofa at some distance from Bianca and Ghisleri. Gianluca looked at her sideways, and then a moment later she looked at him; but their eyes did not meet. She had only glanced at him once, and for an instant after they had sat down, side by side, but she had got a good view of his face in that one look. It was evident to her that he was really ill, whatever might be the cause of his illness. The delicate features were unnaturally thin and drawn, and there were blue shadows at the temples such as consumptive men often have. The blue eyes were sunk too deep, and there were hollows above the lids, under the brows. His figure, too, though tall and well proportioned, had seemed frail to her when she had seen him standing by the piano, and his hands were positively emaciated. She could not help pitying him. But it is only pity for sorrow, or for trouble, that is akin to love, not pity for physical weakness; unless, perhaps, a woman is very certainly sure that such weakness is indeed the result of love for herself, wearing the man out night and day--and then the pity she feels is instantly all but love itself and in fact often more than love in deeds. But Veronica had no such certainty. She still believed that Taquisara had overshot the mark of truth. She waited for Gianluca to speak. "We have met--I have had the honour of meeting you--several times already, Donna Veronica, since you came from the convent," he said at last, after a little preliminary cough. "Oh yes!" answered Veronica, with a smile. "We have often met. I know you very well." "I was not quite sure whether you remembered me," he said. He looked at her, and the blood rose and fell quickly in his cheeks, and his hands moved uneasily as he clasped them upon one of his knees. "You must think that I have a very poor memory," observed Veronica, still smiling, not intentionally, but because she was young enough, and therefore cruel enough, to be amused by his embarrassment. "The last time I saw you was at the theatre, I think--at the opening night, last week--ten days ago--when was it?" "Yes," he answered quickly. "That was the last time I saw you; but the last time we spoke was at the San Giuliano's." "Was it? I do not remember. We have often talked--a little--at different places." "I remember very well," said Gianluca, with a good deal of emphasis and looking earnestly at her. Veronica tried to recall the conversation on the occasion to which he referred, but could not remember a word of it. "Did I say anything especial, that time?" she asked, wondering whether she had then unfortunately answered 'yes,' in a fit of absence of mind, to some question of hidden import which he had perhaps addressed to her. "Oh yes!" he answered promptly. "You told me that you liked white roses better than red ones. You see, I have a good memory." "That was a tremendously important statement." Veronica laughed, somewhat relieved by the information. "I always remember everything you say," said Gianluca. "I think I know by heart all you have ever said to me." He spoke with a sort of grave and almost child-like conviction. "I shall remember everything you say to-day," he added, after a moment's pause. "I hope not!" exclaimed Veronica. "I sometimes say very foolish things, not at all worth remembering, I assure you." "But what you say is worth everything to me," he said, with another sudden blush, and a quick glance, while his hands twitched. He was painfully shy and embarrassed, and was producing anything but a favourable impression upon Veronica. She was sorry for him, indeed, in a superior sort of fashion, but she thought of Taquisara's bold eyes and strong face, and of Bosio Macomer's quiet and refined assurance of manner, and Gianluca seemed to her slightly ridiculous. It was in her blood, and she could not help it. Some of her people had been bad, and some good, but most of them had been strong, and she liked strength, as a natural consequence. Moreover, she had not enough experience of the world to put Gianluca at his ease; and a sort of girlish feeling that she must not encourage him to say too much made her answer in such a way as to throw him off his track. "It is very kind of you to say so," she answered lightly. "But I am sure I do not recollect ever saying anything important enough for you to remember. Take what we are saying now, for instance--" "I shall know it all, when you are gone," interrupted Gianluca, harking back again. "Indeed--I hope you will not think me rude or presumptuous--but I thought that perhaps I might meet you here--if I came often, I mean; for Taquisara--" "Oh yes," said Veronica, as he hesitated. "I met Baron Taquisara here yesterday. I daresay that he told you so." As his embarrassment had increased, hers had completely disappeared--which was a bad sign for him and his hopes. "Yes--yes. He told me--" Gianluca leaned back suddenly in his seat, overcome with a sort of shame at the thought that Taquisara had spoken to her for him, and that he himself could find nothing to say. His face pale and red, and his hands trembled. "I like your friend," said Veronica, quietly, wondering whether he felt ill. "Yes--I am glad," answered Gianluca. "He is a true friend, a good friend. If you knew him as well as I do, you would like him still better." Veronica thought this probable, but refrained from saying so, and remained silent. Bianca was touching gentle chords at the piano. Now and then a few words, sung in deep, soft notes, sad as the south wind, floated through the room, and then she and Ghisleri talked about the song, paying no attention whatever to the pair on the sofa. Gianluca sighed and caught his breath. Veronica glanced quickly at him, and then looked again at the top of Ghisleri's head, as the latter bent down. She had not thought that she had expected so much of the meeting. She certainly had not the slightest personal feeling for the man beside her. And yet, somehow, she was dismally disappointed. If this was the man who was dying of love, she infinitely preferred Bosio Macomer. Gianluca was evidently in bad health. He looked as though he might be in a decline, and he was clearly very nervous and ill at ease. But he did not speak at all as she supposed that a man would who was deeply in love. Taquisara had spoken far better. He had seemed so much in earnest that if he had suddenly substituted himself for Gianluca as the subject of his phrases, Veronica could have believed him easily enough. "Then I may hope that you will forgive me for coming here, thinking that I might meet you?" said the young man, with a question in his voice. "Why should you not come?" asked Veronica, not unkindly, but with the least possible inflexion of impatience. "There can certainly be no reason, if you are not offended," he answered. "But if I thought that I had offended you, by coming, I should never forgive myself." "But I should certainly forgive you, if you offended me unintentionally. Besides, there is no reason in the world why you should not come here to see Bianca whenever you like, if she will receive you. She goes out very little. She is glad to see people." He was a man born to throw away opportunities, an older woman would have thought; but Veronica grew impatient at his insistence upon useless things, and his thin, nervous hands irritated her vaguely as, looking down, or in front of her, she could not help seeing them clasped upon his knee. Once, too, she was aware that Bianca leaned to one side and looked towards her, round the side of the sheet of music, as though to see how matters were progressing. Veronica began to feel that she was in a ridiculous position. The hesitation and pauses and silences had made the brief conversation already last nearly a quarter of an hour. In that time Taquisara had said all he had to say. Veronica made a little movement, a very slight indication that she would presently leave her seat. Gianluca started and suddenly gazed earnestly into her face, so that she turned her head and met his eyes. "Please do not go yet!" he cried in a low and earnest voice that had real entreaty in it. "No," she answered quickly. "I am not going. But I must go soon. I cannot stay long, for I must go home to luncheon, and I have not talked with Bianca at all yet." "Yes--I know--and I must be going too," he said nervously. "But if you knew what it is to me to sit here beside you for a few minutes--" He stopped suddenly, and the colour rushed to his face. "In what way?" asked Veronica, with an impatient, womanly impulse to make him speak and have done with it, in order that there might be no more misunderstanding. "Because--because I love you, Donna Veronica!" He turned quite white as he found words at last. "I must say it this once, even if you never forgive me. This is the first happy moment I have had since I saw you the last time. I love you--let me tell you so before I die, and I shall die happy if you will forgive me, for I have dreamed of saying it, and longed to say it, so often. You are my whole life, and my days and nights only have the hours of my thoughts of you to mark them." His words came confusedly and uncontrolled, but his voice had a longing pathetic ring in it, as of a very hopeless appeal. Veronica had been startled at first, and her eyes were wide and girlish as she looked at him. It was the first time that any man had ever told her that he loved her, and for that reason it was to be memorable; but it did not seem to be the first time. Taquisara's manly pleading and fervent voice when he had spoken yesterday had left her ears dull to this real first time of hearing love speeches, so that this seemed the second, and the words she heard, after the first little shock of realizing what they were, touched no chord that would respond. She did not answer at first, but half unconsciously she shook her head, as she turned from him and looked away once more. Perhaps that was the most unkind thing she could have done; for it was so natural, and simple, and unaffected a refusal, that he could hardly be mistaken as to her meaning; and, after all, she had led him on to speak. She herself was shocked at her own heartlessness a moment later, and in one of those absurd concatenations of ideas which run through the mind at important moments, she felt as though she had been giving a merchant an infinity of trouble to show his wares, only to buy nothing and go away. Then, the brutality of the involuntary simile distressed her, too, and she felt that she ought to say something to destroy the effect of it on her own mind, as well as to comfort Gianluca. But she could not find much to say. Very young women rarely do, under the circumstances. "I am very sorry," she said gently. She felt that he might have a right to reproach her for coming there, and she was grateful to him for not doing so, having really very little idea of the nature of the over-submissive and humble love which sapped his manliness instead of rousing his courage. "Ah, I knew it!" he almost moaned, and resting his elbows upon his knees he covered his face with his delicate, white hands, that trembled spasmodically now and then. "I knew it," he repeated in his broken voice. "You were kind to let me speak--I kiss your hands--for your kindness--I thank you--" His voice broke altogether. Veronica heard a smothered sob, and glancing at him nervously, saw the tears trickling down between his fingers. She looked up quickly to see whether Bianca had noticed anything, but the sweet, deep voice was singing softly to the subdued chords of the piano, and Veronica sat quite still, waiting for Gianluca to recover his self-control. She felt that she pitied him, but at the same time considered him in some way an inferior being; and as the idea of marrying him crossed her mind again, her heart started in repugnance at the mere thought. CHAPTER X. Veronica left Bianca Corleone's house with a very painful sense of disappointment, and as she drove homeward through the wet streets, she could not get rid of Gianluca's tearful blue eyes, which seemed to follow her into the carriage; and in the rattling and jolting, she heard again and again that one weak sob which had so disturbed her. At that moment she would rather have gone directly back to the convent in Rome, to stay there for the rest of her life, than have married such an unmanly man as she believed him to be. His words had left her cold, his face had frozen her, his tears had disgusted her. She pitied him for his weakness, not for his love of her, and she hoped that she might never again hear any man speak to her as he had spoken. Nevertheless there had been in his tone, at the last, the doubt-splitting accent of a sharp truth that hurt him to tears. She wondered why he had not moved her at all. The day seemed more grey and wet and desolate than ever. She thought that everybody in the street looked draggled and disappointed. Near Santa Lucia she passed a wretched vender of strung filberts and doubtful cakes, mounting guard over his poor little handcart with a dilapidated umbrella, under the half-shelter of a projecting balcony. A couple of barefooted boys crouched on the wet pavement by the sea-stairs, with a piece of sacking drawn over both their heads together, gnawing hard-tack, and as the rain struck the stones, it splashed up in their faces under their sack. On the left, the coral shops showed their brilliant wares dimly through the rain-streaks, with closed glass doors through which here and there the disconsolate face of the shopkeeper was visible, as he stood gazing out upon the dismal, dripping scene. A sailor man came out of the marine headquarters at the turning of the Strada dei Giganti, bending his flat cap against the rain and burying his ears in the blue linen collar of his shirt, which was turned back over his thick jacket. The water splashed out from under his heavy shoes, to the right and left, as he walked quickly up the hill. Beyond that, the Piazza San Ferdinando was deserted, and the broad wet pavement lay flat and darkly gleaming upward to the broad, watery sky that stretched grey and even, without shading, like a sheet of wet india-rubber over all the city. Then the Toledo, where the gutters could not swallow the deluge, but sent their overflow in dark yellow streams down each side of the street--then the narrower, darker ways and lanes between the high houses and the low, black doorways, through the heart of old Naples, home at last to the Palazzo Macomer. Veronica was glad to get back to the fire in her own room, and to feel dry again--for seeing so much water had given her the sensation of being drenched. And she sat down to think over what had happened in the morning, trying to understand her own disappointment, because she believed that she had expected nothing, and therefore that she could not be disappointed. She was very glad to get back to her own room. So far as she at all knew what a home meant, the Palazzo Macomer was home to her, and she had no distinct recollection of any other. Gregorio and Matilde and Bosio were her own family, so far as she had ever known what to understand by the word. They were more familiar to her than any other people in the world possibly could be, and if she felt that she had little affection for her aunt and uncle, yet she knew that there was a bond; and she was sincerely attached to Bosio for his own sake. She had photographs of all three on the mantelpiece, in silver frames,--that of her aunt standing in the middle, and one of the men on either side. She looked at Bosio's, taking it down from its place. She looked at it critically, and seeing a speck of dust on the glass, just over the face, she passed her handkerchief over it, polishing the surface, and looking at it again. From the photograph any one would have said that Bosio was a handsome man, for he photographed well, as the phrase goes. His clear, pale complexion, his well-cut, refined features, his smooth, thick, silky hair looked singularly well against the smoked background, and had at once the strength and the transparency which make a good photograph by adding an illusion of relief to the flatness of mere outline and light and shade. Probably the likeness was flattered. But Veronica did not think so just then, coming as she did from a disillusionment which had affected her more strongly than she knew. She compared Bosio with Gianluca, in appearance, and Gianluca lacked almost everything which could bear comparison. She compared Bosio with Taquisara, and she preferred the quiet refinement of the one to the bold eyes and high aquiline features of the other. At least, she thought so. But she also preferred Taquisara to Gianluca, by many degrees of preference. Yet both these men were commonly spoken of as handsome. She thought of another point, too, and with her blood it was natural that she should think of it. If she married Bosio, he would take her name and titles; not she, his. She would rule the house and be independent--not of him, exactly, for she was fond of him and had no desire to be despotic over him, but of parents and elders and relations who would think it their right to advise and guide. All this would be different with Gianluca for her husband. The Della Spina were proud of their name and would expect her to bear it. They were numerous, too; the old father and mother would oppress and burden her life, and the brothers and sisters of Gianluca would grow up to be more or less of a perpetual annoyance to their elder brother's wife. Of that side of life her aunt had given her more than one picture, intentionally exaggerating a little, perhaps, for her own purposes. And from Bianca she had heard many things of the same kind. Married to Bosio, she would be free altogether from any one's interference in her household. She met them all at luncheon, and was struck by the fact that both men, as well as Matilde, looked pale and harassed, as though they had slept little. For there was little sleep or rest, except for Veronica, during those days of gnawing anxiety. She was struck, too, and startled, by Gregorio's hideous laugh, which broke out twice during the meal without any apparent reason. Even the servants seemed to shudder at it and looked at him anxiously, and Matilde's dark eyes tried to control him. Indeed, when she looked at him, he seemed docile enough, except that his face twitched very strangely as he nodded to her. But they all talked, with the evident intention of seeming at their ease; and in a measure they succeeded, for they were not weaklings like Gianluca. Bosio was by far the least strong in character, but his very remarkable self-possession made him their equal in the present case. On the previous evening, when Veronica had not been present, they had scarcely made an effort; but now that she was seated at table with them, they performed their parts conscientiously and not without success. They were encouraged, too, by Veronica's manner to Bosio. After her experience in the morning it was a distinct pleasure to be again in his society, and she talked enthusiastically to him of the Bride of Lammermoor--the book he had given her and which she had begun to read during her solitary dinner on the previous evening. She was sure of the response to what she said, before she said it, and it came surely enough. She felt that he understood her, and that she should be glad to talk with him every day. Several days had passed since they had been alone together for half an hour. She compared him with the photograph of him, too, and she came to the conclusion that the likeness was not so much flattered, after all. His unusual pallor to-day had something luminous in it, and the features, in two days of suffering, had grown thinner with a sort of finely chiselled accentuation of their natural refinement. To-day, he reminded her of certain portraits of Van Dyck. But when luncheon was over, she avoided being alone with him, for she had not yet come to any decision. It would be more true, perhaps, to say that she distrusted herself in the decision she now seemed to have reached too suddenly. For in the expansion of sympathy she enjoyed so much it all at once seemed to her that she could never marry any one but Bosio, who understood her so well, who anticipated what she was going to say, and knew beforehand what she thought upon almost any subject of conversation. She had never been exactly opposed to the idea, from the first; but now it took possession of her strongly, as it had never done before, and she might almost have taken her genuine affection for the man for love, if she had ever been taught to suppose that love was necessary before marriage. She had been far too carefully brought up in Italian ideas of the old school, however, to make any such self-examination necessary. She had been told that it was important that she should like and respect the man she was to marry. She had no reason for not respecting Bosio, so far as she knew, and she certainly liked him very much indeed. But she meant to wait until the evening, and give herself a chance to change her mind once more. After luncheon there was the usual adjournment to another room for coffee, over which the two men smoked cigarettes. Veronica expected that Matilde would ask her by a gesture, or a word in a low tone, whether she were any nearer to a conclusion than before, but the countess did nothing of the sort, for she was far too wise; and Veronica was grateful for being left entirely to her own thoughts in the matter. Nor did Bosio bestow upon her any questioning glance, nor betray his anxiety in any way except by his pallor, which he could not help, of course. Veronica thought that once or twice his eyes brightened unnaturally, in the course of conversation; and in his manner towards her she might have fancied that there was a shade more than usual of that sort of affectionate deference which all women love, though they love it most in the strong, and it sometimes irritates them a little in the weak, for a passing moment, when their caprice would rather be ruled than flattered. Bosio made no attempt to be alone with her, and at the end of half an hour both he and his brother departed to their own quarters. Even then, when she was alone with Veronica, Matilde did not return to the subject which was uppermost and above all important in her mind. With amazing tact and self-control she talked pleasantly enough, though she managed to place herself with her back to the light, so that Veronica could not see her expression clearly. At last she rose and said that she must go out. The weather had improved a little, and she asked Veronica to go with her. But the young girl had no desire to be driven through Naples in a closed carriage a second time that day, and she went away to her own room, with the intention of spending a quiet afternoon by the fire with her novel. On the previous evening she had read a little over her dinner, and from time to time during the short evening she had returned to the book, feeling that it was easier to read than to think, and much more satisfactory. She took the volume now, but she could not read at all. She was overcome by a wish which seemed wholly unaccountable, to send for Bosio to meet her in the drawing-room, and to tell him outright that she was willing to marry him. Nothing but maidenly self-respect prevented her from doing so at once, and the hours seemed very long before dinner. Many times she rose from her seat by the fire and moved about her room in an objectless way, touching things uselessly and looking for things which were not lost, which she did not want, but which she could not find. She wished that she had her great jewels. She would have tried them on before the mirror--anything to pass the time. But they were all safely stored in one of the safest banks. She grew more and more restless as the minutes passed and the dinner hour approached. Looking at herself in the glass, she said that her cheeks were no longer sallow, as they had seemed to be in the morning. There was a fresh colour in them, and it was becoming to her and pleased her. Her soft hair had fallen a little upon each side of her brows, and her eyes were brilliantly bright. She looked at them when the twilight was coming on, and they seemed to shine, with wide pupils, having a light of their own. At last the time came. Before she rang for her maid, who had brought lights and had gone away again, she stood a moment before the fire and looked once more at Bosio's photograph, asking herself seriously for the last time whether she should marry him or not. But the answer was there before the question, and she had made up her mind. At the last minute, she had forgotten the flower she had promised to wear, and she sent her maid in haste to see whether she could find one of any sort in the house. It was the middle of December, and it was not probable that such a thing could be found in the Palazzo Macomer. The maid came back empty-handed. Veronica told her to find an artificial one, and Elettra, after some searching, produced a very beautiful artificial gardenia, which Veronica pinned in her white bodice, with a smile. She glanced at herself once more, and saw that the colour was still in her cheeks, and she was satisfied with herself. When she entered the drawing-room, the other three were already there, and she saw the faces of Matilde and Bosio change as they caught sight of the flower. Gregorio apparently knew nothing of the arrangement--another instance of Matilde's tact which pleased Veronica. Matilde herself was no longer pale. She had seen how desperate she looked and had put a little rouge upon her cheeks so deftly and artistically that the young girl did not at first detect the deception. But her features had still been drawn and weary. They relaxed suddenly in a genuine smile when she saw the gardenia. But Bosio grew paler, Veronica thought, and looked very nervous. At table, he was opposite Veronica, and he reminded her more than ever of Van Dyck's portraits, so that she wondered why she had never before thought of the general resemblance. He talked less than at luncheon, and sometimes his eyes rested on hers with an expression which she could not understand. But there was admiration in it, as well as something else. Veronica herself was animated, and had never looked so well before, in the recollection of the other three. After dinner Gregorio disappeared almost immediately, and at the end of a quarter of an hour Matilde left the room, merely observing that she was going to write letters and would come back when she had finished. Bosio and Veronica were alone. To her, it seemed to have come suddenly at the end, and she did not quite realize how it was that she found herself standing on one side of the fireplace, while he stood on the other. They looked at each other a moment. Then Veronica smiled faintly, and drew herself up--or lengthened herself--as slight young girls have a way of doing when they are pleased, and she turned a little in the movement, and glanced at the clock, still faintly smiling. Bosio was watching her, and he could not help admiring her lithe figure and small, well-poised head, that had a sort of girlish royalty of carriage not at all connected with beauty; for she was not beautiful, and she herself knew that there were times when she was almost ugly. He saw and admired, and he cursed himself for what he meant to do. He was not sure, even now, that he could do it. There was no awkwardness in the silence, Veronica thought, for it seemed to her that he understood, and that words were hardly necessary. If she had meant to refuse him, she would have done so through Matilde. She smiled, looking at the clock, and thinking about it all. Then she realized that no word had been spoken on either side, and she turned her head a little shyly, till she could just see his face, while the smile still lingered on her lips. One hand rested on the mantelpiece, with the other she touched the artificial gardenia in her bodice. "That is my answer, you know," she said quietly, and her eyes waited for his. But he only glanced at her face, and for a moment he did not move. Then, with a graceful inclination he took her hand and raised it to his lips. She noticed even then that his own hand was dry and burning. He did not trust himself to speak. When he looked up, the room whirled with him, and he saw strange colours. He thought his teeth were chattering. "Are you glad?" she asked, wondering a little at his silence now, and the room seemed strangely still all at once. "Is it quite of your own free will?" he asked, as though it cost him an effort to say anything. "Yes--quite. Of course!" Her face grew bright as though she were happy in removing the one doubt he had. "I am very glad of that," he said quietly. "Do you think that I would marry any one under pressure?" asked Veronica, with a soft laugh. "I will tell you something that will convince you. It is a secret. You must not tell my aunt that I know. I could have married Don Gianluca della Spina. Perhaps you know that. Did you? I did; but I will not tell you how. Only, you see--I did not care for him." Bosio had recovered his self-possession, which had been only momentarily shaken. For there had been no surprise--he had known what to expect. "I only knew lately of the Spina's proposal," he said. "But--shall I thank you, Veronica? Or do you understand without words? We have known each other so long, that perhaps you may." "I think I understand," she answered. She put out her hand again and pressed his, and again he kissed her fingers. The action was reverential, and had nothing in it of the man who loves and is accepted. Her gentle hand, maidenly and innocent, was stretched down into the hell of word and thought and deed in which his real self had its being, and he touched it with his lips, and in his heart he knelt to kiss it, as something too holy to be in this world--just because it was innocent, and his own was not. For herself he set her on no pedestal, he did not worship her, he did not love her, he admired her with the cold judgment of a man of taste. It is the purity of the unblemished and unspotted victim that makes the outward holiness of the sacrifice. He thought of his own life and of hers, hitherto side by side, and he thought of their joint life in, the future, she taking him for what he was not, and he was ashamed. In the first moment he had a brave impulse to tell her everything and be a man, even if he ruined the woman he had loved so long, as well as the brother who bore his name. It was only an impulse, and his lips remained sealed and his face calm. "I do thank you," he said in a low voice, when he had kissed her hand that second time. "I will do what I can to make you happy." Yet he knew now, from the strength of that passing impulse, that if she had not spoken first, he would not have asked her directly to marry him. Twenty times during that long day, alone in his room, he had sworn that he would not marry her, whatever happened. For it was not enough that Matilde had set him free, and that he had rejoiced for one hour in his liberty. That was not enough. Matilde could not undo the work of many years by a word and a gesture. His hell was already a desert without her. But now, there was no drawing back. Forty-eight hours ago, in that very room, almost at that hour, he had told Matilde that he would never marry Veronica Serra. And now, almost on the same spot, and facing the same way, he was telling Veronica Serra that he would do his best to make her happy. "I am sure you will," she answered. "I should deserve evil things if I did not," he said, passing his hand over his eyes, to shut out the sight of the innocence that faced him. Suddenly it came over him that she must expect him to say more, to be passionate, to say that he loved her beyond all mortal things, and set her far above immortality itself, and such unproportioned phrases of the love-sick when the instant healing of response touches the fainting heart. All that, she must expect. Why not? Other women expected it, and heard all they desired, well or ill spoken, according to the man's eloquence, but always well according to their own hearts. Surely he must say something also. He must tell her how he had dreamed of this instant, how her white shade had visited and soothed his dismal hours--and the rest. As he thought what he should say, love's phrase-book turned to a grim and fearful blasphemy in his own inner ears. But she expected it, of course, and he must speak, when he would have given the life he had to save her from himself and to save himself from the last fall, below which there could be no falling. It was almost impossible. If he had not loved Matilde Macomer still, he would have turned even then and spoken the truth, come what might. But that remained. He gathered the weakness of his sin into an unreal and evil strength, as best he could, and for Matilde's sake he spoke such words as he could find--lies against himself, against the poor rag of honour in which he still believed, even while he was tearing it from the nakedness of a sin it could not clothe--lies against love, against manhood, against God. "I have loved you long, Veronica," he began. "I had not hoped to see this day." The awful struggle of his own soul against its last destruction sent a strong vibration through his softened voice, and lent the base lie he spoke such deadly beauty as might dwell in the face of Antichrist, to deceive all living things to sin. He was still standing, and his hand lay out towards Veronica, on the shelf before the clock. Slowly she turned towards him, at the first sound of his words, wondering and thrilled. "Is it long? I do not know," he continued. "It is more than a year, since I first knew what this love meant. For I have loved little in my life--little, and I am glad, though I have been sorry for it often, for all I ever had, or have, or am to have till I die, is for you, Veronica, all of it--the love of heart and hand and soul, to live for you and die for you, in trust and faith, and love of you. You wonder? Beloved--if you knew yourself, you would not wonder that I love you so! There is no man who could save himself, if he lived by your side, as I have lived. You smile at that? Well--you are too young to know yourself, but I am not--I know--I know--I thought I knew too well, and must pay dear for knowing how one might love you and live. But it is not too well, now. It is life, not death. It is hope, not despair--it is all that life and joy can mean, in the highest." He paused, his eyes in hers, his hand still stretched out and lying on the shelf. Gently hers sought it and lay in it, and there was light in her face, for she believed. And he, in his suffering within, was moved; as a man is, who, being in his life but a poor knave, plays bright truth and splendid passion on a stage, and the contrast that is between being and seeming, in his heart, makes him play greatness with a strong will, born of certain despair. "I am glad," said Veronica, softly, and she looked down, while her hand still lingered in his, and he went on. "It is not easy for a man like me to believe that he has all the world in his grasp--in the hold of his heart, to be his as long as he lives. But you are making me believe it now--all that I did not dare to think of as even most dimly possible in my lonely life--that is why I thank you, that is why I bless you, and adore you, and love you as I do, as I can never make you guess, Veronica, as I scarcely hope you dream that a man may love a woman. That is why I would die for you, Veronica, if God willed that I might!" The great words lacked no outward sign of living truth. His hand burned hers, and closed upon it, pressure for word, to the end, in the terrible play of acted earnestness. Even his eyes brightened and filled themselves, determined to lie with all of him that lied to her. Had he hated her, had it been a vengeance to make her love him in payment of a past debt of wrong, it would have seemed less foully base in his own eyes. But he liked her. She had always trusted him and liked him too, and there had been only kindness between them always. That made it worse, and he knew it. But he could do the worst now, he thought, for he had altogether given over his soul, to leave it in hell, without hope. "I pray God that I may be worthy of your love," said Veronica, gently and earnestly. He drew her towards him by her little hand, and himself came softly nearer to her, till his other hand was on her shoulder, drawing her still. She yielded, not knowing what she should do. Quite close she was, and he held her, unresisting, and kissed her. She had known, but she had not realized. The scarlet blood leapt up in maiden shame, and she started back a little. But she thought that he had the right to do it. "Good night," she said, with downcast eyes, for she felt that she could not stay to look at him. "Good night, love," he whispered. He let her go, and she slipped from him, leaving him still standing in his place. The door closed behind her, and he was alone, very quiet and pale, thinking of what he had done, and not rejoicing, for he knew the depth of its meaning. He was glad it was over, for if it had been to do again, he could not have done it. His lips were parched, his throat was dry, his hands were burning; he felt as though his head were shaking on his shoulders, palsied by a blow. But such as the deed was, it had been well done, to the end. The devil, if he cared for his own, would be pleased. He had even kissed her. He knew what Judas had been, now, and what he had felt. He did not know how long he stood there. It might have been a quarter of an hour or more; but though he watched the clock's face, his eyes saw no movement of the hands upon the dial. It seemed to him that the room was dark. Then the door opened again, and he started and looked round, fearing lest Veronica might have come back--or her ghost, for he felt as though he had killed her with his hands. But it was Matilde Macomer. She glanced round the room and saw that Veronica was gone. "Well?" she asked, coming swiftly forward to where Bosio was standing, pale as death under her rouge. He faced her stupidly, with heavy eyes, like a man drunk. "It is all over" he said slowly. She started forward, not understanding him. "Over? Broken off?" she cried, in horror. "Oh no!" he answered with a choking laugh, bad to hear. "It is done. It is agreed. She accepts me." Matilde drew breath, and pressed her hand to her left side for one moment--she, who was so strong. "You almost killed me!" she said, so low that Bosio hardly caught the words. Slowly she straightened herself, and the colour came back to her face, blending with the tinge of the paint. He did not move, and she came and stood near him, leaning her elbows upon the mantelpiece and turning to him. "You have saved me," she said. "I thank you." Bad natures can be simple, if they are great enough, and Matilde spoke simply, as she looked at him. She had been almost terrible to look at a few moments earlier, with the rouge visible on her ghastly cheeks. No one could have detected it now, and she was still splendid to see, as she stood beside him, just bending her face upon her clasped hands while her deep eyes melted in his. He knew the difference between her and Veronica, and he straightened himself, till he looked rigid, and an unnatural smile just wreathed his lips, half hidden in his silky beard. He told himself that he had fallen the last fall, to the very depths; yet he knew that there was a depth below them, and he tried to turn his face from her, seeking refuge in the thought of what he had done, from the evil he still might do. "I have been thinking over all I said to you yesterday afternoon," she said gently. "I meant it, you know--I meant it all." "I trust to Heaven you did!" answered Bosio. "Yes, dear, I meant it," she said in a voice of gold and velvet. "I will try to mean it still. But--Bosio--look at me!" He turned his eyes, but not his face. "Yes?" His voice was not above his breath. "Yes--but can you? Can I? Can we live without each other?" "Yes, we must." He spoke louder, with an effort. She drew nearer to him, strong and soft. "Yes? Well--but say goodbye--not as yesterday--not as though it were good bye--one kiss, Bosio, only one kiss--one, dear--one--" And in it, her voice was silent, for it had done its tempting, and she had her will, on the selfsame spot where he had kissed Veronica. Then he trembled from head to foot, and his heart stood still. An instant later he was gone, and she had not tried to keep him. She watched him as he left her and went to the door without turning. He walked quickly when he had shut the door behind him, and his face was livid. The depth below the depths had been too deep. He had but one thought as he went through the rooms, and the antechamber, and hall, and out upon the cold staircase, and up to his own door, and on, and in, till he turned the key of his own room behind him. There was no stopping then, either, between the door and the table, between key and lock, and hand and weapon. Before the woman's kiss had been upon his lips two minutes, Bosio Macomer lay dead, alone, under the green-shaded lamp in his own remote room. Peace upon him, if there be peace for such men, in the mercy of Almighty God. He did evil all his life, but there was an evil which even he would not do upon the innocent life of another. He died lest he should do it, and desperately grasping at the universal strength of death, he cast himself and his weakness into the impregnable stronghold of the grave. CHAPTER XI. It was still early in the morning, and all Naples knew that Count Bosio Macomer had committed suicide on the preceding evening. Every morning newspaper had a paragraph about the shocking tragedy, but few ventured to guess at any reason for the deed. It was merely stated that Count Bosio's servant had been alarmed by the report of a pistol about nine o'clock in the evening, and on finding the door of his master's room locked had broken in, suspecting some terrible accident. He had found the count stretched upon the floor, in evening dress, with his own revolver lying beside him. That was precisely what had happened, but the meagre account gave no idea of the confusion which had ensued upon the discovery. It contained no mention of Matilde nor of Veronica, and merely observed that the brother of the deceased was overcome with grief. That would have been too weak an expression to apply to what Matilde suffered during the hours which followed the first appalling blow. In the overpowering horror of the situation, she did not lose her mind, but she sincerely believed that her body could not live till the morning. To do her justice, as she sat there beside the dead man, bent and doubled in silent, tearless grief, a dark shawl drawn over her head to hide her face, and utterly regardless, for once, of what any one might think, she thought only of him and of what she had done. For she understood, and she only, in all the household. Beyond her conscious thoughts, if they could be called thoughts at all, the black figures of the forbidding future loomed darkly in her consciousness. They were the things she knew, rather than the things she felt, but the terror of what was to be was as real as the grief for what had been, though as yet it had less strength to move her. The blow had struck her down, and until she should try to rise she could feel nothing but the blow. In truth she did not think that she should live until the morning. It was midnight when they lit candles, and set them beside him in great candlesticks as he lay. And she sat down at his feet and watched his still face, from beneath the shawl that hung over her head. It had been in her hands when they had told her, and her fingers had closed upon it stiffly; so she had it when she came to his room. She was glad, for she could cover herself from the eyes of those who came and went, but her own eyes could see out, from under it, and no tears blinded her. After she had sat down, she did not move. Gregorio Macomer had come, and had gone away, and then he had come again, when all was done, and had knelt a long time beside the couch on which his brother lay, repeating prayers audibly. His face was as grey as a stone. He only spoke to give directions in a whisper, and he said nothing to his wife, but let her alone, bowed and covered as she sat. When he had prayed, he went away, with reverently bent head, and she heard that he trod softly. In two hours he came back, knelt again, and again repeated Latin words. She knew that he was doing it for a show of sorrow, and she wished to kill him. Then, when he was softly gone again, she wondered how soon she herself was to die. There were two servants in the room, behind her, keeping watch. They were relieved by two others, changing through the night. She heard them come and go, but did not turn her head. When the dawn forelightened, like the ghost of a buried day risen from the grave to see its past deeds, she was not yet dead. She had once read how the murderers of Vittoria Accoramboni had been torn with red-hot pincers and otherwise grievously tortured, and how knives had been thrust deep into their breasts just where the heart was not, but near it, and how they had died hard, for they had lived more than half an hour with the knives in them, and at the last had been quartered alive. She had not believed what she had read, but now she knew that it was true. She envied them the searing, the tearing, and the knives which had at last killed them, though they had died so hard. The wan dawn turned the dead man's face from waxen yellow to stone grey. The servants saw it, whispered, and closed the inner shutters, and the yellow candle-light shone again in the room. Any light is better than daylight on a dead face. Matilde sat still, bowed and covered. Fixed in the world of grief, the hours of sorrow passed her by. There was neither night nor day in the dead watch of the closed room, under the tall candles, burning steadily. Then, at last, other feet were on the threshold, stumbling, shuffling, ill-shod feet of men bearing a burden. In that city, one may not lie in his home more than one day after he is dead. They set down what they bore, beside the couch, and waited, and the woman saw their questioning faces and heard them whispering. Then one of them, with some reverence and gentleness, thrust his arm under the low pillow, and with his eyes bade another lift the feet. But Matilde rose then and came between them and the dead. They thought that she would look at him once more, and they drew back, while she looked, for she bent over his face. But the shawl about her head fell about her, and they could not see that she kissed him. They waited. The great woman put her hands about him, and bowed herself, and lifted him from the couch, and the men could not believe it when they saw her turn with him and lay him down in his coffin, alone, with no one to help her. For she was very strong. She stood and looked down at him a long time, and once she stopped and moved one of his crossed hands, which touched the edge. And then she drew from her neck, from beneath the shawl, a piece of fine black lace, and laid it gently over and about his head. "Cover it," she said to the men, and she stood waiting, lest they should touch him with their hands. She had seen his face for the last time, and when they had covered him, they laid the coffin in another of lead which they had brought, and she stood quite still, watching the gleaming melted stuff that ran along the edges of the grey lead, like quicksilver, under the hot tool of copper. When that was done, with main strength they laid him in the third, which was covered with black velvet. And there were screws. At last they went away, and Matilde set the tall candlesticks on each side of the velvet thing, and looked at it again. Then she, too, with still covered head, went towards the door. But between the coffin and the door, she stood still, swaying a little, till she fell to her full length backwards and straight, as a cypress tree falls when it is cut down. But she was not dead, for she was too strong to die then. The servants carried her away to her own room, calling others to help them, for she was heavy, and they had to take her down the stairs. It was afternoon then, and when she came to herself and opened her eyes, she bitterly cursed the day, for it would have been good to die. But she never went again to the room where she had watched. She lay still a long time, alone in silence. Then, from a room beyond hers, came the wild crash of her husband's laughter. She sat up. Her face was grim and terrible, ghastly and stained with rouge, as the shawl fell back upon her shoulders. She sat up and listened, and her smooth lips twisted themselves angrily, one against the other, as a tiger's sometimes do, when there is blood in the air. She knew now that she was really alive, for she thought of Veronica. Veronica had not known in the night. Her rooms were at the farther end of the apartment in a quiet part of the house, and when she had left Bosio she had gone to bed immediately and had dismissed her maid. Elettra came from the room to find the household in the hideous uproar and confusion which first followed the discovery of Bosio's death. Elettra was a wise woman as well as a revengeful one. By the deeds of the Macomer, as she looked at it, her own husband had been killed, and she had cursed their house, living and dead. She had blood now, for her blood, and in the dark corridor she smiled once. But no one should disturb Veronica, and she stood there, where any one must pass to go to the girl's room, silent, satisfied, watchful. She loved her mistress, as she hated all the Macomer, body and soul, alive and dead. Some foolish women of the household would have roused Veronica, for they came, two together, asking in loud hysterical voices, whether she knew. But Elettra kept them off, and took the news herself in the morning when Veronica rang for her. "A terrible thing has happened in the night," she said, when she had opened the windows. Veronica opened her eyes wide and then rubbed them slowly with her slim, dark fingers and looked again at Elettra. "It is a very terrible thing," continued the woman, gravely. "It happened in the night, and all was confusion, but I would not let them disturb you. They heard the pistol-shot and broke down the door. He was already dead. He had shot himself." "Who?" asked Veronica, in instant horror. "Some one in the house? A servant?" Elettra shook her head. "No. I would not tell you--but you must know. It was Count Bosio." Veronica turned pale and started up. "Bosio? Bosio dead?" she cried in a voice that was almost a scream. The woman was sensible and understood her, and by that time the household was quiet, so that there was no fear lest any one else should come to Veronica's room. But when she was quite sure of what had happened, Veronica wept bitterly for a long time, burying her face in her pillows and refusing to listen any more to Elettra. Then, if the woman had not prevented her, almost forcibly, she would have gone upstairs to see him where he lay dead. But Elettra would not let her go, for she knew that Matilde was there, and why; and moreover, it was not within her ideas of custom that a young girl should go and look at any one dead. But Veronica's tears flowed on. At first it was only sorrow, real and heartfelt, without any attempt to reason and explain. But by and by she began to ask herself questions for the dead man's sake. In her dreams the sweet words he had spoken in the evening had come back to her, and when she had first opened her eyes at the sound of Elettra's voice she had thought that she saw his eyes before her in the dimness, before the windows were all opened. She had not loved him yet, but those words of his had touched something which would have felt, by and by. And suddenly, he was gone. Why? It was so sudden. It was as though a part of the earth had fallen through, into space beneath, without warning. There was too much gone, all at once. She could only ask why. And there was no answer to that. Her eyes fell upon the artificial gardenia she had worn. It lay upon the dressing-table where she had tossed it when she had taken it from her bodice. Her tears broke out again, for it had meant so much last night, and could mean now but the memory of that much, and never again anything more. It was a long time before Veronica dried her eyes, and consented to dress. Apart from the sorrowful horror that filled her, it seemed so very strange that he should have killed himself just after she had promised to marry him, within an hour after they had spoken together of the happiness to come. "It was an accident," she said at last, speaking to herself, as though she had reached a conclusion. "He did not mean to do it." Elettra shook her head, but said nothing. Accident, or no accident, it was the blood of a Macomer for the blood of her own dead husband, murdered up there in Muro by the peasants because Macomer had burdened them beyond their power to pay. She said nothing, and Veronica expected no answer, but sat still, trying to think, while Elettra noiselessly set the big dressing-room in order. The woman had given her a black frock without consulting her. Though Veronica liked her, and knew that she could rely on her devotion, she was not one of those Italian girls who readily confide in their serving-women, and she had told Elettra nothing about the projected marriage, and she said nothing of it now, though she was mourning her betrothed husband. But she told Elettra to go out and buy a little crape to put on the black frock, and to send for dressmakers to make mourning things quickly. The confusion in the house had subsided into stillness. Bosio Macomer was in his coffin. The servants were exhausted, and there was no one to direct. Gregorio had been heard laughing wildly in his room, and a frightened chambermaid said that he was going mad. Elettra had great difficulty in getting something to eat, which she brought to Veronica's room with a glass of wine. The girl's first outbreak of sorrow ebbed to a melancholy placidity, as the hours went by. She got her prayer-book, and read certain prayers for the dead. When her maid had gone out to buy the crape, she knelt down and said prayers that were not in the book, very earnestly and simply; and now and then her tears flowed afresh for a little while. She took the artificial gardenia and put it away in a safe place, after she had kissed it; and she wondered when she remembered how she had blushed last night when Bosio kissed her that once--that only once that ever was to be. And she took his photograph and looked at it, too. But she could not bear that yet--at least, not to look at it too closely. Vaguely she tried to think what the others might be doing in the house, and why no one came to her but her maid. It seemed to her that she was always to be alone, now, for days, for weeks, for years. As she grew more calm, she attempted to imagine what life would be without the companionship of Bosio. That was what she should miss, for she was but little nearer to love than that. It all looked so blank and gloomy that she cried again, out of sheer desolation and loneliness. But of this she was somewhat ashamed, and she presently dried her eyes again. She did not like to leave her room, either. It seemed to her that death was outside, walking up and down throughout the rest of the house, until poor Bosio should be taken away. And again she wondered about Matilde and Gregorio, and what they were doing. She tried to read, but not the novel Bosio had given her. She took up another book, and presently found herself saying prayers over it. The day was very long and very sad. Before Elettra came back from her errands, a servant knocked at Veronica's door. He said that there was a priest who was asking for her, and begged her to receive him for a few moments. "It cannot be for me," answered Veronica. "It must be a mistake. He wishes to see my aunt, or the count." "He asked for the Princess of Acireale," said the man. "I could not be mistaken, Excellency." "He does not know who I am, or he would not ask for me by that name. Does he look poor? It must be for charity." "So, so, Excellency. He had an old cloak, but his face is that of an honest man." "Give him ten francs," said Veronica, rising to get her pocket-book. "And tell him that I am sorry that I cannot receive him." The servant took the note, and disappeared. In three minutes he came back. "He does not want money, Excellency," he said. "He says he is the Reverend Teodoro Maresca, curate of your Excellency's church in Muro, and begs you earnestly to receive him." Veronica rose again. She knew Don Teodoro by name, for Bosio had often spoken of him to her, as his former tutor and his friend. It was for Bosio's sake that he had come--that was clear. Veronica asked where her aunt was, and on hearing that Matilde had retired to her own room, she told the servant to bring Don Teodoro to the yellow drawing-room. A moment later she followed. The tall priest was standing with bent head before the fireplace, on the very spot where so much had happened during the last two days. He held his three-cornered hat in one hand, and was stretching out the other to warm it at the low flame. Veronica was a little startled by his face and extraordinary features, but he looked at her clearly and steadily through his big silver spectacles, and he had a venerable air which she liked. She noticed that when she advanced towards him, he bowed like a man of the world, and not at all like a country priest. "I thank you for receiving me, princess," he said, gravely. "I have heard the sad news. I was Bosio's friend for many years. I spent an hour with him only the day before yesterday, during which he told me much about himself and about you. If, before he died, he told you nothing of what he told me, as I think probable, it is necessary for you to know it all from me as soon as possible. Forgive me for speaking hurriedly and abruptly. The case is urgent, and dangerous for you. Shall we be interrupted here?" "I think not," said Veronica, considerably surprised by his manner. "But of course--" she paused doubtingly. "Have you a room of your own, where you could receive me?" asked the old man, without hesitation. "Yes--that is--I should not like to--" "I am an old priest, princess, and this is a time of confusion in the house. You can risk something. It is important. Besides, I am in your own service," he added, with a quiet smile. "I am the chaplain of your castle at Muro." "Yes--that is true." Veronica looked at him with a little curiosity, for she had never been to Muro, and it was interesting to see one of her dependents of whom she had often heard. "Come," she said suddenly. "We shall meet no one, except my maid, perhaps--Elettra. Do you know her? Her husband was under-steward, and was killed." "I know of her--I buried him," answered the priest. She led the way to her own part of the house, to the large room which served her as dressing-room and boudoir. After all, as he had said, he was a priest and an old man. She made him sit down beside her fire, in her own low easy-chair, for he looked thin and cold, she thought, and she felt charitably disposed towards him, not dreaming what he was going to say, and supposing that he had exaggerated the importance of his errand. "Princess--" he began, and paused, choosing his words. "Do not call me that," she said. "Nobody does. Call me Donna Veronica." "I am old fashioned," he answered. "You are my princess and feudal liege lady. Never mind. It would be better for you if you were in your own castle of Muro, with your own people about you, though it is a gloomy place, and the scenery is sad. You would be safe there." "You speak as though we lived in the Middle Ages," said the young girl, with a faint smile. "We live in the dark ages. You are not safe here. Do you know why my dear friend Bosio killed himself last night?" "It was an accident! It must have been an accident!" Veronica's face was very sorrowful again. "I wish it had been," said Don Teodoro. "They will say so, in charity, in order to give him Christian burial. But it was not an accident, princess. My friend told me all the truth, the day before yesterday. It is very terrible. He killed himself in order not to be bound to marry you." The round, silver-rimmed spectacles turned slowly to her face. "In order not to marry me! You must be mad, Don Teodoro! Or you do not know the truth--that is it! You do not know the truth. It was only last night that he asked me to marry him--that is--it had been my aunt who had asked me, and I gave him the answer." "You consented?" "Yes. I consented--" "That is why he killed himself," said the priest, sadly. "I knew he would, if it came to that. It is a terrible story." Veronica stared at him in silence, really believing that he was out of his mind, and beginning to feel very nervous in his presence. He shocked her unspeakably, too, by what he said about Bosio; for if the wound was not deep, perhaps, it was fresh, and his words were brine to it. He saw what she felt, and made haste to be plain. "I am sorry that I am obliged to tell you this," he continued, after a short pause. "I cannot help it. The only thing I can do for my dead friend is to save you, if I can. I saw the account of his death in a newspaper an hour ago, and I came at once. Will you please not think that I am mad, until you have heard me? I was his friend, and I have eaten your bread these many years. I must speak." "Tell me your story," said Veronica, leaning back in her chair and folding her hands. He began at the beginning, and told her all, as Bosio had told him. He omitted nothing, for he had the astonishing memory which sometimes belongs to students, besides the desire to be perfectly accurate, and to exaggerate nothing. For he knew that she would find it hard to believe him. She listened; and as he went on, describing the struggle in poor Bosio's heart between the desire to save the woman he loved and the horror of sacrificing Veronica as a means to that end, she leaned forward again, drawing nearer to him, and watching his face keenly. Her eyes were wide, and her lips parted a little; for whether true or not, the story was terrible as he told it, and as he had said that it would be. "I do not know what he said to you last night," he concluded. "I give you a dead man's words, as he spoke them to me; but I have no right to those he spoke to you. This is true, that I have told you, as I hope for forgiveness of my own sins. If you stay in this house, by the truth of God, I believe that your life is not safe." "You believe it, I am sure," said Veronica. "But I cannot. The most I can believe is that poor Bosio was already mad when he told you this. It must be true. Even supposing that my uncle were the man you think, and had ruined himself in speculations and had taken money of mine without my knowledge, would it not be far more natural that he and my aunt should come to me and confess everything, and beg me to forgive and help them for the sake of their good name? Of course it would. You cannot deny that." "It is what I told Bosio," answered Don Teodoro, shaking his head; "but he answered that they feared you, and that your death would be a safer way, because you might not be so kind. You might go to the cardinal and lay the case before him, and they would be lost." "I might. I probably should." Veronica paused. "That is true," she continued, "but whatever I did, I could not allow the matter to come to a prosecution--for the sake of my own name, if not for theirs. But I do not believe it--I do not believe it--indeed, I do not believe it at all. Poor Bosio was not in his right mind. That is why he killed himself. He was mad, even when he talked with you the day before yesterday--it is the only possible explanation." "Nevertheless, something must be done," said Don Teodoro. "Your safety must be thought of first, princess." "I feel perfectly safe here," answered Veronica. "All this is madness. The countess is my father's sister. I admit that I have not always liked her, but she has always been kind. You really cannot expect me to believe that she and my uncle would plot against my life--especially now, in this terrible trouble and sorrow! I have listened to you, Don Teodoro, and I am sure that you wish me well, but I never can believe that you are right. Really--with all respect to you--I must say it. It is wildly absurd!" And the longer she thought of it, the more absurd it seemed. The girl was naturally both sensible and brave, and the whole tale was monstrous in her eyes, though while he had been telling it she had fallen under the spell of its thrilling interest, forgetting that it was all about herself. She looked at the quiet old priest, with his extraordinary face and quiet manner, and it was far easier to believe that a man with such features might be mad than that her Aunt Matilde meant to kill her. He was silent for a few moments. "There is a terrible logic in the absurdity," he said at last. "Your aunt constrains you to make a will in her favour, Bosio knew that his brother is ruined and that several large mortgages expire on the first of January. He knew that his brother has defrauded you in a way which is criminal. If they can get control of your money within three weeks they are saved. They persuaded Bosio and you to be betrothed. But Bosio kills himself. The main chance is gone. There remains the one with which the countess threatened him if he would not marry you--your immediate death. Against that, stands the possibility of penal servitude in the galleys for a man and woman of high rank and social position--only the possibility, to be sure, but a possibility, nevertheless. Remember that to those who know the whole extent and criminality of the count's fraud the case appears very much worse than it does to you, who now hear of it for the first time, in a general way, and who do not understand the nature of such transactions. I have been a confessor many years, princess. I know how few penitents can be made to believe that those they have injured will pardon them, if they frankly ask forgiveness. It is human nature. The best of us have doubted God's willingness to forgive--how much more do we doubt man's! It is all very logical, princess, very logical--far too logical, whether you will believe it or not." "If I believed the beginning," said Veronica, "I might believe it all. But it is not proved that my uncle has defrauded me, and all the rest seems absurd, if that is not true." "I beseech you at least to be careful!" answered the priest, earnestly. "In what way? I shall go on living here, just the same, unless we all go into the country for the rest of the winter. Even if I thought myself in danger, I do not see what I could do." "Eat what the others eat. Drink what the others drink. Take nothing especially prepared for you. Lock your door at night. If you will not leave the house, that is all you can do." He shook his head thoughtfully. It was true Italian advice--against poison and smothering. Veronica smiled, even in her sadness. "I have no fear," she said. "Let us say no more about it. Can I do anything for the people at Muro?" she asked, by way of preparing to send him away. "The people at Muro--the people at Muro," he repeated dreamily. "Oh yes--they are all poor--almost all. Money would help them. The best would be to come and see us yourself, princess. But if you are not careful, you will never come now," he added, turning the big spectacles slowly towards her and looking long into her face. "I have done what I could to warn you," he said, beginning to rise. "I will do anything I can to watch over you--but it will be little. Good bye. God preserve you." As she rose she rang the bell beside her that her maid might come and show him the way out. She knew that by this time Elettra must have returned from her errands. The afternoon light was already failing. She held out her hand, and he took it and kept it for a moment. "God preserve you," he repeated earnestly. He turned just as Elettra opened the door. The woman recognized him at once, came forward and kissed his hand, he having long been her parish priest. Then she led the way out. Don Teodoro turned at the door and bowed again, and Veronica, standing by the fire, nodded and smiled kindly to him. She was sorry for him. She had never seen him before, and he seemed to be devoted to her, and yet she was sure that his mind was feeble and unsettled. No sane person could believe the monstrous things he had told her. Outside, he made a few steps and then stopped Elettra, laying his emaciated hand upon her shoulder. He looked behind him and saw that they were alone in the passage. "Take care of your mistress, my daughter," he said. "Naples is not Muro, but it is no better. Let her eat what others eat, drink what others drink, and take no medicines except from you, and make her lock her door at night. This is not a good house." The dark woman looked at him fixedly for several seconds, and then nodded twice. "It is well that you have told me, Father Curate," she said in a low voice. "I understand." That was all, and she turned to lead him out. CHAPTER XII. After that, Elettra, unknown to Veronica, slept in the dressing-room every night. After her mistress had gone to bed in the inner chamber, the woman used to lock the outer door softly and then draw a short, light sofa across it; on this she lay as best she might. The nights were cold, after the fire had gone out, and she covered herself with a cloak of Veronica's. In itself, it was no great hardship for a tough woman of the mountains, as she was. But she slept little, for she feared something. In the small hours she often thought she heard some one breathing on the other side of the door, close to the lock, and once she was quite sure that a single ray of light flashed through the keyhole, below the half-turned key. Yet this might have been her imagination. And as for the breathing, there was a large Maltese cat in the house that sometimes wandered about at night. It might be purring all alone outside, in the dark, and she might have taken the sound for that of human breathing. No people are more suspicious and imaginative than Italians, when they have been warned that there is danger; and this does not proceed from natural timidity, but from the enormous value they set upon life itself, as a good possession. As for what Veronica ate and drank, Elettra was wise, too. She felt sure that if any attempt were made to poison her, Matilde would manage it quite alone; and she seriously expected that such an attempt would be made, after what Don Teodoro had told her. Veronica, like most Italians in the south, never took any regular breakfast, beyond a cup of coffee, or tea, or chocolate, with a bit of bread or a biscuit, as soon as she awoke. It was easy to be sure that such simple things had not been within Matilde's reach, and it was Elettra's duty to go to the pantry where coffee was made, and to bring the little tray to Veronica's room. At night, the young girl had a glass of water and a biscuit set beside her, when she went to sleep, but she rarely touched either. Elettra now brought the biscuits herself and kept them in a cupboard in the dressing-room, and she herself drew the water every night to fill the glass. So far as any food and drink which came to her room were concerned, Veronica was perfectly safe. But Elettra could not control what she ate in the dining-room. She would not communicate her fears to Veronica, either, for she knew her mistress well; and at the same time she did not know what or how much Don Teodoro had told her during his visit. Veronica was perfectly fearless, and was inclined to be impatient, at any time, when any one insisted upon her taking any precautions, for any reason whatsoever--even against catching cold. She was not rash, however, for she had not been brought up in a way to develop any such tendency. She was naturally courageous, and that was all. She was unconscious of the quality, for she had not hitherto been aware of ever being in any real danger. As for Don Teodoro's warning, she put it down as the result of some mental shock which had weakened his intelligence. Possibly Bosio's sudden and terrible death had affected him in that way. At all events, she was enough of an Italian to know how often in Italy such extraordinary ideas of fictitious treachery find their way into the brains of timid people. On the face of it, the whole story seemed to her utterly absurd and foolish, from the tale of Macomer's ingenious frauds upon her property, to the supposition that she was in danger of being murdered for her fortune. Murder was always found out in the end, she thought, and of course such people as her aunt and uncle, even if they had any real reason for wishing their niece out of the way, would never really think of doing anything at once so wicked and so unwise. But the whole thing was absurd, she repeated to herself, and she found it easy to put it out of her thoughts. Meanwhile, the first days after the catastrophe passed in that sad, unmarked succession of objectless hours by which time moves in a house where such a death has taken place. It is not the custom among the upper classes of Italians to attend the funerals of relations and friends. The servants are sent, in deep mourning, to kneel before the catafalque in church during the first requiem mass. Occasionally some of the men of a family are present at the short ceremony in the cemetery. But that is all. The family, as a rule, leaves the city at once. Veronica wondered why her aunt and uncle did not propose to go to the country. Macomer had a pretty place in the hills near Caserta, and though it was winter the climate there was very pleasant. She did not know that the house was already dismantled, in anticipation of the probable foreclosure of a mortgage. Besides, in his desperate position, Gregorio would have feared to leave Naples for a day. As for making a journey to some other city, he was positively reduced to the point of having no ready money with which to go. Lamberto Squarci, the notary, positively refused to advance anything, and it was quite certain that no one else would. For Squarci, who was a wise villain in his way, and had aided and abetted Macomer's frauds in order to enrich himself, had only given his assistance so long as he was quite sure that he was acting as the paid agent of Veronica's guardian. The responsibility was then entirely theirs, and he merely obeyed their directions in preparing any necessary legal documents. But as soon as the guardianship had expired, he knew that in order to be of use in helping Macomer to rob his ward, he should be obliged to artificially construct the instruments needed, in such a way as to appear legal to the world. In such business, forgery could not be far off. The man had himself to think of as well as mere money, and at the point where the smallest illegality of action on his part would have begun, he stopped short, and refused to do anything whatever, leaving Macomer to grapple with his creditors as best he might, and to take care of himself if he could. It was now the middle of December, and the guardianship had expired, legally speaking, in the previous month of March, when Macomer's debts had already reached a very high figure. Macomer, after that, had presumed upon his authority and position to draw Veronica's income for his own purposes. That was easy, as the revenues accrued almost entirely from the great landed estates, of which the various stewards were in the habit of sending the rents, when collected, directly to Macomer. It was clear that unless Veronica herself protested, and until the authorities should discover that she was being cheated, these men would naturally continue to send the rents to the order of Gregorio Macomer. Feeling that he was near the end of his chances, he had desperately attempted to improve his position by using as much of the year's income as he could extract from the stewards, in a final speculation. This had failed. He had not been able to pay the interest on his mortgages, and the ready money was all gone. A disastrous financial crisis had supervened, which had made itself felt throughout the country, and the banks which held the mortgages had given notice that they would foreclose some of them, and not renew the others. If Gregorio Macomer could have laid hands, no matter how, on any sum of money worth mentioning, he would have fled, under an assumed name, to the Argentine Republic, the usual refuge of Italians in difficulties. But he had exhausted all he could touch, had gambled, and had lost it. If he fled now, it must be as a penniless emigrant. As he had no taste for such adventures, at his age, there was but one chance for him, and that lay in somehow getting control of Veronica's fortune before the end of the month. As for getting any more of the income, in time to be of any use in staving off the tidal wave of ruin that rose against him, there was no chance of that. The farmers all over the country paid their quarter's rents on the first of January, or should do so, but there was often difficulty in collecting, and the money would not really get to Macomer's hands much before February. By that time all would be over; and it was not the idea of bankruptcy which frightened Gregorio; it was the certainty that a declaration of bankruptcy must lead to, and involve, a minute examination into his past transactions which had led to it. Matilde knew all the truth, as has been shown. What she suffered in remaining in Naples, in going and coming through the familiar rooms, in spending her evenings in that room, of all others, in which she had last seen Bosio alive, no one knew. She went about silently, and her face grew daily paler and thinner. In her behaviour she was subdued and silent, though she treated Veronica with greater consideration than before. They had never spoken together of the possible reasons for Bosio's death, but it had been publicly stated that he had been insane, and Matilde, to all appearances, accepted the explanation as sufficient. It was made the more reasonable by the evident fact that Gregorio's mind was unsettled, and that he himself was in imminent danger of going mad. That, at least, was the impression produced upon the household. As the days went by, the gloom deepened in the Palazzo Macomer, and when the three met at their meals, or sat together for a short time in the evening, the silence was rarely broken. At first, it was congenial to Veronica; for if her grief was not passionate nor destined to be everlasting, her sorrow was profoundly sincere. It was the companionship of Bosio that she missed most keenly and constantly, through the long, empty hours. No one who called was received during those first days. It chanced that Cardinal Campodonico had gone to Rome to attend one of the consistories for the creation of new cardinals, which are often held shortly before Christmas. Had he been in Naples, he would of course have been admitted. He wrote to Gregorio, and to Veronica, short, stiff, but sincere, letters of condolence. He was a man of a large heart, which was terribly tempered by a very narrow understanding; generous, rather than charitable; sincere, more than expansive; tenacious, not sanguine; keen beyond measure in ecclesiastical affairs, devoted to a cause, but unresponsive to the touch and contact of humanity; hot in strife, but cold in affection. Society came to the door of the palace and deposited cards, with a pencilled abbreviation for a phrase of condolence, the very shortest shorthand of sympathy. Veronica looked through them. All the Della Spina people had come. She found also Taquisara's plain cards,--'Sigismondo Taquisara,'--without so much as a title, and in the corner were the usual two letters in pencil, strong and clear, but just the same as those on all the others. Somehow, she knew that she had looked through them all, in order to find his and Gianluca's. The letters on the latter's bit of pasteboard were in a feminine hand--probably his mother's. Veronica's lip curled a little scornfully, but then she looked suddenly grave--perhaps he had been too ill to come himself, and if so, she was sorry for him and would not laugh at him. As for Taquisara, he was so unlike other men, that she had unconsciously expected something different to be visible on his card. The lonely girl spent as much of her time as possible in reading. But it was very gloomy. It rained, too, for days together, which made it worse. Bianca Corleone came to see her, and they sat a long time together, but neither referred to Gianluca, and very little was said about poor Bosio. It was impossible to talk freely, so soon after his death, and Veronica was not inclined to tell even her intimate friend of what had happened on that last night. It had something of a sacred character for her, and she said prayers nightly before the poor man's photograph, sometimes with tears. Now and then Veronica felt so utterly desolate that she made Elettra come and sit in her dressing-room and sew, merely to feel that there was something human and alive near her. She enticed the Maltese cat to live in her rooms as much as possible, for its animal company. She did not talk with her maid, but it was less lonely to have her sitting there, by the window. She supposed that before long the first black cloud of mourning would lighten a little over the house, and she had been taught at the convent to be patient under difficulties and troubles. The memory of that teaching was still near, and in her genuine sorrow, with the youthfully fervent religious thoughts thereby re-enlivened, she was ready to bear such burdens and make such sacrifices as might come into her way, with the assured belief that they were especially sent from heaven for the improvement of her soul, by the restraint and mortification of her very innocent worldly desires. It could hardly have been otherwise. She had not yet loved Bosio, but her affection had been sincere and of long growth. On the last day of his life he had become her betrothed husband, and for one hour all her future living, as woman, wife, and mother, had been bound up with his, to have being only with him--to disappear in black darkness with his tragic death, as though he had taken all motherhood and wifehood and womanhood of hers to the grave forever. As for what Don Teodoro had said of his having loved Matilde, she believed that less than all the rest, if possible; and the fact that the priest had said it proved beyond all doubt to her that he was out of his mind. Beyond that, it had not prejudiced her against him, for there was a certain noble loftiness in her character which could largely forgive an unmeant wrong. In her great loneliness, in that dismal household, the reality of faith, hope, and charity as the body, mind, and spirit of the truest life, took hold upon her thoughts, as the mere words and emblems of religion had not done in her first girlhood. She read for the first time the Imitation of Christ and some of the meditations of Saint Bernard. The true young soul, suddenly and tragically severed from the anticipation of womanly happiness, turned gladly to visions of saintly joy--simply and without affectation of form or show--purely and without earthly regret--humbly and without touch of taint from spiritual pride. She had no burden to cast from her conscience, and she sought neither confessor nor director for the guidance of her thinking or doing. Straight and undoubting, her thoughts went heavenwards, to lay before God's feet the sad, sweet offering of her own sorrow. Without, in those dark winter days, storm drove storm over the ancient, evil city, rain followed rain, and gloom changed watches with darkness by day and night for one whole week, while the moon waned from the last quarter to the new. And within, Matilde Macomer went about the house, when she left her room at all, like a great, pale-faced, black shadow of something terrible, passing words. And in the library, Gregorio's stony features were bent all day over papers and documents and books of accounts, seeking refuge from sure ruin, while now and then his face was twisted into a curiously vacant grimace, and his maniac laugh cracked and reverberated through the lonely, vaulted chamber. He often sat there by himself until late into the night, for the end of the year was at hand, with all the destruction that a date can mean when a man is ruined. It was a big, long room, with old bookcases ranged by the walls, not more than five feet high, and closed by doors of brass wire netting lined with dark green cotton. A polished table took up most of the length between the door which led to the hall at the one end, and the single high window at the other. There was no fireplace, and the count had the place warmed by means of a big brass brazier filled with wood coals. At night, he had two large lamps with green glass shades. Matilde sometimes came in and sat with him during the evening. She looked at him, and wished he were dead. But she was drawn there by the power which brings together two persons menaced by a common danger, in the hope that something may suddenly change, and turn peril into safety. He sat at one end of the table with his papers, and she took the place opposite to him, the lamp being a little on one side, so that they could see each other. They were a gloomy couple, in their black clothes, under the green light, with harassed, mask-like faces. One night, Matilde came in very late. She trod softly on the polished floor, wearing felt slippers. "Elettra sleeps in her dressing-room," she said in a low voice. Macomer looked up, and the twitching of his face began instantly, as though he were going to laugh. Matilde brought the palm of her hand down sharply upon the bare table, fixing her eyes upon him. "Stop that!" she cried in a tone of command. "It is very well for the servants. You are learning to do it very well. It is of no use with me." He looked at her steadily for a moment. Then he laughed, but naturally and low. "I might have known that you would find me out," he said. "But it is becoming a habit. It may serve us in the end. How do you know that the woman sleeps in Veronica's dressing-room?" "I was wandering about, just now," answered Matilde, looking away from him. "I saw the door of Elettra's room ajar. I pushed it open and looked in, and I saw that her bed was not disturbed. Then I stood outside the door of Veronica's dressing-room, and listened. Something moved once, and I was sure that I heard breathing." Gregorio watched her gravely while she was speaking, but in the silence that followed, his small eyes wandered uneasily. "The girl is lonely," he said at last. "She makes Elettra sleep in the room next to hers, because she is nervous." Matilde seemed to be thinking over what she had said. Some time passed before she answered, and then it was by a vague question. "Well?" Again they looked at each other. "That is certainly bad," said Macomer, thoughtfully. "What are we to do? Speak to her about it? You can say that you found Elettra's door open, at this hour." "It would do no good," answered Matilde. "We could not prevent her from having her maid there, if she wishes it." "After all," observed Macomer, absently, "it is only a woman." "Only a woman?" Matilde's lip curled. "I am only a woman." Macomer nodded slowly, as though realizing what that meant, but he said nothing in answer. With his hands under the table he slipped low down in his chair, his head bent forward upon his breast, in deep thought. "Can you not suggest anything?" asked Matilde, at last, gazing at him somewhat scornfully. "After all, this is your fault. You have dragged me into this ruin with you." "I know, I know," he repeated in a low voice. "But we cannot do it now--with that woman there." "No. It is impossible now." Matilde's tones sank to a whisper. She looked down at her strong hands that had grown thinner during the past days, but were strong still. Gregorio waited a few moments and then roused himself and bent over his papers again. "You cannot see any way out of it, can you?" asked his wife at last. "Is there no possibility of keeping afloat until things go better?" "No," answered Macomer, not looking up. "There is nothing to go better. You know it all. There is only that one way. Failing that, I must go mad. One can recover from madness, you know." "Yes," said Matilde, thoughtfully. "But it is a very difficult thing to do well. They have expert doctors, who know the real thing from the imitation." Gregorio looked up suddenly. "She could not go mad, could she?" he asked, a quiver of cunning intelligence making his stony mask quiver. "Are there not things--is there not something--you know--something that produces that? What is all this talk, nowadays, about hypnotic suggestion?" "Fairy tales!" exclaimed Matilde, incredulously. "The other is sure. This is no time for experiments. There are thirteen days left in this year. If we are to do it at all, we must do it quickly." "I do not like the idea of the pillow," said Macomer, speaking very low again. Matilde's shoulders moved uneasily, as though she were chilly, but her face did not change. "It is of no use to talk of such things," she answered. "Besides," she added, "you are dull. Only remember that you have just thirteen days more, after to-day." "Remember!" his voice told all his terror of the limit. Then Matilde did not speak again. She rested her elbows on the table, and her chin upon her hands, staring at him as though she did not see him, evidently in deep thought. He bent over his papers, but was aware that her eyes were on him. He glanced up nervously. "Please do not look at me in that way. You make me nervous," he said. With a scornful half-laugh she rose from her seat. "Good night," she said indifferently, and in her soft felt slippers she noiselessly went away. She had not come in the expectation of help from her husband in anything that was to be done. But besides the bond of fear by which they were drawn together, there was the feeling that his presence, especially in that room, brought before her vividly the necessity for action. Under such pressure, an idea might come to her which would be worth having. It had come to-night, but it was of a nature which made it wiser not to tell Gregorio about it. Such things, being complicated and delicate, and difficult of execution, were best kept to herself, at least until her plans were matured and ready. But this time, she believed that she had at last what she wanted. The scheme flashed upon her all at once, complete and feasible, and perfectly safe, but she resolved to think it over for twenty-four hours before finally deciding to adopt it. And while such things were being said and done in the lonely night, and deeply pondered through the long, silent days, Veronica came and went peacefully, with sad but not unhappy eyes, her thoughts fixed upon the new path by which her single sorrow was to lead her up to the eternity of all celestial joys. In those days she determined to lead a holy life, in the memory of the dead betrothed, and perhaps in the thought that by the outpouring of much good around her, she might yet obtain mercy for the soul of one self-slain. She meant not to cut herself off from all mankind, devoting her maidenhood to heaven and her body to the servitude of slow suffering, whereby some say that the spirit may be saved most certainly--in the hard rule of daily dying, and daily rising again one day nearer to death. That was not what she meant to do; that depth of godly dreaming was too cold and still a depth for her. There must be motion and life in her means of grace, since she had the power to make others move and live. Marriage, wifehood, motherhood, should not be for her, she said; but there was all the rest. There were the many hundreds--the thousands, indeed, had she known it--of men and women and poor children, toiling against the impossible with hands that had long learned to labour in vain, save for the bare bread of life. To them all, in many quarters of the land, she would be a mother, to help them, to feed them, and to heal them; to work for them and their welfare, as they had worked and toiled for the greatness of her dim, great ancestors, repaying to humanity, in one lifetime, what humanity had been forced to give them through many generations. She would lead a holy life, for she would pray continually, when there was nothing else that she could do. When she could not be thinking out some good thing for her people, she would meditate upon higher things for the good of her own soul. But first and foremost should be the doing, the helping, the giving of life to the far spent, and of hope to the helpless. There in that room, where she dwelt continually in those days, she made no vow, she registered no resolution, she imposed no one self upon another self within her to thrust out evil and implant good. She had no need of that. It was all as simply natural as the growth of a flower, effortless, rising heavenward by its own instinct life. In one thing only she made a determination of her will. She decided that with the new year she would at last take over her fortune and estates into her own management. Until she did that, she could not know what she had, nor where she should begin her good work. That was absolutely necessary, and of course, thought she, it presented no difficulty at all. Possibly her own indolence about it, and her distaste for going into the question of money and accounts, was a fault with which she should have reproached herself, because she might have begun to do good sooner, had she chosen. But she did not think of that. She would begin with the new year. As though a good destiny had anticipated her desire, the first call for her help came suddenly, on the day after the last recorded conversation between Gregorio and Matilde. It was still early in the morning when Elettra brought her a letter, bearing the postmark of the city, and addressed in one of those small, clear handwritings which seem naturally to belong to scholars and students. It was from Don Teodoro, and Veronica read it while she drank her tea and Elettra was making a fire in the next room. The old priest did not refer to the strange story he had told her ten days earlier. But he recalled her question concerning the people at Muro and their condition. They were indeed desperately poor, he said, and the winter was a hard one in the mountains. There were many sick, and there was no hospital,--not so much as a room in which a dying beggar might lie out of the cold. It was a very pitiful tale, told carefully and accurately. And at the end the good man humbly begged that the most Excellent Princess would deign to allow his stipend to be paid in advance, in order that he might do something to help his poor. Veronica read the letter twice, and judged it. Then she determined to do something at once, for she knew that the man had written the truth. She should have liked to send for him, and talk with him of what should be done; but she could not forget the things he had said about Bosio, and for that reason she did not wish to see him again--at least, not yet. His mind was unbalanced about that matter; but charity was a different thing. His address in Naples was in the letter. She wrote a note in answer, begging him to tell her how much money he should need to hire a vacant house, since there was no time to build one, and to fit it decently with what he thought necessary, in order that it might serve as a refuge and hospital for the very poor. She sent Elettra with the letter. It was raining again, and by good fortune Don Teodoro was at home, though it was still before noon. While the maid waited, he wrote his answer. His thanks were heartfelt on behalf of his parish, but shortly expressed. He said that in order to do what Veronica proposed so generously, at least two thousand francs would be necessary. He briefly explained why the charity would need what he looked upon as a large sum, and he begged pardon for being so frank. Again Veronica read the letter carefully over, and she put it into the desk. Half an hour later she went to luncheon. The meal was as silent and gloomy as usual, and scarcely half a dozen words were said. Afterwards the three came back to the yellow drawing-room for their coffee. When the servant was gone, Veronica, stirring the sugar in her cup, turned to her uncle. "Will you please give me three thousand francs, Uncle Gregorio?" she asked quietly. "I want it this afternoon, if you please." Gregorio Macomer grew slowly white to the tips of his ears. Matilde sipped her coffee, and turned her back to the light. "Three thousand francs!" repeated Macomer, slowly recovering a little self-control. "My dear child! What can you want of so much money?". "Is it so very much?" asked Veronica, innocently surprised. "You have told me that I have more than eight hundred thousand a year. It is for charity. The people at Muro have no hospital. I shall be glad if you will give it to me before four o'clock; I wish to send it at once." Macomer had barely a thousand francs in the house, and he knew that there was not a man of business in Naples who would have lent him half the little sum for which Veronica was asking. "I shall certainly not give you money for any such absurd purpose," said Gregorio, with sudden, assumed sternness. Veronica raised her eyes in quiet astonishment, offended, but not disconcerted. "Really, Uncle Gregorio," she said, "as I am of age and mistress of whatever is mine, I think I have a right to my little charities. Besides, you know, it is not giving, since you are no longer my guardian in reality. It is merely a case of sending to the bank for the money, if you have not got it in the house. I should like it before four o'clock, if you please, Uncle Gregorio." In his terror the man lost his temper. "I shall certainly not let you have it," he answered, with cold irritation. "It is absurd!" If Veronica had wanted the money to spend it on herself, she might have waited until he was cool again, in the evening, before insisting. But her blood rose, for she felt that it was for her poor people, starving, sick, frozen, shelterless, in distant Muro. She knew perfectly well what her rights were, and she asserted them then and there with a calm young dignity of purpose which terrified Gregorio more and more. "This is very strange," she said. "I do not wish to say disagreeable things, Uncle Gregorio; we should both regret them. But you know that I am entitled to spend all my income as I please, and I must really beg you to get me this money at once. It is for a good purpose. The case is urgent. I am the proper judge of whether it is needed or not, and I have decided that I will give it. There is nothing more to be said." "Except that I entirely refuse to listen to such words from my ward!" answered Gregorio, angrily. "I appeal to you, Aunt Matilde," said Veronica, setting down her coffee cup upon the table and turning to the countess. But Matilde knew well enough that her husband could not get the money. She shook her head gravely and said nothing. By this time Veronica was thoroughly determined to have her way. "Very well," she answered calmly. "I shall telegraph to the cardinal. I understand that he is in Rome." Gregorio turned away, and he felt that his knees were shaking under him. He knew well enough what the result would be if the cardinal's suspicions were aroused. Matilde saw the danger and interfered. "I think you are pushing such a small matter to the verge of a quarrel, Gregorio," she said sweetly. "Since Veronica insists, you must give her the money. After all, it is hers, as she says." Macomer turned and stared at his wife in amazement. "I am going out at once," she continued. "If you like, I will go to the bank and get the money for you. Yes, dear," she added, turning to Veronica, "I shall be back before four o'clock, and you shall have it in plenty of time. Did you say four thousand or five thousand?" "Only three," answered the young girl, rapidly pacified. "Three thousand, if you please. Thank you very much, Aunt Matilde! A woman always understands a woman in questions of charity. One wishes to act at once. Thank you." And in order to end an unpleasant situation, she nodded and left the room. Husband and wife waited a moment after the door was closed. Then Matilde, before Gregorio could speak, went and opened it suddenly and looked out, but there was no one there. "She would not listen at the door!" exclaimed Gregorio, with some contempt for his wife's caution. "She? No! But I distrust that woman she has." "And how do you propose to get this money?" asked the count. "Have I no diamonds?" inquired Matilde. "She would have ruined us. Order the carriage, and I will go to a jeweller at once." "Yes," said Macomer. "You are very wise. I thought there was going to be trouble. It was clever of you to restore her confidence by offering her more. But--" he lowered his voice--"something must be done at once." "Yes," answered Matilde, looking behind her. "It shall be done at once." He went out half an hour later, and before four o'clock Veronica despatched Elettra to Don Teodoro with three thousand francs in bank notes. But the diamonds which Matilde had left at the jeweller's were worth far more than that, and she had got more than that for them. CHAPTER XIII. Veronica was well satisfied, and slept peacefully, dreaming of the pleasure she had given the old priest, and of the good which he could do with her money. And then in her dream, the scene of his first visit was acted over, and suddenly Veronica started up awake in the dark. She must have uttered an unconscious exclamation, just as she awoke, for in a moment the door opened and she heard Elettra's voice asking her if she needed anything, but in a tone so anxious and changed that it seemed to Veronica to belong to her dream rather than to any reality. "Are you there?" she asked, in the darkness, surprised that the woman should have come in so unexpectedly. "Yes," answered Elettra, briefly, and she groped for the matches on the little table beside the bed. She struck a light and lit a candle. Veronica saw that her face was very pale, and that she was half dressed, wearing a black skirt and a white cotton jacket. As the young girl looked at her she realized how strange it was that she should have appeared at the slightest sound. "What are you doing here?" she asked, with a little smile. "What time is it?" She looked at the watch, holding it up to the flame of the candle. "Three o'clock! What is the matter, Elettra? Why have you come?" Elettra looked down, in real or pretended confusion. "Excellency," she said in a humble tone, "my room is very cold and damp in this rainy weather. For some nights I have slept on the sofa in the dressing-room. I hope your Excellency will pardon me. And I heard you cry out, just now. Then, forgetting that I ought not to have been sleeping there, I got up and came." "Oh! Did I cry out? Yes--I woke up suddenly. I was dreaming of Don Teodoro and of--" She checked herself. "Why did you not tell me that your room is damp? You shall have another." "Excellency, if you will forgive me, it would give trouble at this time. If you will allow me to sleep on the sofa until the weather is fine again. I will make no noise. You have seen--in the morning no one would know it, and I am very well there." Veronica looked at her and hesitated a moment. In the stillness she heard a soft sound. "What is that?" she asked quickly. "It is the cat," answered the maid, peering down below the level of the candle-light. "It did not sound like the cat," said Veronica, pushing her dark, brown hair back with her slim hand, and looking down over the edge of the bed. "It was more like a footstep," she added, with a little laugh. But at that moment she caught sight of the Maltese cat's green eyes in shadow. The creature came forward from the door, sprang instantly upon the foot of the bed and lay down, purring, its forepaws doubled under it, and its eyes shut. "It is a heavy cat," said Elettra, thoughtfully. "It is so fat. One can hear it when it walks across the room." She scratched its head gently, and it purred more loudly under her hand. "Excellency, you will allow me to sleep in the dressing-room, just for these days," she said presently. "Oh yes--if you like," answered Veronica, laying her head down upon the pillow, sleepy again. The maid bent over her and drew the things up about her neck in a half-tender, motherly way, looking at the girl's face. Then she hesitated before putting out the light. "Excellency," she said, "let us go to Muro. The air of this house is not good for you. It is damp, and you are pale in these days. In the mountains the colour will come back. The people will make a feast when you come. It will amuse you. Excellency, let us go." Veronica laughed sleepily. "You are dreaming, Elettra. Go away. I want to go to sleep." The woman sighed softly, extinguished the light, and groped her way to the door in the dark. Veronica was very sleepy, as she said, but somehow after her maid had gone away, she became wakeful again for a time. The cat had remained on the foot of the bed, and its soft purring disturbed her a little, because she was accustomed to absolute silence. There had been a curious cross-fitting of her dream and of the little realities of Elettra's entrance. She had dreamt over again the priest's earnest warning that her life was in danger, and she had imagined that she heard a footstep of a person coming up quickly behind her. Then, somehow, in the same instant, recalling what Don Teodoro had told her about her uncle's frauds, she had seemed to know that he had refused the money in the afternoon because there was no more to take, nor to be given to her. Waking suddenly, she had heard Elettra's anxious voice, giving the strong impression that she was really in present peril. Then she had really thought that she heard another footstep, somewhere, while Elettra was standing still beside her. It had only been the cat, of course. It was such a very fat cat, as Elettra said, and the floors were of the old-fashioned sort, laid on wooden beams, and trembled very easily, as they do in old Italian houses. But each detail had fitted with another, into a sort of whole which was a reflexion of the priest's story. Some of it all at once looked true, and instead of going to sleep at once, Veronica's eyes were wide open, and she turned uneasily on her pillow. Of course, it was absurd, for she had received the money when she had insisted upon having it, and if Elettra's room was damp, that quite explained her presence. Besides, Elettra could not be supposed to know what Don Teodoro had said to Veronica. And then, there was the rest of the story, all that connected Bosio and Matilde. She absolutely refused to think of believing that. She would not even admit that there might have been some little foundation for it in the past. Instinctively driving away the thought, she began to say certain prayers for the poor man, and little by little, repeating the words often, her mind grew calm, and she fell asleep once more. Yet in her sleep the needle of doubt ran through the little bits of memories, one by one, threading them in one continuous string. There was Bianca Corleone's look of blank surprise when Veronica had first spoken of a possible marriage with Bosio, and there was Taquisara's bold assertion, tallying with the priest's, that the Macomer wanted her fortune, and there was very vividly before her the gnawing anxiety she had seen in Matilde's face until the latter had caught sight of the artificial flower on that memorable evening. And the string on which the beads of memory were threaded was her long-repressed but profound distrust of Gregorio Macomer. It had seemed a wicked prejudice, a gratuitously false judgment, based upon something in his face, and she had always fought against it as unworthy, besides being irrational. Then, too, there was the will she had signed a fortnight since, for the sake of peace. If there was nothing in what the priest had said, why had they been so terribly anxious to get the document executed without delay? It was scarcely natural. And there were fifty other details, turns of phrases, changes of expression, little words of Gregorio's spoken in an enigmatic tone to his wife, which Veronica had not understood, but which she had therefore remembered, and which could mean that he was on the verge of ruin, and in great trouble of mind about his affairs. Amidst the wildly shifting scenery of dreams, the little doll figures of abiding facts out of memory joined hands in procession, showing their faces one by one and their likeness to one another more and more clearly. Even in her dream, it flashed upon her that it might all be true except that one part of it which said that Bosio had loved Matilde and not herself. That was not true. He had loved her, Veronica; they had known it, and had taken advantage of it. She did not blame them for that. She had been so fond of him,--she knew that she should soon have loved him,--and the dream swung back upon itself, and she was again standing beside the fire in the yellow room, with him so near to her. And after she awoke, she shed tears. On that morning, after eleven o'clock, Matilde came to Veronica's room, bringing a piece of needlework with her, and she sat down to stay a while. They talked idly about dull subjects, and from time to time Matilde looked up and smiled sadly. She sat so that she could not see Bosio's photograph on the mantelpiece. After she had been there half an hour, she started, suddenly remembering something. "I have done such a stupid thing!" she exclaimed, with an expression of annoyance. "I believe I am losing my memory!" "What is it?" asked Veronica, naturally. "I sent my maid out, just before I came to you, with a number of errands to do, and I forgot two things that I wanted very much. There was some medicine which I was to take before luncheon, and some jet beads that I needed. I do not care so much about the beads, but I need the medicine. I feel so horribly tired and weak, all the time." "Send one of the men," suggested Veronica. "A man could not buy jet things," objected Matilde. "You could not let Elettra go out for me, could you? It is a fine morning, for a wonder, and she need not be gone more than half an hour." "Certainly," answered Veronica, promptly. "She has nothing to do, and the walk will be good for her." She rose and rang for her maid. "I will go and get the recipe," said Matilde, rising, too. "It is an old one, given me by our poor doctor who died last year, and I kept it because it did me so much good. They will make it up in ten minutes. She can go and buy the jet, and stop for it on the way back. Will you tell her that she may go?" Elettra had entered the room, and Veronica explained to her what she was to do. "Put on your hat, Elettra," said Matilde, "and then please come to my room, and I will give you the recipe. I must find it among my things. I will be back presently, dear," she said to Veronica. She went out, followed by the maid, who did as she was bidden and then went to Matilde's room. The countess explained exactly what sort of jet she wanted, and then gave her the recipe. "Tell the chemist that this is only for two doses," she said, "but that I wish him to make up twenty doses, because I am going to take it regularly. Say that it is for me, and go to Casadio for it, where we get everything. Have it put down on the bill. Do you understand? Here are twenty francs for the jet, but you will not need so much. You understand, do you?" "Yes, Excellency." Elettra stuck the little slip of paper, on which the recipe was written, into her shabby pocket-book without looking at it. She could read and write fairly well, and had been used to helping her husband the under-steward with his accounts at Muro, but even if she had looked at the recipe she would have understood nothing of the doctor's hieroglyphics and abbreviated Latin words. The prescription was for a preparation of arsenic, which Matilde had formerly taken for some time. The chemist would not make any difficulty about preparing twenty doses of it for the Countess Macomer, though the whole quantity of arsenic contained in so many would probably be sufficient to kill one not accustomed to the medicine, if taken all at once. But though Matilde was so anxious to have the stuff before luncheon, she had a number of doses of it put away in a drawer, which she took out and counted, after Elettra had gone. She opened one of the little folded papers and looked at the fine white powder it contained, took a little on the end of her finger and tasted it. Then, from the same drawer, she took a package done up in coarser paper, and opened it likewise, looked at it, smelt it, and touched it with the tip of her tongue very cautiously indeed. It was white, too, but coarser than the medicine. She was very careful in tasting it, and she immediately rinsed her mouth with water, before she tied up the package again, shut the drawer, and put the key into her pocket. By and by Elettra came back and brought her the jet and the medicine, returning her the change without any remark. Matilde thanked her, and laid the package of twenty doses upon her dressing-table, before the mirror. At luncheon, she persuaded Veronica to go out with her for a drive in the afternoon. She said that she felt ill and tired, and did not like to go alone. Gregorio said that he was too busy to accompany her, and it would not have been easy for Veronica to refuse. While it was still early, they drove out, past Bianca Corleone's house, over the hill, and down to Posilippo, on the other side. They talked very little, but Veronica enjoyed the bright afternoon air, after the long spell of bad weather. There was no dust, for the road was not yet dry, and a gentle land breeze just roughed the surface of the calm sea to a deeper blue. When they turned to drive home, there was already a purple mist about Vesuvius, and the great Sant' Angelo's crest was black against the sky, for these were the shortest days, and the sun set far to southward. It was almost dark when they got back to the city. "Shall we have tea in your room?" asked Matilde as they went up the stairs together. "It is so dreary in the drawing-room." "Certainly," answered Veronica, readily. "Yes--the rest of the house is horribly gloomy, now." Matilde was behind her on the stairs, evidently fatigued, but as the young girl spoke, a look of detestation flashed across her worn face. She hated Veronica, now that Bosio was dead. But for Veronica, Bosio would still have been alive. There was more than the mere desperate determination to save herself, and her husband with her, in what Matilde did after that. But when they entered the hall, the look was quite gone from her face. She had been very gentle, all that morning and afternoon. They had talked a little of the incident that had occurred on the previous day, of Gregorio's feeling about not letting Veronica spend money uselessly. He was so conscientious, Matilde had said. Though the guardianship had expired, he still felt it his duty to watch his former ward's expenditure. And he was not charitable--no, it had always been a cause of regret to Matilde that Gregorio, with all his good qualities, was hard to poor people. Bosio had been different. Ah--poor Bosio! She spoke gently, and sometimes there was a true ring in her voice which Veronica heard and understood, for it was quite genuine. And now, she seemed tired and weak--she who was so strong. So they went to Veronica's room, and Elettra brought the tea things, and Matilde made tea, and they both drank it, and talked a little more, and gave the Maltese cat milk in a saucer, on the lower shelf of the little two-storied tea-table. Afterwards, Matilde went away to her room, and Veronica remained alone after Elettra had taken away the things. Before dinner, Elettra came and told her mistress that the countess was suddenly taken very ill, and was crying aloud with the pain she suffered. Veronica hastily went to her aunt, and found that a doctor had already come and was making her swallow olive oil out of a full tumbler. A servant followed her into the room with a plate full of raw eggs, and the doctor was asking for magnesia. Gregorio Macomer was standing by, shaking his head, and occasionally supporting his wife with one hand, when her strength seemed to be failing. Veronica took the other side, and the doctor stood before the sick woman. "What is it, Doctor?" asked Veronica, after a moment. "What is the matter with her?" The physician looked over his shoulder and saw that there was no servant in the room. "It is arsenic," he answered in a low voice. "She has been poisoned. But there was not enough to kill her--she will be quite well to-morrow." "Poisoned!" exclaimed Veronica, in horrified surprise. "By whom?" She looked at Gregorio, addressing the question to him. He gravely raised his high shoulders and shook his head. Veronica expected to hear his awful laugh; but though his face twitched nervously, it did not come. He knew that the doctor might afterwards be an excellent witness to his peculiarities, in case he wished to prove himself insane; but on the other hand, had he shown any signs of insanity now, the doctor might have suspected him of having poisoned his wife. That would have been very unfortunate. As the physician had foreseen, Matilde was soon better, and by bed-time she felt no ill effects from what had happened to her, beyond great weakness and lassitude. The doctor had asked many questions and had elicited the fact that Matilde had a preparation of arsenic in powders, which she took according to prescription, and which she showed him after the first spasms were passed. She assured him, however, that she had only taken one on that day, and had taken it just before luncheon. The rest of the powders were intact and still lay upon her toilet table. She showed them also. He took the next one, on the top of the pile, and said that he would examine it and ascertain whether the chemist had made any mistake. Then he went away, promising to come in the morning. At last Matilde was alone with her husband. Veronica had gone to bed, and Gregorio waited for an opportunity of questioning his wife. "Whom do you suspect?" he asked, sitting down by her bedside. "No one," she answered. "I took it on purpose. You need not be anxious. I pretended to suffer more than I did, and I do not mind the pain at all." He stared at her, trying to fathom her thoughts, but he altogether failed to understand her. "Why did you do it?" he asked, drawing the lids close together over his small eyes. "You are so dull!" she answered. "You shall see. I cannot explain now. I have been really poisoned and I feel ill and weak. Do not go out to-morrow before I see you." He left her, but she did not sleep all night. In spite of what she had gone through on that evening and of all the mental suffering of many days, she was stronger still than any one knew. It was between two and three in the morning when she lighted a candle, wrapped herself in a dressing-gown and began to make certain preparations for the day. In the first place she locked both her doors very softly, and arranged a stocking over each keyhole, twisting it round the keys themselves. Then she got some stiff writing-paper, and a heavy ivory paper-knife, and from the locked drawers she took that other package which was done up in coarse paper. From this she took some of the rough, half-pulverized white stuff, laid it upon the marble top of the chest of drawers, and with the ivory paper-knife, pressing heavily, she little by little crushed it as fine as dust. She then took nine of the eighteen little papers containing the arsenic, which were left, opened each one at the end and poured out the contents apart, into a little heap quite separate from the other. And of the other, she took a pinch for each little paper and dropped it in--about as much in quantity as she had taken out. Then she closed each of the papers, carefully slipping one folded end into the other as chemists do; when they were all closed, she made a tiny hole in each with the point of a needle, so that she should know the bad from the good, if necessary. This was only a precaution, and could do no harm. Then she arranged the good and the bad in their little packages of five, each in a tiny india-rubber band, laying bad ones and good ones alternately. When this was done, she put all the packages into the original paper, loosely opened, and laid them once more before her looking-glass, upon the toilet table. Her large white hands were exceedingly skilful, and it would have needed sharp eyes to see that the papers of medicine had been tampered with. After this, she cut a sheet of the writing-paper into four square pieces, and very neatly made out of three of them three very small open boxes, for moulds, each of the size of a large lump of sugar, and she set them up side by side in a row. One was larger than the other two. They had brought her powdered sugar, with the juice of a lemon in a glass and a decanter of water; she had said that if she were thirsty she would make herself a glass of lemonade in the night. She had also a bottle of ordinary sticking gum. She took the sugar and mixed a very little with some of the stuff she had pulverized, and with a few drops of the gum, till it was a stiff, hard paste, and with the end of the paper-knife she carefully filled the largest of her three moulds with it. She was sure that it would be dry and hard by the next day, and it would have the size, the appearance, and somewhat the taste of a lump of sugar. Then she halved the little heap of arsenic medicine as exactly as she could. There were nine powders in all. To produce the symptoms of poisoning in herself, she had taken four from her old supply, that evening. Half of nine would be four and a half, and that would not be too much. She mixed enough wet sugar and gum with each little pile to fill one of each of the smaller moulds, pressing the sticky mass firmly into the paper. When all was finished, she carefully cleaned the marble top of the chest of drawers, and threw what little of the coarser powder remained into the ashes of the fire, in which a few coals still glowed. The heat would consume the powder immediately. Having done this, she set the three little moulds on the warm marble hearthstone to dry, took the remainder of the package of coarser powder, twisted the stiff paper closely, so that it should not open, took the stockings from the keyholes, and, candle in hand, left the room, locking the door softly behind her. She made no noise as she traversed the dim rooms, in her felt slippers; but she avoided the yellow drawing-room and passed through a passage behind it. Her nerves were singularly good, but since Bosio's death she did not like to be alone in that room at night. Bosio had been fond of dabbling in spiritism and such things, and they had often talked about the possibility of coming back after death, in that very room, promising each other that, if it were possible, the one who died first would try to communicate with the other. Matilde turned aside from the room in which they had said those things to each other. She walked more and more cautiously as she came to the other end of the long apartment, where Veronica lived, and she stopped in a dark corridor before the door of Elettra's room. It was not ajar this time, but closed. Matilde did not hesitate, and began to turn the handle very slowly. Then she pushed the door and looked in, shading her candle with her hand, from her eyes, so as to look over it. She had determined, if she found the woman in bed, to wake her boldly, to say that she felt ill again and to tell her to go and heat some water. That would have taken some time. But Elettra was not there, and the bed, as usual of late, was untouched. Matilde looked about her hastily, at the same time extracting the package from the wide pocket of her dressing-gown. The furniture was scant and simple--the bed, a table covered with things belonging to Veronica, beside which lay sewing-materials, two chairs, a shabby chest of drawers, a deal washstand--that was all. Italian servants are not accustomed to very luxurious quarters. A couple of coarse, uncoloured prints of saints were tacked to the wall over the bed, and a bit of a dusty olive branch, from the last Palm Sunday, nine months ago, was stuck behind one of them. Matilde looked about her, and hesitated a moment. Then, setting the candlestick down, she knelt upon the floor, and thrust the package as far as she could under the chest of drawers. Of all the things she had to do, in the course of that night and the following day, this was the only one with which any danger was connected, for at any moment Elettra might have come from Veronica's room to her own. The thing was possible, but not probable, between three and four o'clock in the morning. It did not happen, and when Matilde left the room and softly closed the door behind her, all was safe. Before she went to bed, she entered the dining-room, poured herself out a glass of strong Sicilian wine from a decanter on the sideboard and drank it at a draught, for she was very tired. She left the decanter and the glass on the table, so that any one might see them. If by any remote possibility some wakeful person had chanced to hear her moving about in the night, she would say that she had felt ill, and had left her room in order to find the stimulant. She thought of every possible detail which could in any way hereafter be brought up in evidence. At last she went back to her room, unlocked the door, and locked herself in. Her plan was simple, though the details of it were complicated, so far as the preparation was concerned. It was an extremely bold plan, but one not at all likely to fail in the execution. Almost all the difficulty had lain in the preparations, and she had spared no pains and no suffering for herself, in the preliminaries. She knew the story of Elettra's husband very well, and of how he had been murdered by peasants near Muro in trying to collect the exorbitant rents Macomer had attempted to exact. She was a good enough judge of character to see that Elettra had the revengeful disposition common to many of the southern hill people, and the woman's dark complexion, sombre eyes, and thin frame would all help to strengthen the impression in the mind of an unprejudiced judge. She intended to make it appear that Elettra had poisoned the whole family, beginning with Matilde herself, out of revenge for her dead husband. Veronica was to die, but Gregorio and Matilde herself would only suffer a certain amount of pain for a few hours, and then recover. She had begun by half poisoning herself, both to remove all suspicion, and as a sort of experiment, to be sure that she was giving herself and her husband a sufficient amount to produce the real symptoms of poisoning by arsenic. No half measures, no mere acting, would be of any avail. The stuff in the package wrapped in coarse paper was an almost pure salt of arsenic, sold by grocers as rat-poison. The two small lumps of sugar and arsenic medicine were for herself and her husband; the large lump of almost pure poison was for Veronica. In the examination which would follow upon the deed, the package of rat-poison would be found under the chest of drawers in the maid's room, half empty. It would be discovered that every alternate paper of Matilde's medicine had been tampered with, and it would be supposed that Matilde had at the first time taken one of those containing poison, whereas the doctor who had attended her had taken the next, which was untouched and only had medicine in it. She intended to make tea on the following afternoon in Veronica's room. She could easily find an excuse for bringing in Gregorio who, like many modern Italians, had acquired the habit of drinking tea every day. She herself would make the tea, and put in the sugar and cream. Elettra would, as usual, have brought in the tea-tray with the silver urn, for Veronica always preferred being served by her maid when she had anything in her own room. It would go hard, if Matilde could not divert Veronica's attention for one moment while she dropped the lumps into the cups, having concealed them in her handkerchief beforehand. There would be no servant in the room, for Elettra would have gone out. Gregorio would know beforehand what was to be done and would help to divert Veronica at the right moment. Arsenic had little or no taste, and Veronica would drink her cup readily like the rest. She would die before the next morning. That was certain. Everything would tend to throw the suspicion of having attempted to commit a horrible wholesale murder, upon Elettra. The will could be kept back until the first uproar and excitement should be over. Then Matilde would have the fortune, Gregorio would be saved, and Elettra would be condemned to penal servitude for life. It was certainly a very bold plan, and Matilde did not see where it could fail. CHAPTER XIV. Matilde received on the following morning a curious letter which surprised and startled her. She had risen at last, grey and weary of face, with heavy eyes and drawn lips, to face the deed she meant to do. The sky was overcast, but it was not raining yet, though it soon would. She had risen before ringing for her maid, and had carefully removed the paper from the three little cakes of white stuff which she had made. It had to be done cleverly, for the smaller ones seemed likely to crumble; but the large one was quite consistent. She had hidden them all in the drawer she kept locked; then she had unfastened her door and had rung the bell. It was past nine o'clock, and her maid had brought her a letter with her coffee. It was very short, but the few words it contained were exceedingly disquieting. It was accompanied by a card on which Matilde read 'Giuditta Astarita, Sonnambula,' and the address was below, in one corner. The few words of the letter, written in a subtle, sloping, feminine handwriting, correctly spelt and grammatically well expressed, ran as follows:-- "The spirit of B.M. wishes to make you an important communication and torments me continually. I pray you to come to me soon, on any day between ten and three o'clock. In order that you may be assured that it is really the spirit of B.M., and not a deceiving spirit, I am to remind you that on the evening of the ninth of this month, when you and he were alone together in a room which is all yellow, you laid your hand upon his head and stroked his hair and said: 'It is to save me.' The spirit tells me that you will remember this and understand it, and know that he is not a deceiving spirit." Matilde read the short letter many times over, and her hands trembled when she at last folded it and returned it to its envelope. A sensation of curiosity and of ghastly horror ran through her hair, more than once, like a cool breeze, and with it came the infinite desire for some one word of truth out of the black beyond, from the one being whom she had loved so fiercely. But in such things she was sceptical, and she sought to make some theory which should explain the writer of the letter into a common impostor. She could find none. She remembered the act and the words that had gone with it. Only she and Bosio had known, and he was dead--he had died four-and-twenty hours after she had touched his hair and had said: 'It is to save me.' And she knew him well. He was not, under any circumstances, a man to speak of such things to a third person. Then, how did this Giuditta Astarita know what Matilde had said and done? It was not natural, and not natural meant supernatural--supernatural meant the possibility of communication, and she had loved the dead man with all her big, sinful soul. It would be long before the time came for the deed, in the late afternoon, and the terrible day must be disposed of in some way or other. She was not afraid of going mad, nor of losing her nerve, nor of making a mistake at the last moment, but even to her courage and strength the hours before her were hours of fear. She planned her day. The doctor would come, in the first place, at about ten o'clock. He would recommend her to be quiet, to take a little broth for luncheon, and a little more broth for dinner. She smiled grimly, as she thought of his probable instructions, and she knew what she could do and bear at pinch of pressing need. He would also tell her that the powder contained only just the right quantity of medicine, and that she must have been poisoned in some other way. She knew that. Afterwards, Gregorio would need his instructions. He was to be at home in the afternoon, and to come and drink his tea in Veronica's room when Matilde sent for him. Just when Matilde was pouring out the tea, he was to distract Veronica's attention from the tea-table for a moment. She would not tell him that she intended to half poison him, too, for he was a coward, and at the last minute, dreading pain, he would not drink from his cup. She knew that well enough. She would tell him when he began to suffer the effects, and assure him that he was not going to die. Again she smiled grimly, and chancing to be just then before the mirror, she saw that her face had all at once grown old since yesterday. And in spite of her strength of body and will, she felt weak and exhausted, and hated the hours that were to be between. But when she had spoken to Gregorio, she would go out alone, on foot. And she knew that she should find the address given on Giuditta Astarita's card, and enter the house and see the woman who had written to her, and hear the message that was promised. If she left her own house, her feet must take her that way, whether she would or not. And so it all happened just as she foresaw. But she had not known that in threading the intricate, dark streets she would almost forget what she was to do that day, in the mad hope of the one more word from beyond. She had not known that at the thought her eyes would brighten eagerly, the colour would come back to her cheeks, and the strength to her limbs as she walked. After all, the strongest thing that had ever been in her, or ever could be, was that passionate, dominating, despotic devotion to one being; and the merest suggestion that he might not be gone quite beyond the reach of spiritual touch had power to veil the awful future of the day, when her hand was already uplifted to kill. She was not a woman to hesitate at the last moment, unstrung and womanishly trembling because the victim was young, and smiled, and had innocent eyes. And yet, perhaps, had she not gone that day to answer the spirit-seer's summons and to catch at the straw thrown to her from beyond the grave, she might have seen a reason for changing her mind, and all might have happened very differently. But Fate does not sleep, though she seems sometimes to nod and forget to kill. Matilde came to the house as the clock struck eleven, and entered by the dark, arched door, and went up the damp, stone steps, as Bosio had done a fortnight earlier. She was admitted by the decent woman whose one eye was of a china blue, and she waited for Giuditta in the same small sitting-room, of which the one heavily curtained window looked out upon an inner court. She did not know that Bosio had ever been there, but in her thoughts of him she felt his presence, and turned, with a shiver under her hair, to look behind her as she stood waiting before the window, just where he had stood. The day was dark, and the room was all dim and cold, with its stiff, ugly furniture and its bare, tiled floor. The corners were shadowy, and her eyes searched in them uneasily, and she would not turn her back upon them again and look out of the windows. Then the door opened noiselessly, and Giuditta Astarita entered, in her loose black silk gown, with her little bunch of charms against the evil eye, hanging by a chain from a button hole. The china blue eyes looked steadily at Matilde, out of the unhealthy face, but the woman gave no sign to show that she knew who her visitor was. Her hoarse voice pronounced the usual words: "You wish to consult me?" "You wrote to me. I am the Countess Macomer," answered Matilde, lifting her veil, which was a thick one. The expression in the woman's eyes did not change, but she still looked steadily at Matilde for three or four seconds. "Yes," she said. "I thought so. I am glad that you have come, for I have suffered much on your account." She looked as though she were suffering, Matilde thought. Then she placed the chairs, made the countess sit down, and drew the curtains, just as she had done for Bosio. Then, in the dark, there was silence. It seemed to Matilde a long time, and she grew nervous, and moved uneasily. Then, without warning, she heard that other voice, clear, deep, and bell-like, which Bosio had heard, and she trembled. "I see a name written on your breast,--Bosio Macomer." The darkness, the voice, the shiver of anticipation, unnerved the strong woman. "What does he say to me?" she asked unsteadily. Again there was a long silence, longer than the first, and by many degrees more disturbing to Matilda, as she waited for the answer. "Bosio loves you," said the voice. "He is watching over you. He tells you to remember what you promised each other in the room that is all yellow, long ago,--that the one that should die first would visit the other. He tells you that it is possible, and that he has kept his promise. He loves you always, and you will be spirits together." Matilde felt that in the darkness she was horribly pale, but she was no longer frightened. "Will he come to me when I am alone?" she asked, and her voice did not shake. "I will ask him," answered the clear voice, and again there was silence, but only for a few seconds. "This is his answer," continued the voice. "He cannot come to you when you are alone, as yet. By and by he will come. But he watches over you. For the present he can only speak with you through Giuditta Astarita, who is now asleep." "Is she asleep?" asked Matilde. "She is in a trance," the voice replied. "I speak through her, but when she awakes, she will not know what I have said. The spirits come to her directly sometimes, when she is awake, and they torment her. Bosio has been coming to her often, and has made her suffer, until she wrote to you. The spirits themselves suffer when they wish to communicate with the living, and cannot." "What are you?" inquired Matilda. "I am Giuditta's familiar. The spirits generally speak, through me, to her, when she is in the trance." "And she knows nothing of what you say?" "Nothing, after she is awake." "Is Bosio suffering now?" asked Matilde, gravely but eagerly, after a moment's pause. "I will ask him." And another brief pause followed. "Yes," continued the voice. "He is suffering because he has left you. He suffers remorse. He cannot be happy unless he can communicate with you." "Can you see him? Can you see his face?" "Yes," replied the voice, without hesitation. "He is very pale. His hair is soft, brown, and silky, with a few grey streaks in it. His eyes are gentle and tender, and his beard is like his hair, soft and like silk. He is as you last saw him alive, when you kissed him by the fireplace in the room that is yellow, just before he died. He loves you, as he did then." Such evidence of unnatural knowledge might have convinced a more sceptical mind than Matilde's of the fact that the somnambulist could at least read her thoughts and memories from her mind as from a book. It was impossible that any one but herself could know how, and in what room, she had kissed him for the last time, a few minutes before his end. Again the cold shiver ran under her hair, and she could not speak again for a few moments. "Does he know what I am going to do to-day?" she asked at last, in a very low voice. "I will ask him." The silence which followed was the longest of all that there had been. "I cannot see him any more," said the voice, speaking more faintly. "He is gone. He will communicate with you again. I cannot find him. Giuditta is tired--she will--" The last words were hardly audible, and the voice died away altogether. In the dark, Matilde heard something like a yawn, as of a person waking from sleep. Then Giuditta's croaking voice spoke to her. "I am tired," she said. "The spirits have kept me a long time. Did you hear anything that you wished to hear?" "Yes. I heard much." While Matilde was speaking, the woman drew the curtain back, and the dull steel light of the gloomy day filled the small room. But after the darkness it was almost dazzling. Matilde looked at Giuditta's face, and saw the same staring, china eyes, and the same listless expression in the unhealthy features. She had felt a sensation of relief when the voice had been unable to answer the last question she had asked; for she still thought that there might be a doubt as to Giuditta's total forgetfulness on waking. But that doubt was greatly diminished by the woman's indifferent and weary look. "I hope that he will not torment me so much after this," said Giuditta. "I have lost my sleep for several nights." Matilde, believing that the somnambulist was one person when awake and quite another when asleep, did not care to enter into conversation with her in her present state. The vivid, terrible future of the day returned to her mind, too. She had been momentarily unstrung and was in haste to be gone and to be alone. She had her purse in her hand, and stood still a moment, hesitating. "I generally ask twenty-five francs for a consultation," said Giuditta. "But I am so much obliged to you for coming to free me from this obsession, that I shall not charge anything to-day." "No," answered Matilde, quietly. "I am not accustomed to receiving anything without paying for it. But I thank you." She laid the money upon the polished table, beside the volumes in their gilt bindings. "Very well," said Giuditta. "If you desire it, I thank you. If you should wish to come again, I am always to be found between ten and three o'clock." "I will come again," answered Matilde. She passed through the door while Giuditta held it open for her, and in the passage she was met by the one-eyed woman. But she was more unnerved and less observant than Bosio had been, and she did not notice the extraordinary resemblance between the colour of the woman's one eye and that of Giuditta's two. She descended the stairs slowly, feeling dizzy at the turnings, but steadying herself as she went down each straight flight. She made her way quickly to the nearest large thoroughfare and took the first passing cab to get home, for she felt that she had not strength left to walk much more on that day. She had a moment of weakness and doubt, as she went up her own stairs, knowing that in half an hour she must sit down to table with Gregorio and with Veronica. It would be the last time, for Veronica would never sit down with them again. She had not realized exactly how it was to be. Henceforth, at that table, two places were to be vacant, of two persons dead within a fortnight, the one by his own hand, the other by hers; and from that day, when she and her husband sat there, the shadows of those two would be between them always. She paused on the staircase, and steadied herself with her hand against the wall. She knew that from now until it was done, she should have no moment in which she could allow herself the pitiful luxury of feeling weak. And as she stood there, and thought of the strange messages she had but now received from beyond the grave, she felt the terror of what the dead man's spirit might say to her when all was done, and Veronica lay dead in her own room upstairs--in this coming night. The fear followed her up the steps like a living thing, its hand on her shoulder, its cold lips close to her ears, breathing fright and whispering terror. And it went in with her to her own room, and kept freezing company with her throughout a long half-hour of mental agony. It could not bend her, but it almost broke her. If she could stand and walk and see, she would go to Veronica's room that afternoon and kill her. She hated her, too. She hated her all the more bitterly because she felt afraid to kill her, and knew that she must conquer her fear before she could do it. She hated her most savagely because, but for her, Bosio Macomer would still have been alive. As though she had been herself about to die, the great pictures of her own past rose in fierce colours, and faced her with vivid life in the very midst of death. And with them came the clear echo of that bell-like voice she had heard speaking message for message between her and the man she had lost. Her soul was not in the balance, for the die was cast and the deed was to be done. But she suffered then, as though she had still been free to choose. She was not. The atrocious vision of an infamous disgrace stood between her and all possibility of relenting. She saw again the coarse striped clothes, the cropped hair, the hands and feet shackled in irons, the hideous faces of women murderers and thieves around her. Well, that was the alternative, if she let Veronica live--all that, or death. Of course, in such a case she would have chosen death. But it was characteristic of her that from beginning to end she never thought of taking her own life. She was too vital by nature. She had loved life long and well; she loved it even now that it was not worth living. She never even asked herself the question, whether it would not be better and easier to end all and leave Gregorio to his fate. Gregorio! Her smooth lip curled in contempt. A coward, a thief, a fool--why should she care what became of him? Coldly and sincerely she wished that she were going to kill him, and not Veronica. She despised the one, and hated the other; of the two, she would rather have let the hated one live. But to die herself seemed absurd to her, because she really feared death with all her heart, and clung to life with all her strong, vital nature. If the lives of all Naples could have saved her own, death should have had them all, rather than take hers. To live was a passion of itself--even to live lonely, with a despicable and hated companion in the consciousness of the enormous and irrevocable crime by which that living was to be secured to her. There was a common, straight-backed chair in the room, between the chest of drawers and the wall. Through that interminable half-hour she sat upright upon it, her hands folded upon her knees, quite cold and motionless, her eyes closed, and her lips parted in an expression of bodily pain. Then she rose suddenly, all straight at once, tall and unbending, and stood still while one might have counted ten, and she opened and shut her eyes slowly, two or three times, as though she were comparing the outer world with that within her. So Clytemnestra might have stood, before she laid her hands to the axe. She did not mean to be alone again until all was over. It would be easier then. She would have her own bodily pain to bear. There would be confusion in the house--doctors--screaming women--trembling men-servants--her husband's groans; for he was a coward, and would bear ill the little suffering which would help to save him. Then they would tell her that Veronica was dead; and then--then she could sleep for hours, nights, days, calmly, and at rest. She bathed her tired face in cold water, and went to face them at luncheon. With iron will, she ate and drank and talked, bearing herself bravely, as some great actresses have acted out their parts, while death waited for them at the stage door. Had the weather been fine, she would have persuaded Veronica to drive with her, as on the previous day. But it was dark and gloomy, and there would be rain before night. She talked with the young girl, and began to make plans with her for going away. Gregorio ate nothing, and looked on, uttering a monosyllable now and then, and laughing frantically, two or three times. Nobody paid any attention to his laughter, now, for the household had grown used to it. It might break out just when a servant was handing him something; the man would merely draw back a step, and wait until the count was quiet again, before offering the dish. Over their coffee, Matilde read fragments of news from the day's paper, and made comments on what was happening in the world. Veronica thought her unnaturally talkative and excited, but put it down to the reaction after the poisoning of the previous night. Matilde drank two cups of coffee instead of one. Macomer smoked one cigarette after another, and sent for a sweet liqueur, of which he swallowed two glasses. He did not look at Veronica, when he could avoid doing so. At last Matilde rose and asked Veronica to allow her to bring her work and sit with her in her room, to which the young girl of course assented. "By and by, we will have tea there," said Matilde. "Perhaps you will let your uncle come and have a cup with us--he always drinks tea in the afternoon." "Certainly," answered Veronica, quietly. "Will you come at four o'clock, Uncle Gregorio? Or is that too early?" "Thank you. I will come at four, my dear," said Gregorio; and Matilde saw that his knees shook as he moved. In Veronica's room the two women sat through the early part of the afternoon, and still Matilde talked almost continuously. That was the only outward sign that she was not in her usual state, and Veronica scarcely noticed it, for as the time wore on, she spoke less excitedly, and more often waited for an answer to what she said. Of course, the conversation turned for some time upon what had occurred on the preceding evening. Matilde scouted the idea that any one had attempted to poison her. It was perfectly clear, she said, that, although the paper which the doctor had carried away to examine only contained exactly the right amount of medicine, the one from which Matilda had taken her dose must have had too much in it. She was quite out of the habit of taking arsenic, too, and a very slight overdose would always produce the symptoms of poisoning. Veronica could see that she had felt no serious ill effects from the accident. As for thinking that any one had given her poison intentionally, it was utterly and entirely absurd. Matilde refused to entertain the idea even for a moment, and presently she went on to speak of other things, and soon fell back upon making plans for the winter. She did not allow the conversation to flag, for she feared lest Veronica should be tired of sitting in her room and suddenly propose to go somewhere else, just for the sake of the change. It was essential to Matilde's plan that Elettra should bring the things for tea. She did not allow herself to think, and she succeeded in staving off silence. Now that the deed was so near, it seemed unreal. Once she touched her handkerchief in her pocket, and felt the three prepared lumps concealed in it, to assure herself that she was not imagining all she had done, and meant to do. Then, suddenly, she felt that her brow was moist, a thing she could hardly remember having noticed before in her life. But the moisture disappeared almost instantly, and her skin was dry and burning. Then the time came, and it was four o'clock. Elettra opened the door and brought in the tea things on a large silver tray, set them down, and went to get the little tea-table, that was made with a shelf below, between the four legs, as a table with two stories. "Let me make it," said Matilde, cheerfully; "I like to do it." She laid down her work, and Elettra set the table before her knees, with its high silver urn, and all the necessary little implements. Veronica found herself on the other side of it, for Matilde had carefully chosen her seat when she had first come, placing herself in such a way with regard to Veronica as to make the present result almost inevitable unless the girl moved into a very inconvenient position. The big grey Maltese cat came in through the still open door, in the hope of cream at the tea hour, as usual. The creature rubbed itself along Elettra's skirt while she was lighting the spirit lamp under the urn, which contained water already almost boiling. "Will you kindly call the count?" said Matilde, addressing the maid. Elettra left the room, and Matilde settled herself to make the tea, as women do, raising her elbow a little on each side and then dropping them again, bending her face down to see whether the lamp were burning well, opening the teapot, pouring a little hot water into it, opening and shutting the tea-caddy, and settling each spoon in each saucer in a dainty and utterly futile way. The cat rubbed its grey sides against Veronica's skirt and against her little slipper, as she sat there, one knee crossed over the other. The young girl bent down and stroked it, and hesitated, looking at the tea-table, and not wishing to disturb the things to take a saucer for the cat until the tea was made. As she bent down, Matilde took her handkerchief quietly from her pocket and laid it quite naturally in her lap. Veronica, being on the other side of the table and the urn, could not possibly see what she did. Gregorio came in. Elettra had opened the door from without, for him to pass. She stood on the threshold a moment, and looked towards the table, to see whether anything had been forgotten. Then she closed the door, and went away, leaving the three together. The water boiled almost immediately; and Gregorio was just sitting down when Matilde poured the water out of the teapot, and part in the tea. She filled the pot, and leaned back in her chair to allow it to draw a few moments. The silence was intense during several seconds. Only the purring of the cat was heard, as Veronica, letting her arm hang down without stooping, gently rubbed its broad head. It pushed itself under her hand, bending its back to her caress, turned quickly, and pushed its head under her hand once more, doing the same thing again and again. Matilde sat upright, lifted the cover of the teapot an instant, and then began to move the cups. Veronica, whose thoughts were intent upon the animal she was touching, and which, as she knew, was begging for cream, immediately leaned forward, and took from under the silver cream jug a saucer which Elettra had especially brought for the purpose. She poured a little cream into it, and, bending down, placed it on the lower shelf of the tea-table, and gently pushed the cat towards it. Matilde saw her opportunity, while Veronica was stooping; and in that moment she distributed the three lumps from her handkerchief in the three cups before her, and at once began to pour tea into the one containing the largest lump. The cat, for some reason, wished the saucer to be set upon the floor; and Veronica still bent down, until it sprang lightly upon the lower shelf, and began the slow and dainty operation of lapping the cream. During all this, Gregorio, anxious to seem unaware of anything extraordinary, and not really knowing how his wife meant to put the poison into the tea, was nervously looking away from her, sometimes towards the window, at the fast-fading light of the grey afternoon on the opposite house, and sometimes at Veronica's head as she bent down. When she looked up, Matilde was holding out her cup to her, having put some cream into it and a lump of real sugar to really sweeten the tea. Veronica thanked her, drew a little nearer to the table, held her cup on her knee, and took a thin slice of bread and butter, which she proceeded to eat, stirring the tea slowly with her left hand. Matilde meanwhile filled the other two cups, and handed one to her husband, who took it in silence, unsuspectingly. "I can never understand why the tea we make here is better than mine," she said, smiling. "It is the same tea, of course. But it certainly is better in your room." "Is it?" asked Veronica, carelessly and looking down at the cup she held on her knee, while she slowly stirred the contents. As though to verify Matilde's assertion, she bent a little, raised the cup, and tasted the liquid. It was still too hot to drink, and she stirred it again on her knee. She noticed that although it had been sweet enough to her taste, there was a lump of sugar, not yet dissolved, still in the cup: she never took but one piece, and her aunt had evidently put in two. Still holding the cup on her knee, where Matilde could not possibly see it, she quietly fished the superfluous piece of sugar out with her teaspoon, and bending down again she deposited it in the saucer from which the cat was lapping the last drops of cream. She noticed that it was only dissolved at the corners, but she had observed before that one sometimes finds a lump of sugar which remains hard a long time. The cat would eat it, for it liked sugar, as some cats do. Then she filled the cat's saucer again. By that time what she had was cooler, and she drank some of it. "It is certainly very good tea," she said thoughtfully. "I think you probably make it better than I do." As she drank again, Gregorio's unearthly laugh cracked and jarred in the room. But neither he nor his wife had seen what Veronica had done. They were staring hard at each other, and for the second time Matilde felt that her brow was moist. CHAPTER XV. The Maltese cat died before six o'clock. The poor creature suffered horribly, and Elettra carried it off to her room that Veronica might not see its agony. But Veronica followed her maid. Elettra had laid the beast upon a folded rug on the floor and knelt beside it. It seemed half paralyzed already, but when Veronica knelt down, too, and tried to caress it, the cat sprang from them both in sudden terror. It stood still an instant, wagging its head while its shoulders contracted violently. Then it glided under the chest of drawers to die alone, if possible, after the manner of animals of prey. The girl and her maid heard its rattling breathing and its convulsions: its body thumped against the lower drawer. Then, while Veronica listened and Elettra bent, candle in hand, till her face touched the floor, to see it and get it out, all at once it was quiet. "Get up," said Veronica, nervously, for she was fond of the creature. "Help me to move the chest of drawers out. Then we can get it out." "It is dead," answered Elettra, still on the floor, and thrusting her long, thin arm under the piece of furniture. "But I cannot pull him out," she added. "He is so big!" She got upon her feet, and together, without much difficulty, the two dragged the chest of drawers away from the wall, and then bent down behind it, with the candle, to look at the dead animal. "It is quite dead," said Elettra. "Poor beast! What can have happened to it?" Veronica was really sorry, but of the two the maid had been the more fond of the cat. "It must have eaten something." Elettra looked up, suspiciously, and Veronica drew back a step, half straightening herself. Her foot touched something close to the wall. She stooped again and picked up the package of rat-poison which Matilda had hidden under the chest of drawers on the previous night. She looked at it closely. It had evidently not lain long where she had found it, for there was no dust on it, and the coarse paper had an unmistakably fresh look. The indication of the contents was written upon it in ink, in illiterate characters. "It is rat-poison!" exclaimed Veronica. "The cat must have eaten some of it! How did it come here?" She looked at her maid curiously. "The cat could not have wrapped it up and folded in the ends of the paper," observed Elettra. "That is true." They looked at each other, in considerable astonishment. Then they talked about it. Veronica asked whether Elettra had complained that there were mice in her room, and whether some stupid servant, having a package of rat-poison at hand, had not stuck it under the chest of drawers, not even thinking of opening the paper. Elettra was suspicious. "At all events, Excellency," she said, "remember that you found it, and that it was carefully closed." Suddenly, as they were speaking together, Veronica's face changed, and she grasped the corner of the piece of furniture convulsively. Though she had taken the poisoned lump from her cup in time to save her life, enough had been dissolved already to make her very ill. Again there was dire confusion and fear in the Palazzo Macomer, by night. It was a wholesale poisoning. Veronica, Matilde, and Gregorio were all seized nearly at the same time. Several of the servants left the house within half an hour after it was known that their masters were all poisoned. Within a fortnight, Bosio Macomer had killed himself and there had been two poisonings. Matilde's maid and a housemaid, the cook, and the butler went quietly to their several rooms, took the most valuable of their own possessions, and slipped out. They felt that the house was doomed, with every one in it. But some one had gone for the doctor, and he arrived in a short time. Matilde, to whom all the proper antidotes had been given on the previous day, might have taken them at once, but in the first place, weak and still suffering the consequence of the first dangerous experiment, she was almost unconscious with pain, and secondly, if she had taken an antidote herself, it would have seemed strange that she should not administer it to Veronica, or at least send some one to the young girl to do so. Gregorio lay howling with pain in his room. But Matilde had warned him that it would come, after they had left Veronica's room together, and he knew that everything depended on his not hinting at the truth. The doctor came to Matilde first. Far away, at the other end of the house, Elettra was with Veronica. She had known what they had done for the countess on the preceding evening, and while the servants were screaming and running hither and thither through the apartments, like scared sheep, the woman had quietly got oil and warm water, and was giving both to her mistress. She knew that a footman had gone for the doctor. When Veronica had first been seized with pain, Elettra had thrust the package of poison into her own pocket, and it was still there. By the time the antidote began to act, Elettra believed that the doctor must be in the house. Not wishing to leave Veronica even for a moment, she rang the bell. But no one came. The woman suspected that the doctor had gone first to Matilde, and she decided in a moment that it was better to leave her mistress alone for two or three minutes than not to have the physician's assistance at once. She hastened to Matilde's room. As she passed a half-open door the package of poison in her pocket struck against the door-post and reminded her of its presence, if she needed reminding. The doctor was bending over Matilde, who seemed very weak. As Elettra entered, she saw that there was no one else in the room. A drawer in a piece of furniture stood open as Matilde had left it, and as Elettra passed, she dropped the package in, and with a movement of her hand covered it with some folded handkerchiefs, from a little heap, shutting the drawer with a quick push. Neither Matilde nor the doctor saw her do it. As Elettra spoke to the doctor, the countess started at the sound of her voice. She thought the maid had come to say that Veronica was dead. Almost violently the woman dragged the physician away with her, and Matilde smiled in the midst of her sufferings. It would be useless to chronicle the details of the night and of the following morning. The three poisoned persons were almost recovered within twelve hours. Of the servants who had fled, Matilde's maid was the first to come back when she learned that no one was dead. As the night wore on towards dawn, and the countess learned that Veronica was alive and not at all likely to die, she silently turned her face to the wall and tore her pocket-handkerchief slowly with her teeth. In the morning, when the doctor was there, the maid was alone in the room, arranging things as quickly as she could, and hoping that in the confusion of the previous night, her absence might not have been observed. In the drawer, amongst the handkerchiefs and other things, she came upon the package, looked at it in surprise, turned it round and round, and read the words written on it. Then, thinking that she had discovered the clue to the attempted wholesale murder, and that she might obtain pardon for her defection, she came to the bedside and held it up to the doctor. He, too, looked at it, and read the words. Matilde's heavy eyes opened, and then stared as she recognized the package. She thought that of course it had been found in Elettra's room, and was sure of the answer, when she put the question to her maid. "Where did you find it?" she asked faintly. "In the drawer, here, Excellency." "In the drawer!" cried Matilde, starting up, and leaning on her elbow, as though electrified. "In the drawer? Here, in my room? Why--it was--" Her head sank back, and her eyes closed. She had nearly betrayed herself, for she was very weak. "It was not there yesterday--I am sure of it," she said feebly. "Give it to me," said the doctor, sternly, and he put it into his pocket. All that day Matilde lay in her room. Gregorio had recovered. He came to her, and when they were alone, he reproached her bitterly and upbraided her in unmeasured language for her failure. Veronica was alive, and his terror of the ruin before him grew stronger with the physical weakness. He was a coward always, but he was now half mad with fear. He laughed hideously, and his face twitched. He sawed the air with extraordinary gestures while he walked up and down in his wife's room, speaking excitedly in a low tone. Matilde turned to the wall and answered nothing. For she could not have found anything to say. From time to time, during the day, she had news of Veronica. Elettra never left her mistress but once, shortly before twelve o'clock. She went out for a quarter of an hour, and came back bringing fresh eggs, bread, and wine, which she had bought herself. "It is poor fare, Excellency," she said, as she boiled the eggs in the tea-urn, "but it is safe. If you are strong enough this afternoon, we will go away. This is not a good house. I do not understand what was done; but it was done to kill you and not to hurt them." "I think it was," said Veronica. "I am not frightened, but I do not think that I am safe here." After she had eaten a little and drunk some wine, she felt stronger and wrote a line to the Princess Corleone, asking the latter to receive her for a few days, as she was in trouble. In an hour she had an answer. Bianca, of course, was ready for her whenever she might come. Elettra quickly began to pack such things as her mistress might need immediately. Veronica lay still, listening to Elettra's movements in the next room. In a flash she had guessed half the truth, and reflexion now brought her most of the rest. She remembered Don Teodoro's earnest face and the quiet eyes that had looked at her through the silver spectacles while he had been speaking. There had been conviction in them, and even then she had felt that he believed the truth of what he said, however mistaken he might be. And now she felt that it was not he who had spoken, but Bosio, through him, that the warning came from beyond the grave, and that she had risked her life in disregarding it. She believed that Bosio had been a truthful man, and each detail of what had happened fitted itself to the next, to make up the whole story which the priest had told her. All but Bosio's love for Matilde, and in that Don Teodoro had misunderstood him. He might have loved her in the past. That was possible, and to the young girl's mind, in comparison with all that had recently happened, the wrong of that love dwindled to an insignificant detail. She had not been near enough to loving the man herself to be jealous of his past. And she was glad that he had not told Don Teodoro of his love for herself. The rest all grew to distinctness and to the coincidence of the fact with the warning. She was brave enough to face danger as well as a man, but there was no reason why she should stay where she was, waiting to be murdered. She had a right to save herself without despising herself as a coward. She therefore said nothing to stop Elettra in her preparations, and the maid silently went on with her work in the other room. She still felt ill and terribly shaken, but she rose softly, to try her strength, and she found that after the first moment's dizziness she could stand and walk alone. She looked at her hands, and she thought that they had shrunk and were thinner than ever. Then she lay down again and called Elettra, and bade her prepare her own belongings and then come and dress her, when she should have finished. "Yes, Excellency." That was almost all that the woman had said, since she had boiled the eggs for her mistress's luncheon, and Veronica herself did not speak except to give an order about some detail of the packing. It would have been impossible to talk of what had happened without speaking clearly about Matilde, and Veronica did not wish to do that, though Elettra was of her own people and devotedly attached to her. Elettra had been careful that no one in the household should learn her mistress's intention of leaving the palace. Veronica intended to go away in a cab, and it would be the question of a moment only to call one. When all was ready, Elettra went out for that purpose herself, and Veronica went without hesitation to Matilde's room. When she entered, the countess was alone, propped with pillows on a low couch near the fire. Her large white hands lay listlessly upon the dark shawl that was drawn over her, and she had thrown a piece of thick black lace over her head. It was nearly four o'clock, and the light was already waning, so that, as she lay with her back to the window, Veronica could hardly see her face. She raised her head slowly and wearily as the young girl entered, and then started visibly, as she recognized her. "It is I," said Veronica, when she had closed the door. She came and stood beside the couch on which her aunt lay, and she looked down at the reclining woman. Matilde's listless hands suddenly clasped each other. "Yes," she answered, with an effort. "Are you going out? Are you well enough to go out?" she asked, adding the last question quickly. "I should go if I were much more ill than I have been," Veronica replied. "I am not coming back." "Not coming back?" Surprise brought energy into Matilde's voice. "No. I am not coming back. Do not be astonished. I understand what has happened, and I am going to a safer place." "What? How? I do not understand." Matilde spoke rapidly and unsteadily. "You must stay here--Gregorio is going to send for the chief of police--there will be an inquiry, and you must answer questions--we suspect one of the servants, who has a grudge against your uncle, and who has tried to murder us all in revenge--" "Yes," said Veronica, calmly. "It was well arranged, I am sure. If I had not found the rat-poison under the chest of drawers in Elettra's room, you might have thrown suspicion upon her, because her husband was murdered at Muro. If I had not found my tea too sweet, I should not have taken out the second piece and given it to the cat. The taste I had of it almost killed me--you have explained the rest to me now. But I knew all that I needed to know." Matilde put her feet to the ground and slowly rose to her feet while Veronica was speaking. Then she laid her two hands upon the girl's shoulders and stared into her face. "Do you dare to accuse me of trying to poison you?" she asked in a low, fierce voice. "Take your hands from me!" cried Veronica, thrusting her back. "Call your husband. I will accuse you both--you and him." They were women of the same race and name, and both brave. But the elder and stronger felt her nerves growing weak in her when she heard the other's voice. Perhaps courageous people recognize courage and conviction in others more easily than cowards can. Matilde hesitated. "Call him!" repeated Veronica, in a tone of command. "I insist upon it. He shall hear what I have to say." "I will call him, that he may see for himself that you are quite mad," answered Matilde. "That is," she added, "if he is well enough to come here from his room." And she moved slowly towards the door. "If I am alive, he is well enough to hear me speak," said the young girl. Matilde stopped, turned, and faced her a moment, as though about to speak angrily. Then she went on. It was best, on the whole, to call her husband, she thought, though her reasoning was confused and uncertain. In her view of matters, the burden of the crime she had tried to commit all fell upon him, and she was willing that he should face Veronica, and realize what he had done. At the same time she believed herself so safe as still to be able to throw the suspicion entirely upon Elettra, though Veronica would protect her. Moreover, though she would not have admitted the fact, her strength was momentarily so broken that she felt it easier to obey the young girl than to visit her and fight out the interview alone. Veronica did not move while she was gone, but stood quite still, watching the door. She was very pale, with illness and rising anger, but she was not weak, as Matilde was. She had not gone through half so much. Presently Matilde returned, followed by Macomer, wrapped in a dark velvet dressing-gown, his face white and twitching, his usually smooth grey beard unbrushed, and his grey hair in disorder. With drawn lids he looked at Veronica, and in his terror he tried to smile, but there was something at once cowardly and insolent in the expression--there was something else, too, which the young girl did not understand, a sort of vacancy of the brow and unnatural weakness of the mouth. "I am glad that you have come," she said, when the door was shut. "I have not much to say, and I wish you to hear it." They were all standing. Gregorio steadied himself by the head of the couch, and was as erect as ever. "I will tell you something which you do not know," said Veronica, fixing her eyes on him. "Before Bosio died he told the whole truth to Don Teodoro Maresca, his friend. And the day after his death, Don Teodoro came and told it all to me." "Bosio!" exclaimed Gregorio, his knees shaking. "Bosio told--" "What did Bosio tell?" asked Matilde, interrupting her husband in a loud voice to cover any mistake he might be about to make. But Veronica had seen Macomer's face and had heard his tone of dread. Whatever doubts she still had, disappeared for the last time. "He told his friend the whole truth about your management of my fortune," she answered steadily. "He told how you had lost your own in speculation and had taken everything of mine upon which you could lay hands--all my income and much more, so long as you were still my guardian--you and Lamberto Squarci, helping each other. And I understand now why you would not give me that money the other day. You had not got it to give me. My aunt must have borrowed it. And Bosio told Don Teodoro, that unless he was married to me, you meant to kill me, because I had signed a will leaving you everything. There was nothing that Bosio did not tell, and Don Teodoro repeated every word of it to me. I thought him mad. But now I know that he was not. I have been saved by a miracle, but you shall not try to murder me again--so I am going away." Macomer had listened to the end, his face working horribly and his hands grasping the head of the couch. When Veronica paused, his head fell forward as he stood. Even Matilde could not speak, for a moment. The revelation that Bosio had told all before he died, and that Veronica knew it, fell upon her like a blow, with stunning force. The first words came from Gregorio. "Bosio!" he exclaimed in a loud voice. "The devil take his soul!" "God will have mercy upon the soul that was lost through your deeds," said the young girl, solemnly. "Amongst you, you drove him to madness--it was not his fault. But for his soul you shall answer, as well as for your deeds--and that is much to answer for, to Heaven and to me. You neither of you have the strength to deny one word of what Bosio said--" "He was mad!" Matilde broke in. "You are mad, too--" "Oh no!" interrupted Veronica, with contempt. "You cannot fasten that upon me. I am not mad at all, and I will show you what it is to be sane, for I know that every word of what Bosio told Don Teodoro was true. I was foolish not to believe it at once--it almost cost my life to believe you better than you are." "He was quite insane," muttered Gregorio, in almost imbecile repetition of what his wife had said. Matilde made another great effort to impose her remaining strength upon the young girl. "Whether you are mad or not, you shall not stand there accusing me of monstrous crimes!" she cried, moving a step towards Veronica, and raising her hand with a menacing gesture. "Shall not?" repeated Veronica, proudly, and instead of retreating she advanced calmly to meet her aunt. "Would you not rather that I accused you here, and proved you guilty and let you go free, than that I should do as much in a court of justice? You know what the end of that would be--penal servitude for you both--and unless--" she paused, for she was growing hot and she wished to speak with coolness. "Unless?" Matilde uttered the one word scornfully, still facing her. "Unless you will confess the truth, here, before I leave the house, I will do what I can to have you both convicted," said Veronica. "That is your only chance. That or the galleys. Choose. You are thieves and murderers. Choose." She spoke like a man to those who would have murdered her and had failed, but who had robbed her with impunity for years. Gregorio Macomer's face was all distorted. All at once his maniac laugh broke out. But it stopped suddenly and unexpectedly, and it changed to another sort of laughter--low and not unpleasant to hear, but a little vacant. Matilde turned her head slowly and gazed at him. He was bending now and resting his elbows on the head of the couch, instead of his hands, and he held his hands themselves opposite to each other, crooking first one finger and then another, and making one finger bow to the other, as children sometimes do, and laughing vacantly to himself, with a queer little chuckle of enjoyment. Veronica stared. Matilde held her breath. Still he laughed softly. "Marionettes," he said, looking up at his wife, his little eyes wide open. "Do you see the marionettes? This is Pulcinella. This is his wife. Do you see how they quarrel? Is it not pretty? I always like to see the marionettes in the streets. Ha! ha! ha! see them!" And he played with his fingers and made them bob and bow, like little dolls. "He is ill," said Matilde, in a low, uneasy voice. "Pay no attention to him." He had always intended to save himself by pretending to go mad, but even Matilde was amazed at his power of acting. "He will recover," answered Veronica, coldly. "You can still understand me, at all events, even if he cannot. You have your choice. If you tell me the truth, I will not allow any inquiry. I will take over my fortune, if you have left me any, and for the sake of my father's name, I will not bring you to justice, even if you have ruined me. But I warn you--and it is the last time, for I am going--if you still try to deny what I know to be the truth, the prosecution shall begin to-morrow. You will not be able to murder me, for I shall be protected, and with all your abominable courage you are not brave enough to try and kill me here, before I leave this room. No--you are not. I am not afraid of you. But you have reason to be afraid. You will be convicted. Nothing can save you. Though people do not know me as they knew my father,--though I am only a girl and came to you, straight from the convent,--I know that I have power, and I shall use it. I am not poor Elettra, whom you intended to accuse. I am the Princess of Acireale; I have been your ward; you and your husband have robbed me, and you have tried to murder me. Though I am only a girl, justice will move more quickly for me than it would for you, even if you could call it to help you. Now choose, and waste no time." While she had been speaking, Macomer had stared at her with an expression of genuine childish amusement. "Poor Pulcinella!" he exclaimed softly. "How your wife can talk, when she is angry! Poor fellow!" The tone was so natural that Matilde again looked at him uneasily, and moved nearer to him, not answering Veronica. "Come, Gregorio," she said, "you are ill. Come to your room--you must not stay here." "I am sorry you do not like the marionettes," he said gravely. "They always amuse me. Stay a little longer." Veronica supposed that he was ill from the effects of the poisoning and that he was in some sort of delirium. But she did not pity him, and was relentless. She moved nearer to her aunt. "Answer me!" she said sternly. "This is the last time. If you deny the truth now, I will go to the chief of police at once." "Oh! poor old Pulcinella!" cried Macomer, laughing gently. "How she gives it to him!" Matilde was almost distracted. "You will be arrested at once," said Veronica, pitilessly. "Never mind, Pulcinella!" exclaimed Macomer. "Courage, my friend! You know you always get away from the policeman! Ha! ha! ha!" Matilde saw Veronica moving to go to the door. She straightened herself and pointed to her husband. "Yes," she said. "He did it--and he is mad." Her voice was firm and clear, for the die was cast. When she had spoken, she turned from them both towards the fireplace, and hid her face in her hands. If he could act his madness out, she, at least, would still be free and alive. Veronica stood still a moment longer, looking back. "That is the other piece," said Macomer, thoughtfully. "Pulcinella does not go mad in this one. The man has forgotten the parts. It is a pity--it was so amusing." There was silence for a moment. Matilde did not look round. "I think he will recover," said Veronica. "But I am glad you have told the truth. I promise that you shall be safe." In a moment she was gone. "Just so," said Macomer, speaking to himself. "He forgot the words of the piece, and so he made it end rather abruptly. Let us go home, Matilde, since it is over." "It is of no use to go on acting insanity before me," answered Matilde, with a bitter sigh, as she raised her face from her hands and moved away from the fireplace, not looking at him. "That is the reason why Pulcinella's wife disappeared so suddenly," he replied. "You see, there are two pieces which the marionettes act. In the one which begins with the quarrel--" "I tell you it is of no use to do that!" cried Matilde, angrily, and beginning to walk up and down the room, still keeping her eyes from the face she hated. "How nervous you are!" he exclaimed, with irritation. "I was only trying to explain--" "Oh, I know! I know! Keep this acting for the doctors! You will drive me really mad!" "The doctors?" He stared at her and smiled childishly. "Oh no!" he exclaimed. "The doctor is in the other piece--I was going to explain--" She turned with a fierce exclamation upon him and grasped his arm, shaking him savagely, as though to rouse him. To her horror, he burst into tears. "You hurt!" he whined. "You hurt me! Oh, poor little Gregorio!" He was really mad, and there was no more acting for him, as the tears streamed down his vacant face, which no longer twitched at all. His mind had broken down under Veronica's relentless accusation and threat of vengeance. The miserable woman's strength was all but gone, when she sat down, alone in the room with her mad husband, and once more buried her face in her hands. He whined and cried a little while to himself, and rubbed his arm where she had taken hold so roughly; but presently his tears dried again, and he leaned over the end of the couch on his elbow, and above her bowed, veiled head he crooked his fingers at each other, and made his hands nod and bob to each other, like little dolls, laughing gently, with a chuckle now and then, at the funny things he heard Pulcinella saying to his wife. That was the end of the attempt to murder Veronica Serra, and that was the end of the old life at the Palazzo Macomer. CHAPTER XVI. Veronica was not only merciful but generous to Matilde, when she finally set her own fortune in order. Through Pietro Ghisleri she found an honest and discreet man of business, whose fortune and good name placed him above suspicion, and who arranged matters to her satisfaction, and as far to her advantage as was possible under the circumstances. Bosio had possessed a competency, which, as he died intestate, became the inheritance of his brother. But the latter, owing to the time required for the legal formalities, had not been able to get possession of the money before he became insane, and was placed in an asylum at Aversa, where he was probably to remain until he died. Bosio's little fortune remained intact, and the use of it reverted to Matilde Macomer. Veronica paid Gregorio's expenses at the asylum. As for the Macomer property, she found herself obliged to raise money to meet the mortgages which were due on the first of January after the final catastrophe, since Macomer had used up her income and left her momentarily in difficulties. The banker who was managing matters for her advanced the sums necessary out of his private fortune, and the estate at Caserta, together with the Palazzo Macomer in Naples, became the property of Veronica Serra. By the estimates made they were worth more than the money raised upon them by mortgage, and by the deeds of sale the balance was to be paid to Matilde. This, with Bosio's property, was enough to make her independent, and, for the time being, Veronica allowed her to live in the house. Lamberto Squarci was called in constantly, as having been Macomer's agent. By agreement, Veronica caused the accounts of the estate to be balanced from Macomer's books, so that everything appeared to be in order, and she formally took over her fortune from Matilde and Cardinal Campodonico, who knew nothing of the true state of affairs. Since Veronica knew everything and was satisfied, it was not necessary that he should be informed of what had taken place, and this secrecy was the keeping of Veronica's promise that Matilde should be safe. When all was settled upon a permanent basis, Veronica found herself still exceedingly rich. Matilde was provided for. Gregorio was in the insane asylum. The cardinal and the world at large were in total ignorance of all the truth except the facts which could not be concealed; namely, that Bosio Macomer had killed himself and that his brother was mad. The latter fact explained the former; for everybody said that there was insanity in the family, and that Bosio had been mad, too. Veronica's first, chiefest, and most immediate difficulty lay in finding a reason which she could give Bianca and the cardinal for refusing to live any longer with her aunt. She cared very little what society might say, for she was at once too inexperienced to attach the true measure of importance to its opinion, or to understand that the unhappy Princess Corleone was not in a position to socially take the place of a chaperon; and, at the same time, she was too great a personage to be easily intimidated by the fear of gossip. Bianca was her friend, and to her she went unhesitatingly, feeling quite sure that she was doing right. There were people, however, who thought differently; first among whom were the cardinal and the Duchessa della Spina, Gianluca's mother. The cardinal did not return from Rome until after the first of January, but the duchessa came to see Veronica at Bianca's villa within a few days after Veronica had left her aunt. The good lady implored her to return to the countess, in the name of society or of religion, but Veronica was not quite sure which she invoked, for her language was not very coherent. She was not more than five-and-forty years of age, but she seemed to be already an old woman. Her hair was grey, she had lost many teeth, and she dressed, as Veronica wickedly said to Bianca, like the devil's grandmother. She spoke affectionately, as well as reprovingly, however, having known both Veronica's parents, and as having been a third cousin of her mother; and she begged the young girl to come and stay as long as she pleased at the Della Spina palace, as her guest. Veronica thanked her, but declined to change her quarters. It was clear that the Duchessa wished her to marry Gianluca, and had by no means given up all hopes of the match. It was all the more clear, because she never mentioned him, though Veronica knew that he was no better; and Veronica herself, though sorry for him, asked no questions, lest any inquiry should be taken for a sign of an inclination which she did not feel. The Duchessa smiled reprovingly and shook her head when she went away. It would have been quite impossible for her to explain to Veronica why she should not remain longer than necessary under Bianca's roof. And, indeed, the matter might not have been easy to explain. Veronica was glad when she was gone. The cardinal was not so easy to deal with. He was a man of singular intensity of opinion, so to speak, when he held any fixed opinion at all, and he was displeased when he learned that Veronica was with his niece. On the other hand, the fact that Bianca was his brother's daughter gave Veronica a weapon against him. Why should she not spend a month or two with the niece of her former guardian, her old friend, the companion of her convent school days in Rome? Would his Eminence tell her why not? His Eminence replied by saying that he had never approved of Bianca's marriage; that Prince Corleone was, in his opinion, as great a good-for-nothing as ever had appeared in Neapolitan society, and was at present known to be leading a dissipated life in Paris and London. Veronica answered that all these things were to the discredit of Corleone, but that Bianca was to be pitied, since she had been so unlucky as to marry a scoundrel, and that, on the whole, it was better that Corleone should stay away from her, if he could not behave decently at home. The cardinal retorted that no young girl should stay two months in the house of any woman who was practically separated from her husband, for whatever reason; and he said that this was an accepted tradition in society, and that society was not to be despised. He was not prepared for the answer he received. "I am Veronica Serra," said the young girl, with a smile. "Society is society. When we need each other, we will try and agree." This was somewhat enigmatic, to say the least of it, and the cardinal was not quite sure whether he understood it. He should be very sorry, he said, to think that his old friend's daughter meant to cut herself off from the world in which she had so important a part to play. Of course, he had no longer any actual authority by which to direct her actions. She was of age, and if she chose to live alone, without so much as an elderly companion, no one could hinder her. To this Veronica promptly answered that she had come to Bianca's house in order not to be alone. "And why," inquired the cardinal, watching her face keenly, "have you determined that you will no longer live with your aunt Macomer, who is your only near relative and your natural companion?" This was the real question, and Veronica had hoped that he would not ask it; but being a good diplomatist, and knowing how hard it would be to answer, the wise prelate had kept it back as a hammer with which to drive the wedges he had previously inserted one by one. "I had understood that you were always the best of friends," he added, while she was silent for a moment. "We have not agreed so well lately," said Veronica. "Besides, you could hardly expect me to be happy in a house where such horrible things have lately happened." "You could live somewhere else, and have your aunt with you," suggested the cardinal. "You do not understand!" Veronica smiled. "That would be quite impossible. She has always been accustomed to being mistress in the house, and if she lived with me, she would be my guest. She would not like to accept that position. Just imagine! I would not even let her order dinner." "You might let her do that, by way of a compromise, my child." "Oh--but she does it abominably! That is one reason for not living with her!" The cardinal could not help laughing at Veronica's statement of the case. "I see," he said. "She poisoned you!" And he laughed again. "Yes," answered Veronica. "That was exactly it. She poisoned us all." She smiled to herself at the terrible truth of the words which so much amused the cardinal; but she continued to talk in the same strain, giving him the infinity of small reasons, under which a clever woman will hide her chief one, confusing a man's impression of the whole by her superior handling of its parts, exaggerating the one detail and belittling the next, until all proportion and true perspective are lost, and the man leaves her with the sensation of having been delicately taken to pieces, and put together again with his face turned backwards, over his shoulders. When, on leaving him, Veronica deposited the traditional and perfunctory kiss upon his sapphire ring, Cardinal Campodonico felt that his late ward had been a match for him at all points, and that after all it was not such a great thing to be a man, if one could not do better than he had done. If he consoled himself with the fact that Eve had out-argued Adam, he was mentally confronted by the reflexion that Adam had been a layman, and had not been called upon to sustain the dignity of a cardinal and an archbishop. He determined, however, that he would renew the attempt before long. If Veronica would not leave Bianca's villa, and live in some other way, he would oblige his niece to cut the situation short and go away for a journey. But Veronica had no intention of quartering herself upon her friend for any great length of time; and perhaps, under the circumstances, she did the best thing she could in going directly to her. Bianca was discreet, and lived very quietly, receiving few people and going very little into the world. The villa itself was at some distance from the centre of Neapolitan life, so that the average idle man or woman thought twice before calling, without a distinct object, and merely for a cup of tea and a cup-of-tea's worth of gossip. There was not that constant coming and going of visitors in every degree of intimacy which might have been expected in the house of a woman of Bianca Corleone's beauty and position. The world is easily tired of unhappy people, and men soon weary of worshipping a goddess who never smiles upon them. As for the fact that Pietro Ghisleri was frequently at the villa, society refrained from throwing stones, in consideration of the extreme brittleness of its own glass dwelling. Ghisleri was disliked in Naples, because he was a Tuscan; but Bianca, as a Roman, might have been more popular. It need hardly be said that she preferred the isolation she enjoyed to a gayer existence. To Veronica it seemed as though she herself had never before known what liberty was. The whole mode of life was different from anything to which she had been accustomed. The villa was near the country, and its own grounds were not small. Bianca was passionately fond of dogs and horses, for her father bred horses on his lands in the Roman Campagna, and she had been accustomed to animals from her childhood. She taught Veronica to ride, and the fearless young girl was a good pupil. They rode out together early in the morning, westward, towards Baiae, and up to the king's preserves, and often through some lands of Veronica's which lay in the rich Falernian district within an easy distance. A groom followed them. Ghisleri very rarely joined the party. Bianca Corleone had another accomplishment which was very unusual at that time, and is still uncommon, among Italian women. She could fence, and was fond of the exercise. She had been a delicate child, and it had long been feared that her lungs were weak, so that she had been encouraged from her earliest youth in everything which could contribute towards increasing her strength. Her brother, Gianforte, had even as a boy been a good fencer. He was devotedly attached to his only sister, and as she had not gone to the convent school until she had been fifteen years old, they had been constantly together until then, he being only a couple of years older than she. One day she had taken up one of his foils, laughing at the idea, and had made him show her how to hold it; and he had forthwith amused her by teaching her to fence, on rainy days in Rome, when she could not ride. It had seemed to do her good, and her father had allowed her to have regular lessons, until she could handle a foil very fairly, for a girl. She herself liked it, but she rarely alluded to it, regarding it as a rather unfeminine amusement, and being, at the same time, a most womanly woman. But in her villa she had a large empty room, admirably adapted for fencing, and three times weekly a famous master came and gave her lessons. To her surprise Veronica had shown an irresistible desire to learn also, and had insisted upon being properly taught by the fencing-master. The young girl had soon shown that she had far more natural ability and aptitude for the skilled exercise than Bianca had possessed when she had first begun. Her lean young figure, long arms, and unusual quickness gave her every advantage with a foil, and her extraordinary tenacity and determination to do well at it helped her to progress rapidly. Before she had practised two months, though by no means yet as good as Bianca, she had been able to sustain a long bout with her very creditably indeed. Bianca had a very different temperament and organization. She was never really strong, though exercise had developed her strength to the utmost. She did many things well, but did nothing with that sort of conviction, so to say, which proceeds from conscious inward vigour. When she was not actually riding or fencing, or doing something of the sort, there was a languor in her movements and her manner which told that she had no great vital force upon which to draw. Those who already know something of her story, will remember that her life was short as well as sad. She watched Veronica with interest, noting how suddenly the girl changed and developed in her new liberty. She had never suspected her of many tastes and inclinations which now showed themselves for the first time. She found that a certain simplicity of view and judgment which she had set down to girlish innocence, was, in reality, the natural bent of Veronica's character. There was a fearless directness in the girl's ways, which delighted Bianca Corleone. The two young women were alone one afternoon, not long after Veronica had come, when Taquisara and Gianluca appeared together. It was a part of Bianca's way of showing her indifference to the world, to receive any one who came, whenever she was at home. No one should ever be able to say that he or she had not been admitted when Bianca was in the villa. At the door of the drawing-room, Veronica could see that Gianluca tried to make his friend enter before him, and that Taquisara pushed him forward, with a little friendly laugh of encouragement. It happened that she was seated just opposite to the door. Gianluca came on, and went directly towards Bianca. He was thinner and more transparent than ever. Veronica could almost fancy that she could see the light through his face. She thought he was slightly lame; or, at least, that he walked with a little difficulty. Bianca looked up kindly, as she gave him her hand, for she had always liked him. Taquisara came to her a moment later, and both men turned to Veronica. Gianluca evidently did not wish to sit down by Veronica, whereas Taquisara, in order to oblige him to do so, took a chair on the other side of Bianca, and spoke to her at once. Gianluca seated himself upon a chair half-way between Bianca and Veronica. Possibly Bianca resented the Sicilian's cool way of forcing her to talk with him, as though he knew that she should prefer to do so. For many reasons she was unduly sensitive to the slightest appearance of anything even faintly resembling a liberty. She answered what he said, and made a remark in her turn; but, without waiting for his reply, she looked round at Gianluca and spoke to him, interrupting something which he was trying to say to Veronica. In almost any situation, such a proceeding would have been tactless; but Bianca had seen the result of the meeting between Gianluca and Veronica on the former occasion, and she guessed rightly that if they were forced into the necessity of exchanging commonplaces, there would be an even more complete failure now than there had been before. Taquisara had thrust him upon Veronica in an excess of friendly zeal for his interests. He kept his place for a few moments, and then, seeing Bianca's intention, rose and went to Veronica's other side. Gianluca immediately drew his chair nearer to Bianca. Veronica did not remember afterwards how the Sicilian opened the conversation, nor what she herself at first said. In spite of the strong impression he had produced upon her when they had met in the garden three or four weeks earlier, she now looked away from him, watching the other two as they talked. She saw at a glance that Gianluca's manner with Bianca was not at all what it was with herself. He looked ill and worn; but his face had brightened, his tone was light and cheerful, and he was evidently saying amusing things, for Bianca laughed audibly, which was rare with her, even when she and Veronica were alone together. He was at his ease; instead of seeming awkward he had an especial grace, beyond that of ordinary men; instead of being visibly disturbed by the sound of his own voice, he appeared to be almost as sure of himself and of what he was going to say as Taquisara. Veronica wondered why she had never noticed him before, except when he was talking with her. He was ill and weak, but he was undeniably a noticeable man. She remembered all that his friend had said of him, and her own disappointment after her last meeting with him, and she all at once realized that she had only seen the man at his worst. She watched him narrowly. He must have felt her eyes upon him, for he turned without apparent reason, and met them. Instantly the blood mounted to the roots of his hair, and he looked away again, and stumbled and hesitated in the answer he gave to what Bianca had last said. But Veronica remembered very distinctly his speeches to her, and she recalled in contrast the words Bosio had spoken to her just before he died. Then she turned her head, and listened to Taquisara. "What did you say?" she asked. "I have not the slightest idea," replied the Sicilian, with a little laugh. "I suppose it must have been a compliment, and I did not expect any answer, of course." "I should have thanked you, if I had heard it," answered Veronica, smiling rather absently, for she was still thinking of Gianluca. "A man never expects thanks from a woman," said Taquisara. "Shall you stay long with the Princess Corleone?" "I do not know. I have not decided. Why do you ask?" "Was I indiscreet?" "No. Of course not. I thought you might have some reason for asking." "A general reason, perhaps," answered Taquisara. "You have been in trouble. I suppose that you have been unhappy, and that you will change your life in some way--so I asked what you were going to do." "As for staying here or not, I have not yet decided. But what I mean to do would not interest you at all. Before very long, I shall probably go to Muro." "To Muro! I have often wished to see the place where they murdered Queen Joanna." "I have never been there myself, though it belongs to me," answered Veronica. "Her ghost has it all to itself now. They say that she sits at the head of the grand staircase, once a year, at midnight, and shrieks. If you wish to see Muro, you had better go before I am there," she added, with a smile. "I shall be there alone, and I could not possibly receive you, as I could not even offer you a cup of tea, you know." "What an absurd institution society is," observed Taquisara, with contempt. "The priest says, 'Ego conjungo vos'; and you are licensed to snap your fingers at everything that has bound you until that moment, as though the law of your marriage were your divorce from law." "That sounds clever," said Veronica; "but I do not believe it is." He laughed, indifferently; and after a moment or two, she looked at him, and smiled. "I did not mean to be so rude," she said. So they talked in small, objectless remarks, and questions, and answers, neither witty nor quite witless; but Veronica did not refer to Gianluca, and Taquisara knew that for the present he had better let matters alone. Presently Bianca spoke across to Veronica, and the conversation became general. In the course of it, Gianluca spoke to Veronica, and she answered him, and then asked him a question. She was surprised to find that, so long as the others were joining in whatever was said, he seemed quite at his ease, though his colour came and went frequently. On the whole, she had a much better impression of him this time than she had retained after the former meeting, when he had seemed so utterly helpless and shy in her presence. But when both men rose to go away she could not help comparing them again. Even then, it seemed to her that the comparison was less unfavourable to Gianluca than she had expected that it must be. He was tall and well-proportioned, and in spite of the slight difficulty in walking, which she had to-day noticed for the first time, he was graceful and of easy carriage. His extreme languor in moving was, perhaps, what displeased her the most. When he had entered the room, she had been annoyed at his coming; but now she was rather sorry, than otherwise, that he was going away so soon. Possibly, as she had expected nothing, she was the more easily satisfied. Taquisara, too, had disappointed her. He had talked very much like any one else, and not at all as he had talked at that first meeting. Veronica felt that she was indifferent. Bosio's untimely death had terribly changed the face of the world for her, she thought. A cold listlessness, unfamiliar to her nature, came over her when the two men were gone. Before long Ghisleri appeared, and there was tea and more conversation. He was thought to be an agreeable man, and people said that he talked well. Veronica wondered vaguely what Bianca saw in him that made her like him so much. But it struck her that the question had not presented itself to her before that day, and that, on the whole, she liked her friend's friend very well. Presently she left them to themselves in the drawing-room and went to her own room to write a long letter to Don Teodoro, who was now in Muro, and actively engaged in carrying out her wishes for improving the condition of the poor there. As she wrote, her interest in life revived, after having been unaccountably suspended for half an hour, and she felt again all her enthusiasm for the chief object she now had in view. Soon after this, too, she began to examine the state of the big farms through which she often rode with Bianca, asking questions of the people and entering into conversation with the local under-steward when she chanced to meet him. As was to be expected, the news that the young princess now took an active interest in the administration of her estates soon went abroad amongst the peasants. They soon knew her by sight and were only too ready to come and stand at her stirrup and pour out the tale of their woes, since she was condescending enough to listen. Sometimes, if she found a case of anything like oppression, she interfered. Sometimes, and this was what more often happened, she helped some poor man with money--in order that he might be able to pay his rent to herself. Bianca laughed once at a charity of this kind, but Veronica held her own. "The rule is for everybody," she said. "They must pay their rents, or go. If I choose to help those who have had trouble, that is my affair, and not the business of the under-steward with whom they have to do. Besides, if the rent is remitted this year, they will expect the same thing in the future, whereas they know that a little money is a passing charity on which they cannot count with certainty. The less publicity there is about charity, the more of self-respect remains to those who profit by it." Bianca glanced sideways at Veronica's face as the latter finished speaking, and she felt that the girl was not cast in the same mould as herself. "I wonder whether you will ever marry," she said thoughtfully, after a short pause. "Why? What has that to do with it?" asked Veronica. "Your husband will find that it has a great deal to do with it, my dear," Bianca answered, with a smile, and speculating upon the possible fate of the Princess of Acireale's future husband. "Oh,--of course, I should not let him interfere in anything of this kind," said Veronica, gravely. "He should not come between me and my people." She sat very straight on her horse, and the girl's small head and aquiline features had a dominating expression. A struggling man, with such a look, is a man who means to win, and generally does, whatever the nature of the race may be. "But I shall never marry," Veronica added presently, and her face softened as she thought of the dead betrothed. "There is plenty to do in the world, without marrying, if one will only do it." "If you do not, there will be one free man more in the world," answered Bianca. Veronica laughed a little. "I daresay I should have my own way," she said. The longer Veronica stayed with her, the more thoroughly was Bianca convinced of this, and she wondered why it should have taken her so long to discover that the quiet, sallow-faced, gentle-mannered little girl, whom she had first known at the convent school, was developing a character which might some day astonish every one who should attempt to oppose her. It had been a growth of strength, with an accentuation of wilfulness, and it had not been at all apparent at first. So they lived quietly together, in spite of the Cardinal Campodonico's objections and arguments, and, little by little, Veronica became quite used to her absolute independence of plan and action, and the idea of taking an elderly gentlewoman for a companion grew more and more distasteful to her. Meanwhile her aunt was living all alone at the Palazzo Macomer. Many communications passed between the two, about matters of business, during the earlier weeks after their final separation, but they did not meet. As neither of them ever went into the world, it was extremely improbable that they should meet at all, except by agreement. Gianluca came to the villa again, ten days after the visit last spoken of. And after that he came often, at irregular intervals, generally once or twice a week. The first disappointing impression, which Veronica had retained so long, gradually wore away, and she liked him very much better than she had ever thought possible. Bianca never left the two alone together. She felt more than ever responsible for Veronica, now, and bound to observe the customs and traditions in which both had been brought up. She was wise enough to know, too, that after such an unlucky beginning, it would be better for Gianluca if a long time passed before he had another chance of pouring out his heart to the young girl. Things might go by contraries, she thought. Contempt might turn to familiarity, familiarity to friendship, and friendship to love. The first change had already taken place, and the others might come in time. Before the spring came, Veronica knew that Taquisara had not been guilty of exaggeration in describing his friend's character. Gianluca was all that his friend had painted him, and perhaps more. Unfortunately, he was not at all the kind of man whom Veronica would ever be inclined to fancy for a husband. It was easy for her to respect him, as she came to know him better; it would have been hard not to like him, but it seemed impossible to her that she should ever love him. Taquisara came very rarely--not more than three or four times in the course of the winter. He came alone, and did not stay long. Veronica saw that he avoided her on those few occasions, and preferred to talk with Bianca, though she was sometimes aware that he was looking at her earnestly, when her eyes were half turned from him. Gianluca seemed to grow a little stronger towards the spring. At least, he was less transparently thin; but the difficulty he had in walking was more apparent than before. CHAPTER XVII. As Gianluca's spirits revived, and he began to take courage again and find new hope that Veronica might marry him after all, her position as a permanent guest in Bianca's house became a subject of especial displeasure to the Della Spina family. They wished to renew their proposals for a marriage, and they found themselves stopped by the fact that Veronica was no longer under the charge of any relative to whom they could have communicated their offer. No one knew exactly what had happened before Christmas at the Palazzo Macomer excepting the persons concerned; but there is inevitably a certain amount of publicity about all business transactions connected with real estate, and somehow a story had filtered from the financial to the social world, which more or less explained Veronica's conduct. It was said that Gregorio, whom most people had detested, had mismanaged her fortune, though nothing was hinted about any great fraud; and people added that when the day of reckoning had come he had found himself ruined, and had lost his mind; Matilde, as guardian, had incurred the young princess's displeasure, but the latter had treated her generously, allowing her to live in the palace, which was now undoubtedly Veronica's property. Some persons told a story of an attempt made by a servant to poison the Macomer household, but the majority laughed at the tale, and said that Gregorio had been too poor, or too stingy, to have his copper saucepans properly tinned, and that a grain of verdigris would poison half a regiment, as every Italian knows. However that might be, no one was responsible for Veronica, but Veronica herself, unless Cardinal Campodonico still had some authority over her, which seemed more than doubtful. The old Duca made him a formal visit, and a formal proposition. His Eminence smiled, looked grave, smiled again, and replied that in a long and varied experience of the world he could not remember to have met with just such a case; that so far as he could understand, the young Princess of Acireale was her own mistress, and would make her own choice, if she made any; but that she had been heard to say that she would never marry at all. This, however, the cardinal thought impossible. "Then," said the Duca della Spina, "you advise me to go directly to the young lady and ask her whether she will marry my son." "My friend," replied the cardinal, "this is a case in which I would rather not give advice. I have no doubt that whatever you do will be well done, and I wish you all possible success." The old Duca shuffled out of the cardinal's study, more puzzled than ever, and went home to tell his wife and Gianluca and Taquisara the result of the interview. Taquisara was in the confidence of the family, and spent much of his time with his friend. "I am at my wits' end," concluded the old nobleman, shaking his head, and looking sorrowfully at his son. "If you wish it, I will go to Donna Veronica myself. It would be--well--very informal, to say the least. Poor Gianluca! My poor boy! If you would only be satisfied to marry your cousin Vittoria, it would be a question of days! Of course--I understand--her complexion is an obstacle," he added reflectively. "It will probably improve, however." No one answered him, Taquisara broke the silence, after a pause. "You must either speak to the Princess Corleone," he said, "or Gianluca must speak to Donna Veronica for himself." Gianluca said nothing to him, but by a glance he reminded his friend of his former attempt. So they came to no conclusion, though it was clear that Veronica now liked Gianluca quite enough, in their opinion, to marry him at once. But he himself, remembering his discomfiture, knew that the time had not yet come, though he had hopes that it might not be far off. On that very day he went to Bianca's villa, and stayed an unreasonably long time, in the hope that Ghisleri might appear, for he found Bianca and Veronica alone. Pietro would have talked with Bianca, and he himself would have had a chance, perhaps, to judge of his actual position. He was no longer shy and awkward, now, when he was with the young girl. But Ghisleri did not come, and Gianluca went home, disappointed and disconsolate. "I suppose that if we were in Sicily," he said to Taquisara on the following morning, "you would propose to carry her off by force. You once advised me to do something of the sort." "That is a proceeding which needs the consent of the lady," answered the Sicilian. "The 'force' is employed against the relations. Now Donna Veronica has none to speak of so far as I can see. It is a case for persuasion." Gianluca sighed. Matters were at a deadlock, and Veronica had announced her intention of going to Muro alone, before long. Once established there, she might stay in the mountains until the following autumn, unapproachable in her maiden solitude, as she had told Taquisara. Gianluca might knock at her gate, there, but he would certainly not be admitted. "You despise me," he said to his friend. "You think me weak and helpless, and you fancy that if you were in my place you could do better. But I do not believe you could." "No," replied the other. "I do not believe so, either. And I do not at all despise you. You have only one chance--to make her love you. No man is to be despised because a woman does not love him. It is not his fault." "I feel as though it were," said Gianluca. "I am sure that if I could change, if I could make myself different in some way--but that is absurd, of course." "One cannot suddenly become some one else." For himself, without vanity, Taquisara was probably glad of the fact, but he was sincerely sorry for his friend. "You might write to her," he suggested. "Love-letters--to Donna Veronica?" Gianluca smiled incredulously. "You do not know her!" "I know her a little," replied Taquisara. "All women like to receive letters from men who love them, if they are well expressed and sincere." "How horribly practical you are sometimes!" exclaimed the younger man, unaccountably irritated at his friend's generalizations. Taquisara laughed and knocked the ashes from his long black cigar. "You came to me for advice, not for sentiment," he observed presently. "Perhaps I am a bad adviser, but that is the worst you can say of me. I daresay I do not understand women. I have known a few pretty well, but that is all. I am not a lady killer, and I certainly never wished to marry. You must not expect much of me--but what little there is to expect will be practical. Perhaps Ghisleri could advise you better than I. He is a queer fellow. If he ever cuts his throat, he will not die of it--his heart and his head will go on living separately, just as they do now." Gianluca smiled again, for the description of the man was keen and true, as men knew him. "No," he answered; "I shall not consult Ghisleri. You and I are different enough to understand each other. He and I are not, though he is a good friend of mine." "I should not say that you resemble Ghisleri in any way," observed Taquisara, bluntly. "You may not see it, but I feel it. It is not easy to explain. He and I feel about many things in the same way, but we look at ourselves differently." "That sounds like a woman's speech!" said Taquisara. "But you are always making fine distinctions which I cannot understand. What do you mean when you say that you look at yourselves differently? How do you look at yourselves?" "Do you never think about yourself, as though you were another person, and were judging yourself like a man you knew?" "No," said Taquisara, thoughtfully. "I never thought of doing that." "But what does self-examination mean, then?" asked Gianluca. "I have not the slightest idea. I am myself. I know myself. I know what I want and do not want. It seems to me that I know enough. What in the world should I examine? You would be much better if you could get rid of all that romance about conscience and self-examination and such trash. A man knows perfectly well whether he is faithful to the woman he loves or not, whether he is betraying his friend or standing by him--what else do you want? I believe that theology and philosophy and self-examination, and all that, were invented in early times for heathen people who did not know whether they were doing right or wrong, because they were just converted." At this extraordinary view of church history Gianluca laughed. "You may laugh," answered the Sicilian. "You will never make me believe that old Tancred sat up all night examining his conscience before he went to the Holy Land--any more than he fasted and prayed before he had his daughter's lover murdered." "No--perhaps not!" Gianluca laughed again. "He did what struck him as right and natural," said Taquisara, gravely. "Besides, he was sovereign prince in his own land, and it was not a murder at all, but an execution. For a princess, his daughter behaved outrageously. I should have done the same thing, in his place. He had the right and the power, and he used it. But that is not the point. As for Ghisleri, he would have cut the boy's head off in a rage, and then he would have spent a year on his knees in a monastery. You would have prayed yourself into a good humour, and the fellow would have got off." "Unless I had asked your advice," suggested Gianluca. "And if you had, you would not have acted upon it--any more than you will write to Donna Veronica now, though I tell you that all women like to receive love-letters. It is natural. A woman is not satisfied with being told once a week that she is loved. She likes to know it all the time--the oftener, the better. Two letters of one page are better than one of two pages. Twenty notes a day, of a line or two each, will make a woman perfectly happy--provided that you do not make a mistake and send one less on the day following. They like repetition, provided it is in the same pitch. If you have begun high, you must not let the strings slacken. Women are curious creatures. In religion, they can believe fifty times as much as any man. In love, they only believe while they see you and hear you. As soon as your back is turned--even if they have sent you away--they scream and cry out that you have abandoned them. Before you come, they want you. When you are there, you weary them. When you are gone, you have betrayed them. And they wonder that a man cannot bear that sort of thing forever! Do you call me practical for speaking in this way? Very well, then--I am practical. I tell you what I know." Gianluca was amused, but he thought over what Taquisara had advised him to do, and the more he thought about it, the more inclined he was to follow the advice. Not that he regarded the writing of letters to Veronica at all as a hopeful means of moving her; but he felt that he might write her much which he would not say. He loved her with the deepest sincerity, and with an almost morbid passion, and the idea of approaching her in any way was irresistible. He had not realized before now that he could at least try the experiment of writing. She knew that he loved her, and at the worst, she might tell him not to write again. He remembered his terrible awkwardness and hesitation when he had first told her of his love, and his humiliation afterwards, when he had reflected upon the poor figure he had made. There would be no humiliation, now. He was sure of that. He could rely upon his pen and his wits, though he could not trust to his wits with only his tongue to help them. The chief objection to this method of wooing was that, in his class, it was untraditional. And this had some weight with him, for he had been brought up rigidly in the practices and customs of an exclusive caste. On the other hand, he had never thought of plunging rashly into love-phrases, from the first. He wished to establish a correspondence with Veronica, and then by subtle tact and delicate degrees to acquire the right of speaking to her, by his letters, of what he felt, making no reference to them when he met her, until she should at last give some sign that she would listen favourably. The plan was wise and far sighted, but it had not been the result of wisdom nor of diplomatic instinct. He adopted it out of delicacy, and out of respect for the woman he loved, and in the hope of reaching her heart without ever jarring upon her sensibilities. By nature and talent, as well as by cultivation, Gianluca was admirably gifted for such a correspondence as he now attempted to begin. In other circumstances of fortune he might have become eminent as a man of letters. Without possessing any of that practical, masculine knowledge of women, which Taquisara so roughly expressed, Gianluca had a keen and sure understanding of the feminine mind. There is no contradiction in that, for the men who know something of women's hearts by instinct and experience are by no means always those who are in intellectual sympathy with them. Very young women are sometimes surprised when they discover this fact, but men generally know it of one another; and the man of whom other men are jealous is rarely the one who prides himself upon knowing and sympathizing with the feminine point of view on things in general, from literature to dress. Gianluca had talked with Veronica about all sorts of subjects, and she had often asked him questions which he had not been able to answer on the spur of the moment. It was easy for him, in his first letter, to hark back to one of those idle questions of hers, and to make his reply to it an excuse for a letter. Such a communication would need no acknowledgment beyond a spoken word of thanks, which she would bestow upon him the next time they met. It should contain nothing warmer than the assurance of his anxiety to be of service to her, in anything she undertook, and a protestation of respectful friendship at the end. He wrote that first letter over twice and read it carefully before he sent it. It referred to an historical question connected with the house of Anjou, from which her castle of Muro had come to the Serra by a marriage, several centuries ago, and by which marriage Veronica traced her descent on one side to the kings of France. The castle itself had been twice the scene of royal murders, and there were many strange traditions connected with it. Gianluca got the information he needed from the library downstairs, and he found ample material for a letter of some length. But it was not dry and uninteresting, a mere copy of notes taken from histories and chronicles. The man had an undeveloped literary talent, as has been said, and he instinctively found light and graceful expressions for hard facts. He was himself discovering that he had a gift for writing, and the pleasure of the discovery enhanced the delight of writing to the woman he loved. The man of letters who has first found out his own facility in the course of daily writing to a dearly loved woman alone knows the sort of pleasure that Gianluca enjoyed, when he found that it was his pen that helped him, and not he that was driving his pen. He sent what he had written, and determined that on the following day he would go to the villa again. To his surprise and joy, he received a note from Veronica in the morning, thanking him warmly for the pains he had taken, and asking another question. It came through the post; and with his insight into feminine ways, he guessed that she had not wished to send a messenger to him,--a servant, who would have at once told other servants of the correspondence. Veronica had been pleased by the letter. She was beginning to like him for himself, and to forget how very foolish he had seemed to be when he was declaring his passion for her. But his letter showed him all at once in an entirely new light, and was at once a pleasure and a surprise. She thought it natural to write him a few words of thanks. Indeed, it would have seemed rude not to do so. In the liberty she was enjoying in Bianca's house, she was rapidly forgetting that she was only a young girl, and that society would be shocked if it knew that she was exchanging letters with Gianluca della Spina. There is nothing which a girl learns so easily and all at once as independence of that social kind. What grey-haired man of the world has not at one time or another been amazed at the full-grown assurance of some bride of eighteen or nineteen summers? A month is enough--with proper advantages--to make a drawing-room queen and a society tyrant of a schoolgirl. And that sort of independence is not alone the result of marriage. In Veronica's case, a slowly developed strength had been suddenly set free to act, by an accidental emancipation from all semblance of restraint; and the emancipation was so complete that even in the widest interpretation of the law, no one could have now claimed a right to control or direct her actions. She was nearly twenty-two years of age; she had a great position in her own right, and she was immensely rich. It was not until long afterwards that she learned how many offers of marriage had been refused for her by her aunt and uncle. For the present, the fathers and mothers of marriageable sons were waiting until three or four months should have elapsed, for they generally guessed that there had been a catastrophe of some sort at the Palazzo Macomer after Bosio's death; and, moreover, as has been seen, it was impossible to ascertain the proper person to whom to address any such proposal. The consequence of it all was, that Veronica was absolutely her own mistress, and free to go and come, and to do what seemed right in her own eyes. As she had told the cardinal, when she and society should discover that they needed each other, they would try and agree. In case of a disagreement, it was probable that, of the two, society would yield to Veronica Serra. Meanwhile she would correspond with Gianluca, if she pleased. During the arrangement of her affairs, she had constantly written to men, about business, under the advice of the bankers to whom she had confided the whole matter. Gianluca was merely a few years younger, and happened to belong to her own class. That was all. Why should he and she not write to each other? Yet it was not long since the idea of meeting Gianluca at Bianca's house, by agreement, had seemed a dangerous adventure, about entering upon which she had really hesitated. To-day, for any reasonable cause, she would have walked through Naples with him in the face of the world, at the hour when every one was in the streets. He came to the villa in the afternoon, after receiving her note of thanks, and she was glad to see him, and spoke with pleasure of his letter, before Bianca, who seemed surprised, but said nothing at the time. He was wise enough not to stay too long, and he went away exceedingly elated by his first success. "What is the matter with him?" asked Veronica, of her friend, just after he had left them. "He seems so much better--but he is growing very lame. Did you notice how he walked to-day? He seems to drag his feet after him." "He must have hurt his foot," said Bianca, calmly. "By the by, what is this, about letters? Do you mean to say that he writes to you?" "Yes--and I write to him," answered Veronica, with perfect calm. "You see, as I have nobody to ask, I ask nobody. It is more simple." "But, my dear child--a young girl--" "Do not call me a child, and do not call me a young girl, Bianca," said Veronica. "I am neither, in the sense of being a thing to be kept under a glass case and fed on rose leaves. I am a woman, and as I do not think that I shall ever marry, I refuse to be chaperoned all the way to old-maidhood. I know that you feel responsible for me, in a sort of way, because you are married, and I am not. It is really absurd, dear. I am much better able to take care of myself than you are." "No doubt, in a way. You are more energetic. But as for writing to Gianluca--I hardly know--I wish you would not." "He writes very well," answered Veronica. "I will show you his letter. Besides, so far as your responsibility goes, it will not last much longer. I shall go to Muro next month." "Alone?" "Alone--yes. I always mean to live alone. Don Teodoro will come and dine with me every evening, and we will talk about the people, and what we are doing for them. I shall have horses to ride. If you will come, we will fence together. I shall miss the fencing dreadfully. Could you not come, Bianca dear?" "I believe that you will miss the fencing more than me, dear," answered Bianca, rather sadly. Veronica was more to her than she could ever be to Veronica, and she knew it. "Bianca!" exclaimed the young girl. "How can you say such things! Because I spoke of fencing first? You know that I did not mean it in that way! I want you for yourself--but it will be nice to have the foils in the morning, all the same. You see, I could not even have a fencing-master out there. It is so far! Do come." Bianca shook her head. "We will have glorious days together," continued Veronica. "We will do all sorts of things together. They do say that it rains a good deal in those mountains--well, when it rains, you can write to Signor Ghisleri, while I write to Don Gianluca." Her innocent laughter at the idea startled Bianca, and the beautiful face grew paler, until it was almost wan. Veronica thought she was like a passion flower, just then. A short silence followed. "Veronica," said Bianca, at last, "why do you not marry Gianluca, since you have grown to liking him so much?" "I like him for a friend," answered Veronica, quietly. "I do not want a husband. Some day, I will tell you my story, perhaps--some day, if you will come to Muro, dear. Think about it." She left the room rather abruptly, and Bianca did not refer to the subject again. She had the power, rare in either of two friends, of not asking questions. Confidence given for the asking, however readily, is but the little silver coin of friendship; the gold is confidence unasked. In the days that followed, Gianluca wrote to Veronica again and again, about all manner of subjects which had come up in their conversation; and Veronica's short notes of thanks grew longer, until she found that she, too, was beginning to write real letters, and looked forward to writing them, as well as to receiving his. And his came oftener, until she had one almost every day. But when he came, as he did, twice a week, to the villa, they rarely spoke of their correspondence. Somehow it had come to be a bond linking certain sides of their natures which they did not show to each other when they met and talked. They never could talk as freely as they wrote, even upon the most indifferent subjects, though Gianluca seemed perfectly at his ease in conversation. There was a sort of undefined restraint from time to time, together with the certainty that they would write what they really meant, within a day or two, and understand each other far better than by spoken words. In Gianluca's case such a condition of things was natural enough. He felt that she understood friendship when he meant love, and he was aware that he was progressing slowly but surely towards the freedom to say what was always in his heart, while his success must depend upon his wisdom and tact in not surprising her with a declaration of passion, in the midst of a discussion upon church history or modern systems of charity. Compared with what he had felt in their former relations, he was happy, now, beyond his utmost expectations; and, in the relative happiness he had found, he was willing to be patient, rather than to risk anything prematurely. It was more strange, perhaps, that Veronica should regard this growing intimacy as she did, for she had no under-thought of a future change to something else, as he had, and she was naturally simple in reasoning and direct in action. Yet she could not but be aware that there was a sort of duality in their friendship, and she never confused the ideas they exchanged when in the one state--that is to say, when writing--with those about which they talked when an actual meeting brought them into the other. The one state already was an intimacy; the other was hardly yet more than a pleasant acquaintance, with the memory of a disagreeable beginning. Such curiosities of human intercourse are more easily understood by those who have met with them in life than explained to those who have not. The facts were plain. When Veronica and Gianluca were together in Bianca's drawing-room, they said nothing which might not have been heard with indifference by all Naples. When they wrote to each other they spoke of themselves, of their real thoughts about things and people, of their belief, and, to some extent, of their feelings. Veronica did not perhaps acknowledge that, little by little, Gianluca's letters were beginning to fill the place of poor Bosio's conversation in former times. But that was what was taking place. She was more lonely in mind than in heart, and without making the slightest pretence to talent or unusual cultivation, she craved a mental companionship of some sort to take up the thread where it had been broken. She had found it unexpectedly in her new friend's letters, and she recognized it and clung to it, as to something almost necessary in her existence. When she was ready to go up to Muro, she knew that without those letters life in such a solitude would be well nigh unsupportable, whereas, being able to look forward to them, and to answering them, her hours of idleness were already a foretasted pleasure. She had not even told the cardinal that she was going, and she was going alone. In Naples this seemed so incredible that after she was gone, people spontaneously invented a companion for her and assured one another that she had sent for a distant and elderly old-maid cousin as a chaperon and protectress. Even the cardinal believed it, taking it almost for granted. On the afternoon of the day before her departure Gianluca came, walking with difficulty and excusing himself for bringing his stick with him into the drawing-room. He was very pale, and looked more ill than for a long time past. But he spoke calmly enough, though saying little more than was required, while Bianca and Veronica kept up the conversation. Veronica was in good spirits and was evidently looking forward to the journey with pleasure and curiosity. Then Ghisleri appeared, followed shortly by Taquisara, who had called very rarely during the winter. Veronica thought that he had grown very cold and silent. He slowly stirred a cup of tea which he did not drink, and he scarcely joined in the conversation at all. He looked occasionally at one or another of the party, and once or twice his eyes fixed themselves on Veronica's face. She could not understand why his presence chilled her, but she was aware that she spoke more coldly than usual to Gianluca. At the end of half an hour, the latter rose to go, glancing at Veronica as he did so. Taquisara, on pretence of setting down his tea-cup, rose also and managed to place himself in front of Bianca, and said something to which Ghisleri gave an answer, just as Veronica and Gianluca were standing close together. "May I go on writing to you?" asked Gianluca, in a low tone and quickly. Veronica looked up at him with a startled expression. "Oh please--please!" she answered anxiously. "As often as you can--I count on it! Of course!" Gianluca's thin, pale face brightened suddenly as he heard her vehement request and the anxiety in her tone. "Thank you," he said. "Good-bye." He shook hands with Bianca, nodded to the two men, and turned away towards the door. He had not reached it, walking a little less painfully in his excitement, when he was aware that he had left his stick leaning against the chair in which he had sat. He stopped and looked back to be sure that it was there, before returning to get it. Veronica was watching him, saw what he had done, picked up the stick and carried it swiftly to him before he could come for it. Taquisara had seen her movement and had tried to get the stick before she could, to take it to his friend. He had been too far out of reach, and she had been before him. But he followed her, and he saw that as she handed Gianluca his property, she looked up into his face and smiled very kindly. Gianluca thanked her, smiling too, and the impression any one would have had was that they thoroughly understood each other. He bowed again and went out. Veronica turned to come back to the tea-table and found herself facing Taquisara's fiery eyes. She was surprised, and looked into his face, very near to him, and waiting for him to stand aside. "You are playing with him," he said in a low and angry voice. The room was long, and Bianca and Ghisleri were at the other end of it. After he had spoken, Veronica stared at him a moment, in genuine amazement at his words and manner. Then her eyes gleamed, too, and the delicate nostrils quivered. "You are insolent," she said coldly, and turning a little to the right, she passed him. "No. I am his friend," he answered, scarcely above a whisper, as she went by. He came back, shook hands with Bianca, bowed coldly to Veronica, and left the room within two minutes after Gianluca. "What is the matter with Taquisara?" asked Ghisleri, carelessly. "He seems irritable." Bianca looked at Veronica. "Does he? I suppose he is anxious about Don Gianluca." Veronica was still pale when she spoke, but the tone was cold and indifferent. CHAPTER XVIII. Veronica had felt herself mortally insulted by Taquisara's manner, much more than by his words, though they had been offensive enough. Her impression of the man was completely changed, in a moment, and she hoped that she might never see him again, so long as she lived. It had been one thing to praise Gianluca to her, and to press his suit for him; it was quite another to lie in wait for her, as it were, at the end of a drawing-room and to reproach her brutally and angrily with wishing to break Gianluca's heart. As she thought of his eyes, and his face, and his low voice, she grew pale with anger herself, at the mere memory of his insolence. It did not strike her that there could be any truth in his accusation. Gianluca was old enough to take care of himself. Was Taquisara his nurse, his keeper, his doctor? Gianluca was not making love to her in his letters, nor was she, in hers, encouraging him to do so. She was angry at the thought that the Sicilian should know anything of their correspondence, as it seemed evident that he must. It was true that her own friend, Bianca, knew something about it. She could forgive Gianluca, if he had confided too much in Taquisara, but she could not forgive Taquisara for having been the recipient of the confidence, and she would neither forgive nor forget the way in which he had shown her how much he knew. For the first time in her life, Veronica longed to be a man, that she might not only resent the insult, but have satisfaction of the man who had insulted her. She felt that she was emphatically not playing with Gianluca, as Taquisara had expressed it. She had told him frankly, several months earlier, that she could not love him,--she had shaken her head and had said that she was sorry,--and neither he nor any one else had a right to suppose that she was now changing her mind. Since Gianluca was apparently willing to accept the position and to be her friend, it was nobody's affair but his and hers. She felt that she had been fully justified in what she had said to Taquisara. At the same time she was half conscious of being disappointed in the man, and of being wounded by the disappointment. She left Bianca's house early, and as she drove away to the railway station alone with Elettra, she felt that her life was only now really beginning. The months of independence she had enjoyed had prepared her for this final move. In the course of setting her affairs in order, she had been brought face to face with a side of the world which few women ever see or understand, and her character had hardened singularly to meet the difficulties she had found in her path. She probably overestimated the strength she had now acquired; for more than once, on the way to the station, she felt a momentary reaction of timidity and a longing to go back and stay a few days more with Bianca. She laughed bravely at herself for her weakness, and told herself that she was going to her own place, to be surrounded by her own people, that she was two-and-twenty years of age and had been through troubles during the past months which had proved her strength. Nevertheless, the fact remained that she was a very young, unmarried woman, that she was going to live alone, and that she was breaking through the whole hard shell of fossilized social tradition. Even Elettra, born a peasant of the mountains, thought her mistress's decision amazingly bold, though she approved of it in her heart, and had been ready to go to Muro with Veronica long ago. "What would your father, blessed soul, have said, Excellency?" she asked, when they were seated together in the train which was to take them to Eboli, beyond Salerno. "Shall I send for the Countess Macomer?" asked Veronica, with a smile. "Heaven preserve us from her!" exclaimed Elettra, and she crossed herself hastily, and then made the sign of the horns with her fingers, against the evil eye, and with her other hand touched a coral charm which she had in her pocket. Veronica had long been in correspondence with Don Teodoro about the arrangements for her coming. He had expected that she would bring a staff of servants from Naples with all the paraphernalia of a great establishment. She had replied that she intended to employ only her own people, and meant to live very simply. He suggested that she should send a quantity of new furniture, as the apartments in the castle had not been inhabited for nearly twenty years, but Veronica answered that she needed no luxuries, and repeated that she meant to live very simply indeed. She sent her saddle horse and two pairs of strong cobs with two country carriages and a coachman--a very young man, who had served in Gianluca's regiment and had been his man. He was to find a man in Muro to help him in the stables, and he was the only servant, not a native, whom she meant to employ. Don Teodoro had kept ten people at work for a month in cleaning the vast old place. Veronica had sent also a box of books, some linen and silver, and her fencing things--for she still hoped that Bianca would pay her a visit. The journey by rail occupied between four and five hours, but it did not seem so long to her. She was surprised at the excitement she felt, as she passed station after station and watched the changing sights and the mountains that loomed up in the foreground, while those behind her dwindled in the distance. She had travelled very little in her life, since she had come back from Rome. On the platform of the little station at Eboli, Don Teodoro was waiting for her. His tall bent figure and enormous nose made him conspicuous at a distance, and she could see the big silver spectacles anxiously searching for her along the row of carriage windows. As the door was opened for her she waved her handkerchief to the old priest, with a little gesture of happy enthusiasm, high above her head, and he saw her immediately and came forward, three-cornered hat in hand. She suddenly loved the smile with which he greeted her. "You, at least, do not think that I am mad to come to Muro, do you?" she asked, standing beside him on the platform while Elettra was handing out her smaller belongings. "Not at all," answered the old man. "You are coming to take care of your own people, and it is a good deed. Good deeds generally seem eccentric to society--and considering their rarity, that is not extraordinary." He smiled again, and Veronica laughed. "Your carriage is here," said Don Teodoro. "May I take you to it? Will you give me the tickets, Elettra? They take them at the gate." Veronica felt a new thrill of joyous freedom and independence, as for the first time in her life she set her little foot upon the step of her own carriage, and glanced at the simple, well-appointed turnout. The coachman sat alone in the middle of the box, a broad-shouldered, clean-shaven young fellow of six-and-twenty, in a dull green livery with white facings--the colours of the Serra. "You would not even have a footman," observed Don Teodoro. "No--not I!" she laughed, still standing in the carriage. "How are the horses doing, Giovanni?" she asked of the coachman. "Are they strong enough for the work?" "They are good horses, Excellency," the man answered. "They need work." "And how is Sultana?" inquired the young girl, who had not seen the mare for several days. "The mare is well, Excellency." Veronica made Don Teodoro sit beside her, and Elettra installed herself opposite them, with her mistress's bags and other things. The luggage was piled on a cart which was to follow, and they drove away. "I sent the carriage down yesterday," observed Don Teodoro. "I came by the coach this morning." "Is it so far?" asked Veronica, whose ideas about the position of her property were still uncertain, for it had never struck Elettra that her mistress did not know how far it was from Eboli to Muro. "It is over thirty miles," answered the priest, with a smile. "We are beyond civilization in Muro--we are in the province of Basilicata. But there are little towns on the way, and you must stop to rest the horses and to eat something. It will be almost dark when you get home." "Home!" repeated Veronica, thoughtfully. A confused vision rose in her mind, of an imaginary room, looking down from a height upon a town below--a room in which she would live altogether, with her books and her favourite objects and the companionship of her favourite ideas and plans, all of which were to be realized and executed in the course of time. She fancied herself gazing down from the wide window upon what was almost all hers, upon the dwellings of people who lived upon her land, who pastured her flocks and drove her cattle, living, moving, and having being as integral animate parts of her great inheritance; children of men and women whose fathers' fathers had laboured in old days that she might have and enjoy the fruits of so much toil, who had given much and from whom had often been taken even that which they had not been bound fairly to give; who had received nothing in return for generations of blood and bone worn out, dried up, and consumed to dust in the service of the great house of Serra. They had a right to her, as she had a right to the lands on which they lived. There was much talk of rights, Veronica thought, nowadays, and those who had none were privileged to speak the loudest and to be heard first. But those who, having right on their side, were blinded and smitten dumb by the enormous despotism of their self-styled betters--by the glare and noise of blatant power in possession--they were the ones who really had rights, and if she could give any of them a single hundredth part of what was their due, she should be glad that she had lived. Wealth, she thought, should not be an accumulation, but a distribution, of goods. Charity should no longer mean alms, nor should poverty be pauperism. In the young, whole-hearted simplicity of her desire to do good, it seemed likely that she might soon be a specimen of the strangest of all modern anomalies--the princely socialist. It was certainly in her power to try almost any experiment which suggested itself, and on a scale which might ultimately prove something to herself and others. It was not that she meant to study political economy, or socialism, nor to give the name of an experiment to anything she did. She had been struck by the practical necessity for doing something, when Don Teodoro had first written to her about the condition of the people in Muro, and her own observations made on her farms in the Falernian district--one of the richest corners of vine land in all Italy--had convinced her that some sort of action was urgently necessary. And if, in the midst of such riches, the Falernian peasants were half starved, what must be the state of the people on her lands in the Basilicata? Don Teodoro had drawn her an accurate picture, full of those plain details which carry more than the weight of their mere words. Something should be done at once. She had given him power and money to help the very poorest, before she came; but her common sense told her that the evil lay too deep in the soil to be reached by a light shower of silver--or even by a storm of gold rain. Inventors, great or small, are rarely theorists; the invention must be suited to the necessity, before all things, and the theory may come afterwards if anybody cares for it. For a theory is nothing but an attempted explanation, and the fact must exist before it can possibly need explaining. Bread is a great invention against hunger, and a man needs to know nothing about the gastric juices to save himself from starvation when the loaf is in his hand. Veronica meant to put the loaves where they were needed, within reach of those who needed them. As she was driven through the rugged country on that May afternoon, she felt that she had a future before her, that she was going into action, and leaving stagnation behind, and that her own life, which was to be her very own, was just beginning. It was to be a life quite different from the existence of any one she knew, for, unlike the lives of her friends, hers was to have an integral, independent existence of its own, with one determined object for all its activity. The months she had passed in Bianca's house had rather strengthened than weakened the unformulated resolution which she had first vaguely reached in the dark days after Bosio's death. There had been much solitude, and many rides and drives into the country with her beautiful, silent friend; and there had been very little contact with the world to disturb the onward current of her thoughts. More than all, the first breath of liberty after long restraint had enlarged and widened her determination to be always free, in spite of the world, and society, and the drone of the busy-bodies' gossip. In her heart, the memory of Bosio had grown in dignity, till it was solemn and imposing out of all proportion with what the man himself had been, even as Veronica had known him. To know the truth of what his real life had been would have shaken her own to its foundations. But there was no fear of that; and now, her chief companion was to be the priest who had loved him as a friend. Possibly that last fact had even influenced her a little in her final determination to live at Muro, rather than in any other of four or five equally habitable or uninhabitable places which she owned, and where she might have begun her work under circumstances quite as favourable to success. She had thought very little of any need she might feel for relaxation and amusement, and she was very far from realizing what that solitude meant, which she was seeking with so much enthusiasm. She had never yet been as much alone as she should have liked to be, and she could not imagine that she might possibly become tired of playing the princess in the tower for months together, with only the company of one learned old ecclesiastic as her sole diversion. The vision of home which she evoked was always the same, but she did not even know whether the castle had a room which looked down upon the little town. She imagined but a single room; the rest was all a blank. She had been told that it was a great old fortress, with towers and halls and courts, gloomy, grand, and haunted by the ghosts of murdered kings and queens; but the slight descriptions she had heard produced no prevision of the reality as compared with what she really wanted and was sure that she should find. She thought of Gianluca, as the carriage rolled along through the lower hills, and she looked forward with pleasure to writing about what she saw and expected to see. It seemed probable that she would write even longer letters to him, now that she was to be quite alone, and she hoped that his would be as interesting as ever. She thought again with anger of Taquisara's extraordinary conduct, for she was positively sure that she was not playing with his friend in any sense of the word. The very suggestion would have been insulting, if he had made it in the most carefully guarded and tactful language. As he had put it, it had been nothing short of outrageous. Gianluca must be blind indeed, she assured herself, if he fancied that she meant more than friendship by the constant exchange of letters with him. It might be eccentric; it might be looked upon as utterly and unpardonably unconventional, but it could never be regarded as a flirtation by letter. The proof of that, Veronica argued to herself, was that both of them knew that it was nothing of the sort, a manner of begging the question familiar to those who wish to do as they please without hindrance from within or without. CHAPTER XIX. The roads were good, for it was the month of May. In winter, even Veronica's strong horses could hardly have dragged the light carriage to its destination in one day. It was but little after ten o'clock in the morning when Veronica got out upon the platform of the railway station at Eboli; it was sunset, and the full moon was rising, when her carriage stopped at the entrance of the mountain town. It had been a very long day, and she had seen much that was quite new to her, and different from what she had expected. At first, indeed, she was amazed at the richness of the country beyond Eboli, as she was driven for nearly an hour through what was literally a forest of ancient olive trees, interrupted only here and there by a broad field of vines, cut low and trained upon short stakes; and from the rising ground beyond Carpella, where the road winds up the first hill, she looked back and saw the shimmering grey-green light of the olive leaves, lying like a delicate mantle over the flat country and in the great hollow, from Eboli to the deep gorge wherein the ancient city of Campania lies as in a nest. A part of the olive land was hers; and as she drove along, the midday breeze blew some of the tiny, star-like olive blossoms into her lap. She took one in her fingers and looked at it closely and could just smell its very faint, aromatic odour. "It is the first greeting from what is yours," said Don Teodoro, with a smile. "The wind brings me my own flowers," answered Veronica, and she laughed softly and happily. Up steep hills and down into deep valleys, across high, arched stone bridges, beneath which the water of the Sele was streaming fast and clear amid white limestone boulders and over broad reaches of white pebbles that were dazzling in the sun--and the olive trees were left behind, and here and there were patches of big timber, oaks to which the old, brown leaves still clung in the spring, and many poplars straight and feathery with leaves but yet half grown. But the land was by degrees less rich and less cultivated, till gradually it changed to a rough and stony country, and even from far off Veronica could see the little flocks of sheep dark brown and white, and small herds of cloud-grey cattle, pasturing and moving slowly on the hillsides above and below the winding road. She looked at the shepherds when they were near enough for her to see them. As she had left Eboli, she had seen one, driving a flock of sheep along the high road, and she had wondered whether there were many of his kind. He was a magnificently handsome young fellow of two or three and twenty, dressed in loose brown velveteens, with a belted jacket and a spotless shirt, strong, well-made shoes, leathern gaiters, and a flat cap, and he carried the traditional hatchet of the southern shepherd. He strode along with a light and easy gait, and looked more like a young gentleman in a rather eccentric but well-made shooting-dress, than like a herdsman. But he was from Eboli itself, and a native would have told her that the people of Eboli were "exceedingly fanatic about dress." The men and the clothes she now saw were very different; tall, grim figures in vast and often ragged brown cloaks that reached almost to their feet; small, battered, pointed hats; rough, muddy hose that should have once been white; shoes that loaded their steps like lead; and they moved slowly, with bent heads, rough, long-unshaven faces, eyes too hollow, horny hands too lean--wild, half-fed creatures, worse off than the flocks they drove, by all the degrees of the inverse ratio between man, who needs man's help, and beast, that needs only nature. There was that same grimness--there is no other word--in the faces of almost all the people Veronica now met, as the road wound higher and then descended through Oliveto, the first of the mountain villages. There was in them all the look of men and women who know that the struggle is hopeless, but who will not, or cannot, die and be at rest. There was the expression of those who will no longer make any effort except for the bare, hard bread that keeps them above ground, and who, having toiled through the terrible daylight that is their cruel task-master, lie down as they are, when work is done, to forget daylight and life if they can, in a mercifully heavy sleep. But before their bones are half rested, the pitiless day is upon them, and drives them out to labour again till they are stupid with weariness and only not faint enough to faint and forget. The people sometimes stood still and stared at the young princess as she drove by, with the old priest beside her. But the majority went on, indifferent and far beyond anything like interest or curiosity. Only the shepherds' great cur dogs, of all breeds and colours, but always big and fierce, barked furiously at the carriage and plunged furiously after it, pulling up suddenly and turning back with a growl when they had followed it for half a minute. The women, in ragged black or dark, checked skirts, with torn red woollen shawls hanging from their heads, glanced sidelong at Veronica, when they were still young; but the older ones went by without giving her a look, their leathern, Sibylline faces set, their old lids wrinkled by everlasting effort till they almost hid the small dark eyes. The most of them carried something in their hands,--faggots, covered baskets, small sacks of potatoes, or corn, or beans; and when the load was heavy they walked with a sharp, jerking turn of the hips to right and left that was almost like a dislocation, and the wrinkles in the faces of these heavy-laden ones were deep folds, as in the hide of a loose-skinned beast. For in that country to be strong is to be cursed; it means double work and double burden, where everything that breathes and moves and can be found to labour is driven to the very breaking point of strain. But as Veronica drove on, there were fewer men and women in the road, and only once in an hour or so, a huge cart, piled up with wine barrels, lumbered along, drawn by four or five deathly-looking mules that stumbled when they had to stop or start--shadowy creatures, the ghosts of their kind, as it were. The villages were worse than the open country, for in them the appalling poverty was gathered together in its muddiest colours and set in fixed pictures which Veronica never forgot. In the May weather, the doors of low dwellings were open, and the black and white pigs wandered unhindered from the filthy street without to the misery within, fattening on the poor waste of the desperately poor, fattening in the sun that drove their wretched betters to the daily fight with starvation, fattening in the vile filth to which starvation was dully indifferent, since cleanliness meant labour that brought no bread. To the right and left the barren mountains reared their enormous baldness to the sun, deserts raised up broadside, as it were, and set on end, that their bareness might be the better seen and known to the world around. Here and there, from their bases, dark wooded spurs ran out across the rising valley, and the road wound round them, in and out, and up and down, and over stone bridges big and little, and then up in terribly steep ascent, southeastwards to high Laviano, looking towards the pass by which the highway leads from Ciliento to Basilicata. In Laviano, facing the wretched houses, stood the grand beginning of a wretchedly unfinished building, one of those utter failures of great hopes, which trace the track of invading liberty through the south. It came, it saw, and it began many things--but it did not conquer and it completed very little. In the first wild enthusiasm of the Garibaldian revolution, even poor, hill-perched, filth-stricken, pig-breeding Laviano was to be a city, and forthwith, in the general stye, the walls of a great municipal building, from which lofty destinies were to be guided and controlled in the path to greatness, began to rise, with strength of stone masonry, and arches of well-hewn basalt, and divisions within for halls and stairways, and many offices. But the beams of the first story were never laid across the lower walls. There was no more money, and what had been built was a palace for the pigs. Laviano had spent its little all, and gone into debt, to be great, and had failed; and though the people had earned some of their own money back as wages in the building, more than half of it slipped into the pockets of architects, who went away smiling, jeering, and happy, to prey upon the next foolish village that would be great and could not. And above, from a hill on the mountain's spur outside the village, still frowned intact the heavy four-towered castle, complete and sound as when it had been built, the lasting monument of those hard warriors of a sterner time, who could not only take, but hold--and they held long and cruelly. Veronica looked up backwards at the towers, as the horses stood a while to breathe after the steep ascent, and she asked Don Teodoro to whom the castle belonged. "It is yours," he answered. "The castle is yours, the village is yours, the hills are yours. Your steward lives in the castle. You have much property here, more miles of good and bad land than I can tell." "And is it all like this? Are the people all like these?" "No. There are poorer people in the hills." The happy laugh that had come when the wind had blown the olive blossoms of Eboli upon her lap had long been silent now. Her face was grave and sorrowful, and she drew in her lips as though something hurt her. Some half-naked children stood shyly watching her from a little distance. Pigs grunted and rubbed themselves against the wheels of the carriage, and the coachman lashed backwards at them with his whip. But the cruel day was not yet over, and the people had not come back from their toil, so that the place was almost deserted still. There was an evil smell in the air, and the children's faces were pale and swollen and dirty. Veronica wondered how any people could be poorer than these, and her face grew still more sad. She tried to speak to the children, but they could not understand her. She got some little coins from her purse, but they were too much frightened to come forward and take them. They were not afraid of the priest, however, and Don Teodoro got out of the carriage and put the money into their horrible little hands, and they ran away with strange small cries and wild, half-noiseless laughter--if laughter can be anything but noisy. Let such words pass as come; for no words of our tongue can quite tell all Veronica saw and heard on that day. The great Italian myth survives in foreign nations; it has even more life, perhaps, in Italy itself, north of the Roman line; but only those know what Italy is, who have trudged on foot, and ridden by mountain paths, and driven by southern highways, through hill and valley and mountain and plain, from house to house, where there are neither inns nor taverns, throughout that vast region which is the half of the whole country, or more, and where the abomination of desolation reigns supreme in broad day. That Italy has done what she has done in thirty years, to be a power among nations, is a marvel, a wonder, and almost a miracle. That she should have done it at all, is the greatest mistake ever committed by a civilized nation, and it is irrevocable, as its results are to be fatal and lasting. But upon the good reality of unity, the deadly dream of military greatness descended as a killing blight, and the evil vision of political power has blasted the common sense of a whole people. It is one thing to be one, as a united family, each working for the good of each and all; it is another thing, and a worse thing, to be one as a vast and idle army, sitting down to besiege its own storehouses, each eating something of the whole and doing nothing to increase that whole, till all is gone, and the vision fades in the awakening from the dream, leaving the bare nakedness of desolation to tell the story of a huge mistake. Even Veronica's strong horses were well nigh tired out when they reached the dismal solitude of the high pass above Laviano; and she herself was wearied and faint with the gloom, and the poverty, and the barrenness of so much that was hers. But her mouth was set and firm, and she meant that something should be done before many days, which should begin a vast and lasting change. She did not know what she was undertaking, nor how far she might be led in the attempt to do good against great odds of evil on all sides; but she was not discouraged, and she had no intention of drawing back. It was a very long day. As the hours wore on, the three ate something from time to time, from a basket of provisions which Elettra had brought, and at which Veronica had laughed. But the air of the mountains was keen, and there was not too much in the basket, after all. Then, in the shadow below the sun-line cut by the mountains across the earth, she saw a sharp peak, grey and regular as a pyramid, rising in the midst of the high valley, and then beyond it, as the carriage rolled along, there was a misty landscape of a far, low valley--and then, all at once, the brown, tiled roofs of her own Muro were at her feet, and far to the left, out of the houses, rose the round grey keep of the fortress. The setting sun was behind the mountains, and the moon, near to the full, hung, round and white, just above the tower, in the pale eastern sky. From the second turning of the steep descent, Veronica could see a huge bastion of the castle above the roofs, jutting out like an independent round fort. Many of the people knew that she was coming, and some had hastened from their work to see her as soon as she arrived. Curious, silent, pale, dirty, they thronged about the carriage. An old woman touched Veronica's skirt, and then brought her hand back to her lips and kissed it. Then another did the same--a thin, dark-browed girl with a ragged red shawl on her head. The uncouth men stood shoulder to shoulder, staring with unwinking eyes. A tall, pale shepherd youth was erect and motionless in a tattered hat and a brown cloak, overtopping the others by his head and thin throat, and there was something Sphinx-like in the expression of his still, sad face. On Veronica's right, as the carriage halted, was the public fountain. Twenty or thirty tall, thin girls in short black frocks, displaying grimy stockings and coarse shoes, or bare legs and muddy red feet, were waiting their turns to fill the long wooden casks they carried on their heads. The fountain had but two little streams of water, and it took a long time to fill a cask. At the sound of the carriage wheels, most of the girls turned slowly round to see the sight, their empty barrels balanced cross-wise on their heads. They did not even lift a hand to steady their burdens as they changed their positions. They stared steadily. Veronica looked to the right and left and tried to smile, to show that she was pleased. But the visible, jagged edges of their outward misery cut cruelly at her heart, for they were her people; nominally, by old feudal right, they were all her people, and her father's father had held right of justice and of life and death over them all; and in actual fact they were almost all her people, since they lived in her houses, worked on her lands, and ate a portion of her bread, though it was such a very little one as could barely keep them alive. She tried to smile, and some of the girls held out their fingers towards her and then kissed them, as though they had touched her dress, as the old woman had done. But the men stared stolidly from under the low brims of their battered hats. Only the fever-struck shepherd smiled in a sickly way and lost his Sphinx-like look all at once. A man in a white shirt came forward, leading Veronica's mare, all saddled for her to mount. "The carriage cannot go through the streets," said Don Teodoro, in explanation. "They are too narrow and too rough." "No," answered Veronica, as she stepped from the carriage upon the muddy stones. "I will walk. If the streets are good enough for my people, they are good enough for me." Even to the good priest this seemed a little exaggeration on her part. But she had seen much that day of which she had never dreamed, and in her generous heart there was a sort of fierce wrath against so much misery, with a strong impulse to share it or cure it, to face the devil on his own ground, and beat him to death, hand to hand. It was perhaps foolish of her to walk to her own gate, but there was nothing to be ashamed of in the feeling which prompted her to do it. Don Teodoro walked beside her on the left, and Elettra pressed close to her on the right, as they threaded the foul black lanes towards the castle. The moment she had left the carriage, men and women and children had seized eagerly upon her belongings, to carry the bags and rugs and little packages, and now they followed her in a compact crowd, all talking together in harsh undertones; and from the dark doorways, as she went by, old women and old men came out, and more children, half clothed in rags, and cripples four or five. The pigs that were out in the lanes were caught in the press and struggled desperately to get out of it, upsetting even strong men with their heavy bodies as they charged through the crowd, grunting and squealing. A few people coming from the opposite direction, too, flattened themselves against the black walls and low, greasy doors, but there was not room even there, and they also were taken up by the throng and driven before, till the small crowd grew to a little multitude of miserable, curious, hungry, scrambling humanity, squeezing along the narrow way to get sight of the lady before she should reach the castle gate. From time to time the tall old priest turned mildly and protested, trying to get more air and elbow room for Veronica. "Gently, gently, my children!" he called to them. "You will see your princess often, for she is come to stay with you." "Eh, uncle priest!" cried a rough young voice. "That is fair and good, but who believes it?" "Eh, who believes it?" echoed a dozen voices, young and old. Veronica laid her hand upon Don Teodoro's arm to steady herself as she trod upon the slimy stones. She could not have stopped, for the crowd, extending far behind her in the dim street, would have pushed her down, but she turned her head as she walked and spoke in the direction of the people. Her voice rang high and clear over their heads. "I have come to live with you," she said, and they heard her even far off. "It is true. You shall see." "God render it you!" said a woman's voice. "May God make it true!" "More than one of them are saying that to themselves," observed Don Teodoro, as Veronica looked before her again, and walked on. Suddenly she came out upon a broader, cleaner way, which led out beyond the houses and up, by a sweep, to the low gate of the castle; close before her was the great lower bastion which she had seen from a distance. She saw now that there was a trellis high up, all over it, on which grew a vine; but the leaves were scarcely budding yet. She had not time to see much, for the crowd would not let her stop, and as the way widened, many ran before her, up to the gate, where they stopped short, for there were half a dozen men there in dark green coats, and silver buttons, foresters of the estate, who kept them back. Veronica would have turned once more, to nod to the people and smile at the poor women who pressed close upon her, but the crowd was so great that as the foresters made way for her, she found herself driven almost violently into her own gate, and in the rush, Elettra nearly fell to her knees as they got in. The gate clanged behind her, and she heard the great bolts sliding into their sockets, as it was made fast. Her men had known well enough what to expect from the curiosity of the people. They opened a little postern and let in the few who carried her things, and who had been shut out with the crowd. She drew a long breath and looked upward, before her. It was very unlike what she had expected. She was in the dark, vaulted way, scarcely eight feet broad, and paved with flagstones, which led up to the first small court. The masonry was rough, enormous, damp, and blackened with dampness and age. From the building around the little enclosure small, dark windows looked down upon her. A narrow door was on her right. On the left, rough stone steps led up to the keep, and to the eastern side of the castle. The door stood open, and there was a lamp in the small entry. Before entering, she glanced up at the lintel and saw that the ancient arms of the Serra were roughly sculptured in the old marble, and she knew that she was on the threshold of her home. It was more like a gloomy dungeon than the princely castle of which she had dreamed. That, indeed, was what it had been through many ages, and nothing else. She wondered where the great staircase could be where the poor ghost of Queen Joanna sat and shrieked at midnight on the twelfth of May. It was near the day, and not being at all timid, she smiled at the thought, as she went in. Three or four decently clad women in black came forward into the vaulted passage, and smiled and nodded awkwardly. They were the people Don Teodoro had engaged for her service. She had a word for each and patted them on the shoulder, and they led the way, two and two, carrying a light between them, for it was very dark within, though there was still broad daylight without. Then, all at once, she scarcely knew how, Veronica was standing upon a little balcony. Behind her, the walls of the embrasure were fully fifteen feet thick. Before her, under the glow of the sunset on the one hand, and the first pale moonlight on the other, lay a great valley, deep and long and broadening fan-like from below her to the far distance, where the evening mists were beginning to gather the white light of the moon, while the great mountains of the southeast were still red with the last blood of the dying day--a view of matchless peace and surpassing beauty, such as she had never yet seen. Just then, she looked down, and there, at her feet, were the brown roofs of Muro. Her dream seemed to be suddenly realized, and she had found the room of which she had so often made the picture in her imagination. But it was far more beautiful than she had dared to imagine or dream. The lofty fortress was built lengthwise along the rock, facing the southwest, to meet the winter sun from morning till night; and forever before it lay the wide Basilicata, the peace of the valley, the height of the huge mountains, the infinite tenderness of a distance that is seen from a vast height--in which even what would be near in one plane, is already far by depth. Veronica looked out in silence for a long time, and the day faded at last in the sky, while the moon's light whitened and strewed blackness across the twilight shadows. The old priest stood beside her, his three-cornered hat in his hand. But the silver spectacles had disappeared. He could feel what was before him without seeing it distinctly. "I knew that I should find it," said Veronica, at last. "I always knew that it was here. I shall live in this room." "It is a good room," said Don Teodoro, quietly, and not at all understanding what she meant. "And I have an idea that I shall die in this room," added the young girl, in a dreamy tone, not caring whether he heard or not. "I am the last of them, you know. They all came from here in the beginning, ever so long ago. It would be natural that the last of them should die here." "For Heaven's sake, let us not talk of such sad things!" cried the priest, protesting against the mere mention of death, as almost every Italian will. "Have they made it a sitting-room?" asked Veronica, turning from the balcony into the deep embrasure. She had scarcely glanced at the furniture, for she had made straight for the window on entering. She looked about her now. There were dark tapestries on the walls. There was a big polished table in the middle, and a dozen or more carved chairs, covered with faded brocade, were arranged in regular order on the three sides away from the windows. The high vault was roughly painted in fresco, with cherubs and garlands of flowers in the barbarous manner of Italian art fifty years ago. There was a low marble mantelpiece, and on it stood six brass candlesticks at precisely even distances, one from another, the six candles being all lighted. But there was a lamp on the table. Veronica smiled. "You must forgive me if I have not known what to do," said Don Teodoro, humbly, but smiling also. "I have seen something of civilization in my wanderings, but I never attempted to arrange a house before. This is a very large house, if one calls such a place a house at all." "I suppose there are thirty or forty rooms?" "There are three hundred and sixty-five altogether," answered the priest, his smile broadening. "They are all named in the inventory. There is a legend about the place to the effect that there is a three hundred and sixty-sixth, which no one can find. Of course the inventory includes every roofed space between walls, from the dungeon at the top of the keep to the dark room under the trap-door in the last hall on this lower story. But you will be surprised, to-morrow, if you go over the place. It is much bigger than seems possible, because you can never really see it from outside unless you go down into the plain." "And where do you think that other room is?" asked Veronica, who was young enough to take interest in the mystery. "Heaven knows! Perhaps it does not exist at all. But as I was saying, my dear princess, I found it hard to arrange an apartment for you, not knowing how you might choose to select your quarters. So I had the tapestries cleaned and hung up, and the chairs dusted and the tables polished, and some lights got ready on this floor, and your bedroom is the last." "The one with the trap-door?" asked Veronica. "That is very amusing!" "I had the dark room below well cleaned, and the trap has been screwed down," said Don Teodoro. "I thought that there might be rats there. Elettra has the room before yours. But you are tired, and you must be hungry. It is my fault for not leaving you at once." "But you will dine with me? To-night and every night, Don Teodoro--that is understood." Half an hour later, they sat down to table in the light of the lamp and the six candles, in the room from which Veronica had looked out upon the valley. But they were both too tired to talk, though they made faint attempts at conversation, and as soon as the meal was over, the old priest begged leave to go home. "Do not be afraid," he said, as he bade Veronica good night. "There are several men in the house. You are not all alone with your five women. The foresters have their headquarters here." Veronica was anything but timid or nervous, but when she was in bed in her own room at the south corner of the castle, watching the shadows cast up by the flickering night light upon the ancient tapestries, she realized that she was very lonely indeed, she and scarcely a dozen servants, in the vast fortress wherein a thousand men had once found ample room to live. Brave as she was, she glanced once or twice at the corner of the room where the trap-door was placed. There was a carpet over it, and a table stood there which Elettra had arranged hastily for the toilet table. Veronica wondered what end that dark place below had served in ancient days, and whether she were not perhaps lying in the very room in which Queen Joanna had been smothered by the two Hungarian soldiers. It seemed probable. But she was very tired, and she fell asleep before long, fancying that she was looking out from the balcony again, with the brown roofs of her people's houses at her feet. CHAPTER XX. Veronica was awake early in the May morning, and looked out again upon the great valley she had seen at sunset. It was all mist and light, without distinct outline. A fresh breeze blew into her face as she stood at the open window, and the sun was yet on the southeast wall, so that she stood in the clear, bluish shadow which high buildings cast only in the morning. She had slept soundly without dreams, and she wondered how she could have ever glanced last night towards the place in the corner where the trap-door was hidden under her toilet table, or how she could have felt herself lonely and not quite safe, in her own castle, with a dozen of her own people, when she had never been afraid in the Palazzo Macomer. She pushed back her brown hair, a little impatiently, and laughed as she turned to Elettra. "We are well here, Excellency," said the maid, with a smile of satisfaction. She rarely spoke unless Veronica addressed her, and was never a woman of many words. "And you saw no ghosts?" Veronica laughed. "I am afraid of ghosts that wear felt slippers," answered Elettra. An hour later Veronica sent for Don Teodoro, and they went over the castle together. He led her first to the high dungeon on the north side. The natural rock sprang up at that end, and some of the steps were cut in it. At the top, the tower was round, with a high parapet, and an extension on one side, all filled with earth and planted with cabbages and other green things. "The under-steward had a little vegetable garden here," said Don Teodoro. "I suppose that you will plant flowers. Will you look over the parapet on that side?" Veronica trod the soft earth daintily and reached the wall. She glanced over it, and then drew a deep breath of surprise. Below her was a sheer fall of a thousand feet, to the bottom of a desolate ravine that ran up to northward in an incredibly steep ascent. Then they went into the ancient prison, which was a round, vaulted chamber, shaped like the inside of the sharp end of an eggshell, with one small grated window, three times a man's height from the stone floor. The little iron door had huge bolts and locks, and might have been four or five hundred years old. On the stone walls, men who had been imprisoned there had chipped out little crosses, and made initials, and rough dates in the fruitless attempts to commemorate their obscure suffering. Veronica and Don Teodoro descended again, and he led her through many strange places, dimly lighted by small windows piercing ten feet of masonry, and through the enormous hall which had been the guard-room or barrack in old days, and had served as a granary since then, and up and down dark stairs, through narrow ways, out upon jutting bastions, down and up, backwards and forwards, as it seemed to her, till she could only guess at the direction in which she was going, by the glimpses of distant mountain and valley as she passed the irregularly placed windows. Several of her people followed her, and one went before with a huge bunch of ancient keys, opening and shutting all manner of big and little doors before her and after her. Now and then one of the men in green coats lighted a lantern and showed her where steep black steps led down into dark cellars, and vaults, and underground places. She saw it all, but she was glad to get back to the room she already loved best, from which the balcony outside the windows looked down upon the valley. And there she began at once to install herself, causing her books to be unpacked and arranged, as well as the few objects familiar to her eyes, which she had brought with her. Among these was the photograph of Bosio Macomer. Those of Gregorio and Matilde had disappeared. She hesitated, as she held the picture in her hand, as to whether she should keep it in her bedroom, or in the sitting-room, in which she meant chiefly to live, and she looked at it with sad eyes. She decided that it should be in the sitting-room. Where everything was hers, she had a right to show what had been all but quite hers at the last. The six brass candlesticks were taken away, and Bosio's photograph was set upon the long, low mantelpiece. His death had after all been more a surprise, a horror, a disappointment, than the wound it might have been if she had really loved him, and it is only the wound that leaves a scar. The momentary shock is presently forgotten when the young nerves are rested and the vision of a great moment fades to the half-tone of the general past. Between her present, too, and the night of Bosio's death, had come the attempt upon her own life, and all the sudden change that had followed the catastrophe. She was too brave to realize, even now, that she might have died at Matilde's hands. She had to go over the facts to make herself believe that she had been almost killed. But the whole affair had brought a revolution into her life, since Bosio had been gone. Another companionship had taken the place of his, so that she hardly missed him now. She would miss Gianluca's letters far more than Bosio, if they should suddenly stop, and the mere thought that the correspondence might be broken off gave her a sharp little pain. The idea crossed her mind while she was arranging her writing-table near her favourite window, for all writing seemed to be connected with Gianluca, so that she could not imagine passing more than a day or two without setting down something on paper which he was to read, and to answer. To lose that close intimacy of thought would be to lose much. But Gianluca had written on the morning of her departure, and before Veronica had half finished what she was doing, one of her women brought her his letter, for the post came in at about midday. It came alone, for Bianca had not written yet, and Veronica's correspondence was not large. She had not even thought of ordering a newspaper to be sent to her. Her work and occupation were to be in Muro, and she cared very little about what might happen anywhere else. She broke the seal and read the letter eagerly. It was like most of his letters at first, being full of matters about which he had talked with her, and written in the graceful way which was especially his and which had so much charm for her. But towards the end his courage must have failed him a little, for there were sad words and one or two phrases that had in them something touching and tender to which she was not accustomed. He did not tell her that he was ill and that he feared lest he might never see her again, for he was far too careful as yet of hinting at the truth she would not understand. They were very little things that told her of his sadness--an unfinished sentence ending in a dash, the fall of half a dozen harmonious words that were like a beautiful verse and vaguely reminded her of Leopardi's poetry--small touches here and there which had either never slipped from his pen before, or which she had never noticed. They pleased her. She would not have been a human woman if she had not been a little glad to be missed for herself, even though the writing was to continue. She read the last part of the letter over three times, the rest only twice, and then she laid it in an empty drawer of her table, rather tenderly, to be the first of many. That should be Gianluca's especial place. Amidst her first arrangements for her own comfort, she did not forget what she looked upon as her chief work, and before that day was over she had begun what was to be a systematic improvement of Muro. Direct and practical, with a sense beyond her years, she did not hesitate. The first step was to clean the little town and pave the streets. The next to visit and examine the dwellings. "The place shall be clean," said Veronica to the steward, who stood before her table, receiving her orders. "But, Excellency, how can it be clean when there are pigs everywhere?" inquired the man, astonished at her audacity. "There shall be no more pigs in Muro," answered the young princess. "The people shall choose as many trustworthy old men and boys as are necessary to look after the creatures. They shall be kept at night in some barn or old building a mile or two from here, and they shall be fed there, or pastured there. I will pay what it costs." "Excellency, it is impossible! There will be a revolution!" The steward held up his hands in amazement. "Very well, then. Let us have a revolution. But do not tell me that what I order is impossible. I will have no impossibilities. The town belongs to me, and it shall be inhabited by human beings, and not by pigs. If you make difficulties, you may go. I can find people to carry out my orders. Begin and clean the streets to-day. Take as many hands as you need and pay them full labourer's wages, but see that they work. Make a list of the pigs and their owners. Decide where you will keep them. Hire the swineherds. If I find one pig in Muro a week from to-day, and if, in fine weather, I cannot walk dry shod where I please, I will take another steward. I intend to remit a quarter of all the rents this year. You may tell the people so. You may go and see about these things at once, but let me hear no more of impossibilities. Only children say that things are impossible." The man understood that the old order had departed and that Veronica Serra meant to be obeyed without question, and he never again raised his voice to suggest that there might be what he called a revolution if her orders were carried out. As for the people of Muro, they were dumb with astonishment. They had a municipality, of course, a syndic, and a secretary, and certain head men, to whose authority they were accustomed to appeal in everything--generally against the extortion of the stewards who had obeyed Gregorio Macomer. But before Veronica had been in Muro ten days, the municipality was nothing more than the shadow of a name. The syndic was her tenant, and bowed down to her, and the rest of the illiterate officials followed his lead. It was natural enough; for they all benefited by the lowering of the rents, and they were quick to see that she meant to spend money in the place, which would be to the advantage of every one before long. It was she who made the revolution, and not they. Before the first week was out the pigs were gone, and she walked dry shod over the stones from the castle to the entrance of the village. In less than a month the principal way was levelled and half paved, and masons were everywhere at work repairing those of the houses which were in most immediate need of improvement. "You are Christians," she said to a little crowd that gathered round her one day, while she was watching the setting-up of a new door. "You shall live like Christians. When you have been clean for a month, you will never wish to be dirty again." "That is true," answered an old man, shaking his head thoughtfully. "But, in the name of God, who has ever thought of these things? It needed this angel from Paradise." Veronica laughed. They were docile people, and they soon found out that the young princess was as absolute a despot in character as ever terrorized Rome or ruled the Russias. At the merest suggestion of opposition, the small aquiline nose seemed to quiver, the little head was thrown back, the brown eyes gleamed, the delicate gloved hand either closed upon itself quickly or went out in a gesture of command. But then, they sometimes saw another look in her face, though not often, and perhaps it was less natural to her though not less true to her nature. They had seen the brown eyes soften wonderfully and the small hands do very tender things, now and then, for poor children and suffering women when, no one else was at hand to give aid. Yet, at most times, she was quiet, cheerful, natural, for it happened more and more rarely that any one opposed her will. She became to them the very incarnation of power on earth. She would have been thought rich in any country; to their utter wretchedness her wealth was fabulous beyond bounds of fairy tale. Most persons would have admitted that she was wonderfully practical and showed a great deal of common sense in what she did; to her own people she seemed preternaturally wise, only to be compared with Providence for her foresight, and much more occupied with their especial welfare than Providence could be expected to be, considering the extent of the world. She was endlessly charitable to women and children and old men, but to those who could work she was inexorable. She paid well, but she insisted that the work should be done honestly. Some of the younger ones murmured at her hardness when they had tried to deceive her. "Would you take false money from me?" she asked. "Why should I take false work from you? You have good work to sell, and I have good money to give you for it. I do not cheat you. Do not try to cheat me." They laughed shamefacedly and worked better the next time, for they were not without common sense, either. Doubtless, she attempted and expected more than was possible at first, but she had Don Teodoro at her elbow, and he was able to direct her energy, though he could not have moderated it. He found it hard, indeed, to keep pace with her swift advances towards the civilization of Muro, and he was quite incapable of entering into the boldness of some of her generalizations, which, to tell the truth, were youthful enough when she first expressed her ideas to him. But while one of his two great passions was learning, the other was charity, in that simple form which gives all it has to any one who seems to be in trouble--the charity that is universal, and easily imposed upon, and that exists spontaneously and, as it were, for its own sake, in certain warm-hearted people--an indiscriminate love of giving to the poor, the overflow of a heart so full of kindness that it would be kind to a withering flower or a half-dead tree, rather than not expend itself at all. And so, seeing the great things that were done by Veronica in Muro, and secretly giving of his very little where she gave very much, Don Teodoro grew daily to be more and more happy in the satisfaction of his strongest instinct; and little by little he, also, came to look upon his princess as the incarnation of a good power come to illuminate his darkness and to lift his people out of degradation to human estate. Veronica was happy too. There is a sort of exhilaration and daily surprise in the first use of real power in any degree, and she enjoyed her own sensations to the fullest extent. When she was alone, she wrote about them to Gianluca, giving him what was almost a daily chronicle of her new life, and waiting anxiously for the answers to her letters which came with almost perfect regularity for some time after her own arrival at Muro. They pleased her, too, though the note of sadness was more accentuated in them, as time went on and spring ran into summer. He had hoped, perhaps, that she might tire of her solitude and come down to Naples, if only for a few days; or at least, that something might happen to break what promised to be a long separation. He longed for a sight of her, and said so now and then, for letter-writing could not fill up the aching emptiness she had left in his already empty life. He had not her occupations and interests to absorb his days and make each hour seem too short, and, moreover, he loved her, whereas she was not at all in love with him. Then, a little later, there was a tone of complaint in what he wrote, which suddenly irritated her. He told her that his life was dreary and tiresome, and that the people about him did not understand him. She answered that he should occupy himself, that he should find something to do and do it, and that she herself never had time enough in the day for all she undertook. It was the sort of letter which a very young woman will sometimes write to a man whose existence she does not understand, a little patronizing in tone and superior with the self-assurance of successful and unfeeling youth. She even pointed out to him that there were several things which he did not know, but which he might learn if he chose, all of which was undoubtedly true, though it was not at all what he wanted. For him, however, the whole letter was redeemed by a chance phrase at the end of it. She carelessly wrote that she wished he were at Muro to see what she had done in a short time. He knew that the words meant nothing, but he lived on them for a time, because she had written them to him. His next letter was more cheerful. He repeated her own words, as though wishing her to see how much he valued them, saying that he wished indeed that he were at Muro, to see what she had accomplished. To some extent, he added, the fulfilment of the wish only depended on herself, for in the following week he was going with his father and mother and all the family to spend a month in a place they had not far from Avellino, and that, as she knew, was not at an impossible distance from Muro. But of course he could not intrude alone upon her solitude. When she next wrote, Veronica made no reference to this hint of his. The man was not the same person to her as the correspondent, and she very much preferred exchanging letters with him to any conversation. She did not forget what he had said, however, and when she supposed that the Della Spina family had gone to the country she addressed her letters to him near Avellino. He had not yet gone, however, and he soon wrote from Naples complaining that he had no news from her. On the following day Veronica was surprised to receive a letter addressed in a hand she did not know. It was from Taquisara, and she frowned a little angrily as she glanced at the signature before reading the contents. It began in the formal Italian manner,--"Most gentle Princess,"--and it ended with an equally formal assurance of respectful devotion. But the matter of the letter showed little formality. "I have hesitated long before writing to you"--it said--"both because I offended you at our last meeting and because I have not been sure, until to-day, about the principal matter of which I have to speak. In the first place, I beg you to forgive me for having spoken to you as I did at the Princess Corleone's house. I am not skilful at saying disagreeable things gracefully. I was in earnest, and I meant what I said, but I am sincerely sorry that I should have said it rudely. I earnestly beg you to pardon the form which my intention took. "Secondly, I wish very much that I might see you. I fear that you would not receive me, and from the ordinary point of view of society you would be acting quite rightly, since you are really living alone. The world, however, is quite sure that you have a companion, an elderly gentlewoman who is a distant relation of yours. It will never be persuaded that this good lady does not exist, because it cannot possibly believe that you would have the audacity to live alone in your own house. "I wish to see you, because my friend Gianluca cannot live much longer. You may remember that he walked with difficulty, and even used a stick, before you left Naples. He can now hardly walk at all. According to the doctors, he has a mortal disease of the spine and cannot live more than two or three months. Perhaps I am telling you this very roughly, but it cannot pain you as much as it does me, and you ought to know it. He is not the man to let any one tell you of his state, and I have taken it upon myself to write to you without asking his opinion. I told you once what you were to him. All that I told you is ten times more true, now. Between you and life, he would not choose, if he could; but he is losing both. As a Christian woman, in commonest kindness, if you can see him before he dies, do so. And you can, if you will. He was to have been moved to the place near Avellino a few days ago, but he was too ill. They all leave next week, unless he should be worse. You are strong and well, and it would not be much for you to make that short journey, considering Gianluca's condition. "I shall not tell him that I have written to you, and I leave to you to let him know of my writing, or not, as you think fit." Here followed the little final phrase and the signature. Veronica let the sheet fall upon her table, and gazed long and steadily at the tapestry on the wall opposite her. Her hands clasped each other suddenly and then fell apart loosely and lay idle before her. Her head sank forward a little, but her eyes still held the point on which they were looking. In the first shock of knowing that Gianluca was to die, she felt as though she had lost a part of him already, and something she dearly valued seemed to go out of her life. Her instinct was not to go to him and see him while she could, but to look forward to the blankness that would be before her when he should be gone. Something of him was an integral part of her life. But there was something of him for which she felt that she hardly cared at all. She was probably selfish in the common sense of that ill-used word. It is generally applied to persons who do not love those that love them, but are glad of their existence, as it were, for the sake of something they receive and perhaps return--as Veronica did. But she did not ask herself questions, for she had never had the smallest inclination to analysis or introspection. It was as clear to her as ever that she did not love Gianluca in the least, but that she should find it hard to be happy without him. She had been nearer to loving poor Bosio than Gianluca, though the truth was that she had never loved any one yet. But she pitied Gianluca with all her heart. That was the most she could do for that part of him which was nothing to her, and her face grew very sad as she thought of what he might be suffering, and of how hard it must be to die so young, with all the world before one. She could not imagine herself as ever dying. She sat still a long time and tried to think of what she should do. But her thoughts wandered, and presently she found that she was asking herself whether it were her destiny to be fatal to those who loved her. But the mere idea of fatality displeased her as something which could oppose her, and perhaps defy her. After all, Gianluca might not die. She looked over Taquisara's letter again. He was a man who meant what he said, and he wrote in earnest. There was something in him that appealed to her, as like to like. He had been rude and had spoken almost insolently, and even now he dared to write that he meant what he had said and only regretted the words he had used. For them, indeed, his apology was sufficient--for the rest, she was undecided. She went on to what referred to Gianluca, and her face grew grave and sad again. It must be true. She laid the letter in the drawer where she kept Gianluca's, but in a separate corner, by itself. Then she took up her pen to write to Gianluca, intending to take up the daily written conversation at the point where she had last broken off, on the previous evening. With an effort, she wrote a few words, and then stopped short and leaned back in her chair, staring at the tapestry. It was a grim farce to write about her streets and her houses and her charities to a man who was dying--and who loved her. Yet she could not speak of his illness without letting him know that Taquisara had informed her of it. She tried to go on, and stopped again. Poor Gianluca--he was so young! All at once her pity overflowed unexpectedly, and she felt the tears in her eyes and on her cheeks. She brushed them away, and left her letter unfinished. Half an hour later she was with Don Teodoro, busy about her usual occupations and plans. But she was absent-minded, and matters did not go well. She left him earlier than usual and shut herself up in her own room. She had not been there a quarter of an hour, however, before she felt stifled and oppressed by the close solitude, and she came out again and climbed to the top of the dungeon tower, where the little plot of cabbages had been converted into a tiny flower garden, and the roses were all in bloom. With the rising of her pity had come the desire to see Gianluca and talk with him. She could not tell why she wished it so much, after having felt so horribly indifferent at first, but the wish was there, and like all her wishes, now, it must be satisfied without delay. She was supremely powerful in her little mountain town, and on the whole she was using her power very wisely. But her dominant character was rapidly growing despotic, and it irritated her strangely to want anything which she could not have. She had almost forgotten that society had any general claims upon people who chance to belong to it, and the sudden recollection that if she went down to Naples, she could not go and see Gianluca, even under his father's and mother's roof, and talk with him if she pleased, was indescribably offensive to her over-grown sense of independence. Nor could she invite herself to Avellino to pay a visit to Gianluca's mother. She understood enough of the customs of the world with which she had really lived so little, to know that such a thing was impossible. If she could not see him in Naples and could not go to see him at his father's place, he must come to Muro. It flashed upon her that she had a right to ask the whole Della Spina family to spend a week with her if she chose. They might think it extraordinary if they pleased--it would be an invitation, after all, and the worst that could happen would be that the old Duchessa might refuse it. But Veronica never anticipated refusals. As for Gianluca, if he were well enough to be taken to Avellino, he could be brought to Muro. A journey by carriage was no more tiring than one by railway, and the change and excitement would perhaps do him good. The more she thought of the possibility of her plan as compared with the impracticable nature of any other which suggested itself, the more she looked forward with pleasure to seeing him--and the more clearly it seemed to her an act of kindness to give him an opportunity of seeing her. And between her reflexions, strengthening her intention and hastening her action, there returned the real and deep sorrow she felt at the thought of losing her best friend, and the genuine pity she now felt for him, apart from the selfish consideration which had come first. In the singular and anomalous position she had created for herself, there was no one whom she could consult. As for asking Don Teodoro's opinion, it never entered her head, for it would have been impossible to do so without confiding to him the nature of her friendship with Gianluca. She would not do that now. She had first told Bianca Corleone frankly enough of the exchange of letters, but she herself had not then known what that secret friendship was to mean in her life, nor how she and Gianluca would almost conceal it from each other. Besides, she was accustomed now to impose her will upon the old priest as she imposed it upon every one in her surroundings. When she asked his advice, it was about matters of expediency, and that happened every day, but she would not have thought of taking counsel with him about any action which concerned herself. If society chanced to be in opposition to her, society must either give way or make the best of it, or break with her. But it was certainly within the bounds of social tradition and custom that she should ask such of her friends as she chose, to stay with her under her own roof. One small practical difficulty met her, and it was characteristic of her that it was the only one to which she paid any attention after she had made up her mind. She could have found fifty rooms for guests in the castle, but there were certainly not three which were now sufficiently furnished to be habitable as bedrooms. She had changed the face of the town in three months, but she had not at all improved her own establishment. There were foresters and men occupied upon the estates who came and went as their work required, and there were generally four or five of them in the house; but she was served by women, and there was not a man-servant in the place. She had only five horses in her stable. She glanced at the black frock she wore and smiled, realizing for the first time what Elettra had meant by protesting against her wearing it any longer. But none of the details were of a nature to check such a woman in anything she really wished. If she chose to be waited on by women and to wear old clothes, that was her affair and concerned no one else. As for a little furniture more or less, she could get all she wanted from Naples in three or four days. CHAPTER XXI. Veronica had little doubt but that her invitation would be accepted by the Della Spina. Had she been as worldly wise, as she was practical in most things, she would have had no doubts at all, though she would have hesitated long before writing to the Duchessa. For, of two things, one or the other must happen. Gianluca must either die, or not die; in the first case the least which his family could do would be to give him the opportunity of seeing the woman he loved, before his death, and, in the second, such an invitation on Veronica's part was almost equivalent to consenting to marry him if he recovered. To every one except Veronica herself, the marriage would have seemed in every way as desirable as any that could be proposed to her, both for herself and for Gianluca. Her invitation was received with mingled astonishment and delight and was duly communicated to Gianluca himself. Veronica had written to him at the same time, and he had already read her letter telling him of her plan, when his father and mother entered the room where he was lying near his open window, towards evening. They were good people, and simple, according to their lights, and they were devotedly attached to their eldest son. The love of Italians for their children often goes to lengths which would amaze northern people. It may be that where there are few love-matches, as in the old Italian society, the natural ties of blood are stronger than in countries where men leave everything for the women they love. The Duchessa's chief preoccupation and anxiety concerned her son's strength to bear the journey. From day to day the family had been on the point of moving to Avellino, and the departure had been put off because Gianluca's condition seemed altogether too precarious. It would be an even more serious matter to convey him safely to Muro; and between her extreme anxiety for his health, and her wish that he might be able to go, the Duchessa was almost distracted. But neither she nor her husband knew that the doctors despaired of his life. The truth had been kept from them, and Taquisara had extracted it from one of the physicians with considerable difficulty, having more than half guessed it during the past two months. At the mere suggestion of going to Muro, Gianluca had revived, reading Veronica's letter alone to himself in his room. When he heard that the invitation had actually come, he seemed suddenly so much better that the tears started to the old Duca's weak eyes. "We must go," said the old gentleman to his wife, as they left Gianluca to consult together. "What is the use of denying it? It is passion. If he does not marry that girl, he will die of it." "Of course she means to marry him," answered the Duchessa, her voice tremulous with nervous delight. "It is not imaginable that she should ask us to visit her, unless she means that she has changed her mind! It would be an outrage--an insult--it would be nothing short of an abominable action--I would strangle her with these hands!" The prematurely old woman shook her weak fingers in the air, and her passionate love for her son lent her feeble features the momentary dignity of righteous anger. "I should hardly doubt that she would marry him after this," said the Duca, thoughtfully. "And besides--where could she find a better husband? It is passion that has made him ill." But it was not. In what they said of Veronica's probable intention they were not altogether wrong, however, from their point of view. They were in complete ignorance of the long-continued correspondence between her and Gianluca, and had they known of it, they could not possibly have understood her way of looking at the matter. Such a character as hers was altogether beyond their comprehension, and they practically knew nothing of the circumstances that had lately developed it so quickly. As for her mode of life, they believed, as most people did, that she had a companion in the person of an elderly gentlewoman whom she had chosen for the purpose among her distant relations. Even Taquisara thought substantially as they did, and he was a man singularly regardless of conventions. It was true that he was almost as ignorant of the state of affairs as Gianluca's father and mother. After the first exchange of letters Gianluca had grown suddenly reticent. So long as Veronica had seemed altogether beyond his reach he had not hesitated to confide in the brave and honourable man who was such a devoted friend to him; but as soon as he began to feel himself growing intimate with Veronica, he ceased to speak of her except in general terms. Taquisara, if he had ever felt the need of confidence, would have stopped at the same point, or earlier, and he understood, and did not press Gianluca with questions. The latter had said that from time to time Donna Veronica had been kind enough to write to him--but that was all, and he never said it again. When the Sicilian heard of the invitation to Muro, however, he felt that he had a right to express himself, since the matter was an open one and concerned the whole family. He felt, too, an immense satisfaction in having produced so great a result by his letter. He had written to Veronica what the doctor had told him about the general verdict after the last consultation. For himself, his faith in doctors was not by any means blind, and he was not without some hope that Gianluca might recover. At all events, it was his duty to cheer the man as far as he could, and he imagined nothing more likely to produce a good effect than the now reasonable suggestion that Veronica might possibly change her mind. "Of course," he said to Gianluca, "the whole situation is extraordinary beyond anything I ever knew. But since Donna Veronica has left her aunt, no one can dispute her right to do as she pleases. An invitation to you and your family means a reopening of the question of the marriage. There can be no doubt of that. In my opinion, she has reconsidered the matter and means to accept you, after all." Gianluca smiled, and his sunken eyes brightened. But he would not admit that he really had any hopes. "I wish I were as sanguine as you," he answered. "If you had my temperament, you would not be where you are, my dear friend," replied Taquisara, with a dry laugh. "I look at the world differently. My life may not be worth much, but it is mine, and I would not let a man take it from me with his hands, nor a woman with her eyes--without fighting for it, if I had the chance." "How can a man fight against a woman?" laughed Gianluca, for he was very happy. "You fight a man by facing him, and a woman by turning your back on her," said Taquisara. "There are more women in the world than there are men to love them, after all. For one that will not have you, there are three who will. Take one of the three." "What do you know about it? You always say that you were never really in love. How can you tell what you would do?" "I suppose I cannot be quite sure. But then--the thing is ridiculous! A man must be half a poet, he must have sensibilities, ideals, visions, a nervous heart, an exaggerating eye and a mind sensitized like a photographer's plate to receive impressions! Do you see me provided with all that stuff?" He laughed again, somewhat intentionally, for he meant to amuse Gianluca. "Nor myself either," answered the latter. "I am much simpler than you imagine." "Are you? So much the better. But it makes very little difference, since you are to be happy, after all. Seriously, I do not believe that this invitation can mean anything else. If it does--if she is not in earnest--" he checked himself. Gianluca looked at him and did not understand his expression. "What were you going to say?" asked the younger man, with some curiosity. "Then take one of the other three!" said Taquisara, roughly, and he rose from his seat and walked to the window. The Duchessa's answer to Veronica was dignified and friendly. After expressing her cordial thanks for the invitation, she went on to say that besides the pleasure it would give her and her son to spend a few days under Veronica's hospitable roof, she was too well acquainted by hearsay with the splendid climate and situation of Muro to refuse an offer, by accepting which she might contribute much to Gianluca's recovery, and she went on to speak of the high mountain air and the sunshine of the Basilicata. There was truth in what she said, of course, and she was too proud not to make the most of it, entirely passing over more personal matters in order to give it the greatest possible prominence. As for Taquisara, though she guessed that he was almost indispensable to Gianluca in Naples, she made no mention of him. It would have been easy for her to suggest that he also might be invited, but she suspected that her son could do without him well enough when privileged to see Veronica every day; moreover, he would be in the way, and would probably himself fall in love with his young hostess, who, in her turn, might take a sudden fancy to the handsome Sicilian. It was not until the things which Veronica hastily ordered from Naples arrived in huge carts from Eboli that she began to reflect seriously upon what she had done under a sudden impulse. The Duchessa wrote that she should require four or five days to reach Muro, by easy stages, and there was plenty of time to make preparations for receiving the party. After the letter had come, Veronica spoke to Don Teodoro, who had noticed her extreme preoccupation and was wondering what could have happened. "I think I understand," he said, looking at her quietly. "It is right--you are young, but the years pass very quickly." "What do you mean?" asked Veronica, whose sad face still puzzled him. "What can their coming mean?" he asked, in reply, with a smile. "What? It is I who do not understand--or you--or both of us. Don Gianluca and I are friends. He is very, very ill. The doctors say that he cannot live many months, and unless I see him now, I shall never see him again." The old priest gazed at her in distressed surprise, and for a long time he found nothing to say. Veronica remained silent, scarcely conscious of his presence, leaning back in her chair, with folded hands and sorrowful eyes. The thought that Gianluca was to die was becoming more and more unceasingly painful, day by day. The fact that he wrote regularly to her, and yet never spoke of his condition, made it worse; for it proved to her that he could be brave rather than knowingly increase her anxiety, and the suffering of a brave man gets more true sympathy from women than the cruel death of many cowards. "I think you are very rash," said Don Teodoro, gravely, breaking the silence at last. Veronica turned upon him instantly, with wide and gleaming eyes, amazed at the slightest sign of opposition, criticism, or advice. "Rash!" she exclaimed. "Why? Have I not the right to ask whom I please, and will, to stay under my own roof? Who has authority over me, to say that I shall have this one for a friend, or that one, old or young? Am I a free woman, or a schoolgirl, or a puppet doll, to which the world can tie strings to make me dance to its silly music? Rash! What rashness is there in asking my friend and his father and mother here? My dear Don Teodoro, you will be telling me before long that I should take some broken-down old lady for a companion!" "I have sometimes wondered that you do not send for one of your relations," said the priest, who, mild as he was, could not easily be daunted when he believed himself right. "I will make my house a refuge, or a hospital if need be, for our poor people," answered Veronica, "but not for my relations, whom I have never seen. I send them money sometimes, but they shall not come here to beg. That would be too much. I had enough of those I knew. I am willing to feed anything that needs food except vultures. I have chosen to live alone, and alone I will live. The world may scream itself mad and crack with horror at my doings, if it is so sensitive. It cannot hurt me, and if I choose to shut my gates, it cannot get in. Besides, they are coming, the Duca, the Duchessa, and Don Gianluca, and that ends the matter." "Nevertheless--" began Don Teodoro, still obstinately unwilling to retract his word. "Dear friend," interrupted Veronica, with sudden gentleness, for she was fond of him, "I like you very much. I respect you immensely. I could not do half I am doing without you. But you do not quite understand me. I am sorry that you should think me rash, if the idea of rashness is unpleasant to you--I will make any other concession in reason rather than quarrel with you. But please do not argue with me when I have made up my mind. I am quite sure that I shall have my own way in the end, and when the end comes, you will be very glad that you could not hinder me, because I am altogether right. Now we understand each other, do we not?" Don Teodoro could not help smiling in a hopeless sort of way, and he lifted his hands a moment, spreading out the palms as though to express that he cleared his conscience of all possible responsibility. So they parted good friends, without further words. But when Veronica was alone, she began to realize that Don Teodoro was not so altogether in the wrong as she believed herself to be in the right. People might certainly be found whom she could not class with the world she so frankly despised, and who would say that if Gianluca recovered she should marry him, after extending such an invitation to him and his people, and that, if she did not, she would deserve to be called a heartless flirt--from their point of view. Gianluca's father and mother might say so. He himself, at least, must know her better than that, she thought. And then, there was the terrible earnestness of Taquisara's letter, the sober statement of his best friend, next to herself, and a statement which it must have cost the man something to make, since it was necessarily accompanied by an apology. After all, though he had insulted her, she liked Taquisara for the whole-hearted way in which he took Gianluca's part in everything. There was that statement, and she felt that it was a true one. Gianluca was more to her than any one she knew, in a way which no one could understand, and she had a right to see him before he died. If, by any happy chance, he should live, people might perhaps talk. She should not care, for she should have done right. That was the way in which she accounted to herself for her action; but the consciousness that Don Teodoro was not quite wrong was there. She remembered it afterwards, when the fatality that was quietly lying in wait for her raised its head from ambush and stared her in the face. But then, at the first beginning, she was angry with the old priest for trying to oppose her. There was not more than time to finish the preparations, after all, for she received a note from the Duchessa, written from Eboli, saying that they would arrive a day earlier than they had expected, as the heat in the plain was intense, and they were anxious to get Gianluca to a cooler region of the mountains as soon as possible. Veronica had written, too, placing the castle at Laviano at their disposal, as a resting-place, so as to break the journey more easily for the invalid, and she sent men over to see that all was in order and to take a few necessary things for the guests. It was a sort of caravan that at last halted before the fountain of Muro, at the entrance to the village. Veronica had been warned of their near approach, and was there to meet them, with Don Teodoro by her side. First came the Duca and Duchessa together in a huge carriage drawn by four horses, with three servants, two men and a maid. Veronica could not see past the vehicle, as it blocked the way, and she stopped beside it to greet the couple. "My dear child!" cried the Duchessa. "We shall never forget your kindness, and all the trouble you have taken! Gianluca is in the next carriage. I think you have saved his life!" There was a sort of inoffensive motherliness in her tone which surprised Veronica--a suggestion of possession that irritated her. But she smiled, said a few words, and ordered the carriage to move on,--an operation which, though difficult in such a narrow way, was possible since she had improved and paved the streets. A couple of her men walked before the horses to clear the way of the women and children and the few men who were not away at work, for the news of the arrival had spread, and the people flocked together to see whether the visitors would bear comparison with their princess. As the carriage rolled into the street, Veronica went up to meet the next. It was a very long landau, and in it Gianluca was almost lying down, his pale face and golden beard in strong relief against a dark brown silk cushion. To Veronica's amazement, Taquisara sat beside him, calmly smoking one of those long black cigars which he preferred to all others. He threw it away, when he saw her. She shook hands frankly with Gianluca. "I am very glad you are here," she said kindly and cheerfully. "You will get well here. How do you do?" she added, turning to Taquisara as naturally as though she had expected him, for she supposed that there must have been some misunderstanding. He explained his coming in a few words, before Gianluca could finish the sentence he began. "He hates strangers," he said, "and I came up with him, to be of use on the journey. I am going back at once." "You will not go back this evening, at all events," answered Veronica, with a little hospitable smile. She was grateful to him for Gianluca's sake, both for his letter and for having accompanied his friend. For what had gone before, he had apologized and was forgiven. "I beg your pardon," he answered. "I think I shall be obliged to go back this afternoon." "Has he any engagement that obliges him to return?" asked Veronica of Gianluca. As she turned to him, she met his deep blue eyes, fixed on her face with a strange look, half happy, half hungry, half appealing. "He has no engagement that I know of," he answered. "Then you will stay," she said to Taquisara. "Go on!" she added to the coachman, without giving time for any further answer. There was a note in her short speech which the Sicilian had never heard before then. It was the tone of command--not of the drill-sergeant, but of the conqueror. He almost laughed to himself as the carriage moved slowly on, while Veronica and Don Teodoro followed on foot. "You must stay, if she wishes it," said Gianluca, in a low voice. "I am not used to being ordered to quarters in that way," answered Taquisara, smiling in genuine amusement. "I can be of no more use to you when I have got you up to your room, and I think I shall go back as I intended." "I would not, if I were you. After all, it is a hospitable invitation, and you cannot invent any reasonable excuse for refusing to stay at least one night. The horses are worn out, too. You have no pretext." "Perhaps not. I will see." The carriages moved at a foot pace. As Veronica walked along she nodded and spoke to many of the poor people, who drew back into their doors from the narrow way. Behind her came two more carriages laden with luggage, and one of her own men on horseback closed the procession. By urging his stout beast up all the short cuts, he had accomplished the feat of keeping up with the vehicles. When they reached the castle gate, the Della Spina's two men-servants jumped down and got a sort of sedan chair from amongst the luggage, but Gianluca would not have it. "I can walk to-day," he said. "Help me, Taquisara. Have you got my stick? Thank you. No, do not lift me. Let me get out alone! I am sure that I can do it." Pale as he was, he blushed with annoyance at his feeble state, when he saw Veronica's anxious eyes watching his movements. It was early yet, but the August sun sank behind the lofty heights to westward, as he set his foot upon the ground. Taquisara's arm was around him, and the Sicilian's face was quiet and unconcerned, but Veronica saw the straining of the brown hand that supported the tall invalid, and she knew that Gianluca could not have stood alone. But he would not let the servants come near him. The old Duca and his wife touched his sleeve and asked him nervous, futile questions, and begged him to allow himself to be carried. Veronica stood in front, ready to lead the way. "No, no!" exclaimed Gianluca, answering his mother. "You see. I can walk very well to-day, with scarcely any help." But his first step was unsteady, and the next was slow. Veronica heard the uncertain footfall on the flagstones and turned again. "Will you take my arm on this side?" she asked gently, placing herself on his right, away from Taquisara. He hesitated, smiled, and then laid his hand upon her arm, and she and Taquisara led him in together, the old couple following, and looking at each other in silence from time to time. Through the dark, inclined way, they all went up slowly into the courtyard and under the low door, dark even on that summer's afternoon, slowly, stopping at every dozen paces and then moving on again. Taquisara almost carrying his friend with his right arm, while Veronica steadied him on the other side, till they came out at last into a room which had been furnished as a sort of sitting-room and library, especially for Gianluca's use. He sank down into a deep chair facing the window, and drew breath, as he sought Veronica's eyes. "You are very kind," he said faintly. "But you see how much better I am," he added at once, in a more cheerful tone. "It is the first walk I have taken for several days, Donna Veronica. I have really been ill, you know." "I know you have," she said, and she turned quickly away, for she felt more than she cared to show just then. Possibly the Duca and his wife were too much preoccupied about their son's condition to think seriously of what was taking place, but it was strange enough in its way, and Taquisara thought so as he looked on, and wondered what Neapolitan society would think if it could stand, as one man, in his place, and see with his eyes, knowing what he knew. But he had not much time for reflexion. Veronica's women had brought Gianluca wine, and his mother was giving him certain drops of a stimulant in a glass of fragrant old malvoisie, while his father bent over him anxiously, still asking useless questions. Veronica beckoned Taquisara aside, and they stood together behind Gianluca's chair. "That is his bedroom," she said, pointing to one of the doors, "and that is yours," she added, pointing to one opposite. "Mine? But you did not expect me--" "I naturally supposed that he would have a man with him, to take care of him," she answered. "If you are really his friend as you say you are, stay with him. You see that he cannot get about without you. If either of you need anything, ask for it," she added, before he could reply. "I would rather not stay," said Taquisara, looking gravely into her face. "Have you a good reason? What is it?" Her features hardened a little. "I cannot tell you my reason. It concerns myself." "Then try and forget yourself, for you are needed here," she answered almost sternly. For two or three seconds they looked into each other's eyes, neither yielding. Then Taquisara gave way. "I will stay," he said shortly, and he turned his face from her with a sort of effort. "Is there a doctor here?" he asked, looking towards the group of persons who stood around Gianluca. "Yes--a good one, whom I have lately brought. Shall I send for him? Do you think he is worse?" She asked the question anxiously. "No. No doctors can do him any good--but if he should be suddenly worse, after the long journey--" "Do you think it is likely?" asked Veronica, interrupting him in a tone of increasing anxiety. He turned to her again, and watched her face, curiously, wondering whether she loved the man, after all. "I hope not," he answered quietly. "But it was a fatiguing drive, and he hardly slept at all last night. I suppose that the excitement kept him awake. He should rest as soon as possible." "Very well," said Veronica. "I will take his father and mother away and give them tea. Stay with him and make him lie down and sleep, if possible. Dinner is at half-past seven. Let me know if we are to wait for him." She went to Gianluca's side and spoke to the Duchessa. "Shall I show you your rooms?" she asked. "Then we can have tea. Don Gianluca must be tired, and he should have quiet and rest before dinner--or if he prefers it, we will not expect him to-night. Sleep first, and decide afterwards," she added, addressing Gianluca himself, and her tone grew suddenly gentle as she spoke to him. "You are very wise for your age, my dear child!" answered the Duchessa, in the motherly tone that irritated Veronica. The old gentleman nodded gravely, being quite too much preoccupied and surprised to judge at all of his hostess's wisdom, but delighted with the effect which the change of air seemed already to have produced upon Gianluca. They went away together, leaving the invalid with Taquisara and his own servant. Veronica led them to her favourite room, then showed them their own, and went back to wait for them, while Elettra brought the tea, just as she had done of old in the Palazzo Macomer. Veronica watched her while she was arranging the tea-table. Elettra, who rarely spoke unbidden, ventured to make a remark. "Their Excellencies will be surprised at being waited on by women," she said; for though she hated all men-servants, she had pride for the great old house her fathers had served. "They will be surprised at so many things that they will not notice it," answered her mistress, thoughtfully. Elettra glanced at her quickly, but said nothing and went away, leaving her alone. She sat quite still, and did not move until the old couple came back, ten minutes later. She moved chairs forward for them to sit in, and poured out a cup of tea for each. Meanwhile they all three made little idle observations about the weather and the place. The Duchessa, holding her cup in her hand, looked at the door from time to time, as though expecting some one to come in. At last she could contain her curiosity no longer. "And where is your companion, my dear?" she asked suddenly. "In the imagination of society, Duchessa," answered Veronica. "I have none. I live alone." The Duchessa almost dropped her cup. "Alone?" she cried, in amazement. "You live alone? In such a place as this!" She could not believe her ears. "Yes," said Veronica, smiling. "Does it seem so very terrible to you? I live alone--and I am waited on only by women. I daresay that surprises you, too." "Alone?" The Duca had got his breath, and sat open-mouthed, holding his tea-cup low between his knees, in both hands. "Alone! At your age! A young girl! But the world--society? What will it think?" "Unless it thinks as I do, I do not care to know," answered Veronica, indifferently. "Let me give you some bread and butter, Duca." "Bread and butter? No--no thank you--no--I--I am very much astonished! I am stupefied! It is the most extraordinary thing I ever heard of!" "Of course everybody thinks that you have an elderly companion--" chimed in the Duchessa. "One of your Spanish relations," said the Duca, with anxious eyes. "Surely, she was here--" "And is away just now," suggested his wife. "That accounts for--" "Not at all," said Veronica, almost laughing. "She never existed. I came here alone, I live here alone, and I mean to live here alone as long as I please. The world may say what it pleases. I shall be three-and-twenty years of age on my next birthday. Ask Don Teodoro whether I am not able to take care of myself--and of Muro, too, for that matter!" "Who is Don Teodoro?" asked the Duchessa, nervously, and still altogether horrified. "The parish priest," said Veronica. "A very learned and charitable old man. He dines with me every evening." "Then," replied the Duchessa, with a beginning of relief, "then you, and your good priest, and your woman, make a sort of--of what shall I say--a sort of little religious community here? Is that it?" "We are not irreligious," Veronica replied, still at the point of laughter. "Most of us hear mass every morning--the church is close by the gate, on the other side of the great tower, you know--and we do not eat meat on fast days--" "Yes, yes, I understand!" interrupted the Duchessa, grasping at any straw by which she could drag the extraordinary young princess within conceivable distance of what she herself considered socially proper. "And you spend your time in good works, in the village, of course, and in edifying conversation with Don Teodoro. Yes--I see! As you put it at first, it was a little startling, but I understand it better now. You understand it, Pompeo, do you not? It is quite clear, now." The Duca rejoiced in the baptismal name of Pompey, like many of his class in the south, whereas the name of Caesar is more common about Rome. "I have at least done something for the village," said Veronica. "It was in a bad state when I came here." "It is a very clean village," observed the Duca, whose eyes still had a puzzled look in them, though his jaw had slowly recovered from its fall of amazement. "I saw no pigs in the streets. One generally sees a great many pigs in these mountain towns." "I turned them out," said Veronica. She went on to give a little account of the improvements she had introduced, not in vanity, but to keep them from returning to the subject of her living alone. They listened with profound interest, and with almost as much astonishment as they had shown at first. "But do you find no opposition here?" asked the Duca. "You seem to do just as you please." "Of course," answered Veronica. "The place belongs to me. Why should I not do as I like? There are a few tolerably well-to-do people here, who own a little property. Everything I do is to their advantage as well as to that of the poor peasants, so that they all side with me. No," she concluded thoughtfully, "I do not think that any one would oppose me in Muro. But if any one should, I have decided what to do!" "And what should you do?" asked the Duchessa, rather nervously. "I should send the whole family to America, with a little money in their pockets. They are always glad to emigrate, and the opposition would be quite out of the way in the Argentine Republic." Veronica laughed quietly. When the Duca and his wife went to dress for dinner they had some very disturbing ideas concerning the character of the young Princess of Acireale. CHAPTER XXII. Taquisara, almost for the first time in his life, did not know how to act, but in accepting Veronica's invitation he felt that he could really be of use to Gianluca, and he saw how unbendingly determined the young princess was that he should stay. He had very good reasons for not staying, but they were of such a nature that he could not explain them to her. He had the power, he thought, to leave Muro at a moment's notice, and in yielding to Veronica's insistence, he was only submitting, as a gentleman should, in small matters, rather than engage in a contest of will with a woman. Yet he knew the matter was neither small nor indifferent, when he gave way to her, and afterwards. Gianluca appeared at the dinner hour and reached the dining-room with his friend's help. He was placed on Veronica's left, in consideration of being an invalid, though Taquisara should have been there, according to Italian laws of precedence. Veronica had insisted that Don Teodoro should come, at all events on this first evening. She did not choose that the learned old priest should be merely the companion of her loneliness; and besides, she knew that his presence would probably prevent the Duca and Duchessa from returning to the question of her solitary mode of life. She was also willing to let them see that the humble curate was a man of the world. It was a day of surprises for the old couple, and their manners were hard put to it to conceal their astonishment at the way in which Veronica dined. They were, indeed, accustomed to a singular simplicity in the country, and to country dishes, as almost all the more old-fashioned Italians are, but in the whole course of their highly and rigidly aristocratic lives they had never been waited on by two women in plain black frocks and white aprons. The Duca, indeed, found some consolation in the delicious mountain trout, the tender lamb, the perfect salad, and the fine old malvoisie, for he liked good things and appreciated them; but the Duchessa's nature was more austerely indifferent to the taste of what she ate, while her love of established law insisted with equal austerity that any food, good or bad, should be brought before her in a certain way, by a certain number of men, arrayed in coats of a certain cut, and shaven till their faces shone like marble. In a measure, it was a slight upon her dignity, she thought, that Veronica should let her be served by waitresses. On the other hand, she reflected upon the conversation which had taken place at tea, and was forced to admit that she had then discovered the only theory on which she could accept Veronica's anomalous position, and conscientiously remain in the house. Either she must look upon the castle of Muro and its inhabitants as a sort of semi-religious community of women, or else, in her duty to the world, and the station to which she had always belonged, she must raise her voice in protests, loud and many. For many reasons, she did not wish to insist too much, and she did her best to seem indifferent, keeping her arguments before her mind while she ate. The chief of them was, indeed, that she clung desperately to the hope of a marriage; but in her heart there was something else, and she knew that she was afraid of Veronica. It seemed ridiculous, but it was true. And her husband was even more afraid of the dominating young princess than she. They never acknowledged the fact to each other, when they exchanged moralities, and discussed Veronica, but each was afraid, and suspected the other of similar cowardice. The Duchessa did her best to seem indifferent; but now and then, when one of the women changed her plate, or poured something into her glass, she could not help slowly looking round, with an air of bewilderment, as though expecting to see a man in livery at her elbow. As for Gianluca, Veronica had described in her letters the way in which she lived; and Taquisara's face more often betrayed amusement than surprise at what he saw in the world. On the present occasion, having accepted the situation into which his affection for his friend had led him, he had accepted it altogether, and behaved as though he were at a dinner party in Naples, cheerfully making conversation, telling amazing stories of brigandage in Sicily, asking Veronica questions about the surrounding country, and giving such scraps of news about mutual friends as his letters had recently brought him. Veronica had never seen the man under such circumstances, and she was surprised by his readiness and by his ability to help her in a rather difficult situation. He said nothing which she could compare with what Gianluca wrote. He never spoke of himself, and she did not afterwards remember that he had made any very brilliant observation; and yet, when dinner was over, she wished to hear him talk more, just as she had once longed to hear him say again the things he had said to her for Gianluca's sake in Bianca's garden. She had never met any one who seemed to have such a decided personality, without the slightest apparent desire to assert it. Instinctively, as women know such things, she felt that he was a very manly man, very simple and brave, and vain, if at all, with the sort of vanity which well becomes a soldierly character--the little touch of willing recklessness that easily stirs woman's admiration. What women hate most, next to cowardice, is, perhaps, the caution of the very experienced brave man--and they hate it all the more because they cannot despise it with any show of reason. Gianluca was silently happy, perfectly satisfied to hear Veronica's voice, to watch the face he loved, and to feel that between her and him there was something which no one knew. When they spoke, there was a little constraint on both sides; but when they were silent, the bond was instantly renewed. In silence and in imagination, they were writing to each other the impressions of which they would not speak. Gianluca was telling her how grateful he was to her for insisting that Taquisara should stay, after all, and was pointing out to her that his friend was bravely bearing the burden of a conversation which kept his father and mother from prosing about the necessity of a companion for Veronica. Veronica was replying that Taquisara was more agreeable than she had expected, but that if he had been as silent as the Sphinx, or as noisy as Alexander the Coppersmith, she would have pressed him to stay because he was her friend's friend. There was a good deal about Taquisara in their imaginary correspondence. But both felt a little more constraint, when they talked, than they had ever felt before, for both knew that on the morrow, or on the next day, at the latest, they were sure to be alone together,--quite alone,--for the first time; and they wondered whether the curious duality of their acquaintance and intimacy by word and by letter could be maintained hereafter, or whether it would suddenly resolve itself into a unity in the shape of a friendship in which they should speak to each other as they wrote. They knew that something of the sort must happen. The Duca and his wife would certainly not stand sentry from morning till night over the young people, when they themselves so ardently desired the marriage; and Taquisara was not the man to be in the way when he was not wanted. It would be in Veronica's power to put off the meeting, if she chose to do so; but she knew, and Gianluca guessed, that she would not. Whatever society might say about it, she had assumed the position and the independence of a married woman, and had gone further than married women of her age would generally have the courage to go. To hesitate now, and to draw back from the possibility of being left alone with any one of her guests, would be absurd. She would not seek the interview, nor she would not do anything to avoid it. But she did not wish to be forced into the necessity of talking alone with Taquisara, if it could be helped. She was sure, though she had forgiven him, and liked him better than before, that she should certainly quarrel with him, though she did not know why there should be any further disagreement between them. Possibly she recognized in him a will less despotic than her own, but quite as unbending when he chose to exercise it. The certainty of strong opposition, which is fear in cowards, becomes combativeness in brave people, and the fighting instinct takes the place of the inclination to run away. But Veronica had no further reason for quarrelling with Taquisara; and because she liked him, she determined to avoid him as much as possible, lest at the very first point of difference in conversation there should be war between them about some insignificant matter perfectly indifferent to both. Her guests went to bed early. While Gianluca was before her, Veronica had not retained the impression she had received from Taquisara, that her friend was a doomed man. Her own vitality lent the sure certainty of life, in her imagination, to those about her. He was faint and tired from the journey, of course, but he was by no means the utterly helpless invalid she had expected to see, and she had not believed, so long as she could watch him, that he was in mortal danger. But when she was in her own room, his face came back to her, a pale shade out of dark shadow, and she saw the hollows about his deep blue eyes, his thin, bluish temples, his transparent features, and his emaciated throat, that seemed to have fallen away under his white ears. She was so suddenly and violently disturbed by the recollection that she spoke to Elettra of him. The woman had seen him go by when the party had arrived. "Do you think that Don Gianluca looks very ill?" Veronica asked. "Excellency--" the maid hesitated. "I wish that all may live--but he seems a dead man." Veronica said nothing, but it was long before she got to sleep that night, and the vision of his face came again and again to her, pale, haggard, haunting, distressing her exceedingly. She rose even earlier than usual. She did not mean that the presence of her guests should interfere with what had now become a connected work, to interrupt which would be an injury to the whole and an injustice to the people who had learned to expect it of her, looking for more, as she gave them more, and turning to her in every difficulty. But for the arrival of the party on the previous afternoon she would have gone down to an outlying farm in the valley, where the farmhouse needed repairs and there was a question of cutting down a number of olive trees so old that they hardly bore any fruit. She had ordered her mare at half-past seven in the morning, and she rode down the long, winding road, saw, judged, and gave orders, galloped most of the way up, and exchanged her riding-habit for her morning frock before the clock struck ten. One after another, her guests appeared, and everything happened as she had foreseen. The old couple said that they were accustomed to take a little walk before the midday meal, for the sake of their appetite; Taquisara disappeared when he had helped Gianluca to a big chair in a balcony, in the shade, outside the drawing-room, and Gianluca was left alone with her, as she had expected. She established herself opposite to him, for the balcony was so narrow that two chairs could not be placed upon it side by side. It was a magnificent summer's day, one of those days in which the whole glory of the south fills heaven and earth and air, and the stupendous tide of universal life pours into every sense, to very overflowing, as the ocean fills its world-wide bed. And the world was ripe and ripening, the corn and wheat, and olive and vine, and fruit and flower and tree, from the rich valley below, up the rough hills, as far as sun and soil and rain could draw the dress of beauty over the mountains' grand bare strength. Down there, in the vast garden, the hot air quivered with sheer living; above, the solemn peaks faced God in the still sun. The breath of the high breeze, between earth and heaven, blew upon Veronica's cheek. They looked at each other and sat silent, and looked again and smiled, both happy in those ever-written, never-spoken thoughts which were theirs together, both fearing speech as a common thing which must jar and shake them rudely back to their other selves, which were formal, and constrained, and not at all intimate. Gianluca lay quite still in his deep chair, his white hands motionless upon the edge of the grey shawl which was thrown over his knees. Suddenly, Veronica, sitting close and opposite to him, bent far forward and gently laid her hand upon one of his. She smiled. "I am glad that you are here," she said simply, looking into his face. His own brightened, and the blue eyes grew dark and tender, while her hand lingered a second. "How good you are to me!" he exclaimed, in a low voice. "How endlessly good!" She was still smiling as she withdrew her hand and leaned back in her chair once more. A little pause followed, during which both were quite happy, in different ways--he, perhaps, in all ways at once, and she, because she felt she had broken through something like a sheet of ice by a mere gesture and half a dozen words, when it had seemed so hard to do. "No," she said thoughtfully, at last. "It is not a question of goodness. I am natural--that is all. I do not believe that many people are. And we had got into an absurd position, you and I!" She laughed, looking at him. "We could write, but we could not speak. We each knew what the other was thinking of, and yet, somehow, neither of us could say what we thought. Was it not as I say?" "Yes." Gianluca laughed, too, very faintly because he was weak, though he was so happy. "It could not last," Veronica continued, "and I am glad it is over. For it is over, is it not? We can talk quite frankly now. Last night, for instance. I am sure I know what you were thinking about." "About Taquisara? At dinner?" "Of course. He is so much more agreeable than I expected, and I am so glad that I made him stay. And then, last night, too--did you see how your mother looked at the serving-woman, expecting to see the butler? It was so natural. It was just what I should have done in her place, and I could hardly keep from laughing." "My dear old mother is not used to such surprises," answered Gianluca. "Of course I saw it, and knew that you did." "Yes--but do you not think that I am quite right?" asked Veronica, her tone changing suddenly as she seemed to appeal to him for support--she, who needed so little from anybody. "Of course you are," he answered promptly. He felt unaccountably flattered and pleased by the mere fact of her asking him the question. He felt instinctively that she had never asked any one's opinion about her conduct, and that she really desired his approval. She, on her part, was perhaps glad to speak freely at last about the position she had assumed. If he had called her rash just then, she would not have answered him as she had answered Don Teodoro when he had used the same word. "You see," she said, "I am not like other women. I was brought up in a convent, like most of them, but the rest of my life has been quite different. Well--you know, if any one does. I used to write you all about what I meant to do while I was still living with Bianca, and you know that I have begun to carry out most of my ideas. Yesterday afternoon, while you were resting, your father and mother and I had tea together, and she found out for the first time that I had no companion. You should have seen her face! And then, when I tried to explain, she got the impression at once that I meant to live here in a sort of amateur convent, surrounded by women. I think she rather liked the idea. It seemed to settle her disturbed prejudices a little. Of course--it must seem stranger to people who all live in the same way as she does. Oh! how glad I am that we can talk about it, you and I!" Again she laughed happily. To Gianluca, as his eyes met hers, it seemed as though a great wave of the huge, exuberant life that filled the full-blossoming world that day had rolled up out of the broad valley to his feet and were lifting him and penetrating him and sweeping its hot tide through the ebb of his failing blood. "Yes," he answered her. "To be able to talk at last--at last, after so much waiting, that was only half talking." He sighed gently, and his hand stroked the grey shawl on his knees, smoothing it first in one way and then backwards in the other. She watched him, and thought that she had never seen a hand so thin. "We shall never go back to the old way, shall we?" he asked, before she spoke again. "I hope not!" she answered. "It was so absurd, sometimes. Do you remember at Bianca's house--" "The night before you left? When I forgot my stick?" "Yes; but before that. You seemed to think that there was to be no more writing because I was coming here." "Of course--that is, I supposed that it might make a difference--" "And then you asked me. You should have seen your face! I can remember it now. It changed all at once." "It is no wonder. You changed the whole future with one word. You seemed really to want my letters much more than I had imagined that you did." As by the quick lifting of a dividing veil, all the awkward little incidents and memories of constraint had suddenly become parts of the much larger and more pleasant recollection of their semi-secret intimacy, and in blending with the broader picture the little ones somehow ceased to have anything disagreeable in them, and instead, there was a touch of humour and a suggestion of laughter each time that they compared what they had said and done with what they had written and felt. It was no wonder that the fascination grew on Gianluca with every dancing beat of the happy man's pulse. They talked on, and in the way she talked Veronica showed that while her character had grown in three-quarters of a year from girlhood to womanhood, and from womanhood to the half-imperial masculinity of a dictatress, her heart was younger than the youngest, was as unsuspicious of itself as a child's, ready to give itself in an innocent generosity which could not conceive that giving might mean being taken, or be as like it as to deceive such a willing, love-sick man as poor Gianluca. She did not say that she loved him, she did not love him, she did not wish him to think that she could love him. Why should he think that she did? Surely, that he loved her, or thought so, could make no difference. She was so very young, under her armour of despotism, that she might almost have loved him, as she had all but loved Bosio, had there been anything to love. But there was not. Gianluca was a shadow, an unmaterial being, a thought--anything ethereal, but not a man. The dream-driven ghost of her dead betrothed was ten times more human and real than Gianluca was to her now, with his white angel's face and misty hands that seemed to hang weightless in the air before him when he moved them. There was more of living humanity in the fast fainting echo of Bosio's last words to her than in Gianluca's clear, sweet tones. If he should tell her that he loved her now, she should perhaps not even blush; for his whole being was sifted and refined and distilled, as the very spirit of star dust, in which there was nothing left of that sweet, earthly living, breathing, dying, loving flesh and blood without which love itself is but a scholar's word, and passion means but a vague, spiritual suffering, in which there is neither hope of joy to come nor memory of any past. Yet Gianluca breathed, and was a human man, and loved her, and he would have been strangely surprised had he suddenly seen into her heart and understood that she looked upon him as though he were a being out of another world. The moment when she had first laid her hand upon his had been the supremest of his life yet lived, and all the moments since had been as supremely happy. It was something which he had not dared to hope--to hear her speaking as though there had never been that veil between them, against which he had so often struggled, to feel her warm touch, to see the happy light in her young eyes as she sat there looking at him, to be sure at last, beyond the half assurance of uncertain written words. But he was wise, and he bridled back the words that most readily of all others would have come to his lips. Perhaps even in the midst of his new happiness, there was the unacknowledged fear of evil chance if he should speak too soon and put the beautiful gold to the touch while the magic transmutation was still so dazzlingly fresh. The present was so immeasurably better than the past, so near a perfection of its own, that he could wait in it a while before he opened wide his arms to take in the very whole of happiness itself, wherewith the beautiful future stood full laden before him. As they talked, they went over and over much that they had written to each other during the long months of their correspondence, and at last Veronica came back to the question she had at first asked him. "So you think that I am sensible in living as I do," she said. "I am glad. I value your opinion, you know." She had perhaps never said as much as that to any one. "You have made it what it is," he answered. "How do you mean?" she asked quickly. "You cannot do wrong," he replied, with his faint, far-off laugh. "If I had read in a book, of an imaginary person, all that you have written me of yourself, I should have said that most of it was absolutely impossible, or wildly rash, or foolishly unwise. You know how we are all brought up. We are nursed in the arms of tradition, we are fed on ideas of custom--we are taken to walk, as children, by incarnate prejudice for a nursery maid, and taught to see things that used to be, where modern things are. What can you expect? We have not much originality by the time we grow up." "Yes--you know that I was educated in a convent." "That is better than being educated at home by a priest." Gianluca smiled again. "Besides, you are different. That is why I say that if I have an opinion, you have made it for me. You are doing all those things which I could not have believed in a book, and they are turning out well. If society could see you here, it would not find it necessary to invent a duenna to chaperon you. But it is not everybody who could do what you have done, and succeed. I do not wonder that my mother is astonished, and my father, too. But at the same time, since you can do such things, it seems to me that you would have made a great mistake in doing anything else--as great a mistake as Julius Caesar would have made if he had chosen to remain a fashionable lawyer instead of mixing in politics, or Achilles, if he had taken a necklace or a bracelet and left the sword in Ulysses' basket. You would have found your mythical duenna a nuisance in real life." Veronica laughed. "At the end of the first week I should have locked her up in the dungeon tower, to get rid of her," she said. "I have no doubt that you would, and your people would have thought it the most natural thing in the world. You could do anything you pleased in this place, I fancy. They would not think it strange if you tried and condemned a cheating steward and had him executed in that gloomy courtyard we passed through when we came in yesterday." "The law might find fault with my vivacity," said Veronica. "But my people would say that I had done right if the man had really cheated them. It is quite true, I think. I could do almost anything here. I had a man locked up in the municipal prison the other day for forty-eight hours, because he was tipsy and swore at Don Teodoro in the street. Of course, it is nominally the syndic who does that sort of thing; but he belongs to me, like everything else here, and I do as I please, just as my grandfather did, when he really had power of life and death in Muro, including the privilege of torture. The first article mentioned in the old inventory was forty palms of stout rope for giving the cord, as they called it. They did it under the main gate,--that is why it came first,--and they used to pull them up to the vault and then drop them with a jerk to within two feet of the ground. The ring is still there, just inside the gate." "My mother's uncle--the old Marchese di Rionero--once hanged a ruffian for mutilating one of his horses out of spite. And they say that Italy has not progressed! There is no hanging, not even for murder, nowadays." "Yes," answered Veronica, thoughtfully, "we have progressed, in a way. That is our trouble--we have progressed too fast and improved too little, I think." "That sounds paradoxical." "Oh no! It is common sense, as I mean it. Progress costs money, improvement brings it. Progress means wearing clothes like other people, having splendid cities like other nations, keeping up armies and navies like other great powers. Improvement means helping poor people to earn more wages and to live better--giving them a possibility of happiness, instead of taking the little they have in order to give ourselves the appearance of greatness. That is why I say that in Italy we have too much progress and too little improvement." "Yes--how well you put it!" Gianluca looked at her with quick admiration. "Do I? It is because you understand easily. Should you call me patriotic? I think I am. I am an Italian before anything else, before being a Serra, a woman, a member of society--anything! I feel as though I should like to give my heart for my people and my life for our country, if it would do any good. Of course, if it really came to making any great sacrifice, I suppose my courage would shrivel up and I should behave just like any one else." "No--you would not," said Gianluca, gravely. "There have been women--the great Countess, and Saint Catherine of Siena--" "Yes!" Veronica laughed. "And there were also my good ancestors, who tore Italy to pieces, joined hands with German Emperors, upset Popes, seized everything they could lay hands upon, and turned the country into a sort of perpetual gladiator's show. That is a proud and promising inheritance for an aspiring patriot, is it not? The less you and I talk of patriotism, the better--seeing what our people have done in history to make patriotism necessary in our time." "Perhaps so. Doing is better than talking, and you have begun by doing good and trying to make people happy. You have succeeded in one case, already." She looked at him with a glance of inquiry. "What case?" she asked. "I mean myself--of course. You have made me perfectly happy to-day." "I am glad," she answered. "I wish you to be always happy." She spoke thoughtfully, gravely, and gently, and then turned from him a little, and looked through the iron railing of the balcony, down at the deep distance of the valley. She was wondering, and justly, whether during the past hour she had not made a mistake, very cruel to him, in breaking down all at once the barrier of excessive formality which hitherto had stood between them when they met. Words rose to her lips, which with the utmost gentleness should quickly undeceive him, if he had been deceived; but when she looked at him and saw his happy, appealing eyes and his transparent face, her courage was not ready. Perhaps he was dying, as she had been told. She turned again and watched the misty depths. "Don Gianluca--" she began, with a little hesitation. But as she spoke there was a footfall in the embrasure. "What were you going to say?" asked Gianluca, knowing from her tone that she had meant to speak of some grave matter. "Nothing!" she answered with a little sharpness. "Pray take my chair, Duchessa," she said, turning to the good lady, who had come slowly forward till she stood with her head just out in the air. "It is time for luncheon," she added, as she made the Duchessa sit down, nodded quickly to Gianluca, and went in. CHAPTER XXIII. The regularity of the existence at Muro pleased the old couple, and contributed in a measure to allay their perpetual anxiety about their son and to calm their uneasiness about the whole situation. They were both too wise and too courteous to press the question of marriage upon Veronica under the present circumstances, but they did not feel that they were led too far by their affection for Gianluca when they told each other, in the privacy of the Duchessa's dressing-room, that after what Veronica had now done she was bound, in common self-respect, to marry him. That he would recover from his illness, they never doubted; for, as has been said, the truth had been kept from them, in so far as the prognostications of doctors could be looked upon as worthy of belief. He had certainly been much better since they had brought him to Muro, and they secretly wished that they might all stay where they were until the autumn. On that first day, Veronica had been on the point of speaking very plainly to Gianluca, intending to tell him once again that he must not be deceived, that she should never marry him, and indeed had no intention of ever marrying at all. But she had been interrupted by the coming of the Duchessa; and, as she had not spoken at the first opportunity, she did not purposely create another at once. She was not skilful in such situations. When her directness came into conflict with her sense of delicacy, one or the other gave way; for in serious matters she instinctively hated complicated methods, and though she could be hard and perhaps unnecessarily cruel, yet she would at any time rather be over-kind than take refuge in the compromises of what most people call tact. The weaknesses of the strong are like the crevasses in a glacier; they have a general direction, but it is impossible to know certainly beforehand the precise depth or importance of any one of them, nor how far it may lead. The little strengths of weak people are like jagged rocks jutting up in shifting sands and changing tide, the more dangerous to the unwary because they are few and unexpected, and no one can tell where they lie, just below the surface. Many a brave enterprise has gone to pieces upon the stupid, unforeseen obstinacy of a despised weakling. Veronica, like other people, even the very strongest, had weak points, or moments when some points of her character were weak, which comes to the same thing in result. She dreaded to hurt Gianluca, and since the occasion had passed when she might have made everything clear, and would have done so, she found it hard to decide how to act. Taquisara had told her that the man was dying. If that were true, it could make no difference, whether he believed that she would marry him or not. The thought of his death was terribly painful, and she thrust it from her; for she was not heartless, and in the days that followed their conversation on the balcony, her affection grew to be as real and deep as it could possibly have been for a most dearly loved brother. For her, there had been none of those ties in which such affections live and grow and become parts of life itself. Fatherless, motherless, without brother, or sisters, the girl had grown up not knowing what she had to give, and giving scarcely anything at all of what was best in her. She was reticent and proud, and could never be attached to many people. Bianca had been her friend, in a way, but Bianca's life was mysterious to her, and Pietro Ghisleri had come between the two. And now, through many months, by the intimacy of correspondence which had suddenly turned to an intimacy of real converse in which she had not been disappointed, she had grown--for it was a true growth--to the power of a most devoted friendship, capable of great and lasting sacrifice. It was a friendship, too, that was, as it were, pre-sanctified by the rising shadow of near death, fore-hallowed by the sure suffering of its coming end. It would be hard indeed to cut from Gianluca's heart the one flower of his loving belief. But then, when she sat beside him on the balcony in the shady hours, and the great wave of life came up to her from the southern valley, she could not believe that he was really to die. And then, she hesitated, and she wished to do what was right and true by him, pain or no pain. Sometimes there was a little colour in his face, and often the deep blue light came into his beautiful eyes. He was to live, then, and she felt that she was cruel, and base, and cowardly to let his thoughts of her grow. Those were the good days. There were worse ones, when he lay like a dead angel before her, and only in his eyes there was a little life. Then more than once, she gave him the magic of her touch, laid one hand softly upon one of his, or smoothed his silk pillow and arranged the shawl about him. Perhaps she was wrong to do such things, just because she was so young; but when she did them he breathed freely again, and the faint false dawn of a new day that might never brighten rose in the alabaster cheeks. Once, Taquisara, standing on the great round bastion below, unnoticed by them both under the spreading vine, turned suddenly by chance and looked up through the leaves, and he saw how Veronica was bending forward towards his friend and touching one hand of his--for it was not far to see. Taquisara did not look again, but presently he went in, and there was less of unconcern in his handsome bronze face that day, and his dark eyes were harder and colder than they were wont to be. Veronica liked him, and forgot altogether the unpleasantness which there had been between them. He was as gentle as a woman with Gianluca. He seemed to be strong, too, for on the bad days when his friend could not walk at all, he carried him like a child from room to room. Veronica saw how necessary he was, and he knew it himself, for after his first protest he made no attempt to go away. Gianluca, naturally sensitive and abnormally impressionable, hated to be touched by servants, as some invalids do, and Taquisara's constant presence saved him much suffering, none the less acute because it was imaginary. At luncheon, at dinner, whenever the Duca and Duchessa were present, Taquisara did his best to help the conversation and always seemed cheerful, unconcerned, and hopeful for Gianluca's recovery. It was on rare occasions, when Veronica found herself alone with him for a few moments, or together with him and Don Teodoro, that the man appeared to her silent, morose, and sometimes almost ill-tempered. He did not again speak rudely in her presence, but she guessed that the unspoken thought was constantly in his mind--that, and something else which she could not understand. Daily, hourly perhaps, he was inwardly accusing her of playing with Gianluca, as he had expressed it. Strange to say, she began to care for his opinion and to wish that he could understand her better; and because he could not, she resented the opinion which she thought he held of her. When she was with him, she felt something which she did not recognize in herself--a desire to attack him, for no reason whatever, and at the same time a wish that he might like her better. Even in her childhood she had never cared very much whether people liked her or not. One day it rained,--for it was in August,--and from time to time the enormous thunder-storms rolled up out of the valley and crashed and split themselves upon the sharp peak above Muro, and rumbled away to northward up the pass, while the deluge of cold rain descended in their track. It was afternoon. The windows were all shut, the Duca and Duchessa had disappeared for their daily sleep, as they always did, and Veronica and Taquisara kept Gianluca company in one of the big rooms. He was better than usual, but Veronica found it hard to amuse him, and tried to imagine some diversion for the long hours. "Can you fence?" she asked suddenly, of Taquisara. "Of course--after a fashion," he answered, with a laugh of surprise at the question, which seemed absurd to him. "Will you fence with me?" "I? Oh--I remember hearing that you took fencing lessons at the Princess Corleone's. If it amuses you, of course I will." "I have all my things here," said Veronica. "There are any number of foils, and I got two men's jackets and masks, just in the hope that they might be wanted some day. I am very fond of it, you know. We can move the table away from the middle of the room--it will be something to do. It is dull, when it rains, and Don Gianluca can watch us and tell me when I make mistakes. It will amuse us all." "Gianluca could give us both lessons," said Taquisara. "He fences beautifully." "Ah--if I only could!" exclaimed Gianluca, in a tone that hurt Veronica. The invalid looked down at his long, thin legs and emaciated hands, and he tried to smile bravely. "You would rather not see us--we will not do it," said Veronica, gently, bending a little to see his face, as she stood near him. "Oh no! Please do!" he answered. "I have never seen a woman fence--I cannot imagine how you could. It would amuse me very much. Please send for the foils." The things were brought, the tables and chairs were moved away, Taquisara drew Gianluca's big easy-chair, with him in it, towards the window, and Veronica put on her leathern jacket and glove, and stood holding her mask in her hand, as she bent over the foils looking for her favourite one. She found it, and came forward, carrying both mask and foil, while Taquisara got ready. Gianluca looked at her and smiled. There was something defiant and warlike about the small, well-poised head, the aquiline features, and the bright eyes. With one foot a little in advance she stood up, straight and daring, in the middle of the room, waiting for her adversary. The grey light of the rainy afternoon gleamed coldly along the steel. Taquisara took the one of the two masks which fitted him the better, and picked out a foil. He did not think of putting on a jacket to fence with a woman. "No jacket?" asked Veronica, with a short laugh, as she slipped her mask over her head. He laughed, too, but said nothing, considering it as a matter of course, and stepping into position he stood before Veronica with lowered foil. She raised hers, saluted him, and then Gianluca, as though they were to fence a bout for a prize. Taquisara did the same. "Oh!" he exclaimed, in surprise, as both were about to fall into guard. "Are you left-handed?" "Yes--did you never notice it?" She laughed again, as her foil played upon his for a second. "Now then!" she cried. Taquisara was not an exceptionally good fencer, and had spent very little time in the study of the art. He was bold, quick, and somewhat reckless, and in two or three slight affairs in which, like most men of his society in the south, he had been unavoidably engaged, he had wounded his adversaries rather by surprise and indifference to his own safety, than by any superior skill. He had expected that Veronica would make a few conventional passes and parries, and grow tired of the sport in a few minutes. To his astonishment, he saw in a moment that she could really fence fairly well, while the fact of being left-handed gave her a great advantage, even against an otherwise superior adversary. He had of course intended and expected only to defend himself without ever really attacking, as men generally do when they fence with women. But he was mistaken in supposing that this was what Veronica wanted. She tried his wrist once or twice and played a little, feeling her way. Then there was a quick flash, a disengagement, a feint, a lunge that was like a man's, and as her long left arm shot out like lightning, her foil bent nearly double, with the button full on his breast. She stepped back, and he heard her short laugh again, followed by Gianluca's, and he laughed, too, somewhat disconcerted. "I took you by surprise," she said. "You had better put on a jacket--it is just as well." "Oh no--but you can really fence! I had no idea. I shall be more careful. Try again!" They engaged once more, and Taquisara was cautious. His defence did not compare with his attack, and he could not take the offensive in earnest. He parried her quick thrusts with some difficulty, and presently she touched him on the arm. "Why do you not attack me?" she asked impatiently. "You need not be afraid--I can defend myself pretty well." He did not altogether like to lunge as though he were fencing with a man, and his hesitation gave her a still greater advantage. She felt an unaccountable delight in attacking him furiously, and in her excitement she uttered sharp little cries when she touched him, as she did more than once. She felt that she had never fenced so well in her life, and she was glad that she should do better against him than against Bianca or her fencing-master. There was a strange delight in it. He, on his part, did his best at defence, but he could not bring himself to a real attack. He tried to disarm her, by sheer strength, but he failed utterly. Her wrist was more supple than the steel foil itself, and she was left-handed. It was rather wild play, but it was amusing to watch, and Gianluca looked on with delighted appreciation. She was so slight and graceful, and yet so quick and strong. As for Taquisara, he was glad when she drew back, took her mask from her face, and said that it was enough. "You ought to know that you can hardly ever disarm a left-handed person when you are engaged in carte," observed Gianluca, looking at Taquisara. Though he had never been in a quarrel in his life, he had been passionately fond of fencing, and in his real interest in what he had seen he did not even think of complimenting Veronica. She was keen enough to feel that his scientific remark was better than any flattery. Taquisara shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "Donna Veronica fences like a man," he said. "And I am not very good at it either. She would have killed me two or three times!" "You never really attacked me," she answered, flushed and happy. "By the by," she added, seeing that he was looking over the other foils, "one of those is sharp--the one with the green hilt--be careful not to take it by mistake if we fence again, for you might really kill me." "How did it come here?" he asked, taking up the one she indicated. "It was lying about at the Princess Corleone's. I took it by mistake, I suppose, with my things. I believe that Signor Ghisleri brought it to show her, one day. I think he said it had been used." She threw off her leathern jacket, and tossed the other things aside. "Let us fence a little every day," she said. "That is, if you will really fence, instead of playing with me." "I am certainly not able to play with you," he answered. "And I shall wear a jacket next time." "You are wonderful," said Gianluca, still watching her with admiration. The storm had passed, and the rain was over. Before long the Duca and Duchessa would appear for tea, and Taquisara said that he would go for a walk. Veronica rang and had the room set in order again, and sat down by Gianluca. The exercise had done her good, and she still felt that fierce little satisfaction at having fought with Taquisara. There was an unwonted colour in her cheeks, and her brown hair had been somewhat ruffled by the mask. Her hands were warm, and tingled, and she felt intensely alive. It had been pleasant, for once, to put out all her energy in something like a real struggle. Little by little her sensations wore off, and she was quite quiet again, but the recollection of them remained and made her wish to renew them every day. "You are wonderful," Gianluca repeated, when they had talked of other things for a while. "Taquisara is not a fencing-master, but he is as good as most men, and better than many. You gave him trouble, I could see. It was all he could do to defend himself against you, sometimes." "Did it amuse you to watch us?" asked Veronica. "Yes--of course!" "Then we will do it again, every day. I am glad of a little practice, and it will not hurt him either. A descendant of Tancred ought to fence better than that! I suppose that your mother would be horrified." "She might be a little surprised." "Shall we tell her?" "Not unless we are obliged to," answered Gianluca, with a smile. "We do not tell her everything." "No," said Veronica, acquiescing rather thoughtfully. Gianluca was in that state in which there is a delight in having little, harmless secrets from the world in common with one much loved, but not yet wholly won, and each small secrecy was to the bond that held him what the silver threads are to Damascus steel, welded into the whole that the blade may bend double without breaking. But to Veronica it was different; for she guessed instinctively how he looked upon such trifles, and she did not wish them to multiply unduly. Each one was a sting to her conscience. "I hate secrets," she said gravely, after a pause. "Let us tell her. It is much better." "As you like," answered Gianluca, with a little disappointment, which she did not fail to notice. "You think that she will be scandalized? And that we shall not fence any more? Why? I am sure, if she could see us, she would think it very proper. It is not improper, is it?" She asked the last question anxiously, as though in an after-thought. "Improper? No! How absurd! If everything that is unusual were to be considered improper, our writing to each other would be improper, too. But we kept it a secret, all the same. I cannot imagine talking about it. For me--everything that belongs to you is a secret." Veronica leaned back in her chair, and her face grew still more grave, but she did not answer. The struggle had begun again, and the hesitation. Should she tell him, once for all, that she really never could love him? Should she leave him the illusion he loved so well? Was he to die, or was he to live? The answer to each question seemed to lie in the query of the next. He spoke again before she broke the silence. "Do you not feel that--a little--not as I do, but just a little, about me?" he asked in a voice not timid, but very soft. "No," she answered sadly. "Not as you do. No; it is quite different." She did not look at him at once, for she was almost afraid to meet his eyes, but she heard him catch his breath, as though to strangle a sigh by main force, and his head moved on the cushion. She had begun to hurt him. "I thought you might," he said, faintly but steadily. "I almost thought you did." "No," she repeated, with ever-increasing gentleness. "No. Do not think that--please do not!" He said nothing, but again he moved his head. Then, seeing that the moment had come, and that she must face it with truth or lie to him while he lived, she turned her face bravely towards him, to tell him all her heart. "You are the only real friend I have in the world," she said. "But I can never love you--never, Gianluca--never. It is not in me. There is no one in the whole world for whom I care as I do for you. I cannot imagine anything that I could not do for your sake. But not love--not love. That is something else. I do not know what it means. You could make me understand anything but that. Oh--why must I say it, when it is so hard to say?" His face seemed cut, as a mask of pain, in alabaster, and the appealing, hungry eyes waited for each fresh hurt. "You made me think that you might love me," he said, the slow words hardly forming themselves on his dry lips. "Then God forgive me!" she cried, clasping her hands and bending her face over them. "And yet--and yet I knew it. I felt it. I meant to tell you, if you did not know! I only wished not to hurt you--it is so hard to say." "Yes," he answered, scarcely above his breath. "I see it is," he added, after a long time. As he lay in the deep chair, he turned his face from her, on the cushion, till she could not see his eyes, and then was quite still. It would have been easier if he had reproached her vehemently, if he had turned and tried to win her again, and poured out his heart full of love. But he lay there, like a dead angel, with his face turned from her, hardly breathing. "I have been cowardly, and base, and bad!" she cried, bending over her clasped hands, and speaking to herself. "I should have said it--I said it long ago, at Bianca's, and I should have said it again--but I was afraid--afraid--oh! afraid!" Her low voice trembled in anger against herself, in pity for him, in sorrow for them both. She looked up and saw him still motionless. It was as though she had killed him and were sitting beside his body. But he still lived, and might live. For one instant she felt a mad impulse to give him her life, to marry him, not loving him, to save him if she could, to atone for what she had done. But a horrible under-thought told her that it would be but gambling for her freedom with his existence, and that if she did it, she should do it because she felt that he must surely die. Even her simplicity seemed gone. She looked again; he had not moved. She threw herself upon her knees, beside his great chair, her clasped hands on his thin shoulder, in a sort of agony of despair. "Speak to me!" she cried. "Forgive me--say that I have not killed you--Gianluca--dear!" One shadowy hand of his was lifted, and touched hers. It was as cold as though it had lain dead in the dew. She took it quickly and held it fast. He did not turn his head. "It has been my life," he said, "my whole life." He did not try to draw away his hand, but let her hold it, if she would. There was still magic in her touch. "Forgive me!" she repeated more softly, and her cheek touched the arm of the chair. "Forgive me!" At last he turned his face very wearily and slowly on the brown silk cushion, and looked at her bent head. Instinctively she raised her hot eyes. "Forgive you?" He spoke very sorrowfully. "I love you. What is there to forgive? It is not your fault--" "It is--it is!" she cried, speaking into his sad eyes for forgiveness, with all her soul. "I shall die--but it is not your fault," he answered, and he sank back, for he had raised himself a little. "It is not your fault," he repeated. "Do not ask me to forgive you. Perhaps I should have lived longer--I do not know, for I only lived for you. No--I am quiet now. I can speak better than I could. You must not think that you have killed me, if I die. Men live through worse, but not men like me, perhaps. Something else is killing me slowly, but they will not tell me what it is. Never mind. It will do as well without a name, and if I get well, it needs none. After all, I am not dead yet, and while I am alive, I can love you. You have been all to me. If you had loved me, I should have had more than all the world, and that would have been too much. If I deceived myself, loving you as I did,--as I do,--it is not your fault, Veronica. It is not your fault. There was a time last year, when I would have done anything, given everything, life and all, for one of a thousand words you have written and said to me since then--when I would have committed crimes for the touch of this little hand. Do you see? It is all my fault. That is what I wanted you to understand." He had said all he could, and his breath came with an effort at the last. But his lips smiled bravely as he looked at her, still kneeling by his side. Then he seemed to realize that she should not be there. "Get up, dear," he said, with failing voice. "You must not kneel--some one might come--they would think--that you meant--something." His lids quivered and closed, and his lips trembled oddly. She felt his hand relax, and she thought that he was gone. Instantly she sprang to her feet beside him, and lifted his head, her face full of the horror that goes before the wave of pain for those one loves. But he had not even fainted. He opened his eyes, and smiled, and tried to speak again, but could not. Veronica's lips moved, too, as she stood there, supporting him a little with her arm and stiffened with terror for his life. But she could not speak either. She watched his face with most intense anxiety. Again and again, he opened his eyes, and saw her, and he felt her arm under him. "It is nothing," he said suddenly. "I was a little faint." She drew away her arm with a deep breath of relief, and he sighed when it was gone. But neither of them spoke. Veronica rang, and sent for his favourite wine, and he drank a little of it. Then she sat down beside him, where she had sat before, and the room was very still. It was hot, too, for no one had opened the window since it had stopped raining. Veronica rose and undid the fastenings and threw back the glass, and the cool air rushed in, laden with the sweet smell of the wet earth. As she came back, she saw that his eyes followed all her movements, gravely, as a sick child watches its nurse moving about its room. There was no reproach in their look, but they were still fixed on her, when she sat down again by his side. "Veronica," said the faint, far voice, presently. "May I ask you one question, that I have no right to ask?" "Anything," she answered. "And you have the right to ask anything." "No--not this. Do you love another man?" The still blue eyes widened, in earnestness. "No, Gianluca. No--by the truth of God--no living man!" "Nor one dead?" His tone sank almost to a whisper, and still his eyes were wide for her answer. A faint and tender light came into her face, so faint, so far reflected from an infinite somewhere, that only such eyes as his could have seen it. "There was Bosio," she said softly. "He spoke to me the night he died--I could have married him--I should have loved him--perhaps." If the little phrases were broken, it was not by hesitation; it seemed rather as though what they meant must find each memory to have meaning, one by one, and word by word--and finding, wondered at what had once been true. And Gianluca smiled, as he lay still, and the lids of his eyes closed peacefully and naturally, opening again with another look. He was too weak to be surprised by what he had only vaguely guessed, from some word she had let fall, but he knew well enough, from her voice and face, that she had never loved Bosio Macomer, nor any other man, dead or living. And Hope, that is ever last to leave a breaking heart, nestled back into her own sweet place, breathing soft things of love, and life, and golden years to be. "Thank you," he said. "I should not have asked you. It was kind to answer." They did not speak again, and presently the door opened. The old Duca held it back with a stately bow, and the Duchessa swept into the room with that sort of uncertain swaying motion, which is all that weakness leaves of grace. And the Duca shuffled in after her, and closed the door most precisely, for he was a precise old man. "I thought it was time for tea, my dear," said the Duchessa. "We have had such a good sleep!" CHAPTER XXIV. Though Gianluca had seemed to gain strength during the first week of his stay at Muro, he appeared to lose it even more rapidly after that memorable afternoon. It was not that he lost heart and control of courage; on the contrary, he spoke all at once more hopefully, and grew most particular in the carrying out of each detail of the day, precisely in the manner prescribed by the doctors. He forced himself to eat, he did his best to sleep a certain number of hours, he made Taquisara carry him out into the air and back again at fixed times, in order that the extreme regularity of his life might help his recovery if possible. But all this was of no use. It had seemed inconceivable that he should grow more thin, and yet his face and throat and hands shrunk day by day. He could not use his legs at all, now, and he told no one that he had hardly any sensation in them. The Duchessa prayed for her son, always in her own room and sometimes in the church, whither she went often alone in the afternoon, and sometimes accompanied by her husband. She even curtailed her daily siesta in order to have more time for prayer. No doubt, she would have given anything in the world for Gianluca, but she had very little else to give, beyond that sacrifice, which did not seem small or laughable to her. The Duca said little, but often shook his head, unexpectedly, and his weak eyes were watery. He sometimes walked twenty-five times round the top of the big lower bastion, under the vines that grew upon the trellis over it, before the midday breakfast, while the Duchessa was at her devotions. At every round, when he came to the point fronting the valley he paused a moment and repeated very much the same words each time. "My poor son! My poor Gianluca!" he said, and then shuffled round the bastion again. Taquisara scarcely left the sick man's side except when Gianluca could be alone with Veronica. He was evidently very anxious, though his face betrayed little of what he felt. He knew it, and was glad that nature had given him that bronze-like colour, which could hardly change at all. When the whole party were together, he talked; he talked when he was alone with Gianluca; but when he was with Gianluca and Veronica he spoke in monosyllables. Once she noticed that he was biting his lip nervously, just as he turned away his face. Though Gianluca was worse, without doubt, he insisted that there should be no change in his way of spending the day. To amuse him, Veronica and Taquisara fenced a little of an afternoon. But the Sicilian had no heart in it, and evidently did not care whether Veronica touched him or not, and his indifference annoyed her, so that she sometimes worked herself into little furies of attack, and he, rather than really attack her in return and oppose his strength, broke ground and let himself be driven back across the room. "Some day I shall take the foil with the green hilt," laughed Veronica. "Then you will really take the trouble to fight me." The foil with the green hilt was the sharp one which had got among the others by mistake. Taquisara smiled indifferently. "My life is at your service," he said, in a tone that seemed a little sarcastic. "Keep it for those who need it," she answered, laughing again, and glancing at Gianluca. Her tone was a little scornful, too, and Gianluca watched them both with some surprise. Almost any one would have thought that they disliked each other, but such a possibility had never struck him before. He would have admitted that Veronica might not like Taquisara, but that any one in the world should not like Veronica was beyond his comprehension. He spoke to his friend about it when they were alone. "What is the matter between you and Donna Veronica?" he asked that evening, before dinner. "Nothing," answered Taquisara, stopping in his walk. "What do you mean." "I think you dislike her," said Gianluca. "I?" The Sicilian's strong voice rang in the room. "No," he added quietly, and recovering instantly from his astonishment. "I do not dislike her. What makes you think that I do?" "Little things. You seem so silent and out of temper when she is in the room. To-day when she was laughing about the pointed foil you answered her sarcastically. Many little things make me think that you do not like her." "You are mistaken," said Taquisara, gravely. "I like Donna Veronica very much. Indeed, I always did, ever since I first saw her. I am sorry that my manner should have given you a wrong impression. I always feel that I am in the way when I am with you two." "You are never in the way," answered Gianluca. After that, Taquisara was very careful, but more than ever he did his best not to remain as a third when the Duca and Duchessa were away, and Veronica and Gianluca could be together. The fencing alone was inevitable, and he hated it, though he went through it with a good grace almost every day, since Veronica seemed so unreasonably fond of the exercise. She and Gianluca did not refer to what had happened, and to what had been said, when she had told him the truth. She, on her part, felt that she had done right, and that it was the sort of right which need not be done again. But he, poor man, was not so wholly undeceived as she thought him to be. Since she loved no one else, he could still hope that she might love him. Yet he felt his life slipping from him, and he made desperate efforts to get well, insisting upon every detail of his invalid existence as though each several minute of the day had a healing virtue which he must not lose. He was sure that his chance of winning the woman he loved lay in living to win her, and he grappled his soul to his frail body with every thrill of energy that his dying nerve had left, with all the tense moral grip that love and despair can give. And yet it seemed hopeless, for his strength sank daily. At last he could not even sit up at table, and remained lying in his low chair, while the others ate their meals hastily in order not to leave him long alone. The doctor came, a clever young man, whom Veronica had procured for the good of the village. He shook his head, though he tried to speak cheerfully to Gianluca's father and mother. But he advised them to send for the great authority whom they had consulted in Naples, and under whom he himself had studied. Veronica spoke with him in an outer room. "I fear that he cannot live, but I am not infallible," he said. "How long will he live, if he is going to die?" asked Veronica, pale and quiet. "Do not ask me--it is guess-work," answered the young doctor. "I think he may live a fortnight. He is practically paralyzed from his waist downwards--it is almost complete. What he eats does not nourish him." "What has caused this?" The doctor shrugged his shoulders, smiled faintly, and made a gesture which in the south signifies the inevitable. "It is a decayed race," he said; "a family too old--there is no more blood in them--what shall I say?" "I do not believe that has anything to do with it," replied Veronica, rather proudly. "The Serra are as old as they. Did you see that gentleman who is Don Gianluca's friend? He is descended from Tancred." "It is other blood," said the doctor. He went away, and the great physician who lived in Naples was sent for at once. A carriage went down to Eboli to meet him. He came, looked, asked questions, and shook his head, very much as his pupil had done. He stayed a night, and when it was late, Veronica and Taquisara were alone with him. He was a fat man, with enormous shoulders and very short legs, and a round face and dreamy eyes set too low for proportion of feature. Taquisara thought that he was like a turtle standing on its hind flippers, preternaturally endowed with a hemispherical black stomach, and a large watch chain; but the idea did not seem comic to him, for he was in no humour to be amused at anything. The professor--for he was one--talked long and learnedly, using a number of Latin words with edifying terminations. In spite of this, however, he was not without common sense. "I have known people to recover when they seemed to have no chance at all," he said. "But you do not expect him to live?" asked Taquisara, pressing him. "It is a desperate case," answered the physician. Being very fat, and having travelled all day, he went to bed. Veronica remained alone in the drawing-room with Taquisara. The latter slowly walked up and down between two opposite doors. Veronica kept her seat, her head bent, listening to his regular footsteps. "Donna Veronica--" he stopped. "Yes," she answered, not looking up, but starting slightly at the sound of his voice. "What do you wish to say?" "You know that I have not always been fortunate in what I have said to you, and that makes me hesitate to speak now. But it seems to me that, as Gianluca is really in the care of us two--" "Well?" Still she did not turn to him, though he paused awkwardly, and began to walk again. "Gianluca asked me the other day whether I disliked you," he said. "Well? Do you?" Her tone was unnaturally cold, even to her own ears. He stood still on the other side of the table, looking towards her. "No," he said, as though he were making an effort. "If he asked me the question, it must be that I have behaved rudely to you before him. Have I?" "I have not noticed it," answered Veronica, as coldly as before. "It would certainly not have been intentional, if there had been anything to notice. If I speak of it now, it is because Gianluca spoke to me, and because, if we are to talk about him, the way must be clear. You say that it is? May I go on?" Veronica did not answer at once. Then she rose slowly, turned, and stood before the low, long chimneypiece. "Why should we talk about him at all?" she asked, at length determining what to say. "We shall not agree, and we can only repeat what we have both said before now. It can be of no use." "I have something more to say," replied Taquisara. "Yes. There may be more to be said, that may be better not said. I know what it is. You once accused me of playing with him. You said it rudely and roughly, but I have forgiven you for saying it. You would have more reason for saying it now than you had then, and I should be less angry. You have a better right to speak, and I have less right to defend myself. But I will speak for you. I am not afraid." "No. That is the last thing any one could say of you!" "Or of you, perhaps," she said, more kindly, and it was the first word of appreciation she had ever given him. "We are neither of us cowards. That is why I am willing to tell you what I think of myself. It is almost what you think of me--that I have done a thousand things which might make Don Gianluca, and his father and mother, too, believe that if he recovers I mean to marry him. But you think me a heartless woman. I am not. There are things which you neither know, nor could understand if you knew them. I will ask you only one question. Is there any imaginable reason why I should wish to hurt him?" "None that I can guess," answered Taquisara, looking into her eyes. "Then you must understand what I have done. Out of too much friendship I have made a great mistake. What you can never understand, I suppose, is, that I can feel for him what you do--just that, and no more--or more of that, perhaps, and nothing else. A woman can be a man's friend, as well as a man can. I never played with him--as you call it--though you have enough right to say it. I told him from the first that I could never marry him. I told him so again on the day when we had first fenced, and you went to walk after the rain." "That is why he has been worse, since then. It began that very evening." "Yes. I know it. Do you think I do not reproach myself for having gone so far that I had to speak? Indeed, indeed, I do, more than you know. But what am I to do? He cannot go away, ill as he is. I cannot leave you all here. And then, I would not leave him, if I could. He is more to me than I can ever tell you--I would give my right hand for his life. Would you have me marry him, knowing that I can never love him? Is that what you would have me do?" Taquisara was silent for a moment, looking earnestly at her, and he bit his lip a little. "Yes," he said. "That is what you should do. It is all you can do, to try and save his life." The moment he had spoken he turned from her and began to walk up and down again. "Do you know what you are asking?" Veronica followed him with her eyes. "It is a sacrifice," he said, pursuing his walk and not glancing at her. "It is to give your life for his. I know it. But you can hardly give him more than he has given you--or you have taken from him. Yes--I know what the doctors say, that it is a disease which is known and understood. No doubt it is. But diseases of that sort may remain latent for a lifetime, unless something determines them. Until they have gone too far, they may be overcome. If he had not lived for weeks in a state of nervous tension that would almost make a strong man ill, he would not be in such a condition now. If he had never known you, he might have been as well as he ever was--he might have been well for twenty or thirty years, before it attacked him. It is not all your fault, but a part of it is. Take your friendship, and your mistakes, together--your wish that he may live, and your responsibility if he dies--two motives are better than one, when the one is not strong enough. You have two, and good ones. Marry him, Donna Veronica--marry him and save his life, if you can, and your own remorse if he dies. Let me go to him now--he is not asleep--let me tell him that you have changed your mind, or made up your mind--that you love him, after all--" "Please do not go on," said Veronica, drawing back a little, till she leaned against the mantelpiece. He had placed himself in front of her before he had finished speaking. He was excited, vehement, and not eloquent--like a man driven to bay by a crowd to argue a question in which he had no conviction, but which concerns his life. He stopped speaking when she interrupted him, and he seemed to be waiting for her to say more. She had drawn herself up a little proudly, with her head high. "You hurt me," she said, breaking the silence, and hardly knowing why she said the words. "Do you think it costs me nothing?" he asked, in a low voice. His eyes burned strangely in the lamp-light. But he turned away quickly, to resume his walk. She could not help asking him a question. "Why should it cost you anything? You are speaking for your friend--but I--" She did not finish the sentence, for it seemed to her selfish to throw her right to happiness into the scale against Gianluca's life. But she could not understand him. "It is hard to do, for all that," he answered indistinctly. "I have said too much," he continued, stopping before her. "I meant to do the best I could. Perhaps I should have said nothing. This is no time to stop at trifles. The man is dying, and I have a right to say that I believe you might save his life--and a right to beg you to try. You have the right to refuse, to question, to doubt--all rights that are a woman's in such a case. As for me--there is no question of me in all this. Since I must be here for him, since I have displeased you from the first, since you do not like me, look upon me as a necessary evil, do not consider my existence, think of me as a man who loves your best friend and is giving all he has--to save him." "All you have," repeated Veronica, thoughtfully, but without a question. "Yes!" he exclaimed. The single word was spoken with a sort of passion, as though it meant much to him. She liked him better now than when he walked up and down, giving her incoherent advice. Whatever he might mean, it was something which had power to move him. "You are mistaken," she said. "I like you very much." "You--Princess!" His surprise was genuine. "You have not made me think so," he added in a tone of wonder. "Nor have you made me think that you liked me," she answered. "Gianluca thought I did not," said Taquisara, slowly, as though speaking to himself. Veronica smiled. "When I first knew you, when we talked together at the villa on that morning before Christmas, I liked you better than him," she said. He started sharply. "Please--" He checked himself almost before the one word had escaped his lips. "Please--what?" she asked, naturally enough. "Nothing." His face quickened as he walked again, and she watched him curiously. "As friends of one friend, we must be friends," she said, after a pause. "We have spoken frankly to-night, both of us. It is much better. With his life between us we can say things, perhaps, which neither of us would have said before. You are doing all you can. You ask me to do more than I can--I think. As for his life--let us not talk of what may happen. I think of it enough, as it is." She turned as she spoke the last words, for she did not trust her face. But he heard the true note of sorrow in her tone. "Is it possible that you do not love him a little?" he asked, in a low voice. "It is true," she answered mechanically, as though hearing him in a dream. "I could never love him." Then, all at once she straightened herself and left the chimneypiece. "We must not talk of these things any more," she said. "Good night. We understand each other, do we not?" She held out her hand to him, which she very rarely did. He took it quietly. "I understand you--yes," he said. She looked at him a moment longer, smiled faintly, and then left the room. After she was gone, he sat down in the chair she had occupied, crossed one knee over the other, folded his hands, and stared at the carpet. He sat there for a long time, motionless, as though absorbed in the study of a difficult problem. But his expression did not change, and he did not speak aloud to himself as some men do when they are alone and in great trouble, as he was then. He was not a man of theatrical instincts, nor, indeed, of any great imagination. Least of all was he given to anything like self-examination, or arguing with his conscience. He was exceedingly simple in nature. He either loved or hated, either respected or was indifferent or despised altogether, with no half-measures nor compromises. Just then he was merely revolving the situation in his mind, and trying to see some way of escaping from it, without abandoning his friend. But no way occurred to him which did not look cowardly, and when he rose from his seat, he had made up his mind to face his troubles as well as he could, since he could not avoid them. He went to Gianluca's room before he went to bed. A small light burned behind a shade in a corner, and at first he could barely see the white face on the white pillow. The sick man lay sound asleep, breathing almost inaudibly, one light hand lying upon the coverlet, the other hidden. Gradually, as Taquisara looked, his eyes became accustomed to the light, and he gazed earnestly at his sleeping friend. He saw the dark rings come out beneath the drooping lids, and the paleness of the parted lips, and the terrible emaciation of the thin hand. But there was life still, and hope. Hope that the man might still live and stand among men, hope that he might yet marry Veronica Serra--and be happy. In the half-darkness, Taquisara set his teeth, biting hard, as though he would have bitten through iron, lest a sharp breath should escape him and disturb the sleeper's rest. That frail thing, that ghost, that airy remnant of a man, lay there, alive in name, between Taquisara and the mere right to think of his own happiness; and next to the reality of the shadow of his dream, he loved best on earth this shadow of reality that would not die. For he loved Veronica with all his heart, and after her, Gianluca della Spina. Above both stood honour. He knew that he was loyal and true as he stood there, and that there was not in the inmost inward heart of him a mean, double-faced wish that his friend might die there, peacefully, and leave to the winning of the strong what the weak had wooed in vain. He had spoken the truth when he had said that for his friend's life he was giving all he had, when he did his best to persuade Veronica that she must marry the dying man, in the bare hope of saving him while there was yet time. He had done his best, though it was no wonder that there was no conviction, but only vehemence, in his tone. It had been different on that day, now long ago, when he had first spoken for Gianluca in the garden. He had not loved her then. She had been no more to him than any other woman. But even on that day, when he had left her, he had half guessed that he might love her if opportunity gave possibility the right of way. He had guessed it, and even to guess it was to fear it, for Gianluca's sake. He was not quixotic. Had he been first, death or life, he would not have given another room at her side, had that or that man been twenty times his friend or his brother. Even if it had been a little otherwise, if Gianluca had not confided in him from the beginning, and had stood out as any other suitor for her hand, Taquisara, as he loved her now, would hardly have drawn back because his friend had been before him. But Gianluca had come to him, told him all; asked his advice, taken his help--all that, when Veronica had still been nothing to Taquisara--less than nothing, in a way, because she was such a great heiress, and he would have hesitated before asking for her hand, being but a poor Sicilian gentleman of good repute, few acres, and old blood. He was loyal to the core of his sound soul. Whatever became of him, Gianluca was to be first in his actions, wherever Veronica might stand in his heart, and he had the strength to do all that he meant to do. He would do it. He knew that he should do it, and he was glad, for his honour, that he could do it. He had avoided all meetings, as much as possible, from the first, going rarely to Bianca's house, and then not talking with Veronica when he could help it. For each time that he saw her, he felt that soft mystery of attraction in which great passion begins; that something which touches and draws gently on, and presses and draws again more gently, yet with stronger power, growing great on nothings by day and night, till it drives the senses slowly mad, and overtops the soul, and pricks, then goads, then drives--then, at the last, tears men up like straws in its enormous arms, rising on sudden wings to outstrip wind and whirlwind in the wild race that ends in death or blinding joy, or reckless ruin of honour, worse than any death. He had felt the growing danger at every one of their few meetings, and, being simple, he mistrusted himself to be what other men were. But in that, he was not like the many. He was not of the kind and temper to break down in loyalty, and he could still bear much more. Under strong pressure, he had come with Gianluca to the gates of Muro, and he had done his best to get away at once. Fate had been against him. He was still strong, and could face fate alone. He did not pine, and waste bodily, as Gianluca had done. But he turned his eyes away when he could, and spent his hours out of danger when he might, waiting for the moment when he should be free to go and live his own life alone, husbanding the strength which was not lacking in him, setting his teeth hard to bear the pain,--a simple, brave, and loyal man, caught in fate's grip, but silently unyielding to the last. It was his nature, to suffer without complaint, when he must suffer at all. No one can tell whether those feel pain most who show least what they feel. The measure of pain is always man, and no man can really be measured except by himself. We often believe that they who utter no cry are the most badly hurt, perhaps because silence has suggestion in it, and noise has none. No one knows the truth. No one has stood in the fire that scorches his brother's soul, to tell us which can suffer the more. Taquisara lay long awake that night, and every word that had passed between Veronica and him came back to his thoughts. More than once he rose and, crossing the intermediate room, went to Gianluca's side. Once the latter was awake, still half dreaming, and looked up wonderingly into his friend's eyes. He scarcely knew that he spoke, as his lips moved. "I am going to die," he said, in a far-off tone. Taquisara bent over him quickly, trying to smile. "Nonsense--no--no!" he said cheerfully. "You have been dreaming--you are better." "Yes--I am dreaming--let me sleep," answered the sick man, hardly articulating the words. And in a moment, he was asleep again. Taquisara listened to his breathing, bending down a moment longer. Then he went softly away. He himself slept a little, but it seemed long before the morning broke. When it was broad daylight, Gianluca seemed better, for the deep sleep had refreshed him. It was still very early, when the professor appeared and paid him a long visit, asking a few questions at first and then suddenly, beginning to talk of politics and the public news. Taquisara left the room with him, and they stood together in Gianluca's sitting-room. "He is better, is he not?" asked the Sicilian, eagerly. To his surprise the doctor shook his head and was silent a long time. "I know nothing," he said, at last. "Nobody knows anything. Surgery is a fine art, but medicine is witchcraft, or little better. You see, I speak frankly. I can only give you my experience, and that may be worth something. I have seen two cases of this kind in which, when the change came, the patients partially recovered, and lived for several years, paralyzed downwards from the point in the spine where the disease begins. I have seen several cases where death has resulted rather suddenly." "And do you see a change coming?" "Yes. It has begun already. Is he a devout man?" "A religious man, at all events," answered Taquisara, gravely. "Then, if he wishes to see a priest, it would be as well to send for one this morning. But if he wishes to be moved as usual, and dressed, let him have his way. Do not frighten him, if you can help it. No moral shock can do any good. I leave it to you. It is of no use to tell his father and mother. They are here, and you will see if he is worse. I suppose you know that he suffers great pain when he is moved?" "No!" said Taquisara, anxiously. "I did not know it. I sometimes hear him draw his breath sharply once or twice--but he never complains. I thought it hurt him a little." "It is agony," said the doctor. "He must be a very brave man." The professor seemed much impressed by what Taquisara had said. CHAPTER XXV. Taquisara went immediately to find Don Teodoro, who was generally at home at that hour, in his little house just opposite the castle gate. He found him with his silver spectacles pushed up to the top of his head, his long nose buried in a musty volume, a cup of untasted coffee at his elbow, absorbed in study. The small room was filled with books, old and new, and smelt of them. As Taquisara entered, the old priest looked up, screwing his lids together in the attempt to recognize his visitor without using his spectacles. He took him for the syndic of Muro, a respectable countryman of fifty years, come to consult with him about some public matters. "Be seated," he said. "If you will pardon me, for a moment--I was just--" In an instant his nose almost touched the page again, and he did not complete the sentence, before he was lost in study once more. Taquisara sat down upon the only chair there was and waited a few moments, not realizing that he had not been recognized. But the priest forgot his existence immediately and if not disturbed would probably have gone on reading till noon. "Don Teodoro!" said Taquisara, rousing him. "Pray excuse me--" The old man looked up suddenly, with an exclamation of surprise. "Dear me!" he cried. "Are you there, Baron? I beg your pardon. I think I took you for some one else." He drew his spectacles down to the level of his eyes, and let the big book fall back upon the table. "Our friend is very ill," said Taquisara, gravely. "That is why I have come to disturb you." He told the priest what the doctor had said about Gianluca's condition. Don Teodoro listened with an expression of concern and anxiety, for he had become fond of the sick man during the past weeks, and Gianluca liked him, too. Almost every day they talked together, and the refined taste and sincere love of literature of the younger man delighted in the profound learning of the old student, while the latter found a rare pleasure in speaking of his favourite occupations to such an appreciative listener. "The fact is," Taquisara concluded, "though I have not much faith in doctors, I really believe that he may die at any moment. You know what kind of man he is. Go and sit with him after luncheon to-day--or before--the sooner, the better. Do not frighten him--do not tell him that I have spoken to you about his condition. I believe that he knows it himself, and if he is alone with you for some time, and you speak of the uncertainty of life, as a priest can, he will probably himself propose to make his confession. You understand those things, Don Teodoro--it is your business. It is our business to give you a chance." "Yes--yes," answered the old man. "I daresay you are right. I suppose that is what I should do." There was a reluctance in his voice which surprised Taquisara. "You do not seem convinced," said the latter. "I wish there were another priest here," replied Don Teodoro, thoughtfully, and his clear eyes looked away, avoiding the other's direct glance. "Why?" inquired the Sicilian, with increasing astonishment. "It is a painful office to perform for a friend." The curate looked down now, and fingered the corner of his old book, in evident hesitation. "It is quite another thing to assist the poor." "I do not understand you," said Taquisara. "I suppose that priests have especial sensibilities of their own--" "Sometimes--sometimes," interrupted Don Teodoro, as though speaking to himself. "Yes--I have especial sensibilities." "It cannot be helped," answered Taquisara, in a tone that had something of authority in it. "Of course we laymen do not appreciate those nice questions. A man is dying. He wants a priest. It is your place to go to him, whether he is your own father, or a swineherd. You are alone here, and you have no choice." "Yes, I am alone. I wish I were not. I wish that the princess would get me an assistant." "It will be best if you come to the castle in about an hour," said Taquisara, paying no attention to Don Teodoro's last remark. "By that time Gianluca will be in his sitting-room, and I shall be with him. The Duca and Duchessa will be out for their walk, for the weather is cool and fine, and they do not know of his imminent danger. Come in without warning, as though you had just come to pay him a visit of a quarter of an hour. You have done the same thing before. I will go away after five minutes and leave you together. Donna Veronica will not interrupt you." "Very well," replied the priest, in a tone that was still reluctant. "If it must be, it must be." Taquisara looked at him curiously and went away to arrange matters as he proposed. But Don Teodoro, though he wore his spectacles, with the help of which he really could see very well, did not notice the young man's glance of curiosity, as he went with him to the door, and carefully fastened it after him, which was an unusual proceeding on his part; for though he lived quite alone, the poor people never found that door locked by day or night. An old woman came every day to do the little household work that was necessary, and to cook something for him, when he ate at home. But to-day, for once, he drew the rusty old bolt across, before he went back to his study. He did nothing which could seem to have justified the precaution, after he had sat down again in his big wooden easy-chair; and if the door had been wide open, and if any one had come in without warning, the visitor would have found the priest before the table, slowly lifting one long, bent shank of his silver spectacles and letting it fall upon the other, in a slow and absent-minded fashion to which no one could have attached any especial importance. People who have kept a secret very long and well, keep it when they are alone, even when it turns its bones in the narrow grave of their hearts, reminding them that it is there and would be glad to see if it could get a vampire's dead life for a night, and come out, and draw blood. Taquisara went away and re-entered the castle, walking more slowly than was his wont. In the narrow court within, he stopped before passing through the door, and stood a long time staring at a fragment of a marble tablet with a part of a Roman inscription cut on it, which was built into the enormous masonry of the main wall and had remained white while the surrounding blocks had grown black with age. There was no more apparent reason why he should try to make out the meaning of the inscription, than why Don Teodoro should play so long with his glasses, all alone in his room. But Taquisara was not thinking of Don Teodoro. He had a secret of his own to keep from everybody, and if possible from himself. But that was not easy. The thing which had taken hold of him was as strong as he was and seemed to be watching him, grip for grip, hold for hold, wrench for wrench. It had not beaten him yet, but he knew that to yield a hair's breadth would mean a fall, and a bad one. He had almost relaxed his strength that little, last night, when he had been alone with Veronica. He read the letters of the inscription over twenty times, then turned sharply on his heel and went in, having probably convinced himself that to waste time over his own thoughts was the worst waste imaginable, since the more he thought of anything, the more he loved Veronica. And he had set himself to arrange the meeting between Gianluca and Don Teodoro, and each hour was precious. His face helped him, for he did not easily betray emotion; he rarely changed colour at all, and was not a man of mobile features. But he had grown thinner since he had been in Muro, and the clearly cut curves that marked the Saracen strain in him were sharper and more defined. He went in and met Veronica in the large room in which they usually fenced, and which lay between what was really the drawing-room and the apartment set aside for Gianluca and Taquisara. She was standing alone beside the table, her face very white, and as she turned to Taquisara, he saw something desperate in her eyes. "I have seen the doctor again," she said, not waiting for any greeting, and knowing that he would understand. "And I have seen the priest," answered Taquisara. She started, and pressed her lips tightly to suppress something. Her eyes wandered slowly and then came back to the Sicilian before she spoke. "You have done right," she said, and then paused a second. "He is going to die to-day," she added, very low. "That is not sure," replied Taquisara. "The doctor says that he has known cases--" "No," interrupted Veronica. "I know it--I feel it." She was resting one hand on the heavy table, and as she spoke she bent down, as though bowed in bodily pain. Taquisara saw the sharp lines in the smooth young forehead, and his teeth bit hard on one another as he watched her. He could not speak. With a quick-drawn breath she straightened herself suddenly and looked at him again. He thought he saw the very slightest moisture, not in her eyes, but on the lower lids and just below them. It was very hard to shed tears, and not like her. "Hope!" he said gently. During what seemed a long time they stood looking at each other with unchanging faces, and neither spoke. Some people know that dead silence which descends while fate's great hand is working in the dark, and men hold their breath and shut their eyes, listening speechless for the dull footfall of near destiny. At last Veronica, without a word, turned from the table and went slowly towards a door. Taquisara did not move. When her hand was on the lock, she turned her head. "Stand by me, whatever I do to-day," she said earnestly. "Yes. I will." He did not find any eloquent words nor oaths of protest, but she saw his face and believed him. She bent her head once, as though acknowledging his promise, and she went out quietly, closing the door behind her. Some minutes passed before Taquisara also left the room in the other direction. He wondered why she had said those last words, for he had seen again that desperate look in her face and did not understand it. Perhaps she meant to marry Gianluca before he died, and at the thought Taquisara felt as though a strong man had struck him a heavy blow just on his heart, and for one instant he steadied himself by the table and swallowed hard, as though the breath were out of him. It did not last a moment. Then he, too, went out, to go to his friend. Gianluca was gentle, quiet, almost cheerful, on that morning. He had evidently forgotten that he had opened his eyes and seen Taquisara standing by his bedside in the night, nor would he have thought anything of so common an occurrence had it come back to his recollection. He certainly did not remember having spoken of dying. But he was very weak, and his face was deadly pale, rather than transparent, as it usually seemed. Taquisara had thought of what the doctor had said about his sufferings, and hesitated before lifting him to carry him to the next room. "Tell me," he said, "does it hurt you very much when I take you up?" "It hurts," answered Gianluca, with a smile. "Hurting is relative, you know. I can bear it very well. There are things that hurt more." "What? When you try to move alone?" "Oh no! Imaginary things. You hurt me very little--you are so careful. What should I have done without you?" Taquisara had never touched him so tenderly before, though he was always as gentle as a woman with him. He lifted him, carried him from his bedroom and laid him in his accustomed chair. The pale head rested with a sigh upon the brown silk cushion. "Thank you," he said faintly. "That was better than ever. But I am better to-day, too." The Sicilian said nothing, but proceeded to arrange all the invalid's small belongings near him,--his books, his cigarettes,--for he sometimes smoked a little,--and the stimulant he took, and a few wild flowers which Elettra renewed every morning. Gianluca drew a breath of satisfaction when all was done. He really felt a little better, and by Taquisara's care had suffered less than usual in the moving. His father and mother had been in to see him as usual, before he was up, and before they went out for their daily walk. Veronica would not come yet, but he had the true invalid's pleasure in anticipating the coming of a well-loved woman. As often happens in such cases he seemed quite unconscious of his approaching danger. He was not surprised when Don Teodoro came in, a little later, and the two very soon fell into conversation together. Taquisara presently went away and left them, as he often did when they began to talk of books. Half an hour had not passed since his meeting with Veronica, but as he again entered the room where they had met, he found her standing before the window, looking out, and twisting her handkerchief slowly with both her hands. She started when she heard him come in, and she turned her head to see who it was that had opened the door. To go on, he had to pass near her, and she kept her eyes on his face as he approached her. "How is he?" she asked in a voice hardly recognizable as her own. She had an agonized look, and she raised her handkerchief to her mouth quickly, and held it, almost biting it, while he answered her. "He says that he feels better. Don Teodoro is there. He has just come. Is there anything that I can do?" She shook her head, still holding the handkerchief to her lips, and again looked out of the window. He waited a moment longer and then passed on, leaving her alone. He saw that she was half mad with anxiety, and he neither trusted himself to speak, nor believed that speaking could be of any use. He went down to the lower bastion, where he could be alone, and for a long time he walked steadily up and down, trying hard to think of nothing, and sometimes counting his steps as he walked, in order to keep his mind from itself. He did not idealize the woman he loved, for he was not a man of ideals, nor of much imagination. Such defects as she might have, he did not see, and if he had seen them he would have been indifferent to them. To such a man, loving meant everything and admitted of no comment, because there was no part of him left free to judge. He was a whole-souled man, who asked no questions of himself and no advice of others. He had never needed counsel, in his own opinion, and for the rest, what he felt was himself and not a secondary, dual being of separate passions and impressions which he could analyze and examine. He had never comprehended that strange machine of nicely-balanced doubts and certainties, forever in a state of half-morbid equilibrium between the wish, the thought, and the deed--such a man as Pietro Ghisleri was, for instance, who would refuse a beggar an alms lest the giving should be a satisfaction to his own vanity, and then, perhaps, would turn back in pity and give the poor wretch half a handful of silver. When Taquisara once knew that he loved Veronica, he never reverted to a state of doubt. He fought against it, because his friend had loved her first, and rooting himself where he stood, as it were, he would have let the passion tear him piecemeal rather than be moved by it. But he never had the smallest doubt as to what the passion was in itself and might be, in its consequences, if he should be weak for one moment. Simple struggles, when they are for life and death, are more terrible than any complicated conflict can possibly be. Don Teodoro was a long time alone with Gianluca. Whatever reasons he had of his own for not wishing to comply with Taquisara's request, he overcame them and faithfully carried out the mission imposed upon him. In itself it was no very hard one. Gianluca was a religious man, as Taquisara had said that he was, and he knew that he was very ill, though he did not believe himself to be dying. With his character and in his condition, he was glad to talk seriously with such a man as Don Teodoro, and then to lay before him the account of his few shortcomings according to the practice of his belief. The old priest came out at last, grave and bent, and, going through the rooms, he came upon Veronica standing alone where Taquisara had left her. She did not know how long she had stood there, waiting for him. He paused before her, and her eyes questioned him. "He wishes to see you," he said simply. "How is he?" He had not understood her unspoken question. "How is he?" she repeated, as he hesitated a moment. "To me he seems no worse. He says that he feels better to-day. But there is something, some change--something, I cannot tell what it is, since I last saw him." "Stay here--please stay in the house!" said Veronica. "He may need you." While she was speaking she had gone to the door, and she went out without looking back. A moment later, she was by Gianluca's side. She saw that what Don Teodoro had said was true. There was an undefinable change in his features since the previous day, and at the first sight of it her heart stood still an instant and the blood left her face, so that she felt very cold. She kept her back to the light, that he might not see that she was disturbed, and while she asked him how he was, her hands touched, and displaced, and replaced the little objects on the small table beside him,--the book, the glass, the flowers in the silver cup, the silver cigarette case, the things which, being quite helpless, he liked to have within his reach. "I really feel better to-day," he said, watching her lovingly, as he answered her question. "I wish I could go out." "You can be carried out upon the balcony in a little while," she said. "It is too cool, yet. It was a cold night, for we are getting near the end of August." "And in Naples they are sweltering in the heat," he answered, smiling. "It is beautiful here. I can see the mountains through the open window, and the flowers tell me what the hillsides are like, in the sunshine. Taquisara says that your maid brings them every morning. Thank you--of course it is one of your endless kind doings." "No," replied Veronica, frankly. "It is her way of showing her devotion, poor thing! Everybody loves you in the house--even the people who have hardly ever seen you. The women, speak of you as 'that angel'!" She tried to laugh cheerfully. "I am glad they like me, though I have done nothing to be liked by them. Please thank your maid for me. It is very kind of her." There was a little disappointment in his voice; for he had been happy in believing that Veronica sent the flowers herself, not because he needed coin of kindness to prove her wealth of friendship, but because whatever small thing came from her hand had so much more value for him than the greatest and most that any one else could give. She sat down beside him, and endeavoured to talk as though she were quite unconcerned. She tried not to look at his face, upon which it seemed to her that death was already fixing the last mask of life's comedy. It was the more terrible, because he was so quiet and so sure of life that morning, so convinced that he was better, so almost certain that he should get well. It seemed an awful thing to sit there, talking against death; but she did her best not to think, and only to talk and talk on, and make him believe that she was cheerful, while, in a kind way, she kept him from coming back to within a phrase's length of his love for her. It was hard for him, too, to make any effort. The doctor had said so. And all the time, she fancied that his features became by degrees less mobile, and that the transparent pallor so long familiar to her was turning to another hue, grey and stony, which she had never seen. Suddenly, while she was speaking of some indifferent thing, his eyelids closed and twitched, and his hand went out towards hers, almost spasmodically. She caught it and held it, bending far forward, and again her heart stood still till she missed its beating. "What is it?" she asked, staring into his face, and already half wild with fear. He could shake his head feebly, but for a moment he could not speak. With one of her hands she still held his, and with the other she pressed his brow. He smiled, as in a spasm, and then his face was a little distorted. She felt his life slipping from her, under her very touch, as though it were her fault because she would not hold it and keep it for him. "Gianluca!" she cried, repeating his name in an agonized tone. "Gianluca! You must not die! I am here--" He opened his eyes, and the faint smile came back, but without a spasm this time. "It was a little pain," he said. "I am sorry--it frightened you." "Thank God!" she exclaimed, still bending over him. "Oh--I thought you were gone!" "Your voice--would bring me back--Veronica," he said, with many little efforts, word by word, but with life in his face. She moved, and held the glass to his lips. Bravely he lifted his hand, and tried to hold it himself. He drank a little of the stimulant, and then his pale head sank back, with the short, fair hair about his forehead, like a glory. "Ah yes!" he said, speaking more easily, a moment later. "Death could never be so near but that you might stand between him and me--if you would," he added, so softly that the three words just reached her ears, as the far echo of sad music, full of beseeching tenderness. Still she held his hand, and gazed down into his face. They had told her long ago that he was dying of love for her. In that moment she believed it true. He seemed to tell her so, to be telling it with his last breath. And each breath might be the last. Science could not save him. Physicians disagreed--the great authority himself could not say whether he was to live or die. He fainted, fell back, seemed dead already, and her voice and touch brought him to life, happy for an instant, hoping still and living only by the beating of hope's wings. And with all that, though she did not love him, he was to her the dearest of all living beings. Holding his hand still, she looked upward, as though to be alone with herself for one breathing space. But as she stood there, she pressed his fingers little by little more tightly, not knowing what she did, so that he wondered. Then she bent down again, and steadily gazed into the upturned blue eyes, and once more smoothed away the fair hair from the pallid brow. "Do you wish it very much?" she asked simply. Half paralyzed though he was, he started, and the light that came suddenly to his face, wavered and sank and rose once more. She seemed to hear his words again, saying that she could stand between death and him, were death ever so near. "You?" he faltered. "Wish for you? Ah God! Veronica--" his face grew dead again. "No--no--I did not understand--" "But I mean it!" she said, in desperate, low tones, for she thought he was sinking back. "I will marry you, Gianluca! I will, dear--I will--I am in earnest!" Slowly his eyes opened again and looked at her, wide, startled, and half blind with joy. So the leader looks who, stunned to death between the door-posts of the hard-won gate, wakes unhurt to life in the tide of the victory he led, and hears the strong music of triumph, and the huge shout of brave men whose bursting throats cry out his name for very glory's sake, their own and his. Gianluca's eyes opened, and with sudden pressure he grasped the hand that had so long held his, believing because he held it and felt the flesh and blood and the warmth in his own shadowy hold. "Veronica--love!" She would not have thought that he could press her fingers so hard, weak as he was. The word smote her, even then, with a small icy chill, and though she smiled, there was a shadow in her face. Again he doubted. "Veronica--for the love of God--you are not deceiving me, to save my life?" The vision of despair rose in his eyes. "Deceive you? I?" she cried, with sudden energy. "Indeed, indeed, I mean it, as I said it." "Yes--but--but if, to-morrow--" Again his voice was failing, and she was hand to hand with death, for him. "No! There shall be no to-morrow for that--it shall be now!" "Now? To-day? Now?" He seemed to rise and sink, and sink and rise again, on the low-surging waves of his life's ebbing tide. "Yes--now!" she answered. "This moment Don Teodoro is in the house--I will call him--let me go for a moment--only one moment!" "No--no! Do not leave me!" He clung frantically to her hand. "But--yes--call him--call him! And Taquisara. He is my friend--Oh! It kills me to let you go!" It was indeed the very supreme moment. The great burst of happiness had almost killed him, and he was like a child, not knowing what he wanted. Still he clutched her hand. A quick thought crossed her mind. She had gone to the window for a moment, to fasten it back, and had seen Taquisara walking under the vines. He might be there. "Let me go to the window," she said, regaining her self-possession. "Taquisara may be on the bastion--I saw him there. He will call Don Teodoro, and I shall not have to leave you." Any reasoning which kept her by his side was divinely good. Her words calmed him a little, and his hands gradually loosened themselves. But as she turned quickly, he uttered a very low cry, and tried to catch her skirt. She did not hear him. She was already speaking from the window; for the Sicilian was still there, walking up and down, as he had done for more than an hour. She called to him. He started, and looked up through the broad leaves. "Get Don Teodoro at once, and bring him," she cried. "He is in the house--somewhere." Taquisara thought that Gianluca was dying, and neither paused nor answered, as he disappeared within. Veronica came back instantly. She had not been gone thirty seconds, but already the sick man's face was grey again, though his eyes were wide and staring. His head had fallen to one side, on the brown silk cushion, in his last attempt to reach her. With both hands, she raised him a little, so that he lay straight again. "They are coming--they are coming, dear one!" she repeated. "Live, live! Gianluca--live, for me!" In her agony of fighting for his life, she pushed his hair back, and pressed her lips in one long kiss upon his forehead. A shiver ran through him, and the sense came back to his eyes. But though she held his hand, there was no more strength in it to grasp hers. He sighed the words she heard. "Love--is it you? Veronica--love--life! Ah, Christ!" And his lids closed again. The door opened, and was shut, and Veronica half turned her head to see, but she brought her face tenderly nearer to his, as though to let him know that it was for his sake she looked away. Don Teodoro and Taquisara were both in the room. Even before she spoke, she had changed her hold upon Gianluca's fingers, and held his right hand in hers, as those hold hands who are to be wedded. "Bless us!" she said to the priest. "This is our marriage! Say the words--quickly!" Taquisara's face was livid, for he had as much of instant death in him as the dying man, though he could not die. But he did not fail. He came and knelt on the other side of the couch, away from Veronica. The priest stood at the foot, in pale hesitation. Veronica's eyes commanded. "Speak quickly!" she said. "I will marry him--I have said it! Gianluca--say it--say that you will marry me!" Holding his right hand, with her left thrust under his pillow she lifted him so that he sat almost upright. It needed all her strength, and she was very desperate for him. "Volo!" The one word floated on the air, breathed, not spoken, and dead silence followed. Again Veronica turned to Don Teodoro. "Say the words. I command you! I have the right--I am free!" The priest's face was white now. He stretched out his arms, lifting his eyes upwards. A worse change was in Gianluca's face before Don Teodoro had spoken the words he had to say. Taquisara saw it. Both he and Veronica bent over the motionless head. Still Veronica held the cold hand in hers. Taquisara knew that in another instant the priest would speak. Gently, with womanly tenderness, though his soul was on the wheel of anguish, he took Veronica's right hand and loosed it, and Gianluca's fell cold and motionless from her fingers. "He is gone," he whispered, close to her ear, and he held her right hand firmly, in his horror at the thought that she might be wedded to a man already dead. Veronica made a slight effort of instinct, to loose his hold and to take the hand that had fallen from hers. But it was only instinctive and hardly conscious at all. Her eyes were on Gianluca's face, and the blackness of a vast grief already darkened her soul. There was but an instant. The tall old priest, with eyes lifted heavenwards, neither saw nor heard. "Ego conjungo vos--" He said all the words, and then, high in air, he made the great sign of the cross. "Benedictas vos omnipotens Deus--" and he spoke all the benediction. He closed his eyes a moment in instant prayer. When he opened them and looked down, his face turned whiter still. On each side, before him, knelt the living, Veronica and Taquisara, their hands clasped and wedded, as they had been when he had spoken the high sacramental words, and between them, white, motionless, the halo of his fair hair about his marble brow, lay Gianluca della Spina, like an angel dead on earth. "Merciful Lord! What have I done!" cried the priest. At the sound of his voice Taquisara turned quickly. But Veronica did not hear. The Sicilian saw where Don Teodoro's starting eyes were fixed, and he understood, and his own blood shrieked in his ears, for he was married to Veronica Serra. Married--half married, wholly married, married truly or falsely, by the sudden leap of violent chance--but a marriage it was, of some sort. Both he and the priest knew that, and that it must be a voice of more authority than Don Teodoro's which could say that it was no marriage. For the Church's forms of office, that are necessary, are few and very simple, but they mean much, and what is done by them is not easily undone. But Veronica neither saw nor heard. CHAPTER XXVI. "I think--I assure you that nobody knows anything--but I think that Don Gianluca will improve rapidly after this crisis." That was the opinion of the great doctor, when he had seen the patient on the afternoon of that memorable day. For Veronica, Taquisara, and Don Teodoro had all three been mistaken when they had thought that Gianluca was dead. As the doctor said, there had been a crisis, an inward convulsion of the nerves, a fainting which had been almost a catalepsy, and, several hours later, a return to consciousness with a greatly increased chance of life, though with extreme momentary exhaustion. It was Taquisara who went to find the doctor, leaving Veronica on her knees, while Don Teodoro stood motionless at the foot of the couch, his hands gripping each other till his nails cut the flesh, his grotesque face invested for the moment with an almost sublime horror of what he had unwittingly done. And then had come the physician's systematic and painful search for life, his doubts, his hopes, his suspicions, his increasing hope again, his certainty at last that all was not over--and then the necessity for instantly carrying out his orders, the getting of all things needed for the sick man snatched out of death, and all the confusion that rises when the whole being of a great household must exert its utmost strength in one direction, to save one life. Amidst it all, too, the helpless father and mother ran about tearful, incoherent, wringing their hands, believing no one and yet believing the impossible, praying, crying, talking, hindering everything in their supreme parents' right to be in the way and nearest to what they loved best--hysterical with joy, both of them, at the end, when the physician said that Gianluca was to live, and was not dead as they had thought him, and wildly, pathetically, insanely grateful to Veronica. "I saw that he was dying," she told them simply, when he was out of danger. "I sent for Don Teodoro, and we were married." They fell upon her neck, the old man and the prematurely old woman, kissing her, pressing her in their arms, crying over her, not knowing what they did. When he saw that she was telling them, Taquisara went away from them to his own room and stayed there some time. And Don Teodoro also went home, and for the second time on that day he bolted his battered door and made sure that he was alone. But he did not sit at his table playing with his spectacles, as in the morning. He knelt in a corner, against one of his rough bookcases, bowed to the ground as though a mountain had come upon him unawares, and now and then he beat his forehead against the parchment bindings of his favourite folio Muratori, as certain wild beasts crouch on their knees and with a swinging of slow despair strike their heads against the bars of their cage many times in succession. For Taquisara and Don Teodoro knew, each knowing also that the other knew, that what Veronica believed to have been done that day had not been really done, save in the intention, and that what had really been done must by Church law and right be undone before she could be truly married to Gianluca della Spina. That is to say, if the thing done had any value whatsoever before God and man. It is easy to say that in other lands and under other practices of faith the four persons concerned in what had happened might have honestly told themselves that such a marriage was no marriage at all. An unbelieving Italian, and there are many in the cities, though few in the country, would have laughed and said that the important point was the legal union pronounced by the municipal authority, and that since there had been none here, there was nothing to undo. Yet if by any similar chance--more difficult to imagine, of course, but conceivable for argument's sake--the same mistake had occurred in a legal marriage by a syndic, that same unbelieving Italian would have felt in regard to it precisely what Taquisara and Don Teodoro felt, namely, that the union was well nigh indissoluble. For Italy, as a nation and a whole, while imitating other nations in many respects, has again and again refused to listen to any suggestion embodying a law of divorce. To all Italians, high, low, atheists, bigots, monarchists, republicans,--whatever they may be,--marriage is an absolutely indissoluble bond. The most that they will allow, and have always allowed, is that in such cases as Veronica's, it is in the power of the highest authority, ecclesiastic or legal, according to their persuasion, to annul a marriage altogether and declare that it never took place at all, on the ground that the requirements of the Church or of the law have not been properly fulfilled. In society, of the two forms, which are both looked upon as necessary together, the blessing of the Church is considered by far the more indispensable, though most people acknowledge the importance and validity of the other, as well as its wisdom; and society, as an aristocratic body, as a rule refuses absolutely to receive within its doors an Italian couple who have not been married by a priest. Among all society's many traditions and prejudices, there is none more ancient, more deep-rooted, or more rigorous to-day than this one. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that Taquisara, strong, loyal, and simple as he was, should honestly believe with all his heart that he had been married to Veronica; nor that Don Teodoro himself should look upon what he had unwittingly done as being something which he alone had no power to undo, if, in all conscience and truth, it had been done at all. The worst point of all, in the opinion of those two men, was that Veronica sincerely believed herself married to Gianluca, as in her intention she really was, while Gianluca himself, having pronounced the solemn 'I will' with his last conscious breath and being told on coming to himself that the sacramental words had been spoken, had no reason at all for doubting that he was actually her husband. The position was as full of difficulties as could be imagined. To let Gianluca know the truth would have been almost certain to kill him. To speak of it to Veronica for the present seemed almost equally impracticable, though it was quite impossible to take any steps towards the annulling of the marriage without her open concurrence and help, as well as Taquisara's. Meanwhile, not only she and Gianluca, but the Duca and Duchessa, too, regarded the matter as altogether settled and accomplished. At any moment Veronica had it in her power to send for the syndic of Muro and cause the necessary formalities of the municipal marriage to be properly executed. She would then be legally married to Gianluca, while in the eyes of the Church she was already Taquisara's wife, by the fact of form though not by the intention of any one. It did not occur either to Taquisara or to the priest that they could keep their secret forever and allow matters to proceed to such a conclusion. Don Teodoro was far too earnest a believer and a churchman at heart to allow what he should consider a great sin to be committed without any attempt to hinder it, and with the Sicilian the point of honour was concerned, as well as a deeply rooted adherence to social tradition and to the forms and ceremonies of religion in which he had been brought up. They were neither of them men to have so repudiated all they held the most sacred in faith and honour, even if either of them had held the secret alone without the other's knowledge. But each knew that the other knew the truth, and on that first day, each departed to his own room lest he should be suddenly brought face to face again with the other. It was his unwillingness to allow a thing to be done which, as a man and a gentleman, he thought both dishonourable and wrong, that prevented Taquisara from leaving Muro at once. For himself, his first impulse was to escape from the situation, from the horrible temptation he endured when he was with Veronica, from the barest possibility of any unfaithfulness to his friend. At that time the Italians were fighting in Massowah and as an officer of the reserve he could have volunteered for active service at a moment's notice--with a terribly good prospect of never coming back alive. But even his death would hardly have mended matters, in his scrupulous opinion, unless Veronica should of her own accord and without any especial reason insist upon being again married in church, contrary to the Church's own rule, but on the reasonable ground that Gianluca had been unconscious during a part of the ceremony. If Taquisara were dead, such a marriage would be valid, of course; but the prospect of his death gave him no assurance that she would ever do such a thing at all; and, moreover, in spite of his passionate temperament, he was far too sensible a man to think deliberately of sacrificing his life for such reasons. Like many another man suddenly placed in a hard position as an obstacle in the path of a loved woman, he asked himself the question, whether, in honour and against religion, he should not commit suicide. But the answer was a foregone conclusion, and it was plainly his duty to stand by his friend and by Veronica, alive and able to do the best he could for them both. In immediate present circumstances his presence was of the greatest importance to Gianluca, who depended on him almost entirely for help, in his sensitive dislike of being touched and moved by servants. And the man who was thus thrust into a situation from which it seemed hard to escape at all, loved Veronica Serra with all his heart, with all his soul, with the broad, deep, simple passion of simpler times, having in him much of that old plainness of character which made men take without question the things they wanted, and hold them by main strength and stoutness of heart against all comers while they lived. There had been a time when he had been able to speak coldly to her, and to seem to dislike her. That was past, and his devotion was even in his hands and visible, if he did with them the smallest act for her service. She saw it, and was glad, for he pleased her more and more in the days that followed the great day, while Gianluca lay pale and happy and gaining a little strength, and she, as his wife, sat through many hours of the day by his bedside, reading to him, and telling him much about her life, but not often allowing him to speak much, lest he should lose ground and be in danger again. It seemed to her at that time that Taquisara was learning to be another friend to her, less in most ways than Gianluca had been, but having much that Gianluca had not--the strength, the decision, the toughness. She did not miss those things in Gianluca. She would not have had him otherwise than he was, but she saw them all, and felt their influence, and admired them in the other man. She felt, too, that she had often treated him with unnecessary and almost unmannerly coldness, and repenting of it, she meant, in pure innocence of maiden purpose, to make it up to him now, by being more kind. Indeed, she could not understand why she had ever been so hard to him in former days, excepting when he had spoken so rudely to her at Bianca's house; and since she had seen and learned to value his loyal affection for Gianluca, she had not only forgiven him for what he had said, but had found that, on the whole, he had been right to say it. As for her marriage with Gianluca, it seemed to her to have changed nothing, beyond the great change it had wrought in him for the better. She talked with him as before. She felt, as before, that he was her dearest and best friend. To please him, she made plans with him for their future, though sometimes the sharp fear for his life ran through her heart like a needle of ice. They could live half the year in Naples and the other six months in Muro, but sometimes, when he should be quite well, they would travel and see the world together. It was pleasant to think that they had the right to be always together, now, for it would have seemed terrible even to Veronica to go back to the old days of letter-writing. To her, their marriage had been the final cementing of the most beautiful friendship in the world. She was glad that she had given her life for him, since, after all, the giving of it now changed it so little. It was clear, she thought, that she was made for friendship and not for love; and since she was so made, she had done the best in marrying her best friend. One day, when Gianluca was asleep, she had gone alone to her little rose garden up by the dungeon tower. The autumn was beginning in the mountains; there were few roses left, and the northerly breeze blew up to her out of the vast depth at her feet. Alone there, she thought of all these things and of how she was intended by her nature for this friendship of hers. Seasoning about it with herself, she took an imaginary case. Suppose, she thought, that she had begun to be Taquisara's friend, instead of Gianluca's, on that day in Bianca's garden. Her mind worked quickly. She pictured to herself the long correspondence, the intimacy of thought, the meeting and the destruction of the dividing barrier, the daily, hourly growing friendship, and then--the marriage, the touch of hands, the first kiss. The scarlet blood leapt up like fire to her face. She started and looked round, half dreading lest some one might be there to see. But she was quite alone, and she wondered at herself. It must be shame, she thought, at the mere idea of marrying another man when she was Gianluca's wife. At all events, she said in her heart, she would not think of such things again. It was probably a sin, and she would remember to speak of it, at her next confession. Don Teodoro would tell her what he thought. For in lonely Muro, she had no other confessor, nor desired any. Her faults, great and small, were such as she would have acknowledged and discussed with the good man, in her own drawing-room as willingly as in church--as, indeed, she often did. But not wishing to be alone with herself any longer on that day, she came down from the tower and went to her room, where she spent an hour with Elettra in examining the state of her very much reduced wardrobe. "Your Excellency is in rags," observed the woman. "You cannot appear in Naples as a bride with any of the things you have. In the first place, you have scarcely anything that is not black or white. But also, though some of these clothes had a cheerful youth, their old age is very sad." Veronica laughed at Elettra's way of expressing herself, and they went over all the wardrobe together that afternoon. As Taquisara saw how those around him seemed to have recovered from the terrible emotions through which they had passed, and how the life in the castle quickly subsided again to its monotonous level and ran on in its old channel, the temptation to solve all difficulties by letting matters alone presented itself to him with considerable force. Ten days had gone by, and he had not once found himself alone with Don Teodoro. When they met, they avoided each other's eyes, and each remained separately face to face with the same trouble, while each had a trouble of his own with which the other had nothing to do. There was little or no change now from what had formerly been the daily round. Again, as before, Taquisara carried his friend daily from his own room to the large one in which Veronica and the Sicilian again fenced almost every day. Sometimes, when it was fine and warm, Gianluca was taken out upon the balcony for a couple of hours. He no longer suffered in being moved; but his lower limbs were now completely paralyzed. He hardly thought of the fact, in his constant and increasing happiness. It was only when he saw the fencing that he sometimes looked down sadly at his useless legs and thin hands, for fencing was the only exercise for which he had ever cared. He had none of that sanguine vitality which would have made such an existence intolerable to Taquisara, or even to Veronica. With her beside him, or if he could not have her, with books or conversation, he was not only contented, but happy. It must be remembered, too, that he was not aware that his condition was hopeless and that he might live a total cripple for many years to come. If he had known that, he might have been less gay; not knowing it, married to the woman he loved and looking forward to complete recovery, life was little short of a paradise within sight of a heaven. Veronica never tired of taking care of him, and one might have supposed that she was satisfied with the prospect of nursing him all her life, or all his. But she herself by no means believed the doctor's predictions. She had been too sure that he was to die, and too much surprised and delighted by his recovery, to accept on mere faith of any man's verdict the assurance that he was never to walk again. There was the reaction, too, after the strong emotion and the heart-rending anxiety, the relaxation of mind and nerve, and the willingness to be happy again after so much strain and stress. As Gianluca's general health improved, the Duca and Duchessa began to speak of an early departure for their own place near Avellino. Their eldest son's illness had placed him first with them, but they had several other children, all of whom had been under the care of a sister of the Duchessa during the latter's stay at Muro. The motherly woman was beginning to be anxious about them, and the old gentleman had a fair-haired little daughter of eleven summers, whom he especially loved and longed to see. They thought that before long Gianluca might be moved. It was growing colder, day by day, in the first chill of early autumn, and they believed that a little warmth would do him good. Veronica should come and pay them a visit, and Taquisara, too. As for the marriage, they meant that it should be an open secret for a little while longer. The servants knew of it, and would tell other servants of course, and the Duchessa had written of it to her sister, on hearing which fact Veronica had written to Bianca Corleone, telling her exactly what had happened, lest Bianca should hear of it from some one else. It was long before she had an answer to this letter, and when it came Bianca's writing was full of her own desperate sadness, though there were words of congratulation for Veronica, such as the occasion seemed to require. Bianca wrote from a remote corner of Sicily, where she was living almost alone on her husband's principal estate. There had been trouble. Corleone had suddenly taken it into his head to come home for a few weeks. Then Bianca's brother, Gianforte Campodonico, had appeared and had taken a violent dislike to Pietro Ghisleri, so that Bianca feared a quarrel between them. Before anything had happened, she had induced Ghisleri to go to Switzerland, and she herself had gone to Sicily, whither her brother had accompanied her. But he had been obliged to leave her soon afterwards, and she suspected that he had followed Ghisleri to the north in order to pick a quarrel with him. She was very unhappy, and there was much more about herself in her letter than about Veronica's marriage. The old couple grew daily more anxious to leave for Avellino. They proposed that as soon as Gianluca could safely travel, the whole party should go there together. Before returning to Naples for the winter, the legal formalities of the municipal wedding could be fulfilled, and the marriage should then be formally announced. Gianluca and Veronica would come and spend the winter in the Della Spina palace, wherein, as in all Italian patriarchal establishments, there was a spacious apartment for the establishment of the eldest son whenever he should marry. Once, when this was discussed before them, Taquisara met Don Teodoro's eyes, and the two men looked steadily at each other for several seconds. But even after that they avoided a meeting. It did not seem absolutely necessary yet, and each knew that the other had not yet found the solution of the difficulty. To every one's surprise, Gianluca opposed the plan altogether. They all seemed to have taken it for granted that he need not be consulted, and Veronica, in her complete self-sacrifice, would have been willing to do whatever pleased the rest. But Gianluca quietly refused to go to Avellino at all. So long as his wife would give him hospitality, he said with a proud smile, he would stay in Muro. After that, he should prefer to return directly to Naples. It was not easy to argue against an invalid's prerogative. After some fruitless attempts to move him, his father and mother temporarily desisted. "You shall not go to Avellino," he said to Veronica, when they were alone. "It is a den of wild children and intolerable relations, and you would not have a moment's peace. You have no idea how detestable that sort of existence would be after this heavenly calm. I am very fond of my father and mother, and my brothers and sisters, and my relations, and most of them are very good people in their way. But that is no reason why you and I should be set up to be looked at, and tallied at, by them all, twelve hours every day." "I would certainly much rather stay here," answered Veronica, with a little laugh. "That is, if you can induce them to stay here, too." "For that matter, they are quite unnecessary," said Gianluca. "There is no reason in the world why, if you like, we should not have the legal marriage here since you have a syndic and a municipality. Then we could announce it, and there would be no objection to our staying here alone." "That is true," replied Veronica, thoughtfully. "We could always do that, if we chose." But she did not propose to do it at once, and he did not like to press her. He saw no harm, however, in speaking of the project with Taquisara. The Sicilian looked at him, said nothing, and then carefully examined a cigar before lighting it. He had long expected that such a proposal would come either from Gianluca or Veronica, and he was not surprised. But when he at last heard it made he held his breath for a moment or two and then began to smoke in silence. "You say nothing," observed Gianluca. "Do you see any possible objection to our doing that? Society ought to be satisfied." "I should think so," answered Taquisara. "I should think that anything would be better than Avellino and all the relations. As for going back to Naples and having a municipal wedding there, and no religious ceremony, I would not do it if I were you. The two marriages are always supposed to take place on consecutive days, or at least very near together, since both are necessary nowadays." "I know," said Gianluca. Taquisara made up his mind that he must take the initiative and speak with Don Teodoro. He had been willing and ready to give up all right to hope for the woman he loved, in order that his friend might marry her, but the idea that there should be an irregularity about the marriage, or no real marriage at all, as he believed was the case, was more than he could, or would, bear. To speak with Veronica was out of the question. He knew enough of women to understand that if she ever knew how, by an accident, she had held his hand instead of Gianluca's at the moment when she was giving her very soul to save the dying man, she might never forgive him. She might even turn and hate him. She would never believe that he himself had not known what he was doing. If it were possible, he would not incur such risk. Anything in reason and honour would be better than to be hated by her. He had seen her change of manner, of late, and he knew very well that she was beginning to like him much more than formerly. In the morning, after Don Teodoro had said mass, Taquisara went to him and found him over his books. This time the priest recognized him at once and rose to greet him gravely, as though he had expected his visit. "Have you made up your mind what to do?" asked the Sicilian, as he sat down. It was as though they had been in the habit of discussing the situation together, and were about to renew a conversation which had been broken off. "I know what I shall have to do, if matters go any further," answered the priest, in a dull voice, unlike his own. "What would that be?" "It is in my power to cause the marriage to be declared null and void." "By appealing to your bishop, I suppose. In that event Donna Veronica would have to be told." "There is another way." "Then why do you not take it and act at once? Why do you hesitate?" Taquisara watched him keenly. "Because it would mean the sacrifice of my whole existence. I am human. I hesitate, as long as there is any other hope." "I do not understand. As for sacrificing your existence--that must be an exaggeration." "Not at all. If it were only my own, I should not have hesitated, perhaps. I do not know. But what I should do would involve a great and direct injury to many others--to hundreds of other people." Taquisara looked at him harder than ever, understanding him less and less. "You seem to have a secret," he said at last, thoughtfully. "Yes," answered the priest, resting his elbow on the old table and shading his eyes with his hand, though there was no strong light to dazzle him. "Yes--yes," he repeated. "I have a secret, a great secret. I cannot tell it to you--not even to you, though you are one of the most discreet men I ever met. You must forgive me, but I cannot." "I do not wish to know it," replied Taquisara. "Especially not, if it concerns many people." A short silence followed, during which neither moved, nor looked at the other. "Don Teodoro," asked the Sicilian, at last, in a low voice, "please tell me your view of the case, as a priest. Am I, at the present moment, in consequence of what happened a fortnight ago, actually married to Donna Veronica, or not?" The priest hesitated, looked down, took off his spectacles, and put them on again, before he answered the question. "I think," he said, "that most people, if any had been present, would be of opinion that it was enough of a marriage to require a formal annullation before any other could take place. I should certainly not dare to consider the princess and Don Gianluca as married, when it was you who held her right hand, and received the benediction with her in the prescribed attitude." "Yes," answered Taquisara; "but in your own individual opinion, as a priest, am I married to her, or not?" "As a priest, I can have no individual opinion. I can tell you, of course, that the marriage can be annulled. In the first place, you neither of you had the intention of being married to each other. In all the sacraments, the intention of those to whom they are administered is the prime consideration. It would only be necessary for you and the princess to swear that you had no intention of being married, and that it was, to the best of your knowledge, entirely an accident, and all difficulties could be removed." "Ah, yes! But then Donna Veronica would know, and Gianluca would have to know it, too. I came here to tell you that they are seriously thinking of sending for the syndic, to publish the banns of marriage at the municipality and marry them legally, after which the Duca and Duchessa will go to Avellino, and leave them here together. Whether it costs your existence or mine, Don Teodoro, this thing shall not be done." "No," said Don Teodoro. "It shall not. You are in a terrible position yourself. I feel for you." "I?" Taquisara bent his brows. "I, in a terrible position?" "Do not be angry," answered the priest, gently. "I know your secret well enough, though she does not guess it yet. Do not think me indiscreet because I mention the fact. It would be far better if you could go away for the present. But I know how you are situated, and you are helping to prevent mischief. We must help each other. If it is to cost the existence of one of us, it shall be mine. You are young, and I am old. And that is not the only reason. My secret is not like yours. I cannot let it go down into the grave with me. I have kept it long enough, and I should have kept it longer, if this had not happened. I shall probably go to Naples to-morrow. You must prevent them from publishing the banns until I come back, or until you hear from me. I may never come back. It is possible." "What do you mean?" asked Taquisara, for he saw a strange look in the old man's clear eyes. "I shall not end my life here," he said quietly. "You? End your life? You, commit suicide? Are you mad, Don Teodoro?" "Oh no! I may live many years yet. I hope that I may, for I have much to repent of. But I shall not live here." "I hope you will," said Taquisara. "But if you know my secret--keep it." "As I have kept mine till now," answered the old man. So they parted, and Taquisara went back to the castle, leaving the lonely priest among his books. CHAPTER XXVII. Veronica did not wish the people of Muro to believe that she was marrying a cripple. That was the reason why she did not at once agree to Gianluca's proposal and send for the syndic to perform the legal ceremony. She had persuaded herself that by quick degrees of improvement, he would recover the power to stand upright, at least to the extent to which he had still retained his strength when he had first arrived. Since he had lived through the crisis, she grew sanguine for him and hoped much. Her feeling was natural enough in the matter, though it was made up of several undefined instincts about which she troubled herself very little--pride of race, pride of personal wholeness and soundness, pride of womanhood in the manhood of a husband. Veronica named none of these in her thoughts, but they were all in her heart. Few women would not have felt the same in her place. She was sure that he was to get better, if not quite well, and she wished that he might be well enough to stand beside her on his feet when they should be formally married. If he continued to improve as rapidly as during the past fortnight, she believed that the day could not be far off. When he could stand, in another month, perhaps, the syndic should come. It was even possible that by that time he might be able to walk a little with her in the village. Her people were a sort of family to her. That was a remnant of feudalism in her character, perhaps, which had suddenly developed during the months she had spent in Muro. But that, too, was natural, as it was natural that they should love her and almost worship the ground she trod. For the poorer classes of Italians are sometimes very forgetful of benefits, but are rarely ungrateful. She had done in a few months, for their real advantage, so that they felt it, enough to make up for the oppression of generations of Serra, and almost enough to atone for the extortions of Gregorio Macomer. She was the last of her name, and her husband, if he lived, was to be the father of a new stock, which would be called Serra della Spina, and whose men would hold the lands and take the rents and do good, or not, according to their hearts, each in his generation. It seemed to her that the people had a right to see Gianluca standing on his feet beside her, since her marriage was to mean so much to them. Don Teodoro came to her, soon after Taquisara had left him, to tell her that he must go to Naples without delay. She looked at him in astonishment at the proposal, and as she looked, she saw that his face was changed. Oddly enough, he held himself much more erect than usual; but his features were drawn down as though by much suffering, and his eyes, usually so clear and steady, wandered nervously about the room. "You are not well," said Veronica. "Why must you go now?" "It is because I must go now that I am not well," answered the priest, shaking his head. "I am very sorry to be obliged to leave you at this time. I only hope that, if you are thinking of fulfilling the legal formalities of your marriage, you will give me notice of the fact, so that I may come back, if I can. You know that all that concerns you concerns my life." Veronica looked at him, and wondered why he was so much disturbed. But his words gave her an opportunity of speaking to him about her own decision. She did not wish him to think her capricious, much less to imagine that she looked upon the marriage as a mere piece of sentiment, which was not to change her life at all, except to bind her as a nurse to the bedside of a hopeless invalid. That idea itself was beginning to be repugnant to her, and the hope that Gianluca might recover was becoming a necessary part of her happiness, though she scarcely knew it. "My dear Don Teodoro," she said, "so far as that is concerned, you may be quite sure that I will let you know in time. I have not the slightest intention of fulfilling any legal formalities until my husband is well enough to stand on his feet with me before the syndic; and I am afraid that he will not be well enough for that in less than a month, at the earliest." The wandering eyes suddenly fixed themselves on her face, the strange great features relaxed, and the wide, thin lips smiled at her. His happiness was strangely founded, but it was genuine, though not altogether noble. Her words were a reprieve; and he could keep his secret longer, almost, perhaps, until he died, and when he should be dying, it would be easier to tell. But that was far from being all. He loved her, as the source of great charity and kindness from which the people were drawing life, with all his own passionate charity; and he loved her for herself, for her gentleness and her hardness, because she ruled him, and because she touched his heart. All other thoughts away, he could not bear to think of her as bound for life to be the actual wife of a helpless cripple. And something of her own heart he half guessed and half knew. For in her innocence she had confessed to him how she had thought of Taquisara, when she had been alone that day, and how the blood had flowed in her face, and burned her so that she was almost sure that such thoughts must be wrong. It was because she had told him these things that he had watched Taquisara ever since, and he had seen that the man loved her silently. But he knew also, as well as any one could know it, that Gianluca would never stand upon his feet again. And, moreover, he knew that though it would seem wrong to Veronica to love Taquisara, and would be wrong, if she had intention, as it were, yet there could be no real sin in it, for she was not Gianluca's wife. Had she been truly married, Don Teodoro, gentle and old, would have found strength to force Taquisara to go away--had anything more than the force of honour been needed in such a case. "I am very glad, my dear Princess," he said, and his voice trembled in the reaction after his own anxiety. "You do not wish me to go to Naples, now?" he said with an interrogation, after a brief pause. "You would rather that I should wait until Christmas?" "Of course--if you can," answered Veronica, somewhat surprised at his change of tone. "But if you really must go, if you are so very anxious to go at once, I must not hinder you." "I will see," said Don Teodoro. "I will think of it. Perhaps it can be arranged--indeed, I think it can." He was old, she thought, and he had never been decided in character, except about doing good to poor people, and studying Church history. So she did not press him with questions, but let him do as he would; and he did not go to Naples then, but he went and found Taquisara within the hour, and told him what Veronica had said about her marriage. The Sicilian heard him in silence, as they stood together on the lower bastion where they had met, but Don Teodoro saw the high-cut nostrils quiver, while the even lips set themselves to betray nothing. "If matters go no further than they have gone," he said at last, as the priest waited, "we need do nothing." So they did nothing, and Don Teodoro did not go to Naples. The daily life ran on in its channel. But Gianluca did not continue to improve so fast. Then it seemed as though improvement had reached its limit, and still he was helpless to stand, being completely and hopelessly paralyzed in his lower limbs. At first, neither the old couple nor Veronica realized that he was no longer getting better, though he was no worse. He himself did not believe it; but Taquisara saw and understood. Gianluca refused to be moved, insisting that he was gaining strength, and that some day the sensation would come suddenly to his feet, and he should stand upright. Otherwise, he was now almost as well as when he had come to Muro. They sent for a wheel-chair from Naples, and he wheeled himself through the endless rooms, and to luncheon, and to dinner, Veronica walking by his side. It gave his arms exercise, and he became very expert at it, laughing cheerfully as he made the wheels go round, and he went so fast that Veronica sometimes had to run a few steps to keep up with him. Then, one day, Taquisara carried him out to the gate, and set him in the carriage, and Veronica took him for a short drive. The poor people were, most of them, at their work, but the very old men and the boys and girls turned out, and flocked after the victoria as it moved slowly through the narrow street. Some of them called out words of simple blessing on the couple, but others hushed them and said that the princess was not really married yet. Gianluca smiled as he looked into Veronica's face, and she smiled, too, but less happily. The weather changed. There had been a short touch of cold in the air at the end of August, and breezes from the north that poured down from the heights behind the castle, into the tremendous abyss below, and shot up again to the walls and the windows, even as high as the dungeon tower. Then, at the new moon, the weather had changed, the sky grew warm again, the little clouds hung high and motionless above the peaks, melting from day to day to a serene, deep calm, in which, all the earth seemed to be ripening in a great stillness while heaven held its breath, and the mountains slept. In the rich valley the grapes grew full and dark, and the last figs cracked with full sweetness in the sun, the pears grew golden, and the apples red, and all the green silver of the olive groves was dotted through and through its shade, with myriad millions of dull green points, where the oil-fruit hung by little stems beneath the leaves. An autumn began, such as no one in Muro remembered--an autumn of golden days and dewy moonlight nights, soft, breathless, sweet, and tender. It was a year of plenty and of much good wine, which is rare in the south, for when the wine is much it is very seldom good. But this year all prospered, and the people said that the Blessed Mother of God loved the young princess and would bless her, and hers also, and give her husband back his strength, even by a miracle if need should be. Gianluca clung to the place where he was happy, and would not be taken away. His mother humoured him, and the old Duca, yearning for his little fair-haired daughter, went alone at last to Avellino. Then came long conversations at night between the Duchessa and Veronica. The Duchessa loved her son very dearly, but since he was so much better, she was tired of Muro. She wished to see her other children. It was ridiculous to expect that she and her husband should relieve each other as sentries of propriety in Veronica's castle, the one not daring to go till the other came back. Why should Veronica not send for the syndic and have the formalities fulfilled? Once legally, as well as christianly, man and wife, the two could stay in Muro as long as they pleased. But Veronica would not. Gianluca was improving, and before long he would walk. She had set her heart upon it, that he should be strong again. She would not have her people think that he was a cripple. The people were peasants, the Duchessa answered, peasants like any others. Why should the Princess of Acireale care what such creatures thought? But Veronica's eyes gleamed, and she said that they were her own people and a part of her life, and she told the Duchessa all that was in her mind, very frankly, and so innocently, yet with such unbending determination to have her way, that the Duchessa did not know what to do. Thereupon, after the manner of futile people, she repeated herself, and the struggle began again. It was a tragedy that had begun. Veronica had escaped with her life from Matilde Macomer to find out in the consequence of her own free deeds what tragedy really meant, and how bitter the fruit of good could be. Nor in the slightest degree had her affection for Gianluca diminished, nor did it change in itself, as days followed days to full weeks, and week choked week, cramming whole months back into time's sack, for time to bear away and cast into the abyss of the useless and irrevocable past. Still he was her friend, still she would give her life to save him, and would have given it again if it had been to give. Still she could talk with him, and listen to him, and answer smile and word and gesture. She could sit beside him through quiet hours, and drive with him in the vast, still sunshine of that golden autumn, calling him by gentler names than friend and touching his hand softly in the long silence. All this she could do, and if there were ever any effort in it, that was surely not an effort to be kind, but one of those little doubting, uncertain, spontaneous efforts which we make whenever we unconsciously begin to feel that it will not be enough to do right, but that we must also seem to do right in other eyes, lest our right be thought half hearted. The days were monotonous, but it was not their monotony which she felt, so much as that irrevocable quality of them all which made a grey background in her soul, against which something was moving, undefined, strong as the unseen wind, yet mistily visible sometimes, having more life than shape--a terrible thing which drew her to it against her will, and yet a thing which had in it much besides terror. She turned from it when she knew that it was there, and fixed her sight upon Gianluca's face. Sometimes she found comfort in that, and she did all that was required of her, and more also, and was glad to do it. But the wrong done to nature was deeper and more real than all the good she could do to hide it, and it cried out against her continually by the voice of the woman's instinct. It was not Gianluca who became intolerable to her, but she herself, and it was to escape from herself that she clung to him closely, as well as out of affection for him; for when she was by herself she was no longer alone. That other unshaped something kept her company. She was bound hand and foot, soul, body, and intelligence, for life. She, the very strong, was tied to the helpless; she, the energetic, was bound to apathy; she, the active, was nailed to the passive; she, the free, the erect, was bowed under a burden which she must carry to her life's end, never to be free again. She could bear the burden, and she said none of these things to herself. But the wrong was upon nature, and the mother of all turned against the one child that would be unlike all the rest. The man who was a man, soul and body, heart, hand, and spirit, stood beside the other, who was a shadow, and beside her, who was a woman--and the tragedy began in the prologue of contrast. Strength to weakness, motion to immobility, the grace and carriage of manly youth to the sad restfulness of helpless, hopeless limbs that never again could feel and bear weight; that was the contrast from which there was no escaping. On the steps of love's temple, at the very threshold, the one lay half dead, never to rise again; and beside him stood the other, in the pride and glory of the morning of life. It would have been hard, even if the contrast had been less strong to the eye, and the distance of the two souls greater one from the other--even if Taquisara had not been what he was. But as the one, in his being, was alive from head to heel, so the other was dead save in the thoughts in which he still had a shadowy life. And for the rest--flesh, blood, and life apart--they were equals. Was Gianluca true? Taquisara was as honest and loyal as the brave daylight. Was the one brave? So was the other, in thought and deed. Was Gianluca enduring? So was Taquisara, and he had the more to endure, the more to fight, the more to keep down in him. She knew that he loved her. How it was that she knew it she could not tell, but sometimes the music of the truth rang in her ears till the flame shot up in her face and she shut her eyes to hide her soul--a loud, triumphant music, stately and grand as might herald the marching of archangels--till her inward cry of terror pierced it, and all was as still as the grave. Then, for a space, the vision of sin stood dark in the way, and she turned and fled from it back to Gianluca's side, back to the care of him, back to his helpless love for her, back to his pathetic, stricken restfulness, back to the maiden dreams of a life-long friendship, unbroken as the calm of the summer ocean, perfect as the cloudless sky of those golden autumn days. For a time, the dark wraith of sin faded, and there was no music in the air, and her cheek was cool, while she looked all the world in the face with the fearless eyes of a child-empress. Again the monotonous, good day rolled in the same grooves, noiselessly, and surely, as all the days to come were to roll along, to the end of ends. She worked for her people, talked with Don Teodoro, talked, smiled, laughed with Gianluca, and bore the old Duchessa's ramblings with patience and kindness. But all of a sudden, for a nothing, at the sight of a fencing foil, at the smell of Gianluca's cigarette, at the sound of a footfall she knew, there came the mad wish to be alone; and she resisted it, for it did not seem good to her, and even as she struggled the blood rose in her throat and was in her cheeks in a moment, so that if just then by chance Taquisara came upon her suddenly, the room swam and for an instant her brain reeled as she turned her face from him in mortal shame. She knew so well that he loved her, and that he was suffering, too. It was love's hands that had chiselled the bronze of his face to leaner lines, and that threw a new darkness into his dark eyes. It was for her that there was that other note in his voice that had never been there before. It was for love of her that once or twice, when she took his hand in greeting, it was icy cold--not like Gianluca's, half dead, and dull, and chilly, and very thin--but cold from the heart, as it were, and more wildly living than if it had burned like fire; trembling, and not in weakness, with something that caught her own fingers and ran like lightning to the very core and quick of her soul, hurting it overmuch with its bolt of joy and fear. It was for her that, at the first, he had been cold and silent, because he was afraid of himself, and of love, and of the least, faintest breath that might tarnish the bright shield of his spotless loyalty to Gianluca. All the little changes in his speech and manner were clear to her now, and each had its meaning, and all meant the same. His words, spoken from time to time, came back to her, and she understood them, and saw how, for his friend's sake, he had held his peace for himself, and had ever urged her to marry Gianluca, in spite of everything. If he had not loved her, or if she had thought that he did not, she would have had the pride to tear her heart clean from love's terrible hands, whole or broken, as might be, and to toss it, with the dead dull weeks into old time's sack of irrevocably lost and useless things, and so to live her life out, loveless, in the still haven of Gianluca's friendship. But, having his love, she had not such pride; and the loyalty she truly had was matched alone against all human nature since the world began. Do what she would, she yielded sometimes to that great wish to go suddenly to her own room and be alone. Then, standing at her window when the mist whitened in the valley under the broad moon, she listened, and instantly the air was full of music again as love lifted up its voice, and sweetly chanted the melody of life. With parted lips she listened, till the moonlight filled her eyes, and her heart fluttered softly, and her throat was warm. And sometimes, too, while she was there, the man who loved her so silently and so well was by his friend's side, tending as his own the life that stood between him and the hope of happiness; loving both him and her, but honour best. But sometimes he, too, was alone in his own room, and even at his window, facing the same broad moon, the same white mist in the sleeping valley, the same dark, crested hills, but not hearing the music that the woman heard. He could be calm for a while as he looked out; but presently, without warning, he swallowed hard, and again, as on the fatal day, he held her little hand in his, under the priest's great sign of the cross, and his own blood shrieked in his ears. In cruel anger against himself, he turned from the window then and paced the room with short, braced steps, till at last he threw himself into a deep chair and sullenly took the first book at hand, to read himself back to the monotony of all he had to bear. And so those two fearless ones went through the days and weeks in twofold terror of themselves and each of the other, and the slow, wordless tragedy was acted before eyes that saw but did not understand. Still Gianluca refused to go away, and still Veronica refused to send for the syndic. She would not yield to the Duchessa, who found herself opposed both by her son and her son's wife. No one knew how much Veronica herself still hoped, when the bright autumn days were broken at last by the first winter storm that rose out of the dark south in monstrous wrath against such perpetual calm. She herself did not know whether she still hoped for any improvement, or whether, in her inmost thoughts, she had given up hope and had accepted the certainty that Gianluca was never to be better than he was now. There is something of habit in all hope that has been with us long, and the habits we notice the least are sometimes the hardest of all to break. When Veronica said that Gianluca would yet stand up and walk, no one contradicted her, except the doctors, and she had no faith in them. They came and went. The great professor came three times from Naples and saw the patient, ate his dinner, slept soundly, and went away assuring Veronica that it was useless to send for him unless some great change took place. To please her, he recommended a little electricity, baths, light treatment such as could give little trouble, and he carefully instructed the young doctor of Muro in all he was to do. When he had finished, and the young man had promised to do everything regularly, they looked at each other, smiled sadly, but professionally, and parted with mutual good will and understanding, both knowing that the case was now perfectly hopeless. Their coming and going made little intervals in the tragic play of life, but never broke its continuity. The old Duca appeared again, and slipped quietly into his place, as before. But at the end of a week there was an unexpected flaring-up of energy, as it were, in his docile and affectionate being. When he and his wife and Veronica were with Gianluca, he suddenly declared that the situation must end, and that they must all go down to Naples. Veronica should send for the syndic, and have the legal marriage at once, and then they would all go down together. It was quite clear in his mind, as simple as daylight, as easy of performance as breathing, as satisfactory as satisfaction itself. The Duchessa was with him, and supported all he said with approving nods and futile gestures and incoherent phrases thrown in, as one throws straws upon a stream to see the current carry them away. Gianluca said nothing, and Veronica stood alone against them all, for she knew that he was on his father's side. She guessed, perhaps, that Gianluca had made up his mind never to leave her roof except as her lawful husband, clinging to her, as he had tried to cling to her skirt on that most eventful day when she had gone to the window for a moment; and she understood why, having spoken once, he would not speak again. He was too proud to repeat such a request, but his love was far too obstinate to be satisfied with less than its fulfilment. But his own hope for his recovery was more alive than hers. Instinctively, as she opposed them all, Veronica looked round for Taquisara. It was not often that she needed help, and she knew that he could have helped her, had he been there. But she had to speak for herself. She said what she could; but in that self-examination which self-defence forces upon those who have never dissected their own hearts, a new and fearful truth sprang up, clear of all others, bright, keen, and terrible. It was no longer for her people's sake that she was waiting in the hope of Gianluca's recovery. It was no longer for her own, nor for his. It was out of her deadly love for Taquisara that all her nature rose against that final bond of the law, and the world, and society. So long as that was not yet welded and made fast upon her, there was the fleeting shadow of a desperate hope that she might still be free. It rose and smote her between the eyes, and clutched at her heart; and when she knew its face, she stopped in the midst of her speech, and turned white, even to her lips and her throat. "I do not know. I will think about it," she said faintly. As her power to oppose gave way, the Duca's astonishment at his victory swelled his weakness to violence; and he raved of duties and obligations, of paternal authority, of the obedience of children and children-in-law, in all the boundless, self-assured incoherence of feebleness suddenly let loose against smitten strength. Veronica seemed to hear nothing. She had resumed her seat beside Gianluca, and was stroking his white hand,--less thin than it had been, but somehow even more lifeless,--and she looked down at it very thoughtfully, while he watched her face. He was happier than he had been for a long time, for he knew that she was going to make a concession, and that he had not asked for it. There was silence, and Veronica raised her head. The old Duca's face was red with the exertion of much speaking. He was a good man and meant well, but in that moment Veronica hated him as she had never hated any one, not even Matilde Macomer. And yet she knew that his intention was all for the best, and that it was natural that he should press his point and exult when she gave up the fight. She opened her lips to speak. At that moment the door turned on its hinges opposite her eyes, and Taquisara stood before her. He came in quietly and not knowing that anything extraordinary was occurring. But his eyes met hers for one moment, and instantly her cheek reddened in the evening light. "I will give you a promise," she said slowly. "This is the first week in December. If Gianluca is not much better by the first of January, I will do as you ask. The civil marriage shall take place here, and if he wishes to go down to Naples, we will all go together." The Duca began to speak again, sure that he could press her further. But she interrupted him. Taquisara had gone to the window and was turning his back on them all. "No," said Veronica. "That is what I will do, and I will do it--I have promised--that, and nothing else." She had risen, and as she pronounced the last words, she left Gianluca's side and, with her eyes fixed before her, went straight to the door, pale and erect. She felt that she had given her life a second time. Taquisara heard her footsteps, left the window, and opened the door for her to pass, standing aside while she went by. He saw her head move a little, as though she would turn and look at him, and he saw how resolutely she resisted and looked before her. He understood that she would not trust herself to see his eyes again, and he quietly closed the door behind her. She knew what he must have felt when she had spoken, and he felt a lofty pride that she should trust him to bear the knife without warning, sure that he would utter no cry. CHAPTER XXVIII. The tenth of December was at hand, on which day Don Teodoro had been in the habit of going to Naples to pay his annual visit to his friend Don Matteo. When Taquisara told him of what had taken place, the priest knew that he need not disturb Veronica for permission to leave Muro, merely for the sake of gaining a day or two. One day was all he needed, and there would be three weeks from the tenth of December to the first of January. He made his preparations for the little journey with much care, and went away with more luggage than usual. He also set all his manuscripts and books in order. When he was going away he gave the key of his little house to Taquisara. "I do not expect to come back," he said. "But you will hear from me. It will be kind of you to have my books and manuscripts sent to an address which I will give you in my letter. I do not think that we shall meet again. Good-bye. If I were not what I am, I would bless you. Good-bye." Taquisara held his hand for a moment. "We shall all bless you," he answered, "if you can end this trouble." "I can," said the priest. "And your blessing is worth having." He went away quickly, as though not trusting himself to speak any more. He had taken leave of Veronica and the rest as hastily as he could without giving offence to any one. It was not until he looked back at the poor people who waved their hands at him as he went out of the village that the hot tears streamed down his cheeks. He was twenty-four hours in reaching Naples, as usual, and his friend greeted him with open arms as he always did. He thought that Don Teodoro looked ill and tired, and as it was a fine day they walked the short distance from Don Matteo's house to the café where the priest had sat with Bosio, and they each drank a cup of chocolate. Don Matteo observed that the tenth of December had been a fine day in the preceding year, too, and Don Teodoro tried to remember in what year it had last rained on that date. They ate little puffed bits of pastry with their chocolate, and they sat a long time over it, while Don Matteo told Don Teodoro of an interesting document of the fourteenth century which he had discovered in a private library. Don Teodoro spoke rarely, but not at random, for the thinking habit of the scholarly mind does not easily break down, even under a great strain. Then they went back to Don Matteo's house, and sat down together in the study. Don Matteo wondered why his friend did not unpack and arrange his belongings, especially as he had brought more luggage than usual with him, but he saw that he was tired, and said nothing. Don Teodoro took off his spectacles, and rubbed them bright with the corner of his mantle. He looked at them and took a long time over polishing them, for he was thinking of all the things he had seen through the old silver-rimmed glasses, some of which he should never see again. "My friend," he said at last, "I wish to tell you a secret." Don Matteo turned slowly in his seat, uncrossed his knees, and looked at him. "You may trust me," he answered. "I know that," said Don Teodoro. "But there are reasons, as you will see, why you cannot receive this as an ordinary secret. I wish to tell it to you as a confession. You will then have to consult the archbishop, before giving me absolution--and advice." "Is it as serious as that?" asked Don Matteo, very much surprised, for only the very gravest matters, and generally the most terrible crimes, are referred to the bishop by a confessor. "It is a grave matter," answered Don Teodoro. "Have the kindness to get your stole, and I will make my confession, here. But we will lock the enter door of the outer room, if you please." He was shivering, and his face was white as he rose to go and slip the bolt. Re-entering the room, he locked the inner door also behind him. Don Matteo had produced from a drawer an old violet stole with tarnished silver embroidery. It was carefully wrapped up in thin, clean, white paper. A priest always wears the stole in administering any of the seven sacraments. He passed it over his head, and the broad bands fell over his breast, and he held the ends, upon which were embroidered small Greek crosses, in one of his hands. Grave and silent, he sat down beside the table, resting his elbow upon it and shading his eyes with his other hand. Don Teodoro knelt down, beside him at the table, and each said his part of the preliminary form in a low voice. When Don Teodoro had said the first half of the 'Confiteor,' he was silent for some time, and Don Matteo was aware that his tall, thin frame was trembling, for the table shook under his elbow. Then he began to speak, as follows:-- "I must tell the story of my life. My father was an officer in the army of King Ferdinand, under the former government, and I was his only child. He had a little fortune, and his pay was relatively large for those days, so that I was brought up as a gentleman's son. My father, who had been so fortunate as to make many advantageous friendships in the course of his career, wished me to enter the military academy and the army. By his interest I should have had rapid advancement. But this was not my inclination. Ever since I can remember anything, I know that I ardently wished to be a priest. As a little boy, I used to make a small altar in a dark room behind my own, and I used to adorn it and dress it for the feast days, and light tapers on it, and save my pocket money to buy tiny silver ornaments for it. Before I could read I knew the Rosary and the short Litanies, and I used to say them very devoutly before my little altar, with genuflexions and other gestures such as I saw the priests make in church. My father smiled sometimes, but he did not interfere. He was a devout man, though he was a soldier. I had some facility for learning, also, and was fond of all books. My mother died when I was four years old. "I need not tell how the devout passion increased in me as I grew older. I passed through all the stages of such development very quickly. My father believed that I had a true vocation for the Church, and yielding to my entreaties and to the advice of his friends, who told him that he could never make a soldier of such a boy, he allowed me to enter a seminary. I was very happy, and my love of books and my earnest desire to be a priest continued to increase. I was made a deacon and received the tonsure. Then I fell ill. It was the will of Heaven, for I never was ill before that, nor have been since. It was a long illness, a dangerous fever. Just before that time, while I was in the seminary, my father had married a second time, a young and very beautiful woman, scarcely two years older than I. They both took care of me, and she was very kind and liked me from the first. "I loved her. That was perhaps an illness also, for I never suffered in that way again. It was very terrible, for I knew what a great sin it was to love my father's wife. I never told her that I loved her, and she was always the same, kind and good. My heart was red-hot iron in my breast, day and night, and it was very long before I was really well again. After that, I confessed my sin many times, but I could not feel repentance for it. My father wondered, and so did she, why I would not go back to the seminary for the few months that remained to complete my studies. It would have been better if I had gone back. But I loved her, and I could not. I could not confess the sin in my heart to the confessor of the seminary, for whom I had great esteem and who had known me so long, I was ashamed, and waited, thinking that it would pass. But I wished to escape. "I joined myself as a lay brother to a Franciscan mission that was going to Africa. My father made many objections to this, but I overcame them. I think he guessed that I loved his wife, and though he loved me, too, he was glad that I should go away. As for me, I trusted that in the labours of a distant mission I should forget my love, feel honest repentance, receive absolution, and be ordained a true priest by a missionary bishop. "We were seven who started together upon that mission. After two years I alone was left alive. One after the other they died of the fever of that country. We had written for help, but I knew afterwards that our letters had not reached the sea. That was why no one came to bring help. We had converted people amongst those savages and had built a chapel. Even those who were not converted were friendly, for we had taught them many things. My companions all died, one by one, and I buried the last. But I myself was never ill of the fever. Yet the people there clung around me. I committed a great sin. They had no priest, and they did not understand that I was not one, for I dressed like the others. If there were no more services in the little chapel, they would think that Christianity was dead, and they would fall back to their former condition. I took the sin upon myself, and I said mass for them, knowing that it was no mass, and praying that God would forgive me, and that it might not be a sacrilege. I did not fall ill. I lived amongst them, and received their confessions and administered all the sacraments when they were required, for the space of a year and a half, during which I sent many appeals for help. But in my letters I did not explain what I was doing, for I intended to go to the bishop if I ever got home alive, and confess to him. "At last help came, priests and lay brothers. It pleased Heaven that they should come at last at the very moment when I was saying mass for the people. Of course there was no bishop amongst them, and none of them knew that I was not a priest. I should have confessed the truth to the eldest of them, but I had no courage, for I did not do it at once, but put it off, and as every priest said mass every day, I said mine, too, on the first morning after the others had come. I wished to go away at once. But I alone knew all the people, and could preach a little in their language, and I was much loved by them, for I had been alone with them during eighteen months. So my new brethren would not let me go, and after what I had done so far, I was ashamed to tell the truth about myself. They looked up to me as a superior, because I had been so long in the mission and had lived through what had killed so many. They thought me very humble and praised my humility. But it was not humility--it was shame. "During two years more I remained with them, and two of them died, but the rest lived, for I had learned how men should live in that country in order to escape the fevers, and I taught them. The mission grew, and many people were converted. Then they began to speak of sending home two of their number to Rome, to give an account of the work, and to get more help, if possible, in order that the conversion might be carried further into the country; and they decided to do so. It was my right to be one of the two, and I took it. My companion was a young priest less strong than the rest, and we left the mission and after a long journey we got home safely. I meant to go to the first bishop I met, and make my confession. "But when we came to Rome and we were giving an account of what had been done, the young priest thrust me forward to speak, as was natural, and I seemed to be a personage of importance, because I had lived through so many perils and had outlived so many. We two were invited to dinner by cardinals, and were admitted to a private audience of the Pope. Everybody seemed to know what I had done, and even the liberal newspapers praised my courage and devotion. "I had no courage, for being full of vanity, I never confessed my sin. But I would not go back to the mission, and when I could leave Rome, I left the young priests there and went to Naples to see my father. He had read what had been written about me, and was proud of me, and he received me gladly, for he loved me and was a devout man. Six years had passed since I had seen his wife, and though I trembled when I was just about to see her, yet when she entered the room I knew that I did not love her any more, and I was very much pleased to find that this sin, at least, had left me. "I lived with them several years, devoting myself to study, and I used to say my mass in a church close by. For I was a priest by nature and heart, and I had grown so used to my sin of sacrilege, that I shut my eyes, and told myself that it was the wish of Heaven. But the truth is, I was a coward. It was then that you first knew me and you know how my father died and my stepmother married again, and how I undertook to be the tutor of poor Bosio Macomer. But with years, the city grew distasteful to me, and I wished to be alone, for Bosio was grown up, and I had no heart for teaching any one else. I was also very poor, having spent what my father left me, both on books, and in other ways of which I need not speak because there was nothing wrong in what I did with the money. "And then, Count Macomer--the one who is now insane--offered to make me curate of Muro and chaplain of the castle of the Serra, all of which you know. And I, accustomed to my wickedness, and feeling myself a priest, though I was not one, accepted it for the peace of it. "It is a very terrible thing. For all the sacraments I have administered in these many years have been of no value; but the worst, for its consequences, is that none of the many hundreds I have married, are truly married, and that if the truth were known to them, the confusion would be beyond my power to imagine. But Christians they are, for a layman may baptize, even though he be not in a state of grace. "And for the other sacraments, the sin is all mine, as you see, and God will be good to them all, according to the intention and belief they had. And now a worse thing has happened, though it was not my fault, excepting that the original fault is all mine. For Don Gianluca della Spina was lying at the point of death, and there were with him the princess and Don Sigismondo Taquisara, the Baron of Guardia, his friend. The princess desired to be married to Don Gianluca, before he died, and sent for me in great haste and commanded me to marry them. As I raised my eyes to speak, for it was impossible to resist her will, the Taquisara thought that Don Gianluca was dead and took the princess's hand from the dead man's, as he thought, and as I suppose--and I gave them the benediction. But when I looked down, it was the Baron of Guardia who appeared to have been married to the princess, for their right hands were clasped; and I cannot tell whether, if I were a true priest, they would have been married or not. "But the princess and Don Gianluca believe that I made them husband and wife, though the Taquisara knows that something was wrong, since he held her hand. For Don Gianluca has recovered, and they are now about to have a civil marriage and announce it to their friends. "It was the will of God that my own sin should follow me to the end, and that it should be the means of freeing these three persons from their terrible position. For the Baron of Guardia believes that he is married to the princess, and she believes that she is Don Gianluca's wife. But as yet no further harm is done, and the Taquisara is the bravest gentleman and the truest man to his friend that ever drew breath. Therefore I have made this confession. And I will abide all the consequences. The bishop before whom you will lay the case will know what is to be done. It will be in his power, I presume, to acquaint the princess with the fact that she is not married at all, and must be married by a true priest; and to do so, without injuring the poor people of Muro who have been the victims of my sin for many years. "That is my confession. And now, if I have not made all clear to you, I beg you to ask me such questions as you think fit, for it is not in your power to give me absolution." Don Teodoro was exhausted. His face sank upon his folded hands on the edge of the table, and his shoulders trembled. "My poor friend! My poor friend!" repeated Don Matteo, in a low and wondering tone. "No--it is quite clear," he added. "There is nothing which I have not understood. But I can say nothing, my poor friend! Pray--pray for forgiveness. God will forgive you, for you have done evil only to yourself, and never anything but good to others." Don Teodoro in a hardly audible voice repeated the second half of the 'Confiteor' and remained on his knees a little while longer. Don Matteo covered his eyes with his hands, and during several minutes there was silence. Then the two old men rose and looked at each other for a moment. "Courage!" said Don Matteo, and he gently patted his friend's shoulder. He took off his stole, folded it carefully, and wrapped it in its clean white paper again, before putting it away. But he did that by force of habit. Confessors hear strange things sometimes and are not easily disconcerted, but Don Teodoro's was the strangest tale that had ever come to Don Matteo's ears. Again he came and patted Don Teodoro's shoulder in a way of kindly encouragement. Then he took his three-cornered hat and went out without a word. In such a case there was no time to be lost. Cardinal Campodonico was at that time the archbishop of Naples, and he received Don Matteo immediately, for the priest was a man of extraordinarily brilliant gifts and well known to the prelate, who liked him and had caused him to be made a canon of the cathedral not many years earlier. Don Matteo, as was right in such a position, laid the whole matter before him as a theoretical case of conscience, without names, and without any useless details which might by any possibility give a clue to his real penitent's identity. He stated it all with great clearness and force, but he dwelt much upon the spotless life of charity and good works which the man had led, in spite of his one chief sin. He knew, when Don Teodoro spoke of having spent his father's fortune, that almost every penny of it had gone to the poor of Naples in one way or another, and he had seen at a glance how his poor friend had in his youth exaggerated his boyish admiration for his stepmother. But Don Matteo put the main point very clearly before the cardinal--always as a purely theoretical case of conscience, asking what a confessor's duty would be in such an extremely difficult situation. The cardinal listened attentively, and then was silent for some time. "The first thing to be done," he said at last, "would be to make a priest of him. He is evidently a man with a vocation, and the chain of circumstances which led him into this sin and difficulty is a very strange one. I hardly know what to say of it--left alone with savages only just converted--well, he was wrong, of course. But the man you represent in your theoretical case is supposed to be in all other respects almost a holy man." "Yes, a man of holy life," said Don Matteo, earnestly. "I do not see how a man of such disposition could have been so lacking in courage afterwards," said the cardinal. "But suppose that it were exactly as I represent the case, Eminence, what should the confessor do?" The cardinal looked into his eyes long and gravely. "I should think it best to make a priest of him as soon as possible," he said at last. "But how? No bishop could ordain him a priest without knowing his story." "I would ordain him, if he came to me. I think I should be doing right." "But then your Eminence would know him, and the secret of confession would have been betrayed." "That is true. Let him go to another bishop and tell his story." "Another bishop might not think as your Eminence does. Besides, the question is what the confessor is to do under the circumstances." The cardinal suddenly rose, went to the broad window, and looked out thoughtfully. Don Matteo stood up respectfully, waiting. It seemed to him a long time before the prelate turned, and what he did then surprised the priest very much, for he went to each of the three doors of the room in succession, opened it, looked out, closed it again and locked it. Then he came back to Don Matteo. "Are you, to the best of your belief, in a state of grace, my friend?" he asked in a low voice. "Have you no mortal sin on your conscience? Reflect well. This is a grave matter." "I cannot think of any, Eminence," answered the good priest, after a moment's pause. "Very well. We are alone here. The case of conscience you have laid before me is a very extraordinary one. I do not wish to know whether it has actually come before you in confession. But if it has,--or if it should,--I should wish you to be in a position to help that poor man and set his life straight, by the grace of God, without injuring him, and, above all, without injuring any of those persons to whom he has administered the sacraments. I have known you a long time, Don Matteo, and I can trust you to make no use of any power I give you, before the world. I have the power and the right to consecrate a bishop any priest whom I think a fit person. Kneel down here, say the 'Confiteor,' and I will lay my hands on you. You could then give the penitent absolution and ordain him a priest privately." Don Matteo started in utmost surprise, and hesitated an instant. "Kneel down," said the cardinal. "I take this upon myself." The priest knelt, and the solemn words sounded low in the quiet little room, as the archbishop laid his hands upon Don Matteo's grey head. When the latter rose, he kissed the cardinal's ring, trembling a little, for it had all been very unexpected. The cardinal embraced him in the ecclesiastical fashion, and then, to his further amazement, drew off his episcopal ring and slipped it upon Don Matteo's finger, took his own bishop's cross and chain from his neck and hung it about Don Matteo's neck. "Keep them both in memory of this morning," said the prelate. "But hide the chain and the cross under your cassock, for people need not see that you are a bishop, when you sit among the canons in church. You know it, I know it, your penitent must know it if the case is a real one, and the Pope shall know it--but no one else living need ever guess it. Will you kindly unlock the doors? Thank you. We will not mention this occurrence again, if we can help it. Good morning, Don Matteo--good morning, my friend." When Don Matteo was in the street again, he stood still and passed his hand over his eyes, trying to collect his thoughts. His bishop's ring touched his forehead, and he realized that it was all true. He had not been half an hour in the archbishop's palace, and when he reached his own door, he had not been absent an hour from the house. He found Don Teodoro in the same room and still in the same chair, into which he had dropped exhausted when Don Matteo had gone out, his head sunk on his breast, his hands clasped despairingly on his knees. As the door opened, he looked up with scared eyes, and rose. "Courage!" exclaimed Don Matteo, patting his shoulder just as he had done before going out. "I have seen his Eminence." Don Teodoro looked at him in mute and resigned expectation, and wondered at his cheerful face. But his friend made him sit down again, and told him all that had taken place, and then, before Don Teodoro could recover his astonishment and emotion, he found himself kneeling on the floor and heard the words of absolution spoken softly over him. A moment later he felt upon his head the laying of hands and heard those still more solemn words pronounced over him, which, he had never hoped to hear said for himself. When he rose to his feet at last, he saw Don Matteo wrapping up the bishop's cross and chain and ring in the same piece of clean white paper in which he kept the old stole. But Don Teodoro went to his little room, which was ready for him as usual, and he was not seen again on that day. Several times Don Matteo went softly to the door. Once he heard the old man sobbing within as though his heart would break, all alone; and once again he heard his voice saying Latin prayers in a low tone; and the third time all was very still, and Don Matteo knew that the worst was past. On the next morning very early Don Teodoro came out of his room. Neither of the two spoke of what had happened, but the clear light was in the old priest's eyes again, clearer and happier than before, and little by little the lines smoothed themselves from his singular face until there were no more there than there had been for years. All that day they talked together of books and of Don Teodoro's great history of the Church. But they were both thoughtful and subject to moments of absence of mind. It was not until the evening of the third day that Don Teodoro asked his friend a question. "What do you advise me to say to the princess?" he inquired, when they were alone together. "Tell her that you have consulted an ecclesiastical authority and that there was an irregularity about the marriage with Don Gianluca so that you must solemnly marry them again before they can consider themselves man and wife. And tell the Baron of Guardia that the same authority is sure that he was not married to the princess, but is a free man. It is very simple, and there can be no possible mistake, now." "Yes," said Don Teodoro. "It is very simple." And so it was, for Cardinal Campodonico deserved the reputation he enjoyed of being, in ecclesiastical affairs, a man equal to the most difficult emergencies, in character, in keen discernment, and in prompt action. But Don Teodoro sighed softly when he had spoken, for he thought of Taquisara and of what that brave and silent man would suffer when he was forced to stand by Gianluca's side and see the rings exchanged and the hands joined, and hear the words spoken which must cut him off forever from all hope. But Taquisara, at least, in his suffering, would have the consolation of having been honest and true and loyal from first to last. He would never have to bear the consequences of having been a coward at a great moment. It could not be so very hard for him, after all, thought Don Teodoro. And he saw no reason for curtailing his stay in Naples, since there was time until the first of January. On the contrary, he grew glad of those long days, in which he could meditate on the past and think of the future, and be supremely and humbly thankful for the great change that had come into his life. CHAPTER XXIX. Don Teodoro wrote a few words to Taquisara, embodying what Don. Matteo had advised him to say. He added also that matters had not turned out as he had expected and that he should return to Muro as usual on the twentieth of the month. The Sicilian, read the letter twice and then burned it carefully. He was neither surprised nor disappointed by its contents, though he had expected that there would be much more difficulty in undoing what had been done. There was clearly nothing more to be said, as there was most certainly nothing more to hope. Don Teodoro had undoubtedly consulted the archbishop of Naples, thought Taquisara, and such a decision was final and authoritative. He had succeeded in forcing himself into a sort of mechanical regularity of life which helped him through the day. Gianluca needed him still, though less than formerly, and as long as he could be of use, and could control his face and voice, he would stay in Muro. Since Veronica had fixed the first of January as a limit, he could hardly find an excuse for going away during the last three weeks of the time, when he could still be of infinite service to his friend on the journey to Naples. On the whole, he considered himself very little. It was easier to do his utmost, and to invent more than his utmost to be done, than it would be to live an idle life anywhere else. Again, as in the early days, he avoided Veronica when he could do so, without attracting Gianluca's attention, and Veronica herself kept out of his way as much as she could. Without words they had a tacit understanding that they would never be left alone together, even for an instant. One day, by chance, going in opposite directions through the house, they opened opposite doors of the same room and faced each other unexpectedly. For a single instant both paused, and then came forward to pass each other. Veronica held her head high and looked straight before her, for they had met already on that day, and there was no reason why she should speak to him. But Taquisara could not help looking into her face, and he saw how hard it tried to be and yet how, in spite of herself, it softened almost before she had passed him. He turned and glanced at her retreating figure, and her head was bent low, and her right hand, hanging by her side, opened and shut twice convulsively, in his sight. He had not dared to suggest to himself until then that she might possibly love him, but in the flash of that quick passing he almost knew it. Then, before he had closed the door behind him and entered the next room, the knowledge was gone, and he cursed himself for the thought, as though it had been an insult to her. If he should have to pass her alone again, he would rather cut off his right hand than turn and look at her. But that one moment, past and gone, had life in it to torment him night and day. Gianluca was no better, and no worse. He wheeled himself about the great rooms, and on fine mornings Veronica took him to drive. She read to him, played bésique with him, fenced with Taquisara to amuse him; she devoted herself to him in every way; but as day followed day, she invented all sorts of occupations and games which should take the place of conversation. Anything was better than talking with him, now; anything was better than to hear him say that he loved her, expecting her to pronounce the words. He himself lost heart suddenly. "I shall never walk again," he said, one afternoon, as they sat together in the big room. The days were very short, for it was mid-December, and the lamps had been brought. They had been out in the carriage, and when Taquisara had lifted him from his seat, he had made a desperate attempt to move his legs, a sudden effort into which he had thrown all the concentrated hope and will that were still in him. But there had been neither motion nor sensation, and all at once he had felt that it was all over, forever. Veronica looked at him quickly, and he was watching her face. He saw no contradiction there of what he had said, but only a little surprise that he should have said it. "You may not be able to walk as soon as we thought," she answered gently. "But that is no reason why you should never walk at all." "I am afraid it is," he said. She stroked his hand, as she often did, and her eyes wandered from his face to the other side of the room, and back again. "I have been trying very hard to get well," he continued presently. "Harder than any one knows." "I know," Veronica answered. "You are so brave!" "Brave? No. I am desperate. Do you think I do not know what it must be to you, to be tied to a hopeless cripple like me?" "Tied? I?" She spoke bravely, for it would have been a deadly cruelty not to contradict him. "It is for you," she went on. "You must not think of me as tied to you, dear, as you call it! I did it gladly, of my own free will, and I knew what I was doing." "Ah no!" he answered sadly. "You could not have known what you were doing, then. Your whole life has only saved half of mine." A chill of fear shot through Veronica's heart. "Dear," she said anxiously and nervously. "Have I done anything to make you talk like this?" "Yes, love, you have done much," he answered, with a tender, regretful look. "No--do not start! I am sorry that you did not understand. It is because you do so much, because you give your whole life for my wretched existence, because I know what my hours of happiness cost you now and will cost you hereafter. That is why I say these things. It would have been so much easier and simpler if I had died with my hand in yours, that day, when Don Teodoro married us. Veronica--tell me--did he say all the words? I fainted, I think." "Yes," answered Veronica, still pale. "He said all the words." "And did he give us the benediction?" "Yes, he gave us the benediction." Gianluca sighed. "Then it cannot be undone, dear," he said softly. "You must forgive me." "I would not have it undone, Gianluca." And before that great unselfishness, Veronica bowed her head down, until her lips kissed his hands. But as she touched them, she heard the door open, and instantly she was erect again, and trying to smile. Taquisara came in. Veronica rose, for she felt that she could not sit still by Gianluca's side, with his words in her ear, her own scarcely cold upon her lips, and the man for whom she would have given her soul's salvation, who would have died ten deaths for her, standing quietly there, looking on. She walked nervously up and down the room. "Should you like to fence?" asked Taquisara. "We have not touched a foil to-day." Anything seemed good which could pass the time without talking. But to her it seemed heartless just then. "No," she answered, almost curtly. "It seems to me that we are always fencing." But Gianluca understood why she refused. And to him, perhaps, anything was better than thinking. "Please do!" he said. "I enjoy it so much!" Mechanically and without a word, she went to the corner where the foils and other things were kept in a great carved chest. Taquisara moved a large table out of the way, pushing it slowly before him. "Do you think you can see? Or shall we have more lamps?" asked Veronica. "I can see very well--as well as one can, by lamp-light," answered Taquisara, as he placed the lamps together upon the table, so that the light should fall sideways upon them when they fenced. Veronica was glad to slip her mask over her face, just then. She was conscious of the fact when she had done it, though she hardly knew what she was doing as she took a foil from the long chest and stepped out into the room to meet Taquisara. Then, as he raised his arm to engage and she still held her foil down, her habitual interest in the amusement momentarily asserted itself. "Shall we try that feint of yours that you were doing the other day?" she asked. "You know, you touched me with it. I think I can meet it now, for I have been thinking about it." "Yes, try it!" said Gianluca, from his chair. "Certainly," answered Taquisara. Instantly, both fell into position and engaged. Barely crossing foils, Taquisara executed the feint in question at once, and lunged his fullest length. But Veronica had thought out the right parry and answer, and was quicker than he. His weapon ran past her head without touching her, and as he recovered himself, hers shot out after him. He uttered an exclamation as it ran under his arm, with a little soft resistance. "Touched!" cried Veronica, at the same instant. He said nothing. Then, a second later, she uttered a sharp cry of horror, dropped her foil upon the floor and raising her mask stared at him with wild, white face. Not heeding what she did, she had taken the sharp foil by mistake. It was dark in the corner where the chest stood. "It is nothing," he said. "It is nothing, I assure you." "What is the matter?" asked Gianluca, in astonishment, for he could not see that the foil had no button. But Veronica did not answer him. She was close to Taquisara now, clutching his arm with both hands and staring at the wire mask which covered his face. "You are hurt! I know you are hurt!" she said, in a voice faint with fear. "Oh no!" he answered, with a short laugh. "I was a little surprised. Take another foil. It is nothing, I assure you." "I know you are hurt," she repeated. "Oh God! I might have killed you--" She felt dizzy, and sick with horror, and she clung to his arm, now, for support. "Do you mean to say that you had the sharp foil?" asked Gianluca, beginning to understand. "It is nothing at all," said Taquisara. "It ran through my jacket, just under the arm. It did not touch me." "It might have run through you," said Gianluca, gravely. "It might have killed you." "Oh--please--please--" cried Veronica, still clinging to Taquisara's arm and turning her pale face to Gianluca. He looked on, and his face changed. There was something in her attitude, just for a few seconds, in her ghastly pallor, in the tones of her voice, that went through Gianluca like a knife. The dreadful instinctive certainty that she loved the man she had so nearly killed, took possession of him in a dark prevision of terror. Veronica was strong and brave, but it would have been strange indeed if she had shown nothing of what she felt. It did not last long, and perhaps she knew what she had shown, for she dropped Taquisara's arm, and the colour rushed to her face as she stooped and picked up the foil with the green hilt. The hilts of the others were blue, like those of many Neapolitan foils, and in the lamp-light she could hardly distinguish the difference. With sudden anger Veronica set her foot upon the steel and bent it up, trying to break it. She could not, for it was of soft temper, but she bent it out of all shape, so as to be useless. She forced herself to take another, and they fenced again for a few minutes. Gianluca watched them at first, but soon his head fell back, and he stared at the ceiling. Death had entered into his soul. He had guessed half the truth. But in the state in which he was on that evening, and after what had passed between him and Veronica, the suspicion alone would have been enough. Nothing could have saved him from it, since it was indeed the truth. Such passionate, strong love could only hide itself so long as it lived in the even, unchanging light of monotonous days. In the flash of a danger, a terror, a violent chance, its shape stood out for an instant and was not to be mistaken. Gianluca scarcely spoke again on that evening. The next morning, before he left his own room, Taquisara was with him, walking up and down and smoking while Gianluca drank his coffee. They had been discussing the accident of the previous evening, and Taquisara had laughed over it. But Gianluca was sad and grave. "I wish to ask you a question," he said, after a short silence. "When I fainted, that day--did Don Teodoro pronounce all the proper words? You must have heard him. Was it a real marriage, without any defect of form?" Taquisara stopped in his walk and hesitated. After all, since Don Teodoro had written to him that the marriage must be performed again, it was much better that Gianluca should be prepared for it, since he himself had put the question. "Since you ask me," answered Taquisara, after a moment's thought, "I may as well tell you what I know. After it was done, both Don Teodoro and I had doubts as to whether the marriage were perfectly valid, and he determined to consult a bishop. I suppose that he has done so, for he has written to me about it. He says that the ecclesiastical authority before whom the matter was laid declares that there were informalities, and that you must be married again. You see, in the first place, there were no banns published in church, and there was no permission from the bishop to omit publishing them. But, of course, that might be set aside. I fancy that the real trouble may have been that you were unconscious. At all events, it is a very simple matter to be married again." "In other words, it is no marriage at all. I thought so--I thought so." Gianluca repeated the words slowly and sadly. "What does it matter?" asked Taquisara, turning away and walking again. "It is a question of five minutes. I should think that you would be glad--" "Yes--perhaps I am glad," said Gianluca, so low that the words were scarcely an interruption. "Because you can be married in your full senses," continued Taquisara, bravely, "with your father and mother beside you, and all the rest of it." Gianluca said nothing to this, and again there was a short silence. Just as Taquisara came to the table in his walk, Gianluca spoke again. "Stop a moment," he said. "Look at me, Taquisara. If you were in my place, what would you do?" Their eyes met, and Gianluca saw the quick effort of the other's features, controlling themselves, as though he had been struck unawares. "I?" exclaimed Taquisara, taken entirely off his guard. "If I were in your place? Why--" he recovered himself--"I should get married again, as soon as possible, of course. What else should any one do?" But the bold eyes for once looked down a little, their steadiness broken. "You would do nothing of the sort," said Gianluca. "What do you mean?" Again Taquisara started almost imperceptibly, and his brows contracted as he looked up sharply. "If you were in my place," said Gianluca, "you would cut your throat rather than ruin the life of the woman you loved, by tying your misery to her for life, a load for her to carry." "Do not say such things!" exclaimed the Sicilian, turning suddenly from the table and resuming his walk. "You are mad!" "No--not mad. But not cowardly either. There is not much left of me, but what there is shall not be afraid. I am not truly married to her. I will not be. I will not die with that on my soul." "Gianluca--for God's sake do not say such things!" Taquisara turned upon him, staring. He sat in his deep chair, his fair angel head thrown back, the dark blue eyes bright, brave, and daring--all the rest, dead. "I say them, and I mean them," he answered. "I love her very much. I love her enough for that. I love her more than you do." "Than I?" Taquisara's voice almost broke, as the blow struck him, but there was no fear in his eyes either. He drew a breath then, and spoke strong words. "Now may Christ forget me in the hour of death, if I have not been true to you!" "And me and mine if I blast your life and hers," came back the unflinching answer. A deep silence fell upon them both. At last Gianluca spoke again, and his voice sank to another tone. "She loves you, too," he said. "Loves me?" cried Taquisara, his brows suddenly close bent. "Oh no! Unsay that, or--no--Gianluca--how dare you even dream the right to say that of your wife?" It was beyond his strength to bear. "She is not my wife," said Gianluca. "You have told me so--she is not my wife. She has done what no other living woman could have done, to be my wife and to love me. But she is not my wife, and what I say is true, and right as well, your right and hers. "No--not that--not hers." Taquisara turned half round, against the table, where he stood, and his voice was low and broken. "Yes, hers. You will know it soon--when I have taken my love to my grave, and left her yours on earth." "Gianluca!" Taquisara could not speak, beyond that, but he laid his hand upon his friend's arm and clutched it, as though to hold him back. His dark eyes darkened, and in them were the terrible tears that strong men shed once in life, and sometimes once again, but very seldom more. Gianluca's thin fingers folded upon the hand that held him. "You have been very true to me," he said. "She will be quite safe with you." For a long time they were both silent. It began to rain, and the big drops beat against the windows, melancholy as the muffled drum of a funeral march, and the grey morning light grew still more dim. "I will not go into the other room just yet," said Gianluca, quietly. "I would rather be alone for a little while." Their eyes met once more, and Taquisara went away without a word. That had been almost the last act of the strange tragedy of love and death which had been lived out in slow scenes during those many weeks. It was needful that it should come, and inevitable, soon or late. It began when Gianluca made that one last desperate effort to move, in sudden certainty of hope that ended in the instant foreknowledge of what was to be. A little thing swayed him then--such a little thing as the accident of a sharp foil, a rent in a jacket, the woman's blinding fear for the man she loved. There are many arrows in fate's quiver, and the little ones are as keen as the long shafts, and quicker to find the tender mark. The man was born to suffer, but he had in him that something divine by which martyrs made death the witness of life and turned despair of earth to sure hope of heaven. He had ever been a man tender and gentle. His nature did not fail him now. With exquisite devotion and thought for Veronica's happiness, and with a love for her that penetrated the short future of near death, he would not say to her what he had said to Taquisara. He would not let one breath of doubt disturb her only satisfaction while he still lived, nor trouble her with the least fear lest she had not done all her fullest to give him happiness while she could. In the end, it was his love that cut short his living, and no one knew what hours and days and nights of pain he bore, till the end came. He made of his love and his death a way for her life. She had given him all she had. He gave it back to her a hundred-fold, but she should not know, while he lived, that her great gift had not been to him more than she could make it, all that she wished it might be, all that she knew it was not. He had not far to carry his burden; but except his friend, no one should know the heaviness of his heart, neither his father nor his mother, and least of all, Veronica. He could not hide that he was dying, but he could hide the cost of it, and its bitterness. After that day, his life went from him, as the strength falls away from a ship's sails when the breeze is softly dying on a summer's evening. In fear Veronica watched him, and in fear she met Taquisara's eyes. In the long nights, when it rained and there was no moon, the darkness of death's wings was in the air, and she held her breath, alone in her dim room. They all knew it, and none said it, though shadow answered shadow in one another's faces when they met. It was as though another element than air had descended amongst them, dull, unresonant, hushing word and tread. For each life we love is a sun, in our lives that would be dark if there were no love in them, and when it goes down to its setting in our hearts, the last light of love's day is very deep and tender, as no other is after it, and the passionate, sad twilight of regret deepens to a darkness of great loneliness over all, until our tears are wept, and our souls take of our mortal selves memories of love undying. The end came soon, in the night, for it was his will to live that had kept him with them so long. Taquisara was with him. One by one the others came, hastily muffled and wrapped in dark robes, for the night was cold and damp even within doors. One after another they came, and they stood and knelt beside him on the right and left. He spoke to them all,--to his father and his mother first, for he felt the tide ebbing. With streaming eyes Veronica bent down and looked for the fading light in his, through her fast-falling tears. And close to her his mother stretched out weak hands that trembled with every breaking sob. His father knelt there, burying his face against the pillow, shaking all over, his arms hanging down loose and helpless by his sides, bent, bowed, crushed, as a weak old lion, stricken in age and cruelly wounded to death. And above them all, Taquisara's sad, deep-chiselled face looked down, as the face of a bronze statue beside a grave. Without, the winter's rain beat a low dead-march on the great windows, and the southwest wind sighed out its vast breath along the castle walls. It was long since he had spoken, and they thought that they should never hear his voice again. But still the last light lingered in his eyes. Very little was left for him to do. He moved Veronica's right hand, that was in his, drawing it a little, and she let it move; and his other held Taquisara's, and he drew it also, they yielding, till the two touched, and at his dying will clasped one another. Then he smiled faintly, his last smile on earth. And as it faded forever, there came back to them from beyond all pain the words of his blessing upon their two strong young lives. "Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus--" and the angels heard the rest. Thus died Gianluca della Spina. THE END. 
13597	----	A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH by F. MARION CRAWFORD 1886 TO My MOTHER I DEDICATE THIS TALE A MEAN TOKEN OF A LIFELONG AFFECTION SORRENTO, Christmas Day, 1885 CHAPTER I. The Reverend Augustin Ambrose would gladly have given up taking pupils. He was growing old and his sight was beginning to trouble him; he was very weary of Thucydides, of Homer, of the works of Mr. Todhunter of which the green bindings expressed a hope still unrealised, of conic sections--even of his beloved Horace. He was tired of the stupidities of the dull young men who were sent to him because they could not "keep up", and he had long ceased to be surprised or interested by the remarks of the clever ones who were sent to him because their education had not prepared them for an English University. The dull ones could never be made to understand anything, though Mr. Ambrose generally succeeded in making them remember enough to matriculate, by dint of ceaseless repetition and a system of _memoria technica_ which embraced most things necessary to the salvation of dull youth. The clever ones, on the other hand, generally lacked altogether the solid foundation of learning; they could construe fluently but did not know a long syllable from a short one; they had vague notions of elemental algebra and no notion at all of arithmetic, but did very well in conic sections; they knew nothing of prosody, but dabbled perpetually in English blank verse; altogether they knew most of those things which they need not have known and they knew none of those things thoroughly which they ought to have known. After twenty years of experience Mr. Ambrose ascertained that it was easier to teach a stupid boy than a clever one, but that he would prefer not to teach at all. Unfortunately the small tithes of a small country parish in Essex did not furnish a sufficient income for his needs. He had been a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, within a few years of taking his degree, wherein he had obtained high honours. But he had married and had found himself obliged to accept the first living offered to him, to wit, the vicarage of Billingsfield, whereof his college held the rectory and received the great tithes. The entire income he obtained from his cure never at any time exceeded three hundred and forty-seven pounds, and in the year when it reached that high figure there had been an unusually large number of marriages. It was not surprising that the vicar should desire to improve his circumstances by receiving one or two pupils. He had married young, as has been said, and there had been children born to him, a son and a daughter. Mrs. Ambrose was a good manager and a good mother, and her husband had worked hard. Between them they had brought up their children exceedingly well. The son had in his turn entered the church, had exhibited a faculty of pushing his way which had not characterised his father, had got a curacy in a fashionable Yorkshire watering-place, and was thought to be on the way to obtain a first-rate living. In the course of time, too, the daughter had lost her heart to a young physician who had brilliant prospects and some personal fortune, and the Reverend Augustin Ambrose had given his consent to the union. Nor had he been disappointed. The young physician had risen rapidly in his profession, had been elected a member of the London College, had transferred himself to the capital and now enjoyed a rising practice in Chelsea. So great was his success that it was thought he would before long purchase the goodwill of an old practitioner who dwelt in the neighbourhood of Brompton Crescent, and who, it was said, might shortly be expected to retire. It will be seen, therefore, that if Mr. Ambrose's life had not been very brilliant, his efforts had on the whole been attended with success. His children were both happy and independent and no longer needed his assistance or support; his wife, the excellent Mrs. Ambrose, enjoyed unfailing health and good spirits; he himself was still vigorous and active, and as yet found no difficulty in obtaining a couple of pupils at two hundred pounds a year each, for he had early got a reputation for successfully preparing young gentlemen with whom no other private tutor could do anything, and he had established the scale of his prices accordingly. It is true that he had sacrificed other things for the sake of imparting tuition, and more than once he had hesitated and asked himself whether he should go on. Indeed, when he graduated, it was thought that he would soon make himself remarkable by the publication of some scholarly work; it was foretold that he might become a famous preacher; it was asserted that he was a general favourite with the Fellows of Trinity and would get a proportionately fat living--but he had committed the unpardonable sin of allowing his chances of fortune to slip from him. He had given up his fellowship, had married and had accepted an insignificant country living. He asked nothing, and he got nothing. He never attracted the notice of his bishop by doing anything extraordinary, nor the notice of the public by appearing in print. He baptized, married and buried the people of Billingsfield, Essex, and he took private pupils. He wrote a sermon once a fortnight, and revised old ones for the other three occasions out of four. His sermons were good in their way, but were intended for simple folk and did no justice to the powers he had certainly possessed in his youth. Indeed, as years went on, the dry routine of his life produced its inevitable effect upon his mind, and the productions of Mr. Ambrose grew to be exceedingly commonplace; and the more commonplace he became, the more he regretted having done so little with the faculties he enjoyed, and the more weary he became of the daily task of galvanising the dull minds of his pupils into a spasmodic activity, just sufficient to leap the ditch that separates the schoolboy from the undergraduate. He had not only educated his children and seen them provided for in the world; he had also saved a little money, and he had insured his life for five hundred pounds. There was no longer any positive necessity for continuing to teach, as there had been thirty years ago, when he first married. So much for the circumstances of the Reverend Augustin Ambrose. Personally he was a man of good presence, five feet ten inches in height, active and strong, of a ruddy complexion with smooth, thick grey hair and a plentiful grey beard. He shaved his upper lip however, greatly to the detriment of his appearance, for the said upper lip was very long and the absence of the hirsute appendage showed a very large mouth with very thin lips, generally compressed into an expression of remarkable obstinacy. His nose was both broad and long and his grey eyes were bright and aggressive in their glance. As a matter of fact Mr. Ambrose was combative by nature, but his fighting instincts seem to have been generally employed in the protection of rights he already possessed, rather than in pushing on in search of fresh fields of activity. He was an active man, fond of walking alone and able to walk any distance he pleased; a charitable man with the charity peculiar to people of exceedingly economical tendencies and possessing small fixed incomes. He would give himself vast personal trouble to assist distress, as though aware that since he could not give much money to the poor he was bound to give the best of himself. The good Mrs. Ambrose seconded him in this as in all his works; labouring hard when hard work could do any good, but giving material assistance with a sparing hand. It sufficiently defines the two to say that although many a surly labourer in the parish grumbled that the vicar and his wife were "oncommon near", when money was concerned, there was nevertheless no trouble in which their aid was not invoked and their advice asked. But the indigent labourer not uncommonly retrieved his position by asking a shilling of one of the young gentlemen at the vicarage, who were generally open-handed, good-looking boys, blessed with a great deal more money than brains. At the time when this tale opens, however, it chanced that one of the two young gentlemen at the vicarage was by no means in the position peculiar to the majority of youths who sought the good offices of the Reverend Augustin Ambrose. John Short, aged eighteen, was in all respects a remarkable contrast to his companion the Honourable Cornelius Angleside. John Short was apparently very poor; the Honourable Cornelius on the other hand had plenty of money. Short was undeniably clever; Angleside was uncommonly dull. Short was the son of a decayed literary man; Angleside was the son of a nobleman. Short was by nature a hard worker; Angleside was amazingly idle. Short meant to do something in the world; Angleside had early determined to do nothing. It would not be easy to define the reasons which induced Mr. Ambrose to receive John Short under his roof. He had never before taken a pupil on any but his usual terms, and at his time of life it was strange that he should break through the rule. But here his peculiar views of charity came into play. Short's father had been his own chum at school, and his friend at college, but had failed to reap any substantial benefits from his education. He had been a scholar in his way, but his way had not been the way of other scholars, and when he had gone up for honours he had got a bad third in classics. He would not enter the church, he could not enter the law, he had no interest whatever, and he found himself naturally thrust into the profession of literature. For a time he had nearly starved; then he had met with some success and had, of course, married without hesitation; after this he had had more misfortunes. His wife had died leaving him an only son, whom in course of time he had sent to school. But school was too expensive and he had reluctantly taken the boy home again. It was in a fit of despair that he wrote to his old friend Augustin Ambrose, asking his advice. The Reverend Augustin considered the matter with the assistance of his wife, and being charitable souls, they determined that they must help Short to educate his son. Accordingly the vicar of Billingsfield wrote to his old friend to say that if he could manage to pay a small sum for the lad's board, he, the vicar, would complete the boy's education, so that he might at least have a chance in the world. Short accepted the offer with boundless gratitude and had hitherto not failed to pay the vicar the small sum agreed upon. The result of all this was that Mr. Ambrose had grown very fond of John, and John had derived great advantage from his position. He possessed precisely what his father had lacked, namely a strong bent in one direction, and there was no doubt that he would distinguish himself if he had a chance. That chance the vicar had determined to give him. He had made up his mind that his old friend's son should go to college and show what he was able to do. It was not an easy thing to manage, but the vicar had friends in Cambridge and John had brains; moreover the vicar and John were both very obstinate people and had both determined upon the same plan, so that there was a strong probability of their succeeding. John Short was eighteen years of age, neither particularly good-looking nor by any means the reverse. He had what bankers commonly call a lucky face; that is to say he had a certain very prepossessing look of honesty in his blue eyes, and a certain look of energetic goodwill in his features. When he was much older and wore a beard he passed for a handsome man, but at eighteen he could only boast the smallest of fair whiskers, and when anybody took the trouble to look long at him, which was not often, the verdict was that his jaw was too heavy and his mouth too obstinate. In complexion he was fair, and healthy to look at, generally sunburned in the summer, for he had a habit of reading out of doors; his laugh was very pleasant, though it was rarely heard; his eyes were honest but generally thoughtful; his frame was sturdy and already inclined rather to strength than to graceful proportion; his head matched his body well, being broad and well-shaped with plenty of prominence over the brows and plenty of fulness above the temples. He had a way of standing as though it would not be easy to move him, and a way of expressing his opinion which seemed to challenge contradiction. But he was not a combative boy. If any one argued with him, it soon appeared that he was not really argumentative, but merely enthusiastic. It was not necessary to agree with him, and there was small use in contradicting him. The more he talked the more enthusiastic he grew as he developed his own views; until seeing that he was not understood or that he was merely laughed at, he would end his discourse with a merry laugh at himself, or a shy apology for having talked so much. But the vicar assured his wife that the boy's Greek and Latin verses were something very extraordinary indeed, and much better than his own in his best days. For John was passionately fond of the classics and did not propose to acquire any more mathematical knowledge than was strictly necessary for his matriculation and "little-go." He meant to be a famous scholar and he meant to get a fellowship at his college in order to be perfectly independent and to help his father. John was a constant source of wonder to his companion the Honourable Cornelius Angleside, who remembered to have seen fellows of that sort at Eton but had never got near enough to them to know what they were really like. Cornelius had a vague idea that there was some trick about appearing to know so much and that those reading chaps were awful humbugs. How the trick was performed he did not venture to explain, but he was as firmly persuaded that it was managed by some species of conjuring as that Messrs. Maskelyne and Cook performed their wonders by sleight of hand. That one human brain should actually contain the amount of knowledge John Short appeared to possess was not credible to the Honourable Cornelius, and the latter spent more of his time in trying to discover how John "did it" than in trying to "do it" himself. Nevertheless, young Angleside liked Short after his own fashion, and Short did not dislike Angleside. John's father had given him to understand that as a general rule persons of wealth and good birth were a set of overbearing, purse-proud bullies, who considered men of genius to be little better than a set of learned monkeys, certainly not good enough to black their boots. For John's father in his misfortunes had imbibed sundry radical notions formerly peculiar to poor literary men, and not yet altogether extinct, and he had accordingly warned his son that all mammon was the mammon of unrighteousness, and that the people who possessed it were the natural enemies of people who had to live by their brains. But John had very soon discovered that though Cornelius Angleside possessed the three qualifications for perdition, in the shape of birth, wealth and ignorance, against which his poor father railed unceasingly, he succeeded nevertheless in making himself very good company. Angleside was not overbearing, he was not purse-proud and he was not a bully. On the contrary he was unobtrusive and sufficiently simple in manner, and he certainly never mentioned the subject of his family or fortune; John rather pitied him, on the whole, until he began to discover that Angleside looked up to him on account of his mental superiority, and then John, being very human, began to like him. The life at the vicarage of Billingsfield, Essex, was not remarkable for anything but its extreme regularity. Prayers, breakfast, work, lunch, a walk, work, dinner, work, prayers, bed. The programme never varied, save as the seasons introduced some change in the hours of the establishment. The vicar, who was fond of a little gardening and amused himself with a variety of experiments in the laying of asparagus beds, found occasional excitement in the pursuit of a stray cat which had managed to climb his wire netting and get at the heads of his favourite vegetable, in which thrilling chase he was usually aided by an old brown retriever answering, when he answered at all, to the name of Carlo, and by the Honourable Cornelius, whose skill in throwing stones was as phenomenal as his ignorance of Latin quantities. The play was invariably opened by old Reynolds, the ancient and bow-legged gardener, groom and man of all work at the vicarage. "Please sir, there's Simon Gunn's cat in the sparrergrass." The information was accompanied by a sort of chuckle of evil satisfaction which at once roused the sleeping passions of the Reverend Augustin Ambrose. "Dear me, Reynolds, then why don't you turn her out?" and without waiting for an answer, the excellent vicar would spring from his seat and rush down the lawn in the direction of the beds, closely followed by the Honourable Cornelius, who picked up stones from the gravel path as he ran, and whose long legs made short work of the iron fence at the bottom of the garden. Meanwhile the aged Reynolds let Carlo loose from the yard and the hunt was prosecuted with great boldness and ingenuity. The vicar's object was to get the cat out of the asparagus bed as soon as possible without hurting her, for he was a humane man and would not have hurt a fly. Cornelius, on the other hand, desired the game to last as long as possible, and endeavoured to prevent the cat's escape by always hitting the wire netting at the precise spot where she was trying to get over it. In this way he would often succeed in getting as much as half an hour's respite from Horace. At last the vicar, panting with his exertions and bathed in perspiration, would protest against the form of assault. "Really, Angleside", he would say, "I believe I could throw straighter myself. I'm quite sure Carlo can get her out if you leave him alone". Whereupon Cornelius would put his hands in his pockets and look on, and in a few minutes, when the cat had been driven out and the vicar's back was turned, he would slip a sixpence into old Reynold's hand, and follow his tutor reluctantly back to the study. Whether there was any connection between the cat and the sixpence is uncertain, but during the last months of Angleside's stay at the vicarage the ingenuity of Simon Gunn's yellow cat in getting over the wire netting reached such a pitch that the vicar began to prepare a letter to the Bishop Stortford _Chronicle_ on the relations generally existing between cats and asparagus beds. Another event in the life of the vicarage was the periodical lameness of the vicar's strawberry mare, followed by the invariable discovery that George Horsnell the village blacksmith had run a nail into her foot when he shoed her last. Invariably, also, the vicar threatened that in future the mare should be shod by Hawkins the rival blacksmith, who was a dissenter and had consequently never been employed by the vicarage. Moreover it was generally rumoured once every year that old Nat Barker, the octogenarian cripple who had not been able to stand upon his feet for twenty years, was at the point of death. He invariably recovered, however, in time to put in an appearance by proxy at the distribution of a certain dole of a loaf and a shilling on boxing day. It was told also that in remote times the Puckeridge hounds had once come that way and that the fox had got into the churchyard. A repetition of this stirring event was anxiously looked for during many years, every time that the said pack met within ten miles of Billingsfield, but hitherto it had been looked for in vain. On the whole the life at the vicarage was not eventful, and the studies of the two young men who imbibed learning at the feet of the Reverend Augustin Ambrose were rarely interrupted. Mrs. Ambrose herself represented the feminine element in the society of the little place. The new doctor was a strange man, suspected of being a free-thinker, and he was not married. The Hall, for there was a Hall at Billingsfield, was uninhabited, and had been uninhabited for years. The estate which belonged to it was unimportant and moreover was in Chancery and seemed likely to stay there, for reasons no one ever mentioned at Billingsfield, because no one knew anything about them. From time to time a legal looking personage drove up to the Duke's Head, which was kept by Mr. Abraham Boosey, who was also undertaker to the parish, and which was thought to be a very good inn. The legal personage stayed a day or two, spending most of his time at the Hall and in driving about to the scattered farms which represented the estate, but he never came to the vicarage, nor did the vicar ever seem to know what he was doing nor why he came. "He came on business"--that was all that anybody knew. His business was to collect rents, of course; but what he did with them, no one was bold enough to surmise. The estate was in Chancery, it was said, and the definition conveyed about as much to the mind of the average inhabitant of Billingsfield, as if he had been informed that the moon was in perigee or the sun in Scorpio. The practical result of its being in Chancery was that no one lived there. John Short liked Mrs. Ambrose and the Honourable Cornelius behaved to her with well bred affability. She always said Cornelius had very nice manners, as indeed he had and had need to have. Occasionally, perhaps four or five times in the year, the Reverend Edward Pewlay, who had what he called a tenor voice, and his wife, who played the pianoforte very fairly, came over to assist at a Penny Reading. He lived "over Harlow way," as the natives expressed it; he was what was called in those parts a rabid Anglican, because he preached in his surplice and had services on the Saints' days, and the vicar of Billingsfield did not sympathise in his views. Nevertheless he was very useful at Penny Readings, and on one of these occasions produced a very ingenious ghost for the delectation of the rustics, by means of a piece of plate glass and a couple of lamps. There had indeed been festivities at the vicarage to which as many as three clergymen's wives had been invited, but these were rare indeed. For months at a time Mrs. Ambrose reigned in undisputed possession of the woman's social rights in Billingsfield. She was an excellent person in every way. She had once been handsome and even now she was fine-looking, of goodly stature, if also of goodly weight; rosy, even rubicund, in complexion, and rotund of feature; looking at you rather severely out of her large grey eyes, but able to smile very cheerfully and to show an uncommonly good set of teeth; twisting her thick grey hair into a small knot at the back of her head and then covering it with a neatly made cap which she considered becoming to her time of life; dressed always with extreme simplicity and neatness, glorying in her good sense and in her stout shoes; speaking of things which she called "neat" with a devotional admiration and expressing the extremest height of her disapprobation when she said anything was "very untidy." A motherly woman, a practical woman, a good housekeeper and a good wife, careful of small things because generally only small things came in her way, devotedly attached to her husband, whom she regarded with perfect justice as the best man of her acquaintance, adding, however, with somewhat precipitous rashness that he was the best man in the world. She took also a great interest in his pupils and busied herself mightily with their welfare. Since the arrival of the new doctor who was suspected of free-thinking, she had shown a strong leaning towards homoeopathy, and prescribed small pellets of belladonna for the Honourable Cornelius's cold and infinitesimal drops of aconite for John Short's headaches, until she observed that John never had a headache unless he had worked too much, and Angleside always had a cold when he did not want to work at all. Especially in the department of the commissariat she showed great activity, and the reputation the vicar had acquired for feeding his pupils well had perhaps more to do with his success than he imagined. She was never tired of repeating that Englishmen needed plenty of good food, and she had no principles which she did not practise. She even thought it right to lecture young Angleside upon his idleness at stated intervals. He always replied with great gentleness that he was awfully stupid, you know, and Mr. Ambrose was awfully good about it and he hoped he should not be pulled when he went up. And strange to relate he actually passed his examination and matriculated, to his own immense astonishment and to the no small honour and glory of the Reverend Augustin Ambrose, vicar of Billingsfield, Essex. But when that great day arrived certain events occurred which are worthy to be chronicled and remembered. CHAPTER II. In the warm June weather young Angleside went up to pass his examination for entrance at Trinity. There is nothing particularly interesting or worthy of note in that simple process, though at that time the custom of imposing an examination had only been recently imported from Oxford. For one whole day forty or fifty young fellows from all parts of the country sat at the long dining-tables in the beautiful old hall and wrote as busily as they could, answering the printed questions before them, and eyeing each other curiously from time to time. The weather was warm and sultry, the trees were all in full leaf and Cambridge was deserted. Only a few hard-reading men, who stayed up during the Long, wandered out with books at the backs of the colleges or strayed slowly through the empty courts, objects of considerable interest to the youths who had come up for the entrance examination--chiefly pale men in rather shabby clothes with old gowns and battered caps, and a general appearance of being the worse for wear. Angleside had been in Cambridge before and consequently lost no time in returning to Billingsfield when the examination was over. Short was to spend the summer at the vicarage, reading hard until the term began, when he was to go up and compete for a minor scholarship; Angleside was to wait until he heard whether he had passed, and was then going abroad to meet his father and to rest from the extreme exertion of mastering the "Apology" and the first books of the "Memorabilia." John drove over to meet the Honourable Cornelius, who was in a terrible state of anxiety and left him no peace on the way asking him again and again to repeat the answers to the questions which had been proposed, reckoning up the ones he had answered wrong and the ones he thought he might have answered right, and coming each time to a different conclusion, finally lighting a huge brierwood pipe and swearing "that it was a beastly shame to subject human beings to such awful torture." John calmed him by saying he fancied Cornelius had "got through"; for John's words were a species of gospel to Cornelius. By the time they reached the vicarage Angleside felt sanguine of his success. The vicar was not visible. It was a strange and unheard of thing--there were visitors in the drawing-room. This doubtless accounted for the fact that the fly from the Duke's Head was standing on the opposite side of the road. The two young men went into their study, which was on the ground floor and opened upon the passage which led to the drawing-room from the little hall. Angleside remarked that by leaving the door open they would catch a glimpse of the visitor when he went out. But the visitor stayed long. The curiosity of the two was wrought up to a high pitch; it was many months since there had been a real visitor at the vicarage. Angleside suggested going out and finding old Reynolds--he always knew everything that was going on. "If we only wait long enough," said Short philosophically, "they are sure to come out." "Perhaps," returned Cornelius rather doubtfully. "They" did come out. The drawing-room door opened and there was a sound of voices. It was a woman's voice, and a particularly sweet voice, too. Still no one came down the passage. The lady seemed to be lingering in taking her leave. Then there was a sound of small feet and suddenly a little girl stood before the open door of the study, looking wonderingly at the two young men. Short thought he had never seen such a beautiful child. She could not have been more than seven or eight years old, and was not tall for her age; a delicate little figure, all in black, with long brown curls upon her shoulders, flowing abundantly from beneath a round black sailor's hat that was set far back upon her head. The child's face was rather pale than very fair, of a beautiful transparent paleness, with the least tinge of colour in the cheeks; her great violet eyes gazed wonderingly into the study, and her lips parted in childlike uncertainty, while her little gloved hand rested on the door-post as though to get a sense of security from something so solid. It was only for a moment. Both the young fellows smiled at the child unconsciously. Perhaps she thought they were laughing at her; she turned and ran away again; then passed a second time, stealing a long glance at the two strangers, but followed immediately by the lady, who was probably her mother, and whose voice had been heard for the last few moments. The lady, too, glanced in as she went by, and John Short lost his heart then and there; not that the lady was beautiful as the little girl was, but because there was something in her face, in her figure, in her whole carriage, that moved the boy suddenly as she looked at him and sent the blood rushing to his cheeks and forehead. She seemed young, but he never thought of her age. In reality she was nine-and-twenty years old but looked younger. She was pale, far paler than the little girl, but she had those same violet eyes, large, deep and sorrowful, beneath dark, smooth eyebrows that arched high and rose a little in the middle. Her mouth was perhaps large for her face but her full lips curved gently and seemed able to smile, though she was not smiling. Her nose was perhaps too small--her face was far from faultless--and it had the slightest tendency to turn up instead of down, but it was so delicately modelled that an artist would have pardoned it that deviation from the classic. Thick brown hair waved across her white forehead and was hidden under the black bonnet and the veil thrown back over it. She was dressed in black and the close-fitting gown showed off with unconscious vanity the lines of a perfectly moulded and perfectly supple figure. But it was especially her eyes which attracted John's sudden attention at that first glance, her violet eyes, tender, sad, almost pathetic, seeming to ask sympathy and marvellously able to command it. It was but for a moment that she paused. Then came the vicar, following her from the drawing-room, and all three went on. Presently Short heard the front door open and Mr. Ambrose shouted to the fly. "Muggins! Muggins!" No one had ever been able to say why Abraham Boosey, the publican, had christened his henchman with an appellation so vulgar, to say the least of it--so amazingly cacophonous. The man's real name was plain Charles Bird; but Abraham Boosey had christened him Muggins and Muggins he remained. Muggins had had some beer and was asleep, for the afternoon was hot and he had anticipated his "fours." Short saw his opportunity and darted out of the study to the hall where the lady and her little girl were waiting while the vicar tried to rouse the driver of the fly by shouting at him. John blushed again as he passed close to the woman with the sad eyes; he could not tell why, but the blood mounted to the very roots of his hair, and for a moment he felt very foolish. "I'll wake him up, Mr. Ambrose," he said, running out hatless into the summer's sun. "Wake up, you lazy beggar!" he shouted in the ear of the sleeping Muggins, shaking him violently by the arm as he stood upon the wheel. Muggins grunted something and smiled rather idiotically. "It was only the young gentleman's play," he would have said. Bless you! he did not mind being shaken and screamed at! He slowly turned his horses and brought the fly up to the door. John walked back and stood waiting. "Thank you," said the lady in a voice that made his heart jump, as she came out from under the porch and the vicar helped her to get in. Then it was the turn of the little girl. "Good-bye, my dear," said the vicar kindly as he took her hand. "Good-bye," said the child. Then she hesitated and looked at John, who was standing beside the clergyman. "Good-bye," she repeated, holding out her little hand shyly towards him. John took it and grew redder than ever as he felt that the lady was watching him. Then the little girl blushed and laughed in her small embarrassment, and climbed into the carriage. "You will write, then?" asked Mr. Ambrose as he shut the door. "Yes--and thank you again. You are very, very kind to me," answered the lady, and John thought that as she spoke there were tears in her voice. She seemed very unhappy and to John she seemed very beautiful. Muggins cracked his whip and the fly moved off, leaving the vicar and his pupil standing together at the iron wicket gate before the house. "Well? Do you think Angleside got through?" asked Mr. Ambrose, rather anxiously. Short said he thought Angleside was safe. He hoped the vicar would say something about the lady, but to his annoyance, he said nothing at all. John could not ask questions, seeing it was none of his business and was fain to content himself with thinking of the lady's face and voice. He felt very uncomfortable at dinner. He thought the excellent Mrs. Ambrose eyed him with unusual severity, as though suspecting what he was thinking about, and he thought the vicar's grey eye twinkled occasionally with the pleasant sense of possessing a secret he had no intention of imparting. As a matter of fact Mrs. Ambrose was supremely unconscious of the fact that John had seen the lady, and looked at him with some curiosity, observing that he seemed nervous and blushed from time to time and was more silent than usual. She came to the conclusion that he had been working too hard, as usual, and that night requested him to take two little pellets of aconite, and to repeat the dose in the morning. Whether it was the result of the homoeopathic medicine or of the lapse of a few hours and a good night's rest, it is impossible to say; John, however, was himself again the next morning and showed no further signs of nervousness. But he kept his eyes and ears open, hoping for some news of the exquisite creature who had made so profound an impression on his heart. In due time the joyful news arrived from Cambridge that the Honourable Cornelius had passed his examination and was at liberty to matriculate at the beginning of the term. The intelligence was duly telegraphed to his father, and in a few hours came a despatch in answer, full of affectionate congratulation and requesting that Cornelius should proceed at once to Paris, where his father was waiting for him. The young man took an affectionate leave of the vicar, of Mrs. Ambrose and especially of John Short, for whom he had conceived an almost superstitious admiration; old Reynolds was not forgotten in the farewell, and for several days after Angleside's departure the aged gardener was observed to walk somewhat unsteadily and to wear a peculiarly thoughtful expression; while the vicar observed with annoyance that Strawberry, the old mare, was less carefully groomed than usual. Strangely coincident with these phenomena was the fact that Simon Gunn's yellow cat seemed to have entirely repented of her evil practices, renouncing from the day when Cornelius left for Paris her periodical invasion of the asparagus beds at the foot of the garden. But the vicar was too practical a man to waste time in speculating upon the occult relations of seemingly disconnected facts. He applied himself with diligence to the work of preparing John Short to compete for the minor scholarship. The labour was congenial. He had never taken a pupil so far before, and it was a genuine delight to him to bring his own real powers into play at last. As the summer wore on, he predicted all manner of success for John Short, and his predictions were destined before long to be realised, for John did all he promised to do and more also. To have succeeded in pushing the Honourable Cornelius through his entrance examination was a triumph indeed, but an uninteresting one at best, and one which had no further consequences. But to be the means of turning out the senior classic of the University was an honour which would not only greatly increase the good vicar's reputation but would be to him a source of the keenest satisfaction during the remainder of his life; moreover the prospects which would be immediately opened to John in case he obtained such a brilliant success would be a very material benefit to his unlucky father, whose talents yielded him but a precarious livelihood and whose pitiable condition had induced his old schoolfellow to undertake the education of his son. Much depended upon John's obtaining one or more scholarships during his career at college. To a man of inferior talents the vicar would have suggested that it would be wiser to go to a smaller college than Trinity where he would have less competition to expect; but as soon as he realised John's powers, he made up his mind that it would be precisely where competition was hottest that his pupil would have the greatest success. He would get something--perhaps his father would make a little more money--the vicar even dreamed of lending John a small sum--something would turn up; at all events he must go to the largest college and do everything in the best possible way. Meanwhile he must work as hard as he could during the few months remaining before the beginning of his first term. Whether the lady ever wrote to Mr. Ambrose, John could not ascertain; she was never mentioned at the vicarage, and it seemed as though the mystery were never to be solved. But the impression she had made upon the young man's mind remained and even gained strength by the working of his imagination; for he thought of her night and day, treasuring up every memory of her that he could recall, building romances in his mind, conceiving the most ingenious reasons for the solitary visit she had made to the vicarage, and inwardly vowing that if ever he should be at liberty to follow his own inclinations he would go out into the world and search for her. He was only eighteen then, and of a strongly susceptible temperament. He had seen nothing of the world, for even when living in London, in a dingy lodging, with his father, he had been perpetually occupied with books, reading much and seeing little. Then he had been at school, but he had seen the dark side of school life--the side which boys who are known to be very poor generally see; and more than ever he had resorted to study for comfort and relief from outward ills. Then at last he had been transferred to a serener state in the vicarage of Billingsfield and had grown up rapidly from a schoolboy to a young man; but, as has been said, the feminine element at the vicarage was solely represented by Mrs. Ambrose and the monotony of her maternal society was varied only by the occasional visits of the mild young Mrs. Edward Pewlay. John Short had indeed a powerful and aspiring imagination, but it would have been impossible even by straining that faculty to its utmost activity to think in the same breath of romance and of Mrs. Ambrose, for even in her youth Mrs. Ambrose had not been precisely a romantic character. John's fancy was not stimulated by his surroundings, but it fed upon itself and grew fast enough to acquire an influence over everything he did. It was not surprising that, when at last chance threw in his way a being who seemed instantly to realise and fulfil his wildest dreams of beauty and feminine fascination, he should have yielded without a struggle to the delicious influence, feeling that henceforth his ideal had taken shape and substance, and had thereby become more than ever the ideal in which he delighted. He gave her names, a dozen of them every day, christening her after every heroine in fiction and history of whom he had ever read. But no name seemed to suit her well enough; whereupon he wrote a Greek ode and a Latin epistle to the fair unknown, but omitted to show them to the Reverend Augustin Ambrose, though he was quite certain that they were the best he had ever produced. Then he began to write a novel, but suddenly recollected that a famous author had written one entitled "No Name," and as that was the only title he could possibly give to the work he contemplated he of course had no choice but to abandon the work itself. He wrote more verses, and he dreamed more dreams, and he meanwhile acquired much learning and in process of time realised that he had but a few days longer to stay at Billingsfield. The Michaelmas term was about to open and he must bid farewell to the hospitable roof and the learned conversation of the good vicar. But when those last days came he realised that he was leaving the scene of his only dream, and his heart grew sad. Indeed he loved the old red brick vicarage with its low porch, overgrown with creepers, its fragrant old flower garden, surrounding it on three sides, its gabled roof, its south wall whereon the vicar constantly attempted to train fig trees, maintaining that the climate of England had grown warmer and that he would prove it--John loved it all, and especially he loved the little study, lined with the books grown familiar to him, and the study door, the door through which he had seen that lovely face which he firmly believed was to inspire him to do great things and to influence his whole life for ever after. He would leave the door open and place himself just where he had sat that day, and then he would look suddenly up with beating heart, almost fancying he could again see those violet eyes gazing at him from the dusky passage--blushing then to himself, like any girl, and burying himself in his book till the fancy was grown too strong and he looked up again. He had attempted to sketch her face on a bit of paper; but he had no skill and he thrust the drawing into the paper basket, horrified at having made anything so hideous in the effort to represent anything so beautiful, and returned to making odes upon her, and Latin epistles, in which he succeeded much better. And now the time had come when he must leave all this dreaming, or at least the scene of it, and go to college and win scholarships and renown. It was hard to go and he showed his regret so plainly that Mrs. Ambrose was touched at what she took for his affection for the place and for herself and for the vicar. John Short was indeed very grateful to her for all the kindness she had shown him, and to Mr. Ambrose for the learning he had acquired; for John was a fine fellow and never forgot an obligation nor undervalued one. But when we are very young our hearts are far more easily touched to joy and sadness by the chords and discords of our own dreaming, than by the material doings of the world around us, or by the strong and benevolent interest our elders are good enough to take in us. We feel grateful to those same elders if we have any good in us, but we are far from feeling a similar interest in them. We see in our imaginations wonderful pictures, and we hear wonderful words, for everything we dream of partakes of an unknown perfection and completely throws into the shade the inartistic commonplaces of daily life. As John Short grew older, he often regretted the society of his old tutor and in the frequent absence of important buttons from his raiment he bitterly realised that there was no longer a motherly Mrs. Ambrose to inspect his linen; but when he took leave of them what hurt him most was to turn his back upon the beloved old study, upon the very door through which he had once, and only once, beheld the ideal of his first love dream. Though the vicar was glad to see the boy started upon what he already regarded as a career of certain victory, he was sorry to lose him, not knowing when he should see him again. John intended to read through all the vacations until he got his degree. He might indeed have come down for a day or two at Christmas, but with his very slender resources even so short a pleasure trip was not to be thought of lightly. It was therefore to be a long separation, so long to look forward to that when John saw the shabby little box which contained, all his worldly goods put up into the back of the vicar's dogcart, and stood at last in the hall, saying good-bye, he felt as though he was being thrust out into the world never to return again; his heart seemed to rise in his throat, the tears stood in his eyes and he could hardly speak a word. Even then he thought of that day when he had waked up the sleepy Muggins to take away the beautiful unknown lady. He felt he must be quick about his leave-taking, or he would break down. "You have been very good to me. I--I shall never forget it," he murmured as he shook hands with Mrs. Ambrose. "And you, too, sir--" he added turning to the vicar. But the old clergyman cut him short, being himself rather uncertain about the throat. "Good-bye, my lad. God bless you. We shall hear of you soon--showing them what you can do with your Alcaics--Good-bye." So John got into the dogcart and was driven off by the ancient Reynolds--past the "Duke's Head," past the "Feathers," past the churchyard and the croft--the "croat," they called it in Billingsfield--and on by the windmill on the heath, a hideous bit of grassless common euphemistically so named, and so out to the high-road towards the railway station, feeling very miserable indeed. It is a curious fact, too, in the history of his psychology that in proportion as he got farther from the vicarage he thought more and more of his old tutor and less and less of his unfinished dream, and he realised painfully that the vicar was nearly the only friend he had in the world. He would of course find Cornelius Angleside at Cambridge, but he suspected that Cornelius, turned loose among a merry band of undergraduates of his own position would be a very different person from the idle youth he had known at Billingsfield, trembling in the intervals of his idleness at the awful prospect of the entrance examination, and frantically attempting to master some bit of stray knowledge which might possibly be useful to him. Cornelius would hunt, would gamble, would go to the races and would give wines at college; John was to be a reading man who must avoid such things as he would avoid the devil himself, not only because he was too wretchedly poor to have any share whatever in the amusements of Cornelius and his set, but because every minute was important, every hour meant not only learning but meant, most emphatically, money. He thought of his poor father, grinding out the life of a literary hack in a wretched London lodging, dining Heaven knew where and generally supping not at all, saving every penny to help his son's education, hard working, honest, lacking no virtue except the virtue of all virtues--success. Then he thought how he himself had been favoured by fortune during these last years, living under the vicar's roof, treated with the same consideration as the high-born young gentlemen who had been his companions, living well, sleeping well and getting the best education in England for nothing or next to nothing, while that same father of his had never ceased to slave day and night with his pen, honestly doing his best and yet enjoying none of the good things of life. John thought of all this and set his teeth boldly to face the world. A few months, he thought, and he might have earned a scholarship--he might be independent. Then a little longer--less than three years--and he might, nay, he would, take high honours in the university and come back crowned with glory, with the prospect of a fellowship, with every profession open to him, with the world at his feet and with money in his hand to help his father out of all his troubles. That was how John Short went to Trinity. It was a hard struggle at first, for he found himself much poorer than he had imagined, and it seemed as though the ends could not possibly meet. There was no question of denying himself luxuries; that would have been easy enough. In those first months it was the necessities that he lacked, the coals for his little grate, the oil for his one small lamp. But he fought bravely through it, having, like many another young fellow who has weathered the storms of poverty in pursuit of learning, an iron constitution, and an even stronger will. He used to say long afterwards that feeling cold was a mere habit and that when one thoroughly understood the construction of Greek verses, some stimulus of physical discomfort was necessary to make the imagination work well; in support of which assertion he said that he had never done such good things by the comfortable fire in the study at Billingsfield vicarage as he did afterwards on winter nights by the light of a tallow candle, high up in Neville's Court. Moreover, if any one argued that it was better for an extremely poor man not to go to Trinity, but to some much smaller college, he answered that as far as he himself was concerned he could not have done better, which was quite true and therefore perfectly unanswerable. Where the competition was less, he would have been satisfied with less, he said; where it was greatest a man could only be contented when he had reached the highest point possible. But before he attained his end he suffered more than any one knew, especially during those first months. For when he had got his first scholarship, he insisted upon sending back the little sums of hard-earned money his father sent him from time to time, and he consequently had nearly as hard work as before to keep himself warm and to keep oil in his lamp during the long winter's evenings. But he succeeded, nevertheless. CHAPTER III. In the month of October of that year, a short time after John had taken up his abode in Trinity College, an event occurred which shook Billingsfield to its foundations; no less an event than the occupation of the dwelling known as the "cottage." What the cottage was will appear hereafter. The arrival of the new tenants occurred in the following manner. The Reverend Augustin Ambrose received a letter, which he immediately showed to his wife, as he showed most of his correspondence; for he was of the disposition which may be termed wife-consulting. Married men are generally of two kinds; those who tell their wives everything and those who tell them nothing. It is evident that the relative merits of the two systems depend chiefly upon the relative merits of the wives in question. Mr. Ambrose had no doubt of the advantages of his own method and he carried it to its furthest expression, for he never did anything whatever without consulting his better half. On the whole the plan worked well, for the vicar had learning and his wife had common sense. He therefore showed the letter to her and she read it, and read it again, and finally put it away, writing across the envelope in her own large, clear hand the words--Goddard, Cottage--indicative of the contents. * * * * * "MY DEAR SIR--It is now nearly five months since I saw you last. Need I tell you that the sense of your kindness is still fresh in my memory? You do not know, indeed you cannot know, what an impression your goodness made upon me. You showed me that I was acting rightly. It has been so hard to act rightly. Of course you quite understand what I mean. I cannot refer to the great sorrow which has overtaken me and my dear innocent little Nellie. There is no use in referring to it, for I have told you all. You allowed me to unburden my heart to you during my brief visit, and ever since that day I have felt very much, I may say infinitely, relieved. "I am again about to ask you a favour; I trust indeed that I am not asking too much, but I know by experience how kind you are and so I am not afraid to ask this too. Do you remember speaking to me of the little cottage? The picture you drew of it quite charmed me, and I have determined to take it, that is, if it is still to be let and if it is not asking quite too much of you. I mean, if you will take it for me. You cannot think how grateful I shall be and I enclose a cheque. I am almost sure you said thirty-six pounds. It was thirty-six, was it not? The reason I venture to enclose the money is because you are so very kind, but of course you do not know anything certain about me. But I am sure you will understand. You said you were sure I could live with my little girl in Billingsfield for three hundred a year. I find I have a little more, in fact nearly five hundred. If you tell me that I can have the cottage, I will come down at once, for town is very dreary and we have been here all summer except a week at Margate. Let me thank you again, you have been so very kind, and believe me, my dear sir, very sincerely yours, "MARY GODDARD." * * * * * "Augustin, my dear, this is very exciting," said Mrs. Ambrose, as she handed the cheque to her husband for inspection and returned the letter to its envelope, preparatory to marking it for future reference; and when, as has been said, she had written upon the outside the words--Goddard, Cottage, and had put it away she turned upon her husband with an inquiring manner peculiar to her. Mr. Ambrose was standing before the window, looking out at the rain and occasionally glancing at the cheque he still held in his hand. "Just like a woman to send a cheque to 'bearer' through the post," he remarked, severely. "However since I have got it, it is all right." "I don't think it is all right, Augustin," said his wife. "We are taking a great responsibility in bringing her into the parish. I am quite sure she is a dissenter or a Romanist or something dreadful, to begin with." "My dear," answered the vicar, mildly, "you make very uncharitable suppositions. It seems to me that the most one can say of her is that she is very unhappy and that she does not write very good English." "Oh, I have no doubt she is very unhappy. But as you say we must not be uncharitable. I suppose you will have to write about the cottage." "I suppose so," said Mr. Ambrose doubtfully. "I cannot send her back the money, and the cottage is certainly to let." He deposited the cheque in the drawer of his writing-table and began to walk up and down the room, glancing up from time to time at his wife who was lifting one after another the ornaments which stood upon the chimney-piece, in order to ascertain whether Susan had dusted underneath them. She had many ways of assuring herself that people did their work properly. "No," said she, "you cannot send her back the money. But it is a very solemn responsibility. I hope we are doing quite right." "I certainly would not hesitate to return the cheque, my dear, if I thought any harm would come of Mrs. Goddard's living here. But I don't think there is any reason to doubt her story." "Of course not. It was in the _Standard_, so there is no doubt about it. I only hope no one else reads the papers here." "They read them in the kitchen," added Mrs. Ambrose presently, "and they probably take a paper at the Duke's Head. Mr. Boosey is rather a literary character." "Nobody will suppose it was that Goddard, my dear," said the vicar in a reassuring tone of voice. "No--you had better write about the cottage." "I will," said the vicar; and he forthwith did. And moreover, with his usual willingness to give himself trouble for other people, he took a vast deal of pains to see that the cottage was really habitable. It turned out to be in very good condition. It was a pretty place enough, standing ten yards back from the road, beyond the village, just opposite the gates of the park; a little square house of red brick with a high pointed roof and a little garden. The walls were overgrown with creepers which had once been trained with considerable care, but which during the last two years had thriven in untrimmed luxuriance and now covered the whole of the side of the house which faced the road. So thickly did they grow that it was with difficulty that the windows could at first be opened. The vicar sighed as he entered the darkened rooms. His daughter had lived in the cottage when she first married the young doctor who had now gone to London, and the vicar had been, and was, very fond of his daughter. He had almost despaired of ever seeing her again in Billingsfield; the only glimpses of her he could obtain were got by going himself to town, for the doctor was so busy that he always put off the projected visit to the country and his wife was so fond of him that she refused to go alone. The vicar sighed as he forced open the windows upon the lower floor and let the light into the bare and empty rooms which had once been so bright and full of happiness. He wondered what sort of person Mrs. Goddard would turn out to be upon nearer acquaintance, and made vague, unconscious conjectures about her furniture as he stumbled up the dark stairs to the upper story. He was not left long in doubt. The arrangements were easily concluded, for the cottage belonged to the estate in Chancery and the lawyer in charge was very busy with other matters. The guarantee afforded by the vicar's personal application, together with the payment of a year's rent in advance so far facilitated matters that four days after she had written to Mr. Ambrose the latter informed Mrs. Goddard that she was at liberty to take possession. The vicar suggested that the Billingsfield carrier, who drove his cart to London once a week, could bring her furniture down in two trips and save her a considerable expense; Mrs. Goddard accepted this advice and in the course of a fortnight was installed with all her goods in the cottage. Having completed her arrangements at last, she came to call upon the vicar's wife. Mrs. Goddard had not changed since she had first visited Billingsfield, five months earlier, though little Eleanor had grown taller and was if possible prettier than ever. Something of the character of the lady in black may have been gathered from the style of her letter to Mr. Ambrose; that communication had impressed the vicar's wife unfavourably and had drawn from her husband a somewhat compassionate remark about the bad English it contained. Nevertheless when Mrs. Goddard came to live in Billingsfield the Ambroses soon discovered that she was a very well-educated woman, that she appeared to have read much and to have read intelligently, and that she was on the whole decidedly interesting. It was long, however, before Mrs. Ambrose entirely conquered a certain antipathy she felt for her, and which she explained after her own fashion. Mrs. Goddard was not a dissenter and she was not a Romanist; on the contrary she appeared to be a very good churchwoman. She paid her bills regularly and never gave anybody any trouble. She visited the vicarage at stated intervals, and the vicarage graciously returned her visits. The vicar himself even went to the cottage more often than Mrs. Ambrose thought strictly necessary, for the vicar was strongly prejudiced in her favour. But Mrs. Ambrose did not share that prejudice. Mrs. Goddard, she said, was too effusive, talked too much about herself and her troubles, did not look thoroughly straightforward, probably had foreign blood. Ay, there was the rub--Mrs. Ambrose suspected that Mrs. Goddard was not quite English. If she was not, why did she not say so, and be done with it? Mrs. Goddard was English, nevertheless, and would have been very much surprised could she have guessed the secret cause of the slight coldness she sometimes observed in the manner of the clergyman's wife towards her. She herself, poor thing, believed it was because she was in trouble, and considering the nature of the disaster which had befallen her, she was not surprised. She was rather a weak woman, rather timid, and if she talked a little too much sometimes it was because she felt embarrassed; there were times, too, when she was very silent and sad. She had been very happy and the great catastrophe had overtaken her suddenly, leaving her absolutely without friends. She wanted to be hidden from the world, and by one of those strange contrasts often found in weak people she had suddenly made a very bold resolution and had successfully carried it out. She had come straight to a man she had never seen, but whom she knew very well by reputation, and had told him her story and asked him to help her; and she had not come in vain. The person who advised her to go to the Reverend Augustin Ambrose knew that there was not a better man to whom she could apply. She had found what she wanted, a sort of deserted village where she would never be obliged to meet any one, since there was absolutely no society; she had found a good man upon whom she felt she could rely in case of further difficulty; and she had not come upon false pretences, for she had told her whole story quite frankly. For a woman who was naturally timid she had done a thing requiring considerable courage, and she was astonished at her own boldness after she had done it. But in her peaceful retreat, she reflected that she could not possibly have left England, as many women in her position would have done, simply because the idea of exile was intolerable to her; she reflected also that if she had settled in any place where there was any sort of society her story would one day have become known, and that if she had spent years in studying her situation she could not have done better than in going boldly to the vicar of Billingsfield and explaining her sad position to him. She had found a haven of rest after many months of terrible anxiety and she hoped that she might end her days in peace and in the spot she had chosen. But she was very young--not thirty years of age yet--and her little girl would soon grow up--and then? Evidently her dream of peace was likely to be of limited duration; but she resigned herself to the unpleasant possibilities of the future with a good grace, in consideration of the advantages she enjoyed in the present. Mrs. Ambrose was at home when Mrs. Goddard and little Eleanor came to the vicarage. Indeed Mrs. Ambrose was rarely out in the afternoon, unless something very unusual called her away. She received her visitor with the stern hospitality she exercised towards strangers. The strangers she saw were generally the near relations of the young gentlemen whom her husband received for educational purposes. She stood in the front drawing-room, that is to say, in the most impressive chamber of that fortress which is an Englishman's house. It was a formal room, arranged by a fixed rule and the order of it was maintained inflexibly; no event could be imagined of such terrible power as to have caused the displacement of one of those chairs, of one of those ornaments upon the chimney-piece, of one of those engravings upon the walls. The walls were papered with one shade of green, the furniture was covered with material of another shade of green and the well-spared carpet exhibited still a third variety of the same colour. Mrs. Ambrose's sense of order did not extend to the simplest forms of artistic harmony, but when it had an opportunity of impressing itself upon inanimate objects which were liable to be moved, washed or dusted, its effects were formidable indeed. She worshipped neatness and cleanliness; she left the question of taste to others. And now she stood in the keep of her stronghold, the impersonation of moral rectitude and of practical housekeeping. Mrs. Goddard entered rather timidly, followed by little Eleanor whose ideas had been so much disturbed by the recent change in her existence, that she had grown unusually silent and her great violet eyes were unceasingly opened wide to take in the growing wonders of her situation. Mrs. Goddard was still dressed in black, as when John Short had seen her five months earlier. There was something a little peculiar in her mourning, though Mrs. Ambrose would have found it hard to define the peculiarity. Some people would have said that if she was really a widow her gown fitted a little too well, her bonnet was a little too small, her veil a little too short. Mrs. Ambrose supposed that those points were suggested by the latest fashions in London and summed up the difficulty by surmising that Mrs. Goddard had foreign blood. "I should have called before," said the latter, deeply impressed by the severe appearance of the vicar's wife, "but I have been so busy putting my things into the cottage--" "Pray don't think of it," answered Mrs. Ambrose. Then she added after a pause, "I am very glad to see you." She appeared to have been weighing in her conscience the question whether she could truthfully say so or not. But Mrs. Goddard was grateful for the smallest advances. "Thank you," she said, "you are so very kind. Will you tell Mr. Ambrose how thankful I am for his kind assistance? Yes, Nellie and I have had hard work in moving, have not we, dear?" She drew the beautiful child close to her and gazed lovingly into her eyes. But Nellie was shy; she hid her face on her mother's shoulder, and then looked doubtfully at Mrs. Ambrose, and then hid herself again. "How old is your little girl?" asked Mrs. Ambrose more kindly. She was fond of children, and actually pitied any child whose mother perhaps had foreign blood. "Eleanor--I call her Nellie--is eight years old. She will be nine in January. She is tall for her age," added Mrs. Goddard with affectionate pride. As a matter of fact Nellie was small for her years, and Mrs. Ambrose, who was the most truthful of women, felt that she could not conscientiously agree in calling hex tall. She changed the subject. "I am afraid you will find it very quiet in Billingsfield," she said presently. "Oh, I am used--that is, I prefer a very quiet place. I want to live very quietly for some years, indeed I hope for the rest of my life. Besides it will be so good for Nellie to live in the country--she will grow so strong." "She looks very well, I am sure," answered Mrs. Ambrose rather bluntly, looking at the child's clear complexion and bright eyes. "And have you always lived in town until now, Mrs. Goddard?" she asked. "Oh no, not always, but most of the year, perhaps. Indeed I think so." Mrs. Goddard felt nervous before the searching glance of the elder woman. Mrs. Ambrose concluded that she was not absolutely straightforward. "Do you think you can make the cottage comfortable?" asked the vicar's wife, seeing that the conversation languished. "Oh, I think so," answered her visitor, glad to change the subject, and suddenly becoming very voluble as she had previously been very shy. "It is really a charming little place. Of course it is not very large, but as we have not got very many belongings that is all the better; and the garden is small but extremely pretty and wild, and the kitchen is very convenient; really I quite wonder how the people who built it could have made it all so comfortable. You see there are one--two--the pantry, the kitchen and two rooms on the ground floor and plenty of room upstairs for everybody, and as for the sun! it streams into all the windows at once from morning till night. And such a pretty view, too, of that old gate opposite--where does it lead to, Mrs. Ambrose? It is so very pretty." "It leads to the park and the Hall," answered Mrs. Ambrose. "Oh--" Mrs. Goddard's tone changed. "But nobody lives there?" she asked suddenly. "Oh no--it is in Chancery, you know." "What--what is that, exactly?" asked Mrs. Goddard, timidly. "Is there a young heir waiting to grow up--I mean waiting to take possession?" "No. There is a suit about it. It has been going on for forty years my husband says, and they cannot decide to whom it belongs." "I see," answered Mrs. Goddard. "I suppose they will never decide now." "Probably not for some time." "It must be a very pretty place. Can one go in, do you think? I am so fond of trees--what a beautiful garden you have yourself, Mrs. Ambrose." "Would you like to see it?" asked the vicar's wife, anxious to bring the visit to a conclusion. "Oh, thank you--of all things!" exclaimed Mrs. Goddard. "Would not you like to run about the garden, Nellie?" The little girl nodded slowly and stared at Mrs. Ambrose. "My husband is a very good gardener," said the latter, leading the way out to the hall. "And so was John Short, but he has left us, you know." "Who was John Short?" asked Mrs. Goddard rather absently, as she watched Mrs. Ambrose who was wrapping herself in a huge blue waterproof cloak and tying a sort of worsted hood over her head. "He was one of the boys Mr. Ambrose prepared for college--such a good fellow. You may have seen him when you came last June, Mrs. Goddard?" "Had he very bright blue eyes--a nice face?" "Yes--that is, it might have been Mr. Angleside--Lord Scatterbeigh's son--he was here, too." "Oh," said Mrs. Goddard, "perhaps it was." "Mamma," asked little Nellie, "what is Laws Catterbay?" "A peer, darling." "Like the one at Brighton, mamma, with a band?" "No, child," answered the mother laughing. "P, double E, R, peer--a rich gentleman." "Like poor papa then?" inquired the irrepressible Eleanor. Mrs. Goddard turned pale and pressed the little girl close to her side, leaning down to whisper in her ear. "You must not ask foolish questions, darling--I will tell you by and by." "Papa was a rich gentleman," objected the child. Mrs. Goddard looked at Mrs. Ambrose, and the ready tears came into her eyes. The vicar's wife smiled kindly and took little Nellie by the hand. "Come, dear," she said in the motherly tone that was natural to her when she was not receiving visitors. "Come and see the garden and you can play with Carlo." "Can't I see Laws Catterbay, too?" asked the little girl rather wistfully. "Carlo is a great, big, brown dog," said Mrs. Ambrose, leading the child out into the garden, while Mrs. Goddard followed close behind. Before they had gone far they came upon the vicar, arrayed in an old coat, his hands thrust into a pair of gigantic gardening gloves and a battered old felt hat upon his head. Mrs. Goddard had felt rather uncomfortable in the impressive society of Mrs. Ambrose and the sight of the vicar's genial face was reassuring in the extreme. She was not disappointed, for he immediately relieved the situation by asking all manner of kindly questions, interspersed with remarks upon his garden, while Mrs. Ambrose introduced little Nellie to the acquaintance of Carlo who had not seen so pretty a little girl for many a day, and capered and wagged his feathery tail in a manner most unseemly for so clerical a dog. So it came about that Mrs. Goddard established herself at Billingsfield and made her first visit to the vicarage. After that the ice was broken and things went on smoothly enough. Mrs. Ambrose's hints concerning foreign blood, and her husband's invariable remonstrance to the effect that she ought to be more charitable, grew more and more rare as time went on, and finally ceased altogether. Mrs. Goddard became a regular institution, and ceased to astonish the inhabitants. Mr. Thomas Reid, the sexton, was heard to remark from time to time that he "didn't hold with th'm newfangle fashins in dress;" but he was a regular old conservative, and most people agreed with Mr. Abraham Boosey of the Duke's Head, who had often been to London, and who said she did "look just A one, slap up, she did!" Mrs. Goddard became an institution, and in the course of the first year of her residence in the cottage it came to be expected that she should dine at the vicarage at least once a week; and once a week, also, Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose went up and had tea with her and little Eleanor at the cottage. It came to pass also that Mrs. Goddard heard a vast deal of talk about John Short and his successes at Trinity, and she actually developed a lively interest in his career, and asked for news of him almost as eagerly as though he had been already a friend of her own. In very quiet places people easily get into the sympathetic habit of regarding their neighbours' interests as very closely allied to their own. The constant talk about John Short, the vicar's sanguine hopes for his brilliant future, and Mrs. Ambrose's unlimited praise of his moral qualities, repeated day by day and week by week produced a vivid impression on Mrs. Goddard's mind. It would have surprised her and even amused her beyond measure had she had any idea that she herself had for a long time absorbed the interest of this same John Short, that he had written hundreds of Greek and Latin verses in her praise, while wholly ignorant of her name, and that at the very time when without knowing him, she was constantly mentioning him as though she knew him intimately well, he himself was looking back to the one glimpse he had had of her, as to a dream of unspeakable bliss. It never occurred to Mr. Ambrose's mind to tell John in the occasional letters he wrote that Mrs. Goddard had settled in Billingsfield. John, he thought, could take no possible interest in knowing about her, and moreover, Mrs. Goddard herself was most anxious never to be mentioned abroad. She had come to Billingsfield to live in complete obscurity, and the good vicar had promised that as far as he and his wife were concerned she should have her wish. To tell even John Short, his own beloved pupil, would be to some extent a breach of faith, and there was assuredly no earthly reason why John should be told. It might do harm, for of course the young fellow had made acquaintances at Cambridge; he had probably read about the Goddard case in the papers, and might talk about it. If he should happen to come down for a day or two he would probably meet her; but that could not be avoided. It was not likely that he would come for some time. The vicar himself intended to go up to Cambridge for a day or two after Christmas to see him; but the winter flew by and Mr. Ambrose did not go. Then came Easter, then the summer and the Long vacation. John wrote that he could not leave his books for a day, but that he hoped to run down next Christmas. Again he did not come, but there came the news of his having won another and a more important scholarship; the news also that he was already regarded as the most promising man in the university, all of which exceedingly delighted the heart of the Reverend Augustin Ambrose, and being told with eulogistic comments to Mrs. Goddard, tended to increase the interest she felt in the existence of John Short, so that she began to long for a sight of him, without exactly knowing why. Gradually, too, as she and her little girl passed many peaceful days in the quiet cottage, the sad woman's face grew less sorrowful. She spoke of herself more cheerfully and dwelt less upon the subject of her grief. She had at first been so miserable that she could hardly talk at all without referring to her unhappy situation though, after her first interview with Mrs. Ambrose, no one had ever heard her mention any details connected with her trouble. But now she never approached the subject at all. Her face lost none of its pathetic beauty, it is true, but it seemed to express sorrow past rather than present. Meanwhile little Nellie grew daily more lovely, and absorbed more and more of her mother's attention. CHAPTER IV. Events of such stirring interest as the establishment of Mrs. Goddard in Billingsfield rarely come alone; for it seems to be in the nature of great changes to bring other changes with them, even when there is no apparent connection whatever between them. It took nearly two years for Billingsfield to recover from its astonishment at Mrs. Goddard's arrival, and before the excitement had completely worn off the village was again taken off its feet by unexpected news of stupendous import, even as of old Pompeii was overthrown by a second earthquake before it had wholly recovered from the devastation caused by the first. The shock was indeed a severe one. The Juxon estate was reported to be out of Chancery, and a new squire was coming to take up his residence at the Hall. It is not known exactly how the thing first became known, but there was soon no doubt whatever that it was true. Thomas Reid, the sexton, who remembered that the old squire died forty years ago come Michaelmas, and had been buried in a "wonderful heavy" coffin, Thomas Reid the stern censor of the vicar's sermons, a melancholic and sober man, so far lost his head over the news as to ask Mr. Ambrose's leave to ring the bells, Mr. Abraham Boosey having promised beer for the ringers. Even to the vicar's enlightened mind it seemed fitting that there should be some festivity over so great an event and the bells were accordingly rung during one whole afternoon. Thomas Reid's ringers never got beyond the first "bob" of a peal, for with the exception of the sexton himself and old William Speller the wheelwright, who pulled the treble bell, they were chiefly dull youths who with infinite difficulty had been taught what changes they knew by rote and had very little idea of ringing by scientific rule. Moreover Mr. Boosey was liberal in the matter of beer that day and the effect of each successive can that was taken up the stairs of the old tower was immediately apparent to every one within hearing, that is to say as far as five miles around. The estate was out of Chancery at last. For forty years, ever since the death of the old squire, no one had rightfully called the Hall his own. The heir had lived abroad, and had lived in such an exceedingly eccentric manner as to give ground for a suit _de lunatico inquirendo_, brought by another heir. With the consistency of judicial purpose which characterises such proceedings the courts appeared to have decided that though the natural possessor, the eccentric individual who lived abroad, was too mad to be left in actual possession, he was not mad enough to justify actual possession in the person of the next of kin. Proceedings continued, fees were paid, a certain legal personage already mentioned came down from time to time and looked over the estate, but the matter was not finally settled until the eccentric individual died, after forty years of eccentricity, to the infinite relief and satisfaction of all parties and especially of his lawful successor Charles James Juxon now, at last, "of Billingsfield Hall, in the county of Essex, Esquire." In due time also Mr. Juxon appeared. It was natural that he should come to see the vicar, and as it happened that he called late in the afternoon upon the day when Mrs. Goddard and little Eleanor were accustomed to dine at the vicarage, he at once had an opportunity of making the acquaintance of his tenant; thus, if we except the free-thinking doctor, it will be seen that Mr. Juxon was in the course of five minutes introduced to the whole of the Billingsfield society. He was a man inclining towards middle age, of an active and vigorous body, of a moderate intelligence and of decidedly prepossessing appearance. His features were of the strong, square type, common to men whose fathers for many generations have lived in the country. His eyes were small, blue and very bright, and to judge from the lines in his sunburned face he was a man who laughed often and heartily. He had an abundance of short brown hair, parted very far upon one side and brushed to a phenomenal smoothness, and he wore a full brown beard, cut rather short and carefully trimmed. He immediately won the heart of Mrs. Ambrose on account of his extremely neat appearance. There was no foreign blood in him, she was sure. He had large clean hands with large and polished nails. He wore very well made clothes, and he spoke like a gentleman. The vicar, too, was at once prepossessed in his favour, and even little Eleanor, who was generally very shy before strangers, looked at him admiringly and showed little of her usual bashfulness. But Mrs. Goddard seemed ill at ease and tried to keep out of the conversation as much as possible. "There have been great rejoicings at the prospect of your arrival," said the vicar when the new-comer had been introduced to both the ladies. "I fancy that if you had let it be known that you were coming down to-day the people would have turned out to meet you at the station." "The truth is, I rather avoid that sort of thing," said the squire, smiling. "I would rather enter upon my dominions as quietly as possible." "It is much better for the people, too," remarked Mrs. Ambrose. "Their idea of a holiday is to do no work and have too much beer." "I daresay that would not hurt them much," answered Mr. Juxon cheerfully. "By the bye, I know nothing about them. I have never been here before. My man of business wanted to come down and show me over the estate, and introduce me to the farmers and all that, but I thought it would be such a bore that I would not have him." "There is not much to tell, really," said Mr. Ambrose. "The society of Billingsfield is all here," he added with a smile, "including one of your tenants." "Are you my tenant?" asked Mr. Juxon pleasantly, and he looked at Mrs. Goddard. "Yes," said she, "I have taken the cottage." "The cottage? Excuse me, but you know I am a stranger here--what is the cottage?" "Such a pretty place," answered Mrs. Ambrose, "just opposite the park gate. You must have seen it as you came down." "Oh, is that it?" said the squire. "Yes, I saw it, and I wished I lived there instead of in the Hall. It looks so comfortable and small. The Hall is a perfect wilderness." Mrs. Goddard felt a sudden fear lest her new landlord should take it into his head to give her notice. She only took the cottage by the year and her present lease ended in October. The arrival of a squire in possession at the Hall was a catastrophe to which she had not looked forward. The idea troubled her. She had accidentally made Mr. Juxon's acquaintance, and she knew enough of the world to understand that in such a place he would regard her as a valuable addition to the society of the vicar and the vicar's wife. She would meet him constantly; there would be visitors at the Hall--she would have to meet them, too. Her dream of solitude was at an end. For a moment she seemed so nervous that Mr. Juxon observed her embarrassment and supposed it was due to his remark about living in the cottage himself. "Do not be afraid, Mrs. Goddard," he said quickly, "I am not going to do anything so uncivil as to ask you to give up the cottage. Besides, it would be too small, you know." "Have you any family, Mr. Juxon?" inquired Mrs. Ambrose with a severity which startled the squire. Mrs. Ambrose thought that if there was a Mrs. Juxon, she had been unpardonably deceived. Of course Mr. Juxon should have said that he was married as soon as he entered the room. "I have a very large family," answered the squire, and after enjoying for a moment the surprise he saw in Mrs. Ambrose's face, he added with a laugh, "I have a library of ten thousand volumes--a very large family indeed. Otherwise I have no encumbrances, thank heaven." "You are a scholar?" asked Mr. Ambrose eagerly. "A book fancier, only a book fancier," returned the squire modestly. "But I am very fond of the fancy." "What is a book fancier, mamma?" asked little Eleanor in a whisper. But Mr. Juxon heard the child's question. "If your mamma will bring you up to the Hall one of these days, Miss Goddard, I will show you. A book fancier is a terrible fellow who has lots of books, and is pursued by a large evil genius telling him he must buy every book he sees, and that he will never by any possibility read half of them before he dies." Little Eleanor stared for a moment with her great violet eyes, and then turning again to her mother, whispered in her ear. "Mamma, he called me Miss Goddard!" "Run out and play in the garden, darling," said her mother with a smile. But the child would not go and sat down on a stool and stared at the squire, who was immensely delighted. "So you are going to bring all your library, Mr. Juxon?" asked the vicar returning to the charge. "Yes--and I beg you will make any use of it you please," answered the visitor. "I have a great fondness for books and I think I have some valuable volumes. But I am no great scholar, as you are, though I read a great deal. I have always noticed that the men who accumulate great libraries do not know much, and the men who know a great deal have very few books. Now I will wager that you have not a thousand volumes in your house, Mr. Ambrose." "Five hundred would be nearer the mark," said the vicar. "The fewer one has the nearer one approaches to Aquinas's _homo unius libri_," returned the squire. "You are nine thousand five hundred degrees nearer to ideal wisdom than I am." Mr. Ambrose laughed. "Nevertheless," he said, "you may be sure that if you give me leave to use your books, I will take advantage of the permission. It is in writing sermons that one feels the want of a good library." "I should think it would be an awful bore to write sermons," remarked the squire with such perfect innocence that both the vicar and Mrs. Goddard laughed loudly. But Mrs. Ambrose eyed Mr. Juxon with renewed severity. "I should fancy it would be a much greater bore, as you call it, to the congregation if my husband never wrote any new ones," she said stiffly. Whereat the squire looked rather puzzled, and coloured a little. But Mr. Ambrose came to the rescue. "Yes, indeed, my wife is quite right. There are no people with such terrible memories as churchwardens. They remember a sermon twenty years old. But as you say, the writing of sermons is not an easy task when a man has been at it for thirty years and more. A man begins by being enthusiastic, then his mind gets into a groove and for some time, if he happens to like the groove, he writes very well. But by and by he has written all there is to be said in the particular line he has chosen and he does not know how to choose another. That is the time when a man needs a library to help him." "I really don't think you have reached that point, Mr. Ambrose," remarked Mrs. Goddard. She admired the vicar and liked his sermons. "You are fortunately not in the position of my churchwardens," answered Mr. Ambrose. "You have not been listening to me for thirty years." "How long have you been my tenant, Mrs. Goddard?" asked the squire. "Nearly two years," she answered thoughtfully, and her sad eyes rested a moment upon Mr. Juxon's face with an expression he remembered. Indeed he looked at her very often and as he looked his admiration increased, so that when he rose to take his leave the predominant impression of the vicarage which remained in his mind was that of her face. Something of the same fascination took hold of him which had seized upon John Short when he caught sight of Mrs. Goddard through the open door of the study, something of that unexpected interest which in Mrs. Ambrose had at first aroused a half suspicious dislike, now long forgotten. Before the squire left he invited the whole party to come and dine with him at the Hall on the following Saturday. He must have some kind of a house warming, he said, for he was altogether too lonely up there. Mrs. Goddard would bring Eleanor, of course; they would dine early--it would not be late for the little girl. If they all liked they could call it tea instead of dinner. Of course everything was topsy-turvy in the Hall, but they would excuse that. He hoped to establish friendly relations with his vicar and with his tenant--his fair tenant. Might he call soon and see whether there was anything that could be done to improve the cottage? Before the day when they were all coming to dine? He would call to-morrow, then. Anything that needed doing should be done, Mrs. Goddard might be sure. When the books arrived he would let Mr. Ambrose know, of course, and they would have a day together. So he went away, leaving the impression that he was a very good-natured and agreeable man. Even Mrs. Ambrose was mollified. He had shocked her by his remark about sermon writing, but he had of course not meant it, and he appeared to mean to be very civil. It was curious to see how all severity vanished from Mrs. Ambrose's manner so soon as the stranger who aroused it was out of sight and hearing. She appeared as a formidably stern type of the British matron to the chance visitors who came to the vicarage; but they were no sooner gone than her natural temper was restored and she was kindness and geniality itself. But Mrs. Goddard was very thoughtful. She was not pleased at the fact of an addition to the Billingsfield community, and yet she liked the appearance of the squire. He had declared his intention of calling upon her on the following day, and she would be bound to receive him. She was young, she had been shut off from the world for two years, and the prospect of Mr. Juxon's acquaintance was in itself not unpleasant; but the idea that he was to be permanently established in the Hall frightened her. She had felt since she came to Billingsfield that from the very first she had put herself upon a footing of safety by telling her story to the vicar. But the vicar would, not without her permission repeat that story to Mr. Juxon. Was she herself called upon to do so? She was a very sensitive woman, and her impressionable nature had been strongly affected by what she had suffered. An almost morbid fear of seeming to make false pretences possessed her. She was more than thirty years of age, it is true, but she saw plainly enough in her glass that she was more than passably good-looking still. There were one or two grey threads in her brown waving hair and she took no trouble to remove them; no one ever noticed them. There were one or two lines, very faint lines, in her forehead; no one ever saw them. She could hardly see them herself. Supposing--why should she not suppose it?--supposing Mr. Juxon were to take a fancy to her, as a lone bachelor of forty and odd might easily take a fancy to a pretty woman who was his tenant and lived at his gate, what should she do? He was an honest man, and she was a conscientious woman; she could not deceive him, if it came to that. She would have to tell him the whole truth. As she thought of it, she turned pale and trembled. And yet she had liked his face, she had told him he might call at the cottage, and her woman's instinct foresaw that she was to see him often. It was not vanity which made her think that the squire might grow to like her too much. She had had experiences in her life and she knew that she was attractive; the very fear she had felt for the last two years lest she should be thrown into the society of men who might be attracted by her, increased her apprehension tenfold. She could not look forward with indifference to the expected visit, for the novelty of seeing any one besides the vicar and his wife was too great; she could not refuse to see the squire, for he would come again and again until she received him; and yet, she could not get rid of the idea that there was danger in seeing him. Call it as one may, that woman's instinct of peril is rarely at fault. In the late twilight of the June evening Mrs. Goddard and Eleanor waited home together by the broad road which led towards the park gate. "Don't you think Mr. Juxon is very kind, mamma?" asked the child. "Yes, darling, I have no doubt he is. It was very good of him to ask you to go to the Hall." "And he called me Miss Goddard," said Eleanor. "I wonder whether he will always call me Miss Goddard." "He did not know your name was Nellie," explained her mother. "Oh, I wish nobody knew, mamma. It was so nice. When shall I be grown up, mamma?" "Soon, my child--too soon," said Mrs. Goddard with a sigh. Nellie looked at her mother and was silent for a minute. "Mamma, do you like Mr. Juxon?" she asked presently. "No, dear--how can one like anybody one has only seen once?" "Oh--but I thought you might," said Nellie. "Don't you think you will, mamma? Say you will--do!" "Why?" asked her mother in some surprise. "I cannot say anything about it. I daresay he is very nice." "It will be so delightful to go to the Hall to dinner and be waited on by big real servants--not like Susan at the vicarage, or Martha. Won't you like it, mamma? Of course Mr. Juxon will have real servants, just like--like poor papa." Nellie finished her speech rather doubtfully as though not sure how her mother would take it. Mrs. Goddard sighed again, but said nothing. She could not stop the child's talking--why should Nellie not speak of her father? Nellie did not know. "I think it will be perfectly delightful," said Nellie, seeing she got no answer from her mother, and as though putting the final seal of affirmation to her remarks about the Hall. But she appeared to be satisfied at not having been contradicted and did not return to the subject that evening. Mr. Juxon lost no time in keeping his word and on the following morning at about eleven o'clock, when Mrs. Goddard was just hearing the last of Nellie's lesson in geography and little Nellie herself was beginning to be terribly tired of acquiring knowledge in such very warm weather, the squire's square figure was seen to emerge from the park gate opposite, clad in grey knickerbockers and dark green stockings, a rose in his buttonhole and a thick stick in his hand, presenting all the traditional appearance of a thriving country gentleman of the period. He crossed the road, stopped a moment and whistled his dog to heel and then opened the wicket gate that led to the cottage. Nellie sprang to the window in wild excitement. "Oh what a dog!" she cried. "Mamma, _do_ come and see! And Mr. Juxon is coming, too--he has green stockings!" But Mrs. Goddard, who was not prepared for so early a visit, hastily put away what might be described as the debris of Nellie's lessons, to wit, a much thumbed book of geography, a well worn spelling book, a very particularly inky piece of blotting paper, a pen of which most of the stock had been subjected to the continuous action of Nellie's teeth for several months, and an ancient doll, without the assistance of which, as a species of Stokesite _memoria teohnica_, Nellie declared that she could not say her lessons at all. Those things disappeared, and, with them, Nellie's troubles, into a large drawer set apart for the purpose. By the time Mr. Juxon had rung the bell and Martha's answering footstep was beginning to echo in the small passage, Mrs. Goddard had passed to the consideration of Nellie herself. Nellie's fingers were mightily inky, but in other respects she was presentable. "Run and wash your hands, child, and then you may come back," said her mother. "Oh mamma, _must_ I go? He's just coming in." She gave one despairing look at her little hands, and then ran away. The idea of missing one moment of Mr. Juxon's visit was bitter, but to be caught with inky fingers by a beautiful gentleman with green stockings and a rose in his coat would be more terribly humiliating still. There was a sound as of some gigantic beast plunging into the passage as the front door was opened, and a scream of terror from Martha followed by a good-natured laugh from the squire. "You'll excuse _me_, sir, but he don't bite, sir, does he? Oh my! what a dog he is, sir--" "Is Mrs. Goddard in?" inquired Mr. Juxon, holding the hound by the collar. Martha opened the door of the little sitting-room and the squire looked in. Martha fled down the passage. "Oh my! What a tremendious dog that is, to be sure!" she was heard to exclaim as she disappeared into the back of the cottage. "May I come in?" asked Mr. Juxon, rather timidly and with an expression of amused perplexity on his brown face. "Lie down, Stamboul!" "Oh, bring him in, too," said Mrs. Goddard coming forward and taking Mr. Juxon's hand. "I am so fond of dogs." Indeed she was rather embarrassed and was glad of the diversion. "He is really very quiet," said the squire apologetically, "only he is a little impetuous about getting into a house." Then, seeing that Mrs. Goddard looked at the enormous animal with some interest and much wonder, he added, "he is a Russian bloodhound--perhaps you never saw one? He was given to me in Constantinople, so I call him Stamboul--good name for a big dog is not it?" "Very," said Mrs. Goddard rather nervously. Stamboul was indeed an exceedingly remarkable beast. Taller than the tallest mastiff, he combined with his gigantic strength and size a grace and swiftness of motion which no mastiff can possess. His smooth clean coat, of a perfectly even slate colour throughout, was without folds, close as a greyhound's, showing every articulation and every swelling muscle of his body. His broad square head and monstrous jaw betrayed more of the quickness and sudden ferocity of the tiger than those suggested by the heavy, lion-like jowl of the English mastiff. His ears, too, were close cropped, in accordance with the Russian fashion, and somehow the compactness this gave to his head seemed to throw forward and bring into prominence his great fiery eyes, that reflected red lights as he moved, and did not tend to inspire confidence in the timid stranger. "Do sit down," said Mrs. Goddard, and when the squire was seated Stamboul sat himself down upon his haunches beside him, and looked slowly from his master to the lady and back again, his tongue hanging out as though anxious to hear what they might have to say to each other. "I thought I should be sure to find you in the morning," began Mr. Juxon, after a pause. "I hope I have not disturbed you?" "Oh, not at all. Nellie has just finished her lessons." "The fact is," continued the squire, "that I was going to survey the nakedness of the land which has fallen to my lot, and as I came out of the park I saw the cottage right before me and I could not resist the temptation of calling. I had no idea we were such near neighbours." "Yes," said Mrs. Goddard, "it is very near." Mr. Juxon glanced round the room. He was not exactly at a loss for words, but Mrs. Goddard did not seem inclined to encourage the conversation. He saw that the room was not only exceedingly comfortable but that its arrangement betrayed a considerable taste for luxury. The furniture was of a kind not generally seen in cottages, and appeared to have formed part of some great establishment. The carpet itself was of a finer and softer kind than any at the Hall. The writing-table was a piece of richly inlaid work, and the implements upon it were of the solid, severe and valuable kind that are seen in rich men's houses. A clock which was undoubtedly of the Louis Quinze period stood upon the chimneypiece. On the walls were hung three or four pictures which, Mr. Juxon thought, must be both old and of great value. Upon a little table by the fireplace lay four or five objects of Chinese jade and Japanese ivory and a silver chatelaine of old workmanship. The squire saw, and wondered why such a very pretty woman, who possessed such very pretty things, should choose to come and live in his cottage in the parish of Billingsfield. And having seen and wondered he became interested in his charming tenant and endeavoured to carry on the conversation in a more confidential strain. CHAPTER V. "You have done more towards beautifying the cottage than I could have hoped to do," said Mr. Juxon, leaning back in his chair and resting one hand on Stamboul's great head. "It was very pretty of itself," answered Mrs. Goddard, "and fortunately it is not very big, or my things would look lost in it." "I should not say that--you have so many beautiful things. They seem to suit the place so well. I am sure you will never think of taking them away." "Not if I can help it--I am too glad to be quiet." "You have travelled a great deal, Mrs. Goddard?" asked the squire. "No--not exactly that--only a little, after all. I have not been to Constantinople for instance," she added looking at the hound Mr. Juxon had brought from the East. "You are indeed a traveller." "I have travelled all my life," said the squire, indifferently, as though the subject of his wanderings did not interest him. "From what little I have seen of Billingsfield I fancy you will find all the quiet you could wish, here. Really, I realise that at my own gate I must come to you for information. What sort of man is that excellent rector down there, whom I met last night?" The squire's tone became more confidential as he put the question. "Well--he is not a rector, to begin with," answered Mrs. Goddard with a smile, "he is the vicar, and he is a most good man, whom I have always found most kind." "I can readily fancy that," said Mr. Juxon. "But his wife seems to be of the severe type." "No--she struck me so at first, too. I think it is only with strangers. She is such a motherly sort of woman, you do not know! She only has that little manner when you first meet her." "What a strange thing that is!" remarked the squire, looking at Mrs. Goddard. "The natural belief of English people in each other's depravity until they have had time to make acquaintance! And is there no one else here--no doctor--no doctor's wife?" "Not a soul," answered Mrs. Goddard. "There is a doctor, but the vicarage suspects him of free thought. He certainly never goes to church. He has no wife." "This is the most Arcadian retreat I ever was in. Upon my word, I am a very lucky man." "I suppose that it must be a relief when one has travelled so much," replied Mrs. Goddard. "Or suffered very much," added the squire, half unconsciously, looking at her sad face. "Yes," she answered. At that moment the door opened and Nellie entered the room, having successfully grappled with the inkstains. She went straight to the squire, and held out her hand, blushing a little, but looking very pretty. Then she saw the huge head of Stamboul who looked up at her with a ferociously agreeable canine smile, and thwacked the carpet with his tail as he sat; Nellie started back. "Oh, what a dog!" she exclaimed. But very soon she was on excellent terms with him; little Nellie was not timid, and Stamboul, who liked people who were not afraid of him and was especially fond of children, did his best to be amusing. "He is a very good dog," remarked Mr. Juxon. "He once did me a very good service." "How was that?" "I was riding in the Belgrade forest one summer. I was alone with Stamboul following. A couple of ruffians tried to rob me. Stamboul caught one of them." "Did he hurt him very much?" "I don't know--he killed him before the fellow could scream, and I shot the other," replied the squire calmly. "What a horrible story!" exclaimed Mrs. Goddard, turning pale. "Come here, Nellie--don't touch that dreadful dog!" "Do not be afraid--he is perfectly harmless. Come here Stamboul!" The huge beast obeyed, wagging his tail, and sat down at his master's feet, still looking rather wistfully at Nellie who had been playing with him. "You see," continued Mr. Juxon, "he is as quiet as a lamb--would not hurt a fly!" "I think it is dreadful to have such animals about," said Mrs. Goddard in a low voice, still looking at the dog with horror. "I am sorry I told you. It may prejudice you against him. I only meant to explain how faithful he is, that is all. You see a man grows fond of a creature that has saved his life." "I suppose so, but it is rather startling to see such an animal so near to one. I fear I am very nervous." "By the bye." said the squire with the bold irrelevancy of a man who wants to turn the subject, "are you fond of flowers?" "I?" said Mrs. Goddard in surprise. "Yes--very. Why?" "I thought you would not mind if I had the garden here improved a little. One might put in a couple of frames. I did not see any flowers about. I am so fond of them myself, you see, that I always look for them." "You are very kind," answered Mrs. Goddard. "But I would not have you take any trouble on my account. We are so comfortable and so fond of the cottage already--" "Well, I hope you will grow to like it even better," returned the squire with a genial smile. "Anything I can do, you know--" he rose as though to take his leave. "Excuse me, but may I look at that picture? Andrea del Sarto? Yes, I thought so--wonderful--upon my word, in a cottage in Billingsfield. Where did you find it?" "It was my husband's," said Mrs. Goddard. "Ah--ah, yes," said the squire in a subdued tone. "I beg your pardon," he added, as people often do, unconsciously, when they fancy they have accidentally roused in another a painful train of thought. Then he turned to go. "We dine at half-past seven, you know, so as to be early for Miss Nellie," he said, as he went out. Mrs. Goddard was glad he was gone, though she felt that he was not unsympathetic. The story of the dog had frightened her, and her own mention of her husband had made her nervous and sad. More than ever she felt that fear of being in a false position, which had assailed her when she had first met the squire on the previous evening. He had at once opened relations with her in a way which showed that he intended to be intimate; he had offered to improve her cottage, had insisted upon making frames in her garden, had asked her to dinner with the Ambroses and had established the right to talk to her whenever he got a chance. He interested her, too, which was worse. His passing references to his travels and to his adventures, of which he spoke with the indifference of a man accustomed to danger, his unassuming manner, his frank ways--everything about him awakened her interest. She had supposed that in two years the very faculty of being interested by a man would be dulled if not destroyed; she found to her annoyance that though she had seen Mr. Juxon only twice she could not put him out of her thoughts. She was, moreover, a nervous, almost morbid, woman, and the natural result of trying to forget his existence was that she could think of nothing else. How much better it would be, she thought, if he knew her story from the first. He might then be as friendly as he pleased; there would be no danger in it, to him or to her. She almost determined to go at once and ask the vicar's advice. But by the time she had nearly made up her mind it was the hour for luncheon, and little Nellie's appetite was exigent. By the time lunch was over her determination had changed. She had reflected that the vicar would think her morbid, that, with his usual good sense, he would say there was no necessity for telling the squire anything; indeed, that to do so would be undignified. If the squire were indeed going to lead the life of a recluse as he proposed doing, he was not really a man to cause her any apprehension. If he had travelled about the world for forty years, without having his heart disturbed by any of the women he must have met in that time, he was certainly not the kind of man, when once he had determined to settle in his home, to fall in love with the first pretty woman he met. It was absurd; there was no likelihood of it; it was her own miserable vanity, she told herself, which made the thing seem probable, and she would not think any more about it. She, a woman thirty-one years of age, with a daughter who ere long would be growing up to womanhood! To be afraid of a mere stranger like Mr. Juxon--afraid lest he should fall in love with her! Could anything be more ridiculous? Her duty was to live quietly as she had lived before, to take no more notice of the squire than was necessary in order to be civil, and so all would be well. And so it seemed for a long time. The squire improved the garden of the cottage and Mrs. Goddard and Nellie, with the Ambroses, dined at the Hall, which at first seemed an exceedingly dreary and dismal place, but which, as they returned thither again and again, grew more and more luxurious, till the transformation was complete. Mr. Juxon brought all manner of things to the house; vans upon vans arrived, laden with boxes of books and pictures and oriental carpets and rare objects which the squire had collected in his many years of travel, and which he appeared to have stored in London until he had at last inherited the Hall. The longer the Ambroses and Mrs. Goddard knew him, the more singularly impressed they were with his reticence concerning himself. He appeared to have been everywhere, to have seen everything, and he had certainly brought back a vast collection of more or less valuable objects from his travels, besides the large library he had accumulated and which contained many rare and curious editions of ancient books. He was evidently a man of very good education, and a much better scholar than he was willing to allow. The vicar delighted in his society and when the two found themselves together in the great room which Mr. Juxon had lined with well-filled shelves, they remained for hours absorbed in literary and scholastic talk. But whenever the vicar approached the subject of the squire's past life, the latter became vague and gave ambiguous answers to any direct questions addressed to him. He evidently disliked talking of himself, though he would talk about anything else that occurred to him with a fluency which Mrs. Ambrose declared was the only un-English thing about him. The consequence was that the vicar became more and more interested in his new acquaintance, and though the squire was so frank and honest a man that it was impossible to suspect him of any doubtful action in the past, Mr. Ambrose suspected that he had a secret. Indeed after hearing the story Mrs. Goddard had confided to his ears, nothing would have surprised the vicar. After finding that so good, so upright and so honourable a woman as the fair tenant of the cottage could be put into such a singularly painful position as that in which she now found herself, it was not hard to imagine that this singular person who had inherited the Hall might also have some weighty reason for loving the solitude of Billingsfield. To chronicle the small events which occurred in that Arcadian parish, would be to overstep the bounds of permissible tediousness. In such places all events move slowly and take long to develop to their results. The passions which in our own quickly moving world spring up, flourish, wither and are cut down in a month require, when they are not stimulated by the fertilising heat of artificial surroundings, a longer period for their growth; and when that growth is attained they are likely to be stronger and more deeply rooted. It is not true that the study of them is less interesting, nor that they have less importance in themselves. The difficulty of narrative is greater when they are to be described, for it is necessary to carry the imagination in a short time over a long period, to show how from small incidents great results follow, and to show also how the very limited and trivial nature of the surroundings may cause important things to be overlooked. Amidst such influences acquaintance is soon made between the few persons so thrown together, but each is apt to regard such new acquaintance merely as bearing upon his or her own particular interests. It is surprising to see how people will live side by side in solitude, even in danger, in distant settlements, in the mining districts of the West, in up-country stations in India, on board ship, even, for months and years, without knowing anything of each other's previous history; whereas in the crowded centres of civilisation and society the first questions are "Where does he come from?" "What are his antecedents?" "What has he done in the world?" And unless a man can answer such inquiries to the general satisfaction he is likely to be heavily handicapped in the social race. But in more primitive situations men are ruled by more primitive feelings of mutual respect; it is considered that a man should not be pressed to speak of things he shows no desire to discuss and that, provided he does not interfere with his neighbour's wellbeing, his past life is nobody's business. One may feel curiosity concerning him, but under no circumstances is one justified in asking questions. For these reasons, although Mr. Juxon's arrival and instalment in the Hall were regarded with satisfaction by the little circle at Billingsfield, while he himself was at once received into intimacy and treated with cordial friendliness, he nevertheless represented in the minds of all an unsolved enigma. And to the squire the existence of one of the circle was at least as problematical as his own life could seem to any of them. The more he saw of Mrs. Goddard, the more he wondered at her and speculated about her and the less he dared to ask her any questions. But he understood from Mr. Ambrose's manner, that the vicar at least was in possession of her secret, and he inferred from what he was able to judge about the vicar's character that the latter was not a man to extend his friendship to any one who did not deserve it. Whatever Mrs. Goddard's story was, he felt sure that her troubles had not been caused by her own misconduct. She was in every respect what he called a good woman. Of course, too, she was a widow; the way in which she spoke of her husband implied that, on those rare occasions when she spoke of him at all. Charles James Juxon was a gentleman, whatever course of life he had followed before settling in the country, and he did not feel that he should be justified in asking questions about Mrs. Goddard of the vicar. Besides, as time went on and he found his own interest in her increasing, he began to nourish the hope that he might one day hear her story from her own lips. In his simplicity it did not strike him that he himself had grown to be an object of interest to her. Somehow, during the summer and autumn of that year, Mrs. Goddard contracted a habit of watching the park gate from the window of the cottage, particularly at certain hours of the day. It was only a habit, but it seemed to amuse her. She used to sit in the small bay window with her books, reading to herself or teaching Nellie, and it was quite natural that from time to time she should look out across the road. But it rarely happened, when she was installed in that particular place, that Mr. Juxon failed to appear at the gate, with his dog Stamboul, his green stockings, his stick and the inevitable rose in his coat. Moreover he generally crossed the road and, if he did not enter the cottage and spend a quarter of an hour in conversation, he at least spoke to Mrs. Goddard through the open window. It was remarkable, too, that as time went on what at first had seemed the result of chance, recurred with such invariable regularity as to betray the existence of a fixed rule. Nellie, too, who was an observant child, had ceased asking questions but watched her mother with her great violet eyes in a way that made Mrs. Goddard nervous. Nellie liked the squire very much but though she asked her mother very often at first whether she, too, was fond of that nice Mr. Juxon, the answers she received were not encouraging. How was it possible, Mrs. Goddard asked, to speak of liking anybody one had known so short a time? And as Nellie was quite unable to answer such an inquiry, she desisted from her questions and applied herself to the method of personal observation. But here, too, she was met by a hopeless difficulty. The squire and her mother never seemed to have any secrets, as Nellie would have expressed it. They met daily, and daily exchanged very much the same remarks concerning the weather, the garden, the vicar's last sermon. When they talked about anything else, they spoke of books, of which the squire lent Mrs. Goddard a great number. But this was a subject which did not interest Nellie very much; she was not by any means a prodigy in the way of learning, and though she was now nearly eleven years old was only just beginning to read the Waverley novels. On one occasion she remarked to her mother that she did not believe a word of them and did not think they were a bit like real life, but the momentary fit of scepticism soon passed and Nellie read on contentedly, not omitting however to watch her mother in order to find out, as her small mind expressed it, "whether mamma really liked that nice Mr. Juxon." Events were slowly preparing themselves which would help her to come to a satisfactory conclusion upon that matter. Mr. Juxon himself was in a very uncertain state of mind. After knowing Mrs. Goddard for six months, and having acquired the habit of seeing her almost every day, he found to his surprise that she formed a necessary part of his existence. It need not have surprised him, for in spite of that lady's surmise with regard to his early life, he was in reality a man of generous and susceptible temperament. He recognised in the charming tenant of the cottage many qualities which he liked, and he could not deny that she was exceedingly pretty. Being a strong man he was particularly attracted by the pathetic expression of her face, the perpetual sadness that was visible there when she was not momentarily interested or amused. Had he suspected her paleness and air of secret suffering to be the result of any physical infirmity, she would not have interested him so much. But Mrs. Goddard's lithe figure and easy grace of activity belied all idea of weakness. It was undoubtedly some hidden suffering of mind which lent that sadness to her voice and features, and which so deeply roused the sympathies of the squire. At the end of six months Mr. Juxon was very much interested in Mrs. Goddard, but despite all his efforts to be agreeable he seemed to have made no progress whatever in the direction of banishing her cares. To tell the truth, it did not enter his mind that he was in love with her. She was his tenant; she was evidently very unhappy about something; it was therefore undeniably his duty as a landlord and as a gentleman to make life easy for her. He wondered what the matter could be. At first he had been inclined to think that she was poor and was depressed by poverty. But though she lived very simply, she never seemed to be in difficulties. Five hundred pounds a year go a long way in the village of Billingsfield. It was certainly not want of money which made her unhappy. The interest of the sum represented by the pictures hung in her little sitting-room, not to mention the other objects of value she possessed, would have been alone sufficient to afford her a living. The squire himself would have given her a high price for these things, but in six months she never in the most distant manner suggested that she wished to part with them. The idea then naturally suggested itself to Mr. Juxon's mind that she was still mourning for her husband, and that she would probably continue to mourn for him until some one, himself for instance, succeeded in consoling her for so great a loss. The conclusion startled the squire. That was not precisely the part he contemplated playing, nor the species of consolation he proposed to offer. Mrs. Goddard was indeed a charming woman, and the squire liked charming women and delighted in their society. But Mr. Juxon was a bachelor of more than forty years standing, and he had never regarded marriage as a thing of itself, for himself, desirable. He immediately thrust the idea from his mind with a mental "_vade retro Satanas_!" and determined that things were very agreeable in their present state, and might go on for ever; that if Mrs. Goddard was unhappy that did not prevent her from talking very pleasantly whenever he saw her, which was nearly every day, and that her griefs were emphatically none of his business. Before very long however Mr. Juxon discovered that though it was a very simple thing to make such a determination it was a very different thing to keep it. Mrs. Goddard interested him too much. When he was with her he was perpetually longing to talk about herself instead of about the weather and the garden and the books, and once or twice he was very nearly betrayed into talking about himself, a circumstance so extraordinary that Mr. Juxon imagined he must be either ill or going mad, and thought seriously of sending for the doctor. He controlled the impulse, however, and temporarily recovered; but strange to say from that time forward the conversation languished when he found himself alone with Mrs. Goddard, and it seemed very hard to maintain their joint interest in the weather, the garden and the books at the proper standard of intensity. They had grown intimate, and familiarity had begun to breed a contempt of those petty subjects upon which their intimacy had been founded. It is not clear why this should be so, but it is true, nevertheless, and many a couple before Charles Juxon and Mary Goddard had found it out. As the interest of two people in each other increases their interest in things, as things, diminishes in like ratio, and they are very certain ultimately to reach that point described by the Frenchman's maxim--"a man should never talk to a woman except of herself or himself." If Mr. Juxon was not in love with Mary Goddard he was at least rapidly approaching a very dangerous state; for he saw her every day and could not let one day go by without seeing her, and moreover he grew silent in her company, to a degree which embarrassed her and made him feel himself more stupid than he had ever dreamed possible; so that he would sometimes stay too long, in the hope of finding something to say, and sometimes he would leave her abruptly and go and shut himself up with his books, and busy himself with his catalogues and his bindings and the arrangement of his rare editions. One day at last, he felt that he had behaved so very absurdly that he was ashamed of himself, and suddenly disappeared for nearly a week. When he returned he said he had been to town to attend a great sale of books, which was perfectly true; he did not add that the learned expert he employed in London could have done the business for him just as well. But the trip had done him no good, for he grew more silent than ever, and Mrs. Goddard even thought his brown face looked a shade paler; but that might have been the effect of the winter weather. Ordinary sunburn she reflected, as she looked at her own white skin in the mirror, will generally wear off in six months, though freckles will not. If Mr. Juxon was not in love, it would be very hard to say what Mary Goddard felt. It was not true that time was effacing the memory of the great sorrow she had suffered. It was there still, that memory, keen and sharp as ever; it would never go away again so long as she lived. But she had been soothed by the quiet life in Billingsfield; the evidences of the past had been removed far from her, she had found in the Reverend Augustin Ambrose one of those rare and manly natures who can keep a secret for ever without ever referring to its existence even with the person who has confided it. For a few days she had hesitated whether to ask the vicar's advice about Mr. Juxon or not. She had thought it her duty to allow Mr. Ambrose to tell the squire whatever he thought fit of her own story. But she had changed her mind, and the squire had remained in ignorance. It was best so, she thought; for now, after more than six months, Mr. Juxon had taken the position of a friend towards her, and, as she thought, showed no disposition whatever to overstep the boundaries of friendship. The regularity of his visits and the sameness of the conversation seemed of themselves a guarantee of his simple goodwill. It did not strike her as possible that if he were going to fall in love with her at all, that catastrophe should be postponed beyond six months from their first acquaintance. Nor did it seem extraordinary to her that she should actually look forward to those visits, and take pleasure in that monotonous intercourse. Her life was very quiet; it was natural that she should take whatever diversion came in her way, and should even be thankful for it. Mr. Juxon was an honest gentleman, a scholar and a man who had seen the world. If what he said was not always very original it was always very true, a merit not always conceded to the highest originality. He spoke intelligently; he told her the news; he lent her the newest books and reviews, and offered her his opinions upon them, with the regularity of a daily paper. In such a place, where communications with the outer world seemed as difficult as at the antipodes, and where the remainder of society was limited to the household of the vicarage, what wonder was it if she found Mr. Juxon an agreeable companion, and believed the companionship harmless? But far down in the involutions of her feminine consciousness there was present a perpetual curiosity in regard to the squire, a curiosity she never expected to satisfy, but was wholly unable to repress. Under the influence of this feeling she made remarks from time to time of an apparently harmless nature, but which in the squire promoted that strange inclination to talk about himself, which he had lately observed and which caused him so much alarm. He said to himself that he had nothing to be concealed, and that if any one had asked him direct questions concerning his past he would have answered them boldly enough. But he knew himself to be so singularly averse to dwelling on his own affairs that he wondered why he should now be impelled to break through so good a rule. Indeed he had not the insight to perceive that Mrs. Goddard lost no opportunity of leading him to the subject of his various adventures, and, if he had suspected it, he would have been very much surprised. Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose were far from guessing what an intimacy had sprung up between the two. Both the cottage and the Hall lay at a considerable distance from the vicarage, and though Mrs. Ambrose occasionally went to see Mrs. Goddard at irregular hours in the morning and afternoon, it was remarkable that the squire never called when she was there. Once Mrs. Ambrose arrived during one of his visits, but thought it natural enough that Mr. Juxon should drop in to see his tenant. Indeed when she called the two were talking about the garden--as usual. CHAPTER VI. John Short had almost finished his hard work at college. For two years and a half he had laboured on acquiring for himself reputation and a certain amount of more solid advantage in the shape of scholarships. Never in that time had he left Cambridge even for a day unless compelled to do so by the regulations of his college. His father had found it hard to induce him to come up to town; and, being in somewhat easier circumstances since John had declared that he needed no further help to complete his education, he had himself gone to see his son more than once. But John had never been to Billingsfield and he knew nothing of the changes that had taken place there. At last, however, Short felt that he must have some rest before he went up for honours; he had grown thin and even pale; his head ached perpetually, and his eyes no longer seemed so good as they had been. He went to a doctor, and the doctor told him that with his admirable constitution a few days of absolute rest would do all that was necessary. John wrote to Mr. Ambrose to say that he would at last accept the invitation so often extended and would spend the week between Christmas and New Year's day at Billingsfield. There were great rejoicings at the vicarage. John had never been forgotten for a day since he had left, each successive step in his career had been hailed with hearty delight, and now that at last he was coming back to rest himself for a week before the final effort Mrs. Ambrose was as enthusiastic as her husband. Even Mrs. Goddard, who was not quite sure whether she had ever seen John or not, and the squire who had certainly never seen him, joined in the general excitement. Mrs. Goddard asked the entire party to tea at the cottage and the squire asked them to come and skate at the Hall and to dine afterwards; for the weather was cold and the vicar said John was a very good skater. Was there anything John could not do? There was nothing he could not do much better than anybody else, answered Mr. Ambrose; and the good clergyman's pride in his pupil was perhaps not the less because he had at first received him on charitable considerations, and felt that if he had risked much in being so generous he had also been amply rewarded by the brilliant success of his undertaking. When John arrived, everybody said he was "so much improved." He had got his growth now, being close upon one and twenty years of age; his blue eyes were deeper set; his downy whiskers had disappeared and a small moustache shaded his upper lip; he looked more intellectual but not less strong, though Mrs. Ambrose said he was dreadfully pale--perhaps he owed some of the improvement observed in his appearance to the clothes he wore. Poor boy, he had been but scantily supplied in the old days; he looked prosperous, now, by comparison. "We have had great additions to our society, since you left us," said the vicar. "We have got a squire at the Hall, and a lady with a little girl at the cottage." "Such a nice little girl," remarked Mrs. Ambrose. When John found out that the lady at the cottage was no other than the lady in black to whom he had lost his heart two years and a half before, he was considerably surprised. It would be absurd to suppose that the boyish fancy which had made so much romance in his life for so many months could outlast the excitements of the University. It would be absurd to dignify such a fancy by any serious name. He had grown to be a man since those days and he had put away childish things. He blushed to remember that he had spent hours in writing odes to the beautiful unknown, and whole nights in dreaming of her face. And yet he could remember that as much as a year after he had left Billingsfield he still thought of her as his highest ideal of woman, and still occasionally composed a few verses to her memory, regretting, perhaps, the cooling of his poetic ardour. Then he had gradually lost sight of her in the hard work which made up his life. Profound study had made him more prosaic and he believed that he had done with ideals for ever, after the manner of many clever young fellows who at one and twenty feel that they are separated from the follies of eighteen by a great and impassable gulf. The gulf, however, was not in John's case so wide nor so deep but what, at the prospect of being suddenly brought face to face, and made acquainted, with her who for so long had seemed the object of a romantic passion, he felt a strange thrill of surprise and embarrassment. Those meetings of later years generally bring painful disillusion. How many of us can remember some fair-haired little girl who in our childhood represented to us the very incarnation of feminine grace and beauty, for whom we fetched and carried, for whom we bound nosegays on the heath and stole apples from the orchard and climbed upon the table after desert, if we were left alone in the dining-room, to lay hands on some beautiful sweetmeat wrapped in tinsel and fringes of pink paper--have we not met her again in after-life, a grown woman, very, very far from our ideal of feminine grace and beauty? And still in spite of changes in herself and ourselves there has clung to her memory through all those years enough of romance to make our heart beat a little faster at the prospect of suddenly meeting her, enough to make us wonder a little regretfully if she was at all like the little golden-haired child we loved long ago. But with John the feeling was stronger than that. It was but two years and a half since he had seen Mrs. Goddard, and, not even knowing her name, had erected for her a pedestal in his boyish heart. There was moreover about her a mystery still unsolved. There was something odd and strange in her one visit to the vicarage, in the fact that the vicar had never referred to that visit and, lastly, it seemed unlike Mr. Ambrose to have said nothing of her settlement in Billingsfield in the course of all the letters he had written to John since the latter had left him. John dwelt upon the name--Goddard--but it held no association for him. It was not at all like the names he had given her in his imagination. He wondered what she would be like and he felt nervously anxious to meet her. Somehow, too, what he heard of the squire did not please him; he felt an immediate antagonism to Mr. Juxon, to his books, to his amateur scholarship, even to his appearance as described by Mrs. Ambrose, who said he was such a thorough Englishman and wondered how he kept his hair so smooth. It was not long before he had an opportunity of judging for himself of what Mr. Ambrose called the recent addition to Billingsfield society. On the very afternoon of his arrival the vicar proposed to walk up to the Hall and have a look at the library, and John readily assented. It was Christmas Eve and the weather, even in Essex, was sharp and frosty. The muddy road was frozen hard and the afternoon sun, slanting through the oak trees that bordered the road beyond the village, made no perceptible impression on the cold. The two men walked briskly in the direction of the park gate. Before they had quite reached it however, the door of the cottage opposite was opened, and Stamboul, the Russian bloodhound, bounded down the path, cleared the wicket gate in his vast stride, and then turning suddenly crouched in the middle of the road to wait for his master. But the dog instantly caught sight of the vicar, with whom he was on very good terms, and trotted slowly up to him, thrusting his great nose into his hand, and then proceeding to make acquaintance with John. He seemed to approve of the stranger, for he gave a short sniff of satisfaction and trotted back to the wicket of the cottage. At this moment Mrs. Goddard and Nellie came out, followed by the squire arrayed in his inevitable green stockings. There was however no rose in his coat. Whether the greenhouses at the Hall had failed to produce any in the bitter weather, or whether Mr. Juxon had transferred the rose from his coat to the possession of Mrs. Goddard, is uncertain. The three came out into the road where the vicar and John stood still to meet them. "Mrs. Goddard," said the clergyman, "this is Mr. Short, of whom you have heard--John, let me introduce you to Mr. Juxon." John felt that he blushed violently as he took Mrs. Goddard's hand. He would not have believed that he could feel so much embarrassed, and he hated himself for betraying it. But nobody noticed his colour. The weather was bright and cold, and even Mrs. Goddard's pale and delicate skin had a rosy tinge. "We were just going for a walk," she explained. "And we were going to see you at the Hall," said the vicar to Mr. Juxon. "Let us do both," said the latter. "Let us walk to the Hall and have a cup of tea. We can look at the ice and see whether it will bear to-morrow." Everybody agreed to the proposal, and it so fell out that the squire and the vicar went before while John and Mrs. Goddard followed and Nellie walked between them, holding Stamboul by the collar, and talking to him as she went. John looked at his companion, and saw with a strange satisfaction that his first impression, the impression he had cherished so long, had not been a mistaken one. Her deep violet eyes were still sad, beautiful and dreamy. Her small nose was full of expression, and was not reddened by the cold as noses are wont to be. Her rich brown hair waved across her forehead as it did on that day when John first saw her; and now as he spoke with her, her mouth smiled, as he had been sure it would. John felt a curious sense of pride in her, in finding that he had not been deceived, that this ideal of whom he had dreamed was really and truly very good to look at. He knew little of the artist's rules of beauty; he had often looked with wonder at the faces in the illustrations to Dr. Smith's classical dictionary, and had tried to understand where the beauty of them lay, and at Cambridge he had seen and studied with interest many photographs and casts from the antiques. But to his mind the antique would not bear comparison for a moment with Mrs. Goddard, who resembled no engraving nor photograph nor cast he had ever seen. And she, too, looked at him, and said to herself that he did not look like what she had expected. He looked like a lean, fresh young Englishman of moderate intelligence and in moderate circumstances. And yet she knew that he was no ordinary young fellow, that he was wonderfully gifted, in fact, and likely to make a mark in the world. She resolved to take a proper interest in him. "Do you know," she said, "I have heard so much about you, that I feel as though I had met you before, Mr. Short." "We really have met," said John. "Do you remember that hot day when you came to the vicarage and I waked up Muggins for you?" "Yes--was that you? You have changed. That is, I suppose I did not see you very well in the hurry." "I suppose I have changed in two years and a half. I was only a boy then, you know. But how have you heard so much about me?" "Billingsfield," said Mrs. Goddard with a faint smile, "is not a large place. The Ambroses are very fond of you and always talk of what you are doing." "And so you really live here, Mrs. Goddard? How long is it since you came? Mr. Ambrose never told me--" "I have been here more than two years--two years last October," she answered quietly. "The very year I left--only a month after I was gone. How strange!" Mrs. Goddard looked up nervously. She was frightened lest John should have made any deductions from the date of her arrival. But John was thinking in a very different train of thought. "Why is it strange?" she asked. "Oh, I hardly know," said John in considerable embarrassment. "I was only thinking--about you--that is, about it all." The answer did not tend to quiet Mrs. Goddard's apprehensions. "About me?" she exclaimed. "Why should you think about me?" "It was very foolish, of course," said John. "Only, when I caught sight of you that day I was very much struck. You know, I was only a boy, then. I hoped you would come back--but you did not." He blushed violently, and then glanced at his companion to see whether she had noticed it. "No," she said, "I did not come back for some time." "And then I was gone. Mr. Ambrose never told me you had come." "Why should he?" "Oh, I don't know. I think he might. You see Billingsfield has been a sort of home to me, and it is a small place; so I thought he might have told me the news." "I suppose he thought it would not interest you," said Mrs. Goddard. "I am sure I do not know why it should. But you must be very fond of the place, are you not?" "Very. As I was saying, it is very like home to me. My father lives in town you know--that is not at all like home. One always associates the idea of home with the country, and a vicarage and a Hall, and all that." "Does one?" said Mrs. Goddard, picking her way over the frozen mud of the road. "Take care, Nellie, it is dreadfully slippery!" "How much she has grown," remarked John, looking at the girl's active figure as she walked before them. "She was quite a little girl when I saw her first." "Yes, she grows very fast," answered Mrs. Goddard rather regretfully. "You say that as though you were sorry." "I? No. I am glad to see her grow. What a funny remark." "I thought you spoke sadly," explained John. "Oh, dear no. Only she is coming to the awkward age." "She is coming to it very gracefully," said John, who wanted to say something pleasant. "That is the most any of us can hope to do," answered Mrs. Goddard with a little smile. "We all have our awkward age, I suppose." "I should not think you could remember yours." "Why? Do you think it was so very long ago?" Mrs. Goddard laughed. "No--I cannot believe you ever had any," said John. The boyish compliment pleased Mrs. Goddard. It was long since any one had flattered her, for flattery did not enter into the squire's system for making himself agreeable. "Do they teach that sort of thing at Cambridge?" she asked demurely. "What sort of thing?" "Making little speeches to ladies," said she. "No--I wish they did," said John, laughing. "I should know much better how to make them. We learn how to write Greek odes to moral abstractions." "What a dreadful thing to do!" exclaimed Mrs. Goddard. "Do you think so? I do not know. Now, for instance, I have written a great many Greek odes to you--" "To me?" interrupted his companion in surprise. "Do you think it is so very extraordinary?" "Very." "Well--you see--I only saw you once--you won't laugh?" "No," said Mrs. Goddard, who was very much amused, and was beginning to think that John Short was the most original young man she had ever met. "I only saw you once, when you came to the vicarage, and I had not the least idea what your name was. But I--I hoped you would come back; and so I used to write poems to you. They were very good, too," added John in a meditative tone, "I have never written any nearly so good as they were." "Really?" Mrs. Goddard looked at him rather incredulously and then laughed. "You said you would not laugh," objected John. "I cannot help it in the least," said she. "It seems so funny." "It did not seem funny to me, I can assure you," replied John rather warmly. "I thought it very serious." "You don't do it now, do you?" asked Mrs. Goddard, looking up at him quietly. "Oh no--a man's ideals change so much, you know," answered John, who felt he had been foolishly betrayed into telling his story, and hated to be laughed at. "I am very glad of that. How long are you going to stay here, Mr. Short?" "Until New Year's Day, I think," he answered. "Perhaps you will have time to forget about the poetry before I go." "I don't know why," said Mrs. Goddard, noticing his hurt tone. "I think it was very pretty--I mean the way you did it. You must be a born poet--to write verses to a person you did not know and had only seen once!" "It is much easier than writing verses to moral abstractions one has never seen at all," explained John, who was easily pacified. "When a man writes a great deal he feels the necessity of attaching all those beautiful moral qualities to some real, living person whom he can see--" "Even if he only sees her once," remarked Mrs. Goddard demurely. "Yes, even if he only sees her once. You have no idea how hard it is to concentrate one's faculties upon a mere idea; but the moment a man sees a woman whom he can endow with all sorts of beautiful qualities--why it's just as easy as hunting." "I am glad to have been of so much service to you, even unconsciously--but, don't you think perhaps Mrs. Ambrose would have done as well?" "Mrs. Ambrose?" repeated John. Then he broke into a hearty laugh. "No--I have no hesitation in saying that she would not have done as well. I am deeply indebted to Mrs. Ambrose for a thousand kindnesses, for a great deal more than I can tell--but, on the whole, I say, no; I could not have written odes to Mrs. Ambrose." "No, I suppose not. Besides, fancy the vicar's state of mind! She would have had to call him in to translate your poetry." "It is very singular," said John in a tone of reflection. "But, if I had not done all that, we should not be talking as we are now, after ten minutes acquaintance." "Probably not," said Mrs. Goddard. "No--certainly not. By the bye, there is the Hall. I suppose you have often been there since Mr. Juxon came--what kind of man is he?" "He has been a great traveller," answered his companion. "And then--well, he is a scholar and has an immense library--" "And an immense dog--yes, but I mean, what kind of man is he himself?" "He is very agreeable," said Mrs. Goddard quietly. "Very well bred, very well educated. We find him a great addition in Billingsfield." "I should think so, if he is all you say," said John discontentedly. His antagonism against Mr. Juxon was rapidly increasing. Mrs. Goddard looked at him in some surprise, being very far from understanding his tone. "I think you will like him," she said. "He knows all about you from the Ambroses, and he always speaks of you with the greatest admiration." "Really? It is awfully kind of him, I am sure. I am very much obliged," said John rather contemptuously. "Why do you speak like that?" asked Mrs. Goddard gravely. "You cannot possibly have any cause for disliking him. Besides, he is a friend of ours--" "Oh, of course, then it is different," said John. "If he is a friend of yours--" "Do you generally take violent dislikes to people at first sight, Mr. Short?" "Oh, dear no. Not at all--at least, not dislikes. I suppose Mr. Juxon's face reminds me of somebody I do not like. I will behave like an angel. Here we are." The effect of this conversation upon the two persons between whom it took place was exceedingly different. Mrs. Goddard was amused, without being altogether pleased. She had made the acquaintance of a refreshingly young scholar whom she understood to be full of genius. He was enthusiastic, simple, seemingly incapable of concealing anything that passed through his mind, unreasonable and evidently very susceptible. On the whole, she thought she should like him, though his scornful manner in speaking of the squire had annoyed her. The interest she could feel in him, if she felt any at all, would be akin to that of the vicar in the boy. He was only a boy; brilliantly talented, they said, but still a mere boy. She was fully ten years older than he--she might almost be his mother--well, not quite that, but very nearly. It was amusing to think of his writing odes to her. She wished she could see translations of them, and she almost made up her mind to ask him to show them to her. John on the other hand experienced a curious sensation. He had never before been in the society of so charming a woman. He looked at her and looked again, and came to the conclusion that she was not only charming but beautiful. He had not the least idea of her age; it is not the manner of his kind to think much about the age of a woman, provided she is not too young. The girl might be ten. Mrs. Goddard might have married at sixteen--twenty-six, twenty-seven--what was that? John called himself twenty-two. Five years was simply no difference at all! Besides, who cared for age? He had suddenly found himself almost on a footing of intimacy with this lovely creature. His odes had served him well; it had pleased her to hear the story. She had laughed a little, of course; but women, as John knew, always laugh when they are pleased. He would like to show her his odes. As he walked through the park by her side he felt a curious sense of possession in her which gave him a thrill of exquisite delight; and when they entered the Hall he felt as though he were resigning her to the squire, which gave him a corresponding sense of annoyance. When an Englishman experiences these sensations, he is in love. John resolved that whatever happened he would walk back with Mrs. Goddard. "Come in," said the squire cheerily. "We are not so cold as we used to be up here." A great fire of logs was burning upon the hearth in the Hall. Stamboul stalked up to the open chimney, scratched the tiger's skin which served for a rug, and threw himself down as though his day's work were done. Mr. Juxon went up to Mrs. Goddard. "I think you had better take off your coat," he said. "The house is very warm." Mrs. Goddard allowed the squire to help her in removing the heavy black jacket lined and trimmed with fur, which she wore. John eyed the proceeding uneasily and kept on his greatcoat. "Thank you--I don't mind the heat," he said shortly when the squire suggested to him that he might be too warm. John was in a fit of contrariety. Mrs. Goddard glanced at him, as he spoke, and he thought he detected a twinkle of amusement in her eyes, which did not tend to smooth his temper. "You will have some tea, Mrs. Goddard?" said Mr. Juxon, leading the way into the library, which he regarded as the most habitable room in the house. Mrs. Goddard walked by his side and the vicar followed, while John and Nellie brought up the rear. "Is not it a beautiful place?" said Nellie, who was anxious that the new-comer should appreciate the magnificence of the Hall. "Can't see very well," said John, "it is so dark." "Oh, but it is beautiful," insisted Miss Nellie. "And they have lots of lamps here in the evening. Perhaps Mr. Juxon will have them lighted before we go. He is always so kind." "Is he?" asked John with a show of interest. "Yes--he brings mamma a rose every day," said Nellie. "Not really?" said John, beginning to feel that he was justified in hating the squire with all his might. "Yes--and books, too. Lots of them--but then, he has so many. See, this is the library. Is not it splendid!" John looked about him and was surprised. The last rays of the setting sun fell across the open lawn and through the deep windows of the great room, illuminating the tall carved bookcases, the heavily gilt bindings, the rich, dark Russia leather and morocco of the folios. The footsteps of the party fell noiselessly upon the thick carpet and almost insensibly the voices of the visitors dropped to a lower key. A fine large wood fire was burning on the hearth, carefully covered with a metal netting lest any spark should fly out and cause damage to the treasures accumulated in the neighbouring shelves. "Pray make yourself at home, Mr. Short," said the squire, coming up to John. "You may find something of interest here. There are some old editions of the classics that are thought rare--some specimens of Venetian printing, too, that you may like to look at. Mr. Ambrose can tell you more about them than I." John's feeling of antagonism, and even his resentment against Mr. Juxon, roused by Nellie's innocent remark about the roses, were not proof against the real scholastic passion aroused by the sight of rare and valuable books. In a few minutes he had divested himself of his greatcoat and was examining the books with an expression of delight upon his face which was pleasant to see. He glanced from time to time at the other persons in the room and looked very often at Mrs. Goddard, but on the whole he was profoundly interested in the contents of the library. Mrs. Goddard was installed in a huge leathern easy-chair by the fire, and the squire was handing her one after another a number of new volumes which lay upon a small table, and which she appeared to examine with interest. Nellie knew where to look for her favourite books of engravings and had curled herself up in a corner absorbed in "Hyde's Royal Residences." The vicar went to look for something he wanted to consult. "What do you think of our new friend?" asked Mrs. Goddard of the squire. She spoke in a low tone and did not look up from the new book he had just handed her. "He appears to have a very peculiar temper," said Mr. Juxon. "But he looks clever." "What do you think he was talking about as we came through the park?" asked Mrs. Goddard. "What?" "He was saying that he saw me once before he went to college, and--fancy how deliciously boyish! he said he had written ever so many Greek odes to my memory since!" Mrs. Goddard laughed a little and blushed faintly. "Let us hope, for the sake of his success, that you may continue to inspire him," said the squire gravely. "I have no doubt the odes were very good." "So he said. Fancy!" CHAPTER VII. Mrs. Goddard did not mean to walk home with John; but on the other hand she did not mean to walk with the squire. She revolved the matter in her mind as she sat in the library talking in an undertone with Mr. Juxon. She liked the great room, the air of luxury, the squire's tea and the squire's conversation. It is worth noticing that his flow of talk was more abundant to-day than it had been for some time; whether it was John's presence which stimulated Mr. Juxon's imagination, or whether Mrs. Goddard had suddenly grown more interesting since John Short's appearance it is hard to say; it is certain that Mr. Juxon talked better than usual. The afternoon, however, was far spent and the party had only come to make a short visit. Mrs. Goddard rose from her seat. "Nellie, child, we must be going home," she said, calling to the little girl who was still absorbed in the book of engravings which she had taken to the window to catch the last of the waning light. John started and came forward with alacrity. The vicar looked up; Nellie reluctantly brought her book back. "It is very early," objected the squire. "Really, the days have no business to be so short." "It would not seem like Christmas if they were long," said Mrs. Goddard. "It does not seem like Christmas anyhow," remarked John, enigmatically. No one understood his observation and no one paid any attention to it. Whereupon John's previous feeling of annoyance returned and he went to look for his greatcoat in the dark corner where he had laid it. "You must not come all the way back with us," said Mrs. Goddard as they all went out into the hall and began to put on their warm things before the fire. "Really--it is late. Mr. Ambrose will give me his arm." The squire insisted however, and Stamboul, who had had a comfortable nap by the fire, was of the same opinion as his master and plunged wildly at the door. "Will you give me your arm, Mr. Ambrose?" said Mrs. Goddard, looking rather timidly at the vicar as they stood upon the broad steps in the sparkling evening air. She felt that she was disappointing both the squire and John, but she had quite made up her mind. She had her own reasons. The vicar, good man, was unconsciously a little flattered by her choice, as with her hand resting on the sleeve of his greatcoat he led the way down the park. The squire and John were fain to follow together, but Nellie took her mother's hand, and Stamboul walked behind affecting an unusual gravity. "You must come again when there is more daylight," said Mr. Juxon to his companion. "Thank you," said John. "You are very good." He intended to relapse into silence, but his instinct made him ashamed of seeming rude. "You have a magnificent library," he added presently in a rather cold tone. "You have been used to much better ones in Cambridge," said the squire, modestly. "Do you know Cambridge well, Mr. Juxon?" "Very well. I am a Cambridge man, myself." "Indeed?" exclaimed John, immediately discovering that the squire was not so bad as he had thought. "Indeed! I had no idea. Mr. Ambrose never told me that." "I am not sure that he is aware of it," said Mr. Juxon quietly. "The subject never happened to come up." "How odd!" remarked John, who could not conceive of associating with a man for any length of time without asking at what University he had been. "I don't know," answered Mr. Juxon. "There are lots of other things to talk about." "Oh--of course," said John, in a tone which did not express conviction. Meanwhile Mr. Ambrose and Mrs. Goddard walked briskly in front; so briskly in fact that Nellie occasionally jumped a step, as children say, in order to keep up with them. "What a glorious Christmas eve!" exclaimed Mrs. Goddard, as they turned a bend in the drive and caught sight of the western sky still clear and red. "And there is the new moon!" The slender crescent was hanging just above the fading glow. "Oh mamma, have you wished?" cried Nellie. "You must, you know, when you see the new moon!" Mrs. Goddard did not answer, but she sighed faintly and drew a little closer to the worthy vicar as she walked. She always wished, whether there was a new moon or not, and she always wished the same wish. Perhaps Mr. Ambrose understood, for he was not without tact. He changed the subject. "How do you like our John Short?" he asked. "Very much, I think," answered Mrs. Goddard. "He is so fresh and young." "He is a fine fellow. I was sure you would like him. Is he at all like what you fancied he would be?" "Well no--not exactly. I know you told me how he looked, but I always thought he would be rather Byronic--the poetical type, if you know what I mean." "He has a great deal of poetry in him," said Mr. Ambrose in a tone of profound admiration. "He writes the best Greek verse I ever saw." "Oh yes--I daresay," replied Mrs. Goddard smiling in the dusk. "I am sure he must be very clever." So they chatted quietly as they walked down the park. But the squire and John did not make progress in their conversation, and by the time they reached the gate they had yielded to an awkward silence. They had both been annoyed because Mrs. Goddard had taken the vicar's arm instead of choosing one of themselves, but the joint sense of disappointment did not constitute a common bond of interest. Either one would have suffered anything rather than mention Mrs. Goddard to the other in the course of the walk. And yet Mr. Juxon might have been John's father. At the gate of the cottage they separated. The squire said he would turn back. Mrs. Goddard had reached her destination. John and the vicar would return to the vicarage. John tried to linger a moment, to get a word with Mrs. Goddard. He was so persistent that she let him follow her through the wicket gate and then turned quickly. "What is it?" she asked, rather suddenly, holding out her hand to say good-bye. "Oh, nothing," answered John. "That is--would you like to see one of those--those little odes of mine?" "Yes, certainly, if you like," she answered frankly, and then laughed. "Of course I would. Good-night." He turned and fled. The vicar was waiting for him, and eyed him rather curiously as he came back. Mr. Juxon was standing in the middle of the road, making Stamboul jump over his stick, backwards and forwards. "Good-night," he said, pausing in his occupation. The vicar and John turned away and walked homewards. Before they turned the corner towards the village John instinctively looked back. Mr. Juxon was still making Stamboul jump the stick before the cottage, but as far as he could see in the dusk, Mrs. Goddard and Nellie had disappeared within. John felt that he was very unhappy. "Mr. Ambrose," he began. Then he stopped and hesitated. "Mr. Ambrose," he continued at last, "you never told me half the news of Billingsfield in your letters." "You mean about Mrs. Goddard? Well--no--I did not think it would interest you very much." "She is a very interesting person," said John. He could have added that if he had known she was in Billingsfield he would have made a great sacrifice in order to come down for a day to make her acquaintance. But he did not say it. "She is a great addition," said the vicar. "Oh--very great, I should think." Christmas eve was passed at the vicarage in preparation for the morrow. Mrs. Ambrose was very active in binding holly wherever it was possible to put it. The mince-pies were tasted and pronounced a success, and old Reynolds was despatched to the cottage with a small basket containing a certain number of them as a present to Mrs. Goddard. An emissary appeared from the Hall with a variety of articles which the squire begged to contribute towards the vicar's Christmas dinner; among others a haunch of venison which Mrs. Ambrose pronounced to be in the best condition. The vicar retorted by sending to the Hall a magnificent Cottenham cheese which, as a former Fellow of Trinity, he had succeeded in obtaining. Moreover Mr. Ambrose himself descended to the cellar and brought up several bottles of Audit ale which he declared must be allowed to stand some time in the pantry in order to bring out the flavour and to be thoroughly settled. John gave his assistance wherever it was needed and enjoyed vastly the old-fashioned preparations for Christmas day. It was long since the season had brought him such rejoicing and he intended to rejoice with a good will towards men and especially towards the Ambroses. After dinner the whole party, consisting of three highly efficient persons and old Reynolds, adjourned to the church to complete the decorations for the morrow. The church of Billingsfield, known as St. Mary's, was quite large enough to contain twice the entire population of the parish. It was built upon a part of the foundations of an ancient abbey, and the vicar was very proud of the monument of a crusading Earl of Oxford which he had caused to be placed in the chancel, it having been discovered in the old chancel of the abbey in the park, far beyond the present limits of the church. The tower was the highest in the neighbourhood. The whole building was of gray rubble, irregular stones set together with a crumbling cement, and presented an appearance which, if not architecturally imposing, was at least sufficiently venerable. At the present time the aisles were full of heaped-up holly and wreaths; a few lamps and a considerable number of tallow candles shed a rather feeble light amongst the pillars; a crowd of school children, not yet washed for the morrow, were busy under the directions of the schoolmistress in decorating the chancel; Mr. Thomas Reid the conservative sexton was at the top of a tall ladder, presumably using doubtful language to himself as every third nail he tried to drive into the crevices of the stone "crooked hisself and larfed at him," as he expressed it; the organ was playing and a dozen small boys with three or four men were industriously practising the anthem "Arise, Shine," producing strains which if not calculated altogether to elevate the heart by their harmony, would certainly have caused the hair of a sensitive musician to rise on end; three or four of the oldest inhabitants were leaning on their sticks in the neighbourhood of the great stove in the middle aisle, warming themselves and grumbling that "times warn't as they used to be;" Mr. Abraham Boosey was noisily declaring that he had "cartlods more o' thim greens" to come, and Muggins, who had had some beer, was stumbling cheerfully against the pews in his efforts to bring a huge load of fir branches to the foot of Mr. Thomas Reid's long ladder. It was a thorough Christmas scene and John Short's heart warmed as he came back suddenly to the things which for three years had been so familiar to him and which he had so much missed in his solitude at Cambridge. Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose set to work and John followed their example. Even the prickly holly leaves were pleasant to touch and there was a homely joy in the fir branches dripping with half melted snow. Before they had been at work very long, John was aware of a little figure, muffled in furs and standing beside him. He looked up and saw little Nellie's lovely face and long brown curls. "Can't I help you, Mr. Short?" she asked timidly. "I like to help, and they won't let me." "Who are 'they'?" asked John kindly, but looking about for the figure of Nellie's mother. "The schoolmistress and Mrs. Ambrose. They said I should dirty my frock." "Well," said John, doubtfully, "I don't know. Perhaps you would. But you might hold the string for me--that won't hurt your clothes, you know." "There are more greens this year," remarked Nellie, sitting down upon the end of the choir bench where John was at work and taking the ball of string in her hand. "Mr. Juxon has sent a lot from the park." "He seems to be always sending things," said John, who had no reason whatever for saying so, except that the squire had sent a hamper to the vicarage. "Did he stay long before dinner?" he added, in the tone people adopt when they hope to make children talk. "Stay long where?" asked Nellie innocently. "Oh, I thought he went into your house after we left you," answered John. "Oh no--he did not come in," said Nellie. John continued to work in silence. At some distance from where he was, Mrs. Goddard was talking to Mrs. Ambrose. He could see her graceful figure, but he could hardly distinguish her features in the gloom of the dimly-lighted church. He longed to leave Nellie and to go and speak to her, but an undefined feeling of hurt pride prevented him. He would not forgive her for having taken the vicar's arm in coming home through the park; so he stayed where he was, pricking his fingers with the holly and rather impatiently pulling the string off the ball which Nellie held. If Mrs. Goddard wanted to speak to him, she might come of her own accord, he thought, for he felt that he had behaved foolishly in asking if she wished to see his odes. Somehow, when he thought about it, the odes did not seem so good now as they had seemed that afternoon. Mrs. Goddard had not seen him at first, and for some time she remained in consultation with Mrs. Ambrose. At last she turned and looking for Nellie saw that she was seated beside John; to his great delight she came towards him. She looked more lovely than ever, he thought; the dark fur about her throat set off her delicate, sad face like a frame. "Oh--are you here, too, Mr. Short?" she said. "Hard at work, as you see," answered John. "Are you going to help, Mrs. Goddard? Won't you help me?" "I wanted to," said Nellie, appealing to her mother, "but they would not let me, so I can only hold the string." "Well, dear--we will see if we can help Mr. Short," said Mrs. Goddard good-naturedly, and she sat down upon the choir bench. John never forgot that delightful Christmas Eve. For nearly two hours he never left Mrs. Goddard's side, asking her advice about every branch and bit of holly and following out to the letter her most minute suggestions. He forgot all about the squire and about the walk back from the park, in the delight of having Mrs. Goddard to himself. He pushed the school children about and spoke roughly to old Reynolds if her commands were not instantly executed; he felt in the little crowd of village people that he was her natural protector, and he wished he might never have anything in the world to do save to decorate a church in her company. He grew more and more confidential and when the work was all done he felt that he had thoroughly established himself in her good graces and went home to dream of the happiest day he had ever spent. The organ ceased playing, the little choir dispersed, the school children were sent home, Mr. Abraham Boosey retired to the bar of the Duke's Head, Muggins tenderly embraced every tombstone he met on his way through the churchyard, the "gentlefolk" followed Reynolds' lantern towards the vicarage, and Mr. Thomas Reid, the conservative and melancholic sexton, put out the lights and locked the church doors, muttering a sour laudation of more primitive times, when "the gentlefolk minded their business." For the second time that day, John and Mr. Ambrose walked as far as the cottage, to see Mrs. Goddard to her home. When they parted from her and Nellie, John was careful not to say anything more about the odes, a subject to which Mrs. Goddard had not referred in the course of the evening. John thanked her rather effusively for her help--he could never have got through those choir benches without her, he said; and the vicar added that he was very much obliged, too, and surreptitiously conveyed to Mrs. Goddard's hand a small package intended for Miss Nellie's Christmas stocking, from him and his wife, and which he had forgotten to give earlier. Nellie was destined to have a fuller stocking than usual this year, for the squire had remembered her as well as Mr. Ambrose. John went to bed in his old room at the vicarage protesting that he had enjoyed the first day of his holiday immensely. As he blew out the light, he thought suddenly how often in that very room he had gone to bed dreaming about the lady in black and composing verses to her, till somehow the Greek terminations would get mixed up with the Latin roots, the quantities all seemed to change places, and he used to fall asleep with a delicious half romantic sense of happiness always unfulfilled yet always present. And now at last it began to be fulfilled in earnest; he had met the lady in black at last, had spent nearly half a day in her company and was more persuaded than ever that she was really and truly his ideal. He did not go to sleep so soon as in the old days, and he was sorry to go to sleep at all; he wanted to enjoy all his delicious recollections of that afternoon before he slept and, as he recapitulated the events which had befallen him and recalled each expression of the face that had charmed him and every intonation of the charmer's voice, he felt that he had never been really happy before, that no amount of success at Cambridge could give him half the delight he had experienced during one hour in the old Billingsfield church, and that altogether life anywhere else was not worth living. To-morrow he would see Mrs. Goddard again, and the next day and the day after that and then--"bother the future!" ejaculated John, and went to sleep. He awoke early, roused by the loud clanging of the Christmas bells, and looking out he saw that the day was fine and cold and bright as Christmas day should be, and generally is. The hoar frost was frozen into fantastic shapes upon his little window, the snow was clinging to the yew branches outside and the robins were hopping and chirping over the thin crust of frozen snow that just covered the ground. The road was hard and brown as on the previous day, and the ice in the park would probably bear. Perhaps Mrs. Goddard would skate in the afternoon between the services, but then--Juxon would be there. "Never mind Juxon," quoth John to himself, "it is Christmas day!" At the vicarage and elsewhere, all over the land, those things were done which delight the heart of Englishmen at the merry season. Everybody shook hands with everybody else, everybody cried "Merry Christmas!" to his neighbour in the street, with an intonation as though he were saying something startlingly new and brilliant which had never been said before. Every labourer who had a new smock-frock put it on, and those who had none had at least a bit of new red worsted comforter about their throats and began the day by standing at their doors in the cold morning, smoking a "ha'p'orth o' shag" in a new clay pipe, greeting each other across the village street. Muggins, who had spent a portion of the night in exchanging affectionate Christmas wishes with the tombstones in the churchyard, appeared fresh and ruddy at an early hour, clad in the long black coat and tall hat which he was accustomed to wear when he drove Mr. Boosey's fly on great festivals. Most of the cottages in the single street sported a bit of holly in their windows, and altogether the appearance of Billingsfield was singularly festive and mirthful. At precisely ten minutes to eleven the vicar and Mrs. Ambrose, accompanied by John, issued from the vicarage and went across the road by the private path to the church. As they entered the porch Mr. Reid, who stood solemnly tolling the small bell, popularly nicknamed the "Ting-tang," and of which the single rope passed down close to the south door, vouchsafed John a sour smile of recognition. John felt as though he had come home. Mrs. Goddard and Nellie appeared a moment afterwards and took their seats in the pew traditionally belonging to the cottage, behind that of the squire who was always early, and the sight of whose smoothly brushed hair and brown beard was a constant source of satisfaction to Mrs. Ambrose. John and Mrs. Ambrose sat on the opposite side of the aisle, but John's eyes strayed very frequently towards Mrs. Goddard; so frequently indeed that she noticed it and leaned far back in her seat to avoid his glance. Whereupon John blushed and felt that the vicar, who was reading the Second Lesson, had probably noticed his distraction. It was hard to realise that two years and a half had passed since he had sat in that same pew; perhaps, however, the presence of Mrs. Goddard helped him to understand the lapse of time. But for her it would have been very hard; for the vicar's voice sounded precisely as it used to sound; Mrs. Ambrose had not lost her habit of removing one glove and putting it into her prayer book as a mark while she found the hymn in the accompanying volume; the bright decorations looked as they looked years ago above the organ and round the chancel; from far down the church, just before the sermon, came the old accustomed sound of small boys shuffling their hobnailed shoes upon the stone floor and the audible guttural whisper of the churchwarden admonishing them to "mind the stick;" the stained-glass windows admitted the same pleasant light as of yore--all was unchanged. But Mrs. Goddard and Nellie occupied the cottage pew, and their presence alone was sufficient to mark to John the fact that he was now a man. The service was sympathetic to John Short. He liked the simplicity of it, even the rough singing of the choir, as compared with the solemn and magnificent musical services of Trinity College Chapel. But it seemed very long before it was all over and he was waiting for Mrs. Goddard outside the church door. There were more greetings, more "Merry Christmas" and "Many happy returns." Mrs. Goddard looked more charming than ever and was quite as cordial as on the previous evening. "How much better it all looked this morning by daylight," she said. "I think it looked very pretty last night," answered John. "There is nothing so delightful as Christmas decorations, is there?" "Perhaps you will come down next year and help us again?" suggested Mrs. Goddard. "Yes--well, I might come at Easter, for that matter," answered the young man, who after finding it impossible to visit Billingsfield during two years and a half, now saw no difficulty whatever in the way of making two visits in the course of six months. "Do you still decorate at Easter?" he asked. "Oh yes--do you think you can come?" she said pleasantly. "I thought you were to be very busy just then." "Yes, that is true," answered John. "But of course I could come, you know, if it were necessary." "Hardly exactly necessary--" Mrs. Goddard laughed. "The doctor told me some relaxation was absolutely indispensable for my health," said John rather sententiously. "You don't really look very ill--are you?" She seemed incredulous. "Oh no, of course not--only a little overworked sometimes." "In that case I have no doubt it would do you good," said Mrs. Goddard. "Do you really think so?" asked John, hopefully. "Oh--that is a matter for your doctor to decide. I cannot possibly tell," she answered. "I think you would make a very good doctor, Mrs. Goddard," said John venturing on a bolder flight. "Really--I never thought of trying it," she replied with a little laugh. "Good morning, Mr. Ambrose. Nellie wants to thank you for your beautiful present. It was really too good of you." The vicar came out of the vestry and joined the group in the path. Mrs. Ambrose, who had been asking Tom Judd's wife about her baby, also came up, and the squire, who had been presenting Mr. Reid with ten shillings for his Christmas box and who looked singularly bereaved without the faithful Stamboul at his heels, sauntered up and began congratulating everybody. In the distance the last of the congregation, chiefly the old women and cripples who could not keep up with the rest, hobbled away through the white gate of the churchyard. It had been previously agreed that if the ice would bear there should be skating in the afternoon and the squire was anxious to inform the party that the pond was in excellent condition. "As black as your hat," he said cheerfully. "Stamboul and I have been sliding all over it, so of course it would bear an ox. It did not crack anywhere." "Do you skate, Mrs. Goddard?" asked John. "Not very well--not nearly so well as Nellie. But I am very fond of it." "Will you let me push you about in a chair, then? It is capital fun." "Very good fun for me, no doubt," answered Mrs. Goddard, laughing. "I would rather do it than anything else," said John in a tone of conviction. "It is splendid exercise, pushing people about in chairs." "So it is," said the squire, heartily. "We will take turns, Mr. Short." The suggestion did not meet with any enthusiastic response from John, who wished Mr. Juxon were not able to skate. Poor John, he had but one idea, which consisted simply in getting Mrs. Goddard to himself as often and as long as possible. Unfortunately this idea did not coincide with Mr. Juxon's views. Mr. Juxon was an older, slower and calmer man than the enthusiastic young scholar, and though very far from obtruding his views or making any assertion of his rights, was equally far from forgetting them. He was a man more of actions than words. He had been in the habit of monopolising Mrs. Goddard's society for months and he had no intention of relinquishing his claims, even for the charitable purpose of allowing a poor student to enjoy his Christmas holiday and bit of romance undisturbed. If John had presented himself as a boy, it might have been different; but John emphatically considered himself a man, and the squire was quite willing to treat him as such, since he desired it. That is to say he would not permit him to "cut him out" as he would have expressed it. The result of the position in which John and Mr. Juxon soon found themselves was to be expected. CHAPTER VIII. John did not sleep so peacefully nor dream so happily that night as on the night before. The course of true love had not run smooth that afternoon. The squire had insisted upon having his share of the lovely Mrs. Goddard's society and she herself had not seemed greatly disturbed at a temporary separation from John. The latter amused her for a little while; the former held the position of a friend whose conversation she liked better than that of other people. John was disappointed and thought of going back to Cambridge the next day. So strong, indeed, was his sudden desire to leave Billingsfield without finishing his visit, that before going to bed he had packed some of his belongings into his small portmanteau; the tears almost stood in his eyes as he busied himself about his room and he muttered certain formulae of self-accusation as he collected his things, saying over and over in his heart--"What a fool I am! Why should she care for me? What am I that she should care for me?" etc. etc. Then he opened his window and looked at the bright stars which shone out over the old yew tree; but it was exceedingly cold, and so he shut it again and went to bed, feeling very uncomfortable and unhappy. But when he awoke in the morning he looked at his half-packed portmanteau and laughed, and instead of saying "What a fool I am!" he said "What a fool I was!"--which is generally and in most conditions of human affairs a much wiser thing to say. Then he carefully took everything out of the portmanteau again and replaced things as they had lain before in his room, lest perchance Susan, the housemaid, should detect what had passed through his mind on the previous evening and should tell Mrs. Ambrose. And from all this it appears that John was exceedingly young, as indeed he was, in spite of his being nearly one and twenty years of age. But doubtless if men were willing to confess their disappointments and foolish, impetuous resolutions, many would be found who have done likewise, being in years much older than John Short. Unfortunately for human nature most men would rather confess to positive wrong-doing than to any such youthful follies as these, while they are young; and when they are old they would rather be thought young and foolish than confess the evil deeds they have actually done. John, however, did not moralise upon his situation. The weather was again fine and as he dressed his spirits rose. He became magnanimous and resolved to forget yesterday and make the most of today. He would see Mrs. Goddard of course; perhaps he would show her a little coldness at first, giving her to understand that she had not treated him well on the previous afternoon; then he would interest her by his talk--he would repeat to her one of those unlucky odes and translate it for her benefit, making use of the freedom he would thus get in order to make her an unlimited number of graceful compliments. Perhaps, too, he ought to pay more attention to Nellie, if he wished to conciliate her mother. Women, he reflected, have such strange prejudices! He wondered whether it would be proper for him to call upon Mrs. Goddard. He was not quite sure about it, and he was rather ashamed of having so little knowledge of the world; but he believed that in Billingsfield he might run the risk. There had been talk of skating again that morning, and so, about ten o'clock, John told Mr. Ambrose he would go for a short walk and then join them all at the pond in the park. The project seemed good, and he put it into execution. As he walked up the frozen road, he industriously repeated in his mind the Greek verses he was going to translate to Mrs. Goddard; he had no copy of them but his memory was very good. He met half a dozen labourers, strolling about with their pipes until it was time to go and have a pint of beer, as is their manner upon holidays; they touched their hats to him, remembering his face well, and he smiled happily at the rough fellows, contrasting his situation with theirs, who from the misfortune of social prejudice were not permitted to go and call upon Mrs. Goddard. His heart beat rather fast as he went up to the door of the cottage, and for one unpleasant moment he again doubted whether it was proper for him to make such an early visit. But being bent on romantic adventure he rang boldly and inquired for Mrs. Goddard. She was surprised to see John at that hour and alone; but it did not enter her head to refuse him admittance. Indeed as he stood in the little passage he heard the words which passed between her and Martha. "What is it, Martha?" "It's a young gentleman, mam. I rather think, mam, it's the young gentleman that's stopping at the vicarage." "Oh--ask him to come in." "In 'ere, mam?" "No--into the sitting-room," said Mrs. Goddard, who was busy in the dining-room. John was accordingly ushered in and told to wait a minute; which he did, surveying with surprise the beautiful pictures, the rich looking furniture and the valuable objects that lay about upon the tables. He experienced a thrill of pleasure, for he felt sure that Mrs. Goddard possessed another qualification which he had unconsciously attributed to her--that of being accustomed to a certain kind of luxury, which in John's mind was mysteriously connected with his romance. It is one of the most undefinable of the many indefinite feelings to which young men in love are subject, especially young men who have been, or are, very poor. They like to connect ideas of wealth and comfort, even of a luxurious existence, with the object of their affections. They desire the world of love to be new to them, and in order to be wholly new in their experience, it must be rich. The feeling is not so wholly unworthy as it might seem; they instinctively place their love upon a pedestal and require its surroundings to be of a better kind than such as they have been accustomed to in their own lives. King Cophetua, being a king, could afford to love the beggar maid, and a very old song sings of a "lady who loved a swine," but the names of the poor young men who have loved above their fortune and station are innumerable as the swallows in spring. John saw that Mrs. Goddard was much richer than he had ever been, and without the smallest second thought was pleased. In a few moments she entered the room. John had his speech ready. "I thought, if you were going to skate, I would call and ask leave to go with you," he said glibly, as she gave him her hand. "Oh--thanks. But is not it rather early?" "It is twenty minutes past ten," said John, looking at the clock. "Well, let us get warm before starting," said Mrs. Goddard, sitting down by the fire. "It is so cold this morning." John thought she was lovely to look at as she sat there, warming her hands and shielding her face from the flame with them at the same time. She looked at him and smiled pleasantly, but said nothing. She was still a little surprised to see him and wondered whether he himself had anything to say. "Yes," said John, "it is very cold--traditional Christmas weather. Could not be finer, in fact, could it?" "No--it could not be finer," echoed Mrs. Goddard, suppressing a smile. Then as though to help him out of his embarrassment by giving an impulse to the conversation, she added, "By the bye, Mr. Short, while we are warming ourselves why do not you let me hear one of your odes?" She meant it kindly, thinking it would give him pleasure, as indeed it did. John's heart leaped and he blushed all over his face with delight. Mrs. Goddard was not quite sure whether she had done right, but she attributed his evident satisfaction to his vanity as a scholar. "Certainly," he said with alacrity, "if you would like to hear it. Would you care to hear me repeat the Greek first?" "Oh, of all things. I do not think I have ever heard Greek." John cleared his throat and began, glancing at his hostess rather nervously from time to time. But his memory never failed him, and he went on to the end without a break or hesitation. "How do you think it sounds?" he asked timidly when he had finished. "It sounds very funny," said Mrs. Goddard. "I had no idea Greek sounded like that--but it has a pleasant rhythm." "That is the thing," said John, enthusiastically. "I see you really appreciate it. Of course nobody knows how the ancients pronounced Greek, and if one pronounced it as the moderns do, it would sound all wrong--but the rhythm is the thing, you know. It is impossible to get over that." Mrs. Goddard was not positively sure what he meant by "getting over the rhythm;" possibly John himself could not have defined his meaning very clearly. But his cheeks glowed and he was very much pleased. "Yes, of course," said Mrs. Goddard confidently. "But what does it all mean, Mr. Short?" "Would you really like to know?" asked John in fresh embarrassment. He suddenly realised how wonderfully delightful it was to be repeating his own poetry to the woman for whom it was written. "Indeed yes--what is the use of your telling me all sorts of things in Greek, if you do not tell me what they mean?" "Yes--you will promise not to be offended?" "Of course," said Mrs. Goddard; then blushing a little she added, "it is quite--I mean--quite the sort of thing, is not it?" "Oh quite," said John, blushing too, but looking grave for a moment. Then he repeated the English translation of the verses which, as they were certainly not so good as the original, may be omitted here. They set forth that in the vault of the world's night a new star had appeared which men had not yet named, nor would be likely to name until the power of human speech should be considerably increased, and the verses dwelt upon the theme, turning it and revolving it in several ways, finally declaring that the far-darting sun must look out for his interests unless he meant to be outshone by the new star. Translated into English there was nothing very remarkable about the performance though the original Greek ode was undoubtedly very good of its kind. But Mrs. Goddard was determined to be pleased. "I think it is charming," she said, when John had reached the end and paused for her criticism. "The Greek is very much better," said John doubtfully. "I cannot write English verses--they seem to me so much harder." "I daresay," said Mrs. Goddard. "But did you really write that when--" she stopped not knowing exactly how to express herself. But John had his answer ready. "Oh, I wrote ever so many," he said, "and I have got them all at Cambridge. But that is the only one I quite remember. I wrote them just after the day when I waked up Muggins--the only time I had seen you till now. I think I could--" "How funny it seems," said Mrs. Goddard, "without knowing a person, to write verses to them! How did you manage to do it?" "I was going to say that I think--I am quite sure--I could write much better things to you now." "Oh, that is impossible--quite absurd, Mr. Short," said Mrs. Goddard, laughing more gaily than usual. "Why?" asked John, somewhat emboldened by his success. "I do not see why, if one has an ideal, you know, one should not understand it much better when one comes near to it." "Yes--but--how can I possibly be your ideal?" She felt herself so much older than John that she thought it was out of the question to be annoyed; so she treated him in a matter of fact way, and was really amused at his talk. "I don't see why not," answered John stoutly. "You might be any man's ideal." "Oh, really--" ejaculated Mrs. Goddard, somewhat startled at the force of the sweeping compliment. To be told point-blank, even by an enthusiastic youth of one and twenty, that one is the ideal woman, must be either very pleasant or very startling. "Excuse me," she said quickly, before he could answer her, "you know of course I am very ignorant--yes I am--but will you please tell me what is an 'ideal'?" "Why--yes," said John, "it is very easy. Ideal comes from idea. Plato meant, by the idea, the perfect model--well, do you see?" "Not exactly," said Mrs. Goddard. "It is very simple. When I, when anybody, says you are the ideal woman, it is meant that you are the perfect model, the archetype of a woman." "Yes--but that is absurd," said his companion rather coldly. "I am sorry that it should seem absurd," said John in a persuasive tone; "it seems very natural to me. A man thinks for a long time about everything that most attracts him and then, on a sudden, he sees it all before him, quite real and alive, and then he says he has realised his ideal. But you liked the verses, Mrs. Goddard?" he added quickly, hoping to bring back the smile that had vanished from her face. He had a strong impression that he had been a little too familiar. Probably Mrs. Goddard thought so too. "Oh yes, I think they are very nice," she answered. But the smile did not come back. She was not displeased, but she was not pleased either; she was wondering how far this boy would go if she would let him. John, however, felt unpleasantly doubtful about what he had done. "I hope you are not displeased," he said. "Oh, not in the least," said she. "Shall we go to the park and skate?" "I am not sure that I will skate to-day," said John, foolishly. Mrs. Goddard looked at him in unfeigned surprise. "Why not? I thought it was for that--" "Oh, of course," said John quickly. "Only it is not very amusing to skate when Mr. Juxon is pushing you about in a chair." "Really--why should not he push me about, if I like it?" "If you like it--that is different," answered John impatiently. Mrs. Goddard began to think that John was very like a spoiled child, and she resented his evident wish to monopolise her society. She left the room to get ready for the walk, vaguely wishing that he had not come. "I have made a fool of myself again," said John to himself, when he was left alone; and he suddenly wished he could get out of the house without seeing her again. But before he had done wishing, she returned. "Where is Miss Nellie?" he asked gloomily, as they walked down the path. "I hope she is coming too." "She went up to the pond with Mr. Juxon, just before you came." "Do you let her go about like that, without you?" asked John severely. "Why not? Really, Mr. Short," said Mrs. Goddard, glancing up at his face, "either you dislike Mr. Juxon very much, or else I think you take a good deal upon yourself in remarking--in this way--" She was naturally a little timid, but John's youth and what she considered as his extraordinary presumption inspired her with courage to protest. The effect upon John was instantaneous. "Pray forgive me," he said humbly, "I am very silly. I daresay you are quite right and I do not like Mr. Juxon. Not that I have the smallest reason for not liking him," he continued quickly, "it is a mere personal antipathy, a mere idea, I daresay--very foolish of me." "It is very foolish to take unreasonable dislikes to people one knows nothing about," she said quietly. "Will you please open the gate?" They were standing before the bars, but John was so much disturbed in mind that he stood still, quite forgetting to raise the long iron latch. "Dear me--I beg your pardon--I cannot imagine what I was thinking of," he said, making the most idiotic excuse current in English idiom. "Nor I," said Mrs. Goddard, with a little laugh, as he held the gate back for her to pass. It was a plain white gate with stone pillars, and there was no gatehouse. People who came to the Hall were expected to open it for themselves. Mrs. Goddard was so much amused at John's absence of mind that her good humour returned, and he felt that since that object was attained he no longer regretted his folly in the least. The cloud that had darkened the horizon of his romance had passed quickly away, and once more he said inwardly that he was enjoying the happiest days of his life. If for a moment the image of Mr. Juxon entered the field of his imaginative vision in the act of pushing Mrs. Goddard's chair upon the ice, he mentally ejaculated "bother the squire!" as he had done upon the previous night, and soon forgot all about him. The way through the park was long, the morning was delightful and Mrs. Goddard did not seem to be in a hurry. "I wish the winter would last for ever," he said presently. "So do I," answered his companion, "it is the pleasantest time of the year. One does not feel that nature is dead because one is sure she will very soon be alive again." "That is a charming idea," said John, "one might make a good subject of it." "It is a little old, perhaps. I think I have heard it before--have not you?" "All good ideas are old. The older the better," said John confidently. Mrs. Goddard could not resist the temptation of teazing him a little. They had grown very intimate in forty-eight hours; it had taken six months for Mr. Juxon to reach the point John had won in two days. "Are they?" she asked quietly. "Is that the reason you selected me for the 'idea' of your ode, which you explained to me?" "You?" said John in astonishment. Then he laughed. "Why, you are not any older than I am!" "Do you think so?" she inquired with a demure smile. "I am very much older than you think." "You must be--I mean, you know, you must be older than you look." "Thank you," said Mrs. Goddard, still smiling, and just resting the tips of her fingers upon his arm as she stepped across a slippery place in the frozen road. "Yes, I am a great deal older than you." John would have liked very much to ask her age, but even to his youthful and unsophisticated mind such a question seemed almost too personal. He did not really believe that she was more than five years older than he, and that seemed to be no difference at all. "I don't know," he said. "I am nearly one and twenty." "Yes, I know," said Mrs. Goddard, who had heard every detail concerning John from Mr. Ambrose, again and again. "Just think," she added with a laugh, "only one and twenty! Why when I was one and twenty I was--" she stopped short. "What were you doing then?" asked John, trying not to seem too curious. "I was living in London," she said quietly. She half enjoyed his disappointment. "Yes," he said, "I daresay. But what--well, I suppose I ought not to ask any questions." "Certainly not," said she. "It is very rude to ask a lady questions about her age." "I do not mean to be rude again," said John, pretending to laugh. "Have you always been fond of skating?" he asked, fixing his eye upon a distant tree, and trying to look unconscious. "No--I only learned since I came here. Besides, I skate very badly." "Did Mr. Juxon teach you?" asked John, still gazing into the distance. From not looking at the path he slipped on a frozen puddle and nearly fell. Whereat, as usual, when he did anything awkward, he blushed to the brim of his hat. "Take care," said Mrs. Goddard, calmly. "You will fall if you don't look where you are going. No; Mr. Juxon was not here last year. He only came here in the summer." "It seems to me that he has always been here," said John, trying to recover his equanimity. "Then I suppose Mr. Ambrose taught you to skate?" "Exactly--Mr. Ambrose taught me. He skates very well." "So will you, with a little more practice," answered her companion in a rather patronising tone. He intended perhaps to convey the idea that Mrs. Goddard would improve in the exercise if she would actually skate, and with him, instead of submitting to be pushed about in a chair by Mr. Juxon. "Oh, I daresay," said Mrs. Goddard indifferently. "We shall soon be there, now. I can hear them on the ice." "Too soon," said John with regret. "I thought you liked skating so much." "I like walking with you much better," he replied, and he glanced at her face to see if his speech produced any sign of sympathy. "You have walked with me; now you can skate with Nellie," suggested Mrs. Goddard. "You talk as though I were a child," said John, suddenly losing his temper in a very unaccountable way. "Because I said you might skate with Nellie? Really, I don't see why. Mr. Juxon is not a child, and he has been skating with her all the morning." "That is different," retorted John growing very red. "Yes--Nellie is much nearer to your age than to Mr. Juxon's," answered Mrs. Goddard, with a calmness which made John desperate. "Really, Mrs. Goddard," he said stiffly, "I cannot see what that has to do with it." "'The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the lady so much older than myself has charged--' How does the quotation end, Mr. Short?" "'Has, with such spirit and decency, charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny,'" said John savagely. "Quite so, Mrs. Goddard. I shall not attempt to palliate it, nor will I venture to deny it." "Then why in the world are you so angry with me?" she asked, suddenly turning her violet eyes upon him. "I was only laughing, you know." "Only laughing!" repeated John. "It is more pleasant to laugh than to be laughed at." "Yes--would not you allow me the pleasure then, just for once?" "Certainly, if you desire it. You are so extremely merry--" "Come, Mr. Short, we must not seem to have been quarrelling when we reach the pond. It would be too ridiculous." "Everything seems to strike you in a humorous light to-day," answered John, beginning to be pacified by her tone. "Do you know, you are much more interesting when you are angry," said Mrs. Goddard. "And you only made me angry in order to see whether I was interesting?" "Perhaps--but then, I could not help it in the least." "I trust you are thoroughly satisfied upon the point, Mrs. Goddard? If there is anything more that I can do to facilitate your researches in psychology--" "You would help me? Even to the extent of being angry again?" She smiled so pleasantly and frankly that John's wrath vanished. "It is impossible to be angry with you. I am very sorry if I seemed to be," he answered. "A man who has the good fortune to be thrown into your society is a fool to waste his time in being disagreeable." "I agree with the conclusion, at all events--that is, it is much better to be agreeable. Is it not? Let us be friends." "Oh, by all means," said John. They walked on for some minutes in silence. John reflected that he had witnessed a phase of Mrs. Goddard's character of which he had been very far from suspecting the existence. He had not hitherto imagined her to be a woman of quick temper or sharp speech. His idea of her was formed chiefly upon her appearance. Her sad face, with its pathetic expression, suggested a melancholy humour delighting in subdued and tranquil thoughts, inclined naturally to the romantic view, or to what in the eyes of youths of twenty appears to be the romantic view of life. He had suddenly found her answering him with a sharpness which, while it roused his wits, startled his sensibilities. But he was flattered as well. His instinct and his observation of Mrs. Goddard when in the society of others led him to believe that with Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose, or even with Mr. Juxon, she was not in the habit of talking as she talked with him. He was therefore inwardly pleased, so soon as his passing annoyance had subsided, to feel that she made a difference between him and others. It was quite true that she made a distinction, though she did so almost unconsciously. It was perfectly natural, too. She was young in heart, in spite of her thirty years and her troubles; she had an elastic temperament; to a physiognomist her face would have shown a delicate sensitiveness to impressions rather than any inborn tendency to sadness. In spite of everything she was still young, and for two years and a half she had been in the society of persons much older than herself, persons she respected and regarded as friends, but persons in whom her youth found no sympathy. It was natural, therefore, that when time to some extent had healed the wound she had suffered and she suddenly found herself in the society of a young and enthusiastic man, something of the enforced soberness of her manner should unbend, showing her character in a new light. She herself enjoyed the change, hardly knowing why; she enjoyed a little passage of arms with John, and it amused her more than she could have expected to be young again, to annoy him, to break the peace and heal it again in five minutes. But what happened entirely failed to amuse the squire, who did not regard such diversions as harmless; and moreover she was far from expecting the effect which her treatment of John Short produced upon his scholarly but enthusiastic temper. CHAPTER IX. The squire had remarked that John Short seemed to have a peculiar temper, and Mrs. Goddard had observed the same thing. What has gone before sufficiently explains the change in John's manner, and the difference in his behaviour was plainly apparent even to Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose. The vicar indeed was wise enough to see that John was very much attracted by Mrs. Goddard, but he was also wise enough to say nothing about it. His wife, however, who had witnessed no love-making for nearly thirty years, except the courtship of the young physician who had married her daughter, attributed John's demeanour to no such disturbing cause. He was overworked, she said; he was therefore irritable; he had of course never taken that excellent homoeopathic remedy, highly diluted aconite, since he had left the vicarage; the consequence was that he was subject to nervous headache--she only hoped he would not be taken ill on the eve of the examination for honours. She hoped, too, that he would prolong his holiday to the very last moment, for the country air and the rest he enjoyed were sure to do him so much good. With regard, to the extension of John's visit, the vicar thought differently, although he held his peace. There were many reasons why John should not become attached to Mrs. Goddard both for her sake and his own, and if he staid long, the vicar felt quite sure that he would fall in love with her. She was dangerously pretty, she was much older than John--which in the case of very young men constitutes an additional probability--she evidently took an innocent pleasure in his society, and altogether such a complication as was likely to ensue was highly undesirable. Therefore, when Mrs. Ambrose pressed John to stay longer than he had intended, the vicar not only gave him no encouragement, but spoke gravely of the near approach of the contest for honours, of the necessity of concentrating every force for the coming struggle, and expressed at the same time the firm conviction that, if John did his best, he ought to be the senior classic in the year. Even Mrs. Goddard urged him to go. Of course he asked her advice. He would not have lost that opportunity of making her speak of himself, nor of gauging the exact extent of the interest he hoped she felt in him. It was two or three days after the long conversation he had enjoyed with her. In that time they had met often and John's admiration for her, strengthened by his own romantic desire to be really in love, had begun to assume proportions which startled Mrs. Goddard and annoyed Mr. Juxon. The latter felt that the boy was in his way; whenever he wanted to see Mrs. Goddard, John was at her side, talking eagerly and contesting his position against the squire with a fierceness which in an older and wiser man would have been in the worst possible taste. Even as it was, Mr. Juxon looked considerably annoyed as he stood by, smoothing his smooth hair from time to time with his large white hand and feeling that even at his age, and with his experience, a man might sometimes cut a poor figure. On the particular occasion when the relations between John and the squire became an object of comment to Mrs. Ambrose, the whole party were assembled at Mrs. Goddard's cottage. She had invited everybody to tea, a meal which in her little household represented a compromise between her appetite and Nellie's. She had felt that in the small festivities of the Billingsfield Christmas season she was called upon to do her share with the rest and, being a simple woman, she took her part simply, and did not dignify the entertainment of her four friends by calling it a dinner. The occasion was none the less hospitable, for she gave both time and thought to her preparations. Especially she had considered the question of precedence; it was doubtful, she thought, whether the squire or the vicar should sit upon her right hand. The squire, as being lord of the manor, represented the powers temporal, the vicar on the other hand represented the church, which on ordinary occasions takes precedence of the lay faculty. She had at last privately consulted Mr. Juxon, in whom she had the greatest confidence, asking him frankly which she should do, and Mr. Juxon had unhesitatingly yielded the post of honour to the vicar, adding to enforce his opinion the very plausible argument that if he, the squire, took Mrs. Goddard in to tea, the vicar would have to give his arm either to little Nellie or to his own wife. Mrs. Goddard was convinced and the affair was a complete success. John felt that he could not complain of his position, but as he was separated from the object of his admiration during the whole meal, he resolved to indemnify himself for his sufferings by monopolising her conversation during the rest of the evening. The squire on the other hand, who had been obliged to talk to Mrs. Ambrose during most of the time while they were at table, and who, moreover, was beginning to feel that he had seen almost enough of John Short, determined to give the young man a lesson in the art of interesting women in general and Mrs. Goddard in particular. She, indeed, would not have been a woman at all had she not understood the two men and their intentions. After tea the party congregated round the fire in the little drawing-room, standing in a circle, of which their hostess formed the centre. Mr. Juxon and John, anticipating that Mrs. Goddard must ultimately sit upon one side or other of the fireplace had at first chosen opposite sides, each hoping that she would take the chair nearest to himself. But Mrs. Goddard remained standing an unreasonably long time, for the very reason that she did not choose to sit beside either of them. Seeing this the squire, who had perhaps a greater experience than his adversary in this kind of strategic warfare, left his place and put himself on the same side as John. He argued that Mrs. Goddard would probably then choose the opposite side, whereas John who was younger would think she would come towards the two where they stood; John would consequently lose time, Mr. Juxon would cross again and install himself by her side while his enemy was hesitating. While these moves and counter-moves were proceeding, the conversation was general. The vicar was for the hundredth time admiring the Andrea del Sarto over the chimney-piece and his wife was explaining her general objections to the representation of sacred subjects upon canvas, while Mrs. Goddard answered each in turn and endeavoured to disagree with neither. What the squire had foreseen when he made his last move, however, actually took place at last. Mrs. Goddard established herself upon the side opposite the two men. Mr. Juxon crossed rapidly to where she was seated, and Mrs. Ambrose, who had turned with the intention of speaking to the squire, found herself confronted by John. He saw that he had been worsted by his foe and immediately lost his temper; but being brought face to face with Mrs. Ambrose was obliged to control it as he might. That excellent lady beamed upon him with a maternal smile of the kind which is peculiarly irritating to young men. He struggled to get away however, glancing over Mrs. Ambrose's shoulder at the squire and longing to be "at him" as he would have expressed it. But the squire was not to be got at so easily, for the vicar's wife was of a fine presence and covered much ground. John involuntarily thought of the dyke before Troy, of Hector and his heroes attempting to storm it and of the Ajaces and Sarpedon defending it and glaring down from above. He could appreciate Hector's feelings--Mrs. Ambrose was very like the dyke. The squire smiled serenely and smoothed his hair as he talked to Mrs. Goddard and she herself looked by no means discontented, thereby adding, as it were, an insult to the injury done to John. "I shall always envy you the cottage," the squire was saying. "I have not a single room in the Hall that is half so cheery in the evening." "I shall never forget my terror when we first met," answered Mrs. Goddard, "do you remember? You frightened me by saying you would like to live here. I thought you meant it." "You must have thought I was the most unmannerly of barbarians." "Instead of being the best of landlords," added Mrs. Goddard with a grateful smile. "I hardly know whether I am that," said Mr. Juxon, settling himself in his chair. "But I believe I am by nature an exceedingly comfortable man, and I never fail to consult the interests of my comfort." "And of mine. Think of all you have done to improve this place. I can never thank you enough. I suppose one always feels particularly grateful at Christmas time--does not one?" "One has more to be grateful for, it seems to me--in our climate, too. People in southern countries never really know what comfort means, because nature never makes them thoroughly uncomfortable. Only a man who is freezing can appreciate a good fire." "I suppose you have been a good deal in such places," suggested Mrs. Goddard, vaguely. "Oh yes--everywhere," answered the squire with equal indefiniteness. "By the bye, talking of travelling, when is our young friend going away?" There was not a shade of ill-humour in the question. "The day after New Year's--I believe." "He has had a very pleasant visit." "Yes," replied Mrs. Goddard, "I hope it will do him a great deal of good." "Why? Was he ill? Ah--I remember, they said he had worked too hard. It is a great mistake to work too hard, especially when one is very young." "He is very young, is not he?" remarked Mrs. Goddard with a faint smile, remembering the many conversations she had had with him. "Very. Did it ever strike you that--well, that he was losing his head a little?" "No," answered his companion innocently. "What about?" "Oh, nothing. Only he has rather a peculiar temper. He is perpetually getting very angry with no ostensible reason--and then he glares at one like an angry cat." "Take care," said Mrs. Goddard, "he might hear you." "Do him good," said the squire cheerfully. "Oh, no! It would hurt his feelings dreadfully. How can you be so unkind?" "He is a very good boy, you know. Really, I believe he is. Only he is inclined to be rather too unreasonable; I should think he might be satisfied." "Satisfied with what?" inquired Mrs. Goddard, who did not wish to understand. "With the way you have treated him," returned the squire bluntly. "You have been wonderfully good to him." "Have I?" The faint colour rose to her cheek. "I don't know--poor fellow! I daresay his life at Cambridge is very dull." "Yes. Entirely devoid of that species of amusement which he has enjoyed so abundantly in Billingsfield. It is not every undergraduate who has a chance to talk to you for a week at a time." Mr. Juxon made the remark very calmly, without seeming to be in the least annoyed. He was much too wise a man to appear to be displeased at Mrs. Goddard's treatment of John. Moreover, he felt that on the present occasion, at least, John had been summarily worsted; it was his turn to be magnanimous. "If you are going to make compliments, I will go away," said Mrs. Goddard. "I? I never made a compliment in my life," replied the squire complacently. "Do you think it is a compliment to tell you that Mr. Short probably enjoys your conversation much more than the study of Greek roots?" "Well--not exactly--" "Besides, in general," continued the squire, "compliments are mere waste of breath. If a woman has any vanity she knows her own good points much better than any man who attempts to explain them to her; and if she has no vanity, no amount of explanation of her merits will make her see them in a proper light." "That is very true," answered Mrs. Goddard, thoughtfully. "It never struck me before. I wonder whether that is the reason women always like men who never make any compliments at all?" The squire's face assumed an amusing expression of inquiry and surprise. "Is that personal?" he asked. "Oh--of course not," answered Mrs. Goddard in some confusion. She blushed and turning towards the fire took up the poker and pretended to stir the coals. Women always delight in knocking a good fire to pieces, out of pure absence of mind. John Short saw the movement and, escaping suddenly from the maternal conversation of Mrs. Ambrose, threw himself upon his knee on the hearth-rug and tried to take the poker from his hostess's hand. "Oh, Mrs. Goddard, don't! Let me do it--please!" he exclaimed. "But I can do it very well myself," said she protesting and not relaxing her hold upon the poker. But John was obstinate in his determination to save her trouble, and rudely tried to get the instrument away. "Please don't--you hurt me," said Mrs. Goddard petulantly. "Oh--I beg your pardon--I wanted to help you," said John leaving his hold. "I did not really hurt you--did I?" he asked, almost tenderly. "Dreadfully," replied Mrs. Goddard, half angry and half amused at his impatience and subsequent contrition. The squire sat complacently in his chair, watching the little scene. John hated him more than ever, and grew very red. Mrs. Goddard saw the boy's embarrassment and presently relented. "I daresay you will do it better than I," she said, handing him the poker, which John seized with alacrity. "That big coal--there," she added, pointing to a smouldering block in the corner of the grate. "I did not mean to be rude," said John. "I only wanted to help you." He knelt by her side poking the fire industriously. "I only wanted to get a chance to talk to you," he added, in a low voice, barely audible to Mrs. Goddard as she leaned forward. "I am afraid you cannot do that just now," she said, not unkindly, but with the least shade of severity in her tone. "You will get dreadfully hot if you stay there, so near the fire." "I don't mind the heat in the least," said John heroically. Nevertheless as she did not give him any further encouragement he was presently obliged to retire, greatly discomfited. He could not spend the evening on his knees with the poker in his hand. "Bad failure," remarked the squire in an undertone as soon as John had rejoined Mrs. Ambrose, who had not quite finished her lecture on homoeopathy. Mrs. Goddard leaned back in her chair and looked at Mr. Juxon rather coolly. She did not want him to laugh at John, though she was not willing to encourage John herself. "You should not be unkind," she said. "He is such a nice boy--why should you wish him to be uncomfortable?" "Oh, I don't in the least. I could not help being amused a little. I am sure I don't want to be unkind." Indeed the squire had not shown himself to be so, on the whole, and he did not refer to the matter again during the evening. He kept his place for some time by Mrs. Goddard's side and then, judging that he had sufficiently asserted his superiority, rose and talked to Mrs. Ambrose. But John, being now in a thoroughly bad humour, could not take his vacant seat with a good grace. He stood aloof and took up a book that lay upon the table and avoided looking at Mrs. Goddard. By and by, when the party broke up, he said good-night in such a particularly cold and formal tone of voice that she stared at him in surprise. But he took no notice of her look and went away after the Ambroses, in that state of mind which boys call a huff. But on the following day John repented of his behaviour. All day long he wandered about the garden of the vicarage, excusing himself from joining the daily skating which formed the staple of amusement during the Christmas week, by saying that he had an idea for a copy of verses and must needs work it out. But he inwardly hoped that Mrs. Goddard would come to the vicarage late in the afternoon, without the inevitable Mr. Juxon, and that he might then get a chance of talking to her. He was not quite sure what he should say. He would find words on the spur of the moment; it would at all events be much easier than to meet her on the ice at the Hall with all the rest of them and to see Mr. Juxon pushing her about in that detestable chair, with the unruffled air of superiority which John so hated to see upon his face. The vicar suspected more than ever that there was something wrong; he had seen some of the by-play on the previous evening, and had noticed John's ill-concealed disappointment at being unable to dislodge the sturdy squire from his seat. But Mrs. Ambrose seemed to be very obtuse, and the vicar would have been the last to have spoken of his suspicions, even to the wife of his bosom. It was his duty to induce John to go back to his work at the end of the week; it was not his duty to put imputations upon him which Mrs. Ambrose would naturally exaggerate and which would drive her excellent heart into a terrible state of nervous anxiety. But Mrs. Goddard did not come back to the vicarage on that day, and John went to dinner with a sad heart. It did not seem like a day at all if he had not seen her and talked with her. He had now no doubt whatever that he was seriously in love, and he set himself to consider his position. The more he considered it, the more irreconcilable it seemed to be with the passion which beset him. A child could see that for several years, at least, he would not be in a position to marry. With Mr. Juxon at hand from year's end to year's end, the owner of the Hall, of the Billingsfield property and according to all appearances of other resources besides,--with such a man constantly devoted to her, could Mrs. Goddard be expected to wait for poor John three years, even two years, from the time of the examination for the classical Tripos? Nothing was more improbable, he was forced to admit. And yet, the idea of life if he did not marry Mrs. Goddard was dismal beyond all expression; he would probably not survive it. He did not know what he should do. He shrank from the thought of declaring his love to her at once. He remembered with pain that she had a terrible way of laughing at him when he grew confidential or too complimentary, and he dreaded lest at the supreme moment of his life he should appear ridiculous in her eyes--he, a mere undergraduate. If he came out at the head of the Tripos it would be different; and yet that seemed so long to wait, especially while Mr. Juxon lived at the Hall and Mrs. Goddard lived at the park gates. Suddenly a thought struck him which filled him with delight; it was just possible that Mr. Juxon had no intention of marrying Mrs. Goddard. If he had any such views he would probably have declared them before now, for he had met her every day during more than half a year. John longed to ask some one the question. Perhaps Mr. Ambrose, who might be supposed to know everything connected with Mrs. Goddard, could tell him. He felt very nervous at the idea of speaking to the vicar on the subject, and yet it seemed to him that no one else could set his mind at rest. If he were quite certain that Mr. Juxon had no intention of offering himself to the charming tenant of the cottage, he might return to his work with some sense of security in the future. Otherwise he saw only the desperate alternative of throwing himself at her feet and declaring that he loved her, or of going back to Cambridge with the dreadful anticipation of hearing any day that she had married the squire. To be laughed at would be bad, but to feel that he had lost her irrevocably, without a struggle, would be awful. No one but the vicar could and would tell him the truth; it would be bitter to ask such a question, but it must be done. Having at last come to this formidable resolution, towards the conclusion of dinner, his spirits rose a little. He took another glass of the vicar's mild ale and felt that he could face his fate. "May I speak to you a moment in the study, Mr. Ambrose?" he said as they rose from table. "Certainly," replied the vicar; and having conducted his wife to the drawing-room, he returned to find John. There was a low, smouldering fire in the study grate, and John had lit a solitary candle. The room looked very dark and dismal and John was seated in one of the black leather chairs, waiting. "Anything about those verses you were speaking of to-day?" asked the vicar cheerfully, in anticipation of a pleasant classical chat. "No," said John, gloomily. "The fact is--" he cleared his throat, "the fact is, I want to ask you rather a delicate question, sir." The vicar's heavy eyebrows contracted; the lines of his face all turned downwards, and his long, clean-shaved upper lip closed sharply upon its fellow, like a steel trap. He turned his grey eyes upon John's averted face with a searching look. "Have you got into any trouble at Trinity, John?" he asked severely. "Oh no--no indeed," said John. Nothing was further from his thoughts than his college at that moment. "I want to ask you a question, which no one else can answer. Is--do you think that--that Mr. Juxon has any idea of marrying Mrs. Goddard?" The vicar started in astonishment and laid both hands upon the arms of his chair. "What--in the world--put that--into your head?" he asked very slowly, emphasising every word of his question. John was prepared to see his old tutor astonished but was rather taken aback at the vicar's tone. "Do you think it is likely, sir?" he insisted. "Certainly not," answered the vicar, still eyeing him suspiciously. "Certainly not. I have positive reasons to prove the contrary. But, my dear John, why, in the name of all that is sensible, do you ask me such a question? You don't seriously think of proposing--" "I don't see why I should not," said John doggedly, seeing that he was found out. "You don't see why you should not? Why the thing is perfectly absurd, not to say utterly impossible! John, you are certainly mad." "I don't see why," repeated John. "I am a grown man. I have good prospects--" "Good prospects!" ejaculated the vicar in horror. "Good prospects! Why, you are only an undergraduate at Cambridge." "I may be senior classic in a few months," objected John. "That is not such a bad prospect, it seems to me." "It means that you may get a fellowship, probably will--in the course of a few years. But you lose it if you marry. Besides--do you know that Mrs. Goddard is ten years older than you, and more?" "Impossible," said John in a tone of conviction. "I know that she is. She will be two and thirty on her next birthday, and you are not yet one and twenty." "I shall be next month," argued John, who was somewhat taken aback, however, by the alarming news of Mrs. Goddard's age. "Besides, I can go into the church, before I get a fellowship--" "No, you can't," said the vicar energetically. "You won't be able to manage it. If you do, you will have to put up with a poor living." "That would not matter. Mrs. Goddard has something--" "An honourable prospect!" exclaimed Mr. Ambrose, growing more and more excited. "To marry a woman ten years older than yourself because she has a little money of her own! You! I would not have thought it of you, John--indeed I would not!" Indeed no one was more surprised than John Short himself, when he found himself arguing the possibilities of his marriage with his old tutor. But he was an obstinate young fellow enough and was not inclined to give up the fight easily. "Really," he objected, "I cannot see anything so very terrible in the idea. I shall certainly make my way in the world. You know that it is not for the sake of her money. Many men have married women ten years older than themselves, and not half so beautiful and charming, I am sure." "I don't believe it," said the vicar, "and if they have, why it has been very different, that is all. Besides, you have not known Mrs. Goddard a week--positively not more than five days--why, it is madness! Do you mean to tell me that at the end of five days you believe you are seriously attached to a lady you never saw in your life before?" "I saw her once," said John. "That day when I waked Muggins--" "Once! Nearly three years ago! I have no patience with you, John! That a young fellow of your capabilities should give way to such a boyish fancy! It is absolutely amazing! I thought you were growing to like her society very much, but I did not believe it would, come to this!" "It is nothing to be ashamed of," said John stoutly. "It is something to be afraid of," answered the vicar. "Oh, do not be alarmed," retorted John. "I will do nothing rash. You have set my mind at rest in assuring me that she will not marry Mr. Juxon. I shall not think of offering myself to Mrs. Goddard until after the Tripos." "Offering myself"--how deliciously important the expression sounded to John's own ears! It conveyed such a delightful sense of the possibilities of life when at last he should feel that he was in a position to offer himself to any woman, especially to Mrs. Goddard. "I have a great mind not to ask you to come down, even if you do turn out senior classic," said the vicar, still fuming with excitement. "But if you put off your rash action until then, you will probably have changed your mind." "I will never change my mind," said John confidently. It was evident, nevertheless, that if the romance of his life were left to the tender mercies of the Reverend Augustin Ambrose, it was likely to come to an abrupt termination. When the two returned to the society of Mrs. Ambrose, the vicar was still very much agitated and John was plunged in a gloomy melancholy. CHAPTER X. The vicar's suspicions were more than realized and he passed an uncomfortable day after his interview with John, in debating what he ought to do, whether he ought to do anything at all, or whether he should merely hasten his old pupil's departure and leave matters to take care of themselves. He was a very conscientious man, and he felt that he was responsible for John's conduct towards Mrs. Goddard, seeing that she had put herself under his protection, and that John was almost like one of his family. His first impulse was to ask counsel of his wife, but he rejected the plan, reflecting with great justice that she was very fond of John and had at first not been sure of liking Mrs. Goddard; she would be capable of thinking that the latter had "led Short on," as she would probably say. The vicar did not believe this, and was therefore loath that any one else should. He felt that circumstances had made him Mrs. Goddard's protector, and he was moreover personally attached to her; he would not therefore do or say anything whereby she was likely to appear to any one else in an unfavourable light. It was incredible that she should have given John any real encouragement. Mr. Ambrose wondered whether he ought to warn her of his pupil's madness. But when he thought about that, it seemed unnecessary. It was unlikely that John would betray himself during his present visit, since the vicar had solemnly assured him that there was no possibility of a marriage so far as Mr. Juxon was concerned. It was undoubtedly a very uncomfortable situation but there was evidently nothing to be done; Mr. Ambrose felt that to speak to Mrs. Goddard would be to precipitate matters in a way which could not but cause much humiliation to John Short and much annoyance to herself. He accordingly held his peace, but his upper lip set itself stiffly and his eyes had a combative expression which told his wife that there was something the matter. After breakfast John went out, on pretence of walking in the garden, and Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose were left alone. The latter, as usual after the morning meal, busied herself about the room, searching out those secret corners which she suspected Susan of having forgotten to dust. The vicar stood looking out of the window. The weather was grey and it seemed likely that there would be a thaw which would spoil the skating. "I think," said Mrs. Ambrose, "that John is far from well." "What makes you say that?" inquired the vicar, who was thinking of him at that very moment. "Anybody might see it. He has no appetite--he ate nothing at breakfast this morning. He looks pale. My dear, that boy will certainly break down." "I don't believe it," answered Mr. Ambrose still looking out of the window. His hands were in his pockets, thrusting the skirts of his clerical coat to right and left; he slowly raised himself upon his toes and let himself down again, repeating the operation as though it helped him to think. "That is the way you spoil all your coats, Augustin," said his wife looking at him from behind. "I assure you, my dear, that boy is not well. Poor fellow, all alone at college with nobody to look after him--" "We have all had to go through that. I do not think it hurts him a bit," said the vicar, slowly removing his hands from his pockets in deference to his wife's suggestion. "Then what is it, I would like to know? There is certainly something the matter. Now I ask you whether he looks like himself?" "Perhaps he does look a little tired." "Tired! There is something on his mind, Augustin. I am positively certain there is something on his mind. Why won't you tell me?" "My dear--" began the vicar, and then stopped short. He was a very truthful man, and as he knew very well what was the matter with John he was embarrassed to find an answer. "My dear," he repeated, "I do not think he is ill." "Then I am right," retorted Mrs. Ambrose, triumphantly. "It is just as I thought, there is something on his mind. Don't deny it, Augustin; there is something on his mind." Mr. Ambrose was silent; he glared fiercely at the window panes. "Why don't you tell me?" insisted his better half. "I am quite sure you know all about it. Augustin, do you know, or do you not?" Thus directly questioned the vicar turned sharply round, sweeping the window with his coat tails. "My dear," he said, shortly, "I do know. Can you not imagine that it may be a matter which John does not care to have mentioned?" Mrs. Ambrose grew red with annoyance. She had set her heart on finding out what had disturbed John, and the vicar had apparently made up his mind that she should not succeed. Such occurrences were very rare between that happy couple. "I cannot believe he has done anything wrong," said Mrs. Ambrose. "Anything which need be concealed from me--the interest I have always taken--" "He has not done anything wrong," said the vicar impatiently. "I do wish you would drop the subject--" "Then why should it be concealed from me?" objected his wife with admirable logic. "If it is anything good he need not hide his light under a bushel, I should think." "There are plenty of things which are neither bad nor good," argued the vicar, who felt that if he could draw Mrs. Ambrose into a Socratic discussion he was safe. "That is a distinct prevarication, Augustin," said she severely. "I am surprised at you." "Not at all," retorted the vicar. "What has occurred to John is not owing to any fault of his." In his own mind the good man excused himself by saying that John could not have helped falling in love with Mrs. Goddard. But his wife turned quickly upon him. "That does not prevent what has occurred to him, as you call it, from being good, or more likely bad, to judge from his looks." "My dear," said Mr. Ambrose, driven to bay, "I entirely decline to discuss the point." "I thought you trusted me, Augustin." "So I do--certainly--and I always consult you about my own affairs." "I think I have as much right to know about John as you have," retorted his wife, who seemed deeply hurt. "That is a point then which you ought to settle with John," said the vicar. "I cannot betray his confidence, even to you." "Oh--then he has been making confidences to you?" "How in the world should I know about his affairs unless he told me?" "One may see a great many things without being told about them, you know," answered Mrs. Ambrose, assuming a prim expression as she examined a small spot in the tablecloth. The vicar was walking up and down the room. Her speech, which was made quite at random, startled him. She, too, might easily have observed John's manner when he was with Mrs. Goddard; she might have guessed the secret, and have put her own interpretation on John's sudden melancholy. "What may one see?" asked the vicar quickly. "I did not say one could see anything," answered his wife. "But from your manner I infer that there really is something to see. Wait a minute--what can it be?" "Nothing--my dear, nothing," said the vicar desperately. "Oh, Augustin, I know you so well," said the implacable Mrs. Ambrose. "I am quite sure now, that it is something I have seen. Deny it, my dear." The vicar was silent and bit his long upper lip as he marched up and down the room. "Of course--you cannot deny it," she continued. "It is perfectly clear. The very first day he arrived--when you came down from the Hall, in the evening--Augustin, I have got it! It is Mrs. Goddard--now don't tell me it is not. I am quite sure it is Mrs. Goddard. How stupid of me! Is it not Mrs. Goddard?" "If you are so positive," said the vicar, resorting to a form of defence generally learned in the nursery, "why do you ask me?" "I insist upon knowing, Augustin, is it, or is it not, Mrs. Goddard?" "My dear, I positively refuse to answer any more questions," said the vicar with tardy firmness. "Oh, it is no matter," retorted Mrs. Ambrose in complete triumph, "if it were not Mrs. Goddard of course you would say so at once." A form of argument so unanswerable, that the vicar hastily left the room feeling that he had basely betrayed John's confidence, and muttering something about intolerable curiosity. Mrs. Ambrose had vanquished her husband, as she usually did on those rare occasions when anything approaching to a dispute arose between them. Having come to the conclusion that "it" was Mrs. Goddard, the remainder of the secret needed no discovery. It was plain that John must be in love with the tenant of the cottage, and it seemed likely that it would devolve upon Mrs. Ambrose to clear up the matter. She was very fond of John and her first impression was that Mrs. Goddard, whom she now again suspected of having foreign blood, had "led him on"--an impression which the vicar had anticipated when he rashly resolved not to tell his wife John's secret. She knew very well that the vicar must have told John his mind in regard to such an attachment, and she easily concluded that he must have done so on the previous evening when John called him into the study. But she had just won a victory over her husband, and she consequently felt that he was weak, probably too weak to save the situation, and it was borne in upon her that she ought to do something immediately. Unhappily she did not see quite clearly what was to be done. She might go straight to Mrs. Goddard and accuse her of having engaged John's affections; but the more she thought of that, the more diffident she grew in regard to the result of such an interview. Curiosity had led her to a certain point, but caution prevented her from going any further. Mrs. Ambrose was very cautious. The habit of living in a small place, feeling that all her actions were watched by the villagers and duly commented upon by them, had made her even more careful than she was by nature. It would be very unwise to bring about a scene with Mrs. Goddard unless she were very sure of the result. Mrs. Goddard was hardly a friend. In Mrs. Ambrose's opinion an acquaintance of two years and a half standing involving almost daily meetings and the constant exchange of civilities did not constitute friendship. Nevertheless the vicar's wife would have been ashamed to own that after such long continued intercourse she was wholly ignorant of Mrs. Goddard's real character; especially as the latter had requested the vicar to tell Mrs. Ambrose her story when she first appeared at Billingsfield. Moreover, as her excitement at the victory she had gained over her husband began to subside, she found herself reviewing mentally the events of the last few days. She remembered distinctly that John had perpetually pursued Mrs. Goddard, and that although the latter seemed to find him agreeable enough, she had never to Mrs. Ambrose's knowledge given him any of those open encouragements in the way of smiles and signals, which in the good lady's mind were classified under the term "flirting." Mrs. Ambrose's ideas of flirtation may have been antiquated; thirty years of Billingsfield in the society of the Reverend Augustin had not contributed to their extension; but, on the whole, they were just. Mrs. Goddard had not flirted with John. It is worthy of notice that in proportion as the difficulties she would enter upon by demanding an explanation from Mrs. Goddard seemed to grow in magnitude, she gradually arrived at the conclusion that it was John's fault. Half an hour ago, in the flush of triumph she had indignantly denied that anything could be John's fault. She now resolved to behave to him with great austerity. Such an occurrence as his falling in love could not be passed over with indifference. It seemed best that he should leave Billingsfield very soon. John thought so too. Existence would not be pleasant now that the vicar knew his secret, and he cursed the folly and curiosity which had led him to betray himself in order to find out whether Mr. Juxon thought of marrying Mrs. Goddard. He had now resolved to return to Cambridge at once and to work his hardest until the Tripos was over. He would then come back to Billingsfield and, with his honours fresh upon him and the prospect of immediate success before him, he would throw himself at Mrs. Goddard's feet. But of course he must have one farewell interview. Oh, those farewell interviews! Those leave-takings, wherein often so much is taken without leave! Accordingly at luncheon he solemnly announced his intention of leaving the vicarage on the morrow. Mrs. Ambrose received the news with an equanimity which made John suspicious, for she had heretofore constantly pressed him to extend his holiday, expressing the greatest solicitude for his health. She now sat stony as a statue and said very coldly that she was sorry he had to go so soon, but that, of course, it could not be helped. The vicar was moved by his wife's apparent indifference. John, he said, might at least have stayed till the end of the promised week; but at this suggestion Mrs. Ambrose darted at her husband a look so full of fierce meaning, that the vicar relapsed into silence, returning to the consideration of bread and cheese and a salad of mustard and cress. John saw the look and was puzzled; he did not believe the vicar capable of going straight to Mrs. Ambrose with the story of the last night's interview. But he was already so much disturbed that he did not attempt to explain to himself what was happening. But when lunch was over, and he realised that he had declared his intention of leaving Billingsfield on the next day, he saw that if he meant to see Mrs. Goddard before he left he must go to her at once. He therefore waited until he heard Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose talking together in the sitting-room and then slipped quietly out by the garden to the road. He had no idea what he should say when he met Mrs. Goddard. He meant, of course, to let her understand, or at least suppose, that he was leaving suddenly on her account, but he did not know in the least how to accomplish it. He trusted that the words necessary to him would come into his head spontaneously. His heart beat fast and he was conscious that he blushed as he rang the bell of the cottage. Almost before he knew where he was, he found himself ushered into the little drawing-room and in the presence of the woman he now felt sure that he loved. But to his great annoyance she was not alone; Nellie was with her. Mrs. Goddard sat near the fire, reading a review; Nellie was curled up in a corner of the deep sofa with a book, her thick brown curls falling all over her face and hands as she read. Mrs. Goddard extended her hand, without rising. "How do you do, Mr. Short?" she said. The young man stood hat in hand in the middle of the room, feeling very nervous. It was strange that he should experience any embarrassment now, considering how many hours he had spent in her company during the last few days. He blushed and stammered. "How do you do? I, in fact--I have come to say good-bye," he blurted out. "So soon?" said Mrs. Goddard calmly. "Pray sit down." "Are you really going away, Mr. Short?" asked Nellie. "We are so sorry to lose you." The child had caught the phrase from a book she had been reading, and thought it very appropriate. Her mother smiled. "Yes--as Nellie says--we are sorry to lose you," she said. "I thought you were to stay until Monday?" "So I was--but--very urgent business--not exactly business of course, but work--calls me away sooner." Having delivered himself of this masterpiece of explanation John looked nervously at Nellie and then at his hat and then, with an imploring glance, at Mrs. Goddard. "But we shall hear of you, Mr. Short--after the examinations, shall we not?" "Oh yes," said John eagerly. "I will come down as soon as the lists are out." "You have my best wishes, you know," said Mrs. Goddard kindly. "I feel quite sure that you will really be senior classic." "Mamma is always saying that--it is quite true," explained Nellie. John blushed again and looked gratefully at Mrs. Goddard. He wished Nellie would go away, but there was not the least chance of that. "Yes," said Mrs. Goddard, "I often say it. We all take a great interest in your success here." "You are very kind," murmured John. "Of course I shall come down at once and tell you all about it, if I succeed. I do not really expect to be first, of course. I shall be satisfied if I get a place in the first ten. But I mean to do my best." "No one can do more," said Mrs. Goddard, leaning back in her chair and looking into the fire. Her face was quiet, but not sad as it sometimes was. There was a long silence which John did not know how to break. Nellie sat upon a carved chair by the side of the fireplace dangling her legs and looking at her toes, turning them alternately in and out. She wished John would go for she wanted to get back to her book, but had been told it was not good manners to read when there were visitors. John looked at Mrs. Goddard's face and was about to speak, and then changed his mind and grew red and said nothing. Had she noticed his shyness she would have made an effort at conversation, but she was absent-minded to-day, and was thinking of something else. Suddenly she started and laughed a little. "I beg your pardon," she said. "What were you saying, Mr. Short?" Had John been saying anything he would have repeated it, but being thus interrogated he grew doubly embarrassed. "I--I have not much to say--except good-bye," he answered. "Oh, don't go yet," said Mrs. Goddard. "You are not going this afternoon? It is always so unpleasant to say good-bye, is it not?" "Dreadfully," answered John. "I would rather say anything else in the world. No; I am going early to-morrow morning. There is no help for it," he added desperately. "I must go, you know." "The next time you come, you will be able to stay much longer," said Mrs. Goddard in an encouraging way. "You will have no more terms, then." "No indeed--nothing but to take my degree." "And what will you do then? You said the other day that you thought seriously of going into the church." "Oh mamma," interrupted Nellie suddenly looking up, "fancy Mr. Short in a black gown, preaching like Mr. Ambrose! How perfectly ridiculous he would look!" "Nellie--Nellie!" exclaimed Mrs. Goddard, "do not talk nonsense. It is very rude to say Mr. Short would look ridiculous." "I didn't mean to be rude, mamma," returned Nellie, blushing scarlet and pouting her lips, "only it would be very funny, wouldn't it?" "I daresay it would," said John, relieved by the interruption. "I wish you would advise me what to do, Mrs. Goddard," he added in a confidential tone. "I?" she exclaimed, and then laughed. "How should I be able to advise you?" "I am sure you could," said John, insisting. "You have such wonderfully good judgment--" "Have I? I did not know it. But, tell me, if you come out very high are you not sure of getting a fellowship?" "It is likely," answered John indifferently. "But I should have to give it up if I married--" "Surely, Mr. Short," cried Mrs. Goddard, with a laugh that cut him to the quick, "you do not think of marrying for many years to come?" "Oh--I don't know," he said, blushing violently, "why should not I?" "In the first place, a man should never marry until he is at least five and twenty years old," said Mrs. Goddard, calmly. "Well--I may be as old as that before I get the fellowship." "Yes, I daresay. But even then, why should you want to resign a handsome independence as soon as you have got it? Is there anything else so good within your reach?" "There is the church, of course," said John. "But Miss Nellie seems to think that ridiculous--" "Never mind Nellie," answered Mrs. Goddard. "Seriously, Mr. Short, do you approve of entering the church merely as a profession, a means of earning money?" "Well--no--I did not put it in that way. But many people do." "That does not prove that it is either wise or decent," said Mrs. Goddard. "If you felt impelled to take orders from other motives, it would be different. As I understand you, you are choosing a profession for the sake of becoming independent." "Certainly," said John. "Well, then, there is nothing better for you to do than to get a fellowship and hold it as long as you can, and during that time you can make up your mind." She spoke with conviction, and the plan seemed good. "But I cannot imagine," she continued, "why you should ask my advice." "And not to marry?" inquired John nervously. "There is plenty of time to think of that when you are thirty--even five and thirty is not too late." "Dear me!" exclaimed John, "I think that is much too old!" "Do you call me old?" asked Mrs. Goddard serenely. "I was thirty-one on my last birthday." For the twentieth time, John felt himself growing uncomfortably hot. Not only had he said an unconscionably stupid thing, but Mrs. Goddard, after advising him not to marry for ten years, had almost hinted that she might meanwhile be married herself. What else could she mean by the remark? But John was hardly a responsible being on that day. His views of life and his understanding were equally disturbed. "No indeed," he protested on hearing her confession of age. "No indeed--why, you are the youngest person I ever saw, of course. But with men--it is quite different." "Is it? I always thought women were supposed to grow old faster than men. That is the reason why women always marry men so much older than themselves." "Oh--in that case--I have nothing more to say," replied John in very indistinct tones. The perspiration was standing upon his forehead; the room swam with him and he felt a terrible, prickly sensation all over his body. "Mamma, shan't I open the door? Mr. Short is so very hot," said Nellie looking at him in some astonishment. At that moment John felt as though he could have eaten little Nellie, long legs, ringlets and all, with infinite satisfaction. He rose suddenly to his feet. "The fact is--it is late--I must really be saying good-bye," he stammered. "Must you?" said Mrs. Goddard, suspecting that something was the matter. "Well, I am very sorry to say good-bye. But you will be coming back soon, will you not?" "Yes--I don't know--perhaps I shall not come back at all. Good-bye--Mrs. Goddard--good-bye, Miss Nellie." "Good-bye, Mr. Short," said Mrs. Goddard, looking at him with some anxiety. "You are not ill? What is the matter?" "Oh dear no, nothing," answered John with an unnatural laugh. "No thank you--good-bye." He managed to get out of the door and rushed down to the road. The cold air steadied his nerves. He felt better. With a sudden revulsion of feeling, he began to utter inward imprecations against his folly, against the house he had just left, against everybody and everything in general, not forgetting poor little Nellie. "If ever I cross that threshold again--" he muttered with tragic emphasis. His face was still red, and he swung his stick ferociously as he strode towards the vicarage. Several little boys in ragged smock-frocks saw him and thought he had had some beer, even as their own fathers, and made vulgar gestures when his back was turned. So poor John packed his portmanteau and left the vicarage early on the following morning. He sent an excuse to Mr. Juxon explaining that the urgency of his work called him back sooner than he had expected, and when the train moved fairly off towards Cambridge he felt that in being spared the ordeal of shaking hands with his rival he had at least escaped some of the bitterness of his fate; as he rolled along he thought very sadly of all that had happened in that short time which was to have been so gay and which had come to such a miserable end. Reflecting calmly upon his last interview with Mrs. Goddard, he was surprised to find that his memory failed him. He could not recall anything which could satisfactorily account for the terrible disappointment and distress he had felt. She had only said that she was thirty-one years old, precisely as the vicar had stated on the previous evening, and she had advised him not to marry for some years to come. But she had laughed, and his feelings had been deeply wounded--he could not tell precisely at what point in the conversation, but he was quite certain that she had laughed, and oh! that terrible Nellie! It was very bitter, and John felt that the best part of his life was lived out. He went back to his books with a dark and melancholy tenacity of purpose, flavoured by a hope that he might come to some sudden and awful end in the course of the next fortnight, thereby causing untold grief and consternation to the hard-hearted woman he had loved. But before the fortnight had expired he found to his surprise that he was intensely interested in his work, and once or twice he caught himself wondering how Mrs. Goddard would look when he went back to Billingsfield and told her he had come out at the head of the classical Tripos--though, of course, he had no intention of going there, nor of ever seeing her again. CHAPTER XI. Mr. Juxon was relieved to hear that John Short had suddenly gone back to Cambridge. He had indeed meant to like him from the first and had behaved towards him with kindness and hospitality; but while ready to admire his good qualities and to take a proper amount of interest in his approaching contest for honours, he had found him a troublesome person to deal with and, in his own words, a nuisance. Matters had come to a climax after the tea at the cottage, when the squire had so completely vanquished him, but since that evening the two had not met. The opposition which John brought to bear against Mr. Juxon was not, however, without its effect. The squire was in that state of mind in which a little additional pressure sufficed to sway his resolutions. It has been seen that he had for some time regarded Mrs. Goddard's society as an indispensable element in his daily life; he had been so much astonished at discovering this that he had absented himself for several days and had finally returned ready to submit to his fate, in so far as his fate required that he should see Mrs. Goddard every day. Shortly afterwards John had appeared and by his persistent attempts to monopolise Mrs. Goddard's conversation had again caused an interruption in the squire's habits, which the latter had resented with characteristic firmness. The very fact of having resisted John had strengthened and given a new tone to Mr. Juxon's feelings towards his tenant. He began to watch the hands of the clock with more impatience than formerly when, after breakfast, he sat reading the papers before the library fire, waiting for the hour when he was accustomed to go down to the cottage. His interest in the papers decreased as his interest in the time of day grew stronger, and for the first time in his life he found to his great surprise that after reading the news of the day with the greatest care, he was often quite unable to remember a word of what he had read. Then, at first, he would be angry with himself and would impose upon himself the task of reading the paper again before going to the cottage. But very soon he found that he had to read it twice almost every day, and this seemed such an unreasonable waste of time that he gave it up, and fell into very unsystematic habits. For some days, as though by mutual consent, neither Mrs. Goddard nor the squire spoke of John Short. The squire was glad he was gone and hoped that he would not come back, but was too kind-hearted to say so; Mrs. Goddard instinctively understood Mr. Juxon's state of mind and did not disturb his equanimity by broaching an unpleasant subject. Several days passed by after John had gone and he would certainly not have been flattered had he known that during that time two, out of the four persons he had met so often in his short holiday, had never so much as mentioned him. One afternoon in January the squire found himself alone with Mrs. Goddard. It was a great exception, and she herself doubted whether she were wise to receive him when she had not Nellie with her. Nellie had gone to the vicarage to help Mrs. Ambrose with some work she had in hand for her poor people, but Mrs. Goddard had a slight headache and had stayed at home in consequence. The weather was very bad; heavy clouds were driving overhead and the north-east wind howled and screamed through the leafless oaks of the park, driving a fine sleet against the cottage windows and making the dead creepers rattle against the wall. It was a bitter January day, and Mrs. Goddard felt how pleasant a thing it was to stay at home with a book beside her blazing fire. She was all alone, and Nellie would not be back before four o'clock. Suddenly a well-known step echoed upon the slate flags without and there was a ring at the bell. Mrs. Goddard had hardly time to think what she should do, as she laid her book upon her knee and looked nervously over her shoulder towards the door. It was awkward, she thought, but it could not be helped. In such weather it seemed absurd to send the squire away because her little girl was not with her. He had come all the way down from the Hall to spend this dreary afternoon at the cottage--she could not send him away. There were sounds in the passage as of some one depositing a waterproof coat and an umbrella, the door opened and Mr. Juxon appeared upon the threshold. "Come in," said Mrs. Goddard, banishing her scruples as soon as she saw him. "I am all alone," she added rather apologetically. The squire, who was a simple man in many ways, understood the remark and felt slightly embarrassed. "Is Miss Nellie out?" he asked, coming forward and taking Mrs. Goddard's hand. He had not yet reached the point of calling the child plain "Nellie;" he would have thought it an undue familiarity. "She is gone to the vicarage," answered Mrs. Goddard. "What a dreadful day! You must be nearly frozen. Will you have a cup of tea?" "No thanks--no, you are very kind. I have had a good walk; I am not cold--never am. As you say, in such weather I could not resist the temptation to come in. This is a capital day to test that India-rubber tubing we have put round your windows. Excuse me--I will just look and see if the air comes through." Mr. Juxon carefully examined the windows of the sitting-room and then returned to his seat. "It is quite air-tight, I think," he said with some satisfaction, as he smoothed his hair with his hand. "Oh, quite," said Mrs. Goddard. "It was so very good of you." "Not a bit of it," returned the squire cheerily. "A landlord's chief pre-occupation ought to be the comfort of his tenants and his next thought should be to keep his houses in repair. I never owned any houses before, so I have determined to start with good principles." "I am sure you succeed. You walked down?" "Always walk, in any weather. It is much less trouble and much cheaper. Besides, I like it." "The best of all reasons. Then you will not have any tea? I almost wish you would, because I want some myself." "Oh of course--in that case I shall be delighted. Shall I ring?" He rang and Martha brought the tea. Some time was consumed in the preparations which Mr. Juxon watched with interest as though he had never seen tea made before. Everything that Mrs. Goddard did interested him. "I do not know why it is," she said at last, "but weather like this is delightful when one is safe at home. I suppose it is the contrast--" "Yes indeed. It is like the watch below in dirty-weather." "Excuse me--I don't quite understand--" "At sea," explained the squire. "There is no luxury like being below when the decks are wet and there is heavy weather about." "I should think so," said Mrs. Goddard. "Have you been at sea much, Mr. Juxon?" "Thirty years," returned the squire laconically. Mrs. Goddard looked at him in astonishment. "You don't mean to say you have been a sailor all your life?" "Does that surprise you? I have been a sailor since I was twelve years old. But I got very tired of it. It is a hard life." "Were you in the navy, Mr. Juxon?" asked Mrs. Goddard eagerly, feeling that she was at last upon the track of some information in regard to his past life. "Yes--I was in the navy," answered the squire, slowly. "And then I was at college, and then in the navy again. At last I entered the merchant service and commanded my own ships for nearly twenty years." "How very extraordinary! Why then, you must have been everywhere." "Very nearly. But I would much rather be in Billingsfield." "You never told me," said Mrs. Goddard almost reproachfully. "What a change it must have been for you, from the sea to the life of a country gentleman!" "It is what I always wanted." "But you do not seem at all like the sea captains one hears about--" "Well, perhaps not," replied the squire thoughtfully. "There are a great many different classes of sea captains. I always had a taste for books. A man can read a great deal on a long voyage. I have sometimes been at sea for more than two years at a time. Besides, I had a fairly good education and--well, I suppose it was because I was a gentleman to begin with and was more than ten years in the Royal Navy. All that makes a great difference. Have you ever made a long voyage, Mrs. Goddard?" "I have crossed the channel," said she. "But I wish you would tell me something more about your life." "Oh no--it is very dull, all that. You always make me talk about myself," said the squire in a tone of protestation. "It is very interesting." "But--could we not vary the conversation by talking about you a little?" suggested Mr. Juxon. "Oh no! Please--" exclaimed Mrs. Goddard rather nervously. She grew pale and busied herself again with the tea. "Do tell me more about your voyages. I suppose that was the way you collected so many beautiful things, was it not?" "Yes, I suppose so," answered the squire, looking at her curiously. "In fact of course it was. I was a great deal in China and South America and India, and in all sorts of places where one picks up things." "And in Turkey, too, where you got Stamboul?" "Yes. He was so wet that I left him outside to day. Did not want to spoil your carpet." The squire had a way of turning the subject when he seemed upon the point of talking about himself which was very annoying to Mrs. Goddard. But she had not entirely recovered her equanimity and for the moment had lost control of the squire. Besides she had a headache that day. "Stamboul does not get the benefit of the contrast we were talking about at first," she remarked, in order to say something. "I could not possibly bring him in," returned the squire looking at her again. "Excuse me, Mrs. Goddard--I don't mean to be inquisitive you know, but--I always want to be of any use." She looked at him inquiringly. "I mean, to be frank, I am afraid that something is giving you trouble. I have noticed it for some time. You know, if I can be of any use, if I can help you in any way--you have only to say the word." Again she looked at him. She did not know why it was so, but the genuinely friendly tone in which he made the offer touched her. She was surprised, however; she could not understand why he should think she was in trouble, and indeed she was in no greater distress than she had suffered during the greater part of the last three years. "You are very kind, Mr. Juxon. But there is nothing the matter--I have a headache." "Oh," said the squire, "I beg your pardon." He looked away and seemed embarrassed. "You have done too much already," said Mrs. Goddard, fearing that she had not sufficiently acknowledged his offer of assistance. "I cannot do too much. That is impossible," he said in a tone of conviction. "I have very few friends, Mrs. Goddard, and I like to think that you are one of the best of them." "I am sure--I don't know what to say, Mr. Juxon," she answered, somewhat startled by the directness of his speech. "I am sure you have always been most kind, and I hope you do not think me ungrateful." "I? You? No--dear me, please never mention it! The fact is, Mrs. Goddard--" he stopped and smoothed Ms hair. "What particularly disagreeable weather," he remarked irrelevantly, looking out of the window at the driving sleet. Mrs. Goddard looked down and slowly stirred her tea. She was pale and her hand trembled a little, but no one could have guessed that she was suffering any strong emotion. Mr. Juxon looked towards the window, and the grey light of the winter's afternoon fell coldly upon his square sunburned face and carefully trimmed beard. He was silent for a moment, and then, still looking away from his companion, he continued in a less hesitating tone. "The fact is, I have been thinking a great deal of late," he said, "and it has struck me that your friendship has grown to be the most important thing in my life." He paused again and turned his hat round upon his knee. Still Mrs. Goddard said nothing, and as he did not look at her he did not perceive that she was unnaturally agitated. "I have told you what my life has been," he continued presently. "I have been a sailor. I made a little money. I finally inherited my uncle's estate here. I will tell you anything else you would like to ask--I don't think I ever did anything to conceal. I am forty-two years old. I have about five thousand a year and I am naturally economical. I would like to make you a proposal--a very respectful proposal, Mrs. Goddard--" Mrs. Goddard uttered a faint exclamation of surprise and fell back in her chair, staring with wide eyes at the squire, her cheeks very pale and her lips white. He was too much absorbed in what he was saying to notice the short smothered ejaculation, and he was too much embarrassed to look at her. "Mrs. Goddard," he said, his voice trembling slightly, "will you marry me?" He was not prepared for the result of his speech. He had pondered it for some time and had come to the conclusion that it was best to say as little as possible and to say it plainly. It was an honourable proposal of marriage from a man in middle life to a lady he had known and respected for many months; there was very little romance about it; he did not intend that there should be any. As soon as he had spoken he turned his head and looked to her for his answer. Mrs. Goddard had clasped her small white hands over her face and had turned her head away from him against the cushion of the high backed chair. The squire felt very uncomfortable in the dead silence, broken only by the sleet driving against the window panes with a hissing, rattling sound, and by the singing of the tea-kettle. For some seconds, which to Juxon seemed like an eternity, Mrs. Goddard did not move. At last she suddenly dropped her hands and looked into the squire's eyes. He was startled by the ashen hue of her face. "It is impossible," she said, shortly, in broken tones. But the squire was prepared for some difficulties. "I do not see the impossibility," he said quite calmly. "Of course, I would not press you for an answer, my dear Mrs. Goddard. I am afraid I have been very abrupt, but I will go away, I will leave you to consider--" "Oh no, no!" cried the poor lady in great distress. "It is quite impossible--I assure you it is quite, quite impossible!" "I don't know," said Mr. Juxon, who saw that she was deeply moved, but was loath to abandon the field without a further struggle. "I am not a very young man, it is true--but I am not a very old one either. You, my dear Mrs. Goddard, have been a widow for some years--" "I?" cried Mrs. Goddard with a wild hysterical laugh. "I! Oh God of mercy! I wish I were." Again she buried her face in the cushion. Her bosom heaved violently. The squire started as though he had been struck, and the blood rushed to his brown face so that the great veins on his temples stood out like cords. "Did I--did I understand you to say that--your husband is living?" he asked in a strong, loud voice, ringing with emotion. Mrs. Goddard moved a little and seemed to make a great effort to speak. "Yes," she said very faintly. The squire rose to his feet and paced the room in terrible agitation. "But where?" he asked, stopping suddenly in his walk. "Mrs. Goddard, I think I have a right to ask where he is--why you have never spoken of him?" By a supreme effort the unfortunate lady raised herself from her seat supporting herself upon one hand, and faced the squire with wildly staring eyes. "You have a right to know," she said. "He is in Portland--sentenced to twelve years hard labour for forgery." She said it all, to the end, and then fell back into her chair. But she did not hide her face this time. The fair pathetic features were quite motionless and white, without any expression, and her hands lay with the palms turned upwards on her knees. Charles James Juxon was a man of few words, not given to using strong language on any occasion. But he was completely overcome by the horror of the thing. He turned icy cold as he stood still, rooted to the spot, and he uttered aloud one strong and solemn ejaculation, more an invocation than an oath, as though he called on heaven to witness the misery he looked upon. He gazed at the colourless, inanimate face of the poor lady and walked slowly to the window. There he stood for fully five minutes, motionless, staring out at the driving sleet. Mrs. Goddard had fainted away, but it did not occur to the squire to attempt to recall her to her senses. It seemed merciful that she should have lost consciousness even for a moment. Indeed she needed no help, for in a few minutes she slowly opened her eyes and closed them, then opened them again and saw Mr. Juxon's figure darkening the window against the grey light. "Mr. Juxon," she said faintly, "come here, please." The squire started and turned. Then he came and sat down beside her. His face was very stern and grave, and he said nothing. "Mr. Juxon," said Mrs. Goddard, speaking in a low voice, but with far more calm than he could have expected, "you have a right to know my story. You have been very kind to me, you have made an honourable offer to me, you have said you were my friend. I ought to have told you before. If I had had any idea of what was passing in your mind, I would have told you, cost what it might." Mr. Juxon gravely bowed his head. She was quite right, he thought. He had a right to know all. With all his kind-heartedness he was a stern man by nature. "Yes," continued Mrs. Goddard, "you have every right to know. My husband," her voice trembled, "was the head of an important firm in London. I was the only child of his partner. Not long after my father's death I married Mr. Goddard. He was an extravagant man of brilliant tastes. I had a small fortune of my own which my father had settled upon me, independent of his share in the firm. My guardians, of whom my husband was one, advised me to leave my father's fortune in the concern. When I came of age, a year after my marriage, I agreed to do it. My husband--I never knew it till long afterwards--was very rash. He speculated on the Exchange and tampered with the deposits placed in his hands. We lived in great luxury. I knew nothing of his affairs. Three years ago, after we had been married nearly ten years, the firm failed. It was a fraudulent bankruptcy. My husband fled but was captured and brought back. It appeared that at the last moment, in the hope of retrieving his position and saving the firm, he had forged the name of one of his own clients for a large amount. We had a country place at Putney which he had given to me. I sold it, with all my jewels and most of my possessions. I would have given up everything I possessed, but I thought of Nellie--poor little Nellie. The lawyers assured me that I ought to keep my own little fortune. I kept about five hundred a year. It is more than I need, but it seemed very little then. The lawyer who conducted the defence, such as it was, advised me to go abroad, but I would not. Then he spoke of Mr. Ambrose, who had educated his son, and gave me a note to him. I came here and I told Mr. Ambrose my whole story. I only wanted to be alone--I thought I did right--" Her courage had sustained her so far, but it had been a great effort. Her voice trembled and broke and at last the tears began to glisten in her eyes. "Does Nellie know?" asked the squire, who had sat very gravely by her side, but who was in reality deeply moved. "No--she thinks he--that he is dead," faltered Mrs. Goddard. Then she fairly burst into tears and sobbed passionately, covering her face and rocking herself from side to side. "My dear friend," said Mr. Juxon very kindly and laying one hand upon her arm, "pray try and calm yourself. Forgive me--I beg you to forgive me for having caused you so much pain--" "Do you still call me a friend?" sobbed the poor lady. "Indeed I do," quoth the squire stoutly. And he meant it. Mrs. Goddard dropped her hands and stared into the fire through her falling tears. "I think you behaved very honourably--very generously," continued Mr. Juxon, who did not know precisely how to console her, and indeed stood much in need of consolation himself. "Perhaps I had better leave you--you are very much agitated--you must need rest--would you not rather that I should go?" "Yes--it is better," said she, still staring at the fire. "You know all about me now," she added in a tone of pathetic regret. The squire rose to his feet. "I hope," he said with some hesitation, "that this--this very unfortunate day will not prevent our being friends--better friends than before?" Mrs. Goddard looked up gratefully through her tears. "How good you are!" she said softly. "Not at all--I am not at all good--I only want to be your friend. Good-bye--G--God bless you!" He seized her hand and squeezed it and then hurried out of the room. A moment later he was crossing the road with Stamboul, who was very tired of waiting, bounding before him. The squire was not a romantic character. He was a strong plain man, who had seen the world and was used to most forms of danger and to a good many forms of suffering. He was kind-hearted and generous, capable of feeling sincere sympathy for others, and under certain circumstances of being deeply wounded himself. He had indeed a far more refined nature than he himself suspected and on this memorable day he had experienced more emotions than he remembered to have felt in the course of many years. After long debate and after much searching inquiry into his own motives he had determined to offer himself to Mrs. Goddard, and he had accordingly done so in his own straightforward manner. It had seemed a very important action in his life, a very solemn step, but he was not prepared for the acute sense of disappointment which he felt when Mrs. Goddard first said it was impossible for her to accept him, still less had he anticipated the extraordinary story which she had told him, in explanation of her refusal. His ideas were completely upset. That Mrs. Goddard was not a widow after all, was almost as astounding as that she should prove to be the wife of a felon. But Mr. Juxon was no less persuaded that she herself was a perfectly good and noble woman, than he had been before. He felt that he would like to cut the throat of the villain himself; but he resolved that he would more than ever try to be a good friend to Mrs. Goddard. He walked slowly through the storm towards his house, his broad figure facing the wind and sleet with as much ease as a steamer forging against a head sea. He was perfectly indifferent to the weather; but Stamboul slunk along at his heels, shielding himself from the driving wet snow behind his master's sturdy legs. The squire was very much disturbed. The sight of his own solemn butler affected him strangely. He stared about the library in a vacant way, as though he had never seen the place before. The realisation of his own calm and luxurious life seemed unnatural, and his thoughts went back to the poor weeping woman he had just left. She, too, had enjoyed all this, and more also. She had probably been richer than he. And now she was living on five hundred a year in one of his own cottages, hiding her shame in desolate Billingsfield, the shame of her husband, the forger. It was such a hopeless position, the squire thought. No one could help her, no one could do anything for her. For many weeks, revolving the situation in his mind, he had amused himself by thinking how she would look when she should be mistress of the Hall, and wondering whether little Nellie would call him "father," or merely "Mr. Juxon." And now, she turned out to be the wife of a forger, sentenced to hard labour in a convict prison, for twelve years. For twelve years--nearly three must have elapsed already. In nine years more Goddard would be out again. Would he claim his wife? Of course--he would come back to her for support. And poor little Nellie thought he was dead! It would be a terrible day when she had to be told. If he only would die in prison!--but men sentenced to hard labour rarely die. They are well cared for. It is a healthy life. He would certainly live through it and come back to claim his wife. Poor Mrs. Goddard! her troubles were not ended yet, though the State had provided her with a respite of twelve years. The squire sat long in his easy-chair in the great library, and forgot to dress for dinner--he always dressed, even though he was quite alone. But the solemn face of his butler betrayed neither emotion nor surprise when the master of the Hall walked into the dining-room in his knickerbockers. CHAPTER XII. When Nellie came home from the vicarage she found her mother looking very ill. There were dark rings under her eyes, and her features were drawn and tear-stained, while the beautiful waves of her brown hair had lost their habitual neatness and symmetry. The child noticed these things, with a child's quickness, but explained them on the ground that her mother's headache was probably much worse. Mrs. Goddard accepted the explanation and on the following day Nellie had forgotten all about it; but her mother remembered it long, and it was many days before she recovered entirely from the shock of her interview with the squire. The latter did not come to see her as usual, but on the morning after his visit he sent her down a package of books and some orchids from his hothouses. He thought it best to leave her to herself for a little while; the very sight of him, he argued, would be painful to her, and any meeting with her would be painful to himself. He did not go out of the house, but spent the whole day in his library among his books, not indeed reading, but pretending to himself that he was very busy. Being a strong and sensible man he did not waste time in bemoaning his sorrows, but he thought about them long and earnestly. The more he thought, the more it appeared to him that Mrs. Goddard was the person who deserved pity rather than he himself. His mind dwelt on the terrors of her position in case her husband should return and claim his wife and daughter when the twelve years were over, and he thought with horror of Nellie's humiliation, if at the age of twenty she should discover that her father during all these years had not been honourably dead and buried, but had been suffering the punishment of a felon in Portland. That the only attempt he had ever made to enter the matrimonial state should have been so singularly unfortunate was indeed a matter which caused him sincere sorrow; he had thought too often of being married to Mary Goddard to be able to give up the idea without a sigh. But it is due to him to say that in the midst of his own disappointment he thought much more of her sorrows than of his own, a state of mind most probably due to his temperament. He saw also how impossible it was to console Mrs. Goddard or even to alleviate the distress of mind which she must constantly feel. Her destiny was accomplished in part, and the remainder seemed absolutely inevitable. No one could prevent her husband from leaving his prison when his crime was expiated; and no one could then prevent him from joining his wife and ending his life under her roof. At least so it seemed. Endless complications would follow. Mrs. Goddard would certainly have to leave Billingsfield--no one could expect the Ambroses or the squire himself to associate with a convict forger. Mr. Juxon vaguely wondered whether he should live another nine years to see the end of all this, and he inwardly determined to go to sea again rather than to witness such misery. He could not see, no one could see how things could possibly turn out in any other way. It would have been some comfort to have gone to the vicar, and to have discussed with him the possibilities of Mrs. Goddard's future. The vicar was a man after his own heart, honest, reliable, charitable and brave; but Mr. Juxon thought that it would not be quite loyal towards Mrs. Goddard if he let any one else know that he was acquainted with her story. For two days he stayed at home and then he went to see her. To his surprise she received him very quietly, much as she usually did, without betraying any emotion; whereupon he wished that he had not allowed two days to pass without making his usual visit. Mrs. Goddard almost wished so too. She had been so much accustomed to regard the squire as a friend, and she had so long been used to the thought that Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose knew of her past trouble, that the fact of the squire becoming acquainted with her history seemed to her less important, now that it was accomplished, than it seemed to the squire himself. She had long thought of telling him all; she had seriously contemplated doing so when he first came to Billingsfield, and now at last the thing was done. She was glad of it. She was no longer in a false position; he could never again think of marrying her; they could henceforth meet as friends, since he was so magnanimous as to allow their friendship to exist. Her pride had suffered so terribly in the beginning that it was past suffering now. She felt that she was in the position of a suppliant asking only for a quiet resting-place for herself and her daughter, and she was grateful to the people who gave her what she asked, feeling that she had fallen among good Samaritans, whereas in merry England it would have been easy for her to have fallen among priests and Pharisees. So it came about that in a few days her relations with Mr. Juxon were re-established upon a new basis, but more firmly and satisfactorily than before, seeing that now there was no possibility of mistake. And for a long time it seemed as though matters would go on as before. Neither Mrs. Goddard nor the squire ever referred to the interview on that memorable stormy afternoon, and so far as the squire could judge his life and hers might go on with perfect tranquillity until it should please the powers that be and the governor of Portland to set Mr. Walter Goddard at liberty. Heaven only knew what would happen then, but it was provided that there should be plenty of time to prepare for anything which might ensue. The point upon which Mrs. Goddard had not spoken plainly was that which concerned her probable treatment of her husband after his liberation. She had passed that question over in silence. She had probably never dared to decide. Most probably she would at the last minute seek some safer retreat than Billingsfield and make tip her mind to hide for the rest of her life. But Mr. Juxon had heard of women who had carried charity as far as to receive back their husbands under even worse circumstances; women were soft-hearted creatures, reflected the squire, and capable of anything. Few people in such a situation could have acted consistently as though nothing had happened. But Mr. Juxon's extremely reticent nature found it easy to bury other people's important secrets at least as deeply as he buried the harmless details of his own honest life. Not a hair of his smooth head was ruffled, not a line of his square manly face was disturbed. He looked and acted precisely as he had looked and acted before. His butler remarked that he ate a little less heartily of late, and that on one evening, as has been recorded, the squire forgot to dress for dinner. But the butler in his day had seen greater eccentricities than these; he had the greatest admiration for Mr. Juxon and was not inclined to cavil at small things. A real gentleman, of the good sort, who dressed for dinner when he was alone, who never took too much wine, who never bullied the servants nor quarrelled unjustly with the bills, was, as the butler expressed it, "not to be sneezed at, on no account." The place was a little dull, but the functionary was well stricken in years and did not like hard work. Mr. Juxon seemed to be conscious that as he never had visitors at the Hall and as there were consequently no "tips," his staff was entitled to an occasional fee, which he presented always with great regularity, and which had the desired effect. He was a generous man as well as a just. The traffic in roses and orchids and new books continued as usual between the Hall and the cottage, and for many weeks nothing extraordinary occurred. Mrs. Ambrose and Mrs. Goddard met frequently, and the only difference to be observed in the manner of the former was that she mentioned John Short very often, and every time she mentioned him she fixed her grey eyes sternly upon Mrs. Goddard, who however did not notice the scrutiny, or, if she did, was not in the least disturbed by it. For a long time Mrs. Ambrose entertained a feeble intention of addressing Mrs. Goddard directly upon the subject of John's affections, but the longer she put off doing so, the harder it seemed to do it. Mrs. Ambrose had great faith in the sternness of her eye under certain circumstances, and seeing that Mrs. Goddard never winced, she gradually fell into the belief that John had been the more to blame, if there was any blame in the matter. She had indeed succeeded in the first instance, by methods of her own which have been heretofore detailed, in extracting a sort of reluctant admission from her husband; but since that day he had proved obdurate to all entreaty. Once only he had said with considerable impatience that John was a very silly boy, and was much better engaged with his books at college than in running after Mrs. Goddard. That was all, and gradually as the regular and methodical life at the vicarage effaced the memory of the doings at Christmas time, the good Mrs. Ambrose forgot that anything unpleasant had ever occurred. There was no disturbance of the existing relations and everything went on as before for many weeks. The February thaw set in early and the March winds began to blow before February was fairly out. Nat Barker the octogenarian cripple, who had the reputation of being a weather prophet, was understood to have said that the spring was "loike to be forrard t'year," and the minds of the younger inhabitants were considerably relieved. Not that Nat Barker's prophecies were usually fulfilled; no one ever remembered them at the time when they might have been verified. But they were always made at the season when people had nothing to do but to talk about them. Mr. Thomas Reid, the conservative sexton, turned up his nose at them, and said he "wished Nat Barker had to dig a parish depth grave in three hours without a drop of nothin' to wet his pipe with, and if he didden fine that groun' oncommon owdacious Thomas Reid he didden know. They didden know nothin', sir, them parish cripples." Wherewith the worthy sexton took his way with a battered tin can to get his "fours" at the Feathers. He did not patronise the Duke's Head. It was too new-fangled for him, and he suspected his arch enemy, Mr. Abraham Boosey, of putting a rat or two into the old beer to make it "draw," which accounted for its being so "hard." But Mr. Abraham Boosey was the undertaker, and he, Thomas Reid, was the sexton, and it did not do to express these views too loudly, lest perchance Mr. Boosey should, just in his play, construct a coffin or two just too big for the regulation grave, and thereby leave Mr. Reid in the lurch. For the undertaker and the gravedigger are as necessary to each other, as Mr. Reid maintained, as a pair of blackbirds in a hedge. But the spring was "forrard t'year" and the weather was consequently even more detestable than usual at that season. The roads were heavy. The rain seemed never weary of pouring down and the wind never tired of blowing. The wet and leafless creepers beat against the walls of the cottage, and the chimneys smoked both there and at the vicarage. The rooms were pervaded with a disagreeable smell of damp coal smoke, and the fires struggled desperately to burn against the overwhelming odds of rain and wind which came down the chimneys. Mrs. Goddard never remembered to have been so uncomfortable during the two previous winters she had spent in Billingsfield, and even Nellie grew impatient and petulant. The only bright spot in those long days seemed to be made by the regular visits of Mr. Juxon, by the equally regular bi-weekly appearance of the Ambroses when they came to tea, and by the little dinners at the vicarage. The weather had grown so wet and the roads so bad that on these latter occasions the vicar sent his dogcart with Reynolds and the old mare, Strawberry, to fetch his two guests. Even Mr. Juxon, who always walked when he could, had got into the habit of driving down to the cottage in a strange-looking gig which he had imported from America, and which, among all the many possessions of the squire, alone attracted the unfavourable comment of his butler. He would have preferred to see a good English dogcart, high in the seat and wheels, at the door of the Hall, instead of that outlandish vehicle; but Joseph Ruggles, the groom, explained to him that it was easier to clean than a dogcart, and that when it rained he sat inside with the squire. On a certain evening in February, towards the end of the month, Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose and Mr. Juxon came to have tea with Mrs. Goddard. Mr. Juxon had at first not been regularly invited to these entertainments. They were perhaps not thought worthy of his grandeur; at all events both the vicar's wife and Mrs. Goddard had asked him very rarely. But as time went on and Mr. Juxon's character developed under the eyes of the little Billingsfield society, it had become apparent to every one that he was a very simple man, making no pretensions whatever to any superiority on account of his station. They grew more and more fond of him, and ended by asking him to their small sociable evenings. On these occasions it generally occurred that the squire and the vicar fell into conversation about classical and literary subjects while the two ladies talked of the little incidents of Billingsfield life, of Tom Judd's wife and of Joe Staines, the choir boy, who was losing his voice, and of similar topics of interest in the very small world in which they lived. The present evening had not been at all a remarkable one so far as the talk was concerned. The drenching rain, the tendency of the fire to smoke, the general wetness and condensed depravity of the atmosphere had affected the spirits of the little party. They were not gay, and they broke up early. It was not nine o'clock when all had gone, and Mrs. Goddard and little Eleanor were left alone by the side of their drawing-room fire. The child sat upon a footstool and leaned her head against her mother's knee. Mrs. Goddard herself was thoughtful and sad, without precisely knowing why. She generally looked forward with pleasure to meeting the Ambroses, but this evening she had been rather disappointed. The conversation had dragged, and the excellent Mrs. Ambrose had been more than usually prosy. Nellie had complained of a headache and leaned wearily against her mother's knee. "Tell me a story, mamma--won't you? Like the ones you used to tell me when I was quite a little girl." "Dear child," said her mother, who was not thinking of story-telling, "I am afraid I have forgotten all the ones I ever knew. Besides, darling, it is time for you to go to bed." "I don't want to go to bed, mamma. It is such a horrid night. The wind keeps me awake." "You will not sleep at all if I tell you a story," objected Mrs. Goddard. "Mr. Juxon tells me such nice stories," said Nellie, reproachfully. "What are they about, dear?" "Oh, his stories are beautiful. They are always about ships and the blue sea and wonderful desert islands where he has been. What a wonderful man he is, mamma, is not he?" "Yes, dear, he talks very interestingly." Mrs. Goddard stroked Nellie's brown curls and looked into the fire. "He told me that once, ever so many years ago--he must be very old, mamma--" Nellie paused and looked up inquiringly. "Well, darling--not so very, very old. I think he is over forty." "Over forty--four times eleven--he is not four times as old as I am. Almost, though. All his stories are ever so many years ago. He said he was sailing away ever so far, in a perfectly new ship, and the name of the ship was--let me see, what was the name? I think it was--" Mrs. Goddard started suddenly and laid her hand on the child's shoulder. "Did you hear anything, Nellie?" she asked quickly. Nellie looked up in some surprise. "No, mamma. When? Just now? It must have been the wind. It is such a horrid night. The name of the ship was the 'Zephyr'--I remember, now." She looked up again to see if her mother was listening to the story. Mrs. Goddard looked pale and glanced uneasily towards the closed window. She had probably been mistaken. "And where did the ship sail to, Nellie dear?" she asked, smoothing the child's curls again and forcing herself to smile. "Oh--the ship was a perfectly new ship and it was the most beautiful weather in the world. They were sailing away ever so far, towards the straits of Magellan. I was so glad because I knew where the straits of Magellan were--and Mr. Juxon was immensely astonished. But I had been learning about the Terra del Fuego, and the people who were frozen there, in my geography that very morning--was not it lucky? So I knew all about it--mamma, how nervous you are! It is nothing but the wind. I wish you would listen to my story--" "I am listening, darling," said Mrs. Goddard, making a strong effort to overcome her agitation and drawing the child closer to her. "Go on, sweetheart--you were in the straits of Magellan, you said, sailing away--" "Mr. Juxon was, mamma," said Nellie correcting her mother with the asperity of a child who does not receive all the attention it expects. "Of course, dear, Mr. Juxon, and the ship was the 'Zephyr.'" "Yes--the 'Zephyr,'" repeated Nellie, who was easily pacified. "It was at Christmas time he said--but that is summer in the southern hemisphere," she added, proud of her knowledge. "So it was very fine weather. And Mr. Juxon was walking up and down the deck in the afternoon, smoking a cigar--" "He never smokes, dear," interrupted Mrs. Goddard, glad to show Nellie that she was listening. "Well, but he did then, because he said so," returned Nellie unmoved. "And as he walked and looked out--sailors always look out, you know--he saw the most wonderful thing, close to the ship--the most wonderful thing he ever saw," added Nellie with some redundance of expression. "Was it a whale, child?" asked her mother, staring into the fire and trying to pay attention. "A whale, mamma!" repeated Nellie contemptuously. "As if there were anything remarkable about a whale! Mr. Juxon has seen billions of whales, I am sure." "Well, what was it, dear?" "It was the most awfully tremendous thing with green and blue scales, a thousand times as big as the ship--oh mamma! What was that?" Nellie started up from her stool and knelt beside her mother, looking towards the window. Mrs. Goddard was deathly pale and grasped the arm of her chair. "Somebody knocked at the window, mamma," said Nellie breathlessly. "And then somebody said 'Mary'--quite loud. Oh mamma, what can it be?" "Mary?" repeated Mrs. Goddard as though she were in a dream. "Yes--quite loud. Oh mamma! it must be Mary's young man--he does sometimes come in the evening." "Mary's young man, child?" Mrs. Goddard's heart leaped. Her cook's name was Mary, as well as her own. Nellie naturally never associated the name with her mother, as she never heard anybody call her by it. "Yes mamma. Don't you know? The postman--the man with the piebald horse." The explanation was necessary, as Mrs. Goddard rarely received any letters and probably did not know the postman by sight. "At this time of night!" exclaimed Mrs. Goddard. "It is too bad. Mary is gone to bed." "Perhaps he thinks you are gone to the vicarage and that Mary is sitting up for you in the drawing-room," suggested Nellie with much good sense. "Well, he can't come in, can he, mamma?" "Certainly not," said her mother. "But I think you had much better go to bed, my dear. It is half-past nine." She spoke indistinctly, almost thickly, and seemed to be making a violent effort to control herself. But Nellie had settled down upon her stool again, and did not notice her mother. "Oh not yet," said she. "I have not nearly finished about the sea-serpent. Mr. Juxon said it was not like anything in the world. Do listen, mamma! It is the most wonderful story you ever heard. It was all covered with blue and green scales, and it rolled, and rolled, and rolled, and rolled, till at last it rolled up against the side of the ship with such a tremendous bump that Mr. Juxon fell right down on his back." "Yes dear," said Mrs. Goddard mechanically, as the child paused. "You don't seem to mind at all!" cried Nellie, who felt that her efforts to amuse her mother were not properly appreciated. "He fell right down on his back and hurt himself awfully." "That was very sad," said Mrs. Goddard. "Did he catch the sea-serpent afterwards ?" "Catch the sea-serpent! Why mamma, don't you know that nobody has ever caught the sea-serpent? Why, hardly anybody has ever seen him, even!" "Yes dear, but I thought Mr. Juxon--" "Of course, Mr. Juxon is the most wonderful man--but he could not catch the sea-serpent. Just fancy! When he got up from his fall, he looked and he saw him quite half a mile away. He must have gone awfully fast, should not you think so? Because, you know, it was only a minute." "Yes, my child; and it is a beautiful story, and you told it so nicely. It is very interesting and you must tell me another to-morrow. But now, dear, you must really go to bed, because I am going to bed, too. That man startled me so," she said, passing her small white hand over her pale forehead and then staring into the fire. "Well, I don't wonder," answered Nellie in a patronising tone. "Such a dreadful night too! Of course, it would startle anybody. But he won't try again, and you can scold Mary to-morrow and then she can scold her young man." The child spoke so naturally that all doubts vanished from Mrs. Goddard's mind. She reflected that children are much more apt to see things as they are, than grown people whose nerves are out of order. Nellie's conclusions were perfectly logical, and it seemed folly to doubt them. She determined that Mary should certainly be scolded on the morrow and she unconsciously resolved in her mind the words she should use; for she was rather a timid woman and stood a little in awe of her stalwart Berkshire cook, with her mighty arms and her red face, and her uncommonly plain language. "Yes dear," she said more quietly than she had been able to speak for some time, "I have no doubt you are quite right. I thought I heard his footsteps just now, going down the path. So he will not trouble us any more to-night. And now darling, kneel down and say your prayers, and then we will go to bed." So Nellie, reassured by the news that her mother was going to bed, too, knelt down as she had done every night during the eleven years of her life, and clasped her hands together, beneath her mother's. Then she cleared her throat, then she glanced at the clock, then she looked for one moment into the sweet serious violet eyes that looked down on her so lovingly, and then at last she bent her lovely little head and began to say her prayers, there, by the fire, at her mother's knees, while angry storm howled fiercely without and shook the closed panes and shutters and occasional drops of rain, falling down the short chimney, sputtered in the smouldering coal fire. "Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come--" Nellie gave a loud scream and springing up from her knees flung her arms around her mother's neck, in uttermost, wildest terror. "Mamma, mamma!" she cried looking, and yet hardly daring to look, back towards the closed window. "It called 'MARY GODDARD'! It is you, mamma! Oh!" There was no mistaking it this time. While Nellie was saying her prayer there had come three sharp and distinct raps upon the wooden shutter, and a voice, not loud but clear, penetrating into the room in spite of wind and storm and rain. "Mary Goddard! Mary Goddard!" it said. Mrs. Goddard started to her feet, lifting Nellie bodily from the ground in her agony of terror; staring round the room wildly as though in search of some possible escape. "I must come in! I will come in!" said the voice again. "Oh don't let him in! Mamma! Don't let him in!" moaned the terrified child upon her breast, clinging to her and weighing her down, and grasping her neck and arm with convulsive strength. But in moments of great agitation timid people, or people who are thought timid, not uncommonly do brave things. Mrs. Goddard unclasped Nellie's hold and forced the terror-struck child into a deep chair. "Stay there, darling," she said with unnatural calmness. "Do not be afraid. I will go and open the door." Nellie was now too much frightened to resist. Mrs. Goddard went out into the little passage which was dimly lighted by a hanging lamp, and closed the door of the drawing-room behind her. She could hear Nellie's occasional convulsive sobs distinctly. For one moment she paused, her right hand on the lock of the front door, her left hand pressed to her side, leaning against the wall of the passage. Then she turned the key and the handle and drew the door in towards her. A violent gust of wind, full of cold and drenching rain, whirled into the passage and almost blinded her. The lamp flickered in the lantern overhead. But she looked boldly out, facing the wind and weather. "Come in!" she called in a low voice. Immediately there was a sound as of footsteps coming from the direction of the drawing-room window, across the wet slate flags which surrounded the cottage, and a moment afterwards, peering through the darkness, Mrs. Goddard saw a man with a ghastly face standing before her in the rain. CHAPTER XIII. Mrs. Goddard's heart stood still as she looked at the wretched man, and tried to discover her husband's face, even a resemblance to him, in the haggard features she saw close before her. But he gave her small time for reflection; so soon as he had recognised her he sprang past her into the passage and pulling her after him closed the door. "Mary--don't you know me?" he said, in low tones. "You must save me--they are after me--" He stood close beside her in the narrow way, beneath the small lamp; he tried to put his arm around her and he bent down and brought his ghastly face close to hers. But she drew back as from a contamination. She was horrified, and it was a natural movement. She knew his voice even better than his features, now that he spoke. He pressed nearer to her and she thrust him back with her hands. Then suddenly a thought struck her; she took him by the sleeve and led him into the dining-room. There was no light there; she pushed him in. "Stay there one minute--" "No--no, you won't call--" "I will save you--there is--there is somebody in the drawing-room." Before he could answer her she was gone, leaving him alone in the dark. He listened intently, not venturing to leave the spot where she had placed him; he thought he heard voices and footsteps, but no one came out into the passage. It seemed an eternity to wait. At last she came, bearing a lighted candle in her hand. She carefully shut the door of the dining-room behind her and put the light upon the table. She moved like a person in a dream. "Sit down," she said, pointing to a chair. "Are you hungry?" His sunken eyes sparkled. She brought food and ale and set them before him. He ate and drank voraciously in silence. She sat at the opposite side of the table--the solitary candle between them, and shading her eyes with one hand she gazed at his face. Walter Goddard was a man at least forty years of age. He had been thought very handsome once. He had light blue eyes and a fair skin with flaxen hair--now cropped short and close to his head. There was nearly a fortnight's growth of beard upon his face, but it was not yet sufficient to hide his mouth and chin. He had formerly worn a heavy moustache and it was chiefly the absence of it which now made it hard for his wife to recognise him. A battered hat, drenched and dripping with rain, shaded his brows. Possibly he was ashamed to remove it. His mouth was small and weak and his jaw was pointed. His whole expression was singularly disagreeable--his hands were filthy, and his face was not clean. About his neck was twisted a ragged woollen comforter, and he wore a smock-frock which was now soaked with water and clung to his thin figure. He devoured the food his wife had brought him, shivering from time to time as though he were still cold. Mrs. Goddard watched him in silence. She had done mechanically according to her first instinct, had led him in and had given him food. But she had not recovered herself sufficiently from her first horror and astonishment to realise her situation. At last she spoke. "How did you escape?" she asked. He bent lower than before, over his plate and would not look at her. "Don't ask me," he answered shortly. "Why did you do it?" she inquired again. Goddard laughed harshly; his voice was hoarse and cracked. "Why did I do it!" he repeated. "Did you ever hear of any one who would not escape from prison if he had the chance? Don't look at me like that, Mary--" "I am sorry for you," she said. "You don't seem very glad to see me," he answered roughly. "I might have known it." "Yes, you might have known it." It seemed a very hard and cruel thing to say, and Mary Goddard was very far from being a cruel woman by nature; but she was stunned by fear and disgust and horrified by the possibilities of harm suddenly brought before her. Goddard pushed his plate away and leaned his elbows upon the table supporting his chin in his hands. He scowled at her defiantly. "You have given me a warm reception, after nearly three years of--separation." There was a bitter sneer in the word. "I am horrified to see you here," she said simply. "You know very well that I cannot conceal you--" "Oh, I don't expect miracles," said Goddard contemptuously. "I don't know that, when I came here, I expected to cause you any particularly agreeable sensation. I confess, when a woman has not seen her beloved husband for three years, one might expect her to show a little feeling--" "I will do what I can for you, Walter," said his wife, whose unnatural calm was fast yielding to an overpowering agitation. "Then give me fifty pounds and tell me the nearest way east," answered the convict savagely. "I have not got fifty pounds in the house," protested Mary Goddard, in some alarm. "I never keep much money--I can get it for you--" "I have a great mind to look," returned her husband suspiciously. "How soon can you get it?" "To-morrow night--the time to get a cheque cashed--" "So you keep a banker's account?" "Of course. But a cheque would be of no use to you--I wish it were!" "Naturally you do. You would get rid of me at once." Suddenly his voice changed. "Oh, Mary--you used to love me!" cried the wretched man, burying his face in his hands. "I was very wrong," answered his wife, looking away from him. "You did not deserve it--you never did." "Because I was unfortunate!" "Unfortunate!" repeated Mary Goddard with rising scorn. "Unfortunate--when you were deceiving me every day of your life. I could have forgiven a great deal--Walter--but not that, not that!" "What? About the money?" he asked with sudden fierceness. "The money--no. Even though you were disgraced and convicted, Walter, I would have forgiven that, I would have tried to see you, to comfort you. I should have been sorry for you; I would have done what I could to help you. But I could not forgive you the rest; I never can." "Bah! I never cared for her," said the convict. But under his livid skin there rose a faint blush of shame. "You never cared for me--that is the reason I--am not glad to see you--" "I did, Mary. Upon my soul I did. I love you still!" He rose and came near to his wife, and again he would have put his arm around her. But she sprang to her feet with an angry light in her eyes. "If you dare to touch me, I will give you up!" she cried. Goddard shrank back to his chair, very pale and trembling violently. "You would not do that, Mary," he almost whined. But she remained standing, looking at him very menacingly. "Indeed I would--you don't know me," she said, between her teeth. "You are as hard as a stone," he answered, sullenly, and for some minutes there was silence between them. "I suppose you are going to turn me out into the rain again?" asked the convict. "You cannot stay here--you are not safe for a minute. You will have to go. You must come back to-morrow and I will give you the money. You had better go now--" "Oh, Mary, I would not have thought it of you," moaned Goddard. "Why--what else can I do? I cannot let you sleep in the house--I have no barn. If any one saw you here it would be all over. People know about it--" "What people?" "The vicar and his wife and Mr. Juxon at the Hall." "Mr. Juxon? What is he like? Would he give me up if he knew?" "I think he would," said Mary Goddard, thoughtfully. "I am almost sure he would. He is the justice of the peace here--he would be bound to." "Do you know him?" Goddard thought he detected a slight nervousness in his wife's manner. "Very well. This house belongs to him." "Oh!" ejaculated the convict. "I begin to see." "Yes--you see you had better go," said his wife innocently. "How can you manage to come here tomorrow? You cannot go on without the money--" "No--and I don't mean to," he answered roughly. Money was indeed an absolute necessity to him. "Give me what you have got in the house, anyhow. You may think better of it to-morrow. I don't trust people of your stamp." Mary Goddard rose without a word and left the room. When she was gone the convict set himself to finish the jug of ale she had brought, and looked about him. He saw objects that reminded him of his former home. He examined the fork with which he had eaten and remembered the pattern and the engraved initials as he turned it over in his hand. The very table itself had belonged to his house--the carpet beneath his feet, the chair upon which he sat. It all seemed too unnatural to be true. That very night, that very hour, he must go forth again into the wild February weather and hide himself, leaving all these things behind him; leaving behind too his wife, the woman he had so bitterly injured, but who was still his wife. It seemed impossible. Surely he might stay if he pleased; it was not true that detectives were on his track--it was all a dream, since that dreadful day when he had written that name, which was not his, upon a piece of paper. He had waked up and was again at home. But he started as he heard a footstep in the passage, being now accustomed to start at sounds which suggested pursuit; he started and he felt the wet smock-frock, which was his disguise, clinging to him as he moved, and the reality of the present returned to him with awful force. His wife again entered the room. "There are over nine pounds," she said. "It is all I have." She laid the money upon the table before him and remained standing. "You shall have the rest to-morrow," she added. "Can't I see Nellie?" he asked suddenly. It was the first time he had spoken of his child. Mrs. Goddard hesitated. "No," she said at last. "You cannot see her now. She must not be told; she thinks you are dead. You may catch a glimpse of her to-morrow--" "Well--it is better she should not know, I suppose. You could not explain." "No, Walter, I could not--explain. Come later to-morrow night--to the same window. I will undo the shutters and give you the money." Mary Goddard was almost overcome with exhaustion. It was a terrible struggle to maintain her composure under such circumstances; but necessity does wonders. "Where will you sleep to-night?" she asked presently. She pitied the wretch from her heart, though she longed to see him leave her house. "I will get into the stables of some public-house. I pass for a tramp." There was a terrible earnestness in the simple statement, which did more to make Mary Goddard realise her husband's position than anything else could have done. To people who live in the country the word "tramp" means so much. "Poor Walter!" said Mrs. Goddard softly, and for the first time since she had seen him the tears stood in her eyes. "Don't waste your pity on me," he answered. "Let me be off." There was half a loaf and some cheese left upon the table. Mrs. Goddard put them together and offered them to him. "You had better take it," she said. He took the food readily enough and hid it under his frock. He knew the value of it. Then he got upon his feet. He moved painfully, for the cold and the wet had stiffened his limbs already weakened with hunger and exhaustion. "Let me be off," he said again, and moved towards the door. His wife followed him in silence. In the passage he paused again. "Well, Mary," he said, "I suppose I ought to be grateful to you for not giving me up to the police." "You know very well," answered Mrs. Goddard, "that what I can do to save you, I will do. You know that." "Then do it, and don't forget the money. It's hanging this time if I'm caught." Mrs. Goddard uttered a low cry and leaned against the wall. "What?" she faltered. "You have not--" "I believe I killed somebody in getting away," answered the felon with a grim laugh. Then, without her assistance, he opened the door and went out into the pouring rain. The door shut behind him and Mary Goddard heard his retreating footsteps on the path outside. When he was fairly gone she suddenly broke down, and falling upon her knees in the passage beat her forehead against the wall in an agony of despair. Murderer--thief, forger and murderer, too! It was more than she could bear. Even now he was within a stone's throw of her house; a moment ago he had been here, beside her--there beyond, too, in the dining-room, sitting opposite to her at her own table as he had sat in his days of innocence and honour for many a long year before his crime. In the sudden necessity of acting, in the unutterable surprise of finding herself again face to face with him, she had been calm; now that he was gone she felt as though she must go mad. She asked herself if this filthy tramp, this branded villain, was the husband she had loved and cherished for years, whose beauty she had admired, whose hand she had held so often, whose lips she had kissed--if this was the father of her lovely child. It was all over now. There was blood upon his hands as well as other guilt. If he were caught he must die, or at the very least be imprisoned for life. He could never again be free to come forth after the expiation of his crimes and to claim her and his child. If he escaped now, it must be to live in a distant country under a perpetual disguise. If he were caught, the news of his capture would be in all the papers, the news of his trial for murder, the very details of his execution. The Ambroses would know and the squire, even the country folk, would perhaps at last know the truth about her. Life even in the quiet spot she had chosen would become intolerable, and she would be obliged to go forth again into a more distant exile. She bitterly repented having written to her husband in his prison to tell him where she was settled. It would have been sufficient to acquaint the governor with the fact, so that Goddard might know where she was when his term expired. She had never written but once, and he had perhaps not been allowed to answer the letter. His appearance at her door proved that he had received it. Would to God he had not, she thought. There were other things besides his crime of forgery which had acted far more powerfully upon Mary Goddard's mind, and which had broken for ever all ties of affection; circumstances which had appeared during his trial and which had shown that he had not only been unfaithful to those who trusted him, but had been unfaithful to the wife who loved him. That was what she could not forgive; it was the memory of that which rose like an impassable wall between her and him, worse than his frauds, his forgery, worse almost than his murder. He had done that which even a loving woman could not pardon, that which was past all forgiveness. That was why his sudden appearance roused no tender memories, elicited seemingly so little sympathy from her. She was too good a woman to say it, but she knew in her heart that she wished him dead, the very possibility of ever seeing him again gone from her life for ever, no matter how. But she must see him again, nevertheless, and to-morrow. To-morrow, too, she would have to meet the squire, and appear to act and talk as though nothing had happened in this terrible night. That would be the hardest of all, perhaps; even harder than meeting her husband for a brief moment in order to give him the means of escape. She felt that in helping him she was participating in his crimes, and yet, she asked herself, what woman would have acted differently? What woman, even though she might hate her husband with her whole soul, and justly, would yet be so hard-hearted as to refuse him assistance when he was flying for his life? It would be impossible. She must help him at any cost; but it was hard to feel that she must see the squire and behave with indifference, while her husband was lurking in the neighbourhood, when a detective might at any moment come to the door, and demand to search the house. These thoughts passed very quickly through her overwrought brain, as she knelt in the passage; kneeling because she felt she could no longer stand, the passionate tears streaming down her face, her small hands pressing her temples. Then she struggled to her feet and dried her eyes, steadying herself against the wall for a moment. She had almost forgotten little Nellie whom she had left in the drawing-room. She had told the child, when she went back to her, leaving Goddard alone in the dark, that the man was a poor starving tramp, but that she did not want Nellie to see him, because he looked so miserable. She would give him something to eat and send him away, she said, and meanwhile Nellie should sit by the drawing-room fire and wait for her. The child trusted her mother implicitly and was completely reassured. Mrs. Goddard dried her eyes, and re-entered the room. Nellie was curled up in a big chair with a book; she looked up quickly. "Why, mamma," she said, "you have been crying!" "Have I, darling? I daresay it was the sight of that poor man. He was very wretched." "Is he gone?" asked the child. It was unusually late and Nellie was beginning to be sleepy, so that she was more easily quieted than she could have been in ordinary circumstances. It might have struck her as strange that a wandering tramp should know her mother's Christian name, as still more inexplicable that her mother should have been willing to admit such a man at so late an hour. She had been badly frightened, but trusting her mother as she did, her terror had quickly disappeared and had been quickly followed by sleepiness. But Mrs. Goddard. did not sleep that night. She felt as though she could never sleep again, and for many hours she lay thinking of the new element of fear which had so suddenly come into her life at the very time when she believed herself to be safe for many years to come. She longed to know where her wretched husband was; whether he had found shelter for the night, whether he was still free or whether he had even then fallen into the hands of his pursuers. She knew that she could not have concealed him in the house and that she had done all that lay in her power for him. But she started at every sound, as the rain rattled against the shutters and the wind howled down the chimney. Walter Goddard, however, was safe for the present and was even luxuriously lodged, considering his circumstances, for he was comfortably installed amongst the hay in the barn of the "Feathers" inn. He had been in Billingsfield since early in the afternoon and had considered carefully the question of his quarters for the night. He had observed from a distance the landlord of the said inn, and had boldly offered to do a "day's work for a night's lodging." He said he was "tramping" his way back from London to his home in Yorkshire; he knew enough of the sound of the rough Yorkshire dialect to pass for a native of that county amongst ignorant labourers who had never heard the real tongue. The landlord of the Feathers consented to the bargain and Goddard was told that he might sleep in the barn if he liked, and should take a turn at cutting chaff the next day to pay for the convenience. The convict slept soundly; he was past lying awake in useless fits of remorse, and he was exhausted with his day's journey. Moreover he had now the immediate prospect of obtaining sufficient money to carry him safely out of the country, and once abroad he felt sure of baffling pursuit. He was an accomplished man and spoke French with a fluency unusual in Englishmen; he determined to get across the channel in some fishing craft; he would then make his way to Paris and enlist in the Foreign Legion. It would be safer than trying to go to America, where people were invariably caught as they landed. It was a race for life and death, and he knew it. Had he been able to obtain clothes, money and a disguise in London he would have travelled by rail. But that had been impossible and it now seemed a wiser plan to "tramp" it. His beard was growing rapidly and would soon make a complete disguise. Village constables are generally simple people, easily imposed upon, very different from London detectives; and hitherto he felt sure that he had baffled pursuit by the mere simplicity of his proceedings. The intelligent officials of Scotland Yard were used to forgers and swindlers who travelled by express trains and crossed to America by fashionable steamers. It did not strike them as very likely that a man of Walter Goddard's previous tastes and habits could get through the country in the guise of a tramp. If he had been possessed at the time of his escape of the money he so much desired he would probably have been caught; as it was, he got away without difficulty, and at the very time when every railway station and every port in the kingdom were being watched for him, he was lurking in the purlieus of Whitechapel, and then tramping his way east in comparative safety, half starved, it is true, but unmolested. That he was disappointed at the reception his wife had given him did not prevent him from sleeping peacefully that night. One thing alone disturbed him, and that was her mention of Mr. Juxon, in whose house, as she had told him, she lived. It seems incredible that a man in Walter Goddard's position, lost to every sense of honour, a criminal of the worst type, who had deceived his wife before he was indicted for forgery, who had certainly cared very little for her at any time, should now, in a moment of supreme danger, feel a pang of jealousy on hearing that his wife lived in the vicinity of the squire and occupied a house belonging to him. But he was too bad himself not to suspect others, especially those whom he had wronged, and the feeling was mingled with a strong curiosity to know whether this woman, who now treated him so haughtily and drew back from him as from some monstrous horror, was as good as she pretended to be. He said to himself that on the next day at dawn he would slip out of the barn and try whether he could not find some hiding-place within easy reach of the cottage, so as to be able to watch her dwelling at his ease throughout the day. The plan seemed a good one. Since he was obliged to wait twenty-four hours in order to get the money he wanted, he might as well employ the time profitably in observing his wife's habits. It would be long, he said to himself with a bitter sneer, before he troubled her again--he would just like to see. Having come to this decision he drew some of the hay over his body and in spite of cold and wet was soon peacefully asleep. But at early dawn he awoke with the alacrity of a man who constantly expects pursuit, and slipped down from the hayloft into the barn. There was no one stirring and he got over the fence at the back of the yard and skirted the fields in the direction of the church, finally climbing another stile and entering what he supposed to be the park. On this side the back of the church ran out into a broad meadow, where the larger portion of the ancient abbey had once stood. Goddard walked along close by the church walls. He knew from his observation on the previous afternoon that he could thus come out into the road in the vicinity of the cottage, unless his way through the park were interrupted by impassable wire fences. The ground was very heavy and he was sure not to meet anybody in the meadows in such weather. Suddenly he stopped and looked at a buttress that jutted out from the church and for the existence of which there seemed to be no ostensible reason. He examined it and found that it was not a buttress but apparently a half ruined chamber, which at some former period had been built upon the side of the abbey. Low down by the ground there was a hole, where a few stones seemed to have been removed and not replaced. Goddard knelt down in the long wet grass and put in his head; then he crept in on his hands and knees and presently disappeared. He found himself in a room about ten feet square, dimly lighted by a small window at the top, and surrounded by long horizontal niches. The floor, which was badly broken in some places, was of stone. Goddard examined the place carefully. It was evidently an old vault of the kind formerly built above ground for the lords of the manor; but the coffins, if there had ever been any, had been removed elsewhere. Goddard laughed to himself. "I might stay here for a year, if I could get anything to eat," he said to himself. CHAPTER XIV. The squire had grown used to the position in which he found himself after Mary Goddard had told him her story. He continued his visits as formerly, and it could hardly be said that there was any change in his manner towards her; there was no need of any change, for even at the time when he contemplated making her his wife there had been nothing lover-like in his behaviour. He had been a friend and had treated her with all the respect due to a lonely lady who was his tenant, and even with a certain formality which had sometimes seemed unnecessary. But though there was no apparent alteration in his mode of talking, in his habit of bringing her flowers and books and of looking after the condition of the cottage, both she and he were perfectly conscious of the fact that they understood each other much better than before. They were united by the common bond of a common secret which very closely concerned one of them. Things were not as they had formerly been. Mrs. Goddard no longer felt that she had anything to hide; the squire knew that he no longer had anything to hope. If he had been a selfish man, if she had been a less sensible woman, their friendship might have ended then and there. But Mr. Juxon was not selfish, and Mary Goddard did not lack good sense. Having ascertained that in the ordinary course of events there was no possibility of ever marrying her, the squire did not at once give her over and go elsewhere; on the contrary he showed himself more desirous than ever of assisting her and amusing her. He was a patient man; his day might come yet, if Goddard died. It did not follow that if he could not marry Mrs. Goddard he must needs marry some one else; for it was not a wife that he sought, but the companionship of this particular woman as his wife. If he could not marry he could still enjoy at least a portion of that companionship, by visiting her daily and talking with her, and making himself a part of her life. He judged things very coldly and lost himself in no lofty flights of imagination. It was better that he should enjoy what fell in his way in at least seeing Mrs. Goddard and possessing her friendship, than that he should go out of his course in order to marry merely for the sake of marrying. He had seen so much of the active side of life that he was well prepared to revel in the peace which had fallen to his lot. He cared little whether he left an heir to the park; there were others of the name, and since the park had furnished matter for litigation during forty years before he came into possession of it, it might supply the lawyers with fees for forty years more after his death, for all he cared. It would have been very desirable to marry Mrs. Goddard if it had been possible, but since the thing could not be done at present it was best to submit with a good grace. Since the day when his suit had suddenly come to grief in the discovery of her real position, Mr. Juxon had philosophically said to himself that he had perhaps been premature in making his proposal, and that it was as well that it could not have been accepted; perhaps she would not have made him a good wife; perhaps he had deceived himself in thinking that because he liked her and desired her friendship he really wished to marry her; perhaps all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds, after all and in spite of all. But these reflections, which tended to soothe the squire's annoyance at the failure of a scheme which he had contemplated with so much delight, did not prevent him from feeling the most sincere sympathy for Mrs. Goddard, nor from constantly wishing that he could devise some plan for helping her. She seemed never to have thought of divorcing herself from her husband. The squire was not sure whether such a thing were possible; he doubted it, and promised himself that he would get a lawyer's opinion upon the matter. He believed that English law did not grant divorces on account of the husband's being sentenced to any limited period of penal servitude. But in any case it would be a very delicate subject to approach, and Mr. Juxon amused himself by constructing conversations in his mind which should lead up to this point without wounding poor Mrs. Goddard's sensibilities. He was the kindest of men; he would not for worlds have said a word which should recall to her that memorable day when she had told him her story. And yet it would be quite impossible to broach such a scheme without going at once into all the details of the chief cause of her sorrows. The consequence was that in the windings of his imagination the squire found himself perpetually turning in a vicious circle; but since the exercise concerned Mrs. Goddard and her welfare it was not uncongenial. He founded all his vague hopes upon one expression she had used. When in making his proposal he had spoken of her as being a widow, she had said, "Would to God that I were!" She had said it with such vehemence that he had felt sure that if she had indeed been a widow her answer to himself would have been favourable. Men easily retain such impressions received in moments of great excitement, and found hopes upon them. So the days had gone by and the squire had thought much but had come to no conclusion. On the morning when Walter Goddard crept into the disused vault at the back of the church, the squire awoke from his sleep at his usual early hour. He was not in a very good humour, if so equable a man could be said to be subject to such weaknesses as humours. The weather was very depressing--day after day brought only more rain, more wind, more mud, more of everything disagreeable. The previous evening had been unusually dull. He was never weary of being with Mary Goddard, but occasionally, when the Ambroses were present, the conversation became oppressive. Mr. Juxon almost wished that John Short would come back and cause a diversion. His views concerning John had undergone some change since he had discovered that nobody could marry Mrs. Goddard because she was married already. He believed he could watch John's efforts to attract her attention with indifference now, or if without indifference with a charitable forbearance. John at least would help to make conversation, and the conversation on the previous evening had been intolerably wearisome. Almost unconsciously, since the chief interest and hope of his daily life had been removed the squire began to long for a change; he had been a wanderer by profession during thirty years of his life and he was perhaps not yet old enough to settle into that absolute indifference to novelty which seems to characterise retired sailors. But as he brushed his smooth hair and combed his beard that morning, neither change nor excitement were very far from him. He looked over his dressing-glass at the leafless oaks of the park, at the grey sky and the driving rain and he wished something would happen. He wished somebody might die and leave a great library to be sold, that he might indulge his favourite passion; he wished he had somebody stopping in the Hall--he almost decided to send and ask the vicar to come to lunch and have a day among the books. As he entered the breakfast-room at precisely half-past eight o'clock, according to his wont, the butler informed him that Mr. Gall, the village constable, was below and wanted to see him after breakfast. He received the news in silence and sat down to eat his breakfast and read the morning paper. Gall had probably come about some petty summons, or to ask what he should do about the small boys who threw stones at the rooks and broke the church windows. After finishing his meal and his paper in the leisurely manner peculiar to country gentlemen who have nothing to do, the squire rang the bell, sent for the policeman and went into his study, a small room adjoining the library. Thomas Gall, constable, was a tall fair man with a mild eye and a cheerful face. Goodwill towards men and plentiful good living had done their work in eradicating from the good man all that stern element which might have been most useful to him in his career, not to say useful to the State. Each rolling year was pricked in his leathern belt with a new hole as his heart grew more peaceful and his body throve. He had a goodly girth and weighed full fifteen stone in his uniform; his mild blue eye had inspired confidence in a maiden of Billingsfield parish and Mrs. Gall was now rearing a numerous family of little Galls, all perhaps destined to become mild-eyed and portly village constables in their turn. The squire, who was not destitute of a sense of humour, never thought of Mr. Gall without a smile, so much out of keeping did the man's occupation seem with his jovial humour. Mr. Gall, he said, was the kind of policeman who would bribe a refractory tramp to move on by the present of a pint of beer. But Gall had a good point. He was very proud of his profession, and in the exercise of it he showed a discretion which, if it was the better part of his valour, argued unlimited natural courage. It was a secret profession, he was wont to say, and a man who could not keep a secret would never do for a constable. He shrouded his ways in an amiable mystery and walked a solitary beat on fine nights; when the nights were not fine there was nobody to see whether he walked his beat or not. Probably, he faithfully fulfilled his obligations; but his constitution seemed to bear exposure to the weather wonderfully well. Whether he ever saw anything worth mentioning upon those lonely walks of his, is uncertain; at all events he never mentioned anything he saw, unless it was in the secrecy of the reports he was supposed to transmit from time to time to his superiors. On the present occasion as he entered the study, the squire observed with surprise that he looked grave. He had never witnessed such a phenomenon before and argued that it was just possible that something of real importance might have occurred. "Good morning, sir," said Mr. Gall, approaching the squire respectfully, after carefully closing the door behind him. "Good morning, Gall. Nothing wrong, I hope?" "Not yet, sir. I hope not, sir. Only a little matter of business, Mr. Juxon. In point of fact, sir, I wished to consult you." "Yes," said the squire who was used to the constable's method of circumlocution. "Yes--what is it?" "Well, sir--it's this," said the policeman, running his thumb round the inside of his belt as though to test the pressure, and clearing his throat. "There has been a general order sent down to be on the lookout, sir. So I thought it would be best to take your opinion." "My opinion," said the squire with great gravity, "is that if you are directed to be on the look-out, you should be on the look-out; by all means. What are you to be on the look-out for?" "In point of fact, sir," said the constable, lowering his voice, "we are informed that a criminal has escaped from Portland. I never heard of a convict getting out of that strong'old o' the law, sir, and I would like to have your opinion upon it." "But if you are informed that some one has escaped," remarked the squire, "you had better take it for granted that it is true." "Juss so, sir. But the circumstances wasn't communicated to us, sir; so we don't know." Mr. Gall paused, and the squire smoothed his hair a little. "Well, Gall," said Mr. Juxon, "have you any reason for believing that this escaped convict is likely to come this way?" "Well sir, there is some evidence," answered the policeman, mysteriously. "Leastways what seems like evidence to me, sir." "Of what kind?" the squire fixed his quiet eyes on Mr. Gall's face. "His name, sir. The name of the convict. There is a party of that name residin' here." The squire suddenly guessed what was coming, or at least a possibility of it crossed his mind. If Mr. Gall had been a more observant man he would have seen that Mr. Juxon grew a shade paler and changed one leg over the other as he sat. But in that moment he had time to nerve himself for the worst. "And what is the name, if you please?" he asked calmly. "The name in the general orders is Goddard, sir--Walter Goddard. He was convicted of forgery three years ago, sir, a regular bad lot. But discretion is recommended in the orders, sir, as the business is not wanted to get into the papers." The squire was ready. If Gall did not know that Mary Goddard was the wife of the convict Walter, he should certainly not find it out. In any other country of Europe that would have been the first fact communicated to the local police. Very likely, thought Mr. Juxon, nobody knew it. "I do not see," he said very slowly, "that the fact of there being a Mrs. Goddard residing here in the least proves that she is any relation to this criminal. The name is not so uncommon as that, you know." "Nor I either, sir. In point of fact, sir, I was only thinking. It's what you may call a striking coincidence, that's all." "It would have been a still more striking coincidence if his name had been Juxon like mine, or Ambrose like the vicar's," said the squire calmly. "There are other people of the name in England, and the local policemen will be warned to be on the lookout. If this fellow was called Juxon instead of Goddard, Gall, would you be inclined to think he was a relation of mine?" "Oh no, sir. Ha! ha! Very good sir! Very good indeed! No indeed, sir, and she such a real lady too!" "Well then, I do not see that you can do anything more than keep a sharp look-out. I suppose they sent you some kind of description?" "Well, yes. There was a kind of a description as you say, sir, but I'm not anyways sure of recognising the party by it. In point of fact, sir, the description says the convict is a fair man." "Is that all?" "Neither particular tall, nor yet particular short, sir. Not a very big 'un nor a very little 'un, sir. In point of fact, sir, a fair man. Clean shaved and close cropped he is, sir, being a criminal." "I hope you may recognise him by that account," said the squire, suppressing a smile. "I don't believe I should." "Well, sir, it does say as he's a fair man," remarked the constable. "Supposing he blacked his face and passed for a chimney-sweep?" suggested the squire. The idea seemed to unsettle Gall's views. "In that case, sir, I don't know as I should know him, for certain," he answered. "Probably not--probably not, Gall. And judging from the account they have sent you I don't think you would be to blame." "Leastways it can't be said as I've failed to carry out superior instructions," replied Mr. Gall, proudly. "Then it's your opinion, sir, that I'd better keep a sharp look-out? Did I understand you to say so, sir?" "Quite so," returned the squire with great calmness. "By all means keep a sharp look-out, and be careful to be discreet, as the orders instruct you." "You may trust me for that, sir," said the policeman, who dearly loved the idea of mysterious importance. "Then I wish you good morning, sir." He prepared to go. "Good morning, Gall--good morning. The butler will give you some ale." Again Mr. Gall passed his thumb round the inside of his belt, testing the local pressure in anticipation of a pint. He made a sort of half-military salute at the door and went out. When the squire was alone he rose from his chair and paced the room, giving way to the agitation he had concealed in the presence of the constable. He was very much disturbed at the news of Goddard's escape, as well he might be. Not that he was aware that the convict knew of his wife's whereabouts; he did not even suppose that Goddard could ascertain for some time where she was living, still less that he would boldly present himself in Billingsfield. But it was bad enough to know that the man was again at large. So long as he was safely lodged in prison, Mrs. Goddard was herself safe; but if once he regained his liberty and baffled the police he would certainly end by finding out Mary's address and there was no telling to what annoyance, to what danger, to what sufferings she might be exposed. Here was a new interest, indeed, and one which promised to afford the squire occupation until the fellow was caught. Mr. Juxon knew that he was right in putting the policeman off the track in regard to Mrs. Goddard. He himself was a better detective than Gall, for he went daily to the cottage and if anything was wrong there, was quite sure to discover it. If Goddard ever made his way to Billingsfield it could only be for the purpose of seeing his wife, and if he succeeded in this, Mrs. Goddard could not conceal it from the squire. She was a nervous woman who could not hide her emotions; she would find herself in a terrible difficulty and she would perhaps turn to her friend for assistance. If Mr. Juxon could lay his hands on Goddard, he flattered himself he was much more able to arrest a desperate man than mild-eyed Policeman Gall. He had not been at sea for thirty years in vain, and in his time he had handled many a rough customer. He debated however upon the course he should pursue. As in his opinion it was unlikely that Goddard would find out his wife for some time, and improbable that he would waste such precious time in looking for her, it seemed far from advisable to warn her that the felon had escaped. On the other hand he mistrusted his own judgment; if she were not prepared it was just possible that the man should come upon her unawares, and the shock of seeing him might be very much worse than the shock of being told that he was at large. He might consult the vicar. At first, the old feeling that it would be disloyal to Mrs. Goddard even to hint to Mr. Ambrose that he was acquainted with her story withheld him from pursuing such a course. But as he turned the matter over in his mind it seemed to him that since it was directly for her good, he would now be justified in speaking. He liked the vicar and he trusted him. He knew that the vicar had been a good friend to Mrs. Goddard and that he would stand by her in any difficulty so far as he might be able. The real question was how to make sure that the vicar should not tell his wife. If Mrs. Ambrose had the least suspicion that anything unusual was occurring, she would naturally try and extract information from her husband, and she would probably be successful; women, the squire thought, very generally succeed in operations of that kind. But if once Mr. Ambrose could be consulted without arousing his wife's suspicions, he was a man to be trusted. Thereupon Mr. Juxon wrote a note to the vicar, saying that he had something of great interest to show him, and begging that, if not otherwise engaged, he would come up to the Hall to lunch. When he had despatched his messenger, being a man of his word, he went into the library to hunt for some rare volume or manuscript which the vicar had not yet seen, and which might account in a spirit of rigid veracity for the excuse he had given. Meanwhile, as he turned over his rare and curious folios he debated further upon his conduct; but having once made up his mind to consult Mr. Ambrose, he determined to tell him boldly what had occurred, after receiving from him a promise of secrecy. The messenger brought back word that the vicar would be delighted to come, and at the hour named the sound of wheels upon the gravel announced the arrival of Strawberry, the old mare, drawing behind her the vicar and his aged henchman, Reynolds, in the traditional vicarage dogcart. A moment later the vicar entered the library. "I am very glad to see you, Mr. Ambrose," said the squire inhospitable tones. "I have something to show you and I have something to say to you." The two shook hands heartily. Independently of kindred scholarly tastes, they were sympathetic to each other and were always glad to meet. "It is just the weather for bookworms," answered the vicar in cheerful tones. "Dear me, I never come here without envying you and wishing that life were one long rainy afternoon." "You know I am inclined to think I am rather an enviable person," said Mr. Juxon, slowly passing his hand over his glossy hair and leading his guest towards a large table near the fire. Several volumes lay together upon the polished mahogany. The squire laid his hand on one of them. "I have not deceived you," he said. "That is a very interesting volume. It is the black letter Paracelsus I once spoke of. I have succeeded in getting it at last." "Dear me! What a piece of fortune!" said Mr. Ambrose bending down until his formidable nose almost touched the ancient page. "Yes," said the squire, "uncommonly lucky as usual. Now, excuse my abruptness in changing the subject--I want to consult you upon an important matter." The vicar looked up quickly with that vague, faraway expression which comes into the eyes of a student when he is suddenly called away from contemplating some object of absorbing interest. "Certainly," he said, "certainly--a--by all means." "It is about Mrs. Goddard," said the squire, looking hard at his visitor. "Of course it is between ourselves," he added. The vicar's long upper lip descended upon its fellow and he bent his rough grey eyebrows, returning Mr. Juxon's sharp look with interest. He could not imagine what the squire could have to say about Mrs. Goddard, unless, like poor John, he had fallen in love with her and wanted to marry her; which appeared improbable. "What is it?" he said sharply. "I daresay you do not know that I am acquainted with her story," began Mr. Juxon. "Do not be surprised. She saw fit to tell it me herself." "Indeed?" exclaimed the vicar in considerable astonishment. In that case, he argued quickly, Mr. Juxon was not thinking of marrying her. "Yes--it is not necessary to go into that," said Mr. Juxon quickly. "The thing I want to tell you is this--Goddard the forger has escaped--" "Escaped?" echoed the vicar in real alarm. "You don't mean to say so!" "Gall the constable came here this morning," continued Mr. Juxon. "He told me that there were general orders out for his arrest." "How in the world did he get out?" cried the vicar. "I thought nobody was ever known to escape from Portland!" "So did I. But this fellow has--somehow. Gall did not know. Now, the question is, what is to be done?" "I am sure I don't know," returned the vicar, thrusting his hands into his pockets and marching to the window, the wide skirts of his coat seeming to wave with agitation as he walked. Mr. Juxon also put his hands into his pockets, but he stood still upon the hearth-rug and looked at the ceiling, softly whistling a little tune, a habit he had in moments of great anxiety. For three or four minutes neither of the two spoke. "Would you tell Mrs. Goddard--or not?" asked Mr. Juxon at last. "I don't know," said the vicar. "I am amazed beyond measure." He turned and slowly came back to the table. "I don't know either," replied the squire. "That is precisely the point upon which I think we ought to decide. I have known about the story for some time, but I did not anticipate that it would take this turn." "I think," said Mr. Ambrose after another pause, "I think that if there is any likelihood of the fellow finding her out, we ought to tell her. If not I think we had better wait until he is caught. He is sure to be caught, of course." "I entirely agree with you," returned Mr. Juxon. "Only--how on earth are we to find out whether he is likely to come here or not? If any one knows where he is, he is as good as caught already. If nobody knows, we can certainly have no means of telling." The argument was unanswerable. Again there was a long silence. The vicar walked about the room in great perplexity. "Dear me! Dear me! What a terrible business!" he repeated, over and over again. "Do you think we are called upon to do anything?" he asked at last, stopping in his walk immediately in front of Mr. Juxon. "If we can do anything to save Mrs. Goddard from annoyance or further trouble, we are undoubtedly called upon to do it," replied the squire. "If that wretch finds her out, he will try to break into the cottage at night and force her to give him money." "Do you really think so? Dear me! I hope he will do no such thing!" "So do I, I am sure," said Mr. Juxon, with a grim smile. "But if he finds her out, he will. I almost think it would be better to tell her in any case." "But think of the anxiety she will be in until he is caught!" cried the vicar. "She will be expecting him every day--every night. Well--I suppose we might tell Gall to watch the house." "That will not do," said Mr. Juxon firmly. "It would be a great injustice to allow Gall or any of the people in the village to know anything about her. She might be subjected to all kinds of insult. You know what these people are. A 'real lady,' who is at the same time the wife of a convict, is a thing they can hardly understand. I am sure both you and I secretly flatter ourselves that we have shown an unusual amount of good sense and generosity in understanding her position as we do." "I daresay we do," said the vicar with a smile. He was too honest to deny it. "Indeed it took me some time to get used to the idea myself." "Precisely. The village people would never get used to it. Of all things to do, we should certainly not tell Gall, who is an old woman and a great chatterbox. I wish you could have heard his statement this morning--it filled me with admiration for the local police, I assure you. But--I think it would be better to tell her. I did not think so before you came, I believe. But talking always brings the truth out." The vicar hesitated, rising and falling upon his toes and heels in profound thought, after his manner. "I daresay you are right," he said at last. "Will you do it? Or shall I?" "I would rather not," said the squire, thoughtfully. "You know her better, you have known her much longer than I." "But she will ask me where I heard of it," objected the vicar. "I shall be obliged to say that you told me. That will be as bad as though you told her yourself." "You need not say you heard it from me. You can say that Gall has received instructions to look out for Goddard. She will not question you any further, I am sure." "I would much rather that you told her, Mr. Juxon," said the vicar. "I would much rather that you told her, Mr. Ambrose," said the squire, almost in the same breath. Both laughed a little. "Not that I would not do it at once, if necessary," added Mr. Juxon. "Or I, in a moment," said Mr. Ambrose. "Of course," returned Mr. Juxon. "Only it is such a very delicate matter, you see." "Dear me, yes," murmured the vicar, "a most delicate matter. Poor lady!" "Poor lady!" echoed the squire. "But I suppose it must be done." "Oh yes--we cannot do otherwise," answered Mr. Ambrose, still hoping that his companion would volunteer to perform the disagreeable office. "Well then, will you--will you do it?" asked Mr. Juxon, anxious to have the matter decided. "Why not go together?" suggested the vicar. "No," said Mr. Juxon firmly. "It would be an intolerable ordeal for the poor woman. I think I see your objection. Perhaps you think that Mrs. Ambrose--" "Exactly, Mrs. Ambrose," echoed the vicar with a grim smile. "Oh precisely--then I will do it," said the squire. And he forthwith did, and was very much surprised at the result. CHAPTER XV. It was late in the afternoon when Mr. Juxon walked down towards the cottage, accompanied by the vicar. In spite of their mutual anxiety to be of service to Mrs. Goddard, when they had once decided how to act they had easily fallen into conversation about other matters, the black letter Paracelsus had received its full share of attention and many another rare volume had been brought out and examined. Neither the vicar nor his host believed that there was any hurry; if Goddard ever succeeded in getting to Billingsfield it would not be to-day, nor to-morrow either. The weather had suddenly changed; the east was already clear and over the west, where the sun was setting in a fiery mist, the huge clouds were banked up against the bright sky, fringed with red and purple, but no longer threatening rain or snow. The air was sharp and the plentiful mud in the roads was already crusted with a brittle casing of ice. The squire took leave of Mr. Ambrose at the turning where the road led into the village and then walked back to the cottage. Even his solid nerves were a little unsettled at the prospect of the interview before him; but he kept a stout heart and asked for Mrs. Goddard in his usual quiet voice. Martha told him that Mrs. Goddard had a bad headache, but on inquiry found that she would see the squire. He entered the drawing-room softly and went forward to greet her; she was sitting in a deep chair propped by cushions. Mary Goddard had spent a miserable day. The grey morning light seemed to reveal her troubles and fears in a new and more terrible aspect. During the long hours of darkness it seemed as though those things were mercifully hidden which the strong glare of day must inevitably reveal, and when the night was fairly past she thought all the world must surely know that Walter Goddard had escaped and that his wife had seen him. Hourly she expected a ringing at the bell, announcing the visit of a party of detectives on his track; every sound startled her and her nerves were strung to such a pitch that she heard with supernatural acuteness. She had indeed two separate causes for fear. The one was due to her anxiety for Goddard's safety; the other to her apprehensions for Nellie. She had long determined that at all hazards the child must be kept from the knowledge of her father's disgrace, by being made to believe in his death. It was a falsehood indeed, but such a falsehood as may surely be forgiven to a woman as unhappy as Mary Goddard. It seemed monstrous that the innocent child, who seemed not even to have inherited her father's looks or temper, should be brought up with the perpetual sense of her disgrace before her, should be forced to listen to explanations of her father's crimes and tutored to the comprehension of an inherited shame. From the first Mary Goddard had concealed the whole matter from the little girl, and when Walter was at last convicted, she had told her that her father was dead. Dead he might be, she thought, before twelve years were out, and Nellie would be none the wiser. In twelve years from the time of his conviction Nellie would be in her twenty-first year; if it were ever necessary to tell her, it would be time enough then, for the girl would have at least enjoyed her youth, free of care and of the horrible consciousness of a great crime hanging over her head. No child could grow up in such a state as that implied. No mind could develop healthily under the perpetual pressure of so hideous a secret; from her earliest childhood her impressions would be warped, her imagination darkened and her mental growth stunted. It would be a great cruelty to tell her the truth; it was a great mercy to tell her the falsehood. It was no selfish timidity which had prompted Mary Goddard, but a carefully weighed consideration for the welfare of her child. If now, within these twenty-four hours, Nellie should discover who the poor tramp was, who had frightened her so much on the previous evening, all this would be at an end. The child's life would be made desolate for ever. She would never recover from the shock, and to injure lovely Nellie so bitterly would be worse to Mary Goddard than to be obliged to bear the sharpest suffering herself. For, from the day when she had waked to a comprehension of her husband's baseness, the love for her child had taken in her breast the place of the love for Walter. She did not think connectedly; she did not realise her fears; she was almost wholly unstrung. But she had procured the fifty pounds her husband required and she waited for the night with a dull hope that all might yet be well--as well as anything so horrible could be. If only her husband were not caught in Billingsfield it would not be so bad, perhaps. And yet it may be that her wisest course would have been to betray him that very night. Many just men would have said so; but there are few women who would do it. There are few indeed, so stonyhearted as to betray a man once loved in such a case; and Mary Goddard in her wildest fear never dreamed of giving up the fugitive. She sat all day in her chair, wishing that the day were over, praying that she might be spared any further suffering or that at least it might be spared to her child whom she so loved. She had sent Nellie down to the vicarage with Martha. Mrs. Ambrose loved Nellie better than she loved Nellie's mother, and there was a standing invitation for her to spend the afternoons at the vicarage. Nellie said her mother had a terrible headache and wanted to be alone. But when the squire came Mrs. Goddard thought it wiser to see him. She had, of course, no intention of confiding to him an account of the events of the previous night, but she felt that if she could talk to him for half an hour she would be stronger. He was himself so strong and honest that he inspired her with courage. She knew, also, that if she were driven to the extremity of confiding in any one she would choose Mr. Juxon rather than Mr. Ambrose. The vicar had been her first friend and she owed him much; but the squire had won her confidence by his noble generosity after she had told him her story. She said to herself that he was more of a man than the vicar. And now he had come to her at the time of her greatest distress, and she was glad to see him. Mr. Juxon entered the room softly, feeling that he was in the presence of a sick person. Mrs. Goddard turned her pathetic face towards him and held out her hand. "I am so glad to see you," she said, trying to seem cheerful. "I fear you are ill, Mrs. Goddard," answered the squire, looking at her anxiously and then seating himself by her side. "Martha told me you had a headache--I hope it is not serious." "Oh no--not serious. Only a headache," she said with a smile so unlike her own that Mr. Juxon began to feel nervous. His resolution to tell her his errand began to waver; it seemed cruel, he thought, to disturb a person who was evidently so ill with a matter so serious. He remembered that she had almost fainted on a previous occasion when she had spoken to him of her husband. She had not been ill then; there was no knowing what the effect of a shock to her nerves might be at present. He sat still in silence for some moments, twisting his hat upon his knee. "Do not be disturbed about me," said Mrs. Goddard presently. "It will pass very quickly. I shall be quite well to-morrow--I hope," she added with a shudder. "I am very much disturbed about you," returned Mr. Juxon in an unusually grave tone. Mrs. Goddard looked at him quickly, and was surprised when she saw the expression on his face. He looked sad, and at the same time perplexed. "Oh, pray don't be!" she exclaimed as though deprecating further remark upon her ill health. "I wish I knew," said the squire with some hesitation, "whether--whether you are really very ill. I mean, of course, I know you have a bad headache, a very bad headache, as I can see. But--indeed, Mrs. Goddard, I have something of importance to say." "Something of importance?" she repeated, staring hard at him. "Yes--but it will keep till to-morrow, if you would rather not hear it now," he replied, looking at her doubtfully. "I would rather hear it now," she answered after some seconds of silence. Her heart beat fast. "You were good enough some time ago to tell me about--Mr. Goddard," began Mr. Juxon in woeful trepidation. "Yes," answered his companion under her breath. Her hands were clasped tightly together upon her knees and her eyes sought the squire's anxiously and then looked away again in fear. "Well, it is about him," continued Mr. Juxon in a gentle voice. "Would you rather put it off? It is--well, rather startling." Mrs. Goddard closed her eyes, like a person expecting to suffer some terrible pain. She thought Mr. Juxon was going to tell her that Walter had been captured in the village. "Mr. Goddard has escaped," said the squire, making a bold plunge with the whole truth. The sick lady trembled violently, and unclasping her hands laid them upon the arms of her chair as though to steady herself to bear the worse shock to come. But Mr. Juxon was silent. He had told her all he knew. "Yes," she said faintly. "Is there anything--anything more?" Her voice was barely audible in the still and dusky room. "No--except that, of course, there are orders out for his arrest, all over the country." "He has not been arrested yet?" asked Mrs. Goddard. She had expected to hear that he was caught; she thought the squire was trying to break the shock of the news. Her courage rose a little now. "No, he is not arrested--but I have no doubt he soon will be," added Mr. Juxon in a tone intended to convey encouragement. "How did you hear this?" "Gall the policeman, told me this morning. I--I am afraid I have something else to confess to you, Mrs. Goddard, I trust you will not--" "What?" she asked so suddenly as to startle him. Walter might have been heard of in the neighbourhood, perhaps. "I think I was right," continued Mr. Juxon. "I hope you will forgive me. It does not seem quite loyal, but I did not know what to do. I consulted the vicar as to whether we should tell you." "The vicar? What did he say?" Again Mrs. Goddard felt relieved. "He quite agreed with me," answered the squire. "You see we feared that Mr. Goddard might find his way here and come upon you suddenly. We thought you would be terribly pained and startled." Mrs. Goddard could almost have laughed at that moment. The excellent man had taken all this trouble in order to save her from the very thing which had already occurred on the previous night. There was a bitter humour in the situation, in the squire's kind-hearted way of breaking to her that news which she already knew so well, in his willingness to put off telling her until the morrow. What would Mr. Juxon say, could he guess that she had herself already spoken with her husband and had promised to see him again that very night! Forgetting that his last words required an answer, she leaned back in her chair and again folded her hands before her. Her eyes were half closed and from beneath the drooping lids she gazed through the gathering gloom at the squire's anxious face. "I hope you think I did right," said the latter in considerable doubt. "Quite right. I think you were both very kind to think of me as you did," said she. "I am sure, I always think of you," answered Mr. Juxon simply. "I hope that this thing will have no further consequences. Of course, until we know of Mr. Goddard's whereabouts we shall feel very anxious. It seems probable that if he can get here unobserved he will do so. He will probably ask you for some money." "Do you really think he could get here at all?" asked Mrs. Goddard. She wanted to hear what he would say, for she thought she might judge from his words whether her husband ran any great risk. "Oh no," replied the squire. "I think it is very improbable. I fear this news has sadly disturbed you, Mrs. Goddard, but let us hope all may turn out for the best." Indeed he thought she showed very little surprise, though she had evidently been much moved. Perhaps she had been accustomed to expect that her husband might one day escape. She was ill, too, and her nerves were unstrung, he supposed. She had really passed through a very violent emotion, but it had not been caused by her surprise, but by her momentary fear for the fugitive, instantly allayed by Mr. Juxon's explanation. She felt that for to-day at least Walter was safe, and by to-morrow he would be safe out of the neighbourhood. But she reflected that it was necessary to say something; that if she appeared to receive the news too indifferently the squire's suspicions might be aroused with fatal results. "It is a terrible thing," she said presently. "You see I am not at all myself." It was not easy for her to act a part. The words were commonplace. "No," said Mr. Juxon, "I see you are not." He on his part, instead of looking for a stronger expression of fear or astonishment, was now only too glad that she should be so calm. "Would you advise me to do anything?" she asked presently. "There is nothing to be done," he answered quickly, glad of a chance to relieve the embarrassment of the situation. "Of course we might put you under the protection of the police but--what is the matter, Mrs. Goddard?" She had started as though in pain. "Only this dreadful headache," she said. "Go on please." "Well, we might set Gall the policeman to watch your house; but that would be very unpleasant for you. It would be like telling him and all the village people of your situation--" "Oh don't! Please don't!" "No, certainly not. I think it very unwise. Besides--" he stopped short. He was about to say that he felt much better able to watch over Mrs. Goddard himself than Gall the constable could possibly be; but he checked himself in time. "Besides--what?" she asked. "Nothing--Gall is not much of a policeman, that is all. I do not believe you would be any the safer for his protection. But you must promise me, my dear Mrs. Goddard, that if anything occurs you will let me know. I may be of some assistance." "Thank you, so much," said she. "You are always so kind!" "Not at all. I am very glad if you think I was right to tell you about it." "Oh, quite right," she answered. "And now, Mr. Juxon, I am really not at all well. All this has quite unnerved me--" "You want me to go?" said the squire smiling kindly as he rose. "Yes, I understand. Well, good-bye, my dear friend--I hope everything will clear up." "Good-bye. Thank you again. You always do understand me," she answered giving him her small cold hand. "Don't think me ungrateful," she added, looking up into his eyes. "No indeed--not that there is anything to be grateful for." In a moment more he was gone, feeling that he had done his duty like a man, and that it had not been so hard after all. He was glad it was done, however, and he felt that he could face the vicar with a bold front at their next meeting. He went quickly down the path and crossed the road to his own gate with a light step. As he entered the park he was not aware of a wretched-looking tramp who slouched along the quickset hedge and watched his retreating figure far up the avenue, till he was out of sight among the leafless trees. If Stamboul had been with the squire the tramp would certainly not have passed unnoticed; but for some days the roads had been so muddy that Stamboul had been left behind when Mr. Juxon made his visits to the cottage, lest the great hound should track the mud into the spotless precincts of the passage. The tramp stood still and looked after the squire so long as he could see him, and then slunk off across the wet meadows, where the standing water was now skimmed with ice. Walter Goddard had spent the day in watching for the squire and he had seen him at last. He had seen him go down the road with the vicar till they were both out of sight, and he had seen him come back and enter the cottage. This proceeding, he argued, betrayed that the squire did not wish to be seen going into Mary's house by the vicar. The tortuous intelligences of bad men easily impute to others courses which they themselves would naturally pursue. Three words on the previous evening had sufficed to rouse the convict's jealousy. What he saw to-day confirmed his suspicions. The gentleman in knickerbockers could be no other than the squire himself, of course. He was evidently in the habit of visiting Mary Goddard and he did not wish his visits to be observed by the clergyman, who was of course the vicar or rector of the parish. That proved conclusively in the fugitive's mind that there was something wrong. He ground his teeth together and said to himself that it would be worth while to run some risk in order to stop that little game, as he expressed it. He had, as he himself had confessed to his wife, murdered one man in escaping; a man, he reflected, could only hang once, and if he had not been taken in the streets of London he was not likely to be caught in the high street of Billingsfield, Essex. It would be a great satisfaction to knock the squire on the head before he went any farther. Moreover he had found a wonderfully safe retreat in the disused vault at the back of the church. He discovered loose stones inside the place which he could pile up against the low hole which served for an entrance. Probably no one knew that there was any entrance at all--the very existence of the vault was most likely forgotten. It was not a cheerful place, but Goddard's nerves were excited to a pitch far beyond the reach of supernatural fears. Whatever he might be condemned to feel in the future, his conscience troubled him very little in the present. The vault was comparatively dry and was in every way preferable, as a resting-place for one night, to the interior of a mouldy haystack in the open fields. He did not dare show himself again at the "Feathers" inn, lest he should be held to do the day's work he had promised in payment for his night in the barn. All that morning and afternoon he had lain hidden in the quickset hedge near the park gate, within sight of the cottage, and he had been rewarded. The food he had taken with him the night before had sufficed him and he had quenched his thirst with rain-water from the ditch. Having seen that the squire went back towards the Hall, Goddard slunk away to his hiding-place to wait for the night. He lay down as best he might, and listened for the hours and half-hours as the church clock tolled them out from the lofty tower above. Mary Goddard had told him to come later than before, and it was after half-past ten when he tapped upon the shutter of the little drawing-room. All was dark within, and he held his breath as he stood among the wet creepers, listening intently for the sound of his wife's coming. Presently the glass window inside was opened. "Is that you?" asked Mary's voice in a tremulous whisper. "Yes," he answered. "Let me in." Then the shutter was cautiously unfastened and opened a little and in the dim starlight Goddard recognised his wife's pale face. Her hand went out to him, with something in it. "There is the money," she whispered. "Go as quickly as you can. They are looking for you--there are orders out to arrest you." Goddard seized her fingers and took the money. She would have withdrawn her hand but he held it firmly. "Who told you that they were after me?" he asked in a fierce whisper. "Mr. Juxon--let me go." "Mr. Juxon!" The convict uttered a rough oath. "Your friend Mr. Juxon, eh? He is after me, is he? Tell him--" "Hush, hush!" she whispered. "He has no idea you are here--" "I should think not," muttered Walter. "He would not be sneaking in here on the sly to see you if he knew I were about!" "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "Oh, Walter, let me go--you hurt me so!" He held her fingers as in a vice. "Hurt you! I wish I could strangle you and him too! Ha, you thought I was not looking this afternoon when he came! He went to the corner of the road with the parson, and when the parson was out of sight he came back! I saw you!" "You saw nothing!" answered his wife desperately. "How can you say so! If you knew how kind he has been, what a loyal gentleman he is, you would not dare to say such things." "You used to say I was a loyal gentleman, Mary," retorted the convict. "I daresay he is of the same stamp as I. Look here, Mary, if I catch this loyal gentleman coming here any more I will cut his throat--so look out!" "You do not mean to say you are going to remain here any longer, in danger of your life?" said Mary in great alarm. "Well--a man can only hang once. Give me some more of that bread and cheese, Mary. It was exceedingly good." "Then let me go," said his wife, trembling with horror at the threat she had just heard. "Oh yes. I will let you go. But I will just hold the window open in case you don't come back soon enough. Look sharp!" There was no need to hurry the unfortunate woman. In less than three minutes she returned, bringing a "quartern" loaf and a large piece of cheese. She thrust them out upon the window-sill and withdrew her hand before he could catch it. But he held the window open. "Now go!" she said. "I cannot do more for you--for God's sake go!" "You seem very anxious to see the last of me," he whispered. "I daresay if I am hanged you will get a ticket to see me turned off. Yes--we mention those things rather freely up in town. Don't be alarmed. I will come back to-morrow night--you had better listen. If you had shown a little more heart, I would have been satisfied, but you are so stony that I think I would like another fifty pounds to-morrow night. Those notes are so deliciously crisp--" "Listen, Walter!" said Mary. "Unless you promise to go I will raise an alarm at once. I can face shame again well enough. I will have you--hush! For God's sake--hush! There is somebody coming!" The convict's quick ear had caught the sound. Instantly he knelt and then lay down at full length upon the ground below the window. It was a fine night and the conscientious Mr. Gall was walking his beat. The steady tramp of his heavy shoes had something ominous in it which struck terror into the heart of the wretched fugitive. With measured tread he came from the direction of the village. Reaching the cottage he paused and dimly in the starlight Mrs. Goddard could distinguish his glazed hat--the provincial constabulary still wore hats in those days. Mr. Gall stood not fifteen yards from the cottage, failed to observe that a window was open on the lower floor, nodded to himself as though satisfied with his inspection and walked on. Little by little the sound of his steps grew fainter in the distance. Walter slowly raised himself again from the ground, and put his head in at the window. "You see it would not be hard to have you caught," whispered his wife, still breathless with the passing excitement. "That was the policeman. If I had called him, it would have been all over with you. I tell you if you try to come again I will give you up." "Oh, that's the way you treat me, is it?" said the convict with another oath. "Then you had better look out for your dear Mr. Juxon, that's all." Without another word, Goddard glided away from the window, let himself out by the wicket gate and disappeared across the road. Mary Goddard was in that moment less horrified by her husband's threat than by his base ingratitude to herself and by the accusation he seemed to make against her. Worn out with the emotions of fear and anxiety, she had barely the strength to close and fasten the window. Then she sank into the first chair she could find in the dark and stared into the blackness around her. It seemed indeed more than she could bear. She was placed in the terrible position of being obliged to betray her fugitive husband, or of living in constant fear lest he should murder the best friend she had in the world. CHAPTER XVI. On the morning after the events last described Mr. Ambrose sat at breakfast opposite his wife. The early post had just arrived, bringing the usual newspaper and two letters. "Any news, my dear?" inquired Mrs. Ambrose with great suavity, as she rinsed her teacup in the bowl preparatory to repeating the dose. "Is not it time that we should hear from John?" "There is a letter from him, strange to say. Wait a minute--my dear, the Tripos is over and he wants to know if he may stop here--" "The Tripos over already! How has he done? Do tell me, Augustin!" "He does not know," returned the vicar, quickly looking over the contents of the letter. "The lists are not out--he thinks he has done very well--he has had a hint that he is high up--wants to know whether he may stop on his way to London--he is going to see his father--" "Of course he shall come," said Mrs. Ambrose with enthusiasm. "He must stop here till the lists are published and then we shall know--anything else?" "The other is a note from a tutor of his side--my old friend Brown--he is very enthusiastic; says it is an open secret that John will be at the head of the list--begins to congratulate. Well, my dear, this is very satisfactory, very flattering." "One might say very delightful, Augustin." "Delightful, yes quite delightful," replied the vicar, burying his long nose in his teacup. "I only hope it may be true. I was afraid that perhaps John had done himself harm by coming here at Christmas. Young men are so very light-headed, are they not, Augustin?" added Mrs. Ambrose with a prim smile. On rare occasions she had alluded to John's unfortunate passion for Mrs. Goddard, and when she spoke of the subject she had a tendency to assume something of the stiffness she affected towards strangers. As has been seen she had ceased to blame Mrs. Goddard. Generally speaking the absent are in the wrong in such matters; she could not refer to John's conduct without a touch of severity. But the Reverend Augustin bent his shaggy brows; John was now successful, probably senior classic--it was evidently no time to censure his behaviour. "You must be charitable, my dear," he said, looking sharply at his wife. "We have all been young once you know." "Augustin, I am surprised at you!" said Mrs. Ambrose sternly. "For saying that I once was young?" inquired her husband. "Strange and paradoxical as such a statement must appear, I was once a baby." "I think your merriment very unseemly," objected Mrs. Ambrose in a tone of censure. "Because you were once a baby it does not follow that you ever acted in such a very foolish way about a--" "My dear," interrupted the vicar, handing his cup across the table, "I wish you would leave John alone, and give me another cup of tea. John will be here to-morrow. Let us receive him as we should. He has done us credit." "He will never be received otherwise in this house, Augustin," replied Mrs. Ambrose, "whether you allow me to speak my mind or not. I am aware that Short has done us credit, as you express it. I only hope he always may do us credit in the future. I am sure, I was like a mother to him. He ought never to forget it. Why, my dear, cannot you remember how I always had his buttons looked to and gave him globules when he wanted them? I think he might show some gratitude." "I do not think he has failed to show it," retorted the vicar. "Oh, well, Augustin, if you are going to talk like that it is not possible to argue with you; but he shall be welcome, if he comes. I hope, however, that he will not go to the cottage--" "My dear, I have a funeral this morning. I wish you would not disturb my mind with these trifles." "Trifles! Who is dead? You did not tell me." "Poor Judd's baby, of course. We have spoken of it often enough, I am sure." "Oh yes, of course. Poor Tom Judd!" exclaimed Mrs. Ambrose with genuine sympathy. "It seems to me you are always burying his babies, Augustin! It is very sad." "Not always, my dear. Frequently," said the vicar correcting her. "It is very sad, as you say. Very sad. You took so much trouble to help them this time, too." "Trouble!" Mrs. Ambrose cast up her eyes. "You don't know how much trouble. But I am quite sure it was the fault of that brazen-faced doctor. I cannot bear the sight of him! That comes of answering advertisements in the newspapers." The present doctor had bought the practice abandoned by Mrs. Ambrose's son-in-law. He had paid well for it, but his religious principles had not formed a part of the bargain. "It is of no use to cry over spilt milk, my dear." "I do not mean to. No, I never do. But it is very unpleasant to have such people about. I really hope Tom Judd will not lose his next baby. When is John coming?" "To-morrow. My dear, if I forget it this morning, will you remember to speak to Reynolds about the calf?" "Certainly, Augustin," said his wife. Therewith the good vicar left her and went to bury Tom Judd's baby, divided in his mind between rejoicing over his favourite pupil's success and lamenting, as he sincerely did, the misfortunes which befell his parishioners. When he left the churchyard an hour later he was met by Martha, who came from the cottage with a message begging that the vicar would come to Mrs. Goddard as soon as possible. Martha believed her mistress was ill, she wanted to see Mr. Ambrose at once. Without returning to the vicarage he turned to the left towards the cottage. Mrs. Goddard had slept that night, being exhausted and almost broken down with fatigue. But she woke only to a sense of the utmost pain and distress, realising that to-day's anxiety was harder to bear than yesterday's, and that to-morrow might bring forth even worse disasters than those which had gone before. Her position was one of extreme doubt and peril. To tell any one that her husband was in the neighbourhood seemed to be equivalent to rooting out the very last remnant of consideration for him which remained in her heart, the very last trace of what had once been the chief joy and delight of her life. She hesitated long. There is perhaps nothing in human nature more enduring than the love of man and wife; or perhaps one should rather say than the love of a woman for her husband. There appear to be some men capable of being so completely estranged from their wives that there positively does not remain in them even the faintest recollection of what they have once felt, nor the possibility of feeling the least pity for what the women they once loved so well may suffer. There is no woman, I believe, who having once loved her husband truly, could see him in pain or distress, or in danger of his life, without earnestly endeavouring to help him. A woman may cease to love her husband; in some cases she is right in forgetting her love, but it would be hard to find a case where, were he the worst criminal alive, had he deceived her a thousand times, she would not at least help him to escape from his pursuers or give him a crust to save him from starvation. Mary Goddard had done her best for the wretch who had claimed her assistance. She had fed him, provided him with money, refused to betray him. But if it were to be a question of giving him up to the law, or of allowing her best friend to be murdered by him, or even seriously injured, she felt that pity must be at an end. It would be doubtless a very horrible thing to give him up, and she had gathered from what he had said that if he were taken he would pay the last penalty of the law. It was so awful a thing that she groaned when she thought of it. But she remembered his ghastly face in the starlight and the threat he had hissed out against the squire; he was a desperate man, with blood already on his hands. It was more than likely that he would do the deed he had threatened to do. What could be easier than to watch the squire on one of those evenings when he went up the park alone, to fall upon him and take his life? Of late Mr. Juxon did not even take his dog with him. The savage bloodhound would be a good protector; but even when he took Stamboul with him by day, he never brought him at night. It was too long for the beast to wait, he used to say, from six to nine or half past; he was so savage that he did not care to leave him out of his sight; he brought mud into the cottage, or into the vicarage as the case might be--if Stamboul had been an ordinary dog it would have been different. Those Russian bloodhounds were not to be trifled with. But the squire must be warned of his danger before another night came on. It was a difficult question. Mrs. Goddard at first thought of telling him herself; but she shrank from the thought, for she was exhausted and overwrought. A few days ago she would have been brave enough to say anything if necessary, but now she had no longer the courage nor the strength. It seemed so hard to face the squire with such a warning; it seemed as though she were doing something which would make her seem ungrateful in his eyes, though she hardly knew why it seemed so. She turned more naturally to the vicar, to whom she had originally come in her first great distress; she had only once consulted him, but that one occasion seemed to establish a precedent in her mind, the precedent of a thing familiar. It would certainly be easier. After much thought and inward debate, she determined to send for Mr. Ambrose. The fatigue and anxiety she had undergone during the last two days had wrought great changes in her face. A girl of eighteen or twenty years may gain delicacy and even beauty from the physical effects of grief, but a woman over thirty years old gains neither. Mrs. Goddard's complexion, naturally pale, had taken a livid hue; her lips, which were never very red, were almost white; heavy purple shadows darkened her eyes; the two or three lines that were hardly noticeable, but which were the natural result of a sad expression in her face, had in two days become distinctly visible and had almost assumed the proportions of veritable wrinkles. Her features were drawn and pinched--she looked ten years older than she was. Nothing remained of her beauty but her soft waving brown hair and her deep, pathetic, violet eyes. Even her small hands seemed to have grown thin and looked unnaturally white and transparent. She was sitting in her favourite chair by the fire, when the vicar arrived. She had not been willing to seem ill, in spite of what Martha had said, and she had refused to put cushions in the chair. She was making an effort, and even a little sense of physical discomfort helped to make the effort seem easier. She was so much exhausted that she felt she must not for one moment relax the tension she imposed upon herself lest her whole remaining strength should suddenly collapse and leave her at the mercy of events. But Mr. Ambrose was startled when he saw her and feared that she was very ill. "My dear Mrs. Goddard," he said, "what is the matter? Are you ill? Has anything happened?" As he spoke he changed the form of his question, suddenly recollecting that Mr. Juxon had probably on the previous afternoon told her of her husband's escape, as he had meant to do. This might be the cause of her indisposition. "Yes," she said in a voice that did not sound like her own, "I have asked you to come because I am in great trouble--in desperate trouble." "Dear me," said the vicar, "I hope not!" "Not desperate? Perhaps not. Dear Mr. Ambrose, you have always been so kind to me--I am sure you can help me now." Her voice trembled. "Indeed I will do my best," said the vicar who judged from so unusual an outburst that there must be really something wrong. "If you could tell me what it is--" he suggested. "That is the hardest part of it," said the unhappy woman. She paused a moment as though to collect her strength. "You know," she began again, "that my husband has escaped?" "A terrible business!" exclaimed the good man, nodding, however, in affirmation to the question she asked. "I have seen him," said Mary Goddard very faintly, looking down at her thin hands. The vicar started in astonishment. "My dear friend--dear me! Dear, dear, how very painful!" "Indeed, you do not know what I have suffered. It is most dreadful, Mr. Ambrose. You cannot imagine what a struggle it was. I am quite worn out." She spoke with such evident pain that the vicar was moved. He felt that she had more to tell, but he had hardly recovered from his surprise. "But, you know," he said, "that was the whole object of warning you. We did not really believe that he would come here. We were so much afraid that he would startle you. Of course Mr. Juxon told you he consulted me--" "Of course," answered Mrs. Goddard. "It was too late. I had seen him the night before." "Why, that was the very night we were here!" exclaimed Mr. Ambrose, more and more amazed. Mrs. Goddard nodded. She seemed hardly able to speak. "He came and knocked at that window," she said, very faintly. "He came again last night." "Dear me--I will send for Gall at once; he will have no difficulty in arresting him--" "Oh please!" interrupted Mrs. Goddard in hysterical tones. "Please, please, dear Mr. Ambrose, don't!" The vicar was silent. He rose unceremoniously from his chair and walked to the window, as he generally did when in any great doubt. He realised at once and very vividly the awful position in which the poor lady was placed. "Pray do not think I am very bad," said she, almost sobbing with fear and emotion. "Of course it must seem dreadful to you that I should wish him to escape!" The vicar came slowly back and stood beside her leaning against the chimney-piece. It did not take him long to make up his mind. Kind-hearted people are generally impulsive. "I do not, my dear lady. I assure you I fully understand your position. The fact is, I was too much surprised and I am too anxious for your safety not to think immediately of securing that--ahem--that unfortunate man." "Oh, it is not my safety! It is not only my safety--" "I understand--yes--of course you are anxious about him. But it is doubtless not our business to aid the law in its course, provided we do not oppose it." "It is something else," murmured Mrs. Goddard. "Oh! how shall I tell you," she moaned turning her pale cheek to the back of the chair. The vicar looked at her and began to think it was perhaps some strange case of conscience with which he had to deal. He had very little experience of such things save in the rude form they take among the labouring classes. But he reflected that it was likely to be something of the kind; in such a case Mrs. Goddard would naturally enough have sent for him, more as her clergyman than as her friend. She looked like a person suffering from some great mental strain. He sat down beside her and took her passive hand. He was moved, and felt as though he might have been her father. "My dear," he said kindly, almost as though he were speaking to a child, "have you anything upon your mind, anything which distresses you? Do you wish to tell me? If so I will do my very best to help you." Mrs. Goddard's fingers pressed his hand a little, but her face was still turned away. "It is Mr. Juxon," she almost whispered. If she had been watching the vicar she would have noticed the strange air of perplexity which came over his face when he heard the squire's name. "Yes--Mr. Juxon," she moaned. Then the choked-down horror rose in her throat. "Walter means to murder him!" she almost screamed. "Oh, my God, my God, what shall I do!" she cried aloud clasping her hands suddenly over her face and rocking herself to and fro. The vicar was horror-struck; he could hardly believe his ears, and believing them his senses swam. In his wildest dreams--and the good man's dreams were rarely wild--he had never thought that such things could come near him. Being a very good man and, moreover, a wise man when he had plenty of time for reflection, he folded his hands quietly and bent his head, praying fervently for the poor tortured woman who moaned and tossed herself beside him. It was a terrible moment. Suddenly she controlled herself and grasping one of the arms of the chair looked round at her silent companion. "You must save him," she said in agonised tones, "you must save them both! Do not tell me you cannot--oh, do not tell me that!" It was a passionate and heart-broken appeal, such a one as few men would or could resist, coming as it did from a helpless and miserably unhappy woman. Whether the vicar was wise in giving the answer he did, it would be hard to say: but he was a man who honestly tried to do his best. "I will try, my dear lady," he said, making a great resolution. Mrs. Goddard took his hand and pressed it in both of hers, and the long restrained tears flowed fast and softly over her worn cheeks. For some moments neither spoke. "If you cannot save both--you must save--Mr. Juxon," she said at last, breathing the words rather than speaking them. The vicar knew or guessed what it must cost her to hint that her husband might be captured. He recognised that the only way in which he could contribute towards the escape of the convict was by not revealing his hiding-place, and he accordingly refrained from asking where he was concealed. He shuddered as he thought that Goddard might be lying hidden in the cottage itself, for all he could tell, but he was quite sure that he ought not to know it. So long as he did not know where the forger was, it was easy to hold his peace; but if once he knew, the vicar was not capable of denying the knowledge. He had never told a lie in his life. "I will try," he repeated; and growing calmer, he added, "You are quite sure this was not an empty threat, my dear friend? Was there any reason--a--I mean to say, had this unfortunate man ever known Mr. Juxon?" "Oh no!" answered Mrs. Goddard, sinking back into her chair. "He never knew him." Her tears were still flowing but she no longer sobbed aloud; it had been a relief to her overwrought and sensitive temperament to give way to the fit of weeping. She actually felt better, though ten minutes earlier she would not have believed it possible. "Then--why?" asked Mr. Ambrose, hesitating. "My poor husband was a very jealous man," she answered. "I accidentally told him that the cottage belonged to Mr. Juxon and yesterday--do you remember? You walked on with Mr. Juxon beyond the turning, and then he came back to see me--to tell me of my husband's escape. Walter saw that and--and he thought, I suppose--that Mr. Juxon did not want you to see him coming here." "But Mr. Juxon had just promised me to go and see you," said the honest vicar. "Yes," said poor Mrs. Goddard, beginning to sob again, "but Walter--my husband--thinks that I--I care for Mr. Juxon--he is so jealous," cried she, again covering her face with her hands. The starting tears trickled through her fingers and fell upon her black dress. She was ashamed, this time, for she hated even to speak of such a possibility. "I understand," answered Mr. Ambrose gravely. It certainly did not strike him that it might be true, and his knowledge of such characters as Walter Goddard was got chiefly from the newspapers. He had often noticed in reports of trials and detailed descriptions of crimes that criminals seem to become entirely irrational after a certain length of time, and it was one of the arguments he best understood for demonstrating that bad men either are originally, or ultimately become mad. To men like the vicar, almost the only possible theory of crime is the theory of insanity. It is positively impossible for a man who has passed thirty or forty years in a quiet country parish to comprehend the motives or the actions of great criminals. He naturally says they must be crazy or they would not do such things. If Goddard were crazy enough to commit a forgery, he was crazy enough for anything, even to the extent of suspecting that his wife loved the squire. "I think," said Mr. Ambrose, "that if you agree with me it will be best to warn Mr. Juxon of his danger." "Of course," murmured Mrs. Goddard. "You must warn him at once!" "I will go to the Hall now," said the vicar bravely. "But--I am very sorry to have to dwell on the subject, my dear lady, but, without wishing in the least to know where the--your husband is, could you tell me anything about his appearance? For instance, if you understand what I mean, supposing that Mr. Juxon knew how he looked and should happen to meet him, knowing that he wished to kill him--he might perhaps avoid him, if you understand me?" The vicar's English was a little disturbed by his extreme desire not to hurt Mrs. Goddard's feelings. If the squire and his dog chanced to meet Walter Goddard they would probably not avoid him as the vicar expressed it; that was a point Mr. Ambrose was willing to leave to Mrs. Goddard's imagination. "Yes--must you know?" she asked anxiously. "We must know that," returned the vicar. "He is disguised as a poor tramp," she said sorrowfully. "He wears a smock-frock and an old hat I think. He is pale--oh, poor, poor Walter!" she cried again bursting into tears. Mr. Ambrose could say nothing. There was nothing to be said. He rose and took his hat--the old tall hat he wore to his parishioners' funerals. They were very primitive people in Billingsfield. "I will go at once," he said. "Believe me, you have all my sympathy--I will do all I can." Mary Goddard thanked him more by her looks than with any words she was able to speak. But she was none the less truly grateful for his sympathy and aid. She had a kind of blind reliance on him which made her feel that since she had once confided her trouble and danger nothing more could possibly be done. When he was gone, she sobbed with relief, as before she had wept for fear; she was hysterical, unstrung, utterly unlike herself. But as the vicar went up towards the Hall he felt that he had his hands full, and he felt moreover an uneasy sensation which he could not have explained. He was certainly no coward, but he had never been in such a position before and he did not like it; there was an air of danger about, an atmosphere which gave him a peculiarly unpleasant thrill from time to time. He was not engaged upon an agreeable errand, and he had a vague feeling, due, the scientists would have told him, to unconscious ratiocination, which seemed to tell him that something was going to happen. People who are very often in danger know that singular uneasiness which warns them that all is not well; it is not like anything else that can be felt. No one really knows its cause, unless it be true that the mind sometimes reasons for itself without the consciousness of the body, and communicates to the latter a spasmodic warning, the result of its cogitations. To say to the sturdy squire, "Beware of a man in a smock-frock, one Goddard the forger, who means to murder you," seemed of itself simple enough. But for the squire to distinguish this same Goddard from all other men in smock-frocks was a less easy matter. The vicar, indeed, could tell a strange face at a hundred yards, for he knew every man, woman and child in his parish; but the squire's acquaintance was more limited. Obviously, said Mr. Ambrose to himself, the squire's best course would be to stay quietly at home until the danger was passed, and to pass word to Policeman Gall to lay hands on any particularly seedy-looking tramps he happened to see in the village. It was Gall's duty to do so in any case, as he had been warned to be on the look-out. Mr. Ambrose inwardly wondered where the man could be hiding. Billingsfield was not, he believed, an easy place to hide in, for every ploughman knew his fellow, and a new face was always an object of suspicion. Not a gipsy tinker entered the village but what every one heard of it, and though tramps came through from time to time, it would be a difficult matter for one of them to remain two days in the place without attracting a great deal of attention. It was possible that Walter Goddard might have been concealed for one night in his wife's house, but even there he could not have remained hidden for two days without being seen by Mrs. Goddard's two women servants. The vicar walked rapidly through the park, looking about him suspiciously as he went. Goddard might at that very moment be lurking behind any one of those oaks; it would be most unpleasant if he mistook the vicar for the squire. But that, the vicar reflected, was impossible on account of his clerical dress. He reached the Hall in safety and stood looking down among the leafless trees, waiting for the door to be opened. CHAPTER XVII. Mr. Juxon received the vicar in the library as he had received him on the previous day; but on the present occasion Mr. Ambrose had not been sent for and the squire's face wore an expression of inquiry. He supposed his friend had come to ask him the result of the interview with Mrs. Goddard, and as he himself was on the point of going towards the cottage he wished the vicar had come at a later or an earlier hour. "I have a message to give you," said Mr. Ambrose, "a very important message." "Indeed?" answered the squire, observing his serious face. "Yes. I had better tell you at once. Mrs. Goddard sent for me this morning. She has actually seen her husband, who must be hiding in the neighbourhood. He came to her drawing-room window last night and the night before." "Dear me!" exclaimed Mr. Juxon. "You don't tell me so!" "That is not the worst of the matter," continued the vicar, looking very grave and fixing his eyes on the squire's face. "This villainous fellow has been threatening to take your life, Mr. Juxon." Mr. Juxon stared at the vicar for a moment in surprise, and then broke into a hearty laugh. "My life!" he cried. "Upon my word, the fellow does not know what he is talking about! Do you mean to say that this escaped convict, who can be arrested at sight wherever he is found, imagines that he could attack me in broad daylight without being caught?" "Well, no, I suppose not--but you often walk home at night, Mr. Juxon--alone through the park." "I think that dog of mine could manage Mr. Goddard," remarked the squire calmly. "And pray, Mr. Ambrose, now that we know that the man is in the neighbourhood, what is to prevent us from finding him?" "We do not know where he is," replied the vicar, thanking the inspiration which had prevented him from asking Mrs. Goddard more questions. He had promised to save Goddard, too, or at least not to facilitate his capture. But though he was glad to be able to say honestly that he did not know where he was, he began to doubt whether in the eyes of the law he was acting rightly. "You do not know?" asked the squire. "No; and besides I think--perhaps--we ought to consider poor Mrs. Goddard's position." "Mrs. Goddard's position!" exclaimed Mr. Juxon almost angrily. "And who should consider her position more than I, Mr. Ambrose? My dear sir, I consider her position before all things--of course I do. But nothing could be of greater advantage to her position than the certainty that her husband is safely lodged in prison. I cannot imagine how he contrived to escape--can you?" "No, I cannot," answered Mr. Ambrose, thrusting his hands into his pockets and biting his long upper lip. "By the bye, did the fellow happen to say why he meant to lay violent hands on me?" inquired Mr. Juxon. "Since you ask--he did. It appears that he saw you going into the cottage, and immediately became jealous--" "Of me?" Mr. Juxon coloured a little beneath his bronzed complexion, and grew more angry. "Well, upon my word! But if that is true I am much obliged for your warning. Fellows of that sort never reason--he will very likely attack me as you say. It will be quite the last time he attacks anybody--the devil shall have his own, Mr. Ambrose, if I can help him to it--" "Dear me! Mr. Juxon--you surprise me," said the vicar, who had never heard his friend use such strong language before. "It is enough to surprise anybody," remarked the squire. "I trust we shall surprise Mr. Goddard before night. Excuse me, but when did he express his amiable intentions towards me?" "Last night, I believe," replied Mr. Ambrose, reluctantly. "And when did he see me going into the cottage?" "Yesterday afternoon, I believe." The vicar felt as though he were beginning to break his promise of shielding the fugitive, but he could not refuse to answer a direct question. "Then, when he saw me, he was either in the cottage or in the park. There was no one in the road, I am quite sure." "I do not know," said the vicar, delighted at being able to say so. He was such a simple man that Mr. Juxon noticed the tone of relief in which he denied any knowledge of Goddard's whereabouts on the previous day as compared with his reluctance to answer upon those points of which he was certain. "You are not anxious that Goddard should be caught," said the squire rather sharply. "Frankly," returned the vicar, "I do not wish to be instrumental in his capture--not that I am likely to be." "That is none of my business, Mr. Ambrose. I will try and catch him alone. But it would be better that he should be taken alive and quietly--" "Surely," cried the vicar in great alarm, "you would not kill him?" "Oh no, certainly not. But my dog might, Mr. Ambrose. They are ugly dogs when they are angry, and they have a remarkable faculty for finding people who are lost. They used to use them in Russia for tracking fugitive serfs and convicts who escaped from Siberia." Mr. Ambrose shuddered. The honest squire seemed almost as bloodthirsty in his eyes as the convict Goddard. He felt that he did not understand Mr. Juxon. The idea of hunting people with bloodhounds seemed utterly foreign to his English nature, and he could not understand how his English friend could entertain such a thought; he probably forgot that a few generations earlier the hunting of all kinds of men, papists, dissenters, covenanters and rebels, with dogs, had been a favourite English sport. "Really, Mr. Juxon," he said in an agitated tone, "I think you would do much better to protect yourself with the means provided by the law. Considerations of humanity--" "Considerations of humanity, sir, are at an end when one man threatens the life of another. You admit yourself that I am not safe unless Goddard is caught, and yet you object to my method of catching him. That is illogical." The vicar felt that this was to some extent true; but he was not willing to admit it. He knew also that if he could dissuade the squire from his barbarous scheme, Goddard would have a far better chance of escape. "I think that with the assistance of Gall and a London detective--" he began. "Gall is an old woman, Mr. Ambrose, and it will take twenty-four hours to get a detective from town. In twenty-four hours this man may have attacked me." "He will hardly attempt to force his way into your house, Mr. Juxon." "So then, I am to stay at home to suit his convenience? I will not do any such thing. Besides, in twenty-four hours Goddard may have changed his mind and may have taken himself off. For the rest of her life Mrs. Goddard will then be exposed to the possibility of every kind of annoyance." "He would never come back, I am sure," objected the vicar. "Why not? Every time he comes she will give him money. The more money she gives him the more often he will come, unless we put an end to his coming altogether." "You seem to forget," urged Mr. Ambrose, "that there will be a vigorous search made for him. Why not telegraph to the governor of Portland?" "I thought you wanted to save Mrs. Goddard from needless scandal; did you not?" returned the squire. "The governor of Portland would send down a squad of police who would publish the whole affair. He would have done so as soon as the man escaped had he known that Mrs. Goddard lived here." "I wonder how Goddard himself knew it," remarked Mr. Ambrose. "I don't know. Perhaps she told him she was coming here, at their last interview. Or perhaps she wrote to him in prison and the governor overlooked the letter. Anything like that would account for it." "But if you catch him--alive," hesitated the vicar, "it will all be known at once. I do not see how you can prevent that." "If I catch him alive, I will take him out of Billingsfield without any one's knowledge. I do not mean to hurt him. I only want to get him back to prison. Believe me, I am much more anxious than you can possibly be to save Mrs. Goddard from harm." "Very well. I have done my errand," said Mr. Ambrose, with a sort of sigh of relief. "I confess, I am in great anxiety of mind, both on your account and on hers. I never dreamed that such things could happen in Billingsfield." "You are certainly not responsible for them," answered Mr. Juxon. "It is not your fault--" "Not altogether, perhaps. But I was perhaps wrong in letting her come here--no, I am sure I was not," he added impulsively, as though ashamed of having said anything so unkind. "Certainly not. You were quite right, Mr. Ambrose, quite right, I assure you." "Well, I hope all may yet be for the best," said the vicar. "Let us hope so," replied Mr. Juxon gravely. "By all means, let us hope that all may be for the best." Whether the squire doubted the possibility of so happy an issue to events or not, is uncertain. He felt almost more sorry for the vicar than for himself; the vicar was such a good man, so unused to the violent deeds of violent people, of which the squire in his wanderings had seen more than was necessary to convince him that all was not always for the best in this best of all possible worlds. Mr. Ambrose left his friend and as he retraced his steps through the park was more disturbed than ever. That Goddard should contemplate killing the squire was bad enough, in all conscience, but that the squire should deliberately purpose to hunt down Goddard with his bloodhound seemed somehow even worse. The vicar had indeed promised Mrs. Goddard that he would not help to capture her husband, but he would have been as glad as any one to hear that the convict was once more lodged in his prison. There lurked in his mind, nevertheless, an impression that even a convict should have a fair chance. The idea was not expressed, but existed in him. Everybody, he would have said, ought to have a fair chance, and as the law of nations forbids the use of explosive bullets in warfare, the laws of humanity seemed to forbid the use of bloodhounds in the pursuit of criminals. He had a very great respect for the squire's character and principles, but the cold-blooded way in which Mr. Juxon had spoken of catching and probably killing Walter Goddard, had shaken the good vicar's belief in his friend. He doubted whether he were not now bound to return to Mrs. Goddard and to warn her in his turn of her husband's danger, whether he ought not to do something to save the wretched convict from his fate. It seemed hideous to think that in peaceful Billingsfield, in his own lonely parish, a human being should be exposed to such peril. But at this point the vicar's continuity forsook him. He had not the heart to tell the tale of his interview with Mr. Juxon to the unhappy lady he had left that morning. It was extremely improbable, he thought, that she should be able to communicate with her husband during the day, and the squire's language led him to think that the day would not pass without some attempt to discover Walter Goddard's hiding-place. Besides, the vicar's mind was altogether more disturbed than it had been in thirty years, and he was no longer able to account to himself with absolute accuracy for what he did. At all events, he felt that it was better not to tell Mrs. Goddard what the squire had said. When he was gone, Mr. Juxon paced his library alone in the greatest uncertainty. He had told the vicar in his anger that he would find Goddard with the help of Stamboul. That the hound was able to accomplish the feat in the present weather, and if Goddard had actually stood some time at the cottage window on the previous night, he did not doubt for a moment. The vicar had mentioned the window to him when he told him that Mrs. Goddard had seen her husband. He had probably been at the window as late as midnight, and the scent, renewed by his visit, would not be twelve hours old. Stamboul could find the man, unless he had got into a cart, which was improbable. But a new and startling consideration presented itself to the squire's mind when the vicar was gone and his anger had subsided; a consideration which made him hesitate what course to pursue. That he would be justified in using any means in his power to catch the criminal seemed certain. It would be for the public good that he should be delivered up to justice as soon as possible. So long as Goddard was at large the squire's own life was not safe, and Mrs. Goddard was liable to all kinds of annoyances at any moment. There was every reason why the fellow should be captured. But to capture him, safe and sound, was one thing; to expose him to the jaws of Stamboul was quite another. Mr. Juxon had a lively recollection of the day in the Belgrade forest when the great hound had pulled down one of his assailants, making his fangs meet through flesh and bone. If Stamboul were set upon Goddard's track, the convict could hardly escape with his life. In the first flush of the squire's anger this seemed of little importance. But on mature reflection the thing appeared in a different light. He loved Mrs. Goddard in his own way, which was a very honourable way, if not very passionate. He had asked her to marry him. She had expressed a wish that she were a widow, implying perhaps that if she had been free she would have accepted him. If the obstacle of her living husband were removed, it was not improbable that she would look favourably upon the squire's suit; to bring Goddard to an untimely end would undoubtedly be to clear the way for the squire. It was not then, a legitimate desire for justice which made him wish to catch the convict and almost to wish that Stamboul might worry him to death; it was the secret hope that Goddard might be killed and that he, Charles James Juxon, might have the chance to marry his widow. "In other words," he said to himself, "I really want to murder Goddard and take his wife." It was not easy to see where legitimate severity ended and unlawful and murderous selfishness began. The temptation was a terrible one. The very uncertainty which there was, tempted the squire to disregard the possibility of Goddard's death as compared with the importance of his capture. It was quite likely, he unconsciously argued, that the bloodhound would not kill him after all; it was even possible that he might not find him; but it would be worth while to make the attempt, for the results to be obtained by catching the fugitive were very great--Mrs. Goddard's peace was to be considered before all things. But still before the squire's eyes arose the picture of Stamboul tearing the throat of the man he had killed in the Belgrade forest. If he killed the felon, Juxon would know that to all intents and purposes he had himself done the deed in order to marry Mrs. Goddard. But still the thought remained with him and would not leave him. The fellow had threatened his own life. It was then a fair fight, for a man cannot be blamed if he tries to get the better of one who is going about to kill him. On one of his many voyages, he had once shot a man in order to quell a mutiny; he had not killed him it is true, but he had disabled him for the time--he had handled many a rough customer in his day. The case, he thought, was similar, for it was the case of self-defence. The law, even, would say he was justified. But to slay a man in self-defence and then to marry his widow, though justifiable in law, is a very delicate case for the conscience; and in spite of the wandering life he had led, Mr. Juxon's conscience was sensitive. He was an honest man and a gentleman, he had tried all his life to do right as he saw it, and did not mean to turn murderer now, no matter how easy it would be for him to defend his action. At the end of an hour he had decided that it would be murder, and no less, to let Stamboul track Goddard to his hiding-place. The hound might accompany him in his walks, and if anybody attacked him it would be so much the worse for his assailant. Murder or no murder, he was entitled to take any precautions he pleased against an assault. But he would not willingly put the bloodhound on the scent, and he knew well enough that the dog would not run upon a strange trail unless he were put to it. The squire went to his lunch, feeling that he had made a good resolution; but he ate little and soon afterwards began to feel the need of going down to see Mrs. Goddard. No day was complete without seeing her, and considering the circumstances which had occurred on the previous afternoon, it was natural that he should call to inquire after her state. In the hall, the gigantic beast which had played such an important part in his thoughts during the morning, came solemnly up to him, raising his great red eyes as though asking whether he were to accompany his master. The squire stood still and looked at him for a moment. "Come along, Stamboul!" he said suddenly, as he put on his hat. The hound leaped up and laid his heavy paws on the squire's shoulders, trying to lick his face in his delight, then, almost upsetting the sturdy man he sprang back, slipped on the polished floor, recovered himself and with an enormous stride bounded past Mr. Juxon, out into the park. But Mr. Juxon quickly called him back, and presently he was following close at heel in his own stately way, looking neither to the right nor to the left. The squire felt nervous, and the sensation was new to him. He did not believe that Goddard would really attack him at all, certainly not that he would dare to attack him in broad daylight. But the knowledge of the threat the fellow had uttered made him watchful. He glanced to the right and left as he walked and gripped his heavy blackthorn stick firmly in his hand. He wished that if the man were to appear he would come quickly--it might be hard to hold Stamboul back if he were attacked unawares. He reached the gate, crossed the road and rang the bell of the cottage. As he stood waiting, Stamboul smelled the ground, put up his head, smelled it again and with his nose down trotted slowly to the window on the left hand of the door. He smelled the ground, the wall and presently put both his fore paws upon the outer ledge of the window. Then he dropped again, and looked at his master. Martha was a long time in coming to the door. "After him, Stamboul!" said the squire, almost unconsciously. The dog put his nose down and began to move slowly about. At that moment the door opened. "Oh, sir," said Martha, "it's you, sir. I was to say, if you please, that if you called, Mrs. Goddard was poorly to-day, sir." "Dear me!" said Mr. Juxon, "I hope she is not ill. Is it anything serious, Martha?" "Well, sir, she's been down this mornin', but her head ached terrible bad and she went back to her room--oh, sir, your dog--he's a runnin' home." As she spoke a sound rang in the air that made Martha start back. It was a deep, resounding, bell-like note, fierce and wild, rising and falling, low but full, with a horror indescribable in its echo--the sound which no man who has heard it ever forgets--the baying of a bloodhound on the track of a man. The squire turned deadly pale, but he shouted with all his might, as he would have shouted to a man on the topsail yard in a gale at sea. "Stamboul! Stamboul! Stamboul!" Again and again he yelled the dog's name. Stamboul had not gone far. The quickset hedge had baffled the scent for a moment and he was not a dozen yards beyond it in the park when his master's cry stopped him. Instantly he turned, cleared the six-foot hedge and double ditch at a bound and came leaping back across the road. The squire breathed hard, for it had been a terrible moment. If he had not succeeded in calling the beast back, it might have been all over with Walter Goddard, wherever he was hidden. "It is only his play," said Mr. Juxon, still very white and holding Stamboul by the collar. "Please tell Mrs. Goddard, Martha, that I am very sorry indeed to hear that she is ill, and that I will inquire this evening." "Yes, sir," said Martha, who eyed the panting beast timidly and showed an evident desire to shut the door as soon as possible. The squire felt more nervous than ever as he walked slowly along the road in the direction of the village, his hand still on the bloodhound's collar. He felt what a narrow escape Goddard had probably had, and the terrible sound of Stamboul's baying had brought back to him once again and very vividly the scene in the woods by the Bosphorus. He felt that for a few minutes at least he would rather not enter the park with the dog by him, and he naturally turned towards the vicarage, not with any intention of going in, but from sheer force of custom, as people under the influence of strong emotions often do things unconsciously which they are in the habit of doing. He walked slowly along, and had almost reached Mr. Ambrose's pretty old red brick house, when he found himself face to face with the vicar's wife. She presented an imposing appearance, as usual; her grey skirt, drawn up a little from the mud, revealed a bright red petticoat and those stout shoes which she regarded as so essential to health; she wore moreover a capacious sealskin jacket and a dark bonnet with certain jet flowers, which for many years had been regarded by the inhabitants of Billingsfield as the distinctive badge of a gentlewoman. Mrs. Ambrose was wont to smile and say that they were indestructible and would last as long as she did. She greeted Mr. Juxon cordially. "How do you, Mr. Juxon--were you going to see us? I was just going for a walk--perhaps you will come with me?" Mr. Juxon turned back and prepared to accompany her. "Such good news this morning, from John Short," she said. "He has finished his examinations, and it seems almost certain that he will be senior classic. His tutor at Trinity has written already to congratulate my husband upon his success." "I am sure, I am delighted, too," said the squire, who had regained his composure but kept his hold on Stamboul's collar. "He deserves all he gets, and more too," he continued. "I think he will be a remarkable man." "I did not think you liked him so very much," said Mrs. Ambrose rather doubtfully, as she walked slowly by his side. "Oh--I liked him very much. Indeed, I was going to ask him to stay with me for a few days at the Hall." The inspiration was spontaneous. Mr. Juxon was in a frame of mind in which he felt that he ought to do something pleasant for somebody, to set off against the bloodthirsty designs which had passed through his mind in the morning. He knew that if he had not been over friendly to John, it had been John's own fault; but since he had found out that it was impossible to marry Mrs. Goddard, he had forgiven the young scholar his shortcomings and felt very charitably inclined towards him. It suddenly struck him that it would give John great pleasure to stop at the Hall for a few days, and that it would be no inconvenience to himself. The effect upon Mrs. Ambrose was greater even than he had expected. She was hospitable, good and kind, but she was also economical, as she had need to be. The squire was rich. If the squire would put up John during a part of his visit it would be a kindness to John himself, and an economy to the vicarage. Mr. Ambrose himself would not have gone to such a length; but then, as his wife said to herself in self-defence, Augustin did not pay the butcher's bills, and did not know how the money went. She did not say that Augustin was precisely what is called reckless, but he of course did not understand economy as she did. How should he, poor man, with all his sermons and his funerals and other occupations to take his mind off? Mrs. Ambrose was delighted at the squire's proposal. "Really!" she exclaimed. "That would be too good of you, Mr. Juxon. And you do not know how it would quite delight him! He loves books so much, and then you know," she added in a confidential manner, "he has never stayed in a country house in his life, I am quite sure." "And when is he coming down?" asked Mr. Juxon. "I should be very much pleased to have him." "To-morrow, I think," said Mrs. Ambrose. "Well--would you ask him from me to come up and stop a week? Can you spare him, Mrs. Ambrose? I know you are very fond of him, of course, but--" "Oh very," said she warmly. "But I think it likely he will stay some time," she added in explanation of her willingness to let him go to the Hall. The squire felt vaguely that the presence of a guest in his house would probably be a restraint upon him, and he felt that some restraint would be agreeable to him at the present time. "Besides," added Mrs. Ambrose, "if you would like to have him first--there is a little repair necessary in his room at the vicarage--we have put it off too long--" "By all means." said the squire, following out his own train of thought. "Send him up to me as soon as he comes. If I can manage it I will be down here to ask him myself." "It is so good of you," said Mrs. Ambrose. "Not at all. Are you going to the cottage?" "Yes--why?" "Nothing," said Mr. Juxon. "I did not know whether you would like to walk on a little farther with me. Good-bye, then. You will tell Short as soon as he comes, will you not?" "Certainly," replied Mrs. Ambrose, still beaming upon him. "I will not let him unpack his things at the vicarage. Good-bye--so many thanks." CHAPTER XVIII. Mrs. Goddard's head ached "terrible bad" according to Martha, and when the vicar left her she went and lay down upon her bed, with a sensation that if the worst were not yet over she could bear no more. But she had an elastic temperament, and the fact of having consulted Mr. Ambrose that morning had been a greater relief than she herself suspected. She felt that he could be trusted to save Mr. Juxon from harm and Walter from capture, and having once confided to him the important secret which had so heavily weighed upon her mind she felt that the burthen of her troubles was lightened. Mr. Juxon could take any measures he pleased for his own safety; he would probably choose to stay at home until the danger was past. As for her husband, Mary Goddard did not believe that he would return a third time, for she thought that she had thoroughly frightened him. It was even likely that he had only thrown out his threat for the sake of terrifying his wife, and was now far beyond the limits of the parish. So great was the relief she felt after she had talked with the vicar that she almost ceased to believe there was any danger at all; looking at it in the light of her present mood, she almost wondered why she had thought it necessary to tell Mr. Ambrose--until suddenly a vision of her friend the squire, attacked and perhaps killed, in his own park, rose to her mental vision, and she remembered what agonies of fear she had felt for him until she had sent for the vicar. The latter indeed seemed to have been a sort of _deus ex maohinâ_ by whom she suddenly obtained peace of mind and a sense of security in the hour of her greatest distress. All that afternoon she lay upon her bed, while Nellie sat beside her and read to her, and stroked her hands; for Nellie was in reality passionately fond of her mother and suffered almost as much at the sight of her suffering as she could have done had she been in pain herself. Both Mrs. Goddard and the child started at the sound of Stamboul's baying, which was unlike anything they had ever heard before, and Nellie ran to the window. "It is only Mr. Juxon and Stamboul having a game," said Nellie. "What a noise he made, though! Did not he?" Poor Nellie--had she had any idea of what the "game" was from which the squire found it so hard to make his hound desist, she must have gone almost mad with horror. For the game was her own father, poor child. But she came back and sat beside her mother utterly unconscious of what might have happened if Stamboul had once got beyond earshot, galloping along the trail towards the disused vault at the back of the church. Mrs. Goddard had started at the sounds and had put her hand to her forehead, but Nellie's explanation was enough to quiet her, and she smiled faintly and closed her eyes again. Then, half an hour later, Mrs. Ambrose came, and would not be denied. She wanted to make Mrs. Goddard comfortable, she said, when she found she was ill, and she did her best, being a kind and motherly woman when not hardened by the presence of strangers. She told her that John was coming on the next day, speaking with vast pride of his success and omitting to look sternly at Mrs. Goddard as she had formerly been accustomed to do when she spoke of the young scholar. Then at last she went away, after exacting a promise from Mrs. Goddard to come and dine, bringing Nellie with her, on the following day, in case she should have recovered by that time from her headache. But during all that night Mrs. Goddard lay awake, listening for the sound she so much dreaded, of a creeping footstep on the slated path outside and for the tapping at the window. Nothing came, however, and as the grey dawn began to creep in through the white curtains, she fell peacefully asleep. Nellie would not let her be waked, and breakfasted without her, enjoying with childish delight the state of being waited on by Martha alone. Meanwhile, at an early hour, John arrived at the vicarage and was received with open arms by Mr. Ambrose and his wife. The latter seemed to forget, in the pleasure of seeing him again, that she had even once spoken doubtfully of him or hinted that he was anything short of perfection itself. And to prove how much she had done for him she communicated with great pride the squire's message, to the effect that he expected John at the Hall that very day. John's heart leaped with delight at the idea. It was natural. He was indeed most sincerely attached to the Ambroses, and most heartily glad to be with them; but he had never in his life had an opportunity of staying in a "big" house, as he would have described it. It seemed as though he were already beginning to taste the sweet first-fruits of success after all his labour and all his privations; it was the first taste of another world, the first mouthful of the good things of life which had fallen to his lot. Instantly there rose before him delicious visions of hot-water cans brought by a real footman, of luxurious meals served by a real butler, of soft carpets perpetually beneath his feet, of liberty to lounge in magnificent chairs in the magnificent library; and last, though not least, there was a boyish feeling of delight in the thought that when he went to see Mrs. Goddard he would go from the Hall, that she would perhaps associate him henceforth with a different kind of existence, in a word, that he was sure to acquire importance in her eyes from the fact of his visit to the squire. Many a young fellow of one and twenty is as familiar with all that money can give and as tired of luxury as a broken-down hard liver of forty years; for this is an age of luxurious living. But poor John had hardly ever tasted the least of those things too familiar to the golden youth of the period to be even noticed. He had felt when he first entered the little drawing-room of the cottage that Mrs. Goddard herself belonged, or had belonged, to that delicious unknown world of ease where the question of expense was never considered, much less mentioned. In her own eyes she was indeed living in a state approaching to penury, but the spectacle of her pictures, her furniture and her bibelots had impressed John with a very different idea. The squire's invitation, asking him to spend a week at the Hall, seemed in a moment to put him upon the same level as the woman to whom he believed himself so devotedly attached. To his mind the ideal woman could not but be surrounded by a luxurious atmosphere of her own. To enter the charmed precincts of those surroundings seemed to John equivalent to being transported from the regions of the Theocritan to the level of the Anacreontic ode, from the pastoral, of which he had had too much, to the aristocratic, of which he felt that he could not have enough. It was a natural feeling in a very young man of his limited experience. He stayed some hours at the vicarage. Both Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose thought him changed in the short time which had elapsed since they had seen him. He had grown more grave; he was certainly more of a man. The great contest he had just sustained with so much honour had left upon his young face its mark, an air of power which had not formerly been visible there; even his voice seemed to have grown deeper and rounder, and his words carried more weight. The good vicar, who had seen several generations of students, already distinguished in John Short the budding "don," and rubbed his hands with great satisfaction. John asked few questions but found himself obliged to answer many concerning his recent efforts. He would have liked to say something about Mrs. Goddard, but he remembered with some awe and much aversion the circumstances in which he had last quitted the vicarage, and he held his peace; whereby he again rose in Mrs. Ambrose's estimation. He made up for his silence by speaking effusively of the squire's kindness in asking him to the Hall; forgetting perhaps the relief he had felt when he escaped from Billingsfield after Christmas without being again obliged to shake hands with Mr. Juxon. Things looked very differently now, however. He felt himself to be somebody in the world, and that distressing sense of inferiority which had perhaps been at the root of his jealousy against the squire was gone, swallowed in the sense of triumph. His face was pale, perhaps, from overwork, but there was a brilliancy in his eyes and an incisiveness in his speech which came from the confidence of victory. He now desired nothing more than to meet the squire, feeling sure that he should receive his congratulations, and though he stayed some hours in conversation with his old friends, in imagination he was already at the Hall. The squire had not come down to meet him, as he had proposed, but he had sent his outlandish American gig with his groom to fetch John. While he was at the vicarage the latter was probably too much occupied with conversation to notice that Mr. Ambrose seemed preoccupied and changed, and the vicar was to some extent recalled to his usual manner by the presence of his pupil. Mrs. Ambrose had taxed her husband with concealing something from her ever since the previous day, but the good man was obstinate and merely said that he felt unaccountably nervous and irritable, and begged her to excuse his mood. Mrs. Ambrose postponed her cross-examination until a more favourable opportunity should present itself. John got into the gig and drove away. He was to return with the squire to dinner in the evening, and he fully expected that Mrs. Goddard and Nellie would be of the party--it seemed hardly likely that they should be omitted. Indeed, soon after John had left a note arrived at the vicarage explaining that Mrs. Goddard was much better and would certainly come, according to Mrs. Ambrose's very kind invitation. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the meeting which took place between Mr. Juxon and John Short. The squire was hospitable in the extreme and expressed his great satisfaction at having John under his own roof at last. He was perhaps, like the vicar, a little nervous, but the young man did not notice it, being much absorbed by the enjoyment of his good fortune and of the mental rest he so greatly needed. Mr. Juxon congratulated him warmly and expressed a hope, amounting to certainty, that John might actually be at the head of the Tripos; to which John modestly replied that he would be quite satisfied to be in the first ten, knowing in his heart that he should be most bitterly disappointed if he were second to any one. He sat opposite to his host in a deep chair beside the fire in the library and revelled in comfort and ease, enjoying every trifle that fell in his way, feeling only a very slight diffidence in regard to himself for the present and none at all for the future. The squire was so cordial that he felt himself thoroughly at home. Indeed Mr. Juxon already rejoiced at his wisdom in asking John to the Hall. The lad was strong, hopeful, well-balanced in every respect and his presence was an admirable tonic to the almost morbid state of anxiety in which the squire had lived ever since his interview with Policeman Gall, two days before. In the sunshine of John's young personality, fears grew small and hope grew big. The ideas which had passed through Mr. Juxon's brain on the previous evening, just after Mr. Ambrose had warned him of Goddard's intentions, seemed now like the evil shadows of a nightmare. All apprehension lest the convict should attempt to execute his threats disappeared like darkness before daylight, and in the course of an hour or two the squire found himself laughing and chatting with his guest as though there were no such things as forgery or convicts in the world. The afternoon passed very pleasantly between the examination of Mr. Juxon's treasures and the conversation those objects elicited. For John, who was an accomplished scholar, had next to no knowledge of bibliology and took delight in seeing for the first time many a rare edition which he had heard mentioned or had read of in the course of his studies. He would not have believed that he could be now talking on such friendly terms with a man for whom he had once felt the strongest antipathy, and Mr. Juxon on his part felt that in their former meetings he had not done full justice to the young man's undoubted talents. As they drove down to the vicarage that evening Mrs. Goddard's name was mentioned for the first time. John, with a fine affectation of indifference, asked how she was. "She has not been very well lately," answered Mr. Juxon. "What has been the matter?" inquired John, who could not see his companion's face in the dark shade of the trees. "Headache, I believe," returned the squire laconically, and silence ensued for a few moments. "I should not wonder if it rained again this evening," he added presently as they passed through the park gate, out into the road. The sky was black and it was hard to see anything beyond the yellow streak of light which fell from the lamps and ran along the road before the gig. "If it turns out a fine night, don't come for us. We will walk home," said the squire to the groom as they descended before the vicarage and Stamboul, who had sat on the floor between them, sprang down to the ground. John was startled when he met Mrs. Goddard. He was amazed at the change in her appearance for which no one had prepared him. She met him indeed very cordially but he felt as though she were not the same woman he had known so short a time before. There was still in her face that delicate pathetic expression which had at first charmed him, there was still the same look in her eyes; but what had formerly seemed so attractive seemed now exaggerated. Her cheeks looked wan and hollow and there were deep shadows about her eyes and temples; her lips had lost their colour and the lines about her mouth had suddenly become apparent where John had not before suspected them. She looked ten years older as she put her thin hand in his and smiled pleasantly at his greeting. Some trite phrase about the "ravages of time" crossed John's mind and gave him a disagreeable sensation, for which it was hard to account. He felt as though his dream were suddenly dead and a strange reality had taken life in its place. Could this be she to whom he had written verses by the score, at whose smile he had swelled with pride, at whose careless laugh he had trembled with shame? She was terribly changed, she looked positively old--what John called old. As he sat by her side talking and wondering whether he would fall back into those same grooves of conversation he had associated with her formerly, he felt something akin to pity for her, which he had certainly never expected to feel. She was not the same as before--even the tone of her voice was different; she was gentle, pathetic, endowed even now with many charms, but she was not the woman he had dreamed of and tried to speak to of the love he fancied was in his heart. She talked--yes; but there were long pauses, and her eyes wandered strangely from him, often towards the windows of the vicarage drawing-room, often towards the doors; her answers were not always to the point and her interest seemed to flag in what was said. John could not fail to notice too that both Mr. Ambrose and Mr. Juxon treated her with the kind of attention which is bestowed upon invalids, and the vicar's wife was constantly doing something to make her comfortable, offering her a footstool, shading the light from her eyes, asking if she felt any draught where she sat. These were things no one had formerly thought of doing for Mrs. Goddard, who in spite of her sad face had been used to laugh merrily enough with the rest, and whose lithe figure had seemed to John the embodiment of youthful activity. At last he ventured to ask her a question. "Have you been ill, Mrs. Goddard?" he inquired in a voice full of interest. Her soft eyes glanced uneasily at him. He was now the only one of the party who was not in some degree acquainted with her troubles. "Oh no!" she answered nervously. "Only a little headache. It always makes me quite wretched when I have it." "Yes. I often have headaches, too," answered John. "The squire told me as we came down." "What did he tell you?" asked Mrs. Goddard so quickly as to startle her companion. "Oh--only that you had not been very well. Where is it that you suffer?" he asked sympathetically. "I think it is worst when it seems to be in the very centre of one's head, like a red-hot nail being driven in with a hammer--is that like what you feel?" "I--yes, I daresay. I don't quite know," she answered, her eyes wandering uneasily about the room. "I suppose you have dreadful headaches over your work, do you not, Mr. Short?" she added quickly, feeling that she must say something. "Oh, it is all over now," said John rather proudly. But as he leaned back in his chair he said to himself that this meeting was not precisely what he had anticipated; the subject of headaches might have a fine interest in its way, but he had expected to have talked of more tender things. To his own great surprise he felt no desire to do so, however. He had not recovered from the shock of seeing that Mrs. Goddard had grown old. "Yes," said she, kindly. "How glad you must be! To have done so splendidly too--you must feel that you have realised a magnificent dream." "No," said John. "I cannot say I do. I have done the thing I meant to do, or I have good reason to believe that I have; but I have not realised my dream. I shall never write any more odes, Mrs. Goddard." "Why not? Oh, you mean to me, Mr. Short?" she added with something of her old manner. "Well, you know, it is much better that you should not." "Perhaps so," answered John rather sadly. "I don't know. Frankly, Mrs. Goddard, did not you sometimes think I was very foolish last Christmas?" "Very," she said, smiling at him kindly. "But I think you have changed. I think you are more of a man, now--you have something more serious--" "I used to think I was very serious, and so I was," said John, with the air of a man who refers to the follies of his long past youth. "Do you remember how angry I was when you wanted me to skate with Miss Nellie?" "Oh, I only said that to teaze you," Mrs. Goddard answered. "I daresay you would be angry now, if I suggested the same thing." "No," said John quietly. "I do not believe I should be. As you say, I feel very much older now than I did then." "The older we grow the more we like youth," said Mary Goddard, unconsciously uttering one of the fundamental truths of human nature, and at the same time so precisely striking the current of John's thoughts that he started. He was wondering within himself why it was that she now seemed too old for him, whereas a few short months ago she had seemed to be of his own age. "How true that is!" he exclaimed. Mrs. Goddard laughed faintly. "You are not old enough to have reached that point yet, Mr. Short," she said. "Really, here we are moralising like a couple of old philosophers!" "This is a moralising season," answered John. "When we last met, it was all holly-berries and Christmas and plum-pudding." "How long ago that seems!" exclaimed the poor lady with a sigh. "Ages!" echoed John, sighing in his turn, but not so much for sadness, it may be, as from relief that the great struggle was over. That time of anxiety and terrible effort seemed indeed very far removed from him, but its removal was a cause of joy rather than of sadness. He sighed like a man who, sitting over his supper, remembers the hard fought race he has won in the afternoon, feeling yet in his limbs the ability to race and win again but feeling in his heart the delicious consciousness that the question of his superiority has been decided beyond all dispute. "And now you will stay here a long time, of course," said Mrs. Goddard presently. "I am stopping at the Hall, just now," said John with a distinct sense of the importance of the fact, "and after a week I shall stay here a few days. Then I shall go to London to see my father." "No one will be so glad as he to hear of your success." "No indeed. I really think it is more for his sake that I want to be actually first," said John. "Do you know, I have so often thought how he will look when I meet him and tell him I am the senior classic." John's voice trembled and as Mrs. Goddard looked at him, she thought she saw a moisture in his eyes. It pleased her to see it, for it showed that John Short had more heart than she had imagined. "I can fancy that," she said, warmly. "I envy you that moment." Presently the squire came over to where they were sitting and joined them; and then Mrs. Ambrose spoke to John, and Nellie came and asked him questions. Strange to say John felt none of that annoyance which he formerly felt when his conversations with Mrs. Goddard were interrupted, and he talked with Nellie and Mrs. Ambrose quite as readily as with her. He felt very calm and happy that night, as though he had done with the hard labour of life. In half an hour he had realised that he was no more in love with Mrs. Goddard than he was with Mrs. Ambrose, and he was trying to explain to himself how it was that he had ever believed in such a palpable absurdity. Love was doubtless blind, he thought, but he was surely not so blind as to overlook the evidences of Mrs. Goddard's age. All the dreams of that morning faded away before the sight of her face, and so deep is the turpitude of the best of human hearts that John was almost ashamed of having once thought he loved her. That was probably the best possible proof that his love had been but a boyish fancy. What the little party at the vicarage would have been like, if John's presence had not animated it, would be hard to say. The squire and Mr. Ambrose treated Mrs. Goddard with the sort of paternal but solemn care which is usually bestowed either upon great invalids or upon persons bereaved of some very dear relation. The two elder men occasionally looked at her and exchanged glances when they were not observed by Mrs. Ambrose, wondering perhaps what would next befall the unfortunate lady and whether she could bear much more of the excitement and anxiety to which she had of late been subjected. On the whole the conversation was far from being lively, and Mrs. Goddard herself felt that it was a relief when the hour came for going home. The vicar had ordered his dog-cart for her and Nellie, but as the night had turned out better than had been expected Mr. Juxon's groom had not come down from the Hall. Both he and John would be glad of the walk; it had not rained for two days and the roads were dry. "Look here," said the squire, as they rose to take their leave, "Mr. Short had better go as far as the cottage in the dog-cart, to see Mrs. Goddard home. I will go ahead on foot--I shall probably be there as soon as you. There is not room for us all, and somebody must go with her, you know. Besides," he added, "I have got Stamboul with me." Mrs. Goddard, who was standing beside the squire, laid her hand beseechingly upon his arm. "Oh, pray don't," she said in low voice. "Why have you not got your carriage?" "Never mind me," he answered in the same tone. "I am all right, I like to walk." Before she could say anything more, he had shaken hands with Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose and was gone. Perhaps in his general determination to be good to everybody he fancied that John would enjoy the short drive with Mrs. Goddard better than the walk with himself. But when he was gone, Mrs. Goddard grew very nervous. One of her wraps could not be found, and while search was being made for it the motherly Mrs. Ambrose insisted upon giving her something hot, in the way of brandy and water. She looked very ill, but showed the strongest desire to go. It was no matter about the shawl, she said; Mr. Ambrose could send it in the morning; but the thing was found and at last Mrs. Goddard and Nellie and John got into the dog-cart with old Reynolds and drove off. All these things consumed some time. The squire on the other hand strode briskly forward towards the cottage, not wishing to keep John waiting for him. As he walked his mind wandered back to the consideration of the almost tragic events which were occurring in the peaceful village. He forgot all about John, as he looked up at the half moon which struggled to give some light through the driving clouds; he fell to thinking of Mrs. Goddard and to wondering where her husband might be lying hidden. The road was lonely and he walked fast, with Stamboul close at his heel. The dog-cart did not overtake him before he reached the cottage, and he forgot all about it. By sheer force of habit he opened the white gate and, closing it behind him, entered the park alone. CHAPTER XIX. John's impression of Mrs. Goddard was strengthened by the scene at the vicarage at the moment of leaving. The extraordinary nervousness she betrayed, the anxiety for her welfare shown by Mrs. Ambrose and the grave face of the vicar all favoured the idea that she had become an invalid since he had last met her. He himself fell into the manner of those about him and spoke in low tones and moved delicately as though fearing to offend her sensitive nerves. The vicar alone understood the situation and had been very much surprised at the squire's sudden determination to walk home; he would gladly have seized his hat and run after his friend, but he feared Mrs. Ambrose's curiosity and moreover on reflection felt sure that the dog-cart would overtake Mr. Juxon before he was half way to the cottage. He was very far from suspecting him of the absence of mind which he actually displayed, but it was a great relief to him to see the little party safe in the dog-cart and on the way homeward. Mrs. Goddard was on the front seat with old Reynolds, and John, who would have preferred to sit by her side a few months ago, was glad to find himself behind with Nellie. It was a curious instinct, but he felt it strongly and was almost grateful to the old man for stolidly keeping his seat. So he sat beside Nellie and talked to her, to the child's intense delight; she had not enjoyed the evening very much, for she felt the general sense of oppression as keenly as children always feel such things, and she had long exhausted the slender stock of illustrated books which lay upon the table in the vicarage drawing-room. "There is no more skating now," said John. "What do you do to amuse yourselves?" "I am studying history with mamma," answered Nellie, "and that takes ever so much time, you know. And then--oh, we are beginning to think of the spring, and we look after the violet plants in the frames." "It does not feel much like spring," remarked John. "No--and mamma has not been well lately, so we have not done much of anything." "Has she been ill long?" asked John. "No--oh no! Only the last two or three days, ever since--" Nellie stopped herself. Her mother had told her not to mention the tramp's visit. "Ever since when?" asked John, becoming suddenly interested. "Ever since the last time the Ambroses came to tea," said Nellie with a readiness beyond her years. "But she looks dreadfully, does not she?" "Dreadfully," answered John. Then, leaning back and turning his head he spoke to Mrs. Goddard. "I hope you are quite warm enough?" he said. "Quite--thanks," answered she, but her voice sounded tremulous in the night. It might have been the shaking of the dog-cart. In a few minutes they drew up before the door of the cottage. John sprang to the ground and almost lifted Mrs. Goddard from the high seat. "Where is Mr. Juxon?" she asked anxiously. John looked round, peering into the gloom. A black cloud driven by the strong east wind was passing over the moon, and for some moments it was almost impossible to see anything. The squire was nowhere to be seen. John turned and helped Nellie off the back seat of the dog-cart. "I am afraid we must have passed him," he said quietly. Formerly Mrs. Goddard's tone of anxiety as she asked for the squire would have roused John's resentment; he now thought nothing of it. Reynolds prepared to move off. "Won't you please wait a moment, Reynolds?" said Mrs. Goddard, going close to the old man. She could not have told why she asked him to stay, it was a nervous impulse. "Why?" asked John. "You know I am going to the Hall." "Yes, of course. I only thought, perhaps, you and Mr. Juxon would like to drive up--it is so dark. I am sure Mr. Ambrose would not mind you taking the gentlemen up to the Hall, Reynolds?" "No m'm. I'm quite sure as he wouldn't," exclaimed Reynolds with great alacrity. He immediately had visions of a pint of beer in the Hall kitchen. "You do not think Mr. Juxon may have gone on alone, Mr. Short?" said Mrs. Goddard, leaning upon the wicket gate. Her face looked very pale in the gloom. "No--at would be very odd if he did," replied John, who had his hands in his greatcoat pockets and slowly stamped one foot after another on the hard ground, to keep himself warm. "Then we must have passed him on the road," said Mrs. Goddard. "But I was so sure I saw nobody--" "I think he will come presently," answered John in a reassuring tone. "Why do you wait, Mrs. Goddard? You must be cold, and it is dangerous for you to be out here. Don't wait, Reynolds," he added; "we will walk up." "Oh please don't," cried Mrs. Goddard, imploringly. John looked at her in some surprise. The cloud suddenly passed from before the moon and he could see her anxious upturned face quite plainly. He could not in the least understand the cause of her anxiety, but he supposed her nervousness was connected with her indisposition. Reynolds on his part, being anxious for beer, showed no disposition to move, but sat with stolid indifference, loosely holding the reins while Strawberry, the old mare, hung down her head and stamped from time to time in a feeble and antiquated fashion. For some minutes there was total silence. Not a step was to be heard upon the road, not a sound of any kind, save the strong east wind rushing past the cottage and losing itself among the withered oaks of the park opposite. Suddenly a deep and bell-mouthed note resounded through the air. Strawberry started in the shafts and trembled violently. "Stamboul! Stamboul!" The squire's ringing voice was heard far up the park. The bloodhound's distant baying suddenly ceased. John thought he heard a fainter cry, inarticulate, and full of distress, through the sighing wind. Then there was silence again. Mrs. Goddard leaned back against the wicket gate, and Nellie, startled by the noises, pressed close to her mother's side. "Why--he has gone up the park!" exclaimed John in great surprise. "He was calling to his dog--" "Oh, Mr. Short!" cried Mrs. Goddard in agonised tones, as soon as she could speak, "I am sure something dreadful has happened--do go. Mr. Short--do go and see--" Something of the extreme alarm that sounded in her voice seized upon John. "Stay with Mrs. Goddard, Reynolds," he said quickly and darted across the road towards the park gate. John was strong and active. He laid his hands upon the highest rails and vaulted lightly over, then ran at the top of his speed up the dark avenue. Mr. Juxon, in his absence of mind, had gone through the gate alone, swinging his blackthorn stick in his hand, Stamboul stalking at his heel in the gloom. He was a fearless man and the presence of John during the afternoon had completely dissolved that nervous presentiment of evil he had felt before his guest's coming. But in the short walk of scarcely half a mile, from the vicarage to the cottage, his thoughts had become entirely absorbed in considering Mrs. Goddard's strange position, and for the moment John was quite forgotten. He entered the park and the long iron latch of the wooden gate fell into its socket behind him with a sharp click. Mr. Juxon walked quickly on and Stamboul trod noiselessly behind him. At about a hundred yards from the gate the avenue turned sharply to the right, winding about a little elevation in the ground, where the trees stood thicker than elsewhere. As he came towards this hillock the strong east wind blew sharply behind him. Had the wind been in the opposite direction, Stamboul's sharp nostrils would have scented danger. As it was he gave no sign but stalked solemnly at the squire's heels. The faint light of the half moon was obscured at that moment, as has been seen, by a sweeping cloud. The squire turned to the right and tramped along the hard road. At the darkest spot in the way a man sprang out suddenly before him and struck a quick blow at his head with something heavy. But it was very dark. The blow was aimed at his head, but fell upon the heavy padded frieze of his ulster greatcoat, grazing the brim of his hat as it passed and knocking it off his head. Mr. Juxon staggered and reeled to one side. At the same instant--it all happened in the space of two seconds, Stamboul sprang past his master and his bulk, striking the squire at the shoulder just as he was staggering from the blow he had received, sent him rolling into the ditch; by the same cause the hound's direction as he leaped was just so changed that he missed his aim and bounded past the murderer into the darkness. Before the gigantic beast could recover himself and turn to spring again, Walter Goddard, who had chanced never to see Stamboul and little suspected his presence, leaped the ditch and fled rapidly through the dark shadow. But death was at his heels. Before the squire, who was very little hurt, could get upon his feet, the bloodhound had found the scent and, uttering his deep-mouthed baying note, sprang upon the track of the flying man. Mr. Juxon got across the ditch and followed him into the gloom. "Stamboul! Stamboul!" he roared as he ran. But before he had gone thirty yards he heard a heavy fall. The hound's cry ceased and a short scream broke the silence. A moment later the squire was dragging the infuriated animal from the prostrate body of Walter Goddard. Stamboul had tasted blood; it was no easy matter to make him relinquish his prey. The cloud passed from the moon, driven before the blast, and a ray of light fell through the trees upon the scene. Juxon stood wrestling with his hound, holding to his heavy collar with both hands with all his might. He dared not let go for an instant, well knowing that the frenzied beast would tear his victim limb from limb. But Juxon's hands were strong, and though Stamboul writhed and his throat rattled he could not free himself. The squire glanced at the body of the fallen man, just visible in the flickering moonlight. Walter Goddard lay quite still upon his back. If he was badly wounded it was not possible to say where the wound was. It was a terrible moment. Mr. Juxon felt that he could not leave the man thus, not knowing whether he were alive or dead; and yet while all his strength was exerted to the full in controlling the bloodhound, it was impossible to approach a step nearer. He was beginning to think that he should be obliged to take Stamboul to the Hall and return again to the scene of the disaster. "Mr. Juxon! Juxon! Juxon!" John was shouting as he ran up the park. "This way! look sharp!" yelled the squire, foreseeing relief. John's quick footsteps rang on the hard road. The squire called again and in a moment the young man had joined him and stood horror-struck at what he saw. "Don't touch the dog!" cried the squire. "Don't come near him, I say!" he added as John came forward. "There--there has been an accident, Mr. Short," he added in calmer tones. "Would you mind seeing if the fellow is alive?" John was too much startled to say anything, but he went and knelt down by Goddard's body and looked into his face. "Feel his pulse," said the squire. "Listen at his heart." To him it seemed a very simple matter to ascertain whether a man were alive or dead. But John was nervous; he had never seen a dead man in his life and felt that natural repulsion to approaching death which is common to all living creatures. There was no help for it, however, and he took Walter Goddard's limp hand in his and tried to find his pulse; he could not distinguish any beating. The hand fell nerveless to the ground. "I think he is dead," said John very softly, and he rose to his feet and drew back a little way from the body. "Then just wait five minutes for me, if you do not mind," said Mr. Juxon, and he turned away dragging the reluctant and still struggling Stamboul by his side. John shuddered when he was left alone. It was indeed a dismal scene enough. At his feet lay Walter Goddard's body, faintly illuminated by the struggling moonbeams; all around and overhead the east wind was howling and whistling and sighing in the dry oak branches, whirling hither and thither the few brown leaves that had clung to their hold throughout the long winter; the sound of the squire's rapidly retreating footsteps grew more faint in the distance; John felt that he was alone and was very uncomfortable. He would have liked to go back to the cottage and tell Mrs. Goddard of what had happened, and that Mr. Juxon was safe; but he thought the squire might return and find that he had left his post and accuse him of cowardice. He drew back from the man's body and sheltered himself from the wind, leaning against the broad trunk of an old oak tree. He had not stood thus many minutes when he heard the sound of wheels upon the hard road. It might be Mrs. Goddard, he thought. With one more glance at the prostrate body, he turned away and hurried through the trees towards the avenue. The bright lamps of the dog-cart were almost close before him. He shouted to Reynolds. "Whoa, January!" ejaculated that ancient functionary as he pulled up Strawberry close to John Short. Why the natives of Essex and especially of Billingsfield habitually address their beasts of burden as "January" is a matter best left to the discrimination of philologers; obedient to the familiar words however, Strawberry stood still in the middle of the road. John could see that Mrs. Goddard was seated by the side of Reynolds but that Nellie was not in the cart. "Oh, Mrs. Goddard, is that you?" said John. "Mr. Juxon will be here in a moment. Don't be frightened--he is not hurt in the least; awfully bad luck for the tramp, though!" "The tramp?" repeated Mrs. Goddard with a faint cry of horror. "Yes," said John, whose spirits rose wonderfully in the light of the dog-cart lamps. "There was a poor tramp hanging about the park--poaching, very likely--and Mr. Juxon's dog got after him, somehow, I suppose. I do not know how it happened, but when I came up--oh! here is Mr. Juxon himself--he will tell you all about it." The squire came up in breathless haste, having locked Stamboul into the house. "Good Heavens! Mrs. Goddard!" he ejaculated in a tone of profound surprise. But Mrs. Goddard gave no answer. The squire sprang upon the step and looked closely at her. She lay back against old Reynolds's shoulder, very pale, with her eyes shut. It was evident that she had fainted. The old man seemed not to comprehend what had happened; he had never experienced the sensation of having a lady leaning upon his shoulder, and he looked down at her with a half idiotic smile on his deeply furrowed face. "She's took wuss, sir," he remarked. "She was all for comin' up the park as soon as Master John was gone. She warn't feelin' herself o' no account t' evenin'." "Look here, Mr. Short," said the squire decisively. "I must ask you to take Mrs. Goddard home again and call her women to look after her. I fancy she will come to herself before long. Do you mind?" "Not in the least," said John cheerfully, mounting at the back of the dog-cart. "And--Reynolds--bring Mr. Short back to the Hall immediately, please, and you shall have some beer." "All right, sir." John supported the fainting lady with one arm, turning round upon his seat at the back. Old Strawberry wheeled quickly in her tracks and trotted down the avenue under the evident impression that she was going home. Mr. Juxon dashed across the ditch again to the place where Walter Goddard had fallen. The squire knelt down and tried to ascertain the extent of the man's injuries; as far as he could see there was a bad wound at his throat, and one hand was much mangled. But there seemed to have been no great flow of blood. He tore open the smock-frock and shirt and put his ear to the heart. Faintly, very faintly, he could hear it beat. Walter Goddard was alive still--alive to live for years perhaps, the squire reflected; to live in a prison, it was true, but to live. To describe his feelings in that moment would be impossible. Had he found the convict dead, it would be useless to deny that he would have felt a very great satisfaction, tempered perhaps by some pity for the wretched man's miserable end, but still very great. It would have seemed such a just end, after all; to be killed in the attempt to kill, and to have died not by the squire's hand but by the sharp strong jaws of the hound who had once before saved the squire's life. But he was alive. It would not take much to kill him; a little pressure on his wounded throat would be enough. Even to leave him there, uncared for, till morning in the bleak wind, lying upon the cold ground, would be almost certain to put an end to his life. But to the honour of Charles James Juxon be it said that such thoughts never crossed his mind. He pulled off his heavy ulster greatcoat, wrapped it about the felon's insensible body, then, kneeling, raised up his head and shoulders, got his strong arms well round him and with some difficulty rose to his feet. Once upright, it was no hard matter to carry his burthen through the trees to the road, and up the avenue to his own door. "Holmes," said Mr. Juxon to his butler, "this man is badly hurt, but he is alive. Help me to carry him upstairs." There was that in the squire's voice which brooked neither question nor delay when he was in earnest. The solemn butler took Walter Goddard by the feet and the squire took him by the shoulders; so they carried him up to a bedroom and laid him down, feeling for the bed in the dark as they moved. Holmes then lit a candle with great calmness. "Shall I send for the medical man, sir?" he asked quietly. "Yes. Send the gig as fast as possible. If he is not at home, or cannot be found, send on to the town. If anybody asks questions say the man is a tramp who attacked me in the park and Stamboul pulled him down. Send at once, and bring me some brandy and light the fire here." "Yes, sir," said Holmes, and left the room. Mr. Juxon lighted other candles and examined the injured man. There was now no doubt that he was alive. He breathed faintly but regularly; his pulse beat less rapidly and more firmly. His face was deadly pale and very thin, and his half-opened eyes stared unconsciously upwards, but they were not glazed nor death-like. He seemed to have lost little blood, comparatively speaking. "Bah!" ejaculated the squire. "I believe he is only badly frightened, after all." Holmes brought brandy and warm water and again left the room. Mr. Juxon bathed Goddard's face and neck with a sponge, eying him suspiciously all the while. It would not have surprised him at any moment if he had leaped from the bed and attempted to escape. To guard against surprise, the squire locked the door and put the key in his pocket, watching the convict to see whether he noticed the act or was really unconscious. But Goddard never moved nor turned his motionless eyeballs. Mr. Juxon returned to his side, and with infinite care began to remove his clothes. They were almost in rags. He examined each article, and was surprised to find money in the pockets, amounting to nearly sixty pounds; then he smiled to himself, remembering that the convict had visited his wife and had doubtless got the money from her to aid him in his escape. He put the notes and gold carefully together in a drawer after counting them, and returning to his occupation succeeded at last in putting Goddard to bed, after staunching his wounds as well as he could with handkerchiefs. He stood long by the bedside, watching the man's regular breathing, and examining his face attentively. Many strange thoughts passed through his mind, as he stood there, looking at the man who had caused such misery to himself, such shame and sorrow to his fair wife, such disappointment to the honest man who was now trying to save him from the very grasp of death. So this was Mary Goddard's husband, little Nellie's father--this grimy wretch, whose foul rags lay heaped there in the corner, whose miserable head pressed the spotless linen of the pillow, whose half-closed eyes stared up so senselessly at the squire's face. This was the man for whose sake Mary Goddard started and turned pale, fainted and grew sick, languished and suffered so much pain. No wonder she concealed it from Nellie--no wonder she had feared lest after many years he should come back and claim her for his wife--no wonder either that a man with such a face should do bad deeds. Mr. Juxon was a judge of faces; persons accustomed for many years to command men usually are. He noted Walter Goddard's narrow jaw and pointed chin, his eyes set near together, his wicked lips, parted and revealing sharp jagged teeth, his ill-shaped ears and shallow temples, his flat low forehead, shown off by his cropped hair. And yet this man had once been called handsome, he had been admired and courted. But then his hair had hidden the shape of his head, his long golden moustache had covered his mouth and disguised all his lower features, he had been arrayed by tailors of artistic merit, and he had had much gold in his pockets. He was a very different object now--the escaped convict, close cropped, with a half-grown beard upon his ill-shaped face, and for all ornament a linen sheet drawn up under his chin. The squire was surprised that he did not recover consciousness, seeing that he breathed regularly and was no longer so pale as at first. A faint flush seemed to rise to his sunken cheeks, and for a long time Mr. Juxon stood beside him, expecting every moment that he would speak. Once he thought his lips moved a little. Then Mr. Juxon took a little brandy in a spoon and raising his head poured it down his throat. The effect was immediate. Goddard opened wide his eyes, the blood mounted to his cheeks with a deep flush, and he uttered an inarticulate sound. "What did you say?" asked the squire, bending over him. But there was no answer. The sick man's head fell back upon the pillow, though his eyes remained wide open and the flush did not leave his cheeks. His pulse was now very high, and his breathing grew heavy and stertorous. "I hope I have not made him any worse," remarked Mr. Juxon aloud, as he contemplated his patient. "But if he is going to die, I wish he would die now." The thought was charitable, on the whole. If Walter Goddard died then and there, he would be buried in a nameless grave under the shadow of the old church; no one would ever know that he was the celebrated forger, the escaped convict, the husband of Mary Goddard. If he lived--heaven alone knew what complications would follow if he lived. There was a knock at the door. Mr. Juxon drew the key from his pocket and opened it. Holmes the butler stood outside. "Mr. Short has come back, sir. He asked if you wished to see him." "Ask him to come here," replied the squire, to whom the tension of keeping his solitary watch was becoming very irksome. In a few moments John entered the room, looking pale and nervous. CHAPTER XX. John Short was in absolute ignorance of what was occurring. He attributed Mrs. Goddard's anxiety to her solicitude for Mr. Juxon, and if he had found time to give the matter serious consideration, he would have argued very naturally that she was fond of the squire. It had been less easy than the latter had supposed to take her home and persuade her to stay there, for she was in a state in which she hardly understood reason. Nothing but John's repeated assurances to the effect that Mr. Juxon was not in the least hurt, and that he would send her word of the condition of the wounded tramp, prevailed upon her to remain at the cottage; for she had come back to consciousness before the dog-cart was fairly out of the park and had almost refused to enter her own home. The catastrophe had happened, after eight and forty hours of suspense, and her position was one of extreme fear and doubt. She had indeed seen the squire at the very moment when she fainted, but the impression was uncertain as that of a dream, and it required all John's asseverations to persuade her that Mr. Juxon had actually met her and insisted that she should return to the cottage. Once there, in her own house, she abandoned herself to the wildest excitement, shutting herself into the drawing-room and refusing to see anyone; she gave way to all her sorrow and fear, feeling that if she controlled herself any longer she must go mad. Indeed it was the best thing she could do, for her nerves were overstrained, and the hysterical weeping which now completely overpowered her for some time, was the natural relief to her overwrought system. She had not the slightest doubt that the tramp of whom John had spoken, and whom he had described as badly hurt, was her husband; and together with her joy at Mr. Juxon's escape, she felt an intolerable anxiety to know Walter's fate. If in ordinary circumstances she had been informed that he had died in prison, it would have been absurd to expect her to give way to any expressions of excessive grief; she would perhaps have shed a few womanly tears and for some time she would have been more sad than usual; but she no longer loved him and his death could only be regarded as a release from all manner of trouble and shame and evil foreboding. With his decease would have ended her fears for poor Nellie, her apprehensions for the future in case he should return and claim her, the whole weight of her humiliation, and if she was too kind to have rejoiced over such a termination of her woes, she was yet too sensible not to have fully understood and appreciated the fact of her liberation and of the freedom given to the child she loved, by the death of a father whose return could bring nothing but disgrace. But now she did not know whether Walter were alive or dead. If he was alive he was probably so much injured as to preclude all possibility of his escaping, and he must inevitably be given up to justice, no longer to imprisonment merely, but by his own confession to suffer the death of a murderer. If on the other hand he was already dead, he had died a death less shameful indeed, but of which the circumstances were too horrible for his wife to contemplate, for he must have been torn to pieces by Stamboul the bloodhound. She unconsciously comprehended all these considerations, which entirely deprived her of the power to weigh them in her mind, for her mind was temporarily loosed from all control of the reasoning faculty. She had borne much during the last three days, but she could bear no more; intellect and sensibility were alike exhausted and gave way together. There were indeed moments, intervals in the fits of hysteric tears and acute mental torture, when she lay quite still in her chair and vaguely asked herself what it all meant, but her disturbed consciousness gave no answer to the question, and presently her tears broke out afresh and she tossed wildly from side to side, or walked hurriedly up and down the room, wringing her hands in despair, sobbing aloud in her agony and again abandoning herself to the uncontrolled exaggerations of her grief and terror. One consolation alone presented itself at intervals to her confused intelligence; Mr. Juxon was safe. Whatever other fearful thing had happened, he was safe, saved perhaps by her warning--but what was that, if Walter had escaped death only to die at the hands of the hangman, or had found it in the jaws of that fearful bloodhound? What was the safety even of her best friend, if poor Nellie was to know that her father was alive, only to learn that he was to die again? But human suffering cannot outlast human strength; as a marvellous adjustment of forces has ordered that even at the pole, in the regions of boundless and perpetual cold, the sea shall not freeze to the bottom, so there is also in human nature a point beyond which suffering cannot extend. The wildest emotions must expend themselves in time, the fiercest passions must burn out. At the end of two hours Mary Goddard was exhausted by the vehemence of her hysteric fear, and woke as from a dream to a dull sense of reality. She knew, now that some power of reflection was restored to her, that the squire would give her intelligence of what had happened, so soon as he was able, and she knew also that she must wait until the morning before any such message could reach her. She took the candle from the table and went upstairs. Nellie was asleep, but her mother felt a longing to look at her again that night, not knowing what misery for her child the morrow might bring forth. Nellie lay asleep in her bed, her rich brown hair plaited together and thrown back across the pillow. The long dark fringes of her eyelashes cast a shade upon the transparent colour of her cheek, and the light breath came softly through her parted lips. But as Mary Goddard looked she saw that there were still tears upon her lovely face and that the pillow was still wet. She had cried herself to sleep, for Martha had told her that her mother was very ill and would not see her that night; Nellie was accustomed to say her prayers at her mother's knee every evening before going to bed, she was used to having her mother smooth her pillow and kiss her and put out her light, leaving her with sweet words, to wake her with sweet words on the next morning, and to-night she had missed all this and had been told moreover that her mother was very ill and was acting very strangely. She had gone to bed and had cried herself to sleep, and the tears were still upon her cheeks. Shading the light carefully from the child's eyes, Mary Goddard bent down and kissed her forehead once and then feeling that her sorrow was rising again she turned and passed noiselessly from the room. But Nellie was dreaming peacefully and knew nothing of her mother's visit; she slept on not knowing that scarcely a quarter of a mile away her own father, whom she had been taught to think of as dead, was lying at the Hall, wounded and unconscious while half the detectives in the kingdom were looking for him. Had Nellie known that, her sleep would have been little and her dreams few. There was little rest at the Hall that night. When Reynolds had driven John back to the great house he found his way to the kitchen and got his beer, and he became at once a centre of interest, being overwhelmed with questions concerning the events of the evening. But he was able to say very little except that while waiting before the cottage he had heard strange noises from the park, that Master John had run up the avenue, that Mrs. Goddard had taken Miss Nellie into the house and had then insisted upon being driven towards the Hall, that they had met Master John and the squire and that Mrs. Goddard had been "took wuss." Meanwhile John entered the room where Mr. Juxon was watching over Walter Goddard. John looked pale and nervous; he had not recovered from the unpleasant sensation of being left alone with what he believed to be a dead body, in the struggling moonlight and the howling wind. He was by no means timid by nature, but young nerves are not so tough as old ones and he had felt exceedingly uncomfortable. He stood a moment within the room, then glanced at the bed and started with surprise. "Why--he is not dead after all!" he exclaimed, and going nearer he looked hard at Goddard's flushed face. "No," said Mr. Juxon, "he is not dead. He may be dying for all I know. I have sent for the doctor." "Was he much hurt?" asked John, still looking at the sick man. "He looks to me as though he were in a fever." "He does not seem so badly hurt. I cannot make it out at all. At first I thought he was badly frightened, but I cannot bring him to consciousness. Perhaps he has a fever, as you say. This is a most unpleasant experience, Mr. Short--your first night at the Hall, too. Of course I am bound to look after the man, as Stamboul did the damage--it would have served him right if he had been killed. It was a villainous blow he gave me--I can feel it still. The moral of it is that one should always wear a thick ulster when one walks alone at night." "I did not know he struck you," said John in some surprise. "Jumped out of the copse at the turning and struck at me with a bludgeon," said Mr. Juxon. "Knocked my hat off, into the bargain, and then ran away with Stamboul after him. If I had not come up in time there would have been nothing left of him." "I should say the dog saved your life," remarked John, much impressed by the squire's unadorned tale. "What object can the fellow have had in attacking you? Strange--his eyes are open, but he does not seem to understand us." Mr. Juxon walked to the bedside and contemplated the sick man's features with undisguised disgust. "You villain!" he said roughly. "Why don't you answer for yourself?" The man did not move, and the squire began to pace the room. John was struck by Mr. Juxon's tone: it was not like him, he thought, to speak in that way to a helpless creature. He could not understand it. There was a long silence, broken only by the heavy breathing of Goddard. "Really, Mr. Short," said the squire at last, "I have no intention of keeping you up all night. The village doctor must have been out. It may be more than an hour before my man finds another." "Never mind," said John quietly. "I will wait till he comes at all events. You may need me before it is over." "Do you think he looks as if he were going to die?" asked the squire doubtfully, as he again approached the bedside. "I don't know," answered John, standing on the other side. "I never saw any one die. He looks very ill." "Very ill. I have seen many people die--but somehow I have a strong impression that this fellow will live." "Let us hope so," said John. "Well--" The squire checked himself. Probably the hope he would have expressed would not have coincided with that to which John had given utterance. "Well," he repeated, "I daresay he will. Mr. Short, are you at all nervous? Since you are so good as to say you will wait until the doctor comes, would you mind very much being left alone here for five minutes?" "No," answered John, stoutly, "not in the least." To be left in a well-lighted room by the bedside of Walter Goddard, ill indeed, but alive and breathing vigorously, was very different from being requested to watch his apparently dead body out in the park under the moonlight. With a word of thanks, the squire left the room, and hastened to his study, where he proceeded to write a note, as follows:-- "MY DEAR MR. AMBROSE--The man we were speaking of yesterday morning actually attacked me this evening. Stamboul worried him badly, but he is not dead. He is lying here, well cared for, and I have sent for the doctor. If convenient to you, would you come in the morning? I need not recommend discretion.--Sincerely yours, "C.J. JUXON. _N.B._--I am not hurt." Having ascertained that Reynolds was still in the kitchen, the missive was given to the old man with an injunction to use all speed, as the vicar might be going to bed and the note was important. John, meanwhile, being left alone sat down near the wounded man's bed and waited, glancing at the flushed face and staring eyes from time to time, and wondering whether the fellow would recover. The young scholar had been startled by all that had occurred, and his ideas wandered back to the beginning of the evening, scarcely realising that a few hours ago he had not met Mrs. Goddard, had not experienced a surprising change in his feelings towards her, had not witnessed the strange scene under the trees. It seemed as though all these things had occupied a week at the very least, whereas on that same afternoon he had been speculating upon his meeting with Mrs. Goddard, calling up her features to his mind as he had last seen them, framing speeches which when the meeting came he had not delivered, letting his mind run riot in the delicious anticipation of appearing before her in the light of a successful competitor for one of the greatest honours of English scholarship. And yet in a few hours all his feelings were changed, and to his infinite surprise, were changed without any suffering to himself; he knew well that, for some reason, Mrs. Goddard had lost the mysterious power of making him blush, and of sending strange thrills through his whole nature when he sat at her side; with some justice he attributed his new indifference to the extraordinary alteration in her appearance, whereby she seemed now so much older than himself, and he forthwith moralised upon the mutability of human affairs, with all the mental fluency of a very young man whose affairs are still extremely mutable. He fell to musing on the accident in the park, wondering how he would have acted in Mr. Juxon's place, wondering especially what object could have led the wretched tramp to attack the squire, wondering too at the very great anxiety shown by Mrs. Goddard. As he sat by the bedside, the sick man suddenly moved and turning his eyes full upon John's face stared at him with a look of dazed surprise. He thrust out his wounded hand, bound up in a white handkerchief through which a little blood was slowly oozing, and to John's infinite surprise he spoke. "Who are you?" he asked in a strange, mumbling voice, as though he had pebbles in his mouth. John started forward in his chair and looked intently at Goddard's face. "My name is Short," he answered mechanically. But the passing flash of intelligence was already gone, and Goddard's look became a glassy and idiotic stare. Still his lips moved. John came nearer and listened. "Mary Goddard! Mary Goddard! Let me in!" said the sick man quite intelligibly, in spite of his uncertain tone. John uttered an exclamation of astonishment; his heart beat fast and he listened intently. The sick man mumbled inarticulate sounds; not another word could be distinguished. John looked for the bell, thinking that Mr. Juxon should be informed of the strange phenomenon at once; but before he could ring the squire himself entered the room, having finished and despatched his note to Mr. Ambrose. "It is most extraordinary," said John. "He spoke just now--" "What did he say?" asked Mr. Juxon very quickly. "He said first, 'Who are you?' and then he said 'Mary Goddard, let me in!' Is it not most extraordinary? How in the world should he know about Mrs. Goddard?" The squire turned a little pale and was silent for a moment. He had left John with the wounded man feeling sure that, for some time at least, the latter would not be likely to say anything intelligible. "Most extraordinary!" he repeated presently. Then he looked at Goddard closely, and turned him again upon his back and put his injured hand beneath the sheet. "Do you understand me? Do you know who I am?" he asked in a loud tone close to his ear. But the unfortunate man gave no sign of intelligence, only his inarticulate mumbling grew louder though not more distinct. Mr. Juxon turned away impatiently. "The fellow is in a delirium," he said. "I wish the doctor would come." He had hardly turned his back when the man spoke again. "Mary Goddard!" he cried. "Let me in!" "There!" said John. "The same words!" Mr. Juxon shuddered, and looked curiously at his companion; then thrust his hands into his pockets and whistling softly walked about the room. John was shocked at what seemed in the squire a sort of indecent levity; he could not understand that his friend felt as though he should go mad. Indeed the squire suffered intensely. The name of Mary Goddard, pronounced by the convict in his delirium brought home more vividly than anything could have done the relation between the wounded tramp and the woman the squire loved. It was positively true, then--there was not a shadow of doubt left, since this wretch lay there mumbling her name in his ravings! This was the husband of that gentle creature with sad pathetic eyes, so delicate, so refined that it seemed as though the coarser breath of the world of sin and shame could never come near her--this was her husband! It was horrible. This was the father of lovely Nellie, too. Was anything wanting to make the contrast more hideous? Mr. Juxon felt that it was impossible to foresee what Walter Goddard might say in the course of another hour. He had often seen people in a delirium and knew how strangely that inarticulate murmuring sometimes breaks off into sudden incisive speech, astonishing every one who hears. The man had already betrayed that he knew Mary Goddard; at the next interval in his ravings he might betray that she was his wife. John was still standing by the bedside, not having recovered from his astonishment; if John heard any more, he would be in possession of Mrs. Goddard's secret. The squire was an energetic man, equal to most emergencies; he suddenly made up his mind. "Mr. Short," he said, "I will tell you something. You will see the propriety of being very discreet, in fact it is only to ensure your discretion that I wish to tell you this much. I have reason to believe that this fellow is a convict--do not be surprised--escaped from prison. He is a man who once--was in love with Mrs. Goddard, which accounts for his having found his way to Billingsfield. Yes--I know what you are going to say--Mrs. Goddard is aware of his presence, and that accounts for her excitement and her fainting. Do you understand?" "But--good heavens!" exclaimed John in amazement. "Why did she not give information, if she knew he was in the neighbourhood?" "That would be more than could be expected of any woman, Mr. Short. You forget that the man once loved her." "And how did you--well, no. I won't ask any questions." "No," said the squire, "please don't. You would be placing me in a disagreeable position. Not that I do not trust you implicitly, Mr. Short," he added frankly, "but I should be betraying a confidence. If this fellow dies here, he will be buried as an unknown tramp. I found no trace of a name upon his clothes. If he recovers, we will decide what course to pursue. We will do our best for him--it is a delicate case of conscience. Possibly the poor fellow would very much prefer being allowed to die; but we cannot let him. Humanity, for some unexplained reason, forbids euthanasia and the use of the hemlock in such cases." "Was he sentenced for a long time?" asked John, very much impressed by the gravity of the situation. "Twelve years originally, I believe. Aggravated by his escape and by his assault on me, his term might very likely be extended to twenty years if he were taken again." "That is to say, if he recovers?" inquired John. "Precisely. I do not think I would hesitate to send him back to prison if he recovered." "I do not wonder you think he would rather die here, if he were consulted," said John. "It would not be murder to let him die peacefully--" "In the opinion of the law it might be called manslaughter, though I do not suppose anything would be said if I had simply placed him here and omitted to call in a physician. He cannot live very long in this state, unless something is done for him immediately. Look at him." There was no apparent change in Goddard's condition. He lay upon his back staring straight upward and mumbling aloud with every breath he drew. "He must have been ill, before he attacked me," continued Mr. Juxon, very much as though he were talking to himself. "He evidently is in a raging fever--brain fever I should think. That is probably the reason why he missed his aim--that and the darkness. If he had been well he would have killed me fast enough with that bludgeon. As you say, Mr. Short, there is no doubt whatever that he would prefer to die here, if he had his choice. In my opinion, too, it would be far more merciful to him and to--to him in fact. Nevertheless, neither you nor I would like to remember that we had let him die without doing all we could to keep him alive. It is a very singular case." "Most singular," echoed John. "Besides--there is another thing. Suppose that he had attacked me as he did, but that I had killed him with my stick--or that Stamboul had made an end of him then and there. The law would have said it served him right--would it not? Of course. But if I had not quite killed him, or, as has actually happened, he survived the embraces of my dog, the law insists that I ought to do everything in my power to save the remnant of his life. What for? In order that the law may give itself the satisfaction of dealing with him according to its lights. I think the law is very greedy, I object to it, I think it is ridiculous from that point of view, but then, when I come to examine the thing I find that my own conscience tells me to save him, although I think it best that he should die. Therefore the law is not ridiculous. Pleasant dilemma--the impossible case! The law is at the same time ridiculous and not ridiculous. The question is, does the law deduce itself from conscience, or is conscience the direct result of existing law?" The squire appeared to be in a strangely moralising mood, and John listened to him with some surprise. He could not understand that the good man was talking to persuade himself, and to concentrate his faculties, which had been almost unbalanced by the events of the evening. "I think," said John with remarkable good sense, "that the instinct of man is to preserve life when he is calm. When a man is fighting with another he is hot and tries to kill his enemy; when the fight is over, the natural instinct returns." "The only thing worth knowing in such cases is the precise point at which the fight may be said to be over. I once knew a young surgeon in India who thought he had killed a cobra and proceeded to extract the fangs in order to examine the poison. Unfortunately the snake was not quite dead; he bit the surgeon in the finger and the poor fellow died in thirty-five minutes." "Dreadful!" said John. "But you do not think this poor fellow could do anything very dangerous now--do you?" "Oh, dear me, no!" returned the squire. "I was only stating a case to prove that one is sometimes justified in going quite to the end of a fight. No indeed! He will not be dangerous for some time, if he ever is again. But, as I was saying, he must have been ill some time. Delirium never comes on in this way, so soon--" Some one knocked at the door. It was Holmes, who came to say that the physician, Doctor Longstreet, had arrived. "Oh--it is Doctor Longstreet is it?" said the squire. "Ask him to come up." CHAPTER XXI. Doctor Longstreet was not the freethinking physician of Billingsfield. The latter was out when Mr. Juxon's groom went in search of him, and the man had driven on to the town, six miles away. The doctor was an old man with a bright eye, a deeply furrowed forehead, a bald head and clean shaved face. He walked as though his frame were set together with springs and there was a curious snapping quickness in his speech. He seemed full of vitality and bore his years with a jaunty air of merriment which inspired confidence, for he seemed perpetually laughing at the ills of the flesh and ready to make other people laugh at them too. But his bright eyes had a penetrating look and though he judged quickly he generally was right in his opinion. He entered the room briskly, not knowing that the sick man was there. "Now, Mr. Juxon," he said cheerfully, "I am with you." He had the habit of announcing his presence in this fashion, as though his brisk and active personality were likely to be overlooked. A moment later he caught sight of the bed. "Dear me," he added in a lower voice, "I did not know our patient was here." He went to Walter Goddard's side, looked at him attentively, felt his pulse, and his forehead, glanced at the bandages the squire had roughly put upon his throat and hand, drew up the sheet again beneath his chin and turned sharply round. "Brain fever, sir," he said cheerfully. "Brain fever. You must get some ice and have some beef tea made as soon as possible. He is in a very bad way--curious, too; he looks like a cross between a ticket of leave man and a gentleman. Tramp, you say? That would not prevent his being either. You cannot disturb him--don't be afraid. He hears nothing--is off, the Lord knows where, raving delirious. Must look to his scratches though--dangerous--inflammation. Do you mind telling me what happened--how long he has been here?" The squire in a few words informed Doctor Longstreet of the attack made upon him in the park. The doctor looked at his watch. "Only two hours and a half since," he remarked. "It is just midnight now, very good--the man must have been in a fever all day--yesterday, too, perhaps. He is not badly hurt by the dog--like to see that dog, if you don't mind--the fright most likely sent him into delirium. You have nothing to accuse yourself of, Mr. Juxon: it was certainly not your fault. Even if the dog had not bitten him, he would most likely have been in his present state by this time. Would you mind sending for some ice at once? Thank you. It was very lucky for the fellow that he attacked you just when he did--secured him the chance of being well taken care of. If he had gone off like this in the park he would have been dead before morning." The squire rang and sent for the ice the doctor demanded. "Do you think he will live?" he asked nervously. "I don't know," answered Doctor Longstreet, frankly. "Nobody can tell. He is very much exhausted--may live two or three days in this state and then die or go to sleep and get well--may die in the morning--often do--cannot say. With a great deal of care, I think he has a chance." "I am very anxious to save him," said the squire, looking hard at the physician. "Very good of you, I am sure," replied Doctor Longstreet, cheerfully. "It is not everybody who would take so much trouble for a tramp. Of course if he dies people will say your dog killed him; but I will sign a paper to the effect that it is not true. If he had left you and your dog alone, he would have been dead in the morning to an absolute certainty." "How very extraordinary!" exclaimed the squire, suddenly realising that instead of causing the man's death Stamboul had perhaps saved his life. "It was certainly very odd that he should have chosen the best moment for assaulting you," continued the doctor. "It is quite possible that even then he was under some delusion--took you for somebody else--some old enemy. People do queer things in a brain fever. By the bye has he said anything intelligible since he has been here?" John Short who had been standing silently by the bedside during the whole interview looked up quickly at the squire, wondering how he would answer. But Mr. Juxon did not hesitate. "Yes. Twice he repeated a woman's name. That is very natural, I suppose. Do you think he will have any lucid moments for some time?" "May," said the doctor, "may. When he does it is likely to be at the turning point; he will either die or be better very soon after. If it comes soon he may say something intelligible. If he is much more exhausted than he is now, he will understand you, but you will not understand him. Meningitis always brings a partial paralysis of the tongue, when the patient is exhausted. Most probably he will go on moaning and mumbling, as he does now, for another day. You will be able to tell by his eye whether he understands anything; perhaps he will make some sign with his head or hand. Ah--here is the ice." Doctor Longstreet went about his operations in a rapid and business like fashion and John gave what assistance he could. The squire stood leaning against the chimney-piece in deep thought. Indeed he had enough to think of, when he had fully weighed the meaning of the doctor's words. He was surprised beyond measure at the turn things had taken; for although, as he had previously told John, he suspected that Goddard must have been in a fever for several hours before the assault, it had not struck him that Stamboul's attack had been absolutely harmless, still less that it might prove to have been the means of saving the convict's life. It was terribly hard to say that he desired to save the man, and yet the honest man in his heart prayed that he might really hope for that result. It would be far worse, should Goddard die, to remember that he had wished for his death. But it would be hard to imagine a more unexpected position than that in which the squire found himself; by a perfectly natural chain of circumstances he was now tending with the utmost care the man who had tried to murder him, and who of all men in the world, stood most in the way of the accomplishment of his desires. He could not hide from himself the fact that he hated the sick man, even though he hoped, or tried to hope for his recovery. He hated him for the shame and suffering he had brought upon Mary Goddard in the first instance, for the terrible anxiety he had caused her by his escape and sudden appearance at her house; he hated him for being what he was, being also the father of Nellie, and he hated him honestly for his base attempt upon himself that night. He had good cause to hate him, and perhaps he was not ashamed of his hatred. To be called upon, however, to return good for such an accumulated mass of evil was almost too much for his human nature. It was but a faint satisfaction to think that if he recovered he was to be sent back to prison. Mr. Juxon did not know that there was blood upon the man's hands--he had yet to learn that; he would not deign to mention the assault in the park when he handed him over to the authorities; the man should simply go back to Portland to suffer the term of his imprisonment, as soon as he should be well enough to be moved--if that time ever came. If he died, he should be buried decently in a nameless grave, "six feet by four, by two," as Thomas Reid would have said--if he died. Meanwhile, however, there was yet another consideration which disturbed the squire's meditations. Mrs. Goddard had a right to know that her husband was dying and, if she so pleased, she had a right to be at his bedside. But at the same time it would be necessary so to account for her presence as not to arouse Doctor Longstreet's suspicions, nor the comments of Holmes, the butler, and of his brigade in the servants' hall. It was no easy matter to do this unless Mrs. Goddard were accompanied by the vicar's wife, the excellent and maternally minded Mrs. Ambrose. To accomplish this it would be necessary to ask the latter lady to spend a great part of her time at the Hall in taking care of the wretched Goddard, who would again be the gainer. But Mrs. Ambrose was as yet ignorant of the fact that he had escaped from prison; she must be told then, and an effort must be made to elicit her sympathy. Perhaps she and the vicar would come and stop a few days, thought the squire. Mrs. Goddard might then come and go as she pleased. Her presence by her husband's bedside would then be accounted for on the ground of her charitable disposition. While Mr. Juxon was revolving these things in his mind he watched the doctor and John who were doing what was necessary for the sick man. Goddard moaned helplessly with every breath, in a loud, monotonous tone, very wearing to the nerves of those who heard it. "There is little to be done," said Doctor Longstreet at last. "He must be fed--alternately a little beef tea and then a little weak brandy and water. We must try and keep the system up. That is his only chance. I will prescribe something and send it back by the groom." "You are not going to leave us to-night?" exclaimed the squire in alarm. "Must. Very sorry. Bad case of diphtheria in town--probably die before morning, unless I get there in time--I would not have come here for any one else. I will certainly be here before ten--he will live till then, I fancy, and I don't believe there will be any change in his condition. Good-night, Mr. Juxon--beef tea and brandy every quarter of an hour. Good-night, Mr.--" he turned to John. "Short," said John. "Good-night, doctor." "Ah--I remember--used to be with Mr. Ambrose--yes. Delighted to meet you again, Mr. Short--good-night." The doctor vanished, before either the squire or John had time to follow him. His departure left an unpleasant sense of renewed responsibility in the squire's mind. "You had better go to bed, Mr. Short," he said kindly. "I will sit up with him." But John would not hear of any such arrangement; he insisted upon bearing his share of the watching and stoutly refused to leave the squire alone. There was a large dressing-room attached to the room where Goddard was lying; the squire and John finally agreed to watch turn and turn about, one remaining with Goddard, while the other rested upon the couch in the dressing-room aforesaid. The squire insisted upon taking his watch first, and John lay down. It was past midnight and he was very tired, but it seemed impossible to sleep with the sound of that loud, monotonous mumbling perpetually in his ears. It was a horrible night, and John Short never forgot it so long as he lived. Years afterwards he could not enter the room where Goddard had lain without fancying he heard that perpetual groaning still ringing in his ears. For many hours it continued unabated and unchanging, never dying away to silence nor developing to articulate words. From time to time John could hear the squire's step as he moved about, administering the nourishment prescribed. If he had had the slightest idea of Mr. Juxon's state of mind he would hardly have left him even to rest awhile in the next room. Fortunately the squire's nerves were solid. A firm constitution hardened by thirty years of seafaring and by the consistent and temperate regularity which was part of his character, had so toughened his natural strength as to put him almost beyond the reach of mortal ills; otherwise he must have broken down under the mental strain thus forced upon him. It is no light thing to do faithfully the utmost to save a man one has good reason to hate, and whose death would be an undoubted blessing to every one who has anything to do with him. Walter Goddard was to Charles Juxon at once an enemy, an obstacle and a rival; an enemy, for having attempted his life, an obstacle, because while he lived he prevented the squire from marrying Mrs. Goddard and a rival because she had once loved him and for the sake of that love was still willing to sacrifice much for him. And yet the very fact that she had loved him made it easier to be kind to him; it seemed to the squire that, after all, in taking care of Goddard he was in some measure serving her, too, seeing that she would have done the same thing herself could she have been present. Yet there was something very generous and large-hearted in the way Charles Juxon did his duty by the sick man. There are people who seem by nature designed to act heroic parts in life, whose actions habitually take an heroic form, and whose whole character is of another stamp from that of average humanity. Of such people much is expected, because they seem to offer much; no one is surprised to hear of their making great sacrifices, no one is astonished if they exhibit great personal courage in times of danger. Very often they are people of large vanity, whose chiefest vanity is not to seem vain; gifted with great powers and always seeking opportunities of using them, holding high ideas upon most subjects but rarely conceiving themselves incapable of attaining to any ideal they select for their admiration; brave in combat partly from real courage, partly, as I have often heard officers say of a dandy soldier in the ranks, because they are too proud to run away; but, on the whole, heroic by temperament and in virtue of a singular compound of pride, strength and virtue, often accomplishing really great things. They are almost always what are called striking people, for their pride and their strength generally attract attention by their magnitude, and something in their mere appearance distinguishes them from the average mass. But Charles Juxon did not in any way belong to this type, any more than the other persons who found themselves concerned in the events which culminated in Goddard's illness. He was a very simple man whose pride was wholly unconscious, who did not believe himself destined to do anything remarkable, who regarded his own personality as rather uninteresting and who, had he been asked about himself, would have been the first to disclaim any sentiments of the heroic kind. With very little imagination, he possessed great stability himself and great belief in the stability of things in general, a character of the traditional kind known as "northern," though it would be much more just to describe it as the "temperate" or "central" type of man. Wherever there is exaggeration in nature, there is exaggerated imagination in man. The solid and unimaginative part of the English character is undeniably derived from the Angles or from the Flemish; it is morally the best part, but it is by all odds the least interesting--it is found in the type of man belonging to the plains in a temperate zone, who differs in every respect from the real northman, his distant cousin and hereditary enemy. If Charles Juxon was remarkable for anything it was for his modesty and reticence, in a word, for his apparent determination not to be remarkable at all. And now, in the extremest anxiety and difficulty, his character served him well; for he unconsciously refused to allow to himself that his position was extraordinary or his responsibility greater than he was able to bear. He disliked intensely the idea of being put forward or thrust into a dramatic situation, and he consequently failed signally to fulfil the dramatic necessities. There was not even a struggle in his heart between the opposite possibilities of letting Goddard die, by merely relaxing his attention, and of redoubling his care and bringing about his recovery. He never once asked himself, after the chances of the patient surviving the fever were stated, whether he would not be justified in sending for some honest housewife from the village to take care of the tramp instead of looking to his wants himself. He simply did his best to save the man's life, without hesitation, without suspecting that he was doing anything extraordinary, doing, as he had always done, the best thing that came in his way according to the best of his ability. He could not wholly suppress the reflection that much good might ensue from Goddard's death, but the thought never for a moment interfered with his efforts to save the convict alive. But John lay in the next room, kept awake by the sick man's perpetual groaning and by the train of thought which ran through his brain. There were indeed more strange things than his philosophy could account for, but the strangest of all was that the squire should know who the tramp was; he must know it, John thought, since he knew all about him, his former love for Mrs. Goddard and his recent presence in the neighbourhood. The young man's curiosity was roused to its highest pitch, and he longed to know more. He at once guessed that there must have been much intimate confidence between Mr. Juxon and Mrs. Goddard; he suspected moreover that there must be some strange story connected with her, something which accounted for the peculiar stamp of a formerly luxurious life which still clung to her, and which should explain her residence in Billingsfield But John was very far from suspecting the real truth. His mind was restless and the inaction became intolerable to him. He rose at last and went again into the room where his friend was watching. Mr. Juxon sat by the bedside, the very picture of patience, one leg crossed over the other and his hands folded together upon his knee, his face paler than usual but perfectly calm, his head bent a little to one side and his smooth hair, which had been slightly ruffled in the encounter in the park, as smooth as ever. It was a very distinctive feature of him; it was part of the sleek and spotless neatness which Mrs. Ambrose so much admired. "It is my turn, now," said John. "Will you lie down for a couple of hours?" The squire rose. Being older and less excitable than John, he was beginning to feel the need of rest. People who have watched often by the sick know how terribly long are those hours of the night between three o'clock and dawn; long always, but seeming interminable when one is obliged to listen perpetually to a long-drawn, inarticulate moaning, a constant effort to speak which never results in words. "You are very good," said Mr. Juxon, quietly. "If you will give him the things from time to time, I will take a nap." With that he went and lay down upon the couch, and in three minutes was as sound asleep as though he were in bed. John sat by the sick man and looked at his flushed features and listened to the hard-drawn breath followed each time by that terrible, monotonous, mumbling groan. It might have been three-quarters of an hour since the squire had gone to sleep when John thought he saw a change in Goddard's face; it seemed to him that the flush subsided from his forehead, very slowly, leaving only a bright burning colour in his cheeks. His eyes seemed suddenly to grow clearer and a strange look of intelligence came into them; his whole appearance was as though illuminated by a flash of some light different from that of the candles which burned upon the table. John rose to his feet and came and looked at him. The groaning suddenly ceased and Goddard's eyelids, which had been motionless for hours, moved naturally. He appeared to be observing John's face attentively. "Where is the squire?" he asked quite naturally--so naturally that John was startled. "Asleep in the next room," replied the latter. "I did not kill him after all," said Goddard, turning himself a little as though to be more at his ease. "No," answered John. "He is not hurt at all. Can you tell me who you are?" For his life, he could not help asking the question. It seemed so easy to find out who the fellow was, now that he could speak intelligibly. But Goddard's face contracted suddenly, in a hideous smile. "Don't you wish you knew?" he said roughly. "But I know you, my boy, I know you--ha! ha! There's no getting away from you, my boy, is there?" "Who am I?" asked John in astonishment. "You are the hangman," said Goddard. "I know you very well. The hangman is always so well dressed. I say, old chap, turn us off quick, you know--no fumbling about the bolt. Look here--I like your face," he lowered his voice--"there are nearly sixty pounds in my right-hand trouser pocket--there are--Mary--ah--gave--M--a--" Again his eyes fixed themselves and the moaning began and continued. John was horror-struck and stood for a moment gazing at his face, over which the deep flush had spread once more, seeming to obliterate all appearance of intelligence. Then the young man put his hand beneath Goddard's head and gently replaced him in his former position, smoothing the pillows, and giving him a little brandy. He debated whether or not he should call the squire from his rest to tell him what had happened, but seeing that Goddard had now returned to his former state, he supposed such moments of clear speech were to be expected from time to time. He sat down again, and waited; then after a time he went to the window and looked anxiously for the dawn. It seemed an intolerably long night. But the day came at last and shed a ghastly grey tinge upon the sick-room, revealing as it were the outlines of all that was bad to look at, which the warm yellow candle-light had softened with a kindlier touch. John accidentally looked at himself in the mirror as he passed and was startled at his own pale face; but the convict, labouring in the ravings of his fever, seemed unconscious of the dawning day; he was not yet exhausted and his harsh voice never ceased its jarring gibber. John wondered whether he should ever spend such a night again, and shuddered at the recollection of each moment. The daylight waked the squire from his slumbers, however, and before the sun was up he came out of the dressing-room, looking almost as fresh as though nothing had happened to him in the night. Accustomed for years to rise at all hours, in all weathers, unimpressionable, calm and strong, he seemed superior to the course of events. "Well, Mr. Short, you allowed me a long nap. You must be quite worn out, I should think. How is the patient?" John told what had occurred. "Took you for the hangman, did he?" said the squire. "I wonder why--but you say he asked after me very sensibly?" "Quite so. It was when I asked him his own name, that he began raving again," answered John innocently. "What made you ask him that?" asked Mr. Juxon, who did not seem pleased. "Curiosity," was John's laconic answer. "Yes--but I fancy it frightened him. If I were you I would not do it again, if he has a lucid moment. I imagine it was fright that made him delirious in the first instance." "All right," quoth John. "I won't." But he made his own deductions. The squire evidently knew who he was, and did not want John to know, for some unexplained reason. The young man wondered what the reason could be; the mere name of the wretched man was not likely to convey any idea to his mind, for it was highly improbable that he had ever met him before his conviction. So John departed to his own room and refreshed himself with a tub, while the squire kept watch by daylight. It was not yet eight o'clock when Holmes brought a note from the vicar, which Mr. Juxon tore open and read with anxious interest. "MY DEAR MR. JUXON--I received your note late last night, but I judged it better to answer this morning, not wishing to excite suspicion by sending to you at so late an hour. The intelligence is indeed alarming and you will, I daresay, understand me, when I tell you that I found it necessary to communicate it to Mrs. Ambrose--" The squire could not refrain from smiling at the vicar's way of putting the point; but he read quickly on. "She however--and I confess my surprise and gratification--desires to accompany me to the Hall this morning, volunteering to take all possible care of the unfortunate man. As she has had much experience in visiting the sick, I fancy that she will render us very valuable assistance in saving his life. Pray let me know if the plan has your approval, as it may be dangerous to lose time.--Yours sincerely, "AUGUSTIN AMBROSE." Mr. Juxon was delighted to find that the difficult task of putting Mrs. Ambrose in possession of the facts of the case had been accomplished in the ordinary, the very ordinary, course of events by her own determination to find out what was to be known. In an hour she might be at Goddard's bedside, and Mrs. Goddard would be free to see her husband. He despatched a note at once and redoubled his attentions to the sick man whose condition, however, showed no signs of changing. CHAPTER XXII. Mrs. Ambrose kept her word and arrived with the vicar before nine o'clock, protesting her determination to take care of poor Goddard, so long as he needed any care. Mr. Juxon warned her that John did not know who the man was, and entreated her to be careful of her speech when John was present. There was no reason why John should ever know anything more about it, he said; three could keep a secret, but no one knew whether four could be as discreet. The squire took Mrs. Ambrose and her husband to Goddard's room and telling her that Doctor Longstreet was expected in an hour, by which time he himself hoped to have returned, he left the two good people in charge of the sick man and went to see Mrs. Goddard. He sent John a message to the effect that all was well and that he should take some rest while the Ambroses relieved the watch, and having thus disposed his household he went out, bound upon one of the most disagreeable errands he had ever undertaken. But he set his teeth and walked boldly down the park. At the turn of the avenue he paused, at the spot where Goddard had attacked him. There was nothing to be seen at first, for the road was hard and dry and there was no trace of the scuffle; but as the squire looked about he spied his hat, lying in the ditch, and picked it up. It was heavy with the morning dew and the brim was broken and bent where Goddard's weapon had struck it. Hard by in a heap of driven oak leaves lay the weapon itself, which Mr. Juxon examined curiously. It was a heavy piece of hewn oak, evidently very old, and at one end a thick iron spike was driven through, the sharp point projecting upon one side and the wrought head upon the other. He turned it over in his hands and realised that he had narrowly escaped his death. Then he laid the hat and the club together and threw a handful of leaves over them, intending to take them to the Hall at a later hour, and he turned to go upon his way towards the cottage. But as he turned he saw two men coming towards him, and now not twenty yards away. His heart sank, for one of the two was Thomas Gall the village constable; the other was a quiet-looking individual with grey whiskers, plainly dressed and unassuming in appearance. Instinctively the squire knew that Gall's companion must be a detective. He was startled, and taken altogether unawares; but the men were close upon him and there was nothing to be done but to face them boldly. Gall made his usual half military salute as he came up, and the man in plain clothes raised his hat politely. "The gentleman from Lunnon, sir," said Gall by way of introduction, assuming an air of mysterious importance. "Yes?" said Mr. Juxon interrogatively. "Do you wish to speak to me?" "The gentleman's come on business, sir. In point of fact, sir, it's the case we was speakin' of lately." The squire knew very well what was the matter. Indeed, he had wondered that the detective had not arrived sooner. That did not make it any easier to receive him, however; on the contrary, if he had come on the previous day matters would have been much simpler. "Very well, Gall," answered Mr. Juxon. "I am much obliged to you for bringing Mr.--" he paused and looked at the man in plain clothes. "Booley, sir," said the detective. "Thank you--yes--for bringing Mr. Booley so far. You may go home, Gall. If we need your services we will send to your house." "It struck me, sir," remarked Gall with a bland smile, "as perhaps I might be of use--prefeshnal in fact, sir." "I will send for you," said the detective, shortly. The manners of the rural constabulary had long ceased to amuse him. Gall departed rather reluctantly, but to make up for being left out of the confidential interview which was to follow, he passed his thumb round his belt and thrust out his portly chest as he marched down the avenue. He subsequently spoke very roughly to a little boy who was driving an old sheep to the butcher's at the other end of the village. Mr. Juxon and the detective turned back and walked slowly towards the Hall. "Will you be good enough to state exactly what the business is," said the squire, well knowing that it was best to go straight to the point. "You are Mr. Juxon, I believe?" inquired Mr. Booley looking at his companion sharply. The squire nodded. "Very good, Mr. Juxon," continued the official. "I am after a man called Walter Goddard. Do you know anything about him? His wife, Mrs. Mary Goddard, lives in this village." "Walter Goddard is at this moment in my house," said the squire calmly. "I know all about him. He lay in wait for me at this very spot last night and attacked me. My dog pulled him down." The detective was somewhat surprised at the intelligence, and at the cool manner in which his companion conveyed it. "I am very glad to hear that. In that case I will take him at once." "I fear that is impossible," answered the squire. "The man is raving in the delirium of a brain fever. Meanwhile I shall be glad if you will stay in the house, until he is well enough to be moved. The doctor will be here at ten o'clock, and he will give you the details of the case better than I can. It would be quite impossible to take him away at present." "May I ask," inquired Mr. Booley severely, "why you did not inform the local police?" "Because it would have been useless. If he had escaped after attacking me, I should have done so. But since I caught him, and found him to be very ill--utterly unable to move, I proposed to take charge of him myself. Mrs. Goddard is a friend of mine, and of the vicar, who knows her story perfectly well. To publish the story in the village would be to do her a great injury. Mrs. Ambrose, the vicar's wife, who is also acquainted with the circumstances, is at this moment taking care of the sick man. I presume that my promise--I am a retired officer of the Navy--and the promise of Mr. Ambrose, the vicar, are sufficient guarantee--" "Oh, there is no question of guarantee," said Mr. Booley. "I assure you, Mr. Juxon, I have no doubt whatever that you have acted for the best. Can you tell me how long Goddard has been in the neighbourhood?" The squire told the detective what he knew, taking care not to implicate Mrs. Goddard, even adding with considerable boldness, for he was not positively certain of the statement, that neither she nor any one else had known where the man was hiding. Mr. Booley being sure that Goddard could not escape him, saw that he could claim the reward offered for the capture of the convict. He asked whether he might see him. "That is doubtful," said the squire. "When I left him just now he was quite unconscious, but he has lucid moments. To frighten him at such a time might kill him outright." "It is very easy for me to say that I am another medical man," remarked Mr. Booley. "Perhaps I might say it in any case, just to keep the servants quiet. I would like to see Mrs. Goddard, too." "That is another matter. She is very nervous. I am going to her house, now, and probably she will come back to the Hall with me. I might perhaps tell her that you are here, but I think it would be likely to shock her very much." "Well, well, we will see about it," answered Mr. Booley. They reached the house and the squire ushered the detective into the study, begging him to wait for his return. It was a new complication, though it had seemed possible enough. But the position was not pleasant. To feel that there was a detective in the house waiting to carry off Goddard, so soon as he should be well enough to be moved, was about as disagreeable as anything well could be. The longer the squire thought of it, the more impossible and at the same time unnecessary it seemed to be to inform Mrs. Goddard of Booley's arrival. He hastened down the park, feeling that no time must be lost in bringing her to her husband's bedside. He found her waiting for him, and was struck by the calmness she displayed. To tell the truth the violence of her emotions had been wholly expended on the previous night and the reaction had brought an intense melancholy quiet, which almost frightened Mr. Juxon. The habit of bearing great anxiety had not been wholly forgotten, for the lesson had been well learned during those terrible days of her husband's trial, and it was as though his sudden return had revived in her the custom of silent suffering. She hardly spoke, but listened quietly to Mr. Juxon's account of what had happened. "You are not hurt?" she asked, almost incredulously. Her eyes rested on her friend's face with a wistful look. "No, I assure you, not in the least," he said. "But your poor husband is very ill--very ill indeed." "Tell me," said she quietly, "is he dead? Are you trying to break it to me?" "No--no indeed. He is alive--he may even recover. But that is very uncertain. It might be best to wait until the doctor has been again. I will come back and fetch you--" "Oh, no, I will go at once. I would like to walk. It will do me good." So the two set out without further words upon their errand. Mr. Juxon had purposely omitted to speak of Mr. Booley's arrival. It would be easy, he thought, to prevent them from meeting in the great house. "Do you know," said Mary Goddard, as they walked together, "it is very hard to wish that he may recover--" she stopped short. "Very hard," answered the squire. "His life must be one of misery, if he lives." "Of course you would send him back?" she asked nervously. "My dear friend, there is no other course open to me. Your own safety requires it." "God knows--you would only be doing right," she said and was silent again. She knew, though the squire did not, what fate awaited Walter Goddard if he were given up to justice. She knew that he had taken life and must pay the penalty. Yet she was very calm; her senses were all dulled and yet her thoughts seemed to be consecutive and rational. She realised fully that the case of life and death was ill balanced; death had it which ever course events might take, and she could not save her husband. She thought of it calmly and calmly hoped that he might die now, in his bed, with her by his side. It was a better fate. "You say that the doctor thinks he must have been ill some time?" she asked after a time. "Yes--he was quite sure of it," answered the squire. "Perhaps that was why he spoke so roughly to me," she said in a low voice, as though speaking to herself. The tears came into the squire's eyes for sheer pity. Even in this utmost extremity the unhappy woman tried to account for her husband's rude and cruel speech. Mr. Juxon did not answer but looked away. They passed the spot where the scuffle had occurred on the previous night, but still he said nothing, fearing to disturb her by making his story seem too vividly real. "Where is he?" she asked as they reached the Hall, looking up at the windows. "On the other side." They went in and mounted the stairs towards the sick man's chamber. Mr. Juxon went in, leaving Mrs. Goddard outside for a moment. She could hear that hideous rattling monotonous moan, and she trembled from head to foot. Presently Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose came out, looking very grave and passed by her with a look of sympathy. "Will you come in?" said the squire in a low voice. Mrs. Goddard entered the room quickly. On seeing her husband, she uttered a low cry and laid her hand upon Mr. Juxon's arm. For some seconds she stood thus, quite motionless, gazing with intense and sympathetic interest at the sick man's face. Then she went to his side and laid her hand upon his burning forehead and looked into his eyes. "Walter! Walter!" she cried. "Don't you know me? Oh, why does he groan like that? Is he suffering?" she asked turning to Mr. Juxon. "No--I do not think he suffers much. He is quite unconscious. He is talking all the time but cannot pronounce the words." The squire stood at a distance looking on, noting the womanly thoughtfulness Mrs. Goddard displayed as she smoothed her husband's pillow and tried to settle his head more comfortably upon the bags of ice; and all the while she never took her eyes from Goddard's face, as though she were fascinated by her own sorrow and his suffering. She moved about the bed with that instinctive understanding of sickness which belongs to delicate women, but her glance never strayed to Mr. Juxon; she seemed forced by a mysterious magnetism to look at Walter and only at him. "Has he been long like this?" she asked. "Ever since last night. He called you once--he said, 'Mary Goddard, let me in!' And then he said something else--he said--I cannot remember what he said." Mr. Juxon checked himself, remembering the words John had heard, and of which he only half understood the import. But Mrs. Goddard hardly noticed his reply. "Will you leave me alone with him?" she said presently. "There is a bell in the room--I could ring if anything--happened," she added with mournful hesitation. "Certainly," answered the squire. "Only, I beg of you my dear friend--do not distress yourself needlessly--" "Needlessly!" she repeated with a sorrowful smile. "It is all I can do for him--to watch by his side. He will not live--he will not live, I am sure." The squire inwardly prayed that she might be right, and left her alone with the sick man. Who, he thought, was better fitted, who had a stronger right to be at his bedside at such a time? If only he might die! For if he lived, how much more terrible would the separation be, when Booley the detective came to conduct him back to his prison! In truth, it would be more terrible even than Mr. Juxon imagined. Meanwhile he must go and see to the rest of the household. He must speak to John Short; he must see Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose, and he must take precautions against any of them seeing Mr. Booley. This was, he thought, very important, and he resolved to speak with the latter first. John was probably asleep, worn out with the watching of the night. Mr. Booley sat in the squire's study where he had been left almost an hour earlier. He had installed himself in a comfortable corner by the fire and was reading the morning paper which he had found unopened upon the table. He seemed thoroughly at home as he sat there, a pair of glasses upon his nose and his feet stretched out towards the flame upon the hearth. "Thank you, I am doing very well, Mr. Juxon," he said as the squire entered. "Oh--I am very glad," answered Mr. Juxon politely. The information was wholly voluntary as he had not asked any question concerning the detective's comfort. "And how is the patient?" inquired Mr. Booley. "Do you think there is any chance of removing him this afternoon?" "This afternoon?" repeated the squire, in some astonishment. "The man is very ill. It may be weeks before he can be removed." "Oh!" ejaculated the other. "I was not aware of that. I cannot possibly stay so long. To-morrow, at the latest, he will have to go." "But, my dear sir," argued Mr. Juxon, "the thing is quite impossible. The doctor can testify to that--" "We are apt to be our own doctors in these cases," said Mr. Booley, calmly. "At all events he can be taken as far as the county gaol." "Upon my word, it would be murder to think of it--a man in a brain fever, in a delirium, to be taken over jolting roads--dear me! It is not to be thought of!" Mr. Booley smiled benignly, for the first time since the squire had made his acquaintance. "You seem to forget, Mr. Juxon, that my time is very valuable," he observed. "Yes--no doubt--but the man's life, Mr. Booley, is valuable too." "Hardly, I should say," returned the detective coolly. "But since you are so very pressing, I will ask to see the man at once. I can soon tell you whether he will die on the road or not. I have had considerable experience in that line." "You shall see him, as soon as the doctor comes," replied the squire, shocked at the man's indifference and hardness. "It certainly cannot hurt him to see me, if he is still unconscious or raving," objected Mr. Booley. "He might have a lucid moment just when you are there--the fright would very likely kill him." "That would decide the question of moving him," answered Booley, taking his glasses from his nose, laying down the paper and rising to his feet. "There is clearly some reason why you object to my seeing him now. I would not like to insist, Mr. Juxon, but you must please remember that it may be my duty to do so." The squire was beginning to be angry; even his calm temper was not proof against the annoyance caused by Mr. Booley's appearance at the Hall, but he wisely controlled himself and resorted to other means of persuasion. "There is a reason, Mr. Booley; indeed there are several very good reasons. One of them is that it might be fatal to frighten the man; another is that at this moment his wife is by his bedside. She has entirely made up her mind that when he is recovered he must return to prison, but at present it would be most unkind to let her know that you are in the house. The shock to her nerves would be terrible." "Oh," said Mr. Booley, "if there is a lady in the case we must make some allowances, I presume. Only, put yourself in my place, Mr. Juxon, put yourself in my place." The squire doubted whether he would be willing to exchange his personality for that of Mr. Booley. "Well--what then?" he said. "I think I would try to be merciful." "Yes; but suppose that in being merciful, you just allowed that lady the time necessary to present her beloved husband with a convenient little pill, just to shorten his sufferings? And suppose that--" "Really, Mr. Booley, I think you make very unwarrantable suppositions," said Mr. Juxon severely. "I cannot suppose any such thing." "Many women--ladies too--have done that to save a man from hanging," returned Mr. Booley, fixing his grey eye on the squire. "Hanging?" repeated the latter in surprise. "But Goddard is not to be hanged." "Of course he is. What did you expect?" Mr. Booley looked surprised in his turn. "But--what for?" asked the squire very anxiously. "He has not killed anybody--" "Oh--then you don't know how he escaped?" "No--I have not the least idea--pray tell me." "I don't wonder you don't understand me, then," said Mr. Booley. "Well, it is a short tale but a lively one, as they say. Of course it stands to reason in the first place that he could not have got out of Portland. He was taken out for a purpose. You know that after his trial was over, all sorts of other things besides the forgery came out about him, proving that he was altogether a very bad lot. Now about three weeks ago there was a question of identifying a certain person--it was a very long story, with a bad murder case and all the rest of it--commonplace, you know the sort--never mind the story, it will all be in the papers before long when they have got it straight, which is more than I have, seeing that these affairs do get a little complicated occasionally, you know, as such things will." Mr. Booley paused. It was evident that his command of the English tongue was not equal to the strain of constructing a long sentence. "This person, whom he was to identify, was the person murdered?" inquired Mr. Juxon. "Exactly. It was not the person, but the person's body, so to say. Somebody who had been connected with the Goddard case was sure that if Goddard could be got out of prison he could do the identifying all straight. It did not matter about his being under sentence of hard labour--it was a private case, and the officer only wanted Goddard's opinion for his personal satisfaction. So he goes to the governor of Portland, and finds that Goddard had a very good character in that institution--he was a little bit of a gay deceiver, you see, and knew how to fetch the chaps in there and particularly the parson. So he had a good character. Very good. The governor consents to send him to town for this private job, under a strong force--that means three policemen--with irons on his hands. When they reached London they put him in a fourwheeler. Those things are done sometimes, and nobody is the wiser, because the governor does it on his own responsibility, for the good of the law, I suppose. I never approved of it. Do you follow me, Mr. Juxon?" "Perfectly," answered the squire. "He was driven from the station with three policemen in a hackney-coach, you say." "Exactly so. It was a queer place where the body was--away down in the Minories. Ever been there, Mr. Juxon? Queer place it is, and no mistake. I would like to show you some little bits of London. Well, as I was saying, the fourwheeler went along, with two policemen inside with Goddard and one on the box. Safe, you would say. Not a bit of it. Just the beggar's luck, too. It was dusk. That is always darker than when the lamps are well going. The fourwheeler ran into a dray-cart, round a corner where they were repairing the street. The horse went down with a smash, shafts, lamp, everything broken to smithereens, as they say. The policeman jumps off the box with the cabby to see what is the matter. One of the bobbies--the policemen I would say--it's a technical term, Mr. Juxon--gets out of the cab to see what's up, leaving Goddard in charge of the other. Then there is a terrific row; more carts come up, more fourwheelers--everybody swearing at once. Presently the policeman who had got out comes back and looks in to see if everything is straight. Not a bit of it again. Other door of the cab was open and--no Goddard. But the policeman was lying back in the corner and when they struck a light and looked, they found he was stone dead. Goddard had brained him with the irons on his wrists. No one ever saw him from that day to this. He must have known London well--they say he did, and he was a noted quick runner. Being nightfall and rather foggy as it generally is in those parts he got clear off. But he killed the man who had him in charge and if he lives he will have to swing for it. May be Mrs. Goddard does not know that---may be she does. That is the reason I don't want her to be left alone with him. No doubt she is very good and all that, but she might just take it into her head to save the government twenty feet of rope." "I am very much surprised, and very much shocked," said the squire gravely. "I had no idea of this. But I will answer for Mrs. Goddard. Why was all this never In the papers--or was there an account of it, Mr. Booley?" "Oh no--it was never mentioned. We felt sure that we should catch him and until we did we--I mean the profession--thought it just as well to say nothing. The governor remembered to have read a letter from Goddard's wife, just telling him where she was living, about two years ago. Being harmless, he passed it and never copied the address; then he could not remember it. At last they found it in his cell, hidden away somehow. The beggar had kept it." "Poor fellow!" exclaimed Mr. Juxon. In the silence which followed, the sound of wheels was heard outside. Doctor Longstreet had arrived. CHAPTER XXIII. While Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose were together in the library downstairs, while John Short was waking from the short sleep he had enjoyed, and while the squire was listening in the study to Mr. Booley's graphic account of the convict's escape, Mrs. Goddard was alone with her husband, watching every movement and listening intently to every moaning breath he drew. In the desperate anxiety for his fate, she forgot herself and seemed no longer to feel fatigue or exhaustion from all she herself had suffered. She stood long by his bedside, hoping that he might recognise her and yet fearing the moment when he should recover his senses. Then she noticed that the morning sun was pouring in through the window and she drew a curtain across, to shade his eyes from the glare. Whether the sudden changing of the light affected Goddard, as it does sometimes affect persons in the delirium of a brain fever, or whether it was only a natural turn in his condition, she never knew. His expression changed and acquired that same look of strange intelligence which John Short had noticed in the night; the flush sank from his forehead and gave place to a luminous, transparent colour, his eyelids once more moved naturally, and he looked at his wife as she stood beside him, and recognised her. He was weaker now than when he had spoken with John Short six hours earlier, but he was more fully in possession of his faculties for a brief moment. Mary Goddard trembled and felt her hands turn cold with excitement. "Walter, do you know me now?" she asked very softly. "Yes," he said faintly, and closed his eyes. She laid her hand upon his forehead; the coldness of it seemed pleasant to him, for a slight smile flickered over his face. "You are better, I think," she said again, gazing intently at him. "Mary--it is Mary?" he murmured, slowly opening his eyes and looking up to her. "Yes--I know you--I have been dreaming a long time. I'm so tired--" "You must not talk," said she. "It will tire you more." Then she gave him some drink. "Try and sleep," she said in a soothing tone. "I cannot--oh, Mary, I am very ill." "But you will get well again--" Goddard started suddenly, and laid his hand upon her arm with more force than she suspected he possessed. "Where am I?" he asked, staring about the room. "Is this your house, Mary? What became of Juxon?" "He is not hurt. He brought you home in his arms, Walter, to his own house, and is taking care of you." "Good heavens! He will give me up. No, no, don't hold me--I must be off" He made a sudden effort to rise, but he was very weak. He fell back exhausted upon his pillow; his fingers gripped the sheet convulsively, and his face grew paler. "Caught--like a rat!" he muttered. Mary Goddard sighed. Was she to give him hope of escape? Or should she try to calm him now, and when he was better, break the truth to him? Was she to make him believe that he was safe for the present, and hold out a prospect of escape when he should be better, or should she tell him now, once for all, while he was in his senses, that he was lost? It was a terrible position. Love she had none left for him, but there was infinite pity still in her heart and there would be while he breathed. She hesitated one moment only, and it may be that she decided for the wrong; but it was her pity that moved her, and not any remnant of love. "Hush, Walter," she said. "You may yet escape, when you are strong enough. You are quite safe here, for the present. Mr. Juxon would not think of giving you up now. By and by--the window is not high, Walter, and I shall often be alone with you. I will manage it." "Is that true? Are you cheating me?" cried the wretched man in broken tones. "No--you are speaking the truth--I know it--God bless you, Mary!" Again he closed his eyes and drew one or two long deep breaths. Strange to say, the blessing the miserable convict called down upon her was sweet to Mary Goddard, sweeter than anything she remembered for a long time. She had perhaps done wrong in giving him hopes of escaping, but at least he was grateful to her. It was more than she expected, for she remembered her last meeting with him, and the horrible ingratitude he had then shown her. It seemed to her that his heart had been softened a little; anything was better than that rough indifference he had affected before. Presently he spoke again. "Not that it makes much difference now, Mary," he said. "I don't think there is much left of me." "Do not say that, Walter," she answered gently. "Rest now. The more you rest the sooner you will be well again. Try and sleep." "Sleep--no--I cannot sleep. I have murdered sleep--like Macbeth, Mary, like Macbeth--Do you remember Macbeth?" "Hush," said Mary Goddard, endeavouring to calm him, though she turned pale at his strange quotation. "Hush--" "That is to say," said the sick man, heedless of her exhortation and soothing touch, "that is to say, I did not. He was very wide awake, and if I had not been quick, I should never have got off. Ugh! How damp that cellar was, that first night. That is where I got my fever. It is fever, I suppose?" he asked, unable to keep his mind for long in one groove. "What does the doctor say? Has he been here?" "Yes. He said you would soon be well; but he said you must be kept very quiet. So you must not talk, or I will go away." "Oh Mary, don't go--don't go! It's like--ha! ha! it's quite like old times, Mary!" He laughed harshly, a hideous, half-delirious laugh. Mary Goddard shuddered but made a great effort to control herself. "Yes," she said gently, "it is like old times. Try and think that it is the old house at Putney, Walter. Do you hear the sparrows chirping, just as they used to do? The curtains are the same colour, too. You used to sleep so quietly at the old house. Try and sleep now. Then you will soon get well. Now, I will sit beside you, but I will not talk any more--there--are you quite comfortable? A little higher? Yes--so. Go to sleep." Her quiet voice soothed him, and her gentle hands made his rest more easy. She sat down beside him, thinking from his silence that he would really go to sleep; hoping and yet not hoping, revolving in her mind the chances of his escape, so soon as he should be strong enough to attempt it, shuddering at the thought of what his fate must be if he again fell into the hands of the police. She did not know that a detective was at that moment in the house, determined to carry her husband away so soon as the doctor pronounced it possible. Nothing indeed, not even that knowledge could have added much to the burden of her sorrows as she sat there, a small and graceful figure with a sad pathetic face, leaning forward as she sat and gazing drearily at the carpet, where the sunlight crept in beneath the curtains from the bright world without. It seemed to her that the turning point in her existence had come, and that this day must decide all; yet she could not see how it was to be decided, think of it as she might. One thing stood prominent in her thoughts, and she delighted to think of it--the generosity of Charles Juxon. From first to last, from the day when she had frankly told him her story and he had accepted it and refused to let it bring any difference to his friendship for her, down to this present time, when after being basely attacked by her own husband, he had nobly brought the wretch home and was caring for him as for one of his own blood--through all and in spite of all, the squire had shown the same unassuming but unfailing generosity. She asked herself, as she sat beside the sick man, whether there were many like Charles Juxon in the world. There was the vicar, but the case was very different. He too had been kind and generous from the first; but he had not asked her to marry him--she blushed at the thought--he had not loved her. If Charles Juxon loved her, his generosity to Goddard was all the greater. She could not tell whether she loved him, because her ideas were what the world calls simple, and what, in heaven, would be called good. Her husband was alive; none the less so because he had been taken away and separated from her by the law--he was alive, and now was brought face to face with her again. While he was living, she did not suppose it possible to love another, for she was very simple. She said to herself truly that she had a very high esteem for the squire and that he was the best friend she had in the world; that to lose him would be the most terrible of imaginable losses; that she was deeply indebted to him, and she even half unconsciously allowed that if she were free she might marry him. There was no harm in that, she knew very well. She owed her own husband no longer either respect or affection, even while she still felt pity for him. Her esteem at least, she might give to another; nay, she owed it, and if she had refused Charles Juxon her friendship, she would have called herself the most ungrateful of women. If ever man deserved respect, esteem and friendship, it was the squire. Even in the present anxiety she thought of him, for his conduct seemed the only bright spot in the gloom of her thoughts; and she sincerely rejoiced that he had escaped unhurt. Had any harm come to him, she would have been, if it were possible, more miserable than she now was. But he was safe and sound, and doing his best to help her--doing more than she knew, in fact, at that very moment. There was at least something to be thankful for. Goddard stirred again, and opened his eyes. "Mary," he said faintly, "they won't catch me after all." "No, Walter," said she, humouring him. "Sleep quietly, for no one will disturb you." "I am going where nobody can catch me. I am dying--" "Oh, Walter!" cried Mary Goddard, "you must not speak like that. You will be better soon. The doctor is expected every moment." "He had better make haste," said the sick man with something of the roughness he had shown at their first meetings. "It is no use, Mary. I have been thinking about it. I have been mad for--for very long, I am sure. I want to die, Mary. Nobody can catch me if I die--I shall be safe then. You will be safe too--that is a great thing." His voice had a strange and meditative tone in it, which frightened his wife, as she stood close beside him. She could not speak, for her excitement and fear had the mastery of her tongue. "I have been thinking about it--I am not good for much, now--Mary--I never was. It will do some good if I die--just because I shall be out of the way. It will be the only good thing I ever did for you." "Oh Walter," cried his wife in genuine distress, "don't--don't! Think--you must not die so--think of--of the other world, Walter--you must not die so!" Goddard smiled faintly--scornfully, his wife thought. "I daresay I shall not die till to-morrow, or next day--but I will not live," he said with sudden energy. "Do you understand me, I will not live! Bah!" he cried, falling back upon his pillow, "the grapes are sour--I can't live if I would. Oh yes, I know all about that--my sins. Well, I am sorry for them. I am sorry, Mary. But it is very little good--people always laugh at--deathbed repentance--" He stopped and his thoughts seemed wandering. Mary Goddard gave him something to drink and tried to calm him. But he moved restlessly, though feebly. "Softly, softly," he murmured again. "He is coming--close to me. Get ready--now--no not yet, yes--now. Ugh!" yelled Goddard, suddenly springing up, his eyes starting from his head. "Ugh! the dog--oh!" "Hush, Walter," cried his wife, pushing him back. "Hush--no one will hurt you." "What--is that you, Mary?" asked the sick man, trembling violently. Then he laughed harshly. "I was off again. Pshaw! I did not really mean to hurt him--he need not have set that beast at me. He did not catch me though--Mary, I am going to die--will you pray for me? You are a good woman--somebody will hear your prayers, I daresay. Do, Mary--I shall feel better somehow, though I daresay it is very foolish of me." "No, Walter--not foolish, not foolish. Would you like me to call Mr. Ambrose? he is a clergyman--he is in the house." "No, no. You Mary, you--nobody will hear anybody else's prayers--for me--for poor me--" "Try and pray with me, Walter," said Mary Goddard, very quietly. She seemed to have an unnatural strength given to her in that hour of distress and horror. She knelt down by the bedside and took his wounded hand in hers, tenderly, and she prayed aloud in such words as she could find. Below, in the study, the detective had just finished telling his tale to the squire, and the wheels of Doctor Longstreet's dog-cart ground upon the gravel outside. The two men looked at each other for a moment, and Mr. Juxon spoke first. "That is the doctor," said he. "I will ask you to have patience for five minutes, Mr. Booley. He will give you his opinion. I am still very much shocked at what you have told me--I had no idea what had happened." "No--I suppose not," answered Mr. Booley calmly. "If you will ask the medical man to step in here for one moment, I will explain matters to him. I don't think he will differ much from me." "Very well," returned the squire, leaving the room. He went to meet Doctor Longstreet, intending to warn him of the presence of Mr. Booley, and meaning to entreat his support for the purpose of keeping Goddard in the house until he should be recovered. He passed through the library and exchanged a few words with Mr. Ambrose, explaining that the doctor had come. Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose were sitting on opposite sides of the fireplace in huge chairs, with a mournful air of resigned expectation upon their worthy faces. The detective remained alone in the study. Meanwhile John Short had refreshed himself from his fatigues, and came down stairs in search of some breakfast. He had recovered from his excitement and was probably the only one who thought of eating, as he was also the one least closely concerned in what was occurring. Instead of going to the library he went to the dining-room, and, seeing no one about, entered the study from the door which on that side connected the two rooms. To his surprise he saw Mr. Booley standing before the fireplace, his hands in his pockets and his feet wide apart. He had not the least idea who he was. "Oh!" he exclaimed, staring hard at him. "Yes," said Mr. Booley, who took him for the physician whom he expected. "I am George Booley of the detective service. I was expecting you, sir. There is very little to be said. My time, as I told Mr. Juxon, is very valuable. I must have Goddard out of the house by to-morrow afternoon at the latest. Now, doctor, it is of no use your talking to me about fever and all that--" John had stood with his mouth open, staring in blank astonishment at the detective, unable to find words in which to question the man. At last he got his breath. "What in the world are you talking about?" he asked slowly. "Are you a raving lunatic--or what are you?" "Come, come, doctor," said Mr. Booley in persuasive accents, "none of that with me, you know. If the man must be moved--why he must, that is all, and you must make it possible, somehow." "You are crazy!" exclaimed John. "I am not the doctor, to begin with--" "Not the doctor!" cried Mr. Booley. "Then who are you? I beg your pardon, I am sure--" "I am John Short," said John, quickly, heedless of the fact that his name conveyed no idea whatever to the mind of the detective. He cared little, for he began to comprehend the situation, and he fled precipitately into the library, leaving Mr. Booley alone to wait for the coming of the real physician. But in the library a fresh surprise awaited him; there he found Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose seated in solemn silence opposite to each other. He had not suspected their presence in the house, but he was relieved to see them--anything was a relief at that moment. "Mr. Ambrose," he said hurriedly, "there is a detective in the next room who means to carry off that poor man at once--as he is--sick--dying perhaps--it must be prevented!" "A detective!" cried the vicar and his wife in the same breath. "My dear John," said the vicar immediately afterwards, "where is he? I will reason with him." "Augustin," said Mrs. Ambrose with extreme severity, "it is barbarous. I will go upstairs. If he enters the room it shall be across my body." "Do, my dear," replied the vicar in great excitement, and not precisely appreciating the proposition to which he gave so willing an assent. "Of course I will," said his wife, who had already reached the door. From which it appears that Mrs. Ambrose was a brave woman. She passed rapidly up the staircase to Goddard's room, but she paused as she laid her hand upon the latch. From within she could hear Mary Goddard's voice, praying aloud, as she had never heard any one pray before. She paused and listened, hesitating to interrupt the unhappy lady in such a moment. Moreover, though her goodwill was boundless, she had not any precise idea how to manage the defence. But as she stood there, the thought that the detective might at any moment follow her was predominant. The voice within the room paused for an instant and Mrs. Ambrose entered, raising one finger to her lips as though expecting that Mary Goddard would speak to her. But Mary was not looking, and at first did not notice the intrusion. She knelt by the bedside, her face buried in the coverlet, her hands clasped and clasping the sick man's wounded hand. Goddard's face was pale but not deathlike, and his breathing seemed regular and gentle; but his eyes were almost closed and he seemed not aware that any one had entered. Mrs. Ambrose was struck by his appearance which was greatly changed since she had left him half an hour earlier, his face purple and his harsh moaning continuing unceasingly. She said to herself that he was probably better. There was all the more reason for warning Mary Goddard of the new danger that awaited him. She shut the door and locked it and withdrew the key. At the sound Mary looked up--then rose to her feet with a sad look of reproach, as though not wishing to be disturbed. But Mrs. Ambrose came quickly to her side, and glancing once at Goddard, to see whether he was unconscious, she led her away from the bed. "My dear," she said very kindly, but in a voice trembling with excitement, "I had to come. There are detectives in the house, clamouring to take him away--but I will protect you--they shall not do it." Mary Goddard started and her eyes stared wildly at her friend. But presently the look of resigned sadness returned, and a faint and mournful smile flickered on her lips. "I think it is all over," she said. "He is still alive--but he will not live till they come." Then she bit her lip tightly, and all the features of her face trembled a little. The tears would rise spasmodically, though they were only tears of pity, not of love. Mrs. Ambrose, the severe, the stern, the eternally vigilant Mrs. Ambrose, sat down by the window; she put her arm about Mary Goddard's waist and took her upon her knee as though she had been a little child and laid her head upon her breast, comforting her as best she could. And their tears flowed down and mingled together, for many minutes. But once more the sick man's voice was heard; both women started to their feet and went to his side. "Mary Goddard! Mary Goddard! Let me in!" he moaned faintly. "It is I--here I am, Walter, dear Walter--I am with you," answered Mary, raising him and putting her arm about his neck, while Mrs. Ambrose arranged the pillows behind him. He opened his eyes as though with a great effort. Some one knocked softly at the door. Mrs. Ambrose left the bedside quickly and put the key in the lock. "Who is there?" she asked, before she opened. "I--John. Please let me in." Mrs. Ambrose opened and John entered, very pale; she locked the door again after him. He stood still looking with astonishment at Mrs. Goddard who still propped the sick man in her arms and hardly noticed him. "Why--?" he ejaculated and then checked himself, or rather was checked by Mrs. Ambrose's look. Then he spoke to her in a whisper. "There is an awful row going on between the doctor and the detective," he said hurriedly under his breath. "They are coming upstairs and the vicar and Mr. Juxon are trying to part them--I don't know what they are not saying to each other--" "Hush," replied Mrs. Ambrose, "do not disturb him--he was conscious again just now. This may be the crisis--he may recover. The door is locked--try and prevent anybody--that is, the detective, from coming in. They will not dare to break open the door in Mr. Juxon's house." "But why is Mrs. Goddard here?" asked John unable to control his curiosity any longer. He did not mean that she should hear, but as she laid Goddard's head gently upon the pillows, trying to soothe him to rest again, if rest it were, she looked up and met John's eyes. "Because he is my husband," said she very quietly. John laid his hand on Mrs. Ambrose's arm in utmost bewilderment and looked at her as though to ask if it were true. She nodded gravely. Before John had time to recover himself from the shock of the news, footsteps were heard outside, and the loud altercation of angry voices. John Short leaned his shoulder against the door and put his foot against it below, expecting an attack. CHAPTER XXIV. When Mr. Ambrose undertook to reason with the detective he went directly towards the study where John said the man was waiting. But Mr. Booley was beginning to suspect that the doctor was not coming to speak with him as the squire had promised, and after hesitating for a few moments followed John into the library, determining to manage matters himself. As he opened the door he met Mr. Ambrose coming towards him, and at the same moment Mr. Juxon and Doctor Longstreet entered from the opposite end of the long room. The cheerful and active physician was talking in a rather excited tone. "My dear sir," said he, "I cannot pretend to say that the man will or will not recover. I must see him again. Things look quite differently by daylight, and six or seven hours may make all the change in the world. To say that he can be moved to-day or even to-morrow, is absurd. I will stake my reputation as a practitioner--Hulloa!" The exclamation was elicited by Mr. Booley, who had pushed past Mr. Ambrose and stood confronting the doctor with a look which was intended to express a combination of sarcasm, superior cunning and authority. "This is Mr. Booley," explained the squire. "Doctor Longstreet will tell you what he has been telling me," he added turning to the detective. "I must see this man instantly," said the latter somewhat roughly. "I believe I am being trifled with, and I will not submit to it. No, sir, I will not be trifled with, I assure you! I must see this man at once. It is absolutely necessary to identify him." "And I say," said Doctor Longstreet with equal firmness, "that I must see him first, in order to judge whether you can see him or not--" "It is for me to judge of that," returned Mr. Booley, with more haste than logic. "After you have seen him, you cannot judge whether you ought to see him or not," retorted Doctor Longstreet growing red in the face. The detective attempted to push past him. At this moment John Short hastily left the room and fled upstairs to warn Mrs. Ambrose of what was happening. "Really," said Mr. Ambrose, making a vain attempt to stop the course of events, "this is very unwarrantable." "Unwarrantable!" cried Mr. Booley. "Unwarrantable, indeed! I have the warrant in my pocket. Mr. Juxon, sir, I fear I must insist." "Permit me," said Mr. Juxon, planting his square and sturdy form between the door and the detective. "You may certainly insist, but you must begin by listening to reason." Charles Juxon had been accustomed to command others for the greater part of his life, and though he was generally the most unobtrusive and gentle of men, when he raised his voice in a tone of authority his words carried weight. His blue eyes stared hard at Mr. Booley, and there was something imposing in his square head--even in the unruffled smoothness of his brown hair. Mr. Booley paused and discontentedly thrust his hands into his pockets. "Well?" he said. "Simply this," answered the squire. "You may accompany us to the door of the room; you may wait with me, while Doctor Longstreet goes in to look at the patient. If the man is unconscious you may go in and see him. If he chances to be in a lucid interval, you must wait until he is unconscious again. It will not be long. That is perfectly reasonable." "Perfectly," echoed Mr. Ambrose, biting his long upper lip and glaring as fiercely at Mr. Booley as though he had said it all himself. "Absolutely reasonable," added Doctor Longstreet. "Well, we will try it," said the detective moodily. "But I warn you I will not be trifled with." "Nobody is trifling with you," answered the squire coldly. "This way if you please." And he forthwith led the way upstairs, followed by Mr. Booley, the physician and the vicar. Before they reached the door, however, the discussion broke out again. Mr. Booley had been held in check for a few moments by Mr. Juxon's determined manner, but as he followed the squire he began to regret that he had yielded so far and he made a fresh assertion of his rights. "I cannot see why you want to keep me outside," he said. "What difference can it make, I should like to know?" "You will have to take my word for it that it does make a difference," said the doctor, testily. "If you frighten the man, he will die. Now then, here we are." "I don't like your tone, sir," said Booley angrily, again trying to push past the physician. "I think I must insist, after all. I will go in with you--I tell you I will, sir--don't stop me." Doctor Longstreet, who was fifteen or twenty years older than the detective but still strong and active, gripped his arm quickly, and held him back. "If you go into that room without my permission, and if the man dies of fright, I will have an action brought against you for manslaughter," he said in a loud voice. "And I will support it," said the squire. "I am justice of the peace here, and what is more, I am in my own house. Do not think your position will protect you." Again Mr. Juxon's authoritative tone checked the detective, who drew back, making some angry retort which no one heard. The squire tried the door and finding it locked, knocked softly, not realising that every word of the altercation had been heard within. "Who is there?" asked John, who though he had heard all that had been said was uncertain of the issue. "Let in Doctor Longstreet," said the squire's voice. But meanwhile Mrs. Ambrose and Mary Goddard were standing on each side of the sick man. He must have heard the noises outside, and they conveyed some impression to his brain. "Mary, Mary!" he groaned indistinctly. "Save me--they are coming--I cannot get away--softly, he is coming--now--I shall just catch him as he goes by--Ugh! that dog--oh! oh!--" With a wild shriek, the wretched man sprang up, upon his knees, his eyes starting out, his face transfigured with horror. For one instant he remained thus, half-supported by the two terror-struck women; then with a groan his head drooped forward upon his breast and he fell back heavily upon the pillows, breathing still but quite unconscious. Doctor Longstreet entered at that moment and ran to his side. But when he saw him he paused. Even Mrs. Ambrose was white with horror, and Mary Goddard stood motionless, staring down at her husband, her hands gripping the disordered coverlet convulsively. Mr. Juxon had entered, too, while Mr. Ambrose remained outside with the detective, who had been frightened into submission by the physician's last threat. The squire saw what was happening and paced the room in the greatest agitation, wringing his hands together and biting his lips. John had closed the door and came to the foot of the bed and looked at Goddard's face. After a pause, Doctor Longstreet spoke. "We might possibly restore him to consciousness for a moment--" "Don't!" cried Mary Goddard, starting as though some one had struck her. "That is--" she added quickly, in broken tones, "unless he can live!" "No," answered the physician, gravely, but looking hard at the unhappy woman. "He is dying." Goddard's staring eyes were glazed and white. Twice and three times he gasped for breath, and then lay quite still. It was all over. Mary gazed at his dead face for one instant, then a faint smile parted her lips: she raised one hand to her forehead as though dazed. "He is safe now," she murmured very faintly. Her limbs relaxed suddenly, and she fell straight backwards. Charles Juxon, who was watching her, sprang forward and caught her in his arms. Then he bore her from the room, swiftly, while John Short who was as white and speechless as the rest opened the door. "You may go in now," said Juxon as he passed Booley and Mr. Ambrose in the passage, with his burden in his arms. A few steps farther on he met Holmes the butler, who carried a telegram on a salver. "For Mr. Short, sir," said the impassive servant, not appearing to notice anything strange in the fact that his master was carrying the inanimate body of Mary Goddard. "He is in there--go in," said Juxon hurriedly as he went on his way. The detective and the vicar had already entered the room where the dead convict was lying. All stood around the bed, gazing at his pale face as he lay. "A telegram for Mr. Short," said Holmes from the door. John started and took the despatch from the butler's hands. He hastily tore it open, glanced at the contents and thrust it into his pocket. Every one looked round. "What is it, John?" whispered the vicar, who was nearest to him. "Oh--nothing. I am first in the Tripos, that is all," answered John very simply, as though it were not a matter of the least consequence. Through all those months of untiring labour, through privation and anxiety, through days of weariness and nights of study, he had looked forward to the triumph, often doubting but never despairing. But he had little guessed that the news of victory would reach him at such a moment. It was nothing, he said; and indeed as he stood with the group of pale and awe-struck spectators by the dead man's bed, he felt that the greatest thing which had ever happened to him was as nothing compared with the tragedy of which he had witnessed the last act. It was all over. There was nothing more to be said; the convict had escaped the law in the end, at the very moment when the hand of the law was upon him. Thomas Reid, the conservative sexton, buried him "four by six by two," grumbling at the parish depth as of yore, and a simple stone cross marked his nameless grave. There it stands to this day in the churchyard of Billingsfield, Essex, in the shadow of the ancient abbey. All these things happened a long time ago, according to Billingsfield reckoning, but the story of the tramp who attacked Squire Juxon and was pulled down by the bloodhound is still told by the villagers, and Mr. Gall, being once in good cheer, vaguely hinted that he knew who the tramp was; but from the singular reticence he has always shown in the matter, and from the prosperity which has attended his constabulary career, it may well be believed that he has a life interest in keeping his counsel. Indeed as it is nearly ten years since Mr. Reid buried the poor tramp, it is possible that Mr. Gall's memory may be already failing in regard to events which occurred at so remote a date. It was but an incident, though it was perhaps the only incident of any interest which ever occurred in Billingsfield; but until it reached its termination it agitated the lives of the quiet people at the vicarage, at the cottage and at the Hall as violently as human nature can be moved. It was long, too, before those who had witnessed the scene of Goddard's death could shake off the impression of those awful last moments. Yet time does all things wonderful and in the course of not many months there remained of Goddard's memory only a great sense of relief that he was no longer alive. Mary Goddard, indeed, was very ill for a long time; and but for Mrs. Ambrose's tender care of her, might have followed her husband within a few weeks of his death. But the good lady never left her, until she was herself again--absolutely herself, saving that as time passed and her deep wounds healed her sorrows were forgotten, and she seemed to bloom out into a second youth. So it came to pass that within two years Charles Juxon once more asked her to be his wife. She hesitated long--fully half an hour, the squire thought; but in the end she put out her small hand and laid it in his, and thanked God that a man so generous and true, and whom she so honestly loved, was to be her husband as well as her friend and protector. Charles James Juxon smoothed his hair with his other hand, and his blue eyes were a little moistened. "God bless you, Mary," he said; and that was all. Then the Reverend Augustin Ambrose married them in the church of Saint Mary's, between Christmas and New Year's Day; and the wedding-party consisted of Mrs. Ambrose and Eleanor Goddard and John Short, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. And again years passed by, and Nellie grew in beauty as John grew in reputation; and Nellie had both brothers and sisters, as she had longed to have, and to her, their father was as her own; so that there was much harmony and peace and goodwill towards men in Billingsfield Hall. John came often and stayed long, and was ever welcome; for though Mary Goddard's youth returned with the daffodils and the roses of the first spring after Walter's death, John's fleeting passion returned not, and perhaps its place was better taken. Year by year, as he came to refresh himself from hard work with a breath of the country air, he saw the little girl grow to the young maiden of sixteen, and he saw her beauty ripen again to the fulness of womanhood; and at last, when she was one and twenty years of age he in his turn put out his hand and asked her to take him--which she did, for better or worse, but to all appearances for better. For John Short had prospered mightily in the world, and had come to think his first great success as very small and insignificant as compared with what he had done since. But his old simplicity was in him yet, and was the cause of much of his prosperity, as it generally is when it is found together with plenty of brains. It was doubtless because he was so very simple that when he found that he loved Eleanor Goddard he did not hesitate to ask the convict's daughter to be his wife. His interview with Mr. Juxon was characteristic. "You know what you are doing, John?" asked the squire. He always called him John, now. "Perfectly," replied the scholar, "I am doing precisely what my betters have done before me with such admirable result." "Betters?" "You. You knew about it all and you married her mother. I know all about it, and I wish to marry herself." "You know that she never heard the story?" "Yes. She never shall." "No, John--she never must. Well, all good go with you." So Charles Juxon gave his consent. And Mary Juxon consented too; but for the first time in many years the tears rose again to her eyes, and she laid her hand on John's arm, as they walked together in the park. "Oh, John," she said, "do you think it is right--for you yourself?" "Of course I think so," quoth John stoutly. "You John--with your reputation, your success, with the whole world at your feet--you ought not to marry the daughter of--of such a man." "My dear Mrs. Juxon," said John Short, "is she not your daughter as well as his? Pray, pray do not mention that objection. I assure you I have thought it all over. There is really nothing more to be said, which I have not said to myself. Dear Mrs. Juxon--do say Yes!" "You are very generous, John, as well as great," she answered looking up to his face. "Well--I have nothing to say. You must do as you think best. I am sure you will be kind to Nellie, for I have known you for ten years--you may tell her I am very glad--" she stopped, her eyes brimming over with tears. "Do you remember how angry I was once, when you told me to go and talk to Nellie?" said John. "It was just here, too--" Mary Juxon laughed happily and brushed the tears from her eyes. So it was all settled. Once more the Reverend Augustin Ambrose united two loving hearts before the altar of Saint Mary's. He was well stricken in years, and his hair and beard were very white. Mrs. Ambrose also grew more imposing with each succeeding season, but her face was softer than of old, and her voice more gentle. For the sorrow and suffering of a few days had drawn together the hearts of all those good people with strong bands, and a deep affection had sprung up between them all. The good old lady felt as though Mary Juxon were her daughter--Mary Juxon, by whom she had stood in the moment of direst trial and terror, whom she had tended in illness and cheered in recovery. And the younger woman's heart had gone out towards her, feeling how good a thing it is to find a friend in need, and learning to value in her happiness the wealth of human kindness she had found in her adversity. They are like one family, now, having a common past, a common present, and a common future, and there is no dissension among them. Honest and loyal men and women may meet day after day, and join hands and exchange greetings, without becoming firm friends, for the very reason that they have no need of each other. But if the storm of a great sorrow breaks among them and they call out to each other for help, and bear the brunt of the weather hand in hand, the seed of a deeper affection is brought into their midst; and when the tempest is past the sweet flower of friendship springs up in the moistened furrows of their lives. So those good people in the lonely parish of Billingsfield gathered round Mary Goddard, as they called her then, and round poor little Nellie, and did their best to protect the mother and the child from harm and undeserved suffering; and afterwards, when it was all over, and there was nothing more to be feared in the future, they looked into each other's faces and felt that they were become as brothers and sisters, and that so long as they should live--may it be long indeed!--there was a bond between them which could never be broken. So it was that Mrs. Ambrose's face softened and her voice was less severe than it had been. Mary Juxon is the happiest of women; happy in her husband, in her eldest daughter, in John Short and in the little children with bright faces and ringing voices who nestle at her knee or climb over the sturdy sailor-squire, and pull his great beard and make him laugh. They will never know, any more than Nellie knew, all that their mother suffered; and as she looks upon them and strokes their long fair hair and listens to their laughter, she says to herself that it was perhaps almost worth while to have been dragged down towards the depths of shame for the sake of at last enjoying such pride and glory of happy motherhood. THE END. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF F. MARION CRAWFORD I. Mr. Isaacs II. Doctor Claudius III. To Leeward IV. A Roman Singer V. An American Politician VI. Marzio's Crucifix Zoroaster VII. A Tale of a Lonely Parish VIII. Paul Patoff IX. Love in Idleness: A Tale of Bar Harbor Marion Darche X. Saracinesca XI. Sant' Ilario XII. Don Orsino XIII. Corleone: A Sicilian Story XIV. With the Immortals XV. Greifenstein XVI. A Cigarette-Maker's Romance Khaled XVII. The Witch of Prague XVIII. The Three Fates XIX. Taquisara XX. The Children of the King XXI. Pietro Ghisleri XXII. Katharine Lauderdale XXIII. The Ralstons XXIV. Casa Braccio (Part I) XXV. Casa Braccio (Part II) XXVI. Adam Johnstone's Son A Rose of Yesterday XXVII. Via Crucia XXVIII. In the Palace of the King XXIX. Marietta: A Maid of Venice XXX. Cecilia: A Story of Modern Rome XXXI. The Heart of Rome XXXII. Whosoever Shall Offend 
15223	----	DOCTOR CLAUDIUS A True Story BY F. MARION CRAWFORD Author OF "MR. ISAACS" London MACMILLAN AND CO. 1883 Dedicated TO MY DEAR FRIENDS THE COUNTESS MARGARET AND CLAUDIUS, PH.D. DOCTOR CLAUDIUS. CHAPTER I. "I believe I am old," said the Doctor, pushing his straight-backed wooden chair from the table, and turning from his books to look out of his small window. "Yes, I am certainly very old," he said again, rapping absently on the arm of the chair with the pen he held. But the fingers that held the instrument were neither thin nor withered, and there was no trembling in the careless motion of the hand. The flaxen hair, long and tangled, was thick on the massive head, and the broad shoulders were flat and square across. Whatever Dr. Claudius might say of himself, he certainly did not look old. And yet he said to himself that he was, and he probably knew. He said to himself, as he had said every day for many long months, that this was the secret of the difference he felt between his life and the life of his companions--such companions as he had, between his thoughts and their thoughts, between his ways and their ways. Of late the fancy had gained a stronger hold on his imagination, excited by solitude and an undue consumption of the midnight oil, and as he turned his face to the evening light, an observer, had there been one, might have felt half inclined to agree with him. His face was pale, and the high aquiline nose looked drawn. Moreover, the tangled hair and beard contrasted strangely with his broad, spotless collar, and his dressing-gown of sober black. The long habit of neatness in dress survived any small vanity of personal looks. He rose, and throwing the pen impatiently on the table, went to the little window and looked out. His shoulders overlapped the opening on both sides as he thrust his yellow head out into the evening sunshine, and Master Simpelmayer, the shoemaker down in the street, glanced up, and seeing that the Herr Doctor was taking his evening sniff of the Neckar breeze, laid down his awl and went to "vespers,"--a "maas" of cool beer and a "pretzel." For the Herr Doctor was a regular man, and always appeared at his window at the same hour, rain or shine. And when Simpelmayer mended the well-worn shoes that came to him periodically from across the way, he was sure that the flaxen-haired student would not call over to know if they were finished until the sun was well down and the day far spent. On this particular evening, however, there was no mending in hand for the Herr Doctor, and so the crooked little shoemaker filled himself a pipe, and twisted his apron round his waist, and stumped leisurely down the street to the beer-shop at the corner, where he and his fellows took their pots and their pipes, undisturbed by the playful pranks of the students. But the Doctor remained at his window, and neither vouchsafed look nor greeting to Master Simpelmayer. He was not thinking of shoes or shoemakers just then, though, to judge by his face, he was thinking very intently of something. And well he might, for he had been reading serious stuff. The walls of his little chamber were lined with books, and there was a small sliding-rack on the table, presumably for those volumes he immediately required for his work. A rare copy of _Sextus Empiricus_, with the Greek and Latin side by side, lay open on an inclined desk at one end, and the table was strewn with papers, on which were roughly drawn a variety of mathematical figures, margined all around with odd-looking equations and algebraically-expressed formulæ. Well-thumbed volumes of mathematical works in English, German, and French, lay about, opened in various places, and there was a cracked old plate, half full of tobacco ashes and the ends of cigarettes. The remaining furniture of the room was simple and poor: a neat camp bedstead, a boot-jack, and a round mirror, not more than four inches in diameter; a tin tub and an iron washing-stand; a much battered old "schläger," with the colours at the hilt all in rags, hung over the iron stove; and that was all the room contained besides books and the working-table and chair. It would be impossible to live more simply, and yet everything was neat and clean, and stamped, too, with a certain _cachet_ of individuality. There were probably hundreds of student-rooms in the town of Heidelberg which boasted no more adornment or luxury than this, and yet there was not one that looked like it. A student's room, as he grows up, is a reflection of himself; it is a kind of dissolving view, in which the one set of objects and books fades gradually away as his opinions form themselves, and as he collects about him the works that are really of interest to him, as distinguished from those with which he has been obliged to occupy himself prior to taking his academic steps. Then, as in the human frame every particle of bone and sinew is said to change in seven years, the student one day looks about him and recognises that hardly a book or a paper is there of all the store over which he was busied in those months before he took his degree, or sustained his disputation. When a man has entered on his career, if he enters on it with a will, he soon finds that all books and objects not essential as tools for his work creep stealthily into the dusty corner, or to the inaccessible top shelf of the bookcase,--or if he is very poor, to the second-hand bookshop. He cannot afford to be hampered by any dead weight. Now Dr. Claudius had gone through many changes of thought and habit since he came to Heidelberg ten years ago. But he had never changed his quarters; for he loved the garret window and the isolation from visits and companions that he gained by his three flights of stairs. The camp-bed in the corner was the same whereon he had lain after his first duel, with a bag of ice on his head and his bosom friend by his side, with a long pipe. At that very table he had drawn his first caricature of Herr Professor Winkelnase, which had been framed and hung up in the "Kneipe"--the drinking-hall of his corps; at the same board he had written his thesis for his doctorate, and here again he had penned the notes for his first lecture. Professor Winkelnase was dead; not one of his old corps-brothers remained in Heidelberg, but still he clung to the old room. The learned doctors with whom he drank his wine or his beer of an evening, when he sallied forth from his solitude, wondered at his way of living; for Dr. Claudius was not poor, as incomes go in South Germany. He had a modest competence of his own to begin with, and his lectures brought him in something, so that he might have had a couple of rooms "_parterre_"--as the Germans call the _rez-de-chaussée_--and could have been as comfortable as he pleased. But no one ever attempted to account for Dr. Claudius at all. He was a credit to the University, where first-rate men are scarce,--for Heidelberg is not a seat of very great learning; and no one troubled to inquire why he did not return to his native country when he had obtained his "Phil.D." Only, if he meant to spend the rest of his life in Heidelberg, it was high time he married and settled down to genuine "Philisterleben"--at least so Dr. Wiener had said to Dr. Wurst over the second "schoppen" every night for a year past. But Claudius did not marry, nor did he even allow his blue eyes to rest contemplatively on black-eyed Fräulein Wiener, or red-cheeked Fräulein Wurst. He would indeed occasionally accept an invitation to drink coffee at his colleagues' houses, but his talk was little and his manner a placid blank. He had been wild enough ten years before, when his yellow hair and tall straight presence were the admiration of every burgher's daughter in the Hirschgasse or the Langestrasse; but years and study had brought out the broad traits of his character, his uniformly quiet manner, his habits of regularity, and a certain deliberateness of gait and gesture which well became his towering figure and massive strength. He was utterly independent in all his ways, without the least trace of the arrogance that hangs about people whose independence is put on, and constantly asserted, in order to be beforehand with the expected opposition of their fellow-men. Dr. Claudius was a Swede by birth and early education, and finding himself at twenty free to go where he would, he had wandered to Heidelberg in pursuit of the ideal student-life he had read so much of in his Northern home. Full of talent, independent and young, he cared little for the national enmities of Scandinavians and Germans, and, like all foreigners who behave sensibly, he was received with open arms by the enthusiastic students, who looked upon him as a sort of typical Goth, the prototype of the Teutonic races. And when they found how readily he learned to handle schläger and sabre, and that, like a true son of Odin, he could drain the great horn of brown ale at a draught, and laugh through the foam on his yellow beard, he became to them the embodiment of the student as he should be. But there was little of all that left now, and though the stalwart frame was stronger and tougher in its manly proportions, and the yellow beard grown long and curly, and the hair as thick as ever, the flush of youth was gone; and Dr. Claudius leaned out of his high window and smelled the river breeze, and said to himself it was not so sweet as it used to be, and that, for all he only had thirty summers behind him, he was growing old--very old; and that was why he did not care to spend more than half-an-hour of an evening with Dr. Wiener and Dr. Wurst. In truth it was an unnatural life for a man just reaching his prime, and full of imagination and talent and love for the beautiful. But he had fallen into the philosophical groove of study which sooner or later seems to absorb so many gifted minds, only to lay them waste in nine cases out of ten. A brilliant mathematician, he had taken his doctorate without difficulty, and his thesis had even attracted some attention. From the higher speculations of modern mathematics to the study of philosophy is but a step, and Claudius had plunged into the vast sea of Kant, Spinoza, and Hegel, without, perhaps, having any very definite idea of what he was doing, until he found himself forced to go forward or to acknowledge himself baffled and beaten. This he was not willing to do, and so he had gone on and on, until one day, some six months ago, he had asked himself what it all led to? why he had laboured so hard for years over such things? whether the old free life and ready enjoyment were not better than this midnight prowling among other people's thoughts, which, whatever they might have been when spoken, never seemed quite clear on paper? Or would it not be better to leave the whole thing and go back to his Northern home? He might find plenty of adventure there, and breathe in fresh youth and vitality in the cold bright life of the Norwegian fisheries or of some outlying Swedish farm. And yet he could not make up his mind to move, or to acknowledge that he had laboured in vain. It was in vain, though, he said, as he looked out at the flowing river. Had he gained a single advantage either for his thoughts or his deeds by all his study of philosophy? In his weariness he said to himself that he had not; that he had been far better able to deal with questions of life, so long as he had only handled the exact sciences, than he was now, through all this uncertain saturation of foggy visions and contradictory speculations. Questions of life--but did questions of life ever arise for him? He had reduced it all to its simplest expression. His little store of money was safely invested, and he drew the income four times a year. He possessed no goods or chattels not stowed away in his garret chamber. He owed no man anything; he was not even a regular professor, tied to his University by a fixed engagement. In a word, he was perfectly free and untrammelled. To what end? He worked on from force of habit; but work had long ceased to amuse him. When had he laughed last? Probably not since his trip on foot to the Bavarian Highlands, where he had met a witty journalist from Berlin, with whom he had walked for a couple of days. This evening he was more weary than usual. He almost thought he would go away if he could think of any place to go to where life might be more interesting. He had no relations excepting an uncle, who had emigrated to America when Claudius was a baby, and who wrote twice a year, with that regular determination to keep up his family ties which characterises the true Northman. To this uncle he also wrote regularly at stated intervals, telling of his quiet student-life. He knew that this solitary relation was in business in New York, and he inferred from the regular offers of assistance which came in every letter that he was in good circumstances,--but that was all. This evening he fell to thinking about him. The firm was "Barker and Lindstrand," he remembered. He wondered what Mr. Barker was like. By the by it would soon be midsummer, and he might expect the half-yearly letter at any time. Not that it would interest him in the least when it came, but yet he liked to feel that he was not utterly alone in the world. There was the postman coming down the street in his leisurely, old-fashioned way, chatting with the host at the corner and with the tinman two doors off, and then--yes, he was stopping at Dr. Claudius's door. The messenger looked up, and, seeing the Doctor at his window, held out a large envelope. "A letter for you, Herr Doctor," he cried, and his red nose gleamed in the evening glow, strongly foreshortened to the Doctor's eye. "Gleich," replied Claudius, and the yellow head disappeared from the window, its owner descending to open the door. As he mounted the dingy staircase Claudius turned the great sealed envelope over and over in his hand, wondering what could be the contents. It was postmarked "New York," but the hand was large and round and flourished, not in the least like his uncle's sexagenarian crabbedness of hieroglyphic. In the corner was the name of a firm he did not know, and the top of the letter was covered with a long row of stamps, for it was very thick and heavy. So he went into his room, and sat down on the window-sill to see what Messrs. Screw and Scratch of Pine Street, New York, could possibly want of Claudius, Phil.D. of Heidelberg. His curiosity soon gave way to very considerable surprise. The first part of the letter contained the formal announcement of the sudden decease of Gustavus Lindstrand, of the firm of Barker and Lindstrand of New York. Claudius laid down the letter and sighed. His one relation had not been much to him. He had no recollection even of the old gentleman's appearance, but the regular correspondence had given him a feeling of reliance, a sensation of not being absolutely alone. He was alone now. Not a relation of any description in the world. Well, he would read the remainder of the letter. He turned over the page. "We enclose a copy of the will," the lawyer continued, "for your inspection. You will see that Mr. Screw of our firm is appointed joint executor with Mr. Silas B. Barker, and we await your further instructions. In view of the large fortune you inherit," . . . Claudius looked up suddenly and gazed blankly out of the window; then he went on-- . . . "by the aforesaid will of your uncle, the late Mr. Gustavus Lindstrand, it might be well if, at your convenience, you could pay a visit to this country." Here Claudius thought it was time to look at the will itself. Unfolding the document, which was very short, he acquainted himself with the contents. There were a few legacies to old servants, and one or two to persons who were probably friends. Everything else was devised and bequeathed "to my nephew, the son of my sister, Claudius, _privat-docent_ in the University of Heidelberg, Grand Duchy of Baden, Germany." And it appeared that the surplus, after deducting all legacies and debts, amounted to about one million and a half of dollars. Claudius carefully reread the papers without betraying the smallest emotion. He then put them back in the envelope, and opening a small iron cash-box, which stood on a shelf of the book-case, locked up will, letter, power of attorney, and all. Then he shook his long limbs, with a sigh, and having rolled a thick cigarette, lighted it, and sat down in his chair to think. The shadows were deepening, and the smoke of his tobacco showed white against the gloom in the room. The news he had just received would have driven some men crazy, and certainly most people would experience some kind of vivid sensation at finding themselves suddenly endowed with immense wealth from a quarter where they did not even suspect it existed. Moreover, old Lindstrand's will was perfectly unequivocal, and contained none of those ill-natured restrictions about marrying or not marrying, or assuming the testator's name, or anything which could put the legatee to the slightest inconvenience. But Claudius experienced no sensation of pleasure at finding himself sole master of a million and a half. It was not that he was foolish enough to despise money, or even to pretend to, as some people do. He would have felt keenly the loss of his own little store, and would have hated to work for money instead of working for work's sake. But he had enough, and had always had enough, for his small wants. He loved beautiful things intensely, but he had no desire to possess them; it was enough that he might see them, and carry away the remembrance. He loved books, but he cared not a jot for rare editions, so long as there were cheap ones published in Leipzic. That old copy of _Sextus Empiricus_, on the desk there, he had bought because he could not get an ordinary edition; and now that he had read it he did not care to keep it. Of course it contained a great deal that was good, but he had extracted the best of it, and meant to sell the volume to the first bidder--not that he wanted the money, but because it was in the way; if he allowed things to accumulate, there would be no turning round in his little den. So he leaned back in his straight-backed chair and wondered what in the world he should do with "all that money." He might travel. Yes, but he preferred to travel with a view of seeing things, rather than of reaching places. He would rather walk most of the way. The only way in which he could possibly live up to such an income must be by changing his entire mode of life--a house, somewhere in a great city, horses, servants, and even a wife--Claudius laughed for the first time in many months, a deep Homeric laugh--they would all help him to get rid of his money. But then, a life like that--pshaw! impossible. He was sick of it before beginning, then what would he feel after a month of it? The problem faced him in the dark, like an unsolved equation, staring out black and white before his eyes, or like an unfinished game of chess when one goes to bed after five or six hours' play. Something he must decide, because it was his nature to decide always, before he left a subject, on some course of thought. Meanwhile he had been so little disturbed by the whole business that, in spite of his uncle's death, and a million and a half of money, he was hungry and thirsty. So he struck a match and lit his study-lamp, and found his coat and hat and stick. Then he paused. He did not want to meet Dr. Wiener and Dr. Wurst that evening; he would fetch himself something to eat and drink, and be quiet. So he slung a heavy stone jug on his arm, and, turning his lamp down to save the oil, trudged down the stairs and out into the street. He made for the little inn at the corner, and while the fat old landlord filled his jug with the best Markgräfler, he himself picked out a couple of smoked sausages from the great pile on the counter, and wrapping them up with half a dozen pretzels, transferred the package to his capacious pocket. Then he took the jug from the innkeeper, and having paid half a gulden for the whole supply of eatables and wine, he departed to consume them in solitude. It was his usual supper. He had done the same thing for ten years, off and on, whenever he was not inclined for company. "But I suppose it is incongruous," he soliloquised, "that, being a millionaire, I should fetch my own supper." Once more he laughed aloud in the crowded street, for it was warm and the people were sitting in front of their houses, Simpelmayer the shoemaker, and Blech the tinman, and all the rest, each with his children and his pot of beer. As the Doctor laughed, the little boys laughed too, and Blech remarked to Simpelmayer that the Herr Doctor must have won the great prize in the Hamburg lottery, for he had not heard him laugh like that in three years. "Freilich," returned the crooked shoemaker, "but he was used to laugh loud enough ten years ago. I can remember when he first moved in there, and his corps-fellows locked him in his room for a jest, and stood mocking in the street. And he climbed right down the woodwork and stepped on the signboard of the baker and jumped into the street, laughing all the while, though they were holding in their breath for fear he should break his neck. Ja, he was a right student; but he is changed now--the much reading, lieber Blech, the much reading." And the old fellow looked after Claudius as he disappeared into the dark doorway. The Doctor mounted his three flights with even tread, and, turning up his light, proceeded leisurely to eat his twisted rolls and sausages. When he had done that, he took the great stone jug in his hand, as if it had been a wine-glass, and set it to his lips and drank a long draught. The result of his cogitations, assisted by the soothing influence of supper, was to be foreseen. In the first place, he reflected that the problem was itself a myth. No one could require of him that he should use his money unless he liked. He might let it accumulate without any trouble to himself; and then, why should he tell any one of his inheritance? Surely he might go on living as he was living now for an indefinite period, and nobody would be the wiser. Besides, it would be a novel sensation to feel that while living like a simple student he possessed a great power, put away, as it were, on the shelf, whereby he could, if he liked, at any moment astonish the whole country. Very novel, indeed, and considering the importance of the question of the disposal of his income, he could well afford to give it six months' consideration. And he might move undisturbed about the University and eat his supper with Dr. Wiener and Dr. Wurst without being the object of general interest, which he would at once become if it were known that he, a simple _privat-docent_, with his decent black coat and his twice-mended shoes, was the richest man in the Grand Duchy of Baden. These reflections of Dr. Claudius, strange as they must seem in the eyes of men of the world, were only what were to be expected from a man of his education and character. He had travelled after a fashion, it is true, and had frequented society when he was younger; for the Heidelberg student is a lover of the dance, and many of the wild young _burschen_ become the brilliant officers of the crack regiments of the first army in the world. He had been in Paris and Vienna and Rome for a few weeks, and, being of a good family in the North, had received introductions through the diplomatic representatives of his country. His striking personality had always attracted attention, and he might have gone everywhere had he chosen. But he had only cared enough for society and its life to wish to see it now and then, and he fancied that he understood it at a glance--that it was all a sham and a glamour and vanity of vanities. There was, of course, a potent reason for all this. In his short peregrinations into the world of decorations and blue ribbons and cosmopolitan uniforms he had never come across a woman that interested him. He had a holy reverence for woman in the abstract, but he had not met one to whom he could do homage as the type of the ideal womanhood he worshipped. Perhaps he expected too much, or perhaps he judged too much by small and really insignificant signs. As no man living or dead has ever understood any woman for five minutes at a time, he was not to be blamed. Women are very like religion--we must take them on faith, or go without. Moreover, Dr. Claudius had but an indifferent appreciation of the value of money; partly because he had never cared for what it would buy, and had therefore never examined its purchasing power, and partly because he had never lived intimately with people who spent a great deal. He knew nothing of business, and had never gambled, and he did not conceive that the combination of the two could be of any interest. Compared with the questions that had occupied his mind of late, it seemed to make no more difference whether a man were rich or poor than whether he had light hair or dark. And if he had seriously asked himself whether even those great problems which had occupied the minds of the mightiest thinkers led to any result of importance, it was not likely that he would bestow a thought on such a trivial matter as the question of pounds, shillings, and pence. So, before he went to bed, he took out a sheet of paper and an envelope--he never bought but one package of envelopes a year, when he sent his New Year's card to the other doctors of the University--and wrote a short letter to Messrs. Screw and Scratch of Pine Street, New York. He acknowledged the receipt of their communication, deplored the death of his only relation, and requested that they would look after his money for him, as he had no use whatever for it at present. He objected, he said, to signing a power of attorney as yet, for as there was no hurry they might consult him by letter or telegraph as often as they liked. When Messrs. Screw and Scratch read this epistle they opened their eyes wide, wondering what manner of man Claudius, Phil.D., might be. And it took them some time to find out. But Claudius put out his light when he had signed and sealed the missive, and slept the sleep of the strong and the just, undisturbed by the possession of a fortune or by any more doubts as to the future. Before receiving this letter he had thought seriously of going away. Now that a move was almost thrust upon him, he found that he did not want to make it. A professor he would live and die. What could be more contemptible, he reflected, than to give up the march of thought and the struggle for knowledge, in order to sit at ease, devising means of getting rid of so much cash? And he straightened his great limbs along the narrow camp-bed and was asleep in five minutes. CHAPTER II. When Claudius awoke at daybreak he had a strong impression that he had been dreaming. His first action was to open his iron box and read the will over again. That being done, he reflected that his determination to keep his fortune a secret was a wise one, and that for the present he would abide by it. So he went out and got a notary to attest his signature to the letter, and posted it to Messrs. Screw and Scratch, and returned to his books. But the weather was intensely hot, and the sun beat down fiercely on the roof over his head, so that after two or three hours he gave it up and sallied forth to seek coolness abroad. His steps turned naturally upwards towards the overhanging castle where he was sure of a breeze and plenty of shade; and as he passed the famous old "Wirthshaus zum faulen Pelz" on the ascent, he turned in and took a drink of the cool clear ale and a pretzel, an operation termed in Germany the "Frühschoppen," or "early glass," and as universal a practice as the early tea in the tropics before the sun is up, or the "vermouth" of the Italian before the evening meal. Having offered this customary libation to the summer deities, the Doctor leisurely climbed the hill and entered the precincts of the Schloss. Sure enough, there was a breeze here among the ruins, and shade in abundance wherein to lie and read all through the summer day, with an occasional shift of position as the sun rose and sank in the blazing sky. Claudius stretched himself out near the great ruined tower under a bit of wall, and, pulling out a book, began to read. But the book did not interest him, and before long he let it drop and fell to thinking. The light wind stirred the broad green foliage over him, and the sun struck fiercely down beyond the border of shade; but then, again, beyond there were more trees and more shade. The nameless little crickets and flies and all manner of humming things panted musically in the warm air; the small birds chirped lazily now and then in desultory conversation, too hot to hop or fly; and a small lizard lay along the wall dazed and stupid in the noontide heat. The _genius loci_ was doubtless cooling himself in the retirement of some luxurious hole among the ruins, and the dwarf Perkéo, famous in song and toast, had the best of it that day down in the cellar by the great tun. But Claudius was of a tough nature, and minded neither heat nor cold; only when a large bluebottle fly buzzed round his nose he whisked his broad hat to drive the tormentor away, and said to himself that summer had its drawbacks even in Germany, though there were certainly more flies and mosquitoes and evil beasts on the wing in Sweden during the two months' heat there. On the whole, he was pretty comfortable among the ruins on this June day, though he ought to begin considering where his summer foot tour was to take him this year. It might be as well, certainly. Where could he go? There was the Black Forest, but he knew that thoroughly; Bohemia--he had been there; Switzerland; the Engadine--yes, he would go back to Pontresina and see what it had grown into since he was there six years ago. It used to be a delightful place then, as different from St. Moritz as anything could well be. Only students and artists and an occasional sturdy English climber used to go to Pontresina, while all Europe congregated at St. Moritz half a dozen miles away. He would go there as he went everywhere, with a knapsack and a thick stick and a few guldens in his pocket, and be happy, if so be that he had any capacity for enjoyment left in him. "It is absurd," said Claudius to himself, argumentatively. "I am barely thirty years old, as strong as an ox, and I have just inherited more money than I know what to do with, and I feel like an old cripple of ninety, who has nothing left to live for. It must be morbid imagination or liver complaint, or something." But it was neither liver nor imagination, for it was perfectly genuine. Tired of writing, tired of reading, of seeing, of hearing, and speaking; and yet blessed with a constitution that bid fair to carry him through another sixty years of life. He tried to argue about it. Was it possible that it came of living in a foreign country with whose people he had but a fancied sympathy? There are no folk like our own folk, after all; and there is truly a great gulf between Scandinavians and every other kind of people. But it seemed to Claudius that he loved the Germans and their ways--and indeed he did; but does not everyday experience show that the people we admire, and even love, the most are not necessarily those with whom we are most in sympathy or with whom it is best for us to live? He would have been better among his own Northern people; but that did not strike him, and he determined he would go to the Engadine to-morrow or next day. The Doctor, having made up his mind, shifted his position and sat up, pulling a pipe from his pocket, which he proceeded to fill and to light. The flame of the match was white and transparent in the mid-day glare, and the smoke hung lazily about as he puffed at the ungainly instrument of enjoyment. Before he had half finished his pipe he heard footsteps on the path. He looked up idly and saw a lady--_two_ ladies--coming leisurely towards him. Beyond the fact that it was an unusual hour for strangers to visit the Schloss--and they evidently were strangers--there was nothing unusual in the apparition; and Claudius merely rose to his feet and moved slowly on, not from any desire to get out of the way, but merely because he was too well bred to remain seated by the path while a lady passed, and having risen, he could not very well stand still. So he moved on till he stood by the broken tower, and seeing that by climbing down he could reach a more secure resting-place, with the advantage of a view, he let himself drop easily on to a projecting ledge of masonry and resumed his pipe with philosophic indifference. Before long he heard voices above him, or more properly a voice, for one of the parties confined her conversation strictly to yea and nay, while the other spoke enthusiastically, and almost as if soliloquising, about the scene. It was a deep-strung voice, that would have been masculine if it had been the least harsh; but it was not--it was only strong and large and smooth, a woman's voice with the gift of resonance that lends interest where there might otherwise seem to be none. There is a certain kind of voice in woman that seems to vibrate in a way especially its own. Whether it be that under certain conditions of the vocal organs harmonic sounds are produced as they may be upon a stringed instrument or upon an organ pipe; or whether, again, the secret lies deeper, depending on the subtile folding and unfolding of new-shaped waves of sound to which our ordinary ears are not used--who can tell? And yet there are voices that from the first produce upon us a strange impression unlike anything else in the world. Not that we necessarily become interested in the possessor of the voice, who may remain for ever utterly indifferent to us, for the magic lies in the tone merely, which seems to have a power of perpetuating itself and rebounding among the echoes of our recollections. Barely, very rarely, singers possess it, and even though their powers be limited there comes a strange thrill into their singing which fixes it indelibly on the memory. Such a voice it was that Claudius heard as he lay on his ledge of masonry some ten feet below, and listened to the poetic flow of the strange lady's thoughts on Heidelberg and the scene at her feet. He did not move, for he was sure she had not seen him; and he supposed she would go away in a few minutes. He was destined to be seen, however. She stopped talking, and was apparently lost in thought; but in a moment there was a small cry. "O mon Dieu!" and a dainty lace-covered parasol fell over the edge, and, striking the platform where Claudius was lying, went straight to the bottom of the ruin, some twenty feet farther. "What a nuisance," said the thrilling voice from above, "I can never get it back now; and there are no gardeners or people about." "Permit me, Madam," said Claudius, stepping as far out as he dared, and looking up to catch a glimpse of a beautiful woman in black and white staring down at the unlucky parasol in a rather helpless fashion. "Do not be disturbed, Madam; I will get it for you in a moment." And he began to descend. The fair unknown protested--Monsieur must not trouble himself; Monsieur would certainly break his neck--_enfin_, it was very obliging on the part of Monsieur to risk himself in such a terrible gulf, etc. etc. But "Monsieur," when once he had caught sight of those dark eyes, climbed steadily down to the bottom, and had reached the lost parasol before the string of polite protestations had ceased. The ascent was quickly accomplished, and he stood at the summit, hat in hand, to return the object of his search to its rightful owner. There was not a trace of embarrassment on his face; and he looked the foreign lady boldly in the eyes as he bowed. She could not express her thanks sufficiently, and would probably have wished to continue expressing them for some time longer to the handsome and herculean young man, who had apparently started out of space to her assistance; but when Claudius had taken a good look he simply answered-- "Il n'y a pas de quoi, Madame," and bowing low walked off. Perhaps the least contraction of curiosity was in his eyes; and he would have liked to know who the lady was who had the crown and the large M carved in the ivory of her parasol stick. But, after all, he came to the conclusion that he did not care, and so went strolling down the path, wondering where he could hide himself if visitors were to infest the Schloss at this time of year, and in the hottest hours of the day. "I will leave here to-morrow," he said, "and see if I cannot be more comfortable in Pontresina." He reached another part of the Schloss, and sitting down resumed his pipe, which seemed destined to interruptions. The lady of the parasol had made an impression on Dr. Claudius, for all his apparent indifference. It was rarely, indeed, nowadays that he looked at a woman at all; and to-day he had not only looked, but he owned to himself, now it was past, that he would like to look again. If he had had any principle in avoiding women during the last few years, he would not have admitted now that he would like to see her again--just for one moment. But he had no principle in the matter. It was choice, and there it ended; and whenever he should take it into his head to associate with the fair sex again, he would consider it a sign that his youth had returned, and he would yield without the smallest struggle. But in this ease--"Pshaw!" thought the humble _privat-docent_, "she is some great lady, I suppose. How should I make her acquaintance? Oh! I forgot--I am a millionaire to-day; I have only to ask and it shall be opened." He smiled to himself, and, with the returning sense of the power to do what he pleased, the little undefined longing for another glimpse of the fair stranger subsided for a time. Then he regretted it. He was sorry it was gone; for while it had been there he had felt a something telling him he was not old after all, but only very young--so young that he had never been in love. As a consequence of his wishing his little rag of sentiment back again, it came; but artificially this time, and as if expecting to be criticised. He would contemplate for a space the fair picture that had the power to rouse his weary soul, even for an instant, from the sea of indifference in which it was plunged. Claudius lay back in the grass and crossed one leg over the other. Then he tried to recall the features of the woman who had begun to occupy his thoughts. She was certainly very beautiful. He could remember one or two points. Her skin was olive-tinted and dark about the eyes, and the eyes themselves were like soft burning amber, and her hair was very black. That was all he could recollect of her--saving her voice. Ah yes! he had seen beautiful women enough, even in his quiet life, but he had never heard anything exactly like this woman's tones. There are some sounds one never forgets. For instance, the glorious cry of the trumpeter swans in Iceland when they pass in full flight overhead in the early morning; or the sweet musical ring of the fresh black ice on the river as it clangs again to sweep of the steel skate. Claudius tried to compare the sound of that voice to something he had heard, but with little success. Southern and Eastern born races fall in love at first sight in a way that the soberer Northener cannot understand. A face in a crowd, a glance, a droop of the lashes, and all is said. The seed of passion is sown and will grow in a day to all destroying proportions. But the Northern heart is a very different affair. It will play with its affections as a cat plays with a mouse; only the difference is, that the mouse grows larger and more formidable, like the one in the story of the Eastern sage, which successively changed its shape until it became a tiger, and the wise man was driven to take precautions for his own safety. There is never the least doubt in the mind of an Italian or an Oriental when he is in love; but an Englishman will associate with a woman for ten years, and one day will wake up to the fact that he loves her, and has loved her probably for some time past. And then his whole manner changes immediately, and he is apt to make himself very disagreeable unless indeed the lady loves him--and women are rarely in doubt in their inmost hearts as to whether they love or not. The heart of the cold northern-born man is a strange puzzle. It can only be compared in its first awakening to a very backward spring. In the first place, the previous absence of anything like love has bred a rough and somewhat coarse scepticism about the existence of passion at all. Young Boreas scoffs at the mere mention of a serious affection, and turns up his nose at a love-match. He thinks young women no end of fun; his vanity makes him fancy himself the heartless hero of many an adventure, and if, as frequently happens, he is but an imperfect gentleman, he will not scruple to devise, imagine, and recount (to his bosom friend, of course, in strictest secrecy) some hairbreadth escape from an irate husband or an avenging father, where he has nearly lost his life, he says, in the pursuit of some woman, generally a lady of spotless reputation whom he barely knows. But put him in her society for an hour, with every opportunity of pressing his suit, and the veriest lambkin could not be more harmless. He has not yet tasted blood, though he will often smack his lips and talk as if he had. It is generally chance that makes him fall in love the first time. He is thrown together with his fate--tall or short, dark or fair, it makes no difference--in some country house or on some journey. For a long time her society only amuses him and helps to pass the hours, for Boreas is easily bored and finds time a terrible adversary. Gradually he understands that she is a necessity to his comfort, and there is nothing he will not do to secure her on every possible opportunity for himself. Then perhaps he allows to himself that he really does care a little, and he loses some of his incrustation of vanity. He feels less sure of himself, and his companions observe that he ceases to talk of his alleged good fortunes. Very, very slowly his real heart wakes up, and whatever is manly and serious and gentle in his nature comes unconsciously to the surface. Henceforth he knows he loves, and because his love has been slow to develop itself it is not necessarily sluggish or deficient when once it is come. But Englishmen are rarely heroic lovers except in their novels. There is generally a little bypath of caution, a postern gate of mercantile foresight, by which they can slip quietly out at the right moment and forget all about the whole thing. Claudius was not an Englishman, but a Scandinavian, and he differed from the imaginary young man described above in that he had a great broad reverence of woman and for woman's love. But it was all a theory, of which the practice to him was as yet unknown. He had soon wearied of the class of women he had met in his student-life--chiefly the daughters of respectable Heidelberg Philistines, of various degrees of south Teutonic prettiness; and the beautiful women of the world, of whom he had caught a glimpse in his travels had never seemed real enough to him to be in any way approached. He never had realised that his own personality, combined with his faultless manners, would have soon made him a favourite in what is called society, had he chosen to court it. After all, it was very vague this passing fancy for the dark-eyed woman of the Schloss. Perhaps Dr. Claudius watched his symptoms too narrowly, and was overmuch pleased at finding that something could still rouse a youthful thrill in him, after the sensation of old age that had of late oppressed him. A man, he said to himself, is not old so long as he can love--and be loved--well, so long as he can love, say, and let the rest take care of itself. And by and by the sun went westering down the hill, and he shook himself out of his dreams, and pocketed his book and turned homeward. His day, he thought, had not amounted to much after all, and he would spend the evening in sober study, and not dream any more until bedtime. But he would be sociable this evening and eat his supper--now he thought about it, it would be dinner and supper combined--in the company of his colleagues at their favourite haunt. And he would go to-morrow, he would certainly go to the Engadine. But to-morrow came, and the Herr Doctor looked out of his window as usual, and he did not go to Pontresina or anywhere else, nor the next day, nor the day after. Only up to the Schloss every day through the hot week, with his book and his pipe, and there he would lie and read and smoke, and say to himself, "To-morrow I will certainly go." There was something almost pathetic in Claudius, thus day after day revisiting the scene where he had experienced a momentary sensation of youth and vitality, where he had discovered, somewhat to his surprise, that he was still alive and full of strength and sanguine hope, when he thought himself so old. And lying among the ruins he called up the scene again and again, and the strange woman gradually got possession of his mind, as a cunning enchantress might, and she moulded his thoughts about her till they clung to her and burned. He did not seriously think to meet her again in the Schloss, if he thought of it at all, for he knew of course that she must have been a bird of passage, only pausing an instant on that hot day to visit some scene long familiar to her memory. And of course, like a true philosophical student, he did not attempt to explain to himself his own conduct, nor to catalogue the reasons for and against a daily visit to the old castle. So the week passed, and another after it, and one day, late in the afternoon, Claudius descended the hill and went up as usual to his chamber above the river, to spend an hour indoors before going to supper. It was a beautiful evening, and he left his door partly open on to the landing that the breeze might blow through the room as he sat by the window. A book was in his hand before he had sat many moments, from sheer force of habit; but he did not read. The sounds of the street rose pleasantly to his ear as the little boys and girls played together across each other's doorsteps. To tell the truth, it all seemed very far off, much farther than three flights of steps from the little crowd below to the solitary nest of learning aloft where he sat; and Dr. Claudius was, in his thoughts, incalculably far away from the shoemaker's Hans and the tinman's Gretel and their eight-year-old flirtation. Claudius was flirting with his fancies, and drawing pretty pictures in the smoke, with dark eyes and masses of black hair; and then he moved uneasily, and came back to his threadbare proposition that he was old, and that it was absurd that he should be. "Ah! what would I not give to enjoy it all--to feel I could wish one moment to remain!" He sighed and leaned back in the straight-backed chair. The door creaked slightly, he thought it was the evening wind. It creaked again; he turned his head, and his gaze remained riveted on the opening. A beautiful pair of dark eyes were fixed on him, deep and searching, and on meeting his, a great silky black head was pushed forward into the room, and a magnificent black hound stalked slowly across the floor and laid his head on the Doctor's knee with a look of evident inquiry. Claudius was fond of animals, and caressed the friendly beast, wondering to whom he might belong, and speculating whether the appearance of the dog heralded the approach of a visitor. But the dog was not one of those that he knew by sight in the streets of Heidelberg--one of those superb favourites of the students who are as well known as the professors themselves to every inhabitant of a university town in Germany. And the Doctor stroked the beautiful head and listened for steps upon the stairs. Before long he heard an ominous stumbling, as of some one unfamiliar with the dark and narrow way, and in a moment more a young man stood in the doorway, dazzled by the flood of the evening sunshine that faced him. "Mr. Claudius live here?" interrogated the stranger in a high and metallic, but gentlemanly voice. "I am Dr. Claudius," said the tenant of the old chair, rising politely. "Pray be seated, sir," and he offered his one seat to his visitor, who advanced into the middle of the room. He was a young man, dressed in the extreme of the English fashion. He was probably excessively thin, to judge by his face and neck and hands, but he was made up admirably. He removed his hat and showed a forehead of mediocre proportions, over which his dark hair was conscientiously parted in the middle. Though not in appearance robust, he wore a moustache that would not have disgraced a Cossack, his eyes were small, gray, and near together, and his complexion was bad. His feet were minute, and his hands bony. He took the offered chair, and Claudius sat down upon the bed, which was by no means so far removed in the little room as to make conversation at that distance difficult. "Dr. Claudius?" the stranger repeated, and the Doctor nodded gravely. "Dr. Claudius, the nephew of the late Mr. Gustavus Lindstrand of New York?" "The same, sir. May I inquire to what good fortune I am indebted--" "Oh! of course," interrupted the other, "I am Mr. Barker--Silas B. Barker junior of New York, and my father was your uncle's partner." "Indeed," said Claudius, rising and coming forward, "then we must shake hands again," and his face wore a pleasant expression. He thought nothing of first impressions, and was prepared to offer a hearty welcome to any friend of his uncle, even of the most unprepossessing type. Mr. Barker was not exactly unprepossessing; he was certainly not handsome, but there was a look of action about him that was not unpleasing. Claudius felt at once, however, that the American belonged to a type of humanity of which he knew nothing as yet. But they shook hands cordially, and the Doctor resumed his seat. "And is it long since you received the news, Professor?" inquired Mr. Barker, with the ready Transatlantic use of titles. "I heard of my uncle's death about three weeks ago--rather less." "Ah yes! And the news about the will--did you hear that?" "Certainly," said the Doctor; "I received the intelligence simultaneously." "Well," said the American, "do you propose to continue living here?" Claudius looked at his visitor. He was as yet unfamiliar with New World curiosity, and thought the question a rather strange one. However, he reflected that Mr. Barker's father might have some moral claim to know what his old partner's heir meant to do with his money; so he answered the question categorically. "I was, as perhaps you may imagine, greatly surprised at the intelligence that I had inherited a great fortune. But you will hardly understand, with your tastes,"--the Doctor glanced at Mr. Barker's faultless costume,--"that such abundant and unexpected wealth may not be to me a wholly unalloyed blessing." Claudius proceeded to explain how little he cared for the things that his money might bring him, and announced his intention of continuing his present mode of life some time longer. Mr. Silas B. Barker junior of New York opened his small eyes wider and wider, as his host set forth his views. "I should think you would be bored to death!" he said simply. "_Ennui_, in the ordinary sense, does not exist for a man whose life is devoted to study. What corresponds to it is a very different thing. I sometimes feel oppressed with a sense of profound dissatisfaction with what I am doing--" "I should think so," remarked Mr. Barker. Then, checking himself, he added, "I beg your pardon, don't misunderstand me. I can hardly conceive of leading such a life as yours. I could never be a professor." Claudius judged the statement to be strictly true. Mr. Barker did not look like a professor in the least. However, the Doctor wanted to be civil. "Have you just arrived? Have you seen our sights?" "Came last night from Baden-Baden. I have been here before. You had better come around to my hotel, and take dinner with me. But first we will drive somewhere and get cool." Claudius put on his best coat and combed his hair, apologising to Mr. Barker for the informality. Mr. Barker watched him, and thought he would make a sensation in New York. "We might go up to the castle," said the American, when they were seated in the carriage. So to the castle they went, and, leaving their carriage at the entrance, strolled slowly through the grounds till they reached the broken tower. "If they had used dynamite," said Mr. Barker, "they would have sent the whole thing flying across the river." "It would have been less picturesque afterwards," said Claudius. "It would have been more effective at the time." Claudius was thinking of the dark woman and her parasol, and how he had climbed down there a few weeks before. To show to himself that he did not care, he told his companion the incident as graphically as he could. His description of the lady was so graphic that Mr. Barker screwed up his eyes and put out his jaw, so that two great lines circled on his sallow face from just above the nostril, under his heavy moustache to his chin. "I could almost fancy I had seen her somewhere," said he. "Where?" asked Claudius eagerly. "I thought he would give himself away," was the American's terse inward reflection; but he answered coolly-- "I don't know, I am sure. Very likely I am mistaken. It was pretty romantic though. Ask me to the wedding, Professor." "What wedding?" "Why, when you marry the fascinating creature with the parasol." Claudius looked at Mr. Barker with some astonishment. "Do you generally manage things so quickly in your country?" "Oh, I was only joking," returned the American. "But, of course, you can marry anybody you like, and why not the dark lady? On the whole, though, if I were you, I would like to astonish the natives before I left. Now, you might buy the castle here and turn it into a hotel." "Horrible!" ejaculated Claudius. "No worse than making a hotel of Switzerland, which is an older and more interesting monument than the castle of Heidelberg." "Epigrammatic, but fallacious, Mr. Barker." "Epigrams and proverbs are generally that." "I think," said Claudius, "that proverbs are only fallacious when they are carelessly applied." "Very likely. Life is too short to waste time over weapons that will only go off in some singular and old-fashioned way. When I start out to do any shooting, I want to hit." So they went to dinner. Claudius found himself becoming gayer in the society of his new acquaintance than he had been for some time past. He could not have said whether he liked him or thought him interesting, but he had a strong impression that there was something somewhere, he could not tell what, which Mr. Barker understood thoroughly, and in which he might show to great advantage. He felt that however superficial and unartistic the American might be, he was nevertheless no fool. There was something keen and sharp-edged about him that proclaimed a character capable of influencing men, and accustomed to deal boldly and daringly with life. They dined as well as could be expected in a country which is not gastronomic, and Mr. Barker produced a rare brand of cigars, without which, he informed his guest, he never travelled. They were fat brown Havanas, and Claudius enjoyed them. "Let us go to Baden-Baden," said Barker, sucking at his weed, which protruded from his immense moustache like a gun under the raised port-hole of an old-fashioned man-of-war. "If I were seeking innocent recreation from my labours, that is not exactly the spot I would choose to disport myself in," replied Claudius. "The scenery is good, but the people are detestable." "I agree with you; but it is a nice place for all that. You can always gamble to pass the time." "I never play games of chance, and there is no play in Baden now." "Principle or taste, Professor?" "I suppose I must allow that it is principle. I used to play a little when I was a student; but I do not believe in leaving anything to fortune. I would not do it in anything else." "Well, I suppose you are right; but you miss a great deal of healthy excitement. You have never known the joys of being short of a thousand N.P. or Wabash on a rising market." "I fear I do not understand the illustration, Mr. Barker." "No? Well, it is not to be wondered at. Perhaps if you ever come to New York you will take an interest in the stock market." "Ah--you were referring to stocks? Yes, I have read a little about your methods of business, but that kind of study is not much in my line. Why do you say Baden, though, instead of some quiet place?" "I suppose I like a crowd. Besides, there are some people I know there. But I want you to go with me, and if you would rather not go to Baden-Baden, we can go somewhere else. I really think we ought to become better acquainted, and I may prevail on you to go with me to New York." Claudius was silent, and he blew a great cloud of smoke. What sort of a travelling companion would Mr. Barker be for him? Could there be a greater contrast to his own nature? And yet he felt that he would like to observe Mr. Barker. He felt drawn to him without knowing why, and he had a presentiment that the American would drag him out of his quiet life into a very different existence. Mr. Barker, on the other hand, possessed the showman's instinct. He had found a creature who, he was sure, had the elements of a tremendous lion about town; and having found him, he meant to capture him and exhibit him in society, and take to himself ever after the credit of having unearthed the handsome, rich, and talented Dr. Claudius from a garret in Heidelberg. What a story that would be to tell next year, when Claudius, clothed and clipped, should be marrying the girl of the season, or tooling his coach down the Newport avenue, or doing any of the other fashionable and merry things that Americans love to do in spring and summer! So Mr. Barker insisted on driving Claudius back to his lodging, though it was only five minutes' walk, and exacted a promise that the Doctor should take him on the morrow to a real German breakfast at the Fauler Pelz, and that they would "start off somewhere" in the afternoon. Claudius said he had enjoyed a very pleasant evening, and went up to his room, where he read an elaborate article on the vortex theory by Professor Helmholtz, with which, having dipped into transcendental geometry, he was inclined to find fault; and then he went calmly to bed. CHAPTER III. Claudius told his old landlord--his _philister_, as he would have called him--that he was going away on his customary foot tour for a month or so. He packed a book and a few things in his knapsack and joined Mr. Barker. To Claudius in his simplicity there was nothing incongruous in his travelling as a plain student in the company of the exquisitely-arrayed New Yorker, and the latter was far too much a man of the world to care what his companion wore. He intended that the Doctor should be introduced to the affectionate skill of a London tailor before he was much older, and he registered a vow that the long yellow hair should be cut. But these details were the result of his showman's intuition; personally, he would as readily have travelled with Claudius had he affected the costume of a shoeblack. He knew that the man was very rich, and he respected his eccentricity for the present. To accomplish the transformation of exterior which he contemplated, from the professional and semi-cynic garb to the splendour of a swell of the period, Mr. Barker counted on some more potent influence than his own. The only point on which his mind was made up was that Claudius must accompany him to America and create a great sensation. "I wonder if we shall meet her," remarked Mr. Barker reflectively, when they were seated in the train. "Whom?" asked Claudius, who did not intend to understand his companion's chaff. But Mr. Barker had shot his arrow, and started cleverly as he answered-- "Did I say anything? I must have been talking to myself." Claudius was not so sure. However, the hint had produced its effect, falling, as it did, into the vague current of his thoughts and giving them direction. He began to wonder whether there was any likelihood of his meeting the woman of whom he had thought so much, and before long he found himself constructing a conversation, supposed to take place on their first encounter, overleaping such trifles as probability, the question of an introduction, and other formalities with the ready agility of a mind accustomed to speculation. "The scenery is fine, is it not?" remarked Claudius tritely as they neared Baden. "Oh yes, for Europe. We manage our landscapes better in America." "How so?" "Swivels. You can turn the rocks around and see the other side." Claudius laughed a little, but Barker did not smile. He was apparently occupied in inventing a patent transformation landscape on wheels. In reality, he was thinking out a _menu_ for dinner whereby he might feed his friend without starving himself. For Mr. Barker was particular about his meals, and accustomed to fare sumptuously every day, whereas he had observed that the Doctor was fond of sausages and decayed cabbage. But he knew such depraved tastes could not long withstand the blandishments and caressing hypersensualism of Delmonico, if he ever got the Doctor so far. Having successfully accomplished the business of dining, Mr. Barker promised to return in an hour, and sallied out to find the British aristocracy, whom he knew. The British aristocracy was taking his coffee in solitude at the principal _café_, and hailed Mr. Barker's advent with considerable interest, for they had tastes in common. "How are you, Duke?" "Pretty fit, thanks. Where have you been?" "Oh, all over. I was just looking for you." "Yes?" said the aristocracy interrogatively. "Yes. I want you to introduce me to somebody you know." "Pleasure. Who?" "She has black eyes and dark hair, very dark complexion, middling height, fine figure; carries an ivory-handled parasol with a big M and a crown." Mr. Barker paused for a look of intelligence on the Englishman's face. "Sure she's here?" inquired the latter. "I won't swear. She was seen in Heidelberg, admiring views and dropping her parasol about, something like three weeks ago." "Oh! ah, yes. Come on." And the British aristocracy settled the rose in his button-hole and led the way. He moved strongly with long steps, but Mr. Barker walked delicately like Agag. "By the by, Barker, she is a countrywoman of yours. She married a Russian, and her name is Margaret." "Was it a happy marriage?" asked the American, taking his cigar from his mouth. "Exceedingly. Husband killed at Plevna. Left her lots of tin." They reached their destination. The Countess was at home. The Countess was enchanted to make the acquaintance of Monsieur, and on learning that he was an American and a compatriot, was delighted to see him. They conversed pleasantly. In the course of twenty minutes the aristocracy discovered he had an engagement and departed, but Mr. Barker remained. It was rather stretching his advantage, but he did not lack confidence. "So you, too, Countess, have been in Heidelberg this summer?" "About three weeks ago. I am very fond of the old place." "Lovely, indeed," said Barker. "The castle, the old tower half blown away in that slovenly war--" "Oh, such a funny thing happened to me there," exclaimed the Countess Margaret, innocently falling into the trap. "I was standing just at the edge with Miss Skeat--she is my companion, you know--and I dropped my parasol, and it fell rattling to the bottom, and suddenly there started, apparently out of space--" "A German professor, seven or eight feet high, who bounded after the sunshade, and bounded back and bowed and left you to your astonishment. Is not that what you were going to say, Countess?" "I believe you are a medium," said the Countess, looking at Barker in astonishment. "But perhaps you only guessed it. Can you tell me what he was like, this German professor?" "Certainly. He had long yellow hair, and a beard like Rip van Winkle's, and large white hands; and he was altogether one of the most striking individuals you ever saw." "It is evident that you know him, Mr. Barker, and that he has told you the story. Though how you should have known it was I--" "Guess-work and my friend's description." "But how do you come to be intimate with German professors, Mr. Barker? Are you learned, and that sort of thing?" "He was a German professor once. He is now an eccentricity without a purpose. Worth millions, and living in a Heidelberg garret, wishing he were poor again." "What an interesting creature! Tell me more, please." Barker told as much of Claudius's history as he knew. "Too delightful!" ejaculated the Countess Margaret, looking out of the window rather pensively. "Countess," said the American, "if I had enjoyed the advantage of your acquaintance even twenty-four hours I would venture to ask leave to present my friend to you. As it is--" Mr. Barker paused. "As it is I will grant you the permission unasked," said the Countess quietly, still looking out of the window. "I am enough of an American still to know that your name is a guarantee for any one you introduce." "You are very kind," said Mr. Barker modestly. Indeed the name of Barker had long been honourably known in connection with New York enterprise. The Barkers were not Dutch, it is true, but they had the next highest title to consideration in that their progenitor had dwelt in Salem, Massachusetts. "Bring him in the morning," said the Countess, after a moment's thought. "About two?" "Oh no! At eleven or so. I am a very early person. I get up at the screech of dawn." "Permit me to thank you on behalf of my friend as well as for myself," said Mr. Barker, bending low over the dark lady's hand as he took his departure. "So glad to have seen you. It is pleasant to meet a civilised countryman in these days." "It can be nothing to the pleasure of meeting a charming countrywoman," replied Mr. Barker, and he glided from the room. The dark lady stood for a moment looking at the door through which her visitor had departed. It was almost nine o'clock by this time, and she rang for lights, subsiding into a low chair while the servant brought them. The candles flickered in the light breeze that fanned fitfully through the room, and, finding it difficult to read, the Countess sent for Miss Skeat. "What a tiny little world it is!" said Margaret, by way of opening the conversation. Miss Skeat sat down by the table. She was thin and yellow, and her bones were on the outside. She wore gold-rimmed eyeglasses, and was well dressed, in plain black, with a single white ruffle about her long and sinewy neck. She was hideous, but she had a certain touch of dignified elegance, and her face looked trustworthy and not unkind. "Apropos of anything especial?" asked she, seeing that the Countess expected her to say something. "Do you remember when I dropped my parasol at Heidelberg?" "Perfectly," replied Miss Skeat. "And the man who picked it up, and who looked like Niemann in _Lohengrin_?" "Yes, and who must have been a professor. I remember very well." "A friend of mine brought a friend of his to see me this afternoon, and the man himself is coming to-morrow." "What is his name?" asked the lady-companion. "I am sure I don't know, but Mr. Barker says he is very eccentric. He is very rich, and yet he lives in a garret in Heidelberg and wishes he were poor." "Are you quite sure he is in his right mind, dear Countess?" Margaret looked kindly at Miss Skeat. Poor lady! she had been rich once, and had not lived in a garret. Money to her meant freedom and independence. Not that she was unhappy with Margaret, who was always thoughtful and considerate, and valued her companion as a friend; but she would rather have lived with Margaret feeling it was a matter of choice and not of necessity, for she came of good Scottish blood, and was very proud. "Oh yes!" answered the younger lady; "he is very learned and philosophical, and I am sure you will like him. If he is at all civilised we will have him to dinner." "By all means," said Miss Skeat with alacrity. She liked intelligent society, and the Countess had of late indulged in a rather prolonged fit of solitude. Miss Skeat took the last novel--one of Tourguéneff's--from the table and, armed with a paper-cutter, began to read to her ladyship. It was late when Mr. Barker found Claudius scribbling equations on a sheet of the hotel letter-paper. The Doctor looked up pleasantly at his friend. He could almost fancy he had missed his society a little; but the sensation was too novel a one to be believed genuine. "Did you find your friends?" he inquired. "Yes, by some good luck. It is apt to be the other people one finds, as a rule." "Cynicism is not appropriate to your character, Mr. Barker." "No. I hate cynical men. It is generally affectation, and it is always nonsense. But I think the wrong people have a way of turning up at the wrong moment." After a pause, during which Mr. Barker lighted a cigar and extended his thin legs and trim little feet on a chair in front of him, he continued: "Professor, have you a very strong and rooted dislike to the society of women?" Assailed by this point-blank question, the Doctor put his bit of paper inside his book, and drumming on the table with his pencil, considered a moment. Mr. Barker puffed at his cigar with great regularity. "No," said Claudius at last, "certainly not. To woman man owes his life, and to woman he ought to owe his happiness. Without woman civilisation would be impossible, and society would fall to pieces." "Oh!" ejaculated Mr. Barker. "I worship woman in the abstract and in the concrete. I reverence her mission, and I honour the gifts of Heaven which fit her to fulfil it." "Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Barker. "I think there is nothing made in creation that can be compared with woman, not even man. I am enthusiastic, of course, you will say, but I believe that homage and devotion to woman is the first duty of man, after homage and devotion to the Supreme Being whom all different races unite in describing as God." "That will do, thank you," said Mr. Barker, "I am quite satisfied of your adoration, and I will not ask her name." "She has no name, and she has all names," continued Claudius seriously. "She is an ideal." "Yes, my feeble intelligence grasps that she cannot be anything else. But I did not want a confession of faith. I only asked if you disliked ladies' society, because I was going to propose to introduce you to some friends of mine here." "Oh!" said Claudius, and he leaned back in his chair and stared at the lamp. Barker was silent. The Doctor was puzzled. He thought it would be very rude of him to refuse Mr. Barker's offer. On the other hand, in spite of his protestations of devotion to the sex, he knew that the exalted opinion he held of woman in general had gained upon him of late years, since he had associated less with them. It was with him a beautiful theory, the outcome of a knightly nature thrown back on itself, but as yet not fixed or clearly defined by any intimate knowledge of woman's character, still less by any profound personal experience of love. Courtesy was uppermost as he answered. "Really," he said at last, "if you are very desirous of presenting me to your friends, of course I--" "Oh, only if it is agreeable to you, of course. If it is in any way the reverse--" protested the polite Mr. Barker. "Not that--not exactly disagreeable. Only it is some time since I have enjoyed the advantage of an hour's conversation with ladies; and besides, since it comes to that, I am here as a pedestrian, and I do not present a very civilised appearance." "Don't let that disturb you. Since you consent," went on Mr. Barker, briskly taking everything for granted, "I may tell you that the lady in question has expressed a wish to have you presented, and that I could not do less than promise to bring you if possible. As for your personal appearance, it is not of the least consequence. Perhaps, if you don't mind a great deal, you might have your hair cut. Don't be offended, Professor, but nothing produces an appearance of being dressed so infallibly as a neatly-trimmed head." "Oh, certainly, if you think it best, I will have my hair cut. It will soon grow again." Mr. Barker smiled under the lambrikin of his moustache. "Yes," thought he, "but it sha'n't." "Then," he said aloud, "we will go about eleven." Claudius sat wondering who the lady could be who wanted to have him presented. But he was afraid to ask; Barker would immediately suppose he imagined it to be the dark lady. However, his thoughts took it as a certainty that it must be she, and went on building castles in the air and conversations in the clouds. Barker watched him and probably guessed what he was thinking of; but he did not want to spoil the surprise he had arranged, and fearing lest Claudius might ask some awkward question, he went to bed, leaving the Doctor to his cogitations. In the morning he lay in wait for his friend, who had gone off for an early walk in the woods. He expected that a renewal of the attack would be necessary before the sacrifice of the yellow locks could be accomplished, and he stood on the steps of the hotel, clad in the most exquisite of grays, tapering down to the most brilliant of boots. He had a white rose in his buttonhole, and his great black dog was lying at his feet, having for a wonder found his master, for the beast was given to roaming, or to the plebeian society of Barker's servant. The American's careful attire contrasted rather oddly with his sallow face, and with the bony hand that rested against the column. He was a young man, but he looked any age that morning. Before long his eye twinkled and he changed his position expectantly, for he saw the tall figure of Claudius striding up the street, a head and shoulders above the strolling crowd; and, wonderful to relate, the hair was gone, the long beard was carefully clipped and trimmed, and the Doctor wore a new gray hat! "If he will black his boots and put a rose in his coat, he will do. What a tearing swell he will be when he is dressed," thought Mr. Barker, as he looked at his friend. "You see I have followed your advice," said Claudius, holding out his hand. "Always do that, and you will yet taste greatness," said the other cheerfully. "You look like a crown prince like that. Perfectly immense." "I suppose I am rather big," said Claudius apologetically, not catching the American idiom. Mr. Barker, however, did not explain himself, for he was thinking of other things. "We will go very soon. Excuse the liberty, Professor, but you might have your boots blacked. There is a little cad down the backstairs who does it." "Of course," answered Claudius, and disappeared within. A small man who was coming out paused and turned to look after him, putting up his eyeglass. Then he took off his hat to Mr. Barker. "Pardon, Monsieur," he began, "if I take the liberty of making an inquiry, but could you inform me of the name of that gentleman, whose appearance fills me with astonishment, and whose vast dimensions obscure the landscape of Baden?" Mr. Barker looked at the small man for a moment very gravely. "Yes," said he pensively, "his royal highness _is_ a large man certainly." And while his interlocutor was recovering enough to formulate another question, Mr. Barker moved gently away to a flowerstand. When Claudius returned his friend was waiting for him, and himself pinned a large and expensive rose in the Doctor's buttonhole. Mr. Barker surveyed his work--the clipped head, the new hat, the shiny boots and the rose--with a satisfied air, such as Mr. Barnum may have worn when he landed Jumbo on the New York pier. Then he called a cab, and they drove away. CHAPTER IV. The summer breath of the roses blew sweetly in through the long windows of the Countess's morning-room from the little garden outside as Barker and Claudius entered. There was an air of inhabited luxury which was evidently congenial to the American, for he rubbed his hands softly together and touched one or two objects caressingly while waiting for the lady of the house. Claudius glanced at the table and took up a book, with that singular student habit that is never lost. It was a volume of English verse, and in a moment he was reading, just as he stood, with his hat caught between the fingers that held the book, oblivious of countesses and visits and formalities. There was a rustle and a step on the garden walk, and both men turned towards the open glass door. Claudius almost dropped the vellum-covered poet, and was very perceptibly startled as he recognised the lady of his Heidelberg adventure--the woman who had got, as by magic, a hold over his thoughts, so that he dreamed of her and wondered about her, sleeping and waking. Dark-eyed Countess Margaret, all clad in pure white, the smallest of lace fichus just dropped over her heavy hair, moved smoothly up the steps and into the room. "Good morning, Mr. Barker, I am so glad you have come," said she, graciously extending her hand in the cordial Transatlantic fashion. "Permit me to present my friend, Professor Claudius," said Barker. Claudius bowed very low. The plunge was over, and he recovered his outward calm, whatever he might feel. "Mr. Barker flatters me, Madam," he said quietly. "I am not a professor, but only a private lecturer." "I am too far removed from anything learned to make such distinctions," said the Countess. "But since good fortune has brought you into the circle of my ignorance, let me renew my thanks for the service you did me in Heidelberg the other day." Claudius bowed and murmured something inaudible. "Or had you not realised that I was the heroine of the parasol at the broken tower?" asked Margaret smiling, as she seated herself in a low chair and motioned to her guests to follow her example. Barker selected a comfortable seat, and arranged the cushion to suit him before he subsided into repose, but the Doctor laid hands on a stern and solid-looking piece of carving, and sat upright facing the Countess. "Pardon me," said he, "I had. But it is always startling to realise a dream." The Countess looked at Claudius rather inquiringly; perhaps she had not expected he was the sort of man to begin an acquaintance by making compliments. However, she said nothing, and he continued, "Do you not always find it so?" "The bearded hermit is no duffer," thought Mr. Barker. "He will say grace over the whole barrel of pork." "Ah! I have few dreams," replied the Countess, "and when I do have any, I never realise them. I am a very matter-of-fact person." "What matters the fact when you are the person, Madam?" retorted Claudius, fencing for a discussion of some kind. "Immense," thought Mr. Barker, changing one leg over the other and becoming interested. "Does that mean anything, or is it only a pretty paradox?" asked the lady, observing that Claudius had thrown himself boldly into a crucial position. Upon his answer would probably depend her opinion of him as being either intelligent or _banal_. It is an easy matter to frame paradoxical questions implying a compliment, but it is no light task to be obliged to answer them oneself. Claudius was not thinking of producing an effect, for the fascination of the dark woman was upon him, and the low, strange voice bewitched him, so he said what came uppermost. "Yes," said he, "there are persons whose lives may indeed be matters of fact to themselves--who shall say?--but who are always dreams in the lives of others." "Charming," laughed the Countess, "do you always talk like that, Professor Claudius?" "I have always thought," Mr. Barker remarked in his high-set voice, "that I would like to be the dream of somebody's life. But somehow things have gone against me." The other two laughed. He did not strike one as the sort of individual who would haunt the love-sick dreams of a confiding heart. "I would rather it were the other way," said Claudius thoughtfully. "And I," rejoined the American, "would drink perdition to the unattainable." "Either I do not agree with you, Mr. Barker," said the Countess, "or else I believe nothing is unattainable." "I implore you to be kind, and believe the latter," he answered courteously. "Come, I will show you my garden," said Margaret rising. "It is pleasanter in the open air." She led the way out through the glass door, the men walking on her right and left. "I am very fond of my garden," she said, "and I take great care of it when I am here." She stopped and pulled two or three dead leaves off a rosebush to illustrate her profession of industry. "And do you generally live here?" asked Claudius, who was as yet in complete ignorance of the Countess's name, title, nationality, and mode of life, for Mr. Barker had, for some occult reason, left him in the dark. Perhaps the Countess guessed as much, for she briefly imparted a good deal of information. "When Count Alexis, my husband, was alive, we lived a great deal in Russia. But I am an American like Mr. Barker, and I occasionally make a trip to my native country. However, I love this place in summer, and I always try to be here. That is my friend, Miss Skeat, who lives with me." Miss Skeat was stranded under a tree with a newspaper and several books. Her polished cheekbones and knuckles glimmered yellow in the shade. By her side was a long cane chair, in which lay a white silk wrap and a bit of needlework, tumbled together as the Countess had left them when she went in to receive her visitors. Miss Skeat rose as the party approached. The Countess introduced the two men, who bowed low, and they all sat down, Mr. Barker on the bench by the ancient virgin, and Claudius on the grass at Margaret's feet. It was noonday, but there was a light breeze through, the flowers and grasses. The conversation soon fell into pairs as they sat. "I should not have said, at first sight, that you were a very imaginative person, Dr. Claudius," said the Countess. "I have been dreaming for years," he answered. "I am a mathematician, and of late I have become a philosopher in a small way, as far as that is possible from reading the subject. There are no two branches of learning that require more imagination than mathematics and philosophy." "Philosophy, perhaps," she replied, "but mathematics--I thought that was an exact science, where everything was known, and there was no room for dreaming." "I suppose that is the general impression. But do you think it requires no imagination to conceive a new application of knowledge, to invent new methods where old ones are inadequate, to lay out a route through the unknown land beyond the regions of the known?" "Ordinary people, like me, associate mathematics with measurement and figures and angles." "Yes," said Claudius, "but it is the same as though you confused religion with its practical results. If the religion is true at all, it would be just as true if man did not exist, and if it consequently had no application to life." "I understand the truth of that, though we might differ about the word. So you have been dreaming for years--and what were your dreams like?" The Countess looked down earnestly at Claudius, who in his turn looked at her with a little smile. She thought he was different from other men, and he was wondering how much of his dreams he might tell her. "Of all sorts," he answered, still looking up into her face. "Bitter and sweet. I have dreamed of the glory of life and of mind-power, of the accomplishment of the greatest good to the greatest number; I have believed the extension of science possible 'beyond the bounds of all imaginable experience' into the realms of the occult and hidden; I have wandered with Hermes by the banks of the Nile, with Gautama along the mud-flats of the Ganges. I have disgusted myself with the writings of those who would reduce all history and religion to solar myths, and I have striven to fathom the meaning of those whose thoughts are profound and their hearts noble, but their speech halting. I have dreamed many things, Countess, and the worst is that I have lived to weary of my dreams, and to say that all things are vanity--all save one," he added with hesitation. There was a momentary pause. "Of course," Mr. Barker was saying to Miss Skeat, with a fascinating smile, "I have the greatest admiration for Scotch heroism. John Grahame of Claver-house. Who can read Macaulay's account--" "Ah," interrupted the old gentlewoman, "if you knew how I feel about these odious calumnies!" "I quite understand that," said Barker sympathetically. He had discovered Miss Skeat's especial enthusiasm. Margaret turned again to the Doctor. "And may I ask, without indiscretion, what the one dream may be that you have refused to relegate among the vanities?" "Woman," answered Claudius, and was silent. The Countess thought the Doctor spoke ironically, and she laughed aloud, half amused and half annoyed. "I am in earnest," said Claudius, plucking a blade of grass and twisting it round his finger. "Truly?" asked she. "Foi de gentilhomme!" he answered. "But Mr. Barker told me you lived like a hermit." "That is the reason it has been a dream," said he. "You have not told me what the dream was like. What beautiful things have you fancied about us?" "I have dreamed of woman's mission, and of woman's love. I have fancied that woman and woman's love represented the ruling spirit, as man and man's brain represent the moving agent, in the world. I have drawn pictures of an age in which real chivalry of word and thought and deed might be the only law necessary to control men's actions. Not the scenic and theatrical chivalry of the middle age, ready at any moment to break out into epidemic crime, but a true reverence and understanding of woman's supreme right to honour and consideration; an age wherein it should be no longer coarsely said that love is but an episode in the brutal life of man, while to woman it is life itself. I have dreamed that the eternal womanhood of the universe beckoned me to follow." The Countess could not take her eyes off Claudius. She had never met a man like him; at least she had never met a man who plunged into this kind of talk after half an hour's acquaintance. There was a thrill of feeling in her smooth deep voice when she answered: "If all men thought as you think, the world would be a very different place." "It would be a better place in more ways than one," he replied. "And yet you yourself call it a dream," said Margaret, musing. "It is only you, Countess, who say that dreams are never realised." "And do you expect to realise yours?" "Yes--I do." He looked at her with his bold blue eyes, and she thought they sparkled. "Tell me," she asked, "are you going to preach a crusade for the liberation of our sex? Do you mean to bring about the great change in the social relations of the world? Is it you who will build up the pedestal which we are to mount and from which we shall survey countless ranks of adoring men?" "Do you not see, as you look down on me from your throne, from this chair, that I have begun already?" answered Claudius, smiling, and making a pretence of folding his hands. "No," said the Countess, overlooking his last speech; "if you had any convictions about it, as you pretend to have, you would begin at once and revolutionise the world in six months. What is the use of dreaming? It is not dreamers who make history." "No, it is more often women. But tell me, Countess, do you approve of my crusade? Am I not right? Have I your sanction?" Margaret was silent. Mr. Barker's voice was heard again, holding forth to Miss Skeat. "In all ages," he said, with an air of conviction, "the aristocracy of a country have been in reality the leaders of its thought and science and enlightenment. Perhaps the form of aristocracy most worthy of admiration is that time-honoured institution of pre-eminent families, the Scottish clan, the Hebrew tribe--" Claudius overheard and opened his eyes. It seemed to him that Barker was talking nonsense. Margaret smiled, for she knew her companion well, and understood in a moment that the American had discovered her hobby, and was either seeking to win her good graces, or endeavouring to amuse himself by inducing her to air her views. But Claudius returned to the charge. "What is it to be, Countess?" he asked. "Am I to take up arms and sail out and conquer the universe, and bring it bound to your feet to do you homage; or shall I go back to my turret chamber in Heidelberg?" "Your simile seems to me to be appropriate," said Margaret. "I am sure your forefathers must have been Vikings." "They were," replied Claudius, "for I am a Scandinavian. Shall I go out and plunder the world for your benefit? Shall I make your universality, your general expression, woman, sovereign over my general expression, man?" "Considering who is to be the gainer," she answered, laughing, "I cannot well withhold my consent. When will you begin?" "Now." "And how?" "How should I begin," said he, a smile on his face, and the light dancing in his eyes, "except by making myself the first convert?" Margaret was used enough to pretty speeches, in earnest and in jest, but she thought she had never heard any one turn them more readily than the yellow-bearded student. "And Mr. Barker," she asked, "will you convert him?" "Can you look at him at this moment, Countess, and say you really think he needs it?" She glanced at the pair on the bench, and laughed again, in the air, for it was apparent that Mr. Barker had made a complete conquest of Miss Skeat. He had led the conversation about tribes to the ancient practices of the North American Indians, and was detailing their customs with marvellous fluency. A scientific hearer might have detected some startling inaccuracies, but Miss Skeat listened with rapt attention. Who, indeed, should know more about Indians than a born American who had travelled in the West? The Countess turned the conversation to other subjects, and talked intelligently about books. She evidently read a great deal, or rather she allowed Miss Skeat to read to her, and her memory was good. Claudius was not behind in sober criticism of current literature, though his reading had been chiefly of a tougher kind. Time flew by quickly, and when the two men rose to go their visit had lasted two hours. "You will report the progress of your conquest?" said the Countess to Claudius as she gave him her hand, which he stooped to kiss in the good old German fashion. "Whenever you will permit me, Countess," he said. "I am always at home in the middle of the day. And you too, Mr. Barker, do not wait to be asked before you come again. You are absolutely the only civilised American I know here." "Don't say that, Countess. There is the Duke, who came with me yesterday." "But he is English." "But he is also American. He owns mines and prairies, and he emigrates semi-annually. They all do now. You know rats leave a sinking ship, and they are going to have a commune in England." "Oh, Mr. Barker, how can you!" exclaimed Miss Skeat. "But I am only joking, of course," said he, and pacified her. So they parted. Mr. Barker and Claudius stood on the front door-step, and the former lit a cigar while the carriage drove up. "Doctor," said he, "I consider you the most remarkable man of my acquaintance." "Why?" asked Claudius as he got into the carriage. "Well, for several reasons. Chiefly because though you have lived in a 'three pair back' for years, and never seen so much as a woman's ear, by your own account, you nevertheless act as if you had never been out of a drawing-room during your life. You are the least shy man I ever saw." "Shy?" exclaimed Claudius, "what a funny idea! Why should I be shy?" "No reason in the world, I suppose, after all. But it is very odd." And Mr. Barker ruminated, rolling his cigar in his mouth. "Besides," he added, after a long pause, "you have made a conquest." "Nonsense. Now, you have some right to flatter yourself on that score." "Miss Skeat?" said Mr. Barker. "Sit still, my heart!" They drove along in silence for some time. At last Mr. Barker began again,-- "Well, Professor, what are you going to do about it?" "About what?" "Why, about the conquest. Shall you go there again?" "Very likely." Claudius was annoyed at his companion's tone of voice. He would have scoffed at the idea that he loved the Countess at first sight; but she nevertheless represented his ideal to him, and he could not bear to hear Mr. Barker's chaffing remarks. Of course Barker had taken him to the house, and had a right to ask if Claudius had found the visit interesting. But Claudius was determined to check any kind of levity from the first. He did not like it about women on any terms, but in connection with the Countess Margaret it was positively unbearable. So he answered curtly enough to show Mr. Barker he objected to it. The latter readily understood and drew his own inferences. A different conversation ensued in the Countess's garden when the visitors were gone. "Well, Miss Skeat," said Margaret, "what do you think of my new acquaintances?" "I think Mr. Barker is the most agreeable American I ever met," said Miss Skeat. "He has very sound views about social questions, and his information on the subject of American Indians is perfectly extraordinary." "And the Doctor? what do you think of him?" "He dresses very oddly," said the lady companion; "but his manners seem everything that could be desired, and he has aristocratic hands." "I did not notice his dress much. But he is very handsome. He looks like a Scandinavian hero. You know I was sure I should meet him again that day in Heidelberg." "I suppose he really is very good-looking," assented Miss Skeat. "Shall we have them to dinner some day? I think we might; very quietly, you know." "I would certainly advise it, dear Countess. You really ought to begin and see people in some way besides allowing them to call on you. I think this solitude is affecting your spirits." "Oh no; I am very happy--at least, as happy as I can be. But we will have them to dinner. When shall it be?" "To-morrow is too soon. Say Thursday, since you ask me," said Miss Skeat. "Very well. Shall we read a little?" And Tourguéneff was put into requisition. It was late in the afternoon when the Countess's phaeton, black horses, black liveries, and black cushions, swept round a corner of the drive. Claudius and Barker, in a hired carriage, passed her, coming from the opposite direction. The four people bowed to each other--the ladies graciously, the men with courteous alacrity. Each of the four was interested in the others, and each of the four felt that they would all be thrown together in the immediate future. There was a feeling among them that they had known each other a long time, though they were but acquaintances of to-day and yesterday. "I have seldom seen anything more complete than that turn-out," said Mr. Barker. "The impression of mourning is perfect; it could not have been better if it had been planned by a New York undertaker." "Are New York undertakers such great artists?" asked Claudius. "Yes; people get buried more profusely there. But don't you think it is remarkably fine?" "Yes. I suppose you are trying to make me say that the Countess is a beautiful woman," answered Claudius, who was beginning to understand Barker. "If that is what you want, I yield at once. I think she is the most beautiful woman I ever saw." "Ah!--don't you think perhaps that Miss Skeat acts as an admirable foil?" "Such beauty as that requires no foil. The whole world is a foil to her." "Wait till you come to America. I will show you her match in Newport." "I doubt it. What is Newport?" "Newport is the principal watering-place of our magnificent country. It is Baden, Homburg, Bigorre, and Biarritz rolled into one. It is a terrestrial paradise, a land of four-in-hands and houris and surf-bathing and nectar and ambrosia. I could not begin to give you an idea of it; wait till you get there." "A society place, I suppose, then?" said Claudius, not in the least moved by the enthusiastic description. "A society place before all things. But you may have plenty of solitude if you like." "I hardly think I should care much for Newport," said Claudius. "Well, I like it very much. My father has a place there, to which I take the liberty of inviting you for the season, whenever you make up your mind to enjoy yourself." "You are very good, I am sure; and if, as you say, I ever go to America, which seems in your opinion paramount to enjoying myself, I will take advantage of your kind invitation." "Really, I hope you will. Shall we go and dine?" CHAPTER V. On the following day Claudius and Mr. Barker received each a note. These communications were in square, rough envelopes, and directed in a large feminine handwriting. The contents intimated that the Countess Margaret would be glad to see them at dinner at half-past seven on Thursday. "That is to-morrow," said Mr. Barker pensively. Claudius, who was generally the calmest of the calm, made a remark in German to the effect that he fervently desired a thousand million bushels of thunder-weather to fly away with him that very instant. "Did you say anything, Professor?" inquired Mr. Barker blandly. "I did. I swore," answered Claudius. "I have half a mind to swear again." "Do it. Profanity is the safety-valve of great minds. Swear loudly, and put your whole mind to it." Claudius strode to the window of their sitting-room and looked out. "It is extremely awkward, upon my word," he said. "What is awkward, Professor? The invitation?" "Yes--very." "Why, pray? I should think you would be very much pleased." "Exactly--I should be: but there is a drawback." "Of what nature? Anything I can do?" "Not exactly. I cannot wear one of your coats." "Oh! is that it?" said Mr. Barker; and a pleasant little thrill of triumph manifested itself, as he pushed out his jaw and exhibited his circular wrinkle. "Of course--how stupid of me! You are here as a pedestrian, and you have no evening dress. Well, the sooner we go and see a tailor the better, in that case. I will ring for a carriage." He did so, remarking internally that he had scored one in putting the Doctor into a position which forced him to dress like a Christian. "Do you never walk?" asked Claudius, putting a handful of cigarettes into his pocket. "No," said the American, "I never walk. If man were intended by an all-wise Providence to do much walking he would have four legs." The tailor promised upon his faith as a gentleman to make Claudius presentable by the following evening. Baden tailors are used to providing clothes at short notice; and the man kept his word. Pending the event, Barker remarked to Claudius that it was a pity they might not call again before the dinner. Claudius said in some countries he thought it would be the proper thing; but that in Germany Barker was undoubtedly right--it would not do at all. "Customs vary so much in society," said Barker; "now in America we have such a pretty habit." "What is that?" "Sending flowers--we send them to ladies on the smallest provocation." "But is not the Countess an American?" asked Claudius. "Yes, certainly. Old Southern family settled north." "In that case," said Claudius, "the provocation is sufficient. Let us send flowers immediately." And he took his hat from the table. Thought Mr. Barker, "My show Doctor is going it;" but he translated his thoughts into English. "I think that is a good idea. I will send for a carriage." "It is only a step," said Claudius, "we had much better walk." "Well, anything to oblige you." Claudius had good taste in such things, and the flowers he sent were just enough to form a beautiful _ensemble_, without producing an impression of lavish extravagance. As Mr. Barker had said, the sending of flowers is a "pretty habit,"--a graceful and gentle fashion most peculiar to America. There is no country where the custom is carried to the same extent; there is no other country where on certain occasions it is requested, by advertisement in the newspapers, "that no flowers be sent." Countess Margaret was charmed, and though Miss Skeat, who loved roses and lilies, poor thing, offered to arrange them and put them in water, the dark lady would not let her touch them. She was jealous of their beauty. The time seemed long to Claudius, though he went in the meanwhile with Barker and the British aristocracy to certain races. He rather liked the racing, though he would not bet. The Duke lost some money, and Barker won a few hundred francs from a Russian acquaintance. The Duke drank curaçao and potass water, and Mr. Barker drank champagne, while Claudius smoked innumerable cigarettes. There were a great many bright dresses, there was a great deal of shouting, and the congregation of the horse-cads was gathered together. "It does not look much like Newmarket, does it?" said the Duke. "More like the Paris Exposition, without the exposition," said Barker. "Do you have much racing in America?" asked Claudius. "Just one or two," answered Barker, "generally on wheels." "Wheels?" "Yes. Trotting. Ag'd nags in sulkies. See how fast they can go a mile," explained the Duke. "Lots of shekels on it too, very often." At last the evening came, and Claudius appeared in Barker's room arrayed in full evening-dress. As Barker had predicted to himself, the result was surprising. Claudius was far beyond the ordinary stature of men, and the close-fitting costume showed off his athletic figure, while the pale, aquiline features, with the yellow heard that looked gold at night, contrasted in their refinement with the massive proportions of his frame, in a way that is rarely seen save in the races of the far north or the far south. The Countess received them graciously, and Miss Skeat was animated. The flowers that Claudius had sent the day before were conspicuously placed on a table in the drawing-room. Mr. Barker, of course, took in the Countess, and Miss Skeat put her arm in that of Claudius, inwardly wondering how she could have overlooked the fact that he was so excessively handsome. They sat at a round table on which were flowers, and a large block of ice in a crystal dish. "Do you understand Russian soups?" asked Margaret of Claudius, as she deposited a spoonful of a wonderful looking _pâté_ in the middle of her _consommé_. "Alas" said the Doctor, "I am no gastronome. At least my friend Mr. Barker tells me so, but I have great powers of adaptation. I shall follow your example, and shall doubtless fare sumptuously." "Do not fear," said she, "you shall not have any more strange and Cossack things to eat. I like some Russian things, but they are so tremendous, that unless you have them first you cannot have them at all." "I think it is rather a good plan," said Barker, "to begin with something characteristic. It settles the plan of action in one's mind, and helps the memory." "Do you mean in things in general, or only in dinner?" asked the Countess. "Oh, things in general, of course. I always generalise. In conversation, for instance. Take the traditional English stage father. He always devotes himself to everlasting perdition before he begins a sentence,--and then you know what to expect." "On the principle of knowing the worst--I understand," said Margaret. "As long as people understand each other," Claudius put in, "it is always better to plunge _in medias res_ from the first." "Yes, Dr. Claudius, you understand that very well;" and Margaret turned towards him as she spoke. "The Doctor understands many things," said Barker in parenthesis. "You have not yet reported the progress of the crusade," continued the Countess, "I must know all about it at once." "I have been plotting and planning in the spirit, while my body has been frequenting the frivolities of this over-masculine world," answered the Doctor. At this point Miss Skeat attacked Mr. Barker about the North American Indians, and the conversation paired off, as it will under such circumstances. Claudius was in good spirits and talked wittily, half in jest, one would have thought, but really in earnest, about what was uppermost in his mind, and what he intended should be uppermost in the world. It was a singular conversation, in the course of which he sometimes spoke very seriously; but the Countess did not allow herself the luxury of being serious, though it was an effort to her to laugh at the enthusiasm of his language, for he had a strong vitality, and something of the gift which carries people away. But Margaret had an impression that Claudius was making love, and had chosen this attractive ground upon which to open his campaign. She could not wholly believe him different from other men--at least she would not believe so soon--and her instinct told her that the fair-haired student admired her greatly. Claudius, for his part, wondered at himself, when he found a moment to reflect on what he had been saying. He tried to remember whether any of these thoughts had been formulated in his mind a month ago. He was, indeed, conscious that his high reverence for women in the abstract had been growing in him for years, but he had had no idea how strong his belief had grown in this reverence as an element in social affairs. Doubtless the Doctor had often questioned why it was that women had so little weight in the scale, why they did so little of all they might do, and he had read something of their doings across the ocean. But it had all been vague, thick, and foggy, whereas now it was all sharp and clean-edged. He had made the first step out of his dreams in that he had thought its realisation possible, and none but dreamers know how great and wide that step is. The first faint dawning, "It may be true, after all," is as different from the remote, listless view of the shadowy thought incapable of materialisation, as a landscape picture seen by candle-light is different from the glorious reality of the scene it represents. Therefore, when Claudius felt the awakening touch, and saw his ideal before him, urging him, by her very existence which made it possible, to begin the fight, he felt the blood run quickly in his veins, and his blue eyes flashed again, and the words came flowing easily and surely from his lips. But he wondered at his own eloquence, not seeing yet that the divine spark had kindled his genius into a broad flame, and not half understanding what he felt. It is late in the day to apostrophise love. It has been done too much by people who persuade themselves that they love because they say they do, and because it seems such a fine thing. Poets and cynics, and good men and bad, have had their will of the poor little god, and he has grown so shy and retiring that he would rather not be addressed, or described, or photographed in type, for the benefit of the profane. He is chary of using pointed shafts, and most of his target practice is done with heavy round-tipped arrows that leave an ugly black bruise where they strike, but do not draw the generous blood. He lurks in out-of-the-way places and mopes, and he rarely springs out suddenly on unwary youth and maid, as he used to in the good old days before Darwin and La Rochefoucauld destroyed the beauty of the body and the beauty of the soul,--or man's belief in them, which is nearly the same. Has not the one taught us to see the animal in the angel, and the other to detect the devil in the saint? And yet we talk of our loves as angels and our departed parents as saints, in a gentle, commonplace fashion, as we talk of our articles of faith. The only moderns who apostrophise love with any genuine success are those who smack their lips sensuously at his flesh and blood, because they are too blind to see the lovely soul that is enshrined therein, and they have too little wit to understand that soul and body are one. Mr. Barker, who seemed to have the faculty of carrying on one conversation and listening to another at the same time, struck in when Claudius paused. "The Professor, Countess," he began, "is one of those rare individuals who indulge in the most unbounded enthusiasm. At the present time I think, with all deference to his superior erudition, that he is running into a dead wall. We have seen something of the 'woman's rights' question in America. Let us take him over there and show him what it all means." "My friend," answered Claudius, "you are one of those hardened sceptics for whom nothing can be hoped save a deathbed repentance. When you are mortally hit and have the alternative of marriage or death set before you in an adequately lively manner, you will, of course, elect to marry. Then your wife, if you get your deserts, will rule you with a rod of iron, and you will find, to your cost, that the woman who has got you has rights, whether you like it or not, and that she can use them." "Dollars and cents," said Barker grimly, "that is all." "No, it is not all," retorted Claudius. "A wise Providence has provided women in the world who can make it very uncomfortable for sinners like you, and if you do not reform and begin a regular course of worship, I hope that one of them will get you." "Thanks. And if I repent and make a pilgrimage on my knees to every woman I know, what fate do you predict? what countless blessings are in store for me?" The Countess was amused at the little skirmish, though she knew that Claudius was right. Barker, with all his extreme politeness and his pleasant speeches, had none of the knightly element in his character. "You never can appreciate the 'countless blessings' until you are converted to woman-worship, my friend," said Claudius, evading the question. "But," he added, "perhaps the Countess might describe them to you." But Margaret meant to do nothing of the kind. She did not want to continue the general conversation on the topic which seemed especially Claudius's own, particularly as Mr. Barker seemed inclined to laugh at the Doctor's enthusiasm. So she changed the subject, and began asking the American questions about the races on the previous day. "Of course," she said, "I do not go anywhere now." The dinner passed off very pleasantly. Miss Skeat was instructed in the Knickerbocker and Boston peerage, so to speak, by the intelligent Mr. Barker, who did not fail, however, to hint at the superiority of Debrett, who does not hesitate to tell, and boldly to print in black and white, those distinctions of rank which he considers necessary to the salvation of society; whereas the enterprising compilers of the "Boston Blue Book" and the "New York List" only divide society up into streets, mapping it out into so many square feet and so much frontage of dukes, marquesses, generals, and "people we don't know." Miss Skeat listened to the disquisition on the rights of birth with rapt attention, and the yellow candle-light played pleasantly on her old corners, and her ancient heart fluttered sympathetically. Margaret, on the other side, made Claudius talk about his youth, and took infinite pleasure in listening to his tales of the fresh Northern life he had led as a boy. The Doctor had the faculty of speech and told his stories with a certain vigour that savoured of the sea. "I hope you will both come and see me," said the Countess, as the two men took their departure; but as she spoke she looked at Barker. Half an hour later they sat in their sitting-room at the hotel, and Barker sipped a little champagne while Claudius smoked cigarettes, as usual. As usual, also, they were talking. It was natural that two individuals endowed with the faculty of expressing their thoughts, and holding views for the most part diametrically opposed, should have a good deal to say to each other. The one knew a great deal, and the other had seen a great deal; both were given to looking at life rather seriously than the reverse. Barker never deceived himself for a moment about the reality of things, and spent much of his time in the practical adaptation of means to ends he had in view; he was superficial in his knowledge, but profound in his actions. Claudius was an intellectual seeker after an outward and visible expression of an inward and spiritual truth which he felt must exist, though he knew he might spend a lifetime in the preliminary steps towards its attainment. Just now they were talking of marriage. "It is detestable," said Claudius, "to think how mercenary the marriage contract is, in all civilised and uncivilised countries. It ought not to be so--it is wrong from the very beginning." "Yes, it is wrong of course," answered Barker, who was always ready to admit the existence and even the beauty of an ideal, though he never took the ideal into consideration for a moment in his doings. "Of course it is wrong; but it cannot be helped. It crops up everywhere, as the question of dollars and cents will in every kind of business; and I believe it is better to be done with it at first. Now you have to pay a Frenchman cash down before he will marry your daughter." "I know," said Claudius, "and I loathe the idea." "I respect your loathing, but there it is, and it has the great advantage that it is all over, and there is no more talk about it. Now the trouble in our country is that people marry for love, and when they get through loving they have got to live, and then somebody must pay the bills. Supposing the son of one rich father marries the daughter of another rich father; by the time they have got rid of the novelty of the thing the bills begin to come in, and they spend the remainder of their amiable lives in trying to shove the expense off on to each other. With an old-fashioned marriage contract to tie them up, that would not happen, because the wife is bound to provide so many clothes, and the husband has to give her just so much to eat, and there is an end of it. See?" "No, I do not see," returned Claudius. "If they really loved each other--" "Get out!" interrupted Barker, merrily. "If you mean to take the immutability of the human affections as a basis of argument, I have done." "There your cynicism comes in," said the other, "and denies you the pleasure and profit of contemplating an ideal, and of following it up to its full development." "Is it cynical to see things as they are instead of as they might be in an imaginary world?" "Provided you really see them as they are--no," said Claudius. "But if you begin with an idea that things, as they are, are not very good, you will very soon be judging them by your own inherent standard of badness, and you will produce a bad ideal as I produce a good one, farther still from the truth, and extremely depressing to contemplate." "Why?" retorted Barker; "why should it be depressing to look at everything as it is, or to try to? Why should my naturally gay disposition suffer on making the discovery that the millennium is not begun yet? The world may be bad, but it is a merry little place while it lasts." "You are a hopeless case," said Claudius, laughing; "if you had a conscience and some little feeling for humanity, you would feel uncomfortable in a bad world." "Exactly. I am moderately comfortable because I know that I am just like everybody else. I would rather, I am sure." "I am not sure that you are," said Claudius thoughtfully. "Oh! not as you imagine everybody else, certainly. Medieval persons who have a hankering after tournaments and crawl about worshipping women." "I do not deny the softer impeachment," answered the Doctor, "but I hardly think I crawl much." "No, but the people you imagine do--the male population of this merry globe, as you represent it to the Countess." "I think Countess Margaret understands me very well." "Yes," said Barker, "she understands you very well." He did not emphasise the remark, and his voice was high and monotonous; but the repetition was so forcible that Claudius looked at his companion rather curiously, and was silent. Barker was examining the cork of his little pint bottle of champagne--"just one square drink," as he would have expressed it--and his face was a blank. "Don't you think, Professor," he said at last, "that with your views about the rights of women you might make some interesting studies in America?" "Decidedly." "You might write a book." "I might," said Claudius. "You and the Countess might write a book together." "Are you joking?" "No. What I have heard you saying to each other this evening and the other day when we called would make a very interesting book, though I disagree with you both from beginning to end. It would sell, though." "It seems to me you rather take things for granted when you infer that the Countess would be willing to undertake anything of the kind." Barker looked at the Doctor steadily, and smiled. "Do you really think so? Do you imagine that if you would do the work she would have any objection whatever to giving you the benefit of her views and experience?" "In other words," Claudius said, "you are referring to the possibility of a journey to America, in the company of the charming woman to whom you have introduced me." "You are improving, Professor; that is exactly what I mean. Let us adjourn from the bowers of Baden to the wind-swept cliffs of Newport--we can be there before the season is over. But I forgot, you thought you would not like Newport." "I am not sure," said Claudius. "Do you think the Countess would go?" "If you will call there assiduously, and explain to her the glorious future that awaits your joint literary enterprise, I believe she might be induced." Claudius went to bed that night with his head full of this new idea, just as Mr. Barker had intended. He dreamed he was writing with the Countess, and travelling with her and talking to her; and he woke up with the determination that the thing should be done if it were possible. Why not? She often made a trip to her native country, as she herself had told him, and why should she not make another? For aught he knew, she might be thinking of it even now. Then he had a reaction of despondency. He knew nothing of her ties or of her way of life. A woman in her position probably made engagements long beforehand, and mapped out her year among her friends. She would have promised a week here and a month there in visits all over Europe, and the idea that she would give up her plans and consent, at the instance of a two days' acquaintance, to go to America was preposterous. Then again, he said to himself, as he came back from his morning walk in the woods, there was nothing like trying. He would call as soon as it was decent after the dinner, and he would call again. Mr. Barker was a man in whom a considerable experience of men supplemented a considerable natural astuteness. He was not always right in the judgments he formed of people and their aims, but he was more often right than wrong. His way of dealing with men was calculated on the majority, and he knew that there are no complete exceptions to be found in the world's characters. But his standard was necessarily somewhat low, and he lacked the sympathetic element which enables one high nature to understand another better than it understands its inferiors. Barker would know how to deal with the people he met; Claudius could understand a hero if he ever met one, but he bore himself toward ordinary people by fixed rules of his own, not caring or attempting to comprehend the principles on which they acted. If any one had asked the Doctor if he loved the Countess, he would have answered that he certainly did not. That she was the most beautiful woman in the world, that she represented to him his highest ideal, and that he was certain she came up to that ideal, although he knew her so little, for he felt sure of that. But love, the Doctor thought, was quite a different affair. What he felt for Margaret bore no resemblance to what he had been used to call love. Besides, he would have said, did ever a man fall in love at such short notice? Only in books. But as no one asked him the question, he did not ask it of himself, but only went on thinking a great deal of her, and recalling all she said. He was in an unknown region, but he was happy and he asked no questions. Nevertheless his nature comprehended hers, and when he began to go often to the beautiful little villa, he knew perfectly well that Barker was mistaken, and that the dark Countess would think twice and three times before she would be persuaded to go to America, or to write a book, or to do anything in the world for Claudius, except like him and show him that he was welcome. She would have changed the subject had Claudius proposed to her to do any of the things he seemed to think she was ready to do, and Claudius knew it instinctively. He was bold with women, but he never transgressed, and his manner allowed him to say many things that would have sounded oddly enough in Mr. Barker's mouth. He impressed women with a sense of confidence that he might be trusted to honour them and respect them under any circumstances. The Countess was accustomed to have men at her feet, but she had never treated a man unjustly, and if they had sometimes lost their heads it was not her fault. She was a loyal woman, and had loved her husband as much as most good wives, though with an honest determination to love him better; for she was young when they married, and she thought her love stronger than it really was. She had mourned him sincerely, but the wound had healed, and being a brave woman, with no morbid sensitiveness of herself, she had contemplated the possibility of marrying again, without, however, connecting the idea with any individual. She had liked Claudius from the first, and there had been something semi-romantic about their meeting in the Schloss at Heidelberg. On nearer acquaintance she liked him better, though she knew that he admired her, and by the time a fortnight had passed Claudius had become an institution. They read together and they walked together, and once she took him with her in the black phaeton, whereupon Barker remarked that it was "an immense thing on wheels." Mr. Barker, seeing that his companion was safe for the present, left Baden for a time and lighted on his friend the Duke at Como, where the latter had discovered some attractive metal. The Duke remarked that Como would be a very decent place if the scenery wasn't so confoundedly bad. "I could beat it on my own place in the west," he added. The British aristocracy liked Mr. Barker, because he was always inventing original ways of passing the time, and because, though he was so rich, he never talked about money except in a vague way as "lots of shekels," or "piles of tin." So they said they would go back to Baden together, which they did, and as they had talked a good deal about Claudius, they called on the Countess the same afternoon, and there, sure enough, was the Swede, sitting by the Countess's side in the garden, and expounding the works of Mr. Herbert Spencer. Barker and the Duke remained half an hour, and Claudius would have gone with them, but Margaret insisted upon finishing the chapter, so he stayed behind. "He's a gone 'coon, Duke," remarked Barker, beginning to smoke as soon as he was in the Victoria. "I should say he was pretty hard hit, myself. I guess nothing better could have happened." The Duke, in virtue of his possessions in America, affected to "guess" a little now and then when none of those horrid people were about. "Come on, Duke," said Barker, "let us go home, and take them with us." "I could not go just now. Next month. Autumn, you know. Glories of the forest and those sort of things." "Think they would go?" "Don't know," said the Duke. "Take them over in the yacht, if they like." "All right. We can play poker while they bay the moon." "Hold on, though; she won't go without some other woman, you know. It would be in all the papers." "She has a lady-companion," said Barker. "That won't do for respectability." "It is rather awkward, then." There was silence for a few moments. "Stop a bit," said the Duke suddenly. "It just strikes me. I have got a sister somewhere. I'll look her up. She is never ill at sea, and they have sent her husband off to Kamtchatka, or some such place." "That's the very thing," said Barker. "I will talk to Claudius. Can you manage the Countess, do you think? Have you known her long?" "Rather. Ever since she married poor Alexis." "All right, then. You ask her." And they reached their hotel. So these two gentlemen settled things between them. They both wanted to go to America, and they were not in a hurry, so that the prospect of a pleasant party, with all the liberty and home feeling there is on board of a yacht, was an immense attraction. Barker, of course, was amused and interested by his scheme for making Claudius and the Countess fall in love with each other, and he depended on the dark lady for his show. Claudius would not have been easily induced to leave Europe by argument or persuasion, but there was little doubt that he would follow the Countess, if she could be induced to lead. The Duke, on the other hand, thought only of making up a well-arranged party of people who wanted to make the journey in any case, and would not be on his hands after he landed. So two or three days later he called on the Countess to open the campaign. It was not altogether new ground, as they had crossed together once before. The Duke was not very good at leading the conversation up to his points, so he immediately began talking about America, in order to be sure of hitting somewhere near the mark. "I have not been over since the autumn," he said, "and I really ought to go." "When will you start?" asked Margaret. "I meant to go next month. I think I will take the yacht." "I wonder you do not always do that. It is so much pleasanter, and you feel as if you never had gone out of your own house." "The fact is," said he, plunging, "I am going to take my sister, and I would like to have a little party. Will you not join us yourself, Countess, and Miss Skeat?" "Really, Duke, you are very kind. But I was not thinking of going home just yet." "It is a long time since you have been there. Not since--" "Yes, I know," said Margaret gravely. "And perhaps that is why I hesitate to go now." "But would it not be different if we all went together? Do you not think it would be much nicer?" "Did you say your sister was going?" "Oh yes, she will certainly go." "Well," said the Countess after a moment's thought, "I will not say just yet. I need not make up my mind yet; need I? Then I will take a few days to think of it." "I am sure you will decide to join us," said the Duke pressingly. "Perhaps I ought to go, and it is so kind of you, really, to give me such a delightful chance." She had a presentiment that before long she would be on her way to join the yacht, though at first sight it seemed rather improbable, for, as Claudius had guessed, she had a great many engagements for visits. If any one had suggested to her that morning that she might make a trip to America, she would have said it was quite impossible. The idea of the disagreeable journey, the horror of being cast among an immense crowd of unknown travellers; or, still worse, of being thrown into the society of some chance acquaintance who would make the most of knowing her--it was all sufficient, even in the absence of other reasons, to deter her from undertaking the journey. But in the party proposed by the Duke it was all very different. He was a gentleman, besides being a peer, and he was an old friend. His sister was a kind-hearted gentlewoman of narrow views but broad humanity; and not least, the yacht was sure to be perfection, and she would be the honoured guest. She would be sorry to leave Baden for some reasons; she liked Claudius very much, and he made her feel that she was leading an intellectual life. But she had not entirely realised him yet. He was to her always the quiet student whom she had met in Heidelberg, and during the month past the feeling she entertained for him had developed more in the direction of intellectual sympathy than of personal friendship. She would not mind parting with him any more than she would mind laying down an interesting book before she had half read it. Still that was something, and the feeling had weight. "Miss Skeat," she said, when they were alone, "you have never been in America?" "No, dear Countess, I have never been there, and until lately I have never thought I would care to go." "Would you like to go now?" "Oh!" exclaimed the ancient one, "I would like it of all things!" "I am thinking of going over next month," said Margaret, "and of course I would like you to go with me. Do you mind the sea very much?" "Oh dear, no! I used to sail a great deal when I was a girl, and the Atlantic cannot be worse than our coast." Miss Skeat's assent was a matter of real importance to Margaret, for the old gentlewoman was sincerely attached to her, and Margaret would have been very unwilling to turn her faithful companion adrift, even for a time, besides the minor consideration that without a companion she would not go at all. The end of it was that by dinner-time she had made up her mind to write excuses to all the people who expected her, and to accept the Duke's invitation. After all, it was not until next month, and she could finish the book she was reading with Claudius before that. She postponed writing to the Duke until the following day, in order to make a show of having considered the matter somewhat longer. But her resolution did not change, and in the morning she despatched a friendly little note to the effect that she found her engagements would permit her, etc. etc. When Margaret told Miss Skeat that they were going in one of the finest yachts afloat, with the Duke and his sister, her companion fairly crackled with joy. CHAPTER VI. The Duke was away during the day, and did not receive the Countess's note until late in the evening. To tell the truth, he was very glad to find that she was going; but he felt there might be difficulties in the way; for, of course, he was bound to let her know the names of his remaining guests. She might hesitate when she heard that Claudius and Barker were to be of the party. After all, Barker was the companion whom the Duke wanted. He knew nothing about Claudius, but he had met enough men of all types of eccentricity not to be much surprised at him, and as the Doctor was evidently a gentleman, there was no objection. Therefore, as soon as the Duke knew of Margaret's determination, he sallied forth, armed with her note, to find Mr. Barker. It was late, but the American was nocturnal in his habits, and was discovered by his friend in a huge cloud of tobacco smoke, examining his nails with that deep interest which in some persons betokens thought. "It's all right," said the Duke; "she will go." "You don't mean it?" said Barker, taking his legs off the sofa and wrinkling his face. "There you are. Note. Formal acceptance, and all the rest of it." And he handed Margaret's letter to Barker. "Well, that is pretty smart practice," remarked the latter; "I expected you would have difficulties." "Said she would take some days to make up her mind. She wrote this the same evening I called, I am sure. Just like a woman." "Well, I think it's deuced lucky, anyhow," said Barker. "Did you tell her who was going?" "I told her about my sister. I have not mentioned you or your friend yet. Of course I will do that as soon as I am sure of you both." "Well," said Barker, "if you don't mind, perhaps you might write a note to the Doctor. He might be shy of accepting an invitation by word of mouth. Do you mind?" "Not in the least," said the Englishman; "give me a rag of paper and a quill, and I'll do it now." And he accordingly did it, and directed the invitation to Claudius, Phil.D., and Barker pushed it into the crack of the door leading to the apartment where the Doctor was sleeping, lest it should be forgotten. The next morning Claudius appeared with the Duke's note in his hand. "What does this mean?" he asked. "I hardly know him at all, and here he asks me to cross the Atlantic in his yacht. I wish you would explain." "Keep your hair on, my young friend," replied Mr. Barker jocosely. "He has asked you and me because his party would not be complete without us." "And who are 'the party'?" "Oh, very small. Principally his sister, I believe. Hold on though, Miss Skeat is going." "Miss Skeat?" Claudius anticipated some chaff from his friend, and knit his brows a little. "Yes; Miss Skeat and the Countess; or, perhaps I should say the Countess and Miss Skeat." "Ah!" ejaculated Claudius, "any one else?" "Not that I know of. Will you go?" "It is rather sudden," said the Doctor reflectively. "You must make up your mind one way or the other, or you will spoil the Duke's arrangements." "Barker," said Claudius seriously, "do you suppose the Countess knows who are going?" "My dear boy," replied the other, peeling a peach which he had impaled on a fork, "it is not likely the Duke would ask a lady to go with him without telling her who the men were to be. Be calm, however; I have observed your habits, and in two hours and twenty-three minutes your mind will be at rest." "How so?" "It is now thirty-seven minutes past nine. Do you mean to say you have failed once for weeks past to be at the Countess's as the clock strikes twelve?" Claudius was silent. It was quite true; he went there daily at the same hour; for, as appeared in the beginning of this tale, he was a regular man. But he reflected just now that the Countess would not be likely to speak of the party unless she knew that he was to be one. He had not accepted his invitation yet, and the Duke would certainly not take his acceptance as a foregone conclusion. Altogether it seemed probable that he would be kept in suspense. If he then accepted without being sure of the Countess, he was binding himself to leave her. Claudius had many things to learn yet. "If I were you," said Barker, "I would write at once and say 'Yes.' Why can't you do it now?" "Because I have not made up my mind." "Well, a bird in the hand is the soul of business, as the good old proverb says. I have accepted for myself, anyhow; but I would be sorry to leave you on this side." So Claudius went to the Countess as usual, and found her in her morning-room awaiting him. He bent over her hand, but as he took it he thought it was a trifle colder than usual. It might have been imagination, but he fancied her whole manner was less cordial than before. And he said to himself, "She has heard I am going, and she is annoyed, and is not glad to see me." There was a preternatural solemnity about their conversation which neither of them could break through, and in a few minutes they both looked as though they had not smiled for years. Now Claudius was entirely mistaken. Margaret had not heard that he was going. If she had, she would have spoken frankly, as was her nature to do always, if she spoke at all. Margaret had accepted the Duke's invitation, and intended to keep her word, and she had no suspicion whatever of who the other guests might be. She foresaw that such a journey would break up her acquaintance with Claudius, and she regretted it; and especially she regretted having allowed the Doctor so much intimacy and so many visits. Not that he had taken advantage of the footing on which he was received, for any signs of such a disposition on his part would have abruptly terminated the situation; he had been the very model of courtesy from the first. But she knew enough of men to perceive that this gentle homage clothed a more sincere admiration than lay at the root of the pushing attentions of some other men she had known. Therefore she made up her mind that as there were yet three weeks before sailing, after the expiration of which she would never be likely to see Claudius again, she would let him down easily, so to speak, that there might be no over-tender recollections on his part, nor any little stings of remorse on her own. He had interested her; they had spent a couple of pleasant months; she had given him no encouragement, and he was gone without a sigh: that was the way in which Countess Margaret hoped to remember Dr. Claudius by that time next month. And so, fearing lest she might inadvertently have been the least shade too cordial, she began to be a little more severe, on this hot morning when Claudius, full of indecision, followed her out to their favourite reading-place under the trees. It was the same spot where they had sat when Barker first brought him to see her. Margaret had no particular feeling about the little nook under the trees. It was merely the most convenient place to sit and work; that was all. But to Claudius the circle of green sward represented the temple of his soul, and Margaret was to him Rune Wife and prophetess as well as divinity. In such places, and of such women, his fair-haired forefathers, bare-armed and sword-girt, had asked counsel in trouble, and song-inspiration in peace. Here they sat them down, she determined to do the right by him, and thinking it an easy matter; he utterly misunderstanding her. Without a smile, they set to work at their reading. They read for an hour or more, maintaining the utmost gravity, when, as luck would have it, the word "friendship" occurred in a passage of the book. Claudius paused a moment, his broad hand laid flat on the open page. "That is one of the most interesting and one of the most singularly misunderstood words in all languages," he said. "What word?" inquired Margaret, looking up from her work, to which she had attentively applied herself while he was reading. "Friendship." "Will you please define what it means?" said she. "I can define what I myself mean by it, or rather what I think I mean by it. I can define what a dozen writers have meant by it. But I cannot tell what it really means, still less what it may ultimately come to mean." "You will probably be best able to explain what you mean by it yourself," answered Margaret rather coldly. "Will you please begin?" "It seems to me," Claudius began, "that the difficulty lies in the contradiction between the theory and the fact. Of course, as in all such cases, the theory loses the battle, and we are left groping for an explanation of the fact which we do not understand. Perhaps that is a little vague?" Claudius paused. "A little vague--yes," said she. "I will try and put it more clearly. First take the fact. No one will deny that there have occasionally in the world's history existed friendships which have stood every test and which have lasted to the very end. Such attachments have been always affairs of the heart, even between man and man. I do not think you can name an instance of a lasting friendship on a purely intellectual basis. True friendship implies the absence of envy, and the vanity of even the meanest intellect is far too great to admit of such a condition out of pure thought-sympathy." "I do not see any contradiction, even admitting your last remark, which is cynical enough." Margaret spoke indifferently, as making a mere criticism. "But I believe most people connect the idea of friendship, beyond ordinary liking, with intellectual sympathy. They suppose, for instance, that a man may love a woman wholly and entirely with the best kind of love, and may have at the same time a friend with whom he is in entire sympathy." "And why not?" she asked. "Simply because he cannot serve two masters. If he is in entire sympathy with more than one individual he must sometimes not only contradict himself, as he would rightly do for one or the other alone, but he must also contradict one in favour of the other in case they disagree. In such a case he is no longer in entire sympathy with both, and either his love or his friendship must be imperfect." Claudius looked at the Countess to see what impression he had made. She did not return his glance. "In other words?" was her question. "In other words," he answered in a tone of conviction, "friendship is only a substitute for love, and cannot exist beside it unless lover and friend be one and the same person. Friendship purely intellectual is a fallacy, owing to the manifest imperfections of human nature. It must, then, be an affair of the heart, whatever you may define that to be, and cannot, therefore, exist at the same time with any other affair of the heart without inevitable contradiction. How often has love separated old friends, and friendship bred discord between lovers!" "I never heard that argument before," said Margaret, who, to tell the truth, was surprised at the result of the Doctor's discourse. "What do you think of it?" he asked. "I am not sure, but the point is interesting. I think you are a little vague about what an 'affair of the heart,' as you call it, really is." "I suppose an affair of the heart to be such a situation of the feelings that the heart rules the head and the actions by the head. The prime essence of love is that it should be complete, making no reservations and allowing of no check from the reason." "A dangerous state of things." "Yes," said Claudius. "When the heart gets the mastery it knows neither rest nor mercy. If the heart is good the result will be good, if it is bad the result will be evil. Real love has produced incalculably great results in the lives of individuals and in the life of the world." "I suppose so," said Margaret; "but you made out friendship to be also an 'affair of the heart,' so far as you believe in it at all. Is true friendship as uncalculating as true love? Does it make no reservations, and does it admit of no check from the reason?" "I think, as I said, that friendship is a substitute for love, second best in its nature and second best, too, in its unselfishness." "Many people say love is selfishness itself." "I know," answered the Doctor, and paused as if thinking. "Do you not want to smoke?" asked Margaret, with a tinge of irony, "it may help you to solve the difficulty." "Thank you, no," said he, "the difficulty is solved, and it is no difficulty at all. The people who say that do not know what they are talking about, for they have never been in love themselves. Love, worth the name, is complete; and being complete, demands the whole, and is not satisfied with less than the whole any more than it is satisfied with giving less than all that it has. The selfishness lies in demanding and insisting upon having everything, while only offering rags and shreds in return; and if one may find this fault in ordinary love affairs, one may find it tenfold in ordinary friendships. Friendship may be heroic but love is godlike." Margaret had become interested in spite of herself, though she had preserved the constrained manner she had first assumed. Now, however, as Claudius turned his flashing blue eyes to hers, she understood that she had allowed the conversation to go far enough, and she marvelled that on the very day when she was trying to be most unapproachable he should have said more to show what was next his heart than ever before. She did not know enough of exceptional natures like his to be aware that a touch of the curb is the very thing to rouse the fierce blood. True, he spoke generally, and even argumentatively, and his deep voice was calm enough, but there was a curious light in his eyes that dazzled her even in the mid-day sun, and she looked away. "I am not sure I agree with you," she said, "but you put it very clearly. Shall we go on reading?" Claudius was some time in finding his place in the open book, and then went on. Again he misunderstood her, for though he could not remember saying anything he regretted, he fancied she had brought the conversation to a somewhat abrupt close. He read on, feeling very uncomfortable, and longing for one of those explanations that are impossible between acquaintances and emotional between lovers. He felt also that if he ever spoke out and told her he loved her it would be in some such situation as the present. Margaret let her needlework drop and leaned back in the long chair, staring at a very uninteresting-looking tree on the other side of the garden. Claudius read in a steady determined tone, emphasising his sentences with care, and never once taking his eyes from the book. At last, noticing how quietly he was doing his work, Margaret looked at him, not furtively or as by stealth, but curiously and thoughtfully. He was good to look at, so strong and straight, even as he sat at ease with the book in his hand, and the quivering sunlight through the leaves played over his yellow beard and white forehead. She knew well enough now that he admired her greatly, and she hoped it would not be very hard for him when she went away. Somehow, he was still to her the professor, the student, quiet and dignified and careless of the world, as she had first known him. She could not realise Claudius as a man of wealth and power, who was as well able to indulge his fancies as the Duke himself,--perhaps more so, for the Duke's financial affairs were the gossip of Europe, and always had been since he came of age. Meanwhile the Doctor reached the end of the chapter, and there was a pause. Neither spoke, and the silence was becoming awkward, when a servant came across the lawn announcing the Duke. "Ask his Grace to come outside," said Margaret, and the representative of the aristocracy was striding over the green, hat in hand, a moment afterwards. Margaret put out her hand and Claudius rose. Each felt that the _deus ex machinâ_ had arrived, and that the subject of the yachting excursion would be immediately broached. "Immense luck, finding you both," remarked the Duke when he was seated. "We have been reading. It is so pleasant here," said Margaret, to say something. "I have come to thank you for your kind note, Countess. It is extremely good of you to go in such a party, with your taste for literature and those sort of things." "I am sure it is I who ought to thank you, Duke. But when are we to sail?" "About the tenth of next month, I should say. Will that be convenient?" Margaret turned to Claudius. "Do you think we can finish our book by the tenth, Dr. Claudius?" "If not," broke in the Duke, "there is no reason why you should not finish it on board. We shall have lovely weather." "Oh no!" said Margaret, "we must finish it before we start. I could not understand a word of it alone." "Alone?" inquired the Duke. "Ah! I forgot. Thought he had told you. I have asked Dr. Claudius to give us the pleasure of his company." "Oh, indeed!" said Margaret. "That will be very nice." She did not look as if she thought so, however. Her expression was not such as led the Duke to believe she was pleased, or Claudius to think she would like his going. To tell the truth, she was annoyed for more than one reason. She thought the Duke, although he was such an old friend, should have consulted her before making up the list of men for the party. She was annoyed with Claudius because he had not told her he was going, when he really thought she knew it, and was displeased at it. And most of all, she was momentarily disconcerted at being thus taken off her guard. Besides, the Duke must have supposed she liked Claudius very much, and he had perhaps contrived the whole excursion in order to throw them together. Her first impulse was to change her mind and not go after all. Meanwhile Claudius was much astonished at the turn things had taken. Margaret had known nothing about the invitation to the Doctor after all, and her coldness this morning must be attributed to some other cause. But now that she did know she looked less pleased than ever. She did not want him. The Doctor was a proud man in his quiet way, and he was, moreover, in love, not indeed hopelessly as yet, for love is never wholly irrevocable until it has survived the crucial test, attainment of its object; but Claudius loved, and he knew it. Consequently his pride revolted at the idea of thrusting himself where he was not wanted, and his love forbade him to persecute the woman he worshipped. He also said to himself, "I will not go." He had not yet accepted the invitation. "I had intended to write to you this afternoon," he said, turning to the Duke. "But since it is my good fortune to be able to thank you in person for your kind invitation, let me do so now." "I hope you are going," said the Duke. "I fear," answered Claudius, "that I shall be prevented from joining you, much as I would like to do so. I have by no means decided to abandon my position in Heidelberg." Neither Margaret nor the Duke were in the least prepared for this piece of news. The Duke was taken aback at the idea that any human being could refuse such an invitation. Following on his astonishment that Margaret should not be delighted at having the Doctor on board, the intelligence that the Doctor did not want to go at all threw the poor man into the greatest perplexity. He had made a mistake somewhere, evidently; but where or how he could not tell. "Barker," he said to himself, "is an ass. He has made me muff the whole thing." However, he did not mean to give up the fight. "I am extremely sorry to hear you say that, Dr. Claudius," he said aloud, "and I hope you will change your mind, if I have to send you an invitation every day until we sail. You know one does not ask people on one's yacht unless one wants them very much, and we want you. It is just like asking a man to ride your favourite hunter; you would not ask him unless you meant it, for fear he would." The Duke seldom made so long a speech, and Claudius felt that the invitation was really genuine, which gave his wounded pride a pleasant little respite from its aches. He was grateful, and he said so. Margaret was silent and plied her needle, planning how she might escape the party if Claudius changed his mind and went, and how she could with decency leave herself the option of going if he remained. She did not intend to give people any farther chance of pairing her off with Claudius or any one else whom they thought she fancied, and she blamed herself for having given people even the shadow of an idea that such officious party-making would please her. Claudius rose to go. The position was not tenable any longer, and it was his only course. The Countess bade him good morning with more cordiality than she had displayed as yet; for, in spite of her annoyance, she would have been sorry to wound his feelings. The change of tone at first gave Claudius a thrill of pleasure, which gave way to an increased sense of mortification as he reflected that she was probably only showing that she was glad to be rid of him--a clumsy, manlike thought, which his reason would soon get the better of. So he departed. There was silence for some minutes after he had gone, for Margaret and the Englishman were old friends, and there was no immediate necessity for making conversation. At last he spoke with a certain amount of embarrassment. "I ought to have told you before that I had asked those two men." "Who is the other?" she inquired without looking up. "Why, Barker, his friend." "Oh, of course! But it would have been simpler to have told me. It made it rather awkward, for of course Dr. Claudius thought I knew he was asked and wondered why I did not speak of it. Don't you see?" she raised her eyes as she put the question. "It was idiotic of me, and I am very sorry. Please forgive me." "As he is not going, it does not make any difference, of course, and so I forgive you." Considering that Barker had suggested the party, that it was Barker whom the Duke especially wanted to amuse him on the trip, that Barker had proposed Margaret and Claudius, and that, finally, the whole affair was a horrid mess, the Duke did not see what he could have done. But he knew it was good form to be penitent whenever it seemed to be expected, and he liked Margaret well enough to hope that she would go. He did not care very much for the society of women at any time. He was more or less married when he was at home, which was never for long together, and when he was away he preferred the untrammelled conversational delights of a foreign green-room to the twaddle of the embassies or to the mingled snobbery and philistinism produced by the modern fusion of the almighty dollar and the _ancienne noblesse_. And so he was in trouble just now, and his one idea was to submit to everything the Countess might say, and then to go and "give it" to Mr. Barker for producing so much complication. But Margaret had nothing more to say about the party, and launched out into a discussion of the voyage. She introduced a cautious "if" in most of her sentences. "_If_ I go I would like to see Madeira," and "_if_ we join you, you must take care of Miss Skeat, and give her the best cabin," etc. etc. The Duke wisely abstained from pressing his cause, or asking why she qualified her plans. At last he got away, after promising to do every conceivable and inconceivable thing which she should now or at any future time evolve from the depths of her inventive feminine consciousness. "By the way, Duke," she called after him, as he went over the, lawn, "may I take old Vladimir if I go?" "If you go," he answered, moving back a step or two, "you may bring all the Imperial Guards if you choose, and I will provide transports for those that the yacht won't hold." "Thanks; that is all," she said laughing, and the stalwart peer vanished through the house. The moment he was gone Margaret dropped her work and lay back in her long chair to think. The heavy lids half closed over her dark eyes, and the fingers of her right hand slowly turned round and round the ring she wore upon her left. Miss Skeat was upstairs reading Lord Byron's _Corsair_ in anticipation of the voyage. Margaret did not know this, or the thought of the angular and well-bred Scotchwoman bounding over the glad waters of the dark blue sea would have made her smile. As it was, she looked serious. "I am sorry," she thought to herself. "It was nice of him to say he would not go." Meanwhile the strong-legged nobleman footed it merrily towards Barker's hotel. It was a good two miles, and the Duke's ruddy face shone again under the August sun. But the race characteristic was strong in him, and he liked to make himself unnecessarily hot; moreover he was really fond of Barker, and now he was going to pitch into him, as he said to himself, so it was indispensable to keep the steam up. He found his friend as usual the picture of dried-up coolness, so to say. Mr. Barker never seemed to be warm, but he never seemed to feel cold either, and at this moment, as he sat in a half-lighted room, clad in a variety of delicate gray tints, with a collar that looked like fresh-baked biscuit ware, and a pile of New York papers and letters beside him, he was refreshing to the eye. "Upon my word, Barker, you always look cool," said the Duke, as he sat himself down in an arm-chair, and passed his handkerchief round his wrists. "I would like to know how you do it." "To begin with, I do not rush madly about in the sun in the middle of the day. That may have something to do with it." The Duke sneezed loudly, from the mingled dust and sunshine he had been inhaling. "And then I don't come into a cold room and catch cold, like you. Here I sit in seclusion and fan myself with the pages of my newspapers as I turn them over." "You have got us all into the deuce of a mess with your confounded coolness," said the Duke after a pause, during which he had in vain searched all his pockets for his cigar-case. Barker had watched him, and pushed an open box of Havanas across the table. But the Duke was determined to be sulky, and took no notice of the attention. The circular wrinkle slowly furrowed its way round Barker's mouth, and his under jaw pushed forward. It always amused him to see sanguine people angry. They looked so uncomfortable, and "gave themselves away" so recklessly. "If you won't smoke, have some beer," he suggested. But his Grace fumed the redder. "I don't understand how a man of your intelligence, Barker, can go and put people into such awkward positions," he said. "I think it is perfectly idiotic." "Write me down an ass, by all means," said Barker calmly; "but please explain what you mean. I told you not to buy in the Green Swash Mine, and now I suppose you have gone and done it, because I said it might possibly be active some day." "I have been to see the Countess this morning," said the Duke, beating the dust from his thick walking-boot with his cane. "Ah!" said Barker, without any show of interest. "Was she at home?" "I should think so," said the Duke. "Very much at home, and Dr. Claudius was there too." "Oh! so you are jealous of Claudius, are you?" The ducal wrath rose. "Barker, you are insufferably ridiculous." "Duke, you had much better go to bed," returned his friend. "Look here, Barker--" "Do not waste your vitality in that way," said the American. "I wish I had half of it. It quite pains me to see you. Now I will put the whole thing clearly before you as I suppose it happened, and you shall tell me if it is my fault or not, and whether, after all, it is such a very serious matter. Countess Margaret did not know that Claudius was going, and did not speak of the trip. Claudius thought she was angry, and when you arrived and let the cat out of the bag the Countess thought you were trying to amuse yourself by surprising her, and she was angry too. Then they both made common cause and would have nothing more to do with you, and told you to go to the devil, and at this moment they are planning to remain here for the next forty or fifty years, and are sending off a joint telegram to Professor Immanuel Spencer, or whatever his name is, to hurry up and get some more books ready for them to read. I am glad you have not bought Green Swash, though, really." There was a pause, and the Duke glared savagely at the cigar-box. "Is your serene highness satisfied that I know all about it?" asked Barker at last. "No, I am not. And I am not serene. She says she will go, and Claudius says he won't. And it is entirely your fault." "It is not of any importance what he says, or whether it is my fault or not. If you had bestirred yourself to go and see her at eleven before Claudius arrived it would not have happened. But he will go all the same; never fear. And the Countess will persuade him too, without our doing anything in the matter." "You would not have thought so if you had seen the way she received the news that he was invited," grumbled the Duke. "If you associated more with women you would understand them better," replied the other. "I dare say." The Englishman was cooler, and at last made up his mind to take one of Mr. Barker's cigars. When he had lit it, he looked across at his friend. "How do you expect to manage it?" he inquired. "If you will write a simple little note to the Countess, and say you are sorry there should have been any misunderstanding, and if you and I leave those two to themselves for ten days, even if she invites us to dinner, they will manage it between them, depend upon it. They are in love, you know perfectly well." "I suppose they are," said the Duke, as if he did not understand that kind of thing. "I think I will have some curaçao and potass;" and he rang the bell. "That's not half a bad idea," he said when he was refreshed. "I begin to think you are not so idiotic as I supposed." "Waal," said Barker, suddenly affecting the accents of his native shore, "I _ain't_ much on the drivel _this_ journey _any_how." The Duke laughed; he always laughed at Americanisms. "I guess _so_," said the Duke, trying ineffectually to mimic his friend. Then he went on in his natural voice, "I have an idea." "Keep it," said Barker; "they are scarce." "No; seriously. If we must leave them alone, why--why should we not go down and look at the yacht?" "Not bad at all. As you say, we might go round and see how she looks. Where is she?" "Nice." So the one went down and the other went round, but they went together, and saw the yacht, and ran over to Monte Carlo, and had a good taste of the dear old green-table, now that they could not have it in Baden any longer. And they enjoyed the trip, and were temperate and well dressed and cynical, after their kind. But Claudius stayed where he was. CHAPTER VII. The daily reading proceeded as usual after Barker's departure, but neither Margaret nor Claudius mentioned the subject of the voyage. Margaret was friendly, and sometimes seemed on the point of relapsing into her old manner, but she always checked herself. What the precise change was it would be hard to say. Claudius knew it was very easy to feel the difference, but impossible to define it. As the days passed, he knew also that his life had ceased to be his own; and, with the chivalrous wholeness of purpose that was his nature, he took his soul and laid it at her feet, for better for worse, to do with as she would. But he knew the hour was not come yet wherein he should speak; and so he served her in silence, content to feel the tree of life growing within him, which should one day overshadow them both with its sheltering branches. His service was none the less whole and devoted because it had not yet been accepted. One evening, nearly a week after they had been left to themselves, Claudius was sitting over his solitary dinner in the casino restaurant when a note was brought to him, a large square envelope of rough paper, and he knew the handwriting. He hesitated to open it, and, glancing round the brilliantly-lighted restaurant, involuntarily wondered if any man at all those tables were that moment in such suspense as he. He thought it was probably an intimation that she was going away, and that he was wanted no longer. Then, for the first time in many days, he thought of his money. "And if she does," he said half aloud, "shall I not follow? Shall not gold command everything save her heart, and can I not win that for myself?" And he took courage and quietly opened the note. "MY DEAR DR. CLAUDIUS--As the time is approaching, will you not do me a favour? I want you to make a list of books to read on the voyage--that is, if I may count on your kindness as an expounder. If not, please tell me of some good novels. "Sincerely yours," and her full name signed at the end. The hot blood turned his white forehead red as Claudius finished reading. He could not believe his eyes, and the room swam for a moment; for he was very much in love, this big Swede. Then he grew pale again and quite calm, and read the note over. Novels indeed! What did he know about novels? He would ask her plainly if she wanted his company on the yacht or no. He would say, "Shall I come? or shall I stay behind?" Claudius had much to learn from Mr. Barker before he was competent to deal with women. But then Claudius would have scorned the very expression "to deal" with them; theirs to command, his to obey--there was to be no question of dealing. Only in his simple heart he would like to know in so many words what the commands were; and that is sometimes a little hard, for women like to be half understood before they speak, and the grosser intellect of man seldom more than half understands them after they have spoken. A note requires an answer, and Claudius made the usual number of failures. When one has a great deal more to say than one has any right to say, and when at the same time one is expected to say particularly little, it is very hard to write a good note. All sorts of ideas creep in and express themselves automatically. A misplaced plural for a singular, a superlative adjective where the vaguer comparative belongs; the vast and immeasurable waste of weary years that may lie between "dear" and "dearest," the gulf placed between "sincerely yours, John Smith," and "yours, J.S.," and "your J.," until the blessed state is reached wherein the signature is omitted altogether, and every word bears the sign-manual of the one woman or one man who really exists for you. What a registering thermometer of intimacy exists in notes, from the icy zero of first acquaintance to the raging throb of boiling blood-heat! So Claudius, after many trials, arrived at the requisite pitch of absolute severity, and began his note, "My dear Countess Margaret," and signed it, "very obediently yours," which said just what was literally true; and he stated that he would immediately proceed to carry out the Countess's commands, and make a list in which nothing should be wanting that could contribute to her amusement. When he went to see her on the following day he was a little surprised at her manner, which inclined more to the severe coldness of that memorable day of difficulties than to the unbending he had expected from her note. Of course he had no reason to be disappointed, and he showed his inexperience. She was compensating her conscience for the concession she had made in intimating that he might go. It was indeed a concession, but to what superior power she had yielded it behoves not inquisitive man to ask. Perhaps she thought Claudius would enjoy the trip very much, and said to herself she had no right to make him give it up. They read together for some time, and at last Claudius asked her, in connection with a point which arose, whether she would like to read a German book that he thought good. "Very much," said she. "By the by, I am glad you have been able to arrange to go with us. I thought your engagements were going to prevent you." Claudius looked at her, trying to read her thoughts, in which he failed. He might have been satisfied, but he was not. There was a short silence, and then he closed the book over his hand and spoke. "Countess, do you wish me to go or not?" Margaret raised her dark eyebrows. He had never seen her do that before. But then he had never said anything so clumsy before in his whole life, and he knew it the moment the words were out of his mouth, and his face was white in sunshine. She looked at him suddenly, a slight smile on her lips, and her eyes just the least contracted, as if she were going to say something sarcastic. But his face was so pitifully pale. She saw how his hand trembled. A great wave of womanly compassion welled up in her soul, and the smile faded and softened away as she said one word. "Yes." It came from the heart, and she could not help it if it sounded kindly. "Then I will go," said Claudius, hardly knowing what he said, for the blood came quickly back to his face. "Of course you will, I could have told you that ever so long ago," chirped a little bullfinch in the tree overhead. A couple of weeks or more after the events last chronicled, the steam yacht _Streak_ was two days out on the Atlantic, with a goodly party on board. There were three ladies--the Duke's sister, the Countess, and Miss Skeat, the latter looking very nautical in blue serge, which sat tightly over her, like the canvas cover sewn round a bicycle when it is sent by rail. Of men there were also three--to wit, the owner of the yacht, Mr. Barker, and Dr. Claudius. The sea has many kinds of fish. Some swim on their sides, some swim straight, some come up to take a sniff of air, and some stay below. It is just the same with people who go to sea. Take half a dozen individuals who are all more or less used to the water, and they will behave in half a dozen different ways. One will become encrusted to the deck like a barnacle, another will sit in the cabin playing cards; a third will spend his time spinning yarns with the ship's company, and a fourth will rush madly up and down the deck from morning till night in the pursuit of an appetite which shall leave no feat of marine digestion untried or unaccomplished. Are they not all stamped on the memory of them that go down to the sea in yachts? The little card-box and the scoring-book of the players, the deck chair and rugs of the inveterate reader, the hurried tread and irascible eye of the carnivorous passenger, and the everlasting pipe of the ocean talker, who feels time before him and the world at his feet wherein to spin yarns--has any one not seen them? Now, the elements on board of the _Streak_ were sufficiently diverse to form a successful party, and by the time they were two days out on the long swell, with a gentle breeze just filling the trysails, and everything stowed, they had each fallen into the groove of sea life that was natural to him or to her. There were Barker and the Duke in the pretty smoking-room forward with the windows open and a pack of cards between them. Every now and then they stopped to chat a little, or the Duke would go out and look at the course, and make his rounds to see that every one was all right and nobody sea-sick. But Barker rarely moved, save to turn his chair and cross one leg over the other, whereby he might the more easily contemplate his little patent leather shoes and stroke his bony hands over his silk-clad ankles; for Mr. Barker considered sea-dressing, as he called it, a piece of affectation, and arrayed himself on board ship precisely as he did on land. The Duke, on the other hand, like most Englishmen when they get a chance, revelled in what he considered ease; that is to say, no two of his garments matched or appeared to have been made in the same century; he wore a flannel shirt, and was inclined to go about barefoot when the ladies were not on deck, and he adorned his ducal forehead with a red worsted cap, price one shilling. Margaret, as was to be expected, was the deck member, with her curiously-wrought chair and her furs and her portable bookcase; while Miss Skeat, who looked tall and finny, and sported a labyrinthine tartan, was generally to be seen entangled in the weather-shrouds near by. As for the Duke's sister, Lady Victoria, she was plain, but healthy, and made regular circuits of the steamer, stopping every now and then to watch the green swirl of the foam by the side, and to take long draughts of salt air into her robust lungs. But of all the party there was not one on whom the change from the dry land to the leaping water produced more palpable results than on Claudius. He affected nothing nautical in dress or speech, but when the Duke saw him come on deck the first morning out, there was something about his appearance that made the yachtsman say to Barker-- "That man has been to sea, I am positive. I am glad I asked him." "All those Swedes are amphibious," replied Barker; "they take to the water like ducks. But I don't believe he has smelled salt water for a dozen years." "They are the best sailors, at all events," said the Duke. "I have lots of them among the men. Captain a Swede too. Let me introduce you." They were standing on the bridge. "Captain Sturleson, my friend Mr. Barker." And so in turn the captain was made known to every one on board; for he was an institution with the Duke, and had sailed his Grace's yachts ever since there had been any to sail, which meant for about twenty years. To tell the truth, if it were not for those beastly logarithms, the Duke was no mean sailing-master himself, and he knew a seaman when he saw one; hence his remark about Claudius. The Doctor knew every inch of the yacht and every face in the ship's company by the second day, and it amused the Countess to hear his occasional snatches of the clean-cut Northern tongue that sounded like English, but was yet so different. Obedient to her instructions, he had provided books of all sorts for the voyage, and they began to read together, foolishly imagining that, with the whole day at their disposal, they would do as much work as when they only met for an hour or two daily to accomplish a set purpose. The result of their unbounded freedom was that conversation took the place of reading. Hitherto Margaret had confined Claudius closely to the matter in hand, some instinct warning her that such an intimacy as had existed during his daily visits could only continue on the footing of severe industry she had established from the first. But the sight of the open deck, the other people constantly moving to and fro, the proper aspect of the lady-companion, just out of earshot, and altogether the appearance of publicity which the sea-life lent to their _tête-à-tête_ hours, brought, as a necessary consequence, a certain unbending. It always seemed such an easy matter to call some third party into the conversation if it should grow too confidential. And so, insensibly, Claudius and Margaret wandered into discussions about the feelings, about love, hate, and friendship, and went deep into those topics which so often end in practical experiment. Claudius had lived little and thought much; Margaret had seen a great deal of the world, and being gifted with fine intuitions and tact, she had reasoned very little about what she saw, understanding, as she did, the why and wherefore of most actions by the pure light of feminine genius. The Doctor theorised, and it interested his companion to find facts she remembered suddenly brought directly under a neat generalisation; and before long she found herself trying to remember facts to fit his theories, a mode of going in double harness which is apt to lead to remarkable but fallacious results. In the intervals of theorising Claudius indulged in small experiments. But Barker and the Duke played poker. Of course the three men saw a good deal of each other--in the early morning before the ladies came on deck, and late at night when they sat together in the smoking-room. In these daily meetings the Duke and Claudius had become better acquainted, and the latter, who was reticent, but perfectly simple, in speaking of himself, had more than once alluded to his peculiar position and to the unexpected change of fortune that had befallen him. One evening they were grouped as usual around the square table in the brightly-lighted little room that Barker and the Duke affected most. The fourfold beat of the screw crushed the water quickly and sent its peculiar vibration through the vessel as she sped along in the quiet night. The Duke was extended on a transom, and Claudius on the one opposite, while Barker tipped himself about on his chair at the end of the table. The Duke was talkative, in a disjointed, monosyllabic fashion. "Yes. I know. No end of a queer sensation, lots of money. Same thing happened to me when I came of age." "Not exactly the same thing," said Claudius; "you knew you were going to have it." "No," put in Barker. "Having money and being likely to have it are about the same as far as spending it goes. Particularly in England." "I believe the whole thing is a fraud," said the Duke in a tone of profound reflection. "Never had a cent before I came of age. Seems to me I never had any since." "Spent it all in water-melon and fire-crackers, celebrating your twenty-first birthday, I suppose," suggested Barker. "Spent it some way, at all events," replied the Duke. "Now, here," he continued, addressing Barker, "is a man who actually has it, who never expected to have it, who has got it in hard cash, and in the only way in which it is worth having--by somebody else's work. Query--what will Claudius do with his millions?" Exhausted by this effort of speech, the Duke puffed his tobacco in silence, waiting for an answer. Claudius laughed, but said nothing. "I know of one thing he will do with his money. He will get married," said Barker. "For God's sake, Claudius," said the Duke, looking serious, "don't do that." "I don't think I will," said Claudius. "I know better," retorted Barker, "I am quite sure I shall do it myself some day, and so will you. Do you think if I am caught, you are going to escape?" The Duke thought that if Barker knew the Duchess, he might yet save himself. "You are no chicken, Barker, and perhaps you are right. If they catch you they can catch anybody," he said aloud. "Well, I used to say the mamma was not born who could secure me. But I am getting old, and my nerves are shaken, and a secret presentiment tells me I shall be bagged before long, and delivered over to the tormentors." "I pity you if you are," said the Duke. "No more poker, and very little tobacco then." "Not as bad as that. You are as much married as most men, but it does not interfere with the innocent delights of your leisure hours, that I can see." "Ah, well--you see--I am pretty lucky. The Duchess is a domestic type of angel. Likes children and bric-à-brac and poultry, and all those things. Takes no end of trouble about the place." "Why should not I marry the angelic domestic--the domestic angel, I mean?" "You won't, though. Doesn't grow in America. I know the sort of woman you will get for your money." "Give me an idea." Barker leaned back in his chair till it touched the door of the cabin, and rolled his cigar in his mouth. "Of course she will be the rage for the time. Eighteen or nineteen summers of earthly growth, and eighteen or nineteen hundred years of experience and calculation in a former state." "Thanks, that sounds promising. Claudius, this is intended for your instruction." "You will see her first at a ball, with a cartload of nosegays slung on her arms, and generally all over her. That will be your first acquaintance; you will never see the last of her." "No--I know that," said Barker gloomily. "She will marry you out of hand after a three months' engagement. She will be married by Worth, and you will be married by Poole. It will be very effective, you know. No end of wedding presents, and acres of flowers. And then you will start away on your tour, and be miserable ever after." "I am glad you have done," was Barker's comment. "As for me," said Claudius, "I am of course not acquainted with the peculiarities of American life, but I fancy the Duke is rather severe in his judgment." It was a mild protest against a wholesale condemnation of American marriages; but Barker and the Duke only laughed as if they understood each other, and Claudius had nothing more to say. He mentally compared the utterances of these men, doubtless grounded on experience, with the formulas he had made for himself about women, and which were undeniably the outcome of pure theory. He found himself face to face with the old difficulty, the apparent discord between the universal law and the individual fact. But, on the other hand, he could not help comparing himself with his two companions. It was not in his nature to think slightingly of other men, but he felt that they were of a totally different mould, besides belonging to a different race. He knew that however much he might enjoy their society, they had nothing in common with him, and that it was only his own strange fortune that had suddenly transported him into the very midst of a sphere where such characters were the rule and not the exception. The conversation languished, and Claudius left the Duke and Barker, and went towards his quarters. It was a warm night for the Atlantic, and though there was no moon, the stars shone out brightly, their reflection moving slowly up and down the slopes of the long ocean swell. Claudius walked aft, and was going to sit down for a few minutes before turning in, when he was suddenly aware of a muffled female figure leaning against the taffrail only a couple of paces from where he was. In spite of the starlight he could not distinguish the person. She was wrapped closely in a cloak and veil, as if fearing the cold. As it must be one of the three ladies who constituted the party, Claudius naturally raised his cap, but fearing lest he had chanced on the Duke's sister, or still worse, on Miss Skeat, he did not speak. Before long, however, as he leaned against the side, watching the wake, the unknown remarked that it was a delightful night. It was Margaret's voice, and the deep musical tones trembled on the rise and fall of the waves, as if the sounds themselves had a distinct life and beating in them. Did the dark woman know what magic lay in her most trivial words? Claudius did not care a rush whether the night were beautiful or otherwise, but when she said it was a fine evening, it sounded as if she had said she loved him. "I could not stay downstairs," she said, "and so when the others went to bed I wrapped myself up and came here. Is it not too wonderful?" Claudius moved nearer to her. "I have been pent up in the Duke's _tabagie_ for at least two hours," he said, "and I am perfectly suffocated." "How can you sit in that atmosphere? Why don't you come and smoke on deck?" "Oh! it was not only the tobacco that suffocated me to-night, it was the ideas." "What ideas?" asked Margaret. "You have known the Duke a long time," said he, "and of course you can judge. Or rather, you know. But to hear those two men talk is enough to make one think there is neither heaven above nor hell beneath." He was rather incoherent. "Have they been attacking your favourite theories," Margaret asked, and she smiled behind her veil; but he could not see that, and her voice sounded somewhat indifferent. "Oh! I don't know," he said, as if not wanting to continue the subject; and he turned round so as to rest his elbows on the taffrail. So he stood, bent over and looking away astern at the dancing starlight on the water. There was a moment's silence. "Tell me," said Margaret at last. "What shall I tell you, Countess?" asked Claudius. "Tell me what it was you did not like about their talk." "It is hard to say, exactly. They were talking about women, and American marriages; and I did not like it, that is all." Claudius straightened himself again and turned towards his companion. The screw below them rushed round, worming its angry way through the long quiet waves. "Barker," said Claudius, "was saying that he supposed he would be married some day--delivered up to torture, as he expressed it--and the Duke undertook to prophesy and draw a picture of Barker's future spouse. The picture was not attractive." "Did Mr. Barker think so too?" "Yes. He seemed to regard the prospects of matrimony from a resigned and melancholy point of view. I suppose he might marry any one he chose in his own country, might he not?" "In the usual sense, yes," answered Margaret. "What is the 'usual sense'?" asked the Doctor. "He might marry beauty, wealth, and position. That is the usual meaning of marrying whom you please." "Oh! then it does not mean any individual he pleases?" "Certainly not. It means that out of half a dozen beautiful, rich, and accomplished girls it is morally certain that one, at least, would take him for his money, his manners, and his accomplishments." "Then he would go from one to the other until he was accepted? A charming way of doing things, upon my word!" And Claudius sniffed the night air discontentedly. "Oh no," said Margaret. "He will be thrown into the society of all six, and one of them will marry him, that will be the way of it." "I cannot say I discover great beauty in that social arrangement either, except that it gives the woman the choice." "Of course," she answered, "the system does not pretend to the beautiful, it only aspires to the practical. If the woman is satisfied with her choice, domestic peace is assured." She laughed. "Why cannot each satisfy himself or herself of the other? Why cannot the choice be mutual?" "It would take too long," said she; and laughed again. "Very long?" asked Claudius, trying not to let his voice change. But it changed nevertheless. "Generally very long," she answered in a matter-of-fact way. "Why should it?" "Because neither women nor men are so easily understood as a chapter of philosophy," said she. "Is it not the highest pleasure in life, that constant, loving study of the one person one loves? Is not every anticipated thought and wish a triumph more worth living for than everything else in the wide world?" He moved close to her side. "Do you not think so too?" She said nothing. "I think so," he said. "There is no pleasure like the pleasure of trying to understand what a woman wants; there is no sorrow like the sorrow of failing to do that; and there is no glory like the glory of success. It is a divine task for any man, and the greatest have thought it worthy of them." Still she was silent; and so was he for a little while, looking at her side face, for she had thrown back the veil and her delicate profile showed clearly against the sea foam. "Countess," he said at last; and his voice came and went fitfully with the breeze--"I would give my whole life's strength and study for the gladness of foreseeing one little thing that you might wish, and of doing it for you." His hand stole along the taffrail till it touched hers, but he did not lift his fingers from the polished wood. "Dr. Claudius, you would give too much," she said; for the magic of the hour and place was upon her, and the Doctor's earnest tones admitted of no laughing retort. She ought to have checked him then, and the instant she had spoken she knew it; but before she could speak again he had taken the hand he was already touching between both of his, and was looking straight in her face. "Margaret, I love you with all my soul and heart and strength." Her hand trembled in his, but she could not take it away. Before she had answered he had dropped to his knee and was pressing the gloved fingers to his lips. "I love you, I love you, I love you," he repeated, and his strength was as the strength of ten in that moment. "Dr. Claudius," said she at last, in a broken and agitated way, "you ought not to have said this. It was not right of you." She tried to loose her hand, but he rose to his feet still clasping it. "Forgive me," he said, "forgive me!" His face was almost luminously pale. "All the ages cannot take from me this--that I have told you." Margaret said never a word, but covered her head with her veil and glided noiselessly away, leaving Claudius with his white face and staring eyes to the contemplation of what he had done. And she went below and sat in her stateroom and tried to think it all over. She was angry, she felt sure. She was angry at Claudius and half angry at herself--at least she thought so. She was disappointed, she said, in the man, and she did not mean to forgive him. Besides, in a yacht, with a party of six people, where there was absolutely no escape possible, it was unpardonable. He really ought not to have done it. Did he think--did he flatter himself--that if she had expected he was going to act just like all the rest of them she would have treated him as she had? Did he fancy his well-planned declaration would flatter _her_? Could he not see that she wanted to consider him always as a friend, that she thought she had found at last what she had so often dreamed of--a friendship proof against passion? It was so common, so commonplace. It was worse, for it was taking a cruel advantage of the narrow limits within which they were both confined. Besides, he had taken advantage of her kindness to plan a scene which he knew would surprise her out of herself. She ought to have spoken strongly and sharply and made him suffer for his sin while he was yet red-handed. And instead, what had she done? She had merely said very meekly that "it was not right," and had sought safety in a hasty retreat. She sighed wearily, and began to shake out the masses of her black hair, that was as the thickness of night spun fine. And as she drew out the thick tortoise-shell pins that bore it up, it rolled down heavily in a soft dark flood and covered her as with a garment. Then she leaned back and sighed again, and her eyes fell on a book that lay at the corner of her dressing-table, where she had left it before dinner. It was the book they had been reading, and the mark was a bit of fine white cord that Claudius had cunningly twisted and braided, sailor fashion, to keep the place. Margaret rose to her feet, and taking the book in her hand, looked at it a moment without opening it. Then she hid it out of sight and sat down again. The action had been almost unconscious, but now she thought about it, and she did not like what she had done. Angry with him and with herself, she was yet calm enough to ask why she could not bear the sight of the volume on the table. Was it possible she had cared enough about her friendship for the Doctor to be seriously distressed at its sudden termination? She hardly knew--perhaps so. So many men had made love to her, none had ever before seemed to be a friend. The weary and hard-worked little sentiment that we call conscience spoke up. Was she just to him? No. If she had cared even as much as that action showed, had he no right to care also? He had the right, yes; but he had been wanting in tact. He should have waited till they were ashore. Poor fellow! he looked so white, and his hands were so cold. Was he there still, looking out at the ship's wake? Margaret, are you quite sure you never thought of him save as a friendly professor who taught you philosophy? And there was a little something that would not be silenced, and that would say--Yes, you are playing tricks with your feelings, you care for him, you almost love him. And for a moment there was a fierce struggle in the brave heart of that strong woman as she shook out her black hair and turned pale to the lips. She rose again, and went and got the book she had hidden, and laid it just where it had lain before. Then she knew, and she bowed her head till her white forehead touched the table before her, and her hands were wet as they pressed her eyelids. "I am very weak," she said aloud, and proceeded with her toilet. "But you will be kind to him, Margaret," said the little voice in her heart, as she laid her head on the pillow. "But it is my duty to be cold. I do not love him," she argued, as the watch struck eight bells. Poor Saint Duty! what a mess you make of human kindness! Claudius was still on deck, and a wretched man he was, as his chilled hands clung to the side. He knew well enough that she was angry, though she had reproached herself with not having made it clear to him. He said to himself he ought not to have spoken, and then he laughed bitterly, for he knew that all his strength could not have kept back the words, because they were true, and because the truth must be spoken sooner or later. He was hopeless now for a time, but he did not deceive himself. "I am not weak. I am strong. And if my love is stronger than I what does that prove? I am glad it is, and I would not have it otherwise. It is done now and can never be undone. I am sorry I spoke to-night. I would have waited if I could. But I could not, and I should despise myself if I could. Love that is not strong enough to make a man move in spite of himself is not worth calling love. I wonder if I flattered myself she loved me? No, I am quite sure I did not. I never thought anything about it. It is enough for me that I love her, and live, and have told her so; and I can bear all the misery now, for she knows. I suppose it will begin at once. She will not speak to me. No, not that, but she will not expect me to speak to her. I will keep out of her way; it is the least I can do. And I will try and not make her life on board disagreeable. Ah, my beloved, I will never hurt you again or make you angry." He said these things over and over to himself, and perhaps they comforted him a little. At eight bells the Swedish captain turned out, and Claudius saw him ascend the bridge, but soon he came down again and walked aft. "God afton, Captain," said Claudius. "It is rather late to say good evening, Doctor," replied the sailor. "Why, what time is it?" "Midnight." "Well, I shall turn in." "If you will take my advice," said the captain, "you won't leave any odds and ends lying about to-night. We shall have a dance before morning." "Think so?" said Claudius indifferently. "Why, Doctor, where are your eyes? You are a right Svensk sailor when you are awake. You have smelled the foam in Skager Rak as well as I." "Many a time," replied the other, and looked to windward. It was true; the wind had backed to the north-east, and there was an angry little cross sea beginning to run over the long ocean swell. There was a straight black belt below the stars, and a short, quick splashing, dashing, and breaking of white crests through the night, while the rising breeze sang in the weather rigging. Claudius turned away and went below. He took the captain's advice, and secured his traps and went to bed. But he could not sleep, and he said over and over to himself that he loved her, that he was glad he had told her so, and that he would stand by the result of his night's work, through all time,--ay, and beyond time. CHAPTER VIII. Lady Victoria was not afraid of the sea. No indeed, and if her brother would go with her she would like nothing better. And Miss Skeat, too, would she like to come? Such a pity poor Margaret had a headache. She had not even come to breakfast. Yes, Miss Skeat would come, and the boatswain would provide them both with tarpaulins and sou'-westers, and they would go on deck for a few minutes. But Mr. Barker was so sorry he had a touch of neuralgia, and besides he knew that Claudius was on deck and would be of more use to the ladies than he could ever be. Mr. Barker had no idea of getting wet, and the sudden headache of the Countess, combined with the absence of Claudius from her side, interested him. He meant to stay below and watch the events of the morning. Piloted by the Duke, the strong English girl and the wiry old Scotch lady made their way up the companion, not without difficulty, for the skipper's prediction was already fulfilled, and the _Streak_ was ploughing her way through all sorts of weather at once. The deck was slippery and sloppy, and the sharp spray was blowing itself in jets round every available corner. The sky was of an even lead colour, but it was hard to tell at first whether it was raining or not. The Duke's face gleamed like a wet red apple in the wind and water as he helped his sister to the leeward and anchored her among the shrouds. "Hullo, Claudius, you seem to like this!" he sang out, spying the tall Swede near the gangway. Claudius came towards them, holding on by the pins and cleats and benches. He looked so white that Lady Victoria was frightened. "You are not well, Dr. Claudius. Please don't mind me, my brother will be back in a moment. Go below and get warm. You really look ill." "Do I? I do not feel ill at all. I am very fond of this kind of weather." And he put one arm through the shrouds and prepared for conversation under difficulties. Meanwhile the Duke brought out Miss Skeat, who rattled inside her tarpaulin, but did not exhibit the slightest nervousness, though a bit of a sea broke over the weather-bow just as she appeared. "Keep your eye peeled there, will you?" the Duke shouted away to the men at the wheel; whereat they grinned, and luffed a little, just enough to let the lady get across. "Steady!" bawled the Duke again when Miss Skeat was made fast; and the men at the wheel held her off once more, so that the spray flew up in a cloudy sheet. Claudius was relieved. He had expected to see Margaret come up the companion, and he had dreaded the meeting, when he would almost of necessity be obliged to help her across and touch her hand; and he inwardly blessed her wisdom in staying below. The others might have stayed there too, he thought, instead of coming up to get wet and to spoil his solitude, which was the only thing left to him to-day. But Claudius was not the man to betray his ill-temper at being disturbed; and after all there was something about these two women that he liked--in different ways. The English girl was so solidly enthusiastic, and the Scotch gentlewoman so severely courageous, that he felt a sort of companionable sympathy after he had been with them a few minutes. Lady Victoria, as previously hinted, was married, and her husband, who was in the diplomatic service, and who had prospects afterwards of coming into money and a peerage, was now absent on a distant mission. They had not been married very long, but his wife was always ready to take things cheerfully, and, since she could not accompany him, she had made up her mind to be happy without him; and the trip with her brother was "just the very thing." Mr. Barker admired what he called her exuberant vitality, and expressed his opinion that people with a digestion like that were always having a good time. She was strong and healthy, and destined to be the mother of many bold sons, and she had a certain beauty born of a good complexion, bright eyes, and white teeth. To look at her, you would have said she must be the daughter of some robust and hardworking settler, accustomed from her youth to face rain and snow and sunshine in ready reliance on her inborn strength. She did not suggest dukes and duchesses in the least. Alas! the generation of those ruddy English boys and girls is growing rarer day by day, and a mealy-faced, over-cerebrated people are springing up, who with their children again, in trying to rival the brain-work of foreigners with larger skulls and more in them, forget that their English forefathers have always done everything by sheer strength and bloodshed, and can as easily hope to accomplish anything by skill as a whale can expect to dance upon the tight rope. They would do better, thought Lady Victoria, to give it up, to abandon the struggle for intellectual superiority of that kind. They have produced greater minds when, the mass of their countrymen were steeped in brutality, and Elizabethan surfeit of beef and ale, than they will ever produce with a twopenny-halfpenny universal education. What is the use? Progress. What is progress? Merely the adequate arrangement of inequalities--in the words of one of their own thinkers who knows most about it and troubles himself least about theories. What is the use of your "universal" education, to which nine-tenths of the population submit as to a hopeless evil, which takes bread out of their mouths and puts bran into their heads; for might they not be at work in the fields instead of scratching pothooks on a slate? At least so Lady Victoria thought. "You look just like a sailor," said she to Claudius. "I feel like one," he answered, "and I think I shall adopt the sea as a profession." "It is such a pity," said Miss Skeat, sternly clutching the twisted wire shroud. "I would like to see you turn pirate; it would be so picturesque--you and Mr. Barker." The others laughed, not at the idea of Claudius sporting the black flag--for he looked gloomy enough to do murder in the first degree this morning--but the picture of the exquisite and comfort-loving Mr. Barker, with his patent-leather shoes and his elaborate travelling apparatus, leading a band of black-browed ruffians to desperate deeds of daring and blood, was novel enough to be exhilarating; and they laughed loudly. They did not understand Mr. Barker; but perhaps Miss Skeat, who liked him with an old-maidenly liking, had some instinct notion that the gentle American could be dangerous. "Mr. Barker would never do for a pirate," laughed Lady Victoria; "he would be always getting his feet wet and having attacks of neuralgia." "Take care, Vick," said her brother, "he might hear you." "Well, if he did? I only said he would get his feet wet. There is no harm in that, and it is clear he has neuralgia, because he says it himself." "Well, of course," said the Duke, "if that is what you mean. But he will wet his feet fast enough when there is any good reason." "If you make it 'worth his while,' of course," said Lady Victoria, "I have no doubt of it." She turned up her nose, for she was not very fond of Mr. Barker, and she thought poorly of the Duke's financial enterprises in America. It was not a bit like a good old English gentleman to be always buying and selling mines and stocks and all sorts of things with queer names. "Look here, Vick, we won't talk any more about Barker, if you please." "Very well, then you can talk about the weather," said she. "Yes," said Claudius, "you may well do that. There is a good deal of weather to talk about." "Oh, I like a storm at sea, of all things!" exclaimed Lady Victoria, forgetting all about Mr. Barker in the delicious sense of saltness and freedom one feels on the deck of a good ship running through a lively sea. She put out her face to catch the fine salt spray on her cheek. Just then a little water broke over the side abaft the gangway, and the vessel rose and fell to the sweep of a big wave. The water ran along over the flush deck, as if hunting for the scuppers, and came swashing down to the lee where the party were standing, wetting the ladies' feet to the ankle. The men merely pulled themselves up by the ropes they held, and hung till the deck was clear again. "I don't suppose it hurts you to get wet," said the Duke to his sister, "but you would be much better under hatches while this sort of thing is going on." "I think, if you will help me, I will go down and see how the Countess is," said Miss Skeat; and Claudius detached her from the rigging and got her down the companion, but the Duke stayed with his sister, who begged for a few minutes more. Once below, Claudius felt how near he was to Margaret, who was doubtless in the ladies' cabin. He could reach his own quarters without entering that sanctum, of course, but as he still held Miss Skeat's arm to steady her to the door, he could not resist the temptation of putting his head through, for he knew now that she must be there. It was a large sitting-room, extending through the whole beam, with big port-holes on each side. Miss Skeat entered, and Claudius looked in. There was Margaret, looking much as usual, her face turned a little from him as she lay in a huge arm-chair. She could not see him as she was, and his heart beat furiously as he looked at the face he loved best of all others. Margaret spoke to Miss Skeat without turning her head, for she was working at some of her eternal needlework. "Have you had a good time? How did you get down?" "Such an airing," answered the lady-companion, who was divesting herself of her wraps, "and Dr Claudius--" The last was lost to the Doctor's ear, for he withdrew his head and beat a hasty retreat. Miss Skeat also stopped speaking suddenly, for as she mentioned his name she looked naturally towards the door, supposing him to be standing there, and she just saw his head disappear from between the curtains. Margaret turned her eyes and saw Miss Skeat's astonishment. "Well, what about Dr. Claudius?" she asked. "Oh, nothing," said Miss Skeat, "you asked me how I got down, and I was going to say Dr. Claudius gave me his arm, and I thought he had come in here with me." Neither Miss Skeat nor Claudius had noticed Mr. Barker, who was ensconced on a corner transom, with his nails and a book to amuse himself with. He saw the whole thing: how the Doctor put his white face and dripping beard through the curtains, and suddenly withdrew it at the mention of his name, and how Miss Skeat held her peace about having seen it too. He reflected that something had happened, that Miss Skeat knew all about it, and that she was a discreet woman. He wondered what it could be. Claudius would not look like that unless something were wrong, he thought, and he would certainly come back in five minutes if everything were right. He had not seen him at breakfast. He took out his watch softly and let it drop on his book, face upwards. Meanwhile he talked to the two ladies about the weather, and listened to Miss Skeat's rapturous account of the spray and the general slipperiness of the upper regions. When five minutes were elapsed he put his watch back and said he thought he would try it himself, as he fancied the fresh air would do him good. So he departed, and obtained a pair of sea-boots and an oilskin, which he contemplated with disgust, and put on with resolution. He wanted to find the Duke, and he wanted to see Claudius; but he wanted them separately. Mr. Barker cautiously put his head out of the cuddy door and espied the Duke and his sister. This was not exactly what he wanted, and he would have retired, but at that moment Lady Victoria caught sight of him, and immediately called out to him not to be afraid, as it was much smoother now. But Mr. Barker's caution had proceeded from other causes, and being detected, he put a bold face on it, stepped on the deck and slammed the door behind him. Lady Victoria was somewhat surprised to see him tread the slippery deck with perfect confidence and ease, for she thought he was something of a "duffer." But Barker knew how to do most things more or less, and he managed to bow and take off his sou'wester with considerable grace in spite of the rolling. Having obtained permission to smoke, he lighted a cigar, crooked one booted leg through the iron rail, and seated himself on the bulwark, where, as the steamer lurched, he seemed to be in a rather precarious position. But there was a sort of cat-like agility in his wiry frame, that bespoke unlimited powers of balancing and holding on. "I thought there were more of you," he began, addressing Lady Victoria. "You seem to be having quite a nice time here." "Yes." "I wish I had come up sooner; the atmosphere downstairs is very oppressive." "I thought you had neuralgia," said Lady Victoria. "So I had. But that kind of neuralgia comes and goes very suddenly. Where is the giant of the North?" "Dr. Claudius? He went down with Miss Skeat, and when he came up again he said he would go forward," answered she, giving the nautical pronunciation to the latter word. "Oh, I see him," cried Barker, "there he is, just going up the bridge. By Jove! what a height he looks." "Yes," put in the Duke, "he is rather oversparred for a nor'-easter, eh? Rather be your size, Barker, for reefing tawpsels;" and the Englishman laughed. "Well," said Barker, "when I first knew him he used to wear a balustrade round his neck to keep from being dizzy. I wouldn't care to have to do that. I think I will go and have a look too." And leaving his companions to laugh at his joke, Mr. Barker glided easily from the rail, and began his journey to the bridge, which he accomplished without any apparent difficulty. When he had climbed the little ladder he waved his hand to the Duke and his sister, who screamed something complimentary in reply; and then he spoke to Claudius who was standing by the skipper, his legs far apart, and both his hands on the railing. "Is that you, Barker?" asked Claudius; "you are well disguised this morning." "Claudius," said the other, "what on earth is the row?" The captain was on the other side of the Doctor, and could not hear in the wind. "What row?" asked Claudius. Barker knew enough of his friend by this time to be aware that roundabout methods of extracting information were less likely to be successful than a point-blank question. "Don't pretend ignorance," said he. "You look like a ghost, you are so pale, and when you put your head through the curtains a quarter of an hour ago, I thought you were one. And you have not been near the Countess this morning, though you have never been away from her before since we weighed anchor. Now, something has happened, and if I can do anything, tell me, and I will do it, right away." It is a good old plan, that one of trying to satisfy one's curiosity under pretence of offering assistance. But Claudius did not trouble himself about such things; he wanted no help from any one, and never had; and if he meant to tell, nothing would prevent him, and if he did not mean to tell, no power would make him. "Since you have found it out, Barker, something has happened, as you say; and thanks for your offer of help, but I cannot tell you anything more about it." "I think you are unwise." "Perhaps." "I might help you a great deal, for I have some natural tact." "Yes." "Besides, you know I am as secret as the grave." "Quite so." "I introduced you to the Countess, too." "I know it." "And I should be very sorry indeed to think that my action should have had any evil consequences." "I am sure you would." "Then, my dear fellow, you must really take me a little more into your confidence, and let me help you," said Barker, in the tone of an injured man. "Perhaps I ought," said Claudius. "Then why will you not tell me what has happened now?" "Because I won't," said Claudius, turning sharply on Barker, and speaking in a voice that seemed to make the railings shake. He was evidently on the point of losing his temper, and Barker repented him too late of his attempt to extract the required information. Now he changed his tone. "Excuse me, Claudius, I did not mean to offend you." "You did not offend me at all, Barker. But please--do not ask me any more questions about it." Claudius was perfectly calm again. "No indeed, my dear fellow, I would not think of it;--and I don't seem to think that I should advise anybody else to," he added mentally. He made up his mind that it must be something very serious, or Claudius, who was so rarely excited, would hardly have behaved as he had done. He made a few remarks about the weather, which had certainly not improved since morning; and then, resolving that he would find out what was the matter before he was much older, he glided down the ladder and went aft. Lady Victoria had disappeared, and her brother was trying to light a short black pipe. "Duke," Barker began, "what the deuce is the matter with Claudius this morning?" "Don't know, I'm sure. My sister thinks it is very odd." "Well, if you don't know, I don't either, but I can make a pretty good guess." The Duke's vesuvian was sputtering in the spray and wind, and he got a good light before he answered. "I'll take six to four he marries her, at all events." "I don't go in for playing it as low down as that on my friends," said Barker virtuously, "or I would take you in hundreds. You must be crazy. Can't you see he has shown up and is sold? Bah! it's all over, as sure as you're born." "Think that's it?" said the other, much interested. "You may be right. Glad you would not bet, anyhow." "Of course that's it. The idiot has proposed to her here, on board, and she has refused him, and now he has to face the fury of the elements to keep out of her way." "Upon my soul, it looks like it," said the Duke. "He won't stay on the bridge much longer if this lasts, though." "You had best ask your sister," answered Barker. "Women always know those things first. What do you say to a game? It is beastly dirty weather to be on the deck watch." And so they pushed forward to the smoking-room, just before the bridge, and settled themselves for the day with a pack of cards and a box of cigars. As Margaret had not put in an appearance at breakfast, which was a late and solid meal on board, and as there was no other regular congregation of the party until dinner, for each one lunched as he or she pleased, it was clear that the Countess and Claudius would not be brought together until the evening. Margaret was glad of this for various reasons, some definable and others vague. She felt that she must have misjudged Claudius a little, and she was glad to see that her exhibition of displeasure on the previous night had been sufficient to keep him away. Had he been as tactless as she had at first thought, he would surely have sought an early opportunity of speaking to her alone, and the rest of the party were so much used to seeing them spend their mornings together that such an opportunity would not have been lacking, had he wished it. And if he had misunderstood her words and manner--well, if he had not thought they were meant as a decisive check, he would have followed her there and then, last night, when she left him. She felt a little nervous about his future conduct, but for the present she was satisfied, and prepared herself for the inevitable meeting at dinner with a certain feeling of assurance. "For," said she, "I do not love him in the least, and why should I be embarrassed?" Not so poor Claudius, who felt the blood leave his face and rush wildly to his heart, as he entered the saloon where the party were sitting down to dinner. The vessel was rolling heavily, for the sea was running high under the north-easter, and dinner would be no easy matter. He knew he must sit next to her and help her under all the difficulties that arise under the circumstances. It would have been easy, too, for them both to see that the eyes of the other four were upon them, had either of them suspected it. Claudius held himself up to the full of his great height and steadied every nerve of his body for the meeting. Margaret belonged to the people who do not change colour easily, and when she spoke, even the alert ear of Mr. Barker opposite could hardly detect the faintest change of tone. And yet she bore the burden of it, for she spoke first. "How do you do, Dr. Claudius?" "Thank you, well. I was sorry to hear you had a headache to-day. I hope you are better." "Thanks, yes; much better." They all sat down, and it was over. The conversation was at first very disjointed, and was inclined to turn on small jokes about the difficulty of dining at an angle of forty-five degrees. The weather was certainly much heavier than it had been in the morning, and the Duke feared they would have a longer passage than they had expected, but added that they would be better able to judge to-morrow at twelve. Claudius and Margaret exchanged a few sentences, with tolerable tact and indifference; but, for some occult reason, Mr. Barker undertook to be especially lively and amusing, and after the dinner was somewhat advanced he launched out into a series of stories and anecdotes which served very well to pass the time and to attract notice to himself. As Mr. Barker was generally not very talkative at table, though frequently epigrammatic, his sudden eloquence was calculated to engage the attention of the party. Claudius and Margaret were glad of the rattling talk that delivered them from the burden of saying anything especial, and they both laughed quite naturally at Barker's odd wit. They were grateful to him for what he did, and Claudius entertained some faint hope that he might go on in the same strain for the rest of the voyage. But Margaret pondered these things. She saw quickly that Barker had perceived that some embarrassment existed, and was spending his best strength in trying to make the meal a particularly gay one. But she could not understand how Barker could have found out that there was any difficulty. Had Claudius been making confidences? It would have been very foolish for him to do so, and besides, Claudius was not the man to make confidences. He was reticent and cold as a rule, and Barker had more than once confessed to the Countess that he knew very little of Claudius's previous history, because the latter "never talked," and would not always answer questions. So she came to the conclusion that Barker only suspected something, because the Doctor had not been with her during the day. And so she laughed, and Claudius laughed, and they were well satisfied to pay their social obolus in a little well-bred and well-assumed hilarity. So the dinner progressed, in spite of the rolling and pitching; for there was a good deal of both, as the sea ran diagonally to the course, breaking on the starboard quarter. They had reached the dessert, and two at least of the party were congratulating themselves on the happy termination of the meal, when, just as the Duke was speaking, there was a heavy lurch, and a tremendous sea broke over their heads. Then came a fearful whirring sound that shook through every plate and timber and bulkhead, like the sudden running down of mammoth clock-work, lasting some twenty seconds; then everything was quiet again save the sea, and the yacht rolled heavily to and fro. Every one knew that there had been a serious accident, but no one moved from the table. The Duke sat like a rock in his place and finished what he was saying, though no one noticed it. Miss Skeat clutched her silver fruit-knife till her knuckles shone again, and she set her teeth. Mr. Barker, who had a glass of wine in the "fiddle" before him, took it out when the sea struck and held it up steadily to save it from being spilled; and Lady Victoria, who was not the least ashamed of being startled, cried out-- "Goodness gracious!" and then sat holding to the table and looking at her brother. Margaret and Claudius were sitting next each other on one side of the table. By one of those strange, sympathetic instincts, that only manifest themselves in moments of great danger, they did the same thing at the same moment. Claudius put out his left hand and Margaret her right, and those two hands met just below the table and clasped each other, and in that instant each turned round to the other and looked the other in the face. What that look told man knoweth not, but for one instant there was nothing in the world for Margaret but Claudius. As for him, poor man, he had long known that she was the whole world to him, his life and his death. It was very short, and Margaret quickly withdrew her hand and looked away. The Duke was the first to speak. "I do not think it is anything very serious," said he. "If you will all sit still, I will go and see what is the matter." He rose and left the saloon. "I don't fancy there is any cause for anxiety," said Barker. "There has probably been some slight accident to the machinery, and we shall be off again in an hour. I think we ought to compliment the ladies on the courage they have shown; it is perfectly wonderful." And Mr. Barker smiled gently round the table. Lady Victoria was palpably scared and Miss Skeat was silent. As for Margaret, she was confused and troubled. The accident of her seizing Claudius's hand, as she had done, was a thousand times more serious than any accident to the ship. The Doctor could not help stealing a glance at her, but he chimed in with Barker in praising the coolness of all three ladies. Presently the Duke came back. He had been forward by a passage that led between decks to the engine-room, where he had met the captain. The party felt reassured as the ruddy face of their host appeared in the doorway. "There is nothing to fear," he said cheerfully. "But it is a horrid nuisance, all the same." "Tell us all about it," said Lady Victoria. "Well--we have lost our means of locomotion. We have carried away our propeller." "What are you going to do about it?" asked Barker. "Do? There is nothing to be done. We must sail for it. I am dreadfully sorry." "It is not your fault," said Claudius. "Well, I suppose not. It happens even to big steamers." "And shall we sail all the way to New York?" asked his sister, who was completely reassured. "I think it will be lovely." Miss Skeat also thought sailing much more poetic than steaming. "I think we must hold a council of war," said the master. "Let us put it to the vote. Shall we make for Bermuda, which is actually nearer, but which is four or five days' from New York, or shall we go straight and take our chance of a fair wind?" "If you are equally willing to do both, why not let the ladies decide?" suggested Barker. "Oh no," broke in the Countess, "it will be much more amusing to vote. We will write on slips of paper and put them in a bag." "As there are five of you I will not vote," said the Duke, "for we might be three on a side, you know." So they voted, and there were three votes for New York and two for Bermuda. "New York has it," said the Duke, who counted, "and I am glad, on the whole, for it is Sturleson's advice." Barker had voted for New York, and he wondered who the two could have been who wanted to go to Bermuda. Probably Miss Skeat and Lady Victoria. Had the Countess suspected that those two would choose the longer journey and out-vote her, if the decision were left to the ladies? Meanwhile there had been heavy tramping of feet on the deck, as the men trimmed the sails. She could only go under double-reefed trysails and fore-staysail for the present, and it was no joke to keep her head up while the reefs were taken in. It was blowing considerably more than half a gale of wind, and the sea was very heavy. Soon, however, the effect of the sails made itself felt; the yacht was a good sea-boat, and when she fairly heeled over on the port-tack and began to cut the waves again, the ladies downstairs agreed that sailing was much pleasanter and steadier than steam, and that the next time they crossed in a yacht they would like to sail all the way. But in spite of their courage, and notwithstanding that they were greatly reassured by the explanations of Mr. Barker, who made the nature of the accident quite clear to them, they had been badly shaken, and soon retired to their respective staterooms. In the small confusion of getting to their feet to leave the cabin it chanced that Claudius found himself helping Margaret to the door. The recollection of her touch and look when the accident happened was strong in him yet and gave him courage. "Good-night, Countess," he said; "shall I have the pleasure of reading with you to-morrow?" "Perhaps," she answered; "if it is very fine. Fate has decreed that we should have plenty of time." He tried to catch a glance as she left his arm, but she would not, and they were parted for the night. Barker had gone into the engine-room, now quiet and strange; the useless machinery stood still as it had been stopped when the loss of the propeller, relieving the opposition to the motor-force, allowed it to make its last frantic revolutions. The Duke and Claudius were left alone in the main cabin. "Well," said the Duke, "we are in for it this time, at all events." "We are indeed," said Claudius; "I hope the delay will not cause you any serious inconvenience, for I suppose we shall not reach New York for a fortnight at least." "It will not inconvenience me at all. But I am sorry for you--for you all, I mean," he added, fearing he had been awkward in thus addressing Claudius directly, "because it will be so very disagreeable, such an awful bore for you to be at sea so long." "I have no doubt we shall survive," said the other, with a smile. "What do you say to going on deck and having a chat with Sturleson, now that all is quiet?" "And a pipe?" said the Duke, "I am with you." So on deck they went, and clambered along the lee to the smoking-room, without getting very wet. Sturleson was sent for, and they reviewed together the situation. The result of the inquiry was that things looked much brighter to all three. They were in a good sea-boat, well manned and provisioned, with nothing to fear from the weather, and if they were lucky they might make Sandy Hook in a week. On the other hand, they might not; but it is always well to take a cheerful view of things. People who cross the Atlantic in yachts are very different from the regular crowds that go backwards and forwards in the great lines. They are seldom in a hurry, and have generally made a good many voyages before. Perhaps the Duke himself, in his quality of host, was the most uncomfortable man on board. He did not see how the Countess and the Doctor could possibly survive being shut up together in a small vessel, for he was convinced that Barker knew all about their difficulty. If he had not liked Claudius so much, he would have been angry at him for daring to propose to this beautiful young friend of his. But then Claudius was Claudius, and even the Duke saw something in him besides his wealth which gave him a right to aspire to the highest. "I can't make out," the Duke once said to Barker, "where Claudius got his manners. He never does anything the least odd; and he always seems at his ease." "I only know he came to Heidelberg ten years ago, and that he is about thirty. He got his manners somewhere when he was a boy." "Of course, there are lots of good people in Sweden," said the Duke; "but they all have titles, just as they do in Germany. And Claudius has no title." "No," said Barker pensively, "I never heard him say he had a title." "I don't know anything about it," answered the Duke. "But I have been a good deal about Sweden, and he is not in the least like a respectable Swedish burgher. Did you not tell me that his uncle, who left him all that money, was your father's partner in business?" "Yes, I remember once or twice hearing the old gentleman say he had a nephew. But he was a silent man, though he piled up the dollars." "Claudius is a silent man too," said the Duke. "And he has sailed into the dollars ready piled." But this was before the eventful day just described; and the Duke had forgotten the conversation, though he had repeated the reflections to himself, and found them true. To tell the truth, Claudius looked more like a duke than his host, for the sea air had blown away the professorial cobwebs; and, after all, it did not seem so very incongruous in the Englishman's eyes that his handsome guest should fall in love with the Countess Margaret. Only, it was very uncomfortable; and he did not know exactly what he should do with them for the next ten days. Perhaps he ought to devote himself to the Countess, and thus effectually prevent any approaches that Claudius might meditate. Yes--that was probably his duty. He wished he might ask counsel of his sister; but then she did not know, and it seemed unfair, and altogether rather a betrayal of confidence or something--at all events, it was not right, and he would not do it. Barker might be wrong too. And so the poor Duke, muddle-headed and weary with this storm in his tea-cup, and with having his tea-cup come to grief in a real storm into the bargain, turned into his deck-cabin to "sleep on it," thinking the morning would bring counsel. Claudius had many things to think of too; but he was weary, for he had slept little of late, and not at all the night before; so he lay down and went over the scenes of the evening; but soon he fell asleep, and dreamed of her all the night long. But the good yacht _Streak_ held on her course bravely, quivering in the joy of her new-spread wings. For what hulk is so dull and pitifully modern as not to feel how much gladder a thing it is to bound along with straining shrouds and singing sails and lifting keel to the fierce music of the wind than to be ever conscious of a burning sullenly-thudding power, put in her bosom by the unartistic beast, man, to make her grind her breathless way whither he would, and whither she would not? Not the meanest mud-scow or harbour tug but would rather have a little mast and a bit of canvas in the fresh salt breeze than all the hundreds of land-born horse-powers and fire-driven cranks and rods that a haste-loving generation can cram into the belly of the poor craft. How much more, then, must the beautiful clean-built _Streak_ have rejoiced on that night when she felt the throbbing, gnashing pain of the engines stop suddenly in her breast, and was allowed to spread her beautiful wings out to be kissed and caressed all over by her old lover, the north-east wind? And the grand crested waves came creeping up, curling over their dark heads till they bristled with phosphorescent foam; and some of them broke angrily upward, jealous that the wind alone might touch those gleaming sails. But the wind roared at them in his wrath and drove them away, so that they sank back, afraid to fight with him; and he took the ship in his strong arms, and bore her fast and far that night, through many a heaving billow, and past many a breaking crest--far over the untrodden paths, where footsteps are not, neither the defiling hand of man. But within were beating hearts and the breathings of life. The strong man stretched to his full length on his couch, mighty to see in his hard-earned sleep. And the beautiful woman, with parted lips and wild tossing black hair; dark cheeks flushed with soft resting; hands laid together lovingly, as though, in the quiet night, the left hand would learn at last what good work the right hand has wrought; the fringe of long eyelashes drooping with the lids, to fold and keep the glorious light safe within, and--ah yes, it is there!--the single tear still clinging to its birthplace--mortal impress of immortal suffering. Is it not always there, the jewelled sign-manual of grief? But the good yacht _Streak_ held on her course bravely; and the north-easter laughed and sang as he buffeted the waves from the path of his love. CHAPTER IX. The Duke was the first to be astir in the morning, and as soon as he opened his eyes he made up his mind that the weather was improving. The sea was still running high, but there was no sound of water breaking over the bulwarks. He emerged from his deck-cabin, and took a sniff of the morning air. A reef had been shaken out of the trysails, and the fore-topsail and jib were set. He went aft, and found the mate just heaving the patent log. "Nine and a half, your Grace," said the officer with a chuckle, for he was an old sailor, and hated steamers. "That's very fair," remarked the owner, skating off with his bare feet over the wet deck. Then he went back to his cabin to dress. Presently Mr. Barker's neat person emerged from the cuddy. He looked about to see if any one were out yet, but only a party of red-capped tars were visible, swabbing the forward deck with their pendulum-like brooms, and working their way aft in a regular, serried rank. The phalanx moved with an even stroke, and each bare foot advanced just so many inches at every third sweep of the broom, while the yellow-haired Norse 'prentice played the hose in front of them. Mr. Barker perceived that they would overtake him before long, and he determined on flight, not forward or aft, but aloft; and he leisurely lifted himself into the main-shrouds, and climbing half-way, hooked his feet through the ratlines. In this position he took out a cigar, lighted it with a vesuvian, and, regardless of the increased motion imparted to him at his greater elevation, he began to smoke. The atmosphere below must have been very oppressive indeed to induce Mr. Barker to come up before breakfast--in fact, before eight o'clock--for the sake of smoking a solitary cigar up there by the catharpings. Mr. Barker wanted to think, for an idea had struck him during the night. In ten minutes the parade of deck-swabbers had passed, and Claudius also appeared on deck, looking haggard and pale. He did not see Barker, for he turned, seaman-like, to the weatherside, and the try-sail hid his friend from his sight. Presently he too thought he would go aloft, for he felt cramped and weary, and fancied a climb would stretch his limbs. He went right up to the crosstrees before he espied Barker, a few feet below him on the other side. He stopped a moment in astonishment, for this sort of diversion was the last thing he had given the American credit for. Besides, as Barker was to leeward, the rigging where he was perched stood almost perpendicular, and his position must have been a very uncomfortable one. Claudius was not given to jocularity as a rule, but he could not resist such a chance for astonishing a man who imagined himself to be enjoying an airy solitude between sky and water. So he gently swung himself into the lee rigging and, leaning far down, cautiously lifted Mr. Barker's cap from his head by the woollen button in the middle. Mr. Barker knocked the ash from his cigar with his free hand, and returned it to his mouth; he then conveyed the same hand to the top of his head, to assure himself that the cap was gone. He knew perfectly well that in his present position he could not look up to see who had played him the trick. "I don't know who you are," he sang out, "but I may as well tell you my life is insured. If I catch cold, the company will make it hot for you--and no error." A roar of laughter from below saluted this sally, for the Duke and Sturleson had met, and had watched together the progress of the joke. "I will take the risk," replied Claudius, who had retired again to the crosstrees. "I am going to put it on the topmast-head, so that you may have a good look at it." "You can't do it," said Barker, turning himself round, and lying flat against the ratlines, so that he could look up at his friend. "What's that?" bawled the Duke from below. "Says he will decorate the maintruck with my hat, and I say he can't do it," Barker shouted back. "I'll back Claudius, level money," answered the Duke in stentorian tones. "I'll take three to two," said Barker. "No, I won't. Level money." "Done for a hundred, then," answered the American. It was an unlikely thing to bet on, and Barker thought he might have given the Duke odds, instead of asking them, as he had done. But he liked to get all he could in a fair way. Having arranged his bet, he told Claudius he might climb to the mast-head if he liked, but that he, Barker, was going down so as to have a better view; and he forthwith descended. All three stood leaning back against the weather bulwarks, craning their necks to see the better. Claudius was a very large man, as has been said, and Barker did not believe it possible that he could drag his gigantic frame up the smooth mast beyond the shrouds. If it were possible, he was quite willing to pay his money to see him do it. Claudius put the woollen cap in his pocket, and began the ascent. The steamer, as has been said, was schooner-rigged, with topsail yards on the foremast, but there were no ratlines in the main topmast shrouds, which were set about ten feet below the mast-head. To this point Claudius climbed easily enough, using his arms and legs against the stiffened ropes. A shout from the Duke hailed his arrival. "Now comes the tug of war," said the Duke. "He can never do it," said Barker confidently. But Barker had underrated the extraordinary strength of the man against whom he was betting, and he did not know how often, when a boy, Claudius had climbed higher masts than those of the _Streak_. The Doctor was one of those natural athletes whose strength does not diminish for lack of exercise, and large as he was, and tall, he was not so heavy as Barker thought. Now he pulled the cap out of his pocket and held it between his teeth, as he gripped the smooth wood between his arms and hands and legs, and with firm and even motion he began to swarm up the bare pole. "There--I told you so," said Barker. Claudius had slipped nearly a foot back. "He will do it yet," said the Duke, as the climber clasped his mighty hands to the mast. He would not slip again, for his blood was up, and he could almost fancy his iron grip pressed deep into the wood. Slowly, slowly those last three feet were conquered, inch by inch, and the broad hand stole stealthily over the small wooden truck at the topmast-head till it had a firm hold--then the other, and with the two he raised and pushed his body up till the truck was opposite his breast. "Skal to the Viking!" yelled old Sturleson, the Swedish captain, his sunburnt face glowing red with triumph as Claudius clapped the woollen cap over the mast-head. "Well done, indeed, man!" bawled the Duke. "Well," said Barker, "it was worth the money, anyhow." There was a faint exclamation from the door of the after-cabin; but none of the three men heard it, nor did they see a horror-struck face, stony and wide-eyed, staring up at the mast-head, where the Doctor's athletic figure swayed far out over the water with the motion of the yacht. Time had flown, and the bright sunlight streaming down into the ladies' cabin had made Margaret long for a breath of fresh air; so that when Lady Victoria appeared, in all sorts of jersies and blue garments, fresh and ready for anything, the two had made common cause and ventured up the companion without any manly assistance. It chanced that they came out on the deck at the very moment when Claudius was accomplishing his feat, and seeing the three men looking intently at something aloft, Margaret looked too, and was horrified at what she saw. Lady Victoria caught her and held her tightly, or she would have lost her footing with the lurch of the vessel. Lady Victoria raised her eyes also, and took in the situation at a glance. "Don't be afraid," she said, "he can take care of himself, no doubt. My brother used to be able to do it before he grew so big." Claudius descended rapidly, but almost lost his hold when he saw Margaret leaning against the taffrail. He would not have had her see him for worlds, and there she was, and she had evidently witnessed the whole affair. Before he had reached the deck, the Duke had seen her too, and hastened to her side. She was evidently much agitated. "How can you allow such things?" she said indignantly, her dark eyes flashing at him. "I had nothing to say about it, Countess. But he did it magnificently." Claudius had reached the deck, and eluding the compliments of Barker and Sturleson, hastened to the cuddy door, bowing to the ladies as he passed. He meant to beat a retreat to his cabin. But Margaret was determined to call him to account for having given her such a fright. "Dr. Claudius," said the voice that he loved and feared. "Yes, Countess," said he, steadying himself by the door as the vessel lurched. "Will you please come here? I want to speak to you." He moved to her side, waiting his chance between two seas. "Do you think you have a right to risk your life in such follies?" she asked, when he was close to her. The Duke and Lady Victoria were near by. "I do not think I have risked my life, Countess. I have often done it before." "Do you think, then, that you have a right to do such things in the sight of nervous women?" "No, Countess, I pretend to no such brutality, and I am very sincerely sorry that you should have unexpectedly seen me. I apologise most humbly to you and to Lady Victoria for having startled you;" he bowed to the Duke's sister as he spoke, and moved to go away. He had already turned when Margaret's face softened. "Dr. Claudius," she called again. He was at her side in a moment. "Please do not do it again--even if I am not there." She looked at him; he thought it strange. But he was annoyed at the whole business, and really angry with himself. She had spoken in a low tone so that the others had not heard her. "Countess," said he in a voice decidedly sarcastic, "I pledge myself never in future to ascend to the mast-head of any vessel or vessels without your express permission." "Very well," said she coldly; "I shall keep you to your word." But Claudius had seen his mistake, and there was no trace of irony in his voice as he looked her steadfastly in the eyes and answered. "Believe me, I will keep any promise I make to you," he said earnestly, and went away. Lady Victoria, who was not without tact, and had guessed that Margaret had something to say to the Doctor, managed meanwhile to keep her brother occupied by asking him questions about the exploit, and he, falling into the trap, had begun to tell the story from the beginning, speaking loud, by way of showing Claudius his appreciation. But Claudius, recking little of his laurels, went and sat in his cabin, pondering deeply. Barker, from a distance, had witnessed the conversation between Margaret and the Doctor. He came up murmuring to himself that the plot was thickening. "If Claudius makes a corner in mast-heads, there will be a bull market," he reflected, and he also remembered that just now he was a bear. "In that case," he continued his train of thought, "no more mast-heads." "Good morning, Countess; Lady Victoria, good morning," he said, bowing. "I would take off my hat if I could, but the Doctor has set the cap of liberty on high." Lady Victoria and the Duke laughed, but Margaret said "Good morning" without a smile. Barker immediately abandoned the subject and talked about the weather, which is a grand topic when there is enough of it. It was clear by this time that they had passed through a violent storm, which had gone away to southward. The sea was heavy of course, but the wind had moderated, and by twelve o'clock the yacht was running between nine and ten knots, with a stiff breeze on her quarter and all sails set. The Duke was extremely attentive to Margaret all that day, rarely leaving her side, whether she was below or on deck; bringing her books and rugs, and adjusting her chair, and altogether performing the offices of a faithful slave and attendant. Whenever Claudius came within hail the Duke would make desperate efforts to be animated, lengthening his sentences with all the vigorous superlatives and sledge-hammer adverbs he could think of, not to mention any number of "you knows." His efforts to be agreeable, especially when there appeared to be any likelihood of Claudius coming into the conversation, were so palpable that Margaret could not but see there was a reason for the expenditure of so much energy. She could not help being amused, but at the same time she was annoyed at what she considered a bit of unnecessary officiousness on the part of her host. However, he was such an old friend that she forgave him. But woman's nature is impatient of control. Left to herself she would have avoided Claudius; forcibly separated from him she discovered that she wanted to speak to him. As the day wore on and the Duke's attentions never relaxed, she grew nervous, and tried to think how she could send him away. It was no easy matter. If she asked for anything, he flew to get it and returned breathless, and of course at that very moment Claudius was just out of range. Then she called Miss Skeat, but the Duke's eloquence redoubled, and he talked to them both at once; and at last she gave it up in despair, and said she would lie down for a while. Once safe in her stateroom, the Duke drew a long breath, and went in search of Mr. Barker. Now Mr. Barker, in consequence of the idea that had unfolded itself to his fertile brain in the darkness of night, had been making efforts to amuse Claudius all day long, with as much determination as the Duke had shown in devoting himself to the Countess, but with greater success; for Barker could be very amusing when he chose, whereas the Duke was generally most amusing when he did not wish to be so. He found them in the smoking cabin, Claudius stretched at full length with a cigarette in his teeth, and Barker seated apparently on the table, the chair, and the transom, by a clever distribution of the various parts of his body, spinning yarns of a high Western flavour about death's-head editors and mosquitoes with brass ribs. The Duke was exhausted with his efforts, and refreshed himself with beer before he challenged Barker to a game. "To tell the truth, Duke," he answered, "I don't seem to think I feel like winning your money to-day. I will go and talk to the ladies, and Claudius will play with you." "You won't make much headway there," said the Duke. "The Countess is gone to bed, and Miss Skeat and my sister are reading English history." "Besides," put in Claudius, "you know I never play." "Well," said Barker, with a sigh, "then I will play with you, and Claudius can go to sleep where he is." They cut and dealt. But Claudius did not feel at all sleepy. When the game was well started he rose and went out, making to himself the same reflection that Margaret had made, "Why is my friend so anxious to amuse me to-day?" He seldom paid any attention to such things, but his strong, clear mind was not long in unravelling the situation, now that he was roused to thinking about it. Barker had guessed the truth, or very near it, and the Duke and he had agreed to keep Claudius and Margaret apart as long as they could. He went aft, and descended to the cabin. There sat Miss Skeat and Lady Victoria reading aloud, just as the Duke had said. He went through the passage and met the steward, or butler, whom he despatched to see if the Countess were in the ladies' cabin. The rosy-cheeked, gray-haired priest of Silenus said her ladyship was there, "alone," he added with a little emphasis. Claudius walked in, and was not disappointed. There she sat at the side of the table in her accustomed place, dark and beautiful, and his heart beat fast. She did not look up. "Countess," he began timidly. "Oh, Doctor Claudius, is that you? Sit down." He sat down on the transom, so that he could see the evening light fall through the port-hole above him on her side face, and as the vessel rose and fell the rays of the setting sun played strangely on her heavy hair. "I have not seen you all day," she said. "No, Countess." He did not know what to say to her. "I trust you are none the worse for your foolish performance this morning?" Her voice was even and unmodulated, not too friendly and not too cold. "I am, and I am not. I am unspeakably the worse in that I displeased you. Will you forgive me?" "I will forgive you," in the same tone. "Do you mean it? Do you mean you will forgive me what I said to you that--the other night?" "I did not say that," she answered, a little weariness sounding with the words. Claudius's face fell. "I am sorry," he said very simply. "So am I. I am disappointed in you more than I can say. You are just like all the others, and I thought you were different. Do you not understand me?" "Not entirely, though I will try to. Will you not tell me just what you mean to say?" "I think I will," she answered, looking up, but not towards Claudius. She hesitated a moment and then continued, "We are not children, Dr. Claudius; let us speak plainly, and not misunderstand each other." She glanced round the cabin as if to see if they were alone. Apparently she was not satisfied. "Move my chair nearer to the sofa, please," she added; and he rose and did her bidding. "I have not much to say," she went on, "but I do not want to say it before the whole ship's company. It is this: I thought I had found in you a friend, a man who would be to me what no one has ever been--a friend; and I am disappointed, for you want to be something else. That is all, except that it must not be thought of, and you must go." An Englishman would have reproached her with having given him encouragement; an Italian would have broken out into a passionate expression of his love, seeking to kindle her with his own fire. But the great, calm Northman clasped his hands together firmly on his knee and sat silent. "You must go--" she repeated. "I cannot go," he said honestly. "That is all the more reason why you should go at once," was the feminine argument with which she replied. "Let us go back to two days ago, and be as we were before. Will you not forget it?" "We cannot--you cannot, and I cannot. You are not able to take back your words or to deny them." "May God forbid!" said he very earnestly. "But if you will let me be your friend, I will promise to obey you, and I will not say anything that will displease you." "You cannot," she repeated; and she smiled bitterly. "But I can, and I will, if you will let me. I am very strong, and I will keep my word;" and indeed he looked the incarnation of strength as he sat with folded hands and earnest face, awaiting her reply. His words were not eloquent, but they were plain and true, and he meant them. Something in the suppressed power of his tone drove away the smile from Margaret's face, and she looked toward him. "Could you?" she asked. But the door opened, and Lady Victoria entered with her book. "Oh!" said Lady Victoria. "I must go and dress," said Claudius. "We will go on with the book to-morrow," said the Countess. And he bore away a light heart. On the following day the Duke began to take care of the Countess, as he had done yesterday, and Barker turned on the fireworks of his conversation for the amusement of Claudius. Claudius sat quite still for an hour or more, perhaps enjoying the surprise he was going to give the Duke and Barker. As the latter finished a brilliant tale, for the veracity of which he vouched in every particular, Claudius calmly rose and threw away his cigarette. "That is a very good story," he said. "Good-bye for the present. I am going to read with the Countess." Barker was nearly "taken off his feet." "Why--" he began, but stopped short. "Oh, very well. She is on deck. I saw the Duke bring up her rugs and things." His heavy moustache seemed to uncurl itself nervously, and his jaw dropped slowly, as he watched Claudius leave the deck-cabin. "I wonder when they got a chance," he said to himself. But Barker was not nearly so much astonished as the Duke. The latter was sitting by Margaret's side, near the wheel, making conversation. He was telling her such a good story about a mutual friend--the son of a great chancellor of the great empire of Kakotopia--who had gambled away his wife at cards with another mutual friend. "And the point of the story," said the Duke, "is that the lady did not object in the least. Just fancy, you know, we all knew her, and now she is married again to--" At this point Claudius strode up, and Margaret, who did not care to hear any more, interrupted the Duke. "Dr. Claudius, I have our book here. Shall we read?" The Doctor's face flushed with pleasure. The Duke stared. "I will get a chair," he said; and his long legs made short work of it. "Well, if you will believe it," said the Duke, who meant to finish his story, "it was not even the man who won her at cards that she married when she was divorced. It was a man you never met; and they are living in some place in Italy." The Duke could hardly believe his eyes when Claudius boldly marched up with his chair and planted himself on Margaret's other side. She leaned back, looking straight before her, and turning the leaves of the book absently backwards and forwards. The Duke was evidently expected to go, but he sat fully a minute stupidly looking at Margaret. At last she spoke. "That was not a very nice story. How odd! I knew them both very well. Do you remember where we left off, Dr. Claudius?" "Page one hundred and nineteen," answered the Doctor, who never forgot anything. This looked like business, and the Duke rose. He got away rather awkwardly. As usual, he departed to wreak vengeance on Mr. Barker. "Barker," he began with emphasis, "you are an ass." "I know it," said Barker, with humility. "I have been saying it over to myself for a quarter of an hour, and it is quite true. Say it again; it does me good." "Oh, that is all. If you are quite sure you appreciate the fact I am satisfied." "It dawned upon me quite suddenly a few minutes ago. Claudius has been here," said Barker. "He has been there too," said the Duke. "He is there now." "I suppose there is no doubt that we are talking about the same thing?" "I don't know about you," said the other. "I am talking about Claudius and Countess Margaret. They never had a chance to speak all day yesterday, and now she asks him to come and read with her. Just as I was telling no end of a jolly story too." Mr. Barker's wrinkle wound slowly round his mouth. He had been able to shave to-day, and the deep furrow was clearly defined. "Oh! she asked him to read, did she?" Then he swore, very slowly and conscientiously, as if he meant it. "Why the deuce do you swear like that?" asked the Duke. "If it is not true that she has refused him, you ought to be very glad." And he stuffed a disreputable short black pipe full of tobacco. "Why, of course I am. I was swearing at my own stupidity. Of course I am very glad if she has not refused him." He smiled a very unhealthy-looking smile. "See here--" he began again. "Well? I am seeing, as you call it." "This. They must have had a talk yesterday. He was here with me, and suddenly he got up and said he was going to read with her. And you say that she asked him to read with her when he went to where you were." "Called out to him half across the deck--in the middle of my story, too, and a firstrate one at that." "She does not care much for stories," said Barker; "but that is not the question. It was evidently a put-up job." "Meaning a preconcerted arrangement," said the Duke. "Yes. It was arranged between them some time yesterday. But I never left her alone until she said she was going to lie down." "And I never left him until you told me she had gone to bed." "She did not lie down, then," said the Duke. "Then she lied up and down," said Barker, savagely playful. "Ladies do not lie," said the Duke, who did not like the word, and refused to laugh. "Of course. And you and I are a couple of idiots, and we have been protecting her when she did not want to be protected. And she will hate us for ever after. I am disgusted. I will drown my cares in drink. Will you please ring the bell?" "You had better drink apollinaris. Grog will go to your head. I never saw you so angry." The Duke pressed the electric button. "I loathe to drink of the water," said Barker, tearing off the end of a cigar with his teeth. The Duke had seen a man in Egypt who bit off the heads of black snakes, and he thought of him at that moment. The steward appeared, and when the arrangements were made, the ocean in which Barker proposed to drown his cares was found to consist of a small glass of a very diluted concoction of champagne, bitters, limes, and soda water. The Duke had some, and thought it very good. "It is not a question of language," said Barker, returning to the conversation. "They eluded us and met. That is all." "By her wish, apparently," said the other. "We must arrange a plan of action," said Barker. "Why? If she has not refused him, it is all right. We have nothing more to do with it. Let them go their own way." "You are an old friend of the Countess's, are you not?" asked the American. "Yes--very well, would you like to see her married to Claudius?" "Upon my word," said the Duke, "I cannot see that I have anything to say about it. But since you ask me, I see no possible objection. He is a gentleman--has money, heaps of it--if she likes him, let her marry him if she pleases. It is very proper that she should marry again; she has no children, and the Russian estates are gone to the next heir. I only wanted to save her from any inconvenience. I did not want Claudius to be hanging after her, if she did not want him. She does. There is an end of it." O glorious English Common Sense! What a fine thing you are when anybody gets you by the right end. "You may be right," said Barker, with a superior air that meant "you are certainly wrong." "But would Claudius be able to give her the position in foreign society--" "Society be damned," said the Duke. "Do you think the widow of Alexis cannot command society? Besides, Claudius is a gentleman, and that is quite enough." "I suppose he is," said Mr. Barker, with an air of regret. "Suppose? There is no supposing about it. He is." And the Duke looked at his friend as if he would have said, "If I, a real, palpable, tangible, hereditary duke, do not know a gentleman when I see one, what can _you_ possibly know about it, I would like to inquire?" And that settled the matter. But Mr. Barker was uneasy in his mind. An idea was at work there which was diametrically opposed to the union of Claudius and Margaret, and day by day, as he watched the intimacy growing back into its old proportions, he ground his gold-filled teeth with increasing annoyance. He sought opportunities for saying and doing things that might curtail the length of those hours when Claudius sat at her side, ostensibly reading. Ostensibly? Yes--the first day or two after she had allowed him to come back to her side were days of unexampled industry and severe routine, only the most pertinent criticisms interrupting from time to time the even progress from line to line, from page to page, from paragraph to paragraph, from chapter to chapter. But soon the criticism became less close, the illustration more copious, the tongue more eloquent, and the glance less shy. The elective strength of their two hearts rose up and wrought mightily, saying, "We are made for each other, we understand each other, and these foolish mortals who carry us about in their bosoms shall not keep us apart." And to tell the truth, the foolish mortals made very little effort. Margaret did not believe that Claudius could possibly break his plighted word, and he knew that he would die rather than forfeit his faith. And so they sat side by side with the book, ostensibly reading, actually talking, most of the day. And sometimes one or the other would go a little too near the forbidden point, and then there was a moment's silence, and the least touch of embarrassment; and once Margaret laughed a queer little laugh at one of these stumbles, and once Claudius sighed. But they were very happy, and the faint colour that was natural to the Doctor's clear white skin came back as his heart was eased of its burden, and Margaret's dark cheek grew darker with the sun and the wind that she took no pains to keep from her face, though the olive flushed sometimes to a warmer hue, with pleasure--or what? She thought it was the salt breeze. "How well those two look!" exclaimed Lady Victoria once to Mr. Barker. "I have seen Claudius look ghastly," said Barker, for he thought they looked too "well" altogether. "Yes; do you remember one morning--I think it was the day before, or the day after, the accident? I thought he was going to faint." "Perhaps he was sea-sick," suggested Barker. "Oh no, we were a week out then, and he was never ill at all from the first." "Perhaps he was love-sick," said the other, willing to be spiteful. "How ridiculous! To think of such a thing!" cried the stalwart English girl; for she was only a girl in years despite her marriage. "But really," she continued, "if I were going to write a novel I would put those two people in it, they are so awfully good-looking. I would make all my heroes and heroines beautiful if I wrote books." "Then I fear I shall never be handed down to posterity by your pen, Lady Victoria," said Barker, with a smile. "No," said she, eyeing him critically, "I don't think I would put you in my book. But then, you know, I would not put myself in it either." "Ah," grinned Mr. Barker, "the book would lose by that, but I should gain." "How?" asked her ladyship. "Because we should both be well out of it," said he, having reached his joke triumphantly. But Lady Victoria did not like Mr. Barker, or his jokes, very much. She once said so to her brother. She thought him spiteful. "Well, Vick," said her brother good-naturedly, "I daresay you are right. But he amuses me, and he is very square on settling days." * * * * * Meanwhile Lady Victoria was not mistaken--Mr. Barker was spiteful; but she did not know that she was the only member of the party to whom he ventured to show it, because he thought she was stupid, and because it was such a relief to say a vicious thing now and then. He devoted himself most assiduously to Miss Skeat, since Margaret would not accept his devotion to her, and indeed had given him little chance to show that he would offer it. The days sped fast for some of the party, slowly for others, and pretty much as they did anywhere else for the Duke, who was in no especial hurry to arrive in New York. His affairs were large enough to keep, and he had given himself plenty of time. But nevertheless his affairs were the object in view; and though he did not like to talk about those things, even with Barker, the fate of Claudius and Margaret as compared with the larger destinies of the Green Swash Mining Company were as the humble and unadorned mole-hill to the glories of the Himalaya. People had criticised the Duke's financial career in England. Why had he sold that snuffbox that Marie Therèse gave to his ancestor when--well, you know when? Why had he converted those worm-eaten manuscripts, whereon were traced many valuable things in a variety of ancient tongues, into coin of the realm? And why had he turned his Irish estates into pounds, into shillings, yea, and into pence. Pence--just think of it! He had sold his ancestral lands for _pence_; that was what it came to. These and many other things the scoffers scoffed, with a right good-will. But none save the Duke could tell how many broad fields of ripening grain, and vine-clad hills, and clean glistening miles of bright rail, and fat ore lands sodden with wealth of gold and silver and luscious sulphurets--none save the Duke could tell how much of these good things the Duke possessed in that great land beyond the sea, upon which if England were bodily set down it would be as hard to find as a threepenny bit in a ten-acre field. But the Duke never told. He went about his business quietly, for he said in his heart, "Tush! I have children to be provided for; and if anything happens to the old country, I will save some bacon for them in the new, and they may call themselves dukes or farmers as far as I am concerned; but they shall not lack a few hundred thousand acres of homestead in the hour of need, neither a cow or two or a pig." The breeze held well, on the whole, and old Sturleson said they were having a wonderful run, which was doubtless an effort on the part of nature to atone for the injury she had done. But the days flew by, and yet they were not at their voyage's end. At last, as they sat sunning themselves in the fair September weather, Sturleson came to them, his bright quadrant, with its coloured glasses sticking out in all directions, in his hand, and told the Duke he thought that by to-morrow afternoon they would sight the Hook. The party were all together, as it happened, and there was a general shout, in which, however, Claudius joined but faintly. He longed for contrary winds, and he wished that Sandy Hook and all its appurtenances, including New York and the United States, would sink gently down to the bottom of the sea. He knew, and Sturleson had told him, that with unfavourable weather they might be at sea a month, and he was one of the two who voted to go to Bermuda when the accident occurred. That evening, as the sun was going down to his tossing bed of golden waves, all canopied with softest purple, Margaret stood leaning over the taffrail. Every stitch of canvas was out--topsails, gaff-topsails, staysails, and jibs--and the good yacht bounded with a will to the bright west. But the dark woman looked astern to where the billows rolled together, forgetting what precious burden they had borne. Claudius stole to her side and stood a moment looking at her face. "So it is over," he said at last. "Nearly over. It has been very pleasant," said she. "It has been more than pleasant. It has been divine--for me." "Hush!" said Margaret softly; "remember." There was silence, save for the rushing of the rudder through the dark-blue foam. Again Claudius spoke, softly, and it seemed to her that the voice was not his, but rather that it came up mystically from the water below. "Are you sorry it is over?" he asked--or the voice of the mighty deep welling up with its burden of truth. "Yes, I am very sorry," she answered, whether she would or no. The sun sank down, and the magic after-glow shone in the opposite sky, tinging ship and sails and waves. "I am very sorry too," he said; and he sighed and looked astern eastwards, and thought of the golden hours he had spent on that broad track stretching away behind. Margaret leaned down, resting her chin on her hands, and presently she unfolded them, and her fingers stole upwards and covered her face, and she bent her head. There was a mighty beating in Claudius's breast, and a thousand voices in the air cried to him to speak and to say what was in his heart to say. But he would not, for he had given the woman at his side the promise of his faith. At last she looked up and turned toward him. They were alone on the deck in the faintness of the gathering twilight. "Claudius, you have kept your promise truly and well. Keep it--keep it always." She held out her ungloved hand. "Always, my queen and my lady," and he kissed the white fingers once. "Hullo!" shouted the Duke, emerging from the cuddy. "Upon my word! Why, it's dinner time." CHAPTER X. How they left the good yacht _Streak_, and how they bade a hearty farewell to that old sea lion Captain Sturleson, and how they went through the hundred and one formalities of the custom-house, and the thousand and one informalities of its officials, are matters of interest indeed, but not of history. There are moments in a man's existence when the act of conveying half a dozen sovereigns to the pocket of that stern monitor of good faith, the brass-buttoned custom-house officer with the tender conscience, is of more importance to salvation than women's love or the Thirty-nine Articles. All this they did. Nor were they spared by the great tormentor of the West, who bristleth with the fretful quill, whose ears surround us in the night-time, and whose voice is as the voice of the charmer, the reporter of the just and the unjust, but principally of the latter. And Mr. Barker made an appointment with the Duke, and took a tender farewell of the three ladies, and promised to call on Claudius in the afternoon, and departed. But the rest of the party went to a famous old hotel much affected by Englishmen, and whose chief recommendation in their eyes is that there is no elevator, so that they can run upstairs and get out of breath, and fancy themselves at home. Of course their apartments had been secured, and had been waiting for them a week, and the Countess was glad to withdraw for the day into the sunny suite over the corner that was hers. As for Miss Skeat, she went to the window and stayed there, for America was quite different from what she had fancied. Claudius descended to the lower regions, and had his hair cut; and the cook and the bar-keeper and the head "boots," or porter, as he called himself, all came and looked in at the door of the barber's shop, and stared at the huge Swede. And the barber walked reverently round him with scissors and comb, and they all agreed that Claudius must be Mr. Barnum's new attraction, except the head porter--no relation of an English head porter--who thought it was "Fingal's babby, or maybe the blessed Sint Pathrick himself." And the little boy who brushed the frequenters of the barber's shop could not reach to Claudius's coat collar, so that the barber had to set a chair for him, and so he climbed up. The Duke retired also to the depths of his apartments, and his servant arrayed him in the purple and stove-pipe of the higher civilisation. And before long each of the ladies received a large cardboard box full of fresh-cut flowers, sent by Mr. Barker of course; and the Duke, hearing of this from his man, sent "his compliments to Lady Victoria, and would she send him a rose for his coat?" So the Duke sallied forth on foot, and the little creases in his clothes showed that he had just arrived. But he did not attract any attention, for the majority of the population of New York have "just arrived." Besides, he had not far to go. He had a friend in town who lived but a few steps from the hotel, and his first move on arriving was generally to call there. Claudius waited a short time to see whether Mr. Barker would come; but as Claudius rarely waited for anybody, he soon grew impatient, and squeezing himself into a cab, told the driver to take him to Messrs. Screw and Scratch in Pine Street. He was received with deference, and treated as his position demanded. Would he like to see Mr. Silas B. Barker senior? Very natural that he should want to make the acquaintance of his relative's old friend and partner. Mr. Screw was out, yes--but Mr. Scratch would accompany him. No trouble at all. Better "go around right off," as Mr. Barker would probably go to Newport by the boat that evening. So they went "around right away," and indeed it was a circular journey. Down one elevator, through a maze of corridors, round crowded corners, through narrow streets, Claudius ploughing his way through billows of curbstone brokers, sad and gay, messenger-boys, young clerks, fruit vendors, disreputable-looking millionaires and gentlemanly-looking scamps, newspaper-boys, drunken Irishmen, complacent holders of preferred, and scatterbrained speculators in wild-cat, an atmosphere of tobacco smoke, dust, melons, and unintelligible jargon--little Mr. Scratch clinging to his client's side, nodding furiously at every other face he saw, and occasionally shouting a word of outlandish etymology, but of magic import. Claudius almost thought it would be civil to offer to carry the little man, but when he saw how deftly Mr. Scratch got in a foot here and an elbow there, and how he scampered over any little bit of clear pavement, the Doctor concluded his new acquaintance was probably used to it. More elevators, more passages, a glass door, still bearing the names "Barker and Lindstrand," and they had reached their destination. The office was on the second floor, with large windows looking over the street; there were several people in the room they first entered, and the first person Claudius saw was Mr. Barker junior, his friend. "Well," said Barker, "so you have found us out. That's right. I was coming round to see you afterwards, for I did not suppose you would like to face 'the street' alone. Father," he said, turning to a thickset man with white hair and bushy eyebrows, "this is Dr. Claudius, Mr. Lindstrand's nephew." The old gentleman looked up keenly into Claudius's face, and smiled pleasantly as he put out his hand. He said a few words of cordial welcome, and seemed altogether a sturdy, hearty, hardworking man of business--rather a contrast to his son. He hoped that Claudius would come on to Newport with Silas, as he wanted to have a long talk with him. The old gentleman was evidently very busy, and his son took Claudius in charge. "What is that?" asked the Doctor, looking curiously at a couple of wheels that unwound unceasingly long strips of white paper. The paper passed through a small instrument, and came out covered with unintelligible signs, coiling itself in confusion into a waste-basket below. "That has driven more men to desperation, ruin, and drink, than all the other evils of humanity put together," said Barker. "That is the ticker." "I perceive that it ticks," said Claudius. And Barker explained how every variation in the market was instantly transmitted to every place of business, to every club, and to many private houses in New York, by means of a simple arrangement of symbols--how "Gr. S." meant Green Swash, and "N.P. pr." "North Pacific, preferred," and many other things. Claudius thought it an ingenious contrivance, but said it must be very wearing on the nerves. "It is the pulse of New York," said Barker. "It is the croupier calling out from morning till night 'trente-sept, rouge, impair,' and then 'Messieurs faites votre jeu--le jeu est fait.' When stock goes down you buy, when it goes up you sell. That is the whole secret." "I think it is very like gambling," said Claudius. "So it is. But we never gamble here, though we have a ticker to see what other people are doing. Besides, it tells you everything. Horse-racing, baseball, steamers, births, deaths, and marriages; corn, wheat, tobacco, and cotton. Nobody can live here without a ticker." And after this they went out into the street again, and Mr. Scratch took off his hat to Claudius, which is the highest token of unusual esteem and respect of which "the street" is capable, and in a moment the heels of his boots were seen disappearing into the dense crowd. Claudius and Barker walked on, and crossed Broadway; a few steps farther, and the Doctor was brought face to face with the triumph of business over privacy--the elevated railway. He had caught a glimpse of portions of it in the morning, but had supposed the beams and trestles to be scaffoldings for buildings. He stood a few moments in profound thought, contemplating and comprehending this triumph of wheels. "It is a great invention," he said quietly. And when they were seated in the long airy car, he looked out of the window, and asked whether the people in the first stories of the houses did not find it very disagreeable to have trains running by their windows all day. "The social and municipal economy of New York," explained Mr. Barker, "consists in one-third of the population everlastingly protesting against the outrageous things done by the other two-thirds. One-third fights another third, and the neutral third takes the fees of both parties. All that remains is handed over to the deserving poor." "That is the reason, I suppose, why there are so few poor in New York," observed the Doctor with a smile. "Exactly," said Barker; "they go West." "I would like to discuss the political economy of this country with you, when I have been here six months." "I hope you will not. And when you have been here six months you will be willing to pay a large sum rather than discuss it with any one." And so they went up town, and Claudius watched everything with interest, and occasionally made a remark. Barker was obliged to go on, and he put Claudius out on the platform at the station nearest his hotel, and which was in fact at the same cross-street. As Claudius ascended the steps he was overtaken by the Duke, who was breathless with running. "I--am afraid--it is too late," he panted; "come along," and he seized Claudius by the arm and dragged him to the corner of Fifth Avenue, before he could ask any questions. "What is the matter?" asked the Doctor, looking about. "He is gone," said the Duke, who had recovered his speech, "I knew he would, but I thought there was time. I was with a friend of mine, and I had just left him when I saw you, and as I have asked him to dinner I wanted to introduce you first. But he is always in such a hurry. Nowhere to be seen. Probably down town by this time." They turned back and went in. The Duke asked for the ladies. The Countess and her companion had gone to drive in the park, but Lady Victoria was upstairs. "Vick, I am going to have a man to dinner--of course we will all dine together the first night ashore--a man you have heard me speak of; you will like him amazingly." "Who is he?" "He is the uncle of the whole human race." "Including the peerage?" laughed Lady Victoria. "Peerage? I should think so. The whole of Debrett and the _Almanach de Gotha_. Nobility and gentry, the Emperor of China and the North American Indians." "That will suit Miss Skeat. She is always talking about the North American Indians. I think I know who it is." "Of course you do, and now he is coming." There was a pause. "Vick, may I smoke?" "Oh yes, if you like." His Grace lit a cigarette. "Vick, I am afraid you have had a dreadfully stupid time of it on this trip. I am so sorry. Those people turned out rather differently from what I had expected." The Duke was fond of his sister, though she was much younger than he, and he began to reflect that she had been poorly provided for, as he had engaged Barker most of their time. "Not at all. You know I am so fond of the sea and the open air, and I have enjoyed it all so much. Besides--" "It is awfully good of you to say so, my dear, but I don't believe a word of it. 'Besides'--you were going to say something." "Was I? Oh yes. Besides, you could not have had another man, you know, because it would have spoiled the table." "No, but I was so selfish about Barker, because he can play cards, and Claudius would not, or could not." "I am not sorry for that, exactly," said Lady Victoria. "You remember, we talked about him once. I do not like Mr. Barker very much." "Oh, he is no end of a good fellow in his way," said her brother. "Have you--a--any reason for not liking him, Vick?" "I think he is spiteful. He says such horrid things." "Does he? What about?" said the Duke indifferently, as he tore a bit of charred paper from the end of his cigarette, which had burned badly. She did not answer at first. He inspected the cigarette, puffed it into active life again, and looked up. "What about, Vick?" "About his friend--about Doctor Claudius. I like Doctor Claudius." Lady Victoria smoothed her rebellious brown hair at the huge over-gilt pier-glass of the little drawing-room which she and Margaret had in common. "I like him too," said the Duke. "He is a gentleman. Why don't you do your hair like the American women--all fuzzy, over your eyes? I should think it would be much less trouble." "It's not neat," said her ladyship, still looking into the glass. Then suddenly, "Do you know what I think?" "Well?" "I believe Mr. Barker would like to marry Margaret himself." "Pshaw! Victoria, don't talk nonsense. Who ever heard of such a thing! The Duke rose and walked once up and down the room; then he sat down again in the same place. He was not pleased at the suggestion. "Why is it such nonsense?" she asked. "Any number of reasons. Besides, she would not have him." "That would not prevent him from wishing to marry her." "No, of course not, but--well, it's great stuff." He looked a little puzzled, as if he found it hard to say exactly why he objected to the idea. "You would be very glad if Claudius married her, would you not?" asked his sister. "Glad--I don't know--yes, I suppose so." "But you pretend to like Mr. Barker a great deal more than you like Doctor Claudius," said she argumentatively. "I know him better," said the Duke; "I have known Barker several years." "And he is rich--and that, and why should he not think of proposing to Margaret?" "Because--well I don't know, but it would be so deuced inappropriate," in which expression the honest-hearted Englishman struck the truth, going for it with his head down, after the manner of his people. "At first he was very nice," said Lady Victoria, who had gained a point, though for what purpose she hardly knew; "but after a while he began to say disagreeable things. He hinted in all sorts of ways that Claudius was not exactly a gentleman, and that no one knew where he came from, and that he ought not to make love to Margaret, and so on, till I wanted to box his ears;" and she waxed warm in her wrath, which was really due in great part to the fact that Mr. Barker was personally not exactly to her taste. If she had liked him she would have thought differently of the things he said. But her brother was angry too by this time, for he remembered a conversation he had had with Barker on the same topic. "I told Barker once that Claudius was a gentleman, every inch of him, and I should think that was enough. As if I did not know--it's too bad, upon my word!" And the ducal forehead reddened angrily. The fact was that both he and his sister had taken an unaccountable fancy to this strange Northman, with his quiet ways and his unaffected courtesy, and at the present moment they would have quarrelled with their best friends rather than hear a word against him. "My guest, too, and on my yacht," he went on; and it did his sister good to see him angry--"it's true he brought him, and introduced him to me." Then a bright idea struck him. "And if Claudius were not a gentleman, what the deuce right had Barker to bring him to me at all, eh? Wasn't it his business to find out? My word! I would like to ask him that, and if I find him I will." Lady Victoria had no intention of making mischief between her brother and Mr. Barker. But she did not like the American, and she thought Barker was turning the Duke into a miner, or a farmer, or a greengrocer, or something--it was not quite clear. But she wished him out of the way, and fate had given her a powerful weapon. It was just that sort of double-handedness that the Duke most hated of all things in the earth. Moreover, he knew his sister never exaggerated, and that what she had told him was of necessity perfectly true. Woe to Mr. Silas B. Barker junior if he came in the Duke's way that evening! "I suppose he is coming to dinner?" said the Duke after a pause, during which his anger had settled into a comfortable ferocity. "No," said Lady Victoria; "he sent some flowers and a note of regret." "Well--I am glad of that. Would you like to go for a drive, Vick?" "Yes, of all things. I have not been here since I was married"--which was about eighteen months, but she had already caught that matronly phrase--"and I want to see what they have been doing to the Park." "All right. We'll take Claudius, if he is anywhere about the place." "Of course," said Lady Victoria. And so the brother and sister prepared to soothe their ruffled feelings by making much of the man who was "a gentleman." But they were right, for Claudius was all they thought him, and a great deal more too, as they discovered in the sequel. Having driven in the Park, the Duke insisting that Claudius should sit in the place of honour with Lady Victoria, and having criticised to their satisfaction the few equipages they met--for it was too early for New York--they went back to their hotel, and dispersed to dress for dinner. The Duke, as he had told his sister, had invited his friend to dine. They all sat together waiting his arrival. Punctual to the moment, the door opened, and Mr. Horace Bellingham beamed upon the assembled party. Ay, but he was a sight to do good to the souls of the hungry and thirsty, and of the poor, and in misery! He requires description, not that any pen can describe him, but no one ever saw him who did not immediately wish to try. He was short, decidedly; but a broad deep chest and long powerful arms had given him many an advantage over taller adversaries in strange barbarous lands. He was perfectly bald, but that must have been because Nature had not the heart to cover such a wonderful cranium from the admiring gaze of phrenologists. A sweeping moustache and a long imperial of snowy white sat well on the ruddy tan of his complexion, and gave him an air at once martial and diplomatic. He was dressed in the most perfect of London clothes, and there were superb diamonds in his shirt, while a priceless sapphire sparkled, in a plain gold setting, on his broad, brown hand. He is the only man of his time who can wear precious stones without vulgarity. He moves like a king and has the air of the old school in every gesture. His dark eyes are brighter than his diamonds, and his look, for all his white beard and seventy years, is as young and fresh as the rose he wears in his coat. There are some people who turn gray, but who do not grow hoary, whose faces are furrowed but not wrinkled, whose hearts are sore wounded in many places, but are not dead. There is a youth that bids defiance to age, and there is a kindness which laughs at the world's rough usage. These are they who have returned good for evil, not having learned it as a lesson of righteousness, but because they have no evil in them to return upon others. Whom the gods love die young, and they die young because they never grow old. The poet, who at the verge of death said this, said it of, and to, this very man. The Duke went through the introductions, first to the Countess, then to Miss Skeat, then to his sister, and last of all to Claudius, who had been intently watching the newcomer. Mr. Bellingham paused before Claudius, and looked up in a way peculiarly his own, without raising his head. He had of course heard in New York of the strange fortune that had befallen Claudius on the death of the well-known Mr. Lindstrand, and now he stood a minute trying to take the measure of the individual before him, not in the least overcome by the physical proportions of the outer man, but struck by the intellectual face and forehead that surmounted such a tower of strength. "I was in Heidelberg myself--a student," said he, his face lighting up with coming reminiscences, "but that was long before you were born, fifty years ago." "I fancy it is little changed," said Claudius. "I would like to go back to the Badischer Hof. I remember once--" but he broke off short and turned to the Countess, and sat down beside her. He knew all her people in America and her husband's people abroad. He immediately began telling her a story of her grandmother, with a _verve_ and graphic spirit that enchanted Margaret, for she liked clever old men. Besides he is not old. It is not so long since--well, it is a long story. However, in less than one minute the assembled guests were listening to the old-time tale of Margaret's ancestress, and the waiter paused breathless on the threshold to hear the end, before he announced dinner. There are two very different ways of dining--dining with Mr. Bellingham, and dining without him. But for those who have dined with him, all other prandial arrangements are an empty sham. At least so Claudius said to Margaret in an aside, when they got to the fruit. And Margaret, who looked wonderfully beautiful with a single band of gold through her black hair, laughed her assent, and said it was hopeless for the men of this day to enter the lists against the veterans of the _ancien régime_. And Claudius was not in the least hurt by the comparison, odious though it would have been to Mr. Barker, had he been there. Claudius had plenty of vanity, but it did not assume the personal type. Some people call a certain form of vanity pride. It is the same thing on a larger scale. Vanity is to pride what nervousness is to nerve, what morbid conscience is to manly goodness, what the letter of the law is to the spirit. Before they rose from the table, Mr. Bellingham proposed that they should adjourn to Newport on the following day. He said it was too early to be in New York and that Newport was still gay; at all events, the weather promised well, and they need not stay more than twenty-four hours unless they pleased. The proposition was carried unanimously, the Duke making a condition that he should be left in peace and not "entertained in a handsome manner by the _élite_ of our Newport millionaires"--as the local papers generally have it. Lady Victoria would not have objected to the operation of "being entertained" by Newport, for it amused her to see people, but of course she would enjoy herself very well without it. She always enjoyed herself, even when she went for a walk in the rain on a slippery Yorkshire road, all bundled up in waterproofs and hoods and things for her poor people--she enjoyed it all. As for Claudius, he knew that if he went to Newport he must of necessity stay with the Barkers, but as he had not yet learned to look at Mr. Barker in the light of a rival, he thought this would be rather convenient than otherwise. The fact that he would be within easy reach of Margaret was uppermost in his mind. During the last two days his relations with her had been of the happiest. There was an understanding between them, which took the place of a great deal of conversation. Claudius felt that his error in speaking too boldly had been retrieved, if not atoned for, and that henceforward his position was assured. He was only to be a friend, it was true, but he still felt that from friendship to love was but a step, and that the time would come. He thought of the mighty wooings of the heroes of his Northern home, and he felt in him their strength and their constancy. What were other men that he should think of them? He was her accepted friend of all others. She had said she hoped to find in him what she had never found before; and were not her words "always, always!" still ringing in his ears? She had found it then in him, this rare quality of friendship; she had found more,--a man who was a friend and yet a lover, but who could curb the strong passion to the semblance and docility of the gentler feeling. And when at last she should give the long-desired sign, the single glance that bids love speak, she would find such a lover as was not even dreamt of among the gods of the Greeks, nor yet among berserk heroes of ice and storm and battle. He felt to-day that he could endure to the end, for the end was worthy all endurance. And now he sat by her side and looked down into her face when she spoke, and they laughed together. Verily was Claudius the proudest man in all earth's quarters, and his blue eyes flashed a deep fire, and his nostrils expanded with the breath of a victory won. Mr. Bellingham, on the other side of the table, sparkled with a wit and grace that were to modern table-talk what a rare flagon of old madeira, crusted with years, but brimming with the imperishable strength and perfume of eternal youth, might be to a gaudily-ticketed bottle of California champagne, effervescent, machine-made, cheap, and nasty. And his glance comprehended the pair, and loved them. He thought they were like a picture of the North and of the South; and the thought called up memories in his brave old breast of a struggle that shook the earth to her foundations, and made him think of problems yet unsolved. He sat in his place silent for some minutes, and the broad brown hand stroked the snowy beard in deep thought, so that the conversation flagged, and the Duke began to talk about the voyage. But Mr. Bellingham took his brimming glass, filled with the wine that ripened in the sun when he himself was but a little boy, and he held it a moment to the light; the juice was clearer now than it had been that day sixty years, and the hand that held the goblet was as a hand of iron for strength and steadiness, though the dark fingers might have plucked the grapes on the day they were pressed. And with an old-time motion he carried it to his lips, then paused one instant, then drank it slowly, slowly to the last drop. It was a toast, but the speech was unspoken, and none knew to whom or to what he drained the measure. In a little time he began to speak again; the conversation turned upon mutual friends in England, and the dinner was at an end. But all through the evening Claudius never left Margaret's side. He felt that he was bridging over the difference between life at sea and life on land--that he was asserting his right to maintain in a drawing-room the privileges he had gained on the deck of the _Streak_. And Margaret, moreover, was especially friendly to-night, for she too felt the difference, and recognised that, after all, life on shore is the freer. There are certain conventionalities of a drawing-room that a man is less likely to break through, more certain to remember, than the unwritten rules of cruising etiquette. Most men who have led a free life are a little less likely to make love under the restraint of a white tie than they are when untrammelled by restraints of dress, which always imply some restraint of freedom. At least Margaret thought so. And Claudius felt it, even though he would not acknowledge it. They talked about the voyage; about what they had said and done, about the accident, and a hundred other things. There is a moment in acquaintance, in friendship, and in love, when two people become suddenly aware that they have a common past. Days, weeks, or months have been spent in conversation, in reading, perhaps in toil and danger, and they have not thought much about it. But one day they wake up to the fact that these little or great things bind them, as forming the portion of their lives that have touched; and as they talk over the incidents they remember they feel unaccountably drawn to each other by the past. Margaret and Claudius knew this on the first evening they spent together on shore. The confusion of landing, the custom-house, the strange quarters in the great hotel--all composed a drop-curtain shutting off the ocean scene, and ending thus an episode of their life-drama. A new act was beginning for them, and they both knew how much might depend on the way in which it was begun, and neither dared plan how it should end. At all events, they were not to be separated yet, and neither anticipated such a thing. Little by little their voices dropped as they talked, and they recked little of the others, as the dark cheek of the woman flushed with interest, and the blue light shone in the man's eyes. Their companions on the voyage were well used to seeing them thus together, and hardly noticed them, but Mr. Bellingham's bright eyes stole a glance from time to time at the beautiful pair in their corner, and the stories of youth and daring and love, that he seemed so full of this evening, flashed with an unwonted brilliancy. He made up his mind that the two were desperately, hopelessly, in love, and he had taken a fancy to Claudius from the first. There was no reason why they should not be, and he loved to build up romances, always ending happily, in his fertile imagination. But at last it was "good-night." Mr. Bellingham was not the man to spend the entire evening in one house, and he moved towards Margaret, hating to disturb the couple, but yet determined to do it. He rose, therefore, still talking, and, as the Duke rose also, cleverly led him round the chairs until within speaking distance of Margaret, who was still absorbed in her conversation. Then, having finished the one thread, he turned round. "By the by, Countess," he said, "I remember once--" and he told a graceful anecdote of Margaret's grandmother, which delighted every one, after which he bowed, like a young lover of twenty, to each of the three ladies, and departed. The party dispersed, the Duke and Claudius for half an hour's chat and a cigar, and the ladies to their rooms. But Claudius and Margaret lingered one moment in their corner, standing. "Has it been a happy day for you?" he asked, as she gave her hand. "Yes, it has been happy. May there be many like it!" she answered. "There shall be," said Claudius; "good-night, Countess." "Good-night--good-night, Claudius." The Duke waited fully ten minutes for the Doctor. It was the second time she had spoken his name without the formality of a prefix, and Claudius stood where she left him, thinking. There was nothing so very extraordinary in it, after all, he thought. Foreign women, especially Russians, are accustomed to omit any title or prefix, and to call their intimate friends by their simple names, and it means nothing. But her voice was so wonderful. He never knew his name sounded so sweet before--the consonants and vowels, like the swing and fall of a deep silver bell in perfect cadence. "A little longer," thought Claudius, "and it shall be hers as well as mine." He took a book from the table absently, and had opened it when he suddenly recollected the Duke, put it down and left the room. Soon a noiseless individual in a white waistcoat and a dress-coat put his head in at the door, advanced, straightened the chairs, closed the book the Doctor had opened, put the gas out and went away, shutting the door for the night, and leaving the room to its recollections. What sleepless nights the chairs and heavy-gilt glasses and gorgeous carpets of a hotel must pass, puzzling over the fragments of history that are enacted in their presence! CHAPTER XI. Mr. Barker's urgent engagement up town that evening must have been to meet some one; but considering that the individual he might be supposed to be awaiting did not come, he showed a remarkable degree of patience. He went to a certain quiet club and ordered, with the utmost care, a meal after his own heart--for one; and though several members hailed him and greeted him on his return, he did not seem particularly interested in what they had to say, but sat solitary at his small square table with its exquisite service; and when he had eaten, and had finished his modest pint of Pommery Sec, he drank his coffee and smoked his own cigars in undisturbed contemplation of the soft-tinted wall-paper, and in calm, though apparently melancholy, enjoyment of the gentle light that pervaded the room, and of the sweet evening breeze that blew in from the trees of Madison Square, so restful after the dust and discomfort of the hot September day. Whoever it was that he awaited did not come, and yet Mr. Barker exhibited no sign of annoyance. He went to another room, and sat in a deep arm-chair with a newspaper which he did not read, and once he took a scrap of paper from his pocket and made a short note upon it with a patent gold pencil. It was a very quiet club, and Mr. Barker seemed to be its quietest member. And well he might be, for he had made up his mind on a grave point. He had determined to marry. He had long known it must come, and had said to himself more than once that "to every man upon this earth death cometh, soon or late;" but being human, he had put off the evil day, having always thought that it must, of necessity, be evil. But now it was different. What he had said to the Duke, and what the Duke had said to him, that evening on the yacht when they were talking about marriage, was exactly what he had always expected to occur. The day, he said, must come when the enterprising mamma will get the better of Silas B. Barker junior. The girl of the season, with her cartload of bouquets slung all over her, her neat figure, her pink-and-white complexion and her matchless staying powers in a ballroom, will descend upon the devoted victim Barker, beak and talons, like the fish-hawk on the poor, simple minnow innocently disporting itself in the crystal waters of happiness. There will be wedding presents, and a breakfast, and a journey, and a prospect of everlasting misery. All these things, thought he, must come to every man in time, unless he is a saint, or an author, or has no money, and therefore they must come to me; but now it was different. If there is to be any fishing, he thought, I will be the hawk, and the minnow may take its chance of happiness. Why should the minnow not be happy? I am a hawk; well--but I am a very good hawk. But these reflections were not what occupied his mind as he sat with his second cigar in the reading-room of his quiet club. These things he had elaborated in his brain at least three days ago, and they had now taken the form of a decision, against which there could be no appeal, because it was pleasant to the _ego_ of Mr Barker. Judgments of that sort he never reversed. He had fully determined to be the hawk, he had picked out his minnow, and he was meditating the capture of his prey. A great many people do as much as that, and discover too late that what they have taken for a minnow is an alligator, or a tartar, or a salamander, or some evil beast that is too much for their powers. This was what Mr. Barker was afraid of, and this was what he wished to guard against. Unfortunately he was a little late in the selection of his victim, and he knew it. He had determined to marry the Countess Margaret. He knew perfectly well that Claudius had determined upon the very same thing, and he knew that Claudius was intimate, to say the least of it, with the woman he loved. But Barker had made up his mind that Claudius had been refused, and had accepted the Platonic position offered him by the Countess, merely because he had not the strength to leave her. "Just like the vanity of a fellow like that," he argued, "not to be willing to believe himself beaten." He had drawn the whole situation in his mind entirely to his own satisfaction. If Claudius could only be removed, any other man would have as good a chance. The other man is Barker--therefore, remove Claudius at once. Remove him! Away with him! Let his place know him no more! Mr. Barker sat unmoved in his chair; but he contemplated the nail on the middle finger of his left hand with absorbed interest, even bringing it nearer the light in order to obtain a better view. He was one of those men who are seldom altogether unprepared. His mind was of the Napoleonic order, on a very small scale; with him to think of the end was to plan the means, and in the days that had followed the memorable night wherein the idea had struck him that he might marry the Countess in the teeth of Dr. Claudius, a project had grown up in his mind whereby he hoped now to effect his purpose. Perhaps the scheme had developed unconsciously, as often happens with persons whose lives are spent in planning. Perhaps he fondly hoped--for he was not without vanity--that he might yet win the Countess fairly, and had only contemplated his plot as a possibility. Be that as it may, from the moment he realised that a plan of action was necessary he also realised that the plan was ready, and he determined to put it into execution. It was an unfair plan he meditated, bad from the root up, and he knew it; but he did not hesitate on that account. Silas B. Barker junior had not enough conscience to make it an object for him to deceive himself as to the morality of his actions. A year or two since he would perhaps have defended himself in a general way by saying it was arrogance for a man to set himself up as any better than his surroundings. But between a year or two ago and this September evening there was set a gulf, represented by a couple of transactions in the "street," over which there was small joy in heaven and very little on earth. Fair or unfair, it would be so much easier if Claudius were out of the way. It would simplify Mr. Barker's campaign so much; and, besides, it was so easy a matter to remove him, for a time at least. How? Why, simply by asserting that Claudius was not Claudius, that he was not the late Mr. Lindstrand's nephew, that he had no right to the fortune, and that if he wished to save himself trouble he had better return immediately to Heidelberg and resume his duties as a private lecturer in the University. It was easy enough! Who was there to show that Claudius was Claudius? There was nothing but the attestation of a wretched Heidelberg notary, who might easily have been persuaded to swear a little in consideration of a large bribe. Besides, reflected Mr. Barker, the real Dr. Claudius was dead. He died about eight months ago; no doubt it was in the newspapers at the time, and a newspaper could certainly be found which should contain a notice of his death. Therefore, if the real Dr. Claudius were dead this Dr. Claudius was a sham, an impostor, a man obtaining money by personating the dead--in short, a criminal. However, it might not be necessary to proceed with all the rigour of the law, and he might be quietly sent back to Germany. Of course Mr. Barker was responsible in some measure for having introduced this villain to the Countess and to the Duke. But how could Mr. Barker, a creature of sunny, lamb-like innocence, be expected to know an impostor at first sight? Claudius had acted his part so very well, you know, and Barker had been deceived by his apparent frankness; he had not even made any inquiries in Heidelberg, but had simply gone to the address his father had given him. Of course, also, the pretender had adopted the obvious expedient of taking the dead man's lodgings; had installed himself there, and called himself "Dr. Claudius." Nobody in America had ever seen the real Dr. Claudius; none of the yachting party had any means of knowing whether he were what he pretended to be or not; the only person who vouched for him was Silas B. Barker junior. And if Silas B. Barker junior would not vouch for him any longer, who would, pray? Obviously, no one. "Dukes are very pretty things," said Mr. Barker; "and to know them intimately is a special grace. But they cannot swear to what they do not know anything about, any more than other people." And he lit another cigar, and looked at the clock, an old-fashioned black-marble timepiece with gilded hands. It wanted half an hour of midnight, and Mr. Barker's solitude had lasted since seven or thereabouts. Some one entered the room, bidding good-night to some one else at the door. Mr. Barker turned his eyes, and, recognising a friend, he smiled a wrinkled smile. "Well, Mr. Screw, how goes it?" he said. "It is some time since we met." "Happy to meet you, sir; glad to see you," replied the lawyer, putting out a long hand towards the part of the room where Mr. Barker was standing. Mr. Screw was Mr. Scratch's partner. Mr. Screw was very tall, very thin, and exceedingly yellow. He had thick yellow hair, streaked with gray. His face seemed bound in old parchment, and his eyes were like brass nails driven very deep, but bright and fixed when he spoke. He had a great abundance of teeth of all sizes and shapes; his face was clean shaven; and he wore a stand-up collar, with a narrow black tie neatly adjusted in a bow. His feet and hands were of immense size. He was in evening-dress. He doubled up a few of his joints and deposited himself in a deep arm-chair--the twin of Barker's--on the other side of the fireplace. "I thought very likely you would be here before the evening was out," said Mr. Barker. "Yes," he continued after a pause, "that is the reason I came here. I wanted to see you on business, and I missed you to-day down town." "Oh! business, did you say?" inquired the other, rubbing his bony nose and looking at the empty grate. "Yes, rather important to you--more than to myself, though it concerns me too. You have a new client, I believe; the nephew of our old partner Mr. Lindstrand." "Dr. Claudius?" asked the lawyer, looking up. "He calls himself so, at any rate," said Barker. "What do you mean?" asked Mr. Screw quickly, shifting his position. "Do you think you have taken all the necessary steps towards ascertaining that he is the heir--the right man--the real Dr. Claudius?" "Great heavens!" exclaimed the lawyer, surprised and terribly frightened by Barker's insinuation, "you don't mean to say there is any doubt about it, do you?" "I am inclined to think there is doubt--yes, decidedly. It is a very serious matter, and I thought it best to speak to you about it before talking to my father. You see, though the loss might fall on us, indirectly, the moral responsibility is yours, since you are the lawyers in the case." "But your father is one of the executors, Mr. Barker," said Mr. Screw, who felt obliged to say something, and wanted to gain time. "My father--yes," and Barker smiled disagreeably. "Yes, he is one of the executors. But you yourself are the other, Mr. Screw. And as far as any intelligence in the matter is concerned, you might be alone." Barker was willing to flatter the lawyer at the expense of his fond parent. Screw would be of more use to him than many fathers in this matter. Mr. Screw relapsed into silence, and sat for some minutes, hooking one leg behind the other, and thrusting as much of his hands into his pockets as those receptacles would contain. After a time he changed his position, heaved a species of sigh that sounded like the sudden collapse of a set of organ-bellows, and ran his fingers through his thick hair. Barker thought he was going to speak. But he was mistaken; Mr. Screw was too much taken aback to speak yet. Then Barker spoke for him. "Well," said he, caressing his foot and looking at the ceiling, "what are you going to do about it?" "I shall do what is proper in such cases. I will stop his drawing any more money, and investigate the matter. If this is not the real Claudius, the real Claudius must be somewhere, and can be found." "Perhaps he is dead," suggested Barker. "It is about as easy to find a dead man as a live man," said Screw. "It is a surer thing, on the whole. A dead man can't change his clothes, and get his beard shaved off, and cavoort around the corner." "Not generally speaking," said the other, "no well-regulated corpse would do it, anyhow. Besides, if he is dead, there must have been some notice of it in the Heidelberg papers. He belonged to the University, and they always put those things in the local sheet in Germany." "That's so," said the lawyer. "Do you know anybody in Heidelberg who would look the matter up, Mr. Barker?" Mr. Barker did know some one in Heidelberg--the very man, in fact. He would write immediately, and set the inquiry on foot. Meanwhile there were other things to be settled. After the first shock the lawyer was not inclined to let Barker off so easily for having indorsed a man he suspected of being a humbug. Barker retorted that he had found Claudius in possession of the documents transmitted by Messrs. Screw and Scratch, and that it was not his fault if he supposed that those astute gentlemen had taken proper precautions to ascertain the identity of their client. He went into many details, explaining how his suspicions had been aroused by degrees in the course of many conversations. He was expecting a question from Mr. Screw. At last it came. "Mr. Barker," said Screw, fixing his brass-headed eyes intently on his companion--for Mr. Screw was no fool--"Mr. Barker, you brought this man over here, and you know him better than any one else. Now, what I want to know is this. He may be the right man, after all. What we are going to do is entirely precautionary. Do you want to appear or not?" Barker had not expected the question to be put so directly, but he was perfectly prepared for it. "I am sure I do not care," he said, with a fine indifference. "I have no objection. It is a mere question of expediency; do not consider me in the matter. Do what you think is right," he added, emphasising the last word, and meeting Screw's glance boldly enough. Screw looked at him for a moment or two in silence, and then turned his eyes away. There was the faintest reflection of a smile on his yellow face, and the expression became him well. Screw was astute, sharp as a ferret, relentless as a steel-corkscrew, crushing its cruel way through the creaking cork; but Screw was an honest man, as the times go. That was the difference between him and Barker. Screw's smile was his best expression, Barker's smile was of the devil, and very wily. Screw smiled because he was amused. Barker smiled when he was successful. "I think for the present," said Mr. Screw, "that unless you positively wish to appear, it would be as well that you should not. If we are mistaken, and the Doctor is really what he pretends to be, it will be very unpleasant for you afterwards to have been concerned in an inquiry into the validity of his rights." "Do you think so?" asked Barker, looking languidly across at Mr. Screw. "Very well, in that case you may conduct the inquiry, and I will not appear. I shall meet him just as if nothing had happened, and let him tell me what you have done. Of course he will tell me, the first thing. Besides, as you say, he may be the right man, after all." "Exactly," said Mr. Screw. He knew perfectly well that Barker would not want Claudius to know the part he had played, in case all turned out to be right, though he did not know that Barker was deceiving him. He supposed that Barker really had serious doubts about Claudius, and as there was no one else to vouch for the latter, he was very honestly frightened. He reviewed the situation in his own mind, and he came to the conclusion that he had really been remiss in the performance of his duties as executor. It had not seemed in the least probable that any deception could be practised, and yet, when all was said, there was only the Heidelberg notary's attestation of the signature to support the claimant of Mr. Lindstrand's fortune. This reflection comforted Mr. Screw a little. At all events, he would be perfectly justified in calling on Claudius and stating his difficulty, requesting him to give what assistance was in his power towards a speedy identification of himself. In the meantime he set himself to cross-examine Mr. Barker, endeavouring to extract all the information he could. But extracting information from Mr. Barker was no easy task, as he very soon found, and as the hands of the clock pointed to one, he rose slowly, as by stages, from the depths of his arm-chair, and made up his mind that Barker did not know very much about the matter, though he knew more than any one else, and that the only thing to be done was to go straight to Claudius and state the case. No honest man ever had much difficulty in proving who he was, thought Mr. Screw, and if he is an impostor, he will very likely not show fight at all, but make off to parts unknown, where he can very easily be caught. Barker rose from his seat too, and took leave of the lawyer, well pleased with the result of his evening's work. It was very satisfactory. He had produced exactly the impression on Mr. Screw's mind which he had intended to produce; and having set that engine of the law in motion, he knew that he could fold his hands and proceed to enjoy himself after his manner. He knew that everything would be done which could contribute to annoy and mortify Claudius, and that it would be done in such a way, with such paraphernalia of legal courtesy and mercantile formality, that the unhappy Doctor could not complain. Barker had shrewdly calculated the difficulties Claudius would have to surmount in identifying himself in a strange country, without friends, and against the prejudices of Mr. Screw, his uncle's executor. Moreover, if, after countless efforts and endless trouble, Claudius succeeded, as he probably would, in obtaining his fortune, Barker would be no worse off than before. He would have done nothing assailable, and he would have gained all the advantages of the time Claudius lost, not to mention the cloud of suspicion which must inevitably rest on the Doctor, until he should succeed in clearing himself before the world. With skill, courage, and money, there was no telling what progress Barker might make in his suit for the Countess, before Claudius was himself again. With such an advantage, if he could not outdo the Swede, he did not deserve to. So saying, Mr. Barker, left once more alone in the sitting-room, paced slowly twice round the table, looked at himself in the glass, twisted his heavy moustache into shape, and smoothed his hair. Then he took his hat and went out. There was a cab at the door of the club, and in a minute more he was spinning along Fifth Avenue, in the direction of his father's house. The machinery was wound up, and he had nothing more to do. To-morrow morning Claudius would pass a bad quarter of an hour with Mr. Screw, and in the afternoon Barker would call upon him and offer such consolation as was in his power; and when he had called on Claudius, he would call on the Countess Margaret and tell her what sad sceptics these legal people were, everlastingly pestering peaceable citizens in the hope of extracting from them a few miserable dollars. And he would tell her how sorry he was that Claudius should be annoyed, and how he, Barker, would see him through--that is, he hoped so; for, he would add, of course, such men as Mr. Screw and his own father would not make so much trouble if they did not at least think they had some cause for anxiety; and so forth, and so on. And he would leave the Countess with a most decided impression that there was something wrong about Claudius. Oh yes! something not _quite_ clear about his antecedents, you know. Of course it would come right in the end--no doubt of that; oh dear, no. It was a happy night for Mr. Barker; but Claudius slept ill. He had an evil dream. CHAPTER XII When Mr. Screw called at Claudius's hotel the next day, the Doctor had gone out. Mr. Screw said he would wait, and sat down with a book to pass the time, for he was fond of reading in his leisure moments, few as they were. Claudius had left the house early in the morning, and had gone to find the spot where his uncle had been buried--no easy matter, in the vast cemetery where the dead men lie in hundreds of thousands, in stately avenues and imposing squares, in houses grand and humble, high and low, but all closed and silent with the grandeur of a great waiting. Claudius was not sentimental in this pilgrimage; it was with him a matter of course, a duty which he performed naturally for the satisfaction of his conscience. He could not have told any other reason, though, if he had been called upon to analyse the feeling which impels most men to do the same thing, under the same circumstances, he would have replied that a scientific explanation of the fact could only be found in the ancient practices of "ancestor worship," of which some trace remains unto this day. But he would have added that it was a proper mark of reverence and respect for the dead, and that man naturally inclines to fulfil such obligations, unless deterred by indolence or the fear of ridicule. At any rate, he went alone; and it was late in the afternoon before he came back. When at last he returned, he was not surprised to find Mr. Screw awaiting him. He had not found that gentleman on his first visit to Pine Street; and it seemed very natural that his uncle's executor should call upon him. He was cordial and courteous to his visitor, who took the Doctor's measure, and looked into his honest eyes, and realised that this claimant to Lindstrand's money was undoubtedly a very fine fellow indeed. Mr. Screw felt that it would be hard to tell such a man to his face that he was not altogether satisfied of his identity. But then, as the lawyer reflected, swindlers are generally fine fellows; indeed, their imposing appearance is often their whole capital and stock-in-trade. Mr. Screw had a profound knowledge of mankind, and he immediately determined upon his course of action, which should be cautious, but at the same time honest and straightforward. After a preliminary exchange of civilities, he opened fire. "I have come on very delicate business, Dr. Claudius," said he; and he hooked one leg behind the other as he sat and ran his hands through his hair. Claudius settled himself in his chair and waited, not having any idea what the business might be. "You will readily understand," continued Mr. Screw, "that in my position I feel obliged to take every conceivable precaution in administering the estate of the late Mr. Lindstrand. You will, therefore, not be offended at what I am going to say. My personality has nothing to do with it, nor can any personal impression you produce upon me, no matter how favourable, be considered in the light of evidence. I have never seen you before, and I am bound to say that the little I know of you, although perfectly satisfactory as far as it goes, is not sufficient to prove in a court that you are really the person indicated in Mr. Lindstrand's will." Here Mr. Screw paused to see how Claudius would take the hint that more evidence was required. But Claudius, the embodiment of calm strength, intellectual and physical, was not to be moved by such trifles. He showed not the slightest emotion, nor did he betray any especial interest in what the lawyer was saying. His attitude was that of attention to a matter which it was his duty to understand and to elucidate. But that was all. He wished Mr. Screw would talk a little faster, and say what he required and go; but he was too courteous to hurry him. "My dear sir," he answered, "I fully understand your position, and any apology from you would be out of place. Pray proceed." "I have nothing more to say," said Mr. Screw, astonished at so much indifference where a great fortune was concerned. "I like to be brief in such matters. I have nothing more to say, sir, excepting that I would be greatly obliged if you would put into my hands such documents as you may think proper for the full establishing of your rights." "Very well," said Claudius. "If you will tell me what evidence you require I will procure it immediately." With that he rose, and lighted a cigarette. "A properly-attested certificate of your birth would be all-sufficient," said Mr. Screw, who began to feel relieved by the conduct of the Doctor. The latter, however, suddenly stood still with the match in his fingers, and looked at the lawyer with a curious scrutiny. "I would prefer," he said, "to give some other evidence of my identity than that, if it is the same to you." "If you prefer it, of course," said the lawyer coldly. His suspicions were immediately roused, for he had named the simplest description of document he could think of, and it seemed odd that the Doctor should be so evidently disinclined to produce it. "I suppose," said the Doctor, "that the formal attestation of my identity by the authorities of the University of Heidelberg would be sufficient?" "Yes, I should think so," said Screw cautiously. "But will it not take some time to procure that?" "Well? If it does, what then?" "Only that--you will understand that until this matter is settled I should not feel justified in authorising you to draw upon the estate." Claudius's sense of logic was offended. "My dear sir," he replied, "have I drawn upon the estate for a single dollar yet?" "No, sir, I am bound to say you have not, although you might have considered it natural to do so, and we should have put no obstacle--" Mr. Screw stopped short. He had betrayed himself, and felt extremely embarrassed. But he said enough to give Claudius an idea of the situation. Something had occurred, some one had spoken, to cast a doubt on his identity; and Mr. Screw was the chosen emissary of that "some one." "Then, Mr. Screw," said the Doctor in measured tones, "I would admonish you to be more careful how you insinuate that I might do anything of the kind. You have inconvenienced me quite enough already. You had better not inconvenience me any more. I consider your conduct a piece of unparalleled clumsiness, and your language little short of impertinent. What you have said now you should have said in the letter which announced my uncle's death. Or you should have instructed Mr. Barker, who was abroad at the time and found me in Heidelberg, to make the necessary investigations. The evidence shall be forthcoming in proper season, and until then I do not desire the advantage of your company." Mr. Screw was so much astonished with this mode of address from a man whom he had foolishly imagined to be good-natured that he stood a moment by the table hesitating what he should say. Claudius took up a book and began to read. "Well," said he, perceiving that Mr. Screw was still in the room, "why don't you go?" "Really, Dr. Claudius, I am not accustomed--" he began. "Go," said Claudius, interrupting him; "it is not of the smallest interest to me to know what you are accustomed to. There is the door." "Sir--" "Do you prefer the window?" asked the Doctor, rising in great wrath and striding towards the unhappy lawyer. Mr. Screw instantly made up his mind that the door was preferable, and disappeared. When he was gone Claudius sat down again. He was very angry; but, in his own view, his anger was just. It was very clear to him, from the words Mr. Screw had inadvertently let fall, that some one had, for reasons unknown, undertaken to cause him a great deal of unpleasantness. What he had said to Screw was not to be denied. If there was any question as to his identity, full proof should have been required from the first. But his autograph letter from Heidelberg, attested by a notary, had been accepted as sufficient; and "Screw and Scratch" had answered the letter, and Claudius had received their answer in Baden. It had never entered his head that anything more would be required. So long as Screw had confined himself to stating his position, merely asking for further evidence, the Doctor had nothing to say. But at the suggestion that Claudius might want to draw money from the estate before his claims were fully established, he lost his temper. It was an imputation on his honour; and, however slight it might seem to Mr. Screw, Claudius was not the man to bear it. Ten minutes later Mr. Barker walked in unannounced. It was natural enough that he should call, but Claudius did not want him. The Doctor had not had time to think over the situation, but he had, a vague impression that Barker had something to do with this sudden cloud of annoyance that had risen to darken his path. Barker, on his side, was prepared for storms, but he intended to play the part of confidential friend and consoler. Claudius, however, wanted neither friends nor consolation, and he was in the worst of tempers. Nevertheless, he rose and offered his guest a chair, and asked him how he did. Barker took the chair and said he was fairly well, on the way to recovery from the voyage. "What have you been doing all day, Claudius?" he asked. "I have been to a place called Greenwood, to see where they had buried my uncle," answered Claudius, and relapsed into silence. "No wonder you look so gloomy. Whatever induced you to do such a thing?" "I was not induced," said Claudius. "He was my last relation in the world, and I did the only thing I could to honour his memory, which was to go and see his grave." "Yes, very proper, I am sure," replied Barker. "If my relations would begin and die, right away, I would trot around and see their graves fast enough!" Claudius was silent. "What on earth is the matter with you, Claudius? Have you got a headache, or are you going to be married?" Claudius roused himself, and offered Barker a cigar. "There is nothing the matter," he said; "I suppose my excursion has made me a little gloomy; but I shall soon get over that. There are matches on the mantelpiece." "Thanks. Why did you not come down town to-day? Oh! of course you were away. It was very good fun. We had a regular bear garden." "It looked like something of that sort yesterday when I was there." "Yesterday? Oh! you had never been there before. Yes, it is always like that. I say, come and take a drive in the park before dinner." "No, thanks. I am very sorry, but I have an appointment in a few minutes. I would like to go very much; you are very kind." "Business?" asked the inquisitive Mr. Barker. "Well--yes, if you like, business." "Oh!" said Barker. "By the by, have you seen any of your lawyer people to-day?" Barker had expected that Claudius would confide to him the trouble Screw was raising. But as Claudius did not begin, Barker asked the question. "Yes," answered the Doctor, "Screw has been here. In fact he is just gone." "Anything wrong?" inquired the tormentor. "No, nothing wrong that I know of," said Claudius. Then he suddenly turned sharply on Barker, and looked straight at him. "Did you expect to hear that there was anything wrong?" he asked quickly. Claudius had a very unpleasant way of turning upon his antagonist just a minute before the enemy was ready for him. Barker had found this out before, and, being now directly interrogated, he winced perceptibly. "Oh dear, no," he hastened to say. "But lawyers are great bores sometimes, especially where wills are concerned. And I thought perhaps Screw might be wearying you with his formalities." "No," said Claudius indifferently, "nothing to--" he was interrupted by a knock at the door. It was the Duke's servant, a quiet man in gray clothes and gray whiskers. He had a bald head and bright eyes. "His Grace's compliments, sir, and can you see him now, sir?" "Yes, I will come in a moment," said Claudius. "I think, sir," said the man, "that his Grace is coming to your rooms." "Very good. My compliments, and I shall be glad to see him." The gray servant vanished. Barker rose to go; but Claudius was begging him not to hurry, when there was another knock, and the Duke entered. He shook hands with Claudius, and spoke rather coldly to Barker. The latter was uneasy, and felt that he was in the way. He was. Barker had fallen into a singular error of judgment in regard to the relations existing between the Duke and Claudius. He had imagined it in his power to influence the Duke's opinion, whereas in trying to effect that object he had roused the Englishman's animosity. Besides, Mr. Barker was to the Duke a caprice. He found the quick-thinking man of business amusing and even useful, but for steady companionship he did not want him. A passage across the Atlantic was more than enough to satisfy his desire for Mr. Barker's society, even if Barker had not managed to excite his indignation. But Claudius was different. The honest nobleman could not tell why it was, but it was true, nevertheless. He looked upon the Doctor more as an equal than Barker. The Duke was a very great man in his own country, and it was singular indeed that he should find a man to his liking, a man who seemed of his own caste and calibre, in the simple _privat-docent_ of a German university. Perhaps Barker felt it too. At all events, when the Duke sat himself down in Claudius's room, after begging permission to ring for lights, and made himself most evidently at home, Mr. Barker felt that he was in the way; and so, promising to call on Claudius again in the morning, he departed. Claudius stood by the mantelpiece while the servant lit the gas. "I am very glad to see you," he said, when the man had gone. "I am glad of that, for I want your society. The Countess Margaret has a headache, and Lady Victoria has gone to dine in her rooms, and to spend the evening with her." "I am very sorry to hear that the Countess is not well," said Claudius, "but I am very glad of anything that brings you here to-night. I am in trouble--that is, I have been very much annoyed." "Ah, very sorry," said the Duke. "It so happens that you are the only person in America, as far as I know, who can help me." "I?" The Duke opened his eyes wide. Then he reflected that it might be something concerning the Countess, and waited. "You are a gentleman," said Claudius reflectively, and hardly addressing his visitor as he said it. "Quite so," said the Duke. "It's a very fine word that." "And a man of honour," continued Claudius in a meditative tone. "The deuce and all, it's the same thing," said the Duke, rather puzzled. "Yes; in some countries it is. Now, what I want to ask you is this. Could you, as a gentleman and a man of honour, swear in a court of law that you know me, and that I am the person I represent myself to be? That is the question." The Duke was too much surprised to answer directly. He made a great fuss over his cigar, and got up and shut the window. Then he sat down in another chair. "I don't know what you mean," he said at last, to gain time. "I mean what I say," said Claudius. "Could you swear, before the Supreme Court of the United States, for instance, that I am Claudius, sometime student, now Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Heidelberg in Germany? Could you swear that?" "My dear boy," said the other, "what in the world are you driving at?" The Duke realised that he could not conscientiously swear to any such statement as that proposed by Claudius; and, liking him as he did, he was much distressed at being put into such a corner. "I will tell you afterwards what it is about, Duke," said Claudius. "I am serious, and I would like you to answer the question, though I foresee that you will say you could not swear to anything of the kind." "Honestly, Claudius, though there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that you are what you appear to be, I could not conscientiously swear it in evidence. I do not know anything about you. But Barker could." "No, he could not. He knows no more about me than you do, saving that he met me two or three days sooner. He met me in Heidelberg, it is true, but he made no inquiries whatever concerning me. It never entered his head that I could be anything but what I professed to be." "I should think not, indeed," said the Duke warmly. "But now that I am here in the flesh, these lawyers are making trouble. One of them was here a little while since, and he wanted documentary evidence of my identity." "Who was the lawyer?" "A Mr. Screw, one of the executors of the will." "Who is the other executor?" asked the Duke quickly. "Barker's father." The Englishman's face darkened, and he puffed savagely at his cigar. He had been angry with Barker the day before. Now he began to suspect him of making trouble. "What sort of evidence did the man want?" he asked at length. "Any sort of documentary evidence would do. He asked me for my certificate of birth, and I told him he could not have it. And then he went so far as to remark in a very disagreeable way that he could not authorise me to draw upon the estate until I produced evidence." "Well, that is natural enough." "It would have been so at first. But they had accepted the mere signature to my letter from Heidelberg as proof of my existence, and I got word in Baden in July that I might draw as much as I pleased. And now they turn upon me and say I am not myself. Something has happened. Fortunately I have not touched the money, in spite of their kind permission." "There is something very odd about this, Claudius. Have you got such a thing as a birth certificate to show?" "Yes," answered Claudius, after a pause. "I have everything in perfect order, my mother's marriage and all." "Then why, in Heaven's name, can you not show it, and put all these rascally lawyers to flight?" "Because--" Claudius began, but he hesitated and stopped. "It is a curious story," he said, "and it is precisely what I want to talk to you about." "Is it very long?" asked the Duke; "I have not dined yet." "No, it will not take long, and if you have nothing better to do we will dine together afterwards. But first there are two things I want to say. If I prove to you that I am the son of my uncle's sister, will you tell Mr. Screw that you know it for a fact, that is, that if it had to be sworn to, you would be willing to swear to it?" "If you prove it to me so that I am legally sure of it, of course I will." "The other thing I will ask you is, not to divulge what I shall tell you, or show you. You may imagine from my being unwilling to show these papers, even to a lawyer, when my own fortune is concerned, that I attach some importance to secrecy." "You may trust me," said the Duke; "you have my word," he added, as if reluctantly. People whose word is to be trusted are generally slow to give it. Claudius bowed his head courteously, in acknowledgment of the plighted promise. Then he opened a trunk that stood in a corner of the room, and took from it the iron box in which he had deposited the lawyer's letter on that evening three months before, when his destiny had roused itself from its thirty years' slumber. He set the box on the table, and having locked the door of the room sat down opposite his guest. He took a key from his pocket. "You will think it strange," he said with a smile, "that I should have taken the liberty of confiding to you my secret. But when you have seen what is there, you will perceive that you are the most fitting confidant in this country--for general reasons, of course; for I need not say there is nothing in those papers which concerns you personally." Claudius unlocked the box and took out a few letters that were lying on the top, then he pushed the casket across the table to the Duke. "Will you please examine the contents for yourself?" he said. "There are only three or four papers to read--the rest are letters from my father to my mother--you may look at them if you like; they are very old." All this time the Duke looked very grave. He was not accustomed to have his word of honour asked for small matters, and if this were some trivial question of an assumed name, or the like, he was prepared to be angry with Claudius. So he silently took the little strong box, and examined the contents. There were two packages of papers, two or three morocco cases that might contain jewels, and there was a string of pearls lying loose in the bottom of the casket. The Duke took the pearls curiously in his hand and held them to the light. He had seen enough of such things to know something of their value, and he knew this string might be worth anywhere from eight to ten thousand pounds. He looked graver than ever. "Those are beautiful pearls, Dr. Claudius," he said; "too beautiful for a Heidelberg student to have lying about among his traps." He turned them over and added, "The Duchess has nothing like them." "They belonged to my mother," said Claudius simply. "I know nothing of their value." The Duke took the papers and untied the smaller package, which appeared to contain legal documents, while the larger seemed to be a series of letters filed in their envelopes, as they had been received. "My mother's name was Maria Lindstrand," said Claudius. He leaned back, smoking the eternal cigarette, and watched the Duke's face. Before the Englishman had proceeded far he looked up at Claudius, uttering an exclamation of blank amazement. Claudius merely bent his head as if to indorse the contents of the paper, and was silent. The Duke read the papers carefully through, and examined one of them very minutely by the light. Then he laid them down with a certain reverence, as things he respected. "My dear Claudius--" he rose and extended his hand to the young man with a gesture that had in it much of dignity and something of pride. "My dear Claudius, I shall all my life remember that you honoured me with your confidence. I accepted it as a token of friendship, but I am now able to look upon it as a very great distinction." "And I, Duke, shall never forget that you believed in me on my own merits, before you were really able to swear that I was myself." Claudius had also risen, and their hands remained clasped a moment. Then Claudius applied himself to rearranging the contents of his box; and the Duke walked up and down the room, glancing from time to time at the Doctor. He stopped suddenly in his walk. "But--goodness gracious! why have you kept this a secret?" he asked, as if suddenly recollecting himself. "My mother," said Claudius, "was too proud to come forward and claim what my father, but for his untimely death, would have given her in a few months. As for me, I have been contented in my life, and would have been unwilling to cause pain to any one by claiming my rights. My mother died when I was a mere child, and left these papers sealed, directing me not to open them until I should be twenty-one years old. And so when I opened them, I made up my mind to do nothing about it." "It is not easy to understand you, Claudius; but I will swear to anything you like." "Thank you; I am very grateful." "Do not speak of that. I am proud to be of service. By the by, the present--the present incumbent is childless, I believe. He must be your father's brother?" "Yes," said Claudius. "Should he die, I would not hesitate any longer." "No indeed, I hope not. It is a shame as it is." "By the by," said Claudius, who had put away his box; "why did you not go to Newport to-day? I meant to go on to-morrow and meet you there. This business had put it out of my head." "Lady Victoria and the Countess both wanted to stay another day." "Is the Countess ill?" asked Claudius. "Or do you think she would see me this evening?" "I do not think there is anything especial the matter. She will very likely see you after dinner. As for me, I am hungry; I have walked all over New York this afternoon." "Very well, let us dine. You know New York, and must select the place." Arm-in-arm they went away together, and the Duke introduced Claudius to the glories of Delmonico's. CHAPTER XIII. Troubles never come singly; moreover, they come on horseback, and go away on foot. If Claudius had passed an unpleasant afternoon, the Countess's day had been darkened with the shadow of a very serious difficulty. Early in the morning her maid had brought her coffee, and with it a note in a foreign hand. The maid, who was French, and possessed the usual characteristics of French maids, had exhausted her brain in trying to discover who the sender might be. But the missive was sealed with wax, and a plain "N" was all the impression. So she adopted the usual expedient of busying herself in the room, while her mistress opened the note, hoping that some chance exclamation, or even perhaps an answer, might give her curiosity the food it longed for. But Margaret read and reread the note, and tore it up into very small pieces, thoughtfully; and, as an afterthought, she burned them one by one over a wax taper till nothing was left. Then she sent her maid away and fell to thinking. But that did not help her much; and the warm sun stole through the windows, and the noise in the street prevented her from sleeping, for she was unused to the sound of wheels after the long weeks at sea. And so she rang for her maid again. The maid came, bringing another note, which, she said, had been given her by "Monsieur Clodiuse;" and would there be an answer? It was simply a few lines to say he was going to be away all day, and that he hoped to have the pleasure of seeing the Countess in Newport to-morrow. But for some reason or other Margaret was not pleased with the note, and merely said there would be no answer. "Madame would she dress herself to go out, or to keep the lodging?" Madame would not go out. Was it warm? Oh yes, it was very warm. In fact it was _hébétant_. Would Madame see Monsieur le Duc if he called at eleven? Monseigneur's Monsieur Veelees had charged her to inquire of Madame. No, Madame would not see Monsieur le Duc this morning. But if any one called, Madame desired to be informed. Madame would be served. And so the toilet proceeded. It was not very long before some one called. There was a knock at the door of the bedroom. Clémentine left the Countess's hair, which she was busy combing and tressing, and went to the door. It was old Vladimir, Margaret's faithful Russian servant. "At this hour!" exclaimed the Countess, who was not in the best of tempers. "What does he want?" Vladimir ventured to make a remark in Russian, from the door, which produced an immediate effect. Margaret rose swiftly, overturning her chair and sweeping various small articles from the table in her rapid movement. She went very quickly to the door, her magnificent black hair all hanging down. She knew enough Russian to talk to the servant. "What did you say, Vladimir?" "Margareta Ivanowna"--Margaret's father's name had been John--"Nicolaï Alexandrewitch is here," said Vladimir, who seemed greatly surprised. His geographical studies having been purely experimental, the sudden appearance of a Russian gentleman led him to suppose his mistress had landed in some outlying part of Russia, or at least of Europe. So she bade the old servant conduct the gentleman to her sitting-room and ask him to wait. She was not long in finishing her toilet. Before she left the room a servant of the hotel brought another box of flowers from Mr. Barker. Clémentine cut the string and opened the pasteboard shell. Margaret glanced indifferently at the profusion of roses and pink pond-lilies--a rare variety only found in two places in America, on Long Island and near Boston--and having looked, she turned to go. Clémentine held up two or three flowers, as if to try the effect of them on Margaret's dress. "Madame would she not put some flowers in her dress?" No. Madame would not. Madame detested flowers. Whereat the intelligent Clémentine carefully examined the name of the sender, inscribed on a card which lay in the top of the box. Mr. Barker knew better than to send flowers anonymously. He wanted all the credit he could get. The Countess swept out of the room. At the door of the sitting-room she was met by a young man, who bent low to kiss her extended hand, and greeted her with a manner which was respectful indeed, but which showed that he felt himself perfectly at ease in her society. Nicolaï Alexandrewitch, whom we will call simply Count Nicholas, was the only brother of Margaret's dead husband. Like Alexis, he had been a soldier in a guard regiment; Alexis had been killed at Plevna, and Nicholas had succeeded to the title and the estates, from which, however, a considerable allowance was paid to the Countess as a jointure. Nicholas was a handsome man of five or six and twenty, of middle height, swarthy complexion, and compact figure. His beard was very black, and he wore it in a pointed shape. His eyes were small and deep-set, but full of intelligence. He had all the manner and appearance of a man of gentle birth, but there was something more; an indescribable, undefinable air that hung about him. Many Russians have it, and the French have embodied the idea it conveys in their proverb that if you scratch a Russian you will find the Tartar. It is rather a trait of Orientalism in the blood, and it is to be noticed as much in Servians, Bulgarians, Roumanians, and even Hungarians, as in Russians. It is the peculiarity of most of these races that under certain circumstances, if thoroughly roused, they will go to any length, with a scorn of consequence which seems to the Western mind both barbarous and incomprehensible. Margaret had always liked him. He was wild; but he was a courteous gentleman, and could always be depended upon. "Mon cher," said Margaret, "I need not tell you I am enchanted to see you, but what is the meaning of the things you wrote me this morning? Are you really in trouble?" "Hélas, yes. I am in the worst kind of trouble that exists for a Russian. I am in political trouble--and that entails everything else." "Tell me all about it," said she. "Perhaps I may help you." "Ah no! you cannot help. It is not for that I am come. I have a confession to make that concerns you." "Well?" said she, with a smile. She did not suppose it could be anything very bad. "You will be angry, of course," he said, "but that is nothing. I have done you an injury that I cannot repair." "Enfin, my dear Nicholas, tell me. I do not believe anything bad of you." "You are kindness itself, and I thank you in advance. Wait till you have heard. I am 'suspect,'--they think I am a Nihilist I am exiled to the mines, and everything is confiscated. Voilà! Could it be worse?" Margaret was taken off her guard. She had herself been in more than easy circumstances at the time of her marriage, but the financial crisis in America, which occurred soon after that event, had greatly crippled her resources. She had of late looked chiefly to her jointure for all the luxuries which were so necessary to her life. To find this suddenly gone, in a moment, without the slightest preparation, was extremely embarrassing. She covered her eyes with one hand for a moment to collect her thoughts and to try and realise the extent of the disaster. Nicholas mistook the gesture. "You will never forgive me, I know. I do not deserve that you should. But I will do all in my power to repair the evil. I will go to Siberia if they will consider your rights to the estate." Margaret withdrew her hand, and looked earnestly at the young man. "Forgive you?" said she. "My dear Nicholas, you do not suppose I seriously think there is anything to forgive?" "But it is true," he said piteously; "in ruining me they have ruined you. Mon Dieu, mon Dieu! If I only had a friend--" "Taisez vous donc, mon ami. It is everything most bête what you say. You have many friends, and as for me, I do not care a straw for the money. Only if I had known I would not have left Europe. Voilà tout." "Ah, that is it," said Nicholas. "I escaped the police and hurried to Baden. But you were gone. So I took the first steamer and came here. But I have waited ten days, and it was only last night I saw in the papers that you had arrived yesterday morning. And here I am." Margaret rose, from a feeling that she must move about--the restless fiend that seizes energetic people in their trouble. Nicholas thought it was a sign for him to go. He took his hat. "Believe me--" he began, about to take his leave. "You are not going?" said Margaret. "Oh no. Wait, and we will think of some expedient. Besides you have not told me half what I want to know. The money is of no consequence; but what had you done to lead to such a sentence? Are you really a Nihilist?" "Dieu m'en garde!" said the Count devoutly. "I am a Republican, that is all. Seulement, our Holy Russia does not distinguish." "Is not the distinction very subtle?" "The difference between salvation by education and salvation by dynamite; the difference between building up and tearing down, between Robespierre and Monsieur Washington." "You must have been indiscreet. How could they have found it out?" "I was bête enough to write an article in the _Russki Mir_--the mildest of articles. And then some of the Nihilist agents thought I was in their interests and wanted to see me, and the police observed them, and I was at once classed as a Nihilist myself, and there was a perquisition in my house. They found some notes and a few manuscripts of mine, quite enough to suit their purpose, and so the game was up." "But they did not arrest you?" "No. As luck would have it, I was in Berlin at the time, on leave from my regiment, for I was never suspected before in the least. And the Nihilists, who, to tell the truth, are well organised and take good care of their brethren, succeeded in passing word to me not to come back. A few days afterwards the Russian Embassy were hunting for me in Berlin. But I had got away. Sentence was passed in contempt, and I read the news in the papers on my way to Paris. There is the whole history." "Have you any money?" inquired Margaret after a pause. "Mon Dieu! I have still a hundred napoleons. After that the deluge." "By that time we shall be ready for the deluge," said Margaret cheerfully. "I have many friends, and something may yet be done. Meanwhile do not distress yourself about me; you know I have something of my own." "How can I thank you for your kindness? You ought to hate me, and instead you console!" "My dear friend, if I did not like you for your own sake, I would help you because you are poor Alexis's brother." There was no emotion in her voice at the mention of her dead husband, only a certain reverence. She had honoured him more than she had loved him. "Princesse, quand même," said Nicholas in a low voice, as he raised her fingers to his lips. "Leave me your address before you go. I will write as soon as I have decided what to do." Nicholas scratched the name of a hotel on his card. When he was gone Margaret sank into a chair. She would have sent for Claudius--Claudius was a friend--but she recollected his note, and thought with some impatience that just when she needed him most he was away. Then she thought of Lady Victoria, and she rang the bell. But Lady Victoria had gone out with her brother, and they had taken Miss Skeat. Margaret was left alone in the great hotel. Far off she could hear a door shut or the clatter of the silver covers of some belated breakfast service finding its way up or down stairs. And in the street the eternal clatter and hum and crunch, and crunch and hum and clatter of men and wheels; the ceaseless ring of the tram-cars stopping every few steps to pick up a passenger, and the jingle of the horses' bells as they moved on. It was hot--it was very hot. Clémentine was right, it was _hébétant_, as it can be in New York in September. She bethought herself that she might go out and buy things, that last resource of a rich woman who is tired and bored. Buy things! She had forgotten that she was ruined. Well, not quite that, but it seemed like it. It would be long before she would feel justified in buying anything more for the mere amusement of the thing. She tried to realise what it would be like to be poor. But she failed entirely, as women of her sort always do. She was brave enough if need be; if it must come, she had the courage to be poor. But she had not the skill to paint to herself what it would be like. She could not help thinking of Claudius. It would be so pleasant just now to have him sitting there by her side, reading some one of those wise books he was so fond of. It was so hot. She wished something would happen. Poor Nicholas! He need not have been so terribly cut up about the money. Who is there? It was Vladimir. Vladimir brought a card. Yes, she would see the gentleman. Vladimir disappeared, and a moment after ushered in Mr. Horace Bellingham, commonly known as "Uncle Horace." "I am so glad to see you, Mr. Bellingham," said Margaret, who had conceived a great liking for the old gentleman on the previous evening, and who would have welcomed anybody this morning. Mr. Bellingham made a bow of the courtliest, most _ancien-régime_ kind. He had ventured to bring her a few flowers. Would she accept them? They were only three white roses, but there was more beauty in them than in all Mr. Barker's profusion. Margaret took them, and smelled them, and fastened them at her waist, and smiled a divine smile on the bearer. "Thank you, so much," said she. "No thanks," said he; "I am more than repaid by your appreciation;" and he rubbed his hands together and bowed again, his head a little on one side, as if deprecating any further acknowledgment. Then he at once began to talk a little, to give her time to select her subject if she would; for he belonged to a class of men who believe it their duty to talk to women, and who do not expect to sit with folded hands and be amused. To such men America is a revelation of social rest. In America the women amuse the men, and the men excuse themselves by saying that they work hard all day, and cannot be expected to work hard all the evening. It is evidently a state of advanced civilisation, incomprehensible to the grosser European mind--a state where talking to a woman is considered to be hard work. Or--in fear and trembling it is suggested--is it because they are not able to amuse their womankind? Is their refusal a _testimonium paupertatis ingenii_? No--perish the thought! It may have been so a long time ago, in the Golden Age. This is not the Golden Age; it is the Age of Gold. Messieurs! faites votre jeu! By degrees it became evident that Margaret wanted to talk about Russia, and Mr. Bellingham humoured her, and gave her a good view of the situation, and told anecdotes of the Princess Dolgorouki, and drew the same distinction between Nihilists and Republicans that Count Nicholas had made an hour earlier in the same room. Seeing she was so much interested, Mr. Bellingham took courage to ask a question that had puzzled him for some time. He stroked his snowy beard, and hesitated slightly. "Pardon me, if I am indiscreet, Madam," he said at last, "but I read in the papers the other day that a nobleman of your name--a Count Nicholas, I think--had landed in New York, having escaped the clutches of the Petersburg police, who wanted to arrest him as a Nihilist. Was he--was he any relation of yours?" "He is my brother-in-law," said Margaret, rather startled at seeing the point to which she had led the conversation. But she felt a strong sympathy for Mr. Bellingham, and she was glad to be able to speak on the subject to any one. She stood so much in need of advice; and, after all, if the story was in the papers it was public property by this time. Mr. Bellingham was a perfect diplomatist, and, being deeply interested, he had soon learned all the details of the case by heart. "It is very distressing," he said gravely. But that was all. Margaret had had some faint idea that he might offer to help her--it was absurd, of course--or at least that he might give her some good advice. But that was not Mr. Bellingham's way of doing things. If he intended to do anything, the last thing he would think of would be to tell her of his intention. He led the conversation away, and having rounded it neatly with a couple of anecdotes of her grandmother, he rose to go, pleading an engagement. He really had so many appointments in a day that he seldom kept more than half of them, and his excuse was no polite invention. He bowed himself out, and when he was gone Margaret felt as though she had lost a friend. She wearied of the day--so long, so hot, and so unfortunate. She tried a book, and then she tried to write a letter, and then she tried to think again. It seemed to her that there was so little to think about, for she had a hopeless helpless consciousness that there was nothing to be done that she could do. She might have written to her friends in Petersburg--of course she would do that, and make every possible representation. But all that seemed infinitely far off, and could be done as well to-morrow as to-day. At last Lady Victoria came back, and at sight of her Margaret resolved to confide in her likewise. She had so much common sense, and always seemed able to get at the truth. Therefore, in the afternoon Margaret monopolised Lady Victoria and carried her off, and they sat together with their work by the open window, and the Countess was "not at home." In truth, a woman of the world in trouble of any kind could not do better than confide in Lady Victoria. She is so frank and honest that when you talk to her your trouble seems to grow small and your heart big. She has not a great deal of intellect; but, then, she has a great deal of common sense. Common sense is, generally speaking, merely a dislike of complications, and a consequent refusal on the part of the individual to discover them. People of vivid imagination delight in magnifying the difficulties of life by supposing themselves the centre of much scheming, plotting, and cheap fiction. They cheerfully give their time and their powers to the study of social diplomacy. It is reserved for people intellectually very high or very low in the scale to lead a really simple life. The average mind of the world is terribly muddled on most points, and altogether beside itself as regards its individual existence; for a union of much imagination, unbounded vanity, and unfathomable ignorance can never take the place of an intellect, while such a combination cannot fail to destroy the blessed _vis inertiæ_ of the primitive fool, who only sees what is visible, instead of evolving the phantoms of an airy unreality from the bottomless abyss of his own so-called consciousness. Fortunately for humanity, the low-class unimaginative mind predominates in the world, as far as numbers are concerned; and there are enough true intellects among men to leaven the whole. The middle class of mind is a small class, congregated together chiefly within the boundaries of a very amusing institution calling itself "society." These people have scraped and varnished the aforesaid composition of imagination, ignorance, and vanity, into a certain conventional thing which they mendaciously term their "intelligence," from a Latin verb _intelligo_, said to mean "I understand." It is a poor thing, after all the varnishing. It is neither hammer nor anvil; it cannot strike, and, if you strike it, dissolution instantly takes place, after which the poor driveller is erroneously said to have "lost his mind," and is removed to an asylum. It is curious that the great majority of lunatics should be found in "society." Society says that all men of genius are more or less mad; but it is a notable fact that very few men of genius have ever been put in madhouses, whereas the society that calls those men crazy is always finding its way there. It takes but little to make a lunatic of poor Lady Smith-Tompkins. Poor thing! you know she is so very "high-strung," such delicate sensibilities! She has an _idée fixe_--so very sad. Ah yes! that is it. She never had an idea before, and now that she has one she cannot get rid of it, and it will kill her in time. Now people whose intellect is of a low class are not disturbed with visions of all that there is to be known, nor with a foolish desire to appear to know it. On the other hand, they are perfectly capable of understanding what is honourable or dishonourable, mean or generous, and they are very tenacious of these principles, believing that in the letter of the law is salvation. They are not vain of qualities and powers not theirs; and, consequently, when they promise, they promise what they are able to perform. Occasionally such characters appear in "society,"--rare creatures, in whom a pernicious education has not spoiled the simplicity and honesty which is their only virtue. They fall naturally into the position of confessors to the community, for the community requires confessors of some sort. In them confides the hardened sinner bursting with evil deeds and the accumulation of petty naughtiness. To them comes the beardless ass, simpering from his first adventure, and generally "afraid he has compromised" the mature woman of the world, whom he has elected to serve, desiring to know what he ought to do about it. To them, too, comes sometimes the real sufferer with his or her little tale of woe, hesitatingly told, half hinted, hoping to be wholly understood. They are good people, these social confessors, though they seldom give much advice. Nevertheless, it is such a help to tell one's story and hear how it sounds! Lady Victoria was not a woman of surpassing intellect; perhaps she had no intellect at all. She belonged to the confessors above referred to. She was the soul of honour, of faith, and of secrecy. People were always making confidences to her, and they always felt the better for it--though she herself could not imagine why. And so even Margaret came and told her troubles. Only, as Margaret was really intelligent, she did not hesitate or make any fuss about telling, when once she had made up her mind. The story was, indeed, public property by this time, and Lady Victoria was sure to know it all before long from other people. When Margaret had finished, she laid down her work and looked out of the window, waiting. "I need not tell you I am sorry," said Lady Victoria. "You know that, my dear. But what will you do? It will be so very awkward for you, you know." "I hardly can tell yet--what would you do in my place?" "Let me see," said the English girl. "What would I do? You must have a Russian minister here somewhere. I think I would send for him, if I were you." "But it takes so long--so dreadfully long, to get anything done in that way," said Margaret. And they discussed the point in a desultory fashion. Of course Lady Victoria's suggestion was the simplest and most direct one. She was quite certain that Margaret would get her rights very soon. "Of course," said she, "they must do it. It would be so unjust not to." She looked at Margaret with a bright smile, as if there was no such thing as injustice in the world. But the Countess looked grave; and as she leaned back in her deep arm-chair by the window, with half-closed eyes, it was easy to see she was in trouble. She needed help and sympathy and comfort. She had never needed help before, and it was not a pleasant sensation to her; perhaps she was dissatisfied when she realised whose help of all others she would most gladly accept. At least it would be most pleasant that he should offer it. "He"--has it come to that? Poor Margaret! If "he" represented a sorrow instead of a happiness, would you confide that too to Lady Victoria? Or would you feel the least shadow of annoyance because you miss him to-day? Perhaps it is only habit. You have schooled yourself to believe you ought to do without him, and you fancy you ought to be angry with yourself for transgressing your rule. But what avails your schooling against the little god? He will teach you a lesson you will not forget. The day is sinking. The warm earth is drinking out its cup of sunlight to the purple dregs thereof. There is great colour in the air, and the clouds are as a trodden wine-press in the west. The old sun, the golden bowl of life, is touching earth's lips, and soon there will be none of the wine of light left in him. She will drink it all. Yet your lover tarries, Margaret, and comes not. Margaret and Lady Victoria agreed they would dine together. Indeed, Margaret had a little headache, for she was weary. They would dine together, and then read something in the evening--quite alone; and so they did. It was nearly nine o'clock when the servant announced Claudius and the Duke. The latter, of course, knew nothing about Margaret's troubles, and was in high spirits. As for Claudius, his momentary excitement, caused by Mr. Screw's insinuations, had long since passed away, and he was as calm as ever, meditating a graphic description of his day's excursion to Greenwood Cemetery for Margaret's benefit. It was a lugubrious subject, but he well knew how to make his talk interesting. It is the individual, not the topic, that makes the conversation; if a man can talk well, graveyards are as good a subject as the last novel, and he will make tombstones more attractive than scandal. No one could have told from Claudius's appearance or conversation that night that there was anything in the world to cloud his happiness. He talked to the woman he loved with a serene contempt for everything else in the world--a contempt, too, which was not assumed. He was perfectly happy for the nonce, and doubly so in that such a happy termination to a very long day was wholly unexpected. He had thought that he should find the party gone from New York on his return from Greenwood, and this bit of good luck seemed to have fallen to him out of a clear sky. Margaret was glad to see him too; she was just now in that intermediate frame of mind during which a woman only reasons about a man in his absence. The moment he appears, the electric circuit is closed and the quiescent state ceases. She was at the point when his coming made a difference that she could feel; when she heard his step her blood beat faster, and she could feel herself turning a shade paler. Then the heavy lids would droop a little to hide what was in her dark eyes, and there were many voices in her ear, as though the very air cried _gloria_, while her heart answered _in excelsis_. But when he was come the gentle tale seemed carried on, as from the hour of his last going; and while he stayed life seemed one long day. She had struggled hard, but in her deepest thoughts she had foreseen the termination. It is the instinct of good women to fight against love--he comes in such a questionable shape. A good woman sees a difference between being in love and loving--well knowing that there is passion without love, but no love without passion. She feels bound in faith to set up a tribunal in her heart, whereby to judge between the two; but very often judge and jury and prisoner at the bar join hands, and swear eternal friendship on the spot. Margaret had feared lest this Northern wooer, with his mighty strength and his bold eyes, should lead her feelings whither her heart would not. Sooner than suffer that, she would die. And yet there is a whole unspoken prophecy of love in every human soul, and his witness is true. All this evening they sat side by side, welding their bonds. Each had a secret care, but each forgot it utterly. Claudius would not have deigned to think of his own troubles when he was with her; and she never once remembered how, during that morning, she had longed to tell him all about her brother-in-law. They talked of all sorts of things, and they made up their minds to go to Newport the next day. Miss Skeat asked whether Newport was as romantic as Scarborough. CHAPTER XIV. There were odours of Russian cigarettes in Mr. Horace Bellingham's room, and two smokers were industriously adding to the fragrant cloud. One was the owner of the dwelling himself, and the other was Claudius. He sat upon the sofa that stood between the two windows of the room, which was on the ground floor, and looked out on the street. The walls were covered with pictures wherever they were not covered with books, and there was not an available nook or corner unfilled with scraps of bric-à-brac, photographs, odds and ends of reminiscence, and all manner of things characteristic to the denizen of the apartment. The furniture was evidently calculated more for comfort than display, and if there was an air of luxury pervading the bachelor's quiet _rez-de-chaussée_, it was due to the rare volumes on the shelves and the good pictures on the walls, rather than to the silk or satin of the high-art upholsterer, or the gilding and tile work of the modern decorator, who ravages upon beauty as a fungus upon a fruit tree. Whatever there was in Mr. Bellingham's rooms was good; much of it was unique, and the whole was harmonious. Rare editions were bound by famous binders, and if the twopenny-halfpenny productions of some little would-be modern poet, resplendent with vellum and æsthetic greenliness of paper, occasionally found their way to the table, they never travelled as far as the shelves. Mr. Bellingham had fools enough about him to absorb his spare trash. On this particular occasion the old gentleman was seated in an arm-chair at his table, and Claudius, as aforesaid, had established himself upon the sofa. He looked very grave and smoked thoughtfully. "I wish I knew what to do," he said. "Mr. Bellingham, do you think I could be of any use?" "If I had not thought so, I would not have told you--I could have let you find it out for yourself from the papers. You can be of a great deal of use." "Do you advise me to go to St. Petersburg and see about it then?" "Of course I do. Start at once. You can get the necessary steps taken in no time, if you go now." "I am ready. But how in the world can I get the thing done?" "Letters. Your English friend over there will give you letters to the English Ambassador; he is Lord Fitzdoggin--cousin of the Duke's. And I will give you some papers that will be of use. I know lots of people in Petersburg. Why, it's as plain as a pikestaff. Besides, you know the proverb, _mitte sapientem et nihil dicas._ That means then when you send a wise man you must not dictate to him." "You flatter me. But I would rather have your advice, if that is what you call 'dictating.' I am not exactly a fool, but then, I am not very wise either." "No one is very wise, and we are all fools compared to some people," said Mr. Bellingham. "If anybody wanted a figurehead for a new Ship of Fools, I sometimes think a portrait of myself would be singularly appropriate. There are times when I should fix upon a friend for the purpose. Mermaid--half fish--figurehead, half man, half fool. That's a very good idea." "Very good--for the friend. Meanwhile, you know, it is I who am going on the errand. If you do not make it clear to me it will be a fool's errand." "It is perfectly clear, my dear sir," insisted Mr. Bellingham. "You go to St. Petersburg; you get an audience--you can do that by means of the letters; you lay the matter before the Czar, and request justice. Either you get it or you do not. That is the beauty of an autocratic country." "How about a free country?" asked Claudius. "You don't get it," replied his host grimly. Claudius laughed a cloud of smoke into the air. "Why is that?" he asked idly, hoping to launch Mr. Bellingham into further aphorisms and paradoxes. "Men are everywhere born free, but they--" "Oh," said Claudius, "I want to know your own opinion about it." "I have no opinion; I only have experience," answered the other. "At any rate in an autocratic country there is a visible, tangible repository of power to whom you can apply. If the repository is in the humour you will get whatever you want done, in the way of justice or injustice. Now in a free country justice is absorbed into the great cosmic forces, and it is apt to be an expensive incantation that wakes the lost elementary spirit. In Russia justice shines by contrast with the surrounding corruption, but there is no mistake about it when you get it. In America it is taken for granted everywhere, and the consequence is that, like most things that are taken for granted, it is a myth. Rousseau thought that in a republic like ours there would be no more of the 'chains' he was so fond of talking about. He did not anticipate a stagnation of the national moral sense. An Englishman who has made a study of these things said lately that the Americans had retained the forms of freedom, but that the substance had suffered considerably." "Who said that?" asked Claudius. "Mr. Herbert Spencer. He said it to a newspaper reporter in New York, and so it was put into the papers. It is the truest thing he ever said, but no one took any more notice of it than if he had told the reporter it was a very fine day. They don't care. Tell the first man you meet down town that he is a liar; he will tell you he knows it. He will probably tell you you are another. We are all alike here. I'm a liar myself in a small way--there's a club of us, two Americans and one Englishman." "You are the frankest person I ever met, Mr. Bellingham," said Claudius, laughing. "Some day I will write a book," said Mr. Bellingham, rising and beginning to tramp round the room. "I will call it--by the way, we were talking about Petersburg. You had better be off." "I am going, but tell me the name of the book before I go." "No, I won't; you would go and write it yourself, and steal my thunder." Uncle Horace's eyes twinkled, and a corruscation of laugh-wrinkles shot like sheet-lightning over his face. He disappeared into a neighbouring room, leaving a trail of white smoke in his wake, like a locomotive. Presently he returned with a _Bullinger Guide_ in his hand. "You can sail on Wednesday at two o'clock by the Cunarder," he said. "You can go to Newport to-day, and come back by the boat on Tuesday night, and be ready to start in the morning." Mr. Bellingham prided himself greatly on his faculty for making combinations of times and places. "How about those letters, Mr. Bellingham?" inquired Claudius, who had no idea of going upon his expedition without proper preparations. "I will write them," said Uncle Horace, "I will write them at once," and he dived into an address-book and set to work. His pen was that of the traditional ready-writer, for he wrote endless letters, and his correspondence was typical of himself--the scholar, the wanderer, and the Priest of Buddha by turns, and sometimes all at once. For Mr. Bellingham was a professed Buddhist and a profound student of Eastern moralities, and he was a thorough scholar in certain branches of the classics. The combination of these qualities, with the tact and versatile fluency of a man of the world, was a rare one, and was a source of unceasing surprise to his intimates. At the present moment he was a diplomatist, since he could not be a diplomat, and to his energetic suggestion and furtherance of the plan he had devised the results which this tale will set forth are mainly due. Claudius sat upon the sofa watching the old gentleman, and wondering how it was that a stranger should so soon have assumed the position of an adviser, and with an energy and good sense, too, which not only disarmed resistance, but assubjugated the consent of the advised. Life is full of such things. Man lives quietly like a fattening carp in some old pond for years, until some idle disturber comes and pokes up the mud with a stick, and the poor fish is in the dark. Presently comes another destroyer of peace, less idle and more enterprising, and drains away the water, carp and all, and makes a potato-garden of his old haunts. So the carp makes a new study of life under altered circumstances in other waters; and to pass the time he wonders about it all. It happens even to men of masterful character, accustomed to directing events. An illness takes such a man out of his sphere for a few months. He comes back and finds his pond turned into a vegetable-garden and his ploughed field into a swamp; and then for a time he is fain to ask advice and take it, like any other mortal. So Claudius, who felt himself in an atmosphere new to him, and had tumbled into a very burning bush of complications, had fallen in with Mr. Horace Bellingham, a kind of professional bone-setter, whose province was the reduction of society fractures, speaking medically. And Mr. Bellingham, scenting a patient, and moreover being strongly attracted to him on his own merits, had immediately broached the subject of the Nihilist Nicholas, drawing the conclusion that the man of the emergency was Claudius, and Claudius only. And the bold Doctor weighed the old gentleman's words, and by the light of what he felt he knew that Uncle Horace was right. That if he loved Margaret his first duty was to her, and that first duty was her welfare. No messenger could or would be so active in her interests as himself; and in his anxiety to serve her he had not thought it strange that Mr. Bellingham should take it for granted he was ready to embark on the expedition. He thought of that later, and wondered at the boldness of the stranger's assumption, no less than at the keenness of his wit. Poor Claudius! anybody might see he was in love. "There; I think that will draw sparks," said Mr. Bellingham, as he folded the last of his letters and put them all in a great square envelope. "Put those in your pocket and keep your powder dry." "I am really very grateful to you," said Claudius. Uncle Horace began to tramp round the room again, emitting smoky ejaculations of satisfaction. Presently he stopped in front of his guest and turned his eyes up to Claudius's face without raising his head. It gave him a peculiar expression. "It is a very strange thing," he said, "but I knew at once that you had a destiny, the first time I saw you. I am very superstitious; I believe in destiny." "So would I if I thought one could know anything about it. I mean in a general way," answered Claudius, smiling. "Is generalisation everything?" asked Mr. Bellingham sharply, still looking at the young man. "Is experience to be dismissed as empiricism, with a sneer, because the wider rule is lacking?" "No. But so long as only a few occupy themselves in reducing empiric knowledge to a scientific shape they will not succeed, at least in this department. To begin with, they have not enough experience among them to make rules from." "But they contribute. One man will come who will find the rule. Was Tycho Brahé a nonentity because he was not Kepler? Was Van Helmont nothing because he was not Lavoisier? Yet Tycho Brahé was an empiric--he was the last of the observers of the concrete, if you will allow me the phrase. He was scientifically the father of Kepler." "That is very well put," said Claudius. "But we were talking of destiny. You are an observer." "I have very fine senses," replied Mr. Bellingham. "I always know when anybody I meet is going to do something out of the common run. You are." "I hope so," said Claudius, laughing. "Indeed I think I am beginning already." "Well, good luck to you," said Mr. Bellingham, remembering that he had missed one engagement, and was on the point of missing another. He suddenly felt that he must send Claudius away, and he held out his hand. There was nothing rough in his abruptness. He would have liked to talk with Claudius for an hour longer had his time permitted. Claudius understood perfectly. He put the letters in his pocket, and with a parting shake of the hand he bade Mr. Horace Bellingham good-morning, and good-bye; he would not trouble him again, he said, before sailing. But Mr. Bellingham went to the door with him. "Come and see me before you go--Wednesday morning; I am up at six, you know. I shall be very glad to see you. I am like the Mexican donkey that died of _congojas ajenas_--died of other people's troubles. People always come to me when they are in difficulties." The old gentleman stood looking after Claudius as he strode away. Then he screwed up his eyes at the sun, sneezed with evident satisfaction, and disappeared within, closing the street door behind him. "Some day I will write my memoirs," he said to himself, as he sat down. Claudius was in a frame of mind which he would have found it hard to describe. The long conversation with Mr. Bellingham had been the first intimation he had received of Margaret's disaster, and the same interview had decided him to act at once in her behalf--in other words, to return to Europe immediately, after a week's stay in New York, leaving behind all that was most dear to him. This resolution had formed itself instantaneously in his mind, and it never occurred to him, either then or later, that he could have done anything else in the world. It certainly did not occur to him that he was doing anything especially praiseworthy in sacrificing his love to its object, in leaving Margaret for a couple of months, and enduring all that such a separation meant, in order to serve her interests more effectually. He knew well enough what he was undertaking--the sleepless nights, the endless days, the soul-compelling heaviness of solitude, and the deadly sinking at the heart, all which he should endure daily for sixty days--he could not be back before that. He knew it all, for he had suffered it all, during those four and twenty hours on the yacht that followed his first wild speech of love. But Claudius's was a knightly soul, and when he served he served wholly, without reservation. Had the dark-browed Countess guessed half the nobleness of purpose her tall lover carried in his breast, who knows but she might have been sooner moved herself. But how could she know? She suspected, indeed, that he was above his fellows, and she never attributed bad motives to his actions, as she would unhesitatingly have done with most men; for she had learned lessons of caution in her life. Who steals hearts steals souls, wherefore it behoves woman to look that the lock be strong and the key hung high. Claudius thought so too, and he showed it in every action, though unconsciously enough, for it was a knowledge natural and not acquired, an instinctive determination to honour where honour was due. Call it Quixotism if need be. There is nothing ridiculous in the word, for there breathes no truer knight or gentler soul than Cervantes's hero in all the pages of history or romance. Why cannot all men see it? Why must an infamous world be ever sneering at the sight, and smacking its filthy lips over some fresh gorge of martyrs? Society has non-suited hell to-day, lest peradventure it should not sleep o' nights. Thomas Carlyle, late of Chelsea, knew that. How he hit and hammered and churned in his wrath, with his great cast-iron words. How the world shrieked when he wound his tenacious fingers in the glory of her golden hair and twisted and wrenched and twisted till she yelled for mercy, promising to be good, like a whipped child. There is a story told of him which might be true. It was at a dinner-party, and Carlyle sat silent, listening to the talk of lesser men, the snow on his hair and the fire in his amber eyes. A young Liberal was talking theory to a beefy old Conservative, who despised youth and reason in an equal degree. "The British people, sir," said he of the beef, "can afford to laugh at theories." "Sir," said Carlyle, speaking for the first time during dinner, "the French nobility of a hundred years ago said they could afford to laugh at theories. Then came a man and wrote a book called the _Social Contract_. The man was called Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and his book was a theory, and nothing but a theory. The nobles could laugh at his theory; _but their skins went to bind the second edition of his book_[1]." [Footnote 1: There was a tannery of human skins at Meudon during the Revolution.] Look to your skin, world, lest it be dressed to morocco and cunningly tooled with gold. There is much binding yet to be done. Claudius thought neither of the world nor of Mr. Carlyle as he walked back to the hotel; for he was thinking of the Countess Margaret, to the exclusion of every other earthly or unearthly consideration. But his thoughts were sad, for he knew that he was to leave her, and he knew also that he must tell her so. It was no easy matter, and his walk slackened, till, at the corner of the great thoroughfare, he stood still, looking at a poor woman who ground a tuneless hand-organ. The instrument of tympanum torture was on wheels, and to the back of it was attached a cradle. In the cradle was a dirty little baby, licking its fist and listening with conscientious attention to the perpetual trangle-tringle-jangle of the maternal music. In truth the little thing could not well listen to anything else, considering the position in which it was placed. Claudius stood staring at the little caravan, halted at the corner of the most aristocratic street in New York, and his attention was gradually roused to comprehend what he saw. He reflected that next to being bound on the back of a wild horse, like Mazeppa, the most horrible fate conceivable must be that of this dirty baby, put to bed in perpetuity on the back of a crazy grind-organ. He smiled at the idea, and the woman held out a battered tin dish with one hand, while the other in its revolution ground out the final palpitating squeaks of "_Ah, che la morte ognora_." Claudius put his hand into his pocket and gave the poor creature a coin. "You are encouraging a public nuisance," said a thin gentlemanly voice at his elbow. Claudius looked down and saw Mr. Barker. "Yes," said the Doctor, "I remember a remark you once made to me about the deserving poor in New York--it was the day before yesterday, I think. You said they went to the West." "Talking of the West, I suppose you will be going there yourself one of these days to take a look at our 'park'--eh?" "No, I am going East." "To Boston, I suppose?" inquired the inquisitive Barker. "You will be very much amused with Boston. It is the largest village in the United States." "I am not going to Boston," said Claudius calmly. "Oh! I thought when you said you were going East you meant--" "I am going to sail for Europe on Wednesday," said the Doctor, who had had time to reflect that he might as well inform Barker of his intention. Mr. Barker smiled grimly under his moustache. "You don't mean that?" he said, trying to feign astonishment and disguise his satisfaction. It seemed too good to be true. "Going so soon? Why, I thought you meant to spend some time." "Yes, I am going immediately," and Claudius looked Barker straight in the face. "I find it is necessary that I should procure certain papers connected with my inheritance." "Well," said Barker turning his eyes another way, for he did not like the Doctor's look, "I am very sorry, any way. I suppose you mean to come back soon?" "Very soon," answered Claudius. "Good-morning, Barker." "Good morning. I will call and see you before you sail. You have quite taken my breath away with this news." Mr. Barker walked quickly away in the direction of Elevated Road. He was evidently going down town. "Strange," thought Claudius, "that Barker should take the news so quietly. I think it ought to have astonished him more." Leaving the organ-grinder, the dirty baby, and the horse-cars to their fate, Claudius entered the hotel. He found the Duke over a late breakfast, eating cantelopes voraciously. Cantelopes are American melons, small and of sickly appearance, but of good vitality and unearthly freshness within, a joy to the hot-stomached foreigner. Behold also, his Grace eateth the cantelope and hath a cheerful countenance. Claudius sat down at the table, looking rather gloomy. "I want you to give me an introduction to the English Ambassador in Petersburg. Lord Fitzdoggin, I believe he is." "Good gracious!" exclaimed the peer; "what for?" "I am going there," answered Claudius with his habitual calm, "and I want to know somebody in power." "Oh! are _you_ going?" asked the Duke, suddenly grasping the situation. He afterwards took some credit to himself for having been so quick to catch Claudius's meaning. "Yes. I sail on Wednesday." "Tell me all about it," said the Duke, who recovered his equanimity, and plunged a knife into a fresh cantelope at the same moment. "Very well. I saw your friend, Mr. Horace Bellingham, this morning, and he told me all about the Countess's troubles. In fact, they are in the newspapers by this time, but I had not read about them. He suggested that some personal friend of the Countess had better proceed to headquarters at once, and see about it; so I said I would go; and he gave me some introductions. They are probably good ones; but he advised me to come to you and get one for your ambassador." "Anything Uncle Horace advises is right, you know," said his Grace, speaking with his mouth full. "He knows no end of people everywhere," he added pensively, when he had swallowed. "Very well, I will go; but I am glad you approve." "But what the deuce are you going to do about that fortune of yours?" asked the other suddenly. "Don't you think we had better go down and swear to you at once? I may not be here when you get back, you know." "No; that would not suit my arrangements," answered Claudius. "I would rather not let it be known for what purpose I had gone. Do you understand? I am going ostensibly to Heidelberg to get my papers from the University, and so, with all thanks, I need not trouble you." The Duke looked at him for a moment. "What a queer fellow you are, Claudius," he said at last. "I should think you would like her to know." "Why? Suppose that I failed, what a figure I should cut, to be sure." Claudius preferred to attribute to his vanity an action which was the natural outcome of his love. "Well, that is true," said the Duke; "but I think you are pretty safe for all that. Have some breakfast--I forgot all about it." "No, thanks. Are you going to Newport to-day? I would like to see something outside of New York before I go back." "By all means. Better go at once--all of us in a body. I know the Countess is ready, and I am sure I am." "Very good. I will get my things together. One word--please do not tell them I am going; I will do it myself. "All right," answered the Duke; and Claudius vanished. "He says 'them,'" soliloquised the Englishman, "but he means 'her.'" Claudius found on his table a note from Mr. Screw. This missive was couched in formal terms, and emitted a kind of phosphorescent wrath. Mr. Screw's dignity was seriously offended by the summary ejectment he had suffered at the Doctor's hands on the previous day. He gave the Doctor formal notice that his drafts would not be honoured until the executors were satisfied concerning his identity; and he solemnly and legally "regretted the position Dr. Claudius had assumed towards those whose sacred duty it was to protect the interests of Dr. Claudius." The cunning repetition of name conveyed the idea of two personages, the claimant and the real heir, in a manner that did not escape the Doctor. Since yesterday he had half regretted having lost his temper; and had he known that Screw had been completely duped by Mr. Barker, Claudius would probably have apologised to the lawyer. Indeed, he had a vague suspicion, as the shadow of a distant event, that Barker was not altogether clear of the business; and the fact that the latter had shown so little surprise on hearing of his friend's sudden return to Europe had aroused the Doctor's imagination, so that he found himself piecing together everything he could remember to show that Barker had an interest of some kind in removing him from the scene. Nevertheless, the burden of responsibility for the annoyance he was now suffering seemed to rest with Screw, and Screw should be taught a great lesson; and to that end Claudius would write a letter. It was clear he was still angry. The Doctor sat down to write; and his strong, white fingers held the pen with unrelenting determination to be disagreeable. His face was set like a mask, and ever and anon his blue eyes gleamed scornfully. And this is what he said-- "SIR--Having enjoyed the advantage of your society, somewhat longer than I could have wished, during yesterday afternoon, I had certainly not hoped for so early a mark of your favour and interest as a letter from you of to-day's date. As for your formal notice to me that my drafts will not be honoured in future, I regard it as a deliberate repetition of the insulting insinuation conveyed to me by your remarks during your visit. You are well aware that I have not drawn upon the estate in spite of your written authorisation to do so. I consider your conduct in this matter unworthy of a person professing the law, and your impertinence is in my opinion only second to the phenomenal clumsiness you have displayed throughout. As I fear that your ignorance of your profession may lead you into some act of folly disastrous to yourself, I will go so far as to inform you that on my return from Europe, two months hence, your proceedings as executor for the estate of the late Gustavus Lindstrand will be subjected to the severest scrutiny. In the meantime, I desire no further communications from you. CLAUDIUS." This remarkable epistle was immediately despatched by messenger to Pine Street; and if Mr. Screw had felt himself injured before, he was on the verge of desperation when he read Claudius's polemic. He repeated to himself the several sentences, which seemed to breathe war and carnage in their trenchant brevity; and he thought that even if he had been guilty of any breach of trust, he could hardly have felt worse. He ran his fingers through his thick yellow-gray hair, and hooked his legs in and out of each other as he sat, and bullied his clerks within an inch of their lives. Then, to get consolation, he said to himself that Claudius was certainly an impostor, or he would not be so angry, or go to Europe, or refuse any more communications. In the midst of his rage, Mr. Barker the younger opportunely appeared in the office of Messrs. Screw and Scratch, prepared to throw any amount of oil upon the flames. "Well?" said Mr. Barker interrogatively, as he settled the flower in his gray coat, and let the paper ribband of the "ticker" run through his other hand, with its tale of the tide of stocks. Yellow Mr. Screw shot a lurid glance from his brassy little eyes. "You're right, sir--the man's a humbug." "Who?" asked Barker, in well-feigned innocence. "Claudius. It's my belief he's a liar and a thief and a damned impostor, sir. That's my belief, sir." He waxed warm as he vented his anger. "Well, I only suggested taking precautions. I never said any of these things," answered Barker, who had no idea of playing a prominent part in his own plot. "Don't give me any credit, Mr. Screw." "Now, see here, Mr. Barker; I'm talking to you. You're as clever a young man as there is in New York. Now, listen to me; I'm talking to you," said Mr. Screw excitedly. "That man turned me out of his house--turned me out of doors, sir, yesterday afternoon; and now he writes me this letter; look here, look at it; read it for yourself, can't you? And so he makes tracks for Europe, and leaves no address behind. An honest man isn't going to act like that, sir--is he, now?" "Not much," said Barker, as he took the letter. He read it through twice, and gave it back. "Not much," he repeated. "Is it true that he has drawn no money?" "Well, yes, I suppose it is," answered Screw reluctantly, for this was the weak point in his argument. "However, it would be just like such a leg to make everything sure in playing a big game. You see he has left himself the rear platform, so he can jump off when his car is boarded." "However," said Barker sententiously, "I must say it is in his favour. What we want are facts, you know, Mr. Screw. Besides, if he had taken anything, I should have been responsible, because I accepted him abroad as the right man." "Well, as you say, there is nothing gone--not a red. So if he likes to get away, he can; I'm well rid of him." "Now that's the way to look at it. Don't be so down in the mouth, sir; it will all come straight enough." Barker smiled benignly, knowing it was all crooked enough at present. "Well, I'm damned anyhow," said Mr. Screw, which was not fair to himself, for he was an honest man, acting very properly according to his lights. It was not his fault if Barker deceived him, and if that hot-livered Swede was angry. "Never mind," answered Barker, rather irrelevantly; "I will see him before he sails, and tell you what I think about it. He is dead sure to give himself away, somehow, before he gets off." "Well, sail in, young man," said Screw, biting off the end of a cigar. "_I_ don't want to see him again, you can take your oath." "All right; that settles it. I came about something else, though. I know you can tell me all about this suit against the Western Union, can't you?" So the two men sat in their arm-chairs and talked steadily, as only Americans can talk, without showing any more signs of fatigue than if they were snoring; and it cost them nothing. If the Greeks of the time of Pericles could be brought to life in America, they would be very like modern Americans in respect of their love of talking and of their politics. Terrible chatterers in the market-place, and great wranglers in the council--the greatest talkers living, but also on occasion the greatest orators, with a redundant vivacity of public life in their political veins, that magnifies and inflames the diseases of the parts, even while it gives an unparalleled harmony to the whole. The Greeks had more, for their activity, hampered by the narrow limits of their political sphere, broke out in every variety of intellectual effort, carried into every branch of science and art. In spite of the whole modern school of impressionists, æsthetes, and aphrodisiac poets, the most prominent features of Greek art are its intellectuality, its well-reasoned science, and its accurate conception of the ideal. The resemblance between Americans of to-day and Greeks of the age of Pericles does not extend to matters of art as yet, though America bids fair to surpass all earlier and contemporary nations in the progressive departments of science. But as talkers they are pre-eminent, these rapid business men with their quick tongues and their sharp eyes and their millions. When Barker left Screw he had learned a great deal about the suit of which he inquired, but Screw had learned nothing whatever about Claudius. As for the Doctor, as soon as he had despatched his letter he sent to secure a passage in Wednesday's steamer, and set himself to prepare his effects for the voyage, as he only intended returning from Newport in time to go on board. He was provided with money enough, for before leaving Germany he had realised the whole of his own little fortune, not wishing to draw upon his larger inheritance until he should feel some necessity for doing so. He now felt no small satisfaction in the thought that he was independent of Mr. Screw and of every one else. It would have been an easy matter, he knew, to clear up the whole difficulty in twenty-four hours, by simply asking the Duke to vouch for him; and before hearing of Margaret's trouble he had had every intention of pursuing that course. But now that he was determined to go to Russia in her behalf, his own difficulty, if he did not take steps for removing it, furnished him with an excellent excuse for the journey, without telling the Countess that he was going for the sole purpose of recovering her fortune, as he otherwise must have told her. Had he known the full extent of Barker's intentions he might have acted differently, but as yet his instinct against that ingenious young gentleman was undefined and vague. CHAPTER XV. The cliff at Newport--the long winding path that follows it from the great beach to the point of the island, always just above the sea, hardly once descending to it, as the evenly-gravelled path, too narrow for three, though far too broad for two, winds by easy curves through the grounds, and skirts the lawns of the million-getters who have their tents and their houses therein--it is a pretty place. There the rich men come and seethe in their gold all summer; and Lazarus comes to see whether he cannot marry Dives's daughter. And the choleric architect, dissatisfied with the face of Nature, strikes her many a dread blow, and produces an unhealthy eruption wherever he strikes, and calls the things he makes houses. Here also, on Sunday afternoon, young gentlemen and younger ladies patrol in pairs, and discourse of the most saccharine inanities, not knowing what they shall say, and taking no thought, for obvious reasons. And gardeners sally forth in the morning and trim the paths with strange-looking instruments--the earth-barbers, who lather and shave and clip Nature into patterns, and the world into a quincunx. It is a pretty place. There is nothing grand, not even anything natural in Newport, but it is very pretty for all that. For an artificial place, destined to house the most artificial people in the world during three months of the year, it is as pleasing as it can be in a light-comedy-scenery style. Besides, the scenery in Newport is very expensive, and it is impossible to spend so much money without producing some result. It cost a hundred thousand to level that lawn there, and Dives paid the money cheerfully. Then there is Croesus, his neighbour, who can draw a cheque for a hundred millions if he likes. His house cost him a pot of money. And so they build themselves a landscape, and pare off the rough edges of the island, and construct elegant landing-stages, and keep yachts, and make to themselves a fashionable watering-place; until by dint of putting money into it, they have made it remarkable among the watering-places of the world, perhaps the most remarkable of all. But there are times when the cliff at Newport is not an altogether flippant bit of expensive scene-painting, laid out for the sole purpose of "effect." Sometimes in the warm summer nights the venerable moon rises stately and white out of the water; the old moon, that is the hoariest sinner of us all, with her spells and enchantments and her breathing love-beams, that look so gently on such evil works. And the artist-spirits of the night sky take of her silver as much as they will, and coat with it many things of most humble composition, so that they are fair to look upon. And they play strange pranks with faces of living and dead. So when the ruler of the darkness shines over poor, commonplace Newport, the aspect of it is changed, and the gingerbread abominations wherein the people dwell are magnified into lofty palaces of silver, and the close-trimmed lawns are great carpets of soft dark velvet; and the smug-faced philistine sea, that the ocean would be ashamed to own for a relation by day, breaks out into broken flashes of silver and long paths of light. All this the moonlight does, rejoicing in its deception. There is another time, too, when Newport is no longer commonplace, when that same sea, which never seems to have any life of its own, disgorges its foggy soul over the land. There is an ugly odour as of musty salt-water in men's nostrils, and the mist is heavy and thick to the touch. It creeps up to the edge of the cliff, and greedily clings to the wet grass, and climbs higher and over the lawns, and in at the windows of Dives's dining-room, and of Croesus's library, with its burden of insiduous mould. The pair of trim-built flirtlings, walking so daintily down the gravel path, becomes indistinct, and their forms are seen but as the shadows of things dead--treading on air, between three worlds. The few feet of bank above the sea, dignified by the name of cliff, fall back to a gaping chasm, a sheer horror of depths, misty and unfathomable. Onward slides the thick cloud, and soon the deep-mouthed monotone of the fog-horns in the distance tells it is in the bay. There is nothing commonplace about the Newport cliff in a fog; it is wild enough and dreary enough then, for the scene of a bad deed. You might meet the souls of the lost in such a fog, hiding before the wrath to come. Late on Tuesday afternoon Claudius and Margaret had taken their way towards the cliff, a solitary couple at that hour on a week-day. Even at a distance there was something about their appearance that distinguished them from ordinary couples. Claudius's great height seemed still more imposing now that he affected the garb of civilisation, and Margaret had the air of a woman of the great world in every movement of her graceful body, and in every fold of her perfect dress. American women, when they dress well, dress better than any other women in the world; but an American woman who has lived at the foreign courts is unapproachable. If there had been any one to see these two together on Tuesday afternoon, there would have been words of envy, malice, and hatred. As it was, they were quite alone on the cliff walk. Margaret was happy; there was light in her eyes, and a faint warm flush on her dark cheek. A closed parasol hung from her hand, having an ivory handle carved with an "M" and a crown--the very one that three months ago had struck the first spark of their acquaintance from the stones of the old Schloss at Heidelberg--perhaps she had brought it on purpose. She was happy still, for she did not know that Claudius was going away, though he had brought her out here, away from every one, that he might tell her. But they had reached the cliff and had walked some distance in the direction of the point, and yet he spoke not. Something tied his tongue, and he would have spoken if he could, but his words seemed too big to come out. At last they came to a place where a quick descent leads from the path down to the sea. A little sheltered nook of sand and stones is there, all irregular and rough, like the lumps in brown sugar, and the lazy sea splashed a little against some old pebbles it had known for a long time, never having found the energy to wash them away. The rocks above overhung the spot, so that it was entirely shielded from the path, and the rocks below spread themselves into a kind of seat. Here they sat them down, facing the water--towards evening--not too near to each other, not too far,--Margaret on the right, Claudius on the left. And Claudius punched the little pebbles with his stick after he had sat down, wondering how he should begin. Indeed it did not seem easy. It would have been easier if he had been less advanced, or further advanced, in his suit. Most people never jump without feeling, at the moment of jumping, that they could leap a little better if they could "take off" an inch nearer or further away. "Countess," said the Doctor at last, turning towards her with a very grave look in his face, "I have something to tell you, and I do not know how to say it." He paused, and Margaret looked at the sea, without noticing him, for she half fancied he was on the point of repeating his former indiscretion and saying he loved her. Would it be an indiscretion now? She wondered what she should say, what she would say, if he did--venture. Would she say "it was not right" of him now? In a moment Claudius had resolved to plunge boldly at the truth. "I am obliged to go away very suddenly," he said; and his voice trembled violently. Margaret's face lost colour in answer, and she resisted an impulse to turn and meet his eyes. She would have liked to, but she felt his look on her, and she feared lest, looking once, she should look too long. "Must you go away?" she asked with a good deal of self-possession. "Yes, I fear I must. I know I must, if I mean to remain here afterwards. I would rather go at once and be done with it." He still spoke uncertainly, as if struggling with some violent hoarseness in his throat. "Tell me why you must go," she said imperiously. Claudius hesitated a moment. "I will tell you one of the principal reasons of my going," he said. "You know I came here to take possession of my fortune, and I very naturally relied upon doing so. Obviously, if I do not obtain it I cannot continue to live in the way I am now doing, on the slender resources which have been enough for me until now." "Et puis?" said the Countess, raising her eyebrows a little. "Et puis," continued the Doctor, "these legal gentlemen find difficulty in persuading themselves that I am myself--that I am really the nephew of Gustavus Lindstrand, deceased." "What nonsense!" exclaimed Margaret. "And so to please them you are going away. And who will get your money, pray?" "I will get it," answered Claudius, "for I will come back as soon as I have obtained the necessary proofs of my identity from Heidelberg." "I never heard of anything so ridiculous," said Margaret hotly. "To go all that distance for a few papers. As if we did not all know you! If you are not Dr. Claudius, who are you? Why, Mr. Barker went to Heidelberg on purpose to find you." "Nevertheless, Messrs. Screw and Scratch doubt me. Here is their letter--the last one. Will you look at it?" and Claudius took an envelope from his pocket-book. He was glad to have come over to the argumentative tack, for his heart was very sore, and he knew what the end must be. "No." The Countess turned to him for the first time, with an indescribable look in her face, between anger and pain. "No, I will not read it." "I wish you would," said Claudius, "you would understand better." Something in his voice touched a sympathetic chord. "I think I understand," said the Countess, looking back at the sea, which was growing dim and indistinct before her. "I think you ought to go." The indistinctness of her vision was not due to any defect in her sight. The wet fog was rising like a shapeless evil genius out of the sluggish sea, rolling heavily across the little bay to the lovers' beach, with its swollen arms full of blight and mildew. Margaret shivered at the sight of it, and drew the lace thing she wore closer to her throat. But she did not rise, or make any sign that she would go. "What is the other reason for your going?" she asked at length. "What other reason?" "You said your inheritance, or the evidence you require in order to obtain it, was one of the principal reasons for your going. I suppose there is another?" "Yes, Countess, there is another reason, but I cannot tell you now what it is." "I have no right to ask, of course," said Margaret,--"unless I can help you," she added, in her soft, deep voice. "You have more right than you think, far more right," answered Claudius. "And I thank you for the kind thought of help. It is very good of you." He turned towards her, and leaned upon his hand as he sat. Still the fog rolled up, and the lifeless sea seemed overshed with an unctuous calm. They were almost in the dark on their strip of beach, and the moisture was already clinging in great, thick drops to their clothes, and to the rocks where they sat. Still Claudius looked at Margaret, and Margaret looked at the narrow band of oily water still uncovered by the mist. "When are you going?" she asked slowly, as if hating to meet the answer. "To-night," said Claudius, still looking earnestly at her. The light was gone from her eyes, and the flush had long sunk away to the heart whence it had come. "To-night?" she repeated, a little vaguely. "Yes," he said, and waited; then after a moment, "Shall you mind when I am gone?" He leaned towards her, earnestly looking into her face. "Yes," said Margaret, "I shall be sorry." Her voice was kind, and very gentle. Still she did not look at him. Claudius held out his right hand, palm upward, to meet hers. "Shall you mind much?" he asked earnestly, with intent eyes. She met his hand and took it. "Yes, I shall be very sorry." Claudius slipped from the rock where he was sitting, and fell upon one knee before her, kissing the hand she gave as though it had been the holy cross. He looked up, his face near hers, and at last he met her eyes, burning with a startled light under the black brows, contrasting with the white of her forehead, and face, and throat. He looked one moment. "Shall you really mind very much?" he asked a third time, in a strange, lost voice. There was no answer, only the wet fog all around, and those two beautiful faces ashy pale in the mist, and very near together. One instant so--and then--ah, God! they have cast the die at last, for he has wound his mighty arms about her, and is passionately kissing the marble of her cheek. "My beloved, my beloved, I love you--with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my strength"--but she speaks no word, only her arms pass his and hang about his neck, and her dark head lies on his breast; and could you but see her eyes, you would see also the fair pearls that the little god has formed deep down in the ocean of love--the lashes thereof are wet with sudden weeping. And all around them the deep, deaf fog, thick and muffled as darkness, and yet not dark. "Ugh!" muttered the evil genius of the sea, "I hate lovers; an' they drown not, they shall have a wet wooing." And he came and touched them all over with the clamminess of his deathly hand, and breathed upon them the thick, cold breath of his damp old soul. But he could do nothing against such love as that, and the lovers burned him and laughed him to scorn. She was very silent as she kissed him and laid her head on his breast. And he could only repeat what was nearest, the credo of his love, and while his arms were about her they were strong, but when he tried to take them away, they were as tremulous as the veriest aspen. The great tidal wave comes rolling in, once in every lifetime that deserves to be called a lifetime, and sweeps away every one of our landmarks, and changes all our coast-line. But though the waters do not subside, yet the crest of them falls rippling away into smoothness after the first mad rush, else should we all be but shipwrecked mariners in the sea of love. And so, after a time, Margaret drew away from Claudius gently, finding his hands with hers as she moved, and holding them. "Come," said she, "let us go." They were her first words, and Claudius thought the deep voice had never sounded so musical before. But the words, the word "go," sounded like a knell on his heart. He had forgotten that he must sail on the morrow. He had forgotten that it was so soon over. They went away, out of the drizzling fog and the mist, and the evil sea-breath, up to the cliff walk and so by the wet lanes homewards, two loving, sorrowing hearts, not realising what had come to them, nor knowing what should come hereafter, but only big with love fresh spoken, and hot with tears half shed. "Beloved," said Claudius as they stood together for the last time in the desolation of the great, dreary, hotel drawing-room--for Claudius was going--"beloved, will you promise me something?" Margaret looked down as she stood with her clasped hands on his arm. "What is it I should promise you--Claudius?" she asked, half hesitating. Claudius laid his hand tenderly--tenderly, as giants only can be tender, on the thick black hair, as hardly daring, yet loving, to let it linger there. "Will you promise that if you doubt me when I am gone, you will ask of the Duke the 'other reason' of my going?" "I shall not doubt you," answered Margaret, looking proudly up. "God bless you, my beloved!"--and so he went to sea again. CHAPTER XVI. When Mr. Barker, who had followed the party to Newport, called on the Countess the following morning, she was not visible, so he was fain to content himself with scribbling a very pressing invitation to drive in the afternoon, which he sent up with some flowers, not waiting for an answer. The fact was that Margaret had sent for the Duke at an early hour--for her--and was talking with him on matters of importance at the time Barker called. Otherwise she would very likely not have refused to see the latter. "I want you to explain to me what they are trying to do to make Dr. Claudius give up his property," said Margaret, who looked pale and beautiful in a morning garment of nondescript shape and of white silken material. The Duke was sitting by the window, watching a couple of men preparing to get into a trim dogcart. To tell the truth, the dogcart and the horse were the objects of interest. His Grace was not aware that the young men were no less personages than young Mr. Hannibal Q. Sniggins and young Mr. Orlando Van Sueindell, both of New York, sons of the "great roads." Either of these young gentlemen could have bought out his Grace; either of them would have joyfully licked his boots; and either of them would have protested, within the sacred precincts of their gorgeous club in New York, that he was a conceited ass of an Englishman. But his Grace did not know this, or he would certainly have regarded them with more interest. He was profoundly indifferent to the character of the people with whom he had to do, whether they were catalogued in the "book of snobs" or not. It is generally people who are themselves snobs who call their intimates by that offensive epithet, attributing to them the sin they fall into themselves. The Duke distinguished between gentlemen and cads, when it was a question of dining at the same table, but in matters of business he believed the distinction of no importance. He came to America for business purposes, and he took Americans as he found them. He thought they were very good men of business, and when it came to associating with them on any other footing, he thought some of them were gentlemen and some were not--pretty much as it is everywhere else. So he watched the young men getting into their dogcart, and he thought the whole turn-out looked "very fit." "Really," he began, in answer to the Countess's question, "--upon my word, I don't know much about it. At least, I suppose not." "Oh, I thought you did," said Margaret, taking up a book and a paper-cutter. "I thought it must be something rather serious, or he would not have been obliged to go abroad to get papers about it." "Well, you know, after all, he--aw--" the Duke reddened--"he--well yes, exactly so." "Yes?" said Margaret interrogatively, expecting something more. "Exactly," said the Duke, still red, but determined not to say anything. He had not promised Claudius not to say he could have vouched for him, had the Doctor stayed; but he feared that in telling Margaret this, he might be risking the betrayal of Claudius's actual destination. It would not do, however. "I really do not understand just what you said," said Margaret, looking at him. "Ah! well, no. I daresay I did not express myself very clearly. What was your question, Countess?" "I asked who it was who was making so much trouble for the Doctor;" said Margaret calmly. "Oh, I was sure I could not have understood you. It's the executors and lawyer people, who are not satisfied about his identity. It's all right, though." "Of course. But could no one here save him the trouble of going all the way back to Germany?" The Duke grew desperate. He was in a corner where he must either tell a lie of some sort or let the cat out of the bag. The Duke was a cynical and worldly man enough, perhaps, as the times go, but he did not tell lies. He plunged. "My dear Countess," he said, facing towards her and stroking his whiskers, "I really know something about Dr. Claudius, and I will tell you all I am at liberty to tell; please do not ask me anything else. Claudius is really gone to obtain papers from Heidelberg as well as for another purpose which I cannot divulge. The papers might have been dispensed with, for I could have sworn to him." "Then the other object is the important one," said the Countess pensively. The Duke was silent. "I am greatly obliged to you," Margaret continued, "for what you have told me." "I will tell you what I can do," said the Englishman after a pause, during which an unusual expression in his face seemed to betoken thought. "I am going to the West for a couple of months to look after things, and of course accidents may happen. Claudius may have difficulty in getting what he wants, and I am the only man here who knows all about him. He satisfied me of his identity. I will, if you like, sign a statement vouching for him, and leave it in your hands in case of need. It is all I can do." "In my hands?" exclaimed Margaret, drawing herself up a little. "And why in _my_ hands, Duke?" The Duke got very red indeed this time, and hesitated. He had put his foot into it through sheer goodness of heart and a desire to help everybody. "Aw--a--the--the fact is, Countess," he got out at last, "the fact is, you know, Claudius has not many friends here, and I thought you were one of them. My only desire is--a--to serve him." Margaret had quickly grasped the advantage to Claudius, if such a voucher as the Duke offered were kept in pickle as a rod for his enemies. "You are right," said she, "I am a good friend of Dr. Claudius, and I will keep the paper in case of need." The Duke recovered his equanimity. "Thank you," said he. "I am a very good friend of his, and I thank you on his behalf, as I am sure he will himself. There's one of our Foreign Office clerks here for his holiday; I will get him to draw up the paper as he is an old friend of mine--in fact, some relation, I believe. By Jove! there goes Barker." The latter exclamation was caused by the sudden appearance of the man he named on the opposite side of the avenue, in conversation with the two young gentlemen whom the Duke had already noticed as preparing to mount their dogcart. "Oh," said Margaret indifferently, in response to the exclamation. "Yes," said the Duke, "it is he. I thought he was in New York." "No," said the Countess, "he has just called. It was his card they brought me just as you came. He wants me to drive with him this afternoon." "Indeed. Shall you go?" "I think so--yes," said she. "Very well. I will take my sister with me," said the Duke. "I have got something very decent to drive in." Margaret laughed at the implied invitation. "How you take things for granted," said she. "Did you really think I would have gone with you?" "Such things have happened," said the Duke good-humouredly, and went away. Not being in the least a ladies' man, he was very apt to make such speeches occasionally. He had a habit of taking it for granted that no one refused his invitations. At four o'clock that afternoon Silas B. Barker junior drew up to the steps of the hotel in a very gorgeous conveyance, called in America a T-cart, and resembling a mail phaeton in build. From the high double box Mr. Barker commanded and guided a pair of showy brown horses, harnessed in the most approved philanthropic, or rather philozooic style; no check-rein, no breeching, no nothing apparently, except a pole and Mr. Barker's crest. For Mr. Barker had a crest, since he came from Salem, Massachusetts, and the bearings were a witch pendant, gules, on a gallows sinister, sable. Behind him sat the regulation clock-work groom, brought over at considerable expense from the establishment of Viscount Plungham, and who sprang to the ground and took his place at the horses' heads as soon as Barker had brought them to a stand. Then Barker, arrayed in a new hat, patent-leather boots, a very long frock-coat, and a very expensive rose, descended lightly from his chariot and swiftly ascended the steps, seeming to tread half on air and half on egg-shells. And a few minutes later he again appeared, accompanied by the Countess Margaret, looking dark and pale and queenly. A proud man was dandy Silas as he helped her to her place, and going to the other side, got in and took the ribbands. Many were the glances that shot from the two edges of the road at the unknown beauty whom Silas drove by his side, and obsequious were the bows of Silas's friends as they passed. Even the groggy old man who drives the water-cart on Bellevue Avenue could scarce forbear to cheer as she went by. And so they drove away, side by side. Barker knew very well that Claudius had taken his leave the day before, and to tell the truth, he was a good deal surprised that Margaret should be willing to accept this invitation. He had called to ask her, because he was not the man to let the grass grow under his feet at any time, much less when he was laying siege to a woman. For with women time is sometimes everything. And being of a reasonable mind, when Mr. Barker observed that he was surprised, he concluded that there must be some good reason for his astonishment, and still more that there must be some very good reason why Margaret should accept his first invitation to a _tête-à-tête_ afternoon. From one reflection to another, he came at last to the conclusion that she must be anxious to learn some details concerning the Doctor's departure, from which again he argued that Claudius had not taken her into his confidence. The hypothesis that she might be willing to make an effort with him for Claudius's justification Mr. Barker dismissed as improbable. And he was right. He waited, therefore, for her to broach the subject, and confined himself, as they drove along, to remarks about the people they passed, the doings of the Newport summer, concerning which he had heard all the gossip during the last few hours, the prospect of Madame Patti in opera during the coming season, horses, dogs, and mutual friends--all the motley array of subjects permissible, desultory, and amusing. Suddenly, as they bowled out on an open road by the sea, Margaret began. "Why has Dr. Claudius gone abroad," she asked, glancing at Barker's face, which remained impenetrable as ever. Barker changed his hold on the reins, and stuck the whip into the bucket by his side before he answered. "They say he has gone to get himself sworn to," he said rather slowly, and with a good show of indifference. "I cannot see why that was necessary," answered Margaret calmly "It seems to me we all knew him very well." "Oh, nobody can understand lawyers," said Barker, and was silent, knowing how strong a position silence was, for she could know nothing more about Claudius without committing herself to a direct question. Barker was in a difficult position. He fully intended later to hint that Claudius might never return at all. But he knew too much to do anything of the kind at present, when the memory of the Doctor was fresh in the Countess's mind, and when, as he guessed, he himself was not too high in her favour. He therefore told a bit of the plain truth which could not be cast in his teeth afterwards, and was silent. It was a good move, and Margaret was fain to take to some other subject of conversation, lest the pause should seem long. They had not gone far before the society kaleidoscope was once more in motion, and Barker was talking his best. They rolled along, passing most things on the road, and when they came to a bit of hill, he walked his horses, on pretence of keeping them cool, but in reality to lengthen the drive and increase his advantage, if only by a minute and a hairbreadth. He could see he was amusing her, as he drew her away from the thing that made her heavy, and sketched, and crayoned, and photographed from memory all manner of harmless gossip--he took care that it should be harmless--and such book-talk as he could command, with such a general sprinkling of sentimentalism, ready made and easy to handle, as American young men affect in talking to women. Making allowance for the customs of the country, they were passing a very innocently diverting afternoon; and Margaret, though secretly annoyed at finding that Barker would not talk about Claudius, or add in any way to her information, was nevertheless congratulating herself upon the smooth termination of the interview. She had indeed only accepted the invitation in the hope of learning something more about Claudius and his "other reason." But she also recognised that, though Barker were unwilling to speak of the Doctor, he might have made himself very disagreeable by taking advantage of the confession of interest she had volunteered in asking so direct a question. But Barker had taken no such lead, and never referred to Claudius in all the ramblings of his polite conversation. He was in the midst of a description of Mrs. Orlando Van Sueindell's last dinner-party, which he had unfortunately missed, when his browns, less peaceably disposed than most of the lazy bean-fed cattle one sees on the Newport avenue, took it into their heads that it would be a joyous thing to canter down a steep place into the sea. The road turned, with a sudden dip, across a little neck of land separating the bay from the harbour, and the descent was, for a few yards, very abrupt. At this point, then, the intelligent animals conceived the ingenious scheme of bolting, with that eccentricity of device which seems to characterise overfed carriage-horses. In an instant they were off, and it was clear there would be no stopping them--from a trot to a break, from a canter to a gallop, from a gallop to a tearing, breakneck, leave-your-bones-behind-you race, all in a moment, down to the sea. Barker was not afraid, and he did what he could. He was not a strong man, and he knew himself no match for the two horses, but he hoped by a sudden effort, repeated once or twice, to scare the runaways into a standstill, as is sometimes possible. Acting immediately on his determination, as he always did, he wound one hand in each rein, and half rising from his high seat, jerked with all his might. Margaret held her breath. But alas for the rarity of strength in saddlers' work! The off-rein snapped away like a thread just where the buckle leads half of it over to the near horse, and the strain on the right hand being thus suddenly removed, the horses' heads were jerked violently to the left, and they became wholly unmanageable. Barker was silent, and instantly dropped the unbroken rein. As for Margaret, she sat quite still, holding to the low rail-back of her seat, and preparing for a jump. They were by this time nearly at the bottom of the descent, and rapidly approaching a corner where a great heap of rocks made the prospect hideous. To haul the horses over to the left would have been destruction, as the ground fell away on that side to a considerable depth down to the rocks below. Then Barker did a brave thing. "If I miss him, jump off to the right," he cried; and in a moment, before Margaret could answer or prevent him, he had got over the dashboard, and was in mid-air, a strange figure, in his long frock-coat and shiny hat. With a bold leap--and the Countess shivered as she saw him flying in front of her--he alighted on the back of the off horse, almost on his face, but well across the beast for all that. Light and wiry, a mere bundle of nerves dressed up, Mr. Barker was not to be shaken off, and, while the animal was still plunging, he had caught the flying bits of bridle, and was sawing away, right and left, with the energy of despair. Between its terror at being suddenly mounted by some one out of a clear sky, so to say, and the violent wrenching it was getting from Barker's bony little hands, the beast decided to stop at last, and its companion, who was coming in for some of the pulling too, stopped by sympathy, with a series of snorts and plunges. Barker still clung to the broken rein, leaning far over the horse's neck so as to wind it round his wrist; and he shouted to Margaret to get out, which she immediately did; but, instead of fainting away, she came to the horses' heads and stood before them, a commanding figure that even a dumb animal would not dare to slight--too much excited to speak yet, but ready to face anything. A few moments later the groom, whose existence they had both forgotten, came running down to them, with a red face, and dusting his battered hat on his arm as he came. He had quietly slipped off behind, and had been rolled head over heels for his pains, but had suffered no injury. Then Barker got off. He was covered with dust, but his hat was still on his head, and he did not look as though he had been jumping for his life. Margaret turned to him with genuine gratitude and admiration, for he had borne himself as few men could or would have done. "You have saved my life," she said, "and I am very grateful. It was very brave of you." And she held out her hand to meet his, now trembling violently from the fierce strain. "Oh, not at all; it was really nothing," he said, bowing low. But the deep wrinkle that scored Barker's successes in life showed plainly round his mouth. He knew what his advantage was, and he had no thought of the danger when he reflected on what he had gained. Not he! His heart, or the organ which served him in place of one, was full of triumph. Had he planned the whole thing with the utmost skill and foresight he could not have succeeded better. Such a victory! and the very first day after Claudius's departure--Ye gods! what luck! And so it came to pass that by the time the harness had been tied together and the conveyance got without accident as far as the first stable on the outskirts of the town, where it was left with the groom, Barker had received a goodly meed of thanks and praise. And when Margaret proposed that they should walk as far as the hotel, Barker tried a few steps and found he was too lame for such exercise, his left leg having been badly bruised by the pole of the carriage in his late exploit; which injury elicited a further show of sympathy from Margaret. And when at last he left her with a cab at the door of her hotel, he protested that he had enjoyed a very delightful drive, and went away in high spirits. Margaret, in her gratitude for such an escape, and in unfeigned admiration of Barker's daring and coolness, was certainly inclined to think better of him than she had done for a long time. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that he was more in her thoughts than he had been; for, in the reign of Claudius, Barker had dwindled to a nearly insignificant speck in the landscape, dwarfed away to nothing by the larger mould and stronger character of the Swede. Margaret saw the Duke in the evening. He gave her a document, unsealed, in a huge envelope, bidding her keep it in a safe place, for the use of their mutual friend, in case he should need it. She said she would give it to Claudius when he came back; and then she told the Duke about her drive with Barker and the accident. The Duke looked grave. "Of course," he said, "I introduced Barker to you, and it would seem very odd if I were to warn you against him now. All the same, Countess, I have had the honour of being your friend for some time, and I must say I have sometimes regretted that I brought him to your house." He reddened a little after he had spoken, fearing she might have misunderstood him. "I wish," he added, to make things clearer, "that I could have brought you Claudius without Barker." Then he reddened still more, and wished he had said nothing. Margaret raised her eyebrows. Perhaps she could have wished as much herself, but she dropped the subject. "When are you coming back from the West, Duke," she asked, busying herself in arranging some books on her table. The hotel sitting-room was so deadly dreary to the eye that she was trying to make it look as if it had not been lately used as a place of burial. "It may be two months before I am here again. A--about the time Claudius comes over, I should think." "And when do you go?" "Next week, I think." "I wish you were going to stay," said Margaret simply, "or Lady Victoria. I shall be so lonely." "You will have Miss Skeat," suggested his Grace. "Oh, it's not that," said she. "I shall not be alone altogether, for there is poor Nicholas, you know. I must take care of him; and then I suppose some of these people will want to amuse me, or entertain me--not that they are very entertaining; but they mean well. Besides, my being mixed up in a Nihilist persecution adds to my social value." The Duke, however, was not listening, his mind being full of other things--what there was of it, and his heart had long determined to sympathise with Margaret in her troubles; so there was nothing more to be said. "Dear me," thought Miss Skeat, "what a pity! They say she might have had the Duke when she was a mere child--and to think that she should have refused him! So admirably suited to each other!" But Miss Skeat, as she sat at the other end of the room trying to find "what it was that people saw so funny" in the _Tramp Abroad_, was mistaken about her patroness and the very high and mighty personage from the aristocracy. The Duke was much older than Margaret, and had been married before he had ever seen her. It was only because they were such good friends that the busybodies said they had just missed being man and wife. But when the Duke was gone, Margaret and Miss Skeat were left alone, and they drew near each other and sat by the table, the elder lady reading aloud from a very modern novel. The Countess paid little attention to what she heard, for she was weary, and it seemed as though the evening would never end. Miss Skeat's even and somewhat monotonous voice produced no sensation of drowsiness to-night, as it often did, though Margaret's eyes were half-closed and her fingers idle. She needed rest, but it would not come, and still her brain went whirling through the scenes of the past twenty-four hours, again and again recurring to the question "Why is he gone?" unanswered and yet ever repeated, as the dreadful wake-song of the wild Irish, the "Why did he die?" that haunts the ear that has once heard it for weeks afterwards. She tried to reason, but there was no reason. Why, why, why? He was gone with her kiss on his lips and her breath in his. She should have waited till he came back from over the sea before giving him what was so very precious. More than once, as she repeated the words he had spoken at parting, she asked herself whether she doubted him after all, and whether it would not be wiser to speak to the Duke. But then, the latter so evidently believed in Claudius that it comforted her to think of his honest faith, and she would dismiss every doubt again as vain and wearying. But still the eternal question rang loudly in her soul's ears, and the din of the inquisitive devil that would not be satisfied deafened her so that she could not hear Miss Skeat. Once or twice she moved her head nervously from side to side, as it rested on the back of the chair, and her face was drawn and pale, so that Miss Skeat anxiously asked whether she were in any pain, but Margaret merely motioned to her companion to continue reading, and was silent. But Miss Skeat grew uneasy, feeling sure that something was the matter. "Dear Countess," she said, "will you not retire to rest? I fear that this horrid accident has shaken you. Do go to bed, and I will come and read you to sleep." Her voice sounded kindly, and Margaret's fingers stole out till they covered Miss Skeat's bony white ones, with the green veins and the yellowish lights between the knuckles. Miss Skeat, at this unusual manifestation of feeling, laid down the book she held in her other hand, and settled her gold-rimmed glasses over her long nose. Then her eyes beamed across at Margaret, and a kindly, old-fashioned smile came into her face that was good to see, and as she pressed the hot young hand in hers there was a suspicion of motherliness in her expression that would have surprised a stranger. For Miss Skeat did not look motherly at ordinary times. "Poor child!" said she softly. Margaret's other hand went to her eyes and hid them from sight, and her head sank forward until it touched her fingers, where they joined Miss Skeat's. "I am so unhappy to-night," murmured Margaret, finding at last, in the evening hours, the sympathy she had longed for all day. Miss Skeat changed her own position a little so as to be nearer to her. "Poor child!" repeated Miss Skeat almost in a whisper, as she bent down to the regal head that lay against her hand, smoothing the thick hair with her worn fingers. "Poor child, do you love him so very dearly?" She spoke almost inaudibly, and her wrinkled eyelids were wet. But low as was her voice, Margaret heard, and moved her head in assent, without lifting it from the table. Ah yes--she loved him very, very much. But she could not bear to confess it, for all that, and a moment afterwards she was sitting upright again in her chair, feeling that she had weathered the first storm. Her companion, who was not ignorant of her ways, contented herself then with patting Margaret's hand caressingly during the instant it remained in her own, before it was drawn away. There was a world of kindness and of gentle humanity in the gaunt gentlewoman's manner, showing that the heart within was not withered yet. Then Miss Skeat flattened the book before her with the paper-cutter, and began to read. Reading aloud had become to her a second nature, and whether she had liked it or not at first, she had learned to do it with perfect ease and indifference, neither letting her voice drag languidly and hesitatingly when she was tired, nor falling into that nerve-rending fault of readers who vainly endeavour to personate the characters in dialogue, and to give impressiveness in the descriptive portions. She never made a remark, or asked her hearer's opinion. If the Countess was in the humour to sleep, the reading was soporific; if she desired to listen, she felt that her companion was not trying to bias her judgment by the introduction of dramatic intonation and effect. With an even, untiring correctness of utterance, Miss Skeat read one book just as she read another--M. Thiers or Mr. Henry James, Mark Twain or a Parliamentary Report--it was all one to her. Poor Miss Skeat! But to Margaret the evening seemed long and the night longer, and many days and evenings and nights afterwards. Not that she doubted, but that she thought--well--perhaps she thought she ought to doubt. Some cunning reader of face and character, laughing and making love by turns, had once told her she had more heart than head. Every woman knows she ought to seem flattered at being considered a "person of heart," and yet every woman cordially hates to be told so. And, at last, Margaret began to wonder whether it were true. Should she have admitted she loved a man who left her a moment afterwards in order to make a voyage of two months for the mere furthering of his worldly interest? But then--he told her he was going before he kissed her. What could be the "other reason"? CHAPTER XVII. It is not to be supposed that a man of Barker's character would neglect the signal advantage he had gained in being injured, or at least badly bruised, while attempting to save Margaret from destruction. That he had really saved her was a less point in his favour than that he had barked his shins in so doing. The proverbial relationship between pity and love is so exceedingly well known that many professional love-makers systematically begin their campaigns by endeavouring to move the compassion of the woman they are attacking. Occasionally they find a woman with whom pity is akin to scorn instead of to love--and then their policy is a failure. The dark Countess was no soft-hearted Saxon maiden, any more than she was a cold-blooded, cut-throat American girl, calculating her romance by the yard, booking her flirtations by double-entry and marrying at compound interest, with the head of a railway president and the heart of an Esquimaux. She was rather one of those women who are ever ready to sympathise from a naturally generous and noble nature, but who rarely give their friendship and still more seldom their love. They marry, sometimes, where there is neither. They marry--ye gods! why do people marry, and what reasons will they not find for marrying? But such women, if they are wedded where their heart is not, are generally very young; far too young to know what they are doing; and though there be little inclination to the step, it always turns out that they had at least a respect for the man. Margaret had been married to Count Alexis because it was in every way such a plausible match, and she was only eighteen then, poor thing. But Alexis was such an uncommonly good fellow that she had honestly tried to love him, and had not altogether failed. At least she had never had any domestic troubles, and when he was shot at Plevna, in 1876, she shed some very genuine tears and shut herself away from the world for a long time. But though her sorrow was sincere, it was not profound, and she knew it from the first, never deceiving herself with the idea that she could not marry again. She had sustained many a siege, however, both before her husband's untimely death and since; and though a stranger to love, she was no novice in love-making. Indeed few women are; certainly no beautiful women. Margaret, then, though a pure-hearted and brave lady, was of the world, understanding the wiles thereof; and so, when Mr. Barker began to come regularly to see her, and when she noticed how very long the slight lameness he had incurred from the runaway accident seemed to last, and when she observed how cunningly he endeavoured to excite her sympathy towards him, she began to suspect that he meant something more than a mere diversion for himself. He spoke so feelingly of his lonely position in the world; to accentuate which, he spoke of his father without any feeling whatever. He represented himself as so drearily lonely and friendless in this hard-hearted, thorny world. Quite a little lamb was Silas, leaving shreds of his pure white wool rent off and clinging to the briars of his solitary life-journey. He was very patient in his sufferings, he said, for he so keenly felt that coarser natures could not suffer as he did; that troubles glided from their backs like water from the feathers of the draggled but happy goose, whereas on his tender heart they struck deep like a fiery rain. Was it not Danty who told of those poor people who were exposed to the molten drizzle? Ah yes! Danty knew, of course, for he had been a great sufferer. What a beautiful, yet sad, word is that, "to suffer"! How gentle and lovely to suffer without complaint! Had the Countess ever thought of it? To suffer silently--and long--(here Silas cast a love-sick glance out of his small dark eyes)--with the hope of gaining an object infinitely far removed, but--(another glance)--infinitely beautiful and worth obtaining. Oh! Silas would suffer for ever in such a hope! There was nothing Silas would not do that was saintly that he might gain heaven. After a time, Margaret, who disliked this kind of talk intensely, began to look grave, an omen which Barker did not fail to interpret to his advantage, for it is a step gained when a woman begins to be serious. Only a man ignorant of Margaret's real character, and incapable of appreciating it, could have been so deceived in this case. She had felt strongly that Barker had saved her life, and that he had acted with a boldness and determination on that occasion which would have merited her admiration even had it not commanded her gratitude. But she was really grateful, and, wishing to show it, could devise no better plan than to receive his visits and to listen politely to his conversation. One day, late in the afternoon, they were sitting together over a cup of tea, and Barker was pouring out his experiences, or what he was pleased to call by that name, for they were not genuine. Not that his own existence would have been a dull or uninteresting chapter for a rainy afternoon, for Barker had led a stirring life of its kind. But as it was necessary to strike the pathetic key, seeing that Claudius had the heroic symphony to himself, Barker embroidered skilfully a little picture in which he appeared more sinned against than sinning, inasmuch as he had been called upon to play the avenging angel. He had succeeded, he admitted, in accomplishing his object, which in his opinion had been a justifiable one, but it had left a sore place in his heart, and he had never quite recovered from the pain it had given him to give so much pain--wholesome pain indeed, but what of that?--to another. "It was in New York, some years ago," he said. "A friend of mine, such a dear good fellow, was very much in love with a reigning beauty, a Miss--; well, you will guess the name. She threw him over, after a three months' engagement, in the most heartless manner, and he was so broken-hearted that he drank himself to death in six months at the club. He died there one winter's evening under very painful circumstances." "A noble end," said Margaret, scornfully. "What a proud race we Americans are!" Barker sighed skilfully and looked reproachfully at Margaret. "Poor chap!" he ejaculated, "I saw him die. And that night," continued Mr. Barker, with a mournful impressiveness, "I determined that the woman who had caused so much unhappiness should be made to know what unhappiness is. I made up my mind that she should suffer what my friend had suffered. I knew her very well,--in fact she was a distant connection; so I went to her at a ball at the Van Sueindells'. I had engaged her to dance the German[2], and had sent her some very handsome roses. I had laid my plan already, and after a little chaff and a few turns I challenged her to a set flirtation. 'Let us swear,' I said, 'to be honest, and let us make a bet of a dozen pairs of gloves. If one of us really falls in love, he or she must acknowledge it and pay the gloves.' It was agreed, for she was in great spirits that night, and laughed at the idea that she could ever fall in love with _me_--poor me! who have so little that is attractive. At first she thought it was only a joke, but as I began to visit her regularly and to go through all the formalities of love-making, she became interested. We were soon the talk of the town, and everybody said we were going to be married. Still the engagement did not come out, and people waited, open-mouthed, wondering what next. At last I thought I was safe, and so, the first chance I had at a party in Newport, I made a dead set at a new beauty just arrived from the South--I forget where. The other--the one with whom I was betting--was there, and I watched her. She lost her temper completely, and turned all sorts of colours. Then I knew I had won, and so I went back to her and talked to her for the rest of the evening, explaining that the other young lady was a sister of a very dear friend of mine. [Footnote 2: American for the _cotillon_.] "The next day I called on my beauty, and throwing myself at her feet, I declared myself vanquished. The result was just as I expected. She burst into tears and put her arms round my neck, and said it was she who lost, for she really loved me though she had been too proud to acknowledge it. Then I calmly rose and laughed. 'I do not care for you in the least,' I said; 'I only said so to make you speak. I have won the gloves.' She broke down completely, and went abroad a few days afterwards. And so I avenged my friend." There was a pause when Barker had finished his tale. He sipped his tea, and Margaret rose slowly and went to the window. "Don't you think that is a very good story, Countess?" he asked. "Don't you think I was quite right?" Still no answer. Margaret rang the bell, and old Vladimir appeared. "Mr. Barker's carriage," said she; then, recollecting herself, she repeated the order in Russian, and swept out of the room without deigning to look at the astonished young man, standing on the hearthrug with his tea-cup in his hand. How it is that Vladimir succeeds in interpreting his mistress's orders to the domestics of the various countries in which she travels is a mystery not fathomed, for in her presence he understands only the Slav tongue. But however that may be, a minute had not elapsed before Mr. Barker was informed by another servant that his carriage was at the door. He turned pale as he descended the steps. You have carried it too far, Mr. Barker. That is not the kind of story that a lady of Countess Margaret's temper will listen to; for when you did the thing you have told her--if indeed you ever did it, which is doubtful--you did a very base and unmanly thing. It may not be very nice to act as that young lady did to your friend; but then, just think how very much worse it would have been if she had married him from a sense of duty, and made him feel it afterwards. Worse? Ay, worse than a hundred deaths. You are an ass, Barker, with your complicated calculations, as the Duke has often told you; and now it is a thousand to one that you have ruined yourself with the Countess. She will never take your view that it was a justifiable piece of revenge; she will only see in it a cruel and dastardly deception, practised on a woman whose only fault was that, not loving, she discovered her mistake in time. A man should rejoice when a woman draws back from an engagement, reflecting what his life might have been had she not done so. But Barker's face was sickly with disappointment as he drove away, and he could hardly collect himself enough to determine what was best to be done. However, after a time he came to the conclusion that a letter must be written of humble apology, accompanied by a few very expensive flowers, and followed after a week's interval by a visit. She could not mean to break off all acquaintance with him for so slight a cause. She would relent and see him again, and then he would put over on the other tack. He had made a mistake--very naturally, too--because she was always so reluctant to give her own individual views about anything. A mistake could be repaired, he thought, without any serious difficulty. And so the next morning Margaret received some flowers and a note, a very gentlemanly note, expressive of profound regret that anything he could have said, and so forth, and so forth. And Margaret, whose strong temper sometimes made her act hastily, even when acting rightly, said to herself that she had maltreated the poor little beast, and would see him if he called again. That was how she expressed it, showing that to some extent Barker had succeeded in producing a feeling of pity in her mind--though it was a very different sort of pity from what he would have wished. Meanwhile Margaret returned to New York, where she saw her brother-in-law occasionally, and comforted him with the assurance that when his hundred napoleons were at an end, she would take care of him. And Nicholas, who was a gentleman, like his dead brother, proud and fierce, lived economically in a small hotel, and wrote magazine articles describing the state of his unhappy country. Then Barker called and was admitted, Miss Skeat being present, and his face expressed a whole volume of apology, while he talked briskly of current topics; and so he gradually regained the footing he had lost. At all events he thought so, not knowing that though Margaret might forgive she could never forget; and that she was now forewarned and forearmed in perpetuity against any advance Barker might ever make. One day the mail brought a large envelope with an English postage stamp, addressed in a strong, masculine hand, even and regular, and utterly without adornment, but yet of a strikingly peculiar expression, if a handwriting may be said to have an expression. "CUNARD S.S. _Servia, Sept. 15th_. "My Beloved Lady--Were it not for the possibility of writing to you, this voyage would be an impossible task to me; and even as it is, the feeling that what I write must travel away from you for many days before it travels towards you again makes me half suspect it is a mockery after all. After these wonderful months of converse it seems incredible that I should be thus taken out of your hearing and out of the power of seeing you. That I long for a sight of your dear face, that I hunger for your touch and for your sweet voice, I need not tell you or further asseverate. I am constantly looking curiously at the passengers, vainly thinking that you must appear among them. The sea without you is not the sea, any more than heaven would be heaven were you not there. "I cannot describe to you, my dear lady, how detestable the life on board is to me. I loathe the people with their inane chatter, and the idiotic children, and the highly-correct and gentlemanly captain, all equally. The philistine father, the sea-sick mother, the highly-cultured daughter, and the pipe-smoking son, are equally objects of disgust. When I go on deck the little children make a circle round me, because I am so big, and the sailors will not let me go on to forecastle under three shillings--which I paid cheerfully, however, because I can be alone there and think of you, without being contemplated as an object of wonder by about two hundred idiots. I have managed to rig a sort of table in my cabin at last, and here I sit, under the dubious light of the port-hole, wishing it would blow, or that we might meet an iceberg, or anything, to scare the people into their dens and leave me a little open-air solitude. "It seems so strange to be writing to you. I never wrote anything but little notes in the old days at Baden, and now I am writing what promises to be a long letter, for we cannot be in under six days, and in all that time there is nothing else I can do--nothing else I would do, if I could. And yet it is so different. Perhaps I am incoherent, and you will say, different from what? It is different from what it used to be, before that thrice-blessed afternoon in the Newport fog. "The gray mist came down like a curtain, shutting off the past and marking where the present begins. It seems to me that I never lived before that moment, and yet those months were happy while they lasted, so that it sometimes seemed as though no greater happiness could be possible. How did it all happen, most blessed lady? "The lazy, good-natured sea, that loves us well, washes up and glances through my port-hole as I write, as if in answer to my question. The sea knows how it happened, for he saw us, and bore us, and heard all the tale; and even in Newport he was there, hidden under the fog and listening, and he is rejoicing that those who loved are now lovers. It is not hard to see how it happened. They all worship you, every human being that comes near you falls down and acknowledges you to be the queen. For they must. There is no salvation from that, and it is meet and right that it should be so. And I came, like the others, to do homage to the great queen, and you deigned to raise me up and bid me stand beside you. "You are my first allegiance and my first love. I thank Heaven that I can say it honestly and truly, without fear of my conscience pricking. You know too, for I have told you, how my boyhood and manhood have been passed, and if there is anything you do not know I will tell you hereafter, for I would always hate to feel that there was anything about me you did not know--I could not feel it. But then, say you, he should have told me what he was going to do abroad. And so I have, dear lady; for though I have not explained it all to you, I have placed all needful knowledge in safe hands, where you can obtain it for the asking, if ever the least shadow of doubt should cross your mind. Only I pray you, as suing a great boon, not to doubt--that is all, for I would rather you did not know yet. "This letter is being written by degrees. I have not written all this at once, for I find it as hard to express my thoughts to you on paper as I find it easy by word of mouth. It seems a formal thing to write, and yet there should be nothing less marred by formality than such a letter as mine. It is only that the choice is too great. I have too much to say, and so say nothing. I would ask, if I were so honoured by Heaven, the tongues of men and of angels, and all the mighty word-music of sage and prophet, that I might tell you how I love you, my heart's own. I would ask that for one hour I might hold in my hand the bâton of heaven's choir. Then would I lead those celestial musicians through such a grand plain chant as time has never dreamt of, nor has eternity yet heard it; so that rank on rank of angels and saints should take up the song, until the arches of the outer firmament rang again, and the stars chimed together; and all the untold hierarchy of archangelic voice and heavenly instrument should cry, as with one soul, the confession of this heart of mine--'I love.' "Another day has passed, and I think I have heard in my dreams the bursts of music that I would fain have wafted to your waking ears. Verily the lawyers in New York say well, that I am not Claudius. Claudius was a thing of angles and books, mathematical and earthy, believing indeed in the greatness of things supernal, but not having tasted thereof. My beloved, God has given me a new soul to love you with, so great that it seems as though it would break through the walls of my heart and cry aloud to you. This new Claudius is a man of infinite power to rise above earthly things, above everything that is below you--and what things that are in earth are not below you, lady mine? "Again the time has passed, in a dull reluctant fashion, as if he delighted to torment, like the common bore of society. He lingers and dawdles through his round of hours as though it joyed him to be sluggish. It has blown a little, and most of the people are sea-sick. Thank goodness! I suppose that is a very inhuman sentiment, but the masses of cheerful humanity, gluttonously fattening on the ship's fare and the smooth sea, were becoming intolerable. There is not one person on board who looks as though he or she had left a human being behind who had any claim to be regretted. Did any one of these people ever love? I suppose so. I suppose at one time or another most of them have thought they loved some one. I will not be uncharitable, for they are receiving their just punishment. Lovers are never sea-sick, but now a hoarse chorus, indescribable and hideous, rises from hidden recesses of the ship. They are not in love, they are sea-sick. May it do them all possible good! "Here we are at last. I hasten to finish this rambling letter that it may catch the steamer, which, I am told, leaves to-day. Nine days we have been at sea, and the general impression seems to be that the last part of the passage has been rough. And now I shall be some weeks in Europe--I cannot tell how long, but I think the least possible will be three weeks, and the longest six. I shall know, however, in a fortnight. My beloved, it hurts me to stop writing--unreasonable animal that I am, for a letter must be finished in order to be posted. I pray you, sweetheart, write me a word of comfort and strength in my journeying. Anything sent to Baring's will reach me; you cannot know what a line from you would be to me, how I would treasure it as the most sacred of things and the most precious, until we meet. And so, à bientôt, for we must never say 'goodbye,' even in jest. I feel as though I were launching this letter at a venture, as sailors throw a bottle overboard when they fear they are lost. I have not yet tested the post-office, and I feel a kind of uncertainty as to whether this will reach you. "But they are clamouring at my door, and I must go. Once more, my own queen, I love you, ever and only and always. May all peace and rest be with you, and may Heaven keep you from all harm!" This letter was not signed, for what signature could it possibly need? Margaret read it, and read it again, wondering--for she had never had such a letter in her life. The men who had made love to her had never been privileged to speak plainly, for she would have none of them, and so they had been obliged to confine themselves to such cunning use of permissible words and phrases as they could command, together with copious quotations from more or less erotic poets. Moreover, Claudius had never been in a position to speak his heart's fill to her until that last day, when words had played so small a part. It was a love-letter, at least in part, such as a man might have written a hundred years ago--not such as men write nowadays, thought Margaret; certainly not such as Mr. Barker would write--or could. But she was glad he had written; and written so, for it was like him, who was utterly unlike any one else. The letter had come in the morning while Clémentine was dressing her, and she laid it on her writing-desk. But when the maid was gone, she read it once again, sitting by her window, and when she had done she unconsciously held it in her hand and rested her cheek against it. A man kisses a letter received from the woman he loves, but a woman rarely does. She thinks when he is away that she would hardly kiss _him_, were he present, much less will she so honour his handwriting. But when he himself comes the colour of things is changed. Nevertheless, Margaret put the folded letter in her bosom and wore it there unseen all through that day; and when Mr. Barker came to offer to take her to drive she said she would not go, making some libellous remark about the weather, which was exceeding glad and sunshiny in spite of her refusal to face it. And Mr. Barker, seeing that he was less welcome than usual, went away, for he was mortally afraid of annoying her. Margaret was debating within herself whether she should answer, and if so, what she should say. In truth, it was not easy. She felt herself unable to write in the way he did, had she wished to. Besides, there was that feminine feeling still lurking in her heart, which said, "Do not trust him till he comes back." It seemed to her it must be so easy to write like that--and yet, she had not thought so at the first reading. But she loved him, not yet as she would some day, but still she loved, and it was her first love, as it was his. She had settled herself in the hotel for the present, and to make it more like home--like her pretty home at Baden--she had ordered a few plants and growing flowers, very simple and inexpensive, for she felt herself terribly pinched, although she had not yet begun actually to feel the restrictions laid on her by her financial troubles. When Barker was gone, she amused herself with picking off the dried leaves and brushing away the little cobwebs and spiders that always accumulate about growing things. In the midst of this occupation she made up her mind, and rang the bell. "Vladimir, I am not at home," she said solemnly, and the gray-haired, gray-whiskered functionary bowed in acknowledgment of the fact, which was far from evident. When he was gone she sat down to her desk and wrote to Dr. Claudius. She wrote rapidly in her large hand, and before long she had covered four pages of notepaper. Then she read it over, and tore it up. The word "dear" occurred once too often for her taste. Again the white fingers flew rapidly along the page, but soon she stopped. "That is too utterly frigid," she said half aloud, with a smile. Then she tried again. "DEAR DR. CLAUDIUS--So many thanks for your charming letter, which I received this morning. Tell me a great deal more, please, and write _at once_. Tell me everything you do and say and see, for I want to feel just as though you were here to talk everything over. "Mr. Barker has been here a good deal lately, and the other day he told me a story I did not like. But I forgave him, for he seemed so penitent. Please burn my letters. "It is very cold and disagreeable, and I really half wish I were in Europe. Europe is much pleasanter. I have not read a word of Spencer since you left, but I have thought a great deal about what you said the last time we did any work together. "Let me know _positively_ when you are coming back, and let it be as soon as possible, for I must see you. I am going to see Salvini, in _Othello_, to-night, with Miss Skeat. He sent me a box, in memory of a little dinner years ago, and I expect him to call. He _did_ call, but I could not see him. "I cannot write any more, for it is dinner-time. Thanks, dear, for your loving letter. It was sweet of you to post it the same day, for it caught the steamer. --In tearing haste, yours, M. "_P.S._--Answer all my questions, please." There was an indistinctness about the last word; it might have been "your," or "yours." The "tearing haste" resolved itself into ringing the bell to know what time it was, for Margaret had banished the hideous hotel clock from the room. On finding it was yet early, she sat down in a deep chair, and warmed her toes at the small wood fire, which was just enough to be enjoyable and not enough to be hot. It was now the beginning of October, for Claudius's letter, begun on the 15th of September, had not been posted until the 21st, and had been a long time on the way. She wondered when he would get the letter she had just written. It was not much of a letter, but she remembered the last paragraph, and thought it was quite affectionate enough. As for Claudius, when he received it he was as much delighted as though it had been six times as long and a hundred times more expansive. "Thanks, dear, for your loving letter,"--that phrase alone acknowledged everything, accepted everything, and sanctioned everything. In the evening, as she had said in writing to the Doctor, she went with Miss Skeat and sat in the front box of the theatre, which the great actor had placed at her disposal. The play was _Othello_. Mr. Barker had ascertained that she was going, and had accordingly procured himself a seat in the front of the orchestra. He endeavoured to catch a look from Margaret all through the first part of the performance, but she was too entirely absorbed in the tragedy to notice him. At length, in the interval before the last act, Mr. Barker took courage, and, leaving his chair, threaded his way out of the lines of seats to the entrance. Then he presented himself at the door of the Countess's box. "May I come in for a little while?" he inquired with an affectation of doubt and delicacy that was unnatural to him. "Certainly," said Margaret indifferently, but smiling a little withal. "I have ventured to bring you some _marrons glacés_," said Barker, when he was seated, producing at the same time a neat _bonbonnière_ in the shape of a turban. "I thought they would remind you of Baden. You used to be very fond of them." "Thanks," said she, "I am still." And she took one. The curtain rose, and Barker was obliged to be silent, much against his will. Margaret immediately became absorbed in the doings on the stage. She had witnessed that terrible last act twenty times before, but she never wearied of it. Neither would she have consented to see it acted by any other than the great Italian. Whatever be the merits of the play, there can be no question as to its supremacy of horror in the hands of Salvini. To us of the latter half of this century it appears to stand alone; it seems as if there could never have been such a scene or such an actor in the history of the drama. Horrible--yes! beyond all description, but, being horrible, of a depth of horror unrealised before. Perhaps no one who has not lived in the East can understand that such a character as Salvini's _Othello_ is a possible, living reality. It is certain that American audiences, even while giving their admiration, withhold their belief. They go to see _Othello_, that they may shudder luxuriously at the sight of so much suffering; for it is the moral suffering of the Moor that most impresses an intelligent beholder, but it is doubtful whether Americans or English, who have not lived in Southern or Eastern lands, are capable of appreciating that the character is drawn from the life. The great criticism to which all modern tragedy, and a great deal of modern drama, are open is the undue and illegitimate use of horror. Horror is not terror. They are two entirely distinct affections. A man hurled from a desperate precipice, in the living act to fall, is properly an object of terror, sudden and quaking. But the same man, reduced to a mangled mass of lifeless humanity, broken to pieces, and ghastly with the gaping of dead wounds--the same man, when his last leap is over and hope is fled, is an object of horror, and as such would not in early times have been regarded as a legitimate subject for artistic representation, either on the stage or in the plastic or pictorial arts. It may be that in earlier ages, when men were personally familiar with the horrors of a barbarous ethical system, while at the same time they had the culture and refinement belonging to a high development of æsthetic civilisation, the presentation of a great terror immediately suggested the concomitant horror; and suggested it so vividly that the visible definition of the result--the bloodshed, the agony, and the death-rattle--would have produced an impression too dreadful to be associated with any pleasure to the beholder. There was no curiosity to behold violent death among a people accustomed to see it often enough in the course of their lives, and not yet brutalised into a love of blood for its own sake. The Romans presented an example of the latter state; they loved horror so well that they demanded real horror and real victims. And that is the state of the populations of England and America at the present day. Were it not for the tremendous power of modern law, there is not the slightest doubt that the mass of Londoners or New Yorkers would flock to-day to see a gladiatorial show, or to watch a pack of lions tearing, limb from limb, a dozen unarmed convicts. Not the "cultured" classes--some of them would be ashamed, and some would really feel a moral incapacity for witnessing so much pain--but the masses would go, and would pay handsomely for the sport; and, moreover, if they once tasted blood they would be strong enough to legislate in favour of tasting more. It is not to the discredit of the Anglo-Saxon race that it loves savage sports. The blood is naturally fierce, and has not been cowed by the tyranny endured by European races. There have been more free men under England's worst tyrants than under France's most liberal kings. But, failing gladiators and wild beasts, the people must have horrors on the stage, in literature, in art, and, above all, in the daily press. Shakspere knew that, and Michelangelo, who is the Shakspere of brush and chisel, knew it also, as those two unrivalled men seem to have known everything else. And so when Michelangelo painted the _Last Judgment_, and Shakspere wrote _Othello_ (for instance), they both made use of horror in a way the Greeks would not have tolerated. Since we no longer see daily enacted before us scenes of murder, torture, and public execution, our curiosity makes us desire to see those scenes represented as accurately as possible. The Greeks, in their tragedies, did their slaughter behind the scenes, and occasionally the cries of the supposed victims were heard. But theatre-goers of to-day would feel cheated if the last act of Othello were left to their imagination. When Salvini thrusts the crooked knife into his throat, with that ghastly sound of death that one never forgets, the modern spectator would not understand what the death-rattle meant, did he not see the action that accompanies it. "It is too realistic," said Mr. Barker in his high thin voice when it was over, and he was helping Margaret with her silken wrappings. "It is not realistic," said she, "it is real. It may be an unhealthy excitement, but if we are to have it, it is the most perfect of its kind." "It is very horrible," said Miss Skeat; and they drove away. Margaret would not stay to see the great man after the curtain fell. The disillusion of such a meeting is too great to be pleasurable. Othello is dead, and the idea of meeting Othello in the flesh ten minutes later, smiling and triumphant, is a death-blow to that very reality which Margaret so much enjoyed. Besides, she wanted to be alone with her own thoughts, which were not entirely confined to the stage, that night. Writing to Claudius had brought him vividly into her life again, and she had caught herself more than once during the evening wondering how her fair Northern lover would have acted in Othello's place. Whether, when the furious general takes Iago by the throat in his wrath, the Swede's grip would have relaxed so easily on one who should dare to whisper a breath against the Countess Margaret. She so lived in the thought for a moment that her whole face glowed in the shade of the box, and her dark eyes shot out fire. Ah me! Margaret, will he come back to stand by your side and face the world for you? Who knows. Men are deceivers ever, says the old song. Home through the long streets, lighted with the pale electric flame that gives so deathly a tinge to everything that comes within the circling of its discolour; home to her rooms with the pleasant little fire smouldering on the hearth, and flowers--Barker's flowers--scenting the room; home to the cares of Clémentine, to lean back with half-closed eyes, thinking, while the deft French fingers uncoil and smooth and coil again the jet-black tresses; home to the luxury of sleep unbroken by ill ease of body, though visited by the dreams of a far-away lover--dreams not always hopeful, but ever sweet; home to a hotel! Can a hostelry be dignified with that great name? Yes. Wherever we are at rest and at peace, wherever the thought of love or dream of lover visits us, wherever we look forward to meeting that lover again--that is home. For since the cold steel-tipped fingers of science have crushed space into a nut-shell, and since the deep-mouthed capacious present has swallowed time out of sight, there is no landmark left but love, no hour but the hour of loving, no home but where our lover is. The little god who has survived ages of sword-play and centuries of peace-time, survives also science the leveller, and death the destroyer. And in the night, when all are asleep, and the chimes are muffled with the thick darkness, and the wings of the dream-spirits caress the air, then the little Red Mouse comes out and meditates on all these things, and wonders how it is that men can think there is any originality in their lives or persons or doings. The body may have changed a little, men may have grown stronger and fairer, as some say, or weaker and more puny, as others would have it, but the soul of man is even as it was from the beginning. CHAPTER XVIII. A month has passed since Margaret went to see _Othello_, and New York is beginning to wake to its winter round of amusements. There are dinners and dances and much leaving of little pasteboard chips with names and addresses. Mr. Barker had made progress, in his own opinion, since the day when he so unfortunately roused Margaret's anger by his story. He bethought him one day that Claudius's influence had begun with the reading of books, and he determined to try something of the kind himself. He was no scholar as Claudius was, but he knew men who were. He cultivated the acquaintance of Mr. Horace Bellingham, and spent studious hours in ascertaining the names of quaint and curious volumes, which he spared no expense in procuring. He read books he had never heard of before, and then talked about them to Margaret; and when he hit upon anything she did not know he was swift to bring it to her, and sometimes she would even listen while he read a few pages aloud. Margaret encouraged Barker in this new fancy unconsciously enough, for she thought it an admirable thing that a man whose whole life was devoted to business pursuits should develop a taste for letters; and when he had broken the ice on the sea of literature she talked more freely with him than she had ever done before. It was not Barker who interested her, but the books he brought, which were indeed rare and beautiful. He, on the other hand, quick to assimilate any knowledge that might be of use to him, and cautious of exposing the weaker points of his ignorance, succeeded in producing an impression of considerable learning, so that by and by he began to think he was taking Claudius's place in her daily pursuits, as he hoped to take it in her heart. Meanwhile no one had heard from the Doctor, for his correspondence with Margaret was unknown to Barker, and the latter began to cherish a hope that, after all, there might be overwhelming difficulties in the way of proving Claudius's right to the estate. He had more than once talked over the matter with Mr. Screw, and they came to the conclusion that this silence was prognostic of the Doctor's defeat. Screw thought it probable that, had Claudius immediately obtained from Heidelberg the necessary papers, he would have sent a triumphant telegram over the cable, announcing his return at the shortest possible interval. But the time was long. It was now the first week in November and nearly two months had passed since he had sailed. Mr. Barker had avoided speaking of him to the Countess, at first because he did not wish to recall him to her memory, and later because he observed that she never mentioned the Doctor's name. Barker had inquired of Mr. Bellingham whether he knew anything of his friend's movements, to which Uncle Horace had replied, with a grim laugh, that he had quite enough to do with taking care of distinguished foreigners when they were in New York, without looking after them when they had gone elsewhere. One evening before dinner Vladimir brought Margaret a telegram. She was seated by the fire as usual and Miss Skeat, who had been reading aloud until it grew too dark, was by her side warming her thin hands, which always looked cold, and bending forward towards the fire as she listened to Margaret's somewhat random remarks about the book in hand. Margaret had long since talked with Miss Skeat about her disturbed affairs, and concerning the prospect that was before her of being comparatively poor. And Miss Skeat, in her high-bred old-fashioned way, had laid her hand gently on the Countess's arm in token of sympathy. "Dear Countess," she had said, "please remember that it will not make any difference to me, and that I will never leave you. Poverty is not a new thing to me, my dear." The tears came into Margaret's eyes as she pressed the elder lady's hand in silence. These passages of feeling were rare between them, but they understood each other, for all that. And now Margaret was speaking despondently of the future. A few days before she had made up her mind at last to write the necessary letters to Russia, and she had now despatched them on their errand. Not that she had any real hope of bettering things, but a visit from Nicholas had roused her to the fact that it was a duty she owed to him as well as to herself to endeavour to recover what was possible of her jointure. At last she opened the telegram and uttered an exclamation of surprise. "What in the world does it mean?" she cried, and gave it to Miss Skeat, who held it close to the firelight. The message was from Lord Fitzdoggin, Her British Majesty's Ambassador at St. Petersburg, and was an informal statement to the effect that his Excellency was happy to communicate to the Countess Margaret the intelligence that, by the untiring efforts and great skill of a personal friend, the full payment of her jointure was now secured to her in perpetuity. It stated, moreover, that she would shortly receive official information of the fact through the usual channels. Miss Skeat beamed with pleasure; for though she had been willing to make any sacrifice for Margaret, it would not have been an agreeable thing to be so very poor again. "I never met Lord Fitzdoggin," said Margaret, "and I do not understand in the least. Why should he, of all people, inform me of this, if it is really true?" "The Duke must have written to him," said Miss Skeat, still beaming, and reading the message over again. Margaret paused a moment in thought, then lighting the gas herself, she wrote a note and despatched Vladimir in hot haste. "I have asked Mr. Bellingham to dine," she said, in answer to Miss Skeat's inquiring look. "He will go to the party with me afterwards, if he is free." It chanced that Mr. Bellingham was in his rooms when Margaret's note came, and he immediately threw over an engagement he had previously made, and sent word he would be at the Countess's disposal. Punctual to the minute he appeared. Margaret showed him the telegram. "What does this mean, Mr. Bellingham?" she asked, smiling, but scrutinising his face closely. "My dear Countess," cried the old gentleman, delighted beyond measure at the result of his policy, and corruscating with smiles and twinkles, "my dear Countess, allow me to congratulate you." "But who is the 'personal friend' mentioned? Is it the Duke? He is in the far West at this moment." "No," answered Mr. Bellingham, "it is not the Duke. I am inclined to think it is a manifestation of some great cosmic force, working silently for your welfare. The lovely spirits," continued the old gentleman, looking up from under his brows, and gesticulating as though he would call down the mystic presence he invoked--"the lovely spirits that guard you would be loth to allow anything so fair to suffer annoyance from the rude world. You are well taken care of, Countess, believe me." Margaret smiled at Uncle Horace's way of getting out of the difficulty, for she suspected him of knowing more than he would acknowledge. But all she could extract from him was that he knew Lord Fitzdoggin slightly, and that he believed the telegram to be perfectly genuine. He had played his part in the matter, and rubbed his hands as though washing them of any further responsibility. Indeed he had nothing to tell, save that he had advised Claudius to get an introduction from the Duke. He well knew that the letters he had given Claudius had been the real means of his success; but as Margaret only asked about the telegram, he was perfectly safe in denying any knowledge of it. Not that such a consideration would have prevented his meeting her question with a little fib, just to keep the secret. "Will you not go to this dance with me this evening?" asked Margaret after dinner, as they sat round the fireplace. "What ball is that?" inquired Mr. Bellingham. "I hardly know what it is. It is a party at the Van Sueindell's and there is 'dancing' on the card. Please go with me; I should have to go alone." "I detest the pomp and circumstance of pleasure," said Uncle Horace, "the Persian appurtenances, as my favourite poet calls them; but I cannot resist so charming an invitation. It will give me the greatest pleasure. I will send word to put off another engagement." "Do you really not mind at all?" "Not a bit of it. Only three or four old fogies at the club. _Est mihi nonum superantis annum plenus Albani cadus_," continued Mr. Bellingham, who never quoted Horace once without quoting him again in the next five minutes. "I had sent a couple of bottles of my grandfather's madeira to the club, 1796, but those old boys will enjoy it without me. They would talk me to death if I went." "It is too bad," said Margaret, "you must go to the club. I would not let you break an engagement on my account." "No, no. Permit me to do a good deed without having to bear the infernal consequences in this life, at all events. The chatter of those people is like the diabolical screaming of the peacock on the terrace of the Emir's chief wife, made memorable by Thackeray the prophet." He paused a moment, and stroked his snowy pointed beard. "Forgive my strong language," he added; "really, they are grand adjectives those, 'diabolical' and 'infernal.' They call up the whole of Dante to my mind." Margaret laughed. "Are you fond of Dante?" asked she. "Very. I sometimes buy a cheap copy and substitute the names of my pet enemies all through the _Inferno_ wherever they will suit the foot. In that way I get all the satisfaction the author got by putting his friends in hell, without the labour of writing, or the ability to compose, the poem." The Countess laughed again. "Do you ever do the same thing with the _Paradiso_?" "No," answered Uncle Horace, with a smile. "Purgatory belonged to an age when people were capable of being made better by suffering, and as for paradise, my heaven admits none but the fair sex. They are all beautiful, and many of them are young." "Will you admit me, Mr. Bellingham?" "St. Margaret has forestalled me," said he gallantly, "for she has a paradise of her own, it seems, to which she has admitted me." And so they passed the evening pleasantly until the hour warned them that it was time to go to the great Van Sueindell house. That mansion, like all private houses in America, and the majority of modern dwellings in other parts of the world, is built in that depraved style of architecture which makes this age pre-eminent in the ugliness of brick and stone. There is no possibility of criticism for such monstrosity, as there also seems to be no immediate prospect of reform. Time, the iron-fisted Nihilist, will knock them all down some day and bid mankind begin anew. Meanwhile let us ignore what we cannot improve. Night, the all-merciful, sometimes hides these excrescences from our sight, and sometimes the moon, Nature's bravest liar, paints and moulds them into a fugitive harmony. But in the broad day let us fix our eyes modestly on the pavement beneath us, or turn them boldly to the sky, for if we look to the right or the left we must see that which sickens the sense of sight. On the present occasion, however, nothing was to be seen of the house, for the long striped canvas tent, stretching from the door to the carriage, and lined with plants and servants, hid everything else from view. There is probably no city in the world where the _business_ of "entertaining" is so thoroughly done as in New York. There are many places where it is more agreeable to be "entertained;" many where it is done on a larger scale, for there is nothing in America so imposing as the receptions at Embassies and other great houses in England and abroad. To bring the matter into business form, since it is a matter of business, let us say that nowhere do guests cost so much by the cubic foot as in New York. Abroad, owing to the peculiar conditions of court-life, many people are obliged to open their houses at stated intervals. In America no one is under this necessity. If people begin to "entertain" they do it because they have money, or because they have something to gain by it, and they do it with an absolute regardlessness of cost which is enough to startle the sober foreigner. It may be in bad taste, but if we are to define what is good taste in these days, and abide by it, we shall be terribly restricted. As an exhibition of power, this enormous expenditure is imposing in the extreme; though the imposing element, being strictly confined to the display of wealth, can never produce the impressions of durability, grandeur, and military pomp so dear to every European. Hence the Englishman turns up his nose at the gilded shows of American society, and the American sniffs when he finds that the door-scraper of some great London house is only silverplated instead of being solid, and that the carpets are at least two years old. They regard things from opposite points of view, and need never expect to agree. Margaret, however, was not so new to American life, seeing she was American born, as to bestow a thought or a glance on the appointments of Mr. and Mrs. Van Sueindell's establishment; and as for Mr. Bellingham, he had never cared much for what he called the pomp and circumstance of pleasure, for he carried pleasure with him in his brilliant conversation and his ready tact. All places were more or less alike to Mr. Bellingham. At the present moment, however, he was thinking principally of his fair charge, and was wondering inwardly what time he would get home, for he rose early and was fond of a nap in the late evening. He therefore gave Margaret his arm, and kept a lookout for some amusing man to introduce to her. He had really enjoyed his dinner and the pleasant chat afterwards, but the prospect of piloting this magnificent beauty about till morning, or till she should take it into her head to go home, was exhausting. Besides, he went little into society of this kind, and was not over-familiar with the faces he saw. He need not have been disturbed, however, for they had not been many minutes in the rooms before a score of men had applied for the "pleasure of a turn." But still she held Mr. Bellingham's arm, obdurately refusing to dance. As Barker came up a moment later, willing, perhaps, to show his triumph to the rejected suitors, Margaret thanked Mr. Bellingham, and offered to take him home if he would stay until one o'clock; then she glided away, not to dance but to sit in a quieter room, near the door of which couples would hover for a quarter of an hour at a time waiting to seize the next pair of vacant seats. Mr. Bellingham moved away, amused by the music and the crowd and the fair young faces, until he found a seat in a corner, shaded from the flare of light by an open door close by, and there, in five minutes, he was fast asleep in the midst of the gaiety and noise and heat--unnoticed, a gray old man amid so much youth. But Barker knew the house better than the most of the guests, and passing through the little room for which every one seemed fighting, he drew aside a heavy curtain and showed a small boudoir beyond, lighted with a solitary branch of candles, and occupied by a solitary couple. Barker had hoped to find this sanctum empty, and as he pushed two chairs together he eyed the other pair savagely. "What a charming little room," said Margaret, sinking into the soft chair and glancing at the walls and ceiling, which were elaborately adorned in the Japanese fashion. The chairs also were framed of bamboo, and the table was of an unusual shape. It was the "Japanese parlour[3]," as Mrs. Van Sueindell would have called it. Every great house in New York has a Japanese or a Chinese room. The entire contents of the apartment having been brought direct from Yokohama, the effect was harmonious, and Margaret's artistic sense was pleased. [Footnote 3: Parlour or parlor, American for "sitting-room."] "Is it not?" said Barker, glad to have brought her to a place she liked. "I thought you would like it, and I hoped," lowering his voice, "that we should find it empty. Only people who come here a great deal know about it." "Then you come here often?" asked Margaret, to say something. She was glad to be out of the din, for though she had anticipated some pleasure from the party, she discovered too late that she had made a mistake, and would rather be at home. She had so much to think of, since receiving that telegram; and so, forgetting Barker and everything else, she followed her own train of thought. Barker talked on, and Margaret seemed to be listening--but it was not the music, muffled through the heavy curtains, nor the small voice of Mr. Barker that she heard. It was the washing of the sea and the creaking of cordage that were in her ears--the rush of the ship that was to bring him back--that was perhaps bringing him back already. When would he come? How soon? If it could only be to-morrow, she would so like to--what in the world is Mr. Barker saying so earnestly? Really, she ought to listen. It was very rude. "Conscious of my many defects of character--" Oh yes, he was always talking about his defects; what next? "--conscious of my many defects of character," Mr. Barker was saying, in an even, determined voice, "and feeling deeply how far behind you I am in those cultivated pursuits you most enjoy, I would nevertheless scorn to enlarge upon my advantages, the more so as I believe you are acquainted with my circumstances." Good gracious! thought Margaret, suddenly recovering the acutest use of her hearing, what is the man going to say? And she looked fixedly at him with an expression of some astonishment. "Considering, as I was saying," he continued steadily, "those advantages upon which I will not enlarge, may I ask you to listen to what I am going to say?" Margaret, having lost the first part of Barker's speech completely, in her fit of abstraction, had some vague idea that he was asking her advice about marrying some other woman. "Certainly," she said indifferently; "pray go on." At the moment of attack, however, Barker's heart failed him for an instant. He thought he would make one more attempt to ascertain what position Claudius held towards Margaret. "Of course," he said, smiling and looking down, "we all knew about Dr. Claudius on board the _Streak_." "What did you know about him?" asked Margaret calmly, but her face flushed for an instant. That might have happened even if she had not cared for Claudius; she was so proud that the idea of being thought to care might well bring the colour to her cheek. Barker hardly noticed the blush, for he was getting into very deep water, and was on the point of losing his head. "That he proposed to you, and you refused him," he said, still smiling. "Take care, sir," she said quickly, "when Dr. Claudius comes back he--" Barker interrupted her with a laugh. "Claudius coming back?" he answered, "ha! ha! good indeed!" He looked at Margaret. She was very quiet, and she was naturally so dark that, in the shadow of the fan she held carelessly against the light, he could not see how pale she turned. She was intensely angry, and her anger took the form of a preternatural calm of manner, by no means indicative of indifferent reflection. She was simply unable to speak for the moment. Barker, however, whose reason was in abeyance for the moment, merely saw that she did not answer; and, taking her silence for consent to his slighting mention of Claudius, he at once proceeded with his main proposition. At this juncture the other couple slowly left the room, having arranged their own affairs to their satisfaction. "That being the case," he said, "and now that I am assured that I have no rivals to dread, will you permit me to offer you my heart and my hand? Countess Margaret, will you marry me, and make me the happiest of men? Oh, do not be silent, do not look as if you did not hear! I have loved you since I first saw you--will you, will you marry me?" Here Mr. Barker, who was really as much in love as his nature allowed him to be, moved to the very edge of his chair and tried to take her hand. "Margaret!" he said, as he touched her fingers. At the touch she recovered her self-possession, too long lost for such a case. She had tried to control her anger, had tried to remember whether by any word she could have encouraged him to so much boldness. Now she rose to all her haughty height, and though she tried hard to control herself, there was scorn in her voice. "Mr. Barker," she said, dropping her hands before her and standing straight as a statue, "you have made a mistake, and if through any carelessness I have led you into this error I am sorry for it. I cannot listen to you, I cannot marry you. As for Dr. Claudius, I will not permit you to use any slighting words about him. I hold in my possession documents that could prove his identity as well as any he can obtain in Germany. But I need not produce them, for I am sure it will be enough for you to know that I am engaged to be married to him--I am engaged to be married to Dr. Claudius," she repeated very distinctly in her deep musical tones; and before Barker could recover himself, she had passed from the room into the lights and the sound of music beyond. What do you think, reader? Was it not a brave and noble action of hers to vindicate Claudius by taking upon herself the whole responsibility of his love rather than by going home and sending Mr. Barker documentary evidence of the Doctor's personality? Claudius had never asked her to marry him, the very word had never been mentioned. But he had told her he loved her and she had trusted him. Start not at the infinity of social crime that such a doubt defines. It is there. It is one thing for a woman to love a man at arm's length conditionally; it is another for her to take him to her heart and trust him. Does every millionaire who makes love to a penniless widow mean to marry her? for Margaret was poor on that Tuesday in Newport. Or reverse the case; if Claudius were an adventurer, as Barker hinted, what were the consequences she assumed in declaring herself engaged to marry him? In spite of her excitement, Margaret was far too much a woman of the world to create a sensation by walking through the rooms alone. In a moment or two she saw a man she knew, and calling him to her by a look, took his arm. She chatted pleasantly to this young fellow, as proud as need be of being selected to conduct the beauty whither she would, and after some searching she discovered Mr. Bellingham, still asleep behind the swinging door. "Thanks," she said to her escort. "I have promised to take Mr. Bellingham home." And she dropped the young man's arm with a nod and a smile. "But he is asleep," objected the gallant. "I will wake him," she answered. And laying her hand on Mr. Bellingham's, she leaned down and spoke his name. Instantly he awoke, as fresh as from a night's rest, for he had the Napoleonic faculty for catching naps. "Winter awaking to greet the spring," he said without the slightest hesitation, as though he had prepared the little speech in his sleep. "Forgive me," he said, "it is a habit of mine learned long ago." He presented his arm and asked her what was her pleasure. "I am going home," she said, "and if you like I will drop you at your door." Mr. Bellingham glanced at a great enamelled clock, half-hidden among flowers and fans, as they passed, and he noticed that they had not been in the house much more than three quarters of an hour. But he wisely said nothing, and waited patiently while Margaret was wrapped in her cloaks, and till the butler had told the footman, and the footman had told the other footman, and the other footman had told the page, and the page had told the policeman to call the Countess Margaret's carriage. After which the carriage appeared, and they drove away. Uncle Horace chatted pleasantly about the party, admitting that he had dreamed more than he had seen of it. But Margaret said little, for the reaction was coming after the excitement she had passed through. Only when they reached Mr. Bellingham's rooms, and he was about to leave her, she held his hand a moment and looked earnestly in his face. "Mr. Bellingham," she said suddenly, "I trust you will always be my friend--will you not?" The old gentleman paused in his descent from the carriage, and took the hand she offered. "Indeed I will, my dear child," he said very seriously. Then he bent his knee to the sill of the door and kissed her fingers, and was gone. No one ever resented Mr. Bellingham's familiarity, for it was rare and honest of its kind. Besides, he was old enough to be her grandfather, in spite of his pretty speeches and his graceful actions. Margaret passed a sleepless night. Her anger with Mr. Barker had not been so much the mere result of the words he had spoken, though she would have resented his sneer about Claudius sharply enough under any circumstances. It was rather that to her keen intelligence, rendered still more acute by her love for the Doctor, the whole scene constituted a revelation. By that wonderful instinct which guides women in the most critical moments of their lives, she saw at last the meaning of Barker's doings, of his silence concerning Claudius, and of his coolness with the latter before he had got rid of him. She saw Barker at the bottom of the plot to send Claudius to Europe; she saw him in all the efforts made by the Duke and Barker to keep Claudius and herself apart on board the yacht; she saw his hand in it all, and she understood for the first time that this man, whom she had of late permitted to be so much with her, was her worst enemy, while aspiring to be her lover. The whole extent of his faithlessness to Claudius came before her, as she remembered that it had doubtless been to serve the Doctor that Barker had obtained an introduction to her at Baden; that he had done everything to throw them together, devoting himself to Miss Skeat, in a manner that drove that ancient virgin to the pinnacle of bliss and despair, while leaving Claudius free field to make love to herself. And then he had suddenly turned and made up his mind that he should have her for his own wife. And her anger rose higher and hotter as she thought of it. Then she went over the scene of the evening at Mrs. Van Sueindell's house--how she had not listened and not understood, until she was so suddenly roused to the consciousness of what he was saying--how she had faced him, and, in the inspiration of the moment, had boldly told him that she loved his rival. In that thought she found satisfaction, as well she might, for her love had been put to the test, and had not failed her. "I am glad I said it," she murmured to herself, and fell asleep. Poor Claudius, far away over the sea, what a leap his heart would have given could he have known what she had done, and that she was glad of it. And Mr. Barker? He felt a little crushed when she left him there alone in the Japanese boudoir, for he knew at once that he might as well throw up the game. There was not the least chance for him any longer. He might indeed suspect that the documents Margaret spoke of were a myth, and that her declaration of the engagement was in reality the only weapon she could use in Claudius's defence. But that did not change matters. No woman would "give herself away," as he expressed it, so recklessly, unless she were perfectly certain. Therefore Mr. Barker went into the supper-room, and took a little champagne to steady his nerves; after which he did his best to amuse himself, talking with unusual vivacity to any young lady of his acquaintance whom he could allure from her partner for a few minutes. For he had kept himself free of engagements that evening on Margaret's account, and now regretted it bitterly. But Mr. Barker was a great match, as has been said before, and he seldom had any difficulty in amusing himself when he felt so inclined. He had not witnessed Margaret's departure, for, not wishing to be seen coming out of the boudoir alone, a sure sign of defeat, and being perfectly familiar with the house, he had found his way by another door, and through circuitous passages to the pantry, and thence to the supper-room; so that by the time he had refreshed himself Margaret and Mr. Bellingham had gone. Do people of Mr. Barker's stamp feel? Probably not. It requires a strong organisation, either animal or intellectual, to suffer much from any shock to the affections. Englishmen, on those occasions when their passion gets the better of their caution, somewhat a rare occurrence nowadays, are capable of loving very strongly, and of suffering severely if thwarted, for they are among the most powerful races in the animal kingdom. Their whole history shows this, moulded as it has generally been by exceptional men, for the most part Irish and Scotch, in whom the highest animal and intellectual characteristics were united. Germans, in whom the intellectual faculties, and especially the imagination, predominate, are for the most part very love-sick for at least half their lives. But Americans seem to be differently organised; meaning, of course, the small class, who would like to be designated as the "aristocracy" of the country. The faculties are all awake, acute, and ready for use; but there is a lack of depth, which will rouse the perpetual wonder of future generations. While the mass of the people exhibits the strong characteristics of the Saxon, the Celtic, and the South German races, physical endurance and occasionally intellectual pre-eminence,--for, saving some peculiarities of speech, made defects merely by comparison, there are no such natural orators and statesmen in the world as are to be found in Congress; at the same time, the would-be aristocracy of the country is remarkable for nothing so much as for the very unaristocratic faculty of getting money--rarely mingling in public questions, still more rarely producing anything of merit, literary or artistic. Therefore, being so constituted that the almighty dollar crowns the edifice of their ambitions as with a coronet of milled silver, they are singularly inapt to suffer from such ills as prick the soul, which taketh no thought for the morrow, what it shall eat or what it shall drink. Truly, a happy people, these American aristocrats. CHAPTER XIX. When Margaret awoke the next morning her first impulse was to go away for a time. She was disgusted with New York, and desired nothing so much as the sensation of being free from Mr. Barker. A moment, however, sufficed to banish any such thoughts. In the first place, if she were away from the metropolis it would take just so many hours longer for the Doctor's letters to reach her. There had been a lacuna in the correspondence of late, and it seemed to her that the letters she had received were always dated some days before the time stamped on the Heidelberg postmark. He spoke always of leaving very soon; but though he said many loving and tender things, he was silent as to his own doings. She supposed he was occupied with the important matter he described as the "other reason," and so in the two or three short notes she wrote him she abstained from questioning any more. Furthermore, she reflected that however much she might wish to be away, it was most emphatically not the thing to do. On the whole, she would stay where she was. She was roused from her reverie by Clémentine, who entered in a halo of smiles, as though she were the bearer of good news. In the first place she had a telegram, which proved to be from Claudius, dated Berlin, and simply announcing the fact that he would sail at once. Margaret could hardly conceal her great satisfaction, and the colour came so quickly to her face as she read the flimsy bit of paper from the cable office that Clémentine made the most desperate efforts to get possession of it, or at least to see the signature. But Margaret kept it under her pillow for half an hour, and then burned it carefully by the taper, to Clémentine's inexpressible chagrin. Meanwhile, however, there were other news in the wind, and when the artful Frenchwoman had succeeded in opening the window just so that a ray of light should fall on madam's face, she fired her second shot. "Monsieur le Duc is of return, Madame," she said, suddenly turning towards her mistress. "The Duke?" repeated Margaret innocently. "When did he come?" "Ah, Madame," said the maid, disappointed at having produced so little effect, "it is precisely what I do not know. I come from meeting Monsieur Veelees upon the carrefour. He has prayed me to present the compliments of Monsieur le Duc and to ask at what hour Madame la Comtesse would be in disposition to see him." "Ah, very well," said the Countess. "I will get up, Clémentine." "Si tôt, Madame? it is yet very morning," argued the girl with a little show of polite surprise. "That is indifferent. Go, Clémentine, and tell Monsieur le Duc I will see him at once." "At once, Madame? I run," said Clémentine, going slowly to the door. "Enfin--when I am dressed. Don't you understand?" said Margaret impatiently. "Parfaitement, Madame. I will speak with Monsieur Veelees." And she vanished. It was a bright November morning, and though there had been a slight frost daring the night, it was fast vanishing before the sun. Margaret went to the window and breathed the cool air. An indescribable longing seized her to be out, among trees and plants and fresh growing things--to blow away the dark dreams of the night, the visions of Barker and Screw, and of the ballroom, and of that detestable Japanese boudoir. She hurried her toilet in a manner that completely aroused Clémentine's vigilant suspicion. "Hélas," Clémentine used to say to Willis the Duke's servant, "Je ne lui ai jamais connu d'amant. I had pourtant much hoped of Monsieur Clodiuse." But she never ventured such remarks when old Vladimir was at hand. When the Countess was dressed she went out into her little drawing-room, and found the Duke looking more sunburnt and healthy than ever, though a trifle thinner. The rough active Western life always agreed with him. He came forward with a bright smile to meet her. "Upon my word, how well you look!" he exclaimed as he shook hands; and indeed she was beautiful to see, for if the sleepless night had made her pale, the good news of Claudius's coming had brought the fire to her eyes. "Do I?" said she. "I am glad; and you look well too. Your run on the prairies has done you good. Come," said she, leading him to the window, "it is a beautiful day. Let us go out." "By all means: but first I have some good news for you. Fitzdoggin has telegraphed me that Claudius--I mean," he said, interrupting himself and blushing awkwardly, "I mean that it is all right, you know. They have arranged all your affairs beautifully." Margaret looked at him curiously a moment while he spoke. Then she recognised that the Duke must have had a hand in the matter, and spoke very gratefully to him, not mentioning that she had received news direct, for she did not wish to spoil his pleasure in being the first to tell her. To tell the truth, the impulsive Englishman was rather in doubt whether he had not betrayed the Doctor's secret, and seemed very little inclined to say anything more about it. "I wish," she said at last, "that we could ride this morning. I have not been on a horse for ever so long, and I want the air." "By Jove," cried the Duke, overjoyed at the prospect of breaking an interview which seemed likely to lead him too far, "I should think so. I will send and get some horses directly. The very thing, by Jove!" And he went to the door. "How are you going to get anything fit to ride in New York, at such short notice?" asked Margaret, laughing at his impetuosity. "There's a fellow here lends me anything in his stable when I am in New York," he answered, half out of the room. "I'll go myself," he called back from the landing, and shut the door behind him. "Upon my word," he said to himself as he lighted a cigarette in the cab, and drove away to his friend's stable, "she is the most beautiful thing I ever saw. I almost let the cat out of the bag, just to please her. I don't wonder Claudius is crazy about her. I will talk about the West when we are riding, and avoid the subject." With which sage resolution his Grace seemed well satisfied. When he returned, he found Margaret clad in a marvellous habit, that reminded him of home. "The horses will be at the Park by the time we have driven there," he said. "We will drive up." He made no toilet himself, for being English and to the saddle born, he cared not a jot how he looked on horseback. In half an hour they were mounted, and walking their horses down the broad bend of the road where it enters the Central Park. Margaret asked about Lady Victoria, and the Duke, to make sure of not getting off the track, immediately began talking about the journey they had just made. But Margaret was not listening. "Do you know?" she said, "it is very pleasant to feel I am not poor any longer. I suppose it is a very low sentiment." "Of course," said the Duke. "Beastly thing to have no money." "Do you know--" she began again, but stopped. "Well," said the Duke, following her first train of thought, "it always seems to me that I have no money myself. I don't suppose I am exactly poor, though." "No," laughed Margaret, "I was not thinking of that." "What is it?" he asked. "I think I will confide in you a little, for you have always been such a good friend to me. What do you know of Mr. Barker?" "I am sure I don't know," said the Englishman, taken off his guard by the question. "I have known him some time--in this sort of way," he added vaguely. "I believe," said the Countess bluntly, "that it was Mr. Barker who made all this trouble for Dr. Claudius." "I believe you are right," answered the Duke suddenly turning in his saddle and facing her. "I wonder how he could be such a brute?" Margaret was silent. She was astonished at the readiness with which her companion assented to her proposition. He must have known it all along, she thought. "What makes you think so?" he asked presently. "What are your reasons for believing it?" she asked, with a smile. "Really," he began; then shortly, "I believe I don't like his eyes." "Last night," said Margaret, "I was talking with him at a party. I chanced to speak of the Doctor's coming back, and Mr. Barker laughed and sneered, and said it was ridiculous." The Duke moved angrily in his saddle, making the horse he rode shake his head and plunge a little. "He is a brute," he said at last. "Your horse?" inquired Margaret sweetly. "No--Barker. And pray what did you answer him? I hope you gave him a lesson for his impertinence." "I told him," said she, "that I had documents in my possession that would establish his right as well as any he could get in Germany." "Barker must have been rather taken aback," said the other in high glee. "I am glad you said that." "So am I. I do not imagine I shall see much of Mr. Barker in future," she added demurely. "Um! As bad as that?" The Duke was beginning to catch the drift of what Margaret was saying. She had no intention of telling him any more, however. Bitterly as she felt towards Barker, she would not allow herself the triumph of telling her friend she had refused to marry him. "I know it is a very womanly fancy," she said, "but I want to ride fast, please. I want exercise." "All right," said the Duke, and they put their horses into a canter. The Countess felt safe now that her friends had returned and that Claudius had telegraphed he was about to sail. She felt as though her troubles were over, and as if the world were again at her feet. And as they galloped along the roads, soft in the warm sun to the horses' feet, breathing in great draughts of good clean air, the past two months seemed to dwindle away to a mere speck in the far distance of her life, instead of being entangled with all the yesterdays of the dark season just over. And Claudius--the man who made all this change in her life, who had opened a new future for her--how had he passed these months, she wondered? To tell the truth, Claudius had been so desperately busy that the time had not seemed so long. If he had been labouring in any other cause than hers it would have been insupportable. But the constant feeling that all he did was for her, and to her advantage, and that at the same time she was ignorant of it all, gave him strength and courage. He had been obliged to think much, to travel far, and to act promptly; and for his own satisfaction he had kept up the illusion that he was in Heidelberg by a cunning device. He wrote constantly, and enclosed the letters to the old notary at the University, who, with Teutonic regularity, stamped and posted them. And so it was that the date of the letter, written in St. Petersburg, was always two or three days older than that of the postmark. For Claudius would not put a false date at the head of what he wrote, any more than, if Margaret had written to ask him whether he were really in Heidelberg or not, he would have deceived her in his answer. Probably he would not have answered the question at all. The letters were merely posted in Heidelberg; and Margaret had trusted him enough not to notice or be willing to comment upon the discrepancy. And, by dint of activity and the assistance of the persons to whom he had letters, he had succeeded in bringing the Countess's business to a satisfactory conclusion. He found it just as Mr. Bellingham had told him. In an autocratic country, if you are to have justice at all, you will have it quickly. Moreover, it was evident to the authorities that a man coming all the way from America, and presenting such credentials as Claudius brought, deserved to be attended to at once--the more so when his whole appearance and manner were such as to create a small _furore_, in the Embassy circles. Claudius went everywhere, saw every one, and used every particle of influence he could obtain to further the object of his visit. And so it was that, at the end of a month or so, a special _ukase_ provided for the payment in perpetuity to herself and her heirs for ever of the jointure-money first decreed to the Countess Margaret for life only from the estates of her late husband, Count Alexis of the Guards. This was even more than Claudius had hoped for--certainly more than Margaret had dreamt of. As for Nicholas, Claudius cared nothing what became of him, for he probably thought him a foolish Nihilist, and he knew enough of the Countess's character to be sure she would never let her brother suffer want, whatever his faults. So when he had concluded the affair he hastened to Berlin, telegraphing from thence the news of his immediate return. In less than a fortnight, at all events, he ought to be in New York. The thought gave him infinite relief; for, since he had finished his business in Petersburg, the reaction which in strong natures is very sure to follow a great effort, for the very reason that strong natures tax their powers to the utmost, recklessly, began to make itself felt. It seemed to him, as he looked back, that he had heard so little from her. Not that he complained; for he was fully sensible of her goodness in writing at all, and he treasured her letters as things sacred, even to the envelopes, and whatsoever had touched her hand. But he felt keenly that he was in total ignorance of her doings; and one or two references to Barker troubled him. He too had his suspicions that the scheming American had been concerned in the sudden fit of caution developed by Messrs. Screw and Scratch. He too had suspected that his quondam friend had been insincere, and that everything was not as it should be. But he was neither so wise as Margaret, who would have told him not to soil his hands with pitch, nor so supremely indifferent as the Duke, who would have said that since he had got the money it didn't matter in the least if Barker were a brute or not. On the contrary, Claudius promised himself to sift the evidence; and if he discovered that Barker was guilty of any double-dealing, he would simply break his neck. And as Claudius thought of it, his teeth set, and he looked capable of breaking any number of necks, then and there. But for all his wrath and his suspicions, the real cause of Barker's strange behaviour never presented itself to his mind. It never struck him that Barker could aspire to Margaret's hand; and he merely concluded that the young man had laid a plot for getting his money. If any one had related to Claudius the scene which took place at Mrs. Van Sueindell's the very night when he sent his telegram, he would have laughed the story to scorn in perfect good faith, for he could not have believed it possible. Nor, believing it, would he have cared. And so he rushed across Europe, and never paused till he had locked himself into his stateroom on board the steamer, and had begun a long letter to Margaret. He knew that he would see her as soon as a letter could reach her, but that made no difference. He felt impelled to write, and he wrote--a letter so tender and loving and rejoicing that were it to appear in these pages no lover would ever dare write to his lady again, lest she chide him for being less eloquent than Claudius, Phil.D. of Heidelberg. And he wrote on and on for many days, spending most of his time in that way. Meanwhile, the Duke and Margaret cantered in the Park, and talked of all kinds of things; or rather, the Duke talked, and Margaret thought of Claudius. Before they returned, however, she had managed to let the Duke know that the Doctor was on his way back; whereat the Englishman rejoiced loudly. Perhaps he would have given a great deal to know whether they were engaged, to be married; but still Margaret gave no sign. It was far from her thoughts; and the fact had only presented itself in that form to her on the spur of the moment, the preceding evening, as likely to prove a crushing blow at once to Mr. Barker's plotting and Mr. Barker's matrimonial views. But while the Duke talked, she was thinking. And as the situation slowly unfolded its well-known pictures to her mind, she suddenly saw it all in a different light. "I must be mad," she thought. "Barker will tell every one; and the Duke ought not to know it except from me!" "Speaking of Dr. Claudius--" she began; the Duke was at that moment talking earnestly about the Pueblo Indians, but that was of no importance. "Speaking of the Doctor, you ought to know--I would rather that no one else told you--we are going to be married." The Duke was so much surprised--not so much at the information as at her manner of imparting it--that he pulled up short. Seeing him stop, she stopped also. "Are you very much astonished?" she asked, pushing the gray veil up to her hat, and looking at him smilingly out of her deep, dark eyes. The Duke spoke no word, but leapt from his horse, which he left standing in the middle of the path, surprised into docility by the sudden desertion. There were a few wild-flowers growing by the road, which here led through a wooded glade of the Park; they were the flowers called Michaelmas daisies, which bloom until November in America. He picked a great handful of them, and came running back. "Let me be the first to congratulate you, my dear friend," he said, standing bareheaded at her stirrup, and offering the flowers with a half-bashful smile that sat strangely on a man of his years. It was a quick, impulsive action, such as no one could have expected from him who did not know him intimately well--and few could boast that they did. Margaret was touched by his look and manner. "Thanks," she said, bending over her saddle-bow, and taking the daisies as he held them up to her. "Yes, you are the first--to congratulate me," which was true. He still stood looking at her, and his hand would hardly let go the flowers where his fingers touched hers. His face grew pale, then ashy-white and he steadied himself against her horse's neck. "What is the matter? are you ill? have you hurt yourself?" asked Margaret in real alarm, for he looked as though he were going to faint, and it was a full minute since he had come back to her from the roadside. Then he made a great effort and collected himself, and the next instant he had dashed after his horse, which was wandering away towards the trees. "I did feel queer for a minute," he said when he was once more in the saddle and by her side. "I dare say it is the heat. It's a very hot day, now I think of it. Would you allow me a cigarette? I hate to smoke in public, you know, but it will make me all right again." Margaret assented, of course, to the request; it was morning, in the recesses of the Park, and nobody would see. But she looked strangely at him for a minute, wondering what could have produced his sudden dizziness. They rode more slowly towards the entrance of the Park, and the Countess's thoughts did not wander again. She talked to her companion on every subject he broached, showing interest in all he said, and asking questions that she knew would please him. But the latter part of the ride seemed long, and the drive home interminable, for Margaret was in haste to be alone. She was not sure that the Duke's manner had changed since he had turned so strangely pale, but she fancied he spoke as if making an effort. However, they reached the hotel at last, and separated. "Thanks, so much," she said; "it has been such a delightful morning." "It has indeed," said he, "and--let me congratulate you once more. Claudius is a gentleman in every way, and--I suppose he is as worthy of you as any one could be," he added quickly, in a discontented voice, and turned away, hat in hand. She stood looking after him a moment. "I wonder," she said to herself as she entered her room and closed the door. "Poor man! it is not possible, though. I must be dreaming. Ah me! I am always dreaming now, it seems to me;" and she sank down in a chair to wait for Clémentine. And so it is that some women go through life making far more victims than they know of. There are some honest men who will not speak, unless they have a right to, and who are noble enough to help those who have a right. The Duke had known Margaret ever since she had married Alexis, as has been said. Whether he had loved her or not is a question not so easily answered. Certain it is that when she told him she was going to be married to Claudius he turned very pale, and did not recover the entire use of his mind for a whole day. Nevertheless, during the succeeding fortnight he devoted himself sedulously to Margaret's amusement, and many were the things that he and she and Lady Victoria, and the incomparable Miss Skeat, who always enjoyed everything, planned and carried out together. Margaret did not shun society or shut herself up, and more than once she saw Barker in the street and in the crowds at parties. The houses in America are so small that parties are always crowded. But he had the good sense to avoid her, and she was not troubled by any communication from him. Clémentine, indeed, wondered that so few flowers came, for a day or two, and old Vladimir pondered on the probable fate of Mr. Barker, who, he supposed, had been sent to Canada in chains for some political offence, seeing that he called no longer. But these faithful servitors could not ask questions, and sources of information they had none. Barker, however, as Margaret had anticipated, had been active in spreading the news of her engagement; for, before very long, callers were plenty, and flowers too, and many were the congratulations that poured in. Then she saw the wisdom of having informed the Duke of her position before any officious acquaintance could do it for her. The Duke, indeed, saw very few people in New York, for he hated to be "entertained," but he knew a great many men slightly, and some one of them would probably have obliged him with the information. One morning as he and the Countess were about to drive up to the Park for their daily ride, which had become an institution, the servant presented a card, saying the gentleman was anxious to see her ladyship at once, if possible. The card was that of Mr. Screw, of Screw and Scratch. "Very well," said the Countess, who was pulling on her gloves, and holding her riding-stick under one arm as she did so. "Ask him to come up." The Duke moved to withdraw. "Don't go, please," said Margaret; and so he remained. A moment later Mr. Screw's yellow head and small eyes appeared at the door. "The Countess Margaret?" he inquired deferentially. "Yes. Mr. Screw, I believe?" "The same, Madam. A--pardon me, but--I desired to speak with you alone," stammered the lawyer, seeing that the Duke did not move. "I have asked the--this gentleman, who is my friend, to remain," said Margaret calmly. "You may speak freely. What is your business with me, sir?" She motioned him to a chair, and he sat down opposite her, hat in hand. He would have liked to hook his legs into each other and put his hands into his pockets, but he was too well bred for that. At last he took courage. "Frankly, Madam, I have come to discharge a moral duty, and I will speak plainly. I am informed on credible authority that you are engaged to marry a gentleman, calling himself Dr. Claudius--a--a tall man--fair beard?" "Your information is correct, Mr. Screw," said Margaret haughtily, "I am engaged to be married to Dr. Claudius." "As one of the executors of the late Mr. Gustavus Lindstrand, deceased," proceeded Mr. Screw slowly, "I feel it my duty, as an honest man, to inform you that there are serious doubts as to whether the gentleman who calls himself Dr. Claudius is Dr. Claudius at all. The person in question disappeared two months ago, and has not been heard of since, as far as I can make out. I have no interest in the matter as far as it concerns yourself, as you may well imagine, but I have thought it right to warn you that the gentleman whom you have honoured with a promise of marriage has not established his claim to be the person he represents himself." Margaret, who, after the first words, had foreseen what Mr. Screw had come to say, and who believed that very respectable and honest man to be concerned in the plot against Claudius, was naturally angry, but she had the good sense to do the right thing. "Mr. Screw," she said in her commanding voice, icily, "I am deeply indebted to you for your interference. Nevertheless, I am persuaded that the gentleman to whom I am engaged is very really and truly the person he represents himself to be. A fact of which my friend here will probably be able to persuade you without difficulty." And she forthwith left the room. The Duke turned upon the lawyer. "Look here, Mr. Screw," he said sharply, "I am the--well, never mind my name, you can find out from the people downstairs. I am an English gentleman, and I know who Dr. Claudius is. I knew his father; I brought him to this country in my yacht. I am prepared to go into court this minute and swear to the identity of the gentleman you are slandering. Slandering, sir! Do you hear me?" The ducal anger was hot. "And except for the fact that Dr. Claudius will be here to speak for himself the day after to-morrow morning, I would take you into court now by main force and make you hear me swear to him. Do you hear me, sir?" "My dear sir," began Mr. Screw, who was somewhat taken aback by this burst of wrath. "Don't call me 'your dear sir,'" said the nobleman, moving towards Screw. "Sir, then," continued the other, who had not an idea to whom he was speaking, and perhaps would not have cared had he known, being such an honest man, "I cannot conceive why, if you are so certain, you have not come forward before, instead of allowing your friend to go to Europe in order to procure evidence he might have obtained here." "I am not going to argue with you," said the Duke. "Dr. Claudius would have gone to Europe in any case, if that is any satisfaction to you. What did you come here for?" "Because I thought it right to warn an unsuspecting lady of her danger," answered Mr. Screw boldly. "Is that true? Do you really believe Claudius is not Claudius?" asked the Duke, coming close to the lawyer and looking him in the eyes. "Certainly, I believe him to be an impostor," said the other returning his gaze fearlessly. "I suppose you do," said the Duke, tolerably satisfied. "Now then, who sent you here?" "No one sent me," answered Screw with some pride. "I am not in the habit of being sent, as you call it. It was in the course of a conversation I had with Mr. Barker, the other day--" "I thought so," interrupted the Englishman. "I thought Mr. Barker was at the bottom of it. Will you please to deliver a message to Mr. Barker, with my compliments?" Screw nodded solemnly, as under protest. "Then be kind enough to tell him from me that he is a most infernal blackguard. That if he attempts to carry this abominable plot any further I will post him at every one of his clubs as a liar and a cheat, and--and that he had better keep out of my way. As for you, sir, I would advise you to look into his character, for I perceive that you are an honest man." "I am obliged to you, sir," said Mr. Screw, with something of a sneer. "But who are you, pray, that ventures to call my clients by such ugly names?" "There is my card--you can see for yourself," said the Duke. Screw read it. His anger was well roused by this time. "We have small respect for titles in this country, my Lord Duke," said he stiffly. "The best thing I can say is what you said to me, that you impress me as being an honest man. Nevertheless you may be mistaken." "That is a matter which will be decided the day after to-morrow," said the other. "Meanwhile, in pursuance of what I said, I thank you very sincerely indeed"--Mr. Screw smiled grimly--"no, I am in earnest, I really thank you, on behalf of the Countess Margaret, for the honourable part you have endeavoured to perform towards her; and I beg your pardon for having mistaken you, and supposed you were in the plot. But give my message to Mr. Barker--it is actionable, of course, and he may take action upon it, if he likes. Good-morning, sir." "Good-morning," said Screw shortly, somewhat pacified by the Duke's frank apology. "I think I settled him," said the peer to Margaret, as they got into the cab that was to drive them to the Park. And they cantered away in royal spirits. CHAPTER XX. Whatever reason may say, whatever certainty we may feel, the last hours of waiting for an ocean steamer are anxious ones. The people at the office may assure us twenty times that they feel "no anxiety whatever"--that is their stock phrase; our friends who have crossed the ocean twice a year for a score of years may tell us that any vessel may be a few hours, nay, a few days, behind her reckoning; it may seem madness to entertain the least shadow of a doubt--and yet, until the feet we love are on the wharf and the dear glad hands in ours, the shadow of an awful possibility is over us, the dreadful consciousness of the capacity of the sea. The Duke, who, but for his anxiety to see the end, would have long since been on his way to England, had taken every precaution to ascertain the date of the ship's arrival. He took it for granted that Claudius would sail in the Cunard steamer, and he found out the vessel which sailed next after the Doctor had telegraphed. Then he made arrangements to be informed so soon as she was sighted, determined to go down in the Custom-House tug and board her at the Quarantine, that he might have the satisfaction of being first to tell Claudius all there was to be told. "The day after to-morrow," he had said to Margaret, "we may safely expect him," and he watched, with a sort of dull pleasure, the light that came into her eyes when she heard the time was so near. The first disappointment--alas, it was only the first--came on the evening before the appointed day. The Duke received a note from the office to the effect that late arrivals having reported very heavy weather, it was feared that the steamer might be delayed some hours. He at once inquired for the Countess, but found to his annoyance that both she and his sister had gone to the theatre. He had been out when they went, and so they had taken Miss Skeat as a sort of escort, and were doubtless enjoying themselves mightily. It was necessary, however, that Margaret should know the news of the delay before she went to bed, for it would have been cruel to allow her to wake in the morning with the assurance that Claudius might arrive at any moment. "If I wait for them, and make a fuss, she will think it is something serious," reflected the Duke with more than usual tact. So he wrote a note, simply stating that he had news of a delay in the arrival of some hours,--perhaps a whole day, he added, wishing to be on the safe side. He gave the note to Vladimir, and went away to his rooms. Margaret and Lady Victoria came home together in great spirits, laughing and rustling in their silk cloaks as they entered the little drawing-room, and sat down by the fire for a chat. Then Vladimir brought the Duke's note. Margaret read it by the firelight, and her face fell suddenly. "What is it, dear?" asked Lady Victoria affectionately, as she noticed her companion's distressed look. "Nothing--I suppose I ought not to be anxious. The steamer is delayed, that is all," and she gave the English girl her brother's note. "Oh, if it had been anything serious he would have sat up for us. It will probably be in in the afternoon instead of in the morning." But Margaret's eyes were heavy and her gladness was gone from her. "Do you ever have presentiments?" she asked, as they separated half an hour later. "Never," answered Lady Victoria cheerily, "and if I ever do they never come true." "I do," said Margaret, "I have a feeling that I shall never see him again." Poor Countess! She looked very miserable, with her white face and weary eyes. Early the next morning Lady Victoria told her brother what had been the effect of his note. He was very angry with himself for not having put it into better shape, and he determined to repair his error by devoting himself entirely to watching for the steamer. With this object, he went down to the Cunard office and established himself with a novel and a box of cigarettes, to pass the day. He refused to move, and sent out in the afternoon for something to eat. The people in the office did not know him, and he felt free to be as Bohemian as he pleased. Once in the course of the day he was told that a French steamer had come in and had met with very heavy weather, losing a boat or two. It was possible, they said, that the Cunarder, which had sailed on the day following this vessel's departure, though from a nearer point, might be delayed another twenty-four hours. For his part, he felt no fear of the safe arrival of the ship, in due time. The odds are a thousand to one that a company which has never lost a vessel at sea will not lose any particular one you name. Nevertheless, he arranged to be called up in the night, if her lights were sighted, and he returned somewhat disconsolately to the hotel. Again he bethought him that if he told the Countess he had passed the day in the steamer office she would overrate his anxiety and so increase her own. Margaret was really very unreasonable. There was not the slightest doubt that the steamer was safe, but she had become possessed, as Lady Victoria expressed it, by this unaccountable presentiment, that her fair-haired lover was gone from her for ever. Hideous things came up before her, poor drowned faces in the green swirl of the waves, men dead, and dying men grasping frantically at the white water-crests breaking over them, as though the rushing foam were a firm thing and could save them. She heard the wild thin wind screeching across the ocean furrows, breathless in his race with death. And then all seemed quiet, and she could see a grand form of a man, stiff-limbed and stark, the yellow hair all hanging down and the broad white throat turned up in death, floating solemnly through the deep green water, and seaweed, and ooze, far down below the angry waves. She struggled hard against these dark thoughts; but it was no use. They would come back, and all through the evening she sat by her fire, with eyes wide, and parted lips, staring at the embers and straining her hearing to catch the sound of some one coming to the door--some one bearing the welcome news that the good ship was sighted at last. But no sound came, all through that weary evening, nor any message of comfort. Lady Victoria sat with her, and Miss Skeat, pretending not to notice her distressed mood; and once or twice the Duke came in and spoke cheerfully of what they would do "when Claudius came back." But Margaret went to her room at last with a heavy heart, and would not be comforted. To tell the truth, the Duke firmly expected to receive the news of the ship's arrival during the night, and so great was his anxiety to relieve Margaret that he insisted upon Willis and Vladimir sitting up all night, so as to be sure of having the message delivered the moment it arrived. The Russian and the English servants hated each other, and he was certain they would not give each other any rest. But the Duke slept soundly, and waking at daybreak yelled viciously for Willis. "Well?" he said, "I suppose you went to sleep. Where is the telegram?" "There's no telegraph been yet, your Grace;" said the gray man-servant, who looked as though he had been up several nights instead of one. "Oh!" said the Duke with a change of voice. He was not given to bullying his servants, and always regretted being hasty with them, but his conviction had been strong that the message ought to have come in the night. Having spent the day previous in the office, he felt in duty bound not to relinquish his post until the Countess's doubts were set at rest. So he got into a cab; for, like many foreigners, he hated the Elevated Road, and was driven down town to the Bowling-Green. It rained heavily all the morning, and the Duke, who, as may be imagined, was not generally given to spending his days in steamboat offices, was wonderfully and horribly bored. He smoked and kicked the chairs and read his novel, and was generally extremely uneasy, so that the clerks began to find him a nuisance, not having any idea that he was a real living swell. And still it rained, and the newspaper vendors looked in, all drizzly and wet, and the gay feathers of New York business seemed draggled. Suddenly--it might have been at two o'clock--there was a stir in the office, a rattling of feet on the board floor, and a sort of general revival. "She's in sight," a clerk called out to the Duke. His Grace stretched himself and departed. He had ascertained that the Custom-House tug did not start for two hours after the ship was sighted. So he sent a telegram to Margaret to announce that her waiting was over, and then, to pass the time, he went, and got something to eat. In due season he was seated in the single cabin of the little high-pressure boat, as it ploughed its way bravely through the waves and the rain to meet the great ocean monster. The Custom-House officials, cheery well-fed men, who know the green side of a XX[4], and are seldom troubled with gloomy forebodings, chatted and chaffed merrily together. One of them was very bald, and appeared to be a perpetual laughing-stock for the rest. [Footnote 4: Twenty dollars.] "Well, Ike," shouted one of his companions between two pulls of a small black bottle, "you _hev_ got a skatin' rink on to the top of _your_ head, and no _mistake_". The other grinned, and retorted to the effect that it was better to have the outside smooth than the inside soft. "Well, I guess you got both, like a water-melon," returned the first speaker. There are seldom more than one or two passengers on the Custom-House tug, and on this occasion the Duke was alone. He could not stand the atmosphere of tobacco and whisky in the cabin, and made his way along the side to the engine-room, leaving the Custom-House men to their smoke and their repartee. It was almost five o'clock, and already nearly dark, when they came up with the great steamer. In five minutes the Duke was over the side, hurrying down to find his friend. Not seeing him anywhere, he found the bursar and inquired for Dr. Claudius. The officer replied that he had not made his acquaintance on the voyage, but offered the Duke a list of the passengers, remarking that the ship was unusually crowded for the time of year. The Duke ran his finger down the list, then thinking he had missed the name he sought, he held the paper close to the lamp. But there was no "Dr. Claudius" there. His face fell and his heart beat fast, for he had been so positively certain. Poor Margaret! What would she do? How foolish of Claudius not to telegraph the day he sailed! "You are quite sure there are no omissions here?" asked the Duke of the bursar. "Quite sure, sir," answered he. "Wait a minute, though," he said, as the Duke dropped the list, "there was a passenger taken ashore at Queenstown very ill. A tall man, I should say, though they carried him. He had not registered on board, and he was so ill he gave up the passage. I could not tell you his name." "Had he a light beard?" asked the Duke in great alarm. "Um! yes; a large beard at all events. I remember how he looked as they carried him past. He was awfully pale, and his eyes were closed." "My God!" exclaimed the Duke; "it must have been he! Does no one know his name?" "The captain may. He would not see you now, just going into port, but I will go and ask him," added the officer kindly, seeing how much distressed the other seemed to be. "Do--thanks--please ask him--yes!" he ejaculated, and sank into a chair. The bursar returned in a quarter of an hour. "I am sorry to say, sir," he said, "that no one seems to have known his name. It sometimes happens. I am very sorry." The Duke saw there was nothing to be done. It was clear that Claudius was not on board; but it was by no means clear that Claudius was not lying ill, perhaps dead, in Queenstown. The poor Englishman bit his lips in despair, and was silent. He could not decide how much he ought to tell Margaret, and how much he ought to keep to himself. The sick passenger seemed to answer the description, and yet he might not have been the Doctor for all that. Tall man--pale--he would be pale anyhow if he were ill--fair beard--yes, it sounded like him. "I wish Vick were here," said the Duke to himself; "she has so much sense." Immediately the idea of consulting with his sister developed itself in his mind. "How can I get ashore?" he asked suddenly. "I am afraid you will have to wait till we are in," said the friendly officer. "It will not be more than an hour now." Impelled by some faint hope that the Doctor's name might have been omitted by some accident, the Duke rose and threaded his way among the crowding passengers, as they got their traps together and moved about the great saloons. He pursued every tall man he saw, till he could catch a glimpse of his face. At last he met a towering figure in a darkened passage way. "My dear Claudius!" he cried, holding out his hand. But the stranger only paused, muttered something about a "mistake" and passed on. The excitement grew on the Duke, as it became certain that Claudius was not on board, and never in the whole of his very high and mighty life had he been in such a state of mind. Some of the passengers noted his uneasy movements and exchanged remarks in an undertone, as he passed and repassed. "He is probably crazy," said an Englishman. "He is probably drunk," said an American. "He is probably a defaulting bank cashier," said a Scotchman. "He looks very wild," said a New York mamma. "He looks very unhappy," said her daughter. "He is very well dressed," said her son, who got his clothes half yearly from Smallpage. But the time passed at last, and the great thing came up to her pier, and opened her jaws and disgorged her living freight down a steep plank on to dry earth again; and the Duke, with a final look at the stream of descending passengers, forced his way ashore, and jumped into the first cab he saw. "Drive to the nearest Elevated station," he shouted. "Which avenue?" inquired the driver with that placidity which cabmen assume whenever one is in a hurry. "Oh, any avenue--damn the avenue--Sixth Avenue of course!" cried the Duke in a stew. "Very good, sir--Sixth Avenue Elevated, did you say?" and he deliberately closed the door and mounted to his box. "What shall I tell her--what shall I say?" were the questions that repeated themselves with stunning force in his ear as he rattled through the streets, and slid over the smooth Elevated Road, swiftly towards his hotel. He had still some few hundred yards to walk from the station when he got out. His courage failed him, and he walked slowly, with bent head and heavy heart, the bearer of bad news. Leisurely he climbed the steps, and the few stairs to his room. There stood Lady Victoria under the gaslight, by the fire, looking at the clock. "At last," she cried, "how _did_ you miss him?" "Whom?" asked her brother dejectedly. "Why, Claudius, of course!" "Claudius is not come," he said in a low voice. "Not come?" cried Lady Victoria, "not come? Why he has been here these two hours, with Margaret!" The Duke was fairly overpowered and worn-out with excitement, and he fell back into a chair. "How the--" he began, but checked the expletive, which found vent elsewhere, as expletives will. "Where the devil did he come from?" "From Europe, I believe," said she. "Don't swear about it." "Excuse me, Vick, I am bowled out; I was never so taken aback in my life. Tell me all about it, Vick." And he slowly recovered his senses enough to appreciate that Claudius had really arrived, and that he, the friend who had taken so much trouble, had somehow missed him after all. But he was honestly glad. "I only saw him a moment, and I came in to your room to wait. Of course I let him go in there alone." "Of course," assented her brother gravely. "Margaret was waiting for him, for she got your telegram that the ship was in sight at three o'clock, and he got here at five; I thought it was very quick." "Devilish quick, indeed," said her profane brother under his breath. "Tell me all about it," he added aloud. It was easily enough explained, and before they went to bed that night every one understood it all. It was simply this--Claudius had come by another steamer, one of the German line, and had chanced to arrive a couple of hours before the Cunarder. Margaret had received the Duke's message, as Lady Victoria had said, and, as Claudius appeared soon afterwards, she saw no discrepancy. The tall Doctor left his slender luggage to the mercy of the Custom House, and, hailing a cab, paid the man double fare in advance to hurry to the hotel. He could hardly wait while the servant went through the formality of taking up his name to the Countess, and when the message came back that he would "please to step up upstairs," as the stereotyped American hotel phrase has it, he seemed indeed to make of the stairway but a single step. One moment more, and he was kneeling at her feet, trembling in every limb and speechless, but kissing the fair white hands again and again, while she bent down her flushed dark cheek till it touched his yellow hair. Then he stood up to his height and kissed her forehead and clasped his fingers about her waist and held her up to the length of his mighty arms before him, unconscious, in his overmastering happiness, of the strength he was exerting. But she laughed happily, and her eyes flashed in pride of such a man. "Forgive me, my beloved," he said at last. "I am beside myself with joy." She hid her face on his breast as they stood together. "Are you very glad to come back?" she asked at last, looking up to him with a smile that told the answer. "Glad is too poor a word, my dear, dear lady," he said simply. * * * * * Two hours later they were still seated side by side on the deep sofa. Claudius had told her everything, for, now that he had accomplished his mission, there were to be no more secrets; and there were tears in Margaret's dark eyes as she heard, for she knew what it had cost him to leave her, knowing how he loved. And then they talked on. "If it is to be so soon, dear," she said, "let it be on Christmas Day." "So be it. And, beloved, where shall we go?" he asked. "Oh, away--away from New York, and--and Mr. Barker and Mr. Screw and all these horrid people," she cried; for she too had confessed and told him all. "Yes," he said; and was silent for a moment. "Dear one," he began again, "there is one thing more that you ought to know--" he stopped. "Yes?" she said interrogatively. "My blessed lady, I have told you the story of my birth for the first time to-day. I thought you ought to know it." "That would never have made any difference, Claudius," she answered half reproachfully. "My uncle--my father's brother--died a week before I sailed." "I am sorry, dear," said she in ready sympathy; "were you fond of him?" She did not realise what he meant. "I never remember to have seen him," he replied; "but--he died childless. And I--I am no longer a _privat-docent_." Margaret turned quickly to him, comprehending suddenly. "Then you are the heir?" she asked. "Yes, darling," he said softly. "It is a great name, and you must help me to be worthy of it. I am no longer Dr. Claudius." He added the last sentence with a shade of regret. "And you need never have taken any trouble about this stupid money, after all? You are independent of all these people?" "Yes," he answered, with a smile, "entirely so." "I am so glad,--so glad, you do not know," said she, clasping her hands on his shoulder. "You know I hated to feel you were wrangling with those lawyers for money;" and she laughed a little scornfully. "We will have it, all the same," said Claudius, smiling, "and you shall do as you like with it, beloved. It was honestly got, and will bring no ill luck with it. And now I have told you, I say, let us go to my father's house and make it ours." He spoke proudly and fondly. "Let me welcome my dear lady where her match was never welcomed before." "Yes, dear, we will go there." "Perhaps the Duke will lend us the yacht?" said Claudius. "Yes," said Margaret, and there was a tinge of sadness in her voice, "yes, perhaps the Duke will lend us the yacht." THE END. 
13218	----	DON ORSINO BY F. MARION CRAWFORD AUTHOR OF "THE THREE FATES," "ZOROASTER," "DR. CLAUDIUS," "SARACINESCA," ETC. NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS 1891, MACMILLAN AND CO. Reprinted January, April, December, 1893; June, 1894; January, November, 1895; June, 1896, January, 1898, June, 1899; July, 1901 June, 1903; June, 1905; January, 1907. _Fifty-sixth Thousand_ Norwood Press J.S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. DON ORSINO. CHAPTER I. Don Orsino Saracinesca is of the younger age and lives in the younger Rome, with his father and mother, under the roof of the vast old palace which has sheltered so many hundreds of Saracinesca in peace and war, but which has rarely in the course of the centuries been the home of three generations at once during one and twenty years. The lover of romance may lie in the sun, caring not for the time of day and content to watch the butterflies that cross his blue sky on the way from one flower to another. But the historian is an entomologist who must be stirring. He must catch the moths, which are his facts, in the net which is his memory, and he must fasten them upon his paper with sharp pins, which are dates. By far the greater number of old Prince Saracinesca's contemporaries are dead, and more or less justly forgotten. Old Valdarno died long ago in his bed, surrounded by sons and daughters. The famous dandy of other days, the Duke of Astrardente, died at his young wife's feet some three and twenty years before this chapter of family history opens. Then the primeval Prince Montevarchi came to a violent end at the hands of his librarian, leaving his English princess consolable but unconsoled, leaving also his daughter Flavia married to that other Giovanni Saracinesca who still bears the name of Marchese di San Giacinto; while the younger girl, the fair, brown-eyed Faustina, loved a poor Frenchman, half soldier and all artist. The weak, good-natured Ascanio Bellegra reigns in his father's stead, the timidly extravagant master of all that wealth which the miser's lean and crooked fingers had consigned to a safe keeping. Frangipani too, whose son was to have married Faustina, is gone these many years, and others of the older and graver sort have learned the great secret from the lips of death. But there have been other and greater deaths, beside which the mortality of a whole society of noblemen sinks into insignificance. An empire is dead and another has arisen in the din of a vast war, begotten in bloodshed, brought forth in strife, baptized with fire. The France we knew is gone, and the French Republic writes "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality" in great red letters above the gate of its habitation, which within is yet hung with mourning. Out of the nest of kings and princes and princelings, and of all manner of rulers great and small, rises the solitary eagle of the new German Empire and hangs on black wings between sky and earth, not striking again, but always ready, a vision of armed peace, a terror, a problem--perhaps a warning. Old Rome is dead, too, never to be old Rome again. The last breath has been breathed, the aged eyes are closed for ever, corruption has done its work, and the grand skeleton lies bleaching upon seven hills, half covered with the piecemeal stucco of a modern architectural body. The result is satisfactory to those who have brought it about, if not to the rest of the world. The sepulchre of old Rome is the new capital of united Italy. The three chief actors are dead also--the man of heart, the man of action and the man of wit, the good, the brave and, the cunning, the Pope, the King and the Cardinal--Pius the Ninth, Victor Emmanuel the Second, Giacomo Antonelli. Rome saw them all dead. In a poor chamber of the Vatican, upon a simple bed, beside which burned two waxen torches in the cold morning light, lay the body of the man whom none had loved and many had feared, clothed in the violet robe of the cardinal-deacon. The keen face was drawn up on one side with a strange look of mingled pity and contempt. The delicate, thin hands were clasped together on the breast. The chilly light fell upon the dead features, the silken robe and the stone floor. A single servant in a shabby livery stood in a corner, smiling foolishly, while the tears stood in his eyes and wet his unshaven cheeks. Perhaps he cared, as servants will, when no one else cares. The door opened almost directly upon a staircase and the noise of the feet of those passing up and down upon the stone steps disturbed the silence in the death chamber. At night the poor body was thrust unhonoured into a common coach and driven out to its resting-place. In a vast hall, upon an enormous catafalque, full thirty feet above the floor, lay all that was left of the honest king. Thousands of wax candles cast their light up to the dark, shapeless face, and upon the military accoutrements of the uniform in which the huge body was clothed. A great crowd pressed to the railing to gaze their fill and go away. Behind the division tall troopers in cuirasses mounted guard and moved carelessly about. It was all tawdry, but tawdry on a magnificent scale--all unlike the man in whose honour it was done. For he had been simple and brave. When he was at last borne to his tomb in the Pantheon, a file of imperial and royal princes marched shoulder to shoulder down the street before him, and the black charger he had loved was led after him. In a dim chapel of St. Peter's lay the Pope, robed in white, the jewelled tiara upon his head, his white face calm and peaceful. Six torches burned beside him; six nobles of the guard stood like statues with drawn swords, three on his right hand and three on his left. That was all. The crowd passed in single file before the great closed gates of the Julian Chapel. At night he was borne reverently by loving hands to the deep crypt below. But at another time, at night also, the dead man was taken up and driven towards the gate to be buried without the walls. Then a great crowd assembled in the darkness and fell upon the little band and stoned the coffin of him who never harmed any man, and screamed out curses and blasphemies till all the city was astir with riot. That was the last funeral hymn. Old Rome is gone. The narrow streets are broad thoroughfares, the Jews' quarter is a flat and dusty building lot, the fountain of Ponte Sisto is swept away, one by one the mighty pines of Villa Ludovisi have fallen under axe and saw, and a cheap, thinly inhabited quarter is built upon the site of the enchanted garden. The network of by-ways from the Jesuits' church to the Sant' Angelo bridge is ploughed up and opened by the huge Corso Vittorio Emmanuele. Buildings which strangers used to search for in the shade, guide-book and map in hand, are suddenly brought into the blaze of light that fills broad streets and sweeps across great squares. The vast Cancelleria stands out nobly to the sun, the curved front of the Massimo palace exposes its black colonnade to sight upon the greatest thoroughfare of the new city, the ancient Arco de' Cenci exhibits its squalor in unshadowed sunshine, the Portico of Octavia once more looks upon the river. He who was born and bred in the Rome of twenty years ago comes back after a long absence to wander as a stranger in streets he never knew, among houses unfamiliar to him, amidst a population whose speech sounds strange in his ears. He roams the city from the Lateran to the Tiber, from the Tiber to the Vatican, finding himself now and then before some building once familiar in another aspect, losing himself perpetually in unprofitable wastes made more monotonous than the sandy desert by the modern builder's art. Where once he lingered in old days to glance at the river, or to dream of days yet older and long gone, scarce conscious of the beggar at his elbow and hardly seeing the half dozen workmen who laboured at their trades almost in the middle of the public way--where all was once aged and silent and melancholy and full of the elder memories--there, at that very corner, he is hustled and jostled by an eager crowd, thrust to the wall by huge, grinding, creaking carts, threatened with the modern death by the wheel of the modern omnibus, deafened by the yells of the modern newsvendors, robbed, very likely, by the light fingers of the modern inhabitant. And yet he feels that Rome must be Rome still. He stands aloof and gazes at the sight as upon a play in which Rome herself is the great heroine and actress. He knows the woman and he sees the artist for the first time, not recognising her. She is a dark-eyed, black-haired, thoughtful woman when not upon the stage. How should he know her in the strange disguise, her head decked with Gretchen's fair tresses, her olive cheek daubed with pink and white paint, her stately form clothed in garments that would be gay and girlish but which are only unbecoming? He would gladly go out and wait by the stage door until the performance is over, to see the real woman pass him in the dim light of the street lamps as she enters her carriage and becomes herself again. And so, in the reality, he turns his back upon the crowd and strolls away, not caring whither he goes until, by a mere accident, he finds himself upon the height of Sant' Onofrio, or standing before the great fountains of the Acqua Paola, or perhaps upon the drive which leads through the old Villa Corsini along the crest of the Janiculum. Then, indeed, the scene thus changes, the actress is gone and the woman is before him; the capital of modern Italy sinks like a vision into the earth out of which it was called up, and the capital of the world rises once more, unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable, before the wanderer's eyes. The greater monuments of greater times are there still, majestic and unmoved, the larger signs of a larger age stand out clear and sharp; the tomb of Hadrian frowns on the yellow stream, the heavy hemisphere of the Pantheon turns its single opening to the sky, the enormous dome of the world's cathedral looks silently down upon the sepulchre of the world's masters. Then the sun sets and the wanderer goes down again through the chilly evening air to the city below, to find it less modern than he had thought. He has found what he sought and he knows that the real will outlast the false, that the stone will outlive the stucco and that the builder of to-day is but a builder of card-houses beside the architects who made Rome. So his heart softens a little, or at least grows less resentful, for he has realised how small the change really is as compared with the first effect produced. The great house has fallen into new hands and the latest tenant is furnishing the dwelling to his taste. That is all. He will not tear down the walls, for his hands are too feeble to build them again, even if he were not occupied with other matters and hampered by the disagreeable consciousness of the extravagances he has already committed. Other things have been accomplished, some of which may perhaps endure, and some of which are good in themselves, while some are indifferent and some distinctly bad. The great experiment of Italian unity is in process of trial and the world is already forming its opinion upon the results. Society, heedless as it necessarily is of contemporary history, could not remain indifferent to the transformation of its accustomed surroundings; and here, before entering upon an account of individual doings, the chronicler may be allowed to say a few words upon a matter little understood by foreigners, even when they have spent several seasons in Rome and have made acquaintance with each other for the purpose of criticising the Romans. Immediately after the taking of the city in 1870, three distinct parties declared themselves, to wit, the Clericals or Blacks, the Monarchists or Whites, and the Republicans or Beds. All three had doubtless existed for a considerable time, but the wine of revolution favoured the expression of the truth, and society awoke one morning to find itself divided into camps holding very different opinions. At first the mass of the greater nobles stood together for the lost temporal power of the Pope, while a great number of the less important families followed two or three great houses in siding with the Royalists. The Republican idea, as was natural, found but few sympathisers in the highest class, and these were, I believe, in all cases young men whose fathers were Blacks or Whites, and most of whom have since thought fit to modify their opinions in one direction or the other. Nevertheless the Red interest was, and still is, tolerably strong and has been destined to play that powerful part in parliamentary life, which generally falls to the lot of a compact third party, where a fourth does not yet exist, or has no political influence, as is the case in Rome. For there is a fourth body in Rome, which has little political but much social importance. It was not possible that people who had grown up together in the intimacy of a close caste-life, calling each other "thee" and "thou," and forming the hereditary elements of a still feudal organisation, should suddenly break off all acquaintance and be strangers one to another. The brother, a born and convinced clerical, found that his own sister had followed her husband to the court of the new King. The rigid adherent of the old order met his own son in the street, arrayed in the garb of an Italian officer. The two friends who had stood side by side in good and evil case for a score of years saw themselves suddenly divided by the gulf which lies between a Roman cardinal and a Senator of the Italian Kingdom. The breach was sudden and great, but it was bridged for many by the invention of a fourth, proportional. The points of contact between White and Black became Grey, and a social power, politically neutral and constitutionally indifferent, arose as a mediator between the Contents and the Malcontents. There were families that had never loved the old order but which distinctly disliked the new, and who opened their doors to the adherents of both. There is a house which has become Grey out of a sort of superstition inspired by the unfortunate circumstances which oddly coincided with each movement of its members to join the new order. There is another, and one of the greatest, in which a very high hereditary dignity in the one party, still exercised by force of circumstances, effectually forbids the expression of a sincere sympathy with the opposed power. Another there is, whose members are cousins of the one sovereign and personal friends of the other. A further means of amalgamation has been found in the existence of the double embassies of the great powers. Austria, France and Spain each send an Ambassador to the King of Italy and an Ambassador to the Pope, of like state and importance. Even Protestant Prussia maintains a Minister Plenipotentiary to the Holy See. Russia has her diplomatic agent to the Vatican, and several of the smaller powers keep up two distinct legations. It is naturally neither possible nor intended that these diplomatists should never meet on friendly terms, though they are strictly interdicted from issuing official invitations to each other. Their point of contact is another grey square on the chess-board. The foreigner, too, is generally a neutral individual, for if his political convictions lean towards the wrong side of the Tiber his social tastes incline to Court balls; or if he is an admirer of Italian institutions, his curiosity may yet lead him to seek a presentation at the Vatican, and his inexplicable though recent love of feudal princedom may take him, card-case in hand, to that great stronghold of Vaticanism which lies due west of the Piazza di Venezia and due north of the Capitol. During the early years which followed the change, the attitude of society in Rome was that of protest and indignation on the one hand, of enthusiasm and rather brutally expressed triumph on the other. The line was very clearly drawn, for the adherence was of the nature of personal loyalty on both sides. Eight years and a half later the personal feeling disappeared with the almost simultaneous death of Pius IX. and Victor Emmanuel II. From that time the great strife degenerated by degrees into a difference of opinion. It may perhaps be said also that both parties became aware of their common enemy, the social democrat, soon after the disappearance of the popular King whose great individual influence was of more value to the cause of a united monarchy than all the political clubs and organisations in Italy put together. He was a strong man. He only once, I think, yielded to the pressure of a popular excitement, namely, in the matter of seizing Rome when the French troops were withdrawn, thereby violating a ratified Treaty. But his position was a hard one. He regretted the apparent necessity, and to the day of his death he never would sleep under the roof of Pius the Ninth's Palace on the Quirinal, but had his private apartments in an adjoining building. He was brave and generous. Such faults as he had were no burden to the nation and concerned himself alone. The same praise may be worthily bestowed upon his successor, but the personal influence is no longer the same, any more than that of Leo XIII. can be compared with that of Pius IX., though all the world is aware of the present Pope's intellectual superiority and lofty moral principle. Let us try to be just. The unification of Italy has been the result of a noble conception. The execution of the scheme has not been without faults, and some of these faults have brought about deplorable, even disastrous, consequences, such as to endanger the stability of the new order. The worst of these attendant errors has been the sudden imposition of a most superficial and vicious culture, under the name of enlightenment and education. The least of the new Government's mistakes has been a squandering of the public money, which, when considered with reference to the country's resources, has perhaps no parallel in the history of nations. Yet the first idea was large, patriotic, even grand. The men who first steered the ship of the state were honourable, disinterested, devoted--men like Minghetti, who will not soon be forgotten--loyal, conservative monarchists, whose thoughts were free from exaggeration, save that they believed almost too blindly in the power of a constitution to build up a kingdom, and credited their fellows almost too readily with a purpose as pure and blameless as their own. Can more be said for these? I think not. They rest in honourable graves, their doings live in honoured remembrance--would that there had been such another generation to succeed them. And having said thus much, let us return to the individuals who have played a part in the history of the Saracinesca. They have grown older, some gracefully, some under protest, some most unbecomingly. In the end of the year 1887 old Leone Saracinesca is still alive, being eighty-two years of age. His massive head has sunk a little between his slightly rounded shoulders, and his white beard is no longer cut short and square, but flows majestically down upon his broad breast. His step is slow, but firm still, and when he looks up suddenly from under his wrinkled lids, the fire is not even yet all gone from his eyes. He is still contradictory by nature, but he has mellowed like rare wine in the long years of prosperity and peace. When the change came in Rome he was in the mountains at Saracinesca, with his daughter-in-law, Corona and her children. His son Giovanni, generally known as Prince of Sant' Ilario, was among the volunteers at the last and sat for half a day upon his horse in the Pincio, listening to the bullets that sang over his head while his men fired stray shots from the parapets of the public garden into the road below. Giovanni is fifty-two years old, but though his hair is grey at the temples and his figure a trifle sturdier and broader than of old, he is little changed. His son, Orsino, who will soon be of age, overtops him by a head and shoulders, a dark youth, slender still, but strong and active, the chief person in this portion of my chronicle. Orsino has three brothers of ranging ages, of whom the youngest is scarcely twelve years old. Not one girl child has been given to Giovanni and Corona and they almost wish that one of the sturdy little lads had been a daughter. But old Saracinesca laughs and shakes his head and says he will not die till his four grandsons are strong enough to bear him to his grave upon their shoulders. Corona is still beautiful, still dark, still magnificent, though she has reached the age beyond which no woman ever goes until after death. There are few lines in the noble face and such as are there are not the scars of heart wounds. Her life, too, has been peaceful and undisturbed by great events these many years. There is, indeed, one perpetual anxiety in her existence, for the old prince is an aged man and she loves him dearly. The tough strength must give way some day and there will be a great mourning in the house of Saracinesca, nor will any mourn the dead more sincerely than Corona. And there is a shade of bitterness in the knowledge that her marvellous beauty is waning. Can she be blamed for that? She has been beautiful so long. What woman who has been first for a quarter of a century can give up her place without a sigh? But much has been given to her to soften the years of transition, and she knows that also, when she looks from her husband to her four boys. Then, too, it seems more easy to grow old when she catches a glimpse from time to time of Donna Tullia Del Ferice, who wears her years ungracefully, and who was once so near to becoming Giovanni Saracinesca's wife. Donna Tullia is fat and fiery of complexion, uneasily vivacious and unsure of herself. Her disagreeable blue eyes have not softened, nor has the metallic tone of her voice lost its sharpness. Yet she should not be a disappointed woman, for Del Ferice is a power in the land, a member of parliament, a financier and a successful schemer, whose doors are besieged by parasites and his dinner-table by those who wear fine raiment and dwell in kings' palaces. Del Ferice is the central figure in the great building syndicates which in 1887 are at the height of their power. He juggles with millions of money, with miles of real estate, with thousands of workmen. He is director of a bank, president of a political club, chairman of half a dozen companies and a deputy in the chambers. But his face is unnaturally pale, his body is over-corpulent, and he has trouble with his heart. The Del Ferice couple are childless, to their own great satisfaction. Anastase Gouache, the great painter, is also in Rome. Sixteen years ago he married the love of his life, Faustina Montevarchi, in spite of the strong opposition of her family. But times had changed. A new law existed and the thrice repeated formal request for consent made by Faustina to her mother, freed her from parental authority and brotherly interference. She and her husband passed through some very lean years in the beginning, but fortune has smiled upon them since that. Anastase is very famous. His character has changed little. With the love of the ideal republic in his heart, he shed his blood at Mentana for the great conservative principle, he fired his last shot for the same cause at the Porta Pia on the twentieth of September 1870; a month later he was fighting for France under the gallant Charette--whether for France imperial, regal or republican he never paused to ask; he was wounded in fighting against the Commune, and decorated for painting the portrait of Gambetta, after which he returned to Rome, cursed politics and married the woman he loved, which was, on the whole, the wisest course he could have followed. He has two children, both girls, aged now respectively fifteen and thirteen. His virtues are many, but they do not include economy. Though his savings are small and he depends upon his brush, he lives in one wing of an historic palace and gives dinners which are famous. He proposes to reform and become a miser when his daughters are married. "Misery will be the foundation of my second manner, my angel," he says to his wife, when he has done something unusually extravagant. But Faustina laughs softly and winds her arm about his neck as they look together at the last great picture. Anastase has not grown fat. The gods love him and have promised him eternal youth. He can still buckle round his slim waist the military belt of twenty years ago, and there is scarcely one white thread in his black hair. San Giacinto, the other Saracinesca, who married Faustina's elder sister Flavia, is in process of making a great fortune, greater perhaps than the one so nearly thrust upon him by old Montevarchi's compact with Meschini the librarian and forger. He had scarcely troubled himself to conceal his opinions before the change of government, being by nature a calm, fearless man, and under the new order he unhesitatingly sided with the Italians, to the great satisfaction of Flavia, who foresaw years of dulness for the mourning party of the Blacks. He had already brought to Rome the two boys who remained to him from his first marriage with Serafina Baldi--the little girl who had been born between the other two children had died in infancy--and the lads had been educated at a military college, and in 1887 are both officers in the Italian cavalry, sturdy and somewhat thick-skulled patriots, but gentlemen nevertheless in spite of the peasant blood. They are tall fellows enough but neither of them has inherited the father's colossal stature, and San Giacinto looks with a very little envy on his young kinsman Orsino who has outgrown his cousins. This second marriage has brought him issue, a boy and a girl, and the fact that he has now four children to provide for has had much to do with his activity in affairs. He was among the first to see that an enormous fortune was to be made in the first rush for land in the city, and he realised all he possessed, and borrowed to the full extent of his credit to pay the first instalments on the land he bought, risking everything with the calm determination and cool judgment which lay at the root of his strong character. He was immensely successful, but though he had been bold to recklessness at the right moment, he saw the great crash looming in the near future, and when the many were frantic to buy and invest, no matter at what loss, his millions were in part safely deposited in national bonds, and in part as securely invested in solid and profitable buildings of which the rents are little liable to fluctuation. Brought up to know what money means, he is not easily carried away by enthusiastic reports. He knows that when the hour of fortune is at hand no price is too great to pay for ready capital, but he understands that when the great rush for success begins the psychological moment of finance is already passed. When he dies, if such strength as his can yield to death, he will die the richest man in Italy, and he will leave what is rare in Italian finance, a stainless name. Of one person more I must speak, who has played a part in this family history. The melancholy Spicca still lives his lonely life in the midst of the social world. He affects to be a little old-fashioned in his dress. His tall thin body stoops ominously and his cadaverous face is more grave and ascetic than ever. He is said to have been suffering from a mortal disease these fifteen years, but still he goes everywhere, reads everything and knows every one. He is between sixty and seventy years old, but no one knows his precise age. The foils he once used so well hang untouched and rusty above his fireplace, but his reputation survives the lost strength of his supple wrist, and there are few in Rome, brave men or hairbrained youths, who would willingly anger him even now. He is still the great duellist of his day; the emaciated fingers might still find their old grip upon a sword hilt, the long, listless arm might perhaps once more shoot out with lightning speed, the dull eye might once again light up at the clash of steel. Peaceable, charitable when none are at hand to see him give, gravely gentle now in manner, Count Spicca is thought dangerous still. But he is indeed very lonely in his old age, and if the truth be told his fortune seems to have suffered sadly of late years, so that he rarely leaves Rome, even in the hot summer, and it is very long since he spent six weeks in Paris or risked a handful of gold at Monte Carlo. Yet his life is not over, and he has still a part to play, for his own sake and for the sake of another, as shall soon appear more clearly. CHAPTER II. Orsino Saracinesca's education was almost completed. It had been of the modern kind, for his father had early recognised that it would be a disadvantage to the young man in after life if he did not follow the course of study and pass the examinations required of every Italian subject who wishes to hold office in his own country. Accordingly, though he had not been sent to public schools, Orsino had been regularly entered since his childhood for the public examinations and had passed them all in due order, with great difficulty and indifferent credit. After this preliminary work he had been at an English University for four terms, not with any view to his obtaining a degree after completing the necessary residence, but in order that he might perfect himself in the English language, associate with young men of his own age and social standing, though of different nationality, and acquire that final polish which is so highly valued in the human furniture of society's temples. Orsino was not more highly gifted as to intelligence than many young men of his age and class. Like many of them he spoke English admirably, French tolerably, and Italian with a somewhat Roman twang. He had learned a little German and was rapidly forgetting it again; Latin and Greek had been exhibited to him as dead languages, and he felt no more inclination to assist in their resurrection than is felt by most boys in our day. He had been taught geography in the practical, continental manner, by being obliged to draw maps from memory. He had been instructed in history, not by parallels, but as it were by tangents, a method productive of odd results, and he had advanced just far enough in the study of mathematics to be thoroughly confused by the terms "differentiation" and "integration." Besides these subjects, a multitude of moral and natural sciences had been made to pass in a sort of panorama before his intellectual vision, including physics, chemistry, logic, rhetoric, ethics and political economy, with a view to cultivating in him the spirit of the age. The Ministry of Public Instruction having decreed that the name of God shall be for ever eliminated from all modern books in use in Italian schools and universities, Orsino's religious instruction had been imparted at home and had at least the advantage of being homogeneous. It must not be supposed that Orsino's father and mother were satisfied with this sort of education. But it was not easy to foresee what social and political changes might come about before the boy reached mature manhood. Neither Giovanni nor his wife were of the absolutely "intransigent" way of thinking. They saw no imperative reason to prevent their sons from joining at some future time in the public life of their country, though they themselves preferred not to associate with the party at present in power. Moreover Giovanni Saracinesca saw that the abolition of primogeniture had put an end to hereditary idleness, and that although his sons would be rich enough to do nothing if they pleased, yet his grandchildren would probably have to choose between work and genteel poverty, if it pleased the fates to multiply the race. He could indeed leave one half of his wealth intact to Orsino, but the law required that the other half should be equally divided among all; and as the same thing would take place in the second generation, unless a reactionary revolution intervened, the property would before long be divided into very small moieties indeed. For Giovanni had no idea of imposing celibacy upon his younger sons, still less of exerting any influence he possessed to make them enter the Church. He was too broad in his views for that. They promised to turn out as good men in a struggle as the majority of those who would be opposed to them in life, and they should fight their own battles unhampered by parental authority or caste prejudice. Many years earlier Giovanni had expressed his convictions in regard to the change of order then imminent. He had said that he would fight as long as there was anything to fight for, but that if the change came he would make the best of it. He was now keeping his word. He had fought as far as fighting had been possible and had sincerely wished that his warlike career might have offered more excitement and opportunity for personal distinction than had been afforded him in spending an afternoon on horseback, listening to the singing of bullets overhead. His amateur soldiering was over long ago, but he was strong, brave and intelligent, and if he had been convinced that a second and more radical revolution could accomplish any good result, he would have been capable of devoting himself to its cause with a single-heartedness not usual in these days. But he was not convinced. He therefore lived a quiet life, making the best of the present, improving his lands and doing his best to bring up his sons in such a way as to give them a chance of success when the struggle should come. Orsino was his eldest born and the results of modern education became apparent in him first, as was inevitable. Orsino was at this time not quite twenty-one years of age, but the important day was not far distant and in order to leave a lasting memorial of the attaining of his majority Prince Saracinesca had decreed that Corona should receive a portrait of her eldest son executed by the celebrated Anastase Gouache. To this end the young man spent three mornings in every week in the artist's palatial studio, a place about as different from the latter's first den in the Via San Basilio as the Basilica of Saint Peter is different from a roadside chapel in the Abruzzi. Those who have seen the successful painter of the nineteenth century in his glory will have less difficulty in imagining the scene of Gouache's labours than the writer finds in describing it. The workroom is a hall, the ceiling is a vault thirty feet high, the pavement is of polished marble; the light enters by north windows which would not look small in a good-sized church, the doors would admit a carriage and pair, the tapestries upon the walls would cover the front of a modern house. Everything is on a grand scale, of the best period, of the most genuine description. Three or four originals of great masters, of Titian, of Reubens, of Van Dyck, stand on huge easels in the most favourable lights. Some scores of matchless antique fragments, both of bronze and marble, are placed here and there upon superb carved tables and shelves of the sixteenth century. The only reproduction visible in the place is a very perfect cast of the Hermes of Olympia. The carpets are all of Shiraz, Sinna, Gjordez or old Baku--no common thing of Smyrna, no unclean aniline production of Russo-Asiatic commerce disturbs the universal harmony. In a full light upon the wall hangs a single silk carpet of wonderful tints, famous in the history of Eastern collections, and upon it is set at a slanting angle a single priceless Damascus blade--a sword to possess which an Arab or a Circassian would commit countless crimes. Anastase Gouache is magnificent in all his tastes and in all his ways. His studio and his dwelling are his only estate, his only capital, his only wealth, and he does not take the trouble to conceal the fact. The very idea of a fixed income is as distasteful to him as the possibility of possessing it is distant and visionary. There is always money in abundance, money for Faustina's horses and carriages, money for Gouache's select dinners, money for the expensive fancies of both. The paint pot is the mine, the brush is the miner's pick, and the vein has never failed, nor the hand trembled in working it. A golden youth, a golden river flowing softly to the red gold sunset of the end--that is life as it seems to Anastase and Faustina. On the morning which opens this chronicle, Anastase was standing before his canvas, palette and brushes in hand, considering the nature of the human face in general and of young Orsino's face in particular. "I have known your father and mother for centuries," observed the painter with a fine disregard of human limitations. "Your father is the brown type of a dark man, and your mother is the olive type of a dark woman. They are no more alike than a Red Indian and an Arab, but you are like both. Are you brown or are you olive, my friend? That is the question. I would like to see you angry, or in love, or losing at play. Those things bring out the real complexion." Orsino laughed and showed a remarkably solid set of teeth. But he did not find anything to say. "I would like to know the truth about your complexion," said Anastase, meditatively. "I have no particular reason for being angry," answered Orsino, "and I am not in love--" "At your age! Is it possible!" "Quite. But I will play cards with you if you like," concluded the young man. "No," returned the other. "It would be of no use. You would win, and if you happened to win much, I should be in a diabolical scrape. But I wish you would fall in love. You should see how I would handle the green shadows under your eyes." "It is rather short notice." "The shorter the better. I used to think that the only real happiness in life lay in getting into trouble, and the only real interest in getting out." "And have you changed your mind?" "I? No. My mind has changed me. It is astonishing how a man may love his wife under favourable circumstances." Anastase laid down his brushes and lit a cigarette. Reubens would have sipped a few drops of Rhenish from a Venetian glass. Teniers would have lit a clay pipe. Dürer would perhaps have swallowed a pint of Nüremberg beer, and Greuse or Mignard would have resorted to their snuff-boxes. We do not know what Michelangelo or Perugino did under the circumstances, but it is tolerably evident that the man of the nineteenth century cannot think without talking and cannot talk without cigarettes. Therefore Anastase began to smoke and Orsino, being young and imitative, followed his example. "You have been an exceptionally fortunate man," remarked the latter, who was not old enough to be anything but cynical in his views of life. "Do you think so? Yes--I have been fortunate. But I do not like to think that my happiness has been so very exceptional. The world is a good place, full of happy people. It must be--otherwise purgatory and hell would be useless institutions." "You do not suppose all people to be good as well as happy then," said Orsino with a laugh. "Good? What is goodness, my friend? One half of the theologians tell us that we shall be happy if we are good and the other half assure us that the only way to be good is to abjure earthly happiness. If you will believe me, you will never commit the supreme error of choosing between the two methods. Take the world as it is, and do not ask too many questions of the fates. If you are willing to be happy, happiness will come in its own shape." Orsino's young face expressed rather contemptuous amusement. At twenty, happiness is a dull word, and satisfaction spells excitement. "That is the way people talk," he said. "You have got everything by fighting for it, and you advise me to sit still till the fruit drops into my mouth." "I was obliged to fight. Everything comes to you naturally--fortune, rank--everything, including marriage. Why should you lift a hand?" "A man cannot possibly be happy who marries before he is thirty years old," answered Orsino with conviction. "How do you expect me to occupy myself during the next ten years?" "That is true," Gouache replied, somewhat thoughtfully, as though the consideration had not struck him. "If I were an artist, it would be different." "Oh, very different. I agree with you." Anastase smiled good-humouredly. "Because I should have talent--and a talent is an occupation in itself." "I daresay you would have talent," Gouache answered, still laughing. "No--I did not mean it in that way--I mean that when a man has a talent it makes him think of something besides himself." "I fancy there is more truth in that remark than either you or I would at first think," said the painter in a meditative tone. "Of course there is," returned the youthful philosopher, with more enthusiasm than he would have cared to show if he had been talking to a woman. "What is talent but a combination of the desire to do and the power to accomplish? As for genius, it is never selfish when it is at work." "Is that reflection your own?" "I think so," answered Orsino modestly. He was secretly pleased that a man of the artist's experience and reputation should be struck by his remark. "I do not think I agree with you," said Gouache. Orsino's expression changed a little. He was disappointed, but he said nothing. "I think that a great genius is often ruthless. Do you remember how Beethoven congratulated a young composer after the first performance of his opera? 'I like your opera--I will write music to it.' That was a fine instance of unselfishness, was it not. I can see the young man's face--" Anastase smiled. "Beethoven was not at work when he made the remark," observed Orsino, defending himself. "Nor am I," said Gouache, taking up his brushes again. "If you will resume the pose--so--thoughtful but bold--imagine that you are already an ancestor contemplating posterity from the height of a nobler age--you understand. Try and look as if you were already framed and hanging in the Saracinesca gallery between a Titian and a Giorgione." Orsino resumed his position and scowled at Anastase with a good will. "Not quite such a terrible frown, perhaps," suggested the latter. "When you do that, you certainly look like the gentleman who murdered the Colonna in a street brawl--I forget how long ago. You have his portrait. But I fancy the Princess would prefer--yes--that is more natural. You have her eyes. How the world raved about her twenty years ago--and raves still, for that matter." "She is the most beautiful woman in the world," said Orsino. There was something in the boy's unaffected admiration of his mother which contrasted pleasantly with his youthful affectation of cynicism and indifference. His handsome face lighted up a little, and the painter worked rapidly. But the expression was not lasting. Orsino was at the age when most young men take the trouble to cultivate a manner, and the look of somewhat contemptuous gravity which he had lately acquired was already becoming habitual. Since all men in general have adopted the fashion of the mustache, youths who are still waiting for the full crop seem to have difficulty in managing their mouths. Some draw in their lips with that air of unnatural sternness observable in rough weather among passengers on board ship, just before they relinquish the struggle and retire from public life. Others contract their mouths to the shape of a heart, while there are yet others who lose control of the pendant lower lip and are content to look like idiots, while expecting the hairy growth which is to make them look like men. Orsino had chosen the least objectionable idiosyncrasy and had elected to be of a stern countenance. When he forgot himself he was singularly handsome, and Gouache lay in wait for his moments of forgetfulness. "You are quite right," said the Frenchman. "From the classic point of view your mother was and is the most beautiful dark woman in the world. For myself--well in the first place, you are her son, and secondly I am an artist and not a critic. The painter's tongue is his brush and his words are colours." "What were you going to say about my mother?" asked Orsino with some curiosity. "Oh--nothing. Well, if you must hear it, the Princess represents my classical ideal, but not my personal ideal. I have admired some one else more." "Donna Faustina?" enquired Orsino. "Ah well, my friend--she is my wife, you see. That always makes a great difference in the degree of admiration--" "Generally in the opposite direction," Orsino observed in a tone of elderly unbelief. Gouache had just put his brush into his mouth and held it between his teeth as a poodle carries a stick, while he used his thumb on the canvas. The modern painter paints with everything, not excepting his fingers. He glanced at his model and then at his work, and got his effect before he answered. "You are very hard upon marriage," he said quietly. "Have you tried it?" "Not yet. I will wait as long as possible, before I do. It is not every one who has your luck." "There was something more than luck in my marriage. We loved each other, it is true, but there were difficulties--you have no idea what difficulties there were. But Faustina was brave and I caught a little courage from her. Do you know that when the Serristori barracks were blown up she ran out alone to find me merely because she thought I might have been killed? I found her in the ruins, praying for me. It was sublime." "I have heard that. She was very brave--" "And I a poor Zouave--and a poorer painter. Are there such women nowadays? Bah! I have not known them. We used to meet at churches and exchange two words while her maid was gone to get her a chair. Oh, the good old time! And then the separations--the taking of Rome, when the old Princess carried all the family off to England and stayed there while we were fighting for poor France--and the coming back and the months of waiting, and the notes dropped from her window at midnight and the great quarrel with her family when we took advantage of the new law. And then the marriage itself--what a scandal in Rome! But for the Princess, your mother, I do not know what we should have done. She brought Faustina to the church and drove us to the station in her own carriage--in the face of society. They say that Ascanio Bellegra hung about the door of the church while we were being married, but he had not the courage to come in, for fear of his mother. We went to Naples and lived on salad and love--and we had very little else for a year or two. I was not much known, then, except in Rome, and Roman society refused to have its portrait painted by the adventurer who had run away with a daughter of Casa Montevarchi. Perhaps, if we had been rich, we should have hated each other by this time. But we had to live for each other in those days, for every one was against us. I painted, and she kept house--that English blood is always practical in a desert. And it was a desert. The cooking--it would have made a billiard ball's hair stand on end with astonishment. She made the salad, and then evolved the roast from the inner consciousness. I painted a chaudfroid on an old plate. It was well done--the transparent quality of the jelly and the delicate ortolans imprisoned within, imploring dissection. Well, must I tell you? We threw it away. It was martyrdom. Saint Anthony's position was enviable compared with ours. Beside us that good man would have seemed but a humbug. Yet we lived through it all. I repeat it. We lived, and we were happy. It is amazing, how a man may love his wife." Anastase had told his story with many pauses, working hard while he spoke, for though he was quite in earnest in all he said, his chief object was to distract the young man's attention, so as to bring out his natural expression. Having exhausted one of the colours he needed, he drew back and contemplated his work. Orsino seemed lost in thought. "What are you thinking about?" asked the painter. "Do you think I am too old to become an artist?" enquired the young man. "You? Who knows? But the times are too old. It is the same thing." "I do not understand." "You are in love with the life--not with the profession. But the life is not the same now, nor the art either. Bah! In a few years I shall be out of fashion. I know it. Then we will go back to first principles. A garret to live in, bread and salad for dinner. Of course--what do you expect? That need not prevent us from living in a palace as long as we can." Thereupon Anastase Gouache hummed a very lively little song as he squeezed a few colours from the tubes. Orsino's face betrayed his discontentment. "I was not in earnest," he said. "At least, not as to becoming an artist. I only asked the question to be sure that you would answer it just as everybody answers all questions of the kind--by discouraging my wish do anything for myself." "Why should you do anything? You are so rich!" "What everybody says! Do you know what we rich men, or we men who are to be rich, are expected to be? Farmers. It is not gay." "It would be my dream--pastoral, you know--Normandy cows, a river with reeds, perpetual Angelus, bread and milk for supper. I adore milk. A nymph here and there--at your age, it is permitted. My dear friend, why not be a farmer?" Orsino laughed a little, in spite of himself. "I suppose that is an artist's idea of farming." "As near the truth as a farmer's idea of art, I daresay," retorted Gouache. "We see you paint, but you never see us at work. That is the difference--but that is not the question. Whatever I propose, I get the same answer. I imagine you will permit me to dislike farming as a profession." "For the sake of argument, only," said Gouache gravely. "Good. For the sake of argument. We will suppose that I am myself in all respects what I am, excepting that I am never to have any land, and only enough money to buy cigarettes. I say, 'Let me take a profession. Let me be a soldier.' Every one rises up and protests against the idea of a Saracinesca serving in the Italian army. Why? Remember that your father was a volunteer officer under Pope Pius Ninth.' It is comic. He spent an afternoon on the Pincio for his convictions, and then retired into private life. 'Let me serve in a foreign army--France, Austria, Russia, I do not care.' They are more horrified than ever. 'You have not a spark of patriotism! To serve a foreign power! How dreadful! And as for the Russians, they are all heretics.' Perhaps they are. I will try diplomacy. 'What? Sacrifice your convictions? Become the blind instrument of a scheming, dishonest ministry? It is unworthy of a Saracinesca!' I will think no more about it. Let me be a lawyer and enter public life. 'A lawyer indeed! Will you wrangle in public with notaries' sons, defend murderers and burglars, and take fees like the old men who write letters for the peasants under a green umbrella in the street? It would be almost better to turn musician and give concerts.' 'The Church, perhaps?' I suggest. 'The Church? Are you not the heir, and will you not be the head of the family some day? You must be mad.' 'Then give me a sum of money and let me try my luck with my cousin San Giacinto.' 'Business? If you make money it is a degradation, and with these new laws you cannot afford to lose it. Besides, you will have enough of business when you have to manage your estates.' So all my questions are answered, and I am condemned at twenty to be a farmer for my natural life. I say so. 'A farmer, forsooth! Have you not the world before you? Have you not received the most liberal education? Are you not rich? How can you take such a narrow view! Come out to the Villa and look at those young thoroughbreds, and afterwards we will drop in at the club before dinner. Then there is that reception at the old Principessa Befana's to-night, and the Duchessa della Seccatura is also at home.' That is my life, Monsieur Gouache. There you have the question, the answer and the result. Admit that it is not gay." "It is very serious, on the contrary," answered Gouache who had listened to the detached Jeremiah with more curiosity and interest than he often shewed. "I see nothing for it, but for you to fall in love without losing a single moment." Orsino laughed a little harshly. "I am in the humour, I assure you," he answered. "Well, then--what are you waiting for?" enquired Gouache, looking at him. "What for? For an object for my affections, of course. That is rather necessary under the circumstances." "You may not wait long, if you will consent to stay here another quarter of an hour," said Anastase with a laugh. "A lady is coming, whose portrait I am painting--an interesting woman--tolerably beautiful--rather mysterious--here she is, you can have a good look at her, before you make up your mind." Anastase took the half-finished portrait of Orsino from the easel and put another in its place, considerably further advanced in execution. Orsino lit a cigarette in order to quicken his judgment, and looked at the canvas. The picture was decidedly striking and one felt at once that it must be a good likeness. Gouache was evidently proud of it. It represented a woman, who was certainly not yet thirty years of age, in full dress, seated in a high, carved chair against a warm, dark background. A mantle of some sort of heavy, claret-coloured brocade, lined with fur, was draped across one of the beautiful shoulders, leaving the other bare, the scant dress of the period scarcely breaking the graceful lines from the throat to the soft white hand, of which the pointed fingers hung carelessly over the carved extremity of the arm of the chair. The lady's hair was auburn, her eyes distinctly yellow. The face was an unusual one and not without attraction, very pale, with a full red mouth too wide for perfect beauty, but well modelled--almost too well, Gouache thought. The nose was of no distinct type, and was the least significant feature in the face, but the forehead was broad and massive, the chin soft, prominent and round, the brows much arched and divided by a vertical shadow which, in the original, might be the first indication of a tiny wrinkle. Orsino fancied that one eye or the other wandered a very little, but he could not tell which--the slight defect made the glance disquieting and yet attractive. Altogether it was one of those faces which to one man say too little, and to another too much. Orsino affected to gaze upon the portrait with unconcern, but in reality he was oddly fascinated by it, and Gouache did not fail to see the truth. "You had better go away, my friend," he said, with a smile. "She will be here in a few minutes and you will certainly lose your heart if you see her." "What is her name?" asked Orsino, paying no attention to the remark. "Donna Maria Consuelo--something or other--a string of names ending in Aragona. I call her Madame d'Aragona for shortness, and she does not seem to object." "Married? And Spanish?" "I suppose so," answered Gouache. "A widow I believe. She is not Italian and not French, so she must be Spanish." "The name does not say much. Many people put 'd'Aragona' after their names--some cousins of ours, among others--they are Aranjuez d'Aragona--my father's mother was of that family." "I think that is the name--Aranjuez. Indeed I am sure of it, for Faustina remarked that she might be related to you." "It is odd. We have not heard of her being in Rome--and I am not sure who she is. Has she been here long?" "I have known her a month--since she first came to my studio. She lives in a hotel, and she comes alone, except when I need the dress and then she brings her maid, an odd creature who never speaks and seems to understand no known language." "It is an interesting face. Do you mind if I stay till she comes? We may really be cousins, you know." "By all means--you can ask her. The relationship would be with her husband, I suppose." "True. I had not thought of that; and he is dead, you say?" Gouache did not answer, for at that moment the lady's footfall was heard upon the marble floor, soft, quick and decided. She paused a moment in the middle of the room when she saw that the artist was not alone. He went forward to meet her and asked leave to present Orsino, with that polite indistinctness which leaves to the persons introduced the task of discovering one another's names. Orsino looked into the lady's eyes and saw that the slight peculiarity of the glance was real and not due to any error of Gouache's drawing. He recognised each feature in turn in the one look he gave at the face before he bowed, and he saw that the portrait was indeed very good. He was not subject to shyness. "We should be cousins, Madame," he said. "My father's mother was an Aranjuez d'Aragona." "Indeed?" said the lady with calm indifference, looking critically at the picture of herself. "I am Orsino Saracinesca," said the young man, watching her with some admiration. "Indeed?" she repeated, a shade less coldly. "I think I have heard my poor husband say that he was connected with your family. What do you think of my portrait? Every one has tried to paint me and failed, but my friend Monsieur Gouache is succeeding. He has reproduced my hideous nose and my dreadful mouth with a masterly exactness. No--my dear Monsieur Gouache--it is a compliment I pay you. I am in earnest. I do not want a portrait of the Venus of Milo with red hair, nor of the Minerva Medica with yellow eyes, nor of an imaginary Medea in a fur cloak. I want myself, just as I am. That is exactly what you are doing for me. Myself and I have lived so long together that I desire a little memento of the acquaintance." "You can afford to speak lightly of what is so precious to others," said Gouache, gallantly. Madame d'Aranjuez sank into the carved chair Orsino had occupied. "This dear Gouache--he is charming, is he not?" she said with a little laugh. Orsino looked at her. "Gouache is right," he thought, with the assurance of his years. "It would be amusing to fall in love with her." CHAPTER III. Gouache was far more interested in his work than in the opinions which his two visitors might entertain of each other. He looked at the lady fixedly, moved his easel, raised the picture a few inches higher from the ground and looked again. Orsino watched the proceedings from a little distance, debating whether he should go away or remain. Much depended upon Madame d'Aragona's character, he thought, and of this he knew nothing. Some women are attracted by indifference, and to go away would be to show a disinclination to press the acquaintance. Others, he reflected, prefer the assurance of the man who always stays, even without an invitation, rather than lose his chance. On the other hand a sitting in a studio is not exactly like a meeting in a drawing-room. The painter has a sort of traditional, exclusive right to his sitter's sole attention. The sitter, too, if a woman, enjoys the privilege of sacrificing one-half her good looks in a bad light, to favour the other side which is presented to the artist's view, and the third person, if there be one, has a provoking habit of so placing himself as to receive the least flattering impression. Hence the great unpopularity of the third person--or "the third inconvenience," as the Romans call him. Orsino stood still for a few moments, wondering whether either of the two would ask him to sit down. As they did not, he was annoyed with them and determined to stay, if only for five minutes. He took up his position, in a deep seat under the high window, and watched Madame d'Aragona's profile. Neither she nor Gouache made any remark. Gouache began to brush over the face of his picture. Orsino felt that the silence was becoming awkward. He began to regret that he had remained, for he discovered from his present position that the lady's nose was indeed her defective feature. "You do not mind my staying a few minutes?" he said, with a vague interrogation. "Ask Madame, rather," answered Gouache, brushing away in a lively manner. Madame said nothing, and seemed not to have heard. "Am I indiscreet?" asked Orsino. "How? No. Why should you not remain? Only, if you please, sit where I can see you. Thanks. I do not like to feel that some one is looking at me and that I cannot look at him, if I please--and as for me, I am nailed in my position. How can I turn my head? Gouache is very severe." "You may have heard, Madame, that a beautiful woman is most beautiful in repose," said Gouache. Orsino was annoyed, for he had of course wished to make exactly the same remark. But they were talking in French, and the Frenchman had the advantage of speed. "And how about an ugly woman?" asked Madame d'Aragona. "Motion is most becoming to her--rapid motion--the door," answered the artist. Orsino had changed his position and was standing behind Gouache. "I wish you would sit down," said the latter, after a short pause. "I do not like to feel that any one is standing behind me when I am at work. It is a weakness, but I cannot help it. Do you believe in mental suggestion, Madame?" "What is that?" asked Madame d'Aragona vaguely. "I always imagine that a person standing behind me when I am at work is making me see everything as he sees," answered Gouache, not attempting to answer the question. Orsino, driven from pillar to post, had again moved away. "And do you believe in such absurd superstitions?" enquired Madame d'Aragona with a contemptuous curl of her heavy lips. "Monsieur de Saracinesca, will you not sit down? You make me a little nervous." Gouache raised his finely marked eyebrows almost imperceptibly at the odd form of address, which betrayed ignorance either of worldly usage or else of Orsino's individuality. He stepped back from the canvas and moved a chair forward. "Sit here, Prince," he said. "Madame can see you, and you will not be behind me." Orsino took the proffered seat without any remark. Madame d'Aragona's expression did not change, though she was perfectly well aware that Gouache had intended to correct her manner of addressing the young man. The latter was slightly annoyed. What difference could it make? It was tactless of Gouache, he thought, for the lady might be angry. "Are you spending the winter in Rome, Madame?" he asked. He was conscious that the question lacked originality, but no other presented itself to him. "The winter?" repeated Madame d'Aragona dreamily. "Who knows? I am here at present, at the mercy of the great painter. That is all I know. Shall I be here next month, next week? I cannot tell. I know no one. I have never been here before. It is dull. This was my object," she added, after a short pause. "When it is accomplished I will consider other matters. I may be obliged to accompany their Royal Highnesses to Egypt in January. That is next month, is it not?" It was so very far from clear who the royal highnesses in question might be, that Orsino glanced at Gouache, to see whether he understood. But Gouache was imperturbable. "January, Madame, follows December," he answered. "The fact is confirmed by the observations of many centuries. Even in my own experience it has occurred forty-seven times in succession." Orsino laughed a little, and as Madame d'Aragona's eyes met his, the red lips smiled, without parting. "He is always laughing at me," she said pleasantly. Gouache was painting with great alacrity. The smile was becoming to her and he caught it as it passed. It must be allowed that she permitted it to linger, as though she understood his wish, but as she was looking at Orsino, he was pleased. "If you will permit me to say it, Madame," he observed, "I have never seen eyes like yours." He endeavoured to lose himself in their depths as he spoke. Madame d'Aragona was not in the least annoyed by the remark, nor by the look. "What is there so very unusual about my eyes?" she enquired. The smile grew a little more faint and thoughtful but did not disappear. "In the first place, I have never seen eyes of a golden-yellow colour." "Tigers have yellow eyes," observed Madame d'Aragona. "My acquaintance with that animal is at second hand--slight, to say the least." "You have never shot one?" "Never, Madame. They do not abound in Rome--nor even, I believe, in Albano. My father killed one when he was a young man." "Prince Saracinesca?" "Sant' Ilario. My grandfather is still alive." "How splendid! I adore strong races." "It is very interesting," observed Gouache, poking the stick of a brush into the eye of his picture. "I have painted three generations of the family, I who speak to you, and I hope to paint the fourth if Don Orsino here can be cured of his cynicism and induced to marry Donna--what is her name?" He turned to the young man. "She has none--and she is likely to remain nameless," answered Orsino gloomily. "We will call her Donna Ignota," suggested Madame d'Aragona. "And build altars to the unknown love," added Gouache. Madame d'Aragona smiled faintly, but Orsino persisted in looking grave. "It seems to be an unpleasant subject, Prince." "Very unpleasant, Madame," answered Orsino shortly. Thereupon Madame d'Aragona looked at Gouache and raised her brows a little as though to ask a question, knowing perfectly well that Orsino was watching her. The young man could not see the painter's eyes, and the latter did not betray by any gesture that he was answering the silent interrogation. "Then I have eyes like a tiger, you say. You frighten me. How disagreeable--to look like a wild beast!" "It is a prejudice," returned Orsino. "One hears people say of a woman that she is beautiful as a tigress." "An idea!" exclaimed Gouache, interrupting. "Shall I change the damask cloak to a tiger's skin? One claw just hanging over the white shoulder--Omphale, you know--in a modern drawing-room--a small cast of the Farnese Hercules upon a bracket, there, on the right. Decidedly, here is an idea. Do you permit, Madame!" "Anything you like--only do not spoil the likeness," answered Madame d'Aragona, leaning back in her chair, and looking sleepily at Orsino from beneath her heavy, half-closed lids. "You will spoil the whole picture," said Orsino, rather anxiously. Gouache laughed. "What harm if I do? I can restore it in five minutes--" "Five minutes!" "An hour, if you insist upon accuracy of statement," replied Gouache with a shade of annoyance. He had an idea, and like most people whom fate occasionally favours with that rare commodity he did not like to be disturbed in the realisation of it. He was already squeezing out quantities of tawny colours upon his palette. "I am a passive instrument," said Madame d'Aragona. "He does what he pleases. These men of genius--what would you have? Yesterday a gown from Worth--to-day a tiger's skin--indeed, I tremble for to-morrow." She laughed a little and turned her head away. "You need not fear," answered Gouache, daubing in his new idea with an enormous brush. "Fashions change. Woman endures. Beauty is eternal. There is nothing which may not be made becoming to a beautiful woman." "My dear Gouache, you are insufferable. You are always telling me that I am beautiful. Look at my nose." "Yes. I am looking at it." "And my mouth." "I look. I see. I admire. Have you any other personal observations to make? How many claws has a tiger, Don Orsino? Quick! I am painting the thing." "One less than a woman." Madame d'Aragona looked at the young man a moment, and broke into a laugh. "There is a charming speech. I like that better than Gouache's flattery." "And yet you admit that the portrait is like you," said Gouache. "Perhaps I flatter you, too." "Ah! I had not thought of that." "You should be more modest." "I lose myself--" "Where?" "In your eyes, Madame. One, two, three, four--are you sure a tiger has only four claws? Where is the creature's thumb--what do you call it? It looks awkward." "The dew-claw?" asked Orsino. "It is higher up, behind the paw. You would hardly see it in the skin." "But a cat has five claws," said Madame d'Aragona. "Is not a tiger a cat? We must have the thing right, you know, if it is to be done at all." "Has a cat five claws?" asked Anastase, appealing anxiously to Orsino. "Of course, but you would only see four on the skin." "I insist upon knowing," said Madame d'Aragona. "This is dreadful! Has no one got a tiger? What sort of studio is this--with no tiger!" "I am not Sarah Bernhardt, nor the emperor of Siam," observed Gouache, with a laugh. But Madame d'Aragona was not satisfied. "I am sure you could procure me one, Prince," she said, turning to Orsino. "I am sure you could, if you would! I shall cry if I do not have one, and it will be your fault." "Would you like the animal alive or dead?" inquired Orsino gravely, and he rose from his seat. "Ah, I knew you could procure the thing!" she exclaimed with grateful enthusiasm. "Alive or dead, Gouache? Quick--decide!" "As you please, Madame. If you decide to have him alive, I will ask permission to exchange a few words with my wife and children, while some one goes for a priest." "You are sublime, to-day. Dead, then, if you please, Prince. Quite dead--but do not say that I was afraid--" "Afraid? With, a Saracinesca and a Gouache to defend your life, Madame? You are not serious." Orsino took his hat. "I shall be back in a quarter of an hour," he said, as he bowed and went out. Madame d'Aragona watched his tall young figure till he disappeared. "He does not lack spirit, your young friend," she observed. "No member of that family ever did, I think," Gouache answered. "They are a remarkable race." "And he is the only son?" "Oh no! He has three younger brothers." "Poor fellow! I suppose the fortune is not very large." "I have no means of knowing," replied Gouache indifferently. "Their palace is historic. Their equipages are magnificent. That is all that foreigners see of Roman families." "But you know them intimately?" "Intimately--that is saying too much. I have painted their portraits." Madame d'Aragona wondered why he was so reticent, for she knew that he had himself married the daughter of a Roman prince, and she concluded that he must know much of the Romans. "Do you think he will bring the tiger?" she asked presently. "He is quite capable of bringing a whole menagerie of tigers for you to choose from." "How interesting. I like men who stop at nothing. It was really unpardonable of you to suggest the idea and then to tell me calmly that you had no model for it." In the meantime Orsino had descended the stairs and was hailing a passing cab. He debated for a moment what he should do. It chanced that at that time there was actually a collection of wild beasts to be seen in the Prati di Castello, and Orsino supposed that the owner might be induced, for a large consideration, to part with one of his tigers. He even imagined that he might shoot the beast and bring it back in the cab. But, in the first place, he was not provided with an adequate sum of money nor did he know exactly how to lay his hand on so large a sum as might be necessary, at a moment's notice. He was still under age, and his allowance had not been calculated with a view to his buying menageries. Moreover he considered that even if his pockets had been full of bank notes, the idea was ridiculous, and he was rather ashamed of his youthful impulse. It occurred to him that what was necessary for the picture was not the carcase of the tiger but the skin, and he remembered that such a skin lay on the floor in his father's private room--the spoil of the animal Giovanni Saracinesca had shot in his youth. It had been well cared for and was a fine specimen. "Palazzo Saracinesca," he said to the cabman. Now it chanced, as such things will chance in the inscrutable ways of fate, that Sant' Ilario was just then in that very room and busy with his correspondence. Orsino had hoped to carry off what he wanted, without being questioned, in order to save time, but he now found himself obliged to explain his errand. Sant' Ilario looked, up in some surprise as his son entered. "Well, Orsino? Is anything the matter?" he asked. "Nothing serious, father. I want to borrow your tiger's skin for Gouache. Will you lend it to me?" "Of course. But what in the world does Gouache want of it? Is he painting you in skins--the primeval youth of the forest?" "No--not exactly. The fact is, there is a lady there. Gouache talks of painting her as a modern Omphale, with a tiger's skin and a cast of Hercules in the background--" "Hercules wore a lion's skin--not a tiger's. He killed the Nemean lion." "Did he?" inquired Orsino indifferently. "It is all the same--they do not know it, and they want a tiger. When I left they were debating whether they wanted it alive or dead. I thought of buying one at the Prati di Castello, but it seemed cheaper to borrow the skin of you. May I take it?" Sant' Ilario laughed. Orsino rolled up the great hide and carried it to the door. "Who is the lady, my boy?" "I never saw her before--a certain Donna Maria d'Aranjuez d'Aragona. I fancy she must be a kind of cousin. Do you know anything about her?" "I never heard of such a person. Is that her own name?" "No--she seems to be somebody's widow." "That is definite. What is she like?" "Passably handsome--yellow eyes, reddish hair, one eye wanders." "What an awful picture! Do not fall in love with her, Orsino." "No fear of that--but she is amusing, and she wants the tiger." "You seem to be in a hurry," observed Sant' Ilario, considerably amused. "Naturally. They are waiting for me." "Well, go as fast as you can--never keep a woman waiting. By the way, bring the skin back. I would rather you bought twenty live tigers at the Prati than lose that old thing." Orsino promised and was soon in his cab on the way to Gouache's studio, having the skin rolled up on his knees, the head hanging out on one side and the tail on the other, to the infinite interest of the people in the street. He was just congratulating himself on having wasted so little time in conversation with his father, when the figure of a tall woman walking towards him on the pavement, arrested his attention. His cab must pass close by her, and there was no mistaking his mother at a hundred yards' distance. She saw him too and made a sign with her parasol for him to stop. "Good-morning, Orsino," said the sweet deep voice. "Good-morning, mother," he answered, as he descended hat in hand, and kissed the gloved fingers she extended to him. He could not help thinking, as he looked at her, that she was infinitely more beautiful even now than Madame d'Aragona. As for Corona, it seemed to her that there was no man on earth to compare with her eldest son, except Giovanni himself, and there all comparison ceased. Their eyes met affectionately and it would have been, hard to say which was the more proud of the other, the son of his mother, or the mother of her son. Nevertheless Orsino was in a hurry. Anticipating all questions he told her in as few words as possible the nature of his errand, the object of the tiger's skin, and the name of the lady who was sitting to Gouache. "It is strange," said Corona. "I have never heard your father speak of her." "He has never heard of her either. He just told me so." "I have almost enough curiosity to get into your cab and go with you." "Do, mother." There was not much enthusiasm in the answer. Corona looked at him, smiled, and shook her head. "Foolish boy! Did you think I was in earnest? I should only spoil your amusement in the studio, and the lady would see that I had come to inspect her. Two good reasons--but the first is the better, dear. Go--do not keep them waiting." "Will you not take my cab? I can get another." "No. I am in no hurry. Good-bye." And nodding to him with an affectionate smile, Corona passed on, leaving Orsino free at last to carry the skin to its destination. When he entered the studio he found Madame d'Aragona absorbed in the contemplation of a piece of old tapestry which hung opposite to her, while Gouache was drawing in a tiny Hercules, high up in the right hand corner of the picture, as he had proposed. The conversation seemed to have languished, and Orsino was immediately conscious that the atmosphere had changed since he had left. He unrolled the skin as he entered, and Madame d'Aragona looked at it critically. She saw that the tawny colours would become her in the portrait and her expression grew more animated. "It is really very good of you," she said, with a grateful glance. "I have a disappointment in store for you," answered Orsino. "My father says that Hercules wore a lion's skin. He is quite right, I remember all about it." "Of course," said Gouache. "How could we make such a mistake!" He dropped the bit of chalk he held and looked at Madame d'Aragona. "What difference does it make?" asked the latter. "A lion--a tiger! I am sure they are very much alike." "After all, it is a tiresome idea," said the painter. "You will be much better in the damask cloak. Besides, with the lion's skin you should have the club--imagine a club in your hands! And Hercules should be spinning at your feet--a man in a black coat and a high collar, with a distaff! It is an absurd idea." "You should not call my ideas absurd and tiresome. It is not civil." "I thought it had been mine," observed Gouache. "Not at all. I thought of it--it was quite original." Gouache laughed a little and looked at Orsino as though asking his opinion. "Madame is right," said the latter. "She suggested the whole idea--by having yellow eyes." "You see, Gouache. I told you so. The Prince takes my view. What will you do?" "Whatever you command--" "But I do not want to be ridiculous--" "I do not see--" "And yet I must have the tiger." "I am ready." "Doubtless--but you must think of another subject, with a tiger in it." "Nothing easier. Noble Roman damsel--Colosseum--tiger about to spring--rose--" "Just heaven! What an old story! Besides, I have not the type." "The 'Mysteries of Dionysus,'" suggested Gouache. "Thyrsus, leopard's skin--" "A Bacchante! Fie, Monsieur--and then, the leopard, when we only have a tiger." "Indian princess interviewed by a man-eater--jungle--new moon--tropical vegetation--" "You can think of nothing but subjects for a dark type," said Madame d'Aragona impatiently. "The fact is, in countries where the tiger walks abroad, the women are generally brunettes." "I hate facts. You who are enthusiastic, can you not help us?" She turned to Orsino. "Am I enthusiastic?" "Yes, I am sure of it. Think of something." Orsino was not pleased. He would have preferred to be thought cold and impassive. "What can I say? The first idea was the best. Get a lion instead of a tiger--nothing is simpler." "For my part I prefer the damask cloak and the original picture," said Gouache with decision. "All this mythology is too complicated--too Pompeian--how shall I say? Besides there is no distinct allusion. A Hercules on a bracket--anybody may have that. If you were the Marchessa di San Giacinto, for instance--oh, then everyone would laugh." "Why? What is that?" "She married my cousin," said Orsino. "He is an enormous giant, and they say that she has tamed him." "Ah no! That would not do. Something else, please." Orsino involuntarily thought of a sphynx as he looked at the massive brow, the yellow, sleepy eyes, and the heavy mouth. He wondered how the late Aranjuez had lived and what death he had died. He offered the suggestion. "It would be appropriate," replied Madame d'Aragona. "The Sphynx in the Desert. Rome is a desert to me." "It only depends on you--" Orsino began. "Oh, of course! To make acquaintances, to show myself a little everywhere--it is simple enough. But it wearies me--until one is caught up in the machinery, a toothed wheel going round with the rest, one only bores oneself, and I may leave so soon. Decidedly it is not worth the trouble. Is it?" She turned her eyes to Orsino as though asking his advice. Orsino laughed. "How can you ask that question!" he exclaimed. "Only let the trouble be ours." "Ah! I said you were enthusiastic." She shook her head, and rose from her seat. "It is time for me to go. We have done nothing this morning, and it is all your fault, Prince." "I am distressed--I will not intrude upon your next sitting." "Oh--as far as that is concerned--" She did not finish the sentence, but took up the neglected tiger's skin from the chair on which it lay. She threw it over her shoulders, bringing the grinning head over her hair and holding the forepaws in her pointed white fingers. She came very near to Gouache and looked into his eyes, her closed lips smiling. "Admirable!" exclaimed Gouache. "It is impossible to tell where the woman ends and the tiger begins. Let me draw you like that." "Oh no! Not for anything in the world." She turned away quickly and dropped the skin from her shoulders. "You will not stay a little longer? You will not let me try?" Gouache seemed disappointed. "Impossible," she answered, putting on her hat and beginning to arrange her veil before a mirror. Orsino watched her as she stood, her arms uplifted, in an attitude which is almost always graceful, even for an otherwise ungraceful woman. Madame d'Aragona was perhaps a little too short, but she was justly proportioned and appeared to be rather slight, though the tight-fitting sleeves of her frock betrayed a remarkably well turned arm. Not seeing her face, one might not have singled her out of many as a very striking woman, for she had neither the stateliness of Orsino's mother, nor the enchanting grace which distinguished Gouache's wife. But no one could look into her eyes without feeling that she was very far from being an ordinary woman. "Quite impossible," she repeated, as she tucked in the ends of her veil and then turned upon the two men. "The next sitting? Whenever you like--to-morrow--the day after--name the time." "When to-morrow is possible, there is no choice," said Gouache, "unless you will come again to-day." "To-morrow, then, good-bye." She held out her hand. "There are sketches on each of my fingers, Madame--principally, of tigers." "Good-bye then--consider your hand shaken. Are you going, Prince?" Orsino had taken his hat and was standing beside her. "You will allow me to put you into your carriage." "I shall walk." "So much the better. Good-bye, Monsieur Gouache." "Why say, Monsieur?" "As you like--you are older than I." "I? Who has told you that legend? It is only a myth. When you are sixty years old, I shall still be five-and-twenty." "And I?" enquired Madame d'Aragona, who was still young enough to laugh at age. "As old as you were yesterday, not a day older." "Why not say to-day?" "Because to-day has a to-morrow--yesterday has none." "You are delicious, my dear Gouache. Good-bye." Madame d'Aragona went out with Orsino, and they descended the broad staircase together. Orsino was not sure whether he might not be showing too much anxiety to remain in the company of his new acquaintance, and as he realised how unpleasant it would be to sacrifice the walk with her, he endeavoured to excuse to himself his derogation from his self-imposed character of cool superiority and indifference. She was very amusing, he said to himself, and he had nothing in the world to do. He never had anything to do, since his education had been completed. Why should he not walk with Madame d'Aragona and talk to her? It would be better than hanging about the club or reading a novel at home. The hounds did not meet on that day, or he would not have been at Gouache's at all. But they were to meet to-morrow, and he would therefore not see Madame d'Aragona. "Gouache is an old friend of yours, I suppose," observed the lady. "He was a friend of my father's. He is almost a Roman. He married a distant connection of mine, Donna Faustina Montevarchi." "Ah yes--I have heard. He is a man of immense genius." "He is a man I envy with all my heart," said Orsino. "You envy Gouache? I should not have thought--" "No? Ah, Madame, to me a man who has a career, a profession, an interest, is a god." "I like that," answered Madame d'Aragona. "But it seems to me you have your choice. You have the world before you. Write your name upon it. You do not lack enthusiasm. Is it the inspiration that you need?" "Perhaps," said Orsino glancing meaningly at her as she looked at him. "That is not new," thought she, "but he is charming, all the same. They say," she added aloud, "that genius finds inspiration everywhere." "Alas, I am not a genius. What I ask is an occupation, and permanent interest. The thing is impossible, but I am not resigned." "Before thirty everything is possible," said Madame d'Aragona. She knew that the mere mention of so mature an age would be flattering to such a boy. "The objections are insurmountable," replied Orsino. "What objections? Remember that I do not know Rome, nor the Romans." "We are petrified in traditions. Spicca said the other day that there was but one hope for us. The Americans may yet discover Italy, as we once discovered America." Madame d'Aragona smiled. "Who is Spicca?" she enquired, with a lazy glance at her companion's face. "Spicca? Surely you have heard of him. He used to be a famous duellist. He is our great wit. My father likes him very much--he is an odd character." "There will be all the more credit in succeeding, if you have to break through a barrier of tradition and prejudice," said Madame d'Aragona, reverting rather abruptly to the first subject. "You do not know what that means." Orsino shook his head incredulously. "You have never tried it." "No. How could a woman be placed in such a position?" "That is just it. You cannot understand me." "That does not follow. Women often understand men--men they love or detest--better than men themselves." "Do you love me, Madame?" asked Orsino with a smile. "I have just made your acquaintance," laughed Madame d'Aragona. "It is a little too soon." "But then, according to you, if you understand me, you detest me." "Well? If I do?" She was still laughing. "Then I ought to disappear, I suppose." "You do not understand women. Anything is better than indifference. When you see that you are disliked, then refuse to go away. It is the very moment to remain. Do not submit to dislike. Revenge yourself." "I will try," said Orsino, considerably amused. "Upon me?" "Since you advise it--" "Have I said that I detest you?" "More or less." "It was only by way of illustration to my argument. I was not serious." "You have not a serious character, I fancy," said Orsino. "Do you dare to pass judgment on me after an hour's acquaintance?" "Since you have judged me! You have said five times that I am enthusiastic." "That is an exaggeration. Besides, one cannot say a true thing too often." "How you run on, Madame!" "And you--to tell me to my face that I am not serious! It is unheard of. Is that the way you talk to your compatriots?" "It would not be true. But they would contradict me, as you do. They wish to be thought gay." "Do they? I would like to know them." "Nothing is easier. Will you allow me the honour of undertaking the matter?" They had reached the door of Madame d'Aragona's hotel. She stood still and looked curiously at Orsino. "Certainly not," she answered, rather coldly. "It would be asking too much of you--too much of society, and far too much of me. Thanks. Good-bye." "May I come and see you?" asked Orsino. He knew very well that he had gone too far, and his voice was correctly contrite. "I daresay we shall meet somewhere," she answered, entering the hotel. CHAPTER IV. The rage of speculation was at its height in Rome. Thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of persons were embarked in enterprises which soon afterwards ended in total ruin to themselves and in very serious injury to many of the strongest financial bodies in the country. Yet it is a fact worth recording that the general principle upon which affairs were conducted was an honest one. The land was a fact, the buildings put up were facts, and there was actually a certain amount of capital, of genuine ready money, in use. The whole matter can be explained in a few words. The population of Rome had increased considerably since the Italian occupation, and house-room was needed for the newcomers. Secondly, the partial execution of the scheme for beautifying the city had destroyed great numbers of dwellings in the most thickly populated parts, and more house-room was needed to compensate the loss of habitations, while extensive lots of land were suddenly set free and offered for sale upon easy conditions in all parts of the town. Those who availed themselves of these opportunities before the general rush began, realised immense profits, especially when they had some capital of their own to begin with. But capital was not indispensable. A man could buy his lot on credit; the banks were ready to advance him money on notes of hand, in small amounts at high interest, wherewith to build his house or houses. When the building was finished the bank took a first mortgage upon the property, the owner let the house, paid the interest on the mortgage out of the rent and pocketed the difference, as clear gain. In the majority of eases it was the bank itself which sold the lot of land to the speculator. It is clear therefore that the only money which actually changed hands was that advanced in small sums by the bank itself. As the speculation increased, the banks could not of course afford to lock up all the small notes of hand they received from various quarters. This paper became a circulating medium as far as Vienna, Paris and even London. The crash came when Vienna, Paris and London lost faith in the paper, owing, in the first instance, to one or two small failures, and returned it upon Rome; the banks, unable to obtain cash for it at any price, and being short of ready money, could then no longer discount the speculator's further notes of hand; so that the speculator found himself with half-built houses upon his hands which he could neither let, nor finish, nor sell, and owing money upon bills which he had expected to meet by giving the bank a mortgage on the now valueless property. That is what took place in the majority of cases, and it is not necessary to go into further details, though of course chance played all the usual variations upon the theme of ruin. What distinguishes the period of speculation in Rome from most other manifestations of the kind in Europe is the prominent part played in it by the old land-holding families, a number of which were ruined in wild schemes which no sensible man of business would have touched. This was more or less the result of recent changes in the laws regulating the power of persons making a will. Previous to 1870 the law of primogeniture was as much respected in Rome as in England, and was carried out with considerably greater strictness. The heir got everything, the other children got practically nothing but the smallest pittance. The palace, the gallery of pictures and statues, the lands, the villages and the castles, descended in unbroken succession from eldest son to eldest son, indivisible in principle and undivided in fact. The new law requires that one half of the total property shall be equally distributed by the testator amongst all his children. He may leave the other half to any one he pleases, and as a matter of practice he of course leaves it to his eldest son. Another law, however, forbids the alienation of all collections of works of art either wholly or in part, if they have existed as such for a certain length of time, and if the public has been admitted daily or on any fixed days, to visit them. It is not in the power of the Borghese, or the Colonna, for instance, to sell a picture or a statue out of their galleries, nor to raise money upon such an object by mortgage or otherwise. Yet these works of art figure at a very high valuation, in the total property of which the testator must divide one half amongst his children, though in point of fact they yield no income whatever. But it is of no use to divide them, since none of the heirs could be at liberty to take them away nor realise their value in any manner. The consequence is, that the principal heir, after the division has taken place, finds himself the nominal master of certain enormously valuable possessions, which in reality yield him nothing or next to nothing. He also foresees that in the next generation the same state of things will exist in a far higher degree, and that the position of the head of the family will go from bad to worse until a crisis of some kind takes place. Such a case has recently occurred. A certain Roman prince is bankrupt. The sale of his gallery would certainly relieve the pressure, and would possibly free him from debt altogether. But neither he nor his creditors can lay a finger upon the pictures, nor raise a centime upon them. This man, therefore, is permanently reduced to penury, and his creditors are large losers, while he is still _de jure_ and _de facto_ the owner of property probably sufficient to cover all his obligations. Fortunately, he chances to be childless, a fact consoling, perhaps, to the philanthropist, but not especially so to the sufferer himself. It is clear that the temptation to increase "distributable" property, if one may coin such, an expression, is very great, and accounts for the way in which many Roman gentlemen have rushed headlong into speculation, though possessing none of the qualities necessary for success, and only one of the requisites, namely, a certain amount of ready money, or free and convertible property. A few have been fortunate, while the majority of those who have tried the experiment have been heavy losers. It cannot be said that any one of them all has shown natural talent for finance. Let the reader forgive these dry explanations if he can. The facts explained have a direct bearing upon the story I am telling, but shall not, as mere facts, be referred to again. I have already said that Ugo Del Ferice had returned to Rome soon after the change, had established himself with his wife, Donna Tullia, and was at the time I am speaking about, deeply engaged in the speculations of the day. He had once been, tolerably popular in society, having been looked upon as a harmless creature, useful in his way and very obliging. But the circumstances which had attended his flight some years earlier had become known, and most of his old acquaintances turned him the cold shoulder. He had expected this and was neither disappointed nor humiliated. He had made new friends and acquaintances during his exile, and it was to his interest to stand by them. Like many of those who had played petty and dishonourable parts in the revolutionary times, he had succeeded in building up a reputation for patriotism upon a very slight foundation, and had found persons willing to believe him a sufferer who had escaped martyrdom for the cause, and had deserved the crown of election to a constituency as a just reward of his devotion. The Romans cared very little what became of him. The old Blacks confounded Victor Emmanuel with Garibaldi, Cavour with Persiano, and Silvio Pellico with Del Ferice in one sweeping condemnation, desiring nothing so much as never to hear the hated names mentioned in their houses. The Grey party, being also Roman, disapproved of Ugo on general principles and particularly because he had been a spy, but the Whites, not being Romans at all and entertaining an especial detestation for every distinctly Roman opinion, received him at his own estimation, as society receives most people who live in good houses, give good dinners and observe the proprieties in the matter of visiting-cards. Those who knew anything definite of the man's antecedents were mostly persons who had little histories of their own, and they told no tales out of school. The great personages who had once employed him would have been magnanimous enough to acknowledge him in any case, but were agreeably disappointed when they discovered that he was not amongst the common herd of pension hunters, and claimed no substantial rewards save their politeness and a line in the visiting lists of their wives. And as he grew in wealth and importance they found that he could be useful still, as bank directors and members of parliament can be, in a thousand ways. So it came to pass that the Count and Countess Del Ferice became prominent persons in the Roman world. Ugo was a man of undoubted talent. By his own individual efforts, though with small scruple as to the means he employed, he had raised himself from obscurity to a very enviable position. He had only once in his life been carried away by the weakness of a personal enmity, and he had been made to pay heavily for his caprice. If Donna Tullia had abandoned him when he was driven out of Rome by the influence of the Saracinesca, he might have disappeared altogether from the scene. But she was an odd compound of rashness and foresight, of belief and unbelief, and she had at that time felt herself bound by an oath she dared not break, besides being attached to him by a hatred of Giovanni Saracinesca almost as great as his own. She had followed him and had married him without hesitation; but she had kept the undivided possession of her fortune while allowing him a liberal use of her income. In return, she claimed a certain liberty of action when she chose to avail herself of it. She would not be bound in the choice of her acquaintances nor criticised in the measure of like or dislike she bestowed upon them. She was by no means wholly bad, and if she had a harmless fancy now and then, she required her husband to treat her as above suspicion. On the whole, the arrangement worked very well. Del Ferice, on his part, was unswervingly faithful to her in word and deed, for he exhibited in a high degree that unfaltering constancy which is bred of a permanent, unalienable, financial interest. Bad men are often clever, but if their cleverness is of a superior order they rarely do anything bad. It is true that when they yield to the pressure of necessity their wickedness surpasses that of other men in the same degree as their intelligence. Not only honesty, but all virtue collectively, is the best possible policy, provided that the politician can handle such a tremendous engine of evil as goodness is in the hands of a thoroughly bad man. Those who desired pecuniary accommodation of the bank in which Del Ferice had an interest, had no better friend than he. His power with the directors seemed to be as boundless as his desire to assist the borrower. But he was helpless to prevent the foreclosure of a mortgage, and had been moved almost to tears in the expression of his sympathy with the debtor and of his horror at the hard-heartedness shown by his partners. To prove his disinterested spirit it only need be said that on many occasions he had actually come forward as a private individual and had taken over the mortgage himself, distinctly stating that he could not hold it for more than a year, but expressing a hope that the debtor might in that time retrieve himself. If this really happened, he earned the man's eternal gratitude; if not, he foreclosed indeed, but the loser never forgot that by Del Fence's kindness he had been offered a last chance at a desperate moment. It could not be said to be Del Ferice's fault that the second case was the more frequent one, nor that the result to himself was profit in either event. In his dealings with his constituency he showed a noble desire for the public welfare, for he was never known to refuse anything in reason to the electors who applied to him. It is true that in the case of certain applications, he consumed so much time in preliminary enquiries and subsequent formalities that the applicants sometimes died and sometimes emigrated to the Argentine Republic before the matter could be settled; but they bore with them to South America--or to the grave--the belief that the Onorevole Del Ferice was on their side, and the instances of his prompt, decisive and successful action were many. He represented a small town in the Neapolitan Province, and the benefits and advantages he had obtained for it were numberless. The provincial high road had been made to pass through it; all express trains stopped at its station, though the passengers who made use of the inestimable privilege did not average twenty in the month; it possessed a Piazza Vittorio Emmanuela, a Corso Garibaldi, a Via Cavour, a public garden of at least a quarter of an acre, planted with no less than twenty-five acacias and adorned by a fountain representing a desperate-looking character in the act of firing a finely executed revolver at an imaginary oppressor. Pigs were not allowed within the limits of the town, and the uniforms of the municipal brass band were perfectly new. Could civilisation do more? The bank of which Del Ferice was a director bought the octroi duties of the town at the periodical auction, and farmed them skilfully, together with those of many other towns in the same province. So Del Ferice was a very successful man, and it need scarcely be said that he was now not only independent of his wife's help but very much richer than she had ever been. They lived in a highly decorated, detached modern house in the new part of the city. The gilded gate before the little plot of garden, bore their intertwined initials, surmounted by a modest count's coronet. Donna Tullia would have preferred a coat of arms, or even a crest, but Ugo was sensitive to ridicule, and he was aware that a count's coronet in Rome means nothing at all, whereas a coat of arms means vastly more than in most cities. Within, the dwelling was somewhat unpleasantly gorgeous. Donna Tullia had always loved red, both for itself and because it made her own complexion seem less florid by contrast, and accordingly red satin predominated in the drawing-rooms, red velvet in the dining-room, red damask in the hall and red carpets on the stairs. Some fine specimens of gilding were also to be seen, and Del Ferice had been one of the first to use electric light. Everything was new, expensive and polished to its extreme capacity for reflection. The servants wore vivid liveries and on formal occasions the butler appeared in short-clothes and black silk stockings. Donna Tullia's equipage was visible at a great distance, but Del Fence's own coachman and groom wore dark green with, black epaulettes. On the morning which Orsino and Madame d'Aragona had spent in Gouache's studio the Countess Del Ferice entered her husband's study in order to consult him upon a rather delicate matter. He was alone, but busy as usual. His attention was divided between an important bank operation and a petition for his help in obtaining a decoration for the mayor of the town he represented. The claim to this distinction seemed to rest chiefly on the petitioner's unasked evidence in regard to his own moral rectitude, yet Del Ferice was really exercising all his ingenuity to discover some suitable reason for asking the favour. He laid the papers down with a sigh as Donna Tullia came in. "Good morning, my angel," he said suavely, as he pointed to a chair at his side--the one usually occupied at this hour by seekers for financial support. "Have you rested well?" He never failed to ask the question. "Not badly, not badly, thank Heaven!" answered Donna Tullia. "I have a dreadful cold, of course, and a headache--my head is really splitting." "Rest--rest is what you need, my dear--" "Oh, it is nothing. This Durakoff is a great man. If he had not made me go to Carlsbad--I really do not know. But I have something to say to you. I want your help, Ugo. Please listen to me." Ugo's fat white face already expressed anxious attention. To accentuate the expression of his readiness to listen, he now put all his papers into a drawer and turned towards his wife. "I must go to the Jubilee," said Donna Tullia, coming to the point. "Of course you must go--" "And I must have my seat among the Roman ladies" "Of course you must," repeated Del Ferice with a little less alacrity. "Ah! You see. It is not so easy. You know it is not. Yet I have as good a right to my seat as any one--better perhaps." "Hardly that," observed Ugo with a smile. "When you married me, my angel, you relinquished your claims to a seat at the Vatican functions." "I did nothing of the kind. I never said so, I am sure." "Perhaps if you could make that clear to the majorduomo--" "Absurd, Ugo. You know it is. Besides, I will not beg. You must get me the seat. You can do anything with your influence." "You could easily get into one of the diplomatic tribunes," observed Ugo. "I will not go there. I mean to assert myself. I am a Roman lady and I will have my seat, and you must get it for me." "I will do my best. But I do not quite see where I am to begin. It will need time and consideration and much tact." "It seems to me very simple. Go to one of the clerical deputies and say that you want the ticket for your wife--" "And then?" "Give him to understand that you will vote for his next measure. Nothing could be simpler, I am sure." Del Ferice smiled blandly at his wife's ideas of parliamentary diplomacy. "There are no clerical deputies in the parliament of the nation. If there were the thing might be possible, and it would be very interesting to all the clericals to read an account of the transaction in the Osservatore Romano. In any case, I am not sure that it will be much to our advantage that the wife of the Onorevole Del Ferice should be seen seated in the midst of the Black ladies. It will produce an unfavourable impression." "If you are going to talk of impressions--" Donna Tullia shrugged her massive shoulders. "No, my dear. You mistake me. I am not going to talk of them, because, as I at once told you, it is quite right that you should go to this affair. If you go, you must go in the proper way. No doubt there will be people who will have invitations but will not use them. We can perhaps procure you the use of such a ticket." "I do not care what name is on the paper, provided I can sit in the right place." "Very well," answered Del Ferice. "I will do my best." "I expect it of you, Ugo. It is not often that I ask anything of you, is it? It is the least you can do. The idea of getting a card that is not to be used is good; of course they will all get them, and some of them are sure to be ill." Donna Tullia went away satisfied that what she wanted would be forthcoming at the right moment. What she had said was true. She rarely asked anything of her husband. But when she did, she gave him to understand that she would have it at any price. It was her way of asserting herself from time to time. On the present occasion she had no especial interest at stake and any other woman might have been satisfied with a seat in the diplomatic tribune, which could probably have been obtained without great difficulty. But she had heard that the seats there were to be very high and she did not really wish to be placed in too prominent a position. The light might be unfavourable, and she knew that she was subject to growing very red in places where it was hot. She had once been a handsome woman and a very vain one, but even her vanity could not survive the daily shock of the looking-glass torture. To sit for four or five hours in a high light, facing fifty thousand people, was more than she could bear with equanimity. Del Ferice, being left to himself, returned to the question of the mayor's decoration which was of vastly greater importance to him than his wife's position at the approaching function. If he failed to get the man what he wanted, the fellow would doubtless apply to some one of the opposite party, would receive the coveted honour and would take the whole voting population of the town with him at the next general election, to the total discomfiture of Del Ferice. It was necessary to find some valid reason for proposing him for the distinction. Ugo could not decide what to do just then, but he ultimately hit upon a successful plan. He advised his correspondent to write a pamphlet upon the rapid improvement of agricultural interests in his district under the existing ministry, and he even went so far as to enclose with his letter some notes on the subject. These notes proved to be so voluminous and complete that when the mayor had copied them he could not find a pretext for adding a single word or correction. They were printed upon excellent paper, with ornamental margins, under the title of "Onward, Parthenope!" Of course every one knows that Parthenope means Naples, the Neapolitans and the Neapolitan Province, a siren of that name having come to final grief somewhere between the Chiatamone and Posilippo. The mayor got his decoration, and Del Ferice was re-elected; but no one has inquired into the truth of the statements made in the pamphlet upon agriculture. It is clear that a man who was capable of taking so much trouble for so small a matter would not disappoint his wife when she had set her heart upon such a trifle as a ticket for the Jubilee. Within three days he had the promise of what he wanted. A certain lonely lady of high position lay very ill just then, and it need scarcely be explained that her confidential servant fell upon the invitation as soon as it arrived and sold it for a round sum to the first applicant, who happened to be Count Del Ferice's valet. So the matter was arranged, privately and without scandal. All Rome was alive with expectation. The date fixed was the first of January, and as the day approached the curious foreigner mustered in his thousands and tens of thousands and took the city by storm. The hotels were thronged. The billiard tables were let as furnished rooms, people slept in the lifts, on the landings, in the porters' lodges. The thrifty Romans retreated to roofs and cellars and let their small dwellings. People reaching the city on the last night slept in the cabs they had hired to take them to St. Peter's before dawn. Even the supplies of food ran low and the hungry fed on what they could get, while the delicate of taste very often did not feed at all. There was of course the usual scare about a revolutionary demonstration, to which the natives paid very little attention, but which delighted the foreigners. Not more than half of those who hoped to witness the ceremony saw anything of it, though the basilica will hold some eighty thousand people at a pinch, and the crowd on that occasion was far greater than at the opening of the Oecumenical Council in 1869. Madame d'Aragona had also determined to be present, and she expressed her desire to Gouache. She had spoken the strict truth when she had said that she knew no one in Rome, and so far as general accuracy is concerned it was equally true that she had not fixed the length of her stay. She had not come with any settled purpose beyond a vague idea of having her portrait painted by the French artist, and unless she took the trouble to make acquaintances, there was nothing attractive enough about the capital to keep her. She allowed herself to be driven about the town, on pretence of seeing churches and galleries, but in reality she saw very little of either. She was preoccupied with her own thoughts and subject to fits of abstraction. Most things seemed to her intensely dull, and the unhappy guide who had been selected to accompany her on her excursions, wasted his learning upon her on the first morning, and subsequently exhausted the magnificent catalogue of impossibilities which he had concocted for the especial benefit of the uncultivated foreigner, without eliciting so much as a look of interest or an expression of surprise. He was a young and fascinating guide, wearing a white satin tie, and on the third day he recited some verses of Stecchetti and was about to risk a declaration of worship in ornate prose, when he was suddenly rather badly scared by the lady's yellow eyes, and ran on nervously with a string of deceased popes and their dates. "Get me a card for the Jubilee," she said abruptly. "An entrance is very easily procured," answered the guide. "In fact I have one in my pocket, as it happens. I bought it for twenty francs this morning, thinking that one of my foreigners would perhaps take it of me. I do not even gain a franc--my word of honour." Madame d'Aragona glanced at the slip of paper. "Not that," she answered. "Do you imagine that I will stand? I want a seat in one of the tribunes." The guide lost himself in apologies, but explained that he could not get what she desired. "What are you for?" she inquired. She was an indolent woman, but when by any chance she wanted anything, Donna Tullia herself was not more restless. She drove at once to Gouache's studio. He was alone and she told him what she needed. "The Jubilee, Madame? Is it possible that you have been forgotten?" "Since they have never heard of me! I have not the slightest claim to a place." "It is you who say that. But your place is already secured. Fear nothing. You will be with the Roman ladies." "I do not understand--" "It is simple. I was thinking of it yesterday. Young Saracinesca comes in and begins to talk about you. There is Madame d'Aragona who has no seat, he says. One must arrange that. So it is arranged." "By Don Orsino?" "You would not accept? No. A young man, and you have only met once. But tell me what you think of him. Do you like him?" "One does not like people so easily as that," said Madame d'Aragona, "How have you arranged about the seat?" "It is very simple. There are to be two days, you know. My wife has her cards for both, of course. She will only go once. If you will accept the one for the first day, she will be very happy." "You are angelic, my dear friend! Then I go as your wife?" She laughed. "Precisely. You will be Faustina Gouache instead of Madame d'Aragona." "How delightful! By the bye, do not call me Madame d'Aragona. It is not my name. I might as well call you Monsieur de Paris, because you are a Parisian." "I do not put Anastase Gouache de Paris on my cards," answered Gouache with a laugh. "What may I call you? Donna Maria?" "My name is Maria Consuelo d'Aranjuez." "An ancient Spanish name," said Gouache. "My husband was an Italian." "Ah! Of Spanish descent, originally of Aragona. Of course." "Exactly. Since I am here, shall I sit for you? You might almost finish to-day." "Not so soon as that. It is Don Orsino's hour, but as he has not come, and since you are so kind--by all means." "Ah! Is he punctual?" "He is probably running after those abominable dogs in pursuit of the feeble fox--what they call the noble sport." Gouache's face expressed considerable disgust." "Poor fellow!" said Maria Consuelo. "He has nothing else to do." "He will get used to it. They all do. Besides, it is really the natural condition of man. Total idleness is his element. If Providence meant man to work, it should have given him two heads, one for his profession and one for himself. A man needs one entire and undivided intelligence for the study of his own individuality." "What an idea!" "Do not men of great genius notoriously forget themselves, forget to eat and drink and dress themselves like Christians? That is because they have not two heads. Providence expects a man to do two things at once--an air from an opera and invent the steam-engine at the same moment. Nature rebels. Then Providence and Nature do not agree. What becomes of religion? It is all a mystery. Believe me, Madame, art is easier than, nature, and painting is simpler than theology." Maria Consuelo listened to Gouache's extraordinary remarks with a smile. "You are either paradoxical, or irreligious, or both," she said. "Irreligious? I, who carried a rifle at Mentana? No, Madame, I am a good Catholic." "What does that mean?" "I believe in God, and I love my wife. I leave it to the Church to define my other articles of belief. I have only one head, as you see." Gouache smiled, but there was a note of sincerity in the odd statement which did not escape his hearer. "You are not of the type which belongs to the end of the century," she said. "That type was not invented when I was forming myself." "Perhaps you belong rather to the coming age--the age of simplification." "As distinguished from the age of mystification--religious, political, scientific and artistic," suggested Gouache. "The people of that day will guess the Sphynx's riddle." "Mine? You were comparing me to a sphynx the other day." "Yours, perhaps, Madame. Who knows? Are you the typical woman of the ending century?" "Why not?" asked Maria Consuelo with a sleepy look. CHAPTER V. There is something grand in any great assembly of animals belonging to the same race. The very idea of an immense number of living creatures conveys an impression not suggested by anything else. A compact herd of fifty or sixty thousand lions would be an appalling vision, beside which a like multitude of human beings would sink into insignificance. A drove of wild cattle is, I think, a finer sight than a regiment of cavalry in motion, for the cavalry is composite, half man and half horse, whereas the cattle have the advantage of unity. But we can never see so many animals of any species driven together into one limited space as to be equal to a vast throng of men and women, and we conclude naturally enough that a crowd consisting solely of our own kind is the most imposing one conceivable. It was scarcely light on the morning of New Year's Day when the Princess Sant' Ilario found herself seated in one of the low tribunes on the north side of the high altar in Saint Peter's. Her husband and her eldest son had accompanied her, and having placed her in a position from which they judged she could easily escape at the end of the ceremony, they remained standing in the narrow, winding passage between improvised barriers which led from the tribune to the door of the sacristy, and which had been so arranged as to prevent confusion. Here they waited, greeting their acquaintances when they could recognise them in the dim twilight of the church, and watching the ever-increasing crowd that surged slowly backward and forward outside the barrier. The old prince was entitled by an hereditary office to a place in the great procession of the day, and was not now with them. Orsino felt as though the whole world were assembled about him within the huge cathedral, as though its heart were beating audibly and its muffled breathing rising and falling in his hearing. The unceasing sound that went up from the compact mass of living beings was soft in quality, but enormous in volume and sustained in tone, a great whispering which, might have been heard a mile away. One hears in mammoth musical festivals the extraordinary effect of four or five thousand voices singing very softly; it is not to be compared to the unceasing whisper of fifty thousand men. The young fellow was conscious of a strange, irregular thrill of enthusiasm which ran through him from time to time and startled his imagination into life. It was only the instinct of a strong vitality unconsciously longing to be the central point of the vitalities around it. But he could not understand that. It seemed to him like a great opportunity brought "within reach but slipping by untaken, not to return again. He felt a strange, almost uncontrollable longing to spring upon one of the tribunes, to raise his voice, to speak to the great multitude, to fire all those men to break out and carry everything before them. He laughed audibly at himself. Sant' Ilario looked at his son with some curiosity. "What amuses you?" he asked. "A dream," answered Orsino, still smiling. "Who knows?" he exclaimed after a pause. "What would happen, if at the right moment the right man could stir such a crowd as this?" "Strange things," replied Sant' Ilario gravely. "A crowd is a terrible weapon." "Then my dream was not so foolish after all. One might make history to-day." Sant' Ilario made a gesture expressive of indifference. "What is history?" he asked. "A comedy in which the actors have no written parts, but improvise their speeches and actions as best they can. That is the reason why history is so dull and so full of mistakes." "And of surprises," suggested Orsino. "The surprises in history are always disagreeable, my boy," answered Sant' Ilario. Orsino felt the coldness in the answer and felt even more his father's readiness to damp any expression of enthusiasm. Of late he had encountered this chilling indifference at almost every turn, whenever he gave vent to his admiration for any sort of activity. It was not that Giovanni Saracinesca had any intention of repressing his son's energetic instincts, and he assuredly had no idea of the effect his words often produced. He sometimes wondered at the sudden silence which came over the young man after such conversations, but he did not understand it and on the whole paid little attention to it. He remembered that he himself had been different, and had been wont to argue hotly and not unfrequently to quarrel with his father about trifles. He himself had been headstrong, passionate, often intractable in his early youth, and his father had been no better at sixty and was little improved in that respect even at his present great age. But Orsino did not argue. He suggested, and if any one disagreed with him he became silent. He seemed to possess energy in action, and a number of rather fantastic aspirations, but in conversation he was easily silenced and in outward manner he would have seemed too yielding if he had not often seemed too cold. Giovanni did not see that Orsino was most like his mother in character, while the contact with a new generation had given him something unfamiliar to the old, an affectation at first, but one which habit was amalgamating with the real nature beneath. No doubt, it was wise and right to discourage ideas which would tend in any way to revolution. Giovanni had seen revolutions and had been the loser by them. It was not wise and was certainly not necessary to throw cold water on the young fellow's harmless aspirations. But Giovanni had lived for many years in his own way, rich, respected and supremely happy, and he believed that his way was good enough for Orsino. He had, in his youth, tried most things for himself, and had found them failures so far as happiness was concerned. Orsino might make the series of experiments in his turn if he pleased, but there was no adequate reason for such an expenditure of energy. The sooner the boy loved some girl who would make him a good wife, and the sooner he married her, the sooner he would find that calm, satisfactory existence which had not finally come to Giovanni until after thirty years of age. As for the question of fortune, it was true that there were four sons, but there was Giovanni's mother's fortune, there was Corona's fortune, and there was the great Saracinesca estate behind both. They were all so extremely rich that the deluge must be very distant. Orsino understood none of these things. He only realised that his father had the faculty and apparently the intention of freezing any originality he chanced to show, and he inwardly resented the coldness, quietly, if foolishly, resolving to astonish those who misunderstood him by seizing the first opportunity of doing something out of the common way. For some time he stood in silence watching the people who came by and glancing from time to time at the dense crowd outside the barrier. He was suddenly aware that his father was observing intently a lady who advanced along the open, way. "There is Tullia Del Ferice!" exclaimed Sant' Ilario in surprise. "I do not know her, except by sight," observed Orsino indifferently. The countess was very imposing in her black veil and draperies. Her red face seemed to lose its colour in the dim church and she affected a slow and stately manner more becoming to her weight than was her natural restless vivacity. She had got what she desired and she swept proudly along to take her old place among the ladies of Rome. No one knew whose card she had delivered up at the entrance to the sacristy, and she enjoyed the triumph of showing that the wife of the revolutionary, the banker, the member of parliament, had not lost caste after all. She looked Giovanni full in the face with her disagreeable blue eyes as she came up, apparently not meaning to recognise him. Then, just as she passed him, she deigned to make a very slight inclination of the head, just enough to compel Sant' Ilario to return the salutation. It was very well done. Orsino did not know all the details of the past events, but he knew that his father had once wounded Del Ferice in a duel and he looked at Del Fence's wife with some curiosity. He had seldom had an opportunity of being so near to her. "It was certainly not about her that they fought," he reflected. "It must have been about some other woman, if there was a woman in the question at all." A moment later he was aware that a pair of tawny eyes was fixed on him. Maria Consuelo was following Donna Tullia at a distance of a dozen yards. Orsino came forward and his new acquaintance held out her hand. They had not met since they had first seen each other. "It was so kind of you," she said. "What, Madame?" "To suggest this to Gouache. I should have had no ticket--where shall I sit?" Orsino did not understand, for though he had mentioned the subject, Gouache had not told him what he meant to do. But there was no time to be lost in conversation. Orsino led her to the nearest opening in the tribune and pointed to a seat. "I called," he said quickly. "You did not receive--" "Come again, I will be at home," she answered in a low voice, as she passed him. She sat down in a vacant place beside Donna Tullia, and Orsino noticed that his mother was just behind them both. Corona had been watching him unconsciously, as she often did, and was somewhat surprised to see him conducting a lady whom she did not know. A glance told her that the lady was a foreigner; as such, if she were present at all, she should have been in the diplomatic tribune. There was nothing to think of, and Corona tried to solve the small social problem that presented itself. Orsino strolled back to his father's side. "Who is she?" inquired Sant' Ilario with some curiosity. "The lady who wanted the tiger's skin--Aranjuez--I told you of her." "The portrait you gave me was not flattering. She is handsome, if not beautiful." "Did I say she was not?" asked Orsino with a visible irritation most unlike him. "I thought so. You said she had yellow eyes, red hair and a squint." Sant' Ilario laughed. "Perhaps I did. But the effect seems to be harmonious." "Decidedly so. You might have introduced me." To this Orsino said nothing, but relapsed into a moody silence. He would have liked nothing better than to bring about the acquaintance, but he had only met Maria Consuelo once, though that interview had been a long one, and he remembered her rather short answer to his offer of service in the way of making acquaintances. Maria Consuelo on her part was quite unconscious that she was sitting in front of the Princess Sant' Ilario, but she had seen the lady by her side bow to Orsino's companion in passing, and she guessed from a certain resemblance that the dark, middle-aged man might be young Saracinesca's father. Donna Tullia had seen Corona well enough, but as they had not spoken for nearly twenty years she decided not to risk a nod where she could not command an acknowledgment of it. So she pretended to be quite unconscious of her old enemy's presence. Donna Tullia, however, had noticed as she turned her head in sitting down that Orsino was piloting a strange lady to the tribune, and when the latter sat down beside her, she determined to make her acquaintance, no matter upon what pretext. The time was approaching at which the procession was to make its appearance, and Donna. Tullia looked about for something upon which to open the conversation, glancing from time to time at her neighbour. It was easy to see that the place and the surroundings were equally unfamiliar to the newcomer, who looked with evident interest at the twisted columns of the high altar, at the vast mosaics in the dome, at the red damask hangings of the nave, at the Swiss guards, the chamberlains in court dress and at all the mediæval-looking, motley figures that moved about within the space kept open for the coming function. "It is a wonderful sight," said Donna Tullia in Trench, very softly, and almost as though speaking to herself. "Wonderful indeed," answered Maria Consuelo, "especially to a stranger." "Madame is a stranger, then," observed Donna Tullia with an agreeable smile. She looked into her neighbour's face and for the first time realised that she was a striking person. "Quite," replied the latter, briefly, and as though not wishing to press the conversation. "I fancied so," said Donna Tullia, "though on seeing you in these seats, among us Romans--" "I received a card through the kindness of a friend." There was a short pause, during which Donna Tullia concluded that the friend must have been Orsino. But the next remark threw her off the scent. "It was his wife's ticket, I believe," said Maria Consuelo. "She could not come. I am here on false pretences." She smiled carelessly. Donna Tullia lost herself in speculation, but failed to solve the problem. "You have chosen a most favourable moment for your first visit to Rome," she remarked at last. "Yes. I am always fortunate. I believe I have seen everything worth seeing ever since I was a little girl." "She is somebody," thought Donna Tullia. "Probably the wife of a diplomatist, though. Those people see everything, and talk of nothing but what they have seen." "This is historic," she said aloud. "You will have a chance of contemplating the Romans in their glory. Colonna and Orsini marching side by side, and old Saracinesca in all his magnificence. He is eighty-two year old." "Saracinesca?" repeated Maria Consuelo, turning her tawny eyes upon her neighbour. "Yes. The father of Sant' Ilario--grandfather of that young fellow who showed you to your seat." "Don Orsino? Yes, I know him slightly." Corona, sitting immediately behind them heard her son's name. As the two ladies turned towards each other in conversation she heard distinctly what they said. Donna Tullia was of course aware of this. "Do you?" she asked. "His father is a most estimable man--just a little too estimable, if you understand! As for the boy--" Donna Tullia moved, her broad shoulders expressively. It was a habit of which even the irreproachable Del Ferice could not cure her. Corona's face darkened. "You can hardly call him a boy," observed Maria Consuelo with a smile. "Ah well--I might have been his mother," Donna Tullia answered with a contempt for the affectation of youth which she rarely showed. But Corona began to understand that the conversation was meant for her ears, and grew angry by degrees. Donna Tullia had indeed been near to marrying Giovanni, and in that sense, too, she might have been Orsino's mother. "I fancied you spoke rather disparagingly," said Maria Consuelo with a certain degree of interest. "I? No indeed. On the contrary, Don Orsino is a very fine fellow--but thrown away, positively thrown away in his present surroundings. Of what use is all this English education--but you are a stranger, Madame, you cannot understand our Roman point of view." "If you could explain it to me, I might, perhaps," suggested the other. "Ah yes--if I could explain it! But I am far too ignorant myself--no, ignorant is not the word--too prejudiced, perhaps, to make you see it quite as it is. Perhaps I am a little too liberal, and the Saracinesca are certainly far too conservative. They mistake education for progress. Poor Don Orsino, I am sorry for him." Donna Tullia found no other escape from the difficulty into which she had thrown herself. "I did not know that he was to be pitied," said Maria Consuelo. "Oh, not he in particular, perhaps," answered the stout countess, growing more and more vague. "They are all to be pitied, you know. What is to become of young men brought up in that way? The club, the turf, the card-table--to drink, to gamble, to bet, it is not an existence!" "Do you mean that Don Orsino leads that sort of life?" inquired Maria Consuelo indifferently. Again Donna Tullia's heavy shoulders moved contemptuously. "What else is there for him to do?" "And his father? Did he not do likewise in his youth?" "His father? Ah, he was different--before he married--full of life, activity, originality!" "And since his marriage?" "He has become estimable, most estimable." The smile with which Donna Tullia accompanied the statement was intended to be fine, but was only spiteful. Maria Consuelo, who saw everything with her sleepy glance, noticed the fact. Corona was disgusted, and leaned back in her seat, as far as possible, in order not to hear more. She could not help wondering who the strange lady might be to whom Donna Tullia was so freely expressing her opinions concerning the Saracinesca, and she determined to ask Orsino after the ceremony. But she wished to hear as little more as she could. "When a married man becomes what you call estimable," said Donna Tullia's companion, "he either adores his wife or hates her." "What a charming idea!" laughed the countess. It Was tolerably evident that the remark was beyond her. "She is stupid," thought Maria Consuelo. "I fancied so from the first. I will ask Don Orsino about her. He will say something amusing. It will be a subject of conversation at all events, in place of that endless tiger I invented the other day. I wonder whether this woman expects me to tell her who I am? That will amount to an acquaintance. She is certainly somebody, or she would not be here. On the other hand, she seems to dislike the only man I know besides Gouache. That may lead to complications. Let us talk of Gouache first, and be guided by circumstances." "Do you know Monsieur Gouache?" she inquired, abruptly. "The painter? Yes--I have known him a long time. Is he perhaps painting your portrait?" "Exactly. It is really for that purpose that I am in Rome. What a charming man!" "Do you think so? Perhaps he is. He painted me some time ago. I was not very well satisfied. But he has talent." Donna Tullia had never forgiven the artist for not putting enough soul into the picture he had painted of her when she was a very young widow. "He has a great reputation," said Maria Consuelo, "and I think he will succeed very well with me. Besides, I am grateful to him. He and his painting have been a pleasant episode in my short stay here." "Really, I should hardly have thought you could find it worth your while to come all the way to Rome to be painted by Gouache," observed Donna Tullia. "But of course, as I say, he has talent." "This woman is rich," she said to herself. "The wives of diplomatists do not allow themselves such caprices, as a rule. I wonder who she is?" "Great talent," assented Maria Consuelo. "And great charm, I think." "Ah well--of course--I daresay. We Romans cannot help thinking that for an artist he is a little too much occupied in being a gentleman--and for a gentleman he is quite too much an artist." The remark was not original with Donna Tullia, but had been reported to her as Spicca's, and Spicca had really said something similar about somebody else. "I had not got that impression," said Maria Consuelo, quietly. "She hates him, too," she thought. "She seems to hate everybody. That either means that she knows everybody, or is not received in society." "But of course you know him better than I do," she added aloud, after a little pause. At that moment a strain of music broke out above the great, soft, muffled whispering that filled the basilica. Some thirty chosen voices of the choir of Saint Peter's had begun the hymn "Tu es Petrus," as the procession began to defile from the south aisle into the nave, close by the great door, to traverse the whole distance thence to the high altar. The Pope's own choir, consisting solely of the singers of the Sixtine Chapel, waited silently behind the lattice under the statue of Saint Veronica. The song rang out louder and louder, simple and grand. Those who have heard Italian singers at their best know that thirty young Roman throats can emit a volume of sound equal to that which a hundred men of any other nation could produce. The stillness around them increased, too, as the procession lengthened. The great, dark crowd stood shoulder to shoulder, breathless with expectation, each man and woman feeling for a few short moments that thrill of mysterious anxiety and impatience which Orsino had felt. No one who was there can ever forget what followed. More than forty cardinals filed out in front from the Chapel of the Pietà. Then the hereditary assistants of the Holy See, the heads of the Colonna and the Orsini houses, entered the nave, side by side for the first time, I believe, in history. Immediately after them, high above all the procession and the crowd, appeared the great chair of state, the huge white feathered fans moving slowly on each side, and upon the throne, the central figure of that vast display, sat the Pope, Leo the Thirteenth. Then, without warning and without hesitation, a shout went up such as has never been heard before in that dim cathedral, nor will, perhaps, be heard again. "_Viva il Papa-Rè!_ Long life to the Pope-King!" At the same instant, as though at a preconcerted signal--utterly impossible in such a throng--in the twinkling of an eye, the dark crowd was as white as snow. In every hand a white handkerchief was raised, fluttering and waving above every head. And the shout once taken up, drowned the strong voices of the singers as long-drawn thunder drowns the pattering of the raindrops and the sighing of the wind. The wonderful face, that seemed to be carved out of transparent alabaster, smiled and slowly turned from side to side as it passed by. The thin, fragile hand moved unceasingly, blessing the people. Orsino Saracinesca saw and heard, and his young face turned pale while his lips set themselves. By his side, a head shorter than he, stood his father, lost in thought as he gazed at the mighty spectacle of what had been, and of what might still have been, but for one day of history's surprises. Orsino said nothing, but he glanced at Sant' Ilario's face as though to remind his father of what he had said half an hour earlier; and the elder man knew that there had been truth in the boy's words. There were soldiers in the church, and they were not Italian soldiers--some thousands of them in all, perhaps. They were armed, and there were at the very least computation thirty thousand strong, grown men in the crowd. And the crowd was on fire. Had there been a hundred, nay a score, of desperate, devoted leaders there, who knows what bloody work might not have been done in the city before the sun went down? Who knows what new surprises history might have found for her play? The thought must have crossed many minds at that moment. But no one stirred; the religious ceremony remained a religious ceremony and nothing more; holy peace reigned within the walls, and the hour of peril glided away undisturbed to take its place among memories of good. "The world is worn out!" thought Orsino. "The days of great deeds are over. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die--they are right in teaching me their philosophy." A gloomy, sullen melancholy took hold of the boy's young nature, a passing mood, perhaps, but one which left its mark upon him. For he was at that age when a very little thing will turn the balance of a character, when an older man's thoughtless words may direct half a lifetime in a good or evil channel, being recalled and repeated for a score of years. Who is it that does not remember that day when an impatient "I will," or a defiant "I will not," turned the whole current of his existence in the one direction or the other, towards good or evil, or towards success or failure? Who, that has fought his way against odds into the front rank, has forgotten the woman's look that gave him courage, or the man's sneer that braced nerve and muscle to strike the first of many hard blows? The depression which fell upon Orsino was lasting, for that morning at least. The stupendous pageant went on before him, the choirs sang, the sweet boys' voices answered back, like an angel's song, out of the lofty dome, the incense rose in columns through the streaming sunlight as the high mass proceeded. Again the Pope was raised upon the chair and borne out into the nave, whence in the solemn silence the thin, clear, aged voice intoned the benediction three times, slowly rising and falling, pausing and beginning again. Once more the enormous shout broke out, louder and deeper than ever, as the procession moved away. Then all was over. Orsino saw and heard, but the first impression was gone, and the thrill did not come back. "It was a fine sight," he said to his father, as the shout died away. "A fine sight? Have you no stronger expression than that?" "No," answered Orsino, "I have not." The ladies were already coming out of the tribunes, and Orsino saw his father give his arm to Corona to lead her through the crowd. Naturally enough, Maria Consuelo and Donna Tullia came out together very soon after her. Orsino offered to pilot the former through the confusion, and she accepted gratefully. Donna Tullia walked beside them. "You do not know me, Don Orsino," said she with a gracious smile. "I beg your pardon--you are the Countess Del Ferice--I have not been back from England long, and have not had an opportunity of being presented." Whatever might be Orsino's weaknesses, shyness was certainly not one of them, and as he made the civil answer he calmly looked at Donna Tullia as though to inquire what in the world she wished to accomplish in making his acquaintance. He had been so situated during the ceremony as not to see that the two ladies had fallen into conversation. "Will you introduce me?" said Maria Consuelo. "We have been talking together." She spoke in a low voice, but the words could hardly have escaped Donna Tullia. Orsino was very much surprised and not by any means pleased, for he saw that the elder woman had forced the introduction by a rather vulgar trick. Nevertheless, he could not escape. "Since you have been good enough to recognise me," he said rather stiffly to Donna Tullia, "permit me to make you acquainted with Madame d'Aranjuez d'Aragona." Both ladies nodded and smiled the smile of the newly introduced. Donna Tullia at once began to wonder how it was that a person with such a name should have but a plain "Madame" to put before it. But her curiosity was not satisfied on this occasion. "How absurd society is!" she exclaimed. "Madame d'Aranjuez and I have been talking all the morning, quite like old friends--and now we need an introduction!" Maria Consuelo glanced at Orsino as though, expecting him to make some remark. But he said nothing. "What should we do without conventions!" she said, for the sake of saying something. By this time they were threading the endless passages of the sacristy building, on their way to the Piazza Santa, Marta. Sant' Ilario and Corona were not far in front of them. At a turn in the corridor Corona looked back. "There is Orsino talking to Tullia Del Ferice!" she exclaimed in great surprise. "And he has given his arm to that other lady who was next to her in the tribune." "What does it matter?" asked Sant' Ilario indifferently. "By the bye, the other lady is that Madame d'Aranjuez he talks about." "Is she any relation of your mother's family, Giovanni?" "Not that I am aware of. She may have married some younger son of whom I never heard." "You do not seem to care whom Orsino knows," said Corona rather reproachfully. "Orsino is grown up, dear. You must not forget that." "Yes--I suppose he is," Corona answered with a little sigh. "But surely you will not encourage him to cultivate the Del Ferice!" "I fancy it would take a deal of encouragement to drive him to that," said Sant' Ilario with a laugh. "He has better taste." There was some confusion outside. People were waiting for their carriages, and as most of them knew each other intimately every one was talking at once. Donna Tullia nodded here and there, but Maria Consuelo noticed that her salutations were coldly returned. Orsino and his two companions stood a little aloof from the crowd. Just then the Saracinesca carriage drove up. "Who is that magnificent woman?" asked Maria Consuelo, as Corona got in. "My mother," said Orsino. "My father is getting in now." "There comes my carriage! Please help me." A modest hired brougham made its appearance. Orsino hoped that Madame d'Aranjuez would offer him a seat. But he was mistaken. "I am afraid mine is miles away," said Donna Tullia. "Good-bye, I shall be so glad if you will come and see me." She held out her hand. "May I not take you home?" asked Maria Consuelo. "There is just room--it will be better than waiting here." Donna Tullia hesitated a moment, and then accepted, to Orsino's great annoyance. He helped the two ladies to get in, and shut the door. "Come soon," said Maria Consuelo, giving him her hand out of the window. He was inclined to be angry, but the look that accompanied the invitation did its work satisfactorily. "He is very young," thought Maria Consuelo, as she drove away. "She can be very amusing. It is worth while," said Orsino to himself as he passed in front of the next carriage, and walked out upon the small square. He had not gone far, hindered as he was at every step, when some one touched his arm. It was Spicca, looking more cadaverous and exhausted than usual. "Are you going home in a cab?" he asked. "Then let us go together." They got out of the square, scarcely knowing how they had accomplished the feat. Spicca seemed nervous as well as tired, and he leaned on Orsino's arm. "There was a chance lost this morning," said the latter when they were under the colonnade. He felt sure of a bitter answer from the keen old man. "Why did you not seize it then?" asked Spicca. "Do you expect old men like me to stand up and yell for a republic, or a restoration, or a monarchy, or whichever of the other seven plagues of Egypt you desire? I have not voice enough left to call a cab, much less to howl down a kingdom." "I wonder what would have happened, if I, or some one else, had tried." "You would have spent the night in prison with a few kindred spirits. After all, that would have been better than making love to old Donna Tullia and her young friend." Orsino laughed. "You have good eyes," he said. "So have you, Orsino. Use them. You will see something odd if you look where you were looking this morning. Do you know what sort of a place this world is?" "It is a dull place. I have found that out already." "You are mistaken. It is hell. Do you mind calling that cab?" Orsino stared a moment at his companion, and then hailed the passing conveyance. CHAPTER VI. Orsino had shown less anxiety to see Madame d'Aranjuez than might perhaps have been expected. In the ten days which had elapsed between the sitting at Gouache's studio and the first of January he had only once made an attempt to find her at home, and that attempt had failed. He had not even seen her passing in the street, and he had not been conscious of any uncontrollable desire to catch a glimpse of her at any price. But he had not forgotten her existence as he would certainly have forgotten that of a wholly indifferent person in the same time. On the contrary, he had thought of her frequently and had indulged in many speculations concerning her, wondering among other matters why he did not take more trouble to see her since she occupied his thoughts so much. He did not know that he was in reality hesitating, for he would not have acknowledged to himself that he could be in danger of falling seriously in love. He was too young to admit such a possibility, and the character which he admired and meant to assume was altogether too cold and superior to such weaknesses. To do him justice, he was really not of the sort to fall in love at first sight. Persons capable of a self-imposed dualism rarely are, for the second nature they build up on the foundation of their own is never wholly artificial. The disposition to certain modes of thought and habits of bearing is really present, as is sufficiently proved by their admiration of both. Very shy persons, for instance, invariably admire very self-possessed ones, and in trying to imitate them occasionally exhibit a cold-blooded arrogance which is amazing. Timothy Titmouse secretly looks up to Don Juan as his ideal, and after half a lifetime of failure outdoes his model, to the horror of his friends. Dionysus masks as Hercules, and the fox is sometimes not unsuccessful in his saint's disguise. Those who have been intimate with a great actor know that the characters he plays best are not all assumed; there is a little of each in his own nature. There is a touch of the real Othello in Salvini--there is perhaps a strain of the melancholy Scandinavian in English Irving. To be short, Orsino Saracinesca was too enthusiastic to be wholly cold, and too thoughtful to be thoroughly enthusiastic. He saw things differently according to his moods, and being dissatisfied, he tried to make one mood prevail constantly over the other. In a mean nature the double view often makes an untruthful individual; in one possessing honourable instincts it frequently leads to unhappiness. Affectation then becomes aspiration and the man's failure to impose on others is forgotten in his misery at failing to impose upon himself. The few words Orsino had exchanged with Maria Consuelo on the morning of the great ceremony recalled vividly the pleasant hour he had spent with her ten days earlier, and he determined to see her as soon as possible. He was out of conceit with himself and consequently with all those who knew him, and he looked forward with pleasure to the conversation of an attractive woman who could have no preconceived opinion of him, and who could take him at his own estimate. He was curious, too, to find out something more definite in regard to her. She was mysterious, and the mystery pleased him. She had admitted that her deceased husband had spoken of being connected with the Saracinesca, but he could not discover where the relationship lay. Spicca's very odd remark, too, seemed to point to her, in some way which Orsino could not understand, and he remembered her having said that she had heard of Spicca. Her husband had doubtless been an Italian of Spanish descent, but she had given no clue to her own nationality, and she did not look Spanish, in spite of her name, Maria Consuelo. As no one in Rome knew her it was impossible to get any information whatever. It was all very interesting. Accordingly, late on the afternoon of the second of January, Orsino called and was led to the door of a small sitting-room on the second floor of the hotel. The servant shut the door behind him and Orsino found himself alone. A lamp with a pretty shade was burning on the table and beside it an ugly blue glass vase contained a few flowers, common roses, but fresh and fragrant. Two or three new books in yellow paper covers lay scattered upon the hideous velvet table cloth, and beside one of them Orsino noticed a magnificent paper cutter of chiselled silver, bearing a large monogram done in brilliants and rubies. The thing contrasted oddly with its surroundings and attracted the light. An easy chair was drawn up to the table, an abominable object covered with perfectly new yellow satin. A small red morocco cushion, of the kind used in travelling, was balanced on the back, and there was a depression in it, as though some one's head had lately rested there. Orsino noticed all these details as he stood waiting for Madame d'Aranjuez to appear, and they were not without interest to him, for each one told a story, and the stories were contradictory. The room was not encumbered with those numberless objects which most women scatter about them within an hour after reaching a hotel. Yet Madame d'Aranjuez must have been at least a month in Rome. The room smelt neither of perfume nor of cigarettes, but of the roses, which was better, and a little of the lamp, which was much worse. The lady's only possessions seemed to be three books, a travelling cushion and a somewhat too gorgeous paper cutter; and these few objects were perfectly new. He glanced at the books; they were of the latest, and only one had been cut. The cushion might have been bought that morning. Not a breath had tarnished the polished blade of the silver knife. A door opened softly and Orsino drew himself up as some one pushed in the heavy, vivid curtains. But it was not Madame d'Aranjuez. A small dark woman of middle age, with downcast eyes and exceedingly black hair, came forward a step. "The signora will come presently," she said in Italian, in a very low voice, as though she were almost afraid of hearing herself speak. She was gone in a moment, as noiselessly as she had come. This was evidently the silent maid of whom Gouache had spoken. The few words she had spoken had revealed to Orsino the fact that she was an Italian from the north, for she had the unmistakable accent of the Piedmontese, whose own language is comprehensible only by themselves. Orsino prepared to wait some time, supposing that the message could hardly have been sent without an object. But another minute had not elapsed before Maria Consuelo herself appeared. In the soft lamplight her clear white skin looked very pale and her auburn hair almost red. She wore one of those nondescript garments which we have elected to call tea-gowns, and Orsino, who had learned to criticise dress as he had learned Latin grammar, saw that the tea-gown was good and the lace real. The colours produced no impression upon him whatever. As a matter of fact they were dark, being combined in various shades of olive. Maria Consuelo looked at her visitor and held out her hand, but said nothing. She did not even smile, and Orsino began to fancy that he had chosen an unfortunate moment for his visit. "It was very good of you to let me come," he said, waiting for her to sit down. Still she said nothing. She placed the red morocco cushion carefully in the particular position which would be most comfortable, turned the shade of the lamp a little, which, of course, produced no change whatever in the direction of the light, pushed one of the books half across the table and at last sat down in the easy chair. Orsino sat down near her, holding his hat upon his knee. He wondered whether she had heard him speak, or whether she might not be one of those people who are painfully shy when there is no third person present. "I think it was very good of you to come," she said at last, when she was comfortably settled. "I wish goodness were always so easy," answered Orsino with alacrity. "Is it your ambition to be good?" asked Maria Consuelo with a smile. "It should be. But it is not a career." "Then you do not believe in Saints?" "Not until they are canonised and made articles of belief--unless you are one, Madame." "I have thought of trying it," answered Maria Consuelo, calmly. "Saintship is a career, even in society, whatever you may say to the contrary. It has attractions, after all." "Not equal to those of the other side. Every one admits that. The majority is evidently in favour of sin, and if we are to believe in modern institutions, we must believe that majorities are right." "Then the hero is always wrong, for he is the enthusiastic individual who is always for facing odds, and if no one disagrees with him he is very unhappy. Yet there are heroes--" "Where?" asked Orsino. "The heroes people talk of ride bronze horses on inaccessible pedestals. When the bell rings for a revolution they are all knocked down and new ones are set up in their places--also executed by the best artists--and the old ones are cast into cannon to knock to pieces the ideas they invented. That is called history." "You take a cheerful and encouraging view of the world's history, Don Orsino." "The world is made for us, and we must accept it. But we may criticise it. There is nothing to the contrary in the contract." "In the social contract? Are you going to talk to me about Jean-Jacques?" "Have you read him, Madame?" "'No woman who respects herself--'" began Maria Consuelo, quoting the famous preface. "I see that you have," said Orsino, with a laugh. "I have not." "Nor I." To Orsino's surprise, Madame d'Aranjuez blushed. He could not have told why he was pleased, nor why her change of colour seemed so unexpected. "Speaking of history," he said, after a very slight pause, "why did you thank me yesterday for having got you a card?" "Did you not speak to Gouache about it?" "I said something--I forget what. Did he manage it?" "Of course. I had his wife's place. She could not go. Do you dislike being thanked for your good offices? Are you so modest as that?" "Not in the least, but I hate misunderstandings, though I will get all the credit I can for what I have not done, like other people. When I saw that you knew the Del Ferice, I thought that perhaps she had been exerting herself." "Why do you hate her so?" asked Maria Consuelo. "I do not hate her. She does not exist--that is all." "Why does she not exist, as you call it? She is a very good-natured woman. Tell me the truth. Everybody hates her--I saw that by the way they bowed to her while we were waiting--why? There must be a reason. Is she a--an incorrect person?" Orsino laughed. "No. That is the point at which existence is more likely to begin than to end." "How cynical you are! I do not like that. Tell me about Madame Del Ferice." "Very well. To begin with, she is a relation of mine." "Seriously?" "Seriously. Of course that gives me a right to handle the whole dictionary of abuse against her." "Of course. Are you going to do that?" "No. You would call me cynical. I do not like you to call me by bad names, Madame." "I had an idea that men liked it," observed Maria Consuelo gravely. "One does not like to hear disagreeable truths." "Then it is the truth? Go on. You have forgotten what we were talking about." "Not at all Donna Tullia, my second, third or fourth cousin, was married once upon a time to a certain Mayer." "And left him. How interesting!" "No, Madame. He left her--very suddenly, I believe--for another world. Better or worse? Who can say? Considering his past life, worse, I suppose; but considering that he was not obliged to take Donna Tullia with him, decidedly better." "You certainly hate her. Then she married Del Ferice." "Then she married Del Ferice--before I was born. She is fabulously old. Mayer left her very rich, and without conditions. Del Ferice was an impossible person. My father nearly killed him in a duel once--also before I was born. I never knew what it was about. Del Ferice was a spy, in the old days when spies got a living in a Rome--" "Ah! I see it all now!" exclaimed Maria Consuelo. "Del Ferice is white, and you are black. Of course you hate each other. You need not tell me any more." "How you take that for granted!" "Is it not perfectly clear? Do not talk to me of like and dislike when your dreadful parties have anything to do with either! Besides, if I had any sympathy with either side it would be for the whites. But the whole thing is absurd, complicated, mediaeval, feudal--anything you like except sensible. Your intolerance is--intolerable." "True tolerance should tolerate even intolerance," observed Orsino smartly. "That sounds like one of the puzzles of pronunciation like 'in un piatto poco cupo poco pepe pisto cape,'" laughed Maria Consuelo. "Tolerably tolerable tolerance tolerates tolerable tolerance intolerably--" "You speak Italian?" asked Orsino, surprised by her glib enunciation of the difficult sentence she had quoted. "Why are we talking a foreign language?" "I cannot really speak Italian. I have an Italian maid, who speaks French. But she taught me that puzzle." "It is odd--your maid is a Piedmontese and you have a good accent." "Have I? I am very glad. But tell me, is it not absurd that you should hate these people as you do--you cannot deny it--merely because they are whites?" "Everything in life is absurd if you take the opposite point of view. Lunatics find endless amusement in watching sane people." "And of course, you are the sane people," observed Maria Consuelo. "Of course." "What becomes of me? I suppose I do not exist? You would not be rude enough to class me with the lunatics." "Certainly not. You will of course choose to be a black." "In order to be discontented, as you are?" "Discontented?" "Yes. Are you not utterly out of sympathy with your surroundings? Are you not hampered at every step by a network of traditions which have no meaning to your intelligence, but which are laid on you like a harness upon a horse, and in which you are driven your daily little round of tiresome amusement--or dissipation? Do you not hate the Corso as an omnibus horse hates it? Do you not really hate the very faces of all those people who effectually prevent you from using your own intelligence, your own strength--your own heart? One sees it in your face. You are too young to be tired of life. No, I am not going to call you a boy, though I am older than you, Don Orsino. You will find people enough in your own surroundings to call you a boy--because you are not yet so utterly tamed and wearied as they are, and for no other reason. You are a man. I do not know your age, but you do not talk as boys do. You are a man--then be a man altogether, be independent--use your hands for something better than throwing mud at other people's houses merely because they are new!" Orsino looked at her in astonishment. This was certainly not the sort of conversation he had anticipated when he had entered the room. "You are surprised because I speak like this," she said after a short pause. "You are a Saracinesca and I am--a stranger, here to-day and gone to-morrow, whom you will probably never see again. It is amusing, is it not? Why do you not laugh?" Maria Consuelo smiled and as usual her strong red lips closed as soon as she had finished speaking, a habit which lent the smile something unusual, half-mysterious, and self-contained. "I see nothing to laugh at," answered Orsino. "Did the mythological personage whose name I have forgotten laugh when the sphynx proposed the riddle to him?" "That is the third time within the last few days that I have been compared to a sphynx by you or Gouache. It lacks originality in the end." "I was not thinking of being original. I was too much interested. Your riddle is the problem of my life." "The resemblance ceases there. I cannot eat you up if you do not guess the answer--or if you do not take my advice. I am not prepared to go so far as that." "Was it advice? It sounded more like a question." "I would not ask one when I am sure of getting no answer. Besides, I do not like being laughed at." "What has that to do with the matter? Why imagine anything so impossible?" "After all--perhaps it is more foolish to say, 'I advise you to do so and so,' than to ask, 'Why do you not do so and so?' Advice is always disagreeable and the adviser is always more or less ridiculous. Advice brings its own punishment." "Is that not cynical?" asked Orsino. "No. Why? What is the worst thing you can do to your social enemy? Prevail upon him to give you his counsel, act upon it--it will of course turn out badly--then say, "I feared this would happen, but as you advised me I did not like--" and so on! That is simple and always effectual. Try it." "Not for worlds!" "I did not mean with me," answered Maria Consuelo with a laugh. "No. I am afraid there are other reasons which will prevent me from making a career for myself," said Orsino thoughtfully. Maria Consuelo saw by his face that the subject was a serious one with him, as she had already guessed that it must be, and one which would always interest him. She therefore let it drop, keeping it in reserve in case the conversation flagged. "I am going to see Madame Del Ferice to-morrow," she observed, changing the subject. "Do you think that is necessary?" "Since I wish it! I have not your reasons for avoiding her." "I offended you the other day, Madame, did I not? You remember--when I offered my services in a social way." "No--you amused me," answered Maria Consuelo coolly, and watching to see how he would take the rebuke. But, young as Orsino was, he was a match for her in self-possession. "I am very glad," he answered without a trace of annoyance. "I feared you were displeased." Maria Consuelo smiled again, and her momentary coldness vanished. The answer delighted her, and did more to interest her in Orsino than fifty clever sayings could have done. She resolved to push the question a little further. "I will be frank," she said. "It is always best," answered Orsino, beginning to suspect that something very tortuous was coming. His disbelief in phrases of the kind, though originally artificial, was becoming profound. "Yes, I will be quite frank," she repeated. "You do not wish me to know the Del Ferice and their set, and you do wish me to know the people you like." "Evidently." "Why should I not do as I please?" She was clearly trying to entrap him into a foolish answer, and he grew more and more wary. "It would be very strange if you did not," answered Orsino without hesitation. "Why, again?" "Because you are absolutely free to make your own choice." "And if my choice does not meet with your approval?" she asked. "What can I say, Madame? I and my friends will be the losers, not you." Orsino had kept his temper admirably, and he did not suffer a hasty word to escape his lips nor a shadow of irritation to appear in his face. Yet she had pressed him in a way which was little short of rude. She was silent for a few seconds, during which Orsino watched her face as she turned it slightly away from him and from the lamp. In reality he was wondering why she was not more communicative about herself, and speculating as to whether her silence in that quarter proceeded from the consciousness of a perfectly assured position in the world, or from the fact that she had something to conceal; and this idea led him to congratulate himself upon not having been obliged to act immediately upon his first proposal by bringing about an acquaintance between Madame d'Aranjuez and his mother. This uncertainty lent a spice of interest to the acquaintance. He knew enough of the world already to be sure that Maria Consuelo was born and bred in that state of life to which it has pleased Providence to call the social elect. But the peculiar people sometimes do strange things and afterwards establish themselves in foreign cities where their doings are not likely to be known for some time. Not that Orsino cared what this particular stranger's past might have been. But he knew that his mother would care very much indeed, if Orsino wished her to know the mysterious lady, and would sift the matter very thoroughly before asking her to the Palazzo Saracinesca. Donna Tullia, on the other hand, had committed herself to the acquaintance on her own responsibility, evidently taking it for granted that if Orsino knew Madame d'Aranjuez, the latter must be socially irreproachable. It amused Orsino to imagine the fat countess's rage if she turned out to have made a mistake. "I shall be the loser too," said Maria Consuelo, in a different tone, "if I make a bad choice. But I cannot draw back. I took her to her house in my carriage. She seemed to take a fancy to me--" she laughed a little. Orsino smiled as though to imply that the circumstance did not surprise him. "And she said she would come to see me. As a stranger I could not do less than insist upon making the first visit, and I named the day--or rather she did. I am going to-morrow." "To-morrow? Tuesday is her day. You will meet all her friends." "Do you mean to say that people still have days in Rome?" Maria Consuelo did not look pleased. "Some people do--very few. Most people prefer to be at home one evening in the week." "What sort of people are Madame Del Ferice's friends?" "Excellent people." "Why are you so cautious?" "Because you are about to be one of them, Madame." "Am I? No, I will not begin another catechism! You are too clever--I shall never get a direct answer from you." "Not in that way," answered Orsino with a frankness that made his companion smile. "How then?" "I think you would know how," he replied gravely, and he fixed his young black eyes on her with an expression that made her half close her own. "I should think you would make a good actor," she said softly. "Provided that I might be allowed to be sincere between the acts." "That sounds well. A little ambiguous perhaps. Your sincerity might or might not take the same direction as the part you had been acting." "That would depend entirely upon yourself, Madame." This time Maria Consuelo opened her eyes instead of closing them. "You do not lack--what shall I say? A certain assurance--you do not waste time!" She laughed merrily, and Orsino laughed with her. "We are between the acts now," he said. "The curtain goes up to-morrow, and you join the enemy." "Come with me, then." "In your carriage? I shall be enchanted." "No. You know I do not mean that. Come with me to the enemy's camp. It will be very amusing." Orsino shook his head. "I would rather die--if possible at your feet, Madame." "Are you afraid to call upon Madame Del Ferice?" "More than of death itself." "How can you say that?" "The conditions of the life to come are doubtful--there might be a chance for me. There is no doubt at all as to what would happen if I went to see Madame Del Ferice." "Is your father so severe with you?" asked Maria Consuelo with a little scorn. "Alas, Madame, I am not sensitive to ridicule," answered Orsino, quite unmoved. "I grant that there is something wanting in my character." Maria Consuelo had hoped to find a weak point, and had failed, though indeed there were many in the young man's armour. She was a little annoyed, both at her own lack of judgment and because it would have amused her to see Orsino in an element so unfamiliar to him as that in which Donna Tullia lived. "And there is nothing which would induce you to go there?" she asked. "At present--nothing," Orsino answered coldly. "At present--but in the future of all possible possibilities?" "I shall undoubtedly go there. It is only the unforeseen which invariably happens." "I think so too." "Of course. I will illustrate the proverb by bidding you good evening," said Orsino, laughing as he rose. "By this time the conviction must have formed itself in your mind that I was never going. The unforeseen happens. I go." Maria Consuelo would have been glad if he had stayed even longer, for he amused her and interested her, and she did not look forward with pleasure to the lonely evening she was to spend in the hotel. "I am generally at home at this hour," she said, giving him her hand. "Then, if you will allow me? Thanks. Good evening, Madame." Their eyes met for a moment, and then Orsino left the room. As he lit his cigarette in the porch of the hotel, he said to himself that he had not wasted his hour, and he was pleasantly conscious of tha inward and spiritual satisfaction which every very young man feels when he is aware of having appeared at his best in the society of a woman alone. Youth without vanity is only premature old age after all. "She is certainly more than pretty," he said to himself, affecting to be critical when he was indeed convinced. "Her mouth is fabulous, but it is well shaped and the rest is perfect--no, the nose is insignificant, and one of those yellow eyes wanders a little. These are not perfections. But what does it matter? The whole is charming, whatever the parts may be. I wish she would not go to that horrible fat woman's tea to-morrow." Such were the observations which Orsino thought fit to make to himself, but which by no means represented all that he felt, for they took no notice whatever of that extreme satisfaction at having talked well with Maria Consuelo, which in reality dominated every other sensation just then. He was well enough accustomed to consideration, though his only taste of society had been enjoyed during the winter vacations of the last two years. He was not the greatest match in the Roman matrimonial market for nothing, and he was perfectly well aware of his advantages in this respect. He possessed that keen, business-like appreciation of his value as a marriageable man which seems to characterise the young generation of to-day, and he was not mistaken in his estimate. It was made sufficiently clear to him at every turn that he had but to ask in order to receive. But he had not the slightest intention of marrying at one and twenty as several of his old school-fellows were doing, and he was sensible enough to foresee that his position as a desirable son-in-law would soon cause him more annoyance than amusement. Madame d'Aranjuez was doubtless aware that she could not marry him if she wished to do so. She was several years older than he--he admitted the fact rather reluctantly--she was a widow, and she seemed to have no particular social position. These were excellent reasons against matrimony, but they were also equally excellent reasons for being pleased with himself at having produced a favourable impression on her. He walked rapidly along the crowded street, glancing carelessly at the people who passed and at the brilliantly lighted windows of the shops. He passed the door of the club, where he was already becoming known for rather reckless play, and he quite forgot that a number of men were probably spending an hour at the tables before dinner, a fact which would hardly have escaped his memory if he had not been more than usually occupied with pleasant thoughts. He did not need the excitement of baccarat nor the stimulus of brandy and soda, for his brain was already both excited and stimulated, though he was not at once aware of it. But it became clear to him when he suddenly found himself standing before the steps of the Capitol in the gloomy square of the Ara Coeli, wondering what in the world had brought him so far out of his way. "What a fool I am!" he exclaimed impatiently, as he turned back and walked in the direction of his home. "And yet she told me that I would make a good actor. They say that an actor should never be carried away by his part." At dinner that evening he was alternately talkative and very silent. "Where have you been to-day, Orsino?" asked his father, looking at him curiously. "I spent half an hour with Madame d'Aranjuez, and then went for a walk," answered Orsino with sudden indifference. "What is she like?" asked Corona. "Clever--at least in Rome." There was an odd, nervous sharpness about the answer. Old Saracinesca raised his keen eyes without lifting his head and looked hard at his grandson. He was a little bent in his great old age. "The boy is in love!" he exclaimed abruptly, and a laugh that was still deep and ringing followed the words. Orsino recovered his self-possession and smiled carelessly. Corona was thoughtful during the remainder of the meal. CHAPTER VII. The Princess Sant' Ilario's early life had been deeply stirred by the great makers of human character, sorrow and happiness. She had suffered profoundly, she had borne her trials with a rare courage, and her reward, if one may call it so, had been very great. She had seen the world and known it well, and the knowledge had not been forgotten in the peaceful prosperity of later years. Gifted with a beauty not equalled, perhaps, in those times, endowed with a strong and passionate nature under a singularly cold and calm outward manner, she had been saved from many dangers by the rarest of commonplace qualities, common sense. She had never passed for an intellectual person, she had never been very brilliant in conversation, she had even been thought old-fashioned in her prejudices concerning the books she read. But her judgment had rarely failed her at critical moments. Once only, she remembered having committed a great mistake, of which the sudden and unexpected consequences had almost wrecked her life. But in that case she had suffered her heart to lead her, an innocent girl's good name had been at stake, and she had rashly taken a responsibility too heavy for love itself to bear. Those days were long past now; twenty years separated Corona, the mother of four tall sons, from the Corona who had risked all to save poor little Faustina Montevarchi. But even she knew that a state of such perpetual and unclouded happiness could hardly last a lifetime, and she had forced herself, almost laughing at the thought, to look forward to the day when Orsino must cease to be a boy and must face the world of strong loves and hates through which most men have to pass, and which all men must have known in order to be men indeed. The people whose lives are full of the most romantic incidents, are not generally, I think, people of romantic disposition. Romance, like power, will come uncalled for, and those who seek it most, are often those who find it least. And the reason is simple enough. The man of heart is not perpetually burrowing in his surroundings for affections upon which his heart may feed, any more than the very strong man is naturally impelled to lift every weight he sees or to fight with every man he meets. The persons whom others call romantic are rarely conscious of being so. They are generally far too much occupied with the one great thought which make their strongest, bravest and meanest actions seem perfectly commonplace to themselves. Corona Del Carmine, who had heroically sacrificed herself in her earliest girlhood to save her father from ruin and who a few years later had risked a priceless happiness to shield a foolish girl, had not in her whole life been conscious of a single romantic instinct. Brave, devoted, but unimaginative by nature, she had followed her heart's direction in most worldly matters. She was amazed to find that she was becoming romantic now, in her dreams for Orsino's future. All sorts of ideas which she would have laughed at in her own youth flitted through her brain from morning till night. Her fancy built up a life for her eldest son, which she knew to be far from the possibility of realisation, but which had for her a new and strange attraction. She planned for him the most unimaginable happiness, of a kind which would perhaps have hardly satisfied his more modern instincts. She saw a maiden of indescribable beauty, brought up in unapproachable perfections, guarded by the all but insuperable jealousy of an ideal home. Orsino was to love this vision, and none other, from the first meeting to the term of his natural life, and was to win her in the face or difficulties such as would have made even Giovanni, the incomparable, look grave. This radiant creature was also to love Orsino, as a matter of course, with a love vastly more angelic than human, but not hastily nor thoughtlessly, lest Orsino should get her too easily and not value her as he ought. Then she saw the two betrothed, side by side on shady lawns and moonlit terraces, in a perfectly beautiful intimacy such as they would certainly never enjoy in the existing conditions of their own society. But that mattered little. The wooing, the winning and the marrying of the exquisite girl were to make up Orsino's life, and fifty or sixty years of idyllic happiness were to be the reward of their mutual devotion. Had she not spent twenty such years herself? Then why should not all the rest be possible? The dreams came and went and she was too sensible not to laugh at them. That was not the youth of Giovanni, her husband, nor of men who even faintly resembled him in her estimation. Giovanni had wandered far, had seen much, and had undoubtedly indulged more than one passing affection, before he had been thirty years of age and had loved Corona. Giovanni would laugh too, if she told him of her vision of two young and beautiful married saints. And his laugh would be more sincere than her own. Nevertheless, her dreams haunted her, as they have haunted many a loving mother, ever since Althaea plucked from the flame the burning brand that measured Meleager's life, and smothered the sparks upon it and hid it away among her treasures. Such things seem foolish, no doubt, in the measure of fact, in the glaring light of our day. The thought is none the less noble. The dream of an untainted love, the vision of unspotted youth and pure maiden, the glory of unbroken faith kept whole by man and wife in holy wedlock, the pride of stainless name and stainless race--these things are not less high because there is a sublimity in the strength of a great sin which may lie the closer to our sympathy, as the sinning is the nearer to our weakness. When old Saracinesca looked up from under his bushy brows and laughed and said that his grandson was in love, he thought no more of what he said than if he had remarked that Orsino's beard was growing or that Giovanni's was turning grey. But Corona's pretty fancies received a shock from which they never recovered again, and though she did her best to call them back they lost all their reality from that hour. The plain fact that at one and twenty years the boy is a man, though a very young one, was made suddenly clear to her, and she was faced by another fact still more destructive of her ideals, namely, that a man is not to be kept from falling in love, when and where he is so inclined, by any personal influence whatsoever. She knew that well enough, and the supposition that his first young passion might be for Madame d'Aranjuez was by no means comforting. Corona immediately felt an interest in that lady which she had not felt before and which was not altogether friendly. It seemed to her necessary in the first place to find out something definite concerning Maria Consuelo, and this was no easy matter. She communicated her wish to her husband when they were alone that evening. "I know nothing about her," answered Giovanni. "And I do not know any one who does. After all it is of very little importance." "What if he falls seriously in love with this woman?" "We will send him round the world. At his age that will cure anything. When he comes back Madame d'Aranjuez will have retired to the chaos of the unknown out of which Orsino has evolved her." "She does not look the kind of woman to disappear at the right moment," observed Corona doubtfully. Giovanni was at that moment supremely comfortable, both in mind and body. It was late. The old prince had gone to his own quarters, the boys were in bed, and Orsino was presumably at a party or at the club. Sant' Ilario was enjoying the delight of spending an hour alone in his wife's society. They were in Corona's old boudoir, a place full of associations for them both. He did not want to be mentally disturbed. He said nothing in answer to his wife's remark. She repeated it in a different form. "Women like her do not disappear when one does not want them," she said. "What makes you think so?" inquired Giovanni with a man's irritating indolence when he does not mean to grasp a disagreeable idea. "I know it," Corona answered, resting her chin upon her hand and staring at the fire. Giovanni surrendered unconditionally. "You are probably right, dear. You always are about people." "Well--then you must see the importance of what I say," said Corona pushing her victory. "Of course, of course," answered Giovanni, squinting at the flames with one eye between his outstretched fingers. "I wish you would wake up!" exclaimed Corona, taking the hand in hers and drawing it to her. "Orsino is probably making love to Madame d'Aranjuez at this very moment." "Then I will imitate him, and make love to you, my dear. I could not be better occupied, and you know it. You used to say I did it very well." Corona laughed in her deep, soft voice. "Orsino is like you. That is what frightens me. He will make love too well. Be serious, Giovanni. Think of what I am saying." "Let us dismiss the question then, for the simple reason that there is absolutely nothing to be done. We cannot turn this good woman out of Rome, and we cannot lock Orsino up in his room. To tell a boy not to bestow his affections in a certain quarter is like ramming a charge into a gun and then expecting that it will not come out by the same way. The harder you ram it down the more noise it makes--that is all. Encourage him and he may possibly tire of it. Hinder him and he will become inconveniently heroic." "I suppose that is true," said Corona. "Then at least find out who the woman is," she added, after a pause. "I will try," Giovanni answered. "I will even go to the length of spending an hour a day at the club, if that will do any good--and you know how I detest clubs. But if anything whatever is known of her, it will be known there." Giovanni kept his word and expended more energy in attempting to find out something about Madame d'Aranjuez during the next few days than he had devoted to anything connected with society for a long time. Nearly a week elapsed before his efforts met with any success. He was in the club one afternoon at an early hour, reading the papers, and not more than three or four other men were present. Among them were Frangipani and Montevarchi, who was formerly known as Ascanio Bellegra. There was also a certain young foreigner, a diplomatist, who, like Sant' Ilario, was reading a paper, most probably in search of an idea for the next visit on his list. Giovanni suddenly came upon a description of a dinner and reception given by Del Ferice and his wife. The paragraph was written in the usual florid style with a fine generosity in the distribution of titles to unknown persons. "The centre of all attraction," said the reporter, "was a most beautiful Spanish princess, Donna Maria Consuelo d'A----z d'A----a, in whose mysterious eyes are reflected the divine fires of a thousand triumphs, and who was gracefully attired in olive green brocade--" "Oh! Is that it?" said Sant' Ilario aloud, and in the peculiar tone always used by a man who makes a discovery in a daily paper. "What is it?" inquired Frangipani and Montevarchi in the same breath. The young diplomatist looked up with an air of interrogation. Sant' Ilario read the paragraph aloud. All three listened as though the fate of empires depended on the facts reported. "Just like the newspapers!" exclaimed Frangipani. "There probably is no such person. Is there, Ascanio?" Montevarchi had always been a weak fellow, and was reported to be at present very deep in the building speculations of the day. But there was one point upon which he justly prided himself. He was a superior authority on genealogy. It was his passion and no one ever disputed his knowledge or decision. He stroked his fair beard, looked out of the window, winked his pale blue eyes once or twice and then gave his verdict. "There is no such person," he said gravely. "I beg your pardon, prince," said the young diplomatist, "I have met her. She exists." "My dear friend," answered Montevarchi, "I do not doubt the existence of the woman, as such, and I would certainly not think of disagreeing with you, even if I had the slightest ground for doing so, which, I hasten to say, I have not. Nor, of course, if she is a friend of yours, would I like to say more on the subject. But I have taken some little interest in genealogy and I have a modest library--about two thousand volumes, only--consisting solely of works on the subject, all of which I have read and many of which I have carefully annotated. I need not say that they are all at your disposal if you should desire to make any researches." Montevarchi had much of his murdered father's manner, without the old man's strength. The young secretary of embassy was rather startled at the idea of searching through two thousand volumes in pursuit of Madame d'Aranjuez's identity. Sant' Ilario laughed. "I only mean that I have met the lady," said the young man. "Of course you are right. I have no idea who she may really be. I have heard odd stories about her." "Oh--have you?" asked Sant' Ilario with renewed interest. "Yes, very odd." He paused and looked round the room to assure himself that no one else was present. "There are two distinct stories about her. The first is this. They say that she is a South American prima donna, who sang only a few months, at Rio de Janeiro and then at Buenos Ayres. An Italian who had gone out there and made a fortune married her from the stage. In coming to Europe, he unfortunately fell overboard and she inherited all his money. People say that she was the only person who witnessed the accident. The man's name was Aragno. She twisted it once and made Aranjuez of it, and she turned it again and discovered that it spelled Aragona. That is the first story. It sounds well at all events." "Very," said Sant' Ilario, with a laugh. "A profoundly interesting page in genealogy, if she happens to marry somebody," observed Montevarchi, mentally noting all the facts. "What is the other story?" asked Frangipani. "The other story is much less concise and detailed. According to this version, she is the daughter of a certain royal personage and of a Polish countess. There is always a Polish countess in those stories! She was never married. The royal personage has had her educated in a convent and has sent her out into the wide world with a pretty fancy name of his own invention, plentifully supplied with money and regular documents referring to her union with the imaginary Aranjuez, and protected by a sort of body-guard of mutes and duennas who never appear in public. She is of course to make a great match for herself, and has come to Rome to do it. That is also a pretty tale." "More interesting than the other," said Montevarchi. "These side lights of genealogy, these stray rivulets of royal races, if I may so poetically call them, possess an absorbing interest for the student. I will make a note of it." "Of course, I do not vouch for the truth of a single word in either story," observed the young man. "Of the two the first is the less improbable. I have met her and talked to her and she is certainly not less than five and twenty years old. She may be more. In any case she is too old to have been just let out of a convent." "Perhaps she has been loose for some years," observed Sant' Ilario, speaking of her as though she were a dangerous wild animal. "We should have heard of her," objected the other. "She has the sort of personality which is noticed anywhere and which makes itself felt." "Then you incline to the belief that she dropped the Signor Aragno quietly overboard in the neighbourhood of the equator?" "The real story may be quite different from either of those I have told you." "And she is a friend of poor old Donna Tullia!" exclaimed Montevarchi regretfully. "I am sorry for that. For the sake of her history I could almost have gone to the length of making her acquaintance." "How the Del Ferice would rave if she could hear you call her poor old Donna Tullia," observed Frangipani. "I remember how she danced at the ball when I came of age!" "That was a long time ago, Filippo," said Montevarchi thoughtfully, "a very long time ago. We were all young once, Filippo--but Donna Tullia is really only fit to fill a glass case in a museum of natural history now." The remark was not original, and had been in circulation some time. But the three men laughed a little and Montevarchi was much pleased by their appreciation. He and Frangipani began to talk together, and Sant' Ilario took up his paper again. When the young diplomatist laid his own aside and went out, Giovanni followed him, and they left the club together. "Have you any reason to believe that there is anything irregular about this Madame d'Aranjuez?" asked Sant' Ilario. "No. Stories of that kind are generally inventions. She has not been presented at Court--but that means nothing here. And there is a doubt about her nationality--but no one has asked her directly about it." "May I ask who told you the stories?" The young man's face immediately lost all expression. "Really--I have quite forgotten," he said. "People have been talking about her." Sant' Ilario justly concluded that his companion's informant was a lady, and probably one in whom the diplomatist was interested. Discretion is so rare that it can easily be traced to its causes. Giovanni left the young man and walked away in the opposite direction, inwardly meditating a piece of diplomacy quite foreign to his nature. He said to himself that he would watch the man in the world and that it would be easy to guess who the lady in question was. It would have been clear to any one but himself that he was not likely to learn anything worth knowing, by his present mode of procedure. "Gouache," he said, entering the artist's studio a quarter of an hour later, "do you know anything about Madame d'Aranjuez?" "That is all I know," Gouache answered, pointing to Maria Consuelo's portrait which stood finished upon an easel before him, set in an old frame. He had been touching it when Giovanni entered. "That is all I know, and I do not know that thoroughly. I wish I did. She is a wonderful subject." Sant' Ilario gazed at the picture in silence. "Are her eyes really like these?" he asked at length. "Much finer." "And her mouth?" "Much larger," answered Gouache with a smile. "She is bad," said Giovanni with conviction, and he thought of the Signor Aragno. "Women are never bad," observed Gouache with a thoughtful air. "Some are less angelic than others. You need only tell them all so to assure yourself of the fact." "I daresay. What is this person? French, Spanish--South American?" "I have not the least idea. She is not French, at all events." "Excuse me--does your wife know her?" Gouache glanced quickly at his visitor's face. "No." Gouache was a singularly kind man, and he did his best perhaps for reasons of his own, to convey nothing by the monosyllable beyond the simple negation of a fact. But the effort was not altogether successful. There was an almost imperceptible shade of surprise in the tone which did not escape Giovanni. On the other hand it was perfectly clear to Gouache that Sant' Ilario's interest in the matter was connected with Orsino. "I cannot find any one who knows anything definite," said Giovanni after a pause. "Have you tried Spicca?" asked the artist, examining his work critically. "No. Why Spicca?" "He always knows everything," answered Gouache vaguely. "By the way, Saracinesca, do you not think there might be a little more light just over the left eye?" "How should I know?" "You ought to know. What is the use of having been brought up under the very noses of original portraits, all painted by the best masters and doubtless ordered by your ancestors at a very considerable expense--if you do not know?" Giovanni laughed. "My dear old friend," he said good-humouredly, "have you known us nearly five and twenty years without discovering that it is our peculiar privilege to be ignorant without reproach?" Gouache laughed in his turn. "You do not often make sharp remarks--but when you do!" Giovanni left the studio very soon, and went in search of Spicca. It was no easy matter to find the peripatetic cynic on a winter's afternoon, but Gouache's remark had seemed to mean something, and Sant' Ilario saw a faint glimmer of hope in the distance. He knew Spicca's habits very well, and was aware that when the sun was low he would certainly turn into one of the many houses where he was intimate, and spend an hour over a cup of tea. The difficulty lay in ascertaining which particular fireside he would select on that afternoon. Giovanni hastily sketched a route for himself and asked the porter at each of his friends' houses if Spicca had entered. Fortune favoured him at last. Spicca was drinking his tea with the Marchesa di San Giacinto. Giovanni paused a moment before the gateway of the palace in which San Giacinto had inhabited a large hired apartment for many years. He did not see much of his cousin, now, on account of differences in political opinion, and he had no reason whatever for calling on Flavia, especially as formal New Year's visits had lately been exchanged. However, as San Giacinto was now a leading authority on questions of landed property in the city, it struck him that he could pretend a desire to see Flavia's husband, and make that an excuse for staying a long time, if necessary, in order to wait for him. He found Flavia and Spicca alone together, with a small tea-table between them. The air was heavy with the smoke of cigarettes, which clung to the oriental curtains and hung in clouds about the rare palms and plants. Everything in the San Giacinto house was large, comfortable and unostentatious. There was not a chair to be seen which might not have held the giant's frame. San Giacinto was a wonderful judge of what was good. If he paid twice as much as Montevarchi for a horse, the horse turned out to be capable of four times the work. If he bought a picture at a sale, it was discovered to be by some good master and other people wondered why they had lost courage in the bidding for a trifle of a hundred francs. Nothing ever turned out badly with him, but no success had the power to shake his solid prudence. No one knew how rich he was, but those who had watched him understood that he would never let the world guess at half his fortune. He was a giant in all ways and he had shown what he could do when he had dominated Flavia during the first year of their marriage. She had at first been proud of him, but about the time when she would have wearied of another man, she discovered that she feared him in a way she certainly did not fear the devil. Yet lie had never spoken a harsh, word to her in his life. But there was something positively appalling to her in his enormous strength, rarely exhibited and never without good reason, but always quietly present, as the outline of a vast mountain reflected in a placid lake. Then she discovered to her great surprise that he really loved her, which she had not expected, and at the end of three years he became aware that she loved him, which was still more astonishing. As usual, his investment had turned out well. At the time of which I am speaking Flavia was a slight, graceful woman of forty years or thereabouts, retaining much of the brilliant prettiness which served her for beauty, and conspicuous always for her extremely bright eyes. She was of the type of women who live to a great age. She had not expected to see Sant' Ilario, and as she gave her hand, she looked up at him with an air of inquiry. It would have been like him to say that he had come to see her husband and not herself, for he had no tact with persons whom he did not especially like. There are such people in the world. "Will you give me a cup of tea, Flavia?" he asked, as he sat down, after shaking hands with Spicca. "Have you at last heard that your cousin's tea is good?" inquired the latter, who was surprised by Giovanni's coming. "I am afraid it is cold," said Flavia, looking into the teapot, as though she could discover the temperature by inspection. "It is no matter," answered Giovanni absently. He was wondering how he could lead the conversation to the discussion of Madame d'Aranjuez. "You belong to the swallowers," observed Spicca, lighting a fresh cigarette. "You swallow something, no matter what, and you are satisfied." "It is the simplest way--one is never disappointed." "It is a pity one cannot swallow people in the same way," said Flavia with a laugh. "Most people do," answered Spicca viciously. "Were you at the Jubilee on the first day?" asked Giovanni, addressing Flavia. "Of course I was--and you spoke to me." "That is true. By the bye, I saw that excellent Donna Tullia there. I wonder whose ticket she had." "She had the Princess Befana's," answered Spicca, who knew everything. "The old lady happened to be dying--she always dies at the beginning of the season--it used to be for economy, but it has become a habit--and so Del Ferice bought her card of her servant for his wife." "Who was the lady who sat with her?" asked Giovanni, delighted with his own skill. "You ought to know!" exclaimed Flavia. "We all saw Orsino take her out. That is the famous, the incomparable Madame d'Aranjuez--the most beautiful of Spanish princesses according to to-day's paper. I daresay you have seen the account of the Del Ferice party. She is no more Spanish than Alexander the Great. Is she, Spicca?" "No, she is not Spanish," answered the latter. "Then what in the world is she?" asked Giovanni impatiently. "How should I know? Of course it is very disagreeable for you." It was Flavia who spoke. "Disagreeable? How?" "Why, about Orsino of course. Everybody says he is devoted to her." "I wish everybody would mind his and her business," said Giovanni sharply. "Because a boy makes the acquaintance of a stranger at a studio--" "Oh--it was at a studio? I did not know that." "Yes, at Gouache's--I fancied your sister might have told you that," said Giovanni, growing more and more irritable, and yet not daring to change the subject, lest he should lose some valuable information. "Because Orsino makes her acquaintance accidentally, every one must say that he is in love with her." Flavia laughed. "My dear Giovanni," she answered. "Let us be frank. I used never to tell the truth under any circumstances, when I was a girl, but Giovanni--my Giovanni--did not like that. Do you know what he did? He used to cut off a hundred francs of my allowance for every fib I told--laughing at me all the time. At the end of the first quarter I positively had not a pair of shoes, and all my gloves had been cleaned twice. He used to keep all the fines in a special pocket-book--if you knew how hard I tried to steal it! But I could not. Then, of course, I reformed. There was nothing else to be done--that or rags--fancy! And do you know? I have grown quite used to being truthful. Besides, it is so original, that I pose with it." Flavia paused, laughed a little, and puffed at her cigarette. "You do not often come to see me, Giovanni," she said, "and since you are here I am going to tell you the truth about your visit. You are beside yourself with rage at Orsino's new fancy, and you want to find out all about this Madame d'Aranjuez. So you came here, because we are Whites and you saw that she had been at the Del Ferice party, and you know that we know them--and the rest is sung by the organ, as we say when high mass is over. Is that the truth, or not?" "Approximately," said Giovanni, smiling in spite of himself. "Does Corona cut your allowance when you tell fibs?" asked Flavia. "No? Then why say that it is only approximately true?" "I have my reasons. And you can tell me nothing?" "Nothing. I believe Spicca knows all about her. But he will not tell what he knows." Spicca made no answer to this, and Giovanni determined to outstay him, or rather, to stay until he rose to go and then go with him. It was tedious work for he was not a man who could talk against time on all occasions. But he struggled bravely and Spicca at last got up from his deep chair. They went out together, and stopped as though by common consent upon the brilliantly lighted landing of the first floor. "Seriously, Spicca," said Giovanni, "I am afraid Orsino is falling in love with this pretty stranger. If you can tell me anything about her, please do so." Spicca stared at the wall, hesitated a moment, and then looked straight into his companion's eyes. "Have you any reason to suppose that I, and I especially, know anything about this lady?" he asked. "No--except that you know everything." "That is a fable." Spicca turned from him and began to descend the stairs. Giovanni followed and laid a hand upon his arm. "You will not do me this service?" he asked earnestly. Again Spicca stopped and looked at him. "You and I are very old friends, Giovanni," he said slowly. "I am older than you, but we have stood by each other very often--in places more slippery than these marble steps. Do not let us quarrel now, old friend. When I tell you that my omniscience exists only in the vivid imaginations of people whose tea I like, believe me, and if you wish to do me a kindness--for the sake of old times--do not help to spread the idea that I know everything." The melancholy Spicca had never been given to talking about friendship or its mutual obligations. Indeed, Giovanni could not remember having ever heard him speak as he had just spoken. It was perfectly clear that he knew something very definite about Maria Consuelo, and he probably had no intention of deceiving Giovanni in that respect. But Spicca also knew his man, and he knew that his appeal for Giovanni's silence would not be vain. "Very well," said Sant' Ilario. They exchanged a few indifferent words before parting, and then Giovanni walked slowly homeward, pondering on the things he had heard that day. CHAPTER VIII. While Giovanni was exerting himself to little purpose in attempting to gain information concerning Maria Consuelo, she had launched herself upon the society of which the Countess Del Ferice was an important and influential member. Chance, and probably chance alone, had guided her in the matter of this acquaintance, for it could certainly not be said that she had forced herself upon Donna Tullia, nor even shown any uncommon readiness to meet the latter's advances. The offer of a seat in her carriage had seemed natural enough, under the circumstances, and Donna Tullia had been perfectly free to refuse it if she had chosen to do so. Though possessing but the very slightest grounds for believing herself to be a born diplomatist, the Countess had always delighted in petty plotting and scheming. She now saw a possibility of annoying all Orsino's relations by attracting the object of Orsino's devotion to her own house. She had no especial reason for supposing that the young man was really very much in love with Madame d'Aranjuez, but her woman's instinct, which far surpassed her diplomatic talents in acuteness, told her that Orsino was certainly not indifferent to the interesting stranger. She argued, primitively enough, that to annoy Orsino must be equivalent to annoying his people, and she supposed that she could do nothing more disagreeable to the young man's wishes than to induce Madame d'Aranjuez to join that part of society from which all the Saracinesca were separated by an insuperable barrier. And Orsino indeed resented the proceeding, as she had expected; but his family were at first more inclined to look upon Donna Tullia as a good angel who had carried off the tempter at the right moment to an unapproachable distance. It was not to be believed that Orsino could do anything so monstrous as to enter Del Ferice's house or ask a place in Del Ferice's circle, and it was accordingly a relief to find that Madame d'Aranjuez had definitely chosen to do so, and had appeared in olive-green brocade at the Del Ferice's last party. The olive-green brocade would now assuredly not figure in the gatherings of the Saracinesca's intimate friends. Like every one else, Orsino read the daily chronicle of Roman life in the papers, and until he saw Maria Consuelo's name among the Del Ferice's guests, he refused to believe that she had taken the irrevocable step he so much feared. He had still entertained vague notions of bringing about a meeting between her and his mother, and he saw at a glance that such a meeting was now quite out of the question. This was the first severe shock his vanity had ever received and he was surprised at the depth of his own annoyance. Maria Consuelo might indeed have been seen once with Donna Tullia, and might have gone once to the latter's day. That was bad enough, but might be remedied by tact and decision in her subsequent conduct. But there was no salvation possible after a person had been advertised in the daily paper as Madame d'Aranjuez had been. Orsino was very angry. He had been once to see her since his first visit, and she had said nothing about this invitation, though Donna Tullia's name had been mentioned. He was offended with her for not telling him that she was going to the dinner, as though he had any right to be made acquainted with her intentions. He had no sooner made the discovery than he determined to visit his anger upon her, and throwing the paper aside went straight to the hotel where she was stopping. Maria Consuelo was at home and he was ushered into the little sitting-room without delay. To his inexpressible disgust he found Del Ferice himself installed upon the chair near the table, engaged in animated conversation with Madame d'Aranjuez. The situation was awkward in the extreme. Orsino hoped that Del Ferice would go at once, and thus avoid the necessity of an introduction. But Ugo did nothing of the kind. He rose, indeed, but did not take his hat from the table, and stood smiling pleasantly while Orsino shook hands with Maria Consuelo. "Let me make you acquainted," she said with exasperating calmness, and she named the two men to each other. Ugo put out his hand quietly and Orsino was obliged to take it, which he did coldly enough. Ugo had more than his share of tact, and he never made a disagreeable impression upon any one if he could help it. Maria Consuelo seemed to take everything for granted, and Orsino's appearance did not disconcert her in the slightest degree. Both men sat down and looked at her as though expecting that she would choose a subject of conversation for them. "We were talking of the change in Rome," she said. "Monsieur Del Ferice takes a great interest in all that is doing, and he was explaining to me some of the difficulties with which he has to contend." "Don Orsino knows what they are, as well as I, though we might perhaps differ as to the way of dealing with them," said Del Ferice. "Yes," answered Orsino, more coldly than was necessary. "You play the active part, and we the passive." "In a certain sense, yes," returned the other, quite unruffled. "You have exactly defined the situation, and ours is by far the more disagreeable and thankless part to play. Oh--I am not going to defend all we have done! I only defend what we mean to do. Change of any sort is execrable to the man of taste, unless it is brought about by time--and that is a beautifier which we have not at our disposal. We are half Vandals and half Americans, and we are in a terrible hurry." Maria Consuelo laughed, and Orsino's face became a shade less gloomy. He had expected to find Del Ferice the arrogant, self-satisfied apostle of the modern, which he was represented to be. "Could you not have taken a little more time?" asked Orsino. "I cannot see how. Besides it is our time which takes us with it. So long as Rome was the capital of an idea there was no need of haste in doing anything. But when it became the capital of a modern kingdom, it fell a victim to modern facts--which are not beautiful. The most we can hope to do is to direct the current, clumsily enough, I daresay. We cannot stop it. Nothing short of Oriental despotism could. We cannot prevent people from flocking to the centre, and where there is a population it must be housed." "Evidently," said Madame d'Aranjuez. "It seems to me that, without disturbing the old city, a new one might have been built beside it," observed Orsino. "No doubt. And that is practically what we have done. I say 'we,' because you say 'you.' But I think you will admit that, as far as personal activity is concerned, the Romans of Rome are taking as active a share in building ugly houses as any of the Italian Romans. The destruction of the Villa Ludovisi, for instance, was forced upon the owner not by the national government but by an insane municipality, and those who have taken over the building lots are largely Roman princes of the old stock." The argument was unanswerable, and Orsino knew it, a fact which did not improve his temper. It was disagreeable enough to be forced into a conversation with Del Ferice, and it was still worse to be obliged to agree with him. Orsino frowned and said nothing, hoping that the subject would drop. But Del Ferice had only produced an unpleasant impression in order to remove it and thereby improve the whole situation, which was one of the most difficult in which he had found himself for some time. "I repeat," he said, with a pleasant smile, "that it is hopeless to defend all of what is actually done in our day in Rome. Some of your friends and many of mine are building houses which even age and ruin will never beautify. The only defensible part of the affair is the political change which has brought about the necessity of building at all, and upon that point I think that we may agree to differ. Do you not think so, Don Orsino?" "By all means," answered the young man, conscious that the proposal was both just and fitting. "And for the rest, both your friends and mine--for all I know, your own family and certainly I myself--have enormous interests at stake. We may at least agree to hope that none of us may be ruined." "Certainly--though we have had nothing to do with the matter. Neither my father nor my grandfather have entered into any such speculation." "It is a pity," said Del Ferice thoughtfully. "Why a pity?" "On the one hand my instincts are basely commercial," Del Ferice answered with a frank laugh. "No matter how great a fortune may be, it may be doubled and trebled. You must remember that I am a banker in fact if not exactly in designation, and the opportunity is excellent. But the greater pity is that such men as you, Don Orsino, who could exercise as much influence as it might please you to use, leave it to men--very unlike you, I fancy--to murder the architecture of Rome and prepare the triumph of the hideous." Orsino did not answer the remark, although he was not altogether displeased with the idea it conveyed. Maria Consuelo looked at him. "Why do you stand aloof and let things go from bad to worse when you might really do good by joining in the affairs of the day?" she asked. "I could not join in them, if I would," answered Orsino. "Why not?" "Because I have not command of a hundred francs in the world, Madame. That is the simplest and best of all reasons." Del Ferice laughed incredulously. "The eldest son of Casa Saracinesca would not find that a practical obstacle," he said, taking his hat and rising to go. "Besides, what is needed in these transactions is not so much ready money as courage, decision and judgment. There is a rich firm of contractors now doing a large business, who began with three thousand francs as their whole capital--what you might lose at cards in an evening without missing it, though you say that you have no money at your command." "Is that possible?" asked Orsino with some interest. "It is a fact. There were three men, a tobacconist, a carpenter and a mason, and they each had a thousand francs of savings. They took over a contract last week for a million and a half, on which they will clear twenty per cent. But they had the qualities--the daring and the prudence combined. They succeeded." "And if they had failed, what would have happened?" "They would have lost their three thousand francs. They had nothing else to lose, and there was nothing in the least irregular about their transactions. Good evening, Madame--I have a private meeting of directors at my house. Good evening, Don Orsino." He went out, leaving behind him an impression which was not by any means disagreeable. His appearance was against him, Orsino thought. His fat white face and dull eyes were not pleasant to look at. But he had shown tact in a difficult situation, and there was a quiet energy about him, a settled purpose which could not fail to please a young man who hated his own idleness. Orsino found that his mood had changed. He was less angry than he had meant to be, and he saw extenuating circumstances where he had at first only seen a wilful mistake. He sat down again. "Confess that he is not the impossible creature you supposed," said Maria Consuelo with a laugh. "No, he is not. I had imagined something very different. Nevertheless, I wish--one never has the least right to wish what one wishes--" He stopped in the middle of the sentence. "That I had not gone to his wife's party, you would say? But my dear Don Orsino, why should I refuse pleasant things when they come into my life?" "Was it so pleasant?" "Of course it was. A beautiful dinner--half a dozen clever men, all interested in the affairs of the day, and all anxious to explain them to me because I was a stranger. A hundred people or so in the evening, who all seemed to enjoy themselves as much as I did. Why should I refuse all that? Because my first acquaintance in Rome--who was Gouache--is so 'indifferent,' and because you--my second--are a pronounced clerical? That is not reasonable." "I do not pretend to be reasonable," said Orsino. "To be reasonable is the boast of people who feel nothing." "Then you are a man of heart?" Maria Consuelo seemed amused. "I make no pretence to being a man of head, Madame." "You are not easily caught." "Nor Del Ferice either." "Why do you talk of him?" "The opportunity is good, Madame. As he is just gone, we know that he is not coming." "You can be very sarcastic, when you like," said Maria Consuelo. "But I do not believe that you are as bitter as you make yourself out to be. I do not even believe that you found Del Ferice so very disagreeable as you pretend. You were certainly interested in what he said." "Interest is not always agreeable. The guillotine, for instance, possesses the most lively interest for the condemned man at an execution." "Your illustrations are startling. I once saw an execution, quite by accident, and I would rather not think of it. But you can hardly compare Del Ferice to the guillotine." "He is as noiseless, as keen and as sure," said Orsino smartly. "There is such a thing as being too clever," answered Maria Consuelo, without a smile. "Is Del Ferice a case of that?" "No. You are. You say cutting things merely because they come into your head, though I am sure that you do not always mean them. It is a bad habit." "Because it makes enemies, Madame?" Orsino was annoyed by the rebuke. "That is the least good of good reasons." "Another, then?" "It will prevent people from loving you," said Maria Consuelo gravely. "I never heard that--" "No? It is true, nevertheless." "In that case I will reform at once," said Orsino, trying to meet her eyes. But she looked away from him. "You think that I am preaching to you," she answered. "I have not the right to do that, and if I had, I would certainly not use it. But I have seen something of the world. Women rarely love a man who is bitter against any one but himself. If he says cruel things of other women, the one to whom he says them believes that he will say much worse of her to the next he meets; if he abuses the men she knows, she likes it even less--it is an attack on her judgment, on her taste and perhaps upon a half-developed sympathy for the man attacked. One should never be witty at another person's expense, except with one's own sex." She laughed a little. "What a terrible conclusion!" "Is it? It is the true one." "Then the way to win a woman's love is to praise her acquaintances? That is original." "I never said that." "No? I misunderstood. What is the best way?" "Oh--it is very simple," laughed Maria Consuelo. "Tell her you love her, and tell her so again and again--you will certainly please her in the end." "Madame--" Orsino stopped, and folded his hands with an air of devout supplication. "What?" "Oh, nothing! I was about to begin. It seemed so simple, as you say." They both laughed and their eyes met for a moment. "Del Ferice interests me very much," said Maria Consuelo, abruptly returning to the original subject of conversation. "He is one of those men who will be held responsible for much that is now doing. Is it not true? He has great influence." "I have always heard so." Orsino was not pleased at being driven to talk of Del Ferice again. "Do you think what he said about you so altogether absurd?" "Absurd, no--impracticable, perhaps. You mean his suggestion that I should try a little speculation? Frankly, I had no idea that such things could be begun with so little capital. It seems incredible. I fancy that Del Ferice was exaggerating. You know how carelessly bankers talk of a few thousands, more or less. Nothing short of a million has much meaning for them. Three thousand or thirty thousand--it is much the same in their estimation." "I daresay. After all, why should you risk anything? I suppose it is simpler to play cards, though I should think it less amusing. I was only thinking how easy it would be for you to find a serious occupation if you chose." Orsino was silent for a moment, and seemed to be thinking over the matter. "Would you advise me to enter upon such a business without my father's knowledge?" he asked presently. "How can I advise you? Besides, your father would let you do as you please. There is nothing dishonourable in such things. The prejudice against business is old-fashioned, and if you do not break through it your children will." Orsino looked thoughtfully at Maria Consuelo. She sometimes found an oddly masculine bluntness with which to express her meaning, and which produced a singular impression on the young man. It made him feel what he supposed to be a sort of weakness, of which he ought to be ashamed. "There is nothing dishonourable in the theory," he answered, "and the practice depends on the individual." Maria Consuelo laughed. "You see--you can be a moralist when you please," she said. There was a wonderful attraction in her yellow eyes just at that moment. "To please you, Madame, I could do something much worse--or much better." He was not quite in earnest, but he was not jesting, and his face was more serious than his voice. Maria Consuelo's hand was lying on the table beside the silver paper-cutter. The white, pointed fingers were very tempting and he would willingly have touched them. He put out his hand. If she did not draw hers away he would lay his own upon it. If she did, he would take up the paper-cutter. As it turned out, he had to content himself with the latter. She did not draw her hand away as though she understood what he was going to do, but quietly raised it and turned the shade of the lamp a few inches. "I would rather not be responsible for your choice," she said quietly. "And yet you have left me none," he answered with, sudden boldness. "No? How so?" He held up the silver knife and smiled. "I do not understand," she said, affecting a look of surprise. "I was going to ask your permission to take your hand." "Indeed? Why? There it is." She held it out frankly. He took the beautiful fingers in his and looked at them for a moment. Then he quietly raised them to his lips. "That was not included in the permission," she said, with a little laugh and drawing back. "Now you ought to go away at once." "Why?" "Because that little ceremony can belong only to the beginning or the end of a visit." "I have only just come." "Ah? How long the time has seemed! I fancied you had been here half an hour." "To me it has seemed but a minute," answered Orsino promptly. "And you will not go?" There was nothing of the nature of a peremptory dismissal in the look which accompanied the words. "No--at the most, I will practise leave-taking." "I think not," said Maria Consuelo with sudden coldness. "You are a little too--what shall I say?--too enterprising, prince. You had better make use of the gift where it will be a recommendation--in business, for instance." "You are very severe, Madame," answered Orsino, deeming it wiser to affect humility, though a dozen sharp answers suggested themselves to his ready wit. Maria Consuelo was silent for a few seconds. Her head was resting upon the little red morocco cushion, which heightened the dazzling whiteness of her skin and lent a deeper colour to her auburn hair. She was gazing at the hangings above the door. Orsino watched her in quiet admiration. She was beautiful as he saw her there at that moment, for the irregularities of her features were forgotten in the brilliancy of her colouring and in the grace of the attitude. Her face was serious at first. Gradually a smile stole over it, beginning, as it seemed, from the deeply set eyes and concentrating itself at last in the full, red mouth. Then she spoke, still looking upwards and away from him. "What would you think if I were not a little severe?" she asked. "I am a woman living--travelling, I should say--quite alone, a stranger here, and little less than a stranger to you. What would you think if I were not a little severe, I say? What conclusion would you come to, if I let you take my hand as often as you pleased, and say whatever suggested itself to your imagination--your very active imagination?" "I should think you the most adorable of women--" "But it is not my ambition to be thought the most adorable of women by you, Prince Orsino." "No--of course not. People never care for what they get without an effort." "You are absolutely irrepressible!" exclaimed Maria Consuelo, laughing in spite of herself. "And you do not like that! I will be meekness itself--a lamb, if you please." "Too playful--it would not suit your style." "A stone--" "I detest geology." "A lap-dog, then. Make your choice, Madame. The menagerie of the universe is at your disposal. When Adam gave names to the animals, he could have called a lion a lap-dog--to reassure the Africans. But he lacked imagination--he called a cat, a cat." "That had the merit of simplicity, at all events." "Since you admire his system, you may call me either Cain or Abel," suggested Orsino. "Am I humble enough? Can submission go farther?" "Either would be flattery--for Abel was good and Cain was interesting." "And I am neither--you give me another opportunity of exhibiting my deep humility. I thank you sincerely. You are becoming more gracious than I had hoped." "You are very like a woman, Don Orsino. You always try to have the last word." "I always hope that the last word may be the best. But I accept the criticism--or the reproach, with my usual gratitude. I only beg you to observe that to let you have the last word would be for me to end the conversation, after which I should be obliged to go away. And I do not wish to go, as I have already said." "You suggest the means of making you go," answered Maria Consuelo, with a smile. "I can be silent--if you will not." "It will be useless. If you do not interrupt me, I shall become eloquent--" "How terrible! Pray do not!" "You see! I have you in my power. You cannot get rid of me." "I would appeal to your generosity, then." "That is another matter, Madame," said Orsino, taking his hat. "I only said that I would--" Maria Consuelo made a gesture to stop him. But he was wise enough to see that the conversation had reached its natural end, and his instinct told him that he should not outstay his welcome. He pretended not to see the motion of her hand, and rose to take his leave. "You do not know me," he said. "To point out to me a possible generous action, is to ensure my performing it without hesitation. When may I be so fortunate as to see you again, Madame?" "You need not be so intensely ceremonious. You know that I am always at home at this hour." Orsino was very much struck by this answer. There was a shade of irritation in the tone, which he had certainly not expected, and which flattered him exceedingly. She turned her face away as she gave him her hand and moved a book on the table with the other as though she meant to begin reading almost before he should be out of the room. He had not felt by any means sure that she really liked his society, and he had not expected that she would so far forget herself as to show her inclination by her impatience. He had judged, rightly or wrongly, that she was a woman who weighed every word and gesture beforehand, and who would be incapable of such an oversight as an unpremeditated manifestation of feeling. Very young men are nowadays apt to imagine complications of character where they do not exist, often overlooking them altogether where they play a real part. The passion for analysis discovers what it takes for new simple elements in humanity's motives, and often ends by feeding on itself in the effort to decompose what is not composite. The greatest analysers are perhaps the young and the old, who, being respectively before and behind the times, are not so intimate with them as those who are actually making history, political or social, ethical or scandalous, dramatic or comic. It is very much the custom among those who write fiction in the English language to efface their own individuality behind the majestic but rather meaningless plural, "we," or to let the characters created express the author's view of mankind. The great French novelists are more frank, for they say boldly "I," and have the courage of their opinions. Their merit is the greater, since those opinions seem to be rarely complimentary to the human race in general, or to their readers in particular. Without introducing any comparison between the fiction of the two languages, it may be said that the tendency of the method is identical in both cases and is the consequence of an extreme preference for analysis, to the detriment of the romantic and very often of the dramatic element in the modern novel. The result may or may not be a volume of modern social history for the instruction of the present and the future generation. If it is not, it loses one of the chief merits which it claims; if it is, then we must admit the rather strange deduction, that the political history of our times has absorbed into itself all the romance and the tragedy at the disposal of destiny, leaving next to none at all in the private lives of the actors and their numerous relations. Whatever the truth may be, it is certain that this love of minute dissection is exercising an enormous influence in our time; and as no one will pretend that a majority of the young persons in society who analyse the motives of their contemporaries and elders are successful moral anatomists, we are forced to the conclusion that they are frequently indebted to their imaginations for the results they obtain and not seldom for the material upon which they work. A real Chemistry may some day grow out of the failures of this fanciful Alchemy, but the present generation will hardly live to discover the philosopher's stone, though the search for it yield gold, indirectly, by the writing of many novels. If fiction is to be counted among the arts at all, it is not yet time to forget the saying of a very great man: "It is the mission of all art to create and foster agreeable illusions." Orsino Saracinesca was no further removed from the action of the analytical bacillus than other men of his age. He believed and desired his own character to be more complicated than it was, and he had no sooner made the acquaintance of Maria Consuelo than he began to attribute to her minutest actions such a tortuous web of motives as would have annihilated all action if it had really existed in her brain. The possible simplicity of a strong and much tried character, good or bad, altogether escaped him, and even an occasional unrestrained word or gesture failed to convince him that he was on the wrong track. To tell the truth, he was as yet very inexperienced. His visits to Maria Consuelo passed in making light conversation. He tried to amuse her, and succeeded fairly well, while at the same time he indulged in endless and fruitless speculations as to her former life, her present intentions and her sentiments with regard to himself. He would have liked to lead her into talking of herself, but he did not know where to begin. It was not a part of his system to believe in mysteries concerning people, but when he reflected upon the matter he was amazed at the impenetrability of the barrier which cut him off from all knowledge of her life. He soon heard the tales about her which were carelessly circulated at the club, and he listened to them without much interest, though he took the trouble to deny their truth on his own responsibility, which surprised the men who knew him and gave rise to the story that he was in love with Madame d'Aranjuez. The most annoying consequence of the rumour was that every woman to whom he spoke in society overwhelmed him with questions which he could not answer except in the vaguest terms. In his ignorance he did his best to evolve a satisfactory history for Maria Consuelo out of his imagination, but the result was not satisfactory. He continued his visits to her, resolving before each meeting that he would risk offending her by putting some question which she must either answer directly or refuse to answer altogether. But he had not counted upon his own inherent hatred of rudeness, nor upon the growth of an attachment which he had not foreseen when he had coldly made up his mind that it would be worth while to make love to her, as Gouache had laughingly suggested. Yet he was pleased with what he deemed his own coldness. He assuredly did not love her, but he knew already that he would not like to give up the half hours he spent with her. To offend her seriously would be to forfeit a portion of his daily amusement which he could not spare. From time to time he risked a careless, half-jesting declaration such as many a woman might have taken seriously. But Maria Consuelo turned such advances with a laugh or by an answer that was admirably tempered with quiet dignity and friendly rebuke. "If she is not good," he said to himself at last, "she must be enormously clever. She must be one or the other." CHAPTER IX. Orsino's twenty-first birthday fell in the latter part of January, when the Roman season was at its height, but as the young man's majority did not bring him any of those sudden changes in position which make epochs in the lives of fatherless sons, the event was considered as a family matter and no great social celebration of it was contemplated. It chanced, too, that the day of the week was the one appropriated by the Montevarchi for their weekly dance, with which it would have been a mistake to interfere. The old Prince Saracinesca, however, insisted that a score of old friends should be asked to dinner, to drink the health of his eldest grandson, and this was accordingly done. Orsino always looked back to that banquet as one of the dullest at which he ever assisted. The friends were literally old, and their conversation was not brilliant. Each one on arriving addressed to him a few congratulatory and moral sentiments, clothed in rounded periods and twanging of Cicero in his most sermonising mood. Each drank his especial health at the end of the dinner in a teaspoonful of old "vin santo," and each made a stiff compliment to Corona on her youthful appearance. The men were almost all grandees of Spain of the first class and wore their ribbons by common consent, which lent the assembly an imposing appearance; but several of them were of a somnolent disposition and nodded after dinner, which did not contribute to prolong the effect produced. Orsino thought their stories and anecdotes very long-winded and pointless, and even the old prince himself seemed oppressed by the solemnity of the affair, and rarely laughed. Corona, with serene good humour did her best to make conversation, and a shade of animation occasionally appeared at her end of the table; but Sant' Ilario was bored to the verge of extinction and talked of nothing but archaeology and the trial of the Cenci, wondering inwardly why he chose such exceedingly dry subjects. As for Orsino, the two old princesses between whom he was placed paid very little attention to him, and talked across him about the merits of their respective confessors and directors. He frivolously asked them whether they ever went to the theatre, to which they replied very coldly that they went to their boxes when the piece was not on the Index and when there was no ballet. Orsino understood why he never saw them at the opera, and relapsed into silence. The butler, a son of the legendary Pasquale of earlier days, did his best to cheer the youngest of his masters with a great variety of wines; but Orsino would not be comforted either by very dry champagne or very mellow claret. But he vowed a bitter revenge and swore to dance till three in the morning at the Montevarchi's and finish the night with a rousing baccarat at the club, which projects he began to put into execution as soon as was practicable. In due time the guests departed, solemnly renewing their expressions of good wishes, and the Saracinesca household was left to itself. The old prince stood before the fire in the state drawing-room, rubbing his hands and shaking his head. Giovanni and Corona sat on opposite sides of the fireplace, looking at each other and somewhat inclined to laugh. Orsino was intently studying a piece of historical tapestry which had never interested him before. The silence lasted some time. Then old Saracinesca raised his head and gave vent to his feelings, with all his old energy. "What a museum!" he exclaimed. "I would not have believed that I should live to dine in my own house with a party of stranded figure-heads, set up in rows around my table! The paint is all worn off and the brains are all worn out and there is nothing left but a cracked old block of wood with a ribbon around its neck. You will be just like them, Giovanni, in a few years, for you will be just like me--we all turn into the same shape at seventy, and if we live a dozen years longer it is because Providence designs to make us an awful example to the young." "I hope you do not call yourself a figure-head," said Giovanni. "They are calling me by worse names at this very minute as they drive home. 'That old Methuselah of a Saracinesca, how has he the face to go on living?' That is the way they talk. 'People ought to die decently when other people have had enough of them, instead of sitting up at the table like death's-heads to grin at their grandchildren and great-grandchildren!' They talk like that, Giovanni. I have known some of those old monuments for sixty years and more--since they were babies and I was of Orsino's age. Do you suppose I do not know how they talk? You always take me for a good, confiding old fellow, Giovanni. But then, you never understood human nature." Giovanni laughed and Corona smiled. Orsino turned round to enjoy the rare delight of seeing the old gentleman rouse himself in a fit of temper. "If you were ever confiding it was because you were too good," said Giovanni affectionately. "Yes--good and confiding--that is it! You always did agree with me as to my own faults. Is it not true, Corona? Can you not take my part against that graceless husband of yours? He is always abusing me--as though I were his property, or his guest. Orsino, my boy, go away--we are all quarrelling here like a pack of wolves, and you ought to respect your elders. Here is your father calling me by bad names--" "I said you were too good," observed Giovanni. "Yes--good and confiding! If you can find anything worse to say, say it--and may you live to hear that good-for-nothing Orsino call you good and confiding when you are eighty-two years old. And Corona is laughing at me. It is insufferable. You used to be a good girl, Corona--but you are so proud of having four sons that there is no possibility of talking to you any longer. It is a pity that you have not brought them up better. Look at Orsino. He is laughing too." "Certainly not at you, grandfather," the young man hastened to say. "Then you must be laughing at your father or your mother, or both, since there is no one else here to laugh at. You are concocting sharp speeches for your abominable tongue. I know it. I can see it in your eyes. That is the way you have brought up your children, Giovanni. I congratulate you. Upon my word, I congratulate you with all my heart! Not that I ever expected anything better. You addled your own brains with curious foreign ideas on your travels--the greater fool I for letting you run about the world when you were young. I ought to have locked you up in Saracinesca, on bread and water, until you understood the world well enough to profit by it. I wish I had." None of the three could help laughing at this extraordinary speech. Orsino recovered his gravity first, by the help of the historical tapestry. The old gentleman noticed the fact. "Come here, Orsino, my boy," he said. "I want to talk to you." Orsino came forward. The old prince laid a hand on his shoulder and looked up into his face. "You are twenty-one years old to-day," he said, "and we are all quarrelling in honour of the event. You ought to be flattered that we should take so much trouble to make the evening pass pleasantly for you, but you probably have not the discrimination to see what your amusement costs us." His grey beard shook a little, his rugged features twitched, and then a broad good-humoured smile lit up the old face. "We are quarrelsome people," he continued in his most Cheerful and hearty tone. "When Giovanni and I were young--we were young together, you know--we quarrelled every day as regularly as we ate and drank. I believe it was very good for us. We generally made it up before night--for the sake of beginning again with a clear conscience. Anything served us--the weather, the soup, the colour of a horse." "You must have led an extremely lively life," observed Orsino, considerably amused. "It was very well for us, Orsino. But it will not do for you. You are not so much like your father, as he was like me at your age. We fought with the same weapons, but you two would not, if you fought at all. We fenced for our own amusement and we kept the buttons on the foils. You have neither my really angelic temper nor your father's stony coolness--he is laughing again--no matter, he knows it is true. You have a diabolical tongue. Do not quarrel with your father for amusement, Orsino. His calmness will exasperate you as it does me, but you will not laugh at the right moment as I have done all my life. You will bear malice and grow sullen and permanently disagreeable. And do not say all the cutting things you think of, because with your disposition you will get into serious trouble. If you have really good cause for being angry, it is better to strike than to speak, and in such cases I strongly advise you to strike first. Now go and amuse yourself, for you must have had enough of our company. I do not think of any other advice to give you on your coming of age." Thereupon he laughed again and pushed his grandson away, evidently delighted with the lecture he had given him. Orsino was quick to profit by the permission and was soon in the Montevarchi ballroom, doing his best to forget the lugubrious feast in his own honour at which he had lately assisted. He was not altogether successful, however. He had looked forward to the day for many months as one of rejoicing as well as of emancipation, and he had been grievously disappointed. There was something of ill augury, he thought, in the appalling dulness of the guests, for they had congratulated him upon his entry into a life exactly similar to their own. Indeed, the more precisely similar it proved to be, the more he would be respected when he reached their advanced age. The future unfolded to him was not gay. He was to live forty, fifty or even sixty years in the same round of traditions and hampered by the same net of prejudices. He might have his romance, as his father had had before him, but there was nothing beyond that. His father seemed perfectly satisfied with his own unruffled existence and far from desirous of any change. The feudalism of it all was still real in fact, though abolished in theory, and the old prince was as much a great feudal lord as ever, whose interests were almost tribal in their narrowness, almost sordid in their detail, and altogether uninteresting to his presumptive heir in the third generation. What was the peasant of Aquaviva, for instance, to Orsino? Yet Sant' Ilario and old Saracinesca took a lively interest in his doings and in the doings of four or five hundred of his kind, whom they knew by name and spoke of as belongings, much as they would have spoken of books in the library. To collect rents from peasants and to ascertain in person whether their houses needed repair was not a career. Orsino thought enviously of San Giacinto's two sons, leading what seemed to him a life of comparative activity and excitement in the Italian army, and having the prospect of distinction by their own merits. He thought of San Giacinto himself, of his ceaseless energy and of the great position he was building up. San Giacinto was a Saracinesca as well as Orsino, bearing the same name and perhaps not less respected than the rest by the world at large, though he had sullied his hands with finance. Even Del Ferice's position would have been above criticism, but for certain passages in his earlier life not immediately connected with his present occupation. And as if such instances were not enough there were, to Orsino's certain knowledge, half a dozen men of his father's rank even now deeply engaged in the speculations of the day. Montevarchi was one of them, and neither he nor the others made any secret of their doings. "Surely," thought Orsino, "I have as good a head as any of them, except, perhaps, San Giacinto." And he grew more and more discontented with his lot, and more and more angry at himself for submitting to be bound hand and foot and sacrificed upon the altar of feudalism. Everything had disappointed and irritated him on that day, the weariness of the dinner, the sight of his parents' placid felicity, the advice his grandfather had given him--good of its kind, but lamentably insufficient, to say the least of it. He was rapidly approaching that state of mind in which young men do the most unexpected things for the mere pleasure of surprising their relations. He grew tired of the ball, because Madame d'Aranjuez was not there. He longed to dance with her and he wished that he were at liberty to frequent the houses la which she was asked. But as yet she saw only the Whites and had not made the acquaintance of a single Grey family, in spite of his entreaties. He could not tell whether she had any fixed reason in making her choice, or whether as yet it had been the result of chance, but he discovered that he was bored wherever he went because she was not present. At supper-time on this particular evening, he entered into a conspiracy with certain choice spirits to leave the party and adjourn to the club and cards. The sight of the tables revived him and he drew a long breath as he sat down with a cigarette in his mouth and a glass at his elbow. It seemed as though the day were beginning at last. Orsino was no more a born gambler than he was disposed to be a hard drinker. He loved excitement in any shape, and being so constituted as to bear it better than most men, he took it greedily in whatever form it was offered to him. He neither played nor drank every day, but when he did either he was inclined to play more than other people and to consume more strong liquor. Yet his judgment was not remarkable, nor his head much stronger than the heads of his companions. Great gamblers do not drink, and great drinkers are not good players, though they are sometimes amazingly lucky when in their cups. It is of no use to deny the enormous influence of brandy and games of chance on the men of the present day, but there is little profit in describing such scenes as take place nightly in many clubs all over Europe. Something might be gained, indeed, if we could trace the causes which have made gambling especially the vice of our generation, for that discovery might show us some means of influencing the next. But I do not believe that this is possible. The times have undoubtedly grown more dull, as civilisation has made them more alike, but there is, I think, no truth in the common statement that vice is bred of idleness. The really idle man is a poor creature, incapable of strong sins. It is far more often the man of superior gifts, with faculties overwrought and nerves strained above concert pitch by excessive mental exertion, who turns to vicious excitement for the sake of rest, as a duller man falls asleep. Men whose lives are spent amidst the vicissitudes, surprises and disappointments of the money market are assuredly less idle than country gentlemen; the busy lawyer has less time to spare than the equally gifted fellow of a college; the skilled mechanic works infinitely harder, taking the average of the whole year, than the agricultural labourer; the life of a sailor on an ordinary merchant ship is one of rest, ease and safety compared with that of the collier. Yet there can hardly be a doubt as to which individual in each example is the one to seek relaxation in excitement, innocent or the reverse, instead of in sleep. The operator in the stock market, the barrister, the mechanic, the miner, in every case the men whose faculties are the more severely strained, are those who seek strong emotions in their daily leisure, and who are the more inclined to extend that leisure at the expense of bodily rest. It may be objected that the worst vice is found in the highest grades of society, that is to say, among men who have no settled occupation. I answer that, in the first place, this is not a known fact, but a matter of speculation, and that the conclusion is principally drawn from the circumstance that the evil deeds of such persons, when they become known, are very severely criticised by those whose criticism has the most weight, namely by the equals of the sinners in question--as well as by writers of fiction whose opinions may or may not be worth considering. For one Zola, historian of the Rougon-Macquart family, there are a hundred would-be Zolas, censors of a higher class, less unpleasantly fond of accurate detail, perhaps, but as merciless in intention. But even if the case against society be proved, which is possible, I do not think that society can truly be called idle, because many of those who compose it have no settled occupation. The social day is a long one. Society would not accept the eight hours' system demanded by the labour unions. Society not uncommonly works at a high pressure for twelve, fourteen and even sixteen hours at a stretch. The mental strain, though, not of the most intellectual order, is incomparably more severe than that required for success in many lucrative professions or crafts. The general absence of a distinct aim sharpens the faculties in the keen pursuit of details, and lends an importance to trifles which overburdens at every turn the responsibility borne by the nerves. Lazy people are not favourites in drawing-rooms, and still less at the dinner-table. Consider also that the average man of the world, and many women, daily sustain an amount of bodily fatigue equal perhaps to that borne by many mechanics and craftsmen and much greater than that required in the liberal professions, and that, too, under far less favourable conditions. Recapitulate all these points. Add together the physical effort, the mental activity, the nervous strain. Take the sum and compare it with that got by a similar process from other conditions of existence. I think there can be little doubt of the verdict. The force exerted is wasted, if you please, but it is enormously great, and more than sufficient to prove that those who daily exert it are by no means idle. Besides, none of the inevitable outward and visible results of idleness are apparent in the ordinary society man or woman. On the contrary, most of them exhibit the peculiar and unmistakable signs of physical exhaustion, chief of which is cerebral anæmia. They are overtrained and overworked. In the language of training they are "stale." Men like Orsino Saracinesca are not vicious at his age, though they may become so. Vice begins when the excitement ceases to be a matter of taste and turns into a necessity. Orsino gambled because it amused him when no other amusement was obtainable, and he drank while he played because it made the amusement seem more amusing. He was far too young and healthy and strong to feel an irresistible longing for anything not natural. On the present occasion he cared very little, at first, whether he won or lost, and as often happens to a man in that mood he won a considerable sum during the first hour. The sight of the notes before him strengthened an idea which had crossed his mind more than once of late, and the stimulants he drank suddenly fixed it into a purpose. It was true that he did not command any sum of money which could be dignified by the name of capital, but he generally had enough in his pocket to play with, and to-night he had rather more than usual. It struck him that if he could win a few thousands by a run of luck, he would have more than enough to try his fortune in the building speculations of which Del Ferice had talked. The scheme took shape and at once lent a passionate interest to his play. Orsino had no system and generally left everything to chance, but he had no sooner determined that he must win than he improvised a method, and began to play carefully. Of course he lost, and as he saw his heap of notes diminishing, he filled his glass more and more often. By two o'clock he had but five hundred francs left, his face was deadly pale, the lights dazzled him and his hands moved uncertainly. He held the bank and he knew that if he lost on the card he must borrow money, which he did not wish to do. He dealt himself a five of spades, and glanced at the stakes. They were considerable. A last sensation of caution prevented him from taking another card. The table turned up a six and he lost. "Lend me some money, Filippo," he said to the man nearest him, who immediately counted out a number of notes. Orsino paid with the money and the bank passed. He emptied his glass and lit a cigarette. At each succeeding deal he staked a small sum and lost it, till the bank came to him again. Once more he held a five. The other men saw that he was losing and put up all they could. Orsino hesitated. Some one observed justly that he probably held a five again. The lights swam indistinctly before him and he drew another card. It was a four. Orsino laughed nervously as he gathered the notes and paid back what he had borrowed. He did not remember clearly what happened afterwards. The faces of the cards grew less distinct and the lights more dazzling. He played blindly and won almost without interruption until the other men dropped off one by one, having lost as much as they cared to part with at one sitting. At four o'clock in the morning Orsino went home in a cab, having about fifteen thousand francs in his pockets. The men he had played with were mostly young fellows like himself, having a limited allowance of pocket money, and Orsino's winnings were very large under the circumstances. The night air cooled his head and he laughed gaily to himself as he drove through the deserted streets. His hand was steady enough now, and the gas lamps did not move disagreeably before his eyes. But he had reached the stage of excitement in which a fixed idea takes hold of the brain, and if it had been possible he would undoubtedly have gone as he was, in evening dress, with his winnings in his pocket, to rouse Del Ferice, or San Giacinto, or any one else who could put him in the way of risking his money on a building lot. He reluctantly resigned himself to the necessity of going to bed, and slept as one sleeps at twenty-one until nearly eleven o'clock on the following morning. While he dressed he recalled the circumstances of the previous night and was surprised to find that his idea was as fixed as ever. He counted the money. There was five times as much as the Del Ferice's carpenter, tobacconist and mason had been able to scrape together amongst them. He had therefore, according to his simple calculation, just five times as good a chance of succeeding as they. And they had been successful. His plan fascinated him, and he looked forward to the constant interest and occupation with a delight which was creditable to his character. He would be busy and the magic word "business" rang in his ears. It was speculation, no doubt, but he did not look upon it as a form of gambling; if he had done so, he would not have cared for it on two consecutive days. It was something much better in his eyes. It was to do something, to be some one, to strike out of the everlastingly dull road which lay before him and which ended in the vanishing point of an insignificant old age. He had not the very faintest conception of what that business was with which he aspired to occupy himself. He was totally ignorant of the methods of dealing with money, and he no more knew what a draft at three months meant than he could have explained the construction of the watch he carried in his pocket. Of the first principles of building he knew, if possible, even less and he did not know whether land in the city were worth a franc or a thousand francs by the square foot. But he said to himself that those things were mere details, and that he could learn all he needed of them in a fortnight. Courage and judgment, Del Ferice had said, were the chief requisites for success. Courage he possessed, and he believed himself cool. He would avail himself of the judgment of others until he could judge for himself. He knew very well what his father would think of the whole plan, but he had no intention of concealing his project. Since yesterday, he was of age and was therefore his own master to the extent of his own small resources. His father had not the power to keep him from entering upon any honourable undertaking, though he might justly refuse to be responsible for the consequences. At the worst, thought Orsino, those consequences might be the loss of the money he had in hand. Since he had nothing else to risk, he had nothing else to lose. That is the light in which most inexperienced people regard speculation. Orsino therefore went to his father and unfolded his scheme, without mentioning Del Ferice. Sant' Ilario listened rather impatiently and laughed when Orsino had finished. He did not mean to be unkind, and if he had dreamed of the effect his manner would produce, he would have been more careful. But he did not understand his son, as he himself had been understood by his own father. "This is all nonsense, my boy," he answered. "It is a mere passing fancy. What do you know of business or architecture, or of a dozen other matters which you ought to understand thoroughly before attempting anything like what you propose?" Orsino was silent, and looked out of the window, though he was evidently listening. "You say you want an occupation. This is not one. Banking is an occupation, and architecture is a career, but what we call affairs in Rome are neither one nor the other. If you want to be a banker you must go into a bank and do clerk's work for years. If you mean to follow architecture as a profession you must spend four or five years in study at the very least." "San Giacinto has not done that," observed Orsino coldly. "San Giacinto has a very much better head on his shoulders than you, or I, or almost any other man in Rome. He has known how to make use of other men's talents, and he had a rather more practical education than I would have cared to give you. If he were not one of the most honest men alive he would certainly have turned out one of the greatest scoundrels." "I do not see what that has to do with it," said Orsino. "Not much, I confess. But his early life made him understand men as you and I cannot understand them, and need not, for that matter." "Then you object to my trying this?" "I do nothing of the kind. When I object to the doing of anything I prevent it, by fair words or by force. I am not inclined for a pitched battle with you, Orsino, and I might not get the better of you after all. I will be perfectly neutral. I will have nothing to do with this business. If I believed in it, I would give you all the capital you could need, but I shall not diminish your allowance in order to hinder you from throwing it away. If you want more money for your amusements or luxuries, say so. I am not fond of counting small expenses, and I have not brought you up to count them either. Do not gamble at cards any more than you can help, but if you lose and must borrow, borrow of me. When I think you are going too far, I will tell you so. But do not count upon me for any help in this scheme of yours. You will not get it. If you find yourself in a commercial scrape, find your own way out of it. If you want better advice than mine, go to San Giacinto. He will give you a practical man's view of the case." "You are frank, at all events," said Orsino, turning from the window and facing his father. "Most of us are in this house," answered Sant' Ilario. "That will make it all the harder for you to deal with the scoundrels who call themselves men of business." "I mean to try this, father," said the young man. "I will go and see San Giacinto, as you suggest, and I will ask his opinion. But if he discourages me I will try my luck all the same. I cannot lead this life any longer. I want an occupation and I will make one for myself." "It is not an occupation that you want, Orsino. It is another excitement. That is all. If you want an occupation, study, learn something, find out what work means. Or go to Saracinesca and build houses for the peasants--you will do no harm there, at all events. Go and drain that land in Lombardy--I can do nothing with it and would sell it if I could. But that is not what you want. You want an excitement for the hours of the morning. Very well. You will probably find more of it than you like. Try it, that is all I have to say." Like many very just men Giovanni could state a case with alarming unfairness when thoroughly convinced that he was right. Orsino stood still for a moment and then walked towards the door without another word. His father called him back. "What is it?" asked Orsino coldly. Sant' Ilario held out his hand with a kindly look in his eyes. "I do not want you to think that I am angry, my boy. There is to be no ill feeling between us about this." "None whatever," said the young man, though without much alacrity, as he shook hands with his father. "I see you are not angry. You do not understand me, that is all." He went out, more disappointed with the result of the interview than he had expected, though he had not looked forward to receiving any encouragement. He had known very well what his father's views were but he had not foreseen that he would be so much irritated by the expression of them. His determination hardened and he resolved that nothing should hinder him. But he was both willing and ready to consult San Giacinto, and went to the latter's house immediately on leaving Sant' Ilario's study. As for Giovanni, he was dimly conscious that he had made a mistake, though he did not care to acknowledge it. He was a good horseman and he was aware that he would have used a very different method with a restive colt. But few men are wise enough to see that there is only one universal principle to follow in the exertion of strength, moral or physical; and instead of seeking analogies out of actions familiar to them as a means of accomplishing the unfamiliar, they try to discover new theories of motion at every turn and are led farther and farther from the right line by their own desire to reach the end quickly. "At all events," thought Sant' Ilario, "the boy's new hobby will take him to places where he is not likely to meet that woman." And with this discourteous reflection upon Madame d'Aranjuez he consoled himself. He did not think it necessary to tell Corona of Orsino's intentions, simply because he did not believe that they would lead to anything serious, and there was no use in disturbing her unnecessarily with visions of future annoyance. If Orsino chose to speak of it to her, he was at liberty to do so. CHAPTER X. Orsino went directly to San Giacinto's house, and found him in the room which he used for working and in which he received the many persons whom he was often obliged to see on business. The giant was alone and was seated behind a broad polished table, occupied in writing. Orsino was struck by the extremely orderly arrangement of everything he saw. Papers were tied together in bundles of exactly like shape, which lay in two lines of mathematical precision. The big inkstand was just in the middle of the rows and a paper-cutter, a pen-rack and an erasing knife lay side by side in front of it. The walls were lined with low book-cases of a heavy and severe type, filled principally with documents neatly filed in volumes and marked on the back in San Giacinto's clear handwriting. The only object of beauty in the room was a full-length portrait of Flavia by a great artist, which hung above the fireplace. The rigid symmetry of everything was made imposing by the size of the objects--the table was larger than ordinary tables, the easy-chairs were deeper, broader and lower than common, the inkstand was bigger, even the penholder in San Giacinto's fingers was longer and thicker than any Orsino had ever seen. And yet the latter felt that there was no affectation about all this. The man to whom these things belonged and who used them daily was himself created on a scale larger than other men. Though he was older than Sant' Ilario and was, in fact, not far from sixty years of age San Giacinto might easily have passed for less than fifty. There was hardly a grey thread in his short, thick, black hair, and he was still as lean and strong, and almost as active, as he had been thirty years earlier. The large features were perhaps a little more bony and the eyes somewhat deeper than they had been, but these changes lent an air of dignity rather than of age to the face. He rose to meet Orsino and then made him sit down beside the table. The young man suddenly felt an unaccountable sense of inferiority and hesitated as to how he should begin. "I suppose you want to consult me about something," said San Giacinto quietly. "Yes. I want to ask your advice, if you will give it to me--about a matter of business." "Willingly. What is it?" Orsino was silent for a moment and stared at the wall. He was conscious that the very small sum of which he could dispose must seem even smaller in the eyes of such a man, but this did not disturb him. He was oppressed by San Giacinto's personality and prepared himself to speak as though he had been a student undergoing oral examination. He stated his case plainly, when he at last spoke. He was of age and he looked forward with dread to an idle life. All careers were closed to him. He had fifteen thousand francs in his pocket. Could San Giacinto help him to occupy himself by investing the sum in a building speculation? Was the sum sufficient as a beginning? Those were the questions. San Giacinto did not laugh as Sant' Ilario had done. He listened very attentively to the end and then deliberately offered Orsino a cigar and lit one himself, before he delivered his answer. "You are asking the same question which is put to me very often," he said at last. "I wish I could give you any encouragement. I cannot." Orsino's face fell, for the reply was categorical. He drew back a little in his chair, but said nothing. "That is my answer," continued San Giacinto thoughtfully, "but when one says 'no' to another the subject is not necessarily exhausted. On the contrary, in such a case as this I cannot let you go without giving you my reasons. I do not care to give my views to the public, but such as they are, you are welcome to them. The time is past. That is why I advise you to have nothing to do with any speculation of this kind. That is the best of all reasons." "But you yourself are still engaged in this business," objected Orsino. "Not so deeply as you fancy. I have sold almost everything which I do not consider a certainty, and am selling what little I still have as fast as I can. In speculation there are only two important moments--the moment to buy and the moment to sell. In my opinion, this is the time to sell, and I do not think that the time for buying will come again without a crisis." "But everything is in such a flourishing state--" "No doubt it is--to-day. But no one can tell what state business will be in next week, nor even to-morrow." "There is Del Ferice--" "No doubt, and a score like him," answered San Giacinto, looking quietly at Orsino. "Del Ferice is a banker, and I am a speculator, as you wish to be. His position is different from ours. It is better to leave him out of the question. Let us look at the matter logically. You wish to speculate--" "Excuse me," said Orsino, interrupting him. "I want to try what I can do in business." "You wish to risk money, in one way or another. You therefore wish one or more of three things--money for its own sake, excitement or occupation. I can hardly suppose that you want money. Eliminate that. Excitement is not a legitimate aim, and you can get it more safely in other ways. Therefore you want occupation." "That is precisely what I said at the beginning," observed Orsino with a shade of irritation. "Yes. But I like to reach my conclusions in my own way. You are then a young man in search of an occupation. Speculation, and what you propose is nothing else, is no more an occupation than playing at the public lottery and much less one than playing at baccarat. There at least you are responsible for your own mistakes and in decent society you are safe from the machinations of dishonest people. That would matter less if the chances were in your favour, as they might have been a year ago and as they were in mine from the beginning. They are against you now, because it is too late, and they are against me. I would as soon buy a piece of land on credit at the present moment, as give the whole sum in cash to the first man I met in the street." "Yet there is Montevarchi who still buys--" "Montevarchi is not worth the paper on which he signs his name," said San Giacinto calmly. Orsino uttered an exclamation of surprise and incredulity. "You may tell him so, if you please," answered the giant with perfect indifference. "If you tell any one what I have said, please to tell him first, that is all. He will not believe you. But in six months he will know it, I fancy, as well as I know it now. He might have doubled his fortune, but he was and is totally ignorant of business. He thought it enough to invest all he could lay hands on and that the returns would be sure. He has invested forty millions and owns property which he believes to be worth sixty, but which will not bring ten in six months, and those remaining ten millions he owes on all manner of paper, on mortgages on his original property, in a dozen ways which he has forgotten himself." "I do not see how that is possible!" exclaimed Orsino. "I am a plain man, Orsino, and I am your cousin. You may take it for granted that I am right. Do not forget that I was brought up in a hand-to-hand struggle for fortune such as you cannot dream of. When I was your age I was a practical man of business, and I had taught myself, and it was all on such a small scale that a mistake of a hundred francs made the difference between profit and loss. I dislike details, but I have been a man of detail all my life, by force of circumstances. Successful business implies the comprehension of details. It is tedious work, and if you mean to try it you must begin at the beginning. You ought to do so. There is an enormous business before you, with considerable capabilities in it. If I were in your place, I would take what fell naturally to my lot." "What is that?" "Farming. They call it agriculture in parliament, because they do not know what farming means. The men who think that Italy can live without farmers are fools. We are not a manufacturing people any more than we are a business people. The best dictator for us would be a practical farmer, a ploughman like Cincinnatus. Nobody who has not tried to raise wheat on an Italian mountain-side knows the great difficulties or the great possibilities of our country. Do you know that bad as our farming is, and absurd as is our system of land taxation, we are food exporters, to a small extent? The beginning is there. Take my advice, be a farmer. Manage one of the big estates you have amongst you for five or six years. You will not do much good to the land in that time, but you will learn what land really means. Then go into parliament and tell people facts. That is an occupation and a career as well, which cannot be said of speculation in building lots, large or small. If you have any ready money keep it in government bonds until you have a chance of buying something worth keeping." Orsino went away disappointed and annoyed. San Giacinto's talk about farming seemed very dull to him. To bury himself for half a dozen years in the country in order to learn the rotation of crops and the principles of land draining did not present itself as an attractive career. If San Giacinto thought farming the great profession of the future, why did he not try it himself? Orsino dismissed the idea rather indignantly, and his determination to try his luck became stronger by the opposition it met. Moreover he had expected very different language from San Giacinto, whose sober view jarred on Orsino's enthusiastic impulse. But he now found himself in considerable difficulty. He was ignorant even of the first steps to be taken, and knew no one to whom he could apply for information. There was Prince Montevarchi indeed, who though he was San Giacinto's brother-in-law, seemed by the latter's account to have got into trouble. He did not understand how San Giacinto could allow his wife's brother to ruin himself without lending him a helping hand, but San Giacinto was not the kind of man of whom people ask indiscreet questions, and Orsino had heard that the two men were not on the best of terms. Possibly good advice had been offered and refused. Such affairs generally end in a breach of friendship. However that might be, Orsino would not go to Montevarchi. He wandered aimlessly about the streets, and the money seemed to burn in his pocket, though he had carefully deposited it in a place of safety at home. Again and again Del Ferice's story of the carpenter and his two companions recurred to his mind. He wondered how they had set about beginning, and he wished he could ask Del Ferice himself. He could not go to the man's house, but he might possibly meet him at Maria Consuelo's. He was surprised to find that he had almost forgotten her in his anxiety to become a man of business. It was too early to call yet, and in order to kill the time he went home, got a horse from the stables and rode out into the country for a couple of hours. At half-past five o'clock he entered the familiar little sitting-room in the hotel. Madame d'Aranjuez was alone, cutting a new book with the jewelled knife which continued to be the only object of the kind visible in the room. She smiled as Orsino entered, and she laid aside the volume as he sat down in his accustomed place. "I thought you were not coming," she said. "Why?" "You always come at five. It is half-past to-day." Orsino looked at his watch. "Do you notice whether I come or not?" he asked. Maria Consuelo glanced at his face, and laughed. "What have you been doing to-day?" she asked. "That is much more interesting." "Is it? I am afraid not. I have been listening to those disagreeable things which are called truths by the people who say them. I have listened to two lectures delivered by two very intelligent men for my especial benefit. It seems to me that as soon as I make a good resolution it becomes the duty of sensible people to demonstrate that I am a fool." "You are not in a good humour. Tell me all about it." "And weary you with my grievances? No. Is Del Ferice coming this afternoon?" "How can I tell? He does not come often." "I thought he came almost every day," said Orsino gloomily. He was disappointed, but Maria Consuelo did not understand what was the matter. She leaned forward in her low seat, her chin resting upon one hand, and her tawny eyes fixed on Orsino's. "Tell me, my friend--are you unhappy? Can I do anything? Will you tell me?" It was not easy to resist the appeal. Though the two had grown intimate of late, there had hitherto always been something cold and reserved behind her outwardly friendly manner. To-day she seemed suddenly willing to be different. Her easy, graceful attitude, her soft voice full of promised sympathy, above all the look in her strange eyes revealed a side of her character which Orsino had not suspected and which affected him in a way he could not have described. Without hesitation he told her his story, from beginning to end, simply, without comment and without any of the cutting phrases which came so readily to his tongue on most occasions. She listened very thoughtfully to the end. "Those things are not misfortunes," she said. "But they may be the beginnings of unhappiness. To be unhappy is worse than any misfortune. What right has your father to laugh at you? Because he never needed to do anything for himself, he thinks it absurd that his son should dislike the lazy life that is prepared for him. It is not reasonable--it is not kind!" "Yet he means to be both, I suppose," said Orsino bitterly. "Oh, of course! People always mean to be the soul of logic and the paragon of charity! Especially where their own children are concerned." Maria Consuelo added the last words with more feeling than seemed justified by her sympathy for Orsino's woes. The moment was perhaps favourable for asking a leading question about herself, and her answer might have thrown light on her problematic past. But Orsino was too busy with his own troubles to think of that, and the opportunity slipped by and was lost. "You know now why I want to see Del Ferice," he said. "I cannot go to his house. My only chance of talking to him lies here." "And that is what brings you? You are very flattering!" "Do not be unjust! We all look forward to meeting our friends in heaven." "Very pretty. I forgive you. But I am afraid that you will not meet Del Ferice. I do not think he has left the Chambers yet. There was to be a debate this afternoon in which he had to speak." "Does he make speeches?" "Very good ones. I have heard him." "I have never been inside the Chambers," observed Orsino. "You are not very patriotic. You might go there and ask for Del Ferice. You could see him without going to his house--without compromising your dignity." "Why do you laugh?" "Because it all seems to me so absurd. You know that you are perfectly free to go and see him when and where you will. There is nothing to prevent you. He is the one man of all others whose advice you need. He has an unexceptional position in the world--no doubt he has done strange things, but so have dozens of people whom you know--his present reputation is excellent, I say. And yet, because some twenty years ago, when you were a child, he held one opinion and your father held another, you are interdicted from crossing his threshold! If you can shake hands with him here, you can take his hand in his own house. Is not that true?" "Theoretically, I daresay, but not in practice. You see it yourself. You have chosen one side from the first, and all the people on the other side know it. As a foreigner, you are not bound to either, and you can know everybody in time, if you please. Society is not so prejudiced as to object to that. But because you begin with the Del Ferice in a very uncompromising way, it would take a long time for you to know the Montevarchi, for instance." "Who told you that I was a foreigner?" asked Maria Consuelo, rather abruptly. "You yourself--" "That is good authority!" She laughed. "I do not remember--ah! because I do not speak Italian? You mean that? One may forget one's own language, or for that matter one may never have learned it." "Are you Italian, then, Madame?" asked Orsino, surprised that she should lead the conversation so directly to a point which he had supposed must be reached by a series of tactful approaches. "Who knows? I am sure I do not. My father was Italian. Does that constitute nationality?" "Yes. But the woman takes the nationality of her husband, I believe," said Orsino, anxious to hear more. "Ah yes--poor Aranjuez!" Maria Consuelo's voice suddenly took that sleepy tone which Orsino had heard more than once. Her eyelids drooped a little and she lazily opened and shut her hand, and spread out the fingers and looked at them. But Orsino was not satisfied to let the conversation drop at this point, and after a moment's pause he put a decisive question. "And was Monsieur d'Aranjuez also Italian?" he asked. "What does it matter?" she asked in the same indolent tone. "Yes, since you ask me, he was Italian, poor man." Orsino was more and more puzzled. That the name did not exist in Italy he was almost convinced. He thought of the story of the Signor Aragno, who had fallen overboard in the south seas, and then he was suddenly aware that he could not believe in anything of the sort. Maria Consuelo did not betray a shade of emotion, either, at the mention of her deceased husband. She seemed absorbed in the contemplation of her hands. Orsino had not been rebuked for his curiosity and would have asked another question if he had known how to frame it. An awkward silence followed. Maria Consuelo raised her eyes slowly and looked thoughtfully into Orsino's face. "I see," she said at last. "You are curious. I do not know whether you have any right to be--have you?" "I wish I had!" exclaimed Orsino thoughtlessly. Again she looked at him in silence for some moments. "I have not known you long enough," she said. "And if I had known you longer, perhaps it would not be different. Are other people curious, too? Do they talk about me?" "The people I know do--but they do not know you. They see your name in the papers, as a beautiful Spanish princess. Yet everybody is aware that there is no Spanish nobleman of your name. Of course they are curious. They invent stories about you, which I deny. If I knew more, it would be easier." "Why do you take the trouble to deny such things?" She asked the question with a change of manner. Once more she leaned forward and her face softened wonderfully as she looked at him. "Can you not guess?" he asked. He was conscious of a very unusual emotion, not at all in harmony with the imaginary character he had chosen for himself, and which he generally maintained with considerable success. Maria Consuelo was one person when she leaned back in her chair, laughing or idly listening to his talk, or repulsing the insignificant declarations of devotion which were not even meant to be taken altogether in earnest. She was pretty then, attractive, graceful, feminine, a little artificial, perhaps, and Orsino felt that he was free to like her or not, as he pleased, but that he pleased to like her for the present. She was quite another woman to-day, as she bent forward, her tawny eyes growing darker and more mysterious every moment, her auburn hair casting wonderful shadows upon her broad pale forehead, her lips not closed as usual, but slightly parted, her fragrant breath just stirring the quiet air Orsino breathed. Her features might be irregular. It did not matter. She was beautiful for the moment with a kind of beauty Orsino had never seen, and which produced a sudden and overwhelming effect upon him. "Do you not know?" he asked again, and his voice trembled unexpectedly. "Thank you," she said softly and she touched his hand almost caressingly. But when he would have taken it, she drew back instantly and was once more the woman whom he saw every day, careless, indifferent, pretty. "Why do you change so quickly?" he asked in a low voice, bending towards her. "Why do you snatch your hand away? Are you afraid of me?" "Why should I be afraid? Are you dangerous?" "You are. You may be fatal, for all I know." "How foolish!" she exclaimed, with a quick glance. "You are Madame d'Aranjuez, now," he answered. "We had better change the subject." "What do you mean?" "A moment ago you were Consuelo," he said boldly. "Have I given you any right to say that?" "A little." "I am sorry. I will be more careful. I am sure I cannot imagine why you should think of me at all, unless when you are talking to me, and then I do not wish to be called by my Christian name. I assure you, you are never anything in my thoughts but His Excellency Prince Orsino Saracinesca--with as many titles after that as may belong to you." "I have none," said Orsino. Her speech irritated him strongly, and the illusion which had been so powerful a few moments earlier all but disappeared. "Then you advise me to go and find Del Ferice at Monte Citorio," he observed. "If you like." She laughed. "There is no mistaking your intention when you mean to change the subject," she added. "You made it sufficiently clear that the other was disagreeable to you." "I did not mean to do so." "Then in heaven's name, what do you mean, Madame?" he asked, suddenly losing his head in his extreme annoyance. Maria Consuelo raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Why are you so angry?" she asked. "Do you know that it is very rude to speak like that?" "I cannot help it. What have I done to-day that you should torment me as you do?" "I? I torment you? My dear friend, you are quite mad." "I know I am. You make me so." "Will you tell me how? What have I done? What have I said? You Romans are certainly the most extraordinary people. It is impossible to please you. If one laughs, you become tragic. If one is serious, you grow gay! I wish I understood you better." "You will end by making it impossible for me to understand myself," said Orsino. "You say that I am changeable. Then what are you?" "Very much the same to-day as yesterday," said Maria Consuelo calmly. "And I do not suppose that I shall be very different to-morrow." "At least I will take my chance of finding that you are mistaken," said Orsino, rising suddenly, and standing before her. "Are you going?" she asked, as though she were surprised. "Since I cannot please you." "Since you will not." "I do not know how." "Be yourself--the same that you always are. You are affecting to be some one else, to-day." "I fancy it is the other way," answered Orsino, with more truth than he really owned to himself. "Then I prefer the affectation to the reality." "As you will, Madame. Good evening." He crossed the room to go out. She called him back. "Don Orsino!" He turned sharply round. "Madame?" Seeing that he did not move, she rose and went to him. He looked down into her face and saw that it was changed again. "Are you really angry?" she asked. There was something girlish in the way she asked the question, and, for a moment, in her whole manner. Orsino could not help smiling. But he said nothing. "No, you are not," she continued. "I can see it. Do you know? I am very glad. It was foolish of me to tease you. You will forgive me? This once?" "If you will give me warning the next time." He found that he was looking into her eyes. "What is the use of warning?" she asked. They were very close together, and there was a moment's silence. Suddenly Orsino forgot everything and bent down, clasping her in his arms and kissing her again and again. It was brutal, rough, senseless, but he could not help it. Maria Consuelo uttered a short, sharp cry, more of surprise, perhaps, than of horror. To Orsino's amazement and confusion her voice was immediately answered by another, which was that of the dark and usually silent maid, whom he had seen once or twice. The woman ran into the room, terrified by the cry she had heard. "Madame felt faint in crossing the room, and was falling when I caught her," said Orsino, with a coolness that did him credit. And, in fact, Maria Consuelo closed her eyes as he let her sink into the nearest chair. The maid fell on her knees beside her mistress and began chafing her hands. "The poor Signora!" she exclaimed. "She should never be left alone! She has not been herself since the poor Signore died. You had better leave us, sir--I will put her to bed when she revives. It often happens--pray do not be anxious!" Orsino picked up his hat and left the room. "Oh--it often happens, does it?" he said to himself as he closed the door softly behind him and walked down the corridor of the hotel. He was more amazed at his own boldness than he cared to own. He had not supposed that scenes of this description produced themselves so very unexpectedly, and, as it were, without any fixed intention on the part of the chief actor. He remembered that he had been very angry with Madame d'Aranjuez, that she had spoken half a dozen words, and that he had felt an irresistible impulse to kiss her. He had done so, and he thought with considerable trepidation of their next meeting. She had screamed, which showed that she was outraged by his boldness. It was doubtful whether she would receive him again. The best thing to be done, he thought, was to write her a very humble letter of apology, explaining his conduct as best he could. This did not accord very well with his principles, but he had already transgressed them in being so excessively hasty. Her eyes had certainly been provoking in the extreme, and it had been impossible to resist the expression on her lips. But at all events, he should have begun by kissing her hand, which she would certainly not have withdrawn again--then he might have put his arm round her and drawn her head to his shoulder. These were preliminaries in the matter of kissing which it was undoubtedly right to observe, and he had culpably neglected them. He had been abominably brutal, and he ought to apologise. Nevertheless, he would not have forfeited the recollection of that moment for all the other recollections of his life, and he knew it. As he walked along the street he felt a wild exhilaration such as he had never known before. He owned gladly to himself that he loved Maria Consuelo, and resolutely thrust away the idea that his boyish vanity was pleased by the snatching of a kiss. Whatever the real nature of his delight might be it was for the time so sincere that he even forgot to light a cigarette in order to think over the circumstances. Walking rapidly up the Corso he came to the Piazza Colonna, and the glare of the electric light somehow recalled him to himself. "Great speech of the Honourable Del Ferice!" yelled a newsboy in his ear. "Ministerial crisis! Horrible murder of a grocer!" Orsino mechanically turned to the right in the direction of the Chambers. Del Ferice had probably gone home, since his speech was already in print. But fate had ordained otherwise. Del Ferice had corrected his proofs on the spot and had lingered to talk with his friends before going home. Not that it mattered much, for Orsino could have found him as well on the following day. His brougham was standing in front of the great entrance and he himself was shaking hands with a tall man under the light of the lamps. Orsino went up to him. "Could you spare me a quarter of an hour?" asked the young man in a voice constrained by excitement. He felt that he was embarked at last upon his great enterprise. Del Ferice looked up in some astonishment. He had reason to dread the quarrelsome disposition of the Saracinesca as a family, and he wondered what Orsino wanted. "Certainly, certainly, Don Orsino," he answered, with a particularly bland smile. "Shall we drive, or at least sit in my carriage? I am a little fatigued with my exertions to-day." The tall man bowed and strolled away, biting the end of an unlit cigar. "It is a matter of business," said Orsino, before entering the carriage. "Can you help me to try my luck--in a very small way--in one of the building enterprises you manage?" "Of course I can, and will," answered Del Ferice, more and more astonished. "After you, my dear Don Orsino, after you," he repeated, pushing the young man into the brougham. "Quiet streets--till I stop you," he said to the footman, as he himself got in. CHAPTER XI. Del Ferice was surprised beyond measure at Orsino's request, and was not guilty of any profoundly nefarious intention when he so readily acceded to it. His own character made him choose as a rule to refuse nothing that was asked of him, though his promises were not always fulfilled afterwards. To express his own willingness to help those who asked, was of course not the same as asserting his power to give assistance when the time should come. In the present case he did not even make up his mind which of two courses he would ultimately pursue. Orsino came to him with a small sum of ready money in his hand. Del Ferice had it in his power to make him lose that sum, and a great deal more besides, thereby causing the boy endless trouble with his family; or else the banker could, if he pleased, help him to a very considerable success. His really superior talent for diplomacy inclined him to choose the latter plan, but he was far too cautious to make any hasty decision. The brougham rolled on through quiet and ill-lighted streets, and Del Ferice leaned back in his corner, not listening at all to Orsino's talk, though he occasionally uttered a polite though utterly unintelligible syllable or two which might mean anything agreeable to his companion's views. The situation was easy enough to understand, and he had grasped it in a moment. What Orsino might say was of no importance whatever, but the consequences of any action on Del Ferice's part might be serious and lasting. Orsino stated his many reasons for wishing to engage in business, as he had stated them more than once already during the day and during the past weeks, and when he had finished he repeated his first question. "Can you help me to try my luck?" he asked. Del Ferice awoke from his reverie with characteristic readiness and realised that he must say something. His voice had never been strong and he leaned out of his corner of the carriage in order to speak near Orsino's ear. "I am delighted with all you say," he began, "and I scarcely need repeat that my services are altogether at your disposal. The only question is, how are we to begin? The sum you mention is certainly not large, but that does not matter. You would have little difficulty in raising as many hundreds of thousands as you have thousands, if money were necessary. But in business of this kind the only ready money needed is for stamp duty and for the wages of workmen, and the banks advance what is necessary for the latter purpose, in small sums on notes of hand guaranteed by a general mortgage. When you have paid the stamp duties, you may go to the club and lose the balance of your capital at baccarat if you please. The loss in that direction will not affect your credit as a contractor. All that is very simple. You wish to succeed, however, not at cards, but at business. That is the difficulty." Del Ferice paused. "That is not very clear to me," observed Orsino. "No--no," answered Del Ferice thoughtfully. "No--I daresay it is not so very clear. I wish I could make it clearer. Speculation means gambling only when the speculator is a gambler. Of course there are successful gamblers in the world, but there are not many of them. I read somewhere the other day that business was the art of handling other people's-money. The remark is not particularly true. Business is the art of creating a value where none has yet existed. That is what you wish to do. I do not think that a Saracinesca would take pleasure in turning over money not belonging to him." "Certainly not!" exclaimed Orsino. "That is usury." "Not exactly, but it is banking; and banking, it is quite true, is usury within legal bounds. There is no question of that here. The operation is simple in the extreme. I sell you a piece of land on the understanding that you will build upon it, and instead of payment you give me a mortgage. I lend you money from month to month in small sums at a small interest, to pay for material and labour. You are only responsible upon one point. The money is to be used for the purpose stated. When the building is finished you sell it. If you sell it for cash, you pay off the mortgage, and receive the difference. If you sell it with the mortgage, the buyer becomes the mortgager and only pays you the difference, which remains yours, out and out. That is the whole process from beginning to end." "How wonderfully simple!" "It is almost primitive in its simplicity," answered Del Ferice gravely. "But in every case two difficulties present themselves, and I am bound to tell you that they are serious ones." "What are they?" "You must know how to buy in the right part of the city and you must have a competent assistant. The two conditions are indispensable." "What sort of an assistant?" asked Orsino. "A practical man. If possible, an architect, who will then have a share of the profits instead of being paid for his work." "Is it very hard to find such a person?" "It is not easy." "Do you think you could help me?" "I do not know. I am assuming a great responsibility in doing so. You do not seem to realise that, Don Orsino." Del Ferice laughed a little in his quiet way, but Orsino was silent. It was the first time that the banker had reminded him of the vast difference in their social and political positions. "I do not think it would be very wise of me to help you into such a business as this," said Del Ferice cautiously. "I speak quite selfishly and for my own sake. Success is never certain, and it would be a great injury to me if you failed." He was beginning to make up his mind. "Why?" asked Orsino. His own instincts of generosity were aroused. He would certainly not do Del Ferice an injury if he could help it, nor allow him to incur the risk of one. "If you fail," answered the other, "all Rome will say that I have intentionally brought about your failure. You know how people talk. Thousands will become millions and I shall be accused of having plotted the destruction of your family, because your father once wounded me in a duel, nearly five and twenty years ago." "How absurd!" "No, no. It is not absurd. I am afraid I have the reputation of being vindictive. Well, well--it is in bad taste to talk of oneself. I am good at hating, perhaps, but I have always felt that I preferred peace to war, and now I am growing old. I am not what I once was, Don Orsino, and I do not like quarrelling. But I would not allow people to say impertinent things about me, and if you failed and lost money, I should be abused by your friends, and perhaps censured by my own. Do you see? Yes, I am selfish. I admit it. You must forgive that weakness in me. I like peace." "It is very natural," said Orsino, "and I have no right to put you in danger of the slightest inconvenience. But, after all, why need I appear before the public?" Del Ferice smiled in the dark. "True," he answered. "You could establish an anonymous firm, so to say, and the documents would be a secret between you and me and the notary. Of course there are many ways of managing such an affair quietly." He did not add that the secret could only be kept so long as Orsino was successful. It seemed a pity to damp so much good enthusiasm. "We will do that, then, if you will show me how. My ambition is not to see my name on a door-plate, but to be really occupied." "I understand, I understand," said Del Ferice thoughtfully. "I must ask you to give me until to-morrow to consider the matter. It needs a little thought." "Where can I find you, to hear your decision?" Del Ferice was silent for a moment. "I think I once met you late in the afternoon at Madame d'Aranjuez's. We might manage to meet there to-morrow and come away together. Shall we name an hour? Would it suit you?" "Perfectly," answered Orsino with alacrity. The idea of meeting Maria Consuelo alone was very disturbing in his present state of mind. He felt that he had lost his balance in his relations with her, and that in order to regain it he must see her in the presence of a third person, if only for a quarter of an hour. It would be easier, then, to resume the former intercourse and to say whatever he should determine upon saying. If she were offended, she would at least not show it in any marked way before Del Ferice. Orsino's existence, he thought, was becoming complicated for the first time, and though he enjoyed the vague sensation of impending difficulty, he wanted as many opportunities as possible of reviewing the situation and of meditating upon each new move. He got out of Del Ferice's carriage at no great distance from his own home, and after a few words of very sincere thanks walked slowly away. He found it very hard to arrange his thoughts in any consecutive order, though he tried several methods of self-analysis, and repeated to himself that he had experienced a great happiness and was probably on the threshold of a great success. These two reflections did not help him much. The happiness had been of the explosive kind, and the success in the business matter was more than problematic, as well as certainly distant in the future. He was very restless and craved the immediate excitement of further emotions, so that he would certainly have gone to the club that night, had not the fear of losing his small and precious capital deterred him. He thought of all that was coming and he determined to be careful, even sordid if necessary, rather than lose his chance of making the great attempt. Besides, he would cut a poor figure on the morrow if he were obliged to admit to Del Ferice that he had lost his fifteen thousand francs and was momentarily penniless. He accordingly shut himself up in his own room at an early hour, and smoked in solitude until he was sleepy, reviewing the various events of the day, or trying to do so, though his mind reverted constantly to the one chief event of all, to the unaccountable outburst of passion by which he had perhaps offended Maria Consuelo beyond forgiveness. With all his affectation of cynicism he had not learned that sin is easy only because it meets with such very general encouragement. Even if he had been aware of that undeniable fact, the knowledge might not have helped him very materially. The hours passed very slowly during the next day, and even when the appointed time had come, Orsino allowed another quarter of an hour to go by before he entered the hotel and ascended to the little sitting-room in which Maria Consuelo received. He meant to be sure that Del Ferice was there before entering, but he was too proud to watch for the latter's coming, or to inquire of the porter whether Maria Consuelo were alone or not. It seemed simpler in every way to appear a little late. But Del Ferice was a busy man and not always punctual, so that to Orsino's considerable confusion, he found Maria Consuelo alone, in spite of his precaution. He was so much surprised as to become awkward, for the first time in his life, and he felt the blood rising in his face, dark as he was. "Will you forgive me?" he asked, almost timidly, as he held out his hand. Maria Consuelo's tawny eyes looked curiously at him. Then she smiled suddenly. "My dear child," she said, "you should not do such things! It is very foolish, you know." The answer was so unexpected and so exceedingly humiliating, as Orsino thought at first, that he grew pale and drew back a little. But Maria Consuelo took no notice of his behaviour, and settled herself in her accustomed chair. "Did you find Del Ferice last night?" she asked, changing the subject without the least hesitation. "Yes," answered Orsino. Almost before the word was spoken there was a knock at the door and Del Ferice appeared. Orsino's face cleared, as though something pleasant had happened, and Maria Consuelo observed the fact. She concluded, naturally enough, that the two men had agreed to meet in her sitting-room, and she resented the punctuality which she supposed they had displayed in coming almost together, especially after what had happened on the preceding day. She noted the cordiality with which they greeted each other and she felt sure that she was right. On the other hand she could not afford to show the least coldness to Del Ferice, lest he should suppose that she was annoyed at being disturbed in her conversation with Orsino. The situation was irritating to her, but she made the best of it and began to talk to Del Ferice about the speech he had made on the previous evening. He had spoken well, and she found it easy to be just and flattering at the same time. "It must be an immense satisfaction to speak as you do," said Orsino, wishing to say something at least agreeable. Del Ferice acknowledged the compliment by a deprecatory gesture. "To speak as some of my colleagues can--yes--it must be a great satisfaction. But Madame d'Aranjuez exaggerates. And, besides, I only make speeches when I am called upon to do so. Speeches are wasted in nine cases out of ten, too. They are, if I may say so, the music at the political ball. Sometimes the guests will dance, and sometimes they will not, but the musicians must try and suit the taste of the great invited. The dancing itself is the thing." "Deeds not words," suggested Maria Consuelo, glancing at Orsino, who chanced to be looking at her. "That is a good motto enough," he said gloomily. "Deeds may need explanation, _post facto_," remarked Del Ferice, unconsciously making such a direct allusion to recent events that Orsino looked sharply at him, and Maria Consuelo smiled. "That is true," she said. "And when you need any one to help you, it is necessary to explain your purpose beforehand," observed Del Ferice. "That is what happens so often in politics, and in other affairs of life as well. If a man takes money from me without my consent, he steals, but if I agree to his taking it, the transaction becomes a gift or a loan. A despotic government steals, a constitutional one borrows or receives free offerings. The fact that the despot pays interest on a part of what he steals raises him to the position of the magnanimous brigand who leaves his victims just enough money to carry them to the nearest town. Possibly it is after all a quibble of definitions, and the difference may not be so great as it seems at first sight. But then, all morality is but the shadow cast on one side or the other of a definition." "Surely that is not your political creed!" said Maria Consuelo. "Certainly not, Madame, certainly not," answered Del Ferice in gentle protest. "It is not a creed at all, but only a very poor explanation of the way in which most experienced people look upon the events of their day. The idea in which we believe is very different from the results it has brought about, and very much higher, and very much better. But the results are not all bad either. Unfortunately the bad ones are on the surface, and the good ones, which are enduring, must be sought in places where the honest sunshine has not yet dispelled the early shadows." Maria Consuelo smiled faintly, and the slight cast in her eyes was more than usually apparent, as though her attention were wandering. Orsino said nothing, and wondered why Del Ferice continued to talk. The latter, indeed, was allowing himself to run on because neither of his hearers seemed inclined to make a remark which might serve to turn the conversation, and he began to suspect that something had occurred before his coming which had disturbed their equanimity. He presently began to talk of people instead of ideas, for he had no intention of being thought a bore by Madame d'Aranjuez, and the man who is foolish enough to talk of anything but his neighbours, when he has more than one hearer, is in danger of being numbered with the tormentors. Half an hour passed quickly enough after the common chord had been struck, and Del Ferice and Orsino exchanged glances of intelligence, meaning to go away together as had been agreed. Del Ferice rose first, and Orsino took up his hat. To his surprise and consternation Maria Consuelo made a quick and imperative sign to him to remain. Del Ferice's dull blue eyes saw most things that happened within the range of their vision, and neither the gesture nor the look that accompanied it escaped him. Orsino's position was extremely awkward. He had put Del Ferice to some inconvenience on the understanding that they were to go away together and did not wish to offend him by not keeping his engagement. On the other hand it was next to impossible to disobey Maria Consuelo, and to explain his difficulty to Del Ferice was wholly out of the question. He almost wished that the latter might have seen and understood the signal. But Del Ferice made no sign and took Maria Consuelo's offered hand, in the act of leavetaking. Orsino grew desperate and stood beside the two, holding his hat. Del Ferice turned to shake hands with him also. "But perhaps you are going too," he said, with a distinct interrogation. Orsino glanced at Maria Consuelo as though imploring her permission to take his leave, but her face was impenetrable, calm and indifferent. Del Ferice understood perfectly what was taking place, but he found a moment while Orsino hesitated. If the latter had known how completely he was in Del Ferice's power throughout the little scene, he would have then and there thrown over his financial schemes in favour of Maria Consuelo. But Del Ferice's quiet, friendly manner did not suggest despotism, and he did not suffer Orsino's embarrassment to last more than five seconds. "I have a little proposition to make," said the fat count, turning again to Maria Consuelo. "My wife and I are alone this evening. Will you not come and dine with us, Madame? And you, Don Orsino, will you not come too? We shall just make a party of four, if you will both come." "I shall be enchanted!" exclaimed Maria Consuelo without hesitation. "I shall be delighted!" answered Orsino with an alacrity which surprised himself. "At eight then," said Del Ferice, shaking hands with him again, and in a moment he was gone. Orsino was too much confused, and too much delighted at having escaped so easily from his difficulty to realise the importance of the step he was taking in going to Del Fence's house, or to ask himself why the latter had so opportunely extended the invitation. He sat down in his place with a sigh of relief. "You have compromised yourself for ever," said Maria Consuelo with a scornful laugh. "You, the blackest of the Black, are to be numbered henceforth with the acquaintances of Count Del Ferice and Donna Tullia." "What difference does it make? Besides, I could not have done otherwise." "You might have refused the dinner." "I could not possibly have done that. To accept was the only way out of a great difficulty." "What difficulty?" asked Maria Consuelo relentlessly. Orsino was silent, wondering how he could explain, as explain he must, without offending her. "You should not do such things," she said suddenly. "I will not always forgive you." A gleam of light which, indeed, promised little forgiveness, flashed in her eyes. "What things?" asked Orsino. "Do not pretend that you think me so simple," she said, in a tone of irritation. "You and Del Ferice come here almost at the same moment. When he goes, you show the utmost anxiety to go too. Of course you have agreed to meet here. It is evident. You might have chosen the steps of the hotel for your place of meeting instead of my sitting-room." The colour rose slowly in her cheeks. She was handsome when she was angry. "If I had imagined that you could be displeased--" "Is it so surprising? Have you forgotten what happened yesterday? You should be on your knees, asking my forgiveness for that--and instead, you make a convenience of your visit to-day in order to meet a man of business. You have very strange ideas of what is due to a woman." "Del Fence suggested it," said Orsino, "and I accepted the suggestion." "What is Del Ferice to me, that I should be made the victim of his suggestions, as you call them? Besides, he does not know anything of your folly of yesterday, and he has no right to suspect it." "I cannot tell you how sorry I am." "And yet you ought to tell me, if you expect that I will forget all this. You cannot? Then be so good as to do the only other sensible thing in your power, and leave me as soon as possible." "Forgive me, this once!" Orsino entreated in great distress, but not finding any words to express his sense of humiliation. "You are not eloquent," she said scornfully. "You had better go. Do not come to the dinner this evening, either. I would rather not see you. You can easily make an excuse." Orsino recovered himself suddenly. "I will not go away now, and I will not give up the dinner to-night," he said quietly. "I cannot make you do either--but I can leave you," said Maria Consuelo, with a movement as though she were about to rise from her chair. "You will not do that," Orsino answered. She raised her eyebrows in real or affected surprise at his persistence. "You seem very sure of yourself," she said. "Do not be so sure of me." "I am sure that I love you. Nothing else matters." He leaned forward and took her hand, so quickly that she had not time to prevent him. She tried to draw it away, but he held it fast. "Let me go!" she cried. "I will call, if you do not!" "Call all Rome if you will, to see me ask your forgiveness. Consuelo--do not be so hard and cruel--if you only knew how I love you, you would be sorry for me, you would see how I hate myself, how I despise myself for all this--" "You might show a little more feeling," she said, making a final effort to disengage her hand, and then relinquishing the struggle. Orsino wondered whether he were really in love with her or not. Somehow, the words he sought did not rise to his lips, and he was conscious that his speech was not of the same temperature, so to say, as his actions. There was something in Maria Consuelo's manner which disturbed him disagreeably, like a cold draught blowing unexpectedly through a warm room. Still he held her hand and endeavoured to rise to the occasion. "Consuelo!" he cried in a beseeching tone. "Do not send me away--see how I am suffering--it is so easy for you to say that you forgive!" She looked at him a moment, and her eyelids drooped suddenly. "Will you let me go, if I forgive you?" she asked in a low voice. "Yes." "I forgive you then. Well? Do you still hold my hand?" "Yes." He leaned forward and tried to draw her toward him, looking into her eyes. She yielded a little, and their faces came a little nearer to each other, and still a little nearer. All at once a deep blush rose in her cheeks, she turned her head away and drew back quickly. "Not for all the world!" she exclaimed, in a tone that was new to Orsino's ear. He tried to take her hand again, but she would not give it. "No, no! Go--you are not to be trusted!" she cried, avoiding him. "Why are you so unkind?" he asked, almost passionately. "I have been kind enough for this day," she answered. "Pray go--do not stay any longer--I may regret it." "My staying?" "No--my kindness. And do not come again for the present. I would rather see you at Del Ferice's than here." Orsino was quite unable to understand her behaviour, and an older and more experienced man might have been almost as much puzzled as he. A long silence followed, during which he sat quite still and she looked steadily at the cover of a book which lay on the table. "Please go," she said at last, in a voice which was not unkind. Orsino rose from his seat and prepared to obey her, reluctantly enough and feeling that he was out of tune with himself and with everything. "Will you not even tell me why you send me away?" he asked. "Because I wish to be alone," she answered. "Good-bye." She did not look up as he left the room, and when he was gone she did not move from her place, but sat as she had sat before, staring at the yellow cover of the novel on the table. Orsino went home in a very unsettled frame of mind, and was surprised to find that the lighted streets looked less bright and cheerful than on the previous evening, and his own immediate prospects far less pleasing. He was angry with himself for having been so foolish as to make his visit to Maria Consuelo a mere appointment with Del Ferice, and he was surprised beyond measure to find himself suddenly engaged in a social acquaintance with the latter, when he had only meant to enter into relations of business with him. Yet it did not occur to him that Del Ferice had in any way entrapped him into accepting the invitation. Del Ferice had saved him from a very awkward situation. Why? Because Del Ferice had seen the gesture Maria Consuelo had made, and had understood it, and wished to give Orsino another opportunity of discussing his project. But if Del Ferice had seen the quick sign, he had probably interpreted it in a way compromising to Madame d'Aranjuez. This was serious, though it was assuredly not Orsino's fault if she compromised herself. She might have let him go without question, and since an explanation of some sort was necessary she might have waited until the next day to demand it of him. He resented what she had done, and yet within the last quarter of an hour, he had been making a declaration of love to her. He was further conscious that the said declaration had been wholly lacking in spirit, in passion and even in eloquence. He probably did not love her after all, and with an attempt at his favourite indifference he tried to laugh at himself. But the effort was not successful, and he felt something approaching to pain as he realised that there was nothing to laugh at. He remembered her eyes and her face and the tones of her voice, and he imagined that if he could turn back now and see her again, he could say in one breath such things as would move a statue to kisses. The very phrases rose to his lips and he repeated them to himself as he walked along. Most unaccountable of all had been Maria Consuelo's own behaviour. Her chief preoccupation seemed to have been to get rid of him as soon as possible. She had been very seriously offended with him to-day, much more deeply, indeed, than yesterday, though, the cause appeared to his inexperience to be a far less adequate one. It was evident, he thought, that she had not really pardoned his want of tact, but had yielded to the necessity of giving a reluctant forgiveness, merely because she did not wish to break off her acquaintance with him. On the other hand, she had allowed him to say again and again that he loved her, and she had not forbidden him to call her by her name. He had always heard that it was hard to understand women, and he began to believe it. There was one hypothesis which he had not considered. It was faintly possible that she loved him already, though he was slow to believe that, his vanity lying in another direction. But even if she did, matters were not clearer. The supposition could not account for her sending him away so abruptly and with such evident intention. If she loved him, she would naturally, he supposed, wish him to stay as long as possible. She had only wished to keep him long enough to tell him how angry she was. He resented that again, for he was in the humour to resent most things. It was all extremely complicated, and Orsino began to think that he might find the complication less interesting than he had expected a few hours earlier. He had little time for reflection either, since he was to meet both Maria Consuelo and Del Ferice at dinner. He felt as though the coming evening were in a measure to decide his future existence, and it was indeed destined to exercise a great influence upon his life, as any person not disturbed by the anxieties which beset him might easily have foreseen. Before leaving the house he made an excuse to his mother, saying that he had unexpectedly been asked to dine with friends, and at the appointed hour he rang at Del Ferice's door. CHAPTER XII. Orsino looked about him with some curiosity as he entered Del Fence's abode. He had never expected to find himself the guest of Donna Tullia and her husband and when he took the robust countess's hand he was inclined to wish that the whole affair might turn out to be a dream. In vain he repeated to himself that he was no longer a boy, but a grown man, of age in the eyes of the law to be responsible for his own actions, and old enough in fact to take what steps he pleased for the accomplishment of his own ends. He found no solace in the reflection, and he could not rid himself of the idea that he had got himself into a very boyish scrape. It would indeed have been very easy to refuse Del Ferice's invitation and to write him a note within the hour explaining vaguely that circumstances beyond his control obliged him to ask another interview for the discussion of business matters. But it was too late now. He was exchanging indifferent remarks with Donna Tullia, while Del Ferice looked on benignantly, and all three waited for Madame d'Aranjuez. Five minutes had not elapsed before she came, and her appearance momentarily dispelled Orsino's annoyance at his own rashness. He had never before seen her dressed for the evening, and he had not realised how much to her advantage the change from the ordinary costume, or the inevitable "tea-garment," to a dinner gown would be. She was assuredly not over-dressed, for she wore black without colours and her only ornament was a single string of beautiful pearls which Donna Tullia believed to be false, but which Orsino accepted as real. Possibly he knew even more about pearls than the countess, for his mother had many and wore them often, whereas Donna Tullia preferred diamonds and rubies. But his eyes did not linger on the necklace, for Maria Consuelo's whole presence affected him strangely. There was something light-giving and even dazzling about her which he had not expected, and he understood for the first time that the language of the newspaper paragraphs was not so grossly flattering as he had supposed. In spite of the great artistic defects of feature, which could not long escape an observer of ordinary taste, it was clear that Maria Consuelo must always be a striking and central figure in any social assembly, great or small. There had been moments in Orsino's acquaintance with her, when he had thought her really beautiful; as she now appeared, one of those moments seemed to have become permanent. He thought of what he had dared on the preceding day, his vanity was pleased and his equanimity restored. With a sense of pride which was very far from being delicate and was by no means well founded, he watched her as she walked in to dinner before him, leaning on Del Ferice's arm. "Beautiful--eh? I see you think so," whispered Donna Tullia in his ear. The countess treated him at once as an old acquaintance, which put him at his ease, while it annoyed his conscience. "Very beautiful," he answered, with a grave nod. "And so mysterious," whispered the countess again, just as they reached the door of the dining-room. "She is very fascinating--take care!" She tapped his arm familiarly with her fan and laughed, as he left her at her seat. "What are you two laughing at?" asked Del Ferice, smiling pleasantly as he surveyed the six oysters he found upon his plate, and considered which should be left until the last as the crowning tit-bit. He was fond of good eating, and especially fond of oysters as an introduction to the feast. "What we were laughing at? How indiscreet you are, Ugo! You always want to find out all my little secrets. Consuelo, my dear, do you like oysters, or do you not? That is the question. You do, I know--a little lemon and a very little red pepper--I love red, even to adoring cayenne!" Orsino glanced at Madame d'Aranjuez, for he was surprised to hear Donna Tullia call her by her first name. He had not known that the two women had reached the first halting place of intimacy. Maria Consuelo smiled rather vaguely as she took the advice in the shape of lemon juice and pepper. Del Ferice could not interrupt his enjoyment of the oysters by words, and Orsino waited for an opportunity of saying something witty. "I have lately formed the highest opinion of the ancient Romans," said Donna Tullia, addressing him. "Do you know why?" Orsino professed his ignorance. "Ugo tells me that in a recent excavation twenty cartloads of oyster shells were discovered behind one house. Think of that! Twenty cartloads to a single house! What a family must have lived there--indeed the Romans were a great people!" Orsino thought that Donna Tullia herself might pass for a heroine in future ages, provided that the shells of her victims were deposited together in a safe place. He laughed politely and hoped that the conversation might not turn upon archaeology, which was not his strong point. "I wonder how long it will be before modern Rome is excavated and the foreigner of the future pays a franc to visit the ruins of the modern house of parliament," suggested Maria Consuelo, who had said nothing as yet. "At the present rate of progress, I should think about two years would be enough," answered Donna Tullia. "But Ugo says we are a great nation. Ask him." "Ah, my angel, you do not understand those things," said Del Ferice. "How shall I explain? There is no development without decay of the useless parts. The snake casts its old skin before it appears with a new one. And there can be no business without an occasional crisis. Unbroken fair weather ends in a dead calm. Why do you take such a gloomy view, Madame?" "One should never talk of things--only people are amusing," said Donna Tullia, before Madame d'Aranjuez could answer. "Whom have you seen to-day, Consuelo? And you, Don Orsino? And you, Ugo? Are we to talk for ever of oysters, and business and snakes? Come, tell me, all of you, what everybody has told you. There must be something new. Of course that poor Carantoni is going to be married again, and the Princess Befana is dying, as usual, and the same dear old people have run away with each other, and all that. Of course. I wish things were not always just going to happen. One would like to hear what is said on the day after the events which never come off. It would be a novelty." Donna Tullia loved talk and noise, and gossip above all things, and she was not quite at her ease. The news that Orsino was to come to dinner had taken her breath away. Ugo had advised her to be natural, and she was doing her best to follow his advice. "As for me," he said, "I have been tormented all day, and have spent but one pleasant half hour. I was so fortunate as to find Madame d'Aranjuez at home, but that was enough to indemnify me for many sacrifices." "I cannot do better than say the same," observed Orsino, though with far less truth. "I believe I have read through a new novel, but I do not remember the title and I have forgotten the story." "How satisfactory!" exclaimed Maria Consuelo, with a little scorn. "It is the only way to read novels," answered Orsino, "for it leaves them always new to you, and the same one may be made to last several weeks." "I have heard it said that one should fear the man of one book," observed Maria Consuelo, looking at him. "For my part, I am more inclined to fear the woman of many." "Do you read much, my dear Consuelo?" asked Donna Tullia, laughing. "Perpetually." "And is Don Orsino afraid of you?" "Mortally," answered Orsino. "Madame d'Aranjuez knows everything." "Is she blue, then?" asked Donna Tullia. "What shall I say, Madame?" inquired Orsino, turning to Maria Consuelo. "Is it a compliment to compare you to the sky of Italy?" "For blueness?" "No--for brightness and serenity." "Thanks. That is pretty. I accept." "And have you nothing for me?" asked Donna Tullia, with an engaging smile. The other two looked at Orsino, wondering what he would say in answer to such a point-blank demand for flattery. "Juno is still Minerva's ally," he said, falling back upon mythology, though it struck him that Del Ferice would make a poor Jupiter, with his fat white face and dull eyes. "Very good!" laughed Donna Tullia. "A little classic, but I pressed you hard. You are not easily caught. Talking of clever men," she added with another meaning glance at Orsino, "I met your friend to-day, Consuelo." "My friend? Who is he?" "Spicca, of course. Whom did you think I meant? We always laugh at her," she said, turning to Orsino, "because she hates him so. She does not know him, and has never spoken to him. It is his cadaverous face that frightens her. One can understand that--we of old Rome, have been used to him since the deluge. But a stranger is horrified at the first sight of him. Consuelo positively dreads to meet him in the street. She says that he makes her dream of all sorts of horrors." "It is quite true," said Maria Consuelo, with a slight movement of her beautiful shoulders. "There are people one would rather not see, merely because they are not good to look at. He is one of them and if I see him coming I turn away." "I know, I told him so to-day," continued Donna Tullia cheerfully. "We are old friends, but we do not often meet nowadays. Just fancy! It was in that little antiquary's shop in the Monte Brianzo--the first on the left as you go, he has good things--and I saw a bit of embroidery in the window that took my fancy, so I stopped the carriage and went in. Who should be there but Spicca, hat and all, looking like old Father Time. He was bargaining for something--a wretched old bit of brass--bargaining, my dear! For a few sous! One may be poor, but one has no right to be mean--I thought he would have got the miserable antiquary's skin." "Antiquaries can generally take care of themselves," observed Orsino incredulously. "Oh, I daresay--but it looks so badly, you know. That is all I mean. When he saw me he stopped wrangling and we talked a little, while I had the embroidery wrapped up. I will show it to you after dinner. It is sixteenth century, Ugo says--a piece of a chasuble--exquisite flowers on claret-coloured satin, a perfect gem, so rare now that everything is imitated. However, that is not the point. It was Spicca. I was forgetting my story. He said the usual things, you know--that he had heard that I was very gay this year, but that it seemed to agree with me, and so on. And I asked him why he never came to see me, and as an inducement I told him of our great beauty here--that is you, Consuelo, so please look delighted instead of frowning--and I told him that she ought to hear him talk, because his face had frightened her so that she ran away when she saw him coming towards her in the street. You see, if one flatters his cleverness he does not mind being called ugly--or at least I thought not, until to-day. But to my consternation he seemed angry, and he asked me almost savagely if it were true that the Countess d'Aranjuez--that is what he called you, my dear--really tried to avoid him in the street. Then I laughed and said I was only joking, and he began to bargain again for the little brass frame and I went away. When I last heard his voice he was insisting upon seventy-five centimes, and the antiquary was jeering at him and asking a franc and a half. I wonder which got the better of the fight in the end. I will ask him the next time I see him." Del Ferice supported his wife with a laugh at her story, but it was not very genuine. He had unpleasant recollections of Spicca in earlier days, and his name recalled events which Ugo would willingly have forgotten. Orsino smiled politely, but resented the way in which Donna Tullia spoke of his father's old friend. As for Maria Consuelo, she was a little pale, and looked tired. But the countess was irrepressible, for she feared lest Orsino should go away and think her dull. "Of course we all really like Spicca," she said. "Every one does." "I do, for my part," said Orsino gravely. "I have a great respect for him, for his own sake, and he is one of my father's oldest friends." Maria Consuelo looked at him very suddenly, as though she were surprised by what he said. She did not remember to have heard him mention the melancholy old duellist. She seemed about to say something, but changed her mind. "Yes," said Ugo, turning the subject, "he is one of the old tribe that is dying out. What types there were in those days, and how those who are alive have changed! Do you remember, Tullia? But of course you cannot, my angel, it was far before your time." One of Ugo's favourite methods of pleasing his wife was to assert that she was too young to remember people who had indeed played a part as lately as after the death of her first husband. It always soothed her. "I remember them all," he continued. "Old Montevarchi, and Frangipani, and poor Casalverde--and a score of others." He had been on the point of mentioning old Astrardente, too, but checked himself. "Then there were the young ones, who are in middle age now," he went on, "such as Valdarno and the Montevarchi whom you know, as different from their former selves as you can well imagine. Society was different too." Del Ferice spoke thoughtfully and slowly, as though wishing that some one would interrupt him or take up the subject, for he felt that his wife's long story about Spicca and the antiquary had not been a success, and his instinct told him that Spicca had better not be mentioned again, since he was a friend of Orsino's and since his name seemed to exert a depressing influence on Maria Consuelo. Orsino came to the rescue and began to talk of current social topics in a way which showed that he was not so profoundly prejudiced by traditional ideas as Del Ferice had expected. The momentary chill wore off quickly enough, and when the dinner ended Donna Tullia was sure that it had been a success. They all returned to the drawing-room and then Del Ferice, without any remark, led Orsino away to smoke with him in a distant apartment. "We can smoke again, when we go back," he said. "My wife does not mind and Madame d'Aranjuez likes it. But it is an excuse to be alone together for a little while, and besides, my doctor makes me lie down for a quarter of an hour after dinner. You will excuse me?" Del Ferice extended himself upon a leathern lounge, and Orsino sat down in a deep easy-chair. "I was so sorry not to be able to come away with you to-day," said Orsino. "The truth is, Madame d'Aranjuez wanted some information and I was just going to explain that I would stay a little longer, when you asked us both to dinner. You must have thought me very forgetful." "Not at all, not at all," answered Del Ferice. "Indeed, I quite supposed that you were coming with me, when it struck me that this would be a much more pleasant place for talking. I cannot imagine why I had not thought of it before--but I have so many details to think of." Not much could be said for the veracity of either of the statements which the two men were pleased to make to each other, but Orsino had the small advantage of being nearer to the letter, if not to the spirit of the truth. Each, however, was satisfied with the other's tact. "And so, Don Orsino," continued Del Ferice after a short pause, "you wish to try a little operation in business. Yes. Very good. You have, as we said yesterday, a sum of money ample for a beginning. You have the necessary courage and intelligence. You need a practical assistant, however, and it is indispensable that the point selected for the first venture should be one promising speedy profit. Is that it?" "Precisely." "Very good, very good. I think I can offer you both the land and the partner, and almost guarantee your success, if you will be guided by me." "I have come to you for advice," said Orsino. "I will follow it gratefully. As for the success of the undertaking, I will assume the responsibility." "Yes. That is better. After all, everything is uncertain in such matters, and you would not like to feel that you were under an obligation to me. On the other hand, as I told you, I am selfish and cautious. I would rather not appear in the transaction." If any doubt as to Del Ferice's honesty of purpose crossed Orsino's mind at that moment, it was fully compensated by the fact that he himself distinctly preferred not to be openly associated with the banker. "I quite agree with you," he said. "Very well. Now for business. Do you know that it is sometimes more profitable to take over a half-finished building, than to begin a new one? Often, I assure you, for the returns are quicker and you get a great deal at half price. Now, the man whom I recommend to you is a practical architect, and was employed by a certain baker to build a tenement building in one of the new quarters. The baker dies, the house is unfinished, the heirs wish to sell it as it is--there are at least a dozen of them--and meanwhile the work is stopped. My advice is this. Buy this house, go into partnership with the unemployed architect, agreeing to give him a share of the profits, finish the building and sell it as soon as it is habitable. In six months you will get a handsome return." "That sounds very tempting," answered Orsino, "but it would need more capital than I have." "Not at all, not at all. It is a mere question of taking over a mortgage and paying stamp duty." "And how about the difference in ready money, which ought to go to the present owners?" "I see that you are already beginning to understand the principles of business," said Del Ferice, with an encouraging smile. "But in this case the owners are glad to get rid of the house on any terms by which they lose nothing, for they are in mortal fear of being ruined by it, as they probably will be if they hold on to it." "Then why should I not lose, if I take it?" "That is just the difference. The heirs are a number of incapable persons of the lower class, who do not understand these matters. If they attempted to go on they would soon find themselves entangled in the greatest difficulties. They would sink where you will almost certainly swim." Orsino was silent for a moment. There was something despicable, to his thinking, in profiting by the loss of a wretched baker's heirs. "It seems to me," he said presently, "that if I succeed in this, I ought to give a share of the profits to the present owners." Not a muscle of Del Ferice's face moved, but his dull eyes looked curiously at Orsino's young face. "That sort of thing is not commonly done in business," he said quietly, after a short pause. "As a rule, men who busy themselves with affairs do so in the hope of growing rich, but I can quite understand that where business is a mere pastime, as it is to be in your case, a man of generous instincts may devote the proceeds to charity." "It looks more like justice than charity to me," observed Orsino. "Call it what you will, but succeed first and consider the uses of your success afterwards. That is not my affair. The baker's heirs are not especially deserving people, I believe. In fact they are said to have hastened his death in the hope of inheriting his wealth and are disappointed to find that they have got nothing. If you wish to be philanthropic you might wait until you have cleared a large sum and then give it to a school or a hospital." "That is true," said Orsino. "In the meantime it is important to begin." "We can begin to-morrow, if you please. You will find me at the bank at mid-day. I will send for the architect and the notary and we can manage everything in forty-eight hours. Before the week is out you can be at work." "So soon as that?" "Certainly. Sooner, by hurrying matters a little." "As soon as possible then. And I will go to the bank at twelve o'clock to-morrow. A thousand thanks for all your good offices, my dear count." "It is a pleasure, I assure you." Orsino was so much pleased with Del Ferice's quick and business-like way of arranging matters that he began to look upon him as a model to imitate, so far as executive ability was concerned. It was odd enough that any one of his name should feel anything like admiration for Ugo, but friendship and hatred are only the opposite points at which the social pendulum pauses before it swings backward, and they who live long may see many oscillations. The two men went back to the drawing-room where Donna Tullia and Maria Consuelo were discussing the complicated views of the almighty dressmaker. Orsino knew that there was little chance of his speaking a word alone with Madame d'Aranjuez and resigned himself to the effort of helping the general conversation. Fortunately the time to be got over in this way was not long, as all four had engagements in the evening. Maria Consuelo rose at half-past ten, but Orsino determined to wait five minutes longer, or at least to make a show of meaning to do so. But Donna Tullia put out her hand as though she expected him to take his leave at the same time. She was going to a ball and wanted at least an hour in which to screw her magnificence up to the dancing pitch. The consequence was that Orsino found himself helping Maria Consuelo into the modest hired conveyance which awaited her at the gate. He hoped that she would offer him a seat for a short distance, but he was disappointed. "May I come to-morrow?" he asked, as he closed the door of the carriage. The night was not cold and the window was down. "Please tell the coachman to take me to the Via Nazionale," she said quickly. "What number?" "Never mind--he knows--I have forgotten. Good-night." She tried to draw up the window, but Orsino held his hand on it. "May I come to-morrow?" he asked again. "No." "Are you angry with me still?" "No." "Then why--" "Let me shut the window. Take your hand away." Her voice was very imperative in the dark. Orsino relinquished his hold on the frame, and the pane ran up suddenly into its place with a rattling noise. There was obviously nothing more to be said. "Via Nazionale. The Signora says you know the house," he called to the driver. The man looked surprised, shrugged his shoulders after the manner of livery stable coachmen and drove slowly off in the direction indicated. Orsino stood looking after the carriage and a few seconds later he saw that the man drew rein and bent down to the front window as though asking for orders. Orsino thought he heard Maria Consuelo's voice, answering the question, but he could not distinguish what she said, and the brougham drove on at once without taking a new direction. He was curious to know whither she was going, and the idea of following her suggested itself but he instantly dismissed it, partly because it seemed unworthy and partly, perhaps, because he was on foot, and no cab was passing within hail. Orsino was very much puzzled. During the dinner she had behaved with her usual cordiality but as soon as they were alone she spoke and acted as she had done in the afternoon. Orsino turned away and walked across the deserted square. He was greatly disturbed, for he felt a sense of humiliation and disappointment quite new to him. Young as he was, he had been accustomed already to a degree of consideration very different from that which Maria Consuelo thought fit to bestow, and it was certainly the first time in his life that a door--even the door of a carriage--had been shut in his face without ceremony. What would have been an unpardonable insult, coming from a man, was at least an indignity when it came from a woman. As Orsino walked along, his wrath rose, and he wondered why he had not been angry at once. "Very well," he said to himself. "She says she does not want me. I will take her at her word and I will not go to see her any more. We shall see what happens. She will find out that I am not a child, as she was good enough to call me to-day, and that I am not in the habit of having windows put up in my face. I have much more serious business on hand than making love to Madame d'Aranjuez." The more he reflected upon the situation, the more angry he grew, and when he reached the door of the club he was in a humour to quarrel with everything and everybody. Fortunately, at that early hour, the place was in the sole possession of half a dozen old gentlemen whose conversation diverted his thoughts though it was the very reverse of edifying. Between the stories they told and the considerable number of cigarettes he smoked while listening to them he was almost restored to his normal frame of mind by midnight, when four or five of his usual companions straggled in and proposed baccarat. After his recent successes he could not well refuse to play, so he sat down rather reluctantly with the rest. Oddly enough he did not lose, though he won but little. "Lucky at play, unlucky in love," laughed one of the men carelessly. "What do you mean?" asked Orsino, turning sharply upon the speaker. "Mean? Nothing," answered the latter in great surprise. "What is the matter with you, Orsino? Cannot one quote a common proverb?" "Oh--if you meant nothing, let us go on," Orsino answered gloomily. As he took up the cards again, he heard a sigh behind him and turning round saw that Spicca was standing at his shoulder. He was shocked by the melancholy count's face, though he was used to meeting him almost every day. The haggard and cadaverous features, the sunken and careworn eyes, contrasted almost horribly with the freshness and gaiety of Orsino's companions, and the brilliant light in the room threw the man's deadly pallor into strong relief. "Will you play, Count?" asked Orsino, making room for him. "Thanks--no. I never play nowadays," answered Spicca quietly. He turned and left the room. With all his apparent weakness his step was not unsteady, though it was slower than in the old days. "He sighed in that way because we did not quarrel," said the man whose quoted proverb had annoyed Orsino. "I am ready and anxious to quarrel with everybody to-night," answered Orsino. "Let us play baccarat--that is much better." Spicca left the club alone and walked slowly homewards to his small lodging in the Via della Croce. A few dying embers smouldered in the little fireplace which warmed his sitting-room. He stirred them slowly, took a stick of wood from the wicker basket, hesitated a moment, and then put it back again instead of burning it. The night was not cold and wood was very dear. He sat down under the light of the old lamp which stood upon the mantelpiece, and drew a long breath. But presently, putting his hand into the pocket of his overcoat in search of his cigarette case, he drew out something else which he had almost forgotten, a small something wrapped in coarse paper. He undid it and looked at the little frame of chiselled brass which Donna Tullia had found him buying in the afternoon, turning it over and over, absently, as though thinking of something else. Then he fumbled in his pockets again and found a photograph which he had also bought in the course of the day--the photograph of Gouache's latest portrait, obtained in a contraband fashion and with some difficulty from the photographer. Without hesitation Spicca took a pocket-knife and began to cut the head out, with that extraordinary neatness and precision which characterised him when he used any sharp instrument. The head just fitted the frame. He fastened it in with drops of sealing-wax and carefully burned the rest of the picture in the embers. The face of Maria Consuelo smiled at him in the lamplight, as he turned it in different ways so as to find the best aspect of it. Then he hung it on a nail above the mantelpiece just under a pair of crossed foils. "That man Gouache is a very clever fellow," he said aloud. "Between them, he and nature have made a good likeness." He sat down again and it was a long time before he made up his mind to take away the lamp and go to bed. CHAPTER XIII. Del Ferice kept his word and arranged matters for Orsino with a speed and skill which excited the latter's admiration. The affair was not indeed very complicated though it involved a deed of sale, the transfer of a mortgage and a deed of partnership between Orsino Saracinesca and Andrea Contini, architect, under the style "Andrea Contini and Company," besides a contract between this firm of the one party and the bank in which Del Ferice was a director, of the other, the partners agreeing to continue the building of the half-finished house, and the bank binding itself to advance small sums up to a certain amount for current expenses of material and workmen's wages. Orsino signed everything required of him after reading the documents, and Andrea Contini followed his example. The architect was a tall man with bright brown eyes, a dark and somewhat ragged beard, close cropped hair, a prominent, bony forehead and large, coarsely shaped, thin ears oddly set upon his head. He habitually wore a dark overcoat, of which the collar was generally turned up on one side and not on the other. Judging from the appearance of his strong shoes he had always been walking a long distance over bad roads, and when it had rained within the week his trousers were generally bespattered with mud to a considerable height above the heel. He habitually carried an extinguished cigar between his teeth of which he chewed the thin black end uneasily. Orsino fancied that he might be about eight and twenty years old, and was not altogether displeased with his appearance. He was not at all like the majority of his kind, who, in Rome at least, usually affect a scrupulous dandyism of attire and an uncommon refinement of manner. Whatever Contini's faults might prove to be, Orsino did not believe that they would turn out to be those of idleness or vanity. How far he was right in his judgment will appear before long, but he conceived his partner to be gifted, frank, enthusiastic and careless of outward forms. As for the architect himself, he surveyed Orsino with a sort of sympathetic curiosity which the latter would have thought unpleasantly familiar if he had understood it. Contini had never spoken before with any more exalted personage than Del Ferice, and he studied the young aristocrat as though he were a being from another world. He hesitated some time as to the proper mode of addressing him and at last decided to call him "Signor Principe." Orsino seemed quite satisfied with this, and the architect was inwardly pleased when the young man said "Signor Contini" instead of Contini alone. It was quite clear that Del Ferice had already acquainted him with all the details of the situation, for he seemed to understand all the documents at a glance, picking out and examining the important clauses with unfailing acuteness, and pointing with his finger to the place where Orsino was to sign his name. At the end of the interview Orsino shook hands with Del Ferice and thanked him warmly for his kindness, after which, he and his partner went out together. They stood side by side upon the pavement for a few seconds, each wondering what the other was going to say. "Perhaps we had better go and look at the house, Signor Principe," observed Contini, in the midst of an ineffectual effort to light the stump of his cigar. "I think so, too," answered Orsino, realising that since he had acquired the property it would be as well to know how it looked. "You see I have trusted my adviser entirely in the matter, and I am ashamed to say I do not know where the house is." Andrea Contini looked at him curiously. "This is the first time that you have had anything to do with business of this kind, Signor Principe," he observed. "You have fallen into good hands." "Yours?" inquired Orsino, a little stiffly. "No. I mean that Count Del Ferice is a good adviser in this matter." "I hope so." "I am sure of it," said Contini with conviction. "It would be a great surprise to me if we failed to make a handsome profit by this contract." "There is luck and ill-luck in everything," answered Orsino, signalling to a passing cab. The two men exchanged few words as they drove up to the new quarter in the direction indicated to the driver by Contini. The cab entered a sort of broad lane, the sketch of a future street, rough with the unrolled metalling of broken stones, the space set apart for the pavement being an uneven path of trodden brown earth. Here and there tall detached houses rose out of the wilderness, mostly covered by scaffoldings and swarming with workmen, but hideous where so far finished as to be visible in all the isolation of their six-storied nakedness. A strong smell of lime, wet earth and damp masonry was blown into Orsino's nostrils by the scirocco wind. Contini stopped the cab before an unpromising and deserted erection of poles, boards and tattered matting. "This is our house," he said, getting out and immediately making another attempt to light his cigar. "May I offer you a cigarette?" asked Orsino, holding out his case. Contini touched his hat, bowed a little awkwardly and took one of the cigarettes, which he immediately transferred to his coat pocket. "If you will allow me I will smoke it by and by," he said. "I have not finished my cigar." Orsino stood on the slippery ground beside the stones and contemplated his purchase. All at once his heart sank and he felt a profound disgust for everything within the range of his vision. He was suddenly aware of his own total and hopeless ignorance of everything connected with building, theoretical or practical. The sight of the stiff, angular scaffoldings, draped with torn straw mattings that flapped fantastically in the south-east wind, the apparent absence of anything like a real house behind them, the blades of grass sprouting abundantly about the foot of each pole and covering the heaps of brown pozzolana earth prepared for making mortar, even the detail of a broken wooden hod before the boarded entrance--all these things contributed at once to increase his dismay and to fill him with a bitter sense of inevitable failure. He found nothing to say, as he stood with his hands in his pockets staring at the general desolation, but he understood for the first time why women cry for disappointment. And moreover, this desolation was his own peculiar property, by deed of purchase, and he could not get rid of it. Meanwhile Andrea Contini stood beside him, examining the scaffoldings with his bright brown eyes, in no way disconcerted by the prospect. "Shall we go in?" he asked at last. "Do unfinished houses always look like this?" inquired Orsino, in a hopeless tone, without noticing his companion's proposition. "Not always," answered Contini cheerfully. "It depends upon the amount of work that has been done, and upon other things. Sometimes the foundations sink and the buildings collapse." "Are you sure nothing of the kind has happened here?" asked Orsino with increasing anxiety. "I have been several times to look at it since the baker died and I have not noticed any cracks yet," answered the architect, whose coolness seemed almost exasperating. "I suppose you understand these things, Signor Contini?" Contini laughed, and felt in his pockets for a crumpled paper box of wax-lights. "It is my profession," he answered. "And then, I built this house from the foundations. If you will come in, Signor Principe, I will show you how solidly the work is done." He took a key from his pocket and thrust it into a hole in the boarding, which latter proved to be a rough door and opened noisily upon rusty hinges. Orsino followed him in silence. To the young man's inexperienced eye the interior of the building was even more depressing than the outside. It smelt like a vault, and a dim grey light entered the square apertures from the curtained scaffoldings without, just sufficient to help one to find a way through the heaps of rubbish that covered the unpaved floors. Contini explained rapidly and concisely the arrangement of the rooms, calling one cave familiarly a dining-room and another a "conjugal bedroom," as he expressed it, and expatiating upon the facilities of communication which he himself had carefully planned. Orsino listened in silence and followed his guide patiently from place to place, in and out of dark passages and up flights of stairs as yet unguarded by any rail, until they emerged upon a sort of flat terrace intersected by low walls, which was indeed another floor and above which another story and a garret were yet to be built to complete the house. Orsino looked gloomily about him, lighted a cigarette and sat down upon a bit of masonry. "To me, it looks very like failure," he remarked. "But I suppose there is something in it." "It will not look like failure next month," said Contini carelessly. "Another story is soon built, and then the attic, and then, if you like, a Gothic roof and a turret at one corner. That always attracts buyers first and respectable lodgers afterwards." "Let us have a turret, by all means," answered Orsino, as though his tailor had proposed to put an extra button on the cuff of his coat. "But how in the world are you going to begin? Everything looks to me as though it were falling to pieces." "Leave all that to me, Signor Principe. We will begin to-morrow. I have a good overseer and there are plenty of workmen to be had. We have material for a week at least, and paid for, excepting a few cartloads of lime. Come again in ten days and you will see something worth looking at." "In ten days? And what am I to do in the meantime?" asked Orsino, who fancied that he had found an occupation. Andrea Contini looked at him in some surprise, not understanding in the least what he meant. "I mean, am I to have nothing to do with the work?" asked Orsino. "Oh--as far as that goes, you will come every day, Signor Principe, if it amuses you, though as you are not a practical architect, your assistance is not needed until questions of taste have to be considered, such as the Gothic roof for instance. But there are the accounts to be kept, of course, and there is the business with the bank from week to week, office work of various kinds. That becomes naturally your department, as the practical superintendence of the building is mine, but you will of course leave it to the steward of the Signor Principe di Sant' Ilario, who is a man of affairs." "I will do nothing of the kind!" exclaimed Orsino. "I will do it myself. I will learn how it is done. I want occupation." "What an extraordinary wish!" Andrea Contini opened his eyes in real astonishment. "Is it? You work. Why should not I?" "I must, and you need not, Signor Principe," observed the architect. "But if you insist, then you had better get a clerk to explain the details to you at first." "Do you not understand them? Can you not teach me?" asked Orsino, displeased with the idea of employing a third person. "Oh yes--I have been a clerk myself. I should be too much honoured but--the fact is, my spare time--" He hesitated and seemed reluctant to explain. "What do you do with your spare time?" asked Orsino, suspecting some love affair. "The fact is--I play a second violin at one of the theatres--and I give lessons on the mandolin, and sometimes I do copying work for my uncle who is a clerk in the Treasury. You see, he is old, and his eyes are not as good as they were." Orsino began to think that his partner was a very odd person. He could not help smiling at the enumeration of his architect's secondary occupations. "You are very fond of music, then?" he asked. "Eh--yes--as one can be, without talent--a little by necessity. To be an architect one must have houses to build. You see the baker died unexpectedly. One must live somehow." "And could you not--how shall I say? Would you not be willing to give me lessons in book-keeping instead of teaching some one else to play the mandolin?" "You would not care to learn the mandolin yourself, Signor Principe? It is a very pretty instrument, especially for country parties, as well as for serenading." Orsino laughed. He did not see himself in the character of a mandolinist. "I have not the slightest ear for music," he answered. "I would much rather learn something about business." "It is less amusing," said Andrea Contini regretfully. "But I am at your service. I will come to the office when work is over and we will do the accounts together. You will learn in that way very quickly." "Thank you. I suppose we must have an office. It is necessary, is it not?" "Indispensable--a room, a garret--anything. A habitation, a legal domicile, so to say." "Where do you live, Signor Contini? Would not your lodging do?" "I am afraid not, Signor Principe. At least not for the present. I am not very well lodged and the stairs are badly lighted." "Why not here, then?" asked Orsino, suddenly growing desperately practical, for he felt unaccountably reluctant to hire an office in the city. "We should pay no rent," said Contini. "It is an idea. But the walls are dry downstairs, and we only need a pavement, and plastering, and doors and windows, and papering and some furniture to make one of the rooms quite habitable. It is an idea, undoubtedly. Besides, it would give the house an air of being inhabited, which is valuable." "How long will all that take? A month or two?" "About a week. It will be a little fresh, but if you are not rheumatic, Signor Principe, we can try it." "I am not rheumatic," laughed Orsino, who was pleased with the idea of having his office on the spot, and apparently in the midst of a wilderness. "And I suppose you really do understand architecture, Signor Contini, though you do play the fiddle." In this exceedingly sketchy way was the firm of Andrea Contini and Company established and lodged, being at the time in a very shadowy state, theoretically and practically, though it was destined to play a more prominent part in affairs than either of the young partners anticipated. Orsino discovered before long that his partner was a man of skill and energy, and his spirits rose by degrees as the work began to advance. Contini was restless, untiring and gifted, such a character as Orsino had not yet met in his limited experience of the world. The man seemed to understand his business to the smallest details and could show the workmen how to mix mortar in the right proportions, or how to strengthen a scaffolding at the weak point much better than the overseer or the master builder. At the books he seemed to be infallible, and he possessed, moreover, such a power of stating things clearly and neatly that Orsino actually learnt from him in a few weeks what he would have needed six months to learn anywhere else. As soon as the first dread of failure wore off, Orsino discovered that he was happier than he had ever been in the course of his life before. What he did was not, indeed, of much use in the progress of the office work and rather hindered than helped Contini, who was obliged to do everything slowly and sometimes twice over in order to make his pupil understand; but Orsino had a clear and practical mind, and did not forget what he had learned once. An odd sort of friendship sprang up between the two men, who under ordinary circumstances would never have met, or known each other by sight. The one had expected to find in his partner an overbearing, ignorant patrician; the other had supposed that his companion would turn out a vulgar, sordid, half-educated builder. Both were equally surprised when each discovered the truth about the other. Though Orsino was reticent by nature, he took no especial pains to conceal his goings and comings, but as his occupation took him out of the ordinary beat followed by his idle friends, it was a long time before any of them discovered that he was engaged in practical business. In his own home he was not questioned, and he said nothing. The Saracinesca were considered eccentric, but no one interfered with them nor ventured to offer them suggestions. If they chose to allow their heir absolute liberty of action, merely because he had passed his twenty-first birthday, it was their own concern, and his ruin would be upon their own heads. No one cared to risk a savage retort from the aged prince, or a cutting answer from Sant' Ilario for the questionable satisfaction of telling either that Orsino was going to the bad. The only person who really knew what Orsino was about, and who could have claimed the right to speak to his family of his doings was San Giacinto, and he held his peace, having plenty of important affairs of his own to occupy him and being blessed with an especial gift for leaving other people to themselves. Sant' Ilario never spied upon his son, as many of his contemporaries would have done in his place. He preferred to trust him to his own devices so long as these led to no great mischief. He saw that Orsino was less restless than formerly, that he was less at the club, and that he was stirring earlier in the morning than had been his wont, and he was well satisfied. It was not to be expected, however, that Orsino should take Maria Consuelo literally at her word, and cease from visiting her all at once. If not really in love with her, he was at least so much interested in her that he sorely missed the daily half hour or more which he had been used to spend in her society. Three several times he went to her hotel at the accustomed hour, and each time he was told by the porter that she was at home; but on each occasion, also, when he sent up his card, the hotel servant returned with a message from the maid to the effect that Madame d'Aranjuez was tired and did not receive. Orsino's pride rebelled equally against making a further attempt and against writing a letter requesting an explanation. Once only, when he was walking alone she passed him in a carriage, and she acknowledged his bow quietly and naturally, as though nothing had happened. He fancied she was paler than usual, and that there were shadows under her eyes which he had not formerly noticed. Possibly, he thought, she was really not in good health, and the excuses made through her maid were not wholly invented. He was conscious that his heart beat a little faster as he watched the back of the brougham disappearing in the distance, but he did not feel an irresistible longing to make another and more serious attempt to see her. He tried to analyse his own sensations, and it seemed to him that he rather dreaded a meeting than desired it, and that he felt a certain humiliation for which he could not account. In the midst of his analysis, his cigarette went out and he sighed. He was startled by such an expression of feeling, and tried to remember whether he had ever sighed before in his life, but if he had, he could not recall the circumstances. He tried to console himself with the absurd supposition that he was sleepy and that the long-drawn breath had been only a suppressed yawn. Then he walked on, gazing before him into the purple haze that filled the deep street just as the sun was setting, and a vague sadness and longing touched him which had no place in his catalogue of permissible emotions and which were as far removed from the cold cynicism which he admired in others and affected in himself as they were beyond the sphere of his analysis. There is an age, not always to be fixed exactly, at which the really masculine nature craves the society of womankind, in one shape or another, as a necessity of existence, and by the society of womankind no one means merely the daily and hourly social intercourse which consists in exchanging the same set of remarks half a dozen times a day with as many beings of gentle sex who, to the careless eye of ordinary man, differ from each other in dress rather than in face or thought. There are eminently manly men, that is to say men fearless, strong, honourable and active, to whom the common five o'clock tea presents as much distraction and offers as much womanly sympathy as they need; who choose their intimate friends among men, rather than among women, and who die at an advanced age without ever having been more than comfortably in love--and of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. The masculine man may be as brave, as strong and as scrupulously just in all his dealings, but on the other hand he may be weak, cowardly and a cheat, and he is apt to inherit the portion of sinners, whatever his moral characteristics may be, good or bad. Orsino was certainly not unmanly, but he was also eminently masculine and he began to suffer from the loss of Maria Consuelo's conversation in a way that surprised himself. His acquaintance with her, to give it a mild name, had been the first of the kind which he had enjoyed, and it contrasted too strongly with the crude experiences of his untried youth not to be highly valued by him and deeply regretted. He might pretend to laugh at it, and repeat to himself that his Egeria had been but a very superficial person, fervent in the reading of the daily novel and possibly not even worldly wise; he did not miss her any the less for that. A little sympathy and much patience in listening will go far to make a woman of small gifts indispensable even to a man of superior talent, especially when he thinks himself misunderstood in his ordinary surroundings. The sympathy passes for intelligence and the patience for assent and encouragement--a touch of the hand, and there is friendship, a tear, a sigh, and devotion stands upon the stage, bearing in her arms an infant love who learns to walk his part at the first suspicion of a kiss. Orsino did not imagine that he had exhausted the world's capabilities of happiness. The age of Byronism, as it used to be called, is over. Possibly tragedies are more real and frequent in our day than when the century was young; at all events those which take place seem to draw a new element of horror from those undefinable, mechanical, prosaic, psuedo-scientific conditions which make our lives so different from those of our fathers. Everything is terribly sudden nowadays, and alarmingly quick. Lovers make love across Europe by telegraph, and poetic justice arrives in less than forty-eight hours by the Oriental Express. Divorce is our weapon of precision, and every pack of cards at the gaming table can distil a poison more destructive than that of the Borgia. The unities of time and place are preserved by wire and rail in a way which would have delighted the hearts of the old French tragics. Perhaps men seek dramatic situations in their own lives less readily since they have found out means of making the concluding act more swift, sudden and inevitable. At all events we all like tragedy less and comedy more than our fathers did, which, I think, shows that we are sadder and possibly wiser men than they. However this may be, Orsino was no more inclined to fancy himself unhappy than any of his familiar companions, though he was quite willing to believe that he understood most of life's problems, and especially the heart of woman. He continued to go into the world, for it was new to him and if he did not find exactly the sort of sympathy he secretly craved, he found at least a great deal of consideration, some flattery and a certain amount of amusement. But when he was not actually being amused, or really engaged in the work which he had undertaken with so much enthusiasm, he felt lonely and missed Maria Consuelo more than ever. By this time she had taken a position in society from which there could be no drawing back, and he gave up for ever the hope of seeing her in his own circle. She seemed to avoid even the grey houses where they might have met on neutral ground, and Orsino saw that his only chance of finding her in the world lay in going frequently and openly to Del Ferice's house. He had called on Donna Tullia after the dinner, of course, but he was not prepared to do more, and Del Ferice did not seem to expect it. Three or four weeks after he had entered into partnership with Andrea Contini, Orsino found himself alone with his mother in the evening. Corona was seated near the fire in her favourite boudoir, with a book in her hand, and Orsino stood warming himself on one side of the chimney-piece, staring into the flames and occasionally glancing at his mother's calm, dark face. He was debating whether he should stay at home or not. Corona became conscious that he looked at her from time to time and dropped her novel upon her knee. "Are you going out, Orsino?" she asked. "I hardly know," he answered. "There is nothing particular to do, and it is too late for the theatre." "Then stay with me. Let us talk." She looked at him affectionately and pointed to a low chair near her. He drew it up until he could see her face as she spoke, and then sat down. "What shall we talk about, mother?" he asked, with a smile. "About yourself, if you like, my dear. That is, if you have anything that you know I would like to hear. I am not curious, am I, Orsino? I never ask you questions about yourself." "No, indeed. You never tease me with questions--nor does my father either, for that matter. Would you really like to know what I am doing?" "If you will tell me." "I am building a house," said Orsino, looking at her to see the effect of the announcement. "A house?" repeated Corona in surprise. "Where? Does your father know about it?" "He said he did not care what I did." Orsino spoke rather bitterly. "That does not sound like him, my dear. Tell me all about it. Have you quarrelled with him, or had words together?" Orsino told his story quickly, concisely and with a frankness he would perhaps not have shown to any one else in the world, for he did not even conceal his connection with Del Ferice. Corona listened intently, and her deep eyes told him plainly enough that she was interested. On his part he found an unexpected pleasure in telling her the tale, and he wondered why it had never struck him that his mother might sympathise with his plans and aspirations. When he had finished, he waited for her first word almost as anxiously as he would have waited for an expression of opinion from Maria Consuelo. Corona did not speak at once. She looked into his eyes, smiled, patted his lean brown hand lovingly and smiled again before she spoke. "I like it," she said at last. "I like you to be independent and determined. You might perhaps have chosen a better man than Del Ferice for your adviser. He did something once--well, never mind! It was long ago and it did us no harm." "What did he do, mother? I know my father wounded him in a duel before you were married--" "It was not that. I would rather not tell you about it--it can do no good, and after all, it has nothing to do with the present affair. He would not be so foolish as to do you an injury now. I know him very well. He is far too clever for that." "He is certainly clever," said Orsino. He knew that it would be quite useless to question his mother further after what she had said. "I am glad that you do not think I have made a mistake in going into this business." "No. I do not think you have made a mistake, and I do not believe that your father will think so either when he knows all about it." "He need not have been so icily discouraging," observed Orsino. "He is a man, my dear, and I am a woman. That is the difference. Was San Giacinto more encouraging than he? No. They think alike, and San Giacinto has an immense experience besides. And yet they are both wrong. You may succeed, or you may fail--I hope you will succeed--but I do not care much for the result. It is the principle I like, the idea, the independence of the thing. As I grow old, I think more than I used to do when I was young." "How can you talk of growing old!" exclaimed Orsino indignantly. "I think more," said Corona again, not heeding him. "One of my thoughts is that our old restricted life was a mistake for us, and that to keep it up would be a sin for you. The world used to stand still in those days, and we stood at the head of it, or thought we did. But it is moving now and you must move with it or you will not only have to give up your place, but you will be left behind altogether." "I had no idea that you were so modern, dearest mother," laughed Orsino. He felt suddenly very happy and in the best of humours with himself. "Modern--no, I do not think that either your father or I could ever be that. If you had lived our lives you would see how impossible it is. The most I can hope to do is to understand you and your brothers as you grow up to be men. But I hate interference and I hate curiosity--the one breeds opposition and the other dishonesty--and if the other boys turn out to be as reticent as you, Orsino, I shall not always know when they want me. You do not realise how much you have been away from me since you were a boy, nor how silent you have grown when you are at home." "Am I, mother? I never meant to be." "I know it, dear, and I do not want you to be always confiding in me. It is not a good thing for a young man. You are strong and the more you rely upon yourself, the stronger you will grow. But when you want sympathy, if you ever do, remember that I have my whole heart full of it for you. For that, at least, come to me. No one can give you what I can give you, dear son." Orsino was touched and pressed her hand, kissing it more than once. He did not know whether in her last words she had meant any allusion to Maria Consuelo, or whether, indeed, she had been aware of his intimacy with the latter. But he did not ask the question of her nor of himself. For the moment he felt that a want in his nature had been satisfied, and he wondered again why he had never thought of confiding in his mother. They talked of his plans until it was late, and from that time they were more often together than before, each growing daily more proud of the other, though perhaps Orsino had better reasons for his pride than Corona could have found, for the love of mother for son is more comprehensive and not less blind than the passion of woman for man. CHAPTER XIV. The short Roman season was advancing rapidly to its premature fall, which is on Ash Wednesday, after which it struggles to hold up its head against the overwhelming odds of a severely observed Lent, to revive only spasmodically after Easter and to die a natural death on the first warm day. In that year, too, the fatal day fell on the fifteenth of February, and progressive spirits talked of the possibility of fixing the movable Feasts and Fasts of the Church in a more convenient part of the calendar. Easter might be made to fall in June, for instance, and society need not be informed of its inevitable and impending return to dust and ashes until it had enjoyed a good three months, or even four, of what an eminent American defines as "brass, sass, lies and sin." Rome was very gay that year, to compensate for the shortness of its playtime. Everything was successful, and every one was rich. People talked of millions less soberly than they had talked of thousands a few years earlier, and with less respect than they mentioned hundreds twelve months later. Like the vanity-struck frog, the franc blew itself up to the bursting point, in the hope of being taken for the louis, and momentarily succeeded, even beyond its own expectations. No one walked, though horse-flesh was enormously dear and a good coachman's wages amounted to just twice the salary of a government clerk. Men who, six months earlier, had climbed ladders with loads of brick or mortar, were now transformed into flourishing sub-contractors, and drove about in smart pony-carts, looking the picture of Italian prosperity, rejoicing in the most flashy of ties and smoking the blackest and longest of long black cigars. During twenty hours out of the twenty-four the gates of the city roared with traffic. From all parts of the country labourers poured in, bundle in hand and tools on shoulder to join in the enormous work and earn their share of the pay that was distributed so liberally. A certain man who believed in himself stood up and said that Rome was becoming one of the greatest of cities, and he smacked his lips and said that he had done it, and that the Triple Alliance was a goose which would lay many golden eggs. The believing bulls roared everything away before them, opposition, objections, financial experience, and the vanquished bears hibernated in secret places, sucking their paws and wondering what, in the name of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, would happen next. Distinguished men wrote pamphlets in the most distinguished language to prove that wealth was a baby capable of being hatched artificially and brought up by hand. Every unmarried swain who could find a bride, married her forthwith; those who could not followed the advice of an illustrious poet and, being over-anxious to take wives, took those of others. Everybody was decorated. It positively rained decorations and hailed grand crosses and enough commanders' ribbons were reeled out to have hanged half the population. The periodical attempt to revive the defunct carnival in the Corso was made, and the yet unburied corpse of ancient gaiety was taken out and painted, and gorgeously arrayed, and propped up in its seat to be a posthumous terror to its enemies, like the dead Cid. Society danced frantically and did all those things which it ought not to have done--and added a few more, unconsciously imitating Pico della Mirandola. Even those comparatively few families who, like the Saracinesca, had scornfully declined to dabble in the whirlpool of affairs, did not by any means refuse to dance to the music of success which filled the city with, such enchanting strains. The Princess Befana rose from her deathbed with more than usual vivacity and went to the length of opening her palace on two evenings in two successive weeks, to the intense delight of her gay and youthful heirs, who earnestly hoped that the excitement might kill her at last, and kill her beyond resurrection this time. But they were disappointed. She still dies periodically in winter and blooms out again in spring with the poppies, affording a perpetual and edifying illustration of the changes of the year, or, as some say, of the doctrine of immortality. On one of those memorable occasions she walked through a quadrille with the aged Prince Saracinesca, whereupon Sant' Ilario slipped his arm round Corona's waist and waltzed with her down the whole length of the ballroom and back again amidst the applause of his contemporaries and their children. If Orsino had had a wife he would have followed their example. As it was, he looked rather gloomily in the direction of a silent and high-born damsel with whom he was condemned to dance the cotillon at a later hour. So all went gaily on until Ash Wednesday extinguished the social flame, suddenly and beyond relighting. And still Orsino did not meet Maria Consuelo, and still he hesitated to make another attempt to find her at home. He began to wonder whether he should ever see her again, and as the days went by he almost wished that Donna Tullia would send him a card for her lenten evenings, at which Maria Consuelo regularly assisted as he learned from the papers. After that first invitation to dinner, he had expected that Del Ferice's wife would make an attempt to draw him into her circle; and, indeed, she would probably have done so had she followed her own instinct instead of submitting to the higher policy dictated by her husband. Orsino waited in vain, not knowing whether to be annoyed at the lack of consideration bestowed upon him, or to admire the tact which assumed that he would never wish to enter the Del Ferice circle. It is presumably clear that Orsino was not in love with Madame d'Aranjuez, and he himself appreciated the fact with a sense of disappointment. He was amazed at his own coldness and at the indifference with which he had submitted to what amounted to a most abrupt dismissal. He even went so far as to believe that Maria Consuelo had repulsed him designedly in the hope of kindling a more sincere passion. In that case she had been egregiously mistaken, he thought. He felt a curiosity to see her again before she left Rome, but it was nothing more than that. A new and absorbing interest had taken possession of him which at first left little room in his nature for anything else. His days were spent in the laborious study of figures and plans, broken only by occasional short but amusing conversations with Andrea Contini. His evenings were generally passed among a set of people who did not know Maria Consuelo except by sight and who had long ceased to ask him questions about her. Of late, too, he had missed his daily visits to her less and less, until he hardly regretted them at all, nor so much as thought of the possibility of renewing them. He laughed at the idea that his mother should have taken the place of a woman whom he had begun to love, and yet he was conscious that it was so, though he asked himself how long such a condition of things could last. Corona was far too wise to discuss his affairs with his father. He was too like herself for her to misunderstand him, and if she regarded the whole matter as perfectly harmless and as a legitimate subject for general conversation, she yet understood perfectly that having been once rebuffed by Sant' Ilario, Orsino must wish to be fully successful in his attempt before mentioning it again to the latter. And she felt so strongly in sympathy with her son that his work gradually acquired an intense interest for her, and she would have sacrificed much rather than see it fail. She did not on that account blame Giovanni for his discouraging view when Orsino had consulted him. Giovanni was the passion of her life and was not fallible in his impulses, though his judgment might sometimes be at fault in technical matters for which he cared nothing. But her love for her son was as great and sincere in its own way, and her pride in him was such as to make his success a condition of her future happiness. One of the greatest novelists of this age begins one of his greatest novels with the remark that "all happy families resemble each other, but that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own especial way." Generalities are dangerous in proportion as they are witty or striking, or both, and it may be asked whether the great Tolstoi has not fallen a victim to his own extraordinary power of striking and witty generalisations. Does the greatest of all his generalisations, the wide disclaimer of his early opinions expressed in the postscript subsequently attached by him to his _Kreutzer Sonata_, include also the words I have quoted, and which were set up, so to say, as the theme of his _Anna Karjenina_? One may almost hope so. I am no critic, but those words somehow seem to me to mean that only unhappiness can be interesting. It is not pleasant to think of the consequences to which the acceptance of such a statement might lead. There are no statistics to tell us whether the majority of living men and women are to be considered as happy or unhappy. But it does seem true that whereas a single circumstance can cause very great and lasting unhappiness, felicity is always dependent upon more than one condition and often upon so many as to make the explanation of it a highly difficult and complicated matter. Corona had assuredly little reason to complain of her lot during the past twenty years, but unruffled and perfect as it had seemed to her she began to see that there were sources of sorrow and satisfaction before her which had not yet poured their bitter or sweet streams into the stately river of her mature life. The new interest which Orsino had created for her became more and more absorbing, and she watched it and tended it, and longed to see it grow to greater proportions. The situation was strange in one way at least. Orsino was working and his mother was helping him to work in the hope of a financial success which neither of them wanted or cared for. Possibly the certainty that failure could entail no serious consequences made the game a more amusing if a less exciting one to play. "If I lose," said Orsino to her, "I can only lose the few thousands I invested. If I win, I will give you a string of pearls as a keepsake." "If you lose, dear boy," answered Corona, "it must be because you had not enough to begin with. I will give you as much as you need, and we will try again." They laughed happily together. Whatever chanced, things must turn out well. Orsino worked very hard, and Corona was very rich in her own right and could afford to help to any extent she thought necessary. She could, indeed, have taken the part of the bank and advanced him all the money he needed, but it seemed useless to interfere with the existing arrangements. In Lent the house had reached an important point in its existence. Andrea Contini had completed the Gothic roof and the turret which appeared to him in the first vision of his dream, but to which the defunct baker had made objections on the score of expense. The masons were almost all gone and another set of workmen were busy with finer tools moulding cornices and laying on the snow-white stucco. Within, the joiners and carpenters kept up a ceaseless hammering. One day Andrea Contini walked into the office after a tour of inspection, with a whole cigar, unlighted and intact, between his teeth. Orsino was well aware from this circumstance that something unusually fortunate had happened or was about to happen, and he rose from his books, as soon as he recognised the fair-weather signal. "We can sell the house whenever we like," said the architect, his bright brown eyes sparkling with satisfaction. "Already!" exclaimed Orsino who, though equally delighted at the prospect of such speedy success, regretted in his heart the damp walls and the constant stir of work which he had learned to like so well. "Already--yes. One needs luck like ours! The count has sent a man up in a cab to say that an acquaintance of his will come and look at the building to-day between twelve and one with a view to buying. The sooner we look out for some fresh undertaking, the better. What do you say, Don Orsino?" "It is all your doing, Contini. Without you I should still be standing outside and watching the mattings flapping in the wind, as I did on that never-to-be-forgotten first day." "I conceive that a house cannot be built without an architect," answered Contini, laughing, "and it has always been plain to me that there can be no architects without houses to build. But as for any especial credit to me, I refute the charge indignantly. I except the matter of the turret, which is evidently what has attracted the buyer. I always thought it would. You would never have thought of a turret, would you, Don Orsino?" "Certainly not, nor of many other things," answered Orsino, laughing. "But I am sorry to leave the place. I have grown into liking it." "What can one do? It is the way of the world--'lieto ricordo d'un amor che fù,'" sang Contini in the thin but expressive falsetto which seems to be the natural inheritance of men who play upon stringed instruments. He broke off in the middle of a bar and laughed, out of sheer delight at his own good fortune. In due time the purchaser came, saw and actually bought. He was a problematic personage with a disquieting nose, who spoke few words but examined everything with an air of superior comprehension. He looked keenly at Orsino but seemed to have no idea who he was and put all his questions to Contini. After agreeing to the purchase he inquired whether Andrea Contini and Company had any other houses of the same description building and if so where they were situated, adding that he liked the firm's way of doing things. He stipulated for one or two slight improvements, made an appointment for a meeting with the notaries on the following day and went off with a rather unceremonious nod to the partners. The name he left was that of a well-known capitalist from the south, and Contini was inclined to think he had seen him before, but was not certain. Within a week the business was concluded, the buyer took over the mortgage as Orsino and Contini had done and paid the difference in cash into the bank, which deducted the amounts due on notes of hand before handing the remainder to the two young men. The buyer also kept back a small part of the purchase money to be paid on taking possession, when the house was to be entirely finished. Andrea Contini and Company had realised a considerable sum of money. "The question is, what to do next," said Orsino thoughtfully. "We had better look about us for something promising," said his partner. "A corner lot in this same quarter. Corner houses are more interesting to build and people like them to live in because they can see two or three ways at once. Besides, a corner is always a good place for a turret. Let us take a walk--smoking and strolling, we shall find something." "A year ago, no doubt," answered Orsino, who was becoming worldly wise. "A year ago that would have been well enough. But listen to me. That house opposite to ours has been finished some time, yet nobody has bought it. What is the reason?" "It faces north and not south, as ours does, and it has not a Gothic roof." "My dear Contini, I do not mean to say that the Gothic roof has not helped us very much, but it cannot have helped us alone. How about those two houses together at the end of the next block. Balconies, travertine columns, superior doors and windows, spaces for hydraulic lifts and all the rest of it. Yet no one buys. Dry, too, and almost ready to live in, and all the joinery of pitch pine. There is a reason for their ill luck." "What do you think it is?" asked Contini, opening his eyes. "The land on which they are built was not in the hands of Del Ferice's bank, and the money that built them was not advanced by Del Ferice's bank, and Del Ferice's bank has no interest in selling the houses themselves. Therefore they are not sold." "But surely there are other banks in Rome, and private individuals--" "No, I do not believe that there are," said Orsino with conviction. "My cousin of San Giacinto thinks that the selling days are over, and I fancy he is right, except about Del Ferice, who is cleverer than any of us. We had better not deceive ourselves, Contini. Del Ferice sold our house for us, and unless we keep with him we shall not sell another so easily. His bank has a lot of half-finished houses on its hands secured by mortgages which are worthless until the houses are habitable. Del Ferice wants us to finish those houses for him, in order to recover their value. If we do it, we shall make a profit. If we attempt anything on our own account we shall fail. Am I right or not?" "What can I say? At all events you are on the safe side. But why has not the count given all this work to some old established firm of his acquaintance?" "Because he cannot trust any one as he can trust us, and he knows it." "Of course I owe the count a great deal for his kindness in introducing me to you. He knew all about me before the baker died, and afterwards I waited for him outside the Chambers one evening and asked him if he could find anything for me to do, but he did not give me much encouragement. I saw you speak to him and get into his carriage--was it not you?" "Yes--it was I," answered Orsino, remembering the tall man in an overcoat who had disappeared in the dusk on the evening when he himself had first sought Del Ferice. "Yes, and you see we are both under a sort of obligation to him which is another reason for taking his advice." "Obligations are humiliating!" exclaimed Contini impatiently. "We have succeeded in increasing our capital--your capital, Don Orsino--let us strike out for ourselves." "I think my reasons are good," said Orsino quietly. "And as for obligations, let us remember that we are men of business." It appears from this that the low-born Andrea Contini and the high and mighty Don Orsino Saracinesca were not very far from exchanging places so far as prejudice was concerned. Contini noticed the fact and smiled. "After all," he said, "if you can accept the situation, I ought to accept it, too." "It is a matter of business," said Orsino, returning to his argument. "There is no such thing as obligation where money is borrowed on good security and a large interest is regularly paid." It was clear that Orsino was developing commercial instincts. His grandfather would have died of rage on the spot if he could have listened to the young fellow's cool utterances. But Contini was not pleased and would not abandon his position so easily. "It is very well for you, Don Orsino," he said, vainly attempting to light his cigar. "You do not need the money as I do. You take it from Del Ferice because it amuses you to do so, not because you are obliged to accept it. That is the difference. The count knows It too, and knows that he is not conferring a favour but receiving one. You do him an honour in borrowing his money. He lays me under an obligation in lending it." "We must get money somewhere," answered Orsino with indifference. "If not from Del Ferice, then from some other bank. And as for obligations, as you call them, he is not the bank himself, and the bank does not lend its money in order to amuse me or to humiliate you, my friend. But if you insist, I shall say that the convenience is not on one side only. If Del Ferice supports us it is because we serve his interests. If he has done us a good turn, it is a reason why we should do him one, and build his houses rather than those of other people. You talk about my conferring a favour upon him. Where will he find another Andrea Contini and Company to make worthless property valuable for him? In that sense you and I are earning his gratitude, by the simple process of being scrupulously honest. I do not feel in the least humiliated, I assure you." "I cannot help it," replied Contini, biting his cigar savagely. "I have a heart, and it beats with good blood. Do you know that there is blood of Cola di Rienzo in my veins?" "No. You never told me," answered Orsino, one of whose forefathers had been concerned in the murder of the tribune, a fact to which he thought it best not to refer at the present moment. "And the blood of Cola di Rienzo burns under the shame of an obligation!" cried Contini, with a heat hardly warranted by the circumstances. "It is humiliating, it is base, to submit to be the tool of a Del Ferice--we all know who and what Del Ferice was, and how he came by his title of count, and how he got his fortune--a spy, an intriguer! In a good cause? Perhaps. I was not born then, nor you either, Signor Principe, and we do not know what the world was like, when it was quite another world. That is not a reason for serving a spy!" "Calm yourself, my friend. We are not in Del Ferice's service." "Better to die than that! Better to kill him at once and go to the galleys for a few years! Better to play the fiddle, or pick rags, or beg in the streets than that, Signor Principe. One must respect oneself. You see it yourself. One must be a man, and feel as a man. One must feel those things here, Signor Principe, here in the heart!" Contini struck his breast with his clenched fist and bit the end of his cigar quite through in his anger. Then he suddenly seized his hat and rushed out of the room. Orsino was less surprised at the outburst than might have been expected, and did not attach any great weight to his partner's dramatic rage. But he lit a cigarette and carefully thought over the situation, trying to find out whether there were really any ground for Contini's first remarks. He was perfectly well aware that as Orsino Saracinesca he would cut his own throat with enthusiasm rather than borrow a louis of Ugo Del Ferice. But as Andrea Contini and Company he was another person, and so Del Ferice was not Count Del Ferice, nor the Onorevole Del Ferice, but simply a director in a bank with which he had business. If the interests of Andrea Contini and Company were identical with those of the bank, there was no reason whatever for interrupting relations both amicable and profitable, merely because one member of the firm claimed to be descended from Cola di Bienzo, a defunct personage in whom Orsino felt no interest whatever. Andrea Contini, considering his social relations, might be on terms of friendship with his hatter, for instance, or might have personal reasons for disliking him. In neither case could the buying of a hat from that individual be looked upon as an obligation conferred or received by either party. This was quite clear, and Orsino was satisfied. "Business is business," he said to himself, "and people who introduce personal considerations into a financial transaction will get the worst of the bargain." Andrea Contini was apparently of the same opinion, for when he entered the room again at the end of an hour his excitement had quite disappeared. "If we take another contract from the count," he said, "is there any reason why we should not take a larger one, if it is to be had? We could manage three or four buildings now that you have become such a good bookkeeper." "I am quite of your opinion," Orsino answered, deciding at once to make no reference to what had gone before. "The only question is, whether we have capital enough for a margin." "Leave that to me." Orsino determined to consult his mother, in whose judgment he felt a confidence which he could not explain but which was not misplaced. The fact was simple enough. Corona understood him thoroughly, though her comprehension of his business was more than limited, and she did nothing in reality but encourage his own sober opinion when it happened to be at variance with some enthusiastic inclination which momentarily deluded him. That quiet pushing of a man's own better reason against his half considered but often headstrong impulses, is after all one of the best and most loving services which a wise woman can render to a man whom she loves, be he husband, son or brother. Many women have no other secret, and indeed there are few more valuable ones, if well used and well kept. But let not graceless man discover that it is used upon him. He will resent being led by his own reason far more than being made the senseless slave of a foolish woman's wildest caprice. To select the best of himself for his own use is to trample upon his free will. To send him barefoot to Jericho in search of a dried flower is to appeal to his heart. Man is a reasoning animal. Corona, as was to be expected, was triumphant in Orsino's first success, and spent as much time in talking over the past and the future with him as she could command during his own hours of liberty. He needed no urging to continue in the same course, but he enjoyed her happiness and delighted in her encouragement. "Contini wishes to take a large contract," he said to her, after the interview last described. "I agree with him, in a way. We could certainly manage a larger business." "No doubt," Corona answered thoughtfully, for she saw that there was some objection to the scheme in his own mind. "I have learned a great deal," he continued, "and we have much more capital than we had. Besides, I suppose you would lend me a few thousands if we needed them, would you not, mother?" "Certainly, my dear. You shall not be hampered by want of money." "And then, it is possible that we might make something like a fortune in a short time. It would be a great satisfaction. But then, too--" He stopped. "What then?" asked Corona, smiling. "Things may turn out differently. Though I have been successful this time, I am much more inclined to believe that San Giacinto was right than I was before I began. All this movement does not rest on a solid basis." A financier of thirty years' standing could not have made the statement more impressively, and Orsino was conscious that he was assuming an elderly tone. He laughed the next moment. "That is a stock phrase, mother," he continued. "But it means something. Everything is not what it should be. If the demand were as great as people say it is, there would not be half a dozen houses--better houses than ours--unsold in our street. That is why I am afraid of a big contract. I might lose all my money and some of yours." "It would not be of much consequence if you did," answered Corona. "But of course you will be guided by your own judgment, which, is much better than mine. One must risk something, of course, but there is no use in going into danger." "Nevertheless, I should enjoy a big venture immensely." "There is no reason why you should not try one, when the moment comes, my dear. I suppose that a few months will decide whether there is to be a crisis or not. In the meantime you might take something moderate, neither so small as the last, nor so large as you would like. You will get more experience, risk less and be better prepared for a crash if it comes, or to take advantage of anything favourable if business grows safer." Orsino was silent for a moment. "You are very wise, mother," he said. "I will take your advice." Corona had indeed acted as wisely as she could. The only flaw in her reasoning was her assertion that a few months would decide the fate of Roman affairs. If it were possible to predict a crisis even within a few months, speculation would be a less precarious business than it is. Orsino and his mother might have talked longer and perhaps to better purpose, but they were interrupted by the entrance of a servant, bearing a note. Corona instinctively put out her hand to receive it. "For Don Orsino," said the man, stopping before him. Orsino took the letter, looked at it and turned it over. "I think it is from Madame d'Aranjuez," he remarked, without emotion. "May I read it?" "There is no answer, Eccellenza," said the servant, whose curiosity was satisfied. "Read it, of course," said Corona, looking at him. She was surprised that Madame d'Aranjuez should write to him, but she was still more astonished to see the indifference with which he opened the missive. She had imagined that he was more or less in love with Maria Consuelo. "I fancy it is the other way," she thought. "The woman wants to marry him. I might have suspected it." Orsino read the note, and tossed it into the fire without volunteering any information. "I will take your advice, mother," he said, continuing the former conversation, as though nothing had happened. But the subject seemed to be exhausted, and before long Orsino made an excuse to his mother and went out. CHAPTER XV. There was nothing in the note burnt by Orsino which he might not have shown to his mother, since he had already told her the name of the writer. It contained the simple statement that Maria Consuelo was about to leave Rome, and expressed the hope that she might see Orsino before her departure as she had a small request to make of him, in the nature of a commission. She hoped he would forgive her for putting him to so much inconvenience. Though he betrayed no emotion in reading the few lines, he was in reality annoyed by them, and he wished that he might be prevented from obeying the summons. Maria Consuelo had virtually dropped the acquaintance, and had refused repeatedly and in a marked way to receive him. And now, at the last moment, when she needed something of him, she chose to recall him by a direct invitation. There was nothing to be done but to yield, and it was characteristic of Orsino that, having submitted to necessity, he did not put off the inevitable moment, but went to her at once. The days were longer now than they had been during the time when he had visited her every day, and the lamp was not yet on the table when Orsino entered the small sitting-room. Maria Consuelo was standing by the window, looking out into the street, and her right hand rested against the pane while her fingers tapped it softly but impatiently. She turned quickly as he entered, but the light was behind her and he could hardly see her face. She came towards him and held out her hand. "It is very kind of you to have come so soon," she said, as she took her old accustomed place by the table. Nothing was changed, excepting that the two or three new books at her elbow were not the same ones which had been there two months earlier. In one of them was thrust the silver paper-cutter with the jewelled handle, which Orsino had never missed. He wondered whether there were any reason for the unvarying sameness of these details. "Of course I came," he said. "And as there was time to-day, I came at once." He spoke rather coldly, still resenting her former behaviour and expecting that she would immediately say what she wanted of him. He would promise to execute the commission, whatever it might be, and after ten minutes of conversation he would take his leave. There was a short pause, during which he looked at her. She did not seem well. Her face was pale and her eyes were deep with shadows. Even her auburn hair had lost something of its gloss. Yet she did not look older than before, a fact which proved her to be even younger than Orsino had imagined. Saving the look of fatigue and suffering in her face, Maria Consuelo had changed less than Orsino during the winter, and she realised the fact at a glance. A determined purpose, hard work, the constant exertion of energy and will, and possibly, too, the giving up to a great extent of gambling and strong drinks, had told in Orsino's face and manner as a course of training tells upon a lazy athlete. The bold black eyes had a more quiet glance, the well-marked features had acquired strength and repose, the lean jaw was firmer and seemed more square. Even physically, Orsino had improved, though the change was undefinable. Young as he was, something of the power of mature manhood was already coming over his youth. "You must have thought me very--rude," said Maria Consuelo, breaking the silence and speaking with a slight hesitation which Orsino had never noticed before. "It is not for me to complain, Madame," he answered. "You had every right--" He stopped short, for he was reluctant to admit that she had been justified in her behaviour towards him. "Thanks," she said, with an attempt to laugh. "It is pleasant to find magnanimous people now and then. I do not want you to think that I was capricious. That is all." "I certainly do not think that. You were most consistent. I called three times and always got the same answer." He fancied that he heard her sigh, but she tried to laugh again. "I am not imaginative," she answered. "I daresay you found that out long go. You have much more imagination than I." "It is possible, Madame--but you have not cared to develop it." "What do you mean?" "What does it matter? Do you remember what you said when I bade you good-night at the window of your carriage after Del Ferice's dinner? You said that you were not angry with me. I was foolish enough to imagine that you were in earnest. I came again and again, but you would not see me. You did not encourage my illusion." "Because I would not receive you? How do you know what happened to me? How can you judge of my life? By your own? There is a vast difference." "Yes, indeed!" exclaimed Orsino almost impatiently. "I know what you are going to say. It will be flattering to me of course. The unattached young man is dangerous to the reputation. The foreign lady is travelling alone. There is the foundation of a vaudeville in that!" "If you must be unjust, at least do not be brutal," said Maria Consuelo in a low voice, and she turned her face away from him. "I am evidently placed in the world to offend you, Madame. Will you believe that I am sorry for it, though I only dimly comprehend my fault? What did I say? That you were wise in breaking off my visits, because you are alone here, and because I am young, unmarried and unfortunately a little conspicuous in my native city. Is it brutal to suggest that a young and beautiful woman has a right not to be compromised? Can we not talk freely for half an hour, as we used to talk, and then say good-bye and part good friends until you come to Rome again?" "I wish we could!" There was an accent of sincerity in the tone which pleased Orsino. "Then begin by forgiving me all my sins, and put them down to ignorance, want of tact, the inexperience of youth or a naturally weak understanding. But do not call me brutal on such slight provocation." "We shall never agree for a long time," answered Maria Consuelo thoughtfully. "Why not?" "Because, as I told you, there is too great a difference between our lives. Do not answer me as you did before, for I am right. I began by admitting that I was rude. If that is not enough I will say more--I will even ask you to forgive me--can I do more?" She spoke so earnestly that Orsino was surprised and almost touched. Her manner now was even less comprehensible than her repeated refusals to see him had been. "You have done far too much already," he said gravely. "It is mine to ask your forgiveness for much that I have done and said. I only wish that I understood you better." "I am glad you do not," replied Maria Consuelo, with a sigh which this time was not to be mistaken. "There is a sadness which it is better not to understand," she added softly. "Unless one can help to drive it away." He, too, spoke gently, his voice being attracted to the pitch and tone of hers. "You cannot do that--and if you could, you would not." "Who can tell?" The charm which he had formerly felt so keenly in her presence but which he had of late so completely forgotten, was beginning to return and he submitted to it with a sense of satisfaction which he had not anticipated. Though the twilight was coming on, his eyes had become accustomed to the dimness in the room and he saw every change in her pale, expressive face. She leaned back in her chair with eyes half closed. "I like to think that you would, if you knew how," she said presently. "Do you not know that I would?" She glanced quickly at him, and then, instead of answering, rose from her seat and called to her maid through one of the doors, telling her to bring the lamp. She sat down again, but being conscious that they were liable to interruption, neither of the two spoke. Maria Consuelo's fingers played with the silver knife, drawing it out of the book in which it lay and pushing it back again. At last she took it up and looked closely at the jewelled monogram on the handle. The maid entered, set the shaded lamp upon the table and glanced sharply at Orsino. He could not help noticing the look. In a moment she was gone, and the door closed behind her. Maria Consuelo looked over her shoulder to see that it had not been left ajar. "She is a very extraordinary person, that elderly maid of mine," she said. "So I should imagine from her face." "Yes. She looked at you as she passed and I saw that you noticed it. She is my protector. I never have travelled without her and she watches over me--as a cat watches a mouse." The little laugh that accompanied the words was not one of satisfaction, and the shade of annoyance did not escape Orsino. "I suppose she is one of those people to whose ways one submits because one cannot live without them," he observed. "Yes. That is it. That is exactly it," repeated Maria Consuelo. "And she is very strongly attached to me," she added after an instant's hesitation. "I do not think she will ever leave me. In fact we are attached to each other." She laughed again as though amused by her own way of stating the relation, and drew the paper-cutter through her hand two or three times. Orsino's eyes were oddly fascinated by the flash of the jewels. "I would like to know the history of that knife," he said, almost thoughtlessly. Maria Consuelo started and looked at him, paler even than before. The question seemed to be a very unexpected one. "Why?" she asked quickly. "I always see it on the table or in your hand," answered Orsino. "It is associated with you--I think of it when I think of you. I always fancy that it has a story." "You are right. It was given to me by a person who loved me." "I see--I was indiscreet." "No--you do not see, my friend. If you did you--you would understand many things, and perhaps it is better that you should not know them." "Your sadness? Should I understand that, too?" "No. Not that." A slight colour rose in her face, and she stretched out her hand to arrange the shade of the lamp, with a gesture long familiar to him. "We shall end by misunderstanding each other," she continued in a harder tone. "Perhaps it will be my fault. I wish you knew much more about me than you do, but without the necessity of telling you the story. But that is impossible. This paper-cutter--for instance, could tell the tale better than I, for it made people see things which I did not see." "After it was yours?" "Yes. After it was mine." "It pleases you to be very mysterious," said Orsino with a smile. "Oh no! It does not please me at all," she answered, turning her face away again. "And least of all with you--my friend." "Why least with me?" "Because you are the first to misunderstand. You cannot help it. I do not blame you." "If you would let me be your friend, as you call me, it would be better for us both." He spoke as he had assuredly not meant to speak when he had entered the room, and with a feeling that surprised himself far more than his hearer. Maria Consuelo turned sharply upon him. "Have you acted like a friend towards me?" she asked. "I have tried to," he answered, with more presence of mind than truth. Her tawny eyes suddenly lightened. "That is not true. Be truthful! How have you acted, how have you spoken with me? Are you ashamed to answer?" Orsino raised his head rather haughtily, and met her glance, wondering whether any man had ever been forced into such a strange position before. But though her eyes were bright, their look was neither cold nor defiant. "You know the answer," he said. "I spoke and acted as though I loved you, Madame, but since you dismissed me so very summarily, I do not see why you wish me to say so." "And you, Don Orsino, have you ever been loved--loved in earnest--by any woman?" "That is a very strange question, Madame." "I am discreet. You may answer it safely." "I have no doubt of that." "But you will not? No--that is your right. But it would be kind of you--I should be grateful if you would tell me--has any woman ever loved you dearly?" Orsino laughed, almost in spite of himself. He had little false pride. "It is humiliating, Madame. But since you ask the question and require a categorical answer, I will make my confession. I have never been loved. But you will observe, as an extenuating circumstance, that I am young. I do not give up all hope." "No--you need not," said Maria Consuelo in a low voice, and again she moved the shade of the lamp. Though Orsino was by no means fatuous, he must have been blind if he had not seen by this time that Madame d'Aranjuez was doing her best to make him speak as he had formerly spoken to her, and to force him into a declaration of love. He saw it, indeed, and wondered; but although he felt her charm upon him, from time to time, he resolved that nothing should induce him to relax even so far as he had done already more than once during the interview. She had placed him in a foolish position once before, and he would not expose himself to being made ridiculous again, in her eyes or his. He could not discover what intention she had in trying to lead him back to her, but he attributed it to her vanity. She regretted, perhaps, having rebuked him so soon, or perhaps she had imagined that he would have made further and more determined efforts to see her. Possibly, too, she really wished to ask a service of him, and wished to assure herself that she could depend upon him by previously extracting an avowal of his devotion. It was clear that one of the two had mistaken the other's character or mood, though it was impossible to say which was the one deceived. The silence which followed lasted some time, and threatened to become awkward. Maria Consuelo could not or would not speak and Orsino did not know what to say. He thought of inquiring what the commission might be with which, according to her note, she had wished to entrust him. But an instant's reflection told him that the question would be tactless. If she had invented the idea as an excuse for seeing him, to mention it would be to force her hand, as card-players say, and he had no intention of doing that. Even if she really had something to ask of him, he had no right to change the subject so suddenly. He bethought him of a better question. "You wrote me that you were going away," he said quietly. "But you will come back next winter, will you not, Madame?" "I do not know," she answered, vaguely. Then she started a little, as though understanding his words. "What am I saying!" she exclaimed. "Of course I shall come back." "Have you been drinking from the Trevi fountain by moonlight, like those mad English?" he asked, with a smile. "It is not necessary. I know that I shall come back--if I am alive." "How you say that! You are as strong as I--" "Stronger, perhaps. But then--who knows! The weak ones sometimes last the longest." Orsino thought she was growing very sentimental, though as he looked at her he was struck again by the look of suffering in her eyes. Whatever weakness she felt was visible there, there was nothing in the full, firm little hand, in the strong and easy pose of the head, in the softly coloured ear half hidden by her hair, that could suggest a coming danger to her splendid health. "Let us take it for granted that you will come back to us," said Orsino cheerfully. "Very well, we will take it for granted. What then?" The question was so sudden and direct that Orsino fancied there ought to be an evident answer to it. "What then?" he repeated, after a moment's hesitation. "I suppose you will live in these same rooms again, and with your permission, a certain Orsino Saracinesca will visit you from time to time, and be rude, and be sent away into exile for his sins. And Madame d'Aranjuez will go a great deal to Madame Del Ferice's and to other ultra-White houses, which will prevent the said Orsino from meeting her in society. She will also be more beautiful than ever, and the daily papers will describe a certain number of gowns which she will bring with her from Paris, or Vienna, or London, or whatever great capital is the chosen official residence of her great dressmaker. And the world will not otherwise change very materially in the course of eight months." Orsino laughed lightly, not at his own speech, which he had constructed rather clumsily under the spur of necessity, but in the hope that she would laugh, too, and begin to talk more carelessly. But Maria Consuelo was evidently not inclined for anything but the most serious view of the world, past, present and future. "Yes," she answered gravely. "I daresay you are right. One comes, one shows one's clothes, and one goes away again--and that is all. It would be very much the same if one did not come. It is a great mistake to think oneself necessary to any one. Only things are necessary--food, money and something to talk about." "You might add friends to the list," said Orsino, who was afraid of being called brutal again if he did not make some mild remonstrance to such a sweeping assertion. "Friends are included under the head of 'something to talk about,'" answered Maria Consuelo. "That is an encouraging view." "Like all views one gets by experience." "You grow more and more bitter." "Does the world grow sweeter as one grows older?" "Neither you nor I have lived long enough to know," answered Orsino. "Facts make life long--not years." "So long as they leave no sign of age, what does it matter?" "I do not care for that sort of flattery." "Because it is not flattery at all. You know the truth too well. I am not ingenious enough to flatter you, Madame. Perfection is not flattered when it is called perfect." "It is at all events impossible to exaggerate better than you can," answered Maria Consuelo, laughing at last at the overwhelming compliment. "Where did you learn that?" "At your feet, Madame. The contemplation of great masterpieces enlarges the intelligence and deepens the power of expression." "And I am a masterpiece--of what? Of art? Of caprice? Of consistency?" "Of nature," answered Orsino promptly. Again Maria Consuelo laughed a little, at the mere quickness of the answer. Orsino was delighted with himself, for he fancied he was leading her rapidly away from the dangerous ground upon which she had been trying to force him. But her next words showed him that he had not yet succeeded. "Who will make me laugh during all these months!" she exclaimed with a little sadness. Orsino thought she was strangely obstinate, and wondered what she would say next. "Dear me, Madame," he said, "if you are so kind as to laugh at my poor wit, you will not have to seek far to find some one to amuse you better!" He knew how to put on an expression of perfect simplicity when he pleased, and Maria Consuelo looked at him, trying to be sure whether he were in earnest or not. But his face baffled her. "You are too modest," she said. "Do you think it is a defect? Shall I cultivate a little more assurance of manner?" he asked, very innocently. "Not to-day. Your first attempt might lead you into extremes." "There is not the slightest fear of that, Madame," he answered with some emphasis. She coloured a little and her closed lips smiled in a way he had often noticed before. He congratulated himself upon these signs of approaching ill-temper, which promised an escape from his difficulty. To take leave of her suddenly was to abandon the field, and that he would not do. She had determined to force him into a confession of devotion, and he was equally determined not to satisfy her. He had tried to lead her off her track with frivolous talk and had failed. He would try and irritate her instead, but without incurring the charge of rudeness. Why she was making such an attack upon him, was beyond his understanding, but he resented it, and made up his mind neither to fly nor yield. If he had been a hundredth part as cynical as he liked to fancy himself, he would have acted very differently. But he was young enough to have been wounded by his former dismissal, though he hardly knew it, and to seek almost instinctively to revenge his wrongs. He did not find it easy. He would not have believed that such a woman as Maria Consuelo could so far forget her pride as to go begging for a declaration of love. "I suppose you will take Gouache's portrait away with you," he observed, changing the subject with a directness which he fancied would increase her annoyance. "What makes you think so?" she asked, rather drily. "I thought it a natural question." "I cannot imagine what I should do with it. I shall leave it with him." "You will let him send it to the Salon in Paris, of course?" "If he likes. You seem interested in the fate of the picture." "A little. I wondered why you did not have it here, as it has been finished so long." "Instead of that hideous mirror, you mean? There would be less variety. I should always see myself in the same dress." "No--on the opposite wall. You might compare truth with fiction in that way." "To the advantage of Gouache's fiction, you would say. You were more complimentary a little while ago." "You imagine more rudeness than even I am capable of inventing." "That is saying much. Why did you change the subject just now?" "Because I saw that you were annoyed at something. Besides, we were talking about myself, if I remember rightly." "Have you never heard that a man should always talk to a woman about himself or herself?" "No. I never heard that. Shall we talk of you, then, Madame?" "Do you care to talk of me?" asked Maria Consuelo. Another direct attack, Orsino thought. "I would rather hear you talk of yourself," he answered without the least hesitation. "If I were to tell you my thoughts about myself at the present moment, they would surprise you very much." "Agreeably or disagreeably?" "I do not know. Are you vain?" "As a peacock!" replied Orsino quickly. "Ah--then what I am thinking would not interest you." "Why not?" "Because if it is not flattering it would wound you, and if it is flattering it would disappoint you--by falling short of your ideal of yourself." "Yet I confess that I would like to know what you think of me, though I would much rather hear what you think of yourself." "On one condition, I will tell you." "What is that?" "That you will give me your word to give me your own opinion of me afterwards." "The adjectives are ready, Madame, I give you my word." "You give it so easily! How can I believe you?" "It is so easy to give in such a case, when one has nothing disagreeable to say." "Then you think me agreeable?" "Eminently!" "And charming?" "Perfectly!" "And beautiful?" "How can you doubt it?" "And in all other respects exactly like all the women in society to whom you repeat the same commonplaces every day of your life?" The feint had been dexterous and the thrust was sudden, straight and unexpected. "Madame!" exclaimed Orsino in the deprecatory tone of a man taken by surprise. "You see--you have nothing to say!" She laughed a little bitterly. "You take too much for granted," he said, recovering himself. "You suppose that because I agree with you upon one point after another, I agree with you in the conclusion. You do not even wait to hear my answer, and you tell me that I am checkmated when I have a dozen moves from which to choose. Besides, you have directly infringed the conditions. You have fired before the signal and an arbitration would go against you. You have done fifty things contrary to agreement, and you accuse me of being dumb in my own defence. There is not much justice in that. You promise to tell me a certain secret on condition that I will tell you another. Then, without saying a word on your own part you stone me with quick questions and cry victory because I protest. You begin before I have had so much as--" "For heaven's sake stop!" cried Maria Consuelo, interrupting a speech which threatened to go on for twenty minutes. "You talk of chess, duelling and stoning to death, in one sentence--I am utterly confused! You upset all my ideas!" "Considering how you have disturbed mine, it is a fair revenge. And since we both admit that we have disturbed that balance upon which alone depends all possibility of conversation, I think that I can do nothing more graceful--pardon me, nothing less ungraceful--than wish you a pleasant journey, which I do with all my heart, Madame." Thereupon Orsino rose and took his hat. "Sit down. Do not go yet," said Maria Consuelo, growing a shade paler, and speaking with an evident effort. "Ah--true!" exclaimed Orsino. "We were forgetting the little commission you spoke of in your note. I am entirely at your service." Maria Consuelo looked at him quickly and her lips trembled. "Never mind that," she said unsteadily. "I will not trouble you. But I do not want you to go away as--as you were going. I feel as though we had been quarrelling. Perhaps we have. But let us say we are good friends--if we only say it." Orsino was touched and disturbed. Her face was very white and her hand trembled visibly as she held it out. He took it in his own without hesitation. "If you care for my friendship, you shall have no better friend in the world than I," he said, simply and naturally. "Thank you--good-bye. I shall leave to-morrow." The words were almost broken, as though she were losing control of her voice. As he closed the door behind him, the sound of a wild and passionate sob came to him through the panel. He stood still, listening and hesitating. The truth which would have long been clear to an older or a vainer man, flashed upon him suddenly. She loved him very much, and he no longer cared for her. That was the reason why she had behaved so strangely, throwing her pride and dignity to the winds in her desperate attempt to get from him a single kind and affectionate word--from him, who had poured into her ear so many words of love but two months earlier, and from whom to draw a bare admission of friendship to-day she had almost shed tears. To go back into the room would be madness; since he did not love her, it would almost be an insult. He bent his head and walked slowly down the corridor. He had not gone far, when he was confronted by a small dark figure that stopped the way. He recognised Maria Consuelo's elderly maid. "I beg your pardon, Signore Principe," said the little black-eyed woman. "You will allow me to say a few words? I thank you, Eccellenza. It is about my Signora, in there, of whom I have charge." "Of whom, you have charge?" repeated Orsino, not understanding her. "Yes--precisely. Of course, I am only her maid. You understand that. But I have charge of her though she does not know it. The poor Signora has had terrible trouble during the last few years, and at times--you understand? She is a little--yes--here." She tapped her forehead. "She is better now. But in my position I sometimes think it wiser to warn some friend of hers--in strict confidence. It sometimes saves some little unnecessary complication, and I was ordered to do so by the doctors we last consulted in Paris. You will forgive me, Eccellenza, I am sure." Orsino stared at the woman for some seconds in blank astonishment. She smiled in a placid, self-confident way. "You mean that Madame d'Aranjuez is--mentally deranged, and that you are her keeper? It is a little hard to believe, I confess." "Would you like to see my certificates, Signor Principe? Or the written directions of the doctors? I am sure you are discreet." "I have no right to see anything of the kind," answered Orsino coldly. "Of course, if you are acting under instructions it is no concern of mine." He would have gone forward, but she suddenly produced a small bit of note-paper, neatly folded, and offered it to him. "I thought you might like to know where we are until we return," she said, continuing to speak in a very low voice. "It is the address." Orsino made an impatient gesture. He was on the point of refusing the information which he had not taken the trouble to ask of Maria Consuelo herself. But he changed his mind and felt in his pocket for something to give the woman. It seemed the easiest and simplest way of getting rid of her. The only note he had, chanced to be one of greater value than necessary. "A thousand thanks, Eccellenza!" whispered the maid, overcome by what she took for an intentional piece of generosity. Orsino left the hotel as quickly as he could. "For improbable situations, commend me to the nineteenth century and the society in which we live!" he said to himself as he emerged into the street. CHAPTER XVI. It was long before Orsino saw Maria Consuelo again, but the circumstances of his last meeting with her constantly recurred to his mind during the following months. It is one of the chief characteristics of Rome that it seems to be one of the most central cities in Europe during the winter, whereas in the summer months it appears to be immensely remote from the rest of the civilised world. From having been the prey of the inexpressible foreigner in his shooting season, it suddenly becomes, and remains during about five months, the happy hunting ground of the silent flea, the buzzing fly and the insinuating mosquito. The streets are, indeed, still full of people, and long lines of carriages may be seen towards sunset in the Villa Borghesa and in the narrow Corso. Rome and the Romans are not easily parted as London and London society, for instance. May comes--the queen of the months in the south. June follows. Southern blood rejoices in the first strong sunshine. July trudges in at the gates, sweating under the cloudless sky, heavy, slow of foot, oppressed by the breath of the coming dog-star. Still the nights are cool. Still, towards sunset, the refreshing breeze sweeps up from the sea and fills the streets. Then behind closely fastened blinds, the glass windows are opened and the weary hand drops the fan at last. Then men and women array themselves in the garments of civilisation and sally forth, in carriages, on foot, and in trams, according to the degrees of social importance which provide that in old countries the middle term shall be made to suffer for the priceless treasure of a respectability which is a little higher than the tram and financially not quite equal to the cab. Then, at that magic touch of the west wind the house-fly retires to his own peculiar Inferno, wherever that may be, the mosquito and the gnat pause in their work of darkness and blood to concert fresh and more bloodthirsty deeds, and even the joyous and wicked flea tires of the war dance and lays down his weary head to snatch a hard-earned nap. July drags on, and terrible August treads the burning streets bleaching the very dust up on the pavement, scourging the broad campagna with fiery lashes of heat. Then the white-hot sky reddens in the evening when it cools, as the white iron does when it is taken from the forge. Then at last, all those who can escape from the condemned city flee for their lives to the hills, while those who must face the torment of the sun and the poison of the air turn pale in their sufferings, feebly curse their fate and then grow listless, weak and irresponsible as over-driven galley slaves, indifferent to everything, work, rest, blows, food, sleep and the hope of release. The sky darkens suddenly. There is a sort of horror in the stifling air. People do not talk much, and if they do are apt to quarrel and sometimes to kill one another without warning. The plash of the fountains has a dull sound like the pouring out of molten lead. The horses' hoofs strike visible sparks out of the grey stones in broad daylight. Many houses are shut, and one fancies that there must be a dead man in each whom no one will bury. A few great drops of rain make ink-stains on the pavement at noon, and there is an exasperating, half-sulphurous smell abroad. Late in the afternoon they fall again. An evil wind comes in hot blasts from all quarters at once--then a low roar like an earthquake and presently a crash that jars upon the overwrought nerves--great and plashing drops again, a sharp short flash--then crash upon crash, deluge upon deluge, and the worst is over. Summer has received its first mortal wound. But its death is more fatal than its life. The noontide heat is fierce and drinks up the moisture of the rain and the fetid dust with it. The fever-wraith rises in the damp, cool night, far out in the campagna, and steals up to the walls of the city, and over them and under them and into the houses. If there are any yet left in Rome who can by any possibility take themselves out of it, they are not long in going. Till that moment, there has been only suffering to be borne; now, there is danger of something worse. Now, indeed, the city becomes a desert inhabited by white-faced ghosts. Now, if it be a year of cholera, the dead carts rattle through the streets all night on their way to the gate of Saint Lawrence, and the workmen count their numbers when they meet at dawn. But the bad days are not many, if only there be rain enough, for a little is worse than none. The nights lengthen and the September gales sweep away the poison-mists with kindly strength. Body and soul revive, as the ripe grapes appear in their vine-covered baskets at the street corners. Rich October is coming, the month in which the small citizens of Rome take their wives and the children to the near towns, to Marino, to Froscati, to Albano and Aricia, to eat late fruits and drink new must, with songs and laughter, and small miseries and great delights such as are remembered a whole year. The first clear breeze out of the north shakes down the dying leaves and brightens the blue air. The brown campagna turns green again, and the heart of the poor lame cab-horse is lifted up. The huge porter of the palace lays aside his linen coat and his pipe, and opens wide the great gates; for the masters are coming back, from their castles and country places, from the sea and from the mountains, from north and south, from the magic shore of Sorrento, and from distant French bathing places, some with brides or husbands, some with rosy Roman babies making their first trumphal entrance into Rome--and some, again, returning companionless to the home they had left in companionship. The great and complicated machinery of social life is set in order and repaired for the winter; the lost or damaged pieces in the engine are carefully replaced with new ones which will do as well or better, the joints and bearings are lubricated, the whistle of the first invitation is heard, there is some puffing and a little creaking at first, and then the big wheels begin to go slowly round, solemnly and regularly as ever, while all the little wheels run as fast as they can and set fire to their axles in the attempt to keep up the speed, and are finally jammed and caught up and smashed, as little wheels are sure to be when they try to act like big ones. But unless something happens to one of the very biggest the machine does not stop until the end of the season, when it is taken to pieces again for repairs. That is the brief history of a Roman year, of which the main points are very much like those of its predecessor and successor. The framework is the same, but the decorations change, slowly, surely and not, perhaps, advantageously, as the younger generation crowds into the place of the older--as young acquaintances take the place of old friends, as faces strange to us hide faces we have loved. Orsino Saracinesca, in his new character as a contractor and a man of business, knew that he must either spend the greater part of the summer in town, or leave his affairs in the hands of Andrea Contini. The latter course was repugnant to him, partly because he still felt a beginner's interest in his first success, and partly because he had a shrewd suspicion that Contini, if left to himself in the hot weather, might be tempted to devote more time to music than to architecture. The business, too, was now on a much larger scale than before, though Orsino had taken his mother's advice in not at once going so far as he might have gone. It needed all his own restless energy, all Contini's practical talents, and perhaps more of Del Ferice's influence than either of them suspected, to keep it going on the road to success. In July Orsino's people made ready to go up to Saracinesca. The old prince, to every one's surprise, declared his intention of going to England, and roughly refused to be accompanied by any one of the family. He wanted to find out some old friends, he said, and desired the satisfaction of spending a couple of months in peace, which was quite impossible at home, owing to Giovanni's outrageous temper and Orsino's craze for business. He thereupon embraced them all affectionately, indulged in a hearty laugh and departed in a special carriage with his own servants. Giovanni objected to Orsino's staying in Rome during the great heat. Though Orsino had not as yet entered into any explanation with his father, but the latter understood well enough that the business had turned out better than had been expected and began to feel an interest in its further success, for his son's sake. He saw the boy developing into a man by a process which he would naturally have supposed to be the worst possible one, judging from his own point of view. But he could not find fault with the result. There was no disputing the mental superiority of the Orsino of July over the Orsino of the preceding January. Whatever the sensation which Giovanni experienced as he contemplated the growing change, it was not one of anxiety nor of disappointment. But he had a Roman's well-founded prejudice against spending August and September in town. His objections gave rise to some discussion, in which Corona joined. Orsino enlarged upon the necessity of attending in person to the execution of his contracts. Giovanni suggested that he should find some trustworthy person to take his place. Corona was in favour of a compromise. It would be easy, she said, for Orsino to spend two or three days of every week in Rome and the remainder in the country with his father and mother. They were all three quite right according to their own views, and they all three knew it. Moreover they were all three very obstinate people. The consequence was that Orsino, who was in possession, so to say, since the other two were trying to make him change his mind, got the best of the argument, and won his first pitched battle. Not that there was any apparent hostility, or that any of the three spoke hotly or loudly. They were none of them like old Saracinesca, whose feats of argumentation were vehement, eccentric and fiery as his own nature. They talked with apparent calm through a long summer's afternoon, and the vanquished retired with a fairly good grace, leaving Orsino master of the field. But on that occasion Giovanni Saracinesca first formed the opinion that his son was a match for him, and that it would be wise in future to ascertain the chances of success before incurring the risk of a humiliating defeat. Giovanni and his wife went out together and talked over the matter as their carriage swept round the great avenues of Villa Borghesa. "There is no question of the fact that Orsino is growing up--is grown up already," said Sant' Ilario, glancing at Corona's calm, dark face. She smiled with a certain pride, as she heard the words. "Yes," she answered, "he is a man. It is a mistake to treat him as a boy any longer." "Do you think it is this sudden interest in business that has changed him so?" "Of course--what else?" "Madame d'Aranjuez, for instance," Giovanni suggested. "I do not believe she ever had the least influence over him. The flirtation seems to have died a natural death. I confess, I hoped it might end in that way, and I am glad if it has. And I am very glad that Orsino is succeeding so well. Do you know, dear? I am glad, because you did not believe it possible that he should." "No, I did not. And now that I begin to understand it, he does not like to talk to me about his affairs. I suppose that is only natural. Tell me--has he really made money? Or have you been giving him money to lose, in order that he may buy experience." "He has succeeded alone," said Corona proudly. "I would give him whatever he needed, but he needs nothing. He is immensely clever and immensely energetic. How could he fail?" "You seem to admire our firstborn, my dear," observed Giovanni with a smile. "To tell the truth, I do. I have no doubt that he does all sorts of things which he ought not to do, and of which I know nothing. You did the same at his age, and I shall be quite satisfied if he turns out like you. I would not like to have a lady-like son with white hands and delicate sensibilities, and hypocritical affectations of exaggerated morality. I think I should be capable of trying to make such a boy bad, if it only made him manly--though I daresay that would be very wrong." "No doubt," said Giovanni. "But we shall not be placed in any such position by Orsino, my dear. You remember that little affair last year, in England? It was very nearly a scandal. But then--the English are easily led into temptation and very easily scandalised afterwards. Orsino will not err in the direction of hypocritical morality. But that is not the question. I wish to know, from you since he does not confide in me, how far he is really succeeding." Corona gave her husband a remarkably clear statement of Orsino's affairs, without exaggeration so far as the facts were concerned, but not without highly favourable comment. She did not attempt to conceal her triumph, now that success had been in a measure attained, and she did not hesitate to tell Giovanni that he ought to have encouraged and supported the boy from the first. Giovanni listened with very great interest, and bore her affectionate reproaches with equanimity. He felt in his heart that he had done right, and he somehow still believed that things were not in reality all that they seemed to be. There was something in Orsino's immediate success against odds apparently heavy, which disturbed his judgment. He had not, it was true, any personal experience of the building speculations in the city, nor of financial transactions in general, as at present understood, and he had recently heard of cases in which individuals had succeeded beyond their own wildest expectations. There was, perhaps, no reason why Orsino should not do as well as other people, or even better, in spite of his extreme youth. Andrea Contini was probably a man of superior talent, well able to have directed the whole affair alone, if other circumstances had been favourable to him, and there was on the whole nothing to prove that the two young men had received more than their fair share of assistance or accommodation from the bank. But Giovanni knew well enough that Del Ferice was the most influential personage in the bank in question, and the mere suggestion of his name lent to the whole affair a suspicious quality which disturbed Orsino's father. In spite of all reasonable reflexions there was an air of unnatural good fortune in the case which he did not like, and he had enough experience of Del Ferice's tortuous character to distrust his intentions. He would have preferred to see his son lose money through Ugo rather than that Orsino should owe the latter the smallest thanks. The fact that he had not spoken with the man for over twenty years did not increase the confidence he felt in him. In that time Del Ferice had developed into a very important personage, having much greater power to do harm than he had possessed in former days, and it was not to be supposed that he had forgotten old wounds or given up all hope of avenging them. Del Ferice was not very subject to that sort of forgetfulness. When Corona had finished speaking, Giovanni was silent for a few moments. "Is it not splendid?" Corona asked enthusiastically. "Why do you not say anything? One would think that you were not pleased." "On the contrary, as far as Orsino is concerned, I am delighted. But I do not trust Del Ferice." "Del Ferice is far too clever a man to ruin Orsino," answered Corona. "Exactly. That is the trouble. That is what makes me feel that though Orsino has worked hard and shown extraordinary intelligence--and deserves credit for that--yet he would not have succeeded in the same way if he had dealt with any other bank. Del Ferice has helped him. Possibly Orsino knows that, as well as we do, but he certainly does not know what part Del Ferice played in our lives, Corona. If he did, he would not accept his help." In her turn Corona was silent and a look of disappointment came into her face. She remembered a certain afternoon in the mountains when she had entreated Giovanni to let Del Ferice escape, and Giovanni had yielded reluctantly and had given the fugitive a guide to take him to the frontier. She wondered whether the generous impulse of that day was to bear evil fruit at last. "Orsino knows nothing about it at all," she said at last. "We kept the secret of Del Ferice's escape very carefully--for there were good reasons to be careful in those days. Orsino only knows that you once fought a duel with the man and wounded him." "I think it is time that he knew more." "Of what use can it be to tell him those old stories?" asked Corona. "And after all, I do not believe that Del Ferice has done so much. If you could have followed Orsino's work, day by day and week by week, as I have, you would see how much is really due to his energy. Any other banker would have done as much as he. Besides, it is in Del Ferice's own interest--" "That is the trouble," interrupted Giovanni. "It is bad enough that he should help Orsino. It is much worse that he should help him in order to make use of him. If, as you say, any other bank would do as much, then let him go to another bank. If he owes Del Ferice money at the present moment, we will pay it for him." "You forget that he has bought the buildings he is now finishing, from Del Ferice, on a mortgage." Giovanni laughed a little. "How you have learned to talk about mortgages and deeds and all sorts of business!" he exclaimed. "But what you say is not an objection. We can pay off these mortgages, I suppose, and take the risk ourselves." "Of course we could do that," Corona answered, thoughtfully. "But I really think you exaggerate the whole affair. For the time being, Del Ferice is not a man, but a banker. His personal character and former doings do not enter into the matter." "I think they do," said Giovanni, still unconvinced. "At all events, do not make trouble now, dear," said Corona in earnest tones. "Let the present contract be executed and finished, and then speak to Orsino before he makes another. Whatever Del Ferice may have done, you can see for yourself that Orsino is developing in a way we had not expected, and is becoming a serious, energetic man. Do not step in now, and check the growth of what is good. You will regret it as much as I shall. When he has finished these buildings he will have enough experience to make a new departure." "I hate the idea of receiving a favour from Del Ferice, or of laying him under an obligation. I think I will go to him myself." "To Del Ferice?" Corona started and looked round at Giovanni as she sat. She had a sudden vision of new trouble. "Yes. Why not? I will go to him and tell him that I would rather wind up my son's business with him, as our former relations were not of a nature to make transactions of mutual profit either fitting or even permissible between any of our family and Ugo Del Ferice." "For Heaven's sake, Giovanni, do not do that." "And why not?" He was surprised at her evident distress. "For my sake, then--do not quarrel with Del Ferice--it was different then, in the old days. I could not bear it now--" she stopped, and her lower lip trembled a little. "Do you love me better than you did then, Corona?" "So much better--I cannot tell you." She touched his hand with hers and her dark eyes were a little veiled as they met his. Both were silent for a moment. "I have no intention of quarrelling with Del Ferice, dear," said Giovanni, gently. His face had grown a shade paler as she spoke. The power of her hand and voice to move him, had not diminished in all the years of peaceful happiness that had passed so quickly. "I do not mean any such thing," he said again. "But I mean this. I will not have it said that Del Ferice has made a fortune for Orsino, nor that Orsino has helped Del Ferice's interests. I see no way but to interfere myself. I can do it without the suspicion of a quarrel." "It will be a great mistake, Giovanni. Wait till there is a new contract." "I will think of it, before doing anything definite." Corona well knew that she should get no greater concession than this. The point of honour had been touched in Giovanni's sensibilities and his character was stubborn and determined where his old prejudices were concerned. She loved him very dearly, and this very obstinacy of his pleased her. But she fancied that trouble of some sort was imminent. She understood her son's nature, too, and dreaded lest he should be forced into opposing his father. It struck her that she might herself act as intermediary. She could certainly obtain concessions from Orsino which Giovanni could not hope to extract by force or stratagem. But the wisdom of her own proposal in the matter seemed unassailable. The business now in hand should be allowed to run its natural course before anything was done to break off the relations between Orsino and Del Ferice. In the evening she found an opportunity of speaking with Orsino in private. She repeated to him the details of her conversation with Giovanni during the drive in the afternoon. "My dear mother," answered Orsino, "I do not trust Del Ferice any more than you and my father trust him. You talk of things which he did years ago, but you do not tell me what those things were. So far as I understand, it all happened before you were married. My father and he quarrelled about something, and I suppose there was a lady concerned in the matter. Unless you were the lady in question, and unless what he did was in the nature of an insult to you, I cannot see how the matter concerns me. They fought and it ended there, as affairs of honour do. If it touched you, then tell me so, and I will break with Del Ferice to-morrow morning." Corona was silent, for Orsino's speech was very plain, and if she answered it all, the answer must be the truth. There could be no escape from that. And the truth would be very hard to tell. At that time she had been still the wife of old Astrardente, and Del Ferice's offence had been that he had purposely concealed himself in the conservatory of the Frangipan's palace in order to overhear what Giovanni Saracinesca was about to say to another man's wife. The fact that on that memorable night she had bravely resisted a very great temptation did not affect the difficulty of the present case in any way. She asked herself rather whether Del Ferice's eavesdropping would appear to Orsino to be in the nature of an insult to her, to use his own words, and she had no doubt but that it would seem so. At the same time she would find hard to explain to her son why Del Ferice suspected that there was to be anything said to her worth overhearing, seeing that she bore at that time the name of another man then still living. How could Orsino understand all that had gone before? Even now, though she knew that she had acted well, she humbly believed that she might have done much better. How would her son judge her? She was silent, waiting for him to speak again. "That would be the only conceivable reason for my breaking with Del Ferice," said Orsino. "We only have business relations, and I do not go to his house. I went once. I saw no reason for telling you so at the time, and I have not been there again. It was at the beginning of the whole affair. Outside of the bank, we are the merest acquaintances. But I repeat what I said. If he ever did anything which makes it dishonourable for me to accept even ordinary business services from him, let me know it. I have some right to hear the truth." Corona hesitated, and laid the case again before her own conscience, and tried to imagine herself in her son's position. It was hard to reach a conclusion. There was no doubt but that when she had learned the truth, long after the event, she had felt that she had been insulted and justly avenged. If she said nothing now, Orsino would suspect something and would assuredly go to his father, from whom he would get a view of the case not conspicuous for its moderation. And Giovanni would undoubtedly tell his son the details of what had followed, how Del Ferice had attempted to hinder the marriage when it was at last possible, and all the rest of the story. At the same time, she felt that so far as her personal sensibilities were concerned, she had not the least objection to the continuance of a mere business relation between Orsino and Del Ferice. She was more forgiving than Giovanni. "I will tell you this much, my dear boy," she said, at last. "That old quarrel did concern me and no one else. Your father feels more strongly about it than I do, because he fought for me and not for himself. You trust me, Orsino. You know that I would rather see you dead than doing anything dishonourable. Very well. Do not ask any more questions, and do not go to your father about it. Del Ferice has only advanced you money, in a business way, on good security and at a high interest. So far as I can judge of the point of honour involved, what happened long ago need not prevent your doing what you are doing now. Possibly, when you have finished the present contract, you may think it wiser to apply to some other bank, or to work on your own account with my money." Corona believed that she had found the best way out of the difficulty, and Orsino seemed satisfied, for he nodded thoughtfully and said nothing. The day had been filled with argument and discussion about his determination to stay in town, and he was weary of the perpetual question and answer. He knew his mother well, and was willing to take her advice for the present. She, on her part, told Giovanni what she had done, and he consented to consider the matter a little longer before interfering. He disliked even the idea of a business relation extremely, but he feared that there was more behind the appearances of commercial fairness than either he or Orsino himself could understand. The better Orsino succeeded, the less his father was pleased, and his suspicions were not unfounded. He knew from San Giacinto that success was becoming uncommon, and he knew that all Orsino's industry and energy could not have sufficed to counterbalance his inexperience. Andrea Contini, too, had been recommended by Del Ferice, and was presumably Del Ferice's man. On the following day Giovanni and Corona with the three younger boys went up to Saracinesca leaving Orsino alone in the great palace, to his own considerable satisfaction. He was well pleased with himself and especially at having carried his point. At his age, and with his constitution, the heat was a matter of supreme indifference to him, and he looked forward with delight to a summer of uninterrupted work in the not uncongenial society of Andrea Contini. As for the work itself, it was beginning to have a sort of fascination for him as he understood it better. The love of building, the passion for stone and brick and mortar, is inherent in some natures, and is capable of growing into a mania little short of actual insanity. Orsino began to ask himself seriously whether it were too late to study architecture as a profession and in the meanwhile he learned more of it in practice from Contini than he could have acquired in twice the time at any polytechnic school in Europe. He liked Contini himself more and more as the days went by. Hitherto he had been much inclined to judge his own countrymen from his own class. He was beginning to see that he had understood little or nothing of the real Italian nature when uninfluenced by foreign blood. The study interested and pleased him. Only one unpleasant memory occasionally disturbed his peace of mind. When he thought of his last meeting with Maria Consuelo he hated himself for the part he had played, though he was quite unable to account logically, upon his assumed principles, for the severity of his self-condemnation. CHAPTER XVII. Orsino necessarily led a monotonous life, though, his occupation was an absorbing one. Very early in the morning he was with Contini where the building was going on. He then passed the hot hours of the day in the office, which, as before, had been established in one of the unfinished houses. Towards evening, he went down into the city to his home, refreshed himself after his long day's work, and then walked or drove until half past eight, when he went to dinner in the garden of a great restaurant in the Corso. Here he met a few acquaintances who, like himself, had reasons for staying in town after their families had left. He always sat at the same small table, at which there was barely room for two persons, for he preferred to be alone, and he rarely asked a passing friend to sit down with him. On a certain hot evening in the beginning of August he had just taken his seat, and was trying to make up his mind whether he were hungry enough to eat anything or whether it would not be less trouble to drink a glass of iced coffee and go away, when he was aware of a lank shadow cast across the white cloth by the glaring electric light. He looked up and saw Spicca standing there, apparently uncertain where to sit down for the place was fuller than usual. He liked the melancholy old man and spoke to him, offering to share his table. Spicca hesitated a moment and then accepted the invitation. He deposited his hat upon a chair beside him and leaned back, evidently exhausted either in mind or body, if not in both. "I am very much obliged to you, my dear Orsino," he said. "There is an abominable crowd here, which means an unusual number of people to avoid--just as many as I know, in fact, excepting yourself." "I am glad you do not wish to avoid me, too," observed Orsino, by way of saying something. "You are a less evil--so I choose you in preference to the greater," Spicca answered. But there was a not unkindly look in his sunken eyes as he spoke. He tipped the great flask of Chianti that hung in its swinging plated cradle in the middle of the table, and filled two glasses. "Since all that is good has been abolished, let us drink to the least of evils," he said, "in other words, to each other." "To the absence of friends," answered Orsino, touching the wine with his lips. Spicca emptied his glass slowly and then looked at him. "I like that toast," he said. "To the absence of friends. I daresay you have heard of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Do they still teach the dear old tale in these modern schools? No. But you have heard it--very well. You will remember that if they had not allowed the serpent to scrape acquaintance with them, on pretence of a friendly interest in their intellectual development, Adam and Eve would still be inventing names for the angelic little wild beasts who were too well-behaved to eat them. They would still be in paradise. Moreover Orsino Saracinesca and John Nepomucene Spicca would not be in daily danger of poisoning in this vile cookshop. Summary ejection from Eden was the first consequence of friendship, and its results are similar to this day. What nauseous mess are we to swallow to-night? Have you looked at the card?" Orsino laughed a little. He foresaw that Spicca would not be dull company on this particular evening. Something unusually disagreeable had probably happened to him during the day. After long and melancholy hesitation he ordered something which he believed he could eat, and Orsino followed his example. "Are all your people out of town?" Spicca asked, after a pause. "Yes. I am alone." "And what in the world is the attraction here? Why do you stay? I do not wish to be indiscreet, and I was never afflicted with curiosity. But cases of mental alienation grow more common every day, and as an old friend of your father's I cannot overlook symptoms of madness in you. A really sane person avoids Rome in August." "It strikes me that I might say the same to you," answered Orsino. "I am kept here by business. You have not even that excuse." "How do you know?" asked Spicca, sharply. "Business has two main elements--credit and debit. The one means the absence of the other. I leave it to your lively intelligence to decide which of the two means Rome in August, and which means Trouville or St. Moritz." "I had not thought of it in that light." "No? I daresay not. I constantly think of it." "There are other places, nearer than St. Moritz," suggested Orsino. "Why not go to Sorrento?" "There was such a place once--but my friends have found it out. Nevertheless, I might go there. It is better to suffer friendship in the spirit than fever in the body. But I have a reason for staying here just at present--a very good one." "Without indiscretion--?" "No, certainly not without considerable indiscretion. Take some more wine. When intoxication is bliss it is folly to be sober, as the proverb says. I cannot get tipsy, but you may, and that will be almost as amusing. The main object of drinking wine is that one person should make confidences for the other to laugh at--the one enjoys it quite as much as the other." "I would rather be the other," said Orsino with a laugh. "In all cases in life it is better to be the other person," observed Spicca, thoughtfully, though the remark lacked precision. "You mean the patient and not the agent, I suppose?" "No. I mean the spectator. The spectator is a well fed, indifferent personage who laughs at the play and goes home to supper--perdition upon him and his kind! He is the abomination of desolation in a front stall, looking on while better men cut one another's throats. He is a fat man with a pink complexion and small eyes, and when he has watched other people's troubles long enough, he retires to his comfortable vault in the family chapel in the Campo Varano, which is decorated with coloured tiles, embellished with a modern altar piece and adorned with a bust of himself by a good sculptor. Even in death, he is still the spectator, grinning through the window of his sanctuary at the rows of nameless graves outside. He is happy and self-satisfied still--even in marble. It is worth living to be such a man." "It is not an exciting life," remarked Orsino. "No. That is the beauty of it. Look at me. I have never succeeded in imitating that well-to-do, thoroughly worthy villain. I began too late. Take warning, Orsino. You are young. Grow fat and look on--then you will die happy. All the philosophy of life is there. Farinaceous food, money and a wife. That is the recipe. Since you have money you can purchase the gruel and the affections. Waste no time in making the investment." "I never heard you advocate marriage before. You seem to have changed your mind, of late." "Not in the least. I distinguish between being married and taking a wife, that is all." "Rather a fine distinction." "The only difference between a prisoner and his gaoler is that they are on opposite sides of the same wall. Take some more wine. We will drink to the man on the outside." "May you never be inside," said Orsino. Spicca emptied his glass and looked at him, as he set it down again. "May you never know what it is to have been inside," he said. "You speak as though you had some experience." "Yes, I have--through an acquaintance of mine." "That is the most agreeable way of gaining experience." "Yes," answered Spicca with a ghastly smile. "Perhaps I may tell you the story some day. You may profit by it. It ended rather dramatically--so far as it can be said to have ended at all. But we will not speak of it just now. Here is another dish of poison--do you call that thing a fish, Checco? Ah--yes. I perceive that you are right. The fact is apparent at a great distance. Take it away. We are all mortal, Checco, but we do not like to be reminded of it so very forcibly. Give me a tomato and some vinegar." "And the birds, Signore? Do you not want them any more?" "The birds--yes, I had forgotten. And another flask of wine, Checco." "It is not empty yet, Signore," observed the waiter lifting the rush-covered bottle and shaking it a little. Spicca silently poured out two glasses and handed him the empty flask. He seemed to be very thirsty. Presently he got his birds. They proved eatable, for quails are to be had all through the summer in Italy, and he began to eat in silence. Orsino watched him with some curiosity wondering whether the quantity of wine he drank would not ultimately produce some effect. As yet, however, none was visible; his cadaverous face was as pale and quiet as ever, and his sunken eyes had their usual expression. "And how does your business go on, Orsino?" he asked, after a long silence. Orsino answered him willingly enough and gave him some account of his doings. He grew somewhat enthusiastic as he compared his present busy life with his former idleness. "I like the way you did it, in spite of everybody's advice," said Spicca, kindly. "A man who can jump through the paper ring of Roman prejudice without stumbling must be nimble and have good legs. So nobody gave you a word of encouragement?" "Only one person, at first. I think you know her--Madame d'Aranjuez. I used to see her often just at that time." "Madame d'Aranjuez?" Spicca looked up sharply, pausing with his glass in his hand. "You know her?" "Very well indeed," answered the old man, before he drank. "Tell me, Orsino," he continued, when he had finished the draught, "are you in love with that lady?" Orsino was surprised by the directness of the question, but he did not show it. "Not in the least," he answered, coolly. "Then why did you act as though you were?" asked Spicca looking him through and through. "Do you mean to say that you were watching me all winter?" inquired Orsino, bending his black eyebrows rather angrily. "Circumstances made it inevitable that I should know of your visits. There was a time when you saw her every day." "I do not know what the circumstances, as you call them, were," answered Orsino. "But I do not like to be watched--even by my father's old friends." "Keep your temper, Orsino," said Spicca quietly. "Quarrelling is always ridiculous unless somebody is killed, and then it is inconvenient. If you understood the nature of my acquaintance with Maria Consuelo--with Madame d'Aranjuez, you would see that while not meaning to spy upon you in the least, I could not be ignorant of your movements." "Your acquaintance must be a very close one," observed Orsino, far from pacified. "So close that it has justified me in doing very odd things on her account. You will not accuse me of taking a needless and officious interest in the affairs of others, I think. My own are quite enough for me. It chances that they are intimately connected with the doings of Madame d'Aranjuez, and have been so for a number of years. The fact that I do not desire the connexion to be known does not make it easier for me to act, when I am obliged to act at all. I did not ask an idle question when I asked you if you loved her." "I confess that I do not at all understand the situation," said Orsino. "No. It is not easy to understand, unless I give you the key to it. And yet you know more already than any one in Rome. I shall be obliged if you will not repeat what you know." "You may trust me," answered Orsino, who saw from Spicca's manner that the matter was very serious. "Thank you. I see that you are cured of the idea that I have been frivolously spying upon you for my own amusement." Orsino was silent. He thought of what had happened after he had taken leave of Maria Consuelo. The mysterious maid who called herself Maria Consuelo's nurse, or keeper, had perhaps spoken the truth. It was possible that Spicca was one of the guardians responsible to an unknown person for the insane lady's safety, and that he was consequently daily informed by the maid of the coming and going of visitors, and of other minor events. On the other hand it seemed odd that Maria Consuelo should be at liberty to go whithersoever she pleased. She could not reasonably be supposed to have a guardian in every city of Europe. The more he thought of this improbability the less he understood the truth. "I suppose I cannot hope that you will tell me more," he said. "I do not see why I should," answered Spicca, drinking again. "I asked you an indiscreet question and I have given you an explanation which you are kind enough to accept. Let us say no more about it. It is better to avoid unpleasant subjects." "I should not call Madame d'Aranjuez an unpleasant subject," observed Orsino. "Then why did you suddenly cease to visit her?" asked Spicca. "For the best of all reasons. Because she repeatedly refused to receive me." He was less inclined to take offence now than five minutes earlier. "I see that your information was not complete." "No. I was not aware of that. She must have had a good reason for not seeing you." "Possibly." "But you cannot guess what the reason was?" "Yes--and no. It depends upon her character, which I do not pretend to understand." "I understand it well enough. I can guess at the fact. You made love to her, and one fine day, when she saw that you were losing your head, she quietly told her servant to say that she was not at home when you called. Is that it?" "Possibly. You say you know her well--then you know whether she would act in that way or not." "I ought to know. I think she would. She is not like other women--she has not the same blood." "Who is she?" asked Orsino, with a sudden hope that he might learn the truth. "A woman--rather better than the rest--a widow, too, the widow of a man who never was her husband--thank God!" Spicca slowly refilled and emptied his goblet for the tenth time. "The rest is a secret," he added, when he had finished drinking. The dark, sunken eyes gazed into Orsino's with an expression so strange and full of a sort of inexplicable horror, as to make the young man think that the deep potations were beginning to produce an effect upon the strong old head. Spicca sat quite still for several minutes after he had spoken, and then leaned back in his cane chair with a deep sigh. Orsino sighed too, in a sort of unconscious sympathy, for even allowing for Spicca's natural melancholy the secret was evidently an unpleasant one. Orsino tried to turn the conversation, not, however, without a hope of bringing it back unawares to the question which interested him. "And so you really mean to stay here all summer," he remarked, lighting a cigarette and looking at the people seated at a table behind Spicca. Spicca did not answer at first, and when he did his reply had nothing to do with Orsino's interrogatory observation. "We never get rid of the things we have done in our lives," he said, dreamily. "When a man sows seed in a ploughed field some of the grains are picked out by birds, and some never sprout. We are much more perfectly organised than the earth. The actions we sow in our souls all take root, inevitably and fatally--and they all grow to maturity sooner or later." Orsino stared at him for a moment. "You are in a philosophising mood this evening," he said. "We are only logic's pawns," continued Spicca without heeding the remark. "Or, if you like it better, we are the Devil's chess pieces in his match against God. We are made to move each in our own way. The one by short irregular steps in every direction, the other in long straight lines between starting point and goal--the one stands still, like the king-piece, and never moves unless he is driven to it, the other jumps unevenly like the knight. It makes no difference. We take a certain number of other pieces, and then we are taken ourselves--always by the adversary--and tossed aside out of the game. But then, it is easy to carry out the simile, because the game itself was founded on the facts of life, by the people who invented it." "No doubt," said Orsino, who was not very much interested. "Yes. You have only to give the pieces the names of men and women you know, and to call the pawns society--you will see how very like real life chess can be. The king and queen on each side are a married couple. Of course, the object of each queen is to get the other king, and all her friends help her--knights, bishops, rooks and her set of society pawns. Very like real life, is it not? Wait till you are married." Spicca smiled grimly and took more wine. "There at least you have no personal experience," objected Orsino. But Spicca only smiled again, and vouchsafed no answer. "Is Madame d'Aranjuez coming back next winter?" asked the young man. "Madame d'Aranjuez will probably come back, since she is free to consult her own tastes," answered Spicca gravely. "I hope she may be out of danger by that time," said Orsino quietly. He had resolved upon a bolder attack than he had hitherto made. "What danger is she in now?" asked Spicca quietly. "Surely, you must know." "I do not understand you. Please speak plainly if you are in earnest." "Before she went away I called once more. When I was coming away her maid met me in the corridor of the hotel and told me that Madame d'Aranjuez was not quite sane, and that she, the maid, was in reality her keeper, or nurse--or whatever you please to call her." Spicca laughed harshly. No one could remember to have heard him laugh many times. "Oh--she said that, did she?" He seemed very much amused. "Yes," he added presently, "I think Madame d'Aranjuez will be quite out of danger before Christmas." Orsino was more puzzled than ever. He was almost sure that Spicca did not look upon the maid's assertion as serious, and in that case, if his interest in Maria Consuelo was friendly, it was incredible that he should seem amused at what was at least a very dangerous piece of spite on the part of a trusted servant. "Then is there no truth in that woman's statement?" asked Orsino. "Madame d'Aranjuez seemed perfectly sane when I last saw her," answered Spicca indifferently. "Then what possible interest had the maid in inventing the lie?" "Ah--what interest? That is quite another matter, as you say. It may not have been her own interest." "You think that Madame d'Aranjuez had instructed her?" "Not necessarily. Some one else may have suggested the idea, subject to the lady's own consent." "And she would have consented? I do not believe that." "My dear Orsino, the world is full of such apparently improbable things that it is always rash to disbelieve anything on the first hearing. It is really much less trouble to accept all that one is told without question." "Of course, if you tell me positively that she wishes to be thought mad--" "I never say anything positively, especially about a woman--and least of all about the lady in question, who is undoubtedly eccentric." Instead of being annoyed, Orsino felt his curiosity growing, and made a rash vow to find out the truth at any price. It was inconceivable, he thought, that Spicca should still have perfect control of his faculties, considering the extent of his potations. The second flask was growing light, and Orsino himself had not taken more than two or three glasses. Now a Chianti flask never holds less than two quarts. Moreover Spicca was generally a very moderate man. He would assuredly not resist the confusing effects of the wine much longer and he would probably become confidential. But Orsino had mistaken his man. Spicca's nerves, overwrought by some unknown disturbance in his affairs, were in that state in which far stronger stimulants than Tuscan wine have little or no effect upon the brain. Orsino looked at him and wondered, as many had wondered already, what sort of life the man had led, outside and beyond the social existence which every one could see. Few men had been dreaded like the famous duellist, who had played with the best swordsmen in Europe as a cat plays with a mouse. And yet he had been respected, as well as feared. There had been that sort of fatality in his quarrels which had saved him from the imputation of having sought them. He had never been a gambler, as reputed duellists often are. He had never refused to stand second for another man out of personal dislike or prejudice. No one had ever asked his help in vain, high or low, rich or poor, in a reasonably good cause. His acts of kindness came to light accidentally after many years. Yet most people fancied that he hated mankind, with that sort of generous detestation which never stoops to take a mean advantage. In his duels he had always shown the utmost consideration for his adversary and the utmost indifference to his own interest when conditions had to be made. Above all, he had never killed a man by accident. That is a crime which society does not forgive. But he had not failed, either, when he had meant to kill. His speech was often bitter, but never spiteful, and, having nothing to fear, he was a very truthful man. He was also reticent, however, and no one could boast of knowing the story which every one agreed in saying had so deeply influenced his life. He had often been absent from Rome for long periods, and had been heard of as residing in more than one European capital. He had always been supposed to be rich, but during the last three years it had become clear to his friends that he was poor. That is all, roughly speaking, which was known of John Nepomucene, Count Spicca, by the society in which he had spent more than half his life. Orsino, watching the pale and melancholy face, compared himself with his companion, and wondered whether any imaginable series of events could turn him into such a man at the same age. Yet he admired Spicca, besides respecting him. Boy-like, he envied the great duellist his reputation, his unerring skill, his unfaltering nerve; he even envied him the fear he inspired in those whom he did not like. He thought less highly of his sayings now, perhaps, than when he had first been old enough to understand them. The youthful affectation of cynicism had agreed well with the old man's genuine bitterness, but the pride of growing manhood was inclined to put away childish things and had not yet suffered so as to understand real suffering. Six months had wrought a change in Orsino, and so far the change was for the better. He had been fortunate in finding success at the first attempt, and his passing passion for Maria Consuelo had left little trace beyond a certain wondering regret that it had not been greater, and beyond the recollection of her sad face at their parting and of the sobs he had overheard. Though he could only give those tears one meaning, he realised less and less as the months passed that they had been shed for him. That Maria Consuelo should often be in his thoughts was no proof that he still loved her in the smallest degree. There had been enough odd circumstances about their acquaintance to rouse any ordinary man's interest, and just at present Spicca's strange hints and half confidences had excited an almost unbearable curiosity in his hearer. But Spicca did not seem inclined to satisfy it any further. One or two points, at least, were made clear. Maria Consuelo was not insane, as the maid had pretended. Her marriage with the deceased Aranjuez had been a marriage only in name, if it had even amounted to that. Finally, it was evident that she stood in some very near relation to Spicca and that neither she nor he wished the fact to be known. To all appearance they had carefully avoided meeting during the preceding winter, and no one in society was aware that they were even acquainted. Orsino recalled more than one occasion when each had been mentioned in the presence of the other. He had a good memory and he remembered that a scarcely perceptible change had taken place in the manner or conversation of the one who heard the other's name. It even seemed to him that at such moments Maria Consuelo had shown an infinitesimal resentment, whereas Spicca had faintly exhibited something more like impatience. If this were true, it argued that Spicca was more friendly to Maria Consuelo than she was to him. Yet on this particular evening Spicca had spoken somewhat bitterly of her--but then, Spicca was always bitter. His last remark was to the effect that she was eccentric. After a long silence, during which Orsino hoped that his friend would say something more, he took up the point. "I wish I knew what you meant by eccentric," he said. "I had the advantage of seeing Madame d'Aranjuez frequently, and I did not notice any eccentricity about her." "Ah--perhaps you are not observant. Or perhaps, as you say, we do not mean the same thing." "That is why I would like to hear your definition," observed Orsino. "The world is mad on the subject of definitions," answered Spicca. "It is more blessed to define than to be defined. It is a pleasant thing to say to one's enemy, 'Sir, you are a scoundrel.' But when your enemy says the same thing to you, you kill him without hesitation or regret--which proves, I suppose, that you are not pleased with his definition of you. You see definition, after all, is a matter of taste. So, as our tastes might not agree, I would rather not define anything this evening. I believe I have finished that flask. Let us take our coffee. We can define that beforehand, for we know by daily experience how diabolically bad it is." Orsino saw that Spicca meant to lead the conversation away in another direction. "May I ask you one serious question?" he inquired, leaning forward. "With a little ingenuity you may even ask me a dozen, all equally serious, my dear Orsino. But I cannot promise to answer all or any particular one. I am not omniscient, you know." "My question is this. I have no sort of right to ask it. I know that. Are you nearly related to Madame d'Aranjuez?" Spicca looked curiously at him. "Would the information be of any use to you?" he asked. "Should I be doing you a service in telling you that we are, or are not related?" "Frankly, no," answered Orsino, meeting the steady glance without wavering. "Then I do not see any reason whatever for telling you the truth," returned Spicca quietly. "But I will give you a piece of general information. If harm comes to that lady through any man whomsoever, I will certainly kill him, even if I have to be carried upon the ground." There was no mistaking the tone in which the threat was uttered. Spicca meant what he said, though not one syllable was spoken louder than another. In his mouth the words had a terrific force, and told Orsino more of the man's true nature than he had learnt in years. Orsino was not easily impressed, and was certainly not timid, morally or physically; moreover he was in the prime of youth and not less skilful than other men in the use of weapons. But he felt at that moment that he would infinitely rather attack a regiment of artillery single-handed than be called upon to measure swords with the cadaverous old invalid who sat on the other side of the table. "It is not in my power to do any harm to Madame d'Aranjuez," he answered proudly enough, "and you ought to know that if it were, it could not possibly be in my intention. Therefore your threat is not intended for me." "Very good, Orsino. Your father would have answered like that, and you mean what you say. If I were young I think that you and I should be friends. Fortunately for you there is a matter of forty years' difference between our ages, so that you escape the infliction of such a nuisance as my friendship. You must find it bad enough to have to put up with my company." "Do not talk like that," answered Orsino. "The world is not all vinegar." "Well, well--you will find out what the world is in time. And perhaps you will find out many other things which you want to know. I must be going, for I have letters to write. Checco! My bill." Five minutes later they parted. CHAPTER XVIII. Although Orsino's character was developing quickly in the new circumstances which he had created for himself, he was not of an age to be continually on his guard against passing impressions; still less could it be expected that he should be hardened against them by experience, as many men are by nature. His conversation with Spicca, and Spicca's own behaviour while it lasted, produced a decided effect upon the current of his thoughts, and he was surprised to find himself thinking more often and more seriously of Maria Consuelo than during the months which had succeeded her departure from Rome. Spicca's words had acted indirectly upon his mind. Much that the old man had said was calculated to rouse Orsino's curiosity, but Orsino was not naturally curious and though he felt that it would be very interesting to know Maria Consuelo's story, the chief result of the Count's half confidential utterances was to recall the lady herself very vividly to his recollection. At first his memory merely brought back the endless details of his acquaintance with her, which had formed the central feature of the first season he had spent without interruption in Rome and in society. He was surprised at the extreme precision of the pictures evoked, and took pleasure in calling them up when he was alone and unoccupied. The events themselves had not, perhaps, been all agreeable, yet there was not one which it did not give him some pleasant sensation to remember. There was a little sadness in some of them, and more than once the sadness was mingled with something of humiliation. Yet even this last was bearable. Though he did not realise it, he was quite unable to think of Maria Consuelo without feeling some passing touch of happiness at the thought, for happiness can live with sadness when it is the greater of the two. He had no desire to analyse these sensations. Indeed the idea did not enter his mind that they were worth analysing. His intelligence was better employed with his work, and his reflexions concerning Maria Consuelo chiefly occupied his hours of rest. The days passed quickly at first and then, as September came they seemed longer, instead of shorter. He was beginning to wish that the winter would come, that he might again see the woman of whom he was continually thinking. More than once he thought of writing to her, for he had the address which the maid had given him--an address in Paris which said nothing, a mere number with the name of a street. He wondered whether she would answer him, and when he had reached the self-satisfying conviction that she would, he at last wrote a letter, such as any person might write to another. He told her of the weather, of the dulness of Rome, of his hope that she would return early in the season, and of his own daily occupations. It was a simply expressed, natural and not at all emotional epistle, not at all like that of a man in the least degree in love with his correspondent, but Orsino felt an odd sensation of pleasure in writing it and was surprised by a little thrill of happiness as he posted it with his own hand. He did not forget the letter when he had sent it, either, as one forgets the uninteresting letters one is obliged to write out of civility. He hoped for an answer. Even if she were in Paris, Maria Consuelo might not, and probably would not, reply by return of post. And it was not probable that she would be in town at the beginning of September. Orsino calculated the time necessary to forward the letter from Paris to the most distant part of frequented Europe, allowed her three days for answering and three days more for her letter to reach him. The interval elapsed, but nothing came. Then he was irritated, and at last he became anxious. Either something had happened to Maria Consuelo, or he had somehow unconsciously offended her by what he had written. He had no copy of the letter and could not recall a single phrase which could have displeased her, but he feared lest something might have crept into it which she might misinterpret. But this idea was too absurd to be tenable for long, and the conviction grew upon him that she must be ill or in some great trouble. He was amazed at his own anxiety. Three weeks had gone by since he had written, and yet no word of reply had reached him. Then he sought out Spicca and asked him boldly whether anything had happened to Maria Consuelo, explaining that he had written to her and had got no answer. Spicca looked at him curiously for a moment. "Nothing has happened to her, as far as I am aware," he said, almost immediately. "I saw her this morning." "This morning?" Orsino was surprised almost out of words. "Yes. She is here, looking for an apartment in which to spend the winter." "Where is she?" Spicca named the hotel, adding that Orsino would probably find her at home during the hot hours of the afternoon. "Has she been here long?" asked the young man. "Three days." "I will go and see her at once. I may be useful to her in finding an apartment." "That would be very kind of you," observed Spicca, glancing at him rather thoughtfully. On the following afternoon, Orsino presented himself at the hotel and asked for Madame d'Aranjuez. She received him in a room not very different from the one of which she had had made her sitting-room during the winter. As always, one or two new books and the mysterious silver paper cutter were the only objects of her own which were visible. Orsino hardly noticed the fact, however, for she was already in the room when he entered, and his eyes met hers at once. He fancied that she looked less strong than formerly, but the heat was great and might easily account for her pallor. Her eyes were deeper, and their tawny colour seemed darker. Her hand was cold. She smiled faintly as she met Orsino, but said nothing and sat down at a distance from the windows. "I only heard last night that you were in Rome," he said. "And you came at once to see me. Thanks. How did you find it out?" "Spicca told me. I had asked him for news of you." "Why him?" inquired Maria Consuelo with some curiosity. "Because I fancied he might know," answered Orsino passing lightly over the question. He did not wish even Maria Consuelo to guess that Spicca had spoken of her to him. "The reason why I was anxious about you was that I had written you a letter. I wrote some weeks ago to your address in Paris and got no answer." "You wrote?" Maria Consuelo seemed surprised. "I have not been in Paris. Who gave you the address? What was it?" Orsino named the street and the number. "I once lived there a short time, two years ago. Who gave you the address? Not Count Spicca?" "No." Orsino hesitated to say more. He did not like to admit that he had received the address from Maria Consuelo's maid, and it might seem incredible that the woman should have given the information unasked. At the same time the fact that the address was to all intents and purposes a false one tallied with the maid's spontaneous statement in regard to her mistress's mental alienation. "Why will you not tell me?" asked Maria Consuelo. "The answer involves a question which does not concern me. The address was evidently intended to deceive me. The person who gave it attempted to deceive me about a far graver matter, too. Let us say no more about it. Of course you never got the letter?" "Of course not." A short silence followed which Orsino felt to be rather awkward. Maria Consuelo looked at him suddenly. "Did my maid tell you?" she asked. "Yes--since you ask me. She met me in the corridor after my last visit and thrust the address upon me." "I thought so," said Maria Consuelo. "You have suspected her before?" "What was the other deception?" "That is a more serious matter. The woman is your trusted servant. At least you must have trusted her when you took her--" "That does not follow. What did she try to make you believe?" "It is hard to tell you. For all I know, she may have been instructed--you may have instructed her yourself. One stumbles upon odd things in life, sometimes." "You called yourself my friend once, Don Orsino." "If you will let me, I will call myself so still." "Then, in the name of friendship, tell me what the woman said!" Maria Consuelo spoke with sudden energy, touching his arm quickly with an unconscious gesture. "Will you believe me?" "Are you accustomed to being doubted, that you ask?" "No. But this thing is very strange." "Do not keep me waiting--it hurts me!" "The woman stopped me as I was going away. I had never spoken to her. She knew my name. She told me that you were--how shall I say?--mentally deranged." Maria Consuelo started and turned very pale. "She told you that I was mad?" Her voice sank to a whisper. "That is what she said." Orsino watched her narrowly. She evidently believed him. Then she sank back in her chair with a stifled cry of horror, covering her eyes with her hands. "And you might have believed it!" she exclaimed. "You might really have believed it--you!" The cry came from her heart and would have shown Orsino what weight she still attached to his opinion had he not himself been too suddenly and deeply interested in the principal question to pay attention to details. "She made the statement very clearly," he said. "What could have been her object in the lie?" "What object? Ah--if I knew that--" Maria Consuelo rose and paced the room, her head bent and her hands nervously clasping and unclasping. Orsino stood by the empty fireplace, watching her. "You will send the woman away of course?" he said, in a questioning tone. But she shook her head and her anxiety seemed to increase. "Is it possible that you will submit to such a thing from a servant?" he asked in astonishment. "I have submitted to much," she answered in a low voice. "The inevitable, of course. But to keep a maid whom you can turn away at any moment--" "Yes--but can I?" She stopped and looked at him. "Oh, if I only could--if you knew how I hate the woman--" "But then--" "Yes?" "Do you mean to tell me that you are in some way in her power, so that you are bound to keep her always?" Maria Consuelo hesitated a moment. "Are you in her power?" asked Orsino a second time. He did not like the idea and his black brows bent themselves rather angrily. "No--not directly. She is imposed upon me." "By circumstances?" "No, again. By a person who has the power to impose much upon me--but this! Oh this is almost too much! To be called mad!" "Then do not submit to it." Orsino spoke decisively, with a kind of authority which surprised himself. He was amazed and righteously angry at the situation so suddenly revealed to him, undefined as it was. He saw that he was touching a great trouble and his natural energy bid him lay violent hands on it and root it out if possible. For some minutes Maria Consuelo did not speak, but continued to pace the room, evidently in great anxiety. Then she stopped before him. "It is easy for you to say, 'do not submit,' when you do not understand," she said. "If you knew what my life is, you would look at this in another way. I must submit--I cannot do otherwise." "If you would tell me something more, I might help you," answered Orsino. "You?" She paused. "I believe you would, if you could," she added, thoughtfully. "You know that I would. Perhaps I can, as it is, in ignorance, if you will direct me." A sudden light gleamed in Maria Consuelo's eyes and then died away as quickly as it had come. "After all, what could you do?" she asked with a change of tone, as though she were somehow disappointed. "What could you do that others would not do as well, if they could, and with a better right?" "Unless you will tell me, how can I know?" "Yes--if I could tell you." She went and sat down in her former seat and Orsino took a chair beside her. He had expected to renew the acquaintance in a very different way, and that he should spend half an hour with Maria Consuelo in talking about apartments, about the heat and about the places she had visited. Instead, circumstances had made the conversation an intimate one full of an absorbing interest to both. Orsino found that he had forgotten much which pleased him strangely now that it was again brought before him. He had forgotten most of all, it seemed, that an unexplained sympathy attracted him to her, and her to him. He wondered at the strength of it, and found it hard to understand that last meeting with her in the spring. "Is there any way of helping you, without knowing your secret?" he asked in a low voice. "No. But I thank you for the wish." "Are you sure there is no way? Quite sure?" "Quite sure." "May I say something that strikes me?" "Say anything you choose." "There is a plot against you. You seem to know it. Have you never thought of plotting on your side?" "I have no one to help me." "You have me, if you will take my help. And you have Spicca. You might do better, but you might do worse. Between us we might accomplish something." Maria Consuelo had started at Spicca's name. She seemed very nervous that day. "Do you know what you are saying?" she asked after a moment's thought. "Nothing that should offend you, at least." "No. But you are proposing that I should ally myself with the man of all others whom I have reason to hate." "You hate Spicca?" Orsino was passing from one surprise to another. "Whether I hate him or not, is another matter. I ought to." "At all events he does not hate you." "I know he does not. That makes it no easier for me. I could not accept his help." "All this is so mysterious that I do not know what to say," said Orsino, thoughtfully. "The fact remains, and it is bad enough. You need help urgently. You are in the power of a servant who tells your friends that you are insane and thrusts false addresses upon them, for purposes which I cannot explain." "Nor I either, though I may guess." "It is worse and worse. You cannot even be sure of the motives of this woman, though you know the person or persons by whom she is forced upon you. You cannot get rid of her yourself and you will not let any one else help you." "Not Count Spicca." "And yet I am sure that he would do much for you. Can you not even tell me why you hate him, or ought to hate him?" Maria Consuelo hesitated and looked into Orsino's eyes for a moment. "Can I trust you?" she asked. "Implicitly." "He killed my husband." Orsino uttered a low exclamation of horror. In the deep silence which followed he heard Maria Consuelo draw her breath once or twice sharply through her closed teeth, as though she were in great pain. "I do not wish it known," she said presently, in a changed voice. "I do not know why I told you." "You can trust me." "I must--since I have spoken." In the surprise caused by the startling confidence, Orsino suddenly felt that his capacity for sympathy had grown to great dimensions. If he had been a woman, the tears would have stood in his eyes. Being what he was, he felt them in his heart. It was clear that she had loved the dead man very dearly. In the light of this evident fact, it was hard to explain her conduct towards Orsino during the winter and especially at their last meeting. For a long time neither spoke again. Orsino, indeed, had nothing to say at first, for nothing he could say could reasonably be supposed to be of any use. He had learned the existence of something like a tragedy in Maria Consuelo's life, and he seemed to be learning the first lesson of friendship, which teaches sympathy. It was not an occasion for making insignificant phrases expressing his regret at her loss, and the language he needed in order to say what he meant was unfamiliar to his lips. He was silent, therefore, but his young face was grave and thoughtful, and his eyes sought hers from time to time as though trying to discover and forestall her wishes. At last she glanced at him quickly, then looked down, and at last spoke to him. "You will not make me regret having told you this--will you?" she asked. "No. I promise you that." So far as Orsino could understand the words meant very little. He was not very communicative, as a rule, and would certainly not tell what he had heard, so that the promise was easily given and easy to keep. If he did not break it, he did not see that she could have any further cause for regretting her confidence in him. Nevertheless, by way of reassuring her, he thought it best to repeat what he had said in different words. "You may be quite sure that whatever you choose to tell me is in safe keeping," he said. "And you may be sure, too, that if it is in my power to do you a service of any kind, you will find me ready, and more than ready, to help you." "Thank you," she answered, looking earnestly at him. "Whether the matter be small or great," he added, meeting her eyes. Perhaps she expected to find more curiosity on his part, and fancied that he would ask some further question. He did not understand the meaning of her look. "I believe you," she said at last. "I am too much in need of a friend to doubt you." "You have found one." "I do not know. I am not sure. There are other things--" she stopped suddenly and looked away. "What other things?" But Maria Consuelo did not answer. Orsino knew that she was thinking of all that had once passed between them. He wondered whether, if he led the way, she would press him as she had done at their last meeting. If she did, he wondered what he should say. He had been very cold then, far colder than he was now. He now felt drawn to her, as in the first days of their acquaintance. He felt always that he was on the point of understanding her, and yet that he was waiting, for something which should help him to pass that point. "What other things?" he asked, repeating his question. "Do you mean that there are reasons which may prevent me from being a good friend of yours?" "I am afraid there are. I do not know." "I think you are mistaken, Madame. Will you name some of those reasons--or even one?" Maria Consuelo did not answer at once. She glanced at him, looked down, and then her eyes met his again. "Do you think that you are the kind of man a woman chooses for her friend?" she asked at length, with a faint smile. "I have not thought of the matter--" "But you should--before offering your friendship." "Why? If I feel a sincere sympathy for your trouble, if I am--" he hesitated, weighing his words--"if I am personally attached to you, why can I not help you? I am honest, and in earnest. May I say as much as that of myself?" "I believe you are." "Then I cannot see that I am not the sort of man whom a woman might take for a friend when a better is not at hand." "And do you believe in friendship, Don Orsino?" asked Maria Consuelo quietly. "I have heard it said that it is not wise to disbelieve anything nowadays," answered Orsino. "True--and the word 'friend' has such a pretty sound!" She laughed, for the first time since he had entered the room. "Then it is you who are the unbeliever, Madame. Is not that a sign that you need no friend at all, and that your questions are not seriously meant?" "Perhaps. Who knows?" "Do you know, yourself?" "No." Again she laughed a little, and then grew suddenly grave. "I never knew a woman who needed a friend more urgently than you do," said Orsino. "I do not in the least understand your position. The little you have told me makes it clear enough that there have been and still are unusual circumstances in your life. One thing I see. That woman whom you call your maid is forced upon you against your will, to watch you, and is privileged to tell lies about you which may do you a great injury. I do not ask why you are obliged to suffer her presence, but I see that you must, and I guess that you hate it. Would it be an act of friendship to free you from her or not?" "At present it would not be an act of friendship," answered Maria Consuelo, thoughtfully. "That is very strange. Do you mean to say that you submit voluntarily--" "The woman is a condition imposed upon me. I cannot tell you more." "And no friend, no friendly help can change the condition, I suppose." "I did not say that. But such help is beyond your power, Don Orsino," she added turning towards him rather suddenly. "Let us not talk of this any more. Believe me, nothing can be done. You have sometimes acted strangely with me, but I really think you would help me if you could. Let that be the state of our acquaintance. You are willing, and I believe that you are. Nothing more. Let that be our compact. But you can perhaps help me in another way--a smaller way. I want a habitation of some kind for the winter, for I am tired of camping out in hotels. You who know your own city so well can name some person who will undertake the matter." "I know the very man," said Orsino promptly. "Will you write out the address for me?" "It is not necessary. I mean myself." "I could not let you take so much trouble," protested Maria Consuelo. But she accepted, nevertheless, after a little hesitation. For some time they discussed the relative advantages of the various habitable quarters of the city, both glad, perhaps, to find an almost indifferent subject of conversation, and both relatively happy merely in being together. The talk made one of those restful interludes which are so necessary, and often so hard to produce, between two people whose thoughts run upon a strong common interest, and who find it difficult to exchange half a dozen words without being led back to the absorbing topic. What had been said had produced a decided effect upon Orsino. He had come expecting to take up the acquaintance on a new footing, but ten minutes had not elapsed before he had found himself as much interested as ever in Maria Consuelo's personality, and far more interested in her life than he had ever been before. While talking with more or less indifference about the chances of securing a suitable apartment for the winter, Orsino listened with an odd sensation of pleasure to every tone of his companion's voice and watched every changing expression of the striking face. He wondered whether he were not perhaps destined to love her sincerely as he had already loved her in a boyish, capricious fashion which would no longer be natural to him now. But for the present he was sure that he did not love her, and that he desired nothing but her sympathy for himself, and to feel sympathy for her. Those were the words he used, and he did not explain them to his own intelligence in any very definite way. He was conscious, indeed, that they meant more than formerly, but the same was true of almost everything that came into his life, and he did not therefore attach any especial importance to the fact. He was altogether much more in earnest than when he had first met Maria Consuelo; he was capable of deeper feeling, of stronger determination and of more decided action in all matters, and though he did not say so to himself he was none the less aware of the change. "Shall we make an appointment for to-morrow?" he asked, after they had been talking some time. "Yes--but there is one thing I wanted to ask you--" "What is that?" inquired Orsino, seeing that she hesitated. The faint colour rose in her cheeks, but she looked straight into his eyes, with a kind of fearless expression, as though she were facing a danger. "Tell me," she said, "in Rome, where everything is known and every one talks so much, will it not be thought strange that you and I should be driving about together, looking for a house for me? Tell me the truth." "What can people say?" asked Orsino. "Many things. Will they say them?" "If they do, I can make them stop talking." "That means that they will talk, does it not? Would you like that?" There was a sudden change in her face, with a look of doubt and anxious perplexity. Orsino saw it and felt that she was putting him upon his honour, and that whatever the doubt might be it had nothing to do with her trust in him. Six months earlier he would not have hesitated to demonstrate that her fears were empty--but he felt that six months earlier she might not have yielded to his reasoning. It was instinctive, but his instinct was not mistaken. "I think you are right," he said slowly. "We should not do it. I will send my architect with you." There was enough regret in the tone to show that he was making a considerable sacrifice. A little delicacy means more when it comes from a strong man, than when it is the natural expression of an over-refined and somewhat effeminate character. And Orsino was rapidly developing a strength of which other people were conscious. Maria Consuelo was pleased, though she, too, was perhaps sorry to give up the projected plan. "After all," she said, thoughtlessly, "you can come and see me here, if--" She stopped and blushed again, more deeply this time; but she turned her face away and in the half light the change of colour was hardly noticeable. "You were going to say 'if you care to see me,'" said Orsino. "I am glad you did not say it. It would not have been kind." "Yes--I was going to say that," she answered quietly. "But I will not." "Thank you." "Why do you thank me?" "For not hurting me." "Do you think that I would hurt you willingly, in any way?" "I would rather not think so. You did once." The words slipped from his lips almost before he had time to realise what they meant. He was thinking of the night when she had drawn up the carriage window, leaving him standing on the pavement, and of her repeated refusals to see him afterwards. It seemed long ago, and the hurt had not really been so sharp as he now fancied that it must have been, judging from what he now felt. She looked at him quickly as though wondering what he would say next. "I never meant to be unkind," she said. "I have often asked myself whether you could say as much." It was Orsino's turn to change colour. He was young enough for that, and the blood rose slowly in his dark cheeks. He thought again of their last meeting, and of what he had heard as he shut the door after him on that day. Perhaps he would have spoken, but Maria Consuelo was sorry for what she had said, and a little ashamed of her weakness, as indeed she had some cause to be, and she immediately turned back to a former point of the conversation, not too far removed from what had last been said. "You see," said she, "I was right to ask you whether people would talk. And I am grateful to you for telling me the truth. It is a first proof of friendship--of something better than our old relations. Will you send me your architect to-morrow, since you are so kind as to offer his help?" After arranging for the hour of meeting Orsino rose to take his leave. "May I come to-morrow?" he asked. "People will not talk about that," he added with a smile. "You can ask for me. I may be out. If I am at home, I shall be glad to see you." She spoke coldly, and Orsino saw that she was looking over his shoulder. He turned instinctively and saw that the door was open and Spicca was standing just outside, looking in and apparently waiting for a word from Maria Consuelo before entering. CHAPTER XIX. As Orsino had no reason whatever for avoiding Spicca he naturally waited a moment instead of leaving the room immediately. He looked at the old man with a new interest as the latter came forward. He had never seen and probably would never see again a man taking the hand of a woman whose husband he had destroyed. He stood a little back and Spicca passed him as he met Maria Consuelo. Orsino watched the faces of both. Madame d'Aranjuez put out her hand mechanically and with evident reluctance, and Orsino guessed that but for his own presence she would not have given it. The expression in her face changed rapidly from that which had been there when they had been alone, hardening very quickly until it reminded Orsino of a certain mask of the Medusa which had once made an impression upon his imagination. Her eyes were fixed and the pupils grew small while the singular golden yellow colour of the iris flashed disagreeably. She did not bend her head as she silently gave her hand. Spicca, too, seemed momentarily changed. He was as pale and thin as ever, but his face softened oddly; certain lines which contributed to his usually bitter and sceptical expression disappeared, while others became visible which changed his look completely. He bowed with more deference than he affected with other women, and Orsino fancied that he would have held Maria Consuelo's hand a moment longer, if she had not withdrawn it as soon as it had touched his. If Orsino had not already known that Spicca often saw her, he would have been amazed at the count's visit, considering what she had said of the man. As it was, he wondered what power Spicca had over her to oblige her to receive him, and he wondered in vain. The conclusion which forced itself before him was that Spicca was the person who imposed the serving woman upon Maria Consuelo. But her behaviour towards him, on the other hand, was not that of a person obliged by circumstances to submit to the caprices and dictation of another. Judging by the appearance of the two, it seemed more probable that the power was on the other side, and might be used mercilessly on occasion. "I hope I am not disturbing your plans," said Spicca, in a tone which was almost humble, and very unlike his usual voice. "Were you going out together?" He shook hands with Orsino, avoiding his glance, as the young man thought. "No," answered Maria Consuelo briefly. "I was not going out." "I am just going away," said Orsino by way of explanation, and he made as though he would take his leave. "Do not go yet," said Maria Consuelo. Her look made the words imperative. Spicca glanced from one to the other with a sort of submissive protest, and then all three sat down. Orsino wondered what part he was expected to play in the trio, and wished himself away in spite of the interest he felt in the situation. Maria Consuelo began to talk in a careless tone which reminded him of his first meeting with her in Gouache's studio. She told Spicca that Orsino had promised her his architect as a guide in her search for a lodging. "What sort of person is he?" inquired Spicca, evidently for the sake of making conversation. "Contini is a man of business," Orsino answered. "An odd fellow, full of talent, and a musical genius. One would not expect very much of him at first, but he will do all that Madame d'Aranjuez needs." "Otherwise you would not have recommended him, I suppose," said Spicca. "Certainly not," replied Orsino, looking at him. "You must know, Madame," said Spicca, "that Don Orsino is an excellent judge of men." He emphasised the last word in a way that seemed unnecessary. Maria Consuelo had recovered all her equanimity and laughed carelessly. "How you say that!" she exclaimed. "Is it a warning?" "Against what?" asked Orsino. "Probably against you," she said. "Count Spicca likes to throw out vague hints--but I will do him the credit to say that they generally mean something." She added the last words rather scornfully. An expression of pain passed over the old man's face. But he said nothing, though it was not like him to pass by a challenge of the kind. Without in the least understanding the reason of the sensation, Orsino felt sorry for him. "Among men, Count Spicca's opinion is worth having," he said quietly. Maria Consuelo looked at him in some surprise. The phrase sounded like a rebuke, and her eyes betrayed her annoyance. "How delightful it is to hear one man defend another!" she laughed. "I fancy Count Spicca does not stand much in need of defence," replied Orsino, without changing his tone. "He himself is the best judge of that." Spicca raised his weary eyes to hers and looked at her for a moment, before he answered. "Yes," he said. "I think I am the best judge. But I am not accustomed to being defended, least of all against you, Madame. The sensation is a new one." Orsino felt himself out of place. He was more warmly attached to Spicca than he knew, and though he was at that time not far removed from loving Maria Consuelo, her tone in speaking to the old man, which said far more than her words, jarred upon him, and he could not help taking his friend's part. On the other hand the ugly truth that Spicca had caused the death of Aranjuez more than justified Maria Consuelo in her hatred. Behind all, there was evidently some good reason why Spicca came to see her, and there was some bond between the two which made it impossible for her to refuse his visits. It was clear too, that though she hated him he felt some kind of strong affection for her. In her presence he was very unlike his daily self. Again Orsino moved and looked at her, as though asking her permission to go away. But she refused it with an imperative gesture and a look of annoyance. She evidently did not wish to be left alone with the old man. Without paying any further attention to the latter she began to talk to Orsino. She took no trouble to conceal what she felt and the impression grew upon Orsino that Spicca would have gone away after a quarter of an hour, if he had not either possessed a sort of right to stay or if he had not had some important object in view in remaining. "I suppose there is nothing to do in Rome at this time of year," she said. Orsino told her that there was absolutely nothing to do. Not a theatre was open, not a friend was in town. Rome was a wilderness. Rome was an amphitheatre on a day when there was no performance, when the lions were asleep, the gladiators drinking, and the martyrs unoccupied. He tried to say something amusing and found it hard. Spicca was very patient, but evidently determined to outstay Orsino. From time to time he made a remark, to which Maria Consuelo paid very little attention if she took any notice of it at all. Orsino could not make up his mind whether to stay or to go. The latter course would evidently displease Maria Consuelo, whereas by remaining he was clearly annoying Spicca and was perhaps causing him pain. It was a nice question, and while trying to make conversation he weighed the arguments in his mind. Strange to say he decided in favour of Spicca. The decision was to some extent an index of the state of his feelings towards Madame d'Aranjuez. If he had been quite in love with her, he would have stayed. If he had wished to make her love him, he would have stayed also. As it was, his friendship for the old count went before other considerations. At the same time he hoped to manage matters so as not to incur Maria Consuelo's displeasure. He found it harder than he had expected. After he had made up his mind, he continued to talk during three or four minutes and then made his excuse. "I must be going," he said quietly. "I have a number of things to do before night, and I must see Contini in order to give him time to make a list of apartments for you to see to-morrow." He took his hat and rose. He was not prepared for Maria Consuelo's answer. "I asked you to stay," she said, coldly and very distinctly. Spicca did not allow his expression to change. Orsino stared at her. "I am very sorry, Madame, but there are many reasons which oblige me to disobey you." Maria Consuelo bit her lip and her eyes gleamed angrily. She glanced at Spicca as though hoping that he would go away with Orsino. But he did not move. It was more and more clear that he had a right to stay if he pleased. Orsino was already bowing before her. Instead of giving her hand she rose quickly and led him towards the door. He opened it and they stood together on the threshold. "Is this the way you help me?" she asked, almost fiercely, though in a whisper. "Why do you receive him at all?" he inquired, instead of answering. "Because I cannot refuse." "But you might send him away?" She hesitated, and looked into his eyes. "Shall I?" "If you wish to be alone--and if you can. It is no affair of mine." She turned swiftly, leaving Orsino standing in the door and went to Spicca's side. He had risen when she rose and was standing at the other side of the room, watching. "I have a bad headache," she said coldly. "You will forgive me if I ask you to go with Don Orsino." "A lady's invitation to leave her house, Madame, is the only one which a man cannot refuse," said Spicca gravely. He bowed and followed Orsino out of the room, closing the door behind him. The scene had produced a very disagreeable impression upon Orsino. Had he not known the worst part of the secret and consequently understood what good cause Maria Consuelo had for not wishing to be alone with Spicca, he would have been utterly revolted and for ever repelled by her brutality. No other word could express adequately her conduct towards the count. Even knowing what he did, he wished that she had controlled her temper better and he was more than ever sorry for Spicca. It did not even cross his mind that the latter might have intentionally provoked Aranjuez and killed him purposely. He felt somehow that Spicca was in a measure the injured party and must have been in that position from the beginning, whatever the strange story might be. As the two descended the steps together Orsino glanced at his companion's pale, drawn features and was sure that the man was to be pitied. It was almost a womanly instinct, far too delicate for such a hardy nature, and dependent perhaps upon that sudden opening of his sympathies which resulted from meeting Maria Consuelo. I think that, on the whole, in such cases, though the woman's character may be formed by intimacy with man's, with apparent results, the impression upon the man is momentarily deeper, as the woman's gentler instincts are in a way reflected in his heart. Spicca recovered himself quickly, however. He took out his case and offered Orsino a cigarette. "So you have renewed your acquaintance," he said quietly. "Yes--under rather odd circumstances," answered Orsino. "I feel as though I owed you an apology, Count, and yet I do not see what there is to apologise for. I tried to go away more than once." "You cannot possibly make excuses to me for Madame d'Aranjuez's peculiarities, my friend. Besides, I admit that she has a right to treat me as she pleases. That does not prevent me from going to see her every day." "You must have strong reasons for bearing such treatment." "I have," answered Spicca thoughtfully and sadly. "Very strong reasons. I will tell you one of those which brought me to-day. I wished to see you two together." Orsino stopped in his walk, after the manner of Italians, and he looked at Spicca. He was hot tempered when provoked, and he might have resented the speech if it had come from any other man. But he spoke quietly. "Why do you wish to see us together?" he asked. "Because I am foolish enough to think sometimes that you suit one another, and might love one another." Probably nothing which Spicca could have said could have surprised Orsino more than such a plain statement. He grew suspicious at once, but Spicca's look was that of a man in earnest. "I do not think I understand you," answered Orsino. "But I think you are touching a subject which is better left alone." "I think not," returned Spicca unmoved. "Then let us agree to differ," said Orsino a little more warmly. "We cannot do that. I am in a position to make you agree with me, and I will. I am responsible for that lady's happiness. I am responsible before God and man." Something in the words made a deep impression upon Orsino. He had never heard Spicca use anything approaching to solemn language before. He knew at least one part of the meaning which showed Spicca's remorse for having killed Aranjuez, and he knew that the old man meant what he said, and meant it from his heart. "Do you understand me now?" asked Spicca, slowly inhaling the smoke of his cigarette. "Not altogether. If you desire the happiness of Madame d'Aranjuez why do you wish us to fall in love with each other? It strikes me that--" he stopped. "Because I wish you would marry her." "Marry her!" Orsino had not thought of that, and his words expressed a surprise which was not calculated to please Spicca. The old man's weary eyes suddenly grew keen and fierce and Orsino could hardly meet their look. Spicca's nervous fingers seized the young man's tough arm and closed upon it with surprising force. "I would advise you to think of that possibility before making any more visits," he said, his weak voice suddenly clearing. "We were talking together a few weeks ago. Do you remember what I said I would do to any man by whom harm comes to her? Yes, you remember well enough. I know what you answered, and I daresay you meant it. But I was in earnest, too." "I think you are threatening me, Count Spicca," said Orsino, flushing slowly but meeting the other's look with unflinching coolness. "No. I am not. And I will not let you quarrel with me, either, Orsino. I have a right to say this to you where she is concerned--a right you do not dream of. You cannot quarrel about that." Orsino did not answer at once. He saw that Spicca was very much in earnest, and was surprised that his manner now should be less calm and collected than on the occasion of their previous conversation, when the count had taken enough wine to turn the heads of most men. He did not doubt in the least the statement Spicca made. It agreed exactly with what Maria Consuelo herself had said of him. And the statement certainly changed the face of the situation. Orsino admitted to himself that he had never before thought of marrying Madame d'Aranjuez. He had not even taken into consideration the consequences of loving her and of being loved by her in return. The moment he thought of a possible marriage as the result of such a mutual attachment, he realised the enormous difficulties which stood in the way of such a union, and his first impulse was to give up visiting her altogether. What Spicca said was at once reasonable and unreasonable. Maria Consuelo's husband was dead, and she doubtless expected to marry again. Orsino had no right to stand in the way of others who might present themselves as suitors. But it was beyond belief that Spicca should expect Orsino to marry her himself, knowing Rome and the Romans as he did. The two had been standing still in the shade. Orsino began to walk forward again before he spoke. Something in his own reflexions shocked him. He did not like to think that an impassable social barrier existed between Maria Consuelo and himself. Yet, in his total ignorance of her origin and previous life the stories which had been circulated about her recalled themselves with unpleasant distinctness. Nothing that Spicca had said when they had dined together had made the matter any clearer, though the assurance that the deceased Aranjuez had come to his end by Spicca's instrumentality sufficiently contradicted the worst, if also the least credible, point in the tales which had been repeated by the gossips early in the previous winter. All the rest belonged entirely to the category of the unknown. Yet Spicca spoke seriously of a possible marriage and had gone to the length of wishing that it might be brought about. At last Orsino spoke. "You say that you have a right to say what you have said," he began. "In that case I think I have a right to ask a question which you ought to answer. You talk of my marrying Madame d'Aranjuez. You ought to tell me whether that is possible." "Possible?" cried Spicca almost angrily. "What do you mean?" "I mean this. You know us all, as you know me. You know the enormous prejudices in which we are brought up. You know perfectly well that although I am ready to laugh at some of them, there are others at which I do not laugh. Yet you refused to tell me who Madame d'Aranjuez was, when I asked you, the other day. I do not even know her father's name, much less her mother's--" "No," answered Spicca. "That is quite true, and I see no necessity for telling you either. But, as you say, you have some right to ask. I will tell you this much. There is nothing in the circumstances of her birth which could hinder her marriage into any honourable family. Does that satisfy you?" Orsino saw that whether he were satisfied or not he was to get no further information for the present. He might believe Spicca's statement or not, as he pleased, but he knew that whatever the peculiarities of the melancholy old duellist's character might be, he never took the trouble to invent a falsehood and was as ready as ever to support his words. On this occasion no one could have doubted him, for there was an unusual ring of sincere feeling in what he said. Orsino could not help wondering what the tie between him and Madame d'Aranjuez could be, for it evidently had the power to make Spicca submit without complaint to something worse than ordinary unkindness and to make him defend on all occasions the name and character of the woman who treated him so harshly. It must be a very close bond, Orsino thought. Spicca acted very much like a man who loves very sincerely and quite hopelessly. There was something very sad in the idea that he perhaps loved Maria Consuelo, at his age, broken down as he was, and old before his time. The contrast between them was so great that it must have been grotesque if it had not been pathetic. Little more passed between the two men on that day, before they separated. To Spicca, Orsino seemed indifferent, and the older man's reticence after his sudden outburst did not tend to prolong the meeting. Orsino went in search of Contini and explained what was needed of him. He was to make a brief list of desirable apartments to let and was to accompany Madame d'Aranjuez on the following morning in order to see them. Contini was delighted and set out about the work at once. Perhaps he secretly hoped that the lady might be induced to take a part of one of the new houses, but the idea had nothing to do with his satisfaction. He was to spend several hours in the sole society of a lady, of a genuine lady who was, moreover, young and beautiful. He read the little morning paper too assiduously not to have noticed the name and pondered over the descriptions of Madame d'Aranjuez on the many occasions when she had been mentioned by the reporters during the previous year. He was too young and too thoroughly Italian not to appreciate the good fortune which now fell into his way, and he promised himself a morning of uninterrupted enjoyment. He wondered whether the lady could be induced, by excessive fatigue and thirst to accept a water ice at Nazzari's, and he planned his list of apartments in such a way as to bring her to the neighbourhood of the Piazza di Spagna at an hour when the proposition, might seem most agreeable and natural. Orsino stayed in the office during the hot September morning, busying himself with the endless details of which he was now master, and thinking from time to time of Maria Consuelo. He intended to go and see her in the afternoon, and he, like Contini, planned what he should do and say. But his plans were all unsatisfactory, and once he found himself staring at the blank wall opposite his table in a state of idle abstraction long unfamiliar to him. Soon after twelve o'clock, Contini came back, hot and radiant. Maria Consuelo had refused the water ice, but the charm of her manner had repaid the architect for the disappointment. Orsino asked whether she had decided upon any dwelling. "She has taken the apartment in the Palazzo Barberini," answered Contini. "I suppose she will bring her family in the autumn." "Her family? She has none. She is alone." "Alone in that place! How rich she must be!" Contini found the remains of a cigar somewhere and lighted it thoughtfully. "I do not know whether she is rich or not," said Orsino. "I never thought about it." He began to work at his books again, while Contini sat down and fanned himself with a bundle of papers. "She admires you very much, Don Orsino," said the latter, after a pause. Orsino looked up sharply. "What do you mean by that?" he asked. "I mean that she talked of nothing but you, and in the most flattering way." In the oddly close intimacy which had grown up between the two men it did not seem strange that Orsino should smile at speeches which he would not have liked if they had come from any one but the poor architect. "What did she say?" he asked with idle curiosity. "She said it was wonderful to think what you had done. That of all the Roman princes you were the only one who had energy and character enough to throw over the old prejudices and take an occupation. That it was all the more creditable because you had done it from moral reasons and not out of necessity or love of money. And she said a great many other things of the same kind." "Oh!" ejaculated Orsino, looking at the wall opposite. "It is a pity she is a widow," observed Contini. "Why?" "She would make such a beautiful princess." "You must be mad, Contini!" exclaimed Orsino, half-pleased and half-irritated. "Do not talk of such follies." "All well! Forgive me," answered the architect a little humbly. "I am not you, you know, and my head is not yours--nor my name--nor my heart either." Contini sighed, puffed at his cigar and took up some papers. He was already a little in love with Maria Consuelo, and the idea that any man might marry her if he pleased, but would not, was incomprehensible to him. The day wore on. Orsino finished his work as thoroughly as though he had been a paid clerk, put everything in order and went away. Late in the afternoon he went to see Maria Consuelo. He knew that she would usually be already out at that hour, and he fancied that he was leaving something to chance in the matter of finding her, though an unacknowledged instinct told him that she would stay at home after the fatigue of the morning. "We shall not be interrupted by Count Spicca to-day," she said, as he sat down beside her. In spite of what he knew, the hard tone of her voice roused again in Orsino that feeling of pity for the old man which he had felt on the previous day. "Does it not seem to you," he asked, "that if you receive him at all, you might at least conceal something of your hatred for him?" "Why should I? Have you forgotten what I told you yesterday?" "It would be hard to forget that, though you told me no details. But it is not easy to imagine how you can see him at all if he killed your husband deliberately in a duel." "It is impossible to put the case more plainly!" exclaimed Maria Consuelo. "Do I offend you?" "No. Not exactly." "Forgive me, if I do. If Spicca, as I suppose, was the unwilling cause of your great loss, he is much to be pitied. I am not sure that he does not deserve almost as much pity as you do." "How can you say that--even if the rest were true?" "Think of what he must suffer. He is devotedly attached to you." "I know he is. You have told me that before, and I have given you the same answer. I want neither his attachment nor his devotion." "Then refuse to see him." "I cannot." "We come back to the same point again," said Orsino. "We always shall, if you talk about this. There is no other issue. Things are what they are and I cannot change them." "Do you know," said Orsino, "that all this mystery is a very serious hindrance to friendship?" Maria Consuelo was silent for a moment. "Is it?" she asked presently. "Have you always thought so?" The question was a hard one to answer. "You have always seemed mysterious to me," answered Orsino. "Perhaps that is a great attraction. But instead of learning the truth about you, I am finding out that there are more and more secrets in your life which I must not know." "Why should you know them?" "Because--" Orsino checked himself, almost with a start. He was annoyed at the words which had been so near his lips, for he had been on the point of saying "because I love you"--and he was intimately convinced that he did not love her. He could not in the least understand why the phrase was so ready to be spoken. Could it be, he asked himself, that Maria Consuelo was trying to make him say the words, and that her will, with her question, acted directly on his mind? He scouted the thought as soon as it presented itself, not only for its absurdity, but because it shocked some inner sensibility. "What were you going to say?" asked Madame d'Aranjuez almost carelessly. "Something that is best not said," he answered. "Then I am glad you did not say it." She spoke quietly and unaffectedly. It needed little divination on her part to guess what the words might have been. Even if she wished them spoken, she would not have them spoken too lightly, for she had heard his love speeches before, when they had meant very little. Orsino suddenly turned the subject, as though he felt unsure of himself. He asked her about the result of her search, in the morning. She answered that she had determined to take the apartment in the Palazzo Barberini. "I believe it is a very large place," observed Orsino, indifferently. "Yes," she answered in the same tone. "I mean to receive this winter. But it will be a tiresome affair to furnish such a wilderness." "I suppose you mean to establish yourself in Rome for several years." His face expressed a satisfaction of which he was hardly conscious himself. Maria Consuelo noticed it. "You seem pleased," she said. "How could I possibly not be?" he asked. Then he was silent. All his own words seemed to him to mean too much or too little. He wished she would choose some subject of conversation and talk that he might listen. But she also was unusually silent. He cut his visit short, very suddenly, and left her, saying that he hoped to find her at home as a general rule at that hour, quite forgetting that she would naturally be always out at the cool time towards evening. He walked slowly homewards in the dusk, and did not remember to go to his solitary dinner until nearly nine o'clock. He was not pleased with himself, but he was involuntarily pleased by something he felt and would not have been insensible to if he had been given the choice. His old interest in Maria Consuelo was reviving, and yet was turning into something very different from what it had been. He now boldly denied to himself that he was in love and forced himself to speculate concerning the possibilities of friendship. In his young system, it was absurd to suppose that a man could fall in love a second time with the same woman. He scoffed at himself, at the idea and at his own folly, having all the time a consciousness amounting to certainty, of something very real and serious, by no means to be laughed at, overlooked nor despised. CHAPTER XX. It was to be foreseen that Orsino and Maria Consuelo would see each other more often and more intimately now than ever before. Apart from the strong mutual attraction which drew them nearer and nearer together, there were many new circumstances which rendered Orsino's help almost indispensable to his friend. The details of her installation in the apartment she had chosen were many, there was much to be thought of and there were enormous numbers of things to be bought, almost each needing judgment and discrimination in the choice. Had the two needed reasonable excuses for meeting very often they had them ready to their hand. But neither of them were under any illusion, and neither cared to affect that peculiar form of self-forgiveness which finds good reasons always for doing what is always pleasant. Orsino, indeed, never pressed his services and was careful not to be seen too often in public with Maria Consuelo by the few acquaintances who were in town. Nor did Madame d'Aranjuez actually ask his help at every turn, any more than she made any difficulty about accepting it. There was a tacit understanding between them which did away with all necessity for inventing excuses on the one hand, or for the affectation of fearing to inconvenience Orsino on the other. During some time, however, the subjects which both knew to be dangerous were avoided, with an unspoken mutual consent for which Maria Consuelo was more grateful than for all the trouble Orsino was giving himself on her account. She fancied, perhaps, that he had at last accepted the situation, and his society gave her too much happiness to allow of her asking whether his discretion would or could last long. It was an anomalous relation which bound them together, as is often the case at some period during the development of a passion, and most often when the absence of obstacles makes the growth of affection slow and regular. It was a period during which a new kind of intimacy began to exist, as far removed from the half-serious, half-jesting intercourse of earlier days as it was from the ultimate happiness to which all those who love look forward with equal trust, although few ever come near it and fewer still can ever reach it quite. It was outwardly a sort of frank comradeship which took a vast deal for granted on both sides for the mere sake of escaping analysis, a condition in which each understood all that the other said, while neither quite knew what was in the other's heart, a state in which both were pleased to dwell for a time, as though preferring to prolong a sure if imperfect happiness rather than risk one moment of it for the hope of winning a life-long joy. It was a time during which mere friendship reached an artificially perfect beauty, like a summer fruit grown under glass in winter, which in thoroughly unnatural conditions attains a development almost impossible even where unhelped nature is most kind. Both knew, perhaps, that it could not last, but neither wished it checked, and neither liked to think of the moment when it must either begin to wither by degrees, or be suddenly absorbed into a greater and more dangerous growth. At that time they were able to talk fluently upon the nature of the human heart and the durability of great affections. They propounded the problems of the world and discussed them between the selection of a carpet and the purchase of a table. They were ready at any moment to turn from the deepest conversation to the consideration of the merest detail, conscious that they could instantly take up the thread of their talk. They could separate the major proposition from the minor, and the deduction from both, by a lively argument concerning the durability of a stuff or the fitness of a piece of furniture, and they came back each time with renewed and refreshed interest to the consideration of matters little less grave than the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. That their conclusions were not always logical nor even very sensible has little to do with the matter. On the contrary, the discovery of a flaw in their own reasoning was itself a reason for opening the question again at their next meeting. At first their conversation was of general things, including the desirability of glory for its own sake, the immortality of the soul and the principles of architecture. Orsino was often amazed to find himself talking, and, as he fancied, talking well, upon subjects of which he had hitherto supposed with some justice that he knew nothing. By and by they fell upon literature and dissected the modern novel with the keen zest of young people who seek to learn the future secrets of their own lives from vivid descriptions of the lives of others. Their knowledge of the modern novel was not so limited as their acquaintance with many other things less amusing, if more profitable, and they worked the vein with lively energy and mutual satisfaction. Then, as always, came the important move. They began to talk of love. The interest ceased to be objective or in any way vicarious and was transferred directly to themselves. These steps are not, I think, to be ever thought of as stages in the development of character in man or woman. They are phases in the intercourse of man and woman. Clever people know them well and know how to produce them at will. The end may or may not be love, but an end of some sort is inevitable. According to the persons concerned, according to circumstances, according to the amount of available time, the progression from general subjects to the discussion of love, with self-application of the conclusions, more or less sincere, may occupy an hour, a month or a year. Love is the one subject which ultimately attracts those not too old to talk about it, and those who consider that they have reached such an age are few. In the case of Orsino and Maria Consuelo, neither of the two was making any effort to lead up to a certain definite result, for both felt a real dread of reaching that point which is ever afterwards remembered as the last moment of hardly sustained friendship and the first of something stronger and too often less happy. Orsino was inexperienced, but Maria Consuelo was quite conscious of the tendency in a fixed direction. Whether she had made up her mind, or not, she tried as skilfully as she could to retard the movement, for she was very happy in the present and probably feared the first stirring of her own ardently passionate nature. As for Orsino, indeed, his inexperience was relative. He was anxious to believe that he was only her friend, and pretended to his own conscience that he could not explain the frequency with which the words "I love you" presented themselves. The desire to speak them was neither a permanent impulse of which he was always conscious nor a sudden strong emotion like a temptation, giving warning of itself by a few heart-beats before it reached its strength. The words came to his lips so naturally and unexpectedly that he often wondered how he saved himself from pronouncing them. It was impossible for him to foresee when they would crave utterance. At last he began to fancy that they rang in his mind without a reason and without a wish on his part to speak them, as a perfectly indifferent tune will ring in the ear for days so that one cannot get rid of it. Maria Consuelo had not intended to spend September and October altogether in Rome. She had supposed that it would be enough to choose her apartment and give orders to some person about the furnishing of it to her taste, and that after that she might go to the seaside until the heat should be over, coming up to the city from time to time as occasion required. But she seemed to have changed her mind. She did not even suggest the possibility of going away. She generally saw Orsino in the afternoon. He found no difficulty in making time to see her, whenever he could be useful, but his own business naturally occupied all the earlier part of the day. As a rule, therefore, he called between half-past four and five, and so soon as it was cool enough they went together to the Palazzo Barberini to see what progress the upholsterers were making and to consider matters of taste. The great half-furnished rooms with the big windows overlooking the little garden before the palace were pleasant to sit in and wander in during the hot September afternoons. The pair were not often quite alone, even for a quarter of an hour, the place being full of workmen who came and went, passed and repassed, as their occupations required, often asking for orders and probably needing more supervision than Maria Consuelo bestowed upon them. On a certain evening late in September the two were together in the large drawing-room. Maria Consuelo was tired and was leaning back in a deep seat, her hands folded upon her knee, watching Orsino as he slowly paced the carpet, crossing and recrossing in his short walk, his face constantly turned towards her. It was excessively hot. The air was sultry with thunder, and though it was past five o'clock the windows were still closely shut to keep out the heat. A clear, soft light filled the room, not reflected from a burning pavement, but from grass and plashing water. They had been talking of a chimneypiece which Maria Consuelo wished to have placed in the hall. The style of what she wanted suggested the sixteenth century, Henry Second of France, Diana of Poitiers and the durability of the affections. The transition from fireplaces to true love had been accomplished with comparative ease, the result of daily practice and experience. It is worth noting, for the benefit of the young, that furniture is an excellent subject for conversation for that very reason, nothing being simpler than to go in three minutes from a table to an epoch, from an epoch to an historical person and from that person to his or her love story. A young man would do well to associate the life of some famous lover or celebrated and unhappy beauty with each style of woodwork and upholstery. It is always convenient. But if he has not the necessary preliminary knowledge he may resort to a stratagem. "What a comfortable chair!" says he, as he deposits his hat on the floor and sits down. "Do you like comfortable chairs?" "Of course. Fancy what life was in the days of stiff wooden seats, when you had to carry a cushion about with you. You know that sort of thing--twelfth century, Francesca da Rimini and all that." "Poor Francesca!" If she does not say "Poor Francesca!" as she probably will, you can say it yourself, very feelingly and in a different tone, after a short pause. The one kiss which cost two lives makes the story particularly useful. And then the ice is broken. If Paolo and Francesca had not been murdered, would they have loved each other for ever? As nobody knows what they would have done, you can assert that they would have been faithful or not, according to your taste, humour or personal intentions. Then you can talk about the husband, whose very hasty conduct contributed so materially to the shortness of the story. If you wish to be thought jealous, you say he was quite right; if you desire to seem generous, you say with equal conviction that he was quite wrong. And so forth. Get to generalities as soon as possible in order to apply them to your own case. Orsino and Maria Consuelo were the guileless victims of furniture, neither of them being acquainted with the method just set forth for the instruction of the innocent. They fell into their own trap and wondered how they had got from mantelpieces to hearts in such an incredibly short time. "It is quite possible to love twice," Orsino was saying. "That depends upon what you mean by love," answered Maria Consuelo, watching him with half-closed eyes. Orsino laughed. "What I mean by love? I suppose I mean very much what other people mean by it--or a little more," he added, and the slight change in his voice pleased her. "Do you think that any two understand the same thing when they speak of love?" she asked. "We two might," he answered, resuming his indifferent tone. "After all, we have talked so much together during the last month that we ought to understand each other." "Yes," said Maria Consuelo. "And I think we do," she added thoughtfully. "Then why should we think differently about the same thing? But I am not going to try and define love. It is not easily defined, and I am not clever enough." He laughed again. "There are many illnesses which I cannot define--but I know that one may have them twice." "There are others which one can only have once--dangerous ones, too." "I know it. But that has nothing to do with the argument." "I think it has--if this is an argument at all." "No. Love is not enough like an illness--it is quite the contrary. It is a recovery from an unnatural state--that of not loving. One may fall into that state and recover from it more than once." "What a sophism!" "Why do you say that? Do you think that not to love is the normal condition of mankind?" Maria Consuelo was silent, still watching him. "You have nothing to say," he continued, stopping and standing before her. "There is nothing to be said. A man or woman who does not love is in an abnormal state. When he or she falls in love it is a recovery. One may recover so long as the heart has enough vitality. Admit it--for you must. It proves that any properly constituted person may love twice, at least." "There is an idea of faithlessness in it, nevertheless," said Maria Consuelo, thoughtfully. "Or if it is not faithless, it is fickle. It is not the same to oneself to love twice. One respects oneself less." "I cannot believe that." "We all ought to believe it. Take a case as an instance. A woman loves a man with all her heart, to the point of sacrificing very much for him. He loves her in the same way. In spite of the strongest opposition, they agree to be married. On the very day of the marriage he is taken from her--for ever--loving her as he has always loved her, and as he would always have loved her had he lived. What would such a woman feel, if she found herself forgetting such a love as that after two or three years, for another man? Do you think she would respect herself more or less? Do you think she would have the right to call herself a faithful woman?" Orsino was silent for a moment, seeing that she meant herself by the example. She, indeed, had only told him that her husband had been killed, but Spicca had once said of her that she had been married to a man who had never been her husband. "A memory is one thing--real life is quite another," said Orsino at last, resuming his walk. "And to be faithful cannot possibly mean to be faithless," answered Maria Consuelo in a low voice. She rose and went to one of the windows. She must have wished to hide her face, for the outer blinds and the glass casement were both shut and she could see nothing but the green light that struck the painted wood. Orsino went to her side. "Shall I open the window?" he asked in a constrained voice. "No--not yet. I thought I could see out." Still she stood where she was, her face almost touching the pane, one small white hand resting upon the glass, the fingers moving restlessly. "You meant yourself, just now," said Orsino softly. She neither spoke nor moved, but her face grew pale. Then he fancied that there was a hardly perceptible movement of her head, the merest shade of an inclination. He leaned a little towards her, resting against the marble sill of the window. "And you meant something more--" he began to say. Then he stopped short. His heart was beating hard and the hot blood throbbed in his temples, his lips closed tightly and his breathing was audible. Maria Consuelo turned her head, glanced at him quickly and instantly looked back at the smooth glass before her and at the green light on the shutters without. He was scarcely conscious that she had moved. In love, as in a storm at sea, matters grow very grave in a few moments. "You meant that you might still--" Again he stopped. The words would not come. He fancied that she would not speak. She could not, any more than she could have left his side at that moment. The air was very sultry even in the cool, closed room. The green light on the shutters darkened suddenly. Then a far distant peal of thunder rolled its echoes slowly over the city. Still neither moved from the window. "If you could--" Orsino's voice was low and soft, but there was something strangely overwrought in the nervous quality of it. It was not hesitation any longer that made him stop. "Could you love me?" he asked. He thought he spoke aloud. When he had spoken, he knew that he had whispered the words. His face was colourless. He heard a short, sharp breath, drawn like a gasp. The small white hand fell from the window and gripped his own with sudden, violent strength. Neither spoke. Another peal of thunder, nearer and louder, shook the air. Then Orsino heard the quick-drawn breath again, and the white hand went nervously to the fastening of the window. Orsino opened the casement and thrust back the blinds. There was a vivid flash, more thunder, and a gust of stifling wind. Maria Consuelo leaned far out, looking up, and a few great drops of rain, began to fall. The storm burst and the cold rain poured down furiously, wetting the two white faces at the window. Maria Consuelo drew back a little, and Orsino leaned against the open casement, watching her. It was as though the single pressure of their hands had crushed out the power of speech for a time. For weeks they had talked daily together during many hours. They could not foresee that at the great moment there would be nothing left for them to say. The rain fell in torrents and the gusty wind rose and buffeted the face of the great palace with roaring strength, to sink very suddenly an instant later in the steadily rushing noise of the water, springing up again without warning, rising and falling, falling and rising, like a great sobbing breath. The wind and the rain seemed to be speaking for the two who listened to it. Orsino watched Maria Consuelo's face, not scrutinising it, nor realising very much whether it were beautiful or not, nor trying to read the thoughts that were half expressed in it--not thinking at all, indeed, but only loving it wholly and in every part for the sake of the woman herself, as he had never dreamed of loving any one or anything. At last Maria Consuelo turned very slowly and looked into his eyes. The passionate sadness faded out of the features, the faint colour rose again, the full lips relaxed, the smile that came was full of a happiness that seemed almost divine. "I cannot help it," she said. "Can I?" "Truly?" Her hand was lying on the marble ledge. Orsino laid his own upon it, and both trembled a little. She understood more than any word could have told her. "For how long?" she asked. "For all our lives now, and for all our life hereafter." He raised her hand to his lips, bending his head, and then he drew her from the window, and they walked slowly up and down the great room. "It is very strange," she said presently, in a low voice. "That I should love you?" "Yes. Where were we an hour ago? What is become of that old time--that was an hour ago?" "I have forgotten, dear--that was in the other life." "The other life! Yes--how unhappy I was--there, by that window, a hundred years ago!" She laughed softly, and Orsino smiled as he looked down at her. "Are you happy now?" "Do not ask me--how could I tell you?" "Say it to yourself, love--I shall see it in your dear face." "Am I not saying it?" Then they were silent again, walking side by side, their arms locked and pressing one another. It began to dawn upon Orsino that a great change had come into his life, and he thought of the consequences of what he was doing. He had not said that he was happy, but in the first moment he had felt it more than she. The future, however, would not be like the present, and could not be a perpetual continuation of it. Orsino was not at all of a romantic disposition, and the practical side of things was always sure to present itself to his mind very early in any affair. It was a part of his nature and by no means hindered him from feeling deeply and loving sincerely. But it shortened his moments of happiness. "Do you know what this means to you and me?" he asked, after a time. Maria Consuelo started very slightly and looked up at him. "Let us think of to-morrow--to-morrow," she said. Her voice trembled a little. "Is it so hard to think of?" asked Orsino, fearing lest he had displeased her. "Very hard," she answered, in a low voice. "Not for me. Why should it be? If anything can make to-day more complete, it is to think that to-morrow will be more perfect, and the next day still more, and so on, each day better than the one before it." Maria Consuelo shook her head. "Do not speak of it," she said. "Will you not love me to-morrow?" Orsino asked. The light in his face told how little earnestly he asked the question, but she turned upon him quickly. "Do you doubt yourself, that you should doubt me?" There was a ring of terror in the words that startled him as he heard them. "Beloved--no--how can you think I meant it?" "Then do not say it." She shivered a little, and bent down her head. "No--I will not. But--dear--do you know where we are?" "Where we are?" she repeated, not understanding. "Yes--where we are. This was to have been your home this year." "Was to have been?" A frightened look came into her face. "It will not be, now. Your home is not in this house." Again she shook her head, turning her face away. "It must be," she said. Orsino was surprised beyond expression by the answer. "Either you do not know what you are saying, or you do not mean it, dear," he said. "Or else you will not understand me." "I understand you too well." Orsino made her stop and took both her hands, looking down into her eyes. "You will marry me," he said. "I cannot marry you," she answered. Her face grew even paler than it had been when they had stood at the window, and so full of pain and sadness that it hurt Orsino to look at it. But the words she spoke, in her clear, distinct tones, struck him like a blow unawares. He knew that she loved him, for her love was in every look and gesture, without attempt at concealment. He believed her to be a good woman. He was certain that her husband was dead. He could not understand, and he grew suddenly angry. An older man would have done worse, or a man less in earnest. "You must have a reason to give me--and a good one," he said gravely. "I have." She turned slowly away and began to walk alone. He followed her. "You must tell it," he said. "Tell it? Yes, I will tell it to you. It is a solemn promise before God, given to a man who died in my arms--to my husband. Would you have me break such a vow?" "Yes." Orsino drew a long breath. The objection seemed insignificant enough compared with the pain it had cost him before it had been explained. "Such promises are not binding," he continued, after a moment's pause. "Such a promise is made hastily, rashly, without a thought of the consequences. You have no right to keep it." "No right? Orsino, what are you saying! Is not an oath an oath, however it is taken? Is not a vow made ten times more sacred when the one for whom it was taken is gone? Is there any difference between my promise and that made before the altar by a woman who gives up the world? Should I be any better, if I broke mine, than the nun who broke hers?" "You cannot be in earnest?" exclaimed Orsino in a low voice. Maria Consuelo did not answer. She went towards the window and looked at the splashing rain. Orsino stood where he was, watching her. Suddenly she came back and stood before him. "We must undo this," she said. "What do you mean?" He understood well enough. "You know. We must not love each other. We must undo to-day and forget it." "If you can talk so lightly of forgetting, you have little to remember," answered Orsino almost roughly. "You have no right to say that." "I have the right of a man who loves you." "The right to be unjust?" "I am not unjust." His tone softened again. "I know what it means, to say that I love you--it is my life, this love. I have known it a long time. It has been on my lips to say it for weeks, and since it has been said, it cannot be unsaid. A moment ago you told me not to doubt you. I do not. And now you say that we must not love each other, as though we had a choice to make--and why? Because you once made a rash promise--" "Hush!" interrupted Maria Consuelo. "You must not--" "I must and will. You made a promise, as though you had a right at such a moment to dispose of all your life--I do not speak of mine--as though you could know what the world held for you, and could renounce it all beforehand. I tell you you had no right to make such an oath, and a vow taken without the right to take it is no vow at all--" "It is--it is! I cannot break it!" "If you love me you will. But you say we are to forget. Forget! It is so easy to say. How shall we do it?" "I will go away--" "If you have the heart to go away, then go. But I will follow you. The world is very small, they say--it will not be hard for me to find you, wherever you are." "If I beg you--if I ask it as the only kindness, the only act of friendship, the only proof of your love--you will not come--you will not do that--" "I will, if it costs your soul and mine." "Orsino! You do not mean it--you see how unhappy I am, how I am trying to do right, how hard it is!" "I see that you are trying to ruin both our lives. I will not let you. Besides, you do not mean it." Maria Consuelo looked into his eyes and her own grew deep and dark. Then as though she felt herself yielding, she turned away and sat down in a chair that stood apart from the rest. Orsino followed her, and tried to take her hand, bending down to meet her downcast glance. "You do not mean it, Consuelo," he said earnestly. "You do not mean one hundredth part of what you say." She drew her fingers from his, and turned her head sideways against the back of the chair so that she could not see him. He still bent over her, whispering into her ear. "You cannot go," he said. "You will not try to forget--for neither you nor I can--nor ought, cost what it might. You will not destroy what is so much to us--you would not, if you could. Look at me, love--do not turn away. Let me see it all in your eyes, all the truth of it and of every word I say." Still she turned her face from him. But she breathed quickly with parted lips and the colour rose slowly in her pale cheeks. "It must be sweet to be loved as I love you, dear," he said, bending still lower and closer to her. "It must be some happiness to know that you are so loved. Is there so much joy in your life that you can despise this? There is none in mine, without you, nor ever can be unless we are always together--always, dear, always, always." She moved a little, and the drooping lids lifted almost imperceptibly. "Do not tempt me, dear one," she said in a faint voice. "Let me go--let me go." Orsino's dark face was close to hers now, and she could see his bright eyes. Once she tried to look away, and could not. Again she tried, lifting her head from the cushioned chair. But his arm went round her neck and her cheek rested upon his shoulder. "Go, love," he said softly, pressing her more closely. "Go--let us not love each other. It is so easy not to love." She looked up into his eyes again with a sudden shiver, and they both grew very pale. For ten seconds neither spoke nor moved. Then their lips met. CHAPTER XXI. When Orsino was alone that night, he asked himself more than one question which he did not find it easy to answer. He could define, indeed, the relation in which he now stood to Maria Consuelo, for though she had ultimately refused to speak the words of a promise, he no longer doubted that she meant to be his wife and that her scruples were overcome for ever. This was, undeniably, the most important point in the whole affair, so far as his own satisfaction was concerned, but there were others of the gravest import to be considered and elucidated before he could even weigh the probabilities of future happiness. He had not lost his head on the present occasion, as he had formerly done when his passion had been anything but sincere. He was perfectly conscious that Maria Consuelo was now the principal person concerned in his life and that the moment would inevitably have come, sooner or later, in which he must have told her so as he had done on this day. He had not yielded to a sudden impulse, but to a steady and growing pressure from which there had been no means of escape, and which he had not sought to elude. He was not in one of those moods of half-senseless, exuberant spirits, such as had come upon him more than once during the winter after he had been an hour in her society and had said or done something more than usually rash. On the contrary, he was inclined to look the whole situation soberly in the face, and to doubt whether the love which dominated him might not prove a source of unhappiness to Maria Consuelo as well as to himself. At the same time he knew that it would be useless to fight against that domination, for he knew that he was now absolutely sincere. But the difficulties to be met and overcome were many and great. He might have betrothed himself to almost any woman in society, widow or spinster, without anticipating one hundredth part of the opposition which he must now certainly encounter. He was not even angry beforehand with the prejudice which would animate his father and mother, for he admitted that it was hardly a prejudice at all, and certainly not one peculiar to them, or to their class. It would be hard to find a family, anywhere, of any respectability, no matter how modest, that would accept without question such a choice as he had made. Maria Consuelo was one of those persons about whom the world is ready to speak in disparagement, knowing that it will not be easy to find defenders for them. The world indeed, loves its own and treats them with consideration, especially in the matter of passing follies, and after it had been plain to society that Orsino had fallen under Maria Consuelo's charm, he had heard no more disagreeable remarks about her origin nor the circumstances of her widowhood. But he remembered what had been said before that, when he himself had listened indifferently enough, and he guessed that ill-natured people called her an adventuress or little better. If anything could have increased the suffering which this intuitive knowledge caused him, it was the fact that he possessed no proof of her right to rank with the best, except his own implicit faith in her, and the few words Spicca had chosen to let fall. Spicca was still thought so dangerous that people hesitated to contradict him openly, but his mere assertion, Orsino thought, though it might be accepted in appearance, was not of enough weight to carry inward conviction with it in the minds of people who had no interest in being convinced. It was only too plain that, unless Maria Consuelo, or Spicca, or both, were willing to tell the strange story in its integrity, there were not proof enough to convince the most willing person of her right to the social position she occupied after that had once been called into question. To Orsino's mind the very fact that it had been questioned at all demonstrated sufficiently a carelessness on her own part which could only proceed from the certainty of possessing that right beyond dispute. It would doubtless have been possible for her to provide herself from the first with something in the nature of a guarantee for her identity. She could surely have had the means, through some friend of her own elsewhere, of making the acquaintance of some one in society, who would have vouched for her and silenced the carelessly spiteful talk concerning her which had gone the rounds when she first appeared. But she had seemed to be quite indifferent. She had refused Orsino's pressing offer to bring her into relations with his mother, whose influence would have been enough to straighten a reputation far more doubtful than Maria Consuelo's, and she had almost wilfully thrown herself into a sort of intimacy with the Countess Del Ferice. But Orsino, as he thought of these matters, saw how futile such arguments must seem to his own people, and how absurdly inadequate they were to better his own state of mind, since he needed no conviction himself but sought the means of convincing others. One point alone gave him some hope. Under the existing laws the inevitable legal marriage would require the production of documents which would clear the whole story at once. On the other hand, that fact could make Orsino's position no easier with his father and mother until the papers were actually produced. People cannot easily be married secretly in Rome, where the law requires the publication of banns by posting them upon the doors of the Capitol, and the name of Orsino Saracinesca would not be easily overlooked. Orsino was aware of course that he was not in need of his parents' consent for his marriage, but he had not been brought up in a way to look upon their acquiescence as unnecessary. He was deeply attached to them both, but especially to his mother who had been his staunch friend in his efforts to do something for himself, and to whom he naturally looked for sympathy if not for actual help. However certain he might be of the ultimate result of his marriage, the idea of being married in direct opposition to her wishes was so repugnant to him as to be almost an insurmountable barrier. He might, indeed, and probably would, conceal his engagement for some time, but solely with the intention of so preparing the evidence in favour of it as to make it immediately acceptable to his father and mother when announced. It seemed possible that, if he could bring Maria Consuelo to see the matter as he saw it, she might at once throw aside her reticence and furnish him with the information he so greatly needed. But it would be a delicate matter to bring her to that point of view, unconscious as she must be of her equivocal position. He could not go to her and tell her that in order to announce their engagement he must be able to tell the world who and what she really was. The most he could do would be to tell her exactly what papers were necessary for her marriage and to prevail upon her to procure them as soon as possible, or to hand them to him at once if they were already in her possession. But in order to require even this much of her, it was necessary to push matters farther than they had yet gone. He had certainly pledged himself to her, and he firmly believed that she considered herself bound to him. But beyond that, nothing definite had passed. They had been interrupted by the entrance of workmen asking for orders, and he had thought that Maria Consuelo had seemed anxious to detain the men as long as possible. That such a scene could not be immediately renewed where it had been broken off was clear enough, but Orsino fancied that she had not wished even to attempt a renewal of it. He had taken her home in the dusk, and she had refused to let him enter the hotel with her. She said that she wished to be alone, and he had been fain to be satisfied with the pressure of her hand and the look in her eyes, which both said much while not saying half of what he longed to hear and know. He would see her, of course, at the usual hour on the following day, and he determined to speak plainly and strongly. She could not ask him to prolong such a state of uncertainty. Considering how gradual the steps had been which had led up to what had taken place on that rainy afternoon it was not conceivable, he thought, that she would still ask for time to make up her mind. She would at least consent to some preliminary agreement upon a line of conduct for both to follow. But impossible as the other case seemed, Orsino did not neglect it. His mind was developing with his character and was acquiring the habit of foreseeing difficulties in order to forestall them. If Maria Consuelo returned suddenly to her original point of view maintaining that the promise given to her dying husband was still binding, Orsino determined that he would go to Spicca in a last resort. Whatever the bond which united them, it was clear that Spicca possessed some kind of power over Maria Consuelo, and that he was so far acquainted with all the circumstances of her previous life as to be eminently capable of giving Orsino advice for the future. He went to his office on the following morning with little inclination for work. It would be more just, perhaps, to say that he felt the desire to pursue his usual occupation while conscious that his mind was too much disturbed by the events of the previous afternoon to concentrate itself upon the details of accounts and plans. He found himself committing all sorts of errors of oversight quite unusual with him. Figures seemed to have lost their value and plans their meaning. With the utmost determination he held himself to his task, not willing to believe that his judgment and nerve could be so disturbed as to render him unfit for any serious business. But the result was contemptible as compared with the effort. Andrea Contini, too, was inclined to take a gloomy view of things, contrary to his usual habit. A report was spreading to the effect that a certain big contractor was on the verge of bankruptcy, a man who had hitherto been considered beyond the danger of heavy loss. There had been more than one small failure of late, but no one had paid much attention to such accidents which were generally attributed to personal causes rather than to an approaching turn in the tide of speculation. But Contini chose to believe that a crisis was not far off. He possessed in a high degree that sort of caution which is valuable rather in an assistant than in a chief. Orsino was little inclined to share his architect's despondency for the present. "You need a change of air," he said, pushing a heap of papers away from him and lighting a cigarette. "You ought to go down to Porto d'Anzio for a few days. You have been too long in the heat." "No longer than you, Don Orsino," answered Contini, from his own table. "You are depressed and gloomy. You have worked harder than I. You should really go out of town for a day or two." "I do not feel the need of it." Contini bent over his table again and a short silence followed. Orsino's mind instantly reverted to Maria Consuelo. He felt a violent desire to leave the office and go to her at once. There was no reason why he should not visit her in the morning if he pleased. At the worst, she might refuse to receive him. He was thinking how she would look, and wondering whether she would smile or meet him with earnest half regretful eyes, when Contini's voice broke into his meditations again. "You think I am despondent because I have been working too long in the heat," said the young man, rising and beginning to pace the floor before Orsino. "No. I am not that kind of man. I am never tired. I can go on for ever. But affairs in Rome will not go on for ever. I tell you that, Don Orsino. There is trouble in the air. I wish we had sold everything and could wait. It would be much better." "All this is very vague, Contini." "It is very clear to me. Matters are going from bad to worse. There is no doubt that Ronco has failed." "Well, and if he has? We are not Ronco. He was involved in all sorts of other speculations. If he had stuck to land and building he would be as sound as ever." "For another month, perhaps. Do you know why he is ruined?" "By his own fault, as people always are. He was rash." "No rasher than we are. I believe that the game is played out. Ronco is bankrupt because the bank with which he deals cannot discount any more bills this week." "And why not?" "Because the foreign banks will not take any more of all this paper that is flying about. Those small failures in the summer have produced their effect. Some of the paper was in Paris and some in Vienna. It turned out worthless, and the foreigners have taken fright. It is all a fraud, at best--or something very like it." "What do you mean?" "Tell me the truth, Don Orsino--have you seen a centime of all these millions which every one is dealing with? Do you believe they really exist? No. It is all paper, paper, and more paper. There is no cash in the business." "But there is land and there are houses, which represent the millions substantially." "Substantially! Yes--as long as the inflation lasts. After that they will represent nothing." "You are talking nonsense, Contini. Prices may fall, and some people will lose, but you cannot destroy real estate permanently." "Its value may be destroyed for ten or twenty years, which is practically the same thing when people have no other property. Take this block we are building. It represents a large sum. Say that in the next six months there are half a dozen failures like Ronco's and that a panic sets in. We could then neither sell the houses nor let them. What would they represent to us? Nothing. Failure--like the failure of everybody else. Do you know where the millions really are? You ought to know better than most people. They are in Casa Saracinesca and in a few other great houses which have not dabbled in all this business, and perhaps they are in the pockets of a few clever men who have got out of it all in time. They are certainly not in the firm of Andrea Contini and Company, which will assuredly be bankrupt before the winter is out." Contini bit his cigar savagely, thrust his hands into his pockets and looked out of the window, turning his back on Orsino. The latter watched his companion in surprise, not understanding why his dismal forebodings should find such sudden and strong expression. "I think you exaggerate very much," said Orsino. "There is always risk in such business as this. But it strikes me that the risk was greater when we had less capital." "Capital!" exclaimed the architect contemptuously and without turning round. "Can we draw a cheque--a plain unadorned cheque and not a draft--for a hundred thousand francs to-day? Or shall we be able to draw it to-morrow? Capital! We have a lot of brick and mortar in our possession, put together more or less symmetrically according to our taste, and practically unpaid for. If we manage to sell it in time we shall get the difference between what is paid and what we owe. That is our capital. It is problematical, to say the least of it. If we realise less than we owe we are bankrupt." He came back suddenly to Orsino's table as he ceased speaking and his face showed that he was really disturbed. Orsino looked at him steadily for a few seconds. "It is not only Ronco's failure that frightens you, Contini. There must be something else." "More of the same kind. There is enough to frighten any one." "No, there is something else. You have been talking with somebody." "With Del Ferice's confidential clerk. Yes--it is quite true. I was with him last night." "And what did he say? What you have been telling me, I suppose." "Something much more disagreeable--something you would rather not hear." "I wish to hear it." "You should, as a matter of fact." "Go on." "We are completely in Del Ferice's hands." "We are in the hands of his bank." "What is the difference? To all intents and purposes he is our bank. The proof is that but for him we should have failed already." Orsino looked up sharply. "Be clear, Contini. Tell me what you mean." "I mean this. For a month past the bank could not have discounted a hundred francs' worth of our paper. Del Ferice has taken it all and advanced the money out of his private account." "Are you sure of what you are telling me?" Orsino asked the question in a low voice, and his brow contracted. "One can hardly have better authority than the clerk's own statement." "And he distinctly told you this, did he?" "Most distinctly." "He must have had an object in betraying such a confidence," said Orsino. "It is not likely that such a man would carelessly tell you or me a secret which is evidently meant to be kept." He spoke quietly enough, but the tone of his voice was changed and betrayed how greatly he was moved by the news. Contini began to walk up and down again, but did not make any answer to the remark. "How much do we owe the bank?" Orsino asked suddenly. "Roughly, about six hundred thousand." "How much of that paper do you think Del Ferice has taken up himself?" "About a quarter, I fancy, from what the clerk told me." A long silence followed, during which Orsino tried to review the situation in all its various aspects. It was clear that Del Ferice did not wish Andrea Contini and Company to fail and was putting himself to serious inconvenience in order to avert the catastrophe. Whether he wished, in so doing, to keep Orsino in his power, or whether he merely desired to escape the charge of having ruined his old enemy's son out of spite, it was hard to decide. Orsino passed over that question quickly enough. So far as any sense of humiliation was concerned he knew very well that his mother would be ready and able to pay off all his liabilities at the shortest notice. What Orsino felt most deeply was profound disappointment and utter disgust at his own folly. It seemed to him that he had been played with and flattered into the belief that he was a serious man of business, while all along he had been pushed and helped by unseen hands. There was nothing to prove that Del Ferice had not thus deceived him from the first; and, indeed, when he thought of his small beginnings early in the year and realised the dimensions which the business had now assumed, he could not help believing that Del Ferice had been at the bottom of all his apparent success and that his own earnest and ceaseless efforts had really had but little to do with the development of his affairs. His vanity suffered terribly under the first shock. He was bitterly disappointed. During the preceding months he had begun to feel himself independent and able to stand alone, and he had looked forward in the near future to telling his father that he had made a fortune for himself without any man's help. He had remembered every word of cold discouragement to which he had been forced to listen at the very beginning, and he had felt sure of having a success to set against each one of those words. He knew that he had not been idle and he had fancied that every hour of work had produced its permanent result, and left him with something more to show. He had seen his mother's pride in him growing day by day in his apparent success, and he had been confident of proving to her that she was not half proud enough. All that was gone in a moment. He saw, or fancied that he saw, nothing but a series of failures which had been bolstered up and inflated into seeming triumphs by a man whom his father despised and hated and whom, as a man, he himself did not respect. The disillusionment was complete. At first it seemed to him that there was nothing to be done but to go directly to Saracinesca and tell the truth to his father and mother. Financially, when the wealth of the family was taken into consideration there was nothing very alarming in the situation. He would borrow of his father enough to clear him with Del Ferice and would sell the unfinished buildings for what they would bring. He might even induce his father to help him in finishing the work. There would be no trouble about the business question. As for Contini, he should not lose by the transaction and permanent occupation could doubtless be found for him on one of the estates if he chose to accept it. He thought of the interview and his vanity dreaded it. Another plan suggested itself to him. On the whole, it seemed easier to bear his dependence on Del Ferice than to confess himself beaten. There was nothing dishonourable, nothing which could be called so at least, in accepting financial accommodation from a man whose business it was to lend money on security. If Del Ferice chose to advance sums which his bank would not advance, he did it for good reasons of his own and certainly not in the intention of losing by it in the end. In case of failure Del Ferice would take the buildings for the debt and would certainly in that case get them for much less than they were worth. Orsino would be no worse off than when he had begun, he would frankly confess that though he had lost nothing he had not made a fortune, and the matter would be at an end. That would be very much easier to bear than the humiliation of confessing at the present moment that he was in Del Ferice's power and would be bankrupt but for Del Ferice's personal help. And again he repeated to himself that Del Ferice was not a man to throw money away without hope of recovery with interest. It was inconceivable, too, that Ugo should have pushed him so far merely to flatter a young man's vanity. He meant to make use of him, or to make money out of his failure. In either case Orsino would be his dupe and would not be under any obligation to him. Compared with the necessity of acknowledging the present state of his affairs to his father, the prospect of being made a tool of by Del Ferice was bearable, not to say attractive. "What had we better do, Contini?" he asked at length. "There is nothing to be done but to go on, I suppose, until we are ruined," replied the architect. "Even if we had the money, we should gain nothing by taking off all our bills as they fall due, instead of renewing them." "But if the bank will not discount any more--" "Del Ferice will, in the bank's name. When he is ready for the failure, we shall fail and he will profit by our loss." "Do you think that is what he means to do?" Contini looked at Orsino in surprise. "Of course. What did you expect? You do not suppose that he means to make us a present of that paper, or to hold it indefinitely until we can make a good sale." "And he will ultimately get possession of all the paper himself." "Naturally. As the old bills fall due we shall renew them with him, practically, and not with the bank. He knows what he is about. He probably has some scheme for selling the whole block to the government, or to some institution, and is sure of his profit beforehand. Our failure will give him a profit of twenty-five or thirty per cent." Orsino was strangely reassured by his partner's gloomy view. To him every word proved that he was free from any personal obligation to Del Ferice and might accept the latter's assistance without the least compunction. He did not like to remember that a man of Ugo's subtle intelligence might have something more important in view than a profit of a few hundred thousand francs, if indeed the sum should amount to that. Orsino's brow cleared and his expression changed. "You seem to like the idea," observed Contini rather irritably. "I would rather be ruined by Del Ferice than helped by him." "Ruin means so little to you, Don Orsino. It means the inheritance of an enormous fortune, a princess for a wife and the choice of two or three palaces to live in." "That is one way of putting it," answered Orsino, almost laughing. "As for yourself, my friend, I do not see that your prospects are so very bad. Do you suppose that I shall abandon you after having led you into this scrape, and after having learned to like you and understand your talent? You are very much mistaken. We have tried this together and failed, but as you rightly say I shall not be in the least ruined by the failure. Do you know what will happen? My father will tell me that since I have gained some experience I should go and manage one of the estates and improve the buildings. Then you and I will go together." Contini smiled suddenly and his bright eyes sparkled. He was profoundly attached to Orsino, and thought perhaps as much of the loss of his companionship as of the destruction of his material hopes in the event of a liquidation. "If that could be, I should not care what became of the business," he said simply. "How long do you think we shall last?" asked Orsino after a short pause. "If business grows worse, as I think it will, we shall last until the first bill that falls due after the doors and windows are put in." "That is precise, at least." "It will probably take us into January, or perhaps February." "But suppose that Del Ferice himself gets into trouble between now and then. If he cannot discount any more, what will happen?" "We shall fail a little sooner. But you need not be afraid of that. Del Ferice knows what he is about better than we do, better than his confidential clerk, much better than most men of business in Rome. If he fails, he will fail intentionally and at the right moment." "And do you not think that there is even a remote possibility of an improvement in business, so that nobody will fail at all?" "No," answered Contini thoughtfully. "I do not think so. It is a paper system and it will go to pieces." "Why have you not said the same thing before? You must have had this opinion a long time." "I did not believe that Ronco could fail. An accident opens the eyes." Orsino had almost decided to let matters go on but he found some difficulty in actually making up his mind. In spite of Contini's assurances he could not get rid of the idea that he was under an obligation to Del Ferice. Once, at least, he thought of going directly to Ugo and asking for a clear explanation of the whole affair. But Ugo was not in town, as he knew, and the impossibility of going at once made it improbable that Orsino would go at all. It would not have been a very wise move, for Del Ferice could easily deny the story, seeing that the paper was all in the bank's name, and he would probably have visited the indiscretion upon the unfortunate clerk. In the long silence which followed, Orsino relapsed into his former despondency. After all, whether he confessed his failure or not, he had undeniably failed and been played upon from the first, and he admitted it to himself without attempting to spare his vanity, and his self-contempt was great and painful. The fact that he had grown from a boy to a man during his experience did not make it easier to bear such wounds, which are felt more keenly by the strong than by the weak when they are real. As the day wore on the longing to see Maria Consuelo grew upon him until he felt that he had never before wished to be with her as he wished it now. He had no intention of telling her his trouble but he needed the assurance of an ever ready sympathy which he so often saw in her eyes, and which was always there for him when he asked it. When there is love there is reliance, whether expressed or not, and where there is reliance, be it ever so slender, there is comfort for many ills of body, mind and soul. CHAPTER XXII. Orsino felt suddenly relieved when he had left his office in the afternoon. Contini's gloomy mood was contagious, and so long as Orsino was with him it was impossible not to share the architect's view of affairs. Alone, however, things did not seem so bad. As a matter of fact it was almost impossible for the young man to give up all his illusions concerning his own success in one moment, and to believe himself the dupe of his own blind vanity instead of regarding himself as the winner in the fight for independence of thought and action. He could not deny the facts Contini alleged. He had to admit that he was apparently in Del Ferice's power, unless he appealed to his own people for assistance. He was driven to acknowledge that he had made a great mistake. But he could not altogether distrust himself and he fancied that after all, with a fair share of luck, he might prove a match for Ugo on the financier's own ground. He had learned to have confidence in his own powers and judgment, and as he walked away from the office every moment strengthened his determination to struggle on with such resources as he might be able to command, so long as there should be a possibility of action of any sort. He felt, too, that more depended upon his success than the mere satisfaction of his vanity. If he failed, he might lose Maria Consuelo as well as his self-respect: He had that sensation, familiar enough to many young men when extremely in love, that in order to be loved in return one must succeed, and that a single failure endangers the stability of a passion which, if it be honest, has nothing to do with failure or success. At Orsino's age, and with his temper, it is hard to believe that pity is more closely akin to love than admiration. Gradually the conviction reasserted itself that he could fight his way through unaided, and his spirits rose as he approached the more crowded quarters of the city on his way to the hotel where Maria Consuelo was stopping. Not even the yells of the newsboys affected him, as they announced the failure of the great contractor Ronco and offered, in a second edition, a complete account of the bankruptcy. It struck him indeed that before long the same brazen voices might be screaming out the news that Andrea Contini and Company had come to grief. But the idea lent a sense of danger to the situation which Orsino did not find unpleasant. The greater the difficulty the greater the merit in overcoming it, and the greater therefore the admiration he should get from the woman he loved. His position was certainly an odd one, and many men would not have felt the excitement which he experienced. The financial side of the question was strangely indifferent to him, who knew himself backed by the great fortune of his family, and believed that his ultimate loss could only be the small sum with which he had begun his operations. But the moral risk seemed enormous and grew in importance as he thought of it. He found Maria Consuelo looking pale and weary. She evidently had no intention of going out that day, for she wore a morning gown and was established upon a lounge with books and flowers beside her as though she did not mean to move. She was not reading, however. Orsino was startled by the sadness in her face. She looked fixedly into his eyes as she gave him her hand, and he sat down beside her. "I am glad you are come," she said at last, in a low voice. "I have been hoping all day that you would come early." "I would have come this morning if I had dared," answered Orsino. She looked at him again, and smiled faintly. "I have a great deal to say to you," she began. Then she hesitated as though uncertain where to begin. "And I--" Orsino tried to take her hand, but she withdrew it. "Yes, but do not say it. At least, not now." "Why not, dear one? May I not tell you how I love you? What is it, love? You are so sad to-day. Has anything happened?" His voice grew soft and tender as he spoke, bending to her ear. She pushed him gently back. "You know what has happened," she answered. "It is no wonder that I am sad." "I do not understand you, dear. Tell me what it is." "I told you too much yesterday--" "Too much?" "Far too much." "Are you going to unsay it?" "How can I?" She turned her face away and her fingers played nervously with her laces. "No--indeed, neither of us can unsay such words," said Orsino. "But I do not understand you yet, darling. You must tell me what you mean to-day." "You know it all. It is because you will not understand--" Orsino's face changed and his voice took another tone when he spoke. "Are you playing with me, Consuelo?" he asked gravely. She started slightly and grew paler than before. "You are not kind," she said. "I am suffering very much. Do not make it harder." "I am suffering, too. You mean me to understand that you regret what happened yesterday and that you wish to take back your words, that whether you love me or not, you mean to act and appear as though you did not, and that I am to behave as though nothing had happened. Do you think that would be easy? And do you think I do not suffer at the mere idea of it?" "Since it must be--" "There is no must," answered Orsino with energy. "You would ruin your life and mine for the mere shadow of a memory which you choose to take for a binding promise. I will not let you do it." "You will not?" She looked at him quickly with an expression of resistance. "No--I will not," he repeated. "We have too much at stake. You shall not lose all for both of us." "You are wrong, dear one," she said, with sudden softness. "If you love me, you should believe me and trust me. I can give you nothing but unhappiness--" "You have given me the only happiness I ever knew--and you ask me to believe that you could make me unhappy in any way except by not loving me! Consuelo--my darling--are you out of your senses?" "No. I am too much in them. I wish I were not. If I were mad I should--" "What?" "Never mind. I will not even say it. No--do not try to take my hand, for I will not give it to you. Listen, Orsino--be reasonable, listen to me--" "I will try and listen." But Maria Consuelo did not speak at once. Possibly she was trying to collect her thoughts. "What have you to say, dearest?" asked Orsino at length. "I will try to understand." "You must understand. I will make it all clear to you and then you will see it as I do." "And then--what?" "And then we must part," she said in a low voice. Orsino said nothing, but shook his head incredulously. "Yes," repeated Maria Consuelo, "we must not see each other any more after this. It has been all my fault. I shall leave Rome and not come back again. It will be best for you and I will make it best for me." "You talk very easily of parting." "Do I? Every word is a wound. Do I look as though I were indifferent?" Orsino glanced at her pale face and tearful eyes. "No, dear," he said softly. "Then do not call me heartless. I have more heart than you think--and it is breaking. And do not say that I do not love you. I love you better than you know--better than you will be loved again when you are older--and happier, perhaps. Yes, I know what you want to say. Well, dear--you love me, too. Yes, I know it. Let there be no unkind words and no doubts between us to-day. I think it is our last day together." "For God's sake, Consuelo--" "We shall see. Now let me speak--if I can. There are three reasons why you and I should not marry. I have thought of them through all last night and all to-day, and I know them. The first is my solemn vow to the dying man who loved me so well and who asked nothing but that--whose wife I never was, but whose name I bear. Think me mad, superstitious--what you will--I cannot break that promise. It was almost an oath not to love, and if it was I have broken it. But the rest I can keep, and will. The next reason is that I am older than you. I might forget that, I have forgotten it more than once, but the time will come soon when you will remember it." Orsino made an angry gesture and would have spoken, but she checked him. "Pass that over, since we are both young. The third reason is harder to tell and no power on earth can explain it away. I am no match for you in birth, Orsino--" The young man interrupted her now, and fiercely. "Do you dare to think that I care what your birth may be?" he asked. "There are those who do care, even if you do not, dear one," she answered quietly. "And what is their caring to you or me?" "It is not so small a matter as you think. I am not talking of a mere difference in rank. It is worse than that. I do not really know who I am. Do you understand? I do not know who my mother was nor whether she is alive or dead, and before I was married I did not bear my father's name." "But you know your father--you know his name at least?" "Yes." "Who is he?" Orsino could hardly pronounce the words of the question. "Count Spicca." Maria Consuelo spoke quietly, but her fingers trembled nervously and she watched Orsino's face in evident distress and anxiety. As for Orsino, he was almost dumb with amazement. "Spicca! Spicca your father!" he repeated indistinctly. In all his many speculations as to the tie which existed between Maria Consuelo and the old duellist, he had never thought of this one. "Then you never suspected it?" asked Maria Consuelo. "How should I? And your own father killed your husband--good Heavens! What a story!" "You know now. You see for yourself how impossible it is that I should marry you." In his excitement Orsino had risen and was pacing the room. He scarcely heard her last words, and did not say anything in reply. Maria Consuelo lay quite still upon the lounge, her hands clasped tightly together and straining upon each other. "You see it all now," she said again. This time his attention was arrested and he stopped before her. "Yes. I see what you mean. But I do not see it as you see it. I do not see that any of these things you have told me need hinder our marriage." Maria Consuelo did not move, but her expression changed. The light stole slowly into her face and lingered there, not driving away the sadness but illuminating it. "And would you have the courage, in spite of your family and of society, to marry me, a woman practically nameless, older than yourself--" "I not only would, but I will," answered Orsino. "You cannot--but I thank you, dear," said Maria Consuelo. He was standing close beside her. She took his hand and tenderly touched it with her lips. He started and drew it back, for no woman had ever kissed his hand. "You must not do that!" he exclaimed, instinctively. "And why not, if I please?" she asked, raising her eyebrows with a little affectionate laugh. "I am not good enough to kiss your hand, darling--still less to let you kiss mine. Never mind--we were talking--where were we?" "You were saying--" But he interrupted her. "What does it matter, when I love you so, and you love me?" he asked passionately. He knelt beside her as she lay on the lounge and took her hands, holding them and drawing her towards him. She resisted and turned her face away. "No--no! It matters too much--let me go, it only makes it worse!" "Makes what worse?" "Parting--" "We will not part. I will not let you go!" But still she struggled with her hands and he, fearing to hurt them in his grasp, let them slip away with a lingering touch. "Get up," she said. "Sit here, beside me--a little further--there. We can talk better so." "I cannot talk at all--" "Without holding my hands?" "Why should I not?" "Because I ask you. Please, dear--" She drew back on the lounge, raised herself a little and turned her face to him. Again, as his eyes met hers, he leaned forward quickly, as though he would leave his seat. But she checked him, by an imperative glance and a gesture. He was unreasonable and had no right to be annoyed, but something in her manner chilled him and pained him in a way he could not have explained. When he spoke there was a shade of change in the tone of his voice. "The things you have told me do not influence me in the least," he said with more calmness than he had yet shown. "What you believe to be the most important reason is no reason at all to me. You are Count Spicca's daughter. He is an old friend of my father--not that it matters very materially, but it may make everything easier. I will go to him to-day and tell him that I wish to marry you--" "You will not do that!" exclaimed Maria Consuelo in a tone of alarm. "Yes, I will. Why not? Do you know what he once said to me? He told me he wished we might take a fancy to each other, because, as he expressed it, we should be so well matched." "Did he say that?" asked Maria Consuelo gravely. "That or something to the same effect. Are you surprised? What surprises me is that I should never have guessed the relation between you. Now your father is a very honourable man. What he said meant something, and when he said it he meant that our marriage would seem natural to him and to everybody. I will go and talk to him. So much for your great reason. As for the second you gave, it is absurd. We are of the same age, to all intents and purposes." "I am not twenty-three years old." "And I am not quite two and twenty. Is that a difference? So much for that. Take the third, which you put first. Seriously, do you think that any intelligent being would consider you bound by such a promise? Do you mean to say that a young girl--you were nothing more--has a right to throw away her life out of sentiment by making a promise of that kind? And to whom? To a man who is not her husband, and never can be, because he is dying. To a man just not indifferent to her, to a man--" Maria Consuelo raised herself and looked full at Orsino. Her face was extremely pale and her eyes were suddenly dark and gleamed. "Don Orsino, you have no right to talk to me in that way. I loved him--no one knows how I loved him!" There was no mistaking the tone and the look. Orsino felt again and more strongly, the chill and the pain he had felt before. He was silent for a moment. Maria Consuelo looked at him a second longer, and then let her head fall back upon the cushion. But the expression which had come into her face did not change at once. "Forgive me," said Orsino after a pause. "I had not quite understood. The only imaginable reason which could make our marriage impossible would be that. If you loved him so well--if you loved him in such a way as to prevent you from loving me as I love you--why then, you may be right after all." In the silence which followed, he turned his face away and gazed at the window. He had spoken quietly enough and his expression, strange to say, was calm and thoughtful. It is not always easy for a woman to understand a man, for men soon learn to conceal what hurts them but take little trouble to hide their happiness, if they are honest. A man more often betrays himself by a look of pleasure than by an expression of disappointment. It was thought manly to bear pain in silence long before it became fashionable to seem indifferent to joy. Orsino's manner displeased Maria Consuelo. It was too quiet and cold and she thought he cared less than he really did. "You say nothing," he said at last. "What shall I say? You speak of something preventing me from loving you as you love me. How can I tell how much you love me?" "Do you not see it? Do you not feel it?" Orsino's tone warmed again as he turned towards her, but he was conscious of an effort. Deeply as he loved her, it was not natural for him to speak passionately just at that moment, but he knew she expected it and he did his best. She was disappointed. "Not always," she answered with a little sigh. "You do not always believe that I love you?" "I did not say that. I am not always sure that you love me as much as you think you do--you imagine a great deal." "I did not know it." "Yes--sometimes. I am sure it is so." "And how am I to prove that you are wrong and I am right?" "How should I know? Perhaps time will show." "Time is too slow for me. There must be some other way." "Find it then," said Maria Consuelo, smiling rather sadly. "I will." He meant what he said, but the difficulty of the problem perplexed him and there was not enough conviction in his voice. He was thinking rather of the matter itself than of what he said. Maria Consuelo fanned herself slowly and stared at the wall. "If you doubt so much," said Orsino at last, "I have the right to doubt a little too. If you loved me well enough you would promise to marry me. You do not." There was a short pause. At last Maria Consuelo closed her fan, looked at it and spoke. "You say my reason is not good. Must I go all over it again? It seems a good one to me. Is it incredible to you that a woman should love twice? Such things have happened before. Is it incredible to you that, loving one person, a woman should respect the memory of another and a solemn promise given to that other? I should respect myself less if I did not. That it is all my fault I will admit, if you like--that I should never have received you as I did--I grant it all--that I was weak yesterday, that I am weak to-day, that I should be weak to-morrow if I let this go on. I am sorry. You can take a little of the blame if you are generous enough, or vain enough. You have tried hard to make me love you and you have succeeded, for I love you very much. So much the worse for me. It must end now." "You do not think of me, when you say that." "Perhaps I think more of you than you know--or will understand. I am older than you--do not interrupt me! I am older, for a woman is always older than a man in some things. I know what will happen, what will certainly happen in time if we do not part. You will grow jealous of a shadow and I shall never be able to tell you that this same shadow is not dear to me. You will come to hate what I have loved and love still, though it does not prevent me from loving you too--" "But less well," said Orsino rather harshly. "You would believe that, at least, and the thought would always be between us." "If you loved me as much, you would not hesitate. You would marry me living, as you married him dead." "If there were no other reason against it--" She stopped. "There is no other reason," said Orsino insisting. Maria Consuelo shook her head but said nothing and a long silence followed. Orsino sat still, watching her and wondering what was passing in her mind. It seemed to him, and perhaps rightly, that if she were really in earnest and loved him with all her heart, the reasons she gave for a separation were far from sufficient. He had not even much faith in her present obstinacy and he did not believe that she would really go away. It was incredible that any woman could be so capricious as she chose to be. Her calmness, or what appeared to him her calmness, made it even less probable, he thought, that she meant to part from him. But the thought alone was enough to disturb him seriously. He had suffered a severe shock with outward composure but not without inward suffering, followed naturally enough by something like angry resentment. As he viewed the situation, Maria Consuelo had alternately drawn him on and disappointed him from the very beginning; she had taken delight in forcing him to speak out his love, only to chill him the next moment, or the next day, with the certainty that she did not love him sincerely. Just then he would have preferred not to put into words the thoughts of her that crossed his mind. They would have expressed a disbelief in her character which he did not really feel and an opinion of his own judgment which he would rather not have accepted. He even went so far, in his anger, as to imagine what would happen if he suddenly rose to go. She would put on that sad look of hers and give him her hand coldly. Then just as he reached the door she would call him back, only to send him away again. He would find on the following day that she had not left town after all, or, at most, that she had gone to Florence for a day or two, while the workmen completed the furnishing of her apartment. Then she would come back and would meet him just as though there had never been anything between them. The anticipation was so painful to him that he wished to have it realised and over as soon as possible, and he looked at her again before rising from his seat. He could hardly believe that she was the same woman who had stood with him, watching the thunderstorm, on the previous afternoon. He saw that she was pale, but she was not facing the light and the expression of her face was not distinctly visible. On the whole, he fancied that her look was one of indifference. Her hands lay idly upon her fan and by the drooping of her lids she seemed to be looking at them. The full, curved lips were closed, but not drawn in as though in pain, nor pouting as though in displeasure. She appeared to be singularly calm. After hesitating another moment Orsino rose to his feet. He had made up his mind what to say, for it was little enough, but his voice trembled a little. "Good-bye, Madame." Maria Consuelo started slightly and looked up, as though to see whether he really meant to go at that moment. She had no idea that he really thought of taking her at her word and parting then and there. She did not realise how true it was that she was much older than he and she had never believed him to be as impulsive as he sometimes seemed. "Do not go yet," she said, instinctively. "Since you say that we must part--" he stopped, as though leaving her to finish the sentence in imagination. A frightened look passed quickly over Maria Consuelo's face. She made as though she would have taken his hand, then drew back her own and bit her lip, not angrily but as though she were controlling something. "Since you insist upon our parting," Orsino said, after a short, strained silence, "it is better that it should be got over at once." In spite of himself his voice was still unsteady. "I did not--no--yes, it is better so." "Then good-bye, Madame." It was impossible for her to understand all that had passed in his mind while he had sat beside her, after the previous conversation had ended. His abruptness and coldness were incomprehensible to her. "Good-bye, then--Orsino." For a moment her eyes rested on his. It was the sad look he had anticipated, and she put out her hand now. Surely, he thought, if she loved him she would not let him go so easily. He took her fingers and would have raised them to his lips when they suddenly closed on his, not with the passionate, loving pressure of yesterday, but firmly and quietly, as though they would not be disobeyed, guiding him again to his seat close beside her. He sat down. "Good-bye, then, Orsino," she repeated, not yet relinquishing her hold. "Good-bye, dear, since it must be good-bye--but not good-bye as you said it. You shall not go until you can say it differently." She let him go now and changed her own position. Her feet slipped to the ground and she leaned with her elbow upon the head of the lounge, resting her cheek against her hand. She was nearer to him now than before and their eyes met as they faced each other. She had certainly not chosen her attitude with any second thought of her own appearance, but as Orsino looked into her face he saw again clearly all the beauties that he had so long admired, the passionate eyes, the full, firm mouth, the broad brow, the luminous white skin--all beauties in themselves though not, together, making real beauty in her case. And beyond these he saw and felt over them all and through them all the charm that fascinated him, appealing as it were to him in particular of all men as it could not appeal to another. He was still angry, disturbed out of his natural self and almost out of his passion, but he felt none the less that Maria Consuelo could hold him if she pleased, as long as a shadow of affection for her remained in him, and perhaps longer. When she spoke, he knew what she meant, and he did not interrupt her nor attempt to answer. "I have meant all I have said to-day," she continued. "Do not think it is easy for me to say more. I would give all I have to give to take back yesterday, for yesterday was my great mistake. I am only a woman and you will forgive me. I do what I am doing now, for your sake--God knows it is not for mine. God knows how hard it is for me to part from you. I am in earnest, you see. You believe me now." Her voice was steady but the tears were already welling over. "Yes, dear, I believe you," Orsino answered softly. Women's tears are a great solvent of man's ill temper. "As for this being right and best, this parting, you will see it as I do sooner or later. But you do believe that I love you, dearly, tenderly, very--well, no matter how--you believe it?" "I believe it--" "Then say 'good-bye, Consuelo'--and kiss me once--for what might have been." Orsino half rose, bent down and kissed her cheek. "Good-bye, Consuelo," he said, almost whispering the words into her ear. In his heart he did not think she meant it. He still expected that she would call him back. "It is good-bye, dear--believe it--remember it!" Her voice shook a little now. "Good-bye, Consuelo," he repeated. With a loving look that meant no good-bye he drew back and went to the door. He laid his hand on the handle and paused. She did not speak. Then he looked at her again. Her head had fallen back against a cushion and her eyes were half closed. He waited a second and a keen pain shot through him. Perhaps she was in earnest after all. In an instant he had recrossed the room and was on his knees beside her trying to take her hands. "Consuelo--darling--you do not really mean it! You cannot, you will not--" He covered her hands with kisses and pressed them to his heart. For a few moments she made no movement, but her eyelids quivered. Then she sprang to her feet, pushing him back violently as he rose with her, and turning her face from him. "Go--go!" she cried wildly. "Go--let me never see you again--never, never!" Before he could stop her, she had passed him with a rush like a swallow on the wing and was gone from the room. CHAPTER XXIII. Orsino was not in an enviable frame of mind when he left the hotel. It is easier to bear suffering when one clearly understands all its causes, and distinguishes just how great a part of it is inevitable and how great a part may be avoided or mitigated. In the present case there was much in the situation which it passed his power to analyse or comprehend. He still possessed the taste for discovering motives in the actions of others as well as in his own, but many months of a busy life had dulled the edge of the artificial logic in which he had formerly delighted, while greatly sharpening his practical wit. Artificial analysis supplies from the imagination the details lacking in facts, but common sense needs something more tangible upon which to work. Orsino felt that the chief circumstance which had determined Maria Consuelo's conduct had escaped him, and he sought in vain to detect it. He rejected the supposition that she was acting upon a caprice, that she had yesterday believed it possible to marry him, while a change of humour made marriage seem out of the question to-day. She was as capricious as most women, perhaps, but not enough so for that. Besides, she had been really consistent. Not even yesterday had she been shaken for a moment in her resolution not to be Orsino's wife. To-day had confirmed yesterday therefore. However Orsino might have still doubted her intention when he had gone to her side for the last time, her behaviour then and her final words had been unmistakable. She meant to leave Rome at once. Yet the reasons she had given him for her conduct were not sufficient in his eyes. The difference of age was so small that it could safely be disregarded. Her promise to the dying Aranjuez was an engagement, he thought, by which no person of sense should expect her to abide. As for the question of her birth, he relied on that speech of Spicca's which he so well remembered. Spicca might have spoken the words thoughtlessly, it was true, and believing that Orsino would never, under any circumstances whatever, think seriously of marrying Maria Consuelo. But Spicca was not a man who often spoke carelessly, and what he said generally meant at least as much as it appeared to mean. It was doubtless true that Maria Consuelo was ignorant of her mother's name. Nevertheless, it was quite possible that her mother had been Spicca's wife. Spicca's life was said to be full of strange events not generally known. But though his daughter might, and doubtless did believe herself a nameless child, and, as such, no match for the heir of the Saracinesca, Orsino could not see why she should have insisted upon a parting so sudden, so painful and so premature. She knew as much yesterday and had known it all along. Why, if she possessed such strength of character, had she allowed matters to go so far when she could easily have interrupted the course of events at an earlier period? He did not admit that she perhaps loved him so much as to have been carried away by her passion until she found herself on the point of doing him an injury by marrying him, and that her love was strong enough to induce her to sacrifice herself at the critical moment. Though he loved her much he did not believe her to be heroic in any way. On the contrary, he said to himself that if she were sincere, and if her love were at all like his own, she would let no obstacle stand in the way of it. To him, the test of love must be its utter recklessness. He could not believe that a still better test may be, and is, the constant forethought for the object of love, and the determination to protect that object from all danger in the present and from all suffering in the future, no matter at what cost. Perhaps it is not easy to believe that recklessness is a manifestation of the second degree of passion, while the highest shows itself in painful sacrifice. Yet the most daring act of chivalry never called for half the bravery shown by many a martyr at the stake, and if courage be a measure of true passion, the passion which will face life-long suffering to save its object from unhappiness or degradation is greater than the passion which, for the sake of possessing its object, drags it into danger and the risk of ruin. It may be that all this is untrue, and that the action of these two imaginary individuals, the one sacrificing himself, the other endangering the loved one, is dependent upon the balance of the animal, intellectual and moral elements in each. We do not know much about the causes of what we feel, in spite of modern analysis; but the heart rarely deceives us, when we can see the truth for ourselves, into bestowing the more praise upon the less brave of two deeds. But we do not often see the truth as it is. We know little of the lives of others, but we are apt to think that other people understand our own very well, including our good deeds if we have done any, and we expect full measure of credit for these, and the utmost allowance of charity for our sins. In other words we desire our neighbour to combine a power of forgiveness almost divine with a capacity for flattery more than parasitic. That is why we are not easily satisfied with our acquaintances and that is why our friends do not always turn out to be truthful persons. We ask too much for the low price we offer, and if we insist we get the imitation. Orsino loved Maria Consuelo with all his heart, as much as a young man of little more than one and twenty can love the first woman to whom he is seriously attached. There was nothing heroic in the passion, perhaps, nothing which could ultimately lead to great results. But it was a strong love, nevertheless, with much, of devotion in it and some latent violence. If he did not marry Maria Consuelo, it was not likely that he would ever love again in exactly the same way. His next love would be either far better or far worse, far nobler or far baser--perhaps a little less human in either case. He walked slowly away from the hotel, unconscious of the people in the street and not thinking of the direction he took. His brain was in a whirl and his thoughts seemed to revolve round some central point upon which they could not concentrate themselves even for a second. The only thing of which he was sure was that Maria Consuelo had taken herself from him suddenly and altogether, leaving him with a sense of loneliness which he had not known before. He had gone to her in considerable distress about his affairs, with the certainty of finding sympathy and perhaps advice. He came away, as some men have returned from a grave accident, apparently unscathed it may be, but temporarily deprived of some one sense, of sight, or hearing, or touch. He was not sure that he was awake, and his troubled reflexions came back by the same unvarying round to the point he had reached the first time--if Maria Consuelo really loved him, she would not let such obstacles as she spoke of hinder her union with him. For a time Orsino was not conscious of any impulse to act. Gradually, however, his real nature asserted itself, and he remembered how he had told her not long ago that if she went away he would follow her, and how he had said that the world was small and that he would soon find her again. It would undoubtedly be a simple matter to accompany her, if she left Rome. He could easily ascertain the hour of her intended departure and that alone would tell him the direction she had chosen. When she found that she had not escaped him she would very probably give up the attempt and come back, her humour would change and his own eloquence would do the rest. He stopped in his walk, looked at his watch and glanced about him. He was at some distance from the hotel and it was growing dusk, for the days were already short. If Maria Consuelo really meant to leave Rome precipitately, she might go by the evening train to Paris and in that case the people of the hotel would have been informed of her intended departure. Orsino only admitted the possibility of her actually going away while believing in his heart that she would remain. He slowly retraced his steps, and it was seven o'clock before he asked the hotel porter by what train Madame d'Aranjuez was leaving. The porter did not know whether the lady was going north or south, but he called another man, who went in search of a third, who disappeared for some time. "Is it sure that Madame d'Aranjuez goes to-night?" asked Orsino trying to look indifferent. "Quite sure. Her rooms will be free to-morrow." Orsino turned away and slowly paced up and down the marble pavement between the tall plants, waiting for the messenger to come back. "Madame d'Aranjuez leaves at nine forty-five," said the man, suddenly reappearing. Orsino hesitated a moment, and then made up his mind. "Ask Madame if she will receive me for a moment," he said, producing a card. The servant went away and again Orsino walked backwards and forwards, pale now and very nervous. She was really going, and was going north--probably to Paris. "Madame regrets infinitely that she is not able to receive the Signor Prince," said the man in black at Orsino's elbow. "She is making her preparations for the journey." "Show me where I can write a note," said Orsino, who had expected the answer. He was shown into the reading-room and writing materials were set before him. He hurriedly wrote a few words to Maria Consuelo, without form of address and without signature. "I will not let you go without me. If you will not see me, I will be in the train, and I will not leave you, wherever you go. I am in earnest." He looked at the sheet of note-paper and wondered that he should find nothing more to say. But he had said all he meant, and sealing the little note he sent it up to Maria Consuelo with a request for an immediate answer. Just then the dinner bell of the hotel was rung. The reading-room was deserted. He waited five minutes, then ten, nervously turning over the newspapers and reviews on the long table, but quite unable to read even the printed titles. He rang and asked if there had been no answer to his note. The man was the same whom he had sent before. He said the note had been received at the door by the maid who had said that Madame d'Aranjuez would ring when her answer was ready. Orsino dismissed the servant and waited again. It crossed his mind that the maid might have pocketed the note and said nothing about it, for reasons of her own. He had almost determined to go upstairs and boldly enter the sitting-room, when the door opposite to him opened and Maria Consuelo herself appeared. She was dressed in a dark close-fitting travelling costume, but she wore no hat. Her face was quite colourless and looked if possible even more unnaturally pale by contrast with her bright auburn hair. She shut the door behind her and stood still, facing Orsino in the glare of the electric lights. "I did not mean to see you again," she said, slowly. "You have forced me to it." Orsino made a step forward and tried to take her hand, but she drew back. The slight uncertainty often visible in the direction of her glance had altogether disappeared and her eyes met Orsino's directly and fearlessly. "Yes," he answered. "I have forced you to it. I know it, and you cannot reproach me if I have. I will not leave you. I am going with you wherever you go." He spoke calmly, considering the great emotion he felt, and there was a quiet determination in his words and tone which told how much he was in earnest. Maria Consuelo half believed that she could dominate him by sheer force of will, and she would not give up the idea, even now. "You will not go with me, you will not even attempt it," she said. It would have been difficult to guess from her face at that moment that she loved him. Her face was pale and the expression was almost hard. She held her head high as though she were looking down at him, though he towered above her from his shoulders. "You do not understand me," he answered, quietly. "When I say that I will go with you, I mean that I will go." "Is this a trial of strength?" she asked after a moment's pause. "If it is, I am not conscious of it. It costs me no effort to go--it would cost me much to stay behind--too much." He stood quite still before her, looking steadily into her eyes. There was a short silence, and then she suddenly looked down, moved and turned away, beginning to walk slowly about. The room was large, and he paced the floor beside her, looking down at her bent head. "Will you stay if I ask you to?" The question came in a lower and softer tone than she had used before. "I will go with you," answered Orsino as firmly as ever. "Will you do nothing for my asking?" "I will do anything but that." "But that is all I ask." "You are asking the impossible." "There are many reasons why you should not come with me. Have you thought of them all?" "No." "You should. You ought to know, without being told by me, that you would be doing me a great injustice and a great injury in following me. You ought to know what the world will say of it. Remember that I am alone." "I will marry you." "I have told you that it is impossible--no, do not answer me! I will not go over all that again. I am going away to-night. That is the principal thing--the only thing that concerns you. Of course, if you choose, you can get into the same train and pursue me to the end of the world. I cannot prevent you. I thought I could, but I was mistaken. I am alone. Remember that, Orsino. You know as well as I what will be said--and the fact is sure to be known." "People will say that I am following you--" "They will say that we are gone together, for every one will have reason to say it. Do you suppose that nobody is aware of our--our intimacy during the last month?" "Why not say our love?" "Because I hope no one knows of that--well, if they do--Orsino, be kind! Let me go alone--as a man of honour, do not injure me by leaving Rome with me, nor by following me when I am gone!" She stopped and looked up into his face with an imploring glance. To tell the truth, Orsino had not foreseen that she might appeal to his honour, alleging the danger to her reputation. He bit his lip and avoided her eyes. It was hard to yield, and to yield so quickly, as it seemed to him. "How long will you stay away?" he asked in a constrained voice. "I shall not come back at all." He wondered at the firmness of her tone and manner. Whatever the real ground of her resolution might be, the resolution itself had gained strength since they had parted little more than an hour earlier. The belief suddenly grew upon him again that she did not love him. "Why are you going at all?" he asked abruptly. "If you loved me at all, you would stay." She drew a sharp breath and clasped her hands nervously together. "I should stay if I loved you less. But I have told you--I will not go over it all again. This must end--this saying good-bye! It is easier to end it at once." "Easier for you--" "You do not know what you are saying. You will know some day. If you can bear this, I cannot." "Then stay--if you love me, as you say you do." "As I say I do!" Her eyes grew very grave and sad as she stopped and looked at him again. Then she held out both her hands. "I am going, now. Good-bye." The blood came back to Orsino's face. It seemed to him that he had reached the crisis of his life and his instinct was to struggle hard against his fate. With a quick movement he caught her in his arms, lifting her from her feet and pressing her close to him. "You shall not go!" He kissed her passionately again and again, while she fought to be free, straining at his arms with her small white hands and trying to turn her face from him. "Why do you struggle? It is of no use." He spoke in very soft deep tones, close to her ear. She shook her head desperately and still did her best to slip from him, though she might as well have tried to break iron clamps with her fingers. "It is of no use," he repeated, pressing her still more closely to him. "Let me go!" she cried, making a violent effort, as fruitless as the last. "No!" Then she was quite still, realising that she had no chance with him. "Is it manly to be brutal because you are strong?" she asked. "You hurt me." Orsino's arms relaxed, and he let her go. She drew a long breath and moved a step backward and towards the door. "Good-bye," she said again. But this time she did not hold out her hand, though she looked long and fixedly into his face. Orsino made a movement as though he would have caught her again. She started and put out her hand behind her towards the latch. But he did not touch her. She softly opened the door, looked at him once more and went out. When he realised that she was gone he sprang after her, calling her by name. "Consuelo!" There were a few people walking in the broad passage. They stared at Orsino, but he did not heed them as he passed by. Maria Consuelo was not there, and he understood in a moment that it would be useless to seek her further. He stood still a moment, entered the reading-room again, got his hat and left the hotel without looking behind him. All sorts of wild ideas and schemes flashed through his brain, each more absurd and impracticable than the last. He thought of going back and finding Maria Consuelo's maid--he might bribe her to prevent her mistress's departure. He thought of offering the driver of the train an enormous sum to do some injury to his engine before reaching the first station out of Rome. He thought of stopping Maria Consuelo's carriage on her way to the tram and taking her by main force to his father's house. If she were compromised in such a way, she would be almost obliged to marry him. He afterwards wondered at the stupidity of his own inventions on that evening, but at the time nothing looked impossible. He bethought him of Spicca. Perhaps the old man possessed some power over his daughter after all and could prevent her flight if he chose. There were yet nearly two hours left before the train started. If worst came to worst, Orsino could still get to the station at the last minute and leave Rome with her. He took a passing cab and drove to Spicca's lodgings. The count was at home, writing a letter by the light of a small lamp. He looked up in surprise as Orsino entered, then rose and offered him a chair. "What has happened, my friend?" he asked, glancing curiously at the young man's face. "Everything," answered Orsino. "I love Madame d'Aranjuez, she loves me, she absolutely refuses to marry me and she is going to Paris at a quarter to ten. I know she is your daughter and I want you to prevent her from leaving. That is all, I believe." Spicca's cadaverous face did not change, but the hollow eyes grew bright and fixed their glance on an imaginary point at an immense distance, and the thin hand that lay on the edge of the table closed slowly upon the projecting wood. For a few moments he said nothing, but when he spoke he seemed quite calm. "If she has told you that she is my daughter," he said, "I presume that she has told you the rest. Is that true?" Orsino was impatient for Spicca to take some immediate action, but he understood that the count had a right to ask the question. "She has told me that she does not know her mother's name, and that you killed her husband." "Both these statements are perfectly true at all events. Is that all you know?" "All? Yes--all of importance. But there is no time to be lost. No one but you can prevent her from leaving Rome to-night. You must help me quickly." Spicca looked gravely at Orsino and shook his head. The light that had shone in his eyes for a moment was gone, and he was again his habitual, melancholy, indifferent self. "I cannot stop her," he said, almost listlessly. "But you can--you will, you must!" cried Orsino laying a hand on the old man's thin arm. "She must not go--" "Better that she should, after all. Of what use is it for her to stay? She is quite right. You cannot marry her." "Cannot marry her? Why not? It is not long since you told me very plainly that you wished I would marry her. You have changed your mind very suddenly, it seems to me, and I would like to know why. Do you remember all you said to me?" "Yes, and I was in earnest, as I am now. And I was wrong in telling you what I thought at the time." "At the time! How can matters have changed so suddenly?" "I do not say that matters have changed. I have. That is the important thing. I remember the occasion of our conversation very well. Madame d'Aranjuez had been rather abrupt with, me, and you and I went away together. I forgave her easily enough, for I saw that she was unhappy--then I thought how different her life might be if she were married to you. I also wished to convey to you a warning, and it did not strike me that you would ever seriously contemplate such a marriage." "I think you are in a certain way responsible for the present situation," answered Orsino. "That is the reason why I come to you for help." Spicca turned upon the young man rather suddenly. "There you go too far," he said. "Do you mean to tell me that you have asked that lady to marry you because I suggested it?" "No, but--" "Then I am not responsible at all. Besides, you might have consulted me again, if you had chosen. I have not been out of town. I sincerely wish that it were possible--yes, that is quite another matter. But it is not. If Madame d'Aranjuez thinks it is not, from her point of view there are a thousand reasons why I should consider it far more completely out of the question. As for preventing her from leaving Rome I could not do that even were I willing to try." "Then I will go with her," said Orsino, angrily. Spicca looked at him in silence for a few moments. Orsino rose to his feet and prepared to go. "You leave me no choice," he said, as though Spicca had protested. "Because I cannot and will not stop her? Is that any reason why you should compromise her reputation as you propose to do?" "It is the best of reasons. She will marry me then, out of necessity." Spicca rose also, with more alacrity than generally characterised his movements. He stood before the empty fireplace, watching the young man narrowly. "It is not a good reason," he said, presently, in quiet tones. "You are not the man to do that sort of thing. You are too honourable." "I do not see anything dishonourable in following the woman I love." "That depends on the way in which you follow her. If you go quietly home to-night and write to your father that you have decided to go to Paris for a few days and will leave to-morrow, if you make your arrangements like a sensible being and go away like a sane man, I have nothing to say in the matter--" "I presume not--" interrupted Orsino, facing the old man somewhat fiercely. "Very well. We will not quarrel yet. We will reserve that pleasure for the moment when you cease to understand me. That way of following her would be bad enough, but no one would have any right to stop you." "No one has any right to stop me, as it is." "I beg your pardon. The present circumstances are different. In the first instance the world would say that you were in love with Madame d'Aranjuez and were pursuing her to press your suit--of whatever nature that might be. In the second case the world will assert that you and she, not meaning to be married, have adopted the simple plan of going away together. That implies her consent, and you have no right to let any one imply that. I say, it is not honourable to let people think that a lady is risking her reputation for you and perhaps sacrificing it altogether, when she is in reality trying to escape from you. Am I right, or not?" "You are ingenious, at all events. You talk as though the whole world were to know in half an hour that I have gone to Paris in the same train with Madame d'Aranjuez. That is absurd!" "Is it? I think not. Half an hour is little, perhaps, but half a day is enough. You are not an insignificant son of an unknown Roman citizen, nor is Madame d'Aranjuez a person who passes unnoticed. Reporters watch people like you for items of news, and you are perfectly well known by sight. Apart from that, do you think that your servants will not tell your friends' servants of your sudden departure, or that Madame d'Aranjuez' going will not be observed? You ought to know Rome better than that. I ask you again, am I right or wrong?" "What difference will it make, if we are married immediately?" "She will never marry you. I am convinced of that." "How can you know? Has she spoken to you about it?" "I am the last person to whom she would come." "Her own father--" "With limitations. Besides, I had the misfortune to deprive her of the chosen companion of her life, and at a critical moment. She has not forgotten that." "No she has not," answered Orsino gloomily. The memory of Aranjuez was a sore point. "Why did you kill him?" he asked, suddenly. "Because he was an adventurer, a liar and a thief--three excellent reasons for killing any man, if one can. Moreover he struck her once--with that silver paper cutter which she insists on using--and I saw it from a distance. Then I killed him. Unluckily I was very angry and made a little mistake, so that he lived twelve hours, and she had time to get a priest and marry him. She always pretends that he struck her in play, by accident, as he was showing her something about fencing. I was in the next room and the door was open--it did not look like play. And she still thinks that he was the paragon of all virtues. He was a handsome devil--something like you, but shorter, with a bad eye. I am glad I killed him." Spicca had looked steadily at Orsino while speaking. When he ceased, he began to walk about the small room with something of his old energy. Orsino roused himself. He had almost begun to forget his own position in the interest of listening to the count's short story. "So much for Aranjuez," said Spicca. "Let us hear no more of him. As for this mad plan of yours, you are convinced, I suppose, and you will give it up. Go home and decide in the morning. For my part, I tell you it is useless. She will not marry you. Therefore leave her alone and do nothing which can injure her." "I am not convinced," answered Orsino doggedly. "Then you are not your father's son. No Saracinesca that I ever knew would do what you mean to do--would wantonly tarnish the good name of a woman--of a woman who loves him too--and whose only fault is that she cannot marry him." "That she will not." "That she cannot." "Do you give me your word that she cannot?" "She is legally free to marry whom she pleases, with or without my consent." "That is all I want to know. The rest is nothing to me--" "The rest is a great deal. I beg you to consider all I have said, and I am sure that you will, quite sure. There are very good reasons for not telling you or any one else all the details I know in this story--so good that I would rather go to the length of a quarrel with you than give them all. I am an old man, Orsino, and what is left of life does not mean much to me. I will sacrifice it to prevent your opening this door unless you tell me that you give up the idea of leaving Rome to-night." As he spoke he placed himself before the closed door and faced the young man. He was old, emaciated, physically broken down, and his hands were empty. Orsino was in his first youth, tall, lean, active and very strong, and no coward. He was moreover in an ugly humour and inclined to be violent on much smaller provocation than he had received. But Spicca imposed upon him, nevertheless, for he saw that he was in earnest. Orsino was never afterwards able to recall exactly what passed through his mind at that moment. He was physically able to thrust Spicca aside and to open the door, without so much as hurting him. He did not believe that, even in that case, the old man would have insisted upon the satisfaction of arms, nor would he have been afraid to meet him if a duel had been required. He knew that what withheld him from an act of violence was neither fear nor respect for his adversary's weakness and age. Yet he was quite unable to define the influence which at last broke down his resolution. It was in all probability only the resultant of the argument Spicca had brought to bear and which Maria Consuelo had herself used in the first instance, and of Spicca's calm, undaunted personality. The crisis did not last long. The two men faced each other for ten seconds and then Orsino turned away with an impatient movement of the shoulders. "Very well," he said. "I will not go with her." "It is best so," answered Spicca, leaving the door and returning to his seat. "I suppose that she will let you know where she is, will she not?" asked Orsino. "Yes. She will write to me." "Good-night, then." "Good-night." Without shaking hands, and almost without a glance at the old man, Orsino left the room. CHAPTER XXIV. Orsino walked slowly homeward, trying to collect his thoughts and to reach some distinct determination with regard to the future. He was oppressed by the sense of failure and disappointment and felt inclined to despise himself for his weakness in yielding so easily. To all intents and purposes he had lost Maria Consuelo, and if he had not lost her through his own fault, he had at least tamely abandoned what had seemed like a last chance of winning her back. As he thought of all that had happened he tried to fix some point in the past, at which he might have acted differently, and from which another act of consequence might have begun. But that was not easy. Events had followed each other with a certain inevitable logic, which only looked unreasonable because he suspected the existence of facts beyond his certain knowledge. His great mistake had been in going to Spicca, but nothing could have been more natural, under the circumstances, than his appeal to Maria Consuelo's father, nothing more unexpected than the latter's determined refusal to help him. That there was weight in the argument used by both Spicca and Maria Consuelo herself, he could not deny; but he failed to see why the marriage was so utterly impossible as they both declared it to be. There must be much more behind the visible circumstances than he could guess. He tried to comfort himself with the assurance that he could leave Rome on the following day, and that Spicca would not refuse to give him Maria Consuelo's address in Paris. But the consolation he derived from the idea was small. He found himself wondering at the recklessness shown by the woman he loved in escaping from him. His practical Italian mind could hardly understand how she could have changed all her plans in a moment, abandoning her half-furnished apartment without a word of notice even to the workmen, throwing over her intention of spending the winter in Rome as though she had not already spent many thousands in preparing her dwelling, and going away, probably, without as much as leaving a representative to wind up her accounts. It may seem strange that a man as much in love as Orsino was should think of such details at such a moment. Perhaps he looked upon them rather as proofs that she meant to come back after all; in any case he thought of them seriously, and even calculated roughly the sum she would be sacrificing if she stayed away. Beyond all he felt the dismal loneliness which a man can only feel when he is suddenly and effectually parted from the woman he dearly loves, and which is not like any other sensation of which the human heart is capable. More than once, up to the last possible moment, he was tempted to drive to the station and leave with Maria Consuelo after all, but he would not break the promise he had given Spicca, no matter how weak he had been in giving it. On reaching his home he was informed, to his great surprise, that San Giacinto was waiting to see him. He could not remember that his cousin had ever before honoured him with a visit and he wondered what could have brought him now and induced him to wait, just at the hour when most people were at dinner. The giant was reading the evening paper, with the help of a particularly strong cigar. "I am glad you have come home," he said, rising and taking the young man's outstretched hand. "I should have waited until you did." "Has anything happened?" asked Orsino nervously. It struck him that San Giacinto might be the bearer of some bad news about his people, and the grave expression on the strongly marked face helped the idea. "A great deal is happening. The crash has begun. You must get out of your business in less than three days if you can." Orsino drew a breath of relief at first, and then grew grave in his turn, realising that unless matters were very serious such a man as San Giacinto would not put himself to the inconvenience of coming. San Giacinto was little given to offering advice unasked, still less to interfering in the affairs of others. "I understand," said Orsino. "You think that everything is going to pieces. I see." The big man looked at his young cousin with something like pity. "If I only suspected, or thought--as you put it--that there was to be a collapse of business, I should not have taken the trouble to warn you. The crash has actually begun. If you can save yourself, do so at once." "I think I can," answered the young man, bravely. But he did not at all see how his salvation was to be accomplished. "Can you tell me a little more definitely what is the matter? Have there been any more failures to-day?" "My brother-in-law Montevarchi is on the point of stopping payment," said San Giacinto calmly. "Montevarchi!" Orsino did not conceal his astonishment. "Yes. Do not speak of it. And he is in precisely the same position, so far as I can judge of your affairs, as you yourself, though of course he has dealt with sums ten times as great. He will make enormous sacrifices and will pay, I suppose, after all. But he will be quite ruined. He also has worked with Del Fence's bank." "And the bank refuses to discount any more of his paper?" "Precisely. Since this afternoon." "Then it will refuse to discount mine to-morrow." "Have you acceptances due to-morrow?" "Yes--not much, but enough to make the trouble. It will be Saturday, too, and we must have money for the workmen." "Have you not even enough in reserve for that?" "Perhaps. I cannot tell. Besides, if the bank refuses to renew I cannot draw a cheque." "I am sorry for you. If I had known yesterday how near the end was, I would have warned you." "Thanks. I am grateful as it is. Can you give me any advice?" Orsino had a vague idea that his rich cousin would generously propose to help him out of his difficulties. He was not quite sure whether he could bring himself to accept such assistance, but he more than half expected that it would be offered. In this, however, he was completely mistaken. San Giacinto had not the smallest intention of offering anything more substantial than his opinion. Considering that his wife's brother's liabilities amounted to something like five and twenty millions, this was not surprising. The giant bit his cigar and folded his long arms over his enormous chest, leaning back in the easy chair which creaked under his weight. "You have tried yourself in business by this time, Orsino," he said, "and you know as well as I what there is to be done. You have three modes of action open to you. You can fail. It is a simple affair enough. The bank will take your buildings for what they will be worth a few months hence, on the day of liquidation. There will be a big deficit, which your father will pay for you and deduct from your share of the division at his death. That is one plan, and seems to me the best. It is perfectly honourable, and you lose by it. Secondly, you can go to your father to-morrow and ask him to lend you money to meet your acceptances and to continue the work until the houses are finished and can be sold. They will ultimately go for a quarter of their value, if you can sell them at all within the year, and you will be in your father's debt, exactly as in the other case. You would avoid the publicity of a failure, but it would cost you more, because the houses will not be worth much more when they are finished than they are now." "And the third plan--what is it?" inquired Orsino. "The third way is this. You can go to Del Ferice, and if you are a diplomatist you may persuade him that it is in his interest not to let you fail. I do not think you will succeed, but you can try. If he agrees it will be because he counts on your father to pay in the end, but it is questionable whether Del Ferice's bank can afford to let out any more cash at the present moment. Money is going to be very tight, as they say." Orsino smoked in silence, pondering over the situation. San Giacinto rose. "You are warned, at all events," he said. "You will find a great change for the worse in the general aspect of things to-morrow." "I am much obliged for the warning," answered Orsino. "I suppose I can always find you if I need your advice--and you will advise me?" "You are welcome to my advice, such as it is, my dear boy. But as for me, I am going towards Naples to-night on business, and I may not be back again for a day or two. If you get into serious trouble before I am here again, you should go to your father at once. He knows nothing of business, and has been sensible enough to keep out of it. The consequence is that he is as rich as ever, and he would sacrifice a great deal rather than see your name dragged into the publicity of a failure. Good-night, and good luck to you." Thereupon the Titan shook Orsino's hand in his mighty grip and went away. As a matter of fact he was going down to look over one of Montevarchi's biggest estates with a view to buying it in the coming cataclysm, but it would not have been like him to communicate the smallest of his intentions to Orsino, or to any one, not excepting his wife and his lawyer. Orsino was left to his own devices and meditations. A servant came in and inquired whether he wished to dine at home, and he ordered strong coffee by way of a meal. He was at the age when a man expects to find a way out of his difficulties in an artificial excitement of the nerves. Indeed, he had enough to disturb him, for it seemed as though all possible misfortunes had fallen upon him at once. He had suffered on the same day the greatest shock to his heart, and the greatest blow to his vanity which he could conceive possible. Maria Consuelo was gone and the failure of his business was apparently inevitable. When he tried to review the three plans which San Giacinto had suggested, he found himself suddenly thinking of the woman he loved and making schemes for following her; but so soon as he had transported himself in imagination to her side and was beginning to hope that he might win her back, he was torn away and plunged again into the whirlpool of business at home, struggling with unheard of difficulties and sinking deeper at every stroke. A hundred times he rose from his chair and paced the floor impatiently, and a hundred times he threw himself down again, overcome by the hopelessness of the situation. Occasionally he found a little comfort in the reflexion that the night could not last for ever. When the day came he would be driven to act, in one way or another, and he would be obliged to consult his partner, Contini. Then at last his mind would be able to follow one connected train of thought for a time, and he would get rest of some kind. Little by little, however, and long before the day dawned, the dominating influence asserted itself above the secondary one and he was thinking only of Maria Consuelo. Throughout all that night she was travelling, as she would perhaps travel throughout all the next day and the second night succeeding that. For she was strong and having once determined upon the journey would very probably go to the end of it without stopping to rest. He wondered whether she too were waking through all those long hours, thinking of what she had left behind, or whether she had closed her eyes and found the peace of sleep for which he longed in vain. He thought of her face, softly lighted by the dim lamp of the railway carriage, and fancied he could actually see it with the delicate shadows, the subdued richness of colour, the settled look of sadness. When the picture grew dim, he recalled it by a strong effort, though he knew that each time it rose before his eyes he must feel the same sharp thrust of pain, followed by the same dull wave of hopeless misery which had ebbed and flowed again so many times since he had parted from her. At last he roused himself, looked about him as though he were in a strange place, lighted a candle and betook himself to his own quarters. It was very late, and he was more tired than he knew, for in spite of all his troubles he fell asleep and did not awake till the sun was streaming into the room. Some one knocked at the door, and a servant announced that Signor Contini was waiting to see Don Orsino. The man's face expressed a sort of servile surprise when he saw that Orsino had not undressed for the night and had been sleeping on the divan. He began to busy himself with the toilet things as though expecting Orsino to take some thought for his appearance. But the latter was anxious to see Contini at once, and sent for him. The architect was evidently very much disturbed. He was as pale as though he had just recovered from a long illness and he seemed to have grown suddenly emaciated during the night. He spoke in a low, excited tone. In substance he told Orsino what San Giacinto had said on the previous evening. Things looked very black indeed, and Del Ferice's bank had refused to discount any more of Prince Montevarchi's paper. "And we must have money to-day," Contini concluded. When he had finished speaking his excitement disappeared and he relapsed into the utmost dejection. Orsino remained silent for some time and then lit a cigarette. "You need not be so down-hearted, Contini," he said at last. "I shall not have any difficulty in getting money--you know that. What I feel most is the moral failure." "What is the moral failure to me?" asked Contini gloomily. "It is all very well to talk of getting money. The bank will shut its tills like a steel trap and to-day is Saturday, and there are the workmen and others to be paid, and several bills due into the bargain. Of course your family can give you millions--in time. But we need cash to-day. That is the trouble." "I suppose the state telegraph is not destroyed because Prince Montevarchi cannot meet his acceptances," observed Orsino. "And I imagine that our steward here in the house has enough cash for our needs, and will not hesitate to hand it to me if he receives a telegram from my father ordering him to do so. Whether he has enough to take up the bills or not, I do not know; but as to-day is Saturday we have all day to-morrow to make arrangements. I could even go out to Saracinesca and be back on Monday morning when the bank opens." "You seem to take a hopeful view." "I have not the least hope of saving the business. But the question of ready money does not of itself disturb me." This was undoubtedly true, but it was also undeniable that Orsino now looked upon the prospect of failure with more equanimity than on the previous evening. On the other hand he felt even more keenly than before all the pain of his sudden separation from Maria Consuelo. When a man is assailed, by several misfortunes at once, twenty-four hours are generally enough to sift the small from the great and to show him plainly which is the greatest of all. "What shall we do this morning?" inquired Contini. "You ask the question as though you were going to propose a picnic," answered Orsino. "I do not see why this morning need be so different from other mornings." "We must stop the works instantly--" "Why? At all events we will change nothing until we find out the real state of business. The first thing to be done is to go to the bank as usual on Saturdays. We shall then know exactly what to do." Contini shook his head gloomily and went away to wait in another room while Orsino dressed. An hour later they were at the bank. Contini grew paler than ever. The head clerk would of course inform them that no more bills would be discounted, and that they must meet those already out when they fell due. He would also tell them that the credit balance of their account current would not be at their disposal until their acceptances were met. Orsino would probably at last believe that the situation was serious, though he now looked so supremely and scornfully indifferent to events. They waited some time. Several men were engaged in earnest conversation, and their faces told plainly enough that they were in trouble. The head clerk was standing with them, and made a sign to Orsino, signifying that they would soon go. Orsino watched him. From time to time he shook his head and made gestures which indicated his utter inability to do anything for them. Contini's courage sank lower and lower. "I will ask for Del Ferice at once," said Orsino. He accordingly sought out one of the men who wore the bank's livery and told him to take his card to the count. "The Signor Commendatore is not coming this morning," answered the man mysteriously. Orsino went back to the head clerk, interrupting his conversation with the others. He inquired if it were true that Del Ferice were not coming. "It is not probable," answered the clerk with a grave face. "They say that the Signora Contessa is not likely to live through the day." "Is Donna Tullia ill?" asked Orsino in considerable astonishment. "She returned from Naples yesterday morning, and was taken ill in the afternoon--it is said to be apoplexy," he added in a low voice. "If you will have patience Signor Principe, I will be at your disposal in five minutes." Orsino was obliged to be satisfied and sat down again by Contini. He told him the news of Del Ferice's wife. "That will make matters worse," said Contini. "It will not improve them," answered Orsino indifferently. "Considering the state of affairs I would like to see Del Ferice before speaking with any of the others." "Those men are all involved with Prince Montevarchi," observed Contini, watching the group of which the head clerk was the central figure. "You can see by their faces what they think of the business. The short, grey haired man is the steward--the big man is the architect. The others are contractors. They say it is not less than thirty millions." Orsino said nothing. He was thinking of Maria Consuelo and wishing that he could get away from Rome that night, while admitting that there was no possibility of such a thing. Meanwhile the head clerk's gestures to his interlocutors expressed more and more helplessness. At last they went out in a body. "And now I am at your service, Signor Principe," said the grave man of business coming up to Orsino and Contini. "The usual accommodation, I suppose? We will just look over the bills and make out the new ones. It will not take ten minutes. The usual cash, I suppose, Signor Principe? Yes, to-day is Saturday and you have your men to pay. Quite as usual, quite as usual. Will you come into my office?" Orsino looked at Contini, and Contini looked at Orsino, grasping the back of a chair to steady himself. "Then there is no difficulty about discounting?" stammered Contini, turning his face, now suddenly flushed, towards the clerk. "None whatever," answered the latter with an air of real or affected surprise. "I have received the usual instructions to let Andrea Contini and Company have all the money they need." He turned and led the way to his private office. Contini walked unsteadily. Orsino showed no astonishment, but his black eyes grew a little brighter than usual as he anticipated his next interview with San Giacinto. He readily attributed his good fortune to the supposed well-known prosperity of the firm, and he rose in his own estimation. He quite forgot that Contini, who had now lost his head, had but yesterday clearly foreseen the future when he had said that Del Ferice would not let the two partners fail until they had fitted the last door and the last window in the last of their houses. The conclusion had struck him as just at the time. Contini was the first to recall it. "It will turn out, as I said," he began, when they were driving to their office in a cab after leaving the bank. "He will let us live until we are worth eating." "We will arrange matters on a firmer basis before that," answered Orsino confidently. "Poor old Donna Tullia! Who would have thought that she could die! I will stop and ask for news as we pass." He stopped the cab before the gilded gate of the detached house. Glancing up, he saw that the shutters were closed. The porter came to the bars but did not show any intention of opening. "The Signora Contessa is dead," he said solemnly, in answer to Orsino's inquiry. "This morning?" "Two hours ago." Orsino's face grew grave as he left his card of condolence and turned away. He could hardly have named a person more indifferent to him than poor Donna Tullia, but he could not help feeling an odd regret at the thought that she was gone at last with all her noisy vanity, her restless meddlesomeness and her perpetual chatter. She had not been old either, though he called her so, and there had seemed to be still a superabundance of life in her. There had been yet many years of rattling, useless, social life before her. To-morrow she would have taken her last drive through Rome--out through the gate of Saint Lawrence to the Campo Varano, there to wait many years perhaps for the pale and half sickly Ugo, of whom every one had said for years that he could not live through another twelve month with the disease of the heart which threatened him. Of late, people had even begun to joke about Donna Tullia's third husband. Poor Donna Tullia! Orsino went to his office with Contini and forced himself through the usual round of work. Occasionally he was assailed by a mad desire to leave Rome at once, but he opposed it and would not yield. Though his affairs had gone well beyond his expectation the present crisis made it impossible to abandon his business, unless he could get rid of it altogether. And this he seriously contemplated. He knew however, or thought he knew, that Contini would be ruined without him. His own name was the one which gave the paper its value and decided Del Ferice to continue the advances of money. The time was past when Contini would gladly have accepted his partner's share of the undertaking, and would even have tried to raise funds to purchase it. To retire now would be possible only if he could provide for the final liquidation of the whole, and this he could only do by applying to his father or mother, in other words by acknowledging himself completely beaten in his struggle for independence. The day ended at last and was succeeded by the idleness of Sunday. A sort of listless indifference came over Orsino, the reaction, no doubt, after all the excitement through which he had passed. It seemed to him that Maria Consuelo had never loved him, and that it was better after all that she should be gone. He longed for the old days, indeed, but as she now appeared to him in his meditations he did not wish her back. He had no desire to renew the uncertain struggle for a love which she denied in the end; and this mood showed, no doubt, that his own passion was less violent than he had himself believed. When a man loves with his whole nature, undividedly, he is not apt to submit to separations without making a strong effort to reunite himself, by force, persuasion or stratagem, with the woman who is trying to escape from him. Orsino was conscious of having at first felt the inclination to make such an attempt even more strongly than he had shown it, but he was conscious also that the interval of two days had been enough to reduce the wish to follow Maria Consuelo in such a way that he could hardly understand having ever entertained it. Unsatisfied passion wears itself out very soon. The higher part of love may and often does survive in such cases, and the passionate impulses may surge up after long quiescence as fierce and dangerous as ever. But it is rarely indeed that two unsatisfied lovers who have parted by the will of the one or of both can meet again without the consciousness that the experimental separation has chilled feelings once familiar and destroyed illusions once more than dear. In older times, perhaps, men and women loved differently. There was more solitude in those days than now, for what is called society was not invented, and people generally were more inclined to sadness from living much alone. Melancholy is a great strengthener of faithfulness in love. Moreover at that time the modern fight for life had not begun, men as a rule had few interests besides love and war, and women no interests at all beyond love. We moderns should go mad if we were suddenly forced to lead the lives led by knights and ladies in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The monotonous round of such an existence in time of peace would make idiots of us, the horrors of that old warfare would make many of us maniacs. But it is possible that youths and maidens would love more faithfully and wait longer for each other than they will or can to-day. It is questionable whether Bayard would have understood a single page of a modern love story, Tancred would certainly not have done so; but Caesar would have comprehended our lives and our interests without effort, and Catullus could have described us as we are, for one great civilization is very like another where the same races are concerned. In the days which followed Maria Consuelo's departure, Orsino came to a state of indifference which surprised himself. He remembered that when she had gone away in the spring he had scarcely missed her, and that he had not thought his own coldness strange, since he was sure that he had not loved her then. But that he had loved her now, during her last stay in Rome, he was sure, and he would have despised himself if he had not been able to believe that he loved her still. Yet, if he was not glad that she had quitted him, he was at least strangely satisfied at being left alone, and the old fancy for analysis made him try to understand himself. The attempt was fruitless, of course, but it occupied his thoughts. He met Spicca in the street, and avoided him. He imagined that the old man must despise him for not having resisted and followed Maria Consuelo after all. The hypothesis was absurd and the conclusion vain, but he could not escape the idea, and it annoyed him. He was probably ashamed of not having acted recklessly, as a man should who is dominated by a master passion, and yet he was inwardly glad that he had not been allowed to yield to the first impulse. The days succeeded each other and a week passed away, bringing Saturday again and the necessity for a visit to the bank. Business had been in a very bad state since it had been known that Montevarchi was ruined. So far, he had not stopped payment and although the bank refused discount he had managed to find money with which to meet his engagements. Probably, as San Giacinto had foretold, he would pay everything and remain a very poor man indeed. But, although many persons knew this, confidence was not restored. Del Ferice declared that he believed Montevarchi solvent, as he believed every one with whom his bank dealt to be solvent to the uttermost centime, but that he could lend no more money to any one on any condition whatsoever, because neither he nor the bank had any to lend. Every one, he said, had behaved honestly, and he proposed to eclipse the honesty of every one by the frank acknowledgment of his own lack of cash. He was distressed, he said, overcome by the sufferings of his friends and clients, ready to sell his house, his jewelry and his very boots, in the Roman phrase, to accommodate every one; but he was conscious that the demand far exceeded any supply which he could furnish, no matter at what personal sacrifice, and as it was therefore impossible to help everybody, it would be unjust to help a few where all were equally deserving. In the meanwhile he proved the will of his deceased wife, leaving him about four and a half millions of francs unconditionally, and half a million more to be devoted to some public charity at Ugo's discretion, for the repose of Donna Tullia's unquiet spirit. It is needless to say that the sorrowing husband determined to spend the legacy magnificently in the improvement of the town represented by him in parliament. A part of the improvement would consist in a statue of Del Ferice himself--representing him, perhaps, as he had escaped from Rome, in the garb of a Capuchin friar, but with the addition of an army revolver to show that he had fought for Italian unity, though when or where no man could tell. But it is worth noting that while he protested his total inability to discount any one's bills, Andrea Contini and Company regularly renewed their acceptances when due and signed new ones for any amount of cash they required. The accommodation was accompanied with a request that it should not be mentioned. Orsino took the money indifferently enough, conscious that he had three fortunes at his back in case of trouble, but Contini grew more nervous as time went on and the sums on paper increased in magnitude, while the chances of disposing of the buildings seemed reduced to nothing in the stagnation which had already set in. CHAPTER XXV. At this time Count Spicca received a letter from Maria Consuelo, written from Nice and bearing a postmark more recent than the date which headed the page, a fact which proved that the writer had either taken an unusually long time in the composition or had withheld the missive several days before finally despatching it. "My father--I write to inform you of certain things which have recently taken place and which it is important that you should know, and of which I should have the right to require an explanation if I chose to ask it. Having been the author of my life, you have made yourself also the author of all my unhappiness and of all my trouble. I have never understood the cause of your intense hatred for me, but I have felt its consequences, even at a great distance from you, and you know well enough that I return it with all my heart. Moreover I have made up my mind that I will not be made to suffer by you any longer. I tell you so quite frankly. This is a declaration of war, and I will act upon it immediately. "You are no doubt aware that Don Orsino Saracinesca has for a long time been among my intimate friends. I will not discuss the question, whether I did well to admit him to my intimacy or not. That, at least, does not concern you. Even admitting your power to exercise the most complete tyranny over me in other ways, I am and have always been free to choose my own acquaintances, and I am able to defend myself better than most women, and as well as any. I will be just, too. I do not mean to reproach you with the consequences of what I do. But I will not spare you where the results of your action towards me are concerned. "Don Orsino made love to me last spring. I loved him from the first. I can hear your cruel laugh and see your contemptuous face as I write. But the information is necessary, and I can bear your scorn because this is the last opportunity for such diversion which I shall afford you, and because I mean that you shall pay dearly for it. I loved Don Orsino, and I love him still. You, of course, have never loved. You have hated, however, and perhaps one passion may be the measure of another. It is in my case, I can assure you, for the better I love, the better I learn to hate you. "Last Thursday Don Orsino asked me to be his wife. I had known for some time that he loved me and I knew that he would speak of it before long. The day was sultry at first and then there was a thunderstorm. My nerves were unstrung and I lost my head. I told him that I loved him. That does not concern you. I told him, also, however, that I had given a solemn promise to my dying husband, and I had still the strength to say that I would not marry again. I meant to gain time, I longed to be alone, I knew that I should yield, but I would not yield blindly. Thank God, I was strong. I am like you in that, though happily not in any other way. You ask me why I should even think of yielding. I answer that I love Don Orsino better than I loved the man you murdered. There is nothing humiliating in that, and I make the confession without reserve. I love him better, and therefore, being human, I would have broken my promise and married him, had marriage been possible. But it is not, as you know. It is one thing to turn to the priest as he stands by a dying man and to say, Pronounce us man and wife, and give us a blessing, for the sake of this man's rest. The priest knew that we were both free, and took the responsibility upon himself, knowing also that the act could have no consequences in fact, whatever it might prove to be in theory. It is quite another matter to be legally married to Don Orsino Saracinesca, in the face of a strong opposition. But I went home that evening, believing that it could be done and that the opposition would vanish. I believed because I loved. I love still, but what I learned that night has killed my belief in an impossible happiness. "I need not tell you all that passed between me and Lucrezia Ferris. How she knew of what had happened I cannot tell. She must have followed us to the apartment I was furnishing, and she must have overheard what we said, or seen enough to convince her. She is a spy. I suppose that is the reason why she is imposed upon me, and always has been, since I can remember--since I was born, she says. I found her waiting to dress me as usual, and as usual I did not speak to her. She spoke first. 'You will not marry Don Orsino Saracinesca,' she said, facing me with her bad eyes. I could have struck her, but I would not. I asked her what she meant. She told me that she knew what I was doing, and asked me whether I was aware that I needed documents in order to be married to a beggar in Rome, and whether I supposed that the Saracinesca would be inclined to overlook the absence of such papers, or could pass a law of their own abolishing the necessity for them, or, finally, whether they would accept such certificates of my origin as she could produce. She showed me a package. She had nothing better to offer me, she said, but such as she had, she heartily placed at my disposal. I took the papers. I was prepared for a shock, but not for the blow I received. "You know what I read. The certificate of my birth as the daughter of Lucrezia Ferris, unmarried, by Count Spicca who acknowledged the child as his--and the certificate of your marriage with Lucrezia Ferris, dated--strangely enough a fortnight after my birth--and further a document legitimizing me as the lawful daughter of you two. All these documents are from Monte Carlo. You will understand why I am in Nice. Yes--they are all genuine, every one of them, as I have had no difficulty in ascertaining. So I am the daughter of Lucrezia Ferris, born out of wedlock and subsequently whitewashed into a sort of legitimacy. And Lucrezia Ferris is lawfully the Countess Spicca. Lucrezia Ferris, the cowardly spy-woman who more than half controls my life, the lying, thieving servant--she robs me at every turn--the common, half educated Italian creature,--she is my mother, she is that radiant being of whom you sometimes speak with tears in your eyes, she is that angel of whom I remind you, she is that sweet influence that softened and brightened your lonely life for a brief space some three and twenty years ago! She has changed since then. "And this is the mystery of my birth which you have concealed from me, and which it was at any moment in the power of my vile mother to reveal. You cannot deny the fact, I suppose, especially since I have taken the trouble to search the registers and verify each separate document. "I gave them all back to her, for I shall never need them. The woman--I mean my mother--was quite right. I shall not marry Don Orsino Saracinesca. You have lied to me throughout my life. You have always told me that my mother was dead, and that I need not be ashamed of my birth, though you wished it kept a secret. So far, I have obeyed you. In that respect, and only in that, I will continue to act according to your wishes. I am not called upon to proclaim to the world and my acquaintance that I am the daughter of my own servant, and that you were kind enough to marry your estimable mistress after my birth in order to confer upon me what you dignify by the name of legitimacy. No. That is not necessary. If it could hurt you to proclaim it I would do so in the most public way I could find. But it is folly to suppose that you could be made to suffer by so simple a process. "Are you aware, my father, that you have ruined all my life from the first? Being so bad, you must be intelligent and you must realise what you have done, even if you have done it out of pure love of evil. You pretended to be kind to me, until I was old enough to feel all the pain you had in store for me. But even then, after you had taken the trouble to marry my mother, why did you give me another name? Was that necessary? I suppose it was. I did not understand then why my older companions looked askance at me in the convent, nor why the nuns sometimes whispered together and looked at me. They knew perhaps that no such name as mine existed. Since I was your daughter why did I not bear your name when I was a little girl? You were ashamed to let it be known that you were married, seeing what sort of wife you had taken, and you found yourself in a dilemma. If you had acknowledged me as your daughter in Austria, your friends in Rome would soon have found out my existence--and the existence of your wife. You were very cautious in those days, but you seem to have grown careless of late, or you would not have left those papers in the care of the Countess Spicca, my maid--and my mother. I have heard that very bad men soon reach their second childhood and act foolishly. It is quite true. "Then, later, when you saw that I loved, and was loved, and was to be happy, you came between my love and me. You appeared in your own character as a liar, a slanderer and a traitor. I loved a man who was brave, honourable, faithful--reckless, perhaps, and wild as such men are--but devoted and true. You came between us. You told me that he was false, cowardly, an adventurer of the worst kind. Because I would not believe you, and would have married him in spite of you, you killed him. Was it cowardly of him to face the first swordsman in Europe? They told me that he was not afraid of you, the men who saw it, and that he fought you like a lion, as he was. And the provocation, too! He never struck me. He was showing me what he meant by a term in fencing--the silver knife he held grazed my cheek because I was startled and moved. But you meant to kill him, and you chose to say that he had struck me. Did you ever hear a harsh word from his lips during those months of waiting? When you had done your work you fled--like the murderer you were and are. But I escaped from the woman who says she is my mother--and is--and I went to him and found him living and married him. You used to tell me that he was an adventurer and little better than a beggar. Yet he left me a large fortune. It is as well that he provided for me, since you have succeeded in losing most of your own money at play--doubtless to insure my not profiting by it at your death. Not that you will die--men of your kind outlive their victims, because they kill them. "And now, when you saw--for you did see it--when you saw and knew that Orsino Saracinesca and I loved each other, you have broken my life a second time. You might so easily have gone to him, or have come to me, at the first, with the truth. You know that I should never forgive you for what you had done already. A little more could have made matters no worse then. You knew that Don Orsino would have thanked you as a friend for the warning. Instead--I refuse to believe you in your dotage after all--you make that woman spy upon me until the great moment is come, you give her the weapons and you bid her strike when the blow will be most excruciating. You are not a man. You are Satan. I parted twice from the man I love. He would not let me go, and he came back and tried to keep me--I do not know how I escaped. God helped me. He is so brave and noble that if he had held those accursed papers in his hands and known all the truth he would not have given me up. He would have brought a stain on his great name, and shame upon his great house for my sake. He is not like you. I parted from him twice, I know all that I can suffer, and I hate you for each individual suffering, great and small. "I have dismissed my mother from my service. How that would sound in Rome! I have given her as much money as she can expect and I have got rid of her. She said that she would not go, that she would write to you, and many other things. I told her that if she attempted to stay I would go to the authorities, prove that she was my mother, provide for her, if the law required it and have her forcibly turned out of my house by the aid of the same law. I am of age, married, independent, and I cannot be obliged to entertain my mother either in the character of a servant, or as a visitor. I suppose she has a right to a lodging under your roof. I hope she will take advantage of it, as I advised her. She took the money and went away, cursing me. I think that if she had ever, in all my life, shown the smallest affection for me--even at the last, when she declared herself my mother, if she had shown a spark of motherly feeling, of tenderness, of anything human, I could have accepted her and tolerated her, half peasant woman as she is, spy as she has been, and cheat and thief. But she stood before me with the most perfect indifference, watching my surprise with those bad eyes of hers. I wonder why I have borne her presence so long. I suppose it had never struck me that I could get rid of her, in spite of you, if I chose. By the bye, I sent for a notary when I paid her, and I got a legal receipt signed with her legal name, Lucrezia Spicca, _ta Ferris_. The document formally releases me from all further claims. I hope you will understand that you have no power whatsoever to impose her upon me again, though I confess that I am expecting your next move with interest. I suppose that you have not done with me yet, and have some new means of torment in reserve. Satan is rarely idle long. "And now I have done. If you were not the villain you are, I should expect you to go to the man whose happiness I have endangered, if not destroyed. I should expect you to tell Don Orsino Saracinesca enough of the truth to make him understand my action. But I know you far too well to imagine that you would willingly take from my life one thorn of the many you have planted in it. I will write to Don Orsino myself. I think you need not fear him--I am sorry that you need not. But I shall not tell him more than is necessary. You will remember, I hope, that such discretion as I may show, is not shown out of consideration for you, but out of forethought for my own welfare. I have unfortunately no means of preventing you from writing to me, but you may be sure that your letters will never be read, so that you will do as well to spare yourself the trouble of composing them. "MARIA CONSUELO D'ARANJUEZ." Spicca received this letter early in the morning, and at mid-day he still sat in his chair, holding it in his hand. His face was very white, his head hung forward upon his breast, his thin fingers were stiffened upon the thin paper. Only the hardly perceptible rise and fall of the chest showed that he still breathed. The clocks had already struck twelve when his old servant entered the room, a being thin, wizened, grey and noiseless as the ghost of a greyhound. He stood still a moment before his master, expecting that he would look up, then bent anxiously over him and felt his hands. Spicca slowly raised his sunken eyes. "It will pass, Santi--it will pass," he said feebly. Then he began to fold up the sheets slowly and with difficulty, but very neatly, as men of extraordinary skill with their hands do everything. Santi looked at him doubtfully and then got a glass and a bottle of cordial from a small carved press in the corner. Spicca drank the liqueur slowly and set the glass steadily upon the table. "Bad news, Signor Conte?" asked the servant anxiously, and in a way which betrayed at once the kindly relations existing between the two. "Very bad news," Spicca answered sadly and shaking his head. Santi sighed, restored the cordial to the press and took up the glass, as though he were about to leave the room. But he still lingered near the table, glancing uneasily at his master as though he had something to say, but was hesitating to begin. "What is it, Santi?" asked the count. "I beg your pardon, Signor Conte--you have had bad news--if you will allow me to speak, there are several small economies which could still be managed without too much inconveniencing you. Pardon the liberty, Signor Conte." "I know, I know. But it is not money this time. I wish it were." Santi's expression immediately lost much of its anxiety. He had shared his master's fallen fortunes and knew better than he what he meant by a few more small economies, as he called them. "God be praised, Signor Conte," he said solemnly. "May I serve the breakfast?" "I have no appetite, Santi. Go and eat yourself." "A little something?" Santi spoke in a coaxing way. "I have prepared a little mixed fry, with toast, as you like it, Signor Conte, and the salad is good to-day--ham and figs are also in the house. Let me lay the cloth--when you see, you will eat--and just one egg beaten up with a glass of red wine to begin--that will dispose the stomach." Spicca shook his head again, but Santi paid no attention to the refusal and went about preparing the meal. When it was ready the old man suffered himself to be persuaded and ate a little. He was in reality stronger than he looked, and an extraordinary nervous energy still lurked beneath the appearance of a feebleness almost amounting to decrepitude. The little nourishment he took sufficed to restore the balance, and when he rose from the table, he was outwardly almost himself again. When a man has suffered great moral pain for years, he bears a new shock, even the worst, better than one who is hard hit in the midst of a placid and long habitual happiness. The soul can be taught to bear trouble as the great self mortifiers of an earlier time taught their bodies to bear scourging. The process is painful but hardening. "I feel better, Santi," said Spicca. "Your breakfast has done me good. You are an excellent doctor." He turned away and took out his pocket-book--not over well garnished. He found a ten franc note. Then he looked round and spoke in a gentle, kindly tone. "Santi--this trouble has nothing to do with money. You need a new pair of shoes, I am sure. Do you think that ten francs is enough?" Santi bowed respectfully and took the money. "A thousand thanks, Signor Conte," he said. Santi was a strange man, from the heart of the Abruzzi. He pocketed the note, but that night, when he had undressed his master and was arranging the things on the dressing table, the ten francs found their way back into the black pocket-book. Spicca never counted, and never knew. He did not write to Maria Consuelo, for he was well aware that in her present state of mind she would undoubtedly burn his letter unopened, as she had said she would. Late in the day he went out, walked for an hour, entered the club and read the papers, and at last betook himself to the restaurant where Orsino dined when his people were out of town. In due time, Orsino appeared, looking pale and ill tempered. He caught sight of Spicca and went at once to the table where he sat. "I have had a letter," said the young man. "I must speak to you. If you do not object, we will dine together." "By all means. There is nothing like a thoroughly bad dinner to promote ill-feeling." Orsino glanced at the old man in momentary surprise. But he knew his ways tolerably well, and was familiar with the chronic acidity of his speech. "You probably guess who has written to me," Orsino resumed. "It was natural, perhaps, that she should have something to say, but what she actually says, is more than I was prepared to hear." Spicca's eyes grew less dull and he turned an inquiring glance on his companion. "When I tell you that in this letter, Madame d'Aranjuez has confided to me the true story of her origin, I have probably said enough," continued the young man. "You have said too much or too little," Spicca answered in an almost indifferent tone. "How so?" "Unless you tell me just what she has told you, or show me the letter, I cannot possibly judge of the truth of the tale." Orsino raised his head angrily. "Do you mean me to doubt that Madame d'Aranjuez speaks the truth?" he asked. "Calm yourself. Whatever Madame d'Aranjuez has written to you, she believes to be true. But she may have been herself deceived." "In spite of documents--public registers--" "Ah! Then she has told you about those certificates?" "That--and a great deal more which concerns you." "Precisely. A great deal more. I know all about the registers, as you may easily suppose, seeing that they concern two somewhat important acts in my own life and that I was very careful to have those acts properly recorded, beyond the possibility of denial--beyond the possibility of denial," he repeated very slowly and emphatically. "Do you understand that?" "It would not enter the mind of a sane person to doubt such evidence," answered Orsino rather scornfully. "No, I suppose not. As you do not therefore come to me for confirmation of what is already undeniable, I cannot understand why you come to me at all in this matter, unless you do so on account of other things which Madame d'Aranjuez has written you, and of which you have so far kept me in ignorance." Spicca spoke with a formal manner and in cold tones, drawing up his bent figure a little. A waiter came to the table and both men ordered their dinner. The interruption rather favoured the development of a hostile feeling between them, than otherwise. "I will explain my reasons for coming to find you here," said Orsino when they were again alone. "So far as I am concerned, no explanation is necessary. I am content not to understand. Moreover, this is a public place, in which we have accidentally met and dined together before." "I did not come here by accident," answered Orsino. "And I did not come in order to give explanations but to ask for one." "Ah?" Spicca eyed him coolly. "Yes. I wish to know why you have hated your daughter all her life, why you persecute her in every way, why you--" "Will you kindly stop?" The old man's voice grew suddenly clear and incisive, and Orsino broke off in the middle of his sentence. A moment's pause followed. "I requested you to stop speaking," Spicca resumed, "because you were unconsciously making statements which have no foundation whatever in fact. Observe that I say, unconsciously. You are completely mistaken. I do not hate Madame d'Aranjuez. I love her with all my heart and soul. I do not persecute her in every way, nor in any way. On the contrary, her happiness is the only object of such life as I still have to live, and I have little but that life left to give her. I am in earnest, Orsino." "I see you are. That makes what you say all the more surprising." "No doubt it does. Madame d'Aranjuez has just written to you, and you have her letter in your pocket. She has told you in that letter a number of facts in her own life, as she sees them, and you look at them as she does. It is natural. To her and to you, I appear to be a monster of evil, a hideous incarnation of cruelty, a devil in short. Did she call me a devil in her letter?" "She did." "Precisely. She has also written to me, informing me that I am Satan. There is a directness in the statement and a general disregard of probability which is not without charm. Nevertheless, I am Spicca, and not Beelzebub, her assurances to the contrary notwithstanding. You see how views may differ. You know much of her life, but you know nothing of mine, nor is it my intention to tell you anything about myself. But I will tell you this much. If I could do anything to mend matters, I would. If I could make it possible for you to marry Madame d'Aranjuez--being what you are, and fenced in as you are, I would. If I could tell you all the rest of the truth, which she does not know, nor dream of, I would. I am bound by a very solemn promise of secrecy--by something more than a promise in fact. Yet, if I could do good to her by breaking oaths, betraying confidence and trampling on the deepest obligations which can bind a man, I would. But that good cannot be done any more. That is all I can tell you." "It is little enough. You could, and you can, tell the whole truth, as you call it, to Madame d'Aranjuez. I would advise you to do so, instead of embittering her life at every turn." "I have not asked for your advice, Orsino. That she is unhappy, I know. That she hates me, is clear. She would not be the happier for hating me less, since nothing else would be changed. She need not think of me, if the subject is disagreeable. In all other respects she is perfectly free. She is young, rich, and at liberty to go where she pleases and to do what she likes. So long as I am alive, I shall watch over her--" "And destroy every chance of happiness which presents itself," interrupted Orsino. "I gave you some idea, the other night, of the happiness she might have enjoyed with the deceased Aranjuez. If I made a mistake in regard to what I saw him do--I admit the possibility of an error--I was nevertheless quite right in ridding her of the man. I have atoned for the mistake, if we call it so, in a way of which you do not dream, nor she either. The good remains, for Aranjuez is buried." "You speak of secret atonement--I was not aware that you ever suffered from remorse." "Nor I," answered Spicca drily. "Then what do you mean?" "You are questioning me, and I have warned you that I will tell you nothing about myself. You will confer a great favour upon me by not insisting." "Are you threatening me again?" "I am not doing anything of the kind. I never threaten any one. I could kill you as easily as I killed Aranjuez, old and decrepit as I look, and I should be perfectly indifferent to the opprobrium of killing so young a man--though I think that, looking at us two, many people might suppose the advantage to be on your side rather than on mine. But young men nowadays do not learn to handle arms. Short of laying violent hands upon me, you will find it quite impossible to provoke me. I am almost old enough to be your grandfather, and I understand you very well. You love Madame d'Aranjuez. She knows that to marry you would be to bring about such a quarrel with your family as might ruin half your life, and she has the rare courage to tell you so and to refuse your offer. You think that I can do something to help you and you are incensed because I am powerless, and furious because I object to your leaving Rome in the same train with her, against her will. You are more furious still to-day because you have adopted her belief that I am a monster of iniquity. Observe--that, apart from hindering you from a great piece of folly the other day, I have never interfered. I do not interfere now. As I said then, follow her if you please, persuade her to marry you if you can, quarrel with all your family if you like. It is nothing to me. Publish the banns of your marriage on the doors of the Capitol and declare to the whole world that Madame d'Aranjuez, the future Princess Saracinesca, is the daughter of Count Spicca and Lucrezia Ferris, his lawful wife. There will be a little talk, but it will not hurt me. People have kept their marriages a secret for a whole lifetime before now. I do not care what you do, nor what the whole tribe of the Saracinesca may do, provided that none of you do harm to Maria Consuelo, nor bring useless suffering upon her. If any of you do that, I will kill you. That at least is a threat, if you like. Good-night." Thereupon Spicca rose suddenly from his seat, leaving his dinner unfinished, and went out. CHAPTER XXVI. Orsino did not leave Rome after all. He was not in reality prevented from doing so by the necessity of attending to his business, for he might assuredly have absented himself for a week or two at almost any time before the new year, without incurring any especial danger. From time to time, at ever increasing intervals, he felt strongly impelled to rejoin Maria Consuelo in Paris where she had ultimately determined to spend the autumn and winter, but the impulse always lacked just the measure of strength which would have made it a resolution. When he thought of his many hesitations he did not understand himself and he fell in his own estimation, so that he became by degrees more silent and melancholy of disposition than had originally been natural with him. He had much time for reflection and he constantly brooded over the situation in which he found himself. The question seemed to be, whether he loved Maria Consuelo or not, since he was able to display such apparent indifference to her absence. In reality he also doubted whether he was loved by her, and the one uncertainty was fully as great as the other. He went over all that had passed. The position had never been an easy one, and the letter which Maria Consuelo had written to him after her departure had not made it easier. It had contained the revelations concerning her birth, together with many references to Spicca's continued cruelty, plentifully supported by statements of facts. She had then distinctly told Orsino that she would never marry him, under any circumstances whatever, declaring that if he followed her she would not even see him. She would not ruin his life and plunge him into a life long quarrel with his family, she said, and she added that she would certainly not expose herself to such treatment as she would undoubtedly receive at the hands of the Saracinesca if she married Orsino without his parents' consent. A man does not easily believe that he is deprived of what he most desires exclusively for his own good and welfare, and the last sentence quoted wounded Orsino deeply. He believed himself ready to incur the displeasure of all his people for Maria Consuelo's sake, and he said in his heart that if she loved him she should be ready to bear as much as he. The language in which she expressed herself, too, was cold and almost incisive. Unlike Spicca Orsino answered this letter, writing in an argumentative strain, bringing the best reasons he could find to bear against those she alleged, and at last reproaching her with not being willing to suffer for his sake a tenth part of what he would endure for her. But he announced his intention of joining her before long, and expressed the certainty that she would receive him. To this Maria Consuelo made no reply for some time. When she wrote at last, it was to say that she had carefully considered her decision and saw no good cause for changing it. To Orsino her tone seemed colder and more distant than ever. The fact that the pages were blotted here and there and that the handwriting was unsteady, was probably to be referred to her carelessness. He brooded over his misfortune, thought more than once of making a desperate effort to win back her love, and remained in Rome. After a long interval he wrote to her again. This time he produced an epistle which, under the circumstances, might have seemed almost ridiculous. It was full of indifferent gossip about society, it contained a few sarcastic remarks about his own approaching failure, with some rather youthfully cynical observations on the instability of things in general and the hollowness of all aspirations whatsoever. He received no answer, and duly repented the flippant tone he had taken. He would have been greatly surprised could he have learned that this last letter was destined to produce a greater effect upon his life than all he had written before it. In the meanwhile his father, who had heard of the increasing troubles in the world of business, wrote him in a constant strain of warning, to which he paid little attention. His mother's letters, too, betrayed her anxiety, but expressed what his father's did not, to wit the most boundless confidence in his power to extricate himself honourably from all difficulties, together with the assurance that if worst came to worst she was always ready to help him. Suddenly and without warning old Saracinesca returned from his wanderings. He had taken the trouble to keep the family informed of his movements by his secretary during two or three months and had then temporarily allowed them to lose sight of him, thereby causing them considerable anxiety, though an occasional paragraph in a newspaper reassured them from time to time. Then, on a certain afternoon in November, he appeared, alone and in a cab, as though he had been out for a stroll. "Well, my boy, are you ruined yet?" he inquired, entering Orsino's room without ceremony. The young man started from his seat and took the old gentleman's rough hand, with an exclamation of surprise. "Yes--you may well look at me," laughed the Prince. "I have grown ten years younger. And you?" He pushed his grandson into the light and scrutinised his face fiercely. "And you are ten years older," he concluded, in a discontented tone. "I did not know it," answered Orsino with an attempt at a laugh. "You have been at some mischief. I know it. I can see it." He dropped the young fellow's arm, shook his head and began to move about the room. Then he came back all at once and looked up into Orsino's face from beneath his bushy eyebrows. "Out with it, I mean to know!" he said, roughly but not unkindly. "Have you lost money? Are you ill? Are you in love?" Orsino would certainly have resented the first and the last questions, if not all three, had they been put to him by his father. There was something in the old Prince's nature, something warmer and more human, which appealed to his own. Sant' Ilario was, and always had been, outwardly cold, somewhat measured in his speech, undemonstrative, a man not easily moved to much expression or to real sympathy except by love, but capable, under that influence, of going to great lengths. And Orsino, though in some respects resembling his mother rather than his father, was not unlike the latter, with a larger measure of ambition and less real pride. It was probably the latter characteristic which made him feel the need of sympathy in a way his father had never felt it and could never understand it, and he was thereby drawn more closely to his mother and to his grandfather than to Sant' Ilario. Old Saracinesca evidently meant to be answered, as he stood there gazing into Orsino's eyes. "A great deal has happened since you went away," said Orsino, half wishing that he could tell everything. "In the first place, business is in a very bad state, and I am anxious." "Dirty work, business," grumbled Saracinesca. "I always told you so. Then you have lost money, you young idiot! I thought so. Did you think you were any better than Montevarchi? I hope you have kept your name out of the market, at all events. What in the name of heaven made you put your hand to such filth! Come--how much do you want? We will whitewash you and you shall start to-morrow and go round the world." "But I am not in actual need of money at all--" "Then what the devil are you in need of?" "An improvement in business, and the assurance that I shall not ultimately be bankrupt." "If money is not an assurance that you will not be bankrupt, I would like to learn what is. All this is nonsense. Tell me the truth, my boy--you are in love. That is the trouble." Orsino shrugged his shoulders. "I have been in love some time," he answered. "Young? Old? Marriageable? Married? Out with it, I say!" "I would rather talk about business. I think it is all over now." "Just like your father--always full of secrets! As if I did not know all about it. You are in love with that Madame d'Aranjuez." Orsino turned a little pale. "Please do not call her 'that' Madame d'Aranjuez," he said, gravely. "Eh? What? Are you so sensitive about her?" "Yes." "You are? Very well--I like that. What about her?" "What a question!" "I mean--is she indifferent, cold, in love with some one else?" "Not that I am aware. She has refused to marry me and has left Rome, that is all." "Refused to marry you!" cried old Saracinesca in boundless astonishment. "My dear boy, you must be out of your mind! The thing is impossible. You are the best match in Rome. Madame d'Aranjuez refuse you--absolutely incredible, not to be believed for a moment. You are dreaming. A widow--without much fortune--the relict of some curious adventurer--a woman looking for a fortune, a woman--" "Stop!" cried Orsino, savagely. "Oh yes--I forgot. You are sensitive. Well, well, I meant nothing against her, except that she must be insane if what you tell me is true. But I am glad of it, my boy, very glad. She is no match for you, Orsino. I confess, I wish you would marry at once. I would like to see my great grandchildren--but not Madame d'Aranjuez. A widow, too." "My father married a widow." "When you find a widow like your mother, and ten years younger than yourself, marry her if you can. But not Madame d'Aranjuez--older than you by several years." "A few years." "Is that all? It is too much, though. And who is Madame d'Aranjuez? Everybody was asking the question last winter. I suppose she had a name before she married, and since you have been trying to make her your wife, you must know all about her. Who was she?" Orsino hesitated. "You see!" cried, the old Prince. "It is not all right. There is a secret--there is something wrong about her family, or about her entrance into the world. She knows perfectly well that we would never receive her and has concealed it all from you--" "She has not concealed it. She has told me the exact truth. But I shall not repeat it to you." "All the stronger proof that everything is not right. You are well out of it, my boy, exceedingly well out of it. I congratulate you." "I would rather not be congratulated." "As you please. I am sorry for you, if you are unhappy. Try and forget all about it. How is your mother?" At any other time Orsino would have laughed at the characteristic abruptness. "Perfectly well, I believe. I have not seen her all summer," he answered gravely. "Not been to Saracinesca all summer! No wonder you look ill. Telegraph to them that I have come back and let us get the family together as soon as possible. Do you think I mean to spend six months alone in your company, especially when you are away all day at that wretched office of yours? Be quick about it--telegraph at once." "Very well. But please do not repeat anything of what I have told you to my father or my mother. That is the only thing I have to ask." "Am I a parrot? I never talk to them of your affairs." "Thanks. I am grateful." "To heaven because your grandfather is not a parakeet! No doubt. You have good cause. And look here, Orsino--" The old man took Orsino's arm and held it firmly, speaking in a lower tone. "Do not make an ass of yourself, my boy--especially in business. But if you do--and you probably will, you know--just come to me, without speaking to any one else. I will see what can be done without noise. There--take that, and forget all about your troubles and get a little more colour into your face." "You are too good to me," said Orsino, grasping the old Prince's hand. For once, he was really moved. "Nonsense--go and send that telegram at once. I do not want to be kept waiting a week for a sight of my family." With a deep, good humoured laugh he pushed Orsino out of the door in front of him and went off to his own quarters. In due time the family returned from Saracinesca and the gloomy old palace waked to life again. Corona and her husband were both struck by the change in Orsino's appearance, which indeed contrasted strongly with their own, refreshed and strengthened as they were by the keen mountain air, the endless out-of-door life, the manifold occupations of people deeply interested in the welfare of those around them and supremely conscious of their own power to produce good results in their own way. When they all came back, Orsino himself felt how jaded and worn he was as compared with them. Before twelve hours had gone by, he found himself alone with his mother. Strange to say he had not looked forward to the interview with pleasure. The bond of sympathy which had so closely united the two during the spring seemed weakened, and Orsino would, if possible, have put off the renewal of intimate converse which he knew to be inevitable. But that could not be done. It would not be hard to find reasons for his wishing to avoid his mother. Formerly his daily tale had been one of success, of hope, of ever increasing confidence. Now he had nothing to tell of but danger and anxiety for the future, and he was not without a suspicion that she would strongly disapprove of his allowing himself to be kept afloat by Del Ferice's personal influence, and perhaps by his personal aid. It was hard to begin daily intercourse on a basis of things so different from that which had seemed solid and safe when they had last talked together. He had learned to bear his own troubles bravely, too, and there was something which he associated with weakness in the idea of asking sympathy for them now. He would rather have been left alone. Deep down, too, was the consciousness of all that had happened between himself and Maria Consuelo since his mother's departure. Another suffering, another and distinctly different misfortune, to be borne better in silence than under question even of the most affectionate kind. His grandfather had indeed guessed at both truths and had taxed him with them at once, but that was quite another matter. He knew that the old gentleman would never refer again to what he had learned, and he appreciated the generous offer of help, of which he would never avail himself, in a way in which he could not appreciate an assistance even more lovingly proffered, perhaps, but which must be asked for by a confession of his own failure. On the other hand, he was incapable of distorting the facts in any way so as to make his mother believe him more successful than he actually was. There was nothing dishonest, perhaps, in pretending to be hopeful when he really had little hope, but he could not have represented the condition of the business otherwise than as it really stood. The interview was a long one, and Corona's dark face grew grave if not despondent as he explained to her one point after another, taking especial care to elucidate all that bore upon his relations with Del Ferice. It was most important that his mother should understand how he was placed, and how Del Ferice's continued advances of money were not to be regarded in the light of a personal favour, but as a speculation in which Ugo would probably get the best of the bargain. Orsino knew how sensitive his mother would be on such a point, and dreaded the moment when she should begin to think that he was laying himself under obligations beyond the strict limits of business. Corona leaned back in her low seat and covered her eyes with one hand for a moment, in deep thought. Orsino waited anxiously for her to speak. "My dear," she said at last, "you make it very clear, and I understand you perfectly. Nevertheless, it seems to me that your position is not very dignified, considering who you are, and what Del Ferice is. Do you not think so yourself?" Orsino flushed a little. She had not put the point as he had expected, and her words told upon him. "When I entered business, I put my dignity in my pocket," he answered, with a forced laugh. "There cannot be much of it in business, at the best." His mother's black eyes seemed to grow blacker, and the delicate nostril quivered a little. "If that is true, I wish you had never meddled in these affairs," she said, proudly. "But you talked differently last spring, and you made me see it all in another way. You made me feel, on the contrary that in doing something for yourself, in showing that you were able to accomplish something, in asserting your independence, you were making yourself more worthy of respect--and I have respected you accordingly." "Exactly," answered Orsino, catching at the old argument. "That is just what I wished to do. What I said a moment since was in the way of a generality. Business means a struggle for money, I suppose, and that, in itself, is not dignified. But it is not dishonourable. After all, the means may justify the end." "I hate that saying!" exclaimed Corona hotly. "I wish you were free of the whole affair." "So do I, with all my heart!" A short silence followed. "If I had known all this three months ago," Corona resumed, "I would have taken the money and given it to you, to clear yourself. I thought you were succeeding and I have used all the funds I could gather to buy the Montevarchi's property between us and Affile and in planting eucalyptus trees in that low land of mine where the people have suffered so much from fever. I have nothing at my disposal unless I borrow. Why did you not tell me the truth in the summer, Orsino? Why have you let me imagine that you were prospering all along, when you have been and are at the point of failure? It is too bad--" She broke off suddenly and clasped her hands together on her knee. "It is only lately that business has gone so badly," said Orsino. "It was all wrong from the beginning! I should never have encouraged you. Your father was right, as he always is--and now you must tell him so." But Orsino refused to go to his father, except in the last extremity. He represented that it was better, and more dignified, since Corona insisted upon the point of dignity, to fight the battle alone so long as there was a chance of winning. His mother, on the other hand, maintained that he should free himself at once and at any cost. A few months earlier he could easily have persuaded her that he was right; but she seemed changed since he had parted from her, and he fancied that his father's influence had been at work with her. This he resented bitterly. It must be remembered, too, that he had begun the interview with a preconceived prejudice, expecting it to turn out badly, so that he was the more ready to allow matters to take an unfavourable turn. The result was not a decided break in his relations with his mother, but a state of things more irritating than any open difference could have been. From that time Corona discouraged him, and never ceased to advise him to go to his father and ask frankly for enough money to clear him outright. Orsino, on his part, obstinately refused to apply to any one for help, as long as Del Ferice continued to advance him money. In those months which followed there were few indeed who did not suffer in the almost universal financial cataclysm. All that Contini and others, older and wiser than he, had predicted, took place, and more also. The banks refused discount, even upon the best paper, saying with justice that they were obliged to hold their funds in reserve at such a time. The works stopped almost everywhere. It was impossible to raise money. Thousands upon thousands of workmen who had come from great distances during the past two or three years were suddenly thrown out of work, penniless in the streets and many of them burdened with wives and children. There were one or two small riots and there was much demonstration, but, on the whole, the poor masons behaved very well. The government and the municipality did what they could--what governments and municipalities can do when hampered at every turn by the most complicated and ill-considered machinery of administration ever invented in any country. The starving workmen were by slow degrees got out of the city and sent back to starve out of sight in their native places. The emigration was enormous in all directions. The dismal ruins of that new city which was to have been built and which never reached completion are visible everywhere. Houses seven stories high, abandoned within a month of completion rise uninhabited and uninhabitable out of a rank growth of weeds, amidst heaps of rubbish, staring down at the broad, desolate streets where the vigorous grass pushes its way up through the loose stones of the unrolled metalling. Amidst heavy low walls which were to have been the ground stories of palaces, a few ragged children play in the sun, a lean donkey crops the thistles, or if near to a few occupied dwellings, a wine seller makes a booth of straw and chestnut boughs and dispenses a poisonous, sour drink to those who will buy. But that is only in the warm months. The winter winds blow the wretched booth to pieces and increase the desolation. Further on, tall façades rise suddenly up, the blue sky gleaming through their windows, the green moss already growing upon their naked stones and bricks. The Barbarini of the future, if any should arise, will not need to despoil the Colosseum to quarry material for their palaces. If, as the old pasquinade had it the Barbarini did what the Barbarians did not, how much worse than barbarians have these modern civilizers done! The distress was very great in the early months of 1889. The satisfaction which many of the new men would have felt at the ruin of great old families was effectually neutralized by their own financial destruction. Princes, bankers, contractors and master masons went down together in the general bankruptcy. Ugo Del Ferice survived and with him Andrea Contini and Company, and doubtless other small firms which he protected for his own ends. San Giacinto, calm, far-seeing, and keen as an eagle, surveyed the chaos from the height of his magnificent fortune, unmoved and immovable, awaiting the lowest ebb of the tide. The Saracinesca looked on, hampered a little by the sudden fall in rents and other sources of their income, but still superior to events, though secretly anxious about Orsino's affairs, and daily expecting that he must fail. And Orsino himself had changed, as was natural enough. He was learning to seem what he was not, and those who have learned that lesson know how it influences the real man whom no one can judge but himself. So long as there had been one person in his life with whom he could live in perfect sympathy he had given himself little trouble about his outward behaviour. So long as he had felt that, come what might, his mother was on his side, he had not thought it worth his while not to be natural with every one, according to his humour. He was wrong, no doubt, in fancying that Corona had deserted him. But he had already suffered a loss, in Maria Consuelo, which had at the time seemed the greatest conceivable, and the pain he had suffered then, together with, the deep though, unacknowledged wound to his vanity, had predisposed him to believe that he was destined to be friendless. The consequence was that a very slight break in the perfect understanding which had so long existed between him and his mother had produced serious results. He now felt that he was completely alone, and like most lonely men of sound character he acquired the habit of keeping his troubles entirely to himself, while affecting an almost unnaturally quiet and equable manner with those around him. On the whole, he found that his life was easier when he lived it on this principle. He found that he was more careful in his actions since he had a part to sustain, and that his opinion carried more weight since he expressed it more cautiously and seemed less liable to fluctuations of mood and temper. The change in his character was more apparent than real, perhaps, as changes of character generally are when not in the way of logical development; but the constant thought of appearances reacts upon the inner nature in the end, and much which at first is only put on, becomes a habit next, and ends by taking the place of an impulse. Orsino was aware that his chief preoccupation was identical with that which absorbed his mother's thoughts. He wished to free himself from the business in which he was so deeply involved, and which still prospered so strangely in spite of the general ruin. But here the community of ideas ended. He wished to free himself in his own way, without humiliating himself by going to his father for help. Meanwhile, too, Sant' Ilario himself had his doubts concerning his own judgment. It was inconceivable to him that Del Ferice could be losing money to oblige Orsino, and if he had desired to ruin him he could have done so with ease a hundred times in the past months. It might be, he said to himself, that Orsino had after all, a surprising genius for affairs and had weathered the storm in the face of tremendous difficulties. Orsino saw the belief growing in his father's mind, and the certainty that it was there did not dispose him to throw up the fight and acknowledge himself beaten. The Saracinesca were one of the very few Roman families in which there is a tradition in favour of non-interference with the action of children already of age. The consequence was that although the old Prince, Giovanni and his wife, all three felt considerable anxiety, they did nothing to hamper Orsino's action, beyond an occasionally repeated warning to be careful. That his occupation was distasteful to them, they did not conceal, but he met their expressions of opinion with perfect equanimity and outward good humour, even when his mother, once his staunch ally, openly advised him to give up business and travel for a year. Their prejudice was certainly not unnatural, and had been strengthened by the perusal of the unsavoury details published by the papers at each new bankruptcy during the year. But they found Orsino now always the same, always quiet, good-humoured and firm in his projects. Andrea Contini had not been very exact in his calculation of the date at which the last door and the last window would be placed in the last of the houses which he and Orsino had undertaken to build. The disturbance in business might account for the delay. At all events it was late in April of the following year before the work was completed. Then Orsino went to Del Ferice. "Of course," he said, maintaining the appearance of calm which had now become habitual with him, "I cannot expect to pay what I owe the bank, unless I can effect a sale of these buildings. You have known that, all along, as well as I. The question is, can they be sold?" "You have no applicant, then?" Del Ferice looked grave and somewhat surprised. "No. We have received no offer." "You owe the bank a very large sum on these buildings, Don Orsino." "Secured by mortgages on them," answered the young man quietly, but preparing for trouble. "Just so. Secured by mortgages. But if the bank should foreclose within the next few months, and if the buildings do not realize the amount secured, Contini and Company are liable for the difference." "I know that." "And the market is very bad, Don Orsino, and shows no signs of improvement." "On the other hand the houses are finished, habitable, and can be let immediately." "They are certainly finished. You must be aware that the bank has continued to advance the sums necessary for two reasons. Firstly, because an expensive but habitable dwelling is better than a cheap one with no roof. Secondly, because in doing business with Andrea Contini and Company we have been dealing with the only really honest and economical firm in Rome." Orsino smiled vaguely, but said nothing. He had not much faith in Del Ferice's flattery. "But that," continued the latter, "does not dispense us from the necessity of realising what is owing to us--I mean the bank--either in money, or in an equivalent--or in an equivalent," he repeated, thoughtfully rolling a big silver pencil case backward and forward upon the table under his fat white hand. "Evidently," assented Orsino. "Unfortunately, at the present time, there seems to be no equivalent for ready money." "No--no--perhaps not," said Ugo, apparently becoming more and more absorbed in his own thoughts. "And yet," he added, after a little pause, "an arrangement may be possible. The houses certainly possess advantages over much of this wretched property which is thrown upon the market. The position is good and the work is good. Your work is very good, Don Orsino. You know that better than I. Yes--the houses have advantages, I admit. The bank has a great deal of waste masonry on its hands, Don Orsino--more than I like to think of." "Unfortunately, again, the time for improving such property is gone by." "It is never too late to mend, says the proverb," retorted Del Ferice with a smile. "I have a proposition to make. I will state it clearly. If it is not to our mutual advantage, I think neither of us will lose so much by it as we should lose in other ways. It is simply this. We will cry quits. You have a small account current with the bank, and you must sacrifice the credit balance--it is not much, I find--about thirty-five thousand." "That was chiefly the profit on the first contract," observed Orsino. "Precisely. It will help to cover the bank's loss on this. It will help, because when I say we will cry quits, I mean that you shall receive an equivalent for your houses--a nominal equivalent of course, which the bank nominally takes back as payment of the mortgages." "That is not very clear," said Orsino. "I do not understand you." "No," laughed Del Ferice. "I admit that it is not. It represented rather my own view of the transaction than the practical side. But I will explain myself beyond the possibility of mistake. The bank takes the houses and your cash balance and cancels the mortgages. You are then released from all debt and all obligation upon the old contract. But the bank makes one condition which, is important. You must buy from the bank, on mortgage of course, certain unfinished buildings which it now owns, and you--Andrea Contini and Company--must take a contract to complete them within a given time, the bank advancing you money as before upon notes of hand, secured by subsequent and successive mortgages." Orsino was silent. He saw that if he accepted, Del Ferice was receiving the work of a whole year and more without allowing the smallest profit to the workers, besides absorbing the profits of a previous successfully executed contract, and besides taking it for granted that the existing mortgages only just covered the value of the buildings. If, as was probable, Del Ferice had means of either selling or letting the houses, he stood to make an enormous profit. He saw, too, that if he accepted now, he must in all likelihood be driven to accept similar conditions on a future occasion, and that he would be binding Andrea Contini and himself to work, and to work hard, for nothing and perhaps during years. But he saw also that the only alternative was an appeal to his father, or bankruptcy which ultimately meant the same thing. Del Ferice spoke again. "Whether you agree, or whether you prefer a foreclosure, we shall both lose. But we should lose more by the latter course. In the interests of the bank I trust that you will accept. You see how frankly I speak about it. In the interests of the bank. But then, I need not remind you that it would hardly be fair to let us lose heavily when you can make the loss relatively a slight one--considering how the bank has behaved to you, and to you alone, throughout this fatal year." "I will give you an answer to-morrow," said Orsino. He thought of poor Contini who would find that he had worked for nothing during a whole year. But then, it would be easy for Orsino to give Contini a sum of money out of his private resources. Anything was better than giving up the struggle and applying to his father. CHAPTER XXVII. Orsino was to all intents and purposes without a friend. How far circumstances had contributed to this result and how far he himself was to blame for his lonely state, those may judge who have followed his history to this point. His grandfather had indeed offered him help and in a way to make it acceptable if he had felt that he could accept it at all. But the old Prince did not in the least understand the business nor the situation. Moreover a young fellow of two or three and twenty does not look for a friend in the person of a man sixty years older than himself. While maintaining the most uniformly good relations in his home, Orsino felt himself estranged from his father and mother. His brothers were too young, and were generally away from home at school and college, and he had no sisters. Beyond the walls of the Palazzo Saracinesca, San Giacinto was the only man whom he would willingly have consulted; but San Giacinto was of all men the one least inclined to intimacy with his neighbours, and, after all, as Orsino reflected, he would probably repeat the advice he had already given, if he vouchsafed counsel of any kind. He thought of all his acquaintance and came to the conclusion that he was in reality in terms more closely approaching to friendship with Andrea Contini than with any man of his own class. Yet he would have hesitated to call the architect his friend, as he would have found it impossible to confide in him concerning any detail of his own private life. At a time when most young men are making friends, Orsino had been hindered, from the formation of such ties by the two great interests which had absorbed his existence, his attachment and subsequent love for Maria Consuelo, and the business at which he had worked so steadily. He had lost Maria Consuelo, in whom he would have confided as he had often done before, and at the present important juncture he stood quite alone. He felt that he was no match for Del Ferice. The keen banker was making use of him for his own purposes in a way which neither Orsino nor Contini had ever suspected. It could not be supposed that Ugo had foreseen from the first the advantage he might reap from the firm he had created and which was so wholly dependent on him. Orsino might have turned out ignorant and incapable. Contini might have proved idle and even dishonest. But, instead of this, the experiment had succeeded admirably and Ugo found himself possessed of an instrument, as it were, precisely adapted to his end, which was to make worthless property valuable at the smallest possible expense, in fact, at the lowest cost price. He had secured a first-rate architect and a first-rate accountant, both men of spotless integrity, both young, energetic and unusually industrious. He paid nothing for their services and he entirely controlled their expenditure. It was clear that he would do his utmost to maintain an arrangement so immensely profitable to himself. If Orsino had realised exactly how profitable it was, he might have forced Del Ferice to share the gain with him, and would have done so for the sake of Contini, if not for his own. He suspected, indeed, that Ugo was certain beforehand, in each case, of selling or letting the houses, but he had no proof of the fact. Ugo did not leave everything to his confidential clerk, and the secrets he kept to himself were well kept. Orsino consulted Contini, as a matter of necessity, before accepting Del Ferice's last offer. The architect went into a tragic-comic rage, bit his cigar through several times, ground his teeth, drank several glasses of cold water, talked of the blood of Cola di Rienzo, vowed vengeance on Del Ferice and finally submitted. The signing of the new contract determined the course of Orsino's life for another year. It is surprising to see, in the existence of others, how periods of monotonous calm succeed seasons of storm and danger. In our own they do not astonish us so much, if at all. Orsino continued to work hard, to live regularly and to do all those things which, under the circumstances he ought to have done and earned the reputation of being a model young man, a fact which surprised him on one or two occasions when it came to his ears. Yet when he reflected upon it, he saw that he was in reality not like other young men, and that his conduct was undoubtedly abnormally good as viewed by those around him. His grandfather began to look upon him as something almost unnatural, and more than once hinted to Giovanni that the boy, as he still called him, ought to behave like other boys. "He is more like San Giacinto than any of us," said Giovanni, thoughtfully. "He has taken after that branch." "If that is the case, he might have done worse," answered the old man. "I like San Giacinto. But you always judge superficially, Giovanni--you always did. And the worst of it is, you are always perfectly well satisfied with your own judgments." "Possibly. I have certainly not accepted those of others." "And the result is that you are turning into an oyster--and Orsino has begun to turn into an oyster, too, and the other boys will follow his example--a perfect oyster-bed! Go and take Orsino by the throat and shake him--" "I regret to say that I am physically not equal to that feat," said Giovanni with a laugh. "I should be!" exclaimed the aged Prince, doubling his hard hand and bringing it down on the table, while his bright eyes gleamed. "Go and shake him, and tell him to give up this dirty building business--make him give it up, buy him out of it, put plenty of money into his pockets and send him off to amuse himself! You and Corona have made a prig of him, and business is making an oyster of him, and he will be a hopeless idiot before you realise it! Stir him, shake him, make him move! I hate your furniture-man--who is always in the right place and always ready to be sat upon!" "If you can persuade him to give up affairs I have no objection." "Persuade him! I never knew a man worth speaking to who could be persuaded to anything he did not like. Make him--that is the way." "But since he is behaving himself and is occupied--that is better than the lives all these young fellows are leading." "Do not argue with me, Giovanni, I hate it. Besides, your reason is worth nothing at all. Did I spend my youth over accounts, in the society of an architect? Did I put water in my wine and sit up like a model little boy at my papa's table and spend my evenings in carrying my mamma's fan? Nonsense! And yet all that was expected in my day, in a way it is not expected now. Look at yourself. You are bad enough--dull enough, I mean. Did you waste the best years of your life in counting bricks and measuring mortar?" "You say that you hate argument, and yet you are arguing. But Orsino shall please himself, as I did, and in his own way. I will certainly not interfere." "Because you know you can do nothing with him!" retorted old Saracinesca contemptuously. Giovanni laughed. Twenty years earlier he would have lost his temper to no purpose. But twenty years of unruffled existence had changed him. "You are not the man you were," grumbled his father. "No. I have been too happy, far too long, to be much like what I was at thirty." "And do you mean to say I am not happy, and have not been happy, and do not mean to be happy, and do not wish everybody to be happy, so long as this old machine hangs together? What nonsense you talk, my boy. Go and make love to your wife. That is all you are fit for!" Discussions of this kind were not unfrequent but of course led to nothing. As a matter of fact Sant' Ilario was quite right in believing interference useless. It would have been impossible. He was no more able to change Orsino's determination than he was physically capable of shaking him. Not that Sant' Ilario was weak, physically or morally, nor ever had been. But his son had grown up to be stronger than he. Twelve months passed away. During that time the young man worked, as he had worked before, regularly and untiringly. But his object now was to free himself, and he no longer hoped to make a fortune or to do any thing beyond the strict execution of the contract he had in hand, determined if possible to avoid taking another. With a coolness and self-denial beyond his years, he systematically hoarded the allowance he received from his father, in order to put together a sum of money for poor Contini. He made economies everywhere, refused to go into society and spent his evenings in reading. His acquired manner stood him in good stead, but he could not bear more than a limited amount of the daily talk in the family. Being witty, rather than gay, if he could be said to be either, he found himself inclined rather to be bitter than amusing when he was wearied by the monotonous conversation of others. He knew this to be a mistake and controlled himself, taking refuge in solitude and books when he could control himself no longer. Whether he loved Maria Consuelo still, or not, it was clear that he was not inclined to love any one else for the present. The tolerably harmless dissipation and wildness of the two or three years he had spent in England could not account for such a period of coldness as followed his separation from Maria Consuelo. He had by no means exhausted the pleasures of life and his capacity for enjoyment could not even be said to have reached its height. But he avoided the society of women even more consistently than he shunned the club and the card table. More than a year had gone by since he had heard from Maria Consuelo. He met Spicca from time to time, looking now as though he had not a day to live, but neither of them mentioned past events. The Romans had talked a little of her sudden change of plans, for it had been known that she had begun to furnish a large apartment for the winter of the previous year, and had then very unaccountably changed her mind and left the place in the hands of an agent to be sub-let. People said she had lost her fortune. Then she had been forgotten in the general disaster that followed, and no one had taken the trouble to remember her since then. Even Gouache, who had once been so enthusiastic over her portrait, did not seem to know or care what had become of her. Once only, and quite accidentally, Orsino had authentic information of her whereabouts. He took up an English society journal one evening and glanced idly over the paragraphs. Maria Consuelo's name arrested his attention. A certain very high and mighty old lady of royal lineage was about to travel in Egypt during the winter. "Her Royal Highness," said the paper, "will be accompanied by the Countess d'Aranjuez d'Aragona." Orsino's hand shook a little as he laid the sheet aside, and he was pale when he rose a few moments later and went off to his own room. He could not help wondering why Maria Consuelo was styled by a title to which she certainly had a legal right, but which she had never before used, and he wondered still more why she travelled in Egypt with an old princess who was generally said to be anything but an agreeable companion, and was reported to be quite deaf. But on the whole he thought little of the information itself. It was the sight of Maria Consuelo's name which had moved him, and he was not altogether himself for several days. The impression wore off before long, and he followed the round of his monotonous life as before. Early in the month of March in the year 1890, he was seated alone in his room one evening before dinner. The great contract he had undertaken was almost finished, and he knew that within two months he would be placed in the same difficult position from which he had formerly so signally failed to extricate himself. That he and Contini had executed the terms of the contract with scrupulous and conscientious nicety did not better the position. That they had made the most strenuous efforts to find purchasers for the property, as they had a right to do if they could, and had failed, made the position hopeless or almost as bad as that. Whether they liked it or not, Del Ferice had so arranged that the great mass of their acceptances should fall due about the time when the work would be finished. To mortgage on the same terms or anything approaching the same terms with any other bank was out of the question, so that they had no hope of holding the property for the purpose of leasing it. Even if Orsino could have contemplated for a moment such an act of bad faith as wilfully retarding the work in order to gain a renewal of the bills, such a course could have led to no actual improvement in the situation. The property was unsaleable and Del Ferice knew it, and had no intention of selling it. He meant to keep it for himself and let it, as a permanent source of income. It would not have cost him in the end one half of its actual value, and was exceptionally good property. Orsino saw how hopeless it was to attempt resistance, unless he would resign himself to voting an appeal to his own people, and this, as of old, he was resolved not to do. He was reflecting upon his life of bondage when a servant brought him a letter. He tossed it aside without looking at it, but it chanced to slip from the polished table and fall to the ground. As he picked it up his attention was arrested by the handwriting and by the stamp. The stamp was Egyptian and the writing was that of Maria Consuelo. He started, tore open the envelope and took out a letter of many pages, written on thin paper. At first he found it hard to follow the characters, and his heart beat at a rate which annoyed him. He rose, walked the length of the room and back again, sat down in another seat close to the lamp and read the letter steadily from beginning to end. "My Dear Friend--You may, perhaps, be surprised at hearing from me after so long a time. I received your last letter. How long ago was that? Twelve, fourteen, fifteen months? I do not know. It is as well to forget, since I at least would rather not remember what you wrote. And I write now--why? Simply because I have the impulse to do so. That is the best of all reasons. I wish to hear from you, which is selfish; and I wish to hear about you, which is not. Are you still working at that business in which you were so much interested? Or have you given it up and gone back to the life you used to hate so thoroughly? I would like to know. Do you remember how angry I was long ago, because you agreed to meet Del Ferice in my drawing-room? I was very wrong, for the meeting led to many good results. I like to think that you are not quite like all the young men of your set, who do nothing--and cannot even do that gracefully. I think you used those very words about yourself, once upon a time. But you proved that you could live a very different life if you chose. I hope you are living it still. "And so poor Donna Tullia is dead--has been dead a year and a half! I wrote Del Ferice a long letter when I got the news. He answered me. He is not as bad as you used to think, for he was terribly pained by his loss--I could see that well enough in what he wrote though there was nothing exaggerated or desperate in the phrases. In fact there were no phrases at all. I wish I had kept the letter to send to you, but I never keep letters. Poor Donna Tullia! I cannot imagine Rome without her. It would certainly not be the same place to me, for she was uniformly kind and thoughtful where I was concerned, whatever she may have been to others. "Echoes reach me from time to time in different parts of the world, as I travel, and Rome seems to be changed in many ways. They say the ruin was dreadful when the crash came. I suppose you gave up business then, as was natural, since they say there is no more business to do. But I would be glad to know that nothing disagreeable happened to you in the financial storm. I confess to having felt an unaccountable anxiety about you of late. Perhaps that is why I write and why I hope for an answer at once. I have always looked upon presentiments and forewarnings and all such intimations as utterly false and absurd, and I do not really believe that anything has happened or is happening to distress you. But it is our woman's privilege to be inconsistent, and we should be still more inconsistent if we did not use it. Besides I have felt the same vague disquietude about you more than once before and have not written. Perhaps I should not write even now unless I had a great deal more time at my disposal than I know what to do with. Who knows? If you are busy, write a word on a post-card, just to say that nothing is the matter. Here in Egypt we do not realise what time means, and certainly not that it can ever mean money. "It is an idle life, less idle for me perhaps than for some of those about me, but even for me not over-full of occupations. The climate occupies all the time not actually spent in eating, sleeping and visiting ruins. It is fair, I suppose, to tell you something of myself since I ask for news of you. I will tell you what I can. "I am travelling with an old lady, as her companion--not exactly out of inclination and yet not exactly out of duty. Is that too mysterious? Do you see me as Companion and general amuser to an old lady--over seventy years of age? No. I presume not. And I am not with her by necessity either, for I have not suffered any losses. On the contrary, since I dismissed a certain person--an attendant, we will call her--from my service, it seems to me that my income is doubled. The attendant, by the bye, has opened a hotel on the Lake of Como. Perhaps you, who are so good a man of business, may see some connexion between these simple facts. I was never good at managing money, nor at understanding what it meant. It seems that I have not inherited all the family talents. "But I return to Egypt, to the Nile, to this dahabiyah, on board of which it has pleased the fates to dispose my existence for the present. I am not called a companion, but a lady in waiting, which would be only another term for the same thing, if I were not really very much attached to the Princess, old and deaf as she is. And that is saying a great deal. No one knows what deafness means who has not read aloud to a deaf person, which is what I do every day. I do not think I ever told you about her. I have known her all my life, ever since I was a little girl in the convent in Vienna. She used to come and see me and bring me good things--and books of prayers--I remember especially a box of candied fruits which she told me came from Kiew. I have never eaten any like them since. I wonder how many sincere affections between young and old people owe their existence originally to a confectioner! "When I left Rome, I met her again in Nice. She was there with the Prince, who was in wretched health and who died soon afterwards. He never was so fond of me as she was. After his death, she asked me to stay with her as long as I would. I do not think I shall leave her again so long as she lives. She treats me like her own child--or rather, her grandchild--and besides, the life suits me very well. I am, really, perfectly independent, and yet I am perfectly protected. I shall not repeat the experiment of living alone for three years, until I am much older. "It is a rather strange friendship. My Princess knows all about me--all that you know. I told her one day and she did not seem at all surprised. I thought I owed her the truth about myself, since I was to live with her, and since she had always been so kind to me. She says I remind her of her daughter, the poor young Princess Marie, who died nearly thirty years ago. In Nice, too, like her father, poor girl. She was only just nineteen, and very beautiful they say. I suppose the dear good old lady fancies she sees some resemblance even now, though I am so much older than her daughter was when she died. There is the origin of our friendship--the trivial and the tragic--confectionery and death--a box of candied fruits and an irreparable loss! If there were no contrasts what would the world be? All one or the other, I suppose. All death, or all Kiew sweetmeats. "I suppose you know what life in Egypt is like. If you have not tried it yourself, your friends have and can describe it to you. I will certainly not inflict my impressions upon your friendship. It would be rather a severe test--perhaps yours would not bear it, and then I should be sorry. "Do you know? I like to think that I have a friend in you. I like to remember the time when you used to talk to me of all your plans--the dear old time! I would rather remember that than much which came afterwards. You have forgiven me for all I did, and are glad, now, that I did it. Yes, I can fancy your smile. You do not see yourself, Prince Saracinesca, Prince Sant' Ilario, Duke of Whatever-it-may-be, Lord of ever so many What-are-their-names, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, Grandee of Spain of the First Class, Knight of Malta and Hereditary Something to the Holy See--in short the tremendous personage you will one day be--you do not exactly see yourself as the son-in-law of the Signora Lucrezia Ferris, proprietor of a tourist's hotel on the Lake of Como! Confess that the idea was an absurdity! As for me, I will confess that I did very wrong. Had I known all the truth on that afternoon--do you remember the thunderstorm? I would have saved you much, and I should have saved myself--well--something. But we have better things to do than to run after shadows. Perhaps it is as well not even to think of them. It is all over now. Whatever you may think of it all, forgive your old friend, Maria Consuelo d'A." Orsino read the long letter to the end, and sat a while thinking over the contents. Two points in it struck him especially. In the first place it was not the letter of a woman who wished to call back a man she had dismissed. There was no sentiment in it, or next to none. She professed herself contented in her life, if not happy, and in one sentence she brought before him the enormous absurdity of the marriage he had once contemplated. He had more than once been ashamed of not making some further direct effort to win her again. He was now suddenly conscious of the great influence which her first letter, containing the statement of her parentage, had really exercised over him. Strangely enough, what she now wrote reconciled him, as it were, with himself. It had turned out best, after all. That he loved her still, he felt sure, as he held in his hand the pages she had written and felt the old thrill he knew so well in his fingers, and the old, quick beating of the heart. But he acknowledged gladly--too gladly, perhaps--that he had done well to let her go. Then came the second impression. "I like to remember the time when you used to talk to me of all your plans." The words rang in his ears and called up delicious visions of the past, soft hours spent by her side while she listened with something warmer than patience to the outpouring of his young hopes and aspirations. She, at least, had understood him, and encouraged him, and strengthened him with her sympathy. And why not now, if then? Why should she not understand him now, when he most needed a friend, and give him sympathy now, when he stood most in need of it? She was in Egypt and he in Rome, it was true. But what of that? If she could write to him, he could write to her, and she could answer him again. No one had ever felt with him as she had. He did not hesitate long. On that same evening, after dinner, he went back to his own room and wrote to her. It was a little hard at first, but, as the ink flowed, he expressed himself better and more clearly. With an odd sort of caution, which had grown upon him of late, he tried to make his letter take a form as similar to hers as possible. "MY DEAR FRIEND" (he wrote)--"If people always yielded to their impulses as you have done in writing to me, there would be more good fellowship and less loneliness in the world. It would not be easy for me to tell you how great a pleasure you have given me. Perhaps, hereafter, I may compare it to your own memory of the Kiew candied fruits! For the present I do not find a worthy comparison to my hand. "You ask many questions. I propose to answer them all. Will you have the patience to read what I write? I hope so, for the sake of the time when I used to talk to you of all my plans--and which you say you like to remember. For another reason, too. I have never felt so lonely in my life as I feel now, nor so much in need of a friend--not a helping friend, but one to whom I can speak a little freely. I am very much alone. A sort of estrangement has grown up between my mother and me, and she no longer takes my side in all I want to do, as she did once. "I will be quite plain. I will tell you all my troubles, because there is not another person in the world to whom I could tell them--and because I know that they will not trouble you. You will feel a little friendly sympathy, and that will be enough. But you will feel no pain. After all, I daresay that I exaggerate, and that there is nothing so very painful in the matter, as it will strike you. But the case is serious, as you will see. It involves my life, perhaps for many years to come. "I am completely in Del Ferice's power. A year ago I had the possibility of freeing myself. What do you think that chance was? I could have gone to my grandfather and asked him to lay down a sum of money sufficient to liberate me, or I could have refused Del Ferice's new offer and allowed myself to be declared bankrupt. My abominable vanity stood in the way of my following either of those plans. In less than two months I shall be placed in the same position again. But the circumstances are changed. The sum of money is so considerable that I would not like to ask all my family, with their three fortunes, to contribute it. The business is enormous. I have an establishment like a bank and Contini--you remember Contini?--has several assistant architects. Moreover we stand alone. There is no other firm of the kind left, and our failure would be a very disagreeable affair. But so long as I remain Del Ferice's slave, we shall not fail. Do you know that this great and successful firm is carried on systematically without a centime of profit to the partners, and with the constant threat of a disgraceful failure, used to force me on? Do you think that if I chose the alternative, any one would believe, or that my tyrant would let any one believe, that Orsino Saracinesca had served Ugo Del Ferice for years--two years and a half before long--as a sort of bondsman? I am in a very unenviable position. I am sure that Del Ferice made use of me at first for his own ends--that is, to make money for him. The magnitude of the sums which pass through my hands makes me sure that he is now backed by a powerful syndicate, probably of foreign bankers who lost money in the Roman crash, and who see a chance of getting it back through Del Ferice's management. It is a question of millions. You do not understand? Will you try to read my explanation?" And here Orsino summed up his position towards Del Ferice in a clear and succinct statement, which it is not necessary to reproduce here. It needed no talent for business on Maria Consuelo's part to understand that he was bound hand and foot. "One of three things must happen" (Orsino continued). "I must cripple, if not ruin, the fortune of my family, or I must go through a scandalous bankruptcy, or I must continue to be Ugo Del Ferice's servant during the best years of my life. My only consolation is that I am unpaid. I do not speak of poor Contini. He is making a reputation, it is true, and Del Ferice gives him something which I increase as much as I can. Considering our positions, he is the more completely sacrificed of the two, poor fellow--and through my fault. If I had only had the courage to put my vanity out of the way eighteen months ago, I might have saved him as well as myself. I believed myself a match for Del Ferice--and I neither was nor ever shall be. I am a little desperate. "That is my life, my dear friend. Since you have not quite forgotten me, write me a word of that good old sympathy on which I lived so long. It may soon be all I have to live on. If Del Ferice should have the bad taste to follow Donna Tullia to Saint Lawrence's, nothing could save me. I should no longer have the alternative of remaining his slave in exchange for safety from bankruptcy to myself and ruin--or something like it--to my father. "But let us talk no more about it all. But for your kindly letter, no one would ever have known all this, except Contini. In your calm Egyptian life--thank God, dear, that your life is calm!--my story must sound like a fragment from an unpleasant dream. One thing you do not tell me. Are you happy, as well as peaceful? I would like to know. I am not. "Pray write again, when you have time--and inclination. If there is anything to be done for you in Rome--any little thing, or great thing either--command your old friend, "ORSINO SARACINESCA." CHAPTER XXVIII. Orsino posted his letter with an odd sensation of relief. He felt that he was once more in communication with humanity, since he had been able to speak out and tell some one of the troubles that oppressed him. He had assuredly no reason for being more hopeful than before, and matters were in reality growing more serious every day; but his heart was lighter and he took a more cheerful view of the future, almost against his own better judgment. He had not expected to receive an answer from Maria Consuelo for some time and was surprised when one came in less than ten days from the date of his writing. This letter was short, hurriedly written and carelessly worded, but there was a ring of anxiety for him in every line of it which he could not misinterpret. Not only did she express the deepest sympathy for him and assure him that all he did still had the liveliest interest for her, but she also insisted upon being informed of the state of his affairs as often as possible. He had spoken of three possibilities, she said. Was there not a fourth somewhere? There might often be an issue from the most desperate situation, of which no one dreamed. Could she not help him to discover where it lay in this case? Could they not write to each other and find it out together? Orsino looked uneasily at the lines, and the blood rose to his temples. Did she mean what she said, or more, or less? He was overwrought and over-sensitive, and she had written thoughtlessly, as though not weighing her words, but only following an impulse for which she had no time to find the proper expression. She could not imagine that he would accept substantial help from her--still less that he would consent to marry her for the sake of the fortune which might save him. He grew very angry, then turned cold again, and then, reading the words again, saw that he had no right to attach any such meaning to them. Then it struck him that even if, by any possibility, she had meant to convey such an idea, he would have no right at all to resent it. Women, he reflected, did not look upon such matters as men did. She had refused to marry him when he was prosperous. If she meant that she would marry him now, to save him from ruin, he could not but acknowledge that she was carrying devotion near to its farthest limit. But the words themselves would not bear such an interpretation. He was straining language too far in suggesting it. "And yet she means something," he said to himself. "Something which I cannot understand." He wrote again, maintaining the tone of his first letter more carefully than she had done on her part, though not sparing the warmest expressions of heartfelt thanks for the sympathy she had so readily given. But there was no fourth way, he said. One of those three things which he had explained to her must happen. There was no hope, and he was resigned to continue his existence of slavery until Del Ferice's death brought about the great crisis of his life. Not that Del Ferice was in any danger of dying, he added, in spite of the general gossip about his bad health. Such men often outlasted stronger people, as Ugo had outlived Donna Tullia. Not that his death would improve matters, either, as they stood at present. That he had explained before. If the count died now, there were ninety-nine chances out of a hundred that Orsino would be ruined. For the present, nothing would happen. In little more than a month--in six weeks at the utmost--a new arrangement would be forced upon him, binding him perhaps for years to come. Del Ferice had already spoken to him of a great public undertaking, at least half of the contract for which could easily be secured or controlled by his bank. He had added that this might be a favourable occasion for Andrea Contini and Company to act in concert with the bank. Orsino knew what that meant. Indeed, there was no possibility of mistaking the meaning, which was clear enough. The fourth plan could only lie in finding beforehand a purchaser for buildings which could not be so disposed of, because they were built for a particular purpose, and could only be bought by those who had ordered them, namely persons whom Del Ferice so controlled that he could postpone their appearance if he chose and drive Orsino into a failure at any moment after the completion of the work. For instance, one of those buildings was evidently intended for a factory, and probably for a match factory. Del Ferice, in requiring that Contini and Company should erect what he had already arranged to dispose of, had vaguely remarked that there were no match factories in Rome and that perhaps some one would like to buy one. If Orsino had been less desperate he would willingly have risked much to resent the suave insolence. As it was, he had laughed in his tyrant's face, and bitterly enough; a form of insult, however, to which Ugo was supremely indifferent. These and many other details Orsino wrote to Maria Consuelo, pouring out his confidence with the assurance of a man who asks nothing but sympathy and is sure of receiving that in overflowing measure. He no longer waited for her answers, as the crucial moment approached, but wrote freely from day to day, as he felt inclined. There was little which he did not tell her in the dozen or fifteen letters he penned in the course of the month. Like many reticent men who have never taken up a pen except for ordinary correspondence or for the routine work of a business requiring accuracy, and who all at once begin to write the history of their daily lives for the perusal of one trusted person, Orsino felt as though he had found a new means of expression and abandoned himself willingly to the comparative pleasure of complete confidence. Like all such men, too, he unconsciously exhibited the chief fault of his character in his long, diary-like letters. That fault was his vanity. Had he been describing a great success he could and would have concealed it better; in writing of his own successive errors and disappointments he showed by the excessive blame he cast upon himself, how deeply that vanity of his was wounded. It is possible that Maria Consuelo discovered this. But she made no profession of analysis, and while appearing outwardly far colder than Orsino, she seemed much more disposed than he to yield to unexpected impulses when she felt their influence. And Orsino was quite unconscious that he might be exhibiting the defects of his moral nature to eyes keener than his own. He wrote constantly therefore, with the utmost freedom, and in the moments while he was writing he enjoyed a faint illusion of increased safety, as though he were retarding the events of the future by describing minutely those of the past. More than once again Maria Consuelo answered him, and always in the same strain, doing her best, apparently, to give him hope and to reconcile him with himself. However much he might condemn his own lack of foresight, she said, no man who did his best according to his best judgment, and who acted honourably, was to be blamed for the result, though it might involve the ruin of thousands. That was her chief argument and it comforted him, and seemed to relieve him from a small part of the responsibility which weighed so heavily upon his shoulders, a burden now grown so heavy that the least lightening of it made him feel comparatively free until called upon to face facts again and fight with realities. But events would not be retarded, and Orsino's own good qualities tended to hasten them, as they had to a great extent been the cause of his embarrassment ever since the success of his first attempt, in making him valuable as a slave to be kept from escaping at all risks. The system upon which the business was conducted was admirable. It had been good from the beginning and Orsino had improved it to a degree very uncommon in Rome. He had mastered the science of book-keeping in a short time, and had forced himself to an accuracy of detail and a promptness of ready reference which would have surprised many an old professional clerk. It must be remembered that from the first he had found little else to do. The technical work had always been in Contini's hands, and Del Ferice's forethought had relieved them both from the necessity of entering upon financial negotiations requiring time, diplomatic tact and skill of a higher order. The consequence was that Orsino had devoted the whole of his great energy and native talent for order to the keeping of the books, with the result that when a contract had been executed there was hardly any accountant's work to be done. Nominally, too, Andrea Contini and Company were not responsible to any one for their book-keeping; but in practice, and under pretence of rendering valuable service, Del Ferice sent an auditor from time to time to look into the state of affairs, a proceeding which Contini bitterly resented while Orsino expressed himself perfectly indifferent to the interference, on the ground that there was nothing to conceal. Had the books been badly kept, the final winding up of each contract would have been retarded for one or more weeks. But the more deeply Orsino became involved, the more keenly he felt the value and, at last, the vital importance, of the most minute accuracy. If worse came to worst and he should be obliged to fail, through Del Ferice's sudden death or from any other cause, his reputation as an honourable man might depend upon this very accuracy of detail, by which he would be able to prove that in the midst of great undertakings, and while very large sums of money were passing daily through his hands, he had never received even the very smallest share of the profits absorbed by the bank. He even kept a private account of his own expenditure on the allowance he received from his father, in order that, if called upon, he might be able to prove how large a part of that allowance he regularly paid to poor Contini as compensation for the unhappy position in which the latter found himself. If bankruptcy awaited him, his failure would, if the facts were properly made known, reckon as one of the most honourable on record, though he was pleased to look upon such a contingency as a certain source of scandal and more than possible disgrace. Unconsciously his own determined industry in book-keeping gave him a little more confidence. In his great anxiety he was spared the terrible uncertainty felt by a man who does not precisely know his own financial position at a given critical moment. His studiously acquired outward calm also stood him in good stead. Even San Giacinto who knew the financial world as few men knew it watched his youthful cousin with curiosity and not without a certain sympathy and a very little admiration. The young man's face was growing stern and thoughtful like his own, lean, grave and strong. San Giacinto remembered that night a year and a half earlier when he had warned Orsino of the coming danger, and he was almost displeased with himself now for having taken a step which seemed to have been unnecessary. It was San Giacinto's principle never to do anything unnecessary, because a useless action meant a loss of time and therefore a loss of advantage over the adversary of the moment. San Giacinto, in different circumstances, would have made a good general--possibly a great one; his strange life had made him a financier of a type singular and wholly different from that of the men with whom he had to deal. He never sought to gain an advantage by a deception, but he won everything by superior foresight, imperturbable coolness, matchless rapidity of action and undaunted courage under all circumstances. It needs higher qualities to be a good man, but no others are needed to make a successful one. Orsino possessed something of the same rapidity and much of a similar coolness and courage, but he lacked the foresight. It was vanity, of the most pardonable kind, indeed, but vanity nevertheless which had led him to embark upon his dangerous enterprise--not in the determination to accomplish for the sake of accomplishing, still less in the direct desire for wealth as an ultimate object, but in the almost boyish longing to show to his own people that there was more in him than they suspected. The gift of foresight is generally weakened by the presence of vanity, but when vanity takes its place the result is as likely to be failure as not, and depends almost directly upon chance alone. The crisis in Orsino's life was at hand, and what has here been finally said of his position at that time seemed necessary, as summing up the consequences to him of more than two years' unremitting labour, during which he had become involved in affairs of enormous consequence at an age when most young men are spending their time, more profitably perhaps and certainly more agreeably, in such pleasures and pursuits as mother society provides for her half-fledged nestlings. On the day before his final interview with Del Ferice Orsino wrote a lengthy letter to Maria Consuelo. As she did not receive it until long afterwards it is quite unnecessary to give any account of its contents. Some time had passed since he had heard from her and he was not sure whether or not she were still in Egypt. But he wrote to her, nevertheless, drawing much fictitious comfort and little real advantage from the last clear statement of his difficulties. By this time, writing to her had become a habit and he resorted to it naturally when over wearied by work and anxiety. On this same day also he had spent several hours in talking over the situation with Contini. The architect, strange to say, was more reconciled with his position than he had formerly been. He, at least, received a certain substantial remuneration. He, at least, loved his profession and rejoiced in the handling of great masses of brick and stone. He, too, was rapidly making a reputation and a name for himself, and, if business improved, was not prevented from entering into other enterprises besides the one in which he found himself so deeply interested. As a member of the firm, he could not free himself. As an architect, he could have an architect's office of his own and build for any one who chose to employ him. For his own part, he said, he might perhaps be more profitably employed upon less important work; but then, he might not, for business was very bad. The great works in which Del Ferice kept him engaged had the incalculable advantage of bringing him constantly before the public as an architect and of keeping his name, which was the name of the firm, continually in the notice of all men of business. He was deeply indebted to Orsino for the generous help given when the realities of profit were so greatly at variance with the appearances of prosperity. He would always regard repayment of the money so advanced to him as a debt of honour and he hoped to live long enough to extinguish it. He sympathised with Orsino in his desire to be freer and more independent, but reminded him that when the day of liberation came, he would not regret the comparatively short apprenticeship during which he had acquired so great a mastery of business. Business, he said, had been Orsino's ambition from the beginning, and business he had, in plenty, if not with profit. For his own part, he was satisfied. Orsino felt that his partner could not be blamed, and he felt, too, that he would be doing Contini a great injury in involving him in a failure. But he regretted the time when their interests had coincided and they had cursed Del Ferice in common and with a good will. There was nothing to be done but to submit. He knew well enough what awaited him. On the following morning, by appointment, he went with a heavy heart to meet Del Ferice at the bank. The latter had always preferred to see Orsino without Contini when a new contract was to be discussed. As a personal acquaintance he treated with Orsino on a footing of social equality, and the balance of outwardly agreeable relations would have been disturbed by the presence of a social inferior. Moreover, Del Ferice knew the Saracinesca people tolerably well, and though not so timid as many people supposed, he somewhat dreaded a sudden outbreak of the hereditary temper; if such a manifestation really took place, it would be more agreeable that there should be no witnesses of it. Orsino was surprised to find that Ugo was out of town. Having made an appointment, he ought at least to have sent word to the Palazzo Saracinesca of his departure. He had indeed left a message for Orsino, which was correctly delivered, to the effect that he would return in twenty-four hours, and requesting him to postpone the interview until the following afternoon. In Orsino's humour this was not altogether pleasant. The young man felt little suspense indeed, for he knew how matters must turn out, and that he should be saddled with another contract. But he found it hard to wait with equanimity, now that he had made up his mind to the worst, and he resented Del Ferice's rudeness in not giving a civil warning of his intended journey. The day passed somehow, at last, and towards evening Orsino received a telegram from Ugo, full of excuses, but begging to put off the meeting two days longer. The dispatch was from Naples whither Del Ferice often went on business. It was almost unbearable and yet it must be borne. Orsino spent his time in roaming about the less frequented parts of the city, trying to make new plans for the future which was already planned for him, doing his best to follow out a distinct line of thought, if only to distract his own attention. He could not even write to Maria Consuelo, for he felt that he had said all there was to be said, in his last long letter. On the morning of the fourth day he went to the bank again. Del Ferice was there and greeted him warmly, interweaving his phrases with excuses for his absence. "You will forgive me, I am sure," he said, "though I have put you to very great inconvenience. The case was urgent and I could not leave it in the hands of others. Of course you could have settled the business with another of the directors, but I think--indeed, I know--that you prefer only to see me in these matters. We have worked together so long now, that we understand each other with half a word. Really, I am very sorry to have kept you waiting so long!" "It is of no importance," answered Orsino coolly. "Pray do not speak of it." "Of importance--no--perhaps not. That is, as you could not lose by it, it was not of financial importance. But when I have made an engagement, I like to keep it. In business, so much depends upon keeping small engagements--and they may mean quite as much in the relations of society. However, as you are so kind, we will not speak of it again. I have made my excuses and you have accepted them. Let that end the matter. To business, now, Don Orsino--to business!" Orsino fancied that Del Ferice's manner was not quite natural. He was generally more quiet. His rather watery blue eyes did not usually look so wide awake, his fat white hands were not commonly so active in their gestures. Altogether he seemed more nervous, and at the same time better pleased with himself and with life than usual. Orsino wondered what had happened. He had perhaps made some very successful stroke in his affairs during the three days he had spent in Naples. "So let us now have a look into your contracts, Don Orsino," he said. "Or rather, look into the state of the account yourself if you wish to do so, for I have already examined it." "I am familiar enough with the details," answered the young man. "I do not need to look over everything. The books have been audited as you see. The only thing left to be done is to hand over the work to you, since it is executed according to the contract. You doubtless remember that verbal part of the agreement. You receive the buildings as they now stand and our credit cash if there is any, in full discharge of all the obligations of Andrea Contini and Company to the bank--acceptances coming due, balance of account if in debit, and mortgages on land and houses--and we are quits again, my firm being discharged of all obligation." Del Ferice's expression changed a little and became more grave. "Doubtless," he answered, "there was a tacit understanding to that effect. Yes--yes--I remember. Indeed it was not altogether tacit. A word was said about it, and a word is as good as a contract. Very well, Don Orsino--very well. Since you desire it, we will cry quits again. This kind of business is not very profitable to the bank--not very--but it is not actual loss." "It is not profitable to us," observed Orsino. "If you do not wish any more of it, we do not." "Really?" Del Ferice looked at him rather curiously as though wishing that he would say more. Orsino met his glance steadily, expecting to be informed of the nature of the next contract to be forced upon him. "So you really prefer to discontinue these operations--if I may call them so," said Del Ferice thoughtfully. "It is strange that you should, I confess. I remember that you much desired to take a part in affairs, to be an actor in the interesting doings of the day, to be a financial personage, in short. You have had your wish, Don Orsino. Your firm plays an important part in Rome. Do you remember our first interview on the steps of Monte Citorio? You asked me whether I could and would help you to enter business. I promised that I would, and I have kept my word. The sums mentioned in those papers, here, show that I have done all I promised. You told me that you had fifteen thousand francs at your disposal. From that small beginning I have shown you how to deal with millions. But you do not seem to care for business, after all, Don Orsino. You really do not seem to care for it, though I must confess that you have a remarkable talent. It is very strange." "Is it?" asked Orsino with a shade of contempt. "You may remember that my business has not been profitable, in spite of what you call my talent, and in spite of what I know to have been hard work." Del Ferice smiled softly. "That is quite another matter," he answered. "If you had asked me whether you could make a fortune at this time, I would have told you that it was quite impossible without enormous capital. Quite impossible. Understand that, if you please. But, negatively, you have profited, because others have failed--hundreds of firms and contractors--while you have lost but the paltry fifteen thousand or so with which you began. And you have acquired great knowledge and experience. Therefore, on the whole, you have been the gainer. In balancing an account one takes but the sordid debit and credit and compares them--but in estimating the value of a firm one should consider its reputation and the goodwill it has created. The name of Andrea Contini and Company is a power in Rome. That is the result of your work, and it is not a loss." Orsino said nothing, but leaned back in his chair, gloomily staring at the wall. He wondered when Del Ferice would come to the point, and begin to talk about the new contract. "You do not seem to agree with me," observed Ugo in an injured tone. "Not altogether, I confess," replied the young man with a contemptuous laugh. "Well, well--it is no matter--it is of no importance--of no consequence whatever," said Del Fence, who seemed inclined to repeat himself and to lengthen, his phrases as though he wished to gain time. "Only this, Don Orsino. I would remind you that you have just executed a piece of work successfully, which no other firm in Rome could have carried out without failure, under the present depression. It seems to me that you have every reason to congratulate yourself. Of course, it was impossible for me to understand that you really cared for a large profit--for actual money--" "And I do not," interrupted Orsino with more warmth than he had hitherto shown. "But, in that case, you ought to be more than satisfied," objected Ugo suavely. Orsino grew impatient at last and spoke out frankly. "I cannot be satisfied with a position of absolute dependence, from which I cannot escape except by bankruptcy. You know that I am completely in your power. You know very well that while you are talking to me now you contemplate making your usual condition before crying quits, as you express it. You intend to impose another and probably a larger piece of work on me, which I shall be obliged to undertake on the same terms as before, because if I do not accept it, it is in your power to ruin me at once. And this state of things may go on for years. That is the enviable position of Andrea Contini and Company." Del Ferice assumed an air of injured dignity. "If you think anything of this kind you greatly misjudge me," he said. "I do not see why I should judge otherwise," retorted Orsino. "That is exactly what took place on the last occasion, and what will take place now--" "I think not," said Del Ferice very quietly, and watching him. Orsino was somewhat startled by the words, but his face betrayed nothing. It was clear to him that Ugo had something new to propose, and it was not easy to guess the nature of the coming proposition. "Will you kindly explain yourself?" he asked. "My dear Don Orsino, there is nothing to explain," replied Del Ferice again becoming very bland. "I do not understand." "No? It is very simple. You have finished the buildings. The bank will take them over and consider the account closed. You stated the position yourself in the most precise terms. I do not see why you should suppose that the bank wishes to impose anything upon you which you are not inclined to accept. I really do not see why you should think anything of the kind." In the dead silence which followed Orsino could hear his own heart beating loudly. He wondered whether he had heard aright. He wondered whether this were not some new manoeuvre on Del Ferice's part by which he must ultimately fall still more completely under the banker's domination. Ugo doubtless meant to qualify what he had just said by adding a clause. Orsino waited for what was to follow. "Am I to understand that this does not suit your wishes?" inquired Ugo, presently. "On the contrary, it would suit me perfectly," answered Orsino controlling his voice with some difficulty. "In that case, there is nothing more to be said," observed Del Ferice. "The bank will give you a formal release--indeed, I think the notary is at this moment here. I am very glad to be able to meet your views, Don Orsino. Very glad, I am sure. It is always pleasant to find that amicable relations have been preserved after a long and somewhat complicated business connexion. The bank owes it to you, I am sure--" "I am quite willing to owe that to the bank," answered Orsino with a ready smile. He was almost beside himself with joy. "You are very good, I assure you," said Del Ferice, with much politeness. He touched a bell and his confidential clerk appeared. "Cancel these drafts," he said, giving the man a small bundle of bills. "Direct the notary to prepare a deed of sale, transferring all this property, as was done before--" he hesitated. "I will see him myself in ten minutes," he added. "It will be simpler. The account of Andrea Contini is balanced and closed. Make out a preliminary receipt for all dues whatsoever and bring it to me." The clerk stared for one moment as though he believed that Del Ferice were mad. Then he went out. "I am sorry to lose you, Don Orsino," said Del Ferice, thoughtfully rolling his big silver pencil case on the table. "All the legal papers will be ready to-morrow afternoon." "Pray express to the directors my best thanks for so speedily winding up the business," answered Orsino. "I think that, after all, I have no great talent for affairs." "On the contrary, on the contrary," protested Ugo. "I have a great deal to say against that statement." And he eulogised Orsino's gifts almost without pausing for breath until the clerk returned with the preliminary receipt. Del Ferice signed it and handed it to Orsino with a smile. "This was unnecessary," said the young man. "I could have waited until to-morrow." "A matter of conscience, dear Don Orsino--nothing more." CHAPTER XXIX. Orsino was free at last. The whole matter was incomprehensible to him, and almost mysterious, so that after he had at last received his legal release he spent his time in trying to discover the motives of Del Ferice's conduct. The simplest explanation seemed to be that Ugo had not derived as much profit from the last contract as he had hoped for, though it had been enough to justify him in keeping his informal engagement with Contini and Company, and that he feared a new and unfavourable change in business which made any further speculations of the kind dangerous. For some time Orsino believed this to have been the case, but events proved that he was mistaken. He dissolved his partnership with Contini, but Andrea Contini and Company still continued to exist. The new partner was no less a personage than Del Ferice himself, who was constantly represented in the firm by the confidential clerk who has been more than once mentioned in this history, and who was a friend of Contini's. What terms Contini made for himself, Orsino never knew, but it is certain that the architect prospered from that time and is still prosperous. Late in the spring of that year 1890 Roman society was considerably surprised by the news of a most unexpected marriage. The engagement had been carefully kept a secret, the banns had been published in Palermo, the civil and religious ceremonies had taken place there, and the happy couple had already reached Paris before either of them thought of informing their friends and before any notice of the event appeared in the papers. Even then, society felt itself aggrieved by the laconic form in which the information was communicated. The statement, indeed, left nothing to be desired on the score of plainness or conciseness of style. Count Del Ferice had married Maria Consuelo d'Aranjuez d'Aragona. Two persons only received the intelligence a few days before it was generally made known. One was Orsino and the other was Spicca. The letters were characteristic and may be worth reproducing. "MY FATHER" (Maria Consuelo wrote)--"I am married to Count Del Ferice, with whom I think that you are acquainted. There is no reason why I should enter into any explanation of my reasons for taking this step. There are plenty which everybody can see. My husband's present position and great wealth make him what the world calls a good match, and my fortune places me above the suspicion of having married him for his money. If his birth was not originally of the highest, it was at least as good as mine, and society will say that the marriage was appropriate in all its circumstances. You are aware that I could not be married without informing my husband and the municipal authorities of my parentage, by presenting copies of the registers in Nice. Count Del Ferice was good enough to overlook some little peculiarity in the relation between the dates of my birth and your marriage. We will therefore say no more about the matter. The object of this letter is to let you know that those facts have been communicated to several persons, as a matter of necessity. I do not expect you to congratulate me. I congratulate myself, however, with all my heart. Within two years I have freed myself from my worthy mother, I have placed myself beyond your power to injure me, and I have escaped ruining a man I loved by marrying him. I have laid the foundations of peace if not of happiness. "The Princess is very ill but hopes to reach Normandy before the summer begins. My husband will be obliged to be often in Rome but will come to me from time to time, as I cannot leave the Princess at present. She is trying, however, to select among her acquaintance another lady in waiting--the more willingly as she is not pleased with my marriage. Is that a satisfaction to you? I expect to spend the winter in Rome. "MARIA CONSUELO DEL FERICE." This was the letter by which Maria Consuelo announced her marriage to the father whom she so sincerely hated. For cruelty of language and expression it was not to be compared with the one she had written to him after parting with Orsino. But had she known how the news she now conveyed would affect the old man who was to learn it, her heart might have softened a little towards him, even after all she had suffered. Very different were the lines Orsino received from her at the same time. "My dear Friend--When you read this letter, which I write on the eve of my marriage, but shall not send till some days have passed, you must think of me as the wife of Ugo Del Ferice. To-night, I am still Maria Consuelo. I have something to say to you, and you must read it patiently, for I shall never say it again--and after all, it will not be much. Is it right of me to say it? I do not know. Until to-morrow I have still time to refuse to be married. Therefore I am still a free agent, and entitled to think freely. After to-morrow it will be different. "I wish, dear, that I could tell you all the truth. Perhaps you would not be ashamed of having loved the daughter of Lucrezia Ferris. But I cannot tell you all. There are reasons why you had better never know it. But I will tell you this, for I must say it once. I love you very dearly. I loved you long ago, I loved you when I left you in Rome, I have loved you ever since, and I am afraid that I shall love you until I die. "It is not foolish of me to write the words, though it may be wrong. If I love you, it is because I know you. We shall meet before long, and then meet, perhaps, hundreds of times, and more, for I am to live in Rome. I know that you will be all you should be, or I would not speak now as I never spoke before, at the moment when I am raising an impassable barrier between us by my own free will. If you ever loved me--and you did--you will respect that barrier in deed and word, and even in thought. You will remember only that I loved you with all my heart on the day before my marriage. You will forget even to think that I may love you still to-morrow, and think tenderly of you on the day after that. "You are free now, dear, and can begin your real life. How do I know it? Del Ferice has told me that he has released you--for we sometimes speak of you. He has even shown me a copy of the legal act of release, which he chanced to find among the papers he had brought. An accident, perhaps. Or, perhaps he knows that I loved you. I do not care--I had a right to, then. "So you are quite free. I like to think that you have come out of all your troubles quite unscathed, young, your name untarnished, your hands clean. I am glad that you answered the letter I wrote to you from Egypt and told me all, and wrote so often afterwards. I could not do much beyond give you my sympathy, and I gave it all--to the uttermost. You will not need any more of it. You are free now, thank God! "If you think of me, wish me peace, dear--I do not ask for anything nearer to happiness than that. But I wish you many things, the least of which should make you happy. Most of all, I wish that you may some day love well and truly, and win the reality of which you once thought you held the shadow. Can I say more than that? No loving woman can. "And so, good-bye--good-bye, love of all my life, good-bye dear, dear Orsino--I think this is the hardest good-bye of all--when we are to meet so soon. I cannot write any more. Once again, the last--the very last time, for ever--I love you. "MARIA CONSUELO." A strange sensation came over Orsino as he read this letter. He was not able at first to realise much beyond the fact that Maria Consuelo was actually married to Del Ferice--a match than which none imaginable could have been more unexpected. But he felt that there was more behind the facts than he was able to grasp, almost more than he dared to guess at. A mysterious horror filled his mind as he read and reread the lines. There was no doubting the sincerity of what she said. He doubted the survival of his own love much more. She could have no reason whatever for writing as she did, on the eve of her marriage, no reason beyond the irresistible desire to speak out all her heart once only and for the last time. Again and again he went over the passages which struck him as most strange. Then the truth flashed upon him. Maria Consuelo had sold herself to free him from his difficulties, to save him from the terrible alternatives of either wasting his life as Del Ferice's slave or of ruining his family. With a smothered exclamation, between an oath and a groan of pain, Orsino threw himself upon the divan and buried his face in his hands. It is kinder to leave him there for a time, alone. Poor Spicca broke down under this last blow. In vain old Santi got out the cordial from the press in the corner, and did his best to bring his master back to his natural self. In vain Spicca roused himself, forced himself to eat, went out, walked his hour, dragging his feet after him, and attempted to exchange a word with his friends at the club. He seemed to have got his death wound. His head sank lower on his breast, his long emaciated frame stooped more and more, the thin hands grew daily more colourless, and the deathly face daily more deathly pale. Days passed away, and weeks, and it was early June. He no longer tried to go out. Santi tried to prevail upon him to take a little air in a cab, on the Via Appia. It would be money well spent, he said, apologising for suggesting such extravagance. Spicca shook his head, and kept to his chair by the open window. Then, on a certain morning, he was worse and had not the strength to rise from his bed. On that very morning a telegram came. He looked at it as though hardly understanding what he should do, as Santi held it before him. Then he opened it. His fingers did not tremble even now. The iron nerve of the great swordsman survived still. "Ventnor--Rome. Count Spicca. The Princess is dead. I know the truth at last. God forgive me and bless you. I come to you at once.--Maria Consuelo." Spicca read the few words printed on the white strip that was pasted to the yellow paper. Then his hands sank to his sides and he closed his eyes. Santi thought it was the end, and burst into tears as he fell to his knees by the bed. Half an hour passed. Then Spicca raised his head, and made a gesture with his hand. "Do not be a fool, Santi, I am not dead yet," he said, with kindly impatience. "Get up and send for Don Orsino Saracinesca, if he is still in Rome." Santi left the room, drying his eyes and uttering incoherent exclamations of astonishment mingled with a singular cross fire of praise and prayer directed to the Saints and of imprecations upon himself for his own stupidity. Before noon Orsino appeared. He was gaunt and pale, and more like San Giacinto than ever. There was a settled hardness in his face which was never again to disappear permanently. But he was horror-struck by Spicca's appearance. He had no idea that a man already so cadaverous could still change as the old man had changed. Spicca seemed little more than a grey shadow barely resting upon the white bed. He put the telegram into Orsino's hands. The young man read it twice and his face expressed his astonishment. Spicca smiled faintly, as he watched him. "What does it mean?" asked Orsino. "Of what truth does she speak? She hated you, and now, all at once, she loves you. I do not understand." "How should you?" The old man spoke in a clear, thin voice, very unlike his own. "You could not understand. But before I die, I will tell you." "Do not talk of dying--" "No. It is not necessary. I realise it enough, and you need not realise it at all. I have not much to tell you, but a little truth will sometimes destroy many falsehoods. You remember the story about Lucrezia Ferris? Maria Consuelo wrote it to you." "Remember it! Could I forget it?" "You may as well. There is not a word of truth in it. Lucrezia Ferris is not her mother." "Not her mother!" "No. I only wonder how you could ever have believed that a Piedmontese nurse could be the mother of Maria Consuelo. Nor am I Maria Consuelo's father. Perhaps that will not surprise you so much. She does not resemble me, thank Heaven!" "What is she then? Who is she?" asked Orsino impatiently. "To tell you that I must tell you the story. When I was young--very long before you were born--I travelled much, and I was well received. I was rich and of good family. At a certain court in Europe--I was at one time in the diplomacy--I loved a lady whom I could not have married, even had she been free. Her station was far above mine. She was also considerably older than I, and she paid very little attention to me, I confess. But I loved her. She is just dead. She was that princess mentioned in this telegram. Do you understand? Do you hear me? My voice is weak." "Perfectly. Pray go on." "Maria Consuelo is her grandchild--the granddaughter of the only woman I ever loved. Understand that, too. It happened in this way. My Princess had but one daughter, the Princess Marie, a mere child when I first saw her--not more than fourteen years old. We were all in Nice, one winter thirty years ago--some four years after I had first met the Princess. I travelled in order to see her, and she was always kind to me, though she did not love me. Perhaps I was useful, too, before that. People were always afraid of me, because I could handle the foils. It was thirty years ago, and the Princess Marie was eighteen. Poor child!" Spicca paused a moment, and passed his transparent hand over his eyes. "I think I understand," said Orsino. "No you do not," answered Spicca, with unexpected sharpness. "You will not understand, until I have told you everything. The Princess Marie fell ill, or pretended to fall ill while we were at Nice. But she could not conceal the truth long--at least not from her mother. She had already taken into her confidence a little Piedmontese maid, scarcely older than herself--a certain Lucrezia Ferris--and she allowed no other woman to come near her. Then she told her mother the truth. She loved a man of her own rank and not much older--not yet of age, in fact. Unfortunately, as happens with such people, a marriage was diplomatically impossible. He was not of her nationality and the relations were strained. But she had married him nevertheless, secretly and, as it turned out, without any legal formalities. It is questionable whether the marriage, even then, could have been proved to be valid, for she was a Catholic and he was not, and a Catholic priest had married them without proper authorisation or dispensation. But they were both in earnest, both young and both foolish. The husband--his name is of no importance--was very far away at the time we were in Nice, and was quite unable to come to her. She was about to be a mother and she turned to her own mother in her extremity, with a full confession of the truth." "I see," said Orsino. "And you adopted--" "You do not see yet. The Princess came to me for advice. The situation was an extremely delicate one from all points of view. To declare the marriage at that moment might have produced extraordinary complications, for the countries to which, the two young people belonged were on the verge of a war which was only retarded by the extraordinary genius of one man. To conceal it seemed equally dangerous, if not more so. The Princess Marie's reputation was at stake--the reputation of a young girl, as people supposed her to be, remember that. Various schemes suggested themselves. I cannot tell what would have been done, for fate decided the matter--tragically, as fate does. The young husband was killed while on a shooting expedition--at least so it was stated. I always believed that he shot himself. It was all very mysterious. We could not keep the news from the Princess Marie. That night Maria Consuelo was born. On the next day, her mother died. The shock had killed her. The secret was now known to the old Princess, to me, to Lucrezia Ferris and to the French doctor--a man of great skill and discretion. Maria Consuelo was the nameless orphan child of an unacknowledged marriage--of a marriage which was certainly not legal, and which the Church must hesitate to ratify. Again we saw that the complications, diplomatic and of other kinds, which would arise if the truth were published, would be enormous. The Prince himself was not yet in Nice and was quite ignorant of the true cause of his daughter's sudden death. But he would arrive in forty-eight hours, and it was necessary to decide upon some course. We could rely upon the doctor and upon our two selves--the Princess and I. Lucrezia Ferris seemed to be a sensible, quiet girl, and she certainly proved to be discreet for a long time. The Princess was distracted with grief and beside herself with anxiety. Remember that I loved her--that explains what I did. I proposed the plan which was carried out and with which you are acquainted. I took the child, declared it to be mine, and married Lucrezia. The only legal documents in existence concerning Maria Consuelo prove her to be my daughter. The priest who had married the poor Princess Marie could never be found. Terrified, perhaps, at what he had done, he disappeared--probably as a monk in an Austrian monastery. I hunted him for years. Lucrezia Ferris was discreet for two reasons. She received a large sum of money, and a large allowance afterwards, and later on it appears that she further enriched herself at Maria Consuelo's expense. Avarice was her chief fault, and by it we held her. Secondly, however, she was well aware, and knows to-day, that no one would believe her story if she told the truth. The proofs are all positive and legal for Maria Consuelo's supposed parentage, and there is not a trace of evidence in favour of the truth. You know the story now. I am glad I have been able to tell it to you. I will rest now, for I am very tired. If I am alive to-morrow, come and see me--good-bye, in case you should not find me." Orsino pressed the wasted hand and went out silently, more affected than he owned by the dying man's words and looks. It was a painful story of well-meant mistakes, he thought, and it explained many things which he had not understood. Linking it with all he knew besides, he had the whole history of Spicca's mysterious, broken life, together with the explanation of some points in his own which had never been clear to him. The old cynic of a duellist had been a man of heart, after all, and had sacrificed his whole existence to keep a secret for a woman whom he loved but who did not care for him. That was all. She was dead and he was dying. The secret was already half buried in the past. If it were told now, no one would believe it. Orsino returned on the following day. He had sent for news several times, and was told that Spicca still lingered. He saw him again but the old man seemed very weak and only spoke a few words during the hour Orsino spent with him. The doctor had said that he might possibly live, but that there was not much hope. And again on the next day Orsino came back. He started as he entered the room. An old Franciscan, a Minorite, was by the bedside, speaking in low tones. Orsino made as though he would withdraw, but Spicca feebly beckoned to him to stay, and the monk rose. "Good-bye," whispered Spicca, following him with his sunken eyes. Orsino led the Franciscan out. At the outer door the latter turned to Orsino with a strange look and laid a hand upon his arm. "Who are you, my son?" he asked. "Orsino Saracinesca." "A friend of his?" "Yes." "He has done terrible things in his long life. But he has done noble things, too, and has suffered much, and in silence. He has earned his rest, and God will forgive him." The monk bowed his head and went out. Orsino re-entered the room and took the vacant chair beside the bed. He touched Spicca's hand almost affectionately, but the latter withdrew it with an effort. He had never liked sympathy, and liked it least when another would have needed it most. For a considerable time neither spoke. The pale hand lay peacefully upon the pillows, the long, shadowy frame was wrapped in a gown of dark woollen material. "Do you think she will come to-day?" asked the old man at length. "She may come to-day--I hope so," Orsino answered. A long pause followed. "I hope so, too," Spicca whispered. "I have not much strength left. I cannot wait much longer." Again there was silence. Orsino knew that there was nothing to be said, nothing at least which he could say, to cheer the last hours of the lonely life. But Spicca seemed contented that he should sit there. "Give me that photograph," he said, suddenly, a quarter of an hour later. Orsino looked about him but could not see what Spicca wanted. "Hers," said the feeble voice, "in the next room." It was the photograph in the little chiselled frame--the same frame which had once excited Donna Tullia's scorn. Orsino brought it quickly from its place over the chimney-piece, and held it before his friend's eyes. Spicca gazed at it a long time in silence. "Take it away," he said, at last. "It is not like her." Orsino put it aside and sat down again. Presently Spicca turned a little on the pillow and looked at him. "Do you remember that I once said I wished you might marry her?" he asked. "Yes." "It was quite true. You understand now? I could not tell you then." "Yes. I understand everything now." "But I am sorry I said it." "Why?" "Perhaps it influenced you and has hurt your life. I am sorry. You must forgive me." "For Heaven's sake, do not distress yourself about such trifles," said Orsino, earnestly. "There is nothing to forgive." "Thank you." Orsino looked at him, pondering on the peaceful ending of the strange life, and wondering what manner of heart and soul the man had really lived with. With the intuition which sometimes comes to dying persons, Spicca understood, though it was long before he spoke again. There was a faint touch of his old manner in his words. "I am an awful example, Orsino," he said, with the ghost of a smile. "Do not imitate me. Do not sacrifice your life for the love of any woman. Try and appreciate sacrifices in others." The smile died away again. "And yet I am glad I did it," he added, a moment later. "Perhaps it was all a mistake--but I did my best." "You did indeed," Orsino answered gravely. He meant what he said, though he felt that it had indeed been all a mistake, as Spicca suggested. The young face was very thoughtful. Spicca little knew how hard his last cynicism hit the man beside him, for whose freedom and safety the woman of whom Spicca was thinking had sacrificed so very much. He would die without knowing that. The door opened softly and a woman's light footstep was on the threshold. Maria Consuelo came silently and swiftly forward with outstretched hands that had clasped the dying man's almost before Orsino realised that it was she herself. She fell on her knees beside the bed and pressed the powerless cold fingers to her forehead. Spicca started and for one moment raised his head from the pillow. It fell back almost instantly. A look of supreme happiness flashed over the deathly features, followed by an expression of pain. "Why did you marry him?" he asked in tones so loud that Orsino started, and Maria Consuelo looked up with streaming eyes. She did not answer, but tried to soothe him, rising and caressing his hand, and smoothing his pillows. "Tell me why you married him!" he cried again. "I am dying--I must know!" She bent down very low and whispered into his ear. He shook his head impatiently. "Louder! I cannot hear! Louder!" Again she whispered, more distinctly this time, and casting an imploring glance at Orsino, who was too much disturbed to understand. "Louder!" gasped the dying man, struggling to sit up. "Louder! O my God! I shall die without hearing you--without knowing--" It would have been inhuman to torture the departing soul any longer. Then Maria Consuelo made her last sacrifice. She spoke in calm, clear tones. "I married to save the man I loved." Spicca's expression changed. For fully twenty seconds his sunken eyes remained fixed, gazing into hers. Then the light began to flash in them for the last time, keen as the lightning. "God have mercy on you! God reward you!" he cried. The shadowy figure quivered throughout its length, was still, then quivered again, then sprang up suddenly with a leap, and Spicca was standing on the floor, clasping Maria Consuelo in his arms. All at once there was colour in his face and the fire grew bright in his glance. "Oh, my darling, I have loved you so!" he cried. He almost lifted her from the ground as he pressed his lips passionately upon her forehead. His long thin hands relaxed suddenly, and the light broke in his eyes as when a mirror is shivered by a blow. For an instant that seemed an age, he stood upright, dead already, and then fell back all his length across the bed with wide extended arms. There was a short, sharp sob, and then a sound of passionate weeping filled the silent room. Strongly and tenderly Orsino laid his dead friend upon the couch as he had lain alive but two minutes earlier. He crossed the hands upon the breast and gently closed the staring eyes. He could not have had Maria Consuelo see him as he had fallen, when she next looked up. A little later they stood side by side, gazing at the calm dead face, in a long silence. How long they stood, they never knew, for their hearts were very full. The sun was going down and the evening light filled the room. "Did he tell you, before he died--about me?" asked Maria Consuelo in a low voice. "Yes. He told me everything." Maria Consuelo went forward and bent over the face and kissed the white forehead, and made the sign of the Cross upon it. Then she turned and took Orsino's hand in hers. "I could not help your hearing what I said, Orsino. He was dying, you see. You know all, now." Orsino's fingers pressed hers desperately. For a moment he could not speak. Then the agonised words came with a great effort, harshly but ringing from the heart. "And I can give you nothing!" He covered his face and turned away. "Give me your friendship, dear--I never had your love," she said. It was long before they talked together again. This is what I know of young Orsino Saracinesca's life up to the present time. Maria Consuelo, Countess Del Ferice, was right. She never had his love as he had hers. Perhaps the power of loving so is not in him. He is, after all, more like San Giacinto than any other member of the family, cold, perhaps, and hard by nature. But these things which I have described have made a man of him at an age when many men are but boys, and he has learnt what many never learn at all--that there is more true devotion to be found in the world than most people will acknowledge. He may some day be heard of. He may some day fall under the great passion. Or he may never love at all and may never distinguish himself any more than his father has done. One or the other may happen, but not both, in all probability. The very greatest passion is rarely compatible with the very greatest success except in extraordinary good or bad natures. And Orsino Saracinesca is not extraordinary in any way. His character has been formed by the unusual circumstances in which he was placed when very young, rather than by anything like the self-development which we hear of in the lives of great men. From a somewhat foolish and affectedly cynical youth he has grown into a decidedly hard and cool-headed man. He is very much seen in society but talks little on the whole. If, hereafter, there should be anything in his life worth recording, another hand than mine may write it down for future readers. If any one cares to ask why I have thought it worth the trouble to describe his early years so minutely, I answer that the young man of the Transition Period interests me. Perhaps I am singular in that. Orsino Saracinesca is a fair type, I think, of his class at his age. I have done my best to be just to him. THE END. 
33924	----	MARION DARCHE _A STORY WITHOUT COMMENT_ BY F. MARION CRAWFORD AUTHOR OF "SARACINESCA," "A ROMAN SINGER," "SANT' ILARIO," ETC. New York MACMILLAN AND CO. AND LONDON 1893 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY F. MARION CRAWFORD. Norwood Press: J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith. Boston, Mass., U.S.A. MARION DARCHE. CHAPTER I. Among the many peculiarities which contribute to make New York unlike other cities is the construction of what may be called its social map. As in the puzzles used in teaching children geography, all the pieces are of different shapes, different sizes and different colours; but they fit neatly together in the compact whole though the lines which define each bit are distinctly visible, especially when the map has been long used by the industrious child. What calls itself society everywhere else calls itself society in New York also, but whereas in European cities one instinctively speaks of the social scale, one familiar with New York people will be much more inclined to speak of the social map. I do not mean to hint that society here exists on a dead level, but the absence of tradition, of all acknowledged precedents and of all outward and perceptible distinctions makes it quite impossible to define the position of any one set in regard to another by the ordinary scale of superiority or inferiority. In London or Paris, for instance, ambitious persons are spoken of as climbing, in New York it would be more correct to speak of them as migrating or attempting to migrate from one social field to the next. It is impossible to imagine fields real or metaphorical yielding more different growths under the same sky. The people in all these different sets are very far from being unconscious of one another's existence. Sometimes they would like to change from one set to another and cannot, sometimes other people wish them to change and they will not, sometimes they exchange places, and sometimes by a considerable effort, or at considerable expense, they change themselves. The man whose occupations, or tastes, or necessities, lead him far beyond the bounds of the one particular field to which he belongs, may see a vast deal that is interesting and of which his own particular friends and companions know nothing whatever. There are a certain number of such men in every great city, and there are a certain number of women also, who, by accident or choice, know a little more of humanity in general than their associates. They recognise each other wherever they meet. They speak the same language. Without secret signs or outward badges they understand instinctively that they belong to the small and exceptional class of human beings. If they meet for the first time, no matter where, the conversation of each is interesting to the other; they go their opposite ways never to meet again, perhaps, but feeling that for a few minutes, or a few hours, they have lived in an atmosphere far more familiar to them than that of their common everyday life. They are generally the people who can accomplish things, not hard to do in themselves but quite out of the reach of those whose life runs in a single groove. They very often have odd experiences to relate and sometimes are not averse to relating them. They are a little mysterious in their ways and they do not care to be asked whither they are going nor whence they come. They are not easily surprised by anything, but they sometimes do not remember to which particular social set an idea, a story, or a prejudice belongs, especially if they are somewhat preoccupied at the time. This occasionally makes their conversation a little startling, if not incomprehensible, but they are generally considered to be agreeable people and if they have good manners and dress like human beings they are much sought after in society for the simple reason that they are very hard to find. In New York walking is essentially the luxury of the rich. The hard-working poor man has no time to lose in such old-fashioned sport and he gets from place to place by means of horse cars and elevated roads, by cabs or in his own carriage, according to the scale of his poverty. The man who has nothing to do keeps half-a-dozen horses and enjoys the privilege of walking, which he shares with women and four-footed animals. The foregoing assertions all bear more or less directly upon the lives of the people concerned in the following story. They all lived in New York, they all belonged to the same little oddly-shaped piece in the social puzzle map, some of them were rich enough to walk, and one of them at least was tolerably well acquainted with a great many people in a great many other sets. On a certain winter's morning this latter individual was walking slowly down Lexington Avenue in the direction of Gramercy Park. He was walking, not because he was enormously rich, not because he had nothing to do, and not because he was ill. He was suffering momentarily from an acute attack of idleness, very rare in him, but intensely delightful while it lasted. In all probability Russell Vanbrugh had been doing more work than was good for him, but as he was a man of extremely well-balanced and healthy nervous organisation the one ill effect he experienced from having worked harder than usual was a sudden and irresistible determination to do absolutely nothing for twenty-four hours. He was a lawyer by profession, a Dutchman by descent, a New Yorker by birth, a gentleman by his character and education, if the latter expression means anything, which is doubtful, and so far as his circumstances were concerned he was neither rich nor poor as compared with most of his associates, though some of his acquaintances looked up to him as little short of a millionaire, while others could not have conceived it possible to exist at all with his income. In appearance he was of middle height, strongly built but not stout, and light on his feet. On the whole he would have been called a dark man, for his eyes were brown and his complexion was certainly not fair. His features were regular and straight but not large, of a type which is developing rapidly in America and which expresses clearly enough the principal national characteristics--energy, firmness, self-esteem, absence of tradition, and, to some extent, of individuality--in so far as the faculties are so evenly balanced as to adapt themselves readily to anything required of them. Russell Vanbrugh was decidedly good-looking and many people would have called him handsome. He was thirty-five years of age, and his black hair was turning a little gray at the temples, a fact which was especially apparent as he faced the sun in his walk. He was in no hurry as he strolled leisurely down the pavement, his hands in the pockets of his fur coat, glancing idly at the quiet houses as he passed. The usual number of small boys was skating about on rollers at the corners of the streets, an occasional trio of nurse, perambulator and baby came into view for a moment across the sunlit square ahead of him, and a single express-waggon was halting before a house on the other side of the street, with one of its wheels buried to the hub in a heap of mud-dyed snow. That was all. Few streets in the world can be as quiet as Lexington Avenue at mid-day. It looks almost like Boston. Russell Vanbrugh loved New York in all its aspects and in all its particulars, singly and wholly, in winter and summer, with the undivided affection which natives of great capitals often feel for their own city. He liked to walk in Lexington Avenue, and to think of the roaring, screaming rush in Broadway. He liked to escape from sudden death on the Broadway crossing and to think of the perambulator and the boys on roller skates in Lexington Avenue; and again, he was fond of allowing his thoughts to wander down town to the strange regions which are bounded by the Bowery, Houston Street, the East River and Park Row. It amused him to watch his intensely American surroundings and to remember at the same time that New York is the third German city in the world. He loved contrasts and it was this taste, together with his daily occupation as a criminal lawyer, which had led him to extend his acquaintance beyond the circle in which his father and mother had dined and danced and had their being. He was thinking--for people can think while receiving and enjoying momentary impressions which have nothing to do with their thoughts--he was thinking of a particularly complicated murder case in which the murderer had made use of atropine to restore the pupils of his victim's eyes to their natural size lest their dilatation should betray the use of morphia. He was watching the boys, the house, the express-cart, and the distant perambulator, and at the same time he was hesitating as to whether he should light a cigarette or not. He was certainly suffering from the national disease, which is said by medical authorities to consist in thinking of three things at once. He was just wondering whether, if the expressman murdered the nurse and used atropine the boy would find it out, when the door of a house he was passing was opened and a young girl came out upon the brown stone steps and closed it behind her. Her gray eyes met his brown ones and they both started slightly and smiled. The girl's bright colour grew a little more bright, and Vanbrugh's eyelids contracted a little as he stopped and bowed. "Oh--is that you?" asked Miss Dolly Maylands, pausing an instant. "Good morning," answered Vanbrugh, smiling again as she tripped over the brown steps and met him on the pavement. "I suppose your logical mind saw the absurdity of answering my question," said Dolly, holding out a slender gloved hand. "I see you have been at your charities again," answered Vanbrugh, watching her fresh face closely. "You say that as you would say, 'You have been at your tricks again.' Why do you tease me? But it is quite true. How did you guess it?" "Because you began by chaffing me. That shows that you are frivolous to-day. When you have been doing something serious you are always frivolous. When you have been dancing you are always funereal. It is very easy to tell what you have been doing." "You ought to be ashamed of yourself." Miss Maylands frequently made use of this expression--a strong one in its way. "I know I ought," answered Vanbrugh with humility. "But you are not. You are a hypocrite, like all the rest of them." Dolly's face was grave, but she glanced at her companion as she spoke. "Of course I am a hypocrite. Life is too short. A man cannot waste his time in hacking his way through the ice mountain of truth when he may trot round to the other side by the path of tact." "I hate metaphors." "So do I." "Why do you use them, then?" "It is righteous to do the things one does not like to do, is it not?" "Not if they are bad." "Oh! then I am good, am I?" "Perhaps. I never make rash assertions." "No? You called me a hypocrite just now, and said I was like the rest of them. Was not that a rash assertion?" "Oh dear! You are too logical! I give it up." "I am so glad." For a few moments they walked along in silence, side by side, in the sunshine. They were a couple pleasant to look at, yet not very remarkable in any way. Dolly Maylands was tall--almost as tall as Vanbrugh, but much fairer. She had about her the singular freshness which clings to some people through life. It is hard to say wherein the quality lies, but it is generally connected with the idea of great natural vitality. There are two kinds of youth. There is the youth of young years, which fades and disappears altogether, and there is the youth of nature which is abiding, or which, at most, shrivels and dies as rose leaves wither, touched with faint colour, still and fragrant to the last. Dolly's freshness was in her large gray eyes, her bright chestnut hair, her smooth, clear skin, her perfect teeth, her graceful figure, her easy motion. But it was deeper than all these, and one looking at her felt that it would outlast them all, and that they would all try hard to outlast one another. For the rest, the broad brow showed thought, if not intellect, and the mouth, rather large for the proportion of the lower face, but not at all heavy, told of strength and courage, if not of real firmness. Dolly Maylands was large, well grown, thin, fresh and thoughtful, with a dash of the devil, but of a perfectly innocent devil, only a little inclined to laugh at his own good works and to prefer play to prayers, as even angels may when they are very young and healthy, and have never done anything to be sorry for. "You seem to be walking with me," observed Dolly presently. "Well--yes--I suppose that is the impression we are giving the expressman over there." "And in court, in one of your cases, if he were a witness, he would probably give the idea that we met in Lexington Avenue by appointment. By the bye, one does not walk in Lexington Avenue in the morning." "That is what we are doing," answered Vanbrugh imperturbably. "You know that it is compromising, I suppose." "So do you." "Then why do you do it?" "Why do we do it? Is that what you meant to ask?" "I did not mean anything." "So I supposed, from what you said." Vanbrugh smiled and Dolly laughed as their eyes met. "I was here first," said Vanbrugh after a moment. "Not at all. I have been at least an hour at old Mrs. Trehearne's." "I may have seen you go in, and I may have waited all that time to catch you on the door-step." "So like you! Why are you not defending the chemist who cremated his fifth wife alive in a retort, or the cashier who hypnotised the head of his firm and made him sign cheques with his eyes shut, or the typhus-germ murderer, or something nice and interesting of that sort? Are you growing lazy in your old age, Mr. Vanbrugh?" "Awfully!" "How well you talk. When I have made a beautiful long speech and have beaten my memory black and blue for words I cannot remember, just to be agreeable--you say 'awfully,' and think you are making conversation." "I am not good at conversation." "Apparently not. However, you will not have much chance of showing off your weakness this morning." "Why not?" "You might say you are sorry! Why not? Because I am not going far." "How far?" "That is a rude question. It is like asking me where I am going. But I will be nice and tell you--just to make you feel your inferiority. I am going to see Marion Darche." "Mrs. Darche lunches about this time." "Exactly. It is within the bounds of possibility that I may be going to lunch with her." "Oh, quite!" Again there was a short pause as the two walked on together. Dolly took rather short, quick steps. Vanbrugh did not change his gait. There are men who naturally fall into the step of persons with whom they are walking. It shows an imitative disposition and one which readily accepts the habits of others. Neither Dolly nor her companion were people of that sort. "I was thinking of Mrs. Darche," said Dolly at last. "So was I. Extremes meet." "They have met in that case, at all events," answered Dolly, growing serious. "It would not be easy to imagine a more perfectly ill-matched couple than Marion and her husband." "Do you think so?" asked Vanbrugh, who was never inclined to commit himself. "Think so? I know it! And you ought to know it, too. You are always there. Nobody is more intimate there than you are." "Yes,--I often see them." "Yes," said Dolly looking keenly at him, "and I believe you know much more about them than you admit. You might as well tell me." "I have nothing especial to tell," answered Vanbrugh quietly. "There is something wrong. Well--if you will not tell me, Harry Brett will, some day. He is not half so secretive as you are." "That does not mean anything. The word secretive is not to be found in any respectable dictionary, nor in any disreputable one either, so far as I know." "How horrid you are! But it is quite true. Harry Brett is not in the least like you. He says just what he thinks." "Does he? Lucky man! That is just what I am always trying to do. And he tells you all about the Darches, does he?" "Oh no! He has never told me anything. But then, he would." "That is just the same, you know." "What makes you think there is anything wrong?" asked Vanbrugh, changing his tone and growing serious in his turn. "So many things--it is dreadful! What o'clock is it?" "Ten minutes to one." "Have you time for another turn before I go in?" "Of course--all the time. We can walk round Gramercy Park and down Irving Place." Instinctively both were silent as they passed the door of Marion Darche's house and did not resume their conversation till they were twenty paces further down the street. Then Vanbrugh was the first to speak. "If it is possible for you and me to talk seriously about anything, Miss Maylands, I should like to speak to you about the Darches." "I will make a supreme effort and try to be serious. As for you--" Dolly glanced at Vanbrugh, smiled and shook her head, as though to signify that his case was perfectly hopeless. "I shall do well enough," he answered, "I am used to gravity. It does not upset my nerves as it does yours." "You shall not say that gravity upsets my nerves!" "Shall not? Why not?" inquired Vanbrugh. Dolly walked more slowly, putting down her feet with a little emphasis, so to say. "Because I say you shall not. That ought to be enough." "Considering that you can stand idiot asylums, kindergartens, school children, the rector and the hope of the life to come, and are still alive enough to dance every night, your nerves ought to be good. But I did not mean to be offensive--only a little wholesome glass of truth as an appetiser before Mrs. Darche's luncheon." "Puns make me positively ill at this hour!" "I will never do it again--never, never." "You are not making much progress in talking seriously about the Darches. I believe it was for that purpose that you proposed to drag me round and round this hideous place, amongst the babies and the nurses and the small yellow dogs--there goes one!" "Yes--as you say--there he goes, doomed to destruction in the pound. Be sorry for him. Show a little sympathy--poor beast! Drowning is not pleasant in this weather." "Oh you do not really think he will be drowned?" "No. I think not. If you look, you will see that he is a private dog, so to say, though he is small and yellow. He is also tied to the back of the perambulator--look--the fact is proved by his having got through the railings and almost upset the baby and the nurse by stopping them short. Keep your sympathy for the next dog, and let us talk about the Darches, if you and I can stop chaffing." "Speak for yourself, Mr. Vanbrugh. You frightened me by telling me the creature was to be drowned." "Very well. I apologise. Since he is to live, what do you think is the matter with the Darche establishment? Let me put the questions. Is old Simon Darche in his right mind, so as to understand what is going on? Is John Darche acting honestly by the Company--and by other people? Is Mrs. Darche happy?" Miss Maylands paused at the corner of the park, looked through the railings and smoothed her muff of black Persian sheep with one hand before she made any reply. Russell Vanbrugh watched her face and glanced at the muff from time to time. "Well?" "I cannot answer your questions," Dolly answered at last, looking into his eyes. "I do not know the answers to any of them, and yet I have asked them all of myself. As to the first two, you ought to know the truth better than I. You understand those things better than I do. And the last--whether Marion is happy or not--have you any particular reason for asking it?" "No." Vanbrugh answered without the slightest hesitation, but an instant later his eyes fell before hers. She sighed almost inaudibly, laid her hand upon the railing and with the other raised the big muff to her face so that it hid her mouth and chin. To her, the lowering of his glance meant something--something, perhaps, which she had not expected to find. "You ask on general--general principles?" she inquired presently, with a rather nervous smile. But Vanbrugh did not smile. The expression of his face did not change. "Yes, on general principles," he answered. "It is the main question, after all. If Mrs. Darche is not happy, there must be some very good reason for her unhappiness, and the reason cannot be far to seek. If the old gentleman is really losing his mind or is going to have softening of the brain--which is the same thing after all--well, that might be it. But I do not believe she cares so much for him as all that. If he were her own father it would be different. But he is John's father, and John--I do not know what to say. It would depend upon the answers to the other questions." "Which I cannot give you," answered Dolly. "I wish I could." Dolly gave the railings a little parting kick to knock the snow from the point of her over-shoe, lowered her muff and began to walk again. Vanbrugh walked beside her in silence. "It is a very serious question," she began again, when they had gone a few steps. "Of course you think I spend all my time in frivolous charities and serious flirtations, and dances, and that sort of thing. But I have my likes and dislikes, and Marion is my friend. She is older than I, and when we were girls I had a little girl's admiration for a big one. That lasted until she got married and I grew up. Of course it is not the same thing now, but we are very fond of each other. You see I have never had a sister nor any relations to speak of, and in a certain way she has taken the place of them all. At first I thought she was happy, though I could not see how that could be, because--" Dolly broke off suddenly, as though she expected Vanbrugh to understand what was passing in her mind. He said nothing, however, and did not even look at her as he walked silently by her side. Then she glanced at him once or twice before she spoke again. "Of course you know what I am thinking of," she said at last. "You must have thought it all too, then and now, and very often. Of course--you had reason to." "What reason?" Vanbrugh looked up quickly, as he asked the question. "Oh, I cannot go into all that! You understand as well as I do. Besides, it is not a pleasant subject. John Darche was successful, young, rich, everything you like--except just what one does like. I always felt that she had married him by mistake." "By mistake? What a strange idea. And who should the right man have been, pray?" "Oh, no! She thought he was the right man, no doubt. It was the mistake of fate, or providence, or whatever you call the thing, if it was a mistake at all." "After all," said Vanbrugh, "what reason have we, you or I, for saying that they are not perfectly happy? Perhaps they are. People are happy in so many different ways. After all, John Darche and his wife do not seem to quarrel. They only seem to disagree--or rather--" "Yes," answered Dolly, "that is exactly it. It is not everything one sees or hears in the house. It is the suspicion that there are unpleasant things which are neither seen or heard by any of us. And then, the rest--your questions about the business, which I cannot answer and which I hardly understand. There are so many people concerned in an enormous business like that, that I cannot imagine how anything could be done without being found out." "However such things are done," answered Vanbrugh, gravely, "and sometimes they are found out, and sometimes they are not. Let us hope for the best in this case." "What would be the best if there were anything to find out?" asked Dolly, lowering her voice as they paused before Simon Darche's house. "Would it be better that John Darche should be caught for the sake of the people who would lose by him, or would it be better for his wife's sake that he should escape?" "That is a question altogether beyond my judgment, especially on such short notice. Shall we go in?" "We? Are you coming too?" "Yes, I am going to lunch with the Darches too." "And you never told me so? That is just like you! You get all you can out of me and you tell me nothing." "I have nothing to tell," answered Vanbrugh calmly, "but I apologise all the same. Shall I ring the bell?" "Unless you mean to take me round Gramercy Park again and show me more nurses and perambulators and dirty dogs. Yes, ring the bell please. It is past one o'clock." A moment later Miss Dolly Maylands and Mr. Russell Vanbrugh disappeared behind the extremely well-kept door of Simon Darche's house in Lexington Avenue. CHAPTER II. Simon Darche stood at the window of his study, as Dolly and Vanbrugh entered the house. He was, at that time, about seventy-five years of age, and the life he had led had told upon him, as an existence of over excitement ultimately tells upon all but the very strong. Physically, he was a fine specimen of the American old gentleman. He was short, well knit, and still fairly erect; his thick creamy-white hair was smoothly brushed and parted behind, as his well-trimmed white beard was carefully combed and parted before. He had bushy eyebrows in which there were still some black threads. His face was ruddy and polished, like fine old pink silk that has been much worn. But his blue eyes had a vacant look in them, and the redness of the lids made them look weak; the neck was shrunken at the back and just behind the ears, and though the head was well poised on the shoulders, it occasionally shook a little, or dropped suddenly out of the perpendicular, forwards or to one side, not as though nodding, but as though the sinews were gone, so that it depended altogether upon equilibrium and not at all upon muscular tension for its stability. This, however, was almost the only outward sign of physical weakness. Simon Darche still walked with a firm step, and signed his name in a firm round hand at the foot of the documents brought to him by his son for signature. He had perfect confidence in John's judgment, discretion and capacity, for he and his son had worked together for nearly twenty years, and John had never during that time contradicted him. Since the business had continued to prosper through fair and foul financial weather, this was, in Simon Darche's mind, a sufficient proof of John's great superiority of intelligence. The Company's bonds and stock had a steady value on the market, the interest on the bonds was paid regularly and the Company's dividends were uniformly large. Simon Darche continued to be President, and John Darche had now been Treasurer during more than five years. Altogether, the Company had proved itself to be a solid concern, capable of surviving stormy days and of navigating serenely in the erratic flood and ebb of the down-town tide. It was, indeed, apparent that before long a new President must be chosen, and the choice was likely to fall upon John. In the ordinary course of things a man of Simon Darche's age could not be expected to bear the weight of such responsibility much longer; but so far as any one knew, his faculties were still unimpaired and his strength was still quite equal to any demands which should be made upon it, in the ordinary course of events. Of the business done by the Company, it is sufficient to say that it was an important branch of manufacture, that the controlling interest was generally in the hands of the Darches themselves and that its value largely depended upon the possession of certain patents which, of course, would ultimately expire. Simon Darche stood at the window of his study and looked out, smoking a large, mild cigar which he occasionally withdrew from his lips and contemplated thoughtfully before knocking off the ash, and returning it to his mouth. It was a very fine cigar indeed, equal in quality to everything which Simon Darche had consumed during the greater part of his life, and he intended to enjoy it to the end, as he had enjoyed most things ever since he had been young. John, he often said, did not know how to enjoy anything; not that John was in a hurry, or exhibited flagrantly bad taste, or professed not to care--on the contrary, the younger man was deliberate, thoughtful and fastidious in his requirements--but there was an odd strain of asceticism in him, which his father had never understood. It certainly was not of a religious nature, but it would have gone well together with a saintly disposition such as John did not possess. Perhaps indeed, John had the saintly temperament without the sanctity, and that, after all, may be better than nothing. He was thinner than his father and of a paler complexion; his hair was almost red, if not quite, and his eyes were blue--a well-built man, not ungraceful but a little angular, careful of his appearance and possessed of perfect taste in regard to dress, if in nothing else. He bestowed great attention upon his hands, which were small with slender fingers pointed at the tips, and did not seem to belong to the same epoch as the rest of him; they were almost unnaturally white, but to his constant annoyance they had an unlucky propensity to catch the dust, as one says of some sorts of cloth. If it be written down that a man has characteristically clean hands, some critic will be sure to remark that gentlemen are always supposed to have clean hands, especially gentlemen of the Anglo-Saxon race. It is a fact, nevertheless, that however purely Anglo-Saxon the possessor may be, there are hands which are naturally not clean and which neither ordinary scrubbing nor the care of the manicure can ever keep clean for more than an hour. People who are in the habit of noticing hands are well aware of the fact, which depends upon the quality of the skin, as the reputation for cleanliness itself generally does. John Darche's hands did not satisfy him as the rest of himself did. So far as people knew, he had no vices, nor even the small tastes and preferences which most men have. He did not drink wine, he did not smoke, and he rarely played cards. He was a fairly good rider and rode for exercise, but did not know a pastern from a fetlock and trusted to others to buy his horses for him. He cared nothing for sport of any kind; he had once owned a yacht for a short time, but he had never been any further than Newport in her and had sold her before the year was out. He read a good deal in a desultory way and criticised everything he read, when he talked, but on the whole he despised literature as a trifle unworthy of a serious man's attention. His religious convictions were problematic, to say the least of it, and his outward practice took the somewhat negative form of never swearing, even when he was alone. He did not raise his voice in argument, if he ever argued, nor in anger, though he had a very bad temper. John Darche could probably say as disagreeable things as any man living, without exhibiting the slightest apparent emotion. He was not a popular man. His acquaintances disliked him; his friends feared him; his intimates and the members of his household felt that he held them at a distance and that they never really understood him. His father bestowed an almost childish admiration upon him, for which he received a partial compensation in John's uniformly respectful manner and unvarying outward deference. In the last appeal, all matters of real importance were left to the decision of Simon Darche, who always found it easy to decide, because the question, as it reached him, was never capable of more than one solution. It is clear from what has been said that John Darche was not an amiable character. But he had one small virtue, or good trait, or good point, be it called as it may. He loved his wife, if not as a woman and a companion, at least as a possession. The fact was not apparent to the majority of people, least of all, perhaps, to Mrs. Darche herself, who was much younger than her husband and whose whole and loyal soul was filled with his cast-off beliefs, so to say, or, at least, with beliefs which he would have cast off if he had ever possessed them. Nevertheless, he was accustomed to consider her as one of his most valuable belongings, and he might have been very dangerous, had his enormous dormant jealousy been roused by the slightest show on her part of preference for any one of the half-dozen men who were intimate in the house. He, on his side, gave her no cause for doubting his fidelity. He was not loving, his manner was not affectionate, he often lost his temper and said cruel things to her in his cruel way; but so far as she knew he did not exchange ten words daily with any other woman, excepting Mrs. Willoughby, her aunt, and Dolly Maylands, her intimate friend. He was systematic in his daily comings and goings, and he regularly finished his evenings at one of the clubs. He slept little, but soundly, ate sparingly and without noticing what was offered him, drank four cups of tea and a pint of Apollinaris every day and had never been ill in his life, which promised to be long, active, uneventful and not overflowing with blessings for any one else. At first it might seem that there was not much ground for the few words exchanged by Russell Vanbrugh and Dolly Maylands about the Darches' trouble before they entered the house. To all appearances, Simon Darche was in his normal frame of mind and had changed little during the last five years. So far as any one could judge, the Company was as solid as ever. In her outward manner and conversation Marion Darche seemed as well satisfied with her lot as she had been on the day of her marriage, when John had represented to her all that a man should be,--much that another man, whom she had loved, or liked almost to loving, in her early girlhood, had not been. The surface of her life was calm and unemotional, reflecting only the sunshine and storm of the social weather under which she had lived in the more or less close companionship of half a hundred other individuals in more or less similar circumstances. There is just enough truth in most proverbs to make them thoroughly disagreeable. Take, for instance, the saying that wealth is not happiness. Of course it is not, any more than food and lodging, shoes and clothing, which are the ultimate forms of wealth, can be called happiness. But surely, wealth and all that wealth gives constitute a barrier against annoyance, mental and physical, which has almost as much to do with the maintenance of happiness in the end, as "climate and the affections." The demonstration is a simple one. Poverty can of itself under certain circumstances be a source of unhappiness. The possession of riches therefore is a barrier against the possibility of at least one sort of misery and relatively increases the chances of being happy on the whole. It is tolerably certain, that, without money, John Darche would have been little short of insufferable, and that his wife would have been chief among the sufferers. The presence of a great fortune preserved the equilibrium and produced upon outsiders the impression of real felicity. Nevertheless, both Vanbrugh and Dolly Maylands, as has been seen, considered the fortune unsafe and apparent peace problematic. They were among the most intimate friends of the Darche household and were certainly better able to judge of the state of affairs than the majority. They had doubtless perceived in the domestic atmosphere something of that sultriness which foreruns a storm and sometimes precedes an earthquake, and being very much in sympathy with each other, in spite of the continual chaffing which formed the basis of their conversation, they had both begun to notice the signs of bad weather very nearly at the same time. It must not be supposed that Mrs. Darche confided her woes to her friend, to use the current expression by which reticent people characterise the follies of others. It was not even certain at this time that she had any woes at all, but Dolly undoubtedly noticed something in her conduct which betrayed anxiety if not actual unhappiness, and Russell Vanbrugh, who, as has been observed, was intimately acquainted with many aspects of New York life, had some doubts as to the state of the Company's affairs. No one is really reticent. It would perhaps be more just to the human race as a whole to say that no two persons are capable of keeping the same secret at the same time. That is probably the reason why there is always some rumour of an approaching financial crisis, even while it is very much to the interest of all concerned to preserve a calm exterior. When a great house is about to have trouble, and even in some cases as much as two or three years before the disaster, there is a dull far-off rumble from underground, as though the foundations were trembling. There is a creaking of the timbers, an occasional and as yet unaccountable rattling of the panes, and sometimes a very slight distortion of the lines of the edifice, all proving clearly enough that a crash is at hand. As no one believes in presentiments, divinations or the gift of prophecy in these days, it is safe to assume that some one who knows the history of the thing has betrayed the secret, or has told his wife that there is a secret to be kept. In the matter of secrets there is but one general rule. If you do not wish a fact to be known, tell no one of its existence. Concerning the particular reasons which led Dolly Maylands and Russell Vanbrugh to exchange opinions on the subject of the Darches, it is hardly necessary to speak here. The two were very intimate and had known each other for a long time, and, possibly, there was a tendency in their acquaintance to something more like affection than friendship. The fact that Dolly did not flirt with Vanbrugh in the ordinary acceptation of that word, showed that she might possibly be in love with him. As for Vanbrugh himself, no one knew what he thought and he did not intend that any one should. He had never shown any inclination to be married, though it was said that he, like many others, had been deeply attached to Mrs. Darche in former days; and Dolly, at least, believed that he still loved her friend in his heart, though she had neither the courage nor the bad taste to ask a question to which he might reasonably have refused an answer. The only person in the household who seemed to have neither doubts nor uneasiness was old Simon Darche, and as it was more than likely that his intelligence had begun to fail, his own sense of security was not especially reassuring to others. While Simon Darche was smoking his large mild cigar at the window, and while Dolly and Russell Vanbrugh were strolling by the railings of Gramercy Park, Mrs. Darche was seated before the fire in the library, and another friend of hers, who has a part to play in this little story and who, like Vanbrugh, was a lawyer, was trying to interest her in the details of a celebrated case concerning a will, and was somewhat surprised to find that he could not succeed. Harry Brett stood towards Marion Darche in very much the same friendly relation held by Vanbrugh in Dolly's existence. There was this difference, however, that Brett was well known to have offered himself to Mrs. Darche, who had refused him upon grounds which were not clear to the social public. Brett was certainly not so rich as John, but in all other respects he seemed vastly more desirable as a husband. He was young, fresh, good-looking, good-tempered. He belonged to a good New York family, whereas the Darches were of Canadian origin. He had been quite evidently and apparently very much in love with Marion, whereas John never seemed to have looked upon her as anything but a valuable possession, to be guarded for its intrinsic worth, and to be kept in good order and condition rather than loved and cherished. Every one had said that she should have married Brett, and when she chose John every one said that she had married his money. But then it is impossible to please every one. Brett was certainly not pleased. He had gone abroad and had been absent a long time, just when he should have been working at his profession. It was supposed, not without reason, that he was profoundly disappointed, but nevertheless, when he returned he looked as fresh and cheerful as ever, was kindly received by Mrs. Darche, civilly treated by her husband and forthwith fell into the position of especial friend to the whole family. He had made up his mind to forget all about the past, to see as much of Mrs. Darche as he could without falling in love with her a second time, as he would have called it, and he was doing his best to be happy in his own way. Within the bounds of possibility he had hitherto succeeded, and no one who wished well to him or Mrs. Darche would have desired to doubt the durability of his success. He had created an artificial happiness and spent his life in fostering the idea that it was real. Many a better man has done the same before him and many a worse may try hereafter. But the result always has been the same and in all likelihood always will be. The most refined and perfect artificiality is not nature even to him who most earnestly wishes to believe it is, and the time must inevitably come in all such lives when nature, being confronted with her image, finds it but a caricature and dashes it to pieces in wrath. Brett's existence was indeed much more artificial than that of his old love. He had attempted to create the semblance of a new relation on the dangerous ground whereon an older and a truer one had subsisted. She, on her part, had accepted circumstances as they had formed themselves, and did her best to get what she could out of them without any attempt to deceive herself or others. Fortunately for both she was eminently a good woman, and Brett was a gentleman in heart, as well as in deed. And now before this tale is told, there only remains the thankless task of introducing these last two principal figures in their pen-and-ink effigies. Of Harry Brett almost enough has been said already. His happy vitality would have lent him something of beauty even if he had possessed none at all. But he had a considerable share of good looks, in addition to his height and well-proportioned frame, his bright blue eyes, his fresh complexion, and short, curly brown hair. He too, like Vanbrugh, belonged to the American type, which has regular features, arched eyebrows, and rather deep-set eyes. The lower part of his face was strong, though the whole outline was oval rather than round or square. Rather a conventional hero, perhaps, if he is to be a hero at all, but then, many heroes have been thought to be quite average, ordinary persons, until the knot which heroism cuts was presented to them by fate. Then people discover in them all sorts of outward signs of the inward grace that can hit so very hard. Then the phrenologists descend upon their devoted skulls and discover there the cranial localities of the vast energy, the dauntless courage, the boundless devotion to a cause, the profound logic, by which great events are brought about and directed to the end. Julius Cæsar at the age of thirty was a frivolous dandy, an amateur lawyer, and a dilettante politician, in the eyes of good society in Rome. Harry Brett, however, is not a great hero, even in this fiction--a manly fellow with no faults of any importance and no virtues of any great magnitude, young, healthy, good-looking, courageous, troubled a little with the canker of the untrue ideal which is apt to eat the common sense out of the core of life's tree, mistaken in his attempt to create in himself an artificial satisfaction in the friendship of the woman he had loved and was in danger of loving still, gifted with the clear sight which must sooner or later see through his self-made illusion, and possessed of more than the average share of readiness in speech and action--a contrast, in this respect, to Vanbrugh. The latter, from having too comprehensive a view of things, was often slow in reaching a decision. Brett was more like Mrs. Darche herself in respect of quick judgment and self-reliance at first sight, if such a novel expression is permissible. As Marion sat before the fire apparently studying its condition and meditating a descent upon it, after the manner of her kind, she was not paying much attention to Brett's interesting story about the great lawyer who had drawn up his own will so that hardly a clause of it had turned out to be legal, and Brett himself was more absorbed in watching her than in telling the complicated tale. She was generally admitted to be handsome. Her enemies said that she had green eyes and yellow hair, which was apparently true, but they also said that she dyed the one and improved the other with painting, which was false. Her hair was naturally as fair as yellow gold, of an even colour throughout, and the shadows beneath her eyes and the dark eyebrows, which were sources of so much envy and malice, were natural and not done with little coloured sticks of greasy crayon kept in tubes made to look like silver pencil-cases, and generally concealed beneath the lace of the toilet table or in the toe of a satin slipper. Marion Darche was handsome and looked strong, though there was rarely much colour in her face. She did not flush easily. Women who do, often have an irritable heart, as the doctors call the thing, and though their affections may be stable their circulation is erratic. They suffer agonies of shyness in youth and considerable annoyance in maturer years from the consciousness that the blood is forever surging in their cheeks at the most inopportune moment; and the more they think of it, the more they blush, which does not mend matters and often betrays secrets. Three-fourths of the shyness one sees in the world is the result of an irritable heart. Marion Darche's circulation was normal, and she was not shy. Like many strong persons, she was gentle, naturally cheerful and generally ready to help any one who needed assistance. She had an admirably even temper--a matter, like physical courage, which depends largely upon the action of the heart and the natural quality of the nerves--and under all ordinary circumstances she ate and slept like other people. She did not look at all like Helen or Clytemnestra, and her disposition was not in the least revengeful--a quiet, tall, fair young woman, whose clear eyes looked every one calmly in the face and whose strong white hands touched things delicately but could hold firmly when she chose; carrying herself straight through a crowd, as she bore herself upright through life. Those who knew her face best admired especially her mouth and the small, well-cut, advancing chin, which seemed made to meet difficulties as a swimmer's divides the water. In figure, as in face, too, she was strong, the undulating curves were those of elasticity and energy, rather than of indolence and repose. As Harry Brett talked and watched her he honestly tried not to wish that she might have been his wife, and when his resolution broke down he conscientiously talked on and did his best to interest himself in his own conversation. The effort was familiar to him of old, and had so often ended in failure that he was glad when the distant tinkle of the door bell announced the coming of a third person. John rarely lunched at home and old Mr. Darche was never summoned until the meal was served. Brett broke off in the middle of his story and laughed a little. "I believe you have not understood a word of what I have been telling you," he said. Mrs. Darche looked up suddenly, abandoned the study of the burning logs and leaned back in her chair before she answered. Then she looked at him quietly and smiled, not even attempting to deny the imputation. "It is very rude of me, is it not? You must forgive me, to-day. I am very much preoccupied." "You often are, nowadays," answered Brett, with a short, manlike sigh, which might have passed for a sniff of dissatisfaction. "I know I am. I am sorry." The door opened and Dolly Maylands entered the room, followed closely by Russell Vanbrugh. CHAPTER III. Simon Darche was undoubtedly a bore. Since bores exist and there is no other name for them, the strong word has some right to pass into the English language. The old gentleman belonged to the unconscious and self-complacent variety of the species, which is, on the whole, less unbearable than certain others. Generally speaking, it is true that people who are easily bored are bores themselves, but there are many very genuine and intolerable bores who go through life rejoicing and convinced that their conversation is a blessing and their advice a treasure to those who get it. Bores always have one or two friends. Simon Darche had found one in his daughter-in-law and he availed himself of her friendship to the utmost, so that it was amazing to see how much she could bear, for she was as constantly bored by him as other people, and appeared, indeed, to be his favourite victim. But no one had ever heard her complain. Day after day she listened to his talk, smiled at his old stories, read to him, and seemed rather to seek his society than to avoid it. She was never apparently tired of hearing about John's childhood and youth and she received the old man's often repeated confidences concerning his own life with an ever-renewed expression of sympathy. "I simply could not stand it for a day!" exclaimed Dolly occasionally. "Why, he is worse than my school children!" Miss Maylands could not put the case more strongly. Perhaps no one else could. "I like him," answered Mrs. Darche. "I know he is a bore. But then, I suppose I am a bore myself." "Oh, Marion!" And Dolly laughed. That was generally the end of the conversation. But Dolly, who was by no means altogether frivolous and had a soul, and bestowed now and then considerable attention upon its religious toilet, so to say--Dolly fancied that Papa Darche, as she called him, took the place of a baby in her friend's heart. Rather a permanent and antique baby, Dolly thought, but better than nothing for a woman who felt that she must love and take care of something helpless. She herself did not care for that sort of thing. The maternal instinct developed itself in another direction and she taught children in a kindergarten. The stupid ones tired her, as she expressed it, but then her soul came to the rescue and did its best, which was not bad. Dolly was a good girl, though she had too many "purposes" in life. Not many minutes after she and Vanbrugh had entered the room on the morning described in the previous chapters, luncheon was announced. "Tell Mr. Darche that luncheon is ready, Stubbs," said Marion, and Stubbs, gray-haired, portly, rosy-cheeked and respectful, disappeared to summon the old gentleman. Vanbrugh looked at Brett and both smiled, hardly knowing why. Neither of them had ever lunched at the house without hearing the same order given by the hostess. People often smile foolishly at familiar things, merely because they are familiar. Dolly and Mrs. Darche had sat down together and the two men stood side by side near a table on which a number of reviews and periodicals were neatly arranged in order. Brett idly took up one of them and held it in his hand. "By the bye," he said, "to-day is not Sunday. You are not ill, I hope." "Only lazy," answered Vanbrugh. "So am I," answered Brett after a moment's pause. There they stood in silence, apathetically glancing at the two ladies, at the fire and at the window, as two men who know each other very well are apt to do when they are waiting for luncheon. Brett chanced to look down at the magazine he held in his hand. It was bound in white paper and the back of the cover was occupied by a huge advertisement in large letters. The white margin around it was filled with calculations made in blue and red pencil, with occasional marks in green. Mechanically Brett's eyes followed the calculations. The same figure, a high one, recurred in many places, and any one with a child's knowledge of arithmetic could have seen that there was a constant attempt to make up another sum corresponding to it,--an attempt which seemed always to have failed. Brett remembered that Darche carried a pencil-case with leads of three colours in it, and he tossed the magazine upon the table as though he realised that he had been prying into another person's business. He glanced at Mrs. Darche who was still talking with Dolly, and a moment later he took up the magazine again and cautiously tore off the back of the cover, crumpled it in his hands, approached the fire and tossed it into the flames. Mrs. Darche looked up quickly. "What is that?" she asked. "Oh, nothing," answered Brett, "only a bit of paper." Just then Simon Darche entered the room and all rose to go in to luncheon together. The old gentleman shook hands with Dolly and with both the men, looking keenly into their faces, but mentioning no names. He was cheerful and ruddy, and a stranger might have expected his conversation to be enlivening. In this however, he would have been egregiously disappointed. "What have you been doing this morning?" asked Mrs. Darche turning to him. She had asked the question every day for years, whenever she had lunched at home. "Very busy, very busy," answered Mr. Darche. His hands did not tremble as he unfolded his napkin, but he seemed to bestow an extraordinary amount of attention on the exact position of the glasses before him, pushing them a little forwards and backwards and glancing at them critically until he was quite satisfied. "Busy, of course," he said and looked cheerfully round the table. "There is no real happiness except in hard work. If I could only make you understand that, Marion, you would be much happier. Early to bed and early to rise." "Makes a man stupid and closes his eyes," observed Brett, finishing the proverb in its modern form. "What, what? What doggerel is that?" "Did you never hear that?" asked Dolly, laughing. "It is from an unwritten and unpublished book--modern proverbs." Simon Darche shook his head and smiled feebly. "Dear me, dear me, I thought you were in earnest," he said. "So he is," said Dolly. "We may have to get up at dawn sometimes, but we are far too much in earnest to go to bed early." This was evidently beyond Simon Darche's comprehension and he relapsed into silence and the consumption of oysters. Mrs. Darche glanced reproachfully at Dolly as though to tell her that she should not chaff the old gentleman, and Vanbrugh came to the rescue. "Do you often get up at dawn, Miss Maylands?" he inquired. "Do I look as if I did?" retorted the young lady. "How in the world should I know," asked Vanbrugh. "Do I look as though I associated with people who got up at dawn?" Brett laughed. "It always amuses me to hear you and Vanbrugh talk, Miss Maylands." "Does it, I am so glad," said Dolly. "Yes, you seem perfectly incapable of saying one word to each other without chaffing." Old Mr. Darche had finished his oysters. "Yes--yes," he observed. "A pair of chaffinches." A moment of silence followed this appalling pun. Then Mrs. Darche laughed a little nervously, and Brett, who wished to help her, followed her example. The old gentleman himself seemed delighted with his own wit. "We are beginning well," said Dolly. "Puns and proverbs with the oysters. What shall we get with the fruit?" Vanbrugh was inclined to suggest that the dessert would probably find them in an idiot asylum, but he wisely abstained from words and tried to turn the conversation into a definite channel. "Did you read that book I sent you, Mrs. Darche?" he asked. "Yes," answered the latter, "I began to read it to my father-in-law but he did not care for it, so I am going on with it alone." "What book was that, my dear?" inquired the old gentleman. Mrs. Darche named a recent foreign novel which had been translated. "Oh, that thing!" exclaimed her father-in-law. "Why, it is all about Frenchmen and tea parties! Very dull. Very dull. But then a busy man like myself has very little time for such nonsense. Mr. Trehearne, I suppose I could not give you any idea of the amount of work I have to do." He looked at Vanbrugh as he spoke. "Trehearne?" Brett repeated the name in a low voice, looking at Mrs. Darche. "I know you are one of the busiest men alive," said Vanbrugh quietly and without betraying the slightest astonishment. "I should think so," said Simon Darche, "and I am very glad I am. Nothing keeps a man busy like being successful. And I may fairly say that I have been very successful--thanks to John, well--I suppose I may take a little credit to myself." "Indeed you may," said Mrs. Darche readily. Every one thought it wise and proper to join in a little murmur of approval, but Dolly was curious to see what the old gentleman would say next. She wondered whether his taking Vanbrugh for old Mr. Trehearne, who had been a friend of his youth and who had been dead some years, was the first sign of mental decay. From Mrs. Darche's calm manner she inferred that this was not the first time he had done something of the kind, and her mind went back quickly to her conversation with Vanbrugh that morning in Gramercy Park. Simon Darche was still talking. "The interests of the Company are becoming positively gigantic, and there seems to be no end to the fresh issues that are possible, though none of them have been brought to me to sign yet." Brett looked quickly at Vanbrugh, but the latter was imperturbable. At that moment the door opened and John Darche entered the dining-room. His face was a little paler than usual and he seemed tired. Mrs. Darche looked at him in surprise and her father-in-law smiled as he always did when he saw his son. Every one present said something more or less incomprehensible by way of greeting. The new-comer shook hands with Dolly Maylands, nodded to the rest and sat down in the place which was always reserved for him opposite his wife. "I had nothing particular to do, so I came home to luncheon," he said, by way of explaining his unexpected appearance. "I am so glad." "Nothing particular to do!" exclaimed the old gentleman momentarily surprised into his senses. "Nothing requiring my presence," answered John Darche gravely. "I was down town early this morning and cleared off everything. I shall ride this afternoon." "Quite right, quite right, my boy!" put in Simon Darche. "You should take care of your health. You have been doing too much of late. I suppose," he added, looking about at the others, "that there is not a man alive who has my son's power of work." "You do work dreadfully hard, John," said Mrs. Darche. "But then," said her father-in-law with evident pride, "John leads such a regular life. He does not drink, he does not smoke, he does not sit up late at night--altogether, I must say that he takes better care of himself than I ever did. And that is the reason," continued the old gentleman with increasing animation, "that he has accomplished so much. If some of you young men would follow his example you would do a great deal more in the world. Regular hours, regular meals, no cocktails--oh I daresay if I had never smoked a cigar in my life I should be good for another fifty years. John will live to be a hundred." "Let us hope so," said Vanbrugh blandly. "What is this particular disagreeable thing you have given me to eat?" inquired John looking at his wife. Mrs. Darche looked up in surprise. The remark was quite in keeping with his usual manner, but it was very unlike him to notice anything that was put before him. "I believe it is a shad," she said. "Yes, I suppose it is," answered John. "The thing has bones in it. Give me something else, Stubbs." He got something else to eat and relapsed into silence. The remainder of the luncheon was not gay, for his coming had chilled even Dolly's good spirits. Brett and Vanbrugh did their best to sustain the conversation, but the latter felt more certain than ever that something serious was the matter. Old Simon Darche meandered on, interspersing his praise of his son and his boasts of the prosperity of the Company with stale proverbs and atrocious puns. Almost as soon as the meal was over the few guests departed with that unpleasant sense of unsatisfied moral appetite which people have when they have expected to enjoy being together and have been disappointed. When every one was gone John Darche remained in the drawing-room with his wife. He sat down in his chair like a man over-tired with hard work, and something like a sigh escaped him. Mrs. Darche pushed a small table to his side, laid his papers upon it and sat down opposite him. A long silence followed. From time to time she looked up at her husband as though she expected him to say something, but he did not open his lips, though he often stared at her for several minutes together. His unwinking blue eyes faced the light as he looked at her, and their expression was disagreeable to her, so that she lowered her own rather than encounter it. "Are things growing worse, John?" at last she asked him. "Worse? What do you mean?" "You told me some time ago that you were anxious. I thought that perhaps you might be in some trouble." John did not answer at once but looked at her as though he did not see her, took up a paper and glanced absently over the columns of advertisements. "Oh no," he said at last, as though her question had annoyed him. "There is nothing wrong, nothing whatever." Again a silence followed. Mrs. Darche went to her writing-table and began to write a note. John did not move. "Marion," said he at last, "has any one been talking to you about my affairs?" "No indeed," answered Mrs. Darche in evident surprise at the question, but with such ready frankness that he could not doubt her. "No," he repeated. "I see that no one has. I only asked because people are always so ready to talk about what they cannot understand, and are generally so perfectly certain about what they do not know. I thought Dolly Maylands might have been chattering." "Dolly does not talk about you, John." "Oh! I wonder why not. Does she dislike me especially--I mean more than most people--more than you do, for instance?" "John!" "My dear, do not imagine that it grieves me, though it certainly does not make life more agreeable to be disliked. On the whole, I hardly know which I prefer--my father's perpetual outspoken praise, or your dutiful and wifely hatred." "Why do you talk like that?" Mrs. Darche did not leave her writing-table, but turned in her chair and faced him, still holding her pen. "I fancy there is some truth in what I say," he answered calmly. "Of course you know that you made a mistake when you married me. You were never in love with me--and you did not marry me for my money." He laughed rather harshly. "No, I did not marry you for your money." "Of course not. You have some of your own--enough--" "And to spare, if you needed it, John." "You are very kind, my dear," replied Darche with a scarcely perceptible touch of contempt in his tone. "I shall survive without borrowing money of my wife." "I hope you may never need to borrow of any one," said Marion. She turned to the table again and began arranging a few scattered notes and papers to conceal her annoyance at his tone, hoping that her inoffensive answer might soon have the effect of sending him away, as was usually the case. But Darche was not quite in his ordinary state. He was tired, irritable, and greedy for opposition, as men are whose nerves are overwrought and who do not realise the fact, because they are not used to it, and it is altogether new to them. "I am tired of 'yea, yea.' Change the conversation, please, and say 'nay, nay.' It would make a little variety." "Do you object to my agreeing with you? I am sorry. It is not always easy to guess what you would like. I am quite ready to give up trying, if you say so. We can easily arrange our lives differently, if you prefer it." "How do you mean?" "We might separate, for instance," suggested Mrs. Darche. John was surprised. He had sometimes wondered whether it were not altogether impossible to irritate his wife's calm temper to some open expression of anger. He had almost succeeded, but he by no means liked the form of retort she had chosen. A separation would not have suited him at all, for in his character the love of his possessions was strong, and he looked upon his wife as an important item in the inventory of his personal property. He hesitated a moment before he answered. "Of course we might separate, but I do not intend that we should--if I can help it," he added, as though an afterthought had occurred to him. "You are not doing your best to prevent it," answered Mrs. Darche. "Oh!--what are my sins? Are you jealous? This begins to interest me." "No, I am not jealous, you have never given me any cause to be." "You think that incompatibility of temper would be sufficient ground, then?" "For a temporary separation--yes." "Ah--it is to be only temporary? How good you are!" "It can be permanent, if you like." "I have already told you that I have no idea of separating. I cannot imagine why you go back to it as you do." "You drive me back to it." "You are suddenly developing a temper. This is delightful." Mrs. Darche made no answer, but occupied herself with her papers in silence. She could hardly account for the humour in which she was answering her husband, seeing that for years she had listened to his disagreeable and brutal sayings without retort. It is impossible to foresee the precise moment at which the worm will turn, the beast refuse its load, and the human heart revolt. Sometimes it never comes at all, and then we call the sufferer a coward. After a pause which lasted several minutes, John renewed the attack. "I am sorry you will not quarrel any more, it was so refreshing," he said. "I do not like quarrelling," answered Marion, without looking up. "What good can it do?" "You are always wanting to do good! Life without contrasts is very insipid." Mrs. Darche rose from her seat and came and stood by the fireplace. "John," she said, "something has happened. You are not like yourself. If I can be of any use to you, tell me the truth and I will do all I can. If not, go and ride as you said you would. The fresh air will rest you." "You are a good creature, my dear," said Darche looking at her curiously. "I do not know whether you mean to be flattering, or whether you wish to go on with this idle bickering over words--you know that I do not like to be called a good creature, like the washerwoman or the cook. Yes--I know--I am angry just now. Never mind, my advice is good. Either go out at once, or tell me just what is the matter and let me do the best I can to help you." "There is nothing to tell, my dear." "Then go out, or go and talk to your father--or stay here, and I will go away." "Anything rather than stay together," suggested Darche. "Yes--anything rather than that. I daresay it is my fault, and I am quite willing to bear all the blame, but if we are together in the same room much longer we shall do something which we shall regret--at least I shall. I am sure of it." "That would be very unfortunate," said Darche, rising, with a short laugh. "Our life has been so exceptionally peaceful since we were married!" "I think it has," answered Marion, calmly, "considering your character and mine. On the whole we have kept the peace very well. It has certainly not been what I expected and hoped that it might be, but it has not been so unhappy as that of many people I know. We both made a mistake, perhaps, but others have made worse ones. You ask why I married you. I believe that I loved you. But I might ask you the same question." "You would get very much the same answer." "Oh no--you never loved me. I cannot even say that you have changed much in five years, since our honeymoon. You did not encourage my illusions very long." "No. Why should I?" "I daresay you were right. I daresay that it has been best so. The longer one has loved a thing, the harder it is to part from it. I loved my illusions. As for you--" "As for me, I loved you, as I understand love," said Darche walking up and down the room with his hands in his pockets. "And, what is more, as I understand love, I love you still." "Love cannot be a very serious matter with you, then," answered Marion, turning from him to the fire and pushing back a great log with her foot. "You are mistaken," returned Darche. "Love is a serious matter, but not half so serious as young girls are inclined to believe. Is it not a matter of prime importance to select carefully the woman who is to sit opposite to one at table for a lifetime, and whose voice one must hear every day for forty years or so? Of course it is serious. It is like selecting the president of a company--only that you cannot turn him out and choose another when you are not pleased with him. Love is not a wild, insane longing to be impossibly dramatic at every hour of the day. Love is natural selection. Darwin says so. Now a sensible man of business like me, naturally selects a sensible woman like you to be the mistress of his household. That is all it comes to, in the end. There is no essential difference between a man's feeling for the woman he loves and his feeling for anything else he wants." "And I fill the situation admirably. Is that what you mean?" inquired Marion with some scorn. "If you choose to put it in that way." "And that is what you call being loved?" "Yes--being wanted. It comes to that. All the rest is illusion--dream-stuff, humbug, 'fake' if you do not object to Bowery slang." "Are you going out?" asked Mrs. Darche, losing patience altogether. "No. But I am going upstairs to see the old gentleman. It is almost the same." He went towards the door and his hand was on the handle of the lock when she called him back. "John--" there was hesitation in her voice. "Well? What is the matter?" He came back a few steps and stood near her. "John, did you never care for me in any other way--in any better way--from the heart? You used to say that you did." "Did I? I have forgotten. One always supposes that young girls naturally expect one to talk a lot of nonsense, and that one has no choice unless one does--so one makes the best of it. I remember that it was a bore to make phrases so I probably made them. Anything else you would like to ask?" "No--thanks. I would rather be alone." John Darche left the room and Marion returned to her writing-table as though nothing had been said, intending to write her notes as usual. And indeed, she began, and the pen ran easily across the paper for a few moments. Then on a sudden, her lip quivered, she wrote one more word, the pen fell from her fingers, and bowing her head upon the edge of the table she let the short, sharp sobs break out as they would. She was a very lonely woman on that winter's afternoon, and the tension she had kept on herself had been too great to bear any longer. CHAPTER IV. In spite of her husband's denial, Marion Darche was convinced that he was in difficulties, though she could not understand how such a point could have been reached in the affairs of the Company, which had always been considered so solid, and which had the reputation of being managed so well. It was natural, when matters reached a crisis, that none of her acquaintances should speak to her of her husband's troubles, and many said that Mrs. Darche was a brave woman to face the world as she did when her husband was in all likelihood already ruined and was openly accused on all sides of something very like swindling. But as a matter of fact she was in complete ignorance of all this. John Darche laughed scornfully when she repeated her question, and she had never even thought of asking the old gentleman any questions. She was too proud to speak of her troubles to Vanbrugh or Brett; and Dolly, foreseeing real trouble, thought it best to hide from her friend the fears she entertained. As sometimes happens in such cases, matters had gone very far without Mrs. Darche's knowledge. The Company was in hands of a receiver and an inquiry into the conduct of Simon and John Darche was being pushed forward with the utmost energy by the frightened holders of the bonds and shares, while Marion was dining and dancing through the winter season as usual. The Darches were accused of having issued an enormous amount of stock without proper authority; but there were many who said that Simon Darche was innocent of the trick, and that John had manufactured bogus certificates. Others again maintained that Simon Darche was in his dotage and signed whatever was put before him by his son, without attempting to understand the obligations to which he committed himself. Meanwhile John's position became desperate, though he himself did not believe it to be so utterly hopeless as it really was. Since this is the story of Marion Darche and not of her husband, it is unnecessary to enter into the financial details of the latter's ruin. It is enough to say that for personal ends he had made use of the Company's funds in order to get into his own control a line of railroad by which a large part of the Company's produce was transported, with the intention of subsequently forcing the Company to buy the road of him on his own terms, as soon as he should have disposed by stealth of his interest in the manufacture. Had the scheme succeeded he should have realised a great fortune by the transaction, and it is doubtful whether anything could have been proved against him after the event. Unfortunately for him, he had come into collision with a powerful syndicate of which he had not suspected the existence until he had gone so far that either to go on or to retire must be almost certain ruin and exposure. The existence of this syndicate had dawned upon him on the day described in the preceding chapters, and the state of mind in which he found himself was amply accounted for by the discovery he had made. As time went on during the following weeks, and he became more and more hopelessly involved, his appearance and his manner changed for the worse. He grew haggard and thin, and his short speeches to his wife lacked even that poor element of wit which is brutality's last hold upon good manners. With his father, however, he maintained his usual behaviour, by a desperate effort. He could not afford to allow the whole fabric of the old gentleman's illusions about him to perish, so long as Simon Darche's hand and name could still be useful. It is but just to admit, too, that he felt a sort of cynical, pitying attachment to his father--the affection which a spoiled child bestows upon an over-indulgent parent, which is strongly tinged with the vanity excited by a long course of unstinted and indiscriminating praise. If Marion Darche's own fortune had been invested in the Company of which her husband was treasurer, she must have been made aware of the condition of things long before the final day of reckoning came. But her property had been left her in the form of real estate, and the surplus had been invested in such bonds and mortgages as had been considered absolutely safe by Harry Brett's father, who had originally been her guardian, and, after his death, by Harry Brett himself, who was now her legal adviser, and managed her business for her. The house in Lexington Avenue was her property. After her marriage she had persuaded her husband to live in it rather than in the somewhat pretentious and highly inconvenient mansion erected on Fifth Avenue by Simon Darche in the early days of his great success, which was decorated within, and to some extent without, according to the doubtful taste of the late Mrs. Simon Darche. Vanbrugh compared it to an "inflamed Pullman car." Enough has been said to show how at the time, the Darches were on the verge of utter ruin, and how Marion Darche was financially independent. Meanwhile the old gentleman's mind was failing fast, a fact which was so apparent that Marion was not at all surprised when her husband told her that there was to be a consultation of doctors to inquire into the condition of Simon Darche, with a view to deciding whether he was fit to remain, even nominally, at the head of the Company or not. As a matter of fact, the consultation had become a legal necessity, enforced by the committee that was examining the Company's affairs. John Darche was making a desperate fight of it, sacrificing everything upon which he could lay his hands in order to buy in the fraudulent certificates of stock. He was constantly in want of money, and seized every opportunity of realising a few thousands which presented itself, even descending to gambling in the stock market in the hope of picking up more cash. He was unlucky, of course, and margin after margin disappeared and was swallowed up. From time to time he made something by his speculations--just enough to revive his shrinking hopes, and to whet his eagerness, already sharpened by extremest anxiety. He did not think of escaping from the country, however. In the first place, if he disappeared at this juncture, he must be a beggar or dependent on his wife's charity. Secondly, he could not realise that the end was so near and that the game was played out to the last card. Still he struggled on frantically, hoping for a turn of the market, for a windfall out of the unknown, for a wave of luck, whereby a great sum being suddenly thrown into his hands he should be able to cover up the traces of his misdeeds and begin life afresh. Marion was as brave as ever, but she got even more credit for her courage than she really deserved. She knew at this time that the trouble was great, but she had no idea that it was altogether past mending, and she had not renewed the offer of help she had made to her husband when she had first noticed his distress. In the meantime, she devoted herself to the care of old Simon Darche. She read aloud to him in the morning, though she was quite sure that he rarely followed a single sentence to the end. She drove with him in the afternoon and listened patiently to his rambling comments on men and things. His inability to recognise many of the persons who had been most familiar to him in the earlier part of his life was becoming very apparent, and the constant mistakes he made rendered it advisable to keep him out of intercourse with any but the members of his own family. As has been said, Mrs. Darche had not as yet made any change in her social existence, but Dolly Maylands, who knew more of the true state of affairs than her friend, came to see her every day and grew anxious in the anticipation of the inevitable disaster. Her fresh face grew a little paler and showed traces of nervousness. She felt perhaps as men do who lead a life of constant danger. She slept as well and became almost abnormally active, seizing feverishly upon everything and every subject which could help to occupy her time. "You work too hard, Dolly," said Mrs. Darche one morning as they were seated together in the library. "You will wear yourself out. You have danced all night, and now you mean to spend your day in slaving at your charities." Dolly laughed a little as she went on cutting the pages of the magazine she held. This was a thing Mrs. Darche especially disliked doing, and Dolly had long ago taken upon herself the responsibility of cutting all new books and reviews which entered the house. "Oh I love to burn the candle at both ends," she answered. "No doubt you do, my dear. We have all liked to do that at one time or another. But at this rate you will light your candle in the middle, too." "You cannot light a candle in the middle," said Dolly with great decision. "If anybody could, you could," said Marion, watching her as she had often done of late and wondering if any change had come into the young girl's life. "Seriously, my dear, I am anxious about you. I wish you would take care of yourself, or get married, or something." "If you will tell me what that 'something' is I will get it at once," said Dolly, with a smile that had a tinge of sadness in it. "I ask nothing better." "Oh anything!" exclaimed Mrs. Darche. "Get nervous prostration or anything that is thoroughly fashionable and gives no trouble, and then go somewhere and rest for a month." "My dear child," cried Dolly with a laugh, "I cannot think of being so old-fashioned as to have nervous prostration. Let me see. I might be astigmatic. That seems to be the proper thing nowadays. Then I could wear glasses and look the character of the school-ma'am. Then I could say I could not dance because I could not see, because of course I could not dance in spectacles. But for the matter of that, my dear, you need not lecture me. You are as bad as I am, and much worse--yours is a much harder life than mine." Just as Dolly was about to draw a comparison between her own existence and her friend's, the door opened and Stubbs entered the room bearing a dozen enormous roses, of the kind known as American beauties. Dolly, who had a passion for flowers, sprang up, and seized upon them with an exclamation of delight. "What beauties! What perfect beauties!" she said. "You lucky creature! Who in the world sends you such things?" Mrs. Darche had risen from her seat and had buried her face in the thick blossoms while Dolly held them. "I am sure I do not know," she said. "Oh Marion!" answered Dolly, smiling. "Innocence always was your strong point, and what a strong point it is. I wish people would send me flowers like these." "I have no doubt they do, my dear. Do not pretend they do not. Come and help me arrange them instead of talking nonsense. Even if it were true that my life is harder than yours--I do not know why--you see there are alleviations." Dolly did not answer at once. She was wondering just how much her friend knew of the actual state of things, and she was surprised to feel a little touch of pain when she contrasted the truth, so far as she knew it, with the negatively blissful ignorance in which Mrs. Darche's nearest and best friends were doing their best to keep her. "Of course there are alleviations in your life, just as there are in mine," she said at last, "changes, contrasts and all that sort of thing. My kindergarten alleviates my dancing and my cotillons vary the dulness of my school teaching." She paused and continued to arrange the flowers in silence, looking back now and then and glancing at them. Mrs. Darche did not speak, but watched her idly, taking a certain artistic pleasure in the fitness of the details which made up the little picture before her. "But I would not lead your life for anything in the world," added Dolly at last with great decision. "Oh, nonsense, Dolly!" "Are you happy, Marion?" asked Dolly, suddenly growing very grave. "Happy?" repeated Mrs. Darche, a little surprised by the sudden question. "Yes, why not? What do you mean by happy?" "What everybody means, I suppose." "What is that?" "Why, wanting things and getting them, of course--wanting a ten cent thing a dollar's worth, and having it." "What a definition!" exclaimed Mrs. Darche. "But I really do believe you enjoy your life." "Though it would bore you to extinction." "Possibly. The alternate wild attacks of teaching and flirting to which you are subject would probably not agree with me." "Perhaps you could do either, but not both at the same time." "I suppose I could teach if I knew anything," said Mrs. Darche thoughtfully. "But I do not," she added with conviction. "And I have no doubt you could flirt if you loved anybody. It is a pity you do not." "Oh, my flirting days are over," answered Marion laughing. "You seem to forget that I am married." "Do you not forget it sometimes?" asked Dolly, laughing, but with less genuine mirth. "Do not be silly!" exclaimed Marion with a slight shade of annoyance. She had been helping Dolly with the roses, all of which, with the exception of two, were now arranged in a vase. "These will not go in," she said, holding up the remaining flowers. "You might stick them into that little silver cup." "To represent you--and the other man. A red and a white rose. Is that it?" "Or you and me," suggested Mrs. Darche in perfect innocence. "Why not?" "Tell me," said Dolly, when they had finished, "who is he?" "Why, Russell Vanbrugh, of course." "Oh!" exclaimed Dolly, turning her head away. "Why of course?" "Oh, because--" "Why not Harry Brett?" asked Dolly, with the merciless insistence peculiar to very young people. In all probability, if no interruption had occurred, the conversation of that morning would have taken a more confidential turn than usual, and poor Dolly might then and there have satisfied her curiosity in regard to the relations between Marion and Russell Vanbrugh. It would be more correct, perhaps, to use a word of less definite meaning than relation. Dolly suspected indeed that Vanbrugh loved Mrs. Darche in his own quiet and undemonstrative fashion, and that this was the secret of his celibacy. She believed it possible, too, that her friend might be more deeply attached to Vanbrugh than she was willing to acknowledge even in her own heart. But she was absolutely convinced that whatever the two might feel for one another their feelings would remain for ever a secret. She had gone further than usual in asking Marion whether she were happy, and whether she had not at some time or another almost forgotten that she was married at all. And Marion had not resented the words. Dolly felt that she was on the very point of getting at the truth, and was hoping that she might be left alone half-an-hour longer with her friend, when the door opened and Simon Darche entered the room. At the sight of the two young women his pink silk face lighted up with a bright smile. He rubbed his hands, and the vague expression of his old blue eyes gave place to a look of recognition, imaginary, it is true, but evidently a source of pleasure to himself. "Good morning, my dear," he said briskly, taking Marion's hand in both of his and pressing it affectionately. "Good morning, Mrs. Chilton," he added, smiling at Dolly. "Dolly Maylands," suggested Marion in an undertone. "Dolly? Dolly?" repeated the old man. "Yes, yes--what did you say? What did you say, Marion? Dolly Chilton? Silly child. Dolly Chilton has been dead these twenty years." "What does he mean?" asked Dolly in a whisper. Simon Darche turned upon her rather suddenly. "Oh yes, I remember," he said. "You are the little girl who used to talk about Darwin, and the soul, and monkeys without tails, and steam engines, when you were seven years old. Why, my dear child, I know you very well indeed. How long have you been married?" "I am not married," answered the young girl, suppressing a smile. "Why not?" inquired Mr. Darche with startling directness. "But then--oh, yes! I am very sorry, my dear. I did not mean to allude to it. I went to poor Chilton's funeral." Just then, Stubbs, the butler, entered again, bearing this time a note for Mrs. Darche. While she glanced at the contents he waited near the door in obedience to a gesture from her. Old Mr. Darche immediately went up to him, and with hearty cordiality seized and shook his reluctant hand. "Happy to meet you, old fellow!" he cried. "That is all right. Now just sit down here and we will go through the question in five minutes." "Beg pardon, sir," said the impassive butler. It was not the first time that his master had taken him for an old friend. "Eh, what!" cried Simon Darche. "Calling me 'sir'? Did you come here to quarrel with me, old man? Oh, I see! You are laughing. Well come along. This business will not keep. The ladies will not mind if we go to work, I daresay." And forthwith he dragged Stubbs to a table and forced him into a chair, talking to him all the time. Dolly was startled and grasped Marion's arm. "What is it?" she asked under her breath. "Oh, Marion, what is it? Is he quite mad?" Mrs. Darche answered her only by a warning look, and then, turning away, seemed to hesitate a moment. Stubbs was suffering acutely, submitting to sit on the edge of the chair to which his master had pushed him, merely because no means of escape suggested itself to his mechanical intelligence. "Why can you not sit down comfortably?" asked Mr. Darche, with a show of temper. "You are not in a hurry, I know. Oh I see, you are cold. Well, warm yourself. Cold morning. It will be warm enough in Wall Street to-morrow, if we put this thing through. Now just let me explain the position to you. I tell you we are stronger than anybody thinks. Yes sir. I do not see any limit to what we may do." Marion took a flower from one of the vases and went up to the old gentleman. "Just let me put this rose in your coat, before you go to work." Mr. Darche turned towards her as she spoke, and his attention was diverted. With a serio-comic expression of devout thankfulness, Stubbs rose and noiselessly glided from the room. "Thank you, thank you," said the old gentleman, and as he bent to smell the blossom, his head dropped forward rather helplessly. "I was always fond of flowers." The note which Stubbs had brought conveyed the information that the three doctors who were to examine old Mr. Darche with a view of ascertaining whether he could properly be held responsible for his actions, would come in half an hour. It was now necessary to prepare him for the visit, and Marion had not decided upon any plan. It was evidently out of the question to startle him by letting him suspect the truth, or even by telling him that his visitors belonged to the medical profession. Mrs. Darche wished that she might have the chance of consulting Dolly alone for a moment before the doctors came, but this seemed equally impossible. She silently handed the note to her friend to read and began talking to the old gentleman again. He answered at random almost everything she said. It was clear that he was growing rapidly worse and that his state was changing from day to day. Marion, of course, did not know that the medical examination was to be held by order of the committee conducting the inquiry into the Company's affairs. Her husband had simply told her what she already knew, namely, that his father was no longer able to attend to business and that the fact must be recognised and a new president elected. It would be quite possible, he thought, to leave the old gentleman in the illusion that he still enjoyed his position and exercised his functions. There could be no harm in that. To tell him the truth might inflict such a shock upon his faculties as would hasten their complete collapse, and might even bring about a fatal result. He had impressed upon her the necessity of using the utmost tact on the occasion of the doctors' visit, but had refused to be present himself, arguing, perhaps rightly, that his appearance could be of no use, but that it might, on the contrary, tend to complicate a situation already difficult enough. The only course that suggested itself to Mrs. Darche's imagination, was to represent the three doctors as men of business who came to consult her father-in-law upon an important matter. At the first mention of business, the old gentleman's expression changed and his manner became more animated. "Eh, business?" he cried. "Oh yes. Never refuse to see a man on business. Where are they? Good morning, Mrs. Chilton. I am sorry I cannot stay, but I have some important business to attend to." He insisted upon going to his study immediately in order to be ready to receive his visitors. "Wait for me, Dolly," said Marion, as she followed him. Dolly nodded and sat down in her own place by the fireplace, taking up the magazine she had begun to cut and thoughtfully resuming her occupation. Under ordinary circumstances she would perhaps have gone away to occupy herself during the morning in some of the many matters which made her life so full. But her instinct told her that there was trouble in the air to-day, and that the affairs of the Darches were rapidly coming to a crisis. She liked difficulties, as she liked everything which needed energy and quickness of decision, and her attachment to her friend would alone have kept her on the scene of danger. Marion did not return immediately, and Dolly supposed that she had determined to stay with the old gentleman until the doctors came. It was rather pleasant to sit by the fire and think, and wonder, and fill out the incidents of the drama which seemed about to be enacted in the house. Dolly realised that she was in the midst of exciting events such as she had sometimes read of, but in which she had never expected to play a part. There were all the characters belonging to the situation. There was the beautiful, neglected young wife, the cruel and selfish husband, the broken-down father, the two young men who had formerly loved the heroine, and last, but not least, there was Dolly herself. It was all very interesting and very theatrical, she thought, and she wished that she might watch it or watch the developments in the successive scenes, entirely as a spectator, and without feeling what was really uppermost in her heart--a touch of sincere sympathy for her friend's trouble. Just as she was thinking of all that Marion had to suffer, John Darche, the prime cause and promoter of the trouble, entered the room, pale, nervous, and evidently in the worst of humours. "Oh, are you here, Miss Maylands?" he inquired, discontentedly. Dolly looked up quietly. "Yes. Am I in the way? Marion has just gone with Mr. Darche to his study. This note came a few moments ago and she gave it to me to read. I think you ought to see it." John Darche's brow contracted as he ran his eye over the page. Then he slowly tore the note to shreds and tossed them into the fire. "I do not know why my wife thinks it necessary to take all her friends into the confidences of the family," he said, thrusting his hands into his pockets and going to the window, thereby turning his back upon Dolly. Dolly made no answer to the rude speech, but quietly continued to cut the pages of the magazine, until, seeing that Darche did not move and being herself rather nervous, she broke the silence again. "Am I in the way, Mr. Darche?" "Not at all, not at all," said John, waking, perhaps, to a sense of his rudeness and returning to the fireplace. "On the contrary," he continued, "it is as well that you should be here. There will probably be hysterics during the course of the day, and I have no doubt you know what is the right thing to do under the circumstances. There seems to be a horticultural show here," he added, as he noticed for the first time the vases of flowers on the tables. "They are beautiful roses," answered Dolly in a conciliatory tone. "Yes," said John, drawing in his tin lips. "Beautiful, expensive--and not particularly appropriate to-day. One of my wife's old friends, I suppose. Do you know who sent them?" "Stubbs brought them in, a little while ago," Dolly replied. "I believe there was no note with them." "No note," repeated John, still in a tone of discontent. "It is rude to send flowers without even a card. It is assuming too much intimacy." "Is it?" asked Dolly innocently. "Of course it is," answered John. "Half an hour," he said, after a moment's pause. "Half an hour! How long is it since that note came?" "About twenty minutes I should think." "Doctors are generally punctual," observed Darche. "They will be here in a few minutes." "Shall you be present?" asked Dolly. "Certainly not," John answered with decision. "It would give me very little satisfaction to see my father proved an idiot by three fools." "Fools!" repeated Dolly in surprise. "Yes. All doctors are fools. The old gentleman's head is as clear as mine. What difference does it make if he does not recognise people he only half knows? He understands everything connected with the business, and that is the principal thing. After all, what has he to do? He signs his name to the papers that are put before him. That is all. He could do that if he really had softening of the brain, as they pretend he has. As for electing another president at the present moment it is out of the question." "Yes, so I should suppose," said Dolly. John turned sharply upon her. "So you should suppose? Why should you suppose any such thing?" "I have heard that the Company is in trouble," answered Dolly, calmly. John opened his lips as though he were about to make a sharp answer, but checked himself and turned away. "Yes," he said more quietly, "I suppose that news is public property by this time. There they are," he added, as his ear caught the distant tinkle of the door bell. "Shall I go?" asked Dolly for the third time. "No," answered Darche, "I will go out and meet them. Stay here please. I will send my wife to you presently." CHAPTER V. The verdict of the doctors was a foregone conclusion. The family physician, who was one of the three, the other two being specialists, stayed behind and explained to John Darche the result of the examination. There was no hope of recovery, he said, nor even of improvement. The most that could be done was to give the old gentleman the best of care so long as he remained alive. Little by little his faculties would fail, and in a few years, if he did not die, he would be quite as helpless as a little child. John Darche was not in a state to receive the information with equanimity, though he had expected nothing else and knew that every word the doctor said was true--and more also. He protested, as he had protested to Dolly half an hour earlier, that Mr. Darche was still a serviceable president for the Company, since he could sign his name, no matter whether he understood the value of the signature or not. The doctor, who, like most people, was aware of the investigation then proceeding, shook his head, smiled incredulously, asked after Mrs. Darche and went away, pondering upon the vanity of human affairs and consoling himself for the sins of the world with the wages thereof, most of which ultimately find their way to the doctor's bank-book, be the event life or death. Old Mr. Darche, supremely unconscious of what had taken place, and believing that he had been giving the benefit of his valuable advice to the directors of a western railroad, had lighted one of his very fine cigars and had fallen asleep in his easy chair in his own study before it was half finished. Marion had returned to Dolly in the library and John had sent for his stenographer and had taken possession of the front drawing-room for the morning, on pretence of attending to the business which, in reality, had already been withdrawn from his hands during several weeks. He was in great suspense and anxiety, for it was expected that the work of the investigating committee would end on that afternoon. He knew that in any event he was ruined, and even he felt that it would be humiliating to live on his wife's income. They would go abroad at once, he thought, New York had become hateful to him. He had as yet no apprehension of being deprived of his liberty, even temporarily. Whatever action was taken against him must be of a civil nature, he thought. He did not believe that any judge would issue a warrant for his arrest on such evidence as could have been collected by the committee. Simon Darche was incapable of remembering what he had done even a week previously, and since the doctors declared that his mind was gone, almost anything might be attributed to him--anything, in fact, about which the slightest trace of irregularity could be discovered. John had been cautious enough in his actions when he had been aware that he was violating the law, though he had been utterly reckless when he had appealed to chance in the hope of retrieving his losses, and recovering himself. He believed himself safe, and indulged in speculations about the future as a relief to the excessive anxiety of the moment. Mrs. Darche had some right to know the result of the consultation which had taken place, but her husband either intended to leave her in ignorance or forgot her existence after the doctors had left the house. During some time she remained with Dolly in the library, expecting that John would at least send her some message, if he did not choose to come himself. At last she determined to go to him. "I am very busy now," he said as she entered the room and glanced at the secretary. "Yes," answered Mrs. Darche, "I see, but I must speak to you alone for a minute." "Well--but I wish you would choose some other time." He nodded to the secretary who rose and quietly disappeared. "What is it?" asked Darche, when they were alone. "What did the doctors say?" "Oh, nothing at all. They talked as doctors always do. Keep the patient in good health, plenty of fresh air, food and sleep." He laughed sourly at his own words. "Is that all?" inquired Marion, rather incredulously. "They must have said something else. Why, we can all see that he is not himself. There is something very seriously wrong. I am quite sure that he did not recognise me yesterday." "Not recognise you?" said John with the same disagreeable laugh. "Not recognise you? Do not be silly. He talks of nobody else. I tell you there is nothing in the world the matter with him, he is good for another twenty years." "Thank heaven for that--for the twenty years of life, whether with all his faculties or not--" "Yes, by all means let us return thanks. At the present rate of interest on his life that means at least two millions." "It hurts me to hear you talk like that about your father," said Marion, sitting down and watching her husband as he walked slowly up and down before her. "Does it? That is interesting. I wonder why you are hurt because he is likely to live twenty years. You are not very likely to be hurt by his death." "Did I ever suggest such a thing?" "No, it suggested itself." At this speech Mrs. Darche rose. Standing quite still for a moment, she looked quietly into his uncertain eyes. He was evidently in the worst of humours, and quite unable to control himself, even had he wished to do so. She felt that it would be safer to leave him, for her own temper was overwrought and ready to break out. She turned towards the door. Then he called her back. "I say, Marion!" "Well." "What are you making such a fuss about?" "Have I said anything?" "No, not much, but you have a particularly uncomfortable way of letting one see what you would like to say." "Is that why you called me back?" asked Mrs. Darche on the point of turning away again. "I suppose so. It certainly was not for the pleasure of prolonging this delightful interview." Once more she moved in the direction of the door. Then something seemed to tighten about her heart, something long forgotten, and which, if she tried to understand it at all, she thought was pity. It was nothing--only a dead love turning in its grave. But it hurt her, and she stopped and looked back. John Darche was leaning against the high mantlepiece, shading his eyes from the fire with his small, pointed white hand. She came and stood beside him. "John," she said gently, "I want to speak to you seriously. I am very sorry if I was hasty just now. Please forget it." Darche looked up, pulled out his watch and glanced at it, and then looked at her again before he answered. His eyes were hard and dull. "I think I said that I was rather busy this morning," he answered slowly. "Yes, I know," answered Marion, in her sweet, low voice. "But I will not keep you long. I must speak. John, is this state of things to go on for ever?" "I fancy not. The death of one of us is likely to put a stop to it before eternity sets in," he answered with some scorn. "We can stop it now if we will but try," said Marion, laying her hand entreatingly upon his arm. "Oh yes, no doubt," observed John coldly. "Let me speak, please, this once," said Mrs. Darche. "I know that you are worried and harassed about business, and you know that I want to spare you all I can, and would help you if I could." "I doubt whether your help would be conducive to the interests of the Company," observed Darche. "No--I know that I cannot help you in that way. But if you would only let me, in other ways, I could make it so much easier for you." "Could you?" asked John, turning upon her immediately. "Then just lend me a hundred thousand dollars." Mrs. Darche started a little at the words. As has been said, she was really quite in ignorance of what was taking place and had no idea that her husband could be in need of what in comparison with the means of the Company seemed but a small sum in cash. "Do you need money, John?" she asked, looking at him anxiously. "Oh no, I was only putting an imaginary case." "I wish it were not merely imaginary--" "Do you?" he asked, interrupting her quickly. "That is kind." Marion seemed about to lose her temper at last, though she meant to control herself. "John!" she exclaimed, in a tone of reproach, "why will you so misunderstand me?" "It is you who misunderstand everything." "I mean it quite seriously," she answered. "You know if you were really in trouble for a sum like that, I could help you. Not that you ever could be. I was only thinking--wishing that in some way or other I might be of use. If I could help you in anything, no matter how insignificant, it would bring us together." John smiled incredulously. "Oh!" he exclaimed, "is that what you are driving at? Do you not think life is very bearable as we are?" By this time Marion had completely regained her self-possession. She was determined not to be repulsed, but there was a little bitterness in her voice as she spoke. "No, frankly, John, as we are living now, life is not very bearable. I cannot exchange half a dozen words with you without quarrelling, and it is not my fault, John, it is not my fault! Could you not sometimes make it a little easier for me?" "By borrowing a hundred thousand dollars?" A pause followed John's answer, and he walked as far as the window, came back again and stopped. "If you think it would be conducive to our conjugal happiness that I should owe you a hundred thousand dollars, by all means lend it to me. I will give you very good security and pay you the current rate of interest." Mrs. Darche hesitated a moment before she spoke again. She was not quite sure that he was in earnest, and being determined to make the utmost use of the opportunity she had created, she dreaded lest if she pressed her offer upon him he should suddenly turn upon her with a brutal laugh. "Do you really mean it, John?" she asked at last. "Will it help you at all?" "Oh, if you insist upon it and think it will promote your happiness, I have no objection to taking it," said Darche coolly. "As a matter of fact it would be a convenience to-day, and it might help me to-morrow. It will certainly not be of any importance next week." "I do not know whether you are in earnest or not, but I am." Once more she paused. She realised that he was in need of a great deal of money, and that his scornful acceptance of her offer was really his way of expressing real interest. "You shall have it as soon as I can get it for you. If you really need it I shall be very glad. If you are only laughing at me--well, I can bear that too." "No," answered John, speaking much more seriously than hitherto. "It is a simple matter, of course--but it is quite true that it would be a convenience to me to have a hundred thousand dollars in cash during the next twenty-four hours, and after all, it will not make any difference to you, as so much of your property is in bonds. All you need to do is to borrow the money on call and give the bonds as collateral." "I do not understand those things, of course," said Marion in a tone of grief, "but I suppose it can be managed easily enough, and I shall be so proud if I am able to help you a little. Oh, John," she added, after a little pause, "if we could only be as we used to be, everything to each other." "I wish we could," John answered with real or assumed gravity. "But in this existence, there is everything to separate us and hardly anything to bring us together. You see, I am worried all day long, I never get any rest and then I lose my temper about everything. I know it is wrong but I cannot help it, and you must try to be as patient as you can, my dear." "I do try, John, I do try, do I not? Say that you know I do." For a moment she thought she had produced an impression upon him, and a vision of a happier and more peaceful life rose suddenly before her ready imagination. But the tone in which he spoke the next words dispelled any such illusion. "Oh yes," he said dryly, "I know you do, of course. You are awfully good--and I am awfully bad. I will reform as soon as I have time. And now, if you do not mind, I will go and attend to my letters." "And I will see about getting the money at once," she said, bravely hiding her disappointment at his change of tone. "I may be able to have it by this evening." "Oh yes," he answered with some eagerness, "if you are quick about it. Well good-bye, and I am really much more grateful than I seem." His dry unpleasant laugh was the last sound she heard as she left the room. After all, it seemed perfectly useless, though she did her best all day and every day. Marion Darche left her husband more than ever convinced of the hopelessness of any attempt at a happier and more united existence. Faithful, brave, loving, a woman of heart rather than head, she encountered in every such effort the blank wall of a windowless nature, so to say--the dull opposition of a heartless intelligence incapable of understanding any natural impulse except that of self-preservation, and responding to no touch of sympathy or love. Against her will, she wondered why she had married him, and tried to recall the time when his obstinacy had seemed strength, his dulness gravity, his brutality keenness. But no inner conjuring with self could give an instant's life to the dead illusion. The nearest approach to any real resurrection which she had felt for years had been the little pang that had overtaken her when she had turned to leave him and had thought for one moment that he might be suffering, as she was apt to suffer--this being, whom she had once misunderstood and loved, whom she loved not at all now, but to whom she had been lovelessly faithful in word and thought and deed for years past. Yet she knew that others had loved her well, most of all Harry Brett, and girl-like, groping for her heart's half-grown truth she had once believed that she loved him too, with his boyish, careless ways, his thoughtless talk and his love of happiness for its own sake. He had disappointed her in some little way, being over-light of leaf and flower, though the stem was good to the core; she had looked for strength on the surface as a child breaks a twig and laughs at the oak for its weakness; she had expected, perhaps, to be led and ruled by a hand that would be tender and obedient only for her, and she had turned from Harry Brett to John Darche as from a delusion to a fact, from a dream to the strong truth of waking--very bitter waking in the end. But though she had wrecked heart and happiness, and had suffered that cold and hunger of the soul which the body can never feel, she would not change her course nor give up the dream of hope. Worse than what had been, could not be to come, she said to herself, realising how little difference financial ruin, even to herself, could make now. As she took up her pen to write a word to Brett, begging him to come to her without delay, she paused a moment, thinking how strange it was that in an extremity she should be obliged to send for him, who had loved her, to help her to save her husband, if salvation were possible. She even felt a little warmth about her heart, knowing how quickly Harry would come, and she was glad that she had known how to turn a boy's romantic attachment into a man's solid friendship. Brett would not disappoint her. She sent Dolly away, and Dolly, obedient, docile and long-suffering for her friend's sake, kissed her on both pale cheeks and left her, tripping down the brown steps with a light gait and a heavy heart. CHAPTER VI. Marion had sent a messenger down town after Brett, and the latter did not lose a moment in answering the note in person. He was a little pale as he entered. "What is it?" he asked, almost before he had shaken hands. "It is kind of you to come at once," answered Marion. "I asked you to come about a matter of business. Sit down. I will explain." "Can I be of any use?" "Yes, I want some money, a great deal of money, in fact, and I want it immediately." "Are you going to buy a house?" he inquired in some surprise. "How much do you want?" "A hundred thousand dollars." Brett did not answer at once. He looked at her rather anxiously, then stared at the fire, then looked at her again. "It is rather short notice for such an amount. But you have nearly as much as that in bonds and mortgages." "Yes, I know." "Well then, there need not be any difficulty. What you have in bonds you have already, to all intents and purposes. Do I understand that you want this money in cash?" "Yes," answered Mrs. Darche with decision, "in cash." "I suppose a cheque will do as well?" suggested Brett with a smile. "A cheque?" She repeated the word and seemed to hesitate. "I should have to write my name on it, should I not?" "Yes." During the pause which followed, Marion seemed to be reviewing the aspects of the transaction. "The name of the person to whom I give it?" she asked at last, and she seemed to avoid his glance. "Yes," answered Brett, surprised at the inexperience betrayed by the question, "unless you cashed it yourself and took the money in notes." "No," said Mrs. Darche, as firmly as before. "I want the notes here, please. What I want you to do, is to take enough bonds and get the money for me. I do not care to know anything else about it, because I shall not understand." "I suppose I ought not to be inquisitive, my dear friend," replied Brett after a little hesitation, "but I ought to tell you what you do not seem to realise, that a hundred thousand dollars is a great deal of money and that you ought not to keep such a sum in the house." "I do not mean to keep it in the house. It is to be taken away immediately." "I see." He concluded that the money was to be taken from the house by John Darche, and he determined to prevent such a result if possible. "May I ask one question?" he inquired. "I will not promise to answer it." She still looked away from him. "I hope you will. Do you mean to lend this money to some one? If it were an ordinary payment you would certainly not want it in notes in the house." "How do you know?" asked Marion with some impatience. "Because no human man of business with whom I have ever had anything to do likes to trot about town with a hundred thousand dollars' worth of notes in his pocket. And there is very little doubt in my mind about what you mean to do with the money. You mean to give it to your husband. Am I right?" Mrs. Darche blushed a little and a shade of annoyance crossed her face. "Why should I tell you what I am to do with it?" she asked. "Because I am your legal adviser," answered Brett without hesitating, "and I may give you some good advice." "Thank you, I do not want any advice." Another pause followed this declaration, which only seemed to confirm the lawyer in his surmises. "I will call it by another name," he said at last in a conciliatory tone. "I will call it information. But it is information of a kind that you do not expect. I should certainly not have said anything about it if you had not sent for me on this business. Is it of any use to beg you to reconsider the question of lending this money?" "No, I have made up my mind." "To lend it to your husband?" "Dear Mr. Brett," said Marion, beginning to be impatient again, "I said that I would rather not tell you." "I fancy that I am not mistaken," Brett answered. "Now my dear friend, you will be the last to know what every one has known for some time, but it is time that you should know it. The affairs of the Company are in a very bad state, so bad indeed, that an inquiry has been going on into the management. I do not know the result of it yet, but I am very much afraid that it will be bad, and that it will have very disagreeable consequences for you all." "Consequences?" repeated Mrs. Darche. "What consequences? Do you mean that we shall lose money?" "I mean that and I mean something more. It is very serious. Your husband is deeply involved, and his father's name is so closely associated with his in all the transactions that it seems almost impossible to say which of the two is innocent." "Innocent!" cried Marion, laying her hand suddenly upon the arm of her chair and starting forward, then rising quickly to her feet and looking down at him. "What do you mean? Why do you use that word?" The expression had hardly escaped Brett's lips when he realised the extent of his carelessness. He rose and stood beside her, feeling, as a man does, that she had him at a disadvantage while he was seated and she was standing. "I beg your pardon," he said, "I should have been more careful. I should have said which of the two is responsible for--" "Something disgraceful?" interrupted Mrs. Darche whose excitement was only increased by his hesitation. "For heaven's sake, do not keep me in this suspense. Speak! Tell me! Be quick!" "I should not have spoken at all except as your adviser," said Brett. "Nothing definite is known yet, but something is wrong. As a purely business transaction it is madness to lend money to John Darche. Can you believe for a moment that the treasurer of such a Company, that the men who control such a Company, would ask you to lend them a hundred thousand dollars at a few hours' notice, if they were not on the very verge of ruin?" "No, but that is not what happened." She stopped short and moved away from him a little, hesitating as to what she should say next. It was impossible to describe to him the scene which had taken place between her and her husband. "I cannot tell you, and yet I want you to know," she said, at last. "Do you not trust me?" said Brett, hoping to encourage her. "Certainly. Trust you! Oh yes, I trust you with all my heart." She turned and faced him again. "Then tell me," said he. "Tell me what happened in as few words as possible. Just the bare facts." "It is the bare facts that are so hard to tell." She turned away from him again feeling that if she allowed her eyes to meet his she could not long withhold her confidence. "I suppose your husband let you guess that there was trouble, so that you made the offer spontaneously, and then he accepted it." "Well--yes--no--almost." Still she hesitated, standing by the writing-table, and idly turning over the papers. "I saw that he was worried and harassed and that something was wearing upon him, and I did so want to help him! I thought it might--no I will not say that." "But it will not help matters to throw good money after bad," answered Brett thoughtfully. "Believe me, there is no more chance of saving this money you mean to give him, than all the other millions that have gone through his hands--gone heaven knows where." "Millions?" There was surprise in her tone. "I am afraid so," answered Brett, as though he had no reason in making any correction in his estimate. "You must tell me all you can, all you know," said Marion, turning to him again. "That would be a long affair," said Brett, "though I know a great deal about it. But I do not know all, though the situation is simple enough and bad enough. In spite of the large earnings of the Company, the finances are in a rotten state and it is said that there are large sums not accounted for. An inquiry has been going on for some time, and was, I believe, closed last night, but the result will not be known until this afternoon." "What sort of an inquiry?" asked Mrs. Darche, anxiously. "The regular examination of the books and of all the details which have gone through the hands of your father-in-law and your husband." "My father-in-law! Do you mean to say that they are trying to implicate the old gentleman too?" Marion's face expressed the utmost concern. "As president of the Company, he cannot fail to be implicated." "But he is no more responsible for what he does than a child!" cried Mrs. Darche, in a tone of protestation. "I know that, but he is nominally at the head of the administration. That is all you need know. The rest is merely a mass of figures with an account of tricks and manipulations which you could not understand." "And what would happen if--if--" She leaned towards him unconsciously, watching his lips to catch the answer. "I suppose that if the inquiry goes against them, legal steps will be taken," said Brett. "Legal steps? What legal steps?" Brett hesitated, asking himself whether he should be justified in telling her what he expected as well as what he knew. "Well--" he continued at last, "you know in such cases the injured parties appeal to the law. But it is of no use to talk about that until you know the result of the inquiry." "Do you mean, do you really mean that John may be arrested?" asked Mrs. Darche, turning pale. "At any moment." Brett answered in a low voice. Almost as soon as he had spoken he left her side and crossed the room as though not wishing to be a witness to the effect the news must have upon her. Before his back was turned she sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands. A long pause followed. Marion was the first to speak. "Mr. Brett--" she said, and stopped. "Yes." He came back to her side at once. "Can you not help me?" she asked earnestly. "How can I?" "Is there nothing, nothing that can be done?" "The whole matter is already beyond my power, or yours, or any one's." Marion looked steadily at him for several seconds and then turned her face away, leaning against the mantelpiece. "I am sure something can be done." "No, nothing can be done." He did not move, and spoke in a tone of the utmost decision. "That is not true," said Marion turning upon him suddenly. "Money can help him, and we are wasting time. Do not lose a moment! Take all I have in the world and turn it into money and take it to him. Go! Do not lose a moment! Go! Why do you wait? Why do you look at me so?" "It would not be a drop in the bucket," answered Brett, still not moving. "All I have!" "All you have." "That is impossible," cried Mrs. Darche, incredulously. "I am not enormously rich, but it is something. It is between four and five hundred thousand dollars. Is it not? I have heard you say so." "Something like that," assented Brett, as though the statement did not alter the case. Mrs. Darche came close to him, laid her hand upon his arm and gently pushed him, as though urging him to leave her. "Go! I say," she cried. "Take it. Do as I tell you. There may be time yet. It may save them." But Brett did not move. "It is utterly useless," he said stolidly. "It is merely throwing money out of the window. Millions could not stop the inquiry now, nor prevent the law from taking its course if it is appealed to." "You will not do it?" asked Marion with something almost like a menace in her voice. "No, I will not," said Brett, more warmly. "I will not let you ruin yourself for nothing." "Are you really my friend?" She drew back a little and looked at him earnestly. "Your friend? Yes--and more--more than that, far more than you can dream of." "Will you refuse, do you refuse, to do this for me?" "Yes, I refuse." "Then I will do it for myself," she said with a change of tone as though she had suddenly come to a decision. "I will let my husband do it for me. You cannot refuse to give me what is mine, what you have in your keeping." But Brett drew back and folded his arms. "I can refuse and I do refuse," he said. "But you cannot! You have no right." Her voice was almost breaking. "That makes no difference," Brett answered firmly. "I have the power. I refuse to give you anything. You can bring an action against me for robbing you, and you will win your case, but by that time it will be too late. You may borrow money on your mere name, but your securities and title-deeds are in my safe, and there they shall stay." Marion looked at him one moment longer and then sank back into her seat. "You are cruel and unkind," she said in broken tones. "Oh, what shall I do?" Brett hesitated, not knowing exactly what to do, and not finding anything especial to say. It is generally the privilege of man to be the bearer of whatever bad news is in store for woman, but as yet no hard and fast rule of conduct has been laid down for the unfortunate messenger's action under the circumstances. Being at a loss for words with which to console the woman he loved for the pain he had unwillingly given her, Brett sat down opposite her and tried to take her hand. She drew it away hastily. "No, go away," she said almost under her breath. "Leave me alone. I thought you were my friend." "Indeed I am," protested Brett in a soothing tone. "Indeed you are not." Marion sat up suddenly and drew back to her end of the sofa. "Do you call this friendship?" she asked almost bitterly. "To refuse to help me at such a moment. Do you not see how I am suffering? Do you not see what is at stake? My husband's reputation, his father's name, good name, life perhaps--the shock of a disgrace would kill him--and for me, everything! And you sit there and refuse to lift a finger to help me--oh, it is too much! Indeed it is more than I can bear!" "Of course you cannot understand it all now," said Brett, very much distressed. "You cannot see that I am right, but you will see it soon, too soon. You cannot save him. Why should you ruin yourself?" "Why?" "Is there some other reason," asked Brett, quickly. "Something that I do not know?" "All the reasons," she exclaimed passionately, "all the reasons there ever were." "Do you love him still?" asked Brett, scarcely knowing what he was saying. Marion drew still further back from him and spoke in an altered tone. "Mr. Brett, you have no right to ask me such a question." "No right? I? No, perhaps I have no right. But I take the right whether it is mine or not. Because I love you still, as I have always loved you, because there is nothing in heaven or earth I would not do for you, because if you asked me for all I possessed at this moment, you should have it, to do what you like with it--though you shall have nothing of what is yours--because, to save you the least pain, I would take John Darche's place and go to prison and be called a rascal and a thief before all the world, for your sake, for your dear sake, Marion. I love you. You know that I love you. Right or wrong--but it is right and not wrong! There is not a man in the world who would do for any woman the least of the things I would do for you." Again he tried to take her hand, though she resisted and snatched it from him after a little struggle. "Leave me! leave me!" she cried despairingly. "Let me go!" "Not until you know, not until you understand that every word I say means ten thousand times more than it ever meant to any one, not until you know that I love you through and through with every part of me, with every thought and action of my life. Look at me! Look into my eyes! Do you not see it there, the truth, the devotion? No? Is it so long since I loved you and you said--you thought--you believed for one little day that you loved me? Can you not remember it? Can you not remember even the sound of the words? They were so sweet to hear! They are so very sweet as they come back now--with all they mean now--but could not mean then!" "Harry!" She could not resist pronouncing his name that once. "I knew it! You loved me then. You love me now. What is the use of fighting against it, when we love each other so? Marion! Love! Ah God! At last!" "Go!" With a quick movement she sprang to her feet and stood back from him. "Marion!" But in a moment it was past. With a gesture she kept him at arm's length. "Is that your friendship?" she asked reproachfully. "No, it is love," he answered almost roughly. "There is no friendship in it." "And you talk of helping me!" she cried. "And at such a time as this, when I am weak, unstrung, you force it all upon me, and drag out what I have hidden so long. No, no! You do not love me. Go!" "Not love you!" Again he tried to get near her. "God in heaven! Do not hurt me so!" "No," she answered, still thrusting him back. "If you loved me you would help me, you would respect me, you would honour me, you would not try to drag me down." "Drag you down! Ah, Marion!" He spoke very unsteadily, then turning his face from her he leaned upon the mantelpiece and watched the fire. A long pause followed. After awhile he looked up again and their eyes met. "Harry!" said Mrs. Darche quietly. "Yes," he answered. "Come and sit beside me on that chair." Brett obeyed. "We must forget this morning," said Marion in her natural tone of voice. "We must say to ourselves that all this has never happened and we must believe it. Will you?" "You ask too much," answered Brett looking away. "I cannot forget that I have said it--at last, after all these years." "You must forget it. You must--must--for my sake." "For your sake?" Still he looked away from her. "Yes, for my sake," she repeated. "If you cannot forget, I can never look any one in the face again. Look at me, please," she said, laying her hand upon his arm. "Look into my eyes and tell me that you will not remember." "For your sake I will try not to remember," he said slowly. "But I cannot promise yet," he added with sudden passion. "Oh no!" "You will do your best. I know you will," said Marion, in a tone that was meant to express conviction. "Now go. And remember that I have forgotten." "You are very kind," Brett answered with more humility than she had expected. "You are very good to me. I was mad for a moment. Forgive me. Try to forgive me." "There is nothing to forgive, for I remember nothing," said Marion with a faint smile. "Good-bye, then." He turned to go. "Good-bye," she answered quite naturally. "Now come back, please," she said, when he had almost reached the door. "You are Mr. Brett now, and I am Mrs. Darche. I am in great trouble and you are my friend, and you must help me as well as you can." "In any way I can," he answered, coming back to her. "But I will help only you, I will not help any one else." "Not even old Mr. Darche?" "Yes, I do not mean to except him." "That is right. And we must act quickly. We must decide what is to be done. We have," she hesitated, "we have lost time--at any moment it may be too late." "It is too late now," Brett answered in a sudden change of tone, as Stubbs the butler suddenly entered the room. "Please madam," said Stubbs, who was pale and evidently very much disturbed, "there are some strange gentlemen to see Mr. John Darche, and when I told them that he was out, they said they would see old Mr. Darche, and I said that old Mr. Darche was ill and could see no one, and they said they must see him; and they are coming upstairs without leave, and here they are, madam, and I cannot keep them out!" CHAPTER VII. Bail was refused, and John Darche remained in prison during the weeks that intervened between his arrest and his trial. He was charged with making use of large sums, the property of the Company, for which he was unable to account, with fraudulently tampering with the books and with attempting to issue certificates of stock to a very large amount, bearing forged signatures. The house in Lexington Avenue was very gloomy and silent. Simon Darche, who was of course in ignorance of what had taken place, had caught cold and was confined to his bed. It was said that he was breaking down at last, and that his heart was affected. Dolly Maylands came daily and spent long hours with her friend, but not even her bright face could bring light into the house. Russell Vanbrugh and Harry Brett also came almost every day. Vanbrugh had undertaken Darche's defence, out of friendship for Marion, and it was natural that he should come. As for Brett, he could not stay away, and as Mrs. Darche seemed to have forgiven and forgotten his passionate outbreak and did not bid him discontinue his visits, he saw no reason for doing so on any other ground. He was, on the whole, a very loyal-hearted man, and was very much ashamed of having seemed to take advantage of Marion's distress, to speak as he had spoken. But he was neither over-sensitive nor in any way morbid. Seeing that she intended to forgive him, he did not distress himself with self-accusations nor doubt that her forgiveness was sincere and complete. Besides, her present distress was so great that he felt instinctively her total forgetfulness of smaller matters, and even went so far as to believe himself forgotten. Meanwhile he watched every opportunity of helping Marion, and would have been ready at a moment's notice to do anything whatever which could have alleviated her suffering in the slightest degree. Nevertheless, he congratulated himself that he was not a criminal lawyer, like Vanbrugh, and that it had not fallen to his share to defend John Darche, thief swindler, and forger. He would have done that, and more also, as Vanbrugh was doing, for Marion's sake, no doubt, but he was very glad that it could not be asked of him. It was bad enough that he should be put into the witness-box to state on his oath such facts as he could remember to Darche's advantage, and to be cross-examined and re-examined, and forced through the endless phases of torture to which witnesses are usually subjected. He was able, at least, to establish the fact that not the smallest sum had ever, so far as he knew, passed from the hands of John Darche to his wife's credit. On being asked why, as Mrs. Darche's man of business, he had not invested any of her money in the Company, he replied that his father had managed the estate before him, and that his father's prejudices and his own were wholly in favour of investment in real estate, bonds of long-established railways and first mortgages, and that Mrs. Darche had left her affairs entirely in his hands. Marion herself gave her evidence bravely and truthfully, doing her best to speak to her husband's advantage. Her appearance and manner excited universal sympathy, to use the language of the reports of the case, but what she said did not tend in any way to exculpate John Darche. On the contrary, society learned for the first time from her lips that she had led a most unhappy life. She suffered acutely under the cross-examination. Being excessively truthful, she gave her answers without the slightest distortion of fact, while doing her best to pass over altogether any statement which could injure her husband's defence. As often happens, what she omitted to say told most heavily against him, while the little she was forced to admit concerning his father's condition amply corroborated the medical opinion of the latter's state, and proved beyond a doubt that he had been during more than a year a mere instrument in his son's hands. He, at least, was wholly innocent, and would be suffered to spend his few remaining years in the dreams of a peaceful dotage. The court, to use the current phrase, showed Marion every consideration. That is, she was tacitly admitted from the first to have had no connection whatever with the crime of which her husband was accused. To the last, she intended to be present when the judge summed up the case, in order to help John to the end by seeming to believe in his innocence. On that very day, however, Simon Darche was so far recovered as to be able to leave his room for the first time, and her presence at his side seemed absolutely necessary. It was most important that all knowledge of what was happening should be kept from him. He was quite capable of leaving the house if left to himself, and he would certainly not have submitted to any suggestion to the contrary offered by Stubbs. He might stroll into a club or into the house of some old friend, and some one would be sure to offer him the tactless sympathy which goes about to betray secrets. Moreover, he had been told, in explanation of John's protracted absence, that the latter had been obliged to go away on business, and he had enough memory and power of reasoning left to be surprised at receiving no letters. He was sure to make inquiries about John, if left to his own devices. Marion could not leave him. In the midst of her extreme anxiety she was obliged to pass the greater part of the day in reading to him, and in trying to divert his mind from the thought of John and his absence. His love and mistaken admiration for his son had been the strongest feelings in his life and continued to the end. Dolly Maylands would have been faithful to Marion under any imaginable consequences, with that whole-souled belief and trust which is girlhood's greatest charm. On the last day of the trial she came in the morning and did not leave the house again. Brett appeared at intervals and told Dolly how matters were going. He was not a man like Vanbrugh, of very varied acquaintances and wide experience, but in certain quarters he had great influence, and on Marion's behalf he exerted it to the utmost on the present occasion. Foreseeing that the verdict must inevitably be unfavourable, and knowing of Simon Darche's great anxiety about his son's absence, Brett succeeded in obtaining an order to bring John Darche to see his father before he should be taken back to prison after the conclusion of the trial. It was agreed that the police officers should appear dressed as civilians, and should be introduced with John to the old man's presence as men of business accompanying his son. John would then have the opportunity of quieting his father's apprehensions in regard to his future absence, and he could take leave of his wife if he wished to do so, though of course he would not be allowed to be even a moment out of his guardians' sight. The order was ostensibly granted in consideration of Simon Darche's mental infirmity, and of the danger to his health which any shock must cause, and which already existed in the shape of acute anxiety. In reality, the favour was granted as a personal one to Brett. When everything was arranged, he returned to Lexington Avenue. He found Dolly alone in the library and told her what he had done. It was very quiet in the room, and the dusk was stealing away the last glow of the sunset that hung over the trees and houses of Gramercy Park. Dolly sat near the window, looking out, her hands clasped upon one knee, her fair young face very grave and sad. Brett paced the floor nervously. "How kind you are!" Dolly exclaimed. "Kind?" repeated the young man, almost indignantly, and stopping in his walk as he spoke. "Who would not do as much if he could?" "Lots of people." "Not of her friends--not of those who know her. It is little enough that I can do for any of them. Vanbrugh has done more than I--can do much more." "What a fight he has made!" The ready enthusiasm rang in the girl's clear voice. Then her tone changed she continued. "Yes," she said thoughtfully, "Marion is lucky to have such friends as you and Russell Vanbrugh." "And you yourself, Miss Maylands." "I? Oh, I do not count. What can a woman do on days like these? I can only stay here and try to make her feel that I am a comfortable pillow for her to lay her head upon, when she is entirely worn out. Poor Marion! She is the bravest woman I ever knew. But then--" She stopped, hesitating, and Brett, who was almost too much excited to follow all the words she spoke, was suddenly aware that she had not finished the sentence. "What were you going to say?" he asked, struggling desperately to remember what she had said already. "I hardly ought--I suppose," objected Dolly. "But then--what can it matter? He is sure to be found guilty, is he not?" "Quite sure," Brett answered slowly. "Well then--Marion must feel that when this last agony is over she will have much more peace in her life than she has enjoyed for a long time. I wonder whether it is very wrong to say such things." "Wrong? Why? We all think them, I am sure. At least, you and Vanbrugh and I do. As for society, I do not know what it thinks. I have not had time to ask, nor time to care, for that matter." "I suppose everybody sympathises with Marion as we do." "Oh, of course. Do you know? I believe she will be more popular than before. Everything that has come out in this abominable trial has been in her favour. People realise what a life she has been living during all these years--without a complaint. Wonderful woman! That brute Darche! I wish he were to be hanged instead of sent to the Penitentiary!" "He deserves it," answered Dolly with the utmost conviction. "I suppose Marion will get a divorce." Again Brett stopped short in his walk and looked at her keenly. The idea had doubtless passed through his own mind, but he had not heard any one else express it as yet. "After all," he said slowly, "there is no reason why she should not." Then he suddenly relapsed into silence and resumed his walk. "And then I suppose," said Dolly thoughtfully, "she would marry again." Brett said nothing to this, but continued to pace the floor, glancing at the young girl from time to time, and meditating on the total depravity of innocence. "She might marry Russell Vanbrugh, for instance," observed Dolly, as though talking to herself. This was too much for Brett. For the third time he stopped and faced her. "Why Vanbrugh, of all people?" he asked. "Of all people, Mr. Vanbrugh, I should think," Dolly answered. "Think of what he has done, how devoted he has been in all this trouble. And then, the way she spoils him! Any one can see that she is ready to fall in love with him. If she were not as good as--as anything can be--as spring water and snow drops and angels' prayers, so to say, she would be in love with him already. But then, she is, you know." "I cannot imagine a woman being in love with Vanbrugh," said Brett impatiently. "Oh, can't you? I can. I thought he was your best friend." "What has that to do with it? My best friend might be deaf and lame and blind of one eye." "Also, he might not," said Dolly with a smile. "Oh, well!" exclaimed Brett, turning away, "if you have made up your mind that Mrs. Darche is to marry Russell Vanbrugh, of course I have nothing to say. I daresay people would think it a very good match." "With John Darche alive and in the Penitentiary?" inquired the young girl, instantly taking the opposite tack. "As though any one could care or ask what became of him!" cried Brett, with something like indignation. "Thank heaven we are just in this country! We do not visit the sins of the blackguard upon the innocent woman he leaves behind him. Fortunately, there are no children. The very name will be forgotten, and Mrs. Darche can begin life over again." "Whoever marries her will have to take old Mr. Darche as an incumbrance," remarked Dolly. "Of course! Do you suppose that such a woman would leave the poor old gentleman to be taken care of by strangers? Besides, he is a beggar. He has not so much as pocket-money for his cigars. Of course Mr. Darche will stay with them. After all, it will not be so bad. He is very quiet and cheerful, and never in the way." Brett spoke thoughtfully, in a tone which conveyed to Dolly the certainty that he had already revolved the situation of Marion's future husband in his mind. "Tell me, Mr. Brett," she said, after a short pause, "will anybody say that she should have sacrificed her own little fortune?" "People may say it as much as they please," answered the young man quickly. "No one will ever make me believe it." "I thought conscientious people often did that sort of thing." "Yes, they do. But this does not seem to me to be a case for that. The bogus certificates of stocks never really were on the market. The first that were issued excited suspicion, and proceedings began almost immediately. Whatever John Darche actually stole was practically taken from the funds of the Company. Now the Company is rich, and it was its own fault if it did not look after its affairs. In some failures, a lot of poor people suffer. That is different. It has fortunately not happened here. The stock will be depreciated for a time, but the Company will continue to exist and will ultimately hold up its head again. The bonds are good enough. After all, what is stock? Lend me some money at your own risk and if I have anything I will pay you interest. If I have nothing, you get nothing. That is what stock means." "I know," answered Dolly, whose clear little brain had long been familiar with the meanings of common business terms. "Yes, you are quite right. There is no reason why Marion should give anything of her own." "None whatever," assented Brett. If Dolly drew any conclusions from what Brett had said, she kept them to herself, and a long silence followed, which was broken at last by the appearance of Russell Vanbrugh, looking pale and tired. He shook hands in silence and sat down. "I suppose it is all over?" said Dolly softly, in a tone of interrogation. "Yes, just as we feared." "What has he got?" inquired Brett, lowering his voice as though he feared that Marion might overhear him, though she was not in the room. "Five years." "Is that all?" asked the younger man almost indignantly. Vanbrugh smiled faintly at the question. "I am rather proud of it," he answered, "considering that I defended the case." "True, I forgot." Brett began to walk up and down again. Dolly looked at Vanbrugh and nodded to him with a little smile as though in approval of what he had done. He seemed pleased and grateful. "You must be dreadfully tired," she said. "Do let me give you some tea." "Thanks--I should like some--but some one ought to tell Mrs. Darche. Shall I? Where is she?" "I will tell her," said Brett stopping suddenly. "I will send a message and she will come down to the drawing-room." He went out, leaving Dolly to comfort Vanbrugh with tea, for he was far too much excited to sit down or to listen to their conversation. The whole matter might be more or less indifferent to them, whose lives could not be affected directly by Mrs. Darche's misfortunes, but he felt that his own happiness was in the balance. He knew also that, by the arrangements he had made, John Darche would be brought to the house in the course of the next hour, before being taken back to prison for the night, and it was necessary to warn Marion and to see that the old gentleman was prepared to receive his son. "How about old Mr. Darche?" inquired Dolly, when she and Vanbrugh were left alone. "Every one is sorry for him," said Vanbrugh, "just as every one execrates John. I get very little credit for the defence," he added, with a dry laugh. "How good you are!" exclaimed Dolly. "Am I? It seems to me it was the least I could do." "It will not seem so to every one," said Dolly. "I would do a great deal for Mrs. Darche," said Vanbrugh. "Yes, I know you would. You--you are very fond of her, are you not?" She turned her face away as she asked the question. "I wish to be a good friend to her." "And something more?" suggested Dolly, in a tone of interrogation. "Something more?" repeated Vanbrugh, "I do not understand." "Oh nothing! I thought you did." "Perhaps I did. But I think you are mistaken." "Am I?" Dolly asked, turning her face to him again. "I wish--I mean, I do not think I am." "I am sure you are." "This is a good deal like a puzzle game, is it not?" "No, it is much more serious," said Vanbrugh, speaking gravely. "This is certainly not the time to talk of such things, Miss Maylands. John Darche may come at any moment, and as far as possible his father has been prepared for his coming. But that isn't it. Perhaps I had better say it at once. We have always been such good friends, you know, and I think a great deal of your good opinion, so that I do not wish you to mistake my motives. You evidently think that I am devoted--to say the least of it--to Mrs. Darche. After all, what is the use of choosing words and beat about the bush? You think I am in love with her. I should be very sorry to leave you with that impression--very, very sorry. Do you understand?" Dolly had glanced at him several times while he had been speaking, but when he finished she looked into the fire again. "You were in love with her once?" she said quietly. "Perhaps; how do you know that?" "She told me so, ever so long ago." "She told you so?" Vanbrugh's tone betrayed his annoyance. "Yes. Why are you angry? I am her best friend. Was it not natural that she should tell me?" "I hardly know." A pause followed, during which Stubbs entered the room, bringing tea. When he was gone and Dolly had filled Vanbrugh's cup she took up the conversation again. "Are you thinking about it?" she asked, with a smile. "About what?" Vanbrugh looked up quickly over his cup. "Whether it was natural or not?" "No, I was wondering whether you would still believe it." "Why should I?" asked Dolly. "You might. In spite of what I tell you. You know very little of my life." "Oh, I know a great deal," said the young girl with much conviction. "I know all about you. You are successful, and rich and popular and happy, and lots of things." "Am I?" asked Vanbrugh rather sadly. "Yes. Everybody knows you are." "You are quite sure that I am happy?" "Unless you tell me that you are not." "How oddly people judge us," exclaimed Vanbrugh. "Because a man behaves like a human being, and is not cross at every turn, and puts his shoulder to the wheel, to talk and be agreeable in society, everybody thinks he is happy." "Of course." Dolly smiled. "If you were unhappy you would go and sit in corners by yourself and mope and be disagreeable. But you do not, you see. You are always 'on hand' as they call it, always ready to make things pleasant for everybody." "That is because I am so good-natured." "What is good nature?" "A combination of laziness and vulgarity," Vanbrugh answered promptly. "Oh!" "Yes," said Vanbrugh. "The vulgarity that wishes to please everybody, and the laziness that cannot say no." "You are not a lawyer for nothing. But you are not lazy and you are not vulgar. If you were I should not like you." "Do you like me?" asked Vanbrugh quickly. "Very much," she answered with a little laugh. "You just made me define good nature, Miss Maylands. How do you define liking?" "Oh, it is very vague," said Dolly in an airy tone. "It is a sort of uncly, auntly thing." "Oh. I see." "Do you?" "Uncles and aunts sometimes marry, do they not?" "What an idea? They are always brothers and sisters." "Unless they are uncles and aunts of different people," suggested Vanbrugh. At this point they were interrupted by the entrance of Stubbs. That dignified functionary had suffered intensely during the last few days, but his tortures were not yet over. So far as lay in his power he still maintained that absolute correctness of appearance which distinguished him from the common, or hirsute "head man"; but he could not control the colour of his face nor the expression of his eyes. He had been a footman in the house of Marion's father, in that very house in fact, and had completely identified himself with the family. Had he considered that he was in the employment of Simon and John Darche, he would have long since given notice and sought a place better suited to his eminent respectability. But having always waited upon Marion since she had been a little girl, he felt bound by all the tenets of inherited butlerdom--and by a sort of devotion not by any means to be laughed at--to stand by his young mistress through all her troubles. By this time his eyes had a permanently unsettled look in them as though he never knew what fearful sight he might next gaze upon, and the ruddy colour was slowly but certainly sinking to the collar line. It had already descended to the lower tips of his ears. "Beg pardon, Miss Maylands," he said in a subdued tone, "beg pardon, sir. Mr. John has come with those gentlemen." Both Dolly and Vanbrugh started slightly and looked up at him. Vanbrugh was the first to speak. "Do you not think you had better go away--to Mrs. Darche?" he asked. "She may want to see you for a minute." Dolly rose and left the room. "I suppose they will come in here," said Vanbrugh, addressing Stubbs. "Yes, sir," answered the butler nervously, "they are coming." "Well--let us make the best of it." A moment later John Darche entered the room, followed closely by three men, evidently dressed for the occasion, according to superior orders, in what, at police head-quarters, was believed to be the height of the fashion, for they all wore light snuff-coloured overcoats, white ties, dark trousers and heavily-varnished shoes, and each had a perfectly new high hat in his hand. They looked about the room with evident curiosity. Darche himself was deathly pale and had grown thinner. Otherwise he was little changed. As soon as he caught sight of Vanbrugh, he came forward, extending his hand. "I have not had a chance to thank you for your able defence," he said calmly. "It is not necessary," answered Vanbrugh coldly, and putting his hands behind him as he leaned against the mantelpiece. "It was a matter of duty." "Very well," said John Darche stiffly, and drawing back a step. "If you do not want to shake hands we will treat it as a matter of business." "He is pretty fresh, ain't he?" remarked one of the officers in an undertone to his neighbour. "You bet he is," answered the other. "Now I have got to see the old gentleman," said Darche, speaking to Vanbrugh. "Before I go, I would like to have a word with you. There is no objection to my speaking privately to Mr. Vanbrugh, I suppose?" he inquired, turning to the officer. "Not if you stay in the room," answered the one who took the lead. Darche nodded to Vanbrugh, who somewhat reluctantly followed him to the other end of the room. "I say," he began in a tone not to be overheard by the detectives. "Can you not give me another chance?" "What sort of chance?" replied Vanbrugh, raising his eyebrows. "If I could get through that door," said John looking over Vanbrugh's shoulder, "I could get away. I know the house and they do not. Presently, when my father comes, if you could create some sort of confusion for a moment, I could slip out. They will never catch me. There is an Italian sailing vessel just clearing. I have had exact information. If I can get through that door I can be in the Sixth Avenue Elevated in three minutes and out of New York Harbour in an hour." Vanbrugh had no intention of being a party to the escape. He met Darche's eyes coldly as he answered. "No, I will not do it. I have defended you in open court, but I am not going to help you evade the law." "Do not be too hard, Vanbrugh," said Darche, in a tone of entreaty. "Things are not half so bad as they are made out." "If that is true, I am sorry. But you have had a perfectly fair trial." "Will you not help me get away?" Darche urged knowing that this was his last chance. "No." "Vanbrugh," said John in an insinuating tone, "you used to be fond of my wife. You wanted to marry her." "What has that to do with it?" asked Vanbrugh turning sharply upon him. "You may marry her and welcome, if you let me get through that door. I shall never be heard of again." "You infernal scoundrel!" Vanbrugh was thoroughly disgusted. "Now gentlemen," he said, turning to the officer in charge, "I will bring Mr. Darche here to see his son. I am sure that for the old gentleman's sake, out of mere humanity, you will do the best you can to keep up the illusion we have arranged. He is old and his mind wanders. He will scarcely notice your presence." "Yes, sir," the man answered. "You may trust us to do that, sir. Now then, boys," he said, addressing his two companions, "straighten up, best company manners, stiff upper lip--keep your eye on the young man. He is rather too near that door for my taste." John Darche's face expressed humiliation and something almost approaching to despair. He was about to make another attempt, and had moved a step towards Vanbrugh, when he suddenly started a little and stood still. Marion stood in the open door beyond three detectives. She touched one of them on the shoulder as a sign that she wished to pass. "Pardon me, lady," said the man, drawing back. "Anything that we can do for you?" "I am Mrs. Darche. I wish to speak to my husband." "Certainly, madam," and all three made way for her. She went straight to her husband, and stood before him at the other end of the room, speaking in a low voice. "Is there anything I can do for you, John?" she asked so that he could barely hear her. "You can help me to get away--if you will." John Darche's eyes fell before hers. She gazed at him during several seconds, hesitating, perhaps, between her sense of justice and her desire to be faithful to her husband to the very end. "Yes, I will," she said briefly. Before she spoke again she turned quite naturally, as though in hesitation, and satisfied herself that the three men were out of hearing. Vanbrugh, perhaps suspecting what was taking place, had engaged them in conversation near the door. "How?" she asked, looking at John again. "Tell me quickly." "Presently, when my father comes, get as many people as you can. Let me be alone for a moment. Make some confusion, upset something, anything will do. Give me a chance to get through the door into the library." "I will try. Is that all?" "Thank you," said John Darche, and for one moment a look of something like genuine gratitude passed over his hard face. "Yes, that is all. You will be glad to get rid of me." Marion looked one moment longer, hesitated, said nothing and turned away. "If you have no objections," said Vanbrugh addressing the officer in charge, "we will take Mr. Darche to his father's room instead of asking him to come here." "Yes, sir," answered the detective. "We can do that." As they were about to leave the room, Brett met them at the door. He paused a moment and looked about. Then he went straight to Vanbrugh. "Has he seen him yet?" he asked. "No, we are just going," answered Vanbrugh. "Can I be of any use?" "Stay with Mrs. Darche." "Shall we go?" he asked, turning to John. "How brave you are!" exclaimed Brett when they were alone. "Does it need much courage?" asked Marion, sinking into a chair. "I do not know. Perhaps." "I know that there are not many men who could bear all this as well as you do," Brett answered, and there was a little emotion in his face. "Men are different. Mr. Brett--" she began after a short pause. "Yes, do you want to ask me something?" "Yes, something that is very hard to ask. Something that you will refuse." "That would be hard indeed." "Will you promise not to be angry?" asked Marion faintly. "Of course I will," Brett answered. "Do not be so sure. Men's honour is such a strange thing. You may think what I am going to ask touches it." "What is it?" He sat down beside her and prepared to listen. "Will you help my husband to escape?" asked Marion in a whisper. "No--do not say it. Wait until I tell you first how it can be done. Presently I will get them all into this room. Old Mr. Darche is too ill to come, I am afraid. You have not spoken alone to John yet. Take him aside and bring him close to this door on pretence of exchanging a few words. I will make a diversion of some sort at the other end of the room and as they all look round he can slip out. If he has one minute's start they will never see him again. Will you do it?" "You were right," said Brett gravely. "It is a hard thing to ask." "Will you do it?" "It is criminal," he answered. "Will you do it?" "For God's sake, give me time to think!" He passed his hand over his eyes. "There is no time," said Marion anxiously. "Will you do it for me?" "How can I? how can I?" "You told me that you loved me the other day--will you do it for my sake?" A change came over Brett's face. "For your sake?" he asked in an altered tone. "Do you mean it?" "Yes. For my sake." "Very well. I will do it." He turned a little pale and closed one hand over the other. "Thank you--thank you, Harry." Her voice lingered a little, as she pronounced his name. "Stay here. I will make them come. It is of no use to leave them there. It is a mere formality, at best." "I am ready," said Brett, rising. Marion left her seat, and crossing the room again tried the door in question to satisfy herself that it would open readily. She looked out into the passage beyond and then came back, and passing Brett without a word left the room. She was not gone long, and during the minutes of her absence Brett tried hard not to think of what he was going to do. He could not but be aware that it was a desperately serious matter to help a convicted criminal to escape. He thought of the expression he had seen on Marion's face when he had promised to do it, and of the soft intonation of her sweet voice, and he tried to think of nothing else. In a moment more she was in the room again leading old Mr. Darche forward, his arm linked in hers. John came in on his father's other side, while Vanbrugh and the three officers followed. "I understand, I understand, my boy," cried old Darche in his cheery voice. "It is a grand thing." John was very pale as he answered, and was evidently making a great effort to speak lightly. "Yes, of course. It has turned out much simpler than we expected, however, thanks to your immense reputation, father. Without your name we could not have done it, could we, gentlemen?" he asked, turning to the detectives as though appealing to them. "No, guess not," answered the three together. "Good God, what a scene!" exclaimed Brett under his breath. "Mr. Brett," said Marion approaching him. "You said you wanted to speak to my husband. Now you must tell me all about it, father," she continued, drawing the old gentleman towards the fire. "I do not half understand in all this confusion." "Why it is as plain as day, child," said Simon Darche, ever ready to explain a matter of business. "The second mortgage of a million and a half to square everything. Come here, come close to the fire, my hands are cold. I think I must have been ill." "You would never think Mr. Darche had been ill, would you, gentlemen?" asked Marion, appealing again to the detectives. "No, guess not," they answered in chorus. Meanwhile Brett led Darche across the room, talking to him in a loud tone until they were near the door. "Your wife will make some diversion presently," he whispered. "I do not know how. When she does, make for that door and get out." "Thank you, thank you," said John with genuine fervour, and his face lighted up. "God bless you, Brett!" "Do not thank me," answered Brett roughly. "I do not want to do it. Thank your wife." "Oh!" exclaimed John Darche, and his eyelids contracted. "My wife! Is it for her?" "Yes." "I will remember that. I will remember it as long as I live." Brett never forgot the look which accompanied the words. "Well, be grateful to her anyhow," he said. At that moment a piercing scream rang through the room. Marion Darche, while talking to her father-in-law, had been standing quite close to the fire. When Brett turned his head the front of her dress was burning with a slow flame and she was making desperate efforts to tear it from her. "Good Heavens, you are really burning!" cried Brett as he crushed the flaming stuff with his bare hands, regardless of the consequences to himself. "Did you think that I cried out in fun?" asked Marion calmly. On hearing his wife's cry John Darche had bestowed but one glance upon her. It mattered but little to him that she was really on fire. The detectives had rushed to her assistance and for one moment no one was looking. He was close to the door. A moment later he had left the room and turned the key behind him. "My God!" exclaimed the officer in charge, suddenly. "He has gone! Run, boys! Stop! One of you take the old one. We will not lose them both." Old Darche started as though he had suddenly been waked out of a deep sleep, and his voice rang out loud and clear. "Hey, what is this?" he cried. "Hello! Detectives in my house? Disguised too?" "Yes, sir," answered one of the detectives, seizing him by the wrist just as the other two left the room in pursuit of John Darche. "And one of them has got you." "Got me!" roared the old man. "Hands off, there! What do you mean? Damn you, sir, let me go!" "Oh, well," replied the officer calmly, "if you are going to take on like that, you may just as well know that your son was tried and convicted for forgery to-day. Not that I believe that you had anything to do with it, but he is a precious rascal all the same, and has escaped from your house--" "I! Forgery? The man is mad! John, where are you? Brett! Vanbrugh! Help me, gentlemen!" He appealed to Brett, and then to Vanbrugh who, indeed, was doing his best to draw the officer away. "No, no," answered the latter firmly. "I've got one of them--it's all in the family." Though Marion's dress was still smouldering and Brett was on his knees trying to extinguish the last spark with his own hands, she forgot her own danger, and almost tearing herself away from Brett she clasped the policeman's hand trying to drag it from Simon Darche's shoulder. "Oh, sir," she cried in tearful entreaty, "pray let him go! He is innocent--he is ill! He will not think of escaping. Don't you see that we have kept it all from him?" "Kept it all from me?" asked the old gentleman fiercely turning upon her. "What do you mean? Where is John? Where is John? I say!" "In handcuffs by this time I guess," said the detective calmly. "But I insist upon knowing what all this means," continued old Darche, growing more and more excited, while the veins of his temples swelled to bursting. "Forgery! Trial! Conviction! John escaping! Am I dreaming? Are not you three directors of the other road? Good God, young man, speak!" He seized Brett by the collar in his excitement. "Pray be calm, sir, pray be calm," answered the young man, trying to loosen the policeman's sturdy grasp. By a tremendous effort, such as madmen make in supreme moments, the old man broke loose, and seizing Marion by the wrist dragged her half across the room while he spoke. "Tell me this thing is all a lie!" he cried, again and again. "The lady knows the truth well enough, sir," said the policeman, coming up behind him. "She caught fire just right." For one moment Simon Darche stood upright in the middle of the room, looking from one to the other with wild frightened eyes. "Oh, it is true!" he cried in accents of supreme agony. "John has disgraced himself! Oh, my son, my son!" One instant more, and the light in his eyes broke, he threw out his arms and fell straight backwards against the detective. Simon Darche was dead. CHAPTER VIII. There was no lack of sympathy for Marion Darche, and it was shown in many ways during the period of calm which succeeded her husband's disappearance and the sudden death of his father. Every one was anxious to be first in showing the lonely woman that she was not alone, but that, on the contrary, those who had been her friends formerly were more ready than ever to proclaim the fact now, and, so far as they were able, not in words only, but in deeds also. She was relieved, all at once, of the many burdens which had oppressed her life during the past years--indeed, she sometimes caught herself missing the constant sacrifice, the daily effort of subduing her temper, the hourly care for the doting old man who was gone. But with all this, there was the consciousness that she was not altogether free. Somewhere in the world, John Darche was still alive, a fugitive, a man for whose escape a reward was offered. It was worse than widowhood to be bound to a husband who was socially dead. It would have been easier to bear if he had never escaped, and if he were simply confined in the Penitentiary. There would not have been the danger of his coming back stealthily by night, which Marion felt was not imaginary so long as he was at large. Yet she made no effort to obtain a divorce from the man whose name was a disgrace. On the contrary, so far as outward appearances were concerned, she made no change, or very little, in her life. Public opinion had been with her from the first, and society chose to treat her as a young widow, deserving every sympathy, who when the time of mourning should have expired, would return to the world, and open her doors to it. There was a great deal of speculation as to the reasons which prevented her from taking steps to free herself, but no one guessed what really passed in her mind, any more than the majority of her acquaintances understood that she had once loved John Darche. It had been commonly said for years that she had married him out of disappointment because something had prevented her from marrying another man, usually supposed to have been Russell Vanbrugh. People attributed to her a greater complication of motives than she could have believed possible. In order not to be altogether alone, she took a widowed cousin to live with her--a Mrs. Willoughby, who soon became known to her more intimate friends as Cousin Annie. She was a gray, colourless woman, much older than Marion, kind of heart but not very wise, insignificant but refined, a moral satisfaction and an intellectual disappointment, accustomed to the world, but not understanding it, good by nature and charitable, and educated in religious forms to which she clung by habit and association rather than because they represented anything to her. Cousin Annie was one of those fortunate beings whom temptation overlooks, passing by on the other side, who can suffer in a way for the loss of those dear to them, but whose mourning does not reach the dignity of sorrow, nor the selfish power of grief. Marion did not feel the need of a more complicated and gifted individuality for companionship. On the contrary, it was a relief to her to have some one at her side for whom she was not expected to think, but who, on the contrary, thought for her in all the commonplace matters of life, and never acted otherwise than as a normal, natural, human unit. There had been enough of the unusual in the house in Lexington Avenue, and Marion was glad that it was gone. Three months passed in this way and the spring was far advanced. Then, suddenly and without warning, came the news that John Darche had been heard of, traced, seen at last and almost captured. He had escaped once more and this time he had escaped, for ever, by his own act. He had jumped overboard in the English Channel from the Calais boat, and his body had not been found. Mrs. Darche wore black for her husband, and Cousin Annie said it was very becoming. Dolly Maylands thought it absurd to put on even the appearance of mourning for such a creature, and said so. "My dear child," answered Marion gently, "he was my husband." "I never can realise it," said Dolly. "Do you remember, I used to ask you if you did not sometimes forget it yourself?" "I never forgot it." Mrs. Darche's voice had a wonderful gravity in it, without the least sadness. She was a woman without affectation. "No," said Dolly thoughtfully, "I suppose you never had a chance. It is of no use, Marion dear," she added after a little pause, and in a different tone, as though she were tired of pretending a sort of subdued sympathy, "it is of no use at all! I can never be sorry, you know--so that ends it. Why, just think! You are free to marry any one you please, to begin life over again. How many women in your position ever had such a chance? Not but what you would have been just as free if you had got a divorce. But--somehow, this is much more solidly satisfactory. Yes, I know--it is horrid and unchristian--but there is just that--there is a solid satisfaction in--" She was going to say "in death," but thought better of it and checked herself. "It will not make very much difference to me just yet," said Marion. "Meanwhile, as I said, he was my husband. I shall wear mourning a short time, and then--then I do not know what I shall do." "It must be very strange," answered Dolly. "What, child?" "Your life. Now you need not call me child in that auntly tone, as though you were five hundred thousand years older and wiser and duller than I am. There are not six years between our ages, you know." "Do not resent being young, Dolly." "Resent it! No, indeed! I resent your way of making yourself out to be old. In the pages of future history we shall be spoken of as contemporaries." Mrs. Darche smiled, and Dolly laughed. "School-book style," said the girl. "That is my morning manner. In the evening I am quite different, thank goodness! But to go back--what I meant was that your own life must seem very strange to you. To have loved really--of course you did--why should you deny it? And then to have made the great mistake and to have married the wrong man, and to have been good and to have put up the shutters of propriety and virtue--so to say, and to have kept up a sort of Sunday-go-to-meeting myth for years, expecting to do it for the rest of your life, and then--to have the luck--well, no, I did not mean to put it that way--but to begin life all over again, and the man you loved not married yet, and just as anxious to marry you as ever--" "Stop, Dolly! How do you know?" Marion knit her brows in annoyance. "Oh! I know nothing, of course. I can only guess. But then, it is easy to guess, sometimes." "I am not so sure," answered Marion thoughtfully, and looking at Dolly with some curiosity. As for Brett, he said nothing to any one, when the news of John Darche's death reached New York. He supposed that people would take it for granted that in the course of time he would marry Marion, because the world knew that he had formerly loved her, and that she had made a mistake in not accepting him and would probably be quite willing to rectify it now that she was free. There had always been a certain amount of inoffensive chaff about his devotion to her interests. But he himself was very far from assuming that she would take him now. He knew her better than the world did, and understood the unexpected hesitations and revulsions of which she was capable, much better than the world could. He took a hopeful view, however, as was natural. For the present he waited and said nothing. If she chose to go through the form of mourning, he would go through the form of respecting it while it lasted. Society is the better for most of its conventionalities, a fact of which one may easily assure oneself by spending a little time in circles that make bold to laugh at appearances. A man may break the social barriers for a great object's sake, or out of true passion--as sheer necessity may force a man to sleep by the road side. But a man who habitually makes his bed in the gutter by choice is a madman, and one who thinks himself above manners and conventionalities is generally a fool. There is nothing more intolerable than eccentricity for its own sake, nor more pitiful than the perpetual acting of it to a gallery that will not applaud. For some time Brett continued to come and see Marion regularly, and she did not hesitate to show him that he was as welcome as ever. Then, without any apparent cause, his manner changed. He became much more grave than he had ever been before, and those who knew him well were struck by an alteration in his appearance, not easily defined at first, but soon visible to any one. He was growing pale and thin. Vanbrugh strolled into his office on a warm day in early June and sat down for a chat. Brett's inner sanctum was in the Equitable Building, measured twelve feet by eight, and was furnished so as to leave a space of about six feet by four in the middle, just enough for two chairs and the legs of the people who sat in them. Vanbrugh looked at his friend and came to the just conclusion that something was materially wrong with him. "Brett," he said, suddenly, "let us run over to Paris." "I cannot leave New York at present," Brett answered, without hesitation, as though he had already considered the question of going abroad. "Not being able to leave New York is a more or less dangerous disease which kills a great many people," observed Vanbrugh. "You must leave New York, whether you can or not. I do not know whether you are ill or not, but you look like an imperfectly boiled owl." "I know I do. I want a change." "Then come along." "No, I cannot leave New York. I am not joking, my dear fellow." "I see you are not. I suppose it is of no use to ask what is the matter. If you wanted help you would say so. You evidently have something on your mind. Anything I can do?" "No, I wish there were. I will tell you some day. It is something rather odd and unusual." Brett was not an imaginative man, or Vanbrugh, judging from his appearance and manner, would almost have suspected that he was suffering from some persecution not quite natural or earthly. He had the uneasy glance of a man who fancies himself haunted by a sight he fears to see. Vanbrugh looked at him a long time in silence and then rose to go. "I am sorry, old man," he said, with something almost like a sigh. "You live too much alone," he added, turning as he was about to open the door. "You ought to get married." Brett smiled in rather a ghastly fashion which did not escape his friend. "I cannot leave New York," he repeated mechanically. "Perhaps you will before long," said Vanbrugh, going out. "I would if I were you." He went away in considerable perplexity. Something in Brett's manner puzzled him and almost frightened him. As a lawyer, and one accustomed to dealing with the worst side of human nature, he was inclined to play the detective for a time; as a friend, he resolved not to inquire too closely into a matter which did not concern him. In fact, he had already gone further than he had intended. Only a refined nature can understand the depth of degradation to which curiosity can reduce friendship. A day or two later Vanbrugh met Dolly Maylands at a house in Tuxedo Park where he had come to dine and spend the night. There were enough people at the dinner to insure a little privacy to those who had anything to say to one another. "Brett is ill," said Vanbrugh. "Do you know what is the matter with him?" "I suppose Marion has refused him after all," answered Dolly, looking at her plate. Vanbrugh glanced at her face and thought she was a little pale. He remembered the conversation when they had been left together in the library after John Darche's trial, and was glad that he had then spoken cautiously, for he connected her change of colour with himself, by a roundabout and complicated reasoning more easy to be understood than to explain. "Perhaps she has," he said coolly. "But I do not think it is probable." "Mr. Brett does not go to see her any more." "Really? Are you sure of that, Miss Maylands?" "Marion has noticed it. She spoke to me of it yesterday. I wondered--" "What?" "Whether there had been any misunderstanding. I suppose that is what I was going to say." She blushed quickly, as she had turned pale a moment before. "You see," she continued rather hurriedly, "people who have once misunderstood one another may do the same thing again. Say, for instance, that he vaguely hinted at marriage--men have such vague ways of proposing--" "Have they?" "Of course--and that Marion did not quite realise what he meant, and turned the conversation, and that Mr. Brett took that for a refusal and went away, and lost his appetite, and all that--would it not account for it?" "Yes," assented Vanbrugh with a smile. "It might account for it--though Harry Brett is not a school girl of sixteen." "Meaning that I am, I suppose," retorted Dolly, anxious to get away from the subject which she had not chosen, and to lead Vanbrugh up to what she would have called the chaffing point. But he was not in the humour for that. "No," he said quietly. "I did not mean that." And he relapsed into silence for a time. He was thinking the matter over, and he was also asking himself whether, after all, he should not ask Dolly Maylands to marry him, though he was so much older than she. That was a possibility which had presented itself to his mind very often of late, and from time to time he determined to solve the question in one way or the other, and be done with it. But when he wished to decide it, he found it capable of only two answers; either he must offer himself or not. Sometimes he thought he would and then he fancied that he ought to prepare Dolly for so grave a matter by giving up chaff when they were together. But the first attempt at putting this resolution into practice was a failure whenever he tried it. Chaff was Dolly's element,--she pined when she was deprived of it. The serious part of her nature lay deep, and there were treasures there, hidden far below the bright tide of rippling laughter. Such treasures are sometimes lost altogether because no one discovers them, or because no one knows how to bring them to the surface. As he sat by her side in silence, Vanbrugh was impelled to turn suddenly upon Dolly and ask her to marry him, without further diplomacy. But he reflected upon the proverbial uncertainty of woman's temper and held his peace. He had never made love to her, and there had never been anything approaching to a show of sentiment between them until that memorable afternoon when the trial was over. Moreover Russell Vanbrugh was a very comfortable man. Nothing less grammatically incorrect could express the combination of pleasant things which made up his life. He was not lonely, in his father's house--indeed, he was not lonely anywhere. He was contented, rich enough to satisfy all his tastes, popular in a certain degree among those he liked, peaceful, never bored, occupying, as it were, a well upholstered stall at the world's play, when he chose to be idle, and busy with matters in which he took a healthy, enduring interest when he chose to work. To marry would be to step into an unknown country. He meant to make the venture some day, but he had just enough of indolence in his character to render the first effort a little distasteful. Nevertheless, he was conscious that he thought more and more of Dolly, and that he was, in fact, falling seriously in love with her, and foreseeing that there was to be a change in their relations, there arose the doubt, natural in a man not over-vain, as to the reception he might expect at her hands. When Dolly next saw Marion Darche she proceeded to attack the question in her own way. Marion was still in town, hesitating as to what she should do with her summer. She had no house in the country. The place which had belonged to her husband had gone with such little property as he had still owned at the time of his conviction to repair some of the harm he had done. The windows of the library were open, and a soft south-easterly breeze was blowing up from the square bringing a breath of coming summer from the park leaves. Those who love New York, even to the smell of its mud, know the strange charm of its days and evenings in late spring. Like the charm of woman, the charm of certain great cities can never be explained by those who feel it to those who do not. There were flowers in the library, and Dolly sat down near the windows and breathed the sweet quiet air before she spoke. "Harry Brett is ill," she said. "Ill? Seriously?" Marion had started slightly at the news. "Not ill at home," explained Dolly. "Mr. Vanbrugh spoke of it the other night." "Oh--" Marion seemed relieved. "Perhaps that is the reason why he does not come to see me," she added rather inconsequently, after a moment's pause. Dolly turned in her seat and looked into her friend's eyes. "Marion," she said gravely. "You know that is not the reason why he does not come." "I know? What do you mean, Dolly?" In spite of the genuine and innocent surprise in the tone, Dolly was not satisfied. "He has asked you to marry him and you have refused him," she said with conviction. "I?" For a moment Marion Darche stared in amazement. Then her eyes filled with tears and she turned away suddenly. Her voice was unsteady as she answered. "No. He has not asked me to marry him." "Are you quite sure, dear?" insisted Dolly. "You know men have such odd ways of saying it, and sometimes one does not quite understand--and then a word, or a glance--if a man is very sensitive--you know--" "Do not talk like that," said Marion, a little abruptly. A short silence followed, during which she moved uneasily about the room, touching the objects on the table, though they needed no arrangement. At last she spoke again, out of the dusk from the corner she had reached in her peregrination. "If he asked me to marry him, I should accept him," she said in a low voice. Dolly was silent in her turn. She had not expected a direct confidence so soon, and had not at all foreseen its nature, when it came almost unasked. "It is very strange!" she exclaimed at last. "Yes," echoed Marion Darche, quite simply. "It is very strange." It was long before the mystery was solved, and Dolly did not refer to it in the meantime. Brett did not go abroad, nor did he leave New York for more than a few days during the summer, though it was almost inconceivable that his business should require his constant presence during the dull season, and he could certainly have left matters to his partner, had he not had some very good reason for refusing to take a holiday. Mrs. Darche took Cousin Annie with her and wandered about during a couple of months, visiting various places which did not interest her, falling in with acquaintances often, and sometimes with friends, but rather avoiding those she met than showing any wish to see much of them. To tell the truth, the great majority showed no inclination to intrude upon her privacy. People understood well enough that she should desire to be alone and undisturbed, considering the strange circumstances through which she had passed during the winter and spring. Moreover Brett's conduct elicited approval on all sides. It was said that he showed good taste in not following Mrs. Darche from place to place, as he might easily have done, and as most men in his position undoubtedly would have done, for it was quite clear that he was seriously in love. All his friends had noticed the change of appearance and manner, and others besides Vanbrugh had advised him to take a rest, to go abroad, to go and shoot bears, in short, to do one of the many things which are generally supposed to contribute to health and peace of mind. Then it was rumoured that he was working harder than usual, in view of his approaching marriage, that he was not so well off as had generally been supposed, and that he wished to forestall any remarks to the effect that he was going to marry Mrs. Darche for the sake of her fortune, which was considerable. In short, people said everything they could think of, and all the things that are usually thought of in such cases, and when they had reached the end of their afflictions they talked of other friends whose doings formed a subject of common interest. Mrs. Darche did not find much companionship in her cousin, but that was not exactly what she required or expected of Mrs. Willoughby. She wanted the gray, colourless atmosphere which the widowed lady seemed to take about with her, and she liked it merely because it was neutral, restful and thoroughly unemotional. She did not think of creating new diversions for herself, nor of taking up new interests. Her life had been so full that this temporary emptiness was restful to her. She was surprised at finding how little the present resembled what she had expected it to be, so long as it had been still a future. As yet, too, there was an element of uncertainty in it which did not preclude pleasant reflections. Though she had said to Dolly that Brett's conduct was changed, she could still explain it to herself well enough to be satisfied with her own conclusions. Doubtless he felt that it was yet too soon to speak or even to show by his actions that he had anything to say. She could well believe--and indeed it was flattering--that he abstained from seeing her because he felt that in her presence he might not be able to control his speech. She called up in her memory what had taken place many months previously when she had sent for him and had told him that she needed a large sum of money at short notice--how he had lost his head on that occasion, and allowed words to break out which both of them had regretted. Since there was now no obstacle in the way, it would of course be harder for him than ever to act the part of a disinterested friend, even for the short time--the shortest possible--during which she went through the form of wearing mourning for John Darche. She could still say to herself that it was delicate and tactful on Brett's part to act as he was acting, although she sometimes thought, or wished, that he might have allowed what was passing in his mind to betray itself by a glance, a gesture or a gentle intonation. It was certainly pushing the proprieties to the utmost to keep away from her altogether. Even when he wrote to her, as he had occasion to do several times during the summer, he confined himself almost entirely to matters of business, and the little phrase with which he concluded each of his communications seemed to grow more and more formal. There had always been something a little exaggerated in Harry Brett's behaviour. It had been that perhaps, which in old times had frightened her, had prevented her from accepting him, and had made her turn in mistaken confidence to the man of grave moderation and apparently unchanging purpose who had become her husband. Dolly Maylands had no such illusions with regard to Brett's conduct, though she did not again discuss the matter with Russell Vanbrugh. She was conscious that he felt as she did, that something mysterious had taken place about which neither of them knew anything, but which was seriously and permanently influencing Harry Brett's life. Dolly, however, was more discreet than was commonly supposed, and kept her surmises to herself. When Mrs. Darche and Brett were discussed before her, she said as little as she could, and allowed people to believe that she shared the common opinion, namely, that the two people would be married before the year was out and that, in the meanwhile, both were behaving admirably. Vanbrugh wandered about a good deal during the summer, returning to New York from time to time, more out of habit than necessity. He made visits at various country houses among his friends, spent several days on board of several yachts, was seen more than once in Bar Harbour, and once, at least, at Newport and on the whole did all those things which are generally expected of a successful man in the summer holidays. He wrote to Brett several times, but they did not meet often. The tone of his friend's letters tended to confirm his suspicion of some secret trouble. Brett wrote in a nervous and detached way and often complained of the heat and discomfort during July and August, though he never gave a sufficient reason for staying where he was. On the other hand, Vanbrugh found that where he was invited Dolly Maylands was often invited too, and that there seemed to be a general impression that they liked one another's society and should be placed together at dinner. More than once, Vanbrugh felt again the strong impulse to which he had almost yielded at Tuxedo. More than once he made a serious attempt to change the tone of his conversation with Dolly. She did not fail to notice this, of course, and being slightly embarrassed generally became grave and silent on such occasions, thereby leading Vanbrugh to suppose that she was bored, which very much surprised the successful man of the world at first and very much annoyed him afterwards. So the summer passed away, and all concerned in this little story were several months older if not proportionately wiser. CHAPTER IX. In the autumn, Marion Darche returned to town, feeling that since she was to begin life over again, and since her friends had accepted the fact, there was no reason for not taking the first steps at once. She intended to live very quietly, occupying herself as best she could, for she knew that some occupation was necessary to her, now that the whole busy existence of the last five years was over. She did not know what to do. She consulted Dolly, and would have liked to consult Brett, but he rarely called, and then, by design or coincidence, he always seemed to appear just when some one else was with her. More than once she had thought of writing to him freely, asking him to explain the cause of his conduct and to put an end to the estrangement which was growing up between them. She even went so far as to begin a letter, but it was never finished and found its way to the fire before it was half written. She could not, however, keep her thoughts from dwelling on him, since there was no longer any reason for trying to forget his existence. She was not lacking in pride, and if she had believed that Harry Brett no longer loved her, she would have still been strong enough to bury the memory of him out of sight and beyond danger of resurrection. But he did not behave in such a way as to convince her of that. A woman's instinct is rarely wrong in telling her whether she is loved or not, unless she is confronted with a man of superior wickedness or goodness. The strength which breeds great virtues and great vices lends that perfect control of outward manner which is called diabolical or heroic according to circumstances. Harry Brett was not such a man. He could keep away from the house in Lexington Avenue, because for some reason or other he believed it necessary to avoid Mrs. Darche's society; but he could not simulate what he did not feel, nor conceal his real feelings when he was with her. The cold, nervous hand, the quick glance, the momentary hesitation, the choice of a seat a little too far from her side--all told Marion that he loved her still, and that he believed himself obliged to stay away, and was afraid to be alone with her. At last she made up her mind to do something which should show him definitely that she now regarded her mourning as a mere formality, and intended before long to return to her former way of living, as though nothing had happened. She determined to ask Brett and Vanbrugh and Dolly to luncheon. It certainly was not a very wild dissipation which she proposed, but it was the first time she had invited more than one of them at the same time. And cousin Annie Willoughby petitioned for a fourth guest by a very gentle and neutral hint. She had a certain elderly friend, one James Brown, who was the only person living who seemed able to talk to her for any length of time. Mr. Brown had been a disappointment to his friends in his youth. He was regarded as a failure. Great things had been expected of him when he left college and during several years afterwards. But his so-called gifts had turned out to be only tastes, and he had never accomplished anything. He had not the enthusiastic, all-devouring, all-appreciative, omnivorous nature which makes some amateurs delightful companions and invaluable flatterers. Though he really knew something about several subjects no one ever had the slightest respect for his opinion or judgment. He was an agreeable man, a good-natured gossip, a harmless critic. He always seemed to have read every word of books which most people found tiresome and skimmed in half an hour, and he never was acquainted with the book of the hour until the hour was past. No one ever understood why he liked Mrs. Willoughby, nor why she liked him, but if people thought of the matter at all they thought the friendship very appropriate. Mr. Brown knew everybody in society and was useful in filling a place, because he was a bachelor, and joined in the hum if not in the conversation. In appearance he was a bald man with refined features, a fair beard turning gray, gentle blue eyes, an average figure, small feet and hands, well-made clothes, a chronic watch-chain and a ring with an intaglio. His strong point was his memory, his weak point was his absence of tact. Marion, who intended that the general conversation of the table should be followed by a general pairing off after the coffee, reflected that Mr. Brown would amuse Mrs. Willoughby while Vanbrugh talked to Dolly and she herself had an opportunity of speaking with Brett. So she asked Mr. Brown to join the party, and he accepted. Dolly came first, but Mr. Brown, who was punctuality itself, appeared a moment later. Vanbrugh arrived next, and last of all Harry Brett, a little late and apologising rather nervously. "Did you get my note?" he inquired of Vanbrugh, after the first greetings and as soon as he could exchange a word with him, unnoticed in the general conversation. "No. Anything important? I went out early--before eleven o'clock, and have not been at home since." "There was an interesting story of a wreck in the paper this morning," said Mr. Brown, addressing the three ladies. "Stop him," said Brett to Vanbrugh in an energetic whisper. "Now Brown, my dear fellow," he continued aloud, sitting down beside Mrs. Darche, "do not begin the day by giving us the Sunday Herald entire, because we have all read it and we know all about the wreck--" Mr. Brown, who was used to interruption and to being checked when he was about to bore people, looked up with mild eyes and protested a little. "I say, Brett, you know, you are rather abrupt sometimes, in your way of shutting people up. But as you say, they have probably all read the story. I only thought--" "Only thought!" cried Vanbrugh, taking his cue from his friend. "Only! As though thinking were not the most important function of the human animal, next to luncheon--" "I have not read the story Mr. Brown alludes to," observed Mrs. Willoughby rather primly. "Oh--it is all about natural history, and cannibals and latitudes and people in a boat," said Brett talking very fast. "All that kind of thing. As for the news I can give you lots of it. Great fire, strike, a new bacillus in postage-stamp gum--awfully dangerous, Mrs. Willoughby. Always use a sponge for moistening your stamps or you will get something--some sort of new disease--what is it, Vanbrugh? You always know everything." "Gum-boils," suggested Vanbrugh, without hesitation. Brett gave him a grateful look, as Mr. Brown's laughter assured him that the danger was over for the present. But Brett did not desist until Stubbs opened the dining-room door and they all went in to luncheon. Mrs. Darche watched him curiously, wondering what was the matter. She had never before heard him talk so nervously. Vanbrugh had not the slightest idea of what had happened, but blindly followed Brett's lead, and helped him to annihilate Mr. Brown, whenever the latter showed the least inclination to tell a story. Mr. Brown, however, was an obstinate person. He was not quick on his feet mentally, so to say, and an insignificant idea had as strong a hold upon his thoughts as an important one. Somehow he managed to tell the tale of the wreck to Mrs. Willoughby and Dolly in the little shifting of companionship which always takes place on leaving table. To do him justice, he told it very shortly, and Mrs. Darche did not chance to be listening at the time. Stubbs was offering everybody coffee, and Marion had a box of cigarettes and was standing before the fireplace with Vanbrugh and Brett, exchanging a few words with the latter. Suddenly Mr. Brown's voice rose above the rest. "Of course," he was saying, "nobody ever knew positively that the man had really been drowned. But he had never turned up--" "And probably never will," answered Dolly, glancing nervously at Marion. But she had caught the words and had turned a little pale. Vanbrugh looked over to Brown. "For heaven's sake, Jim," he said, in a low voice. "Talk about something else, if you must, you know!" Mr. Brown's face fell as he realised his mistake. "By Jove!" he exclaimed. "Just like me! I forgot that poor Darche drowned himself." Marion recovered herself quickly and came forward, offering her box of cigarettes to everybody, while Brett carried the little silver spirit lamp. "You must all smoke and make yourselves happy," she said with a smile. "Cousin Annie does not mind it in the least." "Well, of course," began Mrs. Willoughby, primly polite, "nowadays--" "There is nobody like you, Mrs. Darche," said Vanbrugh, accepting the offer. "Thanks." "They are your especial kind," answered Marion. "I know they are--that is what I mean. How you spoil me!" Marion went on. "Mr. Brown?" "Yes, thank you. I do smoke sometimes," answered Mr. Brown, hesitating in the matter between his allegiance to Mrs. Willoughby, who disapproved of smoking in the drawing-room, and his duty to his hostess, who encouraged it. "I hope you always do," said Marion. "When a man does not smoke--Mr. Brett, take one." She had stopped herself, remembering that her husband had not been a smoker, but Mr. Brown finished the sentence for her with his usual tact. "Yes," he said, lighting his cigarette, "men who do not smoke always seem to me to be suspicious characters." "Dolly, try one," said Marion, trying not to hear him. "Oh, Marion!" Dolly laughed. "Try it," said Vanbrugh, sitting down beside her. The party had paired off, and Marion found herself near the window with Brett, beside a table covered with photographs and etchings. "I wonder why Miss Maylands should seem shocked," began Brett, entering into conversation rather awkwardly. "I have no doubt that she, and you, and perhaps Mrs. Willoughby, have all tried a cigarette in secret, and perhaps you have liked it?" "If I liked cigarettes I would smoke them," said Mrs. Darche, with decision. "Do you always do what you like?" "In little things." "And how about the big things?" inquired Brett. "I like to have other people take care of them for me." "What people?" As he asked the question he absently took a photograph from the table and looked at it. "People who know me," said Marion. "Meaning me?" "If you like." "If I like!" exclaimed Brett. Then, having broken the ice, as it were, his voice suddenly changed. "There is nothing I like so much, there is nothing I would rather do than take care of you and what belongs to you." "You have shown it," answered Mrs. Darche gently. She took the photograph from Brett's hand and looked at it, in her turn, without seeing it. "I have tried to, once or twice," said Brett, "when you needed help." "Indeed you have. And you know that I am grateful too." "I do not care to know that," he replied. "If I ever did anything for you--it was only what any other man would have done in my place--it was not for the sake of earning your gratitude." "For what then?" Brett hesitated a moment before he answered, and then turned from her towards the window as he spoke. "It was not for the sake of anything." "Mere caprice, then?" asked Marion, watching him closely. "No, not that." "I suppose your motives are a secret?" Marion laughed a little, perhaps at her own curiosity. "Yes." Brett pronounced the single word with great earnestness. "Dear me!" exclaimed Marion. "Yes. And I shall be very sorry if you ever find out what that secret is." "How mysterious!" "Yes, is it not?" Brett had suddenly assumed a tone of indifference. As he spoke Vanbrugh and Dolly rose and came forwards towards the table. "If you have quite finished not looking at those photographs, give them to me, Brett," said Vanbrugh. "Miss Maylands wishes to see them." "Oh, take them by all means," answered Brett, thrusting a dozen or more into his hands. "As I was saying, Mrs. Darche, I am the worst judge of architecture in the world--especially from photographs." "Architecture, eh?" observed Vanbrugh, as he re-crossed the room with Dolly. "Rather hard on photographs of etchings from portraits." "Oh, no!" exclaimed Dolly, laughing softly and looking back at Brett and Mrs. Darche. "They talk of love's temple, you know, and building up one's happiness--and lots of things of that sort--the architecture of the affections." "You seem to care," said Vanbrugh, sitting down and laying the photographs upon his knees. "Do I? Do you not?" "I--oh, well, in a sort of a fatherly way, I suppose." He held up one of the photographs upside down and looked at it. "Yes. Now I care in a sort of a sisterly way, you know. It is very much the same thing, I fancy." "Is that all?" asked Vanbrugh with a short laugh. "I thought you had made up your mind." "About what?" "About Harry Brett." Dolly looked at him in surprise and drew herself up a little stiffly. "What about him?" "I do not mean to be rude, nor inquisitive, nor anything of the sort--so I think I had better turn the conversation." "But you do not. You are waiting for me to say something. Do you think I am afraid? Do you think I am like all the girls you meet and dance with, and repeat your pretty speeches to?" "Repeat is graceful," said Vanbrugh, "considerate--so kind of you." "I do not feel kind," answered Dolly emphatically, "and I am not at all afraid of telling the truth." "Considering your interest in Sunday schools that is what I should expect." "I am just as fond of dancing and enjoying myself as any one else," said Dolly, relenting, "though I do take an interest in Sunday schools." "Fashionable charities and dissipations, as Brett calls them--I see." "Do not see in that tone of voice, please--if what you see has anything to do with me." "Which it has," said Vanbrugh. "Mrs. Darche is one of your charities, I suppose--and Harry Brett is one of your dissipations." "You are too complicated," answered Dolly, really not understanding. "Say it in American, will you not?" "You love Brett, and you are nice to Mrs. Darche, though you hate her," said Vanbrugh in a tone which left Dolly in doubt as to whether he was in earnest or only chaffing. She paused a moment and stared at him before she answered, and then to his great astonishment spoke with more coldness than he was accustomed to. "Precisely," she said. "I love Mrs. Darche and I hate Brett because he does not ask her to marry him as he should, now that Darche has been dead so long. I am sorry, Marion," she said, turning to Mrs. Darche, and going up to her rather suddenly, "dear--I really must be going." "Already?" exclaimed Marion in surprise, "it is not three o'clock?" "Almost," said Dolly, "and I have lots to do--ever so many people waiting for me at a Committee, and then a visit I must make, and a frock to try on--and then if we are to dine at seven so as to be dressed in time for the tableaux there is no afternoon at all." "How busy you are! Yet you always look so fresh! How in the world do you do it?" "A large appetite and a clear conscience--" suggested Brett, who seemed to be more than usually absent-minded. Dolly glanced at him rather angrily as she shook hands with her friend. "Good-bye, dear Marion. It has been ever so nice! Good-bye." She left the room. Vanbrugh was annoyed and discomforted by her sudden departure, but he made the best of the situation, and after closing the door behind her, sat down beside Mrs. Willoughby, who was listening to one of Brown's stories. "I suppose she is angry with me," said Brett to Marion. "What did I say? I was thinking of something else." "Then why did you choose that moment for speaking of her?" asked Mrs. Darche reproachfully. "You really must take care, you will make enemies." "Of course. What does it matter?" "It matters to me, if you make enemies of my friends." "That is different," said Brett. "But seriously--do not people forgive a lack of tact sometimes--being a little absent-minded? Look at Jim Brown." "That is quite another thing," Marion answered. "Yes--I heard what he was telling as we came into the room after the luncheon. Of course it was tactless. Of course no man in his senses should talk in a loud tone, before me, of a man falling overboard at sea and being drowned, still less--" "What?" asked Brett. A short pause followed the question, and when Marion answered it, it was evident that she was making an effort. "Still less of the possibility that such a man might be heard of again some day." "That at least is improbable," said Brett, very gravely. "I shivered when I heard what he said." "I do not wonder." In the meantime, at the other end of the room, Mr. Brown was enjoying at last the supreme satisfaction of talking without reserve about the story he had seen in the papers that morning. "One never knows what to believe," said Mrs. Willoughby. "Believe nothing," said Vanbrugh with much conviction. "In particular, my dear Mrs. Willoughby, do not believe in Brown's tales. He is a perfectly idle man, and he does nothing but sleep and talk, because he has a liver and cannot eat. A man who has nothing to do requires a great deal of sleep and a great deal of conversation." "I say, Russell, old man," protested Mr. Brown with a good-humoured laugh, "this is rather unkind. Where would you get your conversation if I did not supply you with the items? That is what one's best friends come to, Mrs. Willoughby, in this bustling world. And why should not people eat, sleep, and talk,--and do nothing else if they have time? But as for this story, I never pretended that it was anything but newspaper gossip--not even that--a sensation item, manufactured down town, perhaps. 'Woman burned alive in Jersey City,'--five lines--'Deny the report,'--five lines more--that is the sort of thing. But this is a strange coincidence, or a strange story. It might almost be poor Darche's case, with a sensational ending." "Oh, well," answered Vanbrugh, who by this time quite understood the meaning of Brett's strange conduct before luncheon, "of course it is only a sensational paragraph, and belongs to your department, Brown. But as you say, the coincidences are extraordinary. A man says he fell overboard from a Channel boat, and was picked up by an Italian bark, which took him to Valparaiso after all sorts of adventures. The weak point in these stories generally is that the man never seems to take the trouble to communicate with his relations from the first port he reaches, and takes an awful lot of trouble to get shipwrecked somewhere on the way. But in this case that is the strong point. What did you say the fellow's name was?" "Why, my dear man, that is three-quarters of the coincidence. He calls himself John Drake. Transpose the 'r' and the 'a,' and that looks uncommonly like John Darche." "No doubt," said Vanbrugh; "but then there is nothing peculiar about 'John.' If he had been christened 'Eliphalet Xenophon' it would have been considerably stranger. Besides if he really were Darche he would not call himself either Darche or John." "How can you suggest anything so dreadful!" exclaimed Mrs. Willoughby. "Why 'dreadful'?" asked Mr. Brown. "Only think of it," said Mrs. Willoughby. "An escaped suicide--I mean, a convict who escaped and killed himself." "And you think that the disgrace of having committed suicide will cling to him in after life, so to say--in Sing-Sing?" inquired Mr. Brown. "Do not make me out more stupid than I really am." Cousin Annie assumed a deprecatory expression. "Do you not think that a man like Darche--convicted of a crime--escaped--if he suddenly re--re--What is the word?" "Imperfectly resurrected," suggested Vanbrugh. "Oh yes! Anything! If he came back to life, and yet was supposed to be dead, and was trying to begin all over again and to make a fresh start, and that kind of thing--under another name--" "In order to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing his widow marry some one else?" asked Vanbrugh, with less discretion than usual. "I did not mean that," said Mrs. Willoughby quickly. "Poor Marion! Poor Marion! What time is it, Mr. Brown?" "Three." "Oh dear!" exclaimed cousin Annie. "Dear me!" echoed Vanbrugh. "Yes, it is later than I thought," said Mr. Brown. By a common impulse, all three rose at once and crossed the room to take leave of their hostess. "What, are you all going?" asked the latter. "Do you know what time it is, Marion?" And not waiting for an answer, Mrs. Willoughby held out her hand. "It is awfully late," observed Vanbrugh, by way of explanation. "Thank you so much," said Mr. Brown, shaking hands warmly. "Yes, it is later than I thought." Brett looked at his watch, though by this time he had made up his mind to outstay the others. "Well--if you must go--" Marion did not show any anxiety to detain her guests as they filed out of the room. "You did not mean me to go away with the crowd, did you?" asked Brett, as the door closed behind Mr. Brown. "Not if you wished to stay," answered Marion, taking her favourite chair near the fire. "Take another cigarette. Sit down." "And make myself at home? Thanks." "If you can," said Mrs. Darche with a pleasant laugh. "Did you hear what they were saying to each other over there while we were talking?" inquired Brett, who by this time seemed to have recovered from the unnatural embarrassment he had shown at first. He had rather suddenly made up his mind that Marion ought to know something about the story in the papers. "No. Did you?" she asked. "Yes." "I do not like that." Mrs. Darche did not seem pleased. "It was not nice of you--to be able to talk as you were talking, and to listen to the conversation of other people at the same time." "Do you know what they were saying?" asked Brett. "No, certainly not." "It is not a pleasant subject. They were talking about that paragraph in the papers again. Of course there is nothing in the story, and yet it is very strange. May I speak of it?" "Is it of any use?" asked Mrs. Darche, beginning to suspect what was coming. "I hardly know," Brett answered, "and yet if it should turn out there is even the smallest grain of truth--" "There cannot be. I know there cannot be," she repeated, after a moment's pause, as though she had gone over the whole question in the interval. "Oh, what is the use of suggesting such things?" "Yes," answered Brett. "You know there cannot be any truth in it--even if he were alive he would not come back. I know it, and yet if he should, it would be so horrible that I cannot help thinking of it. You know what it would mean if that man were to return." "I know what it would mean to me. Do not speak of it, please." "I must, I cannot help it. I feel as if something were driving me to speak. You did not hear the whole story. They said the man was picked up in mid-channel by an Italian ship more than _seven months_ ago." "Seven months ago!" "Even the time would fit the truth. But then--stop. Was he a swimmer? Yes--of course--I remember him at Newport." Brett answered his own question. "The ship--a bark they called it--was outward bound, and could not put in again. She was on her way to Valparaiso. You know where that is, all the way round by the Straits of Magellan. Something happened to her, she got wrecked or something--they say that a lot of the crew were killed and eaten up by the cannibals in Terra del Fuego. John Drake--" "John Drake!" Marion exclaimed. "Yes, another coincidence. John Drake--horribly like is it not?--managed to escape with the second mate, the carpenter, and the cabin boy, got across to the Patagonian country--there are lots of details. They wandered about for ever so long, and at last turned up somewhere. They were all Italians, and Drake, who had no papers, was shipped off again by the Consul on board of another Italian ship. That accounts for six months, with the bad weather they had. Then there is a long blank. And now this John Drake turns up here--" "Yes--but--after all, if he changed his name, he would change it altogether." She stopped and looked at him, for the argument seemed conclusive. "That is not the only point that is not clear," Brett answered. "But the names are so dreadfully alike." "But there is a very great difference!" Marion exclaimed. "There are a great many Drakes--but Darche is a very uncommon name." "That is the reason why he changed it so little." "Oh, why do you suggest such a possibility--of what use is it? Why?" She rose suddenly and began to move about the room. "Because I am a fool, I suppose," Brett answered, not moving from his seat. "But I cannot help it. The idea has taken hold of me and I cannot get rid of it. I feel as though that man had risen from the dead to wreck your life." "It would be a wreck indeed!" said Marion in a low voice that had a sort of horror in it. "You could not save me this time--not even you." "And yet--" "What?" "No--I ought not to say it." "Mysteries again?" Marion stopped beside him and looked down into his face. "The same, if you choose to call it a mystery." "I wish you would speak out, my dear friend," said Marion gravely. "I feel all the time that there is something in your mind which you wish to say to me, but which you will not, or cannot, or dare not say. Am I right?" "To some extent." "I do not think you understand what friendship really means." "Friendship?" Brett exclaimed. "For you? No, perhaps I do not. I wish I did. I would give a great deal if I could." "I do not in the least understand," said Marion, sitting down again. "You, my best friend, tell me in the most serious, not to say mysterious way, that you do not know what friendship means, when you are proving every day that you do. I hate secrets! Very few friendships will bear them. I wish there were none between us." "Ah, so do I!" "Then let there be none," said Marion in a tone that was almost authoritative. "Why should there be? In the dear old times when I was so unhappy and you were so good to me, we had no secrets, at least none that I knew of. Why should we have any now?" "The very reason why there must be one at all is the secret itself. Will you not believe me if I tell you that it would hurt you very much to know it?" "It is hard to believe, and I"--she laughed--"I can confess to a reasonable amount of curiosity on the subject." "Do not be curious," said Brett, very gravely, "please do not be curious. You might find it out and I should never forgive myself." "But if I forgave you--" "That would make no difference. That would not make the smallest difference." "What! Not to you?" Mrs. Darche glanced at him in surprise. "Not to me," answered Brett with decision. "The harm would be done." "Utterly incomprehensible!" exclaimed Marion as though speaking to herself. "I cannot help asking you again," she said turning to Brett again. "Tell me, has it anything to do with my husband?" "Yes it has." "Then tell me! Tell me, for heaven's sake!" By this time she was growing anxious. "Not for the world," said Brett firmly. "You do not know how unkind you are. You do not know--you do not know how much your friendship is to me, and how you are letting this wretched mystery come between us." "I know better, better than you can guess." "And you are keeping it to yourself because you are afraid of hurting me--hurting me!" she repeated bitterly. "As though I were not past hurting, these many months, as though I had not been through most all that a woman can bear and live, and yet I have borne it and have lived. No, I am wrong. I can still be hurt. Two things could hurt me. If by some horrible miracle John came back to life, and if--" She paused and hesitated. "What?" asked Brett, who hardly seemed to be listening to her. "If you allowed anything to break up this friendship of ours. But the one is impossible. John is dead, and I have lived down the shame of his memory, and the other--no, it would be your fault." "It would hurt you much more to know what I am keeping from you than to lose my friendship, or rather your friendship for me," said Brett, shaking his head. "Mine you cannot lose, whatever you do. I am giving you the best proof of it now." "And do you mean to say that after all that came out in those dark days, that after the trial and conviction, and my husband's escape and his horrible end, that there is still worse behind?--that he left something which you know and I do not know, but which, if I knew it, could still have the power to wreck my life and break what is the best part of me--yes, I am not ashamed to say so--the best part of me--our friendship. I am not tired of the sound of that word yet, nor shall be. Do you mean that? Do you really mean what you say?" "Yes," answered Brett, who had nodded at each of her questions. "I mean that there is something which I know, and of which the knowledge might ruin the happiness you have found since you have been alone. And yet you ask me to tell you what it is, when no possible good could come from your knowledge of it." "Yes, I do," said Marion, emphatically. "And as for my happiness, you are killing it with every word you say. You have knocked from under my feet the security of my position and you have taken the good out of what was best by saying that a word from you would spoil it. What is there left now but to tell me the truth?" "Your belief in me, if you ever had any--and I know that you had, as I hope that you still have." "My belief in you?" Marion paused, looked at him and then turned away. "Yes, but the more I believe in you, the more I must believe every word you say--" While she was speaking, Stubbs opened the door, and entered the room, bringing a card. "The person wishes to see you, madam," he said, holding out the silver salver. Mrs. Darche's face betrayed some annoyance at the interruption as she took up the card and read the name. "W. H. Wood, Associated Press. What does this mean?" she asked turning to Brett. "Do you know the man?" "Evidently a reporter," said Brett. "Tiresome people," exclaimed Mrs. Darche. "I wonder what in the world he wants. Perhaps he has made a mistake. At all events there is no reason why I should see him. Say that I am engaged," she added, turning to Stubbs. "Wait a minute, Stubbs," said Brett, calling after the man. "Do not send him away," he added, turning to Marion. "Let me see him." "Why?" she asked. "I have an idea that he has come about that story that has got into the papers," said Brett in a low voice. "Impossible!" exclaimed Mrs. Darche with great emphasis. "No," objected Brett, "there is just a possibility, and if it should be that, some one had better see him. Something very disagreeable might be written, and it is better to stop it at once." "Very well," said Mrs. Darche, yielding. "If you really think it is better, see him here. Ask Mr. Wood to come in," she said to Stubbs, as she passed him and went out. CHAPTER X. Brett stood before the fireplace as the reporter entered the room--a quiet, pale young man with a pinched face, smooth brown hair and thin hands which somehow conveyed the impression of sadness. "I asked to see Mrs. Darche," he said apologetically. "Mrs. Darche is engaged," answered Brett. "I am a friend of hers and will answer any questions so far as I can." "Thank you. I have no doubt, sir, that you are often troubled by us. You know the reporter has to be everywhere. I will not take any more of your time than I can help. I understand that Mrs. Darche and her friends are to take part in some tableaux for a charitable purpose at the end of the week--" "I fancy there is some mistake about that," said Brett. "Mrs. Darche is in mourning." "Precisely," said Mr. Wood. "I daresay Mrs. Darche would be glad to have the report denied. I understand, then, that there are not to be any tableaux." "I believe there is to be something of the kind, but Mrs. Darche has nothing to do with the affair--beyond giving her advice, I think. She would certainly not care very much to be talked of in the papers just now." "Just so," replied Mr. Wood readily. "I quite understand that there is a prejudice against it, and of course Mrs. Darche's name shall not appear. But you do not know what a great interest our readers take in social doings. Our paper has a very large circulation in the West." "I am very glad to know it. Would it not be enough just to mention the fact that there are to be some tableaux for a charity?" "If you would give me a hint about the subjects. Historical? One or two names would be very useful." "Really I do not think that any of us care to see our names in the paper," said Brett. "I will be as discreet as you wish--Mr.--" "My name is Brett." "Mr. Brett," repeated the reporter, making a note. "May I inquire, Mr. Brett, if you yourself take a part in the entertainment?" "Well--yes--I do." "Any particular costume?" "Yes--" Brett hesitated slightly and smiled. "Yes. Particular costumes are rather the rule in tableaux." "I do not wish to be indiscreet, of course." "No, I daresay not. I believe I am to be Darnley." "Thank you." Here Mr. Wood made another note. "Miss Maylands as Queen Mary Stuart? Is the report correct?" "I believe so," answered Brett, coldly. "Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Brett. If you could oblige me with one or two more names I could fix it nicely." "I suppose, Mr. Wood, that you mean to say something about it whether I tell you or not?" "Well, now, Mr. Brett," replied the reporter, assuming a more confidential manner, "to be quite frank, that is just what happens. We do not like to tire people out with questions they do not care to answer, but the social column has to be filled somehow, and if we do not get the news for it, it is sometimes made up in the office." "So I have often been led to believe from reading it," said Brett. "There are to be three tableaux, from well-known pictures, in which Miss Maylands, Mr. Russell Vanbrugh, myself, and a few others are to take part. The affair is to take place, I think, at Mrs. Trehearne's house." "Thank you, Mr. Brett. Dancing afterwards?" "I do not know." "Pardon me. Supper furnished by Delmonico, I suppose?" "Well I really have not asked. I daresay." "Thank you, Mr. Brett. Delmonico." Mr. Wood's pencil noted the fact. Brett began to think that he had had enough of the interview, and deliberately lighting a cigarette looked at the reporter. "Anything else you would like to know, Mr. Wood?" "Well, since you have been so very obliging, Mr. Brett, I would like to ask you a question." "All right," said Brett, resignedly. "Go ahead." "Mrs. Darche is a widow, I understand." "Yes." "Mr. Darche was the unfortunate victim of an accident several months ago, I believe?" "Yes." "Then of course there can be no truth in the story that he arrived in New York yesterday?" "What story?" Brett asked, turning sharply upon the young man. "I thought perhaps you might have seen it in this morning's paper," answered Wood quietly. "But perhaps you would not have noticed it, as there was a misprint in the name. A man came to the office yesterday and told the editor in charge that Mr. John Darche, who fell overboard last spring from a steamer, and was supposed to have been drowned, had turned up, and that he had seen him. I guess he was a crank. There are lots of them hanging around the office, and sometimes they get a drink for a bit of sensation." "Oh! is that the way news is manufactured?" inquired Brett, with some contempt. "Not in our office, Mr. Brett," replied the reporter, drawing himself up. "You can see for yourself that we only get our information from the most reliable sources. If that were not so, I should not have disturbed you to-day. But as there is no doubt in your mind that Mr. Darche is positively dead, I daresay that Mrs. Darche would be glad to have the report of her husband's return contradicted?" "I do not think it matters much, since the name was printed Drake." "Pardon me," said Wood. "Some of the papers printed it correctly, and others are going to do so. I just saw two gentlemen from an evening paper, and they have got it straight for this afternoon." "You do not mean to say that the papers believe the story?" asked Brett in real or affected surprise. "Oh no, Mr. Brett, they give it for what it is worth." "With headlines a foot high, I suppose?" "Well, perhaps some of the papers will do so," answered the young man with a smile. Brett's manner changed as he realised that he could not afford to let the reporter take away a wrong impression. He sat down and pointed to a chair. "Take a cigarette, Mr. Wood." "No, I thank you, I do not smoke. Thank you." Mr. Wood sat down upon the edge of the chair beside Brett, who looked at him fixedly for a moment before speaking. "I do not suppose that it is necessary for me to repeat that this story is an absurd fabrication, and that if there is a man who is going about and calling himself John Darche, he ought to be in jail." "Certainly, Mr. Brett, I am quite of that opinion." "Then would you mind helping me to get hold of him? Where is the man to be heard of?" "That is another matter, Mr. Brett. I shall be happy to see that the report is denied. But whether the man is an impostor or not, it will be hard to find him. That will not matter. We will explain everything to-morrow morning, and it will all be forgotten by the next day. You say you are quite sure, Mr. Brett, that Mr. Darche was not picked up when he fell overboard?" "Sure!" answered Brett, authoritatively. "I see," said Wood. "Thank you. I understand that it was in winter, in rough weather, and that the efforts made to save him were in vain." "On the contrary, it was a calm, warm night in May. It is certainly strange that they should not have been able to save him. That ought to prove beyond question that he sank at once." "There is no doubt about that, I should think," replied the reporter without much conviction. "I won't detain you any longer, Mr. Brett. The report shall be denied at once. Will you allow me to use your name as authority for these details?" "Everybody knows the story." "Pardon me. Our paper has a very large circulation in the West, and a well-known name like yours lends great weight to any statement." "I did not know that my name was so particularly well known," observed Brett. "Why, certainly, Mr. Brett. Your yacht won a race last year. I remember it very well." "That might be a claim to distinction, but I never had a yacht." "Not fond of the sea, Mr. Brett?" "Oh, yes, I like it well enough," said Brett, rising, as though he wished it understood that the interview was at an end. "You will distinctly deny this report, will you not?" "You can rely upon me to say just what you have said to me, Mr. Brett." "Very well. Thank you. Then you will be good enough to say that there is not a word of truth in it, and warn people against the man who calls himself Darche?" "Certainly, certainly. Thank you, Mr. Brett. Good morning, Mr. Brett." "Good morning." Brett followed the reporter with his eyes till the door closed behind him. He felt as though he had distinctly got the worst of it in the encounter, and yet he could not see how he could have said less. And that was how stories got about, he thought. If he had not seen the reporter,--if the latter had been turned away as Mrs. Darche had intended, the story of Darche's return would have been reported again and again. That, at least, thought Brett, was prevented for the present. Nevertheless, as he stood alone during those few moments before sending word to Marion that the reporter was gone, Brett's face betrayed his terrible anxiety. He hesitated. More than once his hand went out towards the bell and dropped again by his side. At last he made up his mind, touched the button, and sent Stubbs with his message to Mrs. Darche. "Well?" she asked as she entered the room. "It is all right," he answered. "It was about the charity tableaux. I did not want to go away without seeing you, so I sent Stubbs--" "You are not going this moment?" Marion looked at him in surprise. She was further than ever from understanding him. He seemed to act suddenly and irrationally. A quarter of an hour earlier he had been almost his old self, in spite of his strange references to a mystery which he could not communicate to her, and now he had changed again and resumed the incomprehensible manner he had affected of late. He seemed anxious to get away from her, even at the cost of seeming rude. Then, as he held out his hand to say good-bye, he surprised her more than ever. "If you will allow me," he said, "I will come back in the course of the afternoon." "Certainly," she answered, staring at him as she shook hands. A moment later he was gone, leaving Marion in considerable perplexity and some anxiety of mind. When Brett left the house he went in search of Vanbrugh, whom he ultimately found at a club. The conversation which had taken place between three men who were spending the long afternoon between letter-writing, the papers, and gossip, is worth recording. It was about five o'clock. The names of the men were Goss, Greene, and Bewlay, and they were rather insignificant persons, but gentlemen, and all acquainted with the actors of this story. Goss was seated in a deep leathern easy-chair with a paper. Greene was writing a letter, and Bewlay was exceedingly busy with a cigar while waiting for some one to say something. "Well!" exclaimed Goss. "That beats the record!" "I say," said Greene, looking up and speaking sharply, "I wish you would not startle a fellow in that way. My nerves are not of the best any way. What is the matter?" "Oh, nothing in particular," said the first speaker. "John Darche has come back to life again. I thought he was drowned last May." "Stuff!" ejaculated Greene, testily. "All right. I do not want to disturb your correspondence." "What is that about John Darche?" inquired Bewlay, delighted at hearing a voice. "Some rubbish or other," answered Goss. "It is the fashion to resurrect people nowadays--sort of way the newspapers have of getting ahead of the day of judgment. If this goes on, that entertainment will not draw." "What is it, any way?" "Headlines to begin with. 'The return of the prodigal--John W. Darche, alive and asking questions. Accident--not suicide--interview with Mr. Henry C. Brett.'" "What the dickens has Brett got to do with it?" asked Greene, looking up from his letter again. "They say he is engaged to marry Mrs. Darche," said Bewlay, in explanation. "That is another ridiculous story," answered Greene. "I happen to know he is as good as engaged to Miss Maylands." "Let me see the paper, please," said Bewlay. "No, I will read it," said Goss, shifting his position so as to get a better light. "Then you can all hear. 'Our reporter called this afternoon at the house of Mrs. John W. Darche, the beautiful and accomplished widow who so long dispensed her hospitality in Lexington Avenue. The beauteous lady was doubtless engaged in the consideration of the costumes for certain charity tableaux in which her mourning prevents her from taking a part, but in which her artistic taste and advice are invaluable to the performers, and our reporter was received by Mr. Henry C. Brett, the well-known lawyer, yachtsman, and patron of the turf, who is to play the part of Darnley to Miss Maylands' Queen Mary of Scotland in the artistic treat which awaits the favoured and charitable to whom invitations have been tendered. Mr. Brett was kind enough to answer a few questions regarding the report of Mr. John Darche's return to New York which appeared in the morning papers. Mr. Brett affected to treat the story with unconcern, but it was evident from his anxious manner and from his somewhat nervous bearing that he was deeply moved, though he bravely "took arms against the sea of troubles." Mr. Brett said repeatedly in the course of the conversation that the story was an absurd fabrication, and if there was a man going around calling himself John Darche he ought to be in jail. He professed to be quite sure that Mr. Darche was dead, but was obliged to admit that there was no evidence forthcoming to certify to the tragedy. "The accident," said Mr. Brett, "happened on board of a channel steamer more than seven months ago. It was a calm, warm night in May. Two ladies were lying in their chairs on the quarter-deck engaged in conversation. Suddenly in the mysterious gloom they noticed the muffled figure of a gentleman passenger leaning over the rail hard by them. A moment later the figure was gone. There was a dull splash and all was over. They at once realised the horrid situation and cried aloud for help, but there seems to have been no one else on deck in that part of the boat. Many minutes elapsed before they could explain what they had seen, and the necessary orders were given for stopping the steamer. The Captain then retraced his course, lowered a number of boats, and every effort was made to prosecute the search until far into the night when the steamer, which carried mails, was reluctantly obliged to resume her way. His body," said Mr. Brett in conclusion, "was never found." Mr. Brett, as was very natural, was more than anxious that the report should be denied, but in the face of the facts he himself stated with such pellucid clearness, it is impossible to say conscientiously that the story of Mr. Darche's return may not be true. The fact remains that a gentleman whose name is undoubtedly Darche is now in New York, and if he is really Mr. John Darche of Lexington Avenue, steps will be taken to set all doubts at rest before twenty-four hours have expired.' I daresay you are not surprised at my exclamation now, after reading that," said Goss, looking round at his hearers. "Pretty serious for Brett." "Pretty serious for Mrs. Darche," observed Greene. "Pretty serious for everybody," said Bewlay, smoking thoughtfully. "That is," suggested Greene, "if it is not all a fake, which is probably the truth about it." "Has anybody seen Brett here?" inquired Goss. At this point the conversation was interrupted by the entry of Mr. Brown, who was also a member of the club. "Is Brett here?" he asked, looking about. "Just what I was asking," answered Goss. "I suppose you have seen this?" "About Darche? Yes. I am afraid it is true." "What! You do not believe it?" Greene was the most sceptical of the party. "Have you seen him?" asked Bewlay. "No," answered Mr. Brown. "I have not seen him, but I mean to before long. This is much too serious to be flying about in the papers like this. Imagine what would happen if it fell into Mrs. Darche's hands. Why it is enough to kill any ordinary woman on the spot! To think that that infernal blackguard may not be dead after all." "You seem to feel rather strongly on the subject," observed Greene. "Are you engaged to marry Mrs. Darche too?" "Nonsense!" ejaculated Brown. "I am in earnest. Just put yourself in her position." "For my part I had rather not," replied Goss with a smile. "But I agree with Brown. A more unmitigated blackguard than John Darche never breathed the unholy air of Wall Street. The only decent thing about him was his suicide, and now virtue is to be cheated of that." "Mrs. Darche never speaks of him, I believe?" The question came from Bewlay. "He did not return the civility," said Goss. "I have heard him talk about his wife in this very room--well--I won't say how, but he was a brute." "Judging from your language you must be talking about Darche," said a fifth speaker. Vanbrugh had entered the room. "Yes," answered Brown, "we were. The damning was going on, but we had not got to the faint praise. What do you think about all this, Vanbrugh?" "The question must be settled one way or the other before to-night," answered the last comer. "If Darche is really alive the fact must be kept quiet until to-morrow and then some one must tell his wife. I propose that we elect a committee of action, give up our dinner parties if we have any, and go and find the fellow." "That sounds like good advice," said Brown. "We might as well look for a Chinaman in Pekin," put in Greene, "as to try to hunt out any particular tough in the Bowery at this time of day." "We can try any way," said Mr. Brown, who was of a hopeful temperament. "I am not engaged to dine anywhere, are you, Vanbrugh?" "No." "Then come along." They turned towards the door and were just going out when Brett met them, looking very white. "Hello, Brett!" exclaimed Brown. "You are the very man we have been looking for. Come along with us and find John Darche." "Wait a minute," said Vanbrugh, interposing. "Have you seen this interview?" He took the paper from Greene and gave it to Brett, who read rapidly while the others looked on, talking in undertones. "Damn!" he exclaimed, turning to the others. "Have you all been reading this stuff? I hope you do not believe that is what I said? A man came to the house after luncheon. You fellows had just gone and I was going. Mrs. Darche did not want to see him, but I advised her to let me tell him what ought to be said about this affair. He tried to pump me about the charity tableaux and then asked me about Darche. I told him that it was all an absurd fabrication, and he promised to say so and to deny all reports. And this is the result." "Of course it is," said Greene. "The natural result of putting yourself into any reporter's hands." "I would like to say a word for the reporter," said Mr. Brown mildly. "The paper is not his. He does not edit it. He does not get a share of the profits, and when he interviews people he merely is doing what he has undertaken to do. He is earning his living." "Marriage and death and reporters make barren our lives," observed Greene sourly, and some of the men laughed. "I say, Brett, how much of this did you actually say?" asked Vanbrugh. "Not a word, it seems to me. And yet I see some of my own phrases worked in." He picked up the paper and looked at it again. "Yes, I did say that it was a warm May night. I did say that his body was never found. Yes, that is true enough. How the deuce does the fellow manage to twist it so?" "Does it not strike you that the reporter has only shown you your own account in the light in which other people will look at it?" inquired Mr. Brown, sententiously. "Oh, confound it all, Brown, how can you say such a thing?" exclaimed Brett. "Well, I will explain," replied Mr. Brown. "Here are the facts, by your own showing. On a warm evening in spring, and in calm weather, John Darche fell overboard. I do not say he threw himself overboard, though it was said that he did, to get away from the detective, possibly it may have been an accident after all. We do not know. He was seen to go over by some one, possibly by two ladies. It was very likely at supper-time. We do not know that either. But it is quite sure that there were not many people about. The ladies screamed, as was natural, called for help and all that sort of thing. But on a calm May night those channel boats run very fast. They did not cry out 'man overboard!' as a sailor would have done, and very probably five minutes elapsed before the Captain gave the order to stop. In that time the boat would have run a mile and a half. It could not stop inside of half a mile. Well, do you know anything about the tides and currents in the Channel? The steamer could not have gone back to the point at which Darche was lost much inside of twenty minutes. In that time the current may have carried him a mile or more in one direction or the other. Every one remembers that Darche was a good swimmer. As it happened in May, he was not burdened with an overcoat, or thick boots, and there are always vessels about in the Channel. Why is it so very improbable that he should have been picked up by one, outward bound--" While he was speaking, Brett played nervously with an unlighted cigar, which he held in his hand. "A sailing-vessel outward bound from England to South America would not be in the Channel," observed Vanbrugh. "Nobody said she was from England," retorted Brown. "She may have been from Amsterdam. A great many Italian vessels take in cargo there." "Surely she would have stopped and put Darche ashore," said Greene with conviction. But the others laughed. "You are not much of a sailor," said Brown. "You cannot stop a sailing-vessel, as you express it, and run into any harbour you like as though she were a steam-tug. To put back might mean a loss of two or three weeks to the captain. Upon my soul, Vanbrugh, I cannot see why it is so improbable." "You are not in earnest, Brown?" asked Brett anxiously. "I am, though. A case like that happened not very long ago. Everybody knows about it. It is a fact. A man came back and found his wife married to somebody else." "Enoch Arden!" suggested Greene contemptuously. "Precisely the same thing. The man had been living somewhere near San Francisco. After he came back he found his wife had married an old friend of his--a very good fellow. He would not break her heart, so he went off to live by himself in the Rockies." "I wish you would stop!" exclaimed Brett, almost livid. "I wonder it does not strike you in the same way," continued Mr. Brown, unmoved. "You are a lawyer, Vanbrugh. Now just argue the case, and meet my points." "Well really, you do put the case pretty strongly," answered Vanbrugh thoughtfully. "If you look at it in that way, there certainly is a bare shadow of a possibility that Darche may have come back." "Good God, Vanbrugh, don't!" cried Brett. "I cannot quite help it." Vanbrugh drew Brown a little aside and spoke in a lower tone, but Brett, who could scarcely control himself, moved up behind them. "Look here, Brown," said Vanbrugh, "we ought not to talk like this before Brett. After all, it is a mere possibility, one chance in a thousand." "Considering the peculiarities of the name," argued Mr. Brown, "there are more chances than that." "Possibly. But why should he go to the newspaper office instead of hiding altogether, or getting away from New York by the next steamer?" "That is true," assented Mr. Brown. "I say, you fellows," cried Brett, coming between them. "Stop that, won't you? You are both infatuated. Why, you must be mad! Everybody knows he is dead." "It is certainly probable," said Mr. Brown doubtfully, "but it is not sure." "Do not get excited, Brett," said Vanbrugh. "There are a lot of men looking on. Go home and leave it to us. We will find the man and see him before to-night." "I am going with you," said Brett resolutely. "No, you are not," said Vanbrugh, looking at him curiously. "You are no good. You are losing your head already. Go home and keep quiet." "Yes, it would be much better," urged Mr. Brown. "Besides, two of us are quite enough." "You do not really believe it," Brett said suddenly, after a moment's hesitation. "Oh no, I suppose not," answered Vanbrugh with affected indifference. "Cheer up, old man!" said Mr. Brown. "There may not be anything in it after all." "May not!" exclaimed Brett. "I ought not to be here, anyhow," he added, speaking to Vanbrugh. "He may ring at her door at any moment." And without further words he disappeared into the hall. "Brett seems to be pretty badly rattled," remarked Greene. "Yes," answered Goss. "Strange, is it not? Yet you are quite sure that he is to marry Miss Maylands?" "It is not safe to be sure of anything," said Greene, going back to the writing-table and folding his letter. "I believe it is true that he has come back," mused Bewlay, relighting his cigar. "There certainly is a possibility," said Vanbrugh. "Of course there is," assented Mr. Brown. "I almost believe it myself," said Greene, rising and going out with his letter. "It is a queer story, is it not?" observed Goss. "Yes," answered Bewlay. "It has made me quite thirsty." "Well, this is a good stopping-place," replied the other. "Ten minutes for refreshments." CHAPTER XI. Vanbrugh and Mr. Brown lost no time, for the former knew exactly what to do. Within three-quarters of an hour they had been to headquarters in Mulberry Street, had ascertained that there was ground for the report that John Darche had returned, that the police were making haste to secure him and that he had paused the night without much attempt at concealment, in a sailors' lodging-house on the east side. They found the place without difficulty, and were informed that the man Darche had gone out in the morning, leaving his few effects in charge of the lodging-house keeper. The house was watched by detectives. Vanbrugh asked Brown to stay at the Mulberry Street Station until dinner-time and then to bring him news at Mrs. Darche's in Lexington Avenue, whither he at once returned, fearing some trouble and anxious to give timely warning. He knew enough of criminals to suspect that Darche, finding himself in New York very much against his will and doubtless without money, would in all likelihood attempt to obtain money from his wife to aid him in making his escape. He would probably not waste time in writing, but would appear in person at the house, just before dinner when he would know that Marion must be at home, and he would have little or no difficulty in forcing his way into her presence. This was what he foresaw in case the man proved to be really John Darche. The police were satisfied that there was no mistake, and that a fortunate accident had thrown the escaped criminal into their hands. Nevertheless, Vanbrugh had doubts on the subject. The coincidence of name was possible, if not probable, and no one had given him any description which would have applied any more to John Darche than to any other man of his age and approximately of his complexion. The lodging-house keeper was evidently under the impression that the man, whoever he was, must be a sailor; but any one familiar with sea-faring men knows that, apart from some peculiarity of dress there is often very little to distinguish them from landsmen, beyond the fact that no seaman ever wears spectacles, and that most sailors have bronzed faces. But a landsman is easily imposed upon by a "guernsey," a jack-knife, a plug of tobacco, and a peculiar taste in swearing. When Brett had left Marion Darche so abruptly, she had gone to her morning-room and shut herself up to think, with no especial result, except that she was very unhappy in the process. She would not even see Dolly Maylands, who came in soon afterwards, but sent her word to have tea in the library with Cousin Annie. She herself, she said, would come down later. She begged Dolly to stay to dinner, just as she was. Dolly was busy as usual, but she was anxious about her friend and about Brett, and her own life seemed very perplexing. Men were very odd creatures, she thought. Why did Brett hesitate to ask Marion to marry him, since he was in love with her, unless he were sure that Marion loved Vanbrugh, or at least liked him better? And if Vanbrugh were not himself in love with Marion, an idea which Dolly scouted with wrath, why did he not offer himself to her, Dolly Maylands? Considering that the world was a spheroid, thought Dolly, it was a very crooked stick of a world, after all. "All alone, Dolly?" asked Mrs. Willoughby, entering the library. "Yes," answered Dolly. "I am all alone, and I am tired, and I want some tea, and Marion is lying down, and everything is perfectly horrid. Do sit down and let us have a cosy talk, all by ourselves." "Why will people scramble through life at such a rate?" And Mrs. Willoughby installed her gray self in an easy-chair. "I have told Marion fifty times since last summer that she will break down unless she gives herself a rest." "My dear Mrs. Willoughby," said Dolly. "Marion is a very sensible woman and manages her existence on scientific principles. She really gets much more rest than you or I, not to mention the fact--well, I suppose I ought not to say it." "What? Why not?" "Well, I was thinking that since poor Mr. Darche was drowned, life must have seemed like one long rest to Marion." "Oh Dolly, how unkind!" exclaimed Mrs. Willoughby, and then paused a moment before she continued. "But I suppose there is some truth in it. What is that proverb? 'De--de--mort--'" "'De mortuis nil nisi--something like bones,'" answered Dolly with a laugh. "What? What is that?" "Oh nothing. It only means that everybody should say the nicest possible things when people are dead. That was what you meant. But I should think the living would appreciate them more." "Yes, yes," assented Mrs. Willoughby vaguely. "I daresay he would." "He? Who is he?" asked Dolly with affected surprise. "Oh I do not mean anything, my dear. I hardly think that Marion will marry again." "I suppose they are admirably suited to each other?" "Who?" "Who? Why Marion and Mr. Vanbrugh. Who else?" Dolly watched Mrs. Willoughby's face. "Oh, I was not thinking of that. I meant Mr.--hm--" She interrupted herself in fear of indiscretion. "Your dress will be complete now with the lace, will it not, Dolly?" "Oh yes," answered Dolly in a careless tone. "It was just like Mr. Vanbrugh, was it not, to take all that trouble to find the very thing I wanted?" "A man will take a great deal of trouble, my dear, when he wants to please somebody he is fond of." "Yes--but me," suggested Dolly, just to see what Cousin Annie thought. "Why not you? Should you like some tea, Dolly?" "Why not me? I suppose because I am Marion's friend," Dolly answered. "Oh yes, if you put it in that way--" Mrs. Willoughby was interrupted by the appearance of Stubbs bringing in the tea. "Is Mrs. Darche at home if any one calls, Stubbs?" she inquired. "No, madam. Mrs. Darche is upstairs and not at home." He paused a moment to see whether Mrs. Willoughby meant to say anything more, and then left the room. "Dear Mrs. Willoughby, I do so want to ask you a question," said Dolly, beginning to pour the tea. "What is it, my dear?" "One lump or two?" inquired Dolly with hesitation. "Is that all?" asked Mrs. Willoughby with a slight laugh. "Not quite," answered Dolly. "Do you take milk?" "Please, and one lump. What is the question, child?" "No," said Dolly, laughing herself. "It was foolish and inquisitive, and all sorts of horrid things. I think I had better not ask it." "About Marion and Mr. Brett?" "Why?" Dolly asked, looking up quickly, and then hesitating. "Is there anything? I mean--yes, that is what I meant to ask." "Well, my dear," answered Mrs. Willoughby in a confidential tone, "to tell the truth I am glad to talk to somebody about it, for it is on my mind, and you know that Marion does not like to answer questions." "Yes, I know. Well, so you think there is something between them?" "My dear, of course there is," said Mrs. Willoughby without hesitation. "And I am quite sure that something has happened lately. In fact, I believe they are engaged to be married." "Do you really? And--and--where does Mr. Vanbrugh come in?" "Mr. Vanbrugh? I am sure I do not know. Perhaps he will be Harry Brett's best man." "If they could see themselves as others see them," reflected Dolly under her breath, before she answered the remark. "They would make a handsome couple, would they not? But you are quite mistaken, dear Mrs. Willoughby--oh, you are quite--quite mistaken." She looked down and sipped her tea. "How do you know that?" asked Mrs. Willoughby. "How can you be so sure? Do you not see how they go on together, always sitting in corners and talking in undertones?" "Do you not see how Marion spoils Mr. Vanbrugh, and gets his special brand of cigarettes for him, and always asks him to dinner to fill up a place, and altogether behaves like an idiot about him? You must be blind if you do not see that. Let me give you another cup of tea?" "Thanks, I have not finished," said Cousin Annie. "Of course, my dear child, no two people ever look at things from the same point of view, but I was thinking--" Stubbs opened the door again. "Mr. Vanbrugh," he announced. "He knew you were here, my dear," said Mrs. Willoughby in a whisper. "He has come to see you." "Will you be good-natured and forgive my spoiling your tea?" asked Vanbrugh, as he entered the room. "We will try," said Dolly. "Sit down," said Mrs. Willoughby, "and have some with us." "Thanks," answered Vanbrugh. "I am even ruder than I seem, for I am in a hurry. Do you think I could see Mrs. Darche? For a minute?" "I daresay," replied Cousin Annie, doubtfully. "Of course you can. She is upstairs and not at home." Dolly laughed. "So Stubbs told me," said Vanbrugh, "and I came in to ask you to help me. I am very glad I have seen you first. I know it is late and I will not keep you a moment. There is something that I must say. I have just been at the club for a moment and Brown came in and four or five others. There is certainly an impression that John Darche has really come back again." "Good heavens!" cried Mrs. Willoughby, thoroughly startled. "Oh, how awful!" exclaimed Dolly in real distress. "But you were all saying after luncheon that it was impossible." "I know," said Vanbrugh. "I know we were. But it looks otherwise now. There was so much talk about it that I proposed to Brown to try and find the man. We have been down town since then, to Mulberry Street. There certainly is a man knocking about under the name of John Darche, who landed from an Italian vessel last night." "Have you seen him?" asked Dolly. "Oh, poor Marion!" "Dreadful, dreadful!" repeated Mrs. Willoughby, staring at Vanbrugh. "No," answered the latter in reply to Dolly's question, "we have not seen him, but we shall have him this evening." "Here?" exclaimed Mrs. Willoughby, looking round nervously. "Here in this house?" "Yes--or at least, under our hand," said Vanbrugh. "Brown is waiting for information at the Mulberry Street Station." "To bring him here to-night?" asked Cousin Annie, with increasing anxiety. "No, to keep him from coming." "And you have come to warn Marion?" inquired Dolly. "Yes, in a way," answered Vanbrugh. "But not to tell her, of course. I want her to give strict orders about any odd-looking persons who may present themselves. I mean to tell her that I am afraid some reporter may try to get in, and that the man at the door must be very careful." "I will go to her," said Mrs. Willoughby, rising. "Mr. Vanbrugh--if he comes, if it is really he, he cannot be turned away from what was his own house." "No, but he shall be stopped at the door, and I will go out and talk to him and persuade him to escape, or to come and see me in the morning, if he is mad enough to stay." "Yes, that is sensible," answered Cousin Annie. "Shall I speak to my niece myself, or shall I make her come down?" Vanbrugh hesitated a moment and looked at Dolly, who answered by an almost imperceptible nod. "I think," said Vanbrugh, "that to put her to any inconvenience would make the matter look more serious than we wish her to think it is. Do you think you could explain, Mrs. Willoughby? Give her the idea that the newspaper man who was here to-day may come back--or some other person, or two or three. Anything of that sort." "I will do my best," answered Mrs. Willoughby. "You will wait until I come back, will you not?" "Of course," replied Vanbrugh, as she left the room. "Do you think it is really true?" asked Dolly. "I do not know what to think. Putting all the facts we have together, there is certainly a possibility." "I am very, very sorry," said Dolly, after a short pause. "Poor Mrs. Darche!" exclaimed Vanbrugh. "After all these months of freedom she has had, it will break her heart." "I was not thinking of Marion," answered Dolly. "Of whom, then?" asked Vanbrugh. "Of--of--some one else." "Yes, I know." "Yes," repeated Dolly with marked sympathy. "Will you not let me make you a nice cup of tea, Mr. Vanbrugh?" "No, thanks." "Will you not light a cigarette?" asked Dolly. "Here are some of your own." "No, thanks," answered Vanbrugh absently. "I have just smoked." "Do sit down and warm yourself," said Dolly, pushing a chair towards the fire. "Well--thanks--I suppose Mrs. Willoughby will be gone some minutes. Have you thought of what might happen if Darche were alive?" he asked, reverting to the subject uppermost in his mind. "I do not like to think of it. But I cannot help thinking of it," she answered almost inaudibly. "I know that I cannot, and I hate myself and everybody." "We may have to think of it seriously in three or four hours," said Vanbrugh. "Brown will bring me word. He will dine with me, and I will be within reach in case anything happens." "What a head you have!" exclaimed Dolly. "You ought to be a general." "It is simple enough, it seems to me, as simple as going back to stop an express train when there has been an accident on the line." "Yes, but it is always the one particular man who has more sense than the rest who thinks of stopping the express train." "I suppose so," answered Vanbrugh indifferently. "The man who has his eyes open. It is odd, is it not, that the happiness of so many people should be at stake on one day?" "So many?" "Well, three at least." "Three? Are there not four?" asked Dolly, with a smile. "There is Stubbs, of course," said Vanbrugh thoughtfully; "not to mention a lot of people who would not be particularly glad to see Darche back, on general principles. Well, I am sorry for them all, but I was not thinking of them especially." "Whom were you thinking of?" "Some one not concerned in the matter--some one, I cannot say nearest; think of something that rhymes with it. You are fond of hymns and that sort of thing." "Dearest?" suggested Dolly. "Yes, 'dearest'; that rhymes, does it not?" "Yes, that rhymes," assented Dolly, with a little sigh. "Whom were you thinking of?" she asked. "A person." "What an answer! And what an expression! I suppose the name of the person is a profound secret?" "It has been a secret for some time," said Vanbrugh. "Oh!--then you have a faithful disposition?" asked Dolly with a laugh. "I hope so," answered Vanbrugh, smiling. "Any other virtues?" "Lots," he laughed in his turn. "I am so glad." "Why?" "Virtue makes people so nice and safe," said Dolly, "and helps them to bear misfortune, and to do almost everything except enjoy themselves." "What an appalling code for a Sunday school teacher!" "Do not laugh. I have had an offer." "Of marriage?" asked Vanbrugh, looking at her. "No. If I had, I would not tell you. I have been offered twenty-five dollars a month to teach at a Sunday school--a visitor, who did not know me, you see, and wished to engage me." "And you refused?" "Yes. Foolish of me, was it not? Twenty-five dollars--just think!" "It is a lot of money," laughed Vanbrugh. "Several pairs of gloves," said Dolly gravely. "But I refused. You know the proverb--'be virtuous and you will be happy, but you will not have a good time.'" "And you mean to have a good time. I have always been meaning to--but it is rather dull, all by myself. I am not young enough to be gay alone--nor old enough to enjoy being sour." "There is a remedy--get married!" Dolly smiled, looked grave, and then smiled again. "That is almost easier done than said, if one does not mind whom one marries." "And you do mind, I suppose?" "Yes--I am foolish enough to care," answered Vanbrugh, glancing at her. "To care for some particular person--is that rude, or indiscreet, or horrid of me?" "Very! But I will forgive you on one condition." "I never accept conditions." "Unconditional surrender? Is that it?" "Of course," Dolly answered without hesitation. "I surrender unconditionally--at discretion." "Oh--very well. Then I will be nice and ask what the condition was for the sake of which you kindly proposed to forgive me for what I did not do. Come--what is it?" "You asked if I cared for one particular person," said Vanbrugh, gently. "Yes. Do you?" He could hardly distinguish the words. "I will tell you, if you will answer the same question." "You answer first." "Yes. That is the answer." His hand stole out towards hers. "Yes--that is the other answer." "Do two positives make a negative?" asked Vanbrugh, as their hands met. "No--not in mathematics," laughed Dolly, a little awkwardly, and withdrawing her fingers from his. "Two negatives make a positive, sometimes." "A positive 'no'?" asked Vanbrugh, incredulously. "Sometimes." "But we were both saying 'yes.'" "We are both saying 'yes,'" repeated Dolly slowly. "Could we not go a step farther?" "How?" Dolly started a little and looked at him. "I do not understand--I thought--" "What did you think?" "I do not know what to think." She hesitated. "Will you not let me help you to decide?" For the first time in their acquaintance, Vanbrugh's voice grew tender. "I--I am almost afraid--" "Afraid of me?" "Of you? Oh no, you do not frighten me at all--but I am just a little--" again Dolly hesitated, then as though making a great effort she tried to speak severely. "Mr. Vanbrugh, you must not play with me!" "Miss Maylands, you have played with me a long time," answered Vanbrugh softly. "I?" "Yes." "Have I? I--I did not mean to," she added thoughtfully. "Perhaps we have both played in earnest," suggested Vanbrugh. "But you play with so many people--" "With whom, for instance?" asked Vanbrugh. "With Marion, for instance," said Dolly. "With Mrs. Darche?" Vanbrugh's voice expressed genuine astonishment. "What an extraordinary idea! As though Brett were not my best friend!" "What of that?" "Oh, do not pretend that you do not understand--especially to-day, when they are both so unhappy--you will do something that will hurt them if you are not careful." "I wonder--" Dolly did not complete the sentence, but turned away as though leaving it to him. "I know. So you must not talk of my flirting with Mrs. Darche. It is not just to her nor kind to me--and you do not mean to be unkind to me, do you?" "To you--of all people!" Her voice was very gentle. "Of all people in the world, dear?" "Yes--I think so--of all people." She nodded slowly, and then looked up and let her eyes meet his. "You think so--you are not quite sure?" asked Vanbrugh, although there was no longer any doubt. "I am always sure of what I think." Dolly smiled, still looking at him. "And this is not play any more? This is quite earnest?" "Quite--quite--" While she was speaking his face was suddenly close to hers and his lips touched her cheek. "Oh!--I did not mean--" "I did," said Vanbrugh emphatically. "I see you did," answered Dolly, blushing scarlet. "Will you not see again--" He leaned towards her again. "Oh, no! Not on any account!" she cried, pushing him away and laughing. "Besides"--the handle of the door turned as she was speaking--"there are people coming. Oh--I can feel it!" she whispered, rising precipitately with her hands to her cheek. "But I am so happy!" she added, with one more look as she broke from him. Dolly whispered the last words as Mrs. Willoughby re-entered the room, and Vanbrugh rose to his feet, hardly realising that the crisis of his life had been reached with a laugh and a kiss, but quite as happy as Dolly herself in his thoroughly undemonstrative way. Both were, perhaps, a little ashamed of themselves when they remembered Marion Darche's trouble, and contrasted her anxiety with their own visions of a sunny future; and both felt all at once that they were out of place; if they could not be together without a third person, they wished to be alone. "I do not really believe that anything will happen," said Vanbrugh, speaking to Mrs. Willoughby. "I do not believe either, that this man is Mrs. Darche's husband, for there is every reason to be sure that John Darche was actually drowned. But in case anything should happen, pray send for me at once. I shall be at home and shall not go out this evening. Good-night, Miss Maylands." "I am going, too," said Dolly, rather suddenly. "Do you think," she added, turning to Mrs. Willoughby, "that it would be very dreadful if Mr. Vanbrugh took me as far as the corner?" "What is there dreadful in it?" asked Mrs. Willoughby, who was old-fashioned and remembered the times when young men used to take young girls to parties, and walked home with them unchaperoned. "Very well, then, will you take me, Mr. Vanbrugh? My maid has not come yet. I only want to go to Mrs. Trehearne's and tell her it is all right about that lace." "I shall be delighted," answered Vanbrugh, his handsome face lighting up in a way Dolly had never seen. They had not been gone more than five minutes when Brett rang at the door again and asked for Mrs. Darche. Stubbs looked at him for a moment, and then said that he would inquire. Brett waited in the library, by the deserted tea table, for Cousin Annie had betaken herself to her own room as soon as Dolly and Vanbrugh left, and he wondered who had been there. It was some time before Marion appeared. "I am glad to see you again," she said, quietly, and holding out her hand. "You went away so suddenly--as though you were anxious about something." "I am." "And you have made me anxious, too. You were telling me that a great and final misfortune is hanging over my head. You do not know me. You do not understand me. You do not see that I would much rather know what it is, and face it, than live in terror of it and trust altogether to you to keep it from me." "But do you not know after all these years, that you can trust me? Do you not trust me now?" "Yes," Marion answered after a pause. "As a man, my dear friend, I trust you. You do all that a man can do. I can even give you credit, perhaps, for being able to do more than you or any other man can do. But there is more. There is something yet. Be as faithful as you may, as honest as God has made you, and as brave and as strong as you are--you cannot control fate. You do not believe in fate? I do. Well, call it that you please. Circumstances arise which none of us, not the strongest of us, can govern. Whatever this secret is, it means a fact, it means that there is something, somewhere, which might come to my knowledge, which might make me unutterably miserable, which you some day may not be able to keep from me. Does it not?" "Yes, it does," said Brett, slowly. "I cannot deny that. You might, you may, come to know of it without my telling you." "Then tell me now," said Marion earnestly. "Is it not far better and far more natural that this, whatever it may be, should come to me directly from you, instead of through some stranger, unawares, when I am least prepared for it, when I may break down under the shock of it? Do you not think that you, my best friend, could make it easier for me to hear, if any one could?" "If any one could, yes," answered Brett in a low voice. "And if no one can, then you at least can make it less cruel. Let me know now when I am prepared for it by all you have said--prepared to hear the most dreadful news that I can possibly imagine, something far more dreadful, I am sure, than anything really could be. Let me hear of it from you of all other men." "No, no, do not ask me!" He turned from her as though he had finally made up his mind. "Of all men, I should be the last to hurt you. And there is no certainty, perhaps not even a probability, that you should ever know it if I do not tell you." "Ah, but there is!" she cried, insisting. "You have said so. You told me that a moment ago. No--you must tell me. I will not let you go until you do. I will not leave anything unsaid that I can say--that a woman can say--" "No, no!" "Harry, I must know. I will know." She laid her hand upon his arm. "For heaven's sake!" exclaimed Brett in the utmost distress. "Harry! You loved me once--" Her voice vibrated audibly. "Once!" Brett started violently, and turned if possible, paler. "You made me think so." "Marion, Marion, don't!" "I will. Do you remember, Harry, long, long ago when we were almost boy and girl, how you promised, faithfully, sacredly, that if ever I needed you, that if ever I asked your help--" "And you married John Darche instead of me," said Brett, interrupting her. "Yes, and I married John Darche," answered Marion, gravely. "Because you loved him and not me." "Because I thought,--no, I will not go back to that. There is a nearer time than that in the past, a day we both remember, a day that I am ashamed of, and yet--well you have not forgotten it either. That morning--not so many months ago. It was on that day--that day when my husband was arrested. It was in this very room. You told me that you loved me, and I--you know what I did. It was bad. It was wrong. Call it what you please, but it was the truth. I let you know that I loved you as well as you loved me and better, for I had more to lose. John was alive then. He is dead now--long dead. If I was ashamed then, I am not ashamed now--for I have nothing to be ashamed of. I am showing whether I trust you or not, whether I believe in you, whether I am willing to stake my woman's pride on your man's faithfulness. I loved you then, and I showed you that I did. Harry! I love you now--and I tell you so without a blush." Brett trembled as though in bodily fear, glanced at her and turned away. "Great God!" he exclaimed under his breath. "And you--Harry--you still--Harry--look at me! What is it?" With wide and loving eyes she looked at him, expecting every instant that he would turn to her. But he did not move. Then suddenly, with a low cry, as though she were mortally hurt, she fell back upon the sofa. "Oh, my God! you do not love me!" Her voice was broken and weak, but he heard the words. He turned at last, looked at her, and then knelt down at her side. "Marion, Marion! dear!" he whispered lovingly, again and again. But she pushed him away. Then he rose to his feet and sat beside her, looking down into her face. "Yes," he said gravely, "you must know my secret now." "Yes, I know your secret now, your miserable secret." She turned her face from him against the cushion. "No, you do not know it," he said. "You do not even guess it. But I must tell you now. Take care. Be strong, be brave. It will hurt you." While he was speaking Mrs. Darche rose from the sofa and her expression slowly changed as she realised that he had something grave to tell her. She rose slowly, steadying herself, but not taking her eyes from his face. "Tell me, please. I am ready." "John Darche is alive, and I have known it almost from the first." It seemed to Brett that nothing he had ever done in his life had been half so hard. Marion stared at him for a moment, and then once more sank slowly into her seat and covered her face. "Do you understand me now?" he asked after a long pause. "Do you see now why I have fought so hard against telling you this thing?" "It is better so," she answered in a low and indistinct tone. "It was better that I should know it now." Then she was silent for a long time. "And is that all you have to tell me after all that I have told you?" she asked at last, as though in a dream. "All? All, dear?" Suddenly his resolution broke down. "You know it is not all. I love you--that is all, indeed--and more than I have the right to say or you to hear." "A right! What is right? Where is right now?" "Where you are, dear." He was holding both her hands in his. Then all at once a light came into her face. "And we can make the rest right, too! Are there no laws? Is there no justice? If this man who has ruined both our lives is not dead--ah! but he is! I know he is. What proof have you? How can you stand there and tell me that I am still bound and tied to a man whose very name is a stain on me, whose mere memory is a disgrace." "How do I know?" repeated Brett. "It is simple enough. He has written to me. I have his letters. Do you care to see them? Do you know what he says? What he repeats whenever he writes? He began a few days after we heard of his supposed death. I know the letter by heart. 'My dear Brett--I am not dead at all. I know that you love my wife, but I do not propose that you should be happy at my expense. If you try to marry her I shall be at the wedding to forbid the banns.'" "He wrote that? He wrote that in his own hand?" The strange emotions that were chasing each other in her heart found quick expression in her face. "And he has written it often. Would it have made you happier to know it during all these months? Or could I have looked you in the face as an honourable man and told you that I loved you when I alone knew that your husband was alive?" He had drawn back from her now and stood leaning against the mantelpiece with folded arms. "Oh, I see it all! I see it all now!" she said. "How brave you have been! How good! And now he is coming back to find some new way of hurting us! Oh it is too much! I thought I had borne all. But you were right. There was more to bear." "Do you know?" Brett began after a moment's pause. "In spite of this story that was in the papers to-day I find it hard to believe that he has really come back. He was quite capable of starting the story himself from a distance for the sake of giving you pain, but he knows as well as we do that if he comes here he comes to serve his time in prison." Marion seemed to be trying to think over the situation. "Stop!" she said at last. "You know that there was a woman, too, though we never spoke of her, you and I. But every one knew it. People used to pity me for that before they knew the rest. Do you not think it possible that she may have written those letters to you?" "Oh, no! I know John Darche's handwriting. I have good cause to know it." "Yes, I suppose you are right," answered Marion thoughtfully. "Did any one man ever accumulate so much wickedness in a lifetime? He was not satisfied with one crime. And yet he was not the only bad man in the world. What does a girl know of the man she is to marry? She sees him day after day, of course, but she only sees the best side of him. She knows nothing of what he does, nor of what he thinks when he is not with her, but she imagines it all, in her own way, with no facts to guide her. Then comes marriage. How could I know?" "Indeed, it would have been hard for any girl to guess what sort of man John Darche was." "Please do not talk about that." "And how do you know that I am any better man than John Darche?" asked Brett, suddenly. "What do you know of my comings and goings when I am not here, or how I spend my time? How do you know that I am not bound by some disgraceful tie, as he was? I have been in all sorts of places since we said good-bye on that winter's evening. Do you remember? I have wandered and worked, and done ever so many things since then. How do you know that there is not some woman in my life whom I cannot get rid of?" He had not changed his position while speaking. When he paused for her answer she went up to him, laying her hands upon his shoulders and looking into his face. "Harry! is there any other?" "No, dear." But his eyes answered before he spoke. "I knew it. You have answered your own question. That is all." "Thank you." As she drew back he caught her hand and held it, and his words came fast and passionately. "No. That is not all. That is not half. That is not one-thousandth part of what I ought to say. I know it. Thank you? My whole life is not enough to thank you with. All the words I ever heard or know are not enough--the best of words mean so little. And they never do come to me when I want them. But those little words of yours are more to me than all the world beside. I do thank you with all my strength, with all my heart, with all my soul, and I will live for you with all three. Why should I say it? You know it all, dear, much better than it can be said, for you believe in me. But it is good to say--I wish it could have been half as good to hear." She had listened to each word and looked for each passing expression while he spoke. She looked one moment longer after he had finished, and then turned quietly away. "It is good to hear--if you only knew how good!" she said softly. "And words are not always empty. When they come from the heart, as ours do, they bring up gold with them--and things better than gold." CHAPTER XII. A long silence followed. Neither of them, perhaps, realised exactly what had passed, or if they did, actual facts seemed very far away from their dreamland. Marion was the first to feel again the horror of the situation, tenfold worse than before he had last spoken. "Oh, I cannot bear it!" she said suddenly. "I cannot bear it now--as I could. Really alive, after all--and this story to-day? Have you found out nothing? Have you nothing more to tell me?" "Yes, there is something to tell you." "What?" "Bad news." "Bad? Worse than--" "I am afraid so," answered Brett. "You have told me that he is alive." She laid her hand upon his arm. "Do not tell me that he is here! You said you could not believe it!" "If I do not, it is only because I have not seen him with my own eyes. I did not mean to tell you--until--" he stopped. "Tell me!" cried Marion. "Tell me everything quickly! If you tell me--I can bear it, if you tell me--but not from any one else. Where is he? When did he come? Is he arrested again? Is he in prison?" "No, not yet. He is in a sailors' lodging-house--if it is he." "How do you know it? Oh, how can you be so sure, if you have not seen him?" "None of us have seen him," answered Brett, barely able to speak at all. "Vanbrugh and Brown--they went to find him--I found Brown in Mulberry Street, waiting for news--you know the Police Headquarters are there. Vanbrugh had left him--then I came up town again--to you." "Russell Vanbrugh has been here," said Marion, trying to collect her thoughts. "He told Cousin Annie to give strict orders about reporters." "He was afraid that Darche might come to try and get money from you--" "Money! I would give--God knows what I would give." "I do not believe he will come," said Brett, assuming a confidence he did not feel. "He must know that the house is watched already." Marion's expression changed. Her face turned paler. The lines deepened and her eyes grew dark. She had made a desperate resolution. She took Brett's hand and looked at him in silence for a moment. "Good-bye--dear," she said. She would have withdrawn her hand, but Brett grasped it and pressed it almost roughly to his lips. "Good-bye," she said again. It was almost too much to ask of any man. Brett held her hand fast. "No--not good-bye," he answered with rising passion. "It is not possible. It cannot be, Marion--do not say it." "I must--you must." "No--no--no!" he repeated. "It cannot be good-bye. Remember what you said. Is this man who was dead to you and to all the world, if not to me, to ruin both our lives? Are we to bow our heads and submit patiently to such a fate as that? If I had told you long ago that he was alive, as I alone knew he was, would you not have done your best to free yourself from such a tie, from a man--you said it yourself--whose very name is a stain, and whose mere memory is a disgrace?" "No," answered Marion resolutely, and withdrawing her hands. "I mean it. This is our good-bye, and this must be all, quite all. Do you think I would ever accept such a position as that? That I could ever feel as though the stain were wiped out and the disgrace forgotten by such a poor formality as a divorce? No! Let me speak! Do not interrupt me yet. If I had known six months ago that John was still alive, I would have done it, and I should have felt perhaps, that it meant something, that I was really free, that the world would forget the worst part of my story, and that I could come to you as myself, not as the wife of John Darche, forger and escaped convict. But I cannot do it now. It is too late, now that he has come back. No power on earth can detach his past from my present, nor clear me of his name. And do you think that I would hang such a weight as that about your neck?" "But you are wrong," answered Brett, earnestly. "Altogether wrong. The life you have lived during these last months has proved that. Have you ever heard that any one in all the world you know has--I will not say dared--has even thought of visiting on you the smallest particle of your husband's guilt? Oh, no! They say the world is unkind, but it is just in the long run." "No. People have been kind to me--" "No. Just, not kind." "Well, call it what you will," Marion answered, speaking in a dull tone which had no resonance. "People have overlooked my name and liked me for myself. But it is different now. A few good friends may still come, the nearest and dearest may stand by me, but the world will not accept without a murmur the man who has married the divorced wife of a convict. The world will do much, but it will not do that. And so I say good-bye again," she continued after a little pause, "once more this last time, for I will not hamper you, I will not be a load upon you. I will not live to give you children who may reproach you for their mother's sake. We shall be what we were--friends. But, for the rest--good-bye!" "Marion! Do not say such things!" "I will, and I must say them now, for I will not give myself another chance," she answered with unmoved determination. "What has been, has been, and cannot be undone. I did wrong months ago on that dreadful morning, when I let you guess that I might love you. I did wrong on that same day, when I prayed you for my sake to help John to escape, when I made use of your love for me, to make you do the one dishonourable action of your life. I have suffered for it. Better, far better, that my husband should have gone then and submitted to his sentence, than that I should have helped him--made you help me--" "At the risk of your own life," said Brett, interrupting her. "There was no risk at all, with you all there to help me, and I knew it." "There was," said Brett, insisting. "You might have burned to death. And as for what I did, I hardly knew that I was doing it. I saw that you were really on fire and I ran to help you. No one ever thought of holding me responsible for what happened when my back was turned. But I would have done more, and you know I would. And now you talk of injuring me, if you divorce that man and let me take your life into mine! This is folly, Marion, this is downright madness!" Marion looked at him in silence for a moment. "Harry, would you do it in my place?" she asked suddenly. "What?" "If your wife had forged, had been convicted, and sentenced, and you had the public disgrace of it to bear, would you wish to give me your name?" Brett opened his lips to speak, and then checked himself and turned away. "You see!" she exclaimed, still watching him. "No, that would be different," he said at last in a low voice. "Why different? I see no difference at all. Of course you must say so, any man would in your place. But that does not make it a fact. You would rather cut off your right hand than ask me to marry you with such a stain on your good name. You can have nothing to answer to that, for it is hard logic and you know it." "Call it logic, if you will," he answered coming up to her. "It does not convince me. And I will tell you more. I will not yield. I would not be persuaded if I knew that I could be, for I will convince you, I will persuade you that the real wrong and the only wrong is whatever parts a man and a woman who love as we love; who are ready, as you know we are ready, to give all that man and woman can, each for the other, and who will give it, each to the other, in spite of everything, as I will give you my life and my name and everything I have before I die, whether you will have it or not!" "If I say that I will not accept such a sacrifice, what then?" "You will accept it," said Brett in a tone of authority. "Ah, but I will not! Harry!" cried Marion, with a sudden change of voice, "I know that all you say is true. I know how generous you are, that you would really do all you say you would. I need not say that I thank you. That would mean too little. But I will not take from you one-thousandth part of what you offer. I will not taint your life with mine. You could not answer my question. You could not deny what I said--that if you were in my place, you would suffer anything rather than ask me to marry you. I know--you say it is different--but it is not. Disgrace is just as real from woman to man as from man to woman, and you shall not have it from me nor through me. That is why I say good-bye. That is why you must say it too--for my sake." "For your sake?" "Yes," she answered. "Do you think that I could ever be happy again? Do you not see that if I married you now, I should be haunted through every minute of my life by the bitter presence of the wrong done you? Do you not know what I should feel if people looked askance at you, and grew cold in their acquaintance, and smiled to each other when you went by? Do you think that would be easy to bear? Yes, it is good-bye for my sake, as well as yours. Not lightly--you know it. It means good-bye to love, and hope, and if I live, it means the loss of freedom, too, when John Darche is released from prison." "What!" cried Brett. "Do you mean to say that you would ever let him come back to you?" "I mean that I will not be divorced. And he would come back to me--he will come back for help, and I must give it to him when he does." "Receive that man under your roof!" He could not believe that she was in earnest. "Yes. Since he is alive he is still my husband. When he comes back after undergoing his sentence I shall have to receive him." "When you know that you could have a divorce for the asking?" "Which I would refuse if it were thrust upon me," she answered firmly. "That would be mad indeed. What can that possibly have to do with me?" "This," she said. "We are speaking this last time. I will not be divorced from him; do you know why? Because if I were--if I were free--I should be weak, and marry you. Do you understand now? Try and understand me, for I shall not say it again--it is too hard to say." "Not so hard as it is to believe." "But you will try, will you not?" "No." The monosyllable had scarcely escaped from his lips, short, energetic and determined, when he was interrupted by Stubbs, who seemed destined to appear at inopportune moments on that day. He was evidently much excited, and he stood stock still by the door. At the same time there was a noise outside, of many feet and of subdued voices. Stubbs made desperate gestures. "Mr. Brett, sir! Will you please come outside, sir!" He was hardly able to make himself understood. "What is the matter?" asked Marion, severely. "I cannot help it, sir! Indeed I cannot, Madam!" protested the distressed butler. Brett understood. "There is trouble," he said quickly to Marion, holding out his hands as though he wished to protect her, and touching her gently. "Please go away. Leave me here." "Trouble?" She was not inclined to yield. "Yes. It must be he--if you have to see him, this is not the place." "But--" With his hands, very tenderly, he pushed her toward the door at the other end of the room, the same through which John Darche had once escaped. She resisted for a moment--then without a word she obeyed his word and touch and went out, covering her eyes with her hand. "Now then, what is it?" asked Brett, turning sharply around as he closed the door. "I could not help it, sir!" Stubbs repeated. "There is a man in the hall as says he is Mr. John--leastwise he says his name is John Darche, though he has got a beard, sir, which Mr. John never had, as you may remember, sir, and there is a lot of policemen in plain clothes and otherwise, and Mr. Brown says they are pressmen, and the driver of the cab, and Michael Curly, and the expressman--" "What do all these people want?" inquired Brett, sternly. "Turn them out." "It is a fact, sir, just as I tell you--and so help me the powers, sir, here they are coming in and I cannot keep them out--I cannot, not if I was a dozen Stubbses!" Before he had finished speaking, a number of men had pushed past him into the room, led by Mr. Brown, very much out of breath and trying his best to control the storm he had raised. "What is this disturbance, Brown?" asked Brett angrily. "Who are these people?" "It is the man, Brett!" cried Mr. Brown triumphantly, and pushing forward a burly and bearded individual in a shabby "guernsey" with a black rag tied in a knot round his neck. "Now just look at him, and tell me whether he has the slightest resemblance to John Darche." "He is no more John Darche than I am! Take him away!" "Out with you!" cried Stubbs, only too anxious to enforce the order. "He said he was John Darche," said one of the men from Mulberry Street. The man refused to be turned out by Stubbs and stood his ground, evidently anxious to clear himself. He was an honest-looking fellow enough, and there was a twinkle in his bright blue eyes as though he were by no means scared, but rather enjoyed the hubbub his presence created. "No, sir," he said in a healthy voice that dominated the rest. "I am no more John Darche than you are, sir, unless that happens to be your name, which I ask your pardon if it is. But I said I was, and so the bobbies brought me along. But this gentleman here, he showed me the papers, that there was trouble about John Darche, so I just let them bring me, which I had no call to do, barring I liked, being a sailor man and quick on my feet." "Well then, who are you?" asked Brett. "And where is John Darche?" "John Darche is dead, sir, and I buried him on the Patagonian shore." "Dead?" cried Brett. The colour rushed to his face, and for a moment the room swam with him. "Can you prove that, my man?" "Well, sir, I say he is dead, because I saw him die and buried him--just so, as I was telling you." This was more than Stubbs could bear in his present humour. "Dead, is he? Mr. John's dead, is he? This man says he is dead, and he comes here saying as he is him." "Be quiet, Stubbs," said Brett. "Tell your story, my man, and be quick about it," he added. "Yes, sir," said the man, taking his hands from his pockets, and standing squarely before Brett. "That is what I came to do if these sons of guns will let me talk. John Darche was working his passage as cook, sir, and we was wrecked down Magellan way, and some was drowned, poor fellows, and some was taken off, worse luck for us. But I said I would stick to the ship if Darche would, and we should get salvage money. We had not much of a name to lose, either of us, so we tried it, but the cook was not much to boast of for a sailor man, and we could not bring her through, and she went to pieces on the Patagonian shore. The cook, that was John Darche, he caught his death, what with too much salt water, and too little to eat, and died two days after we got ashore. So I buried him. And seeing as my own name wan't of much use to me, being well known about those parts for a trifle of braining a South American devil in Buenos Ayres, I took his, which wan't no more use to him neither, and somehow or other I got here, by the help of Almighty God and an Eyetalian captain, and working my passage and eating their blooming boiled paste. And I soon found out what sort of a name I had taken from my dead mate, for he seems to have been pretty well known to these here gentlemen. But I daresay as you can swear, sir, that I ain't John Darche he as you knew, and maybe as I ain't wanted on my own account, these gentlemen will come and have a drink with me and call quits." "Have you got anything to prove this story?" Brett asked, when the man had finished. "Well, sir, there's myself to prove it," said the sailor. "I don't know that I should care for more proof. And there's my dead mate's watch, too. He had a watch, he had. He was a regular swell though he was working his passage as cook. But I had to leave it with my uncle this morning." Brett drew a long breath and clasped his hands nervously together. "I suppose you can set this man at liberty, upon my declaration that he is not John Darche, and after hearing his story," he said, turning to the police officer who stood near the sailor. "Oh yes, sir," answered the latter. "I guess that will be all right. If not, we'll make it right in five minutes." "Well then, I must ask you to go away for the present--and as quickly as possible. Take that with you, my man, and come and see me to-morrow morning. My name is Brett. The butler will write my address for you." "I don't want your money, sir," said the sailor. "Oh yes, you do," answered Brett, with a good-humoured smile. "Go and get your watch out of pawn and bring it with you." "Very well, sir," said the sailor. As they were going out, it struck Brett that he perhaps owed something to Mr. Brown who, after all, had taken a great deal of trouble in the matter. "Mrs. Darche will be very much obliged to you, Brown," he said. "But I am not sure that the matter is ended. It would be awfully good of you to put the thing through, while I break the news to Mrs. Darche. Could you not go along with them and see that the man is really set at liberty?" Mr. Brown was a good-natured man, and was quite ready to do all that was asked of him. Brett thanked him once more, and he left the house with the rest. When they were all gone, Stubbs came back, evidently very much relieved at the turn matters had taken. "Please go into the drawing-room," said Brett, "and ask Mrs. Darche to come here one moment, if she can speak to me alone, and keep every one else out of the room. You understand, Stubbs." "Yes, sir," answered the butler. "But it is the Lord's own mercy, sir, especially the watch." He left the room in search of Mrs. Darche. Scarcely a moment elapsed before she entered the room. "Stubbs said you wanted to see me," she said in a voice that shook with anxiety. Brett came forward to meet her, and standing quite close to her, looked into her eyes. "Something very strange has happened," he said, with a little hesitation. "Something--something very, very good--can you bear the shock of a great happiness, dear?" "Happiness," she repeated. "What is it? Oh, yes!" she exclaimed, suddenly understanding. "Oh! thank God, I see it in your eyes! It is not true? He is not here?--oh, Harry!" "Yes. That is it. The whole story was only a fabrication. He is not here. You see I cannot let you wait a moment for the good news. It is so good. So much better even than I have told you." "Better!" she cried as the colour rose to her pale cheeks. "What could be better? Oh, it is life, it is freedom--it is almost more than I can bear after this dreadful day!" "But you must bear more," said Brett, smiling. "More pain?" she asked with a little start. "Something else?" "No. More happiness." "Ah, no! There is no more!" "Yes there is. Listen. There is a reason why the story could not be true, why it is absolutely impossible that it should be true." "Impossible?" She looked up suddenly. "You cannot say that." "Yes I can," he answered. "We have seen the last of John Darche. He will never come back." "Never?" cried Marion. "Never at all? What do you mean?" "Never, in this world," Brett answered gravely. She seized his arm with sudden energy and looked into his face. "What? No--it cannot be true! Oh, do not deceive me, for the love of Heaven!" "John Darche is dead." "Dead!" In the pause that followed, she pressed her hand to her side as though she could not draw breath. "Oh! no! no--it cannot be true. It is another story. Oh, why did you tell me?" "It is true. The man who was with him when he died was here a moment ago." "Ah, you were right," she said faintly. "It is almost too much." Brett's arm went round her and drew her towards him. "No," he answered, speaking gently in her ear, "not too much for you and me to bear together. Think of all that has died with him--think of all the horror and misery and danger and fear that he has taken out of the world with him. Think that there is nothing now between you and me. Nothing--not the shadow of a nothing. That our lives are our own now, and each the other's, yours mine, mine yours, forever and always. Ah, Marion, dear, is that too much to bear?" "Almost," she said as her head sank upon his shoulder. "Ah, God! that hell and heaven should be so near." "And such a heaven! Love! Darling! Sweetheart! Look at me!" "Harry!" She opened her eyes. "Love! No--find me other words for all you are to me." She drew his face down to hers and their lips met. THE END. * * * * * LIST OF WORKS BY MR. F. MARION CRAWFORD. * * * * * IN THE PRESS. A NEW NOVEL. PIETRO GHISLERI. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. In the uniform edition of Mr. Crawford's Novels. * * * * * THE NOVEL. WHAT IT IS. By F. MARION CRAWFORD, author of "Children of the King," "Saracinesca," etc., etc. Uniform with the pocket edition of William Winter's Works. With photogravure portrait. 18mo, cloth, 75 cents. *.* Also a large-paper limited edition. 12mo, $2.00. "Mr. Crawford in the course of this readable little essay touches upon such topics as realism and romanticism, the use of dialect, the abuse of scientific information, the defects of historical fiction. Mr. Crawford's discussion of what does and what does not constitute the novel will be read with eager interest by the large company of his sincere admirers in this country."--_Beacon._ * * * * * CHILDREN OF THE KING. A Tale of Southern Italy. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. "A sympathetic reader cannot fail to be impressed with the dramatic power of this story. The simplicity of nature, the uncorrupted truth of a soul, have been portrayed by a master-hand. The suddenness of the unforeseen tragedy at the last renders the incident of the story powerful beyond description. One can only feel such sensations as the last scene of the story incites. It may be added that if Mr. Crawford has written some stories unevenly, he has made no mistakes in the stories of Italian life. A reader of them cannot fail to gain a clearer, fuller acquaintance with the Italians and the artistic spirit that pervades the country."--M. L. B. in _Syracuse Journal_. * * * * * MACMILLAN & CO. take pleasure in announcing that they have added the following volumes (with the author's latest revisions) to their uniform edition of the Works of Mr. F. Marion Crawford, thereby enabling them to issue a complete edition of all his novels: A ROMAN SINGER. New Edition, revised and corrected. TO LEEWARD. PAUL PATOFF. AN AMERICAN POLITICIAN. New Edition, revised and partly rewritten. * * * * * F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS NEW UNIFORM AND COMPLETE EDITION. =12mo, cloth. Price $1.00 each.= "Mr. F. Marion Crawford is," as Mr. Andrew Lang says, "the most 'versatile and various' of modern novelists. He has great adaptability and subtleness of mind, and whether dealing with life in modern Rome or at the court of Darius at Shushan, in the wilds of India or in the fashionable quarter of New York, in the Black Forest or in a lonely parish of rural England, he is equally facile and sure of his ground; a master of narrative style, he throws a subtle charm over all he touches." * * * * * TO BE PUBLISHED IN JUNE: PIETRO GHISLERI. =Children of the King.= =Don Orsino=, A sequel to "Saracinesca" and "Sant' Ilario." =The Three Fates.= =The Witch of Prague.= =Khaled.= =A Cigarette-maker's Romance.= =Sant' Ilario=, A sequel to "Saracinesca." =Greifenstein.= =With the Immortals.= =To Leeward.= =A Roman Singer.= =An American Politician.= =Paul Patoff.= =Marzio's Crucifix.= =Saracinesca.= =A Tale of a Lonely Parish.= =Zoroaster.= =Dr. Claudius.= =Mr. Isaacs.= * * * * * F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS. 12MO. BOUND IN CLOTH. WITH THE IMMORTALS. Price, $2.00. Altogether an admirable piece of art worked in the spirit of a thorough artist. Every reader of cultivated tastes will find it a book prolific in entertainment of the most refined description, and to all such we commend it heartily.--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._ GREIFENSTEIN. Price, $1.50. "Greifenstein" is a remarkable novel, and while it illustrates once more the author's unusual versatility, it also shows that he has not been tempted into careless writing by the vogue of his earlier books.... There is nothing weak or small or frivolous in the story. The author deals with tremendous passions working at the height of their energy. His characters are stern, rugged, determined men and women, governed by powerful prejudices and iron conventions, types of a military people, in whom the sense of duty has been cultivated until it dominates all other motives, and in whom the principle of "noblesse oblige" is so far as the aristocratic class is concerned, the fundamental rule of conduct. What such people may be capable of is startlingly shown.--_New York Tribune._ SANT' ILARIO. _A SEQUEL TO "SARACINESCA."_ Price, $1.50. The author shows steady and constant improvement in his art. "Sant' Ilario" is a continuation of the chronicles of the Saracinesca family.... A singularly powerful and beautiful story.... Admirably developed, with a naturalness beyond praise.... It must rank with "Greifenstein" as the best work the author has produced. It fulfils every requirement of artistic fiction. It brings out what is most impressive in human action, without owing any of its effectiveness to sensationalism or artifice. It is natural, fluent in evolution, accordant with experience graphic in description, penetrating in analysis, and absorbing in interest.--_New York Tribune._ A CIGARETTE-MAKER'S ROMANCE. Price, $1.25. It is a touching romance, filled with scenes of great dramatic power.--_Boston Commercial Bulletin._ It is full of life and movement, and is one of the best of Mr. Crawford's books.--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._ The interest is unflagging throughout. Never has Mr. Crawford done more brilliant realistic work than here. But his realism is only the case and cover for those intense feelings which, placed under no matter what humble conditions, produce the most dramatic and the most tragic situations.... This is a secret of genius, to take the most coarse and common material, the meanest surroundings, the most sordid material prospects, and out of the vehement passions which sometimes dominate all human beings to build up with these poor elements scenes and passages, the dramatic and emotional power of which at once enforce attention and awaken the profoundest interest.--_New York Tribune._ MR. ISAACS. A Tale of Modern India. Price, $1.50. If considered only as a semi-love story it is exceptionally fascinating, but when judged as a literary effort it is truly great.--_Home Journal._ Under an unpretentious title we have here the most brilliant novel, or rather romance, that has been given to the world for a very long time.--_The American._ No story of human experience that we have met with since "John Inglesant" has such an effect of transporting the reader into regions differing from his own. "Mr. Isaacs" is the best novel that has ever laid its scenes in our Indian dominions.--_The Daily News._ A work of unusual ability.... It fully deserves the notice it is sure to attract.--_The Athenæum._ A story of remarkable freshness and promise, displaying exceptional gifts of imagination.--_The Academy._ DR. CLAUDIUS. A True Story. Price, $1.50. An interesting and attractive story, and in some directions a positive advance upon "Mr. Isaacs."--_New York Tribune._ "Dr. Claudius" is surprisingly good, coming after a story of so much merit as "Mr. Isaacs." The hero is a magnificent specimen of humanity, and sympathetic readers will be fascinated by his chivalrous wooing of the beautiful American countess.--_Boston Traveller._ ZOROASTER. Price, $1.50. The novel opens with a magnificent description of the march of the Babylonian court to Belshazzar's feast, with the sudden and awful ending of the latter by the marvelous writing on the wall which Daniel is called to interpret. From that point the story moves on in a series of grand and dramatic scenes and incidents which will not fail to hold the reader fascinated and spell-bound to the end.--_Christian at Work._ The field of Mr. Crawford's imagination appears to be unbounded.... In "Zoroaster" Mr. Crawford's winged fancy ventures a daring flight.... Yet "Zoroaster" is a novel rather than a drama. It is a drama in the force of its situations and in the poetry and dignity of its language, but its men and women are not men and women of a play. By the naturalness of their conversation and behavior they seem to live and lay hold of our human sympathy more than the same characters on a stage could possibly do.--_The Times._ A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. Price, $1.50. It is a pleasure to have anything so perfect of its kind as this brief and vivid story.... It is doubly a success, being full of human sympathy, as well as thoroughly artistic in its nice balancing of the unusual with the commonplace, the clever juxtaposition of innocence and guilt, comedy and tragedy, simplicity and intrigue.--_Critic._ SARACINESCA. Price, $1.50. His highest achievement, as yet, in the realms of fiction. The work has two distinct merits, either of which would serve to make it great,--that of telling a perfect story in a perfect way, and of giving a graphic picture of Roman society in the last days of the Pope's temporal power.... The story is exquisitely told.--_Boston Traveller._ One of the most engrossing novels we have ever read.--_Boston Times._ MARZIO'S CRUCIFIX. Price, $1.50. Now this is brought out in this little story with the firmness of touch, a power and skill which belong to the first rank in art.... We take the liberty of saying that this work belongs to the highest department of character painting in words.--_Churchman._ "Marzio's Crucifix" is another of those tales of modern Rome which show the author so much at his ease. A subtle compound of artistic feeling, avarice, malice, and criminal frenzy is this carver of silver chalices and crucifixes.--_The Times._ THE WITCH OF PRAGUE. _A FANTASTIC TALE._ With numerous Illustrations by W. J. HENNESSY. Price, $1.00. "The Witch of Prague" is so remarkable a book as to be certain of as wide a popularity as any of its predecessors. The keenest interest for most readers will lie in its demonstration of the latest revelations of hypnotic science.... But "The Witch of Prague" is not merely a striking exposition of the far-reaching possibilities of a new science; it is a romance of singular daring and power.--_London Academy._ KHALED: _A TALE OF ARABIA._ Price, $1.25. The story is powerful; it is pervaded by fine poetic feeling, is picturesque to a remarkable degree, and the local color is extraordinary in its force and truth. Of the many admirable contributions to the literature of fiction that Mr. Crawford has made, this book is, on the whole, the most artistic in construction and finish, and the thorough artist is apparent at every stage of the story. His plot is intensely dramatic, but he has never permitted it to sway him to the extent of slighting any of the more minute details under the impulse of merely telling what he has to tell. He holds his theme firmly in hand and controls instead of being controlled by it. The characters have been drawn with the greatest care and stand out in bold relief and fine contrast. The atmosphere of the East is in every page, in every utterance.--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._ Throughout the fascinating story runs the subtlest analysis, suggested rather than elaborately worked out, of human passion and motive, the building out and development of the character of the woman who becomes the hero's wife and whose love he finally wins being an especially acute and highly-finished example of the story-teller's art.... That it is beautifully written and holds the interest of the reader, fanciful as it all is, to the very end, none who know the depth and artistic finish of Mr. Crawford's work need be told.--_The Chicago Times._ MACMILLAN & CO., 112 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. * * * * * Transcriber's notes: Head-quarters and headquarters each used once, retained. p. 110: Original shows-- I am really much more grateful then I seem.> Inconsistent with other uses of "then" and "than" in the text. Changed to "than". p. 131: Original shows-- I can never look any one in the face again. "Look at me, please," she said > double-quote before Look removed. p. 168: Original shows-- "I! Forgery The man is mad!" > Added "?" after forgery. p. 311: Original shows-- pocket edition of Willian Winter's Works > Verified typo, changed to William. p. 314, 315, 316, header "F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS. 12MO. BOUND IN CLOTH." at top of each page removed. Retained on p. 313 (beginning of section) only. p. 311, 312, 313, 314,315, footer of "MACMILLAN & CO.,112 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK." at bottom of each page removed. Retained on p. 316 (last page) only. 
15187	----	THE CHILDREN OF THE KING A Tale of Southern Italy by F. MARION CRAWFORD With Frontispiece P. F. Collier & Son New York By MacMillan & Co. 1885 [Illustration: AN OLD BAREFOOTED FRIAR STOOD BESIDE HER.--_Children of the King_.] Dedication TO THE MIDDY, THE LADDIE, THE MATE AND THE MEN THE SKIPPER OF THE OLD _LEONE_ DEDICATES THIS STORY CHAPTER I. Lay your course south-east half east from the Campanella. If the weather is what it should be in late summer you will have a fresh breeze on the starboard quarter from ten in the morning till four or five o'clock in the afternoon. Sail straight across the wide gulf of Salerno, and when you are over give the Licosa Point a wide berth, for the water is shallow and there are reefs along shore. Moreover there is no light on Licosa Point, and many a good ship has gone to pieces there in dark winter nights when the surf is rolling in. If the wind holds you may run on to Palinuro in a long day before the evening calm comes on, and the water turns oily and full of pink and green and violet streaks, and the sun settles down in the north-west. Then the big sails will hang like curtains from the long slanting yards, the slack sheets will dip down to the water, the rudder will knock softly against the stern-post as the gentle swell subsides. Then all is of a golden orange colour, then red as wine, then purple as grapes, then violet, then grey, then altogether shadowy as the stars come out--unless it chances that the moon is not yet full, and edges everything with silver on your left hand while the sunset dyes fade slowly to darkness upon your right. Then the men forward will bestir themselves and presently a red glow rises and flickers and paints what it touches, with its own colours. The dry wood crackles and flares on the brick and mortar hearth, and the great kettle is put on. Presently the water boils--in go the long bundles of fine-drawn paste, and everybody collects forward to watch the important operation. Stir it quickly at first. Let it boil till a bit of it is tender under the teeth. In with the coarse salt, and stir again. Up with kettle. Chill it with a quart of cold water from the keg. A hand with the colander and one with the wooden spoon while the milky boiling water is drained off. Garlic and oil, or tomato preserve? Whichever it is, be quick about it. And so to supper, with huge hard biscuit and stony cheese, and the full wine jug passed from mouth to mouth. To every man a fork and to every man his place within arm's length of the great basin--mottled green and white within, red brown and unglazed on the outside. But the man at the helm has an earthen plate, and the jug is passed aft to him from time to time. Not that he has much to do as he lies there on his six-foot deck that narrows away so sharply to the stern. He has taken a hitch round the heavy tiller with the slack of the main sheet to keep it off the side of his head while he eats. There is no current, and there is not a breath of air. By and by, before midnight, you will smell the soft land breeze blowing in puffs out of every little bay and indentation. There is no order needed. The men silently brace the yards and change the sheets over. The small jib is already bent in place of the big one, for the night is dark and some of those smart puffs will soon be like little squalls. Full and by. Hug the land, for there are no more reefs before Scalea. If you do not get aground on what you can see in Calabria, you will not get aground at all, says the old proverb. Briskly over two or three miles to the next point, and the breeze is gone again. While she is still forging ahead out go the sweeps, six or eight of them, and the men throw themselves forward over the long slender loom, as they stand. Half an hour to row, or more perhaps. Down helm, as you meet the next puff, and the good felucca heels over a little. And so through the night, the breeze freshening before the rising sun to die away in the first hot morning hours, just as you are abreast of Camerota. L'Infresco Point is ahead, not three miles away. It is of no use to row, for the breeze will come up before long and save you the trouble. But the sea is white and motionless. Far in the offing a Sicilian schooner and a couple of clumsy "martinganes"--there is no proper English name for the craft--are lying becalmed, with hanging sails. The men on board the felucca watch them and the sea. There is a shadow on the white, hazy horizon, then a streak, then a broad dark blue band. The schooner braces her top-sail yard and gets her main sheet aft. The martinganes flatten in their jibs along their high steeving bowsprits and jib-booms. Shift your sheets, too, now, for the wind is coming. Past L'Infresco with its lovely harbour of refuge, lonely as a bay in a desert island, its silent shade and its ancient spring. The wind is south by west at first, but it will go round in an hour or two, and before noon you will make Scalea--stand out for the reef, the only one in Calabria--with a stern breeze. You have passed the most beautiful spot on the beautiful Italian coast, without seeing it. There, between the island of Dino and the cape lies San Nicola, with its grand deserted tower, its mighty cliffs, its deep, safe bay and its velvet sand. What matter? The wind is fair and you are for Calabria with twenty tons of macaroni from Amalfi. There is no time to be lost, either, for you will probably come home in ballast. Past Scalea, then, where tradition says that Judas Iscariot was born and bred and did his first murder. Right ahead is the sharp point of the Diamante, beyond that low shore where the cane brake grows to within fifty yards of the sea. Now you have run past the little cape, and are abreast of the beach. Down mainsail--down jib--down foresail. Let go the anchor while she forges, eight to nine lengths from the land, and let her swing round, stern to the sand. Clear away the dingy and launch her from amidships, and send a line ashore. Overboard with everything now, for beaching, capstan, chocks and all--the swell will wash them in. As the keel grates on the pebbles, the men jump into the water from the high stern and catch the drifting wood. Some plant the capstan, others pass the long hemp cable and reeve it through the fiddle block. A hand forward to slack out the cable as the heavy boat slowly creeps up out of the water. The men from other craft, already beached, lend a hand too and a score of stout fellows breast the long oars which serve for capstan bars. A little higher still. Now prop her securely and make all snug and ship-shape, and make fast the blade of an oar to one of the forward tholes, with the loom on the ground, for a ladder. You are safe in Calabria. To-morrow at early dawn you must go into the hills, for you cannot sell a tenth of your cargo in the little village. Away you trudge on foot, across the rocky point, along the low flat beach by the cane brake, up the bed of the rivulet, where the wet green blades of the canes brush your face at every step. Shoes and stockings in hand you ford the shallow river, then, shod again, you begin the long ascent. You will need four good hours, or five, for you are not a landsman, your shoes hurt you, and you would rather reef top-sails--aye, and take the lee earing, too, in any gale and a score of times, than breast that mountain. It cannot be helped. It is a hard life, though there are lazy days in the summer months, when the wind will do your work for you. You must live, and earn your share; though they call you the master, neither boat nor cargo are yours, and you have to earn that share by harder work and with greater anxiety than the rest. But the world is green to-day. You remember a certain night last March--off Cape Orso in the gulf, when the wind they call the Punti di Salerno was raging down and you had a jib bent for a mainsail, and your foresail close reefed and were shipping more green water than you like to think of. Pitch dark, too, and the little lighthouse on the cape not doing its best, as it seemed. The long line of the Salerno lights on the weather bow. No getting there, either, and no getting anywhere else apparently. Then you tried your luck. Amalfi might not be blowing. It was no joke to go about just then, but you managed it somehow, because you had half a dozen brave fellows with you. As she came up she was near missing stays and you sang out to let go the main halyards. The yard came down close by your head and nearly killed you, but she paid-off all right and went over on the starboard tack. Just under the cape the water was smooth. Just beyond it the devil was loose with all his angels, for Amalfi was blowing its own little hurricane on its own account from another quarter. Nothing for it but to go about and try Salerno again. What could you do in an open felucca with the green water running over? You did your best. Five hours out of that pitch black night you beat up, first trying one harbour and then the other. Amalfi gave in first, just as the waning moon rose, and you got under the breakwater at last. You remember that last of your many narrow escapes to-day as you trudge up the stony mule-track through the green valleys, and it strikes you that after all it is easier to walk from Diamante all the way to Verbicaro, than to face a March storm in the gulf of Salerno in an open boat on a dark night. Up you go, past that strange ruin of the great Norman-Saracen castle standing alone on the steep little hill which rises out of the middle of the valley, commanding the roads on the right and the left. You have heard of the Saracens but not of the Normans. What kind of people lived there amongst those bristling ivy-grown towers? Thieves of course. Were they not Saracens and therefore Turks, according to your ethnology, and therefore brigands? It is odd that the government should have allowed them to build a castle just there. Perhaps they were stronger than the government. You have never heard of Count Roger, either, though you know the story of Judas Iscariot by heart as you have heard it told many a time in Scalea. Up you go, leaving the castle behind you, up to that square house they call the tower on the brow of the hill. It is a lonely road, a mere sheep track over the heights. You are over it at last, and that is Verbicaro, over there on the other side of the great valley, perched against the mountain side, a rough, grey mass of red-roofed houses cropping up like red-tipped rocks out of a vast, sloping vineyard. And now there are people on the road, slender, barefooted, brown women in dark wine-coloured woollen skirts and scarlet cloth bodices much the worse for wear, treading lightly under half-a-quintal weight of grapes; well-to-do peasant men--galantuomini, they are all called in Calabria--driving laden mules before them, their dark blue jackets flung upon one shoulder, their white stockings remarkably white, their short home-spun breeches far from ragged, as a rule, but their queer little pointed hats mostly colourless and weather-beaten. Boys and girls, too, meet you and stare at you, or overtake you at a great pace and almost run past you, with an enquiring backward glance, each carrying something--mostly grapes or figs. Out at last, by the little chapel, upon what is the beginning of an inland carriage road--in a land where even the one-wheeled wheelbarrow has never been seen. The grass grows thick among the broken stones, and men and beasts have made a narrow beaten track along the extreme outside edge of the precipice. The new bridge which was standing in all its spick and span newness when you came last year, is a ruin now, washed away by the spring freshets. A glance tells you that the massive-looking piers were hollow, built of one thickness of stone, shell-fashion, and filled with plain earth. Somebody must have cheated. Nothing new in that. They are all thieves nowadays, seeking to eat, as you say in your dialect, with a strict simplicity which leaves nothing to the imagination. At all events this bridge was a fraud, and the peasants clamber down a steep footpath they have made through its ruins, and up the other side. And now you are in the town. The streets are paved, but Verbicaro is not Naples, not Salerno, not even Amalfi. The pavement is of the roughest cobble stones, and the pigs are the scavengers. Pigs everywhere, in the streets, in the houses, at the windows, on the steps of the church in the market-place, to right and left, before you and behind you--like the guns at Balaclava. You never heard of the Six Hundred, though your father was boatswain of a Palermo grain bark and lay three months in the harbour of Sebastapol during the fighting. Pigs everywhere, black, grunting and happy. Red-skirted, scarlet-bodiced women everywhere, too, all moving and carrying something. Galantuomini loafing at most of the corners, smoking clay pipes with cane stems, and the great Jew shopkeeper's nose just visible from a distance as he stands in the door of his dingy den. Dirtier and dirtier grow the cobble stones as you go on. Brighter and brighter the huge bunches of red peppers fastened by every window, thicker and thicker on the upper walls and shaky balconies the black melons and yellowish grey cantelopes hung up to keep in the high fresh air, each slung in a hitch of yarn to a nail of its own. Here and there some one greets you. What have you to sell? Will you take a cargo of pears? Good this year, like all the fruit. The figs and grapes will not be dry for another month. They nod and move on, as you pass by them. Verbicaro is a commercial centre, in spite of the pigs. A tall, thin priest meets you, with a long black cigar in his mouth. When he catches your eye he takes it from between his teeth and knocks the ash off, seeing that you are a stranger. Perhaps it is not very clerical to smoke in the streets. But who cares? This is Verbicaro--and besides, it is not a pipe. Monks smoke pipes. Priests smoke cigars. One more turn down a narrow lane--darkest and dirtiest of all the lanes, the cobble stones only showing here and there above the universal black puddle. Yet the air is not foul and many a broad street by the Basso Porto in Naples smells far worse. The keen high atmosphere of the Calabrian mountains is a mighty purifier of nastiness, and perhaps the pig is not to be despised after all, as sanitary engineer, scavenger and street sweeper. This is Don Pietro Casale's house, the last on the right, with the steep staircase running up outside the building to the second story. And the staircase has an iron railing, and so narrows the lane that a broad shouldered man can just go by to the cabbage garden beyond without turning sideways. On the landing at the top, outside the closed door and waiting for visitors, sits the pig--a pig larger, better fed and by one shade of filthiness cleaner than other pigs. Don Pietro Casale has been seen to sweep his pig with a broken willow broom, after it has rained. "Do you take him for a Christian?" asked his neighbour, in amazement, on the occasion. "No," answered Don Pietro gravely. "He is certainly not a Christian. But why should he spoil the tablecloth with his muddy hog's back when my guests are at their meals? He is always running under the table for the scraps." "And what are women for, except to wash tablecloths?" inquired the neighbour contemptuously. But he got no answer. Few people ever get more than one from Don Pietro Casale, whose eldest son is doing well at Buenos Ayres, and in whose house the postmaster takes his meals now that he is a widower. For Don Pietro and his wife Donna Concetta sell their own wine and keep a cook-shop, besides a guest-room with a garret above it, and two beds, with an old-fashioned store of good linen in old-fashioned iron-bound chests. At the time of the fair they can put up a dozen or fourteen guests. People say indeed that the place is not so well managed, nor the cooking so good since poor Carmela died, the widow of Ruggiero dei Figli del Rè--Roger of the Children of the King. For this is the place where the Children of the King lived and died for many generations, and this house of Don Pietro Casale was theirs, and the one on the other side of the cabbage garden, a smaller and poorer one, in which Carmela died. The garden itself was once theirs, and the vineyard beyond, and the olive grove beyond that, and much good land in the valley. For they were galantuomini, and even thought themselves something better, and sometimes, when the wine was new, they talked of noble blood and said that their first ancestor had indeed been a son of a king who had given him all Verbicaro for his own. True it is, at least, that they had no other name. Through generation after generation they were christened Ruggiero, Guglielmo, and Sebastiano "of the Children of the King." Thus they had anciently appeared in the ill-kept parish registers, and thus was Ruggiero inscribed for the conscription under the new law. And now, as you know, gaunt, weather-beaten Luigione, licensed master in the coast trade and just now captain of the Sorrentine felucca Giovannina, from Amalfi to Diamante with macaroni, there are no more of the Children of the King in old Verbicaro, and their goods have fallen into divers hands, but chiefly into those very grasping and close-holding ones of Don Pietro Casale and his wife. But they are not all dead by any means, as you know also and you have even lately seen and talked with one of the fair-haired fellows, who bears the name. For the Children of the King have almost always had yellow hair and blue eyes, though they have more than once taken to themselves black-browed, brown-skinned Calabrian girls as wives. And this makes one, who knows something more about your country than you do, Luigione--though in a less practical way I confess--this makes one think that they may be the modern descendants of some Norman knightling who took Verbicaro for himself one morning in the old days, and kept it; or perhaps even the far-off progeny of one of those bright-eyed, golden-locked Goths who made slaves of the degenerate Latins some thirteen centuries ago or more, and treated their serfs indeed more like cattle than slaves until almost the last of them were driven into the sea with their King Teias by Narses. But a few were left in the southern fastnesses and in the Samnite hills, and northward through the Apennines, scattered here and there where they had been able to hold their own; and some, it is said, forgot Theodoric and Witiges and Totila and Teias, and took service in the Imperial Guard at Constantinople, as Harold of Norway and some of our own hard-fisted sailor fathers did in later years. Be that as it may--and no one knows how it was--the Children of the King have yellow hair and blue eyes to this present time, and no one would take them for Calabrians, nor for Sicilians, still less for monkey-limbed, hang-dog mouthed, lying, lubberly Neapolitans who can neither hand, reef nor steer, nor tell you the difference between a bowline and a buntling, though you may show them a dozen times, nor indeed can do anything but steal and blaspheme and be the foulest, filthiest crew that Captain Satan ever shipped for the Long Voyage. Not fit to slush down the mast of a collier, the best of them. It must be a dozen years since Carmela died in that little house beyond the cabbage garden. It was a glorious night in September--a strange night in some ways, and not like other nights one remembers, for the full moon had risen over the hills to the left, filling the world with a transparent vapour of silver, so clear and so bright that the very light seemed good to breathe as it is good to drink crystal water from a spring. Verbicaro was all asleep behind Don Pietro Casale's house, and in front, from the terrace before the guest-room, one could see the great valley far below beyond the cabbages, deep and mysterious, with silver-dashed shadows and sudden blacknesses, and bright points of white where the moon's rays fell upon a solitary hut. And on the other side of the valley, above Grisolia, a great round-topped mountain and on the top of the mountain an enormous globe of cloud, full of lightning that flashed unceasingly, so that the cloud was at one instant like a ball of silver in the moonlight, and at the next like a ball of fire in darkness. Not a breath stirred the air, and the strange thunderstorm flashed out its life through the long hours, stationary and alone at its vast height. In the great silence two sounds broke the stillness from time to time; the deep satisfied grunt of a pig turning his fattest side to the cobble stones as he slept--and the long, low wail of a woman dying in great pain. The little room was very dark. A single wick burned in the boat-shaped cup of the tall earthenware lamp, and there was little oil left in the small receptacle. On the high trestle bed, upon the thinnest of straw mattresses, decently covered with a coarse brown blanket, lay a pale woman, emaciated to a degree hardly credible. A clean white handkerchief was bound round her brow and covered her head, only a scanty lock or two of fair hair escaping at the side of her face. The features were calm and resigned, but when the pain of the death agony seized upon her the thin lips parted and deep lines of suffering appeared about the mouth; She seemed to struggle as best she could, but the low, quavering cry would not be stifled--lower and more trembling each time it was renewed. An old barefooted friar with a kindly eye and a flowing grey beard stood beside her. He had done what he could to comfort her and was going away. But she feebly begged him to stay a little longer. In an interval, while she had no pain, she spoke to her boys. "Ruggiero--Sebastiano--dear sons--you could not save me, and I am going. God bless you. Our Lady help you--remember--you are Children of the King--remember--ah." She sighed heavily and her jaw fell as another sort of pallor spread suddenly over her face. Poor Carmela was dead at last, after weeks of sickness, worked to death, as the neighbours said, by Pietro Casale and his wife Concetta. She left those two boys, lean, poorly clad lads of ten and twelve years, yellow haired and blue eyed, with big bones and hunger-pinched faces. They could just remember seeing their father brought home dead with a knife wound in his breast six years earlier. Now they took hands as they looked at their dead mother with a sort of wondering gaze. There were no tears, no cries of despair--least of all did they show any fear. Old Padre Michele made them kneel down, still hand in hand, while he recited prayers for the dead. The boys knew some of the responses, learned by ear with small regard for Latinity, though they understood what they were saying. When the monk got up they rose also and looked again at the poor dead face. "You have no relations, my children," said the old man. "We are alone," answered the elder boy in a quiet, clear voice. "But I will take care of Sebastiano." "And I will help Ruggiero," said the younger in much the same tone. "You are hungry?" "Always," answered both together, without hesitation. Padre Michele would have smiled, but the hungry faces and the mournful tone told him how true the spoken word must be. He fumbled in the pockets in the breast of his gown, and presently produced a few shady-looking red and white sugar sweetmeats, bullet-like in shape and hardness. "It is all I have now, my children," said the old man. "I picked them up yesterday at a wedding, to give them to a poor little girl who was ill. But she was dead when I got there, so you may have them." The lads took the stuff thankfully and crunched the stony balls with white, wolfish teeth. With Padre Michele's help they got an old woman from amongst the neighbours to rouse herself and do what was necessary. When all was over she took the brown blanket as payment without asking for it, smuggling it out of the mean room under her great black handkerchief. But it was day then, and Don Pietro Casale was wide awake. He stopped her in the narrow part of the lane at the foot of his own staircase, and forcibly undid the bundle, to the old woman's inexpressible discomfiture. He said nothing, as he took it from her and carried it away, but his thin grey lips smiled quietly. The old woman shook her fist at him behind his back and cursed his dead under her breath. From Rome to Palermo, swear at a man if you please, call him by bad names, and he will laugh at you. But curse his dead relations or their souls, and you had better keep beyond the reach of his knife, or of his hands if he have no weapon. So the old woman was careful that Pietro Casale should not hear her. "Managgia l'anima di chi t' è morto!" she muttered, as she hobbled away. Everything in the room where Carmela died belonged to Don Pietro, and he took everything. He found the two boys standing together, looking across the fence of the cabbage garden down at the distant valley and over at the height opposite, beyond which the sea was hidden. "Eh! You good-for-nothings!" he called out to them. "Is nothing done to-day because the mother is dead? No bread to-night, then--you know that." "We will not work for you any more," answered Ruggiero, the elder, as both turned round. Don Pietro went up to them. He had a short stout stick in his hand, tough and black with age, and he lifted it as though to drive them to work. They waited quietly till it should please him to come to close quarters, which he did without delay. I have said that he was a man of few words. But the Children of the King were not like Calabrian boys, children though they were. Their wolfish teeth were very white as they waited for him with parted lips, and there was an odd blue light in their eyes which is not often seen south of Goth-land. They were but twelve and ten years old, but they could fight already, in their small way, and had tried it many a time with shepherd lads on the hill-side. But Don Pietro despised children and aimed a blow at Ruggiero's right shoulder. The blow did not take effect, but a moment had not passed before the old peasant lay sprawling on his back with both the boys on top of him. "You cannot hurt the mother now," said Ruggiero. "Hit him as I do, Bastianello!" And the four bony boyish fists fell in a storm of savage blows upon Don Pietro Casale's leathern face and eyes and head and thin grey lips. "That is for the mother," said Ruggiero. "Another fifty a-piece for ourselves." The wiry old peasant struggled desperately, and at last threw himself free of them and staggered to his feet. "Quick, Bastianello!" shouted Ruggiero. In the twinkling of an eye they were over the fence and running at full speed for the valley. Don Pietro bruised, dazed and half-blinded, struggled after them, crashing through hedges and stumbling into ditches while he shouted for help in his pursuit. But his heavy shoes hampered him, and at best he was no match for them in speed. His face was covered with purple blotches and his eyelids were swelling at a terrible rate. Out of breath and utterly worn out he stood still and steadied himself against a crooked olive-tree. He could no longer hear even the footsteps of the lads before him. They were beyond his reach now. The last of the Children of the King had left Verbicaro, where their fathers had lived and died since darker ages than Calabrian history has accurately recorded. CHAPTER II. "We shall never see him again," said Ruggiero, stopping at last and looking back over the stone wall he had just cleared. Sebastiano listened intently. He was not tall enough to see over, but his ears were sharp. "I do not hear him any more," he answered. "I hurt my hands on his nose," he added, thoughtfully, as he glanced at his bruised knuckles. "So did I," returned his brother. "He will remember us. Come along--it is far to Scalea." "To Scalea? Are we going to Scalea?" "Eh! If not, where? And where else can we eat? Don Antonino will give us a piece of bread." "There are figs here," suggested Sebastiano, looking up into the trees around them. "It has not rained yet, and if you eat figs from the tree before it has rained you will have pain. But if we are very hungry we will eat them, all the same." Little Sebastiano yielded rather reluctantly before his brother's superior wisdom. Besides, Padre Michele had given them a little cold bean porridge at the monastery early in the morning. So they went on their way cautiously, and looking about them at every step now that there was no more need of haste. For they had got amongst the vineyards and orchards where they had no business, and if the peasants saw them, the stones would begin to fly. They knew their way about, however, and reached an open footpath without any adventure, so that in half an hour they were on the mule track to Scalea. They walked much faster than a grown peasant would have done, and they knew the road. Instead of turning to the left after going down the hill beyond the tower, they took the right hand path to the Scalea river, and as it had not rained they got across without getting very wet. But that road is not so good as the one to Diamante, because the river is sometimes swollen, and people with laden mules have to wait even as much as three days before they can try the ford, and moreover there is bad air there, which brings fever. At last they struck the long beach and began to trudge through the sand. "And what shall we do to-morrow?" asked Sebastiano. Ruggiero was whistling loudly to show his younger brother that he was not tired nor afraid of anything. At the question he stopped suddenly, and faced the blazing blue sea. "We can go to America," he said, after a moment's reflection. Little Sebastiano did not seem at all surprised by the proposition, but he remained in deep thought for some moments, stamping up a little hillock of sand between his bare feet. "We are not old enough to be married yet," he remarked at last. "That is true," admitted Ruggiero, reluctantly. Possibly, the close connection between going to America and being married may not be apparent to the poor untutored foreign mind. It would certainly not have been understood a hundred miles north of Sebastiano's heap of sand. And yet it is very simple. In Calabria any strong young fellow with a decently good character can find a wife with a small dowry, though he be ever so penniless. Generally within a week, and always within a fortnight, he emigrates alone, taking all his wife's money with him and leaving her to work for her own living with her parents. He goes to Buenos Ayres or Monte Video. If, at the end of four, five or six years he has managed to increase the money so as to yield a small income, and if his wife behaves herself during his absence, he comes home again and buys a piece of land and builds a house. His friends do not fail to inform him of his wife's conduct, and he holds her dowry as a guarantee of her fidelity. But if he fails to enrich himself, or if she is unfaithful to him, he never comes back at all. It is thus clear that a penniless young man cannot go to America until he is married. "That is very true," Ruggiero repeated. "And we must eat," said Sebastiano, who knew by experience the truth of what he said. "And we are always hungry. It is very strange. I am hungry now, and yet we had the beans only this morning. It is true that the plate was not full, and there were two of us. I wish we were like the son of Antonio, who never eats. I heard his mother telling the chemist so last winter." "He is dead," said Sebastiano. "Health to us!" he added, according to custom. "Health to us!" repeated Euggiero. "Perhaps he died because he did not eat. Who knows? I should, I am sure. Is he dead? I did not know. Come along! If Don Antonino is not away we shall get some bread." So they trudged on through the sand. It was still very hot on the yellowish white beach, under the great southern sun in September, but the Children of the King had been used to bearing worse hardships than heat, or cold either, and the thought of the big brown loaves in Don Antonino's wine-shop was very cheering. At last they reached the foot of the terraced village that rises with its tiers of white and brown houses from the shore to the top of the hill. Not so big nor so prosperous a place as Verbicaro, but much bigger and richer than Diamante. There are always a good many fishing boats hauled up on the beach, but you will not often see a cargo boat excepting in the autumn. Don Antonino keeps the cook-shop and the wine cellar in the little house facing the sea, before you turn to the right to go up into the village. He is an old sailor and an honest fellow, and comes from Massa, which is near Sorrento. A vast old man he is, with keen, quiet grey eyes under heavy lids that droop and slant outward like the lifts of a yard. He is thickset, heavy, bulky in the girth, flat-footed, iron-handed, slow to move. He has a white beard like a friar, and wears a worsted cap. His skin, having lost at last the tan of thirty years, is like the rough side of light brown sole leather--a sort of yellowish, grey, dead-leaf colour. He is very deaf and therefore generally very silent. He has been boatswain on board of many a good ship and there are few ports from Batum to San Francisco where he has not cast anchor. The boys saw him from a long way off, and their courage rose. He often came to Verbicaro to buy wine and had known their father, and knew them. He would certainly give them a piece of bread. As he saw them coming his quiet eyes watched them, and followed them as they came up the beach. But he did not turn his head, nor move hand or foot, even when they were close to him. He looked so solid and determined to stand still where he was, in the door of his shop, that you might have taken him for an enormous lay figure of a man, made of carved oak and dressed up for a sign to his own business. The two lads touched their ragged woollen caps and stood looking at him, wondering whether he would ever move. At last his grey eyes twinkled. "Have you never seen a Christian before?" he inquired in a deep gruff voice. He did not seem to be in a good humour. The boys drew back somewhat in awe, and sat down to rest on the stones by the wall. Still Antonino's eyes followed them, though he did not move. Sebastiano looked up at him uneasily from time to time, but Ruggiero gazed steadily at the sea with the affectation of proud indifference to scrutiny, which is becoming in a boy of twelve years. At last the old man stirred, turned slowly as on a pivot and went into the shop. "Is it not better to speak to him?" asked Sebastiano of his brother in a whisper. "No. He is deaf. If he did not understand us he would be angry and would give us no bread." Presently Don Antonino came out again. He held half a loaf and a big slab of goat's-milk cheese between his huge thumb and finger. He paused exactly on the spot where he had stood so long, and seemed about to become absorbed in the contemplation of the empty fishing boats lying in the sun. Sebastiano watched him with hungry eyes, but Ruggiero again stared at the sea. After several minutes the old boatswain got under way again and came to them, holding out the food to them both. "Eat," he said laconically. They both jumped up and thanked him, and pulled at their ragged caps before they took the bread and cheese from his hand. He nodded gravely, which was his way of explaining that he could not hear but that it was all right, and then he watched them as they set to work. "Like wolves," he said solemnly, as he looked on. The place was quite deserted at that hour. Only now and then a woman passed, with an earthen jar of water on her head and her little tin bucket and rope in her hand. The public well is not fifty yards from Antonino's house, up the brook and on the left of it. The breeze was dying away and it was very hot, though the sun was already behind the high rocks of the cape. "Where are the beasts?" asked Don Antonino, as the boys swallowed their last mouthful. Ruggiero threw his head back and stuck out his chin, which signifies negation in the south. He knew it was of little use to speak unless he could get near the old man's ear and shout. "And what are you doing here?" asked the latter. Speech was now unavoidable. Ruggiero stood on tiptoe and the old man bent over sideways, much as a heavily laden Dutch galliot heels to a stiff breeze. "The mother is dead!" bawled the boy in his high strong voice. Oddly enough the tears came into his eyes for the first time, as he shouted at the deaf old man, and at the same moment little Sebastiano's lower lip trembled. Antonino shook his head in rough sympathy. "We have also beaten Don Pietro Casale, and so we have run away," yelled the boy. Antonino grunted thoughtfully and his grey eyes twinkled as he slowly righted himself and stood up again. Very deliberately he went into the shop again and presently came back with a big measure of weak wine and water. "Drink," he said, holding out the jug. Again the two boys pulled at their caps and each raised the jug respectfully toward the old man before drinking. "To health," each said, and Antonino nodded gravely. Then Ruggiero took the jug inside and rinsed it, as he knew it was his duty to do and set it on the table. When he came back he stood beside his brother, waiting for Don Antonino to speak. A long silence followed. "Sleep," said the old man. "Afterwards we will talk." He took his old place in the doorway and stared steadily out to sea. The boys lay down beside the house and having eaten and drunk their fill and walked a matter of fifteen miles, were sound asleep in three minutes. At sunset Ruggiero sat up suddenly and rubbed his eyes. Don Antonino was no longer at the door, and the sound of several men's voices came from within, mingled with the occasional dull rattle of coarse glasses on wooden tables. "Ò!" Ruggiero called softly to his brother. Then he added a syllable and called again, "O-è!" Little Sebastiano woke, sat up and looked about him, rubbing his eyes in his turn. "What has happened?" he inquired, only half awake. "By the grace of God we have eaten, we have drunk and we have slept," said Ruggiero by way of answer. Both got up, shook themselves and stood with their hands in their pockets, looking at the sea. They were barefooted and barelegged, with torn breeches, coarse white shirts much patched about the shoulders, and ragged woollen caps. Presently they turned as by a common instinct and went and stood before the open door, peering in at the guests. Don Antonino was behind his black counter measuring wine. His wife was with him now and helping him, a cheerful, clean woman having a fair complexion, grey hair and round sharp eyes with red lids--a stranger in Calabria like her husband. She held the neck of a great pear-shaped demijohn, covered with straw, of which the lower part rested on the counter. Antonino held a quart jug to be filled while she lowered the mouth, and he poured the measure each time into a barrel through a black tin funnel. They both counted the measures in audible tones, checking each other as it were. The wine was very dark and strong and the smell filled the low room and came out through the door. Half-a-dozen men sat at the tables, mostly eating ship biscuit of their own and goat's-milk cheese which they bought with their wine. They were rough-looking fellows, generally in checked flannel shirts, and home-spun trousers. But they all wore boots or shoes, which are in the south a distinctive sign of a certain degree of prosperity. Most of them had black beards and smart woollen caps. They were men who got their living principally by the sea in one way or another, but none of them looked thorough seamen. They talked loud and with a certain air of boasting, they were rough, indeed, but not strongly built nor naturally easy in their movements as sailors are. Their eyes were restless and fiery, but the glance was neither keen nor direct. Altogether they contrasted oddly with Don Antonino, the old boatswain. This part of Calabria does not breed genuine sea folk. Antonino took no notice of the boys as they stood outside the door, but went quietly on with his work, measuring quart after quart of wine and pouring it into the barrel. "If it were a keg, I could carry it for him," said Ruggiero, "but I cannot lift a barrel yet." "We could roll it, together," suggested Sebastiano thoughtfully. Presently Don Antonino finished his job and bunged the barrel with a cork and a bit of old sailcloth. Then he looked up and stood still. The boys were not quite sure whether he was watching them or not, for it was already dusk. His wife lit a small German petroleum lamp and hung it in the middle of the room, and then went to the fireplace in the dark corner where something was cooking. One of the guests shouted to Antonino. "There is a martingane at San Nicola," he bawled. Antonino turned his head slowly to the speaker and waited for more. "Bound east," continued the man. "From Majuri." "What is wrong with her?" inquired the old host. Boats going west, that is, towards Naples and Civita Vecchia often put in to the small natural harbours to wait for the night wind. Those going east never do except for some especial reason. The man said nothing, but fixed his eyes on Antonino and slowly filled his pipe, evidently intending to convey some secret piece of information by the look and action. But the old sailor's stolid face did not betray the slightest intelligence. He turned away and deliberately took half-a-dozen salted sprats from a keg behind the counter and laid them in a dish preparatory to cleaning them for his own supper. The man who had spoken to him seemed annoyed, but only shrugged his shoulders impatiently and went on eating and drinking. Antonino took a jug of water and went outside to wash his fish. The two boys offered to do it for him, but he shook his head. He did not speak until he had almost finished. "We will fish to-night," he said at last, in a low voice, pouring a final rinsing of water into the dish. "Sleep in the sand under the third boat from the rocks. I will wake you when I am ready." He looked from one to the other of the lads with a keen glance, and then laid one huge finger against his lips. He drained the water from his dish and went in again. "Come along," said Ruggiero softly. "Let us find the boat and get out of the way." The craft was a small "gozzo," or fisherman's boat, not above a dozen or fourteen feet long, sharp and much alike at bow and stern, but with a high stem surmounted by a big ball of wood, very convenient for hanging nets upon. It was almost dark by this time, but the boys saw that she was black as compared with the other boats on both sides of her. She was quite empty and lay high and dry on three low chocks. Ruggiero lay down, getting as close to the keel as he could and Sebastiano followed his example. They lay head to head so that they could talk in a whisper. "Why are we not to speak of his fishing?" asked the younger boy. "Who knows? But if we do as he tells us he will give us more bread to-morrow." "He is very good to us." "Because we beat Don Pietro Casale. Don Pietro cheated him last year. I saw the cottonseed oil he mixed with the good, in that load we brought down." "Perhaps the fishing is not for fish," suggested little Sebastiano, curling himself up and laying his head on the end of the chock. They did not know what time it was when Don Antonino gently stirred them with his big foot. They sprang up wide awake and saw in the starlight that he had a pair of oars and a coil of rope in his hands. "As I launch her, take the chocks from behind and put them in front," he said in a low voice. Then he laid the oars softly in the bows and dropped the rope into the bottom, and began to push the boat slowly down to the sea. The boys did as he had told them to do, and in a few minutes the bows were in the rippling water. The old sailor took off his shoes and stockings and put them on board, and rolled up his trousers. Then with a strong push he sent her down over the pebbles and got upon the bows as she floated out. To look at his heavy form you would not have thought that he could move so lightly and quickly when he pleased. In a moment he was standing over the oars and backing to the beach again for the boys to get in. They stood above their knees in the warm water and handed him the chocks before they got on board. He nodded as though satisfied, but said nothing as he pulled away towards the rocky point. The lads sat silently in the stern, wondering whither he was taking them. He certainly had brought no fishing tackle with him. There was not even a torch and harpoon aboard for spearing the fish. He pulled rapidly and steadily as though he were going on an errand and were in a hurry, keeping close under the high rocks as soon as he was clear of the reefs at the cape. At last, nearly an hour after starting, the boys made out a great deserted tower just ahead. Then Antonino stopped pulling, unshipped his oars one after the other and muffled them just where the strap works on the thole-pin, by binding bits of sailcloth round them. He produced the canvas and the rope-yarn from his pockets, and the boys watched his quick, workmanlike movements without understanding what he was doing. When he began to pull again the oars made no noise against the tholes, and he dipped the blades gently into the water, as he pulled past the tower into the sheltered bay beyond. Then a vessel loomed up suddenly under the great cliffs, and a moment later he was under her side, tapping softly against the planking. The boys held their breath and watched him. Presently a dark head appeared above the bulwarks and remained stationary for a while. Antonino stood up in his boat so as to lessen the distance and make himself more easily recognisable. Then a hand appeared beside the head and made a gesture, then dived down and came up again with the end of a rope, lowering it down into the boat. Antonino gave the line to Ruggiero and then stepped off upon the great hook on the martingane's side to which the chain links for beaching, got hold of the after shroud and swung himself on board. Now it may be as well to say here what a martingane is. She is a good-sized, decked vessel, generally between five-and-twenty and a hundred tons, with good beam and full bows, narrow at the stern and rather high out of water unless very heavily laden. She has one stout mast, cross-trees, and a light topmast. She has an enormous yard, much longer than herself, on which is bent the high peaked mainsail. She carries a gaff-top-sail, fore-staysail, jib and flying-jib, and can rig out all sorts of light sails when she is before the wind. She is a good sea boat, but slow and clumsy, and needs a strong crew to handle her. The two boys who sat in the fishing boat alongside the martingane on that dark night had no idea that all sea-going vessels were not called ships; but there was something mysteriously attractive to them in the black hull, the high tapering yard, and the shadowy rigging. They were certainly not imaginative boys, but they could not help wondering where the great dark thing had been and whither she might be going. They did not know what going to sea meant, nor what real deep-sea vessels were like, and they even fancied that this one might have been to America. But they understood well enough that they were to make no noise, and they kept their reflections to themselves, silently holding on to the end of the rope as they sat in their places. They did not wait very long. In a few minutes Antonino and the other man came to the side, carrying an odd-looking black bundle, sewn up in what Ruggiero felt was oiled canvas as he steadied it down into the stern of the little boat, and neatly hitched round from end to end with spun-yarn, so as to be about the shape of an enormous sausage. The two men lowered it without much caution; it was heavy but rather limp. Then came another exactly like the first, which they also lowered into the boat, and a moment later Don Antonino came over the side as quickly and noiselessly as he had gone up, and shoved off quietly into the starlight. Half an hour later he ran alongside of a narrow ledge of rock, apparently quite inaccessible from the land above, but running up along the cliff in such a way that, in case of danger from the sea, a man could get well out of reach of the breakers. He went ashore, taking the end of his own coil of rope with him. He made it fast in the dark shadow, and he must have known the place very well, for there was but one small hole running under a stone wedged in a cleft of the rock, through which he could pass the line. He got back into the boat. "Get ashore, boys," he said, "and wait here. If you see a revenue boat, with coast guards in it, coming towards you as though the men wanted to speak to you, cast off the end of the rope and let it run into the sea. Then run up the ledge there, and climb the rock, the faster the better. There is a way up. But keep out of sight when it is day, by lying flat in the hollow there. If anybody else comes in a boat, and says nothing, but just takes the rope, do not hinder him. Let him take it, and he will take you too, and give you a couple of biscuits." Don Antonino pushed off a little, letting the rope run out. Then he made his end of it fast to the two ends of the black bundles, and backing out as far as he could, he let them both down gently into the water, and pulled away, leaving the Children of the King alone on the ledge. He had managed to bring the rope down through the cleft, so that it could not easily be seen from the sea. The boys waited some time before either of them spoke, although the old fellow was deaf. "Those things looked like dead men," said Sebastiano at last. "But they are not," answered Ruggiero confidently. "Now I know why Don Antonino is so rich. He smuggles tobacco." "If we could smuggle tobacco, too, it would be a fortune," remarked the younger boy. "He would give us bread every day, with cheese, and wine to drink." "We shall see." They sat a long time, waiting for something to happen, and then fell asleep, curling themselves up in the hollow as they had been told to do. At dawn they awoke and began to look out for the revenue boat. But she did not appear in sight. The hours were very long and it was very hot, and they had nothing to eat or drink. Then all at once they saw what seemed to them the most beautiful vision they could remember. A big felucca shot round the rocks, still under way from the breeze she had found in the little bay. Her full white sails still shivered in the sun, and the boys could see the blue light that passed up under her keel and was reflected upon her snow-white side as she ceased to move just in front of them. A big man with a red beard and a white shirt stood at the helm and fixed his eyes on the point where the lads were hiding. He evidently saw them, for he nodded to a man near him and gave an order. In a moment the dingy was launched and a sailor came ashore. He jumped nimbly out, holding the painter of his boat in one hand, glanced at the boys, who stood up as soon as they saw that they were discovered, and cast off the end of the rope, keeping hold of it lest it should run. Then without paying any more attention to the boys, he went on board again taking the end with him. "And we?" shouted Ruggiero after him, as he pulled away facing them. "I do not know you," he answered. "But we know you and Don Antonino," said Sebastiano, who was quick-witted. "Wait a while," replied the sailor. The man at the helm spoke to him while the others were hauling up the bundles out of the water and getting them on board. The dingy came rapidly back and the sailor sterned her to the rock for the boys to get in. In a few minutes they were over the side of the felucca.[1] They pulled at their ragged caps as they came up to the man at the helm, who proved to be the master. [Footnote 1: A felucca is a two-masted boat of great length in proportion to her beam, and generally a very good sailer. She carries two very large lateen sails, uncommonly high at the peak, and one jib. She is sometimes quite open, sometimes half-decked, and sometimes fully decked, according to her size. She carries generally from ten to thirty tons of cargo, and is much used in the coasting trade, all the way from Civita Vecchia to the Diamante. The model of a first-rate felucca is very like that of a Viking's ship which was discovered not many years since in a mound in Norway.] "What do you want?" he asked roughly, but he looked them over from head to foot, one at a time. "The mother is dead," said Ruggiero, "and, moreover, we have beaten Don Pietro Casale and run away from Verbicaro, and we wish to be sailors." "Verbicaro?" repeated the master. "Land folk, then. Have you ever been to sea?" "No, but we are strong and can work." "You may come with me to Sorrento. You will find work there. I am short-handed. I daresay you are worth a biscuit apiece." He spoke in the roughest tone imaginable, and his black eyes--for he had black eyes and thick black hair in spite of his red beard--looked angry and fiery while he talked. Altogether you would have thought that he was in a very bad temper and not at all disposed to take a couple of starving lads on board out of charity. But he did not look at all such a man as those awkward, gaudily dressed, unsteady fellows the boys had seen in Antonino's shop on the previous night. He looked a seaman, every inch of him, and they instinctively felt that as he stood there at the helm he knew his business thoroughly and could manage his craft as coolly in a winter storm as on this flat September sea, when the men were getting the sweeps out because there was not a breath of wind to stir the sails. "Go forward and pick beans for dinner," he said. That was the first job given the Children of the King when they went to sea. For to sea they went and turned out seamen in due time, as good as the master who took them first, and perhaps a little better, though that is saying much. And so I have told you who the Children of the King are and how they shipped as boys on board of a Sorrento felucca, being quite alone in the world, and now I will tell you of some things which happened to them afterwards, and not quite so long ago. CHAPTER III. Ten years have passed since the ever-memorable day on which the Children of the King hurt their fists so badly in battering Don Pietro Casale's sharp nose. They are big, bony men, now, with strongly marked features, short yellow hair and fair beards. So far they are alike, and at first sight might be taken for twin brothers. But there is a marked difference between them in character, which shows itself in their faces. Ruggiero's eye is of a colder blue, is less mobile and of harder expression than Sebastiano's. His firm lips are generally tightly closed, and his square chin is bolder than his brother's. He is stronger, too, though not by very much, and though he is more silent and usually more equable, he has by far the worse temper of the two. At sea there is little to choose between them. Perhaps, on the whole, Sebastiano has always been the favourite amongst his companions, while Ruggiero has been thought the more responsible and possibly the more dangerous in a quarrel. Both, however, have acquired an extraordinarily good reputation as seamen, and also as boatmen on the pleasure craft of all sizes which sail the gulf of Naples during the summer season. They have made several long voyages, too. They have been to New York and to Buenos Ayres and have seen many ports of Europe and America, and much weather of all sorts north and south of the Line. They have known what it is to be short of victuals five hundred miles from land with contrary winds; they have experienced the delights of a summer at New Orleans, waiting for a cargo and being eaten alive by mosquitoes; they have looked up, in January, at the ice-sheeted rigging, when boiling water froze upon the shrouds and ratlines, and the captain said that no man could lay out upon the top-sail yard, though the north-easter threatened to blow the sail out of the bolt-ropes--but Ruggiero got hold of the lee earing all the same and Sebastiano followed him, and the captain swore a strange oath in the Italo-American language, and went aloft himself to help light the sail out to windward, being still a young man and not liking to be beaten by a couple of beardless boys, as the two were then.[2] And they have seen many strange sights, sea-serpents not a few, and mermaids quite beyond the possibility of mistake, and men who can call the wind with four knots in a string and words unlearnable, and others who can alter the course of a waterspout by a secret spell, and a captain who made a floating beacon of junk soaked in petroleum in a tar-barrel and set it adrift and stood up on the quarter-deck calling on all the three hundred and sixty-five saints in the calendar out of the Neapolitan almanack he held--and got a breeze, too, for his pains, as Ruggiero adds with a quiet and somewhat incredulous smile when he has finished the yarn. All these things they have seen with their eyes, and many more which it is impossible to remember, but all equally astonishing though equally familiar to everybody who has been at sea ten years. [Footnote 2: The writer knows of a Sorrentine captain, commanding a large bark who, when top-sails are reefed in his watch regularly takes the lee earing, which, as most landsmen need to be told, is the post of danger and honour.] And now in mid-June they are at home again, since Sorrento is their home now, and they are inclined to take a turn with the pleasure boats by way of a change and engage themselves for the summer, Ruggiero with a gentleman from the north of Italy known as the Conte di San Miniato, and Sebastiano with a widowed Sicilian lady and her daughter, the Marchesa di Mola and the Signorina Beatrice Granmichele, generally, if incorrectly, spoken of as Donna Beatrice. Now the Conte di San Miniato, though only a count, and reputed to be out at elbows, if not up to his ears in debt, is the sole surviving representative of a very great and ancient family in the north. But how the defunct Granmichele got his title of Marchese di Mola, no one knows precisely. Two things are certain, that his father never had a title at all, and that he himself made a large fortune in sulphur and paving stones, so that his only daughter is much of an heiress, and his elderly widow has a handsome income to spend as she pleases, owns in Palermo a fine palace--historical in other hands--is the possessor of a smartish yacht, a cutter of thirty tons or so, goes to Paris once and to Monte Carlo twice in every year, brings her own carriage to Sorrento in the summer, and lives altogether in a luxurious and highly correct manner. She is a tall, thin woman of forty years or thereabouts, with high features, dark eyes, a pale olive complexion, black hair white at the temples, considerable taste in dress and an absolute contempt for physical exertion, mental occupation and punctuality. Donna Beatrice, as they call her daughter, is a very pretty girl, aged nineteen or nearly, of greyhound build, so to say, by turns amazingly active and astonishingly indolent, capricious and decided in her caprices while they last, passionately fond of dancing, much inclined to amuse herself in her own way when her mother is not looking, and possessing a keen sense of prime and ultimate social ratios. She is unusually well educated, speaks three languages, knows that somehow North and South America are not exactly the same as the Northern and Southern States, has heard of Virgil and the Crusades, can play a waltz well, and possesses a very sweet little voice. She is undoubtedly pretty. Brown, on the whole, as to colouring--brown skin, liquid brown eyes, dark brown hair--a nose not regular but attractive, a mouth not small but expressive, eyebrows not finely pencilled, neither arched nor straight, but laid on as it were like the shadows in a clever charcoal drawing, with the finger, broad, effective, well turned, carelessly set in the right place by a hand that never makes mistakes. It is the intention of the Marchesa di Mola to marry her daughter to the very noble and out-at-elbows Count of San Miniato before the summer is out. It is also the intention of the Count to marry Beatrice. It is Beatrice's intention to do nothing rashly, but to take as much time as she can get for making up her mind, and then to do exactly as she pleases. She perfectly appreciates her own position and knows that she can either marry a rich man of second-rate family, or a poor man of good blood, a younger son or a half ruined gentleman at large like San Miniato, and she hesitates. She is not quite sure of the value of money yet. It might be delightful to be even much richer than she is, because there are so many delightful things to be done in the world with money alone. But it might turn out to be equally agreeable to have a great name, to be somebody, to be a necessary part of society in short, because society does a number of agreeable things not wholly dependent upon cash for being pleasant, and indeed often largely dependent on credit. San Miniato attracts her, and she does not deny the fact to herself. He is handsome, tall, fair, graceful and exceedingly well dressed. He was several years in a cavalry regiment and is reputed to have left the service in order to fight with a superior officer whom he disliked. In reality his straitened means may have had something to do with the step. At all events he scratched his major rather severely in the duel which took place, and has the reputation of a dangerous man with the sabre. It is said that the major's wife had something to do with the story. At present San Miniato is about thirty years of age. His only known vice is gambling, which is perhaps a chief source of income to him. Every one agrees in saying that he is the type of the honourable player, and that, if he wins on the whole, he owes his winnings to his superior coolness and skill. The fact that he gambles rather lends him an additional interest in the eyes of Beatrice, whose mother often plays and who would like to play herself. Ruggiero, who is to be San Miniato's boatman this summer, is waiting outside the Count's door, until that idle gentleman wakes from his late sleep and calls him. The final agreement is yet to be made, and Ruggiero makes calculations upon his fingers as he sits on the box in the corridor. The Count wants a boat and three sailors by the month and if he is pleased, will keep them all the season. It became sufficiently clear to Ruggiero during the first interview that his future employer did not know the difference between a barge and a felucca, and he has had ocular demonstration that the Count cannot swim, for he has seen him in the water by the bathing-houses--a thorough landsman at all points. But there are two kinds of landsmen, those who are afraid, and those who are not, as Ruggiero well knows. The first kind are amusing and the sailors get more fun out of them than they know of; the second kind are dangerous and are apt to get more out of the sailor than they pay for, by bullying him and calling him a coward. But on the whole Ruggiero, being naturally very daring and singularly indifferent to life as a possession, hopes that San Miniato may turn out to be of the unreasonably reckless rather than of the tiresomely timid class, and is inclined to take his future master's courage for granted as he makes his calculations. "I will take the Son of the Fool and the Cripple," he mutters decisively. "They are good men, and we can always have the Gull for a help when we need four." A promising crew, by the names, say you of the North, who do not understand Southern ways. But in Sorrento and all down the coast, most seafaring men get nicknames under which their real and legal appellations disappear completely and are totally forgotten. The Fool, whose son Ruggiero meant to engage, had earned his title in bygone days by dancing an English hornpipe for the amusement of his companions, the Gull owed his to the singular length and shape of his nose, and the Cripple had in early youth worn a pair of over-tight boots on Sundays, whereby he had limped sadly on the first day of every week, for nearly two years. So that the crew were all sound in mind and body in spite of their alarming names. Ruggiero sat on the box and waited, meditating upon the probable occupations of gentlemen who habitually slept till ten o'clock in the morning and sometimes till twelve. From time to time he brushed an almost imperceptible particle of dust from his very smart blue cloth knees, and settled the in-turned collar of the perfectly new blue guernsey about his neck. It was new, and it scratched him disagreeably, but it was highly necessary to present a prosperous as well as a seamanlike appearance on such an important occasion. Nothing could have been more becoming to him than the dark close-fitting dress, showing as it did the immense breadth and depth of his chest, the clean-cut sinewy length of his limbs and the easy grace and strength of his whole carriage. His short straight fair hair was brushed, too, and his young yellow beard had been recently trimmed. Altogether a fine figure of a man as he sat there waiting. Suddenly he was aware of a wonderful vision moving towards him down the broad corridor--a lovely dark face with liquid brown eyes, an exquisite figure clad in a well-fitted frock of white serge, a firm, smooth step that was not like any step he had ever heard. He rose quickly as she passed him, and the blood rushed to his face, up to the very roots of his hair. Beatrice was too much of a woman not to see the effect she produced upon the poor sailor, and she nodded gracefully to him, in acknowledgment of his politeness in rising. As she did so she noticed on her part that the poor sailor was indeed a very remarkable specimen of a man, such as she had not often seen. She stopped and spoke to him. "Are you the Count of San Miniato's boatman?" she asked in her sweet voice. "Yes, Eccellenza," answered Ruggiero, still blushing violently "Then he has engaged the boat? We want a boat, too--the Marchesa di Mola--can you get us one?" "There is my brother, Eccellenza." "Is he a good sailor?" "Better than I, Eccellenza." Beatrice looked at the figure before her and smiled graciously. "Send him to us at twelve o'clock," she said. "The Marchesa di Mola--do not forget." "Yes, Eccellenza." Ruggiero bowed respectfully, while Beatrice nodded again and passed on. Then he sat down again and waited, but his fingers no longer moved in calculations and his expression had changed. He sat still and stared in the direction of the corner beyond which the young girl had disappeared. He was conscious for the first time in his life that he possessed a heart, for the thing thumped and kicked violently under his blue guernsey, and he looked down at his broad chest with an odd expression of half-childish curiosity, fully expecting to see an outward and visible motion corresponding with the inward hammering. But he saw nothing. Solid ribs and solid muscles kept the obstreperous machine in its place. "Malora!" he ejaculated to himself. "Worse than a cat in a sack!" His hands, too, were quite cold, though it was a warm day. He noticed the fact as he passed his thumb for the hundredth time round his neck where the hard wool scratched him. To tell the truth he was somewhat alarmed. He had never been ill a day in his life, had never had as much as a headache, a bad cold or a touch of fever, and he began to think that something must be wrong. He said to himself that if such a thing happened to him again he would go to the chemist and ask for some medicine. His strength was the chief of his few possessions, he thought, and it would be better to spend a franc at the chemist's than to let it be endangered. It was a serious matter. Suppose that the young lady, instead of speaking to him about a boat, had told him to pick up the box on which he was sitting--one of those big boxes these foreigners travel with--and to carry it upstairs, he would have cut a poor figure just at that moment, when his heart was thumping like a flat-fish in the bottom of a boat, and his hands were trembling with cold. If it chanced again, he would certainly go to Don Ciccio the chemist and buy a dose of something with a strong bad taste, the stronger and the worse flavoured the better, of course, as everyone knew. Very alarming, these symptoms! Then he fell to thinking of the young lady herself, and she seemed to rise before him, just as he had seen her a few moments earlier. The signs of his new malady immediately grew worse again, and when it somehow struck him that he might serve her, and let Sebastiano be boatman to the Count, the pounding at his ribs became positively terrifying, and he jumped up and began to walk about. Just then the door opened suddenly and San Miniato put out his head. "Are you the sailor who is to get me a boat?" he asked. "Yes, Eccellenza," answered Ruggiero turning quickly, cap in hand. Strange to say, at the sound of the man's voice the alarming symptoms totally disappeared and Ruggiero was quite himself again. He remembered also that he had been engaged for the Count, through the people of the hotel, on condition of approval, and that it would be contrary to boatman's honour to draw back. After all, too, women in a boat were always a nuisance at the best, and he liked the Count's face, and decided that he was not of the type of landsmen who are frightened. The interview did not last long. "I shall wish to make excursions in all directions," said San Miniato. "I do not know anything about the sea, but I dislike people who make difficulties and talk to me of bad weather when I mean to go anywhere. Do you understand?" "We will try to content your excellency," answered Ruggiero quietly. "Good. We shall see." So Ruggiero went away to find the Son of the Fool, and the Cripple, and to engage them for the summer, and to deliver to his brother the message from the Marchesa di Mola. The reason why Ruggiero did not take Sebastiano as one of his own crew was a simple one. There lived and still lives at Sorrento, a certain old man known as the Greek. The Greek is old and infirm and has a vicious predilection for wine and cards, so that he is quite unfit for the sea. But he owns a couple of smart sailing boats and gets a living by letting them to strangers. It is necessary, however, to have at least one perfectly reliable man in charge of each, and so soon as the Children of the King had returned from their last long voyage the Greek had engaged them both for this purpose, as being in every way superior to the common run of boatmen who hung about the place waiting for jobs. It was consequently impossible that the two brothers could be in the same boat's crew during the summer. Ruggiero found the Cripple asleep in the shade, having been out all night fishing, and the Son of the Fool was seated not far from him, plaiting sinnet for gaskets. The two were inseparable, so far as their varied life permitted them to be together, and were generally to be found in the same crew. Average able seamen both, much of the same height and build, broad, heavy fellows good at the oar, peaceable and uncomplaining. While Ruggiero was talking with the one who was awake, his own brother appeared, and Ruggiero gave him the message, whereupon Sebastiano went off to array himself in his best before presenting himself to the Marchesa di Mola. The Son of the Fool gathered up his work. "Mola?" he repeated in a tone of inquiry. Ruggiero nodded carelessly. "A Sicilian lady who has a cutter?" "Yes." "Her daughter is going to marry a certain Conte di San Miniato--a great signore--of those without soldi." The sailor coiled the plaited sinnet neatly over his bare arm, but looked up as Ruggiero uttered an exclamation. "What is the matter with you?" he asked. Ruggiero's face was quite red and his broad chest heaved as he bit his lip and thrust his hands into his pockets. His companion repeated his question. "Nothing is the matter," answered Ruggiero. "Wake up the Cripple and see if there is everything for rigging the boat. We must have her out this afternoon. The Conte di San Miniato of whom you speak is our signore." "Oh! I understand!" exclaimed the Son of the Fool. "Well--you need not be so anxious. I daresay it is not true that he has no money, and at all events the Greek will pay us." "Of course, the Greek will pay us," answered Ruggiero thoughtfully. "I will be back in half an hour," he added, turning away abruptly. He walked rapidly up the steep paved ascent which leads through the narrow gorge from the small beach to the town above. A few minutes later he entered the chemist's shop for the first time in his life in search of medicine for himself. He took off his cap and looked about him with some curiosity, eying the long rows of old-fashioned majolica drug jars, and the stock of bottles of all colours and labels in the glass cases. The chemist was a worthy old creature with a white beard and solemn ways. "What do you want?" he inquired. "A little medicine, but good," answered Ruggiero, looking critically along the shelves, as though to select a remedy. "A little of the best," he added, jingling a few silver coins in his pockets and wondering how much the stuff would cost. "But what kind of medicine?" asked the old man. "Do you feel ill? Where?" "Here," answered Ruggiero bringing his heavy bony hand down upon his huge chest with a noise that made the chemist start, and then chuckle. "Just there, eh?" said the latter ironically. "You have the health of a horse. Go to dinner." "I tell you it is there," returned Ruggiero. "Sometimes it is quite quiet, as it is now, but sometimes it jumps and threshes like a dolphin at sea." "H'm! The heart, eh?" The old man came round his counter and applied his ear to Ruggiero's breast. "Regular as a steam engine," he said. "When does it jump, as you call it? When you go up hill?" Ruggiero laughed. "Am I old or fat?" he inquired contemptuously. "It happened first this morning. I was waiting in the hotel and a lady came by and spoke to me--about a certain boat." "A lady? H'm! Young perhaps, and pretty?" "That is my business. Then half an hour later I was talking to the Son of the Fool. You know him I daresay. And it began to jump again, and I said to myself, '"Health is the first thing," as the old people say.' So I came for the medicine." The chemist chuckled audibly. "And what were you talking about?" he asked. "The lady?" "It is true," answered Ruggiero in a tone of reflection. "The Son of the Fool was telling me that the lady is to marry my signore." "And you want medicine!" cried the old man, laughing aloud. "Imbecile! Have you never been in love?" Ruggiero stared at him. "Eh! A girl here and there--in Buenos Ayres, in New Orleans--what has that to do with it? You--what the malora--the plague--are you talking about? Eh? Explain a little." "You had better go back to Buenos Ayres, or to some other place where you will not see the lady any more," said the chemist. "You are in love with her. That is all the matter." "I, with a gran' signora, a great lady! You are crazy, Don Ciccio!" "Crazy or not--tell me to-morrow whether your heart does not beat every time she looks at you. As for her being a great lady--we are men, and they are women." The chemist had socialistic ideas of his own. "To please you," said Ruggiero, "I will go and see her now, and I will be back in an hour to tell you that you do not understand your business. My brother is to go there at twelve and I will go with him. Of course I shall see her." He turned to go, but stopped suddenly on the threshold and came back. "There!" he cried triumphantly. "There it is again, but not so hard this time. Is the lady here, now?" He pushed his chest against the old man's ear. "Madonna mia! What a machine!" exclaimed the latter, after listening a moment. "If I had a heart like that!" "Now you see for yourself," said Ruggiero. "I want the best medicine." But again the chemist broke into a laugh. "Medicine! A medicine for love! Do you not see that it began to beat at the thought of seeing her? Go and try it, as you proposed. Then you will understand." "I understand that you are crazy. But I will try it all the same." Thereupon Ruggiero strode out of the shop without further words, considerably disappointed and displeased with the result of the interview. The chemist apparently took him for a fool. It was absurd to suppose that the sight of any woman, or the mention of any woman, could make a man's heart behave in such a way, and yet he was obliged to admit that the coincidence was undeniable. He found his brother just coming out of the house in which they lodged, arrayed at all points exactly like himself. Sebastiano's young beard was not quite so thick, his eyes were a little softer, his movements a trifle less energetically direct than Ruggiero's, and he was, perhaps, an inch shorter; but the resemblance was extraordinary and would have struck any one. They were admitted to the presence of the Marchesa di Mola in due time. She lay in a deep chair under the arches of her terrace, shaded by brown linen curtains, languid, idle, indifferent as ever. "Beatrice!" she called in a lazy tone, as the two men stood still at a respectful distance, waiting to be addressed. But instead of Beatrice, a maid appeared at a door at the other end of the terrace--a fresh young thing with rosy cheeks, brown hair, sparkling black eyes and a pretty figure. "Call Donna Beatrice," said the Marchesa. Then, as though exhausted by the effort of speaking she closed her eyes and waited. The maid cast a quick glance at the two handsome sailors and disappeared again. Ruggiero and Sebastiano stood motionless, only their eyes turning from side to side and examining everything with the curiosity habitual in seamen. Presently Beatrice entered, looked at them both for a moment and then went up to her mother. "It is for the boat, mamma," she said. "Do you wish me to arrange about it?" "Of course," answered the Marchesa opening her eyes and immediately shutting them again. Beatrice stepped aside and beckoned the two men to her. To Ruggiero's infinite surprise, he again felt the blood rushing to his face, and his heart began to pound his ribs like a fuller's hammer. He glanced at his brother and saw that he was perfectly self-possessed. Beatrice looked from one to the other in perplexity. "You are so much alike!" she exclaimed. "With which of you did I speak this morning?" "With me, Eccellenza," said Ruggiero, whose own voice sounded strangely in his ears. "And this is my brother," he added. The arrangement was soon made, but during the short interchange of questions and answers Ruggiero could not take his eyes from Beatrice's face. Possibly he was not even aware that it was rude to stare at a lady, for his education had not been got in places where ladies are often seen, or manners frequently discussed. But Beatrice did not seem at all disturbed by the scrutiny, though she was quite aware of its pertinacity. A woman who has beauty in any degree rarely resents the genuine and unconcealed admiration of the vulgar. On the contrary, as the young girl dismissed the men, she smiled graciously upon them both, and perhaps a little the more upon Ruggiero, though there was not much to choose. Neither of them spoke as they descended the stairs of the hotel, and went out through the garden to the gate. When they were in the square beyond Ruggiero stopped. Sebastiano stood still also and looked at him. "Does your heart ever jump and turn somersaults and get into your mouth, when you look at a woman, Bastianello?" he asked. "No. Does yours?" "Yes. Just now." "I saw her, too," answered Sebastiano. "It is true that she is very fresh and pretty, and uncommonly clean. Eh--the devil! If you like her, ask for her. The maid of a Marchesa is sure to have money and to be a respectable girl." Ruggiero was silent for a moment and looked at his brother with an odd expression, as though he were going to say something. Unfortunately for him, for Sebastiano, for the maid, for Beatrice, and for the count of San Miniato, too, he said nothing. Instead, he produced half a cigar from his cap, and two sulphur matches, and incontinently began to smoke. "It is lucky that both boats are engaged on the same day," observed Sebastiano. "The Greek will be pleased. He will play all the numbers at the lottery." "And get very drunk to-night," added Ruggiero with contempt. "Of course. But he is a good padrone, everybody says, and does not cheat his men." "I hope not." By and by the two went down to the beach again, and Sebastiano looked about him for a crew. The Marchesa wanted four men in her boat, or even five, and Sebastiano picked out at once the Gull, the Son of the American, Black Rag--otherwise known as Saint Peter from his resemblance to the pictures of the Apostle as a fisherman--and the Deaf Man. The latter is a fellow of strange ways, who lost his hearing from falling into the water in winter when overheated, and who has almost lost the power of speech in consequence, but a good sailor withal, tough, untiring, and patient. They all set to work with a good will, and before four o'clock that day the two boats were launched, ballasted and rigged, the sails were bent to the yards and the brasses polished, so that Ruggiero and Sebastiano went up to their respective masters to ask if there were any orders for the afternoon. CHAPTER IV. Ruggiero found out before long that his master for the summer was eccentric in his habits, judging from the Sorrentine point of view in regard to order and punctuality. Ruggiero's experience of fine gentlemen was limited indeed, but he could not believe that they all behaved like San Miniato, whose temper was apparently as changeable as his tastes. Sometimes he went to bed at nine o'clock and rose at dawn. Sometimes on the other hand he got up at seven in the evening and went to bed by daylight. Sometimes everything Ruggiero did was right, and sometimes everything was wrong. There were days when the Count could not be induced to move from the Marchesa di Mola's terrace between noon and midnight or later, and again there were days when he went off in his boat in the morning and did not return until the last stragglers on the terrace of the hotel were ready to go to bed. He was irregular even in playing, which was after all his chief pastime. Possibly he knew of reasons why it should be good to gamble on one day and not upon another. Then he had his fits of amateur seamanship, when he would insist upon taking the tiller from Ruggiero's hand. The latter, on such occasions, remained perched upon the stern in case of an emergency. San Miniato was a thorough landsman and never understood why the wind always seemed to change, or die away, or do something unexpected so soon as he began to steer the boat. From time to time Ruggiero, by way of a mild hint, held up his palm to the breeze, but San Miniato did not know what the action meant. Ruggiero trimmed the sails to suit the course chosen by his master as well as possible, but straightway the boat was up in the wind again if she had been going free, or was falling off if the tacks were down and the sheets well aft. San Miniato was one of those men who seem quite incapable of doing anything sensible from the moment they leave the land till they touch it again, when their normal common sense returns, and they once more become human beings. On the other hand nothing frightened him, though he could not swim a stroke. More than once Ruggiero allowed him almost to upset the boat in a squall, and more than once, when, steering himself, and when there was a fresh breeze, drove her till the seas broke over the bows, and the green water came in over the lee gunwale--just to see whether the Count would change colour. In this, however, he was disappointed. San Miniato's temper might change and his tastes might be as variable as the moon, or the weather, but his face rarely expressed anything of what he felt, and if he felt anything at such times it was assuredly not fear. He had good qualities, and courage was one of them, if courage may be called a quality at all. Ruggiero was not at all sure that his new master liked the sea, and it is possible that the Count was not sure of the fact himself; but for the time, it suited him to sail as much as possible, because Beatrice Granmichele was fond of it, and would therefore amuse herself with excursions hither and thither during the summer. As her mother rarely accompanied her, San Miniato could not, according to the customs of the country, join her in her boat, and the next best thing was to keep one for himself and to be as often as possible alongside of her, and ready to go ashore with her if she took a fancy to land in some quiet spot. The Marchesa di Mola, having quite made up her mind that her daughter should marry San Miniato, and being almost too indolent about minor matters to care for appearances, would have allowed the two to be together from morning till night under the very least shadow of a chaperon's supervision, if Beatrice herself had shown a greater inclination for San Miniato's society than she actually did. But Beatrice was the only one of the party who had arrived at no distinct determination in the matter. San Miniato attracted her, and was very well in his way, but that was all. Amidst the shoals of migratory Neapolitans with magnificent titles and slender purses, who appeared, disported themselves and disappeared again, at the summer resort, it was quite possible that one might be found with more to recommend him than San Miniato could boast. Most of them were livelier than he, and certainly all were noisier. Many of them had very bright black eyes, which Beatrice liked, and they were all dressed a little beyond the extreme of the fashion, a fact of which she was too young to understand the psychological value in judging of men. Some of them sang very prettily, and San Miniato did not possess any similar accomplishment. Indeed, in the young girl's opinion, he approached dangerously near to being a "serious" man, as the Italians express it, and but for his known love of gambling he might have seemed to her altogether too dull a personage to be thought of as a possible husband. It is not easy to define exactly what is meant in Italian by a "serious" man. The word does not exactly translate the French equivalent, still less the English one. It means something in the nature of a Philistine with a little admixture of Ciceronism--pass the word--and a dash of Cato Censor to sour the whole--a delight to school-masterly spirits, a terror to lively damsels, the laughing-stock of the worldly wise and only just too wise to find a congenial atmosphere in the every-day world. However, as San Miniato just escaped the application of the adjective I have been trying to translate, it is enough to say that he was not exactly a "serious man," being excluded from that variety of the species by his passion for play, which was dominant, and by the incidents of his past history, which had not been dull. It is true that a liking for cards and a reputation for success gained in former love affairs are not in any sense a substitute for the outward and attractive expressions of a genuine and present passion, but they are better than nothing when they serve to combat such a formidable imputation as that of "seriousness." Anything is better than that, and as Beatrice Granmichele was inclined to like the man without knowing why, she made the most of the few stories about him which reached her maiden ears, and of his taste for gaming, in order to render him interesting in her own eyes. He did, indeed, make more or less pretty speeches to her from time to time, of a cheerfully complimentary character when he had won money, of a gracefully melancholy nature when he had lost, but she was far too womanly not to miss something very essential in what he said and in his way of saying it. A woman may love flattery ever so much and have ever so strong a moral absorbent system with which to digest it; she does not hate banality the less. There is no such word as banality in the English tongue, but there might be, and if there were, it would mean that peculiarly tasteless and saltless nature of actions and speeches done and delivered by persons who are born dull, or who are mentally exhausted, or are absent-minded, or very shy, but who, in spite of natural or accidental disadvantages are determined to make themselves agreeable. The standard of banality differs indeed for every woman, and with every woman for almost every hour of the day, and men of the world who husband their worldly resources are aware of the fact. Angelina at three in the afternoon, fresh from rest and luncheon--if both agree with her--is wreathed in smiles at a little speech of Edwin's which would taste like sweet camomile tea after dry champagne, at three in the morning, when the Hungarian music is ringing madly in her ears and there are only two more waltzes on the programme. Music, dancing, lights and heat are to a woman of the world what strong drinks are to a normal man; they may not intoxicate, but they change the humour. Fortunately for San Miniato the young lady whom he wished to marry was not just at present exposed to the action of those stimulants, and her moods were tolerably even. If he had been at all eloquent, the same style of eloquence would have done almost as well after dinner as after breakfast. But the secret springs of love speech were dried up in his brain by the haunting consciousness that much was expected of him. He had never before thought of marrying and had not yet in his life found himself for any length of time constantly face to face in conversation with a young girl, with limitations of propriety and the fear of failure before his eyes. The situation was new and uncomfortable. He felt like a man who has got a hat which does not belong to him, which does not fit him and which will not stay on his head in a high wind. The consequence was that his talk lacked interest, and that he often did not talk at all. Nevertheless, he managed to show enough assiduity to keep himself continually in the foreground of Beatrice's thoughts. Being almost constantly present she could not easily forget him, and he held his ground with a determination which kept other men away. When a man can make a woman think of him half-a-dozen times a day and can prevent other men from taking his place when he is beside her, he is in a fair way to success. On a certain evening San Miniato had a final interview with the Marchesa di Mola in which he expressed all that he felt for Beatrice, including a little more, and in which he described his not very prosperous financial condition with mitigated frankness. The Marchesa listened dreamily in the darkness on the terrace while her daughter played soft dance music in the dimly lighted room behind her. Beatrice probably had an idea of what was going on outside, upon the terrace, and was trying to make up her own mind. She played waltzes very prettily, as women who dance well generally do, if they play at all. When San Miniato had finished, the Marchesa was silent for a few seconds. Then she tapped her companion twice upon the arm with her fan, in a way which would have seemed lazy in any one else, but which, for her, was unusually energetic. "How well you say it all!" she exclaimed. "And you consent, dear Marchesa?" asked the Count, with an eagerness not all feigned. "You say it all so well! If I could say it half so well to Beatrice--there might be some possibility. But Beatrice is not like me--nor I like you--and so--" She broke off in the middle of the sentence with an indolent little laugh. "If she were like you," said San Miniato, "I would not hesitate long." There was an intonation in his voice that pleased the middle-aged woman, as he had intended. "What would you do?" she asked, fanning herself slowly in the dark. "I would speak to her myself." "Heavens!" Again the Marchesa laughed. The idea seemed eccentric enough in her eyes. "Why not?" "Why not? Dearest San Miniato, do not try to make me argue such insane questions with you. You know how lazy I am. I can never talk." "A woman need not talk in order to be persuaded. It is enough that the man should. Let me try." "I will shut my ears." "I will kneel at your feet." "I shall go to sleep." "I could wake you." "How?" "By telling you that I mean to speak to Donna Beatrice myself." "Such an idea would wake the dead!" "So much the better. They would hear me." "They would not help you, if they heard you," observed the Marchesa. "They could at least bear witness to the answer I should receive." "And suppose, dear friend, that the answer should not be what you wish, or expect--would you care to have witnesses, alive or dead?" "Why should the answer be a negative?" "Because," replied the Marchesa, turning her face directly to his, "because Beatrice is herself uncertain. You know well enough that no man should ever tell a woman he loves her until he is sure that she loves him. And that is not the only reason." "Have you a better one?" asked San Miniato with a laugh. "The impossibility of it all! Imagine, in our world, a man deliberately asking a young girl to marry him!" San Miniato smiled, but the Marchesa could not see the expression of his face. "We do not think it so impossible in Piedmont," he answered quietly. "I am surprised at that." The lady's tone was rather cold. "Are you? Why? We are less old-fashioned, that is all." "And is it really done in--in good families?" "Often," answered San Miniato, seeing his advantage and pressing it. "I could give you many instances without difficulty, within the last few years." "The plan certainly saves the parents a great deal of trouble," observed the Marchesa, lazily shutting her eyes and fanning herself again. "And it places the decision of the most vital question in life in the hands of the two beings most concerned." San Miniato spoke rather sententiously, for he knew how to impress his companion and he meant to be impressive. "No doubt," answered the Marchesa. "No doubt. But," she continued, bringing up the time-honoured argument, "the two young people most concerned are not always the people best able to judge of their own welfare." "Of course they are not," assented San Miniato, readily enough, and abandoning the point which could be of no use to him. "Of course not. But, dearest Marchesa, since you have judged for us--and there is no one else to judge--do you not think that you might leave the rest in my hands? The mere question to be asked, you know, in the hope of a final answer--the mere technicality of love-making, with which you can only be familiar from the woman's point of view, and not from the man's, as I am. Not that I have had much experience---" "You?" laughed the Marchesa, touching his hand with her fan. "You without much experience! But you are historical, dearest friend! Who does not know of your conquests?" "I, at least, do not," answered San Miniato with well-affected modesty. "But that is not the question. Let us get back to it. This is my plan. The moon is full to-morrow and the weather is hot. We will all go in my boat to Tragara and dine on the rocks. It will be beautiful. Then after dinner we can walk about in the moonlight--slowly, not far from you, as at the end of this terrace. And while you are looking on I, in a low voice, will express my sincere feelings to Donna Beatrice, and ask the most important of all questions. Does not that please you? Is it not well combined?" "But why must we take the trouble to go all the way to Capri? What sense is there in that?" "Dearest Marchesa, you do not understand! Consider the surroundings, the moonlight, the water rippling against the rocks, the soft breeze--a little music, too, such as a pair of mandolins and a guitar, which we could send over--all these things are in my favour." "Why?" asked the Marchesa, not understanding in the least how he could attach so much value to things which seemed to her unappreciative mind to be perfectly indifferent. "Besides," she added, "if you want to give a party, you can illuminate the garden of the hotel with Chinese lanterns. That would be much prettier than to picnic on uncomfortable rocks out in the sea with nothing but cold things to eat and only the moon for an illumination. I am sure Beatrice would like it much better." San Miniato laughed. "What a prosaic person you are!" he exclaimed. "Can you not imagine that a young girl's disposition may be softened by moonlight, mandolins and night breezes?" "No. I never understood that. And after all if you want moonlight you can have it here. If it shines at Capri it will shine at Sorrento. At least it seems to me so." "No, dearest Marchesa," answered San Miniato triumphantly. "There you are mistaken." "About the moon?" "Yes, about the moon. When it rises we do not see it here, on account of the mountains behind us." "But I have often seen the moon here, from this very place," objected the Marchesa. "I am sure it is not a week ago that I saw it. You do not mean to tell me that there are two moons, and that yours is different from mine!" "Very nearly. This at least I say. When the moon is full we can see it rise from Tragara, and we can not see it from this place." "How inexplicable nature is!" exclaimed the Marchesa fanning herself lazily. "I will not try to understand the moon any more. It tires me. A lemonade, San Miniato--ring for a lemonade. I am utterly exhausted." "Shall I ask Donna Beatrice's opinion about Tragara?" inquired San Miniato rising. "Oh yes! Anything--only do not argue with me. I cannot bear it. I suppose you will put me into that terrible boat and make me sit in it for hours and hours, until all my bones are broken, and then you will give me cold macaroni and dry bread and warm wine and water, and the sailors will eat garlic, and it will be insufferable and you will call it divine. And of course Beatrice will be so wretched that she will not listen to a word you say, and will certainly refuse you without hesitation. A lemonade, San Miniato, for the love of heaven! My throat is parched with this talking." When the Marchesa had got what she wanted, San Miniato sat down beside Beatrice at the piano, in the sitting room. "Donna Beatrice gentilissima," he began, "will you deign to tell me whether you prefer the moon to Chinese lanterns, or Chinese lanterns to the moon?" "To wear?" asked the young girl with a laugh. "If you please, of course. Anything would be becoming to you--but I mean as a question of light. Would you prefer a dinner by moonlight on the rocks of Tragara with a couple of mandolins in the distance, or would you like better a party in the hotel gardens with an illumination of paper lanterns? It is a most important question, I assure you, and must be decided very quickly, because the moon is full to-morrow." "What a ridiculous question!" exclaimed Beatrice, laughing again. "Why ridiculous?" "Because you ought to know the answer well enough. Imagine comparing the moon with Chinese lanterns!" "Your mother prefers the latter." "Oh, mamma--of course! She is so practical. She would prefer carriage lamps on the trees--gas if possible! When are we going to Tragara? Where is it? Which boat shall we take? Oh, it is too delightful! Can we not go to-night?" "We can do anything which Donna Beatrice likes," answered San Miniato. "But if you will listen to me, I will explain why to-morrow would be better. In the first place, we have dined once this evening, so that we could not dine again." "We could call it supper," suggested Beatrice. "Of course we could, if we could eat it at all. But it is also ten o'clock, and we could not get to Tragara before one or two in the morning. Lastly, your mother would not go." "Will she go to-morrow?" asked Beatrice with sudden anxiety. "Have you asked her?" "She will go," answered San Miniato confidently. "We must make her comfortable. That is the principal thing." "Yes. She shall have her maid and we must take a chair for her to sit in, and another to carry her, and two porters, and a lamp, and a table, and a servant to wait on her. And she will want champagne, well iced, and a carpet for her feet, and a screen to keep the wind from her, if there is any, and several more things which I shall remember. But I know all about it, for we once made a little excursion from Taormina and dined out of doors, and I know exactly what she wants." "Very well, she shall have everything," said San Miniato smiling at the catalogue of the Marchesa's wants. "If she will only go, we will do all we can." "When it is time, let the two porters come in here with the chair and take her away," answered Beatrice. "Dear mamma! She will be much too lazy to resist. What fun it will be!" And everything was done as Beatrice had wished. San Miniato made a list of things absolutely indispensable to the Marchesa. The number of articles was about two hundred and their bulk filled a boat which was despatched early in the following afternoon to be rowed over to Tragara and unloaded before the party arrived. Ruggiero and his brother worked hard at the preparations, silent, untiring and efficient as usual, but delighted in their hearts at the prospect of something less monotonous than the daily sail or the daily row within sight of Sorrento. To men who have knocked about the sea for years, from Santa Cruz to Sebastopol, the daily life of a sailor on a little pleasure boat lacks interest, and if circumstances had been, different Ruggiero would probably have shipped before now as boatswain on board one of the neat schooners which are yearly built at the Piano di Sorrento, to be sold with their cargoes of salt as soon as they reach Buenos Ayres. But Ruggiero had contracted that malady of the heart which had taken him to the chemist's for the first time in his life, and which materially hindered the formation of any plan by which he might be obliged to leave his present situation. Moreover the disease showed no signs of yielding; on the contrary, the action of the vital organ concerned became more and more spasmodic and alarming, while its possessor grew daily leaner and more silent. The last package had been taken down, the last of the score of articles which the Marchesa was sure to want with her in the sail boat before she reached the spot where the main cargo of comforts would be waiting; the last sandwich, the last box of sweetmeats, the iced lemonade, the wraps and the parasols were all stowed away in their places. Then San Miniato went to fetch the Marchesa, marshalling in his two porters with their chair between them. "Dearest Marchesa," said the Count, "if you will give yourself the trouble to sit in this chair, I will promise that no further exertion shall be required of you." The Marchesa di Mola looked up with a glance of sleepy astonishment. "And why in that chair, dearest friend? I am so comfortable here. And why have you brought those two men with you?" "Have you forgotten our dinner at Tragara?" asked San Miniato. "Tragara!" gasped the Marchesa. "You are not going to take me to Tragara! Good heavens! I am utterly exhausted! I shall die before we get to the boat." "Altro è parlar di morte--altro è morire," laughed San Miniato, quoting the famous song. "It is one thing to talk of death, it is quite another to die. Only this little favour Marchesa gentilissima--to seat yourself in this chair. We will do the rest." "Without a hat? Just as I am? Impossible! Come in an hour--then I shall be ready. My maid, San Miniato--send for Teresina. Dio mio! I can never go! Go without us, dearest friend--go and dine on your hideous rocks and leave us the little comfort we need so much!" But protestations were vain. Teresina appeared and fastened the hat of the period upon her mistress's head. The hat of the period chanced to be a one-sided monstrosity at that time, something between a cart wheel, an umbrella and a flower garden, depending for its stability upon the proper position of several solid skewers, apparently stuck through the head of the wearer. This headpiece having been adjusted the Marchesa asked for a cigarette, lighted it and looked about her. "It is really too much!" she exclaimed. "Button my gloves, Teresina. I shall not go after all, not even to please you, dearest friend. What a place of torture this world is! How right we are to try and get a comfortable stall in the next! Go away, San Miniato. It is quite useless." But San Miniato knew what he was doing. With gentle strength he made her rise from her seat and placed her in the chair. The porters lifted their burden, settled the straps upon their shoulders, the man in front glanced back at the man behind, both nodded and marched away. "This is too awful!" sighed the Marchesa, as she was carried out of the door of the sitting room. "How can you have the heart, dearest friend! An invalid like me! And I was supremely comfortable where I was." But at this point Beatrice appeared and joined the procession, radiant, fresh as a fragrant wood-flower, full of life as a young bird. Behind her came Teresina, the maid, necessary at every minute for the Marchesa's comfort, her pink young cheeks flushed with pleasure and her eyes sparkling with anticipation, fastening on her hat as she walked. "I was never so happy in my life," laughed Beatrice. "And to think that you have really captured mamma in spite of herself! Oh, mamma, you will enjoy it so much! I promise you shall. There is iced champagne, and the foot warmer and the marrons glacés and the lamp and everything you like--and quails stuffed with truffles, besides. Now do be happy and let us enjoy ourselves!" "But where are all these things?" asked the Marchesa. "I shall believe when I see." "Everything is at Tragara already," answered Beatrice tripping down the stairs beside her mother's chair. "And we really will enjoy ourselves," she added, turning her head with a bewitching smile, and looking back at San Miniato. "What a general you are!" "If you could convince the Minister of War of that undoubted fact, you would be conferring the greatest possible favour upon me," said the Count. "He would have no trouble in persuading me to return to the army as commander-in-chief, though I left the service as a captain." So they went down the long winding way cut through the soft tufo rock and found the boat waiting for them by the little landing. The Marchesa actually took the trouble to step on board instead of trusting herself to the strong arms of Ruggiero. Beatrice followed her. As she set her foot on the gunwale Ruggiero held up his hand towards her to help her. It was not the first time this duty had fallen to him, but she was more radiantly fresh to-day than he had ever seen her before, and the spasm that seemed to crush his heart for a moment was more violent than usual. His strong joints trembled at her light touch and his face turned white. She felt that his hand shook and she glanced at him when she stood in the boat. "Are you ill, Ruggiero?" she asked, in a kindly tone. "No, Excellency," he answered in a low voice that was far from steady, while the shadow of a despairing smile flickered over his features. He put up his hand to help Teresina, the maid. She pressed it hard as she jumped down, and smiled with much intention at the handsome sailor. But she got no answer for her look, and he turned away and shoved the boat off the little stone pier. Bastianello was watching them both, and wishing himself in Ruggiero's place. But Ruggiero, as he believed, had loved the pretty Teresina first, and Ruggiero had the first right to win her if he could. So the boat shot out upon the crisping water into the light afternoon breeze, and up went foresail and mainsail and jib, and away she went on the port tack, San Miniato steering and talking to Beatrice--which things are not to be done together with advantage--the Marchesa lying back in a cane rocking-chair and thinking of nothing, while Teresina held the parasol over her mistress's head and shot bright glances at the sailors forward. And Ruggiero and Bastianello sat side by side amidships looking out at the gleaming sea to windward. "What hast thou?" asked Bastianello in a low voice. "The pain," answered his brother. "Why let thyself be consumed by it? Ask her in marriage. The Marchesa will give her to thee." "Better to die! Thou dost not know all." "That may be," said Bastianello with a sigh. And he slowly began to fake down the slack of the main halyard on the thwart, twisting the coil slowly and thoughtfully as it grew under his broad hands, till the rope lay in a perfectly smooth disk beside him. But Ruggiero changed his position and gazed steadily at Beatrice's changing face while San Miniato talked to her. So the boat sped on and many of those on board misunderstood each other, and some did not understand themselves. But what was most clear to all before long was that San Miniato could not make love and steer his trick at the same time. "Are we going to Castellamare?" asked Bastianello in a low voice as the boat fell off more and more under the Count's careless steering. Ruggiero started. For the first time in his life he had forgotten that he was at sea. CHAPTER V. San Miniato did not possess that peculiar and common form of vanity which makes a man sensitive about doing badly what he has never learned to do at all. He laughed when Ruggiero advised him to luff a little, and he did as he was told. But Ruggiero came aft and perched himself on the stern in order to be at hand in case his master committed another flagrant breach of seamanship. "You will certainly take us to the bottom of the bay instead of to Tragara," observed the Marchesa languidly. "But then at least my discomforts will be over for ever. Of course there is no lemonade on board. Teresina, I want lemonade." In an instant Bastianello produced a decanter out of a bucket of snow and brought it aft with a glass. The Marchesa smiled. "You do things very well, dearest friend," she said, and moistened her lips in the cold liquid. "Donna Beatrice has had more to do with providing for your comfort than I," answered the Count. The Marchesa smiled lazily, sipped about a teaspoonful from the glass and handed it to her maid. "Drink, Teresina," she said. "It will refresh you." The girl drank eagerly. "You see," said the Marchesa, "I can think of the comfort of others as well as of my own." San Miniato smiled politely and Beatrice laughed. Her laughter hurt the silent sailor perched behind her, as though a glass had been broken in his face. How could she be so gay when his heart was beating so hard for her? He drew his breath sharply and looked out to sea, as many a heart-broken man has looked across that fair water since woman first learned that men's hearts could break. It was a wonderful afternoon. The sun was already low, rolling down to his western bath behind Capo Miseno, northernmost of all his daily plunges in the year; and as he sank, the colours he had painted on the hills at dawn returned behind him, richer and deeper and rarer for the heat he had given them all day. There, like a mass of fruit and flowers in a red gold bowl, Sorrento lay in the basin of the surrounding mountains, all gilded above and full of rich shadows below. Over all, the great Santangelo raised his misty head against the pale green eastern sky, gazing down at the life below, at the living land and the living sea, and remembering, perhaps, the silent days before life was, or looking forward to the night to come in which there will be no life left any more. For who shall tell me that the earth herself may not be a living, thinking, feeling being, on whose not unkindly bosom we wear out our little lives, but whose high loves are with the stars, beyond our sight, and her voice too deep and musical for ears used to our shrill human speech? Who shall say surely that she is not conscious of our presence, of some of our doings when we tear her breast and lay burdens upon her neck and plough up her fair skin with our hideous works, or when we touch her kindly and love her, and plant sweet flowers in soft places? Who shall know and teach us that the summer breeze is not her breath, the storm the sobbing of her passion, the rain her woman's tears--that she is not alive, loving and suffering, as we all have been, are, or would be, but greater than we as the star she loves somewhere is greater and stronger than herself? And we live upon her, and feed on her and all die and are taken back into her whence we came, wondering much of the truth that is hidden, learning perhaps at last the great secret she keeps so well. Her life, too, will end some day, her last blossom will have bloomed alone, her last tears will have fallen upon her own bosom, her last sob will have rent the air, and the beautiful earth will be dead for ever, borne on in the sweep of the race that will never end, borne along yet a few ages, till her sweet body turns to star-dust in the great emptiness of a night without morning. But Ruggiero, plain strong man of the people, hard-handed sailor, was not thinking of any of these things as he sat in his narrow place on the stern behind his master, mechanically guiding the tiller in the latter's unconscious hand, while he gazed silently at Beatrice's face, now turned towards him in conversation, now half averted as she looked down or out to sea. Ruggiero listened, too, to the talk, though he did not understand all the fine words Beatrice and San Miniato used. If he had never been away from the coast, the probability is that he would have understood nothing at all; but in his long voyages he had been thrown with men of other parts of Italy and had picked up a smattering of what Neapolitans call Italian, to distinguish it from their own speech. Even as it was, the most part of what they said escaped him, because they seemed to think so very differently from him about simple matters, and to be so heartily amused at what seemed so dull to him. And he began to feel that the hurt he had was deep and not to be healed, while he reflected that he was undoubtedly mad, since he loved this lady so much while understanding her so little. The mere feeling that she could talk and take pleasure in talking beyond his comprehension wounded him, as a sensitive half-grown boy sometimes suffers real pain when his boyishness shows itself among men. Why, for instance, did the young girl's cheek flush and her eyes sparkle, when San Miniato talked of Paris? Paris was in France. Ruggiero knew that. But he had often heard that it was not so big a place as London, where he had been. Therefore Beatrice must have some other reason for liking it. Most probably she loved a Frenchman, and Ruggiero hated Frenchmen with all his heart. Then they talked about the theatre and Beatrice was evidently interested. Ruggiero had once seen a puppet show and had not found it at all funny. The theatre was only a big puppet show, and he could pay for a seat there if he pleased; but he did not please, because he was sure that it would not amuse him to go. Why should Beatrice like the theatre? And she liked the races at Naples, too, and those at Paris much better. Why? Everybody knew that one horse could run faster than another, without trying it, but it could not matter a straw which of two, or twenty, got to the goal first. Horses were not boats. Now there was sense in a boat race, or a yacht race, or a steamer race. But a horse! He might be first to-day, and to-morrow if he had not enough to eat he might be last. Was a horse a Christian? You could not count upon him. And then they began to talk of love and Ruggiero's heart stood still, for that, at least, he could understand. "Love!" laughed Beatrice, repeating the word. "It always makes one laugh. Were you ever in love, mamma?" The Marchesa turned her head slowly, and lifted her sleepy eyes to look at her daughter, before she answered. "No," she said lazily. "I was never in love. But you are far too young to talk of such things." "San Miniato says that love is for the young and friendship for the old." "Love," said San Miniato, "is a necessary evil, but it is also the greatest source of happiness." "What a fine phrase!" exclaimed Beatrice. "You must be a professor in disguise." "A professor of love?" asked the Count with a very well executed look of tenderness which did not escape Ruggiero. "Hush, for the love of heaven!" interposed the Marchesa. "This is too dreadful!" "We were not talking of the love of heaven," answered Beatrice mischievously. "I was thinking at least of a love that could make any place a heaven," said San Miniato, again helping his lack of originality with his eyes. Ruggiero reflected that it would be but the affair of a second to unship the heavy brass tiller and bring it down once on the top of his master's skull. Once would be enough. "Whose love?" asked Beatrice innocently. San Miniato looked at her again, then turned away his eyes and sighed audibly. "Well?" asked Beatrice. "Will you answer. I do not understand that language. Whose love would make any place--Timbuctoo, for instance--a heaven for you?" "Discretion is the only virtue a man ought to exhibit whenever he has a chance," said San Miniato. "Perhaps. But even that should be shown without ostentation." Beatrice laughed. "And you are decidedly ostentatious at the present moment. It would interest mamma and me very much to know the object of your affections." "Beatrice!" exclaimed the Marchesa with affected horror. "Yes, mamma," answered the young girl. "Here I am. Do you want some more lemonade?" "She is quite insufferable," said the Marchesa to San Miniato, with a languid smile. "But really, San Miniato carissimo, this conversation--a young girl---" Ruggiero wondered what she found so obnoxious in the words that had been spoken. He also wondered how long it would take San Miniato to drown if he were dropped overboard in the wake of the boat. "If that is your opinion of your daughter," said the latter, "we shall hardly agree. Now I maintain that Donna Beatrice is the contrary of insufferable--the most extreme of contraries. In the first place---" "She is very pretty," said Beatrice demurely. "I was not going to say that," laughed San Miniato. "Ah? Then say something else." "I will. Donna Beatrice has two gifts, at least, which make it impossible that she should ever be insufferable, even when her beauty is gone." "Dio mio!" ejaculated the young girl. "The compliments are beginning in good earnest!" "It was time," said San Miniato, "since your mother---" "Dear Count," interrupted Beatrice, "do not talk any more about mamma. I am anxious to get at the compliments. Do pray let your indiscretion be as ostentatious as possible. I cannot wait another second." "No need of waiting," answered San Miniato, again addressing himself to the Marchesa. "Donna Beatrice has two great gifts. She is kind, and she has charm." There being no exact equivalent for the word "charm" in the Italian language, San Miniato used the French. Ruggiero began to puzzle his brains, asking himself what this foreign virtue could be which his master estimated so highly. He also thought it very strange that Beatrice should have said of herself that she was pretty, and still stranger that San Miniato should not have said it. "Is that all?" asked Beatrice. "I need not have been in such a hurry to extract your compliments from you." "If you had understood what I said," answered San Miniato unmoved, "you would see that no man could say more of a woman." "Kind and charming! It is not much," laughed the young girl. "Unless you mean much more than you say--and I asked you to be indiscreet!" "Kind hearts are rare enough in this world, Donna Beatrice, and as for charm--" "What is charm?" "It is what the violet has, and the camelia has not--" "Heavens! Are you going to sigh to me in the language of flowers?" "Beatrice! Beatrice!" cried the Marchesa, with the same affectation of horror as before. "Dear mamma, are you uncomfortable? Oh no! I see now. You are horrified. Have I said anything dreadful?" she asked, turning to San Miniato. "Anything dreadful? What an idea! Really, Marchesa carissima, I was just beginning to explain to Donna Beatrice what charm is, when you cut me short. I implore you to let me go on with my explanation." "On condition that Beatrice makes no comments. Give me a cigarette, Teresina." "The congregation will not interrupt the preacher before the benediction," said Beatrice folding her small hands on her knee, and looking down with a devout expression. "Charm," began San Miniato, "is the something which some women possess, and which holds the men who love them--" "Only those who love them?" interrupted Beatrice, looking up quickly. "I thought," said the Marchesa, "that you were not to give us any comments." She dropped the words one or two at a time between the puffs of her cigarette. "A question is not a comment, mamma. I ask for instruction." "Go on, dearest friend," said her mother to the Count. "She is incorrigible." "On the contrary, Donna Beatrice fills my empty head with ideas. The question was to the point. All men feel the charm of such women as all men smell the orange blossoms here in May--" "The language of flowers again!" laughed Beatrice. "You are so like a flower," answered San Miniato softly. "Am I?" She laughed again, then grew grave and looked away. Ruggiero's hand shook on the heavy tiller, and San Miniato, who supposed he was steering all the time, turned suddenly. "What is the matter?" he asked. "The rudder is draking, Excellency," answered Ruggiero. "And what does that mean?" asked Beatrice. "It means that the rudder trembles as the boat rises and falls with each sea, when there is a good breeze," answered Ruggiero. "Is there any danger?" asked Beatrice indifferently. "What danger could there be, Excellency?" asked the sailor. "Because you are so pale, Ruggiero. What is the matter with you, to-day?" "Nothing, Excellency." "Ruggiero is in love," laughed San Miniato. "Is it not true, Ruggiero?" But the sailor did not answer, though the hot blood came quickly to his face and stayed there a moment and then sank away again. He looked steadily at the dancing waves to windward, and set his lips tightly together. "I would like to ask that sailor what he thinks of love and charm, and all the rest of it," said Beatrice. "His ideas would be interesting." Ruggiero's blue eyes turned slowly upon her, with an odd expression. Then he looked away again. "I will ask him," said San Miniato in a low voice. "Ruggiero!" "Excellency!" "We want to know what you think about love. What is the best quality a woman can have?" "To be honest," answered Ruggiero promptly. "And after that, what next?" "To be beautiful." "And then rich, I suppose?" "It would be enough if she did not waste money." "Honest, beautiful, and economical!" exclaimed Beatrice. "He does not say anything about charm, you see. I think his description is extremely good and to the point. Bravo, Ruggiero!" His eyes met hers and gleamed rather fiercely for an instant. "And how about charm, Ruggiero?" asked Beatrice mischievously. "I do not speak French, Excellency," he answered. "You should learn, because charm is a word one cannot say in Italian. I do not know how to say it in our language." "Let me talk about flowers to him," said San Miniato. "I will make him understand. Which do you like better, Ruggiero, camelias or violets?" "The camelia is a more lordly flower, Excellency, but for me I like the violets." "Why?" "Who knows? They make one think of so many things, Excellency. One would tire of camelias, but one would never be tired of violets. They have something--who knows?" "That is it, Ruggiero," said San Miniato, delighted with the result of his experiment. "And charm is the same thing in a woman. One is never tired of it, and yet it is not honesty, nor beauty, nor economy." "I understand, Excellency--è la femmina--it is the womanly." "Bravo, Ruggiero!" exclaimed Beatrice again. "You are a man of heart. And if you found a woman who was honest and beautiful and economical and 'femmina,' as you say, would you love her?" "Yes, Excellency, very much," answered Ruggiero. But his voice almost failed him. "How much? Tell us." Ruggiero was silent a moment. Then his eyes flashed suddenly as he looked down at her and his voice came ringing and strong. "So much that I would pray that Christ and the sea would take her, rather than that another man should get her! Per Dio!" There was such a vibration of strong passion in the words that Beatrice started a little and San Miniato looked up in surprise. Even the Marchesa vouchsafed the sailor a glance of indolent curiosity. Beatrice bent over to the Count and spoke in a low tone and in French. "We must not tease him any more. He is in love and very much in earnest." "So am I," answered San Miniato with a half successful attempt to seem emotional, which might have done well enough if it had not come after Ruggiero's heartfelt speech. "You!" laughed Beatrice. "You are never really in earnest. You only think you are, and that pleases you as well." San Miniato bit his lip, for he was not pleased. Her answer augured ill for the success of the plan he meant to put into execution that very evening. He felt strongly incensed against Ruggiero, too, without in the least understanding the reason. "You will find out some day, Donna Beatrice, that those who are most in earnest are not those who make the most passionate speeches." "Ah! Is that true? How strange! I should have supposed that if a man said nothing it was because he had nothing to say. But you have such novel theories!" "Is this discussion never to end?" asked the Marchesa, wearily lifting her hand as though in protest, and letting it fall again beside the other. "It has only just begun, mamma," answered Beatrice cheerfully. "When San Miniato jumps into the sea and drowns himself in despair, you will know that the discussion is over." "Beatrice! My child! What language!" "Italian, mamma carissima. Italian with a little Sicilian, such as we speak." "I am at your service, Donna Beatrice," said the Count. "Would you like me to drown myself immediately, or are you inclined for a little more conversation?" Ruggiero had now taken the helm altogether. As San Miniato spoke he nodded to his brother who was forward, intimating that he meant to go about. He was certainly not in his normal frame of mind, for he had an evil thought at that moment. Fortunately for every one concerned the breeze was very light and was indeed dying away as the sun sank lower. They were already nearing the southernmost point of Capri, commonly called by sailors the Monaco, for what reason no one knows. To reach Tragara where the Faraglioni, or needles, rise out of the deep sea close to the rocky shore under the cliffs, it is necessary to go round the point. There was soon hardly any breeze at all, so that Bastianello and the other men shipped half-a-dozen oars and began to row. The operation of going about involved a change of places in so small a boat and the slight confusion had interrupted the conversation. A long silence followed, broken at last by the Marchesa's voice. "A cigarette, Teresina, and some more lemonade. Are you still there, San Miniato carissimo? As I heard no more conversation I supposed you had drowned yourself as you proposed to do." "Donna Beatrice is so kind as to put off the execution until after dinner." "And shall we ever reach this dreadful place, and ever really dine?" asked the Marchesa. "Before sunset," answered San Miniato. "And we shall dine at our usual hour." "At least it will not be so hot as in the hotel, and after all it has not been very fatiguing." "No," said the Count, "I fail to see how your exertions can have tired you much." Ruggiero looked down at his master and at the fine lady as she lay listlessly extended in her cane chair, and he felt that in his heart he hated them both as much as he loved Beatrice, which was saying much. But he wondered how it was that less than half an hour earlier he had been ready to upset the boat and drown every one in it indiscriminately. Nevertheless he believed that if there had been a stiff breeze just then, enough for his purpose, he would have stopped the boat's way, and then put the helm hard up again, without slacking out a single sheet, and he knew the little craft well enough to be sure of what would have happened. Murderous intentions enough, as he thought of it all now, in the calm water under the great cliff from which tradition says that Tiberius shot delinquents into space from a catapult. The men pulled hard by the lonely rocks, for the sun had almost set and they knew how sharp the stones are at Tragara, when one must tread them barefoot and burdened with hampers and kettles and all the paraphernalia of a picnic. Then the light grew rich and deep, and the sea swallows shot from the misty heights, like arrows, into the calm purple air below, and skimmed and wheeled, and rose again, startled by the splash of the oars and the dull knock of them as they swung in the tholes. And the water was like a mirror in which all manner of rare and lovely things are reflected, with blots of liquid gold and sheen of soft-hued damask, and great handfuls of pearls and opals strewn between, and roses and petals of many kinds of flowers without names. And the air was full of the faint, salt odours that haunt the lonely places of the sea, sweet and bitter at once as the last days of a young life fading fast. Then the great needles rose gigantic from the depths to heaven, and beyond, through the mysterious, shadowy arch that pierces one of them, was opened the glorious vision of a distant cloud-lit water, and a single dark sail far away stood still, as it were, on the very edge of the world. Beatrice leaned back and gazed at the scene, and her delicate nostrils expanded as she breathed. There was less colour in her face than there had been, and the long lashes half veiled her eyes. San Miniato watched her narrowly. "How beautiful! How beautiful!" she exclaimed twice, after a long silence. "It will be more beautiful still when the moon rises," said San Miniato. "I am glad you are pleased." She liked the simple words better, perhaps, than some of his rather artificial speeches. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you for bringing us here." He had certainly taken a great deal of trouble, she thought, and it was the least she could do, to thank him as she did. But she was really grateful and for a moment she felt a sort of sympathy for him which she had not felt before. He, at least, understood that one could like something better in the world than the eternal terrace of a hotel with its stiff orange trees, its ugly lanterns and its everlasting gossip and chatter. He, at least, was a little unlike all those other people, beginning with her own mother, who think of self first, comfort second, and of others once a month or so, in the most favourable cases. Yet she wondered a little about his past life, and whether he had ever spoken to any woman with that ringing passion she had heard in Ruggiero's voice, with that flashing look she had seen in the sailor's bright blue eyes. It would be good to be spoken to like that. It would be good to see the colour in a man's face change, and come and go, red and white like life and death. It would be supremely good to be loved once, madly, passionately, with body, heart and soul, to the very breaking of all three--to be held in strong arms, to be kissed half to death. She stopped, conscious that her mother would certainly not approve such thoughts, and well aware in her girlish heart that she did not approve them in herself. And then she smiled faintly. The man of her waking vision was not like San Miniato. He was more like Ruggiero, the poor sailor, who sat perched on the stern close behind her. She smiled uneasily at the idea, and then she thought seriously of it for a moment. If such a man as Ruggiero appeared, not as a sailor, but as a man of her own world, would he not be a very lovable person, would he not turn the heads of the languid ladies on the terrace of the hotel at Sorrento? The thought annoyed her. Ruggiero, poor fellow, would have given his good right arm to know that such a possibility had even crossed her reflections. But it was not probable that he ever would know it, and he sat in his place, silent and unmoved, steering the boat to her destination, and thinking of her. It was not dusk when the boat was alongside of the low jagged rocks which lie between the landward needle and the cliffs, making a sort of rough platform in which there are here and there smooth flat places worn by the waves and often full of dry salt for a day or two after a storm. There, to the Marchesa's inexpressible relief, the numberless objects inscribed in the catalogue of her comforts were already arranged, and she suffered herself to be lifted from the boat and carried ashore by Ruggiero and his brother, without once murmuring or complaining of fatigue--a truly wonderful triumph for San Miniato's generalship. There was the table, the screen, and the lamp, the chairs and the carpet--all the necessary furniture for the Marchesa's dining-room. And there at her place stood an immaculate individual in an evening coat and a white tie, ready and anxious to do her bidding. She surveyed the preparations with more satisfaction than she generally showed at anything. Then all at once her face fell. "Good heavens, San Miniato carissimo," she cried, "you have forgotten the red pepper! It is all over! I shall eat nothing! I shall die in this place!" "Pardon me, dearest Marchesa, I know your tastes. There is red pepper and also Tabasco on the table. Observe--here and here." The Marchesa's brow cleared. "Forgive me, dear friend," she said. "I am so dependent on these little things! You are an angel, a general and a man of heart." "The man of your heart, I hope you mean to say," answered San Miniato, looking at Beatrice. "Of course--anything you like--you are delightful. But I am dropping with fatigue. Let me sit down." "You have forgotten nothing--not even the moon you promised me," said Beatrice, gazing with clasped hands at the great yellow shield as it slowly rose above the far south-eastern hills. "I will never forget anything you ask me, Donna Beatrice," replied San Miniato in a low voice. Something told him that in the face of all nature's beauty, he must speak very simply, and he was right. There is but one moment in the revolution of day and night which is more beautiful than the rising of the full moon at sunset, and that is the dawn on the water when the full moon is going down. To see the gathering dusk drink down the purple wine that dyes the air, the sea and the light clouds, until it is almost dark, and then to feel the darkness growing light again with the warm, yellow moon--to watch the jewels gathering on the velvet sea, and the sharp black cliffs turning to chiselled silver above you--to know that the whole night is to be but a softer day--to see how the love of the sun for the earth is one, and the love of the moon another--that is a moment for which one may give much and not be disappointed. Beatrice Granmichele saw and felt what she had never seen or felt before, and the magic of Tragara held sway over her, as it does over the few who see it as she saw it. She turned slowly and glanced at San Miniato's face. The moonlight improved it, she thought. There seemed to be more vigour in the well-drawn lines, more strength in the forehead than she had noticed until now. She felt that she was in sympathy with him, and that the sympathy might be a lasting one. Then she turned quite round and faced the commonplace lamp with its pink shade, which stood on the dinner-table, and she experienced a disagreeable sensation. The Marchesa was slowly fanning herself, already seated at her place. "If you are human beings, and not astronomers," she said, "we might perhaps dine." "I am very human, for my part," said San Miniato, holding Beatrice's chair for her to sit down. "There was really no use for the lamp, mamma," she said, turning again to look at the moon. "You see what an illumination we have! San Miniato has provided us with something better than a lamp." "San Miniato, my dear child, is a man of the highest genius. I always said so. But if you begin to talk of eating without a lamp, you may as well talk of abolishing civilisation." "I wish we could!" exclaimed Beatrice. "And so do I, with all my heart," said San Miniato. "Including baccarat and quinze?" enquired the Marchesa, lazily picking out the most delicate morsels from the cold fish on her plate. "Including baccarat, quinze, the world, the flesh and the devil," said San Miniato. "Pray remember, dearest friend, that Beatrice is at the table," observed the Marchesa, with indolent reproach in her voice. "I do," replied San Miniato. "It is precisely for her sake that I would like to do away with the things I have named." "You might just leave a little of each for Sundays!" suggested the young girl. "Beatrice!" exclaimed her mother. CHAPTER VI. While the little party sat at table, the sailors gathered together at a distance among the rocks, and presently the strong red light of their fire shot up through the shadows, lending new contrasts to the scene. And there they slung their kettle on an oar and patiently waited for the water to boil, while the man known as the Gull, always cook in every crew in which he chanced to find himself, sat with the salt on one side of him and a big bundle of macaroni on the other, prepared to begin operations at any moment. Ruggiero stood a little apart, his back against a boulder, his arms crossed and his eyes fixed on Beatrice's face. His keen sight could distinguish the changing play of her expression as readily at that distance as though he had been standing beside her, and he tried to catch the words she spoke, listening with a sort of hurt envy to the little silvery laugh that now and then echoed across the open space and lost itself in the crannies of the rocks. It all hurt him, and yet for nothing in the world would he have turned away or shut his ears. More than once, too, the thoughts that had disturbed him while he was steering in the afternoon, came upon him with renewed and startling strength. He had in him some of that red old blood that does not stop for trifles such as life and death when the hour of passion burns, and the brain reels with overmastering love. And Bastianello was not in a much better case, though his was less hard to bear. The pretty Teresina had seated herself on a smooth rock in the moonlight, not far from the table, and as the dishes came back, the young sailor waited on her and served her with unrelaxed attention. Since Ruggiero would not take advantage of the situation, his brother saw no reason for not at least enjoying the pleasure of seeing the adorable Teresina eat and drink as it were from his hand. Why Ruggiero was so cold, and stood there against his rock, silent and glowering, Bastianello could not at all understand; nor had he any thought of taking an unfair advantage. Ruggiero was first and no one should interfere with him, or his love; but Bastianello, judging from what he felt himself, fancied that she might have given him some good advice. Teresina's cheeks flushed with pleasure and her eyes sparkled each time he brought her some dainty from the master's table, and she thanked him in the prettiest way imaginable, so that her voice reminded him of the singing of the yellow-beaked blackbird he kept in a cage at home--which was saying much, for the blackbird sang well and sweetly. But Bastianello only said each time that "it was nothing," and then stood silently waiting beside her till she should finish what she was eating and be ready for more. Teresina would doubtless have enjoyed a little conversation, and she looked up from time to time at the handsome sailor beside her, with a look of enquiry in her eyes, as though to ask why he said nothing. But Bastianello felt that he was on his honour, for he never doubted that the little maid was the cause of Ruggiero's disease of the heart and indeed of all that his brother evidently suffered, and he was too modest by nature to think that Teresina could prefer him to Ruggiero, who had always been the object of his own unbounded devotion and admiration. Presently, when there was nothing more to offer her, and the party at the table were lighting their cigarettes over their coffee, he went away and going up to Ruggiero drew him a little further aside from the group of sailors. "I want to tell you something," he began. "You must not be as you are, a man like you." "How may that be?" asked Ruggiero, still looking towards the table, and not pleased at being dragged from his former post of observation. "I will tell you. I have been serving her with food. You could have done that instead if you had wished. You could have talked to her, and she would have liked it. It is easy when a woman is sitting apart and a man brings her good food and wine--you could have spoken a word into her ear." Ruggiero was silent, but he slowly nodded twice, then shook his head. "You do not say anything," continued Bastianello, "and you do wrong. What I tell you is true, and you cannot deny it. After all, we are men and they are women. Are they to speak first?" "It is just," answered Ruggiero laconically. "But then, per Dio, go and talk to her. Are you going to begin giving her the gold before you have spoken?" From which question it will be clear to the unsophisticated foreigner that a regular series of presents in jewelry is the natural accompaniment of a well-to-do courtship in the south. The trinkets are called collectively "the gold." Ruggiero did not find a ready answer to so strong an argument. Little guessing that his brother was almost as much in love with Teresina as he himself was with her mistress, he saw no reason for undeceiving him concerning his own feelings. Since Bastianello had discovered that he, Ruggiero, was suffering from an acute attack of the affections, it had become the latter's chief object to conceal the real truth. It was not so much, that he dreaded the ridicule--he, a poor sailor--of being known to love a great lady's daughter; ridicule was not among the things he feared. But something far too subtle for him to define made him keep his secret to himself--an inborn, chivalrous, manly instinct, inherited through generations of peasants but surviving still, as the trace of gold in the ashes of a rich stuff that has had gilded threads in it. "If I did begin with the gold," he said at last, "and if she would not have me when I spoke afterwards, she would give the gold back." "Of course she would. What do you take her for?" Bastianello asked the question almost angrily, for he loved Teresina and he resented the slightest imputation upon her fair dealing. Ruggiero looked at him curiously, but was far too much preoccupied with his own thoughts to guess what the matter was. He turned away and went towards the fire where the Gull was already tasting a slippery string of the macaroni to find out whether it were enough cooked. Bastianello shrugged his shoulders and followed him in silence. Before long they were all seated round the huge earthen dish, each armed with an iron fork in one hand and a ship biscuit in the other, with which to catch the drippings neatly, according to good manners, in conveying the full fork from the dish to the wide-opened mouth. By and by there was a sound of liquid gurgling from a demijohn as it was poured into the big jug, and the wine went round quickly from hand to hand, while those who waited for their turn munched their biscuits. Some one has said that great appetites, like great passions, are silent. Hardly a word was said until the wine was passed a second time with a ration of hard cheese and another biscuit. Then the tongues were unloosed and the strange, uncouth jests of the rough men circulated in an undertone, and now and then one of them suffered agonies in smothering a huge laugh, lest his mirth should disturb the "excellencies" at their table. The latter, however, were otherwise engaged and paid little attention to the sailors. The Marchesa di Mola, having eaten about six mouthfuls of twice that number of delicacies and having swallowed half a glass of champagne and a cup of coffee, was extended in her cane rocking-chair, with her back to the moon and her face to the lamp, trying to imagine herself in her comfortable sitting room at the hotel, or even in her own luxurious boudoir in her Sicilian home. The attempt was fairly successful, and the result was a passing taste of that self-satisfied beatitude which is the peculiar and enviable lot of very lazy people after dinner. She cared for nothing and she cared for nobody. San Miniato and Beatrice might sit over there by the water's edge, in the moonlight, and talk in low tones as long as they pleased. There were no tiresome people from the hotel to watch their proceedings, and nothing better could happen than that they should fall in love, be engaged and married forthwith. That was certainly not the way the Marchesa could have wished the courtship and marriage to develop and come to maturity, if there had been witnesses of the facts from amongst her near acquaintance. But since there was nobody to see, and since it was quite impossible that she should run after the pair when they chose to leave her side, resignation was the best policy, resignation without effort, without fatigue and without qualms. Moreover, San Miniato himself had told her that in some of the best families in the north of Italy it was considered permissible for a man to offer himself directly to a young lady, and San Miniato was undoubtedly familiar with the usages of the very best society. It was quite safe to trust to him. San Miniato himself would have greatly preferred to leave the negotiations in the hands of the Marchesa and would have done so had he not known that she possessed no power whatever over Beatrice. But he saw that the Marchesa, however much she might desire the marriage, would never exert herself to influence her daughter. She was far too indolent, and at heart, perhaps, too indifferent, and she knew the value of money and especially of her own. San Miniato made up his mind that if he won at all, it must be upon his own merits and by his own efforts. He had not found it hard to lead Beatrice away from the lamp when dinner was over, and after walking about on the rocks for a few minutes he proposed that they should sit down near the water, facing the moonlit sea. Beatrice sat upon a smooth projection and San Miniato placed himself at her feet, in such a position that he could look up into her face and talk to her without raising his voice. "So you are glad you came here, Donna Beatrice," he said. "Very glad," she answered. "It is something I have never seen before--something I shall never forget, as long as I live." "Nor I." "Have you a good memory?" "For some things, not for others." "For what, for instance?" "For those I love---" "And a bad memory for those whom you have loved," suggested Beatrice with a smile. "Have you any reason for saying that?" asked San Miniato gravely. "You know too little of me and my life to judge of either. I have not loved many, and I have remembered them well." "How many? A dozen, more or less? Or twenty? Or a hundred?" "Two. One is dead, and one has forgotten me." Beatrice was silent. It was admirably done, and for the first time he made her believe that he was in earnest. It had not been very hard for him either, for there was a foundation of truth in what he said. He had not always been a man without heart. "It is much to have loved twice," said the young girl at last, in a dreamy voice. She was thinking of what had passed through her mind that afternoon. "It is much--but not enough. What has never been lived out, is never enough." "Perhaps--but who could love three times?" "Any man--and the third might be the best and the strongest, as well as the last." "To me it seems impossible." San Miniato had got his chance and he knew it. He was nervous and not sure of himself, for he knew very well that she had but a passing attraction for him, beyond the very solid inducement to marry her offered by her fortune. But he knew that the opportunity must not be lost, and he did not waste time. He spoke quietly, not wishing to risk a dramatic effect until he could count on his own rather slight histrionic powers. "So it seems impossible to you, Donna Beatrice," he said, in a musing tone. "Well, I daresay it does. Many things must seem impossible to you which are rather startling facts to me. I am older than you, I am a man, and I have been a soldier. I have lived a life such as you cannot dream of--not worse perhaps than that of many another man, but certainly not better. And I am quite sure that if I gave you my history you would not understand four-fifths of it, and the other fifth would shock you. Of course it would--how could it be otherwise? How could you and I look at anything from quite the same point of view?" "And yet we often agree," said Beatrice, thoughtfully. "Yes, we do. That is quite true. And that is because a certain sympathy exists between us. I feel that very much when I am with you, and that is one reason why I try to be with you as much as possible." "You say that is one reason. Have you many others?" Beatrice tried to laugh a little, but she felt somehow that laughter was out of place and that a serious moment in her life had come at last, in which it would be wiser to be grave and to think well of what she was doing. "One chief one, and many little ones," answered San Miniato. "You are good to me, you are young, you are fresh--you are gifted and unlike the others, and you have a rare charm such as I never met in any woman. Are those not all good reasons? Are they not enough?" "If they were all true, they would be more than enough. Is the chief reason the last?" "It is the last of all. I have not given it to you yet. Some things are better not said at all." "They must be bad things," answered Beatrice, with an air of innocence. She was beginning to understand, at last, that he really intended to make her a declaration of love. It was unheard of, almost inconceivable. But there he was at her feet, looking very handsome in the moonlight, his face turned up to hers with an unmistakable look of devotion in its rather grave lines. His voice, too, had a new sound in it. Indifferent as he might be by daylight and in ordinary life, the magic of the place and scene affected him a little at the present moment. Perhaps a memory of other years, when his pulse had quickened and his voice had trembled oddly, just touched his heart now and it responded with a faint thrill. For a moment at least he forgot his sordid plan, and Beatrice's own personal attraction was upon him. And she was very lovely as she sat there, looking down at him, with white folded hands, hatless in the warm night, her eyes full of the dancing rays that trembled upon the softly rippling water. "If they are not bad things," she said, speaking again, "why do you not tell them to me?" "You would laugh." "I have laughed enough to-night. Tell me!" "Tell you! Yes--that is easy to do. But it would be so hard to make you understand! It is the difference between a word and a thought, between belief and mere show, between truth and hearsay--more than that--much more than I can tell you. It means so much to me--it may mean so little to you, when I have said it!" "But if you do not say it, how can I guess it, or try to understand it?" "Would you try? Would you?" "Yes." Her voice was soft, gentle, persuasive. She felt something she had never felt, and it must be love, she thought. She had always liked him a little better than the rest. But surely, this was more than mere liking. She had a strange longing to hear him say the words, to start, as her instinct told her she must, when he spoke them, to be told for the first time that she was loved. Is it strange, after all? Young, imaginative and full of life, she had been brought up to believe that she was to be married to some man she scarcely knew, after a week's acquaintance, without so much as having talked five minutes with him alone; she had been taught that love was a legend and matrimony a matter of interest. And yet here was the man whom her mother undoubtedly wished her to marry, not only talking with her as they had often talked before, with no one to hear what was said, but actually on the verge of telling her that he loved her. Could anything be more delicious, more original, more in harmony with the place and hour? And as if all this were not enough, she really felt the touch and thrill of love in her own heart, and the leaping wonder to know what was to come. She had told him to speak and she waited for his voice. He, on his part, knew that much was at stake, for he saw that she was moved, and that all depended on his words. The fewer the better, he thought, if only there could be a note of passion in them, if only one of them could ring as all of poor Ruggiero's had rung when he had spoken that afternoon. He hesitated and hesitation would be fatal if it lasted another five seconds. He grew desperate. Where were the words and the tone that had broken down the will of other women, far harder to please than this mere child? He felt everything at once, except love. He saw her fortune slipping from him at the very moment of getting it, he felt a little contempt for the part he was playing and a sovereign scorn for his own imbecility, he even anticipated the Marchesa's languid but cutting comments on his failure. One second more, and all was lost--but not a word would come. Then, in sheer despair and with a violence that betrayed it, he seized one of Beatrice's hands in both of his and kissed it madly a score of times. As she interpreted the action, no eloquence of words could have told her more of what she wished to hear. It was unexpected, it was passionate; if it had been premeditated, it would have been a stroke of genius. As it was, it was a stroke of luck for San Miniato. With the true gambler's instinct he saw that he was winning and his hesitation disappeared. His voice trembled passionately now with excitement, if not with love--but it was the same to Beatrice, who heard the quick-spoken words that followed, and drank them in as a thirsty man swallows the first draught of wine he can lay hands on, be it ever so acid. At the first moment she had been startled and had almost uttered a short cry, half of delight and half of fear. But she had no wish to alarm her mother and the quick thought stifled her voice. She tried to withdraw her hand, but he held it tightly in his own which were cold as ice, and she sat still listening to all he said. "Ah, Beatrice!" he was saying, "you have given me back life itself! Can you guess what I have lived through in these days? Can you imagine how I have thought of you and suffered day and night, and said to myself that I should never have your love? Can you dream what it must be to a man like me, lonely, friendless, half heart-broken, to find the one jewel worth living for, the one light worth seeking, the one woman worth loving--and then to long for her almost without hope, and so long? It is long, too. Who counts the days or the weeks when he loves? It is as though we had loved from the beginning of our lives! Can you or I imagine what it all was like before we met? I cannot remember that past time. I had no life before it--it is all forgotten, all gone, all buried and for ever. You have made everything new to me, new and beautiful and full of light--ah, Beatrice! How I love you!" Rather a long speech at such a moment, an older woman would have thought, and not over original in choice of similes and epithets, but fluent enough and good enough to serve the purpose and to turn the current of Beatrice's girlish life. Yet not much of a love-speech. Ruggiero's had been better, as a little true steel is better than much iron at certain moments in life. It succeeded very well at the moment, but its ultimate success would have been surer if it had reached no ears but Beatrice's. Neither she nor San Miniato were aware that a few feet below them a man was lying on his back, with white face and clenched hands, staring at the pale moonlit sky above him, and listening in stony despair to every word that was spoken. The sight would have disturbed them, had they seen it, though they both were fearless by nature and not easily startled. Had Beatrice seen Ruggiero at that moment, she would have learned once and for ever the difference between real passion and its counterfeit. But Ruggiero knew where he was and had no intention of betraying himself by voice or movement. He suffered almost all that a man can suffer by the heart alone, but he was strong and could bear torture. The hardest of all was that he understood the real truth, partly by instinct and partly through what he knew of his master. Those rough southern sailors sometimes have a wonderful keenness in discovering the meaning of their masters' doings. Ruggiero held the key to the situation. He knew that San Miniato was poor and that the Marchesa was very rich. He knew very well that San Miniato was not at all in love, for he knew what love really meant, and he could see how the Count always acted by calculation and never from impulse. Best of all he saw that Beatrice was a mere child who was being deceived by the coolly assumed passion of a veteran woman-killer. It was bitterly hard to bear. And he had felt a foreboding of it all in the afternoon--and he wished that he had risked all and brought down the brass tiller on San Miniato's head and submitted to be sent to the galleys for life. He could never have forgotten Beatrice; but San Miniato could never have married her, and that satisfaction would have made chains light and hard labour a pastime. It was too late to think of such things now. Had he yielded to the first murderous impulse, it would have been better. But he had never struck a man from behind and he knew that he could not do it in cold blood. Yet how much better it would have been! He would not be lying now on the rock, holding his breath and clenching his fists, listening to his Excellency the Count of San Miniato's love making. By this time the Count of San Miniato would be cold, and he, Ruggiero, would be handcuffed and locked up in the little barrack of the gendarmes at Sorrento, and Beatrice with her mother would be recovering from their fright as best they could in the rooms at the hotel, and Teresina would be crying, and Bastianello would be sitting at the door of his brother's prison waiting to see what happened and ready to do what he could. Truly all this would have been much better! But the moment had passed and he must lie on his rock in silence, bound hand and foot by the necessity of hiding himself, and giving his heart to be torn to pieces by San Miniato's aristocratic fine gentleman's hands, and burned through and through by Beatrice's gentle words. "And so you really love me?" said San Miniato, sure at last of his victory. "Do you doubt it, after what I have done?" asked Beatrice in a very soft voice. "Did I not leave my hand in yours when you took it so roughly and--you know---" "When I kissed it--but I want the words, too--only once, from your beautiful lips---" "The words---" Beatrice hesitated. They were too new to her lips, and a soft blush rose in her cheeks, visible even in the moonlight. Ruggiero's heart stood still--not for the first time that day. Would she speak the three syllables or not? As for San Miniato, his excitement had cooled, and he threw all the tenderness he could muster into, his last request, with instinctive tact returning to the more quiet tone he had used at the beginning of the conversation. "I ask you, Beatrice mia, to say--" he paused, to give the proper effect in the right place--"I love you," he said, completing the sentence very musically and looking up most tenderly into her eyes. She sighed, blushed again, and turned her head away. Then quite suddenly she looked at him once more, pressed his hand nervously and spoke. "I love you, carissimo," she said, and rose at the same moment from her seat. "Come--it is time. Mamma will be tired," she added, while he held her hand and pressed it to his lips. Her confusion had made it easy for him. He would have had difficulty in ending the scene artistically if she had not unconsciously helped him. Ruggiero clenched his hands a little tighter and tried not to breathe. "It is a lie," he said in his heart, but his lips never moved, nor did he stir a limb as he listened to the departing footsteps on the ledge above. Then with the ease of great strength he drew himself along through cranny and hollow till he was far from where they sat, and had reached the place where the boats were made fast. It would seem natural to every one that he should suddenly be standing there to see that all was right, and that none of the moorings had slipped or chafed against the jagged rocks. There he stood, gazing at the rippling water, at the tall yards as they slowly crossed and recrossed the face of the moon, with the rocking of the boats, at the cliffs to the right and left, at the dim headland of the Campanella, at all the sights long familiar to him--seeing none of them and yet feeling that they at least were his own people, that they understood him and knew what he felt--what he had no words with which to tell any one, if he had wished to tell it. For he who loves and is little loved, or not at all, has no friend, be he of high estate or low, beyond nature, the deep-bosomed, the bountiful, the true; and on her he may lean, trusting, and know that he will not be betrayed. And in time her language will be his. But she will be heard alone when she speaks with him, and without rival, with the full right of a woman who gives all her love and asks for a man's soul in return, recking little of all the world besides. But not all know how kind she is, how merciful and how sweet. For she does not heal broken hearts. She takes them as they are into her own, with all the memory and all the sin, perhaps, and all the bitter sorrow which is the reward of faith and faithlessness alike. She takes them all, and holds them kindly in her own breast, as she has taken the torn limbs of martyred saints and tortured sinners and has softly turned them all into a fragrant dust. And though the ashes of the heart be very bitter, they are after all but dust, which cannot feel of itself any more. Yet there may be something left behind, in the place where it lived and was broken and died, which is not wholly bad, though there be little good in this earth where there is no heart. Moreover, nature is a silent mistress to all but those who love her, and she tells no tales as men and women do, and forgets none of the secrets which are told to her, for they are our treasures--treasures of love and of hate, of sweetness and of poison, which we lay up in her keeping when we are alone with her, sure that we shall find again all we have given up if we require it of her. But as the years blossom, bloom, and fade in their quick succession, the day will come when we shall ask of her only the balm and be glad to leave the poison hidden, and to forget how we would have used it in old days--when we shall ask her only to give us the memory of a dear and gentle hand--dear still but no longer kind--of the voice that was once a harmony, and whose harsh discord is almost music still--of the hour when love was twofold, stainless and supreme. Those things we shall ask of her and she, in her wonderful tenderness, will give them to us again--in dreams, waking or sleeping, in the sunlit silence of lonely places, in soft nights when the southern sea is still, in the greater loneliness of the storm, when brave faces are set as stone and freezing hands grasp frozen ropes, and the shadow of death rises from the waves and stands between every man and his fellows. We shall ask, and we shall receive. Out of noon-day shadow, out of the starlit dusk, out of the driving spray of the midtempest, one face will rise, one hand will touch our own, one loving, lingering glance will meet ours from eyes that have no look of love for us in them now. These things our lady nature will give us of all those we have given her. But of the others, we shall not ask for them, and she will mercifully forget for us the bitterness of their birth, and life, and death. CHAPTER VII. "I THOUGHT I was never to see you again," observed the Marchesa, as Beatrice and San Miniato came to her side. "Judging from your calm, you were bearing the separation with admirable fortitude," answered the Count. "Dearest friend, one has to bear so much in this life!" Beatrice stood beside the table, resting one hand upon it and looking back towards the place where she had been sitting. San Miniato took the Marchesa's hand and raised it to his lips, pressed it a little and then nodded slowly, with a significant look. The Marchesa's sleepy eyes opened suddenly with an expression of startled satisfaction, and she returned the pressure of the fingers with more energy than San Miniato had suspected. She was evidently very much pleased. Perhaps the greatest satisfaction of all was the certainty that she was to have no more trouble in the matter, since it had been undertaken, negotiated and settled by the principals between them. Then she raised her eyebrows and moved her head a little as though to inquire what had taken place, but San Miniato made her understand by a sign that he could not speak before Beatrice. "Beatrice, my angel," said the Marchesa, with more than usual sweetness, "you have sat so long upon that rock that you have almost reconciled me to Tragara. Do you not think that you could go back and sit there five minutes longer?" Beatrice glanced quickly at her mother and then at San Miniato and turned away without a word, leaving the two together. "And now, San Miniato carissimo," said the Marchesa, "sit down beside me on that chair, and tell me what has happened, though I think I already understand. You have spoken to Beatrice?" "I have spoken--yes--and the result is favourable. I am the happiest of men." "Do you mean to say that she answered you at once?" asked the Marchesa, affecting, as usual, to be scandalised. "She answered me--yes, dear Marchesa--she told me that she loved me. It only remains for me to claim the maternal blessing which you so generously promised in advance." Somehow it was a relief to him to return to the rather stiff and over-formal phraseology which he always used on important occasions when speaking to her, and which, as he well knew, flattered her desire to be thought a very great lady. "As for my blessing, you shall have it, and at once. But indeed, I am most curious to know exactly what she said, and what you said--I, who am never curious about anything!" "Two words tell the story. I told her I loved her and she answered that she loved me." "Dearest friend, how long it took you to say those two words! You must have hesitated a good deal." "To tell the truth, there was more said than that. I will not deny the grave imputation. I spoke of my past life--" "Dio mio! To my daughter! How could you--" The Marchesa raised her hands and let them fall again. "But why not?" asked San Miniato, suppressing a smile. "Have I been such an impossibly bad man that the very mention of my past must shock a young girl--whom I love?" In the last words he found an opportunity to practise the expression of a little passion, and took advantage of it, well knowing that it would be useful in the immediate future. "I never said that!" protested the Marchesa. "But we all know something about you, dear Don Juan!" "Calumnies, nothing but calumnies!" "But such pretty calumnies--you might almost accept them. I should think none the worse of you if they were all true." "You are charming, dearest Marchesa. I kiss your generous hand! As a matter of fact, I only told Donna Beatrice--may I call her Beatrice to you now, as I have long called her in my heart? I only told her that I had been unhappy, that I had loved twice--once a woman who is dead, once another who has long ago forgotten me. That was all. Was it so very bad? Her heart was softened--she is so gentle! And then I told her that a greater and stronger passion than those now filled my present life, and last of all I told her that I loved her." "And she returned the compliment immediately?" asked the Marchesa, slowly selecting a sugared chestnut from the plate beside her, turning it round, examining it and at last putting it into her mouth. "How lightly you speak of what concerns life and death!" sighed San Miniato. "No--Beatrice did not answer immediately. I said much more--far more than I can remember. How can you ask me to repeat word for word the unpremeditated outpourings of a happy passion? The flood has swept by, leaving deep traces--but who can remember where the eddies and rapids were?" "You are very poetical, caro mio. Your language delights me--it is the language of the heart. Pray give me one of those little cigarettes you smoke. Yes--and a light--and now the least drop of champagne. I will drink your health." "And I both yours and Beatrice's," answered San Miniato, filling his own glass. "You may put Beatrice first, since she is yours." "But without you there would be no Beatrice, gentilissima," said the Count gallantly, when he had emptied his glass. "That is true, and pretty besides. And so," continued the Marchesa in a tone of languid reflection, "you have actually been making love to my daughter, beyond my hearing, alone on the rocks--and I gave you my permission, and now you are engaged to be married! It is too extraordinary to be believed. That was not the way I was married. There was more formality in those days." Indeed, she could not imagine the deceased Granmichele throwing himself upon his knees at her feet, even upon the softest of carpets. "Then I thank the fates that those days are over!" returned San Miniato. "Perhaps I should, too. I am not sure that the conclusion would have been so satisfactory, if I had undertaken to persuade Beatrice. She is headstrong and capricious, and so painfully energetic! Every discussion with her shortens my life by a year." "She is an angel in her caprice," answered the Count with conviction. "Indeed, much of her charm lies in her changing moods." "If she is an angel, what am I?" asked the Marchesa. "Such a contrast!" "She is the angel of motion--you are the angel of repose." "You are delightful to-night." While this conversation was taking place, Beatrice had wandered away over the rocks alone, not heeding the unevenness of the stones and taking little notice of the direction of her walk. She only knew that she would not go back to the place where she had sat, not for all the world. A change had taken place already and she was angry with herself for what she had done in all sincerity. She was hurt and her first illusion had suffered a grave shock almost at the moment of its birth. She asked herself how it could be possible, if San Miniato loved her as he had said he did, that he should not feel as she felt and understand love as she did--as something secret and sacred, to be kept from other eyes. Her instinct told her easily enough that San Miniato was at that very moment telling her mother all that had taken place, and she bitterly resented the thought. It would surely have been enough, if he had waited until the following day and then formally asked her hand of the Marchesa. It would have been better, more natural in every way, just now when they had gone up to the table, if he had said simply that they loved one another and had asked her mother's blessing. Anything rather than to feel that he was coolly describing the details of the first love scene in her life--the thousandth, perhaps, in his own. After all, did she love him? Did he really love her? His passionate manner when he had seized her hand had moved her strangely, and she had listened with a sort of girlish wonder to his declarations of devotion afterwards. But now, in the, calm moonlight and quite alone, she could hear Ruggiero's deep strong voice in her ears, and the few manly words he had uttered. There was not much in them in the way of eloquence--a sailor's picturesque phrase--she had heard something like it before. But there had been strength, and the power to do, and the will to act in every intonation of his speech. She remembered every word San Miniato had spoken, far better than he would remember it himself in a day or two, and she was ready to analyse and criticise now what had charmed and pleased her a moment earlier. Why was he going over it all to her mother, like a lesson learnt and repeated? She was so glad to be alone--she would have been so glad to think alone of what she had taken for the most delicious moment of her young life. If he were really in earnest, he would feel as she did and would have said at once that it was late and time to be going home--he would have invented any excuse to escape the interview which her mother would try to force upon him. Could it be love that he felt? And if not, as her heart told her it was not, what was his object in playing such a comedy? She knew well enough, from Teresina, that many a young Neapolitan nobleman would have given his title for her fortune, but Teresina, perhaps for reasons of her own, never dared to cast such an aspersion upon San Miniato, even in the intimate conversation which sometimes takes place between an Italian lady and her maid--and, indeed, if the truth be told, between maids and their mistresses in most parts of the world. But the doubt thrust itself forward now. Beatrice was quick to doubt at all times. She was also capricious and changeable about matters which did not affect her deeply, and those that did were few enough. It was certainly possible that San Miniato, after all, only wanted her money and that her mother was willing to give it in return for a great name and a great position. She felt that if the case had been stated to her from the first in its true light she might have accepted the situation without illusion, but without disgust. Everybody, her mother said, was married by arrangement, some for one advantage, some for the sake of another. After all, San Miniato was better than most of the rest. There was a certain superiority about him which she would like to see in her husband, a certain simple elegance, a certain outward dignity, which pleased her. But when her mother had spoken in her languid way of the marriage, Beatrice had resented the denial of her free will, and had answered that she would please herself or not marry at all. The Marchesa, far too lacking in energy to sustain such a contest, had contented herself with her favourite expression of horror at her daughter's unfilial conduct. Now, however, Beatrice felt that if it had all been arranged for her, she would have been satisfied, but that since San Miniato had played something very like a comedy, she would refuse to be duped by it. She was very bitter against him in the first revulsion of feeling and treated him more hardly in her thoughts than he, perhaps, deserved. And there he was, up there by the table, telling her mother of his success. Her blood rose in her cheeks at the thought and she stamped her foot upon the rock out of sheer anger at herself, at him, at everything and everybody. Then she moved on. Ruggiero was standing at the edge of the water looking out to sea. The moonlight silvered his white face and fair beard and accentuated the sharp black line where his sailor's cap crossed his forehead. Wild and angry emotions chased each other from his heart to his brain and back again, firing his overwrought nerves and heated blood, as the flame runs along a train of powder. He heard a light step behind him and turned suddenly. Beatrice was close upon him. "Is that you, Ruggiero," she asked, for she had seen him with his back turned and had not recognised him at first. "Yes, Excellency," he answered in a hoarse voice, touching his cap. "What a beautiful night it is!" said the young girl. She often talked with the men in the boat, and Ruggiero interested her especially at the present moment. "Yes, Excellency," he answered again. "Is the weather to be fine, Ruggiero?" "Yes, Excellency." Ruggiero was apparently not in the conversational mood. He was probably thinking of the girl he loved--in all likelihood of Teresina, as Beatrice thought. She stood still a couple of paces from him and looked at the sea. She felt a capricious desire to make the big sailor talk and tell her something about himself. It would be sure to be interesting and honest and strong, a contrast, as she fancied, to the things she had just heard. "Ruggiero---" she began, and then she stopped and hesitated. "Yes, Excellency." The continual repetition of the two words irritated her. She tried to frame a question to which he could not give the same answer. "I would like you to tell me who it is whom you love so dearly--is she good and beautiful and sensible, too, as you said?" "She is all that, Excellency." His voice shook, not as it seemed to her with weakness, but with strength. "Tell me her name." Ruggiero was silent for some moments, and his head was bent forward. He seemed to be breathing hard and not able to speak. "Her name is Beatrice," he said at last, in a low, firm tone as though he were making a great effort. "Really!" exclaimed the young girl. "That is my name, too. I suppose that is why you did not want to tell me. But you must not be afraid of me, Ruggiero. If there is anything I can do to help you, I will do it. Is it money you need? I will give you some." "It is not money." "What is it, then?" "Love--and a miracle." His answers came lower and lower, and he looked at the ground, suffering as he had never suffered and yet indescribably happy in speaking with her, and in seeing the interest she felt in him. But his brain was beginning to reel. He did not know what he might say next. "Love and a miracle!" repeated Beatrice in her silvery voice. "Those are two things which I cannot get for you. You must pray to the saints for the one and to her for the other. Does she not love you at all then?" "She will never love me. I know it." "And that would be the miracle--if she ever should? Such miracles have been done by men themselves without the help of the saints, before now." Ruggiero looked up sharply and he felt his hands shaking. He thought she was speaking of what had just happened, of which he had been a witness. "Such miracles as that may happen--but they are the devil's miracles." Beatrice was silent for a moment. She was indeed inclined to believe in a special intervention of the powers of evil in her own case. Had she not been suddenly moved to tell a man that she loved him, only to discover a moment later that it was a mistake? "What is the miracle you pray for, Ruggiero?" she asked after a pause. "To be changed into some one else, Excellency." "And then--would she love you?" "By Our Lady's grace--perhaps!" The deep voice shook again. He set his teeth, folded his arms over his throbbing breast, and planted one foot firmly on a stone before him, as though to await a blow. "I am very sorry for you, Ruggiero," said Beatrice in soft, kind tones. "God render you your kindness--it is better than nothing," he answered. "Is she sorry for you, too? She should be--you love her so much." "Yes--she is sorry for me. She has just said so." He raised his clenched hand to his mouth almost before the words were uttered. Beatrice did not see the few bright red drops that fell upon the rock as he gnawed the flesh. "Just said so?" she said, repeating his words. "I do not understand? Is she here to-night?" He did not answer, but slowly bent his head, as though in assent. An odd foreboding of danger shot through the young girl's heart. Little as the man said, he seemed desperate. It was possible that the girl he loved might be a Capriote, and that he might have met her and talked with her while the dinner was going on. He might have strangled her with those great hands of his. She would not have uttered a cry, and no one would be the wiser, for Tragara is a lonely place, by day and night. "She is here, you say?" Beatrice asked again. "Where is she? Ruggiero, what is the matter? Have you done her any harm? Have you hurt her? Have you killed her?" "Not yet---" "Not yet!" Beatrice cried, in a low horror-struck tone. She had heard his sharp, agonised breathing as he reeled unsteadily against the rock behind him. She was a rarely courageous girl. Instead of shrinking she made a step forward and took him firmly by the arm. "What have you done, Ruggiero?" she asked sternly. He felt that she was accusing him. His face grew ashy white, and grave--almost grand, she thought afterwards, for she remembered long the look he wore. His answer came slowly in deep, vibrating tones. "I have done nothing--but love her." "Show her to me--take me to her," said Beatrice, still dreading some horrible deed, she scarcely knew why. "She is here." "Where?" "Here!--Ah, Christ." His great hands went out madly as though to take her, then tenderly touched the loose sleeves she wore, then fell, as though lifeless, to his sides again. Beatrice passed her hand over her eyes and drew back quickly a step. She was startled and angered, but not frightened. It was almost the repetition of the waking dream that had flitted through her brain before she had landed. She had heard the grand ring of passionate love this once at least--and how? In the voice of a common sailor--out of the heart of an ignorant fellow who could neither read nor write, nor speak his own language, a churl, a peasant's son, a labourer--but a man, at least. That was it--a strong, honest, fearless man. That was why it all moved her so--that was why it was not an insult that this low-born fellow should dare to tell her he loved her. She opened her lids again and saw his great figure leaning back against the rock, his white face turned upward, his eyes half closed. She went near to him again. Instantly, he made an effort and stood upright. Her instinct told her that he wanted neither pity nor forgiveness nor comfort. "You are a brave, strong man, Ruggiero; I will always pray that you may love some one who will love you again--since you can love so well." The unspoiled girl's nature had found the right expression, and the only one. Ruggiero looked at her one moment, stooped and touched the hem of her white frock with two fingers and then pressed them silently to his lips. Who knows from what far age that outward act of submission and vassalage has been handed down in southern lands? There it is to this day, rarely seen, but still surviving and still known to all. Then Ruggiero turned away and went up the sloping rocks again, and Beatrice stood still for a moment, watching his tall, retreating figure. She meant to go, too, but she lingered a while, knowing that if ever she came back to Tragara, this would be the spot where she would pause and recall a memory, and not that other, where she had sat while San Miniato played out his wretched little comedy. It all rushed across her mind again, bringing a new sense of disgust and repulsion with it, and a new blush of shame and anger at having been so deceived. There was no doubt now. The contrast had been too great, too wide, too evident. It was the difference between truth and hearsay, as San Miniato had said once that night. There was no mistaking the one for the other. Poor Ruggiero! that was why he was growing pale and thin. That was why his arm trembled when he helped her into the boat. She leaned against the rock and wondered what it all meant, whether there were really any justice in heaven or any happiness on earth. But she would not marry San Miniato, now, for she had given no promise. If she had done so, she would not have broken it--in that, at least, she was like other girls of her age and class. Next to evils of which she knew nothing, the breaking of a promise of marriage was the greatest and most unpardonable of sins, no matter what the circumstances might be. But she was sure that she had not promised anything. At that moment in her meditations she heard the tread of a man's heel on the rocks. The sailors were all barefoot, and she knew it must be San Miniato. Unwilling to be alone with him even for a minute, she sprang lightly forward to meet him as he came. He held out his hand to help her, but she refused it by a gesture and hurried on. "I have been speaking with your mother," he said, trying to take advantage of the thirty or forty yards that still remained to be traversed. "So I suppose, as I left you together," she answered in a hard voice. "I have been talking to Ruggiero." "Has anything displeased you, Beatrice?" asked San Miniato, surprised by her manner. "No. Why do you call me Beatrice?" Her tone was colder than ever. "I suppose I might be permitted--" "You are not." San Miniato looked at her in amazement, but they were already within earshot of the Marchesa, who had not moved from her long chair, and he did not risk anything more, not knowing what sort of answer he might get. But he was no novice, and as soon as he thought over the situation he remembered others similar to it in his experience, and he understood well enough that a sensitive young girl might feel ashamed of having shown too much feeling, or might have taken offence at some detail in his conduct which had entirely escaped his own notice. Young and vivacious women are peculiarly subject to this sort of sensitiveness, as he was well aware. There was nothing to be done but to be quiet, attentive in small things, and to wait for fair weather again. After all, he had crossed the Rubicon, and had been very well received on the other side. It would not be easy to make him go back again. "My angel," said the Marchesa, throwing away the end of her cigarette, "you have caught cold. We must go home immediately." "Yes, mamma." With all her languor and laziness and selfishness, the Marchesa was not devoid of tact, least of all where her own ends were concerned, and when she took the trouble to have any object in life at all. She saw in her daughter's face that something had annoyed her, and she at once determined that no reference should be made to the great business of the moment, and that it would be best to end the evening in general conversation, leaving San Miniato no further opportunity of being alone with Beatrice. She guessed well enough that the girl was not really in love, but had yielded in a measure to the man's practised skill in love-making, but she was really anxious that the result should be permanent. Beatrice was grateful to her for putting an end to the situation. The young girl was pale and her bright eyes had suddenly grown tired and heavy. She sat down beside her mother and shaded her brow against the lamp with her hand, while San Miniato went to give orders about returning. "My dear child," said the Marchesa, "I am converted; it has been a delightful excursion; we have had an excellent dinner, and I am not at all tired. I am sure you have given yourself quite as much trouble about it as San Miniato." Beatrice laughed nervously. "There were a good many things to remember," she said, "but I wish there had been twice as many--it was so amusing to make out the list of all your little wants." "What a good daughter you are to me, my angel," sighed the Marchesa. It was not often that she showed so much, affection. Possibly she was rarely conscious of loving her child very much, and on the present occasion the emotion was not so overpowering as to have forced her to the expression of it, had she not seen the necessity for humouring the girl and restoring her normal good temper. On the whole, a very good understanding existed between the two, of such a nature that it would have been hard to destroy it. For it was impossible to quarrel with the Marchesa, for the simple reason that she never attempted to oppose her daughter, and rarely tried to oppose any one else. She was quite insensible to Beatrice's occasional reproaches concerning her indolence, and Beatrice had so much sense, in spite of her small caprices and whims, that it was always safe to let her have her own way. The consequence was that difficulties rarely arose between the two. Beatrice smiled carelessly at the affectionate speech. She knew its exact value, but was not inclined to depreciate it in her own estimation. Just then she would rather have been left alone with her mother than with any one else, unless she could be left quite to herself. "You are always very good to me, mamma," she answered; "you let me have my own way, and that is what I like best." "Let you have it, carissima! You take it. But I am quite satisfied." "After all, it saves you trouble," laughed Beatrice. Just then San Miniato came back and was greatly relieved to see that Beatrice's usual expression had returned, and to hear her careless, tuneful laughter. In an incredibly short space of time the boat was ready, the Marchesa was lifted in her chair and carried to it, and all the party were aboard. The second boat, with its crew, was left to bring home the paraphernalia, and Ruggiero cast off the mooring and jumped upon the stern, as the men forward dipped their oars and began to pull out of the little sheltered bay. There he sat again, perched in his old place behind his master, the latter's head close to his knee, holding the brass tiller in his hand. It would be hard to say what he felt, but it was not what he had felt before. It was all a dream, now, the past, the present and the future. He had told Beatrice--Donna Beatrice Granmichele, the fine lady--that he loved her, and she had not laughed in his face, nor insulted him, nor cried out for help. She had told him that he was brave and strong. Yet he knew that he had put forth all his strength and summoned all his courage in the great effort to be silent, and had failed. But that mattered little. He had got a hundred, a thousand times more kindness than he would have dared to hope for, if he had ever dared to think of saying what he had really said. He had been forced to what he had done, as a strong man is forced struggling against odds to the brink of a precipice, and he had found not death, but a strange new strength to live. He had not found Heaven, but he had touched the gates of Paradise and heard the sweet clear voice of the angel within. It was well for him that his hand had not been raised that afternoon to deal the one blow that would have decided his life. It was well that it was the summer time and that when he had put the helm down to go about there had been no white squall seething along with its wake of snowy foam from a quarter of a mile to windward. It would have been all over now and those great moments down there by the rocks would never have been lived. "Through the arch, Ruggiero," said San Miniato to him as the boat cleared the rocks of the landward needle. "Let us go home," said Beatrice, with a little impatience in her voice. "I am so tired." Would she be tired of such a night if she loved the man beside her? Ruggiero thought not, any more than he would ever be weary of being near her to steer the boat that bore her--even for ever. "It is so beautiful," said San Miniato. Beatrice said nothing, but made an impatient movement that betrayed that she was displeased. "Home, Ruggiero," said San Miniato's voice. "Make sail!" Ruggiero called out, he himself hauling out the mizzen. A minute later the sails filled and the boat sped out over the smooth water, white-winged as a sea-bird under the great summer moon. CHAPTER VIII. It was late on the following morning when the Marchesa came out upon her curtained terrace, moving slowly, her hands hanging listlessly down, her eyes half closed, as though regretting the sleep she might be still enjoying. Beatrice was sitting by a table, an open book beside her which she was not reading, and she hardly noticed her mother's light step. The young girl had spent a sleepless night, and for the first time since she had been a child a few tears had wet her pillow. She could not have told exactly why she had cried, for she had not felt anything like sadness, and tears were altogether foreign to her nature. But the unsought return of all the impressions of the evening had affected her strangely, and she felt all at once shame, anger and regret--shame at having been so easily deceived by the play of a man's face and voice, anger against him for the part he had acted, and regret for something unknown but dreamt of and almost understood, and which could never be. She was too young and girlish to understand that her eyes had been opened upon the workings of the human heart. She had seen two sights which neither man nor woman can ever forget, love and love's counterfeit presentment, and both were stamped indelibly upon the unspotted page of her maiden memory. She had seen a man whom she had hitherto liked, and whom she had unconsciously respected for a certain dignity he seemed to have, degrade himself--and for money's sake, as she rightly judged--to the playing of a pitiful comedy. As the whole scene came back to her in all distinctness, she traced the deception from first to last with amazing certainty of comprehension, and she knew that San Miniato had wilfully and intentionally laid a plot to work upon her feelings and to produce the result he had obtained--a poor result enough, if he had known the whole truth, yet one of which Beatrice was sorely ashamed. She had been deceived into the expression of something which she had never felt--and which, this morning, seemed further from her than ever before. It was bitter to think that any man could say she had uttered those three words "I love you," when there was less truth in them than in the commonest, most pardonable social lie. He had planned the excursion, knowing how beautiful things in nature affected her, knowing exactly at what point the moon would rise, precisely at what hour that mysterious light would gleam upon the water, knowing the magic of the place and counting upon it to supplement his acting where it lacked reality. It had been clever of him to think it out so carefully, to plan each detail so thoughtfully, to behave so naturally until his opportunity was all prepared and ready for him. But for one little mistake, one moment's forgetfulness of tact, the impression might have remained and grown in distinctness until it would have secured the imprint of a strong reality at the beginning of a new volume in her life, to which she could always look back in the hereafter as to something true and sweet to be thought of. But his tact had failed him at the critical and supreme moment when he had got what he wanted and had not known how to keep it, even for an hour. And his mistake had been followed by a strange accident which had revealed to Beatrice the very core of a poor human heart that was beating itself to death, in true earnest, for her sake. She had seen what many a woman longs for but may never look upon. She had seen a man, brave, strong, simple and true, with the death mark of his love for her upon his face. What matter if he were but an unlettered sailor, scarcely knowing what moved him nor the words he spoke? Beatrice was a woman and, womanlike, she knew without proof or testimony that his heart and hands were clean of the few sins which woman really despises in man. They are not many--be it said in honour of womanly generosity and kindness--they are not many, those bad deeds which a woman cannot forgive, and that she is right is truly shown in that those are the sins which the most manly men despise in others. They are, I think, cowardice, lying for selfish ends, betraying tales of woman's weakness--almost the greatest of crimes--and, greatest of all, faithlessness in love. Let a man be brave, honest, discreet, faithful, and a woman will forgive him all manner of evil actions, even to murder and bloodshed; but let him flinch in danger, lie to save himself, tell the name of a woman whose love for him has betrayed her, or break his faith to her without boldly saying that he loves her no more, and she will not forgive him while he lives, though she may give him a kindly thought and a few tears when he is gone for ever. So Beatrice, who could never love Ruggiero, understood him well and judged him rightly, and set him up on a sort of pedestal as the anti-type of his scheming master. And not only this. She felt deeply for him and pitied him with all her heart, since she had seen his own almost breaking before her eyes for her sake. She had always been kind to him, but henceforth there would be something even kinder in her voice when she spoke to him, as there would be something harder in her tone when she talked with San Miniato. And now her mother had appeared and settled herself in her lazy way upon her long chair, and slowly moved her fan, from habit, though too indolent to lift it to her face. Beatrice rose and kissed her lightly on the forehead. "Good morning, mamma carissima," she said. "Are you very tired after the excursion?" "Exhausted, in mind and body, my angel. A cigarette, my dear--it will give me an appetite." Beatrice brought her one, and held a match for her mother. Then the Marchesa shut her eyes, inhaled the smoke and blew out four or five puffs before speaking again. "I want to speak to you, my child," she said at last, "but I hardly have the strength." "Do not tire yourself, mamma. I know what you are going to say, and I have made up my mind." "Have you? That will save me infinite trouble. I am so glad." "Are you really? Do you know what I mean?" "Of course. You are going to marry San Miniato, and we have the best excuse in the world for going to Paris to see about your trousseau." "I will not marry San Miniato," said Beatrice. "I have made up my mind that I will not." The Marchesa started slightly as she took her cigarette from her lips, and turned her head slowly so that she could look into Beatrice's eyes. "You are engaged to marry him," she said slowly. "You cannot break your word. You know what that means. Indeed, you are quite mad!" "Engaged? I? I never gave my word! It is not true!" The blood rose, in Beatrice's face and then sank suddenly away. "What is this comedy?" asked the Marchesa, raising her brows. For the first time in many years she was almost angry. "Ah! If you ask me that, I will tell you. I will tell you everything and you know that I speak the truth to you as I do to everybody--" "Except to San Miniato when you tell him you love him," interrupted the Marchesa. Beatrice blushed again, with anger this time. "Yes," she said, after a short pause, "it is quite true that I said I loved him, and for one moment I meant it. But I made a mistake. I am sorry, and I will tell him so. But I will tell him other things, too. I will tell him that I saw through his acting before we left Tragara last night, and that I will never forgive him for the part he played. You know as well as I that it was all a play, from beginning to end. I liked him better than the others because I thought him more manly, more honest, more dignified. But I have changed my mind. I see the whole truth now, every detail of it. He planned it all, and he did it very well--probably he planned it the night before last, out here with you, while I was playing waltzes. You could not make me marry him, and he got leave of you to speak to me. Do you think I do not understand it all? Would you have let me go away last night and sit with him on the rocks, out of your hearing, without so much as a remark, unless you had arranged the matter between you? It is not like you, and I know you meant it. It was all a plot. He had even been there to study the place, to see the very point at which the moon would rise, the very place where he would make me sit, the very spot where your table could stand. He said to himself that I was a mere girl, that of course no man had ever made love to me and that between the beauty of the night, my liking for him, and his well arranged comedy, he might easily move me. He did. I am ashamed of it. Look at the blood in my cheeks! That tells the truth, at all events. I am utterly ashamed. I would give my right hand to have not spoken those words! I would almost give my life to undo yesterday if it could be undone--and undo it I will, so far as I can. I will tell San Miniato what I think of myself, and then I will tell him what I think of him, and that will be enough. Do you understand me? I am in earnest." The Marchesa had listened to Beatrice's long speech with open eyes, surprised at the girl's keenness and at her determined manner. Not that the latter was new in her experience, but it was the first time that their two wills had been directly opposed in a matter of great importance. The Marchesa was a very indolent person, but somewhere in her nature there lay hidden a small store of determination which had hardly ever expressed itself clearly in her life. Now, however, she felt that much was at stake. For many reasons San Miniato was precisely the son-in-law she desired. He would give Beatrice an ancient and honourable name, a leading position in any Italian society he chose to frequent, whether in the north or the south, and he was a man of the world at all points. The last consideration had much weight with the Marchesa who, in spite of her title and fortune had seen very little of the men of the great world, and admired them accordingly. Therefore when Beatrice said she would not marry him, her mother made up her mind that she should, and the struggle commenced. "Beatrice, my angel," she began, "you are mistaken in yourself and in San Miniato. I am quite unable to go through all the details as you have done. I only say that you are mistaken." Beatrice's lip curled a little and she slowly shook her head. "I am not mistaken, mamma," she answered. "I am quite right, and you know it. Can you deny that what I say is true? Can you say that you did not arrange with him to take me to Tragara, and to let him speak to me himself?" "It is far too much trouble to deny anything, my dear child. But all that may be quite true, and yet he may love you as sincerely as he can love any one. I do not suppose you expect a man of his sense and education to roll himself at your feet and tear his hair and his clothes as they do on the stage." "A man need not do that to show that he is in earnest, and besides he--" "That is not the question," interrupted the Marchesa. "The real question concerns you much more than it affects him. If you break your promise--" "There was no promise." "You told him that you loved him, and you admit it. Under the circumstances that meant that you were willing to marry him. It meant nothing else, as you know very well." "I never thought of it." "You must think of it now. You know perfectly well that he wished to marry you and had my consent. I have spoken to you several times about it and you refused to have him, saying that you meant to exercise your own free will. You had an opportunity of exercising it last night. You told him clearly that you loved him, and that could only mean that your opposition was gone and that you would marry him. You know what you will be called now, if you refuse to keep your engagement." Beatrice grew slowly pale. Her mother had, for once, a remarkably direct and clear way of putting the matter, and the young girl began to waver. If her mother succeeded in proving to her that she had really bound herself, she would submit. It is not easy to convey to the foreign mind generally the enormous importance which is attached in Italy to a distinct promise of marriage. It indeed almost amounts, morally speaking, to marriage itself, and the breaking of it is looked upon socially almost as an act of infidelity to the marriage bond. A young girl who refuses to keep her engagement is called a civetta--an owlet--probably because owlets are used as a decoy all over the country in snaring and shooting all small birds. Be that as it may, the term is a bitter reproach, it sticks to her who has earned it and often ruins her whole life. That is what the Marchesa meant when she told Beatrice that she knew what the world would call her, and the threat had weight. The young girl rose from her seat and began to walk to and fro on the terrace, her head bent, her hands clasped together. The Marchesa slowly puffed at her cigarette and watched her daughter with half-closed eyes. "I never meant it so!" Beatrice exclaimed in low tones, and she repeated the words again and again, pausing now and then and looking fixedly at her mother. "Dear child," said the Marchesa, "what does it matter? If it were not such an exertion to talk, I am sure I could make you see what a good match it is, and how glad you ought to be." "Glad! Oh, mamma, you do not understand! The degradation of it!" "The degradation? Where is there anything degrading in it?" "I see it well enough! To give myself up body and soul to a man I do not love! And for what? Because he has an old name, and I a new one, and I can buy his name with my money. Oh, mother, it is too horrible! Too low! Too vile!" "My angel, you do not know what strong words you are using--" "They are not half strong enough--I wish I could--" But she stopped and began to walk up and down again, her sweet young face pale and weary with pain, her fingers twisting each other nervously. A long silence followed. "It is of no use to talk about it, my child," said the Marchesa, languidly taking up a novel from the table beside her. "The thing is done. You are engaged, and you must either marry San Miniato or take the consequences and be pointed at as a faithless girl for the rest of your life." "And who knows of this engagement, if it is one, but you and I and he?" asked Beatrice, standing still. "Would you tell, or I? Or would he dare?" "He would be perfectly justified," answered the Marchesa. "He is a gentleman, however, and would be considerate. But who is to assure us that he has not already telegraphed the good news to his friends?" "It is too awful!" cried Beatrice, leaning back against one of the pillars. "Besides," said her mother without changing her tone. "You have changed to-day, you may change again to-morrow--" "Stop, for heaven's sake! Do not make me worse than I am!" Poor Beatrice stopped her ears with her open hands. The Marchesa looked at her and smiled a little, and shook her head, waiting for the hands to be removed. At last the young girl began her walk again. "You should not talk about being worse when you are not bad at all, my dear," said her mother. "You have done nothing to be ashamed of, and all this is perfectly absurd. You feel a passing dislike for the idea perhaps, but that will be gone to-morrow. Meanwhile the one thing which is really sure is that you are engaged to San Miniato, who, as I say, has undoubtedly telegraphed the fact to his sister in Florence and probably to two or three old friends. By to-morrow it will be in the newspapers. You cannot possibly draw back. I have really talked enough. I am utterly exhausted." Beatrice sank into a chair and pressed her fingers upon her eyes, not to hide them, but by sheer pressure forcing back the tears she felt coming. Her beautiful young figure bent and trembled like a willow in the wind, and the soft white throat swelled with the choking sob she kept down so bravely. There is something half divine in the grief of some women. "Dear child," said her mother very gently, "there is nothing to cry over. Beatrice carissima, try and control yourself. It will soon pass--" "It will soon pass--yes," answered the young girl, bringing out the words with a great effort. During fully two minutes more she pressed her eyes with all her might. Then she rose suddenly to her feet, and her face was almost calm again. "I will marry him, since what I never meant for a promise really is one and has seemed so to you and to him. But if I am a faithless wife to him, I will lay all my sins at your door." "Beatrice!" cried the Marchesa, in real horror this time. She crossed herself. "I am young--shall I not love?" asked the young girl defiantly. "Dearest child, for the love of Heaven do not talk so--" "No--I will not. I will never say it again--and you will not forget it." She turned to leave the terrace and met San Miniato face to face. "Good morning," she said coldly, and passed him. "Of course you have telegraphed the news of the engagement to your sister?" said the Marchesa as soon as she saw him, and making a sign to intimate that he must answer in the affirmative. "Of course--and to all my best friends," he replied promptly with a ready smile. Beatrice heard his answer just as she passed through the door, but she did not turn her head. She guessed that her mother had asked the question in haste in order that San Miniato might say something which should definitely prove to Beatrice that he considered himself betrothed. Yesterday she would have believed his answer. To-day she believed nothing he said. She went to her room and bathed her eyes in cold water and sat down for a moment before her glass and looked at herself thoughtfully. There she was, the same Beatrice she saw in the mirror every day, the same clear brown eyes, the same soft brown hair, the same broad, crayon-like eyebrows, the same free pose of the head. But there was something different in the face, which she did not recognise. There was something defiant in the eyes, and hard about the mouth, which was new to her and did not altogether please her, though she could not change it. She combed the little ringlets on her forehead and dabbed a little scent upon her temples to cool them, and then she rose quickly and went out. A thought had struck her and she at once put into execution the plan it suggested. She took a parasol and went out of the hotel, hatless and gloveless, into the garden of orange trees which lies between the buildings and the gate. She strolled leisurely along the path towards the exit, on one side of which is the porter's lodge, while the little square stone box of a building which is the telegraph office stands on the other. She knew that just before twelve o'clock Ruggiero and his brother were generally seated on the bench before the lodge waiting for orders for the afternoon. As she expected, she found them, and she beckoned to Ruggiero and turned back under the trees. In an instant he was at her side. She was startled to see how pale he was and how suddenly his face seemed to have grown thin. She stopped and he stood respectfully before her, cap in hand, looking down. "Ruggiero," she said, "will you do me a service?" "Yes, Excellency." "Yes, I know--but it is something especial. You must tell no one--not even your brother." "Speak, Excellency--not even the stones shall hear it." "I want you to find out at the telegraph office whether your master has sent a telegram anywhere this morning. Can you ask the man and bring me word here? I will walk about under the trees." "At once, Excellency." He turned and left her, and she strolled up the path. She wondered a little why she was doing this underhand thing. It was not like her, and whatever answer Ruggiero brought her she would gain nothing by it. If San Miniato had spoken the truth, then he had really believed the engagement already binding, as her mother had said. If he had lied, that would not prevent his really telegraphing within the next half hour, and matters would be in just the same situation with a slight difference of time. She would, indeed, in this latter case, have a fresh proof of his duplicity. But she needed none, as it seemed to her. It was enough that he should have acted his comedy last night and got by a stratagem what he could never have by any other means. Ruggiero returned after two or three minutes. "Well?" inquired Beatrice. "He sent one at nine o'clock this morning, Excellency." For one minute their eyes met. Ruggiero's were fierce, bright and clear. Beatrice's own softened almost imperceptibly under his glance. If she had seen herself at that moment she would have noticed that the hard look she had observed in her own face had momentarily vanished, and that she was her gentle self again. "One only?" she asked. "Only one, Excellency. No one will know that I have asked, for the man will not tell." "Are you sure? What did you say to him? Tell me." "I said to him, 'Don Gennaro, I am the Conte di San Miniato's sailor. Has the Conte sent any telegram this morning, to any one, anywhere?' Then he shook his head; but he looked into his book and said, 'He sent one to Florence at nine o'clock.' Then I said, 'I thank you, Don Gennaro, and I will do you a service when I can.' That was for good manners. Then I said, 'Don Gennaro, please not to tell any one that I asked the question, and if you tell any one I will make you die an evil death, for I will break all your bones and moreover drown you in the sea, and go to the galleys very gladly.' Then Don Gennaro said that he would not tell. And here I am, Excellency." In spite of all she was suffering, Beatrice laughed at Ruggiero's account of the interview. It was quite evident that Ruggiero had repeated accurately every word that had been spoken, and he looked the man to execute the threat without the slightest hesitation. Beatrice wondered how the telegraph official had taken it. "What did Don Gennaro do when you frightened him, Ruggiero?" she asked. "He said he would not tell and got a little white, Excellency. But he will say nothing, and will not complain to the syndic, because he knows my brother." "What has that to do with it?" asked Beatrice with some curiosity. "It is natural, Excellency. For if Don Gennaro went to the syndic and said, 'Signor Sindaco, Ruggiero of the Children of the King has threatened to kill me,' then the syndic would send for the gendarmes and say, 'Take that Ruggiero of the Children of the King and put him in, as we say, and see that he does not run away, for he will do a hurt to somebody.' And perhaps they would catch me and perhaps they would not. Then Bastianello, my brother, would wait in the road in the evening for Don Gennaro, and would lay a hand on him, perhaps, or both. And I think that Don Gennaro would rather be dead in his telegraph office than alive in Bastianello's hands, because Bastianello is very strong in his hands, Excellency. And that is all the truth." "But I do not understand it all, Ruggiero, though I see what you mean. I am afraid it is your language that is different from mine." "It is natural, Excellency," answered the sailor, a deep blush spreading over his white forehead as he stood bareheaded before her. "You are a great lady and I am only an ignorant seaman." "I do not mean anything of the sort, Ruggiero," said Beatrice quickly, for she saw that she had unintentionally hurt him, and the thought pained her strongly. "You speak very well and I have always understood you perfectly. But you spoke of the King's Children and I could not make out what they had to do with the story." "Oh, if it is that, Excellency, I ask your pardon. I do not wonder that you did not understand. It is my name, Excellency." "Your name? Still I do not understand---" "I have no other name but that--dei figli del Rè--" said Ruggiero. "That is all." "How strange!" exclaimed Beatrice. "It is the truth, Excellency, and to show you that it is the truth here is my seaman's license." He produced a little flat parchment case from his pocket, untied the thong and showed Beatrice the first page on which, was inscribed his name in full. "Ruggiero of the Children of the King, son of the late Ruggiero, native of Verbicaro, province of Calabria--you see, Excellency. It is the truth." "I never doubt anything you say, Ruggiero," said Beatrice quietly. "I thank you, Excellency," answered the sailor, blushing this time with pleasure. "For this and all your Excellency's kindness." What a man he was she thought, as he stood there before her, bareheaded in the sun-shot shade under the trees, the light playing upon his fair hair and beard, and his blue eyes gleaming like drops from the sea! What boys and dwarfs other men looked beside him! "Do you know how your family came by that strange name, Ruggiero?" she asked. "No, Excellency. But they tell so many silly stories about us in Verbicaro. That is in Calabria where I and my brother were born. And when our mother, blessed soul, was dying--good health to your Excellency--she blessed us and said this to us. 'Ruggiero, Sebastiano, dear sons, you could not save me and I am going. God bless you,' said she. 'Our Lady help you. Remember, you are the Children of the King.' Then she said, 'Remember' again, as though she would say something more. But just at that very moment Christ took her, and she did not speak again, for she was dead--good health to your Excellency for a thousand years. And so it was." "And what happened then?" asked Beatrice, strangely interested and charmed by the man's simple story. "Then we beat Don Pietro Casale, Excellency, and spoiled all his face and head. We were little boys, twelve and ten years old, but there was the anger to give us strength. And so we ran away from Verbicaro, because we had no one and we had to eat, and had beaten Don Pietro Casale, who would have had us put in prison if he had caught us. But thanks to Heaven we had good legs. And so we ran away, Excellency." "It is very interesting. But what were those stories they told about you in Verbicaro?" "Silly stories, Excellency. They say that once upon a time King Roger came riding by with all his army and many knights; and all armed because there was war. And he took Verbicaro from the Turks and gave it to a son of his who was called the Son of the King, as I would give Bastianello half a cigar or a pipe of tobacco in the morning--it is true he always has his own--and so the Son of the King stayed in that place and lived there, and I have heard old men say that when their fathers--who were also old, Excellency--were boys, many houses in Verbicaro belonged to the Children of the King. But then they ate everything and we have had nothing but these two hands and these two arms and now we go about seeking to eat. But thanks to Heaven--and to-day is Saturday--we have been able to work enough. And that is the truth, Excellency." "What a strange tale!" exclaimed the young girl. "But to-day is Tuesday, Ruggiero. Why do you say it is Saturday?" "I beg pardon of your Excellency, it is a silly custom and means nothing. But when a man says he is well, or that there is a west wind, or that his boat is sound, he says 'to-day is Saturday,' because it might be Friday and he might have forgotten that. It is a silly custom, Excellency." "Do not call me excellency, Ruggiero," said Beatrice. "I have no right to be called so." "And what could I call you when I have to speak to you, Excellency? I have been taught so." "Only princes and dukes and their children are excellencies," answered Beatrice. "My father was only a Marchese. So if you wish to please me, call me 'signorina.' That is the proper way to speak to me." "I will try, Excellency," answered Ruggiero, opening his blue eyes very wide. Beatrice laughed a little. "You see," she said, "you did it again." "Yes, Signorina," replied Ruggiero. "But I will not forget again. When the tongue of the ignorant has learned a word it is hard to change it." "Well, good-day Ruggiero. Your story is very interesting. I am going to breakfast, and I thank you for what you did for me." "It is not I who deserve any thanks. And good appetite to you, Signorina." She turned and walked slowly back towards the hotel. "And may Our Lady bless you and keep you, and send an angel to watch over every hair of your blessed head!" said Ruggiero in a low voice as he watched her graceful figure retreating in the distance. CHAPTER IX. After what had happened on the previous evening Ruggiero had expected that Beatrice would treat him very differently. He had assuredly not foreseen that she would call him from his seat by the porter's lodge, ask an important service of him, and then enter into conversation with him about the origin of his family and the story of his own life. His slow but logical mind pondered on these things in spite of the disordered action of his heart, which had almost choked him while he had been talking with the young girl. Instead of going back to his brother, he turned aside and entered the steep descending tunnel through the rock which leads down to the sea and the little harbour. Two things were strongly impressed on his mind. First, the nature of the service he had done Beatrice in making that enquiry at the telegraph office, and secondly her readiness to forget his own reckless conduct at Tragara. Both these points suggested reflections which pleased him strangely. It was quite clear to him that Beatrice distrusted San Miniato, though he had of course no idea of the nature of the telegram concerning which she had wanted information. He only understood that she was watching San Miniato with suspicion, expecting some sort of foul play. But there was an immense satisfaction in that thought, and Ruggiero's eyes sparkled as he revolved it in his brain. As for the other matter, he understood it less clearly. He was quite conscious of the enormity of his misdeed in telling a lady, and a great lady, according to his view, that he loved her, and in daring to touch the sleeves of her dress with his rough hands. He could not find it in him to regret what he had done, but he was prepared for very hard treatment as his just reward. It would not have surprised him if Beatrice had then and there complained of him to her mother or to San Miniato himself, and the latter, Ruggiero supposed, would have had no difficulty in having him locked up in the town gaol for a few weeks on the rather serious ground of misdemeanour towards the visitors at the watering-place. A certain amount of rather arbitrary power is placed in the hands of the local authorities in all great summer resorts, and it is quite right that it should be so--nor is it as a rule unjustly used. But Beatrice had acted very differently, very kindly and very generously. That was because she was naturally so good and gentle, thought Ruggiero. But the least he had expected was that she would never again speak to him save to give an order, nor say a kind word, no matter what service he rendered her, or what danger he ran for her sake. And now, a moment ago, she had talked with him with more interest and kindly condescension than she had ever shown before. He refused, and rightly, to believe that this was because she had needed his help in the matter of the telegram. She could have called Bastianello, who was in her own service, and Bastianello would have done just as well. But she had chosen to employ the man who had so rudely forgotten himself before her less than twenty-four hours earlier. Why? Ruggiero, little capable, by natural gifts or by experience, of dealing with such questions, found himself face to face with a great problem of the human self, and he knew at once that he could never solve it, try as he might. His happiness was none the less great, nor his gratitude the less deep and sincere, and with both these grew up instantly in his heart the strong determination to serve her at every turn, so far as lay in his power. It was not much that he could do, he reflected, unless she would show him the way as she had done this very morning. But, considering the position of affairs, and her evident distrust of her betrothed, it was not impossible that similar situations might arise before long. If they did, Ruggiero would be ready, as he had now shown himself, to do her bidding with startling directness and energy. He was well aware of his physical superiority over every one else in Sorrento, and he was dimly conscious that a threat from him was something which would frighten most men, and which none could afford to overlook. He remembered poor Don Gennaro's face just now, when he had quietly told him what he might expect if he did not hold his tongue. Ruggiero had never valued his life very highly, and since he had loved Beatrice he did not value it a straw. This state of mind can make a man an exceedingly dangerous person, especially when he is so endowed that he can tear a new horse shoe in two with his hands, and break a five franc piece with his thumbs and forefingers as another man breaks a biscuit. As Ruggiero came out of the tunnel and reached the platform of rock from which the last part of the descent goes down to the sea in the open air, he stood still a moment and expressed his determination in a low tone. There was no one near to hear him. "Whatever she asks," he said. "Truly it is of great importance what becomes of me! If it is a little thing it costs nothing. If it is a great thing--well, I will do it if I can. Then I will say, 'Excellency'--no--'Signorina, here it is done. And I beg to kiss your Excellency's hand, because I am going to the galleys and you will not see me any more.' And then they will put me in, and it will be finished, and I shall always have the satisfaction." Ruggiero produced a fragment of a cigar from his cap and a match from the same safe place and began to smoke, looking at the sea. People not used to the peculiarities of southern thought would perhaps have been surprised at the desperate simplicity of Ruggiero's statement to himself. But those who have been long familiar with men of his country and class must all have heard exactly such words uttered more than once in their experience, and will remember that in some cases at least they were not empty threats, which were afterwards very exactly and conscientiously fulfilled by him who uttered them, and who now either wears a green cap at Ponza or Ischia, or is making a fortune in South America, having had the luck to escape as a stowaway on a foreign vessel. Nor did it strike Ruggiero as at all improbable that Beatrice might some day wish to be rid of the Conte di San Miniato, and might express such a wish, ever so vaguely, within Ruggiero's hearing. He had the bad taste to judge her by himself, and of course if she really hated her betrothed she would wish him to die. It was a sin, doubtless, to wish anybody dead, and it was a greater sin to put out one's hands and kill the person in question. But it was human nature, according to Ruggiero's simple view, and of course Beatrice felt like other human beings in this matter and all the principal affairs of life. He had made up his mind, and he never repeated the words he had spoken to himself. He was a simple man, and he puffed at his stump of a black cigar and strolled down to the boat to find out whether the Cripple and the Son of the Fool had spliced that old spare mooring-rope which had done duty last night and had been found chafed this morning. Meanwhile the human nature on which Ruggiero counted so naturally and confidently was going through a rather strange phase of development in the upper regions where the Marchesa's terrace was situated. Beatrice walked slowly back under the trees. Ruggiero's quaint talk had amused her and had momentarily diverted the current of her thoughts. But the moment she left him, her mind reverted to her immediate trouble, and she felt a little stab of pain at the heart which was new to her. The news that San Miniato had actually sent a telegram was unwelcome in the extreme. He had, indeed, said in her presence that he had sent several. But that might have been a careless inaccuracy, or he might have actually written the rest and given them to be despatched before coming upstairs. To doubt that the one message already sent contained the news of his engagement, seemed gratuitous. It was only too sure that he had looked upon what had passed at Tragara as a final decision on the part of Beatrice, and that henceforth she was his affianced bride. Her mother had not even found great difficulty in persuading her of the fact, and after that one bitter struggle she had given up the battle. It had been bitter indeed while it had lasted, and some of the bitterness returned upon her now. But she would not again need to force the tears back, pressing her hands upon her eyes with desperate strength as she had done. It was useless to cry over what could not be helped, and since she had made the great mistake of her life she must keep her word or lose her good name for ever, according to the ideas in which she had been brought up. But it would be very hard to meet San Miniato now, within the next quarter of an hour, as she inevitably must. Less hard, perhaps, than if she had convicted him of falsehood in the matter of the telegram, as she had fully expected that she could--but painful enough, heaven knew. There was an old trace of oriental fatalism in her nature, passed down to her, perhaps, from some Saracen ancestor in the unknown genealogy of her family. It is common enough in the south, often profoundly leavened with superstition, sometimes existing side by side with the most absolute scepticism, but its influence is undeniable, and accounts for a certain resignation in hopeless cases which would be utterly foreign to the northern character. Beatrice had it, and having got the worst of the first contest she conceived that further resistance would be wholly useless, and accepted the inevitable conclusion that she must marry San Miniato whether she liked him or not. But this state of mind did not by any means imply that she would marry him with a good grace, or ever again return in her behaviour towards him to the point she had reached on the previous evening. That, thought Beatrice, would be too much to expect, and was certainly more than she intended to give. She would be quite willing to show that she had been deceived into consenting, and was only keeping her word as a matter of principle. San Miniato might think what he pleased. She knew that whatever she did, he would never think of breaking off the engagement, since what he wanted was not herself but her fortune. She shut her parasol with a rather vicious snap as she went into the cool hall out of the sun, and the hard look in her face was more accentuated than before, as she slowly ascended the steps. The conversation between her mother and San Miniato during her short absence had been characteristic. They understood each other perfectly but neither would have betrayed to the other, by the merest hint, the certainty that the marriage was by no means agreeable to poor Beatrice herself. "Dearest Marchesa," said San Miniato, touching her hand with his lips, and then seating himself beside her, "tell me that you are not too much exhausted after your exertions last night? Have you slept well? Have you any appetite?" "What a good doctor you would make, dear friend!" exclaimed the Marchesa with a little smile. And so they exchanged the amenities usual at their first meeting in the day, as though they had not been buying and selling an innocent soul, and did not appreciate the fact in its startling reality. Several more phrases of the same kind were spoken. "And how is Donna Beatrice?" inquired San Miniato at last. "Why not call her Beatrice?" asked the Marchesa carelessly. "She is very well. You just saw her." "I fancy it would seem a little premature, a little familiar to call her so," answered the Count, who remembered his recent discomfiture. "For the present, I believe she would prefer a little more ceremony. I do not know whether I am right. Pray give me your advice, Marchesa carissima." "Of course you are right--you always are. You were right about the moon yesterday--though I did not notice that it was shining here when we came home," she added thoughtfully, not by any means satisfied with the insufficient demonstration he had given her at first. "No doubt," replied San Miniato indifferently. He took no further interest in the movements of the satellite since he had gained his point, and the Marchesa was far too lazy to revive the discussion. "I am glad you agree with me about my behaviour," he continued. "It is of course most important to maintain as much as possible the good impression I was so fortunate as to make last night, and I have had enough experience of the world to know that it will not be an easy matter." "No, indeed--and with Beatrice's character, too!" "The most charming character I ever met," said San Miniato with sufficient warmth. "But young, of course, as it should be and subject to the enchanting little caprices which belong to youth and beauty." "Yes, which always belong to youth and beauty," assented the Marchesa. "And I am quite prepared, for instance, to be treated coldly to-day and warmly to-morrow, if it so pleases the dear young lady. She will always find me the same." "How good you are, dearest friend!" exclaimed the Marchesa, thoroughly understanding what he meant, and grateful to him for his tact, which was sometimes, indeed, of the highest order. "It would be strange if I were not happy and satisfied," he answered, "and ready to accept gratefully the smallest favour with which it may please Donna Beatrice to honor me." He was indeed both happy and satisfied, for he saw no reason to suppose that the Granmichele fortune could now slip from his grasp. Moreover he had considerable confidence in himself and his powers, and he thought it quite probable that the scene of the previous evening might before long be renewed with more lasting effect. Beatrice was young and capricious; there is nothing one may count on so surely as youth and caprice. Caprice is sure to change, but who is sure that the faith kept for ten years will not? In youth love is sure to come some day, but when that day is past is it ever sure that he will come again? San Miniato knew these things and many more like them, and was wise in his generation as well as a man of the world, accustomed to its ways from his childhood and nourished with the sour milk of its wisdom from his earliest youth upward. So he quietly conveyed to the Marchesa the information that he understood Beatrice's present mood and that he would not attach more importance to it than it deserved. They talked a little longer together, both for the present avoiding any reference to the important arrangements which must soon be discussed in connection with the marriage contract, but both taking it entirely for granted that the marriage itself was quite agreed upon and settled. Then Beatrice returned and sat down silently by the table. "Have you been for a little walk, my angel?" enquired her mother. "Yes, mamma, I have been for a little walk." "You are not tired then, after our excursion, Donna Beatrice?" enquired San Miniato. "Not in the least," answered the young girl, taking up a book and beginning to read. "Beatrice!" exclaimed her mother in amazement. "My child! What are you reading! Maupassant! Have you quite forgotten yourself?" "I am trying to, mamma. And since I am to be married--what difference does it make?" She spoke without laying down the volume. San Miniato pretended to pay no attention to the incident, and slowly rolled a fat cigarette between his fingers to soften it before smoking. The Marchesa made gestures to Beatrice with an unusual expenditure of energy, but with no effect. "It seems very interesting," said the latter. "I had no idea he wrote so well. It seems to be quite different from Télémaque--more amusing in every way." Then the Marchesa did what she had not done in many years. She asserted her parental authority. Very lazily she put her feet to the ground, laid her fan, her handkerchief and her cigarette case together, and rose to her feet. Coming round the table she took the forbidden book out of Beatrice's hands, shut it up and put it back in its place. Beatrice made no opposition, but raised her broad eyebrows wearily and folded her hands in her lap. "Of course, if you insist, I have nothing to say," she remarked, "any more than I have anything to do since you will not let me read." The Marchesa went back to her lounge and carefully arranged her belongings and settled herself comfortably before she spoke. "I think you are a little out of temper, Beatrice dear, or perhaps you are hungry, my child. You so often are. San Miniato, what time is it?" "A quarter before twelve," answered the Count. "Of course you will breakfast with us. Ring the bell, dearest friend. We will not wait any longer." San Miniato rose and touched the button. "You are as hospitable as you are good," he said. "But if you will forgive me, I will not accept your invitation to-day. An old friend of mine is at the other hotel for a few hours and I have promised to breakfast with him. Will you excuse me?" Beatrice made an almost imperceptible gesture of indifference with her hand. "Who is your friend?" she asked. "A Piedmontese," answered San Miniato indifferently. "You do not know him." "We are very sorry to lose you, especially to-day, San Miniato carissimo," said the Marchesa. "But if it cannot be helped--well, good-bye." So San Miniato went out and left the mother and daughter together again as he had found them. It is needless to say that the Piedmontese friend was a fiction, and that San Miniato had no engagement of that kind. He had hastily resolved to keep one of a different nature because he guessed that in Beatrice's present temper he would make matters more difficult by staying. And in this he was right, for Beatrice had made up her mind to be thoroughly disagreeable and she possessed the elements of success requisite for that purpose--a sharp tongue, a quick instinct and great presence of mind. San Miniato descended the stairs and strolled out into the orange garden, looking at his watch as he left the door of the hotel. It was very hot, but further away from the house the sea breeze was blowing through the trees. He was still smoking the cigarette he had lighted upstairs, and he sat down on a bench in the shade, took out a pocket book and began to make notes. From time to time he looked along the path in the direction of the hotel, which was hidden from view by the shrubbery. Then the clock struck twelve and a few minutes later the church bells began to ring, as they do half a dozen times a day in Italy on small provocation. Still San Miniato went on with his calculations. Before many minutes more had passed, a trim young figure appeared in the path--a young girl, with pink cheeks and bright dark eyes, no other than Teresina, the Marchesa's maid. She carried some sewing in her hand and looked nervously behind her and to the right and left as she walked. But there was no one in the garden at that hour. The guests of the hotel were all at breakfast, and the servants were either asleep or at work indoors. The porter was at his dinner and the sailors were presumably eating their midday bread and cheese down by the boats, or dining at their homes if they lived near by. The breeze blew pleasantly through the trees, making the broad polished leaves rustle and the little green oranges rock on the boughs. As soon as San Miniato caught sight of Teresina he put his note-book into his pocket and rose to his feet. His face betrayed neither pleasure nor surprise as he sauntered along the path, until he was close to her. Then both stopped, and he smiled, bending down and looking into her eyes. "For charity's sake, Signor Conte!" cried the girl, drawing back, blushing and looking behind her quickly. "I ought never to have come here. Why did you make me come?" "What an idea, Teresina!" laughed San Miniato softly. "And if you ask me why I wanted you to come, here is the reason. Now tell me, Teresinella, is it a good reason or not?" Thereupon San Miniato produced from his waistcoat pocket a little limp parcel wrapped in white tissue paper and laid it in Teresina's hand. It was heavy, and she guessed that it contained something of gold. "What is it?" she asked quickly. "Am I to give it to the Signorina?" "To the Signorina!" San Miniato laughed softly again and laid his hand very gently on the girl's arm. "Yes," he whispered, bending down to her. "To the Signorina Teresinella, who can have all she asks for if she will only care a little for me." "Heavens, Signor Conte!" cried Teresina. "Was it to say this that you made me come?" "This and a great deal more, Teresina bella. Open your little parcel while I tell you the rest. Who made you so pretty, carissima? Nature knew what she was doing when she made those eyes of yours and those bright cheeks, and those little hands and this small waist--per Dio--if some one I know were as pretty as Teresinella, all Naples would be at her feet!" He slipped his arm round her, there in the shade. Still she held the package unopened in her hand. She grew a little pale, as he touched her, and shrank away as though to avoid him, but evidently uncertain and deeply disturbed. The poor girl's good and evil angels were busy deciding her fate for her at that moment. "Open your little gift and see whether you like the reason I give you for coming here," said San Miniato, who was pleased with the turn of the phrase and thought it as well to repeat it. "Open it, Teresinella, bella, bella--the first of as many as you like--and come and sit beside me on the bench there and let me talk a little. I have so much to say to you, all pretty things which you will like, and the hour is short, you know." Poor girl! He was a fine gentleman with a very great name, as Teresina knew, and he was young still and handsome, and had winning ways, and she loved gold and pretty speeches dearly. She looked down, still shrinking away from him, till she stood with her back to a tree. Her fresh young face was almost white now and her eyelids trembled from time to time, while her lips moved though she was not conscious of what she wanted to say. "Ah, Teresina!" he exclaimed, with a nicely adjusted cadence of passion in the tone. "What are you waiting for, my little angel? It is time to love when one is young and the world is green, and your eyes are bright, carina! When the heart beats and the blood is warm! And you are made for love--that mouth of yours--like the red carnations--one kiss Teresinella--that is all I ask--one kiss and no more,--here in the shade while no one is looking--one kiss, carina mia--there is no sin in kissing--" And he tried to draw her to him. But either Teresina was naturally a very good girl, or her good angel had demolished his evil adversary in the encounter which had taken place. There is an odd sort of fierce loyalty very often to be found at the root of the Sicilian character. She looked up suddenly and her eyes met his. She held out the little package still unopened. "You have made a mistake, Signor Conte," she said, quietly enough. "I am an honest girl, and though you are a great signore I will tell you that if you had any honour you would not be making love to me out here in the garden while you are paying court to the Signorina when you are in the house, and doing your best to marry her. It is infamous enough, what you are doing, and I am not afraid to tell you so. And take back your gold, for I do not want it, and it is not clean! And so good-day, Signor Conte, and many thanks. When you asked me to come here, I thought you had some private message for the Signorina." During Teresina's speech San Miniato had not betrayed the slightest surprise or disappointment. He quietly lighted a cigarette and smiled good-humouredly all the time. "My dear Teresina," he said, when she had finished, "what in the world do you think I wanted of you? Not only am I paying court to your signorina, as you say, but I am already betrothed to her, since last night. You did not know that?" "The greater the shame!" exclaimed the girl, growing angry. "Not at all, my dear child. On the contrary, it explains everything in the most natural way. Is it not really natural that on the occasion of my betrothal I should wish to give you a little remembrance, because you have always been so obliging, and have been with the Marchesa since you were a child? I could not do anything else, I am sure, and I beg you to keep it and wear it. And as for my telling you that you are pretty and young and fresh, I do not see why you need be so mortally offended at that. However, Teresina, I am sorry if you misunderstood me. You will keep the little chain?" "No, Signor Conte. Take it. And I do not believe a word you say." She held out the parcel to him, but he, still smiling, shook his head and would not take it. Then she let it drop at his feet, and turned quickly and left him. He watched her a moment, and his annoyance at his discomfiture showed itself plainly enough, so soon as she was not there to see it. Then he shrugged his shoulders, stooped and picked up the package, restored it to his waistcoat pocket and went back to his bench. "It is a pity," he muttered, as he took out his note-book again. "It would have been such good practice!" An hour later Bastianello was sitting alone in the boat, under the awning, enjoying the cool breeze and wishing that the ladies would go for a sail while it lasted, instead of waiting until late in the afternoon as they generally did, at which time there was usually not a breath of air on the water. He was smoking a clay pipe with a cane stem, and he was thinking vaguely of Teresina, wondering whether Ruggiero would never speak to her, and if he never did, whether he, Bastianello, might not at last have his turn. A number of small boys were bathing in the bright sunshine, diving off the stones of the breakwater and running along the short pier, brown urchins with lithe thin limbs, matted black hair and beady eyes. Suddenly Bastianello was aware of a small dark face and two little hands holding upon the gunwale of his boat. He knew the boy very well, for he was the son of the Son of the Fool. "Let go, Nennè!" he said; "do you take us for a bathing house?" "You have a beautiful pair of padroni, you and your brother," observed Nennè, making a hideous face over the boat's side. Bastianello did not move, but stretched out his long arm to take up the boat-hook, which lay within his reach. "If you had seen what I saw in the garden up there just now," continued the small boy. "Madonna mia, what a business!" "Eh, you rascal? what did you see?" asked the sailor, turning the boat-hook round and holding it so that he could rap the boy's knuckles with the butt end of it. "There was the Count, who is Ruggiero's padrone, trying to kiss your signora's maid, and offering her the gold, and she--yah!" Another hideous grimace, apparently of delight, interrupted the narrative. "What did she do?" asked Bastianello quietly. But he grew a shade paler. "Eh? you want to know now, do you? What will you give me?" inquired the urchin. "Half a cigar," said Bastianello, who knew the boy's vicious tastes, and forthwith produced the bribe from his cap, holding it up for the other to see. "What did she do? She threw down the gold and called him an infamous liar to his face. A nice padrone Ruggiero has, who is called a liar and an infamous one by serving maids. Well, give me the cigar." "Take it," said the sailor, rising and reaching out. The urchin stuck it between his teeth, nodded his thanks, lowered himself gently into the water so as not to wet it, and swam cautiously to the breakwater, holding his head in the air. Bastianello sat down again and continued to smoke his pipe. There was a happy look in his bright blue eyes which had not been there before. CHAPTER X. Bastianello sat still in his boat, but he no longer looked to seaward, facing the breeze. He kept an eye on the pier, looking out for his brother, who had not appeared since the midday meal. The piece of information he had just received was worth communicating, for it raised Teresina very much in the eyes of Bastianello, and he did not doubt that it would influence Ruggiero in the right direction. Bastianello, too, was keen enough to see that anything which gave him an opportunity of discussing the girl with his brother might be of advantage, in that it might bring Ruggiero to the open expression of a settled purpose--either to marry the girl or not. And if he once gave his word that he would not, Bastianello would be no longer bound to suffer in silence as he had suffered so many weeks. The younger of the brothers was less passionate, less nervous and less easily moved in every way than the elder, but he possessed much of the same general character and all of the same fundamental good qualities--strength, courage and fidelity. In his quiet way he was deeply and sincerely in love with Teresina, and meant, if possible and if Ruggiero did not take her, to make her his wife. At last Ruggiero's tall figure appeared at the corner of the building occupied by the coastguard station, and Bastianello immediately whistled to him, giving a signal which had served the brothers since they were children. Ruggiero started, turned his head and at once jumped into the first boat he could lay hands on and pulled out alongside of his brother. "What is it?" he asked, letting his oars swing astern and laying hold on the gunwale of the sail boat. "About Teresina," answered Bastianello, taking his pipe from his mouth and leaning towards his brother. "The son of the Son of the Fool was swimming about here just now, and he hauled himself half aboard of me and made faces. So I took the boat-hook to hit his fingers. And just then he said to me, 'You have a beautiful pair of masters you and your brother.' 'Why?' I asked, and I held the boat-hook ready. But I would not have hurt the boy, because he is one of ours. So he told me that he had just seen the Count up there in the garden of the hotel, trying to kiss Teresina and offering her the gold, and I gave him half a cigar to tell me the rest, because he would not, and made faces." "May he die murdered!" exclaimed Ruggiero in a low voice, his face as white as canvas. "Wait a little, she is a good girl," answered Bastianello. "Teresina threw the gold upon the ground and told the Count that he was an infamous one and a liar. And then she went away. And I think the boy was speaking the truth, because if it were a lie he would have spoken in another way. For it was as easy to say that the Count kissed her as to say that she would not let him, and he would have had the tobacco all the same." "May he die of a stroke!" muttered Ruggiero. "But if I were in your place," said his brother calmly, "I would not do anything to your padrone, because the girl is a good girl and gave him the good answer, and as for him--" Bastianello shrugged his shoulders. "May the sharks get his body and the devil get his soul!" "That will be as it shall be," answered Bastianello. "And it is sure that if God wills, the grampuses will eat him. But we do not know the end. What I would say is this, that it is time you should speak to the girl, because I see how white you get when we talk of her, and you are consuming yourself and will have an illness, and though I could work for both you and me, four arms are better than two, in summer as in winter. Therefore I say, go and speak to her, for she will have you and she will be better with you than near that apoplexy of a San Miniato." Ruggiero did not answer at once, but pulled out his pipe and filled it and began to smoke. "Why should I speak?" he asked at last. There was a struggle in his mind, for he did not wish to tell Bastianello outright that he did not really care for Teresina. If he betrayed this fact it would be hard hereafter to account for his own state, which was too apparent to be concealed, especially from his brother, and he had no idea that the latter loved the girl. "Why should you speak?" asked Bastianello, repeating the words, and stirring the ashes in his pipe with the point of his knife. "Because if you do not speak you will never get anything." "It will be the same if I do," observed Ruggiero stolidly. "I believe that very little," returned the other. "And I will tell you something. If I were to speak to Teresina for you and say, 'Here is my brother Ruggiero, who is not a great signore, but is well grown and has two arms which are good, and a matter of seven or eight hundred francs in the bank, and who is very fond of you, but he does not know how to say it. Think well if you will have him,' I would say, 'and if you will not, give me an honest answer and God bless you and let it be the end.' That is how I would speak, and she would think about it for a week or perhaps two, and then she would say to me, 'Bastianello, tell your brother that I will have him.' Or else she would say, 'Bastianello, tell your brother that I thank him, but that I have no heart in it.' That is what she would say." "It may be," said Ruggiero carelessly. "But of course she would thank, and say 'Who is this Ruggiero?' and besides, the world is full of women." Bastianello was about to ask the interpretation of this rather enigmatical speech when there was a stir on the pier and two or three boats put out, the men standing in them and sculling them stern foremost. "Who is it?" asked Bastianello of the boatman who passed nearest to him. "The Giovannina," answered the man. She had returned from her last voyage to Calabria, having taken macaroni from Amalfi and bringing back wine of Verbicaro. A fine boat, the Giovannina, able to carry twenty tons in any weather, and water-tight too, being decked with hatches over which you can stretch and batten down tarpaulin. A pretty sight as she ran up to the end of the breakwater, old Luigione standing at the stern with the tiller between his knees and the slack of the main-sheet in his hand. She was running wing and wing, with her bright new sails spreading far over the water on each side. Then came a rattle and a sharp creak as the main-yard swung over and came down on deck, the men taking in the bellying canvas with wide open arms and old Luigione catching the end of the yard on his shoulder while he steered with his knees, his great gaunt profile black against the bright sky. Down foresail, and the good felucca forges ahead and rounds the little breakwater. Let go the anchor and she is at rest after her long voyage. For the season has not been good and she has been hauled on a dozen beaches before she could sell her cargo. The men are all as brown as mahogany, and as lean as wolves, for it has been a voyage with share and share alike for all the crew and they have starved themselves to bring home more money to their wives. Then there is some bustle and confusion, as Luigione brings the papers ashore and friends crowd around the felucca in boats, asking for news and all talking at once. "We have been in your town, Ruggiero," said one of the men, looking down into the little boat. "I hope you gave a message from me to Don Pietro Casale," answered Ruggiero. "Health to us, Don Pietro is dead," said the man, "and his wife is not likely to live long either." "Dead, eh?" cried Bastianello. "He is gone to show the saints the nose we gave him when we were boys." "We can go back to Verbicaro when we please," observed Ruggiero with a smile. "Lend a hand on board, will you?" said the sailor. So Ruggiero made the boat fast with the painter and both brothers scrambled over the side of the felucca. They did not renew their conversation concerning Teresina, and an hour or two later they went up to the hotel to be in readiness for their masters, should the latter wish to go out. Ruggiero sat down on a bench in the garden, but Bastianello went into the house. In the corridor outside the Marchesa's rooms he met Teresina, who stopped and spoke to him as she always did when she met him, for though she admired both the brothers, she liked Bastianello better than she knew--perhaps because he talked more and seemed to have a gentler temper. "Good-day, Bastianello," she said, with a bright smile. "And good-day to you, Teresina," answered Bastianello. "Can you tell me whether the padroni will go out to-day in the boat?" "I think they will not," answered the girl. "But I will ask. But I think they will not, because there is the devil in the house to-day, and the Signorina looks as though she would eat us all, and that is a bad sign." "What has happened?" asked Bastianello. "You can tell me, because I will tell nobody." "The truth is this," answered Teresina, lowering her voice. "They have betrothed her to the Count, and she does not like it. But if you say anything--." She laughed a little and shook her finger at him. Bastianello threw his head back to signify that he would not repeat what he had heard. Then he gazed into Teresina's eyes for a moment. "The Count is worse than an animal," he said quietly. "If you knew how true that is!" exclaimed Teresina, blushing deeply and turning away. "I will ask the Marchesa if she will go out," she added, as she walked quickly away. Bastianello waited and in a few moments she came back. "Not to-day," she said. "So much the better. I want to say something to you, Teresina. Will you listen to me? Can I say it here?" Bastianello felt unaccountably nervous, and when he had spoken he regretted it. "I hope it is good news," answered the girl. "Come to the window at the end of the corridor. We shall be further from the door there, and there is more air. Now what is it?" she asked as they reached the place she had chosen. "It is this, Teresina," said Bastianello, summoning all his courage for what was the most difficult undertaking of his life. "You know my brother Ruggiero." "Eh! I should think so! I see him every day." "Good. He also sees you every day, and he sees how beautiful you are, and now he knows how good you are, because the little boy of the Son of the Fool saw you with that apoplexy of a Count in the garden to-day, and heard what you said, and came and told me, and I told Ruggiero because I knew how glad he would be." "Dio mio!" cried Teresina. She had blushed scarlet while he was speaking, and she covered her face with both hands. "You need not hide your face, Teresina," said Bastianello, with a little emotion. "You can show it to every one after what you have done. And so I will go on, and you must listen. Ruggiero is not a great signore like the Count of San Miniato, but he is a man. And he has two arms which are good, and two fists as hard as an ox's hoofs, and he can break horse-shoes with his hands." "Can you do that?" asked Teresina with an admiring look. "Since you ask me--yes, I can. But Ruggiero did it before I could, and showed me how, and no one else here can do it at all. And moreover Ruggiero is a quiet man and does not drink nor play at the lotto, and there is no harm in a game of beggar-my-neighbour for a pipe of tobacco, on a long voyage when there is no work to be done, and--" "Yes, I know," said Teresina, interrupting him. "You are very much alike, you too. But what has this about Ruggiero to do with me, that you tell me it all?" "Who goes slowly, goes safely, and who goes safely goes far," answered Bastianello. "Listen to me. Ruggiero has also seven hundred and sixty-three francs in the bank, and will soon have more, because he saves his money carefully, though he is not stingy. And Ruggiero, if you will have him, will work for you, and I will also work for you, and you shall have a good house, and plenty to eat and good clothes besides the gold--" "But Bastianello mio!" cried Teresina, who had suspected what was coming, "I do not want to marry Ruggiero at all." She clasped her hands and gazed into the sailor's eyes with a pretty look of confusion and regret. "You do not want to marry Ruggiero!" Bastianello's expression certainly betrayed more surprise than disappointment. But he had honestly pleaded his brother's cause. "Then you do not love him," he said, as though unable to recover from his astonishment. "But no--I do not love him at all, though he is so handsome and good." "Madonna mia!" exclaimed Bastianello, turning sharply round and moving away a step or two. He was in great perturbation of spirit, for he loved the girl dearly, and he began to fear that he had not done his best for Ruggiero. "But you did love him a few days ago," he said, coming back to Teresina's side. "Indeed, I never did!" she said. "Nor any one else?" asked Bastianello suddenly. "Eh! I did not say that," answered the girl, blushing a little and looking down. "Well do not tell me his name, because I should tell Ruggiero, and Ruggiero might do him an injury. It is better not to tell me." Teresina laughed a little. "I shall certainly not tell you who he is," she said. "You can find that out for yourself, if you take the trouble." "It is better not. Either Ruggiero or I might hurt him, and then there would be trouble." "You, too?" "Yes, I too." Bastianello spoke the words rather roughly and looked fixedly into Teresina's eyes. Since she did not love Ruggiero, why should he not speak? Yet he felt as though he were not quite loyal to his brother. Teresina's cheeks grew red and then a little pale. She twisted the cord of the Venetian blind round and round her hand, looking down at it all the time. Bastianello stood motionless before her, staring at her thick black hair. "Well?" asked Teresina looking up and meeting his eyes and then lowering her own quickly again. "What, Teresina?" asked Bastianello in a changed voice. "You say you also might do that man an injury whom I love. I suppose that is because you are so fond of your brother. Is it so?" "Yes--and also--" "Bastianello, do you love me too?" she asked in a very low tone, blushing more deeply than before. "Yes. I do. God knows it. I would not have said it, though. Ah, Teresina, you have made a traitor of me! I have betrayed my brother--and for what?" "For me, Bastianello. But you have not betrayed him." "Since you do not love him--" began the sailor in a tone of doubt. "Not him, but another." "And that other--" "It is perhaps you, Bastianello," said Teresina, growing rather pale again. "Me!" He could only utter the one word just then. "Yes, you." "My love!" Bastianello's arm went gently round her, and he whispered the words in her ear. She let him hold her so without resistance, and looked up into his face with happy eyes. "Yes, your love--did you never guess it, dearest?" She was blushing still, and smiling at the same time, and her voice sounded sweet to Bastianello. Only a sailor and a serving-maid, but both honest and both really loving. There was not much eloquence about the courtship, as there had been about San Miniato's, and there was not the fierce passion in Bastianello's breast that was eating up his brother's heart. Yet Beatrice, at least, would have changed places with Teresina if she could, and San Miniato could have held his head higher if there had ever been as much honesty in him as there was in Bastianello's every thought and action. For Bastianello was very loyal, though he thought badly enough of his own doings, and when Beatrice called Teresina away a few minutes later, he marched down the corridor with resolute steps, meaning not to lose a moment in telling Ruggiero the whole truth, how he had honestly said the best things he could for him and had asked Teresina to marry him, and how he, Bastianello, had been betrayed into declaring his love, and had found, to his amazement, that he was loved in return. Ruggiero was sitting alone on one of the stone pillars on the little pier, gazing at the sea, or rather, at a vessel far away towards Ischia, running down the bay with every stitch of canvas set from her jibs to her royals. He looked round as Bastianello came up to him. "Ruggiero," said the latter in a quiet tone. "If you want to kill me, you may, for I have betrayed you." Ruggiero stared at him, to see whether he were in earnest or joking. "Betrayed me? I do not understand what you say. How could you betray me?" "As you shall know. Now listen. We were talking about Teresina to-day, you and I. Then I said to myself, 'I love Teresina and Ruggiero loves her, but Ruggiero is first. I will go to Teresina and ask her if she will marry him, and if she will, it is well. But if she will not, I will ask Ruggiero if I may court her for myself.' And so I did. And she will tell you the truth, and I spoke well for you. But she said she never loved you. And then, I do not know how it was, but we found out that we loved each other and we said so. And that is the truth. So you had better get a pig of iron from the ballast and knock me on the head, for I have betrayed my brother and I do not want to live any more, and I shall say nothing." Then Ruggiero who had not laughed much for some time, felt that his mouth was twitching raider his yellow beard, and presently his great shoulders began to move, and his chest heaved, and his handsome head went back, and at last it came out, a mighty peal of Homeric laughter that echoed and rolled down the pier and rang clear and full, up to the Marchesa's terrace. And it chanced that Beatrice was there, and she looked down and saw that it was Ruggiero. Then she sighed and drew back. But Bastianello did not understand, and when the laugh subsided at last, he said so. "I laughed--yes. I could not help it. But you are a good brother, and very honest, and when you want to marry Teresina, you may have my savings, and I do not care to be paid back." "But I do not understand," repeated Bastianello, in the greatest bewilderment. "You loved her so--" "Teresina? No. I never loved Teresina, but I never knew you did, or I would not have let you believe it. It is much more I who have cheated you, Bastianello, and when you and Teresina are married I will give you half my earnings, just as I now put them in the bank." "God be blessed!" exclaimed Bastianello, touching his cap, and staring at the same vessel that had attracted Ruggiero's attention. "She carries royal studding-sails," observed Ruggiero. "You do not often see that in our part of the world." "That is true," said Bastianello. "But I was not thinking of her, when I looked. And I thank you for what you say, Ruggiero, and with my heart. And that is enough, because it seems that we know each other." "We have been in the same crew once or twice," said Ruggiero. "It seems to me that we have," answered his brother. Neither of the two smiled, for they meant a good deal by the simple jest. "Tell me, Ruggiero," said Bastianello after a pause, "since you never loved Teresina, who is it?" "No, Bastianello. That is what I cannot tell any one, not even you." "Then I will not ask. But I think I know, now." Going over the events of the past weeks in his mind, it had suddenly flashed upon Bastianello that his brother loved Beatrice. Then everything explained itself in an instant. Ruggiero was such a gentleman--in Bastianello's eyes, of course--it was like him to break his heart for a real lady. "Perhaps you do know," answered Ruggiero gravely, "but if you do, then do not tell me. It is a business better not spoken of. But what one thinks, one thinks. And that is enough." A crowd of brown-skinned boys were in the water swimming and playing, as they do all day long in summer, and dashing spray at each other. They had a shabby-looking old skiff with which they amused themselves, upsetting and righting it again in the shallow water by the beach beyond the bathing houses. "What a boat!" laughed Bastianello. "A baby can upset her and it takes a dozen boys to right her again!" "Whose is she?" enquired Ruggiero idly, as he filled his pipe. "She? She belonged to Black Rag's brother, the one who was drowned last Christmas Eve, when the Leone was cut in two by the steamer in the Mouth of Procida. I suppose she belongs to Black Rag himself now. She is a crazy old craft, but if he were clever he could patch her up and paint her and take foreigners to the Cape in her on fine days." "That is true. Tell him so. There he is. Ohè! Black Rag!" Black Rag came down the pier to the two brothers, a middle-aged, bow-legged, leathery fellow with a ragged grey beard and a weather-beaten face. "What do you want?" he asked, stopping before them with his hands in his pockets. "Bastianello says that old tub there is yours, and that if you had a better head than you have you could caulk her and paint her white with a red stripe and take foreigners to the Bath of Queen Giovanna in her on fine days. Why do you not try it? Those boys are making her die an evil death." "Bastianello always has such thoughts!" laughed the sailor. "Why does he not buy her of me and paint her himself? The paint would hold her together another six months, I daresay." "Give her to me," said Ruggiero. "I will give you half of what I earn with her." Black Rag looked at him and laughed, not believing that he was in earnest. But Ruggiero slowly nodded his head as though to conclude a bargain. "I will sell her to you," said the sailor at last. "She belonged to that blessed soul, my brother, who was drowned--health to us--to-day is Saturday--and I never earned anything with her since she was mine. I will sell her cheap." "How much? I will give you thirty francs for her." Bastianello stared at his brother, but he made no remark while the bargain was being made, nor even when Ruggiero finally closed for fifty francs, paid the money down and proceeded to take possession of the old tub at once, to the infinite and forcibly expressed regret of the lads who had been playing with her. Then the two brothers hauled her up upon the sloping cement slip between the pier and the bathing houses, and turned her over. The boys swam away, and Black Rag departed with his money. "What have you bought her for, Ruggiero?" asked Bastianello. "She has copper nails," observed the other examining the bottom carefully. "She is worth fifty francs. Your thought was good. To-morrow she will be dry and we will caulk the seams, and the next day we will paint her and then we can take foreigners to the Cape in her if we have a chance and the signori do not go out. Lend a hand, Bastianello; we must haul her up behind the boats." Bastianello said nothing and the two strong men almost carried the old tub to a convenient place for working at her. "Do you want to do anything more to her to-night?" asked Bastianello. "No." "Then I will go up." "Very well." Ruggiero smiled as he spoke, for he knew that Bastianello was going to try and get another glimpse of Teresina. The ladies would probably go to drive and Teresina would be free until they came back. He sat down on a boat near the one he had just bought, and surveyed his purchase. He seemed on the whole well satisfied. It was certainly good enough for the foreigners who liked to be pulled up to the cape on summer evenings. She was rather easily upset, as Ruggiero had noticed, but a couple of bags of pebbles in the right place would keep her steady enough, and she had room for three or four people in the stern sheets and for two men to pull. Not bad for fifty francs, thought Ruggiero. And San Miniato had asked about going after crabs by torchlight. This would be the very boat for the purpose, for getting about in and out of the rocks on which the crabs swarm at night. Black Rag might have earned money with her. But Black Rag was rather a worthless fellow, who drank too much wine, played too much at the public lottery and wasted his substance on trifles. Ruggiero's purchase was much discussed that evening and all the next day by the sailors of the Piccola Marina. Some agreed that he had done well, and some said that he had made a mistake, but Ruggiero said nothing and paid no attention to the gossips. On the next day and the day after that he was at work before dawn with Bastianello, and Black Rag was very much surprised at the trim appearance of his old boat when the brothers at last put her into the water and pulled themselves round the little harbour to see whether the seams were all tight. But he pretended to put a good face on the matter, and explained that there were more rotten planks in her than any one knew of and that only the nails below the water line were copper after all, and he predicted a short life for Number Fifty Seven, when Ruggiero renewed the old licence in the little harbour office. Ruggiero, however, cared for none of these things, but ballasted the tub properly with bags of pebbles and demonstrated to the crowd that she was no longer easy to upset, inviting any one who pleased to stand on the gunwale and try. "But the ballast makes her heavy to pull," objected Black Rag, as he looked on. "If you had arms like the Children of the King," retorted the Cripple, "you would not trouble yourself about a couple of hundredweight more or less. But you have not. So you had better go and play three numbers at the lottery, the day of the month, the number of the boat and any other one that you like. In that way you may still make a little money if you have luck. For you have made a bad bargain with the Children of the King, and you know it." Black Rag was much struck by the idea and promptly went up to the town to invest his spare cash in the three numbers, taking his own age for the third. As luck would have it the two first numbers actually turned up and he won thirty francs that week, which, as he justly observed, brought the price of the boat up to eighty. For if he had not sold her he would never have played the numbers at all, and no one pretended that she was worth more than eighty francs, if as much. Then, one morning, San Miniato found Ruggiero waiting outside his door when he came out. The sailor grew leaner and more silent every day, but San Miniato seemed to grow stouter and more talkative. "If you would like to go after crabs this evening, Excellency," said the former, "the weather is good and they are swarming on the rocks everywhere." "What does one do with them?" asked San Miniato. "Are they good to eat?" "One knows that, Excellency. We put them into a kettle with milk, and they drink all the milk in the night and the next day they are good to cook." "Can we take the ladies, Ruggiero?" "In the sail boat, Excellency, and then, if you like, you and the Signorina can go with me in the little one with my brother, and I will pull while Bastianello and your Excellency take the crabs." "Very well. Then get a small boat ready for to-night, Ruggiero." "I have one of my own, Excellency." "So much the better. If the ladies will not go, you and I can go alone." "Yes, Excellency." San Miniato wondered why Ruggiero was so pale. CHAPTER XI. Again the mother and daughter were together in the cool shade of their terrace. Outside, it was very hot, for the morning breeze did not yet stir the brown linen curtains which kept out the glare of the sea, and myriads of locusts were fiddling their eternal two notes without pause or change of pitch, in every garden from Massa to Scutari point, which latter is the great bluff from which they quarry limestone for road making, and which shuts off the amphitheatre of Sorrento from the view of Castellamare to eastward. The air was dry, hot and full of life and sound, as it is in the far south in summer. "And when do you propose to marry me?" asked Beatrice in a discontented tone. "Dearest child," answered her mother, "you speak as though I were marrying you by force to a man whom you detest." "That is exactly what you are doing." The Marchesa raised her eyebrows, fanned herself lazily and smiled. "Are we to begin the old argument every morning, my dear?" she asked. "It always ends in the same way, and you always say the same dreadful things to me. I really cannot bear it much longer. You know very well that you bound yourself, and that you were quite free to tell San Miniato that you did not care for him. A girl should know her own mind before she tells a man she loves him--just as a man should before he speaks." "San Miniato certainly knows his own mind," retorted Beatrice viciously. "No one can accuse him of not being ready and anxious to marry me--and my fortune." "How you talk, my angel! Of course if you had no fortune, or much less than you have, he could not think of marrying you. That is clear. I never pretended the contrary. But that does not contradict the fact that he loves you to distraction, if that is what you want." "To distraction!" repeated Beatrice with scorn. "Why not, dearest child? Do you think a man cannot love because he is poor?" "That is not the question, mamma!" cried Beatrice impatiently. "You know it is not. But no woman can be deceived twice by the same comedy, and few would be deceived once. You know as well as I that it was all a play the other night, that he was trying to find words, as he was trying to find sentiments, and that when the words would not be found he thought it would be efficacious to seize my hand and kiss it. I daresay he thought I believed him--of course he did. But not for long--oh! not for long. Real love finds even fewer words, but it finds them better, and the ring of them is truer, and one remembers them longer!" "Beatrice!" exclaimed the Marchesa. "What can you know of such things! You talk as though some man had dared to speak to you--" "Do I?" asked the girl with sudden coldness, and a strange look came into her eyes, which her mother did not see. "Yes, you do. And yet I know that it is impossible. Besides the whole discussion is useless and wears me out, though it seems to interest you. Of course you will marry San Miniato. When you have got past this absurd humour you will see what a good husband you have got, and you will be very happy." "Happy! With that man!" Beatrice's lip curled. "You will," answered her mother, taking no notice. "Happiness depends upon two things in this world, when marriage is concerned. Money and a good disposition. You have both, between you, and you will be happy." "I never heard anything more despicable!" cried the young girl. "Money and disposition! And what becomes of the heart?" The Marchesa smiled and fanned herself. "Young girls without experience cannot understand these things," she said. "Wait till you are older." "And lose what looks I have and the power to enjoy anything! And you say that you are not forcing me into this marriage! And you try to think, or to make me think, that it is all for the best, and all delightful and all easy, when you are sacrificing me and my youth and my life and my happiness to the mere idea of a better position in society--because poor papa was a sulphur merchant and bought a title which was only confirmed because he spent a million on a public charity--and every one knows it--and the Count of San Miniato comes of people who have been high and mighty gentlemen for six or seven hundred years, more or less. That is your point of view, and you know it. But if I say that my father worked hard to get what he got and deserved it, and was an honest man, and that this great personage of San Miniato is a penniless gambler, who does not know to-day where he will find pocket money for to-morrow, and has got by a trick the fortune my father got by hard work--then you will not like it. Then you will throw up your hands and cry 'Beatrice!' Then you will tell me that he loves me to distraction, and you will even try to make me think that I love him. It is all a miserable sham, mamma, a vile miserable sham! Give it up. I have said that I will marry him, since it appears that I have promised. But do not try to make me think that I am marrying him of my own free will, or he marrying me out of disinterested, pure, beautiful, upright affection!" Having delivered herself of these particularly strong sentiments, Beatrice was silent for a while. As for the Marchesa, she was either too wise, or too lazy, to answer her daughter for the present and she slowly fanned herself, lying quite still in her long chair, her eyes half closed and her left hand hanging down beside her. Indeed Beatrice, instead of becoming more reconciled with the situation she had accepted, was growing more impatient and unhappy every day, as she realised all that her marriage with San Miniato would mean during the rest of her natural life. She had quite changed her mind about him, and with natures like hers such sudden changes are often irrevocable. She could not now understand how she could have ever liked him, or found pleasure in his society, and when she thought of the few words she had spoken and which had decided her fate, she could not comprehend the state of mind which had led her into such a piece of folly, and she was as angry with herself as, for the time being, she was angry with all the world besides. She saw, too, and for the first time, how lonely she was in the world, and a deep and burning longing for real love and sympathy took possession of her. She had friends, of course, as young girls have, of much her own age and not unlike her in their inexperienced ideas of life. But there was not one of them at Sorrento, nor had she met any one among the many acquaintances she had made, to whom she would care to turn. Even her own intimate associates from childhood, who were far away in Sicily, or travelling elsewhere, would not have satisfied her. They could not have understood her, their answers to her questions would have seemed foolish and worthless, and they would have tormented her with questions of their own, inopportune, importunate, tiresome. She herself did not know that what she craved was the love or the friendship of one strong, honest man. It was strange to find out suddenly how wide was the breach which separated her from her mother, with whom she had lived so happily throughout her childhood and early youth, with whom she had agreed--or rather, who had agreed with her--on the whole almost without a discussion. It was hard to find in her now so little warmth of heart, so little power to understand, above all such a display of determination and such quiet force in argument. Very indolent women are sometimes very deceptive in regard to the will they hold in reserve, but Beatrice could not have believed that her mother could influence her as she had done. She reflected that it had surely been within the limits of the Marchesa's choice to take her daughter's side so soon as she had seen that the latter had mistaken her own feelings. She need not have agreed with San Miniato, on that fatal evening at Tragara, that the marriage was definitely settled, until she had at least exchanged a word with Beatrice herself. The future looked black enough on that hot summer morning. The girl was to be tied for life to a man she despised and hated, to a man who did not even care for her, as she was now convinced, to a man with a past of which she knew little and of which the few incidents she had learned repelled her now, instead of attracting her. She fancied how he had spoken to those other women, much as he had spoken to her, perhaps a little more eloquently as, perhaps, he had not been thinking of their fortunes but of themselves, but still always in that high-comedy tone with the studied gesture and the cadenced intonation. She did not know whether they deserved her pity, those two whom he pretended to have loved, but she was ready to pity them, nameless as they were. The one was dead, the other, at least, had been wise enough to forget him in time. Then she thought of what must happen after her marriage, when he had got her fortune and could take her away to the society in which he had always lived. There, of course, he would meet women by the score with whom he was and long had been on terms of social intimacy far closer than he had reached with her in the few weeks of their acquaintance. Doubtless, he would spend such time as he could spare from gambling, in conversation with them. Doubtless, he had many thoughts and memories and associations in common with them. Doubtless, people would smile a little and pity the young countess. And Beatrice resented pity and the thought of it. She would rather pity others. Evil thoughts crossed her young brain, and she said to herself that she might perhaps be revenged upon the world for what she was suffering, for the pain that had already come into her young life, for the wretched years she anticipated in the future, for her mother's horrible logic which had forced her into the marriage, above all for San Miniato's cleverly arranged scene by which the current of her existence had been changed. San Miniato had perhaps gone too far when he had said that Beatrice was kind. She, at least, felt that there was anything but kindness in her heart now, and she desired nothing so much as to make some one suffer something of what she felt. It was wicked, doubtless, as she admitted to herself. It was bad and wrong and cruel, but it was not heartless. A woman without heart would not have felt enough to resent having felt at all, and moreover would probably be perfectly well satisfied with the situation. The expression of hardness deepened in the young girl's face as she sat there, silently thinking over all that was to come, and glancing from time to time at her mother's placid countenance. It was really amazing to see how much the Marchesa could bear when she was actually roused to a sense of the necessity for action. Her constitution must have been far stronger than any one supposed. She must indeed have been in considerable anxiety about the success of her plans, more than once during the past few days. Yet she was outwardly almost as unruffled and as lazy as ever. "Dearest child," she said at last, "of course, as I have said, I cannot argue the point with you. No one could, in your present state of mind. But there is one thing which I must say, and which I am sure you will be quite ready to understand." Beatrice said nothing, but slowly turned her head towards her mother with a look of inquiry. "I only want to say, my angel, that whatever you may think of San Miniato, and however much you may choose to let him know what you think, it may be quite possible to act with more civility than you have used during the last few days." "Is that all?" asked Beatrice with a hard laugh. "How nicely you turn your phrases when you lecture me, mamma! So you wish me to be civil. Very well, I will try." "Thank you, Beatrice carissima," answered her mother with a sigh and a gentle smile. "It will make life so much easier." Again there was a long silence, and Beatrice sat motionless in her chair, debating whether she should wait where she was until San Miniato came, as he was sure to do before long, or whether she should go to her room and write a letter to some intimate friend, which would of course never be sent, or, lastly, whether she should not take Teresina and go down to her bath in the sea before the midday breakfast. While she was still hesitating, San Miniato arrived. There was something peculiarly irritating to her in his appearance on that morning. He was arrayed in perfectly new clothes of light gray, which fitted him admirably. He wore shoes of untanned leather which seemed to be perfectly new also, and reflected the light as though they were waxed. His stiff collar was like porcelain, the single pearl he wore in his white scarf was so perfect that it might have been false. His light hair and moustache were very smoothly brushed and combed and his face was exasperatingly sleek. There was a look of conscious security about him, of overwhelming correctness and good taste, of pride in himself and in his success, which Beatrice felt to be almost more than she could bear with equanimity. He bent gracefully over the Marchesa's hand and bowed low to the young girl, not supposing that hers would be offered to him. In this he was mistaken, however, for she gave him the ends of her fingers. "Good morning," she said gently. The Marchesa looked at her, for she had not expected that she would speak first and certainly not in so gentle a tone. San Miniato inquired how the two ladies had slept. "Admirably," said Beatrice. "Ah--as for me, dearest friend," said the Marchesa, "you know what a nervous creature I am. I never sleep." "You look as though you had rested wonderfully well," observed Beatrice to San Miniato. "Half a century, at least!" "Do I?" asked the Count, delighted by her manner and quite without suspicion. "Yes. You look twenty years younger." "About ten years old?" suggested San Miniato with a smile. "Oh no! I did not mean that. You look about twenty, I should say." "I am charmed," he answered, without wincing. "It may be only those beautiful new clothes you have on," said Beatrice with a sweet smile. "Clothes make so much difference with a man." San Miniato did not show any annoyance, but he made no direct answer and turned to the Marchesa. "Marchesa gentilissima," he said, "you liked my last excursion, or were good enough to say that you liked it. Would you be horrified if I proposed another for this evening--but not so far, this time?" "Absolutely horrified," answered the Marchesa. "But I suppose that if you have made up your mind you will bring those dreadful men with their chair, like two gendarmes, and they will take me away, whether I like it or not. Is that what you mean to do?" "Of course, dearest Marchesa," he replied. "Donna Beatrice has taught me that there is no other way of accomplishing the feat. And certainly no other way could give you so little trouble." "What is the excursion to be, and where?" asked Beatrice pretending a sudden interest. "Crab-hunting along the shore, with torches. It is extremely amusing, I am told." "After horrid red things that run sidewise and are full of legs!" The Marchesa was disgusted. "They are green when they run about, mamma," observed Beatrice. "I believe it is the cooking that makes them red. It will be delightful," she added, turning to San Miniato. "Does one walk?" "Walk!" exclaimed the Marchesa, a new horror rising before her mental vision. "We go in boats," said San Miniato. "In the sail boat first and then in a little one to find the crabs. I suppose, Marchesa carissima, that Donna Beatrice may come with me in the skiff, under your eye, if she is accompanied by your maid?" "Of course, my dear San Miniato! Do you expect me to get into your little boat and hunt for reptiles? Or do you expect that Beatrice will renounce the amusement of getting wet and covered with seaweed and thoroughly unpresentable?" "And you, Donna Beatrice? Do you still wish to come?" "Yes. I just said so." "But that was at least a minute ago," answered San Miniato. "Ah--you think me very changeable? You are mistaken. I will go with you to find crabs to-night. Is that categorical? Must you consult my mother to know what I mean?" "It will not be necessary this time," replied the Count, quite unmoved. "I think we understand each other." "I think so," said Beatrice with a hard smile. The Marchesa was not much pleased by the tone the conversation was taking. But if Beatrice said disagreeable things, she said them in a pleasant voice and with a moderately civil expression of face, which constituted a concession, after all, considering how she had behaved ever since the night at Tragara, scarcely vouchsafing San Miniato a glance, answering him by monosyllables and hardly ever addressing him at all. "My dear children," said the elder lady, affecting a tone she had not assumed before, "I really hope that you mean to understand each other, and will." "Oh yes, mamma!" assented Beatrice with alacrity. "With you to help us I am sure we shall come to a very remarkable understanding--very remarkable indeed!" "With originality on your side, and constancy on mine, we may accomplish much," said San Miniato, very blandly. Beatrice laughed again. "Translate originality as original sin and constancy as the art of acting constantly!" she retorted. "Why?" enquired San Miniato without losing his temper. He thought the question would be hard to answer. "Why not?" asked Beatrice. "You will not deny me a little grain of original sin, will you? It will make our life so much more varied and amusing, and when I say that you act constantly--I only mean what you said of yourself, that you are constant in your actions." "You so rarely spare me a compliment, Donna Beatrice, that you must forgive me for not having understood that one sooner. Accept my best thanks--" "And agree to the expression of my most distinguished sentiments, as the French say at the end of a letter," said Beatrice, rising. "And now that I have complimented everybody, and been civil, and pleased everybody, and have been thanked and have taken all the original sin of the party upon my own shoulders, I will go and have a swim before breakfast. Good-bye, mamma. Good-bye, Count." With a quick nod, she turned and left them, and went in search of Teresina, whose duty it was to accompany her to the bath. The maid was unusually cheerful, though she had not failed to notice the change in Beatrice's manner which had taken place since the day of the betrothal, and she understood it well enough, as she had told Bastianello. Moreover she pitied her young mistress sincerely and hated San Miniato with all her heart; but she was so happy herself that she could not possibly hide it. "You are very glad that I am to be married, Teresina," said Beatrice as they went out of the house together, the maid carrying a large bag containing bathing things. "I, Signorina? Do you ask me the real truth? I do not know whether to be glad or sorry. I pray you, Signorina, tell me which I am to be." "Oh--glad of course!" returned Beatrice, with a bitter little laugh. "A marriage should always be a matter for rejoicing. Why should you not be glad--like every one else?" "Like you, Signorina?" asked Teresina with a glance at the young girl's face. "Yes: Like me." And Beatrice laughed again in the same way. "Very well, Signorina. I will be as glad as you are. I shall find it very easy." It was Beatrice's turn to look at her, which she did, rather suspiciously. It was clear enough that the girl had her doubts. "Just as glad as you are, Signorina, and no more," said Teresina again, in a lower voice, as though she were speaking to herself. Beatrice said nothing in answer. As they reached the end of the path through the garden, they saw Ruggiero and his brother sitting as usual by the porter's lodge. Both got up and came quickly forward. Bastianello took the bag from Teresina's hand, and the maid and the two sailors followed Beatrice at a little distance as she descended the inclined tunnel. It was pleasant, a few minutes later, to lie in the cool clear water and look up at the blue sky above and listen to the many sounds that came across from the little harbour. Beatrice felt a sense of rest for the first time in several days. She loved the sea and all that belonged to it, for she had been born within sight of it and had known it since she had been a child, and she always came back to it as to an element that understood her and which she understood. She swam well and loved the easy, fluent motion she felt in the exercise, and she loved to lie on her back with arms extended and upturned face, drinking in the light breeze and the sunshine and the deep blue freshness of sky and water. While she was bathing Bastianello and Teresina sat together behind the bathing-house, but Ruggiero retired respectfully to a distance and busied himself with giving his little boat a final washing, mopping out the water with an old sponge, which he passed again and again over each spot, as though never satisfied with the result. He would have thought it bad manners indeed to be too near the bathing-place when Beatrice was in swimming. But he kept an eye on Teresina, whom he could see talking with his brother, and when she went into the cabin, he knew that Beatrice had finished her bath, and he found little more to do in cleaning the old tub, which indeed, to a landsman's eye, presented a decidedly smart appearance in her new coat of white paint, with a scarlet stripe. When he had finished, he sauntered up to the wooden bridge that led to the bathing cabins and sat down on the upper rail, hooking one foot behind the lower one. Bastianello, momentarily separated from Teresina, came and stood beside him. "A couple of fenders would save the new paint on her, if we are going for crabs," he observed, thoughtfully. Ruggiero made that peculiar side motion of the head which means assent and approval in the south. "And we will bring our own kettle for the crabs, and get the milk from the hotel," continued the younger brother, who anticipated an extremely pleasant evening in the society of Teresina. "And I have told Saint Peter to bring the torches, because he knows where to get them good," added Bastianello who did not expect Ruggiero to say anything. "What time do we go?" "Towards an hour and a half of the night," said Ruggiero, meaning two hours after sunset. "Then the padroni will have eaten and the rocks will be covered with crabs, and the moon will not be yet risen. It will be dark under Scutari till past midnight, and the crabs will sit still under the torch, and we can take them with our hands as we always do." "Of course," answered Bastianello, who was familiar with the sport, "one knows that." "And I will tell you another thing," continued Ruggiero, who seemed to warm with the subject. "You shall pull stroke and I will pull bow. In that way you will be near to Teresina and she will amuse herself the better, for you and she can take the crabs while I hold the torch." "And the Signorina and the Count can sit together in the stern," said Bastianello, who seemed much pleased with the arrangement. "The best crabs are between Scutari and the natural arch." "One knows that," assented Ruggiero, and relapsed into silence. Presently the door of the cabin opened and Beatrice came out, her cheeks and eyes fresh and bright from the sea. Of course Bastianello at once ran to help Teresina wring out the wet things and make up her bundle, and Beatrice came towards Ruggiero, who took off his cap and stood bareheaded in the sun as she went by, and then walked slowly behind her, at a respectful distance. To reach the beginning of the ascent they had to make their way through the many boats hauled up beyond the slip upon the dry sand. Beatrice gathered her light skirt in her hand as she passed Ruggiero's newly painted skiff, for she was familiar enough with boats to know that the oil might still be fresh. "It is quite dry, Excellency," he said. "The boat belongs to me." Beatrice turned with a smile, looked at it and then at Ruggiero. "What did I tell you the other day, Ruggiero?" she asked, still smiling. "You were to call me Signorina. Do you remember?" "Yes, Signorina. I beg pardon." Beatrice saw that Teresina had not yet left the cabin with her bag, and that Bastianello was loitering before the door, pretending or really trying to help her. "Do you know what Teresina has been telling me, Ruggiero?" asked Beatrice, stopping entirely and turning towards him as they stood in the narrow way between Ruggiero's boat and the one lying next to her. "Of Bastianello, Signorina?" "Yes. That she wants to marry him. She told me while I was dressing. You know?" "Yes, Signorina, and I laughed when he told me the story the other day, over there on the pier." "I heard you laughing, Ruggiero," answered Beatrice, remembering the unpleasant impression she had received when she had looked down from the terrace. His huge mirth had come up as a sort of shock to her in the midst of her own trouble. "Why did you laugh?" she asked. "Must I tell you, Signorina?" "Yes." "It was this. Bastianello had a thought. He imagined to himself that I loved Teresina--I!--" Ruggiero broke off in the sentence and looked away. His voice shook with the deep vibration that sometimes pleased Beatrice. He paused a moment and then went on. "I, who have quite other thoughts. And so he said with himself, 'Ruggiero loves and is afraid to speak, but I will speak for him.' But it was honest of him, Signorina, for he loved her himself. And so he asked her for me first. But she would not. And then, between one word and another, they found out that they loved. And I am very glad, for Teresina is a good girl as she showed the other day in the garden, and the little boy of the Son of the Fool saw it when she threw the gold at that man's feet--" He stopped again, suddenly realising what he was saying. But Beatrice, quick to suspect, saw the look of pained embarrassment in his face and almost guessed the truth. She grew pale by degrees. "What man?" she asked shortly. Ruggiero turned his head and looked away from her, gazing out to seaward. "What was the man's name?" she asked again with the stern intonation that anger could give her voice. Still Ruggiero would not speak. But his white face told the truth well enough. "On what day was it?" she enquired, as though she meant to be answered. "It was the day when you talked with me about my name, Signorina." "At what time?" "It must have been between midday and one o'clock." Beatrice remembered how on that day San Miniato had given a shallow excuse for not remaining to breakfast at that hour. "And what was his name?" she now asked for the third time. "Excellency--Signorina--do not ask me!" Ruggiero was not good at lying. "It was the Conte di San Miniato, Ruggiero," said Beatrice in a low voice that trembled with anger. Her face was now almost as white as the sailor's. Ruggiero said nothing at first, but turned his head away again. "Per Dio!" he ejaculated after a short pause. But there was no mistaking the tone. Beatrice turned away and with bent head began to walk towards the ascent. She could not help the gesture she made, clenching her hands once fiercely and then opening them wide again; but she thought no one could see her. Ruggiero saw, and understood. "She is saying to herself, 'I must marry that infamous animal,'" thought Ruggiero. "But I do not think that she will marry him." At the foot of the ascent, Beatrice turned and looked back. Teresina and Bastianello were coming quickly along the little wooden bridge, but Ruggiero was close to her. "You have not done me a good service to-day, Ruggiero," she said, but kindly, dreading to wound him. "But it is my fault, and I should not have pressed you as I did. Do not let the thought trouble you." "I thank you, Signorina. And it is true that this was not a good service, and I could bite out my tongue because it was not. But some Saint may give me grace to do you one more, and that shall be very good." "Thank you, Ruggiero," said Beatrice, as the maid and the other sailor came up. CHAPTER XII. Beatrice did not speak again as she slowly walked up the steep ascent to the hotel. Bastianello and Teresina exchanged a word now and then in a whisper and Ruggiero came last, watching the dark outline of Beatrice's graceful figure, against the bright light which shone outside at the upper end of the tunnel. Many confused thoughts oppressed him, but they were like advancing and retreating waves breaking about the central rock of his one unalterable purpose. He followed Beatrice till they reached the door of the house. Then she turned and smiled at him, and turned again and went in. Bastianello of course carried the bag upstairs for Teresina, and Ruggiero stayed below. He was very calm and quiet throughout that day, busying himself from time to time with some detail of the preparations for the evening's excursion, but sitting for the most part alone, far out on the breakwater where the breeze was blowing and the light surf breaking just high enough to wet his face from time to time with fine spray. He had made up his mind, and he calmly thought over all that he meant to do, that it might be well done, quickly and surely, without bungling. To-morrow, he would not be sitting out there, breathing in the keen salt air and listening to the music of the surging water, which was the only harmony he had ever loved. His was a very faithful and simple nature, and since he had loved Beatrice, it had been even further simplified. He thought only of her, he had but one object, which was to serve her, and all he did must tend to the attainment of that one result. Now, too, he had seen with his eyes and had understood in other ways that she was to be married against her will to a man she hated and despised, and who was already betraying her. He did not try to understand how it all was, but his instinct told him that she had been tricked into saying the words she had spoken to San Miniato at Tragara, and that she had never meant them. That at least was more comprehensible to him than it might have been to a man of Beatrice's own class. Her head had been turned for a moment, as Ruggiero would have said, and afterwards she had understood the truth. He had heard many stories of the kind from his companions. Women were changeable, of course. Every one knew that. And why? Because men were bad and tempted them, and moreover because they were so made. He did not love Beatrice for any moral quality she might or might not possess, he was far too human, and natural and too little educated to seek reasons for the passion that devoured him. Since he felt it, it was real. What other proof of its reality could he need? It never entered his head to ask for any, and his heart would not have beaten more strongly or less rudely for twenty reasons, on either side. And now he was strangely happy and strangely calm as he sat there by himself. Beatrice could never love him. The mere idea was absurd beyond words. How could she love a common man like himself? But she did not love San Miniato either, and unless something were done quickly she would be forced into marrying him. Of course a mother could make her daughter marry whom she pleased. Ruggiero knew that. The only way of saving Beatrice was to make an end of San Miniato, and that was a very simple matter indeed. San Miniato would be but a poor thing in those great hands of Ruggiero's, though he was a well grown man and still young and certainly stronger than the average of fine gentlemen. Of course it was a great sin to kill San Miniato. Murder was always a sin, and people who did murder and died unabsolved always went straight into eternal fire. But the eternal fire did not impress Ruggiero much. In the first place Beatrice would be free and quite happy on earth, and in the natural course of things would go to Heaven afterwards, since she could have no part whatever in San Miniato's destruction. Secondly, San Miniato would be with Ruggiero in the flames, and throughout all eternity Ruggiero would have the undying satisfaction of having brought him there without any one's help. That would pay for any amount of burning, in the simple and uncompromising view of the future state which he took. So he sat on the block of stone and listened to the sea and thought it all over quietly, feeling very happy and proud, since he was to be the means of saving the woman he loved. What more could any man ask, if he could not be loved, than to give his soul and his body for such a good and just end? Perhaps Ruggiero's way of looking at the present and future state might have puzzled more than one theologian on that particular afternoon. While Ruggiero was deciding matters of life and death in his own way, with absolute certainty of carrying out his intentions, matters were not proceeding smoothly on the Marchesa's terrace. The midday breakfast had passed off fairly well, though Beatrice had again grown silent, and the conversation was carried on by San Miniato with a little languid help from the Marchesa. The latter was apparently neither disturbed nor out of humour in consequence of the little scene which had taken place in the morning. She took a certain amount of opposition on Beatrice's part as a matter of course, and was prepared to be very long-suffering with the girl's moods, partly because it was less trouble than to do battle with her, and partly because it was really wiser. Beatrice must grow used to the idea of marriage and must be gradually accustomed to the daily companionship of San Miniato. The Marchesa, in her wisdom, was well aware that Beatrice would never see as much of him when he was her husband as she did now that they were only engaged. San Miniato would soon take up his own life of amusement by day and night, in his own fashion, and Beatrice on her side would form her own friendships and her own ties as best pleased her, subject only to occasional interference from the Count, when he chanced to be in a jealous humour, or when it happened that Beatrice was growing intimate with some lady who had once known him too well. After breakfast, as usual, they drank coffee and smoked upon the terrace, which Beatrice was beginning to hate for its unpleasant associations. Before long, however, she disappeared, leaving her mother and San Miniato together. The latter talked carelessly and agreeably at first, but insensibly led the conversation to the subject of money in general and at last to the question of Beatrice's marriage settlement in particular. He was very tactful and would probably have reached this desired point in the conversation in spite of the Marchesa, had she avoided it. But she was in the humour to discuss the matter and let him draw her on without opposition. She had thought it all over and had determined what she should do. San Miniato was surprised, and not altogether agreeably, by her extreme clearness of perception when they actually arrived at the main discussion. "You are aware, San Miniato mio," she was saying, "that my poor husband was a very rich man, and you are of course familiar--you who know everything--with the laws of inheritance in our country. As our dear Beatrice is an only child, the matter would have been simple, even if he had not made a will. I should have had my widow's portion and she would have had all the rest, as she ultimately will." "Of course, dearest Marchesa. I understood that. But it is most kind of you to tell me about the details. In Beatrice's interest--and her interests will of course be my first concern in life--" "Of course, carissimo," said the Marchesa, interrupting him. "Can I doubt it? Should I have chosen you out of so many to be my son-in-law if I had not understood from the first all the nobility and uprightness of your fine character?" "How good you are to me!" exclaimed San Miniato, who mistrusted the preamble, but was careful not to show it. "Not at all, dear friend! I am never good. It is such horrible trouble to be either good or bad, as you would know if you had my nerves. But we were speaking of my poor husband's will. One half of his fortune of course he was obliged to leave to his daughter. He could dispose of the other half as he pleased. I believe it was that admirable man, the first Napoleon, who invented that just law, was it not? Yes, I was sure. My husband left the other half to me, provided I should not marry--he was a very thoughtful man! But if I did, the money was to go to Beatrice at once. If I did not, however, I was--as I really am--quite free to dispose of it as I pleased." "How very just!" exclaimed San Miniato. "Do you think so? Yes. But further, I wish to tell you that he set aside a sum out of what he left Beatrice, to be her dowry--just a trifle, you know, to be paid to her husband on the marriage, as is customary. But all the remainder, compared with which the dowry itself is insignificant, does not pass into her hands until she is of age, and of course remains entirely in her control." "I understand," said San Miniato in a tone which betrayed some nervousness in spite of his best efforts to be calm, for he had assuredly not understood before. "Of course you understand, dearest friend," answered the Marchesa. "You are so clever and you have such a good head for affairs, which I never had. I assure you I never could understand anything about money. It is all so mysterious and complicated! Give me one of your cigarettes, I am quite exhausted with talking." "I think you do yourself injustice, dearest Marchesa," said San Miniato, offering her his open case. "You have, I think, a remarkably good understanding for business. I really envy you." The Marchesa smiled languidly, and slowly inhaled the smoke from the cigarette as he held the match for her. "I have no doubt you learned a great deal from the Marchese," continued San Miniato. "I must say that he displayed a keenness for his daughter's interests such as merits the sincerest admiration. Take the case, which happily has not arisen, dearest friend. Suppose that Beatrice should discover that she had married a mere fortune-hunter. The man would be entirely in your power and hers. It is admirably arranged." "Admirably," assented the Marchesa without a smile. "It would be precisely as you say. Beyond a few hundred thousand francs which he would control as the dowry, he could touch nothing. He would be wholly dependent on his wife and his mother-in-law. You see my dear husband wished to guard against even the most improbable cases. How thankful I am that heaven has sent Beatrice such a man as you!" "Always good! Always kind!" San Miniato bent his head a little lower than was necessary as he looked at his watch. He had something in his eyes which he preferred to hide. Just then Beatrice's step was heard on the tiled floor of the sitting-room, and neither the Marchesa nor San Miniato thought it worth while to continue the conversation with the danger of being overheard. So the afternoon wore on, bright and cloudless, and when the air grew cool Beatrice and her mother drove out together along the Massa road, and far up the hill towards Sant' Agata. They talked little, for it is not easy to talk in the rattling little carriages which run so fast behind the young Turkish horses, and the roads are not always good, even in summer. But San Miniato was left to his own devices and went and bathed, walking out into the water as far as he could and then standing still to enjoy the coolness. Ruggiero saw him from the breakwater and watched him with evident interest. The Count, as has been said before, could not swim a stroke, and was probably too old to learn. But he liked the sea and bathing none the less, as Ruggiero knew. He stayed outside the bathing-house fully half an hour, and then disappeared. "It was not worth while," said Ruggiero to himself, "since you are to take another bath so soon." Then he looked at the sun and saw that it lacked half an hour of sunset, and he went to see that all was ready for the evening. He and Bastianello launched the old tub between them, and Ruggiero ballasted her with two heavy sacks of pebbles just amidships, where they would be under his feet. "Better shift them a little more forward," said Bastianello. "There will be three passengers, you said." "We do not know," answered Ruggiero. "If there are three I can shift them quickly when every one is aboard." So Bastianello said nothing more about it, and they got the kettle and the torches and stowed them away in the bows. "You had better go home and cook supper," said Ruggiero. "I will come when it is dark, for then the others will have eaten and I will leave two to look out." Bastianello went ashore on the pier and his brother pulled the skiff out till he was alongside of the sailboat, to which he made her fast. He busied himself with trifles until it grew dark and there was no one on the pier. Then he got into the boat again, taking a bit of strong line with him, a couple of fathoms long, or a little less. Stooping down he slipped the line under the bags of ballast and made a timber-hitch with the end, hauling it well taut. With the other end he made a bowline round the thwart on which he was sitting, and on which he must sit to pull the bow oar in the evening. He tied the knot wide enough to admit of its running freely from side to side of the boat, and he stowed the bight between the ballast and the thwart, so that it lay out of sight in the bottom. The two sacks of pebbles together weighed, perhaps, from a half to three-quarters of a hundredweight. When all was ready he went ashore and shouted for the Cripple and the Son of the Fool, who at once appeared out of the dusk, and were put on board the sailboat by him. Then he pulled himself ashore and moored the tub to a ring in the pier. It was time for supper. Bastianello would be waiting for him, and Ruggiero went home. As the evening shadows fell, Beatrice was seated at the piano in the sitting-room playing softly to herself such melancholy music as she could remember, which was not much. It gave her relief, however, for she could at least try and express something of what would not and could not be put into words. She was not a musician, but she played fairly well, and this evening there was something in the tones she drew from the instrument which many a musician might have envied. She threw into her touch all that she was suffering and it was a faint satisfaction to her to listen to the lament of the sad notes as she struck them and they rose and fell and died away. The door opened and San Miniato entered. She heard his footstep and recognised it, and immediately she struck a succession of loud chords and broke into a racing waltz tune. "You were playing something quite different, when I came to the door," he said, sitting down beside her. "I thought you might prefer something gay," she answered without looking at him and still playing on. San Miniato did not answer the remark, for he distrusted her and fancied she might have a retort ready. Her tongue was often sharper than he liked, though he was not sensitive on the whole. "Will you sing something to me?" he asked, as she struck the last chords of the waltz. "Oh yes," she replied with an alacrity that surprised him, "I feel rather inclined to sing. Mamma," she cried, as the Marchesa entered the room, "I am going to sing to my betrothed. Is it not touching?" "It is very good of you," said San Miniato. The Marchesa smiled and sank into a chair. Beatrice struck a few chords and then, looking at the Count with half closed eyes, began to sing the pathetic little song of Chiquita. "On dit que l'on te marie Tu sais que j'en vais mourir--" Her voice was very sweet and true and there was real pathos in the words as she sang them. But as she went on, San Miniato noticed first that she repeated the second line, and then that she sang all the remaining melody to it, singing it over and over again with an amazing variety of expression, angrily, laughingly, ironically and sadly. "--Tu sais que j'en vais mourir!" She ended, with a strange burst of passion. She rose suddenly to her feet and shut the lid down sharply upon the key-board. "How perfectly we understand each other, do we not?" she said sweetly, a moment later, and meeting San Miniato's eyes. "I hope we always shall," he answered quietly, pretending not to have understood. She left him with her mother and went out upon the terrace and looked down at the black water deep below and at the lights of the yachts and the far reflections of the stars upon the smooth bay, and at the distant light on Capo Miseno. The night air soothed her a little, and when dinner was announced and the three sat down to the table at the other end of the terrace her face betrayed neither discontent nor emotion, and she joined in the conversation indifferently enough, so that San Miniato and her mother thought her more than usually agreeable. At the appointed time the two porters appeared with the Marchesa's chair, and Teresina brought in wraps and shawls, quite useless on such a night, and the little party left the room in procession, as they had done a few days earlier when they started for Tragara. But their mood was very different to-night. Even the Marchesa forgot to complain and let herself be carried down without the least show of resistance. On the first excursion none of them had quite understood the other, and all of them except poor Ruggiero had been in the best of humours. Now they all understood one another too well, and they were silent and uneasy when together. They hardly knew why they were going, and San Miniato almost regretted having persuaded them. Doubtless the crabs were numerous along the rocky shore and they would catch hundreds of them before midnight. Doubtless also, the said crustaceans would be very good to eat on the following day. But no one seemed to look forward to the delight of the sport or of the dish afterwards, excepting Teresina and Bastianello who whispered together as they followed last. Ruggiero went in front carrying a lantern, and when they reached the pier it was he who put the party on board, made the skiff fast astern of the sailboat and jumped upon the stern, himself the last of all. The night breeze was blowing in gusts off the shore, as it always does after a hot day in the summer, and Ruggiero took advantage of every puff of wind, while the men pulled in the intervals of calm. The starlight was very bright and the air so clear that the lights of Naples shone out distinctly, the beginning of the chain of sparks that lies like a necklace round the sea from Posilippo to Castellamare. The air was soft and dry, so that there was not the least moisture on the gunwale of the boat. Every one was silent. Then on a sudden there was a burst of music. San Miniato had prepared it as a surprise, and the two musicians had passed unnoticed where they sat in the bows, hidden from sight by the foresail so soon as the boat was under way. Only a mandolin and a guitar, but the best players of the whole neighbourhood. It was very pretty, and the attempt to give pleasure deserved, perhaps, more credit than it received. "It is charming, dearest friend!" was all the Marchesa vouchsafed to say, when the performers paused. Beatrice sat stony and unmoved, and spoke no word. She said to herself that San Miniato was again attempting to prepare the scenery for a comedy, and she could have laughed to think that he should still delude himself so completely. Teresina would have clapped her hands in applause had she dared, but she did not, and contented herself with trying to see into Bastianello's eyes. She was very near him as she sat furthest forward in the stern-sheets and he pulled the starboard stroke oar, leaning forward upon the loom, as the gust filled the sails and the boat needed no pulling. "You do not care for the mandolin, Donna Beatrice?" said San Miniato, with a sort of disappointed interrogation in his voice. "Have I said that I do not care for it?" asked the young girl indifferently. "You take too much for granted." Grim and silent on the stern sat Ruggiero, the tiller in his hand, his eye on the dark water to landward constantly on the look-out for the gusts that came down so quickly and which could deal treacherously with a light craft like the one he was steering. But he had no desire to upset her to-night, nor even to bring the tiller down on his master's head. There was to be no bungling about the business he had in hand, no mistakes and no wasting of lives. The mandolin tinkled and the guitar strummed vigorously as they neared Scutari point, vast, black and forbidding in the starlight. But a gloom had settled upon the party which nothing could dispel. It was as though the shadow of coming evil had overtaken them and were sweeping along with them across the dark and silent water. There was something awful in the stillness under the enormous bluff, as Ruggiero gave the order to stop pulling and furl the sails, and he himself brought the skiff alongside by the painter, got in and kept her steady, laying his hand upon the gunwale of the larger boat. Bastianello stood up to help Beatrice and Teresina. "Will you come, Donna Beatrice?" asked San Miniato, wishing with all his heart that he had never proposed the excursion. It seemed absurd to refuse after coming so far and the young girl got into the skiff, taking Ruggiero's hand to steady herself. It did not tremble to-night as it had trembled a few days ago. Beatrice was glad, for she fancied that he was recovering from his insane passion for her. Then San Miniato got over, rather awkwardly as he did everything so soon as he left the land. Then Teresina jumped down, and last of all Bastianello. So they shoved off and pulled away into the deep shadow under the bluffs. There the cliff rises perpendicularly seven hundred feet out of the water, deeply indented at its base with wave-worn caves and hollows, but not affording a fast hold anywhere save on the broad ledge of the single islet of rock from which a high natural arch springs suddenly across the water to the abrupt precipice which forms the mountain's base. Calmly, as though it were an every-day excursion, Ruggiero lighted a torch and held it out when the boat was alongside of the rocks, showing the dark green crabs that lay by dozens motionless as though paralysed by the strong red glare. And Bastianello picked them off and tossed them into the kettle at his feet, as fast as he could put out his hands to take them. Teresina tried, too, but one almost bit her tender fingers and she contented herself with looking on, while San Miniato and Beatrice silently watched the proceedings from their place in the stern. Little by little Ruggiero made the boat follow the base of the precipice, till she was under the natural arch. "Pardon, Excellency," he said quietly, "but the foreigners think this is a sight with the torches. If you will go ashore on the ledge, I will show it you." The proposal seemed very natural under the circumstances, and as the operation of picking crabs off the rocks and dropping them into a caldron loses its interest when repeated many times, Beatrice immediately assented. The larger boat was slowly following and the tinkle of the mandolin, playing waltz music, rang out through the stillness. Ruggiero brought the skiff alongside of the ledge where it was lowest. "Get ashore, Bastianello," he said in the same quiet tone. Bastianello obeyed and stood ready to help Beatrice, who came next. As she stepped upon the rock Ruggiero raised the torch high with one hand, so that the red light fell strong and full upon her face, and he looked keenly at her, his eyes fixing themselves strangely, as she could see, for she could not help glancing down at him as she stood still upon the ledge. "Now Teresina," said Ruggiero, still gazing up at Beatrice. Teresina grasped Bastianello's hand and sprang ashore, happy as a child at the touch. San Miniato was about to follow and had already risen from his seat. But with a strong turn of his hand Ruggiero made the stern of the skiff swing out across the narrow water that is twenty fathoms deep between the mountain and the islet. "What are you doing?" asked San Miniato impatiently. "Let me land!" But Ruggiero pushed the boat's head off and she floated free between the rocks. "You and I can take a bath together," said the sailor very quietly. "The water is very deep here." San Miniato started. There was a sudden change in Ruggiero's face. "Land me!" cried the Count in a commanding tone. "In hell!" answered the sailor's deep voice. At the same moment he dropped the torch, and seizing the bags of ballast that lay between his feet, hove them overboard, springing across the thwarts towards San Miniato as he let them go. The line slipped to the side as the heavy weight sank and the boat turned over just as the strong man's terrible fingers closed round his enemy's throat in the darkness. San Miniato's death cry rent the still air--there was a little splashing, and all was done. * * * * * So I have told my tale, such as it is, how Ruggiero of the Children of the King gave himself body and soul to free Beatrice Granmichele from a life's bondage. She wore mourning a whole year for her affianced husband, but the mourning in her heart was for the strong, brave, unreasoning man, who, utterly unloved, had given all for her sake, in this world and the next. But when the year was over, Bastianello married Teresina, and took her to the home he had made for her by the sea--a home in which she should be happy, and in which at least there can never be want, for Beatrice has settled money on them both, and they are safe from sordid poverty, at all events. The Marchesa's nerves were terribly shaken by the tragedy, but she has recovered wonderfully and still fans herself and smokes countless cigarettes through the long summer afternoon. Of those left, Bastianello and Beatrice are the most changed--both, perhaps, for the better. The sailor is graver and sterner than before, but he still has the gentleness which was never his brother's. Beatrice has not yet learned the great lesson of love in her own heart, but she knows and will never forget what love can grow to be in another, for she has fathomed its deepest depth. And now you will tell me that Ruggiero did wrong and was a great sinner, and a murderer, and a suicide, and old Luigione is sure that he is burning in unquenchable fire. And perhaps he is, though that is a question neither you nor I can well decide. But one thing I can say of him, and that you cannot deny. He was a man, strong, whole-hearted, willing to give all, as he gave it, without asking. And perhaps if some of us could be like Ruggiero in all but his end, we should be better than we are, and truer, and more worthy to win the love of woman and better able to keep it. And that is all I have to say. But when you stand upon the ledge by Scutari, if you ever say a prayer, say one for those two who suffered on that spot. Beatrice does sometimes, though no one knows it, and prayers like hers are heard, perhaps, and answered. 
16100	----	The Novels of F. Marion Crawford In Twenty-five Volumes--Authorized Edition MARIETTA A Maid of Venice by F. MARION CRAWFORD With Frontispiece P. F. Collier & Son New York 1901 [Illustration: "I AM NOT ASLEEP."--_Marietta: A Maid of Venice_.] CHAPTER I Very little was known about George, the Dalmatian, and the servants in the house of Angelo Beroviero, as well as the workmen of the latter's glass furnace, called him Zorzi, distrusted him, suggested that he was probably a heretic, and did not hide their suspicion that he was in love with the master's only daughter, Marietta. All these matters were against him, and people wondered why old Angelo kept the waif in his service, since he would have engaged any one out of a hundred young fellows of Murano, all belonging to the almost noble caste of the glass-workers, all good Christians, all trustworthy, and all ready to promise that the lovely Marietta should never make the slightest impression upon their respectfully petrified hearts. But Angelo had not been accustomed to consider what his neighbours might think of him or his doings, and most of his neighbours and friends abstained with singular unanimity from thrusting their opinions upon him. For this, there were three reasons: he was very rich, he was the greatest living artist in working glass, and he was of a choleric temper. He confessed the latter fault with great humility to the curate of San Piero each year in Lent, but he would never admit it to any one else. Indeed, if any of his family ever suggested that he was somewhat hasty, he flew into such an ungovernable rage in proving the contrary that it was scarcely wise to stay in the house while the fit lasted. Marietta alone was safe. As for her brothers, though the elder was nearly forty years old, it was not long since his father had given him a box on the ears which made him see simultaneously all the colours of all the glasses ever made in Murano before or since. It is true that Giovanni had timidly asked to be told one of the secrets for making fine red glass which old Angelo had learned long ago from old Paolo Godi of Pergola, the famous chemist; and these secrets were all carefully written out in the elaborate character of the late fifteenth century, and Angelo kept the manuscript in an iron box, under his own bed, and wore the key on a small silver chain at his neck. He was a big old man, with fiery brown eyes, large features, and a very pale skin. His thick hair and short beard had once been red, and streaks of the strong colour still ran through the faded locks. His hands were large, but very skilful, and the long straight fingers were discoloured by contact with the substances he used in his experiments. He was jealous by nature, rather than suspicious. He had been jealous of his wife while she had lived, though a more devoted woman never fell to the lot of a lucky husband. Often, for weeks together, he had locked the door upon her and taken the key with him every morning when he left the house, though his furnaces were almost exactly opposite, on the other side of the narrow canal, so that by coming to the door he could have spoken with her at her window. But instead of doing this he used to look through a little grated opening which he had caused to be made in the wall of the glass-house; and when his wife was seated at her window, at her embroidery, he could watch her unseen, for she was beautiful and he loved her. One day he saw a stranger standing by the water's edge, gazing at her, and he went out and threw the man into the canal. When she died, he said little, but he would not allow his own children to speak of her before him. After that, he became almost as jealous of his daughter, and though he did not lock her up like her mother, he used to take her with him to the glass-house when the weather was not too hot, so that she should not be out of his sight all day. Moreover, because he needed a man to help him, and because he was afraid lest one of his own caste should fall in love with Marietta, he took Zorzi, the Dalmatian waif, into his service; and the three were often together all day in the room where Angelo had set up a little furnace for making experiments. In the year 1470 it was not lawful in Murano to teach any foreign person the art of glass-making; for the glass-blowers were a sort of nobility, and nearly a hundred years had passed since the Council had declared that patricians of Venice might marry the daughters of glass-workers without affecting their own rank or that of their children. But old Beroviero declared that he was not teaching Zorzi anything, that the young fellow was his servant and not his apprentice, and did nothing but keep up the fire in the furnace, and fetch and carry, grind materials, and sweep the floor. It was quite true that Zorzi did all these things, and he did them with a silent regularity that made him indispensable to his master, who scarcely noticed the growing skill with which the young man helped him at every turn, till he could be entrusted to perform the most delicate operations in glass-working without any especial instructions. Intent upon artistic matters, the old man was hardly aware, either, that Marietta had learned much of his art; or if he realised the fact he felt a sort of jealous satisfaction in the thought that she liked to be shut up with him for hours at a time, quite out of sight of the world and altogether out of harm's way. He fancied that she grew more like him from day to day, and he flattered himself that he understood her. She and Zorzi were the only beings in his world who never irritated him, now that he had them always under his eye and command. It was natural that he should suppose himself to be profoundly acquainted with their two natures, though he had never taken the smallest pains to test this imaginary knowledge. Possibly, in their different ways, they knew him better than he knew them. The glass-house was guarded from outsiders as carefully as a nunnery, and somewhat resembled a convent in having no windows so situated that curious persons might see from without what went on inside. The place was entered by a low door from the narrow paved path that ran along the canal. In a little vestibule, ill-lighted by one small grated window, sat the porter, an uncouth old man who rarely answered questions, and never opened the door until he had assured himself by a deliberate inspection through the grating that the person who knocked had a right to come in. Marietta remembered him in his den when she had been a little child, and she vaguely supposed that he had always been there. He had been old then, he was not visibly older now, he would probably never die of old age, and if any mortal ill should carry him off, he would surely be replaced by some one exactly like him, who would sleep in the same box bed, sit all day in the same black chair, and eat bread, shellfish and garlic off the same worm-eaten table. There was no other entrance to the glass-house, and there could be no other porter to guard it. Beyond the vestibule a dark corridor led to a small garden that formed the court of the building, and on one side of which were the large windows that lighted the main furnace room, while the other side contained the laboratory of the master. But the main furnace was entered from the corridor, so that the workmen never passed through the garden. There were a few shrubs in it, two or three rose-bushes and a small plane-tree. Zorzi, who had been born and brought up in the country, had made a couple of flower-beds, edged with refuse fragments of coloured and iridescent slag, and he had planted such common flowers as he could make grow in such a place, watering them from a disused rain-water cistern that was supposed to have been poisoned long ago. Here Marietta often sat in the shade, when the laboratory was too close and hot, and when the time was at hand during which even the men would not be able to work on account of the heat, and the furnace would be put out and repaired, and every one would be set to making the delicate clay pots in which the glass was to be melted. Marietta could sit silent and motionless in her seat under the plane-tree for a long time when she was thinking, and she never told any one her thoughts. She was not unlike her father in looks, and that was doubtless the reason why he assumed that she must be like him in character. No one would have said that she was handsome, but sometimes, when she smiled, those who saw that rare expression in her face thought she was beautiful. When it was gone, they said she was cold. Fortunately, her hair was not red, as her father's had been or she might sometimes have seemed positively ugly; it was of that deep ruddy, golden brown that one may often see in Venice still, and there was an abundance of it, though it was drawn straight back from her white forehead and braided into the smallest possible space, in the fashion of that time. There was often a little colour in her face, though never much, and it was faint, yet very fresh, like the tint within certain delicate shells; her lips were of the same hue, but stronger and brighter, and they were very well shaped and generally closed, like her father's. But her eyes were not like his, and the lids and lashes shaded them in such a way that it was hard to guess their colour, and they had an inscrutable, reserved look that was hard to meet for many seconds. Zorzi believed that they were grey, but when he saw them in his dreams they were violet; and one day she opened them wide for an instant, at something old Beroviero said to her, and then Zorzi fancied that they were like sapphires, but before he could be sure, the lids and lashes shaded them again, and he only knew that they were there, and longed to see them, for her father had spoken of her marriage, and she had not answered a single word. When they were alone together for a moment, while the old man was searching for more materials in the next room, she spoke to Zorzi. "My father did not mean you to hear that," she said. "Nevertheless, I heard," answered Zorzi, pushing a small piece of beech wood into the fire through a narrow slit on one side of the brick furnace. "It was not my fault." "Forget that you heard it," said Marietta quietly, and as her father entered the room again she passed him and went out into the garden. But Zorzi did not even try to forget the name of the man whom Beroviero appeared to have chosen for his daughter. He tried instead, to understand why Marietta wished him not to remember that the name was Jacopo Contarini. He glanced sideways at the girl's figure as she disappeared through the door, and he thoughtfully pushed another piece of wood into the fire. Some day, perhaps before long, she would marry this man who had been mentioned, and then Zorzi would be alone with old Beroviero in the laboratory. He set his teeth, and poked the fire with, an iron rod. It happened now and then that Marietta did not come to the glass-house. Those days were long, and when night came Zorzi felt as if his heart were turning into a hot stone in his breast, and his sight was dull, and he ached from his work and felt scorched by the heat of the furnace. For he was not very strong of limb, though he was quick with his hands and of a very tenacious nature, able to endure pain as well as weariness when he was determined to finish what he had begun. But while Marietta was in the laboratory, nothing could tire him nor hurt him, nor make him wish that the hours were less long. He thought therefore of what must happen to him if Jacopo Contarini took Marietta away from Murano to live in a palace in Venice, and he determined at least to find out what sort of man this might be who was to receive for his own the only woman in the world for whose sake it would be perfect happiness to be burned with slow fire. He did not mean to do Contarini any harm. Perhaps Marietta already loved the man, and was glad she was to marry him. No one could have told what she felt, even from that one flashing look she had given her father. Zorzi did not try to understand her yet; he only loved her, and she was his master's daughter, and if his master found out his secret it would be a very evil day for him. So he poked the fire with his iron rod, and set his teeth, and said nothing, while old Beroviero moved about the room. "Zorzi," said the master presently, "I meant you to hear what I said to my daughter." "I heard, sir," answered the young man, rising respectfully, and waiting for more. "Remember the name you heard," said Beroviero. If the matter had been any other in the world, Zorzi would have smiled at the master's words, because they bade him do just what Marietta had forbidden. The one said "forget," the other "remember." For the first time in his life Zorzi found it easier to obey his lady's father than herself. He bent his head respectfully. "I trust you, Zorzi," continued Beroviero, slowly mixing some materials in a little wooden trough on the table. "I trust you, because I must trust some one in order to have a safe means of communicating with Casa Contarini." Again Zorzi bent his head, but still he said nothing. "These five years you have worked with me in private," the old man went on, "and I know that you have not told what you have seen me do, though there are many who would pay you good money to know what I have been about." "That is true," answered Zorzi. "Yes. I therefore judge that you are one of those unusual beings whom God has sent into the world to be of use to their fellow-creatures instead of a hindrance. For you possess the power of holding your tongue, which I had almost believed to be extinct in the human race. I am going to send you on an errand to Venice, to Jacopo Cantarini. If I sent any one from my house, all Murano would know it to-morrow morning, but I wish no one here to guess where you have been." "No one shall see me," answered Zorzi. "Tell me only where I am to go." "You know Venice well by this time. You must have often passed the house of the Agnus Dei." "By the Baker's Bridge?" "Yes. Go there alone, to-night and ask for Messer Jacopo; and if the porter inquires your business, say that you have a message and a token from a certain Angelo. When you are admitted and are alone with Messer Jacopo, tell him from me to go and stand by the second pillar on the left in Saint Mark's, on Sunday next, an hour before noon, until he sees me; and within a week after that, he shall have the answer; and bid him be silent, if he would succeed." "Is that all, sir?" "That is all. If he gives you any message in answer, deliver it to me to-morrow, when my daughter is not here." "And the token?" inquired Zorzi. "This glass seal, of which he already has an impression in wax, in case he should doubt you." Zorzi took the little leathern bag which contained the seal. He tied a piece of string to it, and hung it round his neck, so that it was hidden in his doublet like a charm or a scapulary. Beroviero watched him and nodded in approval. "Do not start before it is quite dark," he said. "Take the little skiff. The water will be high two hours before midnight, so you will have no trouble in getting across. When you come back, come here, and tell the porter that I have ordered you to see that my fire is properly kept up. Then go to sleep in the coolest place you can find." After Beroviero had given him these orders, Zorzi had plenty of time for reflection, for his master said nothing more, and became absorbed in his work, weighing out portions of different ingredients and slowly mixing each with the coloured earths and chemicals that were already in the wooden trough. There was nothing to do but to tend the fire, and Zorzi pushed in the pieces of Istrian beech wood with his usual industrious regularity. It was the only part of his work which he hated, and when he was obliged to do nothing else, he usually sought consolation in dreaming of a time when he himself should be a master glass-blower and artist whom it would be almost an honour for a young man to serve, even in such a humble way. He did not know how that was to happen, since there were strict laws against teaching the art to foreigners, and also against allowing any foreign person to establish a furnace at Murano; and the glass works had long been altogether banished from Venice on account of the danger of fire, at a time when two-thirds of the houses were of wood. But meanwhile Zorzi had learned the art, in spite of the law, and he hoped in time to overcome the other obstacles that opposed him. There was strength of purpose in every line of his keen young face, strength to endure, to forego, to suffer in silence for an end ardently desired. The dark brown hair grew somewhat far back from the pale forehead, the features were youthfully sharp and clearly drawn, and deep neutral shadows gave a look of almost passionate sadness to the black eyes. There was quick perception, imagination, love of art for its own sake in the upper part of the face; its strength lay in the well-built jaw and firm lips, and a little in the graceful and assured poise of the head. Zorzi was not tall, but he was shapely, and moved without effort. His eyes were sadder than usual just now, as he tended the fire in the silence that was broken only by the low roar of the flames within the brick furnace, and the irregular sound of the master's wooden instrument as he crushed and stirred the materials together. Zorzi had longed to see Contarini as soon as he had heard his name; and having unexpectedly obtained the certainty of seeing him that very night, he wished that the moment could be put off, he felt cold and hot, he wondered how he should behave, and whether after all he might not be tempted to do his enemy some bodily harm. For in a few minutes the aspect of his world had changed, and Contarini's unknown figure filled the future. Until to-day, he had never seriously thought of Marietta's marriage, nor of what would happen to him afterwards; but now, he was to be one of the instruments for bringing the marriage about. He knew well enough what the appointment in Saint Mark's meant: Marietta was to have an opportunity of seeing Contarini before accepting him. Even that was something of a concession in those times, but Beroviero fancied that he loved his child too much to marry her against her will. This was probably a great match for the glass-worker's daughter, however, and she would not refuse it. Contarini had never seen her either; he might have heard that she was a pretty girl, but there were famous beauties in Venice, and if he wanted Marietta Beroviero it could only be for her dowry. The marriage was therefore a mere bargain between the two men, in which a name was bartered for a fortune and a fortune for a name. Zorzi saw how absurd it was to suppose that Marietta could care for a man whom she had never even seen; and worse than that, he guessed in a flash of loving intuition how wretchedly unhappy she might be with him, and he hated and despised the errand he was to perform. The future seemed to reveal itself to him with the long martyrdom of the woman he loved, and he felt an almost irresistible desire to go to her and implore her to refuse to be sold. Nine-tenths of the marriages he had ever heard of in Murano or Venice had been made in this way, and in a moment's reflection he realised the folly of appealing even to the girl herself, who doubtless looked upon the whole proceeding as perfectly natural. She had of course expected such an event ever since she had been a child, she was prepared to accept it, and she only hoped that her husband might turn out to be young, handsome and noble, since she did not want money. A moment later, Zorzi included all marriageable young women in one sweeping condemnation: they were all hard-hearted, mercenary, vain, deceitful--anything that suggested itself to his headlong resentment. Art was the only thing worth living and dying for; the world was full of women, and they were all alike, old, young, ugly, handsome--all a pack of heartless jades; but art was one, beautiful, true, deathless and unchanging. He looked up from the furnace door, and he felt the blood rush to his face. Marietta was standing near and watching him with her strangely veiled eyes. "Poor Zorzi!" she exclaimed in a soft voice. "How hot you look!" He did not remember that he had ever cared a straw whether any one noticed that he was hot or not, until that moment; but for some complicated reason connected with his own thoughts the remark stung him like an insult, and fully confirmed his recent verdict concerning women in general and their total lack of all human kindness where men were concerned. He rose to his feet suddenly and turned away without a word. "Come out into the garden," said Marietta. "Do you need Zorzi just now?" she asked, turning to her father, who only shook his head by way of answer, for he was very busy. "But I assure you that I am not too hot," answered Zorzi. "Why should I go out?" "Because I want you to fasten up one of the branches of the red rose. It catches in my skirt every time I pass. You will need a hammer and a little nail." She had not been thinking of his comfort after all, thought Zorzi as he got the hammer. She had only wanted something done for herself. He might have known it. But for the rose that caught in her skirt, he might have roasted alive at the furnace before she would have noticed that he was hot. He followed her out. She led him to the end of the walk farthest from the door of the laboratory; the sun was low and all the little garden was in deep shade. A branch of the rose-bush lay across the path, and Zorzi thought it looked very much as if it had been pulled down on purpose. She pointed to it, and as he carefully lifted it from the ground she spoke quickly, in a low tone. "What was my father saying to you a while ago?" she asked. Zorzi held up the branch in his hand, ready to fasten it against the wall, and looked at her. He saw at a glance that she had brought him out to ask the question. "The master was giving me certain orders," he said. "He rarely makes such long speeches when he gives orders," observed the girl. "His instructions were very particular." "Will you not tell me what they were?" Zorzi turned slowly from her and let the long branch rest on the bush while he began to drive a nail into the wall. Marietta watched him. "Why do you not answer me?" she asked. "Because I cannot," he said briefly. "Because you will not, you mean." "As you choose." Zorzi went on striking the nail. "I am sorry," answered the young girl. "I really wish to know very much. Besides, if you will tell me, I will give you something." Zorzi turned upon her suddenly with angry eyes. "If money could buy your father's secrets from me, I should be a rich man by this time." "I think I know as much of my father's secrets as you do," answered Marietta more coldly, "and I did not mean to offer you money." "What then?" But as he asked the question Zorzi turned away again and began to fasten the branch. Marietta did not answer at once, but she idly picked a rose from the bush and put it to her lips to breathe in its freshness. "Why should you think that I meant to insult you?" she asked gently. "I am only a servant, after all," answered Zorzi, with unnecessary bitterness. "Why should you not insult your servants, if you please? It would be quite natural." "Would it? Even if you were really a servant?" "It seems quite natural to you that I should betray your father's confidence. I do not see much difference between taking it for granted that a man is a traitor and offering him money to act as one." "No," said Marietta, smelling the rose from time to time as she spoke, "there is not much difference. But I did not mean to hurt your feelings." "You did not realise that I could have any, I fancy," retorted Zorzi, still angry. "Perhaps I did not understand that you would consider what my father was telling you in the same light as a secret of the art," said Marietta slowly, "nor that you would look upon what I meant to offer you as a bribe. The matter concerned me, did it not?" "Your name was not spoken. I have fastened the branch. Is there anything else for me to do?" "Have you no curiosity to know what I would have given you?" asked Marietta. "I should be ashamed to want anything at such a price," returned Zorzi proudly. "You hold your honour high, even in trifles." "It is all I have--my honour and my art." "You care for nothing else? Nothing else in the whole world?" "Nothing," said Zorzi. "You must be very lonely in your thoughts," she said, and turned away. As she went slowly along the path her hand hung by her side, and the rose she held fell from her fingers. Following her at a short distance, on his way back to the laboratory, Zorzi stooped and picked up the flower, not thinking that she would turn her head. But at that moment she had reached the door, and she looked back and saw what he had done. She stood still and held out her hand, expecting him to come up with her. "My rose!" she exclaimed, as if surprised. "Give it back to me." Zorzi gave it to her, and the colour came to his face a second time. She fastened it in her bodice, looking down at it as she did so. "I am so fond of roses," she said, smiling a little. "Are you?" "I planted all those you have here," he answered. "Yes--I know." She looked up as she spoke, and met his eyes, and all at once she laughed, not unkindly, nor as if at him, nor at what he had said, but quietly and happily, as women do when they have got what they want. Zorzi did not understand. "You are gay," he said coldly. "Do you wonder?" she asked. "If you knew what I know, you would understand." "But I do not." Zorzi went back to his furnace, Marietta exchanged a few words with her father and left the room again to go home. In the garden she paused a moment by the rose-bush, where she had talked with Zorzi, but there was not even the shadow of a smile in her face now. She went down the dark corridor and called the porter, who roused himself, opened the door and hailed the house opposite. A woman looked out in the evening light, nodded and disappeared. A few seconds later she came out of the house, a quiet little middle-aged creature in brown, with intelligent eyes, and she crossed the shaky wooden bridge over the canal to come and bring Marietta home. It would have been a scandalous thing if the daughter of Angelo Beroviero had been seen by the neighbours to walk a score of paces in the street without an attendant. She had thrown a hood of dark green cloth over her head, and the folds hung below her shoulders, half hiding her graceful figure. Her step was smooth and deliberate, while the little brown serving-woman trotted beside her across the wooden bridge. The house of Angelo Beroviero hung over the paved way, above the edge of the water, the upper story being supported by six stone columns and massive wooden beams, forming a sort of portico which was at the same time a public thoroughfare; but as the house was not far from the end of the canal of San Piero which opens towards Venice, few people passed that way. Marietta paused a moment while the woman held the door open for her. The sun had just set and the salt freshness that comes with the rising tide was already in the air. "I wish I were in Venice this evening," she said, almost to herself. The serving-woman looked at her suspiciously. CHAPTER II The June night was dark and warm as Zorzi pushed off from the steps before his master's house and guided his skiff through the canal, scarcely moving the single oar, as the rising tide took his boat silently along. It was not until he had passed the last of the glass-houses on his right, and was already in the lagoon that separates Murano from Venice, that he began to row, gently at first, for fear of being heard by some one ashore, and then more quickly, swinging his oar in the curved crutch with that skilful, serpentine stroke which is neither rowing nor sculling, but which has all the advantages of both, for it is swift and silent, and needs scarcely to be slackened even in a channel so narrow that the boat itself can barely pass. Now that he was away from the houses, the stars came out and he felt the pleasant land breeze in his face, meeting the rising tide. Not a boat was out upon the shallow lagoon but his own, not a sound came from the town behind him; but as the flat bow of the skiff gently slapped the water, it plashed and purled with every stroke of the oar, and a faint murmur of voices in song was borne to him on the wind from the still waking city. He stood upright on the high stern of the shadowy craft, himself but a moving shadow in the starlight, thrown forward now, and now once more erect, in changing motion; and as he moved the same thought came back and back again in a sort of halting and painful rhythm. He was out that night on a bad errand, it said, helping to sell the life of the woman he loved, and what he was doing could never be undone. Again and again the words said themselves, the far-off voices said them, the lapping water took them up and repeated them, the breeze whispered them quickly as it passed, the oar pronounced them as it creaked softly in the crutch rowlock, the stars spelled out the sentences in the sky, the lights of Venice wrote them in the water in broken reflections. He was not alone any more, for everything in heaven and earth was crying to him to go back. That was folly, and he knew it. The master who had trusted him would drive him out of his house, and out of Venetian land and water, too, if he chose, and he should never see Marietta again; and she would be married to Contarini just as if Zorzi had taken the message. Besides, it was the custom of the world everywhere, so far as he knew, that marriage and money should be spoken of in the same breath, and there was no reason why his master should make an exception and be different from other men. He could put some hindrance in the way, of course, if he chose to interfere, for he could deliver the message wrong, and Contarini would go to the church in the afternoon instead of in the morning. He smiled grimly in the dark as he thought of the young nobleman waiting for an hour or two beside the pillar, to be looked at by some one who never came, then catching sight at last of some ugly old maid of forty, protected by her servant, ogling him, while she said her prayers and filling him with horror at the thought that she must be Marietta Beroviero. All that might happen, but it must inevitably be found out, the misunderstanding would be cleared away and the marriage would be arranged after all. He had rested on his oar to think, and now he struck it deep into the black water and the skiff shot ahead. He would have a far better chance of serving Marietta in the future if he obeyed his master and delivered his message exactly; for he should see Contarini himself and judge of him, in the first place, and that alone was worth much, and afterwards there would be time enough for desperate resolutions. He hastened his stroke, and when he ran under the shadow of the overhanging houses his mood changed and he grew hopeful, as many young men do, out of sheer curiosity as to what was before him, and out of the wish to meet something or somebody that should put his own strength to the test. It was not far now. With infinite caution he threaded the dark canals, thanking fortune for the faint starlight that showed him the turnings. Here and there a small oil lamp burned before the image of a saint; from a narrow lane on one side, the light streamed across the water, and with it came sounds of ringing glasses, and the tinkling of a lute, and laughing voices; then it was dark again as his skiff shot by, and he made haste, for he wished not to be seen. Presently, and somewhat to his surprise, he saw a gondola before him in a narrow place, rowed slowly by a man who seemed to be in black like himself. He did not try to pass it, but kept a little astern, trying not to attract attention and hoping that it would turn aside into another canal. But it went steadily on before him, turning wherever he must turn, till it stopped where he was to stop, at the water-gate of the house of the Agnus Dei. Instantly he brought to in the shadow, with the instinctive caution of every one who is used to the water. Gondolas were few in those days and belonged only to the rich, who had just begun to use them as a means of getting about quickly, much more convenient than horses or mules; for when riding a man often had to go far out of his way to reach a bridge, and there were many canals that had no bridle path at all and where the wooden houses were built straight down into the water as the stone ones are to-day. Zorzi peered through the darkness and listened. The occupant of the gondola might be Contarini himself, coming home. Whoever it was tapped softly upon the door, which was instantly opened, but to Zorzi's surprise no light shone from the entrance. All the house above was still and dark, and he could barely make out by the starlight the piece of white marble bearing the sculptured Agnus Dei whence the house takes its name. He knew that above the high balcony there were graceful columns bearing pointed stone arches, between which are the symbols of the four Evangelists; but he could see nothing of them. Only on the balcony, he fancied he saw something less dark than the wall or the sky, and which might be a woman's dress. Some one got out of the gondola and went in after speaking a few words in a low tone, and the door was then shut without noise. The gondola glided on, under the Baker's Bridge, but Zorzi could not see whether it went further or not; he thought he heard the sound of the oar, as if it were going away. Coming alongside the step, he knocked gently as the last comer had done, and the door opened again. He had already made his skiff fast to the step. "Your business here?" asked a muffled voice out of the dark. Zorzi felt that a number of persons were in the hall immediately behind the speaker. "For the Lord Jacopo Contarini," he answered. "I have a message and a token to deliver." "From whom?" "I will tell that to his lordship," replied Zorzi. "I am Contarini," replied the voice, and the speaker felt for Zorzi's face in the darkness, and brought it near his ear. "From Angelo," whispered Zorzi, so softly that Contarini only heard the last word. The door was now shut as noiselessly as before, but not by Contarini himself. He still kept his hold on Zorzi's arm. "The token," he whispered impatiently. Zorzi pulled the little leathern bag out of his doublet, slipped the string over his head and thrust the token into Contarini's hand. The latter uttered a low exclamation of surprise. "What is this?" he asked. "The token," answered Zorzi. He had scarcely spoken when he felt Contarini's arms round him, holding him fast. He was wise enough to make no attempt to escape from them. "Friends," said Contarini quickly, "the man who just came in is a spy. I am holding him. Help me!" It seemed to Zorzi that a hundred hands seized him in the dark; by the arms, by the legs, by the body, by the head. He knew that resistance was worse than useless. There were hands at his throat, too. "Let us do nothing hastily," said Contarini's voice, close beside him. "We must find out what he knows first. We can make him speak, I daresay." "We are not hangmen to torture a prisoner till he confesses," observed some one in a quiet and rather indolent tone. "Strangle him quickly and throw him into the canal. It is late already." "No," answered Contarini. "Let us at least see his face. We may know him. If you cry out," he said to Zorzi, "you will be killed instantly." "Jacopo is right," said some one who had not spoken yet. Almost at the same instant a door was opened and a broad bar of light shot across the hall from an inner room. Zorzi was roughly dragged towards it, and he saw that he was surrounded by about twenty masked men. His face was held to the light, and Contarini's hold on his throat relaxed. "Not even a mask!" exclaimed Jacopo. "A fool, or a madman. Speak, man I Who are you? Who sent you here?" "My name is Zorzi," answered the glass-blower with difficulty, for he had been almost choked. "My business is with the Lord Jacopo alone. It is very private." "I have no secrets from my friends," said Contarini. "Speak as if we were alone." "I have promised my master to deliver the message in secret. I will not speak here." "Strangle him and throw him out," suggested the man with the indolent voice. "His master is the devil, I have no doubt. He can take the message back with him." Two or three laughed. "These spies seldom hunt alone," remarked another. "While we are wasting time a dozen more may be guarding the entrance to the house." "I am no spy," said Zorzi. "What are you, then?" "A glass-worker of Murano." Contarini's hands relaxed altogether, now, and he bent his ear to Zorzi's lips. "Whisper your message," he said quickly. Zorzi obeyed. "Angelo Beroviero bids you wait by the second pillar on the left in Saint Mark's church, next Sunday morning, at one hour before noon, till you shall see him, and in a week from that time you shall have an answer; and be silent, if you would succeed." "Very well," answered Contarini. "Friends," he said, standing erect, "it is a message I have expected. The name of the man who sends it is 'Angelo'--you understand. It is not this fellow's fault that he came here this evening." "I suppose there is a woman in the case," said the indolent man. "We will respect your secret. Put the poor devil out of his misery and let us come to our business." "Kill an innocent man!" exclaimed Contarini. "Yes, since a word from him can send us all to die between the two red columns." "His master is powerful and rich," said Jacopo. "If the fellow does not go back to-night, there will be trouble to-morrow, and since he was sent to my house, the inquiry will begin here." "That is true," said more than one voice, in a tone of hesitation. Zorzi was very pale, but he held his head high, facing the light of the tall wax candles on the table around which his captors were standing. He was hopelessly at their mercy, for they were twenty to one; the door had been shut and barred and the only window in the room was high above the floor and covered by a thick curtain. He understood perfectly that, by the accident of Angelo's name, "Angel" being the password of the company, he had been accidentally admitted to the meeting of some secret society, and from what had been said, he guessed that its object was a conspiracy against the Republic. It was clear that in self-defence they would most probably kill him, since they could not reasonably run the risk of trusting their lives in his hands. They looked at each other, as if silently debating what they should do. "At first you suggested that we should torture him," sneered the indolent man, "and now you tremble like a girl at the idea of killing him! Listen to me, Jacopo; if you think that I will leave this house while this fellow is alive, you are most egregiously mistaken." He had drawn his dagger while he was speaking, and before he had finished it was dangerously near Zorzi's throat. Contarini retired a step as if not daring to defend the prisoner, whose assailant, in spite of his careless and almost womanish tone, was clearly a man of action. Zorzi looked fearlessly into the eyes that peered at him through the holes in the mask. "It is curious," observed the other. "He does not seem to be afraid. I am sorry for you, my man, for you appear to be a fine fellow, and I like your face, but we cannot possibly let you go out of the house alive." "If you choose to trust me," said Zorzi calmly, "I will not betray you. But of course it must seem safer for you to kill me. I quite understand." "If anything, he is cooler than Venier," observed one of the company. "He does not believe that we are in earnest," said Contarini. "I am," answered Venier. "Now, my man," he said, addressing Zorzi again, "if there is anything I can do for you or your family after your death, without risking my neck, I will do it with pleasure." "I have no family, but I thank you for your offer. In return for your courtesy, I warn you that my master's skiff is fast to the step of the house. It might be recognised. When you have killed me, you had better cast it off--it will drift away with the tide." Venier, who had let the point of his long dagger rest against Zorzi's collar, suddenly dropped it. "Contarini," he said, "I take back what I said. It would be an abominable shame to murder a man as brave as he is." A murmur of approval came from all the company; but Contarini, whose vacillating nature showed itself at every turn, was now inclined to take the other side. "He may ruin us all," he said. "One word--" "It seems to me," interrupted a big man who had not yet spoken, and whose beard was as black as his mask, "that we could make use of just such a man as this, and of more like him if they are to be found." "You are right," said Venier. "If he will take the oath, and bear the tests, let him be one of us. My friend," he said to Zorzi, "you see how it is. You have proved yourself a brave man, and if you are willing to join our company we shall be glad to receive you among us. Do you agree?" "I must know what the purpose of your society is," answered Zorzi as calmly as before. "That is well said, my friend, and I like you the better for it. Now listen to me. We are a brotherhood of gentlemen of Venice sworn together to restore the original freedom of our city. That is our main purpose. What Tiepolo and Faliero failed to do, we hope to accomplish. Are you with us in that?" "Sirs," answered Zorzi, "I am a Dalmatian by birth, and not a Venetian. The Republic forbids me to learn the art of glass-working. I have learned it. The Republic forbids me to set up a furnace of my own. I hope to do so. I owe Venice neither allegiance nor gratitude. If your revolution is to give freedom to art as well as to men, I am with you." "We shall have freedom for all," said Venier. "We take, moreover, an oath of fellowship which binds us to help each other in all circumstances, to the utmost of our ability and fortune, within the bounds of reason, to risk life and limb for each other's safety, and most especially to respect the wives, the daughters and the betrothed brides of all who belong to our fellowship. These are promises which every true and honest man can make to his friends, and we agree that whoso breaks any one of them, shall die by the hands of the company. And by God in heaven, it were better that you should lose your life now, before taking the oath, than that you should be false to it." "I will take that oath, and keep it," said Zorzi. "That is well. We have few signs and no ceremonies, but our promises are binding, and the forfeit is a painful death--so painful that even you might flinch before it. Indeed, we usually make some test of a man's courage before receiving him among us, though most of us have known each other since we were children. But you have shown us that you are fearless and honourable, and we ask nothing more of you, except to take the oath and then to keep it." He turned to the company, still speaking in his languid way. "If any man here knows good reason why this new companion should not be one of us, let him show it now." Then all were silent, and uncovered their heads, but they still kept their masks on their faces. Zorzi stood out before them, and Venier was close beside him. "Make the sign of the Cross," said Venier in a solemn tone, quite different from his ordinary voice, "and repeat the words after me." And Zorzi repeated them steadily and precisely, holding his hand stretched out before him. "In the name of the Holy Trinity, I promise and swear to give life and fortune in the good cause of restoring the original liberty of the people of Venice, obeying to that end the decisions of this honourable society, and to bear all sufferings rather than betray it, or any of its members. And I promise to help each one of my companions also in the ordinary affairs of life, to the best of my ability and fortune, within the bounds of reason, risking life and limb for the safety of each and all. And I promise most especially to honour and respect the wives, the daughters and the betrothed brides of all who belong to this fellowship, and to defend them from harm and insult, even as my own mother. And if I break any promise of this oath, may my flesh be torn from my limbs and my limbs from my body, one by one, to be burned with fire and the ashes thereof scattered abroad. Amen." When Zorzi had said the last word, Venier grasped his hand, at the same time taking off the mask he wore, and he looked into the young man's face. "I am Zuan Venier," he said, his indolent manner returning as he spoke. "I am Jacopo Contarini," said the master of the house, offering his hand next. Zorzi looked first at one, and then at the other; the first was a very pale young man, with bright blue eyes and delicate features that were prematurely weary and even worn; Contarini was called the handsomest Venetian of his day. Yet of the two, most men and women would have been more attracted to Venier at first sight. For Contarini's silken beard hardly concealed a weak and feminine mouth, with lips too red and too curving for a man, and his soft brown eyes had an unmanly tendency to look away while he was speaking. He was tall, broad shouldered, and well proportioned, with beautiful hands and shapely feet, yet he did not give an impression of strength, whereas Venier's languid manner, assumed as it doubtless was, could not hide the restless energy that lay in his lean frame. One by one the other companions came up to Zorzi, took off their masks and grasped his hand, and he heard their lips pronounce names famous in Venetian history, Loredan, Mocenigo, Foscari and many others. But he saw that not one of them all was over five-and-twenty years of age, and with the keenness of the waif who had fought his own way in the world he judged that these were not men who could overturn the great Republic and build up a new government. Whatever they might prove to be in danger and revolution, however, he had saved his life by casting his lot with theirs, and he was profoundly grateful to them for having accepted him as one of themselves. But for their generosity, his weighted body would have been already lying at the bottom of the canal, and he was not just now inclined to criticise the mental gifts of those would-be conspirators who had so unexpectedly forgiven him for discovering their secret meeting. "Sirs," he said, when he had grasped the hand of each, "I hope that in return for my life, for which I thank you, I may be of some service to the cause of liberty, and to each of you in singular, though I have but little hope of this, seeing that I am but an artist and you are all patricians. I pray you, inform me by what sign I may know you if we chance to meet outside this house, and how I may make myself known." "We have little need of signs," answered Contarini, "for we meet often, and we know each other well. But our password is 'the Angel'--meaning the Angel that freed Saint Peter from his bonds, as we hope to free Venice from hers, and the token we give is the grip of the hand we have each given you." Being thus instructed, Zorzi held his peace, for he felt that he was in the presence of men far above him in station, in whose conversation it would not be easy for him to join, and of whose daily lives he knew nothing, except that most of them lived in palaces and many were the sons of Councillors of the Ten, and of Senators, and Procurators and of others high in office, whereat he wondered much. But presently, as the excitement of what had happened wore off, and they sat about the table, they began to speak of the news of the day, and especially of the unjust and cruel acts of the Ten, each contributing some detail learned in his own home or among intimate friends. Zorzi sat silent in his place, listening, and he soon understood that as yet they had no definite plan for bringing on a revolution, and that they knew nothing of the populace upon whose support they reckoned, and of whom Zorzi knew much by experience. Yet, though they told each other things which seemed foolish to him, he said nothing on that first night, and all the time he watched Contarini very closely, and listened with especial attention to what he said, trying to discern his character and judge his understanding. The splendid young Venetian was not displeased by Zorzi's attitude towards him, and presently came and sat beside him. "I should have explained to you," he said, "that as it would be impossible for us to meet here without the knowledge of my servants, we come together on pretence of playing games of chance. My father lives in our palace near Saint Mark's, and I live here alone." At this Foscari, the tall man with the black beard, looked at Contarini and laughed a little. Contarini glanced at him and smiled with some constraint. "On such evenings," he continued, "I admit my guests myself, and they wear masks when they come, for though my servants are dismissed to their quarters, and would certainly not betray me for a dice-player, they might let drop the names of my friends if they saw them from an upper window." At this juncture Zorzi heard the rattling of dice, and looking down the table he saw that two of the company were already throwing against each other. In a few minutes he found himself sitting alone near Zuan Venier, all the others having either begun to play themselves, or being engaged in wagering on the play of others. "And you, sir?" inquired Zorzi of his neighbour. "I am tired of games of chance," answered the pale nobleman wearily. "But our host says it is a mere pretence, to hide the purpose of these meetings." "It is more than that," said Venier with a contemptuous smile. "Do you play?" "I am a poor artist, sir. I cannot." "Ah, I had forgotten. That is very interesting. But pray do not call me 'sir' nor use any formality, unless we meet in public. At the 'Sign of the Angel' we are all brothers. Yes--yes--of course! You are a poor artist. When I expected to be obliged to cut your throat awhile ago, I really hoped that I might be able to fulfil some last wish of yours." "I appreciated your goodness." Zorzi laughed a little nervously, now that the danger was over. "I meant it, my friend, I do assure you. And I mean it now. One advantage of the fellowship is that one may offer to help a brother in any way without insulting him. I am not as rich as I was--I was too fond of those things once"--he pointed to the dice--"but if my purse can serve you, such as it is, I hope you will use it rather than that of another." It was impossible to be offended, sensitive though Zorzi was. "I thank you heartily," he answered. "It would be a curiosity to see money do good for once," said Venier, languidly looking towards the players. "Contarini is losing again," he remarked. "Does he generally lose much at play?" Zorzi asked, trying to seem indifferent. Venier laughed softly. "It is proverbial, 'to lose like Jacopo Contarini'!" he answered. "Tell me, I beg of you, are all the meetings of the brotherhood like this one?" "In what way?" asked Venier indifferently. "Do you merely tell each other the news of the day, and then play at dice all night?" "Some play cards." Venier laughed scornfully. "This is only the third of our secret sittings, I believe, but many of us meet elsewhere, during the day." "Our host said that the society made a pretence of play in order to conspire against the State," said Zorzi. "It seems to me that this is making a pretence of conspiracy, with the chance of death on the scaffold, for the sake of dice-playing." "To tell the truth, I think so too," answered the patrician, leaning back in his chair and looking thoughtfully at the young glass-blower. "It is more interesting to break a law when you may lose your head for it than if you only risk a fine or a year's banishment. I daresay that seems complicated to you." Zorzi laughed. "If it is only for the sake of the danger," he said, "why not go and fight the Turks?" "I have tried to do my share of that," replied Venier quietly. "So have some of the others." "Contarini?" asked Zorzi. "No. I believe he has never seen any fighting." While the two were talking the play had proceeded steadily, and almost in silence. Contarini had lost heavily at first and had then won back his losses and twice as much more. "That does not happen often," he said, pushing away the dice and leaning back. Zorzi watched him. The yellow light of the wax candles fell softly upon his silky beard and too perfect features, and made splendid shadows in the scarlet silk of his coat, and flashed in the precious ruby of the ring he wore on his white hand. He seemed a true incarnation of his magnificent city, a century before the rest of all Italy in luxury, in extravagance, in the art of wasteful trifling with great things which is a rich man's way of loving art itself; and there were many others of the company who were of the same stamp as he, but whose faces had no interest for Zorzi compared with Contarini's. Beside him they were but ordinary men in the presence of a young god. No woman could resist such a man as that, thought the poor waif. It would be enough that Marietta's eyes should rest on him one moment, next Sunday, when he should be standing by the great pillar in the church, and her fate would be sealed then and there, irrevocably. It was not because she was only a glass-maker's daughter, brought up in Murano. What girl who was human would hesitate to accept such a husband? Contarini might choose his wife as he pleased, among the noblest and most beautiful in Italy. One or both of two reasons would explain why his choice had fallen upon Marietta. It was possible that he had seen her, and Zorzi firmly believed that no man could see her without loving her; and Angelo Beroviero might have offered such an immense dowry for the alliance as to tempt Jacopo's father. No one knew how rich old Angelo was since he had returned from Florence and Naples, and many said that he possessed the secret of making gold; but Zorzi knew better than that. CHAPTER III It was past midnight when Jacopo Contarini barred the door of his house and was alone. He took one of the candles from the inner room, put out all the others and was already in the hall, when he remembered that he had left his winnings on the table. Going back he opened the embroidered wallet he wore at his belt and swept the heap of heavy yellow coins into it. As the last disappeared into the bag and rang upon the others he distinctly heard a sound in the room. He started and looked about him. It was not exactly the sound of a soft footfall, nor of breathing, but it might have been either. It was short and distinct, such a slight noise as might be made by drawing the palm of the hand quickly over a piece of stuff, or by a short breath checked almost instantly, or by a shoeless foot slipping a few inches on a thick carpet. Contarini stood still and listened, for though he had heard it distinctly he had no impression of the direction whence it had come. It was not repeated, and he began to search the room carefully. He could find nothing. The single window, high above the floor, was carefully closed and covered by a heavy curtain which could not possibly have moved in the stillness. The tapestry was smoothly drawn and fastened upon the four walls. There was no furniture in the room but a big table and the benches and chairs. Above the tapestries the bare walls were painted, up to the carved ceiling. There was nothing to account for the noise. Contarini looked nervously over his shoulder as he left the room, and more than once again as he went up the marble staircase, candle in hand. There is probably nothing more disturbing to people of ordinary nerves than a sound heard in a lonely place and for which it is impossible to find a reason. When he reached the broad landing he smiled at himself and looked back a last time, shading the candle with his hand, so as to throw the light down the staircase. Then he entered the apartment and locked himself in. Having passed through the large square vestibule and through a small room that led from it, he raised the latch of the next door very cautiously, shaded the candle again and looked in. A cool breeze almost put out the light. "I am not asleep," said a sweet young voice. "I am here by the window." He smiled happily at the words. The candle-light fell upon a woman's face, as he went forward--such a face as men may see in dreams, but rarely in waking life. Half sitting, half lying, she rested in Eastern fashion among the silken cushions of a low divan. The open windows of the balcony overlooked the low houses opposite, and the night breeze played with the little ringlets of her glorious hair. Her soft eyes looked up to her lover's face with infinite trustfulness, and their violet depths were like clear crystal and as tender as the twilight of a perfect day. She looked at him, her head thrown back, one ivory arm between it and the cushion, the other hand stretched out to welcome his. Her mouth was like a southern rose when there is dew on the smooth red leaves. In a maze of creamy shadows, the fine web of her garment followed the lines of her resting limbs in delicate folds, and one small white foot was quite uncovered. Her fan of ostrich feathers lay idle on the Persian carpet. "Come, my beloved," she said. "I have waited long." Contarini knelt down, and first he kissed the arching instep, and then her hand, that felt like a young dove just stirring under his touch, and his lips caressed the satin of her arm, and at last, with a fierce little choking cry, they found her own that waited for them, and there was no more room for words. In the silence of the June night one kiss answered another, and breath mingled with breath, and sigh with sigh. At last the young man's head rested against her shoulder among the cushions. Then the Georgian woman opened her eyes slowly and glanced down at his face, while her hand stroked and smoothed his hair, and he could not see the strange smile on her wonderful lips. For she knew that he could not see it, and she let it come and go as it would, half in pity and half in scorn. "I knew you would come," she said, bending her head a little nearer to his. "When I do not, you will know that I am dead," he answered almost faintly, and he sighed. "And then I shall go to you," she said, but as she spoke, she smiled again to herself. "I have heard that in old times, when the lords of the earth died, their most favourite slaves were killed upon the funeral pile, that their souls might wait upon their master's in the world beyond." "Yes. It is true." "And so I will be your slave there, as I am here, and the night that lasts for ever shall seem no longer than this summer night, that is too short for us." "You must not call yourself a slave, Arisa," answered Jacopo. "What am I, then? You bought me with your good gold from Aristarchi the Greek captain, in the slave market. Your steward has the receipt for the money among his accounts! And there is the Greek's written guarantee, too, I am sure, promising to take me back and return the money if I was not all he told you I was. Those are my documents of nobility, my patents of rank, preserved in your archives with your own!" She spoke playfully, smiling to herself as she stroked his hair. But he caught her hand tenderly and brought it to his lips, holding it there. "You are more free than I," he said. "Which of us two is the slave? You who hold me, or I who am held? This little hand will never let me go." "I think you would come back to me," she answered. "But if I ran away, would you follow me?" "You will not run away." He spoke quietly and confidently, still holding her hand, as if he were talking to it, while he felt the breath of her winds upon his forehead. "No," she said, and there was a little silence. "I have but one fear," he began, at last. "If I were ruined, what would become of you?" "Have you lost at play again to-night?" she asked, and in her tone there was a note of anxiety. Contarini laughed low, and felt for the wallet at his aide. He held it up to show how heavy it was with the gold, and made her take it. She only kept it a moment, but while it was in her hand her eyelids were half closed as if she were guessing at the weight, for he could not see her face. "I won all that," he said. "To-morrow you shall have the pearls." "How good you are to me! But should you not keep the money? You may need it. Why do you talk of ruin?" She knew that he would give her all he had, she almost guessed that he would commit a crime rather than lack gold to give her. "You do not know my father!" he answered. "When he is displeased he threatens to let me starve. He will cut me off some day, and I shall have to turn soldier for a living. Would that not be ruin? You know his last scheme--he wishes me to marry the daughter of a rich glass-maker." "I know." Arisa laughed contemptuously, "Great joy may your bride have of you! Is she really rich?" "Yes. But you know that I will not marry her." "Why not?" asked Arisa quite simply. Contarini started and looked up at her face in the dim light. She was bending down to him with a very loving look. "Why should you not marry?" she asked again. "Why do you start and look at me so strangely? Do you think I should care? Or that I am afraid of another woman for you?" "Yes. I should have thought that you would be jealous." He still gazed at her in astonishment. "Jealous!" she cried, and as she laughed she shook her beautiful head, and the gold of her hair glittered in the flickering candle-light. "Jealous? I? Look at me! Is she younger than I? I was eighteen years old the other day. If she is younger than I, she is a child--shall I be jealous of children? Is she taller, straighter, handsomer than I am? Show her to me, and I will laugh in her face! Can she sing to you, as I sing, in the summer nights, the songs you like and those I learned by the Kura in the shadow of Kasbek? Is her hair brighter than mine, is her hand softer, is her step lighter? Jealous? Not I! Will your rich wife be your slave? Will she wake for you, sing for you, dance for you, rise up and lie down at your bidding, work for you, live for you, die for you, as I will? Will she love you as I can love, caress you to sleep, or wake you with kisses at your dear will?" "No--ah no! There is no woman in the world but you." "Then I am not jealous of the rest, least of all, of your young bride. I will wager with myself against all her gold for your life, and I shall win--I have won already! Am I not trying to persuade you that you should marry?" "I have not even seen her. Her father sent me a message to-night, bidding me go to church on Sunday and stand beside a certain pillar." "To see and be seen," laughed Arisa. "It is not a fair exchange! She will look at the handsomest man in the world--hush! That is the truth. And you will see a little, pale, red-haired girl with silly blue eyes, staring at you, her wide mouth open and her clumsy hands hanging down. She will look like the wooden dolls they dress in the latest Venetian fashion to send to Paris every year, that the French courtiers may know what to wear! And her father will hurry her along, for fear that you should look too long at her and refuse to marry such a thing, even for Marco Polo's millions!" Contarini laughed carelessly at the description. "Give me some wine," he said. "We will drink her health." Arisa rose with the grace of a young goddess, her hair tumbling over her bare shoulders in a splendid golden confusion. Contarini watched her with possessive eyes, as she went and came back, bringing him the drink. She brought him yellow wine of Chios in a glass calix of Murano, blown air-thin upon a slender stem and just touched here and there with drops of tender blue. "A health to the bride of Jacopo Contarini!" she said, with a ringing little laugh. Then she set the wine to her lips, so that they were wet with it, and gave him the glass; and as she stooped to give it, her hair fell forward and almost hid her from him. "A health to the shower of gold!" he said, and he drank. She sat down beside him, crossing her feet like an Eastern woman, and he set the empty glass carelessly upon the marble floor, as though it had been a thing of no price. "That glass was made at her father's furnace," he said. "A pity he could not have made his daughter of glass too," answered Arisa. "Graceful and silent?" "And easily destroyed! But if I say that, you will think me jealous, and I am not. She will bring you wealth. I wish her a long life, long enough to understand that she has been sold to you for your good name, like a slave, as I was sold, but that you gave gold for me because you wanted me for myself, whereas you want nothing of her but her gold." "But for that--" Contarini seemed to be hesitating. "I never meant to marry her," he added. "And but for that, you would not! But for that! But for the only thing which I have not to give you! I wish the world were mine, with all the rich secret things in it, the myriads of millions of diamonds in the earth, the thousand rivers of gold that lie deep in the mountain rocks, and all mankind, and all that mankind has, from end to end of it! Then you should have it all for your own, and you would not need to marry the little red-haired girl with the fish's mouth!" Contarini laughed again. "Have you seen her, that you can describe her so well? She may have black hair. Who knows?" "Yes. Perhaps it is black, thin and coarse like the hair on a mule's tail; and she has black eyes, like ripe olives set in the white of a hard-boiled egg; and she has a dark skin like Spanish leather which shines when she is hot and is grey when she is cold; and a black down on her upper lip; and teeth like a young horse. I hate those dark women!" "But you have never seen her! She may be very pretty." "Pretty, then! She shall be as you choose. She shall have a round face, round eyes, a round nose and a round mouth! Her face shall be pink and white, her eyes shall be of blue glass and her hair shall be as smooth and yellow as fresh butter. She shall have little fat white hands like a healthy baby, a double chin and a short waist. Then she will be what people call pretty." "Yes," assented Jacopo. "That is very amusing. But just suppose, for the sake of discussion--it is impossible, of course, but suppose it--that instead of there being only one perfectly beautiful woman in the world, whose name is Arisa, there should be two, and that the name of the other chanced to be Marietta Beroviero." Arisa raised her eyes and gazed steadily at Jacopo. "You have seen her," she said in a tone of conviction. "She is beautiful." "No. I give you my word that I have not seen her. I only wanted to know what you would do then." "I do not believe that any woman is as beautiful as I am," answered the Georgian, with the quiet simplicity of a savage. "But if there were one, and you saw her?" insisted the man, to see what she would say. "We could not both live. One of us would kill the other." "I believe you would," said Jacopo, watching her face. She had forgotten his presence while she spoke; a fierce hardness had come into her eyes, and her upper lip was a little raised, in a cruel expression, just showing her teeth. He was surprised. "I never saw you like that," he said. "You should not make me think of killing," she answered, suddenly leaving her seat and kneeling beside him on the divan. "It is not good to think too much of killing--it makes one wish to do it." "Then try and kill me with kisses," he said, looking into her eyes, that were growing tender again. "You would not know you were dying," she whispered, her lips quite close to his. As she kissed him, she loosened the collar from his white throat, and smoothed his thick hair back from his forehead upon the pillow, and she saw how pale he was, under her touch. But by and by he fell asleep, and then she very softly drew her arm from beneath his tired head, and slipped from his side, and stood up, with a little sigh of relief. The candle had burned to the socket; she blew it out. It was still an hour before dawn when she left the room, lifting the heavy curtain that hung before the door of her inner chamber. There, a faint light was burning before a shrine in a silver cup filled with oil. As she fastened the door noiselessly behind her, a man caught her in his arms, lifting her off her feet like a child. Shaggy black hair grew low upon his bossy forehead, his dark eyes were fierce and bloodshot, a rough beard only half concealed the huge jaw and iron lips. He was half clad, in shirt and hose, and the muscles of his neck and arms stood out like brown ropes as he pressed the beautiful creature to his broad chest. "I thought he would never sleep to-night," she whispered. Her eyelids drooped, and her cheeks grew deadly white, and the strong man felt the furious beating of her heart against his own breast. He was Aristarchi, the Greek captain who had sold her for a slave, and she loved him. In the wild days of sea-fighting among the Greek islands he had taken a small trading galley that had been driven out of her course. He left not a man of her crew alive to tell whether she had been Turkish or Christian, and he took all that was worth taking of her poor cargo. The only prize of any price was the captive Georgian girl who was being brought westward to be sold, like thousands of others in those days, with little concealment and no mystery, in one of the slave markets of northern Italy. Aristarchi claimed her for himself, as his share of the booty, but his men knew her value. Standing shoulder to shoulder between him and her, they drew their knives and threatened to cut her to pieces, if he would not promise to sell her as she was, when they should come to land, and share the price with them. They judged that she must be worth a thousand or fifteen hundred pieces of gold, for she was more beautiful than any woman they had ever seen, and they had already heard her singing most sweetly to herself, as if she were quite sure that she was in no danger, because she knew her own value. So Aristarchi was forced to consent, cursing them; and night and day they guarded her door against him, till they had brought her safe to Venice, and delivered her to the slave-dealers. Then Aristarchi sold all that he had, except his ship, and it all brought far too little to buy such a slave. She would have gone with him, for she had seen that he was stronger than other men and feared neither God nor man, but she was well guarded, and he was only allowed to talk with her through a grated window, like those at convent gates. She was not long in the dealers' house, for word was brought to all the young patricians of Venice, and many of them bid against each other for her, in the dealers' inner room, till Contarini outbid them all, saying that he could not live without her, though the price should ruin him, and because he had not enough gold he gave the dealers, besides money, a marvellous sword with a jewelled hilt, which one of his forefathers had taken at the siege of Constantinople, and which some said had belonged to the Emperor Justinian himself, nine hundred years ago. Then Aristarchi and his men paid the dealers their commission and took the money and the sword. But before he went from the house, the Greek captain begged leave to see Arisa once more at the grating, and he told her that come what might he should steal her away. She bade him not to be in too great haste, and she promised that if he would wait, he should have with her more gold than her new master had given for her, for she would take all he had from him, little by little; and when they had enough they would leave Venice secretly, and live in a grand manner in Florence, or in Rome, or in Sicily. For she never doubted but that he would find some way of coming to her, though she were guarded more closely than in the slave-dealers' house, where the windows were grated and armed men slept before the door, and one of the dealers watched all night. More than a year had passed since then; the strong Greek knew every corner of the house of the Agnus Dei, and every foothold under Arisa's windows, from the water to the stone sill, by which he could help himself a little as he went up hand over hand by the knotted silk rope that would have cut to the bone any hands but his. She kept it hidden in a cushioned footstool in her inner room. Many a risk he had run, and more than once in winter he had slipped down the rope with haste to let himself gently into the icy water, and he had swum far down the dark canal to a landing-place. For he was a man of iron. So it came about that Jacopo Contarini lived in a fool's paradise, in which he was not only the chief fool himself, but was moreover in bodily danger more often than he knew. For though Aristarchi had hitherto managed to escape being seen, he would have killed Jacopo with his naked hands if the latter had ever caught him, as easily as a boy wrings a bird's neck, and with as little scruple of conscience. The Georgian loved him for his hirsute strength, for his fearlessness, even his violence and dangerous temper. He dominated her as naturally as she controlled her master, whose vacillating nature and love of idle ease filled her with contempt. It was for the sake of gold that she acted her part daily and nightly, with a wisdom and unwavering skill that were almost superhuman; and the Greek ruffian agreed to the bargain, and had been in no haste to carry her off, as he might have done at any time. She hoarded the money she got from Jacopo, to give it by stealth to Aristarchi, who hid their growing wealth in a safe place where it was always ready; but she kept her jewels always together, in case of an unexpected flight, since she dared not sell them nor give them to the Greek, lest they should be missed. Of late it had seemed to them both that the time for their final action was at hand, for it had been clear to Arisa that Jacopo was near the end of his resources, and that his father was resolved to force him to change his life. There were days when he was reduced to borrowing money for his actual needs, and though an occasional stroke of good fortune at play temporarily relieved him, Arisa was sure that he was constantly sinking deeper into debt. But within the week, the aspect of his affairs had changed. The marriage with Marietta had been proposed, and Arisa had made a discovery. She told Aristarchi everything, as naturally as she would have concealed everything from Contarini. "We shall be rich," she said, twining her white arms round his swarthy neck and looking up into his murderous eyes with something like genuine adoration. "We shall get the wife's dowry for ourselves, by degrees, every farthing of it, and it shall be the dower of Aristarchi's bride instead. I shall not be portionless. You shall not be ashamed of me when you meet your old friends." "Ashamed!" His arm pressed her to him till she longed to cry out for pain, yet she would not have had him less rough. "You are so strong!" she gasped in a broken whisper. "Yes--a little looser--so! I can speak now. You must go to Murano to-morrow and find out all about this Angelo Beroviero and his daughter. Try to see her, and tell me whether she is pretty, but most of all learn whether she is really rich." "That is easy enough. I will go to the furnace and offer to buy a cargo of glass for Sicily." "But you will not take it?" asked Arisa in sudden anxiety lest he should leave her to make the voyage. "No, no! I will make inquiries. I will ask for a sort of glass that does not exist." "Yes," she said, reassured. "Do that. I must know if the girl is rich before I marry him to her." "But can you make him marry her at all?" asked Aristarchi. "I can make him do anything I please. We drank to the health of the bride to-night, in a goblet made by her father! The wine was strong, and I put a little syrup of poppies into it. He will not wake for hours. What is the matter?" She felt the rough man shaking beside her, as if he were in an ague. "I was laughing," he said, when he could speak. "It is a good jest. But is there no danger in all this? Is it quite impossible that he should take a liking for his wife?" "And leave me?" Arisa's whisper was hot with indignation at the mere thought. "Then I suppose you would leave me for the first pretty girl with a fortune who wanted to marry you!" "This Contarini is such a fool!" answered Aristarchi contemptuously, by way of explanation and apology. Arisa was instantly pacified. "If he should be foolish enough for that, I have means that will keep him," she answered. "I do not see how you can force him to do anything except by his passion for you." "I can. I was not going to tell you yet--you always make me tell you everything, like a child." "What is it?" asked the Greek. "Have you found out anything new about him? Of course you must tell me." "We hold his life in our hands," she said quietly, and Aristarchi knew that she was not exaggerating the truth. She began to tell him how this was the third time that a number of masked men had come to the house an hour after dark, and had stayed till midnight or later, and how Contarini had told her that they came to play at dice where they were safe from interruption, and that on these nights the servants were sent to their quarters at sunset on pain of dismissal if Jacopo found them about the house, but that they also received generous presents of money to keep them silent. "The man is a fool!" said Aristarchi again. "He puts himself in their power." "He is much more completely in ours," answered Arisa. "The servants believe that his friends come to play dice. And so they do. But they come for something more serious." Aristarchi moved his massive head suddenly to an attitude of profound attention. "They are plotting against the Republic," whispered Arisa. "I can hear all they say." "Are you sure?" "I tell you I can hear every word. I can almost see them. Look here. Come with me." She rose and he followed her to the corner of the room where the small silver lamp burned steadily before an image of Saint Mark, and above a heavy kneeling-stool. "The foot moves," she said, and she was already on her knees on the floor, pushing the step. It slid back with the soft sound Contarini had heard before he came upstairs. The upper part of the woodwork was built into the wall. "They meet in the place below this," Arisa said. "When they are there, I can see a glimmer of light. I cannot get my head in. It is too narrow, but I hear as if I were with them." "How did you find this out?" asked Aristarchi on the floor beside her, and reaching down into the dark space to explore it with his hand. "It is deep," he continued, without waiting for an answer. "There may be some passage by which one can get down." "Only a child could pass. You see how narrow it is. But one can hear every sound. They said enough to-night to send them all to the scaffold." "Better they than we if we ever have to make the choice," said the Greek ominously. He had withdrawn his arm and was planted upon his hands and knees, his shaggy head hanging over the dark aperture. He was like some rough wild beast that has tracked its quarry to earth and crouches before the hole, waiting for a victim. "How did you find this out?" he asked again, looking up. She was standing by the corner of the stool, now, all her marvellous beauty showing in the light of the little lamp and against the wall behind her. "I was saying my prayers here, the first night they met," she said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "I heard voices, as it seemed, under my feet. I tried to push away the stool, and the foot moved. That is all." Aristarchi's jaw dropped a little as he looked up at her. "Do you say prayers every night?" he asked in wonder. "Of course I do. Do you never say a prayer?" "No." He was still staring at her. "That is very wrong," she said, in the earnest tone a mother might use to her little child. "Some harm will befall us, if you do not say your prayers." A slow smile crossed the ruffian's face as he realised that this evil woman who was ready to commit the most atrocious deeds out of love for him, was still half a child. CHAPTER IV Marietta awoke before sunrise, with a smile on her lips, and as she opened her eyes, the world seemed suddenly gladder than ever before, and her heart beat in time with it. She threw back the shutters wide to let in the June morning as if it were a beautiful living thing; and it breathed upon her face and caressed her, and took her in its spirit arms, and filled her with itself. Not a sound broke the stillness, as she looked out, and the glassy waters of the canal reflected delicate tints from the sky, palest green and faintest violet and amber with all the lovely changing colours of the dawn. By the footway a black barge was moored, piled high with round uncovered baskets of beads, white, blue, deep red and black, waiting to be taken over to Venice where they would be threaded for the East, and the colours stood out in strong contrast with the grey stones, the faint reflections in the water and the tender sky above. There were flowers on the window-sill, a young rose with opening buds, growing in a red earthen jar, and a pot of lavender just bursting into flower, with a sweet geranium beside it and some rosemary. Zorzi had planted them all for her, and her serving-woman had helped her to fasten the pots in the window, because it would have been out of the question that any man except her father should enter her room, even when she was not there. But they were Zorzi's flowers, and she bent down and smelt their fragrance. On a table behind her a single rose hung over the edge of a tall glass with a slender stem, almost the counterpart of the one in which Contarini had drunk her health at midnight. Her father had given it to her as it came from the annealing oven, still warm after long hours of cooling with many others like it. She loved it for its grace and lightness, and as for the rose, it was the one she had made Zorzi give back to her yesterday. She meant to keep it in water till it faded, and then she would press it between the first page and the binding of her parchment missal. It would keep some of its faint scent, perhaps, and if any one saw it, no one would ever guess whence it came. It meant a great thing to her, for it had told her Zorzi's secret, which he had kept so well. He should know hers some day, but not yet, and her drooping lids could hide it if it ever came into her eyes. It was too soon to let him know that she loved him. That was one reason for hiding it, but she had another. If her father guessed that she loved the waif, it would fare ill with him. She fancied she could see the old man's fiery brown eyes and hear his angry voice. Poor Zorzi would be driven from Murano and Venice, never to set foot again within the boundaries of the Republic; for Beroviero was a man of weight and influence, of whom Venice was proud. Youth would be very sad if it counted time and labour as it is reckoned and valued by mature age. Some day Zorzi would be no longer a mere paid helper, calling himself a servant when his humour was bitter, tending a fire on his knees and grinding coloured earths and salts in a mortar. He had the understanding of the glorious art, and the true love of it, with the magic touch; he would make a name for himself in spite of the harsh Venetian law, and some day his master would be proud to call him son. There would not be many months to wait. Months or years, what mattered, since she loved him and was at last quite sure that he loved her? To-day, that was enough. She would go over to the glass-house and sit in the garden, by the rose he had planted, and now and then she would go into the close furnace room where he worked with her father, or Zorzi would come out for something; she should be near him, she should see his face and hear his quiet voice, and she would say to herself: He loves me, he loves me--as often as she chose, knowing that it was true. Since she knew it, she was sure that she should see it in his face, that had hidden it from her so long. There would be glances when he thought she was not watching him, his colour would come and go, as yesterday, and he would do her some little service, now and then, in which the sweet truth, against his will, should tell itself to her again and again. It would be a delicious and ever-remembered day, each minute a pearl, each hour a chaplet of jewels, from golden sunrise to golden sunset, all perfect through and through. There were so many little things she could watch in him, now that she knew the truth, things that had long meant nothing and would mean volumes to-day. She would watch him, and then call him suddenly and see him try to hide the little gladness he would feel as he turned to her; and when they were alone a moment, she would ask him whether he had remembered to forget Jacopo Contarini's name; and some day, but not for a long time yet, she would drop a rose again, and she would turn as he picked it up, but she would not make him give it back to her, and in that way he should know that she loved him. She must not think of that, for it was too soon, yet she could almost see his face as it would be when he knew. Yesterday her father had talked again of her marriage. A whole month had passed since he had even alluded to it, but this time he had spoken of it as a certainty; and she had opened her eyes wide in surprise. She did not believe that it was to be. How could she marry a man she did not love? How could she love any man but Zorzi? They might show her twenty Venetian patricians, that she might choose among them. Meanwhile she would show her indifference. Nothing was easier than to put on an inscrutable expression which betrayed nothing, but which, as she knew, sometimes irritated her father beyond endurance. He had always promised that she should not be married against her will, as many girls were. Then why should she marry Contarini, any more than any other man except the one she had chosen? She need only say that Contarini did not please her, and her father would certainly not try to use force. There was therefore nothing to fear, and since her first surprise was over, she felt sure of appearing quite indifferent. She would put the thought out of her mind and begin the day with the perfect certainty that the marriage was altogether impossible. She looked out over her flowers. The door of the glass-house was open now, and the burly porter was sweeping; she could hear the cypress broom on the flagstones inside, and presently it appeared in sight while the porter was still invisible, and it whisked out a mixture of black dust and bread crumbs and bits of green salad leaves, and the old man came out and swept everything across the footway into the canal. As he turned to go back, the workmen came trooping across the bridge to the furnaces--pale men with intent faces, very different from ordinary working people. For each called himself an artist, and was one; and each knew that so far as the law was concerned the proudest noble in Venice could marry his daughter without the least derogation from patrician dignity. The workmen differed from her own father not in station, but only in the degree of their prosperity. If Zorzi could ever have been one of them the rest would have been simple enough. But he could not, any more than a black man could turn white at will. There was no evasion of law by which a man not born a Venetian could ever be a glass-blower, or could ever acquire the privileges possessed from birth by one of those shabby, pale young men who were crowding past the porter to go to their hard day's work. Yet dexterous as they were, there was not one that had his skill, there was not one that could compare with him as an artist, as a workman, as a man. No Indian caste, no ancient nobility, no mystic priesthood ever set up a barrier so impassable between itself and the outer world as that which defended the glass-blowers of Murano for centuries against all who wished to be initiated. Even the boys who fed the fires all night were of the calling, and by and by would become workmen, and perhaps masters, legally almost the equals of the splendid nobles who sat in the Grand Council over there in Venice. Zorzi's very existence was an anomaly. He had no social right to be what he was, and he knew it when he called himself a servant, for the cruel law would not allow him to be anything else so long as he helped Angelo Beroviero. Suddenly, while Marietta watched the men, Zorzi was there among them, coming out as they went in. He must have risen early, she thought, for she did not know that he had slept in the laboratory. He looked pale and thin as he flattened himself against the door-post to let a workman pass, and then slipped out himself. No one greeted him, even by a nod. Marietta knew that they hated him because he was in her father's confidence; and somehow, instead of pitying him, she was glad. It seemed natural that he should not be one of them, that he should pass them with quiet indifference and that they should feel for him the instinctive dislike which most inferiors feel for those above them. Doubtless, they looked down upon him, or told themselves that they did; but in their hearts they knew that a man with such a face was born to be their teacher and their master, and the girl was proud of him. He treated them with more civility than they bestowed on him, but it was the courtesy of a superior who would not assert himself, who would scorn to thrust himself forward or in any way to claim what was his by right, if it were not freely offered. Marietta drew back a little, so that she could just see him between the flowers, without being seen. He stood still, looking down at the canal till the last of the men had passed in. Then, before he went on, he raised his eyes slowly to Marietta's window, not guessing that her own were answering his from behind the rosemary and the geranium. His pale face was very sad and thoughtful as he looked up. She had never seen him look so tired. The porter had shut the door, which he never allowed to remain open one moment longer than was absolutely necessary, and Zorzi stood quite alone on the footway. As he looked, his face softened and grew so tender that the girl who watched him unseen stretched out her arms towards him with unconscious yearning, and her heart beat very fast, so that she felt the pulses in her throat almost choking her; yet her face was pale and her soft lips were dry and cold. For it was not all happiness that she felt; there was a sweet mysterious pain with it, which was nowhere, and yet all through her, that was weakness and yet might turn to strength, a hunger of longing for something dear and unknown and divine, without which all else was an empty shadow. Then her eyes opened to him, as he had never seen them, blue as the depth of sapphires and dewy with love mists of youth's early spring; it was impossible that he should stand there, just beyond the narrow water, and not feel that she saw him and loved him, and that her heart was crying out the true words he never hoped to hear. But he did not know. And all at once his eyes fell, and she could almost see that he sighed as he turned wearily away and walked with bent head towards the wooden bridge. She would have given anything to look out and see him cross and come nearer, but she remembered that she was not yet dressed, and she blushed as she drew further back into the room, gathering the thin white linen up to her throat, and frightened at the mere thought that he should catch sight of her. She would not call her serving-woman yet, she would be alone a little while longer. She threw back her russet hair, and bent down to smell the rose in the tall glass. The sun was risen now and the first slanting beams shot sideways through her window from the right. The day that was to be so sweet had begun most sweetly. She had seen him already, far earlier than usual; she would see him many times before the little brown maid crossed the canal to bring her home in the evening. The thought put an end to her meditations, and she was suddenly in haste to be dressed, to be out of the house, to be sitting in the little garden of the glass-house where Zorzi must soon pass again. She called and clapped her hands, and her serving-woman entered from the outer room in which she slept. She brought a great painted earthenware dish, on which fruit was arranged, half of a small yellow melon fresh from the cool storeroom, a little heap of dark red cherries and a handful of ripe plums. There was white wheaten bread, too, and honey from Aquileia, in a little glass jar, and there was a goblet of cold water. The maid set the big dish on the table, beside the glass that held Zorzi's rose, and began to make ready her mistress's clothes. Marietta tasted the melon, and it was cool and aromatic, and she stood eating a slice of it, just where she could look through the flowers on the window-sill at the door of the glass-house, so that if Zorzi passed again she should see him. He did not come, and she was a little disappointed; but the melon was very good, and afterwards she ate a few cherries and spread a spoonful of honey on a piece of bread, and nibbled at it; and she drank some of the water, looking out of the window over the glass. "Was it always so beautiful?" she asked, speaking to herself, in a sort of wonder at what she felt, as she set the glass upon the table. Nella, the maid, turned quickly to her with a look of inquiry. "What?" she asked. "What is beautiful? The weather? It is summer! Of course it is fine. Did you expect the north wind to-day, or rain from the southwest?" Marietta laughed, sweet and low. The little maid always amused her. There was something cheerful in the queer little scolding sentences, spoken with a rising inflection on almost every word, musical and yet always seeming to protest gently against anything Marietta said. "I know of something much more beautiful than the weather," Nella added, seeing that she got no answer except a laugh. "Do you wish to know what is more beautiful than a summer's day?" "Oh, I know the answer to that!" cried Marietta. "You used to catch me in that way when I was a small girl." "Well, my little lady, what is the answer? I have said nothing." "What is more beautiful than a summer's day? Why, two summer's days, of course! I was always dreadfully disappointed when you gave me that answer, for I expected something wonderful." Nella shook her head as she unfolded the fine linen things, and uttered a sort of little clucking sound, meant to show her disapproval of such childish jests. "Tut, tut, tut! We are grown up now! Are we children? No, we are a young lady, beautiful and serious! Tut, tut, tut! That you should remember the nonsense I used to talk to make you stop crying for your mother, blessed soul! And I myself was so full of tears that a drop of water would have drowned me! But all passes, praise be to God!" "I hope not," said Marietta, but so low that the woman did not hear. "I will ask you a riddle," continued Nella presently. "Oh no!" laughed Marietta. "I could no more guess a riddle to-day than I could give a dissertation on theology. Riddles are for rainy days in winter, when we sit by the fire in the evening wishing it were morning again. I know the great riddle at last--I have found it out. It is the most beautiful thing in the world." "Then it is true," observed Nella, looking at her with satisfaction. "What?" asked the young girl carelessly. "That you are to be married." "I hope so," answered Marietta. "Some day, but there is time yet--perhaps a very long time." "As long as it will take to make a wedding gown embroidered with gold and pearls. Not a day longer than that." Nella looked very wise and watched her mistress's face. "What do you mean?" "The master has ordered just such a gown. That is what I mean. Do you think I would talk of such a beautiful thing, just to make you unhappy, if you were not to have one? But you will not forget poor Nella, my little lady? You will take me with you to Venice?" "Then you think I am to marry some one from the city? What is his name?" "The master knows. That is enough. But it must be the Doge's son, or at least the son of the Admiral of Venice. It will take two months to embroider the gown. That means that you are to be married in August, of course." "Do you think so?" asked Marietta indifferently. "I know it." And Nella gave a discontented little snort, for she did not like to have her conclusions questioned. "Am I half-witted? Am I in my dotage? Am I an imbecile? The gown is ordered, and that is the truth. Do you think the master has ordered a wedding gown embroidered with gold and pearls for himself?" Marietta tossed her hair back and shook it down her shoulders, laughing gaily at the idea. "Ah!" cried Nella indignantly. "Now you are mocking me! You are making a laughing-stock of your poor Nella! It is too bad! But you will be sorry that you laughed at me, when I am not here to bring you melons and cherries and tell you the news in the morning! You will say: 'Poor Nella! She was not such an ignorant person after all!' That is what you will say. I tell you that if your father orders a wedding gown, you are the only person in the house who can wear it, and he would not order it just to see how beautiful you would be as a bride! He is a serious man, the master, he is grave, he is wise! He does nothing without much reflection, and what he does is well done. He says, 'My daughter is to be married, therefore I will order a splendid dress for her.' That is what he says, and he orders it." "That has an air of reason," said Marietta gravely. "I did not mean to laugh at you." "Oh, very well! If you thought your father unreasonable, what should I say? He does not say one thing and do another, your father. And I will tell you something. They will make the gown even handsomer than he ordered it, because he is very rich, and he will grumble and scold, but in the end he will pay, for the honour of the house. Then you will wear the gown, and all Venice will see you in it on your wedding day." "That will be a great thing for the Venetians," observed the young girl, trying not to smile. "They will see that there are rich men in Murano, too. It will be a lesson for their intolerable vanity." "Are the Venetians so very vain?" "Well! Was not my husband a Venetian, blessed soul? It seems to me that I should know. Have I forgotten how he would fasten a cock's feather in his cap, almost like a gentleman, and hang his cloak over one shoulder, and pull up his hose till they almost cracked, so as to show off his leg? Ah, he had handsome legs, my poor Vito, and he never would use anything but pure beeswax to stiffen his mustaches. No, he never would use tallow. He was almost like a gentleman!" Nella's little brown eyes were moist as she recalled her husband's small vanities; his dislike of tallow as a cosmetic seemed to affect her particularly. "That is why I say that it will be a lesson to the pride of those Venetians to see your marriage," she resumed, after drying her eyes with the back of her hand. "And the people of Murano will be there, and all the glass-blowers in their guild, since the master is the head of it. I suppose Zorzi will manage to be there, too." Nella spoke the last words in a tone of disapproval. "Why should Zorzi not be at my wedding?" asked Marietta carelessly. "Why should he?" asked the serving-woman with unusual bluntness. "But I daresay the master will find something for him to do. He is clever enough at doing anything." "Yes--he is clever," assented the young girl. "Why do you not like him? Give me some more water--you are always afraid that I shall use too much!" "I have a conscience," grumbled Nella. "The water is brought from far, it is paid for, it costs money, we must not use too much of it. Every day the boats come with it, and the row of earthen jars in the court is filled, and your father pays--he always pays, and pays, and pays, till I wonder where the money all comes from. They say he makes gold, over there in the furnace." "He makes glass," answered Marietta. "And if he orders gowns for me with pearls and gold, he will not grudge me a jug of water. Why do you dislike Zorzi?" "He is as proud as a marble lion, and as obstinate as a Lombardy mule," explained Nella, with fine imagery. "If that is not enough to make one dislike a young man, you shall tell me so! But one of those days he will fall. There is trouble for the proud." "How does his great pride show itself?" asked Marietta. "I have not noticed it." "That would indeed be the end of everything, if he showed his pride to you!" Nella was much displeased by the mere suggestion. "But with us it is different. He never speaks to the other workmen." "They never speak to him." "And quite right, too, since he holds his head so high, with no reason at all! But it will not last for ever! I wonder what the master would think, for instance, if he knew that Zorzi takes the skiff in the evening, and rows himself over to Venice, all alone, and comes back long after midnight, and sleeps in the glass-house across the way because he cannot get into the house. Zorzi! Zorzi! The master cannot move without Zorzi! And where is Zorzi at night? At home and in bed, like a decent young man? No. Zorzi is away in Venice, heaven knows where, doing heaven knows what! Do you wonder that he is so pale and tired in the morning? It seems to me quite natural. Eh? What do you think, my pretty lady?" Marietta was silent for a moment. It was only a servant's spiteful gossip, but it hurt her. "Are you sure that he goes to Venice alone at night?" she asked, after a little pause. "Am I sure that I live, that I belong to you, and that my name is Nella? Is not the boat moored under my window? Did I not hear the chain rattling softly last night? I got up and looked out, and I saw Zorzi, as I see you, taking the padlock off. I am not blind--praise be to heaven, I see. He turned the boat to the left, so he must have been going to Venice, and it was at least an hour after the midnight bells when I heard the chain again, and I looked out, and there he was. But he did not come into the house. And this morning I saw him coming out of the glass-house, just as the men went in. He was as pale as a boiled chicken." Marietta had seen him, too, and the coincidence gave colour to the rest of the woman's tale, as would have happened if the whole story had been an invention instead of being quite true. Nella was combing the girl's thick hair, an operation peculiarly conducive to a maid's chattering, for she has the certainty that her mistress cannot get away, and must therefore listen patiently. A shadow had fallen on the brightness of Marietta's morning. She was paler, too, but she said nothing. "Of course he was tired," continued Nella. "Did you suppose that he would come back with pink cheeks and bright eyes, like a baby from baptism, after being out half the night?" "He is always pale," said Marietta. "Because he goes to Venice every night," retorted Nella viciously. "That is the good reason! Oh, I am sure of it! And besides, I shall watch him, now that I know. I shall see him whenever he takes the boat." "It is none of your business where he goes," answered Marietta. "It does not concern any one but himself." "Oh, indeed!" sneered Nella. "Then the honour of the house does not matter! It is no concern of ours! And your father need never know that his trusty servant, his clever assistant, his faithful confidant, who shares all his secrets, is a good-for-nothing fellow who spends his nights in gambling, or drinking, or perhaps in making love to some Venetian girl as honourable and well behaved as himself!" Marietta had grown steadily more angry while Nella was talking. She had her father's temper, though she could control it better than he. "I will find out whether this story is true," she said coldly. "If it is not, it will be the worse for you. You shall not serve me any longer, unless you can be more careful in what you say." Nella's jaw dropped and her hands stood still and trembled, the one holding the comb upraised, the other gathering a quantity of her mistress's hair. Marietta had never spoken to her like this in her life. "Send me away?" faltered the woman in utter amazement. "Send me away!" she repeated, still quite dazed. "But it is impossible--" her voice began to break, as if some one were shaking her violently by the shoulders. "Oh no, no! You w-ill n-ot--no-o-o!" The sound grew more piercing as she went on, and the words were soon lost, as she broke into a violent fit of hysterical crying. Marietta's anger subsided as her pity for the poor creature increased. She had made a great effort to speak quietly and not to say more than she meant, and she had certainly not expected to produce such a tremendous commotion. Nella tore her hair, drew her nails down her cheeks, as if she would tear them with scratches, rocked herself forwards and backwards and from side to side, the tears poured down her brown cheeks, she screamed and blubbered and whimpered in quick alternation, and in a few moments tumbled into the corner of a big chair, a sobbing and convulsed little heap of womanhood. Marietta tried to quiet her, and was so sorry for her that she could almost have cried too, until she remembered the detestable things which Nella had said about Zorzi, and which the woman's screams had driven out of her memory for an instant. Then she longed to beat her for saying them, and still Nella alternately moaned and howled, and twisted herself in the corner of the big chair. Marietta wondered whether her servant were going mad, and whether this might not be a judgment of heaven for telling such atrocious lies about poor Zorzi. In that case it was of course deserved, thought she, watching Nella's contortions; but it was very sudden. She made up her mind to call the other women, and turned to go to the door. As she did so her skirt caught a comb that lay on the edge of the table and swept it off, so that it fell upon the pavement with a dry rap. Instantly Nella sat up straight and rubbed her eyes, looking about for the cause of the sound. When she saw the comb, the serving-woman's instinct returned, and with it her normal condition of mind. She picked up the comb with a quick movement, shook her head and began combing Marietta's hair again before the girl could sit down. Peace was restored, for she did not speak again, as she helped her mistress to finish dressing; but though Marietta tried to look kindly at her once or twice, Nella quite refused to see it, and did her duty without ever raising her eyes. It was soon finished, for the pleasure the young girl had taken in making much of the first details of the day that was to be so happy was all gone. She did not believe her woman, but there was a cloud over everything and she was in haste to get an answer to the question which it would not be easy to ask. She must know if Zorzi had been to Venice during the night, for until she knew that, all hope of peace was at an end. Nella had meant no harm, but she had played the fatal little part in which destiny loves to go masking through life's endless play. CHAPTER V Zorzi had slept but little after he had at last lain down upon the long bench in the laboratory, for the scene in which he had been the chief actor that night had made a profound impression upon him. There are some men who would not make good soldiers but who can face sudden and desperate danger with a calmness which few soldiers really possess, and which is generally accompanied by some marked superiority of mind; but such exceptional natures feel the reaction that follows the perilous moment far more than the average fighting man. They are those who sometimes stem the rush of panic and turn back whole armies from ruin to victorious battle; they are those who spring forward from the crowd to save life when some terrible accident has happened, as if they were risking nothing, and who generally succeed in what they attempt; but they are not men who learn to fight every day as carelessly and naturally as they eat, drink or sleep. Their chance of action may come but once or twice in a lifetime; yet when it comes it finds them far more ready and cool than the average good soldier could ever be. Like strength in some men, their courage seems to depend on quality and very little on quantity, training or experience. Zorzi knew very well that although the young gentlemen who were playing at conspiracy in Jacopo's house did not constitute a serious danger to the Republic, they were fully aware of their own peril, and would not have hesitated to take his life if it had not occurred to them that he might be useful. His intrepid manner had saved him, but now that the night was over he felt such a weariness and lassitude as he had never known before. The adventure had its amusing side, of course. To Zorzi, who knew the people well, it was very laughable to think that a score of dissolute young patricians should first fancy themselves able to raise a revolution against the most firmly established government in Europe, and should then squander the privacy which they had bought at a frightful risk in mere gambling and dice-playing. But there was nothing humorous about the oath he had taken. In the first place, it had been sworn in solemn earnest, and was therefore binding upon him; secondly, if he broke it, his life would not be worth a day's purchase. He was brave enough to have scorned the second consideration, but he was far too honourable to try and escape the first. He had made the promises to save his life, it was true, and under great pressure, but he would have despised himself as a coward if he had not meant to keep them. And he had solemnly bound himself to respect "the betrothed brides" of all the brethren of the company. Marietta was not betrothed to Jacopo Contarini yet, but there was no doubt that she would be before many days; to "respect" undoubtedly meant that he must not try to win her away from her affianced husband; if he had ever dreamt that in some fair, fantastically improbable future, Marietta could be his wife, he had parted with the right to dream the like again. Therefore, when he had stood awhile looking up at her window that morning, he sighed heavily and went away. He had never had any hope that she would love him, much less that he could ever marry her, yet he felt that he was parting with the only thing in life which he held higher than his art, and that the parting was final. For months, perhaps for years, he had never closed his eyes to sleep without calling up her face and repeating her name, he had never got up in the morning without looking forward to seeing her and hearing her voice before he should lie down again. A man more like others would have said to himself that no promise could bind him to anything more than the performance of an action, or the abstention from one, and that the right of dreaming was his own for ever. But Zorzi judged differently. He had a sensitiveness that was rather manly than masculine; he had scruples of which he was not ashamed, but which most men would laugh at; he had delicacies of conscience in his most private thoughts such as would have been more natural in a cloistered nun, living in ignorance of the world, than in a waif who had faced it at its worst, and almost from childhood. Innocent as his dream had been, he resolved to part with it, and never to dream it again. He was glad that Marietta had taken back the rose he had picked up yesterday; if she had not, he would have forced himself to throw it away, and that would have hurt him. So he began his day in a melancholy mood, as having buried out of sight for ever something that was very dear to him. In time, his love of his art would fill the place of the other love, but on this first day he went about in silence, with hungry eyes and tightened lips, like a man who is starving and is too proud to ask a charity. He waited for Beroviero at the door of his house, as he did every morning, to attend him to the laboratory. The old man looked at him inquiringly, and Zorzi bent his head a little to explain that he had done what had been required of him, and he followed his master across the wooden bridge. When they were alone in the laboratory, he told as much of his story as was necessary. He had found the lord Jacopo Contarini at his house with a party of friends, he said, and he added at once that they were all men. Contarini had bidden him speak before them all, but he had whispered his message so that only Contarini should hear it. After a time he had been allowed to come away. No--Contarini had given no direct answer, he had sent no reply; he had only said aloud to his friends that the message he received was expected. That was all. The friends who were there? Zorzi answered with perfect truth that he did not remember to have seen, any of them before. Beroviero was silent for a while, considering the story. "He would have thought it discourteous to leave his friends," he said at last, "or to whisper an answer to a messenger in their presence. He said that he had expected the message, he will therefore come." To this Zorzi answered nothing, for he was glad not to be questioned further about what had happened. Presently Beroviero settled to his work with his usual concentration. For many months he had been experimenting in the making of fine red glass of a certain tone, of which he had brought home a small fragment from one of his journeys. Hitherto he had failed in every attempt. He had tried one mixture after another, and had produced a score of different specimens, but not one of them had that marvellous light in it, like sunshine striking through bright blood, which he was striving to obtain. It was nearly three weeks since his small furnace had been allowed to go out, and by this time he alone knew what the glowing pots contained, for he wrote down very carefully what he did and in characters which he believed no one could understand but himself. As usual every morning, he proceeded to make trial of the materials fused in the night. The furnace, though not large, held three crucibles, before each of which was the opening, still called by the Italian name 'bocca,' through which the materials are put into the pots to melt into glass, and by which the melted glass is taken out on the end of the blow-pipe, or in a copper ladle, when it is to be tested by casting it. The furnace was arched from end to end, and about the height of a tall man; the working end was like a round oven with three glowing openings; the straight part, some twenty feet long, contained the annealing oven through which the finished pieces were made to move slowly, on iron lier-pans, during many hours, till the glass had passed from extreme heat almost to the temperature of the air. The most delicate vessels ever produced in Murano have all been made in single furnaces, the materials being melted, converted into glass and finally annealed, by one fire. At least one old furnace is standing and still in use, which has existed for centuries, and those made nowadays are substantially like it in every important respect. Zorzi stood holding a long-handled copper ladle, ready to take out a specimen of the glass containing the ingredients most lately added. A few steps from the furnace a thick and smooth plate of iron was placed on a heavy wooden table, and upon this the liquid glass was to be poured out to cool. "It must be time," said Beroviero, "unless the boys forgot to turn the sand-glass at one of the watches. The hour is all but run out, and it must be the twelfth since I put in the materials." "I turned it myself, an hour after midnight," said Zorzi, "and also the next time, when it was dawn. It runs three hours. Judging by the time of sunrise it is running right." "Then make the trial." Beroviero stood opposite Zorzi, his face pale with heat and excitement, his fiery eyes reflecting the fierce light from the 'bocca' as he bent down to watch the copper ladle go in. Zorzi had wrapped a cloth round his right hand, against the heat, and he thrust the great spoon through the round orifice. Though it was the hundredth time of testing, the old man watched his movements with intensest interest. "Quickly, quickly!" he cried, quite unconscious that he was speaking. There was no need of hurrying Zorzi. In two steps he had reached the table, and the white hot stuff spread out over the iron plate, instantly turning to a greenish yellow, then to a pale rose-colour, then to a deep and glowing red, as it felt the cool metal. The two men stood watching it closely, for it was thin and would soon cool. Zorzi was too wise to say anything. Beroviero's look of interest gradually turned into an expression of disappointment. "Another failure," he said, with a resignation which no one would have expected in such a man. His practised eyes had guessed the exact hue of the glass, while it still lay on the iron, half cooled and far too hot to touch. Zorzi took a short rod and pushed the round sheet till a part of it was over the edge of the table. "It is the best we have had yet," he observed, looking at it. "Is it?" asked Beroviero with little interest, and without giving the glass another glance. "It is not what I am trying to get. It is the colour of wine, not of blood. Make something, Zorzi, while I write down the result of the experiment." He took big pen and the sheet of rough paper on which he had already noted the proportions of the materials, and he began to write, sitting at the large table before the open window. Zorzi took the long iron blow-pipe, cleaned it with a cloth and pushed the end through the orifice from which he had taken the specimen. He drew it back with a little lump of melted glass sticking to it. Holding the blow-pipe to his lips, he blew a little, and the lump swelled, and he swung the pipe sharply in a circle, so that the glass lengthened to the shape of a pear, and he blew again and it grew. At the 'bocca' of the furnace he heated it, for it was cooling quickly; and he had his iron pontil ready, as there was no one to help him, and he easily performed the feat of taking a little hot glass on it from the pot and attaching it to the further end of the fast-cooling pear. If Beroviero had been watching him he would have been astonished at the skill with which the young man accomplished what it requires two persons to do; but Zorzi had tricks of his own, and the pontil supported itself on a board while he cracked the pear from the blow-pipe with a wet iron, as well as if a boy had held it in place for him; and then heating and reheating the piece, he fashioned it and cut it with tongs and shears, rolling the pontil on the flat arms of his stool with his left hand, and modelling the glass with his right, till at last he let it cool to its natural colour, holding it straight downward, and then swinging it slowly, so that it should fan itself in the air. It was a graceful calix now, of a deep wine red, clear and transparent as claret. Zorzi turned to the window to show it to his master, not for the sake of the workmanship but of the colour. The old man's head was bent over his writing; Marietta was standing outside, and her eyes met Zorzi's. He did not blush as he had blushed yesterday, when he looked up from the fire and saw her; he merely inclined his head respectfully, to acknowledge her presence, and then he stood by the table waiting for the master to notice him, and not bestowing another glance on the young girl. Beroviero turned to him at last. He was so used to Marietta's presence that he paid no attention to her. "What is that thing?" he asked contemptuously. "A specimen of the glass we tried," answered the young man. "I have blown it thin to show the colour." "A man who can have such execrable taste as to make a drinking-cup of coloured glass does not deserve to know as much as you do." "But it is very pretty," said Marietta through the window, and bending forward she rested her white hands on the table, among the little heaps of chemicals. "Anneal it, and give it to me," she added. "Keep such a thing in my house?" asked Beroviero scornfully. "Break up that rubbish!" he added roughly, speaking to Zorzi. Without a word Zorzi smashed the calix off the iron into an old earthen jar already half full of broken glass. Then he put the pontil in its place and went to tend the fire. Marietta left the window and entered the room. "Am I disturbing you?" she asked gently, as she stood by her father. "No. I have finished writing." He laid down his pen. "Another failure?" "Yes." "Perhaps I do not bring you good luck with your experiments," suggested the girl, leaning down and looking over his shoulder at the crabbed writing, so that her cheek almost touched his. "Is that why you wish to send me away?" Beroviero turned in his chair, raised his heavy brows and looked up into her face, but said nothing. "Nella has just told me that you have ordered my wedding gown," continued Marietta. "We are not alone," said her father in a low voice. "Zorzi probably knows what is the gossip of the house, and what I have been the last to hear," answered the young girl. "Besides, you trust him with all your secrets." "Yes, I trust him," assented Beroviero. "But these are private matters." "So private, that my serving-woman knows more of them than I do." "You encourage her to talk." Marietta laughed, for she was determined to be good-humoured, in spite of what she said. "If I did, that would not teach her things which I do not know myself! Is it true that you have ordered the gown to be embroidered with pearls?" "You like pearls, do you not?" asked Beroviero with a little anxiety. "You see!" cried Marietta triumphantly. "Nella knows all about it." "I was going to tell you this morning," said her father in a tone of annoyance. "By my faith, one can keep nothing secret! One cannot even give you a surprise." "Nella knows everything," returned the girl, sitting on the corner of the table and looking from her father to Zorzi. "That must be why you chose her for my serving-woman when I was a little girl. She knows all that happens in the house by day and night, so that I sometimes think she never sleeps." Zorzi looked furtively towards the table, for he could not help hearing all that was said. "For instance," continued Marietta, watching him, "she knows that last night some one unlocked the chain that moors the skiff, and rowed away towards Venice." To her surprise Zorzi showed no embarrassment. He had made up the fire and now sat down at a little distance, on one of the flat arms of the glass-blower's working-stool. His face was pale and quiet, and his eyes did not avoid hers. "If I caught any one using my boat without my leave, I would make him pay dear," said Beroviero, but without anger, as if he were stating a general truth. "Whoever it was who took the boat brought it back an hour after midnight, locked the padlock again and went away," said Marietta. "Tell Nella that I am much indebted to her for her watchfulness. She is as good as a house-dog. Tell her to come and wake me if she sees any one taking the boat again." "She says she knows who took it last night," observed Marietta, who was puzzled by the attitude of the two men; she had now decided that it had not been Zorzi who had used the boat, but on the other hand the story did not rouse her father's anger as she had expected. "Did she tell you the man's name?" "Yes." "Who was it?" "She said it was Zorzi." Marietta laughed incredulously as she spoke, and Zorzi smiled quietly. Beroviero was silent for a moment and looked out of the window. "Listen to me," he said at last. "Tell your graceless gossip of a serving-woman that I will answer for Zorzi, and that the next time she hears any one taking the boat at night she had better come and call me, and open her eyes a little wider. Tell her also that I entertain proper persons to take care of my property without any help from her. Tell her furthermore that she talks too much. You should not listen to a servant's miserable chatter." "I will tell her," replied Marietta meekly. "Did you say that the gown was to be embroidered with pearls and silver, father, or with pearls and gold?" "I believe I said gold," answered the old man discontentedly. "And when will it be ready? In about two months?" "I daresay." "So you mean to marry me in two months," concluded Marietta. "That is not a long time." "Should you prefer two years?" inquired Beroviero with increasing annoyance. Marietta slipped from the table to her feet. "It depends on the bridegroom," she answered. "Perhaps I may prefer to wait a lifetime!" She moved towards the door. "Oh, you shall be satisfied with the bridegroom! I promise you that." The old man looked after her. At the door she turned her head, smiling. "I may be hard to please," she said quietly, and she went out into the garden. When she was gone Beroviero shut the window carefully, and though the round bull's-eye panes let in the light plentifully, they effectually prevented any one from seeing into the room. The door was already closed. "You should have been more careful," he said to Zorzi in a tone of reproach. "You should not have let any one see you, when you took the boat." "If the woman spent half the night looking out of her window, sir, I do not understand how I could have taken the boat without being seen by her." "Well, well, there is no harm done, and you could not help it, I daresay. I have something else to say. You saw the lord Jacopo last night; what do you think of him? He is a fine-looking young man. Should not any girl be glad to get such a handsome husband? What do you think? And his name, too! one of the best in the Great Council. They say he has a few debts, but his father is very rich, and has promised me that he will pay everything if only his son can be brought to marry and lead a graver life. What do you think?" "He is a very handsome young man," said Zorzi loyally. "What should I think? It is a most honourable marriage for your house." "I hear no great harm of Jacopo," continued Beroviero more familiarly. "His father is miserly. We have spent much time in the preliminary arrangements, without the knowledge of the son, and the old man is very grasping! He would take all my fortune for the dowry if he could. But he has to do with a glass-blower!" Beroviero smiled thoughtfully. Zorzi was silent, for he was suffering. "You may wonder why I sent that message last night," began the master again, "since matters are already so far settled with Jacopo's father. You would suppose that nothing more remained but to marry the couple in the presence of both families, should you not?" "I know little of such affairs, sir," answered Zorzi. "That would be the usual way," continued Beroviero. "But I will not marry Marietta against her will. I have always told her so. She shall see her future husband before she is betrothed, and persuade herself with her own eyes that she is not being deceived into marrying a hunchback." "But supposing that after all the lord Jacopo should not be to her taste," suggested Zorzi, "would you break off the match?" "Break off the match?" cried Beroviero indignantly. "Never! Not to her taste? The handsomest man in Venice, with a great name and a fortune to come? It would not be my fault if the girl went mad and refused! I would make her like him if she dared to hesitate a moment!" "Even against her will?" "She has no will in the matter," retorted Beroviero angrily. "But you have always told her that you would not marry her against her will--" "Do not anger me, Zorzi! Do not try your specious logic with me! Invent no absurd arguments, man! Against her will, indeed? How should she know any will but mine in the matter? I shall certainly not marry her against her will! She shall will what I please, neither more nor less." "If that is your point of view," said Zorzi, "there is no room for argument." "Of course not. Any reasonable person would laugh at the idea that a girl in her senses should not be glad to marry Jacopo Contarini, especially after having seen him. If she were not glad, she would not be in her senses, in other words she would not be sane, and should be treated as a lunatic, for her own good. Would you let a lunatic do as he liked, if he tried to jump out of the window? The mere thought is absurd." "Quite," said Zorzi. Sad as he was, he could almost have laughed at the old man's inconsequent speeches. "I am glad that you so heartily agree with me," answered Beroviero in perfect sincerity. "I do not mean to say that I would ask your opinion about my daughter's marriage. You would not expect that. But I know that I can trust you, for we have worked together a long time, and I am used to hearing what you have to say." "You have always been very good to me," replied Zorzi gratefully. "You have always been faithful to me," said the old man, laying his hand gently on Zorzi's shoulder. "I know what that means in this world." As soon as there was no question of opposing his despotic will, his kindly nature asserted itself, for he was a man subject to quick changes of humour, but in reality affectionate. "I am going to trust you much more than hitherto," he continued. "My sons are grown men, independent of me, but willing to get from me all they can. If they were true artists, if I could trust their taste, they should have had my secrets long ago. But they are mere money-makers, and it is better that they should enrich themselves with the tasteless rubbish they make in their furnaces, than degrade our art by cheapening what should be rare and costly. Am I right?" "Indeed you are!" Zorzi now spoke in a tone of real conviction. "If I thought you were really capable of making coloured drinking-cups like that abominable object you made this morning, with the idea that they could ever be used, you should not stay on Venetian soil a day," resumed the old man energetically. "You would be as bad as my sons, or worse. Even they have enough sense to know that half the beauty of a cup, when it is used, lies in the colour of the wine itself, which must be seen through it. But I forgive you, because you were only anxious to blow the glass thin, in order to show me the tint. You know better. That is why I mean to trust you in a very grave matter." Zorzi bent his head respectfully, but said nothing. "I am obliged to make a journey before my daughter's marriage takes place," continued Beroviero. "I shall entrust to you the manuscript secrets I possess. They are in a sealed package so that you cannot read them, but they will be in your care. If I leave them with any one else, my sons will try to get possession of them while I am away. During my last journey I carried them with me, but I am growing old, life is uncertain, especially when a man is travelling, and I would rather leave the packet with you. It will be safer." "It shall be altogether safe," said Zorzi. "No one shall guess that I have it." "No one must know. I would take you with me on this journey, but I wish you to go on with the experiments I have been making. We shall save time, if you try some of the mixtures while I am away. When it is too hot, let the furnace go out." "But who will take charge of your daughter, sir?" asked Zorzi. "You cannot leave her alone in the house." "My son Giovanni and his wife will live in my house while I am away. I have thought of everything. If you choose, you may bring your belongings here, and sleep and eat in the glass-house." "I should prefer it." "So should I. I do not want my sons to pry into what we are doing. You can hide the packet here, where they will not think of looking for it. When you go out, lock the door. When you are in, Giovanni will not come. You will have the place to yourself, and the boys who feed the fire at night will not disturb you. Of course my daughter will never come here while I am away. You will be quite alone." "When do you go?" asked Zorzi. "On Monday morning. On Sunday I shall take Marietta to Saint Mark's. When she has seen her husband the betrothal can take place at once." Zorzi was silent, for the future looked black enough. He already saw himself shut up in the glass-house for two long months, or not much less, as effectually separated from Marietta by the narrow canal as if an ocean were between them. She would never cross over and spend an hour in the little garden then, and she would be under the care of Giovanni Beroviero, who hated him, as he well knew. CHAPTER VI Aristarchi rose early, though it had been broad dawn when he had entered his home. He lived not far from the house of the Agnus Dei, on the opposite side of the same canal but beyond the Baker's Bridge. His house was small and unpretentious, a little wooden building in two stories, with a small door opening to the water and another at the back, giving access to a patch of dilapidated and overgrown garden, whence a second door opened upon a dismal and unsavoury alley. One faithful man, who had followed him through many adventures, rendered him such services as he needed, prepared the food he liked and guarded the house in his absence. The fellow was far too much in awe of his terrible master to play the spy or to ask inopportune questions. The Greek put on the rich dress of a merchant captain of his own people, the black coat, thickly embroidered with gold, the breeches of dark blue cloth, the almost transparent linen shirt, open at the throat. A large blue cap of silk and cloth was set far back on his head, showing all the bony forehead, and his coal-black beard and shaggy hair had been combed as smooth as their shaggy nature would allow. He wore a magnificent belt fully two hands wide, in which were stuck three knives of formidable length and breadth, in finely chased silver sheaths. His muscular legs were encased in leathern gaiters, ornamented with gold and silver, and on his feet he wore broad turned-up slippers from Constantinople. The dress was much the same as that which the Turks had found there a few years earlier, and which they soon amalgamated with their own. It set off the captain's vast breadth of shoulder and massive limbs, and as he stepped into his hired boat the idlers at the water-stairs gazed upon him with an admiration of which he was well aware, for besides being very splendidly dressed he looked as if he could have swept them all into the canal with a turn of his hand. Without saying whither he was bound he directed the oarsman through the narrow channels until he reached the shallow lagoon. The boatman asked whither he should go. "To Murano," answered the Greek. "And keep over by Saint Michael's, for the tide is low." The boatman had already understood that his passenger knew Venice almost as well as he. The boat shot forward at a good rate under the bending oar, and in twenty minutes Aristarchi was at the entrance to the canal of San Piero and within sight of Beroviero's house. "Easy there," said the Greek, holding up his hand. "Do you know Murano well, my man?" "As well as Venice, sir." "Whose house is that, which has the upper story built on columns over the footway?" "It belongs to Messer Angelo Beroviero. His glass-house takes up all the left aide of the canal as far as the bridge." "And beyond the bridge I can see two new houses, on the same side. Whose are they?" "They belong to the two sons of Messer Angelo Beroviero, who have furnaces of their own, all the way to the corner of the Grand Canal." "Is there a Grand Canal in Murano?" asked Aristarchi. "They call it so," answered the boatman with some contempt. "The Beroviero have several houses on it, too." "It seems to me that Beroviero owns most of Murano," observed the Greek. "He must be very rich." "He is by far the richest. But there is Alvise Trevisan, a rich man, too, and there are two or three others. The island and all the glass-works are theirs, amongst them." "I have business with Messer Angelo," said Aristarchi. "But if he is such a great man he will hardly be in the glass-house." "I will ask," answered the boatman. In a few minutes he made his boat fast to the steps before the glass-house, went ashore and knocked at the door. Aristarchi leaned back in his seat, chewing pistachio nuts, which he carried in an embroidered leathern bag at his belt. His right hand played mechanically with the short string of thick amber beads which he used for counting. The June sun blazed down upon his swarthy face. At the grating beside the door the porter's head appeared, partially visible behind the bars. "Is Messer Angelo Beroviero within?" inquired the boatman civilly. "What is your business?" asked the porter in a tone of surly contempt, instead of answering the question. "There is a rich foreign gentleman here, who desires to speak with him," answered the boatman. "Is he the Pope?" asked the porter, with fine irony. "No, sir," said the other, intimidated by the fellow's manner. "He is a rich--" "Tell him to wait, then." And the surly head disappeared. The boatman supposed that the man was gone to speak with his master, and waited patiently by the door. Aristarchi chewed his pistachio nut till there was nothing left, at which time he reached the end of his patience. He argued that it was a good sign if Angelo Beroviero kept rich strangers waiting at his gate, for it showed that he had no need of their custom. On the other hand the Greek's dignity was offended now that he had been made to wait too long, for he was hasty by nature. Once, in a fit of irritation with a Candiot who stammered out of sheer fright, the captain had ordered him to be hanged. Having finished his nut, he stood up in the boat and stepped ashore. "Knock again," he said to the boatman, who obeyed. There was no answer this time. "I can hear the fellow inside," said the boatman. The grating was too high for a man to look through it from outside. Aristarchi laid his knotty hands on the stone sill and pulled himself up till his face was against the grating. He now looked in and saw the porter sitting in his chair. "Have you taken my message to your master?" inquired the Greek. The porter looked up in surprise, which increased when he caught sight of the ferocious face of the speaker. But he was not to be intimidated so easily. "Messer Angelo is not to be disturbed at his studies," he said. "If you wait till noon, perhaps he will come out to go to dinner." "Perhaps!" repeated Aristarchi, still hanging by his hands. "Do you think I shall wait all day?" "I do not know. That is your affair." "Precisely. And I do not mean to wait." "Then go away." But the Greek had come on an exploring expedition in which he had nothing to lose. Hauling himself up a little higher, till his mouth was close to the grating, he hailed the house as he would have hailed a ship at sea, in a voice of thunder. "Ahoy there! Is any one within? Ahoy! Ahoy!" This was more than the porter's equanimity could bear. He looked about for a weapon with which to attack the Greek's face through the bars, heaping, upon him a torrent of abuse in the meantime. "Son of dogs and mules!" he cried in a rising growl. "Ill befall the foul souls of thy dead and of their dead before them." "Ahoy--oh! Ahoy!" bellowed the Greek, who now thoroughly enjoyed the situation. The boatman, anxious for drink money, and convinced that his huge employer would get the better of the porter, had obligingly gone down upon his hands and knees, thrusting his broad back under the captain's feet, so that Aristarchi stood upon him and was now prepared to prolong the interview without any further effort. His terrific shouts rang through the corridor to the garden. The first person to enter the little lodge was Marietta herself, and the Greek broke off short in the middle of another tremendous yell as soon as he saw her. She turned her face up to him, quite fearlessly, and was very much inclined to laugh as she saw the sudden change in his expression. "Madam," he said with great politeness, "I beg you to forgive my manner of announcing myself. If your porter were more obliging, I should have been admitted in the ordinary way." "What is this atrocious disturbance?" asked Zorzi, entering before Marietta could answer. "Pray leave the fellow to me," he added, speaking to Marietta, who cast one more glance at Aristarchi and went out. "Sir," said the captain blandly, "I admit that my behaviour may give you some right to call me 'fellow,' but I trust that my apology will make you consider me a gentleman like yourself. Your porter altogether refused to take a message to Messer Angelo Beroviero. May I ask whether you are his son, sir?" "No, sir. You say that you wish to speak with the master. I can take a message to him, but I am not sure that he will see any one to-day." Aristarchi imagined that Beroviero made himself inaccessible, in order to increase the general idea of his wealth and importance. He resolved to convey a strong impression of his own standing. "I am the chief partner in a great house of Greek merchants settled in Palermo," he said. "My name is Charalambos Aristarchi, and I desire the honour of speaking with Messer Angelo about the purchase of several cargoes of glass for the King of Sicily." "I will deliver your message, sir," said Zorzi. "Pray wait a minute, I will open the door." Aristarchi's big head disappeared at last. "Yes!" growled the porter to Zorzi. "Open the door yourself, and take the blame. The man has the face of a Turkish pirate, and his voice is like the bellowing of several bulls." Zorzi unbarred the door, which opened inward, and Aristarchi turned a little sideways in order to enter, for his shoulders would have touched the two door-posts. The slight and gracefully built Dalmatian looked at him with some curiosity, standing aside to let him pass, before barring the door again. Aristarchi, though not much taller than himself, was the biggest man he had ever seen. He thanked Zorzi, who pushed forward the porter's only chair for him to sit on while he waited. "I will bring you an answer immediately," said Zorzi, and disappeared down the corridor. Aristarchi sat down, crossed one leg over the other, and took a pistachio nut from his pouch. "Master porter," he began in a friendly tone, "can you tell me who that beautiful lady is, who came here a moment ago?" "There is no reason why I should," snarled the porter, beginning to strip the outer leaves from a large onion which he pulled from a string of them hanging by the wall. Aristarchi said nothing for a few moments, but watched the man with an air of interest. "Were you ever a pirate?" he inquired presently. "No, I never served in your crew." The porter was not often at a loss for a surly answer. The Greek laughed outright, in genuine amusement. "I like your company, my friend," he said. "I should like to spend the day here." "As the devil said to Saint Anthony," concluded the porter. Aristarchi laughed again. It was long since he had enjoyed such amusing conversation, and there was a certain novelty in not being feared. He repeated his first question, however, remembering that he had not come in search of diversion, but to gather information. "Who was the beautiful lady?" he asked. "She is Messer Angelo's daughter, is she not?" "A man who asks a question when he knows the answer is either a fool or a knave. Choose as you please." "Thanks, friend," answered Aristarchi, still grinning and showing his jagged teeth. "I leave the first choice to you. Whichever you take, I will take the other. For if you call me a knave, I shall call you a fool, but if you think me a fool, I am quite satisfied that you should be the knave." The porter snarled, vaguely feeling that the Greek had the better of him. At that moment Zorzi returned, and his coming put an end to the exchange of amenities. "My master has no long leisure," he said, "but he begs you to come in." They left the lodge together, and the porter watched them as they went down the dark corridor, muttering unholy things about the visitor who had disturbed him, and bestowing a few curses on Zorzi. Then he went back to peeling his onions. As Aristarchi went through the garden, he saw Marietta sitting under the plane-tree, making a little net of coloured beads. Her face was turned from him and bent down, but when he had passed she glanced furtively after him, wondering at his size. But her eyes followed Zorzi, till the two reached the door and went in. A moment later Zorzi came out again, leaving his master and the Greek together. Marietta looked down at once, lest her eyes should betray her gladness, for she knew that Zorzi would not go back and could not leave the glass-house, so that site should necessarily be alone with him while the interview in the laboratory lasted. He came a little way down the path, then stopped, took a short knife from his wallet and began to trim away a few withered sprigs from a rose-bush. She waited a moment, but he showed no signs of coming nearer, so she spoke to him. "Will you come here?" she asked softly, looking towards him with half-closed eyes. He slipped the knife back into his pouch and walked quickly to her side. She looked down again, threading the coloured beads that half filled a small basket in her lap. "May I ask you a question?" Her voice had a little persuasive hesitation in it, as if she wished him to understand that the answer would be a favour of which she was anything but certain. "Anything you will," said Zorzi. "Provided I do not ask about my father's secret!" A little laughter trembled in the words. "You were so severe yesterday, you know. I am almost afraid ever to ask you anything again." "I will answer as well as I can." "Well--tell me this. Did you really take the boat and go to Venice last night?" "Yes." Marietta's hand moved with the needle among the beads, but she did not thread one. Nella had been right, after all. "Why did you go, Zorzi?" The question came in a lower tone that was full of regret. "The master sent me," answered Zorzi, looking down at her hair, and wishing that he could see her face. His wish was almost instantly fulfilled. After the slightest pause she looked up at him with a lovely smile; yet when he saw that rare look in her face, his heart sank suddenly, instead of swelling and standing still with happiness, and when she saw how sad he was, she was grave with the instant longing to feel whatever he felt of pain or sorrow. That is one of the truest signs of love, but Zorzi had not learned much of love's sign-language yet, and did not understand. "What is it?" she asked almost tenderly. He turned his eyes from her and rested one hand against the trunk of the plane-tree. "I do not understand," he said slowly. "Why are you so sad? What is it that is always making you suffer?" "How could I tell you?" The words were spoken almost under his breath. "It would be very easy to tell me," she said. "Perhaps I could help you--" "Oh no, no, no!" he cried with an accent of real pain. "You could not help me!" "Who knows? Perhaps I am the best friend you have in the world, Zorzi." "Indeed I believe you are! No one has ever been so good to me." "And you have not many friends," continued Marietta. "The workmen are jealous of you, because you are always with my father. My brothers do not like you, for the same reason, and they think that you will get my father's secret from him some day, and outdo them all. No--you have not many friends." "I have none, but you and the master. The men would kill me if they dared." Marietta started a little, remembering how the workmen had looked at him in the morning, when he came out. "You need not be afraid," he added, seeing her movement. "They will not touch me." "Does my father know what your trouble is?" asked Marietta suddenly. "No! That is--I have no trouble, I assure you. I am of a melancholy nature." "I am glad it has nothing to do with the secrets," said the young girl, quietly ignoring the last part of his speech. "If it had, I could not help you at all. Could I?" That morning it had seemed an easy thing to wait even two years before giving him a sign, before dropping in his path the rose which she would not ask of him again. The minutes seemed years now. For she knew well enough what his trouble was, since yesterday; he loved her, and he thought it infinitely impossible, in his modesty, that she should ever stoop to him. After she had spoken, she looked at him with half-closed eyes for a while, but he stared stonily at the trunk of the tree beside his hand. Gradually, as she gazed, her lids opened wider, and the morning sunlight sparkled in the deep blue, and her fresh lips parted. Before she was aware of it he was looking at her with a strange expression she had never seen. Then she faintly blushed and looked down at her beads once more. She felt as if she had told him that she loved him. But he had not understood. He had only seen the transfiguration of her face, and it had been for a moment as he had never seen it before. Again his heart sank suddenly, and he uttered a little sound that was more than a sigh and less than a groan. "There are remedies for almost every kind of pain," said Marietta wisely, as she threaded several beads. "Give me one for mine," he cried almost bitterly. "Bid that which is to cease from being, and that to be which is not earthly possible! Turn the world back, and undo truth, and make it all a dream! Then I shall find the remedy and forget that it was needed." "There are magicians who pretend to do such things," she answered softly. "I would there were!" he sighed. "But those who come to them for help tell all, else the magician has no power. Would you call a physician, if you were ill, and tell him that the pain you felt was in your head, if it was really--in your heart?" She had paused an instant before speaking the last words, and they came with a little effort. "How could the physician cure you, if you would not tell him the truth?" she asked, as he said nothing. "How can the wizard work miracles for you, unless he knows what miracle you ask? How can your best friend help you if--if she does not know what help you need?" Still he was silent, leaning against the tree, with bent head. The pain was growing worse, and harder to bear. She spoke so softly and kindly that it would have been easy to tell her the truth, he thought, for though she could never love him, she would understand, and would forgive him. He had not dreamed that friendship could be so kind. "Am I right?" she asked, after a pause. "Yes," he answered. "When I cannot bear it any longer, I will tell you, and you will help me." "Why not now?" The little question might have been ruinous to all his resolution, if Zorzi had not been almost like a child in his simplicity--or like a saint in his determination to be loyal. For he thought it loyalty to be silent, not only for the sake of the promise he had given in return for his life, but in respect of his master also, who put such great trust in him. "Pray do not press me with the question," he said. "You tempt me very much, and I do not wish to speak of what I feel. Be my friend in real truth, if you can, and do not ask me to say what I shall ever after wish unsaid. That will be the best friendship." Marietta looked across the garden thoughtfully, and suddenly a chilling doubt fell upon her heart. She could not have been mistaken yesterday, she could not be deceived in him now; and yet, if he loved her as she believed, she had said all that a maiden could to show him that she would listen willingly. She had said too much, and she felt ashamed and hurt, almost resentful. He was not a boy. If he loved her, he could find words to tell her so, and should have found them, for she had helped him to her utmost. Suddenly, she almost hated him, for what his silence made her feel, and she told herself that she was glad he had not dared to speak, for she did not love him at all. It was all a sickening mistake, it was all a miserable little dream; she wished that he would go away and leave her to herself. Not that she should shed a single tear! She was far too angry for that, but his presence, so near her, reminded her of what she had done. He must have seen, all through their talk, that she was trying to make him tell his love, and there was nothing to tell. Of course he would despise her. That was natural, but she had a right to hate him for it, and she would, with all her heart! Her thoughts all came together in a tumult of disgust and resentment. If Zorzi did not go away presently, she would go away herself. She was almost resolved to get up and leave the garden, when the door opened. "Zorzi!" It was Beroviero's voice. Aristarchi already stood in the doorway taking leave of Beroviero with, many oily protestations of satisfaction in having made his acquaintance. Zorzi went forward to accompany the Greek to the door. "I shall never forget that I have had the honour of being received by the great artist himself," said Aristarchi, who held his big cap in his hand and was bowing low on the threshold. "The pleasure has been all on my side," returned Beroviero courteously. "On the contrary, quite on the contrary," protested his guest, backing away and then turning to go. Zorzi walked beside him, on his left. As they reached the entrance to the corridor Aristarchi turned once more, and made an elaborate bow, sweeping the ground with his cap, for Beroviero had remained at the door till he should be out of sight. He bent his head, making a gracious gesture with his hand, and went in as the Greek disappeared. Zorzi followed the latter, showing him out. Marietta saw the door close after her father, and she knew that Zorzi must come back through the garden in a few moments. She bent her head over her beads as she heard his step, and pretended not to see him. When he came near her he stood still a moment, but she would not look up, and between annoyance and disappointment and confusion she felt that she was blushing, which she would not have had Zorzi see for anything. She wondered why he did not go on. "Have I offended you?" he asked, in a low voice. Oddly enough, her embarrassment disappeared as soon as he spoke, and the blush faded away. "No," she answered, coldly enough. "I am not angry--I am only sorry." "But I am glad that I would not answer your question," returned Zorzi. "I doubt whether you had any answer to give," retorted Marietta with a touch of scorn. Zorzi's brows contracted sharply and he made a movement to go on. So her proffered friendship was worth no more than that, he thought. She was angry and scornful because her curiosity was disappointed. She could not have guessed his secret, he was sure, though that might account for her temper, for she would of course be angry if she knew that he loved her. And she was angry now because he had refused to tell her so. That was a woman's logic, he thought, quite regardless of the defect in his own. It was just like a woman! He sincerely wished that he might tell her so. In the presence of Marietta the man who had confronted sudden death less than twenty-four hours ago, with a coolness that had seemed imposing to other men, was little better than a girl himself. He turned to go on, without saying more. But she stopped him. "I am sorry that you do not care for my friendship," she said, in a hurt tone. She could not have said anything which he would have found it harder to answer just then. "What makes you think that?" he asked, hoping to gain time. "Many things. It is quite true, so it does not matter what makes me think it!" She tried to laugh scornfully, but there was a quaver in her voice which she herself had not expected and was very far from understanding. Why should she suddenly feel that she was going to cry? It had seemed so ridiculous in poor Nella that morning. Yet there was a most unmistakable something in her throat, which frightened her. It would be dreadful if she should burst into tears over her beads before Zorzi's eyes. She tried to gulp the something: down, and suddenly, as she bent over the basket, she saw the beautiful, hateful drops falling fast upon the little dry glass things; and even then, in her shame at being seen, she wondered why the beads looked, bigger through the glistening tears--she remembered afterwards how they looked, so she must have noticed them at the time. Zorzi knew too little of women to have any idea of what he ought to do under the circumstances. He did not know whether to turn his back or to go away, so he stood still and looked at her, which was the very worst thing he could have done. Worse still, he tried to reason with her. "I assure you that you are mistaken," he said in a soothing tone. "I wish for your friendship with all my heart! Only, when you ask me--" "Oh, go away! For heaven's sake go away!" cried Marietta, almost choking, and turning her face quite away, so that he could only see the back of her head. At the same time, she tapped the ground impatiently with her foot, and to make matters worse, the little basket of beads began to slip off her knees at the same moment. She caught at it desperately, trying not to look round and half blinded by her tears, but she missed it, and but for Zorzi it would have fallen. He put it into her hands very gently, but she was not in the least grateful. "Oh, please go away!" she repeated. "Can you not understand?" He did not understand, but he obeyed her and turned away, very grave, very much puzzled by this new development of affairs, and sincerely wishing that some wise familiar spirit would whisper the explanation in his ear, since he could not possibly consult any living person. She heard him go and she listened for the shutting of the laboratory door. Then she knew that she was quite alone in the garden, and she let the tears flow as they would, bending her head till it touched the trunk of the tree, and they wet the smooth bark and ran down to the dry earth. Zorzi went in, and began to tend the fire as usual, until it should please the master to give him other orders. Old Beroviero was sitting in the big chair in which he sometimes rested himself, his elbow on one of its arms, and his hand grasping his beard below his chin. "Zorzi," he said at last, "I have seen that man before." Zorzi looked at him, expecting more, but for some time Beroviero said nothing. The young man selected his pieces of beech wood, laying them ready before the little opening just above the floor. "It is very strange," said Beroviero at last. "He seems to be a rich merchant now, but I am almost quite sure that I saw him in Naples." "Did you know him there, sir?" asked Zorzi. "No," answered his master thoughtfully. "I saw him in a cart with his hands tied behind him, on his way to be hanged." "He looks as if one hanging would not be enough for him," observed Zorzi. Beroviero was silent for a moment. Then he laughed, and he laughed very rarely. "Yes," he said. "It is not a face one could forget easily," he added. Then he rose and went back to his table. CHAPTER VII The sun was high over Venice, gleaming on the blue lagoons that lightly rippled under a southerly breeze, filling the vast square of Saint Mark's with blinding light, casting deep shadows behind the church and in the narrow alleys and canals to northward, about the Merceria. The morning haze had long since blown away, and the outlines of the old church and monastery on Saint George's island, and of the buildings on the Guidecca, and on the low-lying Lido, were hard and clear against the cloudless sky, mere designs cut out in rich colours, as if with a sharp knife, and reared up against a background of violent light. In Venice only the melancholy drenching rain of a winter's day brings rest to the eye, when water meets water and sky is washed into sea and the city lies soaking and dripping between two floods. But soon the wind shifts to the northeast, out breaks the sun again, and all Venice is instantly in a glare of light and colour and startling distinctness, like the sails and rigging of a ship at sea on a clear day. It was Sunday morning and high mass was over in Saint Mark's. The crowd had streamed out of the central door, spreading like a bright fan over the square, the men in gay costumes, red, green, blue, yellow, purple, brown, and white, their legs particoloured in halves and quarters, so that when looking at a group it was mere guesswork to match the pair that belonged to one man; women in dresses of one tone, mostly rich and dark, and often heavily embroidered, for no sumptuary laws could effectually limit outward display, and the insolent vanity of an age still almost mediaeval made it natural that the rich should attire themselves as richly as they could, and that the poor should be despised for wearing poor clothes. Angelo Beroviero had a true Venetian's taste for splendour, but he was also deeply imbued with the Venetian love of secrecy in all matters that concerned his private life. When he bade Marietta accompany him to Venice on that Sunday morning, he was equally anxious that she should be as finely dressed as was becoming for the daughter of a wealthy citizen, and that she should be in ignorance of the object of the trip. She was not to know that Jacopo Contarini would be standing beside the second column on the left, watching her with lazily critical eyes; she was merely told that she and her father were to dine in the house of a certain Messer Luigi Foscarini, Procurator of Saint Mark, who was an old and valued friend, though a near connection of Alvise Trevisan, a rival glass-maker of Murano. All this had been carefully planned in order that during their absence Beroviero's house might be suitably prepared for the solemn family meeting which was to take place late in the afternoon, and at which her betrothal was to be announced, but of which Marietta knew nothing. Her father counted upon surprising her and perhaps dazzling her, so as to avoid all discussion and all possibility of resistance on her part. She should see Contarini in the church, and while still under the first impression of his beauty and magnificence, she should be told before her assembled family that she was solemnly bound to marry him in two months' time. Beroviero never expected opposition in anything he wished to do, but he had always heard that young girls could find a thousand reasons for not marrying the man their parents chose for them, and he believed that he could make all argument and hesitation impossible. Marietta doubtless expected to have a week in which to make up her mind. She should have five hours, and even that was too much, thought Beroviero. He would have preferred to march her to the altar without any preliminaries and marry her to Contarini without giving her a chance of seeing him before the ceremony. After all, that was the custom of the day. The fortunes of love were in his favour, for Marietta had spent three miserably unhappy days and nights since she had last talked with Zorzi in the garden. From that time he had avoided her moat carefully, never coming out of the laboratory when she was under the tree with her work, never raising his eyes to look at her when she came in and talked with her father. When she entered the big room, he made a solemn bow and occupied himself in the farthest corner so long as she remained. There is a stage in which even the truest and purest love of boy and maiden feeds on misunderstandings. In a burst of tears, and ashamed that she should be seen crying, Marietta had bidden him go away; in the folly of his young heart he took her at her word, and avoided her consistently. He had been hurt by the words, but by a kind of unconscious selfishness his pain helped him to do what he believed to be his duty. And Marietta forgot that he had picked up the rose dropped by her in the path, she forgot that she had seen him stand gazing up at her window, with a look that could mean only love, she forgot how tenderly and softly he had answered her in the garden; she only remembered that she had done her utmost, and too much, to make him tell her that he loved her, and in vain. She could not forgive him that, for even after three days her cheeks burned fiercely whenever she thought of it. After that, it mattered nothing what became of her, whether she were betrothed, or whether she were married, or whether she went mad, or even whether she died--that would be the best of all. In this mood Marietta entered the gondola and seated herself by her father on Sunday morning. She wore an embroidered gown of olive green, a little open at her dazzling throat, and a silk mantle of a darker tone hung from her shoulders, to protect her from the sun rather than from the air. Her russet hair was plaited in a thick flat braid, and brought round her head like a broad coronet of red gold, and a point lace veil, pinned upon it with stoat gold pins, hang down behind and was brought forward carelessly upon one shoulder. Beside her, Angelo Beroviero was splendid in dark red cloth and purple silk. He was proud of his daughter, who was betrothed to the heir of a great Venetian house, he was proud of his own achievements, of his wealth, of the richly furnished gondola, of his two big young oarsmen in quartered yellow and blue hose and snowy shirts, and of his liveried man in blue and gold, who sat outside the low 'felse' on a little stool, staff in hand, ready to attend upon his master and young mistress whenever they should please to go on foot. Marietta had got into the gondola without so much as glancing across the canal to see whether Zorzi were standing there to see them push off, as he often did when she and her father went out together. If he were there, she meant to show him that she could be more indifferent than he; if he were not, she would show herself that she did not care enough even to look for him. But when the gondola was out of sight of the house she wished she knew whether he had looked out or not. Her father had told her that they were going to dine with the Procurator Foscarini and his wife. The pair had one daughter, of Marietta's age, and she was a cripple from birth. Marietta was fond of her, and it was a relief to get away from Murano, even for half a day. The visit explained well enough why her father had desired her to put on her best gown and most valuable lace. She really had not the slightest idea that anything more important was on foot. Beroviero looked at her in silence as they sped along with the gently rocking motion of the gondola, which is not exactly like any other movement in the world. He had already noticed that she was paler than usual, but the extraordinary whiteness of her skin made her pallor becoming to her, and it was set off by the colour of her hair, as ivory by rough gold. He wondered whether she had guessed whither he was taking her. "It is a long time since we were in Saint Mark's together," he said at last. "It must be more than a year," answered Marietta. "We pass it often, but we hardly ever go in." "It is early," observed Beroviero, speaking as indifferently as he could. "When we left home it lacked an hour and a half of noon by the dial. Shall we go into the church for a while?" "If you like," replied Marietta mechanically. Nothing made much difference that morning, but she knew that the high mass would be over and that the church would be quiet and cool. It was not at that time the cathedral of Venice, though it had always been the church in which the doges worshipped in state. They landed at the low steps in the Rio del Palazzo, and the servant held out his bent elbow for Marietta to steady herself, though he knew that she would not touch it, for she was light and sure-footed as a fawn; but Beroviero leaned heavily on his man's arm. They came round the Patriarch's palace into the open square, whence the crowd had nearly all disappeared, dispersing in different directions. Just as they were within sight of the great doors of the church, Beroviero saw a very tall man in a purple silk mantle going in alone. It was Contarini, and Beroviero drew a little sigh of relief. The intended bridegroom was punctual, but Beroviero thought that he might have shown such anxiety to see his bride as should have brought him to the door a few minutes before the time. Marietta had drawn her veil across her face, leaving only her eyes uncovered, according to custom. "It is hot," she complained. "It will be cool in the church," answered her father. "Throw your veil back, my dear--there is no one to see you." "There is the sun," she said, for she had been taught that one of a Venetian lady's chief beauties is her complexion. "Well, well--there will be no sun in the church." And the old man hurried her in, without bestowing a glance upon the bronze horses over the door, to admire which he generally stopped a few moments in passing. They entered the great church, and the servant went before them, dipped his fingers in the basin and offered them holy water. They crossed themselves, and Marietta bent one knee, looking towards the high altar. A score of people were scattered about, kneeling and standing in the nave. Contarini was leaning against the second pillar on the left, and had been watching the door when Marietta and her father entered. Beroviero saw him at once, but led his daughter up the opposite side of the nave, knelt down beside her a moment at the screen, then crossed and came down the aisle, and at last turned into the nave again by the second pillar, so as to come upon Contarini as it were unawares. This all seemed necessary to him in order that Marietta should receive a very strong and sudden impression, which should leave no doubt in her mind. Contarini himself was too thoroughly Venetian not to understand what Beroviero was doing, and when the two came upon him, he was drawn up to his full height, one gloved hand holding his cap and resting on his hip; the other, gloveless, and white as a woman's, was twisting his silky mustache. Beroviero had manoeuvred so cleverly that Marietta almost jostled the young patrician as she turned the pillar. Contarini drew back with quick grace and a slight inclination of his body, and then pretended the utmost surprise on seeing his valued friend Messer Angelo Beroviero. "My most dear sir!" he exclaimed. "This is indeed good fortune!" "Mine, Messer Jacopo!" returned Beroviero with equally well-feigned astonishment. Marietta had looked Contarini full in the face before she had time to draw her veil across her own. She stepped back and placed herself behind her father, protected as it were by their serving-man, who stood beside her with his staff. She understood instantly that the magnificent patrician was the man of whom her father had spoken as her future husband. Seen, as she had seen him, in the glowing church, in the most splendid surroundings that could be imagined, he was certainly a man at whom any woman would look twice, even out of curiosity, and through her veil Marietta looked again, till she saw his soft brown eyes scrutinising her appearance; then she turned quickly away, for she had looked long enough. She saw that a woman in black was kneeling by the next pillar, watching her intently with a sort of cold stare that almost made her shudder. Yet the woman was exceedingly beautiful. It was easy to see that, though the dark veil hid half her face and its folds concealed most of her figure. The mysterious, almond-shaped eyes were those of another race, the marble cheek was more perfectly modelled and turned than an Italian's, the curling golden hair was more glorious than any Venetian's. Arisa had come to see her master's bride, and he knew that she was there looking on. Why should he care? It was a bargain, and he was not going to give up Arisa and the house of the Agnus Dei because he meant to marry the rich glass-blower's daughter. Marietta imagined no connection between the woman and the man, who thus insolently came to the same place to look at her, pretending not to know one another; and when she looked back at Contarini she felt a miserable little thrill of vanity as she noticed that he was looking fixedly at her, and that his eyes did not wander to the face of that other woman, who was so much more beautiful than herself. Perhaps, after all, he would really prefer her to that matchless creature close beside her! Nothing mattered, of course, since Zorzi did not love her, but after all it was flattering to be admired by Jacopo Contarini, who could choose his wife where he pleased, through the whole world. It all happened in a few seconds. The two men exchanged a few words, to which she paid no attention, and took leave of each other with great ceremony and much bowing on both sides. When her father turned at last, Marietta was already walking towards the door, the servant by her left side. Beroviero had scarcely joined her when she started a little, and laid her hand upon his arm. "The Greek merchant!" she whispered. Beroviero looked where she was looking. By the first pillar, gazing intently at Arisa's kneeling figure, stood Aristarchi, his hands folded over his broad chest, his shaggy head bent forward, his sturdy legs a little apart. He, too, had come to see the promised bride, and to be a witness of the bargain whereby he also was to be enriched. As Marietta came out of the church, she covered her face closely and drew her silk mantle quite round her, bending her head a little. The servant walked a few paces in front. "You have seen your future husband, my child," said Beroviero. "I suppose that the young noble was Messer Jacopo Contarini," answered Marietta coldly. "You are hard to please, if you are not satisfied with my choice for you," observed her father. To this Marietta said nothing. She only bent her head a little lower, looking down as she trod delicately over the hot and dusty ground. "And you are a most ungrateful daughter," continued Beroviero, "if you do not appreciate my kindness and liberality of mind in allowing you to see him before you are formally betrothed." "Perhaps he is even more pleased by your liberality of mind than I could possibly be," retorted the young girl with unbending coldness. "He has probably not seen many Venetian girls of our class face to face and unveiled. He is to be congratulated on his good fortune!" "By my faith!" exclaimed Beroviero, "it is hard to satisfy you!" "I have asked nothing." "Do you mean to say that you have any objections to allege against such a marriage?" "Have I said that I should oppose it? One may obey without enthusiasm." She laughed coldly. "Like the unprofitable servant! I had expected something more of you, my child. I have been at infinite pains and I am making great sacrifices to procure you a suitable husband, and there are scores of noble girls in Venice who would give ten years of their lives to marry Jacopo Contarini! And you say that you obey my commands without enthusiasm! You are an ungrateful--" "No, I am not!" interrupted Marietta firmly. "I would rather not marry at all--" "Not marry!" repeated Beroviero, interrupting her in a tone of profound stupefaction, and standing still in the sun as he spoke. "Why--what is the matter?" "Is it so strange that I should be contented with my girl's life?" asked Marietta. "Should I not be ungrateful indeed, if I wished to leave you and become the wife of a man I have just seen for the first time?" "You use most extraordinary arguments, my dear," replied Beroviero, quite at a loss for a suitable retort. "Of course, I have done my best to make you happy." He paused, for she had placed him in the awkward position of being angry because she did not wish to leave him. "I really do not know what to say," he added, after a moment's reflection. "Perhaps there is nothing to be said," answered Marietta, in a tone of irritating superiority, for she certainly had the best of the discussion. They had reached the gondola by this time, and as the servant sat within hearing at the open door of the 'felse,' they could not continue talking about such a matter. Beroviero was glad of it, for he regarded the affair as settled, and considered that it should be hastened to its conclusion without any further reasoning about it. If he had sent word to young Contarini that the answer should be given him in a week, that was merely an imaginary formality invented to cover his own dignity, since he had so far derogated from it as to allow the young man to see Marietta. In reality the marriage had been determined and settled between Beroviero and Contarini's father before anything had been said to either of the young people. The meeting in the church might have been dispensed with, if the patrician had been able to answer with certainty for his wild son's conduct. Jacopo had demanded it, and his father was so anxious for the marriage that he had communicated the request to Beroviero. The latter, always for his dignity's sake, had pretended to refuse, and had then secretly arranged the matter for Jacopo, as has been seen, without old Contarini's knowledge. Marietta leaned back under the cool, dark 'felse,' and her hands lay idly in her lap. She felt that she was helpless, because she was indifferent, and that she could even now have changed the course of her destiny if she had cared to make the effort. There was no reason for making any. She did not believe that she had really loved Zorzi after all, and if she had, it seemed to-day quite impossible that she should ever have married him. He was nothing but a waif, a half-nameless servant, a stranger predestined to a poor and obscure life. As she inwardly repeated some of these considerations, she felt a little thrust of remorse for trying to look down on him as impossibly far below her own station, and a small voice told her that he was an artist, and that if he had chanced to be born in Venice he would have been as good as her brothers. The future stretched out before her in a sort of dull magnificence that did not in the least appeal to her simple nature. She could not tell why she had despised Jacopo Contarini from the moment she looked into his beautiful eyes. Happily women are not expected to explain why they sometimes judge rightly at first sight, when a wise man is absurdly deceived. Marietta did not understand Jacopo, and she easily fancied that because her own character was the stronger she should rule him as easily as she managed Nella. It did not occur to her that he was already under the domination of another woman, who might prove to be quite as strong as she. What she saw was the weakness in his eyes and mouth. With such a man, she thought, there was little to fear; but there was nothing to love. If she asked, he would give, if she opposed him, he would surrender, if she lost her temper and commanded, he would obey with petulant docility. She should be obliged to take refuge in vanity in order to get any satisfaction out of her life, and she was not naturally vain. The luxuries of those days were familiar to her from her childhood. Though she had not lived in a palace, she had been brought up in a house that was not unlike one, she ate off silver plates and drank from glasses that were masterpieces of her father's art, she had coffers full of silks and satins, and fine linen embroidered with gold thread, there was always gold and silver in her little wallet-purse when she wanted anything or wished to give to the poor, she was waited on by a maid of her own like any fine lady of Venice, and there were a score of idle servants in a house where there were only two masters--there was nothing which Contarini could give her that would be more than a little useless exaggeration of what she had already. She had no particular desire to show herself unveiled to the world, as married women did, and she was not especially attracted by the idea of becoming one of them. She had been brought up alone, she had acquired tastes which other women had not, and which would no longer be satisfied in her married life, she loved the glass-house, she delighted in taking a blow-pipe herself and making small objects which she decorated as she pleased, she felt a lively interest in her father's experiments, she enjoyed the atmosphere of his wisdom though it was occasionally disturbed by the foolish little storms of his hot temper. And until now, she had liked to be often with Zorzi. That was past, of course, but the rest remained, and it was much to sacrifice for the sake of becoming a Contarini, and living on the Grand Canal with a man she should always despise. It was clearly not the idea of marriage that surprised or repelled her, not even of a marriage with a man she did not know and had seen but once. Girls were brought up to regard marriage as the greatest thing in life, as the natural goal to which all their girlhood should tend, and at the same time they were taught from childhood that it was all to be arranged for them, and that they would in due course grow fond of the man their parents chose for them. Until Marietta had begun to love Zorzi, she had accepted all these things quite naturally, as a part of every woman's life, and it would have seemed as absurd, and perhaps as impossible, to rebel against them as to repudiate the religion in which she had been born. Such beliefs turn into prejudices, and assert themselves as soon as whatever momentarily retards them is removed. By the time the gondola drew alongside of the steps of the Foscarini palace, Marietta was convinced that there was nothing for her but to submit to her fate. "Then I am to be married in two months?" she said, in a tone of interrogation, and regardless of the servant. Beroviero bent his head in answer and smiled kindly; for after all, he was grateful to her for accepting his decision so quietly. But Marietta was very pale after she had spoken, for the audible words somehow made it all seem dreadfully real, and out of the shadows of the great entrance hall that opened upon the canal she could fancy Zorzi's face looking at her sadly and reproachfully. The bargain was made, and the woman he loved was sold for life. For one moment, instinctive womanhood felt the accursed humiliation, and the flushing blood rose in the girl's cool cheeks. She would have blushed deeper had she guessed who had been witnesses of her first meeting with Contarini, and old Beroviero's temper would have broken out furiously if he could have imagined that the Greek pirate who had somehow miraculously escaped the hangman in Naples had been contemplating with satisfaction the progress of the marriage negotiations, sure that he himself should before long be enjoying the better part of Marietta's rich dowry. If the old man could have had vision of Jacopo's life, and could have suddenly known what the beautiful woman in black was to the patrician, Contarini's chance of going home alive that day would have been small indeed, for Beroviero might have strangled him where he stood, and perhaps Aristarchi would have discreetly turned his back while he was doing it. For a few minutes they had all been very near together, the deceivers and the deceived, and it was not likely that they should ever all be so near again. Contarini had never seen the Greek, and Arisa was not aware that he was in the church. When Beroviero and Marietta were gone, Jacopo turned his back on the slave for a moment as if he meant to walk further up the church. Aristarchi watched them both, for in spite of all he did not quite trust the Georgian woman, and he had never seen her alone with Jacopo when she was unaware of his own presence. Yet he was afraid to go nearer, now, lest Arisa should accidentally see him and betray by her manner that she knew him. Jacopo turned suddenly, when he judged that he could leave the church without overtaking Beroviero, and he walked quietly down the nave. He passed close to Arisa, and Aristarchi guessed that their eyes met for a moment. He almost fancied that Contarini's lips moved, and he was sure that he smiled. But that was all, and Arisa remained on her knees, not even turning her head a little as her lover went by. "Not so ugly after all," Contarini had said, under his breath, and the careless smile went with the words. Arisa's lip curled contemptuously as she heard. She had drawn back her veil, her face was raised, as if she were sending up a prayer to heaven, and the light fell full upon the magnificent whiteness of her throat, that showed in strong relief against the black velvet and lace. She needed no other answer to what he said, but in the scorn of her curving mouth, which seemed all meant for Marietta, there was contempt for him, too, that would have cut him to the quick of his vanity. Aristarchi walked deliberately by the pillar to the aisle, as he passed, and listened for the flapping of the heavy leathern curtain at the door. Then he stole nearer to the place where Arisa was still kneeling, and came noiselessly behind her and leaned against the column, and watched her, not caring if he surprised her now. But she did not turn round. Listening intently, Aristarchi heard a soft quick whispering, and he saw that it was punctuated by a very slight occasional movement of her head. He had not believed her when she had told him that she said her prayers at night, but she was undoubtedly praying now, and Aristarchi watched her with interest, as he might have looked at some rare foreign animal whose habits he did not understand. She was very intently bent on what she was saying, for he stayed there some time, scarcely breathing, before he turned away and disappeared in the shadows with noiseless steps. CHAPTER VIII All through the long Sunday afternoon Zorzi sat in the laboratory alone. From time to time, he tended the fire, which must not be allowed to go down lest the quality of the glass should be injured, or at least changed. Then he went back to the master's great chair, and allowed himself to think of what was happening in the house opposite. In those days there was no formal betrothal before marriage, at which the intended bride and bridegroom joined hands or exchanged the rings which were to be again exchanged at the wedding. When a marriage had been arranged, the parents or guardians of the young couple signed the contract before a notary, a strictly commercial and legal formality, and the two families then announced the match to their respective relatives who were invited for the purpose, and were hospitably entertained. The announcement was final, and to break off a marriage after it had been announced was a deadly offence and was generally an irreparable injury to the bride. In Beroviero's house the richest carpets were taken from the storerooms and spread upon the pavement and the stairs, tapestries of great worth and beauty were hung upon the walls, the servants were arrayed in their high-day liveries and spoke in whispers when they spoke at all, the silver dishes were piled with sweetmeats and early fruits, and the silver plates had been not only scoured, but had been polished with leather, which was not done every day. In all the rooms that were opened, silken curtains had been hung before the windows, in place of those used at other times. In a word, the house had been prepared in a few hours for a great family festivity, and when Marietta got out of the gondola, she set her foot upon a thick carpet that covered the steps and was even allowed to hang down and dip itself in the water of the canal by way of showing what little value was set upon it by the rich man. Zorzi had known that the preparations were going forward, and he knew what they meant. He would rather see nothing of them, and when the guests were gone, old Beroviero would come over and give him some final instructions before beginning his journey; until then he could be alone in the laboratory, where only the low roar of the fire in the furnace broke the silence. Marietta's head was aching and she felt as if the hard, hot fingers of some evil demon were pressing her eyeballs down into their sockets. She sat in an inner chamber, to which only women were admitted. There she sat, in a sort of state, a circlet of gold set upon her loosened hair, her dress all of embroidered white silk, her shoulders covered with a wide mantle of green and gold brocade that fell in heavy folds to the floor. She wore many jewels, too, such as she would not have worn in public before her marriage. They had belonged to her mother, like the mantle, and were now brought out for the first time. It was very hot, but the windows were shut lest the sound of the good ladies' voices should be heard without; for the news that Marietta was to be married had suddenly gone abroad through Murano, and all the idlers, and the men from the furnaces, where no work was done on Sunday, as well as all the poor, were assembled on the footway and the bridge, and in the narrow alleys round the house. They all pushed and jostled each other to see Beroviero's friends and relations, as they emerged from beneath the black 'felse' of their gondolas to enter the house. In the hall the guests divided, and the men gathered in a large lower chamber, while the women went upstairs to offer their congratulations to Marietta, with many set compliments upon her beauty, her clothes and her jewels, and even with occasional flattering allusions to the vast dowry her husband was to receive with her. She listened wearily, and her head ached more and more, so that she longed for the coolness of her own room and for Nella's soothing chatter, to which she was so much accustomed that she missed it if the little brown woman chanced to be silent. The sun went down and wax candles were brought, instead of the tall oil lamps that were used on ordinary days. It grew hotter and hotter, the compliments of the ladies seemed more and more dull and stale, her mantle was heavy and even the gold circlet on her hair was a burden. Worse than all, she knew that every minute was carrying her further and further into the dominion of the irrevocable whence she could never return. She had looked at the palaces she had passed in Venice that morning, some in shadow, some in sunlight, some with gay faces and some grave, but all so different from the big old house in Murano, that she did not wish to live in them at all. It would have been much easier to submit if she had been betrothed to a foreigner, a Roman, or a Florentine. She had been told that Romans were all wicked and gloomy, and that Florentines were all wicked and gay. That was what Nella had heard. But in a sense they were free, for they probably did what was good in their own eyes, as wicked people often do. Life in Venice was to be lived by rule, and everything that tasted of freedom was repressed by law. If it pleased women to wear long trains the Council forbade them; if they took refuge in long sleeves, thrown back over their shoulders, a law was passed which set a measure and a pattern for all sleeves that might ever be worn. If a few rich men indulged their fancy in the decoration of their gondolas, now that riding was out of fashion, the Council immediately determined that gondolas should be black and that they should only be gilt and adorned inside. As for freedom, if any one talked of it he was immediately tortured until he retracted all his errors, and was then promptly beheaded for fear that he should fall again into the same mistake. Nella said so, and told hideous tales of the things that had been done to innocent men in the little room behind the Council chamber in the Palace. Besides, if one talked of justice, there was Zorzi's case to prove that there was no justice at all in Venetian law. Marietta suddenly wished that she were wicked, like the Romans and the Florentines; and even when she reflected that it was a sin to wish that one were bad, she was not properly repentant, because she had a very vague notion of what wickedness really was. Righteousness seemed just now to consist in being smothered in heavy clothes, in a horribly hot room, while respectable women of all ages, fat, thin, fair, red-haired, dark, ugly and handsome, all chattered at her and overwhelmed her with nauseous flattery. She thought of that morning in the garden, three days ago, when something she did not understand had been so near, just before disappearing for ever. Then her throat tightened and she saw indistinctly, and her lips were suddenly dry. After that, she remembered little of what happened on that evening, and by and by she was alone in her own room without a light, standing at the open window with bare feet on the cold pavement, and the night breeze stirred her hair and brought her the scent of the rosemary and lavender, while she tried to listen to the stars, as if they were speaking to her, and lost herself in her thoughts for a few moments before going to sleep. Zorzi was still sitting in the big chair against the wall when he heard a footstep in the garden, and as he rose to look out Beroviero entered. The master was wrapped in a long cloak that covered something which he was carrying. There was no lamp in the laboratory, but the three fierce eyes of the furnace shed a low red glare in different directions. Beroviero had given orders that the night boys should not come until he sent for them. "I thought it wiser to bring this over at night," he said, setting a small iron box on the table. It contained the secrets of Paolo Godi, which were worth a great fortune in those times. "Of all my possessions," said the old man, laying his hands upon the casket, "these are the most valuable. I will not hide them alone, as I might, because if any harm befell me they would be lost, and might be found by some unworthy person." "Could you not leave them with some one else, sir?" asked Zorzi. "No. I trust no one else. Let us hide them together to-night, for to-morrow I must leave Venice. Take up one of the large flagstones behind the annealing oven, and dig a hole underneath it in the ground. The place will be quite dry, from the heat of the oven." Zorzi lit a lamp with a splinter of wood which he thrust into the 'bocca' of the furnace; he took a small crowbar from the corner and set to work. The laboratory contained all sorts of builder's tools, used when the furnace needed repairing. He raised one of the slabs with difficulty, turned it over, propped it with a billet of beech wood, and began to scoop out a hole in the hard earth, using a mason's trowel. Beroviero watched him, holding the box in his hands. "The lock is not very good," he said, "but I thought the box might keep the packet from dampness." "Is the packet properly sealed?" asked Zorzi, looking up. "You shall see," answered the master, and he set down the box beside the lamp, on the broad stone at the mouth of the annealing oven. "It is better that you should see for yourself." He unlocked the box and took out what seemed to be a small book, carefully tied up in a sheet of parchment. The ends of the silk cord below the knot were pinched in a broad red seal. Zorzi examined the wax. "You sealed it with a glass seal," he observed. "It would not be hard to make another." "Do you think it would be so easy?" asked Beroviero, who had made the seal himself many years ago. Zorzi held the impression nearer to the lamp and scrutinised it closely. "No one will have a chance to try," he said, with a slight gesture of indifference. "It might not be so easy." The old man looked at him a moment, as if hesitating, and then put the packet back into the box and locked the latter with the key that hung from his neck by a small silver chain. "I trust you," he said, and he gave the box to Zorzi, to be deposited in the hole. Zorzi stood up, and taking a little tow from the supply used for cleaning the blow-pipes, he dipped it into the oil of the lamp and proceeded to grease the box carefully before hiding it. "It would rust," he explained. He laid the box in the hole and covered it with earth before placing the stone over it. "Be careful to make the stone lie quite flat," said Angelo, bending down and gathering his gown off the floor in a bunch at his knees. "If it does not lie flat, the stone will move when the boys tread on it, and they may think of taking it up." "It is very heavy," answered the young man. "It was as much as I could do to heave it up. You need not be afraid of the boys." "It is not a very safe place, I fear, after all," returned Beroviero doubtfully. "Be sure to leave no marks of the crowbar, and no loose earth near it." The heavy slab slipped into its bed with a soft thud. Zorzi took the lamp and examined the edges. One of them was a little chipped by the crowbar, and he rubbed it with the greasy tow and scattered dust over it. Then he got a cypress broom and swept the earth carefully away into a heap. Beroviero himself brought the shovel and held it close to the stones while Zorzi pushed the loose earth upon it. "Carry it out and scatter it in the garden," said the old man. It was the first time that he had allowed his affection for Zorzi to express itself so strongly, for he was generally a very cautious person. He took the young man's hand and held it a moment, pressing it kindly. "It was not I who made the law against strangers, and it was not meant for men like you," he added. Zorzi knew how much this meant from such a master and he would have found words for thanks, had he been able; but when he tried, they would not come. "You may trust me," was all he could say. Beroviero left him, and went down the dark corridor with the firm step of a man who knows his way without light. In the morning, when he left the house to begin his journey, Zorzi stood by the steps with the servant to steady the gondola for him. His horses were to be in waiting in Venice, whence he was to go over to the mainland. He nodded to the young man carelessly, but said nothing, and no one would have guessed how kindly he had spoken to him on the previous night. Giovanni Beroviero took ceremonious leave of his father, his cap in his hand, bending low, a lean man, twenty years older than Marietta, with an insignificant brow and clean-shaven, pointed jaw and greedy lips. Marietta stood within the shadow of the doorway, very pale. Nella was beside her, and Giovanni's wife, and further in, at a respectful distance, the serving-people, for the master's departure was an event of importance. The gondola pushed off when Beroviero had disappeared under the 'felse' with a final wave of the hand. Zorzi stood still, looking after his master, and Marietta came forward to the doorstep and pretended to watch the gondola also. Zorzi was the first to turn, and their eyes met. He had not expected to see her still there, and he started a little. Giovanni looked at him coldly. "You had better go to your work," he said in a sour tone. "I suppose my father has told you what to do." The young artist flushed, but answered quietly enough. "I am going to my work," he said. "I need no urging." Before he put on his cap, he bent his head to Marietta; then he passed on towards the bridge. "That fellow is growing insolent," said Giovanni to his sister, but he was careful that Zorzi should not hear the words. "I think I shall advise our father to turn him out." Marietta looked at her brother with something like contempt. "Since when has our father consulted you, or taken your advice?" she asked. "I presume he takes yours," retorted Giovanni, regretting that he could not instantly find a sharper answer, for he was not quick-witted though he was suspicious. "He needs neither yours nor mine," said Marietta, "and he trusts whom he pleases." "You seem inclined to defend his servants when they are insolent," answered Giovanni. "For that matter, Zorzi is quite able to defend himself!" She turned her back on her brother and went towards the stairs, taking Nella with her. Giovanni glanced at her with annoyance and walked along the footway in the direction of his own glass-house, glad to go back to a place where he was absolute despot. But he had been really surprised that Marietta should boldly take the Dalmatian's side against him, and his narrow brain brooded upon the unexpected circumstance. Besides the dislike he felt for the young artist, his small pride resented the thought that his sister, who was to marry a Contarini, should condescend to the defence of a servant. Zorzi went his way calmly and spent the day in the laboratory. He was in a frame of mind in which such speeches as Giovanni's could make but little impression upon him, sensitive though he naturally was. Really great sorrows, or great joys or great emotions, make smaller ones almost impossible for the time. Men of vast ambition, whose deeds are already moving the world and making history, are sometimes as easily annoyed by trifles as a nervous woman; but he who knows that what is dearest to him is slipping from his hold, or has just been taken, is half paralysed in his sense of outward things. His own mind alone has power to give him a momentary relief. Herein lies one of the strongest problems of human nature. We say with assurance that the mind rules the body, we feel that the spirit in some way overshadows and includes the mind. Yet if this were really true the spirit--that is, the will--should have power against bodily pain, but not against moral suffering except with some help from a higher source. But it is otherwise. If the will of ordinary human beings could hypnotise the body against material sensation, the credit due to those brave believers in all ages who have suffered cruel torments for their faith would be singularly diminished. If the mind could dominate matter by ordinary concentration of thought, a bad toothache should have no effect upon the delicate imagination of the poet, and Napoleon would not have lost the decisive battle of his life by a fit of indigestion, as has been asserted. On the other hand, there was never yet a man of genius, or even of great talent, who was not aware that the most acute moral anguish can be momentarily forgotten, as if it did not exist for the time, by concentrating the mind upon its accustomed and favourite kind of work. Johnson wrote _Rasselas_ to pay for the funeral of his yet unburied mother, and Johnson was a man of heart if ever one lived; he could not have written the book if he had had a headache. Saints and ascetics without end and of many persuasions have resorted to bodily pain as a means of deadening the imagination and exalting the will or spirit. Some great thinkers have been invalids, but in every case their food, work has been done when they were temporarily free from pain. Perhaps the truth is on the side of those mystics who say that although the mind is of a higher nature than matter, it is so closely involved with it that neither can get away from the other, and that both together tend to shut out the spirit and to forget its existence, which is a perpetual reproach to them; and any ordinary intellectual effort being produced by the joint activity of mind and the matter through which the mind acts, the condition of the spirit at the time has little or no effect upon them, nor upon what they are doing. And if one would carry the little theory further, one might find that the greatest works of genius have been produced when the effort of mind and matter has taken place under the inspiration of the spirit, so that all three were momentarily involved together. But such thoughts lead far, and it may be that they profit little. The best which a man means to do is generally better than the best he does, and it is perhaps the best he is capable of doing. Be these things as they may, Zorzi worked hard in the laboratory, minutely carrying out the instructions he had received, but reasoning upon them with a freshness and keenness of thought of which his master was no longer capable. When he had made the trials and had added the new ingredients for future ones, he began to think out methods of his own which had suggested themselves to him of late, but which he had never been able to try. But though he had the furnace to himself, to use as long as he could endure the heat of the advancing summer, he was face to face with a difficulty that seemed insuperable. The furnace had but three crucibles, each of which contained one of the mixtures by means of which he and Beroviero were trying to produce the famous red glass. In order to begin to make glass in his own way, it was necessary that one of the three should be emptied, but unless he disobeyed his orders this was out of the question. In his train of thought and longing to try what he felt sure must succeed, he had forgotten the obstacle. The check brought him back to himself, and he walked disconsolately up and down the long room by the side of the furnace. Everything was against him, said the melancholy little demon that torments genius on dark days. It was not enough that he should be forced by every consideration of honour and wisdom to hide his love for his master's daughter; when he took refuge in his art and tried to throw his whole life into it, he was stopped at the outset by the most impassable barriers of impossibility. The furious desire to create, which is the strength as well as the essence of genius, surged up and dashed itself to futile spray upon the face of the solid rock. He stood still before the hanging shelves on which he had placed the objects he had occasionally made, and which his master allowed him to keep there--light, air-thin vessels of graceful shapes: an ampulla of exquisite outline with a long curved spout that bent upwards and then outwards and over like the stalk of a lily of the valley; a large drinking-glass set on a stem so slender that one would doubt its strength to carry the weight of a full measure, yet so strong that the cup might have been filled with lead without breaking it; a broad dish that was nothing but a shadow against the light, but in the shadow was a fair design of flowers, drawn free with a diamond point; there were a dozen of such things on the shelves, not the best that Zorzi had made, for those Beroviero took to his own house and used on great occasions, while these were the results of experiments unheard of in those days, and which not long afterwards made a school. In his present frame of mind Zorzi felt a foolish impulse to take them down and smash them one by one in the big jar into which the failures were thrown, to be melted again in the main furnace, for in a glass-house nothing is thrown away. He knew it was foolish, and he held his hands behind him as he looked at the things, wishing that he had never made them, that he had never learned the art he was forbidden by law to practise, that he had never left Dalmatia as a little boy long ago, that he had never been born. The door opened suddenly and Giovanni entered. Zorzi turned and looked at him in silence. He was surprised, but he supposed that the master's son had a right to come if he chose, though he never showed himself in the glass-house when his father was in Murano. "Are you alone here?" asked Giovanni, looking about him. "Do none of the workmen come here?" "The master has left me in charge of his work," answered Zorzi. "I need no help." Giovanni seated himself in his father's chair and looked at the table before the window. "It is not very hard work, I fancy," he observed, crossing one leg over the other and pulling up his black hose to make it fit his lean calf better. Zorzi suspected at once that he had come in search of information, and paused before answering. "The work needs careful attention," he said at last. "Most glass-work does," observed Giovanni, with a harsh little laugh. "Are you very attentive, then? Do you remember to do all that my father told you?" "The master only left this morning. So far, I have obeyed his orders." "I do not understand how a man who is not a glass-blower can know enough to be left alone in charge of a furnace," said Giovanni, looking at Zorzi's profile. This time Zorzi was silent. He did not think it necessary to tell how much he knew. "I suppose my father knows what he is about," continued Giovanni, in a tone of disapproval. Zorzi thought so too, and no reply seemed necessary. He stood still, looking out of the window, and wishing that his visitor would go away. But Giovanni had no such intention. "What are you making?" he asked presently. "A certain kind of glass," Zorzi answered. "A new colour?" "A certain colour. That is all I can tell you." "You can tell me what colour it is," said Giovanni. "Why are you so secret? Even if my father had ordered you to be silent with me about his work, which I do not believe, you would not be betraying anything by telling me that. What colour is he trying to make?" "I am to say nothing about it, not even to you. I obey my orders." Giovanni was a glass-maker himself. He rose with an air of annoyance and crossed the laboratory to the jar in which the broken glass was kept, took out a piece and held it up against the light. Zorzi had made a movement as if to hinder him, but he realised at once that he could not lay hands on his master's son. Giovanni laughed contemptuously and threw the fragment back into the jar. "Is that all? I can do better than that myself!" he said, and he sat down again in the big chair. His eyes fell on the shelves upon which Zorzi's specimens of work were arranged. He looked at them with interest, at once understanding their commercial value. "My father can make good things when he is not wasting time over discoveries," he remarked, and rising again he went nearer and began to examine the little objects. Zorzi said nothing, and after looking at them a long time Giovanni turned away and stood before the furnace. The copper ladle with which the specimens were taken from the pots lay on the brick ledge near one of the 'boccas.' Giovanni took it, looked round to see where the iron plate for testing was placed, and thrust the ladle into the aperture, holding it lightly lest the heat should hurt his hand. "You shall not do that!" cried Zorzi, who was already beside him. Before Giovanni knew what was happening Zorzi had struck the ladle from his hand, and it disappeared through the 'bocca' into the white-hot glass within. CHAPTER IX With an oath Giovanni raised his hand to strike Zorzi in the face, but the quick Dalmatian snatched up his heavy blow-pipe in both hands and stood in an attitude of defence. "If you try to strike me, I shall defend myself," he said quietly. Giovanni's sour face turned grey with fright, and then as his impotent anger rose, the grey took an almost greenish hue that was bad to see. He smiled in a sickly fashion. Zorzi set the blow-pipe upright against the furnace and watched him, for he saw that the man was afraid of him and might act treacherously. "You need not be so violent," said Giovanni, and his voice trembled a little, as he recovered himself. "After all, my father would not have made any objection to my trying the glass. If I had, I could not have guessed how it was made." Zorzi did not answer, for he had discovered that silence was his best weapon. Giovanni continued, in the peevish tone of a man who has been badly frightened and is ashamed of it. "It only shows how ignorant you are of glass-making, if you suppose that my father would care." As he still got no reply beyond a shrug of the shoulders, he changed the subject. "Did you see my father make any of those things?" he asked, pointing to the shelves. "No," answered Zorzi. "But he made them all here, did he not?" insisted Giovanni. "And you are always with him." "He did not make any of them." Giovanni opened his eyes in astonishment. In his estimation there was no man living, except his father, who could have done such work. Zorzi smiled, for he knew what the other's astonishment meant. "I made them all," he said, unable to resist the temptation to take the credit that was justly his. "You made those things?" repeated Giovanni incredulously. But Zorzi was not in the least offended by his disbelief. The more sceptical Giovanni was, the greater the honour in having produced anything so rarely beautiful. "I made those, and many others which the master keeps in his house," he said. Giovanni would have liked to give him the lie, but he dared not just then. "If you made them, you could make something of the kind again," he said. "I should like to see that. Take your blow-pipe and try. Then I shall believe you." "There is no white glass in the furnace," answered Zorzi. "If there were, I would show you what I can do." Giovanni laughed sourly. "I thought you would find some good excuse," he said. "The master saw me do the work," answered Zorzi unconcernedly. "Ask him about it when he comes back." "There are other furnaces in the glass-house," suggested Giovanni. "Why not bring your blow-pipe with you and show the workmen as well as me what you can do?" Zorzi hesitated. It suddenly occurred to him that this might be a decisive moment in his life, in which the future would depend on the decision he made. In all the years since he had been with Beroviero he had never worked at one of the great furnaces among the other men. "I daresay your sense of responsibility is so great that you do not like to leave the laboratory, even for half an hour," said Giovanni scornfully. "But you have to go home at night." "I sleep here," answered Zorzi. "Indeed?" Giovanni was surprised. "I see that your objections are insuperable," he added with a laugh. Zorzi was in one of those moods in which a man feels that he has nothing to lose. There might, however, be something to gain by exhibiting his skill before Giovanni and the men. His reputation as a glass-maker would be made in half an hour. "Since you do not believe me, come," he said at last. "You shall see for yourself." He took his blow-pipe and thrust it through one of the 'boccas' to melt off the little red glass that adhered to it. Then he cooled it in water, and carefully removed the small particles that stuck to the iron here and there like spots of glazing. "I am ready," he said, when he had finished. Giovanni rose and led the way, without a word. Zorzi followed him, shut the door, turned the key twice and thrust it into the bosom of his doublet. Giovanni turned and watched him. "You are really very cautions," he said. "Do you always lock the door when you go out?" "Always," answered Zorzi, shouldering his blow-pipe. They crossed the little garden and entered the passage that led to the main furnace rooms. In the first they entered, eight or ten men and youths, masters and apprentices, were at work. The place was higher and far more spacious than the laboratory, the furnace was broader and taller and had four mouths instead of three. The sunlight streamed through a window high above the floor and fell upon the arched back of the annealing oven, the window being so placed that the sun could never shine upon the working end and dazzle the workmen. When Giovanni and Zorzi entered, the men were working in silence. The low and steady roar of the flames was varied by the occasional sharp click of iron or the soft sound of hot glass rolling on the marver, or by the hiss of a metal instrument plunged into water to cool it. Every man had an apprentice to help him, and two boys tended the fire. The foreman sat at a table, busy with an account, a small man, even paler than the others and dressed in shabby brown hose and a loose brown coat. The workmen wore only hose and shirts. Without desisting from their occupations they cast surprised glances at Giovanni and his companion, whom they all hated as a favoured person. One of them was finishing a drinking-glass, rolling the pontil on the arms of the working-stool; another, a beetle-browed fellow, swung his long blow-pipe with its lump of glowing glass in a full circle, high in air and almost to touch the ground; another was at a 'bocca' in the low glare; all were busy, and the air was very hot and close. The men looked grim and ill-tempered. Giovanni explained the object of his coming in a way intended to conciliate them to himself at Zorzi's expense. Their presence gave him courage. "This is Zorzi, the man without a name," he said, "who is come from Dalmatia to give us a lesson in glass-blowing." One of the men laughed, and the apprentices tittered. The others looked as if they did not understand. Zorzi had known well enough what humour he should find among them, but he would not let the taunt go unanswered. "Sirs," he said, for they all claimed the nobility of the glass-blowers' caste, "I come not to teach you, but to prove to the master's son that I can make some trifle in the manner of your art." No one spoke. The workmen in the elder Beroviero's house knew well enough that Zorzi was a better artist than they, and they had no mind to let him outdo them at their own furnace. "Will any one of you gentlemen allow me to use his place?" asked Zorzi civilly. Not a man answered. In the sullen silence the busy hands moved with quick skill, the furnace roared, the glowing glass grew in ever-changing shapes. "One of you must give Zorzi his place," said Giovanni, in a tone of authority. The little foreman turned quite round in his chair and looked on. There was no reply. The pale men went on with their work as if Giovanni were not there, and Zorzi leaned calmly on his blow-pipe. Giovanni moved a step forward and spoke directly to one of the men who had just dropped a finished glass into the bed of soft wood ashes, to be taken to the annealing oven. "Stop working for a while," he said. "Let Zorzi have your place." "The foreman gives orders here, not you," answered the man coolly, and he prepared to begin another piece. Giovanni was very angry, but there were too many of the workmen, and he did not say what rose to his lips, but crossed over to the foreman. Zorzi kept his place, waiting to see what might happen. "Will you be so good as to order one of the men to give up his place?" Giovanni asked. The old foreman smiled at this humble acknowledgment of his authority, but he argued the point before acceding. "The men know well enough what Zorzi can do," he answered in a low voice. "They dislike him, because he is not one of us. I advise you to take him to your own glass-house, sir, if you wish to see him work. You will only make trouble here." "I am not afraid of any trouble, I tell you," replied Giovanni. "Please do what I ask." "Very well. I will, but I take no responsibility before the master if there is a disturbance. The men are in a bad humour and the weather is hot." "I will be responsible to my father," said Giovanni. "Very well," repeated the old man. "You are a glass-maker yourself, like the rest of us. You know how we look upon foreigners who steal their knowledge of our art." "I wish to make sure that he has really stolen something of it." The foreman laughed outright. "You will be convinced soon enough!" he said. "Give your place to the foreigner, Piero," he added, speaking to the man who had refused to move at Giovanni's bidding. Piero at once chilled the fresh lump of glass he had begun to fashion and smashed it off the tube into the refuse jar. Without a word Zorzi took his place. While he warmed the end of his blow-pipe at the 'bocca' he looked to right and left to see where the working-stool and marver were placed, and to be sure that the few tools he needed were at hand, the pontil, the 'procello,'--that is, the small elastic tongs for modelling--and the shears. Piero's apprentice had retired to a distance, as he had received no special orders, and the workmen hoped that Zorzi would find himself in difficulty at the moment when he would turn in the expectation of finding the assistant at his elbow. But Zorzi was used to helping himself. He pushed his blow-pipe into the melted glass and drew it out, let it cool a moment and then thrust it in again to take up more of the stuff. The men went on with their work, seeming to pay no attention to him, and Piero turned his back and talked to the foreman in low tones. Only Giovanni watched, standing far enough back to be out of reach of the long blow-pipe if Zorzi should unexpectedly swing it to its full length. Zorzi was confident and unconcerned, though he was fully aware that the men were watching every movement he made, while pretending not to see. He knew also that owing to his being partly self-taught he did certain things in ways of his own. They should see that his ways were as good as theirs, and what was more, that he needed no help, while none of them could do anything without an apprentice. The glass grew and swelled, lengthened and contracted with his breath and under his touch, and the men, furtively watching him, were amazed to see how much he could do while the piece was still on the blow-pipe. But when he could do no more they thought that he would have trouble. He did not even turn his head to see whether any one was near to help him. At the exact moment when the work was cool enough to stand he attached the pontil with its drop of liquid glass to the lower end, as he had done many a time in the laboratory, and before those who looked on could fully understand how he had done it without assistance, the long and heavy blow-pipe lay on the floor and Zorzi held his piece on the lighter pontil, heating it again at the fire. The men did not stop working, but they glanced at each other and nodded, when Zorzi could not see them. Giovanni uttered a low exclamation of surprise. The foreman alone now watched Zorzi with genuine admiration; there was no mistaking the jealous attitude of the others. It was not the mean envy of the inferior artist, either, for they were men who, in their way, loved art as Beroviero himself did, and if Zorzi had been a new companion recently promoted from the state of apprenticeship in the guild, they would have looked on in wonder and delight, even if, at the very beginning, he outdid them all. What they felt was quite different. It was the deep, fierce hatred of the mediaeval guildsman for the stranger who had stolen knowledge without apprenticeship and without citizenship, and it was made more intense because the glass-blowers were the only guild that excluded every foreign-born man, without any exception. It was a shame to them to be outdone by one who had not their blood, nor their teaching, nor their high acknowledged rights. They were peaceable men in their way, not given to quarrelling, nor vicious; yet, excepting the mild old foreman, there was not one of them who would not gladly have brought his iron blow-pipe down on Zorzi's head with a two-handed swing, to strike the life out of the intruder. Zorzi's deft hands made the large piece he was forming spin on itself and take new shape at every turn, until it had the perfect curve of those slim-necked Eastern vessels for pouring water upon the hands, which have not even now quite degenerated from their early grace of form. While it was still very hot, he took a sharp pointed knife from his belt and with a turn of his hand cut a small round hole, low down on one side. The mouth was widened and then turned in and out like the leaf of a carnation. He left the cooling piece on the pontil, lying across the arms of the stool, and took his blow-pipe again. "Has the fellow not finished his tricks yet?" asked Piero discontentedly. It would have given him pleasure to smash the beautiful thing to atoms where it lay, almost within his reach. Zorzi began to make the spout, for it was a large ampulla that he was fashioning. He drew the glass out, widened it, narrowed it, cut it, bent it and finished off the nozzle before he touched it with wet iron and made it drop into the ashes. A moment later he had heated the thick end of it again and was welding it over the hole he had made in the body of the vessel. "The man has three hands!" exclaimed the foreman. "And two of them are for stealing," added Piero. "Or all three," put in the beetle-browed man who was working next to Zorzi. Zorzi looked at him coldly a moment, but said nothing. They did not mean that he was a thief, except in the sense that he had stolen his knowledge of their art. He went on to make the handle of the ampulla, an easy matter compared with making the spout. But the highest part of glass-blowing lies in shaping graceful curves, and it is often in the smallest differences of measurement that the pieces made by Beroviero and Zorzi--preserved intact to this day--differ from similar things made by lesser artists. Yet in those little variations lies all the great secret that divides grace from awkwardness. Zorzi now had the whole vessel, with its spout and handle, on the pontil. It was finished, but he could still ornament it. His own instinct was to let it alone, leaving its perfect shape and airy lightness to be its only beauty, and he turned it thoughtfully as he looked at it, hesitating whether he should detach it from the iron, or do more. "If you have finished your nonsense, let me come back to my work," said Piero behind him. Zorzi did not turn to answer, for he had decided to add some delicate ornaments, merely to show Giovanni that he was a full master of the art. The dark-browed man had just collected a heavy lump of glass on the end of his blow-pipe, and was blowing into it before giving it the first swing that would lengthen it out. He and Piero exchanged glances, unnoticed by Zorzi, who had become almost unconscious of their hostile presence. He began to take little drops of glass from the furnace on the end of a thin iron, and he drew them out into thick threads and heated them again and laid them on the body of the ampulla, twisting and turning each bit till he had no more, and forming a regular raised design on the surface. His neighbour seemed to get no further with what he was doing, though he busily heated and reheated his lump of glass and again and again swung his blow-pipe round his head, and backward and forward. The foreman was too much interested in Zorzi to notice what the others were doing. Zorzi was putting the last touches to his work. In a moment it would be finished and ready to go to the annealing oven, though he was even then reflecting that the workmen would certainly break it up as soon as the foreman turned his back. The man next to him swung his blow-pipe again, loaded with red-hot glass. It slipped from his hand, and the hot mass, with the full weight of the heavy iron behind it, landed on Zorzi's right foot, three paces away, with frightful force. He uttered a sharp cry of surprise and pain. The lovely vessel he had made flew from his hands and broke into a thousand tiny fragments. In excruciating agony he lifted the injured foot from the ground and stood upon the other. Not a hand was stretched out to help him, and he felt that he was growing dizzy. He made a frantic effort to hop on one leg towards the furnace, so as to lean against the brickwork. Piero laughed. "He is a dancer!" he cried. "He is a 'ballarino'!" The others all laughed, too, and the name remained his as long as he lived--he was Zorzi Ballarin. The old foreman came to help him, seeing that he was really injured, for no one had quite realised it at first. Savagely as they hated him, the workmen would not have tortured him, though they might have killed him outright if they had dared. Excepting Piero and the man who had hurt him, the workmen all went on with their work. He was ghastly pale, and great drops of sweat rolled down his forehead as he reached the foreman's chair and sat down: but after the first cry he had uttered, he made no sound. The foreman could hear how his teeth ground upon each other as he mastered the frightful suffering. Giovanni came, and stood looking at the helpless foot, smashed by the weight that had fallen upon it and burned to the bone in an instant by the molten glass. "I cannot walk," he said at last to the foreman. "Will you help me?" His voice was steady but weak. The foreman and Giovanni helped him to stand on his left foot, and putting his arms round their necks he swung himself along as he could. The dark man had picked up his blow-pipe and was at work again. "You will pay for that when the master comes back," Piero said to him as Zorzi passed. "You will starve if you are not careful." Zorzi turned his head and looked the dark man full in the eyes. "It was an accident," he said faintly. "You did not mean to do it." The man looked away shamefacedly, for he knew that even if he had not meant to injure Zorzi for life, he had meant to hurt him if he could. As for Giovanni, he was puzzled by all that had happened so unexpectedly, for he was a dull man, though very keen for gain, and he did not understand human nature. He disliked Zorzi, but during the morning he had become convinced that the gifted young artist was a valuable piece of property, and not, as he had supposed, a clever flatterer who had wormed himself into old Beroviero's confidence. A man who could make such things was worth much money to his master. There were kings and princes, from the Pope to the Emperor, who would have given a round sum in gold for the beautiful ampulla of which only a heap of tiny fragments were now left to be swept away. The two men brought Zorzi across the garden to the door of the laboratory. Leaning heavily on the foreman he got the key out, and Giovanni turned it in the lock. They would have taken him to the small inner room, to lay him on his pallet bed, but he would not go. "The bench," he managed to say, indicating it with a nod of his head. There was an old leathern pillow in the big chair. The foreman took it and placed it under Zorzi's head. "We must get a surgeon to dress his wound," said the foreman. "I will send for one," answered Giovanni. "Is there anything you want now?" he asked, with an attempt to speak kindly to the valuable piece of property that lay helpless before him. "Water," said Zorzi very faintly. "And feed the fire--it must be time." The foreman dipped a cupful of water from an earthen jar, held up his head and helped him to drink. Giovanni pushed some wood into the furnace. "I will send for a surgeon," he repeated, and went out. Zorzi closed his eyes, and the foreman stood looking at him. "Do not stay here," Zorzi said. "You can do nothing for me, and the surgeon will come presently." Then the foreman also left him, and he was alone. It was not in his nature to give way to bodily pain, but he was glad the men were gone, for he could not have borne much more in silence. He turned his head to the wall and bit the edge of the leathern cushion. Now and then his whole body shook convulsively. He did not hear the door open again, for the torturing pain that shot through him dulled all his other senses. He wished that he might faint away, even for a moment, but his nerves were too sound for that. He was recalled to outer things by feeling a hand laid gently on his leg, and immediately afterwards he heard a man's voice, in a quietly gruff tone that scarcely rose or fell, reciting a whole litany of the most appalling blasphemies that ever fell from human lips. For an instant, in his suffering, Zorzi fancied that he had died and was in the clutches of Satan himself. He turned his head on the cushion and saw the ugly face of the old porter, who was bending down and examining the wounded foot while he steadily cursed everything in heaven and earth, with an earnestness that would have been grotesque had his language been less frightful. For a few moments Zorzi almost forgot that he was hurt, as he listened. Not a saint in the calendar seemed likely to escape the porter's fury, and he even went to the length of cursing the relatives, male and female, of half-legendary martyrs and other good persons about whose families he could not possibly know anything. "For heaven's sake, Pasquale!" cried Zorzi. "You will certainly be struck by lightning!" He had always supposed that the porter hated him, as every one else did, and he could not understand. By this time he was far more helpless than he had been just after he had been hurt, and when he tried to move the injured foot to a more comfortable position it felt like a lump of scorching lead. The porter entered upon a final malediction, which might be supposed to have gathered destructive force by collecting into itself all those that had gone before, and he directed the whole complex anathema upon the soul of the coward who had done the foul deed, and upon his mother, his sisters and his daughters if he had any, and upon the souls of all his dead relations, men, women and children, and all of his relations that should ever be born, to the end of time. He had been a sailor in his youth. "Who did that to you?" he asked, when he had thus devoted the unknown offender to everlasting perdition. "Give me some water, please," said Zorzi, instead of answering the question. "Water! Oh yes!" Pasquale went to the earthen jar. "Water! Every devil in hell, old and young, will jump and laugh for joy when that man asks for water and has to drink flames!" Zorzi drank eagerly, though the water was tepid. "Drink, my son," said Pasquale, holding his head up very tenderly with one of his rough hands. "I will put more within reach for you to drink, while I go and get help." "They have sent for a surgeon," answered Zorzi. "A surgeon? No surgeon shall come here. A surgeon will divide you into lengths, fore and aft, and kill you by inches, a length each day, and for every day he takes to kill you, he will ask a piece of silver of the master! If a surgeon comes here I will throw him out into the canal. This is a burn, and it needs an old woman to dress it. Women are evil beings, a chastisement sent upon us for our sins. But an old woman can dress a burn. I go. There is the water." Zorzi called him back when he was already at the door. "The fire! It must not go down. Put a little wood in, Pasquale!" The old porter grumbled. It was unnatural that a man so badly hurt should think of his duties, but in his heart he admired Zorzi all the more for it. He took some wood, and when Zorzi looked, he was trying to poke it through the 'bocca.' "Not there!" cried Zorzi desperately. "The small opening on the side, near the floor." Pasquale uttered several maledictions. "How should I know?" he asked when he had found the right place. "Am I a night boy? Have I ever tended fires for two pence a night and my supper? There! I go!" Zorzi could hear his voice still, as he went out. "A surgeon!" he grumbled. "I should like to see the nose of that surgeon at the door!" Zorzi cared little who came, so that he got some relief. His head was hot now, and the blood beat in his temples like little fiery hammers, that made a sort of screaming noise in his brain. He saw queer lights in circles, and the beams of the ceiling came down very near, and then suddenly went very far away, so that the room seemed a hundred feet high. The pain filled all his right side, and he even thought he could feel it in his arm. All at once he started, and as he lay on his back his hands tried to grip the flat wood of the bench, and his eyes were wide open and fixed in a sort of frightened stare. What if he should go mad with pain? Who would remember the fire in the master's furnace? Worse than that, what safety was there that in his delirium he should not speak of the book that was hidden under the stone, the third from the oven and the fourth from the corner? His brain whirled but he would not go mad, nor lose consciousness, so long as he had the shadow of free will left. Rather than lie there on his back, he would get off his bench, cost what it might, and drag himself to the mouth of the furnace. There was a supply of wood there, piled up by the night boys for use during the day. He could get to it, even if he had to roll himself over and over on the floor. If he could do that, he could keep his hold upon his consciousness, the touch of the billets would remind him, the heat and the roar of the fire would keep him awake and in his right mind. He raised himself slowly and put his uninjured foot to the floor. Then, with both hands he lifted the other leg off the bench. He was conscious of an increase of pain, which had seemed impossible. It shot through and through his whole body; and he saw flames. There was only one way to do it, he must get down upon his hands and his left knee and drag himself to the furnace in that way. It was a thing of infinite difficulty and suffering, but he did it. Inch by inch, he got nearer. As his right hand grasped a billet of wood from the little pile, something seemed to break in his head. His strength collapsed, he fell forward from his knee to his full length in the ashes and dust, and he felt nothing more. CHAPTER X The porter unbarred the door and looked out. It was nearly noon and the southerly breeze was blowing. The footway was almost deserted. On the other side of the canal, in the shadow of the Beroviero house, an old man who sold melons in slices had gone to sleep under a bit of ragged awning, and the flies had their will of him and his wares. A small boy simply dressed in a shirt, and nothing else, stood at a little distance, looking at the fruit and listening attentively to the voice of the tempter that bade him help himself. Pasquale looked at the house opposite. Everything was quiet, and the shutters were drawn together, but not quite closed. The flowers outside Marietta's window waved in the light breeze. "Nella!" cried Pasquale, just as he was accustomed to call the maid when Marietta wanted her. At the sound of his voice the little boy, who was about to deal effectually with his temptation by yielding to it at once, took to his heels and ran away. But no one looked out from the house. Pasquale called again, somewhat louder. The shutters of Marietta's window were slowly opened inward and Marietta herself appeared, all in white and pale, looking over the flowers. "What is it?" she asked. "Why do you want Nella?" The canal was narrow, so that one could talk across it almost in an ordinary tone. "Your pardon, lady," answered Pasquale. "I did not mean to disturb you. There has been a little accident here, saving your grace." This he added to avert possible ill fortune. Marietta instantly thought of Zorzi. She leaned forward upon the window-sill above the flowers and spoke anxiously. "What has happened? Tell me quickly!" "A man has had his foot badly burned--it must be dressed at once." "Who is it?" "Zorzi." Pasquale saw that Marietta started a little and drew back. Then she leaned forward again. "Wait there a minute," she said, and disappeared quickly. The porter heard her calling Nella from an inner room, and then he heard Nella's voice indistinctly. He waited before the open door. Nella was a born chatterer, but she had her good qualities, and in an emergency she was silent and skilful. "Leave it to me," she said. "He will need no surgeon." In her room she had a small store of simple remedies, sweet oil, a pot of balsam, old linen carefully rolled up in little bundles, a precious ointment made from the fat of vipers, which was a marvellous cure for rheumatism in the joints, some syrup of poppies in a stumpy phial, a box of powdered iris root, and another of saffron. She took the sweet oil, the balsam, and some linen. She also took a small pair of scissors which were among her most precious possessions. She threw her large black kerchief over her head and pinned it together under her chin. When she came back to Marietta's room, her mistress was wrapped in a dark mantle that covered hear thin white dress entirely, and one corner of it was drawn up over her head so as to hide her hair and almost all her face. She was waiting by the door. "I am going with you," she said, and her voice was not very steady. "But you will be seen--" began Nella. "By the porter." "Your brother may see you--" "He is welcome. Come, we are losing time." She opened the door and went out quickly. "I shall certainly be sent away for letting you come!" protested Nella, hurrying after her. Marietta did not even answer this, which Nella thought very unkind of her. From the main staircase Marietta turned off at the first landing, and went down a short corridor to the back stairs of the house, which led to the narrow lane beside the building. Nella snorted softly in approval, for she had feared that her mistress would boldly pass through the hall where there were always one or two idle men-servants in waiting. The front door was closed against the heat, they had met no one and they reached the door of the glass-house without being seen. Pasquale looked at Marietta but said nothing until all three were inside. Then he took hold of Marietta's mantle at her elbow, and held her back. She turned and looked at him in amazement. "You must not go in, lady," he said. "It is an ugly wound to see." Marietta pushed him aside quietly, and led the way. Nella followed her as fast as she could, and Pasquale came last. He knew that the two women would need help. Zorzi lay quite still where he had fallen, with one hand on the billet of beech wood, the other arm doubled under him, his cheek on the dusty stone. With a sharp cry Marietta ran forward and knelt beside his head, dropping her long mantle as she crossed the room. Pasquale uttered an uncompromising exclamation of surprise. "O, most holy Mary!" cried Nella, holding up her hands with the things she carried. Marietta believed that Zorzi was dead, for he was very white and he lay quite still. At first she opened her eyes wide in horror, but in a moment she sank down, covering her face. Pasquale knelt opposite her on one knee, and began to turn Zorzi on his back. Nella was at his feet, and she helped, with great gentleness. "Do not be frightened, lady," said Pasquale reassuringly. "He has only fainted. I left him on the bench, but you see he must have tried to get up to feed the fire." While he spoke he was lifting Zorzi as well as he could. Marietta dropped her hands and slowly opened her eyes, and she knew that Zorzi was alive when she saw his face, though it was ghastly and smeared with grey ashes. But in those few moments she had felt what she could never forget. It had been as if a vast sword-stroke had severed her body at the waist, and yet left her heart alive. "Can you help a little?" asked Pasquale. "If I could get him into my arms, I could carry him alone." Marietta sprang to her feet, all her energy and strength returning in a moment. The three carried the unconscious man easily enough to the bench and laid him down, as he had lain before, with his head on the leathern cushion. Then Nella set to work quickly and skilfully, for she hoped to dress the wound while he was still insensible. Marietta helped her, instinctively doing what was right. It was a hideous wound. "It will heal more quickly than you think," said Nella, confidently. "The burning has cauterised it." Marietta, delicately reared and unused to such sights, would have felt faint if the man had not been Zorzi. As it was she only felt sharp pain, each time that Nella touched the foot. Pasquale looked on, helpless but approving. Zorzi groaned, then opened his eyes and moved one hand. Nella had almost finished. "If only he can be kept quiet a few moments longer," she said, "it will be well done." Zorzi writhed in pain, only half conscious yet. Marietta left Nella to put on the last bandages, and came and looked down into his face, taking one of his hands in hers. He recognised her, and stared in wild surprise. "You must try and not move," she said softly. "Nella has almost finished." He forgot what he suffered, and the agonised contraction of his brows and mouth relaxed. Marietta wiped away the ashes from his forehead and cheeks, and smoothed back his thick hair. No woman's hand had touched him thus since his mother's when he had been a little child. He was too weak to question what was happening to him, but a soft light came into his eyes, and he unconsciously pressed Marietta's hand. She blushed at the pressure, without knowing why, and first the maiden instinct was to draw away her hand, but then she pitied him and let it stay. She thought, too, that her touch helped to keep him quiet, and indeed it did. "How did you know?" he asked at length, for in his half consciousness it had seemed natural that she should have come to him when she heard that he was hurt. "Pasquale called Nella," she answered simply, "and I came too. Is the pain still very great?" "It is much less. How can I thank you?" She looked into his eyes and smiled as he had seen her smile once or twice before in his life. His memory all came back now. He knew that she ought not to have been there, since her father was away. His expression changed suddenly. "What is the matter?" asked Marietta. "Does it hurt very much?" "No," he said. "I was thinking--" He checked himself, and glanced at the porter. A distant knocking was heard at the outer door, Pasquale shuffled off to see who was there. "I will wager that it is the surgeon!" he grumbled. "Evil befall his soul! We do not want him." "What were you going to say?" asked Marietta, bending down. "There is only Nella here now." "Nella should not have let you come," said Zorzi. "If it is known, your father will be very angry." "Ah, do you see?" cried Nella, rising, for she had finished. "Did I not tell you so, my pretty lady? And if your brother finds out that you have been here he will go into a fury like a wild beast! I told you so! And as for your help, indeed, I could have brought another woman, and there was Pasquale, too. I suppose he has hands. Oh, there will be a beautiful revolution in the house when this is known!" But Marietta did not mean to acknowledge that she had done anything but what was perfectly right and natural under the circumstances; to admit that would have been to confess that she had not come merely out of pity and human kindness. "It is absurd," she said with a little indignation. "I shall tell my brother myself that Zorzi was hurt, and that I helped you to dress his wound. And what is more, Nella, you will have to come; again, and I shall come with you as often as I please. All Murano may know it for anything I care." "And Venice too?" asked Nella, shaking her head in disapproval. "What will they say in Casa Contarini when they hear that you have actually gone out of the house to help a wounded young man in your father's glass-house?" "If they are human, they will say that I was quite right," answered Marietta promptly. "If they are not, why should I care what they say?" Zorzi smiled. At that moment Pasquale passed the window, and then came in by the open door, growling. His ugly face was transfigured by rage, until it had a sort of grotesque grandeur, and he clenched his fist as he began to speak. "Animals! Beasts! Brutes! Worse than savages! He was almost incoherent. "Well? What has happened now?" asked. Nella. "You talk like a mad dog. Remember the young lady!" "It would make a leaden statue speak!" answered Pasquale. "The Signor Giovanni sends a boy to say that the Surgeon was not at home, because he had gone to shave the arch-priest of San Piero!" In spite of the great pain he still suffered, Zorzi laughed, a little. "You said that you would throw, him into the canal if he came at all," he said. "Yes, and so I meant to do!" cried Pasquale. "But that is no reason why the inhuman monster should be shaving the arch-priest when a man might be dying for need of him! Oh, let him come here! Oh, I advise him to come! The miserable, cowardly, bloodletting, soap-sudding, shaving little beast of a barber!" Pasquale drew a long breath after this, and unclenched his fist, but his lips still moved, as he said things to himself which would have shocked Marietta if she could have had the least idea of what they meant. "You cannot stay here," she said, turning to Zorzi again. "You cannot lie on this bench all day." "I shall soon be able to stand," answered Zorzi confidently. "I am much better." "You will not stand on that foot for many a day," said Nella, shaking her head. "Then Pasquale must get me a pair of crutches," replied Zorzi. "I cannot lie on my back because I have hurt one foot. I must tend the furnace, I must go on with my work, I must make the tests, I must--" He stopped short and bit his lip, turning white again as a spasm of excruciating pain shot along his right side, from his foot upwards. Marietta bent over him, full of anxiety. "You are suffering!" she said tenderly. "You must not try to move." "It is nothing," he answered through his closed teeth. "It will pass, I daresay." "It will not pass to-day," said Nella. "But I will bring you some syrup of poppies. That will make you sleep." Marietta seemed to feel the pain herself. She smoothed the leathern cushion under his head as well as she could, and softly touched his forehead. It was hot and dry now. "He is feverish," she said to Nella anxiously. "I will bring him barley water with the syrup of poppies. What do you expect? Do you think that such a wound and such a burn are cooling to the blood, and refreshing to the brain? The man is badly hurt. Of course he is feverish. He ought to be in his bed, like a decent Christian." "Some one must help me with the work," said Zorzi faintly. "There is no one but me," answered Marietta after a moment's pause. "You?" cried Nella, greatly scandalised. Even Pasquale stared at Marietta in silent astonishment. "Yes," she said quietly. "There is no one else who knows enough about my father's work." "That is true," said Zorzi. "But you cannot come here and work with me." Marietta turned away and walked to the window. In her thin dress she stood there a few minutes, like a slender lily, all white and gold in the summer light. "It is out of the question!" protested Nella. "Her brother will never allow her to come. He will lock her up in her own room for safety, till the master comes home." "I think I shall always do just what I think right," said Marietta quietly, as if to herself. "Lord!" cried Nella. "The young lady is going mad!" Nella was gathering together the remains of the things she had brought. Exhausted by the pain he had suffered, and by the efforts he had made to hide it, Zorzi lay on his back, looking with half-closed eyes at the graceful outline of the girl's figure, and vaguely wishing that she would never move, and that he might be allowed to die while quietly gazing at her. "Lady," said Pasquale at last, and rather timidly, "I will take good care of him. I will get him crutches to-morrow. I will come in the daytime and keep the fire burning for him." "It would be far better to let it go out," observed Nella, with much sense. "But the experiments!" cried Zorzi, suddenly coming back from his dream. "I have promised the master to carry them out." "You see what comes of your glass-working," retorted Nella, pointing to his bandaged foot. "How did it happen?" asked Marietta suddenly. "How did you do it?" "It was done for him," said Pasquale, "and may the Last Judgment come a hundred times over for him who did it!" His intention was clearer than his words. "Do you mean that it was done on purpose, out of spite?" asked Marietta, looking from Pasquale to Zorzi. "It was an accident," said the latter. "I was in the main furnace room with your brother. The blow-pipe with the hot glass slipped from a man's hand. Your brother saw it--he will tell you." "I have been porter here for five-and-twenty years," retorted Pasquale, "and there have been several accidents in that time. But I never heard of one like that." "It was nothing else," said Zorzi. His voice was weak. Nella had finished collecting her belongings. Marietta saw that she could not stay any longer at present, and she went once more to Zorzi's side. "Let Pasquale take care of you to-day," she said. "I will come and see how you are to-morrow morning." "I thank you," he answered. "I thank you with all my heart. I have no words to tell you how much." "You need none," said she quietly. "I have done nothing. It is Nella who has helped you." "Nella knows that I am very grateful." "Of course, of course!" answered the woman kindly. "You have made him talk too much," she added, speaking to Marietta. "Let us go away. I must prepare the barley water. It takes a long time." "Is he to have nothing but barley water?" asked Pasquale. "I will send him what he is to have," answered Nella, with an air of superiority. Marietta looked back at Zorzi from the door, and his eyes were following her. She bent her head gravely and went out, followed by the others, and he was alone again. But it was very different now. The spasms of pain came back now and then, but there was rest between them, for there was a potent anodyne in the balsam with which Nella had soaked the first dressing. Of all possible hurts, the pain from burning is the most acute and lasting, and the wise little woman, who sometimes seemed so foolish, had done all that science could have done for Zorzi, even at a much later day. He could think connectedly now, he had been able to talk; had it been possible for him to stand, he might even have gone on for a time with the preparations for the next experiment. Yet he felt an instinctive certainty that he was to be lame for life. He was not thinking of the experiments just then; he could think of nothing but Marietta. Four or five days had passed since he had talked with her in the garden, and she was now formally promised to Jacopo Contarini. He wondered why she had come with Nella, and he remembered her earnest offer of friendship. She meant to show him that she was still in earnest, he supposed. It had been perfect happiness to feel her cool young hand on his forehead, to press it in his own. No one could take that from him, as long as he lived. He remembered it through the horrible pain it had soothed, and it was better than the touch of an angel, for it was the touch of a loving woman. But he did not know that, and be fancied that if she had ever guessed that he loved her, she would not have come to him now. She would feel that the mere thought in his heart was an offence. And besides, she was to marry Contarini, and she was not of the kind that would promise to marry one man and yet encourage love in another. It was well, thought Zorzi, that she had never suspected the truth. When Marietta reached her room again she listened patiently to Nella's scolding and warning, for she did not hear a word the good woman said to her. Nella brushed the dust from the silk mantle and from Marietta's white skirt very industriously, lest it should betray the secret to Giovanni or any other member of the household. For they had escaped being seen, even when they came back. Nella scolded on in a little sing-song voice, with many rising inflections. In her whole life, she said, she had never connived at anything more utterly shameless than this! She was humble, indeed, and of no account in the world, but if she had run out in the middle of the day to visit a young man when she was betrothed to her poor Vito, blessed soul, and the Lord remember him, her poor Vito would have gone to her father, might the Lord refresh his soul, and would have said, "What ways are these? Do you think I will marry a girl who runs about in this fashion?" That was what Vito would have said. And he would have said, "Give me back the gold things I gave your daughter, and let me go and find a wife who does not run about the city." And it would have been well said. Did Marietta suppose that an educated person like the lord Jacopo Contarini would be less particular about his bride's manners than that good soul Vito? Not that Vito had been ignorant. Nella should have liked any one to dare to say that she had married an ignorant man! And so forth. And so on. Marietta heard the voice without listening to the words, and the gentle, half-complaining, half-reproving tone was rather soothing than otherwise. She sat by the half-closed window with her bead work, while Nella talked, and brushed, and moved about the room, making imaginary small tasks in order to talk the more. But Marietta threaded the red and blue beads and fastened them in patterns upon the piece of stuff she was ornamenting, and when Nella looked at her every now and then, she seemed quite calm and indifferent. There had always been something inscrutable about her. She was wondering why she had submitted to be betrothed to Contarini, when she loved Zorzi; and the answer did not come. She could not understand why it was that although she loved Zorzi with all her heart she had been convinced that she hated him, during four long, miserable days. Then, too, it was very strange that she should feel happy, that she should know that she was really happy, her heart brimming over with sunshine and joy, while Zorzi, whom she loved, was lying on that uncomfortable bench in dreadful pain. It was true that when she thought of his wound, the pain ran through her own limbs and made her move in her seat. But the next moment she was perfectly happy again, and yet was displeased with herself for it, as if it were not quite right. Nella stood still at last, close to her, and spoke to her so directly that she could not help hearing. "My little lady," said the woman, "do not forget that the women are coming early to-morrow morning to show you the stuffs which your father has chosen for your wedding gown." "Yes. I remember." Marietta laid down her work in the little basket of beads and looked away towards the window. Between the shutters she could just see one of the scarlet flowers of the sweet geranium, waving in the sunlight. It was true. The women were coming in the morning to begin the work. They would measure her, and cut out patterns in buckram and fit them on her, making her stand a long time. They would spread out silks and satins on the bed and on the table, they would hold them up and make long draperies with them, and make the light flash in the deep folds, and they would tell her how beautiful she would be as a bride, and that her skin was whiter than lilies and milk and snow, and her hair finer than silk and richer than ropes of spun red gold. While they were saying those things she would look very grave and indifferent, and nothing they could show her would make her open her eyes wide; but her heart would laugh long and sweetly, for she should be infinitely happy, though no one would know it. She would give no opinion about the gown, no matter how they pressed her with questions. After that the pieces that were to be embroidered would be very carefully weighed, the silk and the satin, and the weights of the pieces would be written down. Also, each of the hired women who were to make the embroidery would receive a certain amount of silver and gold thread, of which the weight would be written down under that of the stuff, and the two figures added together would mean just what the finished piece of embroidery ought to weigh. For if this were not done, the women would of course steal the gold and silver thread, a little every day, and take it away in their mouths, because the housekeeper would always search them every evening, in spite of the weighing. But they were well paid for the work and did not object to being suspected, for it was part of their business. In time, Marietta would go to see the work they were doing, in the great cool loft where they would sit all day, where the linen presses stood side by side, and the great chests which held the hangings and curtains and carpets that were used on great occasions. The housekeeper had her little room up there, and could watch the sewing-women at their work and scold them if they were idle, noting how much should be taken from their pay. The women would sing long songs, answering each other for an hour at a time, but no one would hear them below, because the house was so big. By and by the work would be almost finished, and then it would be quite done, and the wedding day would be very near. There Marietta's vision of the future suddenly came to a climax, as she tried to imagine what would happen when she should boldly declare that neither her father, nor the Council of Ten, nor the Doge himself, nor even His Holiness Pope Paul, who was a Venetian too, could ever make her marry Jacopo Contarini. There would be such a convulsion of the family as had never taken place since she was born. In her imagination she fancied all Murano taking sides for her or against her; even Venice itself would be amazed at the temerity of a girl who dared to refuse the husband her father had chosen for her. It would be an outrage on all authority, a scandal never to be forgotten, an unheard-of rebellion against the natural law by which unmarried children were held in bondage as slaves to their parents. But Marietta was not frightened by the tremendous consequences her fancy deduced from her refusal to marry. She was happy. Some day, the man she loved would know that she had faced the world for him, rather than be bound to any one else, and he would love her all the more dearly for having risked so much. She had never been so happy before. Only, now and then, when she thought of Zorzi's hurt, she felt a sharp thrill of pain run through her. All day the tide of joy was high in her heart. Towards evening, she sent Nella over to the glass-house to see how Zorzi was doing, and as soon as the woman was gone she stood at the open window, behind her flowers, to watch her go in, Pasquale would look out, the door would be open for a moment, she would be a little nearer. Even in that small anticipation she was not disappointed. It was a new joy to be able to look from her window into the dark entry that led to the place where Zorzi was. To-morrow, or the next day, he would perhaps come to the door, helped by Pasquale, but to-morrow morning she would go and see him, come what might. She was not afraid of her brother Giovanni, and it might be long before her father came back. Till then, at all events, she would do what she thought right, no matter how Nella might be scandalised. Nella came back, and said that Zorzi was better, that he had slept all the afternoon and now had very little pain, and he was not in any anxiety about the furnace, for Pasquale had kept the fire burning properly all day. Zorzi had begged Nella to deliver a message of thanks. "Try and remember just what he told you," said Marietta. "There was nothing especial," answered Nella with exasperating indifference. "He said that I was to thank you very much. Something like that--nothing else." "I am sure that those were not his words. Why did you forget them?" "If it had been an account of money spent, I should remember it exactly," answered Nella. "A pennyworth of thread, beeswax a farthing, so much for needles; I should forget nothing. But when a man says 'I thank you,' what is there to remember? But you are never satisfied! Nella may work her hands to the bone for you, Nella may run errands for you till she is lame, you are never pleased with what Nella does! It is always the same." She tossed her brown head to show that she was offended. But Marietta laughed softly and patted the little woman's cheek affectionately. "You are a dear little old angel," she said. Nella was pacified. CHAPTER XI The porter kept his word, and took good care of Zorzi. When the night boys had come, he carried him into the inner room and put him to bed like a child. Zorzi asked him to tell the boys to wake him at the watches, as they had done on the previous night, and Pasquale humoured him, but when he went away he wisely forgot to give the message, and the lads, who knew that he had been hurt, supposed that he was not to be disturbed. It was broad daylight when he awoke and saw Pasquale standing beside him. "Are the boys gone already?" he asked, almost as he opened his eyes. "No, they are all asleep in a corner," answered the porter. "Asleep!" cried Zorzi, in sudden anxiety. "Wake them, Pasquale, and see whether the sand-glass has been turned and is running, and whether the fire is burning. The young good-for-nothings!" "I will wake them," answered Pasquale. "I supposed that they were allowed to sleep after daylight." A moment later Zorzi heard him apostrophising the three lads with his usual vigour of language. Judging from the sounds that accompanied the words he was encouraging their movements by other means also. Presently one of the three set up a howl. "Oh, you sons of snails and codfish, I will teach you!" growled Pasquale; and he proceeded to teach them, till they were all three howling at once. Zorzi knew that they deserved a beating, but he was naturally tender-hearted. "Pasquale!" he called out. "Let them alone! Let them make up the fire!" Pasquale came back, and the yells subsided. "I have knocked their empty heads together," he observed. "They will not sleep for a week. Yes, the sand-glass has run out, but the fire is not very low. I will bring you water, and when you are dressed I will carry you out into the laboratory." The boys did not dare to go away till they had made up the fire. Then they took themselves off, and as Pasquale let them out he treated them to a final expression of his opinion. The tallest of the three was bleeding from his nose, which had been brought into violent conjunction with the skull of one of his companions. When the door was shut, and they had gone a few steps along the footway, he stopped the others. "We are glass-blowers' sons," he said, "and we have been beaten by that swine of a porter. Let us be revenged on him. Even Zorzi would not have dared to touch us, because he is a foreigner." "We can do nothing," answered the smallest boy disconsolately. "If I tell my father that we went to sleep, he will say that the porter served us right, and I shall get another beating." "You are cowards," said the first speaker. "But I am wounded," he continued proudly, pointing to his nose. "I will go to the master and ask redress. I will sit down before the door and wait for him." "Do what you please," returned the others. "We will go home." "You have no spirit of honour in you," said the tall boy contemptuously. He turned his back on them in disdain, crossed the bridge and sat down under the covered way in front of Beroviero's house. He smeared the blood over his face till he really looked as if he might be badly hurt, and he kept up a low, tremulous moaning. His nose really hurt him, and as he was extremely sorry for himself some real tears came into his eyes now and then. He waited a long time. The front door was opened and two men came out with brooms and began to sweep. When they saw him they were for making him go away, but he cried out that he was waiting for the Signor Giovanni, to show him how a free glass-blower's son had been treated by a dog of a foreigner and a swine of a porter over there in the glass-house. Then the servants let him stay, for they feared the porter and hated Zorzi for being a Dalmatian. At last Giovanni came out, and the boy at once uttered a particularly effective moan. Giovanni stopped and looked at him, and he gulped and sobbed vigorously. "Get up and go away at once!" said Giovanni, much disgusted by the sight of the blood. "I will not go till you hear me, sir," answered the boy dramatically. "I am a free glass-blower's son and I have been beaten like this by the porter of the glass-house! This is the way we are treated, though we work to learn the art as our fathers worked before us." "You probably went to sleep, you little wretch," observed Giovanni. "Get out of my way, and go home!" "Justice, sir! Justice!" moaned the boy, dropping himself on his knees. "Nonsense! Go away!" Giovanni pushed him aside, and began to walk on. The boy sprang up and followed him, and running beside him as Giovanni tried to get away, touched the skirt of his coat respectfully, and then kissed the back of his own hand. "If you will listen to me, sir," he said in a low voice, "I will tell you something you wish to know." Giovanni stopped short and looked at him with curiosity. "I will tell you of something the master did on the Sunday night before he went on his journey," continued the lad. "I am one of the night boys in the laboratory, and I saw with my eyes while the others were asleep, for we had been told to wait till we were called." Giovanni looked about, to see whether any one was within hearing. They were still in the covered footway above which the first story of the house was built, but were near the end, and the shutters of the lower windows were closed. "Tell me what you saw," said Giovanni, "but do not speak loud." At this moment the other two boys came running up with noisy lamentations. With the wisdom of their kind they had patiently watched to see whether their companion would get a hearing of the master, and judging that he had been successful at last, they came to enjoy the fruit of his efforts. "We also have been beaten!" they wailed, but they bore no outward and visible signs of ill-treatment on them. The elder boy turned upon them with righteous fury, and to their unspeakable surprise began to drive them away with kicks and blows. They could not stand against him, and after a brief resistance, they turned and ran at full speed. The victor came back to Giovanni's side. "They are cowardly fellows," he said, with disdain. "They are ignorant boys. What do you expect? But they will not come back." "Go on with your story," said Giovanni impatiently, "but speak low." "It was on Sunday night, sir. The master came to talk with Zorzi in the laboratory. I was in the garden, at the entrance of the other passage. When the door opened there was not much light, and the master was wrapped in his cloak, and he turned a little, and went in sideways, so I knew that he had something under his arm, for the door is narrow." "He was probably bringing over some valuable materials," said Giovanni. "I believe he was bringing the great book," said the boy confidently, but almost in a whisper. "What great book?" The lad looked at Giovanni with an expression of cunning on his face, as much as to say that he was not to be deceived by such a transparent pretence of ignorance. "He was afraid to leave it in his house," he said, "lest you should find it and learn how to make the gold as he does. So he took it over to the laboratory at night." Giovanni began to understand, though it was the first time he had heard that the boys, like the common people, suspected Angelo Beroviero of being an alchemist. It was clear that the boy meant the book that contained the priceless secrets for glass-making which Giovanni and his brother had so long coveted. His interest increased. "After all," he said, "you saw nothing distinctly. My father went in and shut the door, I suppose." "Yes," answered the boy. "But after a long time the door opened again." He stopped, resolved to be questioned, in order that his information should seem more valuable. The instinct of small boys is often as diabolically keen as that of a grown woman. "Go on!" said Giovanni, more and more interested. "The door opened again, you say? Then my father came out--" "No, sir. Zorzi came out into the light that fell from the door. The master was inside." "Well, what did Zorzi do? Be quick!" "He brought out a shovel full of earth, sir, and he carefully scattered it about over the flower-bed, and then he went back, and presently he came out with the shovel again, and more earth; and so three times. They had buried the great book somewhere in the laboratory." "But the laboratory is paved," objected Giovanni, to gain time, for he was thinking. "There is earth under the stones, sir. I remember seeing it last year when the masons put down several new slabs. The great book is somewhere under the floor of the laboratory. I must have stepped over it in feeding the fire last night, and that is why the devils that guard it inspired the porter to beat me this morning. It was the devils that sent us to sleep, for fear that we should find it." "I daresay," said Giovanni with much gravity, for he thought it better that the boy should be kept in awe of an object that possessed such immense value. "You should be careful in future, or ill may befall you." "Is it true, sir, that I have told you something you wished to know?" "I am glad to know that the great book is safe," answered Giovanni ambiguously. "Zorzi knows where it is," suggested, the boy in a tone meant to convey the suspicion that Zorzi might use his knowledge. "Yes--yes," repeated Giovanni thoughtfully, "and he is ill. He ought to be brought over to the house until he is better." "Then the furnace could be allowed to get out, sir, could it not?" "Yes. The weather is growing warm, as it is. Yes--the furnace may be put out now." Giovanni hardly knew that he was speaking aloud. "Zorzi will get well much sooner if he is in a good room in the house. I will see to it." The boy stood still beside him, waiting patiently for some reward. "Are we to come as usual to-night, sir, or will there be no fire?" he asked. "Go and ask at the usual time. I have not decided yet. There--you are a good boy. If you hold your tongue there will be more." Giovanni offered the lad a piece of money, but he would not take it. "We are glass-blowers' sons, sir, we are not poor people," he said with theatrical pride, for he would have taken the coin without remark if he had not felt that he possessed a secret of great value, which might place Giovanni in his power before long. Giovanni was surprised. "What do you want, then?" he asked. "I am old enough to be an apprentice, sir." "Very well," answered Giovanni. "You shall be an apprentice. But hold your tongue about what you saw. You told me everything, did you?" "Yes, sir. And I thank you for your kindness, sir. If I can help you, sir--" he stopped. "Help me!" exclaimed Giovanni. "I do not work at the furnaces! Wash your face and come by and by to my glass-house, and you shall have an apprentice's place." "I shall serve you well, sir. You shall see that I am grateful," answered the boy. He touched Giovanni's sleeve and kissed his own hand, and ran back to the steps before the front door. There he knelt down, leaning over the water, and washed his face in the canal, well pleased with the price he had got for his bruising. Giovanni did not look at him, but turned to go on, past the corner of the house, in deep thought. From the narrow line into which the back door opened, Marietta and Nella emerged at the same moment. Nella had made sure that Giovanni had gone out, but she could not foresee that he would stop a long time to talk with the boy in the covered footway. She ran against him, as he passed the corner, for she was walking on Marietta's left side. The young girl's face was covered, but she knew that Giovanni must recognise her instantly, by her cloak, and because Nella was with her. "Where are you going?" he asked sharply. "To church, sir, to church," answered Nella in great perturbation. "The young lady is going to confession." "Ah, very good, very good!" exclaimed Giovanni, who was very attentive to religious forms. "By all means go to confession, my sister. You cannot be too conscientious in the performance of your duties." But Marietta laughed a little under her veil. "I had not the least intention of going to confession this morning," she said. "Nella said so because you frightened her." "What? What is this?" Giovanni looked from one to the other. "Then where are you going?" "To the glass-house," answered Marietta with perfect coolness. "You are not going to the laboratory? Zorzi is living there alone. You cannot go there." "I am not afraid of Zorzi. In the first place, I wish to know how he is. Secondly, this is the hour for making the tests, and as he cannot stand he cannot try the glass alone." Giovanni was amazed at her assurance, and immediately assumed a grave and authoritative manner befitting the eldest brother who represented the head of the house. "I cannot allow you to go," he said. "It is most unbecoming. Our father would be shocked. Go back at once, and never think of going to the laboratory while Zorzi is there. Do you hear?" "Yes. Come, Nella," she added, taking her serving-woman by the arm. Before Giovanni realised what she was going to do, she was walking quickly across the wooden bridge towards the glass-house, holding Nella's sleeve, to keep her from lagging, and Nella trotted beside her mistress like a frightened lamb, led by a string. Giovanni did not attempt to follow at first, for he was utterly nonplussed by his sister's behaviour. He rarely knew what to do when any one openly defied him. He stood still, staring after the two, and saw Marietta tap upon the door of the glass-house. It opened almost immediately and they disappeared within. As soon as they were out of sight, his anger broke out, and he made a few quick steps on the bridge. Then he stopped, for he was afraid to make a scandal. That at least was what he said to himself, but the fact was that he was afraid to face his sister, who was infinitely braver and cooler than he. Besides, he reflected that he could not now prevent her from going to the laboratory, since she was already there, and that it would be very undignified to make a scene before Zorzi, who was only a servant after all. This last consideration consoled him greatly. In the eyes of the law, and therefore in Giovanni's, Zorzi was a hired servant. Now, socially speaking, a servant was not a man; and since Zorzi was not a man, and Marietta was therefore gone with one servant to a place, belonging to her father, where there was another servant, to go thither and forcibly bring her back would either be absurd, or else it would mean that Zorzi had acquired a new social rank, which was absurd also. There is no such consolation to a born coward as a logical reason for not doing what he is afraid to do. But Giovanni promised himself that he would make his sister pay dearly for having defied him, and as he had also made up his mind to have Zorzi removed to the house, on pretence of curing his hurt, but in reality in order to search for the precious manuscripts, it would be impossible for Marietta to commit the same piece of folly a second time. But she should pay for the affront she had put upon him. He accordingly came back to the footway and walked along toward his own glass-house; and the boy, who had finished washing his face, smoothed his hair with his wet fingers and followed him, having seen and understood all that had happened. Marietta sent Pasquale on, to tell Zorzi that she was coming, and when she reached the laboratory he was sitting in the master's big chair, with his foot on a stool before him. His face was pale and drawn from the suffering of the past twenty-four hours, and from time to time he was still in great pain. As Marietta entered, he looked up with a grateful smile. "You seem glad to see us after all," she said. "Yet you protested that I should not come to-day!" "I cannot help it," he answered. "Ah, but if you had been with us just now!" Nella began, still frightened. But Marietta would not let her go on. "Hold your tongue, Nella," she said, with a little laugh. "You should know better than to trouble a sick man's fancy with such stories." Nella understood that Zorzi was not to know, and she began examining the foot, to make sure that the bandages had not been displaced during the night. "To-morrow I will change them," she said. "It is not like a scald. The glass has burned you like red-hot iron, and the wound will heal quickly." "If you will tell me which crucible to try," said Marietta, "I will make the tests for you. Then we can move the table to your side and you can prepare the new ingredients according to the writing." Pasquale had left them, seeing that he was not wanted. "I fear it is of little use," answered Zorzi, despondently. "Of course, the master is very wise, but it seems to me that he has added so much, from time to time, to the original mixture, and so much has been taken away, as to make it all very uncertain." "I daresay," assented Marietta. "For some time I have thought so. But we must carry out his wishes to the letter, else he will always believe that the experiments might have succeeded if he had stayed here." "Of course," said Zorzi. "We should make tests of all three crucibles to-day, if it is only to make more room for the things that are to be put in." "Where is the copper ladle?" asked Marietta. "I do not see it in its place." "I have none--I had forgotten. Your brother came here yesterday morning, and wanted to try the glass himself in spite of me. I knocked the ladle out of his hand and it fell through into the crucible." "That was like you," said Marietta. "I am glad you did it." "Heaven knows what has happened to the thing," Zorzi answered. "It has been there since yesterday morning. For all I know, it may have melted by this time. It may affect the glass, too." "Where can I get another?" asked Marietta, anxious to begin. Zorzi made an instinctive motion to rise. It hurt him badly and he bit his lip. "I forgot," he said. "Pasquale can get another ladle from the main glass-house." "Go and call Pasquale, Nella," said Marietta at once. "Ask him to get a copper ladle." Nella went out into the garden, leaving the two together. Marietta was standing between the chair and the furnace, two or three steps from Zorzi. It was very hot in the big room, for the window was still shut. "Tell me how you really feel," Marietta said, almost at once. Every woman who loves a man and is anxious about him is sure that if she can be alone with him for a moment, he will tell her the truth about his condition. The experience of thousands of years has not taught women that if there is one person in the world from whom a man will try to conceal his ills and aches, it is the woman he loves, because he would rather suffer everything than give her pain. "I feel perfectly well," said Zorzi. "Indeed you are not!" answered Marietta, energetically. "If you were perfectly well you would be on your feet, doing your work yourself. Why will you not tell me?" "I mean, I have no pain," said Zorzi. "You had great pain just now, when you tried to move," retorted Marietta. "You know it. Why do you try to deceive me? Do you think I cannot see it in your face?" "It is nothing. It comes now and then, and goes away again almost at once." Marietta had come close to him while she was speaking. One hand hung by her side within his reach. He longed to take it, with such a longing as he had never felt for anything in his life; he resisted with all the strength he had left. But he remembered that he had held her hand in his yesterday, and the memory was a force in itself, outside of him, drawing him in spite of himself, lifting his arm when he commanded it to lie still. His eyes could not take themselves from the beautiful white fingers, so delicately curved as they hung down, so softly shaded to pale rose colour at their tapering tips. She stood quite still, looking down at his bent head. "You would not refuse my friendship, now," she said, in a low voice, so low that when she had spoken she doubted whether he could have understood. He took her hand then, for he had no resistance left, and she let him take it, and did not blush. He held it in both his own and silently drew it to him, till he was pressing it to his heart as he had never hoped to do. "You are too good to me," he said, scarcely knowing that he pronounced the words. Nella passed the window, coming back from her errand. Instantly Marietta drew her hand away, and when the serving-woman entered she was speaking to Zorzi in the most natural tone in the world. "Is the testing plate quite clean?" she asked, and she was already beside it. Zorzi looked at her with amazement. She had almost been seen with her hand in his, a catastrophe which he supposed would have entailed the most serious consequences; yet there she was, perfectly unconcerned and not even faintly blushing, and she had at once pretended that they had been talking about the glass. "Yes--I believe it is clean," he answered, almost hesitating. "I cleaned it yesterday morning." Nella had brought the copper ladle. There were always several in the glass-works for making tests. Marietta took it and went to the furnace, while Nella watched her, in great fear lest she should burn herself. But the young girl was in no danger, for she had spent half her life in the laboratory and the garden, watching her father. She wrapped the wet cloth round her hand and held the ladle by the end. "We will begin with the one on the right," she said, thrusting the instrument through the aperture. Bringing it out with some glass in it, she supported it with both hands as she went quickly to the iron table, and she instantly poured out the stuff and began to watch it. "It is just what you had the other day," she said, as the glass rapidly cooled. Zorzi was seated high enough to look over the table. "Another failure," he said. "It is always the same. We have scarcely had any variation in the tint in the last week." "That is not your fault," answered Marietta. "We will try the next." As if she had been at the work all her life, she chilled the ladle and chipped off the small adhering bits of glass from it, and slipped the last test from the table, carrying it to the refuse jar with tongs. Once more she wrapped the damp cloth round her hand and went to the furnace. The middle crucible was to be tried next. Nella, looking on with nervous anxiety, was in a profuse perspiration. "I believe that is the one into which the ladle fell," said Zorzi. "Yes, I am quite sure of it." Marietta took the specimen and poured it out, set down the ladle on the brick work, and watched the cooling glass, expecting to see what she had often seen before. But her face changed, in a look of wonder and delight. "Zorzi!" she exclaimed. "Look! Look! See what a colour!" "I cannot see well," he answered, straining his neck. "Wait a minute!" he cried, as Marietta took the tongs. "I see now! We have got it! I believe we have got it! Oh, if I could only walk!" "Patience--you shall see it. It is almost cool. It is quite stiff now." She took the little flat cake up with the tongs, very carefully, and held it before his eyes. The light fell through it from the window, and her head was close to his, as they both looked at it together. "I never dreamed of such a colour," said Zorzi, his face flushing with excitement. "There never was such a colour before," answered Marietta. "It is like the juice of a ripe pomegranate that has just been cut, only there is more light in it." "It is like a great ruby--the rubies that the jewellers call 'pigeon's blood.'" "My father always said it should be blood-red," said Marietta. "But I thought he meant something different, something more scarlet." "I thought so, too. What they call pigeon's blood is not the colour of blood at all. It is more like pomegranates, as you said at first. But this is a marvellous thing. The master will be pleased." Nella came and looked too, convinced that the glass had in some way turned out more beautiful by the magic of her mistress's touch. "It is a miracle!" cried the woman of the people. "Some saint must have made this." The glass glowed like a gem and seemed to give out light of its own. As Zorzi and Marietta looked, its rich glow spread over their faces. It was that rare glass which, from old cathedral windows, casts such a deep stain upon the pavement that one would believe the marble itself must be dyed with unchanging color. "We have found it together," said Marietta. Zorzi looked from the glass to her face, close by his, and their eyes met for a moment in the strange glow and it was as if they knew each other in another world. "Do not let the red light fall on your faces," said Nella, crossing herself. "It is too much like blood--good health to you," she added quickly for fear of evil. Marietta lowered her hand and turned the piece of glass sideways, to see how it would look. "What shall we do with it?" she asked. "It must not be left any longer in the crucible." "No. It ought to be taken out at once. Such a colour must be kept for church windows. If I were able to stand, I would make most of it into cylinders and cut them while hot. There are men who can do it, in the glass-house. But the master does not want them here." "We had better let the fires go out," said Marietta. "It will cool in the crucible as it is." "I would give anything to have that crucible empty, or an empty one in the place," answered Zorzi. "This is a great discovery, but it is not exactly what the master expected. I have an idea of my own, which I should like to try." "Then we must empty the crucible. There is no other way. The glass will keep its colour, whatever shape we give it. Is there much of it?" "There may be twenty or thirty pounds' weight," answered Zorzi. "No one can tell." Nell listened in mute surprise. She had never seen Marietta with old Beroviero, and she was amazed to hear her young mistress talking about the processes of glass-making, about crucibles and cylinders and ingredients as familiarly as of domestic things. She suddenly began to imagine that old Beroviero, who was probably a magician and an alchemist, had taught his daughter the same dangerous knowledge, and she felt a sort of awe before the two young people who knew such a vast deal which she herself could never know. She asked herself what was to become of this wonderful girl, half woman and half enchantress, who brought the colour of the saints' blood out of the white flames, and understood as much as men did of the art which was almost all made up of secrets. What would happen when she was the wife of Jacopo Contarini, shut up in a splendid Venetian palace where there were no glass furnaces to amuse her? At first she would grow pale, thought Nella, but by and by would weave spells in her chamber which would bring all Venice to her will, and turn it all to gold and precious stones and red glass, and the people to fairies subject to her will, her husband, the Council of Ten, even the Doge himself. Nella roused herself, and passed her hand over her eyes, as if she were waking from a dream. And indeed she had been dreaming, for she had looked too long into the wonderful depths of the new colour, and it had dazed her wits. CHAPTER XII On that day Marietta felt once more the full belief that Zorzi loved her; but the certainty did not fill her with happiness as on that first afternoon when she had seen him stoop to pick up the rose she had dropped. The time that had seemed so very distant had come indeed; instead of years, a week had scarcely passed, and it was not by letting a flower fall in his path that she had told him her love, as she had meant to do. She had done much more. She had let him take her hand and press it to his heart, and she would have left it there if Nella had not passed the window; she had wished him to take it, she had let it hang by her side in the hope that he would be bold enough to do so, and she had thrilled with delight at his touch; she had drawn back her hand when the woman came, and she had put on a look of innocent indifference that would have deceived one of the Council's own spies. Could any language have been more plain? It was very strange, she thought, that she should all at once have gone so far, that she should have felt such undreamt joy at the moment and then, when it was hers, a part of her life which nothing could ever undo nor take from her, it was stranger still that the remembrance of this wonderful joy should make her suddenly sad and thoughtful, that she should lie awake at night, wishing that it had never been, and tormenting herself with the idea that she had done an almost irretrievable wrong. At the very moment when the coming day was breaking upon her heart's twilight, a wall of darkness arose between her and the future. Much that is very good and true in the world is built upon the fanciful fears of evil that warn girls' hearts of harm. There are dangers that cannot be exaggerated, because the value of what they threaten cannot be reckoned too great, so long as human goodness rests on the dangerous quicksands of human nature. Marietta had not realised what it meant to be betrothed to Jacopo Contarini, until she had let her hand linger in Zorzi's. But after that, one hour had not passed before she felt that she was living between two alternatives that seemed almost equally terrible, and of which she must choose the one or the other within two months. She must either marry Contarini and never see Zorzi again, or she must refuse to be married and face the tremendous consequences of her unheard-of wilfulness, her father's anger, the just resentment of all the Contarini family, the humiliation which her brothers would heap upon her, because, in the code of those days, she would have brought shame on them and theirs. In those times such results were very real and inevitable when a girl's formal promise of marriage was broken, though she herself might never have been consulted. It was no wonder that Marietta was sleepless at night, and spent long hours of the day sitting listless by her window without so much as threading a score of beads from the little basket that stood beside her. Nella came and went often, looked at her, and shook her head with a wise smile. "It is the thought of marriage," said the woman of the people to herself. "She pines and grows pale now, because she is thinking that she must leave her father's house so soon, and she is afraid to go among strangers. But she will be happy by and by, like the swallows in spring." Nella remembered how frightened she herself had been when she was betrothed to her departed Vito, and she was thereby much comforted as to Marietta's condition. But she said nothing, after Marietta had coldly repelled her first attempt to talk of the marriage, though she forgave her mistress's frigid order to be silent, telling herself that no right-minded young girl could possibly be natural and sweet tempered under the circumstances. She was more than compensated for what might have seemed harshness, by something that looked very much like a concession. Marietta had not gone back to the laboratory since the discovery of the new glass, and a week had passed since then. Nella went every other day and did all that was necessary for Zorzi's recovery. Each time she came he asked her about Marietta, in a rather formal tone, as was becoming when he spoke of his master's daughter, but hoping that Nella might have some message to deliver, and he was more and more disappointed as he realised that Marietta did not mean to send him any. She had gone away on that morning with a sort of intimation that she would come back every day, but Nella did not so much as hint that she ever meant to come back at all. Zorzi went about on crutches, swinging his helpless foot as he walked, for it still hurt him when he put it to the ground. He was pale and thin, both from pain and from living shut up almost all day in the close atmosphere of the laboratory. For a change, he began to come out into the little garden, sometimes walking up and down on his crutches for a few minutes, and then sitting down to rest on the bench under the plane-tree, where Marietta had so often sat. Pasquale came and talked with him sometimes, but Zorzi never went to the porter's lodge. He felt that if he got as far as that he should inevitably open the door and look up at Marietta's window, and he would not do it, for he was hurt by her apparent indifference, after having allowed him to hold her hand in his. She had not even asked through Nella what had become of the beautiful glass. What he pretended to say to himself was that it would be very wrong to go and stand outside the glass-house, where the porter would certainly see him, and where he might be seen by any one else, staring at the window of his master's daughter's room on the other side of the canal. But what he really felt was that Marietta had treated him capriciously and that if he had a particle of self-respect he must show her that he did not care. For if Marietta was very like other carefully brought up girls of her age, Zorzi was nothing more than a boy where love was concerned, and like many boys who have struggled for existence in a more or less corrupt world, he had heard much more of the faithlessness and caprices of women in general than of the sensitiveness and delicate timidity of innocent young girls. Marietta was his perfect ideal, the most exquisite, the most beautiful and the most lovable creature ever endowed with form and sent into the world by the powers of good. He believed all this in his heart, with the certainty of absolute knowledge. But he was quite incapable of discerning the motives of her conduct towards him, and when he tried to understand them, it was not his heart that felt, but his reason that argued, having very little knowledge and no experience at all to help it; and since his erring reason demonstrated something that offended his self-esteem, his heart was hurt and nursed a foolish, small resentment against what he truly loved better than life itself. At one time or another most very young men in love have found themselves in that condition, and have tormented themselves to the verge of fever and distraction over imaginary hurts and wrongs. Was there ever a true lyric poet who did not at least once in his early days believe himself the victim of a heartless woman? And though long afterwards fate may have brought him face to face with the tragedy of unhappy love, fierce with passion and terrible with violent death, can he ever quite forget the fancied sufferings of first youth, the stab of a thoughtless girl's first unkind word, the sickening chill he felt under her first cold look? And what would first love be, if young men and maidens came to it with all the reason and cool self-judgment that long living brings? Zorzi sought consolation in his art, and as soon as he could stand and move about with his crutches he threw his whole pent-up energy into his work. The accidental discovery of the red glass had unexpectedly given him an empty crucible with which to make an experiment of his own, and while the materials were fusing he attempted to obtain the new colour in the other two, by dropping pieces of copper into each regardless of the master's instructions. To his inexpressible disappointment he completely failed in this, and the glass he produced was of the commonest tint. Then he grew reckless; he removed the two crucibles that had contained what had been made according to Beroviero's theories until he had added the copper, and he began afresh according to his own belief. On that very morning Giovanni Beroviero made a second visit to the laboratory. He came, he said, to make sure that Zorzi was recovering from his hurt, and Zorzi knew from Nella that Giovanni had made inquiries about him. He put on an air of sympathy when he saw the crutches. "You will soon throw them aside," he said, "but I am sorry that you should have to use them at all." When he entered, Zorzi was introducing a new mixture, carefully powdered, into one of the glass-pots with a small iron shovel. It was clear that he must put it all in at once, and he excused himself for going on with his work. Giovanni looked at the large quantity of the mixed ingredients with an experienced eye, and at once made up his mind that the crucible must have been quite empty. Zorzi was therefore beginning to make some kind of glass on his own account. It followed almost logically, according to Giovanni's view of men, fairly founded on a knowledge of himself, that Zorzi was experimenting with the secrets of Paolo Godi, which he and old Beroviero had buried together somewhere in that very room. Now, ever since the boy had told his story, Giovanni had been revolving plans for getting the manuscript into his possession during a few days, in order to copy it. A new scheme now suggested itself, and it looked so attractive that he at once attempted to carry it out. "It seems a pity," he said, "that a great artist like yourself should spend time on fruitless experiments. You might be making very beautiful things, which would sell for a high price." Without desisting from his occupation Zorzi glanced at his visitor, whose manner towards him had so entirely changed within a little more than a week. With a waif's quick instinct he guessed that Giovanni wanted something of him, but the generous instinct of the brave man towards the coward made him accept what seemed to be meant for an advance after a quarrel. It had never occurred to Zorzi to blame Giovanni for the accident in the glass-house, and it would have been very unjust to do so. "I can blow glass tolerably, sir," Zorzi answered. "But none of you great furnace owners would dare to employ me, in the face of the law. Besides, I am your father's man. I owe everything I know to his kindness." "I do not see what that has to do with it," returned Giovanni; "it does not diminish your merit, nor affect the truth of what I was saying. You might be doing better things. Any one can weigh out sand and kelp-ashes, and shovel them into a crucible!" "Do you mean that the master might employ me for other work?" asked Zorzi, smiling at the disdainful description of what he was doing. "My father--or some one else," answered Giovanni. "And besides your astonishing skill, I fancy that you possess much valuable knowledge of glass-making. You cannot have worked for my father so many years without learning some of the things he has taken great pains to hide from his own sons." He spoke the last words in a somewhat bitter tone, quite willing to let Zorzi know that he felt himself injured. "If I have learned anything of that sort by looking on and helping, when I have been trusted, it is not mine to use elsewhere," said Zorzi, rather proudly. "That is a fine moral sentiment, my dear young friend, and does you credit," replied Giovanni sententiously. "It is impossible not to respect a man who carries a fortune in his head and refuses to profit by it out of a delicate sense of honour." "I should have very little respect for a man who betrayed his master's secrets," said Zorzi. "You know them then?" inquired the other with unusual blandness. "I did not say so." Zorzi looked at him coldly. "Oh no! Even to admit it might not be discreet. But apart from Paolo Godi's secrets, which my father has left sealed in my care--" At this astounding falsehood Zorzi started and looked at Giovanni in unfeigned surprise. "--but which nothing would induce me to examine," continued Giovanni with perfect coolness, "there must be many others of my father's own, which you have learned by watching him. I respect you for your discretion. Why did you start and look at me when I said that the manuscript was in my keeping?" The question was well put, suddenly and without warning, and Zorzi was momentarily embarrassed to find an answer. Giovanni judged that his surprise proved the truth of the boy's story, and his embarrassment now added certainty to the proof. But Zorzi rarely lost his self-possession when he had a secret to keep. "If I seemed astonished," he said, "it may have been because you had just given me the impression that the master did not trust you, and I know how careful he is of the manuscript." "You know more than that, my friend," said Giovanni in a playful tone. Zorzi had now filled the crucible and was replacing the clay rings which narrow the aperture of the 'bocca.' He plastered more wet clay upon them, and it pleased Giovanni to see how well he knew every detail of the art, from the simplest to the most difficult operations. "Would anything you can think of induce you to leave my father?" Giovanni asked, as he had received no answer to his last remark. "Of course, I do not mean to speak of mere money, though few people quite despise it." "That may be understood in more than one way," answered Zorzi cautiously. "In the first place, do you mean that if I left the master, it would be to go to another master, or to set up as a master myself?" "Let us say that you might go to another glass-house for a fixed time, with the promise of then having a furnace of your own. How does that strike you?" "No one can give such a promise and keep it," said Zorzi, scraping the wet clay from his hands with a blunt knife. "But suppose that some one could," insisted Giovanni. "What is the use of supposing the impossible?" Zorzi shrugged his shoulders and went on scraping. "Nothing is impossible in the Republic, except what the Ten are resolved to hinder. And that is really impossible." "The Ten will not make new laws nor repeal old ones for the benefit of an unknown Dalmatian." "Perhaps not," answered Giovanni. "But on the other hand there is no very great penalty if you set up a furnace of your own. If you are discovered, your furnace will be put out, and you may have to pay a fine. It is no great matter. It is a civil offence, not a criminal one." "What is it that you wish of me?" asked Zorzi with sudden directness. "You are a busy man. You have not come here to pass a morning in idle conversation with your father's assistant. You want something of me, sir. Speak out plainly. If I can do what you wish, I will do it. If I cannot, I will tell you so, frankly." Giovanni was a little disconcerted by this speech. Excepting where money was concerned directly, his intelligence was of the sort that easily wastes its energy in futile cunning. He had not meant to reach the point for a long time, if he had expected to reach it at all at a first attempt. "I like your straightforwardness," he said evasively. "But I do not think your conversation idle. On the contrary, I find it highly instructive." "Indeed?" Zorzi laughed. "You do me much honour, sir! What have you learned from me this morning?" "What I wished to know," answered Giovanni with a change of tone, and looking at him keenly. Zorzi returned the glance, and the two men faced each other in silence for a moment. Zorzi knew what Giovanni meant, as soon as the other had spoken. The quick movement of surprise, which was the only indiscretion of which Zorzi had been guilty, would have betrayed to any one that he knew where the manuscript was, even if it were not in his immediate keeping. His instinct was to take the offensive and accuse his visitor of having laid a trap for him, but his caution prevailed. "Whatever you may think that you have learned from me," he said, "remember that I have told you nothing." "Is it here, in this room?" asked Giovanni, not heeding his last speech, and hoping to surprise him again. But he was prepared now, and his face did not change as he replied. "I cannot answer any questions," he said. "You and my father hid it together," returned Giovanni. "When you had buried it under the stones in this room, you carried the earth out with a shovel and scattered it about on a flower-bed. You took out three shovelfuls of earth in that way. You see, I know everything. What is the use of trying to hide your secret from me?" Zorzi was now convinced that Giovanni himself had been lurking in the garden. "Sir," he said, with ill-concealed contempt for a man capable of such spy's work, "if you have more to say of the same nature, pray say it to your father, when he comes back." "You misunderstand me," returned Giovanni with sudden mildness. "I had no intention of offending you. I only meant to warn you that you were watched on that night. The person who informed me has no doubt told many others also. It would have been very ill for you, if my father had returned to find that his secret was public property, and if you had been unable to explain that you had not betrayed him. I have given you a weapon of defence. You may call upon me to repeat what I have said, when you speak with him." "I am obliged to you, sir," said Zorzi coldly. "I shall not need to disturb you." "You are not wise," returned Giovanni gravely. "If I were curious--fortunately for you I am not!--I would send for a mason and have some of the stones of the pavement turned over before me. A mason would soon find the one you moved by trying them all with his hammer." "Yes," said Zorzi. "If this were a room in your own glass-house, you could do that. But it is not." "I am in charge of all that belongs to my father, during his absence," answered Giovanni. "Yes," said Zorzi again. "Including Paolo Godi's manuscript, as you told me," he added. "You understand very well why I said that," Giovanni answered, with visible annoyance. "I only know that you said it," was the retort. "And as I cannot suppose that you did not know what you were saying, still less that you intentionally told an untruth, I really cannot see why you should suggest bringing a mason here to search for what must be in your own keeping." Zorzi spoke with a quiet smile, for he felt that he had the best of it. Be was surprised when Giovanni broke into a peal of rather affected laughter. "You are hard to catch!" he cried, and laughed again. "You did not really suppose that I was in earnest? Why, every one knows that you have the manuscript here." "Then I suppose you spoke ironically," suggested Zorzi. "Of course, of course! A mere jest! If I had known that you would take it so literally--" he stopped short. "Pray excuse me, sir. It is the first time I have ever heard you say anything playful." "Indeed! The fact is, my dear Zorzi, I never knew you well enough to jest with you, till to-day. Paolo Godi's secrets in my keeping? I wish they were! Oh, not that anything would induce me to break the seals. I told you that. But I wish they were in my possession. I tell you, I would pay down half my fortune to have them, for they would bring me back four times as much within the year. Half my fortune! And I am not poor, Zorzi." "Half your fortune?" repeated Zorzi. "That is a large sum, I imagine. Pray, sir, how much might half your fortune be, in round numbers? Ten thousand silver lires?" "Silver!" sneered Giovanni contemptuously. "Gold, then?" suggested Zorzi, drawing him on. "Gold? Well--possibly," admitted Giovanni with caution. "But of course I was exaggerating. Ten thousand gold pounds would be too much, of course. Say, five thousand." "I thought you were richer than that," said Zorzi coolly. "Do you mean that five thousand would not be enough to pay for the manuscript?" asked Giovanni. "The profits of glass-making are very large when one possesses a valuable secret," said Zorzi. "Five thousand--" He paused, as though in doubt, or as if making a mental calculation. Giovanni fell into the trap. "I would give six," he said, lowering his voice to a still more confidential tone, and watching his companion eagerly. "For six thousand gold lires," said Zorzi, smiling, "I am quite sure that you could hire a ruffian to break in and cut the throat of the man who has charge of the manuscript." Giovanni's face fell, but he quickly assumed an expression of righteous indignation. "How can you dare to suggest that I would employ such means to rob my father?" he cried. "If it were your intention to rob your father, sir, I cannot see that it would matter greatly what means you employed. But I was only jesting, as you were when you said that you had the manuscript. I did not expect that you would take literally what I said." "I see, I see," answered Giovanni, accepting the means of escape Zorzi offered him. "You were paying me back in my own coin! Well, well! It served me right, after all. You have a ready wit." "I thought that if my conversation were not as instructive as you had hoped, I could at least try to make it amusing--light, gay, witty! I trust you will not take it ill." "Not I!" Giovanni tried to laugh. "But what a wonderful thing is this human imagination of ours! Now, as I talked of the secrets, I forgot that they were my father's, they seemed almost within my grasp, I was ready to count out the gold, to count out six thousand gold lires. Think of that!" "They are worth it," said Zorzi quietly. "You should know best," answered the other. "There is no such glass as my father's for lightness and strength. If he had a dozen workmen like you, my brother and I should be ruined in trying to compete with him. I watched you very closely the other day, and I watched the others, too. By the bye, my friend, was that really an accident, or does the man owe you some grudge? I never saw such a thing happen before!" "It was an accident, of course," replied Zorzi without hesitation. "If you knew that the man had injured you intentionally, you should have justice at once," said Giovanni. "As it is, I have no doubt that my father will turn him out without mercy." "I hope not." Zorzi would say nothing more. Giovanni rose to go away. He stood still a moment in thought, and then smiled suddenly as if recollecting himself. "The imagination is an extraordinary thing!" he said, going back to the past conversation. "At this very moment I was thinking again that I was actually paying out the money--six thousand lires in gold! I must be mad!" "No," said Zorzi. "I think not." Giovanni turned away, shaking his head and still smiling. To tell the truth, though he knew Zorzi's character, he had not believed that any one could refuse such a bribe, and he was trying to account for the Dalmatian's integrity by reckoning up the expectations the young man must have, to set against such a large sum of ready money. He could only find one solution to the problem: Zorzi was already in full possession of the secrets, and would therefore not sell them at any price, because he hoped before long to set up for himself and make his own fortune by them. If this were true, and he could not see how it could be otherwise, he and his brother would be cheated of their heritage when their father died. It was clear that something must be done to hinder Zorzi from carrying out his scheme. After all, Zorzi's own jesting proposal, that a ruffian should be employed to cut his throat, was not to be rejected. It was a simple plan, direct and conclusive. It might not be possible to find the manuscript after all, but the only man who knew its contents would be removed, and Beroviero's sons would inherit what should come to them by right. Against this project there was the danger that the murderer might some day betray the truth, under torture, or might come back again and again, and demand more money; but the killing of a man who was not even a Venetian, who was an interloper, who could be proved to have abused his master's confidence, when he should be no longer alive to defend himself, did not strike Giovanni as a very serious matter, and as for any one ever forcing him to pay money which he did not wish to pay, he knew that to be a feat beyond the ability of an ordinary person. One other course suggested itself at once. He could forestall Zorzi by writing to his father and telling him what he sincerely believed to be the truth. He knew the old man well, and was sure that if once persuaded that Zorzi had betrayed him by using the manuscript, he would be merciless. The difficulty would lie in making Beroviero believe anything against his favourite. Yet in Giovanni's estimation the proofs were overwhelming. Besides, he had another weapon with which to rouse his father's anger against the Dalmatian. Since Marietta had defied him and had gone to see Zorzi in the laboratory, he had not found what he considered a convenient opportunity of speaking to her on the subject; that is to say, he had lacked the moral courage to do so at all. But it would need no courage to complain of her conduct to their father, and though Beroviero's anger might fall chiefly upon Marietta, a portion of it would take effect against Zorzi. It would be one more force acting in the direction of his ruin. Giovanni went away to his own glass-house, meditating all manner of evil to his enemy, and as he reckoned up the chances of success, he began to wonder how he could have been so weak as to offer Zorzi an enormous bribe, instead of proceeding at once to his destruction. Unconscious of his growing danger, Zorzi fed the fire of the furnace, and then sat down at the table before the window, laid his crutches beside him, and began to write out the details of his own experiments, as the master had done for years. He wrote the rather elaborate characters of the fifteenth century in a small but clear hand, very unlike old Beroviero's. The window was open, and the light breeze blew in, fanning his heated forehead; for the weather was growing hotter and hotter, and the order had been given to let the main furnaces cool after the following Saturday, as the workmen could not bear the heat many days longer. After that, they would set to work in a shed at the back of the glass-house to knead the clay for making new crucibles, and the night boys would enjoy their annual holiday, which consisted in helping the workmen by treading the stiff clay in water for several hours every day. A man's shadow darkened the window while Zorzi was writing, and he looked up. Pasquale was standing outside. "There is a pestering fellow at the door," he said, "who will not be satisfied till he has spoken with you. He says he has a message for you from some one in Venice, which he must deliver himself." "For me?" Zorzi rose in surprise. CHAPTER XIII Zorzi swung himself along the dark corridor on his crutches after Pasquale, who opened the outer door with his usual deliberation. A little man stood outside in grey hose and a servant's dark coat, gathered in at the waist by a leathern belt. He was clean shaven and his hair was cropped close to his head, which was bare, for he held his black hat in his hand. Zorzi did not like his face. He waited for Zorzi to speak first. "Have you a message for me?" asked the Dalmatian. "I am Zorzi." "That is the name, sir," answered the man respectfully. "My master begs the honour and pleasure of your company this evening, as usual." "Where?" asked Zorzi. "My master said that you would know the place, sir, having been there before." "What is your master's name?" "The Angel," answered the man promptly, keeping his eyes on Zorzi's face. The latter nodded, and the servant at once made an awkward obeisance preparatory to going away. "Tell your master," said Zorzi, "that I have hurt my foot and am walking on crutches, so that I cannot come this evening, but that I thank him for his invitation, and send greeting to him and to the other guests." The man repeated some of the words in a tone hardly audible, evidently committing the message to memory. "Signor Zorzi--hurt his foot--crutches--thanks--greeting," he mumbled. "Yes, sir," he added in his ordinary voice, "I will say all that. Your servant, sir." With another awkward bow, he turned away to the right and walked very quickly along the footway. He had left his boat at the entrance to the canal, not knowing exactly where the glass-house was. Zorzi looked after him a moment, then turned himself on his sound foot and set his crutches before him to go in. Pasquale was there, and must have heard what had passed. He shut the door and followed Zorzi back a little way. "It is no concern of mine," he said roughly. "You may amuse yourself as you please, for you are young, and your host may be the Archangel Michael himself, or the holy Saint Mark, and the house to which you are bidden may be a paradise full of other angels! But I would as soon sit down before the grating and look at the hooded brother, while the executioner slipped the noose over my head to strangle me, as to go to any place on a bidding delivered by a fellow with such a jail-bird's head. It is as round as a bullet and as yellow as cheese. He has eyes like a turtle's and teeth like those of a young shark." "I am quite of your opinion," said Zorzi, halting at the entrance to the garden. "Then why did you not kick him into the canal?" inquired the porter, with admirable logic. "Do I look as if I could kick anything?" asked Zorzi, laughing and glancing at his lame foot. "And where should I have been?" inquired Pasquale indignantly. "Asleep, perhaps? If you had said 'kick,' I would have kicked. Perhaps I am a statue!" Zorzi pointed out that it was not usual to answer invitations in that way, even when declining them. "And who knows what sort of invitation it was?" retorted the old porter discontentedly. "Since when have you friends in Venice who bid you come to their houses at night, like a thief? Honest men, who are friends, say 'Come and eat with me at noon, for to-day we have this, or this'--say, a roast sucking pig, or tripe with garlic. And perhaps you go; and when you have eaten and drunk and it is the cool of the afternoon, you come home. That is what Christians do. Who are they that meet at night? They are thieves, or conspirators, or dice-players, or all three." Pasquale happened to have been right in two guesses out of three, and Zorzi thought it better to say nothing. There was no fear that the surly old man would tell any one of the message; he had proved himself too good a friend to Zorzi to do anything which could possibly bring him into trouble, and Zorzi was willing to let him think what he pleased, rather than run the smallest risk of betraying the society of which he had been obliged to become a member. But he was curious to know why Contarini kept such a singularly unprepossessing servant, and why, if he chose to keep him, he made use of him to deliver invitations. The fellow had the look of a born criminal; he was just such a man as Zorzi had thought of when he had jestingly proposed to Giovanni to hire a murderer. Indeed, the more Zorzi thought of his face, the more he was inclined to doubt that the man came from Contarini at all. But in this he was mistaken. The message was genuine, and moreover, so far as Contarini and the society were concerned, the man was perfectly trustworthy. Possibly there were reasons why Contarini chose to employ him, and also why the servant was so consistently faithful to his master. After all, Zorzi reflected, he was certainly ignorant of the fact that the noble young idlers who met at the house of the Agnus Dei were playing at conspiracy and revolution. But that night, when Contarini's friends were assembled and had counted their members, some one asked what had become of the Murano glass-blower, and whether he was not going to attend their meetings in future; and Contarini answered that Zorzi had hurt his foot and was on crutches, and sent a greeting to the guests. Most of them were glad that he was not there, for he was not of their own order, and his presence caused a certain restraint in their talk. Besides, he was poor, and did not play at dice. "He works with Angelo Beroviero, does he not?" asked Zuan Venier in a tone of weary indifference. "Yes," answered Contarini with a laugh. "He is in the service of my future father-in-law." "To whom may heaven accord a speedy, painless and Christian death!" laughed Foscari in his black beard. "Not till I am one of his heirs, if you please," returned Contarini. "As soon after the wedding day as you like, for besides her rich dowry, the lady is to have a share of his inheritance." "Is she very ugly?" asked Loredan. "Poor Jacopo! You have the sympathy of the brethren." "How does he know?" sneered Mocenigo. "He has never seen her. Besides, why should he care, since she is rich?" "You are mistaken, for I have seen her," said Contarini, looking down the table. "She is not at all ill-looking, I assure you. The old man was so much afraid that I would not agree to the match that he took her to church so that I might look at her." "And you did?" asked Mocenigo. "I should never have had the courage. She might have been hideous, and in that case I should have preferred not to find it out till I was married." "I looked at her with some interest," said Contarini, smiling in a self-satisfied way. "I am bound to say, with all modesty, that she also looked at me," he added, passing his white hand over his thick hair. "Of course," put in Foscari gravely. "Any woman would, I should think." "I suppose so," answered Contarini complacently. "It is not my fault if they do." "Nor your misfortune," added Fosoari, with as much gravity as before. Zuan Venier had not joined in the banter, which seemed to him to be of the most atrocious taste. He had liked Zorzi and had just made up his mind to go to Murano the next day and find him out. On that evening there was not so much as a mention of what was supposed to bring them together. Before they had talked a quarter of an hour, some one began to throw dice on the table, playing with his right hand against his left, and in a few moments the real play had begun. High up in Arisa's room the Georgian woman and Aristarchi heard all that was said, crouching together upon the floor beside the opening the slave had discovered. When the voices were no longer heard except at rare intervals, in short exclamations of satisfaction or disappointment, and only the regular rattling and falling of the dice broke the silence, the pair drew back from the praying-stool. "They will say nothing more to-night," whispered Arisa. "They will play for hours." "They had not said a word that could put their necks in danger," answered Aristarchi discontentedly. "Who is this fellow from the glass-house, of whom they were speaking?" Arisa led him away to a small divan between the open windows. She sat down against the cushions at the back, but he stretched his bulk upon the floor, resting his head against her knee. She softly rubbed his rough hair with the palm of her hand, as she might have caressed a cat, or a tame wild animal. It gave her a pleasant sensation that had a thrill of danger in it, for she always expected that he would turn and set his teeth into her fingers. She told him the story of the last meeting, and how Zorzi had been made one of the society in order that they might not feel obliged to kill him for their own safety. "What fools they are!" exclaimed Aristarchi with a low laugh, and turning his head under her hand. "You would have killed him, of course," said Arisa, "if you had been in their place. I suppose you have killed many people," she added thoughtfully. "No," he answered, for though he loved her savagely, he did not trust her. "I never killed any one except in fair fight." Arisa laughed low, for she remembered. "When I first saw you," she said, "your hands were covered with blood. I think the reason why I liked you was that you seemed so much more terrible than all the others who looked in at my cabin door." "I am as mild as milk and almonds," said Aristarchi. "I am as timid as a rabbit." His deep voice was like the purring of a huge cat. Arisa looked down at his head. Then her hands suddenly clasped his throat and she tried to make her fingers meet round it as if she would have strangled him, but it was too big for them. He drew in his chin a little, the iron muscles stiffened themselves, the cords stood out, and though she pressed with all her might she could not hurt him, even a little; but she loved to try. "I am sure I could strangle Contarini," she said quietly. "He has a throat like a woman's." "What a murderous creature you are!" purred the Greek, against hex knee. "You are always talking of killing." "I should like to see you fighting for your life," she answered, "or for me." "It is the same thing," he said. "I should like to see it. It would be a splendid sight." "What if I got the worst of it?" asked Aristarchi, his vast mouth grinning at the idea. "You?" Arisa laughed contemptuously. "The man is not born who could kill you. I am sure of it." "One very nearly succeeded, once upon a time," said Aristarchi. "One man? I do not believe it!" "He chanced to be an executioner," answered the Greek calmly, "and I had my hands tied behind me." "Tell me about it." Arisa bent down eagerly, for she loved to hear of his adventures, though he had his own way of narrating them which always made him out innocent of any evil intention. "There is nothing to tell. It was in Naples. A woman betrayed me and they bound me in my sleep. In the morning I was condemned to death, thrown into a cart and dragged off to be hanged. I thought it was all over, for the cords were new, so that I could not break them. I tried hard enough! But even if I had broken loose, I could never have fought my way through the crowd alone. The noose was around my neck." He stopped, as if he had told everything. "Go on!" said Arisa. "How did you escape? What an adventure!" "One of my men saved me. He had a little learning, and could pass for a monk when he could get a cowl. He went out before it was daylight that morning, and exchanged clothes with a burly friar whom he met in a quiet place." "But how did the friar agree to that?" asked Arisa in surprise. "He had nothing to say. He was dead," answered Aristarchi. "Do you mean to say that he chanced to find a dead friar lying in the road?" asked the Georgian. "How should I know? I daresay the monk was alive when he met my man, and happened to die a few minutes afterwards--by mere chance. It was very fortunate, was it not?" "Yes!" Arisa laughed softly. "But what did he do? Why did he take the trouble to dress the monk in his clothes?" "In order to receive his dying confession, of course. I thought you would understand! And his dying confession was that he, Michael Pandos, a Greek robber, had killed the man for whose murder I was being hanged that morning. My man came just in time, for as the friar's head was half shaved, as monks' heads are, he had to shave the rest, as they do for coolness in the south, and he had only his knife with which to do it. But no one found that out, for he had been a barber, as he had been a monk and most other things. He looked very well in a cowl, and spoke Neapolitan. I did not know him when he came to the foot of the gallows, howling out that I was innocent." "Were you?" asked Arisa. "Of course I was," answered Aristarchi with conviction. "Who was the man that had been killed?" "I forget his name," said the Greek. "He was a Neapolitan gentleman of great family, I believe. I forget the name. He had red hair." Arisa laughed and stroked Aristarchi's big head. She thought she had made him betray himself. "You had seen him then?" she said, with a question. "I suppose you happened to see him just before he died, as your man saw the monk." "Oh no!" answered Aristarchi, who was not to be so easily caught. "It was part of the dying confession. It was necessary to identify the murdered person. How should Michael Parados, the Greek robber, know the name of the gentleman he had killed? He gave a minute description of him. He said he had red hair." "You are not a Greek for nothing," laughed Arisa. "Did you ever hear of Odysseus?" asked Aristarchi. "No. What should I know of your Greek gods? If you were a good Christian, you would not speak of them." "Odysseus was not a god," answered Aristarchi, with a grin. "He was a good Christian. I have often thought that he must have been very like me. He was a great traveller and a tolerable sailor." "A pirate?" inquired Arisa. "Oh no! He was a man of the most noble and upright character, incapable of deception! In fact he was very like me, and had nearly as many adventures. If you understood Greek, I would repeat some verses I know about him." "Should you love me more, if I understood Greek?" asked Arisa softly. "If I thought so, I would learn it." Aristarchi laughed roughly, so that she was almost afraid lest he should be heard far down in the house. "Learn Greek? You? To make me like you better? You would be just as beautiful if you were altogether dumb! A man does not love a woman for what she can say to him, in any language." He turned up his face, and his rough hands drew her splendid head down to him, till he could kiss her. Then there was silence for a few minutes. He shook his great shoulders at last. "Everything else is a waste of time," he said, as if speaking to himself. Her head lay on the cushions now, and she watched him with half-closed eyes in the soft light, and now and then the thin embroideries that covered her neck and bosom rose and fell with a long, satisfied sigh. He rose to his feet and slowly paced the marble floor, up and down before her, as he would have paced the little poop-deck of his vessel. "I am glad you told me about that glass-blower," he said suddenly. "I have met him and talked with him, and I may meet him again. He is old Beroviero's chief assistant. I fancy he is in love with the daughter." "In love with the girl whom Contarini is to marry?" asked Arisa, suddenly opening her eyes. "Yes. I told you what I said to the old man in his private room--it was more like a brick-kiln than a rich man's counting-house! While I was inside, the young man was talking to the girl under a tree. I saw them through a low window as I sat discussing business with Beroviero." "You could not hear what they said, I suppose." "No. But I could see what they looked." Aristarchi laughed at his own conceit. "The girl was doing some kind of work. The young man stood beside her, resting one hand against the tree. I could not see his face all the time, but I saw hers. She is in love with him. They were talking earnestly and she said something that had a strong effect upon him, for I saw that he stood a long time looking at the trunk of the tree, and saying nothing. What can you make of that, except that they are in love with each other?" "That is strange," said Arisa, "for it was he that brought the message to Contarini, bidding him go and see her in Saint Mark's. That was how he chanced upon them, downstairs, at their last meeting." "How do you know it was that message, and not some other?" "Contarini told me." "But if the boy loves her, as I am sure he does, why should he have delivered the message?" asked; the cunning Greek. "It would have been very easy for him to have named another hour, and Contarini would never have seen her. Besides, he had a fine chance then to send the future husband to Paradise! He needed only to name a quiet street, instead of the Church, and to appoint the hour at dusk. One, two and three in the back, the body to the canal, and the marriage would have been broken off." "Perhaps he does not wish it broken off," suggested Arisa, taking an equally amiable but somewhat different point of view. "He cannot marry the girl, of course--but if she is once married and out of her father's house, it will be different." "That is an idea," assented Aristarchi. "Look at us two. It is very much the same position, and Contarini will be indifferent about her, which he is not, where you are concerned. Between the glass-blower and me, and his wife and you, he will not be a man to be envied. That is another reason for helping the marriage as much as we can." "What if the glass-blower makes her give him money?" asked the Georgian woman. "If she loves him she will give him everything she has, and he will take all he can get, of course." "Of course, if she had anything to give," said Aristarchi. "But she will only have what you allow Contarini to give her. The young man knows well enough that her dowry will all be paid to her husband on the day of the marriage. It does not matter, for if he is in love he will not care much about the money." "I hope he will be careful. Any one else may see him with her, as you did, and may warn old Contarini that his intended daughter-in-law is in love with a boy belonging to the glass-house. The marriage would be broken off at once if that happened." "That is true." So they talked together, judging Zorzi and Marietta according to their views of human nature, which they deduced chiefly from their experience of themselves. From time to time Arisa went and listened at the hole in the floor, and when she heard the guests beginning to take their leave she hid Aristarchi in the embrasure of a disused window that was concealed by a tapestry, and she went into the larger room and lay down among the cushions by the balcony. When Contarini came, a few minutes later, she seemed to have fallen asleep like a child, weary of waiting for him. So far both she and Aristarchi looked upon Zorzi, who did not know of their existence, with a friendly eye, but their knowledge of his love for Marietta was in reality one more danger in his path. If at any future moment he seemed about to endanger the success of their plans, the strong Greek would soon find an opportunity of sending him to another world, as he had sent many another innocent enemy before. They themselves were safe enough for the present, and it was not likely that they would commit any indiscretion that might endanger their future flight. They had long ago determined what to do if Contarini should accidentally find Aristarchi in the house. Long before his body was found, they would both be on the high seas; few persons knew of Arisa's existence, no one connected the Greek merchant captain in any way with Contarini, and no one guessed the sailing qualities of the unobtrusive vessel that lay in the Giudecca waiting for a cargo, but ballasted to do her best, and well stocked with provisions and water. The crew knew nothing, when other sailors asked when they were to sail; the men could only say that their captain was the owner of the vessel and was very hard to please in the matter of a cargo. In one way or another the two were sure of gaining their end, as soon as they should have amassed a sufficient fortune to live in luxury somewhere in the far south. A change in the situation was brought about by the appearance of Zuan Venier at the glass-house on the following morning. Indolent, tired of his existence, sick of what amused and interested his companions, but generous, true and kind-hearted, he had been sorry to hear that Zorzi had suffered by an accident, and he felt impelled to go and see whether the young fellow needed help. Venier did not remember that he had ever resisted an impulse in his life, though he took the greatest pains to hide the fact that he ever felt any. He perhaps did not realise that although he had done many foolish things, and some that a confessor would not have approved, he had never wished to do anything that was mean, or unkind, or that might give him an unfair advantage over others. He fancied Zorzi alone, uncared for, perhaps obliged to work in spite of his lameness, and it occurred to him that he might help him in some way, though it was by no means clear what direction his help should take. He did not know that Beroviero was absent, and he intended to call for the old glass-maker. It would be easy to say that he was an old friend of Jacopo Contarini and wished to make the acquaintance of Marietta's father before the wedding. He would probably have an opportunity of speaking to Zorzi without showing that he already knew him, and he trusted to Zorzi's discretion to conceal the fact, for he was a good judge of men. It turned out to be much easier to carry out his plan than he had expected. "My name is Zuan Venier," he said, in answer to Pasquale's gruff inquiry. Pasquale eyed him a moment through the bars, and immediately understood that he was not a person to be kicked into the canal or received with other similar amenities. The great name alone would have awed the old porter to something like civility, but he had seen the visitor's face, and being quite as good a judge of humanity as Venier himself, he opened the door at once. Venier explained that he wished to pay his respects to Messer Angelo Beroviero, being an old friend of Messer Jacopo Contarini. Learning that the master was absent on a journey, he asked whether there were any one within to whom he could deliver a message. He had heard, he said, that the master had a trusted assistant, a certain Zorzi. Pasquale answered that Zorzi was in the laboratory, and led the way. Zorzi was greatly surprised, but as Venier had anticipated, he said nothing before Pasquale which could show that he had met his visitor before. Venier made a courteous inclination of the head, and the porter disappeared immediately. "I heard that you had been hurt," said Venier, when they were alone. "I came to see whether I could do anything for you. Can I?" Zorzi was touched by the kind words, spoken so quietly and sincerely, for it was only lately that any one except Marietta had shown him a little consideration. He had not forgotten how his master had taken leave of him, and the unexpected friendliness of old Pasquale after his accident had made a difference in his life; but of all men he had ever met, Venier was the one whom he had instinctively desired for a friend. "Have you come over from Venice on purpose to see me?" he asked, in something like wonder. "Yes," answered Venier with a smile. "Why are you surprised?" "Because it is so good of you." "You have solemnly sworn to do as much for me, and for all the companions of our society," returned Venier, still smiling. "We are to help each other under all circumstances, as far as we can, you know. You are standing, and it must tire you, with those crutches. Shall we sit down? Tell me quite frankly, is there anything I can do for you?" "Nothing you could ever do could make me more grateful than I am to you for coming," answered Zorzi sincerely. Venier took the crutches from his hands and helped him to sit on the bench. "You are very kind," Zorzi said. Venier sat down beside him and asked him all manner of questions about his accident, and how it had happened. Zorzi had no reason for concealing the truth from him. "They all hate me here," he said. "It happened like an accident, but the man made it happen. I do not think that he intended to maim me for life, but he meant to hurt me badly, and he did. There was not a man or a boy in the furnace room who did not understand, for no workman ever yet let his blow-pipe slip from his hand in swinging a piece. But I do not wish to make matters worse, and I have said that I believed it was an accident." "I should like to come across the man who did it," said Venier, his eyes growing hard and steely. "When I tried to hop to the furnace on one leg to save myself from falling, one of the men cried out that I was a dancer, and laughed. I hear that the name has stuck to me among the workmen. I am called the 'Ballarin.'" The ignoble meanness of Zorzi's tormentors roused Venier's generous blood. "You will yet be their master," he said. "You will some day have a furnace of your own, and they will fawn to you. Your nickname will be better than their names in a few years!" "I hope so," answered Zorzi. "I know it," said the other, with an energy that would have surprised those who only knew the listless young nobleman whom nothing could amuse or interest. He did not stay very long, and when he went away he said nothing about coming again. Zorzi went with him to the door. He had asked the Dalmatian to tell old Beroviero of his visit. Pasquale, who had never done such a thing in his life, actually went out upon the footway to the steps and steadied the gondola by the gunwale while Venier got in. Giovanni Beroviero saw Venier come out, for it was near noon, and he had just come back from his own glass-house and was standing in the shadow of his father's doorway, slowly fanning himself with his large cap before he went upstairs, for it had been very hot in the sun. He did not know Zuan Venier by sight, but there was no mistaking the Venetian's high station, and he was surprised to see that the nobleman was evidently on good terns with Zorzi. CHAPTER XIV Zorzi had not left the glass-house since he had been hurt, but he foresaw that he might be obliged to leave the laboratory for an hour or more, now that he was better. He could walk, with one crutch and a stick, resting a little on the injured foot, and he felt sure that in a few days he should be able to walk with the stick alone. He had the certainty that he was lame for life, and now and then, when it was dusk and he sat under the plane-tree, meditating upon the uncertain future, he felt a keen pang at the thought that he might never again walk without limping; for he had been light and agile, and very swift of foot as a boy. He fancied that Marietta would pity him, but not as she had pitied him at first. There would be a little feeling of repulsion for the cripple, mixed with her compassion for the man. It was true that, as matters were going now, he might not see her often again, and he was quite sure that he had no right to think of loving her. Zuan Venier's visit had recalled very clearly the obligations by which he had solemnly bound himself, and which he honestly meant to fulfil; and apart from them, when he tried to reason about his love, he could make it seem absurd enough that he should dream of winning Marietta for his wife. But love itself does not argue. At first it is seen far off, like a beautiful bird of rare plumage, among flowers, on a morning in spring; it comes nearer, it is timid, it advances, it recedes, it poises on swiftly beating wings, it soars out of sight, but suddenly it is nearer than before; it changes shapes, and grows vast and terrible, till its flight is like the rushing of the whirlwind; then all is calm again, and in the stillness a sweet voice sings the chant of peace or the melancholy dirge of an endless regret; it is no longer the dove, nor the eagle, nor the storm that leaves ruin in its track--it is everything, it is life, it is the world itself, for ever and time without end, for good or evil, for such happiness as may pass all understanding, if God will, and if not, for undying sorrow. Zorzi had forgotten his small resentment against Marietta, for not having given him a sign nor sent one word of greeting. He knew only that he loved her with all his heart and would give every hope he had for the pressure of her hand in his and the sound of her answering voice; and he dreaded lest she should pity him, as one pities a hurt creature that one would rather not touch. It would not be in the hope of seeing her that he might leave the laboratory before long. He felt quite sure that Giovanni would make some further attempt to get possession of the little book that meant fortune to him who should possess it; and Giovanni evidently knew where it was. It would he easy for him to send Zorzi on an errand of importance, as soon as he should be so far recovered as to walk a little. The great glass-houses had dealings with the banks in Venice and with merchants of all countries, and Beroviero had more than once sent Zorzi to Venice on business of moment. Giovanni would come in some morning and declare that he could trust no one but Zorzi to collect certain sums of money in the city, and he would take care that the matter should keep him absent several hours. That would be ample time in which to try the flagstones with a hammer and to turn over the right one. Zorzi had convinced himself that it gave a hollow sound when he tapped it and that Giovanni could find it easily enough. It was therefore folly to leave the box in its present place any longer, and he cast about in his mind for some safer spot in which to hide it. In the meantime, fearing lest Giovanni might think of sending him out at any moment, he waited till Pasquale had brought him water in the morning, and then raised the stone, as he had done before, took the box out of the earth and hid it in the cool end of the annealing oven, while he replaced the slab. The effort it cost him to move the latter told him plainly enough that his injury had weakened him almost as an illness might have done, but he succeeded in getting the stone into its bed at last. He tapped it with the end of his crutch as he knelt on the floor, and the sound it gave was even more hollow than before. He smiled as he thought how easily Giovanni would find the place, and how grievously disappointed he would be when he realised that it was empty. It occurred at once to Zorzi that Giovanni's first impression would naturally be that Zorzi had taken the book himself in order to use it during the master's absence; and this thought perplexed him for a time, until he reflected that Giovanni could not accuse him of the deed without accusing himself of having searched for the box, a proceeding which his father would never forgive. Zorzi did not intend to tell the master of his conversation with Giovanni, nor of his suspicions. He would only say that the hiding-place had not seemed safe enough, because the stone gave a hollow sound which even the boys would notice if anything fell upon it. But for Nella, it would be safest to give the box into Marietta's keeping, since no one could possibly suspect that it could have found its way to her room. At the mere thought, his heart beat fast. It would be a reason for seeing her alone, if he could, and for talking with her. He planned how he would send her a message by Nella, begging that he might speak to her on some urgent business of her father's, and she would come as she had come before; they would talk in the garden, under the plane-tree, where Pasquale and Nella could see them, and he would explain what he wanted. Then he would give her the box. He thought of it with calm delight, as he saw it all in a beautiful vision. But there was Nella, and there was Pasquale, the former indiscreet, the latter silent but keen-sighted, and quick-witted in spite of his slow and surly ways. Every one knew that the book existed somewhere, and the porter and the serving-woman would guess the truth at once. At present no one but himself knew positively where the thing was. If he carried out his plan, three other persons would possess the knowledge. It was not to be thought of. He looked about the laboratory. There were the beams and crossbeams, and the box would probably just fit into one of the shadowy interstices between two of the latter. But they were twenty feet from the ground, he had no ladder, and if there had been one at hand he could not have mounted it yet. His eye fell on the big earthen jar, more than half a man's height and as big round as a hogshead, half full of broken glass from the experiments. No one would think of it as a place for hiding anything, and it would not be emptied till it was quite full, several months hence. Besides, no one would dare to empty it without Beroviero's orders, as it contained nothing but fine red glass, which was valuable and only needed melting to be used at once. It was not an easy matter to take out half the contents, and he was in constant danger of interruption. At night it would have been impossible owing to the presence of the boys. If Pasquale appeared and saw a heap of broken glass on the floor, he would surely suspect something. Zorzi calculated that it would take two hours to remove the fragments with the care necessary to avoid cutting his hands badly, and to put them back again, for the shape of the jar would not admit of his employing even one of the small iron shovels used for filling the crucibles. With considerable difficulty he moved a large chest, that contained sifted white sand, out of the dark corner in which it stood and placed it diagonally so as to leave a triangular space behind it. To guard against the sound of the broken glass being heard from without, he shut the window, in spite of the heat, and having arranged in the corner one of the sacks used for bringing the cakes of kelp-ashes from Egypt, he began to fill it with the broken glass he brought from the jar in a bucket. When he judged that he had taken out more than half the contents, he took the iron box from the annealing oven. It was hard to carry it under the arm by which he walked with a stick, the other hand being necessary to move the crutch, and as he reached the jar he felt that it was slipping. He bent forward and it fell with a crash, bedding itself in the smashed glass. Zorzi drew a long breath of satisfaction, for the hardest part of the work was done. He tried to heave up the sack from the corner, but it was far too heavy, and he was obliged to bring back more than half of what it held by bucketfuls, before he was able to bring the rest, dragging it after him across the floor. It was finished at last, he had shaken out the sack carefully over the jar's mouth, and he had moved the sand-chest back to its original position. No one would have imagined that the broken glass had been removed and put back again. The box was safely hidden now. He was utterly exhausted when he dropped into the big chair, after washing the dust and blood from his hands--for it had been impossible to do what he had done without getting a few scratches, though none of them could have been called a cut. He sat quite still and closed his eyes. The box was safe now. It was not to be imagined that any one should ever suspect where it was, and on that point he was well satisfied. His only possible cause of anxiety now might be that if anything should happen to him, the master would be in ignorance of what he had done. But he saw no reason to expect anything so serious and his mind was at rest about a matter which had much disturbed him ever since Giovanni's visit. The plan which he had attributed to the latter was not, however, the one which suggested itself to the younger Beroviero's mind. It would have been easy to carry out, and was very simple, and for that very reason Giovanni did not think of it. Besides, in his estimation it would be better to act in such a way as to get rid of Zorzi for ever, if that were possible. On the Saturday night after Zorzi had hidden the box in the jar, the workmen cleared away the litter in the main furnace rooms and the order was given to let the fires go out. Zorzi sent word to the night boys who tended the fire in the laboratory that they were to come as usual. They appeared punctually, and to his surprise made no objection to working, though he had expected that they would complain of the heat and allege that their fathers would not let them go on any longer. On Sunday, according to the old rule of the house, no work was done, and Zorzi kept up the fire himself, spending most of the long day in the garden. On Sunday night the boys came again and went to work without a word, and in the morning they left the usual supply of chopped billets piled up and ready for use. Zorzi had rested himself thoroughly and went back to his experiments on that Monday with fresh energy. The very first test he took of the glass that had been fusing since Saturday night was successful beyond his highest expectations. He had grown reckless after having spoiled the original mixtures by adding the copper in the hope of getting more of the wonderful red, and carried away by the love of the art and by the certainty of ultimate success which every man of genius feels almost from boyhood, he had deliberately attempted to produce the white glass for which Beroviero was famous. He followed a theory of his own in doing so, for although he was tolerably sure of the nature of the ingredients, as was every workman in the house, neither he nor they knew anything of the proportions in which Beroviero mixed the substances, and every glass-maker knows by experience that those proportions constitute by far the most important element of success. Zorzi had not poured out the specimen on the table as he had done when the glass was coloured; on the contrary he had taken some on the blow-pipe and had begun to work with it at once, for the three great requisites were transparency, ductility, and lightness. In a few minutes he had convinced himself that his glass possessed all these qualities in an even higher degree than the master's own, and that was immeasurably superior to anything which the latter's own sons or any other glass-maker could produce. Zorzi had taken very little at first, and he made of it a thin phial of graceful shape, turned the mouth outward, and dropped the little vessel into the bed of ashes. He would have set it in the annealing oven, but he wished to try the weight of it, and he let it cool. Taking it up when he could touch it safely, it felt in his hand like a thing of air. On the shelf was another nearly like it in size, which he had made long ago with Beroviero's glass. There were scales on the table; he laid one phial in each, and the old one was by far the heavier. He had to put a number of pennyweights into the scale with his own before the two were balanced. His heart almost stood still, and he could not believe his good fortune. He took the sheet of rough paper on which he had written down the precise contents of the three crucibles, and he carefully went over the proportions of the ingredients in the one from which he had just taken his specimen. He made a strong effort of memory, trying to recall whether he had been careless and inexact in weighing any of the materials, but he knew that he had been most precise. He had also noted the hour at which he had put the mixture into the crucible on Saturday, and he now glanced at the sand-glass and made another note. But he did not lay the paper upon the table, where it had been lying for two days, kept in place by a little glass weight. It had become his most precious possession; what was written on it meant a fortune as soon as he could get a furnace to himself; it was his own, and not the master's; it was wealth, it might even be fame. Beroviero might call him to account for misusing the furnace, but that was no capital offence after all, and it was more than paid for by the single crucible of magnificent red glass. Zorzi was attempting to reproduce that too, for he had the master's notes of what the pot had contained, and it was almost ready to be tried; he even had the piece of copper carefully weighed to be equal in bulk with the ladle that had been melted. If he succeeded there also, that was a new secret for Beroviero, but the other was for himself. All that morning he revelled in the delight of working with the new glass. A marvellous dish with upturned edge and ornamented foot was the next thing he made, and he placed it at once in the annealing oven. Then he made a tall drinking glass such as he had never made before, and then, in contrast, a tiny ampulla, so small that he could almost hide it in his hand, with its spout, yet decorated with all the perfection of a larger piece. He worked on, careless of the time, his genius all alive, the rest a distant dream. He was putting the finishing touches to a beaker of a new shape when the door opened, and Giovanni entered the laboratory. Zorzi was seated on the working stool, the pontil in one hand, the 'porcello' in the other. He glanced at Giovanni absently and went on, for it was the last touch and the glass was cooling quickly. "Still working, in this heat?" asked Giovanni, fanning himself with his cap as was his custom. There was a moment's silence. Then a sharp clicking sound and the beaker fell finished into the soft ashes. "Yes, I am still at work, as you see," answered Zorzi, not realising that Giovanni would particularly notice what he was doing. He rose with some difficulty and got his crutch under one arm. With a forked stick he took the beaker from the ashes and placed it in the annealing oven. Giovanni watched him, and when the broad iron door was open, he saw the other pieces already standing inside on the iron tray. "Admirable!" cried Giovanni. "You are a great artist, my dear Zorzi! There is no one like you!" "I do what I can," answered Zorzi, closing the door quickly, lest the hot end of the oven should cool at all. "I should say that you do what no one else can," returned Giovanni. "But how lame you are! I had expected to find you walking as well as ever by this time." "I shall never walk again without limping." "Oh, take courage!" said Giovanni, who seemed determined to be both cheerful and flattering. "You will soon be as light on your feet as ever. But it was a shocking accident." He sat down in the big chair and Zorzi took the small one by the table, wishing that he would go away. "It is a pity that you had no white glass in the furnace on that particular day," Giovanni continued. "You said you had none, if I remember. How is it that you have it now? Have you changed one of the crucibles?" "Yes. One of the experiments succeeded so well that it seemed better to take out all the glass." "May I see a piece of it?" inquired Giovanni, as if he were asking a great favour. It was one thing to let him test the glass himself, it was quite another to show him a piece of it. He would see it sooner or later, and he could guess nothing of its composition. "The specimen is there, on the table," Zorzi answered. Giovanni rose at once and took the piece from the paper on which it lay, and held it up against the light. He was amazed at the richness of the colour, and gave vent to all sorts of exclamations. "Did you make this?" he asked at last. "It is the result of the master's experiments." "It is marvellous! He has made another fortune." Giovanni replaced the specimen where it had lain, and as he did so, his eye fell on the phial Zorzi had made that morning. Zorzi had not put it into the annealing oven because it had been allowed to get quite cold, so that the annealing would have been imperfect. Giovanni took it up, and uttered a low exclamation of surprise at its lightness. He held it up and looked through it, and then he took it by the neck and tapped it sharply with his finger-nail. "Take care," said Zorzi; "it is not annealed. It may fly." "Oh!" exclaimed Giovanni. "Have you just made it?" "Yes." "It is the finest glass I ever saw. It is much better than what they had in the main furnaces the day you were hurt. Did you not find it so yourself, in working with it?" Zorzi began to feel anxious as to the result of so much questioning. Whatever happened he must hide from Giovanni the fact that he had discovered a new glass of his own. "Yes," he answered, with affected indifference. "I thought it was unusually good. I daresay there may be some slight difference in the proportions." "Do you mean to say that my father does not follow any exact rule?" "Oh yes. But he is always making experiments." "He mixes all the materials for the main furnaces himself, does he not?" inquired Giovanni. "Yes. He does it alone, in the room that is kept locked. When he has finished, the men come and carry out the barrows. The materials are stirred and mixed together outside." "Yes. I do it in the same way myself. Have you ever helped my father in that work?" "No, certainly not. If I had helped him once, I should know the secret." Zorzi smiled. "But if you do not know the secret," said Giovanni unexpectedly, "how did you make this glass?" He held up the phial. "Why do you suppose that I made it?" Zorzi felt himself growing pale. "The master has supplies of everything here in the laboratory and in the little room where I sleep." "Is there white glass here too?" "Of course!" answered Zorzi readily. "There is half a jar of it in my room. We keep it there so that the night boys may not steal it a little at a time." "I see," answered Giovanni. "That is very sensible." He was firmly convinced that if he asked Zorzi any more direct question, the answer would be a falsehood, and he applauded himself for stopping at the point he had reached in his inquiries. For he was an experienced glass-maker and was perfectly sure that the phial was not made from Beroviero's ordinary glass. It followed that Zorzi had used the precious book, and Giovanni inferred that the rest was a lucky accident. "Will you sell me one of those beautiful things you have in the oven?" Giovanni asked, in an insinuating tone. Zorzi hesitated. The master had often paid him a fair price for objects he had made, and which were used in Beroviero's house, as has been told. Zorzi did not wish to irritate Giovanni by refusing, and after all, there was no great difference between being paid by old Beroviero or by his son. The fact that he worked in glass, which had been an open secret among the workmen for a long time, was now no secret at all. The question was rather as to his right, being Beroviero's trusted assistant, to sell anything out of the house. "Will you?" asked Giovanni, after waiting a few moments for an answer. "I would rather wait until the master comes back," said Zorzi doubtfully. "I am not quite sure about it." "I will take all the responsibility," Giovanni answered cheerfully. "Am I not free to come to my father's glass-house and buy a beaker or a dish for myself, if I please? Of course I am. But there is no real difference between buying from you, on one side of the garden, or from the furnace on the other. Is there?" "The difference is that in the one case you buy from the master and pay him, but now you are offering to pay me, who am already well paid by him for any work I may do." "You are very scrupulous," said Giovanni in a disappointed tone. "Tell me, does my father never give you anything for the things you make, and which you say are in the house?" "Oh yes," answered Zorzi promptly. "He always pays me for them." "But that shows that he does not consider them as part of the work you are regularly paid to do, does it not?" "I suppose so," Zorzi said, turning over the question in his mind. Giovanni took a small piece of gold from the purse he carried at his belt, and he laid it on the flat arm of the chair beside him, and put down one of his crooked forefingers upon it. "I cannot see what objection you can have, in that case. You know very well that young painters who work for masters help them, but are always allowed to sell anything they can paint in their leisure time." "Yes. That is true. I will take the money, sir, and you may choose any of the pieces you like. When the master comes, I will tell him, and if I have no right to the price he shall keep it himself." "Do you really suppose that my father would be mean enough to take the money?" asked Giovanni, who would certainly have taken it himself under the circumstances. "No. He is very generous. Nevertheless, I shall certainly tell him the whole story." "That is your affair. I have nothing to say about it. Here is the money, for which I will take the beaker I saw you finishing when I came in. Is it enough? Is it a fair price?" "It is a very good price," Zorzi answered. "But there may be a piece among those in the oven which you will like better. Will you not come to-morrow, when they are all annealed, and make your choice?" "No. I have fallen in love with the piece I saw you making." "Very well. You shall have it, and many thanks." "Here is the money, and thanks to you," said Giovanni, holding out the little piece of gold. "You shall pay me when you take the beaker," objected Zorzi. "It may fly, or turn out badly." "No, no!" answered Giovanni, rising, and putting the money into Zorzi's hand. "If anything happens to it, I will take another. I am afraid that you may change your mind, you see, and I am very anxious to have such a beautiful thing." He laughed cheerfully, nodded to Zorzi and went out at once, almost before the latter had time to rise from his seat and get his crutch under his arm. When he was alone, Zorzi looked at the coin and laid it on the table. He was much puzzled by Giovanni's conduct, but at the same time his artist's vanity was flattered by what had happened. Giovanni's admiration of the glass was genuine; there could be no doubt of that, and he was a good judge. As for the work, Zorzi knew quite well that there was not a glass-blower in Murano who could approach him either in taste or skill. Old Beroviero had told him so within the last few months, and he felt that it was true. He would have been neither a natural man nor a born artist if he had refused to sell the beaker, out of an exaggerated scruple. But the transaction had shown him that his only chance of success for the future lay in frankly telling old Beroviero what he had done in his absence, while reserving his secret for himself. The master was proud of him as his pupil, and sincerely attached to him as a man, and would certainly not try to force him into explaining how the glass was made. Besides, the glass itself was there, easily distinguished from any other, and Zorzi could neither hide it nor throw it away. Giovanni went out upon the footway, and as he passed, Pasquale thought he had never seen him so cheerful. The sour look had gone out of his face, and he was actually smiling to himself. With such a man it would hardly have been possible to attribute his pleased expression to the satisfaction he felt in having bought Zorzi's beaker. He had never before, in his whole life, parted with a piece of gold without a little pang of regret; but he had felt the most keen and genuine pleasure just now, when Zorzi had at last accepted the coin. Pasquale watched him cross the wooden bridge and go into his father's house opposite. Then the old porter shut the door and went back to the laboratory, walking slowly with his ugly head bent a little, as if in deep thought. Zorzi had already resumed his occupation and had a lump of hot glass swinging on his blow-pipe, his crutch being under his right arm. "Half a rainbow to windward," observed the old sailor. "There will be a squall before long." "What do you mean?" asked Zorzi. "If you had seen the Signor Giovanni smile, as he went out, you would know what I mean," answered Pasquale. "In our seas, when we see the stump of a rainbow low down in the clouds, we say it is the eye of the wind, looking out for us, and I can tell you that the wind is never long in coming!" "Did you say anything to make him smile?" asked Zorzi, going on with his work. "I am not a mountebank," growled the porter. "I am not a strolling player at the door of his booth at a fair, cracking jokes with those who pass! But perhaps it was you who said something amusing to him, just before he left? Who knows? I always took you for a grave young man. It seems that I was mistaken. You make jokes. You cause a serious person like the Signor Giovanni to die of laughing." CHAPTER XV Giovanni sat in his father's own room at home, with shut doors, and he was writing. He had received as good an education as any young nobleman or rich merchant's son in Venice, but writing was always irksome to him, and he generally employed a scribe rather than take the pen himself. To-day he preferred to dispense with help, instead of trusting the discretion of a secretary; and this is what he was setting down. "I, Giovanni Beroviero, the son of Angelo, of Murano, the glass-maker, being in my father's absence and in his stead the Master of our honourable Guild of Glass-makers, do entreat your Magnificence to interfere and act for the preservation of our ancient rights and privileges and for the maintenance of the just laws of Venice, and for the honour of the Republic, and for the public good of Murano. There is a certain Zorzi, called the Ballarin, who was a servant of the aforesaid Angelo Beroviero, a Dalmatian and a foreigner and a fellow of no worth, who formerly swept the floor of the said Angelo's furnace room, which the said Angelo keeps for his private use. This fellow therefore, this foreigner, the said Angelo being absent on a long journey, was left by him to watch the fire in the said room, there being certain new glass in the crucibles of the said furnace, which the said Zorzi, called the Ballarin, was to keep hot a certain number of days. And now in the torrid heat of summer, the canicular days being at hand, the furnaces in the glass-house of the said Angelo have been extinguished. But this Zorzi, called the Ballarin, although he has removed from the furnace of the said Angelo the glass which was to be kept hot, does insolently and defiantly refuse to put out the fire in the said furnace, and forces the boys to make the fire all night, to the great injury of their health, because the canicular days are approaching. But the said Zorzi, called the Ballarin, like a raging devil come upon earth from his master Satan, heeds no heat. And he has no respect of laws, nor of persons, nor of the honourable Guild, nor of the Republic, working day and night at the glass-blower's art, just as if he were not a Dalmatian, and a foreigner, and a low fellow of no worth. Moreover, he has made glass himself, which it is forbidden for any foreigner to make throughout the dominions of the Republic. Moreover, it is a good white glass, which he could not have made if he had not wickedly, secretly and feloniously stolen a book which is the property of the aforesaid Angelo, and which contains many things concerning the making of glass. Moreover, this Zorzi, called the Ballarin, is a liar, a thief and an assassin, for of the good white glass which he has melted by means of the said Angelo's secrets, he makes vessels, such as phials, ampullas and dishes, which it is not lawful for any foreigner to make. Moreover, in the vile wickedness of his shameless heart, the said Zorzi, called the Ballarin, has the presumption and effrontery to sell the said vessels, openly admitting that he has made them. And they are well made, with diabolical skill, and the sale of the said vessels is a great injury to the glass-blowers of Murano, and to the honourable Guild, besides being an affront to the Republic. I, the aforesaid Giovanni, was indeed unable to believe that such monstrous wickedness could exist. I therefore went into the furnace room myself, and there I found the said Zorzi, called the Ballarin, working alone and making a certain piece in the form of a beaker. And though he knows me, that I am the son of his master, he is so lost to all shame, that he continued to work before me, as if he were a glass-blower, and though I fanned myself in order not to die of heat, he worked before the fire, and felt nothing, raging like a devil. I therefore offered to buy the beaker he was making and I put down a piece of money, and the said Zorzi, called the Ballarin, a liar, a thief and an assassin, took the said piece of money, and set the said beaker within the annealing oven of the said furnace, wherein I saw many other pieces of fine workmanship, and he said that I should have the said beaker when it was annealed. Wherefore I, being for the time the Master of the honourable Guild in the stead of the said Angelo, entreat your Magnificence on behalf of the said Guild to interfere and act for the preservation of our ancient rights and privileges, and for the honour of the Republic. Moreover, I entreat your Magnificence to send a force by night, in order that there may be no scandal, to take the said Zorzi, called the Ballarin, and to bind him, and carry him to Venice, that he may be tried for his monstrous crimes, and be questioned, even with torture, as to others which he has certainly committed, and be exiled from all the dominions of the Republic for ever on pain of being hanged, that in this way our laws may be maintained and our privileges preserved. Moreover, I will give any further information of the same kind which your Magnificence may desire. At Murano, in the house of Angelo Beroviero, my father, this third day of July, in the year of the Salvation of the World fourteen hundred and seventy, Giovanni Beroviero, the glass-maker." Giovanni had taken a long time in the composition of this remarkable document. He sat in his linen shirt and black hose, but he had paused often to fan himself with a sheet of paper, and to wipe the perspiration from his forehead, for although he was a lean man he suffered much from the heat, owing to a weakness of his heart. He folded the two sheets of his letter and tied them with a silk string, of which he squeezed the knot into pasty red wax, which he worked with his fingers, and upon this he pressed the iron seal of the guild, using both his hands and standing up in order to add his weight to the pressure. The missive was destined for the Podestà of Murano, which is to say, for the Governor, who was a patrician of Venice and a most high and mighty personage. Giovanni did not mean to trust to any messenger. That very afternoon, when he had slept after dinner, and the sun was low, he would have himself rowed to the Governor's house, and he would deliver the letter himself, or if possible he would see the dignitary and explain even more fully that Zorzi, called the Ballarin, was a liar, a thief and an assassin. He felt a good deal of pride in what he had written so carefully, and he was sure that his case was strong. In another day or two, Zorzi would be gone for ever from Murano, Giovanni would have the precious manuscript in his possession, and when old Beroviero returned Giovanni would use the book as a weapon against his father, who would be furiously angry to find his favourite assistant gone. It was all very well planned, he thought, and was sure to succeed. He would even take possession of the beautiful red glass, and of the still more wonderful white glass which Zorzi had made for himself. By the help of the book, he should soon be able to produce the same in his own furnaces. The vision of a golden future opened before him. He would outdo all the other glass-makers in every market, from Paris to Palermo, from distant England to Egyptian Alexandria, wheresoever the vast trade of Venice carried those huge bales of delicate glass, carefully packed in the dried seaweed of the lagoons. Gold would follow gold, and his wealth would increase, till it became greater than that of any patrician in Venice. Who could tell but that, in time, the great exception might be made for him, and he might be admitted to sit in the Grand Council, he and his heirs for ever, just as if he had been born a real patrician and not merely a member of the half-noble caste of glass-blowers? Such things were surely possible. In the cooler hours of the afternoon he got into his father's gondola, for he was far too economical to keep one of his own, and he had himself rowed to the house of the Governor, on the Grand Canal of Murano. But at the door he was told that the official was in Venice and would not return till the following day. The liveried porter was not sure where he might be found, but he often went to the palace of the Contarini, who were his near relations. The Signor Giovanni, to whom the porter was monstrously civil, might give himself the fatigue of being taken there in his gondola. In any case it would be easy to find the Governor. He would perhaps be on the Grand Canal in Venice at the hour when all the patricians were taking the air. It was very probable indeed. The porter bowed low as the gondola pushed off, and Giovanni leaned back in the comfortable seat, to repeat again and again in his mind what he meant to say if he succeeded in speaking with the Governor. He had his letter of complaint safe in his wallet, and he could remember every word he had written. In order to go to Venice, the nearest way was to return from the Grand Canal of Murano by the canal of San Piero, and to pass the glass-house. The door was shut as usual, and Giovanni smiled as he thought of how the city archers would go in, perhaps that very night, to take Zorzi away. He would not be with them, but when they were gone, he would go and find the book under one of the stones. When he had got it, his father might come home, for all Giovanni cared. Before long the gondola was winding its way through the narrow canals, now shooting swiftly along a short straight stretch, between a monastery and a palace, now brought to by a turn of the hand at a corner, as the man at the oar shouted out a direction meant for whoever might be coming, by the right or left, as one should say "starboard helm" or "port helm," and both doing the same, two vessels pass clear of one another; and to this day the gondoliers of Venice use the old words, and tell long-winded stories of their derivation and first meaning, which seem quite unnecessary. But in Beroviero's time, the gondola had only lately come into fashion, and every one adopted it quickly because it was much cheaper than keeping horses, and it was far more pleasant to be taken quickly by water, by shorter ways, than to ride in the narrow streets, in the mud in winter and in the dust in summer, jostling those who walked, and sometimes quarrelling with those who rode, because the way was too narrow for one horse to pass another, when both had riders on their backs. Moreover, it was law that after nine o'clock in the morning no man who had reached the fig-tree that grew in the open space before San Salvatore, should ride to Saint Mark's by the Merceria, so that people had to walk the rest of the way, leaving their horses to grooms. The gondola was therefore a great convenience, besides being a notable economy, and old Francesco Sansovino says that in his day, which was within a lifetime of Angelo Beroviero's, there were nine or ten thousand gondolas in Venice. But at first they had not the high peaked stem of iron, and stem and stern were made almost alike, as in the Venetian boats and skiffs of our own time. Giovanni got out at the steps of the Contarini palace, which, of the many that even then belonged to different branches of that great house, was distinguished above all others by its marvellous outer winding staircase, which still stands in all its beauty and slender grace. But near the great palace there were little wooden houses of two stories, some new and straight and gaily painted, but some old and crooked, hanging over the canals so that they seemed ready to topple down, with crazy outer balconies half closed in by lattices behind which the women sat for coolness, and sometimes even slept in the hot months. For the great city of stone and brick was not half built yet, and the space before Saint Mark's was much larger than it is now, for the Procuratie did not yet exist, nor the clock, but the great bell-tower stood almost in the middle of an open square, and there were little wooden booths at its base, in which all sorts of cheap trinkets were sold. There were also such booths and small shops at the base of the two columns. Also, the bridge of Rialto was a broad bridge of boats, on which shops were built on each side of the way, and the middle of the bridge could be drawn out, for the great Bucentoro to pass through, when the Doge went out in state to wed the sea. Giovanni Beroviero was well known to Contarini's household, for all knew of the approaching marriage, and the servants were not surprised when he inquired for the Governor of Murano, saying that his business was urgent. But the Governor was not there, nor the master of the house. They were gone to the Grand Canal. Would the Signor Giovanni like to speak with Messer Jacopo, who chanced to be in the palace and alone? It was still early, and Giovanni thought that the opportunity was a good one for ingratiating himself with his future brother-in-law. He would go in, if he should not disturb Messer Jacopo. He was announced and ushered respectfully into the great hall, and thence up the broad staircase to the hall of reception above. And below, his gondoliers gossiped with the servants, talking about the coming marriage, and many indiscreet things were said, which it was better that their masters should not hear; as for instance that Jacopo was really living in the house of the Agnus Dei, where he kept a beautiful Georgian slave in unheard-of luxury, and that this was a great grief to his father, who was therefore very desirous of hastening the marriage with Marietta. The porter winked one eye solemnly at the head gondolier, as who should imply that the establishment at the Agnus Dei would not be given up for twenty marriages; but the gondolier said boldly that if Jacopo did not change his life after he had married Marietta, something would happen to him. Upon this the porter inquired superciliously what, in the name of a great many beings, celestial and infernal, could possibly happen to any Contarini who chose to do as he pleased. The gondolier answered that there were laws, the porter retorted that the laws were made for glass-blowers but not for patricians, and the two might have come to blows if they had not just then heard their masters' voices from the landing of the great staircase; and of coarse it was far more important to overhear all they could of the conversation than to quarrel about a point of law. Giovanni was too full of his plan for Zorzi's destruction to resist the temptation of laying the whole case before Contarini, who was so soon to be a member of the family, and as Jacopo, who was himself going out, accompanied his guest downstairs, Giovanni continued to talk of the matter earnestly, and Contarini answered him by occasional monosyllables and short sentences, much interested by the whole affair, but wishing that Giovanni would go away, now that he had told all. He was in constant fear lest Zorzi should say something which might betray the meetings at the house of the Agnus Dei, and had often regretted that he had not been put quietly out of the way, instead of being admitted to the society. Now after hearing what Giovanni had to say, he had not the slightest doubt but that Zorzi had really broken the laws, and it seemed an admirable solution of the whole affair that the Dalmatian should be exiled from the Republic for life. That being settled, he wished to get rid of his visitor, as Arisa was waiting for him. "I assure you," Giovanni said, "that this miserable Zorzi is a liar, a thief and an assassin." "Yes," assented Contarini carelessly, "I have no doubt of it." "The best thing is to arrest him at once, this very night, if possible, and have him brought before the Council." "Yes." Contarini had agreed with Giovanni on this point already, and made a movement to descend, but Giovanni loved to stand still in order to talk, and he would not move. Contarini waited for him. "It is important that some member of the Council should be informed of the truth beforehand," he continued. "Will you speak to your father about it, Messer Jacopo?" "Yes," answered Contarini, and he spoke the word intentionally with great emphasis, in the hope that Giovanni would be finally satisfied and go away. "You will be conferring a benefit on the city of Murano," said Giovanni in a tone of gratitude, and this time he began to come down the steps. The gondolier had heard every word that had been said, as well as the servants in the lower hall; but to them the conversation had no especial meaning, as they knew nothing of Zorzi. To the gondolier, on the other hand, who was devoted to his master and detested his master's son, it meant much, though his stolid, face did not betray the slightest intelligence. Giovanni took leave of Contarini with much ceremony, a little too much, Jacopo thought. "To the Grand Canal," said Giovanni as the gondolier helped him to get in, and he backed under the 'felse.' "Try and find the Governor of Murano, and if you see him, take me alongside his gondola." The sun was now low, and as the light craft shot out at last upon the Grand Canal, the breeze came up from the land, cool and refreshing. Scores of gondolas were moving up and down, some with the black 'felse,' some without, and in the latter there were beautiful women, whose sun-dyed hair shone resplendent under the thin embroidered veils that loosely covered it. They wore silk and satin of rich hues, and jewels, and some were clad in well-fitting bodices that were nets of thin gold cord drawn close over velvet, with lawn sleeves gathered to the fore-arm and the upper-arm by netting of seed pearls. Beside some of them sat their husbands or their fathers, in robes and mantles of satin and silk, or in wide coats of rich stuff, open at the neck; bearded men, straight-featured, and often very pale, wearing great puffed caps set far back on their smooth hair, their white hands playing with their gloves, their dark eyes searching out from afar the faces of famous beauties, or, if they were grey-haired men, fixed thoughtfully before them. Overall the evening light descended like a mist of gold, reflected from the sculptured walls of palaces, where marble columns and light traceries of stone were dyed red and orange and almost purple by the setting sun, and nestling among the carved beams and far-projecting balconies of wooden houses that overhung the canal, gilding the water itself where the broad-bladed oars struck deep and churned it, and swept aft, and steered with a poising, feathering backstroke, or where tiny waves were dashed up by a gondola's bright iron stem. Slowly the water turned to wine below, the clear outlines of the palaces stood out less sharply against the paling sky, the golden cloudlets, floating behind the great tower of Saint Mark's presently faded to wreaths of delicate mist. The bells rung out from church and monastery, far and near, till the air was filled with a deep music, telling all Venice that the day was done. Then the many voices that had echoed in greeting and in laughter, from boat to boat, were hushed a moment, and almost every man took off his hat or cap, the robed Councillor and the gondolier behind him; and also a good number of the great ladies made the sign of the cross and were silent a while. It was the hour when Venice puts forth her stealing charm, when the terrible distinctness of her splendour grows gentle and almost human, and the little mystery of each young life rises from the heart to hold converse with the sweet, mysterious all. Through the long day the palaces look down consciously at themselves, mirrored in the calm water where they stand, and each seems to say "I am finer than you," or "My master is still richer than yours," or "You are going to ruin faster than I am," or "I was built by a Lombardo," or "I by Sansovino," and the violent light is ever there to bear witness of the truth of what each says. Within, without, in hall and church and gallery, there is perpetual brightness and perpetual silence. But at the evening hour, now, as in old times, a spirit takes Venice and folds it in loving arms, whispering words that are not even guessed by day. The Ave Maria had not ceased ringing when Giovanni's gondolier came up with the Governor of Murano. He was alone, and at his invitation Giovanni left his own craft and sat down beside the patrician, whose gondola was uncovered for coolness. Giovanni talked earnestly in low tones, holding his sealed letter in his hand, while his own oarsman watched him closely in the advancing dusk, but was too wise to try to overhear what was said. He knew well enough now what Giovanni wanted of the Governor, and what he obtained. "Not to-night," the Governor said audibly, as Giovanni returned to his own gondola. "To-morrow." Giovanni turned before getting under the 'felse,' bowed low as he stood up and said a few words of thanks, which the Governor could hardly have heard as his boat shot ahead, though he made one more gracious gesture with his hand. The shadows descended quickly now, and everywhere the little lights came out, from latticed balconies and palace windows left open to let in the cool air, and from the silently gliding gondolas that each carried a small lamp; and here and there between tall houses the young summer moon fell across the black water, rippling under the freshening breeze, and it was like a shower of silver falling into a widow's lap. But Giovanni saw none of these things, and if he had looked out of the small windows of the 'felse,' he would not have cared to see them, for beauty did not appeal to him in nature any more than in art, except that in the latter it was a cause of value in things. Besides, as he suffered from the heat all day, he was afraid of being chilled at evening; so he sat inside the 'felse,' gloating over the success of his trip. The Governor, who knew nothing of Zorzi but was well aware of Giovanni's importance in Murano, had readily consented to arrest the poor Dalmatian who was represented as such a dangerous person, besides being a liar and other things, and Giovanni had particularly requested that the force sent should be sufficient to overpower the "raging devil" at once and without scandal. He judged that ten men would suffice for this, he said. The fact was that he feared some resistance on the part of Pasquale, whom he knew to be a friend to Zorzi. He had carefully abstained from alluding to Zorzi's lameness, lest the mere mention of it should excite some compassion in his hearer. He had in fact done everything to assure the success of his scheme, except the one thing which was the most necessary of all. He had allowed himself to speak of it in the hearing of the gondolier who hated him, and who lost no time in making use of the information. It was nearly supper-time when he deposited Giovanni at the steps of the house and took the gondola round to the narrow canal in which the boats lay, and which was under Nella's window. The shutters were wide open, and there was a light within. He called the serving-woman by name, and she looked out, and asked what he wanted. Then, as now, gondoliers worked indoors like the servants when not busy with the boats, and slept in the house. The man was on friendly terms with Nella, who liked him because he thought her mistress the most perfect creature in the world. "I have ripped the arm of my doublet," he said. "Can you mend it for me this evening?" "Bring it up to me now," answered Nella. "There is time before supper. You can wait outside my room while I do it. My mistress is already gone downstairs." "You are an angel," observed the gondolier from below. "The only thing you need is a husband." "You have guessed wrong," answered Nella with a little laugh. "That is the only thing I do not need." She disappeared, and the gondolier went round by the back of the house to the side door, in order to go upstairs. In a quarter of an hour, while she stood in her doorway, and he in the passage without, he had told her all he knew of Giovanni's evil intentions against Zorzi, including the few words which the Governor had spoken audibly. The torn sleeve was an invention. Giovanni was visibly elated at supper, a circumstance which pleased his wife but inspired Marietta with some distrust. She had never felt any sympathy for the brother who was so much older than herself, and who took a view of things which seemed to her sordid, and she did not like to see him sitting in her father's place, often talking of the house as if it were already his, and dictating to her upon matters of conduct as well as upon questions of taste. Everything he said jarred on her, but as yet she had no idea that he had any plans against Zorzi, and being of a reserved character she often took no trouble to answer what he said, except to bend her head a little to acknowledge that he had said it. When she was alone with her father, she loved to sit with him after supper in the big room, working by the clear light of the olive oil lamp, while he sat in his great chair and talked to her of his work. He had told her far more than he realised of his secret processes as well as of his experiments, and she had remembered it, for she alone of his children had inherited his true love and understanding of the noble art of glass-making. But now that he was away, Giovanni generally spent the evening in instructing his wife how to save money, and she listened meekly enough to what he told her, for she was a modest little woman, of colourless character, brought up to have no great opinion of herself, though her father was a rich merchant; and she looked upon her husband as belonging to a superior class. Marietta found the conversation intolerable and she generally left the couple together a quarter of an hour after supper was over and went to her own room, where she worked a little and listened to Nella's prattle, and sometimes answered her. She was living in a state of half-suspended thought, and was glad to let the time pass as it would, provided it passed at all. This evening, as usual, she bade her brother and his wife good night, and went upstairs. Nella had learned to expect her and was waiting for her. To her surprise, Nella shut the window as soon as she entered. "Leave it open," she said. "It is hot this evening. Why did you shut it? You never do." "A window is an ear," answered Nella mysteriously. "The nights are still and voices carry far." "What great secret are you going to talk of?" inquired Marietta, with a careless smile, as she drew the long pins from her hair and let the heavy braids fall behind her. "Bad news, bad news!" Nella repeated. "The young master is doing things which he ought not to do, because they are very unjust and spiteful. I am only a poor serving-woman, but I would bite off my fingers, like this"--and she bit them sharply and shook them--"before I would let them do such things!" "What do you mean, Nella?" asked Marietta. "You must not speak of my brother in that way." "Your brother! Eh, your brother!" cried Nella in a low and angry voice, quite unlike her own. "Do you know what your brother has done? He has been to Messer Jacopo Contarini, your betrothed husband, and he has told him that Zorzi is a liar, a thief and an assassin, and that he will have him arrested to-night, if he can, and Messer Jacopo promised that his father, who is of the Council, shall have Zorzi condemned! And your brother has seen the Governor of Murano in Venice, and has given him a great letter, and the Governor said that it should not be to-night, but to-morrow. That is the sort of man your brother is." Marietta was standing. She had turned slowly pale while Nella was speaking, and grasped the back of a chair with both hands. She thought she was going to faint. CHAPTER XVI Marrietta's heart stood still, as she bent over the back of the chair holding it with both her hands, but feeling that she was falling. She had expected anything but this, when Nella had begun to speak. The blow was sudden and heavy, and she herself had never known how much she could be hurt, until that moment. Nella looked at her in astonishment. The serving-woman had changed her mind about Zorzi of late, and had grown fond of him in taking care of him. But her anger against Giovanni was roused rather because what he was about to do was an affront to his father, her master, than out of mere sympathy for the intended victim. She was far from understanding what could have so deeply moved Marietta. "You see," she said triumphantly, "what sort of a brother you have!" The sound of her voice recalled the young girl just when she felt that she was losing consciousness. Her first instinct was to go to Zorzi and warn him. He must escape at once. The Governor had said that it should be to-morrow, but he might change his mind and send his men to-night. There was no time to be lost, she must go instantly. As she stood upright she could see the porter's light shining through the small grated window, for Pasquale was still awake, but in a few minutes the light would go out. She had often been at her own window at that hour, and had watched it, wondering whether Zorzi would work far into the night, and whether he was thinking of her. It would be easy to slip out by the side door and run across. No one would know, except Nella and Pasquale, but she would have preferred that only the latter should be in the secret. She was still dressed, though her hair was undone, and the hood of a thin silk mantle would hide that. Her mind reasoned by instantaneous flashes now, and she had full control of herself again. She would tell Nella that she was going downstairs again for a little while, and she would also tell her to make an infusion of lime flowers and to bring it in half an hour and wait for her. Down the main staircase to the landing, down the narrow stairs in the dark, out into the street--it would not take long, and she would tap very softly at the door of the glass-house. When she said that she would go down again, Nella suspected nothing. On the contrary she thought her mistress was wise. "You will lead on the Signor Giovanni to talk of Zorzi," she said. "You will learn something." "And make me a drink of lime flowers," continued Marietta. "The housekeeper has plenty." "I know, I know," answered Nella. "Shall you come up again soon?" "Be here in half an hour with the drink, and wait for me. You had better go for the lime flowers before the housekeeper is asleep. I will twist my hair up again before I go down." Nella nodded and disappeared, for the housekeeper generally went to bed very early. As soon as she was out of the room Marietta took her silk cloak and wrapped herself in it, drawing the end over her head, so as to hide her hair and shade her face. She was pale still, but her lips were tightly closed and her eyelids a little drawn together, as she left the room. She met no one on the stairs. In the dark, when she reached the door, she could feel the oak bar that was set across it at night, and she slipped it back into its hole in the wall, without making much noise. She lifted the latch and went out. The night was still and clear, and the young moon was setting. If any one had been looking out she must have been seen as she crossed the wooden bridge, and she glanced nervously back at the open windows. There were lights in the big room, and she heard Giovanni's monotonous voice, as he talked to his wife. But there was shadow under the glass-house, and a moment later she was tapping softly at the door. Pasquale looked down from the grating, and was about to say something uncomplimentary when he recognised her, for he could see very well when there was little light, like most sailors. He opened the door at once, and stood aside to let Marietta enter. "Shut the door quickly," she whispered, "and do not open it for anybody, till I come out." Pasquale obeyed in silence. He knew as well as she did that Giovanni was sitting in the big room, with open windows, within easy hearing of ordinary sounds. A feeble light came through the open door of the porter's lodge. "Is Zorzi awake?" Marietta asked in a low tone, when both had gone a few steps down the corridor. "Yes. He will sleep little to-night, for the boys have not come, and he must tend the fire himself." Marietta guessed that her brother had given the order, so that Zorzi might be left quite alone. "Pasquale," she said, "I can trust you, I am sure. You are a good friend to Zorzi." The porter growled something incoherent, but she understood what he meant. "Yes," she continued, "I trust you, and you must trust me. It is absolutely necessary that I should speak with Zorzi alone to-night. No one knows that I have left the house, and no one must know that I have been here." The old sailor had seen much in his day, but he was profoundly astonished at Marietta's audacity. "You are the mistress," he said in a grave and quiet voice that Marietta had never heard before. "But I am an old man, and I cannot help telling you that it is not seemly for a young girl to be alone at night with a young man, in the place where he lives. You will forgive me for saying so, because I have served your father a long time." "You are quite right," answered Marietta. "But in matters of life and death there is nothing seemly or unseemly. I have not time to explain all this. Zorzi is in great danger. For my father's sake I must warn him, and I cannot stay out long. Not even Nella must know that I am here. Be ready to let me out." She almost ran down the corridor to the garden. The moon was already too low to shine upon the walk, but the beams silvered the higher leaves of the plane-tree, and all was clear and distinct. Even in her haste, she glanced at the place where she had so often sat, before her life had began to change. There was a strong light in the laboratory and the window was open. She looked in and saw Zorzi sitting in the great chair, his head leaning back and his eyes closed. He was so pale and worn that, she felt a sharp pain as her eyes fell on his face. His crutch was beside him, and he seemed to be asleep. It was a pity to wake him, she thought, yet she could not lose time; she had lost too much already in talking with Pasquale. "Zorzi!" She called him softly. He started in his sleep, opened his eyes wide, and tried to spring up without his crutch, for he fancied himself in a dream. She had thrown back the drapery that covered her head and the bright light fell upon her face. It hurt her again to see how he staggered and put out his hand for his accustomed support. "I am coming in," she said quietly. "Do not move, unless the door is locked." She met him before he was half across the room. Instinctively she put out her hand to help him back to his chair. Then she understood that he did not need it, for he was much better now. She saw that he looked to the window, expecting to see Nella, and she smiled. "I am alone," she said. "You see how I trust you. Only Pasquale knows that I am here. You must sit down, and I will sit beside you, for I have much to say." He looked at her in silent wonder for a moment, happy beyond words to be with her, but very anxious as to the reasons which could have brought her to him at such an hour and quite alone. Her manner was so quiet and decided that it did not even occur to him to protest against her coming, and he sat down as she bade him, but on the bench, and she seated herself in the chair, turning in it so that she could see his face. They were near enough to speak in low tones. "My brother Giovanni hates you," she began. "He means to ruin you, if he can, before my father comes home." "I am not afraid of him," said Zorzi, speaking for the first time since she had entered. "Let him do his worst." "You do not know what his worst is," answered Marietta, "and he has got Messer Jacopo Contarini to help him. You are surprised? Yes. My betrothed husband has promised to speak with his father against you, at once. You know that he is of the Council." Zorzi's face expressed the utmost astonishment. "Are you quite sure that it is Jacopo Contarini?" he asked, as if unable to believe what she said. "Is it likely that I should be mistaken? My brother was with him this afternoon at the palace, our gondolier heard them talking on the stairs as they came down. He told Nella, and she has just told me. Giovanni heaped all sorts of abuse on you, and Messer Jacopo agreed with all he said. Then they spoke of arresting you and bringing you to justice, and they talked of the Council. After that Giovanni met the Governor of Murano and got into his gondola, and they talked in a low tone. My brother gave him a sealed document, and the Governor said that it should not be to-night, but to-morrow. That is all I know, but it is enough." Zorzi half closed his eyes for a moment, in deep thought; and in a flash he understood that Contarini wished him out of the way, and was taking the first means that offered to get rid of him. To keep faith with such a man would be as foolish as to expect any faithfulness from him. Zorzi opened his eyes again, and looked at the face of the woman he loved. His oath to the society had stood between him and her, and he knew that it was no longer binding on him, since Jacopo Contarini was helping to send him to destruction. Yet now that it was gone, he saw also that it had been the least of the obstacles that made up the barrier. "Of what do they accuse me?" he asked, after a moment's silence. "What can they prove against me?" "I cannot tell. It matters very little. Do you understand? To-morrow, if not to-night, the Governor's men will come here to arrest you, and if you have not escaped, you will be imprisoned and taken before the Council. They may accuse you of being involved in a conspiracy--they may torture you." She shivered at the thought, and looked into his dark eyes with fear and pity. His lip curled a little disdainfully. "Do you think that I shall run away?" he asked. "You will not stay here, and let them arrest you!" cried Marietta anxiously. "Your father left me here to take care of what belongs to him, and there is much that is valuable. I thank you very much for warning me, but I know what your brother means to do, and I shall not go away of my own accord. If he can have me taken off by force, he will come here alone and search the place. If he searches long enough, he may find what he wants." "Is Paolo Godi's manuscript in this room?" asked Marietta quietly. Zorzi stared at her in surprise. "How did you know that your father left it with me?" he asked. "He would not have entrusted it to any one else. That is natural. My brother wants it. Is that the reason why you will not escape? Or is there any other?" "That is the principal reason," answered Zorzi. "Another is that there is valuable glass here, which your brother would take." "Which he would steal," said Marietta bitterly. "But Pasquale can bury it in the garden after you are gone. The principal thing is the book. Give it to me. I will take care of it till my father comes back. Until then you must hide somewhere, for it is madness to stay here. Give me the book, and let me take it away at once." "I cannot give it to you," Zorzi said, with a puzzled expression which Marietta did not understand. "You do not trust me," she answered sadly. He did not reply at once, for the words made no impression on him when he heard them. He trusted her altogether, but there was a material difficulty in the way. He remembered how long it had taken to hide the iron box under broken glass, and he knew how long it would take to get it out again. Marietta could not stay in the laboratory, late into the night, and yet if she did not take the box with her now, she might not be able to take it at all, since neither she nor Nella could have carried it to the house by day, without being seen. Marietta rested her elbow on the arm of the big chair, and her hand supported her chin, in an attitude of thought, as she looked steadily at Zorzi's face, and her own was grave and sad. "You never trusted me," she said presently. "Yet I have been a good friend to you, have I not?" "A friend? Oh, much more than that!" Zorzi turned his eyes from her. "I trust you with all my heart." She shook her head incredulously. "If you trusted me, you would do what I ask," she said. "I have risked something to help you--perhaps to save your life--who knows? Do you know what would happen if my brother found me here alone with you? I should end my life in a convent. But if you will not save yourself, I might as well not have come." "I would give you the book if I could," answered Zorzi. "But I cannot. It is hidden in such a way that it would take a long time to get it out. That is the simple truth. Your father and I had buried it here under the stones, but somehow your brother suspected that, and I have changed the hiding-place. It took a whole morning to do it." Still Marietta did not quite believe that he could not give it to her if he chose. It seemed as if there must always be a shadow between them, when they were together, always the beginning of a misunderstanding. "Where is it?" she asked, after a moment's hesitation. "If you are in earnest you will tell me." "It is better that you should know, in case anything happens to me," answered Zorzi. "It is buried in that big jar, in some three feet of broken glass. I had to take the glass out bit by bit, and put it all back again." As Marietta looked at the jar, a little colour rose in her face again. "Thank you," she said. "I know you trust me, now." "I always have," he answered softly, "and I always shall, even when you are married to Jacopo Contarini." "That is still far off. Let us not talk of it. You must get ready to leave this place before morning. You must take the skiff and get away to the mainland, if you can, for till my father comes you will not be safe in Venice." "I shall not go away," said Zorzi firmly. "They may not try to arrest me after all." "But they will, I know they will!" All her anxiety for him came back in a moment. "You must go at once! Zorzi, to please me--for my sake--leave to-night!" "For your sake? There is nothing I would not do for your sake, except be a coward." "But it is not cowardly!" pleaded Marietta. "There is nothing else to be done, and if my father could know what you risk by staying, he would tell you to go, as I do. Please, please, please--" "I cannot," he answered stubbornly. "Oh, Zorzi, if you have the least friendship for me, do what I ask! Do you not see that I am half mad with anxiety? I entreat you, I beg you, I implore you--" Their eyes met, and hers were wide with fear for him, and earnestness, and they were not quite dry. "Do you care so much?" asked Zorzi, hardly knowing what he said. "Does it matter so much to you what becomes of me?" He moved nearer on the bench. Leaning towards her, where he sat, he could rest his elbow on the broad arm of the low chair, and so look into her face. She covered her eyes, and shook a little, and her mantle slipped from her shoulders and trembled as it settled down into the chair. He leaned farther, till he was close to her, and he tried to uncover her eyes, very gently, but she resisted. His heart beat slowly and hard, like strokes of a hammer, and his hands were shaking, when he drew her nearer. Presently he himself sat upon the arm of the chair, holding her close to him, and she let him press her head to his breast, for she could not think any more; and all at once her hands slipped down and she was resting in the hollow of his arm, looking up to his face. It seemed a long time, as long as whole years, since she had meant to drop another rose in his path, or even since she had suffered him to press her hand for a moment. The whole tale was told now, in one touch, in one look, with little resistance and less fear. "I love you," he said slowly and earnestly, and the words were strange to his own ears. For he had never said them before, nor had she ever heard them, and when they are spoken in that way they are the most wonderful words in the world, both to speak and to hear. The look he had so rarely seen was there now, and there was no care to hide what was in her eyes, for she had told him all, without a word, as women can. "I have loved you very long," he said again, and with one hand he pressed back her hair and smoothed it. "I know it," she answered, gazing at him with lips just parted. "But I have loved you longer still." "How could I guess it?" he asked. "It seems so wonderful, so very strange!" "I could not say it first." She smiled. "And yet I tried to tell you without words." "Did you?" She nodded as her head lay in his arm, and closed her smiling lips tightly, and nodded again. "You would not understand," she said. "You always made it hard for me." "Oh, if I had only known!" She lay quietly on his arm for a few seconds, and neither spoke. Only the low roar of the furnace was heard in the hot stillness. Marietta looked up steadily into his face, with unwinking eyes. "How you look at me!" he said, with a happy smile. "I have often wanted to look at you like this," she answered gravely. "But until you had told me, how could I?" He bent down rather timidly, but drawn to her by a power he could not resist. His first kiss touched her forehead lightly, with a sort of boyish reverence, while a thrill ran through every nerve and fibre of his body. But she turned in his arms and threw her own suddenly round his neck, and in an instant their lips met. Zorzi was in a dream, where Marietta alone was real. All thought and recollection of danger vanished, the very room was not the laboratory where he had so long lived and worked, and thought and suffered. The walls were gold, the stone pavement was a silken carpet, the shadowy smoke-stained beams were the carved ceiling of a palace, he was himself the king and master of the whole world, and he held all his kingdom in his arms. "You understand now," Marietta said at last, holding his face before her with her hands. "No," he answered lovingly. "I do not understand, I will not even try. If I do, I shall open my eyes, and it will suddenly be daylight, and I shall put out my hands and find nothing! I shall be alone, in my room, just awake and aching with a horrible longing for the impossible. You do not know what it is to dream of you, and wake in the grey dawn! You cannot guess what the emptiness is, the loneliness!" "I know it well," said Marietta. "I have been perfectly happy, talking to you under the plane-tree, your hand in mine, and mine in yours, our eyes in each other's eyes, our hearts one heart! And then, all at once, there was Nella, standing at the foot of my bed with a big dish in her hands, laughing at me because I had been sleeping so soundly! Oh, sometimes I could kill her for waking me!" She drew his face to hers, with a little laugh that broke off short. For a kiss is a grave matter. "How much time we have wasted in all these months!" she said presently. "Why would you never understand?" "How could I guess that you could ever love me?" Zorzi asked. "I guessed that you loved me," objected Marietta. "At least," she added, correcting herself, "I was quite sure of it for a little while. Then I did not believe it all. If I had believed it quite, they should never have betrothed me to Jacopo Contarini!" The name recalled all realities to Zorzi, though she spoke it very carelessly, almost with scorn. Zorzi sighed and looked up at last, and stared at the wall opposite. "What is it?" asked Marietta quickly. "Why do you sigh?" "There is reason enough. Are you not betrothed to him, as you say?" Marietta straightened herself suddenly, and made him look at her. A quick light was in her eyes, as she spoke. "Do you know what you are saying? Do you think that if I meant to marry Messer Jacopo, I should be here now, that I should let you hold me in your arms, that I would kiss you? Do you really believe that?" "I could not believe it," Zorzi answered. "And yet--" "And yet you almost do!" she cried. "What more do you need, to know that I love you, with all my heart and soul and will, and that I mean to be your wife, come what may?" "How is it possible?" asked Zorzi almost disconsolately. "How could you ever marry me? What am I, after all, compared with you? I am not even a Venetian! I am a stranger, a waif, a man with neither name nor fortune! And I am half a cripple, lame for life! How can you marry me? At the first word of such a thing your father will join his son against me, I shall be thrown into prison on some false charge and shall never come out again, unless it be to be hanged for some crime I never committed." "There is a very simple way of preventing all those dreadful things," answered Marietta. "I wish I could find it." "Take me with you," she said calmly. Zorzi looked at her in dumb surprise, for she could not have said anything which he had expected less. "Listen to me," she continued. "You cannot stay here--or rather, you shall not, for I will not let you. No, you need not smile and shake your head, for I will find some means of making you go." "You will find that hard, dear love, for that is the only thing I will not do for you." "Is it? We shall see. You are very brave, and you are very, very obstinate, but you are not very sensible, for you are only a man, after all. In the first place, do you imagine that even if Giovanni were to spend a whole week in this room, he would think of looking for the box amongst the broken glass?" "No, I do not think he would," answered Zorzi. "That was sensible of me, at all events." She laughed. "Oh, you are clever enough! I never said that you were not that. I only said that you had no sense. As for instance, since you are sure that my brother cannot find the box, why do you wish to stay here?" "I promised your father that I would. I will keep my promise, at all costs." "In which of two ways shall you be of more use to my father? If you hide in a safe place till he comes home, and if you then come back to him and help him as before? Or if you allow yourself to be thrown into prison, and tried, and perhaps hanged or banished, for something you never did? And if any harm comes to you, what do you think would become of me? Do you see? I told you that you had no common sense. Now you will believe me. But if all this is not enough to make you go, I have another plan, which you cannot possibly oppose." "What is that?" asked Zorzi. "I will go alone. I will cross the bridge, and take the skiff, and row myself over to Venice and from Venice I will get to the mainland." "You could not row the skiff," objected Zorzi, amused at the idea. "You would fall off, or upset her." "Then I should drown," returned Marietta philosophically. "And you would be sorry, whether you thought it was your fault or not. Is that true?" "Yes." "Very well. If you will not promise me faithfully to escape to the mainland to-night, I swear to you by all that you and I believe in, and most of all by our love for each other, that I will do what I said, and run away from my father's house, to-night. But you will not let me go alone, will you?" "No!" "There! You see! Of course you would not let me go alone, me, a poor weak girl, who have never taken a step alone in my life, until to-night! And they say that the world is so wicked! What would become of me if you let me go away alone?" "If I thought you meant to do that!" He laughed again, and drew her to him, and would have kissed her; but she held him back and looked at him earnestly. "I mean it," she said. "That is what I will do. I swear that I will. Yes--now you may." And she kissed him of her own accord, but quickly withdrew herself from his arms again. "You have your choice," she said, "and you must choose quickly, for I have been here too long--it must be nearly half an hour since I left my room, and Nella is waiting for me, thinking that I am with my brother and his wife. Promise me to do what I ask, and I will go back, and when my father comes home I will tell him the whole troth. That is the wisest thing, after all. Or, I will go with you, if you will take me as I am." "No," he answered, with an effort. "I will not take you with me." It cost him a hard struggle to refuse. There she was, resting against his arm, in the blush and wealth of unspent love, asking to go with him, who loved her better than his life. But in a quick vision he saw her with him, she who was delicately nurtured and used from childhood to all that care and money could give, he saw her with him, sharing his misery, his hunger and his wandering, suffering silently for love's sake, but suffering much, and he could not bear the fancied sight. "I should be in your way," she said. "Besides, they would send all over Italy to find me." "It is not that," he answered. "You might starve." She looked up anxiously to his face. "And you?" she asked. "Have you no money?" "No. How should I have money? I believe I have one piece of gold and a little silver. It will be enough to keep me from starvation till I can get work somewhere. I can live on bread and water, as I have many a time." "If I had only thought!" exclaimed Marietta. "I have so much! My father left me a little purse of gold that I shall never need." "I would not take your father's money," answered Zorzi. "But have no fear. If I go at all, I shall do well enough. Besides, there is a man in Venice--" He stopped short, not wishing to speak of Zuan Venier. "You must not make any condition," she answered, not heeding the unfinished sentence. "You must go at once." She rose as she spoke. "Every minute I stay here makes it more dangerous for me to go back," she said. "I know that you will keep your promise. We must say good-bye." He had risen, too, and stood facing her, his crutch under his arm. In all her anxiety for his safety she had half forgotten that his wound was barely healed, and that he still walked with great difficulty. And now, at the thought of leaving him she forgot everything else. They had been so cruelly short, those few minutes of perfect happiness between the long misunderstanding that had kept them apart and the parting again that was to separate them, perhaps for months. As they looked at each other, they both grew pale, and in an instant Zorzi's young face looked haggard and his eyes seemed to grow hollow, while Marietta's filled with tears. "Good-bye!" she cried in a broken voice. "God keep you, my dear love!" Then her face was buried in the hollow of his shoulder and her tears flowed fast and burning hot. CHAPTER XVII It was over at last, and Zorzi stood alone by the table, for Marietta would not let him go with her to the door. She could not trust herself before Pasquale, even in the gloom. He stood by the table, leaning on it heavily with one hand, and trying to realise all that had come into his lonely life within the half hour, and all that might happen to him before morning. The glorious and triumphant certainty which first love brings to every man when it is first returned, still swelled his heart and filled the air he breathed, so that while breathing deep, he could not breathe enough. In such a mood all dangers dwindled, all obstacles sank out of sight as shadows sink at dawn. And yet the parting had hurt him, as if his body had been wrenched in the middle by some resistless force. Women feel parting differently. Shall we men ever understand them? To a man, first love is a victory, to a girl it is a sweet wonder, and a joy, and a tender longing, all in one. And when partings come, as come they must in life until death brings the last, it is always the man who leaves, and the woman who is left, even though in plain fact it be the man that stays behind; and we men feel a little contemptuous pity for one who seems to cry out after the woman he loves, asking why she has left him, and beseeching her to come back to him, but our compassion for the woman in like case is always sincere. In such small things there are the great mysteries of that prime difference, which neither man nor woman can ever fully understand, but which, if not understood a little, is the cause of much miserable misunderstanding in life. Zorzi had to face the future at once, for it was upon him, and the old life was over, perhaps never to come again. He stood still, where he was, for any useless movement was an effort, and he tried to collect his thoughts and determine just what he should do, and how it was to be done. His eye fell on the piece of gold Giovanni had paid for the beaker. In the morning, if he drew the iron tray further down the annealing oven, the glass would be ready to be taken out, and Giovanni could take it if he pleased, for he knew whose it was. But starvation itself could not have induced Zorzi to take the money now. He turned from it with contempt. All he needed was enough to buy bread for a week, and mere bread cost little. That little he had, and it must suffice. Besides that he would make a bundle small enough to be easily carried. His chief difficulty would be in rowing the skiff. To use the single oar at all it was almost indispensable to stand, and to stand chiefly on the right foot, since the single rowlock, as in every Venetian boat, was on the starboard side and could not be shifted to port. He fancied that in some way he could manage to sit on the thwart, and use the oar as a paddle. In any case he must get away, since flight was the wisest course, and since he had promised Marietta that he would go. His reflections had occupied scarce half a minute. He began to walk towards the small room where he slept, and where he kept his few possessions. He had taken two steps from the table, when he stopped short, turned round and listened. He heard the sound of light footsteps, running along the path and coming nearer. In another moment Marietta was at the window, her face deadly white, her eyes wide with fear. "They are there!" she cried wildly. "They have come to-night! Hide yourself quickly! Pasquale will keep them out as long as he can." She had found Pasquale stoutly refusing to open the door. Outside stood a lieutenant of the archers with half-a-dozen men, demanding admittance in the name of the Governor. Pasquale answered that they might get in by force if they could, but that he had no orders to open the door to them. The lieutenant was in doubt whether his warrant authorised him to break in or not. Zorzi knew that Marietta was in even more danger than he. The situation was desperate and the time short. She was still at the window, looking in. "You know your way to the main furnace rooms," Zorzi said quickly, but with great coolness. "Run in there, and stand still in the dark till everything is quiet. Then slip out and get home as quickly as possible." "But you? What will become of you?" asked Marietta in an agony of anxiety. "If they do not take me at once, they will search all the buildings and will find you," answered Zorzi. "I will go and meet them, while you are hiding." He opened the door beside the window and put his crutch forward upon the path. At the same moment the sound of a tremendous blow echoed down the dark corridor. The moon was low but had not set and there was still light in the garden. "Quickly!" Zorzi exclaimed. "They are breaking down the door." But Marietta clung to him almost savagely, when he tried to push her in the direction of the main furnace rooms on the other side of the garden. "I will not leave you," she cried. "They shall take me with you, wherever you are going!" She grasped his hand with both her hands, and then, as he moved, she slipped her arm round him. At the street door the pounding blows succeeded each other in quick succession, but apparently without effect. Zorzi saw that he must make her understand her extreme danger. He took hold of her wrist with a quiet strength that recalled her to herself, and there was a tone of command in his voice when he spoke. "Go at once," he said. "It will be worse for both of us if you are found here. They will hang me for stealing the master's daughter as well as his secrets. Go, dear love, go! Good-bye!" He kissed her once, and then gently pushed her from him. She understood that she must obey, and that if he spoke of his own danger it was for the sake of her good name. With a gesture of despair she turned and left him, crossed the patch of light without looking back, and disappeared into the shadows beyond. She was safe now, for he would go and meet the archers, opening the door to give himself up. Using his crutch he swung himself along into the dark corridor without another moment's hesitation. But matters did not turn out as he expected. When the force came down the footway from the dilution of San Piero, Giovanni was still talking to his wife about household economies and censuring what he called the reckless extravagance of his father's housekeeping. As he talked, he heard the even tread of a number of marching men. He sprang to his feet and went to the window, for he guessed who was coming, though he could not imagine why the Governor had not waited till the next day, as had been agreed. He could not know that on leaving him Jacopo Contarini had seen his father and had told him of Zorzi's misdeeds; and that the Governor had supped with old Contarini, who was an uncompromising champion of the law, besides being one of the Ten and therefore the Governor's superior in office; and that Contarini had advised that Zorzi should be taken on that same night, as he might be warned of his danger and find means to escape. Moreover, Contarini offered a trusty and swift oarsman to take the order to Murano, and the Governor wrote it on the supper table, between two draughts of Greek wine, which he drank from a goblet made by Angelo Beroviero himself in the days when he still worked at the art. In half an hour the warrant was in the hands of the officer, who immediately called out half-a-dozen of his men and marched them down to the glass-house. Giovanni saw them stop and knock at the door, and he heard Pasquale's gruff inquiry. "In the Governor's name, open at once!" said the officer. "Any one can say that," answered the porter. "In the devil's name go home and go to bed! Is this carnival time, to go masquerading by the light of the moon and waking up honest people?" "Silence!" roared the lieutenant. "Open the door, or it will be the worse for you." "It will be the worse for you, if the Signor Giovanni hears this disturbance," answered Pasquale, who could see Giovanni at the window opposite in the moonlight. "Either get orders from him, or go home and leave me in holy peace, you band of braying jackasses, you mob of blobber-lipped Barbary apes, you pack of doltish, droiling, doddered joltheads! Be off!" This eloquence, combined with Pasquale's assured manner, caused the lieutenant to hesitate before breaking down the door, an operation for which he had not been prepared, and for which he had brought no engines of battery. "Can you get in?" he inquired of his men, without deigning to answer the porter's invectives. "If not, let one of you go for a sledge hammer. Try it with the butts of your halberds against the lock, one, two, three and all at once." "Oh, break down the door!" cried Pasquale derisively. "It is of oak and iron, and it cost good money, and you shall pay for it, you lubberly ours." But the men pounded away with a good will. "Open the door!" cried Giovanni from the opposite window, at the top of his lungs. The sight of the destruction of property for which he might have to account to his father was very painful to him. But he could not make himself heard in the terrific din, or else Pasquale suspected the truth and pretended that he could not hear. The porter had seen Marietta a moment in the gloom, and he knew that she had gone back to warn Zorzi. He hoped to give them both time to hide themselves, and he now retired from the grating and began to strengthen the door, first by putting two more heavy oak bars in their places across it near the top and bottom, and further by bringing the scanty furniture from his lodge and piling it up against the panels. Meanwhile the pounding continued at a great rate, and Giovanni thought it better to go down and interfere in person, since he could not make himself heard. The servants were all roused by this time, and many heads were looking out of upper windows, not only from Beroviero's house, but from the houses higher up, beyond the wooden bridge. Two men who were walking up the footway from the opposite direction stopped at a little distance and looked on, their hoods drawn over their eyes. Giovanni came out hurriedly and crossed the bridge. He laid his hand on the lieutenant's shoulder anxiously and spoke close to his ear, for the pounding was deafening. The six men had strapped their halberds firmly together in a solid bundle with their belts, and standing three on each side they swung the whole mass of wood and iron like a battering ram, in regular time. "Stop them, sir! Stop them, pray!" cried Giovanni. "I will have the door opened for you." Suddenly there was silence as the officer caught one of his men by the arm and bade them all wait. "Who are you, sir?" he inquired. "I am Giovanni Beroviero," answered Giovanni, sure that his name would inspire respect. The officer took off his cap politely and then replaced it. The two men who were looking on nudged each other. "I have a warrant to arrest a certain Zorzi," began the lieutenant. "I know! It is quite right, and he is within," answered Giovanni. "Pasquale!" he called, standing on tiptoe under the grating. "Pasquale! Open the door at once for these gentlemen." "Gentlemen!" echoed one of the men softly, with a low laugh and digging his elbow into his companion's side. No one else spoke for a moment. Then Pasquale looked through the grating. "What did you say?" he asked. "I said open the door at once!" answered Giovanni. "Can you not recognise the officers of the law when you see them?" "No," grunted Pasquale, "I have never seen much of them. Did you say I was to open the door?" "Yes!" cried Giovanni angrily, for he wished to show his zeal before the officer. "Blockhead!" he added with emphasis, as Pasquale disappeared again and was presumably out of hearing. They all heard him dragging the furniture away again, the box-bed and the table and the old chair. Zorzi came up as Pasquale was clearing the stuff away. "They want you," said the old sailor, seeing him and hearing him at the same time. "What have you been doing now? Where is the young lady?" "In the main furnace room," whispered Zorzi. "Do not let them go there whatever they do." Pasquale gave vent to his feelings in a low voice, as he dragged the last things back and began to unbar the door. Zorzi leaned against the wall, for his lameness prevented him from helping. At last the door was opened, and he saw the figures of the men outside against the light. He went forward as quickly as he could, pushing past Pasquale to get out. He stood on the threshold, leaning on his crutch. "I am Zorzi," he said quietly. "Zorzi the Dalmatian, called the Ballarin?" asked the lieutenant. "Yes, yes!" cried Giovanni, anxious to hasten matters, "They call him the dancer because he is lame. This is that foreign liar, that thief, that assassin! Take him quickly!" The archers, who in the changes of time had become halberdiers, had dropped the bundle of spears they had made for a battering-ram. Two of them took Zorzi by the arms roughly, and prepared to drag him along with them. He made no resistance, but objected quietly. "I can walk better, if you do not hold me," he said. "I cannot run away, as you see." "Let him walk between you," ordered the officer. "Good night, sir," he said to Giovanni. Two of the men lifted the bundle of halberds and began to carry it between them, trying to undo the straps as they walked, for they could not stay behind. Giovanni saluted the officer and stood aside for the party to pass. The two men who had looked on had separated, and one had already gone forward and disappeared beyond the bridge. The other lingered, apparently still interested in the proceedings. Pasquale, dumb with rage at last, stood in the doorway. "Let me pass," said Giovanni, as soon as the archers had gone on a few steps, surrounding Zorzi. With a growl, Pasquale came out and stood on the pavement a moment, and Giovanni went in. Instantly, the man who had lingered made a step towards the porter, whispered something in his ear, and then made off as fast as he could in the direction taken by the archers. Pasquale looked after him in surprise, only half understanding the meaning of what he had said. Then he went in, but left the door ajar. The people who had been looking out of the windows of Beroviero's house had disappeared, when they had seen that Giovanni was on the footway. All was silent now; only, far off, the tramp of the archers could still be heard. They could not go very fast, with Zorzi in their midst, but the two men who were busy unfastening the bundle of halberds lagged in the rear, talking in a low voice. They did not notice quick footsteps behind them, but they heard a low whistle, answered instantly by another, just as the main party was nearing the corner by the church of San Piero. That was the last the two loiterers remembered, for at the next instant they lay in a heap upon the halberds, which had fallen upon the pavement with a tremendous clatter. A couple of well-delivered blows with a stout stick had thoroughly stunned them almost at the same instant. It would be some time before they recovered their senses. While the man who had whispered to Pasquale was doing effectual work in the rear, his companion was boldly attacking the main party in front. As the lieutenant stopped short and turned his head when the halberds dropped, a blow under the jaw from a fist like a sledge hammer almost lifted him off his feet and sent him reeling till he fell senseless, half-a-dozen paces away. Before the two archers who were guarding Zorzi could defend themselves, unarmed as they were, another blow had felled one of them. The second, springing forward, was caught up like a child by his terrible assailant and whirled through the air, to fall with a noisy splash into the shallow waters of the canal. The other companion attacked the remaining two from behind with his club and knocked one of them down. The last sprang to one side and ran on a few steps as fast as he could. But swifter feet followed him, and in an instant iron fingers were clutching his throat and squeezing his breath out. He struggled a moment, and then sank down. His captor deliberately knocked him on the head with his fist, and he rolled over like a stone. Utterly bewildered, Zorzi stood still, where he had stopped. Never in his life had he dreamed that two men could dispose of seven, in something like half a minute, with nothing but a stick for a weapon between them. But he had seen it with his eyes, and he was not surprised when he felt himself lifted from his feet, with his crutch beside him, and carried along the footway at a sharp run, in the direction of the glass-house. His reason told him that he had been rescued and was being quickly conveyed to a place of safety, but he could not help distrusting the means that accomplished the end, for he had unconsciously watched the two men in what could hardly be called a fight, though he could not see their faces, and a more murderous pair of ruffians he had never seen. Men not well used to such deeds could not have done them at all, thought Zorzi, as he was borne along, his breath almost shaken out of him by the strong man's movements. All was quiet, as they passed the glass-house, and no one was looking out, for Giovanni's wife feared him far too much to seem to be spying upon his doings, and the servants were discreet. Only Nella, hiding behind the flowers in Marietta's window, and supposing that Marietta was with her sister-in-law, was watching the door of the glass-house to see when Giovanni would come out. She now heard the steps of the two men, running down the footway. The rescue had taken place too far away for her to hear anything but a splash in the canal. She saw that one of the men was carrying what seemed to be the body of a man. She instinctively crossed herself, as they ran on towards the end of the canal, and when she could see them no longer in the shadow, she drew back into the room, momentarily forgetting Giovanni, and already running over in her head the wonderful conversation she was going to have with her mistress as soon as the young girl came back to her room. Pasquale, meanwhile, withdrew his feet from the old leathern slippers he wore, and noiselessly stole down the corridor and along the garden path, to find out what Giovanni was doing. When he came to the laboratory, he saw that the window was now shut, as well as the door, and that Giovanni had set the lamp on the floor behind the further end of the annealing oven. Its bright light shot upwards to the dark ceiling, leaving the front of the laboratory almost in the dark. Pasquale listened and he heard the sharp tapping of a hammer on stone. He understood at once that Giovanni had shut himself in to search for something, and would therefore be busy some time. Without noise he crossed the garden to the entrance of the main furnace room and went into the passage. "Come out quickly!" he whispered, as his seaman's eyes made out Marietta's figure in a gloom that would have been total darkness to a landsman; and he took hold of the girl's arm to lead her away. "Your brother is in the laboratory, and will not come out," he whispered. "By this time Zorzi may be safe." "Safe!" She spoke the word aloud, in her relief. "Hush, for heaven's sake. The door is open. You can get home now without being seen. Make no noise." She followed him quickly. They had to cross the patch of dim light in the garden, and she glanced at the closed window of the laboratory. It had all happened as Zorzi had foreseen, and Giovanni was already searching for the manuscript. The only thing she could not understand was that Zorzi should have escaped the archers. Even as she crossed the garden, the two man were passing the door, bearing Zorzi he knew not where, but away from the nearest danger. A moment later she was on the footway, hurrying towards the bridge. Pasquale stood watching her, to be sure that she was safe, and he glanced up at the windows, too, fearing lest some one might still be looking out. But chance had saved Marietta this time. She carefully barred the side door after she had gone in, and groped her way up the dark stairs. On the landing there was light from below, and she paused for breath, her bosom heaving as she leaned a moment on the balustrade. She passed one hand over her brows, as if to bring herself back to present consciousness, and then went quickly on. "Safe," she repeated under her breath as she went, "safe, safe, safe!" It was to give herself courage, for she could hardly believe it, though she knew that Pasquale would not deceive her and must have some strong good reason for what he said. There had not been time to question him. All he knew himself was that a man whose face he could not see had whispered to him that Zorzi was in no danger. But he had recognised the other man who had gone up the footway first, in spite of his short cloak and hood, and he felt well assured that Charalambos Aristarchi could throw the officer and his six men into the canal without anybody's help, if he chose, though why the Greek ruffian was suddenly inspired to interfere on Zorzi's behalf was a mystery past his comprehension. Marietta entered her room, and Nella, who had been revelling in the coming conversation, was suddenly very busy, stirring the drink of lime flowers which Marietta had ordered. She was so sure that her mistress had been all the time in the house, and so anxious not to have it thought that she could possibly have been idle, even for a moment, that she looked intently into the cup and stirred the contents in a most conscientious manner. Marietta turned from her almost immediately and began to undo the braids of hair, that Nella might comb it out and plait it again for the night. Nella immediately began to talk, and to tell all that she had seen from the window, with many other things which she had not seen. "But of course you were looking out, too," she said presently. "They were all at the windows for some time." "No," Marietta answered. "I was not looking out." "Well, it was to-night, and not to-morrow, you see. Do you think the Governor is stupid? If he had waited till to-morrow, we should have told Zorzi. Poor Zorzi! I saw them taking him away, loaded with chains." "In chains!" cried Marietta, starting painfully. "I could not see the chains," continued Nella apologetically, "but I am sure they were there. It was too dark to see. Poor Zorzi! Poor Zorzi! By this time he is in the prison under the Governor's house, and he wishes that he had never been born. A little straw, a little water! That is all he has." Marietta moved in her chair, as if something hurt her, but she knew that it would be unwise to stop the woman's talk. Besides, Nella was evidently sorry for Zorzi, though she thought his arrest very interesting. She went on for a long time, combing more and more slowly, after the manner of talkative maids, when they fear that their work may be finished before their story. But for Pasquale's reassuring words, Marietta felt that she must have gone mad. Zorzi was safe, somewhere, and he was not in the Governor's prison, on the straw. She told herself so again and again as Nella went on. "There is one thing I did not tell you," said the latter, with a sudden increase of vigour at the thought. "I think you have told me enough, Nella," said Marietta wearily. "I am very tired." "You cannot go to bed till I have plaited your hair," answered Nella mercilessly, but at the same time laying down the comb. "Just before you came in, I was looking out of the window. It was just an accident, for I was very busy with your things, of course. Well, as I was saying, in passing I happened to glance out of the window, and I saw--guess what I saw, my pretty lady!" Marietta trembled, thinking that Nella had seen her, and perhaps recognised her, and was about to bring her garrulous tale to a dramatic climax by telling her so. "Perhaps you saw a woman," she suggested desperately. "A woman indeed!" cried Nella. "That must be a nice woman who would be seen in the street at such a time of night, and the Governor's archers there, too! Woman? I would not look at such a woman, I tell you! No. What I saw was this, since you cannot guess. There came two big men, running fast, and they were carrying a dead body between them! Eh! They were at no good, I tell you. One could see that." Marietta could bear no more, now. She bent her head and bit her finger to keep herself from crying out. "If you will not be still, how in the world am I to plait your hair?" asked Nella querulously. "Do it quickly, please," Marietta succeeded in saying. "I am so very tired to-night." Her head bent still further forward. "Indeed," said Nella, much annoyed that her tale should not have been received with more interest, "you seem to be half asleep already." But Nella was much too truly attached to her mistress not to feel some anxiety when she saw her white face and noticed how uncertainly she walked. Nella had her in bed at last, however, and gave her more of the soothing drink, smoothed the cool pillow under her head, looked round the room to see that all was in order before going away, then took the lamp and at last went out. "Good night, my pretty lady," said Nella cheerfully from the door, "good rest and pleasant dreams!" She was gone at last, and she would not come back before morning. Marietta sat up in bed in the dark and pressed her hands to her temples in utter despair. "I shall go mad! I shall go mad!" she whispered to herself. She remembered that she had left her light silk mantle in the laboratory, on the great chair. CHAPTER XVIII Aristarchi's interference to rescue Zorzi had not been disinterested, and so far as justice was concerned he was quite ready to believe that the Dalmatian had done all the things of which he was accused. The fact was not of the slightest importance in the situation. It was much more to the point that in the complicated and dangerous plan which the Greek captain and Arisa were carrying out, Zorzi could be of use to them, without his own knowledge. As has been told, the two had decided that he was in love with Marietta, and she with him. The rest followed naturally. After meeting his father and telling him Giovanni's story, Jacopo Contarini had gone to the house of the Agnus Dei for an hour, and during that time he had told Arisa everything, according to his wont. No sooner was he gone than Arisa made the accustomed signal and Aristarchi appeared at her window, for it was then already night. He judged rightly that there was no time to be lost, and having stopped at his house to take his trusted man, the two rowed themselves over to Murano, and were watching the glass-house from, a distance, fully half an hour before the archers appeared. The officer and his men came to their senses, one by one, bruised and terrified. The man who had been thrown into the shallow canal got upon his feet, standing up to his waist in the water, sputtering and coughing from the ducking. Before he tried to gain the shore, he crossed himself three times and repeated all the prayers he could remember, in a great hurry, for he was of opinion that Satan must still be in the neighbourhood. It was not possible that any earthly being should have picked him up like a puppy and flung him fully ten feet from the spot where he had been standing. He struggled to the bank, his feet sinking at each step in the slimy bottom; and after that he was forced to wade some thirty yards to the stairs in front of San Piero before he could get out of the water, a miserable object, drenched from head to foot and coated with black mud from his knees down. Yet he was in a better case than his companions. They came to themselves slowly, the officer last of all, for Aristarchi's blow under the jaw had nearly killed him, whereas the other five men had only received stunning blows on different parts of their thick skulls. In half an hour they were all on their feet, though some of them were very unsteady, and in a forlorn train they made the best of their way back to the Governor's palace. Their discomfiture had been so sudden and complete that none of them had any idea as to the number of their assailants; but most of them agreed that as they came within sight of the church, Zorzi had slackened his pace, and that an unholy fire had issued from his eyes, his mouth and his nostrils, while he made strange signs in the air with his crutch, and suddenly grew to a gigantic stature. The devils who were his companions had immediately appeared in great numbers, and though the archers had fought against their supernatural adversaries with the courage of heroes, they had been struck down senseless where they stood; and when they had recovered their sight and their other understanding, Zorzi had long since vanished to the kingdom of darkness which was his natural abode. Those things the officer told the Governor on the next day, and the men solemnly swore to them, and they were all written down by the official scribe. But the Governor raised one eyebrow a little, and the corners of his mouth twitched strangely, though he made no remark upon what had been said. He remembered, however, that Giovanni had advised him to send a very strong force to arrest the lame young man, from which he argued that Zorzi had powerful friends, and that Giovanni knew it. He then visited the scene of the fight, and saw that there were drops of blood on dry stones, which was not astonishing and which gave no clue whatever to the identity of the rescuers. He pointed out quietly to his guide, the man who had only received a ducking, that there were no signs of fire on the pavement nor on the walls of the houses, which was a strong argument against any theory of diabolical intervention; and this the man was reluctantly obliged to admit. The strangest thing, however, was that the people who lived near by seemed to have heard no noise, though one old man, who slept badly, believed that he had heard the clatter of wood and iron falling together, and then a splashing in the canal; and indeed those were almost the only sounds that had disturbed the night. The whole affair was shrouded in mystery, and the Governor, who knew that his men were to be trusted as far as their limited intelligence could go, resolved to refer the matter to the Council of Ten without delay. He therefore bade the archers hold their tongues and refuse to talk of their misadventure. On that night Giovanni had suffered the greatest disappointment he remembered in his whole life. He had found without much trouble the stone that rang hollow, but it had cost him great pains to lift it, and the sweat ran down from his forehead and dropped upon the slab as he slowly got it up. His heart beat so that he fancied he could hear it, both from the effort he made, and from his intense excitement, now that the thing he had most desired in the world was within his grasp. At last the big stone was raised upright, and the light of the lamp that stood on the floor fell slanting across the dark hole. Giovanni brought the lamp to the edge and looked in. He could not see the box, but a quantity of loose earth lay there, under which it was doubtless buried. He knelt down and began to scoop the earth out, using his two hands together. Then he thrust one hand in, and felt about for the box. There was nothing there. He cleared out the cavity thoroughly, and tried to loosen the soil at the bottom, tearing his nails in his excitement. It must be there, he was sure. But it was not. When he realised that he had been tricked, he collapsed, kneeling as he was, and sat upon his heels, and his crooked hands all dark with the dusty earth clutched at the stones beside him. He remained thus a long time, staring at the empty hole. Then caution, which was even stronger in his nature than greed, brought him to himself. His thin face was grey and haggard as he carefully swept the earth back to its place, removing all traces of what he had done. Then he knew how foolish he had been to let Zorzi know what he had partly heard and partly guessed. Of course, as soon as Zorzi understood that Giovanni had found out where the book was, he had taken it out and put it away in a safer place, to which Giovanni had no clue at all. Zorzi was diabolically clever, and would not have been so foolish as to hide the treasure again in the same room or in the same way. It was probably in the garden now, but it would take a strong man a day or two to dig up all the earth there to the depth at which the book must have been buried. Zorzi must have done the work at night, after the furnaces were out, and when there were no night boys to watch him. But then, the boys had been feeding the fires in the laboratory until the previous night, and it followed that he must have bailed the box this very evening. Giovanni got the slab back into its place without injuring it, and he rubbed the edges with dust, and swept the place with a broom, as Zorzi had done twice already. Then he took the lamp and set it on the table before the window. The light fell on the gold piece that lay there. He took it, examined it carefully, and slipped it into his wallet with a sort of mechanical chuckle. He glanced at the furnace next, and recollected that the precious pieces Zorzi had made were in the annealing oven. But that did not matter, for the fires would now go out and the whole furnace would slowly cool, so that the annealing would be very perfect. No one but he could enter the laboratory, now that Zorzi was gone, and he could take the pieces to his own house at his leisure. They were substantial proofs of Zorzi's wickedness in breaking the laws of Venice, however, and it would perhaps be wiser to leave them where they were, until the Governor should take cognizance of their existence. His first disappointment turned to redoubled hatred of the man who had caused it, and whom it was safer to hate now than formerly, since he was in the clutches of the law; moreover, the defeat of Giovanni's hopes was by no means final, after the first shock was over. He could make an excuse for having the garden dug over, on pretence of improving it during his father's absence; the more easily, as he had learned that the garden had always been under Zorzi's care, and must now be cultivated by some one else. Giovanni did not believe it possible that the precious box had been taken away altogether. It was therefore near, and he could find it, and there would be plenty of time before his father's return. Nevertheless, he looked about the laboratory and went into the small room where Zorzi had slept. There was water there, and Spanish soap, and he washed his hands carefully, and brushed the dust from his coat and from the knees of his fine black hose. He knew that his patient wife would be waiting for him when he went back to the house. He searched Zorzi's room carefully, but could find nothing. An earthen jar containing broken white glass stood in one corner. The narrow truckle-bed, with its single thin mattress and flattened pillow, all neat and trim, could not have hidden anything. On a line stretched across from wall to wall a few clothes were hanging--a pair of disconsolate brown hose, the waistband on the one side of the line hanging down to meet the feet on the other, two clean shirts, and a Sunday doublet. On the wall a cap with a black eagle's feather hung by a nail. Here and there on the white plaster, Zorzi had roughly sketched with a bit of charcoal some pieces of glass which he had thought of making. That was all. The floor was paved with bricks, and a short examination showed that none of them had been moved. Giovanni turned back into the laboratory, stood a moment looking disconsolately at the big stone which it had cost him so much fruitless labour to move, and then passed round by the other side of the furnace, along the wall against which the bench and the easy chair were placed. His eye fell on Marietta's silk mantle, which lay as when it had slipped down from her shoulders, the skirts of it trailing on the floor. His brows contracted suddenly. He came nearer, felt the stuff, and was sure that he recognised it. Then he looked at it, as it lay. It had the unmistakable appearance of having been left, as it had been, by the person who had last sat in the chair. Two explanations of the presence of the mantle in the laboratory suggested themselves to him at once, but the idea that Marietta could herself have been seated in the chair not long ago was so absurd that he at once adopted the other. Zorzi had stolen the mantle, and used it for himself in the evening, confident that no one would see him. To-night he had been surprised and had left it in the chair, another and perhaps a crowning proof of his atrocious crimes. Was he not a thief, as well as a liar and an assassin? Giovanni knew well enough that the law would distinguish between stealing the art of glass-making, which was merely a civil offence, though a grave one, and stealing a mantle of silk which he estimated to be worth at least two or three pieces of gold. That was theft, and it was criminal, and it was one of many crimes which Zorzi had undoubtedly committed. The hangman would twist the rest out of him with the rack and the iron boot, thought Giovanni gleefully. The Governor should see the mantle with his own eyes. Before he went away, he was careful to fasten the window securely inside, and he locked the door after him, taking the key. He carried the brass lamp with him, for the corridor was very dark and the night was quite still. Pasquale was seated on the edge of his box-bed in his little lodge when Giovanni came to the door. He was more like a big and very ugly watch-dog crouching in his kennel than anything else. "Let no one try to go into the laboratory," said Giovanni, setting down the lamp. "I have locked it myself." Pasquale snarled something incomprehensible, by way of reply, and rose to let Giovanni out. He noticed that the latter had brought nothing but the lamp with him. When the door was open Pasquale looked across at the house, and saw that although there was still light in some of the other windows, Marietta's window was now dark. She was safe in bed, for Giovanni's search had occupied more than an hour. Marietta might have breathed somewhat more freely if she had known that her brother did not even suspect her of having been to the laboratory, but the knowledge would have been more than balanced by a still greater anxiety if she had been told that Zorzi could be accused of a common theft. She sat up in the dark and pressed her throbbing temples with her hands. She thought, if she thought at all, of getting up again and going back to the glass-house. Pasquale would let her in, of course, and she could get the mantle back. But there was Nella, in the next room, and Nella seemed to be always awake, and would hear her stirring and come in to know if she wanted anything. Besides, she was in the dark. The night light burned always in Nella's room, a tiny wick supported by a bit of split cork in an earthen cup of oil, most carefully tended, for if it went out, it could only be lighted by going down to the hall where a large lamp burned all night. Marietta laid her head upon the pillow and tried to sleep, repeating over and over again to herself that Zorzi was safe. But for a long time the thought of the mantle haunted her. Giovanni had found it, of course, and had brought it back with him. In the morning he would send for her and demand an explanation, and she would have none to give. She would have to admit that she had been in the laboratory--it mattered little when--and that she had forgotten her mantle there. It would be useless to deny it. Then all at once she looked the future in the face, and she saw a little light. She would refuse to answer Giovanni's questions, and when her father came back she would tell him everything. She would tell him bravely that nothing could make her marry Contarini, that she loved Zorzi and would marry him, or no one. The mantle would probably be forgotten in the angry discussion that would follow. She hoped so, for even her father would never forgive her for having gone alone at night to find Zorzi. If he ever found it out, he would make her spend the rest of her life in a convent, and it would break his heart that she should have thus cast all shame to the winds and brought disgrace on his old age. It never occurred to her that he could look upon it in any other way. She dreaded to think of the weeks that might pass before he returned. He had spoken of making a long journey and she knew that he had gone southward to Rimini to please the great Sigismondo Malatesta, who had heard of Beroviero's stained glass windows and mosaics in Florence and Naples, and would not be outdone in the possession of beautiful things. But no one knew more than that. She was only sure that he would come back some time before her intended marriage, and there would still be time to break it off. The thought gave her some comfort, and toward morning she fell into an uneasy sleep. Of all who had played a part in that eventful night she slept the least, for she had the most at stake; her fair name, Zorzi's safety, her whole future life were in the balance, and she was sure that Giovanni would send for her in the morning. She awoke weary and unrefreshed when the sun was already high. She scarcely had energy to clap her hands for Nella, and after the window was open she still lay listlessly on her pillow. The little woman looked at her rather anxiously but said nothing at first, setting the big dish with fruit and water on the table as usual, and busying herself with her mistress's clothes. She opened the great carved wardrobe, and she hung up some things and took out others, in a methodical way. "Where is your silk mantle?" she asked suddenly, as she missed the garment from its accustomed place. "I do not know," answered Marietta quite naturally, for she had expected the question. Her reply was literally true, since she had every reason for believing that Giovanni had brought it back with him in the night, but could have no idea as to where he had put it. Nella began to search anxiously, turning over everything in the wardrobe and the few things that hung over the chairs. "You could not have put it into the chest, could you?" she asked, pausing at the foot of the bed and looking at Marietta. "No. I am sure I did not," answered the girl. "I never do." "Then it has been stolen," said Nella, and her face darkened wrathfully. "How is such a thing possible?" asked Marietta carelessly. "It must be somewhere." This appeared to be certain, but Nella denied it with energy, her eyes fixed on Marietta almost as angrily as if she suspected her of having stolen her own mantle from herself. "I tell you it is not," she replied. "I have looked everywhere. It has been stolen." "Have you looked in your own room?" inquired Marietta indifferently, and turning her head on her pillow, as if she were tired of meeting Nella's eyes, as indeed she was. "My own room indeed!" cried the maid indignantly. "As if I did not know what is in my own room! As if your new silk mantle could hide itself amongst my four rags!" Why Nella and her kind, to this day, use the number four in contempt, rather than three or five, is a mystery of what one might call the psychical side of the Italian language. Marietta did not answer. "It has been stolen," Nella repeated, with gloomy emphasis. "I trust no one in this house, since your brother and his wife have been here, with their servants." "My sister-in-law was obliged to bring one of her women," objected Marietta. "She need not have brought that sour-faced shrew, who walks about the house all day repeating the rosary and poking her long nose into what does not belong to her. But I am not afraid of the Signor Giovanni. I will tell the housekeeper that your mantle has been stolen, and all the women's belongings shall be searched before dinner, and we shall find the mantle in that evil person's box." "You must do nothing of the sort," answered Marietta in a tone of authority. She sat up in bed at last, and threw the thick braid of hair behind her, as every woman does when her hair is down, if she means to assert herself. "Ah," cried Nella mockingly, "I see that you are content to lose your best things without looking for them! Then let us throw everything out of the window at once! We shall make a fine figure!" "I will speak to my brother about it myself," said Marietta. Indeed she thought it extremely likely that Giovanni would oblige her to speak of it within an hour. "You will only make trouble among the servants," she added. "Oh, as you please!" snorted Nella discontentedly. "I only tell you that I know who took it. That is all. Please to remember that I said so, when it is too late. And as for trouble, there is not one of us in the house who would not like to be searched for the sake of sending your sister-in-law's maid to prison, where she belongs!" "Nella," said Marietta, "I do not care a straw about the mantle. I want you to do something very important. I am sure that Zorzi has been arrested unjustly, and I do not believe that the Governor will keep him in prison. Can you not get your friend the gondolier to go to the Governor's palace before mid-day, and ask whether Zorzi is to be let out?" "Of course I can. By and by I will call him. He is busy cleaning the gondola now." Marietta had spoken quite quietly, though she had expected that her voice would shake, and she had been almost sure that she was going to blush. But nothing so dreadful happened, though she had prepared for it by turning her back on Nella. She sat on the edge of the bed, slowly feeling her way into her little yellow leathern slippers. It was a relief to know that even now she could speak of Zorzi without giving any outward sign of emotion, and she felt a little encouraged, as she began the dreaded day. She took a long time in dressing, for she expected at every moment that her sister-in-law's maid would knock at the door with a message from Giovanni, bidding her come to him before he went out. But no one came, though it was already past the hour at which he usually left the house. All at once she heard his unmistakable voice through the open window, and on looking out through the flowers she saw him standing at the open door of the glass-house, talking with the porter, or rather, giving instructions about the garden which Pasquale received in surly silence. Marietta listened in surprise. It seemed impossible that Giovanni should not take her to task at once if he had found the mantle. He was not the kind of man to put off accusing any one when he had proof of guilt and was sure that the law was on his side, and Marietta felt sure that the evidence against her was overwhelming, for she had yet to learn what amazing things can be done with impunity by people who have the reputation of perfect innocence. Giovanni was telling Pasquale, in a tone which every one might hear, that he had sent for a gardener, who would soon come with a lad to help him, that the two must be admitted at once, and that he himself would be within to receive them; but that no one else was to be allowed to go in, as he should be extremely busy all the morning. Having said these things three or four times over, in order to impress them on Pasquale's mind, he went in. The porter looked up at Marietta's window a moment, and then followed him and shut the door. It was clear that Giovanni had no intention of speaking to his sister before the mid-day meal. She breathed more freely, since she was to have a respite of several hours. When she was dressed, Nella called the gondolier from her own window, and met him in the passage when he came up. He at once promised to make inquiries about Zorzi and went off to the palace to find his friend and crony, the Governor's head boatman. The latter, it is needless to say, knew every detail of the supernatural rescue from the archers, who could talk of nothing else in spite of the Governor's prohibition. They sat in a row on the stone bench within the main entrance, a rueful crew, their heads bound up with a pleasing variety of bandages. In an hour the gondolier returned, laden with the wonderful story which Nella was the first, but not the last, to hear from him. Her brown eyes seemed to be starting from her head when she came back to tell it to her mistress. Marietta listened with a beating heart, though Nella began at once by saying that Zorzi had mysteriously disappeared, and was certainly not in prison. When all was told, she drew a long breath, and wished that she could be alone to think over what she had heard; but Nella's imagination was roused, and she was prepared to discuss the affair all the morning. The details of it had become more and more numerous and circumstantial, as the men with the bandaged heads recalled what they had seen and heard. The devils that had delivered Zorzi all had blue noses, brass teeth and fiery tails. A peculiarity of theirs was that they had six fingers with six iron claws on each hand, and that all their hoofs were red-hot. As to their numbers, they might be roughly estimated at a thousand or so, and their roaring was like the howling of the south wind and the breaking of the sea on the Lido in a winter storm. It was horrible to hear, and would alone have put all the armies of the Republic to ignominious flight. Nella thought these things very interesting. She wished that she might talk with one of the men who had seen a real devil. "I do not believe a word of all that nonsense," said Marietta. "The most important thing is that Zorzi got away from them and is not in prison." "If he escaped by selling his soul to the fiends," said Nella, shaking her head, "it is a very evil thing." Her mistress's disbelief in the blue noses and fiery tails was disconcerting, and had a chilling effect on Nella's talkative mood. The gondolier had crossed the bridge, to tell his story to Pasquale, whose view of the case seemed to differ from Nella's. He listened with approving interest, but without comment, until the gondolier had finished. "I could tell you many such stories," he said. "Things of this kind often happen at sea." "Really!" exclaimed the gondolier, who was only a boatman and regarded real sailors with a sort of professional reverence. "Yes," answered Pasquale. "Especially on Sundays. You must know that when the priests are all saying mass, and the people are all praying, the devils cannot bear it, and are driven out to sea for the day. Very strange things happen then, I assure you. Some day I will tell you how the boatswain of a ship I once sailed in rove the end of the devil's tail through a link of the chain, made a Flemish knot at the end to stop it, and let go the anchor. So the devil went to the bottom by the run. We unshackled the chain and wore the ship to the wind, and after that we had fair weather to the end of the voyage. It happened on a Sunday." "Marvellous!" cried the gondolier. "I should like to hear the whole story! But if you will allow me, I will go in and tell the Signor Giovanni what has happened, for he does not know yet." Pasquale grinned as he stood in the doorway. "He has given strict orders that no one is to be admitted this morning, as he is very busy." "But this is a very important matter," argued the gondolier, who wished to have the pleasure of telling the tale. "I cannot help it," answered Pasquale. "Those are his orders, and I must obey them. You know what his temper is, when he is not pleased." Just then a skiff came up the canal at a great rate, so that the quick strokes of the oar attracted the men's attention. They saw that the boat was one of those that could be hired everywhere in Venice. The oarsman backed water with a strong stroke and brought to at the steps before the glass-house. "Are you not Messer Angelo Beroviero's gondolier?" he inquired civilly. "Yes," answered the man addressed, "I am the head gondolier, at your service." "Thank you," replied the boatman. "I am to tell you that Messer Angelo has just arrived in Venice by sea, from Rimini, on board the _Santa Lucia_, a Neapolitan galliot now at anchor in the Giudecca. He desires you to bring his gondola at once to fetch him, and I am to bring over his baggage in my skiff." The gondolier uttered an exclamation of surprise, and then turned to Pasquale. "I go," he said. "Will you tell the Signor Giovanni that his father is coming home?" Pasquale grinned again. He was rarely in such a pleasant humour. "Certainly not," he answered. "The Signor Giovanni is very busy, and has given strict orders that he is not to be disturbed on any account." "That is your affair," said the gondolier, hurrying away. CHAPTER XIX A little more than an hour later, the gondola came back and stopped alongside the steps of the house. The gondolier had made such haste to obey the summons that he had not thought of going into the house to give the servants warning, and as most of the shutters were already drawn together against the heat, no one had been looking out when he went away. He had asked Pasquale to tell the young master, and that was all that could be expected of him. There was therefore great surprise in the household when Angelo Beroviero went up the steps of his house, and his own astonishment that no one should be there to receive him was almost as great. The gondolier explained, and told him what Pasquale had said. It was enough to rouse the old man's suspicions at once. He had left Zorzi in charge of the laboratory, enjoining upon him not to encourage Giovanni to go there; but now Giovanni was shut up there, presumably with Zorzi, and had given orders that he was not to be disturbed. The gondolier had not dared to say anything about the Dalmatian's arrest, and Beroviero was quite ignorant of all that had happened. He was not a man who hesitated when his suspicions or his temper were at work, and now he turned, without even entering his home, and crossed the bridge to the glass-house. Pasquale was looking through the grating and saw him coming, and was ready to receive him at the open door. For the third time on that morning, he grinned from ear to ear. Beroviero was pleased by the silent welcome of his old and trusted servant. "You seem glad to see me again," he said, laying his hand kindly on the old porter's arm as he passed in. "Others will be glad, too," was the answer. As he went down the corridor Beroviero heard the sound of spades striking into the earth and shovelling it away. The gardener and his lad had been at work nearly two hours, and had turned up most of the earth in the little flower-beds to a depth of two or three feet during that time, while Giovanni sat motionless under the plane-tree, watching every movement of their spades. He rose nervously when he heard footsteps in the corridor, for he did not wish any one to find him seated there, apparently watching a most commonplace operation with profound interest. He had made a step towards the door of the laboratory, when he saw his father emerge from the dark passage. He was a coward, and he trembled from head to foot, his teeth chattered in his head, and the cold sweat moistened his forehead in an instant. The old man stood still four or five paces from him and looked from him to the men who had been digging. On seeing the master they stopped working and pulled off their knitted caps. As a further sign of respect they wiped their dripping faces with their shirt sleeves. "What are you doing here?" asked Beroviero in a tone of displeasure. "The garden was very well as it was." "I--I thought," stammered Giovanni, "that it would--that it might be better to dig it--" "It would not be better," answered the old man. "You may go," he added, speaking to the men, who were glad enough to be dismissed. Beroviero passed his son without further words and tried the door of the laboratory, but found it locked. "What is this?" he asked angrily. "Where is Zorzi? I told him not to leave you here alone." "You had great confidence in him," answered Giovanni, recovering himself a little. "He is in prison." He took the key from his wallet and thrust it into the lock as he spoke. "In prison!" cried Beroviero in a loud voice. "What do you mean?" Giovanni held the door open for him. "I will tell you all about Zorzi, if you will come in," he said. Beroviero entered, stood still a moment and looked about. Everything was as Zorzi had left it, but the glass-maker's ear missed the low roar of the furnace. Instinctively he made a step towards the latter, extending his hand to see whether it was already cold, but at that moment he caught sight of the silk mantle in the chair. He glanced quickly at his son. "Has Marietta been here with you this morning?" he asked sharply. "Oh no!" answered Giovanni contemptuously. "Zorzi stole that thing and had not time to hide it when they arrested him last night. I left it just where it was, that the Governor might see it." Beroviero's face changed slowly. His fiery brown eyes began to show a dangerous light and he stroked his long beard quickly, twisting it a little each time. "If you say that Zorzi stole Marietta's silk mantle," he said slowly, "you are either a fool or a liar." "You are my father," answered Giovanni in some perturbation. "I cannot answer you." Beroviero was silent for a long time. He took the mantle from the chair, examined it and assured himself that it was Marietta's own and no other. Then he carefully folded it up and laid it on the bench. His brows were contracted as if he were in great pain, and his face was pale, but his eyes were still angry. Giovanni knew the signs of his father's wrath and dared not speak to him yet.. "Is this the evidence on which you have had my man arrested?" asked Beroviero, sitting down in the big chair and fixing his gaze on his son. "By no means," answered Giovanni, with all the coolness he could command. "If it pleases you to hear my story from the beginning I will tell you all. If you do not hear all, you cannot possibly understand." "I am listening," said old Beroviero, leaning back and laying his hands on the broad wooden arms of the chair. "I shall tell you everything, exactly as it happened," said Giovanni, "and I swear that it is all true." Beroviero reflected that in his experience this was usually the way in which liars introduced their accounts of events. For truth is like a work of genius: it carries conviction with it at once, and therefore needs no recommendation, nor other artificial support. "After you left," Giovanni continued, "I came here one morning, out of pure friendliness to Zorzi, and as we talked I chanced to look at those things on the shelf. When I admired them, he admitted rather reluctantly that he had made them, and other things which you have in your house." Beroviero gravely nodded his assent to the statement. "I asked him to make me something," Giovanni went on to say, "but he told me that he had no white glass in the furnace, and that what was there was the result of your experiments." Again Beroviero bent his head. "So I asked him to bring his blow-pipe to the main furnace room, where they were still working at that time, and we went there together. He at once made a very beautiful piece, and was just finishing it when a bad accident happened to him. Another man let his blow-pipe fly from his hand and it fell upon Zorzi's foot with a large lump of hot glass." Beroviero looked keenly at Giovanni. "You know as well as I that it could not have been an accident," he said. "It was done out of spite." "That may be," replied Giovanni, "for the men do not like him, as you know. But Zorzi accepted it as being an accident, and said so. He was badly hurt, and is still lame. Nella dressed the wound, and then Marietta came with her." "Are you sure Marietta came here?" asked Beroviero, growing paler. "Quite sure. They were on their way here together early in the morning when I stopped them, and asked Marietta where she was going, and she boldly said she was going to see Zorzi. I could not prevent her, and I saw them both go in." "Do you mean to say that although Zorzi was so badly hurt you did not have him brought to the house?" "Of course I proposed that at once," Giovanni answered. "But he said that he would not leave the furnace." "That was like him," said old Beroviero. "He knew what he was doing. It was on that same day that a night boy told me how he had seen you and Zorzi burying something in the laboratory the night before you left." Beroviero started and leaned forward. Giovanni smiled thoughtfully, for he saw how his father was moved, and he knew that the strongest part of his story was yet untold. "It would have been better to leave Paolo Godi's manuscript with me," he said, in a tone of sympathy. "I grew anxious for its safety as soon as I knew that Zorzi had charge of it. Yesterday morning I came in again. Zorzi was sitting on the working-stool, finishing a beautiful beaker of white glass." "White glass?" repeated Beroviero in evident surprise. "White glass? Here?" "Yes," answered Giovanni, enjoying his triumph. "I pointed out that when I had last come, there had been no white glass in the furnace. He answered that as one of the experiments had produced a beautiful red colour which he thought must be valuable, he had removed the crucible. He also showed me a specimen of it." "Is it here?" asked Beroviero anxiously. "Where is it?" Giovanni took the specimen from the table, for Zorzi had left it lying there, and he handed it to his father. The latter took it, held it up to the light, and uttered an exclamation of astonishment and anger. "There is only one way of making that," he said, without hesitation. "Yes," Giovanni answered coolly. "I supposed it was made according to one of your secrets." A quick look was the only reply to this speech. Giovanni continued. "I asked him to sell me the piece of glass he had been making when he came in, and at first he pretended that he was not sure whether you would allow it, but at last he took a piece of gold for it, and I was to have it as soon as it was annealed. When you see it, you will understand why I was so anxious to get it." "Where is it?" asked the old man. "Show it to me." Giovanni went to the other end of the annealing oven, and came back a moment later carrying the iron tray on which stood the pieces Zorzi had made on the previous morning. Beroviero looked at them critically, tried their weight, and noticed their transparency. "That is not my glass," he said in a tone of decision. "No," said Giovanni, "I saw that it was not your ordinary glass. It seems much better. Now Zorzi must have made it in a new crucible, and if he did, he made it with some secret of yours, for it is impossible that he should have discovered it himself. I said to myself that if he had made it, and the red glass there, he must have opened the book which you had buried together in this room, and that there was only one way of hindering him from learning everything in it, and ruining you and us by setting up a furnace of his own." Beroviero was looking hard at Giovanni, but he was now thoroughly alarmed for the safety of his treasured manuscript, and listened with attention and without any hostility. The proofs seemed at first sight very strong, and after all Zorzi was only a Dalmatian and a foreigner, who might have yielded to temptation. "What did you do?" asked Beroviero. Giovanni told him the truth, how he had written a letter to the Governor, and had seen him in person, as well as Jacopo Contarini. "Of course," Giovanni concluded, "you know best. If you find the book as you and he hid it together, he must have learned your secrets in some other way." "We can easily see," answered old Beroviero, rising quickly. "Come here. Get the crowbar from the corner, and help me to lift the stone." Giovanni took pains to look for the crowbar exactly where it was not, for he thought that this would divert any lingering suspicion from himself, but Beroviero was only annoyed. "There, there!" he cried, pointing. "It is in that corner. Quickly!" "It would be like the clever scoundrel to have copied what he wanted and then to have put the book back into the hiding-place," said Giovanni, pausing. "Do not waste words, my son!" cried Beroviero in the greatest anxiety. "Here! This is the stone. Get the crowbar in at this side. So. Now we will both heave. There! Wedge the stone up with that bit of wood. That will do. Now let us both get our hands under it, and lift it up." It was done, while he was speaking. A moment later Giovanni had scooped out the loose earth, and Beroviero was staring down into the empty hole, just as Giovanni had done on the previous night. Giovanni was almost consoled for his own disappointment when he saw his father's face. "It is certainly gone," he said. "You did not bury it deeper, did you? The soil is hard below." "No, no! It is gone!" answered the old man in a dull voice. "Zorzi has got it." "You see," said Giovanni mercilessly, "when I saw the red and white glass which he had made himself I was so sure of the truth that I acted quickly. I saw him arrested, and I do not think he could have had anything like a book with him, for he was in his doublet and hose. And as he is safe in prison now, he can be made to tell where he has put the thing. How big was it?" "It was in an iron box. It was heavy." Beroviero spoke in low tones, overcome by his loss, and by the apparent certainty that Zorzi had betrayed him. "You see why I should naturally suspect him of having stolen the mantle," observed Giovanni. "A man who would betray your confidence in such a way would do anything." "Yes, yes," answered the old master vaguely. "Yes--I must go and see him in prison. I was kind to him, and perhaps he may confess everything to me." "We might ask Marietta when she first missed her mantle," suggested Giovanni. "She must have noticed that it was gone." "She will not remember," answered Beroviero. "Let us go to the Governor's house at once. There is just time before mid-day. We can speak to Marietta at dinner." "But you must be tired, after your journey," objected Giovanni, with unusual concern for his father's comfort. "No. I slept well on the ship. I have done nothing to tire me. The gondola may be still there. Tell Pasquale to call it over, and we will go directly. Go on! I will follow you." Giovanni went forward, and Beroviero stayed a moment to look again at the beautiful objects of white glass, examining them carefully, one by one. The workmanship was marvellous, and he could not help admiring it, but it was the glass itself that disturbed him. It was like his own, but it was better, and the knowledge of its composition and treatment was a fortune. Then, too, the secret of dropping a piece of copper into a certain mixture in order to produce a particularly beautiful red colour was in the book, and the colour could not be mistaken and was not the one which Beroviero had been trying to produce. He shook his head sadly as he went out and locked the door behind him, convinced against his will that he had been betrayed by the man whom he had most trusted in the world. Pasquale watched the two, father and son, as they got into the gondola. Old Beroviero had not even looked at him as he came out, and it was not the porter's business to volunteer information, nor the gondolier's either. But when the latter was ordered to row to the Governor's house as fast as possible, he turned his head and looked at Pasquale, who slowly nodded his ugly head before going in again. On reaching their destination they were received at once, and the Governor told them what had happened, in as few words as possible. Nothing could exceed old Beroviero's consternation, and his son's disappointment. Zorzi had been rescued at the corner of San Piero's church by men who had knocked senseless the officer and the six archers. No one knew who these men were, nor their numbers, but they were clearly friends of Zorzi's who had known that he was to be arrested. "Accomplices," suggested Giovanni. "He has stolen a valuable book of my father's, containing secrets for making the finest glass. By this time he is on his way to Milan, or Florence." "I daresay," said the Governor. "These foreigners are capable of anything." "I had trusted him so confidently," said Beroviero, too much overcome to be angry. "Exactly," answered the Governor. "You trusted him too much." "I always thought so," put in Giovanni wisely. "There is nothing to be said," resumed Beroviero. "I do not wish to believe it of him, but I cannot deny the evidence of my own senses." "I have already sent a report to the Council of Ten," said the Governor. "The most careful search will be made in Venice for Zorzi and his companions, and if they are found, they will suffer for what they have done." "I hope so!" replied Giovanni heartily. "I remember that you recommended me to send a strong force," observed the Governor. "Perhaps you knew that a rescue was intended. Or you were aware that the fellow had daring accomplices." "I only suspected it," Giovanni answered. "I knew nothing. He was always alone." "He has hardly been out of my sight for five years," said old Beroviero sadly. He and his son took their leave, the Governor promising to keep them informed as to the progress of the search. At present nothing more could be done, for Zorzi has disappeared altogether, and old Beroviero was much inclined to share his son's opinion that the fugitive was already on his way to Milan, or Florence, where the possession of the secrets would insure him a large fortune, very greatly to the injury of Beroviero and all the glass-workers of Murano. The two men returned to the house in silence, for the elder was too much absorbed by his own thoughts to speak, and Giovanni was too wise to interrupt reflections which undoubtedly tended to Zorzi's destruction. Marietta was awaiting her father's return with much anxiety, for every one knew that the master had gone first to the laboratory and then to the Governor's palace, with Giovanni, so that the two must have been talking together a long time. Marietta waited with her sister-in-law in the lower hall, slowly walking up and down. When her father came up the low steps at last, she went forward to meet him, and a glance told her that he was in the most extreme anxiety. She took his hand and kissed it, in the customary manner, and he bent a little and touched her forehead with his lips. Then, to her surprise, he put one hand under her chin, and laid the other on the top of her head, and with gentle force made her look at him. Giovanni's wife was there, and most of the servants were standing near the foot of the staircase to welcome their master. Beroviero said nothing as he gazed into his daughter's eyes. They met his own fearlessly enough, and she opened them wide, as she rarely did, as if to show that she had nothing to conceal; but while he looked at her the blood rose blushing in her cheeks, telling that there was something to hide after all, and as she would not turn her eyes from his, they sparkled a little with vexation. Beroviero did not speak, but he let her go and went on towards the stairs, bending his head graciously to the other persons who were assembled to greet him. He was a man of strong character and of much natural dignity, far too proud to break down under a great loss or a bitter disappointment, and at dinner he sat at the head of the table and spoke affably of the journey he had made, explaining his unexpectedly early return by the fact that the Lord of Rimini had at once approved his designs and accepted his terms. Occasionally Giovanni asked a respectful question, but neither his wife nor Marietta said much during the meal. Zorzi was not mentioned. "You are welcome at my house, my son," Beroviero said, when they had finished, "but I suppose that you will go back to your own this evening." This was of course a command, and Marietta thought it a good omen. She had felt sure, when her father made her look at him, that Giovanni had spoken to him of the mantle, but in what way she could not tell. Perhaps, though it seemed incredible, he would not make such a serious case of it as she had expected. He said nothing, when he withdrew to rest during the hot hours of the afternoon, and she went to her own room as every one did at that time. Little as she had slept that night, she felt that it would be intolerable to lie down; so she took her little basket of beads and tried to work. Nella was dozing in the next room. From time to time the young girl leaned back in her chair with half-closed eyes, and a look of pain came over her face; then with an effort she took her needle once more, and picked out the beads, threading them one by one in a regular succession of colours. She was sure that if Zorzi were near he would have already found some means of informing her that he was really in safety. He must have friends of whom she knew nothing, and who had rescued him at great risk. He would surely trust one of them to take a message, or to make a signal which she could understand. She sat near the window, and the shutters were half closed so as to leave a space through which she could look out. From time to time she glanced at the white line of the footway opposite, over which the shadow of the glass-house was beginning to creep as the sun moved westward. But no one appeared. When it was cool Pasquale would probably come out and look three times up and down the canal as he always did. Giovanni would not go to the laboratory again. Perhaps her father would go, when, he was rested. Then, if she chose, she could take Nella and join him, and since there was to be an explanation with him, she would rather have it in the laboratory, where they would be quite alone. She had fully made up her mind to tell him at the very first interview that she would not marry Jacopo Contarini under any circumstances, but she had not decided whether she would add that she loved Zorzi. She hated anything like cowardice, and it would be cowardly to put off telling the truth any longer; but what concerned Zorzi was her secret, and she had a right to choose the most favourable moment for making a revelation on which her whole life, and Zorzi's also, must immediately depend. She felt weak and tired, for she had eaten little and hardly slept at all, but her determination was strong and she would act upon it. Occasionally she rose and moved wearily about the room, looked out between the shutters and then sat down again. She was in one of those moments of life in which all existence seems drawn out to an endless quivering thread, a single throbbing nerve stretched to its utmost point of strain. The silence was broken by a man's footstep in the passage, coming towards her door. A moment later she heard her father's voice, asking if he might come in. Almost at the same time she opened and Beroviero stood on the threshold. Nella had heard him speaking, too, and she started up, wide awake in an instant, and came in, to see if she were needed. "Will you go with me to the laboratory, my dear?" asked the old man quietly. She answered gravely that she would. There was no gladness in her tone, but no reluctance. She was facing the most difficult situation she had ever known, and perhaps the most dangerous. "Very well," said her father. "Let Nella give you your silk mantle and we will go at once." Before Marietta could have answered, even if she had known what to say, Nella had begun her tale of woe. The mantle was stolen, the sour-faced shrew of a maid who belonged to the Signor Giovanni's wife had stolen it, the house ought to be searched at once, and so much more to the same effect that Nella was obliged to pause for breath. "When did you miss it?" asked Beroviero, looking hard at the serving-woman. "This morning, sir. It was here last night, I am quite sure." The truthful little brown eyes did not waver. "And it cannot have been any one else," continued Nella. "This is a very evil person, sir, and she sometimes comes here with a message, or making believe that she is helping me. As if I needed help, indeed!" "Do not accuse people of stealing when you have no evidence against them," answered Beroviero somewhat sternly. "Give your mistress something else to throw over her." "Give me the green silk cloak," said Marietta, who was anxious not to be questioned about the mantle. "It has a spot in one corner," Nella answered discontentedly, as she went to the wardrobe. The spot turned out to be no bigger than the head of a pin. A moment later Marietta and her father were going downstairs. At the door of the glass-house Pasquale eyed them with approbation, and Marietta smiled and said a word to him as she passed. It seemed strange that she should have trusted the ugly old man with a secret which she dared not tell her own father. Beroviero did not speak as she followed him down the path and stood waiting while he unlocked the door. Then they both entered, and he laid his cap upon the table. "There is your mantle, my dear," he said quietly, and he pointed to it, neatly folded and lying on the bench. Marietta started, for she was taken unawares. While in her own room, her father had spoken so naturally as to make it seem quite possible that Giovanni had said nothing about it to him, yet he had known exactly where it was. He was facing her now, as he spoke. "It was found here last night, after Zorzi had been arrested," said Beroviero. "Do you understand?" "Yes," Marietta answered, gathering all her courage. "We will talk about it by and by. First, I have something to say to you which is much more important than anything concerning the mantle. Will you sit down, father, and hear me as patiently as you can?" "I am learning patience to-day," said Beroviero, sitting down in his chair. "I am learning also the meaning of such words as ingratitude, betrayal and treachery, which were never before spoken in my house." He sighed and leaned back, looking at the wall. Marietta dropped her cloak beside the mantle on the bench and began to walk up and down before him, trying to begin her speech. But she could not find any words. "Speak, child," said her father. "What has happened? It seems to me that I could bear almost anything now." She stood still a moment before him, still hesitating. She now saw that he had suffered more than she had suspected, doubtless owing to Zorzi's arrest and disappearance, and she knew that what she meant to tell him would hurt him much more. "Father," she began at last, with a great effort, "I know that what I am going to say will displease you very, very much. I am sorry--I wish it were not--" Suddenly her set speech broke down. She fell on her knees and took his hands, looking up beseechingly to his face. "Forgive me!" she cried. "Oh, for God's sake forgive me! I cannot marry Jacopo Contarini!" Beroviero had not expected that. He sat upright in the chair, in his amazement, and instinctively tried to draw his hands out of hers, but she held them fast, gazing earnestly up to him. His look was not angry, nor cold, nor did he even seem hurt. He was simply astonished beyond all measure by the enormous audacity of what she said. As yet he did not connect it with anything else. "I think you must be mad!" That was all he could find to say. CHAPTER XX Marietta shook her head. She still knelt at her father's feet, holding his hands. "I am not mad," she said. "I am in earnest. I cannot marry him. It is impossible." "You must marry him," answered Beroviero. "You are betrothed to him, and it would be an insult to his family to break off the marriage now. Besides, you have no reason to give, not the shadow of a reason." Marietta dropped his hands and rose to her feet lightly. She had expected a terrific outburst of anger, which would gradually subside, after which she hoped to find words with which to influence him. But like many hot-tempered men, he was sometimes unexpectedly calm at critical moments, as if he were really able to control his nature when he chose. She now almost wished that he would break out in a rage, as women sometimes hope we may, for they know it is far easier to deal with an angry man than with a determined one. "I will not marry him," she said at last, with strong emphasis, and almost defiantly. "My child," Beroviero answered gravely, "you do not know what you are saying." "I do!" cried Marietta with some indignation. "I have thought of it a long time. I was very wrong not to make up my mind from the beginning, and I ask your forgiveness. In my heart I always knew that I could not do it in the end, and I should have said so at once. It was a great mistake." "There is no question of your consent," replied Beroviero with conviction. "If girls were consulted as to the men they were to marry, the world would soon come to an end. This is only a passing madness, of which you should be heartily ashamed. Say no more about it. On the appointed day, the wedding will take place." "It will not," said Marietta firmly; "and you will do better to let it be known at once. It is of no use to take heaven to witness, and to make a solemn oath. I merely say that I will not marry Jacopo Contarini. You may carry me to the church, you may drag me before the altar, but I will resist. I will scream out that I will not, and the priest himself will protect me. That will be a much greater scandal than if you go to the Contarini family and tell them that your daughter is mad--if you really think I am." "You are undoubtedly beside yourself at the present moment," Beroviero answered. "But it will pass, I hope." "Not while I am alive, and I shall certainly resist to the end. It would be much wiser of you to send me to a convent at once, than to count on forcing me to go through the marriage ceremony." Beroviero stared at her, and stroked his beard. He began to believe that she might possibly be in earnest. Since she talked so quietly of going to a convent, a fate which most girls considered the most terrible that could be imagined. He bent his brows in thought, but watched her steadily. "You have not yet given me a single reason for all this wild talk," he said after a pause. "It is absurd to think that without some good cause you are suddenly filled with repulsion for marriage, or for Jacopo Contarini. I have heard of young women who were betrothed, but who felt a religious vocation, and refused to marry for that reason. It never seemed a very satisfactory one to me, for if there is any condition in which a woman needs religion, it is the marriage state." He paused in his speech, pleased with his own idea, in spite of all his troubles. Marietta had moved a few steps away from him and stood beside the table, looking down at the things on it, without seeing them. "But you do not even make religion a pretext," pursued her father. "Have you no reason to give? I do not expect a good one, for none can have any weight. But I should like to hear the best you have." "It is a very convincing one to me," Marietta replied, still looking down at the table. "But I think I had better not tell it to you to-day," she added. "It would make you angry." "No," said Beroviero. "One cannot be angry with people who are really out of their senses." "I am not so mad as you think," answered the girl. "I have told you of my decision, because it was cowardly of me not to tell you what I felt before you went away. But it might be a mistake to tell you more to-day. You have had enough to harass you already, since you came back." "You are suddenly very considerate." "No, I have not been considerate. I could not be, without acting a lie to you, by letting you believe that I meant to marry Messer Jacopo, and I will not do that any longer, since I know that it is a lie. But I cannot see the use of saying anything more." "You had better tell me the whole truth, rather than let me think something that may be much worse," answered Beroviero, changing his attitude. "There is nothing in the truth of which I am ashamed," said Marietta, holding up her head proudly. "I have done nothing which I did not believe to be right, however strange it may seem to you." Once more their eyes met and they gazed steadily at each other; and again the blush spread over her cheeks. Beroviero put out his hand and touched the folded mantle. "Marietta," he said, "Zorzi has stolen my precious book of secrets, and has disappeared with it. They tell me that he also stole this mantle, for it was found here just after he was arrested last night. Is it true, or has he stolen my daughter instead?" Marietta's face had darkened when he began to accuse the absent man. At the question that followed she started a little, and drew herself up. "Zorzi is neither a thief nor a traitor," she answered. "If you mean to ask me whether I love him--is that what you mean?" She paused, with flashing eyes. "Yes," answered her father, and his voice shook. "Then yes! I love him with all my heart, and I have loved him long. That is why I will not marry Jacopo Contarini. You know my secret now." Beroviero groaned aloud, and his head sank as he grasped the arms of the chair. His daughter loved the man who had cheated him, betrayed him and robbed him. It was almost too much to bear. He had nothing to say, for no words could tell what he felt then, and he silently bowed his head. "As for the accusations you bring against him," Marietta said after a moment, "they are false, from first to last, and I can prove to you that every one of them is an abominable lie." "You cannot make that untrue which I have seen with my eyes." "I can, though Zorzi has the right to prove his innocence himself. I may say too much, for I am not as generous as he is. Do you know that when they tried to kill him in the furnace room, and lamed him for life, he told every one, even me, that it was an accident? He is so brave and noble that when he comes here again, he will not tell you that it was your own son who tried to rob you, who did everything in his power to get Zorzi away from this room, in order to search for your manuscript, and who at last, as everything else failed, persuaded the Governor to arrest him. He will not tell you that, and he does not know that before they had taken him twenty paces from the door, Giovanni was already here, locked in and trying the stones with a hammer to find out which one covered the precious book. Did Giovanni tell you that this morning? No. Zorzi would not tell you all the truth, and I know some of it even better than he. But Zorzi was always generous and brave." Beroviero had lifted his head now and was looking hard at her. "And your mantle? How came it here?" he asked. There was nothing to be done now, but to speak the truth. "It is here," said Marietta, growing paler, "because I came here, unknown to any one except Pasquale who let me in, because I came alone last night to warn the man I love that Giovanni had planned his destruction, and to save him if I could. In my haste I left the mantle in that chair of yours, in which I had been sitting. It slipped from my shoulders as I sat, and there Giovanni must have found it. If you had seen it there you would know that what I say is true." "I did see it," said Beroviero. "Giovanni left it where it was, and I folded it myself this morning. Zorzi did not steal the mantle. I take back that accusation." "Nor has he stolen your secrets. Take that back, too, if you are just. You always were, till now." "I have searched the place where he and I put the book, and it is not there." "Giovanni searched it twelve hours earlier, and it was already gone. Zorzi saved it from your son, and then, in his rage, I suppose that Giovanni accused him of stealing it. He may even have believed it, for I can be just, too. But it is not true. The book is safe." "Zorzi took it with him," said Beroviero. "You are mistaken. Before he was arrested, he said that I ought to know where it was, in case anything happened to him, in order to tell you." Beroviero rose slowly, staring at her, and speaking with an effort. "You know where it is? He told you? He has not taken it away?" Marietta smiled, in perfect certainty of victory. "I know where it is," she said. "Where is it?" he asked in extreme anxiety, for he could hardly believe what he heard. "I will not tell you yet," was the unexpected answer Marietta gave him. "And you cannot possibly find it unless I do." The veins stood out on the old man's temples in an instant, and the old angry fire came back to his eyes. "Do you dare to tell me that you will not show me the place where the book is, on the very instant?" he cried. "Oh yes," answered Marietta. "I dare that, and much more. I am not a coward like my brother, you know. I will not tell you the secret till you promise me something." "You are trying to sell me what is my own!" he answered angrily. "You are in league with Zorzi against me, to break off your marriage. But I will not do it--you shall tell me where the book is--if you refuse, you shall repent it as long as you live--I will--" He stopped short in his speech as he met her disdainful look. "You never threatened me before," she said. "Why do you think that you can frighten me?" "Give me what is mine," said the old man angrily. "That is all I demand. I am not threatening." "Set me free from Messer Jacopo, and you shall have it," answered Marietta. "No. You shall marry him." "I will not. But I will keep your book until you change your mind, or else--but no! If I gave it to Zorzi, he is so honourable that he would bring it back to you without so much as looking into it. I will keep it for myself. Or I will burn it!" She felt that if she had been a man, she could not have taken such an unfair advantage of him; but she was a defenceless girl, fighting for the liberty of her whole life. That might excuse much, she thought. By this time Beroviero was very angry; he stalked up and down beside the furnace, trailing his thin silk gown behind him, stroking his beard with a quick, impatient movement, and easting fierce glances at Marietta from time to time. He was not used to being at the mercy of circumstances, still less to having his mind made up for him by his son and his daughter. Giovanni had made him believe that Zorzi had turned traitor and thief, after five years of faithful service, and the conviction had cut him to the quick; and now Marietta had demonstrated Zorzi's innocence almost beyond doubt, but had made matters worse in other ways, and was taking the high hand with him. He did not realise that from the moment when she had boldly confessed what she had done and had declared her love for Zorzi, his confidence in her had returned by quick degrees, and that the atrocious crime of having come secretly at night to the laboratory had become in his eyes, and perhaps against his will, a mere pardonable piece of rashness; since if Zorzi was innocent, anything which could save him from unjust imprisonment might well be forgiven. He had borne what seemed to him very great misfortunes with fortitude and dignity; but his greatest treasures were safe, his daughter and Paolo Godi's manuscript, and he became furiously angry with Marietta, because she had him in her power. If a man is seated, a woman who intends to get the better of him generally stands; but if he loses his temper and begins to walk about, she immediately seats herself and assumes an exasperating calmness of manner. Accordingly Marietta sat down on a small chair near the table and watched her father in silence, persuaded that he would be obliged to yield in the end. "No one has ever dared to browbeat me in this way, in my whole life!" cried the old man fiercely, and his voice shook with rage. "Will you listen to me?" asked Marietta with sudden meekness. "Listen to you?" he repeated instantly. "Have I not been listening to you for hours?" "I do not know how long it may have been," answered the girl, "but I have much more to say. You are so angry that you will not hear me." "Angry? I? Are you telling me that I am so beside myself with rage, that I cannot understand reason?" "I did not say that." "You meant it, then! What did you say? You have forgotten what you said already! Just like a girl! And you pretend to argue with me, with your own father! It is beyond belief! Silence, I say! Do not answer me!" Marietta sat quite still, and began to look at her nails, which were very pink and well shaped. After a short silence Beroviero stopped before her. "Well!" he cried. "Why do you not speak?" His eyes blazed and he tapped the pavement with his foot. She raised her eyebrows, smiled a little wearily and sighed. "I misunderstood you," she said, with exasperating patience. "I thought you told me to be silent." "You always misunderstand me," he answered angrily and walking off again. "You always did, and you always will! I believe you do it on purpose. But I will make you understand! You shall know what I mean!" "I should be so glad," said Marietta. "Pray tell me what you mean." This was too much. He turned sharply in his walk. "I mean you to marry Contarini," he cried out, with a stamp of the foot. "And you mean never to see Paolo Godi's manuscript again," suggested Marietta quietly. "Perdition take the accursed thing!" roared the old man. "If I only knew where you have put it--" "It is where you can never, never find it," Marietta answered. "So it is of no use to be angry with me, is it? The more angry you are, the less likely it is that I shall tell you. But I will tell you something else, father--something you never understood before. My marriage was to have been a bargain, a great name for a fortune, half your fortune for a great name and an alliance with the Contarini. Perhaps one was worth the other. I know very little of such things. But it chances that I can have a word to say about the bargain, too. Would any one say that I was doing very wrong if I gave that book to my brother, for instance? Giovanni would not give it back to you, as Zorzi would, I am quite sure." "What abominable scheme is this?" Beroviero fairly trembled in his fury. "I offer you a simple bargain," Marietta answered, unmoved. "I will give you your manuscript for my freedom. Will you take it, father? Or will you insist upon trying to marry me by force, and let me give the book to Giovanni? Yes, that is what I will do. Then I will marry Zorzi, and go away." "Silence, child! You! Marry a stranger, a Dalmatian--a servant!" "But I love him. You may call him a servant, if you choose. It would make no difference to me if it were true. He would not be less brave, less loyal or less worthy if he were forced to clean your shoes in order to live, instead of sharing your art with you. Did he ever lie to you?" "No!" cried the old man. "I would have broken his bones!" "Did he ever betray a secret, since you know that the book is safe?" "No." "Have you trusted him far more than your own sons, for many years?" "Yes--of course--" "Then call him your servant if you like, and call your sons what you please," concluded Marietta, "but do not tell me that such a man is not good enough to be the husband of a glass-blower's daughter, who does not want a great name, nor a palace, nor a husband who sits in the Grand Council. Do not say that, father, for it would not be true--and you never told a lie in your life." "I tell you that marriage has nothing to do with all this!" He began walking again, to keep his temper hot, for he was dimly conscious that he was getting the worst of the encounter, and that her arguments were good. "And I tell you that a marriage that has nothing to do with love, and with honour, and with trust, is no marriage at all!" answered the girl. "Say what you please of customs, and traditions, and of station, and all that! God never meant that an innocent girl should be bought and sold like a slave, or a horse, for a name, nor for money, nor for any imaginary advantage to herself or to her father! I know what our privilege is, that the patricians may marry us and not lose their rank. I would rather keep my own, and marry a glass-worker, even if I were to be sold! Do you know what your money would buy for me in Venice? The privilege of being despised and slighted by patricians and great ladies. You know as well as I that it would all end there, in spite of all you may give. They want your money, you want their name, because you are rich and you have always been taught to think that the chief use of money is to rise in the world." "Will you teach me what I am to think?" asked old Beroviero, amazed by her sudden flow of words. "Yes," she answered, before he could say more. "I will teach you what you should think, what you should have always thought--a man as brave and upright and honest in everything as you are! You should think, you should know, that your daughter has a right to live, a right to be free, and a right to love, like every living creature God ever made!" "This is the most abominable rebellion!" retorted Beroviero. "I cannot imagine where you learned--" "Rebellion?" she cried, interrupting him in ringing tones. "Yes, it is rank rebellion, sedition and revolt against slavery, for life and love and freedom! You wonder where I have learned to turn and face this oppression of the world, instead of yielding to it, one more unhappy woman among the thousands that are bought and sold into wifehood every year! I have learned nothing, my heart needed no teaching for that! It is enough that I love an honest man truly--I know that it is wrong to promise my faith to another, and that it is a worse wrong in you to try to get that promise from me by force. A vow that could be nothing but a solemn lie! Would the ring on my finger be a charm to make me forget? Would the priest's words and blessing be a spell to root out of my heart what is the best part of my life? Better go to a nunnery, and weep for the truth, than to hope for peace in such a lie as that--better a thousand, thousand times!" She had risen now, and was almost eloquent, facing her father with flashing eyes. "Oh, you have always been kind to me, good to me, dear to me," she went on quickly. "It is only in this that you will not understand. Would it not hurt you a little to feel that you had sent me to a sort of living death from which I could never come back to life? That I was imprisoned for ever among people who looked down upon me and only tolerated me for my fortune's sake? Yet that would be the very least part of it all! I could bear all that, if it were for any good. But to become the creature, the possession, the plaything of a man I do not love, when I love another with all my heart--oh, no, no, no! You cannot ask me that!" His anger had slowly subsided, and he was listening now, not because she had him in her power, but because what she said was true. For he was a just and honourable man. "I wish that you might have loved any man but Zorzi," he said, almost as if speaking to himself. "And why another?" she asked, following up her advantage instantly. "You would have had me marry a Trevisan, perhaps, or the son of any of the other great glass-makers? Is there one of them who can compare with Zorzi as an artist, let alone as a man? Look at those things he has made, there, on the table! Is there a man living who could make one of them? Not you, yourself; you know it better than I do!" "No," answered Beroviero. "That is true. Nor is there any one who could make the glass he used for them without the secrets that are in the book--and more too, for it is better than my own." Marietta looked at him in surprise. This was something she had not known. "Is it not your glass?" she asked. "It is better. He must have added something to the composition set down in the book." "You believe that although the book itself is safe, he has made use of it." "Yes. I cannot see how it could be otherwise." "Was the book sealed?" "Yes, and looked in an iron box. Here is the key. I always wear it." He drew out the small iron key, and showed it to her. "If you find the box locked, and the seals untouched, will you believe that Zorzi has not opened the manuscript?" asked Marietta. "Yes," answered Beroviero after a moment's thought. "I showed him the seal, and I remember that he said a man might make one like it. But I should know by the wax. I am sure I could tell whether it had been tampered with. Yes, I should believe he had not opened the book, if I found it as I left it." "Then you will be convinced that Zorzi is altogether innocent of all the charges Giovanni made against him. Is that true?" "Yes. If he has learnt the art in spite of the law, that is my fault, not his. He was unwise in selling the beaker to Giovanni. But what is that, after all?" "Promise me then," said Marietta, laying her hand upon her father's arm, "promise me that if Zorzi comes back, he shall be safe, and that you will trust him as you always have." "Though he dares to be in love with you?" "Though I dare to love him--or apart from that. Say that if it were not for that, you would treat him just as before you went away." "Yes, I would," answered Beroviero thoughtfully. "The book is there," said Marietta. She pointed to the big earthen jar that contained the broken glass, and her father's eyes followed her land. "It is for Zorzi's sake that I tell you," she continued. "The book is buried deep down amongst the broken bits. It will take a long time to get it out. Shall I call Pasquale to help us?" "No," answered her father. He went to the other end of the room and brought back the crowbar. Then he placed himself in a good position for striking, and raised the iron high in air with both his hands. "Stand back!" he cried as Marietta came nearer. The first blow knocked a large piece of earthenware from the side of the strong jar, and a quantity of broken red glass poured out, as red as blood from a wound, and fell with little crashes upon the stone floor. Beroviero raised the crowbar again and again and brought it down with all his might. At the fourth stroke the whole jar went to pieces, leaving nothing but a red heap of smashed glass, round about which lay the big fragments of the jar. In the middle of the heap, the corner of the iron box appeared, sticking up like a black stone. "At last!" exclaimed the old man, flushed with satisfaction. "Giovanni had not thought of this." He cleared away the shivers and gently pushed the box out of its bed with the crowbar. He soon got it out on the floor, and with some precaution, lest any stray splinter should cut his fingers, he set it upon the table. Then he took the key from his neck and opened it. Marietta's belief in Zorzi had never wavered, from the first, but Beroviero was more than half sure that the book had been opened. He took it up with care, turned it over and over in his hands, scrutinised the seal, the strings, the knots, and saw that they were all his own. "It is impossible that this should have been undone and tied up again," he said confidently. "Any one could see that at once," Marietta answered. "Do you believe that Zorzi is innocent?" "I cannot help believing. But I do not understand. There is the red glass, made by dropping the piece of copper into it. That is in the book, I am sure." "It was an accident," said Marietta. "The copper ladle fell into the glass. Zorzi told me about it." "Are you sure? That is possible. The very same thing happened to Paolo Godi, and that was how he discovered the colour. But there is the white glass, which is so like mine, though it is better. That may have been an accident too. Or the boy may have tried an experiment upon mine by adding something to it." "It is at least sure that the book has not been touched, and that is the main thing. You admit that he is quite innocent, do you not? Quite, quite innocent?" "Yes, I do. It would be very unjust not to admit it." Marietta drew a long breath of relief, for she had scarcely hoped to accomplish so much in so short a time. The rest would follow, she felt sure. "I would give a great deal to see Zorzi at once," said her father, at last, as he replaced the manuscript in the box and shut the lid. "Not half as much as I would!" Marietta almost laughed, as she spoke. "Father," she added gently, and resting one hand upon his shoulder, "I have given you back your book, I have given you back the innocent man you trusted, instead of the villain invented by my brother. What will you give me?" She smiled and rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. He shook his head a little, and would not answer. "Would it be so hard to say that you ask another year's time before the marriage? And then, you know, you could ask it again, and they would soon be tired of waiting and would break it off themselves." "Do not suggest such woman's tricks to me," answered her father; but he could not help smiling. "Oh, you may find a better way," Marietta said. "But that would be so easy, would it not? Your daughter is so young--her health is somewhat delicate--" She was interrupted by a knock at the door, and Pasquale entered. "The Signor Giovanni is without, sir," said the porter. "He desires to take leave of you, as he is returning to his own house to-day." "Let him come in," said Beroviero, his face darkening all at once. CHAPTER XXI Giovanni entered the laboratory confidently, not even knowing that Marietta was with her father, and not suspecting that he could have anything to fear from her. "I have come to take my leave of you, sir," he began, going towards his father at once. He did not see the broken jar, which was at some distance from the door. "Before you go," said Beroviero coldly, "pray look at this." Giovanni saw the box on the table, but did not understand, as he had never seen it before. His father again took the key from his neck and opened the casket. "This is Paolo Godi's manuscript," he said, without changing his tone. "You see, here is the book. The seal is unbroken. It is exactly as I left it when Zorzi and I buried it together. You suspected him of having opened it, and I confess that you made me suspect him, too. For the sake of justice, convince yourself." Giovanni's face was drawn with lines of vexation and anxiety. "It was hidden in the jar of broken glass," Beroviero explained. "You did not think of looking there." "No--nor you, sir." "I mean that you did not look there when you searched for it alone, immediately after Zorzi was arrested." Giovanni was pale now, but he raised both hands and turned up his eyes as if calling upon heaven to witness his innocence. "I swear to you," he began, "on the body of the blessed Saint Donatus--" Beroviero interrupted him. "I did not ask you to swear by anything," he said. "I know the truth. The less you say of what has happened, the better it will be for you in the end." "I suppose my sister has been poisoning your mind against me as usual. Can she explain how her mantle came here?" "It does not concern you to know how it came here," answered Beroviero. "By your wholly unjustifiable haste, to say nothing worse, you have caused an innocent man to be arrested, and his rescue and disappearance have made matters much worse. I do not care to ask what your object has been. Keep it to yourself, pray, and do not remind me of this affair when we meet, for after all, you are my son. You came to take your leave, I think. Go home, then, by all means." Without a word, Giovanni went out, biting his thin lip and reflecting mournfully upon the change in his position since he had talked with his father in the morning. While they had been speaking Marietta had gone to a little distance, affecting to unfold the mantle and fold it again according to feminine rules. As she heard the door shut again she glanced at her father's face, and saw that he was looking at her. "I told you that I was learning patience to-day," he said. "I longed to lay my hands on him." "You frightened him much more by what you said," answered Marietta. "Perhaps. Never mind! He is gone. The question is how to find Zorzi. That is the first thing, and then we must undo the mischief Giovanni has done." "I think Pasquale must have some clue by which we may find Zorzi," suggested Marietta. Pasquale was called at once. He stood with his legs bowed, holding his old cap in both hands, his small bloodshot eyes fixed on his master's face with a look of inquiry. He was more than ever like a savage old watch-dog. "Yes, sir," he said in answer to Beroviero's question, "I can tell you something. Two men were looking on last night when the Signor Giovanni made me open the door to the Governor's soldiers. They wore hoods over their eyes, but I am certain that one of them was that Greek captain who came here one morning before you went away. When Zorzi came out, the Greek walked off, up the footway and past the bridge. The other waited till they were all gone and till Signor Giovanni had come in. He whispered quickly in my ear, 'Zorzi is safe.' Then he went after the others. I could see that he had a short staff hidden under his cloak, and that he was a man with bones like an ox. But he was not so big a man as the captain. Then I knew that two such men, who were seamen accustomed to using their hands, quick on their feet and seeing well in the dark, as we all do, could pitch the officer over the tower of San Piero, if they chose, with all his sleazy crew of lubberly, dressed-up boobies, armed with overgrown boat-hooks. This I thought, and so it happened. That is what I know." "But why should Captain Aristarchi care whether Zorzi were arrested or not?" asked Beroviero. "This the saints may know in paradise," answered Pasquale, "but not I." "Has the captain been here again?" asked Beroviero, completely puzzled. "No, sir. But I should have told you that one morning there came a patrician of Venice, Messer Zuan Venier, who wished to see you, being a friend of Messer Jacopo Contarini, and when he heard that you were away he desired to see Zorzi, and stayed some time." "I know him by name," said Beroviero, nodding. "But there can be no connection between him and this Greek." Pasquale snarled and showed his teeth at the mere idea, for his instinct told him that Aristarchi was a pirate, or had been one, and he was by no means sure that the Greek had carried off Zorzi for any good purpose. "Pasquale," said Beroviero, "it is long since you have had a holiday. Take the skiff to-morrow morning, and go over to Venice. You are a seaman and you can easily find out from the sailors about the Giudecca who this Aristarchi really is, and where he lives. Then try to see him and tell him that Zorzi is innocent of all the charges against him, and that if he will come back I will protect him. Can you do that?" Pasquale gave signs of great satisfaction, by growling and grinning at the same time, and his lids drew themselves into a hundred wrinkles till his eyes seemed no bigger than two red Murano beads. Then Beroviero and Marietta went back to the house, and the young girl carried the folded mantle under her cloak. Before going to her own room she opened it out, as if it had been worn, and dropped it behind a bench-box in the large room, as if it had fallen from her shoulders while she had been sitting there; and in due time it was found by one of the men-servants, who brought it back to Nella. "You are so careless, my pretty lady!" cried the serving-woman, holding up her hands. "Yes," answered Marietta, "I know it." "So careless!" repeated Nella. "Nothing has any value for you! Some day you will forget your face in the mirror and go away without it, and then they will say it is Nella's fault!" Marietta laughed lightly, for she was happy. It was clear that everything was to end well, though it might be long before her father would consent to let her marry Zorzi. She felt quite sure that he was safe, though he might lie far away by this time. Beroviero returned at once to the Governor's house, and did his best to undo the mischief. But to his unspeakable disappointment he found that the Governor's report had already gone to the Council of Ten, so that the matter had passed altogether out of his hands. The Council would certainly find Zorzi, if he were in Venice, and within two or three days, at the utmost, if not within a few hours; for the Signors of the Night were very vigilant and their men knew every hiding-place in Venice. Zorzi, said the Governor, would certainly be taken into custody unless he had escaped to the mainland. Beroviero could have wrung his hands for sheer despair, and when he told Marietta the result of his second visit to the Governor, her heart sank, for Zorzi's danger was greater than ever before, and it was not likely that a man who had been so mysteriously rescued, to the manifest injury and disgrace of those who were taking him to prison, could escape torture. He would certainly be suspected of connivance with secret enemies of the Republic. Beroviero bethought him of the friends he had in Venice, to whom he might apply for help in his difficulty. In the first place there was Messer Luigi Foscarini, a Procurator of Saint Mark; but he had not been long in office, and he would probably not wish to be concerned in any matter which tended to oppose authority. And there was old Contarini, who was himself one of the Ten; Beroviero knew his character well and judged that he would not be lenient towards any one who had been forcibly rescued, no matter how innocent he might be. Moreover the law against foreigners who attempted to work in glass was in force, and very stringent. Contarini, like many over-wise men who have no control whatever over their own children, was always for excessive severity in all processes of the law. Beroviero thought of some others, but against each one he found some real objection. Sitting in his chair after supper, he talked earnestly of the matter with Marietta, who sat opposite him with her work, by the large brass lamp. For the present he had almost forgotten the question of her marriage, for all his former affection for Zorzi had returned, with the conviction of his innocence, and the case was very urgent. That very night Zorzi might be found, and on the next morning he might be brought before the Ten to be examined. Marietta thought with terror of the awful tales Nella had told her about the little torture chamber behind the hall of the Council. "Who is that Messer Zuan Venier, who came to see Zorzi?" asked Marietta suddenly. "A young man who fought very bravely in the East, I believe," answered Beroviero. "His father was the Admiral of the Republic for some time." "He has talked with Zorzi," said Marietta. "Pasquale said so. He must have liked him, of course; and none of the other patricians you have mentioned have ever seen him. Messer Zuan is not in office, and has nothing to lose. Perhaps he will be willing to use his influence with his father. If only the Ten could know the whole truth before Zorzi is brought before them, it would be very different." Beroviero saw that there was some wisdom in applying to a younger man, like Zuan Venier, who had nothing at stake, and since Venier had come to visit him, there could be nothing strange in his returning the courtesy as soon as he conveniently could. On the following morning therefore the master betook himself to Venice in his gondola. Pasquale was already gone in the skiff, on the errand entrusted to him. He had judged it best not to put on his Sunday clothes, nor his clean shirt, nor to waste time in improving his appearance at the barber's, for he had been shaved on Saturday night as usual and the week was not yet half over. Hidden in the bow of the little boat there lay his provision for the day, half a loaf of bread, a thick slice of cheese and two onions, with an earthen bottle of water. With these supplies the old sailor knew that he could roam the canals of Venice for twenty-four hours if he chose, and he also had some money in case it should seem wise to ply an acquaintance with a little strong wine in order to promote conversation. The morning was sultry and a light haze hung over the islands at sunrise, which is by no means usual. Pasquale sniffed the air as he rowed himself through the narrow canals. There was a mingled smell of stagnant salt water, cabbage stalks, water-melons and wood smoke long unfamiliar to him, and reminding him pleasantly of his childhood. Wherever a bit of stone pier ran along by an open space, scores of olive-skinned boys were bathing, and as he passed they yelled at him and splashed him. Many a time he had done the same, long ago, and had sometimes got a sharp knock from the blade of an oar for his pains. The high walls made brown shadows, that struck across the greenish water, shivering away to long streaks of broken light and shade, and trying to dance and rock themselves together for a moment before a passing boat disturbed them again. In the shade boats were moored, laden with fresh vegetables, and with jars of milk brought in from the islands and the mainland before dawn. From open windows, here and there, red-haired women with dark eyes looked down idly, and breathed the morning air for a few minutes before beginning their household work. The bells of Saint John and Saint Paul were ringing to low mass, and a few old women with black shawls over their heads, and wooden clogs on their feet, made a faint clattering as they straggled to the door. It was long since Pasquale had been in Venice. He could not remember exactly how many years had passed, but the city had changed little, and still after many centuries there is but little and slow change. The ways and turnings were as familiar to him as ever, and would have been unforgotten if he had never taken the trouble to cross the lagoon again, to his dying day. The soft sounds, the violent colours, the splendid gloom of deep-arched halls that went straight from the great open door at the water's edge to the shadowy heart of the palace within; the boatmen polishing the metal work of their gondolas with brick dust and olive oil; the servants, still in rough working clothes, sweeping the steps, and trimming off the charred hemp-wicks of torches that had been used in the night; the single woman's voice far overhead that broke the silence of some narrow way, singing its song for sheer gladness of an idle heart; it was all as it used to be, and Pasquale had a dim consciousness that he loved it better than his dreary little den in Murano, and better than his Sunday walk as far as San Donato, when all the handsome women and pretty girls of the smaller people were laughing away the cool hours and showing off their little fineries. It was but a vague suggestion of a sentiment with him, and no more. He knew that he should starve if he came back to Venice, and what was the pleasant smell of the cabbage stalks and water-melons that it should compare with the security of daily bread and lodging, with some money to spare, and two suits of clothes every year, which his master gave him in return for keeping a single door shut? He pushed out upon the Grand Canal, where as yet there were few boats and no gondolas at all, and soon he turned the corner of the Salute and rowed out slowly upon the Giudecca, where the merchant vessels lay at anchor, large and small, galliots and feluccas and many a broad 'trabacolo' from the Istrian coast, with huge spreading bows, and hawse ports painted scarlet like great red eyes. The old sailor's heart was gladdened by the sight of them, and as he rested on his single oar, he gently cursed the land, and all landlocked places, and rivers and fresh water, and all lakes and inland canals, and wished himself once more on the high seas with a stout vessel, a lazy captain, a dozen hard-fisted shipmates and a quarter of a century less to his account of years. He had been dreaming a little, and now he bent to the oar again and sent the skiff quietly along by the pier, looking out for any idle seamen who might be led into conversation. Before long he spied a couple, sitting on the edge of the stones near some steps and fishing with long canes. He passed them, of course, without looking at them, lest they should suspect that he had come their way purposely, and he made the skiff fast by the stair, after which he sat down on a thwart and stared vacantly at things in general, being careful not to bestow a glance on the two men. Presently one of them caught a small fish, and Pasquale judged that the moment for scraping an acquaintance had begun. He turned his head and watched how the man unhooked the fish and dropped it flapping into a basket made of half-dried rushes. "There are no whales in the canal," he observed. "There are not even tunny fish. But what there is, it seems that you know how to catch." "I do what I can, according to my little skill," answered the man. "It passes the time, and then it is always something to eat with the bread." "Yes," Pasquale answered. "A roasted fish on bread with a little oil is very savoury. As for passing the time, I suppose that you are looking for a ship." "Of course," the man replied. "If we had a ship we should not be here fishing! It is a bad time of the year, you must know, for most of the Venetian vessels are at sea, and we do not care to ship with any Neapolitan captain who chances to have starved some of his crew to death!" "I have heard of a rich Greek merchant captain who has been in Venice some time," observed Pasquale carelessly. "He will be looking out for a crew before long." "Is Captain Aristarchi going to sea at last?" asked the man who had not spoken yet. "Or do you mean some other captain?" "That is the name, I believe," said Pasquale. "It was an outlandish name like that. Do you ever see him about the docks? I saw him once, a piece of man, I tell you, with bones like a bull and a face like a bear." "He is not often seen," answered the man who had spoken last. "That is his ship; over there, between the 'trabacolo' and the dismasted hulk." "I see her," returned Pasquale at once. "A thorough Greek she is, too, by her looks, but well kept enough if she is only, waiting for a cargo, with two or three hands on board." The men laughed a little at Pasquale's ignorance concerning the vessel. "She has a full crew," said one. "She is always ready for sea at any moment, with provisions and water. No one can understand what the captain means, nor why he is here, nor why he is willing to pay twenty men for doing nothing." "Does the captain live on board of her?" inquired Pasquale indifferently. "Not he! He is amusing himself in Venice. He has hired a house by the month, not far from the Baker's Bridge, and there he has been living for a long time." "He must be very rich," observed Pasquale, who had found out what he wished to know, but was too wise to let the conversation drop too abruptly. "From what you say, however, he needs no more hands on his vessel," he added. "It is not for us," answered the man. "We will ship with a captain we know, and with shipmates from our own country, who are Christians and understand the compass." This he said because all sea-going vessels did not carry a compass in those days. "And until we can pick up a ship we like," added the other man, "we will live on bread and water, and if we can catch a fish now and then in the canal, so much the better." Pasquale cast off the bit of line that moored his skiff, shipped his single oar, and with a parting word to the men, he pushed off. "You are quite right!" he said. "Eh! A roast fish is a savoury thing." They nodded to him and again became intent on their pastime. Pasquale rowed faster than before, and he passed close under the stern of the Greek vessel. The mate was leaning over the taffrail under the poop awning. He was dressed in baggy garments of spotless white, his big blue cap was stuck far back on his head, and his strong brown arms were bare to the elbow. He looked as broad as he was long. "Is the captain on board, sir?" asked Pasquale, at a venture, but looking at the mate with interest. He expected that he would answer the question in the negative, by sticking out his jaw and throwing his head a little backward. To his surprise the mate returned his gaze a moment, and then stood upright. "Keep under the counter," he said in fairly good Italian. "I will go and see if the captain is in his cabin." Pasquale waited, and in a few moments the mate returned, dropped a Jacob's ladder over the taffrail and made it fast on board. Pasquale hitched the painter of the skiff to the end that hung down, and went up easily enough in spite of his age and stiffened joints. He climbed over the rail and stood beside the mate. The instant his feet touched the white deck he wished he had put on his Sunday hose and his clean shirt. He touched his cap, as he assuredly would not have done ashore, to any one but his master. "You seem to have been a sailor," said the Greek mate, in an approving tone. "Yes, sir," answered Pasquale. "Is Zorzi still safe?" "The captain will tell you about Zorzi," was the mate's answer, as he led the way. Aristarchi was seated with one leg under him on a inroad transom over which was spread a priceless Persian silk carpet, such as the richest patrician in Venice would have hung on the wall like a tapestry of great value. He looked at Pasquale, and the latter heard the door shut behind him. At the same instant a well-known voice greeted him by name, as Zorzi himself appeared from the inner cabin. "I did not expect to find you so soon," said the porter with a growl of satisfaction. "I wish you had found him sooner," laughed Aristarchi carelessly. "And since you are here, I hope you will carry him off with you and never let me see his face again, till all this disturbance is over! I would rather have carried off the Doge himself, with his precious velvet night-cap on his head, than have taken this fellow the other night. All Venice is after him. I was just going to drown him, to get rid of him." There was a sort of savage good-nature in the Greek's tone which was reassuring, in spite of his ferocious looks and words. "You would have been hanged if you had," observed Pasquale in answer to the last words. Zorzi was evidently none the worse for what had happened to him since his arrest and unexpected liberation. He was not of the sort that suffer by the imagination when there is real danger, for he had plenty of good sense. Pasquale told him that the master had returned. "We knew it yesterday," Zorzi answered. "The captain seems to know everything." "Listen to me, friend porter," Aristarchi said. "If you will take this young fellow with you I shall be obliged to you. I took him from the Governor's men out of mere kindness of heart, because I liked him the first time I saw him, but the Ten are determined to get him into their hands, and I have no fancy to go with him and answer for the half-dozen crowns my mate and I broke in that frolic at Murano." Pasquale's small eyes twinkled at the thought of the discomfited archers. "We have changed our lodgings three times since yesterday afternoon," continued Aristarchi, "and I am tired of carrying this lame bottle-blower up and down rope ladders, when the Signors of the Night are at the door. So drop him over the rail into your boat and let me lead a peaceful life." "Like an honest merchant captain as you are," added Pasquale with a grin. "We have been anxious for you," he added, looking at Zorzi. "The master is in Venice this morning, to see his friends on your behalf, I think." "If we go back openly," said Zorzi, "we may both be taken at any moment." "If they catch me," answered Pasquale, "they will heave me overboard. I am not worth salting. But they need not catch either of us. Once in the laboratory at Murano, they will never find you. That is the one place where they will not look for you." The mate put his head down through the small hatch overhead. "I do not like the look of a boat that has just put off from Saint George's," he said. Aristarchi sprang to his feet. "Pick him up and drop him into the porter's skiff," he said. "I am sick of dancing with the fellow in my arms." With incredible ease Aristarchi took Zorzi round the waist, mounted the cabin table and passed him up through the hatch to the mate, who had already brought him to the Jacob's ladder at the stern before Pasquale could get there by the ordinary way. "Quick, man!" said the mate, as the old sailor climbed over the rail. At the same time he slipped the bight of short rope round Zorzi's body under his arms and got a turn round the rail with both parts, so as to lower him easily. Zorzi helped himself as well as he could, and in a few moments he was lying in the bottom of the skiff, covered with a piece of sacking which the mate threw down, the rope ladder was hauled up and disappeared, and when Pasquale glanced back as he rowed slowly away, the mate was leaning over the taffrail in an attitude of easy unconcern. The old porter had smuggled more than one bale of rich goods ashore in his young days, for a captain who had a dislike of the customs, and he knew that his chance of safety lay not in speed, but in showing a cool indifference. He might have dropped down the Giudecca at a good rate, for the tide was fair, but he preferred a direction that would take him right across the course of the boat which the mate had seen coming, as if he were on his way to the Lido. The officer of the Ten, with four men in plain brown coats and leathern belts, sat in the stern of the eight-oared launch that swept swiftly past the skiff towards the vessels at anchor. Pasquale rested on his oar a moment and turned to look, with an air of interest that would have disarmed any suspicions the officer might have entertained. But he had none, and did not bestow a second glance on the little craft with its shabby oarsman. Then Pasquale began to row again, with a long even stroke that had no air of haste about it, but which kept the skiff at a good speed. When he saw that he was out of hearing of other boats, and heading for the Lido, he began to tell what he intended to do next, in a low monotonous tone, glancing down now and then at Zorzi's face that cautiously peered at him out from the folds of the sackcloth. "I will tell you when to cover yourself," he said, speaking at the horizon. "We shall have to spend the day under one of the islands. I have some bread and cheese and water, and there are onions. When it is night I will just slip into our canal at Murano, and you can sleep in the laboratory, as if you had never left it." "If they find me there, they cannot say that I am hiding," said Zorzi with a low laugh. "Lie low," said Pasquale softly. "There is a boat coming." For ten minutes neither spoke, and Zorzi lay quite still, covering his face. When the danger was past Pasquale began to talk again, and told him all he himself knew of what had happened, which was not much, but which included the assurance that the master was for him, and had turned against Giovanni. "As for me," said Zorzi, by and by, when they were moored to a stake, far out in the lagoon, "I was whirled from place to place by those two men, till I did not know where I was. When they first carried me off, they made me lie in the bottom of their boat as I am lying now, and they took me to a house somewhere near the Baker's Bridge. Do you know the house of the Agnus Dei?" Pasquale grunted. "It was not far from that," Zorzi continued. "Aristarchi lives there. The mate went back to the ship, I suppose, and Aristarchi's servant gave us supper. Then we slept quietly till morning and I stayed there all day, but Aristarchi thought it would not be safe to keep me in his house the next night--that was last night. He said he feared that a certain lady had guessed where I was. He is a mysterious individual, this Greek! So I was taken somewhere else in the bottom of a boat, after dark. I do not know where it was, but I think it must have been the garret of some tavern where they play dice. After midnight I heard a great commotion below me, and presently Aristarchi appeared at the window with a rope. He always seems to have a coil of rope within reach! He tied me to him--it was like being tied to a wild horse--and he got us safely down from the window to the boat again, and the mate was in it, and they took me to the ship faster than I was ever rowed in my life. You know the rest." All through the long July day they lay in the fierce sun, shading themselves with the sacking as best they could. But when it was dark at last, Pasquale cast off and headed the skiff for Murano. CHAPTER XXII Jacopo Contarini's luck at dice had changed of late, and his friends no longer spoke of losing like him, but of winning as he did, on almost every throw. "Nevertheless," said the big Foscari to Zuan Venier, "his love affairs seem to prosper! The Georgian is as beautiful as ever, and he is going to marry a rich wife." It was the afternoon of the day on which Zorzi had left Aristarchi's ship, and the two patricians were lounging in the shady Merceria, where the overhanging balconies of the wooden houses almost met above, and the merchants sat below in the windows of their deep shops, on the little platforms which were at once counters and window-sills. The street smelt of Eastern silks and Spanish leather, and of the Egyptian pastils which the merchants of perfumery continually burnt in order to attract custom. "I am not qualmish," answered Venier languidly, "yet it sickens me to think of the life Jacopo means to lead. I am sorry for the glass-maker's daughter." Foscari laughed carelessly. The idea that a woman should be looked upon as anything more than a slave or an object of prey had never occurred to him. But Venier did not smile. "Since we speak of glass-makers," he said, "Jacopo is doing his best to get that unlucky Dalmatian imprisoned and banished. Old Beroviero came to see me this morning and told me a long story about it, which I cannot possibly remember; but it seems to me--you understand!" He spoke in low tones, for the Merceria was crowded. Foscari, who was one of those who took most seriously the ceremonial of the secret society, while not caring a straw for its political side, looked very grave. "It is of no use to say that the poor fellow is only a glass-blower," Venier continued. "There are men besides patricians in the world, and good men, too. I mean to tell Contarini what I think of it to-night." "I will, too," said Foscari at once. "And I intend to use all the influence my family has, to obtain a fair hearing for the Dalmatian. I hope you will help me. Amongst us we can reach every one of the Council of Ten, except old Contarini, who has the soul of a school-master and the intelligence of a crab. If I did not like the fellow, I suppose I should let him be hanged several times rather than take so much trouble. Sins of omission are my strongest point. I have always surprised my confessor at Easter by the extraordinary number of things I have left undone." "I daresay," laughed Foscari, "but I remember that you were not too lazy to save me from drowning when I fell into the Grand Canal in carnival." "I forgot that the water was so cold," said Venier. "If I had guessed how chilly it was, I should certainly not have pulled you out. There is old Hossein at his window. Let us go in and drink sherbet." "We shall find Mocenigo and Loredan there," answered Foscari. "They shall promise to help the glass-blower, too." They nodded to the Persian merchant, who saluted them by extending his hand towards the ground as if to take up dust, and then bringing it to his forehead. He was very fat, and his pear-shaped face might have been carved out of white cheese. The two young men went in by a small door at the side of the window-counter and disappeared into the interior. At the back of the shop there was a private room with a latticed window that looked out upon a narrow canal. It was one of many places where the young Venetians met in the afternoon to play at dice undisturbed, on pretence of examining Hossein's splendid carpets and Oriental silks. Moreover Hossein's wife, always invisible but ever near, had a marvellous gift for making fruit sherbets, cooled with the snow that was brought down daily from the mountains on the mainland in dripping bales covered with straw matting. Loredan and Mocenigo were already there, as Foscari had anticipated, eating pistachio nuts and sipping sherbet through rice straws out of tall glasses from Murano. It was a very safe place, for Hossein's knowledge of the Italian language was of a purely commercial character, embracing every numeral and fraction, common or uncommon, and the names of all the hundreds of foreign coins that passed current in Venice, together with half-a-dozen necessary phrases; and his invisible but occasionally audible wife understood no Italian at all. Also, Hossein was always willing to lend any young patrician money with which to pay his losses, at the modest rate of seven ducats to be paid every week for the use of each hundred; which one of the youths, who had a turn for arithmetic, had discovered to be only about 364 per cent yearly, whereas Casadio, the Hebrew, had a method of his own by which he managed to get about 580. It was therefore a real economy to frequent Hossein's shop. In spite of his pretended forgetfulness, Venier remembered every word that Beroviero had told him, and indolently as he talked, his whole nature was roused to defend Zorzi. In his heart he despised Contarini, and hoped that his marriage might never take place, for he was sincerely sorry for Marietta; but it was Jacopo's behaviour towards Zorzi that called forth his wrath, it was the man's disdainful assumption that because Zorzi was not a patrician, the oath to defend every companion of the society was not binding where he was concerned; it was the insolent certainty that the others should all be glad to be rid of the poor Dalmatian, who after all had not troubled them over-much with his company. On that very evening they were to meet at the house of the Agnus Dei, and Venier was determined to speak his mind. When he chose to exert himself, his influence over his companions was very great, if not supreme. He soon brought Mocenigo and Loredan to share his opinion and to promise the support of all their many relations in Zorzi's favour, and the four began to play, for lack of anything better to do. Before long others of the society came in, and as each arrived Venier, who only played in order not to seem as unsociable as he generally felt, set down the dice box to gain over a new ally. An hour had passed when Contarini himself appeared, even more magnificent than usual, his beautiful waving beard most carefully trimmed and combed as if to show it to its greatest advantage against the purple silk of a surcoat cut in a new fashion and which he was wearing for the first time. His white hands were splendid with jewelled rings, and he wore at his belt a large wallet-purse embroidered in Constantinople before the coming of the Turks and adorned with three enamelled images of saints. Hossein himself ushered him in, as if he were the guest of honour, as the Persian merchant indeed considered him, for none of the others had ever paid him half so many seven weekly ducats for money borrowed in all their lives, as Jacopo had often paid in a single year. There are men whom no one respects very highly, who are not sincerely trusted, whose honour is not spotless and whose ways are far from straight, but who nevertheless hold a certain ascendancy over others, by mere show and assurance. When Contarini entered a place where many were gathered together, there was almost always a little hush in the talk, followed by a murmur that was pleasant in his ear. No one paused to look at Zuan Venier when he came into a room, though there was not one of his friends who would not have gone to him in danger or difficulty, without so much as thinking of Contarini as a possible helper in trouble. But it was almost impossible not to feel a sort of artistic surprise at Jacopo's extraordinary beauty of face and figure, if not at the splendid garments in which he delighted to array himself. It was with a slight condescension that he greeted the group of players, some of whom at once made a place for him at the table. They had been ready enough to stand by Venier against him in Zorzi's defence, but unless Venier led the way, there was not one of them who would think of opposing him, or taking him to task for what was very like a betrayal. Venier returned his greeting with some coldness, which Contarini hardly noticed, as his reception by the others had been sufficiently flattering. Then they began to play. Jacopo won from the first. Foscari bent his heavy eyebrows and tugged at his beard angrily, as he lost one throw after another; the cold sweat stood on Mocenigo's forehead in beads, as he risked more and more, and Loredan's hand trembled when it was his turn to take up the dice box against Contarini; for they played a game in which each threw against all the rest in succession. "You cannot say that the dice are loaded," laughed Contarini at last, "for they are your own!" "The delicacy of the thought is only exceeded by the good taste that expresses it," observed Venier. "You are sarcastic, my friend," answered Jacopo, shaking the dice. "It is your turn with me." Jacopo threw first. Venier followed him and lost. "That is my last throw," he said, as he pushed the remains of his small heap of gold across to Contarini. "I have no more money to-day, nor shall I have to-morrow." "Hossein has plenty," suggested Foscari, who hoped that Contarini's luck would desert him before long. "At this rate you will need all he has," returned Venier with a careless laugh. Before long more than one of the players was obliged to call in the ever-complacent Persian merchant, and the heap of gold grew in front of Jacopo, till he could hardly keep it together. "It is true that you have been losing for years," said Mocenigo, trying to laugh, "but we did not think you would win back all your losses in a day." "You shall have your revenge to-night," answered Contarini, rising. "I am expected at a friend's house at this hour." His large wallet was so full of gold that he could hardly draw the strong silken strings together and tie them. "A friend's house!" laughed Loredan, who had lost somewhat less than the others. "It would give us much delight to know the colour of the lady's hair!" To this Contarini answered only by a smile, which was not devoid of satisfaction. "Take care!" said Foscari, gloomily contemplating the bare table before him, over which so much of his good gold had slipped away. "Take care! Luck at play, mischance in love, says the proverb." "Oh! In that case I congratulate you, my dear friend!" returned Contarini gaily. The others laughed at the retort, and the party broke up, though all did not go at once. Venier went out alone, while two or three walked with Contarini to his gondola. The rest stayed behind in the shop and made old Hossein unroll his choicest carpets and show them his most precious embroideries, though he protested that it was already much too dark to appreciate such choice things. But they did not wish to be seen coming away in a body, for such playing was very strictly forbidden, and the spies of the Ten were everywhere. Contarini dismissed his gondola at the house of the Agnus Dei, and was admitted by the trusted servant who had once taken a message to Zorzi. He found Arisa waiting for him in her favourite place by the open window, and the glow of the setting sun made little fires in her golden hair. She could tell by his face that he had been fortunate at play, and her smile was very soft and winning. As he sank down beside her in the luxurious silence of satisfaction, her fingers were stealthily trying the weight of his laden wallet. She could not lift it with one hand. She smiled again, as she thought how easily Aristarchi would carry the money in his teeth, well tied and knotted in a kerchief, when he slipped down the silk rope from her window, though it would be much wiser to exchange it for pearls and diamonds which Contarini might see and admire, and which she could easily take with her in her final flight. He trusted her, too, in his careless way, and that night, when he was ready to go down and admit his companions, he would empty most of the gold into a little coffer in which he often left the key, taking but just enough to play with, and almost sure of winning more. She was very gentle on that evening, when the sun had gone down, and they sat in the deepening dusk, and she spoke sadly of not seeing him for several hours. It would be so lonely, she said, and since he could play in the daytime, why should he give up half of one precious night to those tiresome dice? He laughed indolently, pleased that she should not even suspect the real object of the meetings. By and by, when it was an hour after dark, and they had eaten of delicate things which a silent old woman brought them on small silver platters, Contarini went down to let in his guests, and Arisa was alone, as usual on such evenings. For a long time she lay quite still among the cushions, in the dark, for Jacopo had taken the light with him. She loved to be in darkness, as she always told him, and for very good reasons, and she had so accustomed herself to it as to see almost as well as Aristarchi himself, for whom she was waiting. At last she heard the expected signal of his coming, the soft and repeated splashing of an oar in the water just below the window. In a moment she was in the inner room, to receive him in her straining arms, longing to be half crushed to death in his. But to-night, even as he held her in the first embrace of meeting, she felt that something had happened, and that there was a change in him. She drew him to the little light that burned in her chamber before the image, and looked into his face, terrified at the thought of what she might see there. He smiled at her and raised his shaggy eyebrows as if to ask if she really distrusted him. "Yes," he said, nodding his big head slowly, "something has happened. You are quick at guessing. We are going to-night. There is moonlight and the tide will serve in two or three hours. Get ready what you need and put together the jewels and the money." "To-night!" cried Arisa, very much surprised. "To-night? Do you really mean it?" "Yes. I am in earnest. Michael has emptied my house of all my belongings to-day and has taken the keys back to the owner. We have plenty of time, for I suppose those overgrown boys are playing at dice downstairs, and I think I shall take leave of Contarini in person." "You are capable of anything!" laughed Arisa. "I should like to see you tear him into little strips, so that every shred should keep alive to be tortured!" "How amiable! What gentle thoughts you have! Indeed, you women are sweet creatures!" With her small white hand she jestingly pretended to box his huge ears. "You would be well paid if I refused to go with you," she said with a low laugh. "But I should like to know why you have decided so suddenly. What is the matter? What is to become of all our plans, and of Contarini's marriage? Tell me quickly!" "I have had a visit from an officer of the Ten to-day," he said. "The Ten send me greeting, as it were, and their service, and kindly invite me to leave Venice within twenty-four hours. As the Ten are the only persons in Venice for whom I have the smallest respect, I shall show it by accepting their invitation." "But why? What have you done?" "Of course it is not a serious matter to give a sound beating to an officer of justice and six of his men," answered Aristarchi, "but it is not the custom here, and they suspect me of having done it. To tell the truth, I think I am hardly treated. I have sent Zorzi back to Murano, and if the Ten have the sense to look for him where he has been living for five years, they will find him at once, at work in that stifling furnace-room. But I fancy that is too simple for them." He told her how Pasquale had come in the morning, and how the officer who had been in pursuit of him had searched the ship for Zorzi in vain. The order to leave Venice had come an hour later. The anchors were now up, and the vessel was riding to a kedge by a light hawser, well out in the channel. As soon as Arisa could be brought on board Aristarchi meant to make sail, for the strong offshore breeze would blow all night. "We may as well leave nothing behind," said Aristarchi coolly. "Michael will wait for us below, in one of the ship's boats. There is room for all Contarini's possessions, if we could only get at them." "Would it not be better to be content with what we have already, and to go at once?" asked Arisa rather timidly. "No," replied Aristarchi. "I am going to say good-bye to your old friend in my own way." "Do you mean to kill him?" asked Arisa in a whisper, though it was quite safe for them to talk in natural tones. "I could go behind him and throw something over his head." Aristarchi grinned, and pressed her beautiful head to his breast, caressing her with his rough hands. "You are as bloodthirsty as a little tigress," he said. "No. I do not even mean to hurt him." "Oh, I hoped you would," answered the Georgian woman. "I have hated him so long. Will you not kill him, just to please me? We could wind him in a sheet with a weight, you know, and drop him into the canal, and no one would ever know. I have often thought of it." "Have you, my gentle little sweetheart?" Aristarchi chuckled with delight as he stroked her hair. "I am sorry," he continued. "The fact is, I am not a Georgian like you. I have been brought up among people of civilisation, and I have scruples about killing any one. Besides, sweet dove, if we were to kill the son of one of the Council of Ten, the Council would pursue us wherever we went, for Venice is very powerful. But the Ten will not lift a hand to revenge a good-for-nothing young gamester whose slave has run away with her first love! Every one will laugh at Contarini if he tries to get redress. It is better to laugh than to be laughed at, it is better to be laughed at than to cry, it is better to cry one's eyes blind than to be hanged." Having delivered himself of these opinions Aristarchi began to look about him for whatever might be worth the trouble of carrying off, and Arisa collected all her jewels from the caskets in which they were kept, and little bags of gold coins which she had hidden in different places. She also lit a candle and brought Aristarchi to the small coffer in which Contarini kept ready gold for play, and which was now more than half full. "The dowry of the glass-maker's daughter!" observed the Greek as he carried it off. There were small objects of gold and silver on the tables in the large room, there was a dagger with a jewelled hilt, an illuminated mass book in a chased silver case. "You will need it on Sundays at sea," said Aristarchi. "I cannot read," said the Georgian slave regretfully. "But it will be a consolation to have the missal." Aristarchi smiled and tossed the book upon the heap of things. "It would be amusing to pay a visit to those young fools downstairs, and to take all their money and leave them locked up for the night," he said, as if a thought had struck him. "There are too many of them," answered Arisa, laying her hand anxiously upon his arm. "And they are all armed. Please do nothing so foolish." "If they are all like Contarini, I do not mind twenty of them or so," laughed Aristarchi. "They must have more than a thousand gold ducats amongst them. That would be worth taking." "They are not all like Contarini," said Arisa. "There is Zuan Venier, for instance." "Zuan Venier? Is he one of them? I have heard of him. I should like to see whether he could be frightened, for they say it is impossible." Aristarchi scratched his head, pushing his shaggy hair forward over his forehead, as he tried to think of an effectual scheme for producing the desired result. "The Ten might pursue us for that, as well as for a murder," said Arisa. Meanwhile the friends assembled in the room downstairs had been occupied for a long time in hearing what Zuan Venier had to say to Jacopo Contarini, concerning the latter's treatment of Zorzi. For Venier had kept his word, and as soon as all were present he had boldly spoken his mind, in a tone which his friends were not accustomed to hear. At first Contarini had answered with offended surprise, asking what concern it could be of Venier's whether a miserable glass-blower were exiled or not, and he appealed to the others, asking whether it would not be far better for them all that such an outsider as Zorzi should be banished from Venice. But Venier retorted that the Dalmatian had taken the same oath as the rest of the company, that he was an honest man, besides being a great artist as his master asseverated, and that he had the same right to the protection of each and all of them as Contarini himself. To the latter's astonishment this speech was received with unanimous approbation, and every man present, except Contarini, promised his help and that of his family, so far as he might obtain it. "I have advised Beroviero," Venier then continued, "if he can find the young artist, to make him go before the Council of Ten of his own free will, taking some of his works with him. And now that this question is settled, I propose to you all that our society cease to have any political or revolutionary aim whatever, for I am of opinion that we are risking our necks for a game at dice and for nothing else, which is childish. The only liberty we are vindicating, so far as I can see, is that of gaming as much as we please, and if we do that, and nothing more, we shall certainly not go between the red columns for it. A fine or a few months of banishment to the mainland would be the worst that could happen. As things are now, we are not only in danger of losing our heads at any moment, which is an affair of merely relative importance, but we may be tempted to make light of a solemn promise, which seems to me a very grave matter." Thereupon Venier looked round the table, and almost all the men were of his opinion. Contarini flushed angrily, but he knew himself to be in the wrong and though he was no coward, he had not the sort of temper that faces opposition for its own sake. He therefore began to rattle the dice in the box as a hint to all that the discussion was at an end. But his good fortune seemed gone, and instead of winning at almost every throw, as he had won in the afternoon, he soon found that he had almost exhausted the heap of gold he had laid on the table, and which he had thought more than enough. He staked the remainder with Foscari, who won it at a cast, and laughed. "You offered us our revenge," said the big man. "We mean to take it!" But though Contarini was not a good fighter, he was a good gamester, and never allowed himself to be disturbed by ill-luck. He joined in the laugh and rose from the table. "You must forgive me," he said, "if I leave you for a moment. I must fill my purse before I play again." "Do not stay too long!" laughed Loredan. "If you do, we shall come and get you, and then we shall know the colour of the lady's hair." Contarini laughed as he went to the door, opened it and stealthily set the key in the lock on the outside. "I shall lock you in while I am gone!" he cried. "You are far too inquisitive!" Laughing gaily he turned the key on the whole company, and he heard their answering laughter as he went away, for they accepted the jest, and continued playing. He entered the large room upstairs, just as Aristarchi had finished tying up the heavy bundle in the inner chamber. Arisa heard the well-known footstep, and placed one hand over Aristarchi's mouth, lest he should speak, while the other pointed to the curtained door. The Greek held his breath. "Arisa! Arisa!" Contarini called out. "Bring me a light, sweetest!" Without hesitation Arisa took the lighted candle, and making a gesture of warning to Aristarchi went quickly to the other room. The Greek crept towards the door, the big veins standing out like knots on his rugged temples, his great hands opened wide, with the tips of the fingers a little turned in. He was like a wrestler ready to get his hold with a spring. "I want some more money," Contarini was saying, in explanation. "They said they would follow me if I stayed too long, so I have locked them in! I think I shall keep them waiting a while. What do you say, love?" He laughed again, aloud, and on the other side of the curtain Aristarchi grinned from ear to ear and noiselessly loosened the black sash he wore round his waist. For once in his life, as Zorzi would have said, he had not a coil of rope at hand when he needed it, but the sash was strong and would serve the purpose. He pushed the curtain aside, a very little, in order to see before springing. Contarini stood half turned away from the door, clasping Arisa to his breast and kissing her hair. The next moment he was sprawling on the floor, face downwards, and Arisa was pressing one of the soft cushions from the divan upon his head to smother his cries, while Aristarchi bound his hands firmly together behind him with one end of the long sash, and in spite of his desperate struggle got a turn with the rest round both his feet, drew them back as far as he could and hitched the end twice. Jacopo was now perfectly helpless, but he was not yet dumb. Aristarchi had brought his tools with him, in the bosom of his doublet. Kneeling on Contarini's shoulders he took out a small iron instrument, shaped exactly like a pear, but which by a screw, placed where the stem would be, could be made to open out in four parts that spread like the petals of a flower. Arisa looked on with savage interest, for she believed that it was some horrible instrument of torture; and indeed it was the iron gag, the 'pear of anguish,' which the torturers used in those days, to silence those whom they called their patients. Holding the instrument closed, Aristarchi pushed his hand under the cushion. He knew that Contarini's mouth would be open, as he must be half suffocated and gasping for breath. In an instant the iron pear had slipped between his teeth and had opened its relentless leaves, obedient to the screw. "Take the pillow away," said Aristarchi quietly. "We can say good-bye to your old acquaintance now, but he will have to content himself with nodding his head in a friendly way." He turned the helpless man upon his side, for owing to the position of his heels and hands Contarini could not lie on his back. Then Aristarchi set the candle on the floor near his face and looked at him and indulged himself in a low laugh. Contarini's face was deep red with rage and suffocation, and his beautiful brown eyes were starting from their sockets with a terror which increased when he saw far the first time the man with whom he had to deal, or rather who was about to deal with him, and most probably without mercy. Then he caught sight of Arisa, smiling at him, but not as she had been wont to smile. Aristarchi spoke at last, in an easy, reassuring tone. "My friend," he said, "I am not going to hurt you any more. You may think it strange, but I really shall not kill you. Arisa and I have loved each other for a long time, and since she has lived here, I have come to her almost every night. I know your house almost as well as you do, and you have kindly told me that your friends are all looked in. We shall therefore not have the trouble of leaving by the window, since we can go out by the front door, where my boat will be waiting for us. You will never see us again." Contarini's eyes rolled wildly, and still Arisa smiled. "You have made him suffer," she said. "He loved me." "Before we go," continued the Greek, folding his arms and looking down upon his miserable enemy, "I think it fair to warn you that under the praying-stool in Arisa's room there is an air shaft through which we have heard all your conversation, during these secret meetings of yours. If you try to pursue us, I shall send information to the Ten, which will cut off most of your heads. As they are so empty it might seem to be scarcely worth while to take them, but the Ten know best. I can rely on your discretion. If I were not sure of it I would accede to this dear lady's urgent request and cut you up into small pieces." Contarini writhed and sputtered, but could make no sound. "I promised not to hurt you any more, my friend, and I am a man of my word. But I have long admired your hair and beard. You see I was in Saint Mark's when you went there to meet the glass-maker's daughter, and I have seen you at other times. I should be sorry never to see such a beautiful beard again, so I mean to take it with me, and if you will keep quiet, I shall really not hurt you." Thereupon he produced from his doublet a bright pair of shears, and knelt down by the wretched man's head. Contarini twisted himself as be might and tried instinctively to draw his head away. "I have heard that pirates sometimes accidentally cut off a prisoner's ear," said Aristarchi. "If you will not move, I am quite sure that I shall not be so awkward as to do that." Contarini now lay motionless, and Aristarchi went to work. With the utmost neatness he cropped off the silky hair, so close to Jacopo's skull that it almost looked as if it had been shaved with a razor. In the same way he clipped the splendid beard away, and even the brown eyebrows, till there was not a hair left on Contarini's head or face. Then he contemplated his work, and laughed at the weak jaw and the womanish mouth. "You look like an ugly woman in man's clothes," he said, by way of consoling his victim. He rose now, for he feared lest Contarini's friends might break open the door downstairs. He shouldered the heavy bundle with ease, set his blue cap on the back of his head and bade Arisa go with him. She had her mantle ready, but she could not resist casting delighted glances at her late owner's face. Before going, she knelt down one moment by his side, and inclined her face to his, with a very loving gaze. Lower and lower she bent, as if she would give him a parting kiss, till Aristarchi uttered an exclamation. Then she laughed cruelly, and with the back of her hand struck the lips that had so often touched her own. A few moments later Aristarchi had placed her in his boat, the heavy bundle of spoils lay at her feet, and the craft shot swiftly from the door of the house of the Agnus Dei. For Michael Pandos, the mate, had been waiting under the window, and a stroke of the oars brought him to the steps. In the closed room where the friends were playing dice, there began to be some astonishment at the time needed by Jacopo to replenish his purse. When more than half an hour had passed one pair stopped playing, and then another, until they were all listening for some sound in the silent house. The perfect stillness had something alarming in it, and none of them fully trusted Contarini. "I think," said Venier with all his habitual indolence, "that it is time to ascertain the colour of the lady's hair. Can you break the lock?" He spoke to Foscari, who nodded and went to the door with two or three others. In a few seconds it flew open before their combined attack, and they almost lost their balance as they staggered out into the dark hall. The rest brought lights and they all began to go up the stairs together. The first to enter the room was Foscari. Venier, always indifferent, was among the last. Foscari started at the extraordinary sight of a man in magnificent clothes, lying on one shoulder, with his heels tied up to his hands and his shorn head and face moving slowly from side to side in the bright light of the wax candle that stood on the floor. The other men crowded into the room, but at first no one recognised the master of the house. Then all at once Foscari saw the rings on his fingers. "It is Contarini," he cried, "and somebody has shaved his head!" He burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter, in which the others joined, till the house rang again, and the banished servants came running down to see what was the matter. Only Zuan Venier, a compassionate smile on his face, knelt beside Contarini and carefully withdrew the iron gag from his mouth. At the same instant Aristarchi's hatchet chopped through the hawser by which his vessel was riding, and he took the helm himself to steer her out through the narrow channel before the wind. CHAPTER XXIII When Pasquale had let Zorzi in, he crossed the canal again, moored the skiff with lock and chain, and came back by the wooden bridge. Zorzi went on through the corridor and came out into the moonlit garden. It was hard to believe that only forty-eight hours had passed since he had left it, but the freshly dug earth told him of Giovanni's search, about which Pasquale had told him, and there was the pleasant certainty that the master had come home and could probably protect him, even against the Ten. Besides this, he felt stronger and more able to move than since he had been injured, and he was sure that he could now walk with only a stick to help him, though he was always to be lame. He had looked up at Marietta's window before leaving the boat, but it was dark, for Pasquale had wished to be sure that no one should see Zorzi and it was long past the young girl's bedtime. Pasquale came back, and produced some more bread and cheese from his lodge, for both men were hungry. They sat down on the bench under the plane-tree and ate their meagre supper together in silence, for they had talked much during the long day. Then Pasquale bade Zorzi good night and went away, and Zorzi went into the laboratory, where all was dark. But he knew every brick of the furnace and every stone of the pavement under his feet, and in a few minutes he was fast asleep in his own bed, feeling as safe as if the Ten had never existed and as though the Signors of the Night were not searching every purlieu of Venice to take him into custody. And early in the morning he got up, and Pasquale brought him water as of old, and as his hose and doublet had suffered considerably during his adventures, he put on the Sunday ones and came out into the garden to breathe the morning air. Pasquale had no intention of going over to the house to announce Zorzi's return, for he was firmly convinced that the most simple way of keeping a secret was not to tell it, and before long the master would probably come over himself to ask for news. Beroviero brought Marietta with him, as he often did, and when they were within he naturally stopped to question Pasquale about his search, while Marietta went on to the garden. The porter took a long time to shut the door, and instead of answering Beroviero, shook his ugly head discontentedly, and muttered imprecations on all makers of locks, latches, bolts, bars and other fastenings, living, dead and yet unborn. So it came to pass that Marietta came upon Zorzi suddenly and alone, when she least expected to meet him. He was standing by the well-remembered rose-bush, leaning on his stick with one hand and lifting up a trailing branch with the other. But when he heard Marietta's step he let the branch drop again and stood waiting for her with happy eyes. She uttered a little cry, that was almost of fear, and stopped short in her walk, for in the first instant she could have believed that she saw a vision; then she ran forward with outstretched hands, and fell into his arms as he dropped his stick to catch her. As her head touched his shoulder, her heart stopped beating for a moment, she gasped a little, and seemed to choke, and then the tears of joy flowed from her eyes, her pulses stirred again, and all was well. He felt a tremor in his hands and could not speak aloud, but as he held her he bent down and whispered something in her ear; and she smiled through the shower of her happy tears, though he could not see it, for her face was hidden. Just then Beroviero entered from the corridor, followed by Pasquale, and the two old men stood still together gazing at the young lovers. It was on that very spot that the master, when going upon his journey, had told Zorzi how he wished he were his son. But now he forgot that he had said it, and the angry blood rushed to his forehead. "How dare you?" he cried, as he made a step to go on towards the pair. They heard his voice and separated hastily. Marietta's fresh cheek blushed like red roses, and she looked down, as shamefacedly as any country maid, but Zorzi turned white as he stooped to pick up his stick, then stood quite upright and met her father's eyes. "How dare you, I say?" repeated the old man fiercely. "I love her, sir," Zorzi answered without fear for himself, but with much apprehension for Marietta. "And have you forgotten that I love him, father?" asked Marietta, looking up but still blushing. "You know, I told you all the truth, and you were not angry then. At least, you were not so very angry," she added, shyly correcting herself. "If she has told you, sir," Zorzi began, "let me--" "You can tell me nothing I do not know," cried Beroviero, "and nothing I wish to hear! Be off! Go to the laboratory and begin work. I will speak with my daughter." Then Pasquale's voice was heard. "A furnace without a fire is like a ship without a wind," he said. "It might as well be anything else." Beroviero looked towards the old porter indignantly, but Pasquale had already begun to move and was returning to his lodge, uttering strange and unearthly sounds as he went, for he was so happy that he was really trying to hum a tune. The master turned to the lovers again. Zorzi had withdrawn a step or two, but showed no signs of going further. "If you are going to tell me that I must change my mind," said Marietta, "and that it is a shame to love a penniless glass-blower--" "Silence!" cried the old man, stroking his beard fiercely. "How can you presume to guess what I may or may not say about your shameless conduct? Did I not see him kissing you?" "I daresay, for he did," answered Marietta, raising her eyebrows and looking down in a resigned way. "And it is not the first time, either," she added, shaking her head and almost laughing. "The insolence!" cried Beroviero. "The atrocious boldness!" "Sir," said Zorzi, coming nearer, "there is only one remedy for it. Give me your daughter for my wife--" "Upon my faith, this is too much! You know that Marietta is betrothed to Messer Jacopo Contarini--" "I have told you that I will not marry him," said Marietta quietly, "so it is just as if I had never been betrothed to him." "That is no reason for marrying Zorzi," retorted Beroviero. "A pretty match for you! Angelo Beroviero's daughter and a penniless foreigner who cannot even be allowed to work openly at his art!" "If I go away," Zorzi answered quietly, "I may soon be as rich as you, sir." At this unexpected statement Beroviero opened his eyes in real astonishment, while Zorzi continued. "You have your secrets, sir, and I have kept them safe for you. But I have one of my own which is as valuable as any of yours. Did you find some pieces of my work in the annealing oven? I see that they are on the table now. Did you notice that the glass is like yours, but finer and lighter?" "Well, if it is, what then?" asked Beroviero. "It was an accident. You mixed something with some of my glass--" "No," answered Zorzi, "it is altogether a composition of my own. I do not know how you mix your materials. How should I?" "I believe you do," said Beroviero. "I believe you have found it out in some way--" Zorzi had produced a piece of folded paper from his doublet, and now held it up in his hand. "I am not bargaining with you, sir, for you are a man of honour. Angelo Beroviero will not rob me, after having been kind to me for so many years. This is my secret, which I discovered alone, with no one's help. The quantities are written out very exactly, and I am sure of them. Read what is written there. By an accident, I may have made something like your glass, but I do not believe it." He held out the paper. Beroviero's manner changed. "You were always an honourable fellow, Zorzi. I thank you." He opened the paper and looked attentively at the contents. Marietta saw his surprise and interest and took the opportunity of smiling at Zorzi. "It is altogether different from mine," said Beroviero, looking up and handing back the document. "Is there fortune in that, sir, or not?" asked Zorzi, confident of the reply. "But you know that there is, and that whenever I go, if I can get a furnace, I shall soon be a rich man by the glass alone, without even counting on such skill as I have with my hands." "It is true," answered the master, nodding his head thoughtfully. "There are many princes who would willingly give you the little you need in order to make your fortune." "The little that Venice refuses me!" said Zorzi with some bitterness. "Am I presuming so much, then, when I ask you for your daughter's hand? Is it not in my power, or will it not be very soon, to go to some other city, to Milan, or Florence--" "No, no!" cried Beroviero. "You shall not take her away--" He stopped short, realising that he had betrayed what had been in his mind, since he had seen the two standing there, clasped in one another's arms, namely, that in spite of him, or with his blessing, his daughter would before long be married to the man she loved. "Come, come!" he said testily. "This is sheer nonsense!" He made a step forward as if to break off the situation by going away. "If you would rather that I should not leave you, sir," said Zorzi, "I will stay here and make my glass in your furnace, and you shall sell it as if it were your own." "Yes, father, say yes!" cried Marietta, clasping her hands upon the old man's shoulder. "You see how generous Zorzi is!" "Generous!" Beroviero shook his head. "He is trying to bribe me, for there is a fortune in his glass, as he says. He is offering me a fortune, I tell you, to let him marry you!" "The fortune which Messer Jacopo had made you promise to pay him for condescending to be my husband!" retorted Marietta triumphantly. "It seems to me that of the two, Zorzi is the better match!" Beroviero stared at her a moment, bewildered. Then, in half-comic despair he clapped both his hands upon his ears and shook himself gently free from her. "Was there ever a woman yet who could not make black seem white?" he cried. "It is nonsense, I tell you! It is all arrant nonsense! You are driving me out of my senses!" And thereupon he went off down the garden path to the laboratory, apparently forgetting that his presence alone could prevent a repetition of that very offence which had at first roused his anger. The door closed sharply after him, with energetic emphasis. At the same moment Marietta, who had been gazing into Zorzi's eyes, felt that her own sparkled with amusement, and her father might almost have heard her sweet low laugh through the open window at the other end of the garden. "That was well done," she said. "Between us we have almost persuaded him." Zorzi took her willing hand and drew her to him, and she was almost as near to him as before, when she straightened herself with quick and elastic grace, and laughed again. "No, no!" she said. "If he were to look out and see us again, it would be too ridiculous! Come and sit under the plane-tree in the old place. Do you remember how you stared at the trunk and would not answer me when I tried to make you speak, ever so long ago? Do you know, it was because you would not say--what I wanted you to say--that I let myself think that I could marry Messer Jacopo. If you had only known what you were doing!" "If I had only known!" Zorzi echoed, as they reached the place and Marietta sat down. They were within sight of the window, but Beroviero did not heed them. He was seated in his own chair, in deep thought, his elbows resting on the wooden arms, his fingers pressing his temples on each side, thinking of his daughter, and perhaps not quite unaware that she was talking to the only man he had ever really trusted. "I must tell you something, Zorzi," she was saying, as she looked up into the face she loved. "My father told me last night what he had done yesterday. He saw Messer Zuan Venier--" Zorzi showed his surprise. "Pasquale told my father that he had been here to see you. Very well, this Messer Zuan advised that if you could be found, you should be persuaded to go before the tribunal of the Ten of your own free will, to tell your story. And he promised to use all his influence and that of all his friends in your favour." "They will not change the law for me," Zorzi replied, in a hopeless way. "If they could hear you, they would make a special decree," said Marietta. "You could tell them your story, you could even show them some of the beautiful things you have made. They would understand that you are a great artist. After all, my father says that one of their most especial duties is to deal with everything that concerns Murano and the glass-works. Do you think that they will banish you, now that you have a secret of your own, and can injure us all by setting up a furnace somewhere else? There is no sense in that! And if you go of your own free will, they will hear you kindly, I think. But if you stay here, they will find you in the end, and they will be very angry then, because you will have been hiding from them." "You are wise," Zorzi answered. "You are very wise." "No, I love you." She spoke softly and glanced at the open window, and then at his face. "Truly?" He smiled happily as he whispered his question in one word, and he was resting a hand on the trunk of the tree, just as he had been standing on the day she remembered so well. "Ah, you know it now!" she answered, with bright and trusting eyes. "One may know a song well, and yet long to hear it again and again." "But one cannot be always singing it oneself," she said. "I could never make it ring as sweetly as you," Zorzi answered. "Try it! I am tired of hearing my voice--" "But I am not! There is no voice like it in the world. I shall never care to hear another, as long as I live, nor any other song, nor any other words. And when you are weary of saying them, I shall just say them over in my heart, 'She loves me, she loves me,'--all day long." "Which is better," Marietta asked, "to love, or to know that you are loved?" "The two thoughts are like soul and body," Zorzi answered. "You must not part them." "I never have, since I have known the truth, and never shall again." Then they were silent for a while, but they hardly knew it, for the world was full of the sweetest music they had ever heard, and they listened together. "Zorzi!" The master was at the window, calling him. He started a little as if awaking and obeyed the summons as quickly as his lameness would allow. Marietta looked after him, watching his halting gait, and the little effort he made with his stick at each step. For some secret reason the injury had made him more dear to her, and she liked to remember how brave he had been. He found Beroviero busy with his papers, and the results of the year's experiments, and the old man at once spoke to him as if nothing unusual had happened, telling him what to do from time to time, so that all might be put in order against the time when the fires should be lighted again in September. By and by two men came carrying a new earthen jar for broken glass, and all fragments in which the box had lain were shovelled into it, and the pieces of the old one were taken away. The furnace was not quite cool even yet, and the crucibles might remain where they were for a few days; but there was much to be done, and Zorzi was kept at work all the morning, while Marietta sat in the shade with her work, often looking towards the window and sometimes catching sight of Zorzi as he moved about within. Meanwhile the story of Contarini's mishap had spread in Venice like wildfire, and before noon there was hardly one of all his many relations and friends who had not heard it. The tale ran through the town, told by high and low, by Jacopo's own trusted servant, and the old woman who had waited on Arisa, and it had reached the market-place at an early hour, so that the ballad-makers were busy with it. For many had known of the existence of the beautiful Georgian slave and the subject was a good one for a song--how she had caressed him to sleep and fostered his foolish security while he loved her blindly, and how she and her mysterious lover had bound him and shaved his head and face and made him a laughing-stock, so that he must hide himself from the world for months, and moreover how they had carried away by night all the precious gifts he had heaped upon the woman since he had bought her in the slave-market. Last of all, his father heard it when he came home about an hour before noon from the sitting of the Council of Ten, of which he was a member for that year. He found Zuan Venier waiting in the hall of his house, and the two remained closeted together for some time. For the young man had promised Jacopo to tell old Contarini, though it was an ungrateful errand, and one which, the latter might remember against him. But it was a kind action, and Venier performed it as well as he could, telling the story truthfully, but leaving out all such useless details as might increase the father's anger. At first indeed the old man brought his hand down heavily upon the table, and swore that he would never see his son again, that he would propose to the Ten to banish him from Venice, that he would disinherit him and let him starve as he deserved, and much more to the same effect. But Venier entreated him, for his own dignity's sake, to do none of these things, but to send Jacopo to his villa on the Brenta river, where he might devote himself in seclusion to growing his hair and beard again; and Zuan represented that if he reappeared in Venice after many months, not very greatly changed, the adventure would be so far forgotten that his life among his friends would be at least bearable, in spite of the ridicule to which he would now and then be exposed for the rest of his life, whenever any one chose out of spite to mention barbers, shears, razors, specifies for causing the hair to grow, or Georgians, in his presence. Further, Venier ventured to suggest to Contarini that he should at once break off the marriage arranged with Beroviero, rather than expose himself to the inevitable indignity of letting the step be taken by the glass-maker, who, said Venier, would as soon think of giving his daughter to a Turk as to Jacopo, since the latter's graceless doings had been suddenly held up to the light as the laughing-stock of all Venice. In making this suggestion Venier had followed the suggestion of his own good sense and good feeling, and Contarini not only accepted the proposal but was in the utmost haste to act upon it, fearing lest at any moment a messenger might come over from Murano with the news that Beroviero withdrew his consent to the marriage. Venier almost dictated the letter which Contarini wrote with a trembling hand, and he promised to deliver it himself, and if necessary to act as ambassador. Beroviero had already called to Marietta that it was time to go home, though the mid-day bells had not yet rung out the hour, when Pasquale appeared in the garden and announced that Venier was waiting in his gondola and desired an immediate interview on a matter of importance. He would have come on Contarini's behalf, if for no other reason, but he had spent much time that morning in laying Zorzi's case before his friends and all the members of the Grand Council who could have any special influence with the Ten, or with the aged Doge, who, although in his eightieth year, frequently assisted in person at their meetings, and whose Counsellors were always present. He was now almost sure of obtaining a favourable hearing for Zorzi, and wished to see Beroviero, for he was still in ignorance of Zorzi's return to the glass-house during the night. Marietta was told to go into the deserted building, containing the main furnaces, now extinguished, for it was not fitting that she should be seen by a patrician whom she did not know, sitting in the garden as if she were a mere serving-woman whose face needed no veil. She ran away laughing and hid herself in the passage where she had spent moments of anguish on the night of Zorzi's arrest, and she waved a kiss to him, when her father was not watching. Zorzi waited at the door of the laboratory, while Beroviero waited within, standing by the table to receive his honourable visitor. When Zorzi saw Venier's expression of astonishment on seeing him, he smiled quietly, but offered no audible greeting, for he did not know what was expected of him. But Venier took his hand frankly and held it a moment. "I am glad to find you here," he said, less indolently than he usually spoke. "I have good news for you, if you will take my advice." "The master has already told me what it is," Zorzi answered. "I am ready to give myself up whenever you think best. I have not words to thank you." "I do not like many words," answered Venier. "But if there is anything I dislike more, it is thanks. I have some private business with Messer Angelo first. Afterwards we can all three talk together." CHAPTER XXIV Zorzi sat on a low bench, blackened with age, against the whitewashed wall of a small and dimly lighted room, which was little more than a cell, but was in reality the place where prisoners waited immediately before being taken into the presence of the Ten. It was not far from the dreaded chamber in which the three Chiefs sometimes heard evidence given under torture, the door was closed and two guards paced the narrow corridor outside with regular and heavy steps, to which Zorzi listened with a beating heart. He was not afraid, for he was not easily frightened, but he knew that his whole future life was in the balance, and he longed for the decisive moment to come. He had surrendered on the previous day, and Beroviero had given a large bond for his appearance. There were witnesses of all that had happened. There was the lieutenant of the archers, with his six men, some of whom still showed traces of their misadventure. There was Giovanni, whom the Governor had forced to appear, much against his will, as the principal accuser by the letter which had led to Zorzi's arrest, and the letter itself was in the hands of the Council's secretary. But there was also Pasquale, who had seen Zorzi go away quietly with the soldiers, and who could speak for his character; and Angelo Beroviero was there to tell the truth as far as he knew it. But Zorzi was not to be confronted with any of these witnesses: neither with the soldiers who would tell the Council strange stories of devils with blue noses and fiery tails, nor with Giovanni, whose letter called him a liar, a thief and an assassin, nor with Beroviero nor Pasquale. The Council never allowed the accused man and the witnesses for or against him to be before them at the same time, nor to hold any communication while the trial lasted. That was a rule of their procedure, but they were not by any means the mysterious body of malign monsters which they have too often been represented to be, in an age when no criminal trials could take place without torture. Zorzi waited on his bench, listening to the tread of the guards. As many trials occupied more than one day, his case would come up last of all, and the witnesses would all be examined before he himself was called to make his defence. He was nervous and anxious. Even while he was sitting there, Giovanni might be finding out some new accusation against him or the officer of archers might be accusing him of witchcraft and of having a compact with the devil himself. He was innocent, but he had broken the law, and no doubt many an innocent man had sat on that same bench before him, who had never again returned to his home. It was not strange that his lips should be parched, and that his heart should be beating like a fuller's hammer. At last the footsteps ceased, the key ground and creaked as it turned, and the door was opened. Two tall guards stood looking at him, and one of them motioned to him to come. He could never afterwards remember the place through which he was made to pass, for the blood was throbbing in his temples so that he could hardly see. A door was opened and closed after him, and he was suddenly standing alone in the presence of the Ten, feeling that he could not find a word to say if he were called upon to speak. A kindly voice broke the silence that seemed to have lasted many minutes. "Is this the person whom we are told is in league with Satan?" It was the Doge himself who spoke, nodding his hoary head, as very old men do, and looking at Zorzi's face with gentle eyes, almost colourless from extreme age. "This is the accused, your Highness," replied the secretary from his desk, already holding in his hand Giovanni's letter. Zorzi saw that the Council of Ten was much more numerous than its name implied. The Councillors were between twenty and thirty, sitting in a semicircle, against a carved wooden wainscot, on each side of the aged Doge, Cristoforo Moro, who had yet one more year to live. There were other persons present also, of whom one was the secretary, the rest being apparently there to listen to the proceedings and to give advice when they were called upon to do so. In spite of the time of year, the Councillors were all splendidly robed in the red velvet mantles, edged with ermine, and the velvet caps which made up the state dress of all patricians alike, and the Doge wore his peculiar cap and coronet of office. Zorzi had never seen such an assembly of imposing and venerable men, some with long grey beards, some close shaven, all grave, all thoughtful, all watching him with quietly scrutinising eyes. He stood leaning a little on his stick, and he breathed more freely since the dreaded moment was come at last. Some one bade the secretary read the accusation, and Zorzi listened with wonder and disgust to Giovanni's long epistle, mentally noting the points which he might answer, and realising that if the law was to be interpreted literally, he had undoubtedly rendered himself liable to some penalty. "What have you to say?" inquired the secretary, looking up from the paper with a pair of small and piercing grey eyes. "The Supreme Council will hear your defence." "I can tell the truth," said Zorzi simply, and when he had spoken the words he was surprised that his voice had not trembled. "That is all the Supreme Council wishes to hear," answered the secretary. "Speak on." "It is true that I am a Dalmatian," Zorzi said, "and by the laws of Venice, I should not have learned the art of glass-blowing. I came to Murano more than five years ago, being very poor, and Messer Angelo Beroviero took me in, and let me take care of his private furnace, at which he makes many experiments. In time, he trusted me, and when he wished something made, to try the nature of the glass, he let me make it, but not to sell such things. At first they were badly made, but I loved the art, and in short time I grew to be skilful at it. So I learnt. Sirs--I crave pardon, your Highness, and you lords of the Supreme Council, that is all I have to tell. I love the glass, and I can make light things of it in good design, because I love it, as the painter loves his colours and the sculptor his marble. Give me glass, and I will make coloured air of it, and gossamer and silk and lace. It is all I know, it is my art, I live in it, I feel in it, I dream in it. To my thoughts, and eyes and hands, it is what the love of a fair woman is to the heart. While I can work and shape the things I see when I close my eyes, the sun does, not move, the day has no time, winter no clouds, and summer no heat. When I am hindered I am in exile and in prison, and alone." The Doge nodded his head in kindly approbation. "The young man is a true artist," he said. "All this," said one of the Chiefs of the Ten, "would be well if you were a Venetian. But you are not, and the accusation says that you have sold your works to the injury of born Venetians. What have you to say?" "Sometimes my master has given me money for a beaker, or a plate, or a bottle," answered Zorzi, in some trepidation, for this was the main point. "But the things were then his own. How could that do harm to any one, since no one can make what I can make, for the master's own use? And once, the other day, as the Signor Giovanni's letter says there, he persuaded me to take his piece of gold for a beaker he saw in my hand, and I said that I would ask the master, when he came back, whether I might keep the money or not; and besides, I left the piece of money on the table in my master's laboratory, and the beaker in the annealing oven, when they came to arrest me. That is the only work for which I ever took money, except from the master himself." "Why did the Greek captain Aristarchi beat the Governor's men, and carry you away?" asked another of the Chiefs. Zorzi was not surprised that the name of his rescuer should be known, for the Ten were believed to possess universal intelligence. "I do not know," he answered quite simply. "He did not tell me, while he kept me with him. I had only seen him once before that night, on a day when he came to treat with the master for a cargo of glass which he never bought. I gave myself up to the archers, as I gave myself up to your lordships, for I thought that I should have justice the sooner if I sought it instead of trying to escape from it." "Your Highness," said one of the oldest Councillors, addressing the Doge, "is it not a pity that such a man as this, who is a good artist and who speaks the truth, should be driven out of Venice, by a law that was not meant to touch him? For indeed, the law exists and always will, but it is meant to hinder strangers from coming to Murano and learning the art in order to take it away with them, and this we can prevent. But we surely desire to keep here all those who know how to practise it, for the greater advantage of our commerce with other nations." "That is the intention of our laws," assented the Doge. "Your Highness! My lords!" cried Zorzi, who had taken courage from what the Councillor had said, "if this law is not made for such as I am, I entreat you to grant me your forgiveness if I have broken it, and make it impossible for me to break it again. My lords, you have the power to do what I ask. I beseech you that I may be permitted to work at my art as if I were a Venetian, and even to keep fires in a small furnace of my own, as other workmen may when they have saved money, that I may labour to the honour of all glass-makers, and for the good reputation of Murano. This is what I most humbly ask, imploring that it may be granted to me, but always according to your good pleasure." When he had spoken thus, asking all that was left for him to desire and amazed at his own boldness, he was silent, and the Councillors began to discuss the question among themselves. At a sign from the Chiefs the urn into which the votes were cast was brought and set before the Doge; for all was decided by ballot with coloured balls, and no man knew how his neighbour voted. "Have you anything more to say?" asked the secretary, again speaking to Zorzi. "I have said all, save to thank your Highness and your lordships with all my heart," answered the Dalmatian. "Withdraw, and await the decision of the Supreme Council." Zorzi cast one more glance at the great half circle of venerable men, at their velvet robes, at the carved wainscot, at the painted vault above, and after making a low obeisance he found his way to the door, outside which the guards were waiting. They took him back to a cell like the one where he had already sat so long, but which was reached by another passage, for everything in the palace was so disposed as to prevent the possibility of one prisoner meeting another on his way to the tribunal or coming from it; and for this reason the Bridge of Sighs, which was then not yet built, was afterwards made to contain two separate passages. It seemed a long time before the tread of guards ceased again and the door was opened, and Zorzi rose as quickly as he could when he saw that it was the secretary of the Ten who entered, carrying in his hand a document which had a seal attached to it. "Your prayer is granted," said the man with the sharp grey eyes. "By this patent the Supreme Council permits you to set up a glass-maker's furnace of your own in Murano, and confers upon you all the privileges of a born glass-blower, and promises you especial protection if any one shall attempt to interfere with your rights." Zorzi took the precious parchment eagerly, and he felt the hot blood rushing to his face as he tried to thank the secretary. But in a moment the busy personage was gone, after speaking a word to the guards, and Zorzi heard the rustling of his silk gown in the corridor. "You are free, sir," said one of the guards very civilly, and holding the door open. Zorzi went out in a dream, finding his way he knew not how, as he received a word of direction here and there from soldiers who guarded the staircases. When he was aware of outer things he was standing under the portico that surrounds the courtyard of the ducal palace. The broad parchment was unrolled in his hands and his eyes were puzzling over the Latin words and the unfamiliar abbreviations; on one side of him stood old Beroviero, reading over his shoulder with absorbed interest, and on the other was Zuan Venier, glancing at the document with the careless certainty of one who knows what to expect. Two steps away Pasquale stood, in his best clothes and his clean shirt, for he had been one of the witnesses, and he was firmly planted on his bowed legs, his long arms hanging down by his sides; his little red eyes were fixed on Zorzi's face, his ugly jaw was set like a mastiff's, and his extraordinary face seemed cut in two by a monstrous smile of delight. "It seems to be in order," said Venier, politely smothering with his gloved hand the beginning of a yawn. "I owe it to you, I am sure," answered Zorzi, turning grateful eyes to him. "No, I assure you," said the patrician. "But I daresay it has made us all change our opinion of the Ten," he added with a smile. "Good-bye. Let me come and see you at work at your own furnace before long. I have always wished to see glass blown." Without waiting for more, he walked quickly away, waving his hand after he had already turned. It was noon when Zorzi had folded his patent carefully and hidden it in his bosom, and he and Beroviero and Pasquale went out of the busy gateway under the outer portico. Beroviero led the way to the right, and they passed Saint Mark's in the blazing sun, and the Patriarch's palace, and came to the shady landing, the very one at which the old man and his daughter had got out when they had come to the church to meet Contarini. The gondola was waiting there, and Beroviero pushed Zorzi gently before him. "You are still lame," he said. "Get in first and sit down." But Zorzi drew back, for a woman's hand was suddenly thrust out of the little window of the 'felse,' with a quick gesture. "There is a lady inside," said Zorzi. "Marietta is in the gondola," answered Beroviero with a smile. "She would not stay at home. But there is room for us all. Get in, my son." NOTE The story of Zorzi Ballarin and Marietta Beroviero is not mere fiction, and is told in several ways. The most common account of the circumstances assumes that Zorzi actually stole the secrets which Angelo Beroviero had received from Paolo Godi, and thereby forced Angelo to give him his daughter in marriage; but the learned Comm. C.A. Levi, director of the museum in Murano, where many works of Beroviero and Ballarin are preserved, has established the latter's reputation for honourable dealing with regard to the precious secrets, in a pamphlet entitled "L'Arte del Vetro in Murano," published in Venice, in 1895, to which I beg to refer the curious reader. I have used a novelist's privilege in writing a story which does not pretend to be historical. I have taken eleven years from the date on which Giovanni Beroviero wrote his letter to the Podestà of Murano, and the letter itself, though similar in spirit to the original, is differently worded and covers somewhat different ground; I have also represented Zorzi as standing alone in his attempt to become an independent glass-blower, whereas Comm. Levi has discovered that he had two companions, who were Dalmatians, like himself. There is no foundation in tradition for the existence of Arisa the Georgian slave, but it is well known that beautiful Eastern slaves were bought and sold in Venice and in many other parts of Italy even at a much later date. 
18847	----	THE WHITE SISTER ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: VIOLA ALLEN AS THE WHITE SISTER] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The White Sister _By_ F. Marion Crawford Author of "The Diva's Ruby," "Saracinesca," "In the Palace of the King," etc. A. L. BURT COMPANY PUBLISHERS--NEW YORK Macmillan Standard Library All Rights Reserved ------------------------------------------------------------------------ COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY F. MARION CRAWFORD. COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY F. MARION CRAWFORD. COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1909. Reprinted May, June, twice, July, August, twice, September, October, November, December, 1909; February, 1910; March, November, 1910; February, 1911; September, 1913. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE WHITE SISTER CHAPTER I 'I cannot help it,' said Filmore Durand quietly. 'I paint what I see. If you are not pleased with the likeness, I shall be only too happy to keep it.' The Marchesa protested. It was only a very small matter, she said, a something in the eyes, or in the angle of the left eyebrow, or in the turn of the throat; she could not tell where it was, but it gave her niece a little air of religious ecstasy that was not natural to her. If the master would only condescend to modify the expression the least bit, all would be satisfactory. Instead of condescending, Filmore Durand smiled rather indifferently and gave his pallet and brushes to his man, who was already waiting at his elbow to receive them. For the famous American portrait-painter detested all sorts of litter, such as a painting-table, brush-jars, and the like, as much as his great predecessor Lenbach ever did, and when he was at work his old servant brought him a brush, a tube of colour, a knife, or a pencil, as each was needed, from a curtained recess where everything was kept ready and in order. 'I like it as it is,' said Giovanni Severi, resting his hands on the hilt of his sabre, as he sat looking thoughtfully from the portrait to the original. The young girl smiled, pleased by his approbation of the likeness, which she herself thought good, though it by no means flattered. On the contrary, it made her look older than she was, and much more sad; for though the spring laughed in her eyes when she looked at the officer to whom people said she was engaged, their counterparts in the portrait were deep and grave. Certain irregularities of feature, too, were more apparent in the painting than in nature. For instance, there was a very marked difference between the dark eyebrows; for whereas the right one made a perfect curve, the other turned up quite sharply towards the forehead at the inner end, as if it did not wish to meet its fellow; and the Marchesa del Prato was quite sure that Angela's delicate nose had not really that aquiline and almost ascetic look which the great master had given it. In fact, the middle-aged woman almost wished that it had, for of all things that could happen she would have been best pleased that her niece should turn out to have a vocation and should disappear into some religious order as soon as possible. This was not likely, and the Marchesa was by no means ready to accept, as an alternative, a marriage with Giovanni Severi, whom she had long looked upon as her own private property. Filmore Durand glanced from one to another of the three in quick succession, stroked his rather bristly moustache, and lit a cigarette, not because he wanted to smoke, but because he could not help it, which is a very different thing. Then he looked at his picture and forgot that he was not alone with it; and it still pleased him, after a fashion, though he was not satisfied with what he had done. Great artists and great writers are rarely troubled by theories; one of the chief characteristics of mature genius is that it springs directly from conception to expression without much thought as to the means; a man who has used the same tools for a dozen years is not likely to take his chisel by the wrong end, nor to hesitate in choosing the right one for the stroke to be made, much less to 'take a sledge-hammer to kill a fly,' as the saying is. His unquiet mind has discovered some new and striking relation between the true and the beautiful; the very next step is to express that relation in clay, or in colour, or in words. While he is doing so he rarely stops to think, or to criticise his own half-finished work; he is too sure of himself, just then, to pause, and, above all, he is too happy, for all the real happiness he finds in his art is there, between the painfully disquieting ferment of the mental chaos that went before and the more or less acute disappointment which is sure to come when the finished work turns out to be less than perfect, like all things human. It is in the race from one point to the other that he rejoices in his strength, believes in his talent, and dreams of undying glory; it is then that he feels himself a king of men and a prophet of mankind; but it is when he is in this stage that he is called vain, arrogant, and self-satisfied by those who do not understand the distress that has gone before, nor the disillusionment which will follow soon enough, when the hand is at rest and cool judgment marks the distance between a perfect ideal and an attainable reality. Moreover, the less the lack of perfection seems to others, the more formidable it generally looks to the great artist himself. It was often said of Durand that his portraits were prophetic; and often again that his brushes were knives and scalpels that dissected his sitters' characters upon the canvas like an anatomical preparation. 'I cannot help it,' he always said. 'I paint what I see.' It was not his fault if pretty Donna Angela Chiaromonte had thrown a white veil over her dark hair, just to try the effect of it, the very first time she had been brought to his studio, or that she had been standing beside an early fifteenth century altar and altar-piece which he had just bought and put up at one end of the great hall in which he painted. He was not to blame if the veiling had fallen on each side of her face, like a nun's head-dress, nor if her eyes had grown shadowy at that moment by an accident of light or expression, nor yet if her tender lips had seemed to be saddened by a passing thought. She had not put on the veil again, and he had not meant that a suggestion of suffering ecstatically borne should dim her glad girlhood in his picture; but he had seen the vision once, and it had come out again under his brush, in spite of him, as if it were the necessary truth over which the outward expression was moulded like a lovely mask, but which must be plain in her face to every one who had once had a glimpse of it. The painter contemplated his work in silence from within an Olympian cloud of cigarette smoke that almost hid him from the others, who now exchanged a few words in Italian, which he only half understood. They spoke English with him, as they would have spoken French with a Frenchman, and probably even German with a German, for modern Roman society has a remarkable gift of tongues and is very accomplished in other ways. 'What I think most wonderful,' said the Marchesa del Prato, who detested her husband's pretty niece, 'is that he has not made a Carlo Dolce picture of you, my dear. With your face, it would have been so easy, you know!' Giovanni Severi's hands moved a little and the scabbard of his sabre struck one of his spurs with a sharp clink; for he was naturally impatient and impulsive, as any one could see from his face. It was lean and boldly cut; his cheeks were dark from exposure rather than by nature, there were reddish lights in his short brown hair, and his small but vigorous moustache was that of a rather fair man who has lived much in sun and wind in a hot climate. His nose was Roman and energetic, his mouth rather straight and hard; yet few would have thought his face remarkable but for the eyes, which betrayed his nature at a glance; they were ardent rather than merely bold, and the warm, reddish-brown iris was shot with little golden points that coruscated in the rays of the sun, but emitted a fiery light of their own when his temper was roused. If his look had been less frank and direct, or if his other features had suggested any bad quality, his eyes would probably have been intolerably disagreeable to meet; as it was, they warned all comers that their possessor was one of those uncommon and dangerous men who go to the utmost extremes when they believe themselves in the right and are constitutionally incapable of measuring danger or considering consequences when they are roused. Giovanni Severi was about eight-and-twenty, and wore the handsome uniform of an artillery officer on the Staff. He had not liked the Marchesa's remark, and the impatient little clink of his scabbard against his spur only preceded his answer by a second. 'Happily for Angela,' he said, 'we are not in the studio of a caricaturist.' The Marchesa, who could be near-sighted on occasion, put up her tortoiseshell-mounted eyeglass and looked at him aggressively; but as he returned her gaze with steadiness, she soon turned away. 'You are extremely rude,' she said coldly. For she herself made clever caricatures in water-colours, and she knew what Giovanni meant. Angela's mother had been a very devout woman and had died young, but had incurred the hatred of the Marchesa by marrying the very man whom the latter had picked out for herself, namely, the elder of two brothers, and the Marchesa had reluctantly consented to marry the other, who had a much less high-sounding title and a far smaller fortune. She had revenged herself in various small ways, and had often turned her brother-in-law's wife to ridicule by representing her as an ascetic mediæval saint, in contorted attitudes of ecstasy, with sunken cheeks and eyes like saucers full of ink. Like many other people, Giovanni had seen some of these drawings, for the resentful Marchesa had not destroyed them when the Princess Chiaromonte died; but no one had yet been unkind enough to tell Angela of their existence. The girl did not like her aunt by marriage, it was true, but with a singularly simple and happy disposition, and a total absence of vanity, she apparently possessed her mother's almost saintly patience, and she bore the Marchesa's treatment with a cheerful submission which exasperated the elder woman much more than any show of temper could have done. Just now, seeing that trouble of some sort was imminent, she made a diversion by coming down from the low movable platform, on which her chair had been placed for the sitting, and she spoke to the artist while she studied her own portrait. Durand was a very thin man, and so tall that Angela had to look very high to see his face as she stood beside him. 'I could never be as good as the picture looks,' she said in English, with a little laugh, 'nor so dreadfully in earnest! But it is very nice of you to think that I might!' 'You will never be anything but good,' answered Filmore Durand, 'and it's not necessarily dreadful to be in earnest about it.' 'You are a moralist. I see.' observed the Marchesa, putting on a sweet smile as she rose and came forward, followed by Giovanni. 'I don't know,' replied the painter. 'What is a moralist?' 'A person who is in earnest about other people's morals,' suggested Angela gaily. 'Really!' cried the Marchesa, with a most emphatic English pronunciation of the word. 'One would think that you had been brought up in a Freemasons' lodge!' In view of the fact that Angela's father was one of the very last survivors of the 'intransigent' clericals, this was quite the most cutting speech the Marchesa could think of. But Filmore Durand failed to see the point. 'What has Freemasonry to do with morality?' he inquired with bland surprise. 'Nothing at all,' answered the Marchesa smartly, 'for it is the religion of the devil.' 'Dear me!' The artist smiled. 'What strong prejudices you have in Rome!' 'Are you a Freemason?' the noble lady asked, with evident nervousness; and she glanced from his face to Angela, and then at the door. 'Well--no--I'm not,' the painter admitted with a slight drawl, and evidently amused. 'But then I'm not a moralist either, though I suppose I might be both and yet go on painting about the same.' 'I think not,' said the Marchesa so stiffly that Giovanni almost laughed aloud. 'We must be going,' she added, suddenly relaxing to graciousness again. 'It has been such a privilege to see you day after day, my dear Mr. Durand, and to watch you working in your own surroundings. My brother-in-law will come to-morrow. I have no doubt that he will be much pleased with the portrait.' Filmore Durand smiled indifferently but with politeness as he bowed over the Marchesa's hand. He did not care a straw whether Angela's father liked the picture or not, being in love with it himself, and much more anxious to keep it than to be paid for it. 'When shall I see you again?' Giovanni had asked of Angela, almost in a whisper, while the Marchesa was speaking. Instead of answering she shook her head, for she could not decide at once, but as her glance met his a delicate radiance tinged her cheeks for a moment, as if the rosy light of a clear dawn were reflected in her face. The young soldier's eyes flashed as he watched her; he drew his breath audibly, and then bit his upper lip as if to check the sound and the sensation that had caused it. Angela heard and saw, for she understood what moved him, so far as almost childlike simplicity can have intuition of what most touches a strong man. She was less like the portrait now than a moment earlier; her lips, just parting in a little half-longing, half-troubled smile, were like dark rose leaves damp with dew, her eyelids drooped at the corners for an instant, and the translucent little nostrils quivered at the mysterious thrill that stirred her maiden being. The two young people had not known each other quite a year, for she had never seen Severi till she had left the convent to go out into society and to take her place at her widowed father's table as his only child; but at their first meeting Giovanni had felt that of all women he had known, none but she had ever called his nature to hers with the longing cry of the natural mate. At first she was quite unconscious of her power, and for a long time he looked in vain for the slightest outward sign that she was moved when she saw him making his way to her in a crowded drawing-room, or coming upon her suddenly out of doors when she was walking in the villa with her old governess, the excellent Madame Bernard, or riding in the Campagna with her father. Giovanni's duties were light, and he had plenty of time to spare, and his pertinacity in finding her would have been compromising if he had been less ingeniously tactful. It was by no means easy to meet her in society either, for, in spite of recent social developments, Prince Chiaromonte still clung to the antiquated political mythology of Blacks and Whites, and strictly avoided the families he persisted in calling 'Liberals,' on the ground that his father had called them so in 1870, when he was a small boy. It was not until he had bored himself to extinction in the conscientious effort to take the girl out, that he appealed to his sister-in-law to help him, though he knew that neither she nor his brother was truly clerical at heart. Even then, if it had been clear to him that Giovanni Severi had made up his mind to marry Angela if he married at all, the Prince would have forced himself to bear agonies of boredom night after night, rather than entrust his daughter to the Marchesa; but such an idea had never entered his head, and he would have scouted the suggestion that Angela would ever dare to encourage a young man of whom he had not formally approved; and while she was meeting Giovanni almost daily, and dancing with him almost every evening, her father was slowly negotiating an appropriate marriage for her with the eldest son of certain friends who were almost as clerical and intransigent as himself. The young man was a limp degenerate, with a pale face, a weak mouth, and an inherited form of debility which made him fall asleep wherever he was, if nothing especial happened to keep his eyes open; he not only always slept from ten at night till nine the next morning with the regularity of an idiot, but he went to sleep wherever he sat down, in church, at dinner, and even when he was driving. Neither his own parents nor Prince Chiaromonte looked upon this as a serious drawback in the matter of marriage. A man who slept all day and all night was a man out of mischief, not likely to grumble nor to make love to his neighbour's wife; he would therefore be a model husband. When he fell asleep in the drawing-room in summer, his consort would sit beside him and brush away the flies; in winter she would be careful to cover him up lest he should catch cold; at mass she could prick him with a hat-pin to keep him awake; as for the rest, she would bear one of the oldest names in Europe, her husband would be a strictly religious and moral person, and she would be very rich. What more could any woman ask? Evidently nothing, and Prince Chiaromonte therefore continued to negotiate the marriage in the old-fashioned manner, without the least intention of speaking about it to Angela till everything was altogether settled between the family lawyers, and the wedding could take place in six weeks. It was not the business of young people to fathom the intentions of their all-wise parents, and meanwhile Angela was free to go to parties with her aunt, and her intended husband was at liberty to sleep as much as he liked. The negotiations would probably occupy another two or three months, for the family lawyers had disagreed as to the number of times that Angela should be allowed to take the carriage out every day, and this had to be stipulated in the marriage contract, besides the number of dishes there were to be at luncheon and dinner and the question whether, if Angela took coffee after her meals, it should be charged to her husband, who took none, or against the income arising from her dowry. The family lawyers were both very old men and understood these difficult matters thoroughly, but neither would have felt that he was doing his duty to his client if he had not quarrelled with the other over each point. From week to week each reported progress to his employer, and on the whole the two fathers felt that matters were going on well, without any undue delay. But the Fates frowned grimly on the marriage and on all things connected with it, for on the very morning during which Filmore Durand finished Angela's portrait, and before she had left his studio in the Palazzo Borghese, something happened which not only put a stop to the leisurely labours of the two lawyers, but which profoundly changed Angela's existence, and was the cause of her having a story quite different from that of a good many young girls who are in love with one man but are urged by their parents to marry another. The interest of this tale, if it has any, lies in no such simple conflict of forces as that, and it is enough to know that while her father had been busy over her marriage, Angela Chiaromonte had fallen in love with Giovanni Severi, and had, indeed, as much as promised to marry him; and that a good many people, including the Marchesa del Prato, already suspected this, though they had not communicated their suspicions to the girl's father, partly because he was not liked, and partly because he hardly ever showed himself in the world. The situation is thus clearly explained, so far as it was known to the persons concerned at the moment when the Great Unforeseen flashed from its hiding-place and hurled itself into their midst. As Filmore Durand went with the Marchesa towards the entrance hall, followed by the young people, he called his man to open the outer door, but almost at the same moment he heard his voice at the telephone; the servant was a Swiss who spoke German, English, and Italian, and had followed the artist for many years. He was evidently answering an inquiry about the Marchesa just as he heard her step. 'The lady is here,' he said. 'She is coming to the telephone herself.' He looked round as the four approached, for the instrument was placed on the right side of the large door that opened upon the landing. 'Some one for your ladyship,' he said in English, holding out the receiver to the Marchesa. She took it and put it to her ear, repeating the usual Italian formula. 'Ready--with whom am I speaking? Yes. I am the Marchesa del Prato, she herself. What is it?' There was a pause while she listened, and then Angela saw her face change suddenly. 'Dead?' she shrieked into the telephone. 'Half-an-hour ago?' She still held the receiver to her ear, but she was stretching out her left hand as if she needed support. Durand took her by the arm and elbow, prepared to hold her up if she showed signs of fainting. Angela was already on her other side. 'Who is dead?' the girl asked quietly enough, but with evident anxiety. 'Your father,' answered the Marchesa, with such sudden and brutal directness that Giovanni started forward, and Durand stared in surprise, for he knew enough Italian to understand as much as that. Angela made two steps backwards, slowly and mechanically, like a blind man who has unexpectedly run against a wall; like the blind, too, she held out her hands before her, as if to assure herself that she was getting out of reach of the obstacle. Her face had turned white and her eyes were half closed. The Marchesa no longer seemed to be in need of support and watched her. 'My poor child!' she cried, in a tone of conventional sympathy. 'I should have broken the news to you gradually----' 'You should indeed!' answered Giovanni with stern emphasis. He was already leading Angela to one of the nearest of the high-backed chairs that stood ranged against the dark-green wall of the hall. She sat down, steadying herself by his arm. 'Run over by a motor car almost at his own door,' said the Marchesa, in a lower tone and in English, as she turned slightly towards Durand. 'Killed on the spot! It is too awful! My poor brother-in-law!' 'Get some brandy and some cold water,' said the artist to his man, watching the girl's pale face and twitching hands. 'Yes,' said Giovanni, who was bending over her anxiously. 'Bring something quickly! She is going to faint.' But Angela was not fainting, nor even half-unconscious. She had felt as if something hard had struck her between the eyes, without quite stunning her. She attempted to get up, but realised her weakness and waited a moment before trying again. Then she rose to her feet with an effort and stood straight and rigid before her aunt, her eyes quite open now. 'Come!' she said, almost imperiously, and in a voice unlike her own. In a moment they were gone, and the artist was standing before the portrait he had finished, looking into its eyes as if it were alive. He had been deeply shocked by what had just happened, and was sincerely sorry for Angela, though he had not the least idea whether she had loved her father or not, but his face was calm and thoughtful again, now that she was gone, and expressed a quiet satisfaction which had not been there before. For it seemed to him that the picture was a precious reality, and that the young girl who had sat for it was only nature's copy, and not perfect at that; and perhaps the reality would not be taken from him, now, since Prince Chiaromonte had come to an untimely end; and the prospect of keeping the canvas was exceedingly pleasing to Filmore Durand. He had never painted anything that had disappointed him less, or that he was less willing to part with, and during the last day or two he had even thought of making a replica of it for the Prince in order to keep the original, for no copy, though it were made by himself most conscientiously, could ever be quite so good. But now that the Prince was dead, it was possible that the heirs, if there were any besides Angela, would be glad to be excused from paying a large sum for a picture they did not want. He was sure from the young girl's manner that she would no more care to possess a portrait of herself than a coloured postcard of the Colosseum or a plaster-cast of one of Canova's dancing-girls. This was not flattering to the artist, it was true, but in the present case he would rather keep his own painting than have it appreciated ever so highly by any one else. Late in the afternoon he stopped before the closed gateway of the Palazzo Chiaromonte and pushed the little postern that stood ajar. The big porter was within, standing dejectedly before the door of his lodge, and already dressed in the deep mourning which is kept in readiness in all the great Roman houses. The painter asked in broken Italian if the bad news was true, and the man nodded gravely, pointing to the gates. They would not be shut unless the master were dead. Durand asked after Donna Angela, but the porter was not communicative. She had come in with her aunt and both were upstairs; he suspected the painter of being a foreign newspaper correspondent and would say nothing more. The American thanked him and went away; after all, he had come to make sure that the Prince was really dead, and he was conscious that his wish to keep the portrait was the only motive of his inquiry. He strolled away through the crowded streets, blowing such clouds of cigarette smoke about him that people looked at him in surprise. It was almost sunset, in February, and it was just before Lent. Rome is at her gayest then, though the old Carnival is as dead and gone as Pio Nono, Garibaldi, the French military occupation, the hatred of the Jesuits, and all that made the revival of Italy in the nineteenth century the most thrilling romance that ever roused Italian passion and stirred the world's sympathy. Durand was not old enough to remember those times, and he had never been in Rome at all till he was nearly thirty years of age and on the first wave of his high success; but he had read about the past, and to his unspoiled sight and vivid imagination Rome was still romantic and the greatest city in the world, ancient or modern; and somehow when he thought of his picture and of Angela's face, and remembered the scene at the telephone, he felt that he was himself just within the sphere of some mysterious and tragic action which he could not yet understand, but which might possibly affect his own life. 'This is a serio-comic world,' he said to himself as he slowly made his way down the Corso, watching the faces of the people he passed, because he never passed a face in the street without glancing at it, stopping now and then to look into a shop window where there was nothing to see that he had not seen a thousand times elsewhere, smoking cigarettes without number, thinking of Angela's portrait, and mechanically repeating his little epigram over and over again, to a sort of tune in his head, with variations and transpositions that meant nothing at all. 'This is a serio-comic world. This is a comico-serious world. This world is a serious comico-serial. This is a worldly-serious comedy.' And so forth, and so on; and a number of more or less good-looking women of the serio-comic world, whose portraits he had painted, and several more or less distinguished men who had sat to him, passed the man of genius and greeted him as if they were rather pleased to show that they knew him; but they would have been shocked if they could have heard the silly words the great painter was mechanically repeating to himself as he idled along the pavement, musing on the picture he hoped to keep, and already regarded as his masterpiece and chief treasure. CHAPTER II The excellent Madame Bernard had been Angela's governess before the child had been sent to the convent, on the Trinità dei Monti, and whenever she was at home for the holidays, and also during the brief interval between her leaving school and going into society; and after that, during the winter which preceded Prince Chiaromonte's death, she had accompanied the motherless girl to concerts and had walked with her almost daily in the mornings. She was one of those thoroughly trustworthy, sound-minded, well-educated Frenchwomen of the middle class of whom many are to be found in the provinces, though the type is rare in Paris; nearly fifty years of age, she had lived twenty years in Rome, always occupying the same little apartment in a respectable street of Trastevere, where she had a spare room which she was glad to let to any French or English lady of small means who came to Rome for a few months in the winter and spring. Angela sent her maid for Madame Bernard on the day of the catastrophe, since her aunt neither offered to take her in at once nor seemed inclined to suggest any arrangement for the future. The Marchesa did, indeed, take charge of everything in the Palazzo Chiaromonte within an hour of her brother-in-law's death; she locked the drawers of his private desk herself, sent for the notary and had the customary seals placed on the doors of the inner apartments 'in the name of the heirs'; she spoke with the undertaker and made every arrangement for the customary lying in state of the body during the following night and day; saw to the erection of the temporary altar at which masses for the dead would be celebrated almost without interruption from midnight to noon by sixteen priests in succession; gave full instructions to the effect that the men-servants should take their turn of duty in regular watches, day and night, until the funeral; and finally left the palace, after showing herself to be an exceedingly practical woman. When she went away, she was holding her handkerchief to her eyes with both hands and she forgot her parasol; but she remembered it as she was just going out by the postern, her carriage being outside because the gates were shut, and she sent her footman back for it and for the little morocco bag in which she carried her handkerchief and card-case. It was a small matter, but the porter, the footman, and the butler upstairs all remembered it afterwards, and the footman himself, while coming down, took the trouble to look into the little wallet, and saw that the card-case was there, but nothing else; for the Marchesa sometimes carried certain little cigarettes in it, which the man had found particularly good. But to-day there was not even one. Madame Bernard arrived in tears, for she was a warm-hearted woman, and was overcome with sympathy for the lonely girl. She found Angela sitting by a small fire in her own little morning-room on the upper floor. A tray with something to eat had been set beside her, she knew not by whom, but she had not tasted anything. Her eyes were dry, but her hands were burning and when she was conscious of feeling anything she knew that her head ached. She had forgotten that she had sent for the governess, and looked at her with a vaguely wondering expression as if she took the kindly Frenchwoman in black for a new shadow in her dream. But presently mechanical consciousness returned, though without much definite sensation, and she let Madame Bernard have her way in everything, not making the slightest resistance or offering the smallest suggestion; she even submitted to being fed like a little child, with small mouthfuls of things that had no taste whatever for her. By and by there was a dressmaker in the room, with an assistant, and servants brought a number of big bandboxes with lids covered with black oilcloth; and Angela's maid was there, too, and they tried one thing after another on her, ready-made garments for the first hours of mourning. Then they were gone, and she was dressed in black, and the room was filled with the unmistakable odour of black crape, which is not like anything else in the world. Again time passed, and she was kneeling at a faldstool in the great hall downstairs; but a dark screen had been placed so that she could not be seen by any one who came in to kneel at the rail that divided the upper part of the hall from the lower; and she saw nothing herself--nothing but a Knight of Malta, in his black cloak with the great white Maltese cross on his shoulder, lying asleep on his back; and on each side of him three enormous wax torches were burning in silver candlesticks taller than a tall man. Quite at the end of the hall, five paces from the Knight's motionless head, three priests in black and silver vestments were kneeling before a black altar, reciting the Penitential Psalms in a quiet, monotonous voice, verse and verse, the one in the middle leading; and Angela automatically joined the two assistants in responding, but so low that they did not hear her. The Knight bore a resemblance to her father, that was all. Perhaps it was only a waxen image she saw, or a wraith in that long dream of hers, of which she could not quite remember the beginning. She knew that she was nothing to the image, and that it was nothing to her. While her lips repeated the grand dirge of the King-poet in Saint Jerome's noble old Latin words, her thoughts followed broken threads, each cut short by a question that lacks an answer, by the riddle man has asked of the sky and the sea and the earth since the beginning: What does it mean? What could it mean? The senseless facts were there, plain enough. That morning she had seen her father, she had kissed his hand in the old-fashioned way, and he had kissed her forehead, and they had exchanged a few words, as usual. She remembered that for the thousandth time she had wished that his voice would soften a little and that he would put his arms round her and draw her closer to him. But he had been just as always, for he was bound and stiffened in the unwieldy armour of his conventional righteousness. Angela had read of the Puritans in history, and an Englishman might smile at the thought that she could not fancy the sternest of them as more thoroughly puritanical than her father, who had been brought up by priests from his childhood. But such as he was, he had been her father that morning. The motionless figure of the Knight of Malta on the black velvet pall was not he, nor a likeness of him, nor anything human at all. It was the outward visible presence of death, it was a dumb thing that knew the answer to the riddle but could not tell it; in a way, it was the riddle itself. While her half-stunned intelligence stumbled among chasms of thought that have swallowed up transcendent genius, her lips unconsciously said the Penitential Psalms after the priests at the altar. At the convent she had been a little vain of knowing them by heart better than the nuns themselves, for she had a good memory, and she had often been rebuked for taking pride in her gift. It was not her fault if the noble poetry meant nothing to her at the most solemn hour of her life, though its deep human note had appealed profoundly to her the last time she had repeated the words. Nothing meant anything now, in the face of the unanswered riddle; nothing but the answer could have any meaning. The great apostle of modern thought asked three questions: What can I know? As a reasoning being what is it my duty to do in life? What may I dare to hope hereafter? Angela had never even heard of Kant; she only asked what it all meant; and the Knight of Malta was silent under the steady yellow light of the six wax torches. Perhaps the white cross on his cloak was the answer, but the emblem was too far from words for mere humanity to understand it. She wished they would take him away, for he was not her father, and she would be far better able to pray alone in her own room than in the stately presence of that one master whom all living things fear, man and bird and beast, and whatsoever has life in the sea. To pray, yes; but for what? Rebellious against outward things, the girl's prime intuition told her that her father was quite separated from his mortal symbol now, having suddenly left that which could change to become a part of the unknown truth, which must be unchangeable if it is true; invisible, without form or dimension, 'being' not 'living,' 'conscious' not 'aware,' 'knowing' not 'seeing,' 'eternal' not 'immortal.' That might be the answer, but it meant too much for a girl to grasp, and explained too little to be comforting. The threads of thought broke short off again, and Angela's lips went on making words, while she gazed unwinking on the Knight's expressionless face. Suddenly her mind awoke again in a sort of horror of darkness, and her lips ceased from moving for a while, for she was terrified. Was there anything beyond? Was it really God who had taken her father from her in an instant, or was it a blind force that had killed him, striking in the dark? If that was the answer, what was there left? The sensitive girl shivered. Perhaps no bodily danger could have sent that chill through her. It began in her head and crept quickly to her hands and then to her feet, for it was not a fear of death that came upon her, nor of anything outward. To lose life was nothing, if there was heaven beyond; pain, torture, martyrdom would be nothing if God the good was standing on the other side. All life was but one long opportunity for sinning, and to lose it while in grace was to be safe for ever; so much she had been taught and until now she had believed it. But what loss could be compared with losing God? There were unbelievers in the world, of course, but she could not understand how they could still live on, and laugh, and seek pleasure and feel it keenly. What had they to fill the void of their tremendous loss? Surely, not to believe was not to hope, to be for ever without hope was the punishment of the damned, and to live hopeless in the world was to suffer the pains of hell on earth. She felt them now. 'The pains of hell gat hold upon me,' she moaned, heedless of the priest's recitation. Darkness rose like a flood-tide all round her and she shut her eyes to keep it out, for her will fought for hope, as her body would have struggled against drowning. It was no longer a mere question that assailed her, but imminent destruction itself. It passed away this first time and she grew calm again. Not to believe was sin, and against all sin, prayer and steadfast will must be availing. The will, she had; she could remember many prayers, too, and say them earnestly, and was thankful for her memory which held orisons in readiness for every circumstance of daily duty or spiritual life. From her childhood she had found a gentle delight in the Church's liturgies and hymns, and now, as she prayed with the forms of language she had always loved, habit brought back belief to lighten her darkness. She still felt the bitter cold of the outer night that was very near her; but she kept it off now, and warmed her poor little soul in the fervour of her praying till she felt that she was coming again to life and hope. She opened her eyes at last and saw that nothing was changed. The Knight of Malta slept on, as he was to sleep for ever; the priests knelt motionless before the black altar; their quiet, monotonous voices went on with the Penitential Psalms as priests had said them for at least fifteen centuries. Angela listened till she caught the words and then began to respond again, and once more her thoughts followed broken threads. Surely, by all she had been taught, her father was in heaven already. It was not possible that any human being should obey every written and unwritten ordinance of his religion more strictly than he had done ever since she could remember him. He had been severe, almost to cruelty, but he had been quite as unyieldingly austere in dealing with himself. He had fasted rigidly, not only when fasts were ordered, but of his free will when others only abstained, he had never begun a day without hearing mass nor a week without confession and communion, he had retired into spiritual retreat in Lent, he had prayed early and late; in his dealings with men, he had not done to others what he would not have had them do to him, he had not said of his neighbour what he would not have said of himself, he had wronged no man; he had given much to charity and more to the 'imprisoned' head of the Church. He had so lived that no confessor could justly find fault with him, and he had never failed to pray for those in whom he discerned any shortcoming. Who would condemn such a just person? Not God, surely. Therefore when his life had ended so suddenly that morning, his soul had been taken directly to heaven. Such righteousness as his had venial sins to expiate, what hope was there left for men of ordinary earthly passions and failings? It was a consolation to think of that, Angela told herself, now that the tide of darkness had ebbed back to the depth of terror whence it had risen; and when at last the long dream slowly dissolved before returning reality the lonely girl's eyes overflowed with natural tears at the thought that her father's motionless lips would never move again, even to reprove her, and that she was looking for the last time on all that earth still held of him who had given her life. CHAPTER III Three days later Angela sat alone in her morning-room, reading a letter from Giovanni Severi. All was over now--the lying in state, the funeral at the small parish church, the interment in the cemetery of San Lorenzo, where the late Prince had built a temporary tomb for himself and his family, under protest, because modern municipal regulations would not allow even such a personage as he to be buried within the walls, in his own family vault, at Santa Maria del Popolo. But he had been confident that even if he did not live to see the return of the Pope's temporal power, his remains would soon be solemnly transferred to the city, to rest with those of his fathers; and he had looked forward to his resurrection from a sepulchre better suited to his earthly rank and spiritual worth than a brick vault in a public cemetery, within a hundred yards of the thrice-anathematised crematorium, and of the unhallowed burial-ground set aside for Freemasons, anarchists, Protestants, and Jews. But no man can be blamed fairly for wishing to lie beside his forefathers, and if Prince Chiaromonte had failed to see that the destiny of Italy had out-measured the worldly supremacy of the Vatican in the modern parallelogram of forces, that had certainly been a fault of judgment rather than of intention. He had never wavered in his fidelity to his ideal, nor had he ever voluntarily submitted to any law imposed by the 'usurper.' 'That excellent Chiaromonte is so extremely clerical,' Pope Leo the Thirteenth had once observed to his secretary with his quiet smile. But Angela missed her father constantly, not understanding that he had systematically forced her to look to him as the judge and master of her existence, and she wondered a little why she almost longed for his grave nod, and his stern frown of disapproval, and even for the daily and hourly reproof under which she had so often chafed. Madame Bernard had been installed in the palace since the day of the fatal accident, and she was kindness personified, full of consideration and forethought; yet the girl was very lonely and miserable from morning till night, and when she slept she dreamed of the dead Knight of Malta's face, of the yellow light of the wax torches, and the voices of the priests. On the fourth day a letter came from Giovanni, the first she had ever received from him. She did not even know his handwriting, and she looked at the signature before reading the note to see who had written to her so soon. When she understood that it was he, a flood of sunshine broke upon her gloom. The bright morning sun had indeed been shining through the window for an hour, but she had not known it till then. It was not a love-letter. He used those grammatically illogical but superfinely courteous forms which make high Italian a mystery to strangers who pick up a few hundred words for daily use and dream that they understand the language. He used the first person for himself, but spoke of her in the third singular; he began with: 'Most gentle Donna Angela,' and he signed his full name at the end of a formal phrase setting forth his profoundly respectful homage. She would have been much surprised and perhaps offended if he had expressed himself in any more familiar way. Brought up as she had been under the most old-fashioned code in Europe when at home, and under the frigid rule of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart when she was at school, any familiarity of language seemed to her an outrage on good manners, and might even be counted a sin if she condescended to it in speaking with a man who was not yet her husband. She had been made to address her father in the third person feminine singular ever since she had learned to talk, precisely as Giovanni wrote to her; and if she prayed to the Deity with the less formal second person plural, this was doubtless because the Italian prayers had been framed in less refined and courteous times than her own. In spite of his stiff grammar, however, Severi managed to write things that brought the colour to her face and the light to her eyes. He said, for instance, that he was coming to see her that very afternoon; that in order not to attract attention at the gate of the palace he would wear civilian's dress, and that he hoped she would not only receive him, but would send Madame Bernard out of the room for a little while, so that he might speak to her alone. The proposal was so delightful and yet so disturbing that Angela thought it must be wicked and tried to examine her conscience at once; but it shut up like an oyster taken out of the water and pretended to be perfectly insensible, turn it and probe it how she would. So she gave it up; and she did so the more readily because it would be quite impossible to see Giovanni that afternoon, enchanting as the prospect would have been. Her aunt the Marchesa had sent word that she was coming at four o'clock with the lawyer to explain Angela's position to her, and it was impossible to say how long the two might stay. Meanwhile she must send word to Giovanni not to come, for it would not suffice that he should be refused admittance at the gate, since he might chance to present himself just when the Marchesa drove up, which would produce a very bad impression. Angela was ashamed to send her maid with a note to a young officer, and she would not trust one of the men-servants; she turned for advice to Madame Bernard, who was her only confidante. 'What am I to do?' she asked when she had explained everything. 'He is generally at the War Office at this time and he may not even go home before he comes here. I see no way but to send a note.' 'He would certainly go home to change his clothes,' answered the practical Frenchwoman; 'but it is not necessary for you to write. I will telephone to the War Office, and if the Count is there I will explain everything.' Angela looked at her doubtfully. 'But then the servant who telephones will know,' she objected. 'The servant? Why? I do not understand. I shall speak myself. No one will be there to hear.' 'Yourself? My father never could, and I never was shown how to do it. Are you sure you understand the thing? It is very complicated, I believe.' Madame Bernard was not surprised, for she knew the ways of the Palazzo Chiaromonte; but she smiled and assured the young girl that a telephone was not really such a dangerous instrument as she had been led to believe. 'I once tried to make a few stitches with a sewing-machine,' Angela said, apparently in explanation. 'A telephone is different,' Madame Bernard answered gravely. 'Shall I ask the Count to come to-morrow at four o'clock, instead of to-day?' Angela hesitated, and then blushed faintly. 'Do you think----' she began, but she stopped and hesitated. 'He would be angry, I am sure----' She seemed to be suddenly distressed. 'Your father?' asked the Frenchwoman, guessing what she meant. 'My dear Princess----' 'Oh, please don't call me that!' cried Angela. 'You never do----' 'You see, you are a great personage now, my dear child,' Madame Bernard answered, 'and I am no longer your governess----' 'But you are my friend, dear, dear Madame Bernard! Indeed, I think you are my only friend now!' And thereupon Angela threw her arms round the little woman's neck and kissed her very affectionately. Madame Bernard's fresh face beamed with pleasure. 'Thank you, my dear,' she answered. 'And as for your father, my child, he is without doubt in heaven; and that means that he now judges you by your intentions and no longer by appearances only.' This sage little speech reassured Angela, though she soon afterwards asked herself whether it was quite loyal to allow any one to say that the Prince had ever judged her 'by appearances only.' But while she was making this reflection Madame Bernard was already telephoning to Giovanni, who was at the War Office, as Angela supposed, and he answered with alacrity that he would come to the palace on the following afternoon and ask to see Madame Bernard on a matter of business. It was really her business to teach French, as all the servants knew, and if they thought that the young officer came to ask about some lessons for himself or a friend, so much the better. Madame Bernard was naturally practical, and Giovanni was by nature quick-witted; so the matter was settled in a few words, to the satisfaction of both; and when Angela was merely told that he was coming she was much more pleased than she was willing to show, and she said no more about her father's hypothetical disapproval. That afternoon she received the Marchesa del Prato and the lawyer downstairs in the second of the outer drawing-rooms. It was cold there, but she had not quite dared to order a fire to be made, because the Prince had never allowed fires except in the inner rooms, which were still closed under the notarial seals. The place had a certain grandeur of its own, for the massive decorations, the heavy furniture, and the rich brocade curtains all dated from the best period of Louis the Fourteenth's reign. On the walls there were four or five first-rate pictures, the largest of which was a magnificent portrait of a former Chiaromonte by Vandyke; there was a Holy Family by Guercino, another by Bonifacio, a Magdalen with the box of ointment, by Andrea del Sarto, and one or two smaller paintings of no inconsiderable value. But at that hour the light was bad, for the afternoon had turned cold and rainy after a beautiful morning, and at four o'clock it was still too early to have lamps. A few moments after the hour, a servant opened the door, held the curtains aside, and announced the visitor. 'Her Excellency, the Princess Chiaromonte!' Angela started slightly at the name. The last Princess Chiaromonte who had passed through that doorway had been her mother, and in her solitude the girl had not even been told that her uncle had already assumed the title of the head of the house. The lacquey paid no attention whatever to the quiet man in black who followed the Princess, holding his hat against his chest with both hands and advancing with a bowing motion at every step, as if he were saluting the family chairs as he passed them. Angela vaguely remembered his solemnly obsequious face. Her aunt seemed to have grown taller and larger, as she bent to imprint a formal kiss on the girl's cheek, and then sat down in one of the huge old easy-chairs, while the lawyer seated himself at a respectful distance on an ottoman stool with his high hat on his knees. Angela took her place at one end of the stiff sofa that stood directly under the Vandyke portrait, and she waited for her aunt to speak. The Princess had evidently prepared herself, for she spoke clearly and did not pause for some time. 'Your uncle has a slight attack of influenza,' she said; 'otherwise he would have come with me, and I should have been more than glad if he himself could have explained the whole situation to you instead of leaving that painful duty to me. You are well aware, my dear Angela, that your father always clung to the most prejudiced traditions of the intransigent clericals, and could never be induced to conform to any of the new regulations introduced by the Italian Government. In point of fact, I do not think he quite realised that the old order had passed away when he was a mere boy, and that the new was to be permanent, if not everlasting. If he had, he would have acted very differently, I am sure, and my present duty would have been much easier than it is. Are you quite certain that you understand that?' Angela was quite certain that she did, and nodded quietly, though she could not see how her father's political convictions could affect her own present situation. 'I have no doubt,' continued the Princess, 'that he brought you up to consider yourself the heiress of all his fortune, though not of the title, which naturally goes to the eldest male heir. Am I right?' 'He never told me anything about my inheritance,' Angela replied. 'So much the better. It will be easier for me to explain your rather unusual position. In the first place, I must make it clear to you that your father and mother declined to go before the mayor at the Capitol when they were married, in spite of the regulations which had then been in force a number of years. They were devout Catholics and the blessing of the Church was enough for them. According to your father, to go through any form of civil ceremony, before or after the wedding, was equivalent to doubting the validity of the sacrament of marriage.' 'Naturally,' Angela assented, as her aunt paused and looked at her. 'Very naturally.' The Princess's eyes began to glitter oddly, and the lawyer turned his hat uneasily on his knees. 'Very naturally, indeed! Unfortunately for you, however, your father was not merely overlooking a municipal regulation, as he supposed; he was deliberately bidding defiance to the laws of Italy.' 'What do you mean?' asked Angela rather nervously. 'It is very painful to explain,' answered the elder woman with gleaming eyes and a disagreeable smile. 'The simple truth is that as your father and mother were not civilly married--civilly, you understand--they were not legally married at all, and the law will never admit that they were!' Angela's hand tightened on the arm of the old sofa. 'Not married?' she cried. 'My father and mother not married? It is impossible, it is monstrous----' 'Not "legally" married, I said,' replied the Princess. 'To be legally married, it is absolutely necessary to go before the mayor at the Capitol and have the civil ceremony properly performed. Am I right?' she asked, turning suddenly to the lawyer. 'It is absolutely necessary, is it not?' 'Absolutely, Excellency,' the legal adviser answered. 'Otherwise the children of the marriage are not legitimate.' 'What does that mean?' asked Angela in a frightened tone. 'It means,' explained the Princess, 'that in the eyes of the law you do not exist----' Angela tried to laugh. 'But I do exist! Here I am, Angela Chiaromonte, to say that I am alive!' 'Angela, but not Chiaromonte,' corrected the Princess, hardly able to hide her satisfaction. 'I am sorry to say that your dear father would not even submit to the regulation which requires all parents alike to declare the birth of children, and he paid a heavy fine for his refusal. The consequence is that when your birth was entered at the Municipality, you were put down as a foundling child whose parents refused to declare themselves.' 'A foundling! I, a foundling!' Angela half rose in amazed indignation, but almost instantly sat down again, with an incredulous smile. 'Either you are quite mad,' she said, 'or you are trying to frighten me for some reason I do not understand.' The Princess raised her sandy eyebrows and looked at the lawyer, evidently meaning him to speak for her. 'That is your position, Signorina,' he said calmly. 'You have, unhappily, no legal status, no legal name, and no claim whatever on the estate of His Excellency Prince Chiaromonte, who was not married to your mother in the eyes of the law, and refused even to acknowledge you as his child by registering your birth at the mayoralty. Every inquiry has been made on your behalf, and I have here the certified copy of the register as it stands, declaring you to be a foundling. It was still in your father's power to make a will in your favour, Signorina, and as the laws of entail no longer exist, His Excellency may have left you his whole estate, real and personal, though his titles and dignities will in any case pass to his brother. I must warn you, however, that such a will might not prove valid in law, since His Excellency did not even legally acknowledge you as his child. So far, no trace of a will has been found with his late Excellency's notary, nor with his lawyer, nor deposited with his securities at his banker's. It is barely possible that some paper may exist in the rooms which are still closed, but I think it my duty to tell you that I do not expect to find anything of the kind when we break the seals to-morrow, in the presence of the heirs and witnesses.' He ceased speaking and looked at the Princess as if asking whether he should say more, for Angela had bent her head and quietly covered her eyes with one hand, and in this attitude she sat quite motionless in her place. The lawyer thought she was going to burst into tears, for he did not know her. 'That will do, Calvi,' said the Princess calmly. 'You have made it all very clear, and you may retire for the present. The young lady is naturally overcome by the bad news, and would rather be alone with me for a little while, I daresay.' Signor Calvi rose, made a profound obeisance to the Princess, scarcely bent his head to Angela, and retired, apparently bowing to the family chairs as he passed each. The young girl dropped her hand and looked after him with a sort of dull curiosity; she was the last person in the world to take offence or to suppose that any one meant to be rude to her, but it was impossible not to notice the lawyer's behaviour. In his opinion she was suddenly nobody, and deserved no more notice than a shop-girl. She understood enough of human nature to be sure that he counted on the Princess's approval. The elder woman was watching her with a satisfaction she hardly tried to conceal. Her small hands were encased in marvellously fitting black gloves, though black gloves rarely fit so well as others, and were crossed on her knee over the little leather bag she always carried. She was leaning back in the great arm-chair, and the mourning she wore made her faultless complexion look even more brilliant than it was. No one knew how near forty the Princess might be, for she appeared in the _Almanach de Gotha_ without a birthday, and only the date of her marriage was given; but the year was 1884, and people said it was impossible that she should have been less than seventeen when her parents had brought her to Rome and had tried to marry her to the elder of the Chiaromonte family; as twenty years had passed since they had succeeded in capturing the second son for their daughter, it was clear that she could not be under thirty-seven. But her complexion was extraordinary, and though she was a tall woman she had preserved the figure and grace of a young girl. Angela did not look directly at her enemy for some seconds after the lawyer had left the room, closing the door behind him, not loudly but quite audibly; but she was the first to speak when she was sure that he was out of hearing. 'You hate me,' she said at last. 'What have I done to you?' The Princess was not timid, nor very easily surprised, but the question was so direct that she drew further back into her chair with a quick movement, and her bright eye sparkled angrily as she raised her sandy eyebrows. 'In this world,' she said, 'the truth is always surprising and generally unpleasant. In consideration of what I have been obliged to tell you about yourself, I can easily excuse your foolish speech.' 'You are very kind,' Angela answered quietly enough, but in a tone that the Princess did not like. 'I was not asking your indulgence, but an explanation, no matter how disagreeable the rest of the truth may be. What have I done that you should hate me?' The Princess laughed contemptuously. 'The expression is too strong,' she retorted. 'Hatred would imply an interest in you and your possible doings, which I am far from feeling, I assure you! Since it turns out that you are not even one of the family----' She laughed again and raised her eyebrows still higher, instead of ending the speech. 'From what you say,' Angela answered with a good deal of dignity, 'I can only understand that if you followed your own inclination you would turn me out into the street.' 'The law will do so without my intervention,' answered the elder woman. 'If my brother-in-law had even taken the trouble to acknowledge you as his child, without legitimising you, you would have been entitled to a small allowance, perhaps two or three hundred francs a month, to keep you from starving. But as he has left no legal proof that you are his daughter, and since he was not properly married to your mother, you can claim nothing, not even a name! You are, in fact, a destitute foundling, as Calvi just said!' 'It only remains for you to offer me your charity,' Angela said. 'That was not my intention,' returned the Princess with a savage sneer. 'I have talked it over with my husband, and we do not see why he should be expected to support his brother's--natural child!' Angela rose from her seat without a word and went quietly towards the door; but before she could reach it the Princess had followed her with a rush and a dramatic sweep of her black cloth skirt and plentiful crape, and had caught her by the wrist to bring her back to the middle of the great room. 'I shall not keep you long!' cried the angry woman. 'You ask me what you have done that I should hate you, and I answer, nothing, since you are nobody! But I hated your mother, because she robbed me of the man I wanted, of the only man I ever loved--your father--and when I married his brother I swore that she should pay me for that, and she has! If she can see you as you are to-day, all heaven cannot dry her tears, for all heaven itself cannot give you a name, since the one on her own tombstone is not hers by any right. I hope she sees you! Oh, I hope it was not for nothing that she fasted till she fainted, and prayed till she was hoarse, and knelt in damp churches till she died of it! I hope she has starved and whined her way to paradise and is looking down at this very moment and can see her daughter turned out of my house, a pauper foundling, to beg her bread! I hope you are in a state of grace, as she is, and that the communion of saints brings you near enough together for her to see you!' 'You are mad,' Angela said when the Princess paused for breath. 'You do not know what you are saying. Let go of my wrist and try to get back to your senses!' Whether the Princess was really out of her mind, as seemed at least possible, or was only in one of her frequent fits of rage, the words had an instantaneous effect. She dropped Angela's wrist, drew herself up, and recovered her self-control in a few seconds. But there was still a dangerous glare in her cat-like eyes as she turned towards the window and faced the dull yellowish light of the late afternoon. 'You will soon find out that I have not exaggerated,' she said, dropping from her late tone of fury to a note of icy coldness. 'The seals will be removed to-morrow at noon, and I suppose no one can prevent you from being present if you choose. After that you will make such arrangements for your own future as you see fit. I should recommend you to apply to one of the two convents on which my brother-in-law lavished nearly three millions of francs during his life. One or the other of them will certainly take you in without a dowry, and you will have at least a decent roof over your head.' With this practical advice the Princess Chiaromonte swept from the room and Angela was left alone to ask herself whether such a sudden calamity as hers had ever before overtaken an innocent girl in her Roman world. She went back very slowly to the sofa and sat down again under the great Vandyke portrait; her eyes wandered from one object to another, as if she wished to make an inventory of the things that had seemed to be hers because they had been her father's, but she was far too completely dazed by what had happened to think very connectedly. Besides, though she did not dare let the thought give her courage, she still had a secret conviction that it was all a mistake and that her father must have left some document which would be found among his papers the next day, and would clear away all this dreadful misunderstanding. As for the rest of her aunt's story, no one had ever hinted at such a thing in her hearing, but Madame Bernard would know the truth. There was little indeed which the excellent Frenchwoman did not know about the old Roman families, after having lived among them and taught their children French for nearly a quarter of a century. She was very discreet and might not wish to say much, but she certainly knew the truth in this case. It was not till she was upstairs in her own room, and was trying to repeat to her old governess just what had been said, that Angela began to realise what it meant. Madame Bernard was by turns horrified, righteously angry, and moved to profound pity; at first she could not believe her ears, but when she did she invoked the divine wrath on the inhuman monster who had the presumption to call herself a woman, a mother, and an aunt; finally, she folded Angela in a motherly embrace and burst into tears, promising to protect her at the risk of her own life--a promise she would really have kept if the girl had been in bodily danger. In her secret heart the little Frenchwoman was also making some reflections on the folly and obstinacy of the late Prince, but out of sheer kindness and tact she kept them to herself for the present. Meanwhile she said she would go and consult one of the great legal lights, to whose daughters she had lately given lessons and who had always been very kind to her. It was nonsense, she said, to believe that the Prince's brother could turn Angela out of her home without making provision for her, such a liberal provision as would be considered a handsome dowry--four hundred thousand francs would be the very least. The Commendatore was a judge in the Court of Appeals and knew everything. He would not even need to consult his books! His brain was an encyclopædia of the law! She would go to him at once. But Angela shook her head as she sat looking at the small wood fire in the old-fashioned red-brick fireplace. Now that she had told her story she saw how very sure the Princess and the lawyer must have been to speak as they had both spoken. But Madame Bernard put on her hat and went out to see the judge, who was generally at home late in the afternoon; and Angela sat alone in the dusk for a while, poking her little fire with a pair of very rusty wrought-iron tongs, at least three hundred years old, which would have delighted a collector but which were so heavy and clumsy that they hurt her hands. Her aunt's piece of advice came back to her; she had better ask to be taken in at one of the convents which her father had enriched and where she would be received without a dowry. She knew them both, and both were communities of cloistered nuns; the one was established in a gloomy mediæval fortress in the heart of the city, built round a little garden that looked as unhealthy as the old Prioress's own muddy-complexioned face and stubbly chin; the other was shut up in a hideous modern building that had no garden at all. She felt nothing but a repugnance that approached horror when she thought of either, though she tried to reprove herself for it because her father had given so much money to the sisters, and had always spoken of them to her as 'holy women.' No doubt they were; doubtless, too, Saint Anthony of Thebes had been a holy man, though it would have been unpleasant to share his cell, or even his meals. Angela felt that if she was to live on bread, water, and salad, she might as well have liberty with her dinner of herbs. It was heartless to think of marrying, no doubt, when her father had not yet been dead a week, but since she was forced to take the future into consideration, she felt sure that Giovanni would marry her without a penny, and that she should be perfectly happy with him. She could well afford to laugh at the Princess's advice so long as Giovanni was alive. He was coming to see her to-morrow, she would tell him everything, and when the year of her mourning expired they would be married. The question was, what she was to do in the meantime, since it was quite clear that she must soon leave the home in which she had been brought up. Like all people who have never been face to face with want, or any state of life even distinctly resembling poverty, she had a vague idea that something would be provided for her. It was not till she tried to define what that something was to be that she felt a little sinking at her heart; but the cheering belief soon returned, that the whole affair was a mistake, unless it was a pure invention of her aunt's, meant to frighten her into abandoning her rights. In a little while Madame Bernard would come back, beaming with satisfaction, with a message from the learned judge to say that such injustice and robbery were not possible under modern enlightened laws; and Angela smiled to think that she could have been so badly frightened by a mad woman and an obsequious old lawyer. Decidedly, in spite of her gift for remembering prayers and litanies, the mere thought of a cloistered life repelled her. Like most very religiously brought up girls she had more than once fancied that she was going to have a 'vocation' for the veil; but a sensible confessor had put that out of her head, discerning at once in her mental state those touches of maiden melancholy which change the look of the young life for a day or a week, as the shadow of a passing cloud saddens a sunlit landscape. It was characteristic of Angela that the possibility of becoming a nun as a refuge from present and future trouble did not present itself to her seriously, now that trouble was really imminent. She was too buoyant by nature, her disposition was too even and sensible, and above all, she was too courageous to think of yielding tamely to the fate her aunt wished to impose upon her. It might have been expected that she should at least break down for a little while that afternoon and have a good cry in her solitude, while Madame Bernard was on her errand to the judge; but she did not, though there was a moment when she felt that tears were not far off. By way of keeping them back she went into her bedroom, lit a candle and knelt down to recite the prayers she had selected to say daily for her father. They were many, some of them were beautiful, and more than half of them were centuries old. Her conviction that the very just man was certainly in heaven already did not make it seem wholly useless to pray for him. No one could be quite sure of what happened in paradise, and in any case, if he was in no need of such intercession himself, she was allowed to hope that grace might overflow and avail to help some poor soul in purgatory, by means of the divine indulgence. Madame Bernard came back at last, but there was consternation in her kindly face, for the great legal light had confirmed every word the Princess and her lawyer had said to Angela, and had shrugged his shoulders at the suggestion that a will might still be found. He had told the governess plainly that a man married to a woman only by a religious ceremony was not legally her husband, and that his children had neither name nor rights unless he went through the legal form of recognising them before the proper authorities. If the parents died without making a will, the children had no claim whatever on the estate unless they had been properly recognised. If there was a will, however, they might inherit, even if they had not been legitimised, provided that no lawful heirs of the testators were living, ascendants or descendants. The Commendatore had expressed great surprise that the late Prince should not have been warned of his daughter's irregular position by his legal advisers. It only showed, he said, how necessary the law was, since people who disregarded it got into such terrible trouble. The French teacher instinctively felt that there was something wrong with the final syllogism, but it was only too clear that the Commendatore knew his business, and that unless a legally executed will were found on the morrow Angela had not the smallest chance of getting a penny from the great estate her father had left. 'If they are so inhuman as to turn you out of your home without providing for you,' Madame Bernard said, with tears in her eyes, 'I do not see what you are to do, my dear child. I am ashamed to offer you the little spare room I sometimes let to single foreign ladies--and yet--if you would take it--ah, you would be so welcome! It is not a bad exposure--it has the sun on it all day, though there is only one window. The carpet is getting a little threadbare, but the curtains are new and match the furniture--a pretty flowered chintz, you know. And I will make little dishes for you, since you have no appetite! A "navarin," my dear, I make it well, and a real "fricassée"! We Frenchwomen can all cook! The "navarin" was my poor husband's predilection--when he had eaten one made by me, he used to say that the fleshpots of Egypt were certainly the "navarin" and nothing else. But when I am alone it is not worth while to take so much trouble. An egg, five sous' worth of ham and brawn, and a roll--that suffices me when I am alone! But if you will accept the little room--ah, then I will put on an apron and go into the kitchen, and you shall taste the French cookery of a Frenchwoman!' Angela was not listening to all this, for she was too much touched by the generous intention to hear half of what Madame Bernard said, and she could only press the little governess's hand again while she tried to edge in a word of thanks between the quick sentences. 'And as for the rest,' Madame Bernard ran on, 'I have chaperoned half the young girls in Roman society to concerts and to the dentist's, and I have a nice little sitting-room, and there is no reason in the world why Count Severi should not come to see us, until you can be married!' This, at least, did not escape Angela, who squeezed the small plump hand very hard, and at last succeeded in speaking herself. 'You are too good!' she cried. 'Too kind! If it turns out to be true, if I am really to be a beggar, I would rather beg of you than of distant cousins and people I know! Besides, they are all so afraid of my aunt's tongue that not one of them would dare to take me in, even for a week! But I will not come unless you will let me work to help you, in some way--I do not know how--is there nothing I know well enough to teach?' 'Oh, la, la!' cried Madame Bernard. 'Will you please not say such things, my dear! As if it were not the greatest happiness in the world you will be giving me, a lonely old woman, to come and live with me, and help me take care of the parrot and water the flowers in the window every evening at sunset, and learn how to make a "navarin!" Work? Oh yes! You shall work, my dear child! If you think it is easy to please a parrot, try it! I only say that!' 'I will do my best,' Angela said, smiling. 'To-morrow, at this hour, we shall know what is to happen.' 'What has happened, has happened,' said Madame Bernard, as calmly as any Hindu, though she was not a fatalist. 'Even if there is a paper somewhere, do you think the Marchesa will not be the first to find it and tear it to a thousand bits? No, I will not call her "Princess Chiaromonte"! I, who knew your mother, my dear! Trust me, if there is a will in the sealed rooms, the Marchesa will discover it before any one!' Angela thought that this might be true, for she had a most vivid recollection of her aunt's look and voice during the late interview. The more she thought of the immediate future, the clearer it became to her that she must accept her old governess's offer of shelter for the present. She could not bring herself to beg a lodging and the bare necessaries of life from any of those people whom she had called her friends. There were at least half-a-dozen girls with whom she had been intimate at the Sacred Heart, and during the past winter, and some of them were connections of her father's and would be profoundly shocked to learn what her position now was. No doubt their parents would take her in for a few days, and would very possibly do more than that, and formally protest to her aunt and uncle against the treatment she had received. But could she stay with any of them longer than a week on such a footing? Would she be anything better than a waif, not knowing where she should sleep or get a meal a few days hence? No; her only choice lay between accepting Madame Bernard's offer, and presenting herself as a candidate for charity at one of the two convents her father had protected. Afterwards, a year hence or more, when she should be married to Giovanni Severi, she would find some means of amply repaying the generous woman, without hurting her feelings. Until then, she must accept the kindness and be thankful that it came from such a true friend. She had no intention of showing herself downstairs the next day, when the seals were to be removed and the papers examined. If she had cherished any illusion as to the existence of a document in her favour, Madame Bernard's last speech had effectually destroyed it, which was the best thing that could have happened. At least, she was sure of Giovanni, and a year must pass in a year's time! That was axiomatic, and when the twelve months were over she would be married quietly. She would not bring him a handsome dowry as she had fully expected to do, and though his father was well-off, there were other children, so that she could not expect to be rich; but what difference could that make to two young people who loved each other? Evidently, none at all. It rained all the morning and Angela spent most of the time in a sort of apathy, so far as her companion could see, sitting still for an hour with a book she did not read, then moving about to rooms in an objectless way only to go back to her chair in a few minutes and to sit motionless again before the smouldering wood fire. Madame Bernard, on the contrary, was very busy in making preparations to take her away if a sudden move should be necessary. Though the servants were evidently informed of what was taking place, she succeeded in getting a couple of trunks and a valise brought up, and she began to pack them with clothing from Angela's wardrobe, taking only such things as would be useful in the quiet life of mourning the girl was to lead for a year. The maid had disappeared, presumably to look for a place, and when it was time for luncheon it was not without difficulty that Madame Bernard got a footman to bring something cold on a tray. It was quite clear by this time that the whole household knew the truth and expected Angela to leave the palace that day, and the little woman paused more than once in her packing to shake her fist at the slim visions of the Princess Chiaromonte that crossed the field of her imagination. Downstairs matters proceeded as she had foreseen. The Princess, two lawyers, a notary, and several clerks had removed the seals and locked themselves in the inner apartment to examine the papers and such valuables as were there; but it is needless to say that they found nothing in the nature of a will, nor any document even expressing a wish on the part of the deceased. The notary observed that it was very strange, but one of the lawyers shrugged his shoulders and smiled, while the other asked why, in the nature of things, a man so young and healthy as the late Prince should have been expected to make careful preparations against his sudden demise when he might well expect to live thirty years longer. The Princess said nothing, and her husband did not appear; indeed, he never did, and on all occasions of importance, like the present, the Princess was provided with a power of attorney to represent him, speak for him, decide for him, and sign documents for him. There were many stories about him in society, none of which contained more than the merest particle of truth. Some people said he was mad, others maintained that he was paralysed; there were those who confidently asserted that his face was disfigured by an unsightly claret mark, and it was even suggested that he was a leper. When any of these tales were repeated to his wife by dear friends, she answered that he was very well and had just gone to the Abruzzi to look after one of the large holdings of the estate, or that he was in Hungary, shooting with distant cousins who had lands there, or that, if the truth must be known, he had a touch of the influenza and would probably run down to Sicily for a change, as soon as he was able to travel. Angela herself had not seen him since she had been a mere child. She remembered that once, when she was at her aunt's, a tall, pale man with a thoughtful face had passed through the room quickly without paying the least attention to any one; she had asked her small cousins who he was, and had been told in an awe-struck whisper that it was their father. That was probably the only time she had ever laid eyes on him; and somehow she did not connect him with what was happening to her now. It was all her aunt's doing; the thin and thoughtful man had not looked as if he were heartless, he would not have allowed his brother's child to be turned out a beggar, under the letter of the law. Yet the Princess's most ultimate and affectionate enemies had not succeeded in fathoming the mystery. Two of them, who were connections of her husband's, had once had a theory that she had locked him up and kept him a prisoner for her own ends; a similar case had then recently occurred in Palermo, where a widowed lady and her daughter had been kept in confinement during several years, and almost starved to death, by the wicked steward of their estates. Accordingly, the aforesaid connections had appealed to the chief of secret police for information about their relative; but in a few days he had been able to tell them confidently that the Marchese del Prato was in good health and quite free, that he was an enthusiastic scholar, and was writing an exhaustive work on the mythology of Pindar's _Odes_, and that there was no cause for any anxiety about him. So that matter was settled for ever. At half-past three o'clock the Princess went away, leaving the lawyers and clerks to finish their work, for she was more than satisfied that no will nor any similar document would be found amongst the late Prince's papers, and everything else was mere formality; the regular inventories would be made later when the succession duties had to be paid, but meanwhile there was nothing to hinder her from taking possession in her husband's name. Before leaving the palace she sent for the butler, and told him that 'Signorina Angela' was to be requested to 'remove her effects' the next day. She further condescended to inform him that the 'Signorina' had been ascertained to be a nameless foundling who had no share in the inheritance and must shift for herself, as it was not the intention of the Prince to support such a person. The butler had learned something of the great Roman families during a brilliant career in the servants' hall, and he could have told some singularly romantic tales, but he had never had experience of anything like this. He tried to look at the Princess for a moment before he answered her, but he could not face her glittering eyes. 'Very well, Excellency,' he said, bowing. 'Is the young lady to have her meals here till she leaves? The French governess is also staying in the house.' 'Send them up something from the servants' dinner,' the Princess answered. 'Very well, Excellency.' But the butler looked after her with considerable curiosity, watching her graceful figure as she went down the grand staircase and holding the swinging door open on the landing till she was out of sight. Then he went in again, looked round the empty hall, and spoke aloud, asking a question that has never had any answer. 'Women, women--who can understand you?' CHAPTER IV Half-an-hour later Giovanni Severi entered the gate below in civilian's dress and asked if he could see Madame Bernard, the French teacher, who had let him know that she was stopping in the palace. The porter told him to ring at the right-hand door on the second landing, but added that it was doubtful whether any one would let him in, as there was 'confusion in the house.' Madame Bernard was waiting for him, however; he had arrived punctually and she let him in herself. 'Have you heard, Monsieur?' she asked, before he could speak. 'Do you know what is happening?' 'Yes,' he answered. 'All Rome knows it by this time, for the story was in the morning papers. May I see Donna Angela?' 'Come, Monsieur.' She had fastened the outer door while he was speaking, and she now led the way without any more words. Angela knew Giovanni's step at a distance, and when he entered she was standing in the middle of the room. He had never before seen her in black, and she was paler than usual; he looked anxiously into her face as he took her hand, and she, meeting his eyes expectantly, saw a change in them. Neither Angela nor Severi spoke at first, and in the silence Madame Bernard passed them and went into the next room, shutting the door after her. 'Have you heard?' Angela asked, still standing and still holding Giovanni's hand. 'Yes. It is in all the papers to-day. There is an outcry. If your aunt shows herself in the streets she will be hissed. But she has the law on her side. I have been to two lawyers to inquire.' He spoke in short sentences, nervously, and when he stopped he bit his moustache. 'There is something else,' Angela answered. 'I see it in your eyes. There is something I do not know, some still worse news. Sit down there by the fire opposite me and tell me everything, for I am not afraid. Nothing can frighten me now.' She seated herself where she had sat more than half the day, and he took the chair to which she had pointed. She poked the small green logs with the antiquated tongs and watched the sparks that flew upwards with every touch while she waited for him to speak. But he looked at her in silence, forgetting everything for a while except that he was really alone with her, almost for the first time in his life. He changed his position and bent forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands together, so that he was nearer to her. Without turning her face from the fire she saw him in a side-glance, but made no answering motion. 'Tell me what it is,' she said softly. 'Only one thing could hurt me now.' 'It is hard to tell,' he answered in rather a dull voice. She misunderstood, and turned to him slowly with wondering and frightened eyes. Her hand weakened, without quite losing its hold, and the ends of the clumsy tongs clattered on the brick hearth. The doubt that had sprung upon her like a living thing as soon as she saw him, began to dig its claws into her heart. 'If it is so hard to tell,' she said, 'it must be that one thing.' She turned resolutely to the fire again. 'If it is to be good-bye, please go away quietly and leave me alone.' The words were not all spoken before he had caught her arm, so suddenly that the old tongs fell on the bricks with a clang. Like him, she had been leaning forward in her low chair, and as he drew her to him she involuntarily slipped from her seat and found herself kneeling on one knee beside him. She gave a little cry, more of surprise than of displeasure or timidity, but he did not heed her. It was the first time they had ever been left alone together, and while he still held her with his right hand his left stole round her neck, to bring her face nearer. But she resisted him almost fiercely; she set both her hands against his chest and pushed herself from him with all her might, and the red blush rose even to her forehead at the thought of the kiss she almost saw on his lips, a kiss that hers had never felt. He meant nothing against her will, and when he felt that she was matching her girl's strength against his, as if she feared him, his arms relaxed and he let her go. She sprang to her feet like a young animal released, and leaned against the mantelpiece breathing hard, and fixing her burning eyes on the old engraving of Saint Ursula, asleep in a queer four-post bedstead with her crown at her feet, that hung over the fireplace. But instead of rising to stand beside her, Giovanni leaned back in his chair, his hands crossed over one knee; and instead of looking up to her face, he gazed steadily down at the hem of her long black skirt, where it lay motionless across the wolf's skin that served for a hearth-rug. 'What is it?' she asked, after a long pause, and rather unsteadily. He understood that she was going back to the question she had asked him at first, but still he did not answer. She kept her eyes steadily on Saint Ursula while she spoke again. 'If it is not good-bye, what is it that is so hard to say?' 'I have had a long talk with my father.' Angela moved a little and looked down at his bent head, for he spoke in an almost despairing tone. She thought she understood him at last. 'He will not hear of our marriage, now that I am a beggar,' she said, prompting him. But Giovanni raised his face at once, and rather proudly. 'You are unjust to him,' he said. 'He is not changed. It is a very different matter. He has had a great misfortune, and has lost almost all he had, without much hope of recovering anything. We were very well off, and I should have had a right to marry you, though you had not a penny, if this had not happened. As it is, my father is left with nothing but his General's pension to support my mother. My brothers will both need help for years to come, for they are much younger than I am, and I must live on my pay if I mean to stay in the service.' 'Is that all?' Angela's voice trembled a little. 'Yes, my pay, and nothing more----' 'I did not mean that,' she hastened to say, interrupting him, and there was a note of returning gladness in her voice. 'I meant to ask if that was all the bad news.' 'It is enough, surely, since it half ruins our lives! What right have I to ask you to keep your promise and marry me, since I have not enough for us to live on?' Angela turned quite towards him now and repeated his own words. 'And what right have I to ask you to keep your promise and marry me? When you gave your word, you thought I had a great name and was heir to a splendid fortune. You were deceived. I am a "destitute foundling"--the lawyers have proved it, and the proof of their proofs is that I am obliged to accept the charity of my old governess, God bless her! If ever a man had a right to take back his word, you have. Take it, if you will. You are free!' Giovanni stood up beside her, almost angry. 'Do you think I wanted your fortune?' he asked, a little pale under his tan. 'Do you think I am afraid of poverty?' Her lips were still parted in a smile after she had asked the question, and with the gesture of an older woman she tapped his arm half reproachfully. The colour came back to his brown face. 'I fear poverty for you,' he answered, 'and I am going to fight it for your sake if you have the courage to wait for me. Have you?' 'I will wait for ever,' she said simply as she laid her hand in his. 'Then I shall leave the army at once,' he replied. 'So far, I have made what is called a good career, but promotion is slow and the pay is wretched until a man is very high up. An artillery officer is an engineer, you know, and a military engineer can always find well-paid work, especially if he is an electrician, as I am. In two years I promise you that we shall be able to marry and be at least comfortable, and there is no reason why I should not make a fortune quite equal to what my father has lost.' He spoke with the perfect confidence of a gifted and sanguine man, sure of his own powers, and his words pleased her. Perhaps what had attracted her most in him from the beginning had been his enthusiasm and healthy faith in the world, which had contrasted brilliantly with her father's pessimism and bigoted political necrolatry, if I may coin a word from the Greek to express an old-fashioned Roman's blind worship of the dead past. Angela was pleased, as any woman would have been, but she protested against what she knew to be a sacrifice. 'No,' she said decidedly, 'you must not give up the army and your career for the sake of making money, even for me. Do no officers marry on their pay? I am sure that many do, and manage very well indeed. You told me not long ago that you were expecting promotion from day to day; and in any case I could not marry you within a year, at the least.' 'If I do not begin working at once, that will be just a year lost,' objected Giovanni. 'A year! Will that make much difference?' 'Why not ten, then? As if a year would not be a century long, while I am waiting for you--as if it were not already half a lifetime since last month, when we told each other the truth! Wait? Yes, if I must; for ever, as you said awhile ago, if there is no other way. But if it can be helped, then not an hour, not a minute! Why should we let happiness pass us by and not take it when we may and can? There is not enough in the world, as it is; and you cannot even pretend that you are generous if you do not take your share, since what fate means for you is useless for any one else! No, dear, no! We will take the fruit there is on the tree, and leave none to rot on the branch after we are gone. Promise to marry me a year from to-day, and leave the rest to me--will you?' 'Yes--but promise me one thing, too. Do not resign to-morrow, nor next week, as I know you mean to do. Take a month to think it over, and to look about you. You are so impulsive--well, so generous--that you are capable of sending in your resignation to-morrow.' 'It is already written,' Giovanni answered. 'I was going to send it in to-night.' 'I knew it! But you must not. Please, please, take a little time--it will be so much wiser. I will wait for you for ever, or I will promise to marry you a year from to-day, even if we have to live on bread and water. Indeed I will! But, at least, be a little cautious! It will be far better to marry on your pay--and you will surely get your captaincy in a few months--than to be stranded without even that, in case you do not find the work you hope for. Don't you see? I am sure it is good advice.' Giovanni knew that it was, if caution were ever worth practising in human affairs; but that has often been doubted by brave and light-hearted men. Giovanni yielded a little reluctantly. If she had asked him to make it two months instead of one, he would have refused, for it seemed to him intolerable to lose a moment between decision and action, and his thoughts doubled their stride with every step, in a geometrical progression; a moment hence, a minute would be an hour, an hour a month, a month a lifetime. Men have won battles in that temper; but it has sometimes cost them their life. 'I know you are sensible,' Giovanni said, taking Angela's hand between his, 'but it is to please you that I agree to wait a month. It is not because it looks wise, as it does. For one man who succeeds by wisdom, ten win by daring. Who knows what may chance in a month, or what may happen to put out of reach what I could do to-day?' 'Nothing!' Angela gave her answer with the delicious little smile of superiority which the youngest woman and even the merest girl can wear, when she is sure that she is right and that the man she loves is wrong. It may be only about sewing on a button, or about the weather, or it may concern great issues; but it is always the same when it comes: it exasperates weak men, and the stronger sort like it, as they more especially delight in all that is womanly in woman, from heroic virtue to pathetic weakness. 'Nothing can happen in a month to prevent you from resigning then, as you could to-day,' Angela said confidently. The faint smile disappeared, and she grew thoughtful, not for herself, but for him, and looked at Saint Ursula again. Her hand still lay in his, on the edge of the mantelpiece, and while she gazed at the engraving she knew that he was looking at her and was moving nearer; she felt that he was going to kiss her, but she did not resist this time though the colour was rising in her throat, and just under the exquisitely shaped petal of peach-blossom on which his eyes were fixed, and which was really only the tip of her ear, though it was so like the leaf of a flower that the scent of the bloom came to his memory when his lips touched the spot at last. His hand shut closer over hers at the same moment, and hers fluttered under his fingers like a small soft bird; but there was no resistance. He kissed the tip of her ear, and she turned towards him a little; his kiss pressed her cool cheek, and she moved again; their eyes met, very near, and dark, and full of light, and then his lips touched hers at last. Destiny has many disguises and many moods. Sometimes, as on that day at the telephone, the unexpected leaps up from its hiding-place and strikes stunning blows, right and left, like Orestes among the steers in Tauris, or a maniac let loose among sane men; but sometimes Fate lurks in her lair, silently poring over the tablets of the future, and she notes all we say, scrawling 'Folly' against our wisest speeches, and stamping 'So be it' under the carelessly spoken jest. She was busy while the young lovers kissed for the first time, by the mantelpiece; but no inward warning voice had told Angela that she herself was sealing the order of her life irrevocably when she gave Giovanni the best advice she could, and he accepted it to please her, making his instinct obey his judgment for her sake. A man is foolish who takes an important step without consulting the woman who loves him most dearly, be she mother, sister, wife, or sweetheart; but he is rarely wise if he follows her advice, like a rule, to the letter, for no woman goes from thought to accomplishment by the same road as a man. You cannot make a pointer of a setter, nor teach a bulldog to retrieve. If Giovanni had sent in his resignation that evening, or even during the next day, as he was ready to do, it would have been accepted in the ordinary course of things; he would then, without doubt, have found employment for his talents and energy, either at home or abroad. He would in all probability have succeeded in life, because he possessed the elements of success; he would have married Angela in due time, and the two would probably have lived happily for many years, because they were suited to each other in all ways and were possessed of excellent constitutions. If all this had happened, their story would have little interest except for themselves, or as an example to young couples; and it is a deplorable fact that there is hardly anything so dull and tiresome in the world as a good example. The hoardings along life's dusty roads are plentifully plastered with good examples, in every stage of preservation, from those just fresh from the moral bill-poster's roll, redolent of paste, to the good old ones that are peeling off in tatters, as if in sheer despair because nobody has ever stopped to look at them. May the gods of literature keep all good story-tellers from concocting advertisements of the patent virtues! The most important and decisive moment in Angela's life, from its beginning to its end, had passed so quietly that she never suspected its presence, and almost the very next instant brought her the first kiss of the only man she had ever loved, or was to love thereafter. CHAPTER V Madame Bernard had not overstated the advantages of the lodging she occasionally let to foreign ladies who travelled alone and practised economy, and Angela refused to occupy it till she had satisfied herself that her old governess's own room was just as large and just as sunny and just as comfortable. In the first place, it was much bigger than she had expected, and when she had spread out all her possessions and put away her clothes, and had arranged her pretty toilet set and the few books that were quite her own, she found that she was not at all cramped for space. The ceiling was not very high, it was true, and there was only one window, but it was a very wide one, and outside it there was a broad iron shelf securely fixed, on which four good-sized flower-pots were set out in the sunshine. It was true that there were no flowers yet, but the two plants of carnations were full of buds and had been very carefully tended, a tiny rose-bush promised to bear three or four blossoms before long, and the pot of basil was beginning to send up curly green shoots. Opposite the window, and beyond the quiet street, there was a walled garden, in which there were some orange and mandarin trees. Between the two bedrooms there was the sitting-room, which was a little smaller than either, but quite big enough for two women. Indeed, Madame Bernard ate her meals there all winter, because the little dining-room at the back of the house was not so cheerful and was much colder. An enlarged coloured photograph of the long-deceased Captain Bernard, in the uniform worn by the French artillery at the time of the Franco-Prussian War, hung on one of the walls, over an upright piano; it had a black frame, and was decorated with a wreath of everlasting daisies tied with a black bow. Underneath the portrait a tiny holy-water basin of old Tyrolese pewter was fastened to the wall. This Madame Bernard filled every year at Easter, when the parish priest came to bless the rooms, and every year she renewed the wreath on the anniversary of her husband's death; for she was a faithful soul and practised such little rites with a sort of cheerful satisfaction that was not exactly devout, but certainly had a religious source. Captain Bernard had been a dashing fellow and there was no knowing what his soul might not need in the place his widow vaguely described as 'beyond' when she spoke of his presumable state, though in the case of Angela's father, for instance, it was always 'heaven' or 'paradise.' Apparently Madame Bernard had the impression that her husband's immortal part was undergoing some very necessary cure before partaking of unmixed bliss. 'Military men have so many temptations, my dear,' she said to Angela, thinking more of the deceased Captain than of being tactful,--'I mean,' she said, correcting herself, 'in France.' Angela was not afraid of temptation for Giovanni; rightly or wrongly, she trusted that her love would be his shield against the wicked world and her name his prayer in need, and she smiled at Madame Bernard's speech. The big old parrot on his perch cocked his head. 'Especially the cavalry and artillery,' the good lady went on to explain. 'À drrroite--conversion!' roared the parrot in a terrific voice of command. Angela jumped in her chair, for it was the first time she had heard the creature speak in that tone; but Madame Bernard laughed, as if it pleased her. 'It is absolutely my poor husband's tone,' she said calmly. 'Coco,' she said, turning to the bellicose bird, 'the Prussians are there!' 'Feu!' yelled the parrot suddenly, dancing with rage on his bar. 'Feu! 'cré nom d'un nom d'un p'tit bon Dieu!' 'Every intonation!' laughed the little Frenchwoman gaily. 'You understand why I love my Coco!' But Angela thought there was something grimly horrible in the coming back of the dead soldier's voice from battles fought long ago. Giovanni came to see her two days after she had moved, but this time Madame Bernard did not leave them together very long. She had a lively sense of her responsibility, now that the young girl was altogether in her charge, and she felt that the proprieties must be strictly observed. It must never be thought that Giovanni was free to see Angela alone whenever he pleased, merely because her people had turned her out. He looked distressed, and the young girl at once suspected some new trouble; and she was not mistaken, for her advice had begun to bear fruit already, and the inevitable was closing in upon them both. He told the story in a few words. It had been decided in the War Office for some time that a small exploring and surveying expedition should be sent up the country from the Italian colony at Massowah with the idea of planning some permanent means of inland communication with the British possessions. Giovanni's father had seen a chance for him to distinguish himself and to obtain more rapid promotion, and by using all the considerable influence he possessed in high quarters he had got him appointed to be the engineering officer of the party. The young man had already been two years in Africa, before being appointed to the Staff, and had done exceptionally good service, which was an excellent reason for using him again; and chance further favoured the plan, because the officer who had first been selected for the place, and who was an older man, was much needed in the War Office, to his own exceeding disgust. The expedition might be attended with considerable danger and would certainly be full of adventure, for there had recently been trouble with the tribes in that very region; but to send a strong force was out of the question, for political reasons, though the work to be done was so urgently necessary that it could not be put off much longer. Old General Severi sincerely hoped Angela might yet marry his son, and was convinced that the best thing possible would be to secure for the latter the first opportunity for quick promotion, instead of allowing him to leave the army in order to find more lucrative employment. The expedition would be gone five or six months, perhaps, and there were many reasons why it would be better to keep the young people apart for a time. Any one would understand that, he was sure. While Angela was living obscurely with a former governess, a brilliant young officer of some distinction, like Giovanni, could not see her regularly without seriously compromising her. It was the way of the world and could not be helped, yet if Giovanni stayed in Rome it would be too much to expect that he should stay away from the little apartment in Trastevere. So the matter was settled, and when he came to see Angela that afternoon he had just had an interview with his chief, who had informed him of his appointment, and at the same time of his promotion to be captain. The expedition was to leave Italy in a few days, and he would have barely time to provide himself with what was strictly necessary for the climate. He explained all this to Angela and Madame Bernard. 'If you had only let me resign the other day,' he said ruefully, when he had finished his account, 'nobody could have found fault then! But now, I must face the laugh of every man I know!' Angela looked up quickly, in evident surprise. 'Why?' she asked. 'I see nothing to laugh at in such an expedition.' 'I am not going to accept the appointment,' Giovanni answered with decision. 'I asked for twenty-four hours to consider it, though the General seemed very much surprised.' 'But you cannot refuse!' Angela cried. 'They will say you are afraid!' 'They may say whatever occurs to them, for I will not go, and I shall resign at once, as I said I would. My mind is made up.' 'You cannot refuse this,' Angela repeated confidently. 'If you are obliged to admit that there is some danger in it, though you wish there were none, because you safely could refuse to go, it must be very dangerous indeed. Tell me the truth, as far as you know it.' 'It would depend on circumstances----' Giovanni hesitated. 'You have told me that if the Government dared, it would send a large force to protect the expedition. The larger that force would be, the greater the danger if there is no protection at all. Is that true, or not?' 'It is true, in one way, but----' 'There is no condition!' Angela interrupted him energetically. 'It is enough that it is going to be dangerous in one way, as you say!' 'No one can say that I ever avoided danger before,' he objected. 'They will say many things if you refuse to go. They will shrug their shoulders and say that you have lost your nerve, perhaps! That is a favourite expression, and you know how people say it. Or if you make money soon after you resign, they will say that you preferred a fortune to risking your life for your country. Or else they will say that a woman has made a coward of you, and that I am she!' 'Coward!' yelled the parrot in a tone of withering contempt, and the creature actually spat in disgust. Giovanni started violently, for he had not noticed the bird in the room. Then he tried to laugh at his own surprise. 'I do not wonder that you are surprised, Monsieur,' said Madame Bernard with a pleasant smile. 'Oh, Coco has exactly my poor husband's voice!' 'I can brave a parrot's opinion,' Giovanni said, attempting to speak gaily. 'Will you brave mine?' Angela asked. 'You certainly do not think I am afraid to go,' he answered, 'for you know why I mean to refuse. My first duty is to you. As I am placed, it would be cowardly to be afraid to face public opinion in doing that duty, and to keep you waiting six months or a year longer than necessary, when I have promised to provide means for us to marry within a year. That would deserve to be called cowardice!' 'Sale Prussien! 'cré nom d'une pipe!' yelled Coco in a tone of disgust. 'Really!' exclaimed Giovanni, with some annoyance. 'Does the thing take me for an hereditary enemy, Madame?' Madame Bernard rose with a little laugh and went to the parrot's perch, holding out her hand. 'Come, Coco!' she said, coaxing him. 'It is peace now, and we can go home to Paris again.' 'Paris' meant her bedroom in bird language; it also meant being bribed to be quiet with good things, and Coco strutted from his perch to her finger. 'Marche!' he commanded in a sharp tone, and as she moved he began to whistle the Marseillaise with great spirit. She marched off, laughing and keeping step to the tune till she disappeared into her room, shutting the door behind her. As it closed Giovanni caught Angela's left hand and drew it to him. She laid her right on his, quietly and affectionately. 'Am I never to see you alone?' he asked, almost in a whisper. 'When you come to say good-bye before starting,' Angela answered. 'I will ask her to leave us quite alone then. But now it will only be for a minute or two.' Thereupon, with the most natural movement in the world, she lifted her hands, brought his face close to hers and kissed him, drew back a little, looked gravely into his astonished eyes for some seconds, and then kissed him again. 'I love you much more than you love me,' she said with great seriousness. 'I am sure of it.' It was all very different from what he had expected. He had vaguely fancied that for a long time every kiss would have to be won from her by a little struggle, and that every admission of her love would be the reward of his own eloquence; instead, she took the lead herself with a simplicity that touched him more than anything else could have done. 'You see!' she cried, with the intonation of a laugh not far away. 'I took you by surprise, because I am right about it! What have you to say?' He said nothing, but his lips hurt hers a little in the silence. She shivered slightly, for she had not yet dreamed that a kiss could hurt and yet be too short. The sound of Madame Bernard's voice came from the next room, still talking to the parrot. Angela laid her hand on Giovanni's gold-laced sleeve and nestled beside him, with her head in the hollow of his shoulder. 'I have always wanted to do this,' she said in a drowsy little voice, as if she wished she could go to sleep where she was. 'It is my place. When you are away in Africa, at night, under the stars, you will dream that I am just here, resting in my very own place.' She felt his warm breath in her hair as he answered. 'I will not go; I will not leave you.' 'But you must,' she said, quickly straightening herself and looking into his face. 'I should not love you as I do, if I could bear to think of your staying here, to let men laugh at you, as you say they would!' 'It is not like resigning on the day after war is declared!' he retorted, trying to speak lightly. 'It is!' she cried, with a sort of eager anxiety in her voice. 'There is only a difference in the degree--and perhaps it is worse! If there were war, you would be one man in a hundred thousand, but now you will be one in ten or twenty, or as many as are to go. Think what it would be if you were the only man in Italy, the one, single, only officer who could certainly accomplish something very dangerous to help your country--and if you refused to do it!' 'There are hundreds of better men than I for the work,' objected Giovanni. 'I doubt it. Are there hundreds of engineer officers on the General Staff?' 'No, but there are plenty----' 'A score, perhaps, and you have been chosen, no matter why, and there is danger, and there is a great thing to be done, perhaps a great good, which in the end will save the lives, or help the lives, of many Italians! And you want to refuse to do it--for what? For a woman, for a girl you love! Do you think she will love you the more, or less, for keeping out of danger, if she is a true Italian as she thinks you are? Why is it that our Italy, which no one thought much of a few years ago, is coming to the front in so many ways now? It was not by staying at home for women's sake that our sailors have got nearer the North Pole than all the others who have tried! It is not by avoiding danger that our officers are learning to astonish everybody with their riding----' 'That is different,' objected Giovanni. 'It is one thing to do daring things----' 'Yes,' interrupted Angela, not letting him speak, 'it is the one and only thing, when it is good daring and can bring good, and helps the world to see that Italy is not dead yet, in spite of all that has been said and written against us and our unity. No, no, I say! Go, do your duty, do and dare, wherever and howsoever your country needs you, and I will wait for you, and be glad to wait for that one reason, which is the best of all. If you love me half as dearly as I love you, go back at once and tell your chief that you are ready, and are proud to be used wherever you can be of any use! And if there is danger to be faced, think that you are to face it for my sake as well as for Italy's, and not in spite of me, for I would ten thousand times rather that you should die in doing your duty--ever so obscurely--than stay here to be called a coward in order that we may be rich when we marry!' Giovanni listened, more and more surprised at her energy and quick flow of words, but glad at heart that she was urging him to do what was right and honourable. 'It was for you that I meant to stay,' he said. 'Hard as it is to leave you, it would have been harder to refuse the appointment. I will go.' A little silence followed, and Madame Bernard, no longer hearing their voices, and having said everything she had to say to her parrot, judged that it was time for her to come back and play chaperon again. She was careful to make a good deal of noise with the latch before she opened the door. 'Well, Monsieur,' she asked, on the threshold, 'has Donna Angela persuaded you that she is right? I heard her making a great speech!' 'She is a firebrand,' laughed Giovanni, 'and a good patriot as well! She ought to be in Parliament.' 'You are a feminist, I perceive,' answered Madame Bernard. 'But Joan of Arc would be in the Chambers if she could come back to this world. The people would elect her, she would present herself in the tribune, and she would say, "Aha, messieurs! Here I am! We shall talk, you and I." And our little Donna Angela is a sort of Joan of Arc. People do not know it, but I do, for I have often heard her make beautiful speeches, as if she were inspired!' 'It takes no inspiration to see what is right,' Angela said, shaking her head. 'The only difficulty is to do it!' 'Even that is easy when you lead,' Giovanni answered thoughtfully, and without the least intention of flattering her. He had seen a side of her character of which he had not even suspected the existence, and there was something about it so large and imposing that he was secretly a little ashamed of feeling less strong than she seemed. In two successive meetings he had come to her with his own mind made up, but in a few moments she had talked him over to her point of view without the least apparent difficulty, and had sent him away fully determined to do the very opposite of that which he had previously decided to do. It was a strange experience for a young man of great energy and distinctly exceptional intelligence, and he did not understand it. He stayed barely half-an-hour, for Madame Bernard showed no disposition to leave the room again, and he felt the difficulty of keeping up an indifferent conversation in her presence, as well as the impossibility of talking freely to Angela of what was uppermost in her thoughts and his own. It was true that the governess knew all about it, and there are excellent women of that sort whose presence does not always hinder lovers from discussing their future; but either Madame Bernard was not one of these by nature, or else the two felt the difference of her nationality too much. The French are perhaps the only civilised nation whom no people of other nations can thoroughly understand, and who, with very few individual exceptions, do not understand any people but themselves. They have a way of looking at life which surprises and sometimes amuses men of all other nationalities; they take some matters very seriously which seem of trivial consequence to us, but they are witty at the expense of certain simple feelings and impulses which we gravely regard as fundamentally important, if not sacred. They can be really and truly heroic, to the point of risking life and limb and happiness, about questions at which we snap our fingers, but they can be almost insolently practical, in the sense of feeling no emotion while keenly discerning their own interest, in situations where our tempers or our prejudices would rouse us to recklessness. In their own estimation they are always right, and so are we in ours, no doubt; but whereas they consider themselves the Chosen People and us the Gentiles, or compare themselves with us as the Greeks compared themselves with the Barbarians, we, on our side, do not look down upon their art and literature as they undoubtedly do on ours, and a good many of us are rather too ready to accept them as something more than our equals in both. When I say 'we,' I do not mean only English-speaking people, but other Europeans also. I have overheard Frenchmen discussing all sorts of things in trains, on steamers, in picture-galleries, in libraries, in the streets, from Tiflis to London and from London to the Pacific, but I have never yet heard Frenchmen admit among themselves that a modern work of art, or book, or play was really first-rate, if it was not French. There is something monumental in their conviction of their own superiority, and I sincerely believe it has had much to do with their success, as a nation, in the arts of peace as well as in war. A man who is honestly convinced that he is better than his opponent is not easily put down in peaceful competition, and will risk his life in action with a gallantry and daring that command the admiration of all brave men; and it is a singular fact that German soldiers did not call Frenchmen cowards after the great war, whereas it was a very common thing to hear Frenchmen inveigh against 'those dirty, cowardly Prussians' who had got the better of them. Men who can take such a point of view as that must be utterly unlike other people. This little digression should explain why Angela and Madame Bernard never quite understood each other, in spite of the elder woman's almost motherly love for the girl and the latter's devoted gratitude. They talked about Giovanni when he was gone, of course, but neither said all she thought about him, because she feared that the other would think a little differently. The cheerful Frenchwoman had gone through life with the belief that it is better, on the whole, to make oneself comfortable in this world, if it can be managed on honest principles, than to worry oneself about heroics, and in the calm recesses of her practical little soul she was sure that, in Angela's place, she would have told Giovanni to resign as soon as possible and find some pleasant and well-paid occupation for his married life. All Angela's talk about a man's duty to his country would be very well in time of war, when there was glory to be got; but it was nonsense in ordinary times, where one man would do as well as another, to risk his life in a small expedition, and when it was distinctly advisable not to be that one. But she knew also that she had better not try to explain this to Angela, who was evidently a little mad on the point, most probably because she was an Italian. For Italians, Germans, Spaniards, Englishmen, and Americans were all completely insane; there was some little hope for Austrians and a good deal for Russians, in Madame Bernard's opinion, but there was none for the rest, though they might be very nice people. The safest thing was to humour them. She had given lessons in Roman families that were half Austrian and even half Russian, for the Romans have always been very cosmopolitan in their marriages, but Angela was quite Italian on both sides, and so was Giovanni. It was therefore pretty certain that they would behave like lunatics, sooner or later, the good lady thought; and they apparently were beginning already. It is needless to dwell long on what followed, since what has been narrated so far is only the introduction to Angela's story and the exposition of the circumstances which determined her subsequent life. As in most cases, it happened in hers that the greatest events were the direct consequences of one very small beginning. If she had not urged Giovanni to wait some time before leaving the army, he would not have been obliged to remain in the service almost as a matter of honour, yet it had seemed very sensible to advise him to do nothing in a hurry. Everything else followed logically upon that first step. It was the inevitable, and it was therefore already in nature tragic, before active tragedy took the stage. Yet Angela did not feel its presence, nor any presentiment of the future, when she bade Giovanni farewell ten days after he had first been to see her in Madame Bernard's apartment. What she felt was just the common pain of parting that has been the lot of loving men and women since the beginning; it is not the less sharp because almost every one has felt it, but it is as useless to describe it as it would be to write a chapter about a bad toothache, a sick headache, or an attack of gout. Angela was a brave girl and set herself the task of bearing it quietly because it was a natural and healthy consequence of loving dearly. It was not like the wrench of saying good-bye to a lover on his way to meet almost certain death. She told herself, and Giovanni told her, that in all probability he was not going to encounter any danger worse than may chance in a day's hunting over a rough country or in a steeple-chase, and that the risk was certainly far less than that of fighting a duel in Italy, where duelling is not a farce as it is in some countries. He would come back within a few months, with considerable credit and the certainty of promotion; it was a hundred to one that he would, so that this was merely a common parting, to be borne without complaint. He thought so himself, and they consoled each other by making plans for their married life, which would be so much nearer when he came home. Madame Bernard left them alone for an hour in the sitting-room and then came in to say good-bye to Giovanni herself, bringing Coco perched upon her wrist, but silent and well-behaved. Angela was pale, and perhaps her deep mourning made her look paler than she was, but her face was as quiet and collected as Giovanni's. He took leave of the governess almost affectionately. 'Take care of her, Madame,' he said, 'and write me some news of her now and then through the War Office. It may reach me, or it may not!' He kissed Angela's hand, looked into her eyes silently for a moment, and went out. 'Marche! 'cré nom d'un nom!' screamed the parrot after him, as if he were going too slowly. But this time Angela could not speak of him with her friend just after he was gone, and when Madame Bernard tried to talk of other things with the idea of diverting her attention, she went and shut herself up in her own room. It was distracting to know that he was still in Rome, and that until nearly midnight, when the train left for Naples, it would be possible to see him once more. If she had insisted, Madame Bernard would have consented to go with her in a cab to find him. It was hard to resist, as she sat by the window, listening to the distant sound of wheels in the street; it was the first great temptation she had ever felt in her life, and as she faced it she was surprised at its strength. But she would not yield. In her own gentle womanliness she found something she recognised but could not account for; was it possible that she had some strength of character, after all? Could it be that she inherited a little of that rigid will that had made her father so like her idea of a Puritan? He had always told her that she was weak, that she would be easily influenced by her surroundings, that her only hope must be to obtain Divine aid for her feeble, feminine nature. She had believed him, because he had taught her that she must, even in the smallest things, and this was a great one. But now something cruelly strong was tearing at her, to make her go into the next room and beg Madame Bernard to help her find Giovanni, if only that she might see his face and hear his voice and say good-bye just once more. She laid her hands on the window-sill as if she would hold herself down in her chair, and she refused to move; not because it looked foolish, for that would not have mattered, but because she chose not to yield. Perhaps she was too proud to give way, and pride, they told her, was always a sin, but that did not matter either. There was an unexpected satisfaction in finding one thin strand of steel among the pliant threads of her untried young will. Besides, she would have much to bear, and if she did not begin at once, she would never grow used to the burden. That was another reason for not following her instinct, and a very good one. To help herself, she began to say one of those prayers of which she knew so many by heart. To her surprise, it disturbed her instead of strengthening her determination, and while her lips were moving she felt an almost overwhelming impulse to do what she was determined not to do at any cost. The sensation startled her, and in a moment she felt that tide of darkness rising to drown her which had almost overwhelmed her while she was kneeling beside her dead father. Her hand pressed the stone window-sill in terror of the awful presence. It is familiar to those few who have knowingly or unwittingly tried to penetrate the darkness to the light beyond. It has been called the Guardian, the Dweller on the Threshold, the Wall, the Destroyer, the Giant Despair. Many have turned back from it as from death itself, some have gone raving mad in fighting their way through it, some have actually died in it, of failure of the heart from fright. Some come upon it unawares in their reasoning, some in the hour of profound meditation; some know by long experience where it is and keep away from it; some are able to pass through it with unshaken mind and unbroken nerves. Scarcely one in a million even guesses that it exists; of those who do, ninety-nine in a hundred turn from it in horror; of the remaining score of those who face it in a whole generation of men, more than half perish in mind or body; the last ten, perhaps, win through, and these are they that have understood the writing over the temple door, the great 'Know thyself,' the precept of the Delphic Oracle and of all mystics before Trophonios and since. Angela's lips ceased moving, and very soon she was herself again, quietly sitting there and wondering what had frightened her so badly, and whether there might not be something wrong with her heart, because she remembered how it had beat twice quickly in succession and then had seemed to stand still while she could have counted ten, quite slowly. What she called her temptation left her at peace till she knew that Giovanni's train had started. In imagination she could hear the engine's whistle, the hissing of the steam from the purge-cocks at starting, the quickening thunder of the high-pressure exhaust, the clanking noise as the slowly moving train passed over the old-fashioned turn-tables, and the long retreating rumble as the express gathered speed and ran out of sight. Then it was over, for good and all; Giovanni was gone beyond the possibility of seeing him again and the strain relaxed. Angela put out her light, and when she fell asleep a quarter of an hour later, drops she did not even feel were slowly trickling from her lids to the pillow; for there are women who do not easily cry when they are awake, but when they are sleeping their tired eyes shed the pent-up tears and are refreshed by them. Angela was not left alone with Madame Bernard as much as she had expected after the first few days, nor even as much as she might have wished. The feeling against the Princess Chiaromonte was strong, and as soon as it became known that Angela had found a safe refuge with her former governess, she received several invitations from more or less distant connections to spend some time with them in the country during the coming summer. At the present juncture, in the height of the season, it was natural that no one should want a forlorn young girl in deep mourning to make a town visit. She would have been a killjoy and a wet blanket in any house, that was clear, and nothing could be more thoroughly respectable and proper than that she should spend the first weeks under Madame Bernard's roof and protection. Some of Angela's friends of her own age came to see her by and by and offered to take her to drive in their mothers' carriages or motor cars, but she would not go, and though she thanked them with grateful words for thinking of her, most of them thought, and told each other, that she had not been very glad to see them and would rather be left alone. They supposed that she was still too much overcome to wish for their society, and as young people who drop out of the world after being in it a very short time are soon forgotten, they troubled themselves very little about her. If she ever chose to come out of her solitude, they said, she would be welcome again, but since she wished to be left to herself it was very convenient to humour her, because the Princess Chiaromonte had as good as declared that there were 'excellent reasons' for her own apparently heartless conduct. No one knew what that meant, but when she spoke in that way it was more blessed to accept her statement than to get her enmity by doubting it. The Chiaromonte family were at liberty to settle their own affairs as seemed best in their own eyes, and as the law could not interfere, no one else felt inclined to do so. Angela had no near relations on her mother's side to protect her or take her in. Six weeks passed away without incident after Giovanni had left, and she had received three letters from him--one from Naples, written before going on board the steamer, one from Port Said, and one from Massowah after his arrival there. The expedition was to start in three days, he said; it had been waiting for him and the officer who was to take the command, and who had gone with him. A short time after receiving this last letter Angela was reading the news from an evening paper to Madame Bernard, translating the paragraphs offhand into French, by force of habit, because her old governess had often made her do it for practice. Suddenly her eyes became fixed, the colour left her face, and she dropped the newspaper with a short, loud cry, falling back in her chair at the same moment. Madame Bernard snatched up the sheet and glanced at the place where the girl had last been reading. The expedition had fallen in with hostile natives a week after starting and had been massacred to a man. The names of the dead were given, and Giovanni's was the second on the list. CHAPTER VI Angela lived for weeks in a state of sleepless apathy, so far as her companion could see. She scarcely spoke, and ate barely enough to keep herself alive. She seemed not to sleep at all, for two or three times during every night Madame Bernard got up and came to her room, and she always found her lying quite motionless on her back, her eyes wide open and staring at the tasteless little pattern of flowers stencilled in colours on the ceiling. Once Madame Bernard proposed to take away the night-light that burned in a cup on the floor, but Angela shook her head almost energetically. She never opened a book either, nor occupied herself in any way, but seemed content to sit still all day and to lie awake all night, never complaining, and never even speaking unless her friend asked her a direct question. Every morning at sunrise she put on her hat and went to the ancient church of San Crisogono, which is served by Trinitarian monks. Sometimes Madame Bernard went with her, but more often she was accompanied by the one woman-servant who cooked and did the housework. The unhappy girl found neither consolation nor hope in the daily service; she went to it because, somehow, it seemed to be the only thing she could do for the dead. She knelt down every day on the same spot, and remained kneeling till after the priest and the acolyte were gone; she took her missal with her, but never looked at it, and her lips never moved in prayer; she felt no impulse to go to confession, nor any devotional craving for the Communion. The mass was a mere form to her, but she attended it regularly, as if she expected that much of herself and would not do less than the least that seemed to be her duty. That was all. Prayer in any form of words frightened her, for it soon brought her near to that blinding darkness which she had already met twice and had learned to dread; her present misfortune was incomparably greater than those that had gone before, and she was sure that if the outer night rose round her again it would take her soul down into itself to eternal extinction. If she had been physically stronger, she might have tried to call this a foolish delusion; weak as she was, and growing daily weaker, it seemed as certain as that her body must perish instantly if she walked over a precipice. The past was distorted, the present had no meaning, and there was no future; she vaguely understood Dante's idea that the body may be left on earth, apparently alive, for years after the soul has departed from it, for the evil Alberigo's spirit told the poet that his own body and Branca d'Oria's were still animated by demons when their souls were already in the torment of the eternal ice. But Angela felt rather as if her living self were a mere senseless shell, uninhabited by any spirit, bad or good, and moved by the mechanics of nature rather than by her own will or another's. Madame Bernard watched her with growing anxiety as the days and weeks brought no change. The little lodging in Trastevere was very silent, and Coco sat disconsolately drooping his wings on his perch when his mistress was out, as she was during more than half the day, giving the lessons by which she and Angela lived. The girl sometimes did not move from her chair throughout the long morning any more than if she had been paralysed, or at most she tried to tend the flowers. The roses were blooming now, and on fine days, when the windows were open, the aromatic perfume of the young carnations floated in with the sunbeams. Angela did not notice the scent, and for all the pleasure the blossoms gave her they might have been turnips and potatoes. But there was a feeble underlying thought of duty in plucking off a small withered leaf here and there, and in picking out the tiny weeds that tried to grow round the flower-stems. From very far away she heard Madame Bernard telling her, an age ago, that she could tend the flowers and take care of the parrot by way of helping in the house. Coco regarded her efforts with melancholy contempt, and turned his back on her when she came near him, and even when she changed the water in his tin cup. As he only drank three or four drops in a day, it probably seemed to him a work of supererogation. While his mistress was out he rarely uttered a sound; but when he heard her footstep in the short passage outside, he gave vent to his feelings and hailed her return with boisterous shouts and unearthly whistling of old French military tunes. Even the noise he made did not disturb Angela; she hardly heard him, for her nerves were not overwrought, but deadened almost to insensibility. Madame Bernard consulted a young doctor, a man of talent, who was taking lessons of her for the sake of his practice among foreigners. She used to say that between her pupils, and their friends and relations, she could get the best advice on any matter without paying a penny for it. The young physician answered that he could not help her much without seeing the patient, but that the best thing for Angela would be to eat and sleep well and not to fret. Some such idea had probably occurred to the little Frenchwoman, for she laughed gaily in the doctor's face, and he, not being paid to look serious, joined in her laughter. 'You cannot say it is bad advice,' he said, 'and you wanted me to say something. Let me see the young lady, and I will tell you honestly whether I know of anything that will do her good, as I would tell a colleague.' They agreed that he should call one evening on pretence of taking an extra lesson in a leisure hour; he came at the appointed time, and watched Angela narrowly during the short time she remained in the room. When she was gone, he gave his opinion without hesitation. 'The best thing for her would be a good illness,' he said. 'You look surprised! I will try to explain. That young lady is stronger than you think. It would do her a world of good to shed tears, but she cannot because her unconscious power of resistance has been exercised till it has grown rigid. You have heard of Hindu devotees who hold up one arm till it stiffens in that position, so that they could not move it if they tried. That is an image of what I mean, unless it is the thing itself. After learning the terrible news Donna Angela unconsciously steeled herself against her natural impulse to break down. She has a strong will, and the result is what you see. The strain of resisting was so great that it deadened her to all sensation in a few hours. If she could fall ill, the tension would relax; in my opinion it will do so when her physical strength is worn out by starvation and lack of sleep, but a simple specific malady, like the whooping-cough or the measles, would be better for her. If you cannot break up her present condition, and if she has any organic weakness of the heart, it may stop beating one of these days. That is what is called dying of a broken heart, my dear Madame Bernard. There is no medicine against that like a broken leg!' 'Fie!' cried Madame Bernard. 'You have no human feeling at all!' 'I am sorry,' answered the physician, with a smile, 'but it is my business to have a head instead. You asked my opinion and I have given it, as I would to another doctor. The old-fashioned ones would laugh at me, the younger ones would understand.' 'If you could only make the poor child sleep a little! Is there nothing?' 'She is not neurasthenic,' the doctor objected. 'It would be of no use to give her sleeping medicines, for after a few days they would have no effect, except to excite her nerves unnaturally.' 'Or something to give her an appetite,' suggested Madame Bernard vaguely. 'She has an excellent appetite if she only knew it. The reason why she does not eat is that she does not know she is hungry, though she is half starved. I served in the African campaign when I was a young military surgeon. I have seen healthy men faint for want of food when they had plenty at hand because they could not realise that they were hungry in their intense preoccupation. Great emotions close the entrance to the stomach, often for a considerable time. It is well known, and it is easier than you think to form the habit of living on next to nothing. It is the first step that counts.' 'As they said of Saint Denis when he carried his head three steps after it was cut off,' said Madame Bernard thoughtfully, and without a smile. 'Precisely,' the doctor assented. 'I myself have seen a man sit his horse at a full gallop, without relaxing his hold, for fifty yards after he had been shot through the head. The seat of the nerves that direct automatic motion is not in the brain, but appears to be in the body, near the spine. When it is not injured, what used to be called unconscious cerebration may continue for several seconds after death. Similarly, bodily habits, like feeling hunger or being insensible to it, appear to have their origin in those ganglions and not in any sort of thought. Consequently, thought alone, without a strong exercise of the will, has little effect upon such habits of the body. When a man does a thing he does not mean to do, and says "I cannot help it," he is admitting this fact. If you were to ask Donna Angela if she means to starve herself to death deliberately, she would deny it with indignation, but would tell you that she really cannot eat, and meanwhile she is starving. Give her a comparatively harmless illness like the measles, severe enough to break up the ordinary automatic habits of the body, and she will eat again, with an excellent appetite. In all probability I could give her the measles by artificial means, but unfortunately that sort of treatment is not yet authorised!' The young doctor, who was not by any means a dreamer, seemed much amused at his own conclusion, which looks absurd even on paper, and Madame Bernard did not believe a word he said. In questions of medicine women are divided into two great classes, those who will consult any doctor and try anything, and those who only ask the doctor's opinion when they are forced to, and who generally do precisely the opposite of what he suggests. This is a more practical view and is probably the safer, if they must go to one of the two extremes. Moreover, doctors are so much inclined to disagree that when three of them give a unanimous opinion it is apt to be worthless. The only immediate result of Madame Bernard's consultation with the doctor was that she disappointed one of her pupils the next day in order to gain an hour, which she devoted to making a very exquisite 'mousse de volaille' for Angela. The poor girl was much touched, but could only eat two or three mouthfuls, and the effort she made to overcome her repugnance was so unmistakable that the good little Frenchwoman was more anxious for her than hurt at the failure. She had tried two sciences, she said to herself, but the doctor of medicine had talked the nonsense of theories to her, and the combined wisdom of Vatel, Brillat-Savarin, and Carême had proved fruitless. A person who could not eat Madame Bernard's 'mousse de volaille' could only be cured by a miracle. Accordingly, she determined to consult a churchman without delay, and went out early in the afternoon. Angela did not notice that she was dressed with more than usual care, as if for a visit of importance. She had been gone about half-an-hour, and the young girl was sitting in her accustomed place, listless and apathetic as usual, when the door-bell rang, and a moment later the woman-servant came in, saying that a foreign gentleman was on the landing who insisted on seeing Angela, even though she was alone. After giving a long and not flattering description of his appearance, the woman held out the card he had given her. Angela glanced at it and read the name of Filmore Durand, and above, in pencil, half-a-dozen words: 'I have brought you a portrait.' Angela did not understand in the least, though she tried hard to concentrate her thoughts. 'Ask the gentleman to come in,' she answered at last, hardly knowing what she said. She turned her face to the window again, and in the course of thirty seconds, when she was roused by Durand's voice in the room, she had almost forgotten that he was in the house. She had not heard English spoken since she had left his studio on the morning when her father died, and she started at the sound. For weeks, nothing had made such an impression on her. She rose to receive the great painter, who was standing near the table in the middle of the room, looking at her in surprise and real anxiety, for she was little more than a shadow of the girl he had painted six weeks or two months earlier. He himself had brought in a good-sized picture, wrapped in new brown paper; it stood beside him on the floor, reaching as high as his waist, and his left hand rested on the upper edge. He held out the other to Angela, who took it apathetically. 'You have been very ill,' he said in a tone of concern. 'No,' she answered. 'I am only a little tired. Will you not sit down?' She sank into her seat again, and one thin hand lay on the cushioned arm of the chair. Instead of seating himself, Durand lifted the picture, still wrapped up, and set it upright on the table, so that it faced her. 'I heard,' he said in a low voice, 'so I did this for you from memory and a photograph.' There was a sudden crackling and tearing of the strong paper as he ripped it off with a single movement, and then there was absolute silence for some time. Angela seemed not even to breathe, as she leaned forward with parted lips and unwinking, wondering eyes. Then, without even a warning breath, a cry broke from her heart. 'He is not dead! You have seen him again! He is alive--they have cheated me!' Then she choked and leaned back, pressing her handkerchief to her mouth. Instead of answering, the painter bent his head and looked down sideways at his own astounding handiwork, and for the second time in that year he was almost satisfied. Presently, as Angela said nothing more, he was going to move the canvas, to show it in a better light, but she thought he meant to take it away. 'No!' she cried imperatively. 'Not yet! Let me see it--let me understand----' Her words died away and she was silent again, her eyes fixed on the portrait. At last she rose, came forward, and laid both her thin hands on the narrow black and gold frame. 'I must have it,' she said. 'You must let me have it, though I cannot pay for it. But I will some day. I will work till I can earn enough money, or till I die--and if that comes soon, they will give you back the picture. You cannot take it away!' Durand saw that she had not understood. 'It is for you,' he said. 'I painted it to give to you. You see, after your father died, I kept yours--I never meant them to have it, but it seemed as if I owed you something for it, and this is to pay my debt. Do you see?' 'How kind you are!' she cried. 'How very, very kind! I do not quite follow the idea--my head is always so tired now--but I knew you would understand how I should feel--if I accepted it without any return!' So far as arithmetic went, the man of genius and the broken-hearted girl were equally far from ordinary reckoning. Durand knew that by a turn of luck he had been able to keep the only portrait he had ever been sorry to part with when it was finished, and he was intimately convinced that he owed somebody something for such an unexpected pleasure; on her side, Angela was quite sure that unless the portrait of the man she had loved was to be an equivalent for some sort of obligation she could not be satisfied to keep it all her life unpaid for. It filled the little sitting-room with light and colour, as a Titian might have done; it was as intensely alive as Giovanni Severi had been--the eyes were full of those quick little coruscations of fire that had made them so unlike those of other men, the impulsive nostrils seemed to quiver, the healthy young blood seemed to come and go in the tanned cheeks, the square shoulders were just ready to make that quick, impatient little movement that had been so characteristic of him, so like the sudden tension of every muscle when a thoroughbred scents sport or danger. No ordinary artist would ever have seen all there was in the man, even in a dozen sittings, but the twin gifts of sight and memory had unconsciously absorbed and held the whole, and a skill that was never outdone in its time had made memory itself visible on the canvas. Something that was neither a 'harmless illness' nor a 'miracle' had waked Angela from her torpor. 'How can I thank you?' she asked, after a long pause. 'You do not know what it is to me to see his living face--you will call it an illusion--it seems as if----' She broke off suddenly and pressed her handkerchief to her lips again. 'Only what you call the unreal can last unchanged for a while,' the painter said, catching at the word she had used, and thinking more of his art than of her. 'Only an ideal can be eternal, but every honest attempt to give it shape has a longer life than any living creature. Nature makes only to destroy, but art creates for the very sake of preserving the beautiful.' She heard each sentence, but was too absorbed in the portrait to follow his meaning closely. Perhaps it would have escaped her if she had tried. 'Only good and evil are everlasting,' she said, almost unconsciously repeating words she had heard somewhere when she was a child. Durand looked at her quickly, but he saw that she was not really thinking. 'What is "good"?' he asked, as if he were sure that there was no answer to the question. It attracted her attention, and she turned to him; she was coming back to life. 'Whatever helps people is good,' she said. 'The French proverb says "Help thyself and God will help thee,"' suggested Durand. 'No, it should be "Help others, and God will help you,"' Angela answered. The artist fixed his eyes on her as he nodded a silent assent; and suddenly, though her face was so changed, he knew it was more like his portrait of her than ever, and that the prophecy of his hand was coming to fulfilment. He stayed a moment longer, and asked if he could be of any service to her or Madame Bernard. She thanked him vaguely, and almost smiled. He felt instinctively that she was thinking of what she had last said, and was wishing that some one would tell her how she might do something for others, rather than that another should do anything for her. She went with him to the door at the head of the stairs and let him out herself. 'Thank you,' she said, 'thank you! You don't know what you have done for me!' He looked at her in thoughtful silence for a few seconds, holding her hand as if they were old friends. 'There is no such thing as death,' he said gravely. And with this odd speech he left her and went slowly down the narrow stone steps; and though she watched him till he disappeared at the next landing, he did not once turn his head. When she was in the sitting-room she set the framed picture on a straight chair near the window and sat down before it in her accustomed seat; and Durand's last words came back to her again and again, as if they were begging to be remembered and understood. Her memory brought with them many exhortations and sayings from the sacred books, but none of them seemed to mean just what she knew that little speech of his must mean if she could quite understand it. She had come to life again unexpectedly, and the spell of her dreadful solitude was broken. She did not think it strange that her eyes were dry as she gazed at the well-loved face, while the inner voice told her that there was 'no such thing as death.' The dead man had done his duty, and he expected her to do hers until the time came for them to meet for ever. In the aimless wandering of her thoughts during the past weeks she had only understood that he was gone. In an uncounted moment, while she had been turning over the leaves of a book, or idly talking with Madame Bernard, or plucking a withered leaf from one of the plants outside the window, he had been fighting for his life and had lost it. Perhaps she had been quietly asleep just then. She had heard people say they were sure that if anything happened to those they dearly loved, some warning would reach them; she had heard tales of persons appearing at the moment of their death to those dearest to them, and even to indifferent people. Such stories were but idle talk, for while she had been reading the news out to Madame Bernard, she had been expecting to hear that the expedition was advancing successfully on its way, she had been wondering what chance there was of getting a letter from the interior, she had been intimately convinced that Giovanni was safe, well, and making good progress, when he had been dead a fortnight. Madame Bernard had read the details, so far as they were known, but she had wisely said nothing except that the news was fully confirmed. Angela herself had refused to touch a newspaper since that day; it had been enough that he was gone--to know how, or even to guess, would be a suffering she could not face. What had been found of the poor men who had perished had been brought home; there had been a great military funeral for them; their names were inscribed for ever on the roll of honour. In time, when the political situation changed, an effort would be made to avenge their death, no doubt; for every man who had been murdered a hundred would be slain, or more, if possible, till even a Scythian might feel satisfied that their angry spirits were appeased by blood. Angela knew nothing of all this, for she never left the house except to go to early mass every day, and Madame Bernard never spoke of the dead man nor of the lost expedition. When the governess came home, a little after sunset, Angela was still sitting before the picture, her chin resting on her hand and her elbow on her knee as she leaned forward to see better in the failing light. The girl turned her head with a bright smile, and Madame Bernard started in surprise when she saw the portrait. 'It is he!' she cried. 'It is he, to the very life!' 'Yes,' Angela answered softly, 'it is Giovanni. He has been telling me that I must do my part, as he did his. He is waiting for me, but I cannot go to him till my share is done.' She was gazing at the face again, while Madame Bernard looked from it to her in undisguised astonishment. 'I do not understand, my dear,' she said very gently. 'Who has brought you this wonderful picture?' She hardly expected an explanation, and she guessed that the portrait was Durand's work, for few living painters could have made such a likeness, and none would have painted it in that way, which was especially his own. To her surprise Angela turned on her chair without rising, and told her just what had happened, since he had come in early in the afternoon bringing the picture with him. When she had finished she turned to it again, as if there were nothing more to be said, and at that moment Coco began to talk in a tone that made further conversation impossible. Madame Bernard took him on her hand and disappeared with him. When she came back, Angela was standing on a chair holding up the portrait with both hands and trying to hang it by the inner edge of the frame on an old nail she had found already driven into the wall. Madame Bernard at once began to help her, as if not at all surprised at her sudden energy, though it seemed nothing less than miraculous. They succeeded at last, and both got down from their chairs and drew back two steps to judge of the effect. 'It is a little too high,' Angela said thoughtfully. To-morrow I will get a cord and two rings to screw into the frame at the back, and then we will hang it just as it should be.' 'Perhaps we could put it in a better light,' Madame Bernard suggested. 'The room is so dark now that one cannot judge of that.' 'He must be where he can see me,' Angela said. Her friend looked puzzled, and the young girl smiled again, quite naturally. 'I am not dreaming,' she said, as if answering a question not spoken. 'I do not mean that the picture can really see, any more than I believe that what they call "miraculous images" of saints are the saints themselves! But when I see the eyes of the portrait looking straight at me, I feel that he himself must see me, from where he is; and he will see me do my part, as he has done his. At least, I hope I may.' She went to her own room, and Madame Bernard followed her to light the little lamp for her as she had always done of late. But to-day Angela insisted on doing it herself. 'You must not wait on me any more,' said the girl. 'I have been very idle for weeks, but I did not understand, and you will forgive me, because you are so good and kind.' 'You are a little angel, my dear!' cried Madame Bernard, much affected. 'They did right to name you Angela!' But Angela shook her head, as she put the paper shade over the cheap lamp, and then went to the window to close the inner shutters before drawing the chintz curtains. 'I have been a very useless little angel,' she answered, 'and I am sorry for it. But I mean to do better now, and you will help me, won't you?' 'That is all I ask! But to tell the truth, I was discouraged to-day, and I have been to ask the advice of a very good man. There! I have told you, and I am glad of it, because I hate secrets! He has promised to come and see you, and talk to you, but now that you are yourself again----' She stopped, as if embarrassed. 'Who is he?' asked Angela with a shade of distrust. 'A priest?' 'Please do not be angry!' Madame Bernard began to repent of what she had done. 'I was so much distressed--I felt that you were slipping out of the world day by day, just dying of a broken heart, so I went to see him this afternoon.' 'I am not going to die,' Angela said confidently. 'Who is he? I think I know at last what I must do, without the advice of a priest. But tell me who he is.' 'He is such a good man, my dear--Monsignor Saracinesca.' 'That is different,' Angela said, changing her tone at once. 'I shall be very glad to see Monsignor Saracinesca. He is a real saint, if there is one living.' CHAPTER VII There is a religious house in Rome, beyond the Tiber and not far from Porta Portese, which I will call the Convent of the White Sisters of Santa Giovanna d'Aza. Their order is a branch of a great and ancient one, though it has not had a separate existence a very long time. The convent contains one of the best private hospitals in Italy, and the Sisters also go out as trained nurses, like those of several other orders. But they do something more, which the others do not; for almost every year two or three, or even four of them go out to the Far East to work in the leper hospitals which missionaries have established in Rangoon and elsewhere; and a good many have gone in the last ten years, but few will ever return. The convent is much larger than any one would suppose who judged merely from the uninteresting stuccoed wall which faces the quiet street, and in which there are a few plain windows without shutters and a large wooden door, painted a dull green. This door, which is the main entrance, is opened and shut by the portress as often as a hundred times a day and more; but when it is open there is nothing to be seen within but a dark vestibule paved with flagstones; and the portress's wooden face is no more prepossessing than the wall itself. If any one asks her a question, she answers civilly in a businesslike tone, with a hard foreign accent, for she is the widow of one of the Swiss Guards at the Vatican; but she is naturally silent, stolid, mechanical, and trustworthy. She is a lay sister and is called Sister Anna, and she lives in a small room on the left of the vestibule, as you go in, five steps above the stone pavement. She is very rarely relieved from her duties for a few hours at a time, and all the patients must pass her when they enter or leave the house, as well as the doctors, and the visitors whose smart carriages and motor cars often stand waiting in the narrow street. Fifty times a day, perhaps, the door-bell rings and Sister Anna deliberately flaps down the five steps in her heavily-soled slippers to admit one person or another, and fifty times, again, she flaps down to let them out again. The reason why she does not go mad or become an imbecile is that she is Swiss. That, at least, is how it strikes the celebrated surgeon, Professor Pieri, who is at the convent very often because he has many of his patients brought there to be operated on and nursed. The truth is that the hospital is a thoroughly modern one, which has been built as an extension of buildings that date from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It is managed on soundly scientific principles, without the least fuss, or any 'board of trustees' or 'committee of management,' or any of that cumbrous administration which makes so many public hospitals as intricate as labyrinths, only to be threaded with a clue of red tape, and proportionately unpractical. There is a still and sunny garden within, surrounded by a wide and dry cloister, above which the ancient building rises only one story on the three sides of the square; but on the fourth side, which looks towards the sun at noon, there are three stories, which have been built lately, and the hospital wards are in that wing, one above the other. On the opposite side, a door opens from the cloister to the choir of the church, which has also an outer entrance from the street, now rarely used; for the chaplain comes and goes through the cloister, the vestibule, and the green door where the portress is. Beyond her lodge there is a wide hall, with clerestory windows and glass doors opening to the cloister and the garden; and from this hall the hospital itself is reached by a passage through which all the patients are taken. The Mother Superior's rooms are those above the cloister on the further side of the garden, and have three beautiful thirteenth century windows divided by pairs of slender columns, so that each window has two little arches. In the middle of the garden there is an old well with three arches of carved stone that spring from three pillars and meet above the centre of the well-head, and the double iron chain runs over a wheel, and has two wrought copper buckets, one at each end of it; but the water is now used only for watering the flowers. There are stone seats round the well, too, on which three old nuns often sit and sun themselves on fine days. They are the last of the Sisters of the old time, when there was no hospital and no training school, and the nuns used to do anything in the way of nursing that was asked of them by rich or poor, with a good heart and a laudable intention, but without even the simplest elements of modern prophylaxis, because it had not been invented then. For that has all been discovered quite recently, as we older men can remember only too well. There are many roses in the garden, and where there is most sun there is a large bed of carnations, but not of the finer sorts; they are just plain red and white ones, that fill the air with a scent of warm cloves on still mornings in the late spring, when it is beginning to be hot. But if this description has seemed tedious, you must know that Angela lived in the convent and worked there for five whole years after Giovanni was lost in Africa; so that it was needful to say something about her surroundings. An accomplished psychologist would easily fill a volume with the history of Angela's soul from the day on which she learned the bad news till the morning when she made her profession and took the final vows of her order in the little convent church. But one great objection to psychological analysis in novels seems to be that the writer never gets beyond analysing what he believes that he himself would have felt if placed in the 'situation' he has invented for his hero or heroine. Thus analysed, Angela Chiaromonte would not have known herself, any more than those who knew her best, such as Madame Bernard and her aunt the Princess, would have recognised her. I shall not try to 'factorise' the result represented by her state of mind from time to time; still less shall I employ a mathematical process to prove that the ratio of _dx_ to _dy_ is twice _x_, the change in Angela at any moment of her moral growth. What has happened must be logical, just because it has happened; if we do not understand the logic, that may or may not be the worse for us, but the facts remain. It is easy, too, to talk of a 'vocation' and to lay down the law regarding it, in order to say that such and such a woman acted wisely in entering a religious order, or that such another made a mistake. The fact that there is no such law is itself the reason why neither a man nor a woman is permitted nowadays to take permanent vows until after a considerable period of probation, first as a 'postulant' and then as a novice. For my own part, when Angela Chiaromonte left Madame Bernard's pleasant rooms in Trastevere and went into the convent hospital of Santa Giovanna d'Aza through the green door, I do not believe that she had the very smallest intention of becoming a nun, nor that she felt anything like what devout persons call a 'vocation.' It was not to disappear from the world for ever that she went there, and it was not in order to be alone with her sorrow, though that would have been a natural and human impulse; nor was it because she felt herself drawn to an existence of asceticism and mystic meditation. The prospect of work was what attracted her. She was a perfectly healthy-minded girl, and though she might never cease to mourn the man she had loved, it was to be foreseen that in all other respects she might recover entirely from the terrible shock and live out a normal life. Under ordinary circumstances that is what would have happened; she would have gone back to the world after a time, outwardly the same, though inwardly changed in so far as all possibilities of love and marriage were concerned; she would have lived in society, year after year, growing old gracefully and tenderly, as some unmarried women do whose stories we never knew or have forgotten, but whose hearts are far away, watching for the great To-morrow, beside a dead man's grave, or praying before an altar whence the god has departed. They are women whom we never call 'old maids,' perhaps because we feel that in memory they are sharing their lives with a well-loved companion whom we cannot see. That might have been Angela's future. But a brutal fact put such a possibility out of the question. She was a destitute orphan, living on the charity of her former governess, whereas her nature was independent, brave, and self-reliant. When she rose above the wave that had overwhelmed her, and opened her eyes and found her senses again, her instinct was to strike out for herself, and though she talked with Monsignor Saracinesca again and again, she had really made up her mind after her first conversation with him. She saw that she must work for her living, but at the same time she longed to devote her life to some good work for Giovanni's sake. The churchman told her that if she could learn to nurse the sick, she might accomplish both ends. He never suggested that she should become a nun, or take upon herself any permanent obligation. He had seen much of human nature; the girl was very young, and perhaps he underrated the strength of her love for the dead man, and thought that she might yet marry happily and live a normal woman's life. But there was no reason why she should not become a trained nurse in the meantime, and there was room for her in the nuns' hospital of Saint Joan of Aza, an institution which owes its first beginnings and much of its present success to the protection of the Saracinesca family, and more particularly to the Princess herself, the beautiful Donna Corona of other days, and to her second son, Monsignor Ippolito. The hospital was always in need of young nurses, especially since a good many of the older ones were going to the Far East, and when there was a choice the Mother Superior gave the preference to applicants from the better classes. The matter was therefore settled without difficulty, and Angela was soon installed in the tiny room which remained her cell for years afterwards. It contained a narrow iron bedstead, and during the day a small brass cross always lay on the white coverlet; there was a chest of drawers, a minute table on which stood an American nickeled alarum clock; there was one rush-bottomed chair, and the only window looked westwards over the low city wall towards Monteverde, where the powder magazine used to stand before it was blown up. The window was latticed half-way up, which did not hinder Angela from seeing the view when she had time to look at it. She wore a plain grey frock at first, but when she was in the wards it was quite covered by the wide white cotton garment which all the nurses wore when on duty. Occasionally Madame Bernard came and took her for a walk, and sometimes she went out on an errand with one of the nuns; but she did not care very much for that, possibly because she was not under any restraint. The beautiful enclosed garden was wide and sunny, and she could generally be alone there; when the weather was fine she could wander about between the beds of roses and carnations or sit on a bench, and if it rained she could walk up and down under the cloisters. The three old nuns who came out to sun themselves paid no attention to her, beyond nodding rather shakily when she bent her head to them in respectful salutation. They had seen more than a hundred girls enter the convent, to work and grow old like themselves, and one more neither made any difference to them nor possessed for them the least interest. That strange petrifaction had begun in them which overtakes all very old monks and nuns who have never had very active minds. From doing the same things, with no appreciable variation, at the same hours for fifty, sixty, and even seventy years, they become so perfectly mechanical that their bodies are always in one of a limited number of attitudes, less and less pronounced as great age advances, till they at last cease to move at all and die, as the hands of a clock stop when it has run down. But the three old nuns belonged to a past generation, and it was not probable that the younger Sisters would ever be like them. The Mother Superior was a small and active woman, with quick black eyes, a determined mouth, and a strangely pale face. She seemed to be incapable of being tired. Among themselves the novices called her the little white volcano. When the one who had invented the epithet repeated it to Monsignor Saracinesca in confession, and he gently told her that it was wrong to speak disrespectfully of her superior, she rather pertly asked him whether any one who lived under a volcano could fail to 'respect' it; whereat he shook his head gravely inside the confessional, but his spiritual mouth twitched with amusement, in spite of himself. The four novices were inclined to distrust Angela at first, however, as she was not even a postulant, and it was not till she became one of themselves that she was initiated into their language. It was not long before this took place, however. From the first, she showed a most unusual aptitude in learning the mechanical part of her profession, and her extraordinary memory made it easy for her to remember the lectures which were given for the nurses three times a week, generally by the house surgeon, but occasionally by the great Doctor Pieri, who had been a pupil of Basini of Padua and was a professor in the University of Rome. He showed especial interest in Angela, and the pert little novice wickedly suggested that he was falling in love with her; but the truth was that he at once distinguished in her the natural gifts which were soon to make her the most valuable nurse at his disposal. The Mother Superior expected that she would become vain and gave her some energetic lectures on the evils of conceit. There was a sort of fury of good about the pale woman that carried everything before it. She was just, but her righteous anger was a ready firebrand, and when it burst into flame, as often happened, her eloquence was extraordinary. Her face might have been carved out of white ice, but her eyes glowed like coals and her words came low, quick, and clear, and wonderfully to the point. As a girl, her temper had been terrific, and had estranged her from her own family; but her unconquerable will had forged it into a weapon that never failed her in a just cause and was never drawn in an unjust one. Monsignor Saracinesca sometimes thought that Saint Paul must have had the same kind of fiery and fearless temperament. It sometimes outran facts, if it always obeyed her intention, as happened one day when she privately gave Angela a sermon on vanity which would have made the other novices tremble at the time and feel very uncomfortable for several days afterwards. When she had wound up her peroration and finished, she drew two or three fierce little breaths and scrutinised the young girl's face; but to her surprise it had not changed in the least. The clear young eyes were as steady and quiet as ever; if they expressed anything, it was a quiet admiration which the older woman had not hitherto roused in the younger members of her community. 'Pray for me, Mother,' Angela said, 'and I will try to be less vain.' The other looked at her again very keenly, and then, instead of answering, asked a question. 'Why do you wish to be a nun?' Angela had lately asked herself the same thing, but she replied with some diffidence: 'If I can do a little good, by working very hard all my life, I hope that it may be allowed to help the soul of a person who died suddenly.' The Mother Superior's white face softened a little. 'That is a good intention,' she said. 'If it is sincere and lasting, you will be a good nun. You may begin your noviciate on Sunday if you have made up your mind.' 'I am ready.' 'Very well. I have only one piece of advice to give you, and perhaps I shall remind you of it often, for it was given to me very late, and I should have been the better for it. Try to remember what I tell you.' 'I will remember, Mother.' 'It is this. Count your failures but not your successes. You cannot surprise God by the amount of good you do. There are girls who enter upon the noviciate just as hard-working students go up for an examination, hoping to astonish their examiners by the amount they know. That is well enough at the university, but it is all wrong in religion. Work how you will, you cannot be perfect, and, if you were, you could only be what God made man before sin came. Each student is trying to beat all the others, and one succeeds. We are not trying to outdo each other; there are no marks in our examination and there is no competition. We are working together to save life in a world where millions die for want of care. To do less than the best we can is failure, for each of us, and the best we can all do together is very little compared with all there is to be done. Faith, Hope, and Charity are all we have to help us, all we can ask of Heaven. Believe, hope, and help others while you live, and all will go well hereafter, never fear! Not to help, not to believe, not to hope, even during one moment, is to fail in that moment. Where the sum is light, it is easy to count the dark places, but not the light itself. That is what I mean, my daughter, when I say, keep account of your failures but not of your successes. Try to remember it.' 'Indeed I will,' Angela answered. She went back to her work, and the Mother Superior's words thereafter became the rule of her life; but she was not sent for again to listen to a lecture on vanity, and the small White Volcano was inclined to think that it had made a mistake in breaking out, and inwardly offered a conditional apology. Angela worked hard, and made such progress that before the two years of her noviciate were over Doctor Pieri said openly that she was the best surgical nurse in the hospital, and one of the best for ordinary illnesses, considering how limited her experience had been. The nursing of wounds is more mechanical than the nursing of a fever, for instance, and can be sooner learned by a beginner, where the surgeon himself is always at hand. On the other hand, the value of surgical nursing depends on relative perfection of detail and rigorous adherence to the set rules of prophylaxis, whereas other nursing often requires that judgment which only experience can give. Surgery is a fine art that has reached a high degree of development in the treatment of facts, about which good surgeons are generally right. A great deal of noise is made over surgeons' occasional mistakes, which are advertised by their detractors, but we hear little of their steady and almost constant success. Medicine, on the other hand, must very often proceed by guesswork; but for that very reason it covers up its defects more anxiously, and is more inclined to talk loudly of its victories. Every great physician admits that a good deal of his science is psychological; and psychology deals with the unknown, or with what is only partially knowable. A mathematician may smile and answer that 'infinity' is much more than partially 'unknowable,' but that, by using it, the differential calculus gives results of most amazing accuracy, and is such a simple affair that, if its mere name did not inspire terror, any fourth-form schoolboy could easily be made to understand it, and even taught to use it. What we call the soul may be infinite or infinitesimal, or finite, or it may be the Hegelian Nothing, which is Pure Being under another name; whatever it is, our acquaintance with it is not knowledge of it, since whatever we can find out about it is based on the Criticism exercised by Pure Reason and not on experience; and the information which Pure Reason gives us about the soul is not categorical but antinomial; and by the time medicine gets into these transcendental regions, consciously or unconsciously, it ceases to be of much practical use in curing 'pernicious anaemia' or any similarly obscure disease. All this digression only explains why Angela was a better nurse in surgical cases than in ordinary illnesses after she had been two years in training; but that circumstance is connected with what happened to her later, as will be clear in due time. In most respects she changed very little, so far as any one could see. No one in the convent knew how she hoped against all reason, during those two years, that Giovanni might yet be heard of, though there was not the least ground for supposing that he could have escaped when all the others had perished; and indeed, while she still hoped, she felt that it was very foolish, and when she had a long talk with Monsignor Saracinesca before taking the veil, she did not even speak of such a possibility. She had long ago decided that she would take the veil at the expiration of the two years, but she wished to define her position clearly to the three persons whom she cared for and respected most. These were Madame Bernard, Monsignor Saracinesca, and the Mother Superior, whose three characters were as different as it would have been possible to pick out amongst the acquaintance of a lifetime. Angela asked permission to go with Madame Bernard to the cemetery of San Lorenzo, where a monument marked the grave of those who had fallen in the expedition. It was a large square pillar of dark marble, surmounted by a simple bronze cross. On the four sides there were bronze tablets, on which were engraved the names of the officers and men, and that of Giovanni Severi was second, for he had been the second in command. No one was near and Angela knelt down upon the lowest of the three steps that formed the base. After a moment Madame Bernard knelt beside her. The novice's eyes were fixed on the bronze tablet and her lips did not move. Her companion watched her furtively, expecting to see some sign of profound emotion, or of grief controlled, or at least the shadow of a quiet sadness. But there was nothing, and after two or three minutes Angela rose deliberately, went up the remaining steps, and pressed her lips upon the first letters of Giovanni's name. She turned and descended the steps with a serene expression, as Madame Bernard got up from her knees. 'Death was jealous of me,' Angela said. She had never heard of Erinna; she did not know that a maiden poetess had made almost those very words immortal in one lovely broken line that has come down to us from five and twenty centuries ago. In the Everlasting Return they fell again from a maiden's lips, but they roused no response; Madame Bernard took them for a bit of girlish sentiment, and scarcely heeded them, while she wondered at Angela's strangely calm manner. They walked back slowly along the straight way between the tombs. 'I loved him living and I love him dead,' said the young novice slowly. 'He cannot come back to me, but some day I may go to him.' 'Yes,' answered Madame Bernard without conviction. The next world had always seemed very vague to her; and besides, poor Giovanni had been a soldier, and she knew something of military men, and wondered where they went when they died. 'You are a very good woman,' Angela continued, following her own train of thought; 'do you think it is wrong for a nun to love a dead man?' 'Dear me!' exclaimed the little Frenchwoman in some surprise. 'How can one love a man who is dead? It is impossible; consequently it is not wrong!' Angela looked at her quickly and then walked on. 'There is no such thing as death,' she said. It was Filmore Durand's odd speech that had come back to her often during two years; when she repeated it to herself she saw his portrait of Giovanni, which still hung in Madame Bernard's sitting-room, and presently it was not a picture seen in memory, but Giovanni himself. Madame Bernard shrugged her shoulders and smiled vaguely. 'Death is a fact,' she said prosaically. 'It is the reason why we cannot live for ever!' The reason was not convincing to Angela, but as she saw no chance of being understood, she went back to the starting-point. 'Then you do not think it can possibly be wrong for a nun to love some one who is dead?' she asked, her tone turning the statement into a question. 'Of course not!' cried the governess almost impatiently. 'You might as well think yourself in love with his tombstone and then fancy it a sin!' So one of Angela's three friends had answered her question very definitely. The answer was not worthless, because Madame Bernard was a very honest, matter-of-fact woman; on the contrary, it represented a practical opinion, and that is always worth having, though the view it defines may be limited. Angela did not try to explain further what she had meant, and Madame Bernard always avoided subjects she could not understand. The two chatted pleasantly about other things as they returned to the convent, and the little Frenchwoman trotted contentedly back to her lodgings, feeling that the person she loved best in the world was certain to turn out a very good and happy nun. Angela was not yet so sure of this, and she took the first opportunity of consulting Monsignor Saracinesca. They sat and talked together on one of the stone seats in the cloistered garden. He is a tall, thin man, with a thoughtful face and a quiet manner. In his youth he was once entangled in the quarrels of a Sicilian family, as I have narrated elsewhere, and behaved with great heroism. After that, he laboured for many years as a simple parish priest in a fever-plagued district, and he only consented to return to Rome when he realised that his health was gravely impaired. Angela put her question with her usual directness and watched his face. He knew her story, so that there was nothing to explain. 'Is it wrong to love him still?' she asked. But Monsignor Ippolito did not speak until his silence had lasted so long that Angela was a little frightened; not that he had any real doubt as to her intention, but because it was his duty to examine such a case of conscience in all its aspects. 'What does your own instinct tell you?' he asked at last. 'That it will not be wrong,' Angela answered with conviction. 'But I may be mistaken. That is why I come to you for advice.' Again the churchman mused in silence for a while. 'I will tell you what I think,' he said, when he had made up his mind. 'There is a condition, which depends only on yourself, and of which you are the only judge. You ask my advice, but I can only show you how to ask it of your own heart. If your love for the man who is gone looks forward, prays and hopes, it will help you; if it looks back with tears for what might have been and with longing for what can never be, it will hinder you. More than that I cannot say.' 'I look forward,' Angela answered confidently. 'I pray and I hope.' 'If you are sure of that, you are safe,' said Monsignor Saracinesca. 'No one but yourself can know.' 'I began to work here hoping and praying that if I could do any good at all it might help him, wherever he is,' Angela went on. 'That is the only vocation I ever felt, and now I wish to take the veil because I think that as a professed nun I may be able to use better what little I have learned in two years and a half than if I stay on as a lay sister. It is not for myself, except in so far as I know that the only way to help him is to do my best here. As I hope that God may be merciful to him, so I hope that God will accept my work, my prayers, and my faith.' The prelate looked at the delicate face and earnest eyes, and the quietly spoken words satisfied him and a little more. There could be nothing earthly in such love as that, he was sure, and such simple faith would not be disappointed. It was not the first time in his experience as a priest that he had known and talked with a woman from whom sudden death had wrenched the man she loved, or whom inevitable circumstances had divided from him beyond all hope of reunion; but he had never heard one speak just as Angela spoke, nor seen that look in another face. He was convinced, and felt that he could say nothing against her intention. But she herself was not absolutely sure even then, and she went to the Mother Superior that evening to ask her question for the last time. The Mother was seated at her writing-table, and one strong electric lamp shed its vivid light from under a perfectly dark shade upon the papers that lay under her hand and scattered before her--bills, household accounts, doctors' and nurses' reports, opened telegrams, humble-looking letters written on ruled paper and smart notes in fashionable handwritings. People who imagine that the Mother Superior of a nursing order which has branches in many parts of the world spends her time in meditation and prayer are much mistaken. 'Sit down,' said the small white volcano, without looking up or lifting her thin forefinger from the column of figures she was checking. The room would have been very dark but for the light which the white paper reflected upwards upon the nun's whiter face, and into the dark air. Angela sat down at a distance as she was bidden, and waited some minutes, till the Mother Superior had set her initials at the foot of the sheet with a blue pencil, and raised her face to peer into the gloom. 'Who is it?' she asked in a businesslike tone, still dazzled by the light. 'I am Angela, Mother. May I ask you a question?' 'Yes.' The voice had changed even in that single word, and was kind and encouraging. 'Two years ago, before I became a novice, you asked me why I wanted to be a nun, Mother. You thought my intention was good. Now that there is still time before I make my profession, I have come to ask you once again what you think.' 'So far as I know, I think you can be a good nun,' answered the Mother Superior without waiting to hear more, for she never wasted time if she could possibly help it. Angela understood her and told her story quickly and clearly, without a quiver or an inflection of pain in her voice. It was necessary, for the Mother did not know it all, and listened with concentrated attention. But before it was ended she had made up her mind what to say. 'My dear child,' said she, 'I am not your confessor! And besides, I am prejudiced, for you are a good nurse and I need you and wish you to stay. Do you feel that there is any reason why you should be less conscientious than you have been so far, if you promise to go on working with us as long as you live?' 'No,' Angela answered. 'Or that there is any reason why you should have less faith in God, less hope of heaven, or less charity towards your fellow-creatures if you promise to give your whole life to God, in nursing those who suffer, with the hope of salvation hereafter?' 'No, I do not feel that there can be any reason.' 'Then do not torment yourself with any more questions, for life is too short! To throw away time is to waste good, and save evil. Believe always, and then work with all your might! Work, work, work! Work done for God's sake is prayer to God, and a thousand hours on your knees are not worth as much as one night spent in helping a man to live--or to die--when you are so tired that you can hardly stand, and every bone in your body aches, and you are half-starved too! Work for every one who needs help, spare every one but yourself, think of every one before yourself. It is easy to do less than your best, it is impossible to do more, and yet you must try to do more, always more, till the end! That should be a nun's life.' The Mother Superior had led that life till it was little less than a miracle that she was still alive herself, and altogether a wonder that her fiery energy had not eaten up the small frail earthly part of her long ago. 'But it must not be for the sake of the end,' she went on, before Angela could speak, 'else you will be working only for the hope of rest, and you will try to kill yourself with work, to rest the sooner! You must think of what you are doing because it is for others, not for what it will bring you by and by, God willing. Pray to live long and to do much more before you die, if it be good; for there is no end of the sickness and suffering and pain in this world; but few are willing to help, and fewer still know how!' She was silent, but her eyes were speaking still as Angela saw them looking at her over the shaded light, her pale features illuminated only by the soft reflection from the paper on the table. The young girl felt a deep and affectionate admiration for her, and resolved never to forget the brave words, but to treasure them with those others spoken two years ago: 'Count your failures but not your successes.' She rose to take her leave, and, standing before the writing-table, with each hand hidden in the opposite sleeve, she bent her head respectfully. 'Thank you, Mother,' she said. The nun nodded gravely, still looking at her, but said nothing more, and Angela left the room, shutting the door without noise. The Mother Superior did not go back to her accounts at once, though her hand mechanically drew the next sheet from the pile, so that it lay ready before her. She was thinking of her own beginnings, more than twenty years ago, and comparing her own ardent nature with what she knew of Angela's: and then, out of her great experience of character, a doubt arose and troubled her strangely, though she opposed it as if it had been a temptation to injustice, or at least to ungenerous thinking. It was a suspicion that such marvellous calm as this novice showed could not be all real; that there was something not quite explicable about her perfect submission, humility, and obedience; that under the saintly exterior a fire might be smouldering which would break out irresistibly some day, and not for good. The woman who had been tried doubted the untried novice. Perhaps it was nothing more than that, and natural enough; but it was very disturbing, because she also felt herself strongly attached to Angela, and to suspect her seemed not only unfair, but disloyal. Yet it was the bounden duty of the Mother to study the characters of all who lived under her authority and direction, and to forestall their possible shortcomings by a warning, an admonition, or an encouraging word, as the case might be. She had done what she could, but she was dissatisfied with herself; and at the very moment when Angela was inwardly repeating her stirring words and committing them to memory for her lifetime, the woman who had spoken them was tormented by the thought that she had not said half enough, or still worse, that she had perhaps made a mistake altogether. For the first time since she had fought her first great battle with herself, she had the sensation of being near a mysterious force of nature which she did not understand; but she had been twenty years younger then, and the present issue was not to depend on her own strength but on another's, and it involved the salvation of another's soul. It was long before she bent over the columns of figures again, yet she did not reproach herself with having wasted time. The first of all her many duties, and the most arduous, was to think for others; to work for them was a hundred times easier and was rest and refreshment by contrast. Angela would have been very much surprised if she could have known what was passing in the Mother Superior's mind, while she herself felt nothing but relief and satisfaction because her decision had now become irrevocable. If she had been bidden to wait another year, she would have waited patiently and without a murmur, because she could not be satisfied with anything less than apparent certainty; but instead, she had been encouraged to take the final step, after which there could be no return. That was the inevitable. Human destiny is most tragic when the men and women concerned are doing their very utmost to act bravely and uprightly, while each is in reality bringing calamity on the other. Acting on the only evidence she had a right to trust, the Mother Superior knew that she would not be justified in hindering Angela from taking the veil. Few had ever done so well in the noviciate, none had ever done better, and her natural talent for the profession of nursing was altogether unusual. There had never been one like her in the hospital. As for her character, she seemed to have no vanity, no jealousy, no temper, no moodiness. The Mother had never known such an even and well-balanced disposition as hers. Would it have been wise to keep her back longer, because she seemed too perfect? Would it have been just? Would it not, indeed, have been very wrong to risk discouraging her, now that she was quite ready? She was almost twenty-one years old and had taken no step hastily. More than two years and a half had passed since she had entered the convent, and in all that time no one had been able to detect the smallest fault in her, either of weakness or of hastiness, still less of anything like the pride she might actually have felt in her superiority. To keep her back now would be to accuse perfection of being imperfect; it would be as irrational as to call excellence a failing. More than that, it would have a bad effect on the whole community, a danger which could not be overlooked. Three years later, the Mother understood the warning doubt that had assailed her; and when a precious life was in the balance she put herself on trial before her judging conscience and the witness of her memory. But though the judge was severe and the testimony unerring, they acquitted her of all blame, and told her that she had acted for the best, according to her light, on that memorable evening. Within less than a month Angela took the veil in the convent church, and thenceforth she was Sister Giovanna, for that was the name she chose. CHAPTER VIII Five years after Giovanni Severi had left Rome to join the ill-fated expedition in Africa, his brother Ugo obtained his captaincy and at the same time was placed in charge of the powder magazine at Monteverde, which Sister Giovanna could see in the distance from her latticed window. The post was of considerable importance, but was not coveted because it required the officer who held it to live at a considerable distance from the city, with no means of getting into town which he could not provide for himself; for there is no tramway leading down the right bank of the Tiber. The magazine was actually guarded by a small detachment of artillery under two subalterns who took the night duty by turns, and both officers and men were relieved at regular intervals by others; but the captain in command held his post permanently and lived in a little house by himself, a stone's throw from the gate of the large walled enclosure in which the low buildings stood. For some time it had been intended to build a small residence for the officer in charge, but this had not been begun at the date from which I now take up my story. The neighbourhood is a lonely one, but there are farm-houses scattered about at varying distances from the high-road which follows the river, mostly in the neighbourhood of the hill that bears the name of Monteverde and seems to have been the site of a villa in which Julius Cæsar entertained Cleopatra. As every one will understand, Ugo Severi's duties consisted in keeping an account of the ammunition and explosives deposited in the vaults of the magazine and in exercising the utmost vigilance against fire and other accidents. The rule against smoking, for instance, did not apply outside the enclosure, but Ugo gave up cigarettes, even in his own house, as soon as he was appointed to the post, and took care that every one should know that he had done so. He was a hard-working, hard-reading, rather melancholic man who had never cared much for society and preferred solitude to a club; a fair man, with the face of a student and not over robust, but nevertheless energetic and determined where his duty was concerned. He lived alone in the little house, with his orderly, a clever Sicilian, who cooked for him; a peasant woman from a neighbouring farm-house came every morning to sweep the rooms, make the two beds, and scrub the two stone steps before the door and clean the kitchen. The house was like hundreds of other little houses in the Campagna. On the ground floor there was a cross-vaulted hall where the Captain transacted business and received the reports of the watch; there was a tiny kitchen also, a stable at the back for two horses, and a narrow chamber adjoining it, in which Pica, the orderly, slept. Upstairs there was only one story, consisting of a large room with a loggia looking across the river towards San Paolo, a bedroom of moderate dimensions, and a dressing-room. The place was more luxuriously furnished than might have been expected, for though Captain Ugo was not a rich man, he was by no means dependent on his pay. General Severi had lived to retrieve a part of his fortune, and had died rather suddenly of heart-failure after a bad attack of influenza, leaving his property to be divided equally between his two surviving sons and their sister. The latter had married away from Rome, and Ugo's younger brother was in the navy, so that he was now the only member of his family left in Rome. He was a man of taste and reading, who had entered the army to please his father and would have left it on the latter's death if he had not been persuaded by his superiors that he had a brilliant career before him and might be a general at fifty, if he stuck to the service. He had answered that he would do so if he might have some post of trust in which he would have time for study; the command of the magazine at Monteverde was vacant just then, and as no more influential person wanted to live in such a dull place, he got it. Yet his house was not much more than a mile from the gate, by a good high-road; whence it is clear that his solitude was a matter of choice and not of necessity. He had few friends, however, and none who showed any inclination to come and see him, though his acquaintances were numerous; for he had been rather popular in society when a young subaltern, and had been welcome wherever his elder brother Giovanni took him. Giovanni had been very reticent about his affairs, even with his own family, and during that last winter in Rome, when he had fallen in love with Angela Chiaromonte, Ugo had been stationed in Pavia and had known nothing of the affair. Ugo had a vague recollection that Giovanni was supposed to have been unduly devoted to the gay Marchesa del Prato when he had been a mere stripling of a sub-lieutenant, fresh from the Military Academy and barely twenty, though the Marchesa had been well over thirty, even then. Ugo had been introduced to her long afterwards, when she was the Princess Chiaromonte, and she had shown that she liked him, and had asked him to a dance, to which he had not gone simply because he had given up dancing. The Princess, however, had misunderstood his reason for not accepting her invitation and had supposed that he kept away because he had known Angela's story and resented, for his brother's sake, the treatment the girl had received. In an hour of idleness, it now occurred to her that she might find out whether she had been mistaken in this. For some one had spoken of Giovanni on the previous evening, in connection with a report that had lately reached Rome to the effect that an Italian officer, hitherto supposed to have been among the dead after the battle of Dogali, had been heard of and was living in slavery somewhere in the interior of Africa. A newspaper had made a good story of the matter, out of next to nothing, and it had been a subject of conversation during two or three days. The lady who told it to the Princess Chiaromonte had been one of her most assiduous and intimate enemies for years, and, in order to make her uncomfortable, advanced the theory that the officer in question was no other than Giovanni Severi himself. The Princess was not so easily disturbed, however, and smiled in her designing friend's face. The poor man was dead and buried, she said, and every one knew it. The report rested on nothing more substantial than a letter said to have been written by an English traveller and lion-hunter to one of the secretaries at the British Embassy in Washington, who was said, again, to have mentioned the fact to an Italian colleague, who had repeated it in writing to his sister, who lived somewhere in Piedmont and had spoken of it to some one else; and so on, till the story had reached the ears of a newspaper paragraph-writer who was hard up for a 'stick' of 'copy.' All this the Princess knew, or invented, and she ran off her explanation with a fluency that disconcerted her assailant. The immediate result was that she bethought her of Ugo Severi, whom she had passed lately in her motor as he was riding leisurely along the road beyond Monteverde. She had noticed him because her chauffeur had slackened speed a little, and she had nodded to him, though it was not likely that he should recognise her face through her veil. She had thought no more about him at the time, but she now telephoned to a friend at headquarters to find out where he was living, and she soon learned that he was in charge of the magazine. After a little reflection, she wrote him a note, recalling their acquaintance and the fact that she had known his poor brother very well. She had never seen a powder magazine, she said; would he show the one at Monteverde to her and two or three friends, next Wednesday? Ugo answered politely that this was quite impossible without a special permission from the Commander-in-Chief or the War Office, and that he greatly regretted his inability to comply with her request. As he was a punctilious man, though he lived almost like a hermit, he took the trouble to send his orderly into the city on the following afternoon with a couple of cards to be left at the Palazzo Chiaromonte for the Prince and Princess, in accordance with Roman social custom. A few days later a smart 'limousine' drew up to the door of Ugo's little house and a footman rang the old-fashioned bell, which went on tinkling in the distance for a long time after the rusty chain had been pulled. Ugo's Sicilian orderly opened the door at last in a leisurely way and appeared on the threshold in grey linen fatigue dress; on seeing the car and the Princess he straightened himself and saluted. His master was riding, he said, and would not come home for an hour. The Princess wrote a message on a card, asking if Ugo would come and see her any day after five o'clock, and she wrote down the number of her telephone. She gave the card to the man, and by way of impressing its importance on him, added that she was a very old friend of the family and had known the Captain's mother as well as the brother who had been lost in Africa. She also smiled sweetly, for the Sicilian was a handsome young man; she had a way of smiling at handsome men when she was speaking to them, especially if she wished them to remember what she said. When the car was gone, Salvatore Pica, the orderly, shut the door and went into the hall where the telephone was. He looked at the visiting card before leaving it on the brass salver on the table, where letters and reports were placed for the Captain whenever he was out; and being an intelligent man and considerably impressed by what the Princess had told him, he promptly wrote the name, address, and telephone number in the address-book which hung by a string beside the instrument. For Ugo never telephoned himself if he could help it, and was careless about addresses, which it was Pica's business to copy and have at hand when needed. Moreover, the Princess had represented herself as being a very old friend of the Captain's family, and Pica mentally noted the fact, because he had often wondered that his master should apparently have no intimate friends at all, though he was evidently respected and liked by his brother-officers. When Ugo came home and dismounted at the door, Pica at once told him of the Princess's visit, repeating her message without a mistake, and adding that he had copied her name and address in the telephone-book. The Captain nodded gravely and looked at the card before he went upstairs, but said nothing to his man. Being very careful and punctilious in such matters, as I have said, he wrote a line that evening, thanking the Princess for her kind invitation and saying that he hoped to avail himself of it some day, but that he was very busy just at present. This was true, in a sense, for he had just received an important new book in two thick volumes, which he was anxious to read without delay. The fact that it was an exhaustive history of Confucianism, and could not be considered as bearing on his professional duties, was not likely to interest the Princess. She was not used to such rebuffs, however, and before long she made another attempt. This time she herself called up Pica and asked him at what hour the Captain could see her on a matter of importance. When the orderly delivered the message, Severi was at first inclined to make an excuse; but the Princess's persistency in trying to see him was obvious, and as he thought it possible that she might wish to ask him some question relating to Giovanni, he bade Pica answer that he would stay at home that afternoon, if it suited her convenience to come. She replied that she would appear about four o'clock. Ugo was buried in the history of Confucianism when his man came to tell him this, and he merely nodded, but looked up quickly when Pica turned to the door. 'Shave and dress,' he said laconically, and at once began to read again. It was the order he gave when he expected the visit of a superior officer, for as a rule Pica only shaved twice a week, and never put on a cloth tunic except when he had leave for the afternoon and evening. The little house at Monteverde was a lonely place and the soldier did no military duty, living the life of an ordinary house servant. It was a good place, for the Captain was generous. With an affectation of extreme punctuality, the Princess's footman rang the bell at four o'clock precisely, and almost before the distant tinkle was heard Pica opened the door wide and saluted the visitor, flattening himself against the door-post to give her plenty of room. He looked very smart in his best uniform, and she smiled and glanced at his handsome Saracen face as she passed in. He shut the door at once, leaving the footman outside. At the same moment Captain Severi was descending the short flight of stone steps to meet her. He was not very like Giovanni, but in the half-light the Princess saw a resemblance that made her start. Ugo was less energetically built, but he wore his uniform well and there was much in his gait and the outline of his figure that recalled his brother. The Princess took his hand almost affectionately and held it in silence for a moment while she looked into his mild blue eyes. Pica noticed her manner, which certainly confirmed what she had said about being a friend of the family. The mere suggestion of a delicate and exotic perfume had floated into the house with her. At first it faintly recalled Indian river grass, but presently Ugo thought it reminded him of muscatel grapes, and then again of dried rose leaves and violets. She smiled as she withdrew her hand, and spoke. 'You did not guess that a woman could be so persistent, did you?' Ugo also smiled, but without cordiality, and then led the way upstairs. On reaching the large room, the Princess looked about her, judged the man, and at once expressed her admiration for his good sense in leading a student's life, instead of squandering his time in the futilities of society. The Captain did not ask her what she wanted of him, but offered to make tea for her, and she saw that a little table had been set for the purpose. Everything was very simple, but looked so serviceable that she accepted, judging that she ran no risk of being poisoned. In Italy it is only society that drinks tea. It was a little early for it, but that did not matter. The water was boiling in a small copper kettle shaped like a flat sponge-cake, the tea-caddy was Japanese, and the teapot was of plain brown earthenware, but the two cups were of rare old Capodimonte and the spoons were evidently English. She noticed also that the sugar was of the 'crystallised' kind, and was in a curiously chiselled silver bowl. The Princess had a good eye for details. 'You seem to have made yourself very comfortable in your remote little house,' she laughed, with approval. 'I only hope that you may be, as long as you please to stay,' he answered, making the tea scientifically. It was very good, and she chatted idly while she slowly drank it and nibbled a thin, crisp biscuit. When she had finished he took her cup and offered to refill it, but she declined and leaned back comfortably in the big red leather easy-chair. 'I daresay you heard that story about an officer who is reported to be living in slavery in Africa?' she said, her tone changing and becoming very grave. Ugo had read of it in the newspapers. 'Did it occur to you, as it did to me, that he might be Giovanni?' she asked. It had occurred to him and he had made inquiries at the War Office, but had been told that the story had no foundation. He had expected no other answer. The Princess was silent for a moment. 'One grasps at straws,' she said presently, in a low voice. He understood that she had really cared for his brother, and looked at her with more interest than he had hitherto shown. 'I am afraid that there is not the slightest possibility of his being alive,' he said, with a sadness in which there was also some sympathy for her. She had hoped for an indiscreet question, which would allow her to say something more. It was of no real importance to her to know whether he bore her any grudge or not, but since she had taken so much trouble to see him she did not mean to go away without knowing the truth, and though her curiosity was a mere caprice, it was perhaps not a very unreasonable one. 'Had you seen much of him during the last months before he went to Africa?' she asked. 'I did not know you till long after that, you know. I think you were always away?' 'I was stationed in Pavia,' the Captain answered. 'Giovanni joined the expedition at short notice and I was not able to see him before he started. I have always regretted it, for we had not met for eighteen months.' 'You were never very intimate, I suppose?' suggested the Princess. 'We were always very good friends, but after he was appointed to the Staff we saw little of each other.' The Princess mused in silence for a few moments. 'I was very fond of him,' she said at last. 'Did he ever talk about me to you?' 'No,' Ugo answered. 'Not that I can remember.' Their eyes met and she saw that he was telling the truth, as, in fact, he always did. 'I suppose you have heard that he was in love with my poor niece, who went into a convent after he was lost?' she said tentatively, and watching his face. 'Indeed?' He showed more interest. 'I never heard of that. Were they engaged to be married?' 'No. At least, there was no formal engagement. My brother-in-law was killed in a motor accident just at that time. Then Giovanni went to Massowah, and you know the rest. But they were very much in love with each other, and Angela was broken-hearted.' She now knew what she had come to find out, and she did not care to rouse his curiosity as to her own share in the story, since no gossip had taken the trouble to enlighten him. 'Has she taken permanent vows?' he asked. 'Yes. Three years ago, and now it is said that she means to go out to the Rangoon Leper Hospital. I daresay you have heard that a good many nuns do that. It is almost certain death and we all feel very badly about Angela.' 'Poor girl!' exclaimed Ugo. 'She must have cared for him so much that she is tired of living. Very few of those Sisters ever come back, I believe.' 'None,' said the Princess Chiaromonte in a tone that would certainly have arrested his attention if he had known everything. 'It is the saddest thing in the world,' she went on quickly, fearing that her hatred had betrayed itself. 'To think that year after year those good women voluntarily go to certain death! And not even to save life, for lepers cannot be cured, you know. The most that can be done is to alleviate their suffering!' She said this very well, though the words were hackneyed. 'It is heroic,' said Captain Ugo quietly. She stayed some time longer, and he showed her the finest of his books and a number of old engravings and etchings; and these really impressed her because she knew something of their current value, which was her only standard in judging works of art. At last she showed that she was thinking of going. Women of the world generally give warning of their approaching departure, as an ocean steamer blows its horn at intervals before it starts. The Princess's voice was suddenly colourless and what she said became more and more general, till she observed that it was really a lovely day. She looked down at her skirt critically and then glanced quickly at the walls, one after another. When you do not know what a woman is looking for in an unfamiliar drawing-room, it is a mirror to see whether her hat is straight. The Princess saw none and rose gracefully out of the deep easy-chair. 'It has been such a great pleasure to see you!' she said, the cordiality returning to her tone as soon as she was on her feet. 'I am very much obliged for your visit,' Ugo answered politely, because nothing else occurred to him to say, and he clapped his heels together with a jingle of his spurs as he took her proffered hand. He was neither shy nor dull of comprehension where women were concerned, and he understood quite well that she had not come with the intention of making an impression on him, nor out of mere curiosity to see what Giovanni's brother was like. He knew what her reputation had been, but he did not know whether she had retired from the lists at last or still kept the field; and he cared very little, though he had sometimes reflected that whereas Balzac had written of the Woman of Thirty, the 'woman of forty' was still to be studied by a clever novelist; unless, indeed, Sophocles had made an end of her for ever when Jocasta hanged herself. One thing, however, was clear: the Princess had not sought him out with any idea of casting upon him the spell of a flirtation to make him a sort of posthumous substitute for his brother. She had faced the light boldly several times in the course of her visit, so that he had seen the fine lines of middle age about her mouth and eyes very distinctly, and she had not made any attempt to show herself off before him, nor to lead him on with subdued confidences concerning the human affections as she had known them. He believed that she had come to find out whether he thought that Giovanni might possibly be alive or not, and he rather liked her for what seemed to him her frankness and courage, and was unconsciously flattered, as the best men may be, by her trusting him so simply. No doubt it might be true that since the world had put up with her rather reckless behaviour for over fifteen years, her reputation would not be lost at this late date by her spending an hour at the rooms of an officer who was quartered out of town. No doubt, too, that same reputation was a coat of many colours, on which one small stain more would scarcely show at all, but she had never been in the habit of risking spots for nothing. Moreover, it is a curious fact that men are better pleased at being trusted by a clever woman who has had many adventures than when an angel of virtue places her good name under their protection: there is less irksome responsibility in playing confidant to Lady Jezebel than in being guardian to the impeccable Lucretia. If nothing more had happened, the Princess's visit would have had little or no importance in this story; but as things turned out, the incident was one of the links in a chain of events which led to a singularly unexpected and dramatic conclusion, as will before long clearly appear. Fate often behaves like a big old lion, when he opens his sleepy eyes and catches a first sight of you as he lies alone, far out on the plain. He lifts his tawny head and gazes at you quietly for several seconds and then lowers it as if not caring what you do. You creep nearer, cautiously, noiselessly, and holding your breath, till some faint noise you make rouses his attention again and he takes another look at you, longer this time and much less lazy, while you stand motionless. Nevertheless, you are only a man, and not worth killing; if he is an old lion, he may have eaten a score like you, white and black, but he is not hungry just now and wants to sleep. Down goes his head again, and his eyes shut themselves for another nap. On you go, stealthily, nearer and nearer, your rifle ready in both hands. But a dry stalk of grass cracks under your foot, and almost before you can stand still he is up and glaring at you, his long tufted tail showing upright against the sky. If you move, even to lift your gun to your shoulder, he will charge; and sooner or later, move you must. Then, suddenly, he is bounding forward, by leap after leap, hurling his huge strength through the air, straight at you, and as the distance lessens you see his burning eyes with frightful distinctness. Two more such bounds as the last will do it. Take care, for within ten seconds either you or he will be dead. There is no other end possible. Fate does not always kill, it is true; but you have not that one chance against her which your weapon gives you against the lion, and she may maul you badly before she has done with you, even worse than the biggest cat would. It was not Ugo Severi's fate that was waking, and that began to look towards Monteverde when Princess Chiaromonte paid him a visit. It was not even the Princess's own. When she was gone, he went back to his history of Confucianism, and Pica got into his grey linen fatigue suit again, and carefully brushed his smart uniform before folding it and putting it away in the chest. Then he washed the tea-things, rubbed the two silver spoons with a special leather he kept for them, and shut up everything in the cupboard. After that, he opened the front door and sat down on the brick seat that ran along the front of the house. He would have liked to smoke a pipe, but Captain Ugo was very particular about that, so he took out half of a villainous-looking 'napoletano' cigar, bit off three-quarters of an inch of it, and returned the small remainder to his pocket; and after a few minutes he concluded, as usual, that a chew was far cheaper than a smoke and lasted much longer. As the sun sank he looked across the yellow river towards Saint Paul's, and because he had been bred in sight of the sea it struck him that the distant belfry tower was very like a lighthouse, and he smiled at the thought, which has occurred to men of more cultivation than he had. His eyes wandered to his left, and the sunset glow was on the low city walls, not a mile away, reddening the upper story of an ancient convent beyond. His sharp eyes counted the windows mechanically, and one of them belonged to the cell of Sister Giovanna, the Dominican nun, though he did not know it; and much less did he guess that before very long he himself, and his master, and the fine lady who had come in a motor that afternoon, were all to play their parts in the nun's life. If he had known that, he would have tried to guess which window was hers. The first bitter tang of the vile tobacco was gone out of it, and Pica thoughtfully rolled the quid over his tongue to the other side of his mouth. At that moment he was aware of a man in a little brown hat and shabby clothes who must have come round the house very quietly, from the direction of the magazine, for he was already standing still near the corner, looking at him. 'What do you want?' Pica asked rather sharply. The man looked like a bad character, but raised his hat as he answered with a North Italian accent. 'I am a stranger,' he said. 'Can you tell me how to reach the nearest gate?' 'There is the road,' the soldier replied, pointing to it, 'and there is Rome, and the nearest gate is Porta Portese.' 'Thank you,' the man said, and went on his way. CHAPTER IX During the month of December the Princess Chiaromonte fell ill, much to her own surprise and that of her children, for such a thing had never happened to her since she had been a mere child and had caught the measles; but there was no mistaking the fact that she now had a bad attack of the influenza, with high fever, and her head felt very light. During the first two days, she altogether refused to stay in her room, which made matters worse; but on the third morning she yielded and stayed in bed, very miserable and furiously angry with herself. It had always been her favourite boast that she never caught cold, never had a headache, and never broke down from fatigue; and considering the exceedingly gay life she had led she certainly had some cause to be vain of her health. Her eldest daughter and her maid took care of her that day, and her maid sat up with her during the following night, after which it became quite clear that she must have a professional nurse. The doctor insisted upon it, though the Princess herself flew into a helpless rage at the mere suggestion; and then, all at once, and before the doctor had left the room, she began to talk quite quietly about ordering baby frocks and a perambulator, though her youngest boy was already twelve years old and went to school at the Istituto Massimo. The doctor and the maid looked at each other. 'I will telephone for one of the White Sisters,' the doctor said. 'They are the ones I am used to and I know the Mother Superior.' It happened that the nurses of Santa Giovanna were much in demand at that time, for there was an epidemic of influenza in the city, and as they were almost all both ladies and Italians, society people preferred them to those of other orders. Three-quarters of an hour after the doctor had telephoned, one of them appeared at the Palazzo Chiaromonte, a rather stout, grave woman of forty or more, who knew her business. She at once said, however, that she had come on emergency, but could not stay later than the evening, when another Sister would replace her; it would be her turn on the next morning to begin her week as supervising nun in the Convent hospital, a duty taken in rotation by three of the most experienced nuns, and it was absolutely necessary that she should have her night's rest before taking charge of the wards. The Princess had fallen into a state of semi-consciousness which was neither sleep nor stupor, but partook of both, and her face was scarlet from the fever. Two or three times in the course of the afternoon, however, she was evidently aware of the nurse's presence, and she submitted without resistance to all that was done for her. The maid, who had been in the sick-room all night and all the morning, was now asleep, and the doctor had advised that the children should be kept away from their mother altogether. When the doctor came again, about six o'clock, the nun explained her own position to him, and begged him to communicate with the Convent before leaving the palace, as the Princess should certainly not be left without proper care, even for an hour. He did what she asked, and the answer came back in the Mother Superior's own voice. She said that she was very short of nurses, and that it would be extremely inconvenient to send one, and she therefore begged of him to get a Sister from another order. He replied very crossly that he would do nothing of the sort, that he believed in the White Sisters and meant to have a White Sister, and that a White Sister must come, and a good one; and that if it was only a matter of inconvenience, it was better that the Convent should be inconvenienced for him than that he should be disappointed; and he added so much more to the same effect, with so many emphatic repetitions, that the Mother Superior promised to break all rules and come herself within an hour if no other Sister were available. For she had a very high regard for him, in spite of his rough tone and harsh voice. Her difficulty was a very simple one. The only nurse who was free that evening was Sister Giovanna, who had returned just before mid-day from a case that had ended badly, and she had been asleep ever since. But the Mother Superior knew how the Princess had treated her niece and robbed her of her fortune, and she could not foresee what might happen if the young nun took charge of the case. After giving her somewhat rash promise to the doctor, she sent for her, therefore, and explained matters. 'I do not think that my aunt will recognise me,' said Sister Giovanna. 'She has never set eyes on me since I was a girl of eighteen in deep mourning. Our dress changes us very much, and I must have changed, too, in five years. Even my voice is not the same, I fancy.' The Mother Superior looked at her keenly. She was very fond of her, but it had never occurred to her to consider whether the young Sister's appearance had altered or not. Yet her own memory for faces was good, and when she recalled the features of the slim, fair-haired girl in black whom she had first seen, and compared the recollection with the grave and almost saintly face before her, closely confined by the white wimple and gorget, and the white veil that bound the forehead low above the serious brow, she really did not believe that any one could easily recognise the Angela of other days. 'I suppose I never realise how changed we all are,' she said thoughtfully. 'But do you not think the Princess Chiaromonte may remember you when she hears your name?' 'Many Sisters have taken it,' Sister Giovanna answered. 'And, after all, what harm can there be? If she recognises me and is angry, she can only send me away, and meanwhile she will be taken care of, at least for the night. That is the main thing, Mother, and one of the Sisters will surely be free to-morrow morning.' So the matter was settled. Sister Giovanna got her well-worn little black bag, her breviary, and her long black cloak, and in half-an-hour she was ascending the grand staircase of the palace in which she had lived as a child. She felt more emotion than she had expected, but no sign betrayed that she was moved, nor showed the servant who led her through the apartments and passages that she was familiar with every turn. Though she went through the great hall and her feet trod upon the very spot where the dead Knight of Malta had lain in state, not a sigh escaped her, nor one quickly-drawn breath. She was ushered to the very room that had been her father's, and stood waiting after the servant had tapped softly at the door. The other nun came out noiselessly and pulled the door after her without quite closing it. She explained the case to Sister Giovanna, and said that the Princess seemed to be asleep again. She probably knew nothing of any relationship between the patient and Sister Giovanna; but if she remembered anything of the latter's story, it was not her business to comment on the circumstance, even mentally. Even in the nursing orders, where the real names of the Sisters may often be known to others besides the Mother Superior, the Sisters themselves scrupulously respect one another's secret, though it may be almost an open one, and never discuss the identity of a member of their community. Where nuns are cloistered, actual secrecy is preserved as far as possible, and though a Sister may sometimes talk to another about her former life, and especially of her childhood, she never mentions her family by name, even though she may be aware that the truth is known. Sister Giovanna entered the sick-room alone, as the other nurse seemed to think that the unexpected sight of two nuns might disturb the patient. If the Princess noticed the new face, when she next opened her eyes, she made no remark and showed no surprise; so that Sister Giovanna felt quite sure of not having been recognised. There was very little light in the room, too, by the doctor's advice, and a high screen covered with old Cordova leather stood between the bed and the table on which the single shaded candle was placed. The nun stood beside the pillow and looked long at the face of the woman who had wronged her so cruelly and shamefully. After a few seconds she could see her very distinctly in the shadow; the features were flushed and full, and strangely younger than when she had last seen them, as often happens with fair people of a certain age at the beginning of a sharp fever, when the quickened pulse sends the hot blood to the cheeks and brings back the vivid brilliancy of youth. But the experienced nurse knew that and was not surprised. After taking the temperature and doing all she could for the moment, she left the bedside and sat down to read her breviary by the light on the other side of the screen. The illness was only an attack of influenza after all, and she knew how strong her aunt had always been; there was no cause for anxiety, nor any necessity for sitting constantly within sight of the patient. Twice an hour she rose, went to the sick woman's side and gave her medicine, or drink, or merely smoothed the pillow a little, as the case might be, and then came back to the table. The Princess was not so restless as most people are in fever, and she did not try to talk, but took whatever was given her like a model of resignation. The delirium had left her for the present. Reading slowly, and often meditating on what she read, Sister Giovanna did not finish the office for the day and close her book till nearly midnight. Her old watch lay on the table beside the candlestick, and her eyes were on the hands as she waited till it should be exactly twelve before taking the patient's temperature again. But it still wanted three minutes of the hour when the Princess's voice broke the profound silence. The words were spoken quietly, in a far-away tone: 'I stole it.' Sister Giovanna started more nervously than a nurse should, and looked straight at the screen as if she could see her aunt's face through the leather. In a few seconds she heard the voice again, and though the tone was lower, the words were as distinct as if spoken close to her ear. 'I hid it on me, and left my little bag behind on purpose because the footman would be sure to open that, to take my cigarettes. I knew he often did. It was very clever of me was it not? He will swear that he went back for the bag and that there were no papers in it.' It was not the first time, by many, that Sister Giovanna had heard a delirious patient tell a shameful secret that had been kept long and well. She rose with an effort, pressing one hand upon the table. It was plainly her duty to prevent any further revelations if she could and to forget what she had heard; for a trained nurse's standard of honour must be as high as a doctor's, since she is trusted as he is. Yet the nun waited a moment before going round the screen, unconsciously arguing that if the patient did not speak again it would be better not to disturb her at that moment. To tell the truth, too, Sister Giovanna had not fully understood the meaning of what her aunt had said. She stood motionless during the long pause that followed the last words. Then, without warning, the delirious woman began to laugh, vacantly and foolishly at first, and with short interruptions of silence, but then more loudly, and by degrees more continuously, till the spasms grew wild and hysterical, and bad to hear. Sister Giovanna went quickly to her and at once tried to put a stop to the attack. The Princess was rolling her head from side to side on the pillows, with her arms stretched out on each side of her and her white hands clawing at the broad hem of the sheet with all their strength, as if they must tear the fine linen to strips, and she was shrieking with uncontrollable laughter. Sister Giovanna bent down and grasped one arm firmly with both hands. 'Control yourself!' she said in a tone of command. 'Stop laughing at once!' The Princess shrieked again and again. 'Silence!' cried the nurse in a stern voice, and she shook the arm she held with a good deal of roughness, for she knew that there was no other way. The delirious woman screamed once more, and then gulped several times as if she were going to sob; at last she lay quite still for a moment, gazing up into her nurse's eyes. Then a change came into her face, and she spoke in a hoarse whisper, and as if frightened. 'Are you going to refuse me absolution for taking the will?' she asked. The question was so unexpected that Sister Giovanna did not find anything to say at once, and before any words occurred to her the Princess was speaking hurriedly and earnestly, but still in a loud whisper, which occasionally broke into a very low and trembling tone of voice. 'I did it for the best. What could that wretched girl have done with the money, even if the lawyers had proved the will good? Why did not my brother-in-law get civilly married, instead of leaving his daughter without so much as a name? There must have been a reason. Perhaps she was not really his wife's child! It was all his fault, and the will was not legal and would only have given trouble if I had let them find it! So I took it away, and burned it in my own room. What harm was there in that? It saved so many useless complications, and we had a right to the fortune! The lawyers said so! I cannot see that it was really a sin at all, Father, indeed I cannot! I have confessed it from a scruple of conscience, and you will not refuse me absolution! How can you, when I say I am sorry for it? Yes, yes, I am!' The voice rose to a low cry. 'Since you say it was a sin I repent, I will--what? You are not in earnest, Father? Make restitution? Give the whole fortune to a nun? Oh, no, no! You cannot expect me to do that! Rob my children of what would have been theirs even if I had not taken the will? It is out of the question, I tell you! Utterly out of the question! Besides, it is not mine at all--I have not got a penny of it! It is all my husband's and I cannot touch it--do you understand?' Sister Giovanna had listened in spite of herself. 'The nun expects nothing and does not want the money,' she said, bending down. 'Try to rest now, for you are very tired.' 'Rest?' cried the Princess, starting up in bed and leaning on one hand. 'How can I rest when it torments me day and night? I come to you for absolution and you refuse it, and tell me to rest!' She broke into a wild laugh again, but Sister Giovanna instantly seized her arm as she had done before, and spoke in the same commanding way. 'Be silent!' she said energetically. The delirious woman began to whine. 'You are so rough, Father--so unkind to-day! What is the matter with you? You never treated me like this before!' She was sobbing the next moment, and real tears trickled through her fingers as she covered her face with her hands. 'You see--how--how penitent I am!' she managed to cry in a broken voice. 'Have pity, Father!' She was crying bitterly, but though she was out of her mind the nun could not help feeling that she was acting a part, even in her delirium, and in spite of the tears that forced themselves through her hands and ran down, wetting the lace and spotting the scarlet ribbons of her elaborate nightdress. Sister Giovanna put aside the thought as a possibly unjust judgment, and tried to quiet her. 'If you are really sorry for what you did, you will be forgiven,' said the nun. This produced an immediate effect: the sobbing subsided, the tears ceased to flow, and the Princess repeated the Act of Contrition in a low voice; then she folded her hands and waited in silence. Sister Giovanna stood upright beside the pillows, and prayed very earnestly in her heart that she might forget what she had heard, or at least bear her aunt no grudge for the irreparable wrong. But the delirious woman, who still fancied that her nurse was her confessor, was waiting for the words of absolution, and after a few moments, as she did not hear them, she broke out again in senseless terror, with sobbing and more tears. She grasped the Sister's arms wildly and dragged herself up till she was on her knees in bed, imploring and weeping, pleading and sobbing, while she trembled visibly from head to foot. The case was a difficult one, even for an experienced nurse. A lay woman might have taken upon herself to personate the priest and pronounce the words of the absolution in the hope of quieting the patient, but no member of a religious order would do such a thing, except to save life, and such a case could hardly arise. The Princess Chiaromonte was in no bodily danger, and the chances were that the delirium would leave her before long; when it disappeared she would probably fall asleep, and it was very unlikely that she should remember anything she had said in her ravings. Meanwhile it was certainly not good for her to go on crying and throwing herself about, as she was doing, for the fever was high already and her wild excitement might increase the temperature still further. Sister Giovanna took advantage of a brief interval, when she was perhaps only taking breath between her lamentations, out of sheer necessity. 'You must compose yourself,' the nun said with authority. 'You seem to forget that you have been ill. Lie down for a little while, and I will come back presently. In the meantime, I give you my word that your niece has forgiven you with all her heart.' She could say that with a clear conscience, just then, and gently disengaging herself, she succeeded without much difficulty in making the Princess lay her head on the pillow, for the words had produced a certain effect; then, leaving the bedside, she went back to the table. But she did not sit down, and only remained standing about a minute before going back to the patient. She went round by the opposite side of the screen, however, with the hope that the Princess, seeing her come from another direction, would take her for a different person. Very small things sometimes affect people in delirium, and the little artifice was successful; she came forward, speaking cheerfully in her ordinary voice, and at once put her arm under the pillow, propping her aunt's head in order to make her drink comfortably. There was no resistance now. 'You are much better already,' she said in an encouraging tone. 'Does your head ache much?' 'It feels a little light,' the Princess said, quite naturally, 'but it does not hurt me now. I think I have been asleep--and dreaming, too.' Perhaps some suspicion that she had been raving crossed her unsettled brain, for she glanced quickly at the nun and then shut her eyes. 'Yes,' she said, apparently satisfied; 'I have been dreaming.' Sister Giovanna only smiled, as sympathetically as she could, and sitting down by the head of the bed, she stroked the burning forehead with her cool hand, softly and steadily, for several minutes; and little by little the Princess sank into a quiet sleep, for she was exhausted by the effort she had unconsciously made. When she was breathing regularly, the nun left her side and went noiselessly back to her seat behind the screen. She did not open her breviary again that night. For a long time she sat quite still, with her hands folded on the edge of the table, gazing into the furthest corner of the room with unwinking eyes. She had said that she forgave her aunt with all her heart, and she had believed that it was true; but she was less sure now that she could think of her past life, and of what might have been if she had not been driven from her home destitute and forced to take refuge with Madame Bernard. In the light of what she had just learned, the past had a very different look. It was true that she had urged Giovanni to join the expedition, and had used arguments which had convinced herself as well as him. But she had made him go because, if he had stayed, he would have sacrificed his career in the army in order to earn bread for her, who was penniless. If she had inherited even a part of the fortune that should have been hers, it never would have occurred to him to leave the service and go into business for her support; or if it had crossed his mind, she would have dissuaded him easily enough. So far as mere money went, he had not wanted or needed it for himself, but for her; and if she had been rich and had married him, he could not have been reproached with living on her. To persuade him, she had urged that his honour required him to accept a post of danger instead of resigning from the army as soon as it was offered to him, and this had been true to some extent; but if there had been no question of his leaving the service, she would have found him plenty of satisfactory reasons for not going to Africa, and he had not been the kind of man whom gossips care to call a coward. Reasons? She would have invented twenty in those days, when she was not a nun, but just a loving girl with all her womanhood before her! If her aunt had not stolen the will and robbed her, she would have hindered Giovanni from leaving Italy, and she would have married him, that was the plain truth. He would have been alive now, in his youth and his strength and his love for her, instead of having perished in the African desert. That was the thought that tormented the guilty woman, too: it was the certainty that her crime had indirectly sent him to his death. So thought Sister Giovanna as she sat staring into the dark corner through the hours of the night, and she wondered how she had been able to say that she forgave, or had dared to hope that she could forget. If it had been only for herself, it might have been quite different; but her imagination had too often unwillingly pictured the tragic death of the man she had loved so well to forgive the woman who had caused it, now that she had revealed herself at last. So long as Angela had believed that her father had left no will, because he had been in ignorance of the law, she had been able to tell herself that her great misfortune had been inevitable; but since it turned out that he had provided for her and had done his duty by her, according to his light, the element of inevitable fate disappeared, and the awful conviction that Giovanni's life had been wantonly sacrificed to enrich Princess Chiaromonte and her children forced itself upon her intelligence and would not be thrust out. It seemed to Sister Giovanna that this was the first real temptation that had assailed her since she had taken her vows, the first moment of active regret for what might have been, as distinguished from that heartfelt sorrow for the man who had perished which had not been incompatible with a religious life. Recalling the Mother Superior's words of warning, she recorded her failure, as the first of its kind, and prayed that it might not be irretrievable, and that resentment and regret might ebb away and leave her again as she had been before the unforgettable voice had pierced her ears with the truth she had never guessed. It was a great effort now to go to the bedside and do what must be done for the sick woman--to smooth the pillow for the head that had thought such thoughts and to stroke the hand that had done such a deed. She was tempted to take the little black bag and leave the house quietly, before any one was up. That was not a very dreadful thought, of course, but it seemed terrible to her, whose first duty in life was to help sufferers and soothe those who were in pain. It seemed to her almost as bad as if a soldier in battle were suddenly tempted to turn his back on his comrades, throw down his rifle, and run away. She felt it each time that she had to rise and go round the screen, and when she saw the flushed face on the pillow in the shadow, the longing to be gone was almost greater than she could resist. She had not understood before what it meant to loathe any living thing, but she knew it now, and if she did her duty conscientiously that night, easy and simple though it was, she deserved more credit than many of the Sisters who had gone so bravely to nurse the lepers in far Rangoon. She did not feel the smallest wish to hurt the woman who had injured her, let that be said in her praise; for though vengeance be the Lord's, to long for it is human. She only desired to be out of the house, and out of sight of the face that lay where her father's had lain, and beyond reach of the voice that had told her what she wished she had never known. But there was no escape and she had to bear it; and when the night wore away at last, it had been the longest she remembered in all her life. Her face was as white as the Mother Superior's and her dark blue eyes looked almost black; even Madame Bernard would not have recognised the bright-haired Angela of other days in the weary and sad-faced nun who met the doctor outside the door of the sick-room when he came at eight o'clock. She told him that the patient had been delirious about midnight, but had rested tolerably ever since. He glanced at the temperature chart she brought him and then looked keenly at her face and frowned. 'What is the matter with all of you White Sisters?' he growled discontentedly. 'First they send me one who cannot stay over night, and then they send me one who has not been to bed for a week and ought to stay there for a month! When did you leave your last case?' 'Yesterday morning,' answered Sister Giovanna submissively. 'I slept most of the afternoon. I am not tired and can do my work very well, I assure you.' 'Oh, you can, can you?' The excellent man glared at her savagely through his spectacles. 'You cannot say anything yourself, of course, but I shall go to your hospital to-day and give your Mother Superior such a scolding as she never had in her life! She ought to be ashamed to send out a nurse in your worn-out condition!' 'I felt quite fresh and rested when I left the Convent in the evening,' said the Sister in answer. 'It is not the Mother Superior's fault.' 'It is!' retorted the doctor, who could not bear contradiction. 'She ought to know better, and I shall tell her so. Go home at once, Sister, and go to bed and stay there!' 'I am quite able to work,' protested Sister Giovanna quietly. 'There is nothing the matter with me.' Still the doctor glared at her. 'Show me your tongue!' he said roughly. The nun meekly opened her mouth and put out her little tongue: it was as pink as a rose-leaf. The doctor grunted, grabbed her wrist and began to count the pulse. Presently he made another inarticulate noise, as if he were both annoyed and pleased at having been mistaken. 'Something on your mind?' he asked, more kindly--'some mental distress?' 'Yes.' The word was spoken reluctantly. 'I am sorry I was impatient,' he said, and his large brown eyes softened behind his round spectacles as he turned to enter the sick-room. It was not his business to ask what had so greatly disturbed the peace of Sister Giovanna. CHAPTER X When the Princess Chiaromonte was getting well, she asked some questions of her doctor, to which he replied as truthfully as he could. She inquired, for instance, whether she had been delirious at the beginning, and whether she had talked much when her mind was wandering, and his answers disturbed her a little. As sometimes happens in such cases, she had disjointed recollections of what she had said, and vague visions of herself that were not mere creations of her imagination. It was like a dream that had not been quite a dream; opium-eaters know what the sensation is better than other men. Under the influence of laudanum, or the pipe, or the hypodermic, they have talked brilliantly, but they cannot remember what the conversation was about; or else they know that they have been furiously angry, but cannot recall the cause of their wrath nor the person on whom it was vented; or they have betrayed a secret, but for their lives they could not say who it was to whom they told it. The middle-aged woman of the world felt that her reputation was a coat of many colours, and her past, when she looked back to it, was like a badly-constructed play in which the stage is crowded with personages who have little connection with each other. There was much which she herself did not care to remember, but much more that no one else need ever know; and as she had never before been delirious, nor even ill, the thought that she had now perhaps revealed incidents of her past life was anything but pleasant. 'It is so very disagreeable to think that I may have talked nonsense,' she said to the doctor, examining one of her white hands thoughtfully. 'Do not disturb yourself about that,' he answered in a reassuring tone, for he understood much better than she guessed. 'A good trained nurse is as silent about such accidental confessions as a good priest is about intentional ones.' 'Confession!' cried the Princess, annoyed. 'As if I were concealing a crime! I only mean that I probably said very silly things. By the bye, I had several nurses, had I not? You kept changing them. Do you happen to know who that Sister Giovanna was, who looked so ill? You sent her back after two days, I think, because you thought she might break down. She reminded me of a niece of mine whom I have not seen for years, but I did not like to ask her any questions, and besides, I was much too ill.' 'I have no idea who she was before she entered the order,' the doctor answered. He was often asked such futile questions about nurses, and would not have answered them if he had been able to do so. But in asking information the Princess was unwittingly conveying it, for it flashed upon him that Sister Giovanna was perhaps indeed that niece of whom she spoke, and whom she was commonly said to have defrauded of her fortune; the nun herself had told him of the sick woman's delirious condition, and he remembered her looks and her admission that she was in mental distress. All this tallied very well with the guess that her aunt had made some sort of confession of her deed while her mind was wandering, and that she now dimly recalled something of the sort. He put the theory away for future consideration, and left the Princess in ignorance that he had thought of it or had even attached any special meaning to her words. She was far from satisfied, however, and made up her mind to follow up the truth at all costs. As a first step, she sent a generous donation to the Convent of the White Sisters, as soon as she was quite recovered; and as her illness had not been serious enough to explain such an important thank-offering, she wrote a line to say that she had never been ill before, and had been so much impressed by the care she had received that she felt she must really do something to help such an excellent institution. It would give her keen pleasure to visit the hospital, she said in conclusion, but that was no doubt too great a favour to ask. In thanking her, the Mother Superior replied that it would be no favour at all, and that the Princess would be welcome whenever she chose to send word that she was coming. On the day following that, the Mother told Sister Giovanna what had happened, and with characteristic directness asked what she thought about her aunt's charity. 'It is very kind of her,' answered the young nun in that monotonous, businesslike tone which all religious use when speaking of an apparently charitable action for the motive of which they are not ready to vouch, though they have no reasonable ground for criticism. People of the world often speak in that voice when unexpectedly asked to give an opinion about some person whom they dislike but do not dare to abuse. The little white volcano flared up energetically, however. 'I hate that sort of answer!' she cried, with a delicate snort. Sister Giovanna looked at her in surprise, but said nothing. 'I cannot refuse the money,' said the Mother Superior, 'but I heartily wish I could! She has given it in order to come here and to be well received if she chooses to come again. I am sure of that, and she can have no object in coming here except to make mischief for you. It may be wicked of me, but I do not trust that lady in the least! Do you?' She asked the question suddenly. 'She cannot harm me more than she did years ago,' Sister Giovanna answered. 'I wish that were certain!' said the other. 'I wish I had gone to nurse her myself that night instead of sending you!' She was so evidently in earnest that the Sister was even more surprised than before, and wondered what was the matter. But as it was not her place to ask questions, and as the Mother Superior's doubt, or presentiment of trouble, was evidently suggested by sincere affection for herself, she said nothing, and went about her work without letting her mind dwell too long on the conversation. Men and women who lead the religious life in earnest acquire a much greater control of their secret thoughts than ordinary people can easily believe it possible to exercise. Nevertheless, the Princess's voice came back to her ears when she was alone and told the story over and over again; and somehow her aunt was often mentioned in the Convent as a recent benefactress who was showing a lively interest in the hospital, and would perhaps give further large sums to it which could be expended for good. Sister Giovanna never said anything when the subject came up, but she could not help thinking of Judas's suggestion that the alabaster box of precious ointment might have been sold and given to the poor, and a disturbing spirit whispered that Princess Chiaromonte, whose past might well be compared with the Magdalen's, had done what Iscariot would have advised. In due time, too, the great lady visited the Convent and hospital, and was shown over it systematically by the Mother Superior herself, followed by an approving little escort of nurses and novices, for it was of course permissible to appreciate and admire the smart clothes of a benefactress, whereas it would have been the height of levity to bestow so much attention on a lady visitor who was merely fashionable and had done nothing for the institution. This, at least, was the novices' point of view. But the little white volcano seemed quietly cross, and held her small head very high as she led the Princess from one ward to another to the beautifully fitted operating-room; and when she spoke her tone was strangely cold and mordant, as a woman's voice sometimes sounds in the Alps, when she speaks across an ice-fall or a frozen lake. The Princess looked behind her repeatedly, and her eyes sought her niece's face amongst those she saw, but she asked no questions about her, and apparently gave all her attention to what was shown her. Sister Giovanna was in her cell during all that time, and should no doubt have been occupied; but instead, she was standing idly at her window, looking through one of the diamond-shaped openings in the lattice, in the direction of Monteverde. She was hardly aware of what she saw, however, for in imagination she was following her aunt through the halls and wards and long corridors, and a struggle was going on in her heart which hurt her and made her despise herself. The woman who had ruined her life was under the same roof with her again, and she could not forgive her; and that seemed a very great sin. What had she gained in the five years that had gone by since the beginning of her noviciate, if she could not even forgive an injury? That was the question. Since her life had led her to nothing better than smouldering resentment and sharp regret, it had not been the holy life she had meant it to be--the failure she must score against herself was a total one, a general defeat--and all that she had believed she had been doing for the dead man's sake must count for nothing, since she had not once been really in a state of grace. No doubt her self-accusation went too far, as a confessor would have told her, or even the Mother Superior, if that good and impulsive woman had known what was in her mind. But Sister Giovanna did not believe she could go far enough in finding fault with herself for such great sins as her regret for a married life that might have been, and her lasting anger against a person who had robbed her; and it was while she was standing at her latticed window that morning that she first thought of making an even more complete sacrifice by joining the Sisters who intended to go out to the Rangoon leper hospital in the spring. It was not with the hope of dying young that she wished to go and face death daily, but in the earnest desire to escape from what she called her temptation, and to regain that peace of mind which had been hers for a long time and now was gone. She had made for herself a little treasure-house of grace laid up, to be offered for Giovanni's soul, and the gold of her affliction and the jewels of her unselfish labours had been gathered there to help him. That had been her simple and innocent belief, but it had broken down suddenly as soon as she discovered that she was only a human, resentful, regretful woman after all, as far below the mystic detachment from the outward world as she had been in those first days of her grief, at Madame Bernard's, when she had sat listless all the day long, a broken-hearted girl. What she had taken for gold and had stored up for Giovanni's welfare was only the basest metal, her jewels were but chips of gaudy glass, her sacrifice was a failure after all. Worse than that, her dead man came back alive from his grave and haunted her in dreams, threatening righteous judgment on the woman who had cheated her and him of earthly happiness. I shall not dwell on what she felt. Men and women who have honestly tried to lead the good life for years and have suddenly realised that they are as human as ever before, will understand what I have written. The rest must either believe that it is true or, not believing, read on for the sake of knowing Sister Giovanna's strange story, or else throw my book aside for a dull novel not worth reading. We cannot always be amusing, and real life is not always gay. The young nun waited in her cell till the Mother Superior herself opened the door and entered. For the Princess was gone, after seeing everything, praising everything with the flattering indiscrimination of total ignorance, and, finally, after asking permission to make another visit. She had spent ten minutes in the Mother's own rooms before leaving, and had asked the names of the three Sisters who had taken care of her in succession, writing them down on the back of a visiting-card. She wished to remember them in her prayers, she said; but the little white volcano almost laughed in her face, and the black diamond eyes twinkled furiously as they turned away to hide their scornful amusement--so strong was the nun's conviction that the new benefactress was a humbug. The Princess looked at the names quite calmly after she had written them--Sister Saint Paul, Sister Giovanna, and Sister Marius--and asked whether she had seen any of them during her visit. But the Mother Superior answered that they were all three either nursing private cases or not on duty, which might mean that they were resting in their cells. Sister Giovanna started slightly as the door of her cell opened, for she had scarcely realised that she had not moved from the window for a long time. The elder woman had not taken the trouble to knock, and, strange to say, a faint blush rose in the Sister's face as if she had been surprised and were a little ashamed of being caught in idleness instead of reading her breviary for the day or doing something useful with her hands. The black eyes looked at her searchingly, for nothing escaped them. 'What have you been thinking of?' asked the impulsive woman. There was a moment's silence. 'The Rangoon lepers,' answered the Sister in a quiet voice. The Mother Superior's white face hardened strangely. 'The Princess Chiaromonte is gone,' she said rather sharply, 'and you are wanted in the surgical ward at once.' She turned without another word and went quickly away, leaving the door open. It was clear that she was not pleased with the answer she had received. Six weeks later Sister Giovanna went to her rooms on the other side of the cloistered court after first chapel and knocked at the door. It was a Monday morning in March, and she was to be Supervising Nurse for the week, but the custom was to go on duty at eight o'clock and it was not yet seven. 'Well?' asked the Mother Superior, looking up from her papers, while the young nun remained standing respectfully at the corner of the big desk. The tone did not invite confidence; for some reason as yet unexplained the Mother had avoided speaking with her best nurse since that morning in the cell. 'I have made up my mind to go to the lepers with the others, Mother, if you will give me your permission.' The alabaster face suddenly glowed like white fire in the early light, the dark eyebrows knitted themselves angrily, and the lips parted to speak a hasty word, but immediately closed again. A long silence followed Sister Giovanna's speech, and the elder nun looked down at her papers and moved some of them about mechanically, from one place to another on the table. 'Are you angry with me, Mother?' asked Sister Giovanna, not understanding. 'With you, child?' The Mother looked up, and her face had softened a little. 'No, I am not angry with you--at least, I hope I am not.' It was rather an ambiguous answer, to say the least, and the young nun waited meekly for an explanation. None came, but instead, advice, delivered in a direct and businesslike tone. 'You had better put the idea out of your mind for a month or so, honestly and with all the intention of which you are capable. If this is a mere impulse, felt under some mental distress, it will subside and you will think no more about it. If it is a true call, it will come back and you will obey it in due time. More than that, I cannot tell you. If you are not satisfied that I am advising you well, go to Monsignor Saracinesca the next time he is here. It is my place to warn, not to hinder; to help you if I can, not to stand in your way. That is all, my daughter. Go to your duties.' Sister Giovanna bent her head obediently and left the room at once. When she was gone, the Mother Superior rose from her desk and went into her cell, locking the door after her. An hour later she was still on her knees and her face was buried in her hands. She was weeping bitterly. In all that numerous community which she governed and guided so well there was not one person who would have believed that she could shed tears, scalding and passionate, even rebellious, perhaps, if the whole truth were known; for no Sister or novice of them all could have imagined that such irresistible grief could take possession of a woman who, as they all said among themselves, was made of steel and ice, merely because one more of them wished to go to the Far East where so many had gone already. But they did not know anything about the Mother Superior. Indeed, when all was said, they knew next to nothing of her past, and as it was against all rules to discuss such matters, it was not likely that they should ever hear more, even if a new Sister joined them who chanced to have some information. They were aware, of course, that her name, in religion, was Mother Veronica, though they did not speak of her except as the Mother Superior. It was true that they had never heard of a nun of their order taking the name of Veronica, but that was not a matter to criticise either. She spoke exceedingly pure Italian, with the accent and intonation of a Roman lady, but it was no secret that when she had come to take the place of her predecessor, who had died suddenly, she had arrived from Austria; and she also spoke German fluently, which argued that she had been in that country some time. There was certainly nothing in these few facts to account for what she suffered when Sister Giovanna spoke of going to Rangoon, and it would have been hard to believe that her burning tears overflowed in spite of her, not only that first time but often afterwards, at the mere thought of parting with the best nurse in the hospital, even if she felt some special sympathy for her. Whatever the cause of her trouble was, no one knew of it; and that she found no cause for self-accusation in what she felt is clear, since she made no mention of it in her next confession. Indeed, she more often found fault with herself for being harsh in her judgments and too peremptory and tyrannical in the government of her community, than for giving way easily to the impulses of human sympathy. She was not nervous either, in the sense of her nerves being unsteady or overwrought in consequence of a long-continued strain; there was nothing in her weeping that could have suggested a neurotic breakdown even to the most sceptical of physicians. It was genuine, irresistible, overwhelming grief, and she knew that its cause was not even in part imaginary, but was altogether real, and terrible beyond any expression. Nevertheless, she found strength to speak to Monsignor Saracinesca of Sister Giovanna's intention, one day when he came to see her early in the morning on a matter of business; for he managed the finances of the Convent hospital and was also its representative in any questions in which the institution, as distinguished from the order had secular dealings with the world. The prelate and the Mother met as usual in the cloistered garden, and when Convent affairs had been disposed of, they continued their walk in silence for a few moments. 'I want your unprejudiced opinion about the future of one of the Sisters,' said the Mother Superior at last, in her usual tone. 'I will try to give it,' answered Monsignor Saracinesca. 'Sister Giovanna wishes to go to Rangoon with the other three.' The churchman betrayed no surprise, and answered without hesitation: 'You know what I always say in such cases, when I am consulted.' 'Yes. I have given her that advice--to wait a month to try to put the idea out of her mind, to make sure that it is not a passing impulse.' 'You cannot do more,' said Monsignor Saracinesca, 'nor can I.' The Mother Superior turned up her white face and looked at him so steadily that he gazed at her in surprise. 'It ought to be stopped,' she said, with sudden energy. 'It may be wrong to call it suicide and to interfere on that ground, but there is another, and a good one. I am responsible for the hospital here, for the nursing in it, and for the Sisters who are sent out to private cases. Year after year, one, two, and sometimes three of my best young nurses go away to these leper asylums in Rangoon and other places in the Far East. It is not the stupid ones that go, the dull, devoted creatures who could do that one thing well, because it is perfectly mechanical and a mere question of prophylaxis, precaution, and routine--and charity. Those that go always seem to be the best, the very nurses who are invaluable in all sorts of difficult cases from an operation to a typhoid fever; the most experienced, the cleverest, the most gifted! How can I be expected to keep up our standard if this goes on year after year? It is outrageous! And the worst of it is that the "vocation" is catching! The clever ones catch it because they are the most sensitively organised, but not the good, simple, humdrum little women who would be far better at nursing lepers than at a case of appendicitis--and better in heaven than in a leper asylum, for that matter!' Monsignor Saracinesca listened in silence to this energetic tirade; but when the little white volcano was quiescent for a moment, he shook his head. It was less an expression of disapproval than of doubt. 'It is manifestly impossible to send the least intelligent of the Sisters, if they do not offer to go,' he answered. 'Besides, how would you pick out the dull ones? By examination?' He was not without a sense of humour, and his sharply-chiselled lips twitched a little but were almost instantly grave again. The Mother Superior's profile was as still as a marble medallion. 'It ought to be stopped altogether,' she said presently, with conviction. 'Meanwhile, though I have told Sister Giovanna that it is not my place to hinder her, much less my right, I tell you plainly that I will prevent her from going, if I can!' This frank statement did not surprise the prelate, who was used to her direct speech and energetic temper, and liked both. But he said little in answer. 'That is your affair, Reverend Mother. You will do what your conscience dictates.' 'Conscience?' repeated the nun with a resentful question in her tone. 'If the word really means anything, which I often doubt, it is an instinctive discernment of right and wrong in one's own particular case, to be applied to the salvation of one's own soul. Is it not?' 'Undoubtedly.' 'What have I to do with my own particular case?' The volcano flared up indignantly. 'It is my duty to do what is best for the souls and bodies of forty women and girls, more or less, and of a great number of sick persons here and in their own homes, without considering myself at all, my instincts, or my little individual discernment of my own feelings, or my human likes and dislikes of people. If my duty leads me into temptation, I have got to face temptation intentionally, instead of avoiding it, as we are taught to do, and if I break down under it, so much the worse for me--the good of the others will have been accomplished nevertheless! That is one side of my life. Another is that if my duty demands that I should tear out my heart and trample on it, I ought not to hesitate, though I knew I was to die of the pain!' The clear low voice vibrated strangely. 'But I will not do it, unless it is to bring about some real good to others,' she added. Monsignor Saracinesca glanced at her face again before he answered. 'Your words are clear enough, but I do not understand you,' he said. 'If I can possibly help you, tell me what it is that distresses you. If not, let us talk of other things.' 'You cannot help me.' Her thin lips closed upon each other in an even line. 'I am sorry,' answered the churchman gravely. 'As for Sister Giovanna's intention, I share your opinion, for I think she can do more good here than by sacrificing herself in Burmah. If she consults me, I shall tell her so.' 'Thank you.' They parted, and the Mother Superior went back to her room and her work with a steady step and holding her head high. But she did not even see a lay sister who was scrubbing her small private staircase, and who rose to let her pass, saluting her as she went by. Monsignor Saracinesca left the garden by the glass door that opened into the large hall, already described, and he went out past the portress's little lodge. She was just opening the outer door when he came up with her, and the next moment he found himself face to face with Madame Bernard. He stepped back politely to let her pass, and lifted his hat with a smile of recognition; but instead of advancing she uttered a little cry of surprise and satisfaction, and retreated to let him come out. He noticed that her face betrayed great excitement, and she seemed hardly able to speak. 'What is the matter?' he asked kindly, as he emerged from the deep doorway. The portress was waiting for Madame Bernard to enter, but the Frenchwoman had changed her mind and held up her hand, shaking one forefinger. 'Not to-day, Anna!' she cried. 'Or later--I will come back, perhaps--I cannot tell. May I walk a few steps with you, Monseigneur?' 'By all means,' answered the prelate. The door of the Convent closed behind them, but Madame Bernard was evidently anxious to get well out of hearing before she spoke. At the corner of the quiet street she suddenly stood still and looked up to her companion's face, evidently in great perturbation. 'Well?' he asked. 'What is it?' 'Giovanni Severi is alive.' Monsignor Saracinesca thought the good woman was dreaming. 'It is impossible,' he said emphatically. 'On the contrary,' returned Madame Bernard, 'it is perfectly true. If you do not believe me, look at this!' She opened her governess's reticule and fumbled amongst the little school-books and papers it contained. In a moment she brought out a letter, sealed, stamped, and postmarked, and held it up before the tall prelate's eyes. It was addressed to 'Donna Angela Chiaromonte,' to the care of Madame Bernard at the latter's lodgings in Trastevere, the stamp was an Italian one, and the postmark was that of the military post-office in Massowah. Monsignor Saracinesca looked at the envelope curiously, took it from Madame Bernard and examined the stamped date. Then he asked her if she was quite sure of the handwriting, and she assured him that she was; Giovanni had written before he started into the interior with the expedition, and she herself had received the letter from the postman and had given it to Angela. What was more, after Angela had gone to live at the Convent, Madame Bernard had found the old envelope of the letter in a drawer and had kept it, and she had just looked at it before leaving her house. 'He is alive,' she said with conviction; 'he has written this letter to her, and he does not know that she is a nun. He is coming home, I am sure!' Monsignor Saracinesca was a man of great heart and wide experience, but such a case as this had never come to his knowledge. He stood still in deep thought, bending a little as he rested both his hands on the battered silver knob of his old stick. 'He is coming home!' repeated Madame Bernard in great distress. 'What are we to do?' 'What were you going to do just now, when I met you at the door?' asked the prelate. 'I do not know! I was going to see her! Perhaps I would have broken the news to her gently, perhaps I would have said nothing and kept the letter to give it to her at another time! How can I tell what I would have done? It would have depended so much on the way she took the first suggestion! People have died of joy, Monseigneur! A little weakness of the heart, a sudden joyful surprise, it stops beating--that has happened before now!' 'Yes. It has happened before now. I knew of such a case myself.' 'And I adore the child!' cried the impulsive Frenchwoman, ready to burst into tears. 'Oh, what shall we do? What ought we to do?' 'Do you know the Mother Superior?' 'Oh yes! Quite well. Are you going to tell me that I should take the letter to her? She is a cold, hard woman, Monseigneur! A splendid woman to manage a hospital, perhaps, but she has no more heart than a steel machine! She will burn the letter, and never tell any one!' 'I think you are mistaken about her,' answered the churchman gravely. 'She has more heart than most of us, and I believe that even you yourself are not more devoted to Sister Giovanna than she is.' 'Really, Monseigneur? Is it possible? Are you sure? What makes you think so?' 'To the best of my knowledge and belief, what I have told you is the truth, though I might find it hard to explain my reasons for saying so. But before you go to the Mother Superior, or speak of the matter to Sister Giovanna, there is something else to be done. This letter, by some strange accident of the post, may have been written before Giovanni Severi died. There is a bare possibility that it may have been mislaid in the post-office, or that he may have given it to a comrade to post, who forgot it--many things may happen to a letter.' 'Well? What must I do?' 'If he is alive, the fact is surely known already at headquarters, and you should make inquiries. To give Sister Giovanna a letter from the dead man would be wrong, in my opinion, for it would cause her needless and harmful pain. If he is dead, it should be burned, I think. But if he is really alive, after all, you have no right to burn it, and sooner or later she must have it and know the truth, with as little danger to her health and peace of mind as possible.' 'You are right, Monseigneur,' answered Madame Bernard. 'What you say is full of wisdom. I have three lessons to give this morning, and as soon as I am free I will go myself to the house of a superior officer whose daughter I used to teach, and he will find out the truth by the telephone in a few minutes.' 'I think that is the best course,' said the churchman. So they parted, for he was going to Saint Peter's, and she turned in the direction of the nearest tramway, hastening to her pupils. And meanwhile the inevitable advanced on its unchanging course. For Giovanni Severi was alive and well, and was on his way to Rome. CHAPTER XI Giovanni Severi's adventures, between his supposed death in the massacre of the expedition and his unexpected reappearance at Massowah nearly five years later, would fill an interesting little volume in themselves; but inasmuch as an account of them would not make this story clearer and would occupy much space, it is enough to state the bare facts in a few words. Such tales of danger, suffering, and endurance have often been told at first hand, by the heroes of them, far more vividly and correctly than a mere story-teller can narrate them on hearsay. The expedition had been attacked and destroyed by a handful of natives from a wandering tribe that was camping very near. Within a few minutes their chief was informed of what they had done, and he rode out to the spot with a large body of men at his heels. Among the dead, Giovanni Severi lay bleeding from a gash in the head, but not mortally hurt. The chief was by no means a mere dull savage, and finding an Italian officer alive, he recognised at once that it would be a mistake to knock him on the head and leave him with his comrades to be disposed of by the vultures and hyænas. On the other hand, he must not be allowed to escape to the Italian colony with news of the disaster. At some future time, and from a safe distance, it might be possible to obtain a large ransom for him; or, on the other hand, if a large force were ever sent up the country to revenge the outrage, it might be to the credit of the chief if he could prove that the deed had been done without his knowledge and that he had treated the only survivor humanely. He therefore took possession of Giovanni and provided for his safety in a simple manner by merely stating that if the prisoner escaped he would cut off ten heads, but if any harm came to him, he would cut off at least a hundred. As no one doubted but that he would keep his word, as he invariably did in such matters, Giovanni had but small chance of ever regaining his liberty, and none at all presented itself for nearly five years. During that time he travelled with his captors or lived in camps, many hundreds of miles from the outposts of civilisation; he learned their language and the chief insisted on learning his, as it might be useful; furthermore, he was required to teach his master whatever he could about modern warfare and what little he knew of agriculture and its arts of peace. In return he was well fed, well lodged when possible, and as well clad as any man in the tribe except the chief himself, which was not saying much. His chance came at last and he did not let it pass. It involved killing one of his guards, stunning another, and seizing the chief's own camel, and it was not without great risk to his life that he got away. A fortnight later he had travelled five hundred miles and reported himself at headquarters in Massowah, dressed in a long native shirt, a dirty turban, and nothing else, as Captain Giovanni Severi, formerly of the Staff and late of the expedition that had perished five years earlier. It chanced, for the inevitable was at work, that the mail steamer for Italy was to leave the next morning and a small man-of-war on the following day, also homeward bound. Giovanni wrote to Angela Chiaromonte by the former and went on board the Government vessel twenty-four hours afterwards. He himself sent no telegram, because he did not know where his brothers were and he feared lest a telegraphic message might give Angela a bad shock, if it reached her at all. Moreover, he had no news of her and could get no information whatever, so that he addressed his letter to Madame Bernard's old lodgings on the mere possibility that it might reach its destination. Any one might have supposed that the news of his escape would have been in the papers before he reached Italy, for it was telegraphed to the War Office in Rome by the officer in command of the force at Massowah. But the Minister chose to keep the intelligence a secret till Giovanni's arrival, because he expected to gain much information from him and feared lest the newspapers should get hold of him and learn facts from him which would be more useful to Italy if not made public; and when the Italian Government wishes to keep a secret, it can do so quite as well as any other, to the despair of the public press. The consequence of the Minister's instructions was that Giovanni was met by a superior officer who came on board the man-of-war at Naples in order to forestall any possible attempt on the part of correspondents to get hold of him, and also for the purpose of giving him further directions for his conduct. He was to proceed to Rome at once, and the Minister would receive him privately on the following day at twelve o'clock. He was recommended not to go to an hotel, but to put up with his brother, who, as he now learned, was at Monteverde, and had been privately informed of his arrival and warned to be discreet. The mail steamer which had brought Giovanni's letter to Madame Bernard had stopped at Port Said, Alexandria, and Messina, but the man-of-war came direct to Naples, and though slower than the packet-boat, arrived there only a few hours later. Madame Bernard's inquiries, made through the old colonel whose daughter she had formerly taught, proved fruitless, because the War Office would not allow Giovanni's coming to be known, and the result was that she took the letter home with her in her bag, and spent the evening in a very disturbed state of mind, debating with herself as to what she ought to do. She would have given anything to open the envelope, if only to see the date, and once or twice, when she reflected on the importance of knowing whether the writer was alive before giving his letter to Sister Giovanna, she almost yielded; but not quite, for she was an honourable little woman, according to her lights. Late on that night Giovanni got into the train that was to bring him to Rome before Madame Bernard would be ready to go out in the morning. Ugo Severi had been summoned by the Minister some days previously, and had been told that his brother was alive and coming home, and would lodge with him. Meanwhile Captain Ugo was put on his honour to say nothing of the matter to his friends. Such a recommendation was, in fact, needed, as Ugo would otherwise have informed the Princess Chiaromonte, if no one else. Considering how much feeling she had shown about Giovanni's supposed death, it would have been only humane to do so; but the Minister's instructions were precise and emphatic, and Ugo kept what he knew to himself and thought about it so continually that Confucianism temporarily lost its interest for him. He had always been on good terms with Giovanni, though they had not seen much of each other after the latter was appointed to the Staff. As for the brother who was in the Navy, Ugo rarely saw him or even heard of him, and since their father had died he himself had led a very lonely existence. His delight on learning that Giovanni had escaped and was returning may be imagined, for, in spite of his apparent coldness and love of solitude, he was a man of heart, and like many Italians of all classes his ideal of happiness would have been to live quietly under one roof with his brothers and sister. There is probably no other people in the world that finds such permanent satisfaction in what most of us would think a dull family life. It is a survival of the ancient patriarchal way of living, when the 'family' was a religion and its head was at once its absolute ruler and its high priest. The only preparation which Ugo had made for receiving Giovanni was the purchase of an iron folding camp-bed. He told his orderly that a brother officer of his might have to spend a night in the house before long, which was strictly true. In due time a soldier on a bicycle brought him an official note from the Minister, informing him that Giovanni had reached Naples and would appear at Monteverde on the following morning. This note came late in the afternoon, and Ugo thought it needless to inform Pica, as Giovanni would certainly not wish to go to bed as soon as he arrived, so that the little bedstead need not be set up till he actually came. At ten o'clock that evening, Ugo rose from his easy-chair, stretched himself, and whistled for Pica as usual. The orderly brought him his boots, his cloak, his sabre, and his cap, all of which he put on, as he always did, before going downstairs, for it was the hour at which he invariably inspected the neighbourhood. It was his practice to begin by walking round the outside of the enclosure, his man carrying a good lantern; he then examined the interior of the space, and finally visited the guard-room and exchanged a word with the officer on duty for the night. Of late, he had occasionally gone out again between twelve and one o'clock, before going to bed; for two or three suspicious-looking characters had been seen in the neighbourhood of the magazine, like the man in the battered brown hat who had come upon Pica one afternoon and had asked his way. There was, in fact, a disquieting suspicion at headquarters that an attempt might be made to blow up one of the magazines; the detachments of soldiers on duty had therefore been strengthened and the officers in charge had been instructed to exercise the greatest vigilance. When Captain Ugo went out of his door as usual, with Pica at his heels, the night was dark and it was just beginning to rain. The two went directly from the little house to the gate of the enclosure, and Ugo answered the sentry's challenge mechanically and walked briskly along the straight wall to the corner. Turning to the right then, he was following the next stretch at a good pace when he stumbled and nearly fell over something that lay in his path. As Pica held up the lantern close behind him, a man sprang up from the ground, where he must have been lying asleep, probably in liquor. By the uncertain light and in the rain, Ugo saw only the blurred vision of an individual in a ragged and dripping overcoat, with an ugly, blotched face and a ruined hat. An instant later, and just as Ugo was challenging the man, two shots were fired. The first smashed and extinguished the lantern in Pica's hand without hurting him; the second took effect, and the Captain staggered against the wall, but instead of falling, sat down suddenly on the wet ground with his back against the masonry. The ruffian was gone and Pica had dashed after him in a fruitless pursuit, for the breaking of the lantern in his hand had checked the orderly as he was about to spring at the miscreant, who thus gained a sufficient start to ensure his escape. In a few seconds the officer on duty and three or four of the men were on the spot with lights. 'You will have to carry me,' said the Captain calmly enough. 'I am shot in the foot and something is broken. Turn out the guard, Lieutenant, as a matter of principle and have the neighbourhood searched, though you will not find any one now. The fellow has got clean away.' The men lifted him and carried him towards his house. Before they reached the door Pica met them, breathing hard and muttering Sicilian imprecations on the man who had wounded his master and got away; but while the Captain was being taken upstairs the orderly lit a candle and went to the telephone in the hall. He glanced at the address-book and then without hesitation he asked the central office to give him Princess Chiaromonte's number. His reason for doing so was simple: she was the only person in Rome who had ever appeared in the light of a friend of the Captain's family; she would do the right thing at once, Pica thought, and would send the best surgeon in Rome out to Monteverde in a motor in the shortest possible time. She was at home that evening, as it turned out, and at Pica's request she came to the telephone herself and heard his story. She answered that she would try and get Doctor Pieri to go at once in her own motor, as he had the reputation of being the best surgeon in the city, but that if he could not be found she would send another doctor without delay. Pica went upstairs and found the Captain stretched on his bed in his wet clothes, while the three soldiers who had carried him up were trying to pull his boot off instead of cutting it. One of the younger officers from the magazine was already scouring the neighbourhood in obedience to Ugo's orders. Pica sent the men away at once with the authority which a favourite orderly instinctively exercises over his less fortunate comrades. He was neither stupid nor quite unskilled, however, and in a few minutes he had slit the Captain's boot down the seam at the back and removed it almost without hurting him, as well as the merino sock. The small round wound was not bleeding much, but it was clear that the bone of the ankle was badly injured and the whole foot was already much swollen. The revolver had evidently been of small calibre, but the charge had been heavy and the damage was considerable. Pica had the sense not to attempt to make any bandage beyond laying two soft folded handkerchiefs one upon the other to the wound and loosely confining them with a silk one. While he was busy with this, he explained what he had done. The Captain, who knew that he was badly hurt and guessed that he might be lamed for life by unskilful treatment, was glad to hear that the famous Pieri had been called. He said that he felt no pain worth speaking of, and he questioned his man as to the latter's impression of what had happened. Pica did not believe in anarchists and gave it as his opinion that the ruffian was an ordinary bad character who was in daily expectation of being arrested for some crime and who had fallen asleep in his cups, not knowing that he was close to the magazine. Being awakened suddenly, he had probably supposed himself overtaken by justice, had fired and run away. The explanation was plausible, at all events. Neither Ugo nor his man believed that any one would really try to blow up the place, for they regarded that as quite impossible without the collusion of some one of the soldiers, which was not to be thought of. While they were talking, Pica managed to get off the Captain's outer clothes; but as they were partly wet with rain, the bed was now damp. He therefore went and got the new camp bedstead and set it up, spread dry blankets and sheets over it, and lifted Ugo to it without letting the injured foot hang down, for he was a fairly strong man and was far from clumsy. The change had just been successfully made when a motor was heard coming up the short stretch from the high-road to the house, and Pica hastened downstairs to open the door for the surgeon. To his surprise, but much to his satisfaction, the Princess Chiaromonte was the first to get out in the rain, bareheaded, but muffled in a waterproof. She had no footman and no umbrella, and she made a quick dash for the door, followed at once by Doctor Pieri. She recognised the handsome orderly and smiled at him as she shook the rain-drops from her hair and then gave him her cloak. 'Is he badly hurt?' she asked quickly; but she saw from Pica's face that it was not a matter of life and death, and she did not wait for his answer. 'We will go upstairs at once,' she added, leading the way to the steps. On learning that Ugo was already in bed, she said she would wait in the large sitting-room while the doctor went in to see what could be done. If the Captain would see her, she would speak to him when Pieri had finished his work. Nearly three-quarters of an hour passed before he joined her. 'It is a bad fracture,' he said, 'and it will require an operation if he is not to be lamed for life. I should much prefer to perform it in a proper place. There is none better than the private hospital of the White Sisters and it is by far the nearest. Do you happen to know the place?' The Princess said that she did and that she was a patroness of the Convent. The surgeon observed that it was now past eleven, and that the patient could not be moved before morning. If she agreed with him and would lend her motor for the purpose, he would communicate with the hospital and take the Captain there himself between eight and nine o'clock. For the present he needed no special nursing, and the orderly seemed to be an unusually intelligent young fellow, who could be trusted and was sincerely attached to his master. The Princess agreed to everything, and asked whether the Captain wished to see her. He did, and when she stood beside him he pressed her hand gratefully and thanked her with real feeling for her great kindness. She answered, before Pica, that she would always do anything in her power for any one of his name, and she explained that she would be at the hospital on the following morning to see that he had a good private room and received special care. He thanked her again and bade her good-night. Two or three minutes later he heard the motor puffing and wheezing, and Pica came back after shutting the door. Ugo now sent him over to the guard-room with a message to the lieutenant on duty, requesting him to write a brief official account of the occurrence and to send it by hand to headquarters the next morning. It was necessary that another officer should take Ugo's place in command of the fort while he was in hospital. Pica came back again in a few moments. Then Ugo insisted on having writing-materials, and sat up, propped with cushions, while he wrote a short note to the Minister of War, explaining what had happened, and that he would not leave his home on the morrow till his brother had arrived, but that some further arrangement must be made if Giovanni was to lodge in the house, which would probably be wanted for the officer who was to take his own place. Pica was to be at the Minister's own residence at seven o'clock with this note and was to wait for an answer. The Minister was known to be a very early riser and would have plenty of time to arrange matters as he thought best. Ugo was now in a good deal of pain, and it seemed very long before the panes of his window turned from black to grey as the dawn fore-lightened. He made Pica get him coffee, and soon after sunrise the orderly brought one of the men from the guard-house to remain within call in case the Captain needed anything. Pica took his bicycle and went off to the city with the note for the Minister. As Ugo had anticipated, Giovanni arrived in a station cab while the orderly was still absent, and was admitted by the soldier, on his representing that he was a relation of the Captain's and had come a long distance to see him. The man briefly explained that Ugo was in bed, having been wounded in the foot during the night, but was in no danger. A moment later the brothers were together. Ugo saw a man standing beside his bed and holding out his hand whom he would certainly not have recognised if he had met him in the street. His skin was almost as dark as an Arab's, and he wore a brown beard which had reddened in streaks under the African sun. He was as lean as a half-starved greyhound, but did not look ill, and his eyes were fiery and deeper set than formerly. His head had been shaved when he had worn a turban, but the hair was now more than half an inch long, and was as thick as a beaver's fur. He was dressed in a suit of thin grey clothes which he had picked up in Massowah, and which did not fit him, and his canvas shoes were in a bad way. When he spoke, it was with a slight accent, unlike any that Ugo had heard, and he occasionally hesitated as if trying to find a word. After the first greetings, he sat down and told the main facts of his story. When he paused the two looked at each other and after a while they laughed. 'The disguise is complete,' Ugo said. 'But are you going to call on the Minister in those clothes? If you are seen near the magazine in that condition you will be warned off and I shall have to explain who you are.' 'I suppose I could get into a uniform of yours, since I have grown thin,' Giovanni answered. 'We are the same height, I remember, and as I am in the artillery no one can find fault with me for wearing the uniform of another regiment than my own, in an emergency. It will be better than presenting myself before the Minister in these rags! I suppose you have got your captaincy by this time?' 'Six months ago!' They talked on, and Ugo explained that he was to be taken to the hospital of the White Sisters soon after eight o'clock. 'I shall go with you,' Giovanni answered, 'and see you installed in your room. The Minister does not want me till twelve o'clock.' They agreed to tell Pica, when he returned, that Giovanni was an artillery officer and a relative who had just arrived from a long journey without any luggage. As the orderly had known that the Captain expected a visitor before long, he would not be surprised, and the relationship would account for Giovanni's name. The latter selected an undress uniform from his brother's well-stocked wardrobe and proceeded to scrub and dress in the adjoining dressing-room, talking to Ugo through the open door and asking him questions about old friends and comrades. Ugo told him of the Princess Chiaromonte's visit and of her kindness in coming with Doctor Pieri on the previous evening. Giovanni appeared at the door, half dressed. 'Did you tell her that I am alive?' he asked. 'No. The Ministry has made an official secret of it, so I have told no one.' 'And you say that she will be at the hospital this morning! We shall meet, then. I wonder whether she will know me.' 'It is impossible, I should say,' Ugo answered, looking at his brother's lean face and heavy beard. 'I hardly recognise you even now!' Giovanni finished dressing and came out at last, looking very smart in Ugo's clothes. He had asked no questions about Angela, for he felt tolerably sure that Ugo had never known her, and it was his intention to go directly from the hospital to Madame Bernard's lodgings, where he hoped to find them both as he had left them. He could not bring himself to make vague and roundabout inquiries just then, and he was still less inclined to confide his love story to this brother whom he hardly felt that he knew. So he kept his own counsel and waited, as he had learned to do in five years of slavery. The Minister sent back a line by Pica to say that Giovanni was to come to him at noon, and would then receive his instructions as to a change of lodging, if any should seem advisable. There was a word of sympathy also for Ugo. In less than an hour more, Giovanni had helped Pica to carry Ugo down to the Princess's motor, which had appeared punctually, bringing Doctor Pieri, and the wounded man was comfortably placed in the limousine with the surgeon beside him and Giovanni sitting opposite. Ugo introduced his brother as a relation who had arrived very opportunely that morning. The motor buzzed away from the door, and reached the Convent of Santa Giovanna d'Aza in a few minutes. The sky had cleared after the rain and the April sun was shining gloriously. CHAPTER XII Sister Giovanna was the supervising nurse for the week, and in the natural course of her duty it was she who went to the telephone when Doctor Pieri called up the hospital at seven o'clock. In a few words he explained the case as far as was necessary, and begged the Sister to have a good room ready for the patient; he believed that Number Two was vacant. It was, and the wounded man could have it. The Doctor said he would bring him in a motor towards nine o'clock. 'The patient's name, if you please,' said Sister Giovanna in a businesslike tone. 'Captain Severi. I do not know his first name. What is the matter, Sister?' The nun had uttered a low exclamation of surprise, which Pieri had heard distinctly. 'Nothing,' she answered, controlling her voice. 'Is he a son of the late general of that name?' 'I do not know, Sister. He is a friend of the Princess Chiaromonte. Is it all right? I am busy.' 'Yes,' answered the nun's voice. 'It is all right.' She hung up the receiver and went to give the necessary orders, rather whiter about the lips than usual. The fact that the injured officer was a friend of her aunt's seemed to make it certain that he was one of the brothers of whom Giovanni had often spoken, and the mere thought that she was to see him in an hour or two was disturbing. For a moment she was strongly impelled to beg the Mother Superior that some one else might take her place during the morning; but in the first place it seemed cowardly to leave her post; and secondly, in order to explain her position, she would have been obliged to tell the Mother Superior her whole story, which she had never done. Monsignor Saracinesca knew it, and Madame Bernard, but no one else whom she ever saw nowadays. Then came the comforting inward suggestion that Giovanni would have wished her to do all she could for his brother, and this at once made a great difference. She went to see that the room was in perfect order, though she was quite sure that it was, and she sent for the orderlies on duty and told them to be especially careful in moving a patient who would soon be brought, and to get ready a certain new chair which was especially constructed for carrying persons who had received injuries of the feet only, and who did not require to be transported on the ordinary stretcher, which always gives a patient the idea that his case is a serious one. She also went out to the lodge, to warn the portress that Captain Severi was expected, and must not be kept waiting even a few seconds longer than was necessary. The excellent Anna looked up with some surprise, for she had never kept any one waiting without good cause, since she had been in charge of the gate, but she bent her head obediently and said nothing. It seems to be a general rule with religious houses that no one is ever to wait in the street for admittance; the barrier, which is often impassable, is the door that leads inward from the vestibule. When everything was prepared for Ugo's reception, Sister Giovanna went back to the duties which kept her constantly occupied in the morning hours and often throughout the day. She was personally responsible to the house-surgeon for the carrying out of all directions given the nurses, as he was, in grave cases, to the operating surgeon or visiting physician. It was her business to inspect everything connected with the hospital, from the laundry, the sterilising apparatus, and the kitchen, to the dispensary, where she was expected to know from day to day what supplies were on hand and what was needed. She was ultimately answerable for the smallest irregularity or accident, and had to report everything to the Mother Superior every evening after Vespers and before supper. During her week, every one in the establishment came to her for all matters that concerned the hospital and the nurses on duty by day or night; but she had nothing to do with those who were sent out to private cases. They reported themselves and gave an account of their work to the Mother Superior, whenever they returned to the Convent. The supervising nurse for the week did not sleep in her cell, but lay down on a pallet bed behind a curtain, in her office on the first floor, close to the dispensary, where she could be called at a moment's notice, though it rarely happened that she was disturbed between ten o'clock at night and five in the morning. The Mother Superior had introduced the system soon after she had taken charge of the Convent hospital, of which the management now differed from that of most similar institutions in this respect, for the most competent Sisters took turns in the arduous task of supervision, from week to week. At other times they went to private cases when required, or acted as ordinary nurses. Any one who has any knowledge of hospitals managed by religious orders is aware that no two of them work by precisely the same rules, and that the rules themselves are largely the result of the Mother Superior's own experience, modified by the personal theories and practice of the operating surgeon and the principal visiting physician. The scale of everything relating to the administration is, of course, very small compared with that of any public hospital, and all responsibility therefore weighs more directly on the doctors and nurses in charge at any given moment than on a board of management; in other words, on the right individuals rather than on a body. Princess Chiaromonte rose early and drove to the Convent in a cab, intending to come home in the motor which was to bring Ugo and the doctor. She rang, was admitted, and asked for the supervising nurse. The portress, who knew her by sight, at once led her to the large hall already mentioned, and rang the bell which gave warning that some one was waiting who had business in the hospital. She drew one of the chairs forward for the Princess and went back to the lodge. A moment later a novice opened the door that led to the wards, and the visitor repeated her request, without mentioning her name. The novice bowed and disappeared, and several minutes passed before Sister Giovanna came. She had last seen her aunt ill in bed and flushed with fever, but the Princess had changed too little in five years not to be instantly recognised by any one who had known her so recently. Both women made a movement of surprise, and the nun stood still an instant, still holding the handle of the door. Of the two, however, she was the first to regain her composure. Her aunt rose with alacrity indeed, and held out her hand, but she coloured a little and laughed with perceptible awkwardness. She had long wished to see her niece, but the meeting had come too unexpectedly to be pleasant. 'I hope you have felt no ill effects from your illness?' Sister Giovanna spoke calmly, in a tone of civil inquiry. 'Oh, none at all!' answered the Princess. 'Thanks to your wonderful nursing,' she added, with rather too much eagerness. 'I had hoped to tell you before now how grateful I am; but though I have been here more than once, you were never here when I came.' Sister Giovanna bent her head slightly. 'There is really nothing to thank me for,' she said. 'The novice said you wished to see me; can I be of any service to you?' The elder woman inwardly resented the tone of superior calm. She was now convinced that Sister Giovanna was no other than her niece Angela, though she had not yet given any direct sign of recognition. She was not quite sure of being able to meet the young eyes steadily, and when she answered she fixed her own on the line where the veil was drawn tightly across the nun's forehead. In this way she could not fail to see any quick change in the other's features. 'It is about Captain Severi,' she said very distinctly, 'Ugo, as we call him--the brother of that poor Giovanni who was murdered by savages in Africa.' She saw what she had hoped to see and felt that she had already got the upper hand, for the nun's face turned the colour of smouldering wood ashes when they are a greyish white, though the faint, hot glow still rises in them with every passing breath of air and then fades fitfully away. 'Captain Severi's room is ready,' said Sister Giovanna steadily. 'Yes, of course!' The Princess nodded as she spoke. 'It is not that, Sister. He is a great friend of mine and I was quite devoted to his unfortunate brother, so I have come to beg that he may have the very best care while he is here.' 'You need not have any anxiety.' Sister Giovanna sat bolt upright in her straight chair, with her hands folded on her knees. The Princess rested one elbow on the table, in an easy attitude, and glanced at her once or twice during the silence that followed. Each was wondering whether the other was going to admit that she recognised her, and each was weighing the relative advantages of remaining on the present footing, which was one of uncertainty for Sister Giovanna and of armed quiescence on the Princess's part. 'Thank you,' said the latter, after a long time, with a bright smile, as if she had quite understood the nun's answer. 'It will be such a comfort to know that he is being well cared for, poor fellow. I believe he will be here in a few minutes.' 'We are expecting him,' answered the nun, not stirring. Another long silence followed, and she sat so perfectly still that the Princess began to fidget, looked at the tall old clock in the corner and then compared her pretty watch with it, laid her olive-green parasol across the table, but took it off again almost immediately and dropped the tip to the floor. The Sister's impassive stillness seemed meant for a reproach and made her nervous. The certainty that the motionless woman opposite her was Angela, calmly declining to know her, was very disagreeable. She tried the excuse of pretending in her thoughts that there was still a reasonable doubt about it, but she could no longer succeed; yet to address her niece by her baptismal name would be to acknowledge herself finally beaten in the contest of coolness, after having at first succeeded in making her adversary change colour. The ticking of the clock was so distinct that it made an echo in the high hall; the morning sun streamed across the pavement, from the cloistered garden the chirping of a few sparrows and the sharper twitter of the house-swallow that had already nested under the eaves sounded very clearly through the closed glass door. The Princess could not bear the silence any longer, and she looked at Sister Giovanna with a rather pinched smile. 'My dear Angela,' she said, 'there is really no reason why we should keep up this absurd little comedy any longer, is there?' The nun did not betray the least surprise at the sudden question. 'If you have no reason for it, I have none,' she answered, but her gaze was so steady that the Princess looked away. 'I prefer to be called Sister Giovanna, however,' she added, after an instant's pause. The Princess, though not always courageous, was naturally overbearing and rather quarrelsome, and her temper rose viciously as soon as the restraint which an artificial situation had imposed was removed. 'I really think you should not have kept me in doubt so long,' she said. 'After playing nurse to me in my own house, you can hardly have taken me for another person. But as for you, your dress has changed you so completely, and you look so much older than any one would have thought possible, that you need not be surprised if I was not quite sure it was really you!' Her niece listened unmoved. A trained nurse, even if she be a nun, may learn a good deal about human nature in five years, and Sister Giovanna was naturally quick to perceive and slow to forget. She understood now, much better than the Princess supposed. 'I am not at all surprised,' she said, almost smiling, 'and it cannot possibly matter.' The older woman began to think that her recollections of what she thought she had said in her delirium were nothing more than the record of a dream, but the fear of having betrayed herself still haunted her, although four months had passed, and the present opportunity of setting her mind at rest might not return. Rather than let it slip away she would be bold, if not brave. 'And besides,' she said, as if finishing her last speech, 'I believe I was more or less delirious during most of the time that you were with me. Was I not?' Sister Giovanna was sorely tempted to speak out. But though it would be so easy to humiliate the woman who had injured her, it looked too much like vengeance; and she remembered how she had told the sick woman that she forgave, with all her heart, meaning what she said, but it had been hard to keep the passion-flower of forgiveness from fading as soon as it had opened. 'You were rather quiet on the whole,' she answered with truth, and so calmly that the Princess was relieved. 'I wish all my patients were as submissive.' 'Really? How delightful! No one ever said I was a submissive person, I am sure!' 'You were very much so. And now, since your friend has not come yet, and you will wish to wait for him, I must ask you to let me leave you, for I am on duty and must not stay here too long. Should you like to see the Mother Superior?' Sister Giovanna rose as she spoke, for though she was sure of herself after making the first effort, she did not mean to tell an untruth if her aunt asked a still more direct question; she was well aware, too, that she had turned very pale at the first mention of Giovanni, and she did not intend to expose herself to any further surprises which her enemy might be planning. The Princess was disappointed now, and was not satisfied with having so greatly diminished her own anxiety. She felt that she had come into contact with a force which she could not hope to overcome, because it did not proceed only from Angela's own strength of character, but was backed by a power that was real though it was invisible. It is hard to express what I mean, but those will understand who have personally found themselves opposed by a member of any regular order whom they wish to influence. It has been well said that there is no such obstacle in life as the inert resistance of a thoroughly lazy man; but in certain circumstances that is far inferior to the silent opposition of a conscientious person belonging to a large body which declines, on grounds of belief rather than of logic, to enter into any argument. That was what Princess Chiaromonte felt. She rose from her chair a moment after her niece had stood up. 'Thank you,' she said. 'I will wait here, if I may.' 'You are welcome.' Sister Giovanna made a slight inclination of the head and left the hall at once. When she was gone her aunt did not resume her seat, but walked slowly up and down, and twice, as she reached the door that led to the wards, she stood still for a second and smiled. It was all very well to be as strong as Angela, she reflected, and to have a great religious order behind one, supported by the whole body of the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church; and it was a fine thing to have so much character, and such a beautiful, grave face, and solemn, saintly eyes; but it showed weakness to turn as white as a sheet at the mention of a man's name, though he might be dead, and in a few minutes it would be a satisfaction to note the signs of inward distress when the grave supervising nurse came face to face with the brother of the man she had loved. That was what the Princess was thinking of when she heard the distant gate-bell tinkling, and stopped once more in her walk, preparing herself to receive Ugo Severi with an expression of cordiality and affectionate concern. The portress opened the door into the hall and a confused sound of voices came from the passage. The Princess started slightly and then smiled, reflecting that she had never noticed the resemblance between Ugo's tone and poor Giovanni's. Doctor Pieri entered first, tall, grave, fair-bearded, and he was looking back to be sure that the orderlies were careful. They followed him closely, bringing Captain Ugo in a chair in which he sat upright with his injured foot lying on a raised rest before him and a rug from the motor car over his knees. He wore a covert coat and a grey felt hat. The Princess went forward with a bright smile, looking into his face. 'I have seen the head nurse,' she said, 'and you are to have the best room in the hospital, and all sorts of extra care.' Ugo said something as the orderlies set down the chair, but almost at the same moment the Princess heard another voice. It was hard and cold, and did not match the words it spoke. 'You have been extremely kind,' said Giovanni Severi. She had fairly good nerves, and had been in a very small measure prepared for the surprise by having heard him talking in the passage, though in a very different tone; but she started and gasped audibly as she looked up and met his resentful eyes. 'Giovanni!' she cried in amazement. 'Is it you? Are you alive?' But she had no doubt about it, in spite of the heavy beard that hid the lower part of his face. 'Oh, yes,' he answered rather coldly. 'Quite alive, thank you.' She held out her hand now, but it was shaking when he took it. Doctor Pieri looked on in some surprise, but said nothing. One of the orderlies rang the bell that summoned the supervising nurse. 'Where have you been all these years?' asked the Princess. 'Why have you never written to your friends?' 'That is a long story,' Giovanni answered, in the same tone as before. 'If you happen to be on friendly terms with the Ministry, you will be doing the Government a service by not speaking of my return till it is made public.' 'How mysterious!' The Princess was recovering from her surprise. Ugo looked from one to the other, watching their faces. It was quite clear that his brother disliked the middle-aged woman of the world now, whatever their relations had been in the past, and from her behaviour when she had recognised him it looked as if the two must have once been very intimate. 'What are we waiting for?' asked the Captain cheerfully, in order to break off the conversation. 'The supervising nurse,' answered Pieri. 'She will be here directly.' 'A nun, I suppose,' observed Giovanni carelessly. 'Old and hideous too, no doubt. Poor Ugo!' 'Not so much to be pitied as you think,' said the Princess. 'She is still young, and must have been very pretty! She is worth looking at, I assure you.' Her own astonishment and recent emotion were already forgotten in the pleasure of looking forward to the recognition which must take place within a few moments. She had hated her niece long and unrelentingly, and she had never forgiven Giovanni for what she called in her heart his betrayal; but the reckoning was to be settled in full at last, and she knew that if Sister Giovanna could choose, she would rather pay it with her flesh and blood than meet what was before her now. Giovanni was looking towards the door when the nun opened it, and the strong morning light fell full on her face as she came forward. Naturally enough, her eyes were at first turned downwards towards Ugo's face, for she had already seen the Princess and Pieri was a familiar figure. She was aware that a bearded officer was standing on the other side of the chair, but she did not look at him. Giovanni's expression changed quickly; at first he saw only a strong likeness to Angela, a striking resemblance that made him wonder whether the nun could possibly be an elder sister of hers, of whom he had never heard; but by quick degrees he became sure that it was herself. She spoke to the wounded man. 'Shall we go up to your room at once?' she asked in her soft voice, bending over him. Before Ugo could answer, a name he did not know rang out, in a tone he had never heard. He did not recognise his brother's voice, it was so full of passion and joy, mingled with amazement, yet trembling with anxiety. 'Angela!' Sister Giovanna straightened herself with a spring and stood transfixed, facing Giovanni. The chair was between them. In an instant, that was an age to both, sharp lines furrowed her brow, her cheeks grew hollow, and her pale, parted lips were distorted with pain. Her face was like the Virgin Mother's, at the foot of the Cross. It was only for a moment; she threw up her arms, stiff and straight, as a man who is shot through the heart. One loud cry then, and she fell backwards. Pieri was in time and caught her before her head struck the pavement; but though he was strong and she was slightly made, the impetus of her fall dragged him down upon one knee. Giovanni could not reach her at once, for the hospital chair with the bars by which it was carried was between them and the foremost of the orderlies stood exactly in his way. He almost knocked the man over as he dashed forwards. The Princess was already bending over the unconscious Sister, with every appearance of profound sympathy; she was trying to loosen the wimple and gorget that confined the nun's cheeks and throat too closely, but the fastenings were unfamiliar and she could not find them. Giovanni, pale and determined, pushed her aside as he stooped to lift the woman he loved. Pieri helped him, and the Princess rose and stepped back to look on, now that she had shown her willingness to be of use. Ugo gazed at the scene with wide, astonished eyes, turning half round in his chair and grasping its arms to hold himself in the position. 'Open the glass door!' said the Doctor to the nearest orderly. They carried Sister Giovanna into the cloistered garden, towards the stone seat by the well, where the three old nuns used to sit in the afternoon. Before they reached the place, she opened her eyes and met Giovanni's, already haggard with fear for her, but brightening wildly as her consciousness returned; for he had believed that she had fallen dead before him. Even through the closed glass doors the Mother Superior had heard her cry and known her voice, for the window had been open to the April sunshine. The Mother could be swift when there was need, and she was downstairs and at the well almost as soon as the two men could get there, walking slowly with their burden. Exerting a strength that amazed them, she took the young nun into her arms and sat down with her, and laid the drooping head tenderly to her heart. Her own face was as still and white as marble, but neither Giovanni nor Pieri saw her eyes. 'You may go,' she said. 'I will take care of her.' In the presence of the strange officer she would not ask the Doctor what had happened. 'She fainted suddenly,' he said. 'Yes. I understand. Leave her to me.' Pieri saw that Giovanni could not move of his own free will; so he passed his arm through the young man's and whispered in his ear while he drew him away. 'You must obey for the present,' he said. 'She is in no danger.' For he had understood the truth at once, as was easy enough; and Giovanni went with him, looking back again and again and unable to speak, not yet knowing all. When the Princess had seen the Mother Superior crossing the garden, she had drawn back within the door, and the Doctor shut it when Giovanni had come in. The woman of the world had believed that she could still face the man after what she had done, and perhaps find words that would hurt him; but when she saw his eyes, she was frightened, for she had known him well. When he went straight towards her she made one step backwards, in bodily fear of him; but he spoke quietly and not rudely. 'It was your duty to warn us both,' he said. That was all, but he stood looking at her, and her fright grew; for men who live long in the wilderness gather a strength that may inspire terror when they come back to the world. The Princess turned from him without answering, and left the hall. One of the orderlies had called another nurse from within, and Ugo was taken to his room, still surprised, but already understanding, as Pieri did. The latter soon took his leave, the nurse followed him for instructions, and the brothers were alone together. 'When I left her,' Giovanni said, 'we were engaged to be married. I wrote to her just before I sailed, but she has not received the letter yet.' 'What shall you do?' asked Ugo, watching him with sympathy. 'Do? Marry her, of course! Do you suppose I have changed my mind?' 'But she is evidently a nun,' objected Ugo. 'She must have taken irrevocable vows. These nurses are not like Sisters of Charity, I believe, who make their promise for a year only and then are free during one night, to decide whether they will renew it.' Giovanni Severi laughed, but not lightly, nor carelessly, nor scornfully. It was the short, energetic laughter of a determined man who does not believe anything impossible. CHAPTER XIII After a long time, Sister Giovanna lifted her head very slowly, sat up, and passed her hand over her eyes, while the Mother Superior still kept one arm round her, thinking that she might faint again at any moment. But she did not. 'Thank you,' she said, with difficulty. 'You are very good to me, Mother. I think I can walk now.' 'Not yet.' The elder woman's hand was on her wrist, keeping her in her seat. 'I must go back to my work,' she said, but not much above a whisper. 'Not yet. When you are better, you must come to my room for a little while and rest there.' Sister Giovanna looked old then, for her face was grey and the deep lines of suffering were like furrows of age; she seemed much older than Mother Veronica, who was over forty. A minute or two passed and she made another effort, and this time the Mother helped her. She was weak but not exactly unsteady; her feet were like leaden weights that she had to lift at every step. When they were alone in the small room and the door was shut, the Mother Superior closed the window, too; for the cloister was very resonant and voices carried far. She made Sister Giovanna sit in the old horse-hair easy-chair, leaning her head against the round black and white worsted cushion that was hung across the back by a cotton cord. She herself sat in the chair she used at her writing-table. She did not know what had happened in the hall, but what she saw told her that the Sister's fainting fit had not been due only to a passing physical weakness. She herself seemed to be suffering when she spoke, and not one of all the many Sisters and novices who had come to her in distress, at one time or another, had ever seen her so much touched by pity, so humane, forbearing, and kind. 'If you would like me to understand what has happened, my dear child, you can trust me,' she said. 'If you would rather keep your secret, tell me if I can help you.' Sister Giovanna looked at her gratefully and tried to speak, but it was hard; not that she was choking, or near to shedding tears, but her lips felt stiff and cold, like a dying man's, and would not form words. But presently they came at intervals, one by one, though not distinctly, and so low that it was not easy to hear them. Yet Mother Veronica understood. Giovanni Severi, the man Angela had loved, the man who had been called dead for five years--he had come back from death--she had seen him with his brother--he had known her. She was not going to faint again, but she sank forward, bending almost double, her hands on the arms of the chair, her young head bowed with woe. There was something awful in her suffering, now that she was silent. The Mother Superior only said three words, but her voice broke as she pronounced the last. 'My poor child----' Her lips were livid, but she ruled the rising storm and sat quite still, her fingers twisted together and straining on her knee. If Sister Giovanna had looked up, she would have wondered how mere sympathy could be so deep and stirring. But she could not; her own struggle was too desperate. Minutes passed before she spoke again, and then there was a change in her, for her voice was much more steady. 'It was so easy to be good when he was dead.' She had been happy an hour ago, yesterday, last week, working and waiting for the blessed end, believing that he had died to serve his country and that God would let him meet her in heaven. Why had he come back now, too late for earth, but a lifetime too soon for heaven? It had been so easy to be strong and brave and faithful for his sake, when he was dead. It was little enough that she had said, but each word had meant a page of her life. Mother Veronica heard, and she understood. 'Pray,' she said, after a long time; and her voice came as from very far away, for she too had told her story in that one syllable. Human nature turned upon her, rebellious, with a rending cry. 'I cannot! He is alive! He is here! Don't you understand? How can I pray? For what? That he may die again? God of mercy! And if not that, can I pray to be free? Free? Free from what? Free to do what? To die? Not even that! Others will be taken, but I shall live--thirty, forty, fifty years, knowing that he is alive--knowing that I may see him any day!' The elder woman's white fingers twined round each other more desperately, for Sister Giovanna's face was turned full to her now, and their eyes were meeting; the young nun's were fierce with pain, but the Mother's were strangely lustreless and dull. 'No,' she said, mechanically answering the last words, 'you must not see him.' 'Not see him once?' Sister Giovanna leaned far forwards, grasping the arms of the easy-chair, and her voice came thick and hoarse. Did the woman with the marble face think that she, too, was made of stone? Not see the man she had loved, who had been suddenly, violently dead, who was alive again, and had come back to her? The Mother could not be in earnest! If she was, why did she not answer now? Why was she sitting there, with that strange look, silently wringing her hands? Even in her cruel distress Sister Giovanna felt a sort of wonder. Perhaps the Mother had not meant what she said, and would not speak lest she should contradict herself. The mere thought was a hope; whether for good or evil the tortured girl knew not, but it loosed her tongue. 'He will come to me!' she cried. 'He will, I tell you! You do not know him! Did you hear his voice as I did when he called me? Did you see his face? Could walls or bars keep such a man from the woman he loves? I must face him myself, and to face him I must kill something in me--cut it out, tear it up from its roots--I am only a woman after all! A nun can be a woman still, a weak woman, who has loved a man very, very dearly----' 'Oh, Angela, hush! For the love of Heaven, my child, my child!' To Sister Giovanna's unspeakable amazement, the unbending nature was breaking down, the marble saint, with the still white face, who had bidden her pray, and never see Giovanni again. She felt herself lifted from her seat and clasped in a despairing embrace; she felt the small nervous frame shaking in the storm of an emotion she could not understand, though she knew it was as great as her own and as terrible to bear, and that the heart that beat against hers was breaking, too. Neither shed a tear; tears would have been heavenly refreshment, but they would not come. Another moment and Angela felt herself sinking back into her chair, and when she opened her eyes the Mother Superior was at the table, half seated, half lying across it, on the heaps of papers and account-books, and her outstretching hands clasped the foot of the old crucifix beside the leaden inkstand. 'Miserere mei, Domine!' The voice of her prayer broke the stillness like a silver bell. Then she began to recite the greatest of the penitential psalms. 'Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice.' And by long habit, yet with some dim hope of peace, Sister Giovanna responded: 'Let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.' They said it to the end, verse answering verse, and the prayer of the King-Poet stilled the throbbing of hurts too deep to heal. Two hours after she had fainted in the hall, Sister Giovanna was doing her work in the hospital again as usual. A wonderful amount of physical resistance can be got out of moral conviction, and there is no such merciful shelter for mental distress as a uniform, from the full dress of a field-marshal to a Sister of Charity's cornet. Of the persons who had been witnesses of the scene, the Doctor and Ugo Severi could be trusted, and Princess Chiaromonte was too much afraid of Giovanni to brew gossip about his love-affair. There remained the two orderlies, who could not be prevented from telling the story to their wives and friends if they liked; but they were trusty, middle-aged men of good character; they shared the affectionate admiration for Sister Giovanna which almost every one in the Convent hospital felt for her, and they would be the very last to say a word to her discredit. These circumstances account well enough for the fact that the story did not get into the newspapers at the time. Sister Giovanna went back to her work, but she did not go near Ugo Severi, and she gave strict orders that his brother, if he came to see him again during the day, was to be accompanied to the door of the room by an orderly. As Ugo had swallowed nothing but a cup of black coffee before coming to the hospital, and was therefore in a condition to take ether, Pieri had given notice that he would operate on the injured foot at two o'clock. There would be no need for the presence of the supervising nurse, who would have no difficulty in keeping out of Giovanni's way for the present, as he would certainly not be allowed to roam the hospital in search of her. She meant to meet him once and alone, no matter how she might be hindered, and nothing that the Mother Superior or Monsignor Saracinesca could say should make it impossible. She knew that he would try every means of seeing her, and when he succeeded in making an opportunity which she could accept, she would take it, come what might; till then, she must wait, and while she was waiting she would find the strength she needed. That was her plan, and it was simple enough. She might be mistaken about many questions, but nothing could make that seem wrong which her conscience told her was right. And it was right to see him once; she was sure of it. The rest was confused and uncertain and she took no thought what she should say; she only knew she must make him understand, though it would be hard, and when that was done, she would not see him again while she lived. She meant to make that final parting a certainty by going to Rangoon with the next mission; nothing should change her determination now. Her feet were heavy that day, and her voice was dull and muffled when she gave her orders; but she made no mistakes. Many a man has fought more stubbornly and bravely after a wound and a fall than at the outset, and few men could tell themselves that they were braver than Sister Giovanna was when she recovered control of her actions after the first stunning shock. She stayed in her office as much of the time as possible. In due course the assistant head-nurse came to report that Pieri had finished his work and that Captain Ugo had recovered well from the ether; his brother was with him and would stay till eight o'clock, the hour at which all visitors were required to leave the hospital except in cases of extreme danger. Sister Giovanna nodded and wrote a few lines in the day-book. It was then half-past three. Clearly Giovanni's plan was to spend as many hours as possible under the roof, in the hope of seeing her; for though the operation had been a long one, requiring the skill of a great surgeon to perform it well, Ugo was in no danger from it, and it might be supposed that a man who had just come back from such an experience as Giovanni had lived through would wish to see a few old friends on the first day of his return, or would be obliged, at the very least, to attend to some necessary business. Sister Giovanna did not know that his return was being purposely kept a secret from the public press, and that he was far safer from reporters while he stayed in the Convent hospital than he could be in his lodging. At five o'clock the door of her office opened, and to her surprise she saw Monsignor Saracinesca standing before her, hat in hand. She could not remember that she had ever seen him there before, but it was an office, after all, and there was no reason why he should not come to it if he had business with her. She rose to receive him. He shut the door, which was the only one, bowed gravely, and took one of the two spare rush-bottomed chairs and seated himself, before he spoke. 'The Mother Superior sent for me,' he said, 'and I have been with her an hour. She has asked me to come to you. Are you at leisure?' 'Unless I am called. I am on duty.' He noticed the muffled tone and the slowness of her speech. She sat facing him, on the other side of the plain table, her open report-book before her. 'You will not blame the Mother Superior for sending me, Sister. She is in the deepest distress for you. You must have seen that, when you spoke with her this morning.' 'She was more than kind.' Monsignor Saracinesca sighed, but the nun did not notice it. Now that she knew why he had come, she needed all her strength and courage again. He went on quietly with his short explanation. Mother Veronica had told him of what had happened in the hall; he had known the rest long ago from Sister Giovanna herself. That was the substance, and he wasted no words. Then he paused, and she knew what was coming next, for he would speak of a possible meeting; but how he would regard that she could not guess, and she waited steadily for the blow if it was to be one. 'The Mother Superior thinks that you should not see him,' he said. 'I know. She told me so.' 'I do not agree with her,' said Monsignor Saracinesca slowly. The nun turned her face from the afternoon light, but said nothing; with the greatest sacrifice of her life before her she should not feel joy rising like the dawn in her eyes, at the mere thought of seeing the man whose love she must renounce. 'We are human,' said the churchman, 'and our victories must be human, to be worth anything. It was in His humanity that Christ suffered and overcame. It is not victory to slink from the fight and shut oneself up in a fortress that is guarded by others. Men and women must be good men and women in this world if they hope to be saints hereafter, and there is no such thing as inactive goodness.' Sister Giovanna looked at him again, but still she did not speak. 'Though I am a priest,' continued Monsignor Saracinesca, 'I am a man of the world in the sense of having belonged to it, and I now live less apart from it than I could wish, though it is not such a thoroughly bad place as those say who do not know it. I do not feel that I got rid of all obligations to those who still belong to it when I was ordained, and I do not think that when you took the veil in a working order, you dropped all obligation to the persons with whom you had lived till then. In doing so, you might be depriving some one else of a right.' Sister Giovanna listened to this exposition in silence and tried to follow it. 'In my opinion,' the prelate went on, 'Giovanni Severi has a just claim to see you. I speak under authority and I may be wrong, but it can only be a matter of judgment and of opinion, and since your Mother Superior has asked for mine, I give it as well as I can. You are not a cloistered nun, Sister. There is no reason why you should not receive a friend whom you have believed to be dead for years and who has unexpectedly come back to life.' 'Back to the life I left for his sake!' Again she looked away from the light, but her face could not turn whiter than it was. 'It was terribly sudden,' said Monsignor Saracinesca, after a moment's pause. 'You will no doubt wait a few days before seeing him, till you feel quite able to face what must be a very painful interview.' 'I am not afraid of it now. I was weak when we recognised each other. I cannot quite remember--I heard him call me and I saw his eyes----' 'And you must have fainted. You were carried out to the well at once.' 'Who carried me?' asked the nun quickly. 'Doctor Pieri and Giovanni Severi.' She made a slight movement. 'He carried me!' She spoke almost unconsciously, and a very faint glow rose through her paleness, as when white glass is warmed an instant in the mouth of the furnace and then drawn back and quickly cooled again. 'Shall I talk with him before you meet?' asked the churchman presently. Sister Giovanna did not answer at once; she seemed to be thinking. 'You know better than any one what my life has been,' she said at last. 'It was to you that I went for advice five years ago, and again before I took the veil. If you had thought it even distantly possible that he might be alive, you would not have let me take final vows.' 'Heaven forbid!' answered Monsignor Saracinesca very earnestly. 'Though I believed him dead, you knew that I loved him with all my heart.' 'Yes. As dearly as when you had last seen him alive.' 'I love him still. Is that wrong?' 'No.' He said the word without hesitation, in all sincerity and true conviction, but the nun had expected another answer; a quick movement of the head showed that she was surprised. 'Are you sure?' she asked in a low and wondering tone. 'Yes, because I am sure that your love for him is as innocent as it ever was. The religious life is not meant to kill human affection. Saint Benedict loved his sister Scholastica devotedly; Saint Francis was probably more sincerely attached to Saint Clare than to any living person.' 'I only know that I love him as dearly as ever,' said Sister Giovanna. The churchman looked at her keenly for a moment, and she did not avoid his eyes. 'Would you break your vows for him?' he asked, with sudden directness. The nun started as if he had struck her and half rose from her chair. 'Break my vows?' she cried, her eyes blazing with indignation. But Monsignor Saracinesca only nodded and laid his thin hand flat on the table, towards her. She sank to her seat again. 'Then I know that, although you may love him more than any one in the world, you do not love him better than the work you have promised to do.' 'Heaven forbid!' He had used the very same expression a few moments earlier, but with a different tone; for him it had been an asseveration of good faith, but with her it was more like a prayer. She had resented his question as if it had been an insult, but when he showed how much he trusted her, she began to distrust herself. She would die the martyr's death rather than break her vows in deed, but she was too diffident of her own womanhood not to fear a fall from the dignity of heartfelt resignation to the inward ignominy of an earthly regret. Besides, 'the work she had promised to do' had been promised for his sake, not for its own; not for any gain to her soul, but in the earnest hope that it might profit his, by God's mercy. Since he was not dead, but alive, the chief purpose of it died with his return to life. She did not love the work she had promised to do more than she loved him; that was not true, and never had been. All had been for him--her vow, her work, and her prayers. Heaven forbid, indeed, that she should now set him before them; yet it was hard not to do so and there was only one possible way; in a changed sense they must be given for him still, and for his salvation, else she could not give at all. Monsignor Saracinesca had watched her progress from her noviciate to her present position of responsibility, and had often spoken of her with the Mother Superior. He would not have advised every nun to do what he thought best in her case. There was not another in the community, except the Mother herself, whom he would have trusted so fully. But, being what she was, his honourable sense of justice to a man who had suffered much and must suffer more impelled him to act as he did. As he himself said, it was a matter of opinion and judgment, and his own approved the course. Those may blame him who think otherwise, but no one can find fault with Sister Giovanna for following his advice; she had a right to believe that it was the best, and as for herself, she had never hesitated. The mere suggestion that she should not see Giovanni at least once and alone looked to her outrageous and contrary to all sense, as perhaps it was. Monsignor Saracinesca would see him first and arrange the meeting. He thought it should take place in the cloistered garden. 'Why not here, in my office?' asked the nun. But the churchman objected. If the two were to talk together, out of hearing, they must not be out of sight. Never, under any circumstances, should any one be able to say that there had been any secrecy about their interview. He himself would bring Giovanni to the place and the Mother Superior would accompany the nun. He and the Mother would withdraw into the hall and wait until Sister Giovanna dismissed Severi. The Mother would then join her, and Monsignor Saracinesca would go away with Giovanni. In order to forestall evil speaking more effectually, the two should meet on the afternoon of the day on which the nun's week of duty as supervising nurse came to an end. On that evening she would go away to nurse a private case, and before that patient was recovered, Ugo Severi would certainly be well enough to go home, and Giovanni's daily visits to the hospital would have ceased. It would thus be easy to prove that after their only interview, in what might be called a public place, they had not been within the same walls at the same time. No one who has watched the politics of the so-called 'socialist' party in Rome during the past twenty years will wonder at these precautions nor even call them exaggerated. To all intents and purposes the 'Vatican question' has ceased to exist; the Italian Government may fairly be said to be at peace with the Church; the old bitterness may survive amongst certain prejudiced people, chiefly in small towns, but the spirit of this time is a spirit of good-will and mutual forbearance, and the forces that were once so fiercely opposed actually work together for the common good in many more cases than the world knows of. The first article of the Italian Constitution states that the religion of the Kingdom is that of the Roman Catholic Church; it is, and it will continue to be, and no attempt will ever be made on the part of the Monarchy to change or to cancel that opening clause. The danger to which the Church is exposed lies in another quarter, and threatens not only the Church, but Christianity in all its forms; not only Christianity, but the Monarchy; and not the Monarchy only, but all constitutional and civilised government. It is anarchy; and though it boasts itself to be socialism, true socialists disclaim it and its doings and all its opinions. If it can be so far honoured as to be counted as a party, it is the party that murdered King Humbert, that assassinated the Empress of Austria, and that would sooner or later kill the Pope, if he left the safe refuge which some persons still insist on calling his prison. It is the party that continually spies upon all religious and charitable institutions in Rome, and does not hesitate to invent stories of crime outright when it fails to detect one of those little flaws which its press magnifies to stains of abomination. Monsignor Saracinesca understood these things better than the others concerned, and at least as well as any one in Rome. As for Giovanni, he had known him a little in former days and took him to be a man of honour, who would submit to any conditions necessary for protecting the nun from calumny. But he could hardly believe that the young officer's feelings had undergone no change in five years, for he judged men as most men judge each other. It was one thing to fall in love with a charming young girl in her first season; it was quite another to love her faithfully for five years, without ever seeing her or hearing from her, and to feel no disappointment on finding her as much changed as Angela was now, pale, sorrow-worn, and of no particular age. The true bloom of youth is something real, but it rarely lasts more than two years; it is as subtle and indescribable as the bloom of growing roses, which is gone within an hour after they are cut, though their beauty may be preserved for many days. There was the nun's habit, too, and the veil and wimple, proclaiming another and a greater change from which there was no return. Ippolito Saracinesca had never been in love, even in his early youth; it was no wonder that he was mistaken in such a man as Giovanni Severi. The only danger he reckoned with lay in Sister Giovanna's own heart, and he felt that he could count on her courage, her self-respect, and most of all on her profoundly religious nature. No danger is ever overcome without danger, said Mimos. In the case of such a woman it was better, for her sake, to accept such risk as there might be in a single interview which must be decisive and final, than to let her live on haunted by disturbing memories and harassed by regret. CHAPTER XIV It was raining when Giovanni and Monsignor Saracinesca rang at the door of the Convent. The Mother Superior had ordered two rush-bottomed chairs to be brought out of the hall and placed under the shelter of the cloister just on one side of the glass door; for Sister Giovanna was to receive a visit, as she explained, from an officer who had known her father and had business with her. Such things had happened before in the community, and the lay sister was not surprised. She carried the chairs out and set them in what she considered a proper position, about two yards apart and both facing the garden. The rain fell softly and steadily, the sky was of an even dove-grey, and the smell of the damp earth and the early spring flowers filled the cloister. Giovanni was a soldier and would impose his military punctuality upon the prelate, who, like most churchmen, had a clearer idea of eternity than of definite time. As the Convent clock was striking, therefore, the Mother Superior and Sister Giovanna came down the narrow stairs, for they had been together a quarter of an hour, though they had scarcely exchanged half-a-dozen words. They walked slowly round under the vaulted cloister, the Mother on the right, the nun on the left, according to the rigid custom, and they had just turned the last corner and were in sight of the two chairs when the glass door opened. Monsignor Saracinesca's voice was heard. 'Remember what I have said. I trust you, and you know that the cloister is open to every one.' 'Yes,' Giovanni answered, as both appeared on the threshold. They saw the two nuns already near and made a few steps to meet them. Monsignor Saracinesca greeted the Mother, who bent her head as she answered him; Giovanni stood still, his eyes fixed on Angela's face. But she looked steadily down at the flagstones, and her hands were hidden under the broad scapular of white cloth that hung straight down from under her gorget to her feet. There are no awkward silences when churchmen or nuns meet, still less if the meeting takes place by appointment, for each knows exactly what he or she is expected to say and says it, deliberately and without hesitation. In less than a minute after they had met, the Mother and Monsignor Saracinesca entered the hall together and closed the glass door after them. The soldier and the nun were face to face at last. As soon as Giovanni heard the door shut he made one step forward and stretched out both his hands, thinking to take hers. She made no movement, but raised her eyes, and when he saw them, they were still and dull. Then she slowly held out her right hand, and it was cold and inert when he took it. She drew back at once and sat down, and he took the other chair, bringing it a little nearer, and turning it so that he could see her. He was cruelly disappointed, but he was the first to speak. 'I thought you were glad to know that I am alive,' he said coldly, 'but I see that you were only frightened, the other day. I am sorry to have startled you.' She steadied herself before answering. 'Yes, I was startled. Your letter did not reach me till afterwards.' The garden was whirling before her as if she were being put under ether, and the little twisted columns that upheld the arches of the cloister chased each other furiously, till she thought she was going to fall from her chair. She could not hear what he said next, for a surging roar filled her ears as when the surf breaks at an angle on a long beach and sounds one deep, uninterrupted note. He was explaining why the mail steamer had not reached Italy several days before him, but she did not understand; she only knew when he ceased speaking. 'It is the inevitable--always the inevitable,' she said, making a desperate effort and yet not saying anything she wished to say. But her tone told him how deeply she was moved, and his fiery energy broke out. 'Nothing is inevitable!' he cried. 'There is nothing that cannot be undone, if I can live to undo it!' That was not what she expected, if she expected anything, but it brought back her controlling self that had been dazed and wandering and had left her almost helpless. She started and turned her face full to his, but drawing back in her chair. 'What do you mean?' she asked. 'Angela!' The appeal of love was in his voice, as he bent far forward, but she raised her hand in warning. 'No, "Sister Giovanna," please,' she said, checking him, though gently. He felt the slight rebuke, and remembered that the place was public to the community. 'It was not by chance that you took my name with the veil,' he said, almost in a whisper. 'Did you love me then?' 'I believed that you had been dead two years,' answered the nun slowly. 'But did you love me still, when I was dead?' 'Yes.' She did not lower her voice, for she was not ashamed, but she looked down. He forgot her rebuke, and called her by her old name again, that had meant life and hope and everything to him through years of captivity. 'Angela!' He did not heed her gesture now, nor the quick word she spoke. 'Yes, I will call you Angela--you love me now----' She checked him again, with more energy. 'Hush! If you cannot be reasonable, I shall go away!' 'Reasonable!' There was contempt in his tone, but he sat upright again and said no more. 'Listen to me,' said Sister Giovanna, finding some strength in the small advantage she had just gained. 'I have not let you come here in order to torment you or cheat you, and I mean to tell you the truth. You have a right to know it, and I still have the right to tell it, because there is nothing in it of which I am ashamed. Will you hear me quietly, whatever I say?' 'Yes, I will. But I cannot promise not to answer, when you have done.' 'There is no answer to what I am going to say. It is to be final.' 'We shall see,' said Giovanni gravely, though with no conviction. But the nun was satisfied, for he was clearly willing to listen. The meeting had disturbed her peace even more than she had expected, but she had done her best during several days to prepare herself for it, and had found strength to decide what she must say, and to repeat it over and over again till she knew it by heart. 'You were reported to be dead,' she began--'killed with the rest of them. You had your share in the great military funeral, and I, and all the world, believed that you were buried with your comrades. Your name is engraved with theirs upon their tomb, in the roll of honour, as that of a man who perished in his country's service. I went there with Madame Bernard before I began my noviciate, and I went again, for the last time, before I took the veil. I had loved you living and I loved you dead.' Giovanni moved as if he were going to speak, but she would not let him. 'No, hear me!' she cried anxiously. 'I offered God my life and my strength for your sake, and if I have done any good here in five years, as novice and nun, it has been in the hope that it might be accepted for you, if your soul needed it. Though you may not believe in such things, do you at least understand me?' 'Indeed I do, and I am grateful--most grateful.' She was a little disappointed by his tone, for he spoke with an evident effort. 'It was gladly given,' she said. 'But now you have come back to life----' She hesitated. With all her courage and strength, she could not quite control her memory, and the words she had prepared so carefully were suddenly confused. Giovanni completed the sentence for her in his own way. 'I have come to life to find you dead for me, as I have been dead for you. Is that what you were going to say?' She was still hesitating. 'Was it that?' he insisted. 'No,' she answered, at last. 'Not dead for you--alive for you.' He would have caught at a straw, and the joy came into his face as he quickly held out his hand to her; but she would not take it: hers were both hidden under her white cloth scapular and she shrank from him. The light went out of his eyes. 'I might have known!' he said, deeply disappointed. 'You do not mean it. I suppose you will explain that you are alive to pray for me!' 'You promised to listen quietly, whatever I might say.' 'Yes.' He controlled himself. 'I will,' he added, after a moment. 'Go on.' 'I am not changed,' said Sister Giovanna, 'but my life is. That is what I meant by the inevitable. No person can undo what I have done'--Giovanni moved impatiently--'no power can loose me from my vows.' In spite of himself, the man's temper broke out. 'You are mad,' he answered roughly, 'or else you do not know that you can be free.' 'Hush!' cried the nun, trying once more to check him. 'Your promise--remember it!' 'I break it! I will not listen meekly to such folly! Before you took the vow, you had given me your word, as I gave you mine, that we would be man and wife, and since I am not dead, no promise or oath made after that is binding! I know that you love me still, as you did then, and if you will not try to free yourself, then by all you believe, and by all I honour, I will set you free!' It was a challenge if it was not a threat, and Sister Giovanna defended herself as she could. But she was painfully conscious that something in her responded with a thrill to the cry of the pursuer. Nevertheless, she answered with a firm refusal. 'You cannot make me do what I will not,' she said. 'I can and I will!' he retorted vehemently. 'It is monstrous that you should be bound by a promise made in ignorance, under a wretched mistake, on a false report that I was dead!' 'We were not even formally betrothed----' 'We loved each other,' interrupted Giovanni, 'and we had told each other so. That is enough. We belong to each other just as truly as if we were man and wife----' 'Even if we were,' said the nun, interrupting him in her turn, 'if I had taken my vows in the belief that my husband had been dead for years, I would not ask to be released!' He stared at her, his temper suddenly chilled in amazement. 'But if it were a mistake,' he objected, 'if the Pope offered you a dispensation, would you refuse it?' Sister Giovanna was prepared, for she had thought of that. 'If you had given a man your word of honour to pay a debt you owed him, would you break your promise if you suddenly found that you could use the money in another way, which would give you the keenest pleasure?' 'That is quite different! How can you ask such an absurd question?' 'It is not absurd, and the case is not so different as you think. I have given my word to God in heaven, and I must pay my debt.' Giovanni was indignant again, and rebelled. 'You used to tell me that your God was just!' 'And I have heard you say that your only god was honour!' retorted the nun. 'Yes!' he answered hotly. 'It is! Honour teaches that the first promise given must be fulfilled before all others!' 'I have been taught that vows made to God must not be broken.' She rose, as if the speech were final. Though they had been talking only a few minutes, she already felt that she could not bear much more. 'Surely you are not going already!' he cried, starting to his feet. Sister Giovanna turned so that she was face to face with him. 'What is there left to say?' she asked, with a great effort. 'Everything! I told you that I would answer when you had finished, and now that you have nothing left to say, you must hear me! You said you would----' 'I said that there could be no answer.' Nevertheless she waited, motionless. 'But there is! The answer is that I will free you from the slavery to which you have sold your soul! The answer is, I love you, and it is yourself I love, the woman you are now, not the memory of your shadow from long ago, but you, you, your very self!' Half out of his mind, he tried to seize her by the arm, to draw her to him; but he only caught her sleeve, and dropped it as she sprang back with a lightness and maiden grace that almost drove him mad. She drew herself up, offended and hurt. 'Remember what I am, and where you are!' Giovanni's manner changed so suddenly that she would have been suspicious, if she had not been too much disturbed to reason. She fancied that she still controlled him. 'You are right,' he said; 'I beg your pardon. Only tell me when I may see you again.' 'Not for a long time--not till you can give me your word that you will control yourself. Till then, we must say good-bye.' He was so quiet, all at once, that it was easier to say the word than she had expected. 'No,' he answered, 'not good-bye, for even if you will not see me, I shall be near you.' 'Near? Where?' 'I am living in my brother's rooms at the Magazine. I am in charge till he gets well. I asked permission to take his place on the day I arrived, from the Minister himself.' 'You have taken his place!' She could not keep her anxiety out of her voice. 'Yes, and I hope to get a shot at the fellow who wounded Ugo. But the post suits me, for the upper part of this house is in sight of my windows. If you look out towards the river, you can see where I live.' He spoke so gently that she lingered instead of leaving him at once, as she had meant to do. 'And besides,' he went on, in the same tone, 'I shall come here every day until my brother can go home. I may meet you at any moment, in going to his room. You will not refuse to speak to me, will you?' He smiled. He seemed quite changed within a few moments. But she shook her head. 'You will not see me here again,' she answered, 'for my week's turn as supervising nurse will be over this evening and I am going to a private case.' 'To-night?' Giovanni asked, with a little surprise. 'Yes, to-night.' 'Do you mean to say that you do not even have a day's rest after being on duty a whole week? What a life! But they must give you a few hours, surely! What time do you go off duty, and at what time do you go to your new patient? I suppose they send for you?' 'Yes, at about eight o'clock. That is the usual time, but I never know long beforehand. Arrangements of that sort are all made by the Mother Superior.' It did not seem unnatural that he should ask questions about her occupation, now that he was calmer, nor could she think it wrong to answer them. Any one might have listened to what they were saying. 'I daresay you do not even know where you are going this evening?' Giovanni said. She thought that he was talking only to keep her with him a little longer. Overstrained as she had been, it was a relief to exchange a few words quietly before parting from him. 'It is true,' she answered, after a moment's thought. 'I daresay the Mother Superior mentioned the name of the family, but if she did I have forgotten it. I shall get my instructions before I leave the house, as usual. I only know that it is a new case.' 'Yes,' Giovanni said, as if it did not interest him further. 'All the same, it is a shame that you should be made to work so hard! Before I go, tell me that you have forgiven me for losing my head just now. I think you have, but I want to hear you say so. Will you?' It seemed little enough to forgive. Sister Giovanna felt so much relieved by his change of manner that she was even able to smile faintly. If he would always be as gentle, she could perhaps ask leave to see him again in six months. Now that the storm was over, it was a pure and innocent happiness to be with him. 'You will not do it again,' she said simply. 'Of course I forgive you.' 'Thank you. It is all I can expect, since you have told me that I was asking the impossible. You see Madame Bernard sometimes, do you not?' 'Yes. Almost every week.' 'She will give me news of you. I suppose I must not send you a message by her. That would be against the rules!' 'The message might be!' Sister Giovanna actually smiled again. 'But if it is not, there is no reason why she should not bring me a greeting from you.' 'But not a letter?' 'No. I would not take it from her. It would have to be given to the Mother Superior. If she were willing to receive it at all, it would be her duty to read it, and she would judge whether it should be given to me or not.' 'Is that the rule?' Giovanni asked, more indifferently than she had expected. 'Yes. It is the rule in our order. If it were not, who could prevent any one from writing to a nun?' 'I was not finding fault with it. I must not keep you standing here any longer. If you will not sit down and talk a little more, I had better be going.' 'Yes. You have been here long enough, I think.' He did not press her. He was so submissive that if he had begged permission to stay a few minutes more she would have consented, and she wished he would, when she saw him holding out his hand to say good-bye; but she was too well pleased at having dominated his wild temper to make a suggestion which might betray weakness in herself. She took his hand and was a little surprised to find it as cold as hers had been when he came; but his face was not pale--she forgot that five years of Africa had bronzed it too much for paleness--and he was very quiet and collected. She went to the door of the hall with him and opened it before he could do so for himself. They parted almost like mere acquaintances, he bowing on the step, she bending her head. The Mother Superior and Monsignor Saracinesca had been sitting by the table, talking, but both had risen and come forward as soon as the pair appeared outside the glass door. It all passed off very satisfactorily, and the Mother Superior gave a little sigh of relief when the churchman and the soldier went away together, leaving her and Sister Giovanna standing in the hall. She felt that Monsignor Saracinesca had been right, after all, in approving the meeting, and that she had been mistaken in thinking that it must endanger the nun's peace. She said nothing, but she was quietly pleased, and a rare, sweet smile softened her marble features. She asked no questions about what had passed, being quite sure that all was well, and that if there had ever been anything to fear, it was gone. The prelate and Giovanni walked along the quiet street in silence for some distance; then Severi stopped suddenly, as many Italians do when they are going to say something important. 'You will help me, I am sure,' he said, speaking impetuously from the first. 'Though I never knew you well in old times, I always felt that you were friendly. You will not allow her to ruin both our lives, will you?' 'What sort of help do you want from me?' asked the tall churchman, bending his eyes to the energetic young face. 'The simplest thing in the world!' Giovanni answered. 'We were engaged to be married when I left with that ill-fated expedition. She thought me dead. She must be released from her vows at once! That is all.' 'It is out of the question,' answered Monsignor Saracinesca, with supernal calm. 'Out of the question?' Giovanni frowned angrily. 'Do you mean that it cannot be done? But it is only common justice! She is as much my wife as if you had married us and I had left her at the altar to go to Africa! You cannot be in earnest!' 'I am. In the first place, there is no ground for granting a dispensation.' 'No ground?' cried Severi indignantly. 'We loved each other, we meant to marry! Is that no reason?' 'No. You were not even formally betrothed, either before your parish priest or the mayor. Without a solemn promise in the proper form and before witnesses, there is no binding engagement to marry. That is not only canonical law, but Italian common law, too.' 'We had told each other,' Giovanni objected. 'That was enough.' 'You are wrong,' answered Monsignor Saracinesca gently. 'The Church will do nothing that the law would not do, and the law would not release Sister Giovanna, or any one else, from a legal obligation taken under the same circumstances as the religious one she has assumed.' 'What do you mean?' 'This. If, instead of becoming a nun, Angela had married another man after you were lost, Italian law would not annul the marriage in order that she might become your wife.' 'Of course not!' 'Then why should the Church annul an obligation which is quite as solemn as marriage?' Giovanni thought he had caught the churchman in a fallacy. 'I beg your pardon,' he replied. 'I was taught as a boy that marriage is a sacrament, but I never heard that taking the veil was one!' 'Quite right, in principle. In reality, it is considered, for women, the equivalent of ordination, and therefore as being of the nature of a sacrament.' 'I am not a theologian, to discuss equivalents,' retorted Giovanni roughly. 'Very true, but a man who knows nothing of mathematics may safely accept the statement of a mathematician about a simple problem. That is not the point, however. If you remember, I said that "under the same circumstances" the Church would not do what the law would not. The Church considers a nun's final vows to be as binding under its regulations as the law considers that any civil contract is. The "circumstances" are therefore exactly similar.' Giovanni was no match for his cool antagonist in an argument. He cut the discussion short by a direct question. 'Is it in the Pope's power to release Sister Giovanna from her vows, or not?' 'Yes. It is--in principle.' 'Then put your principles into practice and make him do it!' cried the soldier rudely. Monsignor Saracinesca was unmoved by this attack, which he answered with calm dignity. 'My dear Captain,' he said, 'in the first place, no one can "make" the Pope do things. That is not a respectful way of speaking.' Giovanni was naturally courteous and he felt that he had gone too far. 'I beg your pardon,' he answered. 'I mean no disrespect to the Pope, though I tell you frankly that I do not believe in much, and not at all in his authority. What I ask is common justice and your help as a friend. I ask you to go to him and lay the case before him fairly, as before a just man, which I heartily believe him to be. You will see that he will do what you admit is in his power and give Sister Giovanna her dispensation.' 'If you and she had been married before your disappearance,' argued the churchman, 'His Holiness would assuredly not refuse. If you had been solemnly betrothed before your parish priest as well as legally promised in marriage at the Capitol, he might make an exception, though a civil betrothal is valid only for six months, under Italian law. But there was no marriage and no such engagement.' Giovanni found himself led into argument again. 'We had intended to bind ourselves formally,' he objected. 'I have heard it said by priests that everything depends on the intention and that without it the most solemn sacrament is an empty show! Will you doubt our intention if I give you my word that it was mine, and if Sister Giovanna assures you that it was hers?' 'Certainly not! The Pope would not doubt you either, I am sure.' 'Then, in the name of all that is just and right, what is the obstacle? If you admit that the intention is the one important point, and that it existed, what ground have you left?' 'That is begging the question, Captain. It is true that without the intention a sacrament is an empty show, but the intention without the sacrament is of no more value than intention without performance would be in law. Less, perhaps. There is another point, however, which you have quite overlooked. If a request for a dispensation were even to be considered, it ought to come from Sister Giovanna herself.' 'And you will never allow her to ask for her freedom!' cried Giovanni angrily. 'That settles it, I suppose! Oh, the tyranny of the Church!' Monsignor Saracinesca's calm was not in the least disturbed by this outbreak, and he answered with unruffled dignity. 'That is easily said, Captain. You have just been speaking with Sister Giovanna and I daresay you talked of this. What was her answer?' 'She is under the influence of her surroundings, of course! What could I expect?' But the churchman had a right to a more direct reply. 'Did she refuse to listen to your suggestion that she should leave her order?' he asked. Giovanni did not like to admit the fact, and paused a moment before answering; but he was too truthful to quibble. 'Yes, she did.' 'What reason did she give for refusing?' 'None!' 'Did she merely say, "No, I will not"?' 'You are cross-examining me!' Giovanni fancied that he had a right to be offended. 'No,' protested Monsignor Saracinesca, 'or at least not with the intention of catching you in your own words. You made an unfair assertion; I have a right to ask a fair question. If I were not a priest, but simply Ippolito Saracinesca, and if you accused me or my family of unjust dealings, you would be glad to give me an opportunity of defending my position, as man to man. But because I am a priest you deny me that right. Are you just?' 'I did not accuse you personally,' argued the younger man. 'I meant that the Church would never allow Sister Giovanna to ask for her freedom.' 'The greater includes the less,' replied the other. 'The Church is my family, it includes myself, and I claim the right to defend it against an unjust accusation. Sister Giovanna is as free to ask for a dispensation as you were to resign from the army when you were ordered to join an expedition in which you nearly lost your life.' 'You say so!' Severi was incredulous. 'It is the truth. Sister Giovanna has devoted herself to a cause in which she too may risk her life.' 'The risk a nurse runs nowadays is not great!' 'You are mistaken. If she carries out her intention, she will be exposed to a great danger.' 'What intention?' asked Giovanni, instantly filled with anxiety. 'She has asked permission to join the other Sisters of the order who are going out to Rangoon to nurse the lepers there.' 'Lepers!' Severi's features were convulsed with horror. 'She, nurse lepers! It is not possible! It is certain death.' 'No, it is not certain death, by any means, but you will admit the risk.' Giovanni was beside himself in an instant. 'She shall not go!' he cried furiously. 'You shall not make her kill herself, make her commit suicide, for your glorification--that what you call your Church may add another martyr to its death-roll! You shall not, I say! Do you hear me?' He grasped the prelate's arm roughly. 'If you must have martyrs, go yourselves! Risk your own lives for your own glory, instead of sacrificing women on your altars--women who should live to be wives and mothers, an honour to mankind!' 'You are utterly unjust----' 'No, I am human, and I will not tolerate your human sacrifice! I am a man, and I will not let the woman I love be sent to a horrible death, to delight your Moloch of a God!' 'Captain Severi, you are raving.' Giovanni's fiery rage leapt from invective to sarcasm. 'Raving! That is your answer, that is the sum of your churchman's argument! A man who will not let you make a martyr of the woman he adores is raving! Do you find that in Saint Thomas Aquinas, or in Saint Augustine, or in Saint Jerome?' He dropped his voice and suddenly spoke with cold deliberation. 'She shall not go. I swear that I will make it impossible.' Monsignor Saracinesca shook his head. 'If that is an oath,' he said, 'it is a foolish one. If it is a threat, it is unworthy of you.' 'Take it how you will. It is my last word.' 'May you never regret it,' answered the prelate, lifting his three-cornered hat; for Giovanni was saluting, with the evident intention of leaving him at once. So they parted. CHAPTER XV A carriage came early for Sister Giovanna that evening, and the footman sent in a message by the portress. The patient was worse, he said, and the doctor hoped that the nurse would come as soon as she conveniently could. She came down in less than five minutes, in her wide black cloak, carrying her little black bag in her hand. It was raining heavily and she drew the hood up over her head before she left the threshold, though the servant was holding up a large umbrella. The portress had asked the usual questions of him as soon as he presented himself, but Sister Giovanna repeated them. Was the carriage from the Villino Barini? It was. To take the nurse who was wanted for Baroness Barini? Yes; the Signora Baronessa was worse, and that was why the carriage had come half-an-hour earlier. The door of the brougham was shut with a sharp snap, the footman sprang to the box with more than an average flunkey's agility, and the nun was driven rapidly away. Knowing that the house she was going to was one of those little modern villas on the slope of the Janiculum which have no arched entrance and often have no particular shelter at the front door, she did not take the trouble to push her hood back, as she would need it again so soon. In about ten minutes the carriage stopped, the footman jumped down with his open umbrella in his hand, and let her into the house. Before she could ask whether she had better leave her cloak in the hall, the man was leading the way upstairs; it was rather dark, but she felt that the carpet under her feet was thick and soft. She followed lightly, and a moment later she was admitted to a well-lighted room that looked like a man's library; the footman disappeared and shut the door, and the latch made a noise as if the key were being turned; as she supposed such a thing to be out of the question, however, she was ashamed to go and try the lock. She thought she was in the study of the master of the house and that some one would come for her at once, and she stood still in the middle of the room; setting down her bag on a chair, she pushed the hood back from her head carefully, as nuns do, in order not to discompose the rather complicated arrangement of the veil and head-band. She had scarcely done this when, as she expected, a door at the end of the room was opened. But it was not a stranger that entered; to her unspeakable amazement, it was Giovanni Severi. In a flash she understood that by some trick she had been brought to his brother's dwelling. She was alone with him and the door was locked on the outside. She laid one hand on the back of the nearest chair, to steady herself, wondering whether she were not really lying ill in her bed and dreaming in the delirium of a fever. But it was no dream; he was standing before her, looking into her face, and his own was stern and dark as an Arab's. When he spoke at last, his voice was low and determined. 'Yes. You are in my house.' Her tongue was loosed, with a cry of indignation. 'If you are not a madman, let me go!' 'I am not mad.' His eyes terrified her, and she backed away from him towards the locked door. She almost shrieked for fear. 'If you have a spark of human feeling, let me out!' 'I am human,' he answered grimly, but he did not move to follow her. 'By whatever you hold sacred, let me go!' She was wrenching at the lock in despair with both hands, but sideways, while she kept her eyes on his. 'I hold you sacred--nothing else.' 'Sacred!' Her anger began to outbrave her terror now. 'Sacred, and you have trapped me by a vile trick!' 'Yes,' he answered, 'I admit that.' He had not moved again and there was a window near her. She sprang to it and thrust the curtains aside, hoping to open the frame before he could stop her. But though she moved the fastenings easily, she could do no more, with all her strength, and Giovanni still stood motionless, watching her. 'You cannot open that window,' he said quietly. 'If you scream, no one will hear you. Do you think I would have brought you to a place where you could get help merely by crying out for it? The risk was too great. I have made sure of being alone with you as long as I choose.' The nun drew herself up against the red curtains. 'I did not know that you were a coward,' she said. 'I am what you have made me, brave, cowardly, desperate--anything you choose to call it! But such as I am, you must hear me to the end this time, for you have no choice.' Sister Giovanna understood that there was no escape and she stood quite still; but he saw that her lips moved a little. 'God is not here,' he said, in a hard voice, for he knew that she was praying. 'God is here,' she answered, crossing her hands on her breast. He came a step nearer and leaned on the back of a chair; he was evidently controlling himself, for his movements were studiedly deliberate, though his voice was beginning to shake ominously. 'If God is with you, Angela, then He shall hear that I love you and that you are mine, not His! He shall listen while I tell you that I will not give you up to be murdered by priests for His glory! Do what He will, He shall not have you. I defy Him!' The nun shrank against the curtain, not from the man, but at the words. 'At least, do not blaspheme!' 'I must, if it is blasphemy to love you.' 'Yours is not love. Would to heaven it were, as I thought it was to-day. Love is gentle, generous, tender----' 'Then be all three to me; for you love me, in spite of everything!' 'You have taught me to forget that I ever did,' she answered. 'Learn to remember that you did, to realise that you do, and forget only that I have used a trick to bring you here--a harmless trick, one carriage for another, my brother's orderly for a servant. I found out from Madame Bernard where you were going and I sent for you before the hour. You are as safe here as if you were praying in your chapel; in a few minutes the carriage will take you back, you will say you got into the wrong one by mistake, which is quite true, and the right one will take you where you are to go; you will be scarcely half-an-hour late and no one will ever know anything more about it.' Sister Giovanna had listened patiently to his explanation, and believed what he said. He had always been impulsive to rashness, but now that her first surprise had subsided she was less afraid. He had evidently yielded to a strong temptation with the idea of forcing her to listen to him, and in reality, if she had understood herself, she was not able to believe that he would hurt her or bring any disgrace upon her. 'If you are in earnest,' she said, when he had finished, 'then let me go at once.' 'Presently,' he answered. 'This afternoon you made me promise to hear quietly what you had to say, and I did my best. I could not help your being frightened just now, I suppose--after all, I have carried you off from the door of your Convent, and I meant you to understand that you were helpless, and must listen. I ought to have put it differently, but I am not clever at such things. All I ask is that you will hear me. After all, that is what you asked of me to-day.' He had begun to walk up and down before her, while he was speaking; but he did not come near her, for the chair stood between her and the line along which he was pacing backwards and forwards. Something in his way of speaking reassured her, as he jerked out the rather disconnected sentences. Women often make the mistake of thinking that when we men begin to stumble away from the straight chalk-line of that logic in which we are supposed by them to take such pride, our purpose is wavering, whereas the opposite is often the case. Men capable of sudden, direct, and strong action are often poor talkers, particularly when they are just going to spring or strike. A little hesitation is more often the sign of a near outbreak than of any inward weakening. But Sister Giovanna was deceived. 'I shall be forced to listen, if you insist,' she said, moving half a step forward from the curtain, 'but how can I trust you, while I am your prisoner?' 'You can trust me, if you will be generous,' Giovanni answered. 'I do not know what you mean by the word,' replied the nun cautiously. 'If I am not generous, as you mean it, what then?' Severi stopped in his walk; his face began to darken again, and his voice was rough and hard. 'What then? Why then, remember what I am and where you are!' Sister Giovanna drew back again. 'I would rather trust in God than trust you when you speak in that tone,' she said. He had used the very words she had spoken in the cloister when he had tried to take her by the arm, but they had a very different meaning now; his dangerous temper was rising again and he was threatening her. Yet her answer produced an effect she was far from expecting. He turned to the writing-table near him, opened one of the drawers and took out an army revolver. Sister Giovanna watched him. If he was only going to kill her she was not afraid. 'I will force you to trust me,' he said, quickly examining the charge as he came towards her. 'By threatening me with that thing?' she asked with contempt. 'You are mistaken!' He was close to her, but he offered her the butt-end of the weapon. 'No,' he said, 'I am not mistaken. It is I who fear death, as long as you are alive, and here it is, in your hand.' But she would not take the revolver from him. 'You will not take it? Well, there it is.' He laid it on the chair, which he placed beside her. 'If I come too near you, or try to touch even your sleeve, you can use it. The law will acquit you, and even praise you for defending yourself in need.' 'There must be no need,' she answered, looking at him fixedly. 'Say quickly what you have to say.' 'Will you not sit down, then?' 'No, thank you. I would rather not.' It would have seemed like consenting to be where she was; and besides, the revolver lay on the nearest available chair and she would not touch it, much less hold it in her hand, if she sat down to listen. Giovanni leaned back against the heavy table at some distance from her, resting his hands on the edge, on each side of him. 'After I left you to-day,' he began, 'I had a long talk with Monsignor Saracinesca in the street. I asked him questions about obtaining a dispensation for you. He made it look impossible, of course--that was to be expected! But I got one point from him, which is important. He made it quite clear to me that the request to be released from your vows must come from you, if it is to be considered at all. You understand that, do you not?' 'Is it possible that you yourself do not yet understand?' Sister Giovanna asked, as quietly as she could. 'Did I not tell you to-day that no power could loose me from my vows?' 'You were mistaken. There is a power that can, and that rests with the Pope, and he shall exercise it.' 'I will not ask for a dispensation. I have told you that it is an impossibility----' 'There is no such thing as impossibility for men and women who love,' Giovanni answered. 'Have you forgotten the last words you said to me before I sailed for Africa?' He spoke gently now, and Sister Giovanna turned her face from him. 'You said, "I will wait for you for ever." Do you remember?' 'Yes. I remember.' 'Did you "wait for ever," Angela?' She looked at him again, and then came forward a little, drawn by an impulse she could not resist. 'Did I love another man, that you reproach me?' she asked. 'Such as my life has been, have I lived it as a woman lives who has forgotten? I know I have not. Yes, Giovanni, I have waited, but as one waits who hopes to meet in heaven the dear one who is dead on earth. Do you still find fault with me? Would you rather have had me go back to the world and to society after mourning you as long as a girl of nineteen could mourn for a man to whom she had not been openly engaged? Was I wrong? If you had really been dead and could have seen me, would you have wished that I were living differently?' For a moment he was moved and held out one hand towards her, hoping that she would come nearer. 'No,' he answered--'no, dear----' 'But that was the only question,' she said earnestly, 'and you have answered it!' She would not take his hand and Giovanni dropped his own with a gesture of disappointment. 'No,' he replied, in a colder tone, 'it is not the question, for you have not told me all the truth. If I had not been gone five years, if I had come back the day before you took the last vows, would you have taken them?' 'No, indeed!' 'If I had come the very next day after, would you not have done your best to be set free?' There was an instant's pause before she spoke; then the answer came, clear and distinct. 'No.' Severi turned from her with an impatient movement of his compact head, and tapped the carpeted floor with his heel. His answer broke from his lips harshly. 'You never loved me!' She would have done wisely if she had been silent then; but she could not, for his words denied the truth that had ruled her life. 'Better than I knew,' she said. 'Better than I knew, even then.' 'Even then?' The words had hope in them. 'And now?' He was suddenly breathless. 'Yes, even now!' The tide of truth lifted her from her feet and swept her onward, helpless. 'Giovanni! Giovanni! Do you think it costs me nothing to keep my word with God?' But he had been disappointed too often now, and he could not believe at once. 'It costs you less than it would to keep your faith with me,' he answered. 'It is not true! Indeed, it is not true!' 'Then let the truth win, dear! All the rest is fable!' He was at her side now. She had tried to resist, but not long, and her hand was in his, though her face was turned away. 'No--no----' she faltered, but he would not let her speak. 'All a fable of sorrow and a dream of parting, sweetheart! And now we have waked to meet again, your hand in my hand, my heart to your heart--your lips to mine----' She almost shrieked aloud in terror then and threw herself back bodily, as from the edge of a precipice. She might have fallen if he had not still held her hand, and as she recovered herself she tried to withdraw it. In her distress, words came that she regretted afterwards. 'Do you think that only you are human, of us two?' she cried, in passionate protest against passion itself, against him, against life, but still twisting her wrist in his grip and trying to wrench it away. 'For the love of heaven, Giovanni----' 'No--for love of me----' She broke from him, for when he felt that he was hurting her his fingers relaxed. But she could not stay her own words. 'Yes, I love you,' she cried almost fiercely, as she stepped backwards. 'Right or wrong, I cannot unmake myself, and as for lying to you, I will not! God is my witness that I mean to love you living as I have loved you dead, without one thought of earth or one regret for what might have been! But, oh, may God forgive me, too, if I wish that we were side by side in one grave, at peace for ever!' 'Dead? Why? With life before us----' 'No!' She interrupted him with rising energy. 'No, Giovanni, no! I was weak for a moment, but I am strong again. I can wait for you, and you will find strength to wait for me. You are so brave, Giovanni, you can be so generous, when you will! You will wait, too!' 'For what?' 'For the end that will be the beginning, for God's great To-morrow, when you will come to be with me for ever and ever, beyond the world, and all parting and all pain!' There was a deep appeal to higher things in her words and in her voice, too, but it did not touch him; he only knew that at the very moment when she had seemed to be near yielding, the terrible conviction of her soul had come once more between him and her. 'There is no beyond,' he answered, chilled and sullen again. 'You live in a lying legend; your life is a fable and your sacrifice is a crime.' The cruel words struck her tormented heart, as icy hailstones bruise the half-clad body of a starving child, out in the storm. 'You hurt me very much,' she said in a low voice. 'Forgive me!' he cried quickly. 'I did not mean to. I forget that you believe your dreams, for I cannot live in visions as you do. I only see a blind force, striking in the dark, a great injustice done to us both--a wrong I will undo, come what may!' 'You know my answer to that. You can undo nothing.' 'I am not answered yet. You say you love me--prove it!' 'Only my life can,' said the nun; 'only our two lives can prove our love, for we can live for each other still, perhaps we shall be allowed to die for each other, and in each other we shall find strength to resist----' 'Not to resist love itself, Angela.' 'No, not to resist all that is good and true in love.' 'I cannot see what you see,' he answered. 'Nothing human is beyond my comprehension, good or bad, but you cannot make a monk of me, still less a saint--a Saint Louis of Gonzaga, who was too modest to look his own mother in the face!' He laughed roughly, but checked himself at once, fearing to hurt her again. She turned to him with a look of gentle authority. 'In spite of what you have done to-night,' she said, 'you are such a manly man, that you can be the man you will. Listen! If another woman tried to get your love, could you resist her? Would you, for love of me?' 'She would have small chance, you know that well enough.' 'There is another woman in me, Giovanni. Resist her!' 'I do not understand.' 'You must try! There is another woman in me, or what is left of her, and she is quite different from my real self. Resist her for my sake, as I am fighting her with all my strength. It was she who tempted you to bring me here by a trick you are ashamed of already; it was she that made me weak, just now; but she is not the woman you love, she is not Angela, she is not worthy of you; and as for me, I hate her, with all my soul!' Severi had said truly that he could not understand, and instead of responding to her appeal, he turned impatient again. 'You choose your words well enough,' he answered, 'but women's fine speeches persuade women, not men. No man was ever really moved to change his mind by a woman's eloquence, though we will risk our lives for a look of yours, for a touch--for a kiss!' Sister Giovanna sighed and turned from him. The razor-edge of extremest peril was passed, for the words that left him cold and unbelieving had brought back conviction to her soul. She could live for him, pray for him, die for him, but she would not sin for him nor lift a hand to loose the vows that bound her to the religious life. Yet she did not see that she was slowly driving him to a state of temper in which he might break all barriers. Very good women rarely understand men well until it is too late, because men very rarely make any appeal to what is good in woman, whereas they lie in wait for all her weaknesses. It is almost a proverbial truth that men of the most lawless nature, if not actually of the worst character, are often loved by saintly women, perhaps because the true saint sees some good in every one and believes that those who have least of it are the ones who need help most. Sister Giovanna was not a saint yet, but she was winning her way as she gained ground in the struggle that had been forced upon her that night, so cruelly against her will, and having got the better of a temptation, her charity made her think that Giovanni Severi was farther from it than he was. Outward danger was near at hand, just when inward peril was passed. As if he were weary of the contest of words, he left the writing-table, sat down in a big chair farther away, and stared at the pattern in the carpet. 'You are forcing me to extremities,' he said, after a long pause, and rather slowly. 'Unless you consent to appeal to the Pope for your freedom, I will not let you leave this house. You are in my power here, and here you shall stay.' She was more surprised and offended than indignant at what she took for an empty threat, and she was not at all frightened. Women never are, when one expects them to be. She drew her long cloak round her with simple dignity, crossed the room without haste, and stopped before the locked door, turning her head to speak to him. 'It is time for me to go,' she said gravely. 'Open the door at once, please.' She could not believe that he would refuse to obey her, but he did not move; he did not even look up, as he answered: 'If I keep you a prisoner, there will be a search for you. You may stay here a day, a week, or a month, but in the end you will be found here, in my rooms.' 'And set free,' the nun answered, from the door, with some contempt. 'Not as you think. You will be expelled from your order for scandalous behaviour in having spent a night, or a week, or a month in an officer's lodging. What will you do then?' 'If such a thing were possible, I would tell the truth and I should be believed.' But her anger was already awake. 'The thing is very possible,' Giovanni answered, 'and no one will believe you. It will be out of the question for you to go back to your Convent, even for an hour. Even if the Mother Superior were willing, it could not be done. In the Middle Ages, you would have been sent to a prison for penitents for the rest of your life; nowadays you will simply be turned out of your order with public disgrace, the papers will be full of your story, your aunt will make Rome ring with it----' 'What do you mean by all this?' cried the Sister, breaking out at last. 'Are you trying to frighten me?' 'No. I wish you to know that I will let nothing stand between you and me--nothing, absolutely nothing.' He repeated the word with cold energy. 'When it is known that you have been here for twenty-four hours, you will be forced to marry me. Nothing else can save you from infamy. Even Madame Bernard will not dare to give you shelter, for she will lose every pupil she has if it is found out that she is harbouring a nun who has broken her vows, a vulgar bad character who has been caught in an officer's lodgings! That is what they will call you!' At first she had not believed that he was in earnest, but she could not long mistake the tone of a man determined to risk much more than life and limb for his desperate purpose. Her just anger leaped up like a flame. 'Are you an utter scoundrel, after all? Have you no honour left? Is there nothing in you to which a woman can appeal? You talk of being human! You prate of your man's nature! And in the same breath you threaten an innocent girl with public infamy, if she will not disgrace herself of her own free will! Is that your love? Did I give you mine for that? Shame on you! And shame on me for being so deceived!' Her voice rang like steel and the thrusts of her deadly reproach pierced deep. He was on his feet, in the impulse of self-defence, before she had half done, trying to silence her--he was at her side, calling her by her name, but she would not hear him. 'No, I believed in you!' she went on. 'I trusted you! I loved you--but I have loved a villain and believed a liar, and I am a prisoner under a coward's roof!' Beseeching, he tried to lay his hand upon her sleeve; she mistook his meaning. 'Take care!' she cried, and suddenly the revolver was in her hand. 'Take care, I say! A nun is only a woman after all!' He threw himself in front of her in an instant, his arms wide out, and as the muzzle came close against his chest, he gave the familiar word of command in a loud, clear tone: 'Fire!' Their eyes met, and they were both mad. 'If you despise me for loving you beyond honour and disgrace, then fire, for I would rather die by your hand than live without you! I am ready! Pull the trigger! Let the end be here, this instant!' He believed that she would do it, and for one awful moment she had felt that she was going to kill him. Then she lowered the weapon and laid it on the chair beside her with slow deliberation, though her hands shook so much that she almost dropped it. As if no longer seeing him, she turned to the door, folded her hands on the panel, and leaned her forehead against them. He heard her voice, low and trembling: 'Forgive us our sins, as we forgive them that trespass against us!' His own hand was on the revolver to do what she had refused to do. As when the cyclone whirls on itself, just beyond the still storm-centre, and strikes all aback the vessel it has driven before it for hours, so the man's passion had turned to destroy him. But the holy words stayed his hand. 'Angela! Forgive me!' he cried in agony. The nun heard him, raised her head and turned; his suffering was visible and appalling to see. But she found speech to soothe it. 'You did not know what you were saying.' 'I know what I said.' He could hardly speak. 'You did not mean to say it, when you brought me here.' She was prompting him gently. 'No.' He almost whispered the one word, and then he regretted it. 'I hardly know what I meant to say,' he went on more firmly, 'but I know what I meant to accomplish. That is the truth, such as it is. I saw this afternoon that I should never persuade you to ask for your freedom unless I could talk to you alone where you must hear me; the chance came unexpectedly and I took it, for it would never have come again. I had no other place, I had not thought of what I should say, but I was ready to risk everything, all for all--as I have done----' 'You have, indeed,' the nun said slowly, while he hesitated. 'And I have failed. Forgive me if you can. It was for love of you and for your sake.' 'For my sake, you should be true and brave and kind,' answered the Sister. 'But you ask forgiveness, and I forgive you, and I will try to forget, too. If I cannot do that, I can at least believe that you were mad, for no man in his senses would think of doing what you threatened! If you wish to live so that I may tell God in my prayers that I would have been your wife if I could, and that I hope to meet you in heaven--then, for my sake, be a man, and not a weakling willing to stoop to the most contemptible villainy to cheat a woman. Your brother was nearly killed in doing his duty here and you have taken his place. Make it your true calling, as I have made it mine to nurse the sick. At any moment, either of us may be called to face danger, till we die; we can feel that we are living the same life, for the same hope. Is that nothing?' 'The same life? A nun and a soldier?' 'Why not, if we risk it that others may be safe?' 'And in the same hope? Ah no, Angela! That is where it all breaks down!' 'No. You will live to believe it is there that all begins. Now let me go.' Severi shook his head sadly; she was so unapproachably good, he thought--what chance had a mere man like himself of really understanding her splendid, saintly delusion? Pica had turned the key on the outside and had taken it out, obeying his orders; but Giovanni had another like it in his pocket and now unlocked and opened the door. The nun went out, drawing her black hood quite over her head so that it concealed her face, and Giovanni followed her downstairs and held an umbrella over her while she got into the carriage, for it was still raining. 'Good-night,' he said, as Pica shut the door. He did not hear her answer and the brougham drove away. When he could no longer see the lights, he went upstairs again, and after he had shut the door he stood a long time just where she had stood last. The revolver was still on the chair under the bright electric light. He fancied that the peculiar faint odour of her heavy cloth cloak, just damped by the few drops of rain that had reached it, still hung in the air. With the slightest effort of memory, her voice came back to his ears, now gentle, now gravely reproachful, but at last ringing like steel on steel in her generous anger. She had been present, in that room, in his power, during more than twenty minutes, and now she was gone and would never come again. He had done the most rash, inconsequent, and uselessly bad deed that had ever suggested itself to his imagination, and now that all was over he wondered how he could have been at once so foolish, so brutal, and so daring. Perhaps five years of slavery in Africa had unsettled his mind; he had heard of several similar cases and his own might be another; he had read of officers who had lost all sense of responsibility after months of fighting in the tropics, perhaps from having borne responsibility too long and unshared, who had come back, after doing brave and honourable work, to find themselves morally crippled for civilised life, and no longer able to distinguish right from wrong or truth from falsehood. It had all happened quickly but illogically, as events follow each other in dreams, from the moment when he had gone to the Convent hospital with Monsignor Saracinesca till the brougham drove away in the dark, taking Angela back. He understood for the first time how men whom every one supposed to be of average uprightness could commit atrocious crimes; he shuddered to think what must have happened if a mere chance had not changed his mood, making him ask Angela's forgiveness and prompting him to let her go. She had touched him, that was all. If her voice had sounded only a little differently at the great moment, if her eyes had not looked at him with just that expression, if her attitude had been a shade less resolute, what might not have happened? For the conviction that he could force her to be his wife if he chose to keep her a prisoner had taken possession of him suddenly, when all his arguments had failed. It had come with irresistible strength: the simplicity of the plan had been axiomatic, its immediate execution had been in his power, and while she was within the circle of his senses, his passion had been elemental and overwhelming. He tried to excuse himself with that; men in such cases had done worse things by far, and at least Angela had been safe from violence. But his own words accused him; he had threatened her, he had talked of bringing infamy and public disgrace on the woman he loved, in order to force her to marry him; he had thought only of that end and not at all of the vile means; it all took shape now, and looked ugly enough. He felt the blood surging to his sunburnt forehead for shame, perhaps for the first time in his life, and the sensation was painfully humiliating. It made a deep impression on him when he realised it. Often enough he had said that honour was his god, and he had taken pleasure in proving that he who makes the rule of honour the law of his life must of necessity be a good man, incapable of any falsehood or meanness or cruelty, and therefore truthful, generous, and kind; in other words, such an one must really be all that a good Christian aims at being. The religion of honour, Giovanni used to say, was of a higher nature than Christianity, since Christians might sin, repent, and be forgiven again and again, to the biblical seventy times seven times; but a man who did one dishonourable deed in his whole life ceased to be a man of honour for ever. Having that certainty before his eyes, how could he ever be in danger of a fall? But now he was ashamed, for he had fallen; he had forsaken his deity and his faith; the infamy he had threatened to bring on Angela had come back upon him and branded him. It was not because he had brought her to his lodging to talk with him alone, for he saw nothing dishonourable in that, since he felt sure that no harm could come to her in consequence. The dishonour lay in having thought of the rest afterwards, and in having been on the point of carrying out his threat. If he had kept her a prisoner only a few hours, the whole train of results would most probably have followed; if he had not let her go till the next day, they would have been inevitable and irretrievable. Nothing could have saved Sister Giovanna then. As he saw the truth more and more clearly, shame turned into something more like horror, and as different from mere humiliation as remorse is from repentance. Thinking over what he had done, he attempted to put himself in Angela's place, and to see, or guess, how he would behave if some stronger being tried to force him to choose between public ignominy and breaking a solemn oath. Moreover, he endeavoured to imagine what the nun, as distinguished from the mere woman, must have felt when she found herself trapped in a man's rooms and locked in. Even his unbelief instinctively placed Sister Giovanna higher in the scale of goodness than Angela Chiaromonte; he was an unbeliever, but not a scoffer, for somehow the rule of honour influenced him there, too. Nuns could really be saints, and were often holy women, and the fact that they were mistaken, in his opinion, only made their sacrifice more complete, since they were to receive no reward where they hoped for an eternal one; and he no longer doubted that Sister Giovanna was as truly good in every sense as any of them. What must she not have felt, less than an hour ago, when he had entered the room, telling her roughly that she was in his power, beyond all reach of help? Yet he had cherished the illusion that he was an honourable man, who would never take cruel advantage of any woman, still less of an innocent girl, far less, still, of a nursing nun, whose dress alone would have protected her from insult amongst any men but criminals. In his self-contempt he hung his head as he sat alone by the table, half-fancying that if he raised his eyes he would see his own image accusing him. Sister Giovanna herself would have been surprised if she could have known how complete her victory had been. His god had forsaken him in his great need, and though he could not believe in hers, he was asking himself what inward strength that must be which could make a woman in extremest danger so gentle and yet so strong, so quick to righteous anger and yet so ready to forgive what he could never pardon in himself. CHAPTER XVI Sister Giovanna's nerves were good. The modern trained nurse is a machine, and a wonderfully good one on the whole; when she is exceptionally endowed for her work she is quite beyond praise. People who still fancy that Rome is a mediæval town, several centuries behind other great capitals in the application of useful discoveries and scientific systems, would be surprised if they knew the truth and could see what is done there, and not as an exception, but as the general rule. The common English and American belief, that Roman nuns nurse the sick chiefly by prayer and the precepts of the school of Salerno, is old-fashioned nonsense; the Pope's own authority requires that they should attend an extremely modern training-school where they receive a long course of instruction, probably as good as any in the world, from eminent surgeons and physicians. One of the first results of proper training in anything is an increased steadiness of the nerves, which quite naturally brings with it the ability to bear a long strain better than ordinary persons can, and a certain habitual coolness that is like an armour against surprises of all kinds. One reason why Anglo-Saxons are generally cooler than people of other nations is that they are usually in better physical condition than other men. A digression is always a liberty which the story-teller takes with his readers, and those of us have the fewest readers who make the most digressions; hence the little old-fashioned civility of apologising for them. The one I have just made seemed necessary to explain why Sister Giovanna was able to go to her patient directly from Severi's rooms, and to take up her work with as much quiet efficiency as if nothing unusual had happened. She had found the portress in considerable perturbation, for the right carriage had just arrived, a quarter of an hour late instead of half-an-hour too soon. Sister Giovanna said that there had been a mistake, that she had been taken to the wrong house, that the first carriage should not have come to the hospital of the White Nuns at all, and that she had been kept waiting some time before being brought back. All this was strictly true, and without further words she drove away to the Villino Barini, the brougham Severi had hired having already disappeared. As he had foreseen, it was impossible that any one should suspect what had happened, for the nun was above suspicion, and when his carriage had once left the Convent door no one could ever trace the sham coachman and footman in order to question them. In that direction, therefore, there was nothing to fear. The authority of an Italian officer over his orderly is great, and his power of making the conscript's life singularly easy or perfectly unbearable is greater. Even Sister Giovanna knew that, and she felt no anxiety about the future. Her mind was the more free to serve her conscience in examining her own conduct. It was not her right to analyse Giovanni's, however; he had made the circumstances in which she had been placed against her will, and the only question was, whether she had done right in a position she could neither have foreseen, so as to avoid it, nor have escaped from when once caught in it. Examinations of conscience are tedious to every one except the subject of them, who generally finds them disagreeable, and sometimes positively painful. Sister Giovanna was honest with herself and was broad-minded enough to be fair; her memory had always been very good, she could recall nearly every word of the long interview, and she accused herself of having been weak twice, namely, when she had admitted that she was tempted, and when she had raised the revolver and Giovanni had thrown himself against it. The danger had been great at that moment, she knew, for she had felt that her mind was losing its balance. But she had not wished to kill him, even for a moment, though a terrifying conviction that her finger was going to pull the trigger in spite of her had taken away her breath. Looking back, she thought it must have been the sensation some people have at the edge of a precipice, when they feel an insane impulse to jump off, without having the slightest wish to destroy themselves. If a man affected in this way should lose his head and leap to destruction, his act would assuredly not be suicide. The nun knew it very well, and she was equally sure that if she had been startled into pulling the trigger, and had killed the man she had loved so well, it would not have been homicide, whatever the law might have called it. But the consequences would have been frightful, and the danger had been real. She could be thankful for her good nerves, since nothing had happened, that was all. Where she had done wrong had been in taking up the weapon, great as the provocation to self-defence had been. Morally speaking, and apart from the possible fatal result, her main fault lay in having confessed to Giovanni that she was really tempted to ask release from her vows. Now that he was not near, no such temptation assailed her, but there had been a time when to resist it had seemed the greatest sacrifice that any human being could make. She could only draw one conclusion from this fact, but it was a grave one: in spite of her past life, her vows and her heartfelt faith, she was not free from material and earthly passion. Innocence is one thing, ignorance is another, and a trained nurse of twenty-five cannot and should not be as ignorant as a child, whether she be a nun or a lay woman. Sister Giovanna knew what she had felt: it had been the thrill of an awakened sense, not the vibration of a heartfelt sympathy; it belonged neither to the immortal spirit nor to the kingdom of the mind, but to the dying body. Temptation is not sin, but it is wrong to expose oneself to it willingly, except for a purpose so high as to justify the risk. Sister Giovanna quietly resolved that she would never see Severi again, and she judged that the surest way of abiding by her resolution was to join the mission to the Far East and leave Italy for ever. Having already thought of taking the step merely in order to get away from the possibility of hating a person who had wronged her and robbed her, it seemed indeed her duty to take it now for this much stronger reason. Since she could still be weak, her first and greatest duty was to put herself beyond the reach of weakening influences. Giovanni would not leave Rome while she stayed there, that was certain; there was no alternative but to go away herself, for a man capable of such a daring and lawless deed as carrying her off from the door of the Convent, under the very eyes of the portress, might do anything. Indeed, he might even follow her to Rangoon; but she must risk that, or bury herself in a cloister, which she would not do if she could help it. While she was nursing the new case to which she had been called, her resolution became irrevocable. When the patient finally recovered she returned to the Convent, and it was not till she had been doing ordinary work in the hospital during several days that she asked to see the Mother Superior alone. Captain Ugo Severi had gone to the baths of Montecatini to complete his cure, nothing more had been heard of Giovanni, and the Mother was inclined to believe that his meeting with Sister Giovanna had been final, and that he would make no further attempt to see her. But the nun herself thought otherwise. She sat where she always did when she came to the Mother Superior's room, on a straight-backed chair between the corner of the table and the wall, and she told her story without once faltering or hesitating, though without once looking up, from the moment when she had got into the wrong carriage till she had at last reached the Villino Barini in safety. Though it was late in the afternoon and the light was failing, the Mother shaded her eyes with one hand while she listened. There was neither rule nor tradition under which Sister Giovanna could have felt it her duty to tell her superior what had happened, and she had necessarily been the only judge of what her confessor should know of the matter. Even now, if she had burst into floods of tears or shown any other signs of being on the verge of a nervous crisis, the elder woman would probably have stopped her and told her not to make confidences that concerned another person until she was calmer. But she evidently had full control of her words and outward bearing, and the Mother listened in silence. Then the young nun expounded the conclusion to which she believed herself forced: she must leave a country in which Giovanni might at any moment make another meeting inevitable, and the safest refuge was the Rangoon Leper Asylum. She formally asked permission to be allowed to join the mission. The Mother Superior's nervous little hand contracted spasmodically upon her eyes, and then joined its fellow on her knee. She sat quite still for a few seconds, looking towards the window; the evening glow was beginning to fill the garden and the cloisters with purple and gold, and a faint reflection came up to her suffering face. 'It kills me to let you go,' she said at last, just above a whisper. The words and the tone took Sister Giovanna by surprise, though she had lately understood that the Mother Superior's affection for her was much stronger than she would formerly have believed possible; it was something more than the sincere friendship which a middle-aged woman might feel for one much younger, and it was certainly not founded on the fact that the latter was an exceptionally gifted nurse, whose presence and activity were of the highest importance to the hospital. Neither friendship nor admiration for a fellow-worker could explain an emotion of such tragic depth and strength that it seemed almost too human in a woman otherwise quite above and beyond ordinary humanity. Sister Giovanna could find nothing to say, and waited in silence. 'I did not know that one could feel such pain,' said Mother Veronica, looking steadily out of the window; but her voice was little more than a breath. The Sister could not understand, but in the midst of her own great trouble, the sight of a suffering as great as her own, and borne on account of her, moved her deeply. All at once the Mother Superior swayed to one side on her chair, as if she were fainting, and she might have fallen if the nun had not darted forward to hold her upright; but at the touch, she straightened herself with an effort and gently pushed the young Sister away from her. 'If it is for me that you are in such pain, Mother,' said Sister Giovanna gently, 'I cannot thank you enough for being so sorry! But I do not deserve that you should care so much--indeed, I do not!' 'If I could give my life for yours, it would still be too little!' 'You are giving your life for many,' Sister Giovanna answered gently. 'That is better.' 'No. It is not better, but it is the best I can do. You do not understand.' 'How can I? But I am grateful----' 'You owe me nothing,' the Mother Superior answered with sudden energy, 'but I owe you everything. You have given me the happiest hours of my life. But it was too much. God sent you to me, and God is taking you away from me--God's will be done!' Sister Giovanna felt that she was near something very strange and great which she might not be able to comprehend if it were shown clearly, and which almost frightened her by its mysterious veiled presence. The evening light penetrated Mother Veronica's translucid features, as if they were carved out of alabaster, and the hues that lingered in them might have been reflected from heaven; her upturned eyes, that sometimes looked so small and piercing, were wide and sorrowful now. The young Sister saw, but guessed nothing of the truth. 'The happiest hours in your life!' She repeated the words with wonder. 'Yes,' said the elder woman slowly, 'the happiest by far! Since you have been here, you have never given me one bad moment, by word or deed, excepting by the pain you yourself have had to bear. If you go away, and if I should not live long, remember what I have told you, for if you have some affection for me, it will comfort you to think that you have made me very, very happy for five long years.' 'I am glad, though I have done nothing but my duty, and barely that. I cannot see how I deserve such praise, but if I have satisfied you, I am most glad. You have been a mother to me.' Slowly the transfigured face turned to her at last, full of radiance. 'Do you mean it just as you say it, my dear?' 'Indeed, indeed, I do!' Sister Giovanna answered, wondering more and more, but in true earnest. The dark eyes gazed on her steadily for a long time, with an expression she had never seen in human eyes before. Then the truth came, soft and low. 'I am your mother.' 'You are a mother to us all,' the young Sister answered. 'I am your mother, dear, your own mother that bore you--you, my only child. Do you understand?' Sister Giovanna's eyes opened wide in amazement, but there was a forelightening of joy in her face. 'You?' she cried. 'But I knew my mother--my father----' 'No. She whom you called your mother was my elder sister. I ran away with the man I loved, because he was a Protestant and poor, and my parents would not allow the marriage. We were married in his Church, but my family would have nothing more to do with me. I was an outcast for them, disgraced, never to be mentioned. Your own father died of typhoid fever a few days before you were born. I was ill a long time, ill and poor, almost starving. I wrote to my sister, imploring help. She and her husband bargained with me. They agreed to make a long journey and bring you back as their child. They promised that you should be splendidly provided for; you would be an heiress, all that my brother-in-law could legally dispose of should go to you; but I was to disappear for ever and never let the truth be known. What could I do? You were two months old and I was penniless. I let them take you, and I became a nursing sister. It was like tearing off a limb, but I let you go to the glorious future that was before you. At least, you would have all the world held, to make up for my love, and I knew they would be kind to you. They were ashamed of me, that was all. They said that I was not married! You know how rigid they were, with their traditions and prejudices! That is my story. I have kept my word, and their secret, until to-day.' Sister Giovanna listened with wide eyes and parted lips, for the world she had lived in during more than five-and-twenty years was wrenched from its path and sent whirling into space at a tangent she could not follow; there was nothing firm under her feet, she had nothing substantial left, not even the name she had once called her own. It had all been unreal. The dead Knight of Malta lying in state in the great palace had not been her father; the delicate woman with the ascetic face, who had died when she had been a little child, had not been her mother; they had never registered her birth at the Municipality because she had not been their child and had not even been born in Rome; they had not taken the proper legal steps to adopt her and make her their heir, because they had been ashamed of her own mother. And her own mother was before her, Mother Veronica, the Superior of the Convent in which she had taken refuge because they had left her a destitute, nameless, penniless waif, after promising to make her their daughter in the eyes of the law. She knew that without a certificate of birth a girl could not easily be legally married in Italy; if the Prince had lived and she had been about to marry, what would he have done about that? But he was gone, and she would not ask herself such a question, for the answer seemed to be that he would have done something dishonest rather than admit the truth. A deep resentment sprang up in her against the dead man and woman who had not honourably kept their solemn promise to her mother, and her aunt's lawless act and hatred of her sank into insignificance beside their sin of omission. If the Princess's confession during her illness had not been altogether the invention of a fevered brain, and if there had really been a will, it had been worthless, and its destruction had not robbed Angela of a farthing. She and her mother had been cheated and their lives made desolate by those other two; she must not think of it, lest she should hate the dead, as she had dreaded to hate the living. All this had flashed upon her mind in one of those quick visions of the truth by which we sometimes become aware of many closely connected facts simultaneously, without taking account of each. After the Mother Superior had ceased speaking the silence lasted only a few seconds, but it seemed long to her now that she had told her secret and was waiting to be answered. Would her daughter forgive her? The young nun's face expressed nothing she felt at that moment; for the staring eyes and parted lips remained mechanically fixed in a look of blind surprise long after her thoughts were on the wing; and her thoughts flew far, but their wide-circling flight brought them back, like swallows, as swiftly as they had flown away. Then her heart spoke, and in another moment she was at her mother's knee, like a child, with a little natural cry that had never passed her lips before. For a breathing-space both guessed what heaven might hold of rest, refreshment, and peace, and the march of tragic fate was stayed while mother and daughter communed together, and dreamed of never parting on earth but to meet in heaven, of keeping their sweet secret from all the world as something sacred for themselves, of working side by side, in one life, one love, one faith, one hope, of facing all earthly trouble together, and of fighting every battle of the spirit hand in hand. Two could bear what one could not. Sister Giovanna felt that fresh strength was given her, and the long-tried elder woman was conscious that her will to do good was renewed and doubled and trebled, so that it could accomplish twice and three times as much as before. Her daughter would not leave her now, to be a martyr in the East, as the only escape from herself and from the man who loved her too daringly. Why should she go? If she still felt that she must leave Rome for a time, she could go to one of the order's houses far away, but not to the East, the deadly East! Heaven did not love useless suffering; the Church condemned all self-sacrifice that was not meet, right, and reasonable. In due time she would come back, when all danger was over, when Giovanni had lived through the first days of surprise, disappointment, and passion. The sunset glow had faded and twilight was coming on when the two went down the steps and crossed the cloistered garden to the chapel, for it was the hour for Vespers. They walked as usual, with an even, noiseless tread, the young nun on the left of her superior and keeping step with her, but not quite close to her, for that would not have been respectful; yet each felt as if the other's hand were in hers and their hearts were beating gently with the same loving thought. Peace had come upon them and they felt that it would be lasting. At the chapel door they separated; the Mother Superior passed to her high-backed, carved seat at the end, the three aged nuns who had survived from other times sat next to her in the order of their years, and Sister Giovanna took her appointed place much farther down. A number of seats were empty, belonging to those nurses who were attending private cases. Cloistered nuns spend many hours of the day and night in chapel, but the working orders use short offices and have much latitude as to the hours at which their services are held. Except on Sundays and at daily mass, no priest officiates; the Mother Superior or Mother Prioress leads with her side of the choir, the Sub-Prioress, or the Mistress of the Novices, or whoever is second in authority, responds with the other nuns. The Office of Saint Dominic for Vespers practically consists of one short Psalm, a very diminutive Lesson, one Hymn, and the beautiful Canticle 'My soul doth magnify the Lord'; then follows a little prayer and the short responsory, and all is over. The whole service does not last ten minutes. The women's voices answered each other peacefully, and then rose together in the quaint old melody of the hymn, the sweet notes of the younger ones carried high on the stronger tones of the elder Sisters, while the three old nuns droned on in a sort of patient, nasal, half-mannish counter-tenor, scarcely pronouncing the words they sang, but making an accompaniment that was not wholly unpleasing. Two versicles of responsory next, and then the Mother Superior began to intone the Magnificat, and Sister Giovanna took up the grand plain-chant with the others. In spite of her deep trouble, the words had never meant to her what they meant now, and she felt her world lifted up from earth to the gates of Peace. But she was not to reach the end of the wonderful song that day. 'And His mercy is on them that fear Him, from generation to generation,' the nuns sang. With a crash, as if a thunderbolt had fallen at their feet in the choir, the Great Unforeseen once more flashed from its hiding-place and hurled itself into their midst. The chapel rocked to and fro twice with a horrible noise of loosened masonry grinding on itself, and the panes of the high windows fell in three separate showers and were smashed to thousands of splinters on the stone floor, the lights went out, the sacred ornaments on the altar toppled and fell upon each other, the twilight that glimmered through the broken windows alone overcame the darkness in the wrecked church. The destruction was sudden, violent, and quick. In less than fifteen seconds after the shock, perfect stillness reigned again. The Sisters, in their first terror, caught at each other instinctively, or grasped the woodwork with convulsed hands. One or two novices had screamed outright, but the most of them uttered an ejaculatory prayer, more than half unconscious. The Mother Superior was standing upright and motionless in her place. 'Is any one hurt?' she asked steadily, and looking round the semicircle in the gloom. No answer came to her question. 'If any one of you was struck by anything,' she said again, 'let her speak.' No one had been hurt, for the small choir was under the apse of the chapel and there were no windows there. 'Let us go to the hospital at once,' she said. 'The patients will need us.' Her calm imposed itself upon the young novices and one or two of the more nervous Sisters; the others were brave women and had only been badly startled and shaken, for which no one could blame them. They filed out, two and two, by the side door of the choir, Mother Veronica coming last. From the cloister they could see that the big glass door of the reception-hall was smashed, and that the windows overhead on that side were also broken. Singularly enough, not one of those on the other side was injured. All had felt the certainty that a dynamite bomb had been exploded somewhere in the building with the intention of blowing up the hospital. As they fell out of their ranks and scattered in twos and threes, hastening to the different parts of the establishment where each did her accustomed work, Sister Giovanna naturally found herself beside the Mother Superior. As one of the supervising nurses, she was, of course, needed in the hospital itself with her superior. 'What do you think it was, Mother?' she asked in a low tone. 'Nothing but dynamite could have done such damage----' She was still speaking, when a lay sister rushed out of the door they were about to enter, with a broom in her hand, which she had evidently forgotten to put down. 'The powder magazine at Monteverde!' she cried excitedly. 'I saw it from the window! It was like fireworks! It has blown up with everybody in it, I am sure!' CHAPTER XVII The lay sister was right. The great powder magazine at Monteverde had been blown up, but by what hands no one has ever surely known. The destruction was sudden, complete, tremendous, for a large quantity of dynamite had been stored in the deep vaults. Today, a great hollow in the side of the hill and near the road marks the spot where the buildings stood. Many stories have been told of the catastrophe; many tales have been repeated about suspicious characters who had been seen in the neighbourhood before the fatal event, and for some of these there is fairly good authority. All those who were in the city when the explosion took place, and I myself was in Rome at the time, will remember how every one was at first convinced that his own house had been struck by lightning or suddenly shaken to its foundations. Every one will remember, too, the long and ringing shower of broken glass that followed instantly upon the terrific report. Every window looking westward was broken at once, except some few on the lower stories of houses protected by buildings opposite. Giovanni Severi was in the main building over the vaults a short time before the catastrophe, having just finished a special inspection which had occupied most of the afternoon. He was moving to leave the place when an unfamiliar sound caught his ears, a noise muffled yet sharp, like that of the discharge of musketry heard through a thick wall. The junior officers and the corporal who were with him heard it, too, but did not understand its meaning. Giovanni, however, instantly remembered the story told by one of the survivors from a terrible explosion of ammunition near Naples many years previously. That muffled sound of quick firing came from metallic cartridges exploding within the cases that held them; each case would burst and set fire to others beside it; like the spark that runs along a fuse, the train of boxes would blow up in quick succession till the large stores of gunpowder were fired and then a mass of dynamite beyond. There were divisions in the vaults, there were doors, there were walls, but Giovanni well knew that no such barriers would avail for more than a few minutes. Without raising his voice, he led his companions to the open door, speaking as he went. 'The magazine will blow up in two or three minutes at the outside,' he said. 'Send the men running in all directions, and go yourselves, to warn the people in the cottages near by to get out of doors at once. It will be like an earthquake; every house within five hundred yards will be shaken down. Now run! Run for your lives and to save the lives of others! Call out the men as you pass the gates.' The three darted away across the open space that lay between the central building and the guard-house. Giovanni ran, too, but not away from the danger. There were sentries stationed at intervals all round the outer wall, as round the walls of a prison, and they would have little chance of life if they remained at their posts. Giovanni ran like a deer, but even so he lost many seconds in giving his orders to each sentinel, to run straight for the open fields to the nearest cottages and to give warning. The astonished sentinels obeyed instantly, and Giovanni ran on. He reached the very last just too late; at that moment the thunder of the explosion rent the air. He felt the earth rock and was thrown violently to the ground; then something struck his right arm and shoulder, pinning him down; he closed his eyes and was beyond hearing or feeling. Within three-quarters of an hour the road to Monteverde was thronged with vehicles of all sorts and with crowds of people on foot. The nature of the disaster had been understood at once by the soldiery, and the explanation had spread among the people, rousing that strange mixture of curiosity and horror that draws the common throng to the scene of every accident or crime. But amongst the very first the King was on the spot with half-a-dozen superior officers, and in the briefest possible time the search for dead and wounded began. The story of Giovanni's splendid presence of mind and heroic courage ran from mouth to mouth. The junior officers and the men whom he had sent in all directions came in and reported themselves to the officer who had taken charge of everything for the time being. Only one man was missing--only one man and Giovanni himself. A few casualties amongst the peasants were reported, but not a life had been lost and hardly a bone was broken. Yet Giovanni was missing. With the confidence of men who understood that the magazine must have been so entirely destroyed at once as to annihilate all further danger in an instant, the searchers went up to the ruin of the outer wall and peered into the great dusty pit out of which the foundations of the magazine had been hurled hundreds of feet into the air. Something of the outline of the enclosure could still be traced, and the sentinels whom Giovanni had warned from their post had already told their story. They found, too, that the missing man himself had been one of the sentries, and the inference was clear: their commanding officer had been killed before he had reached the last post. For a long time they searched in vain. Great masses of masonry had shot through the outer wall and had rolled on or been stopped by the inequalities of the ground. Most of the wall itself was fallen and its direction could only be traced by a heap of ruins. Twilight had turned to darkness, and the search grew more and more difficult as a fine rain began to fall. Below, the multitude was already ebbing back to Rome; it was dark, it was wet, hardly any one had been hurt, and there was nothing to see: the best thing to be done was to go home. It was late when a squad of four artillerymen heard a low moan that came from under a heap of stones close by them. In an instant they were at work with the pickaxes and spades they had borrowed from the peasants' houses, foreseeing what their work would be. From time to time they paused a moment and listened. Before long they recognised their comrade's voice. 'Easy, brothers! Don't crack my skull with your pickaxes, for Heaven's sake!' 'Is the Captain there?' asked one of the men. 'Dead,' answered the prisoner. 'He was warning me when we were knocked down together. Make haste, but for goodness' sake be careful!' They were trained men and they did their work quickly and well. What had happened was this. The heavy and irregular mass of masonry that had pinned Giovanni to the ground by his arm had helped to make a sort of shelter, across which a piece of the outer wall had fallen without breaking, followed by a mass of rubbish. By what seemed almost a miracle to the soldiers, their companion was entirely unhurt, and no part of the officer's body had been touched except the arm that lay crushed beneath the stones. They cleared away the rubbish and looked at him as he lay on his back pale and motionless under the light of their lanterns. They knew what he had done now; they understood that of them all he was the hero. One of the men took off his cap reverently, and immediately the others followed his example, and so they all stood for a few moments looking at him in silence and in deference to his brave deeds. Then they set to work in silence to move the heavy block of broken masonry that had felled him, and their comrade helped them too, though he was stiff and bruised and dazed from the terrific shock. As the mass yielded at last before their strength and rolled away, one of the men uttered a cry. 'He is alive!' he exclaimed. 'He moved his head!' Before he had finished speaking the man was on his knees beside Giovanni, tearing open his tunic and his shirt to listen for the beating of his heart. It was faint but audible. Giovanni Severi was not dead yet, and a few moments later his artillerymen were carrying him down the hill towards the road, his injured arm swinging like a rag at his side. They did not wait for orders; there were a number of carriages still in the road and the men had no idea where their superiors might be. Their first thought was to get Giovanni conveyed to a hospital as soon as possible. 'We must take him to the White Sisters,' said the eldest of them. 'That is where his brother was so long.' The others assented readily enough; and finding an empty cab in the road, they lifted the wounded officer into it and pulled up the hood against the rain, whilst two of them crept in under it, telling the cabman where to go. In less than a quarter of an hour the cab stopped before the hospital of the White Sisters, and when the portress opened the door, the two artillerymen explained what had happened and begged that their officer might be taken in at once; and, moreover, that the portress would kindly get some money with which to pay the cabman, as they could only raise seven sous between them. The Mother Superior had supposed that there would be many wounded, and had directed that the orderlies should be ready at the door with stretchers, although the Convent hospital did not receive accident cases or casualties except in circumstances of extreme emergency. The hospital of the Consolazione, close to the Roman Forum, was the proper place for these, but it was very much farther, and the White Sisters were so well known in all Trastevere that they were sometimes called upon, even in the middle of the night, to take in a wounded man who could not have lived to reach the great hospital beyond the Tiber. Under the brilliant electric light in the main hall, the Mother Superior recognised Giovanni's unconscious face; his crushed arm, hanging down like a doll's, and his torn and soiled uniform, told the rest. He was taken at once to the room his brother had occupied so long. The Mother Superior herself helped the surgeon and another Sister to do all that could be done then. Sister Giovanna knew nothing of his coming, for she was in the wards, where there was much to be done. The patients who had fever had been severely affected by the terrible explosion, and most of them were more or less delirious and had to be quieted. In the windows that look westward every pane of glass was broken, though the outer shutters had been closed at sunset, a few minutes before the catastrophe. There were heaps of broken glass to be cleared away, and the patients whose beds were now exposed to draughts were moved. Sister Giovanna, who was not the supervising nurse for the week, worked quietly and efficiently with the others, carrying out all directions as they were given; but her heart misgave her, and when one of the nuns came in and said in a low voice that an officer from Monteverde had been brought in with his arm badly crushed, she steadied herself a moment by the foot of an iron bedstead. In the shaded light of the ward no one noticed her agonised face. Presently she was able to ask where the officer was, and the Sister who had brought the news announced that he was in Number Two. It was Giovanni now, and not his brother, the unhappy woman was sure of that, and every instinct in her nature bade her go to him at once. But the unconscious volition of those long trained to duty is stronger than almost any impulse except that of downright fear, and Sister Giovanna stayed where she was, for there was still much to be done. About half-an-hour later the Mother Superior entered the ward and found her and led her quietly out. When they were alone together, the elder woman told her the truth. 'Giovanni Severi has been brought here from Monteverde,' she said. 'His right arm is so badly crushed that unless it is amputated he will certainly die.' Sister Giovanna did not start, for she had guessed that he had received some terrible injury. She answered quietly enough, by a question. 'Is he conscious?' she asked. 'I believe that, by the law, his consent must be obtained before the operation.' 'He came to himself, but the doctor thought it best to give him a hypodermic of morphia and he is asleep.' 'Did he speak, while he was conscious?' The Mother Superior knew what was passing in her daughter's mind, and looked quietly into the expectant eyes. 'He did not pronounce your name, but he said that he would rather die outright than lose his right arm. In any case, it would not be possible to amputate it during the night. He had probably dined before the accident, and it will not be safe to put him under ether before to-morrow morning.' Sister Giovanna did not speak for a few moments, though the Mother Superior was almost quite sure what her next words would be, and that the young nun was mentally weighing her own strength of character with the circumstances that might arise. 'May I take care of him to-night?' she asked at last rather suddenly, like a person who has decided to run a grave risk. 'Can you be sure of yourself?' asked the elder woman, trying to put the question in the authoritative tone which she would have used with any other Sister in the community. But it was of no use; when she thought of all it meant, and of what the delicate girl was to her, all the coldness went out of her voice and the deepest motherly sympathy took its place. The answer came after a short pause in which the question was finally decided. 'Yes. I can be sure of myself now.' 'Then come with me,' answered the Mother Superior. They followed the passage to the lift, were taken up to the third floor, and a few moments later were standing before the closed door of Number Two. The Mother Superior paused with her hand on the door knob. She looked silently at her young companion, as if repeating the question she had already asked; and Sister Giovanna understood and slowly bent her head. 'I can bear anything now,' she said. She opened the door, and the two entered the quiet room, where one of the Sisters sat reading her breviary by the shaded light in the corner. The wounded man lay fast asleep under the influence of the morphia, and the white coverlet was drawn up to his chin. He was not very pale, Sister Giovanna thought; but she could not see well, because there was a green shade over the small electric lamp in the corner of the room. 'Sister Giovanna will take your place for to-night,' said the Mother Superior to the nun, who had risen respectfully, and who left the room at once. The mother and daughter turned to the bedside and stood looking down at the sleeping man's face. Instinctively their hands touched and then held each other. Experience told them both that in all probability Giovanni would sleep till morning under the drug, and would wake in a dreamy state in which he might not recognise his nurse at once; but sooner or later the recognition must take place, words must be spoken, and a question must be asked. Would he or would he not consent to the operation which alone could save his life? So far as the two women knew and understood the law, everything depended on that. If he deliberately refused, it would be because he chose not to live without Angela, not because he feared to go through life a cripple. They were both sure of that, and they were sure also that if any one could persuade him to choose life where the choice lay in his own hands, it would be Sister Giovanna herself. The operation was not one which should be attended with great danger; yet so far as the law provided it was of such gravity as to require the patient's own consent. Neither of the two nuns spoke again till the Mother Superior was at the door to go out. 'If you want me, ring for the lay sister on duty and send for me,' she said. 'I will come at once.' She did not remember that she had ever before said as much to a nurse whose night was beginning. 'Thank you,' answered Sister Giovanna; 'I think he will sleep till morning.' The door closed and she made two steps forward till she stood at the foot of the bed. For a few moments she gazed intently at the face she knew so well, but then her glance turned quickly toward the corner where the other nurse had sat beside the shaded lamp. That should be her place, too, but she could not bear to be so far from him. Noiselessly she brought a chair to the bedside and sat down so that she could look at his face. Since she had been in the room she had felt something new and unexpected--the deep, womanly joy of being alone to take care of the beloved one in the hour of his greatest need. She would not have thought it possible that a ray of light could penetrate her darkness, or that in her deep distress anything approaching in the most distant degree to a sensation of peace and happiness could come near her. Yet it was there and she knew it, and her heart rested. It was an illusion, no doubt, a false dawn such as men see in the tropics, only to be followed by a darker night; but while it lasted it was the dawn for all that. It was a faint, sweet breath of happiness, and every instinct of her heart told her that it was innocent. She would have, been contented to watch over him thus, in his sleep, for ever, seeing that he too was momentarily beyond suffering. It seemed, indeed, as if it might be long before any change came; his breathing was a little heavy, but was regular as that of a sleeping animal; his colour was even and not very pale; his eyes were quite shut and the eyelids did not quiver nor twitch. The tremendous drug had brought perfect calm and rest after a shock that would have temporarily shattered the nerves of the strongest man. Then, too, there was nothing to be seen and there was nothing in the room to suggest the terrible injury that was hidden under the white coverlet--nothing but the lingering odour of iodoform, to which the nun was so well used that she never noticed it. Hour after hour she sat motionless on the chair, her eyes scarcely ever turning from his face. He was so quiet that there was absolutely nothing to be done; to smooth his pillow or to pass a gentle hand over his forehead would have been to risk disturbing his perfect quiet, and she felt not the slightest desire to do either. For a blessed space she was able to put away the thought of the question which would be asked when he wakened, and which he only could answer. It was not a night of weary waiting nor of anxious watching; while its length lasted, he was hers to watch, hers alone to take care of, and that was so like happiness that the hours ran on too swiftly and she was startled when she heard the clock of the San Michele hospice strike three; she remembered that it had struck nine a few minutes after she had sat down beside him. Her anxiety awoke again now, and that delicious state of peace in which she had passed the night began to seem like a past dream. In a little more than an hour the dawn would begin to steal through the outer blinds--the dawn she had watched for and longed for a thousand times in five years of nursing. It would be unwelcome now; it would mean the day, and the day could only mean for her the inevitable question. She sat down again to watch him, for she had risen nervously in the first moment of returning distress; and she felt the cold of the early morning stealing upon her as she became gradually sure that his breathing was softer, and that from time to time a very slight quivering of the closed lids proclaimed the gradual return of consciousness. He would not wake in pain, or at least not in any acute suffering; she knew that by experience, for in such cases the nerves near the injured part generally remained paralysed for a long time. But he would wake sleepily at first, wondering where he was, glancing vaguely from one wall to another, from the foot of the bed or the window to her own face, without recognising it or understanding anything. That first stage might last a few minutes, or half-an-hour; he might even fall asleep again and not wake till much later. But sooner or later recognition would come, and with it a shock to him, a sudden tension of the mind and nerves, under which he might attempt to move suddenly in his bed, and that might be harmful, though she could not tell how. She wondered whether it would not be her duty to leave him before that moment. It was true that he would recognise the room in which he had so often spent long hours with his brother; he would know, as soon as he was conscious, that he was in the Convent hospital and under the same roof with her; then he would ask for her. Perhaps the surgeon would think it better that he should see her, but she would not be left alone with him; possibly she might be asked by the Mother Superior or by Monsignor Saracinesca, if he chanced to come that morning, to use her influence with Giovanni in order that he might submit to what alone could save him from death. It was going to be one of the hardest days in all her life--would God not stay the dawn one hour? It was stealing through the shutters now, grey and soft, and the wounded man's sleep was unmistakably lighter. Sister Giovanna drew back noiselessly from the bedside and carried her chair to the corner where the little table stood, and sat down to wait again. It might be bad for him to wake and see some one quite near him, looking into his face. At that moment the door opened quietly and the Mother Superior stood on the threshold, looking preternaturally white, even for her. Sister Giovanna rose at once and went to meet her. They exchanged a few words in a scarcely audible whisper. The Mother had come in person to take the nun's place for a while, judging that it would not be well if Giovanni wakened and found himself alone with her. The Sister went to her cell, where she had not been since the explosion on the previous evening. The brick floor was strewn with broken glass and was damp with the fine rain, driven through the lattice by the southwest wind during the night. Even the rush-bottomed chair was all wet, and the edge of the white counterpane on the little bed. It was all very desolate. CHAPTER XVIII Giovanni opened his eyes at last, looked at the ceiling for a few moments, and then closed them again. Plain white ceilings are very much alike, and for all he could see as he looked up he was at home in his own bed, at dawn, and there was plenty of time for another nap. He felt unaccountably heavy, too, though not exactly sleepy, and it would be pleasant to feel himself going off into unconsciousness again for a while, knowing that there was no hurry. But his eyes had not been shut long before he became aware that he was in a strange place. He could not sleep again because an unfamiliar odour of iodoform irritated his nostrils; he missed something, too, either some noise outside to which he was used or some step near him. In the little house at Monteverde he could always hear his orderly cleaning the stable early in the morning; he grew suddenly uneasy and tried to turn in his bed, and instead of the noise of broom and bucket and sousing, he heard the indescribably soft sound of felt shoes on tiles as the Mother Superior came to his side. Then, in a flash, he remembered everything, up to the time when he had been hurt, and after the moment when he had at first come to himself in the room where he now was. His eyes opened again, and he saw and recognised the Mother Superior, whom he had often seen and spoken with during his brother's stay in the hospital. Suddenly he was quite himself, for his hurt was altogether local and he had lost little blood; he only felt half paralysed on that side. 'Were there many killed?' he asked quietly. 'We do not know,' the Mother answered. 'When it is a little later I will telephone for news. It is barely five o'clock yet.' 'Thank you, Mother.' He shut his eyes again and said no more. The Mother Superior opened the window and let in the fresh morning air, full of the glow of the rising sun, for the room looked to the eastward, across the broad bend of the Tiber and towards the Palatine. She turned out the electric light in the corner, then went to the window again and refreshed herself by drawing long breaths at regular intervals, as she had been taught to do when she was a beginner at nursing. Presently the injured man called her and she went to the bedside again. 'It would be very kind of you to take down a few words which I should like to dictate,' he said. 'No,' he continued quickly, as he saw a grave look in the nun's face, 'it is not my will! It will be a short report of what happened before the explosion. They will want it at headquarters and my head is quite clear now. Will you write for me, Mother?' 'Of course.' There is always a pencil with a memorandum-pad in every private room of a hospital, for the use of the nurse and the doctor. The Mother Superior took both from the table and sat down close to the bed, and Giovanni dictated what he had to say in a clear and businesslike way that surprised her, great as her experience had been. When he had finished, he asked her to read it over to him, and pointed out one small correction to be made. 'I think I can sign it with my left hand, if you will hold it up for me,' he said. His fingers traced his name with the pencil, though very unsteadily, and he begged her to send it to headquarters at once. There was always some one on duty there, he explained, if it was only the subaltern commanding the guard. She need not be afraid of leaving him alone for a few moments, he added, for he was in no pain and did not feel at all faint. Besides, she would now send him another nurse--he had not thanked her for taking care of him herself during the night--he hoped she would forgive his omission--he was still---- And thereupon, while in the very act of speaking, he fell asleep again, exhausted by the effort he had made, and still under the influence of the strong drug. The Mother understood, glanced at him and slipped away, closing the door very softly. She knew that stage of awakening from the influence of opium, with its alternating 'zones' of sleep and waking. It was half-past five now, and a spring morning, and all was astir downstairs; lay sisters were gathering the broken glass into baskets, the portress was clearing away the wreck of broken panes from the outer hall, and the nun who had charge of the chapel was preparing the altar for matins. No one was surprised to see the Mother Superior in the cloister so early, for she was often the first to rise and almost always the last to go to rest; the novices said that the little white volcano never slept at all, but was only 'quiescent' during a part of the night. She found one of the orderlies scrubbing the outer doorstep, and despatched him at once with Giovanni's report, which she had put into an envelope and directed. He was to bring back an answer if there was any; and when he was gone, as he had not finished his job, she took the scrubbing broom in her small hands and finished it herself, with more energy, perhaps, than had been expended upon the stones for some time. Before she had quite done, the portress caught sight of her and was filled with horror. 'For the love of heaven!' she cried, trying to take the broom herself. The nun would not let it go, however, and pushed her aside gently, with a smile. 'If any one should see your Reverence!' protested the portress. 'My dear Anna,' answered the Mother Superior, giving the finishing strokes, 'they would see an old woman washing a doorstep, and no harm would be done.' But the example remained impressed on the good lay sister's mind for ever, and to her last days she will never tire of telling the novices how the Mother Superior washed the doorstep of the hospital herself on the morning after the explosion at Monteverde. The delivery of the report produced a more immediate result than either Giovanni or the Mother had expected. The accident had happened near sunset, and the story of Giovanni's heroic behaviour had been repeated everywhere before midnight. The men who had found him had, of course, reported the fact after the first confusion was over, but it was some time before the news got up to any superior officer, though the King's aide-de-camp had left instructions that any information about Giovanni was to be telephoned to the Quirinal at once. When it had been understood at last that he was in the private hospital of the White Sisters, badly injured but alive, it was too late to think of sending an officer to make inquiries in person. On the other hand, six o'clock in the morning is not too early for most modern sovereigns, general officers, and members of the really hard-working professions, among which literature is sometimes included. In half-an-hour Giovanni's little report had been read, copied, telephoned, and telegraphed, and in less than half-an-hour more a magnificent personage in the uniform of a colonel of cavalry on the General Staff, accompanied by a less gorgeous but extremely smart subaltern, stopped at the door of the Convent hospital in a Court carriage. He came to ask after Captain Severi on behalf of the Sovereign, and to ascertain whether he could perhaps be seen during the morning. He was told that this must depend on the surgeon's decision; he expressed his thanks to the portress with extreme civility and drove away again. Before long other officers came to make similar inquiries, in various uniforms and in slightly varying degrees of smartness, from the representative of the War Office and the Commander-in-Chief's aide-de-camp to unpretending subalterns in undress uniform, who were on more or less friendly terms with Giovanni and were suddenly very proud of it, since he had become a hero. Then came the reporters and besieged the door for news--an untidy lot of men at that hour, unshaven, hastily dressed, and very sorry for themselves because they had been beaten up by their respective papers so early in the morning. They were also extremely disappointed because the portress had no story to tell and would not hear of letting them in; and they variously described her afterwards as Cerberus, Argus, and the Angel of the Flaming Sword, which things agree not well together. The portress had a busy morning, even after Doctor Pieri had come and had written out a bulletin which she could show to all comers as an official statement of the injured man's condition. The great surgeon and the Mother Superior sat on opposite sides of his bed, and now that the sun had risen high the blinds were half drawn together and hooked in the old-fashioned Roman way, to keep out some of the light, while the glass was left open. A broad stripe of sunshine fell across the counterpane below Giovanni's knees, and a sharp twittering and a rushing of wings broke the stillness every few seconds, as the circling swallows flew past the half-open window. 'So you refuse to undergo the operation?' Pieri said, after a long pause. 'Is that your last word? Shall I go away and leave you to die?' 'How long will that take?' asked Giovanni calmly. 'Probably from four to ten days, according to circumstances,' replied the surgeon. 'Say a week, more or less. Will it hurt much?' 'Not unless you have lockjaw, which is possible. If you do, you will suffer.' 'Horribly,' said the Mother Superior, unconsciously covering her eyes with one hand for a moment; she had seen men die of tetanus. 'You will give me anæsthetics,' Giovanni answered philosophically. 'Besides, I would rather bear pain for a day or two than go through life a cripple with an empty sleeve!' 'It is deliberate suicide,' said the Mother Superior sadly. 'I incline to think so, too,' echoed the surgeon, 'though I believe the priests do not exactly consider it so.' Though he was half paralysed by his injury, Giovanni Severi smiled grimly. 'It would be very amusing if I died with the priests on my side after all,' he said, 'and against our good Mother Superior, too! You don't know how kind she is, Doctor; she has sat up all night with me herself!' Pieri was surprised, and looked quietly at the nun, who immediately rose and went to the window, pretending to arrange the blinds better. But there are moments when the truth seems to reveal itself directly to more than one person at the same time. The surgeon, whose intuitions were almost feminine in their swift directness, guessed at once why the Mother did not answer: not only she had not sat up with Giovanni herself, but she had allowed Sister Giovanna to do so, and as the patient had not wakened and recognised his nurse, it was not desirable that he should now know the truth. As for Giovanni himself, the certainty that came over him was more like 'thought-reading,' for neither he himself nor any one else could have explained the steps of reasoning by which he reached his conclusion. It was probably a mere guess, which happened to be right, and was founded on a little anxious shrinking of the Mother Superior's head and shoulders when she crossed the room and went to the window, as if she had something to hide. Giovanni saw it, and then his eyes met Pieri's for a moment, and each was sure that the other knew. 'I need not ask you,' Giovanni said, 'whether you are absolutely sure that I must die if you do not take off my arm at the shoulder?' 'Humanly speaking,' replied the other gravely, 'I am quite sure that gangrene will set in before to-morrow morning, and that is certain death in your case.' 'Why do you say, in my case?' 'Because,' Pieri answered with a little impatience, 'if it began in your foot, for instance, or in your hand, it would take some little time to reach the vital parts, and the arm or leg could still be amputated; but in your case it will set in so near the heart that no operation will be of any use after it begins. Do you understand?' 'Perfectly. I shall take less time to die, for the same reason.' Severi was very quiet about it; but the Mother Superior turned on him suddenly from the window, her small face very white. 'It is suicide,' she said--'deliberate, intentional suicide, and no right-thinking man, priest or layman, would call it by any other name, let Doctor Pieri say what he will! You are in full possession of your senses, and even of your health and strength, at this moment, and you are assured that you run no risk if you submit to the doctors, but that if you will not you must die! You are choosing death where you can choose life, and that is suicide if anything is! Doctor Pieri knows well enough what a good priest would say, and so do I, who have been a nurse for a quarter of a century! If the injury were internal, and if there were a real risk to your life in operating, you would have the right, the moral right, to choose between the danger of dying under ether and the comparative certainty of dying of the injury. But this is a specific case. You are young, strong, absolutely healthy, and the chance of your dying from the anæsthetic is not one in thousands, whereas, if nothing is done, death is certain. I ask you, before God and man and on your honour, whether you do not know that you are committing suicide--nothing less than cowardly, dastardly self-murder!' 'If I am, it is my affair,' answered Giovanni coldly; 'but you need not leave out the rest. You believe that if I choose to die I shall go straight to everlasting punishment. I believe that if there is a God--and I do not deny that there may be--I shall not be damned because I would rather not live at all than go on living as half a man. And now, if you will let me have a cup of coffee and a roll, I shall be very grateful, for I have had nothing to eat since yesterday at one o'clock!' He probably knew well enough what such a request meant just then--the putting off of a possible operation for hours, owing to the impossibility of giving ether to a man who has lately eaten anything. The Mother Superior and the surgeon looked at each other rather blankly. 'Shall I die any sooner if I am starved?' asked Giovanni almost roughly. Pieri began to explain the danger, but Severi at once grew more impatient. 'I know all that,' he said, 'and I have told you my decision. I refuse to undergo an operation. If you choose to make me suffer from starvation I suppose it is in your power, though I am not sure. I fancy I can still stand and walk, and even my one hand may be of some use! If you do not give me something to eat, I shall get out of bed and fight my way to the larder!' He smiled as he uttered the threat, as if he were not jesting about his own death. Pieri did not like it, and turned to the door. 'Since you talk of fighting,' he said, 'I would give you ether by force, if I could, and let the law do what it would after I had saved your life in spite of you! If you chose to blow your brains out afterwards, that would not concern me!' Thereupon he disappeared, shutting the door more sharply than doctors usually do when they leave a sick-room. The Mother Superior went to the bedside and leaned over Giovanni, looking into his eyes with an expression of profoundest entreaty. 'I implore you to change your mind,' she said in a low and beseeching voice, 'for the sake of the mother who bore you----' 'She is dead,' Giovanni answered quietly. 'For the sake of them that live and love you, them----' 'There is only one, Mother, and you know it; but for that only one's love I would live, not merely with one arm, but if every bone in my body were broken and twisted out of shape beyond remedy. Mother, go and tell her so, and bring me her answer--will you?' The nun straightened herself, and her face showed what she suffered; but Giovanni did not understand. 'You are afraid,' he said, with rising contempt in his tone. 'You are afraid to take my message. It would move her! It might tempt her from the right way! It might put it into her head to beg for a dispensation after all, and the sin would be on your soul! I understand--I did not really mean that you should ask her. You let her watch here last night when you knew I could not waken, but you were careful that she should be gone before I opened my eyes. You see, I have guessed the truth! I only wonder why you let her stay at all!' He moved his head impatiently on the pillow. The Mother Superior had drawn herself up rather proudly, folding her hands under her scapular and looking down at him coldly, her face like a marble mask again. 'You are quite mistaken,' she said. 'I will deliver your message and Sister Giovanna shall give you her answer herself.' She went towards the door, gliding across the floor noiselessly in her felt shoes; but just before she went out she turned to Giovanni again, and suddenly her eyes were blazing like live coals. 'And if you have the heart to kill yourself when you have talked with her,' she said, 'you are a coward, who never deserved to live and be called a man!' She was gone before Giovanni could have answered, and the man who had risked life and limb to save others twelve hours earlier smiled faintly at the good Mother's womanly wrath and feminine invective. He lay still on his back, staring at the ceiling, and he began to wonder what day of the week it would be when he would not be able to see it any more, and whether the end would come at night, or when the sunlight was streaming in, or on a rainy afternoon. He did not believe that Angela would be with him in a few minutes, and if she came--she would say---- The strength of the morphia was not yet quite spent, and he fell asleep in the middle of his train of thought, as had happened while he was speaking to the Mother in the early morning. When he awoke the broad stripe of sunshine no longer fell across the counterpane, but lay on the gleaming tiles beyond the foot of the bed; and it fell, too, on Sister Giovanna's white frock and veil, for she was standing there motionless, waiting for him to waken. His head felt queer for a moment, and he wondered whether she would be standing on the same spot, with the same look, when he would be dying, a few days hence. There were deep purplish-brown rings under her eyes, which seemed to have sunk deeper in their sockets; there was no colour in her lips, or scarcely more than a shade; her young cheeks had grown suddenly hollow. For the Mother--her mother--had told her everything, and it was almost more than she could bear. He looked at her two or three times, fixing his eyes on the ceiling in the intervals, to make sure that it was she and that he was awake; for there was something in his head that disturbed him now, a sort of beating on one side of the brain, with a dull feeling at the back, as if there were a quantity of warm lead there that kept his skull on the pillow. It was the beginning of fever, but he did not know it; it was the forewarner of the death he was choosing. The experienced nurse saw it in his face. 'Giovanni, do you know me?' she asked softly, coming a step nearer. Instantly, he had all his faculties again. 'Yes; come to me,' he answered. She came nearer and stood beside him. 'Sit down,' he said. 'This is the side--the side of my good arm. Sit down and let me take your hand, dear.' She wondered at his quiet tone and gentle manner. They almost frightened her, for she remembered taking care of impatient, short-tempered people who had suddenly softened like this just at the end. But there was no reason in the world why he should die now, and she dismissed the thought as she took the hand he put out and held it. It was icy cold, as strong men's hands generally are when a fever is just beginning. She tried to warm it between hers, covering it up between her palms as much as she could; but she herself was not warm either, for she had been in her cell, where there was no sun in the morning, and the air was chilly and damp, because it had rained in all night. Giovanni spoke again before she could find words. 'My life is in your hands, with my hand, Angela,' he said. 'Do what you will with it.' He felt that she shook from head to foot, like a young tree that is rudely struck. He went on, as if he had prepared his words, though he had not even thought of them. 'With your love and your companionship, I shall not miss a limb, I shall not regret my profession, I shall be perfectly happy. Alone, I will not be forced artificially to live out my life a wretched cripple.' It was brutal, and perhaps he knew it; but he was desperate and fate had given him a weapon to move any woman. In plain truth, it was as cruel as if he had put a pistol to his head and threatened to pull the trigger if she would not marry him. He had not done that yet, even when she had been in his room at Monteverde and the loaded revolver had been between them. Sister Giovanna kept his hand bravely in hers and sat still, though it was hard. The question which must be answered, and which she alone could answer, had been asked with frightful directness, and though she had known only too well that it was coming, its tremendous import paralysed her and she could not speak. It was plainly this: Should she kill him, of her own free will, for the sake of the solemn vow she had taken? Or should she save his life by breaking, even under permission, what she looked on as an absolutely inviolable promise? What made her position most terrible was the absolute certainty of the fatal result, and its close imminence. In his condition, to put off the operation for another day, in order to consider her answer, would be to condemn him to death according to all probability of human science, since a few hours longer than that would put probability out of the question and make it a positive certainty. She could not speak; her tongue would not move when she tried to form words and her breath made no sound in her throat. For some time Giovanni said nothing more, and lay quite still. When he spoke again, his voice was gentle. 'Dear, since it must be, I should like it to come like this, if you will--with my hand between yours.' It was too much, and she cried aloud and bowed herself. But the mortal pain freed her tongue, and a moment later she broke out in a fervent appeal. 'Live, Giovanni, live--for Christ's good sake who died for you--for my sake, too--for your own! Live the life that is still before you, and you can make it great! If you love me, make it a noble life for that, if for nothing else! Do you know, all Rome is ringing with the story of what you did last night--the King, the Court, the Ministers are sending for news of you every half-hour--the world is calling you a hero--will you let them think that you are afraid of an operation, or will you let my enemy tell the world that you have let yourself die for my sake? That is what it comes to, one or the other of those things!' Severi smiled faintly and shook his head without lifting it from the pillow. 'No man will call me coward,' he answered; 'and no one would believe Princess Chiaromonte--not if she took oath on her death-bed!' 'Will nothing move you?' cried the unhappy woman, in utter despair. 'Nothing that I can say? Not the thought of what life will mean to me when you are gone? Not my solemn assurance that I can do nothing--nothing----' 'You can!' Giovanni cried, with sudden and angry energy. 'You are willing to let me die rather than risk the salvation of your own soul. That is the naked truth of all this.' Her hands left his as if they had lost their strength, and she rose at the same instant and tottered backwards against the near wall, speechless and transfixed with horror at the mere thought that what he said might be true. But Giovanni's eyes did not follow her; the door had opened quietly, and Monsignor Saracinesca was there and had heard the last words. The prelate's face expressed neither displeasure nor reproach; it was only very thoughtful. Giovanni was in no humour to receive a visit from a priest just then, even though the latter was an old acquaintance and had once been a friend. Moreover, the last time they had been together, they had parted on anything but good terms. Giovanni spoke first. 'Have you come, like the others, to accuse me of committing suicide?' he asked. The answer was unexpected and uncompromising. 'No.' Sister Giovanna, still half-stunned and steadying herself against the wall, turned wondering eyes to the speaker. The angry look in Severi's face changed to one of inquiry. He strongly suspected that the churchman had come to 'convert' him, as the phrase goes, and he was curious to see what line of argument a man of such intelligence and integrity would take. 'No,' repeated Monsignor Saracinesca, 'I have come for quite another purpose, which I hope to accomplish if you will listen to reason.' The nun stood erect now, though still leaning back against the wall, and she had hidden her hands under her scapular. 'I do not think I am unreasonable,' Giovanni answered quietly. 'My position is this----' 'Do not tire yourself by going over it all,' the prelate answered. 'I understand your position perfectly, for I have been with the Mother Superior nearly half-an-hour. I am going to take something upon myself, as a man, which some of my profession may condemn. I am going to do it because I believe it is the right course, and I trust that God will forgive me if it is not.' There was a tremor in the good man's voice, and he ceased speaking, as if to repeat inwardly the solemn words he had just spoken. 'What are you going to do?' asked Giovanni Severi. On the question, the nun came forward and rested one hand on the chair in which she had sat, leaning towards the prelate at the same time, with parted lips and eyes full of a strange anticipation. 'You know, I daresay, that I am Secretary to the Cardinal Vicar, and that such cases as yours are to a great extent within my province?' Giovanni did not know this, but nodded; the nun, who knew it, bent her head, wondering more and more what was coming, and not daring to guess. Neither spoke. 'I am going to lay the whole matter before the Cardinal Vicar at once,' Monsignor Saracinesca continued calmly. 'I can be with him in twenty minutes, and I am going to tell him the plain truth. I do not think that any nun was ever more true to her vows than Sister Giovanna has been since your return. But there is a limit beyond which fidelity to an obligation may bring ruin and even death on some one whom the promise did not at first concern. When the limit is reached, it is the plain duty of those who have received that promise to relieve the maker of it from its observance, even though not asked to do so. That is what I am going to say to the Cardinal Vicar in half-an-hour. Are you satisfied?' Sister Giovanna sank sideways upon the chair, with her arm resting on the back of it, and she hid her face in her sleeve. 'Will the Cardinal listen to you?' asked Giovanni, his voice unsteady with emotion. 'What I recommend is usually done,' answered the prelate, without a shade of arrogance, but with the quiet certainty of a man in power. 'What I ask of you is, to submit at once to the operation that alone can save you, on the strength of my assurance that I am going to do my utmost to obtain what you desire.' 'It is hard to believe!' Giovanni exclaimed, almost to himself. The nun moved her head silently from side to side without lifting her face from her arm. 'You can believe me,' Monsignor Saracinesca answered. 'I give you my solemn promise before God, and my word of honour before men, that I will do the utmost in my power to succeed. Do you believe me?' Giovanni held out his sound hand. The churchman came nearer and took it. 'Will you risk the operation on that?' he asked. The light of a profound gratitude illuminated the young soldier's tired face, and his fingers pressed Monsignor Saracinesca's spasmodically; but his voice was quiet when he spoke. 'Sister Giovanna----' 'Yes?' The nun looked up suddenly and drew a sharp breath, for her joy was almost agonising. 'Will you kindly go and tell Doctor Pieri that I am ready?' The nun rose with a spring and was at the door in an instant, and in her heart rang such a chorus of glory and rejoicing as not even the angels have heard since the Morning Stars sang together. * * * * * Of her, I think the most rigid cannot say that she had not endured to the end, for her vow's sake. Whether the churchman was too human in his sympathies or not may be an open question; if he was, he had the courage to make himself alone responsible, for, as he had foretold, what he recommended was done; if he was wrong, he has at least the consolation of having brought unspeakable happiness to three human beings. 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28600	----	[Illustration] AVE ROMA IMMORTALIS STUDIES FROM THE CHRONICLES OF ROME BY FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II London MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1899 _All rights reserved_ Copyright, 1898, By The Macmillan Company. Set up and electrotyped October, 1898. Reprinted November, December, 1898; January, 1899. _Norwood Press_ _J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith_ _Norwood, Mass., U.S.A._ TABLE OF CONTENTS VOLUME II PAGE REGION VII REGOLA 1 REGION VIII SANT' EUSTACHIO 23 REGION IX PIGNA 44 REGION X CAMPITELLI 64 REGION XI SANT' ANGELO 101 REGION XII RIPA 119 REGION XIII TRASTEVERE 132 REGION XIV BORGO 202 LEO THE THIRTEENTH 218 THE VATICAN 268 SAINT PETER'S 289 LIST OF PHOTOGRAVURE PLATES VOLUME II Saint Peter's _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE Palazzo Farnese 18 The Pantheon 46 The Capitol 68 General View of the Roman Forum 94 Theatre of Marcellus 110 Porta San Sebastiano 130 The Roman Forum, looking west 154 The Palatine 186 Castle of Sant' Angelo 204 Pope Leo the Thirteenth 228 Raphael's "Transfiguration" 256 Michelangelo's "Last Judgment" 274 Panorama of Rome, from the Orti Farnesiani 298 ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT VOLUME II PAGE Region VII Regola, Device of 1 Portico of Octavia 3 San Giorgio in Velabro 11 Region VIII Sant' Eustachio, Device of 23 Site of Excavations on the Palatine 31 Church of Sant' Eustachio 39 Region IX Pigna, Device of 44 Interior of the Pantheon 49 The Ripetta 53 Piazza Minerva 55 Region X Campitelli, Device of 64 Church of Aracoeli 70 Arch of Septimius Severus 83 Column of Phocas 92 Region XI Sant' Angelo, Device of 101 Piazza Montanara and the Theatre of Marcellus 106 Site of the Ancient Ghetto 114 Region XII Ripa, Device of 119 Church of Saint Nereus and Saint Achilleus 125 The Ripa Grande and Site of the Sublician Bridge 128 Region XIII Trastevere, Device of 132 Ponte Garibaldi 137 Palazzo Mattei 140 House built for Raphael by Bramante, now torn down 145 Monastery of Sant' Onofrio 147 Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius 159 Interior of Santa Maria degli Angeli 175 Palazzo dei Conservatori 189 Region XIV Borgo, Device of 202 Hospital of Santo Spirito 214 The Papal Crest 218 Library of the Vatican 235 Fountain of Acqua Felice 242 Vatican from the Piazza of St. Peter's 251 Loggie of Raphael in the Vatican 259 Biga in the Vatican Museum 268 Belvedere Court of the Vatican 272 Sixtine Chapel 279 Saint Peter's 289 Mamertine Prison 294 Interior of St. Peter's 305 Pietà of Michelangelo 318 Tomb of Clement the Thirteenth 321 Ave atque Vale. Vignette 327 [Illustration] Ave Roma Immortalis REGION VII REGOLA 'Arenula'--'fine sand'--'Renula,' 'Regola'--such is the derivation of the name of the Seventh Region, which was bounded on one side by the sandy bank of the Tiber from Ponte Sisto to the island of Saint Bartholomew, and which Gibbon designates as a 'quarter of the city inhabited only by mechanics and Jews.' The mechanics were chiefly tanners, who have always been unquiet and revolutionary folk, but at least one exception to the general statement must be made, since it was here that the Cenci had built themselves a fortified palace on the foundations of a part of the Theatre of Balbus, between the greater Theatre of Marcellus, then held by the Savelli, and the often mentioned Theatre of Pompey. There Francesco Cenci dwelt, there the childhood of Beatrice was passed, and there she lived for many months after the murder of her father, before the accusation was first brought against her. It is a gloomy place now, with its low black archway, its mouldy walls, its half rotten windows, and its ghostly court of balconies; one might guess that a dead man's curse hangs over it, without knowing how Francesco died. And he, who cursed his sons and his daughters and laughed for joy when two of them were murdered, rebuilt the little church just opposite, as a burial-place for himself and them; but neither he nor they were laid there. The palace used to face the Ghetto, but that is gone, swept away to the very last stone by the municipality in a fine hygienic frenzy, though, in truth, neither plague nor cholera had ever taken hold there in the pestilences of old days, when the Christian city was choked with the dead it could not bury. There is a great open space there now, where thousands of Jews once lived huddled together, crowding and running over each other like ants in an anthill, in a state that would have killed any other people, persecuted occasionally, but on the whole, fairly well treated; indispensable then as now to the spendthrift Christian; confined within their own quarter, as formerly in many other cities, by gates closed at dusk and opened at sunrise, altogether a busy, filthy, believing, untiring folk that laughed at the short descent and high pretensions of a Roman baron, but cringed and crawled aside as the great robber strode by in steel. And close by the Ghetto, in all that remains of the vast Portico of Octavia, is the little Church of Sant' Angelo in Pescheria where the Jews were once compelled to hear Christian sermons on Saturdays. [Illustration: PORTICO OF OCTAVIA From a print of the last century] Close by that church Rienzi was born, and it is for ever associated with his memory. His name calls up a story often told, yet never clear, of a man who seemed to possess several distinct and contradictory personalities, all strong but by no means all noble, which by a freak of fate were united in one man under one name, to make him by turns a hero, a fool, a Christian knight, a drunken despot and a philosophic Pagan. The Buddhist monks of the far East believe today that a man's individual self is often beset, possessed and dominated by all kinds of fragmentary personalities that altogether hide his real nature, which may in reality be better or worse than they are. The Eastern belief may serve at least as an illustration to explain the sort of mixed character with which Rienzi came into the world, by which he imposed upon it for a certain length of time, and which has always taken such strong hold upon the imagination of poets, and writers of fiction, and historians. Rienzi, as we call him, was in reality named 'Nicholas Gabrini, the son of Lawrence'; and 'Lawrence,' being in Italian abbreviated to 'Rienzo' and preceded by the possessive particle 'of,' formed the patronymic by which the man is best known in our language. Lawrence Gabrini kept a wine-shop somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Cenci palace; he seems to have belonged to Anagni, he was therefore by birth a retainer of the Colonna, and his wife was a washer-woman. Between them, moreover, they made a business of selling water from the Tiber, through the city, at a time when there were no aqueducts. Nicholas Rienzi's mother was handsome, and from her he inherited the beauty of form and feature for which he was famous in his youth. His gifts of mind were many, varied and full of that exuberant vitality which noble lineage rarely transmits; if he was a man of genius, his genius belonged to that order which is never far removed from madness and always akin to folly. The greatest of his talents was his eloquence, the least of his qualities was judgment, and while he possessed the courage to face danger unflinchingly, and the means of persuading vast multitudes to follow him in the realization of an exalted dream, he had neither the wit to trace a cause to its consequence, nor the common sense to rest when he had done enough. He had no mental perspective, nor sense of proportion, and in the words of Madame de Staël he 'mistook memories for hopes.' He was born in the year 1313, in the turbulent year that followed the coronation of Henry the Seventh of Luxemburg; and when his vanity had come upon him like a blight, he insulted the memory of his beautiful mother by claiming to be the Emperor's son. In his childhood he was sent to Anagni. There it must be supposed that he acquired his knowledge of Latin from a country priest, and there he lived that early life of solitude and retirement which, with ardent natures, is generally the preparation for an outburst of activity that is to dazzle, or delight, or terrify the world. Thence he came back, a stripling of twenty years, dazed with dreaming and surfeited with classic lore, to begin the struggle for existence in his native Rome as an obscure notary. It seems impossible to convey an adequate idea of the confusion and lawlessness of those times, and it is hard to understand how any city could exist at all in such absence of all authority and government. The powers were nominally the Pope and the Emperor, but the Pope had obeyed the commands of Philip the Fair and had retired to Avignon, and no Emperor could even approach Rome without an army at his back and the alliance of the Ghibelline Colonna to uphold him if he succeeded in entering the city. The maintenance of order and the execution of such laws as existed, were confided to a mis-called Senator and a so-called Prefect. The Senatorship was the property of the Barons, and when Rienzi was born the Orsini and Colonna had just agreed to hold it jointly to the exclusion of every one else. The prefecture was hereditary in the ancient house of Di Vico, from whose office the Via de' Prefetti in the Region of Campo Marzo is named to this day; the head of the house was at first required to swear allegiance to the Pope, to the Emperor, and to the Roman People, and as the three were almost perpetually at swords drawn with one another, the oath was a perjury when it was not a farce. The Prefects' principal duty appears to have been the administration of the Patrimony of Saint Peter, in which they exercised an almost unlimited power after Innocent the Third had formally dispensed them from allegiance to the Emperor, and the long line of petty tyrants did not come to an end until Pope Eugenius the Fourth beheaded the last of the race for his misdeeds in the fifteenth century; after him the office was seized upon by the Barons and finally drifted into the hands of the Barberini, a mere sinecure bringing rich endowments to its fortunate possessor. In Rienzi's time there were practically three castes in Rome,--priests, nobles, and beggars,--for there was nothing which in any degree corresponded to a citizen class; such business as there was consisted chiefly in usury, and was altogether in the hands of the Jews. Rome was the lonely and ruined capital of a pestilential desert, and its population was composed of marauders in various degrees. The priests preyed upon the Church, the nobles upon the Church and upon each other, the beggars picked the pockets of both, and such men as were bodily fit for the work of killing were enlisted as retainers in the service of the Barons, whose steady revenues from their lands, whose strong fortresses within the city, and whose possession of the coat and mail armour which was then so enormously valuable, made them masters of all men except one another. They themselves sold the produce of their estates and the few articles of consumption which reached Rome from abroad, in shops adjoining their palaces; they owned the land upon which the corn and wine and oil were grown; they owned the peasants who ploughed and sowed and reaped and gathered; and they preserved the privilege of disposing of their own wares as they saw fit. They feared nothing but an ambush of their enemies, or the solemn excommunication of the Pope, who cared little enough for their doings. The cardinals and prelates who lived in the city were chiefly of the Barons' own order and under their immediate protection. The Barons possessed everything and ruled everything for their own profit; they defended their privileges with their lives, and they avenged the slightest infringement on their powers by the merciless shedding of blood. They were ignorant, but they were keen; they were brave, but they were faithless; they were passionate, licentious and unimaginably cruel. Such was the city, and such the government, to which Rienzi returned at the age of twenty, to follow the profession of a notary, probably under the protection of the Colonna. That the business afforded occupation to many is proved by the vast number of notarial deeds of that time still extant; but it is also sufficiently clear that Rienzi spent much of his time in dreaming, if not in idleness, and much in the study of the ancient monuments and inscriptions upon which no one had bestowed a glance for generations. It was during that period of early manhood that he acquired the learning and collected the materials which earned him the title, 'Father of Archæology.' He seems to have been about thirty years old when he first began to speak in public places, to such audience as he could gather, expanding with ready though untried eloquence the soaring thoughts bred in years of solitary study. Clement the Sixth, a Frenchman, was elected Pope at Avignon, a man who, according to the chronicler, contrasted favourably by his wisdom, breadth of view, and liberality, with a weak and vacillating predecessor. Seeing that they had to do with a man at last, the Romans sent an embassy to him to urge his return to Rome. The hope had long been at the root of Rienzi's life, and he must have already attained to a considerable reputation of learning and eloquence, since he was chosen to be one of the ambassadors. Petrarch conceived the highest opinion of him at their first meeting, and never withdrew his friendship from him to the end; the great poet joined his prayers with those of the Roman envoys, and supported Rienzi's eloquence with his own genius in a Latin poem. But nothing could avail to move the Pope. Avignon was the Capua of the Pontificate,--a vast papal palace was in course of construction, and the cardinals had already begun to erect sumptuous dwellings for themselves. The Pope listened, smiled, and promised everything except return; the unsuccessful embassy was left without means of subsistence; and Rienzi, disappointed in soul, ill in body, and almost starving, was forced to seek the refuge of a hospital, whither he retired in the single garment which remained unsold from his ambassadorial outfit. But he did not languish long in this miserable condition, for the Pope heard of his misfortunes, remembered his eloquence, and sent him back to Rome, invested with the office of Apostolic Notary, and endowed with a salary of five golden florins daily, a stipend which at that time amounted almost to wealth. The office was an important one, but Rienzi exercised it by deputy, continued his studies, propagated his doctrines, and by quick degrees acquired unbounded influence with the people. His hatred of the Barons was as profound as his love of his native city was noble; and if the unavenged murder of a brother, and the unanswered buffet of a Colonna rankled in his heart, and stimulated his patriotism with the sting of personal wrong, neither the one nor the other were the prime causes of his actions. The evils of the city were enormous, his courage was heroic, and after profound reflection he resolved upon the step which determined his tragic career. To the door of the Church of Saint George in Velabro he affixed a proclamation, or a prophecy, which set forth that Rome should soon be restored to the 'Good Estate'; he collected a hundred of his friends in a meeting by night, on the Aventine, to decide upon a course of action, and he summoned all citizens to appear before the church of Sant' Angelo in Pescheria, towards evening, peacefully and without arms, to provide for the restoration of that 'Good Estate' which he himself had announced. [Illustration: SAN GIORGIO IN VELABRO] That night was the turning-point in Rienzi's life, and he made it a Vigil of Arms and Prayer. In the mysterious nature of the destined man, the pure spirit of the Christian knight suddenly stood forth in domination of his soul, and he consecrated himself to the liberation of his country by the solemn office of the Holy Ghost. All night he kneeled in the little church, in full armour, with bare head, before the altar. The people came and went, and others came after them and saw him kneeling there, while one priest succeeded another in celebrating the Thirty Masses of the Holy Spirit from midnight to early morning. The sun was high when the champion of freedom came forth, bareheaded still, to face the clear light of day. Around him marched the chosen hundred; at his right hand went the Pope's vicar; and before him three great standards displayed allegories of liberty, justice, and peace. A vast concourse of people followed him, for the news had spread from mouth to mouth, and there were few in Rome who had not heard his voice and longed for the 'Good Estate' which he so well described. The nobles heard of the assembly with indifference, for they were well used to disturbances of every kind and dreaded no unarmed rabble. Colonna and Orsini, joint senators, had quarrelled, and the Capitol was vacant; thither Rienzi went, and thence from a balcony he spoke to the people of freedom, of peace, of prosperity. The eloquence that had moved Clement and delighted Petrarch stirred ten thousand Roman hearts at once; a dissatisfied Roman count read in clear tones the laws Rienzi proposed to establish, and the appearance of a bishop and a nobleman by the plebeian's side gave the people hope and encouragement. The laws were simple and direct, and there was to be but one interpretation of them, while all public revenues were to be applied to public ends. Each Region of the city was to furnish a contingent of men-at-arms, and if any man were killed in the service of his country, Rome was to provide for his wife and children. The fortresses, the bridges, the gates, were to pass from the custody of the Barons to that of the Roman people, and the Barons themselves were to retire forthwith from the city. So the Romans made Rienzi Dictator. The nobles refused to believe in a change which meant ruin to themselves. Old Stephen Colonna laughed and said he would throw the madman from the window as soon as he should be at leisure. It was near noon when he spoke; the sun was barely setting when he rode for his life towards Palestrina. The great bell of the Capitol called the people to arms, the liberator was already the despot, and the Barons were already exiles. Rienzi assumed the title of Tribune with the authority of Dictator, and with ten thousand swords at his back exacted a humiliating oath of allegiance from the representatives of the great houses. Upon the Body and Blood of Christ they swore to the 'Good Estate,' they bound themselves to yield up their fortresses within the city, to harbour neither outlaws nor malefactors in their mountain castles, and to serve the Republic loyally in arms whenever they should be called upon to do so. The oath was taken by all, the power that could enforce it was visible to all men's eyes, and Rienzi was supreme. Had he been the philosopher that he had once persuaded himself he was; had he been the pure-hearted Christian Knight of the Holy Spirit he had believed himself when he knelt through the long Office in the little church; had he been the simple Roman Tribune of the People that he proclaimed himself, when he had seized the dictatorship, history might have followed a different course, and the virtues he imposed upon Rome might have borne fruit throughout all Italy. But with Rienzi, each new phase was the possession of a new spirit of good or evil, and with each successive change, only the man's great eloquence remained. While he was a hero, he was a hero indeed; while he was a philosopher, his thoughts were lofty and wise; so long as he was a knight, his life was pure and blameless. But the vanity which inspired him, not to follow an ideal, but to represent that ideal outwardly, and which inflamed him with a great actor's self-persuading fire, required, like all vanity, the perpetual stimulus of applause and admiration. He could have leapt into the gulf with Curtius before the eyes of ten thousand grateful citizens; but he could not have gone back with Cincinnatus to the plough, a simple, true-hearted man. The display of justice followed the assumption of power, it is true; but when justice was established, the unquiet spirit was assailed by the thirst for a new emotion which no boasting proclamation could satisfy, and no adulation could quench. The changes he wrought in a few weeks were marvellous, and the spirit in which they were made was worthy of a great reformer; Italy saw and admired, received his ambassadors and entertained them with respect, read his eloquent letters and answered them with approbation; and Rienzi's court was the tribunal to which the King of Hungary appealed the cause of a murdered brother. Yet his vanity demanded more. It was not long before he assumed the dress, the habits, and the behaviour of a sovereign and appeared in public with the emblems of empire. He felt that he was no longer in spirit the Knight of the Holy Ghost, and he required for self-persuasion the conference of the outward honours of knighthood. He purified himself according to the rites of chivalry in the font of the Lateran Baptistry, consecrated by the tradition of Constantine's miraculous recovery from leprosy, he watched his arms throughout the dark hours, and received the order from the sword of an honourable nobleman. The days of the philosopher, the hero, and the liberator were over, and the reign of the public fool was inaugurated by the most extravagant boasts, and celebrated by a feast of boundless luxury and abundance, to which the citizens of Rome were bidden with their wives and daughters. Still unsatisfied, he demanded and obtained the ceremony of a solemn coronation, and seven crowns were placed successively upon his head as emblems of the seven spiritual gifts. Before him stood the great Barons in attitudes of humility and dejection; for a moment the great actor had forgotten himself in the excitement of his part, and Rienzi again enjoyed the emotion of undisputed sovereignty. But Colonna, Orsini and Savelli were not men to submit tamely in fact, though the presence of an overwhelming power had forced them to outward submission, and in his calmer moments the extravagant tribune was haunted by the dream of vengeance. A ruffian asserted under torture that the nobles were already conspiring against their victor, and Rienzi enticed three of the Colonna and five of the Orsini to the Capitol, where he had taken up his abode. He seized them, held them prisoners all night, and led them out in the morning to be the principal actors in a farce which he dared not turn to tragedy. Condemned to death, their sins confessed, they heard the tolling of the great bell, and stood bareheaded before the executioner. The scene was prepared with the art of a consummate playwright, and the spectators were delighted by a speech of rare eloquence and amazed by the sudden exhibition of a clemency that was born of fear. Magnanimously pardoning those whom he dared not destroy, Rienzi received a new oath of allegiance from his captives and dismissed them to their homes. The humiliation rankled. Laying aside their hereditary feud, Colonna and Orsini made a desperate effort to regain their power. By a misunderstanding they were defeated, and the third part of their force, entering the city without the rest, was overwhelmed and massacred, and six of the Colonna were slain. The low-born Rienzi refused burial for their bodies, knighted his son on the spot where they had fallen, and washed his hands in water that was mingled with their blood. It was his last triumph and his basest. His power was already declining, and though the people had assembled in arms to beat off their former masters, they had lost faith in a leader who had turned out a madman, a knave, and a drunkard. They refused to pay the taxes he would have laid upon them, and resisted the measures he proposed. Clement the Sixth, who had approved his wisdom, punished his folly, and the so-called tribune was deposed, condemned for heresy, and excommunicated. A Neapolitan soldier of fortune, an adventurer and a criminal, took possession of Rome with only one hundred and fifty men, in the name of the Pope, without striking a blow, and the people would not raise a hand to help their late idol as he was led away weeping to the Castle of Sant' Angelo, while the nobles looked on in scornful silence. Rienzi was allowed to depart in peace after a short captivity and became a wanderer and an outcast in Europe. In many disguises he went from place to place, and did not fear to return to Rome in the travesty of a pilgrim. The story of his adventures would fill many pages, but Rome is not concerned with them. In vain he appealed to adventurers, to enthusiasts, and to fanatics to help in regaining what he had lost. None would listen to him, no man would draw the sword. He came to Prague at last, obtained an audience of the Emperor Charles the Fourth, appealed to the whole court, with impassioned eloquence, and declared himself to be Rienzi. The attempt cost him his freedom, for the prudent emperor forthwith sent him a captive to the Pope at Avignon, where he was at first loaded with chains and thrown into prison. But Clement hesitated to bring him to trial, his friend Petrarch spoke earnestly in his favour, and he was ultimately relegated to an easy confinement, during which he once more gave himself up to the study of his favourite classics in peaceful resignation. Meanwhile in Rome his enactments had been abolished with sweeping indifference to their character and importance, and the old misrule was reëstablished in its pristine barbarity. The feud between Orsini and Colonna broke out again in the absence of a common danger. The plague appeared in Europe and decimated a city already distracted by internal discord. Rome was again a wilderness of injustice, as the chronicle says; every one doing what seemed good in his own eyes, the Papal and the public revenues devoured by marauders, the streets full of thieves, and the country infested by outlaws. Clement died, and Innocent the Sixth, another Frenchman, was elected in his stead, 'a personage of great science, zeal, and justice,' who set about to reform abuses as well as he could, but who saw that he could not hope to return to Rome without long and careful preparation. He selected as his agent in the attempt to regain possession of the States of the Church the Cardinal Albornoz, a Spaniard of courage and experience. [Illustration: PALAZZO FARNESE] Meanwhile Rienzi enjoyed greater freedom, and assumed the character of an inspired poet; than which none commanded greater respect and influence in the early years of the Renascence. That he ever produced any verses of merit there is not the slightest evidence to prove, but his undoubted learning and the friendship of Petrarch helped him to sustain the character. He never lacked talent to act any part which his vanity suggested as a means of flattering his insatiable soul. He put on the humility of a penitent and the simplicity of a true scholar; he spoke quietly and wisely of Italy's future and he obtained the confidence of the new Pope. It was in this way that by an almost incredible turn of fortune, the outcast and all but condemned heretic was once more chosen as a means of restoring order in Rome, and accompanied Cardinal Albornoz on his mission to Italy. Had he been a changed man as he pretended to be, he might have succeeded, for few understood the character of the Romans better, and there was no name in the country of which the memories appealed so profoundly to the hearts of the people. The catalogue of his deeds during the second period of power is long and confused, but the history of his fall is short and tragic. Not without a keen appreciation of the difference between his former position as the freely chosen champion of the people, and his present mission as a reformer supported by pontifical authority, he requested the Legate to invest him with the dignity of a senator, and the Cardinal readily assented to what was an assertion of the temporal power. Then Albornoz left him to himself. He entered Rome in triumph, and his eloquence did not desert him. But he was no longer the young and inspired knight, self-convinced and convincing, who had issued from the little church long ago. In person he was bloated with drink and repulsive to all who saw him; and the vanity which had so often been the temporary basis of his changing character had grown monstrous under the long repression of circumstances. With the first moment of success it broke out and dictated his actions, his assumed humility was forgotten in an instant, as well as the well-worded counsels of wisdom by which he had won the Pope's confidence; and he plunged into a civil war with the still powerful Colonna. One act of folly succeeded another; he had neither money nor credit, and the stern Albornoz, seeing the direction he was taking, refused to send him assistance. In his extremity he attempted to raise funds for his soldiers and money for his own unbounded luxury by imposing taxes which the people could not bear. The result was certain and fatal. The Romans rose against him in a body, and an infuriated rabble besieged him at the Capitol. It has been said that the vainest men make the best soldiers. Rienzi was brave for a moment at the last. Seeing himself surrounded, and deserted by his servants, he went out upon a balcony and faced the mob alone, bearing in his hand the great standard of the Republic, and for the last time he attempted to avert with words the tempest which his deeds had called forth. But his hour had come, and as he stood there alone he was stoned and shot at, and an arrow pierced his hand. Broken in nerve by long intemperance and fanatic excitement, he burst into tears and fled, refusing the hero's death in which he might still have saved his name from scorn. He attempted to escape from the other side of the Capitol towards the Forum, and in the disguise of a street porter he had descended through a window and had almost escaped notice while the multitude was breaking down the doors of the main entrance. Then he was seen and taken, and they brought him in his filthy dress to the great platform of the Capitol, not knowing what they should do with him and almost frightened to find their tyrant in their power. They thronged round him, looked at him, spoke to him, but he answered nothing; for his hour was come, the star of his nativity was in the house of death. In that respite, had he been a man, courage might have awed them, eloquence might have touched them, and he might yet have dreamed of power. But he was utterly speechless, utterly broken, utterly afraid. A whole hour passed, and no hand was lifted against him; yet he spoke not. Then one man, tired of his pale and bloated face, silently struck a knife into his heart, and as he fell dead, the rabble rushed upon him and stabbed him to pieces, and a long yell of murderous rage told all Rome that Rienzi was dead. They left his body to the dogs and went away to their homes, for it was evening, and they were spent with madness. Then the Jews came, who hated him also; and they dragged the miserable corpse through the streets; and made a bonfire of thistles in a remote place and burned it; and what was left of the bones and ashes they threw into the Tiber. So perished Rienzi, a being who was not a man, but a strangely responsive instrument, upon which virtue, heroism, courage, cowardice, faith, falsehood and knavery played the grandest harmonies and the wildest discords in mad succession, till humanity was weary of listening, and silenced the harsh music forever. However we may think of him, he was great for a moment, yet however great we may think him, he was little in all but his first dream. Let him have some honour for that, and much merciful oblivion for the rest. [Illustration] REGION VIII SANT' EUSTACHIO The Eighth region is almost symmetrical in shape, extending nearly north and south with a tolerably even breadth from the haunted palace of the Santacroce, where the marble statue of the dead Cardinal comes down from its pedestal to pace the shadowy halls all night, to Santa Maria in Campo Marzo, and cutting off, as it were, the three Regions so long held by the Orsini from the rest of the city. Taking Rome as a whole, it was a very central quarter until the development of the newly inhabited portions. It was here, near the churches of Saint Eustace and Saint Ives, that the English who came to Rome for business established themselves, like other foreigners, in a distinct colony during the Renascence. Upon the chapel of Saint Ives, unconsecrated now and turned into a lecture room of the University, a strange spiral tower shows the talents of Borromini, Bernini's rival, at their lowest ebb. So far as one can judge, the architect intended to represent realistically the arduous path of learning; but whatever he meant, the result is as bad a piece of Barocco as is to be found in Rome. As for the Church of Saint Eustace, it commemorates a vision which tradition attributes alike to Saint Julian the Hospitaller, to Saint Felix, and to Saint Hubert. The genius of Flaubert, who was certainly one of the greatest prose writers of this century, has told the story of the first of these in very beautiful language, and the legend of Saint Hubert is familiar to every one. Saint Eustace is perhaps less known, for he was a Roman saint of early days, a soldier and a lover of the chase, as many Romans were. We do not commonly associate with them the idea of boar hunting or deer stalking, but they were enthusiastic sportsmen. Virgil's short and brilliant description of Æneas shooting the seven stags on the Carthaginian shore is the work of a man who had seen what he described, and Pliny's letters are full of allusions to hunting. Saint Eustace was a contemporary of the latter, and perhaps outlived him, for he is said to have been martyred under Hadrian, when a long career of arms had raised him to the rank of a general. It is an often-told story--how he was stalking the deer in the Ciminian forest one day, alone and on foot, when a royal stag, milk-white and without blemish, crashed through the meeting boughs before him; how he followed the glorious creature fast and far, and shot and missed and shot again, and how at last the stag sprang up a steep and jutting rock and faced him, and he saw Christ's cross between the branching antlers, and upon the Cross the Crucified, and heard a still far voice that bade him be Christian and suffer and be saved; and so, alone in the greenwood, he knelt down and bowed himself to the world's Redeemer, and rose up again, and the vision had departed. And having converted his wife and his two sons, they suffered together with him; for they were thrust into the great brazen bull by the Colosseum, and it was made red hot, and they perished, praising God. But their ashes lie under the high altar in the church to this day. The small square of Saint Eustace is not far from Piazza Navona, communicating with it by gloomy little streets, and on the great night of the Befana, the fair spreads through the narrow ways and overflows with more booths, more toys, more screaming whistles, into the space between the University and the church. And here at the southeast corner used to stand the famous Falcone, the ancient eating-house which to the last kept up the Roman traditions, and where in old days, many a famous artist and man of letters supped on dishes now as extinct as the dodo. The house has been torn down to make way for a modern building. Famous it was for wild boar, in the winter, dressed with sweet sauce and pine nuts, and for baked porcupine and strange messes of tomatoes and cheese, and famous, too, for its good old wines in the days when wine was not mixed with chemicals and sold as 'Chianti,' though grown about Olevano, Paliano and Segni. It was a strange place, occupying the whole of two houses which must have been built in the sixteenth century, after the sack of Rome. It was full of small rooms of unexpected shapes, scrupulously neat and clean, with little white and red curtains, tiled floors, and rush bottomed chairs, and the regular guests had their own places, corners in which they had made themselves comfortable for life, as it were, and were to be found without fail at dinner and at supper time. It was one of those genial bits of old Rome which survived till a few years ago, and was more deeply regretted than many better things when it disappeared. Behind the Church of Saint Eustace runs a narrow street straight up from the Square of the Pantheon to the Via della Dogana Vecchia. It used to be chiefly occupied at the lower end by poulterers' shops, but towards its upper extremity--for the land rises a little--it has always had a peculiarly dismal and gloomy look. It bears a name about which are associated some of the darkest deeds in Rome's darkest age; it is called the Via de' Crescenzi, the street and the abode of that great and evil house which filled the end of the tenth century with its bloody deeds. There is no more unfathomable mystery in the history of mediæval Rome than the origin and power of Theodora, whose name first appears in the year 914, as Lady Senatress and absolute mistress of the city. The chronicler Luitprand, who is almost the only authority for this period, heaps abuse upon Theodora and her eldest daughter, hints that they were of low origin, and brands them with a disgrace more foul than their crimes. No one can read their history and believe that they were anything but patrician women, of execrable character but of high descent. From Theodora, in little more than a hundred years, descended five Popes and a line of sovereign Counts, ending in Peter, the first ancestor of the Colonna who took the name; and, from her also, by the marriage of her second daughter, called Theodora like herself, the Crescenzi traced their descent. Yet no historian can say who that first Theodora was, nor whence she came, nor how she rose to power, nor can any one name the father of her children. Her terrible eldest child, Marozia, married three sovereigns, the Lord of Tusculum, the Lord of Tuscany, and at last Hugh, King of Burgundy, and left a history that is an evil dream of terror and bloodshed. But the story of those fearful women belongs to their stronghold, the great castle of Sant' Angelo. To the Region of Saint Eustace belongs the history of Crescenzio, consul, tribune and despot of Rome. In the street that bears the name of his family, the huge walls of Severus Alexander's bath afforded the materials for a fortress, and there Crescenzio dwelt when his kinswoman Marozia held Hadrian's tomb, and after she was dead. Those were the times when the Emperors defended the Popes against the Roman people. Not many years had passed since Otto the First had done justice upon Peter the Prefect, far away at the Lateran palace; Otto the Second reigned in his stead, and Benedict the Sixth was Pope. The race of Theodora hated the domination of the Emperor, and despised a youthful sovereign whom they had never seen. They dreamed of restoring Rome to the Eastern Empire, and of renewing the ancient office of Exarch for themselves. Benedict stood in their way and was doomed. They chose their antipope, a Roman Cardinal, one Boniface, a man with neither scruple nor conscience, and set him up in the Pontificate; and, when they had done that, Crescenzio seized Benedict and dragged him through the low black entrance of Sant' Angelo, and presently strangled him in his dungeon. But neither did Boniface please those who had made him Pope; and, within the month, lest he should die like him he had supplanted, he stealthily escaped from Rome to the sea, and it is recorded that he stole and carried away the sacred vessels and treasures of the Vatican, and took them to Constantinople. So Crescenzio first appears in the wild and confused history of that century of dread, when men looked forward with certainty and horror to the ending of the world in the year one thousand. And during a dozen years after Benedict was murdered, the cauldron of faction boiled and seethed in Rome. Then, in the year 987, when Hugh Capet took France for himself and for his descendants through eight centuries, and when John the Fifteenth was Pope in Rome, 'a new tyrant arose in the city which had hitherto been trampled down and held under by the violence of the race of Alberic,'--that is, the race of Theodora,--'and that tyrant was Crescentius.' And Crescenzio was the kinsman of Alberic's children. The second Otto was dead, and Otto the Third was a mere boy, when Crescenzio, fortified in Sant' Angelo, suddenly declared himself Consul, seized all power, and drove the Pope from Rome. This time he had no antipope; he would have no Pope at all, and there was no Emperor either, since the young Otto had not yet been crowned. So Crescenzio reigned alone for awhile, with what he called a Senate at his back, and the terror of his name to awe the Roman people. But Pope John was wiser than the unfortunate Benedict, and a better man than Boniface, the antipope and thief; and having escaped to the north, he won the graces of Crescenzio's distant kinsman by marriage and hereditary foe, Duke Hugh of Tuscany, grandson of Hugh of Burgundy the usurper; and from that strong situation he proceeded to offer the boy Otto inducements for coming to be crowned in Rome. He wisely judged from what he had seen during his lifetime that the most effectual means of opposing the boundless license of the Roman patricians was to make an Emperor, even of a child, and he knew that the name of Otto the Great was not forgotten, and that the terrible execution of Peter the Prefect was remembered with a lively dread. Crescenzio was not ready to oppose the force of the Empire; he was surrounded by jealous factions at home, which any sudden revolution might turn against himself, he weighed his strength against the danger and he resolved to yield. The 'Senate,' which consisted of patricians as greedy as himself, but less daring or less strong, had altogether recovered the temporal power in Rome, and Crescenzio easily persuaded them that it would be both futile and dangerous to quarrel with the Emperor about spiritual matters. The 'Consul' and the 'Senate'--which meant a tyrant and his courtiers--accordingly requested the Pope to return in peace and exercise his episcopal functions in the Holy See. Pope John must have been as bold as he was wise, for he did not hesitate, but came back at once. He reaped the fruit of his wisdom and his courage. Crescenzio and the nobles met him with reverence and implored his forgiveness for their ill-considered deeds; the Pope granted them a free pardon, wisely abstaining from any assertion of temporal power, and sometimes apparently submitting with patience to the Consul's tyranny. For it is recorded that some years later, when the Bishops of France sent certain ambassadors to the Pope, they were not received, but were treated with indignity, kept waiting outside the palace three days, and finally sent home without audience or answer because they had omitted to bribe Crescenzio. [Illustration: SITE OF EXCAVATIONS ON THE PALATINE] If Pope John had persuaded Otto to be crowned at once, such things might not have taken place. It was many years before the young Emperor came to Rome at last, and he had not reached the city when he was met by the news that Pope John was dead. He lost no time, designated his private chaplain, the son of the Duke of Franconia, 'a young man of letters, but somewhat fiery on account of his youth,' to be Pope, and sent him forward to Rome at once with a train of bishops, to be installed in the Holy See. In so youthful a sovereign, such action lacked neither energy nor wisdom. The young Pontiff assumed the name of Gregory the Fifth, espoused the cause of the poor citizens against the tyranny of the nobles, crowned his late master Emperor, and forthwith made a determined effort to crush Crescenzio and regain the temporal power. But he had met his match at the outset. The blood of Theodora was not easily put down. The Consul laughed to scorn the pretensions of the young Pope; the nobles were in arms, the city was his, and in the second year of his Pontificate, Gregory the Fifth was driven ignominiously from the gates in a state of absolute destitution. He was the third Pope whom Crescenzio had driven out. Gregory made his way to Pavia, summoned a council of Bishops, and launched the Major Excommunication at his adversary. But the Consul, secure in Sant' Angelo, laughed again, more grimly, and did as he pleased. At this time Basil and Constantine, joint Emperors in Constantinople, sent ambassadors to Rome to Otto the Third, and with them came a certain John, a Calabrian of Greek race, a man of pliant conscience, tortuous mind, and extraordinary astuteness, at that time Archbishop of Piacenza, and formerly employed by Otto upon a mission to Constantinople. Crescenzio, as though to show that his enmity was altogether against the Pope, and not in the least against the Emperor, received these envoys with great honour, and during their stay persuaded them to enter into a scheme which had suddenly presented itself to his ambitious intelligence. The old dream of restoring Rome to the Eastern Empire was revived, the conspirators resolved to bring it to realization, and John of Calabria was a convenient tool for their hands. He was to be Pope; Crescenzio was to be despot, under the nominal protection and sovereignty of the Greek Emperors, and the ambassadors were to conclude the treaty with the latter. Otto was on the German frontier waging war against the Slavs, and Gregory was definitely exiled from Rome. Nothing stood in the way of the plot, and it was forthwith put into execution. Certain ambassadors of Otto's were passing through Rome on their return from the East and on their way to the Emperor's presence; they were promptly seized and thrown into prison, in order to interrupt communication between the two Empires. John of Calabria was consecrated Pope, or rather antipope, Crescenzio took possession of all power, and certain legates of Pope Gregory having ventured to enter Rome were at once imprisoned with the Emperor's ambassadors. It was a daring stroke, and if it had succeeded, the history of Europe would have been different from that time forward. Crescenzio was bold, unscrupulous, pertinacious and keen. He had the Roman nobles at his back and he controlled such scanty revenues as could still be collected. He had violently expelled three Popes, he had created two antipopes, and his name was terror in the ears of the Church. Yet it would have taken more than all that to overset the Catholic Church at a time when the world was ripe for the first crusade; and though the Empire had fallen low since the days of Charles the Great, it was fast climbing again to the supremacy of power in which it culminated under Barbarossa and whence it fell with Frederick the Second. A handful of high-born murderers and marauders might work havoc in Rome for a time, but they could neither destroy that deep-rooted belief nor check the growth of that imperial law by which Europe emerged from the confusion of the dark age--to lose both law and belief again amid the intellectual excitements of the Renascence. Otto the Third was young, brave and determined, and before the treaty with the Eastern Emperors was concluded, he was well informed of the outrageous deeds of the Roman patricians. No sooner had he brought the war on the Saxon frontier to a successful conclusion than he descended again into Italy 'to purge the Roman bilge,' in the chronicler's strong words. On his way, he found time to visit Venice secretly, with only six companions, and we are told how the Doge entertained him in private as Emperor, with sumptuous suppers, and allowed him to wander about Venice all day as a simple unknown traveller, with his companions, 'visiting the churches and the other rare things of the City,' whereby it is clear that in the year 998, when Rome was a half-deserted, half-ruined city, ruled by a handful of brigands living in the tomb of the Cæsars, Venice, under the good Doge Orseolo the Second, was already one of the beautiful cities of the world, as well as mistress of the Adriatic, of all Dalmatia, and of many lovely islands. Otto took with him Pope Gregory, and with a very splendid army of Germans and Italians marched down to Rome. Neither Crescenzio nor his followers had believed that the young Emperor was in earnest; but when it was clear that he meant to do justice, Antipope John was afraid, and fled secretly by night, in disguise. Crescenzio, of sterner stuff, heaped up a vast provision of food in Sant' Angelo, and resolved to abide a siege. The stronghold was impregnable, so far as any one could know, for it had never been stormed in war or riot, and on its possession had depended the long impunity of Theodora's race. The Emperor might lay siege to it, encamp before it, and hem it in for months; in the end he must be called away by the more urgent wars of the Empire in the north, and Crescenzio, secure in his stronghold, would hold the power still. But when the Roman people knew that Otto was at hand and that the antipope had fled, their courage rose against the nobles, and they went out after John, and scoured the country till they caught him in his disguise, for his face was known to many. Because the Emperor was known to be kind of heart, and because it was remembered also that this John of Calabria, who went by many names, had by strange chance baptized both Otto and Pope Gregory, the Duke of Franconia's son, therefore the Romans feared lest justice should be too gentle; and having got the antipope into their hands, they dealt with him savagely, put out his eyes, cut out his tongue and sliced off his nose, and drove him to prison through the city, seated face backwards on an ass. And when the Emperor and the Pope came, they left him in his dungeon. Now at Gaeta there lived a very holy man, who was Saint Nilus, and who afterwards founded the monastery of Grottaferrata, where there are beautiful wall paintings to this day. He was a Greek, like John of Calabria, and though he detested the antipope he had pity on the man and felt compassion for his countryman. So he journeyed to Rome and came before Otto and Gregory, who received him with perfect devotion, as a saint, and he asked of them that they should give him the wretched John, 'who,' he said, 'held both of you in his arms at the Font of Baptism,' though he was grievously fallen since that day by his great hypocrisy. Then the Emperor was filled with pity, and answered that the saint might have the antipope alive, if he himself would then remain in Rome and direct the monastery of Saint Anastasia of the Greeks. The holy man was willing to sacrifice his life of solitary meditation for the sake of his wretched countryman, and he would have obtained the fulfilment of his request from Otto; but Pope Gregory remembered how he himself had been driven out penniless and scantily clothed, to make way for John of Calabria, and his heart was hardened, and he would not let the prisoner go. Wherefore Saint Nilus foretold that because neither the Pope nor the Emperor would have mercy, the wrath of God should overtake them both. And indeed they were both cut off in the flower of their youth--Gregory within one year, and Otto not long afterwards. Meanwhile they sent Nilus away and laid siege to the Castle of Sant' Angelo, where Crescenzio and his men had shut themselves up with a good store of food and arms. No one had ever taken that fortress, nor did any one believe that it could be stormed. But Pope and Emperor were young and brave and angry, and they had a great army, and the people of Rome were with them, every man. They used such engines as they had,--catapults, and battering-rams, and ladders; and yet Crescenzio laughed, for the stone walls were harder than the stone missiles, and higher than the tallest ladders, and so thick that fire could not heat them from without, nor battering-ram loosen a single block in a single course; and many assaults were repelled, and many a brave soldier fell writhing and broken into the deep ditch with his ladder upon him. When the time of fate was fulfilled, the end came on a fair April morning; one ladder held its place till desperate armed hands had reached the rampart, and swift feet had sprung upon the edge, and one brave arm beat back the twenty that were there to defend; and then there were two, and three, and ten, and a score, and a hundred, and the great castle was taken at last. Nor do we know surely that it was ever taken again by force, even long afterwards in the days of artillery. But Crescenzio's hour had come, and the Emperor took him and the twelve chief nobles who were with him, and cut off their heads, one by one, in quick justice and without torture, and the heads were set up on spikes, and the headless bodies were hung out from the high crenellations of the ramparts. Thus ended Crescenzio, but not his house, nor the line of Theodora, nor died he unavenged. [Illustration: CHURCH OF SANT' EUSTACHIO From a print of the last century] It is said and believed that Pope Gregory perished by the hands of the Crescenzi, who lived in the little street behind the Church of Saint Eustace. As for Otto, he came to a worse end, though he was of a pious house, and laboured for the peace of his soul against the temptations of this evil world. For he was young, and the wife of Crescenzio was wonderfully fair, and her name was Stefania. She came weeping before him and mourning her lord, and was beautiful in her grief, and knew it, as many women do. And the young Emperor saw her, and pitied her, and loved her, and took her to his heart in sin, and though he repented daily, he daily fell again, while the woman offered up her body and her soul to be revenged for the fierce man she had loved. So it came to pass, at last, that she found her opportunity against him, and poured poison into his cup, and kissed him, and gave it to him with a very loving word. And he drank it and died, and the prophecy of the holy man, Nilus, was fulfilled upon him. The story is told in many ways, but that is the main truth of it, according to Muratori, whom Gibbon calls his guide and master in the history of Italy, but whom he did not follow altogether in his brief sketch of Crescenzio's life and death, and their consequences. The Crescenzi lived on, in power and great state. They buried the terrible tribune in Santa Sabina, on the Aventine, where his epitaph may be read today, but whither he did not retire in life, as some guide-books say, to end his days in prayer and meditation. And for some reason, perhaps because they no longer held the great Castle, they seem to have left the Region of Saint Eustace; for Nicholas, the tribune's son, built the small palace by the Tiber, over against the Temple of Hercules, though it has often been called the house of Rienzi, whose name was also Nicholas, which caused the confusion. And later they built themselves other fortresses, but the end of their history is not known. In the troubles which succeeded the death of Crescentius, a curious point arises in the chronicle, with regard to the titles of the bishops depending from the Holy See. It is certainly not generally known that, as late as the tenth century, the bishops of the great cities called themselves Popes--the 'Pope of Milan,' the 'Pope of Naples,' and the like--and that Gregory the Seventh, the famous Hildebrand, was the first to decree that the title should be confined to the Roman Pontiffs, with that of 'Servus Servorum Dei'--'servant of the servants of God.' And indeed, in those changing times such a confusion of titles must have caused trouble, as it did when Gregory the Fifth, driven out by Crescentius, and taking refuge in Pavia, found himself, the Pope of Rome, confronted with Arnulf, the 'Pope' of Milan, and complained of his position to the council he had summoned. The making and unmaking of Popes, and the election of successors to those that died, brings up memories of what Rome was during the vacancy of the See, and of the general delight at the death of any reigning Pontiff, good or bad. A certain monk is reported to have answered Paul the Third, that the finest festival in Rome took place while one Pope lay dead and another was being elected. During that period, not always brief, law and order were suspended. According to the testimony of Dionigi Atanagi, quoted by Baracconi, the first thing that happened was that the prisons were broken open and all condemned persons set free, while all men in authority hid themselves in their homes, and the officers of justice fled in terror from the dangerous humour of the people. For every man who could lay hands on a weapon seized it, and carried it about with him. It was the time for settling private quarrels of long standing, in short and decisive fights, without fear of disturbance or interference from the frightened Bargello and the terrorized watchmen of the city. And as soon as the accumulated private spite of years had spent itself in a certain amount of free fighting, the city became perfectly safe again, and gave itself up to laying wagers on the election of the next Pope. The betting was high, and there were regular bookmakers, especially in all the Regions from Saint Eustace to the Ponte Sant' Angelo, where the banks had established themselves under the protection of the Pope and the Guelph Orsini, and where the most reliable and latest news was sure to be obtained fresh from the Vatican. Instead of the Piazza di Spagna and the Villa Medici, the narrow streets and gloomy squares of Ponte, Parione and Sant' Eustachio became the gathering-place of society, high, low and indiscriminate; and far from exhibiting the slightest signs of mourning for its late ruler, the city gave itself up to a sort of Carnival season, all the more delightful, because it was necessarily unexpected. Moreover, the poor people had the delight of speculating upon the wealth of the cardinal who might be elected; for, as soon as the choice of the Conclave was announced, and the cry, 'A pope, a pope!' rang through the streets, it was the time-honoured privilege of the rabble to sack and plunder the late residence of the chosen cardinal, till, literally, nothing was left but the bare walls and floors. This was so much a matter of course, that the election of a poor Pope was a source of the bitterest disappointment to the people, and was one of their principal causes of discontent when Sixtus the Fifth was raised to the Pontificate, it having been given out as certain, but a few hours earlier, that the rich Farnese was to be the fortunate man. [Illustration] REGION IX PIGNA There used to be a tradition, wholly unfounded, but deeply rooted in the Roman mind, to the effect that the great bronze pine-cone, eleven feet high, which stands in one of the courts of the Vatican, giving it the name 'Garden of the Pine-cone,' was originally a sort of stopper which closed the round aperture in the roof of the Pantheon. The Pantheon stands at one corner of the Region of Pigna, and a connection between the Region, the Pantheon and the Pine-cone seems vaguely possible, though altogether unsatisfactory. The truth about the Pine-cone is perfectly well known; it was part of a fountain in Agrippa's artificial lake in the Campus Martius, of which Pigna was a part, and it was set up in the cloistered garden of Saint Peter's by Pope Symmachus about fourteen hundred years ago. The lake may have been near the Pantheon. No one, so far as I am aware,--not even the excellent Baracconi,--offers any explanation of the name and device of the Ninth Region. Topographically it is nearly a square, of which the angles are the Pantheon, the corner of Via di Caravita and the Corso, the Palazzo di Venezia, and the corner of the new Via Arenula and Via Florida. Besides the Pantheon it contains some of the most notable buildings erected since the Renascence. Here are the palaces of the Doria, of the Altieri, and the 'Palace of Venice' built by Paul the Second, that Venetian Barbo, whose name may have nicknamed the racing horses of the Carnival. Here were the strongholds of the two great rival orders, the Dominicans and the Jesuits, the former in the Piazza della Minerva, the latter in the Piazza del Gesù, and in the Collegio Romano; and here at the present day, in the buildings of the old rivals, significantly connected by an arched passage, are collected the greatest libraries of the city. That of the Dominicans, wisely left in their care, has been opened to the public; the other, called after Victor Emmanuel, is a vast collection of books gathered together by plundering the monastic institutions of Italy at the time of the disestablishment. The booty--for it was nothing else--was brought in carts, mostly in a state of the utmost confusion, and the books and manuscripts were roughly stacked in vacant rooms on the ground floor of the Collegio Romano, in charge of a porter. Not until a poor scholar, having bought himself two ounces of butter in the Piazza Navona, found the greasy stuff wrapped in an autograph letter of Christopher Columbus, did it dawn upon the authorities that the porter was deliberately selling priceless books and manuscripts as waste paper, by the hundredweight, to provide himself with the means of getting drunk. That was about the year 1880. The scandal was enormous, a strict inquiry was made, justice was done as far as possible, and an official account of the affair was published in a 'Green Book'; but the amount of the loss was unknown, it may have been incalculable, and it was undeniably great. The names visibly recorded in the Region have vast suggestions in them,--Ignatius Loyola, the Dominicans, Venice, Doria, Agrippa, and the buildings themselves, which are the record, will last for ages; the opposition of Jesuit and Inquisitor, under one name or another, and of both by the people, will live as long as humanity itself. The crisis in the history of the Inquisition in Rome followed closely upon the first institution of the Tribunal, and seventeen years after Paul the Fourth had created the Court, by a Papal Bull of July twenty-first, 1542, the people burned the Palace of the Inquisition and threatened to destroy the Dominicans and their monastery. [Illustration: THE PANTHEON] So far as it is possible to judge the character of the famous Carafa Pope, he was ardent under a melancholic exterior, rigid but ambitious, utterly blind to everything except the matter he had in hand, proud to folly, and severe to cruelty. A chronicler says of him, that his head 'might be compared to the Vesuvius of his native city, since he was ardent in all his actions, wrathful, hard and inflexible, undoubtedly moved by an incredible zeal for religion, but a zeal often lacking in prudence, and breaking out in eruptions of excessive severity.' On the other hand, his lack of perception was such that he remained in complete ignorance of the outrageous deeds done in his name by his two nephews, the one a cardinal, the other a layman, and it was not until the last year of his life that their doings came to his knowledge. This was the man to whom Queen Elizabeth sent an embassy, in the hope of obtaining the Papal sanction for her succession to the throne. Henry the Second of France had openly espoused the cause of Mary Queen of Scots, whom Philip the Second of Spain was also inclined to support, after the failure of his attempt to obtain the hand of Elizabeth for the Duke of Savoy. With France and Spain against her, the Queen appealed to Rome, and to Paul the Fourth. In the eyes of Catholics her mother had never been the lawful wife of Henry the Eighth, and she herself was illegitimate. If the Pope would overlook this unfortunate fact and confirm her crown in the eyes of Catholic Europe, she would make an act of obedience by her ambassador. She had been brought up as a Catholic, she had been crowned by a Roman Catholic bishop, and on first ascending the throne she had shown herself favourable to the Catholic party; the request and proposition were reasonable, if nothing more. Muratori points out that if a more prudent, discreet and gentle Pope had reigned at that time, and if he had received Elizabeth's offer kindly, according to the dictates of religion, which he should have considered to the exclusion of everything else, and without entering into other people's quarrels, nor into the question of his own earthly rights, England might have remained a Catholic country. Paul the Fourth's answer, instead, was short, cold and senseless. 'England,' he said, 'is under the feudal dominion of the Roman Church. Elizabeth is born out of wedlock; there are other legitimate heirs, and she should never have assumed the crown without the consent of the Apostolic See.' This is the generally accepted account of what took place, as given by Muratori and other historians. Lingard, however, whose authority is undeniable, argues against the truth of the story on the ground that the English Ambassador in Rome at the time of Queen Mary's death never had an audience of the Pope. It seems probable, nevertheless, that Elizabeth actually appealed to the Holy See, though secretly and with the intention of concealing the step in case of failure. A child might have foreseen the consequences of the Pope's political folly. Elizabeth saw her extreme danger, turned her back upon Rome forever, and threw herself into the arms of the Protestant party as her only chance of safety. At the same time heresy assumed alarming proportions throughout Europe, and the Pope called upon the Inquisition to put it down in Rome. Measures of grim severity were employed, and the Roman people, overburdened with the taxes laid upon them by the Pope's nephews, were exasperated beyond endurance by the religious zeal of the Dominicans, in whose hands the inquisitorial power was placed. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE PANTHEON] Nor were they appeased by the fall of the two Carafa, which was ultimately brought about by the ambassador of Tuscany. The Pope enquired of him one day why he so rarely asked an audience, and he frankly replied that the Carafa would not admit him to the Pope's presence unless he would previously give a full account of his intentions, and reveal all the secrets of the Grand Duke's policy. Then some one wrote out an account of the Carafa's misdeeds and laid it in the Pope's own Breviary. The result was sudden and violent, like most of Paul's decisions and actions. He called a Consistory of cardinals, made open apology for his nephews' doings, deprived them publicly of all their offices and honours, and exiled them, in opposite directions and with their families, beyond the confines of the Papal States. But the people were not satisfied; they accused the Pope of treating his nephews as scapegoats for his own sins, and the immediate repeal of many taxes was no compensation for the terrors of the Inquisition. There were spies everywhere. No one was safe from secret accusers. The decisions of the tribunal were slow, mysterious and deadly. The Romans became the victims of a secret reign of terror such as the less brave Neapolitans had more bravely fought against and had actually destroyed a dozen years earlier, when Paul the Fourth, then only a cardinal, had persuaded their Viceroy to try his favourite method of reducing heresy. Yet such was the fear of the Dominicans and of the Pope himself that no one dared to raise his voice against the 'monks of the Minerva.' The general dissatisfaction was fomented by the nobles, and principally by the Colonna, who had been at open war with the Pope during his whole reign. Moreover, the severities of his government had produced between Colonna and Orsini one of those occasional alliances for their common safety, which vary their history without adorning it. The Pope seized the Colonna estates and conferred them upon his nephews, but was in turn often repulsed as the fighting ebbed and flowed during the four years of his Pontificate, for the Colonna as usual had powerful allies in the Emperor and in his kingdom of Naples. Changeable as the Roman people always were, they had more often espoused the cause of Colonna than that of the Pope and Orsini. Paul the Fourth fell ill in the summer, when the heat makes a southern rabble dangerous, and the certain news of his approaching end was a message of near deliverance. He lingered and died hard, though he was eighty-four years old and afflicted with dropsy. But the exasperated Romans were impatient for the end, and the nobles were willing to take vengeance upon their oppressor before he breathed his last. As the news that the Pope was dying ran through the city, the spell of terror was broken, secret murmuring turned to open complaint, complaint to clamour, clamour to riot. A vast and angry multitude gathered together in the streets and open places, and hour by hour, as the eager hope for news of death was ever disappointed, and the hard old man lived on, the great concourse gathered strength within itself, seething, waiting, listening for the solemn tolling of the great bell in the Capitol to tell them that Paul the Fourth had passed away. Still it came not. And in the streets and everywhere there were retainers and men-at-arms of the great houses, ready of tongue and hand, but friendly with the people, listening to tales of suffering and telling of their lords' angry temper against the dying Pope. A word here, a word there, like sparks amid sun-dried stubble, till the hot stuff was touched with fire and all broke out in flame. Then words were no longer exchanged between man and man, but a great cry of rage went up from all the throng, and the people began to move, some knowing what they meant to do and some not knowing, nor caring, but moving with the rest, faster and faster, till many were trampled down in the press, and they came to the prisons, to Corte Savella and Tor di Nona, and even to Sant' Angelo, and as they battered at the great doors from without, the prisoners shouted for freedom from within, and their gaolers began to loose their chains, fearing for their own lives, and drew back the bolts to let the stream of riot in. So on that day four hundred condemned men were taken out and let loose, before the Pope was dead. [Illustration: THE RIPETTA From a print of the last century] Yet the people had not enough, and they surged and roared in the streets, quivering with rage not yet half spent. And again words ran along, as fire through dry grass, and suddenly all men thought of the Inquisition, down by the Tiber at the Ripetta. Thought was motion, motion was action, action was to set men free and burn the hated prison to the ground. The prisoners of the Holy Roman Office were seventy-two, and many had lain there long unheard, for the trial of unbelief was cumbrous in argument and slow of issue, and though the Pope could believe no one innocent who was in prison, and though he was violent in his judgments, the saintly Ghislieri was wise and cautious, and would condemn no man hastily to please his master. When he in turn was Pope, the people loved him, though at first they feared him for Pope Paul's sake. When they had burned the Inquisition on that day and set free the accused persons, and it was not yet night, they turned back from the Tiber, still unsatisfied, for they had shed little blood, or none at all, perhaps, and the people of Rome always thirsted for that when their anger was hot. Through the winding streets they went, dividing where the ways were narrow and meeting again where there was room, always towards Pigna, and the Minerva, and the dwelling of the learned black and white robed fathers into whose hands the Inquisition had been given and from whose monastery the good Ghislieri had been chosen to be cardinal. For the rabble knew no difference of thought or act between him and the dying Pope. They bore torches and weapons, and beams for battering down the doors, and they reached the place, a raging horde of madmen. Suddenly before them there were five men on horseback, who were just and did not fear them. These men were Marcantonio Colonna and his kinsman Giuliano Cesarini, and a Salviati, and a Torres and Gianbattista Bernardi, who had all suffered much at the hands of the Pope and had come swiftly to Rome when they heard that he was near death. And at the sight of those calm knights, sitting there on their horses without armour and with sheathed swords, the people drew back a moment, while Colonna spoke. Presently, as he went on, they grew silent and understood his words. And when they had understood, they saw that he was right and their anger was quieted, and they went away to their homes, satisfied with having set free those who had been long in prison. So the great monastery was saved from fire and the monks from death. But the Pope was not yet dead, and while he lived the people were restless and angry by day and night, and ready for new deeds of violence; but Marcantonio Colonna rode through the city continually, entreating them to wait patiently for the end, and because he also had suffered much at Paul's hands, they listened to him and did nothing more. [Illustration: PIAZZA MINERVA] The rest is a history which all men know: how the next Pope was just, and put the Carafa to their trial for many deeds of bloodshed; how the judgment was long delayed that it might be without flaw; how it took eight hours at last to read the judges' summing up; and how Cardinal Carafa was strangled by night in Sant' Angelo, while at the same hour his brother and the two who had murdered his wife were beheaded in Tor di Nona, just opposite the Castle, across the Tiber--a grim tragedy, but the tragedy of justice. Southward a few steps from the Church of the Minerva is the little Piazza della Pigna, with a street of the same name leading out of it. And at the corner of the place is a small church, dedicated to 'Saint John of the Pine-cone,' that is, of the Region. Within lies one of the noble Porcari in a curious tomb, and their stronghold was close by, perhaps built in one block with the church itself. The name Porcari calls up another tale of devotion, of betrayal, and of death, with the last struggle for a Roman Republic at the end of the Middle Age. It was a hopeless attempt, made by a brave man of simple and true heart, a man better and nobler than Rienzi in every way, but who judged the times ill and gave his soul and body for the dream of a liberty which already existed in another shape, but which for its name's sake he would not acknowledge. Stephen Porcari failed where Rienzi partially succeeded, because the people were not with him; they were no longer oppressed, and they desired no liberator; they had freedom in fact and they cared nothing for the name of liberty; they had a ruler with whom they were well pleased, and they did not long for one of whom they knew nothing. But Stephen, brave, pure and devoted, was a man of dreams, and he died for them, as many others have died for the name of Rome and the phantom of an impossible Republic; for Rome has many times been fatal to those who loved her best. In the year 1447 Pope Eugenius the Fourth died, after a long and just reign, disturbed far more by matters spiritual than by any worldly troubles. And then, says the chronicler, a meeting of the Romans was called at Aracoeli, to determine what should be asked of the Conclave that was to elect a new Pope. And there, with many other citizens, Stephen Porcari spoke to the Council, saying some things useful to the Republic; and he declared that Rome should govern itself and pay a feudal tribute to the Pope, as many others of the Papal States did. And the Archbishop of Benevento forbade that he should say more; but the Council and the citizens wished him to go on; and there was disorder, and the meeting broke up, the Archbishop being gravely displeased, and the people afraid to support Stephen against him, because the King of Spain was at Tivoli, very near Rome. Then the Cardinals elected Pope Nicholas the Fifth, a good man and a great builder, and of gentle and merciful temper, and there was much feasting and rejoicing in Rome. But Stephen Porcari pondered the inspired verses of Petrarch and the strange history of Rienzi, and waited for an opportunity to rouse the people, while his brother, or his kinsman, was the Senator of Rome, appointed by the Pope. At last, after a long time, when there was racing, with games in the Piazza Navona, certain youths having fallen to quarrelling, and Stephen being there, and a great concourse of people, he tried by eloquent words to stir the quarrel to a riot, and a rebellion against the Pope. The people cared nothing for Petrarch's verses nor Rienzi's memory, and Nicholas was kind to them, so that Stephen Porcari failed again, and his failure was high treason, for which he would have lost his head in any other state of Europe. Yet the Pope was merciful, and when the case had been tried, the rebel was sent to Bologna, to live there in peace, provided that he should present himself daily before the Cardinal Legate of the City. But still he dreamed, and would have made action of dreams, and he planned a terrible conspiracy, and escaped from Bologna, and came back to Rome secretly. His plan was this. On the feast of the Epiphany he and his kinsmen and retainers would seize upon the Pope and the Cardinals as prisoners, when they were on their way to High Mass at Saint Peter's, and then by threatening to murder them the conspirators would force the keepers of Sant'Angelo to give up the Castle, which meant the power to hold Rome in subjection. Once there, they would call upon the people to acclaim the return of the ancient Republic, the Pope should be set free to fulfil the offices of religion, while deprived of all temporal power, and the vision of freedom would become a glorious reality. But Rome was not with Porcari, and he paid the terrible price of unpopular fanaticism and useless conspiracy. He was betrayed by the folly of his nephew, who, with a few followers, killed the Pope's equerry in a street brawl, and then, perhaps to save himself, fired the train too soon. Stephen shut the great gates of his house and defended himself as well as he could against the men-at-arms who were sent to take him. The doors were closed, says the chronicler, and within there were many armed men, and they fought at the gate, while those in the upper story threw the tables from the windows upon the heads of the besiegers. Seeing that they were lost, Stephen's men went out by the postern behind the house, and his nephew, Battista Sciarra, with four companions, fought his way through, only one of them being taken, because the points of his hose were cut through, so that the hose slipped down and he could not move freely. Those who had not cut their way out were taken within by the governor's men, and Stephen was dragged with ignominy from a chest in which he had taken refuge. The trial was short and sure, for even the Pope's patience was exhausted. Three days later, Stephen Infessura, the chronicler, saw the body of Stephen Porcari hanging by the neck from the crenellations of the tower that used to stand on the right-hand side of Sant' Angelo, as you go towards the Castle from the bridge; and it was dressed in a black doublet and black hose--the body of that 'honourable man who loved the right and the liberty of Rome, who, because he looked upon his banishment as without good cause, meant to give his life, and gave his body, to free his country from slavery.' Infessura was a retainer of the Colonna and no friend of any Pope's, of course; yet he does not call the execution of Porcari an act of injustice. He speaks, rather, with a sort of gentle pity of the man who gave so much so freely, and paid bodily death and shame for his belief in a lofty vision. Rienzi dreamed as high, rose far higher, and fell to the depths of his miserable end by his vanity and his weaknesses. Stephen Porcari accomplished nothing in his life, nor by his death; had he succeeded, no one can tell how his nature might have changed; but in failure he left after him the clean memory of an honest purpose, which was perhaps mistaken, but was honourable, patriotic and unselfish. It is strange, unless it be an accident, that the great opponents, the Dominicans and the Jesuits, should have established themselves on opposite sides of the same street, and it is characteristic that the latter should have occupied more land and built more showy buildings than the former, extending their possessions in more than one direction and in a tentative way, while the rigid Dominicans remained rooted to the spot they had chosen, throughout many centuries. Both are gone, in an official and literal sense. The Dominican Monastery is filled with public offices, and though the magnificent library is still kept in order by Dominican friars, it is theirs no longer, but confiscated to the State, and connected with the Victor Emmanuel Library, in what was the Jesuit Roman College, by a bridge that crosses the street of Saint Ignatius. And the Jesuit College, on its side, is the property of the State and a public school; the Jesuits' library is taken from them altogether, and their dwelling is occupied by other public offices. But the vitality which had survived ages was not to be destroyed by such a trifle as confiscation. Officially both are gone; in actual fact both are more alive than ever. When the Jesuits were finally expelled from their College, they merely moved to the other side of the Dominican Monastery, across the Via del Seminario, and established themselves in the Borromeo palace, still within sight of their rivals' walls, and they called their college the Gregorian University. The Dominicans, driven from the ancient stronghold at last, after occupying it exactly five hundred years, have taken refuge in other parts of Rome under the security of title-deeds held by foreigners, and consequently beyond the reach of Italian confiscation. Yet still, in fact, the two great orders face each other. It was the prayer of Ignatius Loyola that his order should be persecuted, and his desire has been most literally fulfilled, for the Jesuits have suffered almost uninterrupted persecution, not at the hands of Protestants only, but of the Roman Catholic Church itself in successive ages. Popes have condemned them, and Papal edicts have expelled their order from Rome; Catholic countries, with Catholic Spain at their head, have driven them out and hunted them down with a determination hardly equalled, and certainly not surpassed at any time, by Protestant Prussia or Puritan England. Non-Catholics are very apt to associate Catholics and Jesuits in their disapproval, dislike, or hatred, as the case may be; but neither Englishman nor German could speak of the order of Ignatius more bitterly than many a most devout Catholic. To give an idea of the feeling which has always been common in Rome against the Jesuits, it is enough to quote the often told popular legend about the windy Piazza del Gesù, where their principal church stands, adjoining what was once their convent, or monastery, as people say nowadays, though Doctor Johnson admits no distinction between the words, and Dryden called a nunnery by the latter name. The story is this. One day the Devil and the Wind were walking together in the streets of Rome, conversing pleasantly according to their habit. When they came to the Piazza del Gesù, the Devil stopped. 'I have an errand in there,' he said, pointing to the Jesuits' house. 'Would you kindly wait for me a moment?' 'Certainly,' answered the Wind. The Devil went in, but never came out again, and the Wind is waiting for him still. When one considers what the Jesuits have done for mankind, as educators, missionaries and civilizers, it seems amazing that they should be so judged by the Romans themselves. Their devotion to the cause of Christianity against paganism has led many of them to martyrdom in past centuries, and may again so long as Asia and Africa are non-Christian. Their marvellous insight into the nature and requirements of education in the highest sense has earned them the gratitude of thousands of living laymen. They have taught all over the world. Their courage, their tenacity, their wonderful organization, deserve the admiration of mankind. Neither their faults nor their mistakes seem adequate to explain the deadly hatred which they have so often roused against themselves among Christians of all denominations. All organized bodies make mistakes, all have faults; few indeed can boast of such a catalogue of truly good deeds as the followers of Saint Ignatius; yet none have been so despised, so hated, so persecuted, not only by men who might be suspected of partisan prejudice, but by the wise, the just and the good. [Illustration] REGION X CAMPITELLI Rome tends to diminutives in names as in facts. The first emperor was Augustus, the last was Augustulus; with the Popes, the Roman Senate dwindled to a mere office, held by one man, and respected by none; the ascent to the Capitol, the path of triumphs that marked the subjugation of the world, became in the twelfth century 'Fabatosta,' or 'Roast Beans Lane'; and, in the vulgar tongue, 'Capitolium' was vulgarized to 'Campitelli,' and the word gave a name to a Region of the city. Within that Region are included the Capitol, the Forum, the Colosseum and the Palatine, with the palaces of the Cæsars. It takes in, roughly, the land covered by the earliest city; and, throughout the greater part of Roman history, it was the centre of political and military life. It merited something better than a diminutive for a name; yet, in the latest revolution of things, it has fared better, and has been more respected, than many other quarters, and still the memories of great times and deeds cling to the stones that are left. In the dark ages, when a ferocious faith had destroyed the remnants of Latin learning and culture, together with the last rites of the old religion, the people invented legend as a substitute for the folklore of all the little gods condemned by the Church; so that the fairy tale is in all Europe the link between Christianity and paganism, and to the weakness of vanquished Rome her departed empire seemed only explicable as the result of magic. The Capitol, in the imagination of such tales, became a tower of wizards. High above all, a golden sphere reflected the sun's rays far out across the distant sea by day, and at night a huge lamp took its place as a beacon for the sailors of the Mediterranean, even to Spain and Africa. In the tower, too, was preserved the mystic mirror of the world, which instantly reflected all that passed in the empire, even to its furthest limits. Below the towers, also, and surmounting the golden palace, there were as many statues as Rome had provinces, and each statue wore a bell at its neck, that rang of itself in warning whenever there was trouble in the part of the world to which it belonged, while the figure itself turned on its base to look in the direction of the danger. Such tales Irving tells of the Alhambra, not more wonderful than those believed of Rome, and far less numerous. There were stories of hidden treasure, too, without end. For, in those days of plundering, men laid their hands on what they saw, and hid what they took as best they might; and later, when the men of the Middle Age and of the Renascence believed that Rome had been destroyed by the Goths, they told strange stories of Gothmen who appeared suddenly in disguise from the north, bringing with them ancient parchments in which were preserved sure instructions for unearthing the gold hastily hidden by their ancestors, because there had been too much of it to carry away. Even in our own time such things have been done. In the latter days of the reign of Pius the Ninth, some one discovered an old book or manuscript, wherein it was pointed out that a vast treasure lay buried on the northward side of the Colosseum within a few feet of the walls, and it was told that if any man would dig there he should find, as he dug deeper, certain signs, fragments of statues, and hewn tablets, and a spring of water. So the Pope gave his permission, and the work began. Every one who lived in Rome thirty years ago can remember it, and the excited curiosity of the whole city while the digging went on. And, strange to say, though the earth had evidently not been disturbed for centuries, each object was found in succession, exactly as described, to a great depth; but not the treasure, though the well was sunk down to the primeval soil. It was all filled in again, and the mystery has never been solved. Yet the mere fact that everything was found except the gold, lends some possibility to the other stories of hidden wealth, told and repeated from generation to generation. The legend of the Capitol is too vast, too varied, too full of tremendous contrasts to be briefly told or carelessly sketched. Archæologists have reconstructed it on paper, scholars have written out its history, poets have said great things of it; yet if one goes up the steps today and stands by the bronze statue in the middle of the square, seeing nothing but a paved space enclosed on three sides by palaces of the late Renascence, it is utterly impossible to call up the past. Perhaps no point of ancient Rome seems less Roman and less individual than that spot where Rienzi stood, silent and terrified, for a whole hour before the old stone lion, waiting for the curious, pitiless rabble to kill him. The big buildings shut out history, hide the Forum, the Gemonian steps, and the Tarpeian rock, and in the very inmost centre of the old city's heart they surround a man with the artificialities of an uninteresting architecture. For though Michelangelo planned the reconstruction he did not live to see his designs carried out, and they fell into the hands of little men who tried to improve upon what they could not understand, and ruined it. The truth is that half a dozen capitols have been built on the hill, destroyed, forgotten, and replaced, each one in turn, during successive ages. It is said that certain Indian jugglers allow themselves to be buried alive in a state of trance, and are taken from the tomb after many months not dead; and it is said that the body, before it is brought to life again, is quite cold, as though the man were dead, excepting that there is a very little warmth just where the back of the skull joins the neck. Yet there is enough left to reanimate the whole being in a little time, so that life goes on as before. So in Rome's darkest and most dead days, the Capitol has always held within it a spark of vitality, ready to break out with little warning and violent effect. [Illustration: THE CAPITOL] For the Capitol, not yet the Capitol, but already the sacred fortress of Rome, was made strong in the days of Romulus, and it was in his time, when he and his men had carried off the Sabine girls and were at war with their fathers and brothers, that Tarpeia came down the narrow path, her earthen jar balanced on her graceful head, to fetch spring water for a household sacrifice. Her father kept the castle. She came down, a straight brown girl with eager eyes and red lips, clad in the grey woollen tunic that left her strong round arms bare to the shoulder. Often she had seen the golden bracelets which the Sabine men wore on their left wrists, and some of them had a jewel or two set in the gold; but the Roman men wore none, and the Roman women had none to wear, and Tarpeia's eyes were eager. Because she came to get water for holy things she was safe, and she went down to the spring, and there was Tatius, of the Sabines, drinking. When he saw how her eyes were gold-struck by his bracelet, he asked her if she should like to wear it, and the blood came to her brown face, as she looked back quickly to the castle where her father was. 'If you Sabines will give me what you wear on your left arms,' she said--for she did not know the name of gold--'you shall have the fortress tonight, for I will open the gate for you.' The Sabine looked at her, and then he smiled quickly, and promised for himself and all his companions. So that night they went up stealthily, for there was no moon, and the gate was open, and Tarpeia was standing there. Tatius could see her greedy eyes in the starlight; but instead of his bracelet, he took his shield from his left arm and struck her down with it for a betrayer, and all the Sabine men threw their shields upon her as they passed. So she died, but her name remains to the rock, to this day. It was long before the temple planned by the first Tarquin was solemnly dedicated by the first consuls of the Republic, and the earthen image of Jupiter, splendidly dressed and painted red, was set up between Juno and Minerva. Many hundred years later, in the terrible times of Marius and Sylla, the ancient sanctuary took fire and was burned, and Sylla rebuilt it. That temple was destroyed also, and another, built by Vespasian, was burned too, and from the last building Genseric stole the gilt bronze tiles in the year 455, when Christianity was the fact and Jupiter the myth, one and twenty years before the final end of Rome's empire; and the last of what remained was perhaps burned by Robert Guiscard after serving as a fortress for the enemies of Gregory the Seventh. [Illustration: CHURCH OF ARACOELI] But we know, at last, that the fortress of the old city stood where the Church of Aracoeli stands, and that the temple was on the other side, over against the Palatine, and standing back a little from the Tarpeian rock, so that the open square of today is just between the places of the two. And when one goes up the steps on the right, behind the right-hand building, one comes to a quiet lane, where German students of archæology live in a little colony by themselves and have their Institute at the end of it, and a hospital of their own; and there, in a wall, is a small green door leading into a quiet garden, with a pretty view. Along the outer edge runs a low stone wall, and there are seats where one may rest and dream under the trees, a place where one might fancy lovers meeting in the moonlight, or old men sunning themselves of an autumn afternoon, or children playing among the flowers on a spring morning. But it is a place of fear and dread, ever since Tarpeia died there for her betrayal, and one may dream other dreams there than those of peace and love. The vision of a pale, strong man rises at the edge, bound and helpless, lifted from the ground by savage hands and hurled from the brink to the death below,--Manlius, who saved the Capitol and loved the people, and was murdered by the nobles,--and many others after him, just and unjust, whirled through the clear air to violent destruction for their bad or their good deeds, as justice or injustice chanced to be in the ascendant of the hour. And then, in the Middle Age, the sweet-scented garden was the place of terrible executions, and the gallows stood there permanently for many years, and men were hanged and drawn and quartered there, week by week, month by month, all the year round, the chief magistrate of Rome looking on from the window of the Senator's palace, as a duty; till one of them sickened at the sight of blood, and ordained that justice should be done at the Bridge of Sant' Angelo, and at Tor di Nona, and in the castle itself, and the summit of the fatal rock was left to the birds, the wild flowers, and the merciful purity of nature. And that happened four hundred years ago. Until our own time there were prisons deep down in the old Roman vaults. At first, as in old days, the place of confinement was in the Mamertine prison, on the southeastern slope, beneath which was the hideous Tullianum, deepest and darkest of all, whence no captive ever came out alive to the upper air again. In the Middle Age, the prison was below the vaults of the Roman Tabularium on the side of the Forum, but it is said that the windows looked inward upon a deep court of the Senator's palace. As civilization advanced, it was transferred a story higher, to a more healthy region of the building, but the Capitoline prison was not finally given up till the reign of Pius the Ninth, at which time it had become a place of confinement for debtors only. Institutions and parties in Rome have always had a tendency to cling to places more than in other cities. It is thus that during so many centuries the Lateran was the headquarters of the Popes, the Capitol the rallying-place of the ever-smouldering republicanism of the people, and the Castle of Sant' Angelo the seat of actual military power as contrasted with spiritual dominion and popular aspiration. So far as the latter is concerned its vitality is often forgotten and its vigour underestimated. One must consider the enormous odds against which the spirit of popular emancipation had to struggle in order to appreciate the strength it developed. A book has been written called 'The One Hundred and Sixty-one rebellions of papal subjects between 896 and 1859'--a title which gives an average of about sixteen to a century; and though the furious partiality of the writer calls them all rebellions against the popes, whereas a very large proportion were revolts against the nobles, and Rienzi's attempt was to bring the Pope back to Rome, yet there can be no question as to the vitality which could produce even half of such a result; and it may be remembered that in almost every rising of the Roman people the rabble first made a rush for the Capitol, and, if successful, seized other points afterwards. In the darkest ages the words 'Senate' and 'Republic' were never quite forgotten and were never dissociated from the sacred place. The names of four leaders, Arnold of Brescia, Stefaneschi, Rienzi and Porcari, recall the four greatest efforts of the Middle Age; the first partially succeeded and left its mark, the second was fruitless because permanent success was then impossible against such odds, the third miscarried because Rienzi was a madman and Cardinal Albornoz a man of genius, and the fourth, because the people were contented and wanted no revolution at all. The first three of those men seized the Capitol at once, the fourth intended to do so. It was always the immediate object of every revolt, and the power to ring the great Patarina, the ancient bell stolen by the Romans from Viterbo, had for centuries a directing influence in Roman brawls. Its solemn knell announced the death of a Pope, or tolled the last hour of condemned criminals, and men crossed themselves as it echoed through the streets; but at the tremendous sound of its alarm, rung backward till the tower rocked, the Romans ran to arms, the captains of the Regions buckled on their breastplates and displayed their banners, and the people flocked together to do deeds of sudden violence and shortlived fury. In a few hours Stefaneschi of Trastevere swept the nobles from the city; between noon and night Rienzi was master of Rome, and it was from the Capitol that the fierce edicts of both threatened destruction to the unready barons. They fled to their mountain dens like wolves at sunrise, but the night was never slow to descend upon liberty's short day, and with the next dawn the ruined towers began to rise again; the people looked with dazed indifference upon the fall of their leader, and presently they were again slaves, as they had been--Arnold was hanged and burned, Stefaneschi languished in a dungeon, Rienzi wandered over Europe a homeless exile, the straight, stiff corpse of brave Stephen Porcari hung, clad in black, from the battlement of Sant' Angelo. It was always the same story. The Barons were the Sabines, the Latins and the Æquians of Mediæval Rome; but there was neither a Romulus nor a Cincinnatus to lead the Roman people against steel-clad masters trained to fighting from boyhood, bold by inheritance, and sure of a power which they took every day by violence and held year after year by force. In imagination one would willingly sweep away the three stiff buildings on the Capitol, the bronze Emperor and his horse, the marble Castor and Pollux, the proper arcades, the architectural staircase, and the even pavement, and see the place as it used to be five hundred years ago. It was wild then. Out of broken and rocky ground rose the ancient Church of Aracoeli, the Church of the Altar of Heaven, built upon that altar which the Sibyl of Tivoli bade Augustus raise to the Firstborn of God. To the right a rude fortress, grounded in the great ruins of Rome's Archive House, flanked by rough towers, approached only by that old triumphal way, where old women slowly roasted beans in iron chafing-dishes over little fires that were sheltered from the north wind by the vast wall. Before the fortress a few steps led to the main door, and over that was a great window and a balcony with a rusty iron balustrade--the one upon which Rienzi came out at the last, with the standard in his hand. The castle itself not high, but strong, brown and battered. Beyond it, the gallows, and the place of death. Below it, a desolation of tumbling rock and ruin, where wild flowers struggled for a holding in spring, and the sharp cactus sent out ever-green points between the stones. Far down, a confusion of low, brown houses, with many dark towers standing straight up from them like charred trees above underbrush in a fire-blasted forest. Beyond all, the still loneliness of far mountains. That was the scene, and those were the surroundings, in which the Roman people reinstituted a Roman Senate, after a lapse of nearly six hundred years, in consequence of the agitation begun and long continued by Arnold of Brescia. Muratori, in his annals, begins his short account of the year 1141 by saying that the history of Italy during that period is almost entirely hidden in darkness, because there are neither writers nor chroniclers of the time, and he goes on to say that no one knows why the town of Tivoli had so long rebelled against the Popes. The fact remains, astonishing and ridiculous,--in the middle of the twelfth century imperial Rome was at war with suburban Tivoli, and Tivoli was the stronger; for when the Romans persuaded Pope Innocent the Second to lay siege to the town, the inhabitants sallied out furiously, cut their assailants to pieces, seized all their arms and provisions, and drove the survivors to ignominious flight. Hence the implacable hatred between Tivoli and Rome; and Tivoli became an element in the struggles that followed. Now for many years, Rome had been in the hands of a family of converted Jews, known as the Pierleoni, from Pietro Leone, first spoken of in the chronicles as an iniquitous usurer of enormous wealth. They became prefects of Rome; they took possession of Sant' Angelo and were the tyrants of the city, and finally they became the Pope's great enemies, the allies of Roger of Apulia, and makers of antipopes, of whom the first was either Pietro's son or his grandson. They had on their side possession, wealth, the support of a race which never looks upon apostasy from its creed as final, the alliance of King Roger and of Duke Roger, his son, and the countenance, if not the friendship, of Arnold of Brescia, the excommunicated monk of northern Italy, and the pupil of the romantic Abelard. And the Pierleoni had against them the Popes, the great Frangipani family with most of the nobles, and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who has been called the Bismarck of the Church. Arnold of Brescia was no ordinary fanatic. He was as brave as Stefaneschi, as pure-hearted as Stephen Porcari, as daring and eloquent as Rienzi in his best days. The violent deeds of his followers have been imputed to him, and brought him to his end; but it was his great adversary, Saint Bernard, who expressed a regretful wish 'that his teachings might have been as irreproachable as his life.' The doctrine for which he died at last was political, rather than spiritual, human rather than theological. In all but his monk's habit he was a layman in his later years, as he had been when he first wandered to France and sat at the feet of the gentle Abelard; but few Churchmen of that day were as spotless in their private lives. He was an agitator, a would-be reformer, a revolutionary; and the times craved change. The trumpet call of the first Crusade had roused the peoples of Europe, and the distracted forces of the western world had been momentarily concentrated in a general and migratory movement of religious conquest; forty years later the fortunes of the Latins in the East were already waning, and Saint Bernard was meditating the inspiring words that sent four hundred thousand warriors to the rescue of the Holy Places. What Bernard was about to attempt for Palestine, Arnold dreamed of accomplishing for Rome. In his eyes she was holy, too, her ruins were the sepulchre of a divine freedom, worthy to be redeemed from tyranny even at the price of blood, and he would have called from the tomb the spirit of murdered liberty to save and illuminate mankind. Where Bernard was a Christian, Arnold was a Roman in soul; where Bernard was an inspired monk, Arnold was in heart a Christian, of that first Apostolic republic which had all things in common. At such a time such a man could do much. Rome was in the utmost distress. At the election of Innocent the Second, the Jewish Pierleoni had set up one of themselves as antipope, and Innocent had been obliged to escape in spite of the protection of the still powerful Frangipani, leaving the Israelitish antipope to rule Rome, in spite of the Emperor, and in alliance with King Roger for nine years, until his death, when it required Saint Bernard's own presence and all the strength of his fiery words to dissuade the Romans from accepting another spiritual and temporal ruler imposed upon them by the masterful Pierleoni. So Innocent returned at last, a good man, much tried by misfortune, but neither wise nor a leader of men. At that time the soldiers of Rome were beaten in open battle by the people of Tivoli, a humiliation which it was not easy to forget. And it is more than probable that the Pierleoni looked on at the Pope's failure in scornful inaction from their stronghold of Sant' Angelo, which they had only nominally surrendered to Innocent's authority. From a distance, Arnold of Brescia sadly contemplated Rome's disgrace and the evil state of the Roman people. The yet unwritten words of Saint Bernard were already more than true. They are worth repeating here, in Gibbon's strong translation, for they perfect the picture of the times. 'Who,' asks Bernard, 'is ignorant of the vanity and arrogance of the Romans? a nation nursed in sedition, untractable, and scorning to obey, unless they are too feeble to resist. When they promise to serve, they aspire to reign; if they swear allegiance, they watch the opportunity of revolt; yet they vent their discontent in loud clamours, if your doors, or your counsels, are shut against them. Dexterous in mischief, they have never learnt the science of doing good. Odious to earth and heaven, impious to God, seditious among themselves, jealous of their neighbours, inhuman to strangers, they love no one, by no one are they beloved; and while they wish to inspire fear, they live in base and continual apprehension. They will not submit; they know not how to govern; faithless to their superiors, intolerable to their equals, ungrateful to their benefactors, and alike impudent in their demands and their refusals. Lofty in promise, poor in execution: adulation and calumny, perfidy and treason, are the familiar arts of their policy.' Fearless and in earnest, Arnold came to Rome, and began to preach a great change, a great reform, a great revival, and many heard him and followed him; and it was not in the Pope's power to silence him, nor bring him to any trial. The Pierleoni would support any sedition against Innocent; the Roman people were weary of masters, they listened with delight to Arnold's fierce condemnation of all temporal power, that of the Pope and that of the Emperor alike, and the old words, Republic, Senate, Consul, had not lost their life in the slumber of five hundred years. The Capitol was there, for a Senate house, and there were men in Rome to be citizens and Senators. Revolution was stirring, and Innocent had recourse to the only weapon left him in his weakness. Arnold was preaching as a Christian and a Catholic. The Pope excommunicated him in a general Council. In the days of the Crusades the Major Interdiction was not an empty form of words; to applaud a revolutionary was one thing, to attend the sermons of a man condemned to hell was a graver matter; Arnold's disciples deserted him, his friends no longer dared to protect him under the penalty of eternal damnation, and he went out from Rome a fugitive and an outcast. Wandering from Italy to France, from France to Germany, and at last to Switzerland, he preached his doctrines without fear, though he had upon him the mark of Cain; but if the temporal sovereignty against which he spoke could not directly harm him, the spiritual power pursued him hither and thither, like a sword of flame. A weaker man would have renounced his beliefs, or would have disappeared in a distant obscurity; but Arnold was not made to yield. Goaded by persecution, divinely confident of right, he faced danger and death and came back to Rome. He arrived at a moment when the people were at once elated by the submission of Tivoli, and exasperated against Innocent because he refused to raze that city to the ground. The Pierleoni were ever ready to encourage rebellion. The Romans, at the words Liberty and Republic, rose in a body, rushed to the Capitol, proclaimed the Commonwealth, and forthwith elected a Senate which assumed absolute sovereignty of the city, and renewed the war with Tivoli. The institution then refounded was not wholly abolished until, under the Italian kings, a representative government took its place. The success and long supremacy of Arnold's teaching have been unfairly called his 'reign'; yet he neither caused himself to be elected a Senator, nor at any time, so far as we can learn, occupied any office whatsoever; neither did he profit in fortune by the changes he had wrought, and to the last he wore the garb of poverty and led the simple life which had extorted the reluctant admiration of his noblest adversary. But he could not impose upon others the virtues he practised himself, nor was it in his power to direct the force his teachings had called into life. For the time being the Popes were powerless against the new order. Innocent is said to have died of grief and humiliation, almost before the revolution was complete. His successor, Celestin the Second, reigned but five months and a half, busy in a quarrel with King Roger, and still the new Senate ruled the city. [Illustration: ARCH OF SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS] But saving that it endured, it left no mark of good in Rome; the nobles saw that a new weapon was placed in their hands, they easily elected themselves to office, and the people, deluded by the name of a Republic, had exchanged the sovereignty of the Pope, or the allegiance of the Emperor, for the far more ruthless tyranny of the barons. The Jewish Pierleoni were rich and powerful still, but since Rome was strong enough to resist the Vatican, the Pontificate was no longer a prize worth seizing, and they took instead, by bribery or force, the Consulship or the Presidency of the Senate. Jordan, the brother of the antipope Anacletus, obtained the office, and the violent death of the next Pope, Lucius the Second, was one of the first events of his domination. Lucius refused to bear any longer the humiliation to which his predecessors had tamely submitted. Himself in arms, and accompanied by such followers as he could collect, the Pope made a desperate attempt to dislodge the Senate and their guards from the Capitol, and at the head of the storming party he endeavoured to ascend the old road, known then as Fabatosta. But the Pierleoni and their men were well prepared for the assault, and made a desperate and successful resistance. The Pope fell at the head of his soldiers, struck by a stone on the temple, mortally wounded, but not dead. In hasty retreat, the dying man was borne by his routed soldiers to the monastery of Saint Gregory on the Coelian, under the safe protection of the trusty Frangipani, who held the Palatine, the Circus Maximus, and the Colosseum. Of all the many Popes who died untimely deaths he was the only one, I believe, who fell in battle. And he got his deathblow on the slope of that same Capitol where Gracchus and Manlius had died before him, each in good cause. It has been wrongly said that he had all the nobles with him, and that the revolution was of the people alone, aided by the Pierleoni. This is not true. So far as can be known, the Frangipani were his only faithful friends, but it is possible that the Count of Tusculum, seventh in descent from Theodora, and nephew of the first Colonna, at that time holding a part of the Aventine, may have also been the Pope's ally. Be that as it may, the force that Lucius led was very small, and the garrison of the Capitol was overwhelmingly strong. Some say also that Arnold of Brescia was not actually in Rome at that time, that the first revolution was the result of his unforgotten teachings, bearing fruit in the hearts of the nobles and the people, and that he did not come to the city till Pope Lucius was dead. However that may be, from that time forward, till the coming of Barbarossa, Arnold was the idol of the Romans, and their vanity and arrogance knew no bounds. Pope Eugenius the Third was enthroned in the Lateran under the protection of the Frangipani, but within the week he was forced to escape by night to the mountains. The Pierleoni held Sant' Angelo; the people seized and fortified the Vatican, deprived the Pope's Prefect of his office, and forced the few nobles who resisted them to swear allegiance to Jordan Pierleone, making him in fact dictator, and in name their 'Patrician.' The Pope retorted by excommunicating him, and allying himself with Tivoli, but was forced to a compromise whereby he acknowledged the Senate and the supremacy of the Roman people, who, already tired of their dictator, agreed to restore the Prefect to office, and to express some sort of obedience, more spiritual than temporal, to the Pope's authority. But Arnold was still supreme, and after a short stay in the city Eugenius was again a fugitive. It was then that he passed into France, when Lewis the Seventh was ready armed to lead the Second Crusade to the Holy Land; and through that stirring time Rome is dark and sullen, dwelling aloof from Church and Empire in the new-found illusion of an unreal and impossible greatness. Seven hundred years later an Italian patriot exclaimed, 'We have an Italy, but we have no Italians.' And so Arnold of Brescia must many times have longed for Romans to people a free Rome. He had made a republic, but he could not make free men; he had called up a vision, but he could not give it reality; like Rienzi and the rest, he had 'mistaken memories for hopes,' and he was fore-destined to pay for his belief in his country's life with the sacrifice of his own. He had dreamed of a liberty serene and high, but he had produced only a dismal confusion: in place of peace he had brought senseless strife; instead of a wise and simple consul, he had given the Romans the keen and rapacious son of a Jewish usurer for a dictator; where he had hoped to destroy the temporal power of Pope and Emperor, he had driven the greatest forces of his age, and two of the greatest men, to an alliance against him. So he perished. Eugenius died in Tivoli, Anastasius reigned a few months, and sturdy Nicholas Breakspeare was Adrian the Fourth. Conrad the Emperor also died, poisoned by the physicians King Roger sent him from famous Salerno, and Frederick Barbarossa of Hohenstauffen, his nephew, reigned in his stead. Adrian and Frederick quarrelled at their first meeting in the sight of all their followers in the field, for the young Emperor would not hold the Englishman's stirrup on the first day. On the second he yielded, and Pope and Emperor together were invincible. Then the Roman Senate and people sent out ambassadors, who spoke hugely boasting words to the red-haired soldier, and would have set conditions on his crowning, so that he laughed aloud at them; and he and Adrian went into the Leonine city, but not into Rome itself, and the Englishman crowned the German. Yet the Romans would fight, and in the heat of the summer noon they crossed the bridge and killed such straggling guards as they could find; then the Germans turned and mowed them down, and killed a thousand of the best, while the Pierleoni, as often before, looked on in sullen neutrality from Sant' Angelo, waiting to take the side of the winner. Then the Emperor and the Pope departed together, leaving Rome to its factions and its parties. Suddenly Arnold of Brescia is with them, a prisoner, but how taken no man can surely tell. And with them also, by Soracte, far out in the northern Campagna, is Di Vico, the Prefect, to judge the leader of the people. The Pope and the Emperor may have looked on, while Di Vico judged the heretic and the rebel; but they did not themselves judge him. The Prefect, Lord of Viterbo, had been long at war with the new-formed Senate and the city, and owed Arnold bitter hatred and grudge. The end was short. Arnold told them all boldly that his teaching was just, and that he would die for it. He knelt down, lifted up his hands to heaven, and commended his soul to God. Then they hanged him, and when he was dead they burnt his body and scattered the ashes in the river, lest any relics of him should be taken to Rome to work new miracles of revolution. No one knows just where he died, but only that it was most surely far out in the Campagna, in the hot summer days, in the year 1155, and not within the city, as has been so often asserted. He was a martyr--whether in a good cause or a foolish one, let those judge who call themselves wise; there was no taint of selfishness in him, no thought of ambition for his own name, and there was no spot upon his life in an age of which the evils cannot be written down, and are better not guessed. He died for something in which he believed enough to die for it, and belief cannot be truer to itself than that. So far as the Church of today may speak, all Churchmen know that his heresies of faith, if they were real, were neither great nor vital, and that he was put to death, not for them, but because he was become the idol and the prophet of a rebellious city. His doctrine had spread over Italy, his words had set the country aflame, his mere existence was a lasting cause of bloody strife between city and city, princes and people, nobles and vassals. The times were not ripe, and in the inevitable course of fate it was foreordained that he must perish, condemned by Popes and Emperors, Kings and Princes; but of all whole-souled reformers, of all patriot leaders, of all preachers of liberty, past and living, it is not too much to say that Arnold of Brescia was the truest, the bravest and the simplest. * * * * * To them all, the Capitol has been the central object of dreams, and upon its walls the story of their failure has often been told in grotesque figures of themselves. When Rienzi was first driven out, his effigy was painted, hanged by the heels upon one of the towers, and many another 'enemy of the state' was pictured there--Giuliano Cesarini, for one, and the great Sforza, himself, with a scornful and insulting epigraph; as Andrea del Castagno, justly surnamed the 'Assassin,' painted upon the walls of the Signoria in Florence the likeness of all those who had joined in the great conspiracy of the Pazzi, hung up by the feet, as may be seen to this day. It has ever been a place of glory, a place of death and a place of shame, but since the great modern changes it is meant to be only the seat of honour, and upon the slope of the Capitol the Italians, in the first flush of victorious unity, have begun to raise a great monument to their greatest idol, King Victor Emmanuel. If it is not the best work of art of the sort in existence it will probably enjoy the distinction of being the largest, and it is by no means the worst, for the central statue of the 'Honest King' has been modelled with marvellous skill and strength by Chiaradia, whose name is worthy to be remembered; yet the vastness of the architectural theatre provided for its display betrays again the giantism of the Latin race, and when in a future century the broad flood of patriotism shall have subsided within the straight river bed of sober history, men will wonder why Victor Emmanuel, honest and brave though he was, received the greater share of praise, and Cavour and Garibaldi the less, seeing that he got Italy by following the advice of the one, if not by obeying his dictation, and by accepting the kingdom which the other had destined for a republic, but was forced to yield to the monarchy by the superior genius of the statesman. That day is not far distant. After a period of great and disastrous activity, the sleepy indifference of 1830 is again settling upon Rome, the race for imaginary wealth is over, time is a drug in the market, money is scarce, dwellings are plentiful, the streets are quiet by day and night, and only those who still have something to lose or who cherish very modest hopes of gain, still take an interest in financial affairs. One may dream again, as one dreamed thirty years ago, when all the clocks were set once a fortnight to follow the sun. Rome is restoring to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's. They are much bigger and finer things than the symmetrical, stuccoed cubes which have lately been piled up everywhere in heaven-offending masses, and one is glad to come back to them after the nightmare that has lasted twenty years. Moreover, one is surprised to find how little permanent effect has been produced by the squandering of countless millions during the building mania, beyond a cruel destruction of trees, and a few modifications of natural local accidents. To do the moderns justice, they have done no one act of vandalism as bad as fifty, at least, committed by the barons of the Middle Age and the Popes of the Renascence, though they have shown much worse taste in such new things as they have set up in place of the old. The charm of Rome has never lain in its architecture, nor in the beauty of its streets, though the loveliness of its old-fashioned gardens contributed much which is now in great part lost. Nor can it be said that the enthralling magic of the city we used to know lay especially in its historical association, since Rome has been loved to folly by half-educated girls, by flippant women of the world and by ignorant idlers without number, as well as by most men of genius who have ever spent much time there. [Illustration: COLUMN OF PHOCAS, LOOKING ALONG THE FORUM] In the Middle Age one man might know all that was to be known. Dante did; so did Lionardo da Vinci. But times have changed since a mediæval scholar wrote a book 'Concerning all things and certain others also.' We cannot all be archæologists. Perhaps when we go and stand in the Forum we have a few general ideas about the relative position of the old buildings; we know the Portico of the Twelve Gods in Council, the Temple of Concord, the Basilica Julia, the Court of Vesta, the Temple of Castor and Pollux; we have a more vague notion of the Senate Hall; the hideous arch of Septimius Severus stares us in the face; so does the lovely column of evil Phocas, the monster of the east, the red-handed centurion-usurper who murdered an Emperor and his five sons to reach the throne. And perhaps we have been told where the Rostra stood, and the Rostra Julia, and that the queer fragment of masonry by the arch is supposed to be the 'Umbilicus,' the centre of the Roman world. There is no excuse for not knowing these things any more than there is any very strong reason for knowing them, unless one be a student. There is a plan of the Forum in every guide book, with a description that changes with each new edition. And yet, without much definite knowledge,--with 'little Latin and less Greek,' perhaps,--many men and women, forgetting for one moment the guide book in their hands, have leaned upon a block of marble with half-closed, musing eyes, and breath drawn so slow that it is almost quite held in day-dream wonder, and they have seen a vision rise of past things and beings, even in the broad afternoon sunshine, out of stones that remember Cæsar's footsteps, and from walls that have echoed Antony's speech. There they troop up the Sacred Way, the shock-headed, wool-draped, beak-nosed Romans; there they stand together in groups at the corner of Saturn's temple; there the half-naked plebeian children clamber upon the pedestals of the columns to see the sights, and double the men's deep tones with a treble of childish chatter; there the noble boy with his bordered toga, his keen young face, and longing backward look, is hurried home out of the throng by the tall household slave, who carries his school tablets and is answerable with his skin for the boy's safety. The Consul Major goes by, twelve lictors marching in single file before him--black-browed, square-jawed, relentless men, with their rods and axes. Then two closed litters are carried past by big, black, oily fellows, beside whom walk freedmen and Greek slaves, and three or four curled and scented parasites, the shadows of the great men. Under their very feet the little street boys play their games of pitching at tiny pyramids of dried lupins, unless they have filberts, and lupins are almost as good; and as the dandified hanger-on of Mæcenas, straining his ear for the sound of his patron's voice from within the litter, heedlessly crushes the little yellow beans under his sandal, the particular small boy whose stake is smashed clenches his fist, and with flashing eyes curses the dandy's dead to the fourth generation of ascendants, and he and his companions turn and scatter like mice as one of the biggest slaves threateningly raises his hand. [Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF THE FORUM] Absurd details rise in the dream. An old crone is selling roasted chestnuts in the shadow of the temple of Castor and Pollux; a tipsy soldier is reeling to his quarters with his helmet stuck on wrong side foremost; a knot of Hebrew money-changers, with long curls and high caps, are talking eagerly in their own language, clutching the little bags they hide in the sleeves of their yellow Eastern gowns--the men who mourned for Cæsar and for Augustus, whose descendants were to burn Rienzi's body among the thistles by Augustus's tomb, whose offspring were to breed the Pierleoni; a bright-eyed, skinny woman of the people boxes her daughter's ears for having smiled at one of the rich men's parasites, and the girl, already crying, still looks after the fashionable good-for-nothing, under her mother's upraised arm. All about stretches the vast humming city of low-built houses covering the short steep hills and filling all the hollow between. Northeastward lies the seething Suburra; the yellow river runs beyond the Velabrum and the cattle market to the west; southward rise the enchanted palaces of Cæsar; due east is the Esquiline of evil fame, redeemed and made lovely with trees and fountains by Mæcenas, but haunted even today, say modern Romans, by the spectres of murderers and thieves who there died bloody deaths of quivering torture. All around, as the sun sinks and the cool shadows quench the hot light on the white pavements, the ever-increasing crowds of men--always more men than women--move inward, half unconsciously, out of inborn instinct, to the Forum, the centre of the Empire, the middle of the world, the boiling-point of the whole earth's riches and strength and life. Then as the traveller muses out his short space of rest, the vision grows confused, and Rome's huge ghosts go stalking, galloping, clanging, raving through the surging dream-throng,--Cæsar, Brutus, Pompey, Catiline, Cicero, Caligula, Vitellius, Hadrian,--and close upon them Gauls and Goths and Huns, and all barbarians, till the dream is a medley of school-learned names, that have suddenly taken shadows of great faces out of Rome's shadow storehouse, and gorgeous arms and streaming draperies, and all at once the sight-seer shivers as the sun goes down, and passes his hand over his eyes, and shakes himself, and goes away rather hastily, lest he should fall sick of a fever and himself be gathered to the ghosts he has seen. It matters very little whether the day-dream much resembles the reality of ages long ago, whether boys played with lupins or with hazel-nuts then, or old women roasted chestnuts in the streets, or whether such unloving spirits should be supposed to visit one man in one vision. The traveller has had an impression which has not been far removed from emotion, and his day has not been lost, if it be true that emotion is the soul's only measure of time. There, if anywhere, lies Rome's secret. The place, the people, the air, the crystal brightness of winter, the passion-stirring scirocco of autumn, the loveliness of the long spring, the deep, still heat of summer, the city, the humanity, the memories of both, are all distillers of emotion in one way or another. Above all, the night is beautiful in Rome, when the moon is high and all is quiet. Go down past the silver Forum to the Colosseum and see what it is then, and perhaps you will know what it was in the old days. Such white stillness as this fell then also, by night, on all the broad space around the amphitheatre of all amphitheatres, the wonder of the world, the chief monument of Titus, when his hand had left of Jerusalem not one stone upon another. The same moonbeams fell slanting across the same huge walls, and whitened the sand of the same broad arena when the great awning was drawn back at night to air the place of so much death. In the shadow, the steps are still those up which Dion the Senator went to see mad Commodus play the gladiator and the public fool. On one of those lower seats he sat, the grave historian, chewing laurel leaves to steady his lips and keep down his laughter, lest a smile should cost his head; and he showed the other Senators that it was a good thing for their safety, and there they sat, in their rows, throughout the long afternoon, solemnly chewing laurel leaves for their lives, while the strong madman raved on the sand below, and slew, and bathed himself in the blood of man and beast. There is a touch of frightful humour in the tale. And one stands there alone in the stillness and remembers how, on that same night, when all was over, when the corpses had been dragged away, it may have been almost as it is now. Only, perhaps, far off among the arches and on the tiers of seats, there might be still a tiny light moving here and there; the keepers of that terrible place would go their rounds with their little earthen lamps; they would search everywhere in the spectators' places for small things that might have been lost in the press--a shoulder-buckle of gold or silver or bronze, an armlet, a woman's earring, a purse, perhaps, with something in it. And the fitful night-breeze blew now and then and made them shade their lights with their dark hands. By the 'door of the dead' a torch was burning down in its socket, its glare falling upon a heap of armour, mostly somewhat battered, and all of it blood-stained; a score of black-browed smiths were picking it over and distributing it in heaps, according to its condition. Now and then, from the deep vaults below the arena, came the distant sound of a clanging gate or of some piece of huge stage machinery falling into its place, and a muffled calling of men. One of the keepers, with his light, was singing softly some ancient minor strain as he searched the tiers. That would be all, and presently even that would cease. One thinks of such things naturally enough; and then the dream runs backward, against the sun, as dreams will, and the moon rays weave a vision of dim day. Straightway tier upon tier, eighty thousand faces rise, up to the last high rank beneath the awning's shade. High in the front, under the silken canopy sits the Emperor of the world, sodden-faced, ghastly, swine-eyed, robed in purple; all alone, save for his dwarf, bull-nosed, slit-mouthed, hunch-backed, sly. Next, on the lowest bench, the Vestals, old and young, the elder looking on with hard faces and dry eyes, the youngest with wide and startled looks, and parted lips, and quick-drawn breath that sobs and is caught at sight of each deadly stab and gash of broadsword and trident, and hands that twitch and clutch each other as a man's foot slips in a pool of blood, and the heavy harness clashes in the red, wet sand. Then grey-haired senators; then curled and perfumed knights of Rome; and then the people, countless, vast, frenzied, blood-thirsty, stretching out a hundred thousand hands with thumbs reversed, commanding death to the fallen--full eighty thousand throats of men and women roaring, yelling, shrieking over each ended life. A theatre indeed, a stage indeed, a play wherein every scene of every act ends in sudden death. And then the wildest, deadliest howl of all on that day; a handful of men and women in white, and one girl in the midst of them; the clang of an iron gate thrown suddenly open; a rushing and leaping of great, lithe bodies of beasts, yellow and black and striped, the sand flying in clouds behind them; a worrying and crushing of flesh and bone, as of huge cats worrying little white mice; sharp cries, then blood, then silence, then a great laughter, and the sodden face of mankind's drunken master grows almost human for a moment with a very slow smile. The wild beasts are driven out with brands and red-hot irons, step by step, dragging backward nameless mangled things in their jaws, and the bull-nosed dwarf offers the Emperor a cup of rare red wine. It drips from his mouth while he drinks, as the blood from the tiger's fangs. "What were they?" he asks. "Christians," explains the dwarf. [Illustration] REGION XI SANT' ANGELO The Region of Sant' Angelo, as has been already said, takes its name from the small church famous in Rienzi's story. It encloses all of what was once the Ghetto, and includes the often-mentioned Theatre of Marcellus, now the palace of the Orsini, but successively a fortress of the Pierleoni, appropriately situated close to the Jews' quarter, and the home of the Savelli. The history of the Region is the history of the Jews in Rome, from Augustus to the destruction of their dwelling-place, about 1890. In other words, the Hebrew colony actually lived during nineteen hundred years at that point of the Tiber, first on one side of the river, and afterwards on the other. It is said that the first Jews were brought to Rome by Pompey, as prisoners of war, and soon afterwards set free, possibly on their paying a ransom accumulated by half starving themselves, and selling the greater part of their allowance of corn during a long period. Seventeen years later, they were a power in Rome; they had lent Julius Cæsar enormous sums, which he repaid with exorbitant interest, and after his death they mourned him, and kept his funeral pyre burning seven days and nights in the Forum. A few years after that time, Augustus established them on the opposite side of the Tiber, over against the bridge of Cestius and the island. Under Tiberius their numbers had increased to fifty thousand; they had synagogues in Rome, Genoa and Naples, and it is noticeable that their places of worship were always built upon the shore of the sea, or the bank of a river, whence their religious services came to be termed 'orationes littorales'--which one might roughly translate as 'alongshore prayers.' They were alternately despised, hated, feared and flattered. Tacitus calls them a race of men hated by the gods, yet their kings, Herod and Agrippa--one asks how the latter came by an ancient Roman name--were treated with honour and esteem. The latter was in fact brought up with Drusus, the son of the Emperor Tiberius, his son was on terms of the greatest intimacy with Claudius, and his daughter or grand-daughter Berenice was long and truly loved by Titus, who would have made her Empress had it been possible, to the great scandal of the Emperor's many detractors, as Suetonius has told. Sabina Poppæa, Nero's lowly and evil second wife, loved madly one Aliturius, a Jewish comic actor and a favourite of Nero; and when the younger Agrippa induced Nero to imprison Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and Josephus came to Pozzuoli, having suffered shipwreck like the latter, this same Josephus, the historian of the Jews, got the actor's friendship and by his means moved Poppæa, and through her, Nero, to a first liberation of those whom he describes as 'certain priests of my acquaintance, very excellent persons, whom on a small and trifling charge Felix the procurator of Judæa had put in irons and sent to Rome to plead their cause before Cæsar.' It should not be forgotten that Josephus was himself a pupil of Banus, who, though not a Christian, is believed to have been a follower of John the Baptist. And here Saint John Chrysostom, writing about the year 400, takes up the story and tells how Saint Paul attempted to convert Poppæa and to persuade her to leave Nero, since she had two other husbands living; and how Nero turned upon him and accused him of many sins, and imprisoned him, and when he saw that even in prison the Apostle still worked upon Poppæa's conscience, he at last condemned him to die. Other historians have said that Poppæa turned Jewess for the sake of her Jewish actor, and desired to be buried by the Jewish rite when she was dying of the savage kick that killed her and her child--the only act of violence Nero seems to have ever regretted. However that may be, it is sure that she loved the comedian, and that for a time he had unbounded influence in Rome. And so great did their power grow that Claudius Rutilius, a Roman magistrate and poet, a contemporary of Chrysostom, and not a Christian, expressed the wish that Judæa might never have been conquered by Pompey and subdued again by Titus, 'since the contagion of the cancer, cut out, spreads wider, and the conquered nation grinds its conquerors.' And so, with varying fortune, they survived the empire which they had seen founded, and the changes of a thousand years, they themselves inwardly unchanged and unchanging, while following many arts and many trades besides money-lending, and they outlived persecution and did not decay in prosperity. In their seven Roman synagogues they set up models of the temple Titus had destroyed, and of the seven-branched candlestick and of the holy vessels of Jerusalem which were preserved in the temple of Peace as trophies of the Jews' subjection; they made candlesticks and vessels of like shape for their synagogues, nursing their hatred, praying for deliverance, and because those sacred things were kept in Rome, it became a holy city for them, and they throve; and by and by they oppressed their victors. Then came Domitian the Jew-hater, and turned them out of their houses and laid heavy taxes upon them, and forced them for a time to live in the caves and wild places and catacombs of the Aventine, and they became dealers in spells and amulets and love philtres, which they sold dear to the ever-superstitious Romans, and Juvenal wrote scornful satires on them. Presently they returned, under Trajan, to their old dwellings by the Tiber. Thence they crept along the Cestian bridge to the island, and from the island by the Fabrician bridge to the other shore, growing rich again by degrees, and crowding their little houses upon the glorious portico of Octavia, where Vespasian and Titus had met the Senate at dawn on the day when they triumphed over the Jews and the fall of Jerusalem, and the very place of the Jews' greatest humiliation became their stronghold for ages. Then all at once, in the twelfth century, they are the masters. The Pierleoni hold Sant' Angelo, and close to their old quarters fortify the Theatre of Marcellus, and a Pierleone is antipope in name, but a real and ruling Pope in political fact, while Innocent the Second wanders helplessly from town to town, and later, while Lewis the Seventh of France leads the Second Crusade to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre, the 'Vicar of Christ' is an outcast before the race of those by whom Christ was crucified. That was the highest point of the Jews' greatness in Rome. [Illustration: PIAZZA MONTANARA AND THE THEATRE OF MARCELLUS From a print of the last century] But it is noticeable that while the Hebrew race possesses in the very highest degree the financial energy to handle and accumulate money, and the tenacity to keep it for a long time, it has never shown that sort of strength which can hold land or political power in adverse circumstances. In the twelfth century the Pierleoni were the masters of Rome; in the thirteenth, they had disappeared from history, though they still held the Theatre of Marcellus; in the fourteenth they seem to have perished altogether and are never heard of again. And it should not be argued that this was due to any overwhelming persecution and destruction of the Jews, since the Pierleoni's first step was an outward, if not a sincere, conversion to Christianity. In strong contrast with these facts stands the history of the Colonna. The researches of the learned Coppi make it almost certain that the Colonna descend from Theodora, the Senatress of Rome, who flourished in the year 914; Pietro della Colonna held Palestrina, and is known to have imprisoned there, 'in an empty cistern,' the governor of Campagna, in the year 1100; like the Orsini, the Colonna boast that during more than five hundred years no treaty was drawn up with the princes of Europe in which their two families were not specifically designated; and at the time of the present writing, in the last days of the nineteenth century, Colonna is still not only one of the greatest names in Europe, but the family is numerous and flourishing, unscathed by the terrible financial disasters which began to ruin Italy in 1888, not notably wealthy, but still in possession of its ancestral palace in Rome, and of immense tracts of land in the hills, in the Campagna, and in the south of Italy--actively engaged, moreover, in the representative government of Italy, strong, solid and full of life, as though but lately risen to eminence from a sturdy country stock--and all this after a career that has certainly lasted eight hundred years, and very probably nearer a thousand. Nor can any one pretend that it owes much to the power or protection of any sovereign, since the Colonna have been in almost constant opposition to the Popes in history, have been exiled and driven from Italy more than once, and have again and again suffered confiscation of all they possessed in the world. There have certainly not been in the same time so many confiscations proclaimed against the Jews. The question presents itself: why has a prolific race which, as a whole, has survived the fall of kingdoms and empires without end, with singular integrity of original faith and most extraordinary tenacity of tradition and custom, together with the most unbounded ambition and very superior mental gifts, never produced a single family of powerful men able to maintain their position more than a century or two, when the nations of Europe have produced at least half a dozen that have lasted a thousand years? If there be any answer to such a question, it is that the pursuit and care of money have a tendency to destroy the balance and produce degeneration by over-stimulating the mind in one direction, and that not a noble one, at the expense of the other talents; whereas the struggle for political power sharpens most of the faculties, and the acquisition and preservation of landed property during many generations bring men necessarily into a closer contact with nature, and therefore induce a healthier life, tending to increase the vitality of a race rather than to diminish it. Whether this be true or not, it is safe to say that no great family has ever maintained its power long by the possession of money, without great lands; and by 'long' we understand at least three hundred years. With regard to the Jews in Rome it is a singular fact that they have generally been better treated by the religious than by the civil authorities. They were required to do homage to the latter every year in the Capitol, and on this occasion the Senator of Rome placed his foot upon the heads of the prostrate delegates, by way of accentuating their humiliation and disgrace, but the service they were required to do on the accession of a new Pope was of a different and less degrading nature. The Israelite School awaited the Pope's passage, on his return from taking possession of the Lateran, standing up in a richly hung temporary balcony, before which he passed on his way. They then presented him with a copy of the Pentateuch, which he blessed on the spot, and took away with him. That was all, and it amounted to a sanction, or permission, accorded to the Jewish religion. As for the sumptuary laws, the first one was decreed in 1215, after the fall of the Pierleoni, and it imposed upon all Jews, and other heretics whomsoever, the wearing of a large circle of yellow cloth sewn upon the breast. In the following century, according to Baracconi, this mark was abolished by the statutes of the city and the Jews were made to wear a scarlet mantle in public; but all licensed Jewish physicians, being regarded as public benefactors, were exempted from the rule. For the profession of medicine is one which the Hebrews have always followed with deserved success, and it frequently happened in Rome that the Pope's private physician, who lived in the Vatican and was a personage of confidence and importance, was a professed Israelite from the Ghetto, who worshipped in the synagogue on Saturdays and looked with contempt and disgust upon his pontifical patient as an eater of unclean food. There was undoubtedly a law compelling a certain number of the Jews to hear sermons once a week, first in the Trinità dei Pellegrini, and afterwards in the Church of Sant' Angelo in the Fishmarket, and it was from time to time rigorously enforced; it was renewed in the present century under Leo the Twelfth, and only finally abolished, together with all other oppressive measures, by Pius the Ninth at the beginning of his reign. But when one considers the frightful persecution suffered by the race in Spain, it must be conceded that they were relatively well treated in Rome by the Popes. Their bitterest enemies and oppressors were the lower classes of the people, who were always ready to attack and rifle the Ghetto on the slightest pretext, and against whose outrageous deeds the Jews had no redress. [Illustration: THEATRE OF MARCELLUS] It was their treatment by the people, rather than the matter itself, which made the carnival races, in which they were forced to run after a hearty meal, together with a great number of Christians, an intolerable tyranny; and when Clement the Ninth exempted them from it, he did not abolish the races of Christian boys and old men. The people detested the Jews, hooted them, hissed them, and maltreated them with and without provocation. Moses Mendelssohn, the father of the composer, wrote to a friend from Berlin late in the eighteenth century, complaining bitterly that in that self-styled city of toleration, the cry of 'Jew' was raised against him when he ventured into the streets with his little children by daylight, and that the boys threw stones at them, as they passed, so that he only went out late in the evening. Things were no better in Rome under Paul the Fourth, but they were distinctly better in Rome than in Berlin at the time of Mendelssohn's writing. Paul the Fourth, the Carafa Pope, and the friend of the Inquisition, confined the Jews to the Ghetto. There can be no doubt but that the act was intended as a measure of severity against heretics, and as such Pius the Ninth considered it indefensible and abolished it. In actual fact it must have been of enormous advantage to the Jews, who were thus provided with a stronghold against the persecutions and robberies of the rabble. The little quarter was enclosed by strong walls with gates, and if the Jews were required to be within them at night, on pain of a fine, they and their property were at least in safety. This fact has never been noticed, and accounts for the serenity with which they bore their nightly imprisonment for three centuries. Once within the walls of the Ghetto they were alone, and could go about the little streets in perfect security; they were free from the contamination as well as safe from the depredations of Christians, and within their own precincts they were not forced to wear the hated orange-coloured cap or net which Paul the Fourth imposed upon the Jewish men and women. To a great extent, too, such isolation was already in the traditions of the race. A hundred years earlier Venice had created its Ghetto; so had Prague, and other European cities were not long in following. Morally speaking their confinement may have been a humiliation; in sober fact it was an immense advantage; moreover, a special law of 'emphyteusis' made the leases of their homes inalienable, so long as they paid rent, and forbade the raising of the rent under any circumstances, while leaving the tenant absolute freedom to alter and improve his house as he would, together with the right to sublet it, or to sell the lease itself to any other Hebrew; and these leases became very valuable. Furthermore, though under the jurisdiction of criminal courts, the Jews had their own police in the Ghetto, whom they chose among themselves half yearly. It has been stated by at least one writer that the church and square of Santa Maria del Pianto--Our Lady of Tears--bears witness to the grief of the people when they were first forced into the Ghetto in the year 1556. But this is an error. The church received the name from a tragedy and a miracle which are said to have taken place before it ten years earlier. It was formerly called San Salvatore in Cacaberis, the Church of the 'Saviour in the district of the kettle-makers.' An image of the Blessed Virgin stood over the door of a house close by; a frightful murder was done in broad day, and at the sight tears streamed from the statue's eyes; the image was taken into the church, which was soon afterwards dedicated to 'Our Lady of Tears,' and the name remained forever to commemorate the miraculous event. Besides mobbing the Jews in the streets and plundering them when they could, the Roman populace invented means of insulting them which must have been especially galling. They ridiculed them in the popular open-air theatres, and made blasphemous jests upon their most sacred things in Carnival. It is not improbable that 'Punch and Judy' may have had their origin in something of this sort, and 'Judy' certainly suggests 'Giudea,' a Jewess. What the Roman rabble had done against Christians in heathen days, the Christian rabble did against the Jews in the Middle Age and the Renascence. They were robbed, ridiculed, outraged, and sometimes killed; after the fall of the Pierleoni, they appear to have had no civil rights worth mentioning; they were taxed more heavily than the Christian citizens, in proportion as they were believed to be more wealthy, and were less able to resent the tax-gatherer; their daughters were stolen away for their beauty, less consenting than Jessica, and with more violence, and the Merchant of Venice is not a mere fiction of the master playwright. All these things were done to them and more, yet they stayed in Rome, and multiplied, and grew rich, being then, as when Tacitus wrote of them, 'scrupulously faithful and ever actively charitable to each other, and filled with invincible hatred against all other men.' [Illustration: SITE OF THE ANCIENT GHETTO] The old Roman Ghetto has been often described, but no description can give any true impression of it; the place where it stood is a vast open lot, waiting for new buildings which will perhaps never rise, and the memory of it is relegated to the many fast-fading pictures of old Rome. Persius tells how, on Herod's birthday, the Jews adorned their doors with bunches of violets and set out rows of little smoky lamps upon the greasy window-sills, and feasted on the tails of tunny fish--the meanest part--pickled, and eaten off rough red earthen-ware plates with draughts of poor white wine. The picture was a true one ten years ago, for the manners of the Ghetto had not changed in that absolute isolation. The name itself, 'Ghetto,' is generally derived from a Hebrew root meaning 'cut off'--and cut off the Jews' quarter was, by walls, by religion, by tradition, by mutual hatred between Hebrews and other men. It has been compared to a beehive, to an anthill, to an old house-beam riddled and traversed in all directions by miniature labyrinths of worm-holes, crossing, intercommunicating, turning to right and left, upwards and downwards, but hardly ever coming out to the surface. It has been described by almost every writer who ever put words together about Rome, but no words, no similes, no comparisons, can make those see it who were never there. In a low-lying space enclosed within a circuit of five hundred yards, and little, if at all, larger than the Palazzo Doria, between four and five thousand human beings were permanently crowded together in dwellings centuries old, built upon ancient drains and vaults that were constantly exposed to the inundations of the river and always reeking with its undried slime; a little, pale-faced, crooked-legged, eager-eyed people, grubbing and grovelling in masses of foul rags for some tiny scrap richer than the rest and worthy to be sold apart; a people whose many women, haggard, low-speaking, dishevelled, toiled half doubled together upon the darning and piecing and smoothing of old clothes, whose many little children huddled themselves into corners, to teach one another to count; a people of sellers who sold nothing that was not old or damaged, and who had nothing that they would not sell; a people clothed in rags, living among rags, thriving on rags; a people strangely proof against pestilence, gathering rags from the city to their dens, when the cholera was raging outside the Ghetto's gates, and rags were cheap, yet never sickening of the plague themselves; a people never idle, sleeping little, eating sparingly, labouring for small gain amid dirt and stench and dampness, till Friday night came at last, and the old crier's melancholy voice ran through the darkening alleys--'The Sabbath has begun.' And all at once the rags were gone, the ghostly old clothes that swung like hanged men, by the neck, in the doorways of the cavernous shops, flitted away into the utter darkness within; the old bits of iron and brass went rattling out of sight, like spectres' chains; the hook-nosed antiquary drew in his cracked old show-case; the greasy frier of fish and artichokes extinguished his little charcoal fire of coals; the slipshod darning-women, half-blind with six days' work, folded the half-patched coats and trousers, and took their rickety old rush-bottomed chairs indoors with them. Then, on the morrow, in the rich synagogue with its tapestries, its gold, and its gilding, the thin, dark men were together in their hats and long coats, and the sealed books of Moses were borne before their eyes and held up to the North and South and East and West, and all the men together lifted up their arms and cried aloud to the God of their fathers. But when the Sabbath was over, they went back to their rags and their patched clothes and to their old iron and their junk and their antiquities, and toiled on patiently again, looking for the coming of the Messiah. And there were astrologers and diviners and magicians and witches and crystal-gazers among them to whom great ladies came on foot, thickly veiled, and walking delicately amidst the rags, and men, too, who were more ashamed of themselves, and slunk in at nightfall to ask the Jews concerning the future--even in our time as in Juvenal's, and in Juvenal's day as in Saul's of old. Nor did the papal laws against witchcraft have force against Jews, since the object of the laws was to save Christian souls from the hell which no Jew could escape save by conversion. And the diviners and seers and astrologers of the Ghetto were long in high esteem, and sometimes earned fortunes when they hit the truth, and when the truth was pleasant in the realization. They are gone now, with the Ghetto and all that belonged to it. The Jews who lived there are either becoming absorbed in the population of Rome, or have transferred themselves and their rags to other places, where lodgings are cheap, but where they no longer enjoy the privilege of irrevocable leases at rents fixed for all time. A part of them are living between Santa Maria Maggiore and the Lateran, a part in Trastevere, and they exercise their ancient industries in their new homes, and have new synagogues instead of the old ones. But one can no longer see them all together in one place. Little by little, too, the old prejudices against them are disappearing, even among the poorer Romans, whose hatred was most tenacious, and by and by, at no very distant date, the Jews in Rome will cease to be an isolated and peculiar people. Then, when they live as other men, amongst other folks, as in many cities of the world, they will get the power in Rome, as they have begun to get it already, and as they have it already in more than one great capital. But a change has come over the Jewish race within the last fifty years, greater than any that has affected their destinies since Titus destroyed the Temple and brought thousands of them, in the train of Pompey's thousands, to build the Colosseum; and the wisest among them, if they be faithful and believing Jews, as many are, ask themselves whether this great change, which looks so like improvement, is really for good, or whether it is the beginning of the end of the oldest nation of us all. [Illustration] REGION XII RIPA In Italian, as in Latin, Ripa means the bank of a river, and the Twelfth Region took its name from being bounded by the river bank, from just below the island all the way to the Aurelian walls, which continue the boundary of the triangle on the south of Saint Sebastian's gate; the third side runs at first irregularly from the theatre of Marcellus to the foot of the Palatine, skirts the hill to the gas works at the north corner of the Circus Maximus, takes in the latter, and thence runs straight to the gate before mentioned. The Region includes the Aventine, Monte Testaccio, and the baths of Caracalla. The origin of the device, like that of several others, seems to be lost. The Aventine, ever since the auguries of Remus, has been especially the refuge of opposition, and more especially, perhaps, of religious opposition. In very early times it was especially the hill of the plebeians, who frequently retired to its heights in their difficulties with the patricians, as they had once withdrawn to the more distant Mons Sacer in the Campagna. The temple of Ceres stood in the immediate neighbourhood of the Circus, on the line of approach to the Aventine, and contained the archives of the plebeian Ædiles. In the times of the Decemvirs, much of the land on the hill was distributed among the people, who probably lived within the city, but went out daily to cultivate their little farms, just as the inhabitants of the hill villages do today. If this were not the case, it would be hard to explain how the Aventine could have been a solitude at night, as it was in the time of the Bacchic orgies, of which the discovery convulsed the republic, and ended in a religious persecution. That was when Scipio of Asia had been accused and not acquitted of having taken a bribe of six thousand pounds of gold and four hundred and eighty pounds of silver to favour Antiochus. It was in the first days of Rome's corruption, when the brilliant army of Asia first brought the love of foreign luxury to Rome; when the soldiers, enriched with booty, began to have brass bedsteads, rich coverlets and curtains, and other things of woven stuff in their magnificent furniture, and little Oriental tables with one foot, and decorated sideboards; when people first had singing-girls, and lute-players, and players on the sharp-strung 'triangle,' and actors, to amuse them at their feasts; when the feasts themselves began to be extravagant, and the office of a cook, once mean and despised, rose to be one of high estimation and rich emolument, so that what had been a slave's work came to be regarded as an art. It was no wonder that such changes came about in Rome, when every triumph brought hundreds and thousands of pounds of gold and silver to the city, when Marcus Fulvius brought back hundreds of crowns of gold, and two hundred and eighty-five bronze statues, and two hundred and thirty statues of marble, with other vast spoils, and when Cnæus Manlius brought home wealth in bullion and in coin, which even in these days, when the value of money is far less, would be worth any nation's having. And with it all came Greek corruption, Greek worship, Greek vice. For years the mysteries of Dionysus and the orgies of the Mænads were celebrated on the slopes of the Aventine and in those deep caves that riddle its sides, less than a mile from the Forum, from the Capitol, from the house of the rigid Cato, who found fault with Scipio of Africa for shaving every day and liking Greek verses. The evil had first come to Rome from Etruria, and had then turned Greek, as it were, in the days of the Asian triumphs; and first it was an orgy of drunken women only, as in most ancient times, but soon men were admitted, and presently a rule was made that no one should be initiated who was over twenty years of age, and that those who refused to submit to the horrid rites after being received should perish in the deepest cave of the hill, while the noise of drums and clashing cymbals and of shouting drowned their screams. And many boys and girls were thus done to death; and the conspiracy of the orgies was widespread in Rome, yet the secret was well kept. Now there was a certain youth at that time, whose father had died, and whose mother was one of the Mænads and had married a man as bad as herself. He and she were guardians of her son's fortune, and they had squandered it, and knew that when he came of age they should not be able to give an account of their guardianship. They therefore determined to initiate him at the Bacchic orgy, for he was of a brave temper, and they knew that he would not submit to the rites, and so would be torn to pieces by the Mænads, and they might escape the law in their fraud. His mother called him, and told him that once, when he had been ill, she had promised the gods that she would initiate him in the Bacchanalia if he recovered, and that it was now time to perform her vow. And doubtless she delighted his ignorance with an account of a beautiful and solemn ceremony. But this youth was dearly loved by a woman whose faith to him covered many sins. She had been a slave when a girl, and with her mistress had been initiated, and knew what the rites were, and how evil and terrible; and since she had been freed she had never gone to them. So when her lover told her he was to go, thinking it good news, she was terrified, and told him that it were better that both he and she should die that night, than that he should be so contaminated. When he knew the truth, he went home and told his mother and his stepfather boldly that he would not go; and they, being beside themselves with anger and disappointment, called four slaves and threw him out into the street. For which deed they died. For the young man went to his father's sister, and told all; and she sent him to the Consul to tell his story, who called the woman that loved him, and promised her protection, so that at last she told the truth, and he brought the matter before the Senate. Then there was great horror at what was told, and the people who had been initiated fled in haste by thousands, and the city was in a turmoil, while the Senate made new and terrible laws against the rites. Many persons were put to death, and a few were taken and imprisoned on suspicion, and many, being guilty, killed themselves. For it was found that more than seven thousand men and women had conspired in the orgies, and the contamination had spread throughout Italy. As for the youth, and the woman who had saved the State out of love for him, the Senate and the people made a noble and generous decree. For him, he received a sum of money from the public treasury in place of the fortune his mother had stolen from him, and he was exempted from military service, unless he chose to be a soldier, and from ever furnishing a horse to the State. But for the woman, whose life had been evil, it was publicly decreed that her sins should be blotted out, that she should have all rights of holding, transferring and selling property, of marrying into another gens and of choosing a guardian, as if she had received all from a husband by will; that she should be at liberty to marry a man of free descent, and that he who should marry her was to incur no degradation, and that all consuls and prætors in the future should watch over her and see that no harm came to her, as long as she lived. Her people made her an honourable Roman matron, and perhaps the stern old senators thus rewarded her in order that the man she had saved might marry her without shame. But whether he did or not, no one knows. [Illustration: CHURCH OF SAINT NEREUS AND SAINT ACHILLÆUS From a print of the last century] This is the first instance in which a religion, and the orgies were so called by the Romans, was practised upon the Aventine in opposition to that of the State. It was not the last. Under Domitian, Juvenal found a host of Jews established there, on the eastern slope and about the fountain of Egeria, and thirty years before him Saint Paul lived on the Aventine in the Jewish house of Aquila and Priscilla where Santa Prisca stands today. It is worth noting that Aquila, an eagle, the German Adler, was already then a Jewish name. Little by little, however, the Jews went back to the Tiber, and the Aventine became the stronghold of the Christians; there they built many of their oldest churches, and thence they carried out their dead to the near catacombs of Saint Petronilla, the church better known as that of Saint Nereus and Saint Achillæus. And there are many other ancient churches on the hill, and on the road that leads to Saint Sebastian's gate, and beyond the walls, on the Appian Way as far as Saint Callixtus; lonely, peaceful shrines, beautiful with the sculptures and pavements and mosaics of the Cosmas family who lived and worked between six and seven hundred years ago. On the other side of the hill, near the Circus, Saint Augustine taught rhetoric for a living, though he knew no Greek and was perhaps no great Latin scholar either--still an unbeliever then, an astrologer and a follower after strange doctrines, one whom no man could have taken for a future bishop and Father of the Church, who was to be author of two hundred and thirty-two theological treatises, as well as of an exposition of the Psalms and the Gospels. Here Saint Gregory the Great, once Prefect of Rome, preached and prayed, and here the fierce Hildebrand lived when he was young, and called himself Gregory when he was Pope, perhaps, because he had so often meditated here upon the life and acts of the wise Saint, in the places hallowed by his footsteps. Later, the Aventine was held by the Savelli, who dwelt in castles long since destroyed, even to the foundations, by the fury of their enemies; and there the two Popes of the house, Honorius the Third--a famous chronicler in his day--and Honorius the Fourth, found refuge when the restless Romans 'annoyed them,' as Muratori mildly puts it. They were brave men in their day, mostly Guelphs, and faithful friends of the Colonna, and it is told how one of them died in a great fight between Colonna and Orsini. It was in that same struggle which culminated in the execution of Lorenzo Colonna, the Protonotary, that Pope Sixtus the Fourth destroyed the last remains of the Sublician Bridge, at the foot of the Aventine. So, at least, tradition says. From that bridge the Roman pontiffs had taken their title, 'Pontifex,' a bridge-maker, because it was one of their chief duties to keep it in repair, when it was the only means of crossing the Tiber, and the safety of the city might depend upon it at any time; and for many centuries the bridge was built of oak, and without nails or bolts of iron, in memory of the first bridge which Horatius had kept. Now those who love to ponder on coincidences may see one in this, that the last remnant of the once oaken bridge, kept whole by the heathen Pontifex, was destroyed by the Christian Pontifex, whose name was 'of the oak'--for so 'della Rovere' may be translated if one please. Years ago, one might still distinctly see in the Tiber the remains of piers, when the water was low, at the foot of the Aventine, a little above the Ripa Grande; and those who saw them looked on the very last vestige of the Sublician Bridge, that is to say, of the stone structure which in later times took the place of the wooden one; and that last trace has been destroyed to deepen the little harbour. In older days there were strange superstitions and ceremonies connected with the bridge that had meant so much to Rome. Strangest of all was the procession on the Ides of May,--the fifteenth of that month,--when the Pontiffs and the Vestals came to the bridge in solemn state, with men who bore thirty effigies made of bulrushes in likeness to men's bodies, and threw them into the river, one after the other, with prayers and hymns; but what the images meant no man knows. Most generally it was believed in Rome that they took the place of human beings, once sacrificed to the river in the spring. Ovid protests against the mere thought, but the industrious Baracconi quotes Sextus Pompeius Festus to prove that in very early times human victims were thrown into the Tiber for one reason or another, and that human beings were otherwise sacrificed until the year of the city 657, when, Cnæus Cornelius Lentulus and Publius Licinius Crassus being consuls, the Senate made a law that no man should be sacrificed thereafter. The question is one for scholars; but considering the savage temper of the Romans, their dark superstitions, the abundance of victims always at hand, and the frequency of human sacrifices among nations only one degree more barbarous, there is no reason for considering the story very improbable. [Illustration: THE RIPA GRANDE AND SITE OF THE SUBLICIAN BRIDGE] Within the limits of this region the ancient Brotherhood of Saint John Beheaded have had their church and place of meeting for centuries. It was their chief function to help and comfort condemned criminals from the midnight preceding their death until the end. To this confraternity belonged Michelangelo, among other famous men whose names stand on the rolls to this day; and doubtless the great master, hooded in black and unrecognizable among the rest, and chanting the penitential psalms in the voice that could speak so sharply, must have spent dark hours in gloomy prisons, from midnight to dawn, beside pale-faced men who were not to see the sun go down again; and in the morning, he must have stood upon the very scaffold with the others, and seen the bright axe smite out the poor life. But neither he nor any others of the brethren spoke of these things except among themselves, and they alone knew who had been of the band, when they bore the dead man to his rest at last, by their little church, when they laid Beatrice Cenci before the altar in Saint Peter's on the Janiculum, and Lucrezia in the quiet church of Saint Gregory by the Aventine. They wrote down in their journal the day, the hour, the name, the death; no more than that. And they went back to their daily life in silence. But for their good deeds they obtained the right of saving one man from death each year, conceded them by Paul the Third, the Farnese Pope, while Michelangelo was painting the Last Judgment--a right perhaps asked for by him, as one of the brothers, and granted for his sake. Baracconi has discovered an account of the ceremony. At the first meeting in August, the governor of the confraternity appointed three brethren to visit all the prisons of Rome and note the names of the prisoners condemned to death, drawing up a precise account of each case, but ascertaining especially which ones had obtained the forgiveness of those whom they had injured. At the second meeting in August, the reports were read, and the brethren chose the fortunate man by ballot. [Illustration: PORTO SAN SEBASTIANO] Then the whole dark company went in procession to the prison. The beadle of the order marched first, bearing his black wand in one hand, and in the other a robe of scarlet silk and a torch for the pardoned man; two brothers followed with staves, others with lanterns, more with lighted torches, and after them was borne the crucifix, the sacred figure's arms hanging down, perhaps supposed to be in the act of receiving the pardoned man, and a crown of silvered olive hung at its feet--then more brothers, and last of all the Governor and the chaplain. The prison doors were draped with tapestries, box and myrtle strewed the ground, and the Governor received the condemned person and signed a receipt for his body. The happy man prostrated himself before the crucifix, was crowned with the olive garland, the Te Deum was intoned, and he was led away to the brotherhood's church, where he heard high mass in sight of all the people. Last, and not least, if he was a pauper, the brethren provided him with a little money and obtained him some occupation; if a stranger, they paid his journey home. But the Roman rabble, says the writer, far preferred an execution to a pardon, and would follow a condemned man to the scaffold in thousands. If he was to be hanged, the person who touched the halter was the most fortunate, and much money was often paid for bits of the rope; and at night, when the wretched corpse was carried away to the church by the brethren, the crowd followed in long procession, mumbling prayers, to kneel on the church steps at last and implore the dead man's liberated spirit to suggest to them, by some accident, numbers to be played at the lottery--custom which recalls the incantations of the witches by the crosses of executed slaves on the Esquiline. [Illustration] REGION XIII TRASTEVERE All that part of Rome which lies on the right bank of the Tiber is divided into two Regions; namely, Trastevere and Borgo. The first of these is included between the river and the walls of Urban the Eighth from Porta Portese and the new bridge opposite the Aventine to the bastions and the gate of San Spirito; and Trastevere was the last of the thirteen Regions until the end of the sixteenth century, when the so-called Leonine City was made the fourteenth and granted a captain and a standard of its own. The men of Trastevere boast that they are of better blood than the other Romans, and they may be right. In many parts of Italy just such small ancient tribes have kept alive, never intermarrying with their neighbours nor losing their original speech. There are villages in the south where Greek is spoken, and others where Albanian is the language. There is one in Calabria where the people speak nothing but Piedmontese, which is as different from the Southern dialects as German is from French. Italy has always been a land of individualities rather than of amalgamations, and a country of great men, rather than a great country. It is true that the Trasteverines have preserved their individuality, cut off as they have been by the river from the modernizing influences which spread like a fever through the length and breadth of Rome. Their quarter is full of crooked little streets and irregularly shaped open places, the houses are not high, the windows are small and old fashioned, and the entrances dark and low. There are but few palaces and not many public buildings. Yet Trastevere is not a dirty quarter; on the contrary, to eyes that understand Italians, there is a certain dignity in its poverty, which used to be in strong contrast with the slipshod publicity of household dirt in the inhabited parts of Monti. The contrast is, in a way, even more vivid now, for Monti, the first Region, has suffered most in the great crisis, and Trastevere least of all. Rome is one of the poorest cities in the civilized world, and when she was trying to seem rich, the element of sham was enormous in everything. In the architecture of the so-called new quarters the very gifts of the Italians turned against them; for they are born engineers and mathematicians, and by a really marvellous refinement of calculation they have worked miracles in the construction of big buildings out of altogether insufficient material, while the Italian workman's traditional skill in modelling stucco has covered vast surfaces of unsafe masonry with elaborately tasteless ornamentation. One result of all this has been a series of catastrophes of which a detailed account would appal grave men in other countries; another consequence is the existence of a quantity of grotesquely bad street decoration, much of which is already beginning to crumble under the action of the weather. It is sadder still, in many parts of Monti to see the modern ruins of houses which were not even finished when the crash put an end to the building mania, roofless, windowless, plasterless, falling to pieces and never to be inhabited--landmarks of bankruptcy, whole streets of dwellings built to lodge an imaginary population, and which will have fallen to dust long before they are ever needed, stuccoed palaces meant to be the homes of a rich middle class, and given over at derisory rents to be the refuge of the very poor. In the Monti, ruin stares one in the face, and poverty has battened upon ruin, as flies upon garbage. But Trastevere escaped, being despised by the builders on account of its distance from the chief centres. It has even preserved something of the ancient city in its looks and habits. Then, as now, the wine shops and cook shops opened directly upon the street, because they were, as they still often are, mere single, vaulted chambers, having no communication with the inner house by door or stairway. The little inner court, where the well is, may have been wider in those days, but it must always have been a cool, secluded place, where the women could wrangle and tear one another's hair in decent privacy. In the days when everything went to the gutter, it was a wise precaution to have as few windows as possible looking outward. In old Rome, as in Trastevere, there must have been an air of mystery about all dwelling-houses, as there is everywhere in the East. In those days, far more than now, the head of the house was lord and despot within his own walls; but something of that power remains by tradition of right at the present time, and the patriarchal system is not yet wholly dead. The business of the man was to work and fight for his wife and children, just as to fight and hunt for his family were the occupations of the American Indian. In return, he received absolute obedience and abject acknowledgment of his superiority. The government-fed Indian and the Roman father of today do very little fighting, working, or hunting, but in their several ways they still claim much of the same slavish obedience as in old times. One is inclined to wonder whether nowadays the independence of women is not due to the fall in value of men, since it is no longer necessary to pursue wild beasts for food, since fighting is reduced to a science, taught in three months, and seldom needed for a long time, and since work has become so largely the monopoly of the nimble typewriter. Women ask themselves and others, with at least a show of justice, since man's occupation is to sit still and think, whether they might not, with a little practice, sit quite as still as he and think to as good a purpose. In America, for instance, it was one thing to fell big trees, build log huts, dam rivers, plough stony ground, kill bears, and fight Indians; it is altogether another to sit in a comfortable chair before a plate-glass window, and dictate notes to a dumb and skilful stenographer. But with the development of women's independence, the air of privacy, not to say of mystery, disappears from the modern dwelling. In Trastevere things have not gone as far as that. One cannot tread the narrow streets without wondering a little about the lives of the grave, black-haired, harsh-voiced people who go in and out by the dark entrances, and stand together in groups in Piazza Romana, or close to Ponte Sisto, early in the morning, and just before midday, and again in the cool of the evening. It seems to be a part of the real simplicity of the Italian Latin to put on a perfectly useless look of mystery on all occasions, and to assume the air of a conspirator when buying a cabbage; and more than one gifted writer has fallen into the error of believing the Italian character to be profoundly complicated. One is too apt to forget that it needs much deeper duplicity to maintain an appearance of frankness under trying circumstances than to make a mystery of one's marketing and a profound secret of one's cookery. There are few things which the poor Italian more dislikes than to be watched when he is buying and preparing his food, though he will ask any one to share it with him when it is ready; but he is almost as prone to hide everything else that goes on inside his house, unless he has fair warning of a visit, and full time to make preparation for a guest. In the feeling there is great decency and self-respect, as well as a wish to show respect to others. [Illustration: PONTE GARIBALDI] To Romans, Trastevere suggests great names--Stefaneschi, Anguillara, Mattei, Raphael, Tasso. The story of the first has been told already. Straight from the end of the new bridge that bears the name of Garibaldi, stands the ancient tower of the great Guelph house of Anguillara that fought the Orsini long and fiercely, and went down at last before them, when it turned against the Pope. And when he was dead the Orsini bought the lands and strongholds he had given to his so-called nephew, and set the eel of Anguillara in their own escutcheon, in memory of a struggle that had lasted more than a hundred years. The Anguillara were seldom heard of after that; nor does anything remain of them today but the melancholy ruins of an ancient fortress on the lake of Bracciano, not far from the magnificent castle, and the single tower that bears their name in Rome. But Baracconi has discovered a story or a legend about one of them who lived a hundred years later, and who somehow was by that time lord of Cære, or Ceri, again, as some of his ancestors had been. It was when Charles the Fifth came to Rome, and there were great doings; for it was then that the old houses that filled the lower Forum were torn down in a few days to make him a triumphal street, and many other things were done. Then the Emperor gave a public audience in Rome, and out of curiosity the young Titta dell' Anguillara went in to see the imperial show. There he saw that a few of the nobles wore their caps, and he, thinking himself as good as they, put on his own. The Grand Chamberlain asked him why he was covered. 'Because I have a cold,' he answered, and laughed. He was told that only Grandees of Spain might wear their caps in the Emperor's presence. 'Tell the Emperor,' said the boy, 'that I, too, am a Grandee in my house, and that if he would take my cap from my head, he must do it with his sword,' and he laid his hand to the hilt of his own. And when the Emperor heard the story, he smiled and let him alone. Many years ago, before the change of government, the Trasteverine family, into whose possession the ancient tower had come, used to set out at Christmas-tide a little show of lay figures representing the Nativity and the Adoration of the Kings, in the highest story of the strange old place, and almost in the open air. It was a pretty and a peaceful sight. The small figures of the Holy Family, of the Kings, of the shepherds and their flocks, were modelled and coloured with wonderful skill, and in the high, bright air, with the little landscape as cleverly made up as the figures, it all stood out clearly and strangely lifelike. There were many of these Presepi, as they were called, in Rome at that season, but none so pretty as that in the gloomy old tower, of which every step had been washed with blood. Of all tales of household feud and vengeance and murder that can be found in old Rome, one of the most terrible is told of the Mattei, whose great palace used to stand almost opposite the bridge of Saint Bartholomew, leading to the island, and not more than two hundred yards from the Anguillara tower. It happened in the year 1555, about the time when Paul the Fourth, of inquisitorial memory, was elected Pope, thirty years before the sons of the Massimo murdered their father's unworthy wife, and Orsini married Victoria Accoramboni; and the deeds were done within the walls of the old house of which a fragment still remains in the Lungaretta, with a door surmounted by the chequered shield of the Mattei. [Illustration: PALAZZO MATTEI From a print of the last century] At that time there were four brothers of the name, Marcantonio, Piero, Alessandro, and Curzio; and the first two quarrelled mortally, wherefore Piero caused Marcantonio to be murdered by hired assassins. Of these men, Alessandro, who dearly loved both his murdered brother and his younger brother Curzio, slew one with his own hand, but the rest escaped, and he swore a blood feud against Piero. Yet, little by little, his anger subsided, and there was a sort of armed peace between the two. Then it happened that Piero, who was rich, fell in love with his own niece, the beautiful Olimpia, the dowerless daughter of his other brother Curzio; and Curzio, tempted by the hope of wealth, consented to the match, and the dispensation of the Church was obtained for the marriage. It is not rare, even nowadays, for a man to marry his niece in Europe, whether they be Catholics or Protestants, but the Italians are opposed to such marriages; and Alessandro Mattei, pitying the lovely girl, whose life was to be sold for money, and bitterly hating the murderer bridegroom, swore that the thing should not be. Yet he could not prevent the wedding, for Piero was rich and powerful, and of a determined character. So Piero was married, and after the wedding, in the evening, he gave a great feast in his house, and invited to it all the kinsmen of the family, with their wives. And Alessandro Mattei came also, with his son, Girolamo, and bringing with him two men whom he called his friends, but whom no one knew. These were hired murderers, but Piero smiled pleasantly and made a pretence of being well satisfied. The company feasted together, and drank old wine, with songs and rejoicings of all sorts. Then Alessandro rose to go home, for it was late, and Piero led him to the door of the hall to take leave of him courteously, so that all the kinsfolk might see that there was peace, for they were all looking on, some sitting in their places and some standing up out of respect for the elder men as they went to the door. Alessandro stood still, exchanging courtesies with his brother, while his servants brought him his cloak, and the arquebuse he carried at night for safety; for he had his palace across the Tiber, where it stands today. Then taking the hand-gun, he spoke no more words, but shot his brother in the breast, and killed him, and fled, leaving his son behind, for the young man had wished to stay till the end of the feast, and the two hired assassins had been brought by his father to protect him, though he did not know it. When they heard the shot, the women knew that there was blood, so they sprang up and put out the lights in an instant, that the men might not see to kill one another; therefore Curzio, the bride's father, did not see that his brother Alessandro had gone out after the killing. He crept about with a long knife, feeling in the dark for the embroidered doublet which Alessandro wore, and when he thought that he had found it, he struck; but it was Girolamo who was dressed like his father, and the two who were to watch him were on each side of him, and one of them feeling that Curzio was going to strike, and knowing him also by the touch of what he wore, killed him quietly before his blow went home, and dragged out Girolamo in haste, for the door was open, and there was some light in the stairs, whence the servants had fled. But others had sought Alessandro, and other blows had been dealt in the dark, and the bride herself was wounded, but not mortally. Girolamo and the man who had killed Curzio came to the Bridge of Saint Bartholomew, where Alessandro was waiting, very anxious for his son; and when he saw him in the starlight he drew a long breath. But when he knew what had happened and how the murderer had killed Curzio to save the boy, Alessandro was suddenly angry, for he had loved Curzio dearly. So he quickly drew his dagger and stabbed the man in the breast, and threw his body, yet breathing, over the bridge into the river. But that night he left Rome secretly and quickly, and he lived out his days an outlaw, while Girolamo, who was innocent of all, became the head of the Mattei in Rome. It is no wonder that the knife is a tradition in Trastevere. Even now it is the means of settling difficulties, but less often by treachery than in the other regions. For when two young men have a difference it is usual for them to go together into some quiet inner court or walled garden, and there they wind their handkerchiefs round their right wrists and round the hilt of the knife to get a good hold, and they muffle their left arms in their jackets for a shield, and face each other till one is dead. If it be barbarous, it is at least braver than stabbing in the dark. Raphael is remembered in Trastevere for the beautiful little palace of the Farnesina, which he decorated for the great and generous banker, Agostino Chigi, and for the Fornarina, whose small house with its Gothic window stands near the Septimian gate, where the old Aurelian wall crosses Trastevere and the Lungara to the Tiber. And he has made Trastevere memorable for the endless types of beauty he found there, besides the one well-loved woman, and whom he took as models for his work. He lived at the last, not in the house on the Roman side, which belonged to him and is still called his, but in another, built by Bramante, close to the old Accoramboni Palace, in the Piazza Rusticucci, before Saint Peter's, and that one has long been torn down. [Illustration: HOUSE BUILT FOR RAPHAEL BY BRAMANTE, NOW TORN DOWN] We know little enough of that Margaret, called the Fornarina from her father's profession; but we know that Raphael loved her blindly, passionately, beyond all other thoughts; as Agostino Chigi loved the magnificent Imperia for whom the Farnesina was built and made beautiful. And there was a time when the great painter was almost idle, out of love for the girl, and went about languidly with pale face and shadowed eyes, and scarcely cared to paint or draw. He was at work in the Vatican then, or should have been, and in the Farnesina, too; but each day, when he went out, his feet led him away from the Pope's palace and across the square, by the Gate of the Holy Spirit and down the endless straight Lungara towards the banker's palace; but when he reached it he went on to the Fornarina's house, and she was at the window waiting for him. For her sake he refused to marry the great Cardinal Bibbiena's well-dowered niece, Maria, and the world has not ceased to believe that for too much love of the Fornarina he died. But before that, as Fabio Chigi tells, Pope Leo the Tenth, being distressed by the painter's love sickness, asked Agostino Chigi if there were not some way to bring him back to work. And the great banker, as anxious for his Farnesina as the Pope was for his Vatican, spirited away the lovely girl for a time, she consenting for her lover's sake. And Chigi then pretended to search for her, and comforted Raphael with news of her and promises of her return, so that after being half mad with anxiety he grew calmer, and worked for a time at his painting. But soon he languished, and the cure was worse than the evil; so that one day Chigi brought the girl back to him unawares and went away, leaving them together. Of the end we know nothing, nor whether Margaret was with him when he died; we know nothing, save that she outlived him, and died in her turn, and lies in a grave which no one can find. But when all Rome was in sorrow for the dead man, when he had been borne through the streets to his grave, with his great unfinished Transfiguration for a funeral banner, when he had been laid in his tomb in the Pantheon, beside Maria Bibbiena, who had died, perhaps, because he would not love her, then the pale Margaret must have sat often by the little Gothic window near the Septimian gate, waiting for what could not come any more. For she had loved a man beyond compare; and it had been her whole life. [Illustration: MONASTERY OF SANT' ONOFRIO From an old engraving] If one comes from the Borgo by the Lungara, and if one turns up the steep hill to the right, there is the place where Tasso died, seventy-five years after Raphael was gone. The small monastery of Sant' Onofrio, where he spent the last short month of his life, used to be a lonely and beautiful place, and is remembered only for his sake, though it has treasures of its own--the one fresco painted in Rome by Lionardo da Vinci, and paintings by Domenichino and Pinturicchio in its portico and little church, as well as memories of Saint Philip Neri, the Roman-born patron saint of Rome. All these things barely sufficed to restrain the government from turning it into a barrack for the city police a few years ago, when the name of one of Italy's greatest poets should alone have protected it. It was far from the streets and thoroughfares in older times, and the quiet sadness of its garden called up the infinite melancholy of the poor poet who drew his last breath of the fresh open air under the old tree at the corner, and saw Rome the last time, as he turned and walked painfully back to the little room where he was to die. It is better to think of it so, when one has seen it in those days, than to see it as it is now, standing out in vulgar publicity upon the modern avenue. There died the man who had sung, and wandered, and loved; who had been slighted, and imprisoned for a madman; who had escaped and hidden himself, and had yet been glorious; who had come to Rome at last to receive the laureate's crown in the Capitol, as Petrarch had been crowned before him. His life is a strange history, full of discordant passages that left little or no mark in his works, so that it is a wonder how a man so torn and harassed could labour unceasingly for many years at a work so perfectly harmonious as 'Jerusalem Freed'; and it seems strange that the hot-headed, changeable southerner should have stood up as the determined champion of the Epic Unity against the school of Ariosto, the great northern poet, who had believed in diversity of action as a fundamental principle of the Epic; it is stranger still and a proof of his power that Tasso should have earned something like universal glory against the long-standing supremacy of Ariosto in the same field, in the same half-century, and living at the same court. Everything in Tasso's life was contradictory, everything in his works was harmonious. Even after he was dead, the contrasts of glory and misery followed his bones like fate. He died in the arms of Cardinal Aldobrandini, the Pope's nephew, almost on the eve of his intended crowning in the Capitol; he was honoured with a magnificent funeral, and his body was laid in an obscure corner, enclosed in a poor deal coffin. It was six years before the monks of Sant' Onofrio dug up the bones and placed them in a little lead box 'out of pity,' as the inscription on the metal lid told, and buried them again under a poor slab that bore his name, and little else; and when a monument was at last made to him in the nineteenth century, by the subscriptions of literary societies, it was so poor and unworthy that it had better not have been set up at all. A curious book might be written upon the vicissitudes of great men's bones. Opposite the Farnesina stands the great Palazzo Corsini, once the habitation of the Riario family, whose history is a catalogue of murders, betrayals, and all possible crimes, and whose only redeeming light in a long history was that splendid and brave Catherine Sforza, married to one of their name, who held the fortress of Forlì so bravely against Cæsar Borgia, who challenged him to single combat, which he refused out of shame, who was overcome by him at last, and brought captive to the Vatican in chains of gold, as Aurelian brought Zenobia. In the days of her power she had lived in the great palace for a time. It looks modern now; it was once a place of evil fame, and is said to have been one of the few palaces in Rome which contained one of those deadly shafts, closed by a balanced trap door that dropped the living victim who stepped upon it a hundred and odd feet at a fall, out of hearing and out of sight for ever. From the Riario it was bought at last, in 1738, by the Corsini, and when they began to repair it, they found the bones of the nameless dead in heaps far down among the foundations. There also lived Christina, Queen of Sweden, of romantic and execrable memory, for twenty years; and here she died, the strangest compound of greatness, heroism, vanity and wickedness that ever was woman to the destruction of man; ending her terrible life in an absorbing passion for art and literature which attracted to itself all that was most delicate and refined at the end of the seventeenth century; dabbling in alchemy, composing verses forgotten long ago, discoursing upon art with Bernini, dictating the laws of verse to the poet Guidi, collecting together a vast library of rare books and a great gallery of great pictures, and of engravings and medals and beautiful things of every sort--the only woman, perhaps, who was ever like Lucrezia Borgia, and outdid her in all ways. Long before her time, a Riario, the Cardinal of Saint George, had like tastes and drew about him the thinkers and the writers of his age, when the Renascence was at its climax and the Constable of Bourbon had not yet been shot down at the walls a few hundred yards from the Corsini palace, bequeathing the plunder of Rome to his Spaniards and Germans. Here Erasmus spent those hours of delight of which he eloquently wrote in after years, and here, to this day, in the grand old halls whence the Riario sent so many victims to their deaths below, a learned and literary society holds its meetings. Of all palaces in Rome in which she might have lived, fate chose this one for Queen Christina, as if its destiny of contrasts past and future could best match her own. Much more could be told of Trastevere and much has been told already; how Beatrice Cenci lies in San Pietro in Montorio, how the lovely Farnesina, with all its treasures, was bought by force by the Farnese for ten thousand and five hundred scudi,--two thousand and one hundred pounds,--how the Region was swept and pillaged again and again by Emperors and nobles, and people and Popes, without end. But he who should wander through the Regions in their order, knowing that the greatest is last, would tire of lingering in the long Lungara and by the Gate of the Holy Spirit, while on the other side lies the great Castle of Sant' Angelo, and beyond that the Vatican, and Saint Peter's church; and for that matter, a great part of what has not been told here may be found in precise order and ready to hand in all those modern guide books which are the traveller's first leading-strings as he learns to walk in Rome. * * * * * Yet here, on the threshold of that Region which contains many of the world's most marvellous treasures of art--at the Gate of the Holy Spirit, through which Raphael so often passed between love and work--I shall say a few words about that development in which Italy led the world, and something of the men who were leaders in the Renascence. Art is not dependent on the creations of genius alone. It is also the result of developing manual skill to the highest degree. Without genius, works of art might as well be turned out by machinery; without manual skill, genius could have no means of expression. As a matter of fact, in our own time, it is the presence of genius, without manual skill, or foolishly despising it, that has produced a sort of school called the impressionist. To go back to first principles, the word Art, as every child knows, is taken directly from the Latin ars, artis, which the best Latin dictionary translates or defines: 'The faculty of joining anything corporeal or spiritual properly or skilfully,' and therefore: 'skill, dexterity, art, ability,' and then: 'skill or faculty of the mind or body that shows itself in performing any work, trade, profession, art, science.' From the meaning of the Latin word we may eliminate what refers to spiritual things; not because literature, for instance, is not art, as well as music and the rest, but because we have to do with painting, sculpture, architecture, metal working, and the like, in which actual manual skill is a most integral element. Now it is always admitted that art grew out of handicraft, when everything was made by hand, and when the competition between workers was purely personal, because each man worked for himself and not for a company in which his individuality was lost. That is nowhere more clear than in Italy, though the conditions were similar throughout Europe until the universal introduction of machinery. The transition from handicraft to art was direct, quick and logical, and at first it appeared almost simultaneously in all the trades. The Renascence appears to us as a sort of glorious vision in which all that was beautiful suddenly sprang into being again, out of all that was rough and chaotic and barbarous. In real fact the Renascence began among carpenters, and blacksmiths, and stone masons, and weavers, when they began to take pride in their work, when they began to try and ornament their own tools, when the joiner who knew nothing of the Greeks began to trace a pattern with a red-hot nail on the clumsy wooden chest, when the smith dinted out a simple design upon the head of his hammer, when the mason chipped out a face or a leaf on the corner of the rough stone house, and when the weaver taught himself to make patterns in the stuff he wove. The true beginning of the Renascence was the first improvement of hand-work after an age in which everything people used had been rougher and worse made than we can possibly imagine. Then one thing suggested another, and each generation found some new thing to do, till the result was a great movement and a great age. But there never was, and never could have been, any art at all without hand-work. Progress makes almost everything by machinery, and dreams of abolishing hand-work altogether, and of making Nature's forces do everything, and provide everything for everybody, so that nobody need work at all, and everybody may have a like share in what is to cost nobody anything. Then, in the dream, everybody will be devoted to what we vaguely call intellectual pursuits, and the human race will be raised to an indefinitely high level. In reality, if such things were possible, we should turn into oysters, or into something about as intelligent. It is the experience of all ages that human beings will not work unless they are obliged to, and degenerate rapidly in idleness, and there have not been many exceptions to the rule. Art grew out of hand-work, but it grew in it, too, as a plant in the soil; when there is no more hand-work, there will be no more art. The two belong to each other, and neither can do without the other. [Illustration: THE FORUM Looking West] Of course, I do not mean to say that there was a succession of centuries, or even one century, during which no pictures were painted in Italy, or no sculptures carved. The tradition of the arts survived, like the tradition of Latin poetry, with the same result, that rude works were produced in the early churches and convents. But there was no life in those things; and when, after a long time, after the early Crusades, Byzantine artists came to Italy, their productions were even worse than those of the still ignorant Italians, because they were infinitely more pretentious, with their gildings and conventionalities and expressionless types, and were not really so near the truth. What I mean is that the revival of real art came from a new beginning deep down and out of sight, among humble craftsmen and hard-working artisans, who found out by degrees that their hands could do more than they had been taught to do, and that objects of daily use need not be ugly or merely plain in order to be strong and well made and serviceable. And as this knowledge grew among them with practice and by experiment, they rose to the power of using for new purposes of beauty the old methods of painting and sculpture, which had survived, indeed, but which were of no value to the old-fashioned artists who had learned them from generation to generation, without understanding and without enthusiasm. The highest of the crafts in the Middle Age was goldsmithing. When almost every other artistic taste had disappeared from daily life in that rough time, the love of personal adornment had survived, and when painters and sculptors were a small band of men, trained to represent certain things in certain ways--trained like a church choir, in fact, to the endless repetition of ancient themes--the goldsmiths had latitude and freedom to their hearts' desire and so many buyers for their work that their own numbers were not nearly so limited as those of 'artists' in the narrow sense. One chief part of their art lay in drawing and modelling, another in casting metals, another in chiselling, and they were certainly the draughtsmen of an age in which the art of drawing was practically lost among painters; and it was because they learned how to draw that so many of them became great painters when the originality of two or three men of genius had opened the way. One says 'two or three,' vaguely, but the art had grown out of infancy when they appeared, and there was an enormous distance between Cimabue, whom people call the father of painting, and the Cosmas family, of whom the last died about the time that Cimabue was born. But though Cimabue was a noble, the Cosmas family who preceded him were artisans first and artists afterwards, and men of the people; and Giotto, whom Cimabue discovered sketching sheep on a piece of slate with a pointed stone, was a shepherd lad. So was Andrea Mantegna, who dominated Italian art a hundred and fifty years later--so was David, one of the greatest poets that ever lived, and so was Sixtus the Fifth, one of the strongest popes that ever reigned--all shepherds. It is rather remarkable that although so many famous painters were goldsmiths, none of the very greatest were. Among the goldsmiths were Orcagna, Ghiberti, Ghirlandajo, Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Francia, Verrocchio, Andrea del Sarto. But Benvenuto Cellini, the greatest of goldsmiths, was never a painter, and the very greatest painters were never goldsmiths, for Cimabue, Giotto, Mantegna, Lionardo da Vinci, Perugino, Raphael, Michelangelo, all began in the profession that made them the greatest artists of their age. It is very hard to get at an idea of what men thought about art in those times. Perhaps it would be near the truth to say that it was looked upon as a universal means of expression. What strikes one most in the great pictures of that time is their earnestness, not in the sense of religious faith, but in the determination to do nothing without a perfectly clear and definite meaning, which any cultivated person could understand, and at which even a child might guess. Nothing was done for effect, nothing was done merely for beauty's sake. It was as if the idea of usefulness, risen with art from the hand-crafts, underlay the intentions of beauty, or of devotion, or of history, which produced the picture. In those times, when the artist put in any accessory he asked himself: 'Does it mean anything?' whereas most painters of today, in the same case, ask themselves: 'Will it look well?' The difference between the two points of view is the difference between jesting and being in earnest--between an art that compared itself with an ideal future, and the art of today that measures itself with an ideal past. The great painters of the Renascence appealed to men and to men's selves, whereas the great painters of today appeal chiefly to men's eyes and to that much of men which can be stirred through the eye only. It was not that those early artists were religious enthusiasts, moved by a spiritual faith such as that which inspired Fra Angelico and one or two others. Few of them were religious men; several of them, like Perugino, were freethinkers. It was not, I think, because they looked upon art itself as a very sacred matter, not to be jested with, since they used their art against their enemies for revenge and ridicule. It was rather because everyone was in earnest then, and was forced to be by the nature of the times; whereas people now are only relatively in earnest, and stake their money only where men once staked their lives. That was one reason. Another may be that the greatest painters of those times were practically men of universal genius and were always men of vast reading and cultivation, the equals and often the superiors of the learned in all other branches of science, literature and art. They were not only great painters, but great men and great thinkers, and far above doing anything solely 'for effect.' Lionardo da Vinci has been called the greatest man of the fifteenth century--so has Michelangelo--so, perhaps, has Raphael. They seemed able to do everything, and they have not been surpassed in what they did as painters, sculptors, architects, engineers, fortifiers of cities, mathematicians, thinkers. No one nowadays ever thinks of a painter as being anything but a painter, and people shrug their shoulders at the idea that an artist can do anything of the kind called 'serious' in this age. [Illustration: EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF MARCUS AURELIUS] One asks what were the surroundings, the customs, the habits, in which these men grew to be already great at an age when modern boys are at college. One asks whether that system of teaching or education, whatever it may have been, was not much more likely to make great men than ours. And the answer suggests itself: our teaching is for the many, and the teaching of that day was for the few. Let anyone try and imagine the childhood of Giotto as the account of it has come down to us through almost all the authorities. He was born in the year 1276--when Dante was about eleven years old. That was the time when the wars of Guelphs and Ghibellines were at their height. That was the year in which Count Ugolino della Gherardesca got back his lordship over Pisa--where he was to be starved to death with his two sons and two grandsons some twelve years later. That was the time when four Popes died in sixteen months--the time when the Sicilian Vespers drove Charles of Anjou from Sicily for ever--when Guido da Montefeltro was fighting and betraying and fighting again--the time of Dante's early youth, in which fell most of those deeds for which he consigned the doers to hell and their names to immortality. Imagine, then, what a shepherd's hut must have been in those days, in a narrow valley of the Tuscan hills--the small cottage built of unhewn stones picked up on the hillside, fitted together one by one, according to their irregular shapes, and cemented, if at all, with clay and mud from the river bed--the roof of untrimmed saplings tied together and thatched with chestnut boughs, held down by big stones, lest the wind should blow them away. The whole, dark brown and black with the rich smoke of brushwood burned in the corner to boil the big black cauldron of sheep's milk for the making of the rank 'pecorino' cheese. One square room, lighted from the door only. The floor, the beaten earth. The beds, rough-hewn boards, lying one above the other, like bunks, on short strong lengths of sapling stuck into the wall. For mattresses, armfuls of mountain hay. The people, a man, his wife and two or three children, dressed winter and summer in heavy brown homespun woollen and sheepskins. For all furniture, a home-made bench, black with age and smoke. The food, day in, day out, coarse yellow meal, boiled thick in water and poured out to cool upon the black bench, divided into portions then with a thin hide thong, crosswise and lengthwise, for each person a yellow square, and eaten greedily with unwashed hands that left a little for the great sheep-dog. The drink, spring water and the whey left from the cheese curds, drunk out of a small earthen pot, passed from mouth to mouth. A silent bunch of ignorant human beings, full of thought for the morrow, and of care for the master's sheep that were herded together in the stone pen all round the hut; fighting the wolves in winter, and in summer time listening for the sound of war from the valley, when Guelph and Ghibelline harried all the country, and killed every stray living thing for food. And among these half-starved wretches was a boy of twelve or thirteen years, weak-jointed, short-winded, little better than a cripple and only fit to watch the sheep on summer days when the wolves were not hungry--a boy destined to be one of the greatest artists, one of the greatest architects, and one of the most cultivated men of that or any other age--Giotto. The contrast between his childhood and his manhood is so startling that one cannot realize it. It means that in those days the way from nothing to much was short and straight for great minds--impossible and impracticable for small ones. Great intelligences were not dwarfed to stumps by laborious school work, were not stuffed to a bursting point by cramming, were not artificially inflamed by the periodical blistering of examinations; but average intelligences had not the chance which a teaching planned only for the average gives them now. Talent, in the shape of Cimabue, found genius, in the form of Giotto, clothed in rags, sketching sheep with one stone on another; talent took genius and fed it and showed it the way, and presently genius overtopped talent by a mountain's head and shoulders. Cimabue took Giotto from his father, glad to be rid of the misshapen child that had to be fed and could do nothing much in return; and from the smoky hut in the little Tuscan valley the lad was taken straight to the old nobleman painter's house in the most beautiful city of Italy, was handed over to Brunetto Latini, Dante's tutor, to be taught book-learning, and was allowed to spend the other half of his time in the painting room, at the elbow of the greatest living painter. The boy was a sort of apprentice-servant, of course, as all beginners were in those times. In the big house, he probably had a pallet bed in one of those upper dormitories where the menservants slept, and he doubtless fed with them in the lower hall at first. They must have laughed at his unmannerly ways, and at his surprise over every new detail of civilized life, but he had a sharp tongue and could hold his own in a word-fight. There were three tables in a gentleman's house in the Middle Age,--the master's, which was served in different rooms, according to the weather and the time of year; secondly, the 'tinello,' or canteen, as we should call it, for the so-called gentlemen retainers--among whom, by the bye, ranked the chief butler and the head groom, besides the chaplain and the doctor; thirdly, the servants' hall, where all the lower people of the house fed together. Then, as now in old countries, the labour of a large household was indefinitely subdivided, and no servant was expected to do more than one thing, and every servant had an assistant upon whom he forced all the hard work. A shepherd lad, brought in from the hills in his sheepskin coat, sheepskin breeches, and leg swathings of rags and leather, would naturally be the butt of such an establishment. On the other hand, the shepherd boy was a genius and had a tongue like a razor, besides being the favourite of the all-powerful master; and as it was neither lawful nor safe to lay hands on him, his power of cutting speech made him feared. So he learned Latin with the man who had taught Dante,--and Dante was admitted to be the most learned man of his times,--and he ground the colours and washed the brushes for Cimabue, and drew under the master's eye everything that he saw, and became, as the chronicler Villani says of him, 'the most sovereign master of painting to be found in his time, and the one who most of all others took all figures and all action from nature.' And Villani was his contemporary, and knew him when he was growing old, and recorded his death and his splendid funeral. One-half of all permanent success in art must always lie in the mechanical part of it, in the understanding and use of the tools. They were primitive in Giotto's day, and even much later, according to our estimate. Oil painting was not dreamt of, nor anything like a lead pencil for drawing. There was no canvas on which to paint. No one had thought of making an artist's palette. Not one-tenth of the substances now used for colours were known then. A modern artist might find himself in great difficulties if he were called upon to paint a picture with Cimabue's tools. But to Giotto they must have seemed marvellous after his pointed stone pencil and his bit of untrimmed slate. Everything must have surprised and delighted him in his first days in Florence--the streets, the houses, the churches, the people, the dresses he saw; and the boy who had begun by copying the sheep that were before his eyes on the hillside, instantly longed to reproduce a thousand things that pleased him. So, when he was already old enough to understand life and its beauty, he was suddenly transported to the midst of it, just where it was most beautiful; and because he instantly saw that his master's art was unreal and far removed from truth, dead, as it were, and bound hand and foot in the graveclothes of Byzantine tradition, his first impulse was to wake the dead in a blaze of life. And this he did. And after him, from time to time, when art seemed to be stiffening again in the clumsy fingers of the little scholars of the great, there came a true artist, like Giotto, who realized the sort of deathlike trance into which art had fallen, and roused it suddenly to things undreamed of--from Giotto to Titian. And each did all that he meant to do. But afterwards came Tintoretto, who said that he would draw like Michelangelo and paint like Titian; but he could not, though he made beautiful things: and he was the first great artist who failed to go farther than others had gone before him; and because art must either advance or go backward, and no one could advance any more, it began to go backward, and the degeneration set in. About three hundred years elapsed between Giotto's birth and Titian's death, during which the world changed from the rough state of the Middle Age to a very high degree of civilization; and men's eyes grew tired of what they saw all the time, while many of the strong types which had made the change faded away. Men grew more alike, dress grew more alike, thoughts grew more alike. It was the beginning of that overspreading uniformity which we have in our time, which makes it so very easy for any one man to be eccentric, but which makes it so very hard for any one man to be really great. One might say that in those times humanity flowed in very small channels, which a strong man of genius could thwart and direct. But humanity now is a stream so broad that it is almost like an ocean, in which all have similar being, and the big fish come to the surface, and spout and blow and puff without having any influence at all on the tide. There was hardly any such thing possible as eccentricity in Giotto's time. When the dress and manners and language of every little town differed distinctly from those of the nearest village, every man dressed as he pleased, behaved as he had been taught, and spoke the dialect of his native place. There was a certain uniformity among the priesthood, whose long cassock was then the more usual dress of civilians in great cities in times of peace and who spoke Latin among themselves and wrote it, though often in a way that would make a scholar's blood run cold. But there was no uniformity among other classes of men. A fine gentleman who chose to have his cloth tights of several colours, one leg green and one blue, or each leg in quarters of four colours, attracted no attention whatever in the streets; and if one noble affected simple habits and went about in an old leathern jerkin that was rusty in patches from the joints of his armour, the next might dress himself in rich silk and gold embroidery, and wear a sword with a fine enamelled hilt. No one cared, except for himself, and it must have been hard indeed to produce much effect by any eccentricity of appearance. But there was the enormous and constantly changing variety that takes an artist's eye at every turn,--which might make an artist then of a man who nowadays would be nothing but a discontented observer with artistic tastes. I do not think that these things have ever been much noticed as factors in the development of European art. Consider what Florence, for instance, was to the eye at that time. And then consider that, until that time, art had been absolutely prohibited from painting what it saw, being altogether a traditional business in which, as Burckhardt says, the artist had quite lost all freedom of mind, all pleasure and interest in his work, in which he no longer invented, but had only to reproduce by mechanical repetition what the Church had discovered for him, in which the sacred personages he represented had shrivelled to mere emblems, and the greater part of his attention and pride was directed to the rich and almost imperishable materials in which alone he was allowed to work for the honour and glory of the Church. In the second Council of Nicea, held in the year 787, the question of sacred pictures was discussed, and in the acts of the Council the following statement is found:-- 'It is not the invention of the painter which creates the picture, but an inviolable law, a tradition of the Church. It is not the painters, but the holy fathers, who have to invent and dictate. To them manifestly belongs the composition, to the painter only the execution.' It would be hard to find a clearer definition of the artist's place and work before Giotto. Consider all these things, and then think of the sensations of the first man upon whom it flashed all at once that he might be free and might paint everything he saw, not as monks dictated to him, but as he saw it, to the best of his strength and talent. He must have felt like a creature that had been starved, suddenly turned out free to roam through a world full of the most tempting things and with a capacity to enjoy them all. He did not realize his freedom completely at first; it was impossible for him to throw off at once all the traditions in which he had been brought up and taught; but he realized enough to change the whole direction of all the art that came after him. Two things are remarkable about the early Italian artists. With the solitary exception of Cimabue--the first of the Renascence--none of them was born rich, but, on the other hand, a great many of them were not born poor either. Giotto and Mantegna were shepherd boys, it is true; but Michelangelo was the son of a small official of ancient family in the provinces, the mayor of the little city of Chiusi e Caprese; Lionardo da Vinci's father was a moderately well-to-do land-holder; Raphael's was a successful painter, and certainly not in want. Secondly, a very great number of them made what must have been thought good fortunes in those days, while they were still young men. Some, like Andrea del Sarto, squandered their money and died in misery; one or two, like Fra Angelico, refused to receive money themselves for their work and handed over their earnings to a religious community. None, so far as I can find out, toiled through half a lifetime with neither recognition nor pay, as many a great artist has done in our times--like the Frenchman Millet, for instance, whose Angelus fetched such a fabulous price after his death. The truth is that what we mean by art had just been discovered, and it met with immediate and universal appreciation, and the result was a demand for it which even a greater number of painters could not have oversatisfied. Consequently, there was plenty to do for every man of genius, and there were people not only willing to pay great sums for each work, but who disputed with each other for the possession of good paintings, and quarrelled for what was equivalent to the possession of great artists. Another element in the lives of these men, as in the lives of all who rose to any eminence in those days, was the great variety that circumstances introduced into their existence. Change and variety are favourable to creative genius as they are unfavourable to uncreative study. The scholar and the historian are best left among their books for twenty years at a time, to execute the labour of patient thought which needs perpetual concentration on one subject. If Gibbon had continued to be an amateur soldier and a man of the world, as he began, he might have written a history, but it would not have been the most astonishing history of modern times. In Macaulay's brilliant and often too creative work, one sees the influence of his changing political career, to the detriment of sober study. For the more the creative man sees and lives in his times, the more he is impelled to create. In the midst of his best years of painting, Lionardo da Vinci was called off to build canals, and Cæsar Borgia kept him busy for two years in planning and constructing fortifications. Immediately before that time he had finished his famous Last Supper, in Milan, and immediately afterwards he painted the Battle of Anghiari--now lost--which was the picture of his that most strongly impressed the men of his day. Similarly, Michelangelo was interrupted in his work when, the Constable of Bourbon having sacked Rome, the Medici were turned out of Florence, and the artist was employed by the Republic to fortify and defend the city. It was betrayed, and he escaped and hid himself--and the next great thing he did was the Last Judgment, in the Sixtine Chapel. He did stirring work in wild times, besides painting, and hewing marble, and building Saint Peter's. That brings one back to thinking how much those men knew. Their universal knowledge seems utterly unattainable to us, with all our modern machinery of education. Michelangelo grew up in a suburb of Florence, to which his father moved when he was a child, at a notary's desk, his father trying to teach him enough law to earn him a livelihood. Whenever he had a chance, he escaped to draw in a corner, or to spend forbidden hours in an artist's studio. He was taught Latin and arithmetic by an old schoolmaster, who was probably a priest, and a friend of his father's. At fourteen he earned money in Ghirlandajo's studio, which means that he was already an artist. At twenty-five he was probably the equal of any living man as sculptor, painter, architect, engineer and mathematician. Very much the same might be said of Lionardo. One asks in vain how such enormous knowledge was acquired, and because there is no answer, one falls back upon wild theories about untaught genius. But whatever may be said of painting and sculpture, neither architecture nor engineering, and least of all the mathematics so necessary to both, can be evolved from the inner consciousness. Men worked harder then than now, and their teachers and their tools helped them less, so that they learned more thoroughly what they learned at all. And there was much less to distract a man then, when he had discovered his own talent, while there was everything to spur him. Amusements were few, and mostly the monopoly of rich nobles; but success was quick and generous, and itself ennobled the men who attained to it--that is, it instantly made him the companion, and often the friend, of the most cultivated men and women of the day. Then, as now, success meant an entrance into 'society' for those whose birth had placed them outside of it. But 'society' was different then. It consisted chiefly of men who had fought their own way to power, and had won it by a superiority both intellectual and physical, and of women who often realized and carried out the unsatisfied intellectual aspirations of their husbands and fathers. For wherever men have had much to do, and have done it successfully, what we call culture has been more or less the property of the women. In those times, the men were mostly occupied in fighting and plotting, but the beautiful things produced by newly discovered art appealed to them strongly. Women, on the other hand, had nothing to do. With the end of the Middle Age, the old-fashioned occupations of women, such as spinning, weaving and embroidering with their maids, went out of existence, and the mechanical work was absorbed and better done by the guilds. Fighting was then a large part of life, but there was something less of the petty squabbling and killing between small barons, which kept their women constant prisoners in remote castles, for the sake of safety; and there was war on a larger scale between Guelph and Ghibelline, Emperor and Pope, State and State. The women had more liberty and more time. There were many women students in the universities, as there are now, in Italy, and almost always have been, and there were famous women professors, whose lectures were attended by grown men. No one was surprised at that, and there was no loud talk about women's rights. Nobody questioned the right of women to learn as much as they could, where-ever anything was taught. There were great ladies, good and bad, like Vittoria Colonna and Lucrezia Borgia, who were scholars, and even Greek scholars, and probably equal to any students of their time. Few ladies of Michelangelo's day did not know Latin, and all were acquainted with such literature as there was--Dante, Macchiavelli, Aretino, Ariosto and Petrarch,--for Tasso came later,--the Tuscan minor poets, as well as the troubadours of Provence--not to mention the many collections of tales, of which the scenes were destined to become the subjects of paintings in the later days of the Renascence. Modern society is the enemy of individuality, whether in dress, taste or criticism, and the fear of seeming different from other people is greater than the desire to rise higher than other people by purely personal means. In the same way, socialism is the enemy of all personal distinction, whatever the socialists may say to the contrary, and is therefore opposed to all artistic development and in favour of all that is wholesale, machine-made, and labour-saving. And nobody will venture to say that modern tendencies are not distinctly socialistic. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF SANTA MARIA DEGLI ANGELI The Baths of Diocletian remodelled by Michelangelo] We are almost at the opposite extreme of existence from the early Renascence. That was the age of small principalities; ours is the day of great nations. Anyone who will carefully read the history of the Middle Age and of the Renascence will come to the inevitable conclusion that the greatest artists and writers of today are very far from being the rivals of those who were great then. Shakespeare was almost the contemporary of Titian; there has been neither a Shakespeare nor a Titian since, nor any writer nor artist in the most distant manner approaching them. Yet go backward from them, and you will find Dante, as great as Shakespeare, and at least three artists, Michelangelo, Lionardo da Vinci and Raphael, quite as great as Titian. They lived in a society which was antisocialistic, and they were the growth of a period in which all the ideas of civilized mankind tended in a direction diametrically opposed to that taken by our modern theories. This is undeniable. The greatest artists, poets and literary men are developed where all conditions most develop individuality. The modern state, in which individuality is crushed by the machinery of education in order that all men may think alike, favours the growth of science alone; and scientific men have the least individuality of all men who become great, because science is not creative like art and literature, nor destructive like soldiering, but inquisitive, inventive and speculative in the first place, and secondly, in our age, financial. In old times, when a discovery was made, men asked, 'What does it mean? To what will it lead?' Now, the first question is, 'What will it be worth?' That does not detract from the merit of science, but it shows the general tendency of men's thoughts. And it explains two things, namely, why there are no artists like Michelangelo nor literary men like Shakespeare in our times--and why the majority of such artists and literary men as we have are what is commonly called reactionaries, men who would prefer to go back a century or two, and who like to live in out-of-the-way places in old countries, as Landor lived in Florence, Browning in Venice, Stevenson in Samoa, Liszt in Rome,--besides a host of painters and sculptors, who have exiled themselves voluntarily for life in Italy and France. The whole tendency of the modern world is scientific and financial, and the world is ruled by financiers and led by a financial society which honours neither art nor literature, but looks upon both as amusements which it can afford to buy, and which it is fashionable to cultivate, but which must never for a moment be considered as equal in importance to the pursuit of money for its own sake. It was the great scope for individuality, the great prizes to be won by individuality, the honour paid to individuality, that helped the early painters to their high success. It was the abundance of material, hitherto never used in art, the variety of that material, in an age when variety was the rule and not the exception, it was the richness of that material, not in quantity and variety only, but in individual quality, that made early paintings what we see. It was their genuine and true love of beauty, and of nature and of the eternal relations between nature and beauty, that made those men great artists. It was the hampering of individuality, the exhaustion and disappearance of material and the degeneration of a love of beauty to a love of effect, that put an end to the great artistic cycle in Italy, and soon afterwards in the rest of the world, with Rembrandt and Van Dyck, the last of the really great artists. Progress is not civilization, though we generally couple the two words together, and often confound their values. Progress has to do with what we call the industrial arts, their development, and the consequent increase of wealth and comfort. Civilization means, on the other hand, among many things, the growth and perfecting of art, in the singular; the increase of a general appreciation of art; the refinement of manners which follows upon a widespread improvement of taste; the general elevation of a people's thoughts above the hard conditions in which a great people's struggles for existence, preëminence and wealth take place. Progress, in its right acceptation, ought also to mean some sort of moral progress--such, for instance, as has transformed our own English-speaking race in a thousand years or more from a stock of very dangerous pirates to a law-abiding people--if we may fairly say as much as that of ourselves. Civilization has nothing to do with morality. That is rather a shocking statement, perhaps, but it is a true one. It may be balanced by saying that civilization has nothing to do with immorality either. The early Christians were looked upon as very uncivilized people by the Romans of their time, and the meanest descendants of the Greeks secretly called the Romans themselves barbarians. In point of civilization and what we call cultivation, Alcibiades was immeasurably superior to Saint Paul, Peter the Hermit or Abraham Lincoln, though Alcibiades had no morality to speak of and not much conscience. Moreover, it is a fact that great reformers of morals have often been great enemies of art and destroyers of the beautiful. Fra Bartolommeo, who is thought by many to have equalled Raphael in the latter's early days, became a follower of Savonarola, burned all his wonderful drawings and studies, and shut himself up in a monastery to lead a religious life; and though he yielded after several years to the command of his superiors, and began painting again, he confined himself altogether to devotional subjects as long as he lived, and fell far behind Raphael, who was certainly not an exemplary character, even in those days. In Europe, and in the Latin languages, there is a distinction, and a universally accepted one, between education and instruction. It is something like that which I am trying to make clear between Civilization and Progress. An 'instructed man' means a man who has learned much but who may have no manners at all, may eat with his knife, forget to wash his hands, wear outlandish clothes, and be ignorant even of the ordinary forms of politeness. An 'educated person,' on the contrary, may know very little Latin, and no Greek, and may be shaky in the multiplication table; but he must have perfect manners to deserve the designation, and tact, with a thorough knowledge of all those customs and outward forms which distinguish what calls itself civilized society from the rest of the world. Anyone can see that such instruction, on the one hand, and such education, on the other, are derived from wholly different sources, and must lead to wholly different results; and it is as common nowadays to find men who have the one without the other, as it ever was in ancient Greece or Rome. I should like to assert that it is more common, since Progress is so often mistaken for Civilization and tacitly supposed to be able to do without it, and that Diogenes would not be such a startling exception now as he was in the days of Alexander the Great. But no one would dare to say that Progress cannot go on in a high state of Civilization. All that can be stated with absolute certainty is that they are independent of each other, since Progress means 'going on' and therefore 'change'; whereas Civilization may remain at the same high level for a very long period, without any change at all. Compare our own country with China, for instance. In the arts--the plural 'arts'--in applied science, we are centuries ahead of Asia; but our manners are rough and even brutal compared with the elaborate politeness of the Chinese, and we should labour in vain to imitate the marvellous productions of their art. We may prefer our art to that of the far East, though there are many critics who place the Japanese artists much higher than our own; but no one can deny the superior skill of the Asiatics in the making of everything artistic. Nor must we undervalue in art the importance of the minor and special sort of progress which means a real and useful improvement in methods and materials. That is doubtless a part, a first step, in the general progress which tends ultimately to the invention of machinery, but which, in its development, passes through the highest perfection of manual work. The first effect of this sort of progress in art was to give men of genius new and better tools, and therefore a better means of expression. In a way, almost every painter of early times was an inventor, and had to be, because for a long time the methods and tools of painting were absurdly insufficient. Every man who succeeded had discovered some new way of grinding and mixing colours, of preparing the surface on which he worked, of using the brush and the knife, and of fixing the finished picture by means of varnishes. The question of what painters call the vehicle for colour was always of immense importance. Long before Giotto began to work there seem to have been two common ways of painting, namely, in fresco, with water-colours, and on prepared surfaces by means of wax mixed with some sort of oil. In fresco painting, the mason, or the plasterer, works with the painter. A surface as large as the artist expects to use during a few hours is covered with fresh stucco by the mason, and thoroughly smoothed with a small trowel. Stucco, as used in Italy, is a mixture of slaked lime and white marble dust, or very fine sand which has been thoroughly sifted. If stained to resemble coloured or veined marbles, and immediately ironed till it is dry with hot smooth irons, the surface of the mass is hardened and polished to such a degree that it is almost impossible to distinguish it from real marble without breaking into it. Waxing gives it a still higher polish. But if water-colours are used for painting a picture upon it, and if the colours are laid on while the stucco is still damp, they unite with the lime, and slowly dry to a surface which is durable, but neither so hard nor so polished as that produced when the stucco is ironed. The principal conditions are that the stucco must be moist, the wall behind it absolutely dry and the colours very thin and flowing. Should the artist not cover all that has been prepared for his day's work, the remainder has to be broken out again and laid on fresh the next day. It is now admitted that the wall-paintings of the ancients were executed in this way. As it was impossible for the artist at any time to have the whole surface of the freshly stuccoed wall at his disposal in order to draw his picture before painting it, he either drew the design in red upon the rough dry plaster, and then had the stucco laid over it in bits, or else he made a cartoon drawing of the work in its full size. The outlines were then generally pricked out with a stout pin, and the cartoon cut up into pieces of convenient dimensions, so that the painter could lay them against the fresh stucco and rub the design through, or pounce it, as we should say, with charcoal dust, like a stencil. He then coloured it as quickly as he could. If he made a mistake, or was not pleased with the effect, there was no remedy except the radical one of breaking off the stucco, laying it on fresh, and beginning over again. It was clearly impossible to paint over the same surface again and again as can be done in oil painting. No one knows exactly when eggs were first used in fresco painting, nor does it matter much. Some people used the yolk and the white together, some only one or the other, but the egg was, and is, always mixed with water. Some artists now put gum tragacanth into the mixture. It is then used like water in water-colour work, but is called 'tempera' or 'distemper.' The effect of the egg is to produce an easy flow of the colour with so little liquid that the paint does not run on the surface, as it easily does in ordinary water-colours. The effect of the yellow yolk of the egg upon the tints is insignificant, unless too much be used. By using egg, one may paint upon ordinary prepared canvas as easily as with oils, which is impossible with water-colour. As for the early paintings upon panels of wood, before oils were used, they were meant to be portable imitations of fresco. The wood was accordingly prepared by covering it with a thin coating of fine white cement, or stucco, which was allowed to dry and become perfectly hard, because it was of course impossible to lay it on fresh every day in such small quantities. The vehicle used could therefore not be water, which would have made the colours run. The most common practice of the Byzantine and Romanesque schools seems to have been to use warm melted wax in combination with some kind of oil, the mixture being kept ready at hand over a lighted lamp, or on a pan of burning charcoal. There are artists in Europe, still, who occasionally use wax in this way, though generally mixed with alcohol or turpentine, and the result is said to be very durable. Sir Joshua Reynolds painted many pictures in this way. With regard to using oils on a dry surface in wall painting, instead of fresco, Lionardo da Vinci tried it repeatedly with the result that many of his wall paintings were completely lost within thirty or forty years after they had been painted. The greatest of those which have survived at all, the Last Supper in Milan, has had to be restored so often that little of the original picture remains untouched. The enormous value of linseed oil and nut oil as a vehicle was apparent as soon as it was discovered in Holland. Its great advantages are that, unlike water or egg, it will carry a large quantity of colour upon the canvas at the first stroke, that it dries slowly, so that the same ground may be worked over without haste while it is still fresh, and that it has a very small effect in changing the tints of the original paints used. One may see what value was attached to its use from the fact that those who first brought it to Italy worked in secret. Andrea Castagno, surnamed the Assassin, learned the method from his best friend, Domenico Veneziano, and then murdered him while he was singing a serenade under a lady's window, in order to possess the secret alone. But it soon became universally known and made a revolution in Italian painting. In the older times, when rare and valuable pigments were used, as well as large quantities of pure gold, the materials to be employed and their value were stipulated for in the contract made between the painter and his employer before the picture was begun, and an artist's remuneration at that time was much of the nature of a salary, calculated on an approximate guess at the time he might need for the work. That was, of course, a survival from the time of the Byzantine artists, to whom gold and silver and paints were weighed out by the ecclesiastics for whom they painted, and had to be accounted for in the finished picture. There is a story told of an artist's apprentice, who made a considerable sum of money by selling the washings of his master's brushes when the latter was using a great quantity of ultramarine; and that shows the costliness of mere paints at that time. As for the more valuable materials, the great altar picture in Saint Mark's, in Venice, is entirely composed of plates of pure gold enamelled in different colours, and fastened in a sort of mosaic upon the wood panel as required, the lights and shades being produced by hatching regular lines through the hard enamel with a sharp instrument. The whole technical history of painting lies between that sort of work and the modern painter's studio. Before oil painting became general, artists were largely dependent on commissions in order to do any work except drawing. Fresco needed a wall, and work done in that manner could not be removed from place to place. The old-fashioned panel work with its gold background was so expensive that few artists could afford to paint pictures on the mere chance of selling them. But the facilities and the economy of pure tempera work, and work in oils, soon made easel pictures common. Between the time of Giotto and that of Mantegna another means of expression, besides painting, was found for artists, if not by accident, by the ingenuity of the celebrated goldsmith, Maso Finiguerra, who was the first man in Italy, and probably the first in the world, to take off upon paper impressions in ink from an engraved plate. [Illustration: THE PALATINE] The especial branch of goldsmithing which he practised was what the Italians still call 'niello' work, or the enamelling of designs upon precious metals. The method of doing such work is this. Upon the piece to be enamelled the design is first carefully drawn with a fine point, precisely as in silver chiselling, and corrected till quite perfect in all respects. This design is then cut into the metal with very sharp tools, evenly, but not to a great depth. When completely cut, the enamelling substance, which is generally sulphate of silver, is placed upon the design in just sufficient quantities, and the whole piece of work is then put into a furnace and heated to such a point that the enamel melts and fills all the cuttings of the design, while the metal itself remains uninjured. This is an easier matter than might be supposed, because gold and silver, though soft under the chisel, will not melt except at a very high temperature. When the enamel has cooled, the whole surface is rubbed down to a perfect level, and the design appears with sharp outlines in the polished metal. Now anyone who has ever worked with a steel point on bright metal knows how very hard it is to judge of the correctness of the drawing by merely looking at it, because the light is reflected in all directions into one's eyes, not only from untouched parts of the plate, but from the freshly cut lines. The best way of testing the work is to blacken it with some kind of colour that is free from acid, such as a mixture of lampblack and oil, to rub the surface clean so as to leave the ink only in the engraved lines, and then take an impression of the drawing upon damp paper. That is practically what Finiguerra did, and in so doing he discovered the art of engraving. Probably goldsmiths had done the same before him, as they have always done since, but none of them had thought of drawing upon metal merely for the sake of the impression it would make, and without any intention of using the metal afterwards. Within fifty years of Finiguerra's invention very beautiful engravings were sold all over Italy, and many famous painters engraved their own works--foremost among these, Mantegna and Botticelli. Early Italian art rose thus by regular steps, from the helpless, traditional, imitative work of the Romanesque and Byzantine artists to its highest development. It then passed a succession of climaxes in the masterpieces of Lionardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian, and thence descended gradually to the miserably low level of the eighteenth century. It is easy to trace the chief objects which painting had in view in its successive phases. Tradition, Reality and Illusion were the three. Cimabue was still a Traditionist. Giotto was the first Realist. Mantegna first aimed at the full illusion which finished art is capable of producing, and though not so great a man as Giotto, was a much greater painter. Then came Lionardo, Michelangelo and Raphael, the men of universal genius, who could make use of tradition without being commonplace, who could be realistic without being coarse, and who understood how to produce illusion without being theatrical. In the decay of Italian art what strikes one most strongly is the combination of the three faults which the great men knew how to avoid--coarseness, commonplace thought and theatrical execution. [Illustration: PALAZZO DEI CONSERVATORI From a print of the last century] Cimabue had found out that it was possible to paint sacred pictures without the dictation of priests, as prescribed by the Council of Nice. The idea discovered by Giotto, or rather the fact, namely, that nature could be copied artistically, produced a still greater revolution, and he had hosts of scholars and followers and imitators. But they were nothing more, or at the most it may be said that they developed his idea to the furthest with varying success. It was realism--sometimes a kind of mystic evocation of nature, disembodied and divinely pure, as in Beato Angelico; often exquisitely fresh and youthful, as in his pupil, Benozzo Gozzoli, whose vast series of frescoes half fills the Camposanto of Pisa--sometimes tentative and experimental, or gravely grand, as in Masaccio, impetuous and energetic as in Fra Lippo Lippi, fanciful as in Botticelli--but still, always realism, in the sense of using nature directly, without any distinct effort at illusion, the figures mostly taken from life, and generally disposed in one plane, the details minute, the landscapes faithful rather than suggestive. The lives of those men were all typical of the times in which they lived, and especially the life of the holy man we call Beato Angelico, of saintly memory, that of the fiery lay brother, Filippo Lippi, whose astounding talents all but redeemed his little less surprising sins--and lastly that of Andrea Mantegna. The first two stand out in tremendous contrast as contemporaries--the realist of the Soul, and the realist of the Flesh, the Saint and the Sinner, the Ascetic and the Sensualist. Beato Angelico--of his many names, it is easier to call him by the one we know best--was born in 1387. At that time the influence of the Empire in Italy was ended, and that of the Popes was small. The Emperors and the Popes had in fact contended for the control of municipal rights in the free Italian cities; with the disappearance of those rights under the Italian despots the cause of contention was gone, as well as the partial liberty which had given it existence. The whole country was cut up into principalities owned and ruled by tyrants. Dante had been dead about sixty years, and the great imperial idea which he had developed in his poem had totally failed. The theoretical rights of man, as usual in the world's history, had gone down before the practical strength of individuals, whose success tended, again, to call into activity other individuals, to the general exaltation of talent for the general oppression of mediocrity. In other words, that condition had been produced which is most favourable to genius, because everything between genius and brute strength had been reduced to slavery in the social scale. The power to take and hold, on the one hand, and the power to conceive and execute great works on the other, were as necessary to each other as supply and demand; and all moral worth became a matter of detail compared with success. In such a state of the world, a man of creative genius who chanced to be a saint was an anomaly; there was no fit place for him but a monastery, and no field for his powers but that of Sacred Art. It was as natural that Angelico should turn monk as that Lippo Lippi, who had been made half a monk against his will, should turn layman. In the peaceful convent of Saint Mark, among the Dominican brethren, Beato Angelico's character and genius grew together; the devout artist and the devotional mystic were inseparably blended in one man, and he who is best remembered as a famous painter was chosen by a wise Pope to be Archbishop of Florence, for his holy life, his gentle character and his undoubted learning. He could not refuse the great honour outright; but he implored the Pope to bestow it upon a brother monk, whom he judged far more worthy than himself. He was the same consistent, humble man who had hesitated to eat meat at the Pope's own table without the permission of the prior of his convent--a man who, like the great Saint Bernard, had given up a prosperous worldly existence in pure love of religious peace. It was no wonder that such a man should become the realist of the angels and a sort of angel among realists--himself surnamed by his companions the 'Blessed' and the 'Angelic.' Beside him, younger than he, but contemporary with him, stands out his opposite, Filippo Lippi. He was not born rich, like Angelico. He came into the world in a miserable by-way of Florence, behind a Carmelite convent. His father and mother were both dead when he was two years old, and a wretchedly poor sister of his father took care of him as best she could till he was eight. When she could bear the burden no longer, she took him to the door of the monastery, as orphans were taken in those days, and gave him over to the charity of the Carmelite fathers. Most of the boys brought to them in that way grew up to be monks, and some of them became learned; but the little Filippo would do nothing but scrawl caricatures in his copybook all day long, and could not be induced to learn anything. But he learned to draw so well that when the prior saw what he could do, he allowed him to paint; and at seventeen the lad who would not learn to read or write knew that he was a great artist, and turned his back on the monastery that had given him shelter, and on the partial vows he had already taken. He was the wildest novice that ever wore a frock. He had almost missed the world, since a little more inclination, a little more time, might have made a real monk of him. But he had escaped, and he took to himself all the world could give, and revelled in it with every sensation of his gifted, sensuous nature. It was only when he could not get what he wanted that he had curious returns of monkish reasoning. The historian of his life says that he would give all he possessed to secure the gratification of whatever inclination chanced to be predominant at the moment; but if he could by no means accomplish his wishes, he would then depict the object which attracted his attention and he would try, by reasoning and talking with himself, to diminish the violence of his inclination. There was no lack of adventure in his life, either. Once, at Ancona, on the Adriatic, he ventured too far out to sea in an open boat, and he and his companions were picked up by a Barbary pirate and carried off to Africa. But for his genius he might have ended his days there, instead of spending only eighteen months in slavery. A clever drawing of the pirate chief, made on a whitewashed wall with a bit of charcoal from a brazier, saved him. The Moor saw it, was delighted, set him to paint a number of portraits, in defiance of Moses, Mahomet and the Koran, and then, by way of reward, brought him safe across the water to Naples and gave him his liberty. He painted more pictures, earned money, and worked his way back to Florence. As long as he worked at all he did marvels, but a pretty face was enough to make him forget his art, his work and the Princes and Dukes who employed him. Cosimo de Medici once shut him up with his picture, to keep him at it; he tore the sheets of his bed into strips, knotted them together, escaped by the window--and was of course forgiven. The nuns of Saint Margaret employed him to paint an altar-piece for them; he persuaded them to let the most beautiful of their novices sit as a model for one of the figures; he made love to her, of course, and ran away with her, leaving the picture unfinished. It is characteristic of him that though he never forsook her, he refused the Pope's offer of a dispensation from his early vows which would have enabled him to marry her--for he hated all ties and bonds alike, and a regular marriage would have seemed to him almost as bad as slavery in Africa. Lippo represented one extreme of character, Beato Angelico the other. Between them were many men of almost equal genius, but of more common temper, such as Botticelli, who was Lippo's pupil, or Benozzo Gozzoli, the pupil of Angelico. Of Sandro Botticelli we know at least that he resembled his master in one respect--he positively refused to learn anything from books, and it was in sheer despair that his father, Filipepe, apprenticed the boy to a goldsmith, who rejoiced in the nickname of Botticello--'the little tun'--perhaps on account of his rotund figure, and it was from this first master of his that the boy came to be called 'Botticello's Sandro.' The goldsmith soon saw that the boy was a born painter, and took him to Lippo Lippi to be taught. Both Botticelli and Gozzoli, like many first-rate artists of that time, were quiet, hard-working men, devoted to their art, and not remarkable for anything else. The consequence is that little is known about their lives. It is natural that we should know most about the men who were most different from their companions, such as Michelangelo on the one hand, and Benvenuto Cellini on the other, or Beato Angelico and Lippo Lippi, or the clever Buffalmacco--whose practical jokes were told by Boccaccio and Sacchetti, and have even brought him into modern literature--and Lionardo da Vinci. Then, as now, there were two types of artists, considered as men; there were Bohemians and scholars. Lionardo and Michelangelo were grave and learned students; so was Beato Angelico in a sense limited to theology. But Benvenuto, Lippo Lippi and Buffalmacco were typical Bohemians. As for the latter, he seems scarcely ever to have painted a picture without playing off a practical jest upon his employer, and he began his career by terrifying his master, who insisted upon waking him to work before dawn. He fastened tiny wax tapers upon the backs of thirty black beetles, and as soon as he heard the old man stirring and groping in the dark, he lighted the tapers quickly, and drove the beetles into the room, through a crack under the door, and they ran wildly hither and thither on the pavement. The master took them for demons come to carry off his soul; he almost lost his senses in a fit, and he used half the holy water in Florence to exorcise the house. But ever afterwards he was too much frightened to get up before daylight, and Buffalmacco slept out the long night in peace. Andrea Mantegna, the great painter and engraver, who made the final step in the development of pictorial art in Italy, was a shepherd's son, like Giotto, born about one hundred years after Giotto's death. Similar conditions and a similar bent of genius produced different results in different centuries. Between Giotto and Mantegna the times had changed; men lived differently, thought differently and saw differently. How Mantegna got into the studio of the learned master Squarcione of Padua is not known. The shepherd lad may have strayed in on a summer's day, when the door was open, and attracted the painter's attention and interest. One of the greatest living painters today was a Bavarian peasant boy, who used to walk ten miles barefoot to the city and back on Sundays, carrying his shoes to save them, in order to go into the free galleries and look at the pictures; and somehow, without money, nor credit, nor introduction, he got into the studio of a good master, and became a great artist. Mantegna may have done the same. At all events, he became old Squarcione's favourite pupil. But when he was inside the studio, he found there a vast collection of antique fragments of sculpture, which the master had got together from all sources, and which the pupils were drawing. He was set to drawing them, too, as the best way of learning how to paint. That was the logical manifestation and characteristic expression of Renascence, which was a second birth of Greek and Roman art, science and literature--one might call it, in Italy, the second birth of civilized man. It brought with it the desire and craving for something more than realism, together with the means of raising all art to the higher level required in order to produce beautiful illusions. Men had found time to enjoy as well as to fight and pray. In other words, they fought and prayed less, and the result was that they had more leisure. The women had begun to care for artistic things much earlier, and they had taught their children to care for them, and the result was a general tendency of taste to a higher level. Genius may be an orphan and a foundling, but taste is the child of taste. Genius is the crude, creative force; but the gentle sense of appreciation, neither creative nor crude, but receptive, is most often acquired at home and in childhood. A full-grown man may learn to be a judge and a critic, but he cannot learn to have taste after he is once a man. Taste belongs to education rather than to instruction, and it is the mother that educates, not the schoolmaster. That faculty of taste was what Italy had acquired between the time of Cimabue and the time of Mantegna--roughly speaking, between the year 1200 and the year 1450--between the first emancipation of art from the old Byzantine and Romanesque thraldom and the time when the new art had so overspread the country that engravings of the most famous pictures began to be sold in the streets in every important city in Italy. Only a few years after Mantegna's death, Albert Dürer, the great painter engraver of Nüremberg, appeared before the council of Venice to try and get a copyright for his engravings, which were being so cleverly forged by the famous Raimondi that the copies were sold in the Piazza of Saint Mark as originals. In passing, it is interesting to remember that Dürer, whose engravings now sell for hundreds of dollars each, sold them himself at his own house for prices varying between the values of fifteen and twenty-five cents, according to the size of the plate. The Council of Venice refused him the copyright he asked, but interdicted the copyist from using Dürer's initials. The immense sale of prints popularized art in Italy at the very time when the first great printing houses, like the Aldine, were popularizing learning. Culture, in the same sense in which we use the word, became preëminently the fashion. Everyone wished to be thought clever, and a generation grew up which not only read Latin authors with pleasure, wrote Latin correctly, and had some acquaintance with Greek, but which took a lively interest in artistic matters, and constituted a real public for artists, a much larger and a much more critical one than could be found today among an equal population in any so-called civilized country. The era of collectors began then, and Mantegna's old master was the first of them. Every man of taste did his best to get possession of some fragment of antique sculpture, everyone bought engravings, everyone went to see the pictures of the great masters--everyone tried to get together a little library of printed books. It took two hundred and fifty or three hundred years to develop the Renascence, but what it produced in Italy alone has not been surpassed, and in many ways has not been equalled, in the four hundred years that have followed it. With its culmination, individualities, even the strongest, became less distinctly defined, and the romantic side of the art legend was ended. It is so in all things. The romance of the ocean belongs to those who first steered the perilous course that none had dared before; many have been in danger by the sea, many have perished in the desperate trial of the impossible, but none can be Columbus again; many have done brave deeds in untracked deserts, but none again can be the pioneers who first won through to our West. The last may be the greatest, but the first will always have been the first, the daring, the romantic, who did what no man had done before them. And so it is also in the peaceful ways of art. Giotto, Beato Angelico, Lippo Lippi, Botticelli, never attained to the greatness of Lionardo or Michelangelo or Raphael. Sober criticism can never admit that they did, whatever soft-hearted enthusiasts may say and write. But those earlier men had something which the later ones had not, both in merit and in genius. They fought against greater odds, with poorer weapons, and where their strength failed them, heart and feeling took the place of strength; and their truth and their tenderness went straight to the heart of their young world, as only the highest perfection of illusion could appeal to the eyes of the critical, half-sceptic generation that came after them. And so, although it be true that art is not dependent on genius alone, but also on mechanical skill, yet there is something in art which is dependent on genius and on nothing else. It is that something which touches, that something which creates, that something which itself is life; that something which belongs, in all ages, to those who grope to the light through darkness; that something of which we almost lose sight in the great completeness of the greatest artists, but which hovers like a halo of glory upon the brows of Italy's earliest, truest and tenderest painters. [Illustration] REGION XIV BORGO Borgo, the 'Suburb,' is the last of the fourteen Regions, and is one of the largest and most important of all, for within its limits stand Saint Peter's, the Vatican, and the Mausoleum of Hadrian--the biggest church, the biggest palace and the biggest tomb in the whole world. To those who know something of Rome's great drama, the Castle of Sant' Angelo is the most impressive of all her monuments. Like the Colosseum, it stands out in its round strength alone, sun-gilt and shadowy brown against the profound sky. Like the great Amphitheatre, it has been buffeted in the storms of ages and is war-worn without, to the highest reach of a mounted man, and dinted above that by every missile invented in twelve hundred years, from the slinger's pebble or leaden bullet to the cannon ball of the French artillery. Like the Colosseum, it is the crestless trunk of its former self. But it has life in it still, whereas the Colosseum died to a ruin when Urban the Eighth showed his successor how to tear down the outer wall and build a vast palace with a hundredth part of the great theatre. Sant' Angelo is a living fortress yet, and nearly a thousand years have passed, to the certain knowledge of history, since it was ever a single day unguarded by armed men. Thirty generations of men at arms have stood sentry within its gates since Theodora Senatrix, the strong and sinful, flashed upon history out of impenetrable darkness, seized the fortress and made and unmade popes at her will, till, dying, she bequeathed the domination to her only daughter, and her name to the tale of Roman tyranny. The Castle has been too often mentioned in these pages to warrant long description of it here, even if any man who has not lived for years among its labyrinthine passages could describe it accurately. The great descending corridor leads in a wide spiral downwards to the central spot where Hadrian lay, and in the vast thickness of the surrounding foundations there is but stone, again stone and more stone. From the main entrance upwards the fortress is utterly irregular within, full of gloomy chambers, short, turning staircases, dark prisons, endless corridors; and above are terraces and rooms where much noble blood has been shed, and where many limbs have been racked and tortured, and battlements from which men good and bad, guilty and innocent, have been dropped a rope's length by the neck to feed the crows. Here died Stephen Porcari, the brave and spotless; here died Cardinal Carafa for a thousand crimes; and here Lorenzo Colonna, caught and crushed in the iron hands of Sixtus the Fourth, laid his bruised head, still stately, on the block--'a new block,' says Infessura, who loved him and buried him, and could not forget the little detail. The story is worth telling, less for its historical value than for the strange exactness with which it is all set down. Pope Sixtus, backed by the Orsini, was at war with the Colonna to the end of his reign; but once, on a day when there was truce, he seems to have said in anger that he cared not whom the Colonna served nor with whom they allied themselves. And Lorenzo Colonna, Protonotary Apostolic, with his brothers, took the Pope at his word, and they joined forces with the King of Naples, fortifying themselves in their stronghold of Marino, whence the eldest son of the family still takes his title. The Pope, seeing them in earnest and fearing King Ferdinand, sent an embassy of two cardinals to them, entreating them to be reconciled with the Church. But they answered that they would not, for his Holiness had given them permission to ally themselves with whom they pleased, and refused them money for service, and they said that they could not live without pay--a somewhat ironical statement for such men as the Colonna, who lived rather by taking than by giving an equivalent for anything received. [Illustration: CASTLE OF SANT' ANGELO] Then the Pope made war upon King Ferdinand, and when there had been much bloodshed, and plundering and burning on both sides, Prospero Colonna quarrelled with the Duke of Calabria, who was on Ferdinand's side and for whom he had been fighting, and came over to the Church, and so the Colonna were restored to favour, and the Pope made a treaty with the King against Venice, and so another year passed. But after that the quarrel was renewed between Pope Sixtus and Lorenzo Colonna, on pretext that a certain part of the agreement to which they had come had not been executed by the Protonotary; and while the matter was under discussion, the Cardinal of Saint George, nephew of the great Count Jerome Riario, sent word privately to the Protonotary Colonna, warning him either to escape from Rome or to be on his guard if he remained, 'because some one was plotting against him, and hated him.' Wherefore Lorenzo shut himself up in the dwelling of Cardinal Colonna, between the Colonna palace and Monte Cavallo on the Quirinal hill, and many young men, attached to the great house, began to watch in arms, day and night, turn and turn about. And when this became known, the Orsini also began to arm themselves and keep watch at Monte Giordano. Scenting a struggle, a Savelli, siding with Colonna, struck the first blow by seizing forty horses and mules of the Orsini in a farm building on the Tivoli road; and immediately half a dozen robber Barons joined Savelli, and they plundered right and left, and one of them wrote a long and courteous letter of justification to the Pope. But Orsini retorted swiftly, 'lifting' horses and cattle that belonged to his enemies and making prisoners of their retainers. Among others he took two men who belonged to the Protonotary. And the latter, unable to leave Rome in safety, began to fortify himself in the Cardinal's house with many fighting men, and with many strange weapons, 'bombardelle, cerobottane,' and guns and catapults. Whereupon the Pope sent for Orsini, and commanded him, as the faithful adherent of the Church, to go and take the Protonotary prisoner to his house. But while Orsini was marshalling his troops with those of Jerome Riario, at Monte Giordano and in Campo de' Fiori, the Pope sent for the municipal officers of the city and explained that he meant to pardon the Protonotary if the latter would come to the Vatican humbly and of his own free will; and certain of these officers went to the Protonotary as ambassadors, to explain this. To them he answered, in the presence of Stephen Infessura, the chronicler who tells the story, that he had not fortified himself against the Church, but against private and dangerous enemies, against whom he had been warned, and that he had actually found that his house was spied upon by night; but that he was ready to carry out the terms of the old agreement, and finally, that he was ready to go freely to the Pope, trusting himself wholly to His Holiness, without any earnest or pledge for his safety, but that he begged the Pope not to deliver him into the hands of the Orsini. Yet even before he had spoken, the Orsini were moving up their men, by way of Saint Augustine's Church, which is near Piazza Navona. Nevertheless Colonna, the Protonotary, mounted his horse to ride over to the Vatican. But John Philip Savelli stood in the way, and demanded of the officers what surety they would give for Colonna; and they promised him safety upon their own lives. Then Savelli answered them that they should remember their bond, for if Colonna did not come back, or if he should be hurt, he, Savelli, would be avenged upon their bodies. And Colonna rode out, meaning to go to the Pope, but his retainers mounted their horses and rode swiftly by another way and met him, and forced him back. For they told him that if he went, his end would be near, and that they themselves would be outlawed; and some said that before they would let him go, they would cut him to pieces themselves rather than let his enemies do it. And furiously they forced him back, him and his horse, through the winding streets, and brought him again into the stronghold, and bade the officers depart in peace. And the second time two of the officers returned and told the Protonotary to come, for he should be safe. And again he mounted his horse, and struck with the flat of his blade a man who hindered him, and leaped the barrier raised for defence before the palace and rode away. And again his own men mounted and followed him, and overtook him at the cross of Trevi, near by. And one, a giant, seized his bridle and forced him back, saying, 'My Lord, we will not let you go! Rather will we cut you in quarters ourselves; for you go to ruin yourself and us also.' But when they had him safe within the walls, he wrung his hands, and cried out that it was they who, by hindering him, were destroying themselves and him. But many answered, 'If you had gone, you would never have come back.' And it was then the twenty-first hour of the day, and there were left three hours before dark. But the Pope, seeing that Colonna did not come, commanded the Orsini to bring him by force, as they might, even by slaying the people, if the people should defend him; and he ordered them to burn and pillage the regions of Monti, Trevi and Colonna. And with Orsini there were some of those fierce Crescenzi, who still lived in Rome. And they all marched through the city, bearing the standard of the Church, and they passed by Trevi and surrounded the house on Monte Cavallo, and proclaimed the ban against all men who should help the Protonotary; wherefore many of the people departed in fear. Then Orsini first leapt the barrier, and his horse was killed under him by a bombard that slew two men also; and immediately all the Colonna's men discharged their firearms and catapults and killed sixteen of their enemies. But the Orsini advanced upon the house. Then, about the twenty-third hour, the Colonna were weary of fighting against so many, and their powder was not good, so that they fell back from the main gateway, and the Orsini rushed in and filled the arched ways around the courtyard, and set fire to the hay and straw in the stables, and fought their way up the stairs, sacking the house. They found the Protonotary in his room, wounded in the hand and sitting on a chest, and Orsini told him that he was a prisoner and must come. 'Slay me, rather,' he answered. But Orsini bade him surrender and have no fear. And he yielded himself up, and they took him away through the smoking house, slippery with blood. They found also John Philip Savelli, and they stripped him of the cuirass he wore, and setting their swords to him, bade him cry, 'Long live Orsini!' And he answered, 'I will not say it.' Then they wounded him deep in the forehead and smote off both his hands, and gave him many wounds in face and body, and left him dead. And they plundered all the goods of Cardinal Colonna, his plate, his robes, his tapestries, his chests of linen, and they even carried off his cardinal's hat. So the Protonotary, on the faith of Orsini, was led away to the Pope in his doublet, but some one lent him a black cloak on the way. And as they went, Jerome Riario rode beside him and jeered at him, crying out, 'Ha, ha! thou traitor, I shall hang thee by the neck this night!' But Orsini answered Jerome, and said, 'Sir, you shall hang me first!' for he had given his word. And more than once on the way, Riario, drunk with blood, drew his dagger to thrust it into Colonna, but Orsini drove him off, and brought his prisoner safely to the Pope. And his men sacked the quarter of the Colonna; and among other houses of the Colonna's retainers which were rifled they plundered that of Paul Mancino, near by, whose descendant was to marry the sister of Mazarin; and also, among the number, the house of Pomponius Letus, the historian, from whom they took all his books and belongings and clothes, and he went away in his doublet and buskins, with his stick in his hand, to make complaint before the municipality. Then for a whole month all that part of Rome which was dominated by the Colonna was given over to be pillaged and burned by their enemies, while in still Sant' Angelo, the tormentors slowly tore Lorenzo Colonna to pieces, so that the Jewish doctor who was called in to prolong his life said that nothing could save him, for his limbs were swollen and pierced through and through, and many of his bones were broken, and he was full of many deep wounds. Yet in the end, lest he should die a natural death, they prepared the new block and the axe to cut off his head. 'Moreover,' says Infessura, in his own language, 'on the last day of June, when the people were celebrating in Rome the festivity of the most happy decapitation of Saint Paul the Apostle, whose head was cut off by the most cruel Nero--on that very day, about an hour and a half after sunrise, the aforesaid Holiness of our Sovereign Lord caused the Protonotary Colonna to be beheaded in the Castle; and there were present the Senator and the Judge of the crime. And when the Protonotary was led out of prison early in the morning to the grating above the Castle, he turned to the soldiers who were there and told them that he had been grievously tormented, wherefore he had said certain things not true. And immediately afterwards, when he was in the closed place below, where he was beheaded, the Senator and Judge sat down as a Tribunal, and caused to be read the sentence which they passed against him, although no manner of criminal procedure had been observed, since all the confessions were extorted under torture, and he had no opportunity of defending himself.' Therefore, when this sentence had been read, the Protonotary addressed those present and said: 'I wish no one to be inculpated through me. I say this in conscience of my soul, and if I lie, may the devil take me, now that I am about to go out of this life; and so thou, Notary who hast read the sentence, art witness of this, and ye all are witnesses, and I leave the matter to your conscience, that you should also proclaim it in Rome,--that those things written in this sentence are not true, and that what I have said I have said under great torture, as ye may see by my condition.' He would not let them bind his hands, but knelt down at the block, and forgave the executioner, who asked his pardon. And then he said in Latin, 'Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit,' and called thrice upon Christ the Saviour, and at the third time, the word and his head were severed together from his body. Then they placed the body in a wooden coffin and took it to Santa Maria Transpontina, the first church on the right, going from the Castle toward Saint Peter's, and when none came to take it away, they sent word to his mother. And she, white-haired and tearless, with burning eyes, came; and she took her son's head from the coffin and held it up to the people, saying, 'Behold the justice of Sixtus,' and she laid it in its place tenderly; and with torches, and the Confraternities, and many priests, the body was taken to the Church of the Holy Apostles, and buried in the Colonna Chapel near the altar. But before it was buried it was seen in the coffin, and taken out, and laid in it again, and all saw the torments which the man had suffered in his feet, which were swollen and bound up with rags; and also the fingers of his hands had been twisted, so that the inside was turned clean outwards, and on the top of his head was a wound, where priests make the tonsure, as though the scalp had been raised by a knife; and he was dressed in a cotton doublet, yet his own had been of fine black silk. Also they had put on him a miserable pair of hose, torn from the half of the leg downwards; and a red cap with a trencher was upon his head, and it was rather a long cap, and the narrator believed that the gaolers had dressed him thus as an insult. 'And I Stephen, the scribe, saw it with my eyes, and with my hands I buried him, with Prosper of Cicigliano, who had been his vassal; and no other retainers of the Colonna would have anything to do with the matter, out of fear, as I think.' Five hundred years had passed since Theodora's day, four hundred more are gone since Lorenzo the Protonotary laid his head upon the block, and still the tradition of terror and suffering clings to Sant' Angelo, and furnishes the subject of an all but modern drama. Such endurance in the character of a building is without parallel in the history of strongholds, and could be possible only in Rome, where the centuries pass as decades, and time is reckoned by the thousand years. [ILLUSTRATION: HOSPITAL OF SANTO SPIRITO From a print of the last century] The main and most important memories in the Region of Borgo, apart from the Castle, and Saint Peter's and the Vatican, are those connected with the Holy Office, the hospital and insane asylum of Santo Spirito, and with the Serristori barracks. In Rome, to go to Santo Spirito means to go mad. It is the Roman Bedlam. But there is another association with the name, and a still sadder one. There, by the gate of the long, low hospital, is still to be seen the Rota--the 'wheel'--the revolving wooden drum, with its small aperture, corresponding to an opening in the grating, through which many thousand infants have been passed by starving women to the mystery within, to a nameless death, or to grow up to a life almost as nameless and obscure. The mother, indeed, received a ticket as a sort of receipt by which she could recognize her child if she wished, but the children claimed were very few. Within, they were received by nursing Sisters, and cared for, not always wisely, but always kindly, and some of them grew up to happy lives. Modern charity, in its philistinism and well-regulated activity, condemns such wholesale readiness to take burdens which might sometimes be borne by those who lay them down. But modern charity, in such condemnation, does not take just account of a mother's love, and believes that to receive nameless children in such a way would 'encourage irresponsibility,' if not vice. And yet in Rome, where half the population could neither read nor write, infanticide was unknown, and fewer children were passed in through the Rota yearly than are murdered in many a modern city. For the last thing the worst mother will do is to kill her child; last only before that will she part with it. Which was more moral, the unrestricted charity of the Rota, or the unrestricted, legal infanticide of the old-fashioned 'baby-farm,' where superfluous children were systematically starved to death by professional harpies? On by the Borgo Santo Spirito, opposite the old church of the Penitentiaries, stands the Palazzo Serristori, memorable in the revolutionary movement of 1867. It was then the barracks of the Papal Zouaves--the brave foreign legion enlisted under Pius the Ninth, in which men of all nations were enrolled under officers of the best blood in Europe, hated more especially by the revolutionaries because they were foreigners, and because their existence, therefore, showed a foreign sympathy with the temporal power, which was a denial of the revolutionary theory which asserted the Papacy to be without friends in Europe. Wholesale murder by explosives was in its infancy then as a fine art; but the spirit was willing, and a plot was formed to blow up the castle of Sant' Angelo and the barracks of the Zouaves. The castle escaped because one of the conspirators lost heart and revealed the treachery; but the Palazzo Serristori was partially destroyed. The explosion shattered one corner of the building. It was said that the fuse burned faster than had been intended, so that the catastrophe came too soon. At all events, when it happened, about dark, only the musicians of the band were destroyed, and few of the regiment were in the building at all, so that about thirty lives were sacrificed, where the intention had been to destroy many hundreds. In the more sane condition of Europe today, it seems to us amazing that Pius the Ninth should have been generally blamed for signing the death warrant of the two atrocious villains who did the deed, and for allowing them to be executed. The fact that he was blamed, and very bitterly, gives some idea of the stupid and senseless prejudice against the popes which was the result of Antonelli's narrow and reactionary policy. [Illustration] LEO THE THIRTEENTH We commonly speak of the nineteenth century as an age of superior civilization. The truth of the assertion depends on what civilization means, but there is no denying that more blood has been shed by civilized nations during the last one hundred and twenty years than in any equal period of the world's history. Anyone may realize the fact by simply recalling the great wars which have devastated the world since the American Revolution. But the carnage was not uninterrupted. The record of death is divided in the midst by the thirty years of comparative peace which followed the battle of Waterloo and preceded the general revolution of 1848. Napoleon had harried the world, from Moscow to Cairo, from Vienna to Madrid, pouring blood upon blood, draining the world's veins dry, exhausting the destroying power of mankind in perpetual destruction. When he was gone, Europe was utterly worn out by his terrible energy, and collapsed suddenly in a state of universal nervous prostration. Then came the long peace, from 1815 to 1848. During that time the European nations, excepting England, were governed by more or less weak and timid sovereigns, and it was under their feeble rule that the great republican idea took root and grew, like a cutting from the stricken tree of the French Revolution, planted in the heart of Europe, nurtured in secret, and tended by devoted hands to a new maturity, but destined to ruin in the end, as surely as the parent stock. Those thirty and odd years were a sort of dull season in Europe--an extraordinarily uneventful period, during which the republican idea was growing, and during which the monarchic idea was decaying. Halfway through that time--about 1830--Joseph Mazzini founded the Society of Young Italy, in connection with the other secret societies of Europe, and acquired that enormous influence which even now is associated with his name. Mazzini and Garibaldi meant to make a republic of Italy. The House of Savoy did not at that time dream of a united Italian Kingdom. The most they dared hope was the acquisition of territory on the north by the expulsion of the Austrians. England and circumstances helped the Savoy family in their sudden and astonishing rise of fortune; for at that time Austria was the great military nation of Europe, while France was the naval power second to England, and through the Bourbons, Italy was largely under the influence of Austria. England saw that the creation of an independent friendly power in the Mediterranean would both tend to diminish Austria's strength by land, and would check France in her continued efforts to make the shores of the Mediterranean hers. She therefore encouraged Italy in revolution, and it is generally believed that she secretly furnished enormous sums of money, through Sir James Hudson, minister in Turin, to further the schemes of Mazzini. The profound hatred of Catholics which was so much more marked in England then than now, produced a strong popular feeling there in favour of the revolutionaries, who inveighed against all existing sovereignties in general, but were particularly bitter against the government of the Popes. The revolution thus supported by England, and guided by such men as Mazzini and Garibaldi, made progress. The legendary nature of Rome, as mistress of the world, appealed also to many Italians, and 'Rome' became the catchword of liberty. The situation was similar in other European countries; secret societies were as active, and to the revolutionaries the result seemed as certain. But the material of monarchic opposition was stronger elsewhere than in Italy. Prussia had Hohenzollerns and Austria had Hapsburgs--races that had held their own and reigned successfully for hundreds of years. The smaller German principalities had traditions of conservative obedience to a prince, which were not easily broken. On the other hand, in Italy the government of the Bourbons and their relatives was a barbarous misrule, of which the only good point was that it did not oppress the people with taxes, and in Rome the Pontifical chair had been occupied by a succession of politically insignificant Popes from Pius the Seventh, Napoleon's victim, to Gregory the Sixteenth. There was no force in Italy to oppose the general revolutionary idea, except the conservatism of individuals, in a country which has always been revolutionary. Much the same was true of France. But in both countries there were would-be monarchs waiting in the background, ready to promote any change whereby they might profit--Louis Napoleon, and the Kings of Sardinia, Charles Albert first, and after his defeat by the Austrians and his abdication, the semi-heroic, semi-legendary Victor Emmanuel. Gregory the Sixteenth died in 1846, and Pius the Ninth was elected in his stead--a man still young, full of the highest ideals and of most honest purpose; enthusiastic, a man who had begun life in military service and was destined to end it in captivity, and upon whom it was easy to impose in every way, since he was politically too credulous for any age, and too diffident, if not too timid, for the age in which he lived. His private virtues made him a model to the Christian world, while his political weakness made him the sport of his enemies. The only stable thing in him was his goodness; everything else was in perpetual vacillation. In every true account of every political action of Pius the Ninth, the first words are, 'the Pope hesitated.' And he hesitated to the last--he hesitated through a pontificate of thirty-two years, he outreigned the 'years of Peter,' and he lost the temporal power. The great movement came to a head in 1848. A year of revolutions, riots, rebellions and new constitutions. So perfectly had it been organized that it broke out almost simultaneously all over Europe--in France, Italy, Prussia and Austria. Just when the revolution was rife Pius the Ninth proclaimed an amnesty. That was soon after his election, and he vacillated into a sort of passive approval of the Young Italian party. It was even proposed that Italy should become a confederation of free states under the presidency of the Pope. No man in his senses believed in such a possibility, but at that time an unusual number of people were not in their senses; Europe had gone mad. Everyone knows the history of that year, when one Emperor, several Kings, and numerous princes and ministers scattered in all directions, like men running away from a fire that is just going to reach a quantity of explosives. The fire was the reaction after long inactivity. Pius the Ninth fled like the rest, when his favourite minister, Count Rossi, had been stabbed to death on the steps of the Cancelleria. Some of the sovereigns got safely back to their thrones. The Pope was helped back by France and kept on his throne, first by the Republic, and then, with one short intermission, by Louis Napoleon. In 1870, the French needed all their strength for their own battles, and gave up fighting those of the Vatican. During that long period, from 1849 to 1870, Pius the Ninth governed Rome in comparative security, in spite of occasional revolutionary outbreaks, and in kindness if not in wisdom. Taxation was insignificant. Work was plentiful and well paid, considering the country and the times. Charities were enormous. The only restriction on liberty was political, never civil. Reforms and improvements of every kind were introduced. When Gregory the Sixteenth died, Rome was practically a mediæval city; when the Italians took it, twenty-four years later, it was a fairly creditable modern capital. The government of Pius the Ninth was paternal, and if he was not a wise father, he was at all events the kindest of men. The same cannot be said of Cardinal Antonelli, his prime minister, who was the best hated man of his day, not only in Europe and Italy, but by a large proportion of Churchmen. He was one of those strong and unscrupulous men who appeared everywhere in Europe as reactionaries in opposition to the great revolution. On a smaller scale--perhaps because he represented a much smaller power--he is to be classed with Disraeli, Metternich, Cavour and Bismarck. In palliation of many of his doings, it should be remembered that he was not a priest; for the Cardinalate is a dignity not necessarily associated with the priesthood, and Antonelli was never ordained. He was a fighter and a schemer by nature, and he schemed and fought all his life for the preservation of the temporal power in Rome. He failed, and lived to see his defeat, and he remained till his death immured in the Vatican with Pius the Ninth. He used to live in a small and almost mean apartment, opening upon the grand staircase that leads up from the court of Saint Damasus. When the Italians entered Rome through the breach at the Porta Pia, Italy was unified. It is a curious fact that Italy was never at any time unified except by force. The difference between the unification under Julius Cæsar and Augustus, and the unification under Victor Emmanuel, is very simple. Under the first Cæsars, Rome conquered the Italians; under the House of Savoy, the Italians conquered Rome. The taking of Rome in 1870 was the deathblow of mediævalism; and the passing away of King Victor Emmanuel and of Pope Pius the Ninth was the end of romantic Italy, if one may use the expression to designate the character of the country through all that chain of big and little events which make up the thrilling story of the struggle for Italian unity. After the struggle for unity, began the struggle for life--more desperate, more dangerous, but immeasurably less romantic. There is all the difference between the two which lies between unsound banking and perilous fighting. The long Pontificate of Pius the Ninth came to a close almost simultaneously with the reign and the life of Victor Emmanuel, first King of United Italy, after the Pope and the King had faced each other during nearly a third of the century, two political enemies of whom neither felt the slightest personal rancour against the other. On his death-bed, the King earnestly desired the Pope's parting blessing, but although the Pope gave it, the message arrived too late, for the old King was dead. Little more than a month later, Pius the Ninth departed this life. That was the end of the old era. The disposition of Europe in the year 1878, when Leo the Thirteenth was crowned, was strongly anti-Catholic. England had reached the height of her power and influence, and represented to the world the scientific-practical idea in its most successful form. She was then traversing that intellectual phase of so-called scientific atheism of which Huxley and Herbert Spencer were the chief teachers. Their view seems not to have been so hostile to the Catholic Church in particular as it was distinctly antagonistic to all religion whatsoever. People were inclined to believe that all creeds were a thing of the past, and that a scientific millennium was at hand. No one who lived in those days can forget the weary air of pity with which the Huxleyites and the Spencerians spoke of all humanity's beliefs. England's enormous political power somehow lent weight to the anti-religious theories of those two leading men of science, which never really had the slightest hold upon the believing English people. Italians, for instance, readily asserted that England had attained her position among nations by the practice of scientific atheism, and classed Darwin the discoverer with Spencer the destroyer; for all Latins are more or less born Anglomaniacs, and naturally envy and imitate Anglo-Saxon character, even while finding fault with them, just as we envy and imitate Latin art and fashions. Under a German dynasty and a Prime Minister of Israelitish name and extraction, the English had become the ideal after which half of Europe hankered in vain. England's influence was then distinctly anti-Catholic. Germany, fresh in unity, and still quivering with the long-forgotten delight of conquest, was also, as an Empire, anti-Catholic, and the Kultur Kampf, which was really a religious struggle, was at its height. Germany's religions are official at the one extreme and popular at the other; but there is no intermediate religion to speak of--and what we should call cultured people, scientific men, the professorial class, are largely atheistic. For some time after the proclamation of the Empire, Germany meant Prussia to the rest of the world--Prussia officially evangelical, privately sceptical, the rigid backbone of the whole German military mammoth. The fact that about one-third of the population of the Empire is Catholic was overlooked by Prussia and forgotten by Europe. France--Catholic in the provinces--was Paris just then--republican Paris. And all French Republics have been anti-Catholic, as all French monarchies have been the natural allies of the Vatican, as institutions, though individual Kings, like Francis the First, have opposed the Popes from time to time. France, in 1878, was recovering with astonishing vitality from her defeat, but the new growth was unlike the old. The definite destruction of the old France had taken place in 1870; and the new France bore little resemblance to the old. It was, as it is now, Catholic, but anti-papal. The smaller northern powers, Scandinavia and Holland, were anti-Catholic of course. Russia has always been the natural enemy of the Catholic Church. Of the remaining European nations, only Austria could be said to have any political importance, and even she was terrorized by the new German Empire. Italy had been the scene of one of those quick comedies of national self-transformation which start trains of consequences rather than produce immediately great results. One may call it a comedy, not in a depreciating sense, but because the piece was played out to a successful issue with little bloodshed and small hindrance. It had been laid down as a principle by the playwrights that the Vatican was the natural enemy of Italian unity; and the playwrights and principal actors, Cavour, Garibaldi and others, were all atheists. The new Italy of their creation was, therefore, an anti-Catholic power, while the whole Italian people, below the artificial scientific level, were, as they are now, profoundly, and even superstitiously, religious. That was the state of the European world when Leo the Thirteenth was elected. [Illustration: POPE LEO XIII. From the Portrait by Lenbach] The Popes have always occupied an exceptional position as compared with other sovereigns. There is not, indeed, in the history of any nation or community any record of an office so anomalous. To all intents and purposes Christianity is a form of socialism, the Church is a democracy, and the government of the Popes has been despotic, in the proper sense,--that is, it has been one of 'absolute authority.' It is probably not necessary to say anything about the first statement, which few, I fancy, will be inclined to deny. Pure socialism means community of property, community of social responsibility, and community of principles. As regards the democratic rules by which the Church governs itself, there cannot be two ways of looking at them. Peasant and prince have an equal chance of wearing the triple crown; but in history it will be found that it has been more often worn by peasants than by princes, and most often by men issuing from the middle classes. Broadly, the requirements have always been those answered by personal merit rather than by any other consideration. The exceptions have perhaps been many, and the abuses not a few, but the general principle cannot be denied, and the present Pope came to the supreme ecclesiastical dignity by much the same steps as the majority of his predecessors. Since his elevation to the pontificate the Pecci family have established, beyond a doubt, their connection with the noble race of that name, long prominent in Siena, and having an ancient and historical right to bear arms and the title of count--a dignity of uncertain value in Italy, south of the Tuscan border, but well worth having when it has originated in the northern part of the country. Joachim Vincent Pecci, since 1878 Pope, under the name of Leo the Thirteenth, was born at Carpineto, in the Volscian hills, in 1810. His father had served in the Napoleonic wars, but had already retired to his native village, where he was at that time a landed proprietor of considerable importance and the father of several children. Carpineto lies on the mountain side, in the neighbourhood of Segni, in a rocky district, and in the midst of a country well known to Italians as the Ciociaria. This word is derived from 'cioce,' the sandals worn by the peasants in that part of the country, in the place of shoes, and bound by leathern thongs to the foot and leg over linen strips which serve for stockings. The sandal indeed is common enough, or was common not long ago, in the Sabine and Samnian hills and in some parts of the Abruzzi, but it is especially the property of the Volscians, all the way from Montefortino, the worst den of thieves in Italy, down to the Neapolitan frontier. Joachim Pecci was born with a plentiful supply of that rough, bony, untiring mountaineer's energy which has made the Volscians what they have been for good or evil since the beginning of history. Those who have been to Carpineto have seen the dark old pile in which the Pope was born, with its tower which tops the town, as the dwellings of the small nobles always did in every hamlet and village throughout the south of Europe. For the Pecci were good gentlefolk long ago, and the portraits of Pope Leo's father and mother, in their dress of the last century, still hang in their places in the mansion. His Holiness strongly resembles both, for he has his father's brow and eyes, and his mother's mouth and chin. In his youth he seems to have been a very dark man, as clearly appears from the portrait of him painted when he was Nuncio in Brussels at about the age of thirty-four years. The family type is strong. One of the Pope's nieces might have sat for a portrait of his mother. The extraordinarily clear, pale complexion is also a family characteristic. Leo the Thirteenth's face seems cut of live alabaster, and it is not a figure of speech to say that it appears to emit a light of its own. Born and bred in the keen air of the Volscian hills, he is a southern Italian, but of the mountains, and there is still about him something of the hill people. He has the long, lean, straight, broad-shouldered frame of the true mountaineer, the marvellously bright eye, the eagle features, the well-knit growth of strength, traceable even in extreme old age; and in character there is in him the well-balanced combination of a steady caution with an unerring, unhesitating decision, which appears in those great moments when history will not wait for little men's long phrases, when the pendulum world is swinging its full stroke, and when it is either glory or death to lay strong hands upon its weight. But when it stops for a time, and hangs motionless, the little men gather about it, and touch it boldly, and make theories about its next unrest. In the matter of physique, there is, indeed, a resemblance between Leo the Thirteenth, President Lincoln and Mr. Gladstone--long, sinewy men all three, of a bony constitution and indomitable vitality, with large skulls, high cheek-bones, and energetic jaws--all three men of great physical strength, of profound capacity for study, of melancholic disposition, and of unusual eloquence. It might almost be said that these three men represent three distinct stages of one type--the real or material, the intellectual and the spiritual. From earliest youth each of the three was, by force of circumstances, turned to the direction which he was ultimately to follow. Lincoln was thrown upon facts for his education; Gladstone received the existing form of education in its highest development, while the Pope was brought up under the domination of spiritual thoughts at a time when they had but lately survived the French Revolution. Born during the height of the conflict between belief and unbelief, Leo the Thirteenth, by a significant fatality, was raised to the pontificate when the Kultur Kampf was raging and the attention of the world was riveted on the deadly struggle between the Roman Catholic Church and Prince Bismarck--a struggle in which the great chancellor found his equal, if not his master. The Pope spent his childhood in the simple surroundings of Carpineto, than which none could be simpler, as everyone knows who has ever visited an Italian country gentleman in his home. Early hours, constant exercise, plain food and farm interests made a strong man of him, with plenty of simple common sense. As a boy he was a great walker and climber, and it is said that he was excessively fond of birding, the only form of sport afforded by that part of Italy, and practised there in those times, as it is now, not only with guns, but by means of nets. It has often been said that poets and lovers of freedom come more frequently from the mountains and the seashore than from a flat inland region. Leo the Thirteenth ranks high among the scholarly poets of our day, and is certainly conspicuous for the liberality of his views. As long as he was in Perugia, it is well known that he received the officers of the Italian garrison and any government officials of rank who chanced to be present in the city, not merely now and then, or in a formal way, but constantly and with a cordiality which showed how much he appreciated their conversation. It may be doubted whether in our country an acknowledged leader of a political minority would either choose or dare to associate openly with persons having an official capacity on the other side. But the stiff mannerism of the patriarchal system which survived until recently from the early Roman times gave him that formal tone and authoritative manner which are so characteristic of his conversation in private. His deliberate but unhesitating speech makes one think of Goethe's 'without haste, without rest.' Yet his formality is not of the slow and circumlocutory sort; on the contrary, it is energetically precise, and helps rather than mars the sound casting of each idea. The formality of strong people belongs to them naturally, and is the expression of a certain unchanging persistence; that of the weak is mostly assumed for the sake of magnifying the little strength they have. The Pope's voice is as distinctly individual as his manner of speaking. It is not deep nor very full, but, considering his great age, it is wonderfully clear and ringing, and it has a certain incisiveness of sound which gives it great carrying power. Pius the Ninth had as beautiful a voice, both in compass and richness of quality, as any baritone singer in the Sixtine choir. No one who ever heard him intone the 'Te Deum' in Saint Peter's, in the old days, can forget the grand tones. He was gifted in many ways--with great physical beauty, with a rare charm of manner, and with a most witty humour; and in character he was one of the most gentle and kind-hearted men of his day, as he was also one of the least initiative, so to say, while endowed with the high moral courage of boundless patience and political humility. Leo the Thirteenth need speak but half a dozen words, with one glance of his flashing eyes and one gesture of his noticeably long arm and transparently thin hand, and the moral distance between his predecessor and himself is at once apparent. There is strength still in every movement, there is deliberate decision in every tone, there is lofty independence in every look. Behind these there may be kindliness, charity, and all the milder gifts of virtue; but what is apparent is a sort of energetic, manly trenchancy which forces admiration rather than awakens sympathy. [Illustration: LIBRARY OF THE VATICAN] When speaking at length on any occasion he is eloquent, but with the eloquence of the dictator, and sometimes of the logician, rather than that of the persuader. His enunciation is exceedingly distinct in Latin and Italian, and also in French, a language in which he expresses himself with ease and clearness. In Latin and Italian he chooses his words with great care and skill, and makes use of fine distinctions, in the Ciceronian manner, and he certainly commands a larger vocabulary than most men. His bearing is erect at all times, and on days when he is well his step is quick as he moves about his private apartments. 'Il Papa corre sempre,'--'the Pope always runs'--is often said by the guards and familiars of the antechamber. A man who speaks slowly but moves fast is generally one who thinks long and acts promptly--a hard hitter, as we should familiarly say. It is not always true that a man's character is indicated by his daily habits, nor that his intellectual tendency is definable by the qualities of his temper or by his personal tastes. Carlyle was one instance of the contrary; Lincoln was another; Bismarck was a great third, with his iron head and his delicate feminine hands. All men who direct, control or influence the many have a right to be judged by the world according to their main deeds, to the total exclusion of their private lives. There are some whose public actions are better than their private ones, out of all proportion; and there are others who try to redeem the patent sins of their political necessities by the honest practice of their private virtues. In some rare, high types, head, heart and hand are balanced to one expression of power, and every deed is a mathematical function of all three. Leo the Thirteenth probably approaches as nearly to such superiority as any great man now living. As a statesman, his abilities are admitted to be of the highest order; as a scholar he is undisputedly one of the first Latinists of our time, and one of the most accomplished writers in Latin and Italian prose and verse; as a man, he possesses the simplicity of character which almost always accompanies greatness, together with a healthy sobriety of temper, habit and individual taste rarely found in those beings whom we might call 'motors' among men. It is commonly said that the Pope has not changed his manner of life since he was a simple bishop. He is, indeed, a man who could not easily change either his habits or his opinions; for he is of that enduring, melancholic, slow-speaking, hard-thinking temperament which makes hard workers, and in which everything tends directly to hard work as a prime object, even with persons in whose existence necessary labour need play no part, and far more so with those whose smallest daily tasks hew history out of humanity in the rough state. Of the Pope's statesmanship and Latinity the world knows much, and is sure to hear more, while he lives--most, perhaps, hereafter, when another and a smaller man shall sit in the great Pope's chair. For he is a great Pope. There has not been his equal, intellectually, for a long time, nor shall we presently see his match again. The era of individualities is not gone by, as some pretend. Men of middle age have seen in a lifetime Cavour, Louis Napoleon, Garibaldi, Disraeli, Bismarck, Leo the Thirteenth--and the young Emperor of Germany. With the possible exception of Cavour, who died, poisoned as some say, before he had lived out his life, few will deny that of all these the present Pope possesses, in many respects, the most evenly balanced and stubbornly sane disposition. That fact alone speaks highly for the judgment of the men who elected him, in Italy's half-crazed days, immediately after the death of Victor Emmanuel. At all events, there he stands, at the head of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, as wise a leader as any who in our day has wielded power; as skilled, in his own manner, as any who hold the pen; and better than all that, as straightly simple and honest a Christian man as ever fought a great battle for his faith's sake. Straight-minded, honest and simple he is, yet keen, sensitive and nobly cautious; for there is no nobility in him who risks a cause for the vanity of his own courage, and who, in blind hatred of his enemies, squanders the devotion of those who love him. In a sense, today, the greater the man the greater the peacemaker, and Leo the Thirteenth ranks highest among those who have helped the cause of peace in this century. In spite of his great age, the Holy Father enjoys excellent health, and leads a life full of occupations from morning till night. He rises very early, and when, at about six o'clock in the morning, his valet, Pio Centra, enters his little bedroom, he more often finds the Pope risen than asleep. He is accustomed to sleep little--not more than four or five hours at night, though he rests a short time after dinner. We are told that sometimes he has been found asleep in his chair at his writing-table at dawn, not having been to bed at all. Of late he frequently says mass in a chapel in his private apartments, and the mass is served by Pio Centra. On Sundays and feast-days he says it in another chapel preceding the throne-room. The little chapel is of small dimensions, but by opening the door into the neighbouring room a number of persons can assist at the mass. The permission, when given, is obtained on application to the 'Maestro di Camera,' and is generally conceded only to distinguished foreign persons. After saying mass himself, the Holy Father immediately hears a second one, said by one of the private chaplains on duty for the week, whose business it is to take care of the altar and to assist. Frequently he gives the communion with his own hand to those who are present at his mass. After mass he breakfasts upon coffee and goat's milk, and this milk is supplied from goats kept in the Vatican gardens--a reminiscence of Carpineto and of the mountaineer's early life. Every day at about ten he receives the Secretary of State, Cardinal Rampolla, and converses with him for a good hour or more upon current affairs. On Tuesdays and Fridays the Secretary of State receives the Diplomatic Corps in his own apartments, and on those days the Under Secretary confers with the Pope in his chief's place. The acting prefect of the 'Holy Apostolic Palaces' is received by the Pope when he has business to expound. On the first and third Fridays of each month the Maggiordomo is received, and so on, in order, the cardinal prefects of the several Roman congregations, the Under Secretaries, and all others in charge of the various offices. In the papal antechamber there is a list of them, with the days of their audiences. During the morning the Pope receives cardinals, bishops and ambassadors who are going away on leave, or who have just returned, princes and members of the Roman nobility, and distinguished foreigners. At ten o'clock he takes a cup of broth brought by Centra. At two in the afternoon, or a little earlier, he dines, and he is most abstemious, although he has an excellent digestion. His private physician, Doctor Giuseppe Lapponi, has been heard to say that he himself eats more at one meal than the Holy Father eats in a week. Every day, unless indisposed, some one is received in private audience. These audiences are usually for the cardinal prefects of the congregations, the patriarchs, archbishops and bishops who are in Rome at the time, and distinguished personages. When the weather is fine the Pope generally walks or drives in the garden. He is carried out of his apartments to the gate in a sedan-chair by the liveried 'sediarii,' or chair-porters; or if he goes out by the small door known as that of Paul the Fifth, the carriage awaits him, and he gets into it with the private chamberlain, who is always a monsignore. It is as well to say here, for the benefit of non-Catholics, that 'monsignori' are not necessarily bishops, nor even consecrated priests, the title being really a secular one. Two Noble Guards of the corps of fifty gentlemen known under that name ride beside the carriage doors. The closed carriage is a simple brougham, having the Pope's coat of arms painted on the door, but in summer he occasionally goes out in an open landau. He drives several times round the avenues, and when he descends, the officer of the Guards dismounts and opens the carriage door. He generally walks in the neighbourhood of the Chinese pavilion and along the Torrione, where the papal observatory is built. Leo the Thirteenth is fond of variety--and no wonder, shut up for life as he is in the Vatican; he enjoys directing work and improvements in the gardens; he likes to talk with Vespignani, the architect of the Holy Apostolic Palaces, who is also the head of the Catholic party in the Roman municipality, to go over the plans of work he has ordered, to give his opinion, and especially to see that the work itself is executed in the shortest possible time. Time is short for a pope; Sixtus the Fifth, who filled Rome and Italy with himself, reigned only five years; Rodrigo Borgia eleven years; Leo the Tenth, but nine. [Illustration: FOUNTAIN OF ACQUA FELICE] In 1893 the Pope began to inhabit the new pavilion designed and built by Vespignani in pure fifteenth-century style. It is built against the Torrione, the ancient round tower constructed by Saint Leo the Fourth about the year 850. In 1894 Leo the Thirteenth made a further extension, and joined another building to the existing one by means of a loggia, on the spot once occupied by the old barracks of the papal gendarmes, who are still lodged in the gardens, and whose duty it is to patrol the precincts by day and night. Indeed, the fact that two dynamiters were caught in the garden in 1894 proves that a private police is necessary. During the great heat of summer the Pope, after saying mass, goes into the garden about nine in the morning and spends the whole day there, receiving everyone in the garden pavilion he has built for himself, just as he would receive in the Vatican. He dines there, too, and rests afterward, guarded by the gendarmes on duty, to whom he generally sends a measure of good wine--another survival of a country custom; and in the cool of the day he again gets into his carriage, and often does not return to the Vatican till after sunset, toward the hour of Ave Maria. In the evening, about an hour later,--at 'one of the night,' according to the old Roman computation of time,--he attends at the recitation of the rosary, or evening prayers, by his private chaplain, and he requires his immediate attendants to assist also. He then retires to his room, where he reads, studies or writes verses, and at about ten o'clock he eats a light supper. While in the garden he is fond of talking about plants and flowers with the director of the gardens. He walks with the officer of the Noble Guards and with the private chamberlain on duty. He speaks freely of current topics, tells anecdotes of his own life and visits the gazelles, goats, deer and other animals kept in the gardens. From the cupola of Saint Peter's the whole extent of the grounds is visible, and when the Pope is walking, the visitors, over four hundred feet above, stop to watch him. He has keen eyes, and sees them also. 'Let us show ourselves!' he exclaims on such occasions. 'At least they will not be able to say that the Pope is ill!' The Pope's favourite poets are Virgil and Dante. He knows long passages of both by heart, and takes pleasure in quoting them. When Father Michael, the apostolic prefect to Erithrea, was taking his leave, with the other Franciscans who accompanied him to Africa, his Holiness recited to them, with great spirit, Dante's canto upon St. Francis. The Pope reads the newspapers, passages of interest being marked for him by readers in order to save time. He frequently writes letters to the bishops, and composes encyclicals in a polished and Ciceronian style of Latin. The encyclicals are printed at the private press of the Vatican, an institution founded by him and furnished with all modern improvements. They are first published in the 'Osservatore Romano,' the official daily paper of the Vatican, and then finally translated into Italian and other languages, and sent out to the bishops abroad. Leo the Thirteenth likes to see and talk with men of letters, as well as to read their books. Two years ago he requested Professor Brunelli of Perugia to buy for him the poetical works of the Abbé Zanella. The request is characteristic, for his Holiness insisted upon paying for the book, like anyone else. When great pilgrimages are to be organized, the first step taken is to form committees at the place of origin. The leader of the pilgrimage is usually the head of the diocese, who then writes to Rome to make the arrangements. The Committee on Pilgrimages provides quarters for the pilgrims, at the Lazaret of Saint Martha, or elsewhere, that they may be properly lodged and fed. On the occasion of the celebrated French workingmen's pilgrimage, the great halls in the Belvedere wing, including the old quarters of the engineer corps, and of the artillery and the riding-school, were opened as dining-halls, where the pilgrims came morning and evening to their meals; the kitchen department and the general superintendence were in charge of Sisters, and everything was directed by the Roman Committee of Pilgrimages. The visitors were received by the Circolo, or Society of Saint Peter's, and by the first Artisan Workmen's Association, the members of which waited at table, wearing aprons. The Circolo has an office for pilgrimages which facilitates arrangements with the railways, and provides lodgings in hotels, inns and private houses in Rome for the well-to-do; but the General Committee on Pilgrimages provides lodgings for the poor. The head of the pilgrimage also makes arrangements for the mass which the Holy Father celebrates for the pilgrims, and for the audience which follows. If the pilgrimage is large, the mass is said in Saint Peter's; if small, in the Vatican, either in the Loggia of the Beatification or in the Sala Ducale. At the audience the pilgrims place their offerings in the Pope's hands, and he blesses the rosaries, crosses and other objects of devotion, and gives small silver medals in memory of the occasion. Since 1870 the Pope has not conducted the solemn services either in Saint Peter's or in the Sixtine Chapel. The only services of this kind in which he takes part are those held in the Sixtine Chapel on the anniversary of the death of Pius the Ninth, and on the anniversary of his own coronation, March 3. At these two functions there are also present the Sacred College, the bishops and prelates, the Roman nobility, the Knights of Malta, the Diplomatic Corps in full dress, and any foreign Catholic royal princes who may chance to be in Rome at the time. At the 'public' consistories, held with great pomp in the Sala Regia, the Pope gives the new hat to each new cardinal; but there are also 'private' consistories held in the beautiful Sala del Concistoro, near the hall of the Swiss Guards, at the entrance to the Pope's apartments. Moreover, the Pope appears at beatifications and canonizations, and during the present pontificate these have been generally held in the Hall of Beatifications, a magnificent room with a tribune, above the portico of Saint Peter's, turned into a chapel for the occasion, with innumerable candles and lamps, the transparency of the beatified person, called the Gloria, and standards on which are painted representations of miracles. The last of these ceremonies was held in Saint Peter's, with closed doors, but in the presence of an enormous concourse, with the greatest pomp, the whole of the Noble Guard and the Palatine Guard turning out, and order being preserved by the Swiss Guards, the gendarmes, and the vergers of the basilica, known as the 'Sanpietrini.' In Holy Week, in order to meet the wants of the many eminent and devout Catholics who then flock to Rome, the Holy Father celebrates mass two or three times in the Sala Ducale, which is then turned into a chapel. During these masses motetts are sung by the famous Sixtine choir, under the direction of the old Maestro Mustafa, once the greatest soprano of the century, but at the same time so accomplished a musician as to have earned the common name of 'Palestrina redivivus.' It is to be regretted that he has never allowed any of his beautiful compositions to be published. On such occasions as Christmas Day or the feast of Saint Joachim, by whose name the Pope was christened, he receives the College of Cardinals, the bishops present in Rome, many prelates, the heads of religious bodies, some officers of the old pontifical army and of the guards, and the dignitaries of the papal court, in his own private library, where he talks familiarly with each in turn, and quite without ceremony. Reigning sovereigns, princes and distinguished persons are received in the grand throne-room, where the throne is covered with red velvet, with coats of arms at the angles of the canopy. Upon a large pier-table, in the rococo style, between the windows and opposite the throne, stands a great crucifix of ivory and ebony, between two candlesticks. The carpet used at such times was presented by Spain. Before the Emperor of Germany's visit the Pope himself gave particular directions for the dressing of the throne and the arrangement of the rooms. When great personages are received their suites are also presented, after which the Pope retires with his guest to the small private throne-room. Before coming to the Pope's presence it is necessary to pass through many anterooms, the Sala Clementina, the hall of the palfrenieri and sediarii,--that is, of the grooms and chair-porters,--the hall of the gendarmes, the antechamber of the Palatine Guard, that of the officers on duty, the hall of the Arras, that of the chamberlains and Noble Guards and at last the antechamber of the Maestro di Camera--there are eight in all. Persons received in audience are accompanied by the 'camerieri segreti,' who do the honours in full dress, wearing their chains and carrying their staves. The private library is a spacious room lined with bookcases made of a yellow wood from Brazil, some of which are curtained. Busts of several former Popes stand upon marble columns. To the Pope's bedroom, only his private valet and his secretaries have access. It is of small dimensions, and contains only a bed, in an alcove adorned with graceful marble columns, a writing-table, an arm-chair and kneeling stool, and one wardrobe. Besides these, there is his private study, in which the table and chair stand upon a little carpeted platform, other tables being placed on each side upon the floor, together with an extremely uncomfortable but magnificent straight-backed arm-chair, which is one of the gifts offered on the occasion of the episcopal jubilee. There is, moreover, a little room containing only a lounge and an old-fashioned easy-chair with 'wings' and nothing else. It is here that the Holy Father retires to take his afternoon nap, and the robust nature of his nerves is proved by the fact that he lies down with his eyes facing the broad light of the window. The private apartment occupies the second floor, according to Italian reckoning, though we Americans should call it the third; it is on a level with Raphael's loggie. The floor above it is inhabited by Cardinal Rampolla, the Secretary of State. The 'pontifical court,' as it is called, consists (1898) of Cardinal Rampolla, the Secretary of State; Cardinal Mario Mocenni, the pro-prefect of the Holy Apostolic Palaces, a personage of the highest importance, who has sole control of everything connected with the Vatican palace and all the vast mass of adjoining buildings; the Maggiordomo, who, besides many other functions, is the manager of the museums, galleries and inhabited apartments; the Maestro di Camera, who nearly corresponds to a master of ceremonies, and superintends all audiences; the almoner and manager of the papal charities, assisted by a distinguished priest, who is also a lawyer, formerly secretary to the well-known Monsignor de Merode; a monk of the Dominican order, who supervises the issuing of books printed at the Vatican; a chief steward; four private secretaries, who take turns of service lasting a week for each, and are always with the Pope, and finally the chief of the Vatican police. Moreover, his Holiness has his private preacher, who delivers sermons before him in Advent and Lent, and his confessor, both of whom are always Capuchin monks, in accordance with a very ancient tradition. It must not be supposed by the uninitiated that these few persons in any way represent the central directive administration of the Catholic Church. On the contrary, the only one of them who is occupied in that larger field is Cardinal Rampolla, the Secretary of State. The others are, strictly speaking, the chief personages of the pontifical household, as we should say. But their offices are not sinecures. The Pope's restless energy extracts work from the men about him as one squeezes water from a sponge. In the days of Pius the Ninth, after the fall of the temporal power, the Vatican was overrun and overcrowded with useless but well-paid officials, officers and functionaries great and small, who took refuge there against the advancing wave of change. When Leo the Thirteenth had been on the throne only a few weeks, there was sold everywhere a comic print representing the Pope, with a huge broom, sweeping all the useless people pell-mell down the steps of the Vatican into the Piazza of Saint Peter's. As often happens, the caricaturist saw the truth. In a reign that has lasted twenty years, Leo the Thirteenth has done away with much that was useless, worthless and old-fashioned, and much that cumbered the narrow patch of earth on which so important a part of the world's business is transacted. He is a great simplifier of details, and a strong leveller of obstructions, so that his successor in the pontificate will find it a comparatively easy thing to keep the mechanism in order in its present state. [Illustration: THE VATICAN FROM THE PIAZZA OF SAINT PETER'S] The strictest economy, even to the minutest details, is practised in the Vatican. It appears certain that the accounts of the vast household have often been inspected by the Pope, whose prime object is to prevent any waste of money where so much is needed for the maintenance of church institutions in all parts of the world. In the midst of outward magnificence the papal establishment is essentially frugal, for the splendid objects in the Pope's apartments, even to many of the articles of furniture, are gifts received from the faithful of all nations. But the money which pours into the Vatican from the contributions of Catholics all over Christendom is only held in trust, to be expended in support of missions, of poor bishoprics, and of such devout and charitable organizations as need help, wherever they may be. That nothing may be lost which can possibly be applied to a good purpose is one of Leo the Thirteenth's most constant occupations. He has that marvellous memory for little things which many great leaders and sovereigns have had; he remembers not only faces and names, but figures and facts, with surprising and sometimes discomfiting accuracy. In his private life, as distinguished from his public and political career, what is most striking is the combination of shrewdness and simplicity in the best sense of both words. Like Pius the Ninth, he has most firmly set his face against doing anything which could be construed as financially advantageous to his family, who are good gentlefolk, and well to do in the world, but no more. All that he has as Pope he holds in trust for the Church in the most literal acceptation of the term. The contributions of Catholics, on being received, are immediately invested in securities bearing interest, which securities are again sold as may be necessary for current needs, and expended for the welfare of Catholic Christianity. Every penny is most carefully accounted for. These moneys are generally invested in Italian national bonds--a curious fact, and indicative of considerable confidence in the existing state of things, as well as a significant guarantee of the Vatican's good faith towards the monarchy. It is commonly said in Rome among bankers that the Vatican makes the market price of Italian bonds. Whether this be true or not, it is an undeniable fact that the finances of the Vatican are under the direct and exceedingly thrifty control of the Pope himself. To some extent we may be surprised to find so much plain common sense surviving in the character of one who has so long followed a spiritual career. We should not have looked for such practical wisdom in Pius the Ninth. But the times are changed since then, and are most changed in most recent times. The head of the Catholic Church today must be a modern man, a statesman, and an administrator; he must be able to cope with difficulties as well as heresies; he must lead his men as well as guide his flock; he must be the Church's steward as well as her consecrated arch-head; he must be the reformer of manners as well as the preserver of faith; he must be the understander of men's venial mistakes as well as the censor of their mortal sins. Battles for belief are no longer fought only with books and dogmas, opinions and theories. Everything may serve nowadays, from money, which is the fuel of nations, to wit, which is the weapon of the individual; and the man who would lose no possible vantage must have both a heavy hand and a light touch. By his character and natural gifts, Leo the Thirteenth is essentially active rather than contemplative, and it is not surprising that the chief acts of his pontificate should have dealt rather with political matters than with questions of dogma and ecclesiastical authority. It has certainly been the object of the present Pope to impress upon the world the necessity of Christianity in general, and of the Roman Catholic Church in particular, as a means of social redemption and a factor in political stability. This seems to be his inmost conviction, as shown in all his actions and encyclical letters. One is impressed, at every turn, by the strength of his belief in religion and in his own mission to spread it abroad. In regard to forms of faith, the opinions of mankind differ very widely, but the majority of intelligent men now living seem to hold a more or less distinct faith of one sort or another, and to require faith of some sort in their fellow-men. Common atheism has had its little day, and is out of fashion. It is certainly not possible to define that which has taken the place of the pseudo-scientific materialism which plagued society twenty or thirty years ago, and it is certainly beyond the province of this book to examine into the current convictions with which we are to begin the twentieth century. Unprejudiced persons will not, however, withhold their admiration in reviewing the life of a man who has devoted his energies, his intelligence and his strength, not to mention the enormous power wielded by him as the head of the Church, to the furtherance and accomplishment of ends which so many of us believe to be good. For the pontificate of Leo the Thirteenth has differed from that of his predecessor in that it has been active rather than passive. While Pius the Ninth was the head of the Church suffering, Leo the Thirteenth is the leader of the Church militant. This seems to be the reason why he has more than once been accused of inconsistency in his actions, notably in his instructions to French Catholics, as compared with the position he has maintained towards the Italian government. People seem to forget that, whereas the question of temporal power is deeply involved in the latter case, it has nothing whatever to do with the former, and as this question is the one most often brought up against the papacy and discussed in connection with it by people who seem to have very little idea of its real meaning, it may be as well to state here at once the Pope's own view of it. 'The temporary sovereignty is not absolutely requisite for the existence of the papacy, since the Popes were deprived of it during several centuries, but it is required in order that the pontiff's independence may display itself freely, without obstacles, and be evident and apparent in the eyes of the world. It is the social form, so to say, of his guardianship, and of his manifestation. It is necessary--not to existence, but to a right existence. The Pope who is not a sovereign is necessarily a subject, because (in the social existence of a monarchy) there is no mean term between subject and sovereign. A Pope who is a subject of a given government is continually exposed to its influence and pressure, or at least to influences connected with political aims and interests.' [Illustration: RAPHAEL'S "TRANSFIGURATION"] The writer from whom these lines are quoted comes to the natural and logical conclusion that this is not the normal position which should be occupied by the head of the Church. I may remark here that the same view is held in other countries besides Italy. The Emperor of Russia is the undisputed head of the Russian Orthodox Church. Queen Victoria occupies, by the British Constitution, almost exactly the same position towards the Anglican Church. In practice, though certainly not in theory, it is the evident purpose of the young German Emperor, constitutionally or unconstitutionally, to create for himself the same dominant pontifical position in regard to the Churches of the German Empire. It seems somewhat unjust, therefore, that the Popes, whose right to the sovereignty of Rome was for ages as undisputed as that of any King or Emperor in Europe, though secondary in itself to their ecclesiastical supremacy, should be blamed for protesting against what was undoubtedly a usurpation so far as they were concerned, although others may look upon it as a mere incident in the unification of a free people. Moreover, since the unification was accomplished, the vanquished Popes have acted with a fairness and openness which might well be imitated in other countries. The Italians, as a nation, possess remarkable talent and skill in conspiracy, and there is no organization in the world better fitted than that of the Roman Catholic Church for secretly organizing and carrying out a great political conspiracy, if any such thing were ever attempted. The action of the Popes, on the contrary, has been fair and above board. Both Pius the Ninth and Leo the Thirteenth have stated their grievances in the most public manner, and so far have they been from attempting to exercise their vast influence in directing the politics of Italy that they have enjoined upon Italian Catholics to abstain from political contests altogether. Whether in so doing they have pursued a wise course or not, history will decide, probably according to the taste of the historian; but the fact itself sufficiently proves that they have given their enemies more than a fair chance. This seems to have been the form taken by their protests; and this is a fair answer to the principal accusation brought by non-Catholics against the Pope, namely, that he is ready to sacrifice everything in an unscrupulous attempt to regain possession of temporal power. In other matters Leo the Thirteenth has always shown himself to be a statesman, while Pius the Ninth was the victim of his own meek and long-suffering character. To enter into the consideration of the political action of the Pope during the last fifteen years, would be to review the history of the world during that time. To give an idea of the man's character, it would be sufficient to recall three or four of the principal situations in which he has been placed. A volume might be written, for instance, on his action in regard to the German Army Bill, his position towards Ireland, his arbitration in the question of the Caroline Islands, and his instructions to French Catholics. It is extremely hard to form a fair judgment from documents alone, and especially from those documents which most generally come before the public, namely, articles in such reviews as the _Contemporary Review_, on the one hand, and the _Civiltà Cattolica_ on the other. Indeed, the statements on either side, if accepted without hesitation, would render all criticisms futile. Devout Roman Catholics would answer that matters of faith are beyond criticism altogether; but the writers in the _Contemporary_, for instance, will, with equal assurance, declare themselves right because they believe that they cannot be wrong. It would be better to consult events themselves rather than the current opinions of opposite parties concerning them, to set aside the consideration of the aims rightly or wrongly attributed to Leo the Thirteenth, and to look only on the results brought about by his policy in our time. In cases where actions have a merely negative result, it is just to consider the motive alone, if any criticism is necessary, and here there seems to be no particular reason for doubting the Pope's statement of his own case. For instance, in connection with Ireland, the Pope said, in the document known as 'The Circular Letter of the Propaganda': 'It is just that the Irish should seek to alleviate their afflicted condition; it is just that they should fight for their rights, nor is it denied them to collect money to alleviate the condition of the Irish.' In regard to the same matter, the 'Decree of the Holy Office' reads as follows: 'The Holy See has frequently given opportune advice and counsel to the Irish people (upon whom it has always bestowed especial affection), whenever its affairs seem to require it, by which counsel and advice they might be enabled to defend and vindicate their rights without prejudice to justice, and without disturbing the public peace.' A fairer statement of the rights of men, and a more express injunction against public disturbance of any kind, could hardly be expressed in two short sentences. Outside of Italy the position of Leo the Thirteenth in Rome is not generally understood. Most people suppose that the expression 'the prisoner in the Vatican,' which he applies to himself, and which is very generally applied to him by the more ardent of Italian Catholics, is a mere empty phrase, and that his confinement within his small dominion is purely a matter of choice. This is not the case. So far as the political theory of the question is concerned, it is probable that the Pope would not in any case be inclined to appear openly on Italian territory unless he showed himself as the official guest of King Humbert, who would naturally be expected to return the visit. To make such an official visit and such an appearance would be in fact to accept the Italian domination in Rome, a course which, as has already been noticed, would be contrary to the accepted Catholic idea of the social basis necessary for the papacy. It would not necessarily be an uncatholic act, however, but it would certainly be an unpapal one. No one would expect the ex-Empress of the French, for instance, to live openly in Paris, as though the Parisians had never been her subjects, and as though she accepted the Republic in a friendly and forgiving spirit. And the case is to all intents and purposes exactly identical. [Illustration: LOGGIE OF RAPHAEL IN THE VATICAN] But this is not all. It is unfortunately true that there is another and much better reason why Leo the Thirteenth cannot show himself in the streets of Rome. It is quite certain that his life would not be safe. The enthusiastic friends of Italy who read glowing accounts of the development of the new kingdom and write eloquent articles in the same strain will be utterly horrified at this statement, and will, moreover, laugh to scorn the idea that the modern civilized Italian could conspire to take the life of a harmless and unoffending old man. They will be quite right. The modern civilized Italians would treat the Pope with the greatest respect and consideration if he appeared amongst them. Most of them would take off their hats and stand aside while he drove by, and a great many of them would probably go down upon their knees in the streets to receive his blessing. The King, who is a gentleman, and tolerant of religious practices, would treat the head of the Church with respect. The Queen, who is not only religious, but devout, would hail the reappearance of the pontiff with enthusiasm. But unfortunately for the realization of any such thing, Rome is not peopled only by modern civilized Italians, nor Italy either. There is in the city a very large body of social democrats, anarchists and the like, not to mention the small nondescript rabble which everywhere does its best to bring discredit upon socialistic principles--a mere handful, perhaps, but largely composed of fanatics and madmen, people half hysterical from failure, poverty, vice and an indigestion of so-called 'free thought.' There have not been many sovereigns nowadays whose lives have not been attempted by such men at one time or another. Within our own memory an Emperor of Russia, a President of the French Republic and two Presidents of the United States have been actually murdered by just such men. The King of Italy, and the Emperor William the First, Napoleon the Third, Queen Victoria and Alexander the Third have all been assailed by such fanatics within our own recollection, and some of them have narrowly escaped death. Not one of them, with the exception of Alexander the Third, has been so hated by a small and desperate body of men as Leo the Thirteenth is hated by the little band which undoubtedly exists in Italy today. I will venture to say that it is a matter of continual satisfaction to the royal family of Italy, and to the Italian government, that the Pope should really continue to consider himself a prisoner within the precincts of the Vatican, since it is quite certain that if he were to appear openly in Rome the Italian authorities would not, in the long run, be able to protect his life. After all that has been said and preached upon the subject by the friends of Italy, it would be a serious matter indeed if the Pope, taking a practical advantage of his theoretic liberty, should be done to death in the streets of Rome by a self-styled Italian patriot. No one who thoroughly understands Rome at the present day is ignorant that such danger really exists, though it will no doubt be promptly denied by Italian ministers, newspaper correspondents or other intelligent but enthusiastic persons. The hysterical anarchist is unfortunately to be met with all over the world at the present day, side by side with the scientific social democrat, and too often under his immediate protection. Indeed, a great number of the acts of Leo the Thirteenth, if not all of them, have been directed against the mass of social democracy in all its forms, good, bad and indifferent; and to the zeal of his partisans in endeavouring to carry out his suggestions must be attributed some of the strong utterances of the Church's adherents upon matters political. The question of 'assent and obedience' to the Holy See in matters not relating to dogma and faith is, perhaps, the most important of all those in which the papacy is now involved. There appears to be a decided tendency to believe that Catholics ascribe to the Holy See a certain degree of infallibility in regard to national policy and local elections. The Pope's own words do not inculcate a blind obedience as necessary to the salvation of the voter, though it is expressly declared a grave offence to favour the election of persons opposed to the Roman Catholic Church and whose opinions may tend to endanger its position. The idea that the Pope's political utterances can ever be considered as ex cathedrâ is too illogical to be presented seriously to the world by thinking men. Leo the Thirteenth is undoubtedly a first-rate statesman, and it might be to the advantage not only of all good Catholics but of all humanity, and of the cause of peace itself, to follow his advice in national and party politics whenever practicable. To bind oneself to follow the political dictation of Leo the Thirteenth, and to consider such obedience to the Pope as indispensable to salvation, would be to create a precedent. Pius the Ninth was no statesman at all, and there are plenty of instances in history of Popes whose political advice would have been ruinous, if followed, though it was often formulated more authoritatively and more dictatorially than the injunctions from time to time imparted to Catholics by Leo the Thirteenth. An Alexander the Sixth would be an impossibility in our day; but in theory, if another Rodrigo Borgia should be elected to the Holy See, one should be as much bound to obey his orders in voting for the election of the President of the United States as one can possibly be to obey those of Leo the Thirteenth, seeing that the divine right to direct the political consciences of Catholics, if it existed at all, would be inherent in the papacy as an institution, and not merely attributed by mistaken people to the wise, learned and conscientious man who is now the head of the Catholic Church. But the Pope's utterances have lately been interpreted by his too zealous adherents to mean that every Catholic subject or citizen throughout the world, who has the right to vote in his own country, must give that vote in accordance with the dictates of the Church as a whole, and of his bishop in particular, under pain of committing a very grave offence against Catholic principles. A state in which every action of man, public or private, should be guided solely and entirely by his own religious convictions would no doubt be an ideal one, and would approach the social perfection of a millennium. But in the mean time a condition of society in which society itself should be guided by such political opinions as any one man, human and limited, can derive from his own conscience, pure and upright though it be, would be neither logical nor desirable. There are points in the universal struggle for life which do not turn upon questions of moral right and wrong, and which every individual has a preëminent and inherent right to decide for himself. Anyone who undertakes to speak briefly of such a personage as Leo the Thirteenth, and of such a question as the 'assent and obedience' of Catholics in matters not connected with morals or belief, lays himself open to the accusation of superficiality. We are all, however, obliged to deal quickly and decisively, in these days, with practical matters of which the discussion at length would fill many volumes. Most of us cannot do more than form an opinion based upon the little knowledge we have, express it as best we may, and pass on. The man who spends a lifetime in the study of one point, the specialist in fact, is often too ignorant of all other matters to form any general opinion worth expressing. Humanity is too broad to be put under a microscope, too strong to be treated like a little child. No one man, today, in this day of many Cæsars, can say surely and exactly what should be rendered to each of them. Leo the Thirteenth is the leader of a great organization of Christian men and women spreading all over the world; the leader of a vast body of human thought; the leader of a conservative army which will play a large part in any coming struggle between anarchy and order. He may not be here to direct when the battle begins, but he will leave a strong position for his successor to defend, and great weapons for him to wield, since he has done more to simplify and strengthen the Church's organization than a dozen Popes have done in the last two centuries. Men of such character fight the campaigns of the future many times over in their thoughts while all the world is at peace around them, and when the time comes at last, though they themselves be gone, the spirit they called up still lives to lead, the sword they forged lies ready for other hands, the roads they built are broad and straight for the march of other feet, and they themselves, in their graves, have their share in the victories that save mankind from social ruin. [Illustration] THE VATICAN The Mons Vaticanus is sometimes said to have received its name from 'vaticinium,' an oracle or prophecy; for tradition says that Numa chose the Vatican hill as a sacred place from which to declare to the people the messages he received from the gods. It is not, however, one of the seven hills on which ancient Rome was built, but forms a part of a ridge beginning with the Janiculum and ending with Monte Mario, all of which was outside the ancient limits of the city. In our day the name is applied only to the immense pontifical palace adjacent to, and connected with, the basilica of Saint Peter's. The present existence of this palace is principally due to Nicholas the Fifth, the builder pope, whose gigantic scheme would startle a modern architect. His plan was to build the Church of Saint Peter's as a starting point, and then to construct one vast central 'habitat' for the papal administration, covering the whole of what is called the Borgo, from the Castle of Sant' Angelo to the cathedral. In ancient times a portico, or covered way supported on columns, led from the bridge to the church, and it was probably from this real structure that Nicholas began his imaginary one, only a small part of which was ever completed. That small portion alone comprises the basilica and the Vatican Palace, which together form by far the greatest continuous mass of buildings in the world. The Colosseum is 195 yards long by 156 broad, including the thickness of the walls. Saint Peter's Church alone is 205 yards long and 156 broad, so that the whole Colosseum would easily stand upon the ground-plan of the church, while the Vatican Palace is more than half as long again. Nicholas the Fifth died in 1455, and the oldest parts of the present Vatican Palace are not older than his reign. They are generally known as Torre Borgia, from having been inhabited by Alexander the Sixth, who died of poison in the third of the rooms now occupied by the library, counting from the library side. The windows of these rooms look upon the large square court of the Belvedere, and that part of the palace is not visible from without. Portions of the substructure of the earlier building were no doubt utilized by Nicholas, and the secret gallery which connects the Vatican with the mausoleum of Hadrian is generally attributed to Pope John the Twenty-third, who died in 1417; but on the whole it may be said that the Vatican Palace is originally a building of the period of the Renascence, to which all successive popes have made additions. The ordinary tourist first sees the Vatican from the square as he approaches from the bridge of Sant' Angelo. But his attention is from the first drawn to the front of the church, and he but vaguely realizes that a lofty, unsymmetrical building rises on his right. He pauses, perhaps, and looks in that direction as he ascends the long, low steps of the basilica, and wonders in what part of the palace the Pope's apartments may be, while the itinerant vender of photographs shakes yards of poor little views out of their gaudy red bindings, very much as Leporello unrolls the list of Don Giovanni's conquests. If the picture peddler sees that the stranger glances at the Vatican, he forthwith points out the corner windows of the second story and informs his victim that 'Sua Santità' inhabits those rooms, and promptly offers photographs of any other interior part of the Vatican but that. The tourist looks up curiously, and finally gets rid of the fellow by buying what he does not want, with the charitable intention of giving it to some dear but tiresome relative at home. And ever afterward, perhaps, he associates with his first impression of the Vatican the eager, cunning, scapegrace features of the man who sold him the photographs. To fix a general scheme of the buildings in the mind one must climb to the top of the dome of the church and look down from the balcony which surrounds the lantern. The height is so great that even the great dimensions of the biggest palace in the world are dwarfed in the deep perspective, and the wide gardens look small and almost insignificant. But the relative proportions of the buildings and grounds appear correctly, and measure each other, as it were. Moreover, it is now so hard to obtain access to the gardens at all that the usual way of seeing them is from the top of Saint Peter's, from an elevation of four hundred feet. To the average stranger 'the Vatican' suggests only the museum of sculpture, the picture-galleries and the Loggie. He remembers, besides the works of art which he has seen, the fact of having walked a great distance through straight corridors, up and down short flights of marble steps, and through irregularly shaped and unsymmetrically disposed halls. If he had any idea of the points of the compass when he entered, he is completely confused in five minutes, and comes out at last with the sensation of having been walking in a labyrinth. He will find it hard to give anyone an impression of the sort of building in which he has been, and certainly he cannot have any knowledge of the topographical relations of its parts. Yet in his passage through the museums and galleries he has seen but a very small part of the whole, and, excepting when in the Loggie, he probably could not once have stood still and pointed in the direction of the main part of the palace. [Illustration: BELVEDERE COURT OF THE VATICAN GALLERY From a print of the last century] In order to speak even superficially of it all, it is indispensable to classify its parts in some way. Vast and irregular it is at its two ends, toward the colonnade and toward the bastions of the city, but the intervening length consists of two perfectly parallel buildings, each over three hundred and fifty yards long, about eighty yards apart, and yoked in the middle by the Braccio Nuovo of the Museum and a part of the library, so as to enclose two vast courts, the one known as Belvedere,--not to be confused with the Belvedere in the Museum,--and the other called the Garden of the Pigna, from the pine-cone which stands at one end of it. Across the ends of these parallel buildings, and toward the city, a huge pile is erected, about two hundred yards long, very irregular, and containing the papal residence and the apartments of several cardinals, the Sixtine Chapel, the Pauline Chapel, the Borgia Tower, the Stanze and Loggie of Raphael, and the Court of Saint Damasus. At the other end of the parallelogram are grouped the equally irregular but more beautiful buildings of the old Museum, of which the windows look out over the walls of the city, and which originally bore the name of Belvedere, on account of the lovely view. This is said to have been a sort of summer-house of the Borgia, not then connected with the palace by the long galleries. It would be a hopeless and a weary task to attempt to trace the history of the buildings. Some account of the Pope's private apartments has already been given in these pages. They occupy the eastern wing of the part built round the Court of Damasus; that is to say, they are at the extreme end of the Vatican, nearest the city, and over the colonnade, and the windows of the Pope's rooms are visible from the square. The vast mass which rises above the columns to the right of Saint Peter's is only a small part of the whole palace, but is not the most modern, by any means. It contains, for instance, the Sixtine Chapel, which is considerably older than the present church, having been built by Sixtus the Fourth, whose beautiful bronze monument is in the Chapel of the Sacrament, in Saint Peter's. It contains, too, Raphael's Stanze, or halls, and Bramante's famous Loggie, the beautiful architecture of which is a frame for some of Raphael's best work. [Illustration: MICHELANGELO'S "LAST JUDGMENT"] But any good guide book will furnish all such information, which it would be fruitless to give in such a work as this. In the pages of Murray the traveller will find, set down in order and accurately, the ages, the dimensions, and the exact positions of all the parts of the building, with the names of the famous artists who decorated each. He will not find set down there, however, what one may call the atmosphere of the place, which is something as peculiar and unforgettable, though in a different way, as that of Saint Peter's. It is quite unlike anything else, for it is part of the development of churchmen's administration to an ultimate limit in the high centre of churchmanism. No doubt there was much of that sort of thing in various parts of Europe long ago, and in England before Henry the Eighth, and it is to be found in a small degree in Vienna to this day, where the traditions of the departed Holy Roman Empire are not quite dead. It is hard to define it, but it is in everything; in the uniforms of the attendants, in their old-fashioned faces, in the spotless cleanliness of all the Vatican--though no one is ever to be seen handling a broom--in the noiselessly methodical manner of doing everything that is to be done, in the scholarly rather than scientific arrangement of the objects in the museum and galleries--above all, in the visitor's own sensations. No one talks loudly among the statues of the Vatican, and there is a feeling of being in church, so that one is disagreeably shocked when a guide, conducting a party of tourists, occasionally raises his voice in order to be heard. It is all very hard to define, while it is quite impossible to escape feeling it, and it must ultimately be due to the dominating influence of the churchmen, who arrange the whole place as though it were a church. An American lady, on hearing that the Vatican is said to contain eleven thousand rooms, threw up her hands and laughingly exclaimed, 'Think of the housemaids!' But there are no housemaids in the Vatican, and perhaps the total absence of even the humblest feminine influence has something to do with the austere impression which everything produces. On the whole, the Vatican may be divided into seven portions. These are the pontifical residence, the Sixtine and Pauline chapels, the picture galleries, the library, the museums of sculpture and archæology, the outbuildings, including the barracks of the Swiss Guards, and, lastly, the gardens with the Pope's Casino. Of these the Sixtine Chapel, the galleries and museums, and the library, are incomparably the most important. The name Sixtine is derived from Sixtus the Fourth, as has been said, and is usually, but not correctly, spelled 'Sistine.' The library was founded by Nicholas the Fifth, whose love of books was almost equal to his passion for building. The galleries are representative of Raphael's work, which predominates to such an extent that the paintings of almost all other artists are of secondary importance, precisely as Michelangelo filled the Sixtine Chapel with himself. As for the museums, the objects they contain have been accumulated by many popes, but their existence ought, perhaps, to be chiefly attributed to Julius the Second and Leo the Tenth, the principal representatives of the Rovere and Medici families. On the walls of the Sixtine Chapel there are paintings by such men as Perugino, Luca Signorelli, Botticelli, and Ghirlandajo, as well as by a number of others; but Michelangelo overshadows them all with his ceiling and his 'Last Judgment.' There is something overpowering about him, and there is no escaping from his influence. He not only covers great spaces with his brush, but he fills them with his masterful drawing, and makes them alive with a life at once profound and restless. One does not feel, as with other painters, that a vision has been projected upon a flat surface; one rather has the impression that a mysterious reality of life has been called up out of senseless material. What we see is not imaginary motion represented, but real motion arrested, as it were, in its very act, and ready to move again. Many have said that the man's work was monstrous. It was monstrously alive, monstrously vigorous; at times over-strong and over-vital, exaggerative of nature, but never really unnatural, and he never once overreached himself in an effort. No matter how enormous the conception might be, he never lacked the means of carrying it to the concrete. No giantism of limb and feature was beyond the ability of his brush; no astounding foreshortening was too much for his unerring point; no vast perspective was too deep for his knowledge and strength. His production was limited only by the length of his life. Great genius means before all things great and constant creative power; it means wealth of resource and invention; it means quantity as well as quality. No truly great genius, unless cut short by early death, has left little of itself. Besides a man's one great masterpiece, there are always a hundred works of the same hand, far beyond the powers of ordinary men; and the men of Michelangelo's day worked harder than we work. Perhaps they thought harder, too, being more occupied with creation, at a time when there was little, than we are with the difficult task of avoiding the unintentional reinvention of things already invented, now that there is so much. The latter is a real difficulty in our century, when almost every mine of thought has been worked to a normal depth by minds of normal power, and it needs all the ruthless strength of original genius to go deeper, and hew and blast a way through the bedrock of men's limitations to new veins of treasure below. It has been said of Titian by a great French critic that 'he absorbed his predecessors and ruined his successors.' Michelangelo absorbed no one and ruined no one; for no painter, sculptor or architect ever attempted what he accomplished, either before him or after him. No sane person ever tried to produce anything like the 'Last Judgment,' the marble 'Moses,' or the dome of Saint Peter's. Michelangelo stood alone as a creator, as he lived a lonely man throughout the eighty-nine years of his life. He had envy but not competition to deal with. There is no rivalry between his paintings in the Sixtine Chapel and those of the many great artists who have left their work beside his on the same walls. The chapel is a beautiful place in itself, by its simple and noble proportions, as well as by the wonderful architectural decorations of the ceiling, conceived by Michelangelo as a series of frames for his paintings. Beautiful beyond description, too, is the exquisite marble screen. No one can say certainly who made it; it was perhaps designed by the architect of the chapel himself, Baccio Pintelli. There are a few such marvels of unknown hands in the world, and a sort of romance clings to them, with an element of mystery that stirs the imagination, in a dreamy way, far more than the gilded oak tree in the arms of Sixtus the Fourth, by which the name of Rovere is symbolized. Sixtus commanded, and the chapel was built. But who knows where Baccio Pintelli lies? Or who shall find the grave where the hand that carved the lovely marble screen is laid at rest? [Illustration: SIXTINE CHAPEL] It is often dark in the Sixtine Chapel. The tourist can rarely choose his day, and not often his hour, and, in the weary traveller's hard-driven appreciation, Michelangelo may lose his effect by the accident of a thunder shower. Yet of all sights in Rome, the Sixtine Chapel most needs sunshine. If in any way possible, go there at noon on a bright winter's day, when the sun is streaming in through the high windows at the left of the 'Last Judgment.' Everyone has heard of the picture before seeing it, and almost everybody is surprised or disappointed on seeing it for the first time. Then, too, the world's ideas about the terrific subject of the painting have changed since Michelangelo's day. Religious belief can no more be judged by the standard of realism. It is wiser to look at the fresco as a work of art alone, as the most surprising masterpiece of a master draughtsman, and as a marvellous piece of composition. In the lower part of the picture, there is a woman rising from her grave in a shroud. It has been suggested that Michelangelo meant to represent by this figure the Renascence of Italy, still struggling with darkness. The whole work brings the times before us. There is the Christian Heaven above, and the heathen Styx below. Charon ferries the souls across the dark stream; they are first judged by Minos, and Minos is a portrait of a cardinal who had ventured to judge the rest of the picture before it was finished. There is in the picture all the whirling confusion of ideas which made that age terrible and beautiful by turns, devout and unbelieving, strong and weak, scholarly upon a foundation of barbarism, and most realistic when most religious. You may see the reflected confusion in the puzzled faces of most tourists who look at the 'Last Judgment' for the first time. A young American girl smiles vaguely at it; an Englishman glares, expressionless, at it through an eyeglass, with a sort of cold inquiry--'Oh! is that all?' he might say; a German begins at Paradise at the upper left-hand corner, and works his way through the details to hell below, at the right. But all are inwardly disturbed, or puzzled, or profoundly interested, and when they go away this is the great picture which, of all they have seen, they remember with the most clearness. And as Michelangelo set his great mark upon the Sixtine, so Raphael took the Stanze and the Loggie for himself--and some of the halls of the picture-galleries too. Raphael represented the feminine element in contrast with Michelangelo's rude masculinity. There hangs the great 'Transfiguration,' which, all but finished, was set up by the young painter's body when he lay in state--a picture too large for the sentiment it should express, while far too small for the subject it presents--yet, in its way, a masterpiece of composition. For in a measure Raphael succeeded in detaching the transfigured Christ from the crowded foreground, and in creating two distinct centres of interest. The frescoes in the Stanze represent subjects of less artistic impossibility, and in painting them Raphael expended in beauty of design the genius which, in the 'Transfiguration,' he squandered in attempting to overcome insuperable difficulties. Watch the faces of your fellow-tourists now, and you will see that the puzzled expression is gone. They are less interested than they were before the 'Last Judgment,' but they are infinitely better pleased. Follow them on, to the library. They will enter with a look of expectation, and presently you will see disappointment and weariness in their eyes. Libraries are for the learned, and there are but a handful of scholars in a million. Besides, the most interesting rooms, the Borgia apartments, have been closed for many years and have only recently been opened again after being wisely and well restored under the direction of Leo the Thirteenth. Two or three bad men are responsible for almost all the evil that has been said and written against the characters of the Popes in the Middle Age. John the Twelfth, of the race of Theodora Senatrix, Farnese of Naples and Rodrigo Borgia, a Spaniard, who was Alexander the Sixth, are the chief instances. There were, indeed, many popes who were not perfect, who were more or less ambitious, avaricious, warlike, timid, headstrong, weak, according to their several characters; but it can hardly be said that any of them were, like those I have mentioned, really bad men through and through, vicious, unscrupulous and daringly criminal. According to Guicciardini, Alexander the Sixth knew nothing of Cæsar Borgia's intention of poisoning their rich friend, the Cardinal of Corneto, with whom they were both to sup in a villa on August 17, 1503. The Pope arrived at the place first, was thirsty, asked for drink, and by a mistake was given wine from a flask prepared and sent by Cæsar for the Cardinal. Cæsar himself came in next, and drank likewise. The Pope died the next day, but Cæsar recovered, though badly poisoned, to find himself a ruined man and ultimately a fugitive. The Cardinal did not touch the wine. This event ended an epoch and a reign of terror, and it pilloried the name of Borgia for ever. Alexander expired in the third room of the Borgia apartments, in the raving of a terrible delirium, during which the superstitious bystanders believed that he was conversing with Satan, to whom he had sold his soul for the papacy, and some were ready to swear that they actually saw seven devils in the room when he was dying. The fact that these witnesses were able to count the fiends speaks well for their coolness, and for the credibility of their testimony. It has been much the fashion of late years to cry down the Vatican collection of statues, and to say that, with the exception of the 'Torso' it does not contain a single one of the few great masterpieces known to exist, such as the 'Hermes of Olympia,' the 'Venus of Medici,' the 'Borghese Gladiator,' the 'Dying Gaul.' We are told that the 'Apollo' of the Belvedere is a bad copy, and that the 'Laocoön' is no better, in spite of the signatures of the three Greek artists, one on each of the figures; that the 'Antinous' is a bad Hermes; and so on to the end of the collection, it being an easy matter to demolish the more insignificant statues after proving the worthlessness of the principal ones. Much of this criticism comes to us from Germany. But a German can criticise and yet admire, whereas an Anglo-Saxon usually despises what he criticises at all. Isaac D'Israeli says somewhere that certain opinions, like certain statues, require to be regarded from a proper distance. Probably none of the statues in the Vatican is placed as the sculptor would have placed it to be seen to advantage. Michelangelo believed in the 'Laocoön,' and he was at least as good a judge as most modern critics, and he roughed out the arm that was missing,--his sketch lies on the floor in the corner,--and devoted much time to studying the group. It is true that he is said to have preferred the torso of the 'Hercules,' but he did not withhold his admiration of the other good things. Of the 'Apollo' it is argued that it is insufficiently modelled. Possibly it stood in a very high place and did not need much modelling, for the ancients never wasted work, nor bestowed it where it could not be seen. However that may be, it is a far better statue, excepting the bad restorations, than it is now generally admitted to be, though it is not so good as people used to believe that it was. Apparently there are two ways of looking at objects of art. The one way is to look for the faults; the other way is to look for the beauties. It is plain that it must be the discovery of the beauty which gives pleasure, while the criticism of shortcomings can only flatter the individual's vanity. There cannot be much doubt but that Alcibiades got more enjoyment out of life than Diogenes. The oldest decorated walls in the palace are those by Fra Angelico in the Chapel of Nicholas. For some reason or other this chapel at one time ceased to be used, the door was walled up and the very existence of the place was forgotten. In the last century Bottari, having read about it in Vasari, set to work to find it, and at last got into it through the window which looks upon the roof of the Sixtine Chapel. The story, which is undoubtedly true, gives an idea of the vastness of the palace, and certainly suggests the probability of more forgotten treasures of art shut up in forgotten rooms. One other such at least there is. High up in the Borgia Tower, above the Stanze of Raphael, is a suite of rooms once inhabited by Cardinal Bibbiena, of the Chigi family, and used since then by more than one Assistant Secretary of State. There is a small chapel there, with a window looking upon an inner court. This was once the luxurious cardinal's bath-room, and was beautifully painted by Raphael in fresco, with mythological subjects. In 1835, according to Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Passavant saw it as it had originally been, with frescoes still beautiful, though much damaged, and the marble bath still in its place in a niche painted with river gods. In one of the Vatican's periodical fits of prudery the frescoes were completely hidden with a wooden wainscot, the bath-tub was taken away and the room was turned into a chapel. It is believed, however, that the paintings still exist behind their present covering. The walk through the Museum is certainly one of the most wonderful in the world. There are more masterpieces, perhaps, in Florence; possibly objects of greater value may be accumulated in the British Museum; but nowhere in the world are statues and antiquities so well arranged as in the Vatican, and perhaps the orderly beauty of arrangement has as much to do as anything else with the charm which pervades the whole. One is brought into direct communication with Rome at its best, brilliant with the last reflections of Hellenic light; and again one is brought into contact with Rome at its worst, and beyond its worst, in its decay and destruction. Amid the ruin, too, there is the visible sign of a new growth in the beginnings of Christianity, from which a new power, a new history, a new literature and a new art were to spring up and blossom, and in the rude sculpture of the Shepherd, the Lamb and the Fishes lies the origin of Michelangelo's 'Moses' and 'Pietà.' There, too, one may read, as in a book, the whole history of death in Rome, graven in the long lines of ancient inscriptions, the tale of death when there was no hope, and its story when hope had begun in the belief in the resurrection of the dead. There the sadness of the sorrowing Roman contrasts with the gentle hopefulness of the bereaved Christian, and the sentiment and sentimentality of mankind during the greatest of the world's developments are told in the very words which men and women dictated to the stone-cutter. To those who can read the inscriptions the impression of direct communication with antiquity is very strong. For those who cannot there is still a special charm in the long succession of corridors, in the occasional glimpses of the gardens, in the magnificence of the decorations, as well as in the statues and fragments which line the endless straight walls. One returns at last to the outer chambers, one lingers here and there, to look again at something one has liked, and in the end one goes out remembering the place rather than the objects it contains, and desiring to return again for the sake of the whole sensation one has had rather than for any defined purpose. At the last, opposite the iron turnstile by which visitors are counted, there is the closed gate of the garden. It is very hard to get admission to it now, for the Pope himself is often there when the weather is fine. In the Italian manner of gardening, the grounds are well laid out, and produce the effect of being much larger than they really are. They are not, perhaps, very remarkable, and Leo the Thirteenth must sometimes long for the hills of Carpineto and the freer air of the mountains, as he drives round and round in the narrow limits of his small domain, or walks a little under the shade of the ilex trees, conversing with his gardener or his architect. Yet those who love Italy love its old-fashioned gardens, the shady walks, the deep box-hedges, the stiff little summer-houses, the fragments of old statues at the corners, and even the 'scherzi d'acqua,' which are little surprises of fine water-jets that unexpectedly send a shower of spray into the face of the unwary. There was always an element of childishness in the practical jesting of the last century. When all is seen, the tourist gets into his cab and drives down the empty paved way by the wall of the library, along the basilica, and out once more to the great square before the church. Or, if he be too strong to be tired, he will get out at the steps and go in for a few minutes to breathe the quiet air before going home, to get the impression of unity, after the impressions of variety which he has received in the Vatican, and to take away with him something of the peace which fills the cathedral of Christendom. [Illustration] SAINT PETER'S We have an involuntary reverence for all witnesses of history, be they animate or inanimate, men, animals, or stones. The desire to leave a work behind is in every man and man-child, from the strong leader who plants his fame in a nation's marrow, and teaches unborn generations to call him glorious, to the boy who carves his initials upon his desk at school. Few women have it. Perhaps the wish to be remembered is what fills that one ounce or so of matter by which modern statisticians assert that the average man's brain is heavier than the average woman's. The wish in ourselves makes us respect the satisfaction of it which the few obtain. Probably few men have not secretly longed to see their names set up for ages, like the 'Paulus V. Borghesius' over the middle of the portico of Saint Peter's, high above the entrance to the most vast monument of human hands in existence. Modesty commands the respect of a few, but it is open success that appeals to almost all mankind. Pasquin laughed:-- 'Angulus est Petri, Pauli frons tota. Quid inde? Non Petri, Paulo stat fabricata domus.' Which means:-- 'The corner is Peter's, but the whole front Paul's. Not being Peter's, the house is built for Paul.' The thing itself, the central cathedral of Christendom, is so enormous that many who gaze on it for the first time do not even notice that hugely lettered papal name. The building is so far beyond any familiar proportions that at first sight all details are lost upon its broad front. The mind and judgment are dazed and staggered. The earth should not be able to bear such weight upon its crust without cracking and bending like an overloaded table. On each side the colonnades run curving out like giant arms, always open to receive the nations that go up there to worship. The dome broods over all, like a giant's head motionless in meditation. The vastness of the structure takes hold of a man as he issues from the street by which he has come from Sant' Angelo. In the open space, in the square and in the ellipse between the colonnades and on the steps, two hundred thousand men could be drawn up in rank and file, horse and foot and guns. Excepting it be on some special occasion, there are rarely more than two or three hundred persons in sight. The paved emptiness makes one draw a breath of surprise, and human eyes seem too small to take in all the flatness below, all the breadth before, and all the height above. Taken together, the picture is too big for convenient sight. The impression itself moves unwieldily in the cramped brain. A building almost five hundred feet high produces a monstrous effect upon the mind. Set down in words, a description of it conveys no clear conception; seen for the first time, the impression produced by it cannot be put into language. It is something like a shock to the intelligence, perhaps, and not altogether a pleasant one. Carried beyond the limits of a mere mistake, exaggeration becomes caricature; but when it is magnified beyond humanity's common measures, it may acquire an element approaching to terror. The awe-striking giants of mythology were but magnified men. The first sight of Saint Peter's affects one as though, in the everyday streets, walking among one's fellows, one should meet with a man forty feet high. Involuntarily we conceive that Saint Peter's has always stood where it stands, and it becomes at once, in our imaginations, the witness of much which it really never saw. Its calm seems meant to outlast history; one thinks that, while the Republic built Rome, and Augustus adorned it, and Nero burned it on the other side of the Tiber, the cathedral of the world was here, looking on across the yellow water, conscious of its own eternity, and solemnly indifferent to the ventures and adventures of mankind. It is hard to reduce the great building in imagination to the little basilica built by Constantine the sentimentalist, on the site of Nero's circus; built by some other man perhaps, for no one knows surely; but a little church, at best, compared with many of those which Saint Peter's dwarfs to insignificance now. To remind men of him the effigy of that same Constantine sits on a marble charger there, on the left, beneath the portico, behind the great iron gate, with head thrown back, and lifted hand, and marble eyes gazing ever on the Cross. Some say that he really embraced Christianity only when dying. The names of the churches founded by him in Constantinople are all sentimentally ambiguous, from Sophia, 'wisdom,' to Anastasia, 'resurrection,' or revival, and hence 'spring.' It is strange that the places of worship built by him in Rome, if they were really his work, should bear such exceedingly definite designations and direct dedications as Saint Peter's, Saint John's, Saint Paul's and the Church of the Holy Cross. At all events, whether he believed much or little, Christianity owes him much, and romance is indebted to him for almost as much more. But for Constantine there might have been no Charlemagne, no Holy Roman Empire. In old times criminals of low degree used to be executed on the Esquiline, and were buried there, unburned, unless their bodies were left to wither upon the cross in wind and sun, as generally happened. The place was the hideous feeding ground of wild dogs and carrion birds, and witches went there by night to perform their horrid rites. It was there that Canidia and her companion buried a living boy up to the neck that they might make philters of his vitals. Everyone must remember the end of Horace's imprecation:-- "... insepulta membra different lupi, Et Esquilinæ alites." Then came Mæcenas and redeemed all that land; turned it into a garden, and beautified it; uprooted the mouldering crosses, whereon still hung the bones of dead slaves, and set out trees in their stead; piled thirty feet of clean earth upon the shallow graves of executed murderers and of generations of thieves, and planted shrubbery and flowers, and made walks and paths and shady places. Therefore it happened that the southern spur of the Janiculum became after that time a place of execution and cruel death. The city had never grown much on that side of the Tiber,--that is to say, on the right bank,--and the southern end of the long hill was a wilderness of sand and brushwood. [Illustration: MAMERTINE PRISON] In the deep Mamertine prison, behind the Tabulary of the Forum, it was customary to put to death only political misdoers, and their bodies were then thrown down the Gemonian steps. 'Vixerunt,' said Cicero, grimly, when Catiline's fellow conspirators lay there dead; and perhaps the sword that was to fall upon his own neck was even then forged. The prison is still intact. The blood of Vercingetorix and of Sejanus is on the rocky floor. Men say that Saint Peter was imprisoned here. But because he was not of high degree Nero's executioners led him out across the Forum and over the Sublician bridge, up to the heights of Janiculum. He was then very old and weak, so that he could not carry his cross, as condemned men were made to do. When they had climbed more than half-way up the height, seeing that he could not walk much farther, they crucified him. He said that he was not worthy to suffer as the Lord had suffered, and begged them to plant his cross with the head downward in the deep yellow sand. The executioners did so. The Christians who had followed were not many, and they stood apart weeping. When he was dead, after much torment, and the sentinel soldier had gone away, they took the holy body, and carried it along the hillside, and buried it at night close against the long wall of Nero's circus, on the north side, near the place where they buried the martyrs killed daily by Nero's wild beasts and in other cruel ways. They marked the spot, and went there often to pray. Lately certain learned men have said that he was crucified in the circus itself, but the evidence is slight compared with the undoubted weight of a very ancient tradition, and turns upon the translation of a single word. Within two years Nero fell and perished miserably, scarcely able to take his own life to escape being beaten to death in the Forum. In a little more than a year there were four emperors in Rome; Galba, Otho and Vitellius followed one another quickly; then came Vespasian, and then Titus, with his wars in Palestine, and then Domitian. At last, nearly thirty years after the apostle had died on the Janiculum, there was a bishop called Anacletus, who had been ordained priest by Saint Peter himself. The times being quieter then, this Anacletus built a little oratory, a very small chapel, in which three or four persons could kneel and pray over the grave. And that was the beginning of Saint Peter's Church. But Anacletus died a martyr too, and the bishops after him all perished in the same way up to Eutichianus, whose name means something like 'the fortunate one' in barbarous Greek-Latin, and who was indeed fortunate, for he died a natural death. But in the mean time certain Greeks had tried to steal the holy body, so that the Roman Christians carried it away for nineteen months to the Catacombs of Saint Sebastian, after which they brought it back again and laid it in its place. And again after that, when the new circus was built by Elagabalus, they took it once more to the same catacombs, where it remained in safety for a long time. Now came Constantine, in love with religion and inclined to think Christianity best, and made a famous edict in Milan, and it is said that he laid the deep foundations of the old Church of Saint Peter's, which afterward stood more than eleven hundred years. He built it over the little oratory of Anacletus, whose chapel stood where the saint's body had lain, under the nearest left-hand pillar of the canopy that covers the high altar, as you go up from the door. Constantine's church was founded, on the south side, within the lines of Nero's circus, outside of it on the north side, and parallel with its length. Most churches are built with the apse to the east, but Constantine's, like the present basilica, looked west, because from time immemorial the bishop of Rome, when consecrating, stood on the farther side of the altar from the people, facing them over it. And the church was consecrated by Pope Sylvester the First, in the year 326. Constantine built his church as a memorial and not as a tomb, because at that time Saint Peter's body lay in the catacombs, where it had been taken in the year 219, under Elagabalus. But at last, in the days of Honorius, disestablisher of heathen worship, the body was brought back for the last time, with great concourse and ceremony, and laid where it or its dust still lies, in a brazen sarcophagus. Then came Alaric and the Vandals and the Goths. But they respected the church and the Saint's body, though they respected Rome very little. And Odoacer extinguished the flickering light of the Western Empire, and Dietrich of Bern, as the Goths called Theodoric of Verona, founded the Gothic kingdom, and left his name in the Nibelungenlied and elsewhere. At last arose Charles, who was called the 'Great' first on account of his size, and afterwards on account of his conquests, which exceeded those of Julius Cæsar in extent; and this Charlemagne came to Rome, and marched up into the Church of Constantine, and bowed his enormous height for Leo the Third to set upon it the crown of the new empire, which was ever afterwards called the Holy Roman Empire, until Napoleon wiped out its name in Vienna, having girt on Charlemagne's sword, and founded an empire of his own, which lasted a dozen years instead of a thousand. So the ages slipped along till the church was in bad repair and in danger of falling, when Nicholas the Fifth was Pope, in 1450. He called Alberti and Rossellini, who made the first plan; but it was the great Julius the Second who laid the first stone of the present basilica, according to Bramante's plan, under the northeast pillar of the dome, where the statue of Saint Veronica now stands. The plan was changed many times, and it was not until 1626, on the thirteen hundredth anniversary of Saint Sylvester's consecration, that Urban the Eighth consecrated what we now call the Church of Saint Peter. We who have known Saint Peter's since the old days cannot go in under the portico without recalling vividly the splendid pageants we have seen pass in and out by the same gate. Even before reaching it we glance up from the vast square to the high balcony, remembering how from there Pius the Ninth used to chant out the Pontifical benediction to the city and the world, while in the silence below one could hear the breathing of a hundred thousand human beings. [Illustration: PANORAMA From the Orti Farnesiani] That is all in ghostland now, and will soon be beyond the reach of memory. In the coachhouses behind the Vatican, the old state coaches are mouldering; and the Pope, in his great sedia gestatoria, the bearers, the fan-men, the princes, the cardinals, the guards and the people will not in our time be again seen together under the Roman sky. Old-fashioned persons sigh for the pageantry of those days when they go up the steps into the church. The heavy leathern curtain falls by its own weight, and the air is suddenly changed. A hushed, half-rhythmic sound, as of a world breathing in its sleep, makes the silence alive. The light is not dim or ineffectual, but very soft and high, and it is as rich as floating gold dust in the far distance, and in the apse, an eighth of a mile from the door. There is a blue and hazy atmospheric distance, as painters call it, up in the lantern of the cupola, a twelfth of a mile above the pavement. It is all very big. The longest ship that crosses the ocean could lie in the nave between the door and the apse, and her masts from deck to truck would scarcely top the canopy of the high altar, which looks so small under the super-possible vastness of the immense dome. We unconsciously measure dwellings made with hands by our bodily stature. But there is a limit to that. No man standing for the first time upon the pavement of Saint Peter's can make even a wide guess at the size of what he sees unless he knows the dimensions of some one object. Close to Filarete's central bronze door a round disk of porphyry is sunk in the pavement. That is the spot where the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire were crowned in the old church; Charlemagne, Frederick Barbarossa and many others received the crown, the Chrism and the blessing here, before Constantine's ancient basilica was torn down lest it should fall of itself. For he did not build as Titus built--if, indeed, the old church was built by him at all. A man may well cast detail of history to the winds and let his mind stand free to the tremendous traditions of the place, since so much of them is truth beyond all question. Standing where Charles the Great was crowned eleven hundred years ago, he stands not a hundred yards from the grave where the Chief Apostle was first buried. There he has lain now for fifteen hundred years, since the 'religion of the fathers' was 'disestablished,' as we should say, by Honorius, and since the Popes became Pontifices Maximi of the new faith. This was the place of Nero's circus long before the Colosseum was dreamed of, and the foundations of Christendom's cathedral are laid in earth wet with blood of many thousand martyrs. During two hundred and fifty years every bishop of Rome died a martyr, to the number of thirty consecutive Popes. It is really and truly holy ground, and it is meet that the air, once rent by the death cries of Christ's innocent folk, should be enclosed in the world's most sacred place, and be ever musical with holy song, and sweet with incense. It needs fifty thousand persons to fill the nave and transepts in Saint Peter's. It is known that at least that number have been present in the church several times within modern memory; but it is thought that the building would hold eighty thousand--as many as could be seated on the tiers in the Colosseum. Such a concourse was there at the opening of the Oecumenical Council in December, 1869, and at the jubilees celebrated by Leo the Thirteenth; and on all those occasions there was plenty of room in the aisles, besides the broad spaces which were required for the functions themselves. To feel one's smallness and realize it, one need only go and stand beside the marble cherubs that support the holy-water basins against the first pillar. They look small, if not graceful; but they are of heroic size, and the bowls are as big as baths. Everything in the place is vast; all the statues are colossal, all the pictures enormous; the smallest detail of the ornamentation would dwarf any other building in the world, and anywhere else even the chapels would be churches. The eye strains at everything, and at first the mind is shocked out of its power of comparison. But the strangest, most extravagant, most incomprehensible, most disturbing sight of all is to be seen from the upper gallery in the cupola looking down to the church below. Hanging in mid-air, with nothing under one's feet, one sees the church projected in perspective within a huge circle. It is as though one saw it upside down and inside out. Few men could bear to stand there without that bit of iron railing between them and the hideous fall; and the inevitable slight dizziness which the strongest head feels may make one doubt for a moment whether what is really the floor below may not be in reality a ceiling above, and whether one's sense of gravitation be not inverted in an extraordinary dream. At that distance human beings look no bigger than flies, and the canopy of the high altar might be an ordinary table. And thence, climbing up between the double domes, one may emerge from the almost terrible perspective to the open air, and suddenly see all Rome at one's feet, and all the Roman mountains stretched out to south and east, in perfect grace of restful outline, shoulder to shoulder, like shadowy women lying side by side and holding hands. And the broken symmetry of the streets and squares ranges below, cut by the winding ribbon of the yellow Tiber; to the right the low Aventine, with the dark cypresses of the Protestant cemetery beyond, and the Palatine, crested with trees and ruins; the Pincian on the left, with its high gardens, and the mass of foliage of the Villa Medici behind it; the lofty tower of the Capitol in the midst of the city; and the sun clasping all to its heart of gold, the new and the old alike, past and present, youth, age and decay,--generous as only the sun can be in this sordid and miserly world, where bread is but another name for blood, and a rood of growing corn means a pound of human flesh. The sun is the only good thing in nature that always gives itself to man for nothing but the mere trouble of sitting in the sunshine; and Rome without sunshine is a very grim and gloomy town today. It is worth the effort of climbing so high. Four hundred feet in the air, you look down on what ruled half the world by force for ages, and on what rules the other half today by faith--the greatest centre of conquest and of discord and of religion which the world has ever seen. A thousand volumes have been written about it by a thousand wise men. A word will tell what it has been--the heart of the world. Hither was drawn the world's blood by all the roads that lead to Rome, and hence it was forced out again along the mighty arteries of the Cæsars' marches--to redden the world with the Roman name. Blood, blood and more blood,--that was the history of old Rome,--the blood of brothers, the blood of foes, the blood of martyrs without end. It flowed and ebbed in varying tide at the will of the just and the unjust, but there was always more to shed, and there were always more hands to shed it. And so it may be again hereafter; for the name of Rome has a heart-stirring ring, and there has always been as much blood spilled for the names of things as for the things themselves. It is wonderful to stand there and realize what every foot means, beneath that narrow standing room on the gallery outside the lantern, counting from the top downward as one counts the years of certain trees by the branches. For every division there is a pope and an architect: Sixtus the Fifth and Giacomo della Porta, Paul the Third and Michelangelo, Baldassare Peruzzi and Leo the Tenth, Julius the Second and Bramante, Nicholas the Fifth and Alberti. Then the old church of Constantine, and then the little oratory built over Saint Peter's grave by Saint Anacletus, the third or, according to some, the fourth bishop of Rome; then, even before that, Nero's circus, which was either altogether destroyed or had gone to ruins before Anacletus built his chapel. And far below all are buried the great of the earth, deep down in the crypt. There lies the chief Apostle, and there lie many martyred bishops side by side; men who came from far lands to die the holy death in Rome,--from Athens, from Bethlehem, from Syria, from Africa. There lie the last of the Stuarts, with their pitiful kingly names, James the Third, Charles the Third, and Henry the Ninth; the Emperor Otho the Second has lain there a thousand years; Pope Boniface the Eighth of the Caetani, whom Sciarra Colonna took prisoner at Anagni, is there, and Rodrigo Borgia, Alexander the Sixth, lay there awhile, and Agnes Colonna, and Queen Christina of Sweden, and the Great Countess, and many more besides, both good and bad--even to Catharine Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus, of romantic memory. In the high clear air above, it chills one to think of the death silence down there in the crypt; but when you enter the church again after the long descent, and feel once more the quick change of atmosphere by which a blind man could tell that he was in Saint Peter's, you feel also the spell of the place and its ancient enchantment; you do not regret the high view you left above, and the dead under your feet seem all at once near and friendly. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF SAINT PETER'S] It is not an exaggeration or the misuse of a word to call it magic. Magic is supposed to be a means of communication with beings of another world. It is scarcely a metaphor to say that Saint Peter's is that. It is the mere truth and no more, and you can feel that it is if you will stand, with half-closed eyes, against one of the great pillars, just within hearing of the voices that sing solemn music in the chapel of the choir, and make yourself a day-dream of the people that go up the nave by seeing them a little indistinctly. If you will but remember how much humanity is like humanity in all ages, you can see the old life again as it was a hundred years--two, three, five, ten hundred years before that. If you are fortunate, just then, a score of German seminary students may pass you, in their scarlet cloth gowns, marching two and two in order, till they wheel by the right and go down upon their knees with military precision before the gate of the Chapel of the Sacrament. Or if it be the day and hour, a procession crosses the church, with lights and song and rich vestments, and a canopy over the Sacred Host, which the Cardinal Archpriest himself is carrying reverently before him with upraised hands hidden under the cope, while the censers swing high to right and left. Or the singers from the choir go by, in violet silk and lace, hurrying along the inner south aisle to the door of the sacristy, where heavy yellow cherubs support marble draperies under the monument of Pius the Eighth. If you stand by your pillar a little while, something will surely happen to help your dream, and sweep you back a century or two. And if not, and if you have a little imagination of your own which can stir itself without help from outside, you can call up the figures of those that lie dead below, and of those who in ages gone have walked the dim aisles of the ancient church. Up the long nave comes Pelagius, Justinian's pope, with Narses by his side, to swear by holy cross and sacred gospel that he has not slain Vigilius, Pope before him: and this Narses, smooth-faced, passionless, thoughtful, is the conqueror of the Goths, and having conquered them, he would not suffer that a hair of the remnant of them should be hurt, because he had given his word. High-handed Henry the Fifth, claiming power over the Church, being refused full coronation by Pope Paschal till he yields, seizes Pope and College of Cardinals then and there, and imprisons them till he has starved them to submission, and half requites the Church for Gregory's humiliation of the father whom he himself thrust from the throne--of that Henry whom the strong Hildebrand made to do penance barefoot on the snow in the courtyard of Matilda's Castle at Canossa. And Matilda herself, the Great Countess, the once all beautiful, betrayed in love, the half sainted, the all romantic, rises before you from her tomb below, in straight, rich robes and flowing golden hair, and once more makes gift of all her vast possessions to the Church of Rome. Nicholas Rienzi strides by, strange compound of heroism, vanity and high poetry, calling himself in one breath the people's tribune, and Augustus, and an emperor's son. There is a rush of armed men shouting furiously in Spanish, 'Carne! Sangre! Bourbon!' There is a clanging of steel, a breaking down of gates, and the Constable of Bourbon's horde pours in, irresistible, ravaging all, while he himself lies stark and stiff outside, pierced by Bernardino Passeri's short bolt, and Clement trembles in Sant' Angelo. Christina of Sweden, Monaldeschi's murder red upon her soul, comes next, fawning for forgiveness, to die in due time over there in the Corsini palace by the Tiber. A man may call up half the world's history in half an hour in such a place, toward evening, when the golden light streams through the Holy Dove in the apse. And, in imagination, to those who have seen the great pageants within our memory, the individual figures grow smaller as the magnificence of the display increases out of all proportion, until the church fills again with the vast throngs that witnessed the jubilees of Leo the Thirteenth in recent years, and fifty thousand voices send up a rending cheer while the most splendid procession of these late days goes by. It was in the Chapel of the Sacrament that the body of the good Pope Pius the Ninth was laid in state for several days. That was a strange and solemn sight, too. The gates of the church were all shut but one, and that was only a little opened, so that the people passed in one by one from the great wedge-shaped crowd outside--a crowd that began at the foot of the broad steps in the Piazza, and struggled upward all the afternoon, closer and closer toward the single entrance. For in the morning only the Roman nobles and the prelates and high ecclesiastics were admitted, by another way. Within the church the thin stream of men and women passed quickly between a double file of Italian soldiers. That was the first and last time since 1870 that Italian troops were under arms within the consecrated precincts. It was still winter, and the afternoon light was dim, and it seemed a long way to the chapel. The good man lay low, with his slippered feet between the bars of the closed gate. The people paused as they passed, and most of them kissed the embroidered cross, and looked at the still features, before they went on. It was dim, but the six tall waxen torches threw a warm light on the quiet face, and the white robes reflected it around. There were three torches on each side, too, and there were three Noble Guards in full dress, motionless, with drawn swords, as though on parade. But no one looked at them. Only the marble face, with its kind, far-away smile, fixed itself in each man's eyes, and its memory remained with each when he had gone away. It was very solemn and simple, and there were no other lights in the church save the little lamps about the Confession and before the altars. The long, thin stream of people went on swiftly and out by the sacristy all the short afternoon till it was night, and the rest of the unsatisfied crowd was left outside as the single gate was closed. Few saw the scene which followed, when the good Pope's body had lain four days in state, and was then placed in its coffin at night, to be hoisted high and swung noiselessly into the temporary tomb above the small door on the east side--that is, to the left--of the Chapel of the Choir. It was for a long time the custom that each pope should lie there until his successor died, when his body was removed to the monument prepared for it in the mean time, and the Pope just dead was laid in the same place. The church was almost dark, and only in the Chapel of the Choir and in that of the Holy Sacrament, which are opposite each other, a number of big wax candles shed a yellow light. In the niche over the door a mason was still at work, with a tallow dip, clearly visible below. The triple coffin stood before the altar in the Chapel of the Choir. Opposite, where the body still lay, the Noble Guards and the Swiss Guards, in their breastplates, kept watch with drawn swords and halberds. The Noble Guards carried the bier on their shoulders in solemn procession, with chanting choir, robed bishop, and tramping soldiers, round by the Confession and across the church, and lifted the body into the coffin. The Pope had been very much beloved by all who were near him, and more than one grey-haired prelate shed tears of genuine grief that night. In the coffin, in accordance with an ancient custom, a bag was placed containing ninety-three medals, one of gold, one of silver and one of bronze, for each of the thirty-one years which Pope Pius had reigned; and a history of the pontificate, written on parchment, was also deposited at the feet of the body. When the leaden coffin was soldered, six seals were placed upon it, five by cardinals, and one by the archivist. During the ceremony the Protonotary Apostolic, the Chancellor of the Apostolic Chamber and the Notary of the Chapter of Saint Peter's were busy, pen in hand, writing down the detailed protocol of the proceedings. The last absolution was pronounced, and the coffin in its outer case of elm was slowly moved out and raised in slings, and gently swung into the niche. The masons bricked up the opening in the presence of cardinals and guards, and long before midnight the marble slab, carved to represent the side of a sarcophagus, was in its place, with its simple inscription, 'Pius IX, P.M.' From time immemorial the well containing the marble staircase which leads down to the tomb of Saint Peter has been called the 'Confession.' The word, I believe, is properly applied to the altar-rail, from the ancient practice of repeating there the general confession immediately before receiving the Communion, a custom now slightly modified. But I may be wrong in giving this derivation. At all events, a marble balustrade follows the horseshoe shape of the well, and upon it are placed ninety-five gilded lamps, which burn perpetually. There is said to be no special significance in the number, and they produce very little effect by daylight. But on the eve of Saint Peter's Day, and perhaps at some other seasons, the Pope has been known to come down to the church by the secret staircase leading into the Chapel of the Sacrament, to pray at the Apostle's tomb. On such occasions a few great candlesticks with wax torches were placed on the floor of the church, two and two, between the Chapel and the Confession. The Pope, attended only by a few chamberlains and Noble Guards, and dressed in his customary white cassock, passed swiftly along in the dim light, and descended the steps to the gilded gate beneath the high altar. A marble pope kneels there too, Pius the Sixth, of the Braschi family, his stone draperies less white than Pope Leo's cassock, his marble face scarcely whiter than the living Pontiff's alabaster features. Those are sights which few have been privileged to see. There is a sort of centralization of mystery, if one may couple such words, in the private pilgrimage of the head of the Church to the tomb of the chief Apostle by night, on the eve of the day which tradition has kept from the earliest times as the anniversary of Saint Peter's martyrdom. The whole Catholic world, if it might, would follow Leo the Thirteenth down those marble steps, and two hundred million voices would repeat the prayer he says alone. Many and solemn scenes have been acted out by night in the vast gloom of the enormous church, and if events do not actually leave an essence of themselves in places, as some have believed, yet the knowledge that they have happened where we stand and recall them has a mysterious power to thrill the heart. Opposite the Chapel of the Sacrament is the Chapel of the Choir. Saint Peter's is a cathedral, and is managed by a chapter of Canons, each of whom has his seat in the choir, and his vote in the disposal of the cathedral's income, which is considerable. The chapter maintains the Choir of Saint Peter's, a body of musicians quite independent of the so-called 'Pope's Choir,' which is properly termed the 'Choir of the Sixtine Chapel,' and which is paid by the Pope. There are some radical differences between the two. By a very ancient and inviolable regulation, the so-called 'musico,' or artificial soprano, is never allowed to sing in the Chapel of the Choir, where the soprano singers are without exception men who sing in falsetto, though they speak in a deep voice. On great occasions the Choir of the Sixtine joins in the music in the body of the church, but never in the Chapel, and always behind a lattice. Secondly, no musical instruments are ever used in the Sixtine. In the Chapel of the Choir, on the contrary, there are two large organs. The one on the west side is employed on all ordinary occasions; it is over two hundred years old, and is tuned about two tones below the modern pitch. It is so worn out that an organ-builder is in attendance during every service, to make repairs at a moment's notice. The bellows leak, the stops stick, some notes have a chronic tendency to cipher, and the pedal trackers unhook themselves unexpectedly. But the Canons would certainly not think of building a new organ. Should they ever do so, and tune the instrument to the modern pitch, the consternation of the singers would be great; for the music is all written for the existing organ, and could not be performed two notes higher, not to mention the confusion that would arise where all the music is sung at sight by singers accustomed to an unusual pitch. This is a fact not generally known, but worthy of notice. The music sung in Saint Peter's, and, indeed, in most Roman churches, is never rehearsed nor practised. The music itself is entirely in manuscript, and is the property of the choir master, or, as is the case in Saint Peter's, of the Chapter, and there is no copyright in it beyond this fact of actual possession, protected by the simple plan of never allowing any musician to have his part in his hands except while he is actually performing it. In the course of a year the same piece may be sung several times, and the old choristers may become acquainted with a good deal of music in this way, but never otherwise. Mozart is reported to have learned Allegri's Miserere by ear, and to have written it down from memory. The other famous Misereres, which are now published, were pirated in a similar way. The choir master of that day was very unpopular. Some of the leading singers who had sung the Misereres during many years in succession, and had thus learned their several parts, met and put together what they knew into a whole, which was at once published, to the no small annoyance and discomfiture of their enemy. But much good music is quite beyond the reach of the public--Palestrina's best motetts, airs by Alessandro Stradella, the famous hymn of Raimondi, in short a great musical library, an 'archivio' as the Romans call such a collection, all of which is practically lost to the world. It is wonderful that under such circumstances the choir of Saint Peter's should obtain even such creditable results. At a moment's notice an organist and about a hundred singers are called upon to execute a florid piece of music which many have never seen nor heard; the accompaniment is played at sight from a mere figured bass, on a tumble-down instrument two hundred years old, and the singers, both the soloists and the chorus, sing from thumbed bits of manuscript parts written in old-fashioned characters on paper often green with age. No one has ever denied the extraordinary musical facility of Italians, but if the outside world knew how Italian church music is performed it would be very much astonished. It is no wonder that such music is sometimes bad. But sometimes it is very good; for there are splendid voices among the singers, and the Maestro Renzi, the chief organist, is a man of real talent as well as of amazing facility. His modernizing influence is counter-balanced by that of the old choir master, Maestro Meluzzi, a first-rate musician, who would not for his life change a hair of the old-fashioned traditions. Yet there are moments, on certain days, when the effect of the great old organ, with the rich voices blending in some good harmony, is very solemn and stirring. The outward persuasive force of religion lies largely in its music, and the religions that have no songs make few proselytes. Nothing, perhaps, is more striking, as one becomes better acquainted with Saint Peter's, than the constant variety of detail. The vast building produces at first sight an impression of harmony, and there appears to be a remarkable uniformity of style in all the objects one sees. There are no oil-paintings to speak of in the church, and but few frescoes. The great altar-pieces are almost exclusively fine mosaic copies of famous pictures which are preserved elsewhere. Of these reproductions the best is generally considered to be that of Guercino's 'Saint Petronilla,' at the end of the right aisle of the tribune. Debrosses praises these mosaic altar-pieces extravagantly, and even expresses the opinion that they are probably superior in point of colour to the originals from which they are copied. In execution they are certainly wonderful, and many a stranger looks at them and passes on, believing them to be oil-paintings. They possess the quality of being imperishable and beyond all influence of climate or dampness, and they are masterpieces of mechanical workmanship. But many will think them hard and unsympathetic in outline, and decidedly crude in colour. Much wit has been manufactured by the critics at the expense of Guido Reni's 'Michael,' for instance, and as many sharp things could be said about a good many other works of the same kind in the church. Yet, on the whole, they do not destroy the general harmony. Big as they are, when they are seen from a little distance they sink into mere insignificant patches of colour, all but lost in the deep richness of the whole. As for the statues and monuments, between the 'Pietà' of Michelangelo and Bracci's horrible tomb of Benedict the Fourteenth, there is the step which, according to Tom Paine, separates the sublime from the ridiculous. That very witty saying has in it only just the small ingredient of truth without which wit remains mere humour. Between the ridiculous and the sublime there may sometimes be, indeed, but one step in the execution; but there is always the enormous moral distance which separates real feeling from affectation--the gulf which divides, for instance, Bracci's group from Michelangelo's. [Illustration: PIETÀ OF MICHELANGELO] The 'Pietà' is one of the great sculptor's early works. It is badly placed. It is dwarfed by the heavy architecture above and around it. It is insulted by a pair of hideous bronze cherubs. There is a manifest improbability in the relative size of the figure of Christ and that of the Blessed Virgin. Yet in spite of all, it is one of the most beautiful and touching groups in the whole world, and by many degrees the best work of art in the great church. Michelangelo was a man of the strongest dramatic instinct even in early youth, and when he laid his hand to the marble and cut his 'Pietà' he was in deep sympathy with the supreme drama of man's history. He found in the stone, once and for all time, the grief of the human mother for her son, not comforted by foreknowledge of resurrection, nor lightened by prescience of near glory. He discovered in the marble, by one effort, the divinity of death's rest after torture, and taught the eye to see that the dissolution of this dying body is the birth of the soul that cannot die. In the dead Christ there are two men manifest to sight. 'The first man is of earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.' In the small chapel stands a strangely wrought column, enclosed in an iron cage. The Romans now call it the Colonna Santa, the holy pillar, and it is said to be the one against which Christ leaned when teaching in the temple at Jerusalem. A great modern authority believes it to be of Roman workmanship, and of the third century; but those who have lived in the East will see much that is oriental in the fantastic ornamented carving. It matters little. In actual fact, whatever be its origin, this is the column known in the Middle Age as the 'Colonna degli Spiritati,' or column of those possessed by evil spirits, and it was customary to bind to it such unlucky individuals as fell under the suspicion of 'possession' in order to exorcise the spirit with prayers and holy water. Aretino has made a witty scene about this in the 'Cortegiana,' where one of the Vatican servants cheats a poor fisherman, and then hands him over to the sacristan of Saint Peter's to be cured of an imaginary possession by a ceremonious exorcism. Such proceedings must have been common enough in those days when witchcraft and demonology were elements with which rulers and lawgivers had to count at every turn. Leave the column and its legend in the lonely chapel, with the exquisite 'Pietà'; wander hither and thither, and note the enormous contrasts between good and bad work which meet you at every turn. Up in the right aisle of the tribune you will come upon what is known as Canova's masterpiece, the tomb of Clement the Thirteenth, the Rezzonico pope, as strange a mixture of styles and ideas as any in the world, and yet a genuine expression of the artistic feeling of that day. The grave Pope prays solemnly above; on the right a lovely heathen genius of Death leans on a torch; on the left rises a female figure of Religion, one of the most abominably bad statues in the world; below, a brace of improbable lions, extravagantly praised by people who do not understand leonine anatomy, recall Canova's humble origin and his first attempt at modelling. For the sculptor began life as a waiter in a 'canova di vino,' or wine shop, whence his name; and it was when a high dignitary stopped to breakfast at the little wayside inn that the lad modelled a lion in butter to grace the primitive table. The thing attracted the rich traveller's attention, and the boy's fortune was made. The Pope is impressive, the Death is gentle and tender, the Religion, with her crown of gilded spikes for rays, and her clumsy cross, is a vision of bad taste, and the sleepy lions, when separated from what has been written about them, excite no interest. Yet somehow, from a distance, the monument gets harmony out of its surroundings. [Illustration: TOMB OF CLEMENT THE THIRTEENTH] One of the best tombs in the basilica is that of Sixtus the Fourth, the first pope of the Rovere family, in the Chapel of the Sacrament. The bronze figure, lying low on a sarcophagus placed out on upon the floor, has a quiet manly dignity about it which one cannot forget. But in the same tomb lies a greater man of the same name, Julius the Second, for whom Michelangelo made his 'Moses' in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli--a man who did more than any other, perhaps, to make the great basilica what it is, and who, by a chain of mistakes, got no tomb of his own. He who solemnly laid the foundations of the present church, and lived to see the four main piers completed, with their arches, has only a little slab in the pavement to recall his memory. The protector and friend of Bramante, of Michelangelo and of Raphael,--of the great architect, the great sculptor and the great painter,--has not so much as the least work of any of the three to mark his place of rest. Perhaps he needed nothing but his name. After all, his bones have been allowed to rest in peace, which is more than can be said of all that have been buried within the area of the church. Urban the Sixth had no such good fortune. He so much surprised the cardinals, as soon as they had elected him, by his vigorous moral reforms that they hastily retired to Anagni and elected an antipope of milder manners and less sensitive conscience. He lived to triumph over his enemies. In Piacenza he was besieged by King Charles of Naples. He excommunicated him, tortured seven cardinals whom he caught in the conspiracy and put five of them to death; overcame and slew Charles, refused him burial and had his body exposed to the derision of the crowd. The chronicler says that 'Italy, Germany, England, Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, Sicily and Portugal were obedient to the Lord Pope Urban the Sixth.' He died peacefully, and was buried in Saint Peter's in a marble sarcophagus. But when Sixtus the Fifth, who also surprised the cardinals greatly, was in a fit of haste to finish the dome, the masons, wanting a receptacle for water, laid hands on Urban's stone coffin, pitched his bones into a corner, and used the sarcophagus as they pleased, leaving it to serve as a water-tank for many years afterwards. In extending the foundations of the church, Paul the Third came upon the bodies of Maria and Hermania, the two wives of Honorius, the Emperor who 'disestablished' paganism in favour of Christianity. They were sisters, daughters of Stilicho, and had been buried in their imperial robes, with many rich objects and feminine trinkets; and they were found intact, as they had been buried, in the month of February, 1543. Forty pounds of fine gold were taken from their robes alone, says Baracconi, without counting all the jewels and trinkets, among which was a very beautiful lamp, besides a great number of precious stones. The Pope melted down the gold for the expenses of the building, and set the gems in a tiara, where, if they could be identified, they certainly exist today--the very stones worn by empresses of ancient Rome. Then, as if in retribution, the Pope's own tomb was moved from its place. Despoiled of two of the four statues which adorned it, the monument is now in the tribune, and is still one of the best in the church. A strange and tragic tale is told of it. A Spanish student, it is said, fell madly in love with the splendid statue of Paul's sister-in-law, Julia Farnese. He succeeded in hiding himself in the basilica when it was closed at night, threw himself in a frenzy upon the marble and was found stone dead beside it in the morning. The ugly draperies of painted metal which now hide much of the statue owe their origin to this circumstance. Classical scholars will remember that a somewhat similar tale is told by Pliny of the Venus of Praxiteles in Cnidus. In spite of many assertions to the effect that the bronze statue of Saint Peter which is venerated in the church was originally an image of Jupiter Capitolinus, the weight of modern authority and artistic judgment is to the contrary. The work cannot really be earlier than the fifth century, and is therefore of a time after Honorius and the disestablishment. Anyone who will take the trouble to examine the lives of the early popes in Muratori may read the detailed accounts of what each one did for the churches. It is not by any means impossible that this may be one of the statues made under Saint Innocent the First, a contemporary of Honorius, in whose time a Roman lady called Vestina made gift to the church of vast possessions, the proceeds of which were used in building and richly adorning numerous places of worship. In any case, since it is practically certain that the statue was originally intended for a portrait of Saint Peter, and has been regarded as such for nearly fifteen hundred years, it commands our respect, if not our veneration. The Roman custom of kissing the foot, then bending and placing one's head under it, signifies submission to the commands of the Church, and is not, as many suppose, an act of devotion to the statue. The practice of dressing it in magnificent robes on the feast of Saint Peter is connected with the ancient Roman custom, which required censors, when entering upon office, to paint the earthen statue of Jupiter Capitolinus a bright red. But the connection lies in the Italian mind and character, which cling desperately to external practices for their hold upon inward principles. It is certainly not an inheritance of uninterrupted tradition, as Roman church music, on the contrary, most certainly is; for there is every reason to believe that the recitations now noted in the Roman missal were very like those used by the ancient Romans on solemn occasions. The church is not only a real landmark. Astronomers say that if there were a building of the same dimensions on the moon we could easily see it with our modern telescopes. It is also, in a manner, one of Time's great mile-stones, of which some trace will probably remain till the very end of the world's life. Its mere mass will insure to it the permanence of the great pyramid of Cheops. Its mere name associates it for ever with the existence of Christianity from the earliest time. It has stamped itself upon the minds of millions of men as the most vast monument of the ages. Its very defects are destined to be as lasting as its beauties, and its mighty faults are more imposing than the small perfections of the Greeks. Between it and the Parthenon, as between the Roman empire and the Athenian commonwealth, one may choose, but one dares not make comparison. The genius of the Greeks absorbed the world's beauty into itself, distilled its perfection, and gave humanity its most subtle quintessence; but the Latin arm ruled the world itself, and the imperial Latin intelligence could never find any expression fitted to its enormous measure. That is the secret of the monstrous element in all the Romans built. And that supernormal giantism showed itself almost for the last time in the building of Saint Peter's, when the Latin race had reached its last great development, and the power of the Latin popes overshadowed the whole world, and was itself about to be humbled. Before Michelangelo was dead Charles the Fifth had been Emperor forty years, Doctor Martin Luther had denied the doctrine of salvation by works, the nations had broken loose from the Popes, and the world was at war. [Illustration] Let us part here, at the threshold of Saint Peter's, not saying farewell to Rome, nor taking leave without hope of meeting on this consecrated ground again; but since the city lies behind us, region beyond region, memory over memory, legend within legend, and because we have passed through it by steps and by stations, very quickly, yet not thoughtlessly nor irreverently, let us now go each our way for a time, remembering some of those things which we have seen and of which we have talked, that we may know them better if we see them again. For a man can no more say a last farewell to Rome than he can take leave of eternity. The years move on, but she waits; the cities fall, but she stands; the old races of men lie dead in the track wherein mankind wanders always between two darknesses; yet Rome lives, and her changes are not from life to death, as ours are, but from one life to another. A man may live with Rome, laugh with her, dream with her, weep with her, die at her feet; but for him who knows her there is no good-bye, for she has taken the high seat of his heart, and whither he goes, she is with him, in joy or sorrow, with wonder, longing or regret, as the chords of his heart were tuned by his angel in heaven. But she is as a well-loved woman, whose dear face is drawn upon a man's heart by the sharp memory of a cruel parting, line for line, shadow for shadow, look for look, as she was when he saw her last; and line for line he remembers her and longs for her smile and her tender word. Yet be the lines ever so deep-graven, and the image ever so sweet and true, when the time of parting is over, when he comes back and she stands where she stood, with eyes that lighten to his eyes, then she is better loved than he knew and dearer than he had guessed. Then the heart that has steadily beaten time to months of parting, leaps like a child at the instant of meeting again; then eyes that have so long fed on memory's vision widen and deepen with joy of the living truth; then the soul that has hungered and starved through an endless waiting, is suddenly filled with life and satisfied of its faith. So he who loves Rome, and leaves her, remembers her long and well, telling himself that he knows how every stone of her walls and her streets would look again; but he comes back at last, and sees her as she is, and he stands amazed at the grandeur of all that has been, and is touched to the heart by the sad loveliness of much that is. Together, the thoughts of love and reverence rise in words, and with them comes the deep wonder at something very great and high. For he himself is grown grey and war-worn in the strife of a few poor years, while through five and twenty centuries Rome has faced war and the world; and he, a gladiator of life, bows his head before her, wondering how his own fight shall end at last, while his lips pronounce the submission of his own mortality to her abiding endurance-- AVE ROMA IMMORTALIS, MORITURUS TE SALUTAT Index A Abruzzi, i. 159; ii. 230 Accoramboni, Flaminio, i. 296 Vittoria, i. 135, 148, 289-296, 297 Agrarian Law, i. 23 Agrippa, i. 90, 271; ii. 102 the Younger, ii. 103 Alaric, i. 252; ii. 297 Alba Longa, i. 3, 78, 130 Albergo dell' Orso, i. 288 Alberic, ii. 29 Albornoz, ii. 19, 20, 74 Aldobrandini, i. 209; ii. 149 Olimpia, i. 209 Alfonso, i. 185 Aliturius, ii. 103 Altieri, i. 226; ii. 45 Ammianus Marcellinus, i. 132, 133, 138 Amphitheatre, Flavian, i. 91, 179 Amulius, i. 3 Anacletus, ii. 295, 296, 304 Anagni, i. 161, 165, 307; ii. 4, 5 Ancus Martius, i. 4 Angelico, Beato, ii. 158, 169, 190-192, 195, 285 Anguillara, i. 278; ii. 138 Titta della, ii. 138, 139 Anio, the, i. 93 Novus, i. 144 Vetus, i. 144 Annibaleschi, Riccardo degli, i. 278 Antiochus, ii. 120 Antipope-- Anacletus, ii. 84 Boniface, ii. 28 Clement, i. 126 Gilbert, i. 127 John of Calabria, ii. 33-37 Antonelli, Cardinal, ii. 217, 223, 224 Antonina, i. 266 Antonines, the, i. 113, 191, 271 Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius, i. 46, 96, 113, 114, 190, 191 Appian Way, i. 22, 94 Appius Claudius, i. 14, 29 Apulia, Duke of, i. 126, 127; ii. 77 Aqua Virgo, i. 155 Aqueduct of Claudius, i. 144 Arbiter, Petronius, i. 85 Arch of-- Arcadius, i. 192 Claudius, i. 155 Domitian, i. 191, 205 Gratian, i. 191 Marcus Aurelius, i. 96, 191, 205 Portugal, i. 205 Septimius Severus, ii. 93 Valens, i. 191 Archive House, ii. 75 Argiletum, the, i. 72 Ariosto, ii. 149, 174 Aristius, i. 70, 71 Arnold of Brescia, ii. 73, 76-89 Arnulf, ii. 41 Art, i. 87; ii. 152 and morality, i. 260, 261; ii. 178, 179 religion, i. 260, 261 Barocco, i. 303, 316 Byzantine in Italy, ii. 155, 184, 185 development of taste in, ii. 198 factors in the progress of art, ii. 181 engraving, ii. 186 improved tools, ii. 181 individuality, i. 262; ii. 175-177 Greek influence on, i. 57-63 modes of expression of, ii. 181 fresco, ii. 181-183 oil painting, ii. 184-186 of the Renascence, i. 231, 262; ii. 154 phases of, in Italy, ii. 188 progress of, during the Middle Age, ii. 166, 180 transition from handicraft to, ii. 153 Artois, Count of, i. 161 Augustan Age, i. 57-77 Augustulus, i. 30, 47, 53; ii. 64 Augustus, i. 30, 43-48, 69, 82, 89, 90, 184, 219, 251, 252, 254, 270; ii. 64, 75, 95, 102, 291 Aurelian, i. 177, 179, 180; ii. 150 Avalos, Francesco, d', i. 174, 175 Aventine, the, i. 23, 76; ii. 10, 40, 85, 119-121, 124, 125, 126, 127, 129, 132, 302 Avignon, i. 167, 273, 277; ii. 6, 9 B Bacchanalia, ii. 122 Bacchic worship, i. 76; ii. 120 Bajazet the Second, Sultan, i. 276 Baracconi, i. 104, 141, 178, 188, 252, 264, 274, 304; ii. 41, 45, 128, 130, 138, 323 Barberi, i. 202 Barberini, the, i. 157, 187, 226, 268, 301; ii. 7 Barbo, i. 202; ii. 45 Barcelona, i. 308 Bargello, the, i. 129, 293, 296; ii. 42 Basil and Constantine, ii. 33 Basilica (Pagan)-- Julia, i. 66, 71, 106; ii. 92 Basilicas (Christian) of-- Constantine, i. 90; ii. 292, 297 Liberius, i. 138 Philip and Saint James, i. 170 Saint John Lateran, i. 107, 112, 117, 278, 281 Santa Maria Maggiore, i. 107, 135, 139, 147, 148, 166, 208, 278; ii. 118 Santi Apostoli, i. 157, 170-172, 205, 241, 242; ii. 213 Sicininus, i. 134, 138 Baths, i. 91 of Agrippa, i. 271 of Caracalla, ii. 119 of Constantine, i. 144, 188 of Diocletian, i. 107, 129, 145-147, 149, 289, 292 of Novatus, i. 145 of Philippus, i. 145 of public, i. 144 of Severus Alexander, ii. 28 of Titus, i. 55, 107, 152 Befana, the, i. 298, 299, 300; ii. 25 Belisarius, i. 266, 267, 269 Benediction of 1846, the, i. 183 Benevento, Cola da, i. 219, 220 Bernard, ii. 77-80 Bernardi, Gianbattista, ii. 54 Bernini, i. 147, 301, 302, 303; ii. 24 Bibbiena, Cardinal, ii. 146, 285 Maria, ii. 146 Bismarck, ii. 224, 232, 236, 237 Boccaccio, i. 211, 213 Vineyard, the, i. 189 Bologna, i. 259; ii. 58 Borghese, the, i. 206, 226 Scipio, i. 187 Borgia, the, i. 209 Cæsar, i. 149, 151, 169, 213, 287; ii. 150, 171, 282, 283 Gandia, i. 149, 150, 151, 287 Lucrezia, i. 149, 177, 185, 287; ii. 129, 151, 174 Rodrigo, i. 287; ii. 242, 265, 282 Vanozza, i. 149, 151, 287 Borgo, the Region, i. 101, 127; ii. 132, 147, 202-214, 269 Borromini, i. 301, 302; ii. 24 Botticelli, ii. 188, 190, 195, 200, 276 Bracci, ii. 318 Bracciano, i. 282, 291, 292, 294 Duke of, i. 289 Bramante, i. 305; ii. 144, 145, 274, 298, 322 Brescia, i. 286 Bridge. See _Ponte_ Ælian, the, i. 274 Cestian, ii. 105 Fabrician, ii. 105 Sublician, i. 6, 23, 67; ii. 127, 294 Brotherhood of Saint John Beheaded, ii. 129, 131 Brothers of Prayer and Death, i. 123, 204, 242 Brunelli, ii. 244 Brutus, i. 6, 12, 18, 41, 58, 80; ii. 96 Buffalmacco, ii. 196 Bull-fights, i. 252 Burgundians, i. 251 C Cæsar, Julius, i. 29-33, 35-41, 250; ii. 102, 224, 297 Cæsars, the, i. 44-46, 125, 249, 252, 253; ii. 224 Julian, i. 252 Palaces of, i. 4, 191; ii. 95 Caetani, i. 51, 115, 159, 161, 163, 206, 277 Benedict, i. 160 Caligula, i. 46, 252; ii. 96 Campagna, the, i. 92, 94, 158, 237, 243, 253, 282, 312; ii. 88, 107, 120 Campitelli, the Region, i. 101; ii. 64 Campo-- dei Fiori, i. 297 Marzo (Campus Martius), i. 65, 112, 271 the Region, i. 101, 248, 250, 275; ii. 6, 44 Vaccino, i. 128-131, 173 Canale, Carle, i. 287 Cancelleria, i, 102, 305, 312, 315, 316; ii. 223 Canidia, i. 64; ii. 293 Canossa, i. 126; ii. 307 Canova, ii. 320 Capet, Hugh, ii. 29 Capitol, the, i. 8, 14, 24, 29, 72, 107, 112, 167, 190, 204, 278, 282; ii. 12, 13, 21, 22, 52, 64, 65, 67-75, 84, 121, 148, 302 Capitoline hill, i. 106, 194 Captains of the Regions, i. 110, 112, 114 Election of, i. 112 Caracci, the, i. 264 Carafa, the, ii. 46, 49, 50, 56, 111 Cardinal, i. 186, 188; ii. 56, 204 Carnival, i. 107, 193-203, 241, 298; ii. 113 of Saturn, i. 194 Carpineto, ii. 229, 230, 232, 239, 287 Carthage, i. 20, 26, 88 Castagno, Andrea, ii. 89, 185 Castle of-- Grottaferrata, i. 314 Petrella, i. 286 the Piccolomini, i. 268 Sant' Angelo, i. 114, 116, 120, 126, 127, 128, 129, 259, 278, 284, 308, 314; ii. 17, 28, 37, 40, 56, 59, 60, 109, 152, 202-214, 216, 269 Castracane, Castruccio, i. 165, 166, 170 Catacombs, the, i. 139 of Saint Petronilla, ii. 125 Sebastian, ii. 296 Catanei, Vanossa de, i. 287 Catharine, Queen of Cyprus, ii. 305 Cathedral of Siena, i. 232 Catiline, i. 27; ii. 96, 294 Cato, ii. 121 Catullus, i. 86 Cavour, Count, ii. 90, 224, 228, 237 Cellini, Benvenuto, i. 311, 315; ii. 157, 195 Cenci, the, ii. 1 Beatrice, i. 147, 285-287; ii. 2, 129, 151 Francesco, i. 285; ii. 2 Centra Pio, ii. 238, 239 Ceri, Renzo da, i. 310 Cesarini, Giuliano, i. 174; ii. 54, 89 Chapel, Sixtine. See under _Vatican_ Charlemagne, i. 32, 49, 51, 53, 76, 109; ii. 297 Charles of Anjou, i. ii. 160 Albert of Sardinia, ii. 221 the Fifth, i. 131, 174, 206, 220, 305, 306; ii. 138 Chiesa. See _Church_ Nuova, i. 275 Chigi, the, i. 258 Agostino, ii. 144, 146 Fabio, ii. 146 Christianity in Rome, i. 176 Christina, Queen of Sweden, ii. 150, 151, 304, 308 Chrysostom, ii. 104, 105 Churches of,-- the Apostles, i. 157, 170-172, 205, 241, 242; ii. 213 Aracoeli, i. 52, 112, 167; ii. 57, 70, 75 Cardinal Mazarin, i. 186 the Gallows, i. 284 Holy Guardian Angel, i. 122 the Minerva, ii. 55 the Penitentiaries, ii. 216 the Portuguese, i. 250 Saint Adrian, i. 71 Agnes, i. 301, 304 Augustine, ii. 207 Bernard, i. 291 Callixtus, ii. 125 Charles, i. 251 Eustace, ii. 23, 24, 26, 39 George in Velabro, i. 195; ii. 10 Gregory on the Aventine, ii. 129 Ives, i. 251; ii. 23, 24 John of the Florentines, i. 273 Pine Cone, ii. 56 Peter's on the Janiculum, ii. 129 Sylvester, i. 176 Saints Nereus and Achillæus, ii. 125 Vincent and Anastasius, i. 186 San Clemente, i. 143 Giovanni in Laterano, i. 113 Lorenzo in Lucina, i. 192 Miranda, i. 71 Marcello, i. 165, 192 Pietro in Montorio, ii. 151 Vincoli, i. 118, 283; ii. 322 Salvatore in Cacaberis, i. 112 Stefano Rotondo, i. 106 Sant' Angelo in Pescheria, i. 102; ii. 3, 10, 110 Santa Francesca Romana, i. 111 Maria de Crociferi, i. 267 degli Angeli, i. 146, 258, 259 dei Monti, i. 118 del Pianto, i. 113 di Grotto Pinta, i. 294 in Campo Marzo, ii. 23 in Via Lata, i. 142 Nuova, i. 111, 273 Transpontina, ii. 212 della Vittoria, i. 302 Prisca, ii. 124 Sabina, i. 278; ii. 40 Trinità dei Pellegrini, ii. 110 Cicero, i. 45, 73; ii. 96, 294 Cimabue, ii. 156, 157, 162, 163, 169, 188, 189 Cinna, i. 25, 27 Circolo, ii. 245 Circus, the, i. 64, 253 Maximus, i. 64, 66; ii. 84, 119 City of Augustus, i. 57-77 Making of the, i. 1-21 of Rienzi, i. 93; ii. 6-8 of the Empire, i. 22-56 of the Middle Age, i. 47, 78-99, 92 of the Republic, i. 47 today, i. 55, 92 Civilization, ii. 177 and bloodshed, ii. 218 morality, ii. 178 progress, ii. 177-180 Claudius, i. 46, 255, 256; ii. 102 Cloelia, i. 13 Coelian hill, i. 106 Collegio Romano, i. 102; ii. 45, 61 Colonna, the, i. 51, 94, 104, 135, 153, 157-170, 172, 176, 187, 206, 217, 251, 252, 271, 272, 275-283, 306-315; ii. 2, 6, 8, 10, 16, 20, 37, 51, 54, 60, 106, 107, 126, 204 Giovanni, i. 104 Jacopo, i. 159, 165, 192 Lorenzo, ii. 126, 204-213 Marcantonio, i. 182; ii. 54 Pietro, i. 159 Pompeo, i. 305, 310-317; ii. 205 Prospero, ii. 205 Sciarra, i. 162-166, 192, 206, 213, 229, 275,279, 281, 307 Stephen, i. 161, 165; ii. 13, 16 the Younger, i. 168 Vittoria, i. 157, 173-177; ii. 174 the Region, i. 101, 190-192; ii. 209 War between Orsini and, i. 51, 104, 159, 168, 182, 275-283, 306-315; ii. 12, 18, 126, 204-211 Colosseum, i. 56, 86, 90, 96, 106, 107, 111, 125, 152, 153, 187, 191, 209, 278; ii. 25, 64, 66, 84, 97, 202, 203, 301 Column of Piazza Colonna, i. 190, 192 Comitium, i. 112, 257, 268 Commodus, i. 46, 55; ii. 97, 285 Confraternities, i. 108, 204 Conscript Fathers, i. 78, 112 Constable of Bourbon, i. 52, 259, 273, 304, 309-311; ii. 308 Constans, i, 135, 136 Constantine, i. 90, 113, 163 Constantinople, i. 95, 119 Contests in the Forum, i. 27, 130 Convent of Saint Catharine, i. 176 Convent of Saint Sylvester, i. 176 Corneto, Cardinal of, ii. 282, 283 Cornomania, i. 141 Cornutis, i. 87 Coromania, i. 141, 144 Corsini, the, ii. 150 Corso, i. 96, 106, 108, 192, 196, 205, 206, 229, 251 Vittorio Emanuele, i. 275 Corte Savella, i. 284; ii. 52 Cosmas, the, ii. 156, 157 Costa, Giovanni da, i. 205 Court House, i. 71 Crassus, i. 27, 31; ii. 128 Crawford, Thomas, i. 147 Crescentius, ii. 40, 41 Crescenzi, i. 114; ii. 27, 40, 209 Crescenzio, ii. 28-40 Stefana, ii. 39 Crispi, i. 116, 187 Crusade, the Second, ii. 86, 105 Crusades, the, i. 76 Curatii, i. 3, 131 Customs of early Rome, i. 9, 48 in dress, i. 48 religion, i. 48 D Dante, i. 110; ii. 164, 175, 244 Decameron, i. 239 Decemvirs, i. 14; ii. 120 Decrees, Semiamiran, i. 178 Democracy, i. 108 Development of Rome, i. 7, 18 some results of, i. 154 under Barons, i. 51 Decemvirs, i. 14 the Empire, i. 29, 30 Gallic invasion, i. 15-18 Kings, i. 2-7, 14-45 Middle Age, i. 47, 92, 210-247 Papal rule, i. 46-50 Republic, i. 7-14 Tribunes, i. 14 Dictator of Rome, i. 29, 79 Dietrich of Bern, ii. 297 Dionysus, ii. 121 Dolabella, i. 34 Domenichino, ii. 147 Domestic life in Rome, i. 9 Dominicans, i. 158; ii. 45, 46, 49, 50, 60, 61 Domitian, i. 45, 152, 205; ii. 104, 114, 124, 295 Doria, the, i. 206; ii. 45 Albert, i. 207 Andrea, i. 207 Conrad, i. 207 Gian Andrea, i. 207 Lamba, i. 207 Paganino, i. 207 Doria-Pamfili, i. 206-209 Dress in early Rome, i. 48 Drusus, ii. 102 Duca, Antonio del, i. 146, 147 Giacomo del, i. 146 Dürer, Albert, ii. 198 E Education, ii. 179 Egnatia, i. 75 Elagabalus, i. 77, 177, 179; ii. 296, 297 Election of the Pope, ii. 41, 42, 277 Electoral Wards, i. 107 Elizabeth, Queen of England, ii. 47 Emperors, Roman, i. 46 of the East, i. 95, 126 Empire of Constantinople, i. 46 of Rome, i. 15, 17, 22-28, 31, 45, 47, 53, 60, 72, 99 Encyclicals, ii. 244 Erasmus, ii. 151 Esquiline, the, i. 26, 106, 139, 186; ii. 95, 131, 193 Este, Ippolito d', i. 185 Etruria, i. 12, 15 Euodus, i. 255, 256 Eustace, Saint, ii. 24, 25 square of, ii. 25, 42 Eustachio. See _Sant' Eustachio_ Eutichianus, ii. 296 Eve of Saint John, i. 140 the Epiphany, 299 F Fabius, i. 20 Fabatosta, ii. 64, 84 Farnese, the, ii. 151 Julia, ii. 324 Farnesina, the, ii. 144, 149, 151 Fathers, Roman, i. 13, 78, 79-84 Ferdinand, ii. 205 Ferrara, Duke of, i. 185 Festivals, i. 193, 298 Aryan in origin, i. 173 Befana, i. 299-301 Carnival, i. 193-203 Church of the Apostle, i. 172, 173 Coromania, i. 141 Epifania, i. 298-301 Floralia, i. 141 Lupercalia, i. 194 May-day in the Campo Vaccino, i. 173 Saturnalia, i. 194 Saint John's Eve, i. 140 Festus, ii. 128 Feuds, family, i. 168 Field of Mars. See _Campo Marzo_ Finiguerra, Maso, ii. 186-188 Flamen Dialis, i. 34 Floralia. See _Festivals_ Florence, i. 160 Forli, Melozzo da, i. 171 Fornarina, the, ii. 144, 146 Forum, i, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 17, 26, 27, 64, 72, 111, 126, 129, 194; ii. 64, 92-94, 97, 102, 294, 295 of Augustus, i. 119 Trajan, i. 155, 171, 172, 191 Fountains (Fontane) of-- Egeria, ii. 124 Trevi, i. 155, 156, 186, 267 Tullianum, i. 8 Franconia, Duke of, ii. 36, 53 Francis the First, i. 131, 174, 206, 219, 304 Frangipani, i. 50, 94, 153; ii. 77, 79, 84, 85 Frederick, Barbarossa, ii. 34, 85, 87 of Naples, i. 151 the Second, ii. 34 Fulvius, ii. 121 G Gabrini, Lawrence, ii. 4 Nicholas, i. 23, 93, 103, 168, 211, 281; ii. 3-23, 308 Gaeta, ii. 36 Galba, ii. 295 Galen, i. 55 Galera, i. 282, 291 Galileo, i. 268 Gardens, i. 93 Cæsar's, i. 66, 68 of Lucullus, i. 254, 270 of the Pigna, ii. 273 Pincian, i. 255 the Vatican, ii. 243, 271, 287 Gargonius, i. 65 Garibaldi, ii. 90, 219, 220, 228, 237 Gastaldi, Cardinal, i. 259 Gate. See _Porta_ the Colline, i. 250 Lateran, i. 126, 154 Septimian, ii. 144, 147 Gebhardt, Émile, i. 213 Gemonian Steps, ii. 67, 294 Genseric, i. 96; ii. 70 George of Franzburg, i. 310 Gherardesca, Ugolino della, ii. 160 Ghetto, i. 102; ii. 2, 101, 110-118 Ghibellines, the, i. 129, 153, 158; ii. 6 Ghiberti, ii. 157. Ghirlandajo, ii. 157, 172, 276 Giantism, i. 90-92, 210, 302 Gibbon, i. 160 Giotto, ii. 157, 160-165, 169, 188, 189, 200 Gladstone, ii. 231, 232 Golden Milestone, i. 72, 92, 194 Goldoni, i. 265 Goldsmithing, ii. 156, 157, 186, 187 "Good Estate" of Rienzi, ii. 10-12 Gordian, i. 91 Goths, ii. 297, 307. Gozzoli, Benozzo, ii. 190, 195 Gracchi, the, i. 22, 28 Caius, i. 23; ii. 84 Cornelia, i. 22, 24 Tiberius, i. 23; ii. 102 Gratidianus, i. 27 Guards, Noble, ii. 241, 243, 247, 248, 309, 310, 312 Palatine, ii. 247, 248 Swiss, ii. 246, 247, 310 Guelphs, i. 159; ii. 42, 126, 138 and Ghibellines, i. 129, 153, 275; ii. 160, 162, 173 Guiscard, Robert, i. 95, 126, 127, 129, 144, 252; ii. 70 H Hadrian, i. 90, 180; ii. 25, 202, 203 Hannibal, i. 20 Hasdrubal, i. 21 Henry the Second, ii. 47 Fourth, i. 126, 127; ii. 307 Fifth, ii. 307 Seventh of Luxemburg, i. 273, 276-279; ii. 5 Eighth, i. 219; ii. 47, 274 Hermann, i. 46 Hermes of Olympia, i. 86 Hermogenes, i. 67 Hilda's Tower, i. 250 Hildebrand, i. 52, 126-129; ii. Honorius, ii. 323, 324 Horace, i. 44, 57-75, 85, 87; ii. 293 and the Bore, i. 65-71 Camen Seculare of, i. 75 the Satires of, i. 73, 74 Horatii, i. 3, 131 Horatius, i. 5, 6, 13, 23; ii. 127 Horses of Monte Cavallo, i. 181 Hospice of San Claudio, i. 251 Hospital of-- Santo Spirito, i. 274; ii. 214, 215 House of Parliament, i. 271 Hugh of Burgundy, ii. 30 of Tuscany, ii. 30 Huns' invasion, i. 15, 49, 132 Huxley, ii. 225, 226 I Imperia, ii. 144 Infessura, Stephen, ii. 59, 60, 204-213 Inn of-- The Bear, i. 288 Falcone, ii. 26 Lion, i. 287 Vanossa, i. 288 Inquisition, i. 286; ii. 46, 49, 52, 53, 54 Interminelli, Castruccio degli, i. 165. Irene, Empress, i. 109 Ischia, i. 175 Island of Saint Bartholomew, i. 272; ii. 1 Isola Sacra, i. 93 Italian life during the Middle Age, i. 210, 247 from 17th to 18th centuries, i. 260, 263, 264 J Janiculum, the, i. 15, 253, 270; ii. 268, 293, 294, 295 Jesuit College, ii. 61 Jesuits, ii. 45, 46, 61-63 Jews, i. 96; ii. 101-119 John of Cappadocia, i. 267, 268 Josephus, ii. 103 Juba, i. 40 Jugurtha, i. 25 Jupiter Capitolinus, ii. 324, 325 priest of, i. 80, 133 Justinian, i. 267 Juvenal, i. 112; ii. 105, 107, 124 K Kings of Rome, i. 2-7 L Lampridius, Ælius, i. 178 Lanciani, i. 79, 177 Lateran, the, i. 106, 112-114, 129, 140-142 Count of, i. 166 Latin language, i. 47 Latini Brunetto, ii. 163 Laurentum, i. 55, 93 Lazaret of Saint Martha, ii. 245 League, Holy, i. 305, 306, 313, 314 Lentulus, ii. 128 Lepida, Domitia, i. 255, 256 Letus, Pomponius, i. 139; ii. 210 Lewis of Bavaria, i. 165, 167, 192, 275 the Seventh, ii. 86, 105 Eleventh, i. 104, 151 Fourteenth, i. 253 Library of-- Collegio Romano, ii. 45 Vatican, ii. 275, 276, 282 Victor Emmanuel, ii. 45, 61 Lieges, Bishop of, i. 280 Lincoln, Abraham, ii. 231, 236 Lippi, Filippo, ii. 190, 191, 192-195, 200 Liszt, i. 185, 203; ii. 176 Livia, i. 220, 252 Livy, i. 44, 47 Lombards, the, i. 251 Lombardy, i. 309 Lorrain, i. 264 Loyola, Ignatius, ii. 46, 62 Lucilius, i. 74 Lucretia, i. 5, 12, 13 Lucullus, i. 257, 270 Lupercalia, i. 194 Lupercus, i. 194 M Macchiavelli, ii. 174 Mæcenas, i. 62, 69, 74, 140; ii. 293 Mænads, ii. 122 Maldachini, Olimpia, i. 304, 305 Mamertine Prison, i. 25, ii. 72, 293 Mancini, Maria, i. 170, 187 Mancino, Paul, ii. 210 Manlius, Cnæus, ii. 121 Marcus, i. 29; ii. 71, 84 Titus, i. 80 Mantegna, Andrea, ii. 157, 169, 188, 196-198 Marcomanni, i. 190 Marforio, i. 305 Marino, i. 174 Marius, Caius, i. 25, 29 Marius and Sylla, i. 25, 29, 36, 45, 53; ii. 69 Mark Antony, i. 30, 93, 195, 254 Marozia, ii. 27, 28 Marriage Laws, i. 79, 80 Mary, Queen of Scots, ii. 47 Masaccio, ii. 190 Massimi, Pietro de', i. 317 Massimo, i. 102, 317 Mattei, the, ii. 137, 139, 140, 143 Alessandro, ii. 140-143 Curzio, ii. 140-143 Girolamo, ii. 141-143 Marcantonio, ii. 140, 141 Olimpia, ii. 141, 142 Piero, ii. 140, 141 Matilda, Countess, ii. 307 Mausoleum of-- Augustus, i. 158, 169, 205, 251, 252, 270, 271 Hadrian, i. 102, 252; ii. 28, 202, 270. See _Castle of Sant' Angelo_ Maximilian, i. 151 Mazarin, i. 170, 187 Mazzini, ii. 219, 220 Mediævalism, death of, ii. 225 Medici, the, i. 110; ii. 276 Cosimo de', i. 289; ii. 194 Isabella de', i. 290, 291 John de', i. 313 Messalina, i. 254, 272; ii. 255, 256, 257 Michelangelo, i. 90, 146, 147, 173, 175, 177, 302, 303, 315; ii. 129, 130, 157, 159, 166, 169, 171, 172, 175, 188, 200, 276-281, 284, 317-319, 322 "Last Judgment" by, i. 173; ii. 171, 276, 280, 315 "Moses" by, ii. 278, 286 "Pietà" by, ii. 286 Middle Age, the, i. 47, 92, 210-247, 274; ii. 163, 166, 172-175, 180, 196 Migliorati, Ludovico, i. 103 Milan, i. 175 Duke of, i. 306 Milestone, golden, i. 72 Mithræum, i. 271 Mithras, i. 76 Mithridates, i. 26, 30, 37, 358 Mocenni, Mario, ii. 249 Monaldeschi, ii. 308 Monastery of-- the Apostles, i. 182 Dominicans, ii. 45, 61 Grottaferrata, ii. 37 Saint Anastasia, ii. 38 Gregory, ii. 85 Sant' Onofrio, ii. 147 Moncada, Ugo de, i. 307, 308 Mons Vaticanus, ii. 268 Montaigne, i. 288 Montalto. See _Felice Peretti_ Monte Briano, i. 274 Cavallo, i. 181, 188, 292, 293; ii. 205, 209 Citorio, i. 193, 252, 271 Giordano, i. 274, 281, 282, 288; ii. 206 Mario, i. 313; ii. 268 Montefeltro, Guido da, ii. 160 Monti-- the Region, i. 101, 106, 107, 111, 112, 125, 133, 134, 144, 150, 185, 305; ii. 133, 209 and Trastevere, i. 129, 145, 153; ii. 133, 209 by moonlight, i. 117 Morrone, Pietro da, i. 159 Muratori, i. 85, 132, 159, 277; ii. 40, 48, 76, 126, 324 Museums of Rome, i. 66 Vatican, ii. 272, 273, 283, 286, 287 Villa Borghese, i. 301 Mustafa, ii. 247 N Naples, i. 175, 182, 307, 308 Napoleon, i. 32, 34, 53, 88, 109, 258; ii. 218, 221, 298 Louis, ii. 221, 223, 237 Narcissus, i. 255 Navicella, i. 106 Nelson, i. 253 Neri, Saint Philip, i. 318 Nero, i. 46, 56, 188, 254, 257, 285; ii. 163, 211, 291 Nilus, Saint, ii. 36, 37, 40 Nogaret, i. 162, 164 Northmen, i. 46, 49 Numa, i. 3; ii. 268 Nunnery of the Sacred Heart, i. 256 O Octavius, i. 27, 30, 43, 89; ii. 291 Odoacer, i. 47; ii. 297 Olanda, Francesco d', i. 176 Oliviero, Cardinal Carafa, i. 186, 188 Olympius, i. 136, 137, 138 Opimius, i. 24 Orgies of Bacchus, i. 76; ii. 120 Orgies of the Mænads, ii. 121 on the Aventine, i. 76; ii. 121 Orsini, the, i. 94, 149, 153, 159, 167-169, 183, 216, 217, 271, 274, 306-314; ii. 16, 126, 138, 204 Bertoldo, i. 168 Camillo, i. 311 Isabella, i. 291 Ludovico, i. 295 Matteo, i. 281 Napoleon, i. 161 Orsino, i. 166 Paolo Giordano, i. 283, 290-295 Porzia, i. 187 Troilo, i. 290, 291 Virginio, i. 295 war between Colonna and, i. 51, 104, 159, 168, 182, 275-283, 306-315; ii. 18, 126, 204 Orsino, Deacon, i. 134, 135 Orvieto, i. 314 Otho, ii. 295 the Second, ii. 304 Otto, the Great, i. 114; ii. 28, 30 Second, ii. 28 Third, ii. 29-37 Ovid, i. 44, 63 P Painting, ii. 181 in fresco, ii. 181-183 oil, ii. 184-186 Palace (Palazzo)-- Annii, i. 113 Barberini, i. 106, 187 Borromeo, ii. 61 Braschi, i. 305 Cæsars, i. 4, 191; ii. 64 Colonna, i. 169, 189; ii. 205 Consulta, i. 181 Corsini, ii. 149, 308 Doria, i. 207, 226 Pamfili, i. 206, 208 Farnese, i. 102 Fiano, i. 205 della Finanze, i. 91 Gabrielli, i. 216 the Lateran, i. 127; ii. 30 Massimo alle Colonna, i. 316, 317 Mattei, ii. 140 Mazarini, i. 187 of Nero, i. 152 della Pilotta, i. 158 Priori, i. 160 Quirinale, i. 139, 181, 185, 186, 188, 189, 304 of the Renascence, i. 205 Rospigliosi, i. 181, 187, 188, 189 Ruspoli, i. 206 Santacroce, i. 237; ii. 23 of the Senator, i. 114 Serristori, ii. 214, 216 Theodoli, i. 169 di Venezia, i. 102, 192, 202 Palatine, the, i. 2, 13, 67, 69, 194, 195; ii. 64, 119 Palermo, i. 146 Palestrina, i. 156, 157, 158, 161, 165, 166, 243, 282; ii. 13, 315 Paliano, i. 282 Duke of, i. 157, 189 Palladium, i. 77 Pallavicini, i. 206, 258 Palmaria, i. 267 Pamfili, the, i. 206 Pannartz, i. 317 Pantheon, i. 90, 102, 195, 271, 278; ii. 44, 45, 146 Parione, the Region, i. 101, 297, 312, 317; ii. 42 Square of, ii. 42 Pasquino, the, i. 186, 305, 317 Passavant, ii. 285 Passeri, Bernardino, i. 313; ii. 308 Patarina, i. 107, 202 Patriarchal System, i. 223-228 Pavia, i. 175 Pecci, the, ii. 229 Joachim Vincent, ii. 229, 230. Peretti, the, i. 205 Felice, i. 149, 289-295 Francesco, i. 149, 289, 292 Vittoria. See _Accoramboni_ Perugia, i. 159, 276, 277 Perugino, ii. 157, 260, 276 Pescara, i. 174 Peter the Prefect, i. 114; ii. 230. Petrarch, i. 161 Petrella, i. 286 Philip the Fair, i. 160, 276, 278 Second of Spain, ii. 47 Phocas, column of, ii. 93 Piazza-- Barberini, i. 155 della Berlina Vecchia, i. 283 Chiesa Nuova, i. 155 del Colonna, i. 119, 190 Gesù, ii. 45 della Minerva, ii. 45 Moroni, i. 250 Navona, i. 102, 297, 298, 302, 303, 305; ii. 25, 46, 57 Pigna, ii. 55 of the Pantheon, i. 193; ii. 26 Pilotta, i. 158 del Popolo, i. 144, 206, 259, 273 Quirinale, i. 181 Romana, ii. 136 Sant' Eustachio, ii. 25 San Lorenzo in Lucina, i. 192, 205, 250 Saint Peter's, ii. 251, 309 di Sciarra, i. 192 Spagna, i. 251; ii. 42 delle Terme, i. 144 di Termini, i. 144 Venezia, i. 206 Pierleoni, the, ii. 77, 79, 82, 101, 105, 106, 109, 114 Pigna, ii. 45 the Region, i. 101, 102; ii. 44 Pilgrimages, ii. 245 Pincian (hill), i. 119, 270, 272 Pincio, the, i. 121, 189, 223, 253, 255, 256, 259, 264, 272 Pintelli, Baccio, ii. 278, 279 Pinturicchio, ii. 147 Pliny, the Younger, i. 85, 87 Pompey, i. 30 Pons Æmilius, i. 67 Cestius, ii. 102, 105 Fabricius, ii. 105 Triumphalis, i. 102, 274 Ponte. See also _Bridge_ Garibaldi, ii. 138 Rotto, i. 67 Sant' Angelo, i. 274, 283, 284, 287; ii. 42, 55, 270 Sisto, i. 307, 311; ii. 136 the Region, i. 274, 275 Pontifex Maximus, i. 39, 48 Pontiff, origin of title, ii. 127 Pope-- Adrian the Fourth, ii. 87 Alexander the Sixth, i. 258; ii. 269, 282 Seventh, i. 259 Anastasius, ii. 88 Benedict the Sixth, ii. 28-30 Fourteenth, i. 186 Boniface the Eighth, i. 159, 160, 167, 213, 280, 306; ii. 304 Celestin the First, i. 164 Second, ii. 83 Clement the Fifth, i. 275, 276 Sixth, ii. 9, 17-19 Seventh, i. 306, 307, 310, 313, 314; ii. 308 Eighth, i. 286 Ninth, i. 187; ii. 110 Eleventh, i. 171 Thirteenth, ii. 320 Damascus, i. 133, 135, 136 Eugenius the Third, ii. 85 Fourth, ii. 7, 56 Ghisleri, ii. 52, 53 Gregory the Fifth, ii. 32-37 Seventh, i. 52, 126; ii. 307 Thirteenth, i. 183, 293 Sixteenth, i. 305; ii. 221, 223 Honorius the Third, ii. 126 Fourth, ii. 126 Innocent the Second, ii. 77, 79, 82, 105 Third, i. 153; ii. 6 Sixth, ii. 19 Eighth, i. 275 Tenth, i. 206, 209, 302, 303 Joan, i. 143 John the Twelfth, ii. 282 Thirteenth, i. 113 Fifteenth, ii. 29 Twenty-third, ii. 269 Julius the Second, i. 208, 258; ii. 276, 298, 304 Leo the Third, i. 109; ii. 146, 297 Fourth, ii. 242 Tenth, i. 304; ii. 276, 304 Twelfth, i. 202; ii. 111 Thirteenth, i. 77; ii. 218-267, 282, 287, 308, 312, 313 Liberius, i. 138 Lucius the Second, ii. 84, 85 Martin the First, i. 136 Nicholas the Fourth, i. 159, 274 Fifth, i. 52; ii. 58, 268, 269, 298, 304 Paschal the Second, i. 258; ii. 307 Paul the Second, i. 202, 205 Third, i. 219; ii. 41, 130, 304, 323, 324 Fourth, ii. 46, 47, 48-51, 111, 112 Fifth, ii. 289 Pelagius the First, i. 170, 171; ii. 307 Pius the Fourth, i. 147, 305 Sixth, i. 181, 182 Seventh, i. 53; ii. 221 Ninth, i. 76, 183, 315; ii. 66, 110, 111, 216, 221-225, 252, 253, 255, 257, 258, 265, 298, 308, 311 Silverius, i. 266 Sixtus the Fourth, i. 258, 275; ii. 127, 204-213, 274, 278, 321 Fifth, i. 52, 139, 149, 181, 184, 186, 205, 283; ii. 43, 157, 241, 304, 323 Sylvester, i. 113; ii. 297, 298 Symmachus, ii. 44 Urban the Second, i. 52 Sixth, ii. 322, 323 Eighth, i. 181, 187, 268, 301; ii. 132, 203, 298 Vigilius, ii. 307 Popes, the, i. 125, 142, 273 at Avignon, i. 167, 273, 277; ii. 9 among sovereigns, ii. 228 election of, ii. 41, 42 hatred for, ii. 262-264 temporal power of, i. 168; ii. 255-259 Poppæa, i. 103 Porcari, the, ii. 56 Stephen, ii. 56-60, 204 Porsena of Clusium, i. 5, 6, 12 Porta. See also _Gate_-- Angelica, i. 120 Maggiore, i. 107 Metronia, i. 106 Mugonia, i. 10 Pia, i. 107, 147, 152; ii. 224 Pinciana, i. 193, 250, 264, 266, 269 del Popolo, i. 272, 299 Portese, ii. 132 Salaria, i, 106, 107, 193 San Giovanni, i. 107, 120 Lorenzo, i. 107 Sebastiano, ii. 119, 125 Spirito, i. 311; ii. 132, 152 Tiburtina, i. 107 Portico of Neptune, i. 271 Octavia, ii. 3, 105 Poussin, Nicholas, i. 264 Præneste, i. 156 Prætextatus, i. 134 Prefect of Rome, i. 103, 114, 134 Presepi, ii. 139 Prince of Wales, i. 203 Prior of the Regions, i. 112, 114 Processions of-- the Brotherhood of Saint John, ii. 130 Captains of Regions, i. 112 Coromania, i. 141 Coronation of Lewis of Bavaria, i. 166, 167 Ides of May, ii. 127-129 the Triumph of Aurelian, i. 179 Progress and civilization, i. 262; ii. 177-180 romance, i. 154 Prosper of Cicigliano, ii. 213 Q Quæstor, i. 58 Quirinal, the (hill), i. 106, 119, 158, 182, 184, 186, 187; ii. 205 R Rabble, Roman, i. 115, 128, 132, 153, 281; ii. 131 Race course of Domitian, i. 270, 297 Races, Carnival, i. 108, 202, 203 Raimondi, ii. 315 Rampolla, ii. 239, 249, 250 Raphael, i. 260, 315; ii. 159, 169, 175, 188, 200, 281, 285, 322 in Trastevere, ii. 144-147 the "Transfiguration" by, ii. 146, 281 Ravenna, i. 175 Regions (Rioni), i. 100-105, 110-114, 166 Captains of, i. 110 devices of, i. 100 fighting ground of, i. 129 Prior, i. 112, 114 rivalry of, i. 108, 110, 125 Regola, the Region, i. 101, 168; ii. 1-3 Regulus, i. 20 Religion, i. 48, 50, 75 Religious epochs in Roman history, i. 76 Renascence in Italy, i. 52, 77, 84, 98, 99, 188, 237, 240, 250, 258, 261, 262, 303; ii. 152-201, 280 art of, i. 231 frescoes of, i. 232 highest development of, i. 303, 315 leaders of, ii. 152, 157-159 manifestation of, ii. 197 palaces of, i. 205, 216 represented in "The Last Judgment," ii. 280 results of development of, ii. 199 Reni, Guido, i. 264; ii. 317 Republic, the, i. 6, 12, 15, 53, 110; ii. 291 and Arnold of Brescia, ii. 86 Porcari, ii. 56-60 Rienzi, i. 93; ii. 6-8 modern ideas of, ii. 219 Revolts in Rome-- against the nobles, ii. 73 of the army, i. 25 of Arnold of Brescia, ii. 73-89 Marius and Sylla, i. 25 Porcari, ii. 56-60 Rienzi, i. 93; ii. 6-8, 73 slaves, i. 24 Stefaneschi, i. 281-283; ii. 219-222 Revolutionary idea, the, ii. 219-222 Riario, the, ii. 149, 150, 151 Jerome, ii. 205 Rienzi, Nicholas, i. 23, 93, 103, 168, 211, 281; ii. 3-23, 308 Rioni. See _Regions_ Ripa, the Region, i. 101; ii. 118 Ripa Grande, ii. 127 Ripetta, ii. 52 Ristori, Mme., i. 169 Robert of Naples, i. 278 Rotfredo, Count, i. 114, 115 Rome-- a day in mediæval, i. 241-247 Bishop of, i. 133 charm of, i. 54, 98, 318 ecclesiastic, i. 124 lay, i. 124 a modern Capital, i. 123, 124 foundation of, i. 2 of the Augustan Age, i. 60-62 Barons, i. 50, 84, 104, 229-247; ii. 75 Cæsars, i. 84 Empire, i. 15, 17, 28, 31, 45, 47, 53. 60, 99 Kings, i. 2-7, 10, 11 Middle Age, i. 110, 210-247, 274; ii. 172-175 Napoleonic era, i. 229 Popes, i. 50, 77, 84, 104 Republic, i. 6, 12, 16, 53, 110 Rienzi, i. 93; ii. 6-8 today, i. 55 sack of, by Constable of Bourbon, i. 259, 273, 309-315 sack of, by Gauls, i. 15, 49, 252 Guiscard, i. 95, 126-129, 252 seen from dome of Saint Peter's, ii. 302 under Tribunes, i. 14 Decemvirs, i. 14 Dictator, i. 28 Romulus, i. 2, 5, 30, 78, 228 Rospigliosi, i. 206 Rossi, Pellegrino, i. 316 Count, ii. 223 Rostra, i. 27; ii. 93 Julia, i. 68; ii. 93 Rota, ii. 215 Rovere, the, i. 258; ii. 276, 279, 321 Rudini, i. 187 Rudolph of Hapsburg, i. 161 Rufillus, i. 65 S Sacchi, Bartolommeo, i. 139, 147 Saint Peter's Church, i. 166, 278; ii. 202, 212, 243, 246, 268, 289, 294, 295, 326 altar of, i. 96 architects of, ii. 304 bronze doors of, ii. 299, 300 builders of, ii. 304 Chapel of the Choir, ii. 310, 313, 314 Chapel of the Sacrament, ii. 274, 306, 308, 310, 312, 313 Choir of, ii. 313-316 Colonna Santa, ii. 319 dome of, i. 96; ii. 302 Piazza of, ii. 251 Sacristy of, i. 171 Salvini, i. 169, 252 Giorgio, i. 313 Santacroce Paolo, i. 286 Sant' Angelo the Region, i. 101; ii. 101 Santorio, Cardinal, i. 208 San Vito, i. 282 Saracens, i. 128, 144 Sarto, Andrea del, ii. 157, 169 Saturnalia, i. 125, 194, 195 Saturninus, i. 25 Satyricon, the, i. 85 Savelli, the, i. 284; ii. 1, 16, 126, 206 John Philip, ii. 207-210 Savonarola, i. 110 Savoy, house of, i. 110; ii. 219, 220, 224 Scævola, i. 13 Schweinheim, i. 317 Scipio, Cornelius, i. 20 of Africa, i. 20, 22, 29, 59, 76; ii. 121 Asia, i. 21; ii. 120 Scotus, i. 182 See, Holy, i. 159, 168; ii. 264-267, 277, 294 Segni, Monseignor, i. 304 Sejanuo, ii. 294 Semiamira, i. 178 Senate, Roman, i. 167, 168, 257 the Little, i. 177, 180 Senators, i. 78, 112, 167 Servius, i. 5, 15 Severus-- Arch of, ii. 92 Septizonium of, i. 96, 127 Sforza, i. 13; ii. 89 Catharine, i. 177; ii. 150 Francesco, i. 306 Siena, i. 232, 268; ii. 229 Signorelli, ii. 277 Slaves, i. 81, 24 Sosii Brothers, i. 72, 73 Spencer, Herbert, ii. 225, 226 Stefaneschi, Giovanni degli, i. 103, 282 Stilicho, ii. 323 Stradella, Alessandro, ii. 315 Streets. See _Via_ Subiaco, i. 282 Suburra, i. 39; ii. 95 Suetonius, i. 43 Sylla, ii. 25-29, 36-42 T Tacitus, i. 46, 254; ii. 103 Tarentum, i. 18, 19 Tarpeia, i. 29; ii. 68, 69 Tarpeian Rock, ii. 67 Tarquins, the, i. 6, 11, 12, 80, 248, 249, 269; ii. 69 Sextus, i. 5, 11 Tasso, i. 188, 189; ii. 147-149 Bernardo, i. 188 Tatius, i. 68, 69 Tempietto, the, i. 264 Temple of-- Castor, i. 27 Castor and Pollux, i. 68; ii. 92, 94 Ceres, ii. 119 Concord, i. 24; ii. 92 Flora, i. 155 Hercules, ii. 40 Isis and Serapis, i. 271 Julius Cæsar, i. 72 Minerva, i. 96 Saturn, i. 194, 201; ii. 94 the Sun, i. 177, 179, 180, 271 Venus and Rome, i. 110 Venus Victorius, i. 270 Vesta, i. 68 Tenebræ, i. 117 Tetricius, i. 179 Theatre of-- Apollo, i. 286 Balbus, ii. 1 Marcellus, ii. 1, 101, 105, 106, 119 Pompey, i. 103, 153 Thedoric of Verona, ii. 297 Theodoli, the, i. 258 Theodora Senatrix, i. 158, 266, 267; ii. 27-29, 203, 282 Tiber, i. 23, 27, 66, 93, 94, 151, 158, 168, 189, 237, 248, 249, 254, 269, 272, 288 Tiberius, i. 254, 287; ii. 102 Titian, i. 315; ii. 165, 166, 175, 188, 278 Titus, i. 56, 86; ii. 102, 295 Tivoli, i. 180, 185; ii. 76, 85 Torre (Tower)-- Anguillara, ii. 138, 139, 140 Borgia, ii. 269, 285 dei Conti, i. 118, 153 Milizie, i. 277 Millina, i. 274 di Nona, i. 274, 284, 287; ii. 52, 54, 72 Sanguigna, i. 274 Torrione, ii. 241, 242 Trajan, i. 85, 192; ii. 206 Trastevere, the Region, i. 101, 127, 129, 278, 307, 311; ii. 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 143, 151 Trevi, the Fountain, i. 155, 186 the Region, i. 155, 187; ii. 209 Tribunes, i. 14 Trinità de' Monti, i. 256, 264 dei Pellegrini, ii. 110 Triumph, the, of Aurelian, i. 179 Triumphal Road, i. 66, 69, 70, 71 Tullianum, i. 8 Tullus, i. 3 Domitius, i. 90 Tuscany, Duke of, ii. 30 Tusculum, i. 158 U Unity, of Italy, i. 53, 77, 123, 184; ii. 224 under Augustus, i. 184 Victor Emmanuel, i. 184 University, Gregorian, the, ii. 61 of the Sapienza, i. 251; ii. 24, 25 Urbino, Duke of, i. 208, 217 V Valens, i. 133 Valentinian, i. 133 Varus, i. 46 Vatican, the, i. 127, 128, 147, 165, 189, 278, 281, 307; ii. 44, 202, 207, 228, 243, 245, 249, 250, 252, 253, 269, 271 barracks of Swiss Guard, ii. 275 chapels in, Pauline, ii. Nicholas, ii. 285 Sixtine, ii. 246, 274, 275, 276, 278-281, 285 fields, i. 274 Court of the Belvedere, ii. 269 Saint Damasus, ii. 273 finances of, ii. 253 gardens of, ii. 243, 271, 287 of the Pigna, ii. 273 library, ii. 275, 276, 282 Borgia apartments of, ii. 282 Loggia of the Beatification, ii. 245 Raphael, ii. 273, 274, 276, 285 Maestro di Camera, ii. 239, 248, 250 museums of, ii. 272, 273, 283, 286, 287 picture galleries, ii. 273-284 Pontifical residence, ii. 249 private apartments, ii. 249 Sala Clementina, ii. 248 del Concistoro, ii. 246 Ducale, ii. 245, 247 Regia, ii. 246 throne room, ii. 247 Torre Borgia, ii. 269, 285 Veii, i. 16, 17 Velabrum, i. 67 Veneziano, Domenico, ii. 185 Venice, i. 193, 296, 306; ii. 35, 205 Vercingetorix, ii. 294 Vespasian, i. 46, 56; ii. 295 Vespignani, ii. 241, 242 Vesta, i. 57 temple of, i. 71, 77 Vestals, i. 77, 80, 133, 152; ii. 99 house of, i. 69 Via-- della Angelo Custode, i. 122 Appia, i. 22, 94 Arenula, ii. 45 Borgognona, i. 251 Campo Marzo, i. 150 di Caravita, ii. 45 del Corso, i. 155, 158, 192, 193, 251; ii. 45 della Dateria, i. 183 Dogana Vecchia, ii. 26 Flaminia, i. 193 Florida, ii. 45 Frattina, i. 250 de' Greci, i. 251 Lata, i. 193 Lungara, i. 274; ii. 144, 145, 147 Lungaretta, ii. 140 della Maestro, i. 283 Marforio, i. 106 di Monserrato, i. 283 Montebello, i. 107 Nazionale, i. 277 Nova, i. 69 di Parione, i. 297 de' Poli, i. 267 de Pontefici, i. 158 de Prefetti, ii. 6 Quattro Fontane, i. 155, 187 Sacra, i. 65, 71, 180 San Gregorio, i. 71 San Teodoro, i. 195 de' Schiavoni, i. 158 Sistina, i. 260 della Stelleta, i. 250 della Tritone, i. 106, 119-122, 155 Triumphalis, i. 66, 70, 71 Venti Settembre, i. 186 Vittorio Emanuele, i. 275 Viale Castro Pretorio, i. 107 Vicolo della Corda, i. 283 Victor Emmanuel, i. 53, 166, 184; ii. 90, 221, 224, 225, 238 monument to, ii. 90 Victoria, Queen of England, ii. 263 Vigiles, cohort of the, i. 158, 170 Villa Borghese, i. 223 Colonna, i. 181, 189 d'Este, i. 185 of Hadrian, i. 180 Ludovisi, i. 106, 193 Medici, i. 259, 262, 264, 265, 269, 313 Negroni, i. 148, 149, 289, 292 Publica, i. 250 Villani, i. 160, 277; ii. 164 Villas, in the Region of Monti, i. 149, 150 Vinci, Lionardo da, i. 260, 315; ii. 147, 159, 169, 171, 175, 184, 188, 195, 200 "The Last Supper," by, ii. 171, 184 Virgil, i. 44, 56, 63 Virginia, i. 14 Virginius, i. 15 Volscians, ii. 230 W Walls-- Aurelian, i. 93, 106, 110, 193, 271; ii. 119, 144 Servian, i. 5, 7, 15, 250, 270 of Urban the Eighth, ii. 132 Water supply, i. 145 William the Silent, ii. 263 Witches on the Æsquiline, i. 140 Women's life in Rome, i. 9 Z Zama, i. 21, 59 Zenobia of Palmyra, i. 179; ii. 150. Zouaves, the, ii. 216 
25838	----	[Illustration: "He pressed the handsome chalked hand in his own and then to his lips in a very un-English way."] FAIR MARGARET _A PORTRAIT_ By F. MARION CRAWFORD AUTHOR OF "SARACINESCA," "SANT' ILARIO," "WHOSOEVER SHALL OFFEND," ETC., ETC. _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HORACE T. CARPENTER_ NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY F. MARION CRAWFORD. COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1905. Reprinted November, December, 1905; April, 1906; July, September, 1908; July, 1909; February, twice, 1910. _Thirty-seventh Thousand_ Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. FAIR MARGARET CHAPTER I 'I am a realist,' said Mr. Edmund Lushington, as if that explained everything. 'We could hardly expect to agree,' he added. It sounded very much as if he had said: 'As you are not a realist, my poor young lady, I can of course hardly expect you to know anything.' Margaret Donne looked at him quietly and smiled. She was not very sensitive to other people's opinions; few idealists are, for they generally think more of their ideas than of themselves. Mr. Lushington had said that he could not agree with her, that was all, and she was quite indifferent. She had known that he would not share her opinion, when the discussion had begun, for he never did, and she was glad of it. She also knew that her smile irritated him, for he did not resemble her in the very least. He was slightly aggressive, as shy persons often are: and yet, like a good many men who profess 'realism,' brutal frankness and a sweeping disbelief of everything not 'scientifically' true, Mr. Lushington was almost morbidly sensitive to the opinion of others. Criticism hurt him; indifference wounded him to the quick; ridicule made him writhe. He was a fair man with a healthy skin, and his eyes were blue; but they had a particularly disagreeable trick of looking at one suddenly for an instant, with a little pinching of the lids, and a slight glitter, turning away again in a displeased way, as if he had expected to be insulted, and was sure that the speaker was slighting him, at the very least. He often blushed when he said something sharp. He wished he were dark, because dark men could say biting things without blushing, and pale, because he felt that it was not interesting to be pink and white. His hair, too, was smoother and softer than he could have wished it. He had tried experiments with his beard and moustache, and had finally made up his mind to let both grow, but he still looked hopelessly neat. When he pushed his hair back from his forehead with a devastating gesture it simply became untidy, as if he had forgotten to brush it. At last he had accepted his fate, and he resigned himself to what he considered his physical disadvantages, but no one would ever know how he had studied the photographs of the big men in the front of things, trying to detect in them some single feature to which his own bore a faint resemblance. Hitherto he had failed. Yet he was 'somebody,' and perhaps it means more to be somebody nowadays, in the howling fight for place and acknowledgment, than it meant in the latter part of the nineteenth century. How easy life was in the early eighties, compared with this, how mild were the ways of nations, how primitive, pure and upright the dealings of financiers in that day of pristine virtue and pastoral simplicity! It was all very well to be an idealist then, Mr. Lushington sometimes said to Margaret; the world was young, then; there was time for everything, then; there was room for everybody, then; even the seasons were different, then! At least, all old people say so, and it can hardly be supposed that all persons over fifty years of age belong to a secret and powerful association of liars, organised and banded together to deceive the young. Mr. Lushington was somebody, even at the beginning of this truthful little tale, and that was some time ago; and if anything about him could have really irritated Margaret Donne, it was that she could not understand the reason of his undeniable importance. The people who succeed in life, and in the arts and professions, are not always the pleasantest people, nor even the nicest. Miss Donne had found this out before she was twenty, and she was two years older now. She had learned a good many other things more or less connected with human nature, and more or less useful to a young woman in her position. She remembered two or three of those comparatively recent discoveries as she smiled at Mr. Lushington and observed that her smile annoyed him. Not that Margaret was cruel or fond of giving pain for the sake of seeing suffering; but she could be both when she was roused to defend her beliefs, her ideals, or even her tastes. The cool ferocity of some young women is awful. Judith, Jael, Delilah, and Athaliah were not mythical. Is there a man who has not wakened from dreams, to find that the woman he trusted has stolen his strength or is just about to hammer the great nail home through his temples? Margaret Donne was not actually cruel to her fellow-creatures. She was not one of those modern persons who feel sick at the sight of a half-starved horse dragging a heavy load, but will turn a man's life into a temporary hell without changing colour. Such as these give women a bad name among men. Margaret was merely defending herself, for Mr. Lushington sometimes drove her to extremities; his very shyness was so aggressive, that she could not pity him, even when she saw him blush painfully, and noticed the slight dew which an attack of social timidity brought to his smooth forehead. She had excellent nerves, and was not at all timid; if anything, she thought herself a little too self-possessed, and was slightly ashamed of it, fancying it unwomanly. She had a great fear of ever being that, and with Mr. Lushington, who seemed to take it for granted that she ought to think as men do, and was to be blamed for thinking otherwise, she took especial pains to claim a woman's privileges at every turn. 'I cannot imagine,' he said presently, 'how any intelligent person can really believe in such arrant mythology.' 'But I make no pretension of "intelligence",' murmured Margaret Donne. 'That is absurd,' retorted Mr. Lushington, with a half-furtive, half-angry glance. 'You know you are clever.' Margaret knew it, of course, and she smiled again. The young man did not need to see her to be sure how she looked at that moment, for he knew her face well. It had fixed itself in the front of his memories some time ago, and he had not succeeded in bringing any other image there to drive it away. Perhaps he had not tried as hard as he supposed. It was not such a very striking face either, at first sight. The features were not perfect, by any means, and they were certainly not Greek. Anacreon would not have compared Margaret's complexion to roses mixed with milk, but he might have thought of cream tinged with peach-bloom, and it would have been called a beautiful skin anywhere. Margaret had rather light brown eyes, but when she was interested in anything the pupils widened so much as to make them look very dark. Then the lids would stay quite motionless for a long time, and the colour would fade a little from her whole face; but sometimes, just then, she would bite her lower lip, and that spoiled what some people would have called the intenseness of her expression. It is true that her teeth were beyond criticism and her lips were fresh and creamy red--but Mr. Lushington wished she would not do it. The muses are never represented 'biting their lips'; and in his moments of enthusiasm he liked to think that Margaret was his muse. She had thick brown hair that waved naturally, but made no little curls and baby ringlets, such as some young women have, or make. The line of her hair along her forehead and temples, though curved, was rather severe. She had been fair when a little girl, but had grown darker after she was fifteen. When she thought of it, she rather liked her own face, for she was not everlastingly trying to be some one else. It was a satisfactory face, on the whole, she thought, perfectly natural and frank, and healthy. No doubt it would have been nice to be as beautiful as a Madame de Villeneuve, or a Comtesse de Castiglione, but as that was quite impossible, it was easy to be satisfied with what she had in the way of looks and not to envy the insolent radiance of the fair beauties, or the tragic splendour of the dark ones. Besides, great beauty has disadvantages; it attracts attention at the wrong moment, it makes travelling troublesome, it is obtrusive and hinders a woman from doing exactly what she pleases. It is celebrity, and therefore a target for every photographing tourist and newspaper man. And then, to lose it, as one must, is a kind of suffering which no male can quite understand. Every great beauty feels that she is to be unjustly condemned to death between forty and fifty, and that every day of her life brings her nearer to ignominious public execution; and though beauties manage to last longer, yet is their strength but sorrow and weakness, depending largely on the hairdresser, the dentist, the dressmaker and other functions of the unknown quantities _x_ and _y_, as the mathematicians say. The Emperor Tiberius is reported to have said that if a man does not know what is good for him when he is forty years old, he must be either a fool or a physician. Similarly, a woman who does not know her own good points at twenty is either very foolish, or a raving beauty--or a saint. Perhaps women can be all three; it is not safe to assert anything positively about them. Margaret Donne was clever, she was a good girl but not a saint, and she was a little more than fairly good-looking. That was all, and she knew her good points. If she was not perpetually showing them to advantage, she at least realised what they were and that she might some day have to make the most of them. They were her complexion, her mouth and her figure; and she was clever, if cleverness be a 'point' in a human being, which is doubtful. It is not considered one in a puppy. Mr. Lushington discouraged the familiarity of men who called him plain 'Lushington.' When they were older than he, he felt that they were patronising him; if they were younger, he thought them distinctly cheeky. Occasionally he fell in with a relation, or an old schoolfellow, who addressed him as 'Ned,' or even as 'Eddie,' This made him utterly miserable; in the language of Johnson, when Mr. Lushington was called 'Eddie,' he was convolved with agony--especially if a third person chanced to be present. Margaret sometimes wondered whether she should ever be in a position to use that weapon. There was a possibility of it, depending on her own choice. In fact, there were two possibilities, for she could marry him if she pleased, or she could make an intimate friend of him, and they might then call each other by their Christian names. At the present time she knew him so well that she avoided using his name altogether, and he called her 'Miss Margaret' when he was pleased, and 'Miss Donne' when he was not. 'It is a pity you think me clever,' she said demurely, after a little pause. 'Why?' he inquired severely. 'The idea makes you so uncomfortable,' Margaret answered. 'If I were just a nice dull girl, you would only have to lay down the law, and I should have to accept it. Or else you would not feel obliged to talk to me at all, which would be simpler.' 'Much,' said Lushington, with some acerbity. 'So much simpler, that I wonder why you do not follow the line of least resistance!' A short silence came after this suggestion, and Margaret turned over the pages of her book as if making up her mind where to begin reading. This was not quite a pretence, for Lushington had told her that it was a book she ought to read, which it was her intellectual duty to read, and which would develop her reasoning faculties. By way of encouragement he had added that she would probably not like it. On that point she agreed with him readily. To people who read much, every new book has a personality, features and an expression, attractive, dull, or repulsive, like most human beings one meets for the first time. This particular book had a particularly priggish expression, like Lushington's yellow shoes, which were too good and too new, and which he was examining with apparent earnestness. To tell the truth he did not see them, for he was wondering whether the blush of annoyance he felt was unusually visible. The result of thinking about it was that it deepened to scarlet at once. 'You look hot,' observed Margaret, with an exasperating smile. 'Not at all,' answered Lushington, feeling as if she had rubbed his cheeks with red pepper. 'I suppose I am sunburnt.' Tiny beads of perspiration were gathering on his forehead, and he knew by her smile that she saw them. It would have been delightful to walk into the pond just then, yellow shoes and all. He told himself that he was Edmund Lushington, the distinguished critic and reviewer, before whom authors trembled and were afraid. It was absurd that he should feel too hot because a mere girl had said something smart and disagreeable. In fact, what she had said was little short of an impertinence, in his opinion. The fool who does not know that he looks a fool is happy. The fool who is conscious of looking one undergoes real pain. But of all the miserable victims of shyness, the one most to be pitied is the sensitive, gifted man who is perfectly aware that he looks silly while rightly conscious that he is not. Margaret Donne watched Lushington, and knew that she was amply revenged. He would call her 'Miss Donne' presently, and say something about the weather, as if they had never met before. She paid no more attention to him for some time, and began to read bits of the new book, here and there, where one page looked a little less dull than the rest. Meanwhile Lushington smoked thoughtfully, and the unwelcome blush subsided. He glanced sideways at Margaret's face two or three times, as if he were going to speak, but said nothing, and sent a small cloud straight out before him, with a rather vicious blowing, as if he were trying to make the smoke express his feelings. Margaret knew that trick of his very well. Lushington was an aggressive smoker, and with every puff he seemed to say: 'There! Take that! I told you so!' Margaret did not look up from her book, for she knew that he would speak before long; and so it happened. 'Miss Donne,' he began, with unnecessary coldness, and then stopped short. 'Yes?' Margaret answered, with mild interrogation. 'Oh!' ejaculated Mr. Lushington, as if surprised that she should reply at all. 'I thought you were reading.' 'I was.' She let the new book shut itself, as she lifted her hand from the open pages. 'I did not mean to interrupt you,' said the young man stiffly. No answer occurred to Margaret at once, so she waited, gently drumming on the closed book with her loosely gloved fingers. 'I suppose you think I'm an awful idiot,' observed Mr. Lushington, with unexpected and quite unnecessary energy. 'Dear me! This is so very sudden! Awful--idiot? Let me see.' Her absurd gravity was even more exasperating than her smile. Lushington threw away his cigarette angrily. 'You know what I mean,' he cried, getting red again. 'Don't be horrid!' 'Then don't be silly,' retorted Margaret. 'There! I knew you thought so!' 'Perhaps I do, sometimes,' the girl answered, more seriously. 'But I don't mind it at all. If you care to know, I think you are often much more human when you are--well--"silly," than when you are being clever. 'And I suppose you would like me better if I were always silly?' Margaret shook her head and laughed softly, but said nothing. She was thinking that it was good to be alive, and that it was the spring, and that the life was stirring in her, as it stirred amongst the young leaves overhead and in the shooting grasses and budding flowers, and in the hearts of the nesting birds in the oaks and elms. Just then it mattered very little to Margaret whether the man who was talking to her made himself out to be silly or clever. She felt herself much nearer to the simple breathing and growing of all nature than to the silliness or cleverness of any fellow-creature. Her lips parted a little and she drew in the air again and again, slowly and quietly, as if she could drink it, and live on its sweet taste, and never want food or other drink again, though she was not an ethereal young person, but only a perfectly healthy and natural girl. She was not tired, yet somehow she felt that she was resting body, soul and heart, for a little while, after growing up and before beginning what was to be her life. Lushington was perfectly healthy, too, but he was not simple, and was often not quite natural. He had real troubles and artificial ways of treating them. He had also been in the thick of the big fight for several years, he had tasted the wine of success and the vinegar of failure, the sticky honey of flattery and some nasty little pills prepared with malignant art by brother critics. With his faults and weaknesses and absurd sensitiveness, he had in him the stuff that wins battles with glory, or loses them with honour, promising to fight again. He was complex. He was rarely quite sure what he felt, though he could express with precision whatever he thought he was feeling at any moment. 'How complicated you are!' he exclaimed, when Margaret laughed. 'I was just thinking how simple I am compared with you,' she answered serenely; 'I mean, when you talk,' she added. 'Thank you for the distinction! "Oliver Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll, Who writes like an angel but talks like poor Poll." That sort of thing, I suppose?' 'I did not say that you write like an angel,' answered Margaret, in a tone of reflection. 'You do not talk like one,' observed Mr. Lushington bitterly. 'Are you going to Paris to-day?' he inquired after a pause; and he looked at his watch. 'No. I had my lesson yesterday. But I am going in to-morrow.' Lushington knew that she had only two lessons a week, and wondered why she was going to Paris on the following day. But he was offended and would not ask questions; moreover he did not at all approve of her studying singing as a profession, and she knew that he did not. His disapproval did not disturb her, though she should have liked him to admire her voice because he was really a good judge, and praise from him would be worth having. He often said sharp things that he did not mean, but on the other hand, when he said that anything was good, he always meant that it was first-rate. She wondered where he had learned so much about music. After all, she knew very little of his life, and as he never said anything about his family she was inclined to think that he had no relations and that he came of people anything but aristocratic. He had worked his way to the front by sheer talent and energy, and she had the good sense to think better of him for that, and not less well of him for his reticence. Mrs. Rushmore knew no more about Lushington's family than Margaret. The latter was spending the spring in Versailles with the elderly American widow, and the successful young writer had been asked to stop a week with them. Mrs. Rushmore did not care a straw about the family connections of celebrities, and she knew by experience that it was generally better not to ask questions about them, as the answers might place one in an awkward position. She had always acted on the principle that a real lion needs no pedigree, and belongs by right to the higher animals. Lushington was a real lion, though he was a young one. His roar was a passport, and his bite was dangerous. Why make unnecessary inquiries about his parents? They were probably dead, and, socially, they had never been alive, since Society had never heard of them. It was quite possible, Mrs. Rushmore said, that his name was not his own, for she had met two or three celebrities who had deliberately taken names to which they did not pretend any legal claim, but which sounded better than their own. He had been at Versailles to stay a few days during the previous spring, and Margaret had seen him several times in the interval, and they had occasionally exchanged letters. She was quite well aware that he was in love with her, and she liked him enough not to discourage him. To marry him would be quite another question, though she did not look upon it as impossible. Before all, she intended to wait until her own position was clearly defined. For the present she did not know whether she had inherited a large fortune, or was practically a penniless orphan living on the charity of her friend Mrs. Rushmore; and several months might pass before this vital question was solved. Mrs. Rushmore believed that Margaret would get the money, or a large part of it; Margaret did not, and in the meantime she was doing her best to cultivate her voice in order to support herself by singing. Her father had been English, a distinguished student and critical scholar, holding a professorship of which the income, together with what he received from writing learned articles in the serious reviews, had sufficed for himself, his wife and his only child. At his death he had left little except his books, his highly honourable reputation and a small life insurance. He had married an American whose father had been rich at the time, but had subsequently lost all he possessed by an unfortunate investment, depending upon an invention, which had afterwards become enormously valuable. Finding himself driven to extremities and on the verge of failure, he had been glad to make over his whole interest to a distant relative, who assumed his liabilities as well as his chances of success. Utterly ruined, save in reputation, he had bravely accepted a salaried post, had worked himself to death in eighteen months and had died universally respected by his friends and as poor as Job. His daughter, Mrs. Donne, had felt her position keenly. She was a sensitive woman, she had married a poor man for love, expecting to make him rich; and instead, she was now far poorer than he. He, on his part, never bestowed a thought on the matter. He was simple and unselfish and he loved her simply and unselfishly. She died of a fever at forty-two and her death killed him. Two years later, Margaret Donne was alone in the world. Mrs. Rushmore had known Margaret's American grandmother and had been Mrs. Donne's best friend. She had grave doubts as to the conditions on which the whole interest in the invention had been ceded to old Alvah Moon, the Californian millionaire, and, after consulting her own lawyers in New York, she had insisted upon bringing suit against him, in Margaret Donne's name, but at her own risk, for the recovery of an equitable share of the fortune. A tenth part of it would have made the girl rich, but there were great difficulties in the way of obtaining evidence as to an implied agreement, and Alvah Moon was as hard as bedrock. While the suit was going on, Mrs. Rushmore insisted that Margaret should live with her, and Margaret was glad to accept her protection and hospitality, for she felt that the obligation was not all on her own side. Mrs. Rushmore was childless, a widow and very dependent on companionship for such enjoyment as she could get out of her existence. She had few resources as she grew older, for she did not read much and had no especial tastes. The presence of such a girl as Margaret was a godsend in many ways, and she looked forward with something like terror to the not distant time when she should be left alone again, unless she could induce one of her nieces to live with her. But that would not be easy; they did not want her money, nor anything she could give them, and they thought her dull. Her life would be very empty and sad, then. She had never been vain, and she was well aware that such people as Mr. Edmund Lushington could not be easily induced to come and spend a fortnight with her if Margaret were not in the house. Besides, she loved the girl for her own sake. It was very pleasant to delude herself with the idea that Margaret was almost her daughter, and she wished she could adopt her; but Margaret was far too independent to accept such an arrangement, and Mrs. Rushmore had the common-sense to guess that if the girl were bound to her in any way a sort of restraint would follow which would be disagreeable to both in the end. If there could be a bond, it must be one which Margaret should not feel, nor even guess, and such a relation as that seemed to be an impossibility. Margaret was not the sort of girl to accept anything from an unknown giver, and if the suit failed it would be out of the question to make her believe that she had inherited property from an unsuspected source. Mrs. Rushmore, in her generosity, would have liked to practise some such affectionate deception, and she would try almost anything, however hopeless, rather than let Margaret be a professional singer. The American woman was not puritanical; she had lived too much in Europe for that and had met many clever people, not to say men of much more than mere talent, who had made big marks on their times. But she had been brought up in the narrow life of old New York, when old New York still survived, as a tradition if not as a fact, in a score or two of families; and one of the prejudices she had inherited early was that there is a mysterious immorality in the practice of the fine arts, whereas an equally mysterious morality is inherent in business. Painters and sculptors, great actors and great singers without end had sat at her table and she was always interested in their talk and often attracted by their personalities; yet in her heart she knew that she connected them all vaguely with undefined wickedness, just as she associated the idea of virtuous uprightness with all American and English business men. Next to a clergyman, she unconsciously looked upon an American banker as the most strictly moral type of man; and though her hair was grey and she knew a vast deal about this wicked world, she still felt a painful little shock when her favourite newspaper informed her that a banker or a clergyman had turned aside out of the paths of righteousness, as they occasionally do, just like human beings. She felt a similar disagreeable thrill when she thought of Margaret singing in public to earn a living. Prejudices are moral corns; anything that touches one makes it ache more or less, but the pain is always of the same kind. You cannot get a pleasurable sensation out of a corn. Yet Margaret was working at her music, with persevering regularity, quite convinced that she must soon support herself unhelped and quite sure that her voice was her only means to that end. Singing was her only accomplishment, and she therefore supposed that the gift, such as it was, must be her only talent. She was modest about it, for the very reason that she believed it was what she did best, and she was patient because she knew that she must do it well before she could hope to live by it. Most successful singers had appeared in public before reaching her age, yet she was only two and twenty, and a year or two could make no great difference. Nevertheless, she was more anxious than she would have admitted, and she had persuaded her teacher to let her sing to Madame Bonanni, the celebrated lyric soprano, whose opinion would be worth having, and perhaps final. The great singer had the reputation of being very good-natured in such cases and was on friendly terms with Margaret's teacher, the latter being a retired prima donna. Margaret felt sure of a fair hearing, therefore, and it was for this trial that she was going to the city on the following morning. Neither she nor Lushington spoke for a long time after she had given him the information. She took up her book again, but she read without paying any attention to the words, for the recollection of what was coming had brought back all her anxiety about her future life. It would be a dreadful thing if Madame Bonanni should tell her frankly that she had no real talent and had better give it up. The great artist would say what she thought, without wasting time or sympathy; that was why Margaret was going to her. Women do not flatter women unless they have something to gain, whereas men often flatter them for the mere pleasure of seeing them smile, which is an innocent pastime in itself, though the consequences are sometimes disastrous. Edmund Lushington had at first been wondering why Margaret was going to Paris the next day, then he had inwardly framed several ingenious questions which he might ask her; and then, as he thought of her, he had forgotten himself at last, and had momentarily escaped from the terrible and morbid obligation of putting his thoughts into unspoken words, which is one of the torments that pursue men of letters when they are tired, or annoyed, or distressed. He had forgotten his troubles, too, whatever they were, and could listen to the music spring was making in the trees, without feeling that he might be forced to describe it. Just then Margaret raised her eyes from her book and saw his face, and he did not know that she was looking at him. For the first time since she had met him she understood a little of his real nature, and guessed the reason why he could write so well. He was a man of heart. She knew it now, in spite of his faults, his shyness, his ridiculous over-sensitiveness, his detestable way of blurting out cutting speeches, his icy criticism of things he did not like. It was a revelation. She wondered what he would say if he spoke just then. But at that moment Mrs. Rushmore appeared on the lawn, an imposing and rather formal figure in black and violet, against the curtain of honeysuckle that hung down over the verandah. CHAPTER II Margaret went alone to the house of the famous singer, for her teacher knew by experience that it was better not to be present on such occasions. Margaret had not even a maid with her, for except in some queer neighbourhoods Paris is as safe as any city in the world, and it never occurred to her that she could need protection at her age. If she should ever have any annoyance she could call a policeman, but she had a firm and well-founded conviction that if a young woman looked straight before her and held her head up as if she could take care of herself, no one would ever molest her, from London to Pekin. It was not very far from her teacher's rooms in the Boulevard Malesherbes to the pretty little house Madame Bonanni had built for herself in the Avenue Hoche; so Margaret walked. It is the pleasantest way of getting about Paris on a May morning, when one has not to go a long distance. Paris has changed terribly of late years, but there are moments when all her old brilliancy comes back, when the air is again full of the intoxicating effervescence of life, when the well-remembered conviction comes over one that in Paris the main object of every man's and every woman's existence is to make love, to amuse and to be amused. Terrible things have happened, it is true; blood has run like rain through the streets; and great works are created, great books are written, and Art has here her workshop and her temple, her craftsmen and her high priests. The Parisians have a right to take themselves seriously; but we cannot--we graver, grimmer men of rougher race. Do what they will, we can never quite believe that genius can really hew and toil all day and laugh all night; we can never get rid of the idea that there must be some vast delusion about Paris, some great stage trick, some hugely clever deception by which a quicksand is made to seem like bedrock, and a stone pavement like a river of quicksilver. The great cities all have faces. If all the people who live in each city could be photographed exactly one over the other, the result would be the general expression of that city's face. New York would be discontented and eager; London would be stolidly glum and healthy, with a little surliness; Berlin would be supercilious, overbearing; Rome would be gravely resentful; and so on; but Paris would be gay, incredulous, frivolous, pretty and impudent. The reality may be gone, or may have changed, but the look is in her face still when the light of a May morning shines on it. What should we get, if we could blend into one picture the English descriptions of Paris left us by Thackeray, Sala, Du Maurier? Would it not show us that face as it is still, when we see it in spring? And drawn by loving hands too, obeying the eyes of genius. An empty square in Berlin suggests a possible regimental parade, in London a mass meeting; in Paris it is a playground waiting for the Parisians to come out and enjoy themselves after their manner, like pretty moths and dragon-flies in the sun. But there is another side to it. More than any city in the world, Paris has a dual nature. Like Janus, she has two faces; like Endymion, half her life is spent with the gods, half with the powers of darkness. She has her sweet May mornings, but she has her hideous nights when the north wind blows and the streets are of glass. She has her life of art and beauty, and taste and delight, but she has her fevers of blood and fury, her awful reactions of raw brutality, her hidden sores of strange crime. Of all cities, Paris is the most refined, the most progressive in the highest way, the most delicately sensitive; of all cities, too, when the spasm is on her, she is the most mediæval in her violence, her lust for blood, her horrible 'inhumanity to man'--Burns might have written those unforgettable lines of her. Margaret was not thinking of these things as she took her way through the Parc Monceau, not because it was nearer but because she loved the old trees, and the contrast between the green peace within its gates and the intense life outside. She was nearer than she had perhaps ever been to fright, just then, and yet would not for the world have turned back, nor even slackened her pace. In five minutes she would be ringing the bell at Madame Bonanni's door. She had heard the prima donna several times but had never met her. She knew that she was no longer young, though her great voice was marvellously fresh and elastic. There were men, of that unpleasant type that is quite sure of everything, who recalled her first appearance and said that she could not be less than fifty years old. As a matter of fact, she was just forty-eight, and made no secret of it. Margaret had learned this from her own singing teacher, but that was all she knew about Madame Bonanni, when she stopped at the closed door of the carriage entrance and rang the bell. She did not know whether she was to meet a Juliet, an Elsa, a Marguerite or a Tosca. She remembered a large woman with heavy arms, in various magnificent costumes and a variety of superb wigs, with a lime-light complexion that was always the same. The rest was music. That, with a choice selection of absurdly impossible anecdotes, is as much as most people ever know about a great singer or a great actress. Margaret had been spared the anecdotes, because most of them were not fit for her to hear, but she had more than once heard fastidious ladies speak of Madame Bonanni as 'that dreadful woman.' No one, however, denied that she was a great artist, and that was the only consideration in Margaret's present need. She rang the bell and glanced at the big window over the entrance. It had a complicated arrangement of folding green blinds, which were half open, and a grey awning with a red border. She wondered whether it was the window of the singer's own especial room. The house was different from those next it, though she could hardly tell where the difference lay. She thought that if she had not known the number she should have instinctively picked out this house, amongst all the others in that part of the Avenue Hoche, as the one in which the prima donna or an actress must be living; and as she stood waiting, a very simple and well-bred figure of a young lady, she felt that on the other side of the door there was a whole world of which she knew nothing, which was not at all like her own world, which was going to offend something in her, and which it was nevertheless her duty to enter. She was in that state of mind in which a nun breathes an ejaculatory prayer against the wiles of Satan, and a delicately nurtured girl thinks of her mother. Her heart hardly beat any faster than usual, though she was sure that one of the great moments of her life was at hand; but she drew her skirt round her a little closer, and pursed her lips together a little more tightly, and was very glad to feel that nobody could mistake her for anything but a lady. CHAPTER III The servant who opened the door smiled. He was a man of thirty-five, or thereabouts, with cheerful blue eyes, a brown moustache and pink cheeks. He wore a blue cotton apron and had a feather duster in his hand; and he smiled very pleasantly. 'Madame Bonanni said she would see me this morning,' Margaret explained. 'What name, if you please?' the man asked, contemplating her with approval. 'Miss Donne.' 'Very well. But Madame is in her bath,' observed the servant, showing no inclination to let Margaret pass. 'Mademoiselle would do better to come another day.' 'But Madame Bonanni has given me an appointment.' 'It is possible,' the man replied, still smiling calmly. 'I have come to sing to her,' Margaret said, with a little impatience. 'Ah--then it is different!' He positively beamed. 'Then Mademoiselle is a musician? Who would have thought it?' Margaret was not quite sure who would have thought it, but she thought the servant decidedly familiar. At that moment he stood aside for her to pass, shut the front door after her and led the way to the short flight of steps that gave access to the house from the carriage entrance. 'This way, Mademoiselle. If Mademoiselle will be good enough to wait, I will inform Madame.' 'Please don't disturb her! You said she was in her bath.' 'Oh, that has no importance!' the man cried cheerfully, and disappeared at once. Margaret looked about her, but if she had been blind she would have been aware that she was in a place quite unlike any she had ever been in before. The air had an indescribable odour that was almost a taste; it smelt of Houbigant, Greek tobacco, Persian carpets, women's clothes, liqueur and late hours; and it was not good to breathe--except, perhaps, for people used to the air of the theatre. Margaret at first saw nothing particular to sit upon, and stood still. It was a big room, with two very large windows on one side, a massive chimney-piece at the end opposite the door, and facing the windows the most enormous divan Margaret had ever seen. Over this a great canopy was stretched, a sort of silk awning of which the corners were stretched out and held up by more or less mediæval lances. The divan itself was so high that an ordinary person would have to climb upon it, and it was completely covered by a wild confusion of cushions of all colours, thrown upon it and piled up, and tumbling off, as if a Homeric pillow fight had just been fought upon it by several scores of vigorous school-girls. The room was plethoric with artistic objects, some good, some bad, some atrocious, but all recalling the singer's past triumphs, and all jumbled together, on tables, easels, pedestals, brackets and shelves with much less taste than an average dealer in antiquities would have shown in arranging his wares. There was not even light enough to see them distinctly, for the terrifically heavy and expensive Genoa velvet curtains produced a sort of dingy twilight. Moreover the Persian carpet was so extremely thick that Margaret almost turned her ankle as she made a step upon it. As she knew that she must probably wait some time she looked for a seat. There were a few light chairs here and there, but they were occupied by various objects; on one a framed oil-painting was waiting till a place could be found for it, on another there was a bandbox, on a third lay some sort of garment that might be an opera-cloak or a tea-gown, or a theatrical dress, a little silver tray with the remains of black coffee and an empty liqueur glass stood upon a fourth chair, and Margaret's searching eye discovered a fifth, with nothing on it, pushed away in a corner. She took hold of it by the back, to bring it forward a little, and the gilt cross-bar came off in her hand. She stuck the piece on again as well as she could, and as she did not like to disturb any of the things she stood still, in the middle of the room, wondering vaguely whether Madame Bonanni's visitors usually sat down, and if so, on what. Suddenly her eyes fell upon a piano, standing behind several easels that almost completely hid it. A piano usually has a stool, and Margaret made her way between the easels and the little oriental tables, and the plants, and the general confusion, towards the keyboard. She was not disappointed; there was a stool, and she sat down at last. The air was oppressive and she wished herself out in the Pare Monceau, in the May morning. The time seemed endless. By sheer force of habit she slowly turned on the revolving stool and touched the keys; then she struck a few chords softly, and the sound of the perfect instrument gave her pleasure. She played something, trying to make as little noise as possible so long as she remembered where she was, but presently she forgot herself, her lips parted and she was singing, as people do who sing naturally. She sang the waltz song in the first act of Gounod's _Romeo and Juliet_, and after the first few bars she had altogether forgotten that she was not at home, with her own piano, or else standing behind her teacher's shoulder in the Boulevard Malesherbes. Now there are not many singers living who can sing the waltz song and accompany themselves without making a terrible mess of the music; but Margaret did it well, and much more than well, for she was not only a singer with a beautiful voice but a true musician. There was not a quaver or hesitation in her singing from beginning to end, nor a false note in the accompaniment. When she had finished, her lips closed and she went on playing the music of the scene that follows. She had not gone on a dozen bars, however, when a head appeared suddenly round the corner of a picture on an easel. 'Ah, bah!' exclaimed the head, in an accent of great surprise. Its thick dark-brown hair was all towzled and standing on end, its brown eyes were opened very wide in astonishment, and it was showing magnificently strong teeth, a little discoloured. Margaret sprang to her feet with an apology for having forgotten herself, but the head laughed and came forward, bringing with it a large body wrapped in an enormous gown of white Turkish towelling, evidently held together by the invisible hands within. Margaret thought of the statue of Balzac. [Illustration: "Margaret sprang to her feet with an apology."] 'I thought it was Caravita,' said Madame Bonanni. 'We are great friends you know. I sometimes find her waiting for me. But who in the world are you?' 'Margaret Donne.' 'Ah, bah!' exclaimed the great singer again, the two syllables being apparently her only means of expressing surprise. 'But I told your servant----' Margaret began. 'Why have you not made your _début_?' cried Madame Bonanni, interrupting her, and shaking her disordered locks as if in protest. 'You have millions in your throat! Why do you come here? To ask advice? To let me hear you sing? Let the public hear you! What are you waiting for? To-morrow you will be old! And all singers are young. How old do you think I am? Forty-five, perhaps, because it is printed so! Not a bit of it! A prima donna is never over thirty, never, never, never! Imagine Juliet over thirty, or Lucia! Pah! The idea is horrible! Fortunately, all tenors are fat. A Juliet of thirty may love a fat Romeo, but at forty it would be disgusting, positively disgusting! I am sick at the mere thought.' Margaret stood up, resting one hand on the corner of the piano and smiling at the torrent of speech. Yet all the time, while Madame Bonanni was saying things that sounded absurd enough, the young girl was conscious that the handsome brown eyes were studying her quietly and perhaps not unwisely. 'I am twenty-two,' she said by way of answer. 'I made my _début_ when I was twenty,' answered the prima donna. 'But then,' she added, as if in explanation, 'I was married before I was seventeen.' 'Indeed!' Margaret exclaimed politely. 'Yes. He died. Let us sing! I always want to sing when I come out of my bath. Do you know the duo at the beginning of the fourth act? Yes? Good. I will sing Romeo. Oh yes, I can sing the tenor part--it is very high for a man. Sit down. Imagine that you admire me and that the lark is trying to imitate the nightingale so that we need not part. We have not heard it yet. The man is beginning to turn up the dawn outside the window behind us, but we do not see it. We are perfectly happy. Now, begin!' The chords sounded softly, the two voices blended, rose and fell and died away. The elder woman's rich lower tones imitated a tenor voice well enough to give Margaret the little illusion she needed, and her overflowing happiness did the rest. She sang as she had not sung before. 'I wish to embrace you!' cried Madame Bonanni, when they had finished. And forthwith Margaret felt herself enveloped in the Turkish bath-gown, and entangled in the towzled hair and held by a pair of tremendously strong white arms; and being thus helpless, she experienced a kindly but portentous kiss on each cheek; after which she was set at liberty. 'You are a real musician, too!' Madame Bonanni said with genuine admiration. 'You can play anything, as well as sing. I hope you will never hear me play. It is awful. I could empty any theatre instantly, if there were a fire, merely by playing a little!' She laughed heartily at her little joke, for like many great singers she was half a child and half a genius, and endowed with the huge vitality that alone makes an opera singer's life possible. 'I would give my playing to have your voice,' Margaret said. 'You would be cheated in your bargain,' observed Madame Bonanni. 'Let me look at you. Have you a big chest and a thick throat? What are your arms like? If you have a voice and talent, strength is everything! Young girls come and sing to me so prettily, so sweetly! They want to be singers! Singers, my dear, with chests like paper dolls and throats like plucked spring chickens! Bah! They are good for nothing, they catch cold, they give a little croak and they die. Strength is everything. Let me see your throat! No! You will never croak! You will never die. And your arms? Look at mine. Yes, yours will be like mine, some day.' Margaret hoped not, for Madame Bonanni seemed to be a very big woman, though she still managed to look human as Juliet. Perhaps that was because the tenors were all fat. Again a hand emerged from the thick white folds and grasped Margaret's arm firmly above the elbow, as a trainer feels an athlete's biceps. 'Good, good! Very good!' cried Madame Bonanni approvingly. 'It is a pity you are a lady! You are a lady, aren't you?' Margaret smiled. 'I am a peasant,' the singer answered without the least affectation. 'I always say that it takes five generations of life in the fields to make a voice. But you are English, I suppose. Yes? All English live out of doors. If they had a proper climate they would all sing, but they have to keep their mouths shut all the time, to keep out the rain, and the fog, and the smoke of their chimneys. It is incredible, how little they open their mouths! Come and sit down. We will have a little talk.' Margaret thought her new friend had managed to talk a good deal already. Madame Bonanni slipped between the easels and pedestals with surprising ease and lightness, and made for the divan. Margaret now saw that a stool was half concealed by a fallen pillow, so that the singer used it in order to climb up. In a moment she had settled herself comfortably, supported on all sides by the huge cushions. Margaret fancied she looked like a big snowball with a human head. 'Why don't you sit down, my dear?' inquired Madame Bonanni blandly. 'Yes, but where?' asked Margaret with a little laugh. 'Here! Climb up beside me on the divan.' 'I'm not used to it!' Margaret laughed. 'It looks awfully hot.' 'Then take a chair. Oh, the things? Throw them on the floor. Somebody will pick them up. People are always sending me perfectly useless things. Look at that picture! Did you ever see such a daub? I'll burn it! No. I'll give it to the missionaries. They take everything one gives them, for the African babies. Ah!' Madame Bonanni shrieked suddenly, seized a big cushion and held it up as a screen before her. She looked towards the door, and Margaret, looking in the same direction, saw an over-dressed man of thirty-five standing on the threshold. 'Go away!' screamed Madame Bonanni. 'Logotheti! Go away, I say! Don't you see that I'm not dressed?' 'I see nothing but cushions,' answered the new-comer, showing very white teeth and speaking with a thick accent Margaret had never heard. 'Ah! So much the better!' returned Madame Bonanni with sudden calm. 'What do you want?' 'You did me the honour to ask me to breakfast,' said Logotheti, coming forward a few steps. 'To breakfast! Never! You are dreaming!' She paused an instant. 'Yes, I believe I did. What difference does it make? Go and get your breakfast somewhere else!' 'Oh no!' protested the visitor, who had been examining Margaret's face and figure. 'I can wait any length of time, but I shall keep you to your bargain, dear lady.' 'You are detestable! Well, then you must go and look out of the window while I get down.' 'With pleasure,' Logotheti answered, meaning exactly what he said, and turning his back after a deliberate look at Margaret. Madame Bonanni worked herself to the edge of the divan, with a curious sidelong movement, got one of her feet upon the stool and slipped down, till she stood on the floor. Then she gathered the folds of her bathing-gown to her and ran to the door with astonishing agility, for so large a person. Margaret was not sure what she should do, and began to follow her, hoping to exchange a few words with her before going away. At the door, Madame Bonanni suddenly draped herself in the dark velvet curtain, stuck her head out and looked back. 'Of course you will stay to breakfast, my dear!' she called out, 'Logotheti! I present you to Miss--Miss--oh, the name doesn't matter! I present you!' 'I'm afraid I cannot----' Margaret began to say, not knowing how long she might be left alone with Logotheti. But Madame Bonanni had already unfurled the curtain and fled. Logotheti bowed gravely to Margaret, cleared the things off one of the chairs and offered it to her. His manner was as respectful with her as it had been familiar with the singer, and she felt at once that he understood her position. 'Thank you,' she said quietly, as she seated herself. He cleared another chair and sat down at a little distance. She glanced at him furtively and saw that he was a very dark man of rather long features; that his eyes were almond-shaped, like those of many orientals; that he had a heavy jaw and a large mouth with lips that were broad rather than thick, and hardly at all concealed by a small black moustache which was trained to lie very flat to his face, and turned up at the ends; that his short hair was worn brush fashion, without a parting; that he had olive brown hands with strong fingers, on one of which he wore an enormous turquoise in a ring; that his clothes were evidently the result of English workmanship misguided by a very un-English taste; and finally that he was well-built and looked strong. She wondered very much what his nationality might be, for his accent had told her that he was not French. After a little pause he turned his head quietly and spoke to her. 'Our friend's introduction was a little vague,' he said. 'My name is Constantine Logotheti. I am a Greek of Constantinople by birth, or what we call a Fanariote there. I live in Paris and I occupy myself with what we call "finance" here. In other words, I spend an hour or two every day at the Bourse. If I had anything to recommend me, I should say so at once, but I believe there is nothing.' 'Thank you!' Margaret laughed a little at the words. 'You are very frank. Madame Bonanni could not remember my name, as she has never seen me before to-day. I am Miss Donne; I am studying to be an opera-singer, and I came here for advice. I am English. I believe that is all.' They looked at each other and smiled. Margaret was certainly not prepossessed in the man's favour at first sight. She detested over-dressed men, men who wore turquoise rings, and men who had oily voices; but it was perfectly clear to her that Logotheti was a man of the world, who knew a lady when he met one, no matter where, and meant to behave with her precisely as if he had been introduced to her in Mrs. Rushmore's drawing-room. 'It is my turn to thank you,' he said, acknowledging with a little bow the favour she had conferred in telling him who she was. 'I fancy you have not yet seen much of theatrical people, off the stage. Have you?' No,' answered Margaret. 'Why do you ask?' 'I wonder whether you will like them when you do,' said Logotheti. 'I never thought of it. Is Madame Bonanni a good type of them?' 'No,' Logotheti answered, after a moment's reflection. 'I don't think she is. None of the great ones are. They all have something original, personal, dominating, about them. That is the reason why they are great. I was thinking of the average singer you will have to do with if you really sing in opera. As for Madame Bonanni, she has a heart of pure gold. We are old friends, and I know her well.' 'I can quite believe that she is kind-hearted,' Margaret answered. But don't you think, perhaps, that she is just a little too much so?' 'How do you mean?' 'That she might be too kind to tell a beginner just what she really thinks?' 'No, indeed.' Logotheti laughed at the idea. 'You would not think so if you knew how many poor girls she sends away in tears because she tells them the honest truth, that they have neither voice nor talent, and will fail miserably if they go on. That is real kindness after all! Have you sung to her?' 'Yes,' answered Margaret. 'May I ask what she said? I know her so well that I can perhaps be of use to you. Sometimes, for instance, she says nothing at all. That means that there may be a chance of success but that she herself is not sure.' 'She kissed me on both cheeks,' Margaret said with a laugh, 'and she talked about my _début_.' 'Then I should advise you to make your _début_ at once,' Logotheti answered. 'She means that you will have a very great success.' 'Do you really think so?' asked Margaret, much pleased. 'I know it,' he replied with conviction. 'That woman is utterly incapable of saying anything she does not think, but she sometimes gives her opinion with horrible brutality.' 'I rather like that.' 'Do you?' 'Yes. It is good medicine.' 'Then you have only been a spectator, and never the patient!' Logotheti laughed. 'Perhaps. Tell me all about Madame Bonanni.' 'All about her?' Logotheti smiled oddly. 'Well, she is a great artist, perhaps the greatest living soprano, though she is getting old. You can see that. Let me see, what else? She is very frank, I have told you that. And she is charitable. She gives away a great deal. She has a great many friends, of whom I call myself one, and we are all sincerely attached to her. I cannot think of anything else to tell you about her.' 'She said she was born a peasant,' observed Margaret who wished to hear more. 'Oh yes!' Logotheti laughed. 'There is no doubt of that! Besides, she is proud of it.' 'She was married at seventeen, too.' 'They all marry,' answered Logotheti vaguely, 'and their husbands disappear, by some law of nature we do not understand--absorbed into the elements, evaporated, drawn up into the clouds like moisture. One might write an interesting essay on the husbands of prima donnas and great actresses. What becomes of them? We know whence they come, for they are often impecunious gentlemen, but where do they go? There must be a limbo for them, somewhere, a place of departed husbands. Possibly they are all in lunatic asylums. The greater the singer, or the actress, the more certain it is that she has been married and that her husband has disappeared! It is very mysterious.' 'Very!' Margaret was rather amused by his talk. 'Have you lived long in Paris?' he asked, suddenly changing the subject. 'We live in Versailles. I come in for my lessons.' Without asking many direct questions Logotheti managed to find out a good deal about Margaret during the next quarter of an hour. She was not suspicious of a man who showed no inclination to be familiar or to make blatant compliments to her, and she told him that her father and mother were dead and that she lived with Mrs. Rushmore and saw many interesting people, most of whom he seemed to know. He, on his part, told her many things about Versailles which she did not know, and she soon saw that he was a man of varied tastes and wide information. She wondered why he wore such a big turquoise ring and why he had such a wonderful waistcoat, such a superlative tie, such an amazing shirt and such a frightfully expensive pin. But it was not the first time in her life that she had met an otherwise intelligent man who made the mistake of over-dressing, and her first prejudice against him began to disappear. She even admitted to herself that he had a certain charm of manner which she liked, a mingling of reserve and frankness, or repose and strength, the qualities which appeal so strongly to most women. If only his voice had not that disagreeable oiliness! After all, that was what she liked least. He spoke French with wonderful fluency, but he abstained from making the tiresome compliments which so many Frenchmen reel off even at first acquaintance. He had really beautiful almond-shaped eyes, but he never once turned them to her with that languishing look which young men with almond eyes seem to think quite irresistible. Surely, all this was in his favour. After being gone about half an hour, Madame Bonanni came back, her Juno-like figure clad in a very pale green tea-gown, very open at the throat, and her thick hair was smoothed in great curved surfaces which were certainly supported by cushions underneath them. Her solid arms were bare to the elbows, and the green sleeves hung almost to her feet. Her face was rouged and there were artificial shadows under her eyes. Round her neck she wore a single string of pearls as big as olives, and her fingers were covered with all sorts of rings. 'Now you may look at me,' she said, with a gay laugh. 'I see a star of the first magnitude,' Logotheti answered gravely. Margaret bit her lip to keep from laughing, but Madame Bonanni laughed herself, very good-naturedly, though she understood. 'I detest this man!' she cried, turning to Margaret. 'I don't know why I ask him to breakfast.' 'Because you cannot live without me, I suppose,' suggested Logotheti. 'I hate Greeks!' screamed the prima donna, still laughing. 'Why are you a Greek?' 'Doubtless by a mistake of my father's, dear lady; quite unpardonable since you are displeased! If he had lived, he certainly would have rectified it to please you, but the Turks killed him when I was a baby in arms; and that was before you were born.' 'Of course it was,' answered Madame Bonanni, who must have been just about to be married at that time. 'But that is no reason why we should stand here starving to death while you chatter.' Thereupon she put her arm through Margaret's and led her away at a brisk pace, Logotheti following at a little distance and contemplating the young girl's moving figure with the satisfaction that only an Oriental feels in youthful womanly beauty. It was long since he had seen any sight that pleased him as well, for his artistic sense was fastidious in the highest degree where the things of daily life were not concerned. He might indeed wear waistcoats that inspired terror and jewellery that dazzled the ordinary eye, but there were few men in Paris who were better judges of a picture, a statue, an intaglio, or a woman. In a few moments the three were seated at a carved and polished table overloaded with silver and cut glass, one on each side of Madame Bonanni. Three other places were set, but no one appeared to fill them. The cheerful servant with the moustache was arrayed in a neat frock coat and a white satin tie, and he smiled perpetually. 'I adore plover's eggs!' cried Madame Bonanni, as he set a plate before her containing three tiny porcelain bowls, in each of which a little boiled plover's egg lay buried in jelly. It was evident that she was speaking the truth, for they disappeared in an instant, and were followed by a bisque of shrimps of the most creamy composition. 'It is my passion!' she said. She took her spoon in her hand, but appeared to hesitate, for she glanced first at Margaret, then down at her green tea-gown, and then at Margaret again. At last she seemed to make up her mind, and quickly unfolding the damask napkin she tied it round her neck in a solid knot. The stiff points stood out on each side behind her ears. She emitted a sigh of satisfaction and went to work at the soup. Margaret pretended to see nothing and made an indifferent remark to Logotheti. Madame Bonanni made a good deal of noise, finally tipping up her plate and scraping out the contents to the last drop. 'Ah!' she exclaimed with immense satisfaction. 'That was good!' 'Perfect,' assented Logotheti, who ate delicately and noiselessly, as Orientals do. 'Delicious!' said Margaret, who was hungry. 'I taught my cook the real way to make it,' Madame Bonanni said. 'I am a good cook, a very good cook! I always did the cooking at home before I came to Paris to study, because my mother was not able to stand long. One of the farm horses had kicked her and broken her leg and she was always lame after that. Well?' she asked suddenly turning to the cheerful servant. 'Is that all we are to have to-day? I am dying of hunger!' A marvellous salmon trout made its appearance a moment later. 'Oh yes!' exclaimed the prima donna. 'I am fond of eating! You may laugh at me if you like, Logotheti. I am perfectly indifferent!' And she was. She did all sorts of things that surprised Margaret, and when a dish of ortolans with a rich brown sauce was put before her, she deliberately discarded her knife and fork altogether and ate with her hands. By way of terminating the operation, she stuck every finger of each hand into her mouth as far as it would go, licked all ten thoroughly, and then looked at them critically before drying them on her napkin. By this time Margaret was past being surprised at anything. 'Logotheti says that in the East they all eat with their fingers,' the singer observed. 'It is much cleaner,' Logotheti answered imperturbably. Margaret uttered an involuntary exclamation of surprise. 'Of course it is!' he exclaimed. 'I know who washes my fingers. I don't know who washes the forks, nor who used them last. If one stopped to think about it, one would never use a fork or a spoon that was not one's own or washed by oneself. I am sure that every sort of disease is caught from other people's forks and spoons.' 'What a horrible idea!' exclaimed Margaret with disgust. 'I shall never want to eat at a hotel or a restaurant again.' 'You will forget it,' replied Logotheti reassuringly. 'Civilisation makes us forget a great many little things of the sort, I assure you!' 'But is there no way of protecting oneself?' Margaret asked. 'It is absurd!' cried Madame Bonanni. 'I don't believe in germs and microbes and such silly things! If they exist we are full of them, and I have no doubt they do us good.' 'It would be just as easy to boil the forks and spoons for ten minutes in clean water, after they are washed,' observed Logotheti. 'But after all, fingers are safer.' 'Things taste better with fingers,' said Madame Bonanni thoughtfully. 'In the East,' Logotheti answered, 'people pour water on their hands after each course. Why don't you try that?' 'I wash my hands afterwards; it is less trouble.' Logotheti laughed, but Margaret was disgusted, and did not even smile. Madame Bonanni's proceedings had made an impression on her which it would be hard to forget, and she sat silent for a while, not tasting what followed. 'Logotheti,' said Madame Bonanni later, with her mouth full of strawberries and cream, 'you must do something for me.' 'An investment, dear lady? I suppose you want some of the bonds of the new electric road, don't you? They are not to be had, but of course you shall have them at once. Or else you have decided to give your whole fortune to an eccentric charity. Is that it?' 'No,' answered the singer, swallowing. 'This charming young lady--what is your name, my dear? I have forgotten it twenty times this morning!' 'Donne. Margaret Donne.' 'This charming Miss Donne sings, Logotheti.' 'So I gathered while we were talking.' 'No, you didn't! You gathered no such thing! She told you that she took lessons, perhaps. But I tell you that she sings. It is quite different.' Madame Bonanni pushed away her plate, planted her large white elbows on the table and looked thoughtfully at Margaret. Logotheti looked at the young girl, too, for he knew very well what his old friend meant by the simple statement, slightly emphasised. 'Ah!' he ejaculated. 'I understand. I am at your service.' 'What is it?' asked Margaret, blushing a little and turning from one to the other. 'Logotheti knows everybody,' answered Madame Bonanni. 'He is rich, immensely rich, fabulously rich, my dear. He is in the "high finance," in fact. It is disgusting, how rich he is, but it is sometimes useful. He wants a theatre, a newspaper; he buys it and does what he likes with it. It makes no difference to him, for he always sells it again for more than he gave for it, and besides, it amuses him. You would not think it, but Logotheti is often dreadfully bored.' 'Very often,' assented the Greek, 'but never when I am with you.' 'Ah, bah! You say that! But why should I care? You always do what I want.' 'Invariably.' 'And out of pure friendship, too.' 'The purest!' Logotheti uttered the two words with profound conviction. 'I never could induce this creature to make love to me,' cried Madame Bonanni, turning to Margaret with a laugh. 'It is incredible! And yet I love him--almost as well as plover's eggs! It is true that if he made love to me, I should have him turned out of the house. But that makes no difference. It is one of the disappointments of my life that he doesn't!' 'What I admire next to your genius, is your logic, dear lady,' said Logotheti. 'Precisely. Now before you have your coffee you will give me your word of honour that Miss Donne shall have a triumph and an ovation at her _début_, and an engagement to sing next season at the Opéra.' 'Really----' Margaret tried to protest. 'You know nothing about business,' interrupted Madame Bonanni. 'You are nothing but a child! These things are done in this way. Logotheti, give me your word of honour.' 'Are you sure of the voice?' asked the Greek quietly. 'As sure as I am of my own.' 'Very well. I give you my word. It is done.' 'Good. I hate you, Logotheti, because you are so cautious, but you always do what you promise. You may have your coffee now! What name are you going to take, my dear?' she asked, turning to Margaret, who felt very uncomfortable. 'The name is very important, you know, even when one has your genius.' 'My genius!' exclaimed the young girl in confusion. 'I know what I am talking about,' answered Madame Bonanni in a matter-of-fact tone. 'You will get up on the morning of your _début_ as little Miss Donne, nobody! You will go to bed as the great new soprano, famous! That is what you will do. Now don't talk, but let me give you a name, and we will drink your health to it in a drop of that old white Chartreuse. You like that old white Chartreuse, Logotheti. You shall have none till you have found a name for Miss Donne.' 'May I not keep my own?' Margaret asked timidly. 'No. It is an absurd name for the stage, my dear. All the people would make jokes about it. Of course you must be either Italian, or French, or German, or Hungarian, or Spanish. There is no great Italian soprano just now. I advise you to be an Italian. You are Signorina--Signorina what? Logotheti, do make haste! You know Italian.' 'May I ask where you were born, Miss Donne?' inquired Logotheti. 'In Oxford. But what has that to do with it?' 'Translate into Italian: ox, "bove," ford, "guado." No, that won't do' 'Certainly not!' cried Madame Bonanni. 'Guado--guano! Fancy! Try again. Think of a pretty Italian name. It must be very easy! Take an historical name, the name of a great family. Those people never object.' 'Cordova is a fine name,' observed Logotheti. 'She may just as well be Spanish, after all. Margarita da Cordova. That sounds rather well.' 'Yes. Do you like it, my dear?' asked Madame Bonanni. 'But I don't know a word of Spanish----' 'What in the world has that to do with it? It is a good name. You may have your Chartreuse, Logotheti. Margarita da Cordova, the great Spanish soprano! Your health! You were born in the little town of Boveguado in Andalusia.' 'Your father was the famous contrabandier Ramon da Cordova, who sang like an angel and played the guitar better than any one in Spain.' 'Was there ever such a man?' 'No, of course not! And besides, he was stabbed in a love affair when you were a baby, so that it does not matter. You ought to be able to make something out of that for the papers, Logotheti. Carmen, don't you know? Heavens, how romantic!' Margaret had a vague idea that she was dreaming, that Madame Bonanni and Logotheti were not real people, and that she was going to waken in a few minutes. The heavy, middle-aged woman with the good-natured face and the painted cheeks could not possibly be the tragic Juliet, the terrible Tosca, the poor, mad, fluttering Lucia, whose marvellous voice had so often thrilled the young girl to the heart, in Paris and in London. It was either a dream or a cruel deception. Her own words sounded far away and unsteady when she was at last allowed to speak. 'I am sure I cannot sing in public in less than a year,' she said. 'You are very kind, but you are exaggerating my talent. I could never get through the whole opera well enough.' Madame Bonanni looked at her curiously for a moment, not at all certain that she was in earnest; but she saw that Margaret meant what she said. There was no mistaking the troubled look in the girl's eyes. 'I suppose you are not afraid to come here and sing before an impresario and three or four musicians, are you?' inquired the singer. 'No!' cried Margaret. 'But that is different.' 'Did you think that any manager would engage you, even for one night, merely on my word, my child? You will have to show what you can do. But I can tell you one thing, little Miss Donne!' A great, good-natured laugh rolled out before Madame Bonanni proceeded to state the one thing she could tell. 'When you have sung the waltz song in _Romeo and Juliet_, and the duo in the fifth act, to four or five of the men who make a living out of us artists, you will be surprised at what happens afterwards! Those people will not risk their money for your handsome eyes, my dear! And they know their business, don't they, Logotheti?' He answered by speaking directly to Margaret. 'I think,' he said quietly, 'that you can have confidence in Madame Bonanni's opinion.' 'Listen to me,' said the prima donna--suddenly, and for some unknown reason, rubbing all the rouge off her right cheek with the corner of her napkin and then inspecting curiously the colour that adhered to the linen--'listen to me! I sing day after to-morrow, for the last time before going to London. Come to my dressing-room after the second act. I will have Schreiermeyer there, and we will make an appointment for the next day, and settle the matter at once. It's understood, isn't it?' Margaret was delighted, for Logotheti's quiet words had reassured her a little. Madame Bonanni rose suddenly, untying her napkin from her neck as she got up, and throwing it on the floor behind her. Before she had reached the door she yawned portentously. 'I always go to sleep when I have eaten,' she said. 'Find a cab for little Miss Donne, Logotheti--for the famous Señorita da Cordova!' She laughed sleepily, and waved her hand to Margaret. 'I don't know how to thank you,' the young girl began, but before she got any further Madame Bonanni had disappeared. A few moments later Margaret and Logotheti were in the street. The noonday air was warm and bright and she drew in deep breaths of it, as she had done in the morning. Logotheti looked at her from under the brim of his Panama hat. 'We shall find a cab in a minute,' he said, in an indifferent tone. 'Yes.' They walked a few steps in silence. 'I hope you don't really mean to do what Madame Bonanni asked of you,' Margaret said, rather awkwardly. 'I mean, about my _début_, if it really comes off.' Logotheti laughed lightly. 'She always talks in that way,' he said. 'She thinks I can do anything, but as a matter of fact I have no influence to speak of, and money has nothing to do with an artist's success. I shall certainly be there on your first night, and you will not object to my splitting my gloves in applauding you?' 'Oh no!' Margaret laughed, too. 'You are welcome to do that! There is a cab.' She held up her parasol to attract the driver's attention, and Logotheti made a few steps forward and called him. 'Where shall I tell the man to take you?' Logotheti asked, as she got in. 'To the Saint Lazare station, please. Thank you very much!' She smiled pleasantly and nodded as she drove away. He stood still a moment on the pavement, looking after her, and then turned in the opposite direction, lighting a cigarette as he walked. He was a Greek, and an educated one, and as he sauntered along on the shady side of the Avenue Hoche, the cigarette twitched oddly in his mouth, as if he were talking to himself. From four and twenty centuries away, in the most modern city of the world, broken lines of an ode of Anacreon came ringing to his ears, and his lips formed the words noiselessly: 'I wish I were the zone that lies Warm to thy breast, and feels its sighs ... Oh, anything that touches thee! Nay, sandals for those fairy feet ...' That, at least, is the English for it, according to Thomas Moore. CHAPTER IV Margaret was not quite sure how she could find her way to Madame Bonanni's dressing-room at the Opéra, but she had no intention of missing the appointment. The most natural and easy way of managing matters would be to ask her teacher to go with her, and she could then spend the night at the latter's house. She accordingly stopped there before she went to the station. The elderly artist burst into tears on hearing the result of the interview with Madame Bonanni, and fell upon Margaret's neck. 'I knew it,' she said. 'I was sure of it, but I did not dare to tell you so!' Margaret was very happy, but she was a little nervous about her frock and wondered whether tears stained, as sea water does. The old singer was of a very different type from Madame Bonanni, and had never enjoyed such supremacy as the latter, even for a few months. But she had been admired for her perfect method, her good acting, and her agreeable voice, and for having made the most of what nature had given her; and when she had retired from the stage comparatively young, as the wife of the excellent Monsieur Durand, she had already acquired a great reputation as a model for young singers, and she soon consented to give lessons. Unfortunately, Monsieur Durand had made ducks and drakes of her earnings in a few years, by carefully mis-investing every penny she possessed; but as he had then lost no time in destroying himself by the over-use of antidotes to despair, such as absinthe, his widow had soon re-established the equilibrium of her finances by hard work and was at the present time one of the most famous teachers of singers for the stage. Madame Durand was a Neapolitan by birth and had been known to modest fame on the stage as Signora De Rosa, that being her real name; for Italian singers seem to be the only ones who do not care for high-sounding pseudonyms. She was a voluble little person, over-flowing with easy feeling which made her momentarily intensely happy, miserable, or angry, as the case might be. Whichever it might be, she generally shed abundant tears. Margaret went back to Versailles feeling very happy, but determined to say nothing of what had happened except to Mrs. Rushmore, who need only know that Madame Bonanni had spoken in an encouraging way and wished to see her at the theatre. For the girl herself found it hard to believe half of what the prima donna had told her, and was far from believing that she was on the eve of signing her first engagement. Madame Bonanni had breakfasted at half-past eleven, but Mrs. Rushmore lunched at half-past one, and Margaret found her at table with Lushington and three or four other people who had dropped in. There was an English officer who had got his Victoria Cross in South Africa and was on his way to India, with a few days to spare by the way; there was a middle-aged French portrait-painter who had caressing ways and an immense reputation; there was a woman of the world whose husband was an Austrian and was in the diplomatic service; and there was a young archæologist just from Crete, who foregathered with Lushington. They were at the end of luncheon when Margaret came in, they were sipping fine wine from very thin glasses, they were all saying their second-best things, because each one was afraid that if he said his very best before dinner one of the others would steal it; and Mrs. Rushmore was in her element. Margaret came in with her hat on and sat down in her place, which was opposite Mrs. Rushmore. The men subsided again into their chairs and looked at her. Lushington was next to her, but she smiled at the others first, nodding quietly and answering their greetings. 'You seem pleased,' Lushington said, when he saw that she would hear him. 'Do I?' She smiled again. 'That sort of answer always means a secret,' Lushington replied. 'Happiness for one, don't you know?' 'By the way,' asked the English officer on her other side, 'was not your father the famous army coach?' 'No,' Margaret replied. 'I'm often asked that.' 'What is an army coach?' inquired the French painter, who spoke some English. 'Is it not an ambulance? But I do not understand.' Mrs. Rushmore began to explain in an undertone. 'Miss Donne's father was an Oxford don,' observed Lushington, rather stiffly. At this quite unintentional pun the French painter laughed so much that every one turned and looked at him. He had once painted a famous man in Oxford, and knew what a don was. 'Make the next one in Greek,' said Margaret to Lushington, with a smile. 'There are some very bad puns in Aristophanes,' observed the archæologist thoughtfully. 'Why don't you go to Crete?' he inquired very suddenly of Mrs. Rushmore. Mrs. Rushmore, who did not happen to have heard of the recent discoveries yet, felt a little as if the young man had asked her why she did not go to Jericho. But she concealed her feelings, being quite sure that no offence to her dignity was meant. 'It is so far,' she answered with a vague smile. 'It's a beastly hole,' observed the soldier. 'I was there when that row was going on.' 'The discoveries have all been made since then,' answered the archæologist, who could think of nothing else. 'You have no idea what those paintings are,' he continued, talking to the table. 'I have been there several weeks and I'm going back next month. Logotheti is going to take a party of us in his big yacht.' 'Who is Logotheti?' inquired Margaret, with great calm. 'A financier,' put in Lushington. 'A millionaire,' said the artist. 'I have painted his portrait.' 'He seems to be interested in discoveries,' Margaret said to the archæologist. 'I suppose you know him very well?' 'Oh yes! He is a most interesting person, a Greek of Constantinople by birth, but a real Greek at heart, who knows his own literature, and loves his country, and spends immense sums in helping archæology. He really cares for nothing but art! Finance amuses him now and then for a while, and he has been tremendously lucky. They consider him one of the important men in the money market, don't they?' The question was directed to the French artist. 'Certainly they do!' replied the latter, with alacrity. 'I have painted his portrait.' 'I should like to know him,' said Mrs. Rushmore. 'He is quite delightful,' the woman of the world chimed in. 'Quite the most amusing man I know!' 'You know him, too?' Mrs. Rushmore asked. 'Everybody knows Logotheti!' answered the other. 'You must really bring him,' said Mrs. Rushmore, in a general way, to everybody. 'I am sure he will be enchanted!' cried the archæologist. 'I am dining with him to-night, and if you will allow me I'll bring him to-morrow afternoon.' 'You seem very sure that he will come,' Margaret said. 'But why should he not? Every one is glad to come to Mrs. Rushmore's house.' This was an unanswerable form of complimentary argument. Margaret reflected on that strange law by which, when we have just heard for the first time of a fact or a person, we are sure to come across it, or him, again, within the next twenty-four hours. She did not believe that Logotheti could be found at short notice and introduced to new acquaintances so easily as the young scholar seemed to think; but she made up her mind, if he came at all, that she would prevent him from talking about their meeting at Madame Bonanni's, which she wished to avoid mentioning for the present. That would be easy enough, for a man of his tact would understand the slightest sign, and behave as if he had not met her before. In the afternoon she was alone with Lushington again. He was not at all in an aggressive mood; indeed, he seemed rather depressed. They walked slowly under the oaks and elms. 'What is the matter?' Margaret asked gently, after a silence. 'I have been thinking a great deal about you,' he answered. 'The thought seems to make you sad!' Margaret laughed, for she was very happy. 'Yes. It does,' he answered, with a sigh that certainly was not affected. 'But why?' she asked, growing grave at once. 'There is no reason why I should not tell you. After all, we know each other too well to apologise for saying what we think. Don't we?' 'I hope so,' Margaret answered, wondering what he was going to say. 'But then,' said Lushington disconsolately, 'I am perfectly sure that nothing I can say can have the slightest effect.' 'Who knows?' The young girl's lids drooped a little and then opened again. 'You know.' He spoke gravely and with regret. She tried to laugh. 'I wish I did! But what is it? There can be no harm in saying it!' 'You have made up your mind to be an opera-singer,' Lushington answered. 'You have a beautiful voice, you have talent, you have been well taught. You will succeed.' He had never said as much as that about her singing, and she was pleased. After many months of patient work, the acknowledgment of it seemed to be all coming in one day. 'You talk as if you were quite sure.' 'Yes. You will succeed. But there is another side to it. Shall you think me priggish and call me disagreeable if I tell you that it is no life for a woman brought up like you?' Margaret had just acquired some insight into the existence of the class she meant to join, though by no means into the worst phase of it. She was sure that if she closed her eyes she should see Madame Bonanni vividly before her, and hear her talking to Logotheti, and smell the heavy air of the big room. She felt that she could not call Lushington a prig. 'I think I know what you mean,' she answered. 'But surely, an artist can lead her own life, especially if she is successful.' 'No,' Lushington answered, 'she cannot. That's just it.' 'How do you know?' Margaret asked, incredulously. 'I do know,' he said with emphasis. 'I assure you that I know. I have seen a great deal of operatic people. A few, and they are not generally the great ones, try to lead their own lives, as you put it, but they either don't succeed at all or else they make themselves so disagreeable to their fellow artists that life becomes a burden.' 'If they don't succeed, it's because they have no strength of character,' Margaret answered, 'and if they make themselves disagreeable, it's because they have no tact!' 'That settles it!' Lushington laughed drily. 'I had better not say anything more.' 'I did not mean to cut you short. I beg your pardon. Please go on, please!' She turned to him as she said the last words, and there was in the word 'please' that one tone of hers which he could never resist. It is said that even lifeless things, like bridges and towers, are subject by nature to the vibration of a sympathetic note, and that the greatest buildings in the world would tremble, and shake, and rock and fall in ruins if that single musical sound were steadily produced near to them. We men cannot pretend to be harder of hearing and feeling than stocks and stones. The woman who loves, whether she herself knows it or not, has her call, that we answer as the wood-bird answers his mate, her sympathetic word and note at which we vibrate to our heart's core. When Margaret said 'please' in a certain way, Lushington's free will seemed to retire from him suddenly, to contemplate his weakness from a little distance. When she said 'please go on,' he went on, and not only said what he had meant to say but a great deal more, too. 'It would bore you to know all about my existence,' he began, 'but as a critic and otherwise I happen to have been often in contact with theatrical people, especially opera-singers. I have at least one--er--one very dear friend amongst them. 'A man?' suggested Margaret. 'No. A woman--of a certain age. As I see her very often, I naturally see other singers, especially as she is very much liked by them. I only tell you that to explain why I know so much about them; and if I want to explain at all, it's only because I like you so much, and because I suppose that what I like most about you, next to yourself, is just that something which my dear old friend can never have. Do you understand?' Lushington was certainly very shy as a rule, and most people would have said that he was very cold; but Margaret suddenly felt that there was a true and deep emotion behind his plain speech. 'You have been very fond of her,' she said gently. He flushed almost before she had finished speaking; but he could not have been angry, for he smiled. 'Yes, I have always been very fond of her,' he answered, after a scarcely perceptible pause, 'and I always shall be. But she is old enough to be my mother.' 'I'm glad if it's really a friendship,' said Margaret; 'and only a friendship,' she added. He turned his eyes to her rather slowly. 'I believe you really are glad,' he answered. 'Thank you. I'm very fond of you. I can't help it. I suppose I love you, and I have no business to--and sometimes you say things that touch me. That's all. After this rather inexplicable speech he relapsed into silence. But there are silences of all sorts, as there is speech of all sorts. There are silences that set one's teeth on edge--it is always a relief to break them; and there are silences that are gentler, kinder, sweeter, more loving, more eloquent than any words, and which it is always a wrench to interrupt. Of these was the pause that followed now; but Margaret was asking herself what he meant by saying that he had no right to love her. 'Do you know what the hardest thing in my life is?' Lushington asked, suddenly rousing himself. 'It is the certainty that my friend can never have been and never can be at all like you in everything that appeals to me most. But it would be still worse--oh, infinitely worse!--to see you grow like her, by living amongst the same people. You will suffer if you do, and you will suffer if you cannot. That is why I dread the idea of your going on the stage.' 'But I really think I shall not change so much as you think, if I do,' Margaret said. 'You don't know the life,' Lushington answered rather sadly. 'All I can do is to tell you that it is not fit for you, or that you are not fit for it, because you are not by nature what most of them are, and please God you never will be.' He spoke very earnestly, and another little silence followed, during which the two walked on. 'Please notice that I have not called you a prig for saying that,' said Margaret at last. 'And I have not thought you one either,' she added, before he could answer. 'You're very nice!' Lushington tried to laugh, but it was rather a failure. 'But of course you've no business to think me nice, have you?' 'None whatever.' 'Why not?' It was not even curiosity, nor an idle inclination to flirt that made Margaret ask the question at last. She had never felt so strongly drawn to him as now. He looked at her quietly, and answered without the least hesitation or shyness. 'I've no business to be in love with you, because I'm a fraud,' he said. 'A fraud! You? What in the world do you mean?' Margaret was thoroughly surprised. This gifted, shy, youthful man who had fought his way to the front by his own talent and hard work, was of all people she knew the one with whom she least connected any idea of deception. He only nodded and looked at her. 'A fraud!' she exclaimed again. 'I suppose it's some sort of false modesty that makes you say that! You know that you are a very successful writer and that you have earned your success. Why do you try to make out----' 'I'm not trying to make out anything. I tell you the plain truth. I'm a fraud.' 'Nonsense!' Margaret was almost angry at his persistence. 'I would not tell you, if I did not care for you so much,' he answered. 'But as I do, and as you seem to like me a little, I should be an awful cad if I kept you in the dark any longer. You won't publish it on the housetops. I'm not Edmund Lushington at all.' 'You are not Edmund Lushington, the critic?' Margaret's mouth opened in surprise. 'I'm the critic all right,' he answered, with a faint smile. 'I'm the man that writes, the man you've heard of. But I'm not Lushington. It's an assumed name.' 'Oh!' Margaret seemed relieved. 'Is that all? Many people who write take other names.' 'But they are not generally known by them to their friends,' Lushington observed. 'That's where the fraud comes in, in my case. A man may sign his book Judas Iscariot or Peter the Great if he likes, provided he's known as Mr. Smith at home, if that's his real name.' 'Is your real name Smith?' Margaret asked. 'Is that why you changed it?' Lushington could not help smiling. 'No. If I had been called Smith, I would have stuck to it. Smith is a very good, honest name. Most of the people who originally came by it made armour and were more or less artists. No! I wish I were a Smith, indeed I do! The name is frequent, not common, that's all.' Margaret was puzzled, and looked at his face, as if she were thinking out the problem. 'No,' she said suddenly, and with decision. 'You are not a Jew. That's impossible!' 'I'm not a Jew.' He laughed this time. 'But I know several very interesting Jews, and I don't dislike them at all. I really should not mind being called Solomon Isaacs! I would not have changed the name either.' 'You might have been called Isidore Guggenheimer,' Margaret suggested, smiling. 'Well--that! For purposes of literature, it would not be practical.' 'You forget that you have not told me your real name yet. You see, if I should ever happen to think of you again, I'd rather not think of you under a pseudonym, unless it were in connection with your books.' 'That's the only way in which you are likely to think of me,' he answered. 'But if you really want to know, my first name is Thomas, diminutive Tom--plain Tom.' 'I like that much better than Edmund,' said Margaret, who had simple tastes. 'Is the other one as nice?' 'I don't know what you might think of it,' Lushington answered. 'It is neither common nor uncommon, and not at all striking, but I cannot tell you what it is. I'm sorry to make a mystery of it, for my father was nobody in particular, and I was nobody in particular until I was heard of as Lushington, the critic. And I've been Lushington so long that I'm used to it. I was called so at school and at Oxford.' 'As long ago as that!' Margaret again seemed relieved. 'Yes. Oh, I've done nothing disgraceful, nor my father either! It's not that. I cannot possibly explain, but it's the reason why I'm a fraud--as far as you are concerned.' 'Only as far as I am concerned?' 'Nobody else happens to matter. Mrs. Rushmore receives all sorts of interesting people, many of whom have played tricks with their names. Why should she care? Why should anybody care? We have all done the things we are known for, and we are not in love with Mrs. Rushmore, though she is a very agreeable woman! She wouldn't care to call me Tom, would she?' 'I don't know,' Margaret answered with a laugh. 'She might!' 'At all events, it's not necessary to tell her,' said Lushington. 'No. But suppose that I should not care to call you Tom either, and yet should wish to call you something, don't you know? That might happen.' Lushington did not answer at once, and Margaret was a little displeased, for she had said more than she had ever meant to say to show him what she was beginning to feel. She held her head rather high as they walked on under the great trees, and her eyes sparkled coldly now and then. She had known for a long time that he loved her, and to-day he had told her so, almost roughly; and for some time, also, she had understood that she was growing fond of him. But now that she held out her hand, metaphorically, he would not take it. 'I don't want to know your secret, if it is as important as that,' she said at last. 'A man who hides his real name so carefully must have some very good reason for doing it.' She emphasised the words almost cruelly and looked straight before her, and her eyes sparkled again. His lips parted to make a quick retort, but he checked himself, and then spoke quietly. 'I have never done anything I am ashamed of,' he said. 'I don't think it's very nice to do what you are doing now,' Margaret retorted, coolly. 'It doesn't inspire confidence, you know.' 'Can't we part without quarrelling?' 'Oh, certainly! Do you mean to go away?' 'You leave me no choice. Shall we turn back to the house? It will soon be over. I can leave before dinner. It will be easy to find an excuse.' 'Yes! Those proofs you have been talking of lately--your publishers--anything will do!' Margaret was thoroughly angry with him and with herself by this time, and he was deeply hurt, and they turned and walked stiffly, with their noses in the air, as if they never meant to speak to each other again. 'It's very odd!' Margaret observed at last, as if she had made a discovery. 'What is very odd?' 'I never liked you as much as I did a quarter of an hour ago, and I never disliked you as much as I do now! Do you understand that?' 'Yes. You make it very clear. I never heard any thing put more plainly.' 'I'm glad of that. But it's very funny. I detest you just now, and yet, if you go away at once, I know I shall be sorry. On the whole, do you know?--you had better not leave to-night.' Lushington turned sharply on her. 'Are you playing with me?' he asked, in an angry tone. 'No,' she answered with exasperating coolness, 'I don't think I am. Only, you are two people, you see. It confuses me. You are Mr. Lushington, and then, the next minute, you're--Tom. I hate Mr. Lushington. I believe I always did. I wish I might never see him again.' 'Oh indeed! How about Tom?' 'Tom is rather bearable than otherwise,' Margaret answered, laughing again. 'He knows that I think so, too, and it's no reason why he should be always trying to keep out of the way!' 'He has no right to be in the way.' 'Then he ought never to have come here. But since he has, I would rather have him stay.' When she had thus explained herself with perfect frankness and made known her wishes, Margaret seemed to think that there was nothing more to be said. But Lushington thought otherwise. 'Why do you hate Mr. Lushington?' he asked. 'Because he is a fraud,' Margaret answered. 'As you have just told me that he is, you cannot possibly deny it, and you can't quarrel with me for not liking him. So there!' All her good-humour had come back, the cold sparkle in her eyes had turned into afternoon sunshine, and she swung her closed parasol gently on one finger by its hook as she walked, nodding her head just perceptibly as if keeping time with it. She expected an answer, a laugh perhaps, or a retort; but nothing came. She glanced sideways at Lushington, thinking to meet his eyes, but they were watching the ground as he walked, a yard before his feet. She turned her head and looked at his face, and she realised that it was a little drawn, and had grown suddenly pale, and that there were dark shadows under his eyes which she had never seen before. The healthy, shy, rather too youthful mask was gone, and in its place she saw the features of a mature man who was quietly suffering a great deal. She fancied that he must often look as he did now, when he was alone. 'Could any one do anything to make it easier for you?' she asked softly, after a moment. He looked up quickly in surprise, and then shook his head, without speaking. 'Because, if I could help you, I would,' she added. 'Thank you. I know you would,' He spoke with real gratitude, and the colour began to come back to his face. 'You see, it's not a thing that can be changed, or helped, or bettered. It's a condition from which I cannot escape, and I've got to live in it. It would have been easier if I had never met you, my dear Miss Donne!' He straightened himself and put on something of the formality that had become a habit with him, as it easily does with shy men who feel much. 'Please don't call me Miss Donne,' Margaret said, very low. 'Margaret----' he paused on the syllables, as he almost whispered them. 'No!' he said, suddenly, as if angry with himself. 'That's silly! Don't make me do such things, please, or I shall hate myself! Nothing in the world can ever change what is, and I shall never have the right to put out my hand and ask you to marry me. The best we can do is to say good-bye, and I'll try to keep out of your way. Help me to do that, for it's the only help you can ever give me!' 'I don't believe it,' Margaret answered. 'We can always be friends, if we cannot be anything else.' Lushington shook his head incredulously, but said nothing. 'Why not?' Margaret asked, clinging to her idea. 'Why can't we like each other, be very, very fond of each other, and meet often, and each help the other in life? I don't want to know your secret. I won't even call you Tom, as I want to, and you shall be as stiff and formal with me as you please. What do such things matter, if we really care? If we really trust one another, and know it? The main thing is to know, to be absolutely sure. Why do you wish to go away, just when I've found out how much I want you to stay? It's not right, and it's not kind! Indeed it's not!' They had been walking very slowly, and now she stood still and faced him, waiting for his answer. He looked steadily into her eyes as he spoke. 'I don't think I can stay,' he said slowly. 'You can't tear love up by the roots and plant it in a pot and call it friendship. If you try, something will happen. Excuse me if the simile sounds lyric, but I don't happen to think of a better one, on the spur of the moment. I'll behave all right before the others, but I had better go away to-morrow morning. The thing will only get worse if I keep on seeing you.' Margaret heard the short, awkward sentences and knew what they cost him. She looked down and stuck the bright metal tip of her parasol into the thin dry mud of the macadamised road, grinding it in slowly, half round and half back, with both hands, and unconsciously wondering what made the earth so hard just in that place. 'I wish I were a man!' she said all at once, and the parasol bent dangerously as she gave it a particularly vicious twist, leaning upon it at the same time. 'It would certainly simplify matters for me, if you were,' said Lushington coldly. She looked up with a hurt expression. 'Oh, please don't go back to that way of talking!' she said. 'It's bad enough, as it is! Don't you see how hard I am trying?' 'I'm sorry,' Lushington said. 'Don't pay any attention to what I say. I'm all over the place.' He mumbled the words and turned away from her as he stood. She watched him, and desisted from digging holes in the ground. Then, as he did not look at her again she put out one hand rather shyly and touched his sleeve. 'Look at me,' she said. 'What is this for? What are we making ourselves miserable about? We care for each other a great deal, much more than I had any idea of this morning. Why should we say good-bye? I don't believe it's at all necessary, after all. You have got some silly, quixotic idea into your head, I'm sure. Tell me what it is, and let me judge for myself!' 'I can't,' he answered, in evident distress. 'You may find out what it is some day, but I cannot tell you. It's the one thing I couldn't say to anybody alive. If I did, I should deserve to be kicked out of decent society for ever!' She saw the look of suffering in his face again, and she felt as if she were going to cry, out of sympathy. 'Of course,' she faltered, 'if it would be--what you call dishonourable--to tell----' 'Yes. It would be dishonourable to tell.' There was a little silence. 'All I can hope,' he continued presently, 'is that you won't believe it's anything I've done myself.' 'Indeed, indeed I don't. I never could!' She held out her hand and he took it gladly, and kept it in his for a moment; then he dropped it of his own accord, before she had made the least motion to take it back. They walked on without speaking again for a long time, and without wishing to speak. When they were in sight of Mrs. Rushmore's gate Margaret broke the silence at last. 'Do you mean to take an early train to-morrow morning?' she asked. 'Nine o'clock, I think,' he answered. There was another little pause, and again Margaret spoke, but very low, this time. 'I shall be in the garden at half-past eight--to say good-bye.' 'Yes,' Lushington answered. 'Thank you,' he added after a moment. They were side by side, very near together as they walked, and her left hand hung down close to his right. He caught her fingers suddenly, and they pressed his, and parted from them instantly. CHAPTER V Little Madame Durand-De Rosa took Margaret behind the scenes just before the second act of _Romeo and Juliet_ was over. The famous teacher of singing was a privileged person at the Opéra, and the man who kept the side door of communication between the house and the stage bowed low as he opened for her and Margaret. Things are well managed in the great opera-houses nowadays, and it is not easy to get behind when anything is going on. The young girl felt a new sensation of awe and excitement. It was the first time she had ever found herself on the working side of the vast machinery of artistic pleasure, and her first impression was that she had been torn from an artificial paradise and was being dragged through an artificial inferno. Huge and unfamiliar objects loomed about her in the deep shadows; men with pale faces, in working clothes, stood motionless at their posts, listening and watching; others lurked in corners, dressed in mediæval costumes that glittered in the dark. Between the flies, Margaret caught glimpses of the darkened stage, and the sound of the orchestra reached her as if muffled, while the tenor's voice sounded very loud, though he was singing softly. On a rough bit of platform six feet above the stage, stood Madame Bonanni in white satin, apparently laced to a point between life and death, her hands holding the two sides of the latticed door that opened upon the balcony. In a loft on the stage left a man was working a lime-light moon behind a sheet of blue glass in a frame; the chorus of old retainers in grey stood huddled together in semi-darkness by a fly, listening to the tenor and waiting to hear Madame Bonanni's note when she should come out. [Illustration: "The young girl felt a new sensation of awe and excitement."] Margaret would have waited too, but her teacher hurried her along, holding her by the hand and checking her when they came to any obstacle which the girl's unpractised eyes might not have seen in time. To the older woman it was all as familiar as her own sitting-room, for her life had been spent in the midst of it; to Margaret it was all strange, and awe-inspiring, and a little frightening. It was to be her own life, too, before long. In a few months, or perhaps a few weeks, she, too, would be standing on a platform, like Madame Bonanni, waiting to go out into the lime-light, waiting to be heard by two thousand people. She wondered whether she should be frightened, whether by any possibility her voice would stick in her throat at the great moment and suddenly croak out a hideous false note, and end her career then and there. Her heart beat fast at the thought, even now, and she pressed her teacher's guiding hand nervously; and yet, as the music reached her ears, she longed to be standing in Madame Bonanni's place with only a latticed balcony door between her and the great public. She was not thinking of Lushington now, though she had thought all day of his face when she had met him for one moment under the trees, yesterday morning, and had felt that something was gone from her life which she was to miss for a long time. That was all forgotten in what she felt at the present moment, in the wild quivering longing to be in front, the centre of the great illusion, singing as she knew that she could sing, as she had never sung before. Madame De Rosa led her quickly down a dark corridor and a moment later she found herself in a dazzling blaze of light, in the prima donna's dressing-room. The ceiling was low, the walls were white, and innumerable electric lamps, with no shades, filled the place with a blinding glare. It all looked bare and uncomfortable, and very untidy. There was a toilet-table, covered with little pots of grease and paint, and well-worn pads and hare's-feet, and vast stores of hairpins, besides a quantity of rings and jewels of great value, all lying together in bowls in the midst of the confusion. A tall mirror stood on one side, with wing mirrors on hinges, and bunches of lamps that could be moved about. On one of the walls half-a-dozen theatrical gowns and cloaks hung limply from pegs. Two large trunks were open and empty not far from the door. The air was hot and hard to breathe, and smelt of many things. There were three people in the room when the two visitors entered; there was a very tall maid with an appallingly cadaverous face and shiny black hair, and there was a short fat maid who grinned and showed good teeth at Madame De Rosa. Both wore black and had white aprons, and both were perspiring profusely. The third person was an elderly man in evening dress, who rose and shook hands with the retired singer, and bowed to Margaret. He seemed to be a very quiet, unobtrusive man, who was nevertheless perfectly at his ease, and he somehow conveyed the impression that he must be always dressed for the evening, in a perfectly new coat, a brand-new shirt, a white waistcoat never worn before, and a made tie. Perhaps it was the made tie that introduced a certain disquieting element in his otherwise highly correct appearance. He wore his faded fair hair very short, and his greyish yellow beard was trimmed in a point. His fat hands were incased in tight white gloves. His pale eyes looked quietly through his glasses and made one think of the eyes of a big fish in an aquarium when it swims up and pushes its nose against the plate-glass front of the tank to look at visitors. The eyes examined Margaret attentively. 'Monsieur Schreiermeyer, this is Miss Donne, my pupil,' said Madame De Rosa. 'Enchanted,' mumbled the manager. He continued to scrutinise the young girl's face, and he looked so much like a doctor that she felt as if he were going to feel her pulse and tell her to put out her tongue. At the thought, she smiled pleasantly. 'Hum!' Schreiermeyer grunted softly, almost musically, in fact. Perhaps this was a good sign, for little Madame De Rosa beamed. Margaret looked about for an empty chair, but there never seemed to be any in a room used by Madame Bonanni. There was one indeed, but Schreiermeyer had appropriated it, and sat down upon it again with perfect calm. 'Sit down,' he said, as he did so himself. 'Yes,' answered Margaret sweetly, and remained standing. Suddenly he seemed to realise that she could not, and that the maids were not inclined to offer her a seat. His face and figure were transfigured in an instant, one fat, gloved hand shot out with extended forefinger in a gesture of command and his pale eyes flashed through his glasses, and glared furiously at the maids. 'Clear two chairs!' he shouted in a voice of thunder. Margaret started in surprise and protest. 'But the things are all ready----' objected the cadaverous maid. 'Damn the things!' yelled Schreiermeyer. 'Clear two chairs at once!' He seemed, on the verge of a white apoplexy, though he did not move from his seat. The cadaverous maid lifted an embroidered bodice from one of the chairs and laid it in one of the black trunks; she looked like a female undertaker laying a dead baby in its coffin. The fat maid showed all her teeth and laughed at Schreiermeyer and cleared the other chair, and brought up both together for the two ladies. 'Give yourselves the trouble to be seated,' said Schreiermeyer, in a tone so soft that it would not have disturbed a sleeping child. As soon as he was obeyed he became quite quiet and unobtrusive again, the furious glare faded from his eyes, and the white kid hand returned to rest upon its fellow. 'How good you are!' cried Madame De Rosa gratefully, as she sat down on the cane chair. 'Hum!' grunted Schreiermeyer, musically, as if he agreed with her. 'Miss Donne has a good soprano,' the teacher ventured to say after a time. 'Ah?' ejaculated the manager in a tone of very indifferent interrogation. There was a little pause. 'Lyric,' observed Madame De Rosa, breaking the silence. Another pause. Schreiermeyer seemed not to have heard, and neither moved nor looked at the two. 'Lyric?' he inquired, suddenly, but with extreme softness. 'Lyric,' repeated Madame De Rosa, leaning forward a little, and fanning herself violently. Another pause. 'Thank God!' exclaimed Schreiermeyer, without moving, but so very devoutly that Margaret stared at him in surprise. Madame De Rosa knew that this also was an excellent sign; she looked at Margaret and nodded energetically. Whatever Schreiermeyer might mean by returning devout thanks to his Maker at that moment, the retired singer was perfectly sure that he knew his business. He was probably in need of a lyric soprano for the next season, and that might lead to an immediate engagement for Margaret. 'How hot it is!' the latter complained, in an undertone. 'There is no air at all here!' The maids were mopping their faces with their handkerchiefs, and Madame De Rosa's fan was positively whirring. Schreiermeyer seemed quite indifferent to the temperature. He must nevertheless have been reflecting on Margaret's last remark when he slowly turned to her after a silence of nearly a minute. 'Have you a good action of the heart?' he inquired, precisely as a doctor might have done. 'I don't know.' Margaret smiled. 'I don't know anything about my heart.' 'Then it is good,' said the manager. 'It ought to be, for you have a magnificent skin. Do you eat well and sleep well, always?' 'Perfectly. May I ask if you are a doctor?' Madame De Rosa made furious signs to Margaret. A very faint smile flitted over the manager's quiet face. 'Some people call me an executioner,' he answered, 'because I kill the weak ones.' 'I am not afraid of work.' Margaret laughed. 'No. You will grow fat if you sing. You will grow very fat.' He spoke thoughtfully. 'After you are forty,' he added, as if by way of consolation. 'I hope not!' cried the young girl. 'Yes, you will. It is the outward sign of success in the profession. Singers who grow thin lose their voices.' 'I never grew very fat,' said Madame De Rosa, in a tone of regret. 'Precisely, my darling,' answered Schreiermeyer. 'Therefore you retired.' Margaret was a little surprised that he should call her teacher 'my darling,' and that the good lady should seem to think it quite natural, but her reflections on obesity and the manners of theatrical people were interrupted, though not by any means arrested for the night, by the clattering sound of high-heeled shoes in the corridor. The act was over, and Madame Bonanni was coming back from the stage. In a moment she was in the doorway, and as she entered the room she unmasked a third maid who followed her with a cloak. She saw Margaret first, as the latter rose to meet her. Margaret felt as if the world itself were putting huge arms round her and kissing her on both cheeks. The embrace was of terrific power, and a certain amount of grease paint came off. 'Little Miss Donne,' cried the prima donna, relaxing her hold on Margaret's waist but instantly seizing her by the wrist and turning her round sharply, like a dressmaker's doll on a pivot, 'that is Schreiermeyer! The great Schreiermeyer! The terrible Schreiermeyer! You see him before you, my child! Tremble! Every one trembles before Schreiermeyer!' The manager had risen, but was perfectly imperturbable and silent. He did not even grunt. Madame Bonanni dropped Margaret's wrist and shrugged her Juno-like shoulders. 'Schreiermeyer,' she said, as if she had forgotten all about Margaret, 'if that lime-light man plays the moon in my eyes again I shall come out on the balcony with blue goggles. You shall hear the public then! It is perfectly outrageous! I am probably blind for life!' She winked her big painted eyelids vigorously as if trying whether she could see at all. Margaret was looking at her, not sure that it was not all a dream, and wondering how it was possible that such a face and figure could still produce illusions of youth and grace when seen from the other side of the footlights. Yet Margaret herself had felt the illusion only a quarter of an hour ago. The paint on Madame Bonanni's face was a thick mask of grease, pigments and powder; the wig was the most evident wig that ever was; the figure seemed of gigantic girth compared with the woman's height, though that was by no means small; the eye lids were positively unwieldy with paint and the lashes looked like very thick black horsehairs stuck in with glue, in rows. She shook her solid fist at Schreiermeyer and blinked violently again. 'It is outrageous!' she cried again. 'Do you understand?' 'Perfectly.' 'Schreiermeyer!' screamed Madame Bonanni. 'If you take no more notice of my complaints than that I refuse to finish the opera. I will not sing the rest of it! Find somebody else to go on. I am going home! Undress me!' she cried, turning to the three perspiring maids, not one of whom moved an inch at her summons. 'Oh, you won't? You are afraid of him? Ah, bah! I am not. Schreiermeyer, I refuse to go on; I absolutely refuse. Go away! I am going to undress.' Thereupon she tore off her brown wig with a single movement and threw it across the room. It struck the wall with a thud and fell upon the floor, a limp and shapeless mass. The cadaverous maid instantly picked it up and began smoothing it. Madame Bonanni's own dark hair stood on end, giving her a decidedly wild look. Schreiermeyer smiled perceptibly. 'Miss Donne will go on and sing the rest of the opera with pleasure, I have no doubt,' he said, gently, looking at Margaret. The girl's heart stood still for an instant at this sudden proposal, before she realised that the manager was not in earnest. 'Of course she can sing it!' chimed in Madame De Rosa, understanding perfectly. 'But our dear friend is much too kind to disappoint the Parisian public,' she added, turning to the prima donna and speaking soothingly. 'Nothing can move that man!' cried Madame Bonanni, in a helpless tone. 'Nothing but the sound of your marvellous voice, my angel artist,' said Schreiermeyer. 'That always makes me weep, especially in the last act of this opera.' Margaret could not fancy the manager blubbering, though she had more than once seen people in front with their handkerchiefs to their eyes during the scene in the tomb. 'Put my wig on,' said Madame Bonanni to the cadaverous maid, and she sat down in front of the toilet-table. 'We must talk business at once,' she continued, suddenly speaking with the utmost calm. 'The appointment is at my house, at ten o'clock to-morrow morning, Schreiermeyer. Miss Donne will sing for us. Bring a pianist and the Minister of Fine Arts if you can get him.' 'I have not the Minister of Fine Arts in my pocket, dearest lady,' observed the manager, 'but I will try. Why do you name such a very early hour?' 'Because I breakfast at eleven. Tell the Minister that the King is coming too. That will bring him. All Ministers are snobs.' 'The King?' repeated Margaret in surprise, and somewhat aghast. 'He is in Paris,' explained Madame Bonanni carelessly. 'He's an old friend of mine, and we dined together last night. I told him about you and he said he would come if he could but you never can count on those people.' Margaret was too timid to ask what king Madame Bonanni was talking of, but she supposed her teacher would tell her in due time; and, after all, he might not come. Margaret hoped that he would, however, for she had never spoken to a royalty in her life and thought it would be very amusing to see a real, live king in the prima donna's eccentric surroundings. 'I shall turn you all out when you have heard her sing,' continued Madame Bonanni. You and I will lunch quite alone, my dear, and talk things over. There is one good point in Schreiermeyer's character. He never flatters unless he wants something. If he tells you that you sing well, it means an engagement next year. If he says you sing divinely, your _début_ will be next week, or as soon as you can rehearse with a company.' She touched up her cheeks with a hare's-foot while she talked. 'So that is settled,' she said, turning sharp round on the stool, which creaked loudly. 'Go home and go to bed, my children, unless you want to hear poor old Bonanni sing the rest of this stupid opera!' She laughed, at herself perhaps; but suddenly in the tones Margaret heard a far-off suggestion of sadness that went to her heart very strangely. The singer turned her back again and seemed to pay no more attention to her visitors. Margaret came close to her, to say goodbye, and to thank her for all she was doing. The great artist looked up quietly into the young girl's eyes for a moment, and laid a hand on hers very kindly. 'Good-night, little Miss Donne,' she said, so low that the others could not hear distinctly. 'It is the setting sun that bids you good-night, child--you, the dawn and the sun of to-morrow!' Margaret pressed the kind hand, and a moment later her teacher was hurrying her back through the dark wilderness of the stage to the brilliant house beyond. Schreiermeyer had already disappeared without so much as a word. CHAPTER VI Mrs. Rushmore had not been at all surprised at Lushington's sudden departure. She was accustomed to the habits of lions and was well aware that they must be allowed to come and go exactly as they please if you wish them to eat out of your hand from time to time; and when the eminent young critic announced rather suddenly that he must leave early the next morning the good lady only said that she was sorry, and that she hoped he would come back soon. Sham lions love to talk about themselves, and to excite curiosity, but real ones resent questions about their doings as they would resent a direct insult. Mrs. Rushmore knew that, too. She was really sorry to lose him, however, and had counted on his staying at least a week longer. She liked him herself, and she saw that Margaret liked him very much; and it was more moral in a nice girl to like an Englishman than a foreigner, just as it would be still more moral of her to prefer an American to an Englishman, according to Mrs. Rushmore's scale of nationalities. Next to what was moral, she was fond of lions, who are often persons without any morals whatsoever. But Lushington seemed to fill both requirements. He was a highly moral lion. She was quite sure that he did not drink, did not gamble, and did not secretly worship Ashtaroth; and he never told her naughty stories. Therefore she was very sorry when he was gone. At the present juncture, however, she was in considerable anxiety about Margaret. She did not know one note from another, but she had heard all the greatest singers of the last thirty years, in all the greatest opera-houses from Bayreuth to New York, and it horrified her to be obliged to admit that Margaret's singing sounded dreadfully like the best. The girl meant to sing in opera, and if she could really do it well it would be quite impossible to hinder her, as she had no means of support and could not be blamed for refusing to live on charity. Everything was combining to make an artist of her, for the chances of winning the suit brought on her behalf were growing as slender as the seven lean kine. It was characteristic of Margaret that she had kept to herself most of what Madame Bonanni had told her, but Mrs. Rushmore knew the girl well, and guessed from her face that there was much more behind. The appointment at the theatre confirmed this surmise, and when Margaret telegraphed the next day that she was going to stay in town until the afternoon, with Madame De Rosa, there was no longer any room for doubt. As for poor Lushington, Margaret had told him nothing at all, and her visit to Madame Bonanni had been a secret between herself and Mrs. Rushmore. Logotheti had not made his appearance after all, but the young archæologist had brought assurances that the financier would be honoured, charmed and otherwise delighted to be presented to Mrs. Rushmore within a day or two, if convenient to her. So it happened that Logotheti made his first visit after Lushington had left Versailles. The latter went away in a very disconsolate frame of mind, and disappeared into Paris. It is not always wise to follow a discouraged man into the retirement of a shabby room in a quiet hotel on the left bank of the Seine, and it is never amusing. Psychology in fiction seems to mean the rather fruitless study of what the novelist himself thinks he might feel if he ever got himself into one of those dreadful scrapes which it is a part of his art to invent outright, or to steal from the lives of men and women he has known or heard of. People who can analyse their own feelings are never feeling enough to hurt them much; a medical student could not take his scalpel and calmly dissect out his own nerves. You may try to analyse pain and pleasure when they are past, but nothing is more strangely and hopelessly undefined than the memory of a great grief, and no analysis of pleasure can lead to anything but the desire for more. The only real psychologists have been the great lyric poets, before they have emerged from the gloom of youth. The outward signs of Lushington's condition were few and not such as would have seemed dramatic to an acquaintance. When he was in his room at the hotel in the Rue des Saints Pères, he got an old briar pipe out of his bag, filled it and lit it, and stood for nearly a quarter of an hour at the window, smoking thoughtfully with his hands in his pockets. The subtle analyst, observing that the street is narrow and dull and presents nothing of interest, jumps to the conclusion that Lushington is thinking while he looks out of the window. Perhaps he is. The next thing to be done is to unpack his bag and place his dressing things in order on the toilet-table. They are simple things, but mostly made expressly for him, of oxidised silver, with his initials in plain block letters; and each object has a neat sole leather case of its own, so that they can be thrown pell-mell into a bag and jumbled up together without being scratched. But Lushington takes them out of their cases and disposes them on the table with mathematical precision, smoking vigorously all the time. This done, he unpacks his valise, his shirt-case and other belongings, in the most systematic way possible, looks through the things he left in the room when he went to Versailles, to see that everything is in order, and at last rings for the servant to take away the clothes and shoes that need cleaning. The subtle analyst would argue from all this that Lushington was one of those painfully orderly persons, who are made positively nervous by the sight of a hair-brush lying askew, or a tie dropped on the floor. It was at most true that he had acquired a set of artificially precise habits to which he clung most tenaciously, and which certainly harmonised with the natural appearance of neatness that had formerly been his despair. Why he had taken so much trouble to become orderly was his own business. Possibly he had got tired of that state of life in which it is impossible to find anything in less than half an hour when one wants it in half a minute. At all events, he had taken pains to acquire orderliness, and, for reasons which will appear hereafter, it is worth while to note the fact. When everything was arranged to his satisfaction, he sat down in the most comfortable chair in the room, filled another of the three wooden pipes that now lay side by side on the writing-table, and continued to smoke as if his welfare depended on consuming a certain quantity of tobacco in a given time. He must have had a sound heart and a strong head, for he did not desist from his occupation for many hours, though he had not eaten anything particular at breakfast, at Mrs. Rushmore's, and nothing at all since. The afternoon was wearing on when he knocked the ashes out of his pipe very carefully, laid it in its place, rose from his seat and uttered a single profane ejaculation. 'Damn!' Having said this, he said no more, for indeed, if taken literally, there could be nothing more to be said. The malediction, however, was directed against nothing particular, and certainly against no person living or dead; it only applied to the aggregate of the awkward circumstances in which he found himself, and as he was alone he felt quite sure of not being misunderstood. He did not even take a servant with him when he travelled, though he had an excellent Scotchman for a valet, who could do a great variety of useful things, besides holding his tongue, which is one of the finest qualities in the world, in man or dog. And he also had a dog in London, a particularly rough Irish terrier called Tim; but as Tim would have been quarantined every time he came home it was practically impossible to bring him to the Continent. It will be seen, therefore, that Lushington was really quite alone in the quiet hotel in the Rue des Saints Pères. He might have had company enough if he had wanted it, for he knew many men of letters in Paris and was himself known to them, which is another thing. They liked him, too, in their own peculiar way of liking their foreign colleagues. Most of them, without affectation and in perfect good faith, are convinced that there never was, is not, and never can be any literature equal to the French except that of Edgar Poe; but they feel that it would be rude and tactless of them to let us know that they think so. They are the most agreeable men in the world, as a whole, and considering what they really think of us--rightly or wrongly, but honestly--the courtesy and consideration they show us are worthy of true gentlemen. The most modest among ourselves seem a little arrogant and self-asserting in comparison with them. They praise us, sometimes, and not faintly either; but their criticism of us compares us with each other, not with them. The very highest eulogy they can bestow on anything we do is to say that it is 'truly French,' but they never quite believe it and they cannot understand why that is perhaps the very compliment that pleases us least, though we may have the greatest admiration for their national genius. With all our vanity, should we ever expect to please a French writer by telling him that his work was 'truly English'? Lushington liked a good many of his French colleagues in literature, and had at least one friend among them, a young man of vast learning and exquisite taste, who was almost an invalid. For a moment, he thought of going to see this particular one amongst them all, but he realised all at once that he did not wish to see any one at all that day. He went out and wandered towards the Quai Voltaire, and smelt the Seine and nosed an old book here and there at the stalls. Later he went and ate something in an eating-house on the outskirts of the Latin Quarter, and then went back to his hotel, smoked several more pipes by the open window, and went to bed. That was the first day, and the second was very like it, so that it is not necessary to describe it in detail in order to produce an impression of profound dulness in the reader's mind. Lushington's hair continued to be as preternaturally smooth as before, his beard was as glossy and his complexion as blooming and child-like, and yet the look of pain that Margaret had seen in his face was there most of the time during those two days. But in the evening he crossed the river and went to hear _Romeo and Juliet_, for he knew that it was the last night on which Madame Bonanni would sing before she left for the London season. He sat in the second row of the orchestra stalls, and never moved from his seat during the long performance. No secret intuition told him that Margaret was in the house, and that if he stood up and looked round after the second act he might see her and Madame De Rosa going out and coming back again and sitting at the end of a back row. He did not want to see any one he knew, and the surest way of avoiding acquaintances was to sit perfectly still while most people went out between the acts. His face only betrayed that the music pleased him, by turning a shade paler now and then; at the places he liked best, he shut his eyes, as if he did not care to see Madame Bonanni or the fat tenor. She sang very beautifully that night, especially after the second act, and Lushington thought he had hardly ever heard so much real feeling in her marvellous voice. Afterwards he walked home, and he heard it all the way, and for an hour after he had gone to bed, when he fell asleep at last, and dreamt that he himself had turned into a very fat tenor and was singing Romeo, but the Juliet was Margaret Donne instead of Madame Bonanni, and though she sang like an angel, she was evidently disgusted by his looks; which was very painful indeed, and made him sing quite out of tune and perspire terribly. 'You look hot,' said Margaret-Juliet, with cruel distinctness, just as he was trying to throw the most intense pathos into the words, ''tis not the lark, it is the nightingale!' Perhaps dreaming nonsense is also a subject for the inquiries of psychology. At the moment the poor man's imaginary sufferings were positively frightful, and he awoke with a gasp. He had always secretly dreaded growing fat, he had always felt a horror of anything like singing or speaking in public, and the only thing in the world he really feared was the possibility of being ridiculous in Margaret's eyes. Of course the ingenious demon of his dreams found a way of applying all these three torments at once, and it was like being saved from sudden death to wake up in the dark and smell the stale smoke of the pipe he had enjoyed before putting out his light. Then he fell asleep again and did not awake till morning, being naturally a very good sleeper. It was raining when he got up, and he looked out disconsolately upon the dull street. It seemed to him that if it was going to rain in Paris he might as well go back to London, where he had plenty to do, and he began to consider which train he should take, revolving the advantages and disadvantages of reaching London early in the evening or late at night. He knew the different time-tables by heart. But it stopped raining while he was dressing, and the sun came out, and a bird began to sing somewhere at a window high above the street, and it was suddenly spring again. It was a great thing to be alone in spring. If he went back to London he must see people he knew, and dine with people he hardly knew at all, and be asked out by others whom he had not even met, because he was the distinguished critic, flattered and feared and asked to dinner by everybody who had a seventh cousin in danger of literary judgment. He belonged to the flock of dramatic lions and must herd with them, eat with them and roar with them, for the greater glory of London society and his native country generally. Under ordinary circumstances such an existence was bearable and at times delightful, but just now he wanted to roar in the wilderness and assert his leonine right of roaming in desolate places not less than two geographical degrees east of Pall Mall. He went out at last and strolled towards the bridge, and across it and much farther, but not aimlessly, for though he did not always take the shortest way, he kept mainly in the same direction till he came to the Avenue Hoche. At the end of the street he stopped and looked at his watch. It was five minutes to eleven. Looking along the pavement in front of him his eye was attracted by the striped awning that distinguished Madame Bonanni's house from the others on the same side, and he noticed an extremely smart brougham that stood just before the door. The handsome black horse stood perfectly motionless in the morning sunshine, the stony-faced English coachman sat perfectly motionless on the box, looking straight between the horse's ears; he wore a plain black livery that fitted to perfection and there was no cockade on his polished hat. No turnout could have been simpler and yet none could have looked more overpoweringly smart. Lushington suddenly turned on his heel and walked off in the opposite direction, as if he were not pleased, but he had not gone fifty yards when he heard the brougham behind him, and in a few seconds it passed him at a sharp pace. He caught sight of the elderly man inside--a tremendous profile over a huge fair beard that was half grey, one large and rather watery blue eye behind a single eyeglass with a broad black ribbon, a gardenia in the button-hole of a smart grey coat, a cloud of cigarette smoke, one very large and aristocratic hand, with a plain gold ring, holding the cigarette and resting on the edge of the window. He smelt the smoke after the brougham had passed, and he recognised the fact that it was superlatively fragrant. He turned back again in a few moments and saw that three men were just coming out of Madame Bonanni's house. One was Schreiermeyer, whom he knew, and one looked like a poor musician. The third was the Minister of Fine Arts, whom he did not know but recognised. The Minister and the pianist walked one on each side of Schreiermeyer, and were talking excitedly, but the manager looked at neither of them and never turned his head. They went down the Avenue Hoche away from Lushington, who walked very slowly and looked at his watch twice before he reached Madame Bonanni's door. There he stopped, rang and was admitted without question, as if he were in the habit of coming and going as he pleased. He apparently took it for granted that the prima donna must be alone and already at her late breakfast, but he was stopped by the smiling servant who came out of the dining-room, arrayed as usual in a frock coat and a white satin tie. 'I will inform Madame,' he said. 'Is there any one there?' asked Lushington, evidently not pleased. The servant shrugged his shoulders in a deprecatory way, and his smile became rather compassionate. 'One young person to breakfast,' he said, 'a musician'. 'Oh, very well.' Lushington's brow cleared. The servant left him and went in again. A screen was so placed as to mask the interior of the dining-room when the door was open. Within, Madame Bonanni and Margaret were seated at table. Encouraged by circumstances the prima donna had on this occasion tied her napkin round her neck as soon as she had sat down; the inevitable plovers' eggs had already been demolished, and she was at work on a creamy purée soup of the most exquisite pale green colour. It was clear that she had not lost a moment in getting to her meal after the men had left. Margaret was eating too, but though there was fresh colour in her cheeks her eyes had a startled look each time she looked up, as if something very unusual had happened. The servant whispered something in Madame Bonanni's ear. She seemed to hesitate a moment, and glanced at Margaret before making up her mind. Then she nodded to the man without saying a word, and went on eating her soup. A few seconds later Lushington entered. Margaret faced the door and their eyes met. Madame Bonanni dropped her spoon into her plate with a clang and uttered a scream of delight, as if she had not known perfectly well that Lushington was coming. 'What luck!' she cried. 'Little Miss Donne, this is my son!' Margaret's jaw dropped in sheer amazement. 'Your son? Mr. Lushington is your son?' 'Yes. Ah, my child!' she cried, springing up and kissing Lushington on both cheeks with resounding affection. 'What a joy it is to see you!' Lushington was rather pale as he laid his hand quietly on Madame Bonanni's. 'I have the pleasure of knowing Miss Donne already, mother,' he said steadily, 'but she did not know that I was your son. She is a little surprised.' 'Yes,' answered Margaret, faintly, 'a little.' 'Ah, you know each other?' Madame Bonanni seemed delighted. 'So much the better! Miss Donne will keep our little secret, I am sure. Besides she has another name, too. She is Señorita Margarita da Cordova from to-day. Sit down, my darling child! You are starving! I know you are starving! Angelo!' she screamed at the smiling servant, 'why do you stand there staring like a stuffed codfish? Bring more plovers' eggs!' Angelo smiled as sweetly as ever and disappeared for an instant. Madame Bonanni took Lushington by the shoulders, as if he had been a little boy, made him sit down in the vacant place beside her, unfolded the napkin herself, spread it upon his knees, patted both his cheeks and kissed the top of his head, precisely as she had done when he was six years old. Margaret looked on in dumb surprise, and poor Lushington turned red to the roots of his hair. 'You have no idea what a dear child he is,' she said to Margaret, as she sat herself down in her own chair again. 'He has been my passion ever since he was born! My dear, you never saw such a beautiful baby as he was! He was all pink and white, like a little sugar angel, and he had dimples everywhere--everywhere, my dear!' she repeated with suggestive emphasis. 'I don't doubt it,' said Margaret, biting her lips and looking at her plate. By this time the plovers' eggs had come for Lushington and he was glad of anything to do with his hands. 'My mother can never believe that I am grown up,' he said, with much more self-possession than Margaret had expected; and suddenly he raised his eyes and looked steadily and quietly at her across the table. It must have cost him something of an effort, for his colour came and went quickly. Margaret knew what he was suffering and her respect for him increased a hundredfold in those few minutes, because he did not betray the least irritation in his tone or manner. His mother evidently worshipped him, but her way of showing it was such as must be horribly uncomfortable to a man of his retiring character and sensitive taste. He might easily have been forgiven if he had shown that it hurt him, as well it might. Whatever reason he and Madame Bonanni might have had for changing his name, he was brave enough not to be falsely ashamed of her, in the presence of the woman he loved. 'You see,' Margaret said, looking at him, but speaking to the prima donna, 'Mr. Lushington has been stopping with us at Versailles for a good while, but I did not tell him that I had been to see you, and he never even said that he knew you, though he often spoke of your singing.' 'Did he?' asked Madame Bonanni with intense anxiety. 'What did he say? Did he say that I was growing old and ought to give up the stage?' 'Mother!' exclaimed Lushington reproachfully. 'He never said anything of the kind!' cried Margaret, taking his part with energy. 'Because he always says just what he thinks,' explained Madame Bonanni, who seemed relieved. 'And the worst part of it is that he knows,' she added, thoughtfully. 'I do not pretend to understand what he writes, but I would take his opinion about music rather than anyone's. You wretched little boy!' she cried, turning on Lushington suddenly. 'How you frightened me!' 'I frightened you? How?' 'I was sure that you had told everybody that I was growing old! How could you? My darling child, how could you be so unkind? Oh, you have no heart!' 'But he never said so!' cried Margaret vehemently and feeling as if she were in a madhouse. 'He has told me again and again that you are still the greatest lyric soprano living----' 'Angelo,' said Madame Bonanni, with perfect calm, 'change my plate.' Margaret glanced at Lushington, who seemed to think it all quite natural. He was eating little bits of thin toast thoughtfully, and from time to time he looked at his mother with a gentle expression. But he did not meet Margaret's glance. 'You never sang better in your life than you did last night, mother,' he observed. The prima donna's face glowed with pleasure, and as she turned her big eyes to his Margaret saw in them a look of such loving tenderness as she had rarely seen in her life. 'I saw you, my dear,' said Madame Bonanni to her son. 'You were in the second row of the stalls. I sang for you last night, for I thought you looked sad and lonely.' Lushington laid his hand on hers for a moment. 'Thank you,' he said simply. There was a short silence, which was unusual when the prima donna was present. Margaret had recovered from her first surprise, and had understood that Madame Bonanni adored her son and that he felt real affection for her, though he suffered a good deal from the manner in which hers showed itself. If Lushington had fancied that he might fall in Margaret's estimation through her discovery of his birth, he was much mistaken. His patience and perfect simplicity did more to make her love him than anything he had done before. She had learned his secret, or a great part of it, and she understood him now, and the reason why he had changed his name, and she felt that he had behaved very well to her in going away, though she wished that he had boldly taken her into his confidence before leaving Mrs. Rushmore's. But she did not know all, though she was neither too young nor too innocent to guess a part of the truth. Few young women of twenty-two years are. Madame Bonanni's career as an artist had been a long series of triumphs, but her past as a woman had been variegated, of the sort for which the French have invented a number of picturesquely descriptive expressions, such as 'leading the life of Punch,' 'throwing one's cap over the windmills,' and other much less elegant phrases. Margaret saw that Lushington was not ashamed of his mother, as his mother; but she knew instinctively that his mother's past was a shame which he felt always and to the quick. Madame Bonanni ate a good deal before she spoke again, feeling, perhaps, that she had lost time. 'Schreiermeyer says she sings divinely,' she said at last, looking at Lushington and then nodding at Margaret. 'You know what that means.' 'London?' inquired Lushington, who knew the manager. 'London next year, and an appearance this season if any one breaks down. Meanwhile he signs for her _début_ in Belgium and a three months' tour. Twenty-four performances in three operas, fifty thousand francs.' 'I congratulate you,' said Lushington, looking at Margaret and trying to seem pleased. 'You seem to think it is too little,' observed Madame Bonanni. 'Little?' cried Margaret. 'It's a fortune!' 'You may talk of a fortune when you get three hundred pounds a night,' said Lushington. 'But it is a good beginning. I wonder that Schreiermeyer agreed to it so easily.' 'Easily!' Madame Bonanni laughed. 'I wish you had been there, my dear boy! He kicked and screamed, and we called him bad names. The King told him he was a dirty little Jew, which he is not, poor man, but it had a very good effect.' 'Oh!' Lushington did not seem surprised at the royal personage's reported language. 'Then it was the King who passed me in that smart brougham? I thought so.' 'Yes,' answered Madame Bonanni rather brusquely, and she became very busy with some little birds. 'It's funny,' Margaret said to Lushington. 'One always imagines a king with a crown and a sort of ermine dressing-gown, and a sceptre like the Lord Mayor's mace! Of course it's perfectly ridiculous, isn't it?' 'I believe His Majesty possesses those things,' answered Lushington, as if he did not like the subject. 'He looked and talked much more like an old friend than anything else,' Margaret went on, remembering that Madame Bonanni had used the same expression before Schreiermeyer. To her surprise and sudden discomfiture neither of the two paid the least attention to her remark. 'What train shall you take, mother?' asked Lushington so abruptly upon Margaret's speech that she understood her mistake. Though she had guessed something, it had somehow not occurred to her to connect the royal personage with Madame Bonanni's past; but now she scarcely dared to glance at Lushington. When she did, he seemed to be avoiding her eyes again, and she saw the old look of pain in his face, though he was talking about the timetables and the turbine channel-boat. 'You must come over to London and see me before your _début_, my dear,' Madame Bonanni said, breaking off the discussion of trains and turning to Margaret. 'That is, if Schreiermeyer will let you,' she added. 'You will have to do exactly what he tells you, now, and he is always right. He will be a father to you, now that he is going to make money out of you.' 'Will he call me his "darling"?' inquired Margaret, with a shade of anxiety. 'Of course he will! And when you sing well he will kiss you on both cheeks.' 'Indeed he won't!' cried Margaret, turning red. Madame Bonanni laughed heartily, but Lushington looked annoyed. 'My dear, why not?' asked the prima donna. 'Everybody kisses us artists, when we have a triumph, and we kiss everybody! The author, the manager, the dressmaker and the stage carpenter, besides all our old friends! What difference can it make? It means nothing.' 'But it's such an unpleasant idea!' Margaret objected. 'Of course,' returned Madame Bonanni, licking her fingers between the words, 'there are artists who ride the high horse and insist on being treated like duchesses. The other artists hate them, and real society laughs at them. It is far better to be simple, and kiss everybody. It costs so little and it gives them so much pleasure, as Rachel said of her lovers!' 'It was Sophie Arnould,' said Lushington, correcting her mistake. 'Was it? I don't care. I say it, and that is enough. Besides I hate children who are always setting their parents right! It's my own fault, because I was so anxious to have you well educated. If I had brought you up as I was brought up, you would never have left me! As it is'--she turned to Margaret with suddenly flashing eyes--'do you know, my dear? that atrocious little wretch will never take a penny from me, from me, his own mother! Ah, it is villainous! He is perfectly heartless! He denies me the only pleasure I wish for. Even when he was at school, at Eton, my dear, at the great English school, you know, he worked like a poor boy and won scholarships--money! Is it not disgusting? And at Oxford he lived on that money and won more! And then he worked, and worked at those terrible books, and wrote for the abominable press, and never would let me give him anything. Ah, you ungrateful little boy! She seemed perfectly furious with him and shook her fist in his face; but the next moment she laughed and patted his cheek with her fat hand. 'And to say that I am proud of him!' she said, beaming with motherly smiles. 'Proud of him, my dear, you don't know! He is beating them all, as he always did! At the school, at the university, he was always the best! He used to get what they call firsts and double firsts every week!' Margaret could not help laughing, and even Lushington smiled in his agony. 'It was splendid,' said the young girl, looking at him. 'Did you really get a double first?' Lushington nodded. 'One?' screamed Madame Bonanni. 'Twenty, I tell you! A hundred----' 'No, no, mother,' interrupted Lushington. No one can get more than one.' 'Ah, did I not tell you?' cried the prima donna, triumphantly. 'There is only one, and he got it! What did I tell you? How can you expect me not to be proud of him?' 'You ought to be,' answered Margaret, very much in earnest, and for the first time Lushington saw in her eyes the light of absolutely unreserved admiration. It was not for the double first at Oxford that she gave it. There had been a moment when it had hurt her to think that he probably accepted a good deal of luxury in his existence out of his mother's abundant fortune, but it was gone now. Even as a schoolboy he had guessed whence at least a part of that wealth really came, and had refused to touch a penny of it. But Lushington felt as if he were being combed with red-hot needles from head to foot, and the perspiration stood on his forehead. It would have filled him with shame to mop it with his handkerchief and yet he felt that in another moment it would run down. The awful circumstances of his dream came vividly back to him, and he could positively hear Margaret telling him that he looked hot, so loud that the whole house could understand what she said. But at this point something almost worse happened. Madame Bonanni's motherly but eagle eye detected the tiny beads on his brow. With a cry of distress she sprang to her feet and began to wipe them away with the corner of her napkin that was tied round her neck, talking all the time. 'My darling!' she cried. 'I always forget that you feel hot when I feel cold! Angelo, open everything--the windows, the doors! Why do you stand there like a dressed-up doll in a tailor's window? Don't you see that he is going to have a fit?' 'Mother, mother! Please don't!' protested the unfortunate Lushington, who was now as red as a beet. But Madame Bonanni took the lower end of her napkin by the corners, as if it had been an apron, and fanned him furiously, though he put up his hands and cried for mercy. 'He is always too hot,' she said, suddenly desisting and sitting down again. 'He always was, even when he was a baby.' She was now at work on a very complicated salad. 'But then,' she went on, speaking between mouthfuls, 'I used to lay him down in the middle of my big bed, with nothing on but his little shirt, and he would kick and crow until he was quite cool.' Again Margaret bit her lip, but this time it was of no use, and after a conscientious effort to be quiet she broke into irrepressible laughter. In a moment Lushington laughed too, and presently he felt quite cool and comfortable again, feeling that after all he had been ridiculous only when he was a baby. 'We used to call him Tommy,' said Madame Bonanni, putting away her plate and laying her knife and fork upon it crosswise. 'Poor little Tommy! How long ago that was! After his father died I changed his name, you know, and then it seemed as if little Tommy were dead too.' There was visible moisture in the big dark eyes for an instant. Margaret felt sorry for the strange, contradictory creature, half child, half genius, and all mother. 'My husband's name was Goodyear,' continued the prima donna thoughtfully. 'You will find it in all biographies of me.' 'Goodyear,' Margaret repeated, looking at Lushington. 'What a nice name! I like it.' 'You understand,' Madame Bonanni went on, explaining. '"Goodyear," "buon anno," "bonanno," "Bonanni"; that is how it is made up. It's a good name for the stage, is it not?' 'Yes. But why did you change it at all for your son?' Madame Bonanni shrugged her large shoulders, glanced furtively at Lushington, and then looked at Margaret. 'It was better,' she said. 'Fruit, Angelo!' 'Can I be of any use to you in getting off, mother?' asked Lushington. Margaret felt that she had made another mistake, and looked at her plate. 'No, my angel,' said Madame Bonanni, answering her son's question, and eating hothouse grapes; 'you cannot help me in the least, my sweet. I know you would if you could, dear child! But you will come and dine with me quietly at the Carlton on Sunday at half-past eight, just you and I. I promise you that no one shall be there, not even Logotheti--though you do not mind him so much.' 'Not in the least,' Lushington answered, with a smile which Margaret thought a little contemptuous. 'All the same, I would much rather be alone with you.' 'Do you wonder that I love him?' asked Madame Bonanni, turning to Margaret. 'No, I don't wonder in the least,' answered the young girl, with such decision that Lushington looked up suddenly, as if to thank her. The ordeal was over at last, and the prima donna rose with a yawn of satisfaction. 'I am going to turn you out,' she said. 'You know I cannot live without my nap.' She kissed Margaret first, and then her son, each on both cheeks, but it was clear that she could hardly keep her eyes open, and she left Margaret and Lushington standing together, exactly as she had left the young girl with Logotheti on the first occasion. Their eyes met for an instant and then Lushington got his hat and stick and opened the door for Margaret to go out. 'Shall I call a cab for you?' he asked. 'No, thank you. I'll walk a little way first, and then drive to the station.' When they were in the street, Lushington stood still. 'You believe that it was an accident, don't you?' he asked. 'I mean my coming to-day.' 'Of course! Shall we walk on?' He could not refuse, and he felt that he was not standing by his resolution; yet the circumstances were changed, since she now knew his secret, and was warned. They had gone twenty steps before she spoke. 'You might have trusted me,' she said. 'I should think you would understand why I did not tell you,' he answered rather bitterly. She opened her parasol so impatiently that it made an ominous little noise as if it were cracking. 'I do understand,' she said, almost harshly, as she held it up against the sun. 'And yet you complain because I did not tell you,' said Lushington in a puzzled tone. 'It's you who don't understand!' Margaret retorted. 'No. I don't.' 'I'm sorry.' They went on a little way in silence, walking rather slowly. She was angry with herself for being irritated by him, just when she admired him more than ever before, and perhaps loved him better; though love has nothing to do with admiration except to kindle it sometimes, just when it is least deserved. Now it takes generous people longer to recover from a fit of anger against themselves than against their neighbours, and in a few moments Margaret began to feel very unhappy, though all her original irritation against Lushington had subsided. She now wished, in her contrition, that he would say something disagreeable; but he did not. He merely changed the subject, speaking quite naturally. 'So it is all decided,' he said, 'and you are to make your _début_.' 'Yes,' she answered, with a sort of eagerness to be friendly again. 'I'm a professional from to-day, with a stage name, a prey to critics, reporters and photographers--just like your mother, except that she is a very great artist and I am a very little one.' It was not very skilfully done, but Lushington was grateful for what she meant by it, and for saying 'your mother' instead of 'Madame Bonanni.' 'I think you will be great, too,' he said, 'and before very long. There is no young soprano on the stage now, who has half your voice or half your talent.' Margaret coloured with pleasure, though she could not quite believe what he told her. But he glanced at her and felt sure that he was right. She had voice and talent, he knew, but even with both some singers fail; she had the splendid vitality, the boundless health and the look of irresistible success, which only the great ones have. She was not a classic beauty, but she would be magnificent on the stage. There was a short silence, before she spoke. 'Two days ago,' she said, 'I did not think we would meet again so soon.' 'Part again so soon, you ought to say,' he answered. 'It is nothing but that, after all.' She bit her lip. 'Must we?' she asked, almost unconsciously. 'Yes. Don't make it harder than it is. Let's get it over. There's a cab.' He held up his stick and signalled to the cabman, who touched his horse and moved towards them. Margaret stood still, with a half-frightened look, and spoke in a low voice. 'Tom, if you leave me, I won't answer for myself!' 'I will. Good-bye--God bless you!' The cab stopped beside them, as he held out his hand. She took it silently and he made her get in. A moment later she was driving away at a smart pace, sitting bolt upright and looking straight before her, her lips pressed tight together, while Lushington walked briskly in the opposite direction. It had all happened in a moment, in a sort of despairing hurry. CHAPTER VII Constantine Logotheti had at least two reasons for not going out to Versailles as soon as Mrs. Rushmore signified her desire to know him. In the first place he was 'somebody,' and an important part of being 'somebody' is to keep the fact well before the eyes of other people. He was altogether too great a personage to be at the beck and call of every one who wanted to know him. Secondly, he did not wish Margaret to think that he was running after her, for the very good reason that he meant to do so with the least possible delay. Lushington, who was really both sensitive and imaginative, used to tell Margaret that he was a realist. Logotheti, who was by nature, talent and education a thorough materialist, loved to believe that he possessed both a rich imagination and the gift of true sentiment. Margaret had delighted him at first sight, though he was hard to please, and though she was not a great beauty. She appealed directly to that love of life for its own sake which was always the strength, the genius and the snare of the Greek people, and which is not extinct in their modern descendants. Logotheti certainly had plenty of it, and his first impression, when he had met Margaret Donne, was that he had met his natural mate. There was nothing in the very least psychological about the sensation, and yet it was not the result of a purely physical attraction. It brought with it a satisfaction of artistic taste that was an unmarred pleasure in itself. True art has gone much further in deifying humanity than in humanising divinity. The Hermes of Olympia is a man made into a god; no Christian artist has ever done a tenth as well in presenting the image of God made Man. When imagination soars towards an invisible world it loses love of life as it flies higher, till it ends in glorifying death as the only means of reaching heaven; and in doing that it has often descended to a gross realism that would have revolted the Greeks--to the materialism of anatomical preparations that make one think of the dissecting-room, if one has ever been there. Love of genuine art is the best sort of love of life, and the really great artists have always been tremendously vital creatures. So-called artistic people who are sickly or merely under-vitalised generally go astray after strange gods; or, at the best, they admire works of art for the sake of certain pleasing, or sad, or even unhealthy associations which these call up. Logotheti came of a race which, through being temporarily isolated from modern progress, has not grown old with it. For it seems pretty sure that progress means, with many other things, the survival of the unfit and the transmission of unfitness to a generation of old babies; but where men are not disinfected, sterilised, fed on preserved carrion and treated with hypodermics from the cradle to the grave, the good old law of nature holds its own and the weak ones die young, while the strong fight for life and are very much alive while they live. Such people, when transplanted from what we call a half-barbarous state to live amongst us, never feel as we do, and when they are roused to action their deeds are not of the sort which our wives, our mothers-in-law and the clergy expect us to approve. It does not follow that they are villains, though they may occasionally kill some one in a fit of anger, or carry off by force the women they fall in love with; for such doings probably seem quite natural in their own country, and after all they cannot be expected to know more about right and wrong than their papas and mammas taught them when they were little things. The object of this long-winded digression is not to excite sympathy on behalf of Logotheti, but to forestall surprise at some of the things he did when he had convinced himself that of all the women he had ever met, Margaret Donne was the one that suited him best, and that she must be his at any cost and at any risk. The conviction was almost formed at the first meeting, and took full possession of him when he met her again, and she seemed glad to see him. By this time she had no reason for concealing from Mrs. Rushmore that she had seen him at Madame Bonanni's, and she held out her hand with a frank smile. It was on a Sunday afternoon and there were a number of lions on the lawn, and half a dozen women of the world. Logotheti seemed to know more than half the people present, which is rather unusual in Paris, and most of them treated him with the rather fawning deference accorded by society to the superior claims of wealth over good blood. The Greek smiled pleasantly and reflected that the nobility of the Fanar, which goes back to the Byzantine Empire, is as good as any in France, and even less virtuous. He by no means despised his wealth, and he continually employed his excellent faculties in multiplying it; but in his semi-barbarous heart he was an aristocrat and was quietly amused when people whose real names seemed to have been selected from a list of Rhine wines took titles which emanated from the Vatican, or when plain Monsieur Dubois turned himself into 'le comte du Bois de Vincennes'. Yet since few people seemed to know anything about Leo the Isaurian, under whom his direct ancestor had held office as treasurer and had eventually had his eyes put out for his pains, Logotheti was quite willing to be treated with deference for the sake of the more tangible advantages of present fortune. In Mrs. Rushmore's garden of celebrities, he at once took his place as a rare bird. He crossed the lawn beside Margaret, indeed, with the air and assurance of a magnificent peacock. He was perhaps a shade less over-dressed than when she had seen him last, but there was an astonishing lustre about everything he wore, and even his almond-shaped eyes were bright almost to vulgarity; but though he tired the sight, as a peacock does in the sun, it was impossible not to watch him. 'What a handsome man Logotheti is!' exclaimed a Roumanian poetess, who was there. 'What an awful cad!' observed a fastidious young American to the English officer who was still on his way to India, and was very comfortable at Mrs. Rushmore's. The Englishman looked at Logotheti attentively for nearly half a minute before he answered. 'No,' he said quietly. 'That man is not a cad, he is simply a rich Oriental, dressed up in European clothes. I've met that sort before, and they are sometimes nasty customers. That fellow is as strong as a horse and as quick as a cat.' Meanwhile the Greek and Margaret reached a seat near the little pond and sat down. She did not know that he had watched every one of her movements with as much delight as if Psyche, made whole and alive, had been walking beside him. He had not seemed to look at her at all, and he did not begin the conversation by making her compliments. 'I should have left a card on Mrs. Rushmore the day after I met you,' he began in a rather apologetic tone, 'but I was not quite sure that she knew about your visit to our friend, and she might have asked who I was and where you had met me. Besides, as she is an American, she would have thought I was trying to scrape acquaintance.' 'Hardly that. But you did quite right,' Margaret answered. 'Thank you.' He was tactful. She leaned back a little in the corner of the seat and looked at him with an air of curiosity, wondering why everything he had said and done so far had pleased her so much better than his appearance. She was always expecting him to say something blatant or to do something vulgar, mainly because he wore such phenomenal ties and such gorgeous pins. To-day he displayed a ruby of astonishing size and startling colour. She was sure that it must be real, because he was so rich, but she had never known that rubies could be so big except in a fairy story. The tie was knitted of the palest mauve, shot with green and gold threads. 'I have seen Schreiermeyer,' he said. 'Is there to be any secret about your _début_?' 'None whatever! But I have said nothing about it, and none of the people here seem to have found it out yet.' 'So much the better. In everything connected with the theatre I believe it is a mistake to try and excite interest before the event. What is said beforehand is rarely said afterwards. You can be sure that Schreiermeyer will say nothing till the time comes, and if Madame Bonanni talks about you to her friends in London, nobody will believe she is in earnest.' 'But she is so outspoken,' Margaret objected. 'Yes, but no one could possibly understand that a prima donna just on the edge of decline could possibly wish to advertise a rising light. It is hardly human!' 'I think she is the most good-natured woman I ever knew,' said Margaret with conviction. 'She has a heart of gold. Her only trouble in life is that she has too much of it! There is enough for everybody. She has always had far too much for one.' Logotheti smiled at his own expression. 'Perhaps that is better than having no heart at all,' Margaret answered, not quite realising how the words might have been misunderstood. 'The heart is a convenient and elastic organ,' observed Logotheti. 'It does almost everything. It sinks, it swells, it falls, it leaps, it stands still, it quivers, it gets into one's throat and it breaks; but it goes on beating all the time with more or less regularity, just as the violin clown scrapes his fiddle while he turns somersaults, sticks out his tongue, sits down with frightful suddenness and tumbles in and out of his white hat.' He talked to amuse her and occupy her while he looked at her, studying her lines, as a yacht expert studies those of a new and beautiful model; yet he knew so well how to glance and look away, and glance again, that she was not at all aware of what he was really doing. She laughed a little at what he said. 'Where did you learn to speak English so well?' she asked. 'Languages do not count nowadays,' he answered carelessly. 'Any Levantine in Smyrna can speak a dozen, like a native. Have you never been in the East?' 'No.' 'Should you like to go to Greece?' 'Of course I should.' 'Then come! I am going to take a party in my yacht next month. It will give me the greatest pleasure if you and Mrs. Rushmore will come with us.' Margaret laughed. 'You forget that I am a real artist, with a real engagement!' she answered. 'Yes, I forgot that. I wanted to! I can make Schreiermeyer forget it, too, if you will come. I'll hypnotise him. Will you authorise me?' He smiled pleasantly but his long eyes were quite grave. Margaret supposed that it would be absurd to suspect anything but chaff in his proposal, and yet she felt an odd conviction that he meant what he said. Only vain women are easily mistaken about such things. Margaret turned the point with another little laugh. 'If you put him to sleep he will hibernate, like a dormouse,' she said. 'It will take a whole year to wake him up!' 'I don't think so, but what if it did?' 'I should be a year older, and I am not too young as it is! I'm twenty-two.' 'It's only in Constantinople that they are so particular about age,' laughed the Greek. 'After seventeen the price goes down very fast.' 'Really?' Margaret was amused. 'What do you suppose I should be worth in Turkey?' Logotheti looked at her gravely and seemed to be estimating her value. 'If you were seventeen, you would be worth a good thousand pounds,' he said presently, 'and at least three hundred more for your singing.' 'Is that all, for my voice?' She could not help laughing. 'And at twenty-two, what should I sell for?' 'I doubt whether any one would give much more than eight hundred for you,' answered Logotheti with perfect gravity. 'That's a big price, you know. In Persia they give less. I knew a Persian ambassador, for instance, who got a very handsome wife for four hundred and fifty.' 'Are you in earnest?' asked Margaret. 'Do you mean to say that you could just go out and buy yourself a wife in the market in Constantinople?' 'I could not, because I am a Christian. The market exists in a quiet place where Europeans never find it. You see all the Circassians in Turkey live by stealing horses and selling their daughters. They are a noble race, the Circassians! The girls are brought up with the idea, and they rarely dislike it at all.' 'I never heard of such things!' 'No. The East is very interesting. Will you come? I'll take you wherever you like. We will leave the archæologists in Crete and go on to Constantinople. It will be the most beautiful season on the Bosphorus, you know, and after that we will go along the southern shore of the Black Sea to Samsoun, and Kerasund, and Trebizond, and round by the Crimea. There are wonderful towns on the shores of the Black Sea which hardly any European ever sees. I'm sure you would like them, just as I do.' 'I am sure I should.' 'You love beautiful things, don't you?' 'Yes--though I don't pretend to be a judge.' 'I do. And when I see anything that really pleases me, I always try to get it; and if I succeed, nothing in the world will induce me to part with it. I'm a miser about the things I like. I keep them in safe places, and it gives me pleasure to look at them when I'm alone.' 'That's not very generous. You might give others a little pleasure, too, now and then.' 'So few people know what is good! Some of us Greeks have the instinct in our blood still, and we recognise it in a few men and women we meet--you are one, for instance. As soon as I saw you the first time, I was quite sure that we should think alike about a great many things. Do you mind my saying as much as that, at a second meeting?' 'Not if you think it is true,' she answered with a smile. 'Why should I?' 'It might sound as if I were trying to make out that we have some natural bond of sympathy,' said Logotheti. 'That's a favourite way of opening the game, you know. "Do you like carrots? So do I"--a bond, at once! "Do you go in, when it rains? I always do"--second bond. "We must be sympathetic to each other! Do you smile when you are pleased? Of course! We are exactly alike, and our hearts beat in unison!" That's the sort of thing.' He amused her; perhaps she was easily amused now, because she had been feeling rather depressed all the morning. Women are subject to such harmless self-contradictions. 'I love to be out in the rain, and I don't like carrots!' she answered. 'There are evidently things about which our hearts don't beat in unison at all!' 'If people agreed about everything, what would become of conversation, lawyers and standing armies? But I meant to suggest that we might possibly like each other if we met often.' 'I daresay.' 'I have begun,' said Logotheti lightly, but again his long eyes were grave. 'Begun what?' 'I have begun by liking you. You don't object, do you?' 'Oh no! I like to be liked--by everybody!' Margaret laughed again, and watched him. 'It only remains for you to like everybody yourself. Will you kindly include me?' 'Yes, in a general way, as a neighbour, in the biblical sense, you know. Are you English enough to understand that expression?' 'I happen to have read the story of the Good Samaritan in Greek,' Logotheti answered. 'Since you are willing that we should be neighbours, "in the biblical sense," you cannot blame me for saying that I love my neighbour as myself.' Once more her instinct told her that the words were meant less carelessly than they were spoken, though she could not possibly seem to take them in earnest. Yet her curiosity was aroused, as he intended that it should be. 'I remember that the Samaritan loved his neighbour, "in the biblical sense," at first sight,' he said, with a quick glance. 'But those were biblical times, you know!' 'Men have not changed much since then. We can still love at first sight, I assure you, even after we have seen a good deal of the world. It depends on meeting the right woman, and on nothing else. Do you suppose that if the Naples Psyche, or the Syracuse Venus, or the Venus of Milo, or the Victory of Samothrace suddenly appeared in Paris or London, all the men would not lose their heads about her--at first sight? Of course they would!' 'If you expect to have such neighbours as those--"in the biblical sense"----' 'I have one,' said Logotheti, 'and that's enough.' Margaret had received many compliments of a more or less complicated nature, but she did not remember that any one had yet compared her to two Venuses, the Psyche and the Samothrace Nikê in a single breath. 'That's nonsense!' she exclaimed, blushing a little, and not at all indignant. 'No,' Logotheti answered, imperturbably. 'Besides, neither the Victory nor the Venus of Syracuse has a head, so I am at liberty to suppose yours on their shoulders. Take the Victory. You move exactly as she seems to be moving, for she is not flying at all, you know, though she has wings. The wings are only a symbol. The Greeks knew perfectly well that a winged human being could not fly straight without a feathered tail two or three yards long!' 'How absurd!' 'That you should move like the Victory? Not at all. The reason why I love my neighbour as myself is that my neighbour is the most absolutely satisfactory being, from an artistic point of view. I don't often make compliments.' 'They are astonishing when you do!' 'Perhaps. But I was going on to say that what satisfies my love of the beautiful, can only be what satisfies my love of life itself, which is enormous.' 'In other words,' said Margaret, wondering how he would go on, 'I am your ideal!' 'Do you know what an "ideal" is?' 'Yes--well--no!' She hesitated. 'Perhaps I could not define it exactly.' 'A man's ideal is what he wants, and nothing else in the world.' Margaret was not sure whether she should resent the speech a little, or let it pass. For an instant they looked at each other in silence. Then she made up her mind to laugh. 'Do you know that you are going ahead at a frightful pace?' she asked. 'Why should I waste time? My time is my life. It's all I have. Any fool can make money when he has wasted it and really wants more, but no power in heaven or earth can give me back an hour thrown away, an hour of what might have been.' 'I'm sure you must have learnt that in an English Sunday school! It's a highly moral and practical sentiment! But what becomes of the imagination?' 'Oh, that's the other side,' Logotheti answered, laughing. 'Never do to-day what you can put off till to-morrow, for if you do you'll lose all the pleasure of anticipating it! And the anticipation is much more delightful than the reality, so you must never realise your dream, if you mean to be happy--and all that sort of thing! But if reality knocks at my door while I am asleep and dreaming, and if I don't wake up to let it in, it may never take the trouble to knock again, you know, and I shall be left dreaming. I don't know about the Sunday school maxim being moral in all cases, but it's certainly very practical. I wish you would follow it and come with me to the East--you and Mrs. Rushmore.' 'You mean that if I don't, you'll never ask me again, I suppose?' 'No. That was not what I meant.' He looked steadily into her eyes till she turned her head away. 'What I meant was that you might be induced to give up the idea of the stage.' 'And as an inducement to throw up my engagement and sacrifice a career that may turn out well--you have told me so!--you offer me a trip to Constantinople!' 'You shall keep the yacht as a memento of the cruise. She's not a bad vessel.' 'What should I do with a steam yacht?' 'Oh, you would have to take the owner with her,' Logotheti answered airily. 'Eh?' Margaret stared at him in amazement. 'Yes. Don't be surprised. I'm quite in earnest. I never lose time, you know.' 'I should think not! Do you know that this is only our second meeting?' 'Exactly,' replied the Greek coolly. 'Of course, I might have asked you the first time we met, when we were standing together on the pavement outside Madame Bonanni's door. I thought of it, but I was afraid it might strike you as sudden.' 'A little!' 'Yes. But a second meeting is different. You must admit that I have had plenty of time to think it over and to know my own mind.' 'In two meetings?' 'Yes. Surely you know that in France young people are often engaged to be married when they have never seen each other at all.' 'That is arranged for them by their parents,' objected Margaret. 'Whereas we can arrange the matter for ourselves,' Logotheti said. 'It's more dignified, and far more independent. Isn't it?' 'I suppose so--I hardly know.' 'Oh yes, it is! You cannot deny it. Besides we have no parents and we are not children. You may think me hasty, but you cannot possibly be offended.' 'I'm not, but I think you are quite mad--unless you are joking.' 'Mad, because I love you?' asked Logotheti, lowering his voice and looking at her. 'But how is it possible? We hardly know each other!' Margaret was beginning to feel uncomfortable. 'Never mind; it is possible, since it is so. Of course, I cannot expect you to feel as I do, so soon, but I want to be before any one else.' Margaret was silent, and her expression changed as she listened to his low and earnest tones. 'I don't want to believe there is any one else,' he went on. 'I don't believe it, not even if you tell me there is. But you would not tell me, I suppose.' She turned her eyes full upon him and spoke as low as he, but a little unsteadily. 'There is some one else,' she said slowly. Logotheti's lips moved, but she could not hear what he said, and almost as soon as she had spoken he looked down at the grass. There was no visible change in his face, and though she watched him for a few seconds, she did not think his hold tightened on his stick or that his brows contracted. She was somewhat relieved at this, for she was inclined to conclude that he had not been in earnest at all, and had idly asked her to marry him just to see whether he could surprise her into saying anything foolish. Yet this idea did not please her either. If there is anything a woman resents, it is that a man should pretend to be in love with her, in order to laugh at her in his sleeve. Margaret rose during the silence that followed. Logotheti sat still for a moment, as if he had not noticed her, and then he got up suddenly, and glanced at her with a careless smile. 'I wish you good luck,' he said lightly. 'Thank you,' she answered. 'One can never have too much of it!' 'Never. Get a talisman, a charm, a "jadoo." You will need something of the sort in your career. A black opal is the best, but if you choose that you must get it yourself, you must buy it, find it, or steal it. Otherwise it will have no effect!' They moved away from the place where they had sat, and they joined the others. But after they had separated Margaret looked more than once at Logotheti, as if her eyes were drawn to him against her will, and she was annoyed to find that he was watching her. She had thought of Lushington often that day, and now she wished with all her heart that he were beside her, standing between her and something she could not define but which she dreaded just because she could not imagine what it was, though it was certainly connected with Logotheti and with what he had said. She changed her mind about the Greek half-a-dozen times in an hour, but after each change the conviction grew on her that he had meant not only what he had said, but much more. His eyes were not like other men's eyes at all, when they looked at her, though they were so very quiet and steady; they were the eyes of another race which she did not know, and they saw the world as her own people did not see it, nor as Frenchmen, nor as Italians, nor Germans, nor as any people she had met. They had seen sights she could never see, in countries where the law, if there was any, took it for granted that men would risk their lives for what they wanted. She, who was not easily frightened, suddenly felt the fear of the unknown, and the unknown was somehow embodied in Logotheti. She did not show what she felt when he strolled up to her to say good-bye, but through her glove she felt that his hand was stone cold, and as he said the half-dozen conventional words that were necessary she was sure that he smiled strangely, even mysteriously, as if such phrases as 'I hope to see you again before long,' and 'such a heavenly afternoon,' would cloak the deadly purposes of a diabolical design. Margaret was alone with Mrs. Rushmore for a few minutes before dinner. 'Well?' Mrs. Rushmore uttered the single word in an ejaculatory and interrogative tone, as only a certain number of old-fashioned Americans can. Spoken in that peculiar way it can mean a good deal, for it can convey suspicion, or approval or disapproval and any degree of acquaintance with the circumstances concerned, from almost total ignorance to the knowledge of everything except the result of the latest development. On the present occasion Mrs. Rushmore meant that she had watched Margaret and Logotheti and had guessed approximately what had passed--that she thought the matter decidedly interesting, and wished to know all about it. But Margaret was not anxious to understand, if indeed her English ear detected all the hidden meaning of the monosyllable. 'There were a good many people, weren't there?' she observed with a sort of query, meant to lead the conversation in that direction. Mrs. Rushmore would not be thrown off the scent. 'My dear,' she said severely, 'he proposed to you on that bench. Don't deny it.' 'Good gracious!' exclaimed Margaret, taken by surprise. 'Don't deny it,' repeated Mrs. Rushmore. 'I had only met him once before to-day,' said Margaret. 'It's all the same,' retorted Mrs. Rushmore with an approach to asperity. 'He proposed to you. Don't deny it. I say, don't deny it.' 'I haven't denied it,' answered Margaret. 'I only hoped that you had not noticed anything. He must be perfectly mad. Why in the world should he want to marry me?' 'All Greeks,' said Mrs. Rushmore, 'are very designing.' Margaret smiled at the expression. 'I should have said that Monsieur Logotheti was hasty,' she answered. 'My dear,' said Mrs. Rushmore with conviction, 'this man is an adventurer. You may say what you like, he is an adventurer. I am sure that ruby he wears is worth at least twenty thousand dollars. You may say what you like; I am sure of it.' 'But I don't say anything,' Margaret protested. 'I daresay it is.' 'I know it is,' retorted Mrs. Rushmore with cold emphasis. 'What business has a man to wear such jewellery? He's an adventurer, and nothing else.' 'He's one of the richest men in Paris for all that,' observed Margaret. 'There!' exclaimed Mrs. Rushmore. 'Now you're defending him! I told you so!' 'I don't quite see----' 'Of course not. You're much too young to understand such things. The wretch has designs on you. I don't care what you say, my dear, he has designs.' In Mrs. Rushmore's estimation she could say nothing worse of any human being than that. 'What sort of "designs"?' inquired Margaret, somewhat amused. 'In the first place, he wants to marry you. You admit that he does. My dear Margaret, it's bad enough that you should talk in your cold-blooded way of going on the stage, but that you should ever marry a Greek! Good heavens, child! What do you think I am made of? And then you ask me what designs the man has. It's not to be believed!' 'I must be very dull,' said Margaret in a patient tone, 'but I don't understand.' 'I do,' retorted Mrs. Rushmore with severity, 'and that's enough! Wasn't I your dear mother's best friend? Haven't I been a good friend to you?' 'Indeed you have!' cried Margaret very gratefully. 'Well then,' explained Mrs. Rushmore, 'I don't see that there is anything more to be said. It follows that the man is either an agent of that wicked old Alvah Moon----' 'Why?' asked Margaret, opening her eyes. 'Or else,' continued Mrs. Rushmore with crushing logic, 'he means to live on you when you've made your fortune by singing. It must be one or the other, and if it isn't the one, it's certainly the other. Certainly it is! You may say what you like. So that's settled, and I've warned you. You can't afford to despise your old friend's warning, Margaret--indeed you can't.' 'But I've no idea of marrying the man,' said Margaret helplessly. 'Of course not! But I should like to say, my child, that whatever you do, I won't leave you to your fate. You may be sure of that. If nothing else would serve I'd go on the stage myself! I owe it to your mother.' Margaret wondered in what capacity Mrs. Rushmore would exhibit herself to the astounded public if she carried out her threat. CHAPTER VIII If Mrs. Rushmore's logic was faulty and the language of her argument vague, her instinct was keen enough and had not altogether misled her. Logotheti was neither a secret agent of the wicked Alvah Moon who had robbed Margaret of her fortune, nor had he the remotest idea of making Margaret support him in luxurious idleness in case she made a success. But if, when a young and not over-scrupulous Oriental has been refused by an English girl, he does not abandon the idea of marrying her, but calmly considers the possibilities of making her marry him against her will, he may be described as having 'designs' upon her, then Logotheti was undeniably a very 'designing' person, and Mrs. Rushmore was not nearly so far wrong as Margaret thought her. Whether it was at all likely that he might succeed, was another matter, but he possessed both the qualities and the weapons which sometimes ensure success in the most unpromising undertakings. He was tenacious, astute and cool, he was very rich, he was very much in love and he had no scruples worth mentioning; moreover, if he failed, he belonged to a country from which it is extremely hard to obtain the extradition of persons who have elsewhere taken the name of the law in vain. It is with a feeling of national pride and security that the true-born Greek takes sanctuary beneath the shadow of the Acropolis. He had played his first card boldly, but not recklessly, to find out how matters stood. He had been the target of too many matrimonial aims not to know that even such a girl as Margaret Donne might be suddenly dazzled and tempted by the offer of his hand and fortune, and might throw over the possibilities of a stage career for the certainties of an enormously rich marriage. But he had not counted on that at all, and had really set Margaret much higher in his estimation than to suppose that she would marry him out of hand for his money; he had reckoned only on finding out whether he had a rival, and in this he had succeeded, to an extent which he had not anticipated, and the result was not very promising. There had been no possibility of mistaking Margaret's tone and manner when she had confessed that there was 'some one else.' On reflection he had to admit that Margaret had not been dazzled by his offer, though she had seemed surprised. She had either been accustomed to the idea of unlimited money, because Mrs. Rushmore was rich, or else she did not know its value. It came to the same thing in the end. Orientals very generally act on the perfectly simple theory that nine people out of ten are to be imposed upon by the mere display of what money can buy, and that if you show them the real thing they will be tempted by it. It is not pleasant to think how often they are right; and though Logotheti had made no impression on Margaret with his magnificent ruby and his casual offer of a yacht as a present, he did not reproach himself with having made a mistake. He had simply tried what he considered the usual method of influencing a woman, and as it had failed he had eliminated it from the arsenal of his weapons. That was all. He had found out at once that it was of no use, and as he hated to waste time he was not dissatisfied with the result of his day's work. Like most men who have lived much in Paris he cared nothing at all for the ordinary round of dissipated amusement which carries foreigners and even young Frenchmen off their feet like a cyclone, depositing them afterwards in strange places and in a damaged condition. It was long since he had dined 'in joyous company,' frequented the lobby of the ballet or found himself at dawn among the survivors of an indiscriminate orgy. Men who know Paris well may not have improved upon their original selves as to moral character, but they have almost always acquired the priceless art of refined enjoyment; and this is even more true now than in the noisy days of the Second Empire. In Paris senseless dissipation is mostly the pursuit of the young, who know no better, or of much older men who have never risen above the animal state, and who sink with age into half-idiotic bestiality. Logotheti had never been counted amongst the former, and was in no danger of ending his days in the ranks of the latter. He was much too fond of real enjoyment to be dissipated. Most Orientals are. He spent the evening alone in an inner room to which no mere acquaintance and very few of his friends had ever been admitted. His rule was that when he was there he was not to be disturbed on any account. 'But if the house should take fire?' a new man-servant inquired on receiving these instructions. 'The fire-engines will put it out,' Logotheti answered. 'It is none of my business. I will not be disturbed.' 'Very good, sir. But if the house should burn down before they come?' 'Then I should advise you to go away. But be careful not to disturb me.' 'Very good, sir. And if'--the man's voice took a confidential tone--'if any lady should ask for you, sir?' 'Tell her that to the best of your knowledge I am dead. If she faints, call a cab.' 'Very good, sir.' Thereupon the new man-servant had entered upon his functions, satisfied that his master was an original character, if not quite mad. But there was no secret about the room itself, as far as could be seen, and it was regularly swept and dusted like other rooms. The door was never locked except when Logotheti was within, and the room contained no hidden treasures, nor any piece of furniture in which such things might have been concealed. There was nothing peculiar about the construction of the place, except that the three windows were high above the ground like those of a painter's studio, and could be opened or shut, or shaded, by means of cords and chains. There were also heavy curtains, such as are never seen in studios, which could be drawn completely across the windows. In a less civilised country Logotheti's servants might have supposed that he retired to this solitude to practise necromancy or study astrology, or to celebrate the Black Mass. But his matter-of-fact Frenchmen merely said that he was 'an original'; they even said so with a certain pride, as if there might be bad copies of him extant somewhere, which they despised. One man, who had an epileptic aunt, suggested that Logotheti probably had fits, and disappeared into the inner room in order to have them alone; but this theory did not find favour, though it was supported, as the man pointed out, by the fact that the double doors of the room were heavily padded, and that the whole place seemed to be sound-proof, as indeed it was. On the other hand there was nothing about the furniture within that could give colour to the supposition, which was consequently laughed at in the servants' hall. Monsieur was simply 'an original'; that was enough to explain everything, and his order as to being left undisturbed was the more strictly obeyed because it would apparently be impossible to disturb him with anything less than artillery. It is a curious fact that when servants have decided that their masters are eccentric they soon cease to take any notice of their doings, except to laugh at them now and then when more eccentric than usual. It being once established that Logotheti was an original he might have kept his private room full of Bengal tigers for all the servants hall would have cared, provided the beasts did not get about the house. It was a 'good place,' for he was generous, and there were perquisites; therefore he might do anything he pleased, so long as he paid--as indeed most of us might in this modern world, if we were able and willing to pay the price. On this particular evening Logotheti dined at home alone, chiefly on a very simple Greek pilaff, Turkish preserved rose leaves and cream cheese, which might strike a Parisian as strange fare, unless he were a gourmet of the very highest order. Having sipped a couple of small glasses of very old Samos wine, Logotheti ordered lights and coffee in his private room, told the servants not to disturb him, went in and locked the outer door. Then he gave a sigh of satisfaction and sat down, as if he had reached the end of a day's journey. He tasted his coffee, and kicked off first one of his gleaming patent leather slippers and then the other, and drew up his feet under him on the broad leather seat, and drank more coffee, and lit a big cigarette; after which he sat almost motionless for at least half an hour, looking most of the time at a statue which occupied the principal place in the middle of the room. Now and then he half closed his eyes, and then opened them again suddenly, with an evident sense of pleasure. He had the air of a man completely satisfied with his surroundings, his sensations and his thoughts. There was something almost Buddha-like in his attitude, in his perfect calm, in the expression of his quiet almond eyes; even the European clothes he wore did not greatly hinder the illusion. Just then he did not look at all the sort of person to do anything sudden or violent, to pitch order to the dogs and tear the law to pieces, to kill anything that stood in his way as coolly as he would kill a mosquito, or to lay violent hands on what he wanted if he was hindered from taking it peacefully. Neither does a wild-cat look very dangerous when it is dozing. On the rare occasions when he allowed any one but his servants to enter that room, he said that the statue was a copy, which he had caused to be very carefully made after an original found in Lesbos and secretly carried off by a high Turkish official, who kept it in his house and never spoke of it. This accounted for its being quite unknown to the artistic world. He called attention to the fact that it was really a facsimile, rather than a copy, and he seemed pleased at the perfect reproduction of the injured points, which were few, and of the stains, which were faint and not unpleasing. But he never showed it to an artist or an expert critic. 'A mere copy,' he would say, with a shrug of his shoulders. 'Nothing that would interest any one who really knows about such things.' A very perfect copy, a very marvellous copy, surely; one that might stand in the Vatican, with the Torso, or in the Louvre, beside the Venus of Milo, or in the British Museum, opposite the Pericles, or in Olympia itself, facing the Hermes, the greatest of all, and yet never be taken for anything but the work of a supreme master's own hands. But Constantine Logotheti shrugged his shoulders and said it was a mere copy, nothing but a clever facsimile, carved and chipped and stained by a couple of Italian marble-cutters, whose business it was to manufacture antiquities for the American market and whom any one could engage to work in any part of the world for twenty francs a day and their expenses. Yes, those Italian workmen were clever fellows, Logotheti admitted. But everything could be counterfeited now, as everybody knew, and his only merit lay in having ordered this particular counterfeit instead of having been deceived by it. As Logotheti sat there in the quiet light, looking at it, the word 'copy' sounded in his memory, as he had often spoken it, and a peaceful smile played upon his broad Oriental lips. The 'copy' had cost human lives, and he had almost paid for it with his own, in his haste to have it for himself, and only for himself. His eyes were half-closed again, and he saw outlines of strong ragged men staggering down to a lonely cove at night, with their marble burden, and he heard the autumn gale howling among the rocks, and the soft thud of the baled statue as it was laid in the bottom of the little fishing craft; and then, because the men feared the weather, he was in the boat himself, shaming them by his courage, loosing the sail, bending furiously to one of the long sweeps, yelling, cheering, cursing, promising endless gold, then baling with mad energy as the water swirled up and poured over the canvas bulwark that Greek boats carry, and still wildly urging the fishermen to keep her up; and then, the end, a sweep broken and foul of the next, a rower falling headlong on the man in front of him, confusion in the dark, the crazy boat broached to in the breaking sea, filling, fuller, now quite full and sinking, the raging hell of men fighting for their lives amongst broken oars, and tangled rigging and floating bottom-boards; one voice less, two less, a smashing sea and then no voices at all, no boat, no men, no anything but the howling wind and the driving spray, and he himself, Logotheti, gripping a spar, one of those long booms the fishermen carry for running, half-drowned again and again, but gripping still, and drifting with the storm past the awful death of sharp black rocks and pounding seas, into the calm lee beyond. And then, a week later, on a still October night, his great yacht lying where the boat had sunk, with diver and crane and hoisting gear, and submarine light; and at last, the thing itself brought up from ten fathoms deep with noise of chain and steam winch, and swung in on deck, the water-worn baling dropping from it and soon torn off, to show the precious marble perfect still. And then--'full speed ahead' and west by north, straight for the Malta channel. Logotheti's personal reminiscences were not exactly dull, and the vivid recollection of struggles and danger and visible death made the peace of his solitude more profound; the priceless thing he had fought for was alive in the stillness with the supernatural life of the ever beautiful; his fingers pressed an ebony key in the table beside him and the marble turned very slowly and steadily and noiselessly on the low base, seeming to let her shadowy eyes linger on him as she looked back over the curve of her shoulder. Again his fingers moved, and the motion ceased, obedient to the hidden mechanism; and so, as he sat still, the goddess moved this way and that, facing him at his will, or looking back, or turning quite away, as if ashamed to meet his gaze, being clothed only in warm light and dreamy shadows, then once more confronting him in the pride of a beauty too faultless to fear a man's bold eyes. He leaned against his cushions, and sipped his coffee now and then, and let the thin blue smoke make clouds of lace between him and the very slowly moving marble, for he knew what little things help great illusions, or destroy them. Nothing was lacking. The dark blue pavement, combed like rippling water and shot with silver that cast back broken reflections, was the sea itself; snowy gauze wrapped loosely round the base was breaking foam; the tinted walls, the morning sky of Greece; the goddess, Aphrodite, sea-born, too human to be quite divine, too heavenly to be only a living woman. And she was his; his not only for the dangers he had faced to have her, but his because he was a Greek, because his heart beat with a strain of the ancient sculptor's blood; because his treasure was the goddess of his far forefathers, who had made her in the image of the loveliness they adored; because he worshipped her himself, more than half heathenly; but doubly his now, because his imagination had found her likeness in the outer world, clothed, breathing and alive, and created for him only. He leaned against his cushions, and lines of the old poetry rose to his lips, and the words came aloud. He loved the sound when he was alone, the vital rush of it, and the voluptuous pause and the soft, lingering cadence before it rose again. In the music of each separate verse there was the whole episode of man's love and woman's, the illusion and the image, the image and the maddening, leaping, all-satisfying, softly-subsiding reality. It was no wonder that he would not allow anything to disturb him in that inner sanctuary of rare delight. His bodily nature, his imagination, his deep knowledge and love of his own Hellenic poets, his almost adoration of the beautiful, all that was his real self, placed him far outside the pale that confines the world of common men as the sheepfold pens in the flock. It was late in the night when he rose from his seat at last, extinguished the lights himself and left the room, with a regretful look on his face; for, after his manner, he had been very happy in his solitude, if indeed he had been alone where his treasure reigned. He went downstairs, for the sanctuary was high up in the house, and he found his man dozing in a chair in the vestibule at the door of his dressing-room. The valet rose to his feet instantly, took a little salver from the small table beside him, and held it out to Logotheti. 'A telegram, sir,' he said. Logotheti carelessly tore the end off the blue cover and glanced at the contents. Can buy moon. Cable offer and limit. Logotheti looked at his watch and made a short calculation which convinced him that no time would really be lost in buying the moon if he did not answer the telegram till the next morning. Then he went to bed and read himself to sleep with Musurus' Greek translation of Dante's _Inferno_. CHAPTER IX On the following day Margaret received a note from Schreiermeyer informing her in the briefest terms and in doubtful French that he had concluded the arrangements for her to make her _début_ in the part of Marguerite, in a Belgian city, in exactly a month, and requiring that she should attend the next rehearsal of _Faust_ at the Opéra in Paris, where _Faust_ is almost a perpetual performance and yet seems to need rehearsing from time to time. She showed the letter to Mrs. Rushmore, who sighed wearily after reading it, and said nothing. But there was a little more colour in Margaret's cheek, and her eyes sparkled at the prospect of making a beginning at last. Mrs. Rushmore took up her newspaper again with an air of sorrowful disapproval, but presently she started uncomfortably and looked at Margaret. 'Oh!' she exclaimed, and sighed once more. 'What is it?' asked the young girl. 'It must be true, for it's in the _Herald_.' 'What?' Mrs. Rushmore read the following paragraph:-- We hear on the best authority that a new star is about to dazzle the operatic stage. Monsieur Schreiermeyer has announced to a select circle of friends that it will be visible in the theatrical heaven on the night of June 21, in the character of Marguerite and in the person of a surprisingly beautiful young Spanish soprano, the Señorita Margarita da Cordova, whose romantic story as daughter to a contrabandista of Andalusia and granddaughter to the celebrated bullfighter Ramon and---- 'Oh, my dear! This is too shameful! I told you so!' Mrs. Rushmore's elderly cheeks were positively scarlet as she stared at the print. Margaret observed the unwonted phenomenon with surprise. 'I don't see anything so appallingly improper in that,' she observed. 'You don't see! No, my child, you don't! I trust you never may. Indeed if I can prevent it, you never shall. Disgusting! Vile!' And the good lady read the rest of the paragraph to herself, holding up the paper so as to hide her modest blushes. 'My dear, what a story!' she cried at last. 'It positively makes me creep!' 'This is very tantalising,' said Margaret. 'I suppose it has to do with my imaginary ancestry in Andalusia.' 'I should think it had! Where do they get such things, I wonder? A bishop, my dear--oh no, really! it would make a pirate blush! Can you tell me what good this kind of thing can do?' 'Advertisement,' Margaret answered coolly. 'It's intended to excite interest in me before I appear, you know. Don't they do it in America?' 'Never!' cried Mrs. Rushmore with solemn emphasis. 'Apart from its being all a perfectly gratuitous falsehood.' 'Gratuitous? Perhaps Schreiermeyer paid to have it put in.' 'Then I never wish to see him, Margaret, never! Do you understand! I think I shall bring an action against him. At all events I shall take legal advice. This cannot be allowed to go uncontradicted. If I were you, I would sit down and write to the paper this very minute, and tell the editor that you are a respectable English girl. You are, I'm sure!' 'I hope so! But what has respectability to do with art?' 'A great deal, my dear,' answered Mrs. Rushmore wisely. 'You may say what you like, there is a vast difference between being respectable and disreputable--perfectly vast! It's of no use to deny it, because you can't.' 'Nobody can.' 'There now, I told you so! I must say, child, you are getting some very strange ideas from your new acquaintances. If these are the principles you mean to adopt, I am sorry for you, very sorry!' Margaret did not seem very sorry for herself, however, for she went off at this point, singing the 'jewel song' in _Faust_ at the top of her voice, and wishing with all her heart that she were already behind the footlights with the orchestra at her feet. Two days later, Mrs. Rushmore received a cable message from New York which surprised her almost as much as the paragraph about Margaret had. Alvah Moon has sold invention for cash to anonymous New York syndicate who offer to compromise suit. Cable instructions naming sum you will accept, if disposed to deal. Now Mrs. Rushmore was a wise woman, as well as a good one, though her ability to express her thoughts in concise language was insignificant. She had long known that the issue of the suit she had brought was doubtful, and that as it was one which could be appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, it might drag on for a long time; so that the possibility of a compromise was very welcome, and she at once remembered that half a loaf is better than no bread, especially when the loaf is of hearty dimensions and easily divided. What she could not understand was that any one should have been willing to pay Alvah Moon the sum he must have asked, while his interest was still in litigation, and that, after buying that interest, the purchasers should propose a compromise when they might have prolonged the suit for some time, with a fair chance of winning it in the end. But that did not matter. More than once since Mrs. Rushmore had taken up the case her lawyers had advised her to drop it and submit to losing what she had already spent on the suit, and of late her own misgivings had increased. The prospect of obtaining a considerable sum for Margaret, at the very moment when the girl had made up her mind to support herself as a singer, was in itself very tempting; and as it presented itself just when the horrors of an artistic career had been brought clearly before Mrs. Rushmore's mind by the newspaper paragraph, she did not hesitate a moment. Margaret was in Paris that morning, at her first rehearsal, and could not come back till the afternoon; but after all it would be of no use to consult her, as she was so infatuated with the idea of singing in public that she would very probably be almost disappointed by her good fortune. Mrs. Rushmore read the message three times, and then went out under the trees to consider her answer, carrying the bit of paper in her hand as if she did not know by heart the words written on it. For once, she had no guests, and for the first time she was glad of it. She walked slowly up and down, and as it was a warm morning, still and overcast, she fanned herself with the telegram in a very futile way, and watched the flies skimming over the water of the little pond, and repeated her inward question to herself many times. Mrs. Rushmore never thought anything out. When she was in doubt, she asked herself the same question, 'What had I better do?' or, 'What will he or she do next?' over and over again, with a frantic determination to be logical. And suddenly, sooner or later, the answer flashed upon her in a sort of accidental way as if it were not looking for her, and so completely outran all power of expression that she could not put it into words at all, though she could act upon it well enough. The odd part of it all was that these accidental revelations rarely misled her. They were like fragments of a former world of excellent common-sense that had gone to pieces, which she now and then encountered like meteors in her own orbit. When she had walked up and down for a quarter of an hour one of these aeroliths of reason shot across the field of her mental sight, and she understood that one of two things must have occurred. Either Alvah Moon had lost confidence in his chances and had sold the invention to some greenhorn for anything he could get; or else some one else had been so deeply interested in the affair as to risk a great deal of money in it. Mrs. Rushmore's gleam of intelligence was a comet; but her comet had two tails, which was very confusing. Her meditations were disturbed by the noise of a big motor car, approaching the house from a distance, and heralding its advance with a steadily rising whizz and a series of most unearthly toots. Motor cars often passed the house and ran down the Boulevard St. Antoine at frightful speed, for the beautiful road is generally clear; but something, perhaps a small meteor again, warned her that this one was going to stop at the gate and demand admittance for itself. Thereupon Mrs. Rushmore looked at her fingers; for she kept up an extensive correspondence, in the course of which she often inked them. For forty years she had asked herself why she, who prided herself on her fastidious neatness, should have been predestined and condemned to have inky fingers like an untidy school-girl, and she had spent time and money in search of an ink that would wash off easily and completely, without the necessity of flaying her hands with pumice stone and chemicals. When suddenly aware of the approach of an unexpected visitor, she always looked at her fingers. The thing came nearer, roared, sputtered, tooted and was silent. In the silence Mrs. Rushmore heard the tinkle of the gate bell and in a few moments she saw Logotheti coming towards her across the lawn. She was not particularly pleased to see him. 'I am afraid,' she said rather stiffly, 'that Miss Donne is out.' In a not altogether well-spent life Logotheti had seen many things; but he was not accustomed to American chaperons, whose amazing humility always takes it for granted that no man under forty can possibly call upon them except for the sake of seeing the young woman in their charge. Logotheti looked vaguely surprised. 'Indeed?' he answered, with a little interrogation as though he found it hard to be astonished, but wished to be obliging. 'That is rather fortunate,' he continued, 'for I was hoping to find you alone.' 'Me?' Mrs. Rushmore unbent a little and smiled rather grimly. 'Yes. If I had not been so anxious to see you at once, I should have written or telegraphed to ask for a few minutes alone with you. But I could not afford to waste time.' He spoke so gravely that she immediately suspected him of dark designs. Perhaps he was going to propose to her, since Margaret had refused him. She remembered instances of adventurers who had actually married widows of sixty for their money. She compressed her lips. She would be firm with him; he should have a piece of her mind. 'I am alone,' she said severely, a little as if warning him not to take liberties. 'My errand concerns a matter in which we have common interests at stake,' he said. Mrs. Rushmore sat down on a garden chair, and pointed to the bench, on which he took his seat. 'I cannot imagine what interests you mean,' she said, with dignity. 'Pray explain. If you refer to Miss Donne, I may as well inform you with perfect frankness that it is of no use.' Logotheti smiled and shook his head gently, keeping his eyes on Mrs. Rushmore's face, all of which she took to mean incredulity on his part. 'You may say what you like,' she said. 'It's of no use.' When Mrs. Rushmore declared that you might say what you liked, she was in earnest, but her visitor was not familiar with the expression. 'Nevertheless,' he said, in a soothing way, 'my errand concerns Miss Donne.' 'Well then,' said Mrs. Rushmore, 'don't! That's all I have to say, and it's my last word. She doesn't care for you. I don't want to be unkind, but I daresay you have made yourself think all sorts of things.' She felt that this was a great concession, to a Greek and an adventurer. 'Excuse me,' said Logotheti quietly, 'but we are talking at cross purposes. What I have to say concerns Miss Donne's financial interests--her fortune, if you like to call it so.' Mrs. Rushmore's suspicions were immediately confirmed. 'She has none,' said she, with a snap as if she were shutting up a safe with a spring lock. 'That depends on what you call a fortune,' answered the Greek coolly. 'In Paris most people would think it quite enough. It is true that it is in litigation.' 'I really cannot see how that can interest you,' said Mrs. Rushmore in an offended tone. 'It interests me a good deal. I have come to see you in order to propose that you should compromise the suit about that invention.' Mrs. Rushmore drew herself up against the straight back of the garden chair and glared at him in polite wrath. 'You will pardon my saying that I consider your interferences very much out of place, sir,' she said. 'But you will forgive me, dear madam, for differing with you,' said Logotheti with the utmost blandness. 'This business concerns me quite as much as Miss Donne.' 'You?' Mrs. Rushmore was amazed. 'I fancy you have heard that Mr. Alvah Moon has sold the invention to a New York syndicate.' 'Yes--but----' 'I am the syndicate.' 'You!' The good lady was breathless with astonishment. 'I cannot believe it,' she gasped. Logotheti's hand went to his inner breast pocket. 'Should you like to see the telegrams?' he asked quietly. 'Here they are. My agent's cable to me, my instructions to him, his acknowledgment, his cable saying that the affair is closed and the money paid. They are all here. Pray look at them.' Mrs. Rushmore looked at the papers, for she was cautious, even when surprised. There was no denying the evidence he showed her. Her hands fell upon her knees and she stared at him. 'So you have got control of all that Margaret can ever hope to have of her own,' she said blankly, at last. 'Why have you done it?' Logotheti smiled as he put the flimsy bits of paper into his pocket again. 'Purely as a matter of business,' he answered. 'I shall make money by it, though I have paid Mr. Moon a large sum, and expect to make a heavy payment to you if we agree to compromise the old suit, which, as you have seen by the telegrams, I have assumed with my eyes open. Now, my dear Mrs. Rushmore, shall we talk business? I am very anxious to oblige you, and I am not fond of bargaining. I propose to pay a lump sum on condition that you withdraw the suit at once. You pay your lawyers and I pay those employed by Mr. Moon. Now, what sum do you think would be fair? That is the question. Please understand that it is you who will be doing me a favour, not I who offer to do you a service. As I understand it, you never claimed of Mr. Moon the whole value of the invention. It was a suit in equity brought on the ground that Mr. Moon had paid a derisory price for what he got, in other words--but is Mr. Moon a personal friend of yours, apart from his business?' 'A friend!' cried Mrs. Rushmore in horror. 'Goodness gracious, no!' 'Very well,' continued Logotheti. 'Then we will say that he cheated Miss Donne's maternal grandfather--is that the relationship? Yes. Very good. I propose to hand over to you the sum out of which Miss Donne's maternal grandfather was cheated. If you will tell me just how much it was, allowing a fair interest, I will write you a cheque. I think I have a blank one here.' He produced a miniature card-case of pale blue morocco, which exactly matched his tie, and drew from it a blank cheque carefully folded to about the size of two postage stamps. 'Dear me!' exclaimed Mrs. Rushmore. 'Dear me! This is very sudden!' 'You must have made up your mind a long time ago as to what Miss Donne's share should be worth,' suggested Logotheti, smoothing the cheque on his knee. Mrs. Rushmore hesitated. 'But you have already paid much more to Senator Moon,' she said. 'That is my affair,' answered the Greek. 'I have my own views about the value of the invention, and I have no time to lose. What shall we say, Mrs. Rushmore.' 'I wish Margaret were here,' said the good lady vaguely. 'I'm very glad she is not. Now, tell me what I am to write, please.' He produced a fountain pen and was already writing the date. The pen was evidently one specially made to suit his tastes, for it was of gold, the elaborate chasing was picked out with small rubies and a large brilliant was set in the end of the cap. Mrs. Rushmore could not help looking at it, and in her prim way she wondered how any man who was not an adventurer or a sort of glorified commercial traveller could carry such a thing. There was an unpleasant fascination in the mere look of it, and she watched it move instead of answering. 'Yes?' said Logotheti, looking up interrogatively. 'What shall we say?' 'I--I honestly don't know what to say,' Mrs. Rushmore answered, really confused by the suddenness of the man's proposal. I suppose--no--you must let me consult my lawyer.' 'I am sorry,' said Logotheti, 'but I cannot afford to waste so much time. Allow me to be your man of business. How much were you suing Mr. Moon for?' 'Half a million dollars,' answered Mrs. Rushmore. 'Have you been paying your lawyer, or was he to get a percentage on the sum recovered?' 'I have paid him about seventeen thousand, so far.' 'For doing nothing. I should like to be your lawyer! I suppose three thousand more will satisfy him? Yes, that will make it a round twenty thousand. That leaves your claim worth four hundred and eighty thousand dollars, does it not?' 'Yes, certainly.' 'Which at four-eighty-four is--' he looked at the ceiling for ten seconds--'ninety-nine thousand one hundred and eleven pounds, two shillings and twopence halfpenny--within a fraction. Is that it? My mental arithmetic is generally pretty fair.' 'I've no doubt that the calculation is correct,' said Mrs. Rushmore, 'only it seems to me--let me see--I'm a little confused--but it seems to me that if I had won the suit for half a million, the lawyer's expenses would have come out of that.' 'They do come out of it,' answered Logotheti blandly. 'That is why you don't get half a million.' 'Yes,' insisted Mrs. Rushmore, who was not easily misled about money, 'certainly. But as it is, after I have received the four hundred and eighty thousand, I shall still have to deduct the twenty thousand for the lawyers before handing it over to Margaret, who would only get four hundred and sixty. Excuse me, perhaps you don't understand.' 'Yes, yes! I do.' Logotheti smiled pleasantly. 'It was very stupid of me, wasn't it? I'm always doing things like that!' As indeed financiers are, for arithmetical obliquity about money is caused by having too much or too little of it, and the people who lose to both sides are generally the comparatively honest ones who have enough. It certainly did not occur to Logotheti that he had tried to do Margaret Donne out of four thousand pounds; he would have been only too delighted to give her ten times the sum if she would have accepted it, and so far as profit went the whole transaction was for her benefit, and he might lose heavily by it. But in actual dealing he was constitutionally unable to resist the impulse to get the better of the person with whom he dealt. And on her side, Mrs. Rushmore, though generous to a fault, was by nature incapable of allowing money to slip through her fingers without reason. So the two were well matched, being both born financiers, and Logotheti respected Mrs. Rushmore for detecting his little 'mistake,' and she recognised in him a real 'man of business' because he had made it. 'Let us call it a half million dollars, then,' he said, with a smile. 'At four-eighty-four, that is'--again he looked at the ceiling for ten seconds--'that is one hundred and three thousand three hundred and five pounds fifteen shillings fivepence halfpenny, nearly. Is that it? Shall we say that, Mrs. Rushmore.' 'How quickly you do it!' exclaimed the lady in admiration. 'I wish I could do that! Oh yes, I have no doubt it is quite correct. You couldn't do it on paper, could you? You see it doesn't matter so much about the halfpenny, but if there were a little slip in the thousands, you know--it would make quite a difference----' She paused significantly. Logotheti quietly pulled his cuff over his hand, produced a pencil instead of his fountain pen, and proceeded to divide five hundred thousand by four hundred and eighty-four to three places of decimals. 'Fifteen and fivepence halfpenny,' he said, when he had turned the fraction into shillings and pence, 'and the pounds are just what I said.' 'Do you mean to say that you did all that in your head in ten seconds?' asked Mrs. Rushmore, with renewed admiration. 'Oh no,' he answered. 'We have much shorter ways of reckoning money in the East, but you could not understand that. You are quite satisfied that this is right?' 'Oh, certainly!' Mrs. Rushmore could no more have divided five hundred thousand by four hundred and eighty-four to three places of decimals than she could have composed _Parsifal_, but her doubts were satisfied by its having been done 'on paper.' Logotheti put away his jewelled pencil, took out his jewelled fountain pen again, spread the cheque on the seat of the bench beside him and filled it in for the amount, including the halfpenny. He handed it to her, holding it by the corner. 'It's wet,' he observed. 'It's drawn on the Bank of England. It will be necessary for you to sign a statement to the effect that you withdraw the suit and that Miss Donne's claim is fully satisfied. She will have to sign that too. I'll send you the paper. If you have any doubts,' he smiled, 'you need not return it until the cheque has been cashed.' That was precisely what Mrs. Rushmore intended to do, but she protested politely that she had no doubt whatever on the score of the cheque, looking all the time at the big figures written out in Logotheti's remarkably clear handwriting. Only the signature was perfectly illegible. He noticed her curiosity about it. 'I always sign my cheques in Greek,' he observed 'It is not so easy to imitate.' He rose and held out his hand. 'I suppose I ought to thank you on Margaret's behalf,' said Mrs. Rushmore, as she took it. 'She will be so sorry not to have seen you.' 'It was much easier to do business without her. And as for that, there is no reason for telling her anything about the transaction. You need only say that a syndicate has bought out Alvah Moon and has compromised the old suit by a cash payment. I am not at all anxious to have her know that I have had a hand in the matter--in fact, I had rather that she shouldn't, if you don't object.' Mrs. Rushmore looked hard at him. She had not even thought of refusing his offer, which would save Margaret a considerable fortune by a stroke of a pen; but she had taken it for granted that what might easily be made to pass for an act of magnificent liberality was intended to produce a profound impression on Margaret's feelings. The elder woman was shrewd enough to guess that the Greek would not lose money in the end, but she went much too far in suspecting him of anything so vulgar as playing on the girl's gratitude. She looked at him keenly. 'Do you mean that?' she asked, almost incredulously. His quiet almond eyes gazed into hers with the trustful simplicity of a child's. 'Yes,' he answered. 'This is purely a matter of business, in which I am consulting nothing but my own interests. I should have acted precisely in the same way if I had never had the pleasure of knowing either of you. If it chances that I have been of service to Miss Donne, so much the better, but there is no reason why she should ever know it, so far as I am concerned. I would rather she should not. She might fancy that I had acted from other motives.' 'Very well,' Mrs. Rushmore answered; 'then I shall not tell her.' Nevertheless, when the motor car had tooted and puffed itself away to Paris and Mrs. Rushmore still sat in her straight-backed garden chair holding the cheque in her hand, she thought it all very strange and unaccountable; and the only explanation that occurred to her was that the invention must be worth far more than she had supposed. This was not altogether a pleasant reflection either, as it made her inclined to reproach herself for not having driven a hard bargain with Logotheti. 'But after all,' she said to herself, 'if half a million is not a fortune, it's a competence, even nowadays, and I suppose the man isn't an adventurer after all--at least, not if his cheque is good.' In her complicated frame of mind she felt a distinct sense of disappointment at the thought that her judgment had been at fault, and that the Greek was not a blackleg, as she had decided that he ought to be. CHAPTER X Logotheti's motor car was built to combine the greatest comfort and the greatest speed which can be made compatible. It was not meant for sport, though it could easily beat most things on the road, for though the Greek lived a good deal among sporting men and often did what they did, he was not one himself. It was not in his nature to regard any sport as an object to be pursued for its own sake. Only the English take that view naturally, and, of late years, some Frenchmen. All other Europeans look upon sport as pastime which is very well when there is nothing else to do, but not at all comparable with love-making, or gambling, for the amusement it affords. They take the view of the late Shah of Persia, who explained why he would not go to the Derby by saying that he had always known that one horse could run faster than another, but that it was a matter of perfect indifference to him which that one horse might be. In the same way Logotheti did not care to possess the fastest motor car in Europe, provided that he could be comfortable in one which was a great deal faster than the majority. Moreover, though he was by no means timid, he never went in search of danger merely for the sake of its pleasant excitement. Possibly he was too natural and too primitive to think useless danger attractive; but if danger stood between him and anything he wanted very much, he could be as reckless as an Irishman or a Cossack--which is saying all there is to be said. The motor tooted and whizzed itself from Mrs. Rushmore's gate to the stage entrance of the Opéra in something like thirty minutes without the slightest strain, and could have covered the distance in much less time if necessary. Logotheti found Schreiermeyer sitting alone in the dusk, in the stalls. Half the footlights and one row of border lights illuminated the stage, and a fat man in very light grey clothes, a vast white waistcoat and a pot hat was singing 'Salut demeure' in a nasal half-voice to the tail of the Commendatore's white horse, from _Don Juan_. The monumental animal had apparently stopped to investigate an Egyptian palm tree which happened to grow near the spot usually occupied by Marguerite's cottage. The tenor had his hands in his pockets, his hat was rather on the back of his head, and he looked extremely bored. So did Schreiermeyer when Logotheti sat down beside him. He turned his round glasses to the newcomer with a slight expression of recognition which was not perceptible at all in the gloom, and then he looked at the stage again, without a word. The tenor had heard somebody moving in the house, and he stuck a single glass in his eye and peered over the footlights into the abyss, thinking the last comer might be a woman, in which case he would perhaps have condescended to sing a little louder and better. A number of people were loafing on the stage, standing up or sitting on the wooden steps of somebody's enchanted palace, but Logotheti could not see Margaret amongst them. The conductor of the orchestra rapped sharply on his desk, the music ceased suddenly and he glared down at an unseen offender. 'D sharp!' he said, as if he were swearing at the man. 'I believe they hire their band from the deaf and dumb asylum,' observed the tenor very audibly, but looking vaguely at the plaster tail of the horse. Some of the young women at the back of the stage giggled obsequiously at this piece of graceful wit, but the orchestra manifested its indignation by hissing. Thereupon the director rapped on his desk more noisily than ever. '_Da capo_,' he said, and the bows began to scrape and quiver again. The tenor only hummed his part now, picking bits of straw out of the plaster tail and examining them with evident interest. 'Is Miss Donne here?' Logotheti inquired of Schreiermeyer. The impresario nodded indifferently, without looking round. 'I wish you had chosen _Rigoletto_ for her _début_,' said the Greek. 'The part of Gilda is much better suited to her voice, take my word for it.' 'What do you know about it?' asked Schreiermeyer, smiling faintly, just enough to save the rude question from being almost insulting. 'When Gounod began _Faust_ he was in love with a lady with a deep voice,' answered Logotheti, 'but when he was near the end he was in love with one who had a high voice. The consequence is that Marguerite's part ranges over nearly three octaves, and is frightfully trying, particularly for a beginner.' 'Bosh!' ejaculated the impresario, though he knew it was quite true. He looked at the stage again, as if Logotheti did not exist. 'Oh, very well,' said the latter carelessly. 'It probably won't matter much, as they say that Miss Donne is going to throw up her engagement, and give up going on the stage.' He had produced an effect at last, for Schreiermeyer's jaw dropped as he turned quickly. 'Eh? What? Who says she is not going to sing? What?' 'I dare say it is nothing but gossip,' Logotheti answered coolly. 'You seem excited.' 'Excited? Eh? Some one has heard her sing and has offered her more! You shall tell me who it is!' He gripped Logotheti's arm with fingers that felt like talons. 'Tell me quickly!' he cried. 'I will offer her more, more than anybody can! Tell me quickly.' 'Take care, you are spoiling my cuff,' said Logotheti. 'I know nothing about it, beyond that piece of gossip. Of course you are aware that she is a lady. Somebody may have left her a fortune, you know. Her only reason for singing was that she was poor.' 'Nonsense!' cried Schreiermeyer, with a sort of suppressed yell. 'It is all bosh! Somebody has offered her more money, and you know who it is! You shall tell me!' He was in a violent passion by this time, or seemed to be. 'You come here, suggesting and interfering with my prima donnas! You are in league, damn you! Damn you, you are a conspiracy!' His face was as white as paper, his queer eyes blazed through his glasses, and his features were disfigured with rage. He showed his teeth and hissed like a wildcat; his nervous fingers fastened themselves upon Logotheti's arm. But Logotheti gazed at him with a look of amusement in his quiet eyes, and laughed softly. 'If I were conspiring against you, you would not guess it, my friend,' he observed in a gentle tone. 'And you will never get anything out of me by threatening, you know.' Schreiermeyer's face relaxed instantly into an expression of disappointment, and he looked wearily at the stage again. 'No, it is of no use,' he answered in a melancholy tone. 'You are phlegmatic.' 'Perfectly,' Logotheti assented. 'If I were you, I would put her on in _Rigoletto_.' 'Does she know the part?' Schreiermeyer asked, as calmly as if nothing had happened. 'Ask Madame De Rosa,' suggested the Greek. 'I see her on the stage.' 'I will. There is truth in what you say about _Faust_. The part is trying.' 'You told me it was bosh,' Logotheti observed with a smile. 'I had forgotten that you are such a phlegmatic man, when I said that,' answered Schreiermeyer with the frankness of a conjurer who admits that his trick has been guessed. They had been talking as if nothing were going on, but now the conductor turned to them, and gave a signal for silence, which was taken up by all the people on the stage. 'Sh--sh--sh--sh--' it came from all directions. 'Here comes Cordova,' observed Schreiermeyer in a low tone. Margaret appeared, wearing an extremely becoming hat, and poked her head round the white horse's tail, which represented the door of her cottage as to position. The tenor, who had nothing to do and was supposed to be off, at once turned himself into a stage Faust, so far as expression went, but his white waistcoat and pot hat hindered the illusion so much that Margaret smiled. She sang the 'King of Thule,' and every one listened in profound silence. When she had finished, Schreiermeyer and Logotheti turned their heads slowly, by a common instinct, looked at each other a moment and nodded gravely. Then Logotheti rose rather suddenly. 'What's the matter?' asked the impresario. But the Greek had disappeared in the gloom of the house and Schreiermeyer merely shrugged his shoulders when he saw that his question had not been heard. It would have been perfectly impossible for him to understand that Logotheti, who was so 'phlegmatic,' could not bear the disturbing sight of the white waistcoat and the hat while Margaret was singing the lovely music and looking, Logotheti thought, as she had never looked before. He went behind, and sat down in a corner where he could hear without seeing what was going on; he lent himself altogether to the delight of Margaret's voice, and dreamt that she was singing only for him in some vast and remote place where they were quite alone together. The rehearsal went on by fits and starts; some scenes were repeated, others were left out; at intervals the conductor rapped his desk nervously and abused somebody, or spoke with great affability to Margaret, or with the familiarity of long acquaintance to one of the other singers. Logotheti did not notice these interruptions, for his sensitiveness was not of the sort that suffers by anything which must be and therefore should be; it was only the unnecessary that disturbed him--the tenor's white waistcoat and dangling gold chain. While Margaret was singing, the illusion was perfect; the rest was a blank, provided that nothing offended his eyes. The end was almost reached at last. There was a pause. 'Will you try the trio to-day?' inquired the conductor of Margaret. 'Or are you tired?' 'Tired?' Margaret laughed. 'Go on, please.' Now Marguerite's part in the trio, where she sings 'Anges pures,' repeating the refrain three times and each time in a higher key, is one of the most sustained high pieces ever written for a woman's voice; and Logotheti, listening, suddenly shut out his illusions and turned himself into a musical critic, or at least into a judge of singing. Not a note quavered, from first to last; there was not one sound that was not as true as pure gold, to the very end, not one tone that was forced, either, in spite of the almost fantastic pitch of the last passage. It is not often that everybody applauds a singer at a rehearsal of _Faust_, which has been sung to death for five-and-forty years; but as the trio ended, and the drums rolled the long knell, there was a shout of genuine enthusiasm from the little company on the stage. 'Vive la Cordova! Vive la Diva!' yelled the tenor, and he threw up his pot hat almost to the border lights, quite forgetting to be indifferent. 'Brava, la Cordova!' boomed the bass, with a tremendous roar. 'Brava, brava, brava!' shouted all the lesser people at the back of the stage. Little Madame De Rosa was in hysterics of joy, and embraced everybody and everything in her way till she came to Margaret and reached the climax of embracing in a perfect storm of tears. By this time the tenor and bass were kissing Margaret's gloved hands with fervour and every one was pressing round her. Logotheti had come forward and stood a little aloof, waiting for the excitement to subside. Margaret, surrounded as she was, did not see him at once, and he watched her quietly. She was the least bit pale and her eyes were very bright indeed. She was smiling rather vaguely, he thought, though she was trying to thank everybody for being so pleased, and Logotheti fancied she was looking for somebody who was not there, probably for the mysterious 'some one else,' whose existence she had confessed a few days earlier. Presently she seemed to feel that he was looking at her, for she turned her head to him and met his eyes. He came forward at once, and the others made way for him a little, for most of them knew him by sight as the famous financier, though he rarely condescended to come behind the scenes at a rehearsal, or indeed at any other time. Margaret held out her hand, and Logotheti had just begun to say a few rather conventional words of congratulation when Schreiermeyer rushed up with his hat on, pushing everybody aside without ceremony till he seized Margaret's wrist and would apparently have dragged her away by main force if she had not gone with him willingly. 'Ill-mannered brute!' exclaimed Logotheti in such a tone that Schreiermeyer must certainly have heard the words, though he did not even turn his head. 'I must speak to you at once,' he was saying to Margaret, very hurriedly, as he led her away. 'It is all bosh, nonsense, stupid stuff, I tell you! Rubbish!' 'What is rubbish?' asked Margaret in surprise, just as they reached the other side of the stage. 'My singing?' 'Stuff! You sing well enough. You know it too, you know it quite well! Good. Are you satisfied with the contract we signed?' 'Perfectly,' answered Margaret, more and more surprised at his manner. 'Ah, very good. Because, I tell you, if you are not pleased, it is just the same. I will make you stick to it, whether you like it or not. Understand?' Margaret drew herself up, and looked at him coldly. 'If I carry out my contract,' she said, 'it will be because I signed my name to it, not because you can force me to do anything against my will.' Schreiermeyer turned a little pale and glared through his glasses. 'Ah, you are proud, eh? You say to yourself, "First I am a lady, and then I am a singer that is going to be a prima donna." But the law is on my side. The law will give me heavy damages, enormous damages, if you fail to appear according to contract. You think because you have money in your throat somebody will pay me my damages if you go to somebody else. You don't know the law, my lady! I can get an injunction to prevent you from singing anywhere in Europe, pending suit. The other man will have to pay me before you can open your beautiful mouth to let the money out! Just remember that! You take my advice. You be an artist first and a lady afterwards when you have plenty of time, and you stick to old Schreiermeyer, and he'll stick to you. No nonsense, now, no stupid stuff! Eh?' 'I haven't the slightest idea what you are driving at,' said Margaret. 'I have made an agreement with you, and unless I lose my voice during the next month I shall sing wherever you expect me to.' 'All right, because if you don't, I'll make you dance from here to Jerusalem,' answered Schreiermeyer, glaring again. 'Do you know that you are quite the rudest and most brutal person I ever met?' inquired Margaret, raising her eyebrows. But Schreiermeyer now smiled in the most pleasant manner possible, ceased glaring, spread out his palms and put his head on one side as he answered her, apparently much pleased by her estimate of him. 'Ah, you are not phlegmatic, like Logotheti! We shall be good friends. I shall be rude to you when I am in a rage, and tell you the truth, and you shall call me many bad names. Then we shall be perfectly good friends. You will say, "Bah! it is only old Schreiermeyer!" and I shall say, "Pshaw! Cordova may call me a brute, but she is the greatest soprano in the world, what does it matter?" Do you see? We are going to be good friends!' It was impossible not to laugh at his way of putting it; impossible, too, not to feel that behind his strange manner, his brutal speeches and his serio-comic rage there was the character of a man who would keep his word and who expected others to do the same. There might even be lurking somewhere in him a streak of generosity. 'Good friends?' he repeated, with an interrogation. 'Yes, good friends,' Margaret answered, taking his hand frankly and still smiling. 'I like you,' said Schreiermeyer, looking at her with sudden thoughtfulness, as if he had just discovered something. And then without a word he turned on his heel and disappeared as quickly as he had come, his head sinking between his shoulders till the collar of the snuff-coloured overcoat he wore in spite of the warm weather was almost up to the brim of his hat behind. Logotheti and little Madame De Rosa came up to Margaret at once. The other singers were already filing out, eager to get into the fresh air. 'The Signora,' said Logotheti, 'says she will come and lunch with me. Will you come too? I daresay we shall find something ready, and then, if you like, I'll run you out to Mrs. Rushmore's in the motor car.' Margaret hesitated a moment, and looked from one to the other. She was very hungry, and the prospect of a luxurious luncheon was much more alluring than that of the rather scrappy sort of meal she had expected to get at a Bouillon Duval. As 'Miss Donne,' a fortnight ago, she would certainly not have thought of going to Logotheti's house, except with Mrs. Rushmore; but as the proposal tempted her she found it easy to tell herself that since she was a real artist she could go where she pleased, that people would gossip about her wherever she went, and that what she did was nobody's business. And surely, for an artist, Madame De Rosa was a chaperon of sufficient weight. Moreover, Margaret was curious to see the place where the man lived. He interested her in spite of herself, and since Lushington had insisted on going off, though she had begged him to stay, she felt just a little reckless. 'Do come!' said Logotheti. The two words were spoken in just the right tone, neither as if his life depended on her answer, nor as if he were asking her to do something just a little risky, which would be amusing; but quite naturally, as if he would be really glad should she accept, but by no means overwhelmed with despair if she refused. 'Thank you,' she answered. 'It's very nice of you to ask us. I'll come.' Logotheti smiled pleasantly, but looked away, perhaps not caring that she should see his eyes, even in the uncertain light. The three hastened to leave the theatre, for the stage was already full of workmen, the Egyptian palm was moving in one direction, the Commendatore's white horse was joggling away uneasily in another, and the steps of somebody's enchanted palace were being dragged forward into place. All was noise, dust and apparent confusion. Margaret expected that Logotheti's house would somehow correspond with his own outward appearance and would be architecturally over-dressed, inside and out, but in this she was greatly mistaken. It was evidently a new house, in a quarter where many houses were new and where some were not in the most perfect taste, though none were monstrosities. It was not exceptionally big, and was certainly not showy; on the whole, it had the unmistakable air of having been built by a good architect, of the very best materials and in a way to last as long as hewn stone can. Such beauty as it had lay in its proportions and not in any sort of ornament, for it was in fact rather plainer than most of its neighbours in the Boulevard Péreire. The big door opened noiselessly just as the car came up, but Logotheti, who drove himself, did not turn in. 'It's rather a tight fit,' he explained, as he stopped by the curbstone. He gave his hand to Margaret to get down. As her foot touched the pavement a man who was walking very fast, with his head down, made a step to one side, to get out of the way, and then, recognising her and the Greek, lifted his hat hastily and would have passed on. She started with an exclamation of surprise, for it was Lushington, whom she had supposed to be in London. Logotheti spoke first, calling to him in English. 'Hollo! Lushington--I say!' Lushington stopped instantly and turned half round, with an exclamation intended to express an imaginary surprise, for he had recognised all three at first sight. 'Oh!' he exclaimed coldly. 'Is that you? How are you?' Margaret offered her hand as he did not put out his. She was a little surprised to see that he did not change colour when he took it, as he always used to do when they met; he did not seem in the least shy, now, and there was a hard look in his eyes. 'All right?' he said, with a cool interrogation, and he turned to Logotheti before Margaret could give any answer. 'Come in and lunch, my dear fellow,' said the Greek affably. 'I never lunch--thanks all the same.' He moved to go on, nodding a good-bye. 'Are you here for long?' asked Margaret, forcing him to stop again. 'That depends on what you call long. I leave this evening.' 'I should call that a very short time!' Margaret tried to laugh a little, with a lingering hope that he might unbend. 'It's quite long enough for me, thank you,' he answered roughly. 'Good-bye!' He lifted his hat again and walked off very fast. Margaret's face fell, and Logotheti saw the change of expression. 'He's an awfully good fellow in spite of his shyness,' he said quietly. 'I wish we could have made him stay.' 'Yes,' Margaret answered, in a preoccupied tone. She was wondering whether Logotheti had guessed that there had been anything between her and Lushington. Logotheti ushered his guests in under the main entrance. 'Do you know Mr. Lushington well?' she asked. 'Yes, in a way. I once published a little book, and he wrote a very nice article about it in a London Review. You did not know I was a man of letters, did you?' Logotheti laughed quietly. 'My book was not very long--only about a hundred pages, I think. But Lushington made out that it wasn't all rubbish, and I was always grateful to him.' 'What was your book about?' asked Margaret, as they entered the house. 'Oh, nothing that would interest you--the pronunciation of Greek. Will you take off your hat?' At every step, at every turn, Margaret realised how much she had been mistaken in thinking that anything in Logotheti's house could be in bad taste. There was perfect harmony everywhere, and a great deal of simplicity. The man alone offended her eye a little, the man himself, with his resplendent tie, his jewellery and his patent leather shoes; and even so, it was only the outward man, in so far as she could not help seeing him and contrasting his appearance with his surroundings. For he was as tactful and quiet, and as modest about himself as ever; he did not exhibit the conquering air which many men would have found it impossible not to assume under the circumstances; he showed himself just as anxious to please little Madame De Rosa as Margaret herself, and talked to both indiscriminately. If Margaret at first felt that she was doing something a little eccentric, not to say compromising, in accepting the invitation, the sensation had completely worn off before luncheon was half over, and she was as much at her ease as she could have been in Mrs. Rushmore's own house. She felt as if she had known Logotheti all her life, as if she understood him thoroughly and was not displeased that he should understand her. They went into the next room for coffee. 'You used to like my Zara maraschino,' said Logotheti to Madame De Rosa. He took a decanter from a large case, filled a good-sized liqueur glass for her and set it beside her cup. 'It is the most delicious thing in the world,' cried the little woman, sipping it eagerly. 'May I not have some, too?' asked Margaret. 'Not on any account,' answered Logotheti, putting the decanter back on the other side. 'It's very bad for the voice, you know.' 'I never heard that,' said Madame De Rosa, laughing. 'I adore it! But as my singing days are over it does not matter at all. Oh, how good it is!' She sipped it again and again, with all sorts of little cries and sighs of satisfaction. Logotheti and Margaret looked on, smiling at her childish delight. 'Do you think I might have a little more?' she asked, presently. 'Only half a glass!' Logotheti filled the glass again, though she laughingly protested that half a glass was all she wanted. But he took none himself. Margaret saw a picture at the other end of the room which attracted her attention, and she rose to go and look at it. Logotheti followed her, but Madame De Rosa, who had established her small person in the most comfortable arm-chair in the room, was too much interested in the maraschino to move. Margaret stood in silence before the painting for a few moments, and Logotheti waited for her to speak, watching her as he always did when she was not looking. 'What is it?' she asked, at last. 'It's quite beautiful, but I don't understand it.' 'Nor do I, in the least,' answered Logotheti. 'I found it in Italy two years ago. It's what they call an encaustic painting, like the Muse of Cortona, probably of the time of Tiberius. It is painted on a slab of slate three inches thick, and burnt in by a process that is lost. You might put it into the fire and leave it there without doing it any harm. That much I know, for I found it built into a baker's oven. But I can tell you no more about it. I have some pretty good things here, but this is quite my best picture. It is very like somebody, too--uncommonly like! Do you see the resemblance?' 'No. I suppose I don't know the person.' Logotheti laughed and took up a little mirror set in an old Spanish frame. 'Look at yourself,' he said. 'The picture is the image of you.' 'Of me?' Margaret took the glass, and her cheek flushed a little as she looked at herself and then at the picture, and realised that the likeness was not imaginary. 'In future,' said Logotheti, 'I shall tell people that it is a portrait of you.' 'Of me? Oh please, no!' cried Margaret anxiously, and blushing deeper. 'Don't!' Logotheti laughed. 'Did you think I was in earnest?' he asked. The painting represented the head and shoulders of a woman--perhaps of a goddess, though it had that strangely living look about the eyes and mouth which belongs to all good portraits that are like the originals. The woman's head was thrown back, her deep-set eyes were looking up with an expression of strange longing, the rich hair flowed down over her bare neck, where one beautiful hand caught it and seemed to press the tangled locks upon her heart. The picture's beauty was the beauty of life, for the features were not technically faultless. The lips glowed with burning breath, the twining hair was alive and elastic, the after-light of a profound and secret pleasure lingered in the liquid eyes, blending with the shadow of pain just past but passionately desired again. Margaret gazed at the painting a few seconds, for it fascinated her against her will. Then she laid down the small looking-glass and turned away rather abruptly. 'I don't like to look at it,' she said, avoiding Logotheti's eyes. 'I think it must be time to be going,' she added. 'Mrs. Rushmore will be wondering where I am.' She went back across the room a little way with Logotheti by her side. Suddenly he stopped and laughed softly. 'By Jove!' he exclaimed under his breath, pointing to the arm-chair in which Madame De Rosa was sitting. 'She's fast asleep!' She was sleeping as peacefully as a cat after a meal, half curled up in the big chair, her head turned to one side and her cheek buried in a cushion of Rhodes tapestry. Margaret stood and looked at her with curiosity and some amusement. 'She's not generally a very sleepy person,' said the young girl. 'The emotions of your first rehearsal have tired her out,' said Logotheti. 'They don't seem to have affected you at all,' he added. 'Shall we wake her?' Margaret hesitated, and then bent down and touched the sleeping woman's arm gently, and called her by name in a low tone; but without the slightest result. 'She must be very tired,' Margaret said in a tone of sympathy. 'After all, it's not so very late. We had better let her sleep a few minutes longer, poor thing.' Logotheti bent his head gravely. 'We'll make up the time with the motor in going to Versailles,' he said. By unspoken consent, they moved away and sat down at some distance from Madame De Rosa's chair, at the end of the room opposite to the picture. Logotheti did not speak at once, but sat leaning forward, his wrists resting on his knees, his hands hanging down limply, his eyes bent on the carpet. As she sat, Margaret could see the top of his head; there was a sort of fascination about his preternaturally glossy black hair, and the faultless parting made it look like the wig on a barber's doll. She thought of Lushington and idly wondered whether she was always to be admired by men with phenomenally smooth hair. 'What are you thinking of?' Logotheti asked, looking up suddenly and smiling as he met her eyes. She laughed low. 'I was wondering how you kept your hair so smooth!' she answered. 'I should look like a savage if I did not,' he said. 'My only chance of seeming civilised is to overdo the outward fashions of civilisation. If I wore rough clothes like an Englishman, and did not smooth my hair and let my man do all sorts of things to my moustache to keep it flat, I should look like a pirate. And if I looked like a Greek pirate you would have hesitated about coming to lunch with me to-day. Do you see? There is a method in my bad taste.' Margaret looked at him a moment and then laughed again. 'So that's it, is it? How ingenious! Do you know that I have wondered at the way you dress, ever since I met you?' 'I'm flattered. But think a moment. I daresay you wonder why I wear a lot of jewellery, too. Of course it's in bad taste. I quite agree with you. But the world is often nearer to first principles than you realise. A man who wears a ruby in his tie worth ten thousand pounds is not suspected of wanting to get other people's money as soon as he makes acquaintance. On the contrary, they are much more likely to try to get his, and are rather inclined to think him a fool for showing that he has so much. It is always an advantage to be thought a fool when one is not. If one is clever it is much better to have it believed that one is merely lucky. In business everybody likes lucky people, but every one avoids a clever man. It is one of the elements of success to remember that!' 'You won't easily persuade any one that you are a foolish person,' said Margaret. 'It would be much harder if I did not take pains,' he answered gravely. 'Now you know my secret, but don't betray me.' 'Not for worlds!' They both laughed a little, and their eyes met. 'But just now, I'm in a very awkward position about that,' Logotheti continued. I cannot afford to sacrifice my reputation as a lucky fool, and yet I want you to think me a marvel of cleverness, good taste and perfection in every way.' 'Is that all?' asked Margaret, more and more amused. 'Almost all. You see I know perfectly well that I cannot surprise you into falling in love with me---- Yes, she's sound asleep! The ideal chaperon, isn't she?' 'I don't know,' Margaret answered lightly, and she glanced at Madame De Rosa, as if she thought of waking her. 'Excuse me, you do; for if I were "some one else" you would be delighted that she should be asleep. But that's not the question. As I cannot surprise you into--there's no harm in saying it!--into loving me, I'm driven to use what they call the "arts of persuasion"! But in order to persuade, it's necessary to inspire confidence. Do you understand?' 'Vaguely!' 'Have I succeeded at all?' His voice changed suddenly as he asked the question. 'I don't know why I should distrust you, I'm sure,' Margaret answered gravely. 'You are certainly very outspoken,' she continued more lightly, as if wishing to keep the conversation from growing serious. 'In fact, I never knew anything like your frankness!' 'I'm in earnest, and I don't wish to leave the least doubt in your mind. You are the first woman I have ever met whom I wanted to marry, and you are likely to be the last. I'm not a boy and I know the world as you can never know it, even if you insist upon going on the stage. I'm not amazingly young, for I'm five-and-thirty, and I suppose I have had as large a share of what the world holds as most rich men. That is my position. Until I met you, I thought I had really had everything. When I knew you I found that I had never had the only thing worth having at all.' He spoke quietly, without the least affectation of feeling, or the smallest apparent attempt to make an impression upon her; but it was impossible not to believe that he was speaking the truth. Margaret was silent, and looked steadily at an imaginary point in the distance. 'So far,' he said, in the same tone, 'I have always got what I wanted. I don't mean to say,' he continued quickly, as she made a movement, 'that I expected you to accept me when I asked you to marry me, at our second meeting. I was sure you would not. I merely put in a claim--that was all.' Margaret turned a little and rested her elbow on the back of her chair, facing him. 'And I told you there was some one else. Do you understand clearly? I am frank, too. I love another man, and he loves me.' 'And you are going to be married, I suppose?' said Logotheti, his lids contracting a very little. 'I hope so. Some day.' 'Ah! There is an obstacle. I see. A question of fortune, I daresay?' 'No.' Her tone was meant to discourage further questioning, and she moved in her seat and looked away again. 'That man does not love you,' Logotheti said. 'If he did, nothing could hinder your marriage, since he knows that you are willing.' 'There may be a reason you don't understand,' Margaret answered reluctantly. 'A man who loves does not reason. A man who wants a certain woman wants nothing else, any more than a man who is dying of thirst can want anything but drink. He must have it or die, and nothing can keep him from it if he sees it.' There was a shade of more energy in his tone now, though he still spoke quietly enough. Margaret was silent again, possibly because the same thought had crossed her own mind during the last few days, and even an hour ago, when she had met Lushington at the door. Since she was willing to marry him, in spite of his birth, could he be in earnest as long as he hesitated? She wished that he might have said what Logotheti was saying now, instead of reasoning with her about a point of honour. 'When people think themselves in love and hesitate,' Logotheti continued, almost speaking her own thoughts aloud, 'it is because something else in them is stronger than love, or quite as strong.' 'There may be honour,' said Margaret, defending Lushington in her mind, out of sheer loyalty. 'There ought to be, sometimes, but it is more in the nature of real love to tear honour to pieces than to be torn in pieces for it. I'm not defending such things, I'm only stating a fact. More men have betrayed their country for love than have sacrificed love to save their country!' 'That's not a very noble view of love!' 'If you were passionately in love with a man, should you like him to sacrifice you in order to save his country, especially if his country were not yours? If it were your own, you might be as patriotic as he and you would associate yourself with him in the salvation of your own people. But that would not be a fair case. The question is whether, in a matter that concerns him only and not yourself, you would set his honour higher than his love for you and let yourself be sacrificed, without feeling that if he had loved you as you would like to be loved he would forfeit his honour rather than give you up.' 'That's a dreadfully hard question to answer!' Margaret smiled. 'It is only hard to answer, because you are conscious of a convention called honour which man expects you to set above everything. Very good. A couple of thousand years hence there will be some other convention in its place called by another name; but love will be precisely the same passion that it is now, because it's purely human and not subject to any conventions when it is real--any more than you can make the circulation of your blood conventional or the beating of your heart, or hunger, or thirst, or sleepiness, instead of being natural as they all are.' 'You're a materialist,' said Margaret, finding nothing else to say. 'I don't think so, but whatever I am, I'm in earnest, and I don't pretend to be anything but human.' He stopped and looked straight into Margaret's eyes; and somehow she did not turn away, for there was nothing in his that she was afraid to meet. Just then she would rather have tried to stare him out of countenance than look for one minute at the woman's face in the picture, which he said was so like her. She did not remember that in all her life anything had so strangely disturbed her as that likeness. She had seen pictures and statues by the score in exhibitions and public places, which should have offended her maiden modesty far more. What was there in that one painting that could offend at all? A woman's head thrown back, a woman's hand pressing her hair to her breast--it ended there, and that was all; and what was that, compared with the acres of raw nudity that crowd the walls of the Salon every year. Logotheti said that he was 'human,' and she felt it was true, in the sense that he was a 'primitive,' or an 'elementary being,' as some people would say. The fact that he had all the profound astuteness of the true Oriental did not conflict with this in the least. The astuteness of the Asiatic, and of the Greek of Asia, is an instinct like that of the wild animal; talent alone is 'human' in any true sense, but instinct is animal, even in men, whether it shows itself in matters of money-getting or matters of taste. Yet somehow Margaret was beginning to be attracted by the man. He had never shown the least lack of respect, or of what Mrs. Rushmore would have called 'refinement,' and he had done nothing which even distantly resembled taking a liberty. He spoke quietly, and even gently, and his eyes did not gloat upon her face and figure as some men's eyes did. Even as to the picture, he had not led her to see it, for she had gone up to it herself, drawn to it against her will, and he had only told the truth in saying that it was like her. Yet he was very much in love with her, she was sure, and most of the men she had met would not have behaved as well as he did, under the rather unusual circumstances. For little Madame De Rosa had been sleeping so soundly that she might as well not have been in the room at all. Behind all he did and said, she felt his almost primitive sincerity, and the elementary strength of the passion she had inspired. No woman can feel that and not be flattered, and few, being flattered by a man's love, can resist the temptation to play with it. Women are more alike than men are; some of the nature of the worst of them is latent in the very best, and in the very worst there are little treasures of gentleness and faith that can ransom the poor soul at last. 'I am in earnest, indeed I am,' Logotheti repeated, looking at Margaret still. 'Yes,' she answered, 'I am sure you are.' There was something in her tone that acquiesced, that almost approved, and he felt that these were the first words of encouragement she had vouchsafed him. A portentous yawn from Madame De Rosa made them both turn round. She was stretching herself like a cat when it wakes, and looking about her with blinking eyes, as if trying to remember where she was. Then she saw Margaret, smiled at her spasmodically, and yawned again. 'I must have been asleep,' she said, and she laughed rather foolishly. 'Only for a few minutes,' answered Logotheti in a reassuring tone. Margaret rose and came up to her, followed by the Greek. 'It's most extraordinary!' cried Madame De Rosa. 'I never go to sleep like that! Do you think it could possibly have been the maraschino?' 'No indeed!' Logotheti laughed carelessly. 'You were tired, after the rehearsal.' He put the decanter back into the large liqueur case from which he had taken it, shut down the lid, locked it and put the key in his pocket. Madame De Rosa watched him in silence, but Margaret paid no attention to what he was doing, for she was accustomed to see Mrs. Rushmore do the same thing. The taste of servants for liqueur and cigars is quite irreproachable; they always take the best there is. A few minutes later the three were on their way to Versailles, and before long Logotheti put Margaret down at Mrs. Rushmore's gate, starting to take Madame De Rosa back to Paris, as soon as the girl had gone in. Neither of them said much on the way, and the motor stopped again in the Boulevard Malesherbes. Madame De Rosa thanked Logotheti, with an odd little smile of intelligence. 'Take care!' she said, as they parted, and her beady little black eyes looked sharply at him. 'Why?' he asked, with perfect calm, but his lids were slightly contracted. Madame De Rosa shook her finger at him, laughed and ran in, leaving him standing on the pavement. CHAPTER XI Great singers and, generally, all good singers, are perfectly healthy animals with solid nerves, in which respect they differ from other artists, with hardly an exception. They have good appetites, they sleep soundly, they are not oppressed by morbid anticipations of failure nor by the horrible reaction that follows a great artistic effort of any kind except singing. Without a large gift of calm physical strength they could not possibly do the physical work required of them, and as they possess the gift they have also the characteristics that go with it and help to preserve it. It does not follow that they have no feelings; but it does follow that their feelings are natural and healthy, when those of other musicians are apt to be frightfully morbid. A great deal of nonsense has been thought and written about the famous Malibran, because Alfred de Musset was moved to write of her as if she were a consumptive and devoured by the flame of genius. Malibran was a genius, but she was no more consumptive than Hercules. She died of internal injuries caused by a fall from a horse. Margaret Donne, when she was about to go on the stage as Margarita da Cordova, was a perfectly normal young woman; which does not mean that she felt no anxiety about her approaching _début_, but only that her actual diffidence as to the result did not keep her awake or spoil her appetite, though it made her rather more quiet and thoughtful than usual, because so very much depended on success. At least, she had thought so when Logotheti had set her down at the gate. Five minutes later that aspect of the matter had changed. Mrs. Rushmore met her at the door of the morning room and gathered her in with a large embrace. 'My dear child!' cried the good lady. 'My dear child!' This was indefinite, but Margaret felt that something more was coming, of a nature which Mrs. Rushmore considered fortunate in the extreme, and in a short time she had learned the news, but with no mention of Logotheti's name. Six months earlier Margaret would have rejoiced at her good fortune. Yesterday she might still have hesitated about keeping the engagement she had signed with Schreiermeyer; but between yesterday and to-day there was her first rehearsal, there was the echo of that little round of real applause from fellow-artists, there was the sound of her own voice, high and true, singing 'Anges pures'; and there was the smell of the stage, with its indescribable attraction. To have gone back now would have been to gainsay every instinct and every aspiration she felt. She told Mrs. Rushmore this, as quietly as she could. 'You're quite mad,' said Mrs. Rushmore. 'You may say what you please. I maintain that you are quite mad.' 'I can't help it,' Margaret answered without a smile. 'I began by wishing to do it to earn my living, if I could, but as it turns out, I have a great voice. I believe I have one of the great voices of the day. I'm born to sing, and I should sing if you told me I had millions. I feel it now, and I am not boasting in the least. Ask Schreiermeyer, if you like.' 'Who is that person with the queer name?' inquired Mrs. Rushmore severely. 'He's one of the big managers--the one who has engaged me.' 'Engaged fiddlesticks!' commented Mrs. Rushmore, with contempt. 'I say you are quite mad. If not, how do you account for your wishing to go on the stage?' Margaret was thinking how she could account for it, when Mrs. Rushmore went on. 'I'll have a specialist out this afternoon to look at you,' she said. 'You're not sane. I wonder who the best man is.' The last sentence was spoken in an undertone of reflection. 'Nonsense!' exclaimed Margaret emphatically, and adding to the emphasis by taking off her hat and throwing her head back, shaking it a little as if she wished her hair were down. Mrs. Rushmore turned upon her with the moral dignity of five generations of Puritan ancestors. 'Do you mean to say that after all I've done to get you this money, you are going to give me up to be an actress?' she demanded with scorn. 'That you're going to give up your best friends, and your position as a lady, and the chance of making a respectable marriage, not to mention your immortal soul, just for the pleasure of showing yourself every night half-dressed to every commercial traveller in Europe? It's disgraceful. I don't care what you say. You're insane. You shan't do it!' At this view of the case Margaret's forehead flushed a little. 'You talk as if I were going to be a music-hall singer,' she said. 'That's where you'll end!' retorted Mrs. Rushmore, without the slightest regard for facts. 'That's where they all end! There, or in the divorce courts--or both! It's the same thing!' she concluded triumphantly. 'I never heard a divorce court compared to a music-hall,' observed Margaret. 'You know exactly what I mean,' answered Mrs. Rushmore angrily. 'Don't take me up at every word! Contradicting isn't reasoning. Anybody can contradict.' 'And besides,' continued Margaret, growing cooler as the other grew warm, 'one cannot be divorced till one has been married.' 'Oh, you'll marry soon enough!' cried Mrs. Rushmore, infuriated by her calm. 'You'll marry an adventurer with dyed moustaches and a sham title, who'll steal your money and beat you! And though I am your dear mother's best friend, Margaret, I'm bound to say that it will serve you right. It's useless to deny it. It will serve you right.' 'It would certainly serve me right if I married the individual with the dyed moustaches,' said Margaret, smiling in spite of herself. 'I'm glad you agree with me at last. It shows that you're not so perfectly mad as you seemed. If you had gone on as you were talking at first I should certainly have had a mad doctor to examine you. As it is, I don't believe you're fit to have all that money. You mean well, I daresay. But you have no sense. None at all.' Margaret laughed and took the opportunity of the lull in the battle to escape to her own room. A moment later Mrs. Rushmore followed her and knocked at the door. 'I'm sure you've had nothing to eat all day,' she called out anxiously, before Margaret could answer. Margaret opened and put her head out, to explain that she had lunched, but she did not say where. 'Oh, very well!' answered Mrs. Rushmore, unwilling to show that her anger had subsided so soon. 'That's all I wanted to know.' Like most Anglo-Saxons, she vaguely connected regular meals with morality. When Margaret was alone she realised that she was more disturbed by Lushington's unexpected appearance at Logotheti's door than she had thought it possible to be. At the time, she had been surprised to see him and a little hurt by his manner, but she had attributed the latter to his natural shyness. Now that she could think quietly about the meeting, she remembered his eyes and the look of cold resentment she had seen in them for the first time since she had known him. He had no right to be angry with her for lunching with Logotheti, she was quite sure. He had parted from her, giving her to understand that they were to meet as little as possible in future. How could he possibly claim to criticise her actions after that? A few days ago, she would have married him, if he had not insisted that it was impossible. She was not sure that she would marry him now, if he came back. He had looked as if he meant to interfere in her life, after refusing to share it. No woman will tolerate that. Yet she was disturbed, and a little sad, now that the day was over. Logotheti had found words for a thought that had passed through her mind, it was true; if Lushington loved her, how could he make an obstacle of what she had been so ready to overlook? The Greek's direct speeches had appealed to her, while he had been at her side. But now, she wished with all her heart that Lushington would appear to ask her questions, and let her answer them. She had a most unreasonable impression that she had somehow angered him, and wronged herself in his eyes. She would not ask herself whether she loved him still, or whether she had really loved him at all, but she longed to see him. He had said that he was leaving again in the evening, but perhaps he would think better of it and come out to see her. She even thought of writing to him, for she knew his London address. He lived in Bolton Street, Piccadilly, and she remembered his telling her that his windows looked upon a blank brick wall opposite, in which he sought inspiration and sometimes found it. Sometimes, he had said, he saw her face there. Then she remembered the last hour they had spent together at Madame Bonanni's, and the quiet dignity and courage of his behaviour under circumstances that might almost have driven a sensitive man out of his senses. She thought of him a great deal that afternoon, and the result of her thoughts was that she resolved not to go to Logotheti's house again, though she had a vague idea that such a resolution should not be connected with Lushington, if she meant to respect her own independence. But when she had reached this complicated state of mind, both Lushington and Logotheti took themselves suddenly out of the sphere of her meditations, and she was standing once more on the half-lighted stage, singing 'Anges pures' into the abyss of the dark and empty house. The evening post brought Margaret three notes from Paris. One, in bad French, was from Schreiermeyer, to say that he had changed his mind, that she was to make her _début_ in _Rigoletto_ instead of in _Faust_, and that a rehearsal of the former opera was called for the next day but one at eleven o'clock, at which, by kindness of the director of the Opéra, she would be allowed to sing the part of Gilda. When she read this, her face fell, and she felt a sharp little disappointment. She had already fancied herself Marguerite, the fair-haired Gretchen, mass-book in hand and eyes cast down, and then at the spinning-wheel, and in the church, and in the prison, and it was an effort of imagination to turn herself into the Italian Duke's Gilda, murdered to save her lover and dragged away in the sack--probably by proxy! The next note was from Logotheti, who begged her to use his motor car for going in to her rehearsals. The chauffeur would bring it to Mrs. Rushmore's gate, the day after to-morrow, in plenty of time. The note was in French and ended with the assurance of 'most respectful homage.' When she had read it she stared rather vacantly into the corner of her room for a few seconds, and then tossed the bit of paper into the basket under her writing-table. The third letter was from Lushington. She had recognised the small scholarly handwriting and had purposely laid it aside to read last. It was rather stiffly worded, and it contained a somewhat unnecessary and not very contrite apology for having seemed rude that morning in answering her question so roughly and in hurrying away. He had not much else to say, except that he was going back at once to his London lodgings in Bolton Street--a hint that if Margaret wished to write to him he was to be found there. She bit her lip and frowned. The note was useless and tactless as well. If he had wished to please her he might have written a word of greeting, as if nothing had happened, just to say that he wished he could have seen her for a few minutes. It would have been so easy to do that instead of sending a superfluous apology for having been rude on purpose! She read the note again and grew angry over it. It was so gratuitous! If he really meant to avoid her always, he need not have written at all. 'Superfluous' was the word; it was superfluous. She tore the letter into little bits and threw them into the basket; and then, by an afterthought, she fished up Logotheti's note, which she had not torn, and read it again. At all events, he was a man of the world and could cover two pages of note-paper without saying anything that could irritate a woman. Like everything he said, what he wrote was just right. He did not protest that he could not use his motor car himself, and he did not apologise for taking the liberty of offering her the use of it; he did not even ask for an answer, as if he were trying to draw her into writing to him. The car would be at the gate, and he would be glad if she could use it; meaning that if she did not want it she could send it away. There was not the least shade of familiarity in the phrases. 'Respectful homage' was certainly not 'familiar.' Just because he did not ask for an answer, he should have one! She took up her pen and began. When she had written three or four lines to thank him, she found herself going on to say more, and she told him of the change in regard to her _début_, and asked if he knew why it was made so suddenly. She explained why she preferred _Faust_ to _Rigoletto_, and all at once she saw that she had filled a sheet and must either break off abruptly or take another. She finished the note hastily and signed her name. When it was done she remembered that she had not told him anything about the money which had unexpectedly come to her, and she hesitated a moment; but she decided that it was none of his business, and almost wondered why she had thought of telling him anything so entirely personal. She sealed the letter, stamped it and sent it to be posted. Then she sat down at her piano to look over _Rigoletto_, whistling her part softly while she played, in order to save her voice, and in a few minutes she had forgotten Logotheti, Schreiermeyer and Lushington. CHAPTER XII Madame Bonanni sat in the spring sunshine by the closed window of her sitting-room in London; she was thankful that there was any sunshine at all, and by keeping the window shut and wrapping herself in furs she produced the illusion that it was warming her. The room was not very large and a good deal of space was taken up by a grand piano, a good deal more by the big table and the heavy furniture, and the rest by Madame Bonanni herself. Her bulk was considerably increased by the white furs, from which only her head emerged; and as her face was made up for the day with rather more paint than she wore in Paris, on the ground that London is a darker city, the effect of the whole was highly artificial and disconcerting. One might have compared the huge bundle of white to an enormous egg out of which a large and very animated middle-aged fowl was just hatching. Lushington was seated before the open piano, but had turned half away from it on the stool and was looking quietly at his mother. His face had an expression of listless weariness which was not natural to him. Madame Bonanni moved just then and the outer fur slipped a little from its place. Lushington rose at once and arranged it again. 'Will you have anything else over you, mother?' he asked. 'No, my child. I am warm at last. Your English sun is like stage lime-light. It shines, and shines, and does no good! The man turns it off, and London is pitch dark! Nothing warms one here but eating five times a day and wearing a fur coat all the time. But I am growing old. Why do you say I am not? It is foolish.' 'Your voice is as perfect as ever,' said Lushington. 'My voice, my voice! What did you expect? That it would crack, or that I should sing false? Ungrateful boy! How can you say such things of your mother? But I am growing old. Soon I shall make the effect on the public of a grandmother in baby's clothes. Do you think I am blind? They will say, "Poor old Bonanni, she remembers Thiers!" They might as well say at once that I remember the Second Empire! It is infamous! Have people no heart? But why do I go on singing, my dear? Tell me that! Why do I go on?' 'Because you sing as well as ever,' suggested Lushington gently. 'It is no reason why I should work as hard as ever! Why should I go on earning money, money, money? Yes, I know! They come to hear me, they crowd the house, they pay, they clap their hands when I sing the mad scene in _Lucia_, or Juliet's waltz song, or the crescendo trills in the _Huguenots_! But I am old, my dear!' 'Nonsense!' interjected Lushington in an encouraging tone. 'Do you know why I am sure of it? It is this. I do not care any more. It is all the same to me, what they do. I do not care whether they come or not, or whether they applaud, or hiss, or stamp on the floor. Why should I care? I have had it all so often. I have seen the people standing on the seats all over the theatre and yelling, and often in foreign countries they have taken the horses from my carriage and dragged it themselves. I have had everything. Why should I care for it? And I do not want money. I have too much already.' 'You certainly have enough, mother.' 'It is your fault that I have too much,' she said, in sudden anger. 'You have no heart; you are a cruel, ungrateful boy! Is there anything I have not done to make you happy, ever since you were a baby? Look at your position! You are a celebrated writer, a critic! Other writers are green with jealousy and fear of you! And why? Because I made up my mind that you should be a great man, and sent you to school and the university instead of keeping you to myself, at home, always pressed against my heart! Is not that the greatest sacrifice that a mother can make, to send her child to college, to be left alone herself, always wondering whether he is catching cold and is getting enough to eat, and is not being led away by wicked little boys? Ah, you do not know! You can never be a mother!' This was unanswerable, but Lushington really looked sorry for her, as if it were his fault. 'And what have you given me in return for it all? How have you repaid me for the days of anxiety and nights of fever all the time when you were at those terrible studies? I ask you that! How have you rewarded me? You will not take money from me. I go on making more and more, and you will not spend it. Oh, it is not to be believed! I shall die of grief!' Madame Bonanni put one fat hand out from under the furs, and pressed a podgy finger to each eyelid in succession by way of stopping the very genuine tears that threatened her rouged cheeks with watery destruction. 'Mother, please don't!' cried Lushington, in helpless distress. 'You know that I can't take money from you!' 'Oh, I know, I know! That is the worst of it--I know! It is not because you are proud of earning your own living, it's because you're ashamed of me!' Lushington rose again, and began to walk up and down, bending his head and glancing at her now and then. 'Why will you always go back to that question?' he asked, and his tone showed how much he resented it. 'You cannot unlive your life. Don't make me say more than that, for you don't know how it hurts to say that much. Indeed you don't!' He went to the closed window and looked out, turning away from her. She stretched out her hand and pulled at his coat timidly, as a dog pulls his master's clothes to attract his attention. He turned his head a little. 'I've tried to live differently, Tom,' she said. 'Of late years I've tried.' Her voice was low and unsteady. 'I know it,' he said just above a whisper, and he turned to the window-pane again. 'Can't you forgive me, Tom?' she asked pitifully. 'Won't you take some of the money--only what I made by singing?' He shook his head without looking round, for it would have hurt him to see her eyes just then. 'I have enough, mother,' he answered. 'I make as much as I need.' 'You will need much more when you marry.' 'I shall never marry.' 'You will marry little Miss Donne,' said Madame Bonanni, after a moment's pause. Lushington turned sharply now, and leaned back against the glass. 'No,' he answered, with sudden hardness, 'I can't ask Miss Donne to be my wife. No man in my position could have the right. You understand what I mean, and heaven knows I don't wish to pain you, mother--I'd give anything not to! Why do you talk of these things?' 'Because I feel that you're unhappy, Tom, and I know that I am--and there must be some way out of it. After all, my dear--now don't be angry!--Miss Donne is a good girl--she's all that I wish I had been--but after all, she's going to be an opera-singer. You are the son of an artist and I don't see why any artist should not marry you. The public believes we are all bad, whether we are or not.' 'I'm not thinking of the public,' Lushington answered. 'I don't care a straw what the world says. If I had been offered my choice I would not have changed my name at all.' 'But then, my dear, what in the world are you thinking of?' asked the prima donna, evidently surprised by what he said. 'If the girl loves you, do you suppose she will care what I've done?' 'But I care!' cried Lushington with sudden vehemence. 'I care, for her sake!' Madame Bonanni's hand had disappeared within the furs again, after she had ascertained that the two tears were not going to run down her cheeks. Her large face wore the expression of a coloured sphinx, and there was something Egyptian about the immobility of her eyes and her painted eyebrows. No one could have guessed from her look whether she were going to cry or laugh the next time she spoke. Lushington walked up and down the room without glancing at her. 'Do you think----' she began, and broke off as he stopped to listen. 'What?' he inquired, standing still. 'Would it make it any better if--if I married again?' She asked the question with hesitation. 'How? I don't understand.' 'They always say that marriage is so respectable,' Madame Bonanni answered, in a matter-of-fact tone. 'I don't know why, I'm sure, but everybody seems to think it is, and if it would help matters--I mean, if Miss Donne would consider that a respectable marriage with a solid, middle-class man would settle the question, I suppose I could manage it. I could always divorce, you know, if it became unbearable!' 'Yes,' Lushington answered. 'Marriage is the first step to the divorce court. For heaven's sake, don't talk in this way! I've made up my mind that I cannot marry, and that ends it. Let it alone. We each know what the other thinks, and we are each trying to make the best of what can't be undone. Talking about it can do no good. Nothing can. It's the inevitable, and so the least said about it, the better. Sometimes you say that I am ungrateful, mother, but I'm not, you don't mean it seriously. If I've made my own way, it is because you started me right, by making me work instead of bringing me up at your apron-strings, to live on your money. You did it so well, too, that you cannot undo it, now that you would like to make me rich. Why aren't you proud of that, mother? It's the best thing you ever did in your life--God bless you! And yet you say I'm ungrateful!' At this, there was a convulsion of the white furs; Madame Bonanni suddenly emerged, erect, massive and seething with motherly emotion; throwing her arms round her son she pressed him to her with a strength and vehemence that might have suffocated a weaker man. As it was, Lushington was speechless in her embrace for several seconds, while she uttered more or less incoherent cries of joy. 'My child! My own darling Tommy! Oh, you make me so happy!' Lushington let her print many heavy kisses on his cheeks, and he gently patted her shoulder with his free hand. He was very patient and affectionate, considering the frightful dilemma with regard to her in which he had lived all his life; for, as his mother, he loved her, but as a woman, he knew that he could never respect her, whatever she might do to retrieve her past. He could find excuses for the life she had led, but they were only palliatives that momentarily soothed the rankling sore in his heart, which nothing could heal. In his own world of literature and work and publicity, he had a name of his own, not without honour, and respected by every one. But to himself, to the few trusted persons who knew his secret, above all to Margaret Donne, he was the son of that 'Bonanni woman,' who had been the spoilt plaything of royalty and semi-royalty from London to St. Petersburg, whose lovers had been legion and her caprices as the sand on the sea-shore. There were times when Lushington could not bear to see her, and kept away from her, or even left the city in which they were together. There were days when the natural bond drew him to her, and when he realised that, with countless faults, she had been to him a far better mother than most men are blessed with. And now, poor thing, she was grateful to the verge of tears for his one word of blessing that seemed to wipe out all the rest. She wished that when her hour came, she might hear him say again 'God bless you,' and then die. She let him go, and sat down amongst her furs, with a deep sigh of satisfaction. 'I've made up my mind what to do,' she said, almost as if she were talking to herself. 'I'm tired of it all, Tom, and I'm losing my good looks and my figure. If this goes on, I shall soon be ridiculous. You would not like your mother to be ridiculous, would you?' 'Certainly not!' 'No, my angel! Be good if you can; if you can't be good, be bad; but never be ridiculous! Oh, never, never! I could not bear that. So I shall leave the stage, quietly, without any farewell. I shall cancel my engagements when I have finished singing here. The doctors will swear to anything. What are they for? I was never ill in my life, but they shall say I am ill now. What is it that every one has nowadays--the appendix? I will have the appendix. The doctors shall swear that I have it well. So I shall leave the stage with a good reason, and pay no forfeit for cancelling the contracts. That is business. Then I will be a nun.' 'Eh?' ejaculated Lushington, staring at her. 'Yes, I will be a nun,' continued Madame Bonanni unmoved. 'I will go into religion. When your mother is a nun, my child, I presume that the Church will protect her, and no one will dare to say anything against her. Then you can marry or not, as you please, but you will no longer be ashamed of your mother! I shall be a blue nun with a white bonnet and a black veil, and I shall call myself Sister Juliet, because that has been my great part, and the name will remind me of old times. Don't you think "Sister Juliet" sounds very well? And dark blue is becoming to me--I always said so.' 'Yes--yes,' answered Lushington in an uncertain tone and biting his lip. 'I cannot do more than that for you, my treasure,' said his mother, a touch of real human sadness in her voice. 'You will not take the miserable money--but perhaps you will take the sacrifice, if I shut myself up in a convent and wear a hair shirt, and feed sick babies, and eat cabbage. How could any one say a word against me then? And you will be happy, Tom. That is all I ask.' 'I shall not be happy, if you make yourself miserable, mother,' said Lushington, smiling. 'Miserable? Ah, well, I daresay there will not be cabbage every day,' answered Madame Bonanni thoughtfully. 'And I like fish. Fortunately, I am fond of fish. The simplest, you know. Only a fried sole with a meunière sauce. Bah! When I talk of eating you never believe I am in earnest. Go away, my beloved child! Go and write to little Miss Donne that she may have all my engagements, because I am entering religion. You shall see! She will marry you in a week. Go over to Paris and talk to her. She is crying her eyes out for you, and that is bad for the voice. It relaxes the vocal cords frightfully. I always have to gargle for half-an-hour if I have been crying and am going to sing.' Through all her rambling talk, half earnest and half absurd, Lushington detected the signs of a coming change. He did not think she would leave the stage so suddenly as she said she would; he assuredly did not believe that she would ever 'enter religion'; but he saw for the first time that she was tired of the life she had led, that she felt herself growing old and longed for rest and quiet. She had lived as very few live, to satisfy every ambition and satiate every passion to the full, and now, with advancing years, she had not the one great bad passion of old age, which is avarice, as an incentive for prolonging her career. In its place, on the contrary, stood her one redeeming virtue, that abundant generosity which had made her welcome Margaret Donne's great talent with honest enthusiasm, and which had been like a providence to hundreds, perhaps to thousands of unknown men, women and children ever since she had gained the means of helping the poor and distressed. But it had been part of her nature to hide that. Logotheti, who managed most of her business, knew more about her charities than her own son, and the world knew next to nothing at all. CHAPTER XIII When Lushington had run over to Paris the day before the conversation just recorded, he had entertained a vague notion of going out to Versailles in the afternoon; for he felt that all had not been said between himself and Margaret and that their last parting in the street had not been really final. The fact was that he merely yielded to the tormenting desire to see her again, if for only a few minutes and in the presence of Mrs. Rushmore. But the meeting in the Boulevard Péreire had chilled him like a stream of cold water poured down his back; than which homely simile there is none more true. He had fancied her very grave and even a little sad, going quietly to her rehearsals with a maid, or even with Mrs. Rushmore, speaking to no one at the theatre and returning at once to Versailles to reflect on the vicissitudes to which human affections are subject. He had come upon her suddenly and unawares, in a very smart frock and a superlatively becoming hat, smiling gaily, just stepping out of a magnificent white motor car, resting her hand familiarly on that of the most successful young financier in Paris, whose conquests among women of the world were a byword, and chaperoned by a flighty little Neapolitan teacher of singing. Truly, if some one had deliberately rubbed the back of his neck with a large lump of ice on that warm spring day, the chill could not have been more effectual. Morally speaking, Lushington caught a bad cold, which 'struck in,' as old people used to say. He might have explained to himself that as he had insisted upon parting from Margaret for ever, and against her will, her subsequent doings were none of his business. But he was half an Englishman by birth and altogether one by bringing up, and he therefore could not admit that she should be apparently enjoying herself, while he was gloomily brooding over the misfortunes that put her beyond his reach. The fable of the Dog in the Manger must have been composed to describe us Anglo-Saxons. It is sufficient that we be hindered from getting what we want, even by our own sense of honour; we are forthwith ready to sacrifice life and limb to prevent any other man from getting it. The magnanimity of our renunciation is only to be compared with our tenacity in asserting our claim to what we have renounced. Even our charities usually have strings to them on which our hold never relaxes, in case we should want them back. Lushington had never trusted Logotheti, but since his instinct and the force of circumstances had told him that the Greek was making love to Margaret and that Margaret liked his society, he hated the man in a most unchristian manner, and few things would have given the usually peaceable man of letters such unmitigated satisfaction as to see the shining white motor car blow up and scatter his rival's arms and legs to the thirty-two points of the compass. Logotheti, on the other hand, was as yet unaware that Lushington was the 'some one else' of whom Margaret had spoken twice with evident feeling. The consequence was that when the Englishman began to give himself the bitter satisfaction of watching Logotheti, the latter was very far from suspecting such a thing, and took no pains at all to hide his doings; and Lushington established himself in Paris and watched him, in his coming and going, and nursed his jealousy into hatred and his hatred into action. He would not have stooped to employ any one in such work, for that would have seemed like an insult to Margaret, and a piece of cowardice into the bargain. The time would come when the astute Greek would discover that he was followed, and Lushington had no intention of putting some one else in his shoes when that time came; on the contrary, he looked forward with all a real Englishman's cool self-confidence to the explanation that must take place some day. But he wished to remain undiscovered as long as possible. He had gone back to his old rooms in the Hôtel des Saints Pères, but in order to disappear more effectually from his acquaintances he took a lodging, and walked to it, after sending on his belongings. On his way he stopped at a quiet barber's shop and had his beard and moustache shaved off. After that it was not likely that any of his acquaintances would recognise him, but he took further steps towards completing his disguise by making radical and painful changes in his dress. He bought ready-made French clothes, he put on a pair of square kid boots with elastic sides and patent leather tips, he wore a soft silk cravat artificially tied in a bow knot with wide and floating ends, and he purchased a French silk hat with a broad and curving brim. Having satisfied himself that the effect was good, he laid in a stock of similar articles, and further adorned his appearance with a pair of tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles, and a green umbrella. For possibly cool or rainy weather he provided himself with a coffee-coloured overcoat that had a velvet collar and tails reaching almost to the ground. When he had been younger Lushington had tried in vain to ruffle his naturally excessive neatness, but he now realised that he had only lacked the courage to make a thorough change. In his present costume he ran no risk of being taken for a smart English lounger, nor for a French dandy. The effect of forgetting to shave, too, was frightful, for in forty-eight hours his fair face was covered with shiny bristles that had a positively metallic look. Though he was so unlike his mother in most ways, he must have inherited a little of the theatrical instinct from her, for he wore his disguise as easily as if he had always been used to it. He also had the advantage of speaking French like a native, though possibly with a very slight southern accent caught from his mother, who originally came from Provence. As for his name, it was useless to assume another, for Paris is full of Parisians of foreign descent, whose names are English, German, Polish and Italian; and in a really great city no one takes the least notice of a man unless he does something to attract attention. Besides, Lushington had no idea of disappearing from his own world, or of cutting himself off from his regular correspondents. He had not any fixed plan, for he was not sure what he wanted; he only knew that he hated and distrusted Logotheti, and that while he could not forgive Margaret for liking the Greek's society, he meant, in an undetermined way, to save her from destruction. Probably, if he had attempted to put his thoughts into words, he could have got no further than Mrs. Rushmore, who suspected Logotheti of designs, and at the root of his growing suspicion he would have found the fine old Anglo-Saxon prejudice that a woman might as well trust herself to Don Juan, an Italian Count, or Beelzebub, as to the offspring of Cadmus or Danaus. Englishmen have indolent minds and active bodies, as a rule, but on the other hand, when they are really roused, no people in the world are capable of greater mental concentration and energy. They are therefore not good detectives as a rule, but there are few better when they are deeply and selfishly interested in the result. Incidentally, Lushington meant to do his utmost to prevent Margaret from going on the stage, and he would have been much surprised to learn that in this respect he was Logotheti's ally, instead of his enemy, against Margaret's fixed determination. If there was to be a struggle, therefore, it was to be a three-cornered one, in which the two men would be pitted against each other, and both together against the resolution of the woman they both loved. Unfortunately for Lushington, he had begun by withdrawing from Margaret's surroundings and had made way for his adversary. Meanwhile Logotheti made the running. He had offered Margaret his motor car for coming in to her rehearsals, and a chauffeur appeared with it in good time, masked, coated and gloved in the approved fashion. Margaret supposed that Logotheti meant to ask her to luncheon again with Madame De Rosa, and she made up her mind to refuse, for no particular reason except that she did not wish to seem too willing to do whatever he proposed. Mrs. Rushmore thought it bad enough that she should accept the offer of the motor car, but was beginning to understand that the machine had quite irresistible temptations for all persons under fifty. She was even a little shocked that Margaret should go alone to Paris under the sole protection of the chauffeur, though she would have thought it infinitely worse if Logotheti himself had appeared. The man held the door open for Margaret to get in, when she came out upon the step with Mrs. Rushmore, who seemed anxious to keep an eye on her as long as possible; as if she could project an influence of propriety, a sort of astral chaperonage, that would follow the girl to the city. She detained her at the last minute, holding her by the elbow. The chauffeur stood impassive with his hand on the door, while she delivered herself of her final opinion in English, which of course he could not understand. 'I must say that your sudden intimacy with this suspicious Greek is most extraordinary,' she said. 'Don't you think there is just a little prejudice in your opinion of him?' asked Margaret sweetly. 'No,' answered Mrs. Rushmore with firmness, 'I don't, and I think it very strange that a clever girl like you should be so easily taken in by a foreigner. Much worse than a foreigner, my dear! A Greek is almost as bad as a Turk, and we all know what Turks are! Fancy a decent young woman trusting herself alone with a Turk! I declare, it's not to be believed! Your dear mother's daughter too! You'll end in a harem, Margaret, mark my word.' 'And be sewn up in a sack and thrown into the Bosphorus,' laughed Margaret, trying to get away. 'Such things have happened before now,' said Mrs. Rushmore gloomily. 'Greeks don't have harems,' Margaret objected. 'Don't catch cold,' said Mrs. Rushmore, by way of refuting Margaret's argument. 'It looks as if it might rain.' The morning was still and soft and overcast, and the air was full of the scent of the flowers and leaves, and fresh-clipped grass. The small birds chirped rather plaintively from the trees on the lawn, or stood about the edge of the little pond apparently expecting something to happen, hopping down to the water occasionally, looking down at the reflections in it and then hopping back again with a dissatisfied air; and they muffled themselves up in their feathers as if they meant to go to sleep, and then suddenly spread their wings out, without flying, and scraped the grass with them. The elms were quite green already, and the oaks were pushing out thousands of bright emerald leaves. There is a day in every spring when the maiden year reaches full girlhood, and pauses on the verge of woman's estate, to wonder at the mysterious longings that disquiet all her being, and at the unknown music that sings through her waking dreams. Margaret sat in the motor car wrapped in a wide thin cloak and covering her mouth lest the rush of air should affect her voice; but the quick motion was pleasant, and she felt all the illusion of accomplishing something worth doing, merely because she was spinning along at breakneck speed. Somehow, too, the still air and the smell of the flowers had made her restless that morning before starting, and the rapid movement soothed her. If she had been offered her choice just then, she would perhaps have been on horseback for a gallop across country, but the motor car was certainly the next best thing to that. For some minutes the chauffeur kept his eyes on the road ahead and both hands on the steering-gear. Then one hand moved, the speed of the car slackened suddenly, and the man turned and spoke over the back of his seat. 'I hope you'll forgive me,' he said in English. Margaret started and sat up straight, for the voice was Logotheti's. The huge goggles, the protecting curtain over half the face, the wide-visored cap and the turned-up coat collar, had disguised him beyond all recognition. Even his usually smooth black moustache was ruffled out of shape, and hid his characteristic mouth. Margaret uttered an exclamation of surprise, not quite sure whether she ought to smile or frown. 'I thought Mrs. Rushmore would not like it, if I came for you myself,' he continued, looking at her through his goggles. 'I'm sure she wouldn't,' Margaret assented readily. 'In point of fact,' Logotheti continued, with a grin, 'she expressed her opinion of me with extraordinary directness. Suspicious Greek! Worse than a foreigner! As bad as a Turk! The unprincipled owner of a harem! It's really true that eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves! I never tried it before, and it served me right.' 'You cannot say that I said anything against you,' laughed Margaret. 'I took your defence.' 'Not with enthusiasm.' Logotheti joined in her laugh. 'You thought there might be just a little prejudice in her opinion and you told her that Greeks don't have harems. Yes--yes--I suppose that might be called defending an absent friend.' The car was moving very slowly now. 'If I had known it was you, I would have called you all sorts of names,' Margaret answered. 'Should you mind taking that thing off your face for a moment? I don't like talking to a mask, and you may be some one else after all.' 'No,' said Logotheti, 'I'm not "some one else".' He emphasised the words that had become familiar to them both. 'I wish I were! But if I take off my glasses and cap, you will be frightened, for my hair is not smooth and I'm sure I look like a Greek pirate!' 'I should like to see one, and I shall not be frightened.' He pulled off his cap and glasses, and faced her. She stared at him in surprise, for she was not sure that she should have recognised him. His thick black hair stuck up all over his head like a crest, his heavy eyebrows were as bushy as an animal's fur and his rough and bristling moustache lent his large mouth and massive jaws a look approaching to ferocity. The whole effect was rather startling, and Margaret opened her eyes wide in astonishment. Logotheti smiled. 'Now you understand why I smooth my hair and dress like a tailor's manikin,' he said quietly. 'It's enough to cow a mob, isn't it?' 'Do you know, I'm not sure that I don't like you better so. You're more natural!' 'You're evidently not timid,' he answered, amused. 'But you can fancy the effect on Mrs. Rushmore's nerves, if she had seen me.' 'I should not have dared to come with you. As it is----' She hesitated. 'Oh, as it is, you cannot help yourself,' Logotheti said. 'You can't get out and walk.' 'I could get out when you have to stop at the petrol station; and I assure you that I can refuse to come with you again!' 'Of course you can. But you won't.' 'Why not?' 'Because you're much too sensible. Have I offended you, or frightened you? What have I done to displease you?' 'Nothing--but----' She laughed and shook her head as she broke off. 'I haven't even asked you to marry me to-day! I should think that I was taking an unfair advantage, if I did, since I could easily carry you off just now. The car will run sixty miles at a stretch without any trouble at all, and I don't suppose you would risk your neck to jump, merely for the sake of getting away from me, would you?' 'Not if you behaved properly,' Margaret answered. 'And then,' Logotheti continued, 'I could put her at full speed and say, "If you won't swear to marry me, I'll give myself the satisfaction of being killed with you at the very next bridge we come to!" Most women would rather marry a man than be smashed to atoms with him, even if he looks like a pirate.' 'Possibly!' 'But that would be unfair. Besides, an oath taken under compulsion is not binding. I should have to find some other way.' 'Shall we go on?' Margaret asked. 'I shall be late for the rehearsal.' 'Give it up,' suggested Logotheti calmly. 'We'll spend the morning at St. Cloud. Much pleasanter than tiring yourself out in that wretched theatre! I want to talk to you.' 'You can talk to me when I am not singing.' 'No. Singing will distract your attention, and you won't listen to what I tell you. You have no idea what delightful things I can say when I try!' 'I wonder!' Margaret laughed lightly. 'You might begin trying while you take me to Paris. We haven't run a mile in the last ten minutes, and it's getting late.' 'Unless you are always a little late nobody will respect you. I'll go a little faster, just to prove to you that you can do anything you like with me, even against my judgment. Let me put on my glasses first.' At that moment a man met them on a bicycle, and passed at a leisurely pace. There was not much traffic on the Versailles road at that hour, and Margaret let her eyes rest idly on the man, who merely glanced at her and looked ahead again. Logotheti had taken off his cap in order to adjust his goggles and shield. When the bicycle had gone by he laughed. 'There goes a typical French bookworm, bicycling to get an appetite,' he observed. 'I wonder why a certain type of Frenchman always wears kid boots with square patent leather toes, and a Lavallière tie, and spectacles with tortoise-shell rims!' 'If he could see you as you generally are,' answered Margaret, 'he would probably wonder why a certain type of foreigner plasters his hair down and covers himself with diamonds and rubies! Do go a little faster, it's getting later every moment.' 'It always does.' 'Especially when one doesn't wish it to! Please go on!' 'Say at once that I've bored you to death.' He put the car at half-speed. 'No. You don't bore me at all, but I want to get to the theatre.' 'To please you, I am going there--for no other reason. I'll do anything in the world to give you pleasure. I only wish you would do the smallest thing for me!' 'What, for instance? Perhaps I may do some very little thing. You'll get nothing if you don't ask for it!' 'Some people take without asking. Greek pirates always do, you know! But I can't drive at this rate and talk over my shoulder.' The way was clear and for several minutes he ran at full speed, keeping his eyes on the road. Margaret turned sideways and kept behind him as much as possible, shielding her face and mouth from the tremendous draught. She had told the truth when she had said that he did not bore her. The whole thing had a savour of adventure in it, and it amused her to think how shocked Mrs. Rushmore would have been if she had guessed that the chauffeur was Logotheti himself. There was something in the man's coolness that attracted her very much, for though there was no danger on the present occasion, she felt that if there had been any, he would have been just as indifferent to it if it stood in the way of his seeing her alone. Poor Lushington had always been so intensely proper, so morbidly afraid of compromising her, and above all, so deadly in earnest! She did not quite like to admit that the Greek was altogether in earnest, too, and that she was just a little afraid of him; still less that her unacknowledged fear gave her rather a pleasant sensation. But it was quite true that she had liked him better than before, from the moment when he had pulled off his cap and glasses and shown his face as nature had made it. However he might appear hereafter when she met him, she would always think of him as she had seen him then. Most women are much more influenced by strength in a man than by anything which can reasonably be called beauty. Actually and metaphorically every woman would rather be roughly carried off her feet by something she cannot resist than be abjectly worshipped and flattered; yet worship and flattery, though second-best, are much better than the terribly superior and instructive affection which the born prig bestows upon his idol with the air of granting a favour on moral grounds. Men, on the other hand, detest being carried away, almost as much as being led. The woman who lets a man guess that she is trying to influence him is lost, and generally forfeits for ever any real influence she may have had. The only sort of cleverness which is distinctly womanly is that which leads a man to do with energy, enthusiasm and devotion the very thing which he has always assured everybody that he will not think of doing. The old-fashioned way of making a pig go to market is to pull his tail steadily in the opposite direction. If you do that, nothing can save him from his fate; for he will drag you off your feet in his effort to do what he does not want to do at all; and there is more 'psychology' in that plain fact than in volumes of subtle analysis. CHAPTER XIV Lushington's first discovery was not calculated to soothe his feelings. It had come about simply enough. He had bicycled in the Boulevard Péreire, keeping an eye on Logotheti's house from a distance, and had seen the motor car waiting before the door, in charge of the chauffeur. A man had come out, dressed precisely like the latter, had got in and had gone off, apparently in no hurry, while the original chauffeur went into the house, presumably to wait. It had been easy enough to keep the machine in sight till it was fairly out on the road to Versailles, after which Lushington had felt tolerably sure that by going slowly he should meet it coming back and probably bringing Margaret. As has been seen, this was what happened, and, as chance favoured him, he passed the motor before Logotheti had covered his face again. He was not likely to forget that face either, and it had done more to reveal to him his adversary's true character than any number of meetings in society. For once he had seen the real Logotheti, as Margaret had. He had ridden on till they were out of sight and had then turned back, in no very amiable frame of mind. He understood very well that Logotheti had made great progress in a few days; he even took it for granted that Margaret had expected him that morning, and approved of the disguise; for it was nothing else, after all. If the world, and therefore Mrs. Rushmore, had been meant to know that Logotheti was acting as his own chauffeur, Margaret would have been sitting beside him in front. Instead, she was behind him, in the body of the car, and had evidently been talking with him over the back of the seat. The big machine, too, was moving at a snail's pace, clearly in order that they might talk at leisure. In other words, Logotheti had arranged a secret meeting with Margaret, with her consent; and that could only mean one thing. The Greek had gained enough influence over her to make her do almost anything he liked. It was not a pleasant discovery, but it was an important one, and Lushington thought over the best means of following it up. He almost choked with anger as he reflected that if matters went on at this rate, Margaret would soon be going to Logotheti's house without even the nominal protection afforded by little Madame De Rosa. He rode back by the way he had taken outward and passed the Greek's house. The motor car was not there, which was a relief, on the whole. He went on as far as the Opéra, for he knew from his mother that Margaret's rehearsals were taking place there, by the kindness of the director, who was on very friendly terms with Schreiermeyer. But the motor was not to be seen. Logotheti, who could hardly have entered disguised as his own chauffeur, and who would not leave the machine unguarded in the street, had possibly left Margaret at the door and gone away. Lushington got off his bicycle and went in under the covered way to the stage door. In answer to his questions, the keeper told him that Mademoiselle da Cordova was rehearsing, and would probably not come out for at least two hours. Lushington asked the man whether he had seen Logotheti. No, he had not; he knew Monsieur Logotheti very well; he knew all the subscribers, and particularly all those who were members of the 'high finance.' Besides, every one in Paris knew Monsieur Logotheti by sight; every one knew him as well as the column in the Place Vendôme. He had not been seen that morning. The doorkeeper, who had absolutely nothing to do just at that hour, was willing to talk; but he had nothing of importance to say. Monsieur Logotheti came sometimes to rehearsals. A few days ago he and Mademoiselle da Cordova had left the theatre together. The keeper smiled, and ventured to suppose that Mademoiselle da Cordova was 'protected' by the 'financier.' Lushington flushed angrily and went away. It had come already, then; what the man had said this morning, he would say to-morrow and the next day, to any one who cared to listen, including the second-class reporters who go to underlings for information; Margaret's name was already coupled with that of a millionaire who was supposed to protect her. Ten days ago, she had been unassailable, a 'lady'--Lushington did not particularly like the word--a young English girl of honourable birth, protected by no less a personage than Mrs. Rushmore, and defended from calumny by that very powerful organisation for mutual defence under all circumstances, which calls itself society, which wields most of the capital of the world, rewards its humble friends with its patronage and generally kills or ruins its enemies. That was ten days ago. Now, the 'lady' had become an 'artist,' and was public property. The stage doorkeeper of a theatre could smilingly suggest that she was the property of a financier, and no one had a right to hit him between the eyes for saying so. Lushington had been strongly tempted to do that, but he had instantly foreseen the consequences; he would have been arrested for an unprovoked assault, the man would have told his story, the papers would have repeated it with lively comments, and Margaret's name would have been dragged through the mud of a newspaper scandal. So Lushington put his hands in his pockets and went away, which was by far the wisest thing he could do. He set himself resolutely to think out a plan of action, but like many men of tolerably fertile imagination he was at a loss for any expedient in the presence of urgent need. He could watch Logotheti and Margaret, and they would not easily recognise him, but he was fain to admit that he had nothing to gain by spying on them. He had seen enough and heard enough already to convince him that Margaret had allowed herself to be led into a situation very dangerous for her good name, to say the least. It did not occur to him that Logotheti wished to marry her, still less that he meant to hinder her from singing in public. He could not help thinking of the very worst motives, and he attributed them all to the Greek. The mild English man of letters was momentarily turned into an avenging demon, breathing wrath and destruction upon his adversary. The most extravagant and reckless crimes looked comparatively easy just then, and very tempting. He thought of getting into Logotheti's cellar with enough dynamite to blow the house, its owner and himself to atoms, not to speak of half the Boulevard Péreire. He fancied himself pounding Logotheti's face quite out of shape with his fists, riddling him with revolver bullets, running him through in all directions with duelling swords, tearing him in pieces with wild horses and hanging him out of his own front window. These vivacious actions all looked possible and delightful to Lushington as he walked up and down his little sitting-room. Then came the cold shower-bath of returning common-sense. He sat down, filled a pipe and lit it. 'I'm an awful ass,' he said aloud to himself, in a reproachful tone. He wished that some spirit voice would contradict him, but in the absence of any supernatural intervention the statement remained unrefuted. The worst of it was that he had always thought himself clever, and in his critical writings he had sneered in a superior way at the inventions of contemporary novelists. Just then, he would have given his reputation for the talents of the hero in a common detective story. But his mind refused to work in that way, and he watched with growing discouragement the little clouds of smoke that floated upwards to the whitewashed ceiling without leaving the least shadow of a serviceable idea behind them. He looked disconsolately at the square patent leather toes of his shoes, very dusty from bicycling, and he sadly passed his hand over his smooth-shaven chin; the curious creases in his ready-made trousers, so conspicuously in the wrong place, depressed him still further, and the sight of his broad-brimmed hat, lying on the table, enhanced the melancholy of his reflections. The disguise was admirable, undoubtedly, but it had only helped him to see with his eyes what he had already seen in imagination, and so far as he could guess, it was not likely to help him one step further. At that very moment Margaret was probably seated at Logotheti's table, without even Madame De Rosa to chaperon her, and Logotheti's men-servants were exchanging opinions about her outside the door. Lushington nearly bit through the mouthpiece of his pipe as he thought of that, knowing that he was powerless to interfere. The same thing might go on for a month, and he could not stop it; then Margaret would make her _début_, and the case would be more hopeless than ever. The truth was that after launching himself as a disguised detective, he found himself barred from going any further than merely watching his enemy, simply because he was incapable of stooping to a detective's methods of work. He would as soon have lost his hand as have written an anonymous letter or deliberately inveigled Logotheti into a trap, and while he was so carefully concealing himself he longed in reality for open fight, and felt that he had made himself ridiculous in his own eyes. Yet he hesitated to put on his own English clothes and go about as usual, for he had to pass the porter's window on the stairs every time he went out or came in, and such a sudden change in his appearance would certainly make the porter suspect that he was engaged in some nefarious business. Porters are powerful personages in Parisian lodging-houses, and this one would probably inform the police that he had a suspicious lodger; after which Lushington would be watched in his turn and would very probably have trouble. These reflections made him feel more ridiculous than ever. Now it very often happens that when a man, even of considerable intelligence, has made up his mind to do something which at first seemed very clever, but which, by degrees, turns out to be quite useless, if not altogether foolish, he perseveres in his course with mule-like obstinacy. He has taken endless trouble to prepare the means, he has thought it all out so nicely, only omitting to reach the conclusion! It would be a pity to go back, it would be useless to desist, since everything has been so well prepared. Something is sure to come of it, if he only sticks to his original plan, and any result must be better than allowing events to go their way. Therefore, when the clouds that curled up from Lushington's pipe failed to shape themselves into a vision both wise and prophetic, and left absolutely no new idea behind when they vanished, he came to the conclusion that his first scheme was a very good one after all, and that he had better abide by the square-toed, spring-side boots and the rest of his admirable disguise, until something happened. Then he would seize the opportunity and act decisively; he was not at all sure how he should act, but he secretly hoped that the action in question might be of the nature of a fight with something or somebody. There are many quiet and shy men who would really rather fight than do anything else, though they will rarely admit it, even to themselves. Returning to his plan of watching Logotheti, Lushington argued rightly that the trip in the motor car would be repeated the very next time that Margaret had a rehearsal, and that the car would therefore leave the house in the Boulevard Péreire at about the same time, every two or three days, but never on two days consecutively. When there was no rehearsal, Margaret would not come into town. When that was the case it would be easy to watch the house in Versailles. Lushington was not quite sure what he expected to see, but he would watch it all the same. Perhaps, on those days, Logotheti would appear undisguised and call. But what Lushington was most anxious to find out was whether Margaret had been to the house again. He wished he had waited near the Opéra to see where she went when she came out, or in the Boulevard Péreire, instead of coming back to his lodgings in a bad temper after his interview with the stage doorkeeper. He looked out of the window and saw that it was raining. That made it sure that Margaret would not go back to Versailles in the motor car, but in the meantime she might very possibly be at Logotheti's, at luncheon. He glanced at his watch, and a few minutes later he was on his bicycle again, an outlandish figure in his long-tailed, coffee-coloured overcoat and soft student's hat. He hitched up the tails as well as he could and sat on them, to keep them out of the mud, and he pulled the hat well down to keep the rain off his big spectacles and his nose. His own mother would certainly not have recognised him. He spent a melancholy hour, riding up and down in the wet between the Place Péreire and the Place Wagram, till he wished with all his heart that he might never again set eyes on the statue of Alphonse de Neuville. Half the time, too, he was obliged to look back every moment in order to watch Logotheti's door, lest he should miss what he was waiting so patiently to see. The rain was cold, too, and persistent as it can be in Paris, even in spring. His gloves were pulpy and jellified, his spring-side kid boots felt as if he were taking a foot bath of cold glue, and some insidious drops of cold water were trickling down his back. The broad street was almost deserted, and when he met any one he wished it were altogether so. Yet he wondered why a man as rich as Logotheti should have built his house there. At last his patience was rewarded. A brougham drove up past him at a smart pace, stopped before the door and waited. He turned back and wheeled round, crossing and re-crossing the street, so as to keep behind the carriage. As it was impossible to continue this singular exercise without attracting the attention of a policeman who came in sight just then, he rode on towards the Batignolles station. Just then, when his back was turned, he heard the door of the brougham sharply shut, and as he quickly turned again he saw the carriage driving off in the opposite direction. It was driving fast, but he overtook it in a couple of minutes and passed close to the window, which was half up, against the rain. He almost looked in as he went by, and suddenly he met Logotheti's almond eyes, looking straight at him, with an air of recognition. He bent his head, swerved away from the brougham and took the first turning out of the wide street. But he had seen that the Greek was alone in his carriage. Margaret had not lunched at the house in the Boulevard Péreire. During the next few days Lushington did not lead a life of idle repose; in fact, he did not remember that he had ever taken so much exercise since his Oxford days. On an average he must have bicycled twenty or thirty miles between breakfast and dinner, which is not bad work for a literary man accustomed to spend most of his time at his writing-table and the rest in society. Unknown to himself, he was fast becoming one of the sights on the Versailles road, and the men at the octroi station grinned when he went by, and called him the crazy professor. More than once he met the motor, bringing Margaret to town or taking her back, and though he did not again chance upon it when Logotheti was without his glasses and shield, he felt tolerably sure that he was the chauffeur, and Margaret was always alone in the body of the car. Twice he was quite certain that the two were talking when he saw them in the distance coming towards him, but when they passed him Margaret was leaning back quietly in her place, and the chauffeur merely glanced at him and then kept his eyes on the road. Margaret looked at him and smiled faintly, as if in spite of herself, most probably at his appearance. He ascertained also that after one more rehearsal at the Opéra, Margaret did not go there again. The newspapers informed him very soon that Schreiermeyer had got his own company together and had borrowed the stage of an obscure theatre in the outskirts of Paris for the purpose of rehearsing. It had been an advantage for the young prima donna to sing two or three times with the great orchestra of the Opéra, but the arrangement could of course not continue. Margaret's _début_ was to take place in July in a Belgian town. Lushington was certain that Margaret had been at least once again to Logotheti's house with Madame De Rosa, but he did not believe that she had stayed to luncheon, for she had not remained in the house much over half-an-hour. During all this time he made no attempt to communicate with her, and was uncomfortably aware that Logotheti was having it all his own way. He yielded to a morbid impulse in watching the two, since no good could come of it for himself or Margaret. Almost every time he went out on the Versailles road he knew that he should see them together before he came back, and he knew equally well that he could do nothing to separate them. He wondered what it was that attracted such a woman as Margaret Donne to such a man, and with a humility which his friends and enemies would have been far from suspecting in him he honestly tried to compare himself with Logotheti, and to define the points in which the latter had the advantage of him. Very naturally, he failed to discover them. In spite of what philosophers tell us, most of us know ourselves pretty well. The conclusive and irrefutable proof of this is that we always know when we are not telling, or showing, the truth about ourselves, as, for instance, when we are boasting or attributing to ourselves some gift, some knowledge, or some power which we really do not possess. We also know perfectly well when our impulses are good and when they are bad, and can guess approximately how much courage we have in reserve for doing the one, and how far our natural cowardice will incline us to do the other. But we know very little indeed about other people, and almost always judge them by ourselves, because we have no other convenient standard. A great many men are influenced in the same general way by the big things in life, but one scarcely ever finds two men who are similarly affected by the little things from which all great results proceed. Mark Antony lost the world for a woman, but it was for a woman that Tallien overthrew Robespierre and saved France. So Lushington's comparison came to nothing at all, and he was no nearer to a solution of his problem than before. Then came the unexpected, and it furnished him with a surprisingly simple means of comparing himself with his rival in the eyes of Margaret herself. There are several roads from Paris to Versailles, as every one knows, leaving the city on opposite sides of the Seine. Hitherto Logotheti had always taken the one that leads to the right bank, along the Avenue de Versailles to the Porte St. Cloud. Another follows the left bank by Bas Meudon, but the most pleasant road goes through the woods Fausses Reposes. One morning, when he knew that there was to be a rehearsal, Lushington bicycled out by the usual way without meeting the motor car. It naturally occurred to him that Logotheti must have returned by another road. Whether he would bring Margaret out again by the same way or not, was of course uncertain, but Lushington resolved to try the Fausses Reposes on the chance of meeting the car, after waiting in Versailles as long as he thought the rehearsal might last. He set out again about half-past one. The road is in parts much more lonely than the others, especially in the woods, and is much less straight; there are sharp turns to the right and left in several places. Lushington did not know the road very well and hesitated more than once, going slowly and fast by turns, and at the end of half-an-hour he felt almost sure that he had either lost his way or that Logotheti was coming back by another route. CHAPTER XV Margaret knew by this time that Logotheti was really very much in love; she was equally sure that she was not, and that when she encouraged him she was yielding to a rather complicated temptation that presented elements of amusement and of mild danger. In plain English, she was playing with the man, though she guessed that he was not the kind of man who would allow himself to be played with very long. There are not many young women who could resist such a temptation under the circumstances, and small blame to them. Margaret had done nothing to attract the Greek and was too unsophisticated to understand the nature of her involuntary influence over him. He was still young, he was unlike other men and he was enormously rich; a little familiarity with him had taught her that there was nothing vulgar about him below the surface, and he treated her with all the respect she could exact when she chose to put herself in his power. The consequence was that as she felt nothing herself she sometimes could not resist making little experiments, just to see how far he would run on the chain by which she held him. Besides, she was flattered by his devotion. It was not a noble game that she was playing with him, but in real life very few young men and women of two-and-twenty are 'noble' all the time. A good many never are at all; and Margaret had at least the excuse that the victim of her charms was no simple sensitive soul with morbid instincts of suicide, like the poor youth who cut his throat for Lady Clara Vere de Vere, but a healthy millionaire of five-and-thirty who enjoyed the reputation of having seen everything and done most things in a not particularly well-spent life. Besides, she ran a risk, and knew it. The victim might turn at any moment, and perhaps rend her. Sometimes there was a quick glance in the almond-shaped eyes which sent a little thrill of not altogether unpleasant fear through her. She had seen a woman put her head into a wild beast's mouth, and she knew that the woman was never quite sure of getting it out again. That was part of the game, and the woman probably enjoyed the sensation and the doubt, since playing for one's life is much more exciting than playing for one's money. Margaret began to understand the lion-tamer's sensations, and not being timid she almost wished that her lion would show his teeth. She gave herself the luxury of wondering what form his wrath would take when he was tired of being played with. He was already approaching that point, on the day when Lushington was looking out for him on the road through the Fausses Reposes woods. When they were well away from the city, he slackened his speed as usual and began to talk. 'I wish,' he said, 'that you would sometimes be in earnest. Won't you try?' 'You might not like it,' Margaret answered, carelessly. 'For my part, I sometimes wish that you were not quite so much in earnest yourself!' 'Do I bore you?' 'No. You never bore me, but you make me feel wicked, and that is very disagreeable. It is inconsiderate of you to give me the impression that I am a sort of Lorelei, coolly luring you to your destruction! Besides, you would not be so easily destroyed, after all. You are able to take care of yourself, I fancy.' 'Yes. I think my heart will be the last of me to break.' He laughed and looked at her. 'But that is no reason why you should try to twist my arms and legs off, as boys do to beetles.' 'I wish I could catch a boy doing it!' 'You may catch a woman at it any day. They do to men what boys do to insects. Cruelty to insects or animals? Abominable! Shocking! There is the society, there are fines, there is prison, to punish it! Cruelty to human beings? Bah! They have souls! What does it matter, if they suffer? Suffering purifies the spirit for a better life!' 'Nonsense!' 'That is easily said. But it was on that principle that Philip burned the Jews, and they did not think it was nonsense. The beetles don't think it funny to be pulled to pieces, either. I don't. A large class of us don't, and yet you women have been doing it ever since Eve made a fool and a sinner of the only man who happened to be in the world just then. He was her husband, which was an excuse, but that's of no consequence to the argument.' 'Perhaps not, but the argument, as you call it, doesn't prove anything in particular, except that you are calling me names!' Margaret laughed again. 'After all,' she went on, 'I do the best I can to be--what shall I say?--the contrary of disagreeable! You ask me to let you take me to my rehearsals, and I come day after day, risking something, because you are disguised. I don't risk much, perhaps--Mrs. Rushmore's disapproval. But that is something, for she has been very, very good to me and I wouldn't lose her good opinion for a great deal. And you ask me to lunch with you, and I come--at least, I've been twice to your house, and I've lunched once. Really, if you are not satisfied, you're hard to please! We've hardly known each other a month.' 'During which time I've never had but one idea. Don't raise your beautiful eyebrows as if you didn't understand!' He spoke very gently and smiled, though she could not see that. 'You've no idea how funny that is!' laughed Margaret. 'What?' 'If you could see yourself, and hear yourself at the same time! With those goggles, and your leather cap and all the rest, you look like the Frog Footman in _Little Alice_--or the dragon in _Siegfried_! It does very well as long as you are disagreeable, but when you speak softly and throw intense expression into your voice'--she mimicked his tone--'it's really too funny, you know! It's just as if Fafnir were to begin singing "Una furtiva lacrima" in a voice like Caruso's! Siegfried would go into convulsions of laughter, instead of slitting the dragon's throat.' 'I wasn't trying to be picturesque just then,' answered Logotheti, quite unmoved by the chaff. 'I was only expressing my idea. I've known you about a month. The second time we met, I asked you to marry me, and I've asked you several times since. As you can't attribute any interested motive to my determination----' 'Eh?' 'I said, to my determination----' 'Determination? How that sounds!' 'It sounds very like what I mean,' answered Logotheti, in an indifferent tone. 'But really, how can you "determine" to marry me, if I won't agree?' 'I'll make you,' he replied with perfect calm. 'That sounds like a threat,' said Margaret, her voice hardening a little, though she tried to speak lightly. 'A threat implies that the thing to be done to the person threatened is painful or at least disagreeable. Doesn't it? I'm only a Greek, of course, and I don't pretend to know English well! I wish you would sometimes correct my mistakes. It would be so kind of you!' 'You know English quite as well as I do,' Margaret answered. 'Your definition is perfect.' 'Oh! Then would it be painful, or disagreeable to you, to marry me?' Margaret laughed, but hesitated a moment. 'It's always disagreeable to be made to do anything against one's will,' she answered. 'I'm sorry,' said Logotheti coolly, 'but it can't be helped.' She was not quite sure how it would be best to meet this uncompromising statement, and she thought it wiser to laugh again, though she felt quite sure that at the moment there was that quick gleam in his eyes, behind the goggles, which had more than once frightened her a little. But he was looking at the road again, and a moment later he had put the car at full speed along a level stretch. That meant that the conversation was at an end for a little while. Then an accident happened. A straight rush up an easy incline towards a turning ahead, and the deep note of the horn; round the corner to the right, close in; the flash of a bicycle coming down on the wrong side, and swerving desperately; a little brittle smashing of steel; then a man sprawling on his face in the road as the motor car flew on. Logotheti kept his eyes on the road, one hand went down to the levers and the machine sprang forward at forty miles an hour. 'Stop!' cried Margaret. 'Stop! you've killed him!' Full speed. Fifty miles an hour now, on another level stretch beyond the turn. No sign of intelligence from Logotheti. Both hands on the wheel. 'Stop, I say!' Margaret's voice rang out clear and furious. Logotheti's hands did not move. Margaret knew what to do. She had often been in motor cars and had driven a little herself. She was strong and perfectly fearless. Before Logotheti saw what she was going to do, she was beside him, she had thrown herself across him and had got at the brake and levers. He was too much surprised to make any resistance; he probably would not have tried to hinder her in any case, as he could not have done so without using his strength. The car was stopped in a few seconds; he had intuitively steered it until it stood still. 'How ridiculous!' he exclaimed. 'As if one ever stopped for such a thing!' Margaret's eyes flashed angrily and her answer came short and sharp. 'Turn back at once,' she said, and she sat down beside him on the front seat. He obeyed, for he could do nothing else. In running away from the accident, he had simply done what most chauffeurs do under the circumstances. His experience told him that the man was not killed, though he had lain motionless in the road for a few moments. Logotheti had seen perfectly well that the car had struck the hind wheel of the bicycle without touching the man's body. Moreover, the man had been on the wrong side of the road, and it was his fault that he had been run into. Logotheti had not meant to give him a chance to make out a case. But now he turned back, obedient to Margaret's command. Before she had stopped the car it had run nearly a mile from the scene of the accident. When it reached the spot again, coming back at a more moderate pace, nearly five minutes had elapsed. She found the man leaning against the rail fence that followed the outer curve of the turning. It was the man they had so often met on the other road, in his square-toed kid boots and ill-fitting clothes; it was Edmund Lushington, with his soft student's hat off, and his face a good deal scratched by the smashing of his tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles. They had been tied behind with a black string, and the rims of them, broken in two, hung from his ears. His nose was bleeding profusely, as he leaned against the fence, holding his head down. He was covered with mud, his clothes were torn, and he was as miserable, damaged and undignified a piece of man as ever dreaded being taken at disadvantage by the idol of his affections. He would have made a pact with the powers of evil for a friendly wall or a clump of trees when he saw the car coming back. There was nothing but the fence. The car stopped close beside him. He held his handkerchief to his nose, covering half his face as he looked up. 'Are you hurt, Monsieur?' Margaret asked anxiously in French. 'On the contrary, Mademoiselle,' Lushington answered through the handkerchief, and it sounded as if he had a bad cold in the head. 'I am afraid----' Margaret began, and then stopped suddenly, staring at him. 'You were on the wrong side of the road, Monsieur,' said Logotheti in an assertive tone. 'Perfectly,' assented Lushington, holding his nose and turning half away. 'Then it was your fault,' observed Logotheti. 'Precisely,' admitted the other. 'Pray don't stop. It's of no consequence!' But he had betrayed himself unconsciously, in the most natural way. His spectacles were gone, and by covering the lower part of his face with his handkerchief he had entirely concealed the very great change made by shaving his beard and moustache. While he and Logotheti had been speaking, Margaret had scrutinised his features and had made sure of the truth. Then she believed that she would have recognised him by his voice alone. Between the emotion that followed the accident and the extreme anxiety his position caused him, the perspiration stood in beads on his forehead. Margaret smiled maliciously, for she remembered how often they had passed him on the road, and realised in an instant that he had disguised himself to watch her doings. He should pay for that. 'You look hot,' she observed in English, fixing her eyes on him severely. He blushed to the roots of his hair, though he had been rather pale. Logotheti, whose only preoccupation hitherto had been to get away as soon as possible, now stared at him, too. Margaret's tone and her sudden change to the use of English did the rest. He recognised Lushington, but remembered that he himself was completely disguised in his chauffeur's dress and mask; so he said nothing. Lushington writhed under Margaret's eyes for a moment; but then his English courage and coolness suddenly returned, the colour subsided from his face and his expression hardened, as far as the necessary handkerchief permitted her to see it. 'Yes,' he said, 'I'm Lushington. I can only repeat that the accident happened by my fault. I'm used to taking the left side in England and I lost my head. Monsieur Logotheti need not have run away, for it would never have occurred to me to make a complaint.' He looked straight at Logotheti's goggles as he spoke, and Margaret began to feel uncomfortable. 'I supposed that you had recognised me,' observed the Greek coldly. 'That is, no doubt, why you have taken the trouble to disguise yourself and watch me of late.' 'That was the reason,' answered Lushington, facing his adversary, but conscious that the necessity for holding his nose put him at a disadvantage as to his dignity. 'It was very well done,' said the Greek with gravity. 'I should never have known you.' 'Your own disguise is admirable,' answered the Englishman, with cool politeness. 'If I had not seen you without your mask the other day I should not have recognised you.' 'Shall we go on?' inquired Logotheti, turning to Margaret. 'No,' she answered, rather sharply. 'Are you hurt?' she inquired, looking at Lushington again. He was busy with his nose, which he had neglected for a few moments. He shook his head. 'I won't leave him here in this state,' Margaret said to Logotheti. The Greek made a gesture of indifference, but said nothing. Meanwhile Lushington got so far as to be able to speak again. 'Please go on,' he said. 'I can take care of myself, thank you. There are no bones broken.' Logotheti inwardly regretted that his adversary had not broken his neck, but he had tact enough to see that he must take Margaret's side or risk losing favour in her eyes. 'I really don't see how we can leave you here,' he said to Lushington. 'Your bicycle is smashed. I had not realised that. I'll put what's left of it into the car.' He jumped out as he spoke, and before Lushington could hinder him he had hold of the broken wheel. But Lushington followed quickly, and while he held his nose with his left hand, he grabbed the bicycle with the other. It looked as if the two were going to try which could pull harder. 'Let it alone, please,' said Lushington, speaking with difficulty. 'No, no'! protested Logotheti politely, for he wished to please Margaret. 'You must really let me put it in.' 'Not at all!' retorted Lushington. 'I'll walk it to Chaville.' 'But I assure you, you can't!' retorted the Greek. 'Your hind wheel is broken to bits! It won't go round. You would have to carry it!' And he gently pulled with both hands. 'Then I'll throw the beastly thing away!' answered Lushington, who did not relinquish his hold. 'It's of no consequence!' 'On the contrary,' objected Logotheti, still pulling, 'I know about those things. It can be made a very good bicycle again for next to nothing.' 'All the better for the beggar who finds it!' cried the Englishman. 'Throw it over the fence!' 'You English are so extravagant,' said the Greek in a tone of polite reproach, but not relinquishing his hold. 'Possibly, but it's my own bicycle, and I prefer to throw it away.' Margaret had watched the contest in silence. She now stepped out of the car, came up to the two men and laid her hands on the object of contention. Logotheti let go instantly, but Lushington did not. 'This is ridiculous,' said Margaret. 'Give it to me!' Lushington had no choice, and besides, he needed his right hand for his nose, which was getting the better of him again. He let go, and Margaret lifted the bicycle into the body of the car herself, though Logotheti tried to help her. 'Now, get in,' she said to Lushington. 'We'll take you as far at the Chaville station.' 'Thank you,' he answered. 'I am quite able to walk.' He presented such a lamentable appearance that he would have hesitated to get into the car with Margaret even if they had been on good terms. He was in that state of mind in which a man wishes that he might vanish into the earth like Korah and his company, or at least take to his heels without ceremony and run away. Logotheti had put up his glasses and shield, over the visor of his cap, and was watching his rival's discomfiture with a polite smile of pity. Lushington mentally compared him to Judas Iscariot. 'Let me point out,' said the Greek, that if you won't accept a seat with us, we, on our part, are much too anxious for your safety to leave you here in the road. You must have been badly shaken, besides being cut. If you insist upon walking, we'll keep beside you in the car. Then if you faint, we can pick you up.' 'Yes,' assented Margaret, with a touch of malice, 'that is very sensible.' Lushington was almost choking. 'Do let me give you another handkerchief,' said Logotheti, sympathetically. 'I always carry a supply when I'm motoring--they are so useful. Yours is quite spoilt.' A forcible expression rose to Lushington's lips, but he checked it, and at the same time he wondered whether anybody he knew had ever been caught in such a detestable situation. But Anglo-Saxons generally perform their greatest feats of arms when they are driven into a corner or have launched themselves in some perfectly hopeless undertaking. It takes a Lucknow or a Balaclava to show what they are really made of. Lushington was in a corner now; his temper rose and he turned upon his tormentors. At the same time, perhaps under the influence of his emotion, his nose stopped bleeding. It was scratched and purple from the fall, but he found another handkerchief of his own and did what he could to improve his appearance. His shoulders and his jaw squared themselves as he began to speak and his eyes were rather hard and bright. 'Look here,' he said, facing Logotheti, 'we don't owe each other anything, I think, so this sort of thing had better stop. You've been going about in disguise with Miss Donne, and I have been making myself look like some one else in order to watch you. We've found each other out and I don't fancy that we're likely to be very friendly after this. So the best thing we can do is to part quietly and go in opposite directions. Don't you think so?' The last question was addressed to Margaret. But instead of answering at once she looked down and pushed some little lumps of dry mud about with the toe of her shoe, as if she were trying to place them in a symmetrical figure. It is a trick some young women have when they are in doubt. Lushington turned to Logotheti again and waited for an answer. Now Logotheti did not care a straw for Lushington, and cared very little, on the whole, whether the latter watched him or not; but he was extremely anxious to please Margaret and play the part of generosity in her eyes. 'I'm very sorry if anything I've said has offended you,' he said in a smooth tone, answering Lushington. 'The fact is, it's all rather funny, isn't it? Yes, just so! I'm making the best apology I can for having been a little amused. I hope we part good friends, Mr. Lushington? That is, if you still insist on walking.' Margaret looked up while he was speaking and nodded her approbation of the speech, which was very well conceived and left Lushington no loophole through which to spy offence. But he responded coldly to the advance. 'There is no reason whatever for apologising,' he said. 'It's the instinct of humanity to laugh at a man who tumbles down in the street. The object of our artificial modern civilisation is, however, to cloak that sort of instinct as far as possible. Good morning.' After delivering this Parthian shot he turned away with the evident intention of going off on foot. None of the three had noticed the sound of horses' feet and a light carriage approaching from the direction of Versailles. A phaeton came along at a smart pace and drew up beside the motor. Margaret uttered an exclamation of surprise, and the two men stared with something approaching to horror. It was Mrs. Rushmore, who had presumably taken a fancy for an airing as the day had turned out very fine. The coachman and groom had both seen Margaret and supposed that something had happened to the car. Before the carriage had stopped Mrs. Rushmore had recognised Margaret too, and was leaning out sideways, uttering loud exclamations of anxiety. 'My dear child!' she cried. 'Good heavens! An accident! These dreadful automobiles! I knew it would happen!' Portly though she was, she was standing beside Margaret in an instant, clasping her in a motherly embrace and panting for breath. It was evidently too late for Logotheti to draw his glasses and shield over his face, or for Lushington to escape. Each stood stock-still, wondering how long it would be before Mrs. Rushmore recognised him, and trying to think what she would say when she did. For one moment, it seemed as if nothing were going to happen, for Mrs. Rushmore was too much preoccupied on Margaret's account to take the slightest notice of either of the others. 'Are you quite sure you're not hurt?' she inquired anxiously, while she scrutinised Margaret's blushing face. 'Get into the carriage with me at once, my dear, and we'll drive home. You must go to bed at once! There's nothing so exhausting as a shock to the nerves! Camomile tea, my dear! Good old-fashioned camomile tea, you know! There's nothing like it! Clotilde makes it to perfection, and she shall rub you thoroughly! Get in, child! Get in!' Quick to see the advantage of such a sudden escape, Margaret was actually getting into the carriage, when Mrs. Rushmore, who was kindness itself, remembered the two men and turned to Logotheti. 'I will leave you my groom to help,' she said, in her stiff French. Then her eyes fell on Lushington's blood-stained face, and in the same instant it flashed upon her that the other man was Logotheti. Her jaw dropped in astonishment. 'Why--good gracious--how's this? Why--it's Monsieur Logotheti himself! But you'--she turned to Lushington again 'you can't be Mr. Lushington--good Lord--yes, you are, and in those clothes, too. And--what have you done to your face?' As her surprise increased she became speechless, while the two men bowed and smiled as pleasantly as they could under the circumstances. 'Yes, I'm Lushington,' said the Englishman. 'I used to wear a beard.' 'My chauffeur was taken ill suddenly,' said the Greek without a blush, 'and as Miss Donne was anxious to get home I thought there would be no great harm if I drove the car out myself. I had hoped to find you in so that I might explain how it had happened, for, of course, Miss Donne was a little--what shall I say?--a little----' He hesitated, having hoped that Margaret would help him out. After waiting two or three seconds, Mrs. Rushmore turned on her. 'Margaret, what were you?' she asked with severity. 'I insist upon knowing what you were.' 'I'm sure I don't know,' Margaret answered, trying to speak easily, as if it did not matter much. 'It was very kind of Monsieur Logotheti, at all events, and I'm much obliged to him.' 'Oh, and pray, what has happened to Mr. Lushington?' inquired Mrs. Rushmore. 'I was on the wrong side of the road, and the car knocked me off my bicycle,' added Lushington. 'They kindly stopped to pick me up. They thought I was hurt.' 'Well--you are,' said Mrs. Rushmore. 'Why don't you get into the automobile and let Monsieur Logotheti take you home?' As it was not easy to explain why he preferred walking in his battered condition, Lushington said nothing. Mrs. Rushmore turned to her groom, who was English. 'William,' she said, 'you must have a clothes-brush.' William had one concealed in some mysterious place under the box. 'Clean Mr. Lushington, William,' said the good lady. [Illustration: "'Clean Mr. Lushington, William,' said the good lady."] 'Oh, thank you--no--thanks very much,' protested Lushington. But William, having been told to clean him, proceeded to do so, gently and systematically, beginning at his neck and proceeding thence with bold curving strokes of the brush, as if he were grooming a horse. Instinctively Lushington turned slowly round on his heels, while he submitted to the operation, and the others looked on. They had ample time to note the singular cut of his clothes. 'He used to be always so well dressed!' said Mrs. Rushmore to Margaret in an audible whisper. Lushington winced visibly, but as he was not supposed to hear the words he said nothing. William had worked down to the knees of his trousers, which he grasped firmly in one hand while he vigorously brushed the cloth with the other. 'That will do, thank you,' said Lushington, trying to draw back one captive leg. But William was inexorable and there was no escape from his hold. He was an Englishman, and was therefore thorough; he was a servant, and he therefore thoroughly enjoyed the humour of seeing his betters in a pickle. 'And now, my dear,' said Mrs. Rushmore to Margaret, 'get in and I'll take you home. You can explain everything on the way. That's enough, William. Put away your brush.' Margaret had no choice, since fate had intervened. 'I'm very much obliged to you,' she said, nodding to Logotheti; 'and I hope you'll be none the worse,' she added, smiling at Lushington. Mrs. Rushmore bent her head with dignified disapproval, first to one and then to the other, and got into the carriage as if she were mounting the steps of a throne. She further manifested her displeasure at the whole affair by looking straight before her at the buttons on the back of the coachman's coat after she had taken her seat. Margaret got in lightly after her and she scarcely glanced at Logotheti as the carriage turned; but her eyes lingered a little with an expression that was almost sad as she met Lushington's. She was conscious of a reaction of feeling; she was sorry that she had helped to make him suffer, that she had been amused by his damaged condition and by his general discomfiture. He had made her respect him in spite of herself, just when she had thought that she could never respect him again; and suddenly the deep sympathy for him welled up, which she had taken for love, and which was as near to love as anything her heart had yet felt for a man. She knew, too, that it was really her heart, and nothing else, where he was concerned. She was human, she was young, she was more alive than ordinary women, as great singers generally are, and Logotheti's ruthless masculine vitality stirred her and drew her to him in a way she did not quite like. His presence disturbed her oddly and she was a little ashamed of liking the sensation, for she knew quite well that such feelings had nothing to do with what she called her real self. She might have hated him and even despised him, but she could never have been indifferent when he was close to her. Sometimes the mere touch of his hand at meeting or parting thrilled her and made her feel as if she were going to blush. But she was never really in sympathy with him as she was with Lushington. 'And now, Margaret,' said Mrs. Rushmore after a silence that had lasted a full minute, 'I insist on knowing what all this means.' Margaret inwardly admitted that Mrs. Rushmore had some right to insist, but she was a little doubtful herself about the meaning of what had happened. If it meant anything, it meant that she had been flirting rather rashly and had got into a scrape. She wondered what the two men were saying now that they were alone together, and she turned her head to look over the back of the phaeton, but a turn of the road already hid the motor car from view. Meanwhile Mrs. Rushmore's face showed that she still insisted, and Margaret had to say something. As she was a truthful person it was not easy to decide what to say, and while she was hesitating Mrs. Rushmore expressed herself again. 'Margaret,' said she, 'I'm surprised at you. It makes no difference what you say. I'm surprised.' The words were spoken with a slow and melancholy intonation that might have indicated anything but astonishment. 'Yes,' Margaret remarked rather desperately, 'I don't wonder. I suppose I've been flirting outrageously with them both. But I really could not foresee that one would run over the other and that you would appear just at that moment, could I? I'm helpless. I've nothing to say. You must have flirted when you were young. Try to remember what it was like, and make allowance for human weakness!' She laughed nervously and glanced nervously at her companion, but Mrs. Rushmore's face was like iron. 'Mr. Rushmore,' said the latter, alluding to her departed husband, 'would not have understood such conduct.' Margaret thought this was very probable, judging from the likenesses of the late Ransom Rushmore which she had seen. There was one in particular, an engraving of him when he had been president of some big company, which had always filled her with a vague uneasiness. In her thoughts she called him the 'commercial missionary,' and was glad for his sake and her own that he was safe in heaven, with no present prospect of getting out. 'I'm sorry,' she said, without much contrition. 'I mean,' she went on, correcting herself, and with more feeling, 'I'm sorry I've done anything that you don't like, for you've been ever so good to me.' 'So have other people,' answered the elder woman with an air of mystery and reproof. 'Oh yes! I know! Everybody has been very kind--especially Madame Bonanni.' 'Should you be surprised to hear that the individual who bought out Mr. Moon and made you independent, did it from purely personal motives?' Margaret turned to her quickly in great surprise. 'What do you mean? I thought it was a company. You said so.' 'In business, one man can be a company, if he owns all the stock,' said Mrs. Rushmore, sententiously. 'I don't understand those things,' Margaret answered, impatient to know the truth. 'Who was it?' 'I hardly think I ought to tell you, my dear. I promised not to. But I will allow you to guess. That's quite different from telling, and I think you ought to know, because you are under great obligations to him.' 'You don't mean to say----' Margaret stopped, and the blood rose slowly in her face. 'You may ask me if it was one of those two gentlemen we have just left in the road,' said Mrs. Rushmore. 'But mind, I'm not telling you!' 'Monsieur Logotheti!' Margaret leaned back and bit her lip. 'You've made the discovery yourself, Margaret. Remember that I've told you nothing. I promised not to, but I thought you ought to know.' 'It's an outrage!' cried Margaret, breaking out. 'How did you dare to take money from him for me?' Mrs. Rushmore seemed really surprised now, though she did not say she was. 'My dear!' she exclaimed, 'you would not have had me refuse, would you? Money is money, you know.' The good lady's inherited respect for the stuff was discernible in her tone. 'Money!' Margaret repeated the word with profound contempt and a good deal of anger. 'Yes, my dear,' retorted Mrs. Rushmore severely. 'Yes, money. It is because your father and mother spoke of it in that silly, contemptuous way that they died so poor. And now that you've got it, take my advice and don't turn up your nose at it.' 'Do you suppose I'll keep it, now that I know where it comes from? I'll give it back to him to-day!' 'No, you won't,' answered Mrs. Rushmore, with the conviction of certainty. 'I tell you I will!' Margaret cried. 'I could not sleep to-night if I knew that I had money in my possession that was given me--given me like a gift--by a man who wants to marry me! Ugh! It's disgusting!' 'Margaret, this is ridiculous. Monsieur Logotheti came to see me and explained the whole matter. He said that he had made a very good bargain and expected to realise a large sum by the transaction. Do you suppose that such a good man of business would think of making any one a present of a hundred thousand pounds? You must be mad! A hundred thousand pounds is a great deal of money, Margaret. Remember that.' 'So much the better for him! I shall give it back to him at once!' Mrs. Rushmore smiled. 'You can't,' she said. 'You've never even asked me where it is, and while you are out of your mind, I shall certainly not tell you. You seem to forget that when I undertook to bring suit against Alvah Moon you gave me a general power of attorney to manage your affairs. I shall do whatever is best for you.' 'I don't understand business,' Margaret answered, 'but I'm sure you have no power to force Monsieur Logotheti's money upon me. I won't take it.' 'You have taken it and I have given a receipt for it, my dear, so it's of no use to talk nonsense. The best thing you can do is to give up this silly idea of going on the stage, and just live like a lady, on your income.' 'And marry my benefactor, I suppose!' Margaret's eyes flashed. 'That's what he wants--what you all want--to keep me from singing! He thought that if he made me independent, I would give it up, and you encouraged him! I see it now. As for the money itself, until I really have it in my hands it's not mine; but just as soon as it is I'll give it back to him, and I'll tell him so to-day.' The carriage rolled through the pretty woods of Fausses Reposes, and the sweet spring breeze fanned Margaret's cheeks in the shade. But she felt fever in her blood and her heart beat fast and angrily as if it were a conscious creature imprisoned in a cage. She was angry with herself and with every one else, with Logotheti, with Mrs. Rushmore, with poor Lushington for making such a fool of himself just when she was prepared to like him better than ever. She was sure that she had good cause to hate every one, and she hated accordingly, with a good will. She wished that she might never spend another hour under Mrs. Rushmore's roof, that she might never see Logotheti again, that she were launched in her artistic career, free at last and responsible to no one for her actions, her words or her thoughts. But Mrs. Rushmore began to think that she had made a mistake in letting her know too soon who had bought out Alvah Moon, and she wondered vaguely why she had betrayed the secret, trying to account for her action on the ground of some reasonably thought-out argument, which was quite impossible, of course. So they both maintained a rather hostile silence during the rest of the homeward drive. CHAPTER XVI Until the carriage was out of sight, Logotheti and Lushington stood still where Margaret had left them. Then Lushington looked at his adversary coolly for about four seconds, stuck his hands into his pockets, turned his back and deliberately walked off without a word. Logotheti was so little prepared for such an abrupt closure that he stood looking after the Englishman in surprise till the latter had made a dozen steps. 'I say!' said the Greek, calling after him then and affecting an exceedingly English tone. 'I say, you know! This won't do.' Lushington stopped, turned on his heel and faced him from a distance. 'What won't do?' he asked coolly. Seeing that he came no nearer, Logotheti went forward a little. 'You admitted just now that you had been playing the spy,' said the Greek, whose temper was getting beyond his control, now that the women were gone. 'Yes,' said Lushington, 'I've been watching you.' 'I said spying,' answered Logotheti; 'I used the word "spy." Do you understand?' 'Perfectly.' 'You don't seem to. I'm insulting you. I mean to insult you.' 'Oh!' A faint smile crossed the Englishman's face. 'You want me to send you a couple of friends and fight a duel with you? I won't do anything so silly. As I told you before Miss Donne, we don't owe each other anything to speak of, so we may as well part without calling each other bad names.' 'If that is your view of it, you had better keep out of my way in future.' He laid his hand on the car to get in as he spoke. Lushington's face hardened. 'I shall not take any pains to do that,' he answered. 'On the contrary, if you go on doing what you have been doing of late, you'll find me very much in your way.' Logotheti turned upon him savagely. 'Do you want to marry Miss Donne yourself?' he asked. Lushington, who was perfectly cool now that no woman was present, was struck by the words, which contained a fair question, though the tone was angry and aggressive. 'No,' he answered quietly. 'Do you?' Logotheti stared at him. 'What the devil did you dare to think that I meant?' he asked. 'It would give me the greatest satisfaction to break your bones for asking that!' Lushington came a step nearer, his hands in his pockets, though his eyes were rather bright. 'You may try if you like,' he said. 'But I've something more to say, and I don't think we need fall to fisticuffs on the highroad like a couple of bargees. I've misunderstood you. If you are going to marry Miss Donne, I shall keep out of your way altogether. I made a mistake, because you haven't the reputation of a saint, and when a man of your fortune runs after a young singer it's not usually with the idea of marrying her. I'm glad I was wrong.' Logotheti was too good a judge of men to fancy that Lushington was in the least afraid of him, or that he spoke from any motive but a fair and firm conviction; and the Greek himself, with many faults, was too brave not to be generous. He turned again to get into the car. 'I believe you English take it for granted that every foreigner is a born scoundrel,' he said with something like a laugh. 'To tell the truth,' Lushington answered, 'I believe we do. But we are willing to admit that we can be mistaken. Good morning.' He walked away, and this time Logotheti did not stop him, but got in and started the car in the opposite direction without looking back. He was conscious of wishing that he might kill the cool Englishman, and though his expression betrayed nothing but annoyance a little colour rose and settled on his cheek-bones; and that bodes no good in the faces of dark men when they are naturally pale. He reached home, and it was there still; he changed his clothes, and yet it was not gone; he drank a cup of coffee and smoked a big cigar, and the faint red spots were still there, though he seemed absorbed in the book he was reading. It was not his short interview with Lushington which had so much moved him, though it had been the first disturbing cause. In men whose nature, physical and moral, harks back to the savage ancestor, to the pirate of northern or southern seas, to the Bedouin of the desert, to the Tartar of Bokhara or the Suliote of Albania, the least bit of a quarrel stirs up all the blood at once, and the mere thought of a fight rouses every masculine passion. The silent Scotchman, the stately Arab, the courtly Turk are far nearer to the fanatic than the quick-tempered Frenchman or the fiery Italian. For a long time Constantine Logotheti had been playing at civilisation, at civilised living and especially at the more or less gentle diversion of civilised love-making; but he was suddenly tired of it all, because it had never been quite natural to him, and he grew bodily hungry and thirsty for what he wanted. The round flushed spots on his cheeks were the outward signs of something very like a fever which had seized him within the last two hours. Until then he would hardly have believed that his magnificent artificial calm could break down, and that he could wish to get his hands on another man's throat, or take by force the woman he loved, and drag her away to his own lawless East. He wondered now why he had not fallen upon Lushington and tried to kill him in the road. He wondered why, when Margaret had been safe in the motor car, he had not put the machine at full speed for Havre, where his yacht was lying. His artificial civilisation had hindered him of course! It would not check him now, if Lushington were within arm's length, or if Margaret were in his power. It would be very bad for any one to come between him and what he wanted so much, just then, that his throat was dry and he could hear his heart beating as he sat in his chair. He sat there a long time because he was not sure what he might do if he allowed himself the liberty of crossing the room. If he did that, he might write a note, or go to the telephone, or ring for his secretary, or do one of fifty little things whereby the train of the inevitable may be started in the doubtful moments of life. It did not occur to him that he was not the arbiter of his actions in that moment, free to choose between good and evil, which he, perhaps, called by other names just then. He probably could not have remembered a moment in his whole life at which he had not believed himself the master of his own future, with full power to do this, or that, or to leave it undone. And now he was quite sure that he was choosing the part of wisdom in resisting the strong temptation to do something rash, which made it a physical effort to sit still and keep his eyes on his book. He held the volume firmly with both hands as if he were clinging to something fixed which secured him from being made to move against his will. One of fate's most amusing tricks is to let us work with might and main to help her on, while she makes us believe that we are straining every nerve and muscle to force her back. If Logotheti had not insisted on sitting still that afternoon nothing might have happened. If he had gone out, or if he had shut himself up with his statue, beyond the reach of visitors, his destiny might have been changed, and one of the most important events of his life might never have come to pass. But he sat still with his book, firm as a rock, sure of himself, convinced that he was doing the best thing, proud of his strength of mind and his obstinacy, perfectly pharisaical in his contempt of human weakness, persuaded that no power in earth or heaven could force him to do or say anything against his mature judgment. He sat in his deep chair near a window that was half open, his legs stretched straight out before him, his flashing patent leather feet crossed in a manner which showed off the most fantastically over-embroidered silk socks, tightly drawn over his lean but solid ankles. From the wall behind him the strange face in the encaustic painting watched him with drooping lids and dewy lips that seemed to quiver; the ancient woman, ever young, looked as if she knew that he was thinking of her and that he would not turn round to see her because she was so like Margaret Donne. His back was to the picture, but his face was to the door. It opened softly, he looked up from his book and Margaret was before him, coming quickly forward. For an instant he did not move, for he was taken unawares. Behind her, by the door, a man-servant gesticulated apologies--the lady had pushed by him before he had been able to announce her. Then another figure appeared, hurrying after Margaret; it was little Madame De Rosa, out of breath. Logotheti got up now, and when he was on his feet, Margaret was already close to him. She was pale and her eyes were bright, and when she spoke he felt the warmth of her breath in his face. He held out his hand mechanically, but he hardly noticed that she did not take it. 'I want to speak to you alone,' she said. Madame De Rosa evidently understood that nothing more was expected of her for the present, and she sat down and made herself comfortable. 'Will you come with me?' Logotheti asked, controlling his voice. Margaret nodded; he led the way and they left the room together. Just outside the door there was a small lift. He turned up the electric light, and Margaret stepped in; then he followed and worked the lift himself. In the narrow space there was barely room for two; Logotheti felt a throbbing in his temples and the red spots on his cheek-bones grew darker. He could hear and almost feel Margaret's slightest movement as she stood close behind him while he faced the shut door of the machine. He did not know why she had come, he did not guess why she wished to be alone with him, but that was what she had asked, and he was taking her where they would really be alone together; and it was not his fault. Why had she come? When a terrible accident happens to a man, the memory of all his life may pass before his eyes in the interval of a second or two. I once knew a man who fell from the flying trapeze in a circus in Berlin, struck on one of the ropes to which the safety net was laced and broke most of his bones. He told me that he had never before understood the meaning of eternity, but that ever afterwards, for him, it meant the time that had passed after he had missed his hold and before he struck and was unconscious. He could associate nothing else with the word. Logotheti remembered, as long as he lived, the interminable interval between Margaret's request to see him alone, and the noiseless closing of the sound-proof door when they had entered the upper room, where Aphrodite stood in the midst and the soft light fell from high windows that were half-shaded. Even then, though her anger was hot and her thoughts were chasing one another furiously, Margaret could not repress an exclamation of surprise when she first saw the statue facing her in its bare beauty, like a living thing. Logotheti laid one hand very lightly upon her arm, and was going to say something, but she sprang back from his touch as if it burnt her. The colour deepened in his dark cheeks and his eyes seemed brighter and nearer together. When a woman comes to a man's house and asks to be alone with him, she need not play horror because the tips of his fingers rest on her sleeve for a moment. Why did she come? Margaret spoke first. 'How did you dare to settle money on me?' she asked, standing back from him. Logotheti understood for the first time that she was angry with him, and that her anger had brought her to his house. The fact did not impress him much, though he wished she were in a better temper. The sound of her voice was sweet to him whatever she said. 'Oh?' he ejaculated with a sort of thoughtful interrogation. 'Has she told you? She had agreed to say nothing about it. How very annoying!' His sudden calm was exasperating, for Margaret did not know him well enough to see that below the surface his blood was boiling. She tapped the blue tiled floor sharply with the toe of her shoe. 'It's outrageous!' she said with energy. 'I quite agree with you. Won't you sit down?' Logotheti looked at the divan. Margaret half sat upon the arm of a big leathern chair. 'Oh, you agree with me? Will you please explain?' 'I mean, it is outrageous that Mrs. Rushmore should have told you----' 'You're quibbling!' Margaret broke in angrily. 'You know very well what I mean. It's an outrage that a man should put a woman under an enormous obligation in spite of herself, without her even knowing it!' Logotheti had seated himself where he could watch her; the fashion of dress was close-fitting; his eyes followed the graceful lines of her figure. If she had not come to drive him mad, why did she take an attitude which of all others is becoming to well-made women and fatal to all the rest? 'I'm sorry,' said Logotheti, rather absently and as if her anger did not affect him in the least, if he even noticed it. 'I happened to want the invention for a company in which I am interested. You stood in the way of my having the whole thing, so I was obliged to buy you out. I'm very sorry that it happened to be you, and that Mrs. Rushmore could not keep the fact to herself. I knew you wouldn't be pleased if you ever found it out.' 'I don't believe a word of what you are telling me,' Margaret answered. 'Really not?' Logotheti seemed momentarily interested. 'That's generally the way when one speaks the truth,' he added, more carelessly again. 'Nobody believes it.' His eyes caressed her as he spoke. He was not thinking much of what he said. 'I've come here to make you take back the money,' Margaret said. 'I won't keep it another day.' 'Have you come all the way from Versailles again to say that?' asked Logotheti, laughing. Again, as she sat on the arm of the big chair, she tapped the dark blue tiles with the toe of her shoe. The slight movement transmitted itself through her whole figure, and for an instant each beautiful line and curve quivered and was very slightly modified. Logotheti saw and drew his breath sharply between his teeth. 'Yes,' Margaret was saying impatiently. 'When Mrs. Rushmore had told me the truth, I walked to the station and took the first train. I only stopped to get Madame De Rosa.' 'She is not a very powerful ally,' observed Logotheti. 'She is probably asleep in her arm-chair in the drawing-room by this time. Are you still angry with me? Yes, I believe you are. Please forgive me. I had not the least idea of offending you, because I trusted that old---- I mean, because I was so sure that Mrs. Rushmore would never tell.' 'Never mind Mrs. Rushmore,' Margaret said. 'What I will not forgive you is that you made me take your money without my knowing it. I've been flirting with you--yes, I confess it! I'm not perfection, and you're rather amusing sometimes----' 'You are adorable!' Logotheti put in, as a sort of murmuring parenthesis. 'Don't talk nonsense,' Margaret answered. 'I mean that whatever I may have said to you I've never given you the right to make me a present of a hundred thousand pounds. It's the most unparalleled piece of impertinence I ever heard of.' 'But I've not made you a present of anything. I bought what was yours without letting you know, that's all.' 'Then give me back what is mine and take your money again.' 'Hm!' Logotheti smiled. 'That would be very like going into a business partnership with me. Do you wish to do that?' 'What do you mean?' 'You see, I'm the whole company at present. But if you come in with a third of the stock to your credit, we shall be partners, to all intents and purposes. We shall have meetings of the board of directors, just you and I, and we shall decide what to do. It will be rather a queer sort of board, for of course I shall always do exactly what you wish, but it's not impossible that we may make money together. Well--on the whole I have no particular objection to selling you exactly the amount of stock I bought from you the other day. That's the shape the transaction takes. I'll do any thing to please you, but I'm quite willing you should know that I am doing you a favour, as business men would look at it.' 'A favour!' Margaret slipped from the arm of the chair as she spoke and stood upright and made a step towards him. 'Do you think I'm a child to believe such nonsense?' 'In matters of business all women are children. With the possible exception of Mrs. Rushmore,' he added in a tone of reflection. 'Besides, this is not nonsense.' 'It is!' cried Margaret. 'It is absurd to try and make me believe that a mere claim set up on the chance of getting something should have turned out to be worth so much. It has cost Mrs. Rushmore I don't know how much in lawsuits, and no one ever really believed in it. She fought for it out of pure kindness of heart, and even the lawyers said she was very foolish to go on----' 'Will you listen to me?' asked Logotheti, interrupting her. 'I've not much to say, but it's rather convincing. You probably admit that the invention is valuable, and that Alvah Moon has made money by it.' 'I should think he had, the old thief!' 'Very well. I happened to want that invention. I've bought several at different times and have founded companies and sold them. That's a part of finance, which is a form of game. You deal yourself a hand and then play it. I made up my mind to play with this particular invention. I know much more about it than you do; in fact, I understand it thoroughly. I cabled to my agent in America to buy it, if he could, and he succeeded. Now please tell me whether you think Mrs. Rushmore, acting for you, would have withdrawn the suit after the property had changed hands, merely because I've dined in her house.' 'No,' Margaret was forced to admit. 'No, she would have gone on.' 'Precisely. Now I don't want property of that kind, about which there is constant litigation. The credit of such property is injured by the talk there always is about lawsuits. So I went to Mrs. Rushmore and asked her what she thought your claim was worth, and she told me, and I gave her a cheque for the money, and she has given me a full release, as your attorney. If it had been her claim, or Madame De Rosa's or any one else's, I should have done exactly the same thing. Will you tell me how I could have acted otherwise in order to get the property into my hands free of all chance of dispute? Was there any other way?' Margaret was silent, for she could find no answer. 'There was one other way,' Logotheti continued. 'I could have proposed that you should go into partnership with me, which is what you yourself are proposing now. But in the eyes of the world I confess that might look intimate, to say the least of it. Don't you think so too?' 'You're the most plausible person I ever listened to!' Margaret almost laughed, though her anger had not subsided. 'Will you leave things as they are and forget all about this business? What has been done cannot possibly be undone now. Won't you separate me from it in your thoughts? You can, if you try. You know, I'm two people in one. So are you. I'm Logotheti the financier, and I'm Logotheti the man. You are Margaret Donne, and you are Señorita da Cordova, on the very eve of being famous--and then, I think you are some thing else which I don't quite understand, but which is like my fate, for I cannot escape from you, whether I see you, or only dream of you.' Margaret was silent, and looked at the Aphrodite while she sat on the arm of the big chair. She might have breathed a little faster if she had known that the two doors through which she had entered, and which had closed so silently and surely after her, were as sound-proof as six feet of earth. She would not have been afraid, for she was fearless and confident, but her heart would have beaten a little more quickly at the thought that she was out of hearing of the world, and in the presence of a man whose eyes looked at her strangely and whose cheeks were darkly flushed, who was a good deal nearer to the primitive human animal than most men are, and in whom the main force of nature was awake and hungry. 'I don't want you to make love to me just now,' she said, swinging her foot a little as she sat. 'You've done something that has hurt me very much, and has made me almost wish that I might never see you again after this time. I wish you could find a way of undoing it--I'm sure there is a way.' Unconsciously wise, she had checked his pulse for a moment, and she looked at him calmly and shook her head. With a sudden and impatient movement he rose, turned away from her and began to walk up and down at a little distance, his head bent and his hands behind him. Though the air in the high room was pure, it was still and hot, for the late spring afternoon had turned sultry all at once; the fluid of a near storm was fast condensing to the point of explosion. The man felt the tension more than the woman just then. It acted on his state, and made it almost unbearable. His hands were locked behind him and his fingers twisted each other till they changed colour. He moved with the short, noiseless steps of a young wild animal measuring its cage, up and down, up and down, without pause. 'It's this,' Margaret continued, much more gently than she had meant to speak, 'I don't quite believe you. I'm almost sure you thought that I would give up the stage if I had enough money to live on without my work.' 'Yes, I did.' He stopped as if in anger and the words came sharply; but he was not angry. 'You see!' Margaret answered triumphantly. 'I knew it! What becomes of your story about the company now?' She rose also and began to walk. The big leathern arm-chair was between them; he leaned his elbows on the back of it and watched her, and compared her hungrily with the Aphrodite. 'All I have told you is true,' he said. 'The business happened to serve two purposes, that's all. At least, I thought it would, and it was a pleasure to help you without your knowing it. Why should I be sorry? That money might as well come to you through me as through anybody else. You're angry with me. Why? Because I'm too fond of you? It cannot reasonably be about the money any more--the wretched money! If you can't keep the filthy stuff--if it won't prevent you from going on the stage after all--why then, give it away! Throw it away! Lose it, if you can. But don't come to me with it, for it's the price of a thing I bought in the way of business and which I won't give up, nor take as a gift from anybody.' He spoke in such a harsh tone now that she paused in her short walk and met his eyes, to see what he meant, over and above what he was saying. She stood in front of the chair; he was leaning over the back of it, with his hands together; one hand was slowly kneading the closed fist, and the veins stood out on both. His voice was hoarse but rather low, like that of a man who wants water. The light in the room had a yellowish tinge now, and the window showed a dull glare where there had been blue sky before. The lurid light got into Logotheti's eyes, and was ready to flash while Margaret looked at him. The marble Aphrodite took a creamy, living tint, and the little shadows that modelled her quivered and deepened. All at once Margaret knew that there was danger. She could not have told how she knew it, nor just what the danger was, but she raised her fair head suddenly, as the stag does when the scent of the hounds comes down the breeze. Watching her, he saw and understood, and his hands left each other and closed tightly upon the back of the chair. 'Will you take me back to Madame De Rosa, please?' Margaret asked, and her voice did not shake. Before he could answer, a flash of lightning filled the room, vivid as flame, and almost purple; it flared and danced two or three times before it went out. If Logotheti spoke at all, his words were drowned in the crash that shook the house and rolled away over the city. His eyes never moved from Margaret's face; she felt that his gaze was fastened on her lips, as if he would have drawn them to meet his own. She was not exactly afraid, but she knew that she must get away from him, for he was stronger than she, and he was like a man going mad. That was what she would have called it. And it seemed to her that one of two things was going to happen. Either she would let his lips reach hers, without resisting, or else she would try to kill him when he came near her. She did not know which she should do. She was in herself two people; the one was a human woman, tempted by the mysterious sympathy of flesh and blood; the other self was a startled maiden caught in a trap and at bay, without escape. With the great peal of thunder the Aphrodite trembled from head to foot, twice, as the vibration ran down the walls of the house to the very foundations and then came up again and died away, like the second shock of an earthquake. The statue trembled as if it were alive and afraid. With a glance, Margaret measured the distance which separated her from the door, but it was too far. There were half-a-dozen steps, and Logotheti was much nearer to her than that, even allowing that he must get past the chair to reach her. Now he moved a little and it was too late to try. He was beside the chair instead of behind it; but then he stopped and came no further yet, while he spoke to her. 'Why did you come?' he asked in a low tone. 'You might have guessed that it wasn't quite safe!' It was almost as if he were speaking to himself. She kept her eyes on him, and tried to back away towards the door so slowly that he should not notice it. But he smiled and his lids drooped. 'You could not open the door if you reached it,' he said. 'You said that you wanted to speak with me alone. We are alone here--quite alone. No one can hear, even if you scream. No one can get in. Why did you say you wanted to be alone with me, if you were not in earnest? Why do you risk playing with a man who is crazy about you, and has everything in the world except you, and would throw it all away to have you? And now that you are here of your own accord, why should I let you go?' The speech was rough, but there was a sudden caress in his voice with the last words, and he had scarcely spoken them when another flash of lightning filled the room with a maddening purple light. Before the peal broke, Logotheti held Margaret by the wrists, and spoke close to her face, very fast. 'I will not let you go. I love you, and I will not let you go.' The thunder burst, and roared and echoed away, while he drew her nearer, looking for the woman in her eyes, too mad to know that she did not feel what he felt. He touched her now; he could feel her breathings, fast and frightened, and the quiver that ran through her limbs. He held her, but without hurting her in the least--she could turn her wrists loosely in the bonds he made of his fingers. Yet she could not get away from him and he drew her closer. She threw her head back from his face, and tried to speak. 'Please--please, let me go.' 'No. I love you.' He drew her till she was pressed against him, and he held her hands in his behind her waist. The air was clearing with a furious rush of rain, and her courage was not all gone yet. She looked up to the high windows, as one about to die might look up from the scaffold, and there was a streak of clear blue sky between the driving clouds. It was as if hope looked through, out of heaven, at the girl driven to bay. Margaret did not try to use her strength, for she knew it was useless against his. But she held her head back and spoke slowly. 'For your mother's sake,' she said, low and clear, her eyes on his. For one moment his grasp tightened and his white teeth caught his lower lip; but his look was changing slowly. 'For her sake,' Margaret said, 'as you would have kept harm from her----' His hold relaxed, and he turned away. There was good in him still; he had loved his mother. He turned deliberately, till he could see neither Margaret nor the Aphrodite, and he leaned heavily on the table, with bent head, resting the weight of his body on the palms of his hands, and remaining quite motionless for some time. He heard her go towards the door. Without looking round he slowly shook his head. 'Don't be afraid of me,' he said, in a low voice. 'It's all over, now. I'll let you out in a moment.' 'Yes.' She waited quietly by the door, which she did not understand how to open. Presently he moved a little, and his head sank lower between his shoulders; then he spoke again, but still without turning towards her. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I did not know I could be such a brute. Forgive me, will you?' As usual, when he was very much in earnest, there was something rudely abrupt about his speech. 'It was my fault,' Margaret answered from the door. 'I should not have come.' Even after her escape, something about him still pleased her. The maiden that had been brought to bay was scarcely safe, before the human woman began to be drawn to him again by that sympathy of flesh and blood that had nearly cost her more than life. But Margaret revolted against it now, as soon as she knew what it was that made her speak kindly. 'I'm not afraid of you,' she said, almost coldly, 'but I want you to let me out, please.' He straightened himself and turned slowly to her. The dark red colour was gone from his cheeks, he was suddenly pale and haggard, and if he had not been really young, he would have looked old; as it was, his face was drawn and pinched as if by sharp physical suffering. He drew two or three quick, deep breaths as he came towards her. He stood beside her a moment, and then without a word, he unfastened the door. It swung inwards and stood open. Margaret saw that it was thickly padded to prevent any sound from passing, and that there was another padded door beyond it which she had not noticed when she had entered. He understood her look of doubt. 'That one is open now,' he said. 'It locks and unlocks itself as I shut or open the inner door.' He was willing to let her see how completely she had been cut off from the outer world; and she realised the truth and shuddered. 'Good-bye,' she said, abruptly, as if he were not to go downstairs with her, and she made a step to pass him. He thrust his arm out across the way, resting his head against the door-post. She started, almost nervously, and then stood still again and looked at him. 'No,' he said, 'I shall not try to keep you, and the door is open. But please don't say good-bye like that, as if we were not going to meet soon.' 'It's not good for us to be alone together,' she said. The words came by instinct, and acknowledged a weakness in herself. After she had spoken, she was very sorry. His drawn face softened. 'That's why I forgive you,' she said, with sudden frankness, and a blush reddened her cheeks under the fawn-coloured veil she had drawn down again. He took her hand, against her will and almost violently, but in an instant his own was gentle again. 'Margaret!' His voice had a thrill in it. 'No,' she answered, but not roughly now, and scarcely trying to free herself. 'No. I don't love you in the least. That is why I won't marry you. There's something that draws me to you against my will sometimes--yes, I know that! But I hate it, and I'm afraid of it. It's not what I like in you, it's what I like least. It's something like hypnotism, I'm sure. I'm ashamed of it, because it is what has made me flirt with you. Yes, I have! I've flirted outrageously, except that I've always told you that I never would marry you. I've been truthful in that, at all events.' 'Do you think I reproach you?' 'You might have, this morning. Now we have each something to reproach the other. We will forgive and say good-bye for a while. When we meet again, that something I'm afraid of will be gone--perhaps--then everything will be different. Now, good-bye.' He had held her hand all the time while she had been speaking. She pressed his now, with an impulse of frank loyalty, and dropped it suddenly. 'Do you mean that I may not even come and see you?' he asked. 'Not till after my _début_,' answered Margaret in a decided tone, for she felt that she dominated him at last. 'You don't want me to be a singer and I cannot help feeling your opposition. It disturbs me, as the time comes near. Of course I can't hinder you from being there on the first night----' 'No indeed!' 'And when you've heard me, and seen Gilda's head come out of the sack, and when the curtain has gone down on Rigoletto's despair--why, then you may come behind and congratulate me, especially if I've made a failure! Till then I don't want to see you, please!' 'I cannot wait so long. It is nearly three weeks.' Margaret stood up very straight in the doorway, already past him and free to go out. 'Since I am willing to forgive you for losing your head just now,' she said, 'it's for me to decide whether you may ever see me again, and if so when, and where. I've been very good to you. Now I am going.' It seemed to him that she had grown all at once in strength and individuality till there was nothing for him to do but to submit. This was an illusion, no doubt; she was just what she had always been, and what he had always judged her, a gifted young woman, rather inclined to flirt and easily guided in any direction, whose exuberant animal vitality might pass for strong character in the eyes of an inexperienced innocent like Lushington, but could not deceive an old hand like Logotheti for a moment. Nevertheless, when she had spoken her last words and was leading the way out of the room, Logotheti felt a little like a small boy who has had his ears boxed for being too cheeky, which is a sensation not at all pleasant or natural to an old hand. As he took her down in the little lift, he vaguely wondered whether he had ever thought of her till now except as an animated work of art; comparable in beauty with his encaustic painting or his dearly loved Aphrodite; worth more than either of them as a possible possession, as life is worth more than stone, and endowed with a divine voice; but having neither soul, intelligence, nor will to speak of, nor any original power of ruling others, still less of resisting a systematic and prolonged attack. The change had come quickly. Logotheti thought of beautiful beings of old, disguised as yielding, mortal women, who had visited the men they loved on earth and had by and by revealed themselves as true and puissant goddesses, moving in a sphere of rosy light, and speaking only to command. Logotheti took her down in the lift and they went back into the big room where they had left Madame De Rosa. They found her looking out of the window. Books did not interest her, nor pictures either, there was no piano in the room and the maraschino was locked up. So there was nothing to do but to look out of the window. As the two came in she turned sharply to them, with her head on one side, as birds do, and her intelligent little eyes sparkled. She was a good little woman herself, and believed in heaven and salvation, but she had no particular belief in man and none at all in woman. On the other hand, she had a very keen scent for the truth in love affairs, and in Logotheti's subdued expression she instantly detected sure signs of discomfiture, which were fully confirmed by Margaret's serene and superior manner. Men sometimes follow women into a room with such an air of submission that one almost looks for the string by which they are led. Madame De Rosa nodded her approval to Margaret in a rather officious manner, much as if she were congratulating her pupil on having soundly beaten an unruly and dangerous dog. 'Well done,' the nod said. 'Beat him again, the very next time he does it!' But Margaret either did not understand at all, or did not care for Madame De Rosa's approbation, for she returned no answering glance of intelligence. 'I hope,' she said, 'that I have not kept you too long.' The former prima donna looked at a tiny watch set in diamonds, the gift of a great tenor whom she had taught. 'Not at all,' she said. 'It's not twenty minutes since we came.' She put the watch to her ear and listened. Nine women out of ten are generally in doubt as to whether their watches have not just stopped. 'Yes,' she said. 'It is going.' Logotheti remembered how long the seconds had seemed while he was taking Margaret up in the lift, and it seemed as if hours had passed since then. 'Good-bye,' said Margaret, holding out one hand and passing the other through Madame De Rosa's arm to lead her away. 'Good-bye,' Logotheti answered. 'Of course,' he continued, 'you must please remember that if I can be of any use in making investments for you, you have only to send me your commands. I am at your service for anything connected with the money market.' 'Thank you,' said Margaret, ambiguously, as to the tone in which the words were spoken, but with a quick glance of approval. He had meant his speech for Madame De Rosa, who had probably been told that Margaret came to see him on a matter of business. But it was quite unnecessary. The little Neapolitan woman could judge of the state of a love affair at any moment with a certainty as unerring as that of a great cook who can tell by a mere glance what stage of development the finest sauce has reached. She supported Logotheti's fiction, however, without a smile. 'Ah, my dear,' she said, 'always consult him, if he will help you! Bonanni owes half her fortune to his judgment, and I could certainly not live as I do if he had not given me his advice and kind assistance.' 'You exaggerate, dear lady,' said Logotheti, opening the door for them, and following them into the hall. 'Not in the least,' laughed Madame De Rosa, 'though I am sure that Cordova is quite able to take care of herself and is much too proud to owe you anything.' She often called Margaret by her stage name, as artists do among themselves, but it jarred disagreeably on Logotheti's ear. 'You are right in that,' he said, rather coldly, as a footman appeared and opened the outer door. 'Miss Donne'--he emphasised the name a little--'will probably not need any help from me. But if she should, I am her very humble servant.' 'Thank you,' Margaret said, in the same ambiguous tone as before. Thereupon she and Madame De Rosa nodded to him and left him bowing on his doorstep. They walked away in the direction of the Batignolles station. When they had heard the door of the house shut, Madame De Rosa spoke. 'You are splendid, my dear,' she said with admiration. 'But take care! To play with Logotheti is like balancing a volcano on the tip of your nose while you juggle with the world, the flesh and the devil--you know what I mean--the man who keeps a cannon-ball, an empty bottle and a bit of paper all going at once with one hand. I am afraid Logotheti will do something unexpected, to upset all our plans.' 'He had better not!' answered Margaret, drooping her lids; and her eyes flashed, and her handsome lips pouted a little. CHAPTER XVII Margaret, it is sad to relate, was much less concerned about the two men who were in love with her than is considered becoming in a woman of heart. She confessed to herself, without excess of penitence, that she had flirted abominably with them both, she consoled her conscience with the reflection that they were both alive and apparently very well, and she put all her strength, which was great, into preparing for her _début_. Men never love so energetically and persuasively as when they are fighting every day for life, honour or fame, and are already on the road to victory; but a woman's passion, though true and lasting, may be momentarily quite overshadowed by the anticipation of a new hat or of a social battle of uncertain issue. How much more, then, by the near approach of such an event as a first appearance on the stage! Logotheti bribed the doorkeeper at the small theatre where Margaret was rehearsing. Whenever there was a rehearsal he was there before her, quite out of sight in the back of a lower box, and he did not go away until he was quite sure that she had left. He knew women well enough to be certain that if anything could make Margaret wish to see him it would be his own strict observance of her request not to show himself; and in the meantime he enjoyed some moments of keen delight in watching her and listening to her. He felt something of the selfish pleasure which filled that King of Bavaria who had a performance of _Lohengrin_ given for himself alone. But the pleasure was not unmixed, nor was the delight unclouded. Even Schreiermeyer had given up coming to the rehearsals, for he was now sure of Margaret's success and had passed on to other business. In the dim stalls there appeared only the shabby relations and rather gorgeous friends of the other members of the company. There was the young painter who loved the leading girl of the chorus, there was the wholesale upholsterer who admired the contralto, and a little apart there was the middle-aged great lady who entertained a romantic and expensive passion for the tenor. The tenor was a young Italian, who was something between a third-rate poet and a spoilt child when he was in love and was as cynical as Macchiavelli when he was not, which was the case at present, at least so far as the middle-aged woman of the world was concerned. His friends could always tell the state of his affections by the way he sang in _Rigoletto_. When he was hopelessly in love himself, he sang 'La donna è mobile' with tears in his voice, as if his heart were breaking; when, on the contrary, he knew that some unhappy female was hopelessly in love with him, he sang it with a sort of laugh that was diabolically irritating. At the present time he seemed to be in an intermediate state, for he sometimes sang it in the one way and sometimes in the other, to the despair of the poor foolish lady in the stalls. The truth was that at irregular intervals he felt that he was in love with Margaret. Leading singers are very rarely attracted by each other. Perhaps that is because they receive such a vast amount of adulation which pleases them better, and of course there have been famous instances of the contrary, such as Mario and Grisi. As a rule singers do not meet much except at the theatre; it is only during rehearsals that they have a chance of talking, and then, as everybody knows, they show the worst side of themselves and are often in a very bad temper indeed. Margaret had not reached that stage yet, for she had met with no disappointments and could not complain of her manager, and moreover she was not at all above learning what she could from her fellow-artists. She was therefore popular with them in spite of the fact that she was a lady born. They overlooked that, because she could sing, and the tenor only remembered it when he tried to patronise her a little. He had often sung with Melba, and she did this or that, and he had sung with Bonanni and knew exactly how she sang the difficult passages, and he reeled off the precepts and practice of half-a-dozen other lyric sopranos, giving Margaret to understand that he was willing and able to teach her a good deal. But she only smiled kindly, and did precisely what Madame De Rosa told her to do, seeing that the little Neapolitan had taught most of them what they knew. It was clear that Margaret could not be patronised, and the other members of the company liked her the better for it, because the tenor patronised them all and gave them to understand that they were rather small fry compared with a man who could hold the high C and walk off the stage with it. From the darkness of his lower box Logotheti looked on and approved of Margaret's behaviour. At the same time he abstracted himself from her life and saw how she lived with respect to other men and women, and a great change began to take place in his feelings, one of those changes which are sometimes salutary because they may hinder an act of folly, but which humiliate a man in his own eyes, in proportion as they are unexpected, and tend to contradict something which he has believed to be beyond all doubt. To many men the loss of a noble illusion feels like a loss of strength in themselves, perhaps because such men can never keep an ideal before them without making an unconscious effort against the material tendency of their natures. The change in Logotheti during the next three weeks was profound; and it was humiliating because it deprived him all at once of a sort of power over himself which had grown up with his love for Margaret and depended on that for its nourishment and life; a power which had perhaps not been an original force at all, but only a chivalrous willingness to do her will instead of his own. He looked on and did not betray his presence, and she, on her side, began to wonder at his prolonged obedience. More than once she felt a sudden conviction that he must be near, and he saw how she peered into the gloom of the empty house as if looking for some one she expected. It was only natural, and no theory of telepathy was needed to explain it. She had so often seen him there in reality! But he would not show himself now, for he was determined that she should send for him; if she did not, he could wait for her _début_; and little by little, as he kept to his determination and only saw her from a distance in the frame of the stage, the woman who had dominated him in a moment when he was beside himself with passion, became once more an animated work of art which he unconsciously compared with his Aphrodite and his ancient picture, and which he coveted as a possession. It did not at first occur to him that Margaret had really changed since he had met her, and not exactly in the way he might have wished. Instead of showing any inclination to give up the stage, as he had hoped that she might, she seemed more and more in love with her future career. When he had first met her he had made the acquaintance of a strikingly good-looking English girl, born and brought up a lady, full of talent and enthusiasm for her art, but as yet absolutely ignorant of professional artistic life and still in a state of mind in which some sides of it were sure to be disagreeable to her, if not absolutely repulsive. Hidden in his box, and watching her as well as listening to her, he gradually realised the change, and he remembered many facts which should have prepared him for it. He recollected, for instance, her perfect coolness and self-possession with Madame Bonanni, so absolutely different from the paralysing shyness, the visible fright and the pitiful helplessness at the moment of trial, which he had more than once seen in young girls who came to Madame Bonanni for advice. They had good voices, too, those poor trembling candidates; many of them had talent of a certain order; but it was not the real thing, there was not the real strength behind it, there was not the absolute self-reliance to steady it; above all, there was not the tremendous physical organisation which every great singer possesses. But Margaret had all that; in other words, she had every gift that makes a first-rate professional on the stage, and as the life became familiar to her, those gifts, suddenly called into play, exerted their influence directly upon her character and manner. She was born to be a professional artist, to face the public and make it applaud her, to believe in her own talent, to help herself, to trust to her nerves and to defend herself with cool courage in moments of danger. This was assuredly not the girl with whom Logotheti had fallen in love at first sight, whom he, as well as Lushington, had believed far too refined and delicately brought up to be happy in the surroundings of a stage life, and much too sensitive to bear such familiarity as being addressed as 'Cordova,' without any prefix, by an Italian tenor singer whose father had kept a butcher's shop in Turin. No doubt, the refinement, the sensitiveness, the delicacy of manner were all there still, for such things do not disappear out of a woman in a few days; but they belonged chiefly to one side of a nature that had two very distinct sides. There was the 'lady' side, and there was the 'actress' side; and unfortunately, thought Logotheti, there was now no longer the slightest doubt as to which was the stronger. Margaret Donne was already a memory; the reality was 'Cordova,' who was going to have a fabulous success and would soon be one of the most successful lyric sopranos of her time. 'Cordova' was a splendid creature, she was a good girl, she had a hundred fine qualities not always found together in a great prima donna; but no power in the world could ever make her Margaret Donne again. Logotheti watched her and once or twice he sighed; for he knew that he no longer wished to marry her. It is not in the nature of Orientals to let their wives exhibit themselves to the public, and in most ways the prejudices of a well-born Greek of Constantinople are just as strong as those of a Mohammedan Turk. As an artistic possession, 'Cordova' was as desirable as ever in Logotheti's eyes; but she was no longer at all desirable as a wife. The Greek, in spite of the lawless strain in him, was an aristocrat to the marrow of his very solid bones. An aristocrat, doubtless, in the Eastern sense, proud of his own long descent, but perfectly indifferent to any such matter as a noble pedigree in the choice of a wife; quite capable, if he had not chanced to be born a Christian, of taking to himself, even by purchase, the jealously-guarded daughter of a Circassian horse-thief, or of a Georgian cut-throat, a girl brought up in seclusion for sale, like a valuable thoroughbred; but a man who revolted at the thought of marrying a woman who could show herself upon the stage, and for money, who could sing for money, and for the applause of a couple of thousand people, nine-tenths of whom he would never have allowed to enter his house. He was jealous of what he really loved. To him, it would have been a real and keen suffering to see his marble Aphrodite set up in a hall of the Louvre, to be admired in her naked perfection by every passing tourist, criticised and compared with famous living models by loose-talking art students, and furtively examined by prurient and disapproving old maids from distant countries. He prized her, and he had risked his life, not to mention the just anger of a government, to get possession of her. If he could feel so much for a piece of marble, it was not likely that he should feel less keenly where the woman he loved was concerned; and circumstance for circumstance, point for point, it was much worse that Margaret Donne should stand and sing behind the footlights, for money, and disguise herself as a man in the last act of _Rigoletto_, than that the Aphrodite should go to the Louvre and take her place with the Borghese Gladiator, the Venus of Milo and the Victory of Samothrace. It was true that he would have given much to possess one of those other treasures, too, but even then it would not have been like possessing the Aphrodite. The other statues had been public property and had faced the public gaze for many years; but he had found his treasure for himself, buried safe in the earth since ages ago, and he had brought her thence directly to that upper room where few eyes but his own had ever seen her. Perhaps he was a little mad on this point, for strong natures that hark back to primitive types often seem a little mad to us. But at the root of his madness there was that which no man need be ashamed of, for it has been the very foundation of human society--the right of every husband to keep the mother of his children from the world in his own home. For human society existed before the Ten Commandments, and a large part of it seems tolerably able to survive without them even now; but no nation has ever come to any good or greatness, since the world began, unless its men have kept their wives from other men. Yet nature is not mocked, and woman is a match for man; she first drove him to invent divorce for his self-defence, and see, it is a two-edged sword in her own hands and is turned against him! No strong nation, beginning its life and history, ever questioned the husband's right to kill the unfaithful wife; no old and corrupt race has ever failed to make it easy for a wife to have many husbands--including those of her friends. Logotheti belonged to the primitives. As he had once laughingly explained to Margaret, his people had dropped out of civilisation during a good many centuries; they had absorbed a good deal of wild blood in that time, and, scientifically speaking, had reverted to their type; and now that he had chosen to mingle in the throng of the moderns, whose fathers had lost no time in the race, while his own had remained stationary, he found himself different from other people, stronger than they, bolder and much more lawless, but also infinitely more responsive to the creations of art and the facts of life, as well as to the finer fictions of his imagination and the simple cravings of his very masculine being. Men who are especially gifted almost always seem exaggerated to average society, either because, like Logotheti, they feel more, want more and get more than other men, by sheer all-round exuberance of life and energy, or else because, as in many great poets, some one faculty is almost missing, which would have balanced the rest, so that in its absence the others work at incredible speed and tension, wear themselves out in half a lifetime and leave immortal records of their brief activity. There had been a time when Margaret had appealed only to Logotheti's artistic perceptions; at their second meeting he had asked her to marry him because he felt sure that until he could make her his permanent possession, he could never again know what it was to be satisfied. There had been a moment when she had risen in his estimation from an artistic treasure to the dignity of an ideal, and had dominated him, even when the human animal in him was most furiously roused. Again, and lastly, the time had come when, by watching her unseen, instead of spending hours with her every day, by abstracting himself from her life instead of trying to take part in it, he had lost his hold upon his ideal for ever, and had been cruelly robbed of what for a few short days he had held most dear. Moreover, after the ideal had withered and fallen, there remained something of which the man felt ashamed, though it was what had seemed most natural before the higher thought had sprung up full-grown in a day, and had blossomed, and perished. It was simply this. Margaret was as much as ever the artistic treasure he coveted, and he was tormented by the fear lest some one else should get possession of her before him. He remembered the sleepless nights he had spent while his marble Aphrodite had lain above ground, before he was ready to carry her off, the unspeakable anxiety lest she should be found and taken from him, the terror of losing her which had driven him to make the attempt in the teeth of weather which his craft had not been fit to face; and he remembered, too, that the short time while she had lain at the bottom of the bay had not passed without real dread lest by a miracle another should find her and steal her. He felt that same sensation now, as he watched Margaret from a distance; some one would find her, some one would marry her, some one would take her away and own her, body and soul, and cheat him of what had been within his grasp and all but his; and yet he was ashamed, because he no longer wanted her for his wife, but only as a possession--as Achilles wanted Briseis and was wroth when she was taken from him. He felt shame at the thought, because he had already honoured her in his imagination as his wife, and because to dream of her as anything as near, yet less in honour, was a sort of dishonour to himself. Let the subtle analyst make what he can of that; it is the truth. But possibly the truth about a man very unlike his fellow-men is not worth analysing, since it cannot lead to any useful generality; and if analysis is not to be useful, of what use can it possibly be? It would be more to the purpose to analyse the character of Margaret, for instance, who represents a certain class of artists, or of Madame Bonanni who is an arch-type, or of poor Edmund Lushington, a literary Englishman, who was just then very unhappy and very sorry for himself. Margaret and Lushington, and the elderly prima donna, and even Mrs. Rushmore, are all much more like you and me than Constantine Logotheti, the Greek financier of artistic tastes, watching the woman he covets, from the depths of his lower box during rehearsal. He watched, and he coveted; and presently he fell to thinking of the wonderful things which money can do, when it is skilfully used; and he fell to scheming and plotting, and laying deep plans; and moreover he recalled the days when Margaret had first appeared to him as an animated work of art, and he remembered why he had persuaded Schreiermeyer to change the opera from _Faust_ to _Rigoletto_. He had regretted the change later, when she had risen to the higher place in his heart, because it required her to wear a man's disguise in the last act; but now that she was again in his eyes what she had been at first, he was glad he had made the suggestion, and that the manager had taken his advice, for there was something in that last act which should serve him when the time came. CHAPTER XVIII After the adventure on the Versailles road, Lushington eschewed disguises, changed his lodgings again and appeared in clothes that fitted him. It was a great relief to look like a human being and a gentleman, even at the cost of calling himself an ass for having tried to look like something else. There was but one difficulty in the way of resuming his former appearance, and that lay in the loss of his beard, which would take some time to grow again, while its growth would involve retirement from civilisation during several weeks. But he reflected that it was fashionable to be clean-shaven, and that, in point of appearance, all that is fashionable is right, though Plato would have declared it to be removed in the third degree from truth. A week after the accident he went out to Versailles in the morning. Mrs. Rushmore had a headache and Margaret received him. She smiled as she took his hand, and she looked hard at his face, as if to be sure that it was he, after all. The absence of the gleaming fair beard made a great difference. 'I think I like you better without it,' she said, at last. 'Your face has more character!' 'It's the inevitable,' answered Lushington, 'so I'm glad you are pleased.' 'Come out,' she said, turning to the door. 'It always seems more natural to talk to you on the lawn, and the bench is still there.' He felt like an exile come home. Nothing was changed, except that Margaret was gentler and seemed more glad to see him than formerly. He wondered how that could be, seeing that he had made himself so very ridiculous; for he was not experienced enough to know that a woman's sense of humour is very different from that of a man she likes, when she herself has been concerned in the circumstances that have made him an object of ridicule to others. Then her face grows grave, her eyes harden, and her head goes up. 'I cannot see that there is anything to laugh at,' she says very coldly, to the disagreeable people who are poking fun at the poor man. At these signs, the disagreeable people generally desist and retire to whisper in a corner. Lushington followed Margaret out. As they passed through the hall, she took an old garden hat from the table and fastened it upon her head with the pin that had been left stuck in it. It was done almost with a single motion and without even glancing at the mirror which hung above the hall table. Lushington watched her, but not as Logotheti would have done, in artistic admiration of the graceful movement and perfect balance. The Englishman, who called himself a realist, was admiring the ideal qualities with which he had long ago invested the real woman. As he watched her, his imagination clothed her handsome reality with a semi-divine mantle of glory; for him she could never be anything but Margaret Donne, let her call herself Cordova or anything else, let her sing in _Rigoletto_ or in any other opera. 'It was nice of you to come,' she said, as they reached the bench near the pond. 'I wanted to see you.' 'And I wanted you to see me,' Lushington laughed a little, remembering how she had seen him the last time, after his fall, in very bad clothes and much damaged, particularly as to his nose. 'You certainly look more civilised,' Margaret said. 'Did Logotheti tell you anything about what happened after you left us?' asked Lushington, suddenly. Margaret's face lost its expression for a moment. It was exactly as if, while sitting in the full sunshine, a little cloud had blown across the sun, taking the golden light out of her face. 'I have not seen Monsieur Logotheti since that day,' she said. It was not necessary to tell Lushington that she had seen the Greek once again on the same afternoon. Her companion seemed surprised. 'That's strange,' he said. 'I supposed you saw him--no, I beg your pardon, I've no right to suppose anything about you. Please forgive me.' 'What did you suppose?' asked Margaret in a rather imperative tone. 'We are likely to meet so seldom that I may as well tell you what happened,' answered Lushington, with more decision than he had formerly been wont to show. 'I'd just as soon have you know, if you don't mind.' Margaret leaned back in her seat, and pulled the garden hat over her eyes. It was warm, and she could see the gnats in the strong light reflected from the pond. 'He asked me if I wanted to marry you,' Lushington continued. 'I said that such a thing was impossible. Then he gave me to understand that he did.' He paused, but as if he had more to say. 'What did you answer?' asked Margaret. 'I said I would keep out of the way, since he was in earnest.' 'Oh!' Margaret uttered the ejaculation in a tone that might have meant anything, and she watched the gnats darting hither and thither in the sunshine. 'I did right, didn't I?' asked Lushington after a long pause. 'You meant to,' said Margaret almost roughly. 'I suppose it's the same thing. You're always so terribly honourable!' Her humour changed suddenly, and there was a shade of contempt in her voice. She had been very glad to see him a few moments earlier, but now she wished he would go. She was perhaps just then in the temper to be won, though she did not know it, and she unconsciously wished that Lushington would take hold of her and almost hurt her, as Logotheti had done, instead of being so dreadfully anxious to be told that he had done right a week ago. 'You don't care a straw for Logotheti,' he said, so suddenly that she started a little. 'I don't know why you should,' he added, as she said nothing, 'but I had got the impression that you did.' 'There are days--I mean,' she corrected herself, 'there have been days, when I have liked him very much--more, it seems to me, than I ever liked you, though in quite a different way.' 'There will be more such days,' Lushington answered. 'I hope not.' Margaret spoke almost as if to herself and very low, turning her head away. Lushington heard the words, however, and was surprised. 'Has anything happened?' he asked quickly, and quite without reflection. Again she answered in a low tone, unfamiliar to him. 'Yes. Something has happened.' Then neither spoke for some time. When Margaret broke the silence at last, there was a little defiance in her voice, a touch of recklessness in her manner, as new to Lushington as her low, absent-minded tone had been when she had last spoken. 'It was only natural, I suppose,' she laughed, a little sharply. 'I'm too good for one and not good enough for the other! It would be really interesting to know just how good one ought to be--when one is an artist!' 'What do you mean?' asked Lushington, not understanding at all. 'My dear child!' She laughed again, and both the words and the laugh jarred on Lushington, as being a little unlike her--she had never addressed him in that way before. 'You don't really suppose that I am going to explain, do you? You made up your mind that I was much too fine a lady to marry the son of a singer--much too good for you, in fact--though I would have married you just then!' 'Just then!' Lushington repeated the words sadly. 'Certainly not now,' answered Margaret viciously. 'You would come to your senses in a week with a start, to find your idol in a very shaky and moth-eaten state. I'm horribly human, after all! I admit it!' 'What is the matter with you?' asked Lushington, rather sharply. 'What has become of you?' he asked, as she gave him no answer. 'Where are you, the real you? I saw you when I came, and you brought me out on the lawn, and it was going to be so nice, just as it used to be; and now, on a sudden, you are gone, and there is some one I don't know in your place.' Margaret laughed, leaned back in her chair and looked at the pond. 'Some one you don't know?' she repeated, with a question. 'Yes.' 'I wonder!' She laughed again. 'It must be that,' she said presently. 'It cannot be anything else.' 'What?' 'It must be "Cordova." Don't you think so? I know just what you mean--I feel it, I hear it in my voice when I speak, I see it in the glass when I look at myself. But not always. It comes and it goes, it has its hours. Sometimes I'm it when I wake up suddenly in the night, and sometimes I'm Margaret Donne, whom you used to like. And I'm sure of something else. Shall I tell you? One of these days Margaret Donne will go away and never come back, and there will be only Cordova left, and then I suppose I shall go to the bad. They all do, you know.' Lushington did know, and made an odd movement and bent himself, as if something sharp had run into him unawares, and he turned his face away, to hide the look of pain which he could not control. Margaret had hardly spoken the cruel words when she realised what she had done. 'Oh, I'm so sorry!' she cried, in dreadful distress, and the voice came from her heart and was quite her own again. In her genuine pain for him, she took his hand in both her own, and drew it to her and looked into his eyes. 'It's all right,' he answered. 'You did not mean it. Don't distress yourself.' There were tears in her eyes now, but they were not going to overflow. She dropped his hands. 'How splendidly good and generous you are!' Margaret cried. 'There's nobody like you, after all!' Lushington forgot his pain in the pleasure he felt at this outburst. 'But why?' he asked, not very clear as to her reasons for praising him. 'It was the same thing the other day,' she said, 'when we upset you on the Versailles road. You were in a bad way; I don't think I remember ever seeing a man in a worse plight! I couldn't help laughing a little.' 'No,' said Lushington, 'I suppose you couldn't.' 'You had your revenge afterwards, though you did not know it,' Margaret answered. 'What sort of revenge?' 'Monsieur Logotheti was detestable. It would have given me the greatest satisfaction to have stuck hat-pins into him, ever so many of them, as thick as the quills on a porcupine!' Lushington laughed, in a colourless way. 'As you say, I was revenged,' he answered. 'Oh, that wasn't it!' she laughed, too. 'Not at all! Besides, you knew that! You were perfectly well aware that you had the heroic part, all through.' 'Indeed, I wasn't aware of it at all! I felt most awfully small, I assure you.' 'That's because you're not a woman,' observed Margaret thoughtfully. 'No,' she went on, after a short pause, during which Lushington found nothing to say, 'the revenge you had was much more complete. I don't think I'll tell you what it was. You might think----' She broke off abruptly, and drew the big garden hat even further over her eyes. Lushington watched her mouth, as he could see so little of the rest of her face, but the lips were shut and motionless, with rather a set look, as if she meant to keep a secret. 'If you don't tell me, I suppose I'm free to think what I please,' Lushington answered. 'I might even think that you were seized with remorse for being so extremely horrid and that you went home and drenched a number of pillows with your tears.' He laughed lightly. Margaret was silent for a moment, but she slowly nodded and drummed a five-fingered exercise on her knee with her right hand. 'I cried like a baby,' she said suddenly, with a little snort of dissatisfaction. 'Not really?' Lushington was profoundly surprised, before he was flattered. 'Yes. I hope you're satisfied? Was I not right in saying that you were revenged?' 'You have more heart than you like to show,' he answered. 'Thank you for caring so much! It was nice of you.' 'I don't believe it was what you mean by "heart" at all,' said Margaret. 'I don't pretend to have much, and what there is of it is not a bit of the "faithful squaw" kind. I cried that night about you, exactly as I might have cried over a poor lame horse, if somebody had kicked it uphill and I had been brute enough to laugh at its pain!' 'Hm!' ejaculated Lushington. 'Pity, I suppose?' 'Not a bit of it. How rude you are! I should have pitied you at the time, then. But I didn't, not the least bit. I laughed at you. Afterwards I cried because I had been such a beast as to laugh, and I wished that somebody would come and beat me! I assure you, it was entirely out of disgust with myself that I cried, and not in the least out of pity for you!' 'I'm delighted to hear it,' said Lushington. 'In the first place, I should be sorry to have been the direct means of bringing you to tears; secondly, I hate to be pitied; and thirdly, it's a much more difficult thing to make a woman disgusted with herself than it is to excite her compassion by playing lame horse or sick puppy!' Margaret looked at him from under the brim of her hat, throwing her head far back so as to do so. Then they both laughed a little, and Lushington felt happy for a moment; but Margaret did not know what she felt, if indeed she felt anything at all, beyond a momentary satisfaction in the society of a man she really liked very much, whom she had once believed she loved, and whom she might still have been willing to marry if she had not been at the point of beginning her public career, and if he had asked her, and if--but there were altogether too many conditions, and for the moment matrimony was out of sight. 'I like you very much,' she said, suddenly thoughtful. 'I've seen you act like a hero, and you always act like a gentleman. One cannot say that of many men. If I were not such a wicked flirt, I suppose I should be in love with you, as I was that day when you left here. I'm glad I'm not! Do you know that it's frightfully humiliating to want to marry a man, and to have him object, no matter why?' Lushington said something, but he felt that again the real Margaret had slipped away out of sight for a while, leaving somebody else in her place. Whenever it happened, he felt a little painful sensation of choking, like a man who is suddenly deprived of air; until he looked at her and saw that she was outwardly herself. Then he adjusted the halo of ideality upon the artist again, and continued to love Margaret Donne with all his heart. CHAPTER XIX There is a certain kind, or perhaps it is only a certain degree, of theatrical reputation, which makes its coming felt in all sorts of ways, like a change in the weather. The rise of literary men to fame is almost always a surprise to themselves, their families, and their former instructors. Especially the latter, who know much more than the young novelist does, but have never been able to do anything with their knowledge, hold up their shrivelled, or podgy, or gouty old hands in sorrow, declaring that the success of a boy who was such a dolt, such a good-for-nothing, such a conceited jackanapes at school, only shows what the judgment of the public is worth, and how very low its standard has fallen. But the great public does not think much of decayed schoolmasters at best, and is never surprised that a young man should succeed, for the very simple reason that if he did not, some other young man certainly would; and to those who do not know the colour of the author's hair and eyes, the difference between Mr. Brown, Mr. Jones, and Mr. Robinson, in private life, must be purely a matter of imagination. But theatrical reputation is a different matter, and its rise affects the professional barometer beforehand. The people who train great singers and great actors know what they are about and foresee the result, as no publisher can foresee it with regard to a new writer. There is a right way and a wrong way of singing, one must sing in tune unless one sings out of tune, there are standards of comparison in the persons of the great singers who are still at their best. It is not easy to be mistaken, where so much is a matter of certainty and so little depends on chance, and the facts become known very easily. The first-rate second-rate artists, climbing laboriously in the wake of the real first-rates, and wishing that these would die and get out of the way, feel a hopeless sinking at the heart as they hear behind them the rush of another coming genius. The tired critics sleep less soundly in the front row of the stalls, the fine and frivolous ladies who come to the opera to talk the whole evening are told that for once they will have to be silent, the reporters put on little playful airs of mystery to say that they have been allowed to assist at a marvellous rehearsal or have been admitted to see the future diva putting on her cloak after a final interview with Schreiermeyer, whose attitude before her is described as being that of the donor of the picture in an old Italian altar-piece. And all this is not mere advertisement; much of it is, in fact, nothing of the sort, and is not even suggested by Schreiermeyer, for he knows perfectly well that one performance will place his new star very nearly at her true value before the public, who will flock to hear her and take infinite pains to find out where and when she is going to sing the next time. It is just the outward, healthy stir that goes before certain kinds of theatrical success, and which is quite impossible where most other arts are concerned; perhaps--I suggest it with apologies to all living prima donnas and first tenors--the higher the art, the less can success be predicted. Was ever a great painter, a great sculptor or a great poet 'announced'? On the other hand, was there ever a great singer who was not appreciated till after death? The public probably did not hear the name of Margaret Donne till much later, and then, with considerable indifference, but long before Margarita da Cordova made her _début_, her name was repeated, with more or less mistakes and eccentricities of pronunciation, from mouth to mouth, in London and Paris, and was even mentioned in St. Petersburg, Berlin and New York. Every one connected with the musical world, even if only as a regular spectator, felt that something extraordinary was coming. Madame Bonanni wrote to Margaret that she wished to see her, and would come over to Paris expressly, if Margaret would only telegraph. She would come out to Versailles, she would make the acquaintance of that charming Mrs. Rushmore. Margaret wondered what would happen if the two women met, and what mutual effect they would produce upon each other, but her knowledge of Mrs. Rushmore made her doubt whether such a meeting were desirable. Instead of telegraphing to Madame Bonanni, she wrote her answer, proposing to go to the prima donna's house. But Madame Bonanni was impatient, and as no telegram came when she expected one, she did not wait for a possible letter. To Margaret's dismay and stupefaction, she appeared at Versailles about luncheon time, arrayed with less good taste than the lilies of the field, but yet in a manner to outdo Solomon in all his glory, and she was conveyed in a perfectly new motor car. When Margaret, looking on from beyond the pond, saw her descend from the machine, she could not help thinking of a dreadful fresco she had once seen on the ceiling of an Italian villa, representing a very florid, double-chinned, powerful eighteenth-century Juno apparently in the act of getting down into the room from her car, to the great inconvenience of every one below. The English servant who opened the door was in distress of mind when he saw her, for since he had served in Mrs. Rushmore's very proper household he had never seen anything like Madame Bonanni as she stood there asking for Miss Donne, and evidently not in a mood to be patient. He was very much inclined to tell her that she had mistaken the house, and to shut the door in her face. There were people coming to luncheon, and it was just possible that she might be one of them; but if she was not, and if the others came and found such a person there, how truly awful it would be! Thus the footman reflected as he stood in the doorway, listening to Madame Bonanni's voluble French speech. As she paused for a moment, he heard some one on the stairs. It was Mrs. Rushmore herself. He recognised her step and turned sharp round on his heels, still filling the door but exposing his broad back to the visitor. 'Very odd person asking to see Miss Donne, ma'am,' he said in low and hurried tones. 'Shall I say "not at home," ma'am?' 'By all means "not at home," James,' said Mrs. Rushmore. James had not miscalculated his breadth, as to the door, but his height as compared with that of the odd person outside. She put her head over his shoulder and looked in at Mrs. Rushmore. 'May I please come in?' she asked in comprehensible English. 'I am Bonanni, the singer, and I want to see Miss Donne. I've come from London to--please? Yes?' 'Goodness gracious!' cried Mrs. Rushmore. 'Let the lady in at once, James!' James disappeared, somehow, and the artist came into the darkened hall, and met Mrs. Rushmore. The latter did not often meet a woman much bigger than herself, and actually felt small when she held out her hand. Madame Bonanni seemed to fill the little hall of the French cottage, and Mrs. Rushmore felt as if she were in danger of being turned out of it to make room. 'Margaret is in the garden,' she said. 'I am so pleased to meet you, Madame Bonanni! I hope you'll stay to lunch. Do come in, and I'll send for her. James!' All this was said while the two large hands were mildly shaking one another; Mrs. Rushmore was not easily startled by the sudden appearance of lions--or lionesses--and was conscious of being tolerably consecutive in her speech. It was not Madame Bonanni's greatness that had taken her by surprise, but her size and momentum. The prima donna answered in French. 'You understand? Of course! Thank you! Then I will speak in my own language. I will go out to Miss Donne, if you permit. Luncheon? Ah, if I could! But I have just eaten. I am sure you have so many good things! Little Miss Donne--ah! here she is!' At this point Margaret came in, pulling off the old garden hat she had worn when Lushington had come to see her. She was surprised that the prima donna did not throw her arms round her and kiss her, but the artist had judged Mrs. Rushmore in a flash and behaved with almost English gravity as she took Margaret's hand. 'I have come to Paris expressly to see you,' she said. 'Let me introduce you to Mrs. Rushmore,' said Margaret. 'It is done,' said Madame Bonanni, making a little stage courtesy at the elder woman. 'I broke into the house like a burglar, and found a charming hostess waiting to arrest me with the kindest invitation to luncheon!' 'What a delightful way of putting it!' cried Mrs. Rushmore, much pleased. Margaret felt that Madame Bonanni was showing a side of her nature which she had not yet seen. It had never occurred to the girl that the singer could make pretty society speeches. But Madame Bonanni had seen many things in her time. Margaret carried her off to her own room, after a few words more, for it was clear that her visitor had something private to say, and had come all the way from London to say it, apparently out of pure friendship. Her manner changed again when they were alone. By force of habit the big woman sat down on the piano-stool and turned over the music that was open on the instrument, and she seemed to pay no heed to what Margaret said. Margaret was thanking her for her visit, arranging the blinds, asking her if there was enough air, for the day was hot, inquiring about the weather in London, moving about the room with each little speech, and with the evident desire to start the conversation so as to find out why Madame Bonanni had come. But the singer turned over the pages obstinately, looked up rather coldly at Margaret now and then, and once or twice whistled a few bars of _Rigoletto_ in a way that would have been decidedly rude, had it not been perfectly clear that she did not know what she was doing, and was really trying to make up her mind how to begin. Margaret understood, and presently let her alone, and just sat down on a chair at the corner of the piano with a bit of work, and waited to see what would happen. 'I thought it might help you a little if I ran through the opera with you,' said Madame Bonanni, after a long time. 'I have sung it very often.' But as she spoke she shut the score on the piano rather sharply, as if she had changed her mind. Margaret looked up quickly in surprise and dropped her work in her lap. 'You did not come all the way from London for that?' she asked, in a voice full of gratitude and wonder. There was a moment's pause, during which the singer looked uneasy. 'No,' she said, 'I didn't. I never could lie very well--I can't at all to-day! But I would have come, only for that, if I had thought you needed it. That is the truth.' 'How good you are!' Margaret cried. 'Good!' The singer's hand covered her big eyes for a moment and her elbow rested on the edge of the piano desk. There was a very sad note in the single word she had spoken, a note of despair not far off; but Margaret did not understand. 'What is the matter?' she asked, leaning forward, and laying one hand gently on Madame Bonanni's wrist. 'Why do you speak like that?' 'Do you think you would have been any better, in my place?' The question came in a harsh tone, suddenly, as if it broke through some opposing medium, the hand dropped from the brow, and the big dark eyes gazed into Margaret's almost fiercely. Still the girl did not understand. 'Better? I? In what way? Tell me what it is, if something is distressing you. Let me help you, if I can. You know I will, with all my heart.' 'Yes, I know.' Madame Bonanni's voice sank again. 'But how can you? The trouble is older than you are. There is one thing--yes--there is one thing, if you could say it truly! It would help me a little if you could say it--and yet--no--I'm not sure--if you did, it would only show that you have more heart than he has.' 'Who?' Margaret vaguely guessed the truth. 'Who? Tom--my son! "Edmund Lushington," who feels that he cannot ask a respectable girl to marry him because his mother has been a wicked woman.' The big woman shook from head to foot as she spoke. Margaret was pained and her fingers tightened nervously on the other's wrist. 'Oh, please don't!' she cried. 'Please don't!' 'He's right,' answered Madame Bonanni, hanging her large head and shaking it despairingly. 'Of course, he's right, and it's true! But, oh!--she looked up again, suddenly--'oh, how much more right it must be for a man to forgive his mother, no matter what she has done!' Margaret's fingers glided from the wrist they held, to the large hand, and pressed it sympathetically, but she could not find anything to say which would do. The friendly pressure, however, evidently meant enough to the distressed woman. 'Thank you, dear,' she said gratefully. 'You're very good to me. I know you mean it, too. Only, you're not placed as he is. If you were my daughter, you would think as he thinks--you would not live under my roof! Perhaps you would not even see me when we met in the street! You would look the other way!' Margaret could not have told, for her life, what she would have done, but she was far too kind-hearted not to protest. 'Indeed I wouldn't!' she cried, with so much energy that Madame Bonanni believed her. 'No matter what I had done?' asked she pathetically eager for the assurance. 'You'd have been my mother just the same,' answered Margaret softly. As the girl spoke, she felt a little sharp revolt in her heart against what she had said, at the mere thought of associating the word 'mother' with Madame Bonanni. There was nothing at all psychological in that, and it would hardly bear analysing even by a professional dissector of character. It was just the natural feeling, in a natural girl, whose mother had been honest and good. But Madame Bonanni only heard the kind words. 'Yes,' she answered, 'I should have been your mother, just the same. But I couldn't have been a better mother to you than I've been to Tom. I couldn't, indeed!' 'No,' Margaret said, in the same gentle tone as before, 'you've been very good to him.' 'Yes! I have! He knows it, and he does not deny it!' Madame Bonanni suddenly sat up quite straight and squeezed Margaret's hands by way of emphasis. 'But he does not care,' she went on, her anger rising a little. 'Not he! He would rather that I should have been any sort of miserable little proper middle-class woman, if I could only have been technically "virtuous"! If I had been that, I might have beaten him to an omelette every day when he was a boy, and tormented him like a gadfly when he was a man! He would have preferred it--oh, by far! That is the logic of men, my dear, their irrefutable logic that they are always talking about and facing us down with! The miserable little animal! I will give up loving him, I will hate him, as he deserves, I will tell him to go to Peru, where he will never see his wicked old mother again! Then he will be sorry, he will wish he were dead, but I shall not go to him, never, never, never!' She spoke the last words with tremendous energy, and a low echo of her voice came back out of the open piano from the strings. She clenched her fist and shook it at an imaginary Lushington in space, and for a moment her face wore a look of Medean menace. Margaret might have smiled, if she had not felt that the strange creature was really and truly suffering, in her own way, to the borders of distraction. Then, suddenly, the great frame was convulsed again and quivered from head to foot. 'I'm going to cry,' she announced, in rather shaky tones. And she cried. She slipped from the piano-stool to the floor, upon her knees, and her heavy arms fell upon the keys with a crashing discord, and her face buried itself in the large depths of one bent elbow, quite regardless of damage to Paquin's masterpiece of a summer sleeve; and with huge sobs the tears welled up and overflowed, taking everything they found in their way, including paint, and washing all down between the ivory keys of Margaret's piano. Margaret saw that there was nothing to be done. At first she tried to soothe her as best she could, standing over her, and laying a hand gently on her shoulder; but Madame Bonanni shook it off with a sort of convulsive shudder, as a big carthorse gets rid of a fly that has settled on a part of his back inaccessible to his tail. Then Margaret desisted, knowing that the fit must go on to its natural end, and that it was hopeless to try and stop it sooner. Women are very practical with each other in crying matters, but it is bad for us men if we treat them in the same sensible way under the identical circumstances. Margaret sat down again in her chair, and instead of taking up her work, she leaned forward towards the weeping woman, to be ready with a word of sympathy as soon as it could be of any use. She watched the heavy head, the strong and coarse dark hair, the large animal construction of the neck and shoulders, the massive hands, discoloured now with straining upon themselves; nothing escaped her, as she quietly waited for the sobbing to cease; and though she felt the peasant nature there, close to her, in all its rugged strength, yet she felt, too, that with certain differences of outward refinement, it was not unlike her own. Her own hair, for instance, was much finer; but then, fair hair is generally finer than dark. Her own hands were smaller than Madame Bonanni's; but then, they had never been used to manual labour when she had been a girl. And as for the rest of her, she knew that Madame Bonanni had been reckoned a beauty in her day, such a beauty that very great and even royal personages indeed had done extremely foolish things to please her; and that very beauty had been in part the cause of those very tears the poor woman was shedding now. Margaret was quite sensible enough to admit that she herself, after a quarter of a century of stage life, might turn into very much the same type of woman. While waiting to be sympathetic at the right moment, therefore, she studied Madame Bonanni's appearance with profound and melancholy interest. She had never had such a good chance. The convulsive sobbing grew regular, then more slow, then merely intermittent, and then it stopped altogether. But before she lifted her face from the hollow of her elbow, Madame Bonanni felt about for something with her other hand; and Margaret, being a woman, knew that she wanted her handkerchief before showing her face, and picked it up and gave it to her. A man would probably have taken the groping fingers and pressed them, or kissed them, probably supposing that to be what was wanted, and thereby much retarding the progress of events. Madame Bonanni pushed up the handkerchief between her face and her elbow and moved it about, with a vague idea of equalising her colour in one general tint, then blew her nose, and then sprang to her feet at once, with that wonderful elasticity which was always so surprising in her sudden movements. Moreover, she got up turning her face away from Margaret, and made for the nearest mirror. 'Lord!' she exclaimed, laconically, as she looked at herself and realised the full extent of the damage done. 'Wouldn't you like to wash your face?' asked Margaret, following her at a discreet distance. 'My dear,' answered Madame Bonanni, in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone, 'it's awful, of course, but there's nothing else to be done!' 'Come into my dressing-room.' 'If I were at home, I should take a bath and dress over a--a--a----' One last most unexpected sob half choked her and then made her cough, till she stamped her foot with anger. 'Bah!' she cried with contempt when she got her breath. 'If I had often made myself look like such a monster, I should have been a perfectly good woman! The men would have run from me like mice from a barn on fire! Have you got any of that Vienna liquid soap, my dear!' Margaret had the liquid soap, as it chanced, and in a few moments she was busily occupied in helping Madame Bonanni to restore her appearance. Though long, the process was only partially successful, from the latter's own point of view. Having washed away all that had been, she produced a gold box from the bag she wore at her side. The box was divided into three compartments containing respectively rouge, white powder and a miniature puff for applying both, which she proceeded to do abundantly, sitting at Margaret's toilet-table and talking while she worked. She had made more confusion in the small dressing-room in five minutes than Margaret could have made in dressing twice over. Paint-stained towels strewed the floor, chairs were upset, soap and water was splashed everywhere. Now she started afresh, by rubbing plentiful daubs of rouge into her dark cheeks. 'But why do you put on so much?' Margaret asked in wonder. 'My dear, I'm an actress,' said Madame Bonanni. 'I'm not ashamed of my profession! If I didn't paint, people would say I was trying to pass myself off for a lady! Besides, now that I have cried, nothing but powder will hide it. Look at my nose, my dear--just look at my nose! Little Miss Donne'--she turned upon Margaret with sudden, tragic energy--'don't ever let that wretched boy know that I cried about him! Eh? Never! Promise you won't!' 'No, indeed! You may trust me. Why should I tell?' 'But it doesn't matter. Tell him if you like. I don't care. My life is over now, and there is no reason why I should care about anything, is there?' 'What do you mean by saying that your life is over?' Margaret asked. Madame Bonanni's head fell upon the edge of the table and she looked at herself in the glass for some moments before she answered. 'I have left the stage,' she said, very quietly. 'Left the stage? For good?' Margaret was amazed. 'Yes. I was not going to have any farewells or last appearances. Those things are only done to make money. Schreiermeyer was very nice about it. He agreed to cancel the rest of my engagements in a friendly way.' 'But why? Why have you done it?' asked Margaret, still bewildered by the news. Madame Bonanni had done one cheek and half the other. She leaned back in the comfortable chair before the glass and looked at herself again, not at all at the effect of her work, but at her eyes, as if she were searching for something. 'There is not room for you and me,' she said, presently. 'I don't understand,' Margaret answered. 'Not room? Where?' 'On the stage. I have been the great lyric soprano a long time. Next month you will be the great lyric soprano--there is not room----' 'Nonsense!' Margaret broke in. 'I shall never be what you are----' 'Not what I was, perhaps, because this is another age. Taste and teaching and the art itself--all have changed. But you are young, fresh, untouched, unheard--all, you have it all, as I had once. You are not the artist I am, but you will be one day, and meanwhile you have all I have no more. If I had stayed on the stage, we should have been rivals next season. They would have said: "Cordova has a better voice, but Bonanni is still the greater artist." Do you see?' 'Yes. And why should you not be pleased at that?' asked Margaret. 'Or why should not I be quite satisfied, and more than satisfied?' 'I wasn't thinking of us,' said Madame Bonanni, looking up to Margaret's face with an expression that was almost beautiful, in spite of the daubs of paint and the disarranged hair. 'I was thinking of him.' Margaret began to guess, and her lip quivered a moment, for she was touched. 'Yes,' she said. 'I think I see.' 'He loves you,' said Madame Bonanni, still looking at her. 'I have guessed it. It is very hard for me to get him to like me a little, and he would not forgive me if the really good critics said I was a better artist than you. That would be one thing more against me, my dear, and he has so many things against me already! So I have given it up. Why should I go on singing, now? He does not care any more. When he has once heard you he will never want to come again and sit in the middle of the theatre all alone in the audience just to hear me, as he often did. Then I sang my best. I never sang as I have sung for him, when I have caught sight of his face in the audience. No, not for kings. I used to go and look through the curtain before it went up, if I thought he was there. And it was just to hear me that he came, just for the artistic pleasure! He never came to my dressing-room, for that destroyed the illusion. But now he will go and hear you, and it would make him very bitter against me if any one said I sang better. Do you understand?' 'Yes. I understand.' Margaret bent her head a little and looked down, wondering and puzzled, yet believing. 'At least I can do that for him.' Madame Bonanni sighed, looking into the glass again. 'I cannot undo my life, but I need not seem to him to be a hindrance in yours.' It was impossible to receive such a confidence without being deeply touched, and Margaret's own voice shook a little as she answered. 'There have not been many mothers like you since the world began,' she said. 'I will tell you!' The singer turned half round in her chair with one of her sudden movements. 'If I had known that I was going to be so fond of him--and oh, my dear, if I could have guessed that he would care so much!--I would have led a different life! I would have left the stage if I could not. Oh, don't think it is so easy to be good! But it's possible! One can--one could, if one only knew--for the sake of some one whom one loves very dearly!' 'Of course it is!' answered Margaret, with all the heavenly self-confidence of untried virtue. Madame Bonanni looked at her with a peculiar expression. There was a little pity in the look, and great doubt, a shade of amusement, perhaps, and a great longing envy through it all. 'Of course?' she repeated, in a thoughtful way. 'Did you mean "of course it is possible--and easy," my dear? The tone of your voice made me think that was what you meant. Yes--you meant that, and you have a right to mean it, but you don't know. That's the great difference--you don't know! You haven't begun as I did. You're a lady, a real lady, brought up amongst ladies from your childhood. But that's not what will keep you good! It's not your refinement, nor your good manners, nor your white hands that never milked a cow, or swept a stable, or hoed the weeds out from between the vines in summer. That was my work till I was seventeen. And my mother was a good woman, my dear, just as good as yours, though she was only a peasant of Provence. How do I know it? If she had not been good, my father would have killed her, of course. That was our custom. And he was good, in his way, too, and kind. He always told me that if I went wrong he would shoot me--and when the English artist came and lodged in our house for the summer and made love to me, my father explained everything to him also. So poor Goodyear saw that he must marry me, and we were married, before I was eighteen. He took me away to Paris, and tried to make a lady of me, and he had me taught to sing, because he loved my voice. Do you see? That was how it all happened--and still I was good, as good as you are! Yes--"of course," as you say! It was easy enough!' 'He died young, didn't he?' Margaret asked quietly. She had seated herself on the corner of the toilet-table to listen, while Madame Bonanni leaned back in the low chair and looked at herself, sometimes absently, sometimes with pity. 'Yes,' she answered. 'He died very soon and left me nothing but Tommy and my voice. Poor Goodyear! He painted very badly, he never sold anything, and his father starved him because he had married me. It was far better that he should die of pneumonia than of hunger, for that would certainly have been the end of it. 'And you went on the stage at once?' Margaret asked, wishing to hear more. Madame Bonanni shrugged her shoulders and leaned forward to the looking-glass. 'I had a fortune in my throat,' she said, daubing rouge on the cheek that was only half done. 'I had been well taught in those years, and there were plenty of managers only too anxious to offer me their protection--managers and other people, too. What could I do?' She shrugged her shoulders again, and laughed a little harshly as she gave a half-shy glance at Margaret. The latter was not a child, but a grown woman of two-and-twenty. She answered gravely. 'With your voice and talent, I don't see why you needed any protection, as you call it.' Madame Bonanni laughed again. 'No? You don't see? All the better, little Miss Donne, all the better for you that you have never been made to see, and perhaps you never will now. I hope not. But I tell you that in Paris, or in London, or Berlin, or Petersburg you may have the voice and talent of Malibran, Grisi and Patti all in one, but if you are not "protected" you will never get any further than leading chorus-girl, and perhaps not so far!' 'No one has protected me,' said Margaret, 'and I've got a good engagement.' The prima donna stared at her for a moment in surprise, and then went on making up her face. The girl had talent, genius, perhaps, but she must be oddly simple if she did not realise that she owed her engagement altogether to the woman who was talking to her. Was Margaret going to take that position from the first? Madame Bonanni wondered. Was she going to deliberately ignore that she had been taken up bodily, as it were, and carried through the short cut to celebrity? Or was it just the simple, stupid, innocent vanity that so often goes with great gifts, making their possessors quite sure that they can never owe the least part of their success to any help received from any one else? Whatever it might be, Madame Bonanni was not the woman to remind Margaret of what had happened. She only smiled a little and put on more powder. 'I'm not defending my life, my dear,' she said, quietly, after a little pause. 'Of what use would that be, now that the best part of it is over--or the worst part? I'm not even asking for your sympathy, am I?' Her voice was suddenly bitter. 'I only care for one human being in the world--I think I never cared for any other, since he was born! Does that make my life worse? It does, doesn't it? In the name of heaven, child,' she broke out fiercely and angrily, without the least warning, 'was no woman ever flattered into playing at love? Not even by a King? Am I the only living woman that has been carried off her feet by royalty? It wasn't only the King, of course--I don't pretend it was--there were others. But that's what Tom will never forgive me--the money and the jewels! What could I do? Throw them in his face, scream outraged virtue and cry that he was offending me, when he had nothing more to ask, and I was half drunk with pride and vanity and amusement, because he was really in love? Tell some great lady, your duchess, your princess, to do that sort of thing--if you think she will! Don't ask it of a Provence girl who has milked the cows and hoed the vines, and then suddenly has half Europe at her feet, and a King into the bargain! There was only one thing in the world that could have saved me then--it would have been to know that Tom would never forgive me. And he was only a little boy--how could I guess?' She looked up almost wildly into Margaret's eyes, and then bent down, resting her forehead upon her hands, on the edge of the table. 'Don't be afraid,' she said, 'I'm not going to cry again--never again, I think! It's over and finished, with the other things!' She remained in the same position nearly a minute, and then sat up quite straight before the glass, as if nothing had happened, and powdered her cheeks again. Margaret sat still on the corner of the table, not at all sure of what she had better say or do. She only hoped that Madame Bonanni would not ask her whether she cared for Lushington and would marry him, supposing that his scruples could be overcome, and she had a strong suspicion that it was to ask this that Madame Bonanni had come to see her. It would be rather hard to answer, Margaret knew, and she turned over words and expressions in her mind. She might have spared herself the trouble, for nothing could have been further from her companion's thoughts just then. The dramatic moment had passed and Margaret had scarcely noticed it, beyond being very much surprised at the news it had brought her of the great singer's retiring from the stage. Perhaps, too, Margaret was a little inclined to doubt whether Madame Bonanni would abide by her resolution in the future, though she was perfectly in earnest at present. 'I shall be at your first night,' said the prima donna, finishing her operations at last, and carefully shutting her little gold box. 'If you have a dress rehearsal, I'll be at that, too.' 'Thank you,' Margaret answered. 'Yes--there is to be a dress rehearsal on Sunday. Schreiermeyer insists on it for me. He's afraid I shall have stage fright because I'm so cool now, I suppose.' She laughed, contentedly and perfectly sure of herself. 'The only thing I don't like is being brought on in the sack to sing that last scene.' 'Eh?' Madame Bonanni stared in surprise. 'The sack,' Margaret repeated. 'The last scene. Don't you know?' 'I know--but it's always left out. Nobody has sung that for years. It's a chorus-girl who is brought on in the bag, and when Rigoletto sees her face he screams and the curtain goes down. You don't mean to say that Schreiermeyer wants you to do the whole scene? 'Yes. We've rehearsed it ever so often. I thought it was strange, too. He says that if it does not please people at the dress rehearsal, we can leave it out on the real night.' 'I never heard of anything so ridiculous in my life!' Madame Bonanni was evidently displeased. She had once done the 'sack' scene herself to satisfy the caprice of a foreign sovereign who wished to see the effect of it, and she had a vivid and disagreeable recollection of being half dragged, half carried, inside a brown canvas bag, and then put down rather roughly; and then, of not knowing at what part of the stage she was, while she listened to Rigoletto's voice; and of the strong, dusty smell of the canvas, that choked her, so that she wanted to cough and sneeze when Rigoletto tore open the bag and let her head out; and then, of having to sing in a very uncomfortable position; and, altogether, of a most disagreeable quarter of an hour just at the very time when she should have been getting her wig and paint off in her dressing-room. Moreover, the scene was a failure, as it always has been wherever it has been tried. She told Margaret this. 'At all events,' she concluded, 'you won't have to do it on the real night.' They were in the larger room again. But for the decided damage done to her sleeve by her tears, Madame Bonanni had restored her outward appearance tolerably well. She stood at the corner of the piano, resting one hand upon it. 'I'm sorry for you, my dear,' she said cheerfully, 'because I've given you so much trouble, but I'm glad I cried as much as I wanted to. It's horribly bad for the voice and complexion, but nothing really refreshes one so much. I felt as if my heart were going to break when I got here.' 'And now?' Margaret smiled, standing beside the elderly woman and idly turning over the music on the desk of the instrument. 'I suppose it has broken,' Madame Bonanni answered. 'At all events, I don't feel it any more. No--really--I don't! He may go to Peru, if he likes--I hope he will, the ungrateful little beast! I'll never think of him again! When you have made your _début_, I'm going to live in the country. There's plenty to do there! Bonanni shall milk cows again and hoe the furrows between the vines this summer! Bonanni shall go back to Provence and be an old peasant woman, where she was once a peasant girl, and married the English painter. Do you think I've forgotten the language, or the songs?' One instant's pause, and the singer's great voice broke out in the small room with a volume of sound so tremendous that it seemed as if it would rend the walls and the ceiling. It was an ancient Provençal song that she sang, in long-drawn cadences with strange falls and wild intervals, the natural music of an ancient, gifted people. It was very short, for she only sang one stanza of it, and in less than a minute it was finished and she was silent again. But her big dark eyes, still swollen and bloodshot, were looking out to a distance far beyond the green trees she saw through the open window. Margaret, who had listened, repeated the wild melody very softly, and sounded each note of it without the words, as if she wished to remember it always; and a nearer sight came back to the elder woman's eyes as she listened to the true notes that never faltered, and were as pure as sounding silver, and as smooth as velvet and as rich as gold. It was a little thing, but one of those little things that only a born great singer could have done faultlessly at the first attempt; and Madame Bonanni listened with rare delight. Then she laughed, as happily as if she had no heartaches in the world. 'Little Miss Donne, little Miss Donne!' she cried, shaking a fat finger, 'you will turn many heads before long! You shall come to my cottage in the autumn, when we have the vintage, and there you will find old Bonanni looking after the work in a ragged straw hat, with no paint on her cheeks. And in the evening we will sit upon the door-step together, and you shall tell me how the heads turned round and round, and I will teach you all the old songs of Provence. Will you come?' 'Indeed, I will,' Margaret answered, smiling. 'I would cross Europe to see you--you have been so good to me. Do you know? I want you to forgive me for what I said in the dressing-room about my engagement. I remember how you looked when I said it, and now I know that you did not understand. Of course I owe it all to you--but that isn't what you meant by--"protection"?' The prima donna's expression changed again, and grew hard and almost sullen. 'Never mind that,' she said, roughly. 'I wasn't thinking of that. I didn't notice what you said.' She turned her back to Margaret, walked to the window and stood there looking out while she put on her gloves. But Margaret was humble, in spite of the rudeness. 'I'm sorry,' she said, following a little way. 'I'm very sorry--I----' Madame Bonanni did not even turn her head to listen. Margaret did not try to say anything more, but broke off and waited patiently. Then the elder woman turned quickly and fiercely, buttoning the last button of her glove. 'If my own son has done much worse to me, why should I care what any one else can do?' she asked. But Margaret was obstinate in her humility and would not be put off. She took one of Madame Bonanni's hands and made her look at her. 'I would not say or do anything that could hurt you for all the world,' said Margaret, very earnestly. 'I won't let you go away thinking that I could, and angry with me. Don't you believe me?' There was no resisting the tone and the look, and Madame Bonanni was not able to be angry long. Her large mouth widened slowly in a bright smile, and the next moment she threw her arms round Margaret and kissed her on both cheeks. 'Bah!' she cried, 'I didn't think I could still be so fond of anybody, since that wretched boy of mine broke my heart! It's ridiculous, but I really believe there's nothing I wouldn't do for you, child!' She was heartily in earnest, though she little guessed what she was going to do for Margaret within a few days. But Margaret, who was really grateful, was nevertheless glad that there was apparently nothing more that Madame Bonanni could do. She was not quite sure that the great singer's retirement would prove final; and on cool reflection she found it hard to believe that the motive for it was the one the latter alleged, and which had so touched her at first that it had brought tears to her eyes. The Anglo-Saxon woman could not help looking at the Latin woman with a little apprehension and a good deal of scepticism. CHAPTER XX The stage was set for the introduction to the first act of _Rigoletto_, the curtain was down, the lights were already up in the house and a good many people were in their seats or standing about and chatting quietly. It was a hot afternoon in July, and high up in the gallery the summer sunshine streamed through an open window full upon the blazing lights of the central chandelier, a straight, square beam of yellow gold thrown across a white fire, and clearly seen through it. It was still afternoon when the dress rehearsal began, but the night would have come when it ended. There is always a pleasant latitude about dress rehearsals, even when the piece is old and there is no new stage machinery to be tried. While the play or the opera is actually going on, everything works quickly as in a real performance, but between the acts, or even between one scene and another, there is a tendency on the part of the actors and the invited public to treat the whole affair as a party of pleasure. Doors of communication are opened which would otherwise be shut, people wander about the house, looking for their friends, and if there is plenty of room they change seats now and then. Many of the people are extremely shabby, others are preternaturally smart; if it is in the daytime everybody wears street clothes and the women rarely take off their hats. It is only at the evening dress rehearsals of important new pieces at the great Paris theatres that the house presents its usual appearance, but then there have been already three or four real dress rehearsals at which the necessary work has been done. The theatre at which Margaret was making her _début_ was a large one in a Belgian city, a big modern house, to all appearance, and really fitted with the usual modern machinery which has completely changed the working of the stage since electricity was introduced. But the building itself was old and was full of queer nooks at the back, and passages and shafts long disused; and it had two stage entrances, one of which was now kept locked, while the other had the usual swinging doors guarded by a sharp-eyed doorkeeper who knew and remembered several thousand faces of actors, singers, authors, painters, and carpenters, and of other privileged persons from princes and bankers to dressmakers' girls who had, or had once had, the right to enter by the stage door. The two entrances were on opposite sides of the building. The one no longer in use led out to a dark, vaulted passage or alley wide enough for a carriage to enter; and formerly the carriages of the leading singers had driven up by that way, entering at one end and going out at the other, but the side that had formerly led to the square before the theatre was now built up, and contained a small shop having a back door in the dark alley, and only the other exit remained, and it opened upon an unfrequented street behind the theatre. The dressing-rooms had been disposed with respect to this old entrance, and their position had never been changed. It had been convenient for the prima donna to be able to reach her carriage after the performance without crossing the stage; whereas, as things were now arranged, she had a long distance to go. The new stage door had been made within the last ten years, so that every one who had known the theatre longer than that was well aware of the existence of the old one, though few people knew that it could still be opened on emergency, as in case of fire, and that it was also used for bringing in the unusually big boxes in which some of the great singers sent their dresses. The dressing-rooms opened upon a wide but ill-lighted corridor which led from the stage near the back on the left; the last dressing-room was the largest and was always the prima donna's. Just beyond it a door closed the end of the passage, leading to the doorkeeper's former vestibule, which was now never lighted, and beyond that a short flight of steps led down to the locked outer door, on the level of the street. In the same corridor there were of course other dressing-rooms which were not all used in _Rigoletto_, an opera which has only two principal women's parts; whereas in the _Huguenots_, for instance, the rooms would all have been full, there would have been a number of maids about and more lights. In _Rigoletto_, too, the contralto does not even come to the theatre to dress until the opera is more than half over, as she is only on in the third act. The Contessa and Giovanna do not count, as they have so little to do. This short explanation of the topography of the building is necessary in order to understand clearly what happened on that memorable afternoon and evening. Margaret Donne was in her dressing-room, quite unaware that anything was going to occur beyond the first great ordeal of singing to a full house, a matter which was of itself enough to fill the day and to bring even Margaret's solid nerves to a state of tension which she had not anticipated. The bravest and coolest men have felt their hearts beating faster just before facing cold steel or going into battle, and almost all of them have felt something else too, which has nothing to do with the heart, and which I can only compare to what many women suffer from when there is going to be a thunderstorm--an indescribable physical restlessness and bodily irritation which make it irksome to stay long in one position and impossible to think consecutively and reasonably about ordinary matters. There is no sport like fighting with real weapons, with the certainty that life itself is depending at every instant on one's own hand and eye. No other game of skill or hazard can compare with that. It is chess, played for life and death, with an element of chance which chess has not; your foot may slip, your eye may be dazzled by a ray of light or a sudden reflection, or if you are not a first-rate player you may miscalculate your distance by four inches, which, in steel, is exactly enough; or if the weapons are fire-arms you may aim a little too high or too low, or the other man may, and that little will mean the difference between time and eternity. But in the scale of emotion and excitement the theatre comes next to fighting, whether you be the author of the play or opera to be given for the first time before the greatest and most critical audience in the world, or the actor, or actress, or singer, who has not yet been heard or seen and of whom wonders are expected on the great night. Margaret had not believed it true, though she had often heard it, and now she was amazed at the strangeness of the physical sensation which came over her and grew till it was almost intolerable. It was not fright, for she longed for the moment of appearing; it was not ordinary nervousness, for she felt that she was as steady as a rock, and now and then, when she tried a few notes, to 'limber' her voice, it was steady, too, and exactly what it always was. Yet she felt as if some tremendous, unseen shape of strength had hold of her and were pressing her to itself; and then again, she was sure that she was going to see something unreal in her brightly-lighted, whitewashed dressing-room, and that if she did see it, she should be frightened. But she saw nothing; nothing but the dresses she was to wear, the handsome court gown of the second act, the limp purple silk tights, the doublet, long cloak and spurred boots of the third, all laid out carefully in their newness, on the small sofa and the chairs. She saw Madame Bonanni's cadaverous maid, too, standing motionless and ready if wanted, and looking at her with a sort of inscrutable curiosity; for the retired prima donna had insisted upon doing Margaret the signal service of passing on to her one of the most accomplished theatrical dressers in Europe. A woman who had made Madame Bonanni look like Juliet or Lucia could make Margarita da Cordova look a goddess from Olympus; and she did, from the theatrical point of view. But Margaret was not yet used to seeing herself in the glass when her face was made up, beautifully though it was done, and she kept away from the two mirrors as much as she could while she slowly paced the well-worn carpet, moving her shoulders now and then, and her arms, as if to make sure that she was at ease in her stage clothes. There was no one in the room but she and the maid. She had particularly asked Schreiermeyer not to come and see her till the end of the second act, and Madame Bonanni stayed away of her own accord, rather to Margaret's surprise, but greatly to her relief. At the last minute Mrs. Rushmore had refused to come at all, and had stayed in France, in a state of excitement and almost terror which made her very unlike herself, and would have rendered her a most disturbing companion. She could not see it, she said. The daughter of her old friend should always be welcome in her house, but Mrs. Rushmore could not face the theatre, to see Margaret come on in the last scene booted and spurred like a man. That was more than she could bear. You might say what you liked, but she would never see Margaret on the stage, never, never! And so she would keep her old illusions about the girl, and it would be easier to welcome her when she came on a visit. Margaret must have a chaperon of course, but she must hire one of those respectable-looking stage mothers who are always to be had when young actresses need them. It would have broken her old friend's heart to see her daughter chaperoned by a 'stage mother,' but it could not be helped. That much protection was necessary. She had burst into a very painful fit of crying when Margaret had left her, and had really suffered more than at any time since the death of the departed Mr. Rushmore. Logotheti had given no sign of life, and Margaret had neither seen him nor heard from him since the eventful day when she had last spoken to him in his own house. He would not even come this evening, she was sure. He had either given her up altogether, or he had amused himself by obeying her to the letter; in which case he would not present himself till after the real performance, which was to take place on the next day but one. He might have written a note, or sent a telegram, she thought; but on the whole she cared very little. If she thought of any one but herself at that moment she thought of Lushington and wished she might see him again between the acts. He had called in the afternoon, and had been very quiet and sympathetic. She had feared that even at the last he would make a scene and entreat her to change her mind, and give up the idea of the stage, at any cost. But instead, he now seemed resigned to her future career, talked cheerfully and predicted unbounded success. She had received very many letters and telegrams from other friends, and some of them lay in a heap on the dressing-table. The greater part were from people who had known her at Mrs. Rushmore's, and who did not look upon her attempt as anything more than the caprice of a gifted amateur. Society always finds it hard to believe that one of its own can leave it and turn professional. It was like Margaret to prefer solitude just then. People who trust themselves would generally rather be alone just before a great event in their lives, and Margaret trusted herself a good deal more than she trusted any one else. Nevertheless, she began to feel that unless something happened soon, the nameless, indescribable pressure she felt would become unbearable, and as she walked the shabby carpet, her step accented itself to a little tramp, like a marching step. The cadaverous maid looked on with curiosity and said nothing. In her long career she had never dressed a _débutante_, and she had heard that _débutantes_ sometimes behaved oddly before going on. Besides, she knew something which Margaret did not know; for when she had come down to the theatre in the morning with the luggage, she had met Madame Bonanni in the dressing-room, and her late mistress had given her a piece of information and some very precise instructions. A moment came when Margaret felt that she could no longer bear the close atmosphere of the small room and the curious eyes of the cadaverous maid, watching her as she walked up and down. Madame Bonanni would have made the woman go out or even stand with her face to the wall, but Margaret had not yet lost that aristocratic sense of consideration for servants which Plato ascribes to pride. Instead of turning the maid out, Margaret suddenly opened the door wide and stood on the threshold, breathing with relief the not very sweet air that came down the corridor from the stage. It came laden with a compound odour of ropes, dusty scenery, mouldy flour paste and cotton velvet furniture, the whole very hot and far from aromatic, but at that moment as refreshing as a sea-breeze to the impatient singer. The smell had already acquired associations for her during the long weeks of rehearsal, and she liked it; for it meant the stage, and music, and the sound of her own beautiful voice, high and clear above the rest. Lushington might think of her when spring violets were near him, Logotheti might associate with her the intoxicating perfumes of the East, but Margaret's favourite scent was already that strange compound of smells which meets the nostrils nowhere in the world except behind the scenes. I have often wondered why the strong draught that comes from the back when the curtain is up does not blow the smell into the house, to the great annoyance of the audience; but it does not. Perhaps, like everything else behind the curtain, it is not real, after all; or perhaps it has a very high specific gravity, and would stay behind even if all the air passed out, preferring the vacuum which nature abhors--nothing would seem too absurd to account for the phenomenon. It did not occur to Margaret to wonder that there should be a draught at all, at the end of a closed corridor. She stood on the threshold, resting one hand on the door-post and looking towards the stage. In the distance she could see it, somewhere in the neighbourhood of what is technically described as L 3, where a group of courtiers and court ladies were standing ready to go on in the Introduction. The border lights were up already, Margaret could see that, and just then she heard the warning signal to be ready to raise the curtain, and the first distant notes of the orchestra reached her ears. She breathed a sigh of relief. The long-wished-for ordeal had begun at last, and the tension of her nerves relaxed. The sensation was strangely delicious and quite new to her; the quiet and solitude of the dressing-room would not be disagreeable now, nor the steady gaze of the sallow-faced maid. She turned half round to step back, and in so doing faced the end of the corridor. She had not the slightest idea of what was beyond the door she saw there, and which she had not noticed before, but she saw that it was now not quite shut, and that it moved slowly on its hinges as if it had been more open until that moment. So far as she knew there was no reason why it should be closed, but a little natural curiosity moved her to go and see what there was on the other side of it. It was not three steps from her own door, yet when she reached it, it was tightly closed, and when she took hold of the handle of the latch it resisted the effort she made to open it, though she had not heard the key turn in the lock. This seemed strange, but being under the influence of a much stronger excitement than she herself realised, she turned back without thinking seriously of it, being willing to believe that her sight had deceived her, where the light was so dim, and that the door had not been really open at all. Her eyes met those of the maid, who had evidently come to the threshold of the dressing-room to watch her. 'I thought that door was open,' she said, as if in answer to a question. The woman said nothing, but passed her quickly and went and tried the lock herself. Though she was so very thin, she was strong, as bony people often are. She tried the handle with both hands, turned it, though with much difficulty, and pulled suddenly with all her might. The door yielded a little at first--not more than half an inch perhaps--but then it closed itself again with a strength far greater than she could resist. She shrugged her shoulders as she desisted and came back. 'It is a disused door,' she said. 'It will not open.' Her tone was so indifferent that Margaret paid little attention to the words, and turned away to listen to the music which reached her from the stage. The curtain was up now, and the courtiers were dancing, up stage; she could see a few of them pass and repass; then she heard the little round of applause that greeted the Duke's appearance as he went forward to begin his scene with Borsa. He had many friends in the invited audience, and was moreover one of the popular light tenors of the day. Doubtless, the elderly woman of the world who worshipped him was there in her glory, in a stage-box, ready to split her gloves when he should sing 'La donna è mobile.' Margaret knew that the wholesale upholsterer who admired the contralto was not far off, for she had seen a man bringing in flowers for her, and no one else would have sent them to her for a mere dress rehearsal. Margaret was so well used to the opera that the time passed quickly after the Duke had begun his scene. The silent maid approached her with a hare's-foot and a saucer, to put a finishing touch on her face, to which she submitted with indifference, listening all the time to the music that came to her through the open door. There was time yet, but she was not impatient any more; the opera had begun and she was a part of it already, before she had set her foot upon the stage, before she had seen, for the first time, the full house before her, instead of the yawning emptiness. It would be dark when she went on, for Gilda's first entrance is in the night scene in the courtyard, but it would not be empty, and perhaps it would not be silent either. It was quite likely that a little encouraging applause for the young _débutante_ would be heard. Margaret smiled to herself as she thought of that. She would make them applaud her in real earnest before the curtain went down, not by way of good-natured encouragement, but whether they would or not. She was very sure of herself, and the cadaverous maid watched her with curiosity and admiration, wondering very much whether such pride might not go before a fall, and end in a violent stage fright. But then, the object of the dress rehearsal was to guard against the consequences of such a misfortune. If Margaret could not sing a note at first, it would not matter to-day, but it would certainly matter a good deal the day after to-morrow. When the end of the Introduction was near, Margaret turned back into the room and sat down before the toilet-table to wait. She heard her maid shut the door, and the loud music of the full orchestra and chorus immediately sounded very faint and far away. When she looked round, she saw that the maid had gone out and that she was quite alone. In ten minutes the scenery would be changed; five minutes after that, and her career would have definitely begun. She folded her whitened hands, leaned back thoughtfully and looked into her own eyes reflected in the mirror. The world knows very little about the great moments in artists' lives. It sees the young prima donna step upon the stage for the first time, smiling in the paint that perhaps hides her deadly pallor. She is so pretty, so fresh, so ready to sing! Perhaps she looks even beautiful; at all events, she is radiant, and looks perfectly happy. The world easily fancies that she has just left her nearest and dearest, her mother, her sisters, in the flies; that they have come with her to the boundary of the Play-King's Kingdom, and are waiting to lead her back to real life when she shall have finished her part in the pretty illusion. The reality is different. Sometimes it is a sad and poor reality, rarely it is tragic; most often it is sordid, uninteresting, matter-of-fact, possibly vulgar; it is almost surely very much simpler than romantic people would wish it to be. As likely as not, the young prima donna is all alone just before going on, as Margaret was, looking at herself in the glass--this last, for one thing, is a certainty; and she is either badly frightened or very calm, for there is no such thing as being 'only a little' frightened the first time. That condition sometimes comes afterwards and may last through life. But pity those whose courage fails them the first time, for there is no more awful sensation for a man or woman in perfect health than to stand alone before a great audience, and suddenly to forget words, music, everything, and to see the faces of the people in the house turned upside down, and the chandelier swinging round like a wind mill while all the other lights tumble into it, and to notice with horror that the big stage is pitching and rolling like the most miserable little steamer that ever went to sea; and to feel that if one cannot remember one's part, one's head will certainly fly off at the neck and join the hideous dance of jumbled heads and lights and stalls and boxes in the general chaos. Margaret, however, deserved no pity on that afternoon, for she was not in the least afraid of anything, except that the courtiers who were to carry her off at the end of her first scene might be clumsy, or that the sack in the last act would be dusty inside and make her sneeze. But as for that, she was willing that the ending should be a failure, as Madame Bonanni said it must be, for she did not mean to do it again if she could possibly help it. She was not afraid, but she was not so very calm as she fancied she was, for afterwards, even on that very evening, she found it impossible to remember anything that happened from the moment when the sallow maid entered the dressing-room again, closely followed by the call-boy, who knocked on the open door and spoke her stage name, until she found herself well out on the stage, in Rigoletto's arms, uttering the girlish cry which begins Gilda's part. The three notes, not very high, not very loud, were drowned in the applause that roared at her from the house. It was so loud, so unexpected, that she was startled for a moment, and remained with one arm on the barytone's shoulder looking rather shyly across the lowered footlights and over the director's head. He had already laid down his baton to wait. 'You must acknowledge that, and I must begin over again,' said the barytone, so loud that Margaret fancied every one must hear him. He moved back a little when he had spoken and left her in the middle of the stage. She drew herself up, bent her head, smiled, and made a little courtesy, all as naturally as if she had never done anything else. Thereupon the clapping grew louder for one instant, and then ceased as suddenly as it had begun. The director raised his baton and looked at her, Rigoletto came forward once more calling to her, and she fell into his arms again with her little cry. There was no sound from the house now, and the silence was so intense that she could easily fancy herself at an ordinary rehearsal, with only a dozen or fifteen people looking on out of the darkness. But she was thinking of nothing now. She was out of the world, in the Play-King's palace, herself a part, and a principal part, of an illusion, an imaginary personage in one of the dreams that great old Verdi had dreamt long ago, in his early manhood. Her lips parted and her matchless voice floated out of its own accord, filling the darkened air; she moved, but she did not know it, though every motion had been studied for weeks; she sung as few have ever sung, but it was to her as if some one else were singing while she listened and made no effort. The duet is long, as Margaret had often thought when studying it, but now she was almost startled because it seemed to her so soon that she found herself once more embracing Rigoletto and uttering a very high note at the same time. Very vaguely she wondered whether the far-off person who had been singing for her had not left out something, and if so, why there had been no hitch. Then came the thunder of applause again, not in greeting now, but in praise of her, long-drawn, tremendous, rising and bursting and falling, like the breakers on an ocean beach. 'Brava! brava!' yelled Rigoletto in her ear; but she could hardly hear him for the noise. She pressed his hand almost affectionately as she courtesied to the audience. If she could have thought at all, she would have remembered how Madame Bonanni had once told her that in moments of great success everybody embraces everybody else on the stage. But she could not think of anything. She was not frightened, but she was dazed; she felt the tide of triumph rising round her heart, and upwards towards her throat, like something real that was going to choke her with delight. The time while she had been singing had seemed short; the seconds during which the applause lasted seemed very long, but the roar sounded sweeter than anything had ever sounded to her before that day. It ceased presently, and Margaret heard from the house that deep-drawn breath just after the applause ended, which tells that an audience is in haste for more and is anticipating interest or pleasure. The conductor's baton rose again and Margaret sang her little scene with the maid, and the few bars of soliloquy that follow, and presently she was launched in the great duet with the Duke, who had stolen forward to throw himself and his high note at her feet with such an air of real devotion, that the elderly woman of the world who admired him felt herself turning green with jealousy in the gloom of her box, and almost cried out at him. He took his full share of the tremendous applause that broke out at the end, almost before the lovers had sung the last note of their parts, but the public made it clear enough that most of it was for Margaret, by yelling out, 'Brava, la Cordova!' again and again. The tenor was led off through the house by the maid at last, and Margaret was left to sing 'Caro nome' alone. Whatever may be said of _Rigoletto_ as a composition--and out of Italy it was looked upon as a failure at first--it is certainly an opera which of all others gives a lyric soprano a chance of showing what she can do at her first appearance. By this time Margaret was beyond the possibility of failure; she had at first sung almost unconsciously, under the influence of a glorious excitement like a beautiful dream, but she was now thoroughly aware of what she was doing and sang the intricate music of the aria with a judgment, a discrimination and a perfectly controlled taste which appealed to the real critics much more than all that had gone before. But the applause, though loud, was short, and hardly delayed Margaret's exit ten seconds. A moment later she was seen on the terrace with her lamp. Madame Bonanni had listened with profound attention to every note that Margaret sang. She was quietly dressed in a costume of very dark stuff, she wore a veil, and few people would have recognised the dark, pale face of the middle-aged woman now that it was no longer painted. She leaned back in her box alone, watching the stage and calling up a vision of herself, from long ago, singing for the first time in the same house. For she had made her _début_ in that very theatre, as many great singers have done. It was all changed, the house, the decorations, the stage entrance, but those same walls were standing which had echoed to her young voice, the same roof was overhead, and all her artist's lifetime was gone by. As Margaret disappeared at last, softly repeating her lover's name, while the conspirators began to fill the stage, the door of the box opened quietly, and Lushington came and sat down close behind his mother. 'Well?' she said, only half turning her head, for she knew it was he. 'What do you think?' 'You know what I think, mother,' he answered. 'You did not want her to do it.' 'I've changed my mind,' said Lushington. 'It's the real thing. It would be a sin to keep it off the stage.' Madame Bonanni nodded thoughtfully, but said nothing. A knock was heard at the door of the box. Lushington got up and opened, and the dark figure of the cadaverous maid appeared in the dim light. Before she had spoken, Madame Bonanni was close to her. 'They are in the chorus,' said the maid in a low voice, 'and there is some one behind the door, waiting. I think it will be now.' That was all Lushington heard, but it was quite enough to awaken his curiosity. Who was in the chorus? Behind which door was some one waiting? What was to happen 'now'? Madame Bonanni reflected a moment before she answered. 'They won't try it now,' she said, at last, very confidently. The maid shrugged her thin shoulders, as if to say that she declined to take any responsibility in the matter, and did not otherwise care much. 'Do exactly as I told you,' Madame Bonanni said. 'If anything goes wrong, it will be my fault, not yours.' 'Very good, Madame,' answered the maid. She went away, and Madame Bonanni returned to her seat in the front of the box, without any apparent intention of explaining matters to Lushington. 'What is happening?' he asked after a few moments. 'Can I be of any use?' 'Not yet,' answered his mother. 'But you may be, by and by. I shall want you to take a message to her.' 'To Miss Donne? When?' 'Have you ever been behind in this theatre? Do you know your way about?' 'Yes. What am I to do?' Madame Bonanni did not answer at once. She was scrutinising the faces of the courtiers on the darkened stage, and wishing very much that there were more light. 'Schreiermeyer is doing things handsomely,' Lushington observed. 'He has really given us a good allowance of conspirators.' 'There are four more than usual,' said Madame Bonanni, who had counted the chorus. 'They make a very good show,' Lushington observed indifferently. 'But I did not think they made much noise in the Introduction, when they were expected to.' 'Perhaps,' suggested Madame Bonanni, 'the four supernumeraries are dummies, put on to fill up.' Just then the chorus was explaining at great length, as choruses in operas often do, that it was absolutely necessary not to make the least noise, while Rigoletto stood at the foot of the ladder, pretending neither to hear them nor to know, in the supposed total darkness, that his eyes were bandaged. 'Have you seen Logotheti?' asked Lushington. 'Not yet, but I shall certainly see him before it's over. I'm sure that he is somewhere in the house.' 'He came over from Paris in his motor car,' Lushington said. 'I know he did.' There was no reason why she should not know that Logotheti had come in his car, but Lushington thought she seemed annoyed that the words should have slipped out. Her eyes were still fixed intently on the stage. She rose to her feet suddenly, as if she had seen something that startled her. 'Wait for me!' she said almost sharply, as she passed her son. She was gone in an instant, and Lushington leaned back in his seat, indifferent to what was going on, since Margaret had disappeared from the stage. As for his mother's unexpected departure, he never was surprised at anything she did, and whatever she did, she generally did without warning, with a rush, as if some one's life depended on it. He fancied that her practised eye had noticed something that did not please her in the stage management, and that she had hurried away to give her opinion. But she had only gone behind to meet Margaret as she was carried off the stage with a handkerchief tied over her mouth. She knew very nearly at what point to wait, and the four big men in costume who came off almost at a run, carrying Margaret between them, nearly ran into Madame Bonanni, whom they certainly did not expect to find there. When she was in the way, in a narrow place, it was quite hopeless to try and pass her. The four men, still carrying Margaret, stopped, but looked bewildered, as if they did not know what to do, and did not set her down. Madame Bonanni sprang at them and almost took her bodily from their arms, tearing the handkerchief from her mouth just in time to let her utter the cry for help which is heard from behind the scenes. It was answered instantly by the courtiers shout of triumph, in which the four men who had carried off Gilda did not join. Margaret gave one more cry, and instantly Madame Bonanni led her quickly away towards her dressing-room, a little shaken and in a very bad temper with the men who had carried her. 'I knew they would be clumsy!' she said. 'So did I,' answered her friend. 'That is why I came round to meet you.' They entered the dim corridor together, and an instant later they both heard the sharp click of a door hastily closed at the other end. It was not the door of Margaret's dressing-room, for that was wide open and the light from within fell across the dark paved floor, nor was it the door of the contralto's room, for that was ajar when they passed it. She had not come in to dress yet. 'That door does not shut well,' Margaret said, indifferently. 'No,' answered Madame Bonanni, in a rather preoccupied tone. 'Where is your maid?' The cadaverous maid came up very quickly from behind, overtaking them with Margaret's grey linen duster. 'They did not carry Mademoiselle out at the usual fly,' she said. 'I was waiting there.' 'They were abominably clumsy,' Margaret said, still very much annoyed. 'They almost hurt me, and somebody had the impertinence to double-knot the handkerchief after I had arranged it! I'll send for Schreiermeyer at once, I think! If I hadn't solid nerves a thing like that might ruin my _début_!' The maid smiled discreetly. The dress rehearsal for Margaret's _début_ was not half over yet, but she had already the dominating tone of the successful prima donna, and talked of sending at once for the redoubtable manager, as if she were talking about scolding the call-boy. And the maid knew very well that if sent for Schreiermeyer would come and behave with relative meekness, because he had a prospective share in the fortune which was in the Cordova's throat. But Madame Bonanni was in favour of temporising. 'Don't send for him, my dear,' she said. 'Getting angry is very bad for the voice, and your duet with Rigoletto in the next act is always trying. They were in the dressing-room now, all three women, and the door was shut. 'Is it all right?' Margaret asked, sitting down and looking into the glass. 'Am I doing well?' 'You don't need me to tell you that! You are magnificent! Divine! No one ever began so well as you, not even I, my dear, not even I myself!' This was said with great emphasis. Nothing, perhaps, could have surprised Madame Bonanni more than that any one should sing better at the beginning than she had sung herself; but having once admitted the fact she was quite willing that Margaret should know it, and be made happy. 'You're the best friend that ever was!' cried Margaret, springing up; and for the first time in their acquaintance she threw her arms round the elder woman's neck and kissed her--hitherto the attack, if I may call it so, had always come from Madame Bonanni, and had been sustained by Margaret. 'Yes,' said Madame Bonanni, 'I'm your best friend now, but in a couple of days you will have your choice of the whole world! Now dress, for I'm going away, and though it's only a rehearsal, it's of no use to keep people waiting.' Margaret looked at her and for the first time realised the change in her appearance, the quiet colours of her dress, the absence of paint on her cheeks, the moderation of the hat. Yet on that very morning Margaret had seen her still in all her glory when she had arrived from Paris. One woman always knows when another notices her dress. Women have a sixth sense for clothes. 'Yes, my dear,' Madame Bonanni said, as soon as she was aware that Margaret had seen the change, 'I did not wish to come to your _début_ looking like an advertisement of my former greatness, so I put on this. Tom likes it. He thinks that I look almost like a human being in it!' 'That's complimentary of him!' laughed Margaret. 'Oh, he wouldn't say such a thing, but I see it is just what he thinks. Perhaps I'll send him to you with a message, by and by, before you get into your sack, while the storm is going on. If I do, it will be because it's very important, and whatever he says comes directly from me.' 'Very well,' Margaret said quietly. 'I shall always take your advice, though I hate that last scene.' 'I'm beginning to think that it may be more effective than we thought,' answered Madame Bonanni, with a little laugh. 'Good-bye, my dear.' 'Won't you come and dine with me afterwards?' asked Margaret, who had begun to change her dress. 'There will only be Madame De Rosa. You know she could not get here in time for the rehearsal, but she is coming before nine o'clock.' 'No, dear. I cannot dine with you to-night. I've made an engagement I can't break. But do you mean to say that anything could keep De Rosa in Paris this afternoon?' Madame Bonanni was very much surprised, for she knew that the excellent teacher almost worshipped her pupil. 'Yes,' said Margaret. 'She wrote me that Monsieur Logotheti had some papers for her to sign to-day before a notary, and that somehow if she did not stay and sign them she would lose most of what she has.' 'That's ingenious!' exclaimed Madame Bonanni, with a laugh. 'Ingenious?' Margaret did not understand. 'Do you mean that Madame De Rosa has invented the story?' 'No, no!' cried the other. 'I mean it was ingenious of fate, you know--to make such a thing happen just to-day.' 'Oh, very!' assented Margaret carelessly, and rather wishing that Madame Bonanni would go away, for though she was turning into a professional artist at an almost alarming rate, she was not yet hardened in regard to little things and preferred to be alone with her maid while she was dressing. But Madame Bonanni had no intention of staying, and now went away rather abruptly, after nodding to her old maid, unseen by Margaret, as if there were some understanding between them, for the woman answered the signal with an unmistakable look of intelligence. In the corridor Madame Bonanni met the contralto taking a temporary leave of the wholesale upholsterer at the door of her dressing-room, a black-browed, bony young Italian woman with the face of a Medea, whose boast it was that with her voice and figure she could pass for a man when she pleased. Madame Bonanni greeted her and stopped a moment. 'Please do not think I have only just come to the theatre,' said the Italian. 'I have been listening to her in the house, though I have heard her so often at rehearsals.' 'Well?' asked the elder woman. 'What do you think of it?' 'It is the voice of an angel--and then, she is handsome, too! But----' 'But what?' 'She is a statue,' answered the contralto in a tone of mingled pity and contempt. 'She has no heart.' 'They say that of most lyric sopranos,' laughed Madame Bonanni. 'I never heard it said of you! You have a heart as big as the world!' The Italian made a circle of her two arms, to convey an idea of the size of the prima donna's heart, while the wholesale upholsterer, who had a good eye, compared the measurement with that lady's waist. 'You bring the tears to my eyes when you sing,' continued the contralto, 'but Cordova is different. She only makes me hate her because she has such a splendid voice!' 'Don't hate her, my dear,' said Madame Bonanni gently. 'She's a friend of mine. And as for the heart, child, it's like a loaf of bread! You must break it to get anything out of it, and if you never break it at all it dries up into a sort of little wooden cannon-ball! Cordova will break hers, some day, and then you will all say that she is a great artist!' Thereupon Madame Bonanni kissed the contralto affectionately, as she kissed most people, nodded and smiled to the wholesale upholsterer, and went on her way to cross the stage and get back to her box. She found Lushington there when she opened the door, looking as if he had not moved since she had left him. He rose as she entered, and then sat down beside her. 'Have you any money with you?' she asked, suddenly. 'Yes. How much do you want?' 'I don't want any for myself. Tom, do something for me. Go out and buy the biggest woman's cloak you can find. The shops are all open still. Get something that will come down to my feet, and cover me up entirely. We are nearly of the same height, and you can measure it on yourself.' 'All right,' said Lushington, who was well used to his mother's caprices. 'And, Tom,' she called, as he was going to the door, 'get a closed carriage and bring it to the stage entrance when you come back. And be quick, my darling child! You must be back in half-an-hour, or you won't hear the duet.' 'It won't take half an hour to buy a cloak,' answered Lushington. 'Oh, I forgot--it must have a hood that will quite cover my head--I mean without my hat, of course!' 'Very well--a big hood. I understand. Anything else?' 'No. Now run, sweet child!' Lushington went out to do the errand, and Madame Bonanni drew back into the shadow of the box, for the lights were up in the house between the acts. She sat quite still, leaning forward and resting her chin on her hand, and her elbow on her knee, thinking. There was a knock at the door; she sprang to her feet and opened, and found a shabby woman, who looked like a rather slatternly servant, standing outside with the box-opener, who had shown her where to find the prima donna. The shabby woman gave her a dingy piece of paper folded and addressed hurriedly in pencil, in Logotheti's familiar handwriting. She spread out the half-sheet and read the contents twice over, looked hard at the messenger and then looked at the note again. 'Who gave you this? Who sent you?' she asked. 'You are Madame Bonanni, are you not?' inquired the woman, instead of answering. 'Of course I am! I want to know who sent you to me.' 'The note is for you, Madame, is it not?' asked the woman, by way of reply. 'Yes, certainly! Can't you answer my question?' Madame Bonanni was beginning to be angry. 'I will take the answer to the note, if there is one,' answered the other, coolly. Madame Bonanni was on the point of flying into a rage, but she apparently thought better of it. The contents of the note might be true after all. She read it again. Dear lady (it said), I am the victim of the most absurd and annoying mistake. I have been arrested for Schirmer, the betting man who murdered his mother-in-law and escaped from Paris yesterday. They will not let me communicate with any one till to-morrow morning and I have had great trouble in getting this line to you. For heaven's sake bring Schreiermeyer and anybody else you can find, to identify me, as soon as possible. I am locked up in a cell in the police station of the Third Arrondissement.---- Yours ever, C. LOGOTHETI. Madame Bonanni looked at the woman again. 'Did you see the gentleman?' she asked. 'What gentleman?' 'The gentleman who is in prison!' 'What prison?' asked the woman with dogged stupidity. 'You're a perfect idiot!' cried Madame Bonanni, and she slammed the door of the box in the woman's face, and bolted it inside. She sat down and read the note a fourth time. There was no doubt as to its being really from Logotheti. She laughed to herself. 'More ingenious than ever!' she said, half aloud. A timid knock at the door of the box. She rose with evident annoyance, and opened again, to meet the respectable old box-opener, a grey-haired woman of fifty-five. 'Please, Madame, is the woman to go away? She seems to be waiting for something.' 'Tell her to go to all the devils!' answered Madame Bonanni, furious. 'No--don't!' she cried. 'Where is she? Come here, you!' she called, seeing the woman at a little distance. 'Do you know what you are doing? You are trying to help Schirmer, the murderer, to escape. If you are not careful you will be in prison yourself before morning! That is the answer! Now go, and take care that you are not caught!' The woman, who was certainly not over-intelligent, stared hard at Madame Bonanni for a moment, and then turned, with a cry of terror, and fled along the circular passage. 'You should not let in such suspicious-looking people,' said Madame Bonanni to the box-opener in a severe tone. The poor soul began an apology, but Madame Bonanni did not stop to listen, and entered the box again, shutting the door behind her. The curtain went up before Lushington came back, but the prima donna did not look at the stage and scarcely heard the tenor's lament, the chorus and the rest. She seemed quite lost in her thoughts. Then Lushington appeared with a big dark cloak on his arm. 'Will this do, mother?' he asked. She stood up and made him put it over her. It had a hood, as she had wished, which quite covered her head and would cover her face, too, if she wished not to be recognised. 'It's just what I wanted,' she said. 'Hang it on the hook by the door, and sit down. Gilda will be on in a minute.' Lushington obeyed, and if he wondered a little at first why his mother should want a big cloak on a suffocating evening in July, he soon forgot all about it in listening to Margaret's duet with Rigoletto. His mother sat perfectly motionless in her seat, her eyes closed, following every note. At the end of the short act, the applause became almost riotous, and if Margaret had appeared before the curtain she would have had an ovation. But in the first place, it was only a rehearsal, after all, and secondly there was no one to call her back after she had gone to her dressing-room to dress for the last act. She heard the distant roar, however, and felt the tide of triumph rising still higher round her heart. If she had been used to her cadaverous maid, too, she would have seen that the woman's manner was growing more deferential each time she saw her. Success was certain, now, a great and memorable success, which would be proclaimed throughout the world in a very few days. The new star was rising fast, and it was the sallow-faced maid's business to serve stars and no others. For the first scene of the last act Gilda puts on a gown over her man's riding-dress; and when Rigoletto sends her off, she has only to drop the skirt, draw on the long boots and throw her riding-cloak round her to come on for the last scene. Of course the prima donna is obliged to come back to her dressing-room to make even this slight change. Madame Bonanni was speaking earnestly to Lushington in an undertone during the interval before the last act, and as he listened to what she said his face became very grave, and his lips set themselves together in a look which his mother knew well enough. The act proceeded, and Margaret's complete triumph became more and more a matter of certainty. She sang with infinite grace and tenderness that part in the quartet which is intended to express the operatic broken heart, while the Duke, the professional murderer, and Maddalena are laughing and talking inside the inn. That sort of thing does not appeal much to our modern taste, but Margaret did what she could to make it touching, and was rewarded with round upon round of applause. Lushington rose quietly at this point, slipped on his thin overcoat, took his hat and the big cloak he had bought, nodded to his mother and left the box. A few moments later she rose and followed him. In due time Margaret reappeared in her man's dress, but almost completely wrapped in the traditional riding mantle. Rigoletto is off when Gilda comes on alone at this point, outside the inn, and the stage gradually darkens while the storm rises. When the trio is over and Gilda enters the ruined inn, the darkness is such, even behind the scenes, that one may easily lose one's way and it is hard to recognise any one. Margaret disappeared, and hurried off, expecting to meet her maid with the sack ready for the final scene. To her surprise a man was standing waiting for her. She could not see his face at all, but she knew it was Lushington who whispered in her ear as he wrapped her in the big cloak he carried. He spoke fast and decidedly. 'That is why the door at the end of the corridor is open to-night,' he concluded. 'I give you my word that it's true. Now come with me.' Margaret had told Lushington not very long ago that he always acted like a gentleman and sometimes like a hero, and she had meant it. After all, the opera was over now, and it was only a rehearsal. If there was no sack scene, no one would be surprised, and there was no time to hesitate not an instant. She slipped her arm through Lushington's, and drawing the hood almost over her eyes with her free hand and the cloak completely round her, she went where he led her. Certainly in all the history of the opera no prima donna ever left the stage and the theatre in such a hurry after her first appearance. One minute had hardly elapsed in all after she had disappeared into the ruined inn, before she found herself driving at a smart pace in a closed carriage, with Lushington sitting bolt upright beside her like a policeman in charge of his prisoner. It was not yet quite dark when the brougham stopped at the door of Margaret's hotel, and the porter who opened the carriage looked curiously at her riding boot and spurred heel as she got out under the covered way. She and Lushington had not exchanged a word during the short drive. He went up in the lift with her and saw her to the door of her apartment. Then he stood still, with his hat off, holding out his hand to say good-bye. 'No,' said Margaret, 'come in. I don't care what the people think!' He followed her into her sitting-room, and she shut the door, and turned up the electric light. When he saw her standing in the full glare of the lamps, she had thrown back her hood; she wore a wig with short tangled hair as part of her man's disguise, and her face was heavily powdered over the paint in order to produce the ghastly pallor which indicates a broken heart on the stage. The heavily-blackened lashes made her eyes seem very dark, while her lips were still a deep crimson. She held her head high, and a little thrown back, and there was something wild and almost fantastic about her looks as she stood there, that made Lushington think of one of Hoffmann's tales. She held out her whitened hand to him; and when he took it he felt the chalk on it, and it was no longer to him the hand of Margaret Donne, but the hand of the Cordova, the great soprano. 'It's of no use,' she said. 'Something always brings us together. I believe it's our fate. Thank you for what you've just done. Thank you--Tom, with all my heart!' And suddenly the voice was Margaret's, and rang true and kind. For had he not saved her, and her career, too, perhaps? She could not but be grateful, and forget her other triumphant self for a moment. There was no knowing where that mad Greek might have taken her if she had gone near the door in the corridor again; it would have been somewhere out of Europe, to some lawless Eastern country whence she could never have got back to civilisation again. 'You must thank my mother,' Lushington answered quietly. 'It was she who found out the danger and told me what to do. But I'm glad you're safe from that brute!' He pressed the handsome, chalked hand in his own and then to his lips when he had spoken, in a very un-English way; for, after all, he was the son of Madame Bonanni, the French singer, and only half an Anglo-Saxon. * * * * * The last thing Madame Bonanni remembered, before a strangely sweet and delicious perfume had overpowered her senses, was that she had congratulated herself on not having believed that Logotheti was really in prison, arrested by a mistake. How hugely ingenious he had been, she thought, in trying to get poor Margaret's best friends out of the way! But at that point, while she felt herself being carried along in the sack as swiftly and lightly as if she had been a mere child, she suddenly fell asleep. She never had any idea how long she was unconscious, but she afterwards calculated that it must have been between twenty minutes and half an hour, and she came to herself just as she felt that she was being laid in a comfortable position on a luxuriously cushioned sofa. She heard heavy retreating footsteps, and then she felt that a hand was undoing the mouth of the sack above her head. 'Dearest lady,' said a deep voice, with a sort of oily, anticipative gentleness in it, 'can you forgive me my little stratagem?' The voice spoke very softly, as if the speaker were not at all sure that she was awake; but when she heard it, Madame Bonanni started, for it was certainly not the voice of Constantine Logotheti, though it was strangely familiar to her. The sack was drawn down from her face quickly and skilfully. At the same time some slight sound from the door of the room made the man look half round. In the softly lighted room, against the pale silk hangings, Madame Bonanni saw a tremendous profile over a huge fair beard that was half grey, and one large and rather watery blue eye behind a single eyeglass with a broad black riband. Before the possessor of these features turned to look at her, she uttered a loud exclamation of amazement. Logotheti was really in prison, after all. Instantly the watery blue eyes met her own. Then the eyeglass dropped from its place, the jaw fell, with a wag of the fair beard, and a look of stony astonishment and blank disappointment came into all the great features, while Madame Bonanni broke into a peal of perfectly uncontrollable laughter. And with the big-hearted woman's laugh ends the first part of this history. THE END FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size. Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume, postpaid. THE SHUTTLE, By Frances Hodgson Burnett With inlay cover in colors by Clarence F. Underwood. This great international romance relates the story of an American girl who, in rescuing her sister from the ruins of her marriage to an Englishman of title, displays splendid qualities of courage, tact and restraint. As a study of American womanhood of modern times, the character of Bettina Vanderpoel stands alone in literature. As a love story, the account of her experience is magnificent. The masterly handling, the glowing style of the book, give it a literary rank to which very few modern novels have attained. THE MAKING OF A MARCHIONESS, By Frances Hodgson Burnett Illustrated with half tone engravings by Charles D. Williams. With initial letters, tail-pieces, decorative borders. Beautifully printed, and daintily bound, and boxed. A delightful novel in the author's most charming vein. The scene is laid in an English country house, where an amiable English nobleman is the centre of matrimonial interest on the part of both the English and Americans present. Graceful, sprightly, almost delicious in its dialogue and action. It is a book about which one is tempted to write ecstatically. THE METHODS OF LADY WALDERHURST, By Francis Hodgson Burnett A Companion Volume to "The Making of Marchioness." With illustrations by Charles D. Williams, and with initial letters, tail-pieces, and borders, by A. K. Womrath. Beautifully printed and daintily bound, and boxed. "The Methods of Lady Walderhurst" is a delightful story which combines the sweetness of "The Making of a Marchioness," with the dramatic qualities of "A Lady of Quality." Lady Walderhurst is one of the most charming characters in modern fiction. VAYENNE, By Percy Brebner With illustrations by E. Fuhr. This romance like the author's _The Princess Maritza_ is charged to the brim with adventure. Sword play, bloodshed, justice grown the multitude, sacrifice, and romance, mingle in dramatic episodes that are born, flourish, and pass away on every page. * * * * * GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size. Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked beauty and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume, postpaid. A SIX-CYLINDER COURTSHIP, By Edw. Salisbury Field With a color frontispiece by Harrison Fisher, and illustrations by Clarence F. Underwood, decorated pages and end sheets. Harrison Fisher head in colors on cover. Boxed. A story of cleverness. It is a jolly good romance of love at first sight that will be read with undoubted pleasure. Automobiling figures in the story which is told with light, bright touches, while a happy gift of humor permeates it all. "The book is full of interesting folks. The patois of the garage is used with full comic and realistic effect, and effervescently, culminating in the usual happy finish."--_St. Louis Mirror._ AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW, By Gene Stratton-Porter Author of "FRECKLES" With illustrations in color by Oliver Kemp, decorations by Ralph Fletcher Seymour and inlay cover in colors. The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love; the friendship that gives freely without return, and the love that seeks first the happiness of the object. The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature and its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all. JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS, By Alice MacGowan With illustrations in colors, and inlay cover by George Wright. No one can fail to enjoy this moving tale with its lovely and ardent heroine, its frank, fearless hero, its glowing love passages, and its variety of characters, captivating or engaging humorous or saturnine, villains, rascals, and men of good will. A tale strong and interesting in plot, faithful and vivid as a picture of wild mountain life, and in its characterization full of warmth and glow. A MILLION A MINUTE, By Hudson Douglas With illustrations by Will Grefe. Has the catchiest of titles, and it is a ripping good tale from Chapter I to Finis--no weighty problems to be solved, but just a fine running story, full of exciting incidents, that never seemed strained or improbable. It is a dainty love yarn involving three men and a girl. There is not a dull or trite situation in the book. * * * * * GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size. Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume, postpaid. CONJUROR'S HOUSE, By Stewart Edward White Dramatized under the title of "THE CALL OF THE NORTH." Illustrated from Photographs of Scenes from the Play. _Conjuror's House_ is a Hudson Bay trading port where the Fur Trading Company tolerated no rivalry. Trespassers were sentenced to "La Longue Traverse"--which meant official death. How Ned Trent entered the territory, took _la longue traverse_, and the journey down the river of life with the factor's only daughter is admirably told. It is a warm, vivid, and dramatic story, and depicts the tenderness and mystery of a woman's heart. ARIZONA NIGHTS, By Stewart Edward White. With illustrations by N. C. Wyeth, and beautiful inlay cover. A series of spirited tales emphasizing some phase of the life of the ranch, plains and desert, and all, taken together, forming a single sharply-cut picture of life in the far Southwest. All the tonic of the West is in this masterpiece of Stewart Edward White. THE MYSTERY, By Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams With illustrations by Will Crawford. For breathless interest, concentrated excitement and extraordinarily good storytelling on all counts, no more completely satisfying romance has appeared for years. It has been voted the best story of its kind since _Treasure Island_. LIGHT-FINGERED GENTRY. By David Graham Phillips With illustrations. Mr. Phillips has chosen the inside workings of the great insurance companies as his field of battle; the salons of the great Fifth Avenue mansions as the antechambers of his field of intrigue; and the two things which every natural, big man desires, love and success, as the goal of his leading character. The book is full of practical philosophy, which makes it worth careful reading. THE SECOND GENERATION, By David Graham Phillips With illustrations by Fletcher C. Ramson, and inlay cover. "It is a story that proves how, in some cases, the greatest harm a rich man may do his children, is to leave them his money. A strong, wholsome story of contemporary American life--thoughtful, well-conceived and admirably written; forceful, sincere, and true; and intensely interesting."--_Boston Herald._ * * * * * GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size. Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume, postpaid. NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA, By Kate Douglas Wiggin With illustrations by F. C. Yohn. Additional episodes in the girlhood of the delightful little heroine at Riverboro which were not included in the story of "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," and they are as characteristic and delightful as any part of that famous story. Rebecca is as distinct a creation in the second volume as in the first. THE SILVER BUTTERFLY, By Mrs. Wilson Woodrow With illustrations in colors by Howard Chandler Christy. A story of love and mystery, full of color, charm, and vivacity, dealing with a South American mine, rich beyond dreams, and of a New York maiden, beyond dreams beautiful--both known as the Silver Butterfly. Well named is _The Silver Butterfly_! There could not be a better symbol of the darting swiftness, the eager love plot, the elusive mystery and the flashing wit. BEATRIX OF CLARE, By John Reed Scott With illustrations by Clarence F. Underwood. A spirited and irresistibly attractive historical romance of the fifteenth century, boldly conceived and skilfully carried out. In the hero and heroine Mr. Scott has created a pair whose mingled emotions and alternating hopes and fears will find a welcome in many lovers of the present hour. Beatrix is a fascinating daughter of Eve. A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE RICH, By Joseph Medill Patterson Frontispiece by Hazel Martyn Trudeau, and illustrations by Walter Dean Goldbeck. Tells the story of the idle rich, and is a vivid and truthful picture of society and stage life written by one who is himself a conspicuous member of the Western millionaire class. Full of grim satire, caustic wit and flashing epigrams. "Is sensational to a degree in its theme, daring in its treatment, lashing society as it was never scourged before."--_New York Sun._ * * * * * GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK 
13932	----	WHOSOEVER SHALL OFFEND by F. MARION CRAWFORD Author of _Saracinesca_, _The Heart Of Rome_, etc, etc. With Eight Illustrations Drawn in Rome with the Author's Suggestions by Horace T. Carpenter 1905 "Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a mill stone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea" [Illustration: "SUDDENLY HE HEARD AN ITALIAN VOICE VERY NEAR TO HIM, CALLING HIM BY NAME, IN A TONE OF SURPRISE"] ILLUSTRATIONS "Suddenly he heard an Italian voice very near to him, calling him by name, in a tone of surprise" "'I call it the sleeping death,' answered the Professor" "He flushed again, very angry this time, and he moved away to leave her, without another word" " ... the door was darkened, and the girl stood there with a large copper 'conca' ..." "He moved a step towards the bed, and then another, forcing himself to go on" "Ercole left his home after sunset that evening" "Regina made a steady effort, lifting fully half Aurora's weight with her" "She sat there like a figure of grief outlined in black against the moonlight on the great wall" CHAPTER I When the widow of Martino Consalvi married young Corbario, people shook their heads and said that she was making a great mistake. Consalvi had been dead a good many years, but as yet no one had thought it was time to say that his widow was no longer young and beautiful, as she had always been. Many rich widows remain young and beautiful as much as a quarter of a century, or even longer, and the Signora Consalvi was very rich indeed. As soon as she was married to Folco Corbario every one knew that she was thirty-five years old and he was barely twenty-six, and that such a difference of ages on the wrong side was ridiculous if it was not positively immoral. No well-regulated young man had a right to marry a rich widow nine years older than himself, and who had a son only eleven years younger than he. A few philosophers who said that if the widow was satisfied the matter was nobody's business were treated with the contempt they deserved. Those who, on the contrary, observed that young Corbario had married for money and nothing else were heard with favour, until the man who knew everything pointed out that as the greater part of the fortune would be handed over to Marcello when he came of age, six years hence, Corbario had not made a good bargain and might have done better. It was true that Marcello Consalvi had inherited a delicate constitution of body, it had even been hinted that he was consumptive. Corbario would have done better to wait another year or two to see what happened, said a cynic, for young people often died of consumption between fifteen and twenty. The cynic was answered by a practical woman of the world, who said that Corbario had six years of luxury and extravagance before him, and that many men would have sold themselves to the devil for less. After the six years the deluge might come if it must; it was much pleasanter to drown in the end than never to have had the chance of swimming in the big stream at all, and bumping sides with the really big fish, and feeling oneself as good as any of them. Besides, Marcello was pale and thin, and had been heard to cough; he might die before he came of age. The only objection to this theory was that it was based on a fiction; for the whole fortune had been left to the Signora by a childless relation. These amiable and interesting views were expressed with variations by people who knew the three persons concerned, and with such a keen sense of appropriate time and place as made it quite sure that none of the three should ever know what was said of them. The caution of an old fox is rash temerity compared with the circumspection of a first-rate gossip; and when the gossips were tired of discussing Folco Corbario and his wife and her son, they talked about other matters, but they had a vague suspicion that they had been cheated out of something. A cat that has clawed all the feathers off a stuffed canary might feel just what they did. For nothing happened. Corbario did not launch into wild extravagance after all, but behaved himself with the faultless dulness of a model middle-aged husband. His wife loved him and was perfectly happy, and happiness finally stole her superfluous years away, and they evaporated in the sunshine, and she forgot all about them. Marcello Consalvi, who had lost his father when he was a mere child, found a friend in his mother's husband, and became very fond of him, and thought him a good man to imitate; and in return Corbario made a companion of the fair-haired boy, and taught him to ride and shoot in his holidays, and all went well. Moreover, Marcello's mother, who was a good woman, told him that the world was very wicked; and with the blind desire for her son's lasting innocence, which is the most touching instinct of loving motherhood, she entreated him to lead a spotless life. When Marcello, in the excusable curiosity of budding youth, asked his stepfather what that awful wickedness was against which he was so often warned, Corbario told him true stories of men who had betrayed their country and their friends, and of all sorts of treachery and meanness, to which misdeeds the boy did not feel himself at all inclined; so that he wondered why his mother seemed so very anxious lest he should go astray. Then he repeated to her what Corbario had told him, and she smiled sweetly and said nothing, and trusted her husband all the more. She felt that he understood her, and was doing his best to help her in making Marcello what she wished him to be. The boy was brought up at home; in Rome in the winter, and in summer on the great estate in the south, which his father had bought and which was to be a part of his inheritance. He was taught by masters who came to the house to give their lessons and went away as soon as the task was over. He had no tutor, for his mother had not found a layman whom she could trust in that capacity, and yet she understood that it was not good for a boy to be followed everywhere by a priest. Besides, Corbario gave so much of his time to his stepson that a tutor was hardly needed; he walked with him and rode with him, or spent hours with him at home when the weather was bad. There had never been a cross word between the two since they had met. It was an ideal existence. Even the gossips stopped talking at last, and there was not one, not even the most ingeniously evil-tongued of all, that prophesied evil. They raised their eyebrows, and the more primitive among them shrugged their shoulders a little, and smiled. If Providence really insisted upon making people so perfect, what was to be done? It was distressing, but there was nothing to be said; they must just lead their lives, and the gossips must bear it. No doubt Corbario had married for money, since he had nothing in particular and his wife had millions, but if ever a man had married for money and then behaved like an angel, that man was Folco Corbario and no other. He was everything to his wife, and all things to his stepson--husband, father, man of business, tutor, companion, and nurse; for when either his wife or Marcello was ill, he rarely left the sick-room, and no one could smooth a pillow as he could, or hold a glass so coaxingly to the feverish lips, or read aloud so untiringly in such a gentle and soothing voice. No ascendency of one human being over another is more complete than that of a full-grown man over a boy of sixteen, who venerates his elder as an ideal. To find a model, to believe it perfection, and to copy it energetically, is either a great piece of good fortune, or a misfortune even greater; in whatever follows in life, there is the same difference between such development and the normally slow growth of a boy's mind as that which lies between enthusiasm and indifference. It is true that where there has been no enthusiastic belief there can be no despairing disillusionment when the light goes out; but it is truer still that hope and happiness are the children of faith by the ideal. A boy's admiration for his hero is not always well founded; sometimes it is little short of ridiculous, and it is by no means always harmless. But no one found fault with Marcello for admiring his stepfather, and the attachment was a source of constant satisfaction to his mother. In her opinion Corbario was the handsomest, bravest, cleverest, and best of men, and after watching him for some time even the disappointed gossips were obliged to admit, though without superlatives, that he was a good-looking fellow, a good sportsman, sufficiently well gifted, and of excellent behaviour. There was the more merit in the admission, they maintained, because they had been inclined to doubt the man, and had accused him of marrying out of pure love of money. A keen judge of men might have thought that his handsome features were almost too still and too much like a mask, that his manner was so quiet as to be almost expressionless, and that the soft intonation of his speech was almost too monotonous to be natural. But all this was just what his wife admired, and she encouraged her son to imitate it. His father had been a man of quick impulses, weak to-day, strong to-morrow, restless, of uncertain temper, easily enthusiastic and easily cast down, capable of sudden emotions, and never able to conceal what he felt if he had cared to do so. Marcello had inherited his father's character and his mother's face, as often happens; but his unquiet disposition was tempered as yet by a certain almost girlish docility, which had clung to him from childhood as the result of being brought up almost entirely by the mother he worshipped. And now, for the first time, comparing him with her second husband, she realised the boy's girlishness, and wished him to outgrow it. Her own ideal of what even a young man should be was as unpractical as that of many thoroughly good and thoroughly unworldly mothers. She wished her son to be a man at all points, and yet she dreamed that he might remain a sort of glorified young girl; she desired him to be well prepared to face the world when he grew up, and yet it was her dearest wish that he might never know anything of the world's wickedness. Corbario seemed to understand her better in this than she understood herself, and devoted his excellent gifts and his almost superhuman patience to the task of forming a modern Galahad. Her confidence in her husband increased month by month, and year by year. "I wish to make a new will," she said to her lawyer in the third year of her marriage. "I shall leave my husband a life-interest in a part of my fortune, and the reversion of the whole in case anything should happen to my son." The lawyer was a middle-aged man, with hard black eyes. While he was listening to a client, he had a habit of folding his arms tightly across his chest and crossing one leg over the other. When the Signora Corbario had finished speaking he sat quite still for a moment, and then noiselessly reversed the crossing of his legs and the folding of his arms, and looked into her face. It was very gentle, fair, and thoughtful. "I presume," answered the lawyer, "that the clause providing for a reversion is only intended as an expression of your confidence in your husband?" "Affection," answered the Signora, "includes confidence." The lawyer raised one eyebrow almost imperceptibly, and changed his position a little. "Heaven forbid," he said, "that any accident should befall your son!" "Heaven forbid it!" replied the Signora. "He is very strong," she continued, in the tone people use who are anxious to convince themselves of something doubtful. "Yet I wish my husband to know that, after my son, he should have the first right." "Shall you inform him of the nature of your will, Signora?" inquired the lawyer. "I have already informed him of what I mean to do," replied Signora Corbario. Again the lawyer's eyebrow moved a little nervously, but he said nothing. It was not his place to express any doubt as to the wisdom of the disposition. He was not an old family adviser, who might have taken such a liberty. There had been such a man, indeed, but he was dead. It was the duty of the rich woman's legal adviser to hinder her from committing any positive legal mistake, but it was not his place to criticise her judgment of the man she had chosen to marry. The lawyer made a few notes without offering any comment, and on the following day he brought the will for the Signora to sign. By it, at her death, Marcello, her son, was to inherit her great fortune. Her husband, Folco Corbario, was constituted Marcello's sole guardian, and was to enjoy a life-interest in one-third of the inheritance. If Marcello died, the whole fortune was to go to Corbario, without any condition or reservation whatsoever. When the will was executed, the Signora told her husband that she had done what she intended. "My dear," said Corbario, gently, "I thank you for the true meaning of it. But as for the will itself, shall we talk of it thirty years hence, when Marcello's children's children are at your knee?" He kissed her hand tenderly. CHAPTER II Marcello stood at an open window listening to the musical spring rain and watching the changing lights on the city below him, as the dove-coloured cloud that floated over Rome like thin gauze was drawn up into the sunshine. Then there were sudden reflections from distant windows and wet domes, that blazed like white fires for a little while, till the raindrops dried and the waves of changing hues that had surged up under the rain, rising, breaking, falling, and spreading, subsided into a restful sea of harmonious colour. After that, the sweet smell of the wet earth came up to Marcello's nostrils. A light breeze stirred the dripping emerald leaves, and the little birds fluttered down and hopped along the garden walks and over the leaves, picking up the small unwary worms that had been enjoying a bath while their enemies tried to keep dry under the ilex boughs. Marcello half closed his eyes and drank the fragrant air with parted lips, his slim white hands resting on the marble sill. The sunshine made his pale face luminous, and gilded his short fair hair, casting the shadow of the brown lashes upon his delicate cheeks. There was something angel-like in his expression--the look of the frescoed angels of Melozzo da Forli in the Sacristy of St. Peter's. They are all that is left of something very beautiful, brought thither broken from the Church of the Holy Apostles; and so, too, one might have fancied that Marcello, standing at the window in the morning sunshine, belonged to a world that had long passed away--fit for a life that was, fit for a life to come hereafter, perhaps, but not fit for the life that is. There are rare and beautiful beings in the world who belong to it so little that it seems cruelty and injustice to require of them what is demanded of us all. They are born ages too late, or ages too soon; they should not have been born now. Their very existence calls forth our tenderest sympathy, as we should pity a fawn facing its death among wolves. But Marcello Consalvi had no idea that he could deserve pity, and life looked very bright to him, very easy, and very peaceful. He could hardly have thought of anything at all likely to happen which could darken the future, or even give him reasonable cause for anxiety. There was no imaginative sadness in his nature, no morbid dread of undefined evil, no melancholy to dye the days black; for melancholy is more often an affliction of the very strong in body or mind than of the weak, or of average men and women. Marcello was delicate, but not degenerate; he seemed gentle, cheerful, and ready to believe the world a very good place, as indeed it is for people who are not too unlike their neighbours to enjoy it, or too unlucky to get some of its good things, or too weak to work, fight, and love, or too clever to be as satisfied with themselves as most men are. For plain, common, everyday happiness and contentment belong to plain, average people, who do what others do and have a cheerfully good opinion of themselves. Can a man make a good fight of it if he does not believe himself to be about as good as his adversary? It had never occurred to Marcello that he might have to fight for anything, and if some one had told him on that spring morning that he was on the very verge of a desperate struggle for existence against overwhelming odds, he would have turned his bright eyes wonderingly to the prophet of evil, asking whence danger could come, and trying to think what it might be like. At the first appearance of it he would have been startled into fear, too, as many a grown man has been before now, when suddenly brought face to face with an unknown peril, being quite untried: and small shame to him. He who has been waked from a peaceful sleep and pleasant dreams to find death at his throat, for the first time in his life, knows the meaning of that. Samson was a tried warrior when Delilah first roused him with her cry, "The Philistines are upon thee!" Marcello was no youthful Samson, yet he was not an unmanly boy, for all his bringing up. So far as his strength would allow he had been accustomed to the exercises and sports of men: he could ride fearlessly, if not untiringly; he was a fair shot; he had hunted wild boar with his stepfather in the marshy lands by the sea; he had been taught to fence and was not clumsy with weapons, though he had not yet any great skill. He had always been told that he was delicate and must be careful, and he knew that he was not strong; but there was one good sign in that his weakness irritated him and bred at least the desire for strength, instead of the poor-spirited indolence that bears bodily infirmity as something inevitable, and is ready to accept pity if not to ask for it. The smell of the damp earth was gone, and as the sun shone out the air was filled with the scent of warm roses and the faintly sweet odour of wistaria. Marcello heard a light footstep close to him, and met his mother's eyes as he turned. Even to him, she looked very young just then, as she stood in the light, smiling at him. A piece of lace was drawn half over her fair hair, and the ends went round her throat like a scarf and fell behind her. Its creamy tints heightened the rare transparency of her complexion by faint contrast. She was a slight woman and very graceful. "I have looked for you everywhere," she said, and she still smiled, as if with real pleasure at having found him. "I have been watching the shower" Marcello answered, drawing her to the window. "And then the earth and the roses smelt so sweet that I stayed here. Did you want me, mother?" "I always like to know where you are." She passed her arm through his with a loving pressure, and looked out of the window with him. The villa stood on the slope of the Janiculum, close to the Corsini gardens. "Do I run after you too much?" the mother asked presently, as if she knew the answer. "Now that you are growing up, do I make you feel as if you were still a little boy? You are nearly nineteen, you know! I suppose I ought to treat you like a man." Marcello laughed, and his hand slipped into hers with an almost childish and nestling movement. "You have made a man of me," he answered. Had she? A shadow of doubt crossed her thoughtful face as she glanced at his. He was so different from other young men of his age, so delicately nurtured, so very gentle; there was the radiance of maidenly innocence in his look, and she was afraid that he might be more like a girl than a man almost grown. "I have done my best," she said. "I hope I have done right." He scarcely understood what she meant, and his expression did not change. "You could not do anything that was not right," he answered. Perhaps such a being as Marcello would be an impossibility anywhere but in Italy. Modern life tears privacy to tatters, and privacy is the veil of the temple of home, within which every extreme of human development is possible, good and bad. Take privacy away and all the strangely compound fractions of humanity are soon reduced to a common denomination. In Italy life has more privacy than anywhere else west of Asia. The Englishman is fond of calling his home his castle, but it is a thoroughfare, a market-place, a club, a hotel, a glass house, compared with that of an average Italian. An Englishman goes home to escape restraint: an Italian goes out. But the northern man, who lives much in public, learns as a child to conceal what he feels, to be silent, to wear an indifferent look; whereas the man of the south, who hides nothing when the doors of his house are shut, can hide but little when he meets his enemy in the way. He laughs when he is pleased, and scowls when he is not, threatens when he is angry, and sheds tears when he is hurt, with a simplicity that too often excites the contempt of men accustomed to suffer or enjoy without moving a muscle. Privacy favours the growth of individual types, differing widely from each other; the destruction of it makes people very much alike. Marcello's mother asked herself whether she had done well in rearing him as a being apart from those amongst whom he must spend his life. And yet, as she looked at him, he seemed to be so nearly the ideal of which she had dreamt throughout long years of loving care that she was comforted, and the shadow passed away from her sweet face. He had answered that she could do nothing that was not right; she prayed that his words might be near the truth, and in her heart she was willing to believe that they were almost true. Had she not followed every good impulse of her own good heart? Had she not tried to realize literally for him the most beautiful possibilities of the Christian faith? That, at least, was true, and she could tell herself so without any mistaken pride. How, then, had she made any mistake? The boy had the face of a young saint. "Are you ready, my dear?" she asked suddenly, as a far-off clock struck. "Yes, mother, quite ready." "I am not," she answered with a little laugh. "And Folco is waiting, and I hear the carriage driving up." She slipped from Marcello's side and left the room quickly, for they were going to drive down to the sea, to a little shooting-lodge that belonged to them near Nettuno, a mere cottage among the trees by the Roman shore, habitable only in April and May, and useful only then, when the quail migrate along the coast and the malarious fever is not yet to be feared. It was there that Marcello had first learned to handle a gun, spending a week at a time there with his stepfather; and his mother used to come down now and then for a day or two on a visit, sometimes bringing her friend the Contessa dell' Armi. The latter had been very unhappy in her youth, and had been left a widow with one beautiful girl and a rather exiguous fortune. Some people thought that it was odd that the Signora Corbario, who was a saint if ever there was one, should have grown so fond of the Contessa, for the latter had seen stormy days in years gone by; and of course the ill-disposed gossips made up their minds that the Contessa was trying to catch Marcello for her daughter Aurora, though the child was barely seventeen. This was mere gossip, for she was quite incapable of any such scheme. What the gossips did not know was something which would have interested them much more, namely, that the Contessa was the only person in Rome who distrusted Folco Corbario, and that she was in constant fear lest she should turn out to be right, and lest her friend's paradise should be suddenly changed into a purgatory. But she held her tongue, and her quiet face never betrayed her thoughts. She only watched, and noted from month to month certain small signs which seemed to prove her right; and she should be ready, whenever the time should come, by day or night, to help her friend, or comfort her, or fight for her. If Corbario guessed that the Contessa did not trust him, he never showed it. He had found her installed as his wife's friend, and had accepted her, treating her with much courtesy and a sort of vicarious affection; but though he tried his best he could not succeed in reaching anything like intimacy with her, and while she seemed to conceal nothing, he felt that she was hiding her real self from him. Whether she did so out of pride, or distrust, or jealousy, he could never be sure. He was secretly irritated and humiliated by her power to oppose him and keep him at a distance without ever seeming to do so; but, on the other hand, he was very patient, very tenacious of his purpose, and very skilful. He knew something of the Contessa's past, but he recognised in her the nature that has known the world's worst side and has done with it for ever, and is lifted above it, and he knew the immense influence which the spectacle of a blameless life exercises upon the opinion of a good woman who has not always been blameless herself. Whatever he had been before he met his wife, whatever strange plans had been maturing in his brain since he had married her, his life had seemed as spotless from that day as the existence of the best man living. His wife believed in him, and the Contessa did not; but even she must in time accept the evidence of her senses. Then she, too, would trust him. Why it was essential that she should, he alone knew, unless he was merely piqued by her quiet reserve, as a child is when it cannot fix the attention of a grown-up person. The Contessa and her daughter were to be of the party that day, and the carriage stopped where they lived, near the Forum of Trajan. They appeared almost directly, the Contessa in grey with a grey veil and Aurora dressed in a lighter shade, the thick plaits of her auburn hair tied up short below her round straw hat, on the theory that she was still a school-girl, whose skirt must not quite touch the ground, who ought not to wear a veil, and whose mind was supposed to be a sensitive blank, particularly apt to receive bad impressions rather than good ones. In less than a year she would be dancing all night with men she had scarcely heard of before, listening to compliments of which she had never dreamt--of course not--and to declarations which no right-minded girl one day under eighteen could under any circumstances be thought to expect. Such miracles as these are wrought by the eighteenth birthday. Corbario's eyes looked from the mother to the daughter, as he and Marcello stood on the pavement to let them get in. The Contessa touched his outstretched hand without restraint but without cordiality, smiling just as much as was civil, and less readily than would have been friendly. Aurora glanced at him and laughed prettily without any apparent reason, which is the privilege of very young girls, because their minds are supposed to be a blank. Also because her skirt must not quite touch the ground, one very perfect black silk ankle was distinctly visible for a moment as she stepped into the carriage. Note that from the eve of her eighteenth birthday till she is old enough to be really wicked no well-regulated young woman shows her ankles. This also is one of the miracles of time. Marcello blushed faintly as he sat down beside Aurora. There were now five in the big carriage, so that she was between the two men; and though there was enough room Marcello felt the slight pressure of her arm against his. His mother saw his colour change, and looked away and smiled. The idea of marrying the two in a few years had often crossed her mind, and she was pleased whenever she saw that Marcello felt a little thrill of emotion in the girl's presence. As for Aurora, she looked straight before her, between the heads of the two elder women, and for a long time after they had started she seemed absorbed in watching the receding walls of the city and the long straight road that led back to it. The Contessa and her friend talked quietly, happy to be together for a whole day. Corbario now and then looked from one to the other, as if to assure himself that they were quite comfortable, and his still face wore an unchanging look of contented calm as his eyes turned again to the sunlit sweep of the low Campagna. Marcello looked steadily away from Aurora, happily and yet almost painfully aware that her arm could not help pressing against his. The horses' hoofs beat rhythmically on the hard high road, with the steady, cheerful energy which would tell a blind man that a team is well fed, fresh from rest, and altogether fit for a long day's work. The grey-haired coachman sat on his box like an old dragoon in the saddle; the young groom sat bolt upright beside him with folded arms, as if he could never tire of sitting straight. The whole party looked prosperous, harmonious, healthy, and perfectly happy, as if nothing in the least unpleasant could possibly happen to them, still less anything terrible, that could suddenly change all their lives. One of fate's favourite tricks is to make life look particularly gay and enjoyable, and full of sunshine and flowers, at the very moment when terror wakes from sleep and steps out of the shadow to stalk abroad. The cottage where the party were going to spend the next few days together was built like an Indian bungalow, consisting of a single story surrounded by a broad, covered verandah, and having a bit of lawn in front. It was sheltered by trees, and between it and the beach a bank of sand from ten to fifteen feet high ran along the shore, the work of the southwest gales during many ages. In many places this bank was covered with scrub and brushwood on the landward side. A little stream meandered down to the sea on the north side of the cottage, ending in a pool full of tall reeds, amongst which one could get about in a punt. The seashore itself is very shelving at that place, and there is a bar about a cable's length out, over which the sea breaks with a tremendous roar during westerly storms. Two hundred yards from the cottage, a large hut had been built for the men-servants and for the kitchen; near by it there was a rough coach-house and a stable with room for a dozen horses. The carriage usually went back to Rome on the day after every one had arrived, and was sent for when wanted; but there were a number of rough Campagna horses in the stable, such as are ridden by the cattle herders about Rome, tough little beasts of fairly good temper and up to a much heavier weight than might be guessed by a stranger in the country. In the morning the men of the party usually went shooting, if the wind was fair, for where quail are concerned much depends on that. Dinner was in the middle of the day, and every one was supposed to go to sleep after it. In the late afternoon the horses were saddled, and the whole party went for a gallop on the sands, or up to classic Ardea, or across the half-cultivated country, coming back to supper when it was dark. A particularly fat and quiet pony was kept for Marcello's mother, who was no great rider, but the Contessa and Aurora rode anything that was brought them, as the men did. To tell the truth, the Campagna horse is rarely vicious, and, even when only half broken, can be ridden by a lady if she be an average horsewoman. Everything happened as usual. The party reached the cottage in time for a late luncheon, rested afterwards, and then rode out. But the Signora Corbario would not go. "Your pony looks fatter and quieter than ever," said Maddalena dell' Armi with a smile. "If you do not ride him, he will turn into a fixture." "He is already a very solid piece of furniture," observed Folco, looking at the sleek animal. "He is very like the square piano I practise on," said Aurora. "He has such a flat back and such straight thick legs." "More like an organ," put in Marcello, gravely. "He has a curious, half-musical wheeze when he tries to move, like the organ in the church at San Domenico, when the bellows begin to work." "It is a shame to make fun of my horse," answered the Signora, smiling. "But really I am not afraid of him. I have a little headache from the drive, that is all." "Take some phenacetine," said Corbario with concern. "Let me make you quite comfortable before we start." He arranged a long straw chair for her in a sheltered corner of the verandah, with cushions and a rug and a small table beside it, on which Marcello placed a couple of new books that had been brought down. Then Folco went in and got a little glass bottle of tablets from his wife's travelling-bag and gave her one. She was subject to headaches and always had the medicine with her. It was the only remedy she ever carried or needed, and she had such confidence in it that she felt better almost as soon as she had swallowed the tablet her husband gave her. "Let me stay and read to you," he said. "Perhaps you would go to sleep." "You are not vain of your reading, my dear," she answered with a smile. "No, please go with the others." Then the Contessa offered to stay, and the good Signora had to use a good deal of persuasion to make them all understand that she would much rather be left alone. They mounted and rode away through the trees towards the beach, whence the sound of the small waves, breaking gently under the afternoon breeze, came echoing softly up to the cottage. The two young people rode in front, in silence; Corbario and the Contessa followed at a little distance. "How good you are to my wife!" Folco exclaimed presently, as they emerged upon the sand. "You are like a sister to her!" Maddalena glanced at him through her veil. She had small and classic features, rather hard and proud, and her eyes were of a dark violet colour, which is very unusual, especially in Italy. But she came from the north. Corbario could not see her expression, and she knew it. "You are good to her, too," she said presently, being anxious to be just. "You are very thoughtful and kind." Corbario thought it wiser to say nothing, and merely bent his head a little in acknowledgment of what he instinctively felt to be an admission on the part of a secret adversary. Maddalena had never said so much before. "If you were not, I should never forgive you," she added, thinking aloud. "I don't think you have quite forgiven me as it is," Folco answered more lightly. "For what?" "For marrying your best friend." The little speech was well spoken, so utterly without complaint, or rancour, or suggestion of earnestness, that the Contessa could only smile. "And yet you admit that I am not a bad husband," continued Folco. "Should you accept me, or, say, my exact counterpart, for Aurora, in a year or two?" "I doubt whether you have any exact counterpart," Maddalena answered, checking the sharp denial that rose to her lips. "Myself, then, just for the sake of argument?" "What an absurd question! Do you mind tightening the girth for me a little? My saddle is slipping." She drew rein, and he was obliged to submit to the check. As he dismounted he glanced at Aurora's graceful figure, a hundred yards ahead, and for one instant he drew his eyelids together with a very strange expression. He knew that the Contessa could not see his face. Marcello and Aurora had been companions since they were children, and just now they were talking familiarly of the place, which they had not seen since the previous year. All sorts of details struck them. Here, there was more sand than usual; there, a large piece of timber had been washed ashore in the winter gales; at another place there was a new sand-drift that had quite buried the scrub on the top of the bank; the keeper of the San Lorenzo tower had painted his shutters brown, though they had always been green; here was the spot where Aurora had tumbled off her pony when she was only twelve years old--so long ago! And here--they looked at each other and then quickly at the sea, for it was here that Marcello, in a fit of boyish admiration, had once suddenly kissed her cheek, telling her that she was perfectly beautiful. Even now, he blushed when he thought of it, and yet he longed to do it again, and wondered inwardly what would happen if he did. As for Aurora, though she looked at the sea for a moment, she seemed quite self-possessed. It is a strange thing that if a boy and a girl are brought up in just the same way, by women, and without many companions, the boy should generally be by far the more shy of the two when childhood is just past. "You are very fond of your stepfather, are you not?" asked Aurora, so suddenly that Marcello started a little and hesitated slightly before he answered. "Yes," he said, almost directly, "of course I am! Don't you like him, too?" "I used to," answered Aurora in a low voice, "but now his eyes frighten me--sometimes. For instance, though he is a good way behind, I am sure he is looking at me now, just in that way." Marcello turned his head instinctively, and saw that Folco had just dismounted to tighten the girth of the Contessa's saddle. It was exactly while Aurora was speaking that he had drawn his eyelids together with such a strange expression--a mere coincidence, no doubt, but one that would have startled the girl if she could have suddenly seen his face. They rode on without waiting for the others, at an even canter over the sand. "I never saw anything in Folco's eyes that could frighten anybody," Marcello said presently. "No," answered Aurora. "Very likely not." Marcello had always called Corbario by his first name, and as he grew up it seemed more and more natural to do so. Folco was so young, and he looked even younger than he was. "It must be your imagination," Marcello said. "Women," said Aurora, as if she were as near thirty as any young woman would acknowledge herself, "women have no imagination. That is why we have so much sense," she added thoughtfully. Marcello was so completely puzzled by this extraordinary statement that he could find nothing to say for a few moments. Then he felt that she had attacked his idol, and that Folco must be defended. "If you could find a single thing, however small, to bring against him, it would not be so silly to say that his eyes frighten you." "There!" laughed Aurora. "You might as well say that because at this moment there is only that one little cloud near the sun, there is no cloud at all!" "How ridiculous!" Marcello expressed his contempt of such girlish reasoning by putting his rough little horse to a gallop. "Men always say that," retorted Aurora, with exasperating calm. "I'll race you to the tower for the first choice of oranges at dessert. They are not very good this year, you know, and you like them." "Don't be silly!" Marcello immediately reined his horse back to a walk, and looked very dignified. "It is impossible to please you," observed Aurora, slackening her pace at once. "It is impossible, if you abuse Folco." "I am sure I did not mean to abuse him," Aurora answered meekly. "I never abuse anybody." "Women never do, I suppose," retorted Marcello, with a little snort of dissatisfaction. They were little more than children yet, and for pretty nearly five minutes neither spoke a word, as their horses walked side by side. "The keeper of the tower has more chickens this year," observed Aurora. "I can see them running about." This remark was evidently intended as an overture of reconciliation. It acted like magic upon Marcello, who hated quarrelling, and was moreover much more in love with the girl than he knew. Instinctively he put out his left hand to take her right. They always made peace by taking hands. But Aurora's did not move, and she did not even turn her head towards him. "Take care!" she said quickly, in a low tone. "They are watching us." Marcello looked round and saw that the others were nearer than he had supposed, and he blushed foolishly. "Well, what harm would there be if you gave me your hand?" he asked. "I only meant--" "Yes, I understand," Aurora answered, in the same tone as before. "And I am glad you like me, Marcello--if you really do." "If I do!" His tone was full of youthful and righteous indignation. "I did not mean to doubt it," she said quickly. "But it is getting to be different now, you know. We are older, and somehow everything means more, even the little things." "Oh!" ejaculated Marcello. "I begin to see. I suppose," he added, with what seemed to him reckless brutality, "that if I kissed you now you would be furious." He glanced uneasily at Aurora's face to note the effect of this terrible speech. The result was not exactly what he had expected. A faint colour rose in her cheeks, and then she laughed. "When you do," she said, "I would rather it should not be before people." "I shall try to remember that," answered Marcello, considerably emboldened. "Yes, do! It would be so humiliating if I boxed your ears in the presence of witnesses." "You would not dare," laughed Marcello. From a distance, as Aurora had guessed, Folco was watching them while he quietly talked to the Contessa; and as he watched, he understood what a change had taken place since last year, when he had seen Marcello and Aurora riding over the same stretch of sand on the same little horses. He ventured a reflection, to see what his companion would answer. "I daresay many people would say that those two young people were made for each other." Maddalena looked at him inquiringly and then glanced at her daughter. "And what do you say?" she asked, with some curiosity. "I say 'no.' And you?" "I agree with you. Aurora is like me--like what I was. Marcello would bore her to death in six months, and Aurora would drive him quite mad." Corbario smiled. "I had hoped," he said, "that women with marriageable daughters would think Marcello a model husband. But of course I am prejudiced. I have had a good deal to do with his bringing up during the last four years." "No one can say that you have not done your duty by him," Maddalena answered. "I wish I could feel that I had done as well by Aurora--indeed I do!" "You have, but you had quite a different nature to deal with." "I should think so! It is my own." Corbario heard the little sigh as she turned her head away, and being a wise man he said nothing in answer. He was not a Roman, if indeed he were really an Italian at all, but he had vaguely heard the Contessa's story. She had been married very young to a parliamentary high-light, who had made much noise in his day, had spent more than half of her fortune after getting rid of his own, and had been forgotten on the morrow of his premature death. It was said that she had loved another man with all her heart, but Corbario had never known who it was. The sun was almost setting when they turned homeward, and it was dark when they reached the cottage. They found an unexpected arrival installed beside the Signora in the doorway of the sitting-room. "Professor Kalmon is here," said the Signora's voice out of the gloom. "I have asked him to stay till to-morrow." The Professor rose up in the shadow and came forward, just as a servant brought a lamp. He was celebrated as a traveller, and occupied the chair of comparative physiology in the University of Milan. He belonged to the modern type of scientific man, which has replaced the one of fifty years ago, who lived in a dressing-gown and slippers, smoked a long pipe, and was always losing his belongings through absence of mind. The modern professor is very like other human beings in dress and appearance, and has even been known to pride himself on the fit of his coat, just like the common people. There were mutual greetings, for the Professor knew all the party, and everybody liked him. He was a big man, with a well-kept brown beard, a very clear complexion, and bright brown eyes that looked as if they would never need spectacles. "And where have you been since we last saw you?" asked Corbario. "Are your pockets full of snakes this time?" asked Aurora. The Professor looked at her and smiled, realising that she was no longer the child she had been when he had seen her last, and that she was very good to look at. His brown eyes beamed upon her benevolently. "Ah, my dear young lady, I see it is all over," he said. "You will never pull my beard again and turn my pockets inside out for specimens when I come back from my walks on the beach." "Do you think I am afraid of you or your specimens?" laughed Aurora. "I have got a terrible thing in my waistcoat pocket," the Professor answered. "Something you might very well be afraid of." "What is it? It must be very small to be in your waistcoat pocket." "It is a new form of death." He beamed on everybody with increasing benevolence; but somehow nobody smiled, and the Signora Corbario shivered and drew her light cloak more closely round her, as the first gust of the night breeze came up from the rustling reeds that grew in the pool below. "It is time to get ready for supper," said Folco. "I hope you are not hungry, Kalmon, for you will not get anything very elaborate to eat!" "Bread and cheese will do, my dear fellow." When Italians go to the country they take nothing of the city with them. They like the contrast to be complete; they love the total absence of restraint; they think it delightful to dine in their shooting-coats and to eat coarse fare. If they had to dress for dinner it would not be the country at all, nor if dinner had to begin with soup and end with sweets just as it does in town. They eat extraordinary messes that would make a Frenchman turn pale and a German look grave. They make portentous pasties, rich with everything under the sun; they eat fat boiled beef, and raw fennel, and green almonds, and vast quantities of cream cheese, and they drink sour wine like water; and it all agrees with them perfectly, so that they come back to the city refreshed and rested after a gastronomic treatment which would bring any other European to death's door. The table was set out on the verandah that evening, as usual in spring, and little by little the Professor absorbed the conversation, for they all asked him questions, few of which could be answered shortly. He was one of those profoundly cultivated Italians who are often to be met nowadays, but whose gifts it is not easy to appreciate except in a certain degree of intimacy. They are singularly modest men as a rule, and are by no means those about whom there is the most talk in the world. The party sat in their places when supper was over, with cloaks and coats thrown over them against the night air, while Kalmon talked of all sorts of things that seemed to have the least possible connection with each other, but which somehow came up quite naturally. He went from the last book on Dante to a new discovery in chemistry, thence to Japanese monks and their beliefs, and came back smiling to the latest development of politics, which led him quite naturally to the newest play, labour and capital, the German Emperor, and the immortality of the soul. "I believe you know everything!" exclaimed Marcello, with an admiring look. "Or else I know nothing, which is really more probable!" The boy laughed. "You have not told us about the new form of death yet," said Aurora, leaning on her elbows and burying her young hands in her auburn hair as she looked across the table at Kalmon. "You will never sleep again if I tell you about it," answered the Professor, opening his brown eyes very wide and trying to look terrible, which was quite impossible, because he had such a kindly face. "You do not look frightened at all," he added, pretending to be disappointed. "Let me see the thing," Aurora said. "Perhaps we shall all be frightened." "It looks very innocent," Kalmon answered. "Here it is." He took a small leather case from his pocket, opened it, and drew out a short blue glass tube, with a screw top. It contained half a dozen white tablets, apparently just like those in common use for five-grain doses of quinine. A little murmur of disappointment went around the table. The new form of death looked very commonplace. Corbario was the only one who showed any interest. "May I see?" he asked, holding out his hand to take the tube. Kalmon would not give it to him, but held the tube before his eyes under the bright light of the lamp. "Excuse me," he said, "but I make it a rule never to let it go out of my hands. You understand, don't you? If it were passed round, some one might lay it down, it might be forgotten, somebody might take it for something else." "Of course," said Folco, looking intently at the tube, as though he could understand something about the contents by mere inspection. "You are quite right. You should take no risks with such things--especially as they look so innocent!" He leaned back in his chair again, as if satisfied, and his eyes met the Contessa's at the same moment. There was no reason why she should not have looked at him just then, but he rested one elbow on the table and shaded his eyes from the light. "It is strange to reflect," said Kalmon, looking at the tube thoughtfully, "that one of those little things would be enough to put a Hercules out of misery, without leaving the slightest trace which science could discover." Corbario was still shading his eyes from the light. "How would one die if one took it?" asked Aurora. "Very suddenly?" "I call it the sleeping death," answered the Professor. "The poisoned person sinks into a sweet sleep in a few minutes, smiling as if enjoying the most delightful dreams." "And one never wakes up?" inquired Marcello. "Never. It is impossible, I believe. I have made experiments on animals, and have not succeeded in waking them by any known means." "I suppose it congests the brain, like opium," observed Corbario, quietly. "Not at all, not at all!" answered Kalmon, looking benevolently at the little tube which contained his discovery. "I tell you it leaves no trace whatever, not even as much as is left by death from an electric current. And it has no taste, no smell,--it seems the most innocent stuff in the world." Corbario's hand again lay on the table and he was gazing out into the night, as if he were curious about the weather. The moon was just rising, being past the full. "Is that all you have of the poison?" he asked in an idle tone. "Oh, no! This is only a small supply which I carry with me for experiments. I have made enough to send all our thirty-three millions of Italians to sleep for ever!" Kalmon laughed pleasantly. "If this could be properly used, civilisation would make a gigantic stride," he added. "In war, for instance, how infinitely pleasanter and more æsthetic it would be to send the enemy to sleep, with the most delightful dreams, never to wake again, than to tear people to pieces with artillery and rifle bullets, and to blow up ships with hundreds of poor devils on board, who are torn limb from limb by the explosion." "The difficulty," observed the Contessa, "would be to induce the enemy to take your poison quietly. What if the enemy objected?" "I should put it into their water supply," said Kalmon. "Poison the water!" cried the Signora Corbario. "How barbarous!" "Much less barbarous than shedding oceans of blood. Only think--they would all go to sleep. That would be all." [Illustration: "'I CALL IT THE SLEEPING DEATH,' ANSWERED THE PROFESSOR"] "I thought," said Corbario, almost carelessly, "that there was no longer any such thing as a poison that left no traces or signs. Can you not generally detect vegetable poisons by the mode of death?" "Yes," answered the Professor, returning the glass tube to its case and the latter to his pocket. "But please to remember that although we can prove to our own satisfaction that some things really exist, we cannot prove that any imaginable thing outside our experience cannot possibly exist. Imagine the wildest impossibility you can think of; you will not induce a modern man of science to admit the impossibility of it as absolute. Impossibility is now a merely relative term, my dear Corbario, and only means great improbability. Now, to illustrate what I mean, it is altogether improbable that a devil with horns and hoofs and a fiery tail should suddenly appear, pick me up out of this delightful circle, and fly away with me. But you cannot induce me to deny the possibility of such a thing." "I am so glad to hear you say that," said the Signora, who was a religious woman. Kalmon looked at her a moment and then broke into a peal of laughter that was taken up by the rest, and in which the good lady joined. "You brought it on yourself," she said at last. "Yes," Kalmon answered. "I did. From your point of view it is better to admit the possibility of a mediæval devil with horns than to have no religion at all. Half a loaf is better than no bread." "Is that stuff of yours animal, vegetable, or mineral?" asked Corbario as the laughter subsided. "I don't know," replied the Professor. "Animal, vegetable, mineral? Those are antiquated distinctions, like the four elements of the alchemists." "Well--but what is the thing, then?" asked Corbario, almost impatiently. "What should you call it in scientific language?" Kalmon closed his eyes for a moment, as if to collect his thoughts. "In scientific language," he began, "it is probably H three C seven, parenthesis, H two C plus C four O five, close parenthesis, HC three O." Corbario laughed carelessly. "I am no wiser than before," he said. "Nor I," answered the Professor. "Not a bit." "It is much simpler to call it 'the sleeping death,' is it not?" suggested the Contessa. "Much simpler, for that is precisely what it is." It was growing late, according to country ideas, and the party rose from the table and began to move about a little before going to bed. The moon had risen high by this time. Marcello and Aurora, unheeded by the rest, went round the verandah to the other side of the house and stood still a moment, looking out at the trees and listening to the sounds of the night. Down by the pool a frog croaked now and then; from a distance came the plaintive, often repeated cry of a solitary owlet; the night breeze sighed through the long grass and the low shrubbery. The boy and girl turned to each other, put out their hands and then their arms, and clasped each other silently, and kissed. Then they walked demurely back to their elders, without exchanging a word. "We have had to give you the little room at the end of the cottage," Corbario was saying to Kalmon. "It is the only one left while the Contessa is here." "I should sleep soundly on bare boards to-night," Kalmon answered. "I have been walking all day." Corbario went with him, carrying a candle, and shielding the flame from the breeze with his hand. The room was furnished with the barest necessities, like most country rooms in Italy. There were wooden pegs on which to hang clothes instead of a wardrobe, an iron bedstead, a deal wash-stand, a small deal table, a rush-bottomed chair. The room had only one window, which was also the only door, opening to the floor upon the verandah. "You can bolt the window, if you like," said Corbario when he had bidden the Professor good-night, "but there are no thieves about." "I always sleep with my windows open," Kalmon answered, "and I have no valuables." "No? Good-night again." "Good-night." Corbario went out, leaving him the candle, and turned the corner of the verandah. Then he stood still a long time, leaning against one of the wooden pillars and looking out. Perhaps the moonlight falling through the stiff little trees upon the long grass and shrubbery reminded him of some scene familiar long ago. He smiled quietly to himself as he stood there. Three hours later he was there again, in almost exactly the same attitude. He must have been cold, for the night breeze was stronger, and he wore only his light sleeping clothes and his feet were bare. He shivered a little from time to time, and his face looked very white, for the moon was now high in the heavens and the light fell full upon him. His right hand was tightly closed, as if it held some small object fast, and he was listening intently, first to the right, whence he had come, then to the left, and then he turned his ear towards the trees, through which the path led away towards the hut where the men slept. But there was no sound except the sighing of the wind. The frog by the pool had stopped croaking, and the melancholy cry of the owlet had ceased. Corbario went softly on, trying the floor of the verandah with his bare feet at each step, lest the boards should creak a little under his weight. He reached the window door of his own room, and slipped into the darkness without noise. Kalmon cared little for quail-shooting, and as the carriage was going back to Rome he took advantage of it to reach the city, and took his departure about nine o'clock in the morning. "By the way, how did you sleep?" asked Corbario as he shook hands at parting. "I forgot to ask you." "Soundly, thank you," answered the Professor. And he drove away, waving his felt hat to his hosts. CHAPTER III Marcello coughed a little as he and Corbario trudged home through the sand under the hot May sun. It was sultry, though there were few clouds, and everything that grew looked suddenly languid; each flower and shrub gave out its own peculiar scent abundantly, the smell of last year's rotting leaves and twigs all at once returned and mingled with the odours of green things and of the earth itself, and the heavy air was over-rich with it all, and hard to breathe. By and by the clouds would pile themselves up into vast grey and black fortresses, far away beyond Rome, between the Alban and the Samnite hills, and the lightning would dart at them and tear them to pieces in spite, while the thunder roared out at each home-thrust that it was well done; and then the spring rain would sweep the Campagna, by its length and breadth, from the mountains to the sea, and the world would be refreshed. But now it was near noon and a heavy weariness lay upon the earth. "You are tired," said Corbario, as they reached the shade of some trees, less than half a mile from the cottage. "Let us sit down for a while." They sat down, where they could see the sea. It was dull and glassy under the high sun; here and there, far out, the sluggish currents made dark, irregular streaks. Corbario produced cigarettes and offered one to Marcello, but the boy would not smoke; he said that it made him cough. "I should smoke all the time, if I were quite well," he said, with a smile. "And do many other things that young men do, I daresay," laughed Corbario. "Ride steeplechases, play cards all night, and drink champagne at breakfast." "Perhaps." Marcello was amused at the picture. "I wonder whether I ever shall," he added. Corbario glanced at him curiously. There was the faintest accent of longing in the tone, which was quite new. "Why not?" Folco asked, still smiling. "It is merely a question of health, my dear boy. There is no harm in steeplechases if you do not break your neck, nor in playing cards if you do not play high, nor in drinking a glass of champagne now and then--no harm at all, that I can see. But, of course, so long as your lungs are delicate, you must be careful." "Confound my lungs!" exclaimed Marcello with unusual energy. "I believe that I am much stronger than any of you think." "I am sometimes inclined to believe it too," Corbario answered encouragingly. "And I am quite sure that it would do me good to forget all about them and live as if there were nothing the matter with me. Don't you think so yourself?" Corbario made a gesture of doubt, as if it were possible after all. "Of course I don't mean dissipation," Marcello went on to say, suddenly assuming the manner of an elderly censor of morals, simply because he did not know what he was talking about. "I don't mean reckless dissipation." "Of course not," Folco answered gravely. "You see, there are two sorts of dissipation. You must not forget that. The one kind means dissipating your fortune and your health; the other merely means dissipating melancholy, getting rid of care now and then, and of everything that bores one. That is the harmless sort." "What they call 'harmless excitement'--yes, that is what I should like sometimes. There are days when I feel that I must have it. It is as if the blood went to my head, and my nerves are all on edge, and I wish something would happen, I don't know what, but something, something!" "I know exactly what you mean, my dear boy," said Corbario in a tone of sympathy. "You see I am not very old myself, after all--barely thirty--not quite, in fact. I could call myself twenty-nine if it were not so much more respectable to be older." "Yes. But do you mean to say that you feel just what I do now and then?" Marcello asked the question in considerable surprise. "Do you really know that sensation? That burning restlessness--that something like what the earth must feel before a thunderstorm--like the air at this moment?" Not a muscle of Folco's still face moved. "Yes," he answered quietly. "I know it very well. It is nothing but the sudden wish for a little harmless excitement, nothing else in the world, my dear boy, and it is certainly nothing to be ashamed of. It does not follow that it is at all convenient to yield to it, but we feel it because we lead such a very quiet life." "But surely, we are perfectly happy," observed Marcello. "Perfectly, absolutely happy. I do not believe that there are any happier people in the world than we three, your mother, you, and I. We have not a wish unfulfilled." "No, except that one, when it comes." "And that does not count in my case," answered Folco. "You see I have had a good deal of--'harmless excitement' in my life, and I know just what it is like, and that it is quite possible to be perfectly happy without it. In fact, I am. But you have never had any at all, and it is as absurd to suppose that young birds will not try to fly as that young men will not want amusement, now and then." "I suppose that women cannot always understand that," said Marcello, after a moment. "Women," replied Folco, unmoved, "do not always distinguish quite closely between excitement that is harmless for a man and excitement which is not. To tell the truth," he added, with a laugh, "they hardly ever distinguish at all, and it is quite useless to talk to them about it." "But surely, there are exceptions?" "Not many. That is the reason why there is a sort of freemasonry among men of the world, a kind of tacit agreement that women need not be told what goes on at the clubs, and at men's dinners, and late at night when old friends have spent an evening together. Not that there is any harm in it all; but women would not understand. They have their innocent little mysteries which they keep from us, and we have harmless little secrets which we do not let them know." Folco laughed softly at his own way of putting it, and perhaps because Marcello so easily accepted his point of view. "I see," said the boy. "I wonder whether my mother would not understand that. It seems so simple!" "She will, when the time comes, no doubt," answered Corbario. "Your mother is a great exception, my dear boy. On the other hand, she is so anxious about your health just now, that, if I were you, I would not say anything about feeling the want of a little excitement. Of course your life is monotonous. I know it. But there is nothing more monotonous than getting well, is there? The best part of it is the looking forward to what one will do when one is quite strong. You and I can talk of that, sometimes, and build castles in the air; but it is of no use to give your mother the idea that you are beating your wings against the bars of your cage, is it?" Folco was quite lyric that day, but the words made exactly the impression he wished. "You are right," Marcello said. "You always are. There is nobody like you, Folco. You are an elder brother to me, and yet you don't preach. I often tell my mother so." This was true, and what Marcello told her added to her happiness, if anything could do that, and she encouraged the two to go off together as much as possible. She even suggested that they should go down to San Domenico for a fortnight, to look after the great Calabrian estate. They rose and began to walk toward the cottage. The shooting had been good that morning, as quail-shooting goes, and the man who acted as keeper, loader, gardener, and general factotum, and who went out with any one who wanted to shoot, had gone on to the cottage with the bag, the two guns, and the animal which he called his dog. The man's name was Ercole, that is to say, Hercules; and though he was not a giant, he certainly bore a closer resemblance to the hero than his dog did to dogs in general. "He was born in my house," Ercole said, when any one asked questions. "Find a better one if you can. His name? I call him Nino, short for John, because he barks so well at night. You don't understand? It is the 'voice of one crying in the wilderness.' Did you never go to Sunday school? Or do you call this place a garden, a park, a public promenade? I call it a desert. There are not even cats." When an Italian countryman says of a place that even cats will not stay in it, he considers that he has evoked a picture of ultimate desolation that cannot be surpassed. It had always been Ercole's dream to live in the city, though he did not look like a man naturally intended for town life. He was short and skinny, though he was as wiry as a monkey; his face was slightly pitted with the smallpox, and the malaria of many summers had left him with a complexion of the colour of cheap leather; he had eyes like a hawk, matted black hair, and jagged white teeth. He and his fustian clothes smelt of earth, burnt gunpowder, goat's cheese, garlic, and bad tobacco. He was no great talker, but his language was picturesque and to the point; and he feared neither man nor beast, neither tramp nor horned cattle, nor yet wild boar. He was no respecter of persons at all. The land where the cottage was had belonged to a great Roman family, now ruined, and when, the land had been sold, he had apparently been part of the bargain, and had come into the possession of the Signora Corbario with it. In his lonely conversations with Nino, he had expressed his opinion of each member of the family with frankness. "You are a good dog, Nino," he would say. "You are the consolation of my soul. But you do not understand these things. Corbario is an assassin. Money, money, money! That is all he thinks of from morning till night. I know it, because he never speaks of it, and yet he never gives away anything. It is all for himself, the Signora's millions, the boy's millions, everything. When I look at his face, a chill seizes me, and I tremble as when I have the fever. You never had the malaria fever, Nino. Dogs don't have it, do they?" At the question Nino turned his monstrous head to one side and looked along his muzzle at his master. If he had possessed a tail he would have wagged it, or thumped the hard ground with it a few times; but he had none. He had probably lost it in some wild battle of his stormy youth, fought almost to death against the huge Campagna sheep-dogs; or perhaps a wolf had got it, or perhaps he had never had a tail at all. Ercole had probably forgotten, and it did not really matter much. "Corbario is an assassin," he said. "Remember that, Nino. As for his poor lady, she is a little lacking, or she would never have married him. But she is a saint, and what do saints want with cleverness? They go to paradise. Does that need much sense? We should all go if we could. Why do you cock your head on one side and look at me like a Christian? Are you trying to make me think you have a soul? You are made of nothing but corn meal and water, and a little wool, poor beast! But you have more sense than the Signora, and you are not an assassin, like her husband." At this, Nino threw himself upon his back with his four legs in the air and squirmed with sheer delight, showing his jagged teeth and the roof of a very terrible mouth, and emitting a series of wolfish snorts; after which he suddenly rolled over upon his feet again, shook himself till his shaggy coat bristled all over his body, walked sedately to the open door of the hut, and sat down to look at the weather. "He is almost a Christian," Ercole remarked under his breath, as if he were afraid the dog might hear the compliment and grow too vain. For Ercole was a reticent man, and though he told Nino what he thought about people, he never told any one else. Marcello was the only person to whom he ever showed any inclination to attach himself. He regarded even the Contessa with suspicion, perhaps merely because she was a woman; and as for Aurora, girls did not count at all in his cosmogony. "God made all the other animals before making women," he observed contemptuously one day, when he had gone out alone with Marcello. "I like them," laughed the boy. "So did Adam," retorted Ercole, "and you see what came of it." No answer to this argument occurred to Marcello just then, so he said nothing; and he thought of Aurora, and his mother, and the sad-eyed Contessa, and wondered vaguely whether they were very unlike other women, as Ercole implied. "When you know women," the man vouchsafed to add presently, "you will wish you were dead. The Lord sent them into the world for an affliction and for the punishment of our sins." "You were never married, were you?" asked Marcello, still smiling. Ercole stopped short in the sand, amongst the sea-thistles that grew there, and Nino trotted up and looked at him, to be ready if anything happened. Marcello knew the man's queer ways, and waited for him to speak. "Married?" he snorted. "Married? You have said it!" This seemed enigmatical, but Marcello understood the words to convey an affirmation. "Well?" he asked, expecting more. "Well? Well, what?" growled Ercole. "This is a bad world. A man falls in love with a pretty little caterpillar; he wakes up and finds himself married to a butterfly. Oh, this is a very bad world!" Marcello was struck by the simile, but he reflected that Aurora looked much more like a butterfly than a caterpillar, a fact which, if it meant anything, should signify that he knew the worst beforehand. Ercole declined to enter into any account of his conjugal experiences, and merely shrugged his shoulders and went on through the sand. With such fitting and warning as this to keep him out of trouble, Marcello was to face life: with his saintly mother's timid allusions to its wickedness, with Corbario's tempting suggestions of harmless dissipation, with an unlettered peasant's sour reflections on the world in general and women in particular. In the other scale of the balance fate set his delicate and high-strung nature, his burning desire for the great unknown something, the stinging impatience of bodily weakness, and the large element of recklessness he inherited from his father, besides a fine admixture of latent boyish vanity for women to play upon, and all the ordinary weaknesses of human nature in about the same proportion as every one has them. Given a large fortune and ordinary liberty, it might be foreseen that the boy would not reach the haven of maturity without meeting a storm, even if the outward circumstances of chance were all in his favour, even if no one had an interest in ruining him, even if Folco Corbario did not want all for himself, as poor Ercole told his dog that he did in the solitude of his hut. Marcello had a bad chance at the start, and Maddalena dell' Armi, who knew the world well in all its moods, and had suffered by it and sinned for it, and had shed many tears in secret before becoming what she was now, foresaw danger, and hoped that her daughter's fate might not be bound up with that of her friend's son, much as she herself liked the gentle-hearted boy. She wondered how long any one would call him gentle after he got his first taste of pleasure and pain. CHAPTER IV It was very early morning, and there was no shooting, for a southwesterly gale had been blowing all night, and the birds passed far inland. All along the beach, for twenty-five miles in an unbroken line, the surf thundered in, with a double roar, breaking on the bar, then gathering strength again, rising grey and curling green and crashing down upon the sand. Then the water opened out in vast sheets of crawling foam that ran up to the very foot of the bank where the scrub began to grow, and ran regretfully back again, tracing myriads of tiny channels where the sand was loose; but just as it had almost subsided, another wave curled and uncurled itself, and trembled a moment, and flung its whole volume forwards through a cloud of unresisting spray. It had rained a little, too, and it would rain again. The sky was of an even leaden grey, and as the sun rose unseen, a wicked glare came into it, as if the lead were melting; and the wind howled unceasingly, the soft, wet, southwest wind of the great spring storms. Less than a mile from the shore a small brigantine, stripped to a lower topsail, storm-jib, and balance-reefed mainsail, was trying to claw off shore. She had small chance, unless the gale shifted or moderated, for she evidently could not carry enough sail to make any way against the huge sea, and to heave to would be sure destruction within two hours. The scrub and brushwood were dripping with raindrops, and the salt spray was blown up the bank with the loose sand. Everything was wet, grey, and dreary, as only the Roman shore can be at such times, with that unnatural dreariness of the south which comes down on nature suddenly like a bad dream, and is a thousand times more oppressive than the stern desolation of any northern sea-coast. Marcello and Aurora watched the storm from a break in the bank which made a little lee. The girl was wrapped in a grey military cloak, of which she had drawn the hood over her loose hair. Her delicate nostrils dilated with pleasure to breathe the salt wind, and her eyelids drooped as she watched the poor little vessel in the distance. "You like it, don't you?" asked Marcello, as he looked at her. "I love it!" she answered enthusiastically. "And I may never see it all again," she added after a little pause. "Never?" Marcello started a little. "Are you going away?" "We are going to Rome to-day. But that is not what I mean. We have always come down every year for ever so long. How long is it, Marcello? We were quite small the, first time." "It must be five years. Four or five--ever since my mother bought the land here." "We were mere children," said Aurora, with the dignity of a grown person. "That is all over." "I wish it were not!" Marcello sighed. "How silly you are!" observed Aurora, throwing back her beautiful head. "But then, I am sure I am much more grown up than you are, though you are nineteen, and I am not quite eighteen." "You are seventeen," said Marcello firmly. "I shall be eighteen on my next birthday!" retorted Aurora with warmth. "Then we shall see who is the more grown up. I shall be in society, and you--why, you will not even be out of the University." She said this with the contempt which Marcello's extreme youth deserved. "I am not going to the University." "Then you will be a boy all your life. I always tell you so. Unless you do what other people do, you will never grow up at all. You ought to be among men by this time, instead of everlastingly at home, clinging to your mother's skirts!" A bright flush rose in Marcello's cheeks. He felt that he wanted to box her ears, and for an instant he wished himself small again that he might do it, though he remembered what a terrible fighter Aurora had been when she was a little girl, and had preserved a vivid recollection of her well-aimed slaps. "Don't talk about my mother in that way," he said angrily. "I'm not talking of her at all. She is a saint, and I love her very much. But that is no reason why you should always be with her, as if you were a girl! I don't suppose you mean to begin life as a saint yourself, do you? You are rather young for that, you know." "No," Marcello answered, feeling that he was not saying just the right thing, but not knowing what to say. "And I am sure my mother does not expect it of me, either," he added. "But that is no reason why you should be so disagreeable." He felt that he had been weak, and that he ought to say something sharp. He knew very well that his mother believed it quite possible for a boy to develop into saintship without passing through the intermediate state of sinning manhood; and though his nature told him that he was not of the temper that attains sanctity all at once, he felt that he owed to his mother's hopes for him a sort of loyalty in which Aurora had made him fail. The reasonings of innocent sentiment are more tortuous than the wiles of the devil himself, and have amazing power to torment the unfledged conscience of a boy brought up like Marcello. Aurora's way of thinking was much more direct. "If you think I am disagreeable, you can go away," she said, with a scornful laugh. "Thank you. You are very kind." He tried to speak sarcastically, but it was a decided failure. To his surprise, Aurora turned and looked at him very quietly. "I wonder whether I shall like you, when you are a man," she said in a tone of profound reflection. "I am rather ashamed of liking you now, because you are such a baby." He flushed again, very angry this time, and he moved away to leave her, without another word. She turned her face to the storm and took no notice of him. She thought that he would come back, but there was just the least doubt about it, which introduced an element of chance and was perfectly delightful while it lasted. Was there ever a woman, since the world began, who did not know that sensation, either by experience or by wishing she might try it? What pleasure would there be in angling if the fish did not try to get off the hook, but stupidly swallowed it, fly and all? It might as well crawl out of the stream at once and lay itself meekly down in the basket. And Marcello came back, before he had taken four steps. "Is that what you meant when you said that you might never come here again?" he asked, and there was something rough in his tone that pleased her. "No," she answered, as if nothing had happened. "Mamma talked to me a long time last night." "What did she say?" "Do you want to know?" "Yes." "There is no reason why I should not tell you. She says that we must not come here after I go into society, because people will think that she is trying to marry me to you." She looked at him boldly for a moment, and then turned her eyes to the sea. "Why should she care what people think?" he asked. "Because it would prevent me from marrying any one else," answered Aurora, with the awful cynicism of youth. "If every one thought I was engaged to you, or going to be, no other man could ask for me. It's simple enough, I'm sure!" "And you wish other men to ask you to marry them, I suppose?" Marcello was a little pale, but he tried to throw all the contempt he could command into his tone. Aurora smiled sweetly. "Naturally," she said. "I'm only a woman." "Which means that I'm a fool to care for you!" "You are, if you think I'm not worth caring for." The girl laughed. This was so very hard to understand that Marcello knit his smooth young brow and looked very angry, but could find nothing to say on the spur of the moment. All women are born with the power to put a man into such a position that he must either contradict himself, hold his tongue, or fly into a senseless rage. They do this so easily, that even after the experience of a life-time we never suspect the trap until they pull the string and we are caught. Then, if we contradict ourselves, woman utters an inhuman cry of triumph and jeers at our unstable purpose; if we lose our tempers instead, she bursts into tears and calls us brutes; and finally, if we say nothing, she declares, with a show of reason, that we have nothing to say. [Illustration: "HE FLUSHED AGAIN, VERY ANGRY THIS TIME, AND HE MOVED AWAY TO LEAVE HER, WITHOUT ANOTHER WORD."] Marcello lost his temper. "You are quite right," he said angrily. "You are not worth caring for. You are a mere child, and you are a miserable little flirt already, and you will be a detestable woman when you grow up! You will lead men on, and play with them, and then laugh at them. But you shall not laugh at me again. You shall not have that satisfaction! You shall wish me back, but I will not come, not if you break your silly little heart!" With this terrific threat the boy strode away, leaving her to watch the storm alone in the lee of the sandbank. Aurora knew that he really meant to go this time, and at first she was rather glad of it, since he was in such a very bad temper. She felt that he had insulted her, and if he had stayed any longer she would doubtless have called him a brute, that being the woman's retort under the circumstances. She had not the slightest doubt of being quite reconciled with him before luncheon, of course, but in her heart she wished that she had not made him angry. It had been very pleasant to watch the storm together, and when they had come to the place, she had felt a strong presentiment that he would kiss her, and that the contrast between the kiss and the howling gale would be very delightful. The presentiment had certainly not come true, and now that Marcello was gone it was not very amusing to feel the spray and the sand on her face, or to watch the tumbling breakers and listen to the wind. Besides, she had been there some time, and she had not even had her little breakfast of coffee and rolls before coming down to the shore. She suddenly felt hungry and cold and absurdly inclined to cry, and she became aware that the sand had got into her russet shoes, and that it would be very uncomfortable to sit down in such a place to take them off and shake it out; and that, altogether, misfortunes never come singly. After standing still three or four minutes longer, she turned away with a discontented look in her face, all rosy with the wind and spray. She started as she saw Corbario standing before her, for she had not heard his footsteps in the gale. He wore his shooting-coat and heavy leathern gaiters, but he had no gun. She thought he looked pale, and that there was a shade of anxiety in his usually expressionless face. "We wondered where you were," he said. "There is coffee in the verandah, and your mother is out already." "I came down to look at the storm," Aurora answered. "I forgot all about breakfast." They made a few steps in the direction of the cottage. Aurora felt that Corbario was looking sideways at her as they walked. "Have you seen Marcello?" he asked presently. "Did you not meet him?" Aurora was surprised. "It is not five minutes since he left me." "No. I did not meet him." "That is strange." They went on in silence for a few moments. "I cannot understand why you did not meet Marcello," Aurora said suddenly, as if she had thought it over. "Did you come this way?" "Yes." "Perhaps he got back before you started. He walks very fast." "Perhaps," Corbario said, "but I did not see him. I came to look for you both." "Expecting to find us together, of course!" Aurora threw up her head a little disdainfully, for Marcello had offended her. "He is generally somewhere near you, poor boy," answered Corbario in a tone of pity. "Why do you say 'poor boy' in that tone? Do you think he is so much to be pitied?" "A little, certainly." Corbario smiled. "I don't see why." "Women never do, when a man is in love!" "Women"--the flattery was subtle and Aurora's face cleared. Corbario was a man of the world, without doubt, and he had called her a woman, in a most natural way, as if she had been at least twenty years old. It did not occur to her to ask herself whether Folco had any object in wishing to please her just then, but she knew well enough that he did wish to do so. Even a girl's instinct is unerring in that; and Corbario further pleased her by not pursuing the subject, for what he had said seemed all the more spontaneous because it led to nothing. "If Marcello is not in the cottage," he observed, as they came near, "he must have gone off for a walk after he left you. Did you not see which way he turned?" "How could I from the place where I stood?" asked Aurora in reply. "As soon as he had turned behind the bank it was impossible to say which way he had gone." "Of course," assented Folco. "I understand that." Marcello had not come home, and Aurora was sorry that she had teased him into a temper and had then allowed him to go away. It was not good for him, delicate as he was, to go for a long walk in such weather without any breakfast, and she felt distinctly contrite as she ate her roll in silence and drank her coffee, on the sheltered side of the cottage, under the verandah. The Signora Corbario had not appeared yet, but the Contessa was already out. As a rule the Signora preferred to have her coffee in her room, as if she were in town. For some time no one spoke. "Had we not better send Ercole to find Marcello?" the Contessa asked at last. "I had to send Ercole to Porto d'Anzio this morning," Corbario answered. "I took the opportunity, because I knew there would be no quail with this wind." "Marcello will come in when he is hungry," said Aurora, rather sharply, because she really felt sorry. But Marcello did not come in. Soon after eight o'clock his mother appeared on the verandah. Folco dropped his newspaper and hastened to make her comfortable in her favourite chair. Though she was not strong, she was not an invalid, but she was one of those women whom it seems natural to help, to whom men bring cushions, and with whom other women are always ready to sympathise. If one of Fra Angelico's saints should walk into a modern drawing-room all the men would fall over each other in the scramble to make her comfortable, and all the women would offer her tea and ask her if she felt the draught. The Signora looked about, expecting to see her son. "Marcello has not come in," said Folco, understanding. "He seems to have gone for a long walk." "I hope he has put on his thick boots," answered the Signora, in a thoughtful tone. "It is very wet." She asked why Folco was not with him shooting, and was told that there were no birds in such weather. She had never understood the winds, nor the points of the compass, nor why one should see the new moon in the west instead of in the east. Very few women do, but those who live much with men generally end by picking up a few useful expressions, a little phrase-book of jargon terms with which men are quite satisfied. They find out that a fox has no tail, a wild boar no teeth, a boat no prow, and a yacht no staircase; and this knowledge is better than none. The Signora accepted the fact that there were no birds that morning, and began to talk to Maddalena. Aurora got a book and pretended to read, but she was really listening for Marcello's footsteps, and wondering whether he would smile at her, or would still be cross when he came in. Corbario finished his paper and went off to look at the weather from the other side of the house, and the two women talked in broken sentences as old friends do, with long intervals of silence. The wind had moderated a good deal, but as the sun rose higher the glare in the sky grew more yellow, the air was much warmer, and the trees and shrubs and long grass began to steam as if they had been half boiled. All manner of tiny flies and gnats chased each other in the lurid light. "It feels as if there were going to be an earthquake," said Maddalena, throwing back the lace from her grey hair as if even its light weight oppressed her. "Yes." The women sat in silence, uneasy, their lips a little parted. Not that an earthquake would have disturbed them much, for slight ones are common enough in Italy, and could do no harm at all to a wooden cottage; it was a mere physical breathlessness that they felt, as the gale suddenly dropped and the heavy air became quite still on the sheltered side of the cottage. Aurora threw aside her book impatiently and rose from her chair. "I am going to look for Marcello," she said, and she went off without turning her head. On the other side of the cottage, as she went round, she found Folco sitting on the steps of the verandah, his elbows on his knees and his chin resting on his folded hands, apparently in deep thought. He had a cigar between his teeth, but it had gone out. "I am going to look for Marcello," said Aurora, as she passed close beside him. He said nothing, and hardly moved his head. Aurora turned and looked at him as she stepped upon the path. "What is the matter?" she asked, as she saw his face. "Is anything wrong?" Corbario looked up quickly, as if he had been in a reverie. "Anything the matter? No. Where did you say you were going?" "To find Marcello. He has not come in yet." "He has gone for a walk, I suppose. He often walks alone on off days. He will be back before luncheon, and you are not going to town till the afternoon." "Will you come with me?" Aurora asked, for she was in a good humour with Folco. He rose at once. "I'll go with you for a stroll," he said, "but I don't think it is of any use to look for Marcello near the house." "It can do no harm." "And it will do us good to walk a bit." They went down the path and through the trees towards the break in the bank. "The sand was very wet this morning, even inside the bank," Aurora said. "I daresay we shall find his footsteps and be able to guess which way he went." "Very likely," Folco answered. He pushed back his tweed cap a little and passed his handkerchief across his smooth brow. Aurora noticed the action, because he did not usually get warm so easily. "Are you hot?" she asked carelessly. "A little," he answered. "The air is so heavy this morning." "Perhaps you are not quite well," said Aurora. "You are a little pale." Apparently something in her youthfully patronising tone came as near irritating him as anything ever could. "What does it matter, whether I am hot or not?" he asked, almost impatiently, and again he passed his handkerchief over his forehead. "I did not mean to annoy you," Aurora answered with uncommon meekness. They came near the break in the bank, and she looked at the sand on each side of her. She thought it seemed smoother than usual, and that there were not so many little depressions in it, where there had been footsteps on previous days, half obliterated by wind and rain. "I cannot see where you and I passed an hour ago," she said, in some surprise. "The wind draws through the gap with tremendous strength," Folco explained. "Just before the gale moderated there was a heavy squall with rain." "Was there? I did not notice that--but I was on the lee side of the house. The wind must have smoothed the sand, just like a flat-iron!" "Yes." Corbario answered indifferently and gazed out to sea. Aurora left his side and looked about, going to a little distance from the gap, first on one side and then on the other. "It is as if the wind had done it on purpose!" she cried impatiently. "It is as smooth as if it had all been swept with a gardener's broom." Corbario turned, lighted his extinguished cigar, and watched her, as she moved about, stooping now and then to examine the sand. "I don't believe it is of any use to look here," he said. "Besides, he will be back in time for luncheon." "I suppose so," answered Aurora. "Why do you look at me in that way?" she asked, standing upright and meeting his eyes suddenly. He laughed softly and took his cigar from his mouth. "I was watching you. You are very graceful when you move." She did not like his expression. "I wish you would think less about me and more about finding Marcello," she said rather sharply. "You talk as if he were lost. I tell you he will surely come back before long." "I hope so." But Marcello did not come back, and after Aurora had returned to the cottage and was seated in her chair again, with her book, she grew restless, and went over in her memory what had passed in the morning. It was not possible that Marcello should really mean to carry out his threat, to go away without a word, to leave her, to leave his mother; and yet, he was gone. A settled conviction came over her that he was really gone, just as he was, most probably back to Rome. She had teased him, and he had been very angry, absurdly angry; and yet she was perhaps responsible, in a way, for his disappearance. Presently his mother would grow anxious and would ask questions, and then it would all come out. It would be better to be brave and to say at once that he had been angry with her; she could confess the truth to her mother, to the Signora, if necessary, or even to both together, for they were women and would understand. But she could not tell the story before Corbario. That would be out of the question; and yet, anything would be better than to let them all think that something dreadful had happened to Marcello. He had gone to Rome, of course; or perhaps only to Porto d'Anzio, in which case he would meet Ercole coming back. The hours wore on to midday, and Signora Corbario's uneasiness grew into real anxiety. The Contessa did her best to soothe her, but was anxious herself, and still Aurora said nothing. Folco was grave, but assured every one that the boy would soon return, though the Signora would not believe it. "He will never come back! Something dreadful has happened to him!" And therewith she broke down completely and burst into tears. "You must go and look for him," said Maddalena quietly to Corbario. "I think you are right," he answered. "I am going to find him," he said softly, bending down to his wife as she lay in her chair, trying to control her sobs. "I will send some of the men towards Porto d'Anzio and will go towards Nettuno myself." She loved him and believed in him, and she was comforted when she saw him go away and heard him calling the men from their hut. Aurora was left alone with the two women. "I am afraid Marcello is gone to Rome," she said, with an effort. The Signora raised herself in her long chair and stared hard at the girl. The Contessa looked at her in surprise. "What do you know about it?" cried the Signora. "Why have you not spoken, if you know anything? Don't you see that I am half mad with anxiety?" Aurora had never seen the good lady in such a state, and was almost frightened; but there was nothing to be done now, except to go on. She told her little story timidly, but truthfully, looking from her mother to the Signora while she spoke, and wondering what would happen when she had finished. "He said, 'You shall wish me back, but I will not come.' I think those were his last words." "You have broken my boy's heart!" cried the Signora Corbario, turning her face away. Maddalena, whose heart had really been broken long ago, could not help smiling. "I am sure I did not mean to," cried Aurora, contritely. "And after all, though I daresay it was my fault, he called me a miserable little flirt, and I only called him a baby." Maddalena would have laughed if her friend had not been in such real distress. As for Aurora, she did not know whether she would have laughed or cried if she had not felt that her girl's dignity was at stake. As it was, she grew preternaturally calm. "You have driven him away," moaned the Signora piteously. "You have driven away my boy! Was he not good enough for you?" She asked the question suddenly and vehemently, turning upon poor Aurora with something like fury. She was quite beside herself, and the Contessa motioned the girl away. Aurora rose and disappeared round the corner of the house. Alone with her friend, Maddalena did her best to comfort her. There were arguments enough: it was barely noon, and Marcello had not been gone four hours; he was used to taking long walks, he had probably gone as far as the tower, and had rested there before coming back; or he had gone to meet Ercole on the road to Porto d'Anzio; or he had gone off towards the Nettuno woods to get over his anger in solitude; it was natural enough; and after all, if he had gone to Rome as Aurora thought, no harm could come to him, for he would go home, and would surely send a telegram before evening. It was unlike him, yes; but just at his age boys often did foolish things. "Marcello is not foolish!" objected the Signora indignantly. She could by no means listen to reason, and was angry because her friend tried to argue with her. She rose with an energy she seldom displayed, and began to walk up and down the verandah. Her face was very pale, her lip quivered when she spoke, and there was an unnatural light in her eyes. There was room for much moderate affection in her gentle nature; she had loved her first husband; she loved Corbario dearly; but the passion of her life was her son, and at the first presentiment of real danger to him the dominant preoccupation of her heart took violent possession of everything else in her, regardless of reason, friendship, consideration for others, or common sense. Maddalena walked up and down beside her, putting one arm affectionately round her waist, and doing the best she could to allay the tempest. It subsided suddenly, and was followed by a stony silence that frightened the Contessa. It was time for luncheon, and Aurora came back, hoping to find that she had been forgiven during her absence, but the Signora only looked at her coldly once or twice and would not speak. None of the three even pretended to have an appetite. "I shall not go back to Rome to-day," said the Contessa. "I cannot leave you in such anxiety." "Folco will take care of me," answered the Signora in a dull tone. "Do not change your plans on my account. The carriage is ordered at three o'clock." She spoke so coldly that Maddalena felt a little pardonable resentment, though she knew that her friend was not at all herself. "Very well," she answered quietly. "If you had rather that I should not stay with you we will go back this afternoon." "It will be much better." When the carriage appeared neither Folco nor any of the men had returned. The Signora made an evident attempt to show a little of her habitual cordiality at parting, and she even kissed Aurora coldly on the forehead, and embraced Maddalena with something like her usual affection. The two looked back as they drove away, calling out a last good-bye, but they saw that the Signora was not even looking after them; she was leaning against one of the wooden supports of the verandah, gazing towards the trees, and pressing one hand to her forehead. "Do you think it was my fault, mamma?" asked Aurora, when they were out of sight of the cottage. "No, dear," answered Maddalena. "Something has happened, I wish I knew what!" "I only told him he was a baby," said Aurora, settling herself in the corner of the carriage, and arranging her parasol behind her so that it rested on the open hood; for the weather had cleared and the sun was shining brightly after the storm. So she and her mother went back to Rome that afternoon. But when the Signora was alone, she was sorry that her friend was gone, and was all at once aware that her head was aching terribly. Every movement she made sent an agonizing thrill through her brain, and her hand trembled from the pain, as she pressed her palm to her forehead. She meant to go down to the beach alone, for she was sure that she could find Marcello, and at least she would meet the men who were searching for him, and have news sooner than if she stayed in the cottage. But she could not have walked fifty steps without fainting while her headache lasted. She would take five grains of phenacetine, and in a little while she would be better. She found the glass tube with the screw cap, and swallowed one of the tablets with a little water. Then she sat down on the edge of her long chair in the verandah to wait for the pain to pass. She was very tired, and presently, she scarcely knew how it was, she was lying at full length in her chair, her head resting comfortably against the cushion. The sunlight fell slanting across her feet. Amongst the trees two or three birds were twittering softly; it was warm, it was dreamy, she was forgetting Marcello. She tried to rouse herself as the thought of him crossed her mind, and she fancied that she almost rose from the chair; but she had hardly lifted one hand. Then she saw his face close before her, her lips relaxed, the pain was gone, she smiled happily, and she was asleep. Half an hour later her maid came quietly out to ask whether she needed anything, and seeing that she was sleeping peacefully spread a light shawl over her feet, placed the silver handbell within easy reach on the table, and went away again. Towards evening Folco came back and then the men, straggling in on their tired little horses, for they had ridden far and fast. Marcello was not with them. Corbario came in alone, and saw his wife lying in her chair in the evening light. He stood still a moment, and then came over and bent near her, looking earnestly into her quiet face. "Already," he said aloud, but in a very low voice. His hand shook as he laid it on her heart, bending low. Then he started violently and stood bolt upright, as an unearthly howl rent the air. Nino, Ercole's queer dog, was close beside him, his forepaws planted on the upper step of the verandah, his head thrown up, his half-open jaws showing his jagged teeth, his rough coat bristling like spikes of bearded barley. And Ercole, still a hundred yards away amongst the trees, shook his head and hurried forward as he heard the long-drawn note of brute terror. "Somebody is dead," he said to himself. CHAPTER V For a few weeks all Italy was profoundly interested in the story of Marcello Corbario's disappearance and of his mother's almost unaccountable death. It was spoken of as the "double tragedy of the Campagna," and the newspapers were full of it. The gates of the beautiful villa on the Janiculum were constantly assailed by reporters; the servants who came out from time to time were bribed, flattered, and tempted away to eat sumptuous meals and drink the oldest wine in quiet gardens behind old inns in Trastevere, in the hope that they might have some information to sell. But no one gained admittance to the villa except the agents of the police, who came daily to report the fruitless search; and the servants had nothing to tell beyond the bare truth. The young gentleman had gone for a walk near the sea, down at the cottage by the Roman shore, and he had never been heard of again. His mother had been suffering from a bad headache, had lain down to rest in a cane chair on the verandah, and had been found dead, with a smile on her face, by her husband, when he came back from his first attempt to find Marcello. The groom who always went down with the carriage could describe with greatest accuracy the spot where the Signorina Aurora had last seen him; the house servants gave the most minute details about the cane chair, the verandah, and the position in which the poor lady had been found; but that was all, and it was not at all what the reporters wanted. They had all been down to the cottage, each with his camera and note-book, and had photographed everything in sight, including Nino, Ercole's dog. What they wanted was a clue, a story, a scandal if possible, and they found nothing of the sort. Folco Corbario's mourning was unostentatious and quiet, but none of the few persons who saw him, whether detectives or servants, could doubt that he was profoundly affected. He grew paler and thinner every day, until his own man even began to fear that his health was failing. He had done, and continued to do, everything that was humanly possible. He had brought his wife's body to Rome, and had summoned the very highest authorities in the medical profession to discover, if possible, the cause of her death. They had come, old men of science, full of the experience of years, young men of the future, brimming with theories, experts in chemistry, experts in snake poisons; for Folco had even suggested that she might have been bitten by a viper or stung by a venomous spider, or accidentally poisoned by some medicine or something she had eaten. But the scientific gentlemen were soon agreed that no such thing had happened. Considerably disappointed, and with an unanimity which is so unusual in the confraternity as to be thought absolutely conclusive when it is observed, they decided that the Signora Corbario had died of collapse after intense excitement caused by the disappearance of her son. Thereafter she was buried out at San Lorenzo, with the secret, if there were any; masses were said, the verdict of the doctors was published, with the signatures of the most eminent practitioners and specialists in Italy; and the interest of the public concentrated itself upon the problem of Marcello's mysterious removal, or abduction, or subduction, or recession, or flight, from the very bosom of his family. This problem had the merit of defying solution. In a comparatively open country, within a space of time which could certainly be limited to five minutes, at a place whence he should have been clearly seen by Folco Corbario as soon as Aurora dell' Armi could no longer see him, the boy had been spirited away, leaving not even the trace of his footsteps in the sand. It was one of the most unaccountable disappearances on record, as Folco insisted in his conversations with the Chief of Police, who went down with him to the cottage and examined the spot most carefully, with several expert detectives. Folco showed him exactly where Aurora had stood, and precisely the direction he himself had followed in approaching the gap, and he declared it to be almost a physical impossibility that Marcello should have become suddenly invisible just then. The official thought so too, and shook his head. He looked at the detectives, and they shook their heads, also. And then they all looked at Corbario and expressed the opinion that there was some mistake about the length of time supposed by Aurora to have elapsed between the moment when Marcello left her and the instant of Folco's appearance before her. She had not looked at her watch; in fact, she had not carried a watch. The whole story therefore depended upon her more or less accurate judgment of time. It might have been a quarter of an hour instead of five minutes, in which case Corbario had not yet left the cottage, and Marcello would have had ample leisure to disappear in any direction he pleased. Ercole had been away at Porto d'Anzio, the men had been all at the hut; if Folco had not been on the path precisely at the time guessed by Aurora, everything could be accounted for. "Very well," Corbario answered. "Let us suppose that my stepson had time to get away. In that case he can be found, alive or dead. Italy is not China, nor Siberia, and I can place unlimited funds at your disposal. Find him for me; that is all I ask." "We shall find him, never fear!" answered the Chief of Police with a confidence he did not feel. "We shall find him!" echoed the three detectives in chorus. Ercole watched the proceedings and listened to what was said, for he considered it his duty to attend on such an occasion, his dog at his heels, his gun slung over his shoulder. He listened and looked from one to the other with his deep eyes and inscrutable parchment face, shrivelled by the malarious fever. But he said nothing. The Chief of Police turned to him at last. "Now what do you think about it?" asked the official. "You know the country. Had there been any suspicious characters about, fellows who could have carried off the boy?" "Such people would ask a ransom," answered Ercole. "You would soon hear from them. But I saw no one. There have been no brigands about Rome for more than twenty years. Do you dream that you are in Sicily? Praise be to Heaven, this is the Roman Campagna; we are Christians and we live under King Victor! Where are the brigands? They have melted. Or else they are making straw hats in the galleys. Do I know where they are? They are not here. That is enough." "Quite right, my friend," answered the Chief of Police. "There are no brigands. But I am sorry to say that there are thieves in the Campagna, as there are near every great city." Ercole shrugged his angular shoulders contemptuously. "Thieves would not carry a man away," he answered. "You know that, you who are of the profession, as they say. Such ruffians would have knocked the young gentleman on the head to keep him quiet, and would have made off. And besides, we should have found their tracks in the sand, and Nino would have smelt them." Nino pricked up one ragged ear at the sound of his name. "He does not look very intelligent," observed the official. "A clever dog might have been used to track the boy." "How?" inquired Ercole with scorn. "The footsteps of the young gentleman were everywhere, with those of all the family, who were always coming and going about here. How could he track them, or any of us? But he would have smelt a stranger, even if it had rained. I know this dog. He is the head dog on the Roman shore. There is no other dog like him." "I daresay not," assented the Chief of Police, looking at Nino. "In fact, he is not like any animal I ever saw." The detectives laughed at this. "There is no other," said Ercole without a smile. "He is the only son of a widowed mother. I am his family, and he is my family, and we live in good understanding in this desert. If there were no fever we should be like the saints in paradise--eating our corn meal together. And I will tell you another thing. If the young gentleman had been wounded anywhere near here, Nino would have found the blood even after three days. As for a dead man, he would make a point for him and howl half a mile off, unless the wind was the wrong way." "Would he really?" asked Corbario with a little interest. Ercole looked at him and nodded, but said no more, and presently the whole party of men went back to Rome, leaving him to the loneliness of the sand-banks and the sea. Then Ercole came back to the gap and stood still a little while, and his dog sat bolt upright beside him. "Nino," he said at last, in a rather regretful tone, "I gave you a good character. What could I say before those gentlemen? But I tell you this, you are growing old. And don't answer that I am getting old too, for that is my business. If your nose were what it was once, we should know the truth by this time. Smell that!" Ercole produced a small green morocco pocket-book, of the sort made to hold a few visiting cards and a little paper money, and held it to Nino's muzzle. Nino smelt it, looked up to his master's face inquiringly, smelt it again, and then, as if to explain that it did not interest him, lay down in the sand with his head on his forepaws. "You see!" growled Ercole. "You cannot even tell whether it belonged to the boy or to Corbario. An apoplexy on you! You understand nothing! Ill befall the souls of your dead, you ignorant beast!" Nino growled, but did not lift his head. "You understand that," said Ercole, discontentedly. "If you were a Christian you would stick a knife into me for insulting your dead! Yet you cannot tell whose pocket-book this is! And if I knew, I should know something worth knowing." The pocket-book disappeared in the interior recesses of Ercole's waistcoat. It was empty and bore no initial, and he could not remember to have seen it in Corbario's or Marcello's hands, but he was quite sure that it belonged to one of them. He was equally sure that if he showed it to Corbario the latter would at once say that it was Marcello's, and would take it away from him, so he said nothing about it. He had found it in the sand, a little way up the bank, during his first search after Marcello's disappearance. Ercole's confidence in the good intentions of his fellow-men was not great; he was quite lacking in the sort of charity which believeth all things, and had a large capacity for suspicion of everybody and everything; he held all men to be liars and most women to be something worse. "Men are at least Christians," he would say to Nino, "but a female is always a female." If he took a liking for any one, as for Marcello, he excused himself for the weakness on the ground that he was only human after all, and in his heart he respected his dog for snarling at everybody without discrimination. There was no doubt, however, that he felt a sort of attachment for the boy, and he admitted the failing while he deplored it. Besides, he detested Corbario, and had felt that his own common sense was insulted by the fact that Folco seemed devoted to Marcello. The suspicion that Folco had got rid of his stepson in order to get his fortune was therefore positively delightful, accompanied as it was by the conviction that he should one day prove his enemy a murderer. Perhaps if he could have known what Folco Corbario was suffering, he might have been almost satisfied, but he had no means of guessing that. In his opinion the man knew what had become of Marcello, and could be made to tell if proper means were used. At night Ercole put himself to sleep by devising the most horrible tortures for his master, such as no fortitude could resist, and by trying to guess what the wretched man would say when his agony forced him to confess the truth. He was almost sure by this time that Marcello was dead, though how Folco could have killed him, carried off his body to a great distance and buried him, without ever absenting himself from the cottage, was more than Ercole could imagine. He paid Corbario's skill the compliment of believing that he had not employed any accomplice, but had done the deed alone. How? That was the question. Ercole knew his dog well enough, and was perfectly sure that if the body had been concealed anywhere within a mile of the cottage Nino would have found it out, for the dog and his master had quartered every foot of the ground within three days after Marcello had been lost. It was utterly, entirely impossible that Folco, without help, could have dragged the dead boy farther. When he had gone on his pretended search he had not been alone; one of the men had ridden with him, and had never lost sight of him, as Ercole easily ascertained without seeming to ask questions. Ercole had obtained a pretty fair knowledge of Corbario's movements on that day, and it appeared that he had not been absent from the cottage more than half an hour at any time before he went to look for Marcello. "If Corbario himself had disappeared in that way," said Ercole to himself and Nino, "it would be easy to understand. We should know that the devil had carried him off." But no such supernatural intervention of the infernal powers could be supposed in Marcello's case, and Ercole racked his brains to no purpose, and pondered mad schemes for carrying Corbario off out of Rome to a quiet place where he would extract the truth from him, and he growled at the impossibility of such a thing, and fell to guessing again. In the magnificent library of the villa on the Janiculum, Folco was guessing, too, and with no better result. But because he could not guess right, and could get no news of Marcello, his eyes were growing hollow and his cheeks wan. The lawyers came and talked about the will, and explained to him that all the great property was his, unless Marcello came back, and that in any case he was to administer it. They said that if no news of the boy were obtained within a limited time, the law must take it for granted that he had perished in some unaccountable way. Folco shook his head. "He must be found," he said. "I have good nerves, but if I do not find out what has become of him I shall go mad." The lawyers spoke of courage and patience, but a sickly smile twisted Folco's lips. "Put yourself in my place, if you can," he answered. The lawyers, who knew the value of the property to a farthing, wished they could, though if they had known also what was passing in his mind they might have hesitated to exchange their lot for his. "He was like your own son," they said sympathetically. "A wife and a son gone on the same day! It is a tragedy. It is more than a man can bear." "It is indeed!" answered Corbario in a low voice and looking away. Almost the same phrases were exchanged each time that the two men came to the villa about the business, and when they left they never failed to look at each other gravely and to remark that Folco was a person of the deepest feeling, to whom such an awful trial was almost worse than death; and the elder lawyer, who was of a religious turn of mind, said that if such a calamity befell him he would retire from the world, but the younger answered that, for his part, he would travel and see the world and try to divert his thoughts. In their different ways they were hard-headed, experienced men; yet neither of them suspected for a moment that there was anything wrong. Both were honestly convinced that Folco had been a model husband to his dead wife, and a model father to her lost son. What they could not understand was that he should not find consolation in possessing their millions, and they could only account for the fact by calling him a person of the deepest feeling--a feeling, indeed, quite past their comprehension. Even the Contessa dell' Armi was impressed by the unmistakable signs of suffering in his face. She went twice to see him within three weeks after her friend's death, and she came away convinced that she had misjudged him. Aurora did not go with her, and Corbario barely asked after her. He led Maddalena to his dead wife's room and begged her to take some object that had belonged to the Signora, in memory of their long friendship. He pressed her to accept a necklace, or a bracelet, or some other valuable ornament, but Maddalena would only take a simple little gold chain which she herself had given long ago. Her own sorrow for her friend was profound but undemonstrative, as her nature had grown to be. Aurora saw it, and never referred to it, speaking only now and then of Marcello, to ask if there were any news of him. "He is not dead," the girl said one day. "I know he will come back. He went away because I called him a baby." Her mother smiled sadly and shook her head. "Did you love him, dear?" she asked softly. "We were children then," Aurora answered. "How do I know? I shall know when he comes back." It was true that the girl had changed within a few weeks, and her mother saw it. Her smile was not the same, and her eyes were deeper. She had begun to gather her hair in a knot, closer to her head, and that altered her expression a little and made her look much older; but there was more than that, there was something very hard to describe, something one might call conviction--the conviction that the world is real, which comes upon girlhood as suddenly as waking on sleep, or sleep on waking. She had crossed the narrow borderland between play and earnest, and she had crossed it very soon. "He will come back," she said. "He went away on that little ship that was tossing in the storm. I know it, though I cannot tell how he got out to it through the breaking waves." "That is perfectly impossible, child," said Maddalena with certainty. "Never mind. If we knew what ship that was, and where she is now, we could find Marcello. I am as sure of it as I am sure of seeing you at this moment. You know you often say that my presentiments come true. As soon as we knew he was gone I thought of the little ship." It was natural, perhaps. The picture of the small brigantine, fighting for existence, had graved itself in her memory. With its crew so near death, it had been the only thing within sight that suggested human life after Marcello was gone. The utter impossibility of a man's swimming out through the raging sea that broke upon the bar was nothing compared with Aurora's inward conviction that the little vessel had borne away the secret of his disappearance. And she had not been wrecked: Aurora knew that, for a wreck anywhere on the Roman shore would have been spoken of at once. They are unfortunately common enough, and since her childhood Aurora had more than once seen a schooner's masts sticking up out of the treacherous water a cable's length from the shore. The brigantine had got away, for the gale had moderated very suddenly, as spring gales do in the Mediterranean, just when the captain was making up his mind to let go both anchors and make a desperate attempt to save his vessel by riding out the storm--a forlorn hope with such ground tackle as he had in his chain lockers. And then he had stood out, and had sailed away, one danger more behind him in his hard life, and one less ahead. He had sailed away--whither? No one could tell. Those little vessels, built in the south of Italy, often enough take salt to South America, and are sold there, cargo and all; and some of the crew stay there, and some get other ships, but almost all are dispersed. The keeper of the San Lorenzo tower, who had been a deep-water man, had told Aurora about it. He himself had once gone out in a Sicilian brigantine from Trapani, and had stayed away three years, knocking about the world in all sorts of craft. Yet this one might have been on a coastwise trip to Genoa and Marseilles. That was quite possible. If one could only find out her name. And yet, if she had put into a near port Marcello would have come back; for Aurora was quite sure that he had got on board her somehow. It was all a mystery, all but the certainty she felt that he was still alive, and which nothing could shake, even when every one else had given him up. Aurora begged her mother to speak to Corbario about it. With his experience and knowledge of things he would know what to do; he could find some way of tracing the vessel, wherever she might be. The Contessa was convinced that the girl's theory was utterly untenable, and it was only to please her that she promised to speak of it if she saw Corbario again. Soon afterward she decided to leave Rome for the summer, and before going away she went once more to the villa. It was now late in June, and she found Folco in the garden late in the afternoon. He looked ill and tired, but she thought him a little less thin than when she had seen him last. He said that he, too, meant to leave Rome within a few days, that he intended to go northward first to see an old friend of his who had recently returned from South America, and that he should afterwards go down to Calabria, to San Domenico, and spend the autumn there. He had no news of Marcello. He looked thoughtfully down at his hands as he said this in a tone of profound sorrow. "Aurora has a fixed idea," said Maddalena. "While she was talking with Marcello at the gap in the bank there was a small ship tossing about not far from the shore." "Well?" asked Corbario. "What of it?" As he looked up from the contemplation of his hands Maddalena was struck by his extreme pallor and the terrible hollowness of his eyes. "How ill you look!" she exclaimed, almost involuntarily. "The sooner you go away the better." "What did Aurora say about the brigantine?" he asked earnestly, by way of answer. Maddalena knew too little about the sea to understand that he must have noticed the vessel's rig to name it correctly, as he did, and without hesitation. "She is convinced that Marcello got on board of her," she answered. Corbario's face relaxed a little, and he laughed harshly. "That is utterly absurd!" he answered. "No swimmer that ever lived could have got to her, nor any boat either! There was a terrific surf on the bar." "Of course not," assented Maddalena. "But you saw the ship, too?" "Yes. Aurora was looking at her when I reached the gap. That is why I noticed the vessel," Corbario added, as if by an afterthought. "She was a Sicilian brigantine, and was carrying hardly any sail. If the gale had lasted she would probably have been driven ashore. Her only chance would have been to drop anchor." "You know all about ships and the sea, don't you?" asked Maddalena, with a very little curiosity, but without any particular intention. "Oh, no!" cried Corbario, as if he were protesting against something. "I have made several long voyages, and I have a knack of remembering the names of things, nothing more." "I did not mean to suggest that you had been a sailor," Maddalena answered. "What an idea! I, a sailor!" He seemed vaguely amused at the idea. The Contessa took leave of him, after giving him her address in the north of Italy, and begging him to write if he found any clue to Marcello's disappearance. He promised this, and they parted, not expecting to meet again until the autumn. In a few days they had left Rome for different destinations. The little apartment near the Forum of Trajan where the Contessa and her daughter lived was shut up, and at the great villa on the Janiculum the solemn porter put off his mourning livery and dressed himself in brown linen, and smoked endless pipes within the closed gates when it was not too hot to be out of doors. The horses were turned out to grass, and the coachman and grooms departed to the country. The servants opened the windows in the early morning, shut them at ten o'clock against the heat, and dozed the rest of the time, or went down into the city to gossip with their friends in the afternoon. It was high summer, and Rome went to sleep. CHAPTER VI "What do we eat to-day?" asked Paoluccio, the innkeeper on the Frascati road, as he came in from the glare and the dust and sat down in his own black kitchen. "Beans and oil," answered his wife. "An apoplexy take you!" observed the man, by way of mild comment. "It is Friday," said the woman, unmoved, though she was of a distinctly apoplectic habit. The kitchen was also the eating-room where meals were served to the wine-carters on their way to Rome and back. The beams and walls were black with the smoke of thirty years, for no whitewash had come near them since the innkeeper had married Nanna. It was a rich, crusty black, lightened here and there to chocolate brown, and shaded off again to the tint of strong coffee. High overhead three hams and half a dozen huge sausages hung slowly curing in the acrid wood smoke. There was an open hearth, waist high, for roasting, and having three square holes sunk in it for cooking with charcoal. An enormous bunch of green ferns had been hung by a long string from the highest beam to attract the flies, which swarmed on it like bees on a branch. The floor was of beaten cement, well swept and watered. Along three of the walls there were heavy tables of rough-hewn oak, with benches, polished by long and constant use. A trap-door covered the steps that led down to the deep cellar, which was nothing but a branch of those unexplored catacombs that undermine the Campagna in all directions. The place was dim, smoky, and old, but it was not really dirty, for in his primitive way the Roman wine-carter is fastidious. It is not long since he used to bring his own solid silver spoon and fork with him, and he will generally rinse a glass out two or three times before he will drink out of it. The kitchen of the inn was cool compared with the road outside, and though it smelt chiefly of the stale smoke of green wood, this was pervaded and tempered by odours of fern, fresh cabbages, goats'-milk cheese, and sour red wine. The brown earthen pot simmered over one of the holes in the hearth, emitting little clouds of steam; but boiling beans have no particular smell, as everybody knows. Paoluccio had pushed his weather-beaten soft hat back on his head, and sat drumming on the oak table with his knotty fingers. He was a strong man, thickset and healthy, with grizzled hair and an intensely black beard. His wife was fat, and purple about the jaws and under the ears. She stood with her back to the hearth, looking at him, with a wooden spoon in her hand. "Beans," she said slowly, and she looked up at the rafters and down again at her husband. "You have told me so," he growled, "and may the devil fly away with you!" "Beans are not good for people who have the fever," observed Nanna. "Beans are rather heavy food," assented the innkeeper, apparently understanding. "Bread and water are better. Pour a little oil on the bread." "A man who has the fever may die of eating beans," said Nanna thoughtfully. "This is also to be considered." "It is true." Paoluccio looked at his wife in silence for a moment. "But a person who is dead must be buried," he continued, as if he had discovered something. "When a person is dead, he is dead, whether he dies of eating beans or--" He broke off significantly, and his right hand, as it lay before him, straightened itself and made a very slight vibrating motion, with the fingers all close together. It is the gesture that means the knife among the southern people. Nanna instantly looked round, to be sure that no one else was in the room. "When you have given that medicine, you cannot send for the doctor," she observed, lowering her voice. "But if he eats, and dies, what can any one say? We have fed him for charity; it is Friday and we have given him beans. What can we know? Are not beans good food? We have nothing else, and it is for charity, and we give what we have. I don't think they could expect us to give him chickens and French wine, could they?" Paoluccio growled approval. "It is forty-seven days," continued Nanna. "You can make the account. Chickens and milk and fresh meat for forty-seven days! Even the bread comes to something in that time, at least two soldi a day--two forties eighty, two sevens fourteen, ninety-four--nearly five francs. Who will give us the five francs? Are we princes?" "There is the cow," observed Paoluccio with a grin. "Imbecile," retorted his wife. "It has been a good year; we bought the wine cheap, we sell it dear, without counting what we get for nothing from the carters; we buy a cow with our earnings, and where is the miracle?" The innkeeper looked towards the door and the small window suspiciously before he answered in a low voice. "If I had not been sure that he would die, I would not have sold the watch and chain," he said. "In the house of my father we have always been honest people." "He will die," answered Nanna, confidently and with emphasis. "The girl says he is hungry to-day. He shall eat beans. They are white beans, too, and the white are much heavier than the brown." She lifted the tin cover off the earthen pot and stirred the contents. "White beans!" grumbled Paoluccio. "And the weather is hot. Do you wish to kill me?" "No," answered Nanna quietly. "Not you." "Do you know what I say?" Paoluccio planted a huge finger on the oaken board. "That sick butterfly upstairs is tougher than I am. Forty-seven days of fever, and nothing but bread and water! Think of that, my Nanna! Think of it! You or I would be consumed, one would not even see our shadows on the floor! But he lives." "If he eats the white beans he has finished living," remarked Nanna. A short silence followed, during which Paoluccio seemed to be meditating, and Nanna began to ladle the beans out into four deep earthenware bowls, roughly glazed and decorated with green and brown stripes. "You are a jewel; you are the joy of my heart," he observed thoughtfully, as Nanna placed his portion before him, covered it with oil, and scattered some chopped basil on the surface. "Eat, my love," she said, and she cut a huge piece from a coarse loaf and placed it beside him on a folded napkin that looked remarkably clean in such surroundings, and emitted a pleasant odour of dried lavender blossoms. "Where is the girl?" asked Paoluccio, stirring the mess and blowing upon it. As he spoke, the door was darkened, and the girl stood there with a large copper "conca," the water-jar of the Roman province, balanced on her head--one of the most magnificent human beings on whom the sun of the Campagna ever shone. She was tall, and she bent her knees without moving her neck, in order to enter the door without first setting down the heavy vessel. [Illustration: " ... THE DOOR WAS DARKENED, AND THE GIRL STOOD THERE WITH A LARGE COPPER 'CONCA' ..."] Her thick dark hair grew low on her forehead, almost black, save for the reddish chestnut lights where a few tiny ringlets curled themselves about her small and classic ears. Straight black eyebrows outlined the snow-white forehead, and long brown lashes shaded the fearless eyes, that looked black too. She smiled a little, quite unconsciously, as she lowered herself with the weight and gracefully rose to her height again after she had entered. One shapely brown hand steadied the conca above, the other gathered her coarse skirt; then she stood still, lifted the load from her head with both hands and without any apparent effort, and set it down in its place on a stone slab near the hearth. Most women need a little help to do that. She laid aside the twisted cloth on which the conca had rested while she carried it, and she smoothed her hair carelessly. "There are beans," said Nanna, giving the girl one of the bowls. "There is the bread. While they are cooling take the other portion upstairs." The girl looked at the bowl, and at Nanna, and then at Paoluccio, and stood stock still. "Hey, there!" the man cried, with a rough laugh. "Hey! Reginella! Are you going to sleep, or are you turning into a statue?" "Am I to give him the beans to eat?" asked Regina, looking hard at the innkeeper. "You said he was hungry. That is what there is for dinner. We give him what we have." Regina's dark eyes lightened; her upper lip rose in a curve and showed her closed teeth, strong and white as those of a young animal. "Do as you are told," added Paoluccio. "This is charity. When you examine your conscience at Easter you can say, 'I have fed the hungry and cared for the sick.' The beans are mine, of course, but that makes no difference. I make you a present of them." "Thank you!" "Welcome," answered Paoluccio, with his mouth, full. Regina took the fourth bowl and a piece of bread and went out. The steps to the upper part of the house were on the outside, as is common in the houses of the Campagna. "How old is she?" Paoluccio asked when she was gone. "She must be twenty," answered Nanna. "It must be ten years since her mother died, and her mother said she was ten years old. She has eaten many loaves in this house." "She has worked for her food," said the innkeeper. "And she is an honest girl." "What did you expect? That I should let her be idle, or make eyes at the carters? But you always defend her, because she is pretty, you ugly scamp!" Nanna uttered her taunt in a good-natured tone, but she glanced furtively at her husband to see the effect of her words, for it was not always safe to joke with Paoluccio. "If I did not defend her," he answered, "you would beat the life out of her." "I daresay," replied Nanna, and filled her mouth with beans. "But now," said Paoluccio, swallowing, "if you are not careful she will break all your bones. She has the health of a horse." So the couple discussed matters amiably, while Regina was out of the way. In a garret that had a small unglazed window looking to the north, the girl was bending over a wretched trestle-bed, which was literally the only piece of furniture in the room; and on the coarse mattress, stuffed with the husks and leaves of maize, lay all that the fever had left of Marcello Consalvi, shivering under a tattered brown blanket. There was little more than the shadow of the boy, and his blue eyes stared dully up at the girl's face. But there was life in him still, thanks to her, and though there was no expression in his gaze, his lips smiled faintly, and faint words came from them. "Thank you," he said, "I am better to-day. Yes, I could eat something." Regina bent lower, smiling happily, and she kissed the boy's face three times; she kissed his eyes and dry lips. And he, too, smiled again. Then she left the bedside and went to a dark corner, where she cautiously moved aside a loose board. From the recess she took a common tumbler and a bottle of old wine and a battered iron spoon. She crouched upon the floor, because there was no table; she took two fresh eggs out of the folds of the big red and yellow cotton handkerchief that covered her shoulders and was crossed over her bosom, and she broke them into the glass, and hid the empty shells carefully in the folds again, so that they should not be found in the room. For she had stolen these for Marcello, as usual, as well as the old wine. She poured a little of the latter into the glass and stirred the eggs quickly and softly, making hardly any noise. From the recess in the wall she got a little sugar, which was wrapped up in a bit of newspaper brown with age and smoke, and she sweetened the eggs and wine and stirred again; and at last she came and fed Marcello with the battered spoon. She had put off her coarse slippers and walked about in her thick brown woollen stockings, lest she should be heard below. She was very quiet and skilful, and she had strangely small and gentle hands for a peasant girl. Marcello's head was propped up by her left arm while she fed him. She had kept him alive six weeks, and she had saved his life. She had found him lying against the door of the inn at dawn, convulsed with ague and almost unconscious, and had carried him into the house like a child, though he had been much heavier then. Of course the innkeeper had taken his watch and chain, and his jacket and sleeve-links and studs, to keep them safe, he said. Regina knew what that meant, but Paoluccio had ordered her to take care of him, and she had done her best. Paoluccio felt that if the boy died it would be the will of heaven, and that he probably would not live long with such care and such nourishment as he would get up there in the attic. When he was dead, it would be time enough to tell the carabineers who passed the house twice every twenty-four hours on their beat; they would see that a sick boy had been taken in, and that he had died of the fever, and as they need never know how long he had been in the inn, the whole affair would redound to Paoluccio's credit with them and with customers. But as long as he was alive it was quite unnecessary that any one should know of his existence, especially as the watch and chain had been converted into money, and the money into a fine young cow. That Marcello could get well on bread and water never entered Paoluccio's head. But he had counted without Regina; that is to say that he had overlooked the love and devotion of an intensely vital creature, younger, quicker, and far cleverer that he, who would watch the sick boy day and night, steal food and wine for him, lose sleep for him, risk blows for him, and breathe her strong life into his weak body; to whom the joy of saving him from death would be so much greater than all fatigue, that there would be no shadow under her eyes, no pallor in her cheek, no weariness in her elastic gait to tell of sleepless nights spent by his bedside in soothing his ravings, or in listening for the beat of his heart when he lay still and exhausted, his tired head resting on her strong white arm. And when he seemed better and at ease she often fell asleep beside him, half sitting, half lying, on the pallet bed, her cheek on the straw pillow, her breath mingling with his in the dark. He was better now, and she felt the returning life in him, almost before he was sure of it himself; and while her heart was almost bursting with happiness, so that she smiled to herself throughout her rough work all day long, she knew that he could not stay where he was. Paoluccio expected him to die, and was beginning to be tired of waiting, and so was Nanna. If he recovered, he would ask for his watch and other things; he was evidently a fine young gentleman to whom some strange accident had happened, and he must have friends somewhere. Half delirious, he had spoken of them and of his mother, and of some one called Aurora, whom Regina already hated with all her heart and soul. The innkeeper and his wife had never come near him since the former had helped the girl to carry him upstairs, but if they suspected that he was recovering she would not be able to prevent them from seeing him; and if they did, she knew what would happen. They would send her on an errand, and when she came back Marcello would be dead. She might refuse to go, but they were strong people and would be two to one. Brave as Regina was, she did not dare to wait for the carabineers when they came by on their beat and to tell them the truth, for she had the Italian peasant's horror and dread of the law and its visible authority; and moreover she was quite sure that Paoluccio would murder her if she told the secret. "If I could only take you to Rome!" she whispered, bending over him when he had swallowed the contents of the glass. "You could tell me where your friends are." "Rome?" he repeated, with a vacant questioning. She nodded and smiled, and then sighed. She had long been sure that the fever had affected his memory, and she had tried many times to awaken it. She loved him because he had the face of an angel, and was fair-haired, and seemed so gentle and patient, and smiled so sweetly when she kissed him. That was all. He could thank her; he could tell her that he was better or worse; he could speak of what he saw; he could even tell her that she was beautiful, and that was much. He was Marcello, he had told her that, but when she asked what other name he had, he looked at her blankly at first, and then an expression of painful effort came over his face, and she would not disturb him any more. He could not remember. He did not know how he had come to the inn door; he had been walking in the Campagna alone and had felt tired. He knew no more. If only she could get him to Rome. It was not more than seven or eight miles to the city, and Regina had often been there with Nanna. She had been to Saint John Lateran's at midsummer for the great festival, and she knew where the hospital was, in which famous professors cured every ill under the sun. If she could bring Marcello to them, he would get well; if he stayed much longer at the inn, Paoluccio would kill him; being a woman, and a loving one, Regina only regarded as possible what she wished, where the man she loved was concerned. She made up her mind that if it could not be done by any other means she would carry Marcello all the way. During his illness she had often lifted him from his bed like a little child, for he was slightly built by nature and was worn to a shadow by the fever. Even Aurora could have raised him, and he was a featherweight in the arms of such a creature as Regina. But it would be another matter to carry such an awkward burden for miles along the highroad; and besides, she would meet the carabineers, and as she would have to go at night, they would probably arrest her and put her in prison, and Marcello would die. She must find some other way. She laid his head tenderly on the pillow and left him, promising to come back as soon as she could. For safety she had brought the dish of beans with her, lest Nanna should follow her, and she took it with her, just as it was; but at the foot of the outer stairs she ran along the back of the house to the pig-sty, and emptied the mess into the trough, carefully scraping the bowl with the spoon so that it looked as if some one had eaten the contents. Then she went back to the kitchen. "Has he eaten?" inquired Nanna, and Paoluccio looked up, too. "You see," answered Regina, showing the empty bowl. "Health to him!" answered Paoluccio. "He has a good appetite." "Eat your own," said Nanna to the girl. She suspected that Regina might have eaten the beans meant for Marcello, but her doubt vanished as she saw how the hungry young thing devoured her own portion. "Are there any more left?" Regina asked when she had finished, for she understood perfectly what was going on in the minds of the other two. She looked into the earthen cooking-pot which now stood on the corner of the hearth. "Not even the smell of any more," answered Nanna. "There is bread." Regina's white teeth crushed the hard brown crust as if she had not eaten for a week. There could be no doubt but that the sick boy had eaten the beans; and beans, especially white ones, are not good for people who have the fever, as Nanna had justly observed. "On Sunday he shall have a dish of liver and cabbage," she said, in a cheerful tone. "There is much strength in liver, and cabbage is good for the blood. I shall take it to him myself, for it will be a pleasure to see him eat." "The beans were soon finished," said Regina, with perfect truth. "I told you how it would be," Paoluccio answered. But Regina knew that the time had come to get Marcello away from the inn if he ever was to leave it alive, and in the afternoon, when Nanna was dozing in her chair in the kitchen and Paoluccio was snoring upstairs, and when she had smoothed Marcello's pillow, she went out and sat down in front of the house, where there was shade at that hour, though the glare from the dusty road would have blinded weaker eyes than hers. She sat on the stone seat that ran along the house, and leaned against the rough wall, thinking and scheming, and quite sure that she should find a way. At first she looked about, while she thought, from the well-known mountains that bounded her world to the familiar arches of the distant aqueduct, from the dry ditch opposite to the burning sky above and the greyish green hillocks below Tivoli. But by and by she looked straight before her, with a steady, concentrated stare, as if she saw something happening and was watching to see how it would end. She had found what she wanted, and was quite sure of it; only a few details remained to be settled, such as what was to become of her after she left the inn where she had grown up. But that did not trouble her much. She was not delicately nurtured that she should dread the great world of which she knew nothing, nor had Nanna's conversation during ten years done much to strengthen her in the paths of virtue. Her pride had done much more and might save her wherever she went, but she was very well aware of life's evil truths. And what would her pride be compared with Marcello, the first and only being she had ever loved? To begin with, she knew that the handsome people from the country earned money by serving as models for painters and sculptors, and she had not the slightest illusion about her own looks. Since she had been a child people who came to the inn had told her that she was beautiful; and not the rough wine-carters only, for the fox-hunters sometimes came that way, riding slowly homeward after a long run, and many a fine gentleman in pink had said things to her which she had answered sharply, but which she remembered well. She had not the slightest doubt but that she was one of the handsomest girls in Italy, and the absolute certainty of the conviction saved her from having any small vanity about her looks. She knew that she had only to show herself and that every one would stand and look at her, only to beckon and she would be followed. She did not crave admiration; a great beauty rarely does. She simply defied competition, and was ready to laugh at it in a rather good-natured way, for she knew what she had, and was satisfied. As for the rest, she was merely clever and fearless, and her moral inheritance was not all that might be desired; for her father had left her mother in a fit of pardonable jealousy, after nearly killing her and quite killing his rival, and her mother had not redeemed her character after his abrupt departure. On the contrary, if an accident had not carried her off suddenly, Regina's virtuous parent would probably have sold the girl into slavery. Poor people are not all honest, any more than other kinds of people are. Regina did not mourn her mother, and hardly remembered her father at all, and she never thought of either. She owed Paoluccio and Nanna nothing, in her opinion. They had fed her sufficiently, and clothed her decently for the good of the house; she had done the work of two women in return, because she was strong, and she had been honest, because she was proud. Even the innkeeper and his wife would not have pretended that she owed them much gratitude; they were much too natural for that, and besides, the girl was too handsome, and there might be some scandal about her any day which would injure the credit of the inn. Nanna thought Paoluccio much too fond of watching her, as it was, and reflected that if she went to the city she would be well out of the way, and might go to the devil if she pleased. Regina's plan for taking Marcello was simple, like most plans which succeed, and only depended for its success on being carried out fearlessly. The wine-carters usually came to the inn from the hills between nine and eleven o'clock at night, and the carts, heavy-laden with wine casks, stood in a line along the road, while the men went into the kitchen to eat and drink. They generally paid for what they consumed by giving a measure or two of wine from the casks they were bringing, and which they filled up with water, a very simple plan which seems to have been in use for ages. It has several advantages; the owner of the wine does not suffer by it, since he gets his full price in town; the man who buys the wine in Rome does not suffer, because he adds so much water to the wine before selling it that a little more or less makes no difference; the public does not suffer, as it is well known that wine is much better for the health when drunk with plenty of water; and the carters do not suffer, because nobody would think of interfering with them. Moreover, they get food and drink for nothing. While the men were having supper in the inn, their carts were guarded by their little woolly dogs, black, white, or brown, and always terribly wide-awake and uncommonly fierce in spite of their small size. Now, just at this time, there was one carter who had none, and Regina knew it, for he was one of her chief admirers. He was the hardest-drinking ruffian of all the men who came and went on the Frascati road, and he had been quite willing to sell his dog in the street to a gentleman who admired it and offered him fifty francs for it, though that is a small price for a handsome "lupetto." But Mommo happened to be deeper in debt than usual, took the money, and cast about to steal another dog that might serve him. So far he had not seen one to his liking. It is the custom of the wine-carters, when they have had plenty to eat and drink, to climb to their seats under the fan-like goat-skin hoods of their carts, and to go to sleep, wrapped in their huge cloaks. Their mules plod along and keep out of the way of other vehicles without any guidance, and their dogs protect them from thieves, who might steal their money; for they always carry the sum necessary to pay the octroi duty at the city gates, where every cart is stopped. As they are on the road most of their lives, winter and summer, they would not get much sleep if they tried to keep awake all night; and they drink a good deal, partly because wine is really a protection against the dangerous fever, and partly because their drink costs them nothing. Some of them drank their employers' wine at supper, others exchanged what they brought for Paoluccio's, which they liked better. They usually got away about midnight, and Mommo was often the last to go. It was a part of Regina's work to go down to the cellar and draw the wine that was wanted from the hogsheads when the host was too lazy to go down himself, and being quite unwatched she could draw a measure from the oldest and strongest if she chose. Mommo could easily be made a little sleepier than usual, after being tempted to outstay the others. And so it turned out that night. After the necessary operation of tapping one of his casks and filling it up with water, he lingered on before a measure of the best, while Nanna and Paoluccio dozed in their chairs; and at last all three were asleep. Then Regina went out softly into the dark summer night, and climbed the stairs to the attic. "I am going to take you to Rome to-night," she whispered in Marcello's ear. "Rome?" he repeated vaguely, half asleep. She wrapped him in the tattered blanket as he was, and lifted him lightly in her arms. Down the stairs she bore him, and then lifted him upon the tail of the cart, propping him up as best she could, and passing round him the end of one of the ropes that held the casks in place. He breathed more freely in the open air, and she had fed him again before the carters came to supper. "And you?" he asked faintly. "I shall walk," she whispered. "Now wait, and make no noise, or they will kill you. Are you comfortable?" She could see that he nodded his head. "We shall start presently," she said. She went into the kitchen, waked Mommo, and made him swallow the rest of his wine. He was easily persuaded that he had slept too long, and must be on the road. The innkeeper and Nanna grumbled a good-night as he went out rather unsteadily, followed by Regina. A moment later the mules' bells jingled, the cart creaked, and Mommo was off. Paoluccio and his wife made their way to the outer stairs and to bed, leaving Regina to put out the lights and lock up the kitchen. She lost no time in doing this, ran up the steps in the dark, hung the key on its nail in the entry, and went to her attic, making a loud noise with her loose slippers, so that the couple might hear her. She came down again in her stockings almost at once, carrying the slippers and a small bundle containing her belongings. She made no noise now, though it was almost quite dark, and in another instant she was out on the road to Rome. It had all been done so quickly that she could still hear the jingling of Mommo's mule bells in the distance. She had only a few hundred yards to run, and she was walking at the tail of the cart with one hand resting on Marcello's knee as he lay there wrapped up in the ragged blanket. CHAPTER VII It was clear dawn, and there was confusion at the Porta San Giovanni. Mommo had wakened, red-eyed and cross as usual, a little while before reaching the gate, and had uttered several strange noises to quicken the pace of his mules. After that, everything had happened as usual, for a little while; he had stopped inside the walls before the guard-house of the city customs, had nodded to the octroi inspectors, and had got his money ready while the printed receipt was being filled out. Then the excitement had begun. "You have a passenger," said one, and Mommo stared at him, not understanding. "You have a dead man on behind!" yelled a small boy, standing at safe distance. Mommo began to swear, but one of the inspectors stopped him. "Get down," said the man. "The carabineers are coming." Mommo finished his swearing internally, but with increased fervour. The small boy was joined by others, and they began to jeer in chorus, and perform war-dances. "There is a tax on dead men!" they screamed. "You must pay!" "May you all be butchered!" shouted Mommo, in a voice of thunder. "May your insides be fried!" "Brute beast, without education!" hooted the biggest boy, contemptuously. "I'll give you the education, and the instruction too," retorted the carter, making at them with his long whip. They scattered in all directions, like a flock of cawing jackdaws that fly a little way in tremendous haste, and then settle again at a distance and caw louder than before. "Animal!" they yelled. "Animal! Animal and beast!" By this time a crowd had collected round the cart, and two carabineers had come up to see what was the matter, quiet, sensible men in extraordinary cocked hats and well-fitting swallow-tailed uniforms of the fashion of 1810. The carabineers are quite the finest corps in the Italian service, and there are a good many valid reasons why their antiquated dress should not be changed. Their presence means law and order without unnecessary violence. Mommo was surly, but respectful enough. Yes, it was his cart, and he was a regular carter on the Frascati road. Yes, this was undoubtedly a sick man, who had climbed upon the cart while Mommo was asleep. Of course he had slept on the road, all carters did, and he had no dog, else no one would have dared to take liberties with his cart. No, he had never seen the sick man. The carabineers might send him to penal servitude for life, tear out his tongue, cut off his ears and nose, load him with chains, and otherwise annoy him, but he had never seen the sick man. If he had seen him, he would have pulled him off, and kicked him all the way to the hospital, where he ought to be. What right had such brigands as sick men to tamper with the carts of honest people? If the fellow had legs to jump upon the cart, he had legs to walk. Had Mommo ever done anything wrong in his life, that this should be done to him? Had he stolen, or killed anybody, or tried to evade the octroi duty? No. Then why should an ugly thief of a sick man climb upon his cart? The wretch had hardly clothes enough to cover him decently--a torn shirt and a pair of old trousers that he must have stolen, for they were much too short for him! And so on, and so forth, to the crowd, for the carabineers paid no more attention to him after he had answered their first questions; but the crowd listened with interest, the small boys drew near again, the octroi inspectors looked on, and Mommo had a sympathetic audience. It was the general opinion that he had been outrageously put upon, and that some one had murdered the sick man, and had tied the body to the cart in order that Mommo should be accused of the crime, it being highly likely that a murderer should take so much unnecessary trouble to carry his victim and the evidence of his crime about with him in such a very public manner. "If he were dead, now," observed an old peasant, who had trudged in with a bundle on his back, "you would immediately be sent to the galleys." This was so evident that the crowd felt very sorry for Mommo. "Of course I should," he answered. "By this time to-morrow I should have chains on my legs, and be breaking stones! What is the law for, I should like to know?" Meanwhile, the carabineers had lifted Marcello very gently from the cart and had carried him into the octroi guard-house, where they set him in a chair, wrapped the ragged blanket round his knees and waist, and poured a little wine down his throat. Seeing that he was very weak, and having ascertained that he had nothing whatever about him by which he could be identified, they sent for the municipal doctor of that quarter of the city. While they were busy within, one of the inspectors chanced to look at the closed window, and saw the face of a handsome girl pressed against the pane outside, and a pair of dark eyes anxiously watching what was going on. The girl was so very uncommonly handsome that the inspector went out to look at her, but she saw him coming and moved away, drawing her cotton kerchief half across her face. Regina's only fear was that Mommo might recognise her, in which case she would inevitably be questioned by the carabineers. It was characteristic of the class in which she had been brought up, that while she entertained a holy dread of being cross-questioned by them, she felt the most complete conviction that Marcello was safe in their hands. She had meant that he should somehow be taken off the cart at the gate, probably by the inspectors, and conveyed at once to the great hospital near by. She knew nothing about hospitals, and supposed that when he was once there, she might be allowed to come and take care of him. It would be easy, she thought, to invent some story to account for her interest in him. But she could do nothing until Mommo was gone, and he might recognise her figure even if he could not see her face. Finding that nothing more was wanted of him, and that he was in no immediate danger of penal servitude for having been found with a sick man on his cart, Mommo started his mules up the paved hill towards the church, walking beside them, as the carters mostly do within the city. The crowd dispersed, the small boys went off in search of fresh matter for contemptuous comment, and Regina went boldly to the door of the guard-house. "Can I be of any use with the sick man?" she asked of the inspector who had seen her through the window. The inspector prided himself on his gallantry and good education. "Signorina," he said, lifting his round hat with a magnificent gesture, "if you were to look only once at a dying man, he would revive and live a thousand years." He made eyes at her in a manner he considered irresistible, and replaced his hat on his head, a little on one side. Regina had never been called "Signorina" before, and she was well aware that no woman who wears a kerchief out of doors, instead of a hat, is entitled to be addressed as a lady in Rome; but she was not at all offended by the rank flattery of the speech, and she saw that the inspector was a good-natured young coxcomb. "You are too kind," she answered politely. "Do you think I can be of any use?" "There are the carabineers," objected the inspector, as if that were a sufficient answer. "But you may look in through the door and see the sick man." "I have seen him through the window. He looks very ill." "Ah, Signorina," sighed the youth, "if I were ill, I should pray the saints to send you--" He was interrupted by the arrival of the doctor, who asked him what was the matter, and was at once led in by him. Regina withdrew to a little distance in the direction of the church and waited. The doctor had come in a cab, and in a few moments she saw Marcello carried out and placed in it. Then she walked as fast as she could towards the church, quite sure that the cab would stop at the door of the hospital, and anxious to be within sight of it. Everything had turned out well, even beyond her expectations. The cab passed her at a brisk pace before she reached the top of the hill, and though she walked as fast as she could, it was no longer there when she had gone far enough to see the door. The doctor, who was a busy man, had handed Marcello over to the men on duty at the entrance, with an order he had pencilled on his card while driving up, and had gone on at once. But Regina was convinced that Marcello was there, as she hurried forward. A man in blue linen clothes and a laced cap stopped her on the steps and asked what she wanted. "A young man has just been brought here, very ill," she explained, "and I want to see him." "A very young man? Fair? Thin? From the Campagna? In rags?" "Yes. I want to see him." "You can see him to-morrow, if he is alive," answered the orderly in a business-like tone. "To-morrow?" repeated Regina, in a tone of profound disappointment. "To-morrow is Sunday. Friends and relatives can visit patients on Sundays between nine and four." "But he has no other friends," pleaded Regina. "Please, please let me go to him!" "To-morrow between nine and four." "No, no--to-day--now--he knows me--my name is Regina." "Not if you were the Queen of the world," answered the orderly, jesting with perfect calm. "You must have a written order from the Superintendent." "Yes, yes! Let me see him!" "You can see him on Mondays between ten and twelve." "The day after to-morrow?" cried Regina in despair. "Yes, between ten and twelve, the day after to-morrow." "But I may come to-morrow without an order?" "Yes. Friends and relatives can visit patients on Sundays between nine and four." The man's imperturbability was exasperating, and Regina, who was not patient, felt that if she stayed any longer she should try to take him by the collar, shake him, and force her way in. But she was much too sensible to do anything so rash. There was no choice but to go away. "Thank you," she said, as she turned to go down the steps. "You are welcome," the man answered very civilly, for he was watching her and was reflecting that he had never seen such a face and figure before. Some hours later, when the police communicated with the Superintendent, and when he found that a woman had come to the door who said that she knew the waif, and had been sent away, he called the orderly who had been on duty several hard names in his heart for having followed the rule of the hospital so scrupulously. He was an antediluvian, he was a case of arrested mental development, he was an ichthyosaurus, he was a new kind of idiot, he was a monumental fool, he was the mammoth ass reported to have been seen by a mediæval traveller in the desert, that was forty cubits high, and whose braying was like the blast of ten thousand trumpets. The Superintendent wished he had time to select more choice epithets for that excellent orderly, but the police seemed so particularly curious about the new patient that he had no leisure for thinking out what he wanted. Nevertheless, the man had done his duty and nothing more nor less according to the rules, and Regina was forced to go away discomfited. She walked a hundred yards or more down the hill, towards San Clemente, and then stood still to think. The sun had risen, and Marcello was safe, though she could not see him. That was something. She stood there, young, strong, beautiful, and absolutely penniless; and Rome was before her. For the first time since the previous evening she asked herself what was to become of her, and how she was to find bread for that day and for the next, and for all the days afterwards. She would have robbed a church to feed Marcello, but she would sooner have lost her right hand than steal so much as a crust for herself. As for begging, she was too proud, and besides, no one would have given her anything, for she was the picture of health, her rough clothes were whole and clean, she had tiny gold earrings in her ears, and the red and yellow cotton kerchief on her head was as good as new. Nobody would believe that she was hungry. Meanwhile Marcello was made comfortable in one of the narrow white beds of an airy ward in the San Giovanni hospital. The institution is intended for women only, but there is now a ward for male patients, who are admitted when too ill to be taken farther. The doctor on duty had written him down as much reduced by malarious fever and wandering in his mind, but added that he might live and get well. It was wonderful, the doctor reflected for the thousandth time in his short experience, that humanity should bear so much as it daily did. The visiting physician, who was a man of learning and reputation, came three hours later and examined Marcello with interest. The boy had not suffered much by sleeping on the tail of the cart in the warm summer's night, and was now greatly refreshed by the cleanliness and comparative luxury of his new surroundings. He had no fever now and had slept quietly for two hours, but when he tried to remember what had happened to him, where he had been, and how he had come to the place where he was, it all grew vague and intricate by turns, and his memories faded away like the dreams we try to recall when we can only just recollect that we have had a dream of some sort. He knew that he was called Marcello, but the rest was gone; he knew that a beautiful creature had taken care of him, and that her name was Regina. How long? How many days and nights had he lain in the attic, hot by day and cold at night? He could not guess, and it tired him to try. The doctor asked two or three questions while he examined him, and then stood quite still for a few seconds, watching him intently. The two young house surgeons who accompanied the great man kept a respectful silence, waiting for his opinion. When he found an interesting case he sometimes delivered a little lecture on it, in a quiet monotonous tone that did not disturb the other patients. But to-day he did not seem inclined to talk. "Convalescent," he said, "at least of the fever. He needs good food more than anything else. In two days he will be walking about." He passed on, but in his own mind he was wondering what was the matter with the young man, why he had lost his memory, and what accident had brought him alone and friendless to one of the city hospitals. For the present it would be better to let him alone rather than tire him by a thorough examination of his head. There was probably a small fracture somewhere at the back of the skull, the doctor thought, and it would be easy enough to find it when the patient was strong enough to sit up. The doctor had not been long gone when an elderly man with a grizzled moustache and thoughtful eyes was led to Marcello's bedside by the Superintendent himself. The appearance of the latter at an unusual hour was always an event in the ward, and the nurses watched him with curiosity. They would have been still more curious had they known that the elderly gentleman was the Chief of the Police himself. The Superintendent raised his hand to motion them away. "What is your name, sir?" asked the Chief, bending down and speaking in a low voice. "Marcello." "Yes," replied the other, almost in a whisper, "you are Marcello. But what else? What is your family name? It is very important. Will you tell me?" The vague look came into Marcello's eyes, and then the look of pain, and he shook his head rather feebly. "I cannot remember," he answered at last. "It hurts me to remember." "Is it Consalvi?" asked the officer, smiling encouragement. "Consalvi?" Marcello's eyes wandered, as he tried to think. "I cannot remember," he said again after an interval. The Chief of Police was not discouraged yet. "You were knocked down and robbed by thieves, just after you had been talking with Aurora," he said, inventing what he believed to have happened. A faint light came into Marcello's eyes. "Aurora?" He repeated the name almost eagerly. "Yes. You had been talking to Signorina Aurora dell' Armi. You remember that?" The light faded suddenly. "I thought I remembered something," answered Marcello. "Aurora? Aurora? No, it is gone. I was dreaming again. I want to sleep now." The Chief stood upright and looked at the Superintendent, who looked at him, and both shook their heads. Then they asked what the visiting doctor had said, and what directions he had given about Marcello's treatment. "I am sure it is he," said the Chief of Police when they were closeted in the Superintendent's office, five minutes later. "I have studied his photograph every day for nearly three months. Look at it." He produced a good-sized photograph of Marcello which had been taken about a year earlier, but was the most recent. The Superintendent looked at it critically, and said it was not much like the patient. The official objected that a man who was half dead of fever and had lain starving for weeks, heaven only knew where, could hardly be quite himself in appearance. The Superintendent pointed out that this was precisely the difficulty; the photograph was not like the sick man. But the Chief politely insisted that it was. They differed altogether on this point, but quarrelled over it in the most urbane manner possible. The Superintendent suggested that it would be easy to identify Marcello Consalvi, by bringing people who knew him to his bedside, servants and others. The official answered that he should prefer to be sure of everything before calling in any one else. The patient had evidently lost his memory by some accident, and if he could not recall his own name it was not likely that he could recognise a face. Servants would swear that it was he, or not he, just as their interest suggested. Most of the people of his own class who knew him were out of town at the present season; and besides, the upper classes were not, in the Chief's opinion, a whit more intelligent or trustworthy than those that served them. The world, said the Chief, was an exceedingly bad place. That this was true, the Superintendent could not doubt, and he admitted the fact; but he was not sure how the Chief was applying the statement of it in his own reasoning. Perhaps he thought that some persons might have an interest in recognising Marcello. "In the meantime," said the Chief, rising to go away, "we will put him in a private room, where we shall not be watched by everybody when we come to see him. I have funds from Corbario to pay any possible expenses in the case." "Who is that man?" asked the Superintendent. "There has been a great deal of talk about him in the papers since his stepson was lost. What was he before he married the rich widow?" The Chief of Police did not reply at once, but lit a cigarette preparatory to going away, smoothed his hat on his arm, and flicked a tiny speck of dust from the lapel of his well-made coat. Then he smiled pleasantly and gave his answer. "I suppose that before he married Consalvi's widow he was a gentleman of small means, like many others. Why should you think that he was ever anything else?" To this direct question the Superintendent had no answer ready, nor, in fact, had the man who asked it, though he had looked so very wise. Then they glanced at each other and both laughed a little, and they parted. Half an hour later, Marcello was carried to an airy room with green blinds, and was made even more comfortable than he had been before. He slept, and awoke, and ate and slept again. Twice during the afternoon people were brought to see him. They were servants from the villa on the Janiculum, but he looked at them dully and said that he could not remember them. "We do not think it is he," they said, when questioned. "Why does he not know us, if it is he? We are old servants in the house. We carried the young gentleman in our arms when he was small. But this youth does not know us, nor our names. It is not he." They were dismissed, and afterwards they met and talked up at the villa. "The master has been sent for by telegraph," they said one to another. "We shall do what he says. If he tells us that it is the young gentleman we will also say that it is; but if he says it is not he, we will also deny it. This is the only way." Having decided upon this diplomatic course as the one most likely to prove advantageous to them, they went back to their several occupations and amusements. But at the very first they said what they really thought; none of them really believed the sick youth at the hospital to be Marcello. An illness of nearly seven weeks and a long course of privation can make a terrible difference in the looks of a very young person, and when the memory is gone, too, the chances of his being recognised are slight. But the Chief of Police was not disturbed in his belief, and after he had smoked several cigarettes very thoughtfully in his private office, he wrote a telegram to Corbario, advising him to come back to Rome at once. He was surprised to receive an answer from Folco late that night, inquiring why he was wanted. To this he replied in a second telegram of more length, which explained matters clearly. The next morning Corbario telegraphed that he was starting. The visiting physician came early and examined Marcello's head with the greatest minuteness. After much trouble he found what he was looking for--a very slight depression in the skull. There was no sign of a wound that had healed, and it was clear that the injury must have been either the result of a fall, in which case the scalp had been protected by a stiff hat, or else of a blow dealt with something like a sandbag, which had fractured the bone without leaving any mark beyond a bruise, now no longer visible. "It is my opinion," said the doctor, "that as soon as the pressure is removed the man's memory will come back exactly as it was before. We will operate next week, when he has gained a little more strength. Feed him and give him plenty of air, for he is very weak." So he went away for the day. But presently Regina came and demanded admittance according to the promise she had received, and she was immediately brought to the Superintendent's office, for he had given very clear instructions to this effect in case the girl came again. He had not told the Chief of Police about her, for he thought it would be amusing to do a little detective work on his own account, and he anticipated the triumph of finding out Marcello's story alone, and of then laying the facts before the authorities, just to show what ordinary common sense could do without the intervention of the law. Regina was ushered into the high cool room where the Superintendent sat alone, and the heavy door closed behind her. He was a large man with close-cropped hair and a short brown beard, and he had kind brown eyes. Regina came forward a few steps and then stood still, looking at him, and waiting for him to speak. He was astonished at her beauty, and at once decided that she had a romantic attachment for Marcello, and probably knew all about him. He leaned back in his chair, and pointed to a seat near him. "Pray sit down," he said. "I wish to have a little talk with you before you go upstairs to see Marcello." "How is he?" asked Regina, eagerly. "Is he worse?" "He is much better. But sit down, if you please. You shall stay with him as long as you like, or as long as it is good for him. You may come every day if you wish it." "Every day?" cried Regina in delight. "They told me that I could only come on Sunday." "Yes. That is the rule, my dear child. But I can give you permission to come every day, and as the poor young man seems to have no friends, it is very fortunate for him that you can be with him. You will cheer him and help him to get well." "Thank you, thank you!" answered the girl fervently, as she sat down. A great lady of Rome had been to see the Superintendent about a patient on the previous afternoon; he did not remember that she moved with more dignity than this peasant girl, or with nearly as much grace. Regina swept the folds of her short coarse skirt forward and sideways a little, so that they hid her brown woollen ankles as she took her seat, and with the other hand she threw back the end of the kerchief from her face. "You do not mind telling me your name?" said the Superintendent in a questioning tone. "Spalletta Regina," answered the girl promptly, putting her family name first, according to Italian custom. "I am of Rocca di Papa." "Thank you. I shall remember that. And you say that you know this poor young man. Now, what is his name, if you please? He does not seem able to remember anything about himself." "I have always called him Marcello," answered Regina. "Indeed? You call him Marcello? Yes, yes. Thank you. But, you know, we like to write down the full name of each patient in our books. Marcello, and then? What else?" By this time Regina felt quite at her ease with the pleasant-spoken gentleman, but in a flash it occurred to her that he would think it very strange if she could not answer such a simple question about a young man she professed to know very well. "His name is Botti," she said, with no apparent hesitation, and giving the first name that occurred to her. "Thank you. I shall enter him in the books as 'Botti Marcello.'" "Yes. That is the name." She watched the Superintendent's pen, though she could not read writing very well. "Thank you," he said, as he stuck the pen into a little pot of small-shot before him, and then looked at his watch. "The nurse is probably just making him comfortable after the doctor's morning visit, so you had better wait five minutes, if you do not mind. Besides, it will help us a good deal if you will tell me something about his illness. I suppose you have taken care of him." "As well as I could," Regina answered. "Where? At Rocca di Papa? The air is good there." "No, it was not in the village." The girl hesitated a moment, quickly making up her mind how much of the truth to tell. "You see," she continued presently, "I was only the servant girl there, and I saw that the people meant to let him die, because he was a burden on them. So I wrapped him in a blanket and carried him downstairs in the night." "You carried him down?" The Superintendent look at her in admiration. "Oh, yes," answered Regina quietly. "I could carry you up and down stairs easily. Do you wish to see?" The Superintendent laughed, for she actually made a movement as if she were going to leave her seat and pick him up. "Thank you," he said. "I quite believe you. What a nurse you would make! You say that you carried him down in the night--and then? What did you do?" "I laid him on the tail of a cart. The carter was asleep. I walked behind to the gate, for I was sure that when he was found he would be brought here, and that he would have care, and would get well." "Was it far to walk?" inquired the Superintendent, delighted with the result of his efforts as a detective. "You must have been very tired!" "What is it to walk all night, if one carries no load on one's head?" asked Regina with some scorn. "I walk as I breathe." "You walked all night, then? That was Friday night. I do not wish to keep you, my dear child, but if you would tell me how long Botti has been ill--" he waited. "This is the forty-ninth day," Regina answered at once. "Dear me! Poor boy! That is a long time!" "I stole eggs and wine to keep him alive," the girl explained. "They tried to make me give him white beans and oil. They wanted him to die, because he was an expense to them." "Who were those people?" asked the Superintendent, putting the question suddenly. But Regina had gained time to prepare her story. "Why should I tell you who they are?" she asked. "They did no harm, after all, and they let him lie in their house. At first they hoped he would get well, but you know how it is in the country. When sick people linger on, every one wishes them to die, because they are in the way, and cost money. That is how it is." "But you wished him to live," said the Superintendent in an encouraging tone. Regina shrugged her shoulders and smiled, without the slightest affectation or shyness. "What could I do?" she asked. "A passion for him had taken me, the first time that I saw him. So I stole for him, and sat up with him, and did what was possible. He lay in an attic with only one blanket, and my heart spoke. What could I do? If he had died I should have thrown myself into the water below the mill." Now there had been no mill within many miles of the inn on the Frascati road, in which there could be water in summer. Regina was perfectly sincere in describing her love for Marcello, but as she was a clever woman she knew that it was precisely when she was speaking with the greatest sincerity about one thing, that she could most easily throw a man off the scent with regard to another. The Superintendent mentally noted the allusion to the mill for future use; it had created an image in his mind; it meant that the place where Marcello had lain ill had been in the hills and probably near Tivoli, where there is much water and mills are plentiful. "I suppose he was a poor relation of the people," said the Superintendent thoughtfully, after a little pause. "That is why they wished to get rid of him." Regina made a gesture of indifferent assent, and told something like the truth. "He had not been there since I had been servant to them," she answered. "It must have been a long time since they had seen him. We found him early in the morning, lying unconscious against the door of the house, and we took him in. That is the whole story. Why should I tell you who the people are? I have eaten their bread, I have left them, I wish them no harm. They knew their business." "Certainly, my dear, certainly. I suppose I may say that Marcello Botti comes from Rocca di Papa?" "Oh, yes," answered Regina readily. "You may say that, if you like." As a matter of fact she did not care what he wrote in his big book, and he might as well write one name as another, so far as she was concerned. "But I never saw him there," she added by an afterthought. "There are many people of that name in our village, but I never saw him. Perhaps you had better say that he came from Albano." "Why from Albano?" asked the Superintendent, surprised. "It is a bigger place," explained Regina quite naturally. "Then I might as well write 'Rome' at once?" "Yes. Why not? If you must put down the name of a town in the book, you had better write a big one. You will be less likely to be found out if you have made a mistake." "I see," said the Superintendent, smiling. "I am much obliged for your advice. And now, if you will come with me, you shall see Botti. He has a room by himself and is very well cared for." The orderlies and nurses who came and went about the hospital glanced with a little discreet surprise at the handsome peasant girl who followed the Superintendent, but she paid no attention to them and looked straight before her, at the back of his head; for her heart was beating faster than if she had run a mile uphill. Marcello put out his arms when he saw her enter, and returning life sent a faint colour to his emaciated cheeks. "Regina--at last!" he cried in a stronger and clearer tone than she had ever heard him use. A splendid blush of pleasure glowed in her own face as she ran forward and leaned over him, smoothing the smooth pillow unconsciously, and looking down into his eyes. The Superintendent observed that Marcello certainly had no difficulty in recalling the girl's name, whatever might have become of his own during his illness. What Regina answered was not audible, but she kissed Marcello's eyes, and then stood upright beside the bed, and laughed a little. "What can I do?" she asked. "It is a passion! When I see him, I see nothing else. And then, I saved his life. Are you glad that Regina saved your life?" She bent down again, and her gentle hand played with Marcello's waving fair hair. "What should you have done without Regina?" "I should have died," Marcello answered happily. With much more strength than she had been used to find in him, he threw his arms round her neck and drew her face down to his. The Superintendent spoke to the nurse in a low tone, by the door, and both went out, leaving the two together. He was a sensible man, and a kind-hearted one; and though he was no doctor, he guessed that the peasant girl's glorious vitality would do as much for the sick man as any medicine. CHAPTER VIII Corbario reached Rome in the afternoon, and the footman who stood waiting for him on the platform was struck by the change in his appearance. His eyes were hollow and bright, his cheeks were sunken, his lips looked dry; moreover, he moved a little nervously and his foot slipped as he got out of the carriage, so that he nearly fell. In the crowd, the footman asked his valet questions. Was he ill? What had happened to him? Was he consuming himself with grief? No, the valet thought not. He had been much better in Paris and had seen some old friends there. What harm was there in that? A bereaved man needed diversion. The change had come suddenly, when he had decided to return to Rome, and he had eaten nothing for thirty-six hours. The valet asked if the youth at the hospital, of whom Corbario had told him, were really Marcello. The footman answered that none of the servants thought so, after they had all been taken to see him. Having exchanged these confidences in the half-dumb language which servants command, they reached the gate. The footman rushed out to call the carriage, the valet delivered the tickets and followed the footman more slowly, carrying Corbario's bag and coat, and Corbario lighted a cigar and followed his man at a leisurely pace, absorbed in thought. Until the moment of passing the gate he had meant to drive directly to the hospital, which is at some distance from the station in a direction almost opposite to that of the Janiculum. He could have driven there in ten minutes, whereas he must lose more than an hour by going home first and then coming back. But his courage failed him, he felt faint and sick, and quite unable to bear any great emotion until he had rested and refreshed himself a little. A long railway journey stupefies some men, but makes others nervous and inclined to exaggerate danger or trouble. During the last twelve hours Corbario had been forcing himself to decide that he would go to the hospital and know the worst at once, but now that the moment was come he could not do it. He was walking slowly through the outer hall of the station when a large man came up with him and greeted him quietly. It was Professor Kalmon. Corbario started at the sound of his voice. They had not met since Kalmon had been at the cottage. "I wish I had known that you were in the train," the Professor said. "So do I," answered Corbario without enthusiasm. "Not that I am very good company," he added, looking sideways at the other's face and meeting a scrutinising glance. "You look ill," Kalmon replied. "I don't wonder." "I sometimes wish I had one of those tablets of yours that send people to sleep for ever," said Corbario, making a great effort to speak steadily. But his voice shook, and a sudden terror seized him, the abject fright that takes hold of a man who has been accustomed to do something very dangerous and who suddenly finds that his nerve is gone at the very moment of doing it again. The cold sweat stood on Folco's forehead under his hat; he stopped where he was and tried to draw a long breath, but something choked him. Kalmon's voice seemed to reach him from a great distance. Then he felt the Professor's strong arm under his own, supporting him and making him move forward. "The weather is hot," Kalmon said, "and you are ill and tired. Come outside." "It is nothing," Corbario tried to say. "I was dizzy for a moment." Kalmon and the footman helped him into his low carriage, and raised the hood, for the afternoon sun was still very hot. "Shall I go home with you?" Kalmon asked. "No, no!" cried Corbario nervously. "You are very kind. I am quite well now. Good-bye. Home!" he added to the footman, as he settled himself back under the hood, quite out of sight. The Professor stood still in the glaring heat, looking after the carriage, his travelling-bag in his hand, while the crowd poured out of the station, making for the cabs and omnibuses that were drawn up in rows, or crossing the burning pavement on foot to take the tram. When the carriage was out of sight, Kalmon looked up at the hot sky and down at the flagstones, and then made up his mind what to do. "To the hospital of San Giovanni," he said, as he got into a cab. He seemed to be well informed, for he inquired at the door about a certain Marcello Botti, who was in a private room; and when he gave his name he was admitted without even asking permission of the Superintendent, and was at once led upstairs. "Are you a friend of his, sir?" asked Regina, when he had looked a long time at the patient, who did not recognise him in the least. "Are you?" Kalmon looked at her quietly across the bed. "You see," she answered. "If I were not, why should I be here?" "She has saved my life," said Marcello suddenly, and he caught her hand in his and held it fast. "As soon as I am quite well we shall be married." "Certainly, my dear boy, certainly," replied Kalmon, as if it were quite a matter of course. "You must make haste and get well as soon as possible." He glanced at Regina's face, and as her eyes met his she shook her head almost imperceptibly, and smiled. Kalmon was not quite sure what she meant. He made a sign to her to go with him to the window, which was at some distance from the bed. "It may be long before he is well," he whispered. "There must be an operation." She nodded, for she knew that. "And do you expect to marry him when he is recovered?" She shook her head and laughed, glancing at Marcello. "He is a gentleman," she whispered, close to Kalmon's ear. "How could he marry me?" "You love him," Kalmon answered. Again she nodded, and laughed too. "What would you do for him?" asked Kalmon, looking at her keenly. "Die for him!" She meant it, and he saw that she did. Her eyes shone as she spoke, and then the lids drooped a little and she looked at him almost fiercely. He turned from her and his fingers softly tapped the marble window-sill. He was asking himself whether he could swear to Marcello's identity, in case he should be called upon to give evidence. On what could he base his certainty? Was he himself certain, or was he merely moved by the strong resemblance he saw, in spite of long illness and consequent emaciation? Was the visiting surgeon right in believing that the little depression in the skull had caused a suspension of memory? Such things happened, no doubt, but it also happened that doctors were mistaken and that nothing came of such operations. Who could prove the truth? The boy and girl might have a secret to keep; she might have arranged to get him into the hospital because it was his only chance, but the rest of the story, such as it was, might be a pure invention; and when Marcello was discharged cured, they would disappear together. There was the coincidence of the baptismal name, but men of science know how deceptive coincidences can be. Besides, the girl was very intelligent. She might easily have heard about the real Marcello's disappearance, and she was clever enough to have given her lover the name in the hope that he might be taken for the lost boy at least long enough to ensure him a great deal more comfort and consideration in the hospital than he otherwise would have got; she was clever enough to have seen that it would be a mistake to say outright that he was Marcello Consalvi, if she was practising a deception. Kalmon did not know what to think, and he wished the operation could be performed before Corbario came; but that was impossible. Regina stood beside him, waiting for him to speak again. "Do you need money?" he asked abruptly, with a sharp look at her face. "No, thank you, sir," she answered. "He has everything here." "But for yourself?" He kept his eyes on her. "I thank you, sir, I want nothing." Her look met his almost coldly as she spoke. "But when he is well again, how shall you live?" "I shall work for him, if it turns out that he has no friends. We shall soon know, for his memory will come back after the operation. The doctors say so. They know." "And if he has friends after all? If he is really the man I think he is, what then? What will become of you?" "I do not know. I am his. He can do what he likes with me." The Professor did not remember to have met any one who took quite such an elementary view of life, but he could not help feeling a sort of sympathy for the girl's total indifference to consequences. "I shall come to see him again," he said presently, turning back towards the bed and approaching Marcello. "Are you quite sure that you never saw me before?" he asked, taking the young man's hand. "I don't remember," answered Marcello, wearily. "They all want me to remember," he added almost peevishly. "I would if I could, if it were only to please them!" Kalmon went away, for he saw that his presence tired the patient. When he was gone Regina sat down beside the bed and stroked Marcello's hand, and talked soothingly to him, promising that no one should tease him to remember things. By and by, as she sat, she laid her head on the pillow beside him, and her sweet breath fanned his face, while a strange light played in her half-closed eyes. "Heart of my heart," she sighed happily. "Love of my soul! Do you know that I am all yours, soul and body, and earrings too?" And she laughed low. "You are the most beautiful woman in the world," Marcello answered. "I love you!" She laughed again, and kissed him. "You love me better than Aurora," she said suddenly. "Aurora?" "Yes, for you have forgotten her. But you will not forget Regina now, not even when you are very, very old, and your golden hair is all grey. You will never forget Regina, now!" "Never!" echoed Marcello, like a child. "Never, never, never!" "Not even when your friends try to take me away from you, love, not even if they try to kill me, because they want you to marry Aurora, who is a rich girl, all dressed with silk and covered with jewels, like the image of the Madonna at Genazzano. I am sure Aurora has yellow hair and blue eyes!" "I don't want any one but you," answered Marcello, drawing her face nearer. So the time passed, and it was to them as if there were no time. Then the door opened again, and a very pale man in deep mourning was brought in by the Superintendent himself. Regina rose and drew back a little, so that the shadow should not fall across Marcello's face, and she fixed her eyes on the gentleman in black. "This is the patient," said the Superintendent in a low voice. Corbario laid his hand nervously on his companion's arm, and stood still for a moment, holding his breath and leaning forward a little, his gaze riveted on Marcello's face. Regina had never before seen a man transfixed with fear. He moved a step towards the bed, and then another, forcing himself to go on. Then Marcello turned his head and looked at him vacantly. Regina heard the long breath Corbario drew, and saw his body straighten, as if relieved from a great burden. He stood beside the bed, and put out his hand to take Marcello's. "Do you know me?" he asked; but even then his voice was unsteady. Instead of answering, Marcello turned away to Regina. "You promised that they should not tease me any more," he said querulously. "Make them go away! I want to sleep." Regina came to his side at once, and faced the two men across the bed. "What is all this for?" she asked, with a little indignation. "You know that he cannot remember you, even if he ever saw you before. Cannot you leave him in peace? Come back after the operation. Then he will remember you, if you really know him." "Who is this girl?" asked Corbario of the Superintendent. "She took care of him when he had the fever, and she managed to get him here. She has undoubtedly saved his life." At the words a beautiful blush coloured Regina's cheeks, and her eyes were full of triumphant light; but at the same words Corbario's still face darkened, and as if it had been a mask that suddenly became transparent, the girl saw another face through it, drawn into an expression of malignant and devilish hatred. [Illustration: "HE MOVED A STEP TOWARDS THE BED, AND THEN ANOTHER, FORCING HIMSELF TO GO ON."] The vision only lasted a moment, and the impenetrable pale features were there once more, showing neither hate nor fear, nor any feeling or emotion whatever. Corbario was himself again, and turned quietly to the Superintendent. "She is quite right," he said. "His memory is gone, and we shall only disturb him. You tell me that the doctors have found a very slight depression in his head, as if from a blow. Do you think--but it will annoy him--I had better not." "What do you mean?" asked the other, as he hesitated. "It is such a strange case that I should like to see just where it is, out of pure curiosity." "It is here," said Regina, answering, and setting the tip of one straight finger against her own head to point out the place. "Oh, at the back, on the right side? I see--yes--thank you. A little on one side, you say?" "Here," repeated Regina, turning so that Corbario could see exactly where the end of her finger touched her hair. "To think that so slight an injury may have permanently affected the young man's memory!" Corbario appeared much impressed. "Well," he continued, speaking to Regina, "if we ever find out who he is, his relations owe you a debt of gratitude quite beyond all payment." "Do you think I want to be paid?" asked Regina, and in her indignation she turned away and walked to the window. But Marcello called her back. "Please, Regina--please tell them to go away!" he pleaded. Corbario nodded to the Superintendent, and they left the room. "There is certainly a strong resemblance," said Folco, when they were outside, "but it really cannot be my poor Marcello. I was almost too much affected by the thought of seeing him again to control myself when we first entered, but when I came near I felt nothing. It is not he, I am sure. I loved him as if he were my own son; I brought him up; we were always together. It is not possible that I should be mistaken." "No," replied the Superintendent, "I should hardly think it possible. Besides, from what the girl has told me, I am quite sure that he lay ill near Tivoli. How is it possible that he should have got there, all the way from the Roman shore?" "And with a fractured skull! It is absurd!" Corbario was glad to find that the Superintendent held such a strong opinion. "It is not Marcello. The nose is not the same, and the expression of the mouth is quite different." He said these things with conviction, but he was not deceived. He knew that Marcello Consalvi was living and that he had seen him, risen from the dead, and apparently likely to remain among the living for some time. The first awful moment of anxiety was past, it was true, and Folco was able to think more connectedly than he had since he had received the telegram recalling him from Paris; but there was to be another. The doctors said that his memory would return--what would he remember? It would come back, beginning, most probably, at the very moment in which it had been interrupted. For one instant he would fancy that he saw again what he had seen then. What had he seen? That was the question. Had he seen anything but the sand, the scrubby bushes, and the trees round the cottage in the distance? Had he heard anything but the howling of the southwest gale and the thundering of the big surf over the bar and up the beach? The injury was at the back of his head, but it was a little on one side. Had he been in the act of turning? Had he turned far enough to see before the blow had extinguished memory? How far was the sudden going out of thought really instantaneous? What fraction of a second intervened between full life and what was so like death? How long did it take a man to look round quickly? Much less than a second, surely! Without effort or hurry a man could turn his head all the way from left to right, so as to look over each shoulder alternately, while a second pendulum swung once. A second was a much longer time than most people realised. Instruments made for scientific photography could be made to expose the plate not more than one-thousandth of a second. Corbario knew that, and wondered whether a man's eye could receive any impression in so short a time. He shuddered when he thought that it might be possible. The question was to be answered sooner than he expected. The doctors had reported that a week must pass before Marcello would be strong enough to undergo the operation, but he improved so quickly after he reached the hospital that it seemed useless to wait. It was not considered to be a very dangerous operation, nor one which weakened the patient much. Regina was not allowed to be present, and when Marcello had been wheeled out of his room, already under ether, she went and stood before the window, pressing down her clasped hands upon the marble sill with all her might, and resting her forehead against the green slats of the blind. She did not move from this position while the nurse made Marcello's bed ready to receive him on his return. It was long to wait. The great clock in the square struck eleven some time after he had been taken away, then the quarter, then half-past. Regina felt the blood slowly sinking to her heart. She would have given anything to move now, but she could not stir hand or foot; she was cold, yet somehow she could not even shiver; that would have been a relief; any motion, any shock, any violent pain would have been a thousand times better than the marble stillness that was like a spell. Far away on the Janiculum Folco Corbario sat in his splendid library alone, with strained eyes, waiting for the call of the telephone that stood on the polished table at his elbow. He, too, was motionless, and longed for release as he had never thought he could long for anything. A still unlighted cigar was almost bitten through by his sharp front teeth; every faculty was tense; and yet it was as if his brain had stopped thinking at the point where expectation had begun. He could not think now, he could only suffer. If the operation were successful there would be more suffering, doubt still more torturing, suspense more agonising still. The great clock over the stables struck eleven, then the quarter, then half-past. The familiar chimes floated in through the open windows. A wild hope came with the sound. Marcello, weak as he was, had died under ether, and that was the end. Corbario trembled from head to foot. The clock struck the third quarter, but no other sound broke the stillness of the near noon-tide. Yes, Marcello must be dead. Suddenly, in the silence, came the sharp buzz of the instrument. He leapt in his seat as if something had struck him unawares, and then, instantly controlling himself, he grasped the receiver and held it to his ear. "Signor Corbario?" came the question. "Yes, himself." "The hospital. The operation has been successful. Do you hear?" "Yes. Go on." "The patient has come to himself. He remembers everything." "Everything!" Corbario's voice shook. "He is Marcello Consalvi. He asks for his mother, and for you." "How--in what way does he ask for me? Will my presence do him good--or excite him?" The moment had come, and Folco's nerve was restored with the sense of danger. His face grew cold and expressionless as he waited for the answer. "He speaks most affectionately of you. But you had better not come until this afternoon, and then you must not stay long. The doctors say he must rest quietly." "I will come at four o'clock. Thank you. Good-bye." "Good-bye." The click of the instrument, as Folco hung the receiver on the hook, and it was over. He shut his eyes and leaned back in his chair, his arms hanging by his sides as if there were no strength in them, and his head falling forward till his chin rested on his chest. He remained so for a long time without moving. But in the room at the hospital Marcello lay in bed with his head bound up, his cheek on the pillow, and his eyes fixed on Regina's face, as she knelt beside him and fanned him slowly, for it was hot. "Sleep, heart of my heart," she said softly. "Sleep and rest!" There was a sort of peaceful wonder in his look now. Nothing vacant, nothing that lacked meaning or understanding. But he did not answer her, he only gazed into her face, and gazed and gazed till his eyelids drooped and he fell asleep with a smile on his lips. CHAPTER IX Two years had passed since Marcello had been brought home from the hospital, very feeble still, but himself again and master of his memory and thoughts. In his recollection, however, there was a blank. He had left Aurora standing in the gap, where the storm swept inland from the sea; then the light had gone out suddenly, in something violent which he could not understand, and after that he could remember nothing except that he had wandered in lonely places, trying to find out which way he was going, and terrified by the certainty that he had lost all sense of direction; so he had wandered on by day and night, as in a dark dream, and had at last fallen asleep, to wake in the wretched garret of the inn on the Frascati road, with Regina kneeling beside him and moistening his lips from a glass of water. He remembered that and other things, which came back to him uncertainly, like the little incidents of his early childhood, like the first words he could remember hearing and answering, like the sensation of being on his mother's knee and resting his head upon her shoulder, like the smell of the roses and the bitter-orange blossoms in the villa, like the first sensation of being set upon a pony's back in San Domenico, while Corbario held him up in the saddle, and tried to make his little hands hold the bridle. The inn was quite as far away as all that, and but for Regina he might have forgotten it altogether. She was "Consalvi's Regina" now; half Rome called her that, and she was famous. Naples and Florence and Milan had heard of her; she had been seen at Monte Carlo, and even in Paris and London her name was not unknown in places where young men congregate to discuss the wicked world, and where young women meet to compare husbands, over the secret and sacrificial teapot which represents virtue, or the less sacred bridge-table which represents vice. Smart young dandies who had never exchanged a word with her spoke of her familiarly as "Regina "; smarter and older men, who knew her a little, talked of her as "the Spalletta," not without a certain respect; their mothers branded her as "that creature," and their wives, who envied her, called her "Consalvi's Regina." When people remonstrated with Folco Corbario for allowing his stepson too much liberty, he shook his head gravely and answered that he did what he could to keep Marcello in the right way, but that the boy's intellect had been shaken by the terrible accident, and that he had undoubtedly developed vicious tendencies--probably atavistic, Folco added. Why did Folco allow him to have so much money? The answer was that he was of age and the fortune was his. But why had Folco let him have it before he was twenty-one, ever since he was found and brought home? He had not had much, was the reply; at least it had not been much compared with the whole income he now enjoyed one could not bring up the heir of a great estate like a pauper, could one? So the questioners desisted from questioning, but they said among themselves that, although Folco had been an admirable husband and stepfather while his wife had lived, he had not shown as much good sense after her death as they had been led to expect. Meanwhile, no one had any right to interfere, and Marcello did as he pleased. Children instinctively attach themselves to whichever of their parents gives them the most liberty. It is sheer nonsense to deny it. Marcello had loved his mother dearly, but she had always been the one to hinder him from doing what he wished to do, because she had been excessively anxious about his bodily health, and over-desirous of bringing him up to manhood in a state of ideal moral perfection. Folco, on the other hand, had been associated with all the boy's sports and pleasures, and had always encouraged him to amuse himself, giving as a reason that there was no medicine like healthy happiness for a boy of delicate constitution. Corbario, like Satan, knew the uses of truth, which are numerous and not all good. Though Marcello would not have acknowledged it to himself, his stepfather had been nearer to him, and more necessary to him, than his mother, during several years; and besides, it was less hard to bear the loss of which he learned when he recovered, because it had befallen him during that dark and uncertain period of his illness that now seemed as if it had lasted for years, and whereby everything that had been before it belonged to a remote past. Moreover, there was Regina, and there was youth, and there was liberty; and Corbario was at hand, always ready to encourage and satisfy his slightest whim, on the plea that a convalescent must be humoured at any cost, and that there would be time enough to consider what should be done with Regina after Marcello was completely recovered. After all, Corbario told him, the girl had saved his life, and it was only right to be grateful, and she should be amply rewarded for all the trouble she had taken. It would have been sheer cruelty to have sent her away to the country; and what was the cost of a quiet lodging for her in Trastevere, and of a few decent clothes, and of a respectable middle-aged woman-servant to take care of her? Nothing at all; only a few francs, and Marcello was so rich! Regina, also, was so very unusually well-behaved, and so perfectly docile, so long as she was allowed to see Marcello every day! She did not care for dress at all, and was quite contented to wear black, with just a touch of some tender colour. Corbario made it all very easy, and saw to everything, and he seemed to know just how such things were arranged. He was so fortunate as to find a little house that had a quiet garden with an entrance on another street, all in very good condition because it had lately been used by a famous foreign painter who preferred to live in Trastevere, away from the interruptions and distractions of the growing city; and by a very simple transaction the house became the property of the minor, Marcello Consalvi, to do with as he thought fit. This was much more convenient than paying rent to a tiresome landlord who might at any time turn his tenant out. Corbario thought of everything. Twice a week a gardener came, early in the morning, and soon the garden was really pretty; and the respectable woman-servant watered the flowers every evening just before sunset. There was a comfortable Calcutta chair for Marcello in a shady corner, the very first time he came there, and Regina had learned how to make tea for him; for the respectable woman-servant knew how to do all sorts of things belonging to civilised life. She was so intensely respectable and quiet that Marcello was almost afraid of her, until it occurred to him that as she took so much trouble, he ought to give her a present of money; and when he had done this twice, he somehow became aware that she was his devoted slave--middle-aged and excessively respectable. Folco was really a very good judge of character, Marcello thought, since he could at once pick out such a person from the great horde of the unemployed. Her name was Settimia, and it was wonderful to see how she quietly transformed Regina into a civilised creature, who must attract attention by her beauty and carriage, but who might have belonged to a middle-class Roman family so far as manners and dress were concerned. It is true that the girl possessed by nature the innate dignity of the Roman peasant, with such a figure and such grace as any aristocrat might have envied, and that she spoke with the Roman accent which almost all other Italians admire; but though her manners had a certain repose, they were often of an extremely unexpected nature, and she had an astonishingly simple way of calling things by their names which sometimes disconcerted Marcello and sometimes amused him. Settimia civilised her, almost without letting her know it, for she was quick to learn, like all naturally clever people who have had no education, and she was imitative, as all womanly women are when they are obliged to adapt themselves quickly to new surroundings. She was stimulated, too, by the wish to appear well before Marcello, lest he should ever be ashamed of her. That was all. She never had the least illusion about herself, nor any hope of raising herself to his social level. She was far too much the real peasant girl for that, the descendant of thirty or more generations of serfs, the offspring of men and women who had felt that they belonged body and soul to the feudal lord of the land on which they were born, and had never been disturbed by tempting dreams of liberty, equality, fraternity, and the violent destruction of ladies and gentlemen. So she lived, and so she learned many things of Settimia, and looked upon herself as the absolute property of the man she loved and had saved; and she was perfectly happy, if not perfectly good. "When I am of age," Marcello used to say, "I shall buy a beautiful little palace near the Tiber, and you shall live in it." "Why?" she always asked. "Are we not happy here? Is it not cool in summer, and sunny in winter? Have we not all we want? When you marry, your wife will live in the splendid villa on the Janiculum, and when you are tired of her, you will come and see Regina here. I hope you will always be tired of her. Then I shall be happy." Marcello would laugh a little, and then he would look grave and thoughtful, for he had not forgotten Aurora, and sometimes wondered what she was doing, as a young man does who is losing his hold upon himself, and on the things in which he has always believed. He who has never lived through such times and outlived them, knows neither the world nor himself. Marcello wondered whether Aurora would ever meet Regina face to face, and what would happen if he were called upon to choose between the two. He would choose Regina, he said to himself, when he was going down the steep way from the villa to the little house, eager for her touch, her voice, her breath, and feeling in his pocket the key that opened the garden gate. But when the hours had passed, and he slowly walked up the road under the great plane-trees, in the cool of the late evening, glancing at the distant lights of Rome beyond the Tiber, and dimly conscious that something was still unsatisfied, then he hesitated and he remembered his boyish love, and fancied that if he met Aurora in the way they would stand still, each finding the other in the other's eyes, and silently kiss, as they had kissed long ago. Yet, with the thought, he felt shame, and he blushed, alone there under the plane-trees. But Aurora had never come back to Rome, and the small apartment that overlooked the Forum of Trajan had other tenants. It was strange that the Contessa and her daughter should not have returned, and sometimes Marcello felt a great longing to see them. He said "them" to himself at such times, but he knew what he meant. So time went on. Corbario said that he himself must really go to San Domenico, to look after the Calabrian property, but added that it would be quite useless for Marcello to go with him. Marcello could stay in Rome and amuse himself as he pleased, or he might make a little journey to the north, to Switzerland, to the Tyrol--there were so many places. Settimia would take care of Regina, and perhaps Regina herself had better make a little trip for a change. Yes, Settimia had travelled a good deal; she even knew enough French to travel in a foreign country, if necessary. Corbario said that he did not know where she had learned French, but he was quite sure she knew it tolerably well. Regina would be safe under her care, in some quiet place where the air would do her good. Thereupon Corbario went off to the south, leaving Marcello plentifully supplied with money and promising to write to him. They parted affectionately. "If you wish to go away," Corbario said, as he was leaving, "it might be as well to leave your next address, so that you may get letters. But please don't fancy that I want to know everything you do, my dear boy. You are quite old enough to take care of yourself, and quite sensible enough, too. The only thing you had better avoid for a few years is marriage!" Folco laughed softly as he delivered this piece of advice, and lit a cigar. Then he looked critically at Marcello. "You are still very pale," he observed thoughtfully. "You have not got back all your strength yet. Drink plenty of champagne at luncheon and dinner. There is nothing like it when a man is run down. And don't sit up all night smoking cigarettes more than three times a week!" He laughed again as he shook hands and got into the carriage, and Marcello was glad when he was gone, though he was so fond of him. It was a bore to be told that he was not strong, because it certainly was true, and, besides, even Folco was sometimes a little in the way. In a week Marcello and Regina were in Venice; a month later they were in Paris. The invaluable Settimia knew her way about, and spoke French with a fluency that amazed Marcello; she even taught Regina a few of those phrases which are particularly useful at a dressmaker's and quite incomprehensible anywhere else. Marcello told her to see that Regina was perfectly dressed, and Settimia carried out his instructions with taste and wisdom. Regina had arrived in Paris with one box of modest dimensions; she left with four more, of a size that made the railway porters stagger. One day Marcello brought home a string of pearls in his pocket, and tried to fasten it round her throat; but she would not let him do it. She was angry. "Keep those things for your wife!" she said, with flashing eyes and standing back from him. "I will wear the clothes you buy for me, because you like me to be pretty and I don't want you to be ashamed of me. But I will not take jewels, for jewels are money, just as gold is! You can buy a wife with that stuff, not a woman who loves you!" Her brows were level and stern, her face grew whiter as she spoke, and Marcello was suddenly aware, for the first time in his life, that he did not understand women. That knowledge comes sooner or later to almost every man, but many are spared it until they are much older than he was. "I did not mean to offend you," he said, in a rather injured tone, as he slipped the pearls into his pocket. "Of course not," she answered. "But you do not understand. If I thought you did, I would go back to the inn and never see you again. I should die, but it would not matter, for I should still respect myself!" "I only wished to please you," said Marcello apologetically. "You wish to please me? Love me! That is what I want. Love me as much as you can, it will always be less than I love you, and as long as you can, it will always be less long than I shall love you, for that will be always. And when you are tired of me, tell me so, heart of my heart, and I will go away, for that is better than to hang like a chain on a young man's neck. I will go away, and God will forgive me, for to love you is all I know." His kisses closed her flashing eyes, and her lips parted in a faint, expectant smile, that was not disappointed. So time passed, and Marcello heard occasionally from Corbario, and wrote to him once or twice, when he needed money. Folco never alluded to Regina, and Marcello wondered whether he guessed that she had left Rome. He was never quite sure how much Folco knew of his life, and Folco was careful never to ask questions. But the existence Marcello was leading was not calculated to restore his strength, which had never been great, even before his illness. Though Regina did not understand the language, she grew very fond of the theatre, for Marcello translated and explained everything; and it was such a pleasure to give her pleasure, that he forgot the stifling air and the late hours. Moreover, he met in Paris a couple of acquaintances a little older than himself, who were only too glad to see something of the beautiful Regina, so that there were often supper-parties after the play, and trips in motorcars in the morning, horse races in the afternoon, and all manner of amusements, with a general tendency to look upon sleep as a disease to be avoided and the wish to rest as a foolish weakness. It was true that Marcello never coughed, but he was very thin, and his delicate face had grown perfectly colourless, though he followed Corbario's advice and drank a good deal of champagne, not to mention other less harmless things, because the quick stimulant was as pleasant as a nap and did not involve such a waste of time. As for Regina, the life suited her, at least for a while, and her beauty was refined rather than marred by a little bodily weariness. The splendid blush of pleasure rarely rose in her cheeks now, but the clear pallor of her matchless complexion was quite as lovely. The constitution of a healthy Roman peasant girl does not break down easily under a course of pleasure and amusement, and it might never have occurred to Regina that Marcello was almost exhausted already, if her eyes had not been opened to his condition by some one else. They were leaving the Théâtre Français one evening, intending to go home on foot as the night was fine and warm. They had seen _Hernani_, and Regina had naturally found it hard to understand the story, even with Marcello's explanations; the more so as he himself had never seen the play before, and had come to the theatre quite sure that it must be easily comprehensible from the opera founded on it, which he had heard. Regina's arm was passed through his, and as they made their way through the crowd, under the not very brilliant lights in the portico, Marcello was doing his best to make the plot of the piece clear, and Regina was looking earnestly into his face, trying to follow what he said. Suddenly he heard an Italian voice very near to him, calling him by name, in a tone of surprise. "Marcello!" He started, straightened himself, turned his head, and faced the Contessa dell' Armi. Close beside her was Aurora, leaning forward a little, with an expression of cold curiosity; she had already seen Regina, who did not withdraw her hand from Marcello's arm. "You here?" he cried, recovering himself quickly. As he spoke, the Contessa realised the situation, and at the same moment Marcello met Aurora's eyes. Regina felt his arm drop by his side, as if he were disowning her in the presence of these two smart women who were friends of his. She forgave him, for she was strangely humble in some ways, but she hated them forthwith. The Contessa, who was a woman of the world, nodded quietly and smiled as if she had seen nothing, but she at once began to steer her daughter in a divergent direction. "You are looking very ill," she said, turning her head back as she moved away. "Come and see us." "Where?" asked Marcello, making half a step to follow, and looking at the back of Aurora's head and at the pretty hat she wore. The Contessa named a quiet hotel in the Rue Saint Honoré, and was gone in the crowd. Marcello stood quite still for a moment, staring after the two. Then he felt Regina's hand slipping through his arm. "Come," she said softly, and she led him away to the left. He did not speak for a long time. They turned under the arches into the Palais Royal, and followed the long portico in silence, out to the Rue Vivienne and the narrow Rue des Petits Champs. Still Marcello did not speak, and without a word they reached the Avenue de l'Opéra. The light was very bright there, and Regina looked long at Marcello's face, and saw how white it was. "She said you were looking very ill," said she, in a voice that shook a little. "Nonsense!" cried Marcello, rousing himself. "Shall we have supper at Henry's or at the Café de Paris? We are near both." "We will go home," Regina answered. "I do not want any supper to-night." They reached their hotel. Regina tossed her hat upon a chair in the sitting-room and drew Marcello to the light, holding him before her, and scrutinising his face with extraordinary intensity. Suddenly her hands dropped from his shoulders. "She was right; you are ill. Who is this lady that knows your face better than I?" She asked the question in a tone of bitterness and self-reproach. "The Contessa dell' Armi," Marcello answered, with a shade of reluctance. "And the girl?" asked Regina, in a flash of intuition. "Her daughter Aurora." He turned away, lit a cigarette, and rang the bell. Regina bit her lip until it hurt her, for she remembered how often he had pronounced that name in his delirium, many months ago. She could not speak for a moment. A waiter came in answer to the bell, and Marcello ordered something, and then sat down. Regina went to her room and did not return until the servant had come back and was gone again, leaving a tray on the table. "What is the matter?" asked Marcello in surprise, as he caught sight of her face. She sat down at a little distance, her eyes fixed on him. "I am a very wicked woman," she said, in a dull voice. "You?" Marcello laughed and filled the glasses. "I am letting you kill yourself to amuse me," Regina said. "I am a very, very wicked woman. But you shall not do it any more. We will go away at once." "I am perfectly well," Marcello answered, holding out a glass to her; but she would not take it. "I do not want wine to-night," she said. "It is good when one has a light heart, but my heart is as heavy as a stone. What am I good for? Kill me. It will be better. Then you will live." "I should have died without you long ago. You saved my life." "To take it again! To let you consume yourself, so that I may see the world! What do I care for the world, if you are not well? Let us go away quickly." "Next week, if you like." "No! To-morrow!" "Without waiting to hear Melba?" "Yes--to-morrow!" "Or Sarah Bernhardt in Sardou's new play?" "To-morrow! To-morrow morning, early! What is anything compared with your getting well?" "And your new summer costume that Doucet has not finished? How about that?" Marcello laughed gaily and emptied his glass. But Regina rose and knelt down beside him, laying her hands on his. "We must go to-morrow," she said. "You shall say where, for you know what countries are near Paris, and where there are hills, and trees, and waterfalls, and birds that sing, where the earth smells sweet when it rains, and it is quiet when the sun is high. We will go there, but you know where it is, and how far." "I have no doubt Settimia knows," laughed Marcello. "She knows everything." But Regina's face was grave, and she shook her head slowly. "What is the use of laughing?" she asked. "You cannot deceive me, you know you cannot! I deceived myself and was blind, but my eyes are open now, and I can only see the truth. Do you love me, Marcello?" His eyes looked tired a moment ago, even when he laughed, but the light came into them now. He breathed a little faster and bent forward to kiss her. She could feel the rising pulse in his thin hands. But she leaned back as she knelt, and pressed her lips together tightly. "Not that," she said, after they had both been motionless ten seconds. "I don't mean that! Love is not all kisses. There is more. There are tears, but there is more too. There is pain, there is doubting, there is jealousy, and more than that! There is avarice also, for a woman who loves is a miser, counting her treasure when others sleep. And she would kill any one who robbed her, and that is murder. Yet there is more, there are all the mortal sins in love, and even then there is worse. For there is this. She will not count her own soul for him she loves, no, not if the saints in Paradise came down weeping and begging her to think of her salvation. And that is a great sin, I suppose." Marcello looked at her, thinking that she was beautiful, and he said nothing. "But perhaps a man cannot love like that," she added presently. "So what is the use of my asking you whether you love me? You love Aurora too, I daresay! Such as your man's love is, and of its kind, you have enough for two!" Marcello smiled. "I do not love Aurora now," he said. "But you have, for you talked to her in your fever, and perhaps you will again, or perhaps you wish to marry her. How can I tell what you think? She is prettier than I, for she has fair hair. I knew she had. I hate fair women, but they are prettier than we dark things ever are. All men think so. What does it matter? It was I that saved your life when you were dying, and the people meant you to die. I shall always have that satisfaction, even when you are tired of me." "Say never, then!" "Never? Yes, if I let you stay here, you will not have time to be tired of me, for you will grow thinner and whiter, and one day you will be breathing, and not breathing, and breathing a little again, and then not breathing at all, and you will be lying dead with your head on my arm. I can see how it will be, for I thought more than once that you were dead, just like that, when you had the fever. No! If I let that happen you will never be tired of me while you are alive, and when you are dead Aurora cannot have you. Perhaps that would be better. I would almost rather have it so." "Then why should we go away?" asked Marcello, smiling a little. "Because to let you die would be a great sin, much worse than losing my soul for you, or killing some one to keep you. Don't you see that?" "Why would it be worse?" "I do not know, but I am sure it would. Perhaps because it would be losing your soul instead of mine. Who knows? It is not in the catechism. The catechism has nothing about love, and I never learned anything else. But I know things that I never learned. Every woman does. How? The heart says them, and they are true. Where shall we go to-morrow?" "Do you really want to leave Paris?" To impress upon him that she was in earnest Regina squeezed his hands together in hers with such energy that she really hurt him. "What else have I been saying for half an hour?" she asked impatiently. "Do you think I am playing a comedy?" She laughed. "Remember that I have carried you up and down stairs in my arms," she added, "and I could do it again!" "If you insist on going away, I will walk," Marcello answered with a laugh. She laughed too, as she rose to her feet. He put out his hand to fill his glass again, but she stopped him. "No," she said, "the wine keeps you awake, and makes you think you are stronger than you are. You shall sleep to-night, and to-morrow we will go. I am so glad it is settled!" She could do what she would with him, and so it turned out that Marcello left Paris without going to see the Contessa and Aurora; and when he was fairly away he felt that it was a relief not to be able to see them, since it would have been his duty to do so if he had stayed another day. Maddalena dell' Armi had not believed that he would come, but she stopped at home that afternoon on the bare possibility. Aurora made up her mind that if he came she would shut herself up in her own room. She expected that he would certainly call before the evening, and was strangely disappointed because he did not. "Who was that lady with him last night?" she asked of her mother. "I do not know that--lady," answered the Contessa, with a very slight hesitation before pronouncing the last word. But they had both heard of Regina already. CHAPTER X The Contessa wrote to Corbario two days later, addressing her letter to Rome, as she did not know where he was. It was not like her to meddle in the affairs of other people, or to give advice, but this was a special case, and she felt that something must be done to save Marcello; for she was a woman of the world, with much experience and few illusions, and she understood at a glance what was happening to her dead friend's son. She wrote to Folco, telling him of the accidental meeting in the portico of the Théâtre Français, describing Marcello's looks, and saying pretty clearly what she thought of the extremely handsome young woman who was with him. Now Paris is a big city, and it chanced that Corbario himself was there at that very time. Possibly he had kept out of Marcello's way for some reason of his own, but he had really not known that the Contessa was there. Her letter was forwarded from Rome and reached him four days after it was written. He read it carefully, tore it into several dozen little bits, looked at his watch, and went at once to the quiet hotel in the Rue Saint Honoré. The Contessa was alone, Aurora having gone out with her mother's maid. Maddalena was glad to see him, not because she liked him, for she did not, but because it would be so much easier to talk of what was on her mind than to write about it. "I suppose you are surprised to see me," said Folco, after the first conventional greeting. "No, for one may meet any one in Paris, at any time of the year. When I wrote, I thought Marcello must be alone here--I mean, without you," she added. "I did not know he had been here, until I heard that he was gone. He left three or four days ago. I fancy that when you wrote your letter he was already gone." "Do you let him wander about Europe as he pleases?" asked the Contessa. "He is old enough to take care of himself," answered Corbario. "There is nothing worse for young men than running after them and prying into their affairs. I say, give a young fellow his independence as soon as possible. If he has been brought up in a manly way, with a feeling of self-respect, it can only do him good to travel alone. That is the English way, you know, and always succeeds." "Not always, and besides, we are not English. It is not 'succeeding,' as you call it, in Marcello's case. He will not live long, if you let him lead such a life." "Oh, he is stronger than he looks! He is no more threatened with consumption than I am, and a boy who can live through what happened to him two years ago can live through anything." Not a muscle of his face quivered as he looked quietly into the Contessa's eyes. He was quite sure that she did not suspect him of having been in any way concerned in Marcello's temporary disappearance. "Suppose him to be as strong as the strongest," Maddalena answered. "Put aside the question of his health. There is something else that seems to me quite as important." "The moral side?" Corbario smiled gravely. "My dear lady, you and I know the world, don't we? We do not expect young men to be saints!" Maddalena, who had not always been a saint, returned his look coldly. "Let us leave the saints out of the discussion," she said, "unless we speak of Marcello's mother. She was one, if any one ever was. I believe you loved her, and I know that I did, and I do still, for she is very real to me, even now. Don't you owe something to her memory? Don't you know how she would have felt if she could have met her son the other night, as I met him, looking as he looked? Don't you know that it would have hurt her as nothing else could? Think a moment!" She paused, waiting for his answer and watching his impenetrable face, that did not change even when he laughed, that could not change, she thought; but she had not seen him by Marcello's bedside at the hospital, when the mask had been gone for a few seconds. It was there now, in all its calm stillness. "You may be right," he answered, almost meekly, after a little pause. "I had not looked at it in that light. You see, I am not a very sensitive man, and I was brought up rather roughly. My dear wife went to the other extreme, of course. No one could really be what she wished to make Marcello. He felt that himself, though I honestly did all I could to make him act according to his mother's wishes. But now that she is gone--" he broke off, and was silent a moment. "You may be right," he repeated, shaking his head thoughtfully. "You are a very good woman, and you ought to know." She leaned back in her chair, and looked at him in silence, wondering whether she was not perhaps doing him a great injustice; yet his voice rang false to her ear, and the old conviction that he had never loved his wife came back with increased force and with the certainty that he had been playing a part for years without once breaking down. "I will join Marcello, and see what I can do," he said. "Do you know where he is?" "Oh, yes! He keeps me informed of his movements; he is very good about writing. You know how fond of each other we are, too, and I am sure he will be glad to see me. He is back in Italy by this time. He was going to Siena. We were to have met in Rome in about a month, to go down to San Domenico together, but I will join him at once." "If you find that--that young person with him, what shall you do?" "Send her about her business, of course," answered Folco promptly. "Suppose that she will not go, what then?" "It can only be a question of money, my dear lady. Leave that to me. Marcello is not the first young fellow who has been in a scrape!" Still Maddalena did not trust him, and she merely nodded with an air of doubt. "Shall I not see Aurora?" he asked suddenly. "She is out," answered the Contessa. "I will tell her that you asked after her." "Is she as beautiful as ever?" inquired Folco. "She is a very pretty girl." "She is beautiful," Folco said, with conviction. "I have never seen such a beautiful girl as she was, even when she was not quite grown up. No one ever had such hair and such eyes, and such a complexion!" "Dear me!" exclaimed Maddalena with a little surprise. "I had no idea that you thought her so good-looking!" "I always did. As for Marcello, we used to think he would never have eyes for any one else." "Young people who have known each other well as children rarely fall in love when they grow up," answered Maddalena. "So much the better," Folco said. "Aurora and Marcello are not at all suited to one another." "That is true," answered the Contessa. "And besides, he is much too young for her. They are nearly of the same age." "I never thought of their marrying," replied Maddalena, with a little emphasis, "and I should certainly not choose this time to think of it!" "I fancy few men can look at your daughter without wishing that they might marry her, my dear lady," said Corbario, rising to go away. "Pray present my homage to her, and tell her how very sorry I am not to have seen her." He smiled as if he were only half in earnest, and he took his leave. He was scarcely gone when Aurora entered the sitting-room by another door. "Was it Marcello?" she asked quietly enough, though her voice sounded a little dull. "No, dear," answered her mother. "It was Folco Corbario. I wrote to him some days ago and he came to see me. Marcello has left Paris. I did not know you had come home." Aurora sat down rather wearily, pulled out her hatpins, and laid her hat on her knee. Then she slowly turned it round and round, examining every inch of it with profound attention, as women do. They see things in hats which we do not. "Mamma--" Aurora got no further, and went on turning the hat round. "Yes? What were you going to say?" "Nothing--I have forgotten." The hat revolved steadily. "Are we going to stay here long?" "No. Paris is too expensive. When we have got the few things we want we will go back to Italy--next week, I should think." "I wish we were rich," observed Aurora. "I never heard you say that before," answered her mother. "But after all, wishing does no harm, and I am silly enough to wish we were rich too." "If I married Marcello, I should be very rich," said Aurora, ceasing to turn the hat, but still contemplating it critically. Maddalena looked at her daughter in some surprise. The girl's face was quite grave. "You had better think of getting rich in some other way, my dear," said the Contessa presently, with an asperity that did not escape Aurora, but produced no impression on her. "I was only supposing," she said. "But if it comes to that, it would be much better for him to marry me than that good-looking peasant girl he has picked up." The Contessa sat up straight and stared at her in astonishment. There was a coolness in the speech that positively horrified her. "My dear child!" she cried. "What in the world are you talking about?" "Regina," answered Aurora, looking up, and throwing the hat upon the table. "I am talking about Marcello's Regina. Did you suppose I had never heard of her, and that I did not guess that it was she, the other night? I had a good look at her. I hate her, but she is handsome. You cannot deny that." "I do not deny it, I'm sure!" The Contessa hardly knew what to say. "Very well. Would it not be much better for Marcello if he married me than if he let Regina marry him, as she will!" "I--possibly--you put it so strangely! But I am sure Marcello will never think of marrying her." "Then why does he go about with her, and what is it all for?" Aurora gazed innocently at her mother, waiting for an answer which did not come. "Besides," she added, "the girl will marry him, of course." "Perhaps. I daresay you are right, and after all, she may be in love with him. Why should you care, child?" "Because he used to be my best friend," Aurora answered demurely. "Is it wrong to take an interest in one's friends? And I still think of him as my friend, though I have never had a chance to speak to him since that day by the Roman shore, when he went off in a rage because I laughed at him. I wonder whether he has forgotten that! They say he lost his memory during his illness." "What a strange girl you are! You have hardly ever spoken of him in all this time, and now"--the Contessa laughed as if she thought the idea absurd--"and now you talk of marrying him!" "I have seen Regina," Aurora replied, as if that explained everything. The Contessa returned no answer, and she was rather unusually silent and preoccupied during the rest of that day. She was reflecting that if Aurora had not chanced to meet Marcello just when Regina was with him the girl might never have thought of him again, except with a half-amused recollection of the little romantic tenderness she had once felt for the friend and playfellow of her childhood. Maddalena was a wise woman now, and did not underestimate the influence of little things when great ones were not far off. That is a very important part of worldly wisdom, which is the science of estimating chances in a game of which love, hate, marriage, fortune, and social life and death may be the stakes. Her impulse was to prevent Aurora from seeing Marcello for a long time, for the thought of a possible marriage had never attracted her, and since the appearance of Regina on the scene every instinct of her nature was against it. Her pride revolted at the idea that her daughter might be the rival of a peasant girl, quite as much as at the possibility of its being said that she had captured her old friend's son for the sake of his money. But she remembered her own younger years and she judged Aurora by herself. There had been more in that little romantic tenderness for Marcello than any one had guessed, much of it had remained, it had perhaps grown instead of dying out, and the sight of Regina had awakened it to something much stronger than a girlish fancy. Maddalena remembered little incidents now, of which the importance had escaped her the more easily because the loss of her dearest friend had made her dull and listless at the time. Aurora had scarcely asked about Marcello during the weeks that followed his disappearance, but she had often looked pale and almost ill just then. She had been better after the news had come that he had been found, though she had barely said that she was glad to hear of him. Then she had grown more restless than she used to be, and there had sometimes been a dash of hardness in the things she said; and her mother was now quite sure that Aurora had intentionally avoided all mention of Marcello. To-day, she had suddenly made that rather startling remark about marrying him. All this proved clearly enough that he had been continually in her thoughts. When very young people take unusual pains to ignore a certain subject, and then unexpectedly blurt out some very rough observation about it, the chances are that they have been thinking of nothing else for a long time. A good deal had happened on that afternoon, for what Corbario had said about Aurora, half playfully and half in earnest, had left Maddalena under the impression that he had been trying a little experiment on his own account, to feel his way. Aurora had more than once said in the preceding years that she did not like his eyes and a certain way he had of looking at her. He had admired her, even then, and now that he was a widower it was not at all unlikely that he should think of marrying her. He was not much more than thirty years old, and he had a singularly youthful face. There was no objection on the score of his age. He was rich, at least for his life-time. He had always been called a model husband while his wife had been alive, and was said to have behaved with propriety since. Maddalena tried to look at the matter coolly and dispassionately, as if she did not instinctively dislike him. Why should he not wish to marry Aurora? No one of the Contessa's acquaintances would be at all surprised if he did, and most people would say that it was a very good match, and that Aurora was fortunate to get such a husband. This was precisely what Folco thought; and as it was his nature to think slowly and act quickly, it is not impossible that he may have revolved the plan in his mind for a year or two while Aurora was growing up. The final decision had perhaps been reached on that evening down by the Roman shore, when Professor Kalmon had held up to his eyes the sure means of taking the first step towards its accomplishment; and it had been before him late on the same night when he had stood still in the verandah holding the precious and terrible little tablet in the hollow of his hand; and the next morning when he had suddenly seen Marcello close before him, unconscious of his presence and defenceless. He had run a great risk in vain that day, since Marcello was still alive, a risk more awful than he cared to remember now; but it had been safely passed, and he must never do anything so dangerous again. There was a far safer and surer way of gaining his end than clumsy murder, and from what the Contessa had told him of the impression she had received the accomplishment was not far off. She had said that Marcello had looked half dead; his delicate constitution could not bear such a life much longer, and he would soon be dead in earnest. Marcello did not write as regularly as Folco pretended, but the latter had trustworthy and regular news of him from some one else. Twice a week, wherever he might be, a square envelope came by the post addressed in a rather cramped feminine hand, the almost unmistakable writing of a woman who had seen better days and had been put to many shifts in order to keep up some sort of outward respectability. The information conveyed was tolerably well expressed, in grammatical Italian; the only names contained in the letters were those of towns, and hotels, and the like, and Marcello was invariably spoken of as "our dear patient," and Regina as "that admirable woman" or "that ideal companion." The writer usually said that the dear patient seemed less strong than a month ago, or a week ago, and expressed a fear that he was slowly losing ground. Sometimes he was better, and the news was accompanied by a conventional word or two of satisfaction. Again, there would be a detailed account of his doings, showing that he had slept uncommonly little and had no appetite, and mentioning with a show of regret the sad fact that he lived principally on cigarettes, black coffee, and dry champagne. The ideal companion seemed to be always perfectly well, showed no tendency to be extravagant, and gave proof of the most constant devotion. The writer always concluded by promising that Corbario's instructions with regard to the dear patient should be faithfully carried out in future as they had been in the past. This was very reassuring, and Folco often congratulated himself on the wisdom he had shown in the selection of Settimia as a maid for Regina. The woman not only did what was required of her with the utmost exactitude; she took an evident pleasure in her work, and looked forward to the fatal result at no very distant time with all the satisfaction which Corbario could desire. So far everything had gone smoothly. CHAPTER XI It was high summer again, and the Roman shore was feverish. In the hot afternoon Ercole had tramped along the shore with his dog at his heels as far as Torre San Lorenzo to have a chat with the watchman. They sat in the shade of the tower, smoking little red clay pipes with long wooden stems. The chickens walked about slowly, evidently oppressed by the heat and by a general lack of interest in life, since not a single grain of maize from the morning feed remained to be discovered on the disused brick threshing-floor or in the sand that surrounded it. From some dark recess came the occasional grunt of the pig, attending in solitude to the business of getting fat before October. Now and then the watchman's wife moved a chair in the lower room of the tower, or made a little clatter with some kitchen utensils, and the sounds came out to the solitude sharply and distinctly. There had been a flat calm for several days. Forty yards below the tower the sea lay along the sandy beach like a strip of glistening white glass, beyond which was a broader band of greenish blue that did not glitter; and beyond that, the oily water stretched out to westward in an unending expanse of neutral tints, arabesqued with current streaks and struck right across by the dazzling dirty-white blaze of the August sun. Swarms of flies chased each other where the two men sat, settled on their backs and dusty black hats, tried to settle on their faces and were brushed away, crawled on the ground, on the walls, even on the chickens, and on the rough coat of Nino, the dog. He followed the motions of those he saw before him with one bloodshot eye; the other seemed to be fast asleep. From time to time the men exchanged a few words. Ercole had apparently come over to enjoy the novelty of seeing a human being, and Padre Francesco, the watchman, was glad to talk with some one besides his wife. He enjoyed the title of "Padre," because he had once been master of a small martingane that traded between Cività Vecchia and the south. In still earlier days he had been in deep water and had been boatswain of a square-rigger, yet there was nothing about his appearance now to show that he had been a sailor man. It was ten years since he had left the sea, and he had turned into a peasant. Ercole had told Padre Francesco that the second hay crop had been half spoilt by thunderstorms; also that the price of wine in Ardea had gone up, while the price of polenta had remained the same; also that a wild boar had broken out of the king's preserves near Nettuno and was supposed to be wandering in the brush not far away; also that if Ercole and Nino found him they would kill him, and that there would be a feast. Padre Francesco observed that his wife understood the cooking of wild boar with vinegar, sugar, pine-nuts, and sweet herbs, and that he himself knew how to salt the hams; he had also salted the flesh of porpoises at sea, more than once, and had eaten pickled dog-fish, which he considered to be nothing but young sharks, in the West Indies. This did not interest Ercole much, as he had heard it before, and he smoked in silence for a while. So did Padre Francesco; and both brushed away the flies. Nino rolled one bloodshot eye at his master, every time the latter moved; and it grew excessively hot, and the air smelt of chickens, rotten seaweed, and the pig. Yet both men were enjoying themselves after a fashion, though Ercole distrusted Padre Francesco, as he distrusted all human beings, and Padre Francesco looked upon Ercole as a person having no knowledge of the world, because he had never eaten pickled dog-fish in the West Indies. After a time, Padre Francesco remembered a piece of news which he had not yet told, cleared his throat, stirred the contents of his pipe with the point of a dangerous-looking knife, and looked at his companion for a full minute. "Speak," said Ercole, who understood these premonitory signs. "There has been one here who asked after you," Padre Francesco began. "What species of Christian?" inquired Ercole. "He was at the cottage when the blessed soul of the Signora departed, or just before that. It is a big gentleman with a brown beard and bright eyes. He looks for things in the sand and in the bushes and amongst the seaweed. Who knows what he looks for? Perhaps he looks for gold." "Or the souls of his dead," suggested Ercole with fine irony. "But I know this Signore who was at the cottage, with the brown beard and the bright eyes. He sometimes came to shoot quail. He also killed some. He is a professor of wisdom." "He asked if I knew you, but of course I said I did not. Why should he ask? How could I know what he wanted of you. I said that I had never heard of you." "You did well. Those who have business with me know where to find me. What else did he say?" "He asked if I had seen the young gentleman this year, and he told me that he had not seen him since the night before he was lost. So then I knew that he was a gentleman of some kind, since he had been at the cottage. I also asked if your masters were never coming to the Roman shore again." "What did he answer?" inquired Ercole, with an air of utter indifference. "He said an evil thing. He said that your young gentleman had gone off to foreign countries with a pretty peasant from Frascati, whose name was Regina; that it was she who had nursed him when he was ill, in some inn, and that out of gratitude, and because she was very pretty, he had given her much money, and silk dresses and earrings. That is what he said." Ercole gazed down at Nino's bloodshot eye, which was turned to him just then. "A girl called Regina," Ercole grumbled, in a tone even harsher than usual. "That is what he said. Why should he tell me one thing for another? He said that your young gentleman would perhaps come back when he was tired of Regina. And he laughed. That is all." A low growl from Nino interrupted the conversation. It was very low and long and then rose quickly and ended in a short bark, as the dog gathered his powerful hindquarters suddenly and raised himself, bristling all over and thrusting his sinewy forepaws out before him. Then the growl began again, but Ercole touched him lightly with the toe of his hob-nailed boot, and the dog was instantly silent. Both men looked about, but no one was to be seen. "There is a boat on the beach," said Padre Francesco, who had caught the faint soft sound of the keel running upon the sand. They both rose, Ercole picking up his gun as he did so; Nino, seeing that his master was on the alert, slunk to his heels without growling any more. A moment later a man's voice was heard calling on the other side of the tower. "Hi! Watchman of the tower! A favour! Watchman of the tower! Hi!" Padre Francesco turned the corner, followed by Ercole. A sailor in scanty ragged clothes and the remains of a rush hat was standing barefoot in the burning sand, with an earthen jug in his hand. A battered boat, from which all traces of paint had long since disappeared, was lying with her nose buried in the sand, not moving in the oily water. Another man was in her, very much like the first in looks. On seeing Nino at Ercole's heels, the man who was ashore drew back with an exclamation, as if he were going to run away, but Ercole spoke in a reassuring tone. "Be not afraid," he said. "This dog does not eat Christians. He gets enough to eat at home. He is not a dog, he is a lamb, and most affectionate." "It is an evil beast," observed the sailor, looking at Nino. "I am afraid." "What do you desire?" inquired Padre Francesco politely. "Is it water that you wish?" "As a favour," answered the man, seeing that the dog did not fly at him. "A little water to drink. We have been pulling all day; it is hot, and we have drunk what we had." "Come with me," said Padre Francesco. "Where is your vessel?" "At Fiumicino. The master sent us on an errand to Porto d'Anzio last night and we are going back." "It is a long pull," observed the watchman. "Tell the other man to come ashore and rest in the shade. I also have been to sea. The water is not very good here, but what there is you shall have." "Thank you," said the man gratefully, and giving Nino a very wide berth as he followed Padre Francesco. "We could have got some water at the Incastro creek, but it would have been the same as drinking the fever." "May the Madonna never will that you drink of it," said Padre Francesco, as they reached the shady side of the tower. "I see that you know the Roman shore." "It is our business," replied the man, taking off his ragged rush hat, and rubbing his still more ragged blue cotton sleeve over his wet forehead. "We are people of the sea, bringing wine and lemons to Cività Vecchia and taking charcoal back. Evil befall this calm weather." "And when it blows from the west-southwest we say, evil befall this time of storm," said Padre Francesco, nodding wisely. "Be seated in the shade. I will fetch water." "And also let us drink here, so that we may take the jug away full." "You shall also drink here." The old watchman went into the tower. "The last time I passed this way, it was in a west-southwest gale," said the man, addressing Ercole, who had sat down in his old place with his dog at his feet. "It is an evil shore," Ercole answered. "Many vessels have been lost here." "We were saved by a miracle that time," said the sailor, who seemed inclined to talk. "I was with a brigantine with wine for Marseilles. That vessel was like a rock in the sea, she would not move with less than seven points of the wind in fair weather. We afterwards went to Rio Janeiro, and it was two years before we got back." "So it was two years ago that you passed?" inquired Ercole. "Two years ago May or the beginning of June. She was so low in the water that she would have swamped if we had tried to carry on sail, and with the sail she could carry she could make no headway; so there we were, hove to under lower topsail and balance-reefed mainsail and storm-jib, with a lee shore less than a mile away. We recommended ourselves to the saints and the souls of purgatory, and our captain said to us, 'My fine sons, unless the wind shifts in half an hour we must run her ashore and save the cargo!' That is what he said. But I said that I knew this Roman shore from a boy, and that sometimes there was no bar at the mouth of the Incastro, so that a vessel might just slip into the pool where the reeds grow. You certainly know the place." "I know it well," said Ercole. "Yes. So I pointed out the spot to our captain, standing beside him, and he took his glasses and looked to see whether the sea was breaking on the bar." "The bar has not been open since I came here," said Padre Francesco, returning with water. "And that is ten years." The men drank eagerly, one after the other, and there was silence. The one who had been speaking wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and drew a long breath of satisfaction. "No, I daresay not," he said at last. "The captain looked all along the shore for a better place. Then he saw a bad thing with his glasses; for they were fine glasses, and though he was old, he had good sight. And I stood beside him, and he told me what he saw while he was looking." "What did he see?" asked Ercole, watching the man. "What did he see? I tell you it was a bad sight! Health to us all, as many as are here, he saw one man kill another and drag his body into some bushes." "Apoplexy!" observed Ercole, glancing at Padre Francesco. "Are there brigands here?" "I tell you what the captain said. 'There are two men,' said he, 'and they are like gentlemen by their dress.' 'They shoot quail,' said I, knowing the shore. 'They have no guns,' said he. Then he cried out, keeping his glasses to his eyes and steadying himself by the weather vang. 'God be blessed,' he cried--for he never said an evil word, that captain,--'one of those gentlemen has struck the other on the back of the head and killed him! And now he drags his body away towards the bushes.' And he saw nothing more, but he showed me the place, where there is a gap in the high bank. Afterwards he said he thought he had seen a woman too, and that it must have been an affair of jealousy." Ercole and Padre Francesco looked at each other in silence for a moment. "Did you hear of no murder at that time?" asked the sailor, taking up the earthen jar full of water. "We heard nothing," said Ercole promptly. "Nothing," echoed Padre Francesco. "The captain was dreaming. He saw trees moving in the wind." "Don Antonino had good eyes," answered the sailor incredulously. "What was the name of your vessel?" asked Padre Francesco. "The _Papa_" replied the sailor without a smile. "She was called _Papa_." Ercole stared at him a moment and then laughed; and he laughed so rarely that it distorted the yellow parchment of his face as if it must crack it. The sound of his laughter was something like the creaking of a cart imitated by a ventriloquist. But Padre Francesco knit his bushy brows, for he thought the sailor was making game of him, who had been boatswain on a square-rigger. "I went to sea for thirty years," he said, "but I never heard of a vessel called the _Papa_. You have said a silly thing. I have given you water to drink, and filled your jar. It is not courtesy to jest at men older than you." "Excuse me," answered the man politely. "May it never be that I should jest at such a respectable man as you seem to be; and, moreover, you have filled the jar with your own hands. The brigantine was called as I say. And if you wish to know why, I will tell you. She was built by two rich brothers of Torre Annunziata, who wished much good to their papa when he was old and no longer went to sea. Therefore, to honour him, they called the vessel the _Papa_. This is the truth." Lest this should seem extravagantly unlikely to the readers of this tale, I shall interrupt the conversation to say that I knew the _Papa_ well, that "she" was built and christened as the sailor said, and that her name still stood on the register of Italian shipping a few years ago. She was not a brigantine, however, but a larger vessel, and she was bark-rigged; and she was ultimately lost in port, during a hurricane. "We have learned something to-day," observed Ercole, when the man had finished speaking. "It is true," the man said. "And the name of the captain was Don Antonino Maresca. He was of Vico." "Where is Vico?" inquired Ercole, idly scratching his dog's back with the stock of his gun. "Near Castellamare," answered Padre Francesco, willing to show his knowledge. "One sees that you are a man of the sea," said the sailor, meaning to please him. "And so we thank you, and we go." Ercole and the old watchman saw the two ragged sailors put off in the battered boat and pull away over the bar; then they went back to the shade of the tower and sat down again and refilled their pipes, and were silent for a long time. Padre Francesco's old wife, who had not shown herself yet, came and stood in the doorway, nodded to Ercole, fanned herself with her apron, counted the chickens in sight, and observed that the weather was hot. Then she went in again. "It is easy to remember the name of that ship," said Ercole at last, without glancing at his companion. "And the master was Antonino Maresca of Vico," said Padre Francesco. "But the truth is that it is none of our business," said Ercole. "The captain was mistaken," said Padre Francesco. "He saw trees moving in the wind," said Ercole. Then they looked at each other and nodded. "Perhaps the Professor was mistaken about the girl, and the silk dress and the gold earrings," suggested Padre Francesco, turning his eyes away. "He was certainly mistaken," asserted Ercole, watching him closely. "And moreover it is none of our business." "None whatever." They talked of other things, making remarks at longer and longer intervals, till the sun sank near the oily sea, and Ercole took his departure, much wiser in regard to Marcello's disappearance than when he had come. He followed the long beach for an hour till he came to the gap in the bank. There he stopped, and proceeded to examine the place carefully, going well inside it, and then turning to ascertain exactly where Marcello must have been when he was struck, since at that moment he must have been distinctly visible from the brigantine. The gap was so narrow that it was not hard to fix upon the spot where the deed had been done, especially as the captain had seen Marcello dragged quickly away towards the bushes. Every word of the sailor's story was stamped with truth; and so it came about that when Corbario believed himself at last quite safe, a man in his own pay suddenly discovered the whole truth about the attempted crime, even to the name of the principal witness. It was only in the quail season, when there were poachers about, during April, May, and early June, that Ercole lived in his straw hut, a little way from the cottage. He spent the rest of the year in a small stone house that stood on a knoll in sight of Ardea, high enough to be tolerably safe from the deadly Campagna fever. Every other day an old woman from the village brought him a copper conca full of water; once a month she came and washed for him. When he needed supplies he went to Ardea for them himself. His dwelling was of elementary simplicity, consisting of two rooms, one above the other, with grated windows and heavy shutters. In the lower one he cooked and ate, in the upper chamber he slept and kept his few belongings, which included a plentiful supply of ammunition, his Sunday clothes, his linen, and his papers. The latter consisted of a copy of his certificate of birth, his old military pass-book, showing that he had served his time in an infantry regiment, had been called in for six weeks' drill in the reserve, had been a number of years in the second reserve, and had finally been discharged from all military service. This booklet serves an Italian throughout life as a certificate of identity, and is necessary in order to obtain a passport to leave the country. Ercole kept his, with two or three other yellow papers, tied up in an old red cotton handkerchief in the bottom of the chest that held his clothes. When he got home after his visit to Padre Francesco he took the package out, untied the handkerchief, and looked through all the papers, one by one, sitting by the grated window in the twilight. He could read, and had once been able to write more or less intelligibly, and he knew by heart the contents of the paper he wanted, though he had not unfolded it for years. He now read it carefully, and held it some time open in his hand before he put it back with the rest. He held it so long, while he looked out of his grated window, that at last he could see the little lights twinkling here and there in the windows of Ardea, and it was almost dark in the room. Nino grew restless, and laid his grim head on Ercole's knee, and his bloodshot eyes began to glow in the dark like coals. Then Ercole moved at last. "Ugly animal, do you wish me well?" he asked, rubbing the dog's head with his knotty hand. "If you are good, you shall go on a journey with me." Nino's body moved in a way which showed that he would have wagged his tail if he had possessed one, and he uttered a strange gurgling growl of satisfaction. The next morning, the old woman came before sunrise with water. "You need not bring any more, till I let you know," Ercole said. "I am going away on business for a few days, and I shall shut up the house." "For anything that is in it, you might leave the door open," grumbled the hag, who was of a sour temper. "Give me my pay before you go." "You fear that I am going to America," retorted Ercole, producing an old sheepskin purse from the inside of his waistcoat. "Here is your money. Four trips, four pennies. Count them and go in peace." He gave her the coppers, and she carefully tied them up in a corner of her ragged kerchief. "And the bread?" she asked anxiously. Ercole went to the blackened cupboard, took out the remains of a stale loaf, drew a big clasp-knife from his pocket, and cut off a moderate slice. "Eat," he said, as he gave it to her. She went away grumbling, and Nino growled after her, standing on the door-step. When she was a hundred yards from the house, he lay down with his jaw on his forepaws and continued to watch her till she was out of sight; then he gave a snort of satisfaction and immediately went to sleep. Ercole left his home after sunset that evening. He locked both the upper and lower doors and immediately dropped the huge key into a crevice in the stone steps, from which one might have supposed that it would not be easy to recover it; but he doubtless knew what he was about. He might have had one of the little horses from the farm if he had wanted one, for he was a privileged person, but he preferred to walk. To a man of his wiry frame thirty or forty miles on foot were nothing, and he could easily have covered the distance in a night; but he was not going so far, by any means, and a horse would only have been in the way. He carried his gun, from force of habit, and he had his gun-licence in his pocket, with his other papers, tied up in the old red handkerchief. There was all that was left of the stale loaf, with the remains of some cheese, in a canvas bag, he had slung over his shoulder, and he had plenty of money; for his wages were good, and he never spent more than half of what he received, merely because he had no wants, and no friends. Under the starlight he walked at a steady pace by familiar paths and byways, so as to avoid the village and strike the highroad at some distance beyond it. Nino followed close at his heels and perfectly silent, and the pair might have been dangerous to any one inclined to quarrel with them. When Ercole was in sight of Porta San Sebastiano it was past midnight, and he stood still to fill and light his little clay pipe. Then he went on; but instead of entering the gate he took the road to the right again, along the Via Appia Nuova. Any one might have supposed that he would have struck across to that highroad some time before reaching the city, but it was very long since Ercole had gone in that direction; many new roads had been opened and some old ones had been closed, and he was simply afraid of losing his way in a part of the Campagna no longer familiar to him. [Illustration: "ERCOLE LEFT HIS HOME AFTER SUNSET THAT EVENING"] A short distance from the gate, where the inn stands that goes by the name of Baldinotti, he took the turning to the left, which is the Frascati road; and after that he walked more slowly, often stopping and peering into the gloom to right and left, as if he were trying to recognise objects in the Campagna. CHAPTER XII Corbario was not pleased with the account given by Settimia in the letter she wrote him after reaching Pontresina with Regina and Marcello, who had chosen the Engadine as the coolest place he could think of in which to spend the hot months, and had preferred Pontresina to Saint Moritz as being quieter and less fashionable. Settimia wrote that the dear patient had looked better the very day after arriving; that the admirable companion was making him drink milk and go to bed at ten o'clock; that the two spent most of the day in the pine-woods, and that Marcello already talked of an excursion up the glacier and of climbing some of the smaller peaks. If the improvement continued, Settimia wrote, it was extremely likely that the dear patient would soon be better than he had ever been in his life. Folco destroyed the letter, lit a cigarette, and thought the matter over. He had deemed it wise to pretend assent when the Contessa had urged him to join Marcello at once, but he had not had the least intention of doing so, and had come back to Paris as soon as he was sure that the Contessa was gone. But he had made a mistake in his calculations. He had counted on Regina for the love of excitement, display, and inane dissipation which women in her position very often develop when they find that a man will give them anything they like; and he had counted very little on her love for Marcello. Folco was still young enough to fall into one of the most common errors of youth, which is to believe most people worse than they are. Villains, as they grow older, learn that unselfish devotion is more common than they had thought, and that many persons habitually speak the truth, for conscience' sake; finding this out, villains have been known to turn into good men in their riper years, and have sometimes been almost saints in their old age. Corbario smoked his cigarette and mentally registered his mistake, and it is to be feared that the humiliation he felt at having made it was much more painful than the recollection of having dropped one deadly tablet into a little bottle that contained many harmless ones. He compared it in his mind to the keen disappointment he had felt when he had gone down to hide Marcello's body, and had discovered that he had failed to kill him. It is true that what he had felt then had been accompanied by the most awful terror he could imagine, but he distinguished clearly between the one sensation and the other. There was nothing to fear now; he had simply lost time, but that was bad enough, since it was due to his own stupidity. He thought over the situation carefully and considered how much it would be wise to risk. Another year of the life Marcello had been leading in Paris would have killed him to a certainty; perhaps six months would have done it. But a summer spent at Pontresina, living as it was clear that Regina meant him to live, would give the boy strength enough to last much longer, and might perhaps bring him out of all danger. Corbario considered what might be done, went over many plans in his mind, compared many schemes, for the execution of some of which he might have paid dearly; and in the end he was dissatisfied with all, and began over again. Still he reached no conclusion, and he attributed the fault to his own dulness, and his dulness to the life he had been leading of late, which was very much that which he wished Marcello to lead. But he had always trusted his nerves, his ingenuity, and his constitution; if one of the three were to fail him, now that he was rich, it was better that it should be his ingenuity. He made up his mind to go to the Engadine and see for himself how matters looked. He could stay at Saint Moritz, or even Samaden, so as not to disturb Marcello's idyl, and Marcello could come down alone to see him. He should probably meet acquaintances, and would give them to understand that he had come in order to get rid of Regina and save his stepson from certain destruction. Society was very lenient to young men as rich as Marcello, he reflected, but was inclined to lay all the blame of their doings on their natural guardians. There was no reason why Corbario should expose himself to such criticism, and he was sure that the Contessa had only said what many people clearly thought, namely, that he was allowing Marcello far too much liberty. The world should see that he was doing his duty by the boy. He left Paris with regret, as he always did, after writing to Marcello twenty-four hours beforehand. He wrote at the same time to Settimia. "Folco will be here to-morrow," Marcello said, as he and Regina sat under the pine-trees beyond the stream, a little way above the town. Regina sat leaning against the trunk of a tree, and Marcello lay on his side, resting on his elbow and looking up to her. He saw her face change. "Why should he come here?" she asked. "We are so happy!" "He will not disturb us," Marcello answered. "He will stop at Saint Moritz. I shall go down to see him there. I am very fond of him, you know, and we have not seen each other for at least two months. I shall be very glad to see him." The colour was sinking in Regina's face, and her eyelids were almost closed. "You are the master," she said quietly enough. "You will do as you will." He was surprised, and he felt a little resentment at her tone. He liked her better when she dominated him, as on that night in Paris when she had made him promise to come away, and had refused to let him drink more wine, and had sent him to bed like a child. Now she spoke as her forefathers, serfs born to the plough and bound to the soil, must have spoken to their lords and owners. There was no ancient aristocratic blood in his own veins; he was simply a middle-class Italian gentleman who chanced to be counted with the higher class because he had been born very rich, had been brought up by a lady, and had been more or less well educated. That was all. It did not seem natural to him that she should call him "the master" in that tone. He knew that she was not his equal, but somehow it was a little humiliating to have to own it, and he often wished that she were. Often, not always; for he had never been sure that he should have cared to make her his wife, had she been ever so well born. He scarcely knew what he really wanted now, for he had lost his hold on himself, and was content with mere enjoyment from day to day. He could no longer imagine living without her, and while he was conscious that the present state of things could not last very long, he could not face the problem of the future. He did not answer at once, and she sat quite still, almost closing her eyes. "Why should you be displeased because I am going to see Folco?" he asked after a while. "He comes to take you away from me," she answered, without moving. "That is absurd!" cried Marcello, annoyed by her tone. "No. It is true. I know it." "You are unreasonable. He is the best friend I have in the world. Do you expect me to promise that I will never see him again?" "You are the master." She repeated the words in the same dull tone, and her expression did not change in the least. Marcello moved and sat up opposite to her, clasping his hands round his knees. He was very thin, but the colour was already coming back to his face, and his eyes did not look tired. "Listen to me," he said. "You must put this idea out of your head. It was Folco who found the little house in Trastevere for you. He arranged everything. It was he who got you Settimia. He did everything to make you comfortable, and he has never disturbed us once when we have been together. He never so much as asked where I was going when I used to go down to see you every afternoon. No friend could have done more." "I know it," Regina answered; but still there was something in her tone which he could not understand. "Then why do you say that he means to separate us?" Regina did not reply, but she opened her eyes and looked into Marcello's long and lovingly. She knew something that he did not know, and which had haunted her long. When Folco had come to the bedside in the hospital, she had seen the abject terror in his face, the paralysing fear in his attitude, the trembling limbs and the cramped fingers. It had only lasted a moment, but she could never forget it. A child would have remembered how Folco looked then, and Regina knew that there was a mystery there which she could not understand, but which frightened her when she thought of it. Folco had not looked as men do who see one they love called back from almost certain death. "What are you thinking?" Marcello asked, for her deep look stirred his blood, and he forgot Folco and everything in the world except the beautiful creature that sat there, within his reach, in the lonely pine-woods. She understood, and turned her eyes to the distance; and she saw the quiet room in the hospital, the iron bedstead painted white, the smooth pillow, Marcello's emaciated head, and Corbario's face. "I was thinking how you looked when you were ill," she answered simply. The words and the tone broke the soft little spell that had been weaving itself out of her dark eyes. Marcello drew a short, impatient breath and threw himself on his side again, supporting his head on his hand and looking down at the brown pine-needles. "You do not know Folco," he said discontentedly. "I don't know why you should dislike him." "I will tell you something," Regina answered. "When you are tired of me, you shall send me away. You shall throw me away like an old coat." "You are always saying that!" returned Marcello, displeased. "You know very well that I shall never be tired of you. Why do you say it?" "Because I shall not complain. I shall not cry, and throw myself on my knees, and say, 'For the love of heaven, take me back!' I am not made like that. I shall go, without any noise, and what must be will be. That is all. Because I want nothing of you but love, I shall go when you have no more love. Why should I ask you for what you have not? That would be like asking charity of the poor. It would be foolish. But I shall tell you something else." "What?" asked Marcello, looking up to her face again, when she had finished her long speech. "If any one tries to make me go before you are tired of me, it shall be an evil day for him. He shall wish that he had not been born into this world." "You need not fear," Marcello said. "No one shall come between us." "Well, I have spoken. It does not matter whether I fear Signor Corbario or not, but if you like I will tell him what I have told you, when he comes. In that way he will know." She spoke quietly, and there was no murderous light in her eyes, nor any dramatic gesture with the words; but she was a little paler than before, and there was an odd fixedness in her expression, and Marcello knew that she was deeply moved, by the way she fell back into her primitive peasant's speech, not ungrammatical, but oddly rough and forcible compared with the language of educated society which she had now learned tolerably well from him. After that she was silent for a while, and then they talked as usual, and the day went by as other days had gone. On the next afternoon Folco Corbario reached Saint Moritz and sent a note up to Marcello asking him to come down on the following morning. Regina was left alone for a few hours, and she went out with the idea of taking a long walk by herself. It would be a relief and almost a pleasure to walk ten miles in the clear air, breathing the perfume of the pines and listening to the roar of the torrent. Marcello could not walk far without being tired, and she never thought of herself when he was with her; but when she was alone a great longing sometimes came over her to feel the weight of a conca full of water on her head, to roll up her sleeves and scrub the floors, to carry burdens and work with her hands all day long, as she had done ever since she was a child, with the certainty of being tired and hungry and sleepy afterwards. Her hands had grown smooth and white in a year, and her feet were tender, and she had almost forgotten what bodily weariness meant. But she was alone this morning, and she was full of gloomy presentiments. To stay indoors, or even to go and sit in the accustomed place under the pine-trees, would be unbearable. She felt quite sure that when Marcello came back he would be changed, that his expression would be less frank and natural, that he would avoid her eyes, and that by and by he would tell her something that would hurt her very much. Folco had come to take him away, she was quite sure, and it would be intolerable to sit still and think of it. She walked fast along the road that leads to the Rosegg glacier, not even glancing at the few people she met, though most of them stared at her, for almost every one in Pontresina knew who she was. The reputation of a great beauty is soon made, and Regina had been seen often enough in Paris alone with Marcello in a box at the theatre, or dining with him and two or three other young men at Ritz's or the Café Anglais, to be an object of interest to the clever Parisian "chroniclers." The papers had duly announced the fact that the beauty had arrived at Pontresina, and the dwellers in the hotel were delighted to catch a glimpse of her, while those at Saint Moritz wished that she and Marcello had taken up their quarters there instead of in the higher village. Old maids with shawls and camp-stools glared at her round the edge of their parasols. English girls looked at her in frank admiration, till they were reproved by their mothers, who looked at her with furtive interest. Young Englishmen pretended not to see her at all, as they strode along with their pipes in their mouths; but they had an odd habit of being about when she passed. An occasional party of German students, who are the only real Bohemians left to the world in these days of progress, went sentimentally mad about her for twenty-four hours, and planned serenades in her honour which did not come off. A fashionable Italian composer dedicated a song to her, and Marcello asked him to dinner, for which he was more envied by the summer colony than for his undeniable talent. The Anglican clergyman declared that he would preach a sermon against her wickedness, but the hotel-keepers heard of his intention and unanimously requested him to let her alone, which, he did, reluctantly yielding to arguments which shall remain a secret. A certain Archduchess who was at Saint Moritz and was curious to see her adopted the simple plan of asking her to tea without knowing her, at which Marcello was furious; a semi-imperial Russian personage unblushingly scraped acquaintance with Marcello and was extremely bland for a few days, in the hope of being introduced to Regina. When he found that this was impossible, he went away, not in the least disconcerted, and he was heard to say that the girl "would go far." Regina would have been blind if she had not been aware that she attracted all this attention, and as she was probably not intended by nature for a saint, she would have been pleased by it if there had been room in her thoughts for any one but Marcello--even for herself. She walked far up the road, and after the first mile or two she met no one. At that hour the people who made excursions were already far away, and those who meant to do nothing stayed nearer to Pontresina. She grew tired of the road after a time. It led straight to the foot of the glacier, and she was not attracted by snow and ice as northern people are; there was something repellent to her in the thought of the bleakness and cold, and the sunshine itself looked as hard as the distant peaks on which it fell. But on the right there were rocky spurs of the mountains, half covered with short trees and brilliant with wild flowers that grew in little natural gardens here and there, not far below the level of perpetual snow. She left the road, and began to climb where there was no path. The air was delicious with the scent of flowers and shrubs; there were alp-roses everywhere, and purple gentian, and the little iva blossom that has an aromatic smell, and on tiny moss ledges the cold white stars of the edelweiss seemed to be keeping themselves as far above reach as they could. But she climbed as lightly as a savage woman, and picked them and sat down to look at them in the sunshine. Just beyond where she rested, the rock narrowed suddenly to a steep pass, within which were dark shadows. People who do not attempt anything in the way of ascending peaks often wander in that direction in search of edelweiss, but Regina fancied that she was sure to be alone as long as she pleased to stay. If she had not been sure of that she would not have taken off her left shoe to shake out some tiny thing that had got into it and that annoyed her. It turned out to be a bit of pine-needle. It was pleasant to feel her foot freed from the hot leather and resting on the thick moss, and so the other shoe came off too, and was turned upside down and shaken, as an excuse, for there was nothing in it, and both feet rested in the moss, side by side. She wished she could take off her stockings, and if there had been a stream she would have done it, so sure was she that no one would disturb her, up there amongst the rocks and ever so far from Pontresina. It would have been delightful to paddle in the cold running water, for it was much hotter than she had ever supposed that it could be in such a place. She took off her straw hat, and fanned herself gently with it, letting the sunshine fall full upon her thick black hair. She had never owned a hat in her life till she had been installed in the little house in Trastevere, and she hated the inconvenient things. What was her hair for, if it could not protect her head? But a straw hat made a very good fan. The air was hot and still, and there were none of those thousand little sounds which she would have heard in the chestnut woods above Frascati. A little cry broke the silence, and she turned her head in the direction whence it came. Then she dropped her hat, sprang to her feet, and ran forwards, forgetting that she had no shoes on. She saw a figure clinging to the rocks, where they suddenly narrowed, and she heard the cry again, desperate with fear and weak with effort. A young girl had evidently been trying to climb down, when she had lost her footing, and had only been saved from a bad fall because her grey woollen frock had caught her upon a projecting point of granite, giving her time to snatch at the strong twigs of some alp-roses, and to find a very slight projection on which she could rest the toe of one shoe. She was hanging there with her face to the rock, eight or ten feet from the ground, which was strewn with big stones, and she was in such a position that she seemed unable to turn her head in order to look down. In ten seconds Regina was standing directly below the terrified girl, raising herself on tiptoe, and trying to reach her feet with her hands, to guide them to a hold; but she could not. "Don't be frightened," Regina said in Italian, which was the only language she knew. "I cannot hold on!" answered the girl, trying to look down, but feeling that her foot would slip if she turned her head far enough. "Yes, you can," Regina replied, too much roused to be surprised that the answer had come in her own language. "Your dress will hold you, even if you let go with your hands. It is new and it is strong, and it is fairly caught on the rock. I can see that." "But I can't hang here until you go and get help," cried the girl, not much reassured. "I am going to climb to the top by an easier way and pull you up again," Regina answered. "Then we can get down together." While Regina was speaking she had already begun the ascent, which was easy enough for her, at the point she had chosen, though many an Alpine climber might have envied the quickness and sureness of her hold with feet and hands. She realised that she had forgotten her shoes now, and was glad that she had taken them off. "One minute more!" she cried in an encouraging tone, when she had almost reached the top. "Quick!" came the imploring answer. Then Regina was lying flat on the ledge above the girl, stretching both hands down and catching the slender white wrists with a hold like steel. And then, feeling herself held and safe to move, the girl looked up, and Regina was looking into Aurora's face below her. For one instant the two did not recognise each other, for they had only seen each other once, by night, under the portico of the Théâtre Français. But an instant later a flush of anger rose to Aurora's forehead, and the dark woman turned pale, and her brows were suddenly level and stern. They hated each other, as the one hung there held by the other's hands, and the black eyes gazed savagely into the angry blue ones. Aurora was not frightened any longer; she was angry because she was in Regina's power. The strong woman could save her if she would, and Aurora would despise herself ever afterwards for having been saved by her. Or the strong woman could let her fall, and she would probably be maimed for life if she were not killed outright. That seemed almost better. She had never understood before what it could mean to be altogether in the power of an enemy. Regina meant to save her; that was clear. With quick, commanding words she told her what to do. "Set your knees against the rock and pull yourself up a little by my hands. So! I can pull you higher now. Get one knee well on that ledge. Now I will hold your left hand with both mine while you disentangle your frock from the point. Now put your right hand round my neck while I raise myself a little. Yes, that way. Now, hold on tight!" Regina made a steady effort, lifting fully half Aurora's weight with her, as she got first upon one knee and then upon both. [Illustration: "REGINA MADE A STEADY EFFORT, LIFTING FULLY HALF AURORA'S WEIGHT WITH HER."] "There! Take breath and then scramble over the edge," she said. A few seconds, another effort, and Aurora sank exhausted beside Regina, half sitting, half lying, and resting on one hand. She looked up sideways at the dark woman's face; for Regina stood upright, gazing down into the valley. Aurora turned her eyes away, and then looked up again; she had recovered her breath now. "Thank you," she said, with an effort. "It is nothing," Regina answered in an indifferent tone, and without so much as moving her head; she was no more out of breath than if she had been sitting still. The fair girl hated her at that moment as she had never hated any one in her short life, nor had ever dreamed of hating. The flush of anger rose again and again to her forehead, to the very roots of her auburn hair, and lingered a second and sank again. Regina stood perfectly motionless, her face as unchanging as marble. Aurora rose to her feet, and leaned against the rock. She had suddenly felt herself at a disadvantage in remaining seated on the ground while her adversary was standing. It was the instinct of the animal that expects to be attacked. When two people who hate each other or love each other very much meet without warning in a very lonely place, the fierce old passions of the stone age may take hold of them and sway them, even nowadays. For a time that seemed long, there was silence; without words each knew that the other had recognised her. The peasant woman spoke first, though with an evident effort, and without turning her eyes. "When you are rested, we will go down," she said. Aurora moved a step towards the side on which Regina had climbed up. "I think I can get down alone," she answered coldly. Regina looked at her and laughed with a little contempt. "You will break your neck if you try," she said. "You cannot climb at all!" "I think I can get down," Aurora repeated. She went to the edge and was going to begin the attempt when Regina seized her by the wrist and dragged her back in spite of her resistance. "I have something to tell you first," Regina said. "Afterwards I will take you down, and you shall not fall. You shall reach the bottom safely and go home alone, or I will show you the way, as you please." "Let go of my wrist!" Aurora spoke angrily, for the strong grasp hurt her and humiliated her. "Listen to me," continued Regina, loosing her hold at once. "I am Regina. You are Aurora. We have heard of each other, and we have met. Let us talk. This is a good place and we are alone, and the day is long, and we may not meet again soon. We will say what we have to say now, and then we will part." "What is there to be said?" Aurora asked coldly and drawing back a little. "We two love the same man," Regina said. "Is that nothing? You know it is true. If we were not Christians we should try to kill each other here, where it is quiet. I could easily have killed you just now, and I wished to." "I wonder why you did not!" exclaimed Aurora, rather scornfully. "I thought with myself thus: 'If I kill her, I shall always have the satisfaction of it as long as I live. This is the truth. But I shall go to prison for many years and shall not see him again, therefore I will not do it. Besides, it will not please him. If it would make him happy I would kill her, even if I were to go to the galleys for it. But it would not. He would be very angry.' This is what I thought; and I pulled you up. And now, I will not let you hurt yourself in getting down, because he would be angry with me if he knew that it was my fault." Aurora listened to this extraordinary argument in silent surprise. She was not in the least frightened, but she saw at a glance that Regina was quite in earnest, and she knew her own people, and that the Roman peasants are not the gentlest of the Italians. "He would be very angry," Regina repeated. "I am sure he would!" "Why should he be angry?" Aurora asked, in a tone half contemptuous and yet half sad. "I know he would, because when he raved in his fever he used to call for you." Aurora started and fixed her eyes on Regina's. "Yes," Regina said, answering the look. "He often called you by name. He loved you once." She pronounced the words with an accent of pity, drawing herself up to her full height; and there was triumph in the light of her eyes. It is not every woman that has a chance of saying so much to her rival. "We were children then," Aurora said, in the very words she had used to her mother more than two years earlier. She was almost as pale as Regina now, for the thrust had been straight and sure, and right at her heart. But she was prouder than the peasant woman who had wounded her. "I have heard that you saved his life," she said presently. "And he loves you. You are happy!" "I should always be happy if he and I were alone in the world," Regina answered, for she was a little softened by the girl's tone. "But even now they are trying to part us." "To part you?" Again Aurora looked up suddenly. "Who is trying to do that? A woman?" Regina laughed a little. "You are jealous," she said. "That shows that you love him still. No. It is not a woman." "Corbario?" The name rose instinctively to Aurora's lips. "Yes," Regina answered. "That is why I am left alone this morning. Signor Corbario is at Saint Moritz and Marcello is gone down to see him. I know he is trying to separate us. You did not know that he was so near?" "We only came yesterday afternoon," Aurora answered. "We did not know that--that Signor Consalvi was here, or we should not have come at all." It had stung her to hear Regina speak of him quite naturally by his first name. Regina felt the rebuke. "I am truly sorry that I should have accidentally found myself in your path," she said, emphasising the rather grand phrase, and holding her handsome head very high. Aurora almost smiled at this sudden manifestation of the peasant's nature, and wondered whether Regina ever said such things to Marcello, and whether, if she did, they jarred on him very much. The speech had the very curious effect of restoring Aurora's sense of superiority, and she answered more kindly. "You need not be sorry," she said. "If you had not chanced to be here I should probably be lying amongst the rocks down there with several broken bones." "If it were not by my fault I should not care," Regina retorted, with elementary frankness. "But I should!" Aurora laughed, in spite of herself, and liking this phase of Regina's character better than any she had yet seen. "Come," she said, with a sudden generous impulse, and holding out her hand, "let us stop quarrelling. You saved me from a bad accident, and I was too ungenerous to be grateful. I thank you now, with all my heart." Regina was surprised and stared hard at her for a moment, and then glanced at her outstretched hand. "You would not take my hand if there were any one here to see." "Why not?" "Because they have told you that I am a wicked woman," Regina answered, a slight blush rising in her cheeks. "And perhaps it is true. But it was for him." "I would take your hand anywhere, because you saved his life," said Aurora, and her voice shook a little as she said the last words. "And besides, no one has told me that you are wicked. Come, what is the use of hating each other?" Regina took her hand reluctantly, but not suspiciously, and held it a moment. "It does not mean that I shall not hate you if he ever loves you again," she said. "If I made you think that it would be treachery, and that is the worst sin." "It only means that I thank you now, quite honestly," Aurora answered, and their hands parted. "Very well." Regina seemed satisfied. "And I thank you for taking my hand," she added, with something oddly like real gratitude, "and because you said you would do it anywhere, even before other women. I know what I am, and what people call me. But it was for him. Let us not talk of it any more. I will help you down, and you shall go home alone." "My mother is waiting for me far down, towards the village," Aurora said. "All the better. A young lady like you should not go about without any one. It is not proper." Aurora suppressed a smile at the thought of being reproved concerning the proprieties by "Marcello's Regina," and she began the descent. Regina went down first, facing the rock, and planting the young girl's feet in the best stepping places, one after the other, with constant warnings and instructions as to holding on with her hands. They reached the bottom in safety, and came to the place where Regina had left her hat and shoes. She sat down where she had been sitting when she had first heard the cry, and began to put them on. "I had taken them off for coolness as I sat here," she explained. "You see, until I was fourteen I only wore them on Sundays." "And yet you have such beautiful feet," Aurora said. "Have I?" Regina asked indifferently. "I thought all feet were alike. But I have torn my stocking--it is hard to get the shoe on." "Let me help you." Aurora knelt down quickly, and began to loosen the lacing further, but Regina protested, flushing deeply and trying to draw her foot back. "No, no!" she cried. "You are a lady!" "What difference does that make?" asked Aurora, laughing and insisting. "This is not right!" Regina still protested, and the blush had not left her cheeks. But Aurora smoothed the torn stocking under the sole of each foot, and slipped on the shoes, which were by no means tight, and tied the lacing fast. "Thank you, Signorina," Regina said, much confused. "You are too good!" She picked up her hat and put it on, but she was not clever with the pin, for she was used to having Settimia do everything for her which she had not learned to do for herself before she had come to Rome. "I can never manage it without Settimia," she said, as if excusing herself for her awkwardness, as she again submitted to Aurora's help. "Settimia?" repeated the young girl, as she put the hat on and thrust a long pin through it. "Who is Settimia?" "Our--I mean my maid," Regina explained. "Thank you. You are too good!" "It is an uncommon name," Aurora said, looking critically at the hat. "But I think I have heard it before." "She is a wonderful woman. She knows French. She knows everything!" Aurora said nothing to this, but seemed to be trying to recall something she had long forgotten. Regina was very busy in her turn, pulling down the girl's frock all round, and brushing it with her hand as well as she could, and picking off bits of dry grass and thistles that clung to the grey woollen. Aurora thanked her. "The way down is very easy now," Regina said. "A few steps farther on we can see the road." "After all, why should you not come with me till we find my mother?" Aurora asked. "No," Regina answered with quiet decision. "I am what I am. You must not be seen with Regina. Do not tell your mother that you have been with me, and I shall not tell Marcello--I mean, Signor Consalvi." "Why not?" "Neither of them would be pleased. Trust me. I know the world. Good-bye, and the Madonna accompany you; and remember what I said when I took your hand." So they parted, and Regina stood up a long time, and watched the slender grey figure descending to the road in the valley. CHAPTER XIII "Variety, my dear Marcello, variety! There is nothing like it. If I were you, I would make some change, for your life must be growing monotonous, and besides, though I have not the least intention of reading you a lecture, you have really made your doings unnecessarily conspicuous of late. The Paris chroniclers have talked about you enough for the present. Don't you think so? Yes, finish the bottle. I always told you that champagne was good for you." Marcello filled his glass and sipped the wine before he answered. It had not gone to his head, but there was colour in his lean cheeks, his eyes were brighter than usual, and he felt the familiar exhilaration which he had missed of late. "I have been drinking milk for ten days," he said with a smile, as he set down the glass. "Good in its way, no doubt," Corbario answered genially, "but a little tiresome. One should often change from simple things to complicated ones. It is the science of enjoyment. Besides, it is bad for the digestion to live always on bread and milk." "I don't live on that altogether," laughed Marcello. "I mean it metaphorically, my dear boy. There is such a thing as simplifying one's existence too much. That sometimes ends in getting stuck. Now you cannot possibly allow yourself to get stuck in your present position. You know what I mean. Oh, I don't blame you! If I were your age I should probably do the same thing, especially if I had your luck. Blame you? No! Not in the least. The cigarettes are there. You've not given up smoking too? No, that's right. A man without a small vice is as uninteresting as a woman without a past or a landscape without shadows. Cigarettes never hurt anybody. Look at me! I used to smoke fifty a day when I was your age." Marcello blew a cloud of smoke, stirred his coffee, and leaned back. He had scarcely heard what Corbario said, but the elder man's careless chatter had put him at his ease. "Folco," he said quietly, "I want to ask you a question, and I want you to answer me seriously. Will you?" "As well as I can," answered Corbario, instantly changing his tone and growing earnest. "Don't be surprised," Marcello said, half apologetically, as if he were already weakening. "I shall never do anything without your advice. Of course you know how I feel about all this, that I am leading a disorderly life, and--well, you understand!" "Perfectly, my dear boy. I only wish to help you out of it as soon as possible, if you want to be helped. I'm quite sure that you will pull through in time. I have always believed in you." "Thank you. I know you have. Well, I'll ask you my question. You know well enough that I shall never care for society much, don't you?" "Society will care for you," answered Folco. "What is the question?" "I'm coming to it, but I want to explain, or it will not be quite clear. You see, it is not as if I were a personage in the world." "What sort of personage? Please explain." "I mean, if I were the head of a great house, with a great title and hereditary estate." "What has that to do with it?" Folco was mystified. "If I were, it would make a difference, I suppose. But I'm not. I'm plain Marcello Consalvi, no better than any one else." "But vastly richer," Folco suggested. "I wish I were not. I wish I were a poor clerk, working for my living." "The air of this place is not good for you, my boy." Folco laughed gaily. "No, don't laugh! I'm in earnest. If I were a poor man, nobody would think it at all strange if--" Marcello hesitated. "If what?" "If I married Regina," said Marcello rather desperately. Folco's expression changed instantly. "Was that the question you were going to ask me?" he inquired. "Yes." Marcello grew very red and smoked so fast that he choked himself. "Is there any earthly reason why you should marry her?" asked Folco very quietly. "It would be right," Marcello answered, gaining courage. "Yes, yes, undoubtedly," Folco hastened to admit. "In principle it would undoubtedly be right. But it is a very serious matter, my dear boy. It means your whole life and future. Have you"--he hesitated, with an affectation of delicacy--"have you said anything to her about it?" "I used to, at first, but she would not hear of it. You have no idea how simple she is, and how little she expects anything of the sort. She always tells me that I am to send her away when I am tired of her, to throw her away like an old coat, as she says herself. But I could never do that, you know. Could I?" Marcello blushed again, hardly knowing why. Corbario seemed deeply interested. "She must be a very unusual sort of girl," he observed thoughtfully. "There are not many like her, I fancy." "There is nobody like her," Marcello answered with conviction. "That is why I want to marry her. I owe it to her. You must admit that. I owe her my life, for I certainly should have died if she had not taken care of me. And then, there is the rest. She has given me all she has, and that is herself, and she asks nothing in return. She is very proud, too. I tried to make her accept a string of pearls in Paris, just because I thought they would be becoming to her, but she absolutely refused." "Really? I suppose you gave the pearls back to the jeweller?" "No, I kept them. Perhaps I shall get her to wear them some day." Folco smiled. "You may just as well encourage her simple tastes," he said. "Women always end by learning how to spend money, unless it is their own." Having delivered himself of this piece of wisdom Folco chose a cigar, nipped off the end of it neatly with a gold cutter, lit it and snuffed the rich smoke up his nose in a deliberate manner. "Regina is a very remarkable woman," he said at last. "If she had been well educated, she would make an admirable wife; and she loves you devotedly, Marcello. Now, the real question is--at least, it seems to me so--you don't mind my talking to you just as I would to myself, do you? Very well. If I were in your position, I should ask myself, as a man of honour, whether I really loved her as much as she loved me, or whether I had only been taken off my feet by her beauty. Don't misunderstand me, my boy! I should feel that if I were not quite sure of that, I ought not to marry her, because it would be much worse for her in the end than if we parted. Have you ever asked yourself that question, Marcello?" "Yes, I have." Marcello spoke in a low voice, and bent his head, as if he were not sure of the answer. Corbario, satisfied with the immediate effect of his satanic speech, waited a moment, sighed, looked down at his cigar, and then went on in gentle tones. "That is so often the way," he said. "A man marries a woman out of a sense of duty, and then makes her miserably unhappy, quite in spite of himself. Of course, in such a case as yours, you feel that you owe a woman amends--you cannot call it compensation, as if it were a matter of law! She has given everything, and you have given nothing. You owe her happiness, if you can bestow it upon her, don't you?" "Indeed I do!" assented Marcello. "Yes. The question is, whether the way to make her happy is to marry her, when you have a reasonable doubt as to whether you can be a good husband to her. That is the real problem, it seems to me. Do you love her enough to give up the life to which you were born, and for which you were educated? You would have to do that, you know. Our friends--your dear mother's friends, my boy--would never receive her, least of all after what has happened." "I know it." "You would have to wander about Europe, or live in San Domenico, for you could not bear to live in Rome, meeting women who would not bow to your wife. I know you. You could not possibly bear it." "I should think not!" "No. Therefore, since you have the doubt, since you are not absolutely sure of yourself, I think the only thing to do is to find out what you really feel, before taking an irreparable step." "Yes," said Marcello, who had fallen into the trap laid for him. "I know that. But how am I to make sure of myself?" "There is only one way," Folco answered. "I know it is not easy, and if I were not sure that you are perfectly sincere I should be afraid to propose it to you." "What is it? Tell me. You are the only friend I have in the world, Folco, and I want to do what is right. God knows, I am in earnest! There are moments when I cannot imagine living without Regina--it seemed hard to leave her this morning, even for these few hours, and I long to be back at Pontresina already! Yet you know how fond I am of you, and how I like to be with you, for we have always been more like brothers than anything else." "Indeed we have!" Folco assented fervently. "You were saying that there were moments--yes?" "Sometimes she jars upon me dreadfully," Marcello said in a low voice, as if he were ashamed of owning it. "Then I want to get away." "Exactly. You want to get away, not to leave her, but to be alone for a few hours, or a few days. That would be the very best thing you could do--to separate for a little while. You would very soon find out whether you could live without her or not; and believe me, if you feel that you can live without her, that means that you could not live with her for your whole life." "I should go back to her in twenty-four hours. I am sure I should." "Perhaps you would, if you went, say, from here to Paris alone, with nothing to distract your attention. But suppose that you and I should go together, to some place where we should meet our friends, all amusing themselves, where you could talk to other women, and meet men of your own age, and lead the life people expect you to lead, just for a few weeks. You know that society will be only too glad to see something of you, whenever you choose to go near it. You are what is called a good match, and all the mothers with marriageable daughters would run after you." "Disgusting!" exclaimed Marcello, with contempt. "No doubt, but it would be a wholesome change and a good test. When a young girl is determined to be a nun, she is generally made to spend a year in society, in order to make acquaintance with what she intends to give up. I don't see much difference between that and your case. Before you say good-bye for ever to your own world, find out what it is like. At the same time, you will settle for ever any doubts you have about really loving Regina." "Perhaps you are right. It would only be for a few days." "And besides," Folco continued, "if you have not yet found it dull at Pontresina, you certainly will before long. There is no reason why you should lead the life of an invalid, for you are quite strong now." "Oh, quite. I always tell Regina so, but she insists that I am too thin, and it amuses her to take care of me." "Naturally. That is how you first made acquaintance. A woman who has once taken care of a man she loves wants him to be ever afterwards an invalid, for ever getting better! A man gets tired of that in time. It was a great pity you left Paris just when I came, for there are many things we could have enjoyed together there." "I daresay," Marcello answered, not paying much attention to the other's words. "Take my advice, my dear boy," said Folco. "Come away with me for a few days. I will wait here till you are quite ready, for of course you cannot be sure of getting off at once. You will have to prepare Regina for this." "Of course. I am not sure that it is possible at all." Folco laughed gaily. "Anything is possible that you really wish to do," he said. "Regina may insist upon coming with me." "Nonsense. Women always submit in the end, and they never die of it. Assert yourself, Marcello! Be a man! You cannot be ordered about like a child by any woman, not even if she has saved your life, not even if she loves you to distraction. You have a right to a will of your own." "I know. And yet--oh, I wish I knew what I ought to do!" "Think over all I have said, and you will see that I am right," said Folco, rising from the table. "And if you take my advice, you will be doing what is fair and honest by Regina as well as by yourself. Your own conscience must tell you that." Poor Marcello was not very sure what had become of his own conscience during the past year, and Folco's arguments swayed him as he groped for something definite to follow, and found nothing but what Corbario chose to thrust into his hand. As they stood by the table, a servant brought a note on a little salver, holding it out to them as if he were not sure which of them was to receive it. Both glanced at the address; it was for Corbario, who took it quickly and put it into his pocket; but Marcello had recognised the handwriting--that rather cramped feminine hand of a woman who has seen better days, in which Settimia kept accounts for Regina. The latter insisted that an account should be kept of the money which Marcello gave her, and that he should see it from time to time. At the first moment, being absorbed with other matters, and inwardly much engaged in the pursuit of his own conscience, which eluded him at every turn like a figure in a dream, he paid no attention to what he had seen; but the writing had impressed itself on his memory. They had been lunching in Folco's sitting-room, and Corbario made an excuse to go into his bedroom for a moment, saying that he wanted certain cigars that his man had put away. Marcello stood at the window gazing down the broad valley. Scarcely a minute elapsed before Folco came back with a handful of Havanas which he dropped on a writing-table. "By the bye," he said carelessly, "there is another reason why you may not care to stay long in Pontresina. The Contessa and Aurora are there." "Are they?" Marcello turned sharply as he asked the question. He was surprised, and at the same instant it flashed upon him that Folco had just received the information from Settimia in the note that had been brought. "Yes," Folco answered with a smile. "And Pontresina is such a small place that you can hardly help meeting them. I thought I might as well tell you." "Thank you. Yes, it would be awkward, and unpleasant for them." "Precisely. The Contessa wrote me that she and Aurora had come upon you two unexpectedly in leaving a theatre, and that she had felt very uncomfortable." "Oh! I suppose she suggested that I should mend my ways?" "As a matter of fact, she did." Corbario smiled. "You know what a very proper person she is!" "She is quite right," answered Marcello gravely. "It certainly cannot have been pleasant for her, on account of Aurora." Folco looked at him thoughtfully, for his tone had suddenly changed. "If you don't mind," Folco said, "I think I will drive up with you and call on them this afternoon. You can drop me at their hotel, and I shall find my way back alone." "Certainly." "Are you sure you don't mind?" Folco affected to speak anxiously. "Why should I?" "You see," Folco said, without heeding the question, "they let me know that they were there, and as we are such old friends it would be strange if I did not go to see them." "Of course it would," answered Marcello in an absent tone. He already connected Folco's knowledge of the Contessa's arrival in Pontresina so closely with Settimia's note that Folco's last statement had taken him by surprise, and a multitude of confused questions presented themselves to his mind. If Settimia had not written about the Contessa, why had she written at all? How did she know where Corbario was stopping in Saint Moritz? Was she in the habit of writing to him? Corbario had found her for Regina; was Settimia helping Corbario to exercise a sort of paternal vigilance over him? Somehow Marcello did not like that idea at all. So far as he knew, Folco had always been singularly frank with him, and had never deceived him in the smallest thing, even "for his own good." Marcello could only attribute good motives to him, but the mere idea of being watched was excessively disagreeable. He wondered whether Settimia had influenced Regina to get him away from Paris, acting under directions from Corbario. Was Regina deceiving him too, "for his own good"? If there is anything a man cannot bear from those he loves best, it is that they should take counsel together secretly to direct him "for his own good." Marcello tried to put the thought out of his mind; but it had dawned upon him for the first time that Folco could tell even a pious falsehood. Yet he had no proof whatever that he had guessed right; it was a sudden impression and nothing more. He was much more silent during the rest of the afternoon as he drove up to Pontresina with Folco, and it seemed to him that he had at last touched something definite; which was strange enough, considering that it was all a matter of guess-work and doubt. And now fate awoke again and did one of those little things that decide men's lives. If Folco and Marcello had stopped at the door of the Contessa's hotel two minutes earlier, or thirty seconds later, than they did, they would not have chanced upon the Contessa and Aurora just coming in from a walk. But fate brought the four together precisely at that moment. As the carriage stopped, the two ladies had come from the opposite direction and were on the door-step. "What a surprise!" exclaimed the Contessa, giving her hand graciously to Folco and then to Marcello. The latter had got hold of a thread. Since the Contessa was surprised to see Folco, she could not possibly have already let him know that she was in Pontresina. "I came as soon as I knew that you were here," said Corbario quickly. Marcello heard the words, though he was at that moment shaking hands with Aurora, and their eyes had met. She was perfectly calm and collected, none the worse for her adventure in the morning, and considerably the wiser. "Will you come in?" asked the Contessa, leading the way, as if expecting both men to follow. Corbario went at once. Marcello hesitated, and flushed a little, and Aurora seemed to be waiting for him. "Shall I come, too?" he asked. "Just as you please," she answered. "My mother will think it strange if you don't." Marcello bent his head, and the two followed the others towards the stairs at a little distance. "Did your mother send word to Folco that you were here?" asked Marcello quickly, in a low tone. "Not that I know. Why?" "It is no matter. I wanted to be sure. Thank you." They went upstairs side by side, not even glancing at each other, much more anxious to seem perfectly indifferent than to realise what they felt now that they had met at last. Marcello stayed ten minutes in the small sitting-room, talking as well as he could. He had no wish to be alone with Aurora or her mother, and since the visit had been pressed upon him he was glad that Folco was present. But he got away as soon as he could, leaving Corbario to his own devices. The Contessa gave him her hand quietly, as if she had not expected him to stay, and she did not ask him to come again. Aurora merely nodded to him, and he saw that just as he went out she left the room by another door, after glancing at him once more with apparent coldness. He walked quickly through the village until he came near to his own hotel, and then his pace slackened by degrees. He knew that he had felt a strong emotion in seeing Aurora again, and he was already wishing that he had not come away so soon. The room had been small, and it had been uncomfortable to be there, feeling himself judged and condemned by the Contessa and distrusted by Aurora; but he had been in an atmosphere that recalled all his youth, with people whose mere presence together brought back the memory of his dead mother as nothing else had done since his illness. He was just in that state of mind in which he would have broken away and freed himself within the hour, at any cost, if he had been involved in a common intrigue. At the same time he had become convinced that Folco had deceived him, for some reason or other which he could not guess, and the knowledge was the first serious disillusionment of his life. The deception had been small, and perhaps intended in some mysterious way to be "for his own good"; but it had been a distinct deception and no better than a lie. He was sure of that. He went upstairs slowly and Regina met him at the door of their rooms, and took his hat and stick without a word, for she saw that something had happened, and she felt suddenly cold. He was quite unlike himself. The careless look was gone from his face, his young lips were tightly closed, and he looked straight before him, quite unconscious that his manner was hurting her desperately. "Has Settimia been out to-day?" he asked, looking at her quickly. "I don't know," she answered, surprised. "I went for a long walk this morning. She probably went out into the village. I cannot tell. Why do you ask?" "I wish to know whether she sent a note to Saint Moritz by a messenger. Can you find out, without asking her a direct question? I am very anxious to know." "I will try, but it will not be easy," said Regina, watching him. She had made up her mind that the blow was coming, and that Marcello was only putting off the moment when she must be told that he meant to leave her. She was very quiet, and waited for him to speak again, for she was too proud to ask him questions. His inquiry about Settimia was in some way connected with what was to come. He sat down by the table, and drummed upon it absently with his fingers for a moment. Then he looked up suddenly and met her eyes; his look of troubled preoccupation faded all at once, and he smiled and held out one hand to draw her nearer. "Forgive me," he said. "All sorts of things have happened to-day. I have been annoyed." She came and bent over him, turning his face up to hers with her hands, very gently. His eyes lightened slowly, and his lips parted a little. "You are not tired of Regina yet," she said. "No!" he laughed. "But you were right," he added, almost immediately. "I knew I was," she answered, but not as she had expected to say the words when she had seen him come in. She dared not hope to keep him always, but she had not lost him yet, and that was enough for the moment. The weight had fallen from her heart, and the pain was gone. "Was it what I thought?" she asked softly. "Does your stepfather wish to separate us?" "For a little while," Marcello answered. "He says we ought to part for a few weeks, so that I may find out whether I love you enough to marry you!" "And he almost persuaded you that he was right," said Regina. "Is that what happened?" "That--and something else." "Will you tell me, heart of my heart?" In the falling twilight he told her all that had passed through his mind, from the moment when he had seen Settimia's handwriting on the note. Then Regina's lips moved. "He shall pay!" she was saying under her breath. "He shall pay!" "What are you saying?" Marcello asked. "An Ave Maria," she answered. "It is almost dark." CHAPTER XIV The little house in Trastevere was shut up, but the gardener had the keys, and came twice a week to air the rooms and sweep the paths and water the shrubs. He was to be informed by Settimia of Regina's return in time to have everything ready, but he did not expect any news before the end of September; and if he came regularly, on Tuesday and Saturday, and did his work, it was because he was a conscientious person in his way, elderly, neat, and systematic, a good sort of Roman of the old breed. But if he came on other days, as he often did, not to air the rooms, but to water and tend certain plants, and to do the many incomprehensible things which gardeners do with flower-pots, earth, and seeds, that was his own affair, and would bring a little money in the autumn when the small florists opened their shops and stands again, and the tide of foreigners set once more towards Rome. Also, if he had made friends with the gardeners at the beautiful villa on the Janiculum, that was not Corbario's business; and they gave him cuttings, and odds and ends, such as can be spared from a great garden where money is spent generously, but which mean a great deal to a poor man who is anxious to turn an honest penny by hard work. The immediate result of this little traffic was that the gardeners at the villa knew all about the little house in Trastevere; and what the gardeners knew was known also by the porter, and by the other servants, and through them by the servants of other people, and the confidential valet told his master, and the maid told her mistress; and so everybody had learned where "Consalvi's Regina" lived, and it was likely that everybody would know when she came back to Rome, and whether Marcello came with her or not. He had not taken Folco's advice, much to the latter's disappointment and annoyance. On the contrary, he and Regina had left the Engadine very suddenly, without so much as letting Corbario guess that they were going away; and Regina had managed to keep Settimia so very busy and so constantly under her eye that the maid had not been able to send Folco a word, warning him of the anticipated move. Almost for the first time Marcello had made up his mind for himself, and had acted upon his decision; and it seemed as if the exercise of his will had made a change in his character. They wandered from place to place; they went to Venice in the hottest season, when no one was there, and they came down to Florence and drove up to Vallombrosa, where they stumbled upon society, and were stared at accordingly. They went down to Siena, they stopped in Orvieto, and drove across to Assisi and Perugia; but they were perpetually drawn towards Rome, and knew that they longed to be there again. Marcello had plenty of time to think, and there was little to disturb his meditations on the past and future; for Regina was not talkative, and was content to be silent for hours, provided that she could see his face. He never knew whether she felt her ignorance about all they saw, and his own knowledge was by no means great. He told her what he knew and read about places they visited, and she remembered what he said, and sometimes asked simple questions which he could answer easily enough. For instance, she wished to know whether America were a city or an island, and who the Jews were, and if the sun rose in the west on the other side of the world, since Marcello assured her that the world was round. He was neither shocked nor amused; Ercole had asked him similar questions when he had been a boy; so had the peasants in Calabria, and there was no reason why Regina should know more than they did. Besides, she possessed wonderful tact, and now spoke her own language so well that she could pass for a person of average education, so long as she avoided speaking of anything that is learned from books. She was very quick to understand everything connected with the people she heard of, and she never forgot anything that Marcello told her. She was grateful to him for never laughing at her, but in reality he was indifferent. If she had known everything within bounds of knowledge, she would not have been a whit more beautiful, or more loving, or more womanly. But he himself was beginning to think, now that his faith in Folco had been shaken, and he began to realise that he had been strangely torpid and morally listless during the past years. The shock his whole system had received, the long interval during which his memory had been quite gone, the physical languor that had lasted some time after his recovery from the fever, had all combined to make the near past seem infinitely remote, to cloud his judgment of reality, and to destroy the healthy tension of his natural will. A good deal of what Corbario had called "harmless dissipation" had made matters worse, and when Regina had persuaded him to leave Paris he had really been in that dangerous moral, intellectual, and physical condition in which it takes very little to send a man to the bad altogether, and not much more to kill him outright, if he be of a delicate constitution and still very young. Corbario had almost succeeded in his work of destruction. He would not succeed now, for the worst danger was past, and Marcello had found his feet after being almost lost in the quicksand through which he had been led. He had not at first accused Folco of anything worse than that one little deception about the arrival of the Contessa, and of having caused him to be too closely watched by Settimia. Little by little, however, other possibilities had shaped themselves and had grown into certainties at an alarming rate. He understood all at once how Folco himself had been spending his time, while society had supposed him to be a broken hearted widower. A few hints which he had let fall about the things he would have shown Marcello in Paris suggested a great deal; his looks and manner told the rest, now that Marcello had guessed the main truth. He had not waited three months after his wife's death to profit by his liberty and the wealth she had left him. Marcello remembered the addresses he had given from time to time--Monte Carlo, Hombourg, Pau, and Paris very often. He had spoken of business in his letters, as an excuse for moving about so much, but "business" did not always take a man to places of amusement, and Folco seemed to have visited no others. Men whom Marcello had met had seen Corbario, and what they said about him was by no means indefinite. He had been amusing himself, and not alone, and the young men had laughed at his attempts to cloak his doings under an appearance of sorrowing respectability. As all this became clear to Marcello he suffered acutely at times, and he reproached himself bitterly for having been so long blind and indifferent. It was bad enough that he should have been leading a wild life with Regina in Paris within a few months of his mother's death, but even in the depths of his self-reproach he saw how much worse it was that Folco should have forgotten her so soon. It was worse than a slight upon his mother's memory, it was an insult. The good woman who was gone would have shed hot tears if she could have come to life and seen how her son was living; but she would have died again, could she have seen the husband she adored in the places where many had seen him since her death. It was no wonder that Marcello's anger rose at the mere thought. Moreover, as Marcello's understanding awoke, he realised that Folco had encouraged him in all he had done, and had not seemed pleased when he had begun to live more quietly. Folco would have made him his companion in pleasure, if he could, and the idea was horrible to Marcello as soon as it presented itself. It was the discovery that he had been mistaken in Corbario that most directly helped him to regain his foothold in life and his free will. There was more in the Spartan method than we are always ready to admit, for it is easier to disgust most men by the sight of human degradation than to strengthen them against temptation by preaching, or by the lessons of example which are so very peculiarly disagreeable to the normal man. "I am virtuous, I am sober, I resist temptation, imitate me!" cries the preacher. You say that you are virtuous, and you are apparently sober, my friend; and perhaps you are a very good man, though you need not scream out the statement at the top of your voice. But how are we to know that you have any temptations to resist? Or that your temptations are the same as ours, even supposing that you have any? Or that you are speaking the truth about yourself, since what you say is so extremely flattering to your vanity? Wherever there is preaching, those who are preached at are expected to accept a good deal on the mere word of the preacher, quite aside from anything they have been brought to believe elsewhere. "Temptation?" said a certain great lady who was not strong in theology. "That is what one yields to, isn't it?" She probably knew what she was talking about, for she had lived in the world a good while, as we have. But the preacher is not very often one of us, and he knows little of our ways and next to nothing of our real feelings; yet he exhorts us to be like him. It would be very odd if we succeeded. The world would probably stand still if we did, and most of us are so well aware of the fact that we do not even try; and the sermon simply has no effect at all, which need not prevent the preacher from being richly remunerated for delivering it. "Vice is very attractive, of course," he says, "but you must avoid it because it is sinful." And every time vice is mentioned we think how attractive it must be, since it is necessary to preach against it so much; and the more attractive it seems, the greater the temptation. "Should you like to try a vice or two?" said the Spartan, "Very well. Come with me, my boy, and you shall see what vice is; and after that, if you care to try it, please yourself, for I shall have nothing more to say!" And forthwith he played upon the string of disgust, which is the most sensitive of all the strings that vibrate in the great human instrument; and the boy's stomach rose, and he sickened and turned away, and remembered for ever, though he might try ever so hard to forget. Marcello at last saw Folco as he was, though still without understanding the worst, and with no suspicion that Folco wished him out of the world, and had deliberately set to work to kill him by dissipation; and the disgust he felt was the most horrible sensation that he could remember. At the same time he saw himself and his whole life, and the perplexity of his position frightened him. It seemed impossible to go back and live under the same roof with Corbario now. He flushed with shame when he remembered the luncheon at Saint Moritz, and how he had been almost persuaded to leave poor Regina suddenly, and to go back to Paris with his stepfather. He saw through the devilish cleverness of the man's arguments, and when he remembered that his dead mother's name had been spoken, a thrill of real pain ran through his body and he clenched his teeth and his hands. He asked himself how he could meet Folco after that, and the only answer was that if they met they must quarrel and part, not to meet again. He told Regina that he would not go back to the villa after they reached Rome, but would live in the little house in Trastevere. To his surprise, she looked grave and shook her head. She had never asked him what was making him so silent and thoughtful, but she had guessed much of the truth from little things; she herself had never trusted Corbario since she had first seen his face at the hospital, and she had long foreseen the coming struggle. "Why do you shake your head?" he asked. "Do you not want me at the little house?" "The villa is yours, not his," she said. "He will be glad if you will leave him there, for he will be the master. Then he will marry again, and live there, and it will be hard to turn him out." "What makes you think he wishes to marry again?" "He would be married already, if the girl would have him," answered Regina. "How do you know?" "You told me to watch, to find out. I have obeyed you. I know everything." Marcello was surprised, and did not quite understand. He only remembered that he had asked her to ascertain whether Settimia had sent a note to Folco at Saint Moritz. After a day or two she told him that she was quite sure of it. That was all, and Regina had scarcely ever spoken of Folco since then. Marcello reminded her of this, and asked her what she had done. "I can read," she said. "I can read writing, and that is very hard, you know. I made Settimia teach me. I said with myself, if he should be away and should write to me, what should I do? I could not let Settimia read his letters, and I am too well dressed to go to a public letter-writer in the street, as the peasants do. He would think me an ignorant person, and the people in the street would laugh. That would not help me. I should have to go to the priest, to my confessor." "Your confessor? Do you go to confession?" "Do you take me for a Turk?" Regina asked, laughing. "I go to confession at Christmas and Easter. I tell the priest that I am very bad, and am sorry, but that it is for you and that I cannot help it. Then he asks me if I will promise to leave you and be good. And I say no, that I will not promise that. And he tells me to go away and come back when I am ready to promise, and that he will give me absolution then. It is always the same. He shakes his head and frowns when he sees me coming, and I smile. We know each other quite well now. I have told him that when you are tired of me, then I will be good. Is not that enough? What can I do? I should like to be good, of course, but I like still better to be with you. So it is." "You are better than the priest knows," said Marcello thoughtfully, "and I am worse." "It is not true. But if I had a letter from you, I would not take it to the priest to read for me. He would be angry, and tear it up, and send me away. I understood this at the beginning, so I made Settimia teach me how to read the writing, and I also learned to write myself, not very well, but one can understand it." "I know. I have seen you writing copies. But how has that helped you to find out what Folco is doing?" "I read all Settimia's letters," Regina answered, with perfect simplicity. "Eh?" Marcello thought he had misunderstood her. "I read all the letters she gets," Regina replied, unmoved. "When she was teaching me to read I saw where she kept all her letters. It is always the same place. There is a pocket inside a little black bag she has, which opens easily, though she locks it. She puts the letters there, and when she has read them over she burns them. You see, she has no idea that I read them. But I always do, ever since you asked me about that note. When I know that she has had a letter, I send her out on an errand. Then I read. It is so easy!" Regina laughed, but Marcello looked displeased. "It is not honest to do such things," he said. "Not honest?" Regina stared at him in amazement. "How does honesty enter into the question? Is Settimia honest? Then honest people should all be in the galleys! And if you knew how he writes to her! Oh, yes! You are the 'dear patient,' and I am the 'admirable companion.' They have known each other long, those two. They have a language between them, but I have learned it. They have no more secrets that I do not know. Everything the admirable companion does that makes the dear patient better is wrong, and everything that used to make him worse was right. They were killing you in Paris, they wanted you to stay there until you were dead. Do you know who saved your life? It was the Contessa, when I heard her say that you were looking ill! If you ever see her again, thank her, for I was blind and she opened my eyes. The devil had blinded me, and the pleasure, and I could not see. I see now, thanks to heaven, and I know all, and they shall not hurt you. But they shall pay!" She was not laughing now, as she said the last words under her breath, and her beautiful lips just showed her white teeth, set savagely tight as though they had bitten through something that could be killed. Folco Corbario was not timid, but if he had seen her then, and known that the imaginary bite was meant for his life, he would have taken special care of his bodily safety whenever she was in his neighbourhood. Marcello had listened in profound surprise, for what she said threw new light on all he had thought out for himself of late. "And you say that Folco is thinking of marrying again," he said, almost ashamed to profit by information obtained as Regina had got it. "Yes, he is in love with a young girl, and wishes to marry her." Marcello said nothing. "Should you like to know her name?" asked Regina. Still Marcello was silent, as if refusing to answer, and yet wishing that she should go on. "I will tell you," Regina said. "Her name is Aurora dell' Armi." Marcello started, and looked into her face, doubting her word for the first time. He changed colour, too, flushing and then turning pale. "It is not true!" he cried, rather hoarsely. "It cannot be true!" "It is true," Regina answered, "but she will not have him. She would not marry him, even if her mother would allow it." "Thank God!" exclaimed Marcello fervently. Regina sighed, and turned away. CHAPTER XV Ercole sat on the stone seat that ran along the wall of the inn, facing the dusty road. He was waiting in the cool dawn until it should please the innkeeper to open the door, and Nino crouched beside him, his head resting on his forepaws. A great many years had passed since Ercole had sat there the last time, but nothing had changed, so far as he could see. He had been young, and the women had called him handsome; his face had not been shrivelled to parchment by the fever, and there had been no grey threads in his thick black hair. Nino had not been born then, and now Nino seemed to be a part of himself. Nino's grandam had lain in almost the same spot then, wolfish and hungry as her descendant was now, and only a trifle less uncannily hideous. It was all very much the same, but between that time and this there lay all Ercole's life by the Roman shore. When he had heard, as every one had, how Marcello had been brought to Rome on the tail of a wine-cart, he had been sure that the boy had been laid upon it while the cart was standing before Paoluccio's inn in the night. He knew the road well, and the ways of the carters, and that they rarely stopped anywhere else between Frascati and Rome. Again and again he had been on the point of tramping up from the seashore to the place, to see whether he could not find some clue to Marcello's accident there, but something had prevented him, some old dislike of returning to the neighbourhood after such a long absence. He knew why he had not gone, but he had not confided the reason even to Nino, who was told most things. He had, moreover, been tolerably sure that nothing short of thumb-screws would extract any information from Paoluccio or his wife, for he knew his own people. The only thing that surprised him was that the boy should ever have left the inn alive after being robbed of everything he had about him that was worth taking. Moreover, since Marcello had been found, and was alive and well, it was of very little use to try and discover exactly what had happened to him after he had been last seen by the shore. But the aspect of things had changed since Ercole had heard the sailor's story, and his wish to see the place where the boy had been hidden so long overcame any repugnance he felt to visiting a neighbourhood which had unpleasant associations with his younger years. He sat and waited at the door, and before the sun rose a young woman came round the house with the big key and opened the place, just as Regina had done in old days. She looked at Ercole, and he looked at her, and neither said anything as she went about her work, sprinkling the floor with water and then sweeping it, and noisily pulling the heavy benches about. When this operation was finished, Ercole rose and went in, and sat down at the end of a table. He took some bread and cheese from his canvas bag and began to eat, using his clasp-knife. "If you wish wine," said the woman, "you will have to wait till the master comes down." Ercole only answered by raising his head and throwing out his chin, which means "no" in gesture language. He threw pieces of the bread and the rind of the cheese to his dog. Nino caught each fragment in the air with a snap that would have lamed a horse for a month. The woman glanced nervously at the animal, each time she heard his jagged teeth close. Paoluccio appeared in due time, without coat or waistcoat, and with his sleeves rolled up above the elbows, as if he had been washing. If he had, the operation had succeeded very imperfectly. He glanced at Ercole as he passed in. "Good-morning," he said, for he made it a point to be polite to customers, even when they brought their own food. "Good-morning," answered Ercole, looking at him curiously. Possibly there was something unusual in the tone of Ercole's voice, for Nino suddenly sat up beside his master's knee, forgetting all about the bread, and watched Paoluccio too, as if he expected something. But nothing happened. Paoluccio opened a cupboard in the wall with a key he carried, took out a bottle of the coarse aniseed spirits which the Roman peasants drink, and filled himself a small glass of the stuff, which he tossed off with evident pleasure. Then he filled his pipe, lit it carefully, and went to the door again. By this time, though he had apparently not bestowed the least attention on Ercole, he had made up his mind about him, and was not mistaken. Ercole belonged to the better class of customers. "You come from the Roman shore?" he said, with an interrogation. "To serve you," Ercole assented, with evident willingness to enter into conversation. "I am a keeper and watchman on the lands of Signor Corbario." Paoluccio took his pipe from his mouth and nodded twice. "That is a very rich gentleman, I have heard," he observed. "He owns much land." "It all belongs to his stepson, now that the young gentleman is of age," Ercole answered. "But as it was his mother's, and she married Signor Corbario, we have the habit of the name." "What is the name of the stepson?" asked Paoluccio. "Consalvi," Ercole replied. Paoluccio said nothing to this, but lit his pipe again with a sulphur match. "Evil befall the soul of our government!" he grumbled presently, with insufficient logic, but meaning that the government sold bad tobacco. "You must have heard of the young gentleman," Ercole said. "His name is Marcello Consalvi. They say that he lay ill for a long time at an inn on this road--" "For the love of heaven, don't talk to me about Marcello Consalvi!" cried Paoluccio, suddenly in a fury. "Blood of a dog! If you had not the face of an honest man I should think you were another of those newspaper men in disguise, pigs and animals that they are and sons of evil mothers, and ill befall their wicked dead, and their little dead ones, and those that shall be born to them!" Paoluccio's eyes were bloodshot and he spat furiously, half across the road. Nino watched him and hitched the side of his upper lip on one of his lower fangs, which produced the effect of a terrific smile. Ercole was unmoved. "I suppose," he observed, "that they said it happened in your inn." "And why should it happen in my inn, rather than in any other inn?" inquired Paoluccio angrily. "Indeed," said Ercole, "I cannot imagine why they should say that it did! Some one must have put the story about. A servant, perhaps, whom you sent away." "We did not send Regina away," answered Paoluccio, still furious. "She ran away in the night, about that time. But, as you say, she may have invented the story and sent the newspaper men here to worry our lives with their questions, out of mere spite." "Who was this Regina?" Ercole asked. "What has she to do with it?" "Regina? She was the servant girl we had before this one. We took her out of charity." "The daughter of some relation, no doubt," Ercole suggested. "May that never be, if it please the Madonna!" cried Paoluccio. "A relation? Thank God we have always been honest people in my father's house! No, it was not a relation. She came of a crooked race. Her mother took a lover, and her father killed him, here on the Frascati road, and almost killed her too; but the law gave him the right and he went free." "And then, what did he do?" asked Ercole, slowly putting the remains of his bread into his canvas bag. "What did he do? He went away and never came back. What should he do?" "Quite right. And the woman, what became of her?" "She took other men, for she had no shame. And at last one of them was jealous, and struck her on the head with a paving stone, not meaning to kill her; but she died." "Oh, she died, did she?" "She died. For she was always spiteful. And so that poor man went to the galleys, merely for hitting her on the head, and not meaning to kill her." "And you took the girl for your servant?" "Yes. She was old enough to work, and very strong, so we took her for charity. But for my part, I was glad when she ran away, for she grew up handsome, and with that blood there surely would have been a scandal some day." "One sees that you are a very charitable person," Ercole observed thoughtfully. "The girl must have been very ungrateful if she told untrue stories about your inn, after all you had done for her. You had nourished a viper in your house." "That is what my wife says," Paoluccio answered, now quite calm. "Those are my wife's very words. As for believing that the young man was ever in this house, I tell you that the story is a wicked lie. Where should we have put him? In the cellar with the hogsheads, or in the attic with the maid? or in our own room? Tell me where we could have put him! Or perhaps they will say that he slept on the ceiling, like the flies? They will say anything, chattering, chattering, and coming here with their questions and their photographing machines, and their bicycles, and the souls of their dead! If you do not believe me, you can see the place where they say that he lay! I tell you there is not room for a cat in this house. Believe me if you like!" "How can I not believe such a respectable person as you seem to be?" inquired Ercole gravely. "I thank you. And since it happens that you are in the service of the young gentleman himself, I hope you will tell him that if he fancies he was in my house, he is mistaken." "Surely," said Ercole. "Besides," exclaimed Paoluccio, "how could he know where he was? Are not all inns on these roads alike? He was in another, that is all. And what had I to do with that?" "Nothing," assented Ercole. "I thank you for your conversation. I will take a glass of the aniseed before I go, if you please." "Are you going already?" asked Paoluccio, as he went to fetch the bottle and the little cast glass from which he himself had drunk. "Yes," Ercole answered. "I go to Rome. I stopped to refresh myself." "It will be hot on the road," said Paoluccio, setting the full glass down on the table. "Two sous," he added, as Ercole produced his old sheepskin purse. "Thank you." "Thank you," Ercole answered, and tipped the spirits down his throat. "Yes, it will be hot, but what can one do? We are used to it, my dog and I. We are not of wax to melt in the sun." "It is true that this dog does not look as if he were wax," Paoluccio remarked, for the qualities of Nino had not escaped him. "No. He is not of wax. He is of sugar, all sugar! He has a very sweet nature." "One would not say so," answered Paoluccio doubtfully. "If you go to the city you must muzzle him, or they will make you pay a fine. Otherwise they will kill him for you." "Do you think any one would try to catch him if I let him run loose?" asked Ercole, as if in doubt. "He killed a full-grown wolf before he was two years old, and not long ago he worried a sheepdog of the Campagna as if it had been nothing but a lamb. Do you think any one would try to catch him?" "If it fell to me, I should go to confession first," said Paoluccio. So Ercole left the inn and trudged along the road to Rome with Nino at his heels, without once looking behind him; past the Baldinotti houses and into the Via Appia Nuova, and on into the city through the gate of San Giovanni, where the octroi men stopped him and made him show them what he had in his canvas bag. When they saw that there was no cheese left and but little bread, they let him go by without paying anything. He went up to the left and sat down on the ground under the trees that are there, and he filled his little clay pipe and smoked a while, without even speaking to his dog. It was quiet, for it was long past the hour when the carts come in, and the small boys were all gone to school, and the great paved slope between the steps of the basilica and the gate was quite deserted, and very white and hot. Ercole was not very tired, though he had walked all night and a good part of the morning. He could have gone on walking till sunset if he had chosen, all the way to his little stone house near Ardea, stopping by the way to get a meal; and then he would not have slept much longer than usual. A Roman peasant in his native Campagna, with enough to eat and a little wine, is hard to beat at walking. Ercole had not stopped to rest, but to think. When he had thought some time, he looked about to see if any one were looking at him, and he saw that the only people in sight were a long way off. He took his big clasp-knife out of his pocket and opened it. As the clasp clicked at the back of the blade Nino woke and sat up, for the noise generally meant food. The blade was straight and clean, and tolerably sharp. Ercole looked at it critically, drew the edge over his coarse thumb-nail to find if there were any nick in the steel, and then scratched the same thumb-nail with it, as one erases ink with a knife, to see how sharp it was. The point was like a needle, but he considered that the edge was dull, and he drew it up and down one of the brown barrels of his gun, as carefully as he would have sharpened a razor on a whetstone. After that he stropped it on the tough leathern strap by which he slung the gun over his shoulder when he walked; when he was quite satisfied, he shut the knife again and put it back into his pocket, and fell to thinking once more. Nino watched the whole operation with bloodshot eyes, his tongue hanging out and quivering rhythmically as he panted in the heat to cool himself. When the knife disappeared, and the chance of a crust with it, the dog got up, deliberately turned his back to his master, and sat down again to look at the view. "You see," said Ercole to himself and Nino, "this is an affair which needs thought. One must be just. It is one thing to kill a person's body, but it is quite another thing to kill a person's soul. That would be a great sin, and besides, it is not necessary. Do I wish harm to any one? No. It is justice. Perhaps I shall go to the galleys. Well, I shall always have the satisfaction, and it will be greater if I can say that this person is in Paradise. For I do not wish harm to any one." Having said this in a tone which Nino could hear, Ercole sat thinking for some time longer, and then he rose and slung his gun over his shoulder, and went out from under the trees into the glaring heat, as if he were going into the city. But instead of turning to the left, up the hill, he went on by the broad road that follows the walls, till he came to the ancient church of Santa Croce. He went up the low steps to the deep porch and on to the entrance at the left. Nino followed him very quietly. Ercole dipped his finger into the holy water and crossed himself, and then went up the nave, making as little noise as he could with his hob-nailed boots. An old monk in white was kneeling at a broad praying-stool before an altar on the left. Ercole stood still near him, waiting for him to rise, and slowly turning his soft hat in his hands, as if it were a rosary. He kept his eyes on the monk's face, studying the aged features. Presently the old man had finished his prayer and got upon his feet slowly, and looked at Ercole and then at Nino. Ercole moved forward a step, and stood still in an attitude of respect. "What do you desire, my son?" asked the monk, very quietly. "Do you wish to confess?" "No, father, not to-day," answered Ercole. "I come to pray you to say three masses for the soul of a person who died suddenly. I have also brought the money. Only tell me how much it will be, and I will pay." "You shall give what you will, my son," the monk said, "and I will say the masses myself." Ercole got out his sheepskin purse, untied the strings, and looked into it, weighing it in his hand. Then he seemed to hesitate. The monk looked on quietly. "It is of your own free will," he said. "What you choose to give is for the community, and for this church, and for the chapel of Saint Helen. It is better that you know." Ercole drew the mouth of the purse together again and returned it to the inside of his waistcoat, from which he produced a large old leathern pocket-book. "I will give five francs," he said, "for I know that if you say the masses yourself, they will be all good ones." A very faint and gentle smile flitted over the aged face. Ercole held out the small note, and the monk took it. "Thank you," he said. "Shall I say the masses for a man or a woman?" "As it pleases you, father," Ercole answered. "Eh?" The old monk looked surprised. "It does not matter," Ercole explained. "Is not a mass for a man good for a woman also?" "We say 'his' soul or 'her' soul, as the case may be, my son." "Is that written in the book of the mass?" inquired Ercole distrustfully. "Yes. Also, most people tell us the baptismal name of the dead person." "Must I do that too?" Ercole asked, by no means pleased. "Not unless you like," the monk answered, looking at him with some curiosity. "But it is in the book of the mass that you must say 'his' or 'her' soul?" "Yes." "Then the masses will not be good unless you say the right word." Ercole paused a moment in deep thought, and looked down at his hat. "It will be better to say the masses for a female," he said at length, without meeting the monk's eyes. "Very well," the latter answered. "I will say the first mass to-morrow." "Thank you," said Ercole. "My respects!" He made a sort of bow and hurried away, followed by Nino. The old monk watched him thoughtfully, and shook his head once or twice, for he guessed something of the truth, though by no means all. CHAPTER XVI "One might almost think that you wished to marry Aurora yourself," said Corbario, with a sneer. He was standing with his back to the fire in the great library of the villa, for it was late autumn again; it was raining hard and the air was raw and chilly. "You may think what you please," Marcello answered, leaning back in his deep leathern chair and taking up a book. "I am not going to argue with you." "Insufferable puppy," growled Folco, almost under his teeth; but Marcello heard. He rose instantly and faced the elder man without the slightest fear or hesitation. "If this were not my house, and you my guest, I would have you put out of doors by the servants," he said, in a tone Corbario had never heard before. "As it is, I only advise you to go before I lose my temper altogether." Corbario backed till his heels were against the fender, and tried to smile. "My dear Marcello!" he protested. "What nonsense is this? You know I am not in earnest!" "I am," said Marcello quietly enough, but not moving. The half-invalid boy was not a boy any longer, nor an invalid either, and he had found his hold on things, since the days when Folco had been used to lead him as easily as if he had no will of his own. No one would have judged him to be a weak man now, physically or mentally. His frame was spare and graceful still, but there was energy and directness in his movements, his shoulders were square and he held his head high; yet it was his face that had changed most, though in a way very hard to define. A strong manhood sometimes follows a weak boyhood, very much to the surprise of those who have long been used to find feebleness where strength has suddenly developed. Marcello Consalvi had never been cowardly, or even timid; he had only been weak in will as in body, an easy prey to the man who had tried to ruin him, body and soul, in the hope of sending him to his grave. "I really cannot understand you, my dear boy," Corbario said very sweetly. "You used to be so gentle! But now you fly into a passion for the merest thing." "I told you that I would not argue with you," Marcello said, keeping his temper. "This is my house, and I choose that you should leave it at once. Go your way, and leave me to go mine. You are amply provided for, as long as you live, and you do not need my hospitality any longer, since you are no longer my guardian. Live where you please. You shall not stay here." "I certainly don't care to stay here if you don't want me," Folco answered. "But this is really too absurd! You must be going mad, to take such a tone with me!" "It is the only one which any honourable man who knows you would be inclined to take." "Take care! You are going too far." "Because you are under my roof? Yes, perhaps. As my guest, if I have been hasty, I apologise for expressing my opinion of you. I am going out now. I hope you will find it convenient to have left before I come in." Thereupon Marcello turned his back on Corbario, crossed the great library deliberately, and went out without looking round. Folco was left alone, and his still face did not even express surprise or annoyance. He had indeed foreseen the coming break, ever since he had returned to the villa three weeks earlier, when Marcello had received him with evident coldness, not even explaining where he had been since they had last parted. But Folco had not expected that the rupture would come so suddenly, still less that he was literally to be turned out of the house which he still regarded as his own, and in which he had spent so many prosperous years. There had, indeed, been some coldly angry words between the two men. Marcello had told Folco quite plainly that he meant to be the master, and that he was of age, and should regulate his own life as he pleased, and he had expressed considerable disgust at the existence Folco had been leading in Paris and elsewhere; and Folco had always tried to laugh it off, calling Marcello prudish and hypersensitive in matters of morality, which he certainly was not. Once he had attempted an appeal to Marcello's former affection, recalling his mother's love for them both, but a look had come into the young man's eyes just then which even Corbario did not care to face again, and the relations between the two had become more strained from that time on. It might seem almost incredible that a man capable of the crimes Corbario had committed in cold blood, for a settled purpose, should show so little power of following the purpose to its accomplishment after clearing the way to it by a murder; but every one who has had to do with criminals is aware that after any great exertion of destructive energy they are peculiarly subject to a long reaction of weakness which very often leads to their own destruction. If this were not a natural law, if criminals could exert continually the same energy and command the same superhuman cunning which momentarily helped them to perpetrate a crime, the world would be in danger of being possessed and ruled by them, instead of being mercifully, and perhaps too much, inclined to treat them as degenerates and madmen. Their conduct after committing a murder, for instance, seems to depend much more on their nerves than on their intelligence, and the time almost invariably comes when their nerves break down. It is upon the moment when this collapse of the will sets in that the really experienced detective counts, knowing that it may be hastened or retarded by circumstances quite beyond the murderer's control. The life of a murderer, after the deed, is one long fight with such circumstances, and if he once loses his coolness he is himself almost as surely lost as a man who is carried away by his temper in a duel with swords. After Folco had killed his wife and had just failed to kill Marcello, he had behaved with wonderful calm and propriety for a little while; but before long the old wild longing for excitement and dissipation, so long kept down during his married life, had come upon him with irresistible force, and he had yielded to it. Then, in hours of reaction, in the awful depression that comes with the grey dawn after a night of wine and pleasure and play, terrible little incidents had come back to his memory. He had recalled Kalmon's face and quiet words, and his own weakness when he had first come to see Marcello in the hospital--that abject terror which both Regina and the doctor must have noticed--and his first impression that Marcello no longer trusted him as formerly, and many other things; and each time he had been thus disturbed, he had plunged deeper into the dissipation which alone could cloud such memories and keep them out of sight for a time; till at last he had come to live in a continual transition from recklessness to fear and from fear to recklessness, and he had grown to detest the very sight of Marcello so heartily that an open quarrel was almost a relief. If he had been his former self, he would undoubtedly have returned to his original purpose of killing Marcello outright, since he had not succeeded in killing him by dissipation. But his nerve was not what it had been, and the circumstances were not in his favour. Moreover, Marcello was now of age, and had probably made a will, unknown to Corbario, in which case the fortune would no longer revert to the latter. The risk was too great, since it would no longer be undertaken for a certainty amounting to millions. It was better to be satisfied with the life-interest in one-third of the property, which he already enjoyed, and which supplied him with abundant means for amusing himself. It was humiliating to be turned out of the house by a mere boy, as he still called Marcello, but he was not excessively sensitive to humiliation, and he promised himself some sort of satisfactory vengeance before long. What surprised him most was that the first quarrel should have been about Aurora. He had more than once said in conversation that he meant to marry the girl, and Marcello had chosen to say nothing in answer to the statement; but when Folco had gone so far as to hint that Aurora was in love with him and was about to accept him, Marcello had as good as given him the lie direct, and a few more words had led to the outbreak recorded at the beginning of this chapter. As a matter of fact Corbario understood what had led to it better than Marcello himself, who had no very positive reason for entirely disbelieving his stepfather's words. The Contessa and her daughter had returned to Rome, and Corbario often went to see them, whereas Marcello had not been even once. When Marcello had last seen Folco in the Engadine, he had left him sitting in their little room at the hotel. Folco was not at all too old to marry Aurora; he was rich, at least for life, and Aurora was poor; he was good-looking, accomplished, and ready with his tongue. It was by no means impossible that he might make an impression on the girl and ultimately win her. Besides, Marcello felt that odd little resentment against Aurora which very young men sometimes feel against young girls, whom they have thought they loved, or are really about to love, or are afraid of loving, which makes them rude, or unjust, or both, towards those perhaps quite unconscious maidens, and which no woman can ever understand. "My dear Harry, why will you be so disagreeable to Mary?" asks the wondering mother. "She is such a charming girl, and only the other day she was saying that you are such a nice boy!" "Humph!" snorts Harry rudely, and forthwith lights his pipe and goes off to the stables to growl in peace, or across country, or to his boat, or to any other heavenly place not infested by women. There had been moments when, in his heart, Marcello had almost said that it would serve Aurora right to be married to Corbario; yet at the first hint from the latter that she was at all in danger of such a fate, Marcello had broken out as if the girl's good name had been attacked, and had turned his stepfather out of the house in a very summary fashion. Having done so, he left the villa on foot, though it was raining hard, and walked quickly past San Pietro in Montorio and down the hill towards Trastevere. The southwest wind blew the rain under his umbrella; it was chilly as well as wet, and a few big leaves were beginning to fall from the plane-trees. He was not going to the little house, where Regina sat by the window looking at the rain and wishing that he would come soon. When he was down in the streets he hailed the first cab he saw, gave the man an address in the Forum of Trajan, and climbed in under the hood, behind the dripping leathern apron, taking his umbrella with him and getting thoroughly wet, as is inevitable when one takes a Roman cab in the rain. The Contessa was out, in spite of the weather, but Marcello asked if Aurora would see him, and presently he was admitted to the drawing-room, where she was sitting beside a rather dreary little fire, cutting a new book. She threw it down and rose to meet him, as little outwardly disturbed as if they had seen each other constantly during the past two years. She gave him her hand quietly, and they sat down and looked at the fire. "It won't burn," Aurora said, rather disconsolately. "It never did burn very well, but those horrid people who have had the apartment for two years have spoilt the fireplace altogether." "I remember that it used to smoke," Marcello answered, going down on his knees and beginning to move the little logs into a better position. "Thank you," Aurora said, watching him. "You won't succeed, but it's good of you to try." Marcello said nothing, and presently he took the queer little Roman bellows, and set to work to blow upon the smouldering spots where the logs touched each other. In a few seconds a small flame appeared, and soon the fire was burning tolerably. "How clever you are!" Aurora laughed quietly. Marcello rose and sat upon a low chair, instead of on the sofa beside her. For a while neither spoke, and he looked about him rather awkwardly, while Aurora watched the flames. It was long since he had been in the room, and it looked shabby after the rather excessive magnificence of the villa on the Janiculum, for which Corbario's taste had been largely responsible. It was just a little shabby, too, compared with the dainty simplicity of the small house in Trastevere. The furniture, the carpets, and the curtains were two years older than when he had seen them last, and had been unkindly used by the tenants to whom the Contessa had sub-let the apartment in order to save the rent. Marcello missed certain pretty things that he had been used to see formerly, some bits of old Saxe, a little panel by an early master, a chiselled silver cup in which there always used to be flowers. He wondered where these things were, and felt that the room looked rather bare without them. "It burns very well now," said Aurora, still watching the fire. "What has become of the old silver cup," Marcello asked, "and all the little things that used to be about?" "We took them away with us when we let the apartment, and they are not unpacked yet, though we have been here two months." "Two months?" "Yes. I was wondering whether you were ever coming to see us again!" "Were you? I fancied that you would not care very much to see me now." Aurora said nothing to this, and they both looked at the fire for some time. The gentle sound of the little flames was cheerful, and gave them both the impression of a third person, talking quietly. "I should not have come to-day," Marcello said at last, "except that something has happened." "Nothing bad, I hope!" Aurora looked up with a sudden anxiety that surprised him. "Bad? No. At least, I think not. Why are you startled?" "I have had a headache," Aurora explained. "I am a little nervous, I fancy. What is it that has happened?" Marcello glanced at her doubtfully before he answered. Her quick interest in whatever chanced to him took him back to the old times in an instant. The place was familiar and quiet; her voice was like forgotten music, once delightful, and now suddenly recalled; her face had only changed to grow more womanly. "You never thought of marrying Folco, did you?" he asked, all at once, and a little surprised at the sound of his own words. "I?" Aurora started again, but not with anxiety. "How can you think such a thing?" "I don't think it; but an hour ago, at the villa, he told me in almost so many words that you loved him and meant to accept him." A blush of honest anger rose in the girl's fair face, and subsided instantly. "And what did you say?" she asked, with a scarcely perceptible tremor in her tone. "I turned him out of the house," Marcello answered quietly. "Turned him out?" Aurora seemed amazed. "You turned him out because he told you that?" "That and other things. But that was the beginning of it. I told him that he was lying, and he called me names, and then I told him to go. He will be gone when I reach home." To Marcello's surprise, Aurora got up suddenly, crossed the room and went to one of the windows. Marcello rose, too, and stood still. She seemed to be looking out at the rain, but she had grasped one of the curtains tightly, and it looked as if she were pressing the other hand to her left side. For a second her head bent forward a little and her graceful shoulders moved nervously, as though she were trying to swallow something hard. Marcello watched her a moment, and then crossed the room and stood beside her. "What is it?" he asked in a low voice, and laying his hand gently on hers that held the curtain. She drew her own away quietly and turned her head. Her eyes were dry and bright, but there were deep bistre shadows under them that had not been there before, and the lower lids were swollen. "It is nothing," she answered, and then laughed nervously. "I am glad you have made your stepfather go away. It was time! I was afraid you were as good friends as ever." "We have not been on good terms since we parted in Pontresina. Do you remember when I left him in your sitting-room at the hotel? He had been trying to persuade me to go back to Paris with him at once. In fact--" he hesitated. "You intended to go," Aurora said, completing the sentence. "And then you changed your mind." "Yes. I could not do it. I cannot explain everything." "I understand without any explanation. I think you did right." She went back to the fireplace and sat down in the corner of the sofa, leaning far back and stretching out one foot to the fender in an unconscious attitude of perfect grace. In the grey afternoon the firelight began to play in her auburn hair. Now and then she glanced at Marcello with half-closed lids, and there was a suggestion of a smile on her lips. Marcello saw that in her way she was as beautiful as Regina, and he remembered how they had kissed, without a word, when the moon's rays quivered through the trees by the Roman shore, more than two years ago. They had been children then. All at once he felt a great longing to kneel down beside the sofa and throw his arms round her waist and kiss her once again; but at almost the same instant he thought of Regina, waiting for him by the window over there in Trastevere, and he felt the shame rising to his face; and he leaned back in his low chair, clasping his hands tightly over one knee, as if to keep himself from moving. "Marcello," Aurora began presently, but she got no further. "Yes?" Still he did not move. "I have something on my conscience." She laughed low. "No, it is serious!" she went on, as if reproving herself. "I have always felt that everything that has happened to you since we parted that morning by the shore has been my fault." "Why?" Marcello seemed surprised. "Because I called you a baby," she said. "If you had not been angry at that, if you had not turned away and left me suddenly--you were quite right, you know--you would not have been knocked down, you would not have wandered away and lost yourself. You would not have lost your memory, or been ill in a strange place, or--or all the rest! So it is all my fault, you see, from beginning to end." "How absurd!" Marcello looked at her and smiled. "No. I think it is true. But you have changed very much, Marcello. You are not a boy any longer. You have a will of your own now; you are a man. Do you mind my telling you that?" "Certainly not!" He smiled again. "I remember very well what you answered. You said that I should not laugh at you again. And that has come true. You said a good many other things. Do you remember?" "No. I was angry. What did I say? Everything that happened before I was hurt seems very far off." "It does not matter," Aurora answered softly. "I am glad you have forgotten, for though I was angry too, and did not care at the time, the things you said have hurt me since." "I am sorry," Marcello said gently, "very, very sorry. Forgive me." "It was all my fault, for I was teasing you for the mere fun of the thing. I was nothing but a silly school-girl then." "Yes. You have changed, too." "Am I at all what you expected I should be?" Aurora asked, after a moment's silence. Marcello glanced at her, and clasped his hands over his knee more tightly than ever. "I wish you were not," he answered in a low voice. "Don't wish that." Her tone was even lower than his. Neither spoke again for some time, and they did not look at each other. But the flames flickering in the small fireplace seemed to be talking, like a third person in the room. Aurora moved at last, and changed her position. "I am glad that you have quarrelled with your stepfather," she said. "He meant to do you all the harm he could. He meant you to die of the life you were leading." "You know that?" Marcello looked up quickly. "Yes. I have heard my mother and Professor Kalmon talking about it when they thought I was not listening. I always pretend that I am not listening when anybody talks about you." She laughed a little. "It is so much simpler," she added, as if to explain. "The Professor said that your stepfather was killing you by inches. Those were his words." "The Professor never liked him. But he was right. Have you seen him often?" "Yes." Aurora laughed again. "He always turns up wherever we are, pretending that it is the most unexpected meeting in the world. He is just like a boy!" "What do you mean? Is he in love with you?" "With me? No! He is madly in love with my mother! Fancy such a thing! When he found that we were coming back to Rome he gave up his professorship in Milan, and he has come to live here so as to be able to see her. So I hear them talking a great deal, and he seems to have found out a great many things about your stepfather which nobody ever knew. He takes an extraordinary interest in him for some reason or other." "What has he found out?" asked Marcello. "Enough to hang him, if people could be hanged in Italy," Aurora answered. "I should have thought Folco too clever to do anything really against the law," said Marcello, who did not seem much surprised at what she said. "The Professor believes that it was he that tried to kill you." "How is that possible?" Marcello asked, in great astonishment. "You would have seen him!" "I did. You had not been gone three minutes when he came round to the gap in the bank where I was standing. He came from the side towards which I had seen you go. It was perfectly impossible that he should not have met you. The Professor says he must have known that you were there, looking at the storm, but that he did not know that I was with you, and that he was lying in wait for you to strike you from behind. If we had gone back together he would not have shown himself, that's all, and he would have waited for a better chance. If I had only followed you I should have seen what happened." "That is the trouble," said Marcello thoughtfully. "No one ever saw what happened, and I remember nothing but that I fell forward, feeling that I had been struck on the back of the head. Did you not hear any sound?" "How could I, in such a gale as was blowing? It all looks dreadfully likely and quite possible, and the Professor is convinced that your stepfather has done some worse things." "Worse?" "Yes, because he did not fail in doing them, as he did when he tried to kill you." "But what must such a man be?" cried Marcello, suddenly breaking out in anger. "What must his life have been in all the years before my mother married him?" "He was a kind of adventurer in South America. I don't quite know what he did there, but Professor Kalmon has found out a great deal about him from the Argentine Republic, where he lived until he killed somebody and had to escape to Europe. If I were you I would go and see the Professor, since he is in Rome. He lives at No. 16, Via Sicilia. He will tell you a great deal about that man when he knows that you have parted for good." "I'll go and see him. Thank you. I cannot imagine that he could tell me anything worse than I have already heard." "Perhaps he may," Aurora answered very gravely. Then she was silent, and Marcello could not help looking at her as she leaned back in the corner of the sofa. Of all things, at that moment, he dreaded lest he should lose command of himself under the unexpected influence of her beauty, of old memories, of the failing light, of the tender shadows that still lingered under her eyes, of that exquisite small hand that lay idly on the sofa beside her, just within his reach. He rose abruptly, no longer trusting himself. "I must be going," he said. "Already? Why?" She looked up at him and their eyes met. "Because I cannot be alone with you any longer. I do not trust myself." "Yes, you do. You are a man now, and I trust you." He had spoken roughly and harshly in his momentary self-contempt, but her words were clear and quiet, and rang true. He stood still in silence for a moment. "And besides," she added softly, "she trusts you too." There was a little emphasis on the word "she" and in her tone that was a reproach, and he looked at her in wonder. "We cannot talk of her, you and I," she said, turning her eyes to the fire, "but you know what I mean, Marcello. It is not enough to be kind. We women do not think so much of that as you men fancy. You must be true as well." "I know it," Marcello answered, bending his head a little. "Good-bye, Aurora." "No. Not good-bye, for you will come again soon, and then again, and often." "Shall I?" "Yes, because we can trust each other, though we are fond of each other. We are not children any longer, as we used to be." "Then I will come sometimes." He took her hand, trying not to feel that it was in his, and he left her sitting by the rather dreary little fire, in the rather shabby room, in the grey twilight. As he drove through the wet streets, he went over all she had said, went over it again and again, till he knew her words by heart. But he did not try, or dare to try, to examine what he felt, and was going to feel. The manliness that had at last come to its full growth in him clung to the word "true" as she had meant it. But she, being left alone, leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and clasping her hands as she gazed at the smouldering remains of the fire. She had known well enough that she had loved him before he had come; she had known it too well when he had told her how he had driven Folco out of his house for having spoken of her too carelessly. Then the blood had rushed to her throat, beating hard, and if she had not gone quickly to the window she felt that she must have cried for joy. She was far too proud to let him guess that, but she was not too proud to love him, in spite of everything, though it meant that she compared herself with the peasant girl, and envied her, and in all maiden innocence would have changed places with her if she could. CHAPTER XVII It was late in the evening when Marcello reached the villa, and was told that his stepfather had left suddenly with his valet, before sunset, taking a good deal of luggage with him. The coachman had driven him to the station and had seen no more of him. He had not left any message or note for Marcello. This was as it should be, and Marcello did not care to know whither he had gone, since he was out of the house. He was glad, however, that he had left Rome at once instead of going to an hotel, which would have made an interesting topic of conversation for gossips. Marcello vaguely wondered why Folco had told a perfectly gratuitous falsehood about Aurora, and whether he could possibly have lied merely for the sake of hurting him. If so, he had got his deserts. It mattered very little now, and it was a waste of thought to think of him at all. The young man had a big fire built in the library, and sat down in his favourite leathern chair under the shaded light. He was tired, but not sleepy, and he was glad to be alone at last, for he had felt Corbario's evil presence in the house, though they had met little of late, and it was a great relief to know that he would never return. He was glad to be alone, and yet he felt lonely, for the one condition did not make the other impossible. He was glad to be able to think in peace, but when he did think, he longed for some companionship in his thoughts, and he found that he was wishing himself back in the room that looked down upon the Forum of Trajan, with Aurora, and that she was telling him again that she could trust him; and yet the very thought seemed to mean that he was not to be trusted. Psychological problems are only interesting when they concern other people than ourselves, for there can be no problem where there is not a difficulty, and where the inner self is concerned there can be no difficulty that does not demand immediate solution if we are to find peace. Some men of very strong and thoughtful character are conscious of a sort of second self within themselves, to which they appeal in trouble as Socrates to his Dæmon; but most men, in trouble and alone, would turn to a friend if there were one at hand. Marcello had none, and he felt horribly lonely in his great house, as the faces of two women rose before him, on the right and left. But he was a man now, and as he sat there he determined to face the problem bravely and to solve it once and for ever by doing what was right, wheresoever he could convince himself that right lay, and without any regard for his own inclinations. He told himself that this must be possible, because where right and wrong were concerned it was never possible to hesitate long. A man is never so convinced that right is easy to distinguish and to do as when he has lately made up his mind to reform. Indeed, the weakness as well as the strength of all reformers lies in their blind conviction that whatever strikes them as right must be done immediately, with a haste that strongly resembles hurry, and with no regard for consequences. You might as well try, when an express train is running at full speed on the wrong track, to heave it over to the right one without stopping it and without killing the passengers. Yet most reformers of themselves and others, from the smallest to the greatest, seem to believe that this can be done, ought to be done, and must be done at once. Marcello was just then a reformer of this sort. He had become aware in the course of that afternoon that something was seriously wrong, and as his own will and character had served him well of late, he trusted both beforehand and set to work to find out the right track, with the distinct intention of violently transferring the train of his existence to it as soon as it had been discovered. He was very sure of the result. Besides, he had been brought up by a very religious woman, and a strong foundation of belief remained in him, and was really the basis of all his thinking about himself. He had been careless, thoughtless, reckless, since his mother had died, but he had never lost that something to which a man may best go back in trouble. Sometimes it hurt him, sometimes it comforted him vaguely, but he was always conscious that it was there, and had been there through all his wildest days. It was not a very reasoning belief, for he was not an intellectual man, but it was unchangeable and solid still in spite of all his past weakness. It bade him do right, blindly, and only because right was right; but it did not open his eyes to the terrible truth that whereas right is right, the Supreme Power, which is always in the right, does not take human life into consideration at all, and that a man is under all circumstances bound to consider the value of life to others, and sometimes its value to himself, when others depend upon him for their happiness, or safety, or welfare. Animated by the most sincere wish to find the right direction and follow it--perhaps because Aurora had said that she trusted him--yet blind to the dangers that beset his path, there is no knowing how many lives Marcello might not have wrecked by acting on the resolutions he certainly would have made if he had been left to himself another hour. He was deep in thought, his feet stretched out to the fire, his head leaning back against the leathern cushion of his chair, his eyes half closed, feeling that he was quite alone and beyond the reach of every one, if he chose to sit there until morning wrestling with his psychological problem. He was roused by the sharp buzz of the telephone instrument which stood on the writing-table. It was very annoying, and he wished he had turned it off before he had sat down, but since some one was calling he got up reluctantly to learn who wanted him at that hour. He glanced at the clock, and saw that it was nearly half-past ten. The instrument buzzed again as he reached the table. "I want to see Signor Consalvi at once; is it too late?" asked a man's voice anxiously. "I am Consalvi. Who are you, please?" asked Marcello. "Kalmon. Is it true that Corbario has left the villa?" "Yes. He left this afternoon." "Where is he now?" "He drove to the railway station. I don't know where he is gone. He left no address." "--railway station--no address--" Marcello heard the words as Kalmon spoke to some other person at his elbow, wherever he was. "May I come at once?" Kalmon asked. "Yes. I am alone. I'll have the lower gate opened." "Thanks. I shall be at the gate in twenty minutes. Good-bye." "Good-bye." Marcello hung up the receiver, rang the bell, and gave the order for the gate, adding that the gentleman who came was to be shown in at once. Then he sat down and waited. It was clear that Kalmon had learned of Corbario's departure from Aurora, perhaps through her mother. He had probably dined with them, for he was intimate at the house, and Aurora had spoken of Marcello's visit. There was no reason why she should not have done so, and yet Marcello wished that she had kept it to herself a little longer. It had meant so much to him, and it suddenly seemed as if it had meant nothing at all to her. She had perhaps repeated to her mother everything that had been said, or almost everything, for she was very fond of her. Marcello told himself roughly that since he had no right to love her, and was determined not to, he had no claim upon such little delicacies of discretion and silence on her part; and his problem stuck up its head again out of the deep water in which it lived, and glared at him, and shot out all sorts of questions like the wriggling tentacles of an octopus, inviting him to wrestle with them, if only to see how useless all wrestling must be. He rose again impatiently, took a cigar from a big mahogany box on the table, lit it and smoked savagely, walking up and down. It was half finished when the door opened and Kalmon was ushered in. He held out his hand as he came forward, with the air of a man who has no time to lose. "I am glad to see you," Marcello said. "And I am exceedingly glad that you were at home when I called you up," Kalmon answered. "Have you really no idea where Corbario is?" "Not the slightest. I am only too glad to get rid of him. I suppose the Contessa told you--" "Yes. I was dining there. But she only told me half an hour ago, just as I was coming away, and I rushed home to get at the telephone." It occurred to Marcello that Kalmon need not have driven all the way to Via Sicilia from the Forum of Trajan merely for the sake of telephoning. "But what is the hurry?" asked Marcello. "Do sit down and explain! I heard this afternoon that you had strong suspicions as to Folco's part in what happened to me." "Something more than suspicions now," Kalmon answered, settling his big frame in a deep chair before the tire; "but I am afraid he has escaped." "Escaped? He has not the slightest idea that he is suspected!" "How do you know? Don't you see that as he is guilty, he must have soon begun to think that the change in your manner toward him was due to the fact that you suspected him, and that you turned him out because you guessed the truth, though you could not prove it?" "Perhaps," Marcello admitted, in a rather preoccupied tone. "The young lady seems to have repeated to her mother everything I said this afternoon," he added with evident annoyance. "Did the Contessa tell you why I quarrelled with Folco to-day?" "No. She merely said that there had been angry words and that you had asked him to leave the house. She herself was surprised, she said, and wondered what could have brought matters to a crisis at last." Marcello's face cleared instantly. Aurora had not told any one that he had quarrelled with his stepfather about her; that was quite evident, for there were not two more truthful people in the world than the Contessa and Kalmon, whose bright brown eyes were at that moment quietly studying his face. "Not that the fact matters in the least," said the Professor, resting his feet on the fender and exposing the broad soles of his wet walking-boots to the flame. "The important fact is that the man has escaped, and we must catch him." "But how are you so sure that it was he that attacked me? You cannot arrest a man on suspicion, without going through a great many formalities. You cannot possibly have got an eye-witness to the fact, and so it must be a matter of suspicion after all, founded on a certain amount of rather weak circumstantial evidence. Now, if it was he that tried to kill me, he failed, for I am alive, and perfectly well. Why not let him alone, since I have got rid of him?" "For a very good reason, which I think I had better not tell you." "Why not?" "I am not sure what you would do if you were told it suddenly. Are your nerves pretty good? You used to be a delicate boy, though I confess that you look much stronger now." "You need not fear for my nerves," Marcello answered with a short laugh. "If they are sound after what I have been through in the last two years they will stand anything!" "Yes. Perhaps you had better know, though I warn you that what I am going to say will be a shock to you, of which you do not dream." "You must be exaggerating!" Marcello smiled incredulously. "You had better tell me at once, or I shall imagine it is much worse than it is." "It could not be," Kalmon answered. "It is hard even to tell, and not only because what happened was in a distant way my fault." "Your fault? For heaven's sake tell me what the matter is, and let us be done with it!" "Corbario wanted to get possession of your whole fortune. That is why he tried to kill you." "Yes. Is that all? You have made me understand that already." "He had conceived the plan before your mother's death," said Kalmon. "That would not surprise me either. But how do you know it?" "Do you remember that discovery of mine, that I called 'the sleeping death'?" "Yes. What has that to do with it?" Marcello's expression changed. "Corbario stole one of the tablets from the tube in my pocket, while I was asleep that night." "What?" Marcello began to grow pale. "Your mother died asleep," said Kalmon in a very low voice. Marcello was transfixed with horror, and grasped the arms of his chair. His face was livid. Kalmon watched him, and continued. "Yes. Corbario did it. Your mother used to take phenacetine tablets when she had headaches. They were very like the tablets of my poison in size and shape. Corbario stole into my room when I was sound asleep, took one of mine, and dropped in one of hers. Then he put mine amongst the phenacetine ones. She took it, slept, and died." Marcello gasped for breath, his eyes starting from his head. "You see," Kalmon went on, "it was long before I found that my tablets had been tampered with. There had been seven in the tube. I knew that, and when I glanced at the tube next day there were seven still. The tube was of rather thick blue glass, if you remember, so that the very small difference between the one tablet and the rest could not be seen through it. I went to Milan almost immediately, and when I got home I locked up the tube in a strong-box. It was not until long afterwards, when I wanted to make an experiment, that I opened the tube and emptied the contents into a glass dish. Then I saw that one tablet was unlike the rest. I saw that it had been made by a chemist and not by myself. I analysed it and found five grains of phenacetine." Marcello leaned back, listening intently, and still deadly pale. "You did not know that I was trying to find out how you had been hurt, that I was in communication with the police from the first, that I came to Rome and visited you in the hospital before you recovered your memory. The Contessa was very anxious to know the truth about her old friend's son, and I did what I could. That was natural. Something told me that Corbario had tried to kill you, and I suspected him, but it is only lately that I have got all the evidence we need. There is not a link lacking. Well, when I came to Rome that time, it chanced that I met Corbario at the station. He had come by the same train, and was looking dreadfully ill. That increased my suspicion, for I knew that his anxiety must be frightful, since you might have seen him when he struck you, and might recognise him, and accuse him. Yet he could not possibly avoid meeting you. Imagine what that man must have felt. He tried to smile when he saw me, and said he wished he had one of those sleeping tablets of mine. You understand. He thought I had already missed the one he had taken, though I had not, and that he had better disarm any possible suspicion by speaking of the poison carelessly. Then his face turned almost yellow, and he nearly fainted. He said it was the heat, and I helped him to his carriage. He looked like a man terrified out of his senses, and I remembered the fact afterwards, when I found that one tablet had been stolen; but at the time I attributed it all to his fear of facing you. Now we know the truth. He tried to murder you, and on the same day he poisoned your mother." Kalmon sat quite still when he had finished, and for a long time Marcello did not move, and made no sound. At last he spoke in a dull voice. "I want to kill him myself." The Professor glanced at him and nodded slowly, as if he understood the simple instinct of justice that moved him. "If I see him, I shall kill him," Marcello said slowly. "I am sure I shall." "I am afraid that he has escaped," Kalmon answered. "Of course there is a possibility that he may have had some object in deceiving your coachman by driving to the railway station, but it is not at all likely. He probably took the first train to the north." "But he can be stopped at the frontier!" "Do you think Corbario is the man to let himself be trapped easily if he knows that he is pursued?" asked Kalmon incredulously. "I do not." He rose from his chair and began to walk up and down, his hands behind him and his head bent. Marcello paid no attention to him and was silent for a long time, sitting quite motionless and scarcely seeming to breathe. What he felt he never could have told afterwards; he only knew that he suffered in every fibre of his brain and body, with every nerve of his heart and in every secret recess of his soul. His mother seemed to have been dead so long, beyond the break in his memory. The dreadful truth he had just heard made her die again before his eyes, by the hand of the man whom he and she had trusted. "Kalmon," he said at last, and the Professor stopped short in his walk. "Kalmon, do you think she knows?" It was like the cry of a child, but it came from a man who was already strong. Kalmon could only shake his head gravely; he could find nothing to say in answer to such a question, and yet he was too human and kind and simple-hearted not to understand the words that rose to Marcello's lips. "Then she was happy to the end--then she still believes in him." Kalmon turned his clear eyes thoughtfully towards Marcello's face. "She is gone," he answered. "She knows the great secret now. The rest is nothing to the dead. But we are living and it is much to us. The man must be brought to justice, and you must help me to bring him down, if we have to hunt him round the world." "By God, I will!" said Marcello, in the tone of one who takes a solemn obligation. He rose and stood upright, as if he were ready, and though he was still pale there was no look of weak horror left in his face, nor any weakness at all. "Good!" exclaimed Kalmon. "I would rather see you so. Now listen to me, and collect your thoughts, Marcello. Ercole is in Rome. You remember Ercole, your keeper at the cottage by the shore? Yes. I got the last link in the evidence about Corbario's attack on you from him to-day. He is a strange fellow. He has known it since last summer and has kept it to himself. But he is one of those diabolically clever peasants that one meets in the Campagna, and he must have his reasons. I told him to sleep at my house to-night, and when I went home he was sitting up in the entry with his dog. I have sent him to the station to find out whether Corbario really left or not. You don't think he will succeed? I tell you there are few detectives to be compared with one of those fellows when they are on the track of a man they hate. I told him to come here, no matter how late it might be, since he is your man. I suppose he can get in?" "Of course. There is a night-bell for the porter. Ercole knows that. Besides, the porter will not go to bed as long as you are here. While we are waiting for him, tell me what Ercole has found out." They sat down again, and Kalmon told Marcello the sailor's story of what his captain had seen from the deck of the brigantine. Marcello listened gravely. "I remember that there was a small vessel very far in," he said. "Aurora will remember it, too, for she watched it and spoke of it. We thought it must run aground on the bar, it was so very near." "Yes. She remembers it, too. The evidence is complete." There was silence again. Marcello threw another log upon the fire, and they waited. Kalmon smoked thoughtfully, but Marcello leaned back in his chair, covering his eyes with one hand. The pain had not begun to be dulled yet, and he could only sit still and bear it. At last the door opened, and a servant said that Ercole was waiting, and had been ordered to come, no matter how late it was. A moment later he appeared, and for once without his dog. He stood before the door as it closed behind him waiting to be told to come forward. Marcello spoke kindly to him. "Come here," he said. "It is a long time since we saw each other, and now we are in a hurry." Ercole's heavy boots rang on the polished floor as he obeyed and came up to the table. He looked gloomily and suspiciously at both men. "Well?" said Kalmon, encouraging him to speak. "He is still in Rome," Ercole answered. "How do I know it? I began to ask the porters and the under station-masters who wear red caps, and the woman who sells newspapers and cigars at the stand, and the man who clips the tickets at the doors of the waiting-rooms. 'Did you see a gentleman, so and so, with a servant, so and so, and much luggage, going away by the train? For I am his keeper from the Roman shore, and he told me to be here when he went away, to give him a certain answer.' So I said, going from one to another, and weeping to show that it was a very urgent matter. And many shook their heads and laughed at me. But at last a porter heard, and asked if the gentleman were so and so. And I said yes, that he was so and so, and his servant was so and so, and that the gentleman was a rich gentleman. And the porter said, 'See what a combination! That is the gentleman who had all his luggage brought in this afternoon, to be weighed; but it was not weighed, for he came back after a quarter of an hour, and took some small things and had them put upon a cab, but the other boxes were left in deposit.' Then I took out four sous and showed them to the porter, and he led me to a certain hall, and showed me the luggage, which is that of the man we seek, and it is marked 'F.C.' So when I had seen, I made a show of being joyful, and gave the porter five sous instead of four. And he was very contented. This is the truth. So I say, he is still in Rome." "I told you so," said Kalmon, looking at Marcello. "Excuse me, but what did you tell the young gentleman?" asked Ercole suspiciously. "That you would surely find out," Kalmon answered. "I have found out many things," said Ercole gloomily. His voice was very harsh just then, as if speaking so much had made him hoarse. "He took some of his things away because he meant to spend the night in Rome," Kalmon said thoughtfully. "He means to leave to-morrow, perhaps by an early train. If we do not find him to-night, we shall not catch him in Rome at all." "Surely," said Ercole, "but Rome is very big, and it is late." CHAPTER XVIII It was still raining when the three men left the villa, and the night was very dark, for the young moon had already set. The wind howled round San Pietro in Montorio and the Spanish Academy, and whistled through the branches of the plane-trees along the winding descent, and furiously tore the withering leaves. They struck Ercole's weather-beaten face as he sat beside the coachman with bent head, with his soft hat pulled down over his eyes, and the rain dripped from his coarse moustache. Kalmon and Marcello leaned as far back as they could, under the deep hood and behind the high leathern apron. "There is some animal following us," the cabman said to Ercole as they turned a corner. "It is my dog," Ercole answered. "It sounds like a calf," said the cabman, turning his head to listen through the storm. "It is not a calf," answered Ercole gruffly. "It is my dog. Or if you wish it to be the were-wolf, it will be the were-wolf." The cabman glanced uneasily at his companion on the box, for the were-wolf is a thing of terror to Romans. But he could not see the countryman's features in the gloom, and he hastened his horse's pace down the hill, for he did not like the sound of those galloping feet behind his cab, in that lonely road, in the dark and the rain. "Where am I to go?" he asked, as he came near the place where a turn to the right leads out of the Via Garibaldi down to the Via Luciano Manara. But Kalmon knew where they were, even better than Marcello, to whom the road was familiar by day and night, in all weathers. "We must leave that message first," said the Professor to Marcello. "We are coming to the turning." "To Santa Cecilia," Marcello called out to the cabman, thrusting his head forward into the rain, "then I will tell you where to go." "Santa Cecilia," echoed the cabman. Ercole growled something quite unintelligible, to which his companion paid no attention, and the cab rattled on through the rain down the long paved street. It made such a noise that the dog's feet could not be heard any more. There were more lamps, too, and it seemed less gloomy than up there under the plane-trees, though there were no lights in the windows at that late hour. "Now to the right," said Ercole, as they reached the back of Saint Cecilia's at the Via Anicia. "To the right!" Marcello called out a second later from under the hood. "You seem to know the way," said the cabman to Ercole. "Why don't you give me the address of the house at once and be done with it?" "I know the house, but not the street, nor the number." "I understand. Does your dog also know the house?" To this question Ercole made no answer, for he considered that it was none of the cabman's business, and, moreover, he regretted having shown that he knew where his master was going. Marcello now gave the final direction to the cabman, who drew up before a door in a wall, in a narrow lane, where the walls were high and the doors were few. It was the garden entrance to the little house in Trastevere. Marcello got out, opened the door with the key he carried, and went in. It was raining hard, and he disappeared into the darkness, shutting the door behind him. It had a small modern lock with a spring latch that clicked sharply as it shut. The cab had stopped with the door on the left, and therefore on the side on which Ercole was sitting. Nino, the dog, came up from behind, with his tongue hanging out, blood-red in the feeble light of the cab's lamp; he put his head up above the low front wheel to have a look at Ercole. Being satisfied, he at once lay down on the wet stones, with his muzzle towards the door. Two or three minutes passed thus, in total silence. The cab-horse hung his head patiently under the driving rain, but neither stamped on the paving stones nor shook himself, nor panted audibly, for he was a pretty good horse, as cab-horses go, and was not tired. Suddenly Nino growled without moving, the ominous low growl of a dog that can kill, and Ercole growled at him in turn, making a sound intended to impose silence. There was no reason why Nino should growl at Marcello. But Nino rose slowly upon his quarters, as if he were about to spring at the door, and his rough coat bristled along his back. Then Ercole distinctly heard the latch click as it had done when Marcello went in, and Nino put his muzzle to the crack of the closed door and sniffed up and down it, and then along the stone step. To Ercole it was clear that some person within had opened the door noiselessly a little way and had shut it again rather hurriedly, on hearing the dog and seeing the cab. Whoever it was had wished to see if there were any one outside, without being seen, or perhaps had meant to slip out without being heard by any one in the house. Kalmon, leaning back inside, had not heard the sound of the latch, and paid no attention to Nino's growl. It was natural that such an animal should growl and snarl for nothing, he thought, especially on a rainy night, when the lamps of a cab throw strange patches of light on the glistening pavement. There was some reason why Ercole, who had heard, did not get down and tell the Professor, who had noticed nothing. One reason, and a good enough one, was that whoever it was that had opened the door so cautiously, it certainly was not the man they were all hunting that night. Yet since Ercole knew the little house, and probably knew who lived there, and that it belonged to Marcello, it might have been supposed that he would have told the latter, whose footsteps were heard on the gravel a few moments afterwards. But though Marcello stood a moment by the wheel close to Ercole, and spoke across him to the cabman, Ercole said nothing. Nino had not growled at Marcello, even before the latter had appeared, for Nino had a good memory, for a dog, and doubtless remembered long days spent by the Roman shore, and copious leavings thrown to him from luxurious luncheons. Before they had left the villa he had sniffed at Marcello's clothes and hands in a manner that was meant to be uncommonly friendly, though it might not have seemed reassuring to a stranger; and Marcello had patted his huge head, and called him by name. The young man had given the cabman the address of the office of the Chief of Police, and when he had got in and hooked up the leathern apron, the cab rolled away over the stones through the dark streets, towards the bridge of Saint Bartholomew. Within the house Regina sat alone, as Marcello had found her, her chin resting on the back of her closed hand, her elbow on her knee, her eyes gazing at the bright little fire that blazed on the polished hearth. Her hair was knotted for the night, low down on her neck, and the loose dressing-gown of dove-coloured silk plush was unfastened at the neck, where a little lace fell about her strong white throat. She had sprung to her feet in happy surprise when Marcello had entered the room, though it was not two hours since he had left her, and she could still smell the smoke of his last cigarette. She had felt a sudden chill when she had seen his face, for she never saw him look grave and preoccupied without believing that he had grown suddenly tired of her, and that the end had come. But then she had seen his eyes lighten for her, and she had known that he was not tired of her, but only very much in earnest and very much in a hurry. He had bidden her find out from Settimia where Corbario was, if the woman knew it; he had told her to find out at any cost, and had put a great deal of emphasis on the last words. In answer to the one question she asked, he told her that Corbario was a murderer, and was trying to escape. He had not time to explain more fully, but he knew that he could count on her. She did not love Folco Corbario, and she came of a race that could hate, for it was the race of the Roman hill peasants. So he left her quickly and went on. But when he was gone, Regina sat quite still for some time, looking at the fire. Settimia was safe in her own room, and was probably asleep. It would be soon enough to wake her when Regina had considered what she should say in order to get the information Marcello wanted. Settimia would deny having had any communication with Corbario, or that she knew anything of his whereabouts. The next step would probably be to tempt her with money or other presents. If this failed, what was to be done? Somehow Regina guessed that a bribe would not have much effect on the woman. Marcello had wished to send her away long ago, but Regina had persuaded him to let her stay. It was part of her hatred of Corbario to accumulate proofs against him, and they were not lacking in the letters he wrote to Settimia. Regina could not understand the relation in which they stood to each other, but now and then she had found passages in the letters which referred neither to herself nor Marcello, but to things that had happened a good many years ago in another country. She was convinced that the two had once been companions in some nefarious business, of which they had escaped the consequences. It was her intention to find out exactly what the deed had been, and then to bring Corbario to ruin by exposing it. It was a simple scheme, but it seemed a sure one, and Regina was very patient. Corbario had tried to separate her from Marcello, and she had sworn that he should pay her for that; and besides, he had wished to kill Marcello in order to get his money. That was bad, undoubtedly--very bad; but to her peasant mind it was not unnatural. She had heard all her life of crimes committed for the sake of an inheritance; and so have most of us, and in countries that fondly believe themselves much more civilised than Italy. That was extremely wicked, but the attempt had failed, and it sank into insignificance in comparison with the heinous crime of trying to separate two lovers by treachery. That was what Regina would not forgive Corbario. Nor would she pardon Settimia, who had been Corbario's instrument and helper; and as she meant to include the woman in her vengeance, she would not let her go, but kept her, and treated her so generously and unsuspiciously that Settimia was glad to stay, since Corbario still wished it. Regina looked at the little travelling-clock that stood on the low table at her elbow, and saw that it was half-past eleven. Behind the drawn curtains she could hear the rain beating furiously against the shutters, but all was quiet within the house. Regina listened, for Settimia's room was overhead, and when she moved about her footsteps could be heard in the sitting-room. Regina had heard her just before Marcello had come in, but there was no sound now; she had probably gone to bed. Regina lit a candle and went into her own room. On a shelf near the little toilet-table there was a box, covered with old velvet, in which she kept the few simple pins and almost necessary bits of jewellery which she had been willing to accept from Marcello. She took it down, set it upon the toilet-table and opened it. A small silver-mounted revolver lay amongst the other things, for Marcello had insisted that she should have a weapon of some kind, because the house seemed lonely to him. He had shown her how to use it, but she had forgotten. She took it out, and turned it over and over in her hands, with a puzzled look. She did not even know whether it was loaded or not, and did not remember how to open the chamber. She wondered how the thing worked, and felt rather afraid of it. Besides, if she had to use it, it would make a dreadful noise; so she put it back carefully amongst the things. There were the cheap little earrings she had worn ever since she had been a child, till Marcello had made her take them out and wear none at all. There was a miserable little brooch of tarnished silver which she had bought with her own money at a country fair, and which had once seemed very fine to her. She had not the slightest sentiment about such trifles, for Italian peasants are altogether the least sentimental people in the world; the things were not even good enough to give to Settimia, and yet it seemed wrong to throw them away, so she had always kept them, with a vague idea of giving them to some poor little girl, to whom they would represent happiness. With them lay the long pin she used to stick through her hair on Sundays when she went to church. It had been her mother's, and it was the only thing she possessed which had belonged to the murdered woman who had given her birth. It was rather a fine specimen of the pins worn by the hill peasant women, and was made like a little cross-hilted sword, with a blade of fire-gilt steel about eight inches long. A little gilt ball was screwed upon the point, intended to keep the pin from coming out after it was thrust through the hair. Regina took the ball off and felt the point, which was as sharp as that of a pen-knife; and she tried the blade with her hands and found that it did not bend easily. It was strong enough for what she wanted of it. She stuck it through the heavy knot of her hair, rather low down at the back of her neck, where she could easily reach it with her right hand; but she did not screw on the ball. It was not likely that the pin would fall out. She was very deliberate in all she did; she even put up her hand two or three times, without looking at herself in the mirror, to be quite sure where to find the hilt of the pin if she should need it. Marcello had told her to get the information he wanted "at any cost." Then she went back, with her candle, through the cheerful sitting-room, and out through a small vestibule that was now dark, and up the narrow staircase to find Settimia. She knocked, and the woman opened, and Regina was a little surprised to see that she was still dressed. She was pale, and looked very anxious as she faced her mistress in the doorway. "What is the matter?" she asked, rather nervously. "Nothing," Regina answered in a reassuring tone. "I had forgotten to tell you about a little change I want in the trimming of that hat, and as I heard you moving about, I came up before going to bed." Settimia had taken off her shoes more than half an hour earlier in order to make no noise, and her suspicions and her fears were instantly aroused. She drew her lids together a little and looked over Regina's shoulder through the open door towards the dark staircase. She was not a tall woman, and was slightly made, but she was energetic and could be quick when she chose, as Regina knew. Regina quietly shut the door behind her and came forward into the room, carrying her candle-stick, which she set down upon the table near the lamp. "Where is that hat?" she asked, so naturally that the woman began to think nothing was wrong after all. Settimia turned to cross the room, in order to get the hat in question from a pasteboard bandbox that stood on the floor. Regina followed her, and stood beside her as she bent down. Then without the slightest warning Regina caught her arms from behind and threw her to her knees, so that she was forced to crouch down, her head almost touching the floor. She was no more than a child in the peasant woman's hands as soon as she was fairly caught. But she did not scream, and she seemed to be keeping her senses about her. "What do you want of me?" she asked, speaking with difficulty. Policemen know that ninety-nine out of a hundred criminals ask that question when they are taken. "I want to know several things," Regina answered. "Let me go, and I will tell you what I can." "No, you won't," Regina replied, looking about her for something with which to tie the woman's hands, for she had forgotten that this might be necessary. "I shall not let you go until I know everything." She felt that Settimia's thin hands were cautiously trying the strength of her own and turning a very little in her grasp. She threw her weight upon the woman's shoulders to keep her down, grasped both wrists in one hand, and with the other tore off the long silk cord that tied her own dressing-gown at the waist. It was new and strong. "You had better not struggle," she said, as she got the first turn round Settimia's wrists and began to pull it tight. "You are in my power now. It is of no use to scream either, for nobody will hear you." "I know it," the woman replied. "What are you going to do with me?" "I shall ask questions. If you answer them, I shall not hurt you. If you do not, I shall hurt you until you do, or until you die. Now I am going to tie your wrists to your heels, so that you cannot move. Then I will put a pillow under your head, so that you can be pretty comfortable while we talk a little." She spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, which terrified Settimia much more than any dramatic display of anger or hatred could have done. In a few moments the woman was bound hand and foot. Regina turned her upon her side, and arranged a pillow under her head as she had promised to do. Then she sat down upon the floor beside the pillow and looked at her calmly. "In this way we can talk," she said. Settimia's rather stony eyes were wide with fear now, as she lay on her side, watching Regina's face. "I have always served you faithfully," she said. "I cannot understand why you treat me so cruelly." "Yes," Regina answered, unmoved, "you have been an excellent maid, and I am sorry that I am obliged to tie you up like the calves that are taken to the city on carts. Now tell me, where is Signor Corbario?" "How should I know?" whined Settimia, evidently more frightened. "I know nothing about Signor Corbario. I swear that I have hardly ever seen him. How can I possibly know where he is? He is probably at his house, at this hour." "No. You know very well that he has left the villa. It will not serve to tell lies, nor to say that you know nothing about him, for I am sure you do. Now listen. I wish to persuade you with good words. You and Signor Corbario were in South America together." Settimia's face expressed abject terror. "Never!" she cried, rocking her bound body sideways in an instinctive attempt to emphasise her words by a gesture. "I swear before heaven, and the saints, and the holy--" "It is useless," Regina interrupted. "You have not forgotten what you and he did in Salta ten years ago. You remember how suddenly Padilla died, when 'Doctor' Corbario was attending him, and you were his nurse, don't you?" She fixed her eyes sternly on Settimia's, and the woman turned livid, and ground her teeth. "You are the devil!" she said hoarsely. "But it is all a lie!" she cried, suddenly trying denial again. "I was never in South America, never, never, never!" "This is a lie," observed Regina, with perfect calm. "If you do not tell me where Signor Corbario is to-night, I shall go to the police to-morrow and tell all I know about you." "You know nothing. What is all this that you are inventing? You are a wicked woman!" "Take care! Perhaps I am a wicked woman. Who knows! I am not a saint, but you are not my confessor. It is the contrary, perhaps; and perhaps you will have to confess to me this night, before going to the other world, if you confess at all. Where is Signor Corbario?" As she asked the question, she quietly took the long pin from her hair and began to play with the point. "Are you going to murder me?" groaned the wretched woman, watching the terrible little weapon. "I should not call it murder to kill you. This point is sharp. Should you like to feel it? You shall. In this way you will perhaps be persuaded to speak." She gently pressed the point against Settimia's cheek. "Don't move, or you will scratch yourself," she said, as the woman tried to draw back her face. "Now, will you tell me where Signor Corbario is? I want to know." Settimia must have feared Corbario more than she feared Regina and the sharp pin at that moment, for she shook her head and set her teeth. Perhaps she believed that Regina was only threatening her, and did not mean to do her any real bodily hurt; but in this she was misled by Regina's very quiet manner. "I shall wait a little while," said Regina, almost indifferently, "and then, if you do not tell me, I shall begin to kill you. It may take a long time, and you will scream a good deal, but nobody will hear you. Now think a little, and decide what you will do." Regina laid the pin upon the floor beside her, drew up her knees, and clasped her hands together over them, as the hill women often sit for hours when they are waiting for anything. Her face hardened slowly until it had an expression which Marcello had never seen. It was not a look of cruelty, nor of fierce anticipated satisfaction in what she meant to do; it was simply cold and relentless, and Settimia gazed with terror on the splendid marble profile, so fearfully distinct against the dark wall in the bright light of the lamp. The strength of the woman, quietly waiting to kill, seemed to fill the room; her figure seemed to grow gigantic in the terrified eyes of her prisoner; the slow, regular heave of her bosom as she breathed was telling the seconds and minutes of fate, that would never reach an hour. It is bad to see death very near when one is tied hand and foot and cannot fight for life. Most people cannot bear the sight quietly for a quarter of an hour; they break down altogether, or struggle furiously, like animals, though they know it is perfectly useless and that they have no chance. Anything is easier than to lie still, watching the knife and wondering when and where it is going to enter into the flesh. Regina sat thinking and ready. She wished that she had Corbario himself in her power, but it was something to have the woman who had helped him. She was very glad that she had insisted on keeping Settimia in spite of Marcello's remonstrances. It had made it possible to obtain the information he wanted, and which, she felt sure, was to lead to Corbario's destruction. She was to find out "at any cost"; those had been Marcello's words, and she supposed he knew that she would obey him to the letter. For she said to herself that he was the master, and that if she did not obey him in such a matter, when he seemed so much in earnest, he would be disappointed, and angry, and would then grow quickly tired of her, and so the end would come. "At any cost," as he had said it in his haste, meant to Regina at the cost of blood, and life, and limb, if need were. Corbario was the enemy of the man she loved; it was her lover's pleasure to find out his enemy and to be revenged at last; what sort of woman must she be if she did not help him? what was her love worth if she did not obey him? He had been always kind to her, and more than kind; but it would have been quite the same if he had treated her worse than a dog, provided he did not send her away from him. She belonged to him, and he was the master, to do as he pleased. If he sent her away, she would go; but if not, he might have beaten her and she would never have complained. Now that he had given a simple command, she was not going to disobey him. She had pride, but it was not for him, and in her veins the blood of sixty generations of slaves and serfs had come down to her through two thousand years, the blood of men who had killed when they were bidden to kill by their masters, whose masters had killed them like sheep in war and often in peace, of women who had been reckoned as goods and as chattels with the land on which their mothers had borne them--of men and women too often familiar with murder and sudden death from their cradles to their graves. The minutes passed and Settimia's terror grew till the room swam with her, and she lost hold upon herself, and did not know whether she screamed or was silent, as her parched lips opened wide upon her parted teeth. But she had made no sound, and Regina did not even look at her. Death had not come yet; there was a respite of seconds, perhaps of minutes. At last Regina unclasped her hands and took up the pin again. The miserable woman fancied that she already felt the little blade creeping through her flesh and blood on its way to her heart. For Regina had said she would take a long time to kill her. It must have been a strong reason that could keep her silent still, if she knew the answer to the question. Regina turned her head very slowly and looked coldly down at the agonised face. "I am tired," she said. "I cannot wait any longer." Settimia's eyes seemed to be starting from her head, and her dry lips were stretched till they cracked, and she thought she had screamed again; but she had not, for her throat was paralysed with fear. Regina rose upon her knees beside the pillow, with the pin in her right hand. "Where is Corbario?" she asked, looking down. "If you will not tell I shall hurt you." Settimia's lips moved, as if she were trying to speak, but no words came from them. Regina got up from the floor, went to the washstand and poured some water into the glass, for she thought it possible that the woman was really unable to utter a sound because her throat was parched with fear. But she could speak a little as soon as Regina left her side, and the last peril seemed a few seconds less near. "For the love of God, don't kill me yet," she moaned. "Let me speak first!" Regina came back, knelt down, and set the glass on the floor, beside the pin. "That is all I want," she said quietly, "that you should speak." "Water," moaned Settimia, turning her eyes to the glass. Regina held up her head a little and set the tumbler to her lips, and she drank eagerly. The fear of death is more parching than wound-fever or passion. "Now you can surely talk a little," Regina said. "Why do you wish to know where he is?" Settimia asked in a weak voice. "Are the police looking for him? What has he done? Why do you want me to betray him?" "These are too many questions," Regina answered. "I have been told to make you tell where he is, and I will. That is enough." "I do not know where he is." In an instant the point of the sharp little blade was pressing against the woman's throat, harder and harder; one second more and it would pierce the skin and draw blood. "Stop," she screamed, with a convulsion of her whole body. "He is in the house!" CHAPTER XIX With a single movement Regina was on her feet, for she had been taken by surprise, and her first instinct was to be ready for some new and unsuspected danger. In a flash it seemed to her that since Corbario was in the house, he might very possibly enter suddenly and take Settimia's defence. Regina was not afraid of him, but she was only a woman after all, and Corbario was not a man to stop at trifles. He was very likely armed, and would perhaps shoot her, in order to make good his escape with Settimia, unless, as was quite probable, he killed his old accomplice too, before leaving the room. Regina stood still a moment, reflecting on the dangerous situation. It certainly would not be safe to release Settimia yet; for if Corbario were really in the house, the two together could easily overpower one woman, though she was strong. "I am sorry that I cannot untie you yet," Regina said, and with a glance at the prostrate figure she took up her candle-stick, stuck her pin through her hair before the mirror, and went to the door. She took the key from the lock, put it back on the outside, and turned it, and put it into her pocket when she had shut the door after her. Then she slowly descended the stairs, stopping now and then to listen, and shading her candle with her hand so that she could see over it, for she expected to be attacked at any moment. At the slightest sound she would have snatched her pin from her hair again, but she heard nothing, and went cautiously down till she reached the vestibule outside the sitting-room. She entered the latter and sat down to think. Should she boldly search the house? Settimia could hardly have had any object in lying. If she had meant to frighten Regina, she would have spoken very differently. She would have made out that Corbario was almost within hearing, waiting in a dark corner with a loaded revolver. But her words had been the cry of truth, uttered to save her life at the moment when death was actually upon her. She would have screamed out the truth just as certainly if Corbario had already left Rome, or if he were in some hotel for the night--or even if she had really known nothing. In the last case Regina would have believed her, and would have let her go. There is no mistaking the accent of mortal terror, whether one has ever heard it or not. Corbario was somewhere in the house, Marcello's enemy, and the man she herself had long hated. A wild longing came over her to have him in her power, bound hand and foot like Settimia, and then to torment him at her pleasure until he died. She felt the strength of half a dozen men in her, and the courage of an army, as she rose to her feet once more. She had seen him. He was not a big man. If she could catch him from behind, as she had caught the woman, she might perhaps overpower him. With the thought of near revenge the last ray of caution disappeared, and from being fearless Regina became suddenly reckless. But as she rose, she heard a sound overhead, and it was the unmistakable sound of footsteps. She started in surprise. It was simply impossible that Settimia should have loosed the cord that bound her. Regina had been brought up in the low hill country and in the Campagna, and she could tie some of the knots used by Roman muleteers and carters, which hold as well as those men learn at sea. She had tied Settimia very firmly, and short of a miracle the woman could not have freed herself. Yet the footsteps had been distinctly audible for a moment. Since Settimia was not walking about, Corbario must have got into the room. Yet Regina had locked the door, and had the key in her pocket. It was perfectly incomprehensible. She left the sitting-room again, carrying her candle as before; but at the door she turned back, and set the candle-stick upon the table. She would be safer in the dark, and would have a better chance of taking Corbario by surprise. Poor Regina had not grown up amongst people who had a high standard of honour, and her own ideas about right and wrong were primitive, to speak charitably. But if she had dreamt of the deed that was being done upstairs, her heart would have stood still, and she would have felt sick at the mere thought of such villainy. She had left the room and locked the door, and while her footsteps had been audible on the stairs no other sound had broken the stillness. But a few seconds later a whispered question came from some person out of sight. "Is she gone?" the whisper asked. "Yes," answered Settimia in a very low voice, which she knew Regina could not hear. Corbario's pale face cautiously emerged from the closet in which he had been hidden, and he looked round the room before he stepped out. Settimia could not turn over to see him, but she heard him coming towards her. "Cut this cord," she said in an undertone. "Make haste! We can be out of the house in less than half a minute." Corbario knelt beside her, and took out a handsome English clasp-knife. But he did not cut the cord. He looked down into Settimia's face, and she understood. "I could not help it," she answered. "She would have killed me!" Corbario laid his left hand upon her throat. "If you try to scream I shall strangle you," he said in a whisper. "You have betrayed me, and I cannot afford to trust you again. Do you know what I am going to do?" She tried to turn her head, but his hand was heavy on her throat. She strained frightfully to move, and her stony eyes lit up with a dying glare of terror. "Do it quickly!" she gasped. "Hush!" His hand tightened on her throat. "If you were in Salta, you should die by tenths of inches, if it took all night! That would be too good for you." He spat in her face as she writhed under his grasp. He looked into her living eyes once more with all the cowardly hate that possessed him, he struck deep and sure, he saw the light break in the pupils, and heard the awful rattle of her last breath. In an instant he was at the window, and had thrown it wide open. He got out quickly, let himself down with his hands, and pushed himself away from the wall with his feet as he jumped down backwards, well knowing that there was grass below him, and that the earth was as soft as sponge with the long rain. He was sure that he could not hurt himself. Yet before his feet touched the ground he had uttered a low cry of fear. He was on his legs now and trying to run, but it was too late. There was the flash of a lantern in the wet garden, and between him and the light, and just below it, he saw two points of greenish fire coming at him; for he saw everything then; and he heard the rush of a heavy beast's feet, tearing up the earth with iron claws, and the savage breath, and the loud hiss of a man setting the creature on; for he heard every sound then; and he knew that the thing of terror would leap up with resistless strength and hurl its weight upon him, and bury its jagged fangs in his throat and tear him, in an instant that would seem like an hour of agony, and that the pain and the fear would be as if he were hung up by all the nerves of his body, drawn out and twisted; for he knew everything then; and in that immeasurable time which is nothing, and yet is infinite, he remembered his evil life, his robberies, his murders, and his betrayals, one by one, but he remembered with most frightful clearness how he had tried to kill Marcello, how he had corrupted him from his childhood, with bad counsels very cunningly, and prepared him to go astray, how he had thrust evil in his path and laughed away the good, and had led him on, and poisoned him, and would have brought him to his death and damnation surely, but for one sinning devoted woman that loved him; for he remembered everything then; and from very far away, out of memories of his youth, there came a voice that had once been gentle and kind, but that rang in his ears now, like the blast of the trumpet of the last judgment. "Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." Far better, indeed, for it all came, when the immeasurable second's length was past, and he was thrown down against the wall, and torn, and shaken like a rat; it all came just as he had felt that it was coming, and it lasted long, a long, long time, while he tried to howl, and the blood only gurgled in his throat. And then, just as many strong hands dragged away the thing of terror, and the light of a lantern and of a lamp flashed in his eyes, he fell asleep in the wet grass. For they had caught him fairly and brought him, down. Kalmon had watched him long, and had told some of his suspicions to the Chief of Police, and the latter, unknown to Kalmon, had caused him to be watched from time to time. But he, who had been watched before and had once already escaped for his life, had sometimes seen faces near him that he did not trust, and when he had turned back from the station that afternoon he had seen one of those faces; so he had driven away quickly in a cab, by winding ways, so as not to be followed. Yet Kalmon and Marcello, talking as they drove, grew more and more sure that he would wish to see Settimia before he left Rome, the more certainly if he believed himself pursued, as seemed likely from his changing his mind at the station. So they had stopped their cab before they had reached their destination, and had sent Ercole back to Trastevere with the key of the garden gate, bidding him watch, as it was most probable that Corbario would try to get out through the garden; and before long they had come back to the door of the house that opened upon the street, and had let themselves in quietly, just in time to hear the noise of the struggle as the dog threw Corbario to the ground. For the other entrance to the little vestibule opened upon the garden within, at the very spot where Corbario alighted when he jumped from the window. And now they stood there in the rain round the wounded man, while Marcello held the lantern to his face, and Regina thrust a lamp out of the lower window which she had thrown open. "Is he dead?" she asked, in the silence that followed when Ercole had got control of the dog again. At the sound of her voice Ercole started strangely and looked up to her face that was not far above his own, and his eyes fixed themselves upon her so intently that she looked down at him, while she still held out her lamp. She could not remember that she had ever seen him; but he had seen her many times since he had made his visit to the inn on the Frascati road. "Is he dead?" she repeated, putting the question directly to him as he was nearest. Still he looked at her in silence, with his deep-set, unwinking eyes. Marcello and Kalmon were bending over Corbario, Marcello holding the lantern, while the Professor listened for the beating of the heart and felt the pulse. They paid no attention to Regina for the moment. "Why don't you speak?" she asked, surprised by Ercole's silent stare. "You don't know me," he said slowly, "but I know you." The rain was beating upon her lamp, and at that moment the shade cracked under the cold drops and fell to pieces, and the wind instantly extinguished the flame of the flaring wick. Regina withdrew into the room to get another light, and Ercole stared after her into the gloom. "He is alive," said Kalmon, looking up to see why the light had gone out. "We must get him inside at once, or he will die here. Come, Ercole! Make that dog lie down and keep quiet." Between them they carried Corbario into the house. Nino watched on the step in the rain, but when the door was shut behind him, he crawled down to the wet grass and lapped the blood and water in the dark. They carried Corbario upstairs to an empty room there was, and as they went Regina tried to tell Marcello what she had done. They opened Settimia's door, which was still locked, and they found her quite dead, and the window was wide open; then Regina understood that Corbario had been hidden within hearing, and had killed the woman because she had confessed. The men who had been sent from the central police station at Kalmon's request arrived a few minutes later. One was at once sent for a surgeon and for more men; the other remained. Soon the little house was full of officials, in uniform and in plain clothes. They examined everything, they wrote rapidly on big sheets of stamped paper; their chief took the first deposition of Regina, and of the three men, and of the surgeon. At dawn a man came with a rough pine coffin. Officials came and went, and were gravely busy. One man spoke of coffee when it was day, and went and made some in the little kitchen, for the two young women who cooked and did the work of the house did not sleep there, and would not come till past seven o'clock. During the long hours, when Regina and Marcello were not wanted, they were together in the sitting-room downstairs. Regina told Marcello in detail everything she knew about the events of the night, and much which she had found out earlier about Settimia but had never told him. Kalmon came in from time to time and told them what was going on, and that Corbario was still alive; but they saw no more of Ercole. He had made his first deposition, to the effect that he had been set to watch the house, that the murderer had jumped from an upper window, and that the dog had pulled him down. The officials looked nervously at the dog, produced by Ercole in evidence, and were glad when the beast was out of their sight. There were dark stains about the bristles on his jaws, and his eyes were bloodshot; but Ercole laid one hand on his uncouth head, and he was very quiet, and did not even snarl at the policemen. Regina and Marcello sat side by side, talking in a low voice, and looking at each other now and then. The little house in which they had been happy was turned to a place of death and horror, and both knew that some change was coming to themselves. "You cannot live here any more," Marcello said at dawn, "not even till to-night." "Where could I go?" Regina asked. "Why should I not stay here? Do you think I am afraid of the dead woman?" "No," Marcello answered, "but you cannot stay here." He guessed what talking and gossiping there would be when the newspapers told what had happened in the little house, how the reporters would hang about the street for a week to come, and how fashionable people would go out of their way to see the place where a murder had been committed by such a well-known person as Corbario, and where he had been taken almost in the very act, and himself nearly killed. Besides all that, there would be the public curiosity about Regina, who had been so intimately concerned in a part of the tragedy, and whose name was everywhere associated with his own. He would have taken her away from Rome at once, if he could have done so. But he knew that they would both be called upon during the next few days to repeat in court the evidence they had already given in their first deposition. There was sure to be the most frightful publicity about the whole affair, of which reports would be published not only in Rome but throughout Italy, and all over the world. In real life the consequences of events generally have the importance which fiction is obliged to give the events themselves; which is the reason why the things that happen to real people rarely come to any precise conclusion, like those reached by a play or a novel. The "conclusion" lies in the lives of the people, after the tragedy, or the drama, or the comedy has violently upset their existences. "You cannot stay here," Marcello repeated with conviction. "You will go on living at your villa," Regina answered. "Why should I not go on living in this house? For a few days I will not go out, that is all. Is it the end of the world because a person has been killed who ought to have died in the galleys? Or because the man who tried to kill you was caught in a place that belongs to you? Tell me that." "You cannot stay here," Marcello repeated a third time. For a while Regina was silent. They were both very white and heavy-eyed in the cold daylight, though they could not have slept. At last she looked at him thoughtfully. "If we were married, we should go on living in our own house," she said. "Is it true, or not? It is because there will be talking that you are ashamed to let me stay where I am, and would like to get me away. This is the truth. I know it." Marcello knew it too and did not answer at once, for it was not easy to decide what he ought to do. The problem that had seemed so hard to solve a few hours earlier was fast getting altogether beyond solution. There was only one thing to be done in the first present difficulty; he must take Regina to some other place at once. No doubt this was easy enough. He would take an apartment for her elsewhere, as far as possible from the scene of the tragedy, and in a few hours she could be installed there out of the way of annoyance. He could buy a house for her if he chose, for he was very rich. Possibly some house already belonging to him was vacant; his lawyer would know. But after that, what was to come? If Corbario lived, there would be a sensational trial in which he and Regina would be witnesses together, and Kalmon too, and very surely Aurora and her mother. For Aurora would be called upon to tell what she knew of Marcello's movements on the morning when he had been knocked down near the gap. Every moment of his past life would be publicly examined, to prove Corbario's guilt. Worse than that, there would be a long inquiry to show that Corbario had murdered his mother. Skilled surgeons were tending the man's wounds and reviving him by every means that science could suggest. Kalmon said that he might live. He was being kept alive in order to be condemned to the expiation of his crimes in penal servitude, since Italian law could not make him pay for them with his life. The man would be watched by day and night, lest he should try to commit suicide, for he was to suffer, if he lived. He was to suffer horribly, without doubt, and it was right and just that he should. But Marcello would suffer too. That was not just. The name of his saintly mother would be in the mouths of all kinds of witnesses, in the columns of all sorts of newspapers. Lawyers would make speeches about her to excite the pity of the jury and to turn the whole tide of feeling against Corbario. Marcello would himself be held up to public commiseration, as one of Corbario's victims. There would be allusions covert and open to Regina and to the position in which she stood to Marcello. There would be talk about Aurora. People would suddenly remember her mother's sad story and gossip about her; people would certainly say that there had been talk about marrying Aurora to Marcello, and that Regina had come between them. Yes, there would be much talk about Aurora; that was certain. All this was coming, and was not far off, if Corbario lived; and even if he died there would be a vast amount said and written about all the people concerned. And Regina was there, beside him, telling him that if they were married they could go on living in the little house, just as if nothing had happened. It was not true, but he could not find heart to tell her so. It was the first time that any suggestion of marriage had come from her, who had always told him that marriage was impossible. If she wished it now, could he refuse? Suddenly he knew that he had reached one of the great cross-roads in his life, and that fate had dragged him violently to it within the last few hours, to make him choose his way. The full-grown character of the man rebelled against being forced to a decision in spite of himself, but revolted at the thought of fearing to do what was right and honourable. He was not hesitating as he sat still in silence after Regina had spoken. He was thinking, with the firm determination to act as soon as he had reached a decision. When a man can do that, his weakness is past. Regina did not interrupt the current of his thoughts, and as she watched him she forgot all about the present; and they were just together, where they had so often been happy, and she loved him with all her heart. That was her strength. It had nothing to do with right or wrong, honour or dishonour, credit or discredit, or any choice of ways. She had no choice. She loved. It was a very simple thing. He looked up at last. She was still wearing the loose dressing-gown she had worn all night. "Could you sleep now?" he asked. "No." "Then you must dress," he said. "While you are dressing I will walk up to the villa and give some orders. Then I will come and get you in a closed carriage. Put together what you may need for the day, and I will have all your things moved before night." "Are you really going to take me away from here?" Regina asked, regretfully. "Yes. I must. It will be easy to find a place that will please you better. Will you do as I have said?" "Why do you ask? I go." She rose and stood beside him a moment while he sat still, and her hand caressed his short fair hair. She bent down and kissed the close waves of it, near his forehead. "We have been very happy here," she said quietly. She slipped away as he rose to his feet, with the sudden conviction that something had happened. "What is it?" he asked quickly, and making a step after her. "I am going to dress," she answered. She turned her head and smiled, but there was a touch of sadness in the look, as if she was saying good-bye. He partly understood, and her expression was reflected in his own face. They had been so happy in the little house in Trastevere. When the door had closed Marcello went to find Kalmon. He met him at the foot of the stairs. "The fellow is alive, and will probably recover," said the Professor, in answer to the unasked question in Marcello's eyes. "It would simplify matters if he died," said Marcello. "Will you walk up to the villa with me and have coffee? We cannot get a cab at this hour on this side of the Tiber." "Thank you," Kalmon answered, "but I must go home. The house is in charge of the police, and there is nothing more to be done here. They have already taken the woman's body to San Spirito, and they will move Corbario in a few hours. He is badly mauled, but no big arteries are torn. I must go home and write a letter. The Contessa must not hear what has happened through the newspapers." "No. Certainly not. As for me, I am going to take Regina away at once. I shall bring my own carriage down from the villa." "By the bye," Kalmon said, "I had thought of that. The house in which I live is divided into many small apartments. There is a very good one to let, decently furnished. I thought of taking it myself, and I looked at it yesterday. You might put the young lady there until you can find what you may prefer. She can move in at once." "Nothing could be better. If you are going home, will you say that I take the place and will be there in an hour? No. 16, Via Sicilia, is it not?" "Yes. I'll see to it. Shall I take the lease in your name?" "No. Any name will do better. The reporters would find her at once under mine." "I'll use my own," said the Professor. "I'll say that she is a lady who has arrived to consult me--I daresay she will--and that I'm responsible for her." "Thank you," answered Marcello gratefully. "And thank you for all that you have done to help me." "My dear Marcello," Kalmon said, smiling cheerfully, "in the first place, I have done nothing to help you, and secondly, through excess of zeal, I have got you into a very unpleasant situation, by indirectly causing a woman to be murdered in your house, and the murderer almost mauled to death by that very singular wild beast which your man calls a dog, and which I had often noticed in old times at the cottage. So there is nothing at all to thank me for, though I am most heartily at your service." The Professor was positively in high spirits just then, and Marcello envied him as they parted and took opposite directions. Though the Via Sicilia was a long way from the Janiculum, Marcello had been only too glad to accept Kalmon's suggestion at such a moment. Regina would feel that she was protected by Marcello's friend, and though she might rarely see him, it would be better for her than to be lodged in a house where she knew no one. Kalmon was a bachelor and a man of assured position, and it had cost him nothing to undertake to give Regina his protection; but Marcello was deeply grateful. He had already made up his mind as to what he would do next. It had stopped raining at last, and the wind had fallen to a soft breeze that bore the morning mist gently away towards the sea, and hardly stirred the wet leaves that strewed the road all the way up to San Pietro in Montorio. Marcello found the gate of the villa already open, for it was nearly eight o'clock by the time he got there. He summoned the servants to the library, told them briefly what had happened, and warned them that they might be summoned as witnesses at the coming trial, as most of them had been in his mother's service. In the days before Corbario had lost his head, and when he had controlled the household, it had been a part of his policy to have really respectable servants about him, and though some of them had never quite trusted him, they had all been devoted to the Signora and to Marcello. They listened in respectful silence now, and waited till he was out of the house before meeting to discuss the tragedy and to decide that Corbario had got his deserts at last. In a few hours Regina was installed in her new lodging with such belongings as she needed immediately. Kalmon, having finished writing his letter to the Contessa, left nothing undone which could contribute to the comfort of the "lady who had arrived to consult him." He had a respectable old woman servant, who had been with him for years, and who came from his native town. He took her into his confidence to some extent, and placed her in charge of Regina. As she thought that everything he did must be right, she accepted his statement that the young gentleman who would often come to see the young lady was deeply interested in the latter's welfare, and that, as the poor young lady had no relations, he, the Professor, had taken her under his protection while she remained in Rome. The old servant's name was Teresa, and she belonged to a certain type of elderly old maids who take a very kindly interest in the love affairs of the young. She smiled, shook her head in a very mild disapprobation, and did much more than Kalmon had asked of her; for she took the very first opportunity of informing Regina that the Professor was the greatest, wisest, best, and kindest of mankind; and Regina recognised in her a loyal soul, and forthwith liked her very much. It was late in the November afternoon when Marcello ascended the stairs and stopped before the door of the little apartment. He realised that he had no key to it, and that he must ring the bell as if he were a mere visitor. It was strange that such a little thing should affect him at all, but he was conscious of a sort of chill, as he pulled the metal handle and heard the tinkling of one of those cheap little bells that feebly imitate their electric betters by means of a rachet and a small weighted wheel. It was all so different from the little house in Trastevere with its bright varnished doors, its patent locks, its smart windows, and its lovely old garden. He wished he had not brought Regina to Via Sicilia, though Kalmon's advice had seemed so good. To Kalmon, who was used to no great luxury in his own life, the place doubtless seemed very well suited for a young person like Regina, who had been brought up a poor child in the hills. But the mere anticipation of the dark and narrow entry, and the sordid little sitting-room beyond, awoke in Marcello a sense of shame, whether for himself or for the woman who loved him he hardly knew. Old Teresa had gone out for something, and Regina opened the door herself. CHAPTER XX "I have come to see if you need anything," Marcello said, when they were in the sitting-room. "I am sorry to have been obliged to bring you to such a wretched place, but it seemed a good thing that you should be so near Kalmon." "It is not a wretched place," Regina answered. "It is clean, and the things are new, and the curtains have been washed. It is not wretched. We have been in worse lodgings when we have travelled and stopped in small towns. Professor Kalmon has been very kind. It was wise to bring me here." He wished she had seemed discontented. "Have you rested a little?" he asked. "I have slept two or three hours. And you? You look tired." "I have had no time to sleep. I shall sleep to-night." He leaned back in the small green arm-chair and rested his head against a coarse netted antimacassar. His eyes caught Regina's, but she was looking down thoughtfully at her hands, which lay in her lap together but not clasped. Peasant women often do that; their hands are resting then, after hard work, and they are thinking of nothing. "Look at me," Marcello said after a long time. Her glance was sad and almost dull, and there was no light in her face. She had made up her mind that something dreadful was going to happen to her, and that the end was coming soon. She could not have told why she felt it, and that made it worse. Her eyes had the indescribable look that one sees in those of a beautiful sick animal, the painful expression of an unintelligent suffering which the creature cannot understand. Regina, roused to act and face to face with danger, was brave, clever, and quick, but under the mysterious oppression of her forebodings she was the Roman hill woman, apathetic, hopeless, unconsciously fatalistic and sleepily miserable. "What is the matter?" Marcello asked. "What has happened?" "I shall know when you have told me," Regina answered, slowly shaking her head; and again she looked down at her hands. "What I have come to tell you will not make you sad," Marcello replied. "Speak, heart of my heart. I listen." Marcello leaned forward and laid his hand upon hers. She looked up quietly, for it was a familiar action of his. "I am going to marry you," he said, watching her, and speaking earnestly. She kept her eyes on his, but she shook her head again, slowly, from side to side, and her lips were pressed together. "Yes, I am," said Marcello, with a little pressure of his hand to emphasise the words. But she withdrew hers, and leaned far back from him. "Never," she said. "I have told you so, many times." "Not if I tell you that nothing else will make me happy?" he asked. "If I still made you happy, you would not talk of marriage," Regina answered. For the first time since she had loved him he heard a ring of bitterness in her voice. They had reached that first node of misunderstanding in the love relations of men and women, which lies where the one begins to think and act upon a principle while the other still feels and acts from the heart. "That is not reasonable," Marcello said. "It is truth," she answered. "But how?" "How! I feel it, here!" Her hands sprang to life and pressed her bosom, her voice rang deep and her eyes flashed, as if she were impatient of his misunderstanding. He tried to laugh gently. "But if I want to marry you, it is because I mean never to part from you," he said. "No!" she cried. "It is because you are afraid that you will leave me, unless you are bound to me." "Regina!" Marcello protested, by his tone. "It is as I say. It is because you are honourable. It is because you wish to be faithful. It is because you want to be true. But what do I care for honour, or faith, or truth, if I can only have them of you because you are tied to me? I only want love. That is everything. I want it, but I have never asked it of you, and never shall. Is love money, that you can take it out of your purse and give it? Is love a string, that the priest and the mayor can tie the ends so that they can never come undone? I do not know what it is, but it is not that!" She laughed scornfully, as if she were angry at the thought. But Marcello had made up his mind, and was obstinate. "We must be married at once," he said quietly, and fully believing that he could impose his will upon hers. "If I had not been weak and foolish, we should have been married long ago. But for a long time after my illness I had no will of my own. I am sorry. It was my fault." "It was not your fault, it was the illness, and it was my will. If I had said, any day in those first two years, 'Make me your wife, for I wish to be a real signora,' would you not have done it?" "You know I would." "But I would not, and I will not now. I am not a real signora. I am beautiful--yes, I see that. Am I blind when I look into my glass? I am very beautiful. We have not often met any woman in our travels as beautiful as I am. Am I blind? I have black hair, like the common people, but my hair is not coarse, like a mule's tail. It is as fine as silk. My eyes are black, and that is common too; but my eyes are not like those of the buffaloes in the Campagna, as the other women's are where I was born. And I am not dark-skinned; I am as white as the snow on Monte Cavo, as white as the milk in the pan. Also I have been told that I have beautiful feet, though I cannot tell why. They are small, this is the truth, and my hands are like those of a signora. But I am not a real signora, though I have all this. How can you marry me? None of your friends would speak to me, because I have not even been an honest girl. That was for you, but they do not count love. Your servants at the villa would laugh at you behind your back, and say, 'The master has married one of us!' Do you think I could bear that? Tell me what you think! Am I of stone, to bear that people should laugh at you?" She took breath at last and leaned back again, folding her arms and fixing her splendid eyes on his face, and challenging him to answer her. "We will go and live in Calabria, at San Domenico, for a while," he said. "We need not live in Rome at all, unless we please, for we have the whole world before us." "We saw the world together without being married," Regina answered obstinately. "What difference would there be, if we were husband and wife? Do you wish to know what difference there would be? I will tell you. There would be this difference. One day I should see no light in your eyes, and your lips would be like stone. Then I should say, 'Heart of my heart, you are tired of me, and I go.' But you would answer, 'You cannot go, for you are my wife.' What would that be? That would be the difference. Do you understand, or do you not understand? If you do not understand, I can do nothing. But I will not marry you. Have you ever seen a mule go down to the ford in spring, too heavily laden, when there is freshet? He drowns, if he is driven in, because the burden is too heavy. I will not be the burden; but I should be, if I were your wife, because I am not a real signora. Now you know what I think." "Yes," Marcello answered, "but I do not think in the same way." He was not sure how to answer her arguments, and he lit a cigarette to gain time. He was quietly determined to have his own way, but in order to succeed he knew that he must persuade her till she agreed with him. He could not drag her to the altar against her will. Before he had thrown away the match, Regina had risen from her chair. She leaned against the little marble mantelpiece, looking down at him. "There are things that you do not know," she said. "If you knew them you would not want to marry me. In all the time we have been together, you have hardly ever spoken to me of your mother." Marcello started a little and looked up, unconsciously showing that he was displeased. "No," he answered. "Why should I?" "You were right. Your mother is now one of the saints in Paradise. How do I know it? Even Settimia knew it. I am not going to talk of her now. I am not fit to speak her name in your hearing. Very well. Do you know what my mother was?" "She is dead," Marcello replied, meaning that Regina should let her memory alone. "Or my father?" she asked, going on. "They were bad people. I come of a bad race. Perhaps that is why I do wrong easily, for you. My father killed a man and left us, though he was allowed to go free, and I never saw him again. He had reason to kill the man. I was a little girl, but I remember. My mother took other men. They came and went; sometimes they were drunk and they beat us. When I was twelve years old one of them looked upon me with bad eyes. Then my mother cursed him, and he took up a stone and struck her on the head, and she died. They sent him to the galleys, and me to work at the inn, because I had no friends. This is the family of Regina. It is a race of assassins and wicked women. If I were your wife, that would be the family of your wife. If God sent children, that would be the blood they would have of me, to mix with that of your mother, who is one of the saints in heaven. This is the truth. If you think I am telling you one thing for another, let us go to the inn on the Frascati road. Paoluccio and Nanna know. They would laugh if they could see me dressed like a real signora, and they would say, 'This girl is her mother's daughter!' And so I am." She ceased speaking, and again waited for his answer, but he had none ready, and there was silence. She had put the ugly truth too plainly before him, and he could not shut up his understanding against it; he could not deny what she said, he could never teach himself to believe that it did not matter. And yet, he did not mean to draw back, or give up his purpose, even then. Men of good birth had married peasant women before now. They had given up the society of their old friends, they had lived in remote places, they had become half peasants themselves, their sons had grown up to be rough farmers, and had done obligatory military service in the ranks for years, because they could not pass an easy examination. But was all that so very terrible after all, in the light of the duty that faced him? The woman had saved his life, had carried him in her arms, had tended him like a child, had stolen food to keep him alive, had faced starvation for him when she had got him to the hospital, had nursed him--had loved him, had given him all she had, and she would have died for him, if there had been need. Now, she was giving him something more, for she was refusing to be his wife because she was sure that sooner or later she must be a burden to him, and that her birth would be a reproach to his children. No woman could do more for a man than she had done. She had been his salvation and his good angel; when she had found out that the life in Paris that amused her was killing him, she had brought him back to himself, she had made him at last fit and able to face those who would have destroyed him. She had loved him like a woman, she had obeyed him and served him like a devoted servant, she had watched over him like a faithful dog; and he had given her nothing in return for all that, not one thing that deserved to be counted. Perhaps he had not even really loved her; most surely his love had been far less large and true and devoted than hers, and he felt that it was so. The reparation he was determined to make was not really for her honesty's sake; it was to be an attempt at repaying a debt that was weighing upon his conscience like a debt of honour. That was it. He felt that unless he could in some way repay her for what she had done, his man's honour would not be satisfied. That was very well, in its way, but it was not love. It was as if he had said to himself, "I cannot love her as she loves me, but I can at least marry her; and that is better than nothing, and has the merit of being morally right." She had told him that if she still made him happy he would not talk of marriage. The brutal truth shamed him, now that he knew it from her own lips. It was not the whole truth, but it was a great part of it. If he was happy with her now, when there was nothing to disturb them, it was by force of habit, it was because her beauty appealed to him, it was because her touch was dearer to him than her heart's devotion. Now that he was a grown man, he knew well enough that he craved something else which poor Regina could never give him. For he felt the want of companionship. Those who have lost what is most worth having, whether by death or by their own fault, or by the other's, miss the companionship of love more than anything else, when the pain of the first wrench is dulled and the heart's blood is staunched, and the dreadful bodily loneliness comes only in dreams. Then the longing for the old sweet intercourse of thought and word makes itself felt and is very hard to bear, though it is not sharp like the first wound; and it comes again and again for years, and perhaps for ever. But where there is no true companionship while love lasts, there is something lacking, and such love cannot live long. Men seem to want it more than women do; and women, seeing that men want something, often fancy they want flattery, and natter the men they love till they disgust them; and then the end comes suddenly, much to the astonishment of those women. Regina was too womanly not to feel that Marcello was in real need of something which she had not, and could never have. She had known it from the first, and had almost told him so. She gave what was hers to give, as long as he wanted it; when he wanted it no more, she meant to leave him, and it would make no difference what became of her afterwards. When she had finished speaking, Marcello was very miserable, because he could find no answer to what she had said, and he felt that she had no right to say it at all. His head ached now, from excitement and want of sleep, and he almost wished that he had put off speaking to Regina about her marriage. He rested his head in his hand as he sat thinking, and she came and stood beside him as she had done in the morning in the little house in Trastevere. But it was not the same now. She hoped that he would put up his other hand to find hers, without looking at her, as he often did, but it gripped his knee as if he did not mean to move it, and he did not raise his head. She looked up from his bent figure to the window and saw that the light was reddening with the first tinge of sunset. It would soon be night, Marcello would go away, and she would be dreadfully lonely. It was not like being in the little house, knowing that he was near her, in the great villa on top of the hill, hidden from her only by trees. She was in a strange place now, and he would be far away, across the Tiber, and the great dark city would be between her and him. For an instant her lip quivered, and she thought she was going to cry, though she had never cried in her life, except for rage and when she had been a little girl. She shook her handsome head impatiently at the mere sensation, and held it higher than ever. Then Marcello looked up at last. As their eyes met they heard the tinkle of the little bell. Regina at once left his side to go and open the door. It was not till she had left the room that Marcello rose, asking himself suddenly why it had not occurred to him to go himself. He realised that he had always allowed her to wait on him without question. Yet if she were his wife, he would not think of letting her do what she was doing now. He would even open the door of the room for her to go out. He knew why he had never treated her in that way. She was a peasant girl, she had been a servant in an inn; it was natural that she should serve him too. She often brought him his shoes when he was going out, and she would have put them on for him and laced them if he would have let her do it. It seemed natural that she should answer the bell and open the door, as it seemed unnatural that she should ever be his wife. The thought stung him, and again, he was ashamed. While these things were passing in his mind, he heard a familiar voice in the dark entry. "Signora, you will excuse me," Ercole was saying. "I asked the Professor and he told me. I beg the favour of a few words." "Come in," Regina answered, and a moment later they both entered the sitting-room. Ercole stood still when he saw Marcello, and began to turn his hat in his hands, as if it were a rosary, which he generally did when he was embarrassed. Marcello wondered what the man wanted. "Were you looking for me?" he asked. "Come in! What is it? Has anything happened?" "No, sir, nothing new has happened," answered Ercole. "What is it, then? Why did you come here?" Ercole had dressed himself for the occasion in his best clothes. He had on a snowy shirt and a new keeper's jacket, and his boots were blacked. Furthermore, he had just been shaved, and his shaggy hair had been cut rather close. He did not carry his gun about with him in the streets of Rome, though he felt that it was slightly derogatory to his dignity to be seen without it, and Nino was not with him, having been temporarily chained to the wall in the court of the stables at the villa. He stood still, and looked from Marcello to Regina, and back to Marcello again. "It cannot be done," he said suddenly. "It is useless. It cannot be done." Without another word he turned abruptly and was going to leave the room, when Marcello stopped him authoritatively. "Come here, Ercole!" he cried, as the man was disappearing into the entry. "Did you speak to me, sir?" Ercole inquired, stopping in the doorway. "Yes. Shut the door and come here." Ercole obeyed with evident reluctance. "Now, then," Marcello continued, "come here and tell me what you want, and what it is that cannot be done." "I desire a few words with this lady, and I did not know that you were here, sir. Therefore I said, it cannot be done. I mean that while you are here, sir, I cannot speak alone with this lady." "That is clear," Marcello answered. "You cannot be alone with this lady while I am in the room. That certainly cannot be done. Why do you wish to be alone with her? You can speak before me." "It will not be so easy, sir. I will come at another time." "No," Marcello answered, not liking his manner. "You will say what you have to say now, or you will say nothing, for you will not come at another time. The lady will not let you in, if you come again. Now speak." "It will be a little difficult, sir. I would rather speak to the lady alone." Regina had stood listening in silence, and looking intently at Ercole's face. "Let me speak to him," she said to Marcello. "What is your full name?" she asked, turning to Ercole again. "Spalletta Ercole, to serve you," was the prompt answer. "Spalletta?" Marcello asked in surprise, for strange as it may seem to any but Italians, it was quite natural that he should never have known Ercole's family name. "Spalletta? That is your own name, Regina! What a strange coincidence!" "Yes," Ercole said. "I know that the young lady's name is Spalletta. It is for this reason that I desire the favour of a few words with her alone." "There is no need," Regina answered. "Since we have the same name, there is no doubt. I remember your face now, though until last night I had not seen you since I was a little child. Yes. I know what you have come to say, and it is quite true." "What?" asked Marcello with some anxiety. "This man is my father," Regina said, very quietly. "Your father!" Marcello made half a step backwards in his surprise. "Yes. I have told you what he did." She turned to Ercole. "What do you want of me? Is it money that you want, perhaps?" Ercole stiffened himself and seemed to grow taller. His black eyes flashed dangerously, and his heavy eyebrows were suddenly stern and level, as Regina's were. "You are your mother's daughter," he said slowly. "Did I take money from her? I took blood, and when I was tried for it, I was set free. I was told that it was my right under our law. I do not want money. I have brought you money. There it is. It will buy you some bread when your lover turns you into the street!" He took out his old sheepskin purse with a quick movement, and laughed harshly as he tossed it at her. Marcello sprang forward and caught him by the collar, to thrust him out of the room; but Ercole was tough and wiry, and resisted. "Will you hinder me from giving money to my daughter?" he asked fiercely. "It was yours, for you paid it to me; but when I knew, I saved my wages to give them back, for I will not take your money, sir! Take your hands from me, sir! I have a right to be here and to speak. Let me go, I tell you! I am not in your service any longer. I do not eat your cursed bread. I am this woman's father, and I shall say what I will." Marcello withdrew his hands and pointed to the door. "Go!" he said, in a voice of command. Ercole backed away a little, and then stood still again. "I have to tell you that I have spent five francs of that money," he said, speaking to Regina. "But it was spent for you. I found a good monk, and I gave him the five francs to say three masses for your soul. The masses were said in August, and now it is November, and you are still alive!" "Go!" cried Marcello, understanding, and advancing upon him once more. "I go," answered Ercole hoarsely. "Let her live, till you are tired of her, and she dies in a ditch! I told the monk to say the masses for a female. They will do for the woman who was killed last night. One female is worth another, and evil befall them all, as many as they are! Why did the Eternal Father ever create them?" He had turned before he spoke the last words, and he went out deliberately, shutting the door behind him. They heard him go out upon the landing, and they were alone again. Regina leaned back against the mantelpiece, but Marcello began to walk up and down the room. "You have seen," she said, in a rather unsteady voice. "Now you know of what blood I am, and that what I said was true. The son of your mother cannot marry the daughter of that man." "What have you to do with him?" Marcello asked sharply, stopping in his walk. But Regina only shook her head, and turned away. She knew that she was right, and that he knew it too, or would know it soon. "You will never see him again," he said. "Forget that you have seen him at all!" Again she shook her head, not looking at him. "You will not forget," she answered, "and I shall always remember. He should have killed me, as he meant to do. It would have been the end. It would have been better, and quicker." "God forbid!" "Why? Would it not have been better?" She came close to him and laid one hand upon his shoulder and gazed into his eyes. They were full of trouble and pain, and they did not lighten for her; his brow did not relax and his lips did not part. After a little while she turned again and went back to the fireplace. "It would have been better," she said in a low voice. "I knew it this morning." There was silence in the room for a while. Marcello stood beside her, holding her hand in his, and trying to see her face. He was very tender with her, but there was no thrill in his touch. Something was gone that would never come back. "When all this trouble is over," he said at last, "you shall go back to the little house in Trastevere, and it will be just as it was before." She raised her head rather proudly, as she answered. "If that could be, it would be now. You would have taken me in your arms when he was gone, and you would have kissed my eyes and my hair, and we should have been happy, just as it was before. But instead, you want to comfort me, you want to be kind to me, you want to be just to me, instead of loving me!" "Regina! I do love you! I do indeed!" He would have put his arms round her to draw her closer to him, in the sudden longing to make her think that there was no change in his love, but she quietly resisted him. "You have been very good to me, dear," she said, "and I know you will always be that, whatever comes. And I am always yours, dear, and you are the master, whenever you choose to come and see me. For I care for nothing that God has made, except you. But it will never be just as it used to be." "It shall!" Marcello tried to put conviction into the words. "It shall! It shall!" "It cannot, my heart," she answered. "I used to say that when this came, I would go away. But I will not do that, unless you bid me to, for I think you would be sorry, and I should be giving you more pain, and you have enough. Only leave me a little while alone, dear, for I am very tired, and it is growing late." He took her hands and kissed them one after the other, and looked into her face. His own was very weary. "Promise me that I shall find you here to-morrow," he said. "You shall find me," she answered softly. They parted so, and he left her alone, in the dark, for the glow of the sunset had faded and the early November evening was closing in. Old Teresa came and brought a lamp, and drew the curtains, and gave her a message from Kalmon. If she needed anything she was to send for him, and he would come at once. She thanked Teresa. It was very kind of the Professor, but she needed nothing. Not even a fire; no, she hardly ever felt cold. Teresa brought something to eat, and set the little table for her. She was not hungry, and she was glad when the good soul was gone. She could open the windows when she was alone, and look out into the silent street. There was moonlight now, and it fell across the walls and trees of the Villa Aurora upon her face. It was a young moon, that would set before midnight, but it was very clear and bright, and the sky was infinitely deep and very clear behind it. Regina fancied that if there were really angels in heaven, she should be able to see them on such a night. If she had been in Trastevere she would have gone out to walk up and down the old paved paths of the little garden, for she could not sleep, though she was so tired. The lamp disturbed her and she put it out, and sat down by the window again. It was very quiet now, for it was past nine o'clock. She heard a step, and it almost surprised her. A man with a big dog was walking in the shadow on the other side of the street, and when he was opposite the house he stood still and looked up at her window. He did not move for some time, but the dog came out into the moonlight in a leisurely way, and lay down on the paving stones. All dogs think it is warmer in the light than in the shadow. Regina rose, got a long black cloak and a dark veil without lighting a candle, and put them on. Then she went out. CHAPTER XXI Ercole walked on when he saw some one come out of No. 16, for he did not recognise Regina. She followed him at a distance. Even if he should pass where there might be many people, she would not lose sight of him easily because he had his dog with him. She noticed that his canvas bag was hung over one shoulder and that it seemed to be full, and his gun was slung over the other. He meant to leave Rome that night on foot. He walked fast through the new streets in the upper quarter, turned to the right when he reached the Via Venti Settembre, and went straight on, past the top of the hill, and along the Quirinal Palace; then down and on, down and on, through moonlight and shadow, winding streets and straight, till the Colosseum was in sight. He was going towards the Porta San Sebastiano to take the road to Ardea. The air was very clear, and the moonlight made the broad space as bright as if there were daylight. Regina walked fast, and began to overtake her father, and the dog turned his head and growled at the tall woman in black. She came up with Ercole by the ruin of the ancient fountain, and the dog snarled at her. Ercole stopped and looked at her sharply, and she raised her veil. "I have followed you," she said. "We are alone here. We can talk in peace." "And what am I to say to you?" Ercole asked, in a low and surly voice. "What you will, little or much, as you please. You shall speak, and I will listen. But we can walk on under the trees there. Then nobody can see us." Ercole began to go on, and Regina walked on his left side. The dog sniffed at the hem of her long black cloak. They came under the shade of the trees, and Ercole stopped again, and turned, facing the reflection of the moonlight on the vast curve of the Colosseum. "What do you want of me?" he asked. "Why do you follow me in the night?" "When you saw that the Signore was with me to-day, you said, 'It cannot be done.' He is not here now." She stood quite still, looking at him. "I understand nothing," he said, in the same surly tone as before. "You wished to kill me to-day," she answered. "I am here. This is a good place." Ercole looked about him instinctively, peering into the shadows under the trees. "There is no one," Regina said. "This is a good place." She had not lifted her veil, but she threw back the collar of her cloak, and with quick fingers undid the fastenings of her dress, opening it wide. Rays of moonlight fell through the trees upon her bosom, and it gleamed like fine ivory newly cut. "I wait," she said. She stood motionless before him, expecting the knife, but her father's hands did not move. His eyes were fixed on hers, though he could not see them through the veil. "So he has left you?" he said slowly. "No. I am waiting." Not a fold of her cloak stirred as she stood there to die. It seemed a long time, but his hands did not move. Then he heard the sound of her voice, very low and sweet, repeating a little prayer, but he only heard the last words distinctly. "--now, and in the hour of our death!" His right hand moved slowly and found something in his pocket, and then there was the sharp click of a strong spring, and a ray of moonlight fell upon steel, and her voice was heard again. "--in the hour of our death. Amen!" An unearthly sound rent the stillness. The huge dog sat upright on his haunches, his head thrown up and back, his terrible lower jaw trembling as he howled, and howled again, waking great echoes where the roar of wild lions had rung long ago. Regina started, though she did not move a step; but an unreasoning fear fell upon Ercole. He could not see her face, as the dark veil hung down. She was so motionless and fearless; only the dead could be as fearless of death and as still as she. Her breast was so white; her hands were like marble hands, parting a black shroud upon it. She was something risen from the grave to haunt him in that lonely place and drive him mad; and the appalling howl of the great dog robe deafeningly on the silence and trembled and died away, and began again. Ercole's hand relaxed, and the knife fell gleaming at his feet. One instant more and he turned and fled through the trees, towards San Gregorio, his dog galloping heavily after him. Regina's hands fell by her sides, and the folds of her cloak closed together and hung straight down. She stared into the shadowy distance a moment after her father, and saw his figure twice in the light where the trees were wider apart, before he disappeared altogether. She looked down and saw the knife at her feet, and she picked it up and felt the point. It was as sharp as a needle, for Ercole had whetted it often since he had sat by the gate in the early morning last August. It was wet, for the grass under the trees had not dried since the rain. She felt the point and edge with her hand, and sighed. It would have been better to have felt it in her breast, but she would not take her own life. She was not afraid to do it, and her young hand would have been strong enough and sure enough to do it quickly. It was not the thought of the pain that made her close the knife; it was the fear of hell. Nothing she had done in her life seemed very bad to her, because it had all been for Marcello. If Ercole had killed her, she thought that God would have forgiven her after a time. But if she killed herself she would instantly be seized by devils and thrust into real flames, to burn for ever, without the slightest chance of forgiveness. She had been taught that, and she believed it, and the thought of the fire made her shut the clasp-knife and slip it into her dress with a sigh. It would be a pity to throw it away, for it seemed to be a good knife, and her father could not have had it very long. She fastened her frock under her mantle and went a few steps down the little slope towards the Colosseum. To go on meant to go home, and she stopped again. The place was very lonely and peaceful, and the light on the great walls was quiet and good to see. Though she had stood so still, waiting to die, and had said her little prayer so calmly, her brave heart had been beating slow and hard as if it were counting the seconds before it was to stop; and now it beat fast and softly, and fluttered a little, so that she felt faint, as even brave people do after a great danger is past. I have seen hundreds of men together, just escaped from destruction by earthquake, moving about listlessly with veiled eyes, yawning as if they were dropping with sleep, and saying childish things when they spoke at all. Man's body is the part of himself which he least understands, unless he has spent half his life in studying its ways. Its many portions can only telegraph to the brain two words, 'pain' and 'pleasure,' with different degrees of energy; but that is all. The rest of their language belongs to science. Regina felt faint and sat down, because there was no reason for making any effort to go home. Perhaps a cab would pass, returning from some outlying part of the city, and she would take it. From the place where she sat she could see one far off, if any came. She sank down on the wet ground, and drew up her knees and pulled her cloak round her; and gradually her head bent forward and rested upon her hands, till she sat there like a figure of grief outlined in black against the moonlight on the great wall. She had forgotten where she was, and that there was any time in the world. Half an hour passed, and the moon sank low, and an hour, and the deadly white mist began to rise in the shadow round the base of the Colosseum, and crept up under the trees; and if any one had come upon her then, he would have seen its dull whiteness crawling round her feet and body, a hand-breadth above the wet ground. But she did not know; she had forgotten everything. Nothing was real any more. She could have believed that her father had killed her and left her corpse there, strangely sitting, though quite dead. Then she knew that the light had gone out; and suddenly she felt her teeth chatter, and a chill ran through her bones that was bad to feel. She raised her head and saw that the great walls were dark against the starry sky, and she rose with an effort, as if her limbs had suddenly become lead. But she could walk, though it was like walking in sleep. She did not afterwards remember how she got home, but she had a vague recollection of having lost her way, and of finding a cab at last, and then of letting herself into the little apartment in the dark. When she was next aware of anything it was broad daylight, and she was lying on her bed, still dressed and wearing her cloak; and Kalmon was bending over her, his eyes on hers and his fingers on her pulse, while old Teresa watched her anxiously from the foot of the bed. "I'm afraid it is a 'perniciosa,'" he said. "Put her to bed while I call a regular doctor." Regina looked up at him. "I have fever, have I not?" she asked quite quietly. "Yes. You have a little fever," he answered, but his big brown eyes were very grave. When Marcello came, an hour later, she did not know him. She stared at him with wide, unwinking eyes, and there were bright patches of colour in her cheeks. Already there were hollows in them, too, and at her temples, for the perniciosa fever is frightfully quick to waste the body. In the Campagna, where it is worst, men have died of it in less than four hours after first feeling it upon them. Great men have discovered wonderful remedies for it, but still it kills. Kalmon got one of the great men, who was his friend, and they did what they could. A nursing sister came and was installed. Marcello was summoned away soon after noon by an official person, who brought a carriage and said that Corbario was now conscious and able to speak, and that it was absolutely necessary that Marcello should be confronted with him, as he might not live another day. It was easier to go than it would have been if Regina had been conscious, but even so it was very hard. The nun and Teresa stayed with her. [Illustration: "SHE SAT THERE LIKE A FIGURE OF GRIEF OUTLINED IN BLACK AGAINST THE MOONLIGHT ON THE GREAT WALL."] She said little in her delirium, and nothing that had any meaning for either of the women. Twice she tried to tear away the linen and lace from her throat. "I wait!" she cried each time, and her eyes fixed themselves on the ceiling, while she held her breath. The women could not tell what she was waiting for, and they soothed her as best they could. She seemed to doze after that, and when Marcello came back she knew him, and took his hand. He sent away the nurses and sat by the bedside, and she spoke to him in short sentences, faintly. He bent forward, near the pillow, to catch the words. She was telling him what she had done last night. "But you promised that I should find you here to-day!" Marcello said, with gentle reproach. "Yes. I did not mean to break my word. But I thought he would do it. It seemed so easy." Her voice was weak with the fever, and sank almost to a whisper. He stroked her hand affectionately, hoping that she would go to sleep; and so a long time passed. Then Kalmon came in with his friend the great doctor. They saw that she was not yet any better; the doctor ordered several things to be done and went away. Kalmon drew Marcello out of the room. "You can do nothing," he said. "She has good care, and she is very strong. Go home and come back in the morning." "I must stay here," Marcello answered. "That is out of the question, on account of the Sister of Charity. But you can send for your things and camp in my rooms downstairs. There is a good sofa. You can telephone to the villa for what you want." "Thank you." Marcello's voice dropped and shook. "Will she live?" he asked. "I hope so. She is very strong, and it may be only fever." "What else could it be?" "Pneumonia." Marcello bit his lip and closed his eyes as if he were in bodily pain, and a moment later he turned away and went down to Kalmon's apartment. The Professor went back to Regina's side, and stood quietly watching her, with a very sad look in his eyes. She opened hers and saw him, and she brought one hand to her chest. "It burns," she said, almost in a whisper, but with a strange sort of eagerness, as if she were glad. "I wish I could bear it for you, my poor child," Kalmon answered. She shook her head, and turned uneasily on the pillow. He did not understand. "What is it?" he asked gently. "What can I do for you? Tell me." "I want to see some one very much. How long shall I live?" "You will get quite well," said Kalmon, in a reassuring tone. "But you must be very quiet." Again she moved her burning cheek on the pillow. "Do you want to see a priest?" asked the Professor, thinking he had guessed. "Is that it?" "Yes--there is time for that--some one else--could you? Will you?" "Yes." Kalmon bent down quickly, for he thought the delirium was coming again. "Who is it?" he asked. "Aurora--I mean, the Signorina--can you? Oh, do you think you could?" "I'll try," Kalmon answered in great surprise. But now the hoarseness was suddenly gone, and her sweet voice was softly humming an old song of the hills, forgotten many years, and the Professor saw that she did not know him any more. He nodded to Teresa, who was in the room, and went out. He wondered much at the request, but he remembered that it had been made in the full belief that he would say nothing of it to Marcello. If she had been willing that Marcello should know, she would have spoken to him, rather than to Kalmon. He had seen little enough of Regina, but he was sure that she could have no bad motive in wishing to see the young girl. Yet, from a social point of view, it was not exactly an easy thing to propose, and the Contessa would have a right to be offended at the mere suggestion that her daughter should speak to "Consalvi's Regina"; and there could not be anything clandestine in the meeting, if Aurora consented to it. Kalmon was too deeply attached to the Contessa herself to be willing to risk her displeasure, or, indeed, to do anything of which she would not approve. He went to her house by the Forum of Trajan, and he found her at home. It was late in the afternoon, and the lamp was lighted in the little drawing-room, which did not seem at all shabby to Kalmon's accustomed eyes and not very exigent taste. The Contessa was reading an evening paper before the fire. She put out her hand to the Professor. "It is a bad business," she said, glancing at the newspaper, which had a long account of Corbario's arrest and of the murder of his old accomplice. "Poor Marcello!" "Poor Marcello! Yes, indeed! I'm sorry for him. There is something more than is in the papers, and more than I have written to you and told you. Regina has the perniciosa fever, complicated with pneumonia, and is not likely to live." "I am sorry," the Contessa answered. "I am very sorry for her. But after all, compared with what Marcello has learned about his mother's death--and other things Corbario did--" She stopped, implying by her tone that even if Regina died, that would not be the greatest of Marcello's misfortunes. Besides, she had long foreseen that the relations of the two could not last, and the simplest solution, and the happiest one for the poor devoted girl, was that she should die before her heart was broken. Maddalena dell' Armi had often wished that her own fate had been as merciful. "Yes," Kalmon answered. "You are right in that. But Regina has made a rather strange request. It was very unexpected, and perhaps I did wrong to tell her that I would do my best to satisfy her. I don't think she will live, and I felt sorry for her. That is why I came to you. It concerns Aurora." "Aurora?" The Contessa was surprised. "Yes. The girl knows she is dying, and wishes very much to see Aurora for a moment. I suppose it was weak of me to give her any hope." The Contessa dropped her newspaper and looked into the fire thoughtfully before she answered. "You and I are very good friends," she said. "You would not ask me to do anything you would not do yourself, would you? If you had a daughter of Aurora's age, should you let her go and see this poor woman, unless it were an act of real charity?" "No," Kalmon answered reluctantly. "I don't think I should." "Thank you for being so honest," Maddalena answered, and looked at the fire again. Some time passed before she spoke again, still watching the flames. Kalmon sighed, for he was very sorry for Regina. "On the other hand," the Contessa said at last, "it may be a real charity. Have you any idea why she wishes to see Aurora?" "No. I cannot guess." "I can. At least, I think I can." She paused again. "You know everything about me," she continued presently. "In the course of years I have told you all my story. Do you think I am a better woman than Regina?" "My dear friend!" cried Kalmon, almost angrily. "How can you suggest--" She turned her clear, sad eyes to him, and her look cut short his speech. "What has her sin been?" she asked gently. "She has loved Marcello. What was mine? That I loved one man too well. Which is the better woman? She, the peasant, who knew no better, who found her first love dying, and saved him, and loved him--knowing no better, and braving the world? Or I, well born, carefully brought up, a woman of the world, and married--no matter how--not braving the world at all, but miserably trying to deceive it, and my husband, and my child? Do you think I was so much better than poor Regina? Would my own daughter think so if she could know and understand?" "If you were not a very good woman now," Kalmon said earnestly, "you could not say what you are saying." "Never mind what I am now. I am not as good as you choose to think. If I were, there would not be a bitter thought left. I should have forgiven all. Leave out of the question what I am now. Compare me as I was with Regina as she is. That is how I put it, and I am right." "Even if you were," Kalmon answered doubtfully, "the situation would be the same, so far as Aurora is concerned." "But suppose that this poor woman cannot die in peace unless she has asked Aurora's pardon and obtained her forgiveness, what then?" "Her forgiveness? For what?" "For coming between her and Marcello. Say that, so far as Regina knows, my daughter is the only human being she has ever injured, what then?" "Does Aurora love Marcello?" asked Kalmon, instead of answering the question. "I think she does. I am almost sure of it." Kalmon was silent for a while. "But Marcello," he said at last, "what of him?" "He has always loved Aurora," the Contessa answered. "Do you blame him so much for what he has done? Why do you blame some people so easily, my dear friend, and others not at all? Do you realise what happened to him? He was virtually taken out of the life he was leading, by a blow that practically destroyed his memory, and of which the consequences altogether destroyed his will for some time. He found himself saved and at the same time loved--no, worshipped--by one of the most beautiful women in the world. Never mind her birth! She has never looked at any other man, before or since, and from what I have heard, she never will. Ah, if all women were like her! Marcello, weak from illness, allowed himself to be worshipped, and Corbario did the rest. I understand it all. Do you blame him very much? I don't. With all your strength of character, you would have done the same at his age! And having taken what she offered, what could he do, when he grew up and came to himself, and felt his will again? Could he cast her off, after all she had done for him?" "He could marry her," observed Kalmon. "I don't see why he should not, after all." "Marriage!" There was a little scornful sadness in Maddalena's voice. "Marriage is always the solution! No, no, he is right not to marry her, if he has ever thought of it. They would only make each other miserable for the rest of their lives. Miserable, and perhaps faithless too. That is what happens when men and women are not saints. Look at me!" "You were never in that position. Others were to blame, who made you marry when you were too young to have any will of your own." "Blame no one," said the Contessa gravely. "I shall give Aurora Regina's message, and if she is willing to go and see her, I shall bring her to-morrow morning--to-night, if there is no time to be lost. The world need never know. Go and tell Regina what I have said. It may comfort her a little, poor thing." "Indeed it will!" Kalmon's brown eyes beamed with pleasure at the thought of taking the kindly message to the dying girl. He rose to his feet at once. "There is no one like you," he said, as he took her hand. "It is nothing. It is what Marcello's mother would have done, and she was my best friend. All I do is to take the responsibility upon myself, however Aurora may choose to act. I will send you word, in either case. If Aurora will not go, I will come myself, if I can be of any use, if it would make Regina feel happier. I will come, and I will tell her what I have told you. Good-night, dear friend." Kalmon was not an emotional man, but as he went out he felt a little lump in his throat, as if he could not swallow. He had not doubted his friend's kindness, but he had doubted whether she would feel that she had a right to "expose her daughter," as the world would say, to meeting such a "person," as the world called Regina--"Consalvi's Regina." CHAPTER XXII All that night and the following day Regina recognised no one; and it was night again, and her strength began to fail, but her understanding returned. Marcello saw the change, and made a sign to the nurse, who went out to tell Kalmon. It was about nine o'clock when he entered the room, and Regina knew him and looked at him anxiously. He, in turn, glanced at Marcello, and she understood. She begged Marcello to go and get some rest. Her voice was very weak, as if she were suffocating, and she coughed painfully. He did not like to go away, but Kalmon promised to call him at midnight; he had been in the room six hours, scarcely moving from his seat. He lingered at the door, looked back, and at last went out. "Will she come?" asked Regina, when he was gone. "In half an hour. I have sent a messenger, for they have no telephone." A bright smile lighted up the wasted face. "Heaven will reward you," she said, as the poor say in Rome when they receive a charity. Then she seemed to be resting, for her hands lay still, and she closed her eyes. But presently she opened them, looking up gratefully into the big man's kind face. "Shall I be alone with her a little?" she asked. "Yes, my dear. You shall be alone with her." Again she smiled, and he left the nurse with her and went and waited downstairs at the street door, till the Contessa and Aurora should come, in order to take them up to the little apartment. He knew that Marcello must have fallen asleep at once, for he had not rested at all for twenty-four hours, and very little during several days past. Kalmon was beginning to fear that he would break down, though he was so much stronger than formerly. Marcello had always been grateful to Regina, even when he had convinced himself that he loved her. Love is not very compatible with gratitude. Two people who love each other very much expect everything because they are always ready to give everything, not in return or by way of any exchange, but as if the two were one in giving and taking. A man cannot be grateful to himself. But Marcello had never felt that dear illusion with Regina, because there had been no real companionship; and so he had always been grateful to her, and now that she was perhaps dying, he was possessed by the horribly painful certainty that he could never repay her what he owed, and that this debt of honour must remain unpaid for ever, if she died. There was much more than that in what he felt, of course, for there was his very real affection, tormented by the foreboding of the coming wrench, and there was the profound sympathy of a very kind man for a suffering woman. But all that together was not love like hers for him; it was not love at all. Kalmon waited, and smoked a little, reflecting on these things, which he understood tolerably well. The quiet man of science had watched Marcello thoughtfully, and could not help asking himself what look there would be in his own eyes, if Maddalena dell' Armi were dying and he were standing by her bedside. It would not be Marcello's look. A closed cab stopped before the entrance, and almost before he could throw away his cigarette, the Contessa and Aurora were standing beside him on the pavement. "She is very weak," he said, "but she will not be delirious again for some time--if at all." Neither of the ladies spoke, and they followed him in silence up the ill-lighted staircase. "That is where I live," he said, as he passed his own door on the second landing. "Marcello is camping there. He is probably asleep now." "Asleep!" It was Aurora that uttered the single word, in a puzzled tone. "He did not go to bed last night," Kalmon explained, going on. "Oh!" Again the Professor was struck by the young girl's tone. They reached the third landing, and Kalmon pushed the door, which he had left ajar; he shut it when they had all entered, and he ushered the mother and daughter into the small sitting-room. There they waited a moment while he went to tell Regina that Aurora had come. The young girl dropped her cloak upon a chair and stood waiting, her eyes fixed on the door. She was a little pale, not knowing what was to come, yet feeling somehow that it was to make a great difference to her ever afterwards. She glanced at her mother, and the Contessa smiled gently, as much as to say that she was doing right, but neither spoke. Presently Kalmon came out with the Sister of Charity, who bent her head gravely to the two ladies. "She wishes to see you alone," Kalmon said, in explanation, while he held the door open for Aurora to pass in. He closed it after her, and the two were together. When Aurora entered, Regina's eyes were fixed upon her face as if they had already found her and seen her while she had been in the other room. She came straight to the bedside and took the hand that was stretched out to meet hers. It was thin and hot now, and the arm was already wasted. Aurora remembered how strongly it had lifted her to the edge of the rock, far away by Pontresina. "You are very kind, Signorina," said the faint voice. "You see how I am." Aurora saw indeed, and kept the hand in hers as she sat down in the chair that stood where Marcello had left it. "I am very, very sorry," she said, leaning forward a little and looking into the worn face, colourless now that the fever had subsided for a while. The same bright smile that Kalmon had seen lighted up Regina's features. "But I am glad!" she answered. "They do not understand that I am glad." "No, no!" cried Aurora softly. "Don't say you are glad!" The smile faded, and a very earnest look came into the hollow dark eyes. "But I have not done it on purpose," Regina said. "I did not know there was fever in that place, or I would not have sat down there. You believe me, Signorina, don't you?" "Yes, indeed!" The smile returned very gradually, and the anxious pressure of the hand relaxed. "You must not think that I was looking for the fever. But since it came, and I am going from here, I am glad. I shall not be in the way any more. That hindrance will be taken out of his life." "He would not like to hear you speak like this," Aurora said, with great gentleness. "There is no time for anything except the truth, now. And you are good, so good! No, there is no time. To-morrow, I shall be gone. Signorina, if I could kneel at your feet, I would kneel. But you see how I am. You must think I am kneeling at your feet." "But why?" asked Aurora, with a little distress. "To ask you to forgive me for being a hindrance. I want pardon before I go. But I found him half dead on the door-step. What could I do? When I had seen him, I loved him. I knew that he thought of you. That was all he remembered--just your name, and I hated it, because he had forgotten all other names, even his own, and his mother, and everything. He was like a little child that learns, to-day this, to-morrow that, one thing at a time. What could I do? I taught him. I also taught him to love Regina. But when the memory came back, I knew how it had been before." Her voice broke and she coughed, and raised one hand to her chest. Aurora supported her tenderly until it was over, and when the weary head sank back at last it lay upon the young girl's willing arm. "You are tiring yourself," Aurora said. "If it was to ask my forgiveness that you wished me to come, I forgave you long ago, if there was anything to forgive. I forgave you when we met, and I saw what you were, and that you loved him for himself, just as I do." "Is it true? Really true?" "So may God help me, it is quite true. But if I had thought it was not for himself--" "Oh, yes, it was," Regina answered. "It was, and it is, to the end. Will you see? I will show you. For what the eyes see the heart believes more easily. Signorina, will you bring the little box covered with old velvet? It is there, on the table, and it is open." Aurora rose, humouring her, and brought the thing she asked for, and sat down again, setting it on the edge of the bed. Regina turned her head to see it, and raised the lid with one hand. "This is my little box," she said. "What he has given me is all in it. I have no other. Will you see? Here is what I have taken from him. You shall look everywhere, if you do not believe." "But I do believe you!" Aurora cried, feeling that tears were coming to her eyes. "But you must see," Regina insisted. "Or perhaps when I am gone you will say to yourself, 'There may have been diamonds and pearls in the little box, after all!' You shall know that it was all for himself." To please her Aurora took up some of the simple trinkets, simpler and cheaper even than what she had herself. "There are dresses, yes, many more than I wanted. But I could not let him be ashamed of me when we went out together, and travelled. Do you forgive me the dresses, Signorina? I wore them to please him. Please forgive me that also!" Aurora dropped the things into the open box and laid both her hands on Regina's, bending down her radiant head and looking very earnestly into the anxious eyes. "Forgiveness is not all from me to you, Regina," she said. "I want yours too." "Mine?" The eyes grew wide and wondering. "Don't you see that but for me he would have married you, and that I have been the cause of a great wrong to you?" For one instant Regina's face darkened, her brows straightened themselves, and her lip curled. She remembered how, only two days ago, in the very next room, Marcello had insisted that she should he his wife. But as she looked into Aurora's innocent eyes she understood, and the cloud passed from her own, and the bright smile came back. Aurora had spoken in the simplicity of her true heart, sure that it was only the memory of his love for her that had withheld Marcello from first to last; and Regina well knew that it had always been present with him, in spite of his brave struggle to put it away. That memory of another, which Regina had seen slowly reviving in him, had been for something in her refusal to marry him. With the mysterious sure vision of those who are near death, she felt that it would hurt Aurora to know the truth, except from Marcello himself. "If you have ever stood between us," she said, "you had the right. He loved you first. There is nothing to forgive in that. Afterwards he loved me a little. No one can take that from me, no one! It is mine, and it is all I have, and though I am going, and though I know that he is tired of me, it is still more than the world. To have it, as I have it, I would do again what I did, from the first." The voice was weak and muffled, but the words were distinct, and they were the confession of poor Regina's life. "If he were here," she said, after a moment, "I would lay your hand in his. Only let me take that memory with me!" The young girl rose and bent over her as she answered. "It is yours, to keep for ever." She stooped a little lower and kissed the dying woman's forehead. * * * * * Under the May moon a little brigantine came sailing up to a low island just within sight of Italy; when she was within half a mile of the reefs Don Antonino Maresca put her about, for he was a prudent man, and he knew that there are just a few more rocks in the sea than are in the charts. It was a quiet night, and he was beating up against a gentle northerly breeze. When the head yards were swung, and braced sharp up for the other tack, and the little vessel had gathered way again, the mate came aft and stood by the captain, watching the light on the island. "Are there still convicts on this island, Don Antonino?" the young man asked. "Yes, there are the convicts. And there is one among them whom I helped to put there. He is an assassin that killed many when he was at liberty. But now he sits for seven years in a little cell alone, and sees no Christian, and it will be thirty years before he is free." "Madonna!" ejaculated the mate. "When he has been there thirty years he will perhaps understand." "It is as I say," rejoined the captain. "The world is made so. There are the good and the bad. The Eternal Father has created things thus. Get a little more on the main sheet, and then flatten in those jibs." Under the May moon, in the small shaft of white light that fell through the narrow grated window, a man sat on the edge of his pallet bed. His face was ghastly, and there were strange scars on his bare throat. His cell was seven feet by six, and the air was hard to breathe, because the wind was not from the south. But the moon was kinder than the sun. He heard the ripple of the cool sea, and he tried to dream that a great stone was hung to his neck, and that he had been thrown into a deep place. Perhaps, some day, the gaoler would forget to take away the coarse towel which was brought with the water in the morning. With a towel he could hang himself. * * * * * Under the May moon a small marble cross cast its shadow upon young roses and violets and growing myrtle. In the sweet earth below a very loyal heart was at rest for ever. But the flowers were planted and still tended by a woman with radiant hair; and sometimes, when she stooped to train the young roses, bright drops fell quietly upon their bloom. Also, on certain days, a man came there alone and knelt upon the marble border within which the flowers grew. But the man and the woman never came together; and he gave the gardener of that place money, praising him for the care of the flowers. * * * * * Under the May moon the man and the woman went down from the cottage by the Roman shore to the break in the high bank, and stood still a while, looking out at the peaceful sea and the moon's broad path. Presently they turned to each other, put out their hands, and then their arms, and clasped each other silently, and kissed. 
13757	----	SARACINESCA BY F. MARION CRAWFORD AUTHOR OF 'MR. ISAACS,' 'DR. CLAUDIUS,' 'A ROMAN SINGER,' 'ZOROASTER,' 'A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH,' ETC. 1887 NOTE It was at first feared that the name Saracinesca, as it is now printed, might be attached to an unused title in the possession of a Roman house. The name was therefore printed with an additional consonant--Sarracinesca--in the pages of 'Blackwood's Magazine.' After careful inquiry, the original spelling is now restored. SARACINESCA. CHAPTER I. In the year 1865 Rome was still in a great measure its old self. It had not then acquired that modern air which is now beginning to pervade it. The Corso had not been widened and whitewashed; the Villa Aldobrandini had not been cut through to make the Via Nazionale; the south wing of the Palazzo Colonna still looked upon a narrow lane through which men hesitated to pass after dark; the Tiber's course had not then been corrected below the Farnesina; the Farnesina itself was but just under repair; the iron bridge at the Ripetta was not dreamed of; and the Prati di Castello were still, as their name implies, a series of waste meadows. At the southern extremity of the city, the space between the fountain of Moses and the newly erected railway station, running past the Baths of Diocletian, was still an exercising-ground for the French cavalry. Even the people in the streets then presented an appearance very different from that which is now observed by the visitors and foreigners who come to Rome in the winter. French dragoons and hussars, French infantry and French officers, were everywhere to be seen in great numbers, mingled with a goodly sprinkling of the Papal Zouaves, whose grey Turco uniforms with bright red facings, red sashes, and short yellow gaiters, gave colour to any crowd. A fine corps of men they were, too; counting hundreds of gentlemen in their ranks, and officered by some of the best blood in France and Austria. In those days also were to be seen the great coaches of the cardinals, with their gorgeous footmen and magnificent black horses, the huge red umbrellas lying upon the top, while from the open windows the stately princes of the Church from time to time returned the salutations of the pedestrians in the street. And often in the afternoon there was heard the tramp of horse as a detachment of the noble guards trotted down the Corso on their great chargers, escorting the holy Father himself, while all who met him dropped upon one knee and uncovered their heads to receive the benediction of the mild-eyed old man with the beautiful features, the head of Church and State. Many a time, too, Pius IX. would descend from his coach and walk upon the Pincio, all clothed in white, stopping sometimes to talk with those who accompanied him, or to lay his gentle hand on the fair curls of some little English child that paused from its play in awe and admiration as the Pope went by. For he loved children well, and most of all, children with golden hair--angels, not Angles, as Gregory said. As for the fashions of those days, it is probable that most of us would suffer severe penalties rather than return to them, beautiful as they then appeared to us by contrast with the exaggerated crinoline and flower-garden bonnet, which had given way to the somewhat milder form of hoop-skirt madness, but had not yet flown to the opposite extreme in the invention of the close-fitting _princesse_ garments of 1868. But, to each other, people looked then as they look now. Fashion in dress, concerning which nine-tenths of society gives itself so much trouble, appears to exercise less influence upon men and women in their relations towards each other than does any other product of human ingenuity. Provided every one is in the fashion, everything goes on in the age of high heels and gowns tied back precisely as it did five-and-twenty years ago, when people wore flat shoes, and when gloves with three buttons had not been dreamed of--when a woman of most moderate dimensions occupied three or four square yards of space upon a ball-room floor, and men wore peg-top trousers. Human beings since the days of Adam seem to have retired like caterpillars into cocoons of dress, expecting constantly the wondrous hour when they shall emerge from their self-woven prison in the garb of the angelic butterfly, having entered into the chrysalis state as mere human grubs. But though they both toil and spin at their garments, and vie with Solomon in his glory to outshine the lily of the field, the humanity of the grub shows no signs of developing either in character or appearance in the direction of anything particularly angelic. It was not the dress of the period which gave to the streets of Rome their distinctive feature. It would be hard to say, now that so much is changed, wherein the peculiar charm of the old-time city consisted; but it was there, nevertheless, and made itself felt so distinctly beyond the charm of any other place, that the very fascination of Rome was proverbial. Perhaps no spot in Europe has ever possessed such an attractive individuality. In those days there were many foreigners, too, as there are to-day, both residents and visitors; but they seemed to belong to a different class of humanity. They seemed less inharmonious to their surroundings then than now, less offensive to the general air of antiquity. Probably they were more in earnest; they came to Rome with the intention of liking the place, rather than of abusing the cookery in the hotels. They came with a certain knowledge of the history, the literature, and the manners of the ancients, derived from an education which in those days taught more through the classics and less through handy text-books and shallow treatises concerning the Renaissance; they came with preconceived notions which were often strongly dashed with old-fashioned prejudice, but which did not lack originality: they come now in the smattering mood, imbued with no genuine beliefs, but covered with exceeding thick varnish. Old gentlemen then visited the sights in the morning, and quoted Horace to each other, and in the evening endeavoured by associating with Romans to understand something of Rome; young gentlemen now spend one or two mornings in finding fault with the architecture of Bramante, and "in the evening," like David's enemies, "they grin like a dog and run about the city:" young women were content to find much beauty in the galleries and in the museums, and were simple enough to admire what they liked; young ladies of the present day can find nothing to admire except their own perspicacity in detecting faults in Raphael's drawing or Michael Angelo's colouring. This is the age of incompetent criticism in matters artistic, and no one is too ignorant to volunteer an opinion. It is sufficient to have visited half-a-dozen Italian towns, and to have read a few pages of fashionable aesthetic literature--no other education is needed to fit the intelligent young critic for his easy task. The art of paradox can be learned in five minutes, and practised by any child; it consists chiefly in taking two expressions of opinion from different authors, halving them, and uniting the first half of the one with the second half of the other. The result is invariably startling, and generally incomprehensible. When a young society critic knows how to be startling and incomprehensible, his reputation is soon made, for people readily believe that what they cannot understand is profound, and anything which astonishes is agreeable to a taste deadened by a surfeit of spices. But in 1865 the taste of Europe was in a very different state. The Second Empire was in its glory. M. Emile Zola had not written his 'Assommoir.' Count Bismarck had only just brought to a successful termination the first part of his trimachy; Sadowa and Sedan were yet unfought. Garibaldi had won Naples, and Cavour had said, "If we did for ourselves what we are doing for Italy, we should be great scoundrels;" but Garibaldi had not yet failed at Mentana, nor had Austria ceded Venice. Cardinal Antonelli had yet ten years of life before him in which to maintain his gallant struggle for the remnant of the temporal power; Pius IX. was to live thirteen years longer, just long enough to outlive by one month the "honest king," Victor Emmanuel. Antonelli's influence pervaded Rome, and to a great extent all the Catholic Courts of Europe; yet he was far from popular with the Romans. The Jesuits, however, were even less popular than he, and certainly received a much larger share of abuse. For the Romans love faction more than party, and understand it better; so that popular opinion is too frequently represented by a transitory frenzy, violent and pestilent while it lasts, utterly insignificant when it has spent its fury. But Rome in those days was peopled solely by Romans, whereas now a large proportion of the population consists of Italians from the north and south, who have been attracted to the capital by many interests--races as different from its former citizens as Germans or Spaniards, and unfortunately not disposed to show overmuch good-fellowship or loving-kindness to the original inhabitants. The Roman is a grumbler by nature, but he is also a "peace-at-any-price" man. Politicians and revolutionary agents have more than once been deceived by these traits, supposing that because the Roman grumbled he really desired change, but realising too late, when the change has been begun, that that same Roman is but a lukewarm partisan. The Papal Government repressed grumbling as a nuisance, and the people consequently took a delight in annoying the authorities by grumbling in secret places and calling themselves conspirators. The harmless whispering of petty discontent was mistaken by the Italian party for the low thunder of a smothered volcano; but, the change being brought about, the Italians find to their disgust that the Roman meant nothing by his murmurings, and that he now not only still grumbles at everything, but takes the trouble to fight the Government at every point which concerns the internal management of the city. In the days before the change, a paternal Government directed the affairs of the little State, and thought it best to remove all possibility of strife by giving the grumblers no voice in public or economic matters. The grumblers made a grievance of tins; and then, as soon as the grievance had been redressed, they redoubled their complaints and retrenched themselves within the infallibility of inaction, on the principle that men who persist in doing nothing cannot possibly do wrong. Those were the days, too, of the old school of artists--men who, if their powers of creation were not always proportioned to their ambition for excellence, were as superior to their more recent successors in their pure conceptions of what art should be as Apelles was to the Pompeian wall-painters, and as the Pompeians were to modern house-decorators. The age of Overbeck and the last religious painters was almost past, but the age of fashionable artistic debauchery had hardly begun. Water-colour was in its infancy; wood-engraving was hardly yet a great profession; but the "Dirty Boy" had not yet taken a prize at Paris, nor had indecency become a fine art. The French school had not demonstrated the startling distinction between the nude and the naked, nor had the English school dreamed nightmares of anatomical distortion. Darwin's theories had been propagated, but had not yet been passed into law, and very few Romans had heard of them; still less had any one been found to assert that the real truth of these theories would be soon demonstrated retrogressively by the rapid degeneration of men into apes, while apes would hereafter have cause to congratulate themselves upon not having developed into men. Many theories also were then enjoying vast popularity which have since fallen low in the popular estimation. Prussia was still, in theory, a Power of the second class, and the empire of Louis Napoleon was supposed to possess elements of stability. The great civil war in the United States had just been fought, and people still doubted whether the republic would hold together. It is hard to recall the common beliefs of those times. A great part of the political creed of twenty years ago seems now a mass of idiotic superstition, in no wise preferable, as Macaulay would have said, to the Egyptian worship of cats and onions. Nevertheless, then, as now, men met together secretly in cellars and dens, as well as in drawing-rooms and clubs, and whispered together, and said their theories were worth something, and ought to be tried. The word republic possessed then, as now, a delicious attraction for people who had grievances; and although, after the conquest of Naples, Garibaldi had made a sort of public abjuration of republican principles, so far as Italy was concerned, the plotters of all classes persisted in coupling his name with the idea of a commonwealth erected on the plan of "sois mon frère ou je te tue." Profound silence on the part of Governments, and a still more guarded secrecy on the part of conspiring bodies, were practised as the very first principle of all political operations. No copyist, at half-a-crown an hour, had yet betrayed the English Foreign Office; and it had not dawned upon the clouded intellects of European statesmen that deliberate national perjury, accompanied by public meetings of sovereigns, and much blare of many trumpets, could be practised with such triumphant success as events have since shown. In the beginning of the year 1865 people crossed the Alps in carriages; the Suez Canal had not been opened; the first Atlantic cable was not laid; German unity had not been invented; Pius IX. reigned in the Pontifical States; Louis Napoleon was the idol of the French; President Lincoln had not been murdered,--is anything needed to widen the gulf which separates those times from these? The difference between the States of the world in 1865 and in 1885 is nearly as great as that which divided the Europe of 1789 from the Europe of 1814. But my business is with Rome, and not with Europe at large. I intend to tell the story of certain persons, of their good and bad fortune, their adventures, and the complications in which they found themselves placed during a period of about twenty years. The people of whom I tell this story are chiefly patricians; and in the first part of their history they have very little to do with any but their own class--a class peculiar and almost unique in the world. Speaking broadly, there is no one at once so thoroughly Roman and so thoroughly non-Roman as the Roman noble. This is no paradox, no play on words. Roman nobles are Roman by education and tradition; by blood they are almost cosmopolitans. The practice of intermarrying with the great families of the rest of Europe is so general as to be almost a rule. One Roman prince is an English peer; most of the Roman princes are grandees of Spain; many of them have married daughters of great French houses, of reigning German princes, of ex-kings and ex-queens. In one princely house alone are found the following combinations: There are three brothers: the eldest married first the daughter of a great English peer, and secondly the daughter of an even greater peer of France; the second brother married first a German "serene highness," and secondly the daughter of a great Hungarian noble; the third brother married the daughter of a French house of royal Stuart descent. This is no solitary instance. A score of families might be cited who, by constant foreign marriages, have almost eliminated from their blood the original Italian element; and this great intermixture of races may account for the strangely un-Italian types that are found among them, for the undying vitality which seems to animate races already a thousand years old, and above all, for a very remarkable cosmopolitanism which pervades Roman society. A set of people whose near relations are socially prominent in every capital of Europe, could hardly be expected to have anything provincial about them in appearance or manners; still less can they be considered to be types of their own nation. And yet such is the force of tradition, of the patriarchal family life, of the early surroundings in which are placed these children of a mixed race, that they acquire from their earliest years the unmistakable outward manner of Romans, the broad Roman speech, and a sort of clannish and federative spirit which has not its like in the same class anywhere in Europe. They grow up together, go to school together, go together into the world, and together discuss all the social affairs of their native city. Not a house is bought or sold, not a hundred francs won at écarté, not a marriage contract made, without being duly considered and commented upon by the whole of society. And yet, though there is much gossip, there is little scandal; there was even less twenty years ago than there is now--not, perhaps, because the increment of people attracted to the new capital have had any bad influence, but simply because the city has grown much larger, and in some respects has outgrown a certain simplicity of manners it once possessed, and which was its chief safeguard. For, in spite of a vast number of writers of all nations who have attempted to describe Italian life, and who, from an imperfect acquaintance with the people, have fallen into the error of supposing them to live perpetually in a highly complicated state of mind, the foundation of the Italian character is simple--far more so than that of his hereditary antagonist, the northern European. It is enough to notice that the Italian habitually expresses what he feels, while it is the chief pride of Northern men that whatever they may feel they express nothing. The chief object of most Italians is to make life agreeable; the chief object of the Teutonic races is to make it profitable. Hence the Italian excels in the art of pleasing, and in pleasing by means of the arts; whereas the Northern man is pre-eminent in the faculty of producing wealth under any circumstances, and when he has amassed enough possessions to think of enjoying his leisure, has generally been under the necessity of employing Southern art as a means to that end. But Southern simplicity carried to its ultimate expression leads not uncommonly to startling results; for it is not generally a satisfaction to an Italian to be paid a sum of money as damages for an injury done. When his enemy has harmed him, he desires the simple retribution afforded by putting his enemy to death, and he frequently exacts it by any means that he finds ready to his hand. Being simple, he reflects little, and often acts with violence. The Northern mind, capable of vast intricacy of thought, seeks to combine revenge of injury with personal profit, and in a spirit of cold, far-sighted calculation, reckons up the advantages to be got by sacrificing an innate desire for blood to a civilised greed of money. Dr. Johnson would have liked the Romans--for in general they are good lovers and good haters, whatever faults they may have. The patriarchal system, which was all but universal twenty years ago, and is only now beginning to yield to more modern institutions of life, tends to foster the passions of love and hate. Where father and mother sit at the head and foot of the table, their sons with their wives and their children each in his or her place, often to the number of twenty souls--all living under one roof, one name, and one bond of family unity--there is likely to be a great similarity of feeling upon all questions of family pride, especially among people who discuss everything with vehemence, from European politics to the family cook. They may bicker and squabble among themselves,--and they frequently do,--but in their outward relations with the world they act as one individual, and the enemy of one is the enemy of all; for the pride of race and name is very great. There is a family in Rome who, since the memory of man, have not failed to dine together twice every week, and there are now more than thirty persons who take their places at the patriarchal board. No excuse can be pleaded for absence, and no one would think of violating the rule. Whether such a mode of life is good or not is a matter of opinion; it is, at all events, a fact, and one not generally understood or even known by persons who make studies of Italian character. Free and constant discussion of all manner of topics should certainly tend to widen the intelligence; but, on the other hand, where the dialecticians are all of one race, and name, and blood, the practice may often merely lead to an undue development of prejudice. In Rome, particularly, where so many families take a distinct character from the influence of a foreign mother, the opinions of a house are associated with its mere name. Casa Borghese thinks so and so, Casa Colonna has diametrically opposite views, while Casa Altieri may differ wholly from both; and in connection with most subjects the mere names Borghese, Altieri, Colonna, are associated in the minds of Romans of all classes with distinct sets of principles and ideas, with distinct types of character, and with distinctly different outward and visible signs of race. Some of these conditions exist among the nobility of other countries, but not, I believe, to the same extent. In Germany, the aristocratic body takes a certain uniform hue, so to speak, from the army, in which it plays so important a part, and the patriarchal system is broken up by the long absences from the ancestral home of the soldier-sons. In France, the main divisions of republicans, monarchists, and imperialists have absorbed and unified the ideas and principles of large bodies of families into bodies politic. In England, the practice of allowing younger sons to shift for themselves, and the division of the whole aristocracy into two main political parties, destroy the patriarchal spirit; while it must also be remembered, that at a period when in Italy the hand of every house was against its neighbour, and the struggles of Guelph and Ghibelline were but an excuse for the prosecution of private feuds, England was engaged in great wars which enlisted vast bodies of men under a common standard for a common principle. Whether the principle involved chanced to be that of English domination in France, or whether men flocked to the standards of the White Rose of York or the Red Rose of Lancaster, was of little importance; the result was the same,--the tendency of powerful families to maintain internecine traditional feuds was stamped out, or rather was absorbed in the maintenance of the perpetual feud between the great principles of Tory and Whig--of the party for the absolute monarch, and the party for the freedom of the people. Be the causes what they may, the Roman nobility has many characteristics peculiar to it and to no other aristocracy. It is cosmopolitan by its foreign marriages, renewed in every generation; it is patriarchal and feudal by its own unbroken traditions of family life; and it is only essentially Roman by its speech and social customs. It has undergone great vicissitudes during twenty years; but most of these features remain in spite of new and larger parties, new and bitter political hatreds, new ideas of domestic life, and new fashions in dress and cookery. In considering an account of the life of Giovanni Saracinesca from the time when, in 1865, he was thirty years of age, down to the present day, it is therefore just that he should be judged with a knowledge of some of these peculiarities of his class. He is not a Roman of the people like Giovanni Cardegna, the great tenor, and few of his ideas have any connection with those of the singer; but he has, in common with him, that singular simplicity of character which he derives from his Roman descent upon the male side, and in which will be found the key to many of his actions both good and bad--a simplicity which loves peace, but cannot always refrain from sudden violence, which loves and hates strongly and to some purpose. CHAPTER II. The hour was six o'clock, and the rooms of the Embassy were as full as they were likely to be that day. There would doubtless have been more people had the weather been fine; but it was raining heavily, and below, in the vast court that formed the centre of the palace, the lamps of fifty carriages gleamed through the water and the darkness, and the coachmen, of all dimensions and characters, sat beneath their huge umbrellas and growled to each other, envying the lot of the footmen who were congregated in the ante-chamber up-stairs around the great bronze braziers. But in the reception-rooms there was much light and warmth; there were bright fires and softly shaded lamps; velvet-footed servants stealing softly among the guests, with immense burdens of tea and cake; men of more or less celebrity chatting about politics in corners; women of more or less beauty gossiping over their tea, or flirting, or wishing they had somebody to flirt with; people of many nations and ideas, with a goodly leaven of Romans. They all seemed endeavouring to get away from the men and women of their own nationality, in order to amuse themselves with the difficulties of conversation in languages not their own. Whether they amused themselves or not is of small importance; but as they were all willing to find themselves together twice a-day for the five months of the Roman season--from the first improvised dance before Christmas, to the last set ball in the warm April weather after Easter--it may be argued that they did not dislike each other's society. In case the afternoon should seem dull, his Excellency had engaged the services of Signor Strillone, the singer. From time to time he struck a few chords upon the grand piano, and gave forth a song of his own composition in loud and passionate tones, varied with, very sudden effects of extreme pianissimo, which occasionally surprised some one who was trying to make his conversation heard above the music. There was a little knot of people standing about the door of the great drawing-room. Some of them were watching their opportunity to slip away unperceived; others had just arrived, and were making a survey of the scene to ascertain the exact position of their Excellencies, and of the persons they most desired to avoid, before coming forward. Suddenly, just as Signor Strillone had reached a high note and was preparing to bellow upon it before letting his voice die away to a pathetic falsetto, the crowd at the door parted a little. A lady entered the room alone, and stood out before the rest, pausing till the singer should have passed the climax of his song, before she proceeded upon her way. She was a very striking woman; every one knew who she was, every one looked towards her, and the little murmur that went round the room was due to her entrance rather than to Signor Strillone's high note. The Duchessa d'Astrardente stood still, and quietly looked about her. A minister, two secretaries, and three or four princes sprang towards her, each with a chair in hand; but she declined each offer, nodding to one, thanking another by name, and exchanging a few words with a third. She would not sit down; she had not yet spoken to the ambassadress. Two men followed her closely as she crossed the room when the song was finished. One was a fair man of five-and-thirty, rather stout, and elaborately dressed. He trod softly and carried his hat behind him, while he leaned a little forward in his walk. There was something unpleasant about his face, caused perhaps by his pale complexion and almost colourless moustache; his blue eyes were small and near together, and had a watery, undecided look; his thin fair hair was parted in the middle over his low forehead; there was a scornful look about his mouth, though half concealed by the moustache; and his chin retreated rather abruptly from his lower lip. On the other hand, he was dressed with extreme care, and his manner showed no small confidence in himself as he pushed forwards, keeping as close as he could to the Duchessa. He had the air of being thoroughly at home in his surroundings. Ugo del Ferice was indeed rarely disconcerted, and his self-reliance was most probably one chief cause of his success. He was a man who performed the daily miracle of creating everything for himself out of nothing. His father had barely been considered a member of the lower nobility, although he always called himself "dei conti del Ferice"--of the family of the counts of his name; but where or when the Conti del Ferice had lived, was a question he never was able to answer satisfactorily. He had made a little money, and had squandered most of it before he died, leaving the small remainder to his only son, who had spent every scudo of it in the first year. But to make up for the exiguity of his financial resources, Ugo had from his youth obtained social success. He had begun life by boldly calling himself "Il conte del Ferice." No one had ever thought it worth while to dispute him the title; and as he had hitherto not succeeded in conferring it upon any dowered damsel, the question of his countship was left unchallenged. He had made many acquaintances in the college where he had been educated; for his father had paid for his schooling in the Collegio dei Nobili, and that in itself was a passport--for as the lad grew to the young man, he zealously cultivated the society of his old school-fellows, and by wisely avoiding all other company, acquired a right to be considered one of themselves. He was very civil and obliging in his youth, and had in that way acquired a certain reputation for being indispensable, which had stood him in good stead. No one asked whether he had paid his tailor's bill; or whether upon certain conditions, his tailor supplied him with raiment gratis. He was always elaborately dressed, he was always ready to take a hand at cards, and he was always invited to every party in the season. He had cultivated with success the science of amusing, and people asked him to dinner in the winter, and to their country houses in the summer. He had been seen in Paris, and was often seen at Monte Carlo; but his real home and hunting-ground was Rome, where he knew every one and every one knew him. He had made one or two fruitless attempts to marry young women of American extraction and large fortune; he had not succeeded in satisfying the paternal mind in regard to guarantees, and had consequently been worsted in his endeavours. Last summer, however, it appeared that he had been favoured with an increase of fortune. He gave out that an old uncle of his, who had settled in the south of Italy, had died, leaving him a modest competence; and while assuming a narrow band of _crêpe_ upon his hat, he had adopted also a somewhat more luxurious mode of living. Instead of going about on foot or in cabs, he kept a very small coupé, with a very small horse and a diminutive coachman: the whole turn-out was very quiet in appearance, but very serviceable withal. Ugo sometimes wore too much jewellery; but his bad taste, if so it could be called, did not extend to the modest equipage. People accepted the story of the deceased uncle, and congratulated Ugo, whose pale face assumed on such occasions a somewhat deprecating smile. "A few scudi," he would answer--"a very small competence; but what would you have? I need so little--it is enough for me." Nevertheless people who knew him well warned him that he was growing stout. The other man who followed the Duchessa d'Astrardente across the drawing-room was of a different type. Don Giovanni Saracinesca was neither very tall nor remarkably handsome, though in the matter of his beauty opinion varied greatly. He was very dark--almost as dark for a man as the Duchessa was for a woman. He was strongly built, but very lean, and his features stood out in bold and sharp relief from the setting of his short black hair and pointed beard. His nose was perhaps a little large for his face, and the unusual brilliancy of his eyes gave him an expression of restless energy; there was something noble in the shaping of his high square forehead and in the turn of his sinewy throat. His hands were broad and brown, but nervous and well knit, with straight long fingers and squarely cut nails. Many women said Don Giovanni was the handsomest man in Rome; others said he was too dark or too thin, and that his face was hard and his features ugly. There was a great difference of opinion in regard to his appearance. Don Giovanni was not married, but there were few marriageable women in Rome who would not have been overjoyed to become his wife. But hitherto he had hesitated--or, to speak more accurately, he had not hesitated at all in his celibacy. His conduct in refusing to marry had elicited much criticism, little of which had reached his ears. He cared not much for what his friends said to him, and not at all for the opinion of the world at large, in consequence of which state of mind people often said he was selfish--a view taken extensively by elderly princesses with unmarried daughters, and even by Don Giovanni's father and only near relation, the old Prince Saracinesca, who earnestly desired to see his name perpetuated. Indeed Giovanni would have made a good husband, for he was honest and constant by nature, courteous by disposition, and considerate by habit and experience. His reputation for wildness rested rather upon his taste for dangerous amusements than upon such scandalous adventures as made up the lives of many of his contemporaries. But to all matrimonial proposals he answered that he was barely thirty years of age, that he had plenty of time before him, that he had not yet seen the woman whom he would be willing to marry, and that he intended to please himself. The Duchessa d'Astrardente made her speech to her hostess and passed on, still followed by the two men; but they now approached her, one on each side, and endeavoured to engage her attention. Apparently she intended to be impartial, for she sat down in the middle one of three chairs, and motioned to her two companions to seat themselves also, which they immediately did, whereby they became for the moment the two most important men in the room. Corona d'Astrardente was a very dark woman. In all the Southern land there were no eyes so black as hers, no cheeks of such a warm dark-olive tint, no tresses of such raven hue. But if she was not fair, she was very beautiful; there was a delicacy in her regular features that artists said was matchless; her mouth, not small, but generous and nobly cut, showed perhaps more strength, more even determination, than most men like to see in women's faces; but in the exquisitely moulded nostrils there lurked much sensitiveness and the expression of much courage; and the level brow and straight-cut nose were in their clearness as an earnest of the noble thoughts that were within, and that so often spoke from the depths of her splendid eyes. She was not a scornful beauty, though her face could express scorn well enough. Where another woman would have shown disdain, she needed but to look grave, and her silence did the rest. She wielded magnificent weapons, and wielded them nobly, as she did all things. She needed all her strength, too, for her position from the first was not easy. She had few troubles, but they were great ones, and she bore them bravely. One may well ask why Corona del Carmine had married the old man who was her husband--the broken-down and worn-out dandy of sixty, whose career was so well known, and whose doings had been as scandalous as his ancient name was famous in the history of his country. Her marriage was in itself almost a tragedy. It matters little to know how it came about; she accepted Astrardente with his dukedom, his great wealth, and his evil past, on the day when she left the convent where she had been educated; she did it to save her father from ruin, almost from starvation; she was seventeen, years of age; she was told that the world was bad, and she resolved to begin her life by a heroic sacrifice; she took the step heroically, and no human being had ever heard her complain. Five years had elapsed since then, and her father--for whom she had given all she had, herself, her beauty, her brave heart, and her hopes of happiness--her old father, whom she so loved, was dead, the last of his race, saving only this beautiful but childless daughter. What she suffered now--whether she suffered at all--no man knew. There had been a wild burst of enthusiasm when she appeared first in society, a universal cry that it was a sin and a shame. But the cynics who had said she would console herself had been obliged to own their worldly wisdom at fault; the men of all sorts who had lost their hearts to her were ignominiously driven in course of time to find them again elsewhere. Amid all the excitement of the first two years of her life in the world, Corona had moved calmly upon her way, wrapped in the perfect dignity of her character; and the old Duca d'Astrardente had smiled and played with the curled locks of his wonderful wig, and had told every one that his wife was the one woman in the universe who was above suspicion. People had laughed incredulously at first; but as time wore on they held their peace, tacitly acknowledging that the aged fop was right as usual, but swearing in their hearts that it was the shame of shames to see the noblest woman in their midst tied to such a wretched remnant of dissipated humanity as the Duca d'Astrardente. Corona went everywhere, like other people; she received in her own house a vast number of acquaintances; there were a few friends who came and went much as they pleased, and some of them were young; but there was never a breath of scandal breathed about the Duchessa. She was indeed above suspicion. She sat now between two men who were evidently anxious to please her. The position was not new; she was, as usual, to talk to both, and yet to show no preference for either. And yet she had a preference, and in her heart she knew it was a strong one. It was by no means indifferent to her which of those two men left her side and which remained. She was above suspicion--yes, above the suspicion of any human being besides herself, as she had been for five long years. She knew that had her husband entered the room and passed that way, he would have nodded to Giovanni Saracinesca as carelessly as though Giovanni had been his wife's brother--as carelessly as he would have noticed Ugo del Ferice upon her other side. But in her own heart she knew that there was but one face in all Rome she loved to see, but one voice she loved, and dreaded too, for it had the power to make her life seem unreal, till she wondered how long it would last, and whether there would ever be any change. The difference between Giovanni and other men had always been apparent. Others would sit beside her and make conversation, and then occasionally would make speeches she did not care to hear, would talk to her of love--some praising it as the only thing worth living for, some with affected cynicism scoffing at it as the greatest of unrealities, contradicting themselves a moment later in some passionate declaration to herself. When they were foolish, she laughed at them; when they went too far, she quietly rose and left them. Such experiences had grown rare of late, for she had earned the reputation of being cold and unmoved, and that protected her. But Giovanni had never talked like the rest of them. He never mentioned the old, worn subjects that the others harped upon. She would not have found it easy to say what he talked about, for he talked indifferently about many subjects. She was not sure whether he spent more time with her when in society than with other women; she reflected that he was not so brilliant as many men she knew, not so talkative as the majority of men she met; she knew only--and it was the thing she most bitterly reproached herself with--that she preferred his face above all other faces, and his voice beyond all voices. It never entered her head to think that she loved him; it was bad enough in her simple creed that there should be any man whom she would rather see than not, and whom she missed when he did not approach her. She was a very strong and loyal woman, who had sacrificed herself to a man who knew the world very thoroughly, who in the thoroughness of his knowledge was able to see that the world is not all bad, and who, in spite of all his evil deeds, was proud of his wife's loyalty. Astrardente had made a bargain when he married Corona; but he was a wise man in his generation, and he knew and valued her when he had got her. He knew the precise dangers to which she was exposed, and he was not so cruel as to expose her to them willingly. He had at first watched keenly the effect produced upon her by conversing with men of all sorts in the world, and among others he had noticed Giovanni; but he had come to the conclusion that his wife was equal to any situation in which she might be placed. Moreover, Giovanni was not an _habitué_ at the Palazzo Astrardente, and showed none of the usual signs of anxiety to please the Duchessa. From the time when Corona began to notice her own predilection for Saracinesca, she had been angry with herself for it, and she tried to avoid him; at all events, she gave him no idea that she liked him especially. Her husband, who at first had delivered many lectures on the subject of behaviour in the world, had especially warned her against showing any marked coldness to a man she wished to shun. "Men," said he, "are accustomed to that; they regard it as the first indication that a woman is really interested; when you want to get rid of a man, treat him systematically as you treat everybody, and he will be wounded at your indifference and go away." But Giovanni did not go, and Corona began to wonder whether she ought not to do something to break the interest she felt in him. At the present moment she wanted a cup of tea. She would have liked to send Ugo del Ferice for it; she did what she thought least pleasant to herself, and she sent Giovanni. The servants who were serving the refreshments had all left the room, and Saracinesca went in pursuit of them. As soon as he was gone Del Ferice spoke. His voice was soft, and had an insinuating tone in it. "They are saying that Don Giovanni is to be married," he remarked, watching the Duchessa from the corners of his eyes as he indifferently delivered himself of his news. The Duchessa was too dark a woman to show emotion easily. Perhaps she did not believe the story; her eyes fixed themselves on some distant object in the room, as though she were intensely interested in something she saw, and she paused before she answered. "That is news indeed, if it is true. And whom is he going to marry?" "Donna Tullia Mayer, the widow of the financier. She is immensely rich, and is some kind of cousin of the Saracinesca." "How strange!" exclaimed Corona. "I was just looking at her. Is not that she over there, with the green feathers?" "Yes," answered Del Ferice, looking in the direction the Duchessa indicated. "That is she. One may know her at a vast distance by her dress. But it is not all settled yet." "Then one cannot congratulate Don Giovanni to-day?" asked the Duchessa, facing her interlocutor rather suddenly. "No," he answered; "it is perhaps better not to speak to him about it." "It is as well that you warned me, for I would certainly have spoken." "I do not imagine that Saracinesca likes to talk of his affairs of the heart," said Del Ferice, with considerable gravity. "But here he comes. I had hoped he would have taken even longer to get that cup of tea." "It was long enough for you to tell your news," answered Corona quietly, as Don Giovanni came up. "What is the news?" asked he, as he sat down beside her. "Only an engagement that is not yet announced," answered the Duchessa. "Del Ferice has the secret; perhaps he will tell you." Giovanni glanced across her at the fair pale man, whose fat face, however, expressed nothing. Seeing he was not enlightened, Saracinesca civilly turned the subject. "Are you going to the meet to-morrow, Duchessa?" he asked. "That depends upon the weather and upon the Duke," she answered. "Are you going to follow?" "Of course. What a pity it is that you do not ride!" "It seems such an unnatural thing to see a woman hunting," remarked Del Ferice, who remembered to have heard the Duchessa say something of the kind, and was consequently sure that she would agree with him. "You do not ride yourself," said Don Giovanni, shortly. "That is the reason you do not approve of it for ladies." "I am not rich enough to hunt," said Ugo, modestly. "Besides, the other reason is a good one; for when ladies hunt I am deprived of their society." The Duchessa laughed slightly. She never felt less like laughing in her life, and yet it was necessary to encourage the conversation. Giovanni did not abandon the subject. "It will be a beautiful meet," he said. "Many people are going out for the first time this year. There is a man here who has brought his horses from England. I forget his name--a rich Englishman." "I have met him," said Del Ferice, who was proud of knowing everybody. "He is a type--enormously rich--a lord--I cannot pronounce his name--not married either. He will make a sensation in society. He won races in Paris last year, and they say he will enter one of his hunters for the steeplechases here at Easter." "That is a great inducement to go to the meet, to see this Englishman," said the Duchessa rather wearily, as she leaned back in her chair. Giovanni was silent, but showed no intention of going. Del Ferice, with an equal determination to stay, chattered vivaciously. "Don Giovanni is quite right," he continued. "Every one is going. There will be two or three drags. Madame Mayer has induced Valdarno to have out his four-in-hand, and to take her and a large party." The Duchessa did not hear the remainder of Del Ferice's speech, for at the mention of Donna Tullia--now commonly called Madame Mayer--she instinctively turned and looked at Giovanni. He, too, had caught the name, though he was not listening in the least to Ugo's chatter; and as he met Corona's eyes he moved uneasily, as much as to say he wished the fellow would stop talking. A moment later Del Ferice rose from his seat; he had seen Donna Tullia passing near, and thought the opportunity favourable for obtaining an invitation to join the party on the drag. With a murmured excuse which Corona did not hear, he went in pursuit of his game. "I thought he was never going," said Giovanni, moodily. He was not in the habit of posing as the rival of any one who happened to be talking to the Duchessa. He had never said anything of the kind before, and Corona experienced a new sensation, not altogether unpleasant. She looked at him in some surprise. "Do you not like Del Ferice?" she inquired, gravely. "Do you like him yourself?" he asked in reply. "What a question! Why should I like or dislike any one?" There was perhaps the smallest shade of bitterness in her voice as she asked the question she had so often asked herself. Why should she like Giovanni Saracinesca, for instance? "I do not know what the world would be like if we had no likes and dislikes," said Giovanni, suddenly. "It would be a poor place; perhaps it is only a poor place at best. I merely wondered whether Del Ferice amused you as he amuses everybody." "Well then, frankly, he has not amused me to-day," answered Corona, with a smile. "Then you are glad he is gone?" "I do not regret it." "Duchessa," said Giovanni, suddenly changing his position, "I am glad he is gone, because I want to ask you a question. Do I know you well enough to ask you a question?" "It depends--" Corona felt the blood rise suddenly to her dark forehead. Her hands burned intensely in her gloves. The anticipation of something she had never heard made her heart beat uncontrollably in her breast. "It is only about myself," continued Giovanni, in low tones. He had seen the blush, so rare a sight that there was not another man in Rome who had seen it. He had not time to think what it meant. "It is only about myself," he went on. "My father wants me to marry; he insists that I should marry Donna Tullia--Madame Mayer." "Well?" asked Corona. She shivered; a moment before, she had been oppressed with the heat. Her monosyllabic question was low and indistinct. She wondered whether Giovanni could hear the beatings of her heart, so slow, so loud they almost deafened her. "Simply this. Do you advise me to marry her?" "Why do you ask me, of all people?" asked Corona, faintly. "I would like to have your advice," said Giovanni, twisting his brown hands together and fixing his bright eyes upon her face. "She is young yet. She is handsome--she is fabulously rich. Why should you not marry her? Would she make you happy?" "Happy? Happy with her? No indeed. Do you think life would be bearable with such a woman?" "I do not know. Many men would marry her if they could--" "Then you think I should?" asked Giovanni. Corona hesitated; she could not understand why she should care, and yet she was conscious that there had been no such struggle in her life since the day she had blindly resolved to sacrifice herself to her father's wishes in accepting Astrardente. Still there could be no doubt what she should say: how could she advise any one to marry without the prospect of the happiness she had never had? "Will you not give me your counsel?" repeated Saracinesca. He had grown very pale, and spoke with such earnestness that Corona hesitated no longer. "I would certainly advise you to think no more about it, if you are sure that you cannot be happy with her." Giovanni drew a long breath, the blood returned to his face, and his hands unlocked themselves. "I will think no more about it," he said. "Heaven bless you for your advice, Duchessa!" "Heaven grant I have advised you well!" said Corona, almost inaudibly. "How cold this house is! Will you put down my cup of tea? Let us go near the fire; Strillone is going to sing again." "I would like him to sing a 'Nune dimittis, Domine,' for me," murmured Giovanni, whose eyes were filled with a strange light. Half an hour later Corona d'Astrardente went down the steps of the Embassy wrapped in her furs and preceded by her footman. As she reached the bottom Giovanni Saracinesca came swiftly down and joined her as her carriage drove up out of the dark courtyard. The footman opened the door, but Giovanni put out his hand to help Corona to mount the step. She laid her small gloved fingers upon the sleeve of his overcoat, and as she sprang lightly in she thought his arm trembled. "Good night, Duchessa; I am very grateful to you," he said. "Good night; why should you be grateful?" she asked, almost sadly. Giovanni did not answer, but stood hat in hand as the great carriage rolled out under the arch. Then he buttoned his greatcoat, and went out alone into the dark and muddy streets. The rain had ceased, but everything was wet, and the broad pavements gleamed under the uncertain light of the flickering gas-lamps. CHAPTER III. The palace of the Saracinesca is in an ancient quarter of Rome, far removed from the broad white streets of mushroom dwelling-houses and machine-laid macadam; far from the foreigners' region, the varnish of the fashionable shops, the whirl of brilliant equipages, and the scream of the newsvendor. The vast irregular buildings are built around three courtyards, and face on all sides upon narrow streets. The first sixteen feet, up to the heavily ironed windows of the lower storey, consist of great blocks of stone, worn at the corners and scored along their length by the battering of ages, by the heavy carts that from time immemorial have found the way too narrow and have ground their iron axles against the massive masonry. Of the three enormous arched gates that give access to the interior from different sides, one is closed by an iron grating, another by huge doors studded with iron bolts, and the third alone is usually open as an entrance. A tall old porter used to stand there in a long livery-coat and a cocked-hat; on holidays he appeared in the traditional garb of the Parisian "Suisse," magnificent in silk stockings and a heavily laced coat of dark green, leaning upon his tall mace--a constant object of wonder to the small boys of the quarter. He trimmed his white beard in imitation of his master's--broad and square--and his words were few and to the point. No one was ever at home in the Palazzo Saracinesca in those days; there were no ladies in the house; it was a man's establishment, and there was something severely masculine in the air of the gloomy courtyards surrounded by dark archways, where not a single plant or bit of colour relieved the ancient stone. The pavement was clean and well kept, a new flagstone here and there showing that some care was bestowed upon maintaining it in good repair; but for any decoration there was to be found in the courts, the place might have been a fortress, as indeed it once was. The owners, father and son, lived in their ancestral home in a sort of solemn magnificence that savoured of feudal times. Giovanni was the only son of five-and-twenty years of wedlock. His mother had been older than his father, and had now been dead some time. She had been a stern dark woman, and had lent no feminine touch of grace to the palace while she lived in it, her melancholic temper rather rejoicing in the sepulchral gloom that hung over the house. The Saracinesca had always been a manly race, preferring strength to beauty, and the reality of power to the amenities of comfort. Giovanni walked home from the afternoon reception at the Embassy. His temper seemed to crave the bleak wet air of the cold streets, and he did not hurry himself. He intended to dine at home that evening, and he anticipated some kind of disagreement with his father. The two men were too much alike not to be congenial, but too combative by nature to care for eternal peace. On the present occasion it was likely that there would be a struggle, for Giovanni had made up his mind not to marry Madame Mayer, and his father was equally determined that he should marry her at once: both were singularly strong men, singularly tenacious of their opinions. At precisely seven o'clock father and son entered from different doors the small sitting-room in which they generally met, and they had no sooner entered than dinner was announced. Two words might suffice for the description of old Prince Saracinesca--he was an elder edition of his son. Sixty years of life had not bent his strong frame nor dimmed the brilliancy of his eyes, but his hair and beard were snowy white. He was broader in the shoulder and deeper in the chest than Giovanni, but of the same height, and well proportioned still, with little tendency to stoutness. He was to all appearance precisely what his son would be at his age--keen and vigorous, the stern lines of his face grown deeper, and his very dark eyes and complexion made more noticeable by the dazzling whiteness of his hair and broad square beard--the same type in a different stage of development. The dinner was served with a certain old-fashioned magnificence which has grown rare in Rome. There was old plate and old china upon the table, old cut glass of the diamond pattern, and an old butler who moved noiselessly about in the performance of the functions he had exercised in the same room for forty years, and which his father had exercised there before him. Prince Saracinesca and Don Giovanni sat on opposite sides of the round table, now and then exchanging a few words. "I was caught in the rain this afternoon," remarked the Prince. "I hope you will not have a cold," replied his son, civilly. "Why do you walk in such weather?" "And you--why do you walk?" retorted his father. "Are you less likely to take cold than I am? I walk because I have always walked." "That is an excellent reason. I walk because I do not keep a carriage." "Why do not you keep one if you wish to?" asked the Prince. "I will do as you wish. I will buy an equipage to-morrow, lest I should again walk in the rain and catch cold. Where did you see me on foot?" "In the Orso, half an hour ago. Why do you talk about my wishes in that absurd way?" "Since you say it is absurd, I will not do so," said Giovanni, quietly. "You are always contradicting me," said the Prince. "Some wine, Pasquale." "Contradicting you?" repeated Giovanni. "Nothing could be further from my intentions." The old Prince slowly sipped a glass of wine before he answered. "Why do not you set up an establishment for yourself and live like a gentleman?" he asked at length. "You are rich--why do you go about on foot and dine in cafés?" "Do I ever dine at a café when you are dining alone?" "You have got used to living in restaurants in Paris," retorted his father. "It is a bad habit. What was the use of your mother leaving you a fortune, unless you will live in a proper fashion?" "I understand you very well," answered Giovanni, his dark eyes beginning to gleam. "You know all that is a pretence. I am the most home-staying man of your acquaintance. It is a mere pretence. You are going to talk about my marriage again." "And has any one a more natural right to insist upon your marriage than I have?" asked the elder man, hotly. "Leave the wine on the table, Pasquale--and the fruit--here. Give Don Giovanni his cheese. I will ring for the coffee--leave us." The butler and the footman left the room. "Has any one a more natural right, I ask?" repeated the Prince when they were alone. "No one but myself, I should say," answered Giovanni, bitterly. "Yourself--yourself indeed! What have you to say about it? This a family matter. Would you have Saracinesca sold, to be distributed piecemeal among a herd of dogs of starving relations you never heard of, merely because you are such a vagabond, such a Bohemian, such a break-neck, crazy good-for-nothing, that you will not take the trouble to accept one of all the women who rush into your arms?" "Your affectionate manner of speaking of your relatives is only surpassed by your good taste in describing the probabilities of my marriage," remarked Giovanni, scornfully. "And you say you never contradict me!" exclaimed the Prince, angrily. "If this is an instance, I can safely say so. Comment is not contradiction." "Do you mean to say you have not repeatedly refused to marry?" inquired old Saracinesca. "That would be untrue. I have refused, I do refuse, and I will refuse, just so long as it pleases me." "That is definite, at all events. You will go on refusing until you have broken your silly neck in imitating Englishmen, and then--good night Saracinesca! The last of the family will have come to a noble end!" "If the only use of my existence is to become the father of heirs to your titles, I do not care to enjoy them myself." "You will not enjoy them till my death, at all events. Did you ever reflect that I might marry again?" "If you please to do so, do not hesitate on my account. Madame Mayer will accept you as soon as me. Marry by all means, and may you have a numerous progeny; and may they all marry in their turn, the day they are twenty. I wish you joy." "You are intolerable, Giovanni. I should think you would have more respect for Donna Tullia--" "Than to call her Madame Mayer," interrupted Giovanni. "Than to suggest that she cares for nothing but a title and a fortune--" "You showed much respect to her a moment ago, when you suggested that she was ready to rush into my arms." "I! I never said such a thing. I said that any woman--" "Including Madame Mayer, of course," interrupted Giovanni again. "Can you not let me speak?" roared the Prince. Giovanni shrugged his shoulders a little, poured out a glass of wine, and helped himself to cheese, but said nothing. Seeing that his son said nothing, old Saracinesca was silent too; he was so angry that he had lost the thread of his ideas. Perhaps Giovanni regretted the quarrelsome tone he had taken, for he presently spoke to his father in a more conciliatory tone. "Let us be just," he said. "I will listen to you, and I shall be glad if you will listen to me. In the first place, when I think of marriage I represent something to myself by the term--" "I hope so," growled the old man. "I look upon marriage as an important step in a man's life. I am not so old as to make my marriage an immediate necessity, nor so young as to be able wholly to disregard it. I do not desire to be hurried; for when I make up my mind, I intend to make a choice which, if it does not ensure happiness, will at least ensure peace. I do not wish to marry Madame Mayer. She is young, handsome, rich--" "Very," ejaculated the Prince. "Very. I also am young and rich, if not handsome." "Certainly not handsome," said his father, who was nursing his wrath, and meanwhile spoke calmly. "You are the image of me." "I am proud of the likeness," said Giovanni, gravely. "But to return to Madame Mayer. She is a widow--" "Is that her fault?" inquired his father irrelevantly, his anger rising again. "I trust not," said Giovanni, with a smile. "I trust she did not murder old Mayer. Nevertheless she is a widow. That is a strong objection. Have any of my ancestors married widows?" "You show your ignorance at every turn," said the old Prince, with a scornful laugh. "Leone Saracinesca married the widow of the Elector of Limburger-Stinkenstein in 1581." "It is probably the German blood in our veins which gives you your taste for argument," remarked Giovanni. "Because three hundred years ago an ancestor married a widow, I am to marry one now. Wait--do not be angry--there are other reasons why I do not care for Madame Mayer. She is too gay for me--too fond of the world." The Prince burst into aloud ironical laugh. His white hair and beard bristled about his dark face, and he showed all his teeth, strong and white still. "That is magnificent!" he cried; "it is superb, splendid, a piece of unpurchasable humour! Giovanni Saracinesca has found a woman who is too gay for him! Heaven be praised! We know his taste at last. We will give him a nun, a miracle of all the virtues, a little girl out of a convent, vowed to a life of sacrifice and self-renunciation. That will please him--he will be a model happy husband." "I do not understand this extraordinary outburst," answered Giovanni, with cold scorn. "Your mirth is amazing, but I fail to understand its source." His father ceased laughing, and looked at him curiously, his heavy brows bending with the intenseness of his gaze. Giovanni returned the look, and it seemed as though those two strong angry men were fencing across the table with their fiery glances. The son was the first to speak. "Do you mean to imply that I am not the kind of man to be allowed to marry a young girl?" he asked, not taking his eyes from his father. "Look you, boy," returned the Prince, "I will have no more nonsense. I insist upon this match, as I have told you before. It is the most suitable one that I can find for you; and instead of being grateful, you turn upon me and refuse to do your duty. Donna Tullia is twenty-three years of age. She is brilliant, rich. There is nothing against her. She is a distant cousin--" "One of the flock of vultures you so tenderly referred to," remarked Giovanni. "Silence!" cried old Saracinesca, striking his heavy hand upon the table so that the glasses shook together. "I will be heard; and what is more, I will be obeyed. Donna Tullia is a relation. The union of two such fortunes will be of immense advantage to your children. There is everything in favour of the match--nothing against it. You shall marry her a month from to-day. I will give you the title of Sant' Ilario, with the estate outright into the bargain, and the palace in the Corso to live in, if you do not care to live here." "And if I refuse?" asked Giovanni, choking down his anger. "If you refuse, you shall leave my house a month from to-day," said the Prince, savagely. "Whereby I shall be fulfilling your previous commands, in setting up an establishment for myself and living like a gentleman," returned Giovanni, with a bitter laugh. "It is nothing to me--if you turn me out. I am rich, as you justly observed." "You will have the more leisure to lead the life you like best," retorted the Prince; "to hang about in society, to go where you please, to make love to--" the old man stopped a moment. His son was watching him fiercely, his hand clenched upon the table, his face as white as death. "To whom?" he asked with a terrible effort to be calm. "Do you think I am afraid of you? Do you think your father is less strong or less fierce than you? To whom?" cried the angry old man, his whole pent-up fury bursting out as he rose suddenly to his feet. "To whom but to Corona d'Astrardente--to whom else should you make love?--wasting your youth and life upon a mad passion! All Rome says it--I will say it too!" "You have said it indeed," answered Giovanni, in a very low voice. He remained seated at the table, not moving a muscle, his face as the face of the dead. "You have said it, and in insulting that lady you have said a thing not worthy for one of our blood to say. God help me to remember that you are my father," he added, trembling suddenly. "Hold!" said the Prince, who, with all his ambition for his son, and his hasty temper, was an honest gentleman. "I never insulted, her--she is above suspicion. It is you who are wasting your life in a hopeless passion for her. See, I speak calmly--" "What does 'all Rome say'?" asked Giovanni, interrupting him. He was still deadly pale, but his hand was unclenched, and as he spoke he rested his head upon it, looking down at the tablecloth. "Everybody says that you are in love with the Astrardente, and that her husband is beginning to notice it." "It is enough, sir," said Giovanni, in low tones. "I will consider this marriage you propose. Give me until the spring to decide." "That is a long time," remarked the old Prince, resuming his seat and beginning to peel an orange, as though nothing had happened. He was far from being calm, but his son's sudden change of manner had disarmed his anger. He was passionate and impetuous, thoughtless in his language, and tyrannical in his determination; but he loved Giovanni dearly for all that. "I do not think it long," said Giovanni, thoughtfully. "I give you my word that I will seriously consider the marriage. If it is possible for me to marry Donna Tullia, I will obey you, and I will give you my answer before Easter-day. I cannot do more." "I sincerely hope you will take my advice," answered Saracinesca, now entirely pacified. "If you cannot make up your mind to the match, I may be able to find something else. There is Bianca Valdarno--she will have a quarter of the estate." "She is so very ugly," objected Giovanni, quietly. He was still much agitated, but he answered his father mechanically. "That is true--they are all ugly, those Valdarni. Besides, they are of Tuscan origin. What do you say to the little Rocca girl? She has great _chic_; she was brought up in England. She is pretty enough." "I am afraid she would be extravagant." "She could spend her own money then; it will be sufficient." "It is better to be on the safe side," said Giovanni. Suddenly he changed his position, and again looked at his father. "I am sorry we always quarrel about this question," he said. "I do not really want to marry, but I wish to oblige you, and I will try. Why do we always come to words over it?" "I am sure I do not know," said the Prince, with a pleasant smile. "I have such a diabolical temper, I suppose." "And I have inherited it," answered Don Giovanni, with a laugh that was meant to be cheerful. "But I quite see your point of view. I suppose I ought to settle in life by this time." "Seriously, I think so, my son. Here is to your future happiness," said the old gentleman, touching his glass with his lips. "And here is to our future peace," returned Giovanni, also drinking. "We never really quarrel, Giovanni, do we?" said his father. Every trace of anger had vanished. His strong face beamed with an affectionate smile that was like the sun after a thunderstorm. "No, indeed," answered his son, cordially. "We cannot afford to quarrel; there are only two of us left." "That is what I always say," assented the Prince, beginning to eat the orange he had carefully peeled since he had grown calm. "If two men like you and me, my boy, can thoroughly agree, there is nothing we cannot accomplish; whereas if we go against each other--" "Justitia non fit, coelum vero ruet," suggested Giovanni, in parody of the proverb. "I am a little rusty in my Latin, Giovanni," said the old gentleman. "Heaven is turned upside down, but justice is not done." "No; one is never just when one is angry. But storms clear the sky, as they say up at Saracinesca." "By the bye, have you heard whether that question of the timber has been settled yet?" asked Giovanni. "Of course--I had forgotten. I will tell you all about it," answered his father, cheerfully. So they chatted peacefully for another half-hour; and no one would have thought, in looking at them, that such fierce passions had been roused, nor that one of them felt as though his death-warrant had been signed. When they separated, Giovanni went to his own rooms, and locked himself in. He had assumed an air of calmness which was not real before he left his father. In truth he was violently agitated. He was as fiery as his father, but his passions were of greater strength and of longer duration; for his mother had been a Spaniard, and something of the melancholy of her country had entered into his soul, giving depth and durability to the hot Italian character he inherited from his father. Nor did the latter suspect the cause of his son's sudden change of tone in regard to the marriage. It was precisely the difference in temperament which made Giovanni incomprehensible to the old Prince. Giovanni had realised for more than a year past that he loved Corona d'Astrardente. Contrary to the custom of young men in his position, he determined from the first that he would never let her know it; and herein lay the key to all his actions. He had, as he thought, made a point of behaving to her on all occasions as he behaved to the other women he met in the world, and he believed that he had skilfully concealed his passion from the world and from the woman he loved. He had acted on all occasions with a circumspection which was not natural to him, and for which he undeniably deserved great credit. It had been a year of constant struggles, constant efforts at self-control, constant determination that, if possible, he would overcome his instincts. It was true that, when occasion offered, he had permitted himself the pleasure of talking to Corona d'Astrardente--talking, he well knew, upon the most general subjects, but finding at each interview some new point of sympathy. Never, he could honestly say, had he approached in that time the subject of love, nor even the equally dangerous topic of friendship, the discussion of which leads to so many ruinous experiments. He had never by look or word sought to interest the dark Duchessa in his doings nor in himself; he had talked of books, of politics, of social questions, but never of himself nor of herself. He had faithfully kept the promise he had made in his heart, that since he was so unfortunate as to love the wife of another--a woman of such nobility that even in Rome no breath had been breathed against her--he would keep his unfortunate passion to himself. Astrardente was old, almost decrepit, in spite of his magnificent wig; Corona was but two-and-twenty years of age. If ever her husband died, Giovanni would present himself before the world as her suitor; meanwhile he would do nothing to injure her self-respect nor to disturb her peace--he hardly flattered himself he could do that, for he loved her truly--and above all, he would do nothing to compromise the unsullied reputation she enjoyed. She might never love him; but he was strong and patient, and would do her the only honour it was in his power to do her, by waiting patiently. But Giovanni had not considered that he was the most conspicuous man in society; that there were many who watched his movements, in hopes he would come their way; that when he entered a room, many had noticed that, though he never went directly to Corona's side, he always looked first towards her, and never omitted to speak with her in the course of an evening. Keen observers, the jays of society who hover about the eagle's nest, had not failed to observe a look of annoyance on Giovanni's face when he did not succeed in being alone by Corona's side for at least a few minutes; and Del Ferice, who was a sort of news-carrier in Rome, had now and then hinted that Giovanni was in love. People had repeated his hints, as he intended they should, with the illuminating wit peculiar to tale-bearers, and the story had gone abroad accordingly. True, there was not a man in Rome bold enough to allude to the matter in Giovanni's presence, even if any one had seen any advantage in so doing; but such things do not remain hidden. His own father had told him in a fit of anger, and the blow had produced its effect. Giovanni sat down in a deep easy-chair in his own room, and thought over the situation. His first impulse had been to be furiously angry with his father; but the latter having instantly explained that there was nothing to be said against the Duchessa, Giovanni's anger against the Prince had turned against himself. It was bitter to think that all his self-denial, all his many and prolonged efforts to conceal his love, had been of no avail. He cursed his folly and imprudence, while wondering how it was possible that the story should have got abroad. He did not waver in his determination to hide his inclinations, to destroy the impression he had so unwillingly produced. The first means he found in his way seemed the best. To marry Donna Tullia at once, before the story of his affection for the Duchessa had gathered force, would, he thought, effectually shut the mouths of the gossips. From one point of view it was a noble thought, the determination to sacrifice himself wholly and for ever, rather than permit his name to be mentioned ever so innocently in connection with the woman he loved; to root out utterly his love for her by seriously engaging his faith to another, and keeping that engagement with all the strength of fidelity he knew himself to possess. He would save Corona from annoyance, and her name from the scandal-mongers; and if any one ever dared to mention the story-- Giovanni rose to his feet and mechanically took a fencing-foil from the wall, as he often did for practice. If any one mentioned the story, he thought, he had the means to silence them, quickly and for ever. His eyes flashed suddenly at the idea of action--any action, even fighting, which might be distantly connected with Corona. Then he tossed down the rapier and threw himself into his chair, and sat quite still, staring at the trophies of armour upon the wall opposite. He could not do it. To wrong one woman for the sake of shielding another was not in his power. People might laugh at him and call him Quixotic, forsooth, because he would not do like every one else and make a marriage of convenience--of propriety. Propriety! when his heart was breaking within him; when every fibre of his strong frame quivered with the strain of passion; when his aching eyes saw only one face, and his ears echoed the words she had spoken that very afternoon! Propriety indeed! Propriety was good enough for cold-blooded dullards. Donna Tullia had done him no harm that he should marry her for propriety's sake, and make her life miserable for thirty, forty, fifty years. It would be propriety rather for him to go away, to bury himself in the ends of the earth, until he could forget Corona d'Astrardente, her splendid eyes, and her deep sweet voice. He had pledged his father his word that he would consider the marriage, and he was to give his answer before Easter. That was a long time yet. He would consider it; and if by Eastertide he had forgotten Corona, he would--he laughed aloud in his silent room, and the sound of his voice startled him from his reverie. Forget? Did such men as he forget? Other men did. What were they made of? They did not love such women, perhaps; that was the reason they forgot. Any one could forget poor Donna Tullia. And yet how was it possible to forget if one loved truly? Giovanni had never believed himself in love before. He had known one or two women who had attracted him strongly; but he had soon found out that he had no real sympathy with them, that though they amused him they had no charm for him--most of all, that he could not imagine himself tied to any one of them for life without conceiving the situation horrible in the extreme. To his independent nature the idea of such ties was repugnant: he knew himself too courteous to break through the civilities of life with a wife he did not love; but he knew also that in marrying a woman who was indifferent to him, he would be engaging to play a part for life in the most fearful of all plays--the part of a man who strives to bear bravely the galling of a chain he is too honourable to break. It was four o'clock in the morning when Giovanni went to bed; and even then he slept little, for his dreams were disturbed. Once he thought he stood upon a green lawn with a sword in his hand, and the blood upon its point, his opponent lying at his feet. Again, he thought he was alone in a vast drawing-room, and a dark woman came and spoke gently to him, saying, "Marry her for my sake." He awoke with a groan. The church clocks were striking eight, and the meet was at eleven, five miles beyond the Porta Pia. Giovanni started up and rang for his servant. CHAPTER IV. It was a beautiful day, and half Rome turned out to see the meet, not because it was in any way different from other meets, but because it chanced that society had a fancy to attend it. Society is very like a fever patient in a delirium; it is rarely accountable for its actions; it scarcely ever knows what it is saying; and occasionally, without the least warning or premeditation, it leaps out of bed at an early hour of the morning and rushes frantically in pursuit of its last hallucination. The main difference is, that whereas a man in a fever has a nurse, society has none. On the present occasion every one had suddenly conceived the idea of going to the meet, and the long road beyond the Porta Pia was dotted for miles with equipages of every description, from the four-in-hand of Prince Valdarno to the humble donkey-cart of the caterer who sells messes of boiled beans, and bread and cheese, and salad to the grooms--an institution not connected in the English mind with hunting. One after another the vehicles rolled out along the road, past Sant' Agnese, down the hill and across the Ponte Nomentana, and far up beyond to a place where three roads met and there was a broad open stretch of wet, withered grass. Here the carriages turned in and ranged themselves side by side, as though they were pausing in the afternoon drive upon the Pincio, instead of being five miles out upon the broad Campagna. To describe the mountains to southward of Rome would be an insult to nature; to describe a meet would be an affront to civilised readers of the English language. The one is too familiar to everybody; the pretty crowd of men and women, dotted with pink and set off by the neutral colour of the winter fields; the hunters of all ages, and sizes, and breeds, led slowly up and down by the grooms; while from time to time some rider gets into the saddle and makes himself comfortable, assures himself of girth and stirrup, and of the proper disposal of the sandwich-box and sherry-flask, gives a final word of instruction to his groom, and then moves slowly off. A Roman meet is a little less business-like than the same thing elsewhere; there is a little more dawdling, a little more conversation when many ladies chance to have come to see the hounds throw off; otherwise it is not different from other meets. As for the Roman mountains, they are so totally unlike any other hills in the world, and so extremely beautiful in their own peculiar way, that to describe them would be an idle and a useless task, which could only serve to exhibit the vanity of the writer and the feebleness of his pen. Don Giovanni arrived early in spite of his sleepless night. He descended from his dogcart by the roadside, instead of driving into the field, and he took a careful survey of the carriages he saw before him. Conspicuous in the distance he distinguished Donna Tullia Mayer standing among a little crowd of men near Valdarno's drag. She was easily known by her dress, as Del Ferice had remarked on the previous evening. On this occasion she wore a costume in which the principal colours were green and yellow, an enormous hat, with feathers in the same proportion surmounting her head, and she carried a yellow parasol. She was a rather handsome woman of middle height, with unnaturally blond hair, and a fairly good complexion, which as yet she had wisely abstained from attempting to improve by artificial means; her eyes were blue, but uncertain in their glance--of the kind which do not inspire confidence; and her mouth was much admired, being small and red, with full lips. She was rapid in her movements, and she spoke in a loud voice, easily collecting people about her wherever there were any to collect. Her conversation was not brilliant, but it was so abundant that its noisy vivacity passed current for cleverness; she had a remarkably keen judgment of people, and a remarkably bad taste in her opinions of things artistic, from beauty in nature to beauty in dress, but she maintained her point of view obstinately, and admitted no contradiction. It was a singular circumstance that whereas many of her attributes were distinctly vulgar, she nevertheless had an indescribable air of good breeding, the strange inimitable stamp of social superiority which cannot be acquired by any known process of education. A person seeing her might be surprised at her loud talking, amused at her eccentricities of dress, and shocked at her bold manner, but no one would ever think of classing her anywhere save in what calls itself "the best society." Among the men who stood talking to Donna Tullia was the inevitable Del Ferice, a man of whom it might be said that he was never missed, because he was always present. Giovanni disliked Del Ferice without being able to define his aversion. He disliked generally men whom he suspected of duplicity; and he had no reason for supposing that truth, looking into her mirror, would have seen there the image of Ugo's fat pale face and colourless moustache. But if Ugo was a liar, he must have had a good memory, for he never got himself into trouble, and he had the reputation of being a useful member of society, an honour to which persons of doubtful veracity rarely attain. Giovanni, however, disliked him, and suspected him of many things; and although he had intended to go up to Donna Tullia, the sight of Del Ferice at her side very nearly prevented him. He strolled leisurely down the little slope, and as he neared the crowd, spoke to one or two acquaintances, mentally determining to avoid Madame Mayer, and to mount immediately. But he was disappointed in his intention. As he stood for a moment beside the carriage of the Marchesa Rocca, exchanging a few words with her, and looking with some interest at her daughter, the little Rocca girl whom his father had proposed as a possible wife for him, he forgot his proximity to the lady he wished to avoid; and when, a few seconds later, he proceeded in the direction of his horse, Madame Mayer stepped forward from the knot of her admirers and tapped him familiarly upon the shoulder with the handle of her parasol. "So you were not going to speak to me to-day?" she said rather roughly, after her manner. Giovanni turned sharply and faced her, bowing low. Donna Tullia laughed. "Is there anything so amazingly ridiculous in my appearance?" he asked. "_Altro_! when you make that tremendous salute--" "It was intended to convey an apology as well as a greeting," answered Don Giovanni, politely. "I would like more apology and less greeting." "I am ready to apologise--" "Humbly, without defending yourself," said Donna Tullia, beginning to walk slowly forward. Giovanni was obliged to follow her. "My defence is, nevertheless, a very good one," he said. "Well, if it is really good, I may listen to it; but you will not make me believe that you intended to behave properly." "I am in a very bad humour. I would not inflict my cross temper upon you; therefore I avoided you." Donna Tullia eyed him attentively. When she answered she drew in her small red lips with an air of annoyance. "You look as though you were in bad humour," she answered. "I am sorry I disturbed you. It is better to leave sleeping dogs alone, as the proverb says." "I have not snapped yet," said Giovanni. "I am not dangerous, I assure you." "Oh, I am not in the least afraid of you," replied his companion, with a little scorn. "Do not flatter yourself your little humours frighten me. I suppose you intend to follow?" "Yes," answered Saracinesca, shortly; he was beginning to weary of Donna Tullia's manner of taking him to task. "You had much better come with us, and leave the poor foxes alone. Valdarno is going to drive us round by the cross-roads to the Capannelle. We will have a picnic lunch, and be home before three o'clock." "Thanks very much. I cannot let my horse shirk his work. I must beg you to excuse me--" "Again?" exclaimed Donna Tullia. "You are always making excuses." Then she suddenly changed her tone, and looked down. "I wish you would come with us," she said, gently. "It is not often I ask you to do anything." Giovanni looked at her quickly. He knew that Donna Tullia wished to marry him; he even suspected that his father had discussed the matter with her--no uncommon occurrence when a marriage has to be arranged with a widow. But he did not know that Donna Tullia was in love with him in her own odd fashion. He looked at her, and he saw that as she spoke there were tears of vexation in her bold blue eyes. He hesitated a moment, but natural courtesy won the day. "I will go with you," he said, quietly. A blush of pleasure rose to Madame Mayer's pink cheeks; she felt she had made a point, but she was not willing to show her satisfaction. "You say it as though you were conferring a favour," she said, with a show of annoyance, which was belied by the happy expression of her face. "Pardon me; I myself am the favoured person," replied Giovanni, mechanically. He had yielded because he did not know how to refuse; but he already regretted it, and would have given much to escape from the party. "You do not look as though you believed it," said Donna Tullia, eyeing him critically. "If you are going to be disagreeable, I release you." She said this well knowing, the while, that he would not accept of his liberty. "If you are so ready to release me, as you call it, you do not really want me," said her companion. Donna Tullia bit her lip, and there was a moment's pause. "If you will excuse me a moment I will send my horse home--I will join you at once." "There is your horse--right before us," said Madame Mayer. Even that short respite was not allowed him, and she waited while Don Giovanni ordered the astonished groom to take his hunter for an hour's exercise in a direction where he would not fall in with the hounds. "I did not believe you would really do it," said Donna Tullia, as the two turned and sauntered back towards the carriages. Most of the men who meant to follow had already mounted, and the little crowd had thinned considerably. But while they had been talking another carriage had driven into the field, and had halted a few yards from Valdarno's drag. Astrardente had taken it into his head to come to the meet with his wife, and they had arrived late. Astrardente always arrived a little late, on principle. As Giovanni and Donna Tullia came back to their drag, they suddenly found themselves face to face with the Duchessa and her husband. It did not surprise Corona to see Giovanni walking with the woman he did not intend to marry, but it seemed to give the old Duke undisguised pleasure. "Do you see, Corona, there is no doubt of it! It is just as I told you," exclaimed the aged dandy, in a voice so audible that Giovanni frowned and Donna Tullia blushed slightly. Both of them bowed as they passed the carriage. Don Giovanni looked straight into Corona's face as he took off his hat. He might very well have made her a little sign, the smallest gesture, imperceptible to Donna Tullia, whereby he could have given her the idea that his position was involuntary. But Don Giovanni was a gentleman, and he did nothing of the kind; he bowed and looked calmly at the woman he loved as he passed by. Astrardente watched him keenly, and as he noticed the indifference of Saracinesca's look, he gave a curious little snuffling snort that was peculiar to him. He could have sworn that neither his wife nor Giovanni had shown the smallest interest in each other. He was satisfied. His wife was above suspicion, as he always said; but he was an old man, and had seen the world, and he knew that however implicitly he might trust the noble woman who had sacrificed her youth to his old age, it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that she might become innocently interested, even unawares, in some younger man--in some such man as Giovanni Saracinesca-and he thought it worth his while to watch her. His little snort, however, was indicative of satisfaction. Corona had not winced at the mention of the marriage, and had nodded with the greatest unconcern to the man as he passed. "Ah, Donna Tullia!" he cried, as he returned their greeting, "you are preventing Don Giovanni from mounting; the riders will be off in a moment." Being thus directly addressed, there was nothing to be done but to stop and exchange a few words. The Duchessa was on the side nearest to the pair as they passed, and her husband rose and sat opposite her, so as to talk more at his ease. There were renewed greetings on both sides, and Giovanni naturally found himself talking to Corona, while her husband and Donna Tullia conversed together. "What man could think of hunting when he could be talking to you instead?" said old Astrardente, whose painted face adjusted itself in a sort of leer that had once been a winning smile. Every one knew he painted, his teeth were a miracle of American dentistry, and his wig had deceived a great portrait-painter. The padding in his clothes was disposed with cunning wisdom, and in public he rarely removed the gloves from his small hands. Donna Tullia laughed at what he said. "You should teach Don Giovanni to make pretty speeches," she said. "He is as surly as a wolf this morning." "I should think a man in his position would not need much teaching in order to be gallant to you," replied the old dandy, with a knowing look. Then lowering his voice, he added confidentially, "I hope that before very long I may be allowed to congrat--" "I have prevailed upon him to give up following the hounds to-day," interrupted Donna Tullia, quickly. She spoke loud enough to be noticed by Corona. "He is coming with us to picnic at the Capannelle instead." Giovanni could not help glancing quickly at Corona. She smiled faintly, and her face betrayed no emotion. "I daresay it will be very pleasant," she said gently, looking far out over the Campagna. In the next field the pack was moving away, followed at a little distance by a score of riders in pink; one or two men who had stayed behind in conversation, mounted hastily and rode after the hunt; some of the carriages turned out of the field and began to follow slowly along the road, in hopes of seeing the hounds throw off; the party who were going with Valdarno gathered about the drag, waiting for Donna Tullia; the grooms who were left behind congregated around the men who sold boiled beans and salad; and in a few minutes the meet had practically dispersed. "Why will you not join us, Duchessa?" asked Madame Mayer. "There is lunch enough for everybody, and the more people we are the pleasanter it will be." Donna Tullia made her suggestion with her usual frank manner, fixing her blue eyes upon Corona as she spoke. There was every appearance of cordiality in the invitation; but Donna Tullia knew well enough that there was a sting in her words, or at all events that she meant there should be. Corona, however, glanced quietly at her husband, and then courteously refused. "You are most kind," she said, "but I fear we cannot join you to-day. We are very regular people," she explained, with a slight smile, "and we are not prepared to go to-day. Many thanks; I wish we could accept your kind invitation." "Well, I am sorry you will not come," said Donna Tullia, with a rather hard laugh. "We mean to enjoy ourselves immensely." Giovanni said nothing. There was only one thing which could have rendered the prospect of Madame Mayer's picnic more disagreeable to him than it already was, and that would have been the presence of the Duchessa. He knew himself to be in a thoroughly false position in consequence of having yielded to Donna Tullia's half-tearful request that he would join the party. He remembered how he had spoken to Corona on the previous evening, assuring her that he would not marry Madame Mayer. Corona knew nothing of the change his plans had undergone during the stormy interview he had had with his father; he longed, indeed, to be able to make the Duchessa understand, but any attempt at explanation would be wholly impossible. Corona would think he was inconsistent, or at least that he was willing to flirt with the gay widow, while determined not to marry her. He reflected that it was part of his self-condemnation that he should appear unfavourably to the woman he loved, and whom he was determined to renounce; but he realised for the first time how bitter it would be to stand thus always in the appearance of weakness and self-contradiction in the eyes of the only human being whose good opinion he coveted, and for whose dear sake he was willing to do all things. As he stood by her, his hand rested upon the side of the carriage, and he stared blankly at the distant hounds and the retreating riders. "Come, Don Giovanni, we must be going," said Donna Tullia. "What in the world are you thinking of? You look as though you had been turned into a statue!" "I beg your pardon," returned Saracinesca, suddenly called back from the absorbing train of his unpleasant thoughts. "Good-bye, Duchessa; good-bye, Astrardente--a pleasant drive to you." "You will always regret not having come, you know," cried Madame Mayer, shaking hands with both the occupants of the carriage. "We shall probably end by driving to Albano, and staying all night--just fancy! Immense fun--not even a comb in the whole party! Good-bye. I suppose we shall all meet to-night--that is, if we ever come back to Rome at all. Come along, Giovanni," she said, familiarly dropping the prefix from his name. After all, he was a sort of cousin, and people in Rome are very apt to call each other by their Christian names. But Donna Tullia knew what she was about; she knew that Corona d'Astrardente could never, under any circumstances whatever, call Saracinesca plain "Giovanni." But she had not the satisfaction of seeing that anything she said produced any change in Corona's proud dark face; she seemed of no more importance in the Duchessa's eyes than if she had been a fly buzzing in the sunshine. So Giovanni and Madame Mayer joined their noisy party, and began to climb into their places upon the drag; but before they were prepared to start, the Astrardente carriage turned and drove rapidly out of the field. The laughter and loud talking came to Corona's ears, growing fainter and more distant every second, and the sound was very cruel to her; but she set her strong brave lips together, and leaned back, adjusting the blanket over her old husband's knees with one hand, and shading the sun from her eyes with the parasol she held in the other. "Thank you, my dear; you are an angel of thoughtfulness," said the old dandy, stroking his wife's hand. "What a singularly vulgar woman Madame Mayer is! And yet she has a certain little _chic_ of her own." Corona did not withdraw her fingers from her husband's caress. She was used to it. After all, he was kind to her in his way. It would have been absurd to have been jealous of the grossly flattering speeches he made to other women; and indeed he was as fond of turning compliments to his wife as to any one. It was a singular relation that had grown up between the old man and the young girl he had married. Had he been less thoroughly a man of the world, or had Corona been less entirely honest and loyal and self-sacrificing, there would have been small peace in their wedlock. But Astrardente, decayed roué and worn-out dandy as he was, was in love with his wife; and she, in all the young magnificence of her beauty, submitted to be loved by him, because she had promised that she would do so, and because, having sworn, she regarded the breaking of her faith by the smallest act of unkindness as a thing beyond the bounds of possibility. It had been a terrible blow to her to discover that she cared for Don Giovanni even in the way she believed she did, as a man whose society she preferred to that of other men, and whose face it gave her pleasure to see. She, too, had spent a sleepless night; and when she had risen in the morning, she had determined to forget Giovanni, and if she could not forget him, she had sworn that more than ever she would be all things to her husband. She wondered now, as Giovanni had known she would, why he had suddenly thrown over his day's hunting in order to spend his time with Donna Tullia; but she would not acknowledge, even to herself, that the dull pain she felt near her heart, and that seemed to oppress her breathing, bore any relation to the scene she had just witnessed. She shut her lips tightly, and arranged the blanket for her husband. "Madame Mayer is vulgar," she answered. "I suppose she cannot help it." "Women can always help being vulgar," returned Astrardente. "I believe she learned it from her husband. Women are not naturally like that. Nevertheless she is an excellent match for Giovanni Saracinesca. Rich, by millions. Undeniably handsome, gay--well, rather too gay; but Giovanni is so serious that the contrast will be to their mutual advantage." Corona was silent. There was nothing the old man disliked so much as silence. "Why do you not answer me?" he asked, rather petulantly. "I do not know--I was thinking," said Corona, simply. "I do not see that it is a great match after all, for the last of the Saracinesca." "You think she will lead him a terrible dance, I daresay," returned the old man. "She is gay--very gay; and Giovanni is very, very solemn." "I did not mean that she was too gay. I only think that Saracinesca might marry, for instance, the Rocca girl. Why should he take a widow?" "Such a young widow. Old Mayer was as decrepit as any old statue in a museum. He was paralysed in one arm, and gouty--gouty, my dear; you do not know how gouty he was." The old fellow grinned scornfully; he had never had the gout. "Donna Tullia is a very young widow. Besides, think of the fortune. It would break old Saracinesca's heart to let so much money go out of the family. He is a miserly old wretch, Saracinesca!" "I never heard that," said Corona. "Oh, there are many things in Rome that one never hears, and that is one of them. I hate avarice--it is so extremely vulgar." Indeed Astrardente was not himself avaricious, though he had all his life known how to protect his interests. He loved money, but he loved also to spend it, especially in such a way as to make a great show with it. It was not true, however, that Saracinesca was miserly. He spent a large income without the smallest ostentation. "Really, I should hardly call Prince Saracinesca a miser," said Corona. "I cannot imagine, from what I know of him, why he should be so anxious to get Madame Mayer's fortune; but I do not think it is out of mere greediness." "Then I do not know what you can call it," returned her husband, sharply. "They have always had that dismal black melancholy in that family--that detestable love of secretly piling up money, while their faces are as grave and sour as any Jew's in the Ghetto." Corona glanced at her husband, and smiled faintly as she looked at his thin old features, where the lights and shadows were touched in with delicate colour more artfully than any actress's, superficially concealing the lines traced by years of affectation and refined egotism; and she thought of Giovanni's strong manly face, passionate indeed, but noble and bold. A moment later she resolutely put the comparison out of her mind, and finding that her husband was inclined to abuse the Saracinesca, she tried to turn the conversation. "I suppose it will be a great ball at the Frangipani's," she said. "We will go, of course?" she added, interrogatively. "Of course. I would not miss it for all the world. There has not been such a ball for years as that will be. Do I ever miss an opportunity of enjoying myself--I mean, of letting you enjoy yourself?" "No, you are very good," said Corona, gently. "Indeed I sometimes think you give yourself trouble about going out on my account. Really, I am not so greedy of society. I would often gladly stay at home if you wished it." "Do you think I am past enjoying the world, then?" asked the old man, sourly. "No indeed," replied Corona, patiently. "Why should I think that? I see how much you like going out." "Of course I like it. A rational man in the prime of life always likes to see his fellow-creatures. Why should not I?" The Duchessa did not smile. She was used to hearing her aged husband speak of himself as young. It was a harmless fancy. "I think it is quite natural," she said. "What I cannot understand," said Astrardente, muffling his thin throat more closely against the keen bright _tramontana_ wind, "is that such old fellows as Saracinesca should still want to play a part in the world." Saracinesca was younger than Astrardente, and his iron constitution bade fair to outlast another generation, in spite of his white hair. "You do not seem to be in a good humour with Saracinesca to-day," remarked Corona, by way of answer. "Why do you defend him?" asked her husband, in a new fit of irritation. "He jars on my nerves, the sour old creature!" "I fancy all Rome will go to the Frangipani ball," began Corona again, without heeding the old man's petulance. "You seem to be interested in it," returned Astrardente. Corona was silent; it was her only weapon when he became petulant. He hated silence, and generally returned to the conversation with more suavity. Perhaps, in his great experience, he really appreciated his wife's wonderful patience with his moods, and it is certain that he was exceedingly fond of her. "You must have a new gown, my dear," he said presently, in a conciliatory tone. His wife passed for the best-dressed woman in Rome, as she was undeniably the most remarkable in many other ways. She was not above taking an interest in dress, and her old husband had an admirable taste; moreover, he took a vast pride in her appearance, and if she had looked a whit less superior to other women, his smiling boast that she was above suspicion would have lost some of its force. "I hardly think it is necessary," said Corona; "I have so many things, and it will be a great crowd." "My dear, be economical of your beauty, but not in your adornment of it," said the old man, with one of his engaging grins. "I desire that you have a new gown for this ball which will be remembered by every one who goes to it. You must set about it at once." "Well, that is an easy request for any woman to grant," answered Corona, with a little laugh; "though I do not believe my gown will be remembered so long as you think." "Who knows--who knows?" said Astrardente, thoughtfully. "I remember gowns I saw"--he checked himself--"why, as many as ten years ago!" he added, laughing in his turn, perhaps at nearly having said forty for ten. "Gowns, my dear," he continued, "make a profound impression upon men's minds." "For the matter of that," said the Duchessa, "I do not care to impress men at all nor women either." She spoke lightly, pleased that the conversation should have taken a more pleasant turn. "Not even to impress me, my dear?" asked old Astrardente, with a leer. "That is different," answered Corona, quietly. So they talked upon the subject of the gown and the ball until the carriage rolled under the archway of the Astrardente palace. But when it was three o'clock, and Corona was at liberty to go out upon her usual round of visits, she was glad that she could go alone; and as she sat among her cushions, driving from house to house and distributing cards, she had time to think seriously of her situation. It would seem a light thing to most wives of aged husbands to have taken a fancy to a man such as Giovanni Saracinesca. But the more Corona thought of it, the more certain it appeared to her that she was committing a great sin. It weighed heavily upon her mind, and took from her the innocent pleasure she was wont to feel in driving in the bright evening air in the Villa Borghese. It took the colour from the sky, and the softness from the cushions, it haunted her and made her miserably unhappy. At every turn she expected to see Giovanni's figure and face, and the constant recurrence of the thought seemed to add magnitude to the crime of which she accused herself,--the crime of even thinking of any man save her old husband--of wishing that Giovanni might not marry Donna Tullia after all. "I will go to Padre Filippo," she said to herself as she reached home. CHAPTER V. Valdarno took Donna Tullia by his side upon the front seat of the drag; and as luck would have it, Giovanni and Del Ferice sat together behind them. Half-a-dozen other men found seats somewhere, and among them were the melancholy Spicca, who was a famous duellist, and a certain Casalverde, a man of rather doubtful reputation. The others were members of what Donna Tullia called her "corps de ballet." In those days Donna Tullia's conduct was criticised, and she was thought to be emancipated, as the phrase went. Old people opened their eyes at the spectacle of the gay young widow going off into the Campagna to picnic with a party of men; but if any intimate enemy had ventured to observe to her that she was giving occasion for gossip, she would have raised her eyebrows, explaining that they were all just like her brothers, and that Giovanni was indeed a sort of cousin. She would perhaps have condescended to say that she would not have done such a thing in Paris, but that in dear old Rome one was in the bosom of one's family, and might do anything. At present she sat chatting with Valdarno, a tall and fair young man, with a weak mouth and a good-natured disposition; she had secured Giovanni, and though he sat sullenly smoking behind her, his presence gave her satisfaction. Del Ferice's smooth face wore an expression of ineffable calm, and his watery blue eyes gazed languidly on the broad stretch of brown grass which bordered the highroad. For some time the drag bowled along, and Giovanni was left to his own reflections, which were not of a very pleasing kind. The other men talked of the chances of luck with the hounds; and Spicca, who had been a great deal in England, occasionally put in a remark not very complimentary to the Roman hunt. Del Ferice listened in silence, and Giovanni did not listen at all, but buttoned his overcoat to the throat, half closed his eyes, and smoked one cigarette after another, leaning back in his seat. Suddenly Donna Tullia's laugh was heard as she turned half round to look at Valdarno. "Do you really think so?" she cried. "How soon? What a dance we will lead them then!" Del Fence pricked his ears in the direction of her voice, like a terrier that suspects the presence of a rat. Valdarno's answer was inaudible, but Donna Tullia ceased laughing immediately. "They are talking politics," said Del Ferice in a low voice, leaning towards Giovanni as he spoke. The latter shrugged his shoulders and went on smoking. He did not care to be drawn into a conversation with Del Ferice. Del Ferice was a man who was suspected of revolutionary sympathies by the authorities in Rome, but who was not feared. He was therefore allowed to live his life much as he pleased, though he was conscious from time to time that he was watched. Being a man, however, who under all circumstances pursued his own interests with more attention than he bestowed on those of any party, he did not pretend to attach any importance to the distinction of being occasionally followed by a spy, as a more foolish man might have done. If he was watched, he did not care to exhibit himself to his friends as a martyr, to tell stories of the _sbirro_ who sometimes dogged his footsteps, nor to cry aloud that he was unjustly persecuted. He affected a character above suspicion, and rarely allowed himself to express an opinion. He was no propagator of new doctrines; that was too dangerous a trade for one of his temper. But he foresaw changes to come, and he determined that he would profit by them. He had little to lose, but he had everything to gain; and being a patient man, he resolved to gain all he could by circumspection--in other words, by acting according to his nature, rather than by risking himself in a bold course of action for which he was wholly unsuited. He was too wise to attempt wholly to deceive the authorities, knowing well that they were not easily deceived; and he accordingly steered a middle course, constantly speaking in favour of progress, of popular education, and of freedom of the press, but at the same time loudly proclaiming that all these things--that every benefit of civilisation, in fact--could be obtained without the slightest change in the form of government. He thus asserted his loyalty to the temporal power while affecting a belief in the possibility of useful reforms, and the position he thus acquired exactly suited his own ends; for he attracted to himself a certain amount of suspicion on account of his progressist professions, and then disarmed that suspicion by exhibiting a serene indifference to the espionage of which he was the object. The consequence was, that at the very time when he was most deeply implicated in much more serious matters--of which the object was invariably his own ultimate profit--at the time when he was receiving money for information he was able to obtain through his social position, he was regarded by the authorities, and by most of his acquaintances, as a harmless man, who might indeed injure himself by his foolish doctrines of progress, but who certainly could not injure any one else. Few guessed that his zealous attention to social duties, his occasional bursts of enthusiasm for liberal education and a free press, were but parts of his machinery for making money out of politics. He was so modest, so unostentatious, that no one suspected that the mainspring of his existence was the desire for money. But, like many intelligent and bad men, Del Ferice had a weakness which was gradually gaining upon him and growing in force, and which was destined to hasten the course of the events which he had planned for himself. It is an extraordinary peculiarity in unbelievers that they are often more subject to petty superstitions than other men; and similarly, it often happens that the most cynical and coldly calculating of conspirators, who believe themselves proof against all outward influences, yield to some feeling of nervous dislike for an individual who has never harmed them, and are led on from dislike to hatred, until their soberest actions take colour from what in its earliest beginnings was nothing more than a senseless prejudice. Del Ferice's weakness was his unaccountable detestation of Giovanni Saracinesca; and he had so far suffered this abhorrence of the man to dominate his existence, that it had come to be one of his chiefest delights in life to thwart Giovanni wherever he could. How it had begun, or when, he no longer knew nor cared. He had perhaps thought Giovanni treated him superciliously, or even despised him; and his antagonism being roused by some fancied slight, he had shown a petty resentment, which, again, Saracinesca had treated with cold indifference. Little by little his fancied grievance had acquired great proportions in his own estimation, and he had learned to hate Giovanni more than any man living. At first it might have seemed an easy matter to ruin his adversary, or, at all event, to cause him great and serious injury; and but for that very indifference which Del Ferice so resented, his attempts might have been successful. Giovanni belonged to a family who from the earliest times had been at swords-drawn with the Government. Their property had been more than once confiscated by the popes, had been seized again by force of arms, and had been ultimately left to them for the mere sake of peace. They seem to have quarrelled with everybody on every conceivable pretext, and to have generally got the best of the struggle. No pope had ever reckoned upon the friendship of Casa Saracinesca. For generations they had headed the opposition whenever there was one, and had plotted to form one when there was none ready to their hands. It seemed to Del Ferice that in the stirring times that followed the annexation of Naples to the Italian crown, when all Europe was watching the growth of the new Power, it should be an easy matter to draw a Saracinesca into any scheme for the subversion of a Government against which so many generations of Saracinesca had plotted and fought. To involve Giovanni in some Liberal conspiracy, and then by betraying him to cause him to be imprisoned or exiled from Rome, was a plan which pleased Del Ferice, and which he desired earnestly to put into execution. He had often tried to lead his enemy into conversation, repressing and hiding his dislike for the sake of his end; but at the first mention of political subjects Giovanni became impenetrable, shrugged, his shoulders, and assumed an air of the utmost indifference. No paradox could draw him into argument, no flattery could loose his tongue. Indeed those were times when men hesitated to express an opinion, not only because any opinion they might express was liable to be exaggerated and distorted by willing enemies--a consideration which would not have greatly intimidated Giovanni Saracinesca--but also because it was impossible for the wisest man to form any satisfactory judgment upon the course of events. It was clear to every one that ever since 1848 the temporal power had been sustained by France; and though no one in 1865 foresaw the downfall of the Second Empire, no one saw any reason for supposing that the military protectorate of Louis Napoleon in Rome could last for ever: what would be likely to occur if that protection were withdrawn was indeed a matter of doubt, but was not looked upon by the Government as a legitimate matter for speculation. Del Ferice, however, did not desist from his attempts to make Giovanni speak out his mind, and whenever an opportunity offered, tried to draw him into conversation. He was destined on the present occasion to meet with greater success than had hitherto attended his efforts. The picnic was noisy, and Giovanni was in a bad humour; he did not care for Donna Tullia's glances, nor for the remarks she constantly levelled at him; still less was he amused by the shallow gaiety of her party of admirers, tempered as their talk was by the occasional tonic of some outrageous cynicism from the melancholy Spicca. Del Ferice smiled, and talked, and smiled again, seeking to flatter and please Donna Tullia, as was his wont. By-and-by the clear north wind and the bright sun dried the ground, and Madame Mayer proposed that the party should walk a little on the road towards Rome--a proposal of such startling originality that it was carried by acclamation. Donna Tullia wanted to walk with Giovanni; but on pretence of having left something upon the drag, he gave Valdarno time to take his place. When Giovanni began to follow the rest, he found that Del Ferice had lagged behind, and seemed to be waiting for him. Giovanni was in a bad humour that day. He had suffered himself to be persuaded into joining in a species of amusement for which he cared nothing, by a mere word from a woman for whom he cared less, but whom he had half determined to marry, and who had wholly determined to marry him. He, who hated vacillation, had been dangling for four-and-twenty hours like a pendulum, or, as he said to himself, like an ass between two bundles of hay. At one moment he meant to marry Donna Tullia, and at another he loathed the thought; now he felt that he would make any sacrifice to rid the Duchessa d'Astrardente of himself, and now again he felt how futile such a sacrifice would be. He was ashamed in his heart, for he was no boy of twenty to be swayed by a woman's look or a fit of Quixotism; he was a strong grown man who had seen the world. He had been in the habit of supposing his impulses to be good, and of following them naturally without much thought; it seemed desperately perplexing to be forced into an analysis of those impulses in order to decide what he should do. He was in a thoroughly bad humour, and Del Ferice guessed that if Giovanni could ever be induced to speak out, it must be when his temper was not under control. In Rome, in the club--there was only one club in those days--in society, Ugo never got a chance to talk to his enemy; but here upon the Appian Way, with the broad Campagna stretching away to right and left and rear, while the remainder of the party walked three hundred yards in front, and Giovanni showed an evident reluctance to join them, it would go hard indeed if he could not be led into conversation. "I should think," Del Ferice began, "that if you had your choice, you would walk anywhere rather than here." "Why?" asked Giovanni, carelessly. "It is a very good road." "I should think that our Roman Campagna would be anything but a source of satisfaction to its possessors--like yourself," answered Del Ferice. "It is a very good grazing ground." "It might be something better. When one thinks that in ancient times it was a vast series of villas--" "The conditions were very different. We do not live in ancient times," returned Giovanni, drily. "Ah, the conditions!" ejaculated Del Ferice, with a suave sigh. "Surely the conditions depend on man--not on nature. What our proud forefathers accomplished by law and energy, we could, we can accomplish, if we restore law and energy in our midst." "You are entirely mistaken," answered Saracinesca. "It would take five times the energy of the ancient Romans to turn the Campagna into a garden, or even into a fertile productive region. No one is five times as energetic as the ancients. As for the laws, they do well enough." Del Ferice was delighted. For the first time, Giovanni seemed inclined to enter upon an argument with him. "Why are the conditions so different? I do not see. Here is the same undulating country, the same climate--" "And twice as much water," interrupted Giovanni. "You forget that the Campagna is very low, and that the rivers in it have risen very much. There are parts of ancient Rome now laid bare which lie below the present water-mark of the Tiber. If the city were built upon its old level, much of it would be constantly flooded. The rivers have risen and have swamped the country. Do you think any amount of law or energy could drain this fever-stricken plain into the sea? I do not. Do you think that if I could be persuaded that the land could be improved into fertility I would hesitate, at any expenditure in my power, to reclaim the miles of desert my father and I own here? The plain is a series of swamps and stone quarries. In one place you find the rock a foot below the surface, and the soil burns up in summer; a hundred yards farther you find a bog hundreds of feet deep, which even in summer is never dry." "But," suggested Del Ferice, who listened patiently enough, "supposing the Government passed a law forcing all of you proprietors to plant trees and dig ditches, it would have some effect." "The law cannot force us to sacrifice men's lives. The Trappist monks at the Tre Fontane are trying it, and dying by scores. Do you think I, or any other Roman, would send peasants to such a place, or could induce them to go?" "Well, it is one of a great many questions which will be settled some day," said Del Fence. "You will not deny that there is room for much improvement in our country, and that an infusion of some progressist ideas would be wholesome." "Perhaps so; but you understand one thing by progress, and I understand quite another," replied Giovanni, eyeing in the bright distance the figures of Donna Tullia and her friends, and regulating his pace so as not to lessen the distance which separated them from him. He preferred talking political economy with a man he disliked, to being obliged to make conversation for Madame Mayer. "I mean by progress, positive improvement without revolutionary change," explained Del Ferice, using the phrase he had long since constructed as his profession of faith to the world. Giovanni eyed him keenly for a moment. He cared nothing for Ugo or his ideas, but he suspected him of very different principles. "You will pardon me," he said, civilly, "if I venture to doubt whether you have frankly expressed your views. I am under the impression that you really connect the idea of improvement with a very positive revolutionary change." Del Ferice did not wince, but he involuntarily cast a glance behind him. Those were times when people were cautious of being overheard. But Del Ferice knew his man, and he knew that the only way in which he could continue the interview was to accept the imputation as though trusting implicitly to the discretion of his companion. "Will you give me a fair answer to a fair question?" he asked, very gravely. "Let me hear the question," returned Giovanni, indifferently. He also knew his man, and attached no more belief to anything he said than to the chattering of a parrot. And yet Del Ferice had not the reputation of a liar in the world at large. "Certainly," answered Ugo. "You are the heir of a family which from immemorial time has opposed the popes. You cannot be supposed to feel any kind of loyal attachment to the temporal power. I do not know whether you individually would support it or not. But frankly, how would you regard such a revolutionary change as you suspect me of desiring?" "I have no objection to telling you that. I would simply make the best of it." Del Ferice laughed at the ambiguous answer, affecting to consider it as a mere evasion. "We should all try to do that," he answered; "but what I mean to ask is, whether you would personally take up arms to fight for the temporal power, or whether you would allow events to take their course? I fancy that would be the ultimate test of loyalty." "My instinct would certainly be to fight, whether fighting were of any use or not. But the propriety of fighting in such a case is a very nice question of judgment. So long as there is anything to fight for, no matter how hopeless the odds, a gentleman should go to the front--but no longer. The question must be to decide the precise point at which the position becomes untenable. So long as France makes our quarrels hers, every man should give his personal assistance to the cause; but it is absurd to suppose that if we were left alone, a handful of Romans against a great Power, we could do more, or should do more, than make a formal show of resistance. It has been a rule in all ages that a general, however brave, who sacrifices the lives of his soldiers in a perfectly hopeless resistance, rather than accept the terms of an honourable capitulation, is guilty of a military crime." "In other words," answered Del Ferice, quietly, "if the French troops were withdrawn, and the Italians were besieging Rome, you would at once capitulate?" "Certainly--after making a formal protest. It would be criminal to sacrifice our fellow-citizens' lives in such a case." "And then?" "Then, as I said before, I would make the best of it--not omitting to congratulate Del Ferice upon obtaining a post in the new Government," added Giovanni, with a laugh. But Del Ferice took no notice of the jest. "Do you not think that, aside from any question of sympathy or loyalty to the holy Father, the change of government would be an immense advantage to Rome?" "No, I do not. To Italy the advantage would be inestimable; to Rome it would be an injury. Italy would consolidate the prestige she began to acquire when Cavour succeeded in sending a handful of troops to the Crimea eleven years ago; she would at once take a high position as a European Power--provided always that the smouldering republican element should not break out in opposition to the constitutional monarchy. But Rome would be ruined. She is no longer the geographical capital of Italy--she is not even the largest city; but in the course of a few years, violent efforts would be made to give her a fictitious modern grandeur, in the place of the moral importance she now enjoys as the headquarters of the Catholic world. Those efforts at a spurious growth would ruin her financially, and the hatred of Romans for Italians of the north would cause endless internal dissension. We should be subjected to a system of taxation which would fall more heavily on us than on other Italians, in proportion as our land is less productive. On the whole, we should grow rapidly poorer; for prices would rise, and we should have a paper currency instead of a metallic one. Especially we landed proprietors would suffer terribly by the Italian land system being suddenly thrust upon us. To be obliged to sell one's acres to any peasant who can scrape together enough to capitalise the pittance he now pays as rent, at five per cent, would scarcely be agreeable. Such a fellow, from whom I have the greatest difficulty in extracting his yearly bushel of grain, could borrow twenty bushels from a neighbour, or the value of them, and buy me out without my consent--acquiring land worth ten times the rent he and his father have paid for it, and his father before him. It would produce an extraordinary state of things, I can assure you. No--even putting aside what you call my sympathies and my loyalty to the Pope--I do not desire any change. Nobody who owns much property does; the revolutionary spirits are people who own nothing." "On the other hand, those who own nothing, or next to nothing, are the great majority." "Even if that is true, which I doubt, I do not see why the intelligent few should be ruled by that same ignorant majority." "But you forget that the majority is to be educated," objected Del Ferice. "Education is a term few people can define," returned Giovanni. "Any good schoolmaster knows vastly more than you or I. Would you like to be governed by a majority of schoolmasters?" "That is a plausible argument," laughed Del Ferice, "but it is not sound." "It is not sound!" repeated Giovanni, impatiently. "People are so fond of exclaiming that what they do not like is not sound! Do you think that it would not be a fair case to put five hundred schoolmasters against five hundred gentlemen of average education? I think it would be very fair. The schoolmasters would certainly have the advantage in education: do you mean to say they would make better or wiser electors than the same number of gentlemen who cannot name all the cities and rivers in Italy, nor translate a page of Latin without a mistake, but who understand the conditions of property by practical experience as no schoolmaster can possibly understand them? I tell you it is nonsense. Education, of the kind which is of any practical value in the government of a nation, means the teaching of human motives, of humanising ideas, of some system whereby the majority of electors can distinguish the qualities of honesty and common-sense in the candidate they wish to elect. I do not pretend to say what that system may be, but I assert that no education which does not lead to that kind of knowledge is of any practical use to the voting majority of a constitutionally governed country." Del Ferice sighed rather sadly. "I am afraid you will not discover that system in Europe," he said. He was disappointed in Giovanni, and in his hopes of detecting in him some signs of a revolutionary spirit. Saracinesca was a gentleman of the old school, who evidently despised majorities and modern political science as a whole, who for the sake of his own interests desired no change from the Government under which he lived, and who would surely be the first to draw the sword for the temporal power, and the last to sheathe it. His calm judgment concerning the fallacy of holding a hopeless position would vanish like smoke if his fiery blood were once roused. He was so honest a man that even Del Ferice could not suspect him of parading views he did not hold; and Ugo then and there abandoned all idea of bringing him into political trouble and disgrace, though he by no means gave up all hope of being able to ruin him in some other way. "I agree with you there at least," said Saracinesca. "The only improvements worth having are certainly not to be found in Europe. Donna Tullia is calling us. We had better join that harmless flock of lambs, and give over speculating on the advantages of allying ourselves with a pack of wolves who will eat us up, house and home, bag and baggage." So the whole party climbed again to their seats upon the drag, and Valdarno drove them back into Rome by the Porta San Giovanni. CHAPTER VI. Corona d'Astrardente had been educated in a convent--that is to say, she had been brought up in the strict practice of her religion; and during the five years which had elapsed since she had come out into the world, she had found no cause for forsaking the habits she had acquired in her girlhood. Some people find religion a burden; others regard it as an indifferently useless institution, in which they desire no share, and concerning which they never trouble themselves; others, again, look upon it as the mainstay of their lives. It is natural to suppose that the mode of thought and the habits acquired by young girls in a religious institution will not disappear without a trace when they first go into the world, and it may even be expected that some memory of the early disposition thus cultivated will cling to them throughout their lives. But the multifarious interests of social existence do much to shake that young edifice of faith. The driving strength of stormy passions of all kinds undermines the walls of the fabric, and when at last the bolt of adversity strikes full upon the keystone of the arch, upon the self of man or woman, weakened and loosened by the tempests of years, the whole palace of the soul falls in, a hopeless wreck, wherein not even the memory of outline can be traced, nor the faint shadow of a beauty which is destroyed for ever. But there are some whose interests in this world are not strong enough to shake their faith in the next; whose passions do not get the mastery, and whose self is sheltered from danger by something more than the feeble defence of an accomplished egotism. Corona was one of these, for her lot had not been happy, nor her path strewn with roses. She was a friendless woman, destined to suffer much, and her suffering was the more intense that she seemed always upon the point of finding friends in the world where she played so conspicuous a part. There can be little happiness when a whole life has been placed upon a false foundation, even though so dire a mistake may have been committed willingly and from a sense of duty and obligation, such as drove Corona to marry old Astrardente. Consolation is not satisfaction; and though, when she reflected on what she had done, she knew that from her point of view she had done her best, she knew also that she had closed upon herself the gates of the earthly paradise, and that for her the prospect of happiness had been removed from the now to the hereafter--the dim and shadowy glass in which we love to see any reflection save that of our present lives. And to her, thus living in submission to the consequences of her choice, that faith in things better which had inspired her to sacrifice was the chief remaining source of consolation. There was a good man to whom she went for advice, as she had gone to him ever since she could remember. When she found herself in trouble she never hesitated. Padre Filippo was to her the living proof of the possibility of human goodness, as faith is to us all the evidence of things not seen. Corona was in trouble now--in a trouble so new that she hardly understood it, so terrible and yet so vague that she felt her peril imminent. She did not hesitate, therefore, nor change her mind upon the morning following the day of the meet, but drove to the church of the Capuchins in the Piazza Barberini, and went up the broad steps with a beating heart, not knowing how she should tell what she meant to tell, yet knowing that there was for her no hope of peace unless she told it quickly, and got that advice and direction she so earnestly craved. Padre Filippo had been a man of the world in his time--a man of great cultivation, full of refined tastes and understanding of tastes in others, gentle and courteous in his manners, and very kind of heart. No one knew whence he came. He spoke Italian correctly and with a keen scholarly use of words, but his slight accent betrayed his foreign birth. He had been a Capuchin monk for many years, perhaps for more than half his lifetime, and Corona could remember him from her childhood, for he had been a friend of her father's; but he had not been consulted about her marriage,--she even remembered that, though she had earnestly desired to see him before the wedding-day, her father had told her that he had left Rome for a time. For the old gentleman was in terrible earnest about the match, so that in his heart he feared lest Corona might waver and ask Padre Filippo's advice; and he knew the good monk too well to think that he would give his countenance to such a sacrifice as was contemplated in marrying the young girl to old Astrardente. Corona had known this later, but had hardly realised the selfishness of her father, nor indeed had desired to realise it. It was sufficient that he had died satisfied in seeing her married to a great noble, and that she had been able, in his last days, to relieve him from the distress of debt and embarrassment which had doubtless contributed to shorten his life. The proud woman who had thus once humbled herself for an object she thought good, had never referred to her action again. She had never spoken of her position to Padre Filippo, so that the monk wondered and admired her steadfastness. If she suffered, it was in silence, without comment and without complaint, and so she would have suffered to the end. But it had been ordered otherwise. For months she had known that the interest she felt in Giovanni Saracinesca was increasing: she had choked it down, had done all in her power to prove herself indifferent to him; but at last the crisis had come. When he spoke to her of his marriage, she had felt--she knew now that it was so--that she loved him. The very word, as she repeated it to herself, rang like an awful, almost incomprehensible, accusation of evil in her ears. One moment she stood at the top of the steps outside the church, looking down at the bare straggling trees below, and upward to the grey sky, against which the lofty eaves of the Palazzo Barberini stood out sharply defined. The weather had changed again, and a soft southerly wind was blowing the spray of the fountain half across the piazza. Corona paused, her graceful figure half leaning against the stone doorpost of the church, her hand upon the heavy leathern curtain in the act to lift it; and as she stood there, a desperate temptation assailed her. It seemed desperate to her--to many another woman it would have appeared only the natural course to pursue--to turn her back upon the church, to put off the hard moment of confession, to go down again into the city, and to say to herself that there was no harm in seeing Don Giovanni, provided she never let him speak of love. Why should he speak of it? Had she any reason to suppose there was danger to her in anything he meant to say? Had he ever, by word or deed, betrayed that interest in her which she knew in herself was love for him? Had he ever?--ah yes! It was only the night before last that he had asked her advice, had besought her to advise him not to marry another, had suffered his arm to tremble when she laid her hand upon it. In the quick remembrance that he too had shown some feeling, there was a sudden burst of joy such as Corona had never felt, and a moment later she knew it and was afraid. It was true, then. At the very time when she was most oppressed with the sense of her fault in loving him, there was an inward rejoicing in her heart at the bare thought that she loved him. Could a woman fall lower, she asked herself--lower than to delight in what she knew to be most bad? And yet it was such a poor little thrill of pleasure after all; but it was the first she had ever known. To turn away and reflect for a few days would be so easy! It would be so sweet to think of it, even though the excuse for thinking of Giovanni should be a good determination to root him from her life. It would be so sweet to drive again alone among the trees that very afternoon, and to weigh the salvation of her soul in the balance of her heart: her heart would know how to turn the scales, surely enough. Corona stood still, holding the curtain in her hand. She was a brave woman, but she turned pale--not hesitating, she said to herself, but pausing. Then, suddenly, a great scorn of herself arose in her. Was it worthy of her even to pause in doing right? The nobility of her courage cried loudly to her to go in and do the thing most worthy: her hand lifted the heavy leathern apron, and she entered the church. The air within was heavy and moist, and the grey light fell coldly through the tall windows. Corona shuddered, and drew her furs more closely about her as she passed up the aisle to the door of the sacristy. She found the monk she sought, and she made her confession. "Padre mio," she said at last, when the good man thought she had finished--"Padre mio, I am a very miserable woman." She hid her dark face in her ungloved hands, and one by one the crystal tears welled from her eyes and trickled down upon her small fingers and upon the worn black wood of the confessional. "My daughter," said the good monk, "I will pray for you, others will pray for you--but before all things, you must pray for yourself. And let me advise you, my child, that as we are all led into temptation, we must not think that because we have been in temptation we have sinned hopelessly; nor, if we have fought against the thing that tempts us, should we at once imagine that we have overcome it, and have done altogether right. If there were no evil in ourselves, there could be no temptation from without, for nothing evil could seem pleasant. But with you I cannot find that you have done any great wrong as yet. You must take courage. We are all in the world, and do what we may, we cannot disregard it. The sin you see is real, but it is yet not very near you since you so abhor it; and if you pray that you may hate it, it will go further from you till you may hope not even to understand how it could once have been so near. Take courage--take comfort. Do not be morbid. Resist temptation, but do not analyse it nor yourself too closely; for it is one of the chief signs of evil in us that when we dwell too much upon ourselves and upon our temptations, we ourselves seem good in our own eyes, and our temptations not unpleasant, because the very resisting of them seems to make us appear better than we are." But the tears still flowed from Corona's eyes in the dark corner of the church, and she could not be comforted. "Padre mio," she repeated, "I am very unhappy. I have not a friend in the world to whom I can speak. I have never seen my life before as I see it now. God forgive me, I have never loved my husband. I never knew what it meant to love. I was a mere child, a very innocent child, when I was married to him. I would have sought your advice, but they told me you were away, and I thought I was doing right in obeying my father." Padre Filippo sighed. He had long known and understood why Corona had not been allowed to come to him at the most important moment of her life. "My husband is very kind to me," she continued in broken tones. "He loves me in his way, but I do not love him. That of itself is a great sin. It seems to me as though I saw but one half of life, and saw it from the window of a prison; and yet I am not imprisoned. I would that I were, for I should never have seen another man. I should never have heard his voice, nor seen his face, nor--nor loved him, as I do love him," she sobbed. "Hush, my daughter," said the old monk, very gently. "You told me you had never spoken of love; that you were interested in him, indeed, but that you did not know--" "I know--I know now," cried Corona, losing all control as the passionate tears flowed down. "I could not say it--it seemed so dreadful--I love him with my whole self! I can never get it out--it burns me. O God, I am so wretched!" Padre Filippo was silent for a while. It was a terrible case. He could not remember in all his experience to have known one more sad to contemplate, though his business was with the sins and the sorrows of the world. The beautiful woman kneeling outside his confessional was innocent--as innocent as a child, brave and faithful. She had sacrificed her whole life for her father, who had been little worthy of such devotion; she had borne for years the suffering of being tied to an old man whom she could not help despising, however honestly she tried to conceal the fact from herself, however effectually she hid it from others. It was a wonder the disaster had not occurred before: it showed how loyal and true a woman she was, that, living in the very centre and midst of the world, admired and assailed by many, she should never in five years have so much as thought of any man beside her husband. A woman made for love and happiness, in the glory of beauty and youth, capable of such unfaltering determination in her loyalty, so good, so noble, so generous,--it seemed unspeakably pathetic to hear her weeping her heart out, and confessing that, after so many struggles and efforts and sacrifices, she had at last met the common fate of all humanity, and was become subject to love. What might have been her happiness was turned to dishonour; what should have been the pride of her young life was made a reproach. She would not fall. The grey-haired monk believed that, in his great knowledge of mankind. But she would suffer terribly, and it might be that others would suffer also. It was the consequence of an irretrievable error in the beginning, when it had seemed to the young girl just leaving the convent that the best protection against the world of evil into which she was to go would be the unconditional sacrifice of herself. Padre Filippo was silent. He hoped that the passionate outburst of grief and self-reproach would pass, though he himself could find little enough to say. It was all too natural. What was he, he thought, that he should explain away nature, and bid a friendless woman defy a power that has more than once overset the reckoning of the world? He could bid her pray for help and strength, but he found it hard to argue the case with her; for he had to allow that his beautiful penitent was, after all, only experiencing what it might have been foretold that she must feel, and that, as far as he could see, she was struggling bravely against the dangers of her situation. Corona cried bitterly as she knelt there. It was a great relief to give way for a time to the whole violence of what she felt. It may be that in her tears there was a subtle instinctive knowledge that she was weeping for her love as well as for her sin in loving, but her grief was none the less real. She did not understand herself. She did not know, as Padre Filippo knew, that her woman's heart was breaking for sympathy rather than for religious counsel. She knew many women, but her noble pride would not have let her even contemplate the possibility of confiding in any one of them, even if she could have done so in the certainty of not being herself betrayed and of not betraying the man she loved. She had been accustomed to come to her confessor for counsel, and she now came to him with her troubles and craved sympathy for them, in the knowledge that Padre Filippo could never know the name of the man who had disturbed her peace. But the monk understood well enough, and his kind heart comprehended hers and felt for her. "My daughter," he said at last, when she seemed to have grown more calm, "it would be an inestimable advantage if this man could go away for a time, but that is probably not to be expected. Meanwhile, you must not listen to him if he speaks--" "It is not that," interrupted Corona--"it is not that. He never speaks of love. Oh, I really believe he does not love me at all!" But in her heart she felt that he must love her; and her hand, as it lay upon the hard wood of the confessional, seemed still to feel his trembling arm. "That is so much the better, my child," said the monk, quietly. "For if he does not love you, your temptations will not grow stronger." "And yet, perhaps--he may--" murmured Corona, feeling that it would be wrong even to conceal her faintest suspicions at such a time. "Let there be no perhaps," answered Padre Filippo, almost sternly. "Let it never enter your mind that he might love you. Think that even from the worldly point there is small dignity in a woman who exhibits love for a man who has never mentioned love to her. You have no reason to suppose you are loved save that you desire to be. Let there be no perhaps." The monk's keen insight into character had given him an unexpected weapon in Corona's defence. He knew how of all things a proud woman hates to know that where she has placed her heart there is no response, and that if she fails to awaken an affection akin to her own, what has been love may be turned to loathing, or at least to indifference. The strong character of the Duchessa d'Astrardente responded to his touch as he expected. Her tears ceased to flow, and her scorn rose haughtily against herself. "It is true. I am despicable," she said, suddenly. "You have shown me myself. There shall be no perhaps. I loathe myself for thinking of it. Pray for me, lest I fall so low again." A few minutes later Corona left the confessional and went and kneeled in the body of the church to collect her thoughts. She was in a very different frame of mind from that in which she had left home an hour ago. She hardly knew whether she felt herself a better woman, but she was sure that she was stronger. There was no desire left in her to meditate sadly upon her sorrow--to go over and over in her thoughts the feelings she experienced, the fears she felt, the half-formulated hope that Giovanni might love her after all. There was left only a haughty determination to have done with her folly quickly and surely, and to try and forget it for ever. The confessor's words had produced their effect. Henceforth she would never stoop so low again. She was ready to go out into the world now, and she felt no fear. It was more from habit than for the sake of saying a prayer that she knelt in the church after her confession, for she felt very strong. She rose to her feet presently, and moved towards the door: she had not gone half the length of the church when she came face to face with Donna Tullia Mayer. It was a strange coincidence. The ladies of Rome frequently go to the church of the Capuchins, as Corona had done, to seek the aid and counsel of Padre Filippo, but Corona had never met Donna Tullia there. Madame Mayer did not profess to be very devout. As a matter of fact, she had not found it convenient to go to confession during the Christmas season, and she had been intending to make up for the deficiency for some time past; but it is improbable that she would have decided upon fulfilling her religious obligations before Lent if she had not chanced to see the Duchessa d'Astrardente's carriage standing at the foot of the church steps. Donna Tullia had risen early because she was going to sit for her portrait to a young artist who lived in the neighbourhood of the Piazza Barberini, and as she passed in her brougham she caught sight of the Duchessa's liveries. The artist could wait half an hour: the opportunity was admirable. She was alone, and would not only do her duty in going to confession, but would have a chance of seeing how Corona looked when she had been at her devotions. It might also be possible to judge from Padre Filippo's manner whether the interview had been an interesting one. The Astrardente was so very devout that she probably had difficulty in inventing sins to confess. One might perhaps tell from her face whether she had felt any emotion. At all events the opportunity should not be lost. Besides, if Donna Tullia found that she herself was really not in a proper frame of mind for religious exercises, she could easily spend a few moments in the church and then proceed upon her way. She stopped her carriage and went in. She had just entered when she was aware of the tall figure of Corona d'Astrardente coming towards her, magnificent in the simplicity of her furs, a short veil just covering half her face, and an unwonted colour in her dark cheeks. Corona was surprised at meeting Madame Mayer, but she did not show it. She nodded with a sufficiently pleasant smile, and would have passed on. This would not have suited Donna Tullia's intentions, however, for she meant to have a good look at her friend. It was not for nothing that she had made up her mind to go to confession at a moment's notice. She therefore stopped the Duchessa, and insisted upon shaking hands. "What an extraordinary coincidence!" she exclaimed. "You must have been to see Padre Filippo too?" "Yes," answered Corona. "You will find him in the sacristy." She noticed that Madame Mayer regarded her with great interest. Indeed she could hardly be aware how unlike her usual self she appeared. There were dark rings beneath her eyes, and her eyes themselves seemed to emit a strange light; while an unwonted colour illuminated her olive cheeks, and her voice had a curiously excited tone. Madame Mayer stared at her so hard that she noticed it. "Why do you look at me like that?" asked the Duchessa, with a smile. "I was wondering what in the world you could find to confess," replied Donna Tullia, sweetly. "You are so immensely good, you see; everybody wonders at you." Corona's eyes flashed darkly. She suspected that Madame Mayer noticed something unusual in her appearance, and had made the awkward speech to conceal her curiosity. She was annoyed at the meeting, still more at being detained in conversation within the church. "It is very kind of you to invest me with such virtues," she answered. "I assure you I am not half so good as you suppose. Good-bye--I must be going home." "Stay!" exclaimed Donna Tullia; "I can go to confession another time. Will not you come with me to Gouache's studio? I am going to sit. It is such a bore to go alone." "Thank you very much," said Corona, civilly. "I am afraid I cannot go. My husband expects me at home. I wish you a good sitting." "Well, good-bye. Oh, I forgot to tell you, we had such a charming picnic yesterday. It was so fortunate--the only fine day this week. Giovanni was very amusing: he was completely _en train_, and kept us laughing the whole day. Good-bye; I do so wish you had come." "I was very sorry," answered Corona, quietly, "but it was impossible. I am glad you all enjoyed it so much. Good-bye." So they parted. "How she wishes that same husband of hers would follow the example of my excellent old Mayer, of blessed memory, and take himself out of the world to-day or to-morrow!" thought Donna Tullia, as she walked up the church. She was sure something unusual had occurred, and she longed to fathom the mystery. But she was not altogether a bad woman, and when she had collected her thoughts she made up her mind that even by the utmost stretch of moral indulgence, she could not consider herself in a proper state to undertake so serious a matter as confession. She therefore waited a few minutes, to give time for Corona to drive away, and then turned back. She cautiously pushed aside the curtain and looked out. The Astrardente carriage was just disappearing in the distance. Donna Tullia descended the steps, got into her brougham, and proceeded to the studio of Monsieur Anastase Gouache, the portrait-painter. She had not accomplished much, save to rouse her curiosity, and that parting thrust concerning Don Giovanni had been rather ill-timed. She drove to the door of the studio and found Del Ferice waiting for her as usual. If Corona had accompanied her, she would have expressed astonishment at finding him; but, as a matter of fact, Ugo always met her there, and helped to pass the time while she was sitting. He was very amusing, and not altogether unsympathetic to her; and moreover, he professed for her the most profound devotion--genuine, perhaps, and certainly skilfully expressed. If any one had paid much attention to Del Fence's doings, it would have been said that he was paying court to the rich young widow. But he was never looked upon by society from the point of view of matrimonial possibility, and no one thought of attaching any importance to his doings. Nevertheless Ugo, who had been gradually rising in the social scale for many years, saw no reason why he should not win the hand of Donna Tullia as well as any one else, if only Giovanni Saracinesca could be kept out of the way; and he devoted himself with becoming assiduity to the service of the widow, while doing his utmost to promote Giovanni's attachment for the Astrardente, which he had been the first to discover. Donna Tullia would probably have laughed to scorn the idea that Del Ferice could think of himself seriously as a suitor, but of all her admirers she found him the most constant and the most convenient. "What are the news this morning?" she asked, as he opened her carriage-door for her before the studio. "None, save that I am your faithful slave as ever," he answered. "I have just seen the Astrardente," said Donna Tullia, still sitting in her seat. "I will let you guess where it was that we met." "You met in the church of the Capuchins," replied Del Ferice promptly, with a smile of satisfaction. "You are a sorcerer: how did you know? Did you guess it?" "If you will look down this street from where I stand, you will perceive that I could distinctly see any carriage which turned out of the Piazza Barberini towards the Capuchins," replied Ugo. "She was there nearly an hour, and you only stayed five minutes." "How dreadful it is to be watched like this!" exclaimed Donna Tullia, with a little laugh, half expressive of satisfaction and half of amusement at Del Fence's devotion. "How can I help watching you, as the earth watches the sun in its daily course?" said Ugo, with a sentimental intonation of his soft persuasive voice. Donna Tullia looked at his smooth face, and laughed again, half kindly. "The Astrardente had been confessing her sins," she remarked. "Again? She is always confessing." "What do you suppose she finds to say?" asked Donna Tullia. "That her husband is hideous, and that you are beautiful," answered Del Ferice, readily enough. "Why?" "Because she hates her husband and hates you." "Why, again?" "Because you took Giovanni Saracinesca to your picnic yesterday; because you are always taking him away from her. For the matter of that, I hate him as much as the Astrardente hates you," added Del Ferice, with an agreeable smile. Donna Tullia did not despise flattery, but Ugo made her thoughtful. "Do you think she really cares--?" she asked. "As surely as that he does not," replied Del Ferice. "It would be strange," said Donna Tullia, meditatively. "I would like to know if it is true." "You have only to watch them." "Surely Giovanni cares more than she does," objected Madame Mayer. "Everybody says he loves her; nobody says she loves him." "All the more reason. Popular report is always mistaken--except in regard to you." "To me?" "Since it ascribes to you so much that is good, it cannot be wrong," replied Del Ferice. Donna Tullia laughed, and took his hand to descend from her carriage. CHAPTER VII. Monsieur Gouache's studio was on the second floor. The narrow flight of steps ended abruptly against a green door, perforated by a slit for the insertion of letters, by a shabby green cord which, being pulled, rang a feeble bell, and adorned by a visiting-card, whereon with many superfluous flourishes and ornaments of caligraphy was inscribed the name of the artist--ANASTASE GOUACHE. The door being opened by a string, Donna Tullia and Del Ferice entered, and mounting half-a-dozen more steps, found themselves in the studio, a spacious room with a window high above the floor, half shaded by a curtain of grey cotton. In one corner an iron stove gave out loud cracking sounds, pleasant to hear on the damp winter's morning, and the flame shone red through chinks of the rusty door. A dark-green carpet in passably good condition covered the floor; three or four broad divans, spread with oriental rugs, and two very much dilapidated carved chairs with leathern seats, constituted the furniture; the walls were hung with sketches of heads and figures; half-finished portraits stood upon two easels, and others were leaning together in a corner; a couple of small tables were covered with colour-tubes, brushes, and palette-knives; mingled odours of paint, varnish, and cigarette-smoke pervaded the air; and, lastly, upon a high stool before one of the easels, his sleeves turned up to the elbow, and his feet tucked in upon a rail beneath him, sat Anastase Gouache himself. He was a man of not more than seven-and-twenty years, with delicate pale features, and an abundance of glossy black hair. A small and very much pointed moustache shaded his upper lip, and the extremities thereof rose short and perpendicular from the corners of his well-shaped mouth. His eyes were dark and singularly expressive, his forehead low and very broad; his hands were sufficiently nervous and well knit, but white as a woman's, and the fingers tapered delicately to the tips. He wore a brown velvet coat more or less daubed with paint, and his collar was low at the throat. He sprang from his high stool as Donna Tullia and Del Ferice entered, his palette and mahl-stick in his hand, and made a most ceremonious bow; whereat Donna Tullia laughed gaily. "Well, Gouache," she said familiarly, "what have you been doing?" Anastase motioned to her to come before his canvas and contemplate the portrait of herself upon which he was working. It was undeniably good--a striking figure in full-length, life-size, and breathing with Donna Tullia's vitality, if also with something of her coarseness. "Ah, my friend," remarked Del Ferice, "you will never be successful until you take my advice." "I think it is very like," said Donna Tullia, thoughtfully. "You are too modest," answered Del Ferice. "There is the foundation of likeness, but it lacks yet the soul." "Oh, but that will come," returned Madame Mayer. Then turning to the artist, she added in a more doubtful voice, "Perhaps, as Del Ferice says, you might give it a little more expression--what shall I say?--more poetry." Anastase Gouache smiled a fine smile. He was a man of immense talent; since he had won the Prix de Rome he had made great progress, and was already half famous with that young celebrity which young men easily mistake for fame itself. A new comet visible only through a good glass causes a deal of talk and speculation in the world; but unless it comes near enough to brush the earth with its tail, it is very soon forgotten. But Gouache seemed to understand this, and worked steadily on. When Madame Mayer expressed a wish for a little more poetry in her portrait, he smiled, well knowing that poetry was as far removed from her nature as dry champagne is different in quality from small beer. "Yes," he said; "I know--I am only too conscious of that defect." As indeed he was--conscious of the defect of it in herself. But he had many reasons for not wishing to quarrel with Donna Tullia, and he swallowed his artistic convictions in a rash resolve to make her look like an inspired prophetess rather than displease her. "If you will sit down, I will work upon the head," he said; and moving one of the old carved chairs into position for her, he adjusted the light and began to work without any further words. Del Ferice installed himself upon a divan whence he could see Donna Tullia and her portrait, and the sitting began. It might have continued for some time in a profound silence as far as the two men were concerned, but silence was not bearable for long to Donna Tullia. "What were you and Saracinesca talking about yesterday?" she asked suddenly, looking towards Del Ferice. "Politics," he answered, and was silent. "Well?" inquired Madame Mayer, rather anxiously. "I am sure you know his views as well as I," returned Del Ferice, rather gloomily. "He is stupid and prejudiced." "Really?" ejaculated Gouache, with innocent surprise. "A little more towards me, Madame. Thank you--so." And he continued painting. "You are absurd, Del Ferice!" exclaimed Donna Tullia, colouring a little. "You think every one prejudiced and stupid who does not agree with you." "With me? With you, with us, you should say. Giovanni is a specimen of the furious Conservative, who hates change and has a cold chill at the word 'republic' Do you call that intelligent?" "Giovanni is intelligent for all that," answered Madame Mayer. "I am not sure that he is not more intelligent than you--in some ways," she added, after allowing her rebuke to take effect. Del Ferice smiled blandly. It was not his business to show that he was hurt. "In one thing he is stupid compared with me," he replied. "He is very far from doing justice to your charms. It must be a singular lack of intelligence which prevents him from seeing that you are as beautiful as you are charming. Is it not so, Gouache?" "Does any one deny it?" asked the Frenchman, with an air of devotion. Madame Mayer blushed with annoyance; both because she coveted Giovanni's admiration more than that of other men, and knew that she had not won it, and because she hated to feel that Del Ferice was able to wound her so easily. To cover her discomfiture she returned to the subject of politics. "We talk a great deal of our convictions," she said; "but in the meanwhile we must acknowledge that we have accomplished nothing at all. What is the good of our meeting here two or three times a-week, meeting in society, whispering together, corresponding in cipher, and doing all manner of things, when everything goes on just the same as before?" "Better give it up and join Don Giovanni and his party," returned Del Ferice, with a sneer. "He says if a change comes he will make the best of it. Of course, we could not do better." "With us it is so easy," said Gouache, thoughtfully. "A handful of students, a few paving-stones, 'Vive la République!' and we have a tumult in no time." That was not the kind of revolution in which Del Ferice proposed to have a hand. He meditated playing a very small part in some great movement; and when the fighting should be over, he meant to exaggerate the part he had played, and claim a substantial reward. For a good title and twenty thousand francs a-year he would have become as stanch for the temporal power as any canon of St. Peter's. When he had begun talking of revolutions to Madame Mayer and to half-a-dozen harebrained youths, of whom Gouache the painter was one, he had not really the slightest idea of accomplishing anything. He took advantage of the prevailing excitement in order to draw Donna Tullia into a closer confidence than he could otherwise have aspired to obtain. He wanted to marry her, and every new power he could obtain over her was a step towards his goal. Neither she nor her friends were of the stuff required for revolutionary work; but Del Ferice had hopes that, by means of the knot of malcontents he was gradually drawing together, he might ruin Giovanni Saracinesca, and get the hand of Donna Tullia in marriage. He himself was indeed deeply implicated in the plots of the Italian party; but he was only employed as a spy, and in reality knew no more of the real intentions of those he served than did Donna Tullia herself. But the position was sufficiently lucrative; so much so that he had been obliged to account for his accession of fortune by saying that an uncle of his had died and left him money. "If you expected Don Giovanni to join a mob of students in tearing up paving-stones and screaming 'Vive la République!' I am not surprised that you are disappointed in your expectations," said Donna Tullia, rather scornfully. "That is only Gouache's idea of a popular movement," answered Del Ferice. "And yours," returned Anastase, lowering his mahl-stick and brushes, and turning sharply upon the Italian--"yours would be to begin by stabbing Cardinal Antonelli in the back." "You mistake me, my friend," returned Del Ferice, blandly. "If you volunteered to perform that service to Italy, I would certainly not dissuade you. But I would certainly not offer you my assistance." "Fie! How can you talk like that of murder!" exclaimed Donna Tullia. "Go on with your painting, Gouache, and do not be ridiculous." "The question of tyrannicide is marvellously interesting," answered Anastase in a meditative tone, as he resumed his work, and glanced critically from Madame Mayer to his canvas and back again. "It belongs to a class of actions at which Del Ferice rejoices, but in which he desires no part," said Donna Tullia. "It seems to me wiser to contemplate accomplishing the good result without any unnecessary and treacherous bloodshed," answered Del Ferice, sententiously. Again Gouache smiled in his delicate satirical fashion, and glanced at Madame Mayer, who burst into a laugh. "Moral reflections never sound so especially and ridiculously moral as in your mouth, Ugo," she said. "Why?" he asked, in an injured tone. "I am sure I do not know. Of course, we all would like to see Victor Emmanuel in the Quirinal, and Rome the capital of a free Italy. Of course we would all like to see it accomplished without murder or bloodshed; but somehow, when you put it into words, it sounds very absurd." In her brutal fashion Madame Mayer had hit upon a great truth, and Del Ferice was very much annoyed. He knew himself to be a scoundrel; he knew Madame Mayer to be a woman of very commonplace intellect; he wondered why he was not able to deceive her more effectually. He was often able to direct her, he sometimes elicited from her some expression of admiration at his astuteness; but in spite of his best efforts, she saw through him and understood him better than he liked. "I am sorry," he said, "that what is honourable should sound ridiculous when it comes from me. I like to think sometimes that you believe in me." "Oh, I do," protested Donna Tullia, with a sudden change of manner. "I was only laughing. I think you are really in earnest. Only, you know, nowadays, it is not the fashion to utter moralities in a severe tone, with an air of conviction. A little dash of cynicism--you know, a sort of half sneer--is so much more _chic_; it gives a much higher idea of the morality, because it conveys the impression that it is utterly beyond you. Ask Gouache--" "By all means," said the artist, squeezing a little more red from the tube upon his palette, "one should always sneer at what one cannot reach. The fox, you remember, called the grapes sour. He was probably right, for he is the most intelligent of animals." "I would like to hear what Giovanni had to say about those grapes," remarked Donna Tullia. "Oh, he sneered in the most fashionable way," answered Del Ferice. "He would have pleased you immensely. He said that he would be ruined by a change of government, and that he thought it his duty to fight against it. He talked a great deal about the level of the Tiber, and landed property, and the duties of gentlemen. And he ended by saying he would make the best of any change that happened to come about, like a thoroughgoing egotist, as he is!" "I would like to hear what you think of Don Giovanni Saracinesca," said Gouache; "and then I would like to hear what he thinks of you." "I can tell you both," answered Del Fence. "I think of him that he is a thorough aristocrat, full of prejudices and money, unwilling to sacrifice his convictions to his wealth or his wealth to his convictions, intelligent in regard to his own interests and blind to those of others, imbued with a thousand and one curious feudal notions, and overcome with a sense of his own importance." "And what does he think of you?" asked Anastase, working busily. "Oh, it is very simple," returned Del Ferice, with a laugh. "He thinks I am a great scoundrel." "Really! How strange! I should not have said that." "What? That Del Fence is a scoundrel?" asked Donna Tullia, laughing. "No; I should not have said it," repeated Anastase, thoughtfully. "I should say that our friend Del Ferice is a man of the most profound philanthropic convictions, nobly devoting his life to the pursuit of liberty, fraternity, and equality." "Do you really think so?" asked Donna Tullia, with a half-comic glance at Ugo, who looked uncommonly grave. "Madame," returned Gouache, "I never permit myself to think otherwise of any of my friends." "Upon my word," remarked Del Fence, "I am delighted at the compliment, my dear fellow; but I must infer that your judgment of your friends is singularly limited." "Perhaps," answered Gouache. "But the number of my friends is not large, and I myself am very enthusiastic. I look forward to the day when 'liberty, equality, and fraternity' shall be inscribed in letters of flame, in the most expensive Bengal lights if you please, over the _porte cochère_ of every palace in Rome, not to mention the churches. I look forward to that day, but I have not the slightest expectation of ever seeing it. Moreover, if it ever comes, I will pack up my palette and brushes and go somewhere else by the nearest route." "Good heavens, Gouache!" exclaimed Donna Tullia; "how can you talk like that? It is really dreadfully irreverent to jest about our most sacred convictions, or to say that we desire to see those words written over the doors of our churches!" "I am not jesting. I worship Victor Hugo. I love to dream of the universal republic--it has immense artistic attractions--the fierce yelling crowd, the savage faces, the red caps, the terrible mænad women urging the brawny ruffians on to shed more blood, the lurid light of burning churches, the pale and trembling victims dragged beneath the poised knife,--ah, it is superb, it has stupendous artistic capabilities! But for myself--bah! I am a good Catholic--I wish nobody any harm, for life is very gay after all." At this remarkable exposition of Anastase Gouache's views in regard to the utility of revolutions, Del Ferice laughed loudly; but Anastase remained perfectly grave, for he was perfectly sincere. Del Ferice, to whom the daily whispered talk of revolution in Donna Tullia's circle was mere child's play, was utterly indifferent, and suffered himself to be amused by the young artist's vagaries. But Donna Tullia, who longed to see herself the centre of a real plot, thought that she was being laughed at, and pouted her red lips and frowned her displeasure. "I believe you have no convictions!" she said angrily. "While we are risking our lives and fortunes for the good cause, you sit here in your studio dreaming of barricades and guillotines, merely as subjects for pictures--you even acknowledge that in case we produce a revolution you would go away." "Not without finishing this portrait," returned Anastase, quite unmoved. "It is an exceedingly good likeness; and in case you should ever disappear--you know people sometimes do in revolutions--or if by any unlucky accident your beautiful neck should chance beneath that guillotine you just mentioned,--why, then, this canvas would be the most delightful souvenir of many pleasant mornings, would it not?" "You are incorrigible," said Donna Tullia, with a slight laugh. "You cannot be serious for a moment." "It is very hard to paint you when your expression changes so often," replied Anastase, calmly. "I am not in a good humour for sitting to you this morning. I wish you would amuse me, Del Ferice. You generally can." "I thought politics amused you--" "They interest me. But Gouache's ideas are detestable." "Will you not give us some of your own, Madame?" inquired the painter, stepping back from his canvas to get a better view of his work. "Oh, mine are very simple," answered Donna Tullia. "Victor Emmanuel, Garibaldi, and a free press." "A combination of monarchy, republicanism, and popular education--not very interesting," remarked Gouache, still eyeing his picture. "No; there would be nothing for you to paint, except portraits of the liberators--" "There is a great deal of that done. I have seen them in every café in the north of Italy," interrupted the artist. "I would like to paint Garibaldi. He has a fine head." "I will ask him to sit to you when he comes here." "When he comes I shall be here no longer," answered Gouache. "They will whitewash the Corso, they will make a restaurant of the Colosseum, and they will hoist the Italian flag on the cross of St. Peter's. Then I will go to Constantinople; there will still be some years before Turkey is modernised." "Artists are hopeless people," said Del Ferice. "They are utterly illogical, and it is impossible to deal with them. If you like old cities, why do you not like old women? Why would you not rather paint Donna Tullia's old Countess than Donna Tullia herself?" "That is precisely the opposite case," replied Anastase, quietly. "The works of man are never so beautiful as when they are falling to decay; the works of God are most beautiful when they are young. You might as well say that because wine improves with age, therefore horses do likewise. The faculty of comparison is lacking in your mind, my dear Del Ferice, as it is generally lacking in the minds of true patriots. Great reforms and great revolutions are generally brought about by people of fierce and desperate convictions, like yours, who go to extreme lengths, and never know when to stop. The quintessence of an artist's talent is precisely that faculty of comparison, that gift of knowing when the thing he is doing corresponds as nearly as he can make it with the thing he has imagined." There was no tinge of sarcasm in Gouache's voice as he imputed to Del Ferice the savage enthusiasm of a revolutionist. But when Gouache, who was by no means calm by nature, said anything in a particularly gentle tone, there was generally a sting in it, and Del Ferice reflected upon the mean traffic in stolen information by which he got his livelihood, and was ashamed. Somehow, too, Donna Tullia felt that the part she fancied herself playing was contemptible enough when compared with the hard work, the earnest purpose, and the remarkable talent of the young artist. But though she felt her inferiority, she would have died rather than own it, even to Del Ferice. She knew that for months she had talked with Del Ferice, with Valdarno, with Casalverde, even with the melancholy and ironical Spicca, concerning conspiracies and deeds of darkness of all kinds, and she knew that she and they might go on talking for ever in the same strain without producing the smallest effect on events; but she never to the very end relinquished the illusion she cherished so dearly, that she was really and truly a conspirator, and that if any one of her light-headed acquaintance betrayed the rest, they might all be ordered out of Rome in four-and-twenty hours, or might even disappear into that long range of dark buildings to the left of the colonnade of St. Peter's, martyrs to the cause of their own self-importance and semi-theatrical vanity. There were many knots of such self-fancied conspirators in those days, whose wildest deed of daring was to whisper across a glass of champagne in a ball-room, or over a tumbler of Velletri wine in a Trasteverine cellar, the magic and awe-inspiring words, "Viva Garibaldi! Viva Vittorio!" They accomplished nothing. The same men and women are now grumbling and regretting the flesh-pots of the old Government, or whispering in impotent discontent "Viva la Repubblica!" and they and their descendants will go on whispering something to each other to the end of time, while mightier hands than theirs are tearing down empires and building up irresistible coalitions, and drawing red pencil-marks through the geography of Europe. The conspirators of those days accomplished nothing after Pius IX. returned from Gaeta; the only men who were of any use at all were those who, like Del Ferice, had sources of secret information, and basely sold their scraps of news. But even they were of small importance. The moment had not come, and all the talking and whispering and tale-bearing in the world could not hasten events, nor change their course. But Donna Tullia was puffed up with a sense of her importance, and Del Ferice managed to attract just as much attention to his harmless chatter about progress as would permit him undisturbed to carry on his lucrative traffic in secret information. Donna Tullia, who was not in the least artistic, and who by no means appreciated the merits of the portrait Gouache was painting, was very far from comprehending his definition of artistic comparison; but Del Ferice understood it very well. Donna Tullia had much foreign blood in her veins, like most of her class; but Del Ferice's obscure descent was in all probability purely Italian, and he had inherited the common instinct in matters of art which is a part of the Italian birthright. He had recognised Gouache's wonderful talent, and had first brought Donna Tullia to his studio--a matter of little difficulty when she had learned that the young artist had already a reputation. It pleased her to fancy that by telling him to paint her portrait she might pose as his patroness, and hereafter reap the reputation of having influenced his career. For fashion, and the desire to be the representative of fashion, led Donna Tullia hither and thither as a lapdog is led by a string; and there is nothing more in the fashion than to patronise a fashionable portrait-painter. But after Anastase Gouache had thus delivered himself of his views upon Del Ferice and the faculty of artistic comparison, the conversation languished, and Donna Tullia grew restless. "She had sat enough," she said; and as her expression was not favourable to the portrait, Anastase did not contradict her, but presently suffered her to depart in peace with her devoted adorer at her heels. And when they were gone, Anastase lighted a cigarette, and took a piece of charcoal and sketched a caricature of Donna Tullia in a liberty cap, in a fine theatrical attitude, invoking the aid of Del Ferice, who appeared as the Angel of Death, with the guillotine in the background. Having put the finishing touches to this work of art, Anastase locked his studio and went to breakfast, humming an air from the "Belle Hélène." CHAPTER VIII. When Corona reached home she went to her own small boudoir, with the intention of remaining there for an hour if she could do so without being disturbed. There was a prospect of this; for on inquiry she ascertained that her husband was not yet dressed, and his dressing took a very long time. He had a cosmopolitan valet, who alone of living men understood the art of fitting the artificial and the natural Astrardente together. Corona believed this man to be an accomplished scoundrel; but she never had any proof that he was anything worse than a very clever servant, thoroughly unscrupulous where his master's interests or his own were concerned. The old Duca believed in him sincerely and trusted him alone, feeling that since he could never be a hero in his valet's eyes, he might as well take advantage of that misfortune in order to gain a confident. Corona found three or four letters upon her table, and sat down to read them, letting her fur mantle drop to the floor, and putting her small feet out towards the fire, for the pavement of the church had been cold. She was destined to pass an eventful day, it seemed. One of the letters was from Giovanni Saracinesca. It was the first time he had ever written to her, and she was greatly surprised on finding his name at the foot of the page. He wrote a strong clear handwriting, entirely without adornment of penmanship, close and regular and straight: there was an air of determination about it which was sympathetic, and a conciseness of expression which startled Corona, as though she had heard the man himself speaking to her. "I write, dear Duchessa, because I covet your good opinion, and my motive is therefore before all things an interested one. I would not have you think that I had idly asked your advice about a thing so important to me as my marriage, in order to discard your counsel at the first opportunity. There was too much reason in the view you took of the matter to admit of my not giving your opinion all the weight I could, even if I had not already determined upon the very course you advised. Circumstances have occurred, however, which have almost induced me to change my mind. I have had an interview with my father, who has put the matter very plainly before me. I hardly know how to tell you this, but I feel that I owe it to you to explain myself, however much you may despise me for what I am going to say. It is very simple, nevertheless. My father has informed me that by my conduct I have caused my name to be coupled in the mouth of the gossips with that of a person very dear to me, but whom I am unfortunately prevented from marrying. He has convinced me that I owe to this lady, who, I confess, takes no interest whatever in me, the only reparation possible to be made--that of taking a wife, and thus publicly demonstrating that there was never any truth in what has been said. As a marriage will probably be forced upon me some day, it is as well to let things take their course at once, in order that a step so disagreeable to myself may at least distantly profit one whom I love in removing me from the appearance of being a factor in her life. The gossip about me has never reached your ears, but if it should, you will be the better able to understand my position. "Do not think, therefore, that if I do not follow your advice I am altogether inconsistent, or that I wantonly presumed to consult you without any intention of being guided by you. Forgive me also this letter, which I am impelled to write from somewhat mean motives of vanity, in the hope of not altogether forfeiting your opinion; and especially I beg you to believe that I am at all times the most obedient of your servants, "GIOVANNI SARACINESCA." Of what use was it that she had that morning determined to forget Giovanni, since he had the power of thus bringing himself before her by means of a scrap of paper? Corona's hand closed upon the letter convulsively, and for a moment the room seemed to swim around her. So there was some one whom he loved, some one for whose fair name he was willing to sacrifice himself even to the extent of marrying against his will. Some one, too, who not only did not love him, but took no interest whatever in him. Those were his own words, and they must be true, for he never lied. That accounted for his accompanying Donna Tullia to the picnic. He was going to marry her after all. To save the woman he loved so hopelessly from the mere suspicion of being loved by him, he was going to tie himself for life to the first who would marry him. That would never prevent the gossips from saying that he loved this other woman as much as ever. It could do her no great harm, since she took no interest whatever in him. Who could she be, this cold creature, whom even Giovanni could not move to interest? It was absurd--the letter was absurd--the whole thing was absurd! None but a madman would think of pursuing such a course; and why should he think it necessary to confide his plans--his very foolish plans--to her, Corona d'Astrardente,--why? Ah, Giovanni, how different things might have been! Corona rose angrily from her seat and leaned against the broad chimney-piece, and looked at the clock--it was nearly mid-day. He might marry whom he pleased, and be welcome--what was it to her? He might marry and sacrifice himself if he pleased--what was it to her? She thought of her own life. She, too, had sacrificed herself; she, too, had tied herself for life to a man she despised in her heart, and she had done it for an object she had thought good. She looked steadily at the clock, for she would not give way, nor bend her head and cry bitter tears again; but the tears were in her eyes, nevertheless. "Giovanni, you must not do it--you must not do it!" Her lips formed the words without speaking them, and repeated the thought again and again. Her heart beat fast and her cheeks flushed darkly. She spread out the crumpled letter and read it once more. As she read, the most intense curiosity seized her to know who this woman might be whom Giovanni so loved; and with her curiosity there was a new feeling--an utterly hateful and hating passion--something so strong, that it suddenly dried her tears and sent the blood from her cheeks back to her heart. Her white hand was clenched, and her eyes were on fire. Ah, if she could only find that woman he loved! if she could only see her dead--dead with Giovanni Saracinesca there upon the floor before her! As she thought of it, she stamped her foot upon the thick carpet, and her face grew paler. She did not know what it was that she felt, but it completely overmastered her. Padre Filippo would be pleased, she thought, for she knew how in that moment she hated Giovanni Saracinesca. With a sudden impulse she again sat down and opened the letter next to her hand. It was a gossiping epistle from a friend in Paris, full of stories of the day, exclamations upon fashion and all kinds of emptiness; she was about to throw it down impatiently and take up the next when her eyes caught Giovanni's name. "Of course it is not true that Saracinesca is to marry Madame Mayer..." were the words she read. But that was all. There chanced to have been just room for the sentence at the foot of the page, and by the time her friend had turned over the leaf, she had already forgotten what she had written, and was running on with a different idea. It seemed as though Corona were haunted by Giovanni at every turn; but she had not reached the end yet, for one letter still remained. She tore open the envelope, and found that the contents consisted of a few lines penned in a small and irregular hand, without signature. There was an air of disguise about the whole, which was unpleasant; it was written upon a common sort of paper, and had come through the city post. It ran as follows:-- "The Duchessa d'Astrardente reminds us of the fable of the dog in the horse's manger, for she can neither eat herself nor let others eat. She will not accept Don Giovanni Saracinesca's devotion, but she effectually prevents him from fulfilling his engagements to others." If Corona had been in her ordinary mood, she would very likely have laughed at the anonymous communication. She had formerly received more than one passionate declaration, not signed indeed, but accompanied always by some clue to the identity of the writer, and she had carelessly thrown them into the fire. But there was no such indication here whereby she might discover who it was who had undertaken to criticise her, to cast upon her so unjust an accusation. Moreover, she was very angry and altogether thrown out of her usually calm humour. Her first impulse was to go to her husband, and in the strength of her innocence to show him the letter. Then she laughed bitterly as she thought how the selfish old dandy would scoff at her sensitiveness, and how utterly incapable he would be of discovering the offender or of punishing the offence. Then again her face was grave, and she asked herself whether it was true that she was innocent; whether she were not really to be blamed, if perhaps she had really prevented Giovanni from marrying Donna Tullia. But if that were true, she must herself be the woman he spoke of in his letter. Any other woman would have suspected as much. Corona went to the window, and for an instant there was a strange light of pleasure in her face. Then she grew very thoughtful, and her whole mood changed. She could not conceive it possible that Giovanni so loved her as to marry for her sake. Besides, no one could ever have breathed a word of him in connection with herself--until this abominable anonymous letter was written. The thought that she might, after all, be the "person very dear to him," the one who "took no interest whatever in him," had nevertheless crossed her mind, and had given her for one moment a sense of wild and indescribable pleasure. Then she remembered what she had felt before; how angry, how utterly beside herself, she had been at the thought of another woman being loved by him, and she suddenly understood that she was jealous of her. The very thought revived in her the belief that it was not she herself who was thus influencing the life of Giovanni Saracinesca, but another, and she sat silent and pale. Of course it was another! What had she done, what word had she spoken, whereby the world might pretend to believe that she controlled this man's actions? "Fulfilling his engagements," the letter said, too. It must have been written by an ignorant person--by some one who had no idea of what was passing, and who wrote at random, hoping to touch a sensitive chord, to do some harm, to inflict some pain, in petty vengeance for a fancied slight. But in her heart, though she crushed down the instinct, she would have believed the anonymous jest well founded, for the sake of believing, too, that Giovanni Saracinesca was ready to lay his life at her feet--although in that belief she would have felt that she was committing a mortal sin. She went back to her interview that morning with Padre Filippo, and thought over all she had said and all he had answered; how she had been willing to admit the possibility of Giovanni's love, and how sternly the confessor had ruled down the clause, and told her there should never arise such a doubt in her mind; how she had scorned herself for being capable of seeking love where there was none, and how she had sworn that there should be no perhaps in the matter. It seemed very hard to do right, but she would try to see where the right lay. In the first place, she should burn the anonymous letter, and never condescend to think of it; and she should also burn Giovanni's, because it would be an injustice to him to keep it. She looked once more at the unsigned, ill-written page, and, with a little scornful laugh, threw it from where she sat into the fire with its envelope; then she took Giovanni's note, and would have done the same, but her hand trembled, and the crumpled bit of paper fell upon the hearth. She rose from her chair quickly, and took it up again, kneeling before the fire, like some beautiful dark priestess of old feeding the flames of a sacred altar. She smoothed the paper out once more, and once more read the even characters, and looked long at the signature, and back again to the writing. "This lady, who, I confess, takes no interest whatever in me...." "How could he say it!" she exclaimed aloud. "Oh, if I knew who she was!" With an impatient movement she thrust the letter among the coals, and watched the fire curl it and burn it, from white to brown and from brown to black, till it was all gone. Then she rose to her feet and left the room. Her husband certainly did not guess that the Duchessa d'Astrardente had spent so eventful a morning; and if any one had told him that his wife had been through a dozen stages of emotion, he would have laughed, and would have told his informant that Corona was not of the sort who experience violent passions. That evening they went to the opera together, and the old man was in an unusually cheerful humour. A new coat had just arrived from Paris, and the padding had attained a higher degree of scientific perfection than heretofore. Corona also looked more beautiful than even her husband ever remembered to have seen her; she wore a perfectly simple gown of black satin without the smallest relief of colour, and upon her neck the famous Astrardente necklace of pearls, three strings of even thickness, each jewel exquisitely white and just lighted in its shadow by a delicate pink tinge--such a necklace as an empress might have worn. In the raven masses of her hair there was not the least ornament, nor did any flower enhance the rich blackness of its silken coils. It would be impossible to imagine greater simplicity than Corona showed in her dress, but it would be hard to conceive of any woman who possessed by virtue of severe beauty a more indubitable right to dispense with ornament. The theatre was crowded. There was a performance of "Norma" for which several celebrated artists had been engaged--an occurrence so rare in Rome, that the theatre was absolutely full. The Astrardente box was upon the second tier, just where the amphitheatre began to curve. There was room in it for four or five persons to see the stage. The Duchessa and her husband arrived in the middle of the first act, and remained alone until it was over. Corona was extremely fond of "Norma," and after she was seated never took her eyes from the stage. Astrardente, on the other hand, maintained his character as a man of no illusions, and swept the house with his small opera-glass. The instrument itself was like him, and would have been appropriate for a fine lady of the First Empire; it was of mother-of-pearl, made very small and light, the metal-work upon it heavily gilt and ornamented with turquoises. The old man glanced from time to time at the stage, and then again settled himself to the study of the audience, which interested him far more than the opera. "Every human being you ever heard of is here," he remarked at the end of the first act. "Really I should think you would find it worth while to look at your magnificent fellow-creatures, my dear." Corona looked slowly round the house. She had excellent eyes, and never used a glass. She saw the same faces she had seen for five years, the same occasional flash of beauty, the same average number of over-dressed women, the same paint, the same feathers, the same jewels. She saw opposite to her Madame Mayer, with the elderly countess whom she patronised for the sake of deafness, and found convenient as a sort of flying chaperon. The countess could not hear much of the music, but she was fond of the world and liked to be seen, and she could not hear at all what Del Ferice said in an undertone to Madame Mayer. Sufficient to her were the good things of the day; the rest was in no way her business. There was Valdarno in the club-box, with a knot of other men of his own stamp. There were the Rocca, mother and daughter and son--a boy of eighteen--and a couple of men in the back of the box. Everybody was there, as her husband had said; and as she dropped her glance toward the stalls, she was aware of Giovanni Saracinesca's black eyes looking anxiously up to her. A faint smile crossed her serene face, and almost involuntarily she nodded to him and then looked away. Many men were watching her, and bowed as she glanced at them, and she bent her head to each; but there was no smile for any save Giovanni, and when she looked again to where he had been standing with his back to the stage, he was gone from his place. "They are the same old things," said Astrardente, "but they are still very amusing. Madame Mayer always seems to get the wrong man into her box. She would give all those diamonds to have Giovanni Saracinesca instead of that newsmonger fellow. If he comes here I will send him across." "Perhaps she likes Del Ferice," suggested Corona. "He is a good lapdog--a very good dog," answered her husband. "He cannot bite at all, and his bark is so soft that you would take it for the mewing of a kitten. He fetches and carries admirably." "Those are good points, but not interesting ones. He is very tiresome with his eternal puns and insipid compliments, and his gossip." "But he is so very harmless," answered Astrardente, with compassionate scorn. "He is incapable of doing an injury. Donna Tullia is wise in adopting him as her slave. She would not be so safe with Saracinesca, for instance. If you feel the need of an admirer, my dear, take Del Ferice. I have no objection to him." "Why should I need admirers?" asked Corona, quietly. "I was merely jesting, my love. Is not your own husband the greatest of your admirers, and your devoted slave into the bargain?" Old Astrardente's face twisted itself into the semblance of a smile, as he leaned towards his young wife, lowering his cracked voice to a thin whisper. He was genuinely in love with her, and lost no opportunity of telling her so. She smiled a little wearily. "You are very good to me," she said. She had often wondered how it was that this aged creature, who had never been faithful to any attachment in his life for five months, did really seem to love her just as he had done for five years. It was perhaps the greatest triumph she could have attained, though she never thought of it in that light; but though she could not respect her husband very much, she could not think unkindly of him--for, as she said, he was very good to her. She often reproached herself because he wearied her; she believed that she should have taken more pleasure in his admiration. "I cannot help being good to you, my angel," he said. "How could I be otherwise? Do I not love you most passionately?" "Indeed, I think so," Corona answered. As she spoke there was a knock at the door. Her heart leaped wildly, and she turned a little pale. "The devil seize these visitors!" muttered old Astrardente, annoyed beyond measure at being interrupted when making love to his wife. "I suppose we must let them in?" "I suppose so," assented the Duchessa, with forced calm. Her husband opened the door, and Giovanni Saracinesca entered, hat in hand. "Sit down," said Astrardente, rather harshly. "I trust I am not disturbing you," replied Giovanni, still standing. He was somewhat surprised at the old man's inhospitable tone. "Oh no; not in the least," said the latter, quickly regaining his composure. "Pray sit down; the act will begin in a moment." Giovanni established himself upon the chair immediately behind the Duchessa. He had come to talk, and he anticipated that during the second act he would have an excellent opportunity. "I hear you enjoyed yourselves yesterday," said Corona, turning her head so as to speak more easily. "Indeed!" Giovanni answered, and a shade of annoyance crossed his face. "And who was your informant, Duchessa?" "Donna Tullia. I met her this morning. She said you amused them all--kept them laughing the whole day." "What an extraordinary statement!" exclaimed Giovanni. "It shows how one may unconsciously furnish matter for mirth. I do not recollect having talked much to any one. It was a noisy party enough, however." "Perhaps Donna Tullia spoke ironically," suggested Corona. "Do you like 'Norma'?" "Oh yes; one opera is as good as another. There goes the curtain." The act began, and for some minutes no one in the box spoke. Presently there was a burst of orchestral music. Giovanni leaned forward so that his face was close behind Corona. He could speak without being heard by Astrardente. "Did you receive my letter?" he asked. Corona made an almost imperceptible inclination of her head, but did not speak. "Do you understand my position?" he asked again. He could not see her face, and for some seconds she made no sign; at last she moved her head again, but this time to express a negative. "It is simple enough, it seems to me," said Giovanni, bending his brows. Corona found that by turning a little she could still look at the stage, and at the same time speak to the man behind her. "How can I judge?" she said. "You have not told me all. Why do you ask me to judge whether you are right?" "I could not do it if you thought me wrong," he answered shortly. The Duchessa suddenly thought of that other woman for whom the man who asked her advice was willing to sacrifice his life. "You attach an astonishing degree of importance to my opinion," she said very coldly, and turned her head from him. "There is no one so well able to give an opinion," said Giovanni, insisting. Corona was offended. She interpreted the speech to mean that since she had sacrificed her life to the old man on the opposite side of the box, she was able to judge whether Giovanni would do wisely in making a marriage of convenience, for the sake of an end which even to her mind seemed visionary. She turned quickly upon him, and there was an angry gleam in her eyes. "Pray do not introduce the subject of my life," she said haughtily. Giovanni was too much astonished to answer her at once. He had indeed not intended the least reference to her marriage. "You have entirely misunderstood me," he said presently. "Then you must express yourself more clearly," she replied. She would have felt very guilty to be thus talking to Giovanni, as she would not have talked before her husband, had she not felt that it was upon Giovanni's business, and that the matter discussed in no way concerned herself. As for Saracinesca, he was in a dangerous position, and was rapidly losing his self-control. He was too near to her, his heart was bearing too fast, the blood was throbbing in his temples, and he was stung by being misunderstood. "It is not possible for me to express myself more clearly," he answered. "I am suffering for having told you too little when I dare not tell you all. I make no reference to your marriage when I speak to you of my own. Forgive me; I will not refer to the matter again." Corona felt again that strange thrill, half of pain, half of pleasure, and the lights of the theatre seemed moving before her uncertainly, as things look when one falls from a height. Almost unconsciously she spoke, hardly knowing that she turned her head, and that her dark eyes rested upon Giovanni's pale face. "And yet there must be some reason why you tell me that little, and why you do not tell me more." When she had spoken, she would have given all the world to have taken back her words. It was too late. Giovanni answered in a low thick voice that sounded as though he were choking, his face grew white, and his teeth seemed almost to chatter as though he were cold, but his eyes shone like black stars in the shadow of the box. "There is every reason. You are the woman I love." Corona did not move for several seconds, as though not comprehending what he had said. Then she suddenly shivered, and her eyelids drooped as she leaned back in her chair. Her fingers relaxed their tight hold upon her fan, and the thing fell rattling upon the floor of the box. Old Astrardente, who had taken no notice of the pair, being annoyed at Giovanni's visit, and much interested in the proceedings of Madame Mayer in the box opposite, heard the noise, and stooped with considerable alacrity to pick up the fan which lay at his feet. "You are not well, my love," he said quickly, as he observed his wife's unusual pallor. "It is nothing; it will pass," she murmured, with a terrible effort. Then, as though she had not said enough, she added, "There must be a draught here; I have a chill." Giovanni had sat like a statue, utterly overcome by the sense of his own folly and rashness, as well as by the shock of having so miserably failed to keep the secret he dreaded to reveal. On hearing Corona's voice, he rose suddenly, as from a dream. "Forgive me," he said hurriedly, "I have just remembered a most important engagement--" "Do not mention it," said Astrardente, sourly. Giovanni bowed to the Duchessa and left the box. She did not look at him as he went away. "We had better go home, my angel," said the old man. "You have got a bad chill." "Oh no, I would rather stay. It is nothing, and the best part of the opera is to come." Corona spoke quietly enough. Her strong nerves had already recovered from the shock she had experienced, and she could command her voice. She did not want to go home; on the contrary, the brilliant lights and the music served for a time to soothe her. If there had been a ball that night she would have gone to it; she would have done anything that would take her thoughts from herself. Her husband looked at her curiously. The suspicion crossed his mind that Don Giovanni had said something which had either frightened or offended her, but on second thoughts the theory seemed absurd. He regarded Saracinesca as little more than a mere acquaintance of his wife's. "As you please, my love," he answered, drawing his chair a little nearer to hers. "I am glad that fellow is gone. We can talk at our ease now." "Yes; I am glad he is gone. We can talk now," repeated Corona, mechanically. "I thought his excuse slightly conventional, to say the least of it," remarked Astrardente. "An important engagement!--just a little _banal_. However, any excuse was good enough which took him away." "Did he say that?" asked Corona. "I did not hear. Of course, any excuse would do, as you say." CHAPTER IX. Giovanni left the theatre at once, alone, and on foot. He was very much agitated. He had done suddenly and unawares the thing of all others he had determined never to do; his resolutions had been broken down and carried away as an ineffectual barrier is swept to the sea by the floods of spring. His heart had spoken in spite of him, and in speaking had silenced every prompting of reason. He blamed himself bitterly, as he strode out across the deserted bridge of Sant' Angelo and into the broad gloom beyond, where the street widens from the fortress to the entrance of the three Borghi: he walked on and on, finding at every step fresh reason for self-reproach, and trying to understand what he had done. He paused at the end of the open piazza and looked down towards the black rushing river which he could hear, but hardly see; he turned into the silent Borgo Santo Spirito, and passed along the endless wall of the great hospital up to the colonnades, and still wandering on, he came to the broad steps of St. Peter's and sat down, alone in the darkness, at the foot of the stupendous pile. He was perhaps not so much to blame as he was willing to allow in his just anger against himself. Corona had tempted him sorely in that last question she had put to him. She had not known, she had not even faintly guessed what she was doing, for her own brain was intoxicated with a new and indescribable sensation which had left no room for reflection nor for weighing the force of words. But Giovanni, who had been willing to give up everything, even to his personal liberty, for the sake of concealing his love, would not allow himself any argument in extenuation of what he had done. He had had but very few affairs of the heart in his life, and they had been for the most part very insignificant, and his experience was limited. Even now it never entered his mind to imagine that Corona would condone his offence; he felt sure that she was deeply wounded, and that his next meeting with her would be a terrible ordeal--so terrible, indeed, that he doubted whether he had the courage to meet her at all. His love was so great, and its object so sacred to him, that he hesitated to conceive himself loved in return; perhaps if he had been able to understand that Corona loved him he would have left Rome for ever, rather than trouble her peace by his presence. It would have been absolutely different if he had been paying court to Donna Tullia, for instance. The feeling that he should be justified would have lent him courage, and the coldness in his own heart would have left his judgment free play. He could have watched her calmly, and would have tried to take advantage of every mood in the prosecution of his suit. He was a very honourable man, but he did not consider marriages of propriety and convenience as being at all contrary to the ordinary standard of social honour, and would have thought himself justified in using every means of persuasion in order to win a woman whom, upon mature reflection, he had judged suitable to become his wife, even though he felt no real love for her. That is an idea inherent in most old countries, an idea for which Giovanni Saracinesca was certainly in no way responsible, seeing that it had been instilled into him from his boyhood. Personally he would have preferred to live and die unmarried, rather than to take a wife as a matter of obligation towards his family; but seeing that he had never seriously loved any woman, he had acquired the habit of contemplating such a marriage as a probability, perhaps as an ultimate necessity, to be put off as long as possible, but to which he would at last yield with a good grace. But the current of his life had been turned. He was certainly not a romantic character, not a man who desired to experience the external sensations to be obtained by voluntarily creating dramatic events. He loved action, and he had a taste for danger, but he had sought both in a legitimate way; he never desired to implicate himself in adventures where the feelings were concerned, and hitherto such experiences had not fallen in his path. As is usual with such men, when love came at last, it came with a strength such as boys of twenty do not dream of. The mature man of thirty years, with his strong and dominant temper, his carelessness of danger, his high and untried ideals of what a true affection should be, resisting the first impressions of the master-passion with the indifference of one accustomed to believe that love could not come near his life, and was in general a thing to be avoided--a man, moreover, who by his individual gifts and by his brilliant position was able to command much that smaller men would not dream of aspiring to,--such a man, in short, as Giovanni Saracinesca,--was not likely to experience love-sickness in a mild degree. Proud, despotic, and fiercely unyielding by his inheritance of temper, he was outwardly gentle and courteous by acquired habit, a man of those whom women easily love and men very generally fear. He did not realise his own nature, he did not suspect the extremes of feeling of which he was eminently capable. He had at first felt Corona's influence, and her face and voice seemed to awaken in him a memory, which was as yet but an anticipation, and not a real remembrance. It was as the faint perfume of the spring wafted up to a prisoner in some stern fortress, as the first gentle sweetness that rose from the enchanted lakes of the cisalpine country to the nostrils of the war-hardened Goths as they descended the last snow-slopes in their southern wandering--an anticipation that seemed already a memory, a looking forward again to something that had been already loved in a former state. Giovanni had laughed at himself for it at first, then he had dreaded its growing charm, and at the last he had fallen hopelessly under the spell, retaining only enough of his former self to make him determined that the harm which had come upon himself should not come near this woman whom he so adored. And behold, at the first provocation, the very first time that by a careless word she had fired his blood and set his brain throbbing, he had not only been unable to hide what he felt, but had spoken such words as he would not have believed he could speak--so bluntly, so roughly, that she had almost fainted before his very eyes. She must have been very angry, he thought. Perhaps, too, she was frightened. It was so rude, so utterly contrary to all that was chivalrous to say thus at the first opportunity, "I love you"--just that and nothing more. Giovanni had never thought much about it, but he supposed that men in love, very seriously in love, must take a long time to express themselves, as is the manner in books; whereas he was horrified at his own bluntness in having blurted out rashly such words as could never be taken back, as could never even be explained now, he feared, because he had put himself beyond the pale of all explanation, perhaps beyond the reach of forgiveness. Nobody ever yet explained away the distinct statement "I love you," upon any pretence of a mistake. Giovanni almost laughed at the idea, and yet he conceived that some kind of apology would be necessary, though he could not imagine how he was to frame one. He reflected that few women would consider a declaration, even as sudden as his had been, in the light of an insult; but he knew how little cause Corona had given him for speaking to her of love, and he judged from her manner that she had been either offended or frightened, or both, and that he was to blame for it. He was greatly disturbed, and the sweat stood in great drops upon his forehead as he sat there upon the steps of St. Peter's in the cold night wind. He remained nearly an hour without changing his position, and then at last he rose and slowly retraced his steps, and went home by narrow streets, avoiding the theatre and the crowd of carriages that stood before it. He had almost determined to go away for a time, and to let his absence speak for his contrition. But he had reckoned upon his former self, and he doubted now whether he had the strength to leave Rome. The most that seemed possible was that he should keep out of Corona's way for a few days, until she should have recovered from the shock of the scene in the theatre. After that he would go to her and tell her quite simply that he was very sorry, but that he had been unable to control himself. It would soon be over. She would not refuse to speak to him, he argued, for fear of attracting the attention of the gossips and making an open scandal. She would perhaps tell him to avoid her, and her words would be few and haughty, but she would speak to him, nevertheless. Giovanni went to bed. The next day he gave out that he had a touch of fever, and remained in his own apartments. His father, who was passionately attached to him, in spite of his rough temper and hasty speeches, came and spent most of the day with him, and in the intervals of his kindly talk, marched up and down the room, swearing that Giovanni was no more ill than he was himself, and that he had acquired his accursed habit of staying in bed upon his travels. As Giovanni had never before been known to spend twenty-four hours in bed for any reason whatsoever, the accusation was unjust; but he only smiled and pretended to argue the case for the sake of pleasing the old prince. He really felt exceedingly uncomfortable, and would have been glad to be left alone at any price; but there was nothing for it but to pretend to be ill in body, when he was really sick at heart, and he remained obstinately in bed the whole day. On the following morning he declared his intention of going out of town, and by an early train he left the city. No one saw Giovanni again until the evening of the Frangipani ball. Meanwhile it would have surprised him greatly to know that Corona looked for him in vain wherever she went, and that, not seeing him, she grew silent and pale, and gave short answers to the pleasant speeches men made her. Every one missed Giovanni. He wrote to Valdarno to say that he had been suddenly obliged to visit Saracinesca in order to see to some details connected with the timber question; but everybody wondered why he should have taken himself away in the height of the season for so trivial a matter. He had last been seen in the Astrardente box at the opera, where he had only stayed a few minutes, as Del Ferice was able to testify, having sat immediately opposite in the box of Madame Mayer. Del Ferice swore secretly that he would find out what was the matter; and Donna Tullia abused Giovanni in unmeasured terms to a circle of intimate friends and admirers, because he had been engaged to dance with her at the Valdarno cotillon, and had not even sent word that he could not come. Thereupon all the men present immediately offered themselves for the vacant dance, and Donna Tullia made them draw lots by tossing a copper sou in the corner of the ball-room. The man who won the toss recklessly threw over the partner he had already engaged, and almost had to fight a duel in consequence; all of which was intensely amusing to Donna Tullia. Nevertheless, in her heart, she was very angry at Giovanni's departure. But Corona sought him everywhere, and at last heard that he had left town, two days after everybody else in Rome had known it. She would probably have been very much disturbed, if she had actually met him within a day or two of that fatal evening, but the desire to see him was so great, that she entirely overlooked the consequences. For the time being, her whole life seemed to have undergone a revolution--she trembled at the echo of the words she had heard--she spent long hours in solitude, praying with all her strength that she might be forgiven for having heard him speak; but the moment she left her room, and went out into the world, the dominant desire to see him again returned. The secret longing of her soul was to hear him speak again as he had spoken once. She would have gone again to Padre Filippo and told him all; but when she was alone in the solitude of her passionate prayers and self-accusation, she felt that she must fight this fight alone, without help of any one; and when she was in the world, she lacked courage to put altogether from her what was so very sweet, and her eyes searched unceasingly for the dark face she loved. But the stirring strength of the mighty passion played upon her soul and body in spite of her, as upon an instrument of strings; and sometimes the music was gentle and full of sweet harmony, but often there were crashes of discord, so that she trembled and felt her heart wrung as by torture; then she set her strong lips, and her white fingers wound themselves together, and she could have cried aloud, but that her pride forbade her. The days came and went, but Giovanni did not return, and Corona's face grew every morning more pale and her eyes every night more wistful. Her husband did not understand, but he saw that something was the matter, as others saw it, and in his quick suspicious humour he connected the trouble in his wife's face with the absence of Giovanni and with the strange chill she had felt in the theatre. But Corona d'Astrardente was a very brave and strong woman, and she bore what seemed to her like the agony of death renewed each day, so calmly that those who knew her thought it was but a passing indisposition or annoyance, unusual with her, who was never ill nor troubled, but yet insignificant. She gave particular attention to the gown which her husband had desired she should wear at the great ball, and the need she felt for distracting her mind from her chief care made society necessary to her. The evening of the Frangipani ball came, and all Rome was in a state of excitement and expectation. The great old family had been in mourning for years, owing to three successive deaths, and during all that time the ancient stronghold which was called their palace had been closed to the world. For some time, indeed, no one of the name had been in Rome--the prince and princess preferring to pass the time of mourning in the country and in travelling; while the eldest son, now just of age, was finishing his academic career at an English University. But this year the family had returned: there had been both dinners and receptions at the palace, and the ball, which was to be a sort of festival in honour of the coming of age of the heir, was expected as the principal event of the year. It was rumoured that there would be nearly thirty rooms opened besides the great hall, which was set aside for dancing, and that the arrangements were on a scale worthy of a household which had endured in its high position for upwards of a thousand years. It was understood that no distinction had been made, in issuing the invitations, between parties in politics or in society, and that there would be more people seen there than had been collected under one roof for many years. The Frangipani did things magnificently, and no one was disappointed. The gardens and courts of the palace were brilliantly illuminated; vast suites of apartments were thrown open, and lavishly decorated with rare flowers; the grand staircase was lined with footmen in the liveries of the house, standing motionless as the guests passed up; the supper was a banquet such as is read of in the chronicles of medieval splendour; the enormous conservatory in the distant south wing was softly lit by shaded candles concealed among the tropical plants; and the ceilings and walls of the great hall itself had been newly decorated by famous painters; while the polished wooden floor presented an innovation upon the old-fashioned canvas-covered brick pavement, not hitherto seen in any Roman palace. A thousand candles, disposed in every variety of chandelier and candelabra, shed a soft rich light from far above, and high in the gallery at one end an orchestra of Viennese musicians played unceasingly. As generally happens at very large balls, the dancing began late, but numbers of persons had come early in order to survey the wonders of the palace at their leisure. Among those who arrived soon after ten o'clock was Giovanni Saracinesca, who was greeted loudly by all who knew him. He looked pale and tired, if his tough nature could ever be said to seem weary; but he was in an unusually affable mood, and exchanged words with every one he met. Indeed he had been sad for so many days that he hardly understood why he felt gay, unless it was in the anticipation of once more seeing the woman he loved. He wandered through the rooms carelessly enough, but he was in reality devoured by impatience, and his quick eyes sought Corona's tall figure in every direction. But she was not yet there, and Giovanni at last came and took his station in one of the outer halls, waiting patiently for her arrival. While he waited, leaning against one of the marble pillars of the door, the throng increased rapidly; but he hardly noticed the swelling crowd, until suddenly there was a lull in the unceasing talk, and the men and women parted to allow a cardinal to pass out from the inner rooms. With many gracious nods and winning looks, the great man moved on, his keen eyes embracing every one and everything within the range of his vision, his courteous smile seeming intended for each separate individual, and yet overlooking none, nor resting long on any, his high brow serene and unbent, his flowing robes falling back from his courtly figure, as with his red hat in his hand he bowed his way through the bowing crowd. His departure, which was quickly followed by that of several other cardinals and prelates, was the signal that the dancing would soon begin; and when he had passed out, the throng of men and women pressed more quickly in through the door on their way to the ball-room. But as the great cardinal's eye rested on Giovanni Saracinesca, accompanied by that invariable smile that so many can remember well to this day, his delicate hand made a gesture as though beckoning to the young man to follow him. Giovanni obeyed the summons, and became for the moment the most notable man in the room. The two passed out together, and a moment later were standing in the outer hall. Already the torch-bearers were standing without upon the grand staircase, and the lackeys were mustering in long files to salute the Prime Minister. Just then the master of the house came running breathless from within. He had not seen that Cardinal Antonelli was taking his leave, and hastened to overtake him, lest any breach of etiquette on his part should attract the displeasure of the statesman. "Your Eminence's pardon!" he exclaimed, hurriedly "I had not seen that your Eminence was leaving us--so early too--the Princess feared--" "Do not speak of it," answered the Cardinal, in suave tones. "I am not so strong as I used to be. We old fellows must to bed betimes, and leave you young ones to enjoy yourselves. No excuses--good night--a beautiful ball--I congratulate you on the reopening of your house--good night again. I will have a word with Giovanni here before I go down-stairs." He extended his hand to Frangipani, who lifted it respectfully to his lips and withdrew, seeing that he was not wanted. He and many others speculated long upon the business which engaged his Eminence in close conversation with Giovanni Saracinesca, keeping him for more than a quarter of an hour in the cold ante-chamber, where the night wind blew in unhindered from the vast staircase of the palace. As a matter of fact, Giovanni was as much surprised as any one. "Where have you been, my friend?" inquired the Cardinal, when they were alone. "To Saracinesca, your Eminence." "And what have you been doing in Saracinesca at this time of year? I hope you are attending to the woods there--you have not been cutting timber?" "No one can be more anxious than we to see the woods grow thick upon our hills," replied Giovanni. "Your Eminence need have no fear." "Not for your estates," said the great Cardinal, his small keen black eyes resting searchingly on Giovanni's face. "But I confess I have some fears for yourself." "For me, Eminence?" repeated Giovanni, in some astonishment. "For you. I have heard with considerable anxiety that there is a question of marrying you to Madame Mayer. Such a match would not meet with the Holy Father's approval, nor--if I may be permitted to mention my humble self in the same breath with our august sovereign--would it be wise in my own estimation." "Permit me to remark to your Eminence," answered Giovanni, proudly, "that in my house we have never been in the habit of asking advice upon such subjects. Donna Tullia is a good Catholic. There can therefore be no valid objection to my asking her hand, if my father and I agree that it is best." "You are terrible fellows, you Saracinesca," returned the Cardinal, blandly. "I have read your family history with immense interest, and what you say is quite true. I cannot find an instance on record of your taking the advice of any one--certainly not of the Holy Church. It is with the utmost circumspection that I venture to approach the subject with you, and I am sure that you will believe me when I say that my words are not dictated by any officious or meddling spirit; I am addressing you by the direct desire of the Holy Father himself." A soft answer turneth away wrath, and if the all-powerful statesman's answer to Giovanni seems to have been more soft than might have been expected, it must be remembered that he was speaking to the heir of one of the most powerful houses in the Roman State, at a time when the personal friendship of such men as the Saracinesca was of vastly greater importance than it is now. At that time some twenty noblemen owned a great part of the Pontifical States, and the influence they could exert upon their tenantry was very great, for the feudal system was not extinct, nor the feudal spirit. Moreover, though Cardinal Antonelli was far from popular with any party, Pius IX. was respected and beloved by a vast majority of the gentlemen as well as of the people. Giovanni's first impulse was to resist any interference whatsoever in his affairs; but on receiving the Cardinal's mild answer to his own somewhat arrogant assertion of independence, he bowed politely and professed himself willing to listen to reason. "But," he said, "since his Holiness has mentioned the matter, I beg that your Eminence will inform him that, though the question of my marriage seems to be in everybody's mouth, it is as yet merely a project in which no active steps have been taken." "I am glad of it, Giovanni," replied the Cardinal, familiarly taking his arm, and beginning to pace the hall; "I am glad of it. There are reasons why the match appears to be unworthy of you. If you will permit me, without any offence to Madame Mayer, I will tell you what those reasons are." "I am at your service," said Giovanni, gravely, "provided only there is no offence to Donna Tullia." "None whatever. The reasons are purely political. Madame Mayer--or Donna Tullia, since you prefer to call her so--is the centre of a sort of club of so-called Liberals, of whom the most active and the most foolish member is a certain Ugo del Ferice, a fellow who calls himself a count, but whose grandfather was a coachman in the Vatican under Leo XII. He will get himself into trouble some day. He is always in attendance upon Donna Tullia, and probably led her into this band of foolish young people for objects of his own. It is a very silly society; I daresay you have heard some of their talk?" "Very little," replied Giovanni; "I do not trouble myself about politics. I did not even know that there was such a club as your Eminence speaks of." Cardinal Antonelli glanced sharply at his companion as he proceeded. "They affect solidarity and secrecy, these young people," he said, with a sneer, "and their solidarity betrays their secrecy, because it is unfortunately true in our dear Rome that wherever two or three are gathered together they are engaged in some mischief. But they may gather in peace at the studio of Monsieur Gouache, or anywhere else they please, for all I care. Gouache is a clever fellow; he is to paint my portrait. Do you know him? But, to return to my sheep in wolves' clothing--my amusing little conspirators. They can do no harm, for they know not even what they say, and their words are not followed by any kind of action whatsoever. But the principle of the thing is bad, Giovanni. Your brave old ancestors used to fight us Churchmen outright, and unless the Lord is especially merciful, their souls are in an evil case, for the devil knoweth his own, and is a particularly bad paymaster. But they fought outright, like gentlemen; whereas these people--_foderunt foveam ut caperent me_--they have digged a ditch, but they will certainly not catch me, nor any one else. Their conciliabules, as Rousseau would have called them, meet daily and talk great nonsense and do nothing; which does not prove their principles to be good, while it demonstrates their intellect to be contemptible. No offence to the Signor Conte del Ferice, but I think ignorance has marked his little party for its own, and inanity waits on all his councils. If they believe in half the absurdities they utter, why do they not pack up their goods and chattels and cross the frontier? If they meant anything, they would do something." "Evidently," replied Giovanni, half amused at his Eminence's tirade. "Evidently. Therefore they mean nothing. Therefore our good friend Donna Tullia is dabbling in the emptiness of political dilettanteism for the satisfaction of a hollow vanity; no offence to her--it is the manner of her kind." Giovanni was silent. "Believe me, prince," said the Cardinal, suddenly changing his tone and speaking very seriously, "there is something better for strong men like you and me to do, in these times, than to dabble in conspiracy and to toss off glasses of champagne to Italian unity and Victor Emmanuel. The condition of our lives is battle, and battle against terrible odds. Neither you nor I should be content to waste our strength in fighting shadows, in waging war on petty troubles of our own raising, knowing all the while that the powers of evil are marshalled in a deadly array against the powers of good. _Sed non praevalebunt!_" The Cardinal's thin face assumed a strange look of determination, and his delicate fingers grasped Giovanni's arm with a force that startled him. "You speak bravely," answered the young man. "You are more sanguine than we men of the world. You believe that disaster impossible which to me seems growing daily more imminent." Cardinal Antonelli turned his gleaming black eyes full on his companion. "_O generatio incredula!_ If you have not faith, you have not courage, and if you have not courage you will waste your life in the pursuit of emptiness! It is for men like you, for men of ancient race, of broad acres, of iron body and healthy mind, to put your hand to the good work and help us who have struggled for many years and whose strength is already failing. Every action of your life, every thought of your waking hours, should be for the good end, lest we all perish together and expiate our lukewarm indifference. _Timidi nunquam statuerunt trapaeum_--if we would divide the spoil we must gird on the sword and use it boldly; we must not allow the possibility of failure; we must be vigilant; we must be united as one man. You tell me that you men of the world already regard a disaster as imminent--to expect defeat is nine-tenths of a defeat itself. Ah, if we could count upon such men as you to the very death, our case would be far from desperate." "For the matter of that, your Eminence can count upon us well enough," replied Giovanni, quietly. "Upon you, Giovanni--yes, for you are a brave gentleman. But upon your friends, even upon your class--no. Can I count upon the Valdarno, even? You know as well as I that they are in sympathy with the Liberals--that they have neither the courage to support us nor the audacity to renounce us; and, what is worse, they represent a large class, of whom, I regret to say, Donna Tullia Mayer is one of the most prominent members. With her wealth, her youth, her effervescent spirits, and her early widowhood, she leads men after her; they talk, they chatter, they set up an opinion and gloat over it, while they lack the spirit to support it. They are all alike--_non tantum ovum ovo simile_--one egg is not more like another than they are. _Non tali auxilio_--we want no such help. We ask for bread, not for stones; we want men, not empty-headed dandies. We have both at present; but if the Emperor fails us, we shall have too many dandies and too few men--too few men like you, Don Giovanni. Instead of armed battalions we shall have polite societies for mutual assurance against political risks,--instead of the support of the greatest military power in Europe, we shall have to rely on a parcel of young gentlemen whose opinions are guided by Donna Tullia Mayer." Giovanni laughed and glanced at his Eminence, who chose to refer all the imminent disasters of the State to the lady whom he did not wish to see married to his companion. "Is her influence really so great?" asked Saracinesca, incredulously. "She is agreeable, she is pretty, she is rich--her influence is a type of the whole influence which is abroad in Rome--a reflection of the life of Paris. There, at least, the women play a real part--very often a great one: here, when they have got command of a drawing-room full of fops, they do not know where to lead them; they change their minds twenty times a-day; they have an access of religious enthusiasm in Advent, followed by an attack of Liberal fever in Carnival, and their season is brought to a fitting termination by the prostration which overtakes them in Lent. By that time all their principles are upset, and they go to Paris for the month of May--_pour se retremper dans les idées idéalistes_, as they express it. Do you think one could construct a party out of such elements, especially when you reflect that this mass of uncertainty is certain always to yield to the ultimate consideration of self-interest? Half of them keep an Italian flag with the Papal one, ready to thrust either of them out of the window as occasion may require. Good night, Giovanni. I have talked enough, and all Rome will set upon you to find out what secrets of State I have been confiding. You had better prepare an answer, for you can hardly inform Donna Tullia and her set that I have been calling them a parcel of--weak and ill-advised people. They might take offence--they might even call me by bad names,--fancy how very terribly that would afflict me! Good night, Giovanni--my greetings to your father." The Cardinal nodded, but did not offer his hand. He knew that Giovanni hated to kiss his ring, and he had too much tact to press the ceremonial etiquette upon any one whom he desired to influence. But he nodded graciously, and receiving his cloak from the gentleman who accompanied him and who had waited at a respectful distance, the statesman passed out of the great doorway, where the double line of torch-bearers stood ready to accompany him down the grand staircase to his carriage, in accordance with the custom of those days. CHAPTER X. When he was alone, Giovanni retraced his steps, and again took up his position near the entrance to the reception-rooms. He had matter for reflection in the interview which had just ended; and, having nothing better to do while he waited for Corona, he thought about what had happened. He was not altogether pleased at the interest his marriage excited in high quarters; he hated interference, and he regarded Cardinal Antonelli's advice in such a matter as an interference of the most unwarrantable kind. Neither he himself nor his father were men who sought counsel from without, for independence in action was with them a family tradition, as independence of thought was in their race a hereditary quality. To think that if he, Giovanni Saracinesca, chose to marry any woman whatsoever, any one, no matter how exalted in station, should dare to express approval or disapproval was a shock to every inborn and cultivated prejudice in his nature. He had nearly quarrelled with his own father for seeking to influence his matrimonial projects; it was not likely that he would suffer Cardinal Antonelli to interfere with them. If Giovanni had really made up his mind--had firmly determined to ask the hand of Donna Tullia--it is more than probable that the statesman's advice would not only have failed signally in preventing the match, but by the very opposition it would have aroused in Giovanni's heart it would have had the effect of throwing him into the arms of a party which already desired his adhesion, and which, under his guidance, might have become as formidable as it was previously insignificant. But the great Cardinal was probably well informed, and his words had not fallen upon a barren soil. Giovanni had vacillated sadly in trying to come to a decision. His first Quixotic impulse to marry Madame Mayer, in order to show the world that he cared nothing for Corona d'Astrardente, had proved itself absurd, even to his impetuous intelligence. The growing antipathy he felt for Donna Tullia had made his marriage with her appear in the light of a disagreeable duty, and his rashness in confessing his love for Corona had so disturbed his previous conceptions that marriage no longer seemed a duty at all. What had been but a few days before almost a fixed resolution, had dwindled till it seemed an impracticable and even a useless scheme. When he had arrived at the Palazzo Frangipani that evening, he had very nearly forgotten Donna Tullia, and had quite determined that whatever his father might say he would not give the promised answer before Easter. By the time the Cardinal had left him, he had decided that no power on earth should induce him to marry Madame Mayer. He did not take the trouble of saying to himself that he would marry no one else. The Cardinal's words had struck deep, in a deep nature. Giovanni had given Del Ferice a very fair exposition of the views he believed himself to hold, on the day when they had walked together after Donna Tullia's picnic. He believed himself a practical man, loyal to the temporal power by principle rather than by any sort of enthusiastic devotion; not desirous of any great change, because any change that might reasonably be expected would be bad for his own vested interests; not prejudiced for any policy save that of peace--preferring, indeed, with Cicero, the most unjust peace to the most just war; tenacious of old customs, and not particularly inquisitive concerning ideas of progress,--on the whole, Giovanni thought himself what his father had been in his youth, and more or less what he hoped his sons, if he ever had any, would be after him. But there was more in him than all this, and at the first distant sound of battle he felt the spirit stir within him, for his real nature was brave and loyal, unselfish and devoted, instinctively sympathizing with the weak and hating the lukewarm. He had told Del Ferice that he believed he would fight as a matter of principle: as he leaned against the marble pillar of the door in the Palazzo Frangipani, he wished the fight had already begun. Waiting there, and staring into the moving crowd, he was aware of a young man with pale and delicate features and black hair, who stood quietly by his side, and seemed like himself an idle though not uninterested spectator of the scene. Giovanni glanced once at the young fellow, and thought he recognised him, and glancing again, he met his earnest look, and saw that it was Anastase Gouache, the painter. Giovanni knew him slightly, for Gouache was regarded as a rising celebrity, and, thanks to Donna Tullia, was invited to most of the great receptions and balls of that season, though he was not yet anywhere on a footing of intimacy. Gouache was proud, and would perhaps have stood aloof altogether rather than be treated as one of the herd who are asked "with everybody," as the phrase goes; but he was of an observing turn of mind, and it amused him immensely to stand unnoticed, following the movements of society's planets, comets, and satellites, and studying the many types of the cosmopolitan Roman world. "Good evening, Monsieur Gouache," said Giovanni. "Good evening, prince," replied the artist, with a somewhat formal bow--after which both men relapsed into silence, and continued to watch the crowd. "And what do you think of our Roman world?" asked Giovanni, presently. "I cannot compare it to any other world," answered Gouache, simply. "I never went into society till I came to Rome. I think it is at once brilliant and sedate--it has a magnificent air of historical antiquity, and it is a little paradoxical." "Where is the paradox?" inquired Giovanni. "'Es-tu libre? Les lois sont-elles respectées? Crains-tu de voir ton champ pillé par le voisin? Le maître a-t-il son toit, et l'ouvrier son pain?'" A smile flickered over the young artist's face as he quoted Musset's lines in answer to Giovanni's question. Giovanni himself laughed, and looked at Anastase with somewhat increased interest. "Do you mean that we are revelling under the sword of Damocles--dancing on the eve of our execution?" "Not precisely. A delicate flavour of uncertainty about to-morrow gives zest to the appetite of to-day. It is impossible that such a large society should be wholly unconscious of its own imminent danger--and yet these men and women go about to-night as if they were Romans of old, rulers of the world, only less sure of themselves than of the stability of their empire." "Why not?" asked Giovanni, glancing curiously at the pale young man beside him. "In answer to your quotation, I can say that I am as free as I care to be; that the laws are sufficiently respected; that no one has hitherto thought it worth while to plunder my acres; that I have a modest roof of my own; and that, as far as I am aware, there are no workmen starving in the streets at present. You are answered, it seems to me, Monsieur Gouache." "Is that really your belief?" asked the artist, quietly. "Yes. As for my freedom, I am as free as air; no one thinks of hindering my movements. As for the laws, they are made for good citizens, and good citizens will respect them; if bad citizens do not, that is their loss. My acres are safe, possibly because they are not worth taking, though they yield me a modest competence sufficient for my needs and for the needs of those who cultivate them for me." "And yet there is a great deal of talk in Rome about misery and injustice and oppression--" "There will be a great deal more talk about those evils, with much better cause, if people who think like you succeed in bringing about a revolution, Monsieur Gouache," answered Giovanni, coldly. "If many people think like you, prince, a revolution is not to be thought of. As for me I am a foreigner and I see what I can, and listen to what I hear." "A revolution is not to be thought of. It was tried here and failed. If we are overcome by a great power from without, we shall have no choice but to yield, if any of us survive--for we would fight. But we have nothing to fear from within." "Perhaps not," returned Gouache, thoughtfully. "I hear such opposite opinions that I hardly know what to think." "I hear that you are to paint Cardinal Antonelli's portrait," said Giovanni. "Perhaps his Eminence will help you to decide." "Yes; they say he is the cleverest man in Europe." "In that opinion they--whoever they may be--are mistaken," replied Giovanni. "But he is a man of immense intellect, nevertheless." "I am not sure whether I will paint his portrait after all," said Gouache. "You do not wish to be persuaded?" "No. My own ideas please me very well for the present. I would not exchange them for those of any one else." "May I ask what those ideas are?" inquired Giovanni, with a show of interest. "I am a republican," answered Gouache, quietly. "I am also a good Catholic." "Then you are yourself much more paradoxical than the whole of our Roman society put together," answered Giovanni, with a dry laugh. "Perhaps. There comes the most beautiful woman in the world." It was nearly twelve o'clock when Corona arrived, old Astrardente sauntering jauntily by her side, his face arranged with more than usual care, and his glossy wig curled cunningly to represent nature. He was said to possess a number of wigs of different lengths, which he wore in rotation, thus sustaining the impression that his hair was cut from time to time. In his eye a single eyeglass was adjusted, and as he walked he swung his hat delicately in his tightly gloved fingers. He wore the plainest of collars and the simplest of gold studs; no chain dangled showily from his waistcoat-pocket, and his small feet were encased in little patent-leather shoes. But for his painted face, he might have passed for the very incarnation of fashionable simplicity. But his face betrayed him. As for Corona, she was dazzlingly beautiful. Not that any colour or material she wore could greatly enhance her beauty, for all who saw her on that memorable night remembered the wonderful light in her face, and the strange look in her splendid eyes; but the thick soft fall of the white velvet made as it were a pedestal for her loveliness, and the Astrardente jewels that clasped her waist and throat and crowned her black hair, collected the radiance of the many candles, and made the light cling to her and follow her as she walked. Giovanni saw her enter, and his whole adoration came upon him as a madness upon a sick man in a fever, so that he would have sprung forward to meet her, and fallen at her feet and worshipped her, had he not suddenly felt that he was watched by more than one of the many who paused to see her go by. He moved from his place and waited near the door where she would have to pass, and for a moment his heart stood still. He hardly knew how it was. He found himself speaking to her. He asked her for a dance, he asked boldly for the cotillon--he never knew how he had dared; she assented, let her eyes rest upon him for one moment with an indescribable expression, then grew very calm and cold, and passed on. It was all over in an instant. Giovanni moved back to his place as she went by, and stood still like a man stunned. It was well that there were yet nearly two hours before the preliminary dancing would be over; he needed some time to collect himself. The air seemed full of strange voices, and he watched the moving faces as in a dream, unable to concentrate his attention upon anything he saw. "He looks as though he had a stroke of paralysis," said a woman's voice near him. It did not strike him, in his strange bewilderment, that it was Donna Tullia who had spoken, still less that she was speaking of him almost to him. "Something very like it, I should say," answered Del Ferice's oily voice. "He has probably been ill since you saw him. Saracinesca is an unhealthy place." Giovanni turned sharply round. "Yes; we were speaking of you, Don Giovanni," said Donna Tullia, with some scorn. "Does it strike you that you were exceedingly rude in not letting me know that you were going out of town when you had promised to dance with me at the Valdarno ball?" She curled her small lip and showed her sharp white teeth. Giovanni was a man of the world, however, and was equal to the occasion. "I apologise most humbly," he said. "It was indeed very rude; but in the urgency of the case, I forgot all other engagements. I really beg your pardon. Will you honour me with a dance this evening?" "I have every dance engaged," answered Madame Mayer, coldly staring at him. "I am very sorry," said Giovanni, inwardly thanking heaven for his good fortune, and wishing she would go away. "Wait a moment," said Donna Tullia, judging that she had produced the desired effect upon him. "Let me look. I believe I have one waltz left. Let me see. Yes, the one before the last--you can have it if you like." "Thank you," murmured Giovanni, greatly annoyed. "I will remember." Madame Mayer laid her hand upon Del Ferice's arm, and moved away. She was a vain woman, and being in love with Saracinesca after her own fashion, could not understand that he should be wholly indifferent to her. She thought that in telling him she had no dances she had given him a little wholesome punishment, and that in giving one after all she had conferred a favour upon him. She also believed that she had annoyed Del Ferice, which, always amused her. But Del Ferice was more than a match for her, with his quiet ways and smooth tongue. They went into the ball-room together and danced a few minutes. When the music ceased, Ugo excused himself on the plea that he was engaged for the quadrille that followed. He at once set out in search of the Duchessa d'Astrardente, and did not lose sight of her again. She did not dance before the cotillon, she said; and she sat down in a high chair in the picture-gallery, while three or four men, among whom was Valdarno, sat and stood near her, doing their best to amuse her. Others came, and some went away, but Corona did not move, and sat amongst her little court, glad to have the time pass in any way until the cotillon. When Del Ferice had ascertained her position, he went about his business, which was manifold--dancing frequently, and making a point of speaking to every one in the room. At the end of an hour, he joined the group of men around the Duchessa and took part in the conversation. It was an easy matter to make the talk turn upon Giovanni Saracinesca. Every one was more or less curious about the journey he had made, and especially about the cause of his absence. Each of the men had something to say, and each, knowing the popular report that Giovanni was in love with Corona, said his say with as much wit as he could command. Corona herself was interested, for she alone understood his sudden absence, and was anxious to hear the common opinion concerning it. The theories advanced were various. Some said he had been quarrelling with the local authorities of Saracinesca, who interfered with his developments and improvements upon the estate, and they gave laughable portraits of the village sages with whom he had been engaged. Others said he had only stopped there a day, and had been in Naples. One said he had been boar-hunting; another, that the Saracinesca woods had been infested by a band of robbers, who were terrorising the country. "And what do you say, Del Ferice?" asked Corona, seeing a cunning smile upon the man's pale fat face. "It is very simple," said Ugo; "it is a very simple matter indeed. If the Duchessa will permit me, I will call him, and we will ask him directly what he has been doing. There he stands with old Cantalorgano at the other end of the room. Public curiosity demands to be satisfied. May I call him, Duchessa?" "By no means," said Corona, quickly. But before she had spoken, Valdarno, who was always sanguine and impulsive, had rapidly crossed the gallery and was already speaking to Giovanni. The latter bowed his head as though obeying an order, and came quietly back with the young man who had called him. The crowd of men parted before him as he advanced to the Duchessa's chair, and stood waiting in some surprise. "What are your commands, Duchessa?" he asked, in somewhat formal tones. "Valdarno is too quick," answered Corona, who was greatly annoyed. "Some one suggested calling you to settle a dispute, and he went before I could stop him. I fear it is very impertinent of us." "I am entirely at your service," said Giovanni, who was delighted at having been called, and had found time to recover from his first excitement on seeing her. "What is the question?" "We were all talking about you," said Valdarno. "We were wondering where you had been," said another. "They said you had gone boar-hunting." "Or to Naples." "Or even to Paris." Three or four spoke in one breath. "I am exceedingly flattered at the interest you all show in me," said Giovanni, quietly. "There is very little to tell. I have been in Saracinesca upon a matter of business, spending my days in the woods with my steward, and my nights in keeping away the cold and the ghosts. I would have invited you all to join the festivity, had I known how much you were interested. The beef up there is monstrously tough, and the rats are abominably noisy, but the mountain air is said to be very healthy." Most of the men present felt that they had not only behaved foolishly, but had spoiled the little circle around the Duchessa by introducing a man who had the power to interest her, whereas they could only afford her a little amusement. Valdarno was still standing, and his chair beside Corona was vacant. Giovanni calmly installed himself upon it, and began to talk as though nothing had happened. "You are not dancing, Duchessa," he remarked. "I suppose you have been in the ball-room?" "Yes--but I am rather tired this evening. I will wait." "You were here at the last great ball, before the old prince died, were you not?" asked Giovanni, remembering that he had first seen her on that occasion. "Yes," she answered; "and I remember that we danced together; and the accident to the window, and the story of the ghost." So they fell into conversation, and though one or two of the men ventured an ineffectual remark, the little circle dropped away, and Giovanni was left alone by the side of the Duchessa. The distant opening strains of a waltz came floating down the gallery, but neither of the two heard, nor cared. "It is strange," Giovanni said. "They say it has always happened, since the memory of man. No one has ever seen anything, but whenever there is a great ball, there is a crash of broken glass some time in the course of the evening. Nobody could ever explain why that window fell in, five years ago--five years ago this month,--this very day, I believe," he continued suddenly, in the act of recollection. "Yes--the nineteenth of January, I remember very well--it was my mother's birthday." "It is not so extraordinary," said Corona, "for it chances to be the name-day of the present prince. That was probably the reason why it was chosen this year." She spoke a little nervously, as though still ill at ease. "But it is very strange," said Giovanni, in a low voice. "It is strange that we should have met here the first time, and that we should not have met here since, until--to-day." He looked towards her as he spoke, and their eyes met and lingered in each other's gaze. Suddenly the blood mounted to Corona's cheeks, her eyelids drooped, she leaned back in her seat and was silent. Far off, at the entrance to the ball-room, Del Ferice found Donna Tullia alone. She was very angry. The dance for which she was engaged to Giovanni Saracinesca had begun, and was already half over, and still he did not come. Her pink face was unusually flushed, and there was a disagreeable look in her blue eyes. "Ah!--I see Don Giovanni has again forgotten his engagement," said Ugo, in smooth tones. He well knew that he himself had brought about the omission, but none could have guessed it from his manner. "May I have the honour of a turn before your cavalier arrives?" he asked. "No," said Donna Tullia, angrily. "Give me your arm. We will go and find him." She almost hissed the words through her closed teeth. She hardly knew that Del Ferice was leading her as they moved towards the picture-gallery, passing through the crowded rooms that lay between. She never spoke; but her movement was impetuous, and she resented being delayed by the hosts of men and women who filled the way. As they entered the long apartment, where the portraits of the Frangipani lined the walls from end to end, Del Ferice uttered a well-feigned exclamation. "Oh, there he is!" he cried. "Do you see him?--his back is turned--he is alone with the Astrardente." "Come," said Donna Tullia, shortly. Del Ferice would have preferred to have let her go alone, and to have witnessed from a distance the scene he had brought about. But he could not refuse to accompany Madame Mayer. Neither Corona, who was facing the pair, but was talking with Giovanni, nor Giovanni himself, who was turned away from them, noticed their approach until they came and stood still beside them. Saracinesca looked up and started. The Duchessa d'Astrardente raised her black eyebrows in surprise. "Our dance!" exclaimed Giovanni, in considerable agitation. "It is the one after this--" "On the contrary," said Donna Tullia, in tones trembling with rage, "it is already over. It is the most unparalleled insolence!" Giovanni was profoundly disgusted at himself and Donna Tullia. He cared not so much for the humiliation itself, which was bad enough, as for the annoyance the scene caused Corona, who looked from one to the other in angry astonishment, but of course could have nothing to say. "I can only assure you that I thought--" "You need not assure me!" cried Donna Tullia, losing all self-control. "There is no excuse, nor pardon--it is the second time. Do not insult me further, by inventing untruths for your apology." "Nevertheless--" began Giovanni, who was sincerely sorry for his great rudeness, and would gladly have attempted to explain his conduct, seeing that Donna Tullia was so justly angry. "There is no nevertheless!" she interrupted. "You may stay where you are," she added, with a scornful glance at the Duchessa d'Astrardente. Then she laid her hand upon Del Ferice's arm, and swept angrily past, so that the train of her red silk gown brushed sharply against Corona's soft white velvet. Giovanni remained standing a moment, with a puzzled expression upon his face. "How could you do anything so rude?" asked Corona, very gravely. "She will never forgive you, and she will be quite right." "I do not know how I forgot," he answered, seating himself again. "It is dreadful--unpardonable--but perhaps the consequences will be good." CHAPTER XI. Corona was ill at ease. In the first few moments of being alone with Giovanni the pleasure she felt outweighed all other thoughts. But as the minutes lengthened to a quarter of an hour, then to half an hour, she grew nervous, and her answers came more and more shortly. She said to herself that she should never have given him the cotillon, and she wondered how the remainder of the time would pass. The realisation of what had occurred came upon her, and the hot blood rose to her face and ebbed away again, and rose once more. Yet she could not speak out what her pride prompted her to say, because she pitied Giovanni a little, and was willing to think for a moment that it was only compassion she felt, lest she should feel that she must send him away. But Giovanni sat beside her, and knew that the spell was working upon him, and that there was no salvation. He had taken her unawares, though he hardly knew it, when she first entered, and he asked her suddenly for a dance. He had wondered vaguely why she had so freely consented; but, in the wild delight of being by her side, he completely lost all hold upon himself, and yielded to the exquisite charm of her presence, as a man who has struggled for a moment against a powerful opiate sinks under its influence, and involuntarily acknowledges his weakness. Strong as he was, his strength was all gone, and he knew not where he should find it. "You will have to make her some further apology," said Corona, as Madame Mayer's red train disappeared through the doorway at the other end of the room. "Of course--I must do something about it," said Giovanni, absently. "After all, I do not wonder--it is amazing that I should have recognised her at all. I should forget anything to-night, except that I am to dance with you." The Duchessa looked away, and fanned herself slowly; but she sighed, and checked the deep-drawn breath as by a great effort. The waltz was over, and the dancers streamed through the intervening rooms towards the gallery in quest of fresher air and freer space. Two and two they came, quickly following each other and passing on, some filling the high seats along the walls, others hastening towards the supper-rooms beyond. A few minutes earlier Saracinesca and Corona had been almost alone in the great apartment; now they were surrounded on all sides by a chattering crowd of men and women, with flushed faces or unnaturally pale, according as the effort of dancing affected each, and the indistinguishable din of hundreds of voices so filled the air that Giovanni and the Duchessa could hardly hear each other speak. "This is intolerable," said Giovanni, suddenly. "You are not engaged for the last quadrille? Shall we not go away until the cotillon begins?" Corona hesitated a moment, and was silent. She glanced once at Giovanni, and again surveyed the moving crowd. "Yes," she said at last; "let us go away." "You are very good," answered Giovanni in a low voice, as he offered her his arm. She looked at him inquiringly, and her face grew grave, as they slowly made their way out of the room. At last they came to the conservatory, and went in among the great plants and the soft lights. There was no one there, and they slowly paced the broad walk that was left clear all round the glass-covered chamber, and up and down the middle. The plants were disposed so thickly as to form almost impenetrable walls of green on either side; and at one end there was an open space where a little marble fountain played, around which were disposed seats of carved wood. But Giovanni and Corona continued to walk slowly along the tiled path. "Why did you say I was good just now?" asked Corona at last. Her voice sounded cold. "I should not have said it, perhaps," answered Giovanni. "I say many things which I cannot help saying. I am very sorry." "I am very sorry too," answered the Duchessa, quietly. "Ah! if you knew, you would forgive me. If you could guess half the truth, you would forgive me." "I would rather not guess it." "Of course; but you have already--you know it all. Have I not told you?" Giovanni spoke in despairing tones. He was utterly weak and spellbound; he could hardly find any words at all. "Don Giovanni," said Corona, speaking very proudly and calmly, but not unkindly, "I have known you so long, I believe you to be so honourable a man, that I am willing to suppose that you said--what you said--in a moment of madness." "Madness! It was madness; but it is more sweet to remember than all the other doings of my life," said Saracinesca, his tongue unloosed at last. "If it is madness to love you, I am mad past all cure. There is no healing for me now; I shall never find my senses again, for they are lost in you, and lost for ever. Drive me away, crush me, trample on me if you will; you cannot kill me nor kill my madness, for I live in you and for you, and I cannot die. That is all. I am not eloquent as other men are, to use smooth words and twist phrases. I love you--" "You have said too much already--too much, far too much," murmured Corona, in broken tones. She had withdrawn her hand from his during his passionate speech, and stood back from him against the dark wall of green plants, her head drooping upon her breast, her fingers clasped fast together. His short rude words were terribly sweet to hear, it was fearful to think that she was alone with him, that one step would bring her to his side, that with one passionate impulse she might throw her white arms about his neck, that one faltering sigh of overwhelming love might bring her queenly head down upon his shoulder. Ah, God! how gladly she would let her tears flow and speak for her! how unutterably sweet it would be to rest for one instant in his arms, to love and be loved as she longed to be! "You are so cold," he cried, passionately. "You cannot understand. All spoken words are not too much, are not enough to move you, to make you see that I do really worship and adore you; you, the whole of you--your glorious face, your sweet small hands, your queenly ways, the light of your eyes, and the words of your lips--all of you, body and soul, I love. I would I might die now, for you know it, even if you will not understand--" He moved a step nearer to her, stretching out his hands as he spoke. Corona trembled convulsively, and her lips turned white in the torture of temptation; she leaned far back against the green leaves, staring wildly at Giovanni, held as in a vice by the mighty passions of love and fear. Having yielded her ears to his words, they fascinated her horribly. He, poor man, had long lost all control of himself. His resolutions, long pondered in the solitude of Saracinesca, had vanished like unsubstantial vapours before a strong fire, and his heart and soul were ablaze. "Do not look at me so," he said almost tenderly. "Do not look at me as though you feared me, as though you hated me. Can you not see that it is I who fear you as well as love you, who tremble at your coldness, who watch for your slightest kind look? Ah, Corona, you have made me so happy!--there is no angel in all heaven but would give up his Paradise to change for mine!" He had taken her hand and pressed it wildly to his lips. Her eyelids drooped, and her head fell back for one moment. They stood so very near that his arm had almost stolen about her slender waist, he almost thought he was supporting her. Suddenly, without the least warning, she drew herself up to her full height, and thrust Giovanni back to her arm's length strongly, almost roughly. "Never!" she said. "I am a weak woman, but not so weak as that. I am miserable, but not so miserable as to listen to you. Giovanni Saracinesca, you say you love me--God grant it is not true! but you say it. Then, have you no honour, no courage, no strength? Is there nothing of the man left in you? Is there no truth in your love, no generosity in your heart? If you so love me as you say you do, do you care so little what becomes of me as to tempt me to love you?" She spoke very earnestly, not scornfully nor angrily, but in the certainty of strength and right, and in the strong persuasion that the headstrong man would hear and be convinced. She was weak no longer, for one desperate moment her fate had trembled in the balance, but she had not hesitated even then; she had struggled bravely, and her brave soul had won the great battle. She had been weak the other day at the theatre, in letting herself ask the question to which she knew the answer; she had been miserably weak that very night in so abandoning herself to the influence she loved and dreaded; but at the great moment, when heaven and earth swam before her as in a wild and unreal mirage, with the voice of the man she loved ringing in her ears, speaking such words as it was an ecstasy to hear, she had been no longer weak--the reality of danger had brought forth the sincerity of her goodness, and her heart had found courage to do a great deed. She had overcome, and she knew it. Giovanni stood back from her, and hung his head. In a moment the force of his passion was checked, and from the supreme verge of unspeakable and rapturous delight, he was cast suddenly into the depths of his own remorse. He stood silent before her, trembling and awestruck. "You cannot understand me," she said, "I do not understand myself. But this I know, that you are not what you have seemed to-night--that there is enough manliness and nobility in you to respect a woman, and that you will hereafter prove that I am right. I pray that I may not see you any more; but if I must see you, I will trust you this much--say that I may trust you," she added, her strong smooth voice sinking in a trembling cadence, half beseeching, and yet wholly commanding. Saracinesca bent his heavy brows, and was silent for a moment. Then he looked up, and his eyes met hers, and seemed to gather strength from her. "If you will let me see you sometimes, you may trust me. I would I were as noble and good as you--I am not. I will try to be. Ah, Corona!" he cried suddenly, "forgive me, forgive me! I hardly knew what I said." "Hush!" said the Duchessa, gently; "you must not speak like that, nor call me Corona. Perhaps I am wrong to forgive you wholly, but I believe in you. I believe you will understand, and that you will be worthy of the trust I place in you." "Indeed, Duchessa, none shall say that they have trusted me in vain," answered Giovanni very proudly--"neither man nor woman--and, least of all women, you." "That is well," said she, with a faint shadow of a smile. "I would rather see you proud than reckless. See that you remain so--that neither by word nor deed you ever remind me that I have had anything to forgive. It is the only way in which any intercourse between us can be possible after this--this dreadful night." Giovanni bowed his head. He was still pale, but he had regained control of himself. "I solemnly promise that I will not recall it to your memory, and I implore your forgiveness, even though you cannot forget." "I cannot forget," said Corona, almost under her breath. Giovanni's eyes flashed for a moment. "Shall we go back to the ball-room? I will go home soon." As they turned to go, a loud crash, as of broken glass, with the fall of some heavy body, startled them, and made them stand still in the middle of the walk. The noisy concussion was followed by a complete silence. Corona, whose nerves had been severely tried, trembled slightly. "It is strange," she said; "they say it always happens." There was nothing to be seen. The thick web of plants hid the cause of the noise from view, whatever it might be. Giovanni hesitated a moment, looking about to see how he could get behind the banks of flower-pots. Then he left Corona without a word, and striding to the end of the walk, disappeared into the depths of the conservatory. He had noticed that there was a narrow entrance at the end nearest the fountain, intended probably to admit the gardener for the purpose of watering the plants. Corona could hear his quick steps; she thought she heard a low groan and a voice whispering,--but she might have been mistaken, for the place was large, and her heart was beating fast. Giovanni had not gone far in the narrow way, which was sufficiently lighted by the soft light of the many candles concealed in various parts of the conservatory, when he came upon the figure of a man sitting, as he had apparently fallen, across the small passage. The fragments of a heavy earthenware vase lay beyond him, with a heap of earth and roots; and the tall india-rubber plant which grew in it had fallen against the sloping glass roof and shattered several panes. As Giovanni came suddenly upon him, the man struggled to rise, and in the dim light Saracinesca recognised Del Ferice. The truth flashed upon him at once. The fellow had been listening, and had probably heard all. Giovanni instantly resolved to conceal the fact from the Duchessa, to whom the knowledge that the painful scene had been overheard would be a bitter mortification. Giovanni could undertake to silence the eavesdropper. Quick as thought his strong brown hands gripped the throat of Ugo del Ferice, stifling his breath like a collar of iron. "Dog!" he whispered fiercely in the wretch's ear, "if you breathe, I will kill you now! You will find me in my own house in an hour. Be silent now!" Giovanni whispered, with such a terrible grip on the fellow's throat that his eyeballs seemed starting from his head. Then he turned and went out by the way he had entered, leaving Del Ferice writhing with pain and gasping for breath. As he joined Corona, his face betrayed no emotion--he had been so pale before that he could not turn whiter in his anger--but his eyes gleamed fiercely at the thought of fight. The Duchessa stood where he had left her, still much agitated. "It is nothing," said Giovanni, with a forced laugh, as he offered her his arm and led her quickly away. "Imagine. A great vase with one of Frangipani's favourite plants in it had been badly propped, and had fallen right through the glass, outward." "It is strange," said Corona. "I was almost sure I heard a groan." "It was the wind. The glass was broken, and it is a stormy night." "That was just the way that window fell in five years ago," said Corona. "Something always happens here. I think I will go home--let us find my husband." No one would have guessed, from Corona's face, that anything extraordinary had occurred in the half-hour she had spent in the conservatory. She walked calmly by Giovanni's side, not a trace of excitement on her pale proud face, not a sign of uneasiness in the quiet glance of her splendid eyes. She had conquered, and she knew it, never to be tempted again; she had conquered herself and she had overcome the man beside her. Giovanni glanced at her in wondering admiration. "You are the bravest woman in the world, as I am the most contemptible of men," he said suddenly, as they entered the picture-gallery. "I am not brave," she answered calmly, "neither are you contemptible, my friend. We have both been very near to our destruction, but it has pleased God to save us." "By you," said Saracinesca, very solemnly. He knew that within six hours he might be lying dead upon some plot of wet grass without the city, and he grew very grave, after the manner of brave men when death is abroad. "You have saved my soul to-night," he said earnestly. "Will you give me your blessing and whole forgiveness? Do not laugh at me, nor think me foolish. The blessing of such women as you should make men braver and better." The gallery was again deserted. The cotillon had begun, and those who were not dancing were at supper. Corona stood still for one moment by the very chair where they had sat so long. "I forgive you wholly. I pray that all blessings may be upon you always, in life and in death, for ever." Giovanni bowed his head reverently. It seemed as though the woman he so loved was speaking a benediction upon his death, a last _in pace_ which should follow him for all eternity. "In life and in death, I will honour you truly and serve you faithfully for ever," he answered. As he raised his head, Corona saw that there were tears in his eyes, and she felt that there were tears in her own. "Come," she said, and they passed on in silence. She found her husband at last in the supper-room. He was leisurely discussing the wing of a chicken and a small glass of claret-and-water, with a gouty ambassador whose wife had insisted upon dancing the cotillon, and who was revenging himself upon a Strasbourg _pâté_ and a bottle of dry champagne. "Ah, my dear," said Astrardente, looking up from his modest fare, "you have been dancing? You have come to supper? You are very wise. I have danced a great deal myself, but I have not seen you--the room was so crowded. Here--this small table will hold us all, just a quartet." "Thanks--I am not hungry. Will you take me home when you have finished supper? Or are you going to stay? Do not wait, Don Giovanni; I know you are busy in the cotillon. My husband will take care of me. Good night." Giovanni bowed, and went away, glad to be alone at last. He had to be at home in half an hour according to his engagement, and he had to look about him for a friend. All Rome was at the ball; but the men upon whom he could call for such service as he required, were all dancing. Moreover, he reflected that in such a matter it was necessary to have some one especially trustworthy. It would not do to have the real cause of the duel known, and the choice of a second was a very important matter. He never doubted that Del Ferice would send some one with a challenge at the appointed time. Del Ferice was a scoundrel, doubtless; but he was quick with the foils, and had often appeared as second in affairs of honour. Giovanni stood by the door of the ball-room, looking at the many familiar faces, and wondering how he could induce any one to leave his partner at that hour, and go home with him. Suddenly he was aware that his father was standing beside him and eyeing him curiously. "What is the matter, Giovanni?" inquired the old Prince. "Why are you not dancing?" "The fact is--" began Giovanni, and then stopped suddenly. An idea struck him. He went close to his father, and spoke in a low voice. "The fact is, that I have just taken a man by the throat and otherwise insulted him, by calling him a dog. The fellow seemed annoyed, and so I told him he might send to our house in an hour for an explanation. I cannot find a friend, because everybody is dancing this abominable cotillon. Perhaps you can help me," he added, looking at his father rather doubtfully. To his surprise and considerable relief the old Prince burst into a hearty laugh. "Of course," he cried. "What do you take me for? Do you think I would desert my boy in a fight? Go and call my carriage, and wait for me while I pick up somebody for a witness; we can talk on the way home." The old Prince had been a duellist in his day, and he would no more have thought of advising his son not to fight than of refusing a challenge himself. He was, moreover, exceedingly bored at the ball, and not in the least sleepy. The prospect of an exciting night was novel and delightful. He knew Giovanni's extraordinary skill, and feared nothing for him. He knew everybody in the ball-room was engaged, and he went straight to the supper-table, expecting to find some one there. Astrardente, the Duchessa, and the gouty ambassador were still together, as Giovanni had left them a moment before. The Prince did not like Astrardente, but he knew the ambassador very well. He called him aside, with an apology to the Duchessa. "I want a young man immediately," said old Saracinesca, stroking his white beard with his broad brown hand. "Can you tell of any one who is not dancing?" "There is Astrardente," answered his Excellency, with an ironical smile. "A duel?" he asked. Saracinesca nodded. "I am too old," said the diplomatist, thoughtfully; "but it would be infinitely amusing. I cannot give you one of my secretaries either. It always makes such a scandal. Oh, there goes the very man! Catch him before it is too late!" Old Saracinesca glanced in the direction the ambassador indicated, and darted away. He was as active as a boy, in spite of his sixty years. "Eh!" he cried. "Hi! you! Come here! Spicca! Stop! Excuse me--I am in a great hurry!" Count Spicca, whom he thus addressed, paused and looked round through his single eyeglass in some surprise. He was an immensely tall and cadaverous-looking man, with a black beard and searching grey eyes. "I really beg your pardon," said the Prince hurriedly, in a low voice, as he came up, "but I am in a great hurry--an affair of honour--will you be witness? My carriage is at the door." "With pleasure," said Count Spicca, quietly; and without further comment he accompanied the Prince to the outer hall. Giovanni was waiting, and the Prince's footman stood at the head of the stairs. In three minutes the father and son and the melancholy Spicca were seated in the carriage, on their way to the Palazzo Saracinesca. "Now then, Giovannino," said the Prince, as he lit a cigarette in the darkness, "tell us all about it." "There is not much to tell," said Giovanni. "If the challenge arrives, there is nothing to be done but to fight. I took him by the throat and nearly strangled him." "Whom?" asked Spicca, mournfully. "Oh! it is Del Ferice," answered Giovanni, who had forgotten that he had not mentioned the name of his probable antagonist. The Prince laughed. "Del Ferice! Who would have thought it? He is a dead man. What was it all about?" "That is unnecessary to say here," said Giovanni, quietly. "He insulted me grossly. I half-strangled him, and told him he was a dog. I suppose he will fight." "Ah yes; he will probably fight," repeated Spicca, thoughtfully. "What are your weapons, Don Giovanni?" "Anything he likes." "But the choice is yours if he challenges," returned the Count. "As you please. Arrange all that--foils, swords, or pistols." "You do not seem to take much interest in this affair," remarked Spicca, sadly. "He is best with foils," said the old Prince. "Foils or pistols, of course," said the Count. "Swords are child's play." Satisfied that his seconds meant business, Giovanni sank back in his corner of the carriage, and was silent. "We had better have the meeting in my villa," said his father. "If it rains, they can fight indoors. I will send for the surgeon at once." In a few moments they reached the Palazzo Saracinesca. The Prince left word at the porter's lodge that any gentlemen who arrived were to be admitted, and all three went up-stairs. It was half-past two o'clock. As they entered the apartments, they heard a carriage drive under the great archway below. "Go to your rooms, Giovanni," said the old Prince. "These fellows are punctual. I will call you when they are gone. I suppose you mean business seriously?" "I care nothing about him. I will give him any satisfaction he pleases," answered Giovanni. "It is very kind of you to undertake the matter--I am very grateful." "I would not leave it to anybody else," muttered the old Prince, as he hurried away to meet Del Fence's seconds. Giovanni entered his own rooms, and went straight to his writing-table. He took a pen and a sheet of paper and began writing. His face was very grave, but his hand was steady. For more than an hour he wrote without pausing. Then his father entered the room. "Well?" said Giovanni, looking up. "It is all settled," said the old gentleman, seriously. "I was afraid they might make some objection to me as a second. You know there is an old clause about near relations acting in such cases. But they declared that they considered my co-operation an honour--so that is all right. You must do your best, my boy. This rascal means to hurt you if he can. Seven o'clock is the time. We must leave here at half-past six. You can sleep two hours and a half. I will sit up and call you. Spicca has gone home to change his clothes, and is coming back immediately. Now lie down. I will see to your foils--" "Is it foils, then?" asked Giovanni, quietly. "Yes. They made no objection. You had better lie down." "I will. Father, if anything should happen to me--it may, you know--you will find my keys in this drawer, and this letter, which I beg you will read. It is to yourself." "Nonsense, my dear boy! Nothing will happen to you--you will just run him through the arm and come home to breakfast." The old Prince spoke in his rough cheerful way; but his voice trembled, and he turned aside to hide two great tears that had fallen upon his dark cheeks and were losing themselves in his white beard. CHAPTER XII. Giovanni slept soundly for two hours. He was very tired with the many emotions of the night, and the arrangements for the meeting being completed, it seemed as though work were over and the pressure removed. It is said that men will sleep for hours when the trial is over and the sentence of death has been passed; and though it was more likely that Del Ferice would be killed than that Giovanni would be hurt, the latter felt not unlike a man who has been tried for his life. He had suffered in a couple of hours almost every emotion of which he was capable--his love for Corona, long controlled and choked down, had broken bounds at last, and found expression for itself; he had in a moment suffered the severest humiliation and the most sincere sorrow at her reproaches; he had known the fear of seeing her no more, and the sweetness of pardon from her own lips; he had found himself on a sudden in a frenzy of righteous wrath against Del Ferice, and a moment later he had been forced to hide his anger under a calm face; and at last, when the night was far spent, he had received the assurance that in less than four hours he would have ample opportunity for taking vengeance upon the cowardly eavesdropper who had so foully got possession of the one secret he held dear. Worn out with all he had suffered, and calm in the expectation of the morning's struggle, Giovanni lay down upon his bed and slept. Del Ferice, on the contrary, was very wakeful. He had an unpleasant sensation about his throat as though he had been hanged, and cut down before he was dead; and he suffered the unutterable mortification of knowing that, after a long and successful social career, he had been detected by his worst enemy in a piece of disgraceful villany. In the first place, Giovanni might kill him. Del Ferice was a very good fencer, but Saracinesca was stronger and more active; there was certainly considerable danger in the duel. On the other hand, if he survived, Giovanni had him in his power for the rest of his life, and there was no escape possible. He had been caught listening--caught in a flagrantly dishonest trick--and he well knew that if the matter had been brought before a jury of honour, he would have been declared incompetent to claim any satisfaction. It was not the first time Del Ferice had done such things, but it was the first time he had been caught. He cursed his awkwardness in oversetting the vase just at the moment when his game was successfully played to the end--just when he thought that he began to see land, in having discovered beyond all doubt that Giovanni was devoted body and soul to Corona d'Astrardente. The information had been necessary to him, for he was beginning seriously to press his suit with Donna Tullia, and he needed to be sure that Giovanni was not a rival to be feared. He had long suspected Saracinesca's devotion to the dark Duchessa, and by constantly putting himself in his way, he had done his best to excite his jealousy and to stimulate his passion. Giovanni never could have considered Del Ferice as a rival; the idea would have been ridiculous. But the constant annoyance of finding the man by Corona's side, when he desired to be alone with her, had in some measure heightened the effect Del Ferice desired, though it had not actually produced it. Being a good judge of character, he had sensibly reckoned his chances against Giovanni, and he had formed so just an opinion of the man's bold and devoted character as to be absolutely sure that if Saracinesca loved Corona he would not seriously think of marrying Donna Tullia. He had done all he could to strengthen the passion when he guessed it was already growing, and at the very moment when he had received circumstantial evidence of it which placed it beyond all doubt, he had allowed himself to be discovered, through his own unpardonable carelessness. Evidently the only satisfactory way out of the difficulty was to kill Giovanni outright, if he could do it. In that way he would rid himself of an enemy, and at the same time of the evidence against himself. The question was, how this could be accomplished; for Giovanni was a man of courage, strength, and experience, and he himself--Ugo del Ferice--possessed none of those qualities in any great degree. The result was, that he slept not at all, but passed the night in a state of nervous anxiety by no means conducive to steadiness of hand or calmness of the nerves. He was less pleased than ever when he heard that Giovanni's seconds were his own father and the melancholy Spicca, who was the most celebrated duellist in Italy, in spite of his cadaverous long body, his sad voice, and his expression of mournful resignation to the course of events. In the event of his neither killing Don Giovanni nor being himself killed, what he most dreaded was the certainty that for the rest of his life he must be in his enemy's power. He knew that, for Corona's sake, Giovanni would not mention the cause of the duel, and no one could have induced him to speak of it himself; but it would be a terrible hindrance in his life to feel at every turn that the man he hated had the power to expose him to the world as a scoundrel of the first water. What he had heard gave him but small influence over Saracinesca, though it was of great value in determining his own action. To say aloud to the world that Giovanni loved the Duchessa d'Astrardente would be of little use. Del Ferice could not, for very shame, tell how he had found it out; and there was no other proof but his evidence, for he guessed that from that time forward the open relation between the two would be even more formal than before--and the most credulous people do not believe in a great fire unless they can see a little smoke. He had not even the advantage of turning the duel to account in his interest with Donna Tullia, since Giovanni could force him to deny that she was implicated in the question, on pain of exposing his treachery. There was palpably no satisfactory way out of the matter unless he could kill his adversary. He would have to leave the country for a while; but Giovanni once dead, it would be easy to make Donna Tullia believe they had fought on her account, and to derive all the advantage there was to be gained from posing before the world as her defender. But though Del Ferice's rest was disturbed by the contemplation of his difficulties, he did not neglect any precaution which might save his strength for the morrow. He lay down upon his bed, stretching himself at full length, and carefully keeping his right arm free, lest, by letting his weight fall upon it as he lay, he should benumb the muscles or stiffen the joints; from time to time he rubbed a little strengthening ointment upon his wrist, and he was careful that the light should not shine in his eyes and weary them. At six o'clock his seconds appeared with the surgeon they had engaged, and the four men were soon driving rapidly down the Corso towards the gate. So punctual were the two parties that they arrived simultaneously at the gate of the villa which had been selected for the encounter. The old Prince took a key from his pocket and himself opened the great iron gate. The carriages drove in, and the gates were closed by the astonished porter, who came running out as they creaked upon their hinges. The light was already sufficient for the purpose of fencing, as the eight men descended simultaneously before the house. The morning was cloudy, but the ground was dry. The principals and seconds saluted each other formally. Giovanni withdrew to a little distance on one side with his surgeon, and Del Ferice stood aside with his. The melancholy Spicca, who looked like the shadow of death in the dim morning light, was the first to speak. "Of course you know the best spot in the villa?" he said to the old Prince. "As there is no sun, I suggest that they fight upon the ground behind the house. It is hard and dry." The whole party followed old Saracinesca. Spicca had the foils in a green bag. The place suggested by the Prince seemed in every way adapted, and Del Ferice's seconds made no objection. There was absolutely no choice of position upon the ground, which was an open space about twenty yards square, hard and well rolled, preferable in every way to a grass lawn. Without further comment, Giovanni took off his coat and waistcoat, and Del Ferice, who looked paler and more unhealthy than usual, followed his example. The seconds crossed sides to examine the principals' shirts, and to assure themselves that they wore no flannel underneath the unstarched linen. This formality being accomplished, the foils were carefully compared, and Giovanni was offered the first choice. He took the one nearest his hand, and the other was carried to Del Ferice. They were simple fencing foils, the buttons being removed and the points sharpened--there was nothing to choose between them. The seconds then each took a sword, and stationed the combatants some seven or eight paces apart, while they themselves stood a little aside, each upon the right hand of his principal, and the witnesses placed themselves at opposite corners of the ground, the surgeons remaining at the ends behind the antagonists. There was a moment's pause. When all was ready, old Saracinesca came close to Giovanni, while Del Ferice's second approached his principal in like manner. "Giovanni," said the old Prince, gravely, "as your second I am bound to recommend you to make any advance in your power towards a friendly understanding. Can you do so?" "No, father, I cannot," answered Giovanni, with a slight smile. His face was perfectly calm, and of a natural colour. Old Saracinesca crossed the ground, and met Casalverde, the opposite second, half-way. Each formally expressed to the other his great regret that no arrangement would be possible, and then retired again to the right hand of his principal. "Gentlemen," said the Prince, in a loud voice, "are you ready?" As both men bowed their assent, he added immediately, in a sharp tone of command, "In guard!" Giovanni and Del Ferice each made a step forward, saluted each other with their foils, repeated the salute to the seconds and witnesses, and then came face to face and fell into position. Each made one thrust in tierce at the other, in the usual fashion of compliment, each parrying in the same way. "Halt!" cried Saracinesca and Casalverde, in the same breath. "In guard!" shouted the Prince again, and the duel commenced. In a moment the difference between the two men was apparent. Del Ferice fenced in the Neapolitan style--his arm straight before him, never bending from the elbow, making all his play with his wrist, his back straight, and his knees so much bent that he seemed not more than half his height. He made his movements short and quick, and relatively few, in evident fear of tiring himself at the start. To a casual observer his fence was less graceful than his antagonist's, his lunges less daring, his parries less brilliant. But as the old Prince watched him he saw that the point of his foil advanced and retreated in a perfectly straight line, and in parrying described the smallest circle possible, while his cold watery blue eye was fixed steadily upon his antagonist; old Saracinesca ground his teeth, for he saw that the man was a most accomplished swordsman. Giovanni fought with the air of one who defended himself, without much thought of attack. He did not bend so low as Del Ferice, his arm doubled a little before his lunge, and his foil occasionally made a wide circle in the air. He seemed careless, but in strength and elasticity he was far superior to his enemy, and could perhaps afford to trust to these advantages, when a man like Del Ferice was obliged to employ his whole skill and science. They had been fencing for more than two minutes, without any apparent result, when Giovanni seemed suddenly to change his tactics. He lowered the point of his weapon a little, and, keeping it straight before him, began to press more closely upon his antagonist. Del Ferice kept his arm at full length, and broke ground for a yard or two, making clever feints in carte at Giovanni's body, with the object of stopping his advance. But Giovanni pressed him, and suddenly made a peculiar movement with his foil, bringing it in contact with his enemy's along its length. "Halt!" cried Casalverde. Both men lowered their weapons instantly, and the seconds sprang forward and touched their swords between them. Giovanni bit his lip angrily. "Why 'halt'?" asked the Prince, sharply. "Neither is touched." "My principal's shoe-string is untied," answered Casalverde, calmly. It was true. "He might easily trip and fall," explained Del Ferice's friend, bending down and proceeding to tie the silk ribbon. The Prince shrugged his shoulders, and retired with Giovanni a few steps back. "Giovanni," he said, in a voice trembling with emotion, "if you are not more careful, he will do you a mischief. For heaven's sake run him through the arm and let us be done with it." "I should have disarmed him that time if his second had not stopped us," said Giovanni, calmly. "He is ready again," he added, "come on." "In guard!" Again the two men advanced, and again the foils crossed and recrossed and rang loudly in the cold morning air. Once more Giovanni pressed upon Del Ferice, and Del Ferice broke ground. In answer to a quick feint, Giovanni made a round parry and a sharp short lunge in tierce. "Halt!" yelled Casalverde. Old Saracinesca sprang in, and Giovanni lowered his weapon. But Casalverde did not interpose his sword. A full two seconds after the cry to halt, Del Ferice lunged right forward. Giovanni thrust out his arm to save his body from the foul attempt--he had not time to raise his weapon. Del Ferice's sharp rapier entered his wrist and tore a long wound nearly to the elbow. Giovanni said nothing, but his sword dropped from his hand and he turned upon his father, white with rage. The blood streamed down his sleeve, and his surgeon came running towards him. The old man had understood at a glance the foul play that had been practised, and going forward laid his hand upon the arm of Del Ferice's second. "Why did you stop them, sir? And where was your sword?" he said in great anger. Del Ferice was leaning upon his friend; a greenish pallor had overspread his face, but there was a smile under his colourless moustache. "My principal was touched," said Casalverde, pointing to a tiny scratch upon Del Ferice's neck, from which a single drop of blood was slowly oozing. "Then why did you not prevent your principal from thrusting after you cried the halt?" asked Saracinesca, severely. "You have singularly misunderstood your duties, sir, and when these gentlemen are satisfied, you will be answerable to me." Casalverde was silent. "I protest myself wholly satisfied," said Ugo, with a disagreeable smile, as he glanced to where the surgeon was binding up Giovanni's arm. "Sir," said old Saracinesca, fiercely addressing the second, "I am not here to bandy words with your principal. He may express himself satisfied through you, if he pleases. My principal, through me, expresses his entire dissatisfaction." "Your principal, Prince," answered Casalverde, coldly, "is unable to proceed, seeing that his right arm is injured." "My son, sir, fences as readily with his left hand as with his right," returned old Saracinesca. Del Ferice's face fell, and his smile vanished instantly. "In that case we are ready," returned Casalverde, unable, however, to conceal his annoyance. He was a friend of Del Ferice's and would gladly have seen Giovanni run through the body by the foul thrust. There was a moment's consultation on the other side. "I will give myself the pleasure of killing that gentleman to-morrow morning," remarked Spicca, as he mournfully watched the surgeon's operations. "Unless I kill him myself to-day," returned the Prince savagely, in his white beard. "Are you ready, Giovanni?" It never occurred to him to ask his son if he was too badly hurt to proceed. Giovanni never spoke, but the hot blood had mounted to his temples, and he was dangerously angry. He took the foil they gave him, and felt the point quietly. It was sharp as a needle. He nodded to his father's question, and they resumed their places, the old Prince this time standing on the left, as his son had changed hands. Del Ferice came forward rather timidly. His courage had sustained him so far, but the consciousness of having done a foul deed, and the sight of the angry man before him, were beginning to make him nervous. He felt uncomfortable, too, at the idea of fencing against a left-handed antagonist. Giovanni made one or two lunges, and then, with a strange movement unlike anything any one present was acquainted with, seemed to wind his blade round Del Ferice's, and, with a violent jerk of the wrist, sent the weapon flying across the open space. It struck a window of the house, and crashed through the panes. "More broken glass!" said Giovanni scornfully, as he lowered his point and stepped back two paces. "Take another sword, sir," he said; "I will not kill you defenceless." "Good heavens, Giovanni!" exclaimed his father in the greatest excitement; "where on earth did you learn that trick?" "On my travels, father," returned Giovanni, with a smile; "where you tell me I learned so much that was bad. He looks frightened," he added in a low voice, as he glanced at Del Ferice's livid face. "He has cause," returned the Prince, "if he ever had in his life!" Casalverde and his witness advanced from the other side with a fresh pair of foils; for the one that had gone through the window could not be recovered at once, and was probably badly bent by the twist it had received. The gentlemen offered Giovanni his choice. "If there is no objection I will keep the one I have," said he to his father. The foils were measured, and were found to be alike. The two gentlemen retired, and Del Ferice chose a weapon. "That is right," said Spicca, as he slowly went back to his place. "You should never part with an old friend." "We are ready!" was called from the opposite side. "In guard, then!" cried the Prince. The angry flush had not subsided from Giovanni's forehead, as he again went forward. Del Ferice came up like a man who has suddenly made up his mind to meet death, with a look of extraordinary determination on his pale face. Before they had made half-a-dozen passes Ugo slipped, or pretended to slip, and fell upon his right knee; but as he came to the ground, he made a sharp thrust upwards under Giovanni's extended left arm. The old Prince uttered a fearful oath, that rang and echoed along the walls of the ancient villa. Del Ferice had executed the celebrated feint known long ago as the "Colpo del Tancredi," "Tancred's lunge," from the supposed name of its inventor. It is now no longer permitted in duelling. But the deadly thrust loses half its danger against a left-handed man. The foil grazed the flesh on Giovanni's left side, and the blood again stained his white shirt. In the moment when Del Ferice slipped, Giovanni had made a straight and deadly lunge at his body, and the sword, instead of passing through Ugo's lungs, ran swift and sure through his throat, with such force that the iron guard struck the falling man's jaw with tremendous impetus, before the oath the old Prince had uttered was fairly out of his mouth. Seconds and witnesses and surgeons sprang forward hastily. Del Ferice lay upon his side; he had fallen so heavily and suddenly as to wrench the sword from Giovanni's grip. The old Prince gave one look, and dragged his son away. "He is as dead as a stone," he muttered, with a savage gleam in his eyes. Giovanni hastily began to dress, without paying any attention to the fresh wound he had received in the last encounter. In the general excitement, his surgeon had joined the group about the fallen man. Before Giovanni had got his overcoat on he came back with Spicca, who looked crestfallen and disappointed. "He is not dead at all," said the surgeon. "You did the thing with a master's hand--you ran his throat through without touching the jugular artery or the spine." "Does he want to go on?" asked Giovanni, so savagely that the three men stared at him. "Do not be so bloodthirsty, Giovanni," said the old Prince, reproachfully. "I should be justified in going back and killing him as he lies there," said the younger Saracinesca, fiercely. "He nearly murdered me twice this morning." "That is true," said the Prince, "the dastardly brute!" "By the bye," said Spicca, lighting a cigarette, "I am afraid I have deprived you of the pleasure of dealing with the man who called himself Del Ferice's second. I just took the opportunity of having a moment's private conversation with him--we disagreed, a little." "Oh, very well," growled the Prince; "as you please. I daresay I shall have enough to do in taking care of Giovanni to-morrow. That is a villanous bad scratch on his arm." "Bah! it is nothing to mention, save for the foul way it was given," said Giovanni between his teeth. Once more old Saracinesca and Spicca crossed the ground. There was a word of formality exchanged, to the effect that both combatants were satisfied, and then Giovanni and his party moved off, Spicca carrying his green bag of foils under his arm, and puffing clouds of smoke into the damp morning air. They had been nearly an hour on the ground, and were chilled with cold, and exhausted for want of sleep. They entered their carriage and drove rapidly homewards. "Come in and breakfast with us," said the old Prince to Spicca, as they reached the Palazzo Saracinesca. "Thank you, no," answered the melancholy man. "I have much to do, as I shall go to Paris to-morrow morning by the ten o'clock train. Can I do anything for you there? I shall be absent some months." "I thought you were going to fight to-morrow," objected the Prince. "Exactly. It will be convenient for me to leave the country immediately afterwards." The old man shuddered. With all his fierce blood and headstrong passion, he could not comprehend the fearful calm of this strange man, whose skill was such that he regarded his adversary's death as a matter of course whenever he so pleased. As for Giovanni, he was still so angry that he cared little for the issue of the second duel. "I am sincerely grateful for your kind offices," he said, as Spicca took leave of him. "You shall be amply revenged of the two attempts to murder you," said Spicca, quietly; and so, having shaken hands with all, he again entered the carriage. It was the last they saw of him for a long time. He faithfully fulfilled his programme. He met Casalverde on the following morning at seven o'clock, and at precisely a quarter past, he left him dead on the field. He breakfasted with his seconds at half-past eight, and left Rome with them for Paris at ten o'clock. He had selected two French officers who were about to return to their home, in order not to inconvenience any of his friends by obliging them to leave the country; which showed that, even in moments of great excitement, Count Spicca was thoughtful of others. When the surgeon had dressed Giovanni's wounds, he left the father and son together. Giovanni lay upon a couch in his own sitting-room, eating his breakfast as best he could with one hand. The old Prince paced the floor, commenting from time to time upon the events of the morning. "It is just as well that you did not kill him, Giovanni," he remarked; "it would have been a nuisance to have been obliged to go away just now." Giovanni did not answer. "Of course, duelling is a great sin, and is strictly forbidden by our religion," said the Prince suddenly. "But then--" "Precisely," returned Giovanni. "We nevertheless cannot always help ourselves." "I was going to say," continued his father, "that it is, of course, very wicked, and if one is killed in a duel, one probably goes straight into hell. But then--it was worth something to see how you sent that fellow's foil flying through the window!" "It is a very simple trick. If you will take a foil, I will teach it to you." "Presently, presently; when you have finished your breakfast. Tell me, why did you say, 'more broken glass'?" Giovanni bit his lip, remembering his imprudence. "I hardly know. I believe it suggested something to my mind. One says all sorts of foolish things in moments of excitement." "It struck me as a very odd remark," answered the Prince, still walking about. "By the bye," he added, pausing before the writing-table, "here is that letter you wrote for me. Do you want me to read it?" "No," said Giovanni, with a laugh. "It is of no use now. It would seem absurd, since I am alive and well. It was only a word of farewell." The Prince laughed too, and threw the sealed letter into the fire. "The last of the Saracinesca is not dead yet," he said. "Giovanni, what are we to say to the gossips? All Rome will be ringing with this affair before night. Of course, you must stay at home for a few days, or you will catch cold, in your arm. I will go out and carry the news of our victory." "Better to say nothing about it--better to refer people to Del Ferice, and tell them he challenged me. Come in!" cried Giovanni, in answer to a knock at the door. Pasquale, the old butler, entered the room. "The Duca d'Astrardente has sent to inquire after the health of his Excellency Don Giovanni," said the old man, respectfully. The elder Saracinesca paused in his walk, and broke out into a loud laugh. "Already! You see, Giovannino," he said. "Tell him, Pasquale, that Don Giovanni caught a severe cold at the ball last night--or no--wait! What shall we say, Giovannino?" "Tell the servant," said Giovanni, sternly, "that I am much obliged for the kind inquiry, that I am perfectly well, and that you have just seen me eating my breakfast." Pasquale bowed and left the room. "I suppose you do not want her to know--" said the Prince, who had suddenly recovered his gravity. Giovanni bowed his head silently. "Quite right, my boy," said the old man, gravely. "I do not want to know anything about it either. How the devil could they have found out?" The question was addressed more to himself than to his son, and the latter volunteered no answer. He was grateful to his father for his considerate silence. CHAPTER XIII. When Astrardente saw the elder Saracinesca's face during his short interview with the diplomatist, his curiosity was immediately aroused. He perceived that there was something the matter, and he proceeded to try and ascertain the circumstances from his acquaintance. The ambassador returned to his _pâté_ and his champagne with an air of amused interest, but vouchsafed no information whatever. "What a singularly amusing fellow old Saracinesca is!" remarked Astrardente. "When he likes to be," returned his Excellency, with his mouth full. "On the contrary--when he least meditates it. I never knew a man better suited for a successful caricature. Indeed he is not a bad caricature of his own son, or his own son of him--I am not sure which." The ambassador laughed a little and took a large mouthful. "Ha! ha! very good," he mumbled as he ate. "He would appreciate that. He loves his own race. He would rather feel that he is a comic misrepresentation of the most hideous Saracinesca who ever lived, than possess all the beauty of the Astrardente and be called by another name." The diplomatist paused for a second after this speech, and then bowed a little to the Duchessa; but the hit had touched her husband in a sensitive spot. The old dandy had been handsome once, in a certain way, and he did his best, by artificial means, to preserve some trace of his good looks. The Duchessa smiled faintly. "I would wager," said Astrardente, sourly, "that his excited manner just now was due to one of two things--either his vanity or his money is in danger. As for the way he yelled after Spicca, it looked as though there were a duel in the air--fancy the old fellow fighting a duel! Too ridiculous!" "A duel!" repeated Corona in a low voice. "I do not see anything so very ridiculous in it," said the diplomatist, slowly twisting his glass of champagne in his fingers, and then sipping it. "Besides," he added deliberately, glancing at the Duchessa from the corner of his eyes, "he has a son." Corona started very slightly. "Why should there be a duel?" she asked. "It was your husband who suggested the idea," returned the diplomatist. "But you said there was nothing ridiculous in it," objected the Duchessa. "But I did not say there was any truth in it, either," answered his Excellency with a reassuring smile. "What made you think of duelling?" he asked, turning to Astrardente. "Spicca," said the latter. "Wherever Spicca is concerned there is a duel. He is a terrible fellow, with his death's-head and dangling bones--one of those extraordinary phenomena--bah! it makes one shiver to think of him!" The old fellow made the sign of the horns with his forefinger and little finger, hiding his thumb in the palm of his hand, as though to protect himself against the evil eye--the sinister influence invoked by the mention of Spicca. Old Astrardente was very superstitious. The ambassador laughed, and even Corona smiled a little. "Yes," said the diplomatist, "Spicca is a living _memento mori_; he occasionally reminds men of death by killing them." "How horrible!" exclaimed Corona. "Ah, my dear lady, the world is full of horrible things." "That is not a reason for making jests of them." "It is better to make light of the inevitable," said Astrardente. "Are you ready to go home, my dear?" "Quite--I was only waiting for you," answered Corona, who longed to be at home and alone. "Let me know the result of old Saracinesca's warlike undertakings," said Astrardente, with a cunning smile on his painted face. "Of course, as he consulted you, he will send you word in the morning." "You seem so anxious that there should be a duel, that I should almost be tempted to invent an account of one, lest you should be too grievously disappointed," returned the diplomatist. "You know very well that no invention will be necessary," said the Duca, pressing him, for his curiosity was roused. "Well--as you please to consider it. Good night," replied the ambassador. It had amused him to annoy Astrardente a little, and he left him with the pleasant consciousness of having excited the inquisitive faculty of his friend to its highest pitch, without giving it anything to feed upon. Men who have to do with men, rather than with things, frequently take a profound and seemingly cruel delight in playing upon the feelings and petty vanities of their fellow-creatures. The habit is as strong with them as the constant practice of conjuring becomes with a juggler; even when he is not performing, he will for hours pass coins, perform little tricks of sleight-of-hand with cards, or toss balls in the air in marvellously rapid succession, unable to lay aside his profession even for a day, because it has grown to be the only natural expression of his faculties. With men whose business it is to understand other men, it is the same. They cannot be in a man's company for a quarter of an hour without attempting to discover the peculiar weaknesses of his character--his vanities, his tastes, his vices, his curiosity, his love of money or of reputation; so that the operation of such men's minds may be compared to the process of auscultation--for their ears are always upon their neighbours' hearts--and their conversation to the percutations of a physician to ascertain the seat of disease in a pair of consumptive lungs. But, with all his failings, Astrardente was a man of considerable acuteness of moral vision. He had made a shrewd guess at Saracinesca's business, and had further gathered from a remark dropped by his diplomatic friend, that if there was to be a duel at all, it would be fought by Giovanni. As a matter of fact, the ambassador himself knew nothing certainly concerning the matter, or it is possible that, for the sake of observing the effect of the news upon the Duchessa, he would have told the whole truth; for he had of course heard the current gossip concerning Giovanni's passion for her, and the experiment would have been too attractive and interesting to be missed. As it was, she had started at the mention of Saracinesca's son. The diplomatist only did what everyone else who came near Corona attempted to do at that time, in endeavouring to ascertain whether she herself entertained any feeling for the man whom the gossips had set down as her most devoted admirer. Poor Duchessa! It was no wonder that she had started at the idea that Giovanni was in trouble. He had played a great part in her life that day, and she could not forget him. She had hardly as yet had time to think of what she felt, for it was only by a supreme effort that she had been able to bear the great strain upon her strength. If she had not loved him, it would have been different; and in the strange medley of emotions through which she was passing, she wished that she might never have loved--that, loving, she might be allowed wholly to forget her love, and to return by some sudden miracle to that cold dreamy state of indifference to all other men, and of unfailing thoughtfulness for her husband, from which she had been so cruelly awakened. She would have given anything to have not loved, now that the great struggle was over; but until the supreme moment had come, she had not been willing to put the dangerous thought from her, saving in those hours of prayer and solitary suffering, when the whole truth rose up clearly before her in its undisguised nakedness. So soon as she had gone into the world, she had recklessly longed for Giovanni Saracinesca's presence. But now it was all changed. She had not deceived herself when she had told him that she would rather not see him any more. It was true; not only did she wish not to see him, but she earnestly desired that the love of him might pass from her heart. With a sudden longing, her thoughts went back to the old convent-life of her girlhood, with its regular occupations, its constant religious exercises, its narrowness of view, and its unchanging simplicity. What mattered narrowness, when all beyond that close limitation was filled with evil? Was it not better that the lips should be busy with singing litanies than that the heart should be tormented by temptation? Were not those simple tasks, that had seemed so all-important then, more sweet in the performance than the manifold duties of this complicated social existence, this vast web and woof of life's loom, this great machinery that worked and groaned and rolled endlessly upon its wheels without producing any more result than the ceaseless turning of a prison treadmill? But there was no way out of life now; there was no escape, as there was also no prospect of relief, from care and anxiety. There was no reason why Giovanni should go away--no reason either why Corona should ever love him less. She belonged to a class of women, if there are enough of them to be called a class, who, where love is concerned, can feel but one impression, which becomes in their hearts the distinctive seal and mark of their lives, for good or for evil. Corona was indeed so loyal and good a woman, that the strong pressure of her love could not abase her nobility, nor put untruth where all was so true; but the sign of her love for Giovanni was upon her for ever. The vacant place in her heart had been filled, and filled wholly; the bulwark she had reared against the love of man was broken down and swept away, and the waters flowed softly over its place and remembered it not. She would never be the same woman again, and it was bitter to her to feel it: for ever the face of Giovanni would haunt her waking hours and visit her dreams unbidden,--a perpetual reproach to her, a perpetual memory of the most desperate struggle of her life, and more than a memory--the undying present of an unchanging love. She was quite sure of herself in future, as she also trusted sincerely in Giovanni's promise. There should be no moment of weakness, no word should ever fall from her lips to tempt him to a fresh outbreak of passionate words and acts; her life should be measured in the future by the account of the dangers past, and there should be no instant of unguarded conduct, no hour wherein even to herself she would say it was sweet to love and to be loved. It was indeed not sweet, but bitter as death itself, to feel that weight at her heart, that constant toiling effort in her mind to keep down the passion in her breast. But Corona had sacrificed much; she would sacrifice this also; she would get strength by her prayers and courage from her high pride, and she would smile to all the world as she had never smiled before. She could trust herself, for she was doing the right and trampling upon the wrong. But the suffering would be none the less for all her pride; there was no concealing it--it would be horrible. To meet him daily in the world, to speak to him and to hear his voice, perhaps to touch his hand, and all the while to smile coldly, and to be still and for ever above suspicion, while her own burning consciousness accused her of the past, and seemed to make the dangers of mere living yawn beside her path at every step,--all this would be terrible to bear, but by God's help she would bear it to the end. But now a new horror seized her, and terrified her beyond measure. This rumour of a duel--a mere word dropped carelessly in conversation by a thoughtless acquaintance--called up to her sudden visions of evil to come. Surely, howsoever she might struggle against love and beat it roughly to silence in her breast, it was not wrong to fear danger for Giovanni,--it could not be a sin to dread the issue of peril when it was all so very near to her. It might perhaps not be true, for people in the world are willing to amuse their empty minds with empty tales, acknowledging the emptiness. It could not be true; she had seen Giovanni but a moment before--he would have given some hint, some sign. Why--after all? Was it not the boast of such men that they could face the world and wear an indifferent look, at times of the greatest anxiety and danger? But, again, if Giovanni had been involved in a quarrel so serious as to require the arbitrament of blood, some rumour of it would have reached her. She had talked with many men that night, and with some women--gossips all, whose tongues wagged merrily over the troubles of friend, or foe, and who would have battened upon anything so novel as a society duel, as a herd of jackals upon the dead body of one of their fellows, to make their feast off it with a light heart. Some one of all these would have told her; the quarrel would have been common property in half an hour, for somebody must have witnessed it. It was a consolation to Corona to reflect upon the extreme improbability of the story; for when the diplomatist was gone, her husband dwelt upon it--whether because he could not conceal his unsatisfied curiosity, or from other motives, it was hard to tell. Astrardente led his wife from the supper-table through the great rooms, now almost deserted, and past the wide doors of the hall where the cotillon was at its height. They paused a moment and looked in, as Giovanni had done a quarter of an hour earlier. It was a magnificent scene; the lights flashed back from the jewels of fair women, and surged in the dance as starlight upon rippling waves. The air was heavy with the odour of the countless flowers that filled the deep recesses of the windows, and were distributed in hundreds of nosegays for the figures of the cotillon; enchanting strains of waltz music seemed to float down from above and inspire the crowd of men and women with harmonious motion, so that sound was made visible by translation into graceful movement. As Corona looked there was a pause, and the crowd parted, while a huge tiger, the heraldic beast of the Frangipani family, was drawn into the hall by the young prince and Bianca Valdarno. The magnificent skin had been so artfully stuffed as to convey a startling impression of life, and in the creature's huge jaws hung a great basket filled with tiny tigers, which were to be distributed as badges for the dance by the leaders. A wild burst of applause greeted this novel figure, and every one ran forward to obtain a nearer view. "Ah!" exclaimed old Astrardente, "I envy them that invention, my dear; it is perfectly magnificent. You must have a tiger to take home. How fortunate we were to be in time!" He forced his way into the crowd, leaving his wife alone for a moment by the door; and he managed to catch Valdarno, who was distributing the little emblems to right and left. Madame Mayer's quick eyes had caught sight of Corona and her husband, and from some instinct of curiosity she made towards the Duchessa. She was still angry, as she had never been in her short life, at Giovanni's rudeness in forgetting her dance, and she longed to inflict some wound upon the beautiful woman who had led him into such forgetfulness. When Astrardente left his wife's side, Donna Tullia pressed forward with her partner in the general confusion that followed upon the entrance of the tiger, and she managed to pass close to Corona. She looked up suddenly with an air of surprise. "What! not dancing, Duchessa?" she asked. "Has your partner gone home?" With the look that accompanied the question, it was an insulting speech enough. Had Donna Tullia seen old Astrardente close behind her, she would not have made it. The old dandy was returning in triumph in possession of the little tiger-badge for Corona. He heard the words, and observed with inward pleasure his wife's calm look of indifference. "Madam," he said, placing himself suddenly in Madame Mayer's way, "my wife's partners do not go home while she remains." "Oh, I see," returned Donna Tullia, flushing quickly; "the Duchessa is dancing the cotillon with you. I beg your pardon--I had forgotten that you still danced." "Indeed it is long since I did myself the honour of asking you for a quadrille, madam," answered Astrardente with a polite smile; and so saying, he turned and presented the little tiger to his wife with a courtly bow. There was good blood in the old _roué_. Corona was touched by his thoughtfulness in wishing to get her the little keepsake of the dance, and she was still more affected by his ready defence of her. He was indeed sometimes a little ridiculous, with his paint and his artificial smile--he was often petulant and unreasonable in little things; but he was never unkind to her, nor discourteous. In spite of her cold and indifferent stare at Donna Tullia, she had keenly felt the insult, and she was grateful to the old man for taking her part. Knowing what she knew of herself that night, she was deeply sensible to his kindness. She took the little gift, and laid her hand upon his arm. "Forgive me," she said, as they moved away, "if I am ever ungrateful to you. You are so very good to me. I know no one so courteous and kind as you are." Her husband looked at her in delight. He loved her sincerely with all that remained of him. There was something sad in the thought of a man like him finding the only real passion of his life when worn out with age and dissipation. Her little speech raised him to the seventh heaven of joy. "I am the happiest man in all Rome," he said, assuming his most jaunty walk, and swinging his hat gaily between his thumb and finger. But a current of deep thought was stirring in him as he went down the broad, staircase by his wife's side. He was thinking what life might have been to him had he found Corona del Carmine--how could he? she was not born then--had he found her, or her counterpart, thirty years ago. He was wondering what conceivable sacrifice there could be which he would not make to regain his youth--even to have his life lived out and behind him, if he could only have looked back to thirty years of marriage with Corona. How differently he would have lived, how very differently he would have thought! how his whole memory would be full of the sweet past, and would be common with her own past life, which, to her too, would be sweet to ponder on! He would have been such a good man--so true to her in all those years! But they were gone, and he had not found her until his foot was on the edge of the grave--until he could hardly count on one year more of a pitiful artificial life, painted, bewigged, stuffed to the semblance of a man by a clever tailor--and she in the bloom of her glory beside him! What he would have given to have old Saracinesca's strength and fresh vitality--old Saracinesca whom he hated! Yes, with all that hair--it was white, but a little dye would change it. What was a little dye compared with the profound artificiality of his own outer man? How the old fellow's deep voice rang, loud and clear, from his broad chest! How strong he was, with his firm step, and his broad brown hands, and his fiery black eyes! He hated him for the greenness of his age--he hated him for his stalwart son, another of those long-lived fierce Saracinesca, who seemed destined to outlive time. He himself had no children, no relations, no one to bear his name--he had only a beautiful young wife and much wealth, with just enough strength left to affect a gay walk when he was with her, and to totter unsteadily to his couch when he was alone, worn out with the effort of trying to seem young. As they sat in their carriage he thought bitterly of all these things, and never spoke. Corona herself was weary, and glad to be silent. They went up-stairs, and as she took his arm, she gently tried to help him rather than be helped. He noticed it, and made an effort, but he was very tired. He paused upon the landing, and looked at her, and a gentle and sad smile stole over his face, such as Corona had never seen there. "Shall we go into your boudoir for ten minutes, my love?" he said; "or will you come into my smoking-room? I would like to smoke a little before going to bed." "You may smoke in my boudoir, of course," she answered kindly, though she was surprised at the request. It was half-past three o'clock. They went into the softly lighted little room, where the embers of the fire were still glowing upon the hearth. Corona dropped her furs upon a chair, and sat down upon one side of the chimney piece. Astrardente sank wearily into a deep easy-chair opposite her, and having found a cigarette, lighted it, and began to smoke. He seemed in a mood which Corona had never seen. After a short silence he spoke. "Corona," he said, "I love you." His wife looked up with a gentle smile, and in her determination to be loyal to him she almost forgot that other man who had said those words but two hours before, so differently. "Yes," he said, with a sigh, "you have heard it before--it is not new to you. I think you believe it. You are good, but you do not love me--no, do not interrupt me, my dear; I know what you would say. How should you love me? I am an old man--very old, older than my years." Again he sighed, more bitterly, as he confessed what he had never owned before. The Duchessa was too much astonished to answer him. "Corona," he said again, "I shall not live much longer." "Ah, do not speak like that," she cried suddenly. "I trust and pray that you have yet many years to live." Her husband looked keenly at her. "You are so good," he answered, "that you are really capable of uttering such a prayer, absurd as it would seem." "Why absurd? It is unkind of you to say it--" "No, my dear; I know the world very well. That is all. I suppose it is impossible for me to make you understand how I love you. It must seem incredible to you, in the magnificence of your strength and beautiful youth, that a man like me--an artificial man"--he laughed scornfully--"a creature of paint and dye--let me be honest--a creature with a wig, should be capable of a mad passion. And yet, Corona," he added, his thin cracked voice trembling with a real emotion, "I do love you--very dearly. There are two things that make my life bitter: the regret that I did not meet you, that you were not born, when I was young; and worse than that, the knowledge that I must leave you very soon--I, the exhausted dandy, the shadow of what I was, tottering to my grave in a last vain effort to be young for your sake--for your sake, Corona dear. Ah, it is contemptible!" he almost moaned. Corona hid her eyes in her hand. She was taken off her guard by his strange speech. "Oh, do not speak like that--do not!" she cried. "You make me very unhappy. Do I reproach you? Do I ever make you feel that you are--older than I? I will lead a new life; you shall never think of it again. You are too kind--too good for me." "No one ever said I was too good before," replied the old man with a shade of sadness. "I am glad the one person who finds me good, should be the only one for whose sake I ever cultivated goodness. I could have been different, Corona, if I had had you for my wife for thirty years, instead of five. But it is too late now. Before long I shall be dead, and you will be free." "What makes you say such things to me?" asked Corona. "Can you think I am so vile, so ungrateful, so unloving, as to wish your death?" "Not unloving; no, my dear child. But not loving, either. I do not ask impossibilities. You will mourn for me a while--my poor soul will rest in peace if you feel one moment of real regret for me, for your old husband, before you take another. Do not cry, Corona, dearest; it is the way of the world. We waste our youth in scoffing at reality, and in the unrealness of our old age the present no longer avails us much. You know me, perhaps you despise me. You would not have scorned me when I was young--oh, how young I was! how strong and vain of my youth, thirty years ago!" "Indeed, indeed, no such thought ever crossed my mind. I give you all I have," cried Corona, in great distress; "I will give you more--I will devote my whole life to you--" "You do, my dear. I am sensible of it," said Astrardente, quietly. "You cannot do more, if you will; you cannot make me young again, nor take away the bitterness of death--of a death that leaves you behind." Corona leaned forward, staring into the dying embers of the fire, one hand supporting her chin. The tears stood in her eyes and on her cheeks. The old dandy in his genuine misery had excited her compassion. "I would mourn you long," she said. "You may have wasted your life; you say so. I would love you more if I could, God knows. You have always been to me a courteous gentleman and a faithful husband." The old man rose with difficulty from his deep chair, and came and stood by her, and took the hand that lay idle on her knees. She looked up at him. "If I thought my blessing were worth anything, I would bless you for what you say. But I would not have you waste your youth. Youth is that which, being wasted, is like water poured out upon the ground. You must marry again, and marry soon--do not start. You will inherit all my fortune; you will have my title. It must descend to your children. It has come to an unworthy end in me; it must be revived in you." "How can you think of it? Are you ill?" asked Corona kindly, pressing gently his thin hand in hers. "Why do you dwell on the idea of death to-night?" "I am ill; yes, past all cure, my dear," said the old man, gently raising her hand to his lips, and kissing it. "What do you mean?" asked Corona, suddenly rising to her feet and laying her hand affectionately upon his shoulder. "Why have you never told me?" "Why should I tell you--except that it is near, and you must be prepared? Why should I burden you with anxiety? But you were so gentle and kind to-night, upon the stairs," he said, with some hesitation, "that I thought perhaps it would be a relief to you to know--to know that it is not for long." There was something so gentle in his tone, so infinitely pathetic in his thought that possibly he might lighten the burden his wife bore so bravely, there was something at last so human in the loving regret with which he spoke, that Corona forgot all his foolish ways, his wig and his false teeth and his petty vanities, and letting her head fall upon his shoulder, burst into passionate tears. "Oh no, no!" she sobbed. "It must be a long time yet; you must not die!" "It may be a year, not more," he said gently. "God bless you for those tears, Corona--the tears you have shed for me. Good night, my dearest." He let her sink upon her chair, and his hand rested for one moment upon her raven hair. Then with a last remnant of energy he quickly left the room. CHAPTER XIV. Such affairs as the encounter between Giovanni and Del Ferice were very rare in Rome. There were many duels fought; but, as a general rule, they were not very serious, and the first slight wound decided the matter in hand to the satisfaction of both parties. But here there had been a fight for life and death. One of the combatants had received two such wounds as would have been sufficient to terminate an ordinary meeting, and the other was lying at death's door stabbed through the throat. Society was frantic with excitement. Giovanni was visited by scores of acquaintances, whom he allowed to be admitted, and he talked with them cheerfully, in order to have it thoroughly known that he was not badly hurt. Del Ferice's lodging was besieged by the same young gentlemen of leisure, who went directly from one to the other, anxious to get all the news in their power. But Del Ferice's door was guarded jealously from intruders by his faithful Neapolitan servant--a fellow who knew more about his master than all the rest of Rome together, but who had such a dazzlingly brilliant talent for lying as to make him a safe repository for any secret committed to his keeping. On the present occasion, however, he had small use for duplicity. He sat all day long by the open door, for he had removed the bell-handle, lest the ringing should disturb his master. He had a basket into which he dropped the cards of the visitors who called, answering each inquiry with the same unchanging words: "He is very ill, the signorino. Do not make any noise." "Where is he hurt?" the visitor would ask. Whereupon Temistocle pointed to his throat. "Will he live?" was the next question; to which the man answered by raising his shoulders to his ears, elevating his eyebrows, and at the same time shutting his eyes, while he spread out the palms of his hands over his basket of cards--whereby he meant to signify that he did not know, but doubted greatly. It being impossible to extract any further information from him, the visitor had nothing left but to leave his card and turn away. Within, the wounded man was watched by a Sister of Mercy. The surgeon had pronounced his recovery probable if he had proper care: the wound was a dangerous one, but not likely to prove mortal unless the patient died of the fever or of exhaustion. The young gentlemen of leisure who thus obtained the news of the two duellists, lost no time in carrying it from house to house. Giovanni himself sent twice in the course of the day to inquire after his antagonist, and received by his servant the answer which was given to everybody. By the time the early winter night was descending upon Rome, there were two perfectly well-authenticated stories circulated in regard to the cause of the quarrel--neither of which, of course, contained a grain of truth. In the first place, it was confidently asserted by one party, represented by Valdarno and his set, that Giovanni had taken offence at Del Ferice for having proposed to call him to be examined before the Duchessa d'Astrardente in regard to his absence from town: that this was a palpable excuse for picking a quarrel, because it was well known that Saracinesca loved the Astrardente, and that Del Ferice was always in his way. "Giovanni is a rough fellow," remarked Valdarno, "and will not stand any opposition, so he took the first opportunity of getting the man out of the way. Do you see? The old story--jealous of the wrong man. Can one be jealous of Del Ferice? Bah!" "And who would have been the right man to attack?" was asked. "Her husband, of course," returned Valdarno with a sneer. "That angel of beauty has the ineffably eccentric idea that she loves that old transparency, that old magic-lantern slide of a man!" On the other hand, there was a party of people who affirmed, as beyond all doubt, that the duel had been brought about by Giovanni's forgetting his dance with Donna Tullia. Del Ferice was naturally willing to put himself forward in her defence, reckoning on the favour he would gain in her eyes. He had spoken sharply to Giovanni about it, and told him he had behaved in an ungentlemanly manner--whereupon Giovanni had answered that it was none of his business; an altercation had ensued in a remote room in the Frangipani palace, and Giovanni had lost his temper and taken Del Ferice by the throat, and otherwise greatly insulted him. The result had been the duel in which Del Ferice had been nearly killed. There was a show of truth about this story, and it was told in such a manner as to make Del Ferice appear as the injured party. Indeed, whichever tale were true, there was no doubt that the two men had disliked each other for a long time, and that they were both looking out for the opportunity of an open disagreement. Old Saracinesca appeared in the afternoon, and was surrounded by eager questioners of all sorts. The fact of his having served his own son in the capacity of second excited general astonishment. Such a thing had not been heard of in the annals of Roman society, and many ancient wisdom-mongers severely censured the course he had pursued. Could anything be more abominably unnatural? Was it possible to conceive of the hard-heartedness of a man who could stand quietly and see his son risk his life? Disgraceful! The old Prince either would not tell what he knew, or had no information to give. The latter theory was improbable. Some one made a remark to that effect. "But, Prince," the man said, "would you second your own son in an affair without knowing the cause of the quarrel?" "Sir," returned the old man, proudly, "my son asked my assistance; I did not sell it to him for his confidence." People knew the old man's obstinacy, and had to be satisfied with his short answers, for he was himself as quarrelsome as a Berserker or as one of his own irascible ancestors. He met Donna Tullia in the street. She stopped her carriage, and beckoned him to come to her. She looked paler than Saracinesca had ever seen her, and was much excited. "How could you let them fight?" were her first words. "It could not be helped. The quarrel was too serious. No one would more gladly have prevented it than I; but as my son had so desperately insulted Del Ferice, he was bound to give him satisfaction." "Satisfaction!" cried Donna Tullia. "Do you call it satisfaction to cut a man's throat? What was the real cause of the quarrel?" "I do not know." "Do not tell me that--I do not believe you," answered Donna Tullia, angrily. "I give you my word of honour that I do not know," returned the Prince. "That is different. Will you get in and drive with me for a few minutes?" "At your commands." Saracinesca opened the carriage-door and got in. "We shall astonish the world; but I do not care," said Donna Tullia. "Tell me, is Don Giovanni seriously hurt?" "No--a couple of scratches that will heal in a week. Del Ferice is very seriously wounded." "I know," answered Donna Tullia, sadly. "It is dreadful--I am afraid it was my fault." "How so?" asked Saracinesca, quickly. He had not heard the story of the forgotten waltz, and was really ignorant of the original cause of disagreement. He guessed, however, that Donna Tullia was not so much concerned in it as the Duchessa d'Astrardente. "Your son was very rude to me," said Madame Mayer. "Perhaps I ought not to tell you, but it is best you should know. He was engaged to dance with me the last waltz but one before the cotillon. He forgot me, and I found him with that--with a lady--talking quietly." "With whom did you say?" asked Saracinesca, very gravely. "With the Astrardente--if you will know," returned Donna Tullia, her anger at the memory of the insult bringing the blood suddenly to her face. "My dear lady," said the old Prince, "in the name of my son I offer you the humble apologies which he will make in person when he is well enough to ask your forgiveness." "I do not want apologies," answered Madame Mayer, turning her face away. "Nevertheless they shall be offered. But, pardon my curiosity, how did Del Ferice come to be concerned in that incident?" "He was with me when I found Don Giovanni with the Duchessa. It is very simple. I was very angry--I am very angry still; but I would not have had Don Giovanni risk his life on my account for anything, nor poor Del Ferice either. I am horribly upset about it all." Old Saracinesca wondered whether Donna Tullia's vanity would suffer if he told her that the duel had not been fought for anything which concerned her. But he reflected that her supposition was very plausible, and that he himself had no evidence. Furthermore, and in spite of his good-natured treatment of Giovanni, he was very angry at the thought that his son had quarrelled about the Duchessa. When Giovanni should be recovered from his wounds he intended to speak his mind to him. But he was sorry for Donna Tullia, for he liked her in spite of her eccentricities, and would have been satisfied to see her married to his son. He was a practical man, and he took a prosaic view of the world. Donna Tullia was rich, and good-looking enough to be called handsome. She had the talent to make herself a sort of centre in her world. She was a little noisy; but noise was fashionable, and there was no harm in her--no one had ever said anything against her. Besides, she was one of the few relations still left to the Saracinesca. The daughter of a cousin of the Prince, she would make a good wife for Giovanni, and would bring sunshine into the house. There was a tinge of vulgarity in her manner; but, like many elderly men of his type, Saracinesca pardoned her this fault in consideration of her noisy good spirits and general good-nature. He was very much annoyed at hearing that his son had offended her so grossly by his forgetfulness; especially it was unfortunate that since she believed herself the cause of the duel, she should have the impression that it had been provoked by Del Ferice to obtain satisfaction for the insult Giovanni had offered her. There would be small chance of making the match contemplated after such an affair. "I am sincerely sorry," said the Prince, stroking his white beard and trying to get a sight of his companion's face, which she obstinately turned away from him. "Perhaps it is better not to think too much of the matter until the exact circumstances are known. Some one is sure to tell the story one of these days." "How coldly you speak of it! One would think it had happened in Peru, instead of here, this very morning." Saracinesca was at his wits' end. He wanted to smooth the matter over, or at least to soften the unfavourable impression against Giovanni. He had not the remotest idea how to do it. He was not a very diplomatic man. "No, no; you misunderstand me. I am not cold. I quite appreciate your situation. You are very justly annoyed." "Of course I am," said Donna Tullia impatiently. She was beginning to regret that she had made him get into her carriage. "Precisely; of course you are. Now, so soon as Giovanni is quite recovered, I will send him to explain his conduct to you if he can, or to--" "Explain it? How can he explain it? I do not want you to send him, if he will not come of his own accord. Why should I?" "Well, well, as you please, my dear cousin," said old Saracinesca, smiling to cover his perplexity. "I am not a good ambassador; but you know I am a good friend, and I really want to do something to restore Giovanni to your graces." "That will be difficult," answered Donna Tullia, although she knew very well that she would receive Giovanni kindly enough when she had once had an opportunity of speaking her mind to him. "Do not be hard-hearted," urged the Prince. "I am sure he is very penitent." "Then let him say so." "That is exactly what I ask." "Is it? Oh, very well. If he chooses to call I will receive him, since you desire it. Where shall I put you down?" "Anywhere, thank you. Here, if you wish--at the corner. Good-bye. Do not be too hard on the boy." "We shall see," answered Donna Tullia, unwilling to show too much indulgence. The old Prince bowed, and walked away into the gloom of the dusky streets. "That is over," he muttered to himself. "I wonder how the Astrardente takes it." He would have liked to see her; but he recognized that, as he so very rarely called upon her, it would seem strange to choose such a time for his visit. It would not do--it would be hardly decent, seeing that he believed her to be the cause of the catastrophe. His steps, however, led him almost unconsciously in the direction of the Astrardente palace; he found himself in front of the arched entrance almost before he knew where he was. The temptation to see Corona was more than he could resist. He asked the porter if the Duchessa was at home, and on being answered in the affirmative, he boldly entered and ascended the marble staircase--boldly, but with an odd sensation, like that of a schoolboy who is getting himself into trouble. Corona had just come home, and was sitting by the fire in her great drawing-room, alone, with a book in her hand, which she was not reading. She rarely remained in the reception-rooms; but to-day she had rather capriciously taken a fancy to the broad solitude of the place, and had accordingly installed herself there. She was very much surprised when the doors were suddenly opened wide and the servant announced Prince Saracinesca. For a moment she thought it must be Giovanni, for his father rarely entered her house, and when the old man's stalwart figure advanced towards her, she dropped her book in astonishment, and rose from her deep chair to meet him. She was very pale, and there were dark rings under her eyes that spoke of pain and want of sleep. She was so utterly different from Donna Tullia, whom he had just left, that the Prince was almost awed by her stateliness, and felt more than ever like a boy in a bad scrape. Corona bowed rather coldly, but extended her hand, which the old gentleman raised to his lips respectfully, in the manner of the old school. "I trust you are not exhausted after the ball?" he began, not knowing what to say. "Not in the least. We did not stay late," replied Corona, secretly wondering why he had come. "It was really magnificent," he answered. "There has been no such ball for years. Very unfortunate that it should have terminated in such an unpleasant way," he added, making a bold dash at the subject of which he wished to speak. "Very. You did a bad morning's work," said the Duchessa, severely. "I wonder that you should speak of it." "No one speaks of anything else," returned the Prince, apologetically. "Besides, I do not see what was to be done." "You should have stopped it," answered Corona, her dark eyes gleaming with righteous indignation. "You should have prevented it at any price, if not in the name of religion, which forbids it as a crime, at least in the name of decency--as being Don Giovanni's father." "You speak strong words, Duchessa," said the Prince, evidently annoyed at her tone. "If I speak strongly, it is because I think you acted shamefully in permitting this disgraceful butchery." Saracinesca suddenly lost his temper, as he frequently did. "Madam," he said, "it is certainly not for you to accuse me of crime, lack of decency, and what you are pleased to call disgraceful butchery, seeing who was the probable cause of the honourable encounter which you characterise in such tasteful language." "Honourable indeed!" said Corona, very scornfully. "Let that pass. Who, pray, is more to blame than you? Who is the probable cause?" "Need I tell you?" asked the old man, fixing his flashing eyes upon her. "What do you mean?" inquired Corona, turning white, and her voice trembling between her anger and her emotion. "I may be wrong," said the Prince, "but I believe I am right. I believe the duel was fought on your account." "On my account!" repeated Corona, half rising from her chair in her indignation. Then she sank back again, and added, very coldly, "If you have come here to insult me, Prince, I will send for my husband." "I beg your pardon, Duchessa," said old Saracinesca. "It is very far from my intention to insult you." "And who has told you this abominable lie?" asked Corona, still very angry. "No one, upon my word." "Then how dare you--" "Because I have reason to believe that you are the only woman alive for whom my son would engage in a quarrel." "It is impossible," cried Corona. "I will never believe that Don Giovanni could--" She checked herself. "Don Giovanni Saracinesca is a gentleman, madam," said the old Prince, proudly. "He keeps his own counsel. I have come by the information without any evidence of it from his lips." "Then I am at a loss to understand you," returned the Duchessa. "I must beg you either to explain your extraordinary language, or else to leave me." Corona d'Astrardente was a match for any man when she was angry. But old Saracinesca, though no diplomatist, was a formidable adversary, from his boldness and determination to discover the truth at any price. "It is precisely because, at the risk of offending you, I desired an explanation, that I have intruded myself upon you to-day," he answered. "Will you permit me one question before I leave you?" "Provided it is not an insulting one, I will answer it," replied Corona. "Do you know anything of the circumstances which led to this morning's encounter?" "Certainly not," Corona answered, hotly. "I assure you most solemnly," she continued in calmer tones, "that I am wholly ignorant of it. I suppose you have a right to be told that." "I, on my part, assure you, upon my word, that I know no more than you yourself, excepting this: on some provocation, concerning which he will not speak, my son seized Del Ferice by the throat and used strong words to him. No one witnessed the scene. Del Ferice sent the challenge. My son could find no one to act for him and applied to me, as was quite right that he should. There was no apology possible--Giovanni had to give the man satisfaction. You know as much as I know now." "That does not help me to understand why you accuse me of having caused the quarrel," said Corona. "What have I to do with Del Ferice, poor man?" "This--any one can see that you are as indifferent to my son as to any other man. Every one knows that the Duchessa d'Astrardente is above suspicion." Corona raised her head proudly and stared at Saracinesca. "But, on the other hand, every one knows that my son loves you madly--can you yourself deny it?" "Who dares to say it?" asked Corona, her anger rising afresh. "Who sees, dares. Can you deny it?" "You have no right to repeat such hearsay tales to me," answered Corona. But the blush rose to her pale dark cheeks, and she suddenly dropped her eyes. "Can you deny it, Duchessa?" asked the Prince a third time, insisting roughly. "Since you are so certain, why need you care for my denial?" inquired Corona. "Duchessa, you must forgive me," answered Saracinesca, his tone suddenly softening. "I am rough, probably rude; but I love my son dearly. I cannot bear to see him running into a dangerous and hopeless passion, from which he may issue only to find himself grown suddenly old and bitter, disappointed and miserable for the rest of his life. I believe you to be a very good woman; I cannot look at you and doubt the truth of anything you tell me. If he loves you, you have influence over him. If you have influence, use it for his good; use it to break down this mad love of his, to show him his own folly--to save him, in short, from his fate. Do you understand me? Do I ask too much?" Corona understood well enough--far too well. She knew the whole extent of Giovanni's love for her, and, what old Saracinesca never guessed, the strength of her own love for him, for the sake of which she would do all that a woman could do. There was a long pause after the old Prince had spoken. He waited patiently for an answer. "I understand you--yes," she said at last. "If you are right in your surmises, I should have some influence over your son. If I can advise him, and he will take my advice, I will give him the best counsel I can. You have placed me in a very embarrassing position, and you have shown little courtesy in the way you have spoken to me; but I will try to do as you request me, if the opportunity offers, for the sake of--of turning what is very bad into something which may at last be good." "Thank you, thank you, Duchessa!" cried the Prince. "I will never forget--" "Do not thank me," said Corona, coldly. "I am not in a mood to appreciate your gratitude. There is too much blood of those honest gentlemen upon your hands." "Pardon me, Duchessa, I wish there were on my hands and head the blood of that gentleman you call honest--the gentleman who twice tried to murder my son this morning, and twice nearly succeeded." "What!" cried Corona, in sudden terror. "That fellow thrust at Giovanni once to kill him while they were halting and his sword was hanging lowered in his hand; and once again he threw himself upon his knee and tried to stab him in the body--which is a dastardly trick not permitted in any country. Even in duelling, such things are called murder; and it is their right name." Corona was very pale. Giovanni's danger had been suddenly brought before her in a very vivid light, and she was horror-struck at the thought of it. "Is--is Don Giovanni very badly wounded?" she asked. "No, thank heaven; he will be wall in a week. But either one of those attempts might have killed him; and he would have died, I think--pardon me, no insult this time--I think, on your account. Do you see why for him I dread this attachment to you, which leads him to risk his life at every turn for a word about you? Do you see why I implore you to take the matter into your serious consideration, and to use your influence to bring him to his senses?" "I see; but in this question of the duel you have no proof that I was concerned." "No,--no proof, perhaps. I will not weary you with surmises; but even if it was not for you this time, you see that it might have been." "Perhaps," said Corona, very sadly. "I have to thank you, even if you will not listen to me," said the Prince, rising. "You have understood me. It was all I asked. Good night." "Good night," answered Corona, who did not move from her seat nor extend her hand this time. She was too much agitated to think of formalities. Saracinesca bowed low and left the room. It was characteristic of him that he had come to see the Duchessa not knowing what he should say, and that he had blurted out the whole truth, and then lost his temper in support of it. He was a hasty man, of noble instincts, but always inclined rather to cut a knot than to unloose it--to do by force what another man would do by skill--angry at opposition, and yet craving it by his combative nature. His first impulse on leaving Corona was to go to Giovanni and tell him what he had done; but he reflected as he went home that his son was ill with his wounds, and that it would be bad for him to be angry, as of course he would be if he were told of his father's doings. Moreover, as old Saracinesca thought more seriously of the matter, he wisely concluded that it would be better not to speak of the visit; and when he entered the room where Giovanni was lying on his couch with a novel and a cigarette, he had determined to conceal the whole matter. "Well, Giovanni," he said, "we are the talk of the town, of course." "It was to be expected. Whom have you seen?" "In the first place, I have seen Madame Mayer. She is in a state of anger against you which borders on madness--not because you have wounded Del Ferice, but because you forgot to dance with her. I cannot conceive how you could be so foolish." "Nor I. It was idiotic in the last degree," replied Giovanni, annoyed that his father should have learned the story. "You must go and see her at once--as soon as you can go out. It is a disagreeable business." "Of course. What else did she say?" "She thought that Del Ferice had challenged you on her account, because you had not danced with her." "How silly! As if I should fight duels about her." "Since there was probably a woman in the case, she might have been the one," remarked his father. "There was no woman in the case, practically speaking," said Giovanni, shortly. "Oh, I supposed there was. However, I told Donna Tullia that I advised her not to think anything more of the matter until the whole story came out." "When is that likely to occur?" asked Giovanni, laughing. "No one alive knows the cause of the quarrel but Del Ferice and I myself. He will certainly not tell the world, as the thing was even more disgraceful to him than his behaviour this morning. There is no reason why I should speak of it either." "How reticent you are, Giovanni!" exclaimed the old gentleman. "Believe me, if I could tell you the whole story without injuring any one but Del Ferice, I would." "Then there was really a woman in the case?" "There was a woman outside the case, who caused us to be in it," returned Giovanni. "Always your detestable riddles," cried the old man, petulantly; and presently, seeing that his son was obstinately silent, he left the room to dress for dinner. CHAPTER XV. It may be that when Astrardente spoke so tenderly to his wife after the Frangipani ball, he felt some warning that told him his strength was failing. His heart was in a dangerous condition, the family doctor had said, and it was necessary that he should take care of himself. He had been very tired after that long evening, and perhaps some sudden sinking had shaken his courage. He awoke from an unusually heavy sleep with a strange sense of astonishment, as though he had not expected to awake again in life. He felt weaker than he had felt for a long time, and even his accustomed beverage of chocolate mixed with coffee failed to give him the support he needed in the morning. He rose very late, and his servant found him more than usually petulant, nor did the message brought back from Giovanni seem to improve his temper. He met his wife at the midday breakfast, and was strangely silent, and in the afternoon he shut himself up in his own rooms and would see nobody. But at dinner he appeared again, seemingly revived, and declared his intention of accompanying his wife to a reception given at the Austrian embassy. He seemed so unlike his usual self, that Corona did not venture to speak of the duel which had taken place in the morning; for she feared anything which might excite him, well knowing that excitement might prove fatal. She did what she could to dissuade him from going out; but he grew petulant, and she unwillingly yielded. At the embassy he soon heard all the details, for no one talked of anything else; but Astrardente was ashamed of not having heard it all before, and affected a cynical indifference to the tale which the military attaché of the embassy repeated for his benefit. He vouchsafed some remark to the effect that fighting duels was the natural amusement of young gentlemen, and that if one of them killed another there was at least one fool the less in society; after which he looked about him for some young beauty to whom he might reel off a score of compliments. He knew all the time that he was making a great effort, that he felt unaccountably ill, and that he wished he had taken his wife's advice and stayed quietly at home. But at the end of the evening he chanced to overhear a remark that Valdarno was making to Casalverde, who looked exceedingly pale and ill at ease. "You had better make your will, my dear fellow," said Valdarno. "Spicca is a terrible man with the foils." Astrardente turned quickly and looked at the speaker. But both men were suddenly silent, and seemed absorbed in gazing at the crowd. It was enough, however. Astrardente had gathered that Casalverde was to fight Spicca the next day, and that the affair begun that morning had not yet reached its termination. He determined that he would not again be guilty of not knowing what was going on in society; and with the intention of rising early on the following morning, he found Corona, and rather unceremoniously told her it was time to go home. On the next day the Duca d'Astrardente walked into the club soon after ten o'clock. On ordinary occasions that resort of his fellows was entirely empty until a much later hour; but Astrardente was not disappointed to-day. Twenty or thirty men were congregated in the large hall which served as a smoking-room, and all of them were talking together excitedly. As the door swung on its hinges and the old dandy entered, a sudden silence fell upon the assembly. Astrardente naturally judged that the conversation had turned upon himself, and had been checked by his appearance; but he affected to take no notice of the occurrence, adjusting his single eyeglass in his eye and serenely surveying the men in the room. He could see that, although they had been talking loudly, the matter in hand was serious enough, for there was no trace of mirth on any of the faces before him. He at once assumed an air of gravity, and going up to Valdarno, who seemed to have occupied the most prominent place in the recent discussion, he put his question in an undertone. "I suppose Spicca killed him?" Valdarno nodded, and looked grave. He was a thoughtless young fellow enough, but the news of the tragedy had sobered him. Astrardente had anticipated the death of Casalverde, and was not surprised. But he was not without human feeling, and showed a becoming regret at the sad end of a man he had been accustomed to see so frequently. "How was it?" he asked. "A simple 'un, deux,' tierce and carte at the first bout. Spicca is as quick as lightning. Come away from this crowd," added Valdarno, in a low voice, "and I will tell you all about it." In spite of his sorrow at his friend's death, Valdarno felt a certain sense of importance at being able to tell the story to Astrardente. Valdarno was vain in a small way, though his vanity was to that of the old Duca as the humble violet to the full-blown cabbage-rose. Astrardente enjoyed a considerable importance in society as the husband of Corona, and was an object of especial interest to Valdarno, who supported the incredible theory of Corona's devotion to the old man. Valdarno's stables were near the club, and on pretence of showing a new horse to Astrardente, he nodded to his friends, and left the room with the aged dandy. It was a clear, bright winter's morning, and the two men strolled slowly down the Corso towards Valdarno's palace. "You know, of course, how the affair began?" asked the young man. "The first duel? Nobody knows--certainly not I." "Well--perhaps not," returned Valdarno, doubtfully. "At all events, you know that Spicca flew into a passion because poor Casalverde forgot to step in after he cried halt; and then Del Ferice ran Giovanni through the arm." "That was highly improper--most reprehensible," said Astrardente, putting up his eyeglass to look at a pretty little sempstress who hurried past on her way to her work. "I suppose so. But Casalverde certainly meant no harm; and if Del Ferice had not been so unlucky as to forget himself in the excitement of the moment, no one would have thought anything of it." "Ah yes, I suppose not," murmured Astrardente, still looking after the girl. When he could see her face no longer, he turned sharply back to Valdarno. "This is exceedingly interesting," he said. "Tell me more about it." "Well, when it was over, old Saracinesca was for killing Casalverde himself." "The old fire-eater! He ought to be ashamed of himself." "However, Spicca was before him, and challenged Casalverde then and there. As both the principals in the first duel were so badly wounded, it had to be put off until this morning." "They went out, and--piff, paff! Spicca ran him through," interrupted Astrardente. "What a horrible tragedy!" "Ah yes; and what is worse--" "What surprises me most," interrupted the Duca again, "is that in this delightfully peaceful and paternally governed little nest of ours, the authorities should not have been able to prevent either of these duels. It is perfectly amazing! I cannot remember a parallel instance. Do you mean to say that there was not a _sbirro_ or a _gendarme_ in the neighbourhood to-day nor yesterday?" "That is not so surprising," answered Valdarno, with a knowing look. "There would have been few tears in high quarters if Del Ferice had been killed yesterday; there will be few to-day over the death of poor Casalverde." "Bah!" ejaculated Astrardente. "If Antonelli had heard of these affairs he would have stopped them soon enough." Valdarno glanced behind him, and, bending a little, whispered in Astrardente's ear-- "They were both Liberals, you must know." "Liberals?" repeated the old dandy, with a cynical sneer. "Nonsense, I say! Liberals? Yes, in the way you are a Liberal, and Donna Tullia Mayer, and Spicca himself, who has just killed that other Liberal, Casalverde. Liberals indeed! Do you flatter yourself for a moment that Antonelli is afraid of such Liberals as you are? Do you think the life of Del Ferice is of any more importance to politics than the life of that dog there?" It was Astrardente's habit to scoff mercilessly at all the petty manifestations of political feeling he saw about him in the world. He represented a class distinct both from the Valdarno set and from the men represented by the Saracinesca--a class who despised everything political as unworthy of the attention of gentlemen, who took everything for granted, and believed that all was for the best, provided that society moved upon rollers and so long as no one meddled with old institutions. To question the wisdom of the municipal regulations was to attack the Government itself; to attack the Government was to cast a slight upon his Holiness the Pope, which was rank heresy, and very vulgar into the bargain. Astrardente had seen a great deal of the world, but his ideas of politics were almost childishly simple--whereas many people said that his principles in relation to his fellows were fiendishly cynical. He was certainly not a very good man; and if he pretended to no reputation for devoutness, it was probable that he recognised the absurdity of his attempting such a pose. But politically he believed in Cardinal Antonelli's ability to defy Europe with or without the aid of France, and laughed as loudly at Louis Napoleon's old idea of putting the sovereign Pontiff at the head of an Italian federation, as he jeered at Cavour's favourite phrase concerning a free Church in a free State. He had good blood in him, and the hereditary courage often found with it. He had a certain skill in matters worldly; but his wit in things political seemed to belong to an earlier generation, and to be incapable of receiving new impressions. But Valdarno, who was vain and set great value on his opinions, was deeply offended at the way Astrardente spoke of him and his friends. In his eyes he was risking much for what he considered a good object, and he resented any contemptuous mention of Liberal principles, whenever he dared. No one cared much for Astrardente, and certainly no one feared him; nevertheless in those times men hesitated to defend anything which came under the general head of Liberalism, when they were likely to be overheard, or when they could not trust the man to whom they were speaking. If no one feared Astrardente, no one trusted him either. Valdarno consequently judged it best to smother his annoyance at the old man's words, and to retaliate by striking him in a weak spot. "If you despise Del Ferice as much as you say," he remarked, "I wonder that you tolerate him as you do." "I tolerate him. Toleration is the very word--it delightfully expresses my feelings towards him. He is a perfectly harmless creature, who affects immense depth of insight into human affairs, and who cannot see an inch before his face. Dear me! yes, I shall always tolerate Del Ferice, poor fellow!" "You may not be called upon to do so much longer," replied Valdarno. "They say he is in a very dangerous condition." "Ah!" ejaculated Astrardente, putting up his eyeglass at his companion. "Ah, you don't say so!" There was something so insolent in the old man's affected stare that even the foolish and good-natured Valdarno lost his temper, being already somewhat irritated. "It is a pity that you should be so indifferent. It is hardly becoming. If you had not tolerated him as you have, he might not be lying there at the point of death." Astrardente stared harder than ever. "My dear young friend," he said, "your language is the most extraordinary I ever heard. How in the world can my treatment of that unfortunate man have had anything to do with his being wounded in a duel?" "My dear old friend," replied Valdarno, impudently mimicking the old man's tone, "your simplicity surpasses anything I ever knew. Is it possible that you do not know that this duel was fought for your wife?" Astrardente looked fixedly at Valdarno; his eyeglass dropped from his eye, and he turned ashy pale beneath his paint. He staggered a moment, and steadied himself against the door of a shop. They were just passing the corner of the Piazza di Sciarra, the most crowded crossing of the Corso. "Valdarno," said the old man, his cracked voice dropping to a hoarser and deeper tone, "you must explain yourself or answer for this." "What! Another duel!" cried Valdarno, in some scorn. Then, seeing that his companion looked ill, he took him by the arm and led him rapidly through the crowd, across the Arco dei Carbognani. Entering the Caffè Aragno, a new institution in those days, both men sat down at a small marble table. The old dandy was white with emotion; Valdarno felt that he was enjoying his revenge. "A glass of cognac, Duke?" he said, as the waiter came up. Astrardente nodded, and there was silence while the man brought the cordial. The Duca lived by an invariable rule, seeking to balance the follies of his youth by excessive care in his old age; it was long, indeed, since he had taken a glass of brandy in the morning. He swallowed it quickly, and the stimulant produced its effect immediately; he readjusted his eyeglass, and faced Valdarno sternly. "And now," he said, "that we are at our ease, may I inquire what the devil you mean by your insinuations about my wife?" "Oh," replied Valdarno, affecting great indifference, "I only say what everybody says. There is no offence to the Duchessa." "I should suppose not, indeed. Go on." "Do you really care to hear the story?" asked the young man. "I intend to hear it, and at once," replied Astrardente. "You will not have to employ force to extract it from me, I can assure you," said Valdarno, settling himself in his chair, but avoiding the angry glance of the old man. "Everybody has been repeating it since the day before yesterday, when it occurred. You were at the Frangipani ball--you might have seen it all. In the first place, you must know that there exists another of those beings to whom you extend your merciful toleration--a certain Giovanni Saracinesca--you may have noticed him?" "What of him?" asked Astrardente, fiercely. "Among other things, he is the man who wounded Del Ferice, as I daresay you have heard. Among other things concerning him, he has done himself the honour of falling desperately, madly in love with the Duchessa d'Astrardente, who--" "What?" cried the old man in a cracked voice, as Valdarno paused. "Who does you the honour of ignoring his existence on most occasions, but who was so unfortunate as to recall him to her memory on the night of the Frangipani ball. We were all sitting in a circle round the Duchessa's chair that night, when the conversation chanced to turn upon this same Giovanni Saracinesca, a fire-eating fellow with a bad temper. He had been away for some days; indeed he was last seen at the Apollo in your box, when they gave 'Norma'--" "I remember," interrupted Astrardente. The mention of that evening was but a random shot. Valdarno had been in the club-box, and had seen Giovanni when he made his visit to the Astrardente; he had not seen him again till the Frangipani ball. "Well, as I was saying, we spoke of Giovanni, and every one had something to say about his absence. The Duchessa expressed her curiosity, and Del Ferice, who was with us, proposed calling him--he was at the other end of the room, you see--that he might answer for himself. So I went and brought him up. He was in a very bad humour--" "What has all this absurd story got to do with the matter?" asked the old man, impatiently. "It is the matter itself. The irascible Giovanni is angry at being questioned, treats us all like mud under his feet, sits down by the Duchessa and forces us to go away. The Duchessa tells him the story, with a laugh no doubt, and Giovanni's wrath overflows. He goes in search of Del Ferice, and nearly strangles him. The result of these eccentricities is the first duel, leading to the second." Astrardente was very angry, and his thin gloved hands twitched nervously at the handle of his stick. "And this," he said, "this string of trivial ball-room incident, seems to you a sufficient pretext for stating that the duel was about my wife?" "Certainly," replied Valdarno, coolly. "If Saracinesca had not been for months openly devoting himself to the Duchessa--who, I assure you, takes no kind of notice of him--" "You need not waste words--" "I do not,--and if Giovanni had not thought it worth while to be jealous of Del Ferice, there would have been no fighting." "Have you been telling your young friends that my wife was the cause of all this?" asked Astrardente, trembling with a genuine rage which lent a certain momentary dignity to his feeble frame and painted face. "Why not?" "Have you or have you not?" "Certainly--if you please," returned Valdarno insolently, enjoying the old man's fury. "Then permit me to tell you that you have taken upon yourself an outrageous liberty, that you have lied, and that you do not deserve to be treated like a gentleman." Astrardente got upon his feet and left the café without further words. Valdarno had indeed wounded him in a weak spot, and the wound was mortal. His blood was up, and at that moment he would have faced Valdarno sword in hand, and might have proved himself no mean adversary, so great is the power of anger to revive in the most decrepit the energies of youth. He believed in his wife with a rare sincerity, and his blood boiled at the idea of her being rudely spoken of as the cause of a scandalous quarrel, however much Valdarno insisted upon it that she was as indifferent to Giovanni as to Del Ferice. The story was a shallow invention upon the face of it. But though the old man told himself so again and again as he almost ran through the narrow streets towards his house, there was one thought suggested by Valdarno which rankled deep. It was true that Giovanni had last been seen in the Astrardente box at the opera; but he had not remained five minutes seated by the Duchessa before he had suddenly invented a shallow excuse for leaving; and finally, there was no doubt that at that very moment Corona had seemed violently agitated. Giovanni had not reappeared till the night of the Frangipani ball, and the duel had taken place on the very next morning. Astrardente could not reason--his mind was too much disturbed by his anger against Valdarno; but a vague impression that there was something wrong in it all, drove him homewards in wild excitement. He was ill, too, and had he been in a frame of mind to reflect upon himself, he would have noticed that his heart was beating with ominous irregularity. He did not even think of taking a cab, but hurried along on foot, finding, perhaps, a momentary relief in violent exertion. The old blood rushed to his face in good earnest, and shamed the delicately painted lights and shadows touched in by the master-hand of Monsieur Isidore, the cosmopolitan valet. Valdarno remained seated in the café, rather disturbed at what he had done. He certainly had had no intention of raising such a storm; he was a weak and good-natured fellow, whose vanity was easily wounded, but who was not otherwise very sensitive, and was certainly not very intelligent. Astrardente had laughed at him and his friends in a way which touched him to the quick, and with childish petulance he had retaliated in the easiest way which presented itself. Indeed there was more foundation for his tale than Astrardente would allow. At least it was true that the story was in the mouths of all the gossips that morning, and Valdarno had only repeated what he had heard. He had meant to annoy the old man; he had certainly not intended to make him so furiously angry. As for the deliberate insult he had received, it was undoubtedly very shocking to be told that one lied in such very plain terms; but on the other hand, to demand satisfaction of such an old wreck as Astrardente would be ridiculous in the extreme. Valdarno was incapable of very violent passion, and was easily persuaded that he was in the wrong when any one contradicted him flatly; not that he was altogether devoid of a certain physical courage if hard pushed, but because he was not very strong, not very confident of himself, not very combative, and not very truthful. When Astrardente was gone, he waited a few minutes, and then sauntered up the Corso again towards the club, debating in his mind how he should turn a good story out of his morning's adventure without making himself appear either foolish or pusillanimous. It was also necessary so to turn his narrative that in case any one repeated it to Giovanni, the latter might not propose to cut his throat, though it was not probable that any one would be bold enough to desire a conversation with the younger Saracinesca on such a subject. When he again entered the smoking-room of the club, he was greeted by a chorus of inquiries concerning his interview with Astrardente. "What did he ask? What did he say? Where is he? What did you tell him? Did he drop his eyeglass? Did he blush through his paint?" Everybody spoke together in the same breath. Valdarno's vanity rose to the occasion. Weak and insignificant by nature, he particularly delighted in being the centre of general interest, if even for a moment only. "He really dropped his eyeglass," he answered, with a gay laugh, "and he really changed colour in spite of his paint." "It must have been a terrible interview, then," remarked one or two of the loungers. "I shall be happy to offer you my services in case you wish to cut each other's throats," said a French officer of the Papal Zouaves who stood by the fireplace rolling a cigarette. Whereupon everybody laughed loudly. "Thanks," answered Valdarno; "I am expecting a challenge every minute. If he proposes a powder-puff and a box of rouge for the weapons, I accept without hesitation. Well, it was very amusing. He wanted to know all about it, and so I told him about the scene in Casa Frangipani. He did not seem to understand at all. He is a very obtuse old gentleman." "I hope you explained the connection of events," said some one. "Indeed I did. It was delightful to witness his fury. It was then that he dropped his eyeglass and turned as red as a boiled lobster. He swore that his wife was above suspicion, as usual." "That is true," said a young man who had attempted to make love to Corona during the previous year. "Of course it is true," echoed all the rest, with unanimity rare indeed where a woman's reputation is concerned. "Yes," continued Valdarno, "of course. But he goes so far as to say it is absurd that any one should admire his wife, who is nevertheless a most admirable woman. He stamped, he screamed, he turned red in the face, and he went off without taking leave of me, flourishing his stick, and swearing eternal hatred and vengeance against the entire civilised society of the world. He was delightfully amusing. Will anybody play baccarat? I will start a bank." The majority were for the game, and in a few minutes were seated at a large green table, drawing cards and betting with a good will, and interspersing their play with stray remarks on the events of the morning. CHAPTER XVI. Corona was fast coming to a state of mind in which a kind of passive expectation--a sort of blind submission to fate--was the chief feature. She had shed tears when her husband spoke of his approaching end, because her gentle heart was grateful to him, and by its own sacrifices had grown used to his presence, and because she suddenly felt that she had comprehended the depth of his love for her, as she had never understood it before. In the five years of married life she had spent with him, she had not allowed herself to think of his selfishness, of his small daily egotism; for, though it was at no great expense to himself, he had been uniformly generous and considerate to her. But she had been conscious that if she should ever remove from her conscience the pressure of a self-imposed censorship, so that her judgment might speak boldly, the verdict of her heart would not have been so indulgent to her husband as was that formal opinion of him which she forced herself to hold. Now, however, it seemed as though the best things she had desired to believe of him were true; and with the conviction that he was not only not selfish, but absolutely devoted to herself, there had come upon her a fear of desolation, a dread of being left alone--of finding herself abandoned by this strange companion, the only person in the world with whom she had the habit of familiarity and the bond of a common past. Astrardente had thought, and had told her too, that the knowledge of his impending death might lighten her burden--might make the days of self-sacrifice that yet remained seem shorter; he had spoken kindly of her marrying again when he should be dead, deeming perhaps, in his sudden burst of generosity that she would be capable of looking beyond the unhappy present to the possibilities of a more brilliant future, or at least that the certainty of his consent to such a second union would momentarily please her. It was hard to say why he had spoken. It had been an impulse such as the most selfish people sometimes yield to when their failing strength brings upon them suddenly the sense of their inability to resist any longer the course of events. The vanity of man is so amazing that when he is past arrogating to himself the attention which is necessary to him as his daily bread, he is capable of so demeaning his manhood as to excite interest in his weaknesses rather than that he should cease to be the object of any interest whatever. The analysis of the feelings of old and selfish persons is the most difficult of all studies; for in proportion as the strength of the dominant passion or passions is quenched in the bitter still waters of the harbour of superannuation, the small influences of life grow in importance. As when, from the breaking surge of an angry ocean, the water is dashed high among the re-echoing rocks, leaving little pools of limpid clearness in the hollows of the storm-beaten cliffs; and as when the anger of the tossing waves has subsided, the hot sun shines upon the mimic seas, and the clear waters that were so transparent grow thick and foul with the motion of a tiny and insignificant insect-life undreamed of before in such crystal purity: so also the clear strong sea of youth is left to dry in the pools and puddles of old age, and in the motionless calm of the still places where the ocean of life has washed it, it is dried up and consumed by myriads of tiny parasites--lives within lives, passions within passions--tiny efforts at mimic greatness,--a restless little world, the very parody and infinitesimal reproduction of the mighty flood whence it came, wherein great monsters have their being, and things of unspeakable beauty grow free in the large depths of an unfathomed ocean. To Corona d'Astrardente in the freshness of her youth the study of her husband's strange littleness had grown to be a second nature from the habit of her devotion to him. But she could not understand him; she could not explain to herself the sudden confession of old age, the quiet anticipation of death, the inexplicable generosity towards herself. She only knew that he must be at heart a man more kindly and of better impulse than he had generally been considered, and she resolved to do her utmost to repay him, and to soothe the misery of his last years. Since he had told her so plainly, it must be true. It was natural, perhaps--for he was growing more feeble every day--but it was very sad. Five years ago, when she had choked down her loathing for the old man to whom she had sold herself for her father's sake, she would not have believed that she should one day feel the tears rise fast at the thought of his dying and leaving her free. He had said it; she would be free. They say that men who have been long confined in a dungeon become indifferent, and when turned out upon the world would at first gladly return to their prison walls. Liberty is in the first place an instinct, but it will easily grow to be a habit. Corona had renounced all thought of freedom five years ago, and in the patient bowing of her noble nature to the path she had chosen, she had attained to a state of renunciation like that of a man who has buried himself for ever in an order of Trappists, and neither dreams of the freedom of the outer world, nor desires to dream of it. And she had grown fond of the aged dandy and his foolish ways--ways which seemed foolish because they were those of youth grafted upon senility. She had not known that she was fond of him, it is true; but now that he spoke of dying, she felt that she would weep his loss. He was her only companion, her only friend. In the loyal determination to be faithful to him, she had so shut herself from all intimacy with the world that she had not a friend. She kept women at a distance from her, instinctively dreading lest in their careless talk some hint or comment should remind her that she had married a man ridiculous in their eyes; and with men she could have but little intercourse, for their society was dangerous. No man save Giovanni Saracinesca had for years put himself in the light of a mere acquaintance, always ready to talk to her upon general subjects, studiously avoiding himself in all discussions, and delicately flattering her vanity by his deference to her judgment. The other men had generally spoken of love at the second meeting, and declared themselves devoted to her for life at the end of a week: she had quietly repulsed them, and they had dropped back into the position of indifferent acquaintances, going in search of other game, after the manner of young gentlemen of leisure. Giovanni alone had sternly maintained his air of calmness, had never offended her simple pride of loyalty to Astrardente by word or deed; so that, although she felt and dreaded her growing interest in him, she had actually believed that he was nothing in her life, until at last she had been undeceived and awakened to the knowledge of his fierce passion, and being taken unawares, had nearly been carried off her feet by the tempest his words had roused in her own breast. But her strength had not utterly deserted her. Years of supreme devotion to the right, of honest and unwavering loyalty, neither deceiving her conscience on the one hand with the morbid food of a fictitious religious exaltation, nor, upon the other, sinking to a cynical indifference to inevitable misery; days of quiet and constant effort; long hours of thoughtful meditation upon the one resolution of her life,--all this had strengthened the natural force of her character, so that, when at last the great trial had come, she had not yielded, but had conquered once and for ever, in the very moment of sorest temptation. And with her there would be no return of the danger. Having found strength to resist, she knew that there would be no more weakness; her love for Giovanni was deep and sincere, but it had become now the chief cause of suffering in her life; it had utterly ceased to be the chief element of joy, as it had been for a few short days. It was one thing more to be borne, and it outweighed all other cares. The news of the duel had given her great distress. She believed honestly that she was in no way concerned in it, and she had bitterly resented old Saracinesca's imputation. In the hot words that had passed between them, she had felt her anger rise justly against the old Prince; but when he appealed to her on account of his son, her love for Giovanni had vanquished her wrath against the old man. Come what might, she would do what was best for him. If possible, she would induce him to leave Rome at once, and thus free herself from the pain of constantly meeting him. Perhaps she could make him marry--anything would be better than to allow things to go on in their present course, to have to face him at every turn, and to know that at any moment he might be quarrelling with somebody and fighting duels on her account. She went boldly into the world that night, not knowing whether she should meet Giovanni or not, but resolved upon her course if he appeared. Many people looked curiously at her, and smiled cunningly as they thought they detected traces of care upon her proud face; but though they studied her, and lost no opportunity of talking to her upon the one topic which absorbed the general conversation, no one had the satisfaction of moving her even so much as to blush a little, or to lower the gaze of her eyes that looked them all indifferently through and through. Giovanni, however, did not appear, and people told her he would not leave his room for several days, so that she returned to her home without having accomplished anything in the matter. Her husband was very silent, but looked at her with an expression of uncertainty, as though hesitating to speak to her upon some subject that absorbed his interest. Neither of them referred to the strange interview of the previous night. They went home early, as has been already recorded, seeing it was only a great and formal reception to which the world went that night; and even the toughest old society jades were weary from the ball of the day before, which had not broken up until half-past six in the morning. On the next day, at about twelve o'clock, Corona was sitting in her boudoir writing a number of invitations which were to be distributed in the afternoon, when the door opened and her husband entered the room. "My dear," he cried in great excitement, "it is perfectly horrible! Have you heard?" "What?" asked Corona, laying down her pen. "Spicca has killed Casalverde--the man who seconded Del Ferice yesterday,--killed him on the spot--" Corona uttered an exclamation of horror. "And they say Del Ferice is dead, or just dying"--his cracked voice rose at every word; "and they say," he almost screamed, laying his withered hand roughly upon his wife's shoulder,--"they say that the duel was about you--you, do you understand?" "That is not true," said Corona, firmly. "Calm yourself--I beseech you to be calm. Tell me connectedly what has happened--who told you this story." "What right has any man to drag your name into a quarrel?" cried the old man, hoarsely. "Everybody is saying it--it is outrageous, abominable--" Corona quietly pushed her husband into a chair, and sat down beside him. "You are excited--you will harm yourself,--remember your health," she said, endeavouring to soothe him. "Tell me, in the first place, who told you that it was about me." "Valdarno told me; he told me that every one was saying it--that it was the talk of the town." "But why?" insisted Corona. "You allow yourself to be furious for the sake of a piece of gossip which has no foundation whatever. What is the story they tell?" "Some nonsense about Giovanni Saracinesca's going away last week. Del Ferice proposed to call him before you, and Giovanni was angry." "That is absurd," said Corona. "Don Giovanni was not the least annoyed. He was with me afterwards--" "Always Giovanni! Always Giovanni! Wherever you go, it is Giovanni!" cried the old man, in unreasonable petulance--unreasonable from his point of view, reasonable enough had he known the truth. But he struck unconsciously upon the key-note of all Corona's troubles, and she turned pale to the lips. "You say it is not true," he began again. "How do you know? How can you tell what may have been said? How can you guess it? Giovanni Saracinesca is about you in society more than any one. He has quarrelled about you, and two men have lost their lives in consequence. He is in love with you, I tell you. Can you not see it? You must be blind!" Corona leaned back in her chair, utterly overcome by the suddenness of the situation, unable to answer, her hands folded tightly together, her pale lips compressed. Angry at her silence, old Astrardente continued, his rage gradually getting the mastery of his sense, and his passion working itself up to the pitch of madness. "Blind--yes--positively blind!" he cried. "Do you think that I am blind too? Do you think I will overlook all this? Do you not see that your reputation is injured--that people associate your name with his--that no woman can be mentioned in the same breath with Giovanni Saracinesca and hope to maintain a fair fame? A fellow whose adventures are in everybody's mouth, whose doings are notorious; who has but to look at a woman to destroy her; who is a duellist, a libertine--" "That is not true," interrupted Corona, unable to listen calmly to the abuse thus heaped upon the man she so dearly loved. "You are mad--" "You defend him!" screamed Astrardente, leaning far forward in his chair and clenching his hands. "You dare to support him--you acknowledge that you care for him! Does he not pursue you everywhere, so that the town rings with it? You ought to long to be rid of him, to wish he were dead, rather than allow his name to be breathed with yours; and instead, you defend him to me--you say he is right, that you prefer his odious devotion to your good name, to my good name! Oh, it is not to be believed! If you loved him yourself you could not do worse!" "If half you say were true--" said Corona, in terrible distress. "True?" cried Astrardente, who would not brook interruption. "It is all true--and more also. It is true that he loves you, true that all the world says it, true--by all that is holy, from your face I would almost believe that you do love him! Why do you not deny it? Miserable woman!" he screamed, springing towards her and seizing her roughly by the arm, as she hid her face in her hands. "Miserable woman! you have betrayed me--" In the paroxysm of his rage the feeble old man became almost strong; his grip tightened upon his wife's wrist, and he dragged her violently from her seat. "Betrayed! And by you!" he cried again, shaking with passion. "You whom I have loved! This is your gratitude, your sanctified devotion, your cunning pretence at patience! All to hide your love for such a man as that! You hypocrite, you--" By a sudden effort Corona shook off his grasp, and drew herself up to her full height in magnificent anger. "You shall hear me," she said, in deep commanding tones. "I have deserved much, but I have not deserved this." "Ha!" he hissed, standing back from her a step, "you can speak now--I have touched you! You have found words. It was time!" Corona was as white as death, and her black eyes shone like coals of fire. Her words came slowly, every accent clear and strong with concentrated passion. "I have not betrayed you. I have spoken no word of love to any man alive, and you know that I speak the truth. If any one has said to me what should not be said, I have rebuked him to silence. You know, while you accuse me, that I have done my best to honour and love you; you know well that I would die by my own hand, your loyal and true wife, rather than let my lips utter one syllable of love for any other man." Corona possessed a supreme power over her husband. She was so true a woman that the truth blazed visibly from her clear eyes; and what she said was nothing but the truth. She had doubted it herself for one dreadful moment; she knew it now beyond all doubting. In a moment the old man's wrath broke and vanished before the strong assertion of her perfect innocence. He turned pale under his paint, and his limbs trembled. He made a step forward, and fell upon his knees before her, and tried to take her hands. "Oh, Corona, forgive me," he moaned--"forgive me! I so love you!" Suddenly his grasp relaxed from her hands, and with a groan he fell forward against her knees. "God knows I forgive you!" cried Corona, the tears starting to her eyes in sudden pity. She bent down to support him; but as she moved, he fell prostrate upon his face before her. With a cry of terror she kneeled beside him; with her strong arms she turned his body and raised his head upon her knees. His face was ghastly white, save where the tinges of paint made a hideous mockery of colour upon his livid skin. His parted lips were faintly purple, and his hollow eyes stared wide open at his wife's face, while the curled wig was thrust far back upon his bald and wrinkled forehead. Corona supported his weight upon one knee, and took his nerveless hand in hers. An agony of terror seized her. "Onofrio!" she cried--she rarely called him by his name--"Onofrio! speak to me! My husband!" She clasped him wildly in her arms. "O God, have mercy!" Onofrio d'Astrardente was dead. The poor old dandy, in his paint and his wig and his padding, had died at his wife's feet, protesting his love for her to the last. The long averted blow had fallen. For years he had guarded himself against sudden emotions, for he was warned of the disease at his heart, and knew his danger; but his anger had killed him. He might have lived another hour while his rage lasted; but the revulsion of feeling, the sudden repentance for the violence he had done his wife, had sent the blood back to its source too quickly, and with his last cry of love upon his lips he was dead. Corona had hardly ever seen death. She gently lowered the dead man's weight till he lay at full length upon the floor. Then she started to her feet, and drew back against the fireplace, and gazed at the body of her husband. For fully five minutes she stood motionless, scarcely daring to draw breath, dazed and stupefied with horror, trying to realise what had happened. There he lay, her only friend, the companion of her life since she had known life; the man who in that very room, but two nights since, had spoken such kind words to her that her tears had flowed--the tears that would not flow now; the man who but a moment since was railing at her in a paroxysm of rage--whose anger had melted at her first word of defence, who had fallen at her feet to ask forgiveness, and to declare once more, for the last time, that he loved her! Her friend, her companion, her husband--had he heard her answer, that she forgave him freely? He could not be dead--it was impossible. A moment ago he had been speaking to her. She went forward again and kneeled beside him. "Onofrio," she said very gently, "you are not dead--you heard me?" She gazed down for a moment at the motionless features. Womanly thoughtful, she moved his head a little, and straightened the wig upon his poor forehead. Then, in an instant, she realised all, and with a wild cry of despair fell prostrate upon his body in an agony of passionate weeping. How long she lay, she knew not. A knock at the door did not reach her ears, nor another and another, at short intervals; and then some one entered. It was the butler, who had come to announce the mid-day breakfast. He uttered an exclamation and started back, holding the handle of the door in his hand. Corona raised herself slowly to her knees, gazing down once more upon the dead man's face. Then she lifted her streaming eyes and saw the servant. "Your master is dead," she said, solemnly. The man grew pale and trembled, hesitated, and then turned and fled down the hall without, after the manner of Italian servants, who fear death, and even the sight of it, as they fear nothing else in the world. Corona rose to her feet and brushed the tears from her eyes. Then she turned and rang the bell. No one answered the summons for some time. The news had spread all over the house in an instant, and everything was disorganised. At last a woman came and stood timidly at the door. She was a lower servant, a simple strong creature from the mountains. Seeing the others terrified and paralysed, it had struck her common-sense that her mistress was alone. Corona understood. "Help me to carry him," she said, quietly; and the peasant and the noble lady stooped and lifted the dead duke, and bore him to his chamber without a word, and laid him tenderly upon his bed. "Send for the doctor," said Corona; "I will watch beside him." "But, Excellency, are you not afraid?" asked the woman. Corona's lip curled a little. "I am not afraid," she answered. "Send at once." When the woman was gone, she sat down by the bedside and waited. Her tears were dry now, but she could not think. She waited motionless for an hour. Then the old physician entered softly, while a crowd of servants stood without, peering timidly through the open door. Corona crossed the room and quietly shut it. The physician stood by the bedside. "It is simple enough, Signora Duchessa," he said, gently. "He is quite dead. It was only the day before yesterday that I warned him that the heart disease was worse. Can you tell me how it happened?" "Yes, exactly," answered Corona, in a low voice. She was calm enough now. "He came into my room two hours ago, and suddenly, in conversation, he became very angry. Then his anger subsided in a moment, and he fell at my feet." "It is just as I expected," answered the physician, quietly. "They always die in this way. I entreat you to be calm--to consider that all men are mortal--" "I am calm now," interrupted Corona. "I am alone. Will you see that what is necessary is done quickly? I will leave you for a moment. There are people outside." As she opened the door the gaping crowd of servants slunk out of her way. With bent head she passed between them, and went out into the great reception-rooms, and sat down alone in her grief. It was genuine, of its kind. The poor man's soul might rest in peace, for she felt the real sorrow at his death which he had longed for, which he had perhaps scarcely dared to hope she would feel. Had it not been real, in those first moments some thought would have crossed her mind--some faint, repressed satisfaction at being free at last--free to marry Giovanni Saracinesca. But it was not so. She did not feel free--she felt alone, intensely alone. She longed for the familiar sound of his querulous voice--for the expression of his thousand little wants and interests; she remembered tenderly his harmless little vanities. She thought of his wig, and she wept. So true it is that what is most ridiculous in life is most sorrowfully pathetic in death. There was not one of the small things about him she did not recall with a pang of regret. It was all over now. His vanity was dead with him; his tender love for her was dead too. It was the only love she had known, until that other love--that dark and stirring passion--had been roused in her. But that did not trouble her now. Perhaps the unconscious sense that henceforth she was free to love whom she pleased had suddenly made insignificant a feeling which had before borne in her mind the terrible name of crime. The struggle for loyalty was no more, but the memory of what she had borne for the dead man made him dearer than before. The follies of his life had been many, but many of them had been for her, and there was the true ring in his last words. "To be young for your sake, Corona--for your sake!" The phrase echoed again and again in her remembrance, and her silent tears flowed afresh. The follies of his life had been many, but to her he had been true. The very violence of his last moments, the tenderness of his passionate appeal for forgiveness, spoke for the honesty of his heart, even though his heart had never been honest before. She needed never to think again of pleasing him, of helping him, of foregoing for his sake any intimacy with the world which she might desire. But the thought brought no relief. He had become so much a part of her life that she could not conceive of living without him, and she would miss him at every turn. The new existence before her seemed dismal and empty beyond all expression. She wondered vaguely what she should do with her time. For one moment a strange longing came over her to return to the dear old convent, to lay aside for ever her coronet and state, and in a simple garb to do simple and good things to the honour of God. She roused herself at last, and went to her own rooms, dragging her steps slowly as though weighed down by a heavy burden. She entered the room where he had died, and a cold shudder passed over her. The afternoon sun was streaming through the window upon the writing table where yet lay the unfinished invitation she had been writing, and upon the plants and the rich ornaments, upon the heavy carpet--the very spot where he had breathed his last word of love and died at her feet. Upon that spot Corona d'Astrardente knelt down reverently and prayed,--prayed that she might be forgiven for all her shortcomings to the dear dead man; that she might have strength to bear her sorrow and to honour his memory; above all, that his soul might rest in peace and find forgiveness, and that he might know that she had been truly innocent--she prayed for that too, for she had a dreadful doubt. But surely he knew all now: how she had striven to be loyal, and how truly--yes, how truly--she mourned his death. At last she rose to her feet, and lingered still a moment, her hands clasped as they had been in her prayer. Glancing down, something glistened on the carpet. She stooped and picked it up. It was her husband's sealring, engraven with the ancient arms of the Astrardente. She looked long at the jewel, and then put it upon her finger. "God give me grace to honour his memory as he would have me honour it," she said, solemnly. Truly, she had deserved the love the poor old dandy had so deeply felt for her. CHAPTER XVII. That night Giovanni insisted on going out. His wounds no longer pained him, he said; there was no danger whatever, and he was tired of staying at home. But he would dine with his father as usual. He loved his father's company, and when the two omitted to quarrel over trifles they were very congenial. To tell the truth, the differences between them arose generally from the petulant quickness of the Prince; for in his son his own irascible character was joined with the melancholy gravity which Giovanni inherited from his mother, and in virtue of which, being taciturn, he was sometimes thought long-suffering. As usual, they sat opposite each other, and the ancient butler Pasquale served them. As the man deposited Giovanni's soup before him, he spoke. A certain liberty was always granted to Pasquale; Italian servants are members of the family, even in princely houses. Never assuming that confidence implies familiarity, they enjoy the one without ever approaching the latter. Nevertheless it was very rarely that Pasquale spoke to his masters when they were at table. "I beg your Excellencies' pardon--" he began, as he put down the soup-plate. "Well, Pasquale?" asked old Saracinesca, looking sharply at the old servant from under his heavy brows. "Have your Excellencies heard the news?" "What news? No," returned the Prince. "The Duca d'Astrardente--" "Well, what of him?" "Is dead." "Dead!" repeated Giovanni in a loud voice, that echoed to the vaulted roof of the dining-room. "It is not true," said old Saracinesca; "I saw him in the street this morning." "Nevertheless, your Excellency," replied Pasquale, "it is quite true. The gates of the palace were already draped with black before the Ave Maria this evening; and the porter, who is a nephew of mine, had _crêpe_ upon his hat and arm. He told me that the Duca fell down dead of a stroke in the Signora Duchessa's room at half-past twelve to-day." "Is that all you could learn?" asked the Prince. "Except that the Signora Duchessa was overcome with grief," returned the servant, gravely. "I should think so--her husband dead of an apoplexy! It is natural," said the Prince, looking at Giovanni. The latter was silent, and tried to eat as though, nothing had happened--inwardly endeavouring not to rejoice too madly at the terrible catastrophe. In his effort to control his features, the blood rushed to his forehead, and his hand trembled violently. His father saw it, but made no remark. "Poor Astrardente!" he said. "He was not so bad as people thought him." "No," replied Giovanni, with a great effort; "he was a very good man." "I should hardly say that," returned his father, with a grim smile of amusement. "I do not think that by the greatest stretch of indulgence he could be called good." "And why not?" asked the younger man, sharply snatching at any possible discussion in order to conceal his embarrassment. "Why not, indeed! Why, because he had a goodly share of original sin, to which he added others of his own originating but having an equal claim to originality." "I say I think he was a very good man," repeated Giovanni, maintaining his point with an air of conviction. "If that is your conception of goodness, it is no wonder that you have not attained to sanctity," said the old man, with a sneer. "It pleases you to be witty," answered his son. "Astrardente did not gamble; he had no vices of late. He was kind to his wife." "No vices--no. He did not steal like a fraudulent bank-clerk, nor try to do murder like Del Ferice. He did not deceive his wife, nor starve her to death. He had therefore no vices. He was a good man." "Let us leave poor Del Ferice alone," said Giovanni. "I suppose you will pity him now," replied the Prince, sarcastically. "You will talk differently if he dies and you have to leave the country at a moment's notice, like Spicca this morning." "I should be very sorry if Del Ferice died. I should never recover from it. I am not a professional duellist like Spicca. And yet Casalverde deserved his death. I can quite understand that Del Ferice might in the excitement of the moment have lunged at me after the halt was cried, but I cannot understand how Casalverde could be so infamous as not to cross his sword when he himself called. It looked very much like a preconcerted arrangement. Casalverde deserved to die, for the safety of society. I should think that Rome had had enough of duelling for a while." "Yes; but after all, Casalverde did not count for much. I am not sure I ever saw the fellow before in my life. And I suppose Del Ferice will recover. There was a story this morning that he was dead; but I went and inquired myself, and found that he was better. People are much shocked at this second duel. Well, it could not be helped. Poor old Astrardente! So we shall never see his wig again at every ball and theatre and supper-party! There was a man who enjoyed his life to the very end!" "I should not call it enjoyment to be built up every day by one's valet, like a card-house, merely to tumble to pieces again when the pins are taken out," said Giovanni. "You do not seem so enthusiastic in his defence as you were a few minutes ago," said the Prince, with a smile. Giovanni was so much disturbed at the surprising news that he hardly knew what he said. He made a desperate attempt to be sensible. "It appears to me that moral goodness and personal appearance are two things," he said, oracularly. The Prince burst into a loud laugh. "Most people would say that! Eat your dinner, Giovanni, and do not talk such arrant nonsense." "Why is it nonsense? Because you do not agree with me?" "Because you are too much excited to talk sensibly," said his father. "Do you think I cannot see it?" Giovanni was silent for a time. He was angry at his father for detecting the cause of his vagueness, but he supposed there was no help for it. At last Pasquale left the room. Old Saracinesca gave a sigh of relief. "And now, Giovannino," he said familiarly, "what have you got to say for yourself?" "I?" asked his son, in some surprise. "You! What are you going to do?" "I will stay at home," said Giovanni, shortly. "That is not the question. You are wise to stay at home, because you ought to get yourself healed of that scratch. Giovanni, the Astrardente is now a widow." "Seeing that her husband is dead--of course. There is vast ingenuity in your deduction," returned the younger man, eyeing his father suspiciously. "Do not be an idiot, Giovannino. I mean, that as she is a widow, I have no objection to your marrying her." "Good God, sir!" cried Giovanni, "what do you mean?" "What I say. She is the most beautiful woman in Rome. She is one of the best women I know. She will have a sufficient jointure. Marry her. You will never be happy with a silly little girl just out of a convent You are not that sort of man. The Astrardente is not three-and-twenty, but she has had five years of the world, and she has stood the test well. I shall be proud to call her my daughter." In his excitement Giovanni sprang from his seat, and rushing to his father's side, threw his arms round his neck and embraced him. He had never done such a thing in his life. Then he remained standing, and grew suddenly thoughtful. "It is heartless of us to talk in this way," he said. "The poor man is not buried yet." "My dear boy," said the old Prince, "Astrardente is dead. He hated me, and was beginning to hate you, I fancy. We were neither of us his friends, at any rate. We do not rejoice at his death; we merely regard it in the light of an event which modifies our immediate future. He is dead, and his wife is free. So long as he was alive, the fact of your loving her was exceedingly unfortunate: it was injuring you and doing a wrong to her. Now, on the contrary, the greatest good fortune that can happen to you both is that you should marry each other." "That is true," returned Giovanni. In the suddenness of the news, it had not struck him that his father would ever look favourably upon the match, although the immediate possibility of the marriage had burst upon him as a great light suddenly rising in a thick darkness. But his nature, as strong as his father's, was a little more delicate, a shade less rough; and even in the midst of his great joy, it struck him as heartless to be discussing the chances of marrying a woman whose husband was not yet buried. No such scruple disturbed the geniality of the old Prince. He was an honest and straightforward man--a man easily possessed by a single idea--and he was capable of profound affections. He had loved his Spanish wife strongly in his own fashion, and she had loved him, but there was no one left to him now but his son, whom he delighted in, and he regarded the rest of the world merely as pawns to be moved into position for the honour and glory of the Saracinesca. He thought no more of a man's life than of the end of a cigar, smoked out and fit to be thrown away. Astrardente had been nothing to him but an obstacle. It had not struck him that he could ever be removed; but since it had pleased Providence to take him out of the way, there was no earthly reason for mourning his death. All men must die--it was better that death should come to those who stood in the way of their fellow-creatures. "I am not at all sure that she will consent," said Giovanni, beginning to walk up and down the room. "Bah!" ejaculated his father. "You are the best match in Italy. Why should any woman refuse you?" "I am not so sure. She is not like other women. Let us not talk of it now. It will not be possible to do anything for a year, I suppose. A year is a long time. Meanwhile I will go to that poor man's funeral." "Of course. So will I." And they both went, and found themselves in a vast crowd of acquaintances. No one had believed that Astrardente could ever die, that the day would ever come when society should know his place no more; and with one consent everybody sent their carriages to the funeral, and went themselves a day or two later to the great requiem Mass in the parish church. There was nothing to be seen but the great black catafalque, with Corona's household of servants in deep mourning liveries kneeling behind it. Relations she had none, and the dead man was the last of his race-- she was utterly alone. "She need not have made it so terribly impressive," said Madame Mayer to Valdarno when the Mass was over. Madame Mayer paused beside the holy-water basin, and dipping one gloved finger, she presented it to Valdarno with an engaging smile. Both crossed themselves. "She need not have got it up so terribly impressively, after all," she repeated. "I daresay she will miss him at first," returned Valdarno, who was a kind-hearted fellow enough, and was very far from realising how much he had contributed to the sudden death of the old dandy. "She is a strange woman. I believe she had grown fond of him." "Oh, I know all that," said Donna Tullia, as they left the church. "Yes," answered her companion, with a significant smile, "I presume you do." Donna Tullia laughed harshly as she got into her carriage. "You are detestable, Valdarno--you always misunderstand me. Are you going to the ball to-night?" "Of course. May I have the pleasure of the cotillon?" "If you are very good--if you will go and ask the news of Del Ferice." "I sent this morning. He is quite out of danger, they believe." "Is he? Oh, I am very glad--I felt so very badly, you know. Ah, Don Giovanni, are you recovered?" she asked coldly, as Saracinesca approached the other side of the carriage. Valdarno retired to a distance, and pretended to be buttoning his greatcoat; he wanted to see what would happen. "Thank you, yes; I was not much hurt. This is the first time I have been out, and I am glad to find an opportunity of speaking to you. Let me say again how profoundly I regret my forgetfulness at the ball the other night--" Donna Tullia was a clever woman, and though she had been very angry at the time, she was in love with Giovanni. She therefore looked at him suddenly with a gentle smile, and just for one moment her fingers touched his hand as it rested upon the side of the carriage. "Do you think it was kind?" she asked, in a low voice. "It was abominable. I shall never forgive myself," answered Giovanni. "I will forgive you," answered Donna Tullia, softly. She really loved him. It was the best thing in her nature, but it was more than balanced by the jealousy she had conceived for the Duchessa d'Astrardente. "Was it on that account that you quarrelled with poor Del Ferice?" she asked, after a moment's pause. "I have feared it--" "Certainly not," answered Giovanni, quickly. "Pray set your mind at rest. Del Ferice or any other man would have been quite justified in calling me out for it--but it was not for that. It was not on account of you." It would have been hard to say whether Donna Tullia's face expressed more clearly her surprise or her disappointment at the intelligence. Perhaps she had both really believed herself the cause of the duel, and had been flattered at the thought that men would fight for her. "Oh, I am very glad--it is a great relief," she said, rather coldly. "Are you going to the ball to-night?" "No; I cannot dance. My right arm is bound up in a sling, as you see." "I am sorry you are not coming. Good-bye, then." "Good-bye; I am very grateful for your forgiveness." Giovanni bowed low, and Donna Tullia's brilliant equipage dashed away. Giovanni was well satisfied at having made his peace so easily, but he nevertheless apprehended danger from Donna Tullia. The next thing which interested Roman society was Astrardente's will, but no one was much surprised when the terms of it were known. As there were no relations, everything was left to his wife. The palace in Rome, the town and castle in the Sabines, the broad lands in the low hill-country towards Ceprano, and what surprised even the family lawyer, a goodly sum in solid English securities,--a splendid fortune in all, according to Roman ideas. Astrardente abhorred the name of money in his conversation--it had been one of his affectations; but he had an excellent understanding of business, and was exceedingly methodical in the management of his affairs. The inheritance, the lawer thought, might be estimated at three millions of scudi. "Is all this wealth mine, then?" asked Corona, when the solicitor had explained the situation. "All, Signora Duchessa. You are enormously rich." Enormously rich! And alone in the world. Corona asked herself if she was the same woman, the same Corona del Carmine who five years before had suffered in the old convent the humiliation of having no pocket-money, whose wedding-gown had been provided from the proceeds of a little sale of the last relics of her father's once splendid collection of old china and pictures. She had never thought of money since she had been married; her husband was generous, but methodical; she never bought anything without consulting him, and the bills all went through his hands. Now and then she had rather timidly asked for a small sum for some charity; she had lacked nothing that money could buy, but she never remembered to have had more than a hundred francs in her purse. Astrardente had once offered to give her an allowance, and had seemed pleased that she refused it. He liked to manage things himself, being a man of detail. And now she was enormously rich, and alone. It was a strange sensation. She felt it to be so new that she innocently said so to the lawyer. "What shall I do with it all?" "Signora Duchessa," returned the old man, "with regard to money the question is, not what to do with it, but how to do without it. You are very young, Signora Duchessa." "I shall be twenty-three in August," said Corona, simply. "Precisely. I would beg to be allowed to observe that by the terms of the will, and by the laws of this country, you are not the dowager-duchess, but you are in your own right and person the sole and only feudal mistress and holder of the title." "Am I?" "Certainly, with all the privileges thereto attached. It may be--I beg pardon for being so bold as to suggest it--it may be that in years to come, when time has soothed your sorrow, you may wish, you may consent, to renew the marriage tie." "I doubt it--but the thing is possible," said Corona, quietly. "In that case, and should you prefer to contract a marriage of inclination, you will have no difficulty in conferring your title upon your husband, with any reservations you please. Your children will then inherit from you, and become in their turn Dukes of Astrardente. This I conceive to have been the purpose and spirit of the late Duke's will. The estate, magnificent as it is, will not be too large for the foundation of a new race. If you desire any distinctive title, you can call yourself Duchessa del Carmine d'Astrardente--it would sound very well," remarked the lawyer, contemplating the beautiful woman before him. "It is of little importance what I call myself," said Corona. "At present I shall certainly make no change. It is very unlikely that I shall ever marry." "I trust, Signora Duchessa, that in any case you will always command my most humble services." With this protestation of fidelity the lawyer left the Palazzo Astrardente, and Corona remained in her boudoir in meditation of what it would be like to be the feudal mistress of a great title and estate. She was very sad, but she was growing used to her solitude. Her liberty was strange to her, but little by little she was beginning to enjoy it. At first she had missed the constant care of the poor man who for five years had been her companion; she had missed his presence and the burden of thinking for him at every turn of the day. But it was not for long. Her memory of him was kind and tender, and for months after his death the occasional sight of some object associated with him brought the tears to her eyes. She often wished he could walk into the room in his old way, and begin talking of the thousand and one bits of town gossip that interested him. But the first feeling of desolation soon passed, for he had not been more than a companion; she could analyse every memory she had of him to its source and reason. There was not in her that passionate unformulated yearning for him that comes upon a loving heart when its fellow is taken away, and which alone is a proof that love has been real and true. She soon grew accustomed to his absence. To marry again--every one would say she would be right--to marry and to be the mother of children, of brave sons and noble girls,--ah yes! that was a new thought, a wonderful thought, one of many that were wonderful. Then, again, her strong nature suddenly rose in a new sense of strength, and she paced the room slowly with a strange expression of sternness upon her beautiful features. "I am a power in the world," she said to herself, almost starting at the truth of the thought, and yet taking delight in it. "I am what men call rich and powerful; I have money, estates, castles, and palaces; I am young, I am strong. What shall I do with it all?" As she walked, she dreamed of raising some great institution of charity; she knew not for what precise object, but there was room enough for charity in Rome. The great Torlonia had built churches, and hospitals, and asylums. She would do likewise; she would make for herself an interest in doing good, a satisfaction in the exercise of her power to combat evil. It would be magnificent to feel that she had done it herself, alone and unaided; that she had built the walls from the foundation and the corner-stone to the eaves; that she had entered herself into the study of each detail, and herself peopled the great institution with such as needed most help in the world--with little children, perhaps. She would visit them every day, and herself provide for their wants and care for their sufferings. She would give the place her husband's name, and the good she would accomplish with his earthly portion might perhaps profit his soul. She would go to Padre Filippo and ask his advice. He would know what was best to be done, for he knew more of the misery in Rome than any one, and had a greater mind to relieve it. She had seen him since her husband's death, but she had not yet conceived this scheme. And Giovanni--she thought of him too; but the habit of putting him out of her heart was strong. She dimly fancied that in the far future a day might come when she would be justified in thinking of him if she so pleased; but for the present, her loyalty to her dead husband seemed more than ever a sacred duty. She would not permit herself to think of Giovanni, even though, from a general point of view, she might contemplate the possibility of a second marriage. She would go to Padre Filippo and talk over everything with him; he would advise her well. Then a wild longing seized her to leave Rome for a while, to breathe the air of the country, to get away from the scene of all her troubles, of all the terrible emotions that had swept over her life in the last three weeks, to be alone in the hills or by the sea. It seemed dreadful to be tied to her great house in the city, in her mourning, shut off suddenly from the world, and bound down by the chain of conventionality to a fixed method of existence. She would give anything to go away. Why not? She suddenly realised what was so hard to understand, that she was free to go where she pleased--if only, by accident, she could chance to meet Giovanni Saracinesca before she left. No--the thought was unworthy. She would leave town at once--surely she could have nothing to say to Giovanni--she would leave to-morrow morning. CHAPTER XVIII. Corona found it impossible to leave town so soon as she had wished. She had indeed sent out great cart-loads of furniture, servants, horses, and all the paraphernalia of an establishment in the country, and she believed herself ready to move at once, when she received an exceedingly courteous note from Cardinal Antonelli requesting the honour of being received by her the next day at twelve o'clock. It was impossible to refuse, and to her great annoyance she was obliged to postpone her departure another twenty-four hours. She guessed that the great man was the bearer of some message from the Holy Father himself; and in her present frame of mind, such words of comfort could not fail to be acceptable from one whom she reverenced and loved, as all who knew Pius IX. did sincerely revere and love him. She did not like the Cardinal, it is true; but she did not confound the ambassador with him who sent the embassy. The Cardinal was a most courteous and accomplished man of the world, and Corona could not easily have explained the aversion she felt for him. It is very likely that if she could have understood the part he was sustaining in the great European struggle of those days, she would have accorded him at least the admiration he deserved as a statesman. He had his faults, and they were faults little becoming a cardinal of the Holy Roman Church. But few are willing to consider that, though a cardinal, he was not a priest--that he was practically a layman who, by his own unaided genius, had attained to great power, and that those faults which have been charged against him with such virulence would have passed, nay, actually pass, unnoticed and uncensured in many a great statesman of those days and of these. He was a brave man, who fought a desperate and hopeless fight to his last breath, and who fought almost alone--a man most bitterly hated by many, at whose death many rejoiced loudly and few mourned; and to the shame of many be it said, that his most obstinate adversaries, those who unsparingly heaped abuse upon him during his lifetime, and most unseemingly exulted over his end, were the very men among whom he should have found the most willing supporters and the firmest friends. But in 1865 he was feared, and those who reckoned without him in the game of politics reckoned badly. Corona was a woman, and very young. She had not the knowledge or the experience to understand his value, and she had taken a personal dislike to him when she first appeared in society. He was too smooth for her; she thought him false. She preferred a rougher type. Her husband, on the other hand, had a boundless admiration for the cardinal-statesman; and perhaps the way in which Astrardente constantly tried to impress his wife with a sense of the great man's virtues, indirectly contributed to increase her aversion. Nevertheless, when he sent word that he desired to be received by her, she did not hesitate a moment, but expressed her willingness at once. Punctually as the gun of Sant Angelo roared out the news that the sun was on the meridian, Cardinal Antonelli entered Corona's house. She received him in the great drawing-room. There was an air of solemnity about the meeting. The room itself, divested of a thousand trifles which had already been sent into the country, looked desolate and formal; the heavy curtains admitted but little light; there was no fire on the hearth; Corona stood all in black--a very incarnation of mourning--as her visitor trod softly across the dark carpet towards her. The Cardinal's expressive face was softened by a look of gentle sympathy, as he came forward and took her hand in both of his, and gazed for a moment into her beautiful eyes. "I am an ambassador, Duchessa," he said softly. "I come to tell you how deeply our Holy Father sympathises in your great sorrow." Corona bent her head respectfully, and motioned to the Cardinal to be seated. "I beg that your Eminence will convey to his Holiness my most sincere gratitude for this expression of his paternal kindness to one so unhappy." "Indeed I will not fail to deliver your message, Duchessa," answered the Cardinal, seating himself by her side in one of the great arm-chairs which had been placed together in the middle of the room. "His Holiness has promised to remember you in his august prayers; and I also, for my own part, entreat you to believe that my poor sympathy is wholly with you in your distress." "Your Eminence is most kind," replied Corona, gravely. It seemed as though there were little more to be said in such a case. There was no friendship between the two, no bond of union or fellowship: it was simply a formal visit of condolence, entailed as a necessity by Corona's high position. The Pope had sent her a gift at her wedding; he sent her a message of sympathy at her husband's death. Half-a-dozen phrases would be exchanged, and the Cardinal would take his leave, accompanied by a file of the Duchessa's lackeys--and so it would all be over. But the Cardinal was a statesman, a diplomatist, and one of the best talkers in Europe; moreover, he never allowed an opportunity of pursuing his ends to pass unimproved. "Ah, Duchessa!" he said, folding his hands upon his knee and looking down, "there is but one Consoler in sorrow such as yours. It is vain for us mortals to talk of any such thing as alleviating real mental suffering. There are consolations--many of them--for some people, but they are not for you. To many the accidents of wealth, of youth, of beauty, seem to open the perspective of a brilliant future at the very moment when all the present appears to be shrouded in darkness; but if you will permit me, who know you so little, to say it frankly, I do not believe that any of these things which you possess in such plentiful abundance will lessen the measure of your grief. It is not right that they should, I suppose. It is not fitting that noble minds should even possess the faculty of forgetting real suffering in the unreal trifles of a great worldly possession, which so easily restore the weak to courage, and natter the vulgar into the forgetfulness of honourable sorrow. I am no moraliser, no pedantic philosopher. The stoic may have shrugged his heavy shoulders in sullen indifference to fate; the epicurean may have found such bodily ease in his excessive refinement of moderate enjoyment as to overlook the deepest afflictions in anticipating the animal pleasure of the next meal. I cannot conceive of such men as those philosophising diners; nor can I imagine by what arguments the wisest of mankind could induce a fellow-creature in distress to forget his sufferings. Sorrow is sorrow still to all finely organised natures. The capacity for feeling sorrow is one of the highest tests of nobility--a nobility of nature not found always in those of high blood and birth, but existing in the people, wherever the people are good." The Cardinal's voice became even more gentle as he spoke. He was himself of very humble origin, and spoke feelingly. Corona listened, though she only heard half of what he said; but his soft tone soothed her almost unconsciously. "There is little consolation for me--I am quite alone," she said. "You are not of those who find relief in worldly greatness," continued the Cardinal. "But I have seen women, young, rich, and beautiful, wear their mourning with wonderful composure. Youth is so much, wealth is so much more, beauty is such a power in the world--all three together are resistless. Many a young widow is not ashamed to think of marriage before her husband has been dead a month. Indeed they do not always make bad wives. A woman who has been married young and is early deprived of her husband, has great experience, great knowledge of the world. Many feel that they have no right to waste the goods given them in a life of solitary mourning. Wealth is given to be used, and perhaps many a rich young widow thinks she can use it more wisely in the company of a husband young as herself. It may be; I cannot tell. These are days when power of any sort should be used, and perhaps no one should even for a moment think of withdrawing from the scene where such great battles are being fought. But one may choose wisely a way of using power, or one may choose unwisely. There is much to be done." "How?" asked Corona, catching at his expression of an idea which pursued her. "Here am I, rich, alone, idle--above all, very unhappy. What can I do? I wish I knew, for I would try and do it." "Ah! I was not speaking of you, Duchessa," answered the statesman. "You are too noble a woman to be easily consoled. And yet, though you may not find relief from your great sorrow, there are many things within your reach which you might do, and feel that in your mourning you have done honour to your departed husband as well as to yourself. You have great estates--you can improve them, and especially you can improve the condition of your peasants, and strengthen their loyalty to you and to the State. You can find many a village on your lands where a school might be established, an asylum built, a road opened--anything which shall give employment to the poor, and which, when finished, shall benefit their condition. Especially about Astrardente they are very poor; I know the country well. In six months you might change many things; and then you might return to Rome next winter. If it pleases you, you can do anything with society. You can make your house a centre for a new party--the oldest of all parties it is, but it would now be thought new here. We have no centre. There is no _salon_ in the good old sense of the word--no house where all that is intelligent, all that is powerful, all that is influential, is irresistibly drawn. To make a centre of that kind would be a worthy object, it seems to me. You would surround yourself with men of genius; you would bring those together who cannot meet elsewhere; you would give a vigorous tone to a society which is fast falling to decay from inanition; you could become a power, a real power, not only in Rome, but in Europe; you could make your house famous as the point from which, in Rome, all that is good and great should radiate to the very ends of the earth. You could do all this in your young widowhood, and you would not dishonour the memory of him you loved so dearly." Corona looked earnestly at the Cardinal as he enlarged upon the possibilities of her life. What he said seemed true and good. It opened to her a larger field than she had dreamed of half an hour ago. Especially the plan of working for the improvement of her estates and people attracted her. She wanted to do something at once--something good, and something worth doing. "I believe you are right," she said. "I shall die if I am idle." "I know I am right," returned the Cardinal, in a tone of conviction. "Not that I propose all this as an unalterable plan for you. I would not have you think I mean to lay down any system, or even to advise you at all. I was merely thinking aloud. I am too happy if my thoughts please you--if anything I say can even for a moment relieve your mind from the pressure of this sudden grief. It is not consolation I offer you. I am not a priest, but a man of action; and it is action I propose to you, not as an anodyne for sorrow, but simply because it is right that in these days we should all strive with a good will. Your peasants are many of them in an evil case: you can save them and make them happy, even though you find no happiness for yourself. Our social world here is falling to pieces, going astray after strange gods, and especially after Madame Mayer and her _lares_ and _penates_, young Valdarno and Del Ferice: it is in your power to create a new life here, or at least to contribute greatly towards reestablishing the social balance. I say, do this thing, if you will, for it is a good thing to do. At all events, while you are building roads--and perhaps schools--at Astrardente, you can think over the course you will afterwards pursue. And now, my dear Duchessa, I have detained you far too long. Forgive me if I have wearied you, for I have great things at heart, and must sometimes speak of them though I speak feebly. Count on me always for any assistance you may require. Bear with me if I weary you, for I was a good friend of him we both mourn." "Thank you--you have given me good thoughts," said Corona, simply. So the courtly Cardinal rose and took his leave, and once more Corona was left alone. It was a strange thing that, while he disclaimed all power to comfort her, and denied that consolation was possible in her case, she had nevertheless listened to him with interest, and now found herself thinking seriously of what he had said. He seemed to have put her thoughts into shape, and to have given direction to that sense of power she had already begun to feel. For the first time in her life she felt something like sympathy for the Cardinal, and she lingered for some minutes alone in the great reception-room, wondering whether she could accomplish any of the things he had proposed to her. At all events, there was nothing now to hinder her departure; and she thought with something like pleasure of the rocky Sabines, the solitude of the mountains, the simple faces of the people about her place, and of the quiet life she intended to lead there during the next six months. But the Cardinal went on his way, rolling along through the narrow streets in his great coach. Leaning far back in his cushioned seat, he could just catch a glimpse of the people as he passed, and his quick eyes recognised many, both high and low. But he did not care to show himself, for he felt himself disliked, and deep in his finely organised nature there lay a sensitiveness which was wounded by the popular hatred. It hurt him to see the lowering glances of the poor man, and to return the forced bow of the rich man who feared him. He often longed to be able to explain many things to them both, to the rich and to the poor; and then, knowing how impossible it was that he should be understood by either, he sighed somewhat bitterly, and hid himself still deeper in his carriage. Few men in the midst of the world have stood so wholly alone as Cardinal Antonelli. To-day, however, he had an appointment which he anticipated with a sort of interest quite new to him. Anastase Gouache was coming to begin his portrait, and Anastase was an object of curiosity to him. It would have surprised the young Frenchman had he guessed how carefully he was watched, for he was a modest fellow, and did not think himself of very much importance. He allowed Donna Tullia and her friends to come to his studio whenever they pleased, and he listened to their shallow talk, and joined, occasionally in the conversation, letting them believe that he sympathised with them, simply because his own ideas were unsettled. It was a good thing for him to paint a portrait of Donna Tullia, for it made him the fashion, and he had small scruple in agreeing with her views so long as he had no fixed convictions of his own. She and her set regarded him as a harmless boy, and looked upon his little studio as a convenience, in payment whereof they pushed him into society, and spread abroad the rumour that he was the rising artist of the day. But the great Cardinal had seen him more than once, and had conceived a liking for his delicate intellectual face and unobtrusive manner. He had watched him and caused him to be watched, and his interest had increased, and finally he had taken a fancy to have a portrait of himself painted by the young fellow. This was the day appointed for the first sitting; and when the Cardinal reached his lodgings, high up in the Vatican pile, he found Anastase Gouache waiting for him in the small ante-chamber. The prime minister was not luxuriously lodged. Four rooms sufficed him--to wit, the said ante-chamber, bare and uncarpeted, and furnished with three painted wooden box benches; a comfortable study lined throughout with shelves and lockers, furnished with half-a-dozen large chairs and a single writing-table, whereon stood a crucifix and an inkstand; beyond this a bedroom and a small dining-room: that was all. The drawers of the lockers and bookcases contained a correspondence which would have astonished Europe, and a collection of gems and precious stones unrivalled in the world; but there was nothing in the shape of ornament visible to the eye, unless one were to class under that head a fairly good bust of Pius IX, which stood upon a plain marble pedestal in one corner. Gouache followed the great man into this study. He was surprised by the simplicity of the apartment; but he felt in sympathy with it, and with the Cardinal himself; and with the intuitive knowledge of a true artist, he foresaw that he was to paint a successful portrait. The Cardinal busied himself with some papers while the painter silently made his preparations. "If your Eminence is ready?" suggested Gouache. "At your service, my friend," replied the Cardinal, blandly. "How shall I sit? The portrait must be taken in full face, I think." "By all means. Here, I think--so; the light is very good at this hour, but a little later we shall have the sun. If your Eminence will look at me--a little more to the left--I think that will do. I will draw it in in charcoal and your Eminence can judge." "Precisely," returned the Cardinal. "You will paint the devil even blacker than he is." "The devil?" repeated Gouache, raising his eyebrows with a slight smile. "I was not aware--" "And yet you have been in Rome four years!" "I am very careful," returned Gouache. "I never by any chance hear any evil of those whom I am to paint." "You have very well-bred ears, Monsieur Gouache. I fear that if I had attended some of the meetings in your studio while Donna Tullia was having her portrait painted, I should have heard strange things. Have they all escaped you?" Gouache was silent for a moment. It did not surprise him to learn that the omniscient Cardinal was fully acquainted with the doings in his studio, but he looked curiously at the great man before he answered. The Cardinal's small gleaming eyes met his with the fearlessness of superiority. "I remember nothing but good of your Eminence," the painter replied at last, with a laugh; and applying himself to his work, he began to draw in the outline of the Cardinal's head. The words he had just heard, implying as they did a thorough knowledge of the minutest details of social life, would have terrified Madame Mayer, and would perhaps have driven Del Ferice out of the Papal States in fear of his life. Even the good-natured and foolish Valdarno might reasonably have been startled; but Anastase was made of different stuff. His grandfather had helped to storm the Bastille, his father had been among the men of 1848; there was revolutionary blood in his veins, and he distinguished between real and imaginary conspiracy with the unerring certainty of instinct, as the bloodhound knows the track of man from the slot of meaner game. He laughed at Donna Tullia, he distrusted Del Ferice, and to some extent he understood the Cardinal. And the statesman understood him, too, and was interested by him. "You may as well forget their chatter. It does me no harm, and it amuses them. It does not seem to surprise you that I should know all about it, however. You have good nerves, Monsieur Gouache." "Of course your Eminence can send me out of Rome to-morrow, if you please," answered Gouache, with perfect unconcern. "But the portrait will not be finished so soon." "No--that would be a pity. You shall stay. But the others--what would you advise me to do with them?" asked the Cardinal, his bright eyes twinkling with amusement. "If by the others your Eminence means my friends," replied Gouache, quietly, "I can assure you that none of them will ever cause you the slightest inconvenience." "I believe you are right--their ability to annoy me is considerably inferior to their inclination. Is it not so?" "If your Eminence will allow me," said Gouache, rising suddenly and laying down his charcoal pencil, "I will pin this curtain across the window. The sun is beginning to come in." He had no intention of answering any questions. If the Cardinal knew of the meetings in the Via San Basilio, that was not Gouache's fault; Gouache would certainly not give any further information. The statesman had expected as much, and was not at all surprised at the young man's silence. "One of those young gentlemen seems to have met his match, at all events," he remarked, presently. "I am sorry it should have come about in that way." "Your Eminence might easily have prevented the duel." "I knew nothing about it," answered the Cardinal, glancing keenly at Anastase. "Nor I," said the artist, simply. "You see my information is not always so good as people imagine, my friend." "It is a pity," remarked Gouache. "It would have been better had poor Del Ferice been killed outright. The matter would have terminated there." "Whereas--" "Whereas Del Ferice will naturally seek an occasion for revenge." "You speak as though you were a friend of Don Giovanni's," said the Cardinal. "No; I have a very slight acquaintance with him. I admire him, he has such a fine head. I should be sorry if anything happened to him." "Do you think Del Ferice is capable of murdering him?" "Oh no! He might annoy him a great deal." "I think not," answered the Cardinal, thoughtfully. "Del Ferice was afraid that Don Giovanni would marry Donna Tullia and spoil his own projects. But Giovanni will not think of that again." "No; I suppose Don Giovanni will marry the Duchessa d'Astrardente." "Of course," replied the Cardinal. For some minutes there was silence. Gouache, while busy with his pencil, was wondering at the interest the great man took in such details of the Roman social life. The Cardinal was thinking of Corona, whom he had seen but half an hour ago, and was revolving in his mind the advantages that might be got by allying her to Giovanni. He had in view for her a certain Serene Highness whom he wished to conciliate, and whose circumstances were not so splendid as to make Corona's fortune seem insignificant to him. But on the other hand, the Cardinal had no Serene Highness ready for Giovanni, and feared lest he should after all marry Donna Tullia, and get into the opposite camp. "You are from Paris, Monsieur Gouache, I believe," said the Cardinal at last. "Parisian of the Parisians, your Eminence." "How can you bear to live in exile so long? You have not been to your home these four years, I think." "I would rather live in Rome for the present. I will go to Paris some day. It will always be a pleasant recollection to have seen Rome in these days. My friends write me that Paris is gay, but not pleasant." "You think there will soon be nothing of this time left but the recollection of it?" suggested the Cardinal. "I do not know what to think. The times seem unsettled, and so are my ideas. I was told that your Eminence would help me to decide what to believe." Gouache smiled pleasantly, and looked up. "And who told you that?" "Don Giovanni Saracinesca." "But I must have some clue to what your ideas are," said the Cardinal. "When did Don Giovanni say that?" "At Prince Frangipani's. He had been talking with your Eminence--perhaps he had come to some conclusion in consequence," suggested Gouache. "Perhaps so," answered the great man, with a look of considerable satisfaction. "At all events I am flattered by the opinion he gave you of me. Perhaps I may help you to decide. What are your opinions? or rather, what would you like your opinions to be?" "I am an ardent republican," said Gouache, boldly. It needed no ordinary courage to make such a statement to the incarnate chief of reactionary politics in those days--within the walls of the Vatican, not a hundred yards from the private apartments of the Holy Father. But Cardinal Antonelli smiled blandly, and seemed not in the least surprised nor offended. "Republicanism is an exceedingly vague term, Monsieur Gouache," he said. "But with what other opinions do you wish to reconcile your republicanism?" "With those held by the Church. I am a good Catholic, and I desire to remain one--indeed I cannot help remaining one." "Christianity is not vague, at all events," answered the Cardinal, who, to tell the truth, was somewhat astonished at the artist's juxtaposition of two such principles. "In the first place, allow me to observe, my friend, that Christianity is the purest form of a republic which the world has ever seen, and that it therefore only depends upon your good sense to reconcile in your own mind two ideas which from the first have been indissolubly bound together." It was Gouache's turn to be startled at the Cardinal's confidence. "I am afraid I must ask your Eminence for some further explanation," he said. "I had no idea that Christianity and republicanism were the same thing." "Republicanism," returned the statesman, "is a vague term, invented in an abortive attempt to define by one word the mass of inextricable disorder arising in our times from the fusion of socialistic ideas with ideas purely republican. If you mean to speak of this kind of thing, you must define precisely your position in regard to socialism, and in regard to the pure theory of a commonwealth. If you mean to speak of a real republic in any known form, such as the ancient Roman, the Dutch, or the American, I understand you without further explanation." "I certainly mean to speak of the pure republic. I believe that under a pure republic the partition of wealth would take care of itself." "Very good, my friend. Now, with regard to the early Christians, should you say that their communities were monarchic, or aristocratic, or oligarchic?" "None of those three, I should think," said Gouache. "There are only two systems left, then--democracy and hierarchy. You will probably say that the government of the early Christians was of the latter kind--that they were governed by priests, in fact. But on the other hand, there is no doubt that both those who governed, and those who were governed by them, had all things in common, regarded no man as naturally superior to another, and preached a fraternity and equality at least as sincere as those inculcated by the first French Republic. I do not see how you can avoid calling such community a republic, seeing that there was an equal partition of wealth; and defining it as a democratic one, seeing that they all called each other brethren." "But the hierarchy--what became of it?" inquired Gouache. "The hierarchy existed within the democracy, by common consent and for the public good, and formed a second democracy of smaller extent but greater power. Any man might become a priest, any priest might become a bishop, any bishop might become pope, as surely as any born citizen of Rome could become consul, or any native of New York may be elected President of the United States. Now in theory this was beautiful, and in practice the democratic spirit of the hierarchy, the smaller republic, has survived in undiminished vigour to the present day. In the original Christian theory the whole world should now be one vast republic, in which all Christians should call each other brothers, and support each other in worldly as well as spiritual matters. Within this should exist the smaller republic of the hierarchy, by common consent,--an elective body, recruiting its numbers from the larger, as it does now; choosing its head, the sovereign Pontiff, as it does now, to be the head of both Church and State; eminently fitted for that position, for the very simple reason that in a community organised and maintained upon such principles, in which, by virtue of the real and universal love of religion, the best men would find their way into the Church, and would ultimately find their way to the papal throne." "Your Eminence states the case very convincingly," answered Gouache. "But why has the larger republic, which was to contain the smaller one, ceased to exist? or rather, why did it never come into existence?" "Because man has not yet fulfilled his part in the great contract. The matter lies in a nutshell. The men who enter the Church are sufficiently intelligent and well educated to appreciate the advantages of Christian democracy, fellowship, solidarity, and brotherly love. The republic of the Church has therefore survived, and will survive for ever. The men who form the majority, on the other hand, have never had either the intelligence or the education to understand that democracy is the ultimate form of government: instead of forming themselves into a federation, they have divided themselves into hostile factions, calling themselves nations, and seeking every occasion for destroying and plundering each other, frequently even turning against the Church herself. The Church has committed faults in history, without doubt, but on the whole she has nobly fulfilled her contract, and reaps the fruits of fidelity in the vigour and unity she displays after eighteen centuries. Man, on the other hand, has failed to do his duty, and all races of men are consequently suffering for their misdeeds; the nations are divided against each other, and every nation is a house divided against itself, which sooner or later shall fall." "But," objected Gouache, "allowing, as one easily may, that all this is true, your Eminence is always called reactionary in politics. Does that accord with these views?" Gouache believed the question unanswerable, but as he put it he worked calmly on with his pencil, labouring hard to catch something of the Cardinal's striking expression in the rough drawing he was making. "Nothing is easier, my friend," replied the statesman. "The republic of the Church is driven to bay. We are on a war footing. For the sake of strength we are obliged to hold together so firmly that for the time we can only think of maintaining old traditions without dreaming of progress or spending time in experiments. When we have weathered the storm we shall have leisure for improving much that needs improvement. Do not think that if I am alive twenty years hence I shall advise what I advise now. We are fighting now, and we have no time to think of the arts of peace. We shall have peace some day. We shall lose an ornament or two from our garments in the struggle, but our body will not be injured, and in time of peace our ornaments will be restored to us fourfold. But now there is war and rumour of war. There is a vast difference between the ideal republic which I was speaking of, and the real anarchy and confusion which would be brought about by what is called republicanism." "In other words, if the attack upon the Church were suddenly abandoned, your Eminence would immediately abandon your reactionary policy," said Gouache, "and adopt progressive views?" "Immediately," replied the Cardinal. "I see," said Gouache. "A little more towards me--just so that I can catch that eye. Thank you--that will do." CHAPTER XIX. When Del Ferice was thought sufficiently recovered of his wound to hear some of the news of the day, which was about three weeks after the duel, he learned that Astrardente was dead, that the Duchessa had inherited all his fortune, and that she was on the point of leaving Rome. It would be hard to say how the information of her approaching departure had got abroad; it might be merely a clever guess of the gossips, or it might be the report gleaned from her maid by all the other maids in town. Be that as it may, when Del Ferice heard it he ground his teeth as he lay upon his bed, and swore that if it were possible to prevent the Duchessa d'Astrardente from leaving town he would do it. In his judgment it would be a dangerous thing to let Corona and Giovanni part, and to allow Donna Tullia free play in her matrimonial designs. Of course Giovanni would never marry Madame Mayer, especially as he was now at liberty to marry the Astrardente; but Madame Mayer herself might become fatally interested in him, as she already seemed inclined to be, and this would be bad for Del Ferice's own prospects. It would not do to squander any of the advantages gained by the death of the old Duca. Giovanni must be hastened into a marriage with Corona; it would be time enough to think of revenge upon him afterwards for the ghastly wound that took so long to heal. It was a pity that Del Ferice and Donna Tullia were not allies, for if Madame Mayer hated Corona d'Astrardente, Ugo del Ferice detested Giovanni with equal virulency, not only because he had been so terribly worsted by him in the duel his own vile conduct had made inevitable, but because Donna Tullia loved him and was doing her very best to marry him. Evidently the best thing to be done was to produce a misunderstanding between the two; but it would be dangerous to play any tricks with Giovanni, for he held Del Ferice in his power by his knowledge of that disagreeable scene behind the plants in the conservatory. Saracinesca was a great man in society and celebrated for his honesty; people would believe him rather than Del Ferice, if the story got abroad. This would not do. The next best thing was to endeavour to draw Giovanni and Corona together as quickly as possible, to precipitate their engagement, and thus to clear the field of a dangerous rival. Del Ferice was a very obstinate and a very intelligent man. He meant more than ever to marry Donna Tullia himself, and he would not be hindered in the accomplishment of his object by an insignificant scruple. He was not allowed to speak much, lest the effort should retard the healing of his throat; but in the long days and nights, when he lay silent in his quiet lodging, he had ample time to revolve many schemes in his brain. At last he no longer needed the care of the Sister of Mercy; his servant took charge of him, and the surgeon came twice a-day to dress his wound. He lay in bed one morning watching Temistocle, who moved noiselessly about the room. "Temistocle," he said, "you are a youth of intelligence: you must use the gifts nature has given you." Temistocle was at that time not more than five-and-twenty years of age. He had a muddy complexion, a sharp hooked nose, and a cast in one eye that gave him a singularly unpleasant expression. As his master addressed him, he stood still and listened with a sort of distorted smile in acknowledgment of the compliment made him. "Temistocle, you must find out when the Duchessa d'Astrardente means to leave Rome, and where she is going. You know somebody in the house?" "Yes, sir--the under-cook; he stood godfather with me for the baby of a cousin of mine--the young man who drives Prince Valdarno's private brougham: a clever fellow, too." "And this under-cook," said Del Ferice, who was not above entering into details with his servant--"is he a discreet character?" "Oh, for that, you may trust him. Only sometimes--" Temistocle grinned, and made a gesture which signified drinking. "And when he is drunk?" asked Del Ferice. "When he is drunk he tells everything; but he never remembers anything he has been told, or has said. When he is drunk he is a dictionary; but the first draught of water washes out his memory like a slate." "Well--give me my purse; it is under my pillow. Go. Here is a _scudo_, Temistocle. You can make him very drunk for that." Temistocle hesitated, and looked at the money. "Another couple of _pauls_ would make it safer," he remarked. "Well, there they are; but you must make him very drunk indeed. You must find out all he knows, and you must keep sober yourself." "Leave that to me. I will make of him a sponge; he shall be squeezed dry, and sopped again and squeezed again. I will be his confessor." "If you find out what I want, I will give you--" Del Ferice hesitated; he did not mean to give too much. "The grey trousers?" asked Temistocle, with an avaricious light in the eye which did not wander. "Yes," answered his master, rather regretfully; "I suppose you must have the grey trousers at last." "For those grey trousers I will upset heaven and earth," returned Temistocle in great glee. Nothing more was said on that day, but early on the following morning the man entered and opened the shutters, and removed the little oil-light that had burned all night. He kept one eye upon his master, who presently turned slowly and looked inquiringly at him. "The Duchessa goes to Astrardente in the Sabines on the day after to-morrow," said Temistocle. "It is quite sure that she goes, because she has already sent out two pairs of horses, and several boxes of effects, besides the second housemaid and the butler and two grooms." "Ah! that is very good. Temistocle, I think I will get up this morning and sit in the next room." "And the grey trousers?" "Take them, and wear them in honour of the most generous master living," said Del Ferice, impressively. "It is not every master who gives his servant a pair of grey trousers. Remember that." "Heaven bless you, Signor Conte!" exclaimed Temistocle, devoutly. Del Ferice lost no time. He was terribly weak still, and his wound was not entirely healed yet; but he set himself resolutely to his writing-table, and did not rise until he had written two letters. The first was carefully written in a large round hand, such as is used by copyists in Italy, resembling the Gothic. It was impossible to connect the laboriously formed and conventional letters with any particular person. It was very short, as follows:-- "It may interest you to know that the Duchessa d'Astrardente is going to her castle in the Sabines on the day after to-morrow." This laconic epistle Del Ferice carefully directed to Don Giovanni Saracinesca at his palace, and fastened a stamp upon it; but he concealed the address from Temistocle. The second letter was longer, and written in his own small and ornate handwriting. It was to Donna Tullia Mayer. It ran thus:-- "You would forgive my importuning you with a letter, most charming Donna Tullia, if you could conceive of my desolation and loneliness. For more than three weeks I have been entirely deprived of the pleasure, the exquisite delight, of conversing with her for whom I have suffered. I still suffer so much. Ah! if my paper were a cloth of gold, and my pen in moving traced characters of diamond and pearl, yet any words which speak of you would be ineffectually honoured by such transcription! In the miserable days and nights I have passed between life and death, it is your image which has consoled me, the echo of your delicate voice which has soothed my pain, the remembrance of the last hours I spent with you which has gilded the feverish dreams of my sickness. You are the guardian angel of a most unhappy man, Donna Tullia. Do you know it? But for you I would have wooed death as a comforter. As it is, I have struggled desperately to keep my grasp upon life, in the hope of once more seeing your smile and hearing your happy laugh; perhaps--I dare not expect it--I may receive from you some slight word of sympathy, some little half-sighed hint that you do not altogether regret having been in these long weeks the unconscious comforter of my sorrowing spirit and tormented body. You would hardly know me, could you see me; but saving for your sweet spiritual presence, which has rescued me from the jaws of death, you would never have seen me again. Is it presumption in me to write thus? Have you ever given me a right to speak in these words? I do not know. I do not care. Man has a right to be grateful. It is the first and most divine right I possess, to feel and to express my gratitude. For out of the store of your kindness shown me when I was in the world, strong and happy in the privilege of your society, I have drawn healing medicine in my sickness, as tormented souls in purgatory get refreshment from the prayers of good and kind people who remember them on earth. So, therefore, if I have said too much, forgive me, forgive the heartfelt gratitude which prompts me; and believe still in the respectful and undying devotion of the humblest of your servants, UGO DEL FERICE." Del Ferice read over what he had written with considerable satisfaction, and having addressed his letter to Donna Tullia, he lost no time in despatching Temistocle with it, instructing him to ask if there would be an answer. As soon as the man was out of the house, Ugo rang for his landlady, and sent for the porter's little boy, to whom he delivered the letter to Don Giovanni, to be dropped into the nearest post-box. Then he lay down, exhausted with his morning's work. In the course of two hours Temistocle returned from Donna Tullia's house with a little scented note--too much scented, and the paper just a shade too small. She took no notice of what he had said in his carefully penned epistle; but merely told him she was sincerely glad that he was better, and asked him to call as soon as he could. Ugo was not disappointed; he had expected no compromising expression of interest in response to his own effusions; and he was well pleased with the invitation, for it showed that what he had written had produced the desired result. Don Giovanni Saracinesca received the anonymous note late in the evening. He had, of course, together with his father, deposited cards of condolence at the Palazzo Astrardente, and he had been alone to inquire if the Duchessa would receive him. The porter had answered that, for the present, there were standing orders to admit no one; and as Giovanni could boast of no especial intimacy, and had no valid excuse to give, he was obliged to be satisfied. He had patiently waited in the Villa Borghese and by the band-stand on the Pincio, taking it for granted that sooner or later Corona's carriage would appear; but when at last he had seen her brougham, she had driven rapidly past him, thickly veiled, and he did not think she had even noticed him. He would have written to her, but he was still unable to hold a pen; and he reflected that, after all, it would have been a hideous farce for him to offer condolences and sympathy, however much he might desire to hide from himself his secret satisfaction at her husband's death. Too proud to think of obtaining information through such base channels as Del Ferice was willing to use, he was wholly ignorant of Corona's intentions; and it was a brilliant proof of Ugo's astuteness that he had rightly judged Giovanni's position with regard to her, and justly estimated the value of the news conveyed by his anonymous note. Saracinesca read the scrap of writing, and tossed it angrily into the fire. He hated underhand dealings, and scorned himself for the interest the note excited in him, wondering who could find advantage in informing him of the Duchessa's movements. But the note took effect, nevertheless, although he was ashamed of it, and all night he pondered upon what it told him. The next day, at three o'clock, he went out alone, and walked rapidly towards the Palazzo Astrardente. He was unable to bear the suspense any longer; the thought that Corona was going away, apparently to shut herself up in the solitude of the ancient fortress, for any unknown number of months, and that he might not see her until the autumn, was intolerable. He knew that by the mere use of his name he could at least make sure that she should know he was at her door, and he determined to make the attempt. He waited a long time, pacing slowly the broad flagstones beneath the arch of the palace, while the porter himself went up with his card and message. The fellow had hesitated, but Don Giovanni Saracinesca was not a man to be refused by a servant. At last the porter returned, and, bowing to the ground, said that the Signora Duchessa would receive him. In five minutes he was waiting alone in the great drawing-room. It had cost Corona a struggle to allow him to be admitted. She hesitated long, for it seemed like a positive wrong to her husband's memory, but the woman in her yielded at last; she was going away on the following morning, and she could not refuse to see him for once. She hesitated again as she laid her hand upon the latch of the door, knowing that he was in the room beyond; then at last she entered. Her face was very pale and very grave. Her simple gown of close-fitting black set off her height and figure, and flowed softly in harmony with her stately movements as she advanced towards Giovanni, who stood almost awestruck in the middle of the room. He could not realise that this dark sad princess was the same woman to whom less than a month ago he had spoken such passionate words, whom he had madly tried to take into his arms. Proud as he was, it seemed presumptuous in him to think of love in connection with so royal a woman; and yet he knew that he loved her better and more truly than he had done a month before. She held out her hand to him, and he raised it to his lips. Then they both sat down in silence. "I had despaired of ever seeing you again," said Giovanni at last, speaking in a subdued voice. "I had wished for some opportunity of telling you how sincerely I sympathise with you in your great loss." It was a very formal speech, such as men make in such situations. It might have been better, but he was not eloquent; even his rough old father had a better command of language on ordinary occasions, though Giovanni could speak well enough when he was roused. But he felt constrained in the presence of the woman he adored. Corona herself hardly knew how to answer. "You are very kind," she said, simply. "I wish it were possible to be of any service to you," he answered. "I need not tell you that both my father and myself would hold it an honour to assist you in any way." He mentioned his father from a feeling of delicacy; he did not wish to put himself forward. "You are very kind," repeated Corona, gravely. "I have not had any annoyance. I have an excellent man of business." There was a moment's pause. Then she seemed to understand that he was embarrassed, and spoke again. "I am glad to see that you are recovered," she said. "It was nothing," answered Giovanni, with a glance at his right arm, which was still confined in a bandage of black silk, but was no longer in a sling. "It was very wrong of you," returned Corona, looking seriously into his eyes. "I do not know why you fought, but it was wrong; it is a great sin." Giovanni smiled a little. "We all have to sin sometimes," he said. "Would you have me stand quietly and see an abominable piece of baseness, and not lift a hand to punish the offender?" "People who do base things always come to a bad end," answered the Duchessa. "Perhaps. But we poor sinners are impatient to see justice done at once. I am sorry to have done anything you consider wrong," he added, with a shade of bitterness. "Will you permit me to change the subject? Are you thinking of remaining in Rome, or do you mean to go away?" "I am going up to Astrardente to-morrow," answered Corona, readily. "I want to be alone and in the country." Giovanni showed no surprise: his anonymous information had been accurate; Del Ferice had not parted with the grey trousers in vain. "I suppose you are right," he said. "But at this time of year I should think the mountains would be very cold." "The castle is comfortable. It has been recently fitted up, and there are many warm rooms in it. I am fond of the old place, and I need to be alone for a long time." Giovanni thought the conversation was becoming oppressive. He thought of what had passed between them at their last meeting in the conservatory of the Palazzo Frangipani. "I shall myself pass the summer in Saracinesca," he said, suddenly. "You know it is not very far. May I hope that I may sometimes be permitted to see you?" Corona had certainly had no thought of seeing Giovanni when she had determined to go to Astrardente; she had not been there often, and had not realised that it was within reach of the Saracinesca estate. She started slightly. "Is it so near?" she asked. "Half a day's ride over the hills," replied Giovanni. "I did not know. Of course, if you come, you will not be denied hospitality." "But you would rather not see me?" asked Saracinesca, in a tone of disappointment. He had hoped for something more encouraging. Corona answered courageously. "I would rather not see you. Do not think me unkind," she added, her voice softening a little. "Why need there be any explanations? Do not try to see me. I wish you well; I wish you more--all happiness--but do not try to see me." Giovanni's face grew grave and pale. He was disappointed, even humiliated; but something told him that it was not coldness which prompted her request. "Your commands are my laws," he answered. "I would rather that instead of regarding what I ask you as a command, you should feel that it ought to be the natural prompting of your own heart," replied Corona, somewhat coldly. "Forgive me if my heart dictates what my obedience to you must effectually forbid," said Giovanni. "I beseech you to be satisfied that what you ask I will perform--blindly." "Not blindly--you know all my reasons." "There is that between you and me which annihilates reason," answered Giovanni, his voice trembling a little. "There is that in my position which should command your respect," said Corona. She feared he was going too far, and yet this time she knew she had not said too much, and that in bidding him avoid her, she was only doing what was strictly necessary for her peace. "I am a widow," she continued, very gravely; "I am a woman, and I am alone. My only protection lies in the courtesy I have a right to expect from men like you. You have expressed your sympathy; show it then by cheerfully fulfilling my request. I do not speak in riddles, but very plainly. You recall to me a moment of great pain, and your presence, the mere fact of my receiving you, seems a disloyalty to the memory of my husband. I have given you no reason to believe that I ever took a greater interest in you than such as I might take in a friend. I hourly pray that this--this too great interest you show in me, may pass quickly, and leave you what you were before. You see I do not speak darkly, and I do not mean to speak unkindly. Do not answer me, I beseech you, but take this as my last word. Forget me if you can--" "I cannot," said Giovanni, deeply moved. "Try. If you cannot, God help you! but I am sure that if you try faithfully, you will succeed. And now you must go," she said, in gentler tones. "You should not have come--I should not have let you see me. But it is best so. I am grateful for the sympathy you have expressed. I do not doubt that you will do as I have asked you, and as you have promised. Good-bye." Corona rose to her feet, her hands folded before her. Giovanni had no choice. She let her eyes rest upon him, not unkindly, but she did not extend her hand. He stood one moment in hesitation, then bowed and left the room without a word. Corona stood still, and her eyes followed his retreating figure until at the door he turned once more and bent his head and then was gone. Then she fell back into her chair and gazed listlessly at the wall opposite. "It is done," she said at last. "I hope it is well done and wisely." Indeed it had been a hard thing to say; but it was better to say it at once than to regret an ill-timed indulgence when it should be too late. And yet it had cost her less to send him away definitely than it had cost her to resist his passionate appeal a month ago. She seemed to have gained strength from her sorrows. So he was gone! She gave a sigh of relief, which was instantly followed by a sharp throb of pain, so sudden that she hardly understood it. Her preparations were all made. She had at the last moment realised that it was not fitting for her, at her age, to travel alone, nor to live wholly alone in her widowhood. She had revolved the matter in her mind, and had decided that there was no woman of her acquaintance whom she could ask even for a short time to stay with her. She had no friends, no relations, none to turn to in such a need. It was not that she cared for company in her solitude; it was merely a question of propriety. To overcome the difficulty, she obtained permission to take with her one of the sisters of a charitable order of nuns, a lady in middle life, but broken down and in ill health from her untiring labours. The thing was easily managed; and the next morning, on leaving the palace, she stopped at the gate of the community and found Sister Gabrielle waiting with her modest box. The nun entered the huge travelling carriage, and the two ladies set out for Astrardente. It was the first day of Carnival, and a memorably sad one for Giovanni Saracinesca. He would have been capable of leaving Rome at once, but that he had promised Corona not to attempt to see her. He would have gone to Saracinesca for the mere sake of being nearer to her, had he not reflected that he would be encouraging all manner of gossip by so doing. But he determined that so soon as Lent began, he would declare his intention of leaving the city for a year. No one ever went to Saracinesca, and by making a circuit he could reach the ancestral castle without creating suspicion. He might even go to Paris for a few days, and have it supposed that he was wandering about Europe, for he could trust his own servants implicitly; they were not of the type who would drink wine at a tavern with Temistocle or any of his class. The old Prince came into his son's room in the morning and found him disconsolately looking over his guns, for the sake of an occupation. "Well, Giovanni," he said, "you have time to reflect upon your future conduct. What! are you going upon a shooting expedition?" "I wish I could. I wish I could find anything to do," answered Giovanni, laying down the breech-loader and looking out of the window. "The world is turned inside out like a beggar's pocket, and there is nothing in it." "So the Astrardente is gone," remarked the Prince. "Yes; gone to live within twenty miles of Saracinesca," replied Giovanni, with an angry intonation. "Do not go there yet," said his father. "Leave her alone a while. Women become frantic in solitude." "Do you think I am an idiot?" exclaimed Giovanni. "Of course I shall stay where I am till Carnival is over." He was not in a good humour. "Why are you so petulant?" retorted the old man. "I merely gave you my advice." "Well, I am going to follow it. It is good. When Carnival is over I will go away, and perhaps get to Saracinesca by a roundabout way, so that no one will know where I am. Will you not come too?" "I daresay," answered the Prince, who was always pleased when his son expressed a desire for his company. "I wish we lived in the good old times." "Why?" "We would make small scruple of besieging Astrardente and carrying off the Duchessa for you, my boy," said the Prince, grimly. Giovanni laughed. Perhaps the same idea had crossed his mind. He was not quite sure whether it was respectful to Corona to think of carrying her off in the way his father suggested; but there was a curious flavour of possibility in the suggestion, coming as it did from a man whose grandfather might have done such a thing, and whose great-grandfather was said to have done it. So strong are the instincts of barbaric domination in races where the traditions of violence exist in an unbroken chain, that both father and son smiled at the idea as if it were quite natural, although Giovanni had only the previous day promised that he would not even attempt to see Corona d'Astrardente without her permission. He did not tell his father of his promise, however, for his more delicate instinct made him sure that though he had acted rightly, his father would laugh at his scruples, and tell him that women liked to be wooed roughly. Meanwhile Giovanni felt that Rome had become for him a vast solitude, and the smile soon faded from his face at the thought that he must go out into the world, and for Corona's sake act as though nothing had happened. CHAPTER XX. Poor Madame Mayer was in great anxiety of mind. She had not a great amount of pride, but she made up for it by a plentiful endowment of vanity, in which she suffered acutely. She was a good-natured woman enough, and by nature she was not vindictive; but she could not help being jealous, for she was in love. She felt how Giovanni every day evidently cared less and less for her society, and how, on the other hand, Del Ferice was quietly assuring his position, so that people already began to whisper that he had a chance of becoming her husband. She did not dislike Del Ferice; he was a convenient man of the world, whom she always found ready to help her when she needed help. But by dint of making use of him, she was beginning to feel in some way bound to consider him as an element in her life, and she did not like the position. The letter he had written her was of the kind a man might write to the woman he loved; it bordered upon the familiar, even while the writer expressed himself in terms of exaggerated respect. Perhaps if Del Ferice had been well, she would have simply taken no notice of what he had written, and would not even have sent an answer; but she had not the heart to repulse him altogether in his present condition. There was a phrase cunningly introduced and ambiguously worded, which seemed to mean that he had come by his wound in her cause. He spoke of having suffered and of still suffering so much for her,--did he mean to refer to pain of body or of mind? It was not certain. Don Giovanni had assured her that she was in no way concerned in the duel, and he was well known for his honesty; nevertheless, out of delicacy, he might have desired to conceal the truth from her. It seemed like him. She longed for an opportunity of talking with him and eliciting some explanation of his conduct. There had been a time when he used to visit her, and always spent some time in her society when they met in the world--now, on the contrary, he seemed to avoid her whenever he could; and in proportion as she noticed that his manner cooled, her own jealousy against Corona d'Astrardente increased in force, until at last it seemed to absorb her love for Giovanni into itself and turn it into hate. Love is a passion which, like certain powerful drugs, acts differently upon each different constitution of temper; love also acts more strongly when it is unreturned or thwarted than when it is mutual and uneventful. If two persons love each other truly, and there is no obstacle to their union, it is probable that, without any violent emotion, their love will grow and become stronger by imperceptible degrees, without changing in its natural quality; but if thwarted by untoward circumstances, the passion, if true, attains suddenly to the dimensions which it would otherwise need years to reach. It sometimes happens that the nature in which this unforeseen and abnormal development takes place is unable to bear the precocious growth; then, losing sight of its identity in the strange inward confusion of heart and mind which ensues, it is driven to madness, and, breaking every barrier, either attains its object at a single bound, or is shivered and ruined in dashing itself against the impenetrable wall of complete impossibility. But again, in the last case, when love is wholly unreturned, it dies a natural death of atrophy, when it has existed in a person of common and average nature; or if the man or woman so afflicted be proud and of noble instincts, the passion becomes a kind of religion to the heart--sacred, and worthy to be guarded from the eyes of the world; or, finally, again, where it finds vanity the dominant characteristic of the being in whom it has grown, it draws a poisonous life from the unhealthy soil on which it is fed, and the tender seed of love shoots and puts forth evil leaves and blossoms, and grows to be a most venomous tree, which is the tree of hatred. Donna Tullia was certainly a woman who belonged to the latter class of individuals. She had qualities which were perhaps good because not bad; but the mainspring of her being was an inordinate vanity; and it was in this characteristic that she was most deeply wounded, as she found herself gradually abandoned by Giovanni Saracinesca. She had been in the habit of thinking of him as a probable husband; the popular talk had fostered the idea, and occasional hints, aad smiling questions concerning him, had made her feel that he could not long hang back. She had been in the habit of treating him familiarly; and he, tutored by his father to the belief that she was the best match for him, and reluctantly yielding to the force of circumstances, which seemed driving him into matrimony, had suffered himself to be ordered about and made use of with an indifference which, in Madame Mayer's eyes, had passed for consent. She had watched with growing fear and jealousy his devotion to the Astrardente, which all the world had noticed; and at last her anger had broken out at the affront she had received at the Frangipani ball. But even then she loved Giovanni in her own vain way. It was not till Corona was suddenly left a widow, that Donna Tullia began to realise the hopelessness of her position; and when she found how determinately Saracinesca avoided her wherever they met, the affection she had hitherto felt for him turned into a bitter hatred, stronger even than her jealousy against the Duchessa. There was no scene of explanation between them, no words passed, no dramatic situation, such as Donna Tullia loved; the change came in a few days, and was complete. She had not even the satisfaction of receiving some share of the attention Giovanni would have bestowed upon Corona if she had been in town. Not only had he grown utterly indifferent to her; he openly avoided her, and thereby inflicted upon her vanity the cruellest wound she was capable of feeling. With Donna Tullia to hate was to injure, to long for revenge--not of the kind which is enjoyed in secret, and known only to the person who suffers and the person who causes the suffering. She did not care for that so much as she desired some brilliant triumph over her enemies before the world; some startling instance of poetic justice, which should at one blow do a mortal injury to Corona d'Astrardente, and bring Giovanni Saracinesca to her own feet by force, repentant and crushed, to be dealt with as she saw fit, according to his misdeeds. But she had chosen her adversaries ill, and her heart misgave her. She had no hold upon them, for they were very strong people, very powerful, and very much respected by their fellows. It was not easy to bring them into trouble; it seemed impossible to humiliate them as she wished to do, and yet her hate was very strong. She waited and pondered, and in the meanwhile, when she met Giovanni, she began to treat him with haughty coldness. But Giovanni smiled, and seemed well satisfied that she should at last give over what was to him very like a persecution. Her anger grew hotter from its very impotence. The world saw it, and laughed. The days of Carnival came and passed, much as they usually pass, in a whirl of gaiety. Giovanni went everywhere, and showed his grave face; but he talked little, and of course every one said he was melancholy at the departure of the Duchessa. Nevertheless he kept up an appearance of interest in what was done, and as nobody cared to risk asking him questions, people left him in peace. The hurrying crowd of social life filled up the place occupied by old Astrardente and the beautiful Duchessa, and they were soon forgotten, for they had not had many intimate friends. On the last night of Carnival, Del Ferice appeared once more. He had not been able to resist the temptation of getting one glimpse of the world he loved, before the wet blanket of Lent extinguished the lights of the ballrooms and the jollity of the dancers. Every one was surprised to see him, and most people were pleased; he was such a useful man, that he had often been missed during the time of his illness. He was improved in appearance; for though he was very pale, he had grown also extremely thin, and his features had gained delicacy. When Giovanni saw him, he went up to him, and the two men exchanged a formal salutation, while every one stood still for a moment to see the meeting. It was over in a moment, and society gave a little sigh of relief, as though a weight were removed from its mind. Then Del Ferice went to Donna Tullia's side. They were soon alone upon a small sofa in a small room, whither a couple strayed now and then to remain a few minutes before returning to the ball. A few people passed through, but for more than an hour they were not disturbed. "I am very glad to see you," said Donna Tullia; "but I had hoped that the first time you went out you would have come to my house." "This is the first time I have been out--you see I should not have found you at home, since I have found you here." "Are you entirely recovered? You still look ill." "I am a little weak--but an hour with you will do me more good than all the doctors in the world." "Thanks," said Donna Tullia, with a little laugh. "It was strange to see you shaking hands with Giovanni Saracinesca just now. I suppose men have to do that sort of thing." "You may be sure I would not have done it unless it had been necessary," returned Del Ferice, bitterly. "I should think not. What an arrogant man he is!" "You no longer like him?" asked Del Fence, innocently. "Like him! No; I never liked him," replied Donna Tullia, quickly. "Oh, I thought you did; I used to wonder at it." Ugo grew thoughtful. "I was always good to him," said Donna Tullia. "But of course I can never forgive him for what he did at the Frangipani ball." "No; nor I," answered Del Ferice, readily. "I shall always hate him for that too." "I do not say that I exactly hate him." "You have every reason. It appears to me that since my illness we have another idea in common, another bond of sympathy." Del Ferice spoke almost tenderly; but he laughed immediately afterwards, as though not wishing his words to be interpreted too seriously. Donna Tullia smiled too; she was inclined to be very kind to him. "You are very quick to jump at conclusions," she said, playing with her red fan and looking down. "It is always easy to reach that pleasant conclusion--that you and I are in sympathy," he answered, with a tender glance, "even in regard to hating the same person. The bond would be close indeed, if it depended on the opposite of hate. And yet I sometimes think it does. Are you not the best friend I have in the world?" "I do not know,--I am a good friend to you," she answered. "Indeed you are; but do you not think it would be possible to cement our friendship even more closely yet?" Donna Tullia looked up sharply; she had no idea of allowing him to propose to marry her. His face, however, was grave--unlike his usual expression when he meant to be tender, and which she knew very well. "I do not know," she said, with a light laugh. "How do you mean?" "If I could do you some great service--if I could by any means satisfy what is now your chief desire in life--would not that help to cement our friendship, as I said?" "Perhaps," she answered, thoughtfully. "But then you do not know--you cannot guess even--what I most wish at this moment." "I think I could," said Del Ferice, fixing his eyes upon her. "I am sure I could, but I will not. I should risk offending you." "No; I will not be angry. You may guess if you please." Donna Tullia in her turn looked, fixedly at her companion. They seemed trying to read each other's thoughts. "Very well," said Ugo at last, "I will tell you. You would like to see the Astrardente dead and Giovanni Saracinesca profoundly humiliated." Donna Tullia started. But indeed there was nothing strange in her companion's knowledge of her feelings. Many people, being asked what she felt, would very likely have said the same, for the world had seen her discomfiture and had laughed at it. "You are a very singular man," she said, uneasily. "In other words," replied Del Ferice, calmly, "I am perfectly right in my surmises. I see it in your face. Of course," he added, with a laugh, "it is mere jest. But the thing is quite possible. If I fulfilled your desire of just and poetic vengeance, what would you give me?" Donna Tullia laughed in her turn, to conceal the extreme interest she felt in what he said. "Whatever you like," she said. But even while the laugh was on her lips her eyes sought his uneasily. "Would you marry me, for instance, as the enchanted princess in the fairy story marries the prince who frees her from the spell?" He seemed immensely amused at the idea. "Why not?" she laughed. "It would be the only just recompense," he answered. "See how impossible the thing appears. And yet a few pounds of dynamite would blow up the Great Pyramid. Giovanni Saracinesca is not so strong as he looks." "Oh, I would not have him hurt!" exclaimed Donna Tullia in alarm. "I do not mean physically, nor morally, but socially." "How?" "That is my secret," returned Del Ferice, quietly. "It sounds as though you were pretending to know more than you really do," she answered. "No; it is the plain truth," said Del Ferice, quietly. "If you were in earnest I might be willing to tell you what the secret is, but for a mere jest I cannot. It is far too serious a matter." His tone convinced Donna Tullia that he really possessed some weapon which he could use against Don Giovanni if he pleased. She wondered only why, if it were true, he did not use it, seeing that he must hate Saracinesca with all his heart. Del Ferice knew so much about people, so many strange and forgotten stories, he had so accurate a memory and so acute an intelligence, that it was by no means impossible that he was in possession of some secret connected with the Saracinesca. They were, or were thought to be, wild, unruly men, both father and son; there were endless stories about them both; and there was nothing more likely than that, in his numerous absences from home, Giovanni had at one time or another figured in some romantic affair, which he would be sorry to have had generally known. Del Ferice was wise enough to keep his own counsel; but now that his hatred was thoroughly roused, he might very likely make use of the knowledge he possessed. Donna Tullia's curiosity was excited to its highest pitch, and at the same time she had pleasant visions of the possible humiliation of the man by whom she felt herself so ill-used. It would be worth while making the sacrifice in order to learn Del Fence's secret. "This need not be a mere jest," she said, after a moment's silence. "That is as you please," returned Del Ferice, seriously. "If you are willing to do your part, you may be sure that I will do mine." "You cannot think I really meant what I said just now," replied Donna Tullia. "It would be madness." "Why? Am I halt, am I lame, am I blind? Am I repulsively ugly? Am I a pauper, that I should care for your money? Have I not loved you--yes, loved you long and faithfully? Am I too old? Is there anything in the nature of things why I should not aspire to be your husband?" It was strange. He spoke calmly, as though enumerating the advantages of a friend. Donna Tullia looked at him for a moment, and then laughed outright. "No," she said; "all that is very true. You may aspire, as you call it. The question is, whether I shall aspire too. Of course, if we happened to agree in aspiring, we could be married to-morrow." "Precisely," answered Del Ferice, perfectly unmoved. "I am not proposing to marry you. I am arguing the case. There is this in the case which is perhaps outside the argument--this, that I am devotedly attached to you. The case is the stronger for that. I was only trying to demonstrate that the idea of our being married is not so unutterably absurd. You laughingly said you would marry me if I could accomplish something which would please you very much. I laughed also; but now I seriously repeat my proposition, because I am convinced that although at first sight it may appear extremely humourous, on a closer inspection it will be found exceedingly practical. In union is strength." Donna Tullia was silent for a moment, and her face grew grave. There was reason in what he said. She did not care for him--she had never thought of marrying him; but she recognised the justice of what he said. It was clear that a man of his social position, received everywhere and intimate with all her associates, might think of marrying her. He looked positively handsome since he was wounded; he was accomplished and intelligent; he had sufficient means of support to prevent him from being suspected of marrying solely for money, and he had calmly stated that he loved her. Perhaps he did. It was flattering to Donna Tullia's vanity to believe him, and his acts had certainly not belied his words. He was by far the most thoughtful of all her admirers, and he affected to treat her always with a certain respect which she had never succeeded in obtaining from Valdarno and the rest. A woman who likes to be noisy, but is conscious of being a little vulgar, is always flattered when a man behaves towards her with profound reverence. It will even sometimes cure her of her vulgarity. Donna Tullia reflected seriously upon what Del Ferice had said. "I never had such a proposition made to me in my life," she said. "Of course you cannot think I regard it as a possible one, even now. You cannot think I am so base as to sell myself for the sake of revenging an insult once offered me. If I am to regard this as a proposal of marriage, I must decline it with thanks. If it is merely a proposition for an alliance, I think the terms of the treaty are unequal." Del Ferice smiled. "I knew you well enough to know what your answer would be," he said. "I never insulted you by dreaming that you would accept such a proposition. But as a subject for speculation it is very pleasant. It is delightful to me to think of being your husband; it is equally delightful to you to think of the humiliation of an enemy. I took the liberty of uniting the two thoughts in one dream--a dream of unspeakable bliss for myself." Donna Tullia's gay humour returned. "You have certainly amused me very well for a quarter of an hour with your dreams," she answered. "I wish you would tell me what you know of Don Giovanni. It must be very interesting if it can really seriously influence his life." "I cannot tell you. The secret is too valuable." "But if the thing you know has such power, why do you not use it yourself? You must hate him far more than I do." "I doubt that," answered Del Ferice, with a cunning smile. "I do not use it, I do not choose to strike the blow, because I do not care enough for retribution merely on my own account. I do not pretend to generosity, but I am not interested enough in him to harm him, though I dislike him exceedingly. We had a temporary settlement of our difficulties the other day, and we were both wounded. Poor Casalverde lost his head and did a foolish thing, and that cold-blooded villain Spicca killed him in consequence. It seems to me that there has been enough blood spilled in our quarrel. I am prepared to leave him alone so far as I am concerned. But for you it would be different. I could do something worse than kill him if I chose." "For me?" said Donna Tullia. "What would you do for me?" She smiled sweetly, willing to use all her persuasion to extract his secret. "I could prevent Don Giovanni from marrying the Astrardente, as he intends to do," he answered, looking straight at his companion. "How in the world could you do that?" she asked, in great surprise. "That, my dear friend, is my secret, as I said before. I cannot reveal it to you at present." "You are as dark as the Holy Office," said Donna Tullia, a little impatiently. "What possible harm could it do if you told me?" "What possible good either?" asked Del Ferice, in reply. "You could not use it as I could. You would gain no advantage by knowing it. Of course," he added, with a laugh, "if we entered into the alliance we were jesting about, it would be different." "You will not tell me unless I promise to marry you?" "Frankly, no," he answered, still laughing. It exasperated Donna Tullia beyond measure to feel that he was in possession of what she so coveted, and to feel that he was bargaining, half in earnest, for her life in exchange for his secret. She was almost tempted for one moment to assent, to say she would marry him, so great was her curiosity; it would be easy to break her promise, and laugh at him afterwards. But she was not a bad woman, as women of her class are considered. She had suffered a great disappointment, and her resentment was in proportion to her vanity. But she was not prepared to give a false promise for the sake of vengeance; she was only bad enough to imagine such bad faith possible. "But you said you never seriously thought I could accept such an engagement," she objected, not knowing what to say. "I did," replied Del Ferice. "I might have added that I never seriously contemplated parting with my secret." "There is nothing to be got from you," said Donna Tullia, in a tone of disappointment. "I think that when you have nearly driven me mad with curiosity, you might really tell me something." "Ah no, dear lady," answered her companion. "You may ask anything of me but that--anything. You may ask that too, if you will sign the treaty I propose." "You will drive me into marrying you out of sheer curiosity," said Donna Tullia, with an impatient laugh. "I wish that were possible. I wish I could see my way to telling you as it is, for the thing is so curious that it would have the most intense interest for you. But it is quite out of the question." "You should never have told me anything about it," replied Madame Mayer. "Well, I will think about it," said Del Ferice at last, as though suddenly resolving to make a sacrifice. "I will look over some papers I have, and I will think about it. I promise you that if I feel that I can conscientiously tell you something of the matter, you may be sure that I will." Donna Tullia's manner changed again, from impatience to persuasion. The sudden hope he held out to her was delicious to contemplate. She could not realise that Del Ferice, having once thoroughly interested her, could play upon her moods as on the keys of an instrument. If she had been less anxious that the story he told should be true, she might have suspected that he was practising upon her credulity. But she seized the idea of obtaining some secret influence over the life of Giovanni, and it completely carried her away. "You must tell me--I am sure you will," she said, letting her kindest glance rest upon her companion. "Come and dine with me,--do you fast? No--nor I. Come on Friday--will you?" "I shall be delighted," answered Del Ferice, with a quiet smile of triumph. "I will have the old lady, of course, so you cannot tell me at dinner; but she will go to sleep soon afterwards--she always does. Come at seven. Besides, she is deaf, you know." The old lady in question was the aged Countess whom Donna Tullia affected as a companion in her solitary magnificence. "And now, will you take me back to the ball-room? I have an idea that a partner is looking for me." Del Ferice left her dancing, and went home in his little coupé. He was desperately fatigued, for he was still very weak, and he feared lest his imprudence in going out so soon might bring on a relapse from his convalescence. Nevertheless, before he went to bed he dismissed Temistocle, and opened a shabby-looking black box which stood upon his writing-table. It was bound with iron, and was fastened by a patent lock which had frequently defied Temistocle's ingenuity. From this repository he took a great number of papers, which were all neatly filed away and marked in the owner's small and ornamented handwriting. Beneath many packages of letters he found what he sought for, a long envelope containing several folded documents. He spread out the papers and read them carefully over. "It is a very singular thing," he said to himself; "but there can be no doubt about it. There it is." He folded the papers again, returned them to their envelope, and replaced the latter deep among the letters in his box. He then locked it, attached the key to a chain he wore about his neck, and went to bed, worn out with fatigue. CHAPTER XXI. Del Ferice had purposely excited Donna Tullia's curiosity, and he meant before long to tell more than he had vouchsafed in his first confidence. But he himself trembled before the magnitude of what he had suddenly thought of doing, for the fear of Giovanni was in his heart. The temptation to boast to Donna Tullia that he had the means of preventing Giovanni from marrying was too strong; but when it had come to telling her what those means were, prudence had restrained him. He desired that if the scheme were put into execution it might be by some one else; for, extraordinary as it was, he was not absolutely certain of its success. He was not sure of Donna Tullia's discretion, either, until by a judicious withholding of the secret he had given her a sufficient idea of its importance. But on mature reflection he came to the conclusion that, even if she possessed the information he was able to give, she would not dare to mention it, nor even to hint at it. The grey light of Ash-Wednesday morning broke over Rome, and stole through the windows of Giovanni Saracinesca's bedroom. Giovanni had not slept much, but his restlessness was due rather to his gladness at having performed the last of his social duties than to any disturbance of mind. All night he lay planning what he should do,--how he might reach his place in the mountains by a circuitous route, leaving the general impression that he was abroad--and how, when at last he had got to Saracinesca unobserved, he would revel in the solitude and in the thought of being within half a day's journey of Corona d'Astrardente. He was willing to take a great deal of trouble, for he did not wish people to know his whereabouts; he would not have it said that he had gone into the country to be near Corona and to see her every day, as would certainly be said if his real movements were discovered. Accordingly, he fulfilled his programme to the letter. He left Rome on the afternoon of Ash-Wednesday for Florence; there he visited several acquaintances who, he knew, would write to their friends in Rome of his appearance; from Florence he went to Paris, and gave out that he was going upon a shooting expedition in the Arctic regions, as soon as the weather was warm enough. As he was well known for a sportsman and a traveller, this statement created no suspicion; and when he finally left Paris, the newspapers and the gossips all said he had gone to Copenhagen on his way to the far north. In due time the statement reached Rome, and it was supposed that society had lost sight of Giovanni Saracinesca for at least eight months. It was thought that he had acted with great delicacy in absenting himself; he would thus allow the first months of Corona's mourning to pass before formally presenting himself to society as her suitor. Considering the peculiar circumstances of the case, there would be nothing improper, from a social point of view, in his marrying Corona at the expiration of a year after her husband's death. Of course he would marry her; there was no doubt of that--he had been in love with her so long, and now she was both free and rich. No one suspected that Giovanni, instead of being in Scandinavia, was quietly established at Saracinesca, a day's journey from Rome, busying himself with the management of the estate, and momentarily satisfied in feeling himself so near the woman he loved. Donna Tullia could hardly wait until the day when Del Ferice was coming to dinner: she was several times on the point of writing a note to ask him to come at once. But she wisely refrained, guessing that the more she pressed him the more difficulties he would make. At last he came, looking pale and worn--interesting, as Donna Tullia would have expressed it. The old Countess talked a great deal during dinner; but as she was too deaf to hear more than a quarter of what was said by the others, the conversation was not interesting. When the meal was over, she established herself in a comfortable chair in the little sitting-room, and took a book. After a few minutes, Donna Tullia suggested to Del Ferice that they should go into the drawing-room. She had received some new waltz-music from Vienna which she wanted to look over, and Ugo might help her. She was not a musician, but was fond of a cheerful noise, and played upon the piano with the average skill of a well-educated young woman of the world. Of course the doors were left open between the drawing-room and the boudoir, where the Countess dozed over her book and presently fell asleep. Donna Tullia sat at the grand piano, and made Del Ferice sit beside her. She struck a few chords, and played a fragment of dance-music. "Of course you have heard that Don Giovanni is gone?" she asked, carelessly. "I suppose he is gone to Saracinesca; they say there is a very good road between that and Astrardente." "I should think he would have more decency than to pursue the Duchessa in the first month of her mourning," answered Del Ferice, resting one arm upon the piano, and supporting his pale face with his hand as he watched Donna Tullia's fingers move upon the keys. "Why? He does not care what people say--why should he? He will marry her when the year is out. Why should he care?" "He can never marry her unless I choose to allow it," said Del Ferice, quietly. "So you told me the other night," returned Donna Tullia. "But you will allow him, of course. Besides, you could not stop it, after all. I do not believe that you could." She leaned far back in her chair, her hands resting upon the keys without striking them, and she looked at Del Ferice with a sweet smile. There was a moment's pause. "I have decided to tell you something," he said at last, "upon one condition." "Why make conditions?" asked Donna Tullia, trying to conceal her excitement. "Only one, that of secrecy. Will you promise never to mention what I am going to tell you without previously consulting me? I do not mean a common promise; I mean it to be an oath." He spoke very earnestly. "This is a very serious matter. We are playing with fire and with life and death. You must give me some guarantee that you will be secret." His manner impressed Donna Tullia; she had never seen him so much in earnest in her life. "I will promise in any way you please," she said. "Then say this," he answered. "Say, 'I swear and solemnly bind myself that I will faithfully keep the secret about to be committed to me; and that if I fail to keep it I will atone by immediately marrying Ugo del Ferice--'" "That is absurd!" cried Donna Tullia, starting back from him. He did not heed her. "'And I take to witness of this oath the blessed memory of my mother, the hope of the salvation of my soul, and this relic of the True Cross.'" He pointed to the locket she wore at her neck, which she had often told him contained the relic he mentioned. "It is impossible!" she cried again. "I cannot swear so solemnly about such a matter. I cannot promise to marry you." "Then it is because you cannot promise to keep my secret," he answered calmly. He knew her very well, and he believed that she would not break such an oath as he had dictated, under any circumstances. He did not choose to risk anything by her indiscretion. Donna Tullia hesitated, seeing that he was firm. She was tortured with curiosity beyond all endurance. "I am only promising to marry you in case I reveal the secret?" she asked. He bowed assent. "So that I am really only promising to be silent? Well, I cannot understand why it should be solemn; but if you wish it so, I will do it. What are the words?" He repeated them slowly, and she followed him. He watched her at every word, to be sure she overlooked nothing. "I, Tullia Mayer, swear and solemnly bind myself that I will faithfully keep the secret about to be committed to me; and that if I fail to keep it, I will atone by immediately marrying Ugo del Ferice"--her voice trembled nervously: "and I take to witness of this oath the blessed memory of my mother, the hope of the salvation of my soul, and this relic of the True Cross." At the last words she took the locket in her fingers. "You understand that you have promised to marry me if you reveal my secret? You fully understand that?" asked Del Ferice. "I understand it," she answered hurriedly, as though ashamed of what she had done. "And now, the secret," she added eagerly, feeling that she had undergone a certain humiliation for the sake of what she so much coveted. "Don Giovanni cannot marry the Duchessa d'Astrardente, because"--he paused a moment to give full weight to his statement--"because Don Giovanni Saracinesca is married already." "What!" cried Donna Tullia, starting from her chair in amazement at the astounding news. "It is quite true," said Del Ferice, with a quiet smile. "Calm yourself; it is quite true. I know what you are thinking of--all Rome thought he was going to marry you." Donna Tullia was overcome by the strangeness of the situation. She hid her face in her hands for a moment as she leaned forward over the piano. Then she suddenly looked up. "What a hideous piece of villany!" she exclaimed, in a stifled voice. Then slowly recovering from the first shock of the intelligence, she looked at Del Ferice; she was almost as pale as he. "What proof have you?" she asked. "I have the attested copy of the banns published by the priest who married them. That is evidence. Moreover, the real book of banns exists, and Giovanni's name is upon the parish register. I have also a copy of the certificate of the civil marriage, which is signed by Giovanni himself." "Tell me more," said Donna Tullia, eagerly. "How did you find it?" "It is very simple," answered Del Ferice. "You may go and see for yourself, if you do not mind making a short journey. Last summer I was wandering a little for my health's sake, as I often do, and I chanced to be in the town of Aquila--you know, the capital of Abruzzi. One day I happened to go into the sacristy of one of the parish churches to see some pictures which are hung there. There had been a marriage service performed, and as the sacristan moved about explaining the pictures, he laid his hand upon an open book which looked like a register of some kind. I idly asked him what it was, and he showed it to me; it was amusing to look at the names of the people, and I turned over the leaves curiously. Suddenly my attention was arrested by a name I knew--'Giovanni Saracinesca,' written clearly across the page, and below it, 'Felice Baldi,'--the woman he had married. The date of the marriage was the 19th of June 1863. You remember, perhaps, that in that summer, in fact during the whole of that year, Don Giovanni was supposed to be absent upon his famous shooting expedition in Canada, about which he talks so much. It appears, then, that two years ago, instead of being in America, he was living in Aquila, married to Felice Baldi--probably some pretty peasant girl. I started at the sight of the names. I got permission to have an attested copy of it made by a notary. I found the priest who had married them, but he could not remember the couple. The man, he said, was dark, he was sure; the woman, he thought, had been fair. He married so many people in a year. These were not natives of Aquila; they had apparently come there from the country--perhaps had met. The banns--yes, he had the book of banns; he had also the register of marriages from which he sometimes issued certified extracts. He was a good old man, and seemed ready to oblige me; but his memory was very defective. He allowed me to take notary's copies of the banns and the entry in the list, as well as of the register. Then I went to the office of the Stato Civile. You know that people do not sign the register in the church themselves; the names are written down by the priest. I wanted to see the signatures, and the book of civil marriages was shown to me. The handwriting was Giovanni's, I am sure--larger, and a little less firm, but distinguishable at a glance. I took the copies for curiosity, and never said anything about it, but I have kept them. That is the history. Do you see how serious a matter it is?" "Indeed, yes," answered Donna Tullia, who had listened with intense interest to the story. "But what could have induced him to marry that woman?" "One of those amiable eccentricities peculiar to his family," replied Del Ferice, shrugging his shoulders. "The interesting thing would be to discover what became of Felice Baldi--Donna Felice Saracinesca, as I suppose she has a right to be called." "Let us find her--Giovanni's wife," exclaimed Donna Tullia, eagerly. "Where can she be?" "Who knows?" ejaculated Del Ferice. "I would be curious to see her. The name of her native village is given, and the names of her parents. Giovanni described himself in the paper as 'of Naples, a landholder,' and omitted somehow the details of his parentage. Nothing could be more vague; everybody is a landholder, from the wretched peasant who cultivates one acre to their high-and-mightinesses the Princes of Saracinesca. Perhaps by going to the village mentioned some information might be obtained. He probably left her sufficiently provided for, and, departing on pretence of a day's journey, never returned. He is a perfectly unscrupulous man, and thinks no more of this mad scrape than of shooting a chamois in the Tyrol. He knows she can never find him--never guessed who he really was." "Perhaps she is dead," suggested Donna Tullia, her face suddenly growing grave. "Why? He would not have taken the trouble to kill her--a peasant girl in the Abruzzi! He would have had no difficulty in leaving her, and she is probably alive and well at the present moment, perhaps the mother of the future Prince Saracinesca--who can tell?" "But do you not see," said Donna Tullia, "that unless you have proof that she is alive, we have no hold upon him? He may acknowledge the whole thing, and calmly inform us that she is dead." "That is true; but even then he must show that she came to a natural end and was buried. Believe me, Giovanni would relinquish all intentions of marrying the Astrardente rather than have this scandalous story published." "I would like to tax him with it in a point-blank question, and watch his face," said Donna Tullia, fiercely. "Remember your oath," said Del Ferice. "But he is gone now. You will not meet him for some months." "Tell me, how could you make use of this knowledge, if you really wanted to prevent his marriage with the Astrardente?" "I would advise you to go to her and state the case. You need mention nobody. Any one who chooses may go to Aquila and examine the registers. I think that you could convey the information to her with as much command of language as would be necessary." "I daresay I could," she answered, between her teeth. "What a strange chance it was that brought that register under your hand!" "Heaven sends opportunities," said Del Ferice, devoutly; "it is for man to make good use of them. Who knows but what you may make a brilliant use of this?" "I cannot, since I am bound by my promise," said Donna Tullia. "No; I am sure you will not think of doing it. But then, we might perhaps agree that circumstances made it advisable to act. Many months must pass before he can think of offering himself to her. It will be time enough to consider the matter then--to consider whether we should be justified in raising such a terrible scandal, in causing so much unhappiness to an innocent woman like the Duchessa, and to a worthless man like Don Giovanni. Think what a disgrace it would be to the Saracinesca to have it made public that Giovanni was openly engaged to marry a great heiress while already secretly married to a peasant woman!" "It would indeed be horrible," said Donna Tullia, with a disagreeable look in her blue eyes. "Perhaps we should not even think of it," she added, turning over the leaves of the music upon the piano. Then suddenly she added, "Do you know that you have put me in a dreadful position by exacting that promise from me?" "No," said Del Ferice, quietly. "You wanted to hear the secret. You have heard it. You have nothing to do but to keep it to yourself." "That is precisely--" She checked herself, and struck a loud chord upon the instrument. She had turned from Del Ferice, and could not see the smile upon his face, which flickered across the pale features and vanished instantly. "Think no more about it," he said pleasantly. "It is so easy to forget such stories when one resolutely puts them out of one's mind." Donna Tullia smiled bitterly, and was silent. She began playing from the sheet before her, with indifferent accuracy, but with more than sufficient energy. Del Ferice sat patiently by her side, turning over the leaves, and glancing from time to time at her face, which he really admired exceedingly. He belonged to the type of pale and somewhat phlegmatic men who frequently fall in love with women of sanguine complexion and robust appearance. Donna Tullia was a fine type of this class, and was called handsome, though she did not compare well with women of less pretension to beauty, but more delicacy and refinement. Del Ferice admired her greatly, however; and, as has been said, he admired her fortune even more. He saw himself gradually approaching the goal of his intentions, and as he neared the desired end he grew more and more cautious. He had played one of his strongest cards that night, and he was content to wait and let matters develop quietly, without any more pushing from him. The seed would grow, there was no fear of that, and his position was strong. He could wait quietly for the result. At the end of half an hour he excused himself upon the plea that he was still only convalescent, and was unable to bear the fatigue of late hours. Donna Tullia did not press him to stay, for she wished to be alone; and when he was gone she sat long at the open piano, pondering upon what she had done, and even more upon what she had escaped doing. It was a hideous thought that if Giovanni, in all that long winter, had asked her to be his wife, she would readily have consented; it was fearful to think what her position would have been towards Del Ferice, who would have been able by a mere word to annul her marriage by proving the previous one at Aquila. People do not trifle with such accusations, and he certainly knew what he was doing; she would have been bound hand and foot. Or supposing that Del Ferice had died of the wound he received in the duel, and his papers had been ransacked by his heirs, whoever they might be--these attested documents would have become public property. What a narrow escape Giovanni had had! And she herself, too, how nearly had she been involved in his ruin! She liked to think that he had almost offered himself to her; it flattered her, although she now hated him so cordially. She could not help admiring Del Ferice's wonderful discretion in so long concealing a piece of scandal that would have shaken Roman society to its foundations, and she trembled when she thought what would happen if she herself were ever tempted to reveal what she had heard. Del Ferice was certainly a man of genius--so quiet, and yet possessing such weapons; there was some generosity about him too, or he would have revenged himself for his wound by destroying Giovanni's reputation. She considered whether she could have kept her counsel so well in his place. After all, as he had said, the moment for using the documents had not yet come, for hitherto Giovanni had never proposed to marry any one. Perhaps this secret wedding in Aquila explained his celibacy; Del Ferice had perhaps misjudged him in saying that he was unscrupulous; he had perhaps left his peasant wife, repenting of his folly, but it was perhaps on her account that he had never proposed to marry Donna Tullia; he had, then, only been amusing himself with Corona. That all seemed likely enough--so likely, that it heightened the certainty of Del Ferice's information. A few days later, as Giovanni had intended, news began to reach Rome that he had been in Florence, and was actually in Paris; then it was said that he was going upon a shooting expedition somewhere in the far north during the summer. It was like him, and in accordance with his tastes. He hated the quiet receptions at the great houses during Lent, to which, if he remained in Rome, he was obliged to go. He naturally escaped when he could. But there was no escape for Donna Tullia, and after all she managed to extract some amusement from these gatherings. She was the acknowledged centre of the more noisy set, and wherever she went, people who wanted to be amused, and were willing to amuse each other, congregated around her. On one of these occasions she met old Saracinesca. He did not go out much since his son had left; but he seemed cheerful enough, and as he liked Madame Mayer, for some inscrutable reason, she rather liked him. Moreover, her interest in Giovanni, though now the very reverse of affectionate, made her anxious to know something of his movements. "You must be lonely since Don Giovanni has gone upon his travels again," she said. "That is the reason I go out," said the Prince. "It is not very gay, but it is better than nothing. It suggests cold meat served up after the dessert; but when people are hungry, the order of their food is not of much importance." "Is there any news, Prince? I want to be amused." "News? No. The world is at peace, and consequently given over to sin, as it mostly is when it is resting from a fit of violence." "You seem to be inclined to moralities this evening," said Donna Tullia, smiling, and gently swaying the red fan she always carried. "Am I? Then I am growing old, I suppose. It is the privilege of old age to censure in others what it is no longer young enough to praise in itself. It is a bad thing to grow old, but it makes people good, or makes them think they are, which in their own eyes is precisely the same thing." "How delightfully cynical!" "Doggish?" inquired the Prince, with a laugh. "I have heard it said by scholars, that cynical means doggish in Greek. The fable of the dog in the horse's manger was invented to define the real cynic--the man who neither enjoys life himself nor will allow other people to enjoy it. I am not such a man. I hope you, for instance, will enjoy everything that comes in your way." "Even the cold meat after the dessert which you spoke of just now?" asked Donna Tullia. "Thank you--I will try; perhaps you can help me." "My son despised it," said Saracinesca. "He is gone in search of fresh pastures of sweets." "Leaving you behind." "Somebody once said that the wisest thing a son could do was to get rid of his father as soon as possible--" "Then Don Giovanni is a wise man," returned Donna Tullia. "Perhaps. However, he asked me to accompany him." "You refused?" "Of course. Such expeditions are good enough for boys. I dislike Florence, I am not especially fond of Paris, and I detest the North Pole. I suppose you have seen from the papers that he is going in that direction? It is like him, he hankers after originality, I suppose. Being born in the south, he naturally goes to the extreme north." "He will write you very interesting letters, I should think," remarked Donna Tullia. "Is he a good correspondent?" "Remarkably, for he never gives one any trouble. He sends his address from time to time, and draws frequently on his banker. His letters are not so full of interest as might be thought, as they rarely extend over five lines; but on the other hand it does not take long to read them, which is a blessing." "You seem to be an affectionate parent," said Donna Tullia, with a laugh. "If you measure affection by the cost of postage-stamps, you have a right to be sarcastic. If you measure it in any other way, you are wrong. I could not help loving any one so like myself as my son. It would show a detestable lack of appreciation of my own gifts." "I do not think Don Giovanni so very like you," said Donna Tullia, thoughtfully. "Perhaps you do not know him so well as I do," remarked the Prince. "Where do you see the greatest difference?" "I think you talk better, and I think you are more--not exactly more honest, perhaps, but more straightforward." "I do not agree with you," said old Saracinesca, quickly. "There is no one alive who can say they ever knew Giovanni approach in the most innocent way to a distortion of truth. I daresay you have discovered, however, that he is reticent; he can hold his tongue; he is no chatterer, no parrot, my son." "Indeed he is not," answered Donna Tullia, and the reply pacified the old man; but she herself was thinking what supreme reticence Giovanni had shown in the matter of his marriage, and she wondered whether the Prince had ever heard of it. CHAPTER XXII. Anastase Gouache worked hard at the Cardinal's portrait, and at the same time did his best to satisfy Donna Tullia. The latter, indeed, was not easily pleased, and Gouache found it hard to instil into his representation of her the precise amount of poetry she required, without doing violence to his own artistic sense of fitness. But the other picture progressed rapidly. The Cardinal was a restless man, and after the first two or three sittings, desired nothing so much as to be done with them altogether. Anastase amused him, it is true, and the statesman soon perceived that he had made a conquest of the young man's mind, and that, as Giovanni Saracinesca had predicted, he had helped Gouache to come to a decision. He was not prepared, however, for the practical turn that decision immediately took, and he was just beginning to wish the sittings at an end when Anastase surprised him by a very startling announcement. As usual, they were in the Cardinal's study; the statesman was silent and thoughtful, and Gouache was working with all his might. "I have made up my mind," said the latter, suddenly. "Concerning what, my friend?" inquired the great man, rather absently. "Concerning everything, Eminence," answered Gouache "concerning politics, religion, life, death, and everything else which belongs to my career. I am going to enlist with the Zouaves." The Cardinal looked at him for a moment, and then broke into a low laugh. "_Extremis malis extrema remedial!_" he exclaimed. "Precisely--_aux grands maux les grands remèdes,_ as we say. I am going to join the Church militant. I am convinced that it is the best thing an honest man can do. I like fighting, and I like the Church--therefore I will fight for the Church." "Very good logic, indeed," answered the Cardinal. But he looked at Anastase, and marking his delicate features and light frame, he almost wondered how the lad would look in the garb of a soldier. "Very good logic; but, my dear Monsieur Gouache, what is to become of your art?" "I shall not be mounting guard all day, and the Zouaves are allowed to live in their own lodgings. I will live in my studio, and paint when I am not mounting guard." "And my portrait?" inquired Cardinal Antonelli, much amused. "Your Eminence will doubtless be kind enough to manage that I may have liberty to finish it." "You could not put off enlisting for a week, I suppose?" Gouache looked annoyed; he hated the idea of waiting. "I have taken too long to make up my mind already," he replied. "I must make the plunge at once. I am convinced--your Eminence has convinced me--that I have been very foolish." "I certainly never intended to convince you of that," remarked the Cardinal, with a smile. "Very foolish," repeated Gouache, not heeding the interruption. "I have talked great nonsense,--I scarcely know why--perhaps to try and find where the sense really lay. I have dreamed so many dreams, so long, that I sometimes think I am morbid. All artists are morbid, I suppose. It is better to do anything active than to lose one's self in the slums of a sickly imagination." "I agree with you," answered the Cardinal; "but I do not think you suffered from a sickly imagination,--I should rather call it abundant than sickly. Frankly, I should be sorry to think that in following this new idea you were in any way injuring the great career which, I am sure, is before you; but, on the other hand, I cannot help wishing that a greater number of young men would follow your example." "Your Eminence approves, then?" "Do you think you will make a good soldier?" "Other artists have been good soldiers. There was Cellini--" "Benvenuto Cellini said he made a good soldier; he said it himself, but his reputation for veracity in other matters was doubtful, to say the least. If he did not shoot the Connétable de Bourbon, it is very certain that some one else did. Besides, a soldier in our times should be a very different kind of man from the self-armed citizen of the time of Clement the Ninth and the aforesaid Connétable. You will have to wear a uniform and sleep on boards in a guard-house; you will have to be up early to drill, and up late mounting guard, in wind and rain and cold. It is hard work; I do not believe you have the constitution for it. Nevertheless, the intention is good. You can try it, and if you fall ill I will see that you have no difficulty in returning to your artist life." "I do not mean to give it up," replied Gouache, in a tone of conviction. "And as for my health, I am as strong as any one." "Perhaps," said the Cardinal, doubtfully. "And when are you going to join the corps?" "In about an hour," said Gouache, quietly. And he kept his word. But he had told no one, save the Cardinal, of his intention; and for a day or two, though he passed many acquaintances in the street, no one recognised Anastase Gouache in the handsome young soldier with his grey Turco uniform, a red sash round his slender waist, and a small _képi_ set jauntily upon one side. It was one of the phenomena of those times. Foreigners swarmed in Rome, and many of them joined the cosmopolitan corps--gentlemen, noblemen, artists, men of the learned professions, adventurers, duellists driven from their country in a temporary exile, enthusiasts, strolling Irishmen, men of all sorts and conditions. But, take them all in all, they were a fine set of fellows, who set no value whatever on their lives, and who, as a whole, fought for an idea, in the old crusading spirit. There were many who, like Gouache, joined solely from conviction; and there were few instances indeed of any who, having joined, deserted. It often happened that a stranger came to Rome for a mere visit, and at the end of a month surprised his friends by appearing in the grey uniform. You had met him the night before at a ball in the ordinary garb of civilisation, covered with cotillon favours, waltzing like a madman; the next morning he entered the Café de Rome in a braided jacket open at the throat, and told you he was a soldier--a private soldier, who touched his cap to every corporal of the French infantry, and was liable to be locked up for twenty-four hours if he was late to quarters. Donna Tullia's portrait was not quite finished, and Gouache had asked for one or two more sittings. Three days after the artist had taken his great resolution, Madame Mayer and Del Ferice entered his studio. He had had no difficulty in being at liberty at the hour of the sitting, and had merely exchanged his jacket for an old painting-coat, not taking the trouble to divest himself of the remainder of his uniform. "Where have you been all this time?" asked Donna Tullia, as she lifted the curtain and entered the studio. He had kept out of her way during the past few days. "Good heavens, Gouache!" cried Del Ferice, starting back, as he caught sight of the artist's grey trousers and yellow gaiters. "What is the meaning of this comedy?" "What?" asked Gouache, coolly. Then, glancing at his legs, he answered, "Oh, nothing. I have turned Zouave--that is all. Will you sit down, Donna Tullia? I was waiting for you." "Turned Zouave!" exclaimed Madame Mayer and Del Ferice in a breath. "Turned Zouave!" "Well?" said Gouache, raising his eyebrows and enjoying their surprise. "Well--why not?" Del Ferice struck a fine attitude, and, laying one hand upon Donna Tullia's arm, whispered hoarsely in her ear-- "_Siamo traditi_--we are betrayed!" he said. Whereupon Donna Tullia turned a little pale. "Betrayed!" she repeated, "and by Gouache!" Gouache laughed, as he drew out the battered old carved chair on which Madame Mayer was accustomed to sit when he painted. "Calm yourself, Madame," he said. "I have not the least intention of betraying you. I have made a counter-revolution--but I am perfectly frank. I will not tell of the ferocious deeds I have heard discussed." Del Ferice scowled and drew back, partly acting, partly in earnest. It lay in his schemes to make Donna Tullia believe herself involved in a genuine plot, and from this point of view he felt that he must pretend the greatest horror and surprise. On the other hand, he knew that Gouache had been painting the Cardinal's portrait, and guessed that the statesman had acquired a strong influence over the artist's mind--an influence which was already showing itself in a way that looked dangerous. It had never struck him until quite lately that Anastase, a republican by descent and conviction, could suddenly step into the reactionary camp. "Pardon me, Donna Tullia," said Ugo, in serious tones, "pardon me--but I think we should do well to leave Monsieur Gouache to the contemplation of his new career. This is no place for us--the company of traitors--" "Look here, Del Ferice," said Gouache, suddenly going up to him and looking him in the face,--"do you seriously believe that anything you have ever said, in this room is worth betraying? or, if you do, do you really think that I would betray it?" "Bah!" exclaimed Donna Tullia, interposing, "it is nonsense! Gouache is a gentleman, of course--and besides, I mean to have my portrait, politics or no politics." With this round statement Donna Tullia sat down, and Del Ferice had no choice but to follow her example. He was profoundly disgusted, but he saw at a glance that it would be hopeless to attempt to dissuade Madame Mayer when she had once made up her mind. "And now you can tell us all about it," said Donna Tullia. "What, in the name of all that is senseless, has induced you to join the Zouaves? It really makes me very nervous to see you." "That lends poetry to your expression," interrupted Gouache. "I wish you were always nervous. You really want to know why I am a Zouave? It is very simple. You must know that I always follow my impulses." "Impulses!" ejaculated Del Ferice, moodily. "Yes; because my impulses are always good,--whereas when I reflect much, my judgment is always bad. I felt a strong impulse to wear the grey uniform, so I walked into the recruiting office and wrote my name down." "I feel a strong impulse to walk out of your studio, Monsieur Gouache," said Donna Tullia, with a rather nervous laugh. "Then allow me to tell you that, whereas my impulses are good, yours are not," replied Anastase, quietly painting. "Because I have a new dress--" "And new convictions," interrupted Del Ferice; "you who were always arguing about convictions!" "I had none; that is the reason I argued about them. I have plenty now--I argue no longer." "You are wise," retorted Ugo. "Those you have got will never bear discussion." "Excuse me," answered Gouache; "if you will take the trouble to be introduced to his Eminence Cardinal Antonelli--" Donna Tullia held up her hands in horror. "That horrible man! That Mephistopheles!" she cried. "That Macchiavelli! That arch-enemy of our holy liberty!" exclaimed Del Ferice, in theatrical tones. "Exactly," answered Gouache. "If he could be induced to devote a quarter of an hour of his valuable time to talking with you, he would turn your convictions round his finger." "This is too much!" cried Del Ferice, angrily. "I think it is very amusing," said Donna Tullia, "What a pity that all Liberals are not artists, whom his Eminence could engage to paint his portrait and be converted at so much an hour!" Gouache smiled quietly, and went on with his work. "So he told you to go and turn Zouave," remarked Donna Tullia, after a pause, "and you submitted like a lamb." "So far was the Cardinal from advising me to turn soldier, that he expressed the greatest surprise when I told him of my intention," returned Gouache, rather coldly. "Indeed it is enough to take away even a cardinal's breath," answered Madame Mayer. "I was never, never so surprised in my life!" Gouache stood up to get a view of his work, and Donna Tullia looked at him critically. "_Tiens_!" she exclaimed, "it is rather becoming--what small ankles you have, Gouache!" Anastase laughed. It was impossible to be grave in the face of such utterly frivolous inconsistency. "You will allow your expression to change so often, Donna Tullia! It is impossible to catch it." "Like your convictions," murmured Del Ferice from his corner. Indeed Ugo did not know what to make of the scene. He had miscalculated the strength of Donna Tullia's fears as compared with her longing to possess a flattering portrait of herself. Rather than leave the picture unfinished, she exhibited a cynical indifference to danger which would have done honour to a better man than Del Ferice. Perhaps, too, she understood Gouache well enough to know that he might be trusted. Indeed any one would have trusted Gouache. Even Del Ferice was less disturbed at the possibility of the artist's repeating any of the trivial liberal talk which he had listened to, than at the indifference to discovery shown by Donna Tullia. To Del Ferice, the whole thing had been but a harmless play; but he wanted Madame Mayer to believe that it had all been in solemn earnest, and that she was really implicated in a dangerous plot; for it gave him a stronger hold upon her for his own ends. "So you are going to fight for Pio Nono," remarked Ugo, scornfully, after another pause. "I am," replied Gouache. "And, no offence to you, my friend, if I meet you in a red shirt among the Garibaldini, I will kill you. It would be very unpleasant, so I hope that you will not join them." "Take care, Del Ferice," laughed Donna Tullia; "your life is in danger! You had better join the Zouaves instead." "I cannot paint his Eminence's portrait," returned Ugo, with a sneer, "so there is no chance of that." "You might assist him with wholesome advice, I should think," answered Gouache. "I have no doubt you could tell him much that would be very useful." "And turn traitor to--" "Hush! Do not be so silly, Del Ferice," interrupted Donna Tullia, who began to fear that Del Ferice's taunts would make trouble. She had a secret conviction that it would not be good to push the gentle Anastase too far. He was too quiet, too determined, and too serious not to be a little dangerous if roused. "Do not be absurd," she repeated. "Whatever Gouache may choose to do, he is a gentleman, and I will not have you talk of traitors like that. He does not quarrel with you--why do you try to quarrel with him?" "I think he has done quite enough to justify a quarrel, I am sure," replied Del Ferice, moodily. "My dear sir," said Gouache, desisting from his work and turning towards Ugo, "Madame is quite right. I not only do not quarrel, but I refuse to be quarrelled with. You have my most solemn assurance that whatever has previously passed here, whatever I have heard said by you, by Donna Tullia, by Valdarno, by any of your friends, I regard as an inviolable secret. You formerly said I had no convictions, and you were right. I had none, and I listened to your exposition of your own with considerable interest. My case is changed. I need not tell you what I believe, for I wear the uniform of a Papal Zouave. When I put it on, I certainly did not contemplate offending you; I do not wish to offend you now--I only beg that you will refrain from offending me. For my part, I need only say that henceforth I do not desire to take a part in your councils. If Donna Tullia is satisfied with her portrait, there need be no further occasion for our meeting. If, on the contrary, we are to meet again, I beg that we may meet on a footing of courtesy and mutual respect." It was impossible to say more; and Gouache's speech terminated the situation so far as Del Ferice was concerned. Donna Tullia smilingly expressed her approval. "Quite right, Gouache," she said. "You know it would be impossible to leave the portrait as it is now. The mouth, you know--you promised to do something to it--just the expression, you know." Gouache bowed his head a little, and set to work again without a word. Del Ferice did not speak again during the sitting, but sat moodily staring at the canvas, at Donna Tullia, and at the floor. It was not often that he was moved from his habitual suavity of manner, but Gouache's conduct had made him feel particularly uncomfortable. The next time Donna Tullia came to sit, she brought her old Countess, and Del Ferice did not appear. The portrait was ultimately finished to the satisfaction of all parties, and was hung in Donna Tullia's drawing-room, to be admired and criticised by all her friends. But Gouache rejoiced when the thing was finally removed from his studio, for he had grown to hate it, and had been almost willing to flatter it out of all likeness to Madame Mayer, for the sake of not being eternally confronted by the cold stare of her blue eyes. He finished the Cardinal's portrait too; and the statesman not only paid for it with unusual liberality, but gave the artist what he called a little memento of the long hours they had spent together. He opened one of the lockers in his study, and from a small drawer selected an ancient ring, in which was set a piece of crystal with a delicate intaglio of a figure of Victory. He took Gouache's hand and slipped the ring upon his finger. He had taken a singular liking to Anastase. "Wear it as a little souvenir of me," he said kindly. "It is a Victory; you are a soldier now, so I pray that victory may go with you; and I give Victory herself into your hands." "And I," said Gouache, "will pray that it may be a symbol in my hand of the real victories you are to win." "Only a symbol," returned the Cardinal, thoughtfully. "Nothing but a symbol. I was not born to conquer, but to lead a forlorn hope--to deceive vanquished men with a hope not real, and to deceive the victors with an unreal fear. Nevertheless, my friend," he added, grasping Gouache's hand, and fixing upon him his small bright eyes,--"nevertheless, let us fight, fight--fight to the very end!" "We will fight to the end, Eminence," said Gouache. He was only a private of Zouaves, and the man whose hand he held was great and powerful; but the same spirit was in the hearts of both, the same courage, the same devotion to the failing cause--and both kept their words, each in his own way. CHAPTER XXIII. Astrardente was in some respects a picturesque place. The position of the little town gave it a view in both directions from where it stood; for it was built upon a precipitous eminence rising suddenly out of the midst of the narrow strip of fertile land, the long and rising valley which, from its lower extremity, conducted by many circuits to the Roman Campagna, and which ended above in the first rough passes of the lower Abruzzi. The base of the town extended into the vineyards and olive-orchards which surrounded the little hill on all sides; and the summit of it was crowned by the feudal palace-castle--an enormous building of solid stone, in the style of the fifteenth century. Upon the same spot had formally stood a rugged fortress, but the magnificent ideas of the Astrardente pope had not tolerated such remains of barbarism; the ancient stronghold had been torn down, and on its foundations rose a gigantic mansion, consisting of a main palace, with great balconies and columned front, overlooking the town, and of two massive wings leading back like towers to the edge of the precipitous rock to northwards. Between these wings a great paved court formed a sort of terrace, open upon one side, and ornamented within with a few antique statues dug up upon the estates, and with numerous plants, which the old duke had caused to be carefully cultivated in vases, and which were only exposed upon the terrace during the warm summer months. The view from the court was to the north--that is to say, down the valley, comprehending ranges of hills that seemed to cross and recross into the extreme distance, their outlines being each time less clearly defined, as the masses in each succeeding range took a softer purple hue. Within, the palace presented a great variety of apartments. There were suites of vaulted rooms upon the lower floor, frescoed in the good manner of the fifteenth century; there were other suites above, hung with ancient tapestry and furnished with old-fashioned marble tables, and mirrors in heavily gilt frames, and one entire wing had been lately fitted up in the modern style. In this part of the house Corona established herself with Sister Gabrielle, and began to lead a life of regular occupations and profound retirement, which seemed to be rather a continuation of her existence in the convent where she had been educated as a girl, than to form any part in the life of the superb Duchessa d'Astrardente, who for five years had been one of the most conspicuous persons in society. Every morning at eight o'clock the two ladies, always clad in deep black, attended the Mass which was celebrated for them in the palace chapel. Then Corona walked for an hour with her companion upon the terrace, or, if it rained, beneath the covered balconies upon the south side. The morning hours she passed in solitude, reading such books of devotion and serious matter as most suited the sad temper of her mind; precisely at mid-day she and Sister Gabrielle breakfasted together in a sort of solemn state; and at three o'clock the great landau, with its black horses and mourning liveries, stood under the inner gate. The two ladies appeared five minutes later, and by a gesture Corona indicated whether she would be driven up or down the valley. The dashing equipage descended the long smooth road that wound through the town, and returned invariably at the end of two hours, again ascended the tortuous way, and disappeared beneath the dark entrance. At six o'clock dinner was served, with the same solemn state as attended the morning meal; Corona and Sister Gabrielle remained together until ten, and the day was over. There was no more variation in the routine of their lives than if they had been moved by a machinery connected with the great castle clock overhead, which chimed the hours and the quarters by day and night, and regulated the doings of the town below. But in spite of this unchanging sequence of similar habit, the time passed pleasantly for Corona. She had had too much of the brilliant lights and the buzzing din of society for the last five years, too much noise, too much idle talk, too much aimless movement; she needed rest, too, from the constant strain of her efforts to fulfil her self-imposed duties towards her husband--most of all, perhaps, she required a respite from the sufferings she had undergone through her stifled love for Giovanni Saracinesca. All this she found in the magnificent calm of the life at Astrardente. She meditated long upon the memory of her husband, recalling lovingly those things which had been most worthy in him, willingly forgetting his many follies and vanities and moments of petulance. She went over in her mind the many and varied scenes of the past, and learned to love the sweet and silent solitude of the present by comparison of it with all the useless and noisy activity of the world she had for a time abandoned. She had not expected to find anything more than a passive companion in Sister Gabrielle; but in the course of their daily converse she discovered in her a character of extreme refinement and quick perception, a depth of human sympathy and a breadth of experience which amazed her, and made her own views of things seem small. The Sister was devout and rigid in the observance of the institutions of her order, in so far as she was able to follow out the detail of religious regulation without interfering with the convenience of her companion; but in her conversation she showed an intimate knowledge of character which was a constant source of pleasure to Corona, who told the Sister long stories of people she had known for the sake of hearing her admirable comments upon social questions. But besides her reading and her long hours of meditation and her talks with Sister Gabrielle, Corona found occupation in the state of the town below her residence. She attempted once or twice to visit the poor cottages, in the hope of doing some good; but she found that she was such an object of holy awe to the inmates that they were speechless in her presence, or became so nervous in their desire to answer her questions, that the information she was able to obtain concerning their troubles was too vague to be of any use. The Italian peasant is not the same in all parts of the country, as is generally supposed; and although the Tuscan, who is constantly brought into familiar contact with his landlord, and acquires a certain pleasant faith in him, grows eloquent upon the conditions of his being, the same is not true of the rougher race that labours in the valleys of the Sabine and the Samnite hills. The peasant of the Agro Romano is indeed capable of civilisation and he is able to understand his superiors, provided that he is gradually accustomed to seeing them: unfortunately this occurs but rarely. Many of the great Roman landholders spend a couple of months of every year upon their estates: old Astrardente had in his later years gone to considerable expense in refitting and repairing the castle, but he had done little for the town. Men like the Saracinesca, however, were great exceptions at that time; though they travelled much abroad, they often remained for many months in their rugged old fortress. They knew the inhabitants of their lands far and wide, and were themselves not only known but loved; they spent their money in improving the condition of their peasants, in increasing the area of their forests, and in fostering the fertility of the soil, but they cared nothing for adorning the grey stone walls of their ancestors' stronghold. It had done well enough for a thousand years, it would do well enough still; it had stood firm against fierce sieges in the dark ages of the Roman baronry, it could afford to stand unchanged in its monumental strength against the advancing sea of nineteenth-century civilisation. They themselves, father and son, were content with such practical improvements as they could introduce for the good of their people and the enriching of their land; a manly race, despising luxury, they cared little whether their home was thought comfortable by the few guests they occasionally invited to spend a week with them. They saw much of the peasantry, and went daily among them, understanding their wants, and wisely promoting in their minds the belief that land cannot prosper unless both landlord and tenant do their share. But Astrardente was a holding of a very different kind, and Corona, in her first attempts at understanding the state of things, found herself stopped by a dead wall of silence, beyond which she guessed that there lay an undiscovered land of trouble. She knew next to nothing of the condition of her people; she only imperfectly understood the relations in which they actually stood to herself, the extent of her power over them, and of their power over her. The mysteries of _emphyteusis, emphyteuma,_ and _emphyteuta_ were still hidden to her, though her steward spoke of them with surprising loquacity and fluency. She laboured hard to understand the system upon which her tenants held their lands from her, and it was some time before she succeeded. It is easier to explain the matter at once than to follow Corona in her attempts to comprehend it. To judge from the terms employed, the system of holdings common in the Pontifical States has descended without interruption from the time of the Romans to the present day. As in old Roman law, _emphyteusis_, now spelt _emfiteuse_, means the possession of rights over another person's land, capable of transmission by inheritance; and to-day, as under the Romans, the holder of such rights is called the _emphyteuta_, or _emfiteuta_. How the Romans came to use Greek words in their tenant-law does not belong to the matter in hand; these words are the only ones now in use in this part of Italy, and they are used precisely as they were in remote times. A tenant may acquire rights of _emfiteuse_ directly from the owner of the land, like an ordinary lease; or he may acquire them by settlement--"squatting," as the popular term is. Wherever land is lying waste, any one may establish himself upon it and cultivate it, on condition of paying to the owner a certain proportion of the yield of the land--generally one quarter--either in kind or in money. The landlord may, indeed, refuse the right of settlement in the first instance, which would very rarely occur, since most people who own barren tracts of rock and heath are only too glad to promote any kind of cultivation. But when the landlord has once allowed the right, the right itself is constituted thereby into a possession of which the peasant may dispose as he pleases, even by selling it to another. The law provides, however, that in case of transfers by sale, the landlord shall receive one year's rent in kind or in money in addition to the rent due, and this bonus is paid jointly by the buyer and the seller according to agreement. Such holdings are inherited from father to son for many generations, and are considered to be perpetual leases. The landlord cannot expel a tenant except for non-payment of rent during three consecutive years. In actual fact, the right of the _emfiteuta_ in the soil is far more important than that of the landlord; for the tenant can cheat his landlord as much as he pleases, whereas the injustice of the law provides that under no circumstances whatsoever shall the landlord cheat the tenant. In actual fact, also, the rents are universally paid in kind, and the peasant eats what remains of the produce, so that very little cash is seen in the land. Corona discovered that the income she enjoyed from the lands of Astrardente was collected by the basketful from the threshing-floors, and by the barrel from the vineyards of some two hundred tenants. It was a serious matter to gather from two hundred threshing-floors precisely a quarter of the grain threshed, and from fifty or sixty vineyards precisely a quarter of the wine made in each. The peasants all made their wine at the same time, and all threshed their grain in the same week. If the agent was not on the spot during the threshing and the vintage, the peasant had no difficulty whatever in hiding a large quantity of his produce. As the rent was never fixed, but depended solely on the yield of the year, it was preeminently to the advantage of the tenant to throw dust in the eyes of the landlord whenever he got a chance. The landlord found the business of watching his tenants tedious and unprofitable, and naturally resorted to the crowning evil of agricultural evils--the employment of a rent-farmer. The latter, at all events, was willing to pay a fixed sum yearly; and if the sum paid was generally considerably below the real value of the rents, the arrangement at least assured a fixed income to the landlord, with the certainty of getting it without trouble to himself. The middleman then proceeded to grind the tenants at his leisure and discretion in order to make the best of his bargain. The result was, that while the tenant starved and the landlord got less than his due in consideration of being saved from annoyance, the middleman gradually accumulated money. Upon this system nine-tenths of the land in the Pontifical States was held, and much of the same land is so held to-day, in spite of the modern tenant-law, for reasons which will be clearly explained in another part of this history. Corona saw and understood that the evil was very great. She discussed the matter with her steward, or _ministro_ as he was called, who was none other than the aforesaid middleman; and the more she discussed the question, the more hopeless the question appeared. The steward held a contract from her dead husband for a number of years. He had regularly paid the yearly sums agreed upon, and it would be impossible to remove him for several years to come. He, of course, was strenuously opposed to any change, and did his best to make himself appear as an angel of mercy and justice, presiding over a happy family of rejoicing peasants in the heart of a terrestrial paradise. Unfortunately for himself, however, he had not at first understood the motive which prompted Corona's inquiries. He supposed in the beginning that she was not satisfied with the amount of rent he paid, and that at the expiration of his contract she intended to raise the sum; so that, on the first occasion when she sent for him, he had drawn a piteous picture of the peasant's condition, and had expatiated with eloquence on his own poverty, and on the extreme difficulty of collecting any rents at all. It was not until he discovered that Corona's chief preoccupation was for the welfare of her tenants that he changed his tactics, and endeavoured to prove that all was for the best upon the best of all possible estates. Then, to his great astonishment, Corona informed him that his contract would not be renewed, and that at the expiration of his term she would collect her rents herself. It had taken her long to understand the situation, but when she had comprehended it, she made up her mind that something must be done. If her fortune had depended solely upon the income she received from the Astrardente lands, she would have made up her mind to reduce herself to penury rather than allow things to go in the way they were going. Fortunately she was rich, and if she had not all the experience necessary to deal with such matters, she had plenty of goodwill, plenty of generosity, and plenty of money. In her simple theory of agrarian economy the best way to improve an estate seemed to be to spend the income arising from it directly upon its improvement, until she could take the whole management of it into her own hands. The trouble, as she thought, was that there was too little money among the peasants; the best way to help them was to put money within their reach. The only question was how to do this without demoralising them, and without increasing their liabilities towards the _ministro_ or middleman. Then she sent for the curate. From him she learned that the people did well enough in the summer, but that the winter was dreaded. She asked why. He answered that they were not provident; that the land system was bad; and that even if they saved anything the _ministro_ would take it from them. She inquired whether he thought it possible to induce them to be more thrifty. He thought it might be done in ten years, but not in one. "In that case," said Corona, "the only way to improve their condition is to give them work in the winter. I will make roads through the estate, and build large dwelling-houses in the town. There shall be work enough for everybody." It was a simple plan, but it was destined to be carried into execution, and to change the face of the Astrardente domain in a few years. Corona sent to Rome for an engineer who was also a good architect, and she set herself to study the possibilities of the place, giving the man sufficient scope, and only insisting that there should be no labour and no material imported from beyond the limits of her lands. This provided her with an occupation whereby the time passed quickly enough. The Lenten season ended, and Eastertide ran swiftly on to Pentecost. The early fruit-trees blossomed white, and the flowers fell in a snow-shower to the ground, to give place to the cherries and the almonds and the pears. The brown bramble-hedges turned leafy, and were alive with little birds; and the great green lizards shot across the woodland paths upon the hillside, and caught the flies that buzzed noisily in the spring sunshine. The dried-up vines put forth tiny leaves, and the maize shot suddenly up to the sun out of the rich furrows, like myriads of brilliant green poignards piercing the brown skin of the earth. By the roadside the grass grew high, and the broad shallow brooks shrank to narrow rivulets, and disappeared in the overgrowing rushes before the increasing heat of the climbing sun. Corona's daily round of life never changed, but as the months wore on, a stealing thought came often and often again--shy, as though fearing to be driven away; silent at first, as a shadow in a dream, but taking form and reality from familiarity with its own self, and speaking intelligible words, saying at last plainly, "Will he keep his promise? Will he never come?" But he came not as the fresh colours of spring deepened with the rich maturity of summer; and Corona, gazing down the valley, saw the change that came over the fair earth, and half guessed the change that was coming over her own life. She had sought solitude instinctively, but she had not known what it would bring her. She had desired to honour her dead husband by withdrawing from the world for a time and thinking of him and remembering him. She had done so, but the youth in her rebelled at last against the constant memory of old age--of an old age, too, which had passed away from her and was dead for ever. It was right to dwell for a time upon the thought of her widowhood, but the voice said it would not be always right. The calm and noiseless tide of the old man's ceasing life had ebbed slowly and reluctantly from her shore, and she had followed the sad sea in her sorrow to the furthest verge of its retreat; but as she stood upon the edge of the stagnant waters, gazing far out and trying to follow even further the slow subsiding ooze, the tide had turned upon her unawares, the fresh seaward breeze sprang up and broke the dead calm with the fresh motion of crisp ripples that once more flowed gladly over the dreary sand, and the waters of life plashed again and laughed gladly together around her feet. The thought of Giovanni--the one thought that again and again kept recurring in her mind--grew very sweet,--as sweet as it had once been bitter. There was nothing to stop its growth now, and she let it have its way. What did it matter, so long as he did not come near her--for the present? Some day he would come; she wondered when, and how long he would keep his promise. But meanwhile she was not unhappy, and she went about her occupations as before; only sometimes she would go alone at evening to the balcony that faced the higher mountains, and there she would stand for half an hour gazing southward towards the precipitous rocks that caught the red glare of the sinking sun, and she asked herself if he were there, or whether, as report had told her, he were in the far north. It was but half a day's ride over the hills, he had said. But strain her sight as she would, she could not pierce the heavy crags nor see into the wooded dells beyond. He had said he would pass the summer there; had he changed his mind? But she was not unhappy. There was that in her which forbade unhappiness, which would have broken out into great joy if she would have let it; but yet she would not. It was too soon yet to say aloud what she said in her heart daily, that she loved Giovanni with a great love, and that she knew she was free to love him. In that thought there was enough of joy. But he might come if he would; her anger would not be great if he broke his promise now, he had kept it so long--six whole months. But by-and-by, as the days passed, the first note of happiness was marred by the discordant ring of a distant fear. What if she had too effectually forbidden him to see her? What if he had gone out disappointed of all hope, and was really in distant Scandinavia, as the papers said, risking his life in mad adventures? But after all, that was not what she feared. He was strong, young, brave--he had survived a thousand dangers, he would survive these also. There arose between her and the thought of him an evil shadow, the image of a woman, and it took the shape of Donna Tullia so vividly that she could see the red lips move and almost hear the noisy laugh. She was angry with herself at the idea, but it recurred continually and gave her pain, and the pain grew to an intolerable fear. She began to feel that she must know where he was, at any cost, or she could have no peace. She was restless and nervous, and began to be absent-minded in her conversation with Sister Gabrielle. The good woman saw it, and advised a little change--anything, an excursion of a day for instance. Corona, she said, was too young to lead this life. Her mind leaped at the idea. It was but half a day's ride, he had said; she would climb those hills and look down upon Saracinesca--only once. She might perhaps meet some peasant, and by a careless inquiry she would learn whether he was there--or would be there in the summer. No one would know; and besides, Sister Gabrielle had said that an excursion would do Corona good. Sister Gabrielle had probably never heard that Saracinesca was so near, and she certainly would not guess that the Duchessa had any interest in its lord. She announced her intention, and the Sister approved--she herself, she said, was too weak to undergo the fatigue. On the following morning, Corona alone entered her carriage and was driven many miles up the southward hills, till the road was joined by a broad bridle-path that led eastwards towards the Abruzzi. Here she was met by a party of horsemen, her own _guardiani_, or forest-keepers, as they are called, in rough dark-blue coats and leathern gaiters. Each man wore upon his breast a round plate of chiselled silver, bearing the arms of the Astrardente; each had a long rifle slung behind him, and carried a holster at the bow of his huge saddle. A couple of sturdy black-browed peasants held a mule by the bridle, heavily caparisoned in the old fashion, under a great red velvet Spanish saddle, with long tarnished trappings that had once been embroidered with silver. A little knot of peasants and ragged boys stood all around watching the preparations with interest, and commenting audibly upon the beauty of the great lady. Corona mounted from a stone by the wayside, and the young men led her beast up the path. She smiled to herself, for she had never done such a thing before, but she was not uneasy in the company of her rough-looking escort. She knew well enough that she was as safe with them as in her own house. As the bridle-path wound up from the road, the country grew more rugged, the vegetation more scanty, and the stones more plentiful. It was a wilderness of rocky desolation; as far as one could see there was no sign of humanity, not a soul upon the solitary road, not a living thing upon the desolate hills that rose on either side in jagged points to the sky. Corona talked a little with the head-keeper who rode beside her with a slack rein, letting his small mountain horse pick its own way over the rough path. He told her that few people ever passed that way. It was the short road to Saracinesca. The princes sometimes sent their carriage round by the longer way and rode over the hills; and in the vintage-time there was some traffic, as many of the smaller peasants carried grapes across the pass to the larger wine-presses, and sold them outright. It was not a dangerous road, for the very reason that it was so unfrequented. The Duchessa explained that she only wanted to see the valley beyond from the summit of the pass, and would then return. It was past mid-day when the party reached the highest point,--a depression between the crags just wide enough to admit one loaded mule. The keeper said she could see Saracinesca from the end of the narrow way, before the descent began. She uttered an exclamation of surprise as she reached the spot. Scarcely a quarter of a mile to the right, at the extremity of a broad hill-road, she saw the huge towers of Saracinesca, grey and storm-beaten, rising out of a thick wood. The whole intervening space--and indeed the whole deep valley as far as she could see--was an unbroken forest of chestnut-trees. Here and there below the castle the houses of the town showed their tiled gables, but the mass of the buildings was hidden completely from sight. Corona had had no idea that she should find herself so near to the place, and she was seized with a sudden fear lest Giovanni should appear upon the long straight path that led into the trees. She drew back a little among her followers. "Are the princes there now?" she asked of the head-keeper. He did not know; but a moment later a peasant, riding astride of a bag of corn upon his donkey's back, passed along the straight road by the entrance to the bridle-path. The keeper hailed him, and put the question. Seeing Corona upon her mule, surrounded by armed men in livery, the man halted, and pulled off his soft black-cloth hat. Both the princes were in Saracinesca, he said. The young prince had been there ever since Easter. They were busy building an aqueduct which was to supply the whole town with water; it was to pass above, up there among the woods. The princes went almost every day to visit the works. Her Excellency might, perhaps, find them there now, or if not, they were at the castle. But her Excellency had no intention of finding them. She gave the fellow a coin, and beat a somewhat hasty retreat. Her followers were silent men, accustomed to obey, and they followed her down the steep path without even exchanging a word among themselves. Beneath the shade of an overhanging rock she halted, and, dismounting from her mule, was served with the lunch that had been brought. She ate little, and then sat thoughtfully contemplating the bare stones, while the men at a little distance hastily disposed of the remains of her meal. She had experienced an extraordinary emotion on finding herself suddenly so near to Giovanni; it was almost as though she had seen him, and her heart beat fast, while a dark flush rose from time to time to her cheek. It would have been so natural that he should pass that way, just as she was halting at the entrance to the bridle-path. How unspeakably dreadful it would have been to be discovered thus spying out his dwelling-place when she had so strictly forbidden him to attempt to see her! The blush burned upon her cheeks--she had done a thing so undignified, so ill befitting her magnificent superiority. For a moment she was desperately ashamed. But for all that, she could not repress the glad delight she felt at knowing that he was there after all; that, if he had kept his word, in avoiding her, he had, nevertheless, also fulfilled his intention of spending the summer in Saracinesca. He had even been there since Easter, and the story of his going to the North had been a mere invention of the newspapers. She could not understand his conduct, nor why he had gone to Paris--a fact attested by people who knew him. It had probably been for some matter of business--that excuse which, in a woman's mind, explains almost any sudden journey a man may undertake. But he was there in the castle now, and her heart was satisfied. The men packed the things in the basket, and Corona was helped upon her mule. Slowly the party descended the steep path that grew broader and more practicable as they neared the bottom; there the carriage awaited her, and soon she was bowling along the smooth road towards home, leaving far behind her the mounted guards, the peasants, and her slow-paced mule. The sun was low when the carriage rolled under the archway of Astrardente. Sister Gabrielle said Corona looked much the better for her excursion, and she added that she must be very strong to bear such fatigue so well. And the next day--and for many days--the Sister noticed the change in her hostess's manner, and promised herself that if the Duchessa became uneasy again she would advise another day among the hills, so wonderful was the effect of a slight change from the ordinary routine of her life. That night old Saracinesca and his son sat at dinner in a wide hall of their castle. The faithful Pasquale served them as solemnly as he was used to do in Rome. This evening he spoke again. He had ventured no remark since he had informed them of the Duca d'Astrardente's death. "I beg your Excellencies' pardon," he began, adopting his usual formula of apologetic address. "Well, Pasquale, what is it?" asked old Saracinesca. "I did not know whether your Excellency was aware that the Duchessa d'Astrardente had been here to-day." "What?" roared the Prince. "You must be mad, Pasquale?" exclaimed Giovanni in a low voice. "I beg your Excellencies' pardon if I am wrong, but this is how I know. Gigi Secchi, the peasant from Aquaviva in the lower forest, brought a bag of corn to the mill to-day, and he told the miller, and the miller told Ettore, and Ettore told Nino, and Nino told--" "What the devil did he tell him?" interrupted old Saracinesca. "Nino told the cook's boy," continued Pasquale unmoved, "and the cook's boy told me, your Excellency, that Gigi was passing along the road to Serveti coming here, when he was stopped by a number of _guardiani_ who accompanied a beautiful dark lady in black, who rode upon a mule, and the _guardiani_ asked him if your Excellencies were at Saracinesca; and when he said you were, the lady gave him a coin, and turned at once and rode down the bridle-path towards Astrardente, and he said the _guardiani_ were those of the Astrardente, because he remembered to have seen one of them, who has a scar over his left eye, at the great fair at Genazzano last year. And that is how I heard." "That is a remarkable narrative, Pasquale," answered the Prince, laughing loudly, "but it seems very credible. Go and send for Gigi Secchi if he is still in the neighbourhood, and bring him here, and let us have the story from his own lips." When they were alone the two men looked at each other for a moment, and then old Saracinesca laughed again; but Giovanni looked very grave, and his face was pale. Presently his father became serious again. "If this thing is true," he said, "I would advise you, Giovanni, to pay a visit to the other side of the hills. It is time." Giovanni was silent for a moment. He was intensely interested in the situation, but he could not tell his father that he had promised Corona not to see her, and he had not yet explained to himself her sudden appearance so near Saracinesca. "I think it would be better for you to go first," he said to his father. "But I am not at all sure this story is true." "I? Oh, I will go when you please," returned the old man, with another laugh. He was always ready for anything active. But Gigi Secchi could not be found. He had returned to Aquaviva at once, and it was not easy to send a message. Two days later, however, Giovanni took the trouble of going to the man's home. He was not altogether surprised when Gigi confirmed Pasquale's tale in every particular. Corona had actually been at Saracinesca to find out if Giovanni was there or not; and on hearing that he was at the castle, she had fled precipitately. Giovanni was naturally grave and of a melancholy temper; but during the last few months he had been more than usually taciturn, occupying himself with dogged obstinacy in the construction of his aqueduct, visiting the works in the day and spending hours in the evening over the plans. He was waiting. He believed that Corona cared for him, and he knew that he loved her, but for the present he must wait patiently, both for the sake of his promise and for the sake of a decent respect of her widowhood. In order to wait he felt the necessity of constant occupation, and to that end he had set himself resolutely to work with his father, whose ideal dream was to make Saracinesea the most complete and prosperous community in that part of the mountains. "I think if you would go over," he said, at the end of a week, "it would be much better. I do not want to intrude myself upon her at present, and you could easily find out whether she would like to see me. After all, she may have been merely making an excursion for her amusement, and may have chanced upon us by accident. I have often noticed how suddenly one comes in view of the castle from that bridle-path." "On the other hand," returned the Prince with a smile, "any one would tell her that the path leads nowhere except to Saracinesca. But I will go to-morrow," he added. "I will set your mind at rest in twenty-four hours." "Thank you," said Giovanni. CHAPTER XXIV. Old Saracinesca kept his word, and on the following morning, eight days after Corona's excursion upon the hills, he rode down to Astrardente, reaching the palace at about mid-day. He sent in his card, and stood waiting beneath the great gate, beating the dust from his boots with his heavy whip. His face looked darker than ever, from constant exposure to the sun, and his close-cropped hair and short square beard had turned even whiter than before in the last six months, but his strong form was erect, and his step firm and elastic. He was a remarkable old man; many a boy of twenty might have envied his strength and energetic vitality. Corona was at her mid-day breakfast with Sister Gabrielle, when the old Prince's card was brought. She started at the sight of the name; and though upon the bit of pasteboard she read plainly enough, "_Il Principe di Saracinesca_," she hesitated, and asked the butler if it was really the Prince. He said it was. "Would you mind seeing him?" she asked of Sister Gabrielle. "He is an old gentleman," she added, in explanation--"a near neighbour here in the mountains." Sister Gabrielle had no objection. She even remarked that it would do the Duchessa good to see some one. "Ask the Prince to come in, and put another place at the table," said Corona. A moment later the old man entered, and Corona rose to receive him. There was something refreshing in the ring of his deep voice and the clank of his spurs as he crossed the marble floor. "Signora Duchessa, you are very good to receive me. I did not know that this was your breakfast-hour. Ah!" he exclaimed, glancing at Sister Gabrielle, who had also risen to her feet, "good day, my Sister." "Sister Gabrielle," said Corona, as an introduction; "she is good enough to be my companion in solitude." To tell the truth, Corona felt uneasy; but the sensation was somehow rather pleasurable, although it crossed her mind that the Prince might have heard of her excursion, and had possibly come to find out why she had been so near to his place. She boldly faced the situation. "I nearly came upon you the other day as unexpectedly as you have visited me," she said with a smile. "I had a fancy to look over into your valley, and when I reached the top of the hill I found I was almost in your house." "I wish you had quite been there," returned the Prince. "Of course I heard that you had been seen, and we guessed you had stumbled upon us in some mountain excursion. My son rode all the way to Aquaviva to see the man who had spoken with you." Saracinesca said this as though it were perfectly natural, helping himself to the dish the servant offered him. But when he looked up he saw that Corona blushed beneath her dark skin. "It is such a very sudden view at that point," she said, nervously, "that I was startled." "I wish you had preserved your equanimity to the extent of going a little further. Saracinesca has rarely been honoured with the visit of a Duchessa d'Astrardente. But since you have explained your visit--or the visit which you did not make--I ought to explain mine. You must know, in the first place, that I am not here by accident, but by intention, preconceived, well pondered, and finally executed to my own complete satisfaction. I came, not to get a glimpse of your valley nor a distant view of your palace, but to see you, yourself. Your hospitality in receiving me has therefore crowned and complimented the desire I had of seeing you." Corona laughed a little. "That is a very pretty speech," she said. "Which you would have lost if you had not received me," he answered, gaily. "I have not done yet. I have many pretty speeches for you. The sight of you induces beauty in language as the sun in May makes the flowers open." "That is another," laughed Corona. "Do you spend your days in studying the poets at Saracinesca? Does Don Giovanni study with you?" "Giovanni is a fact," returned the Prince; "I am a fable. Old men are always fables, for they represent, in a harmless form, the follies of all mankind; their end is always in itself a moral, and young people can learn much by studying them." "Your comparison is witty," said Corona, who was much amused at old Saracinesca's conversation; "but I doubt whether you are so harmless as you represent. You are certainly not foolish, and I am not sure whether, as a study for the young--" she hesitated, and laughed. "Whether extremely young persons would have the wit to comprehend virtue by the concealment of it--to say, as that witty old Roman said, that the images of Cassius and Brutus were more remarkable than those of any one else, for the very reason that they were nowhere to be seen--like my virtues? Giovanni, for instance, is the very reverse of me in that, though he has shown such singularly bad taste in resembling my outward man." "One should never conceal virtues," said Sister Gabrielle, gently. "One should not hide one's light under a basket, you know." "My Sister," replied the old Prince, his black eyes twinkling merrily, "if I had in my whole composition as much light as would enable you to read half-a-dozen words in your breviary, it should be at your disposal. I would set it in the midst of Piazza Colonna, and call it the most wonderful illumination on record. Unfortunately my light, like the lantern of a solitary miner, is only perceptible to myself, and dimly at that." "You must not depreciate yourself so very much," said Corona. "No; that is true. You will either believe I am speaking the truth, or you will not. I do not know which would be the worse fate. I will change the subject. My son Giovanni, Duchessa, desires to be remembered in your good graces." "Thanks. How is he?" "He is well, but the temper of him is marvellously melancholy. He is building an aqueduct, and so am I. The thing is accomplished by his working perpetually while I smoke cigarettes and read novels." "The division of labour is to your advantage, I should say," remarked Corona. "Immensely, I assure you. He promotes the natural advantages of my lands, and I encourage the traffic in tobacco and literature. He works from morning till night, is his own engineer, contractor, overseer, and master-mason. He does everything, and does it well. If we were less barbarous in our bachelor establishment I would ask you to come and see us--in earnest this time--and visit the work we are doing. It is well worth while. Perhaps you would consent as it is. We will vacate the castle for your benefit, and mount guard outside the gates all night." Again Corona blushed. She would have given anything to go, but she felt that it was impossible. "I would like to go," she said. "If one could come back the same day." "You did before," remarked Saracinesca, bluntly. "But it was late when I reached home, and I spent no time at all there." "I know you did not," laughed the old man. "You gave Gigi Secchi some money, and then fled precipitately." "Indeed I was afraid you would suddenly come upon me, and I ran away," answered Corona, laughing in her turn, as the dark blood rose to her olive cheeks. "As my amiable ancestors did in the same place when anybody passed with a full purse," suggested Saracinesca. "But we have improved a little since then. We would have asked you to breakfast. Will you come?" "I do not like to go alone; I cannot, you see. Sister Gabrielle could never ride up that hill on a mule." "There is a road for carriages," said the Prince. "I will propose something in the way of a compromise. I will bring Giovanni down with me and our team of mountain horses. Those great beasts of yours cannot do this kind of work. We will take you and Sister Gabrielle up almost as fast as you could go by the bridle-path." "And back on the same day?" asked Corona. "No; on the next day." "But I do not see where the compromise is," she replied. "Sister Gabrielle is at once the compromise and the cause that you will not be compromised. I beg her pardon--" Both ladies laughed. "I will be very glad to go," said the Sister. "I do not see that there is anything extraordinary in the Prince's proposal." "My Sister," returned Saracinesca, "you are on the way to saintship; you already enjoy the beatific vision; you see with a heavenly perspicuity." "It is a charming proposition," said Corona; "but in that case you will have to come down the day before." She was a little embarrassed. "We will not invade the cloister," answered the Prince. "Giovanni and I will spend the night in concocting pretty speeches, and will appear armed with them at dawn before your gates." "There is room in Astrardente," replied Corona. "You shall not lack hospitality for a night. When will you come?" "To-morrow evening, if you please. A good thing should be done quickly, in order not to delay doing it again." "Do you think I would go again?" Saracinesca fixed his black eyes on Corona's, and gazed at her some seconds before he answered. "Madam," he said at last, very gravely, "I trust you will come again and stay longer." "You are very good," returned Corona, quietly. "At all events, I will go this first time." "We will endeavour to show our gratitude by making you comfortable," answered the Prince, resuming his former tone. "You shall have a mass in the morning and a litany in the evening. We are godless fellows up there, but we have a priest." "You seem to associate our comfort entirely with religious services," laughed Corona. "But you are very considerate." "I see the most charming evidence of devotion at your side," he replied; "Sister Gabrielle is both the evidence of your piety and is in herself an exposition of the benefits of religion. There shall be other attractions, however, besides masses and litanies." Breakfast being ended, Sister Gabrielle left the two together. They went from the dining-room to the great vaulted hall of the inner building. It was cool there, and there were great old arm-chairs ranged along the walls. The closed blinds admitted a soft green light from the hot noonday without. Corona loved to walk upon the cool marble floor; she was a very strong and active woman, delighting in mere motion--not restless, but almost incapable of weariness; her movements not rapid, but full of grace and ease. Saracinesca walked by her side, smoking thoughtfully for some minutes. "Duchessa," he said at last, glancing at her beautiful face, "things are greatly changed since we met last. You were angry with me then. I do not know whether you were so justly, but you were very angry for a few moments. I am going to return to the subject now; I trust you will not be offended with me." Corona trembled for a moment, and was silent. She would have prevented him from going on, but before she could find the words she sought he continued. "Things are much changed, in some respects; in others, not at all. It is but natural to suppose that in the course of time you will think of the possibility of marrying again. My son, Duchessa, loves you very truly. Pardon me, it is no disrespect to you, now, that he should have told me so. I am his father, and I have no one else to care for. He is too honest a gentleman to have spoken of his affection for you at an eailier period, but he has told me of it now." Corona stood still in the midst of the great hall, and faced the old Prince. She had grown pale while he was speaking. Still she was silent. "I have nothing more to say--that is all," said Saracinesca, gazing earnestly into the depths of her eyes. "I have nothing more to say." "Do you then mean to repeat the warning you once gave me?" asked Corona, growing whiter still. "Do you mean to imply that there is danger to your son?" "There is danger--great danger for him, unless you will avert it." "And how?" asked Corona, in a low voice. "Madam, by becoming his wife." Corona started and turned away in great agitation. Saracinesca stood still while she slowly walked a few steps from him. She could not speak. "I could say a great deal more, Duchessa," he said, as she came back towards him. "I could say that the marriage is not only fitting in every other way, but is also advantageous from a worldly point of view. You are sole mistress of Astrardente; my son will before long be sole master of Saracinesca. Our lands are near together--that is a great advantage, that question of fortune. Again, I would observe that, with your magnificent position, you could not condescend to accept a man of lower birth than the highest in the country. There is none higher than the Saracinesca--pardon my arrogance,--and among princes there is no braver, truer gentleman than my son Giovanni. I ask no pardon for saying that; I will maintain it against all comers. I forego all questions of advantage, and base my argument upon that. He is the best man I know, and he loves you devotedly." "Is he aware that you are here for this purpose?" asked Corona, suddenly. She spoke with a great effort. "No. He knows that I am here, and was glad that I came. He desired me to ascertain if you would see him. He would certainly not have thought of addressing you at present. I am an old man, and I feel that I must do things quickly. That is my excuse." Corona was again silent. She was too truthful to give an evasive answer, and yet she hesitated to speak. The position was an embarrassing one; she was taken unawares, and was terrified at the emotion she felt. It had never entered her mind that the old Prince could appear on his son's behalf, and she did not know how to meet him. "I have perhaps been too abrupt," said Saracinesca. "I love my son very dearly, and his happiness is more to me than what remains of my own. If from the first you regard my proposition as an impossible one, I would spare him the pain of a humiliation,--I fear I could not save him from the rest, from a suffering that might drive him mad. It is for this reason that I implore you, if you are able, to give me some answer, not that I may convey it to him, but in order that I may be guided in future. He cannot forget you; but he has not seen you for six months. To see you again if he must leave you for ever, would only inflict a fresh wound." He paused, while Corona slowly walked by his side. "I do not see why I should conceal the truth, from you," she said at last. "I cannot conceal it from myself. I am not a child that I should be ashamed of it. There is nothing wrong in it--no reason why it should not be. You are honest, too--why should we try to deceive ourselves? I trust to your honour to be silent, and I own that I--that I love your son." Corona stood still and turned her face away, as the burning blush rose to her cheeks. The answer she had given was characteristic of her, straightforward and honest. She was not ashamed of it, and yet the words were so new, so strange in their sound, and so strong in their meaning, that she blushed as she uttered them. Saracinesca was greatly surprised, too, for he had expected some evasive turn, some hint that he might bring Giovanni. But his delight had no bounds. "Duchessa," he said, "the happiest day I can remember was when I brought home my wife to Saracinesca. My proudest day will be that on which my son enters the same gates with you by his side." He took her hand and raised it to his lips, with a courteous gesture. "It will be long before that--it must be very long," answered Corona. "It shall be when you please, Madam, provided it is at last. Meanwhile we will come down to-morrow, and take you to our tower. Do you understand now why I said that I hoped you would come again and stay longer? I trust you have not changed your mind in regard to the excursion." "No. We will expect you to-morrow night. Remember, I have been honest with you--I trust to you to be silent." "You have my word. And now, with your permission, I will return to Saracinesca. Believe me, the news that you expect us will be good enough to tell Giovanni." "You may greet him from me. But will you not rest awhile before you ride back? You must be tired." "No fear of that!" answered the Prince. "You have put a new man into an old one. I shall never tire of bearing the news of your greetings." So the old man left her, and mounted his horse and rode up the pass. But Corona remained for hours in the vaulted hall, pacing up and down. It had come too soon--far too soon. And yet, how she had longed for it! how she had wondered whether it would ever come at all! The situation was sufficiently strange, too. Giovanni had once told her of his love, and she had silenced him. He was to tell her again, and she was to accept what he said. He was to ask her to marry him, and her answer was a foregone conclusion. It seemed as though this greatest event of her life were planned to the very smallest details beforehand; as though she were to act a part which she had studied, and which was yet no comedy because it was the expression of her life's truth. The future had been, as it were, prophesied and completely foretold to her, and held no surprises; and yet it was more sweet to think of than all the past together. She wondered how he would say it, what his words would be, how he would look, whether he would again be as strangely violent as he had been that night at the Palazzo Frangipani. She wondered, most of all, how she would answer him. But it would be long yet. There would be many meetings, many happy days before that happiest day of all. Sister Gabrielle saw a wonderful change in Corona's face that afternoon when they drove up the valley together, and she remarked what wonderful effect a little variety had upon her companion's spirits--she could not say upon her health, for Corona seemed made of velvet and steel, so smooth and dark, and yet so supple and strong. Corona smiled brightly as she looked far up at the beetling crags behind which Saracinesca was hidden. "We shall be up there the day after to-morrow," she said. "How strange it will seem!" And leaning back, her deep eyes flashed, and she laughed happily. On the following evening, again, they drove along the road that led up the valley. But they had not gone far when they saw in the distance a cloud of dust, from which in a few moments emerged a vehicle drawn by three strong horses, and driven by Giovanni Saracinesca himself. His father sat beside him in front, and a man in livery was seated at the back, with a long rifle between his knees. The vehicle was a kind of double cart, capable of holding four persons, and two servants at the back. In a moment the two carriages met and stopped side by side. Giovanni sprang from his seat, throwing the reins to his father, who stood up hat in hand, and bowed from where he was. Corona held out her hand to Giovanni as he stood bareheaded in the road beside her. One long look told all the tale; there could be no words there before the Sister and the old Prince, but their eyes told all--the pain of past separation, the joy of two loving hearts that met at last without hindrance. "Let your servant drive, and get in with us," said Corona, who could hardly speak in her excitement. Then she started slightly, and smiled in her embarrassment. She had continued to hold Giovanni's hand, unconsciously leaving her fingers in his. The Prince's groom climbed into the front seat, and old Saracinesca got down and entered the landau. It was a strangely silent meeting, long expected by the two who so loved each other--long looked for, but hardly realised now that it had come. The Prince was the first to speak, as usual. "You expected to meet us, Duchessa?" he said; "we expected to meet you. An expectation fulfilled is better than a surprise. Everything at Saracinesca is prepared for your reception. Don Angelo, our priest, has been warned of your coming, and the boy who serves mass has been washed. You may imagine that a great festivity is expected. Giovanni has turned the castle inside out, and had a room hung entirely with tapestries of my great-grandmother's own working. He says that since the place is so old, its antiquity should be carried into the smallest details." Corona laughed gaily--she would have laughed at anything that day--and the old Prince's tone was fresh and sparkling and merry. He had relieved the first embarrassment of the situation. "There have been preparations at Astrardente for your reception, too," answered the Duchessa. "There was a difficulty of choice, as there are about a hundred vacant rooms in the house. The butler proposed to give you a suite of sixteen to pass the night in, but I selected an airy little nook in one of the wings, where you need only go through ten to get to your bedroom." "There is nothing like space," said the Prince; "it enlarges the ideas." "I cannot imagine what my father would do if his ideas were extended," remarked Giovanni. "Everything he imagines is colossal already. He talks about tunnelling the mountains for my aqueduct, as though it were no more trouble than to run a stick through a piece of paper." "Your aqueduct, indeed!" exclaimed his father. "I would like to know whose idea it was?" "I hear you are working like an engineer yourself, Don Giovanni," said Corona. "I have a man at work at Astrardente on some plans of roads. Perhaps some day you could give us your advice." Some day! How sweet the words sounded to Giovanni as he sat opposite the woman he loved, bowling along through the rich vine lands in the cool of the summer evening! CHAPTER XXV. The opportunity which Giovanni sought of being alone with Corona was long in coming. Sister Gabrielle retired immediately after dinner, and the Duchessa was left alone with the two men. Old Saracinesca would gladly have left his son with the hostess, but the thing was evidently impossible. The manners of the time would not allow it, and the result was that the Prince spent the evening in making conversation for two rather indifferent listeners. He tried to pick a friendly quarrel with Giovanni, but the latter was too absent-minded even to be annoyed; he tried to excite the Duchessa's interest, but she only smiled gently, making a remark from time to time which was conspicuous for its irrelevancy. But old Saracinesca was in a good humour, and he bore up bravely until ten o'clock, when Corona gave the signal for retiring. They were to start very early in the morning, she said, and she must have rest. When the two men were alone, the Prince turned upon his son in semi-comic anger, and upbraided him with his obstinate dulness during the evening. Giovanni only smiled calmly, and shrugged his shoulders. There was nothing more to be said. But on the following morning, soon after six o'clock, Giovanni had the supreme satisfaction of installing Corona beside him upon the driving-seat of his cart, while his father and Sister Gabrielle sat together behind him. The sun was not yet above the hills, and the mountain air was keen and fresh; the stamping of the horses sounded crisp and sharp, and their bells rang merrily as they shook their sturdy necks and pricked their short ears to catch Giovanni's voice. "Have you forgotten nothing, Duchessa?" asked Giovanni, gathering the reins in his hand. "Nothing, thanks. I have sent our things on mules--by the bridle-path." She smiled involuntarily as she recalled her adventure, and half turned her face away. "Ah, yes--the bridle-path," repeated Giovanni, as he nodded to the groom to stand clear of the horses' heads. In a moment they were briskly descending the winding road through the town of Astrardente: the streets were quiet and cool, for the peasants had all gone to their occupations two hours before, and the children were not yet turned loose. "I never hoped to have the honour of myself driving you to Saracinesca," said Giovanni. "It is a wild place enough, in its way. You will be able to fancy yourself in Switzerland." "I would rather be in Italy," answered Corona. "I do not care for the Alps. Our own mountains are as beautiful, and are not infested by tourists." "You are a tourist to-day," said Giovanni. "And it has pleased Heaven to make me your guide." "I will listen to your explanations of the sights with interest." "It is a reversal of the situation, is it not? When we last met, it was you who guided me, and I humbly followed your instructions. I did precisely as you told me." "Had I doubted that you would do as I asked, I would not have spoken," answered Corona. "There was one thing you advised me to do which I have not even attempted." "What was that?" "You told me to forget you. I have spent six months in constantly remembering you, and in looking forward to this moment. Was I wrong?" "Of course," replied the Duchessa, with a little laugh. "You should by this time have forgotten my existence. They said you were gone to the North Pole--why did you change your mind?" "I followed my load-star. It led me from Rome to Saracinesca by the way of Paris. I should have remained at Saracinesca--but you also changed your mind. I began to think you never would." "How long do you think of staying up there?" asked Corona, to turn the conversation. "Just so long as you stay at Astrardente," he answered. "You will not forbid me to follow you to Rome?" "How can I prevent you if you choose to do it?" "By a word, as you did before." "Do you think I would speak that word?" she asked. "I trust not. Why should you cause me needless pain and suffering? It was right then, it is not right now. Besides, you know me too well to think that I would annoy you or thrust myself upon you. But I will do as you wish." "Thank you," she said quietly. But she turned her dark face toward him, and looked at him for a moment very gently, almost lovingly. Where was the use of trying to conceal what would not be hidden? Every word he spoke told of his unchanged love, although the phrases were short and simple. Why should she conceal what she felt? She knew it was a foregone conclusion. They loved each other, and she would certainly marry him in the course of a year. The long pent up forces of her nature were beginning to assert themselves; she had conquered and fought down her natural being in the effort to be all things to her old husband, to quench her growing interest in Giovanni, to resist his declared love, to drive him from her in her widowhood; but now it seemed as though all obstacles were suddenly removed. She saw clearly how well she loved him, and it seemed folly to try and conceal it. As she sat by his side she was unboundedly happy, as she had never been in her life before: the cool morning breeze fanned her cheeks, and the music of his low voice soothed her, while the delicious sense of rapid motion lent a thrill of pleasure to every breath she drew. It was no matter what she said; it was as though she spoke unconsciously. All seemed predestined and foreplanned from all time, to be acted out to the end. The past vanished slowly as a retreating landscape. The weary traveller, exhausted with the heat of the scorching Campagna, slowly climbs the ascent towards Tivoli, the haven of cool waters, and pausing now and then upon the path, looks back and sees how the dreary waste of undulating hillocks beneath him seems gradually to subside into a dim flat plain, while, in the far distance, the mighty domes and towers of Rome dwindle to an unreal mirage in the warm haze of the western sky; then advancing again, he feels the breath of the mountains upon him, and hears the fresh plunge of the cold cataract, till at last, when his strength is almost failing, it is renewed within him, and the dust and the heat of the day's journey are forgotten in the fulness of refreshment. So Corona d'Astrardente, wearied though not broken by the fatigues and the troubles and the temptations of the past five years, seemed suddenly to be taken up and borne swiftly through the gardens of an earthly paradise, where there was neither care nor temptation, and where, in the cool air of a new life, the one voice she loved was ever murmuring gentle things to her willing ear. As the road began to ascend, sweeping round the base of the mountain and upwards by even gradations upon its southern flank, the sun rose higher in the heavens, and the locusts broke into their summer song among the hedges with that even, long-drawn, humming note, so sweet to southern ears. But Corona did not feel the heat, nor notice the dust upon the way; she was in a new state, wherein such things could not trouble her. The first embarrassment of a renewed intimacy was fast disappearing, and she talked easily to Giovanni of many things, reviewing past scenes and speaking of mutual acquaintances, turning the conversation when it concerned Giovanni or herself too directly, yet ever and again coming back to that sweet ground which was no longer dangerous now. At last, at a turn in the road, the grim towers of ancient Saracinesca loomed in the distance, and the carriage entered a vast forest of chestnut trees, shady and cool after the sunny ascent. So they reached the castle, and the sturdy horses sprang wildly forward up the last incline till their hoofs struck noisily upon the flagstones of the bridge, and with a rush and a plunge they dashed under the black archway, and halted in the broad court beyond. Corona was surprised at the size of the old fortress. It seemed an endless irregular mass of towers and buildings, all of rough grey stone, surrounded by battlements and ramparts, kept in perfect repair, but destitute of any kind of ornament whatever. It might have been even now a military stronghold, and it was evident that there were traditions of precision and obedience within its walls which would have done credit to any barracks. The dominant temper of the master made itself felt at every turn, and the servants moved quickly and silently about their duties. There was something intensely attractive to Corona in the air of strength that pervaded the place, and Giovanni had never seemed to her so manly and so much in his element as under the grey walls of his ancestral home. The place, too, was associated in history with so many events,--the two men, Leone and Giovanni Saracinesca, stood there beside her, where their ancestors of the same names had stood nearly a thousand years before, their strong dark faces having the same characteristics that for centuries had marked their race, features familiar to Romans by countless statues and pictures, as the stones of Rome themselves--but for a detail of dress, it seemed to Corona as though she had been suddenly transported back to the thirteenth century. The idea fascinated her. The two men led her up the broad stone staircase, and ushered her and Sister Gabrielle into the apartments of state which had been prepared for them. "We have done our best," said the Prince, "but it is long since we have entertained ladies at Saracinesca." "It is magnificent!" exclaimed Corona, as she entered the ante-chamber. The walls were hung from end to end with priceless tapestries, and the stone floor was covered with long eastern carpets. Corona paused. "You must show us all over the castle by-and-by," she said. "Giovanni will show you everything," answered the Prince. "If it pleases you, we will breakfast in half-an-hour." He turned away with his son, and left the two ladies to refresh themselves before the mid-day meal. Giovanni kept his word, and spared his guests no detail of the vast stronghold, until at last poor Sister Gabrielle could go no farther. Giovanni had anticipated that she would be tired, and with the heartlessness of a lover seeking his opportunity, he had secretly longed for the moment when she should, be obliged to stop. "You have not yet seen the view from the great tower," he said. "It is superb, and this is the very best hour for it. Are you tired, Duchessa?" "No--I am never tired," answered Corona. "Why not go with Giovanni?" suggested the Prince. "I will stay with Sister Gabrielle, who has nearly exhausted herself with seeing our sights." Corona hesitated. The idea of being alone with Giovanni for a quarter of an hour was delightful, but somehow it did not seem altogether fitting for her to be wandering over the castle with him. On the other hand, to refuse would seem almost an affectation: she was not in Rome, where her every movement was a subject for remark; moreover, she was not only a married woman, but a widow, and she had known Giovanni for years--it would be ridiculous to refuse. "Very well," said she. "Let us see the view before it is too late." Sister Gabrielle and old Saracinesea sat down on a stone seat upon the rampart to wait, and the Duchessa disappeared with Giovanni through the low door that led into the great tower. "What a wonderful woman you are!" exclaimed Giovanni, as they reached the top of the winding stair, which was indeed broader than the staircase of many great houses in Rome. "You seem to be never tired." "No--I am very strong," answered Corona, with a smile. She was not even out of breath. "What a wonderful view!" she exclaimed, as they emerged upon the stone platform at the top of the tower. Giovanni was silent for a moment. The two stood together and looked far out at the purple mountains to eastward that caught the last rays of the sun high up above the shadows of the valley; and then looking down, they saw the Prince and the Sister a hundred feet below them upon the rampart. Both were thinking of the same thing: three days ago, their meeting had seemed infinitely far off, a thing dreamed of and hoped for--and now they were standing alone upon the topmost turret of Giovanni's house, familiar with each other by a long day's conversation, feeling as though they had never been parted, feeling also that most certainly they would not be parted again. "It is very strange," said Giovanni, "how things happen in this world, and how little we ever know of what is before us. Last week I wondered whether I should ever see you--now I cannot imagine not seeing you. Is it not strange?" "Yes," answered Corona, in a low voice. "That, yesterday, we should have seemed parted by an insurmountable barrier, and that to-day--" he stopped. "Oh, if to-day could only last for ever!" he exclaimed, suddenly. Corona gazed out upon the purple hills in silence, but her face caught some of the radiance of the distant glow, and her dark eyes had strange lights in them. She could not have prevented him from speaking; she had loosed the bonds that had held her life so long; the anchor was up, and the breath of love fanned the sails, and gently bore the craft in which she trusted out to seaward over the fair water. In seeing him she had resigned herself to him, and she could not again get the mastery if she would. It had come too soon, but it was sweet. "And why not?" he said, very softly. "Why should it not remain so for ever--till our last breath? Why will you not let it last?" Still she was silent; but the tears gathered slowly in her eyes, and welled over and lay upon her velvet cheek like dewdrops on the leaves of a soft dark tulip. Giovanni saw them, and knew that they were the jewels which crowned his life. "You will," he said, his broad brown hand gently covering her small fingers and taking them in his. "You will--I know that you will." She said nothing, and though she at first made a slight movement--not of resistance, but of timid reluctance, utterly unlike herself--she suffered him to hold her hand. He drew closer to her, himself more diffident in the moment of success than he had ever been when he anticipated failure; she was so unlike any woman he had ever known before. Very gently he put his arm about her, and drew her to him. "My beloved--at last," he whispered, as her head sank upon his shoulder. Then with a sudden movement she sprang to her height, and for one instant gazed upon him. Her whole being was transfigured in the might of her passion: her dark face was luminously pale, her lips almost white, and from her eyes there seemed to flash a blazing fire. For one instant she gazed upon him, and then her arms went round his neck, and she clasped him fiercely to her breast. "Ah, Giovanni," she cried, passionately, "you do not know what love means!" A moment later her arms dropped from him; she turned and buried her face in her hands, leaning against the high stone parapet of the tower. She was not weeping, but her face was white, and her bosom heaved with quick and strong-drawn breath. Giovanni went to her side and took her strongly in his right arm, and again her head rested upon his shoulder. "It is too soon--too soon," she murmured. "But how can I help it? I love you so that there is no counting of time. It seems years since we met last night, and I thought it would be years before I told you. Oh, Giovanni, I am so happy! Is it possible that you love me as I love you?" It is a marvellous thing to see how soon two people who love each other learn the gentle confidence that only love can bring. A few moments later Giovanni and Corona were slowly pacing the platform, and his arm was about her waist and her hand in his. "Do you know," she was saying, "I used to wonder whether you would keep your word, and never try to see me. The days were so long at Astrardente." "Not half so long as at Saracinesca," he answered. "I was going to call my aqueduct the Bridge of Sighs; I will christen it now the Spring of Love." "I must go and see it to-morrow," said she. "Or the next day--" "The next day!" she exclaimed, with a happy laugh. "Do you think I am going to stay--" "For ever," interrupted Giovanni. "We have a priest here, you know,--he can marry us to-morrow, and then you need never go away." Corona's face grew grave. "We must not talk of that yet," she said, gently, "even in jest." "No; you are right. Forgive me," he answered; "I forget many things--it seems to me I have forgotten everything, except that I love you." "Giovanni,"--she lingered on the name,--"Giovanni, we must tell your father at once." "Are you willing I should?" he asked, eagerly. "Of course--he ought to know; and Sister Gabrielle too. But no one else must be told. There must be no talk of this in Rome until--until next year." "We will stay in the country until then, shall we not?" asked Giovanni, anxiously. "It seems to me so much better. We can meet here, and nobody will talk. I will go and live in the town at Astrardente, and play the engineer, and build your roads for you." "I hardly know," said Corona, with a doubtful smile. "You could not do that. But you may come and spend the day once--in a week, perhaps." "We will arrange all that," answered Giovanni, laughing. "If you think I can exist by only seeing you once a week--well, you do not know me." "We shall see," returned Corona, laughing too. "By the bye, how long have we been here?" "I do not know," said Giovanni; "but the view is magnificent, is it not?" "Enchanting," she replied, looking into his eyes. Then suddenly the blood mounted to her cheeks. "Oh, Giovanni," she said, "how could I do it?" "I should have died if you had not," he answered, and clasped her once more in his arms. "Come," said she, "let us be going down. It is growing late." When they reached the foot of the tower, they found the Prince walking the rampart alone. Sister Gabrielle was afraid of the evening air, and had retired into the house. Old Saracinesca faced them suddenly. He looked like an old lion, his thick white hair and beard bristling about his dark features. "My father," said Giovanni, coming forward, "the Duchessa d'Astrardente has consented to be my wife. I crave your blessing." The old man started, and then stood stock-still. His son had fairly taken his breath away, for he had not expected the news for three or four months to come. Then he advanced and took Corona's hand, and kissed it. "Madam," he said, "you have done my son an honour which extends to myself and to every Saracinesca, dead, living, and to come." Then he laid Corona's hand in Giovanni's, and held his own upon them both. "God bless you," he said, solemnly; and as Corona bent her proud head, he touched her forehead with his lips. Then he embraced Giovanni, and his joy broke out in wild enthusiasm. "Ha, my children," he cried, "there has not been such a couple as you are for generations--there has not been such good news told in these old walls since they have stood here. We will illuminate the castle, the whole town, in your honour--we will ring the bells and have a Te Deum sung--we will have such a festival as was never seen before--we will go to Rome to-morrow and celebrate the espousal--we will--" "Softly, _padre mio_," interrupted Giovanni. "No one must know as yet. You must consider--" "Consider what? consider the marriage? Of course we will consider it, as soon as you please. You shall have such a wedding as was never heard of-- you shall be married by the Cardinal Archpriest of Saint Peter's, by the Holy Father himself. The whole country shall ring with it." It was with difficulty Giovanni succeeded in calming his father's excitement, and in recalling to his mind the circumstances which made it necessary to conceal the engagement for the present. But at last the old man reluctantly consented, and returned to a quieter humour. For some time the three continued to pace the stone rampart. "This is a case of arrant cruelty to a man of my temper," said the Prince. "To be expected to behave like an ordinary creature, with grins and smiles and decent paces, when I have just heard what I have longed to hear for years. But I will revenge myself by making a noise about it by-and-by. I will concoct schemes for your wedding, and dream of nothing but illuminations and decorations. You shall be Prince of Sant' Ilario, Giovanni, as I was before my father died; and I will give you that estate outright, and the palace in the Corso to live in." "Perhaps we might live in my palace," suggested Corona. It seemed strange to her to be discussing her own marriage, but it was necessary to humour the old Prince. "Of course," he said. "I forgot all about it. You have places enough to live in. One forgets that you will in the end be the richest couple in Italy. Ha!" he cried, in sudden enthusiasm, "the Saracinesca are not dead yet! They are greater than ever--and our lands here so near together, too. We will build a new road to Astrardente, and when you are married you shall be the first to drive over it from Astrardente here. We will do all kinds of things--we will tunnel the mountain!" "I am sure you will do that in the end," said Giovanni, laughing. "Well--let us go to dinner," answered his father. "It has grown quite dark since we have been talking, and we shall be falling over the edge if we are not careful." "I will go and tell Sister Gabrielle before dinner," said Corona to Giovanni. So they left her at the door of her apartment, and she went in. She found the Sister in an inner room, with a book of devotions in her hand. "Pray for me, my Sister," she said, quietly. "I have resolved upon a great step. I am going to be married again." Sister Gabrielle looked up, and a quiet smile stole over her thin face. "It is soon, my friend," she said. "It is soon to think of that. But perhaps you are right--is it the young Prince?" "Yes," answered Corona, and sank into a deep tapestried chair. "It is soon I know well. But it has been long--have struggled hard--I love him very much--so much, you do not know!" The Sister sighed faintly, and came and took her hand. "It is right that you should marry," she said, gently. "You are too young, too famously beautiful, too richly endowed, to lead the life you have led at Astrardente these many months." "It is not that," said Corona, an expression of strange beauty illuminating her lovely face. "Not that I am young, beautiful as you say, if it is so, or endowed with riches--those reasons are nothing. It is this that tells me," she whispered, pressing her left hand to her heart. "When one loves as I love, it is right." "Indeed it is," assented the good Sister. "And I think you have chosen wisely. When will you be married?" "Hardly before next summer--I can hardly think connectedly yet--it has been very sudden. I knew I should marry him in the end, but I never thought I could consent so soon. Oh, Sister Gabrielle, you are so good--were you never in love?" The Sister was silent, and looked away. "No--of course you cannot tell me," continued Corona; "but it is such a wonderful thing. It makes days seem like hundreds of years, or makes them pass in a flash of light, in a second. It oversets every idea of time, and plays with one's resolutions as the wind with a feather. If once it gets the mastery of one, it crowds a lifetime of pain and pleasure into one day; it never leaves one for a moment. I cannot explain love--it is a wonderful thing." "My dear friend," said the Sister, "the explanation of love is life." "But the end of it is not death. It cannot be," continued Corona, earnestly. "It must last for ever and ever. It must grow better and purer and stronger, until it is perfect in heaven at last: but where is the use of trying to express such things?" "I think it is enough to feel them," said Sister Gabrielle. CHAPTER XXVI. The summer season ripened into autumn, and autumn again turned to winter, and Rome was once more full. The talk of society turned frequently upon the probability of the match between the Duchessa d'Astrardente and Giovanni Saracinesca; and when at last, three weeks before Lent, the engagement was made known, there was a general murmur of approbation. It seemed as though the momentous question of Corona's life, which had for years agitated the gossips, were at last to be settled: every one had been accustomed to regard her marriage with old Astrardente as a temporary affair, seeing that he certainly could not live long, and speculation in regard to her future had been nearly as common during his lifetime as it was after his death. One of the duties most congenial to society, and one which it never fails to perform conscientiously, is that judicial astrology, whereby it forecasts the issue of its neighbour's doings. Everybody's social horoscope must be cast by the circle of five-o'clock-tea-drinking astro-sociologists, and, generally speaking, their predictions are not far short of the truth, for society knoweth its own bitterness, and is uncommonly quick in the diagnosis of its own state of health. When it was announced that Corona was to marry Giovanni after Easter, society looked and saw that the arrangement was good. There was not one dissenting voice heard in the universal applause. Corona had behaved with exemplary decency during the year of her mourning--had lived a life of religious retirement upon her estates in the sole company of a Sister of Charity, had given no cause for scandal in any way. Everybody aspired to like her--that is to say, to be noticed by her; but with one exception, she had caused no jealousy nor ill-feeling by her indifference, for no one had ever heard her say an unkind word concerning anybody she knew. Donna Tullia had her own reasons for hating Corona, and perhaps the world suspected them; but people did not connect the noisy Donna Tullia, full of animal spirits and gay silly talk, with the idea of serious hatred, much less with the execution of any scheme of revenge. Indeed Madame Mayer had not spent the summer and autumn in nursing her wrath against Corona. She had travelled with the old Countess, her companion, and several times Ugo del Ferice had appeared suddenly at the watering-places which she had selected for her temporary residence. From time to time he gave her news of mutual friends, which she repaid conscientiously with interesting accounts of the latest scandals. They were a congenial pair, and Ugo felt that by his constant attention to her wishes, and by her never-varying willingness to accept his service, he had obtained a hold upon her intimacy which, in the ensuing winter, would give him a decided advantage over all competitors in the field. She believed that she might have married half-a-dozen times, and that with her fortune she could easily have made a very brilliant match; she even thought that she could have married Valdarno, who was very good-natured: but her attachment to Giovanni, and the expectations she had so long entertained in regard to him, had prevented her from showing any marked preference for others; and while she was hesitating, Del Ferice, by his superior skill, had succeeded in making himself indispensable to her--a success the more remarkable that, in spite of his gifts and the curious popularity he enjoyed, he was by far the least desirable man of her acquaintance from the matrimonial point of view. But when Donna Tullia again met Giovanni in the world, the remembrance of her wrongs revived her anger against him, and the news of his engagement to the Astrardente brought matters to a climax. In the excitement of the moment, both her jealousy and her anger were illuminated by the light of a righteous wrath. She knew, or thought she knew, that Don Giovanni was already married. She had no proof that the peasant wife mentioned in the certificate was alive, but there was nothing either to show that she was dead. Even in the latter ease it was a scandalous thing that he should marry again without informing Corona of the circumstances of his past life, and Donna Tullia felt an inner conviction that he had told the Duchessa nothing of the matter. The latter was such a proud woman, that she would be horrified at the idea of uniting herself to a man who had been the husband of a peasant. Madame Mayer remembered her solemn promise to Del Ferice, and feared to act without his consent. An hour after she had heard the news of the engagement, she sent for him to come to her immediately. To her astonishment and dismay, her servant brought back word that he had suddenly gone to Naples upon urgent business. This news made her pause; but while the messenger had been gone to Del Ferice's house, Donna Tullia had been anticipating and going over in her mind the scene which would ensue when she told Corona the secret. Donna Tullia was a very sanguine woman, and the idea of at last being revenged for all the slights she had received worked suddenly upon her brain, so that as she paced her drawing-room in expectation of the arrival of Del Ferice, she entirely acted out in her imagination the circumstances of the approaching crisis, the blood beat hotly in her temples, and she lost all sense of prudence in the delicious anticipation of violent words. Del Ferice had cruelly calculated upon her temperament, and he had hoped that in the excitement of the moment she would lose her head, and irrevocably commit herself to him by the betrayal of the secret. This was precisely what occurred. On being told that he was out of town, she could no longer contain herself, and with a sudden determination to risk anything blindly, rather than to forego the pleasure and the excitement she had been meditating, she ordered her carriage and drove to the Palazzo Astrardente. Corona was surprised at the unexpected visit. She was herself on the point of going out, and was standing in her boudoir, drawing on her black gloves before the fire, while her furs lay upon a chair at her side. She wondered why Donna Tullia called, and it was in part her curiosity which induced her to receive her visit. Donna Tullia, armed to the teeth with the terrible news she was about to disclose, entered the room quickly, and remained standing before the Duchessa with a semi-tragic air that astonished Corona. "How do you do, Donna Tullia?" said the latter, putting out her hand. "I have come to speak to you upon a very serious matter," answered her visitor, without noticing the greeting. Corona stared at her for a moment, but not being easily disconcerted, she quietly motioned to Donna Tullia to sit down, and installed herself in a chair opposite to her. "I have just heard the news that you are to marry Don Giovanni Saracinesca," said Madame Mayer. "You will pardon me the interest I take in you; but is it true?" "It is quite true," answered Corona. "It is in connection with your marriage that I wish to speak, Duchessa. I implore you to reconsider your decision." "And why, if you please?" asked Corona, raising her black eyebrows, and fixing her haughty gaze upon her visitor. "I could tell you--I would rather not," answered Donna Tullia, unabashed, for her blood was up. "I could tell you--but I beseech you not to ask me. Only consider the matter again, I beg you. It is very serious. Nothing but the great interest I feel in you, and my conviction--" "Donna Tullia, your conduct is so extraordinary," interrupted Corona, looking at her curiously, "that I am tempted to believe you are mad. I must beg you to explain what you mean by your words." "Ah, no," answered Madame Mayer. "You do me injustice. I am not mad, but I would save you from the most horrible danger." "Again I say, what do you mean? I will not be trifled with in this way," said the Duchessa, who would have been more angry if she had been less astonished, but whose temper was rapidly rising. "I am not trifling with you," returned Donna Tullia. "I am imploring you to think before you act, before you marry Don Giovanni. You cannot think that I would venture to intrude upon you without the strongest reasons. I am in earnest." "Then, in heaven's name, speak out!" cried Corona, losing all patience. "I presume that if this is a warning, you have some grounds, you have some accusation to make against Don Giovanni. Have the goodness to state what you have to say, and be brief." "I will," said Donna Tullia, and she paused a moment, her face growing red with excitement, and her blue eyes sparkling disagreeably. "You cannot marry Don Giovanni," she said at length, "because there is an insurmountable impediment in the way." "What is it?" asked Corona, controlling her anger. "He is already married!" hissed Donna Tullia. Corona turned a little pale, and started back. But in an instant her colour returned, and she broke into a low laugh. "You are certainly insane," she said, eyeing Madame Mayer suspiciously. It was not an easy matter to shake her faith in the man she loved. Donna Tullia was disappointed at the effect she had produced. She was a clever woman in her way, but she did not understand how to make the best of the situation. She saw that she was simply an object of curiosity, and that Corona seriously believed her mind deranged. She was frightened, and, in order to help herself, she plunged deeper. "You may call me mad, if you please," she replied, angrily. "I tell you it is true. Don Giovanni was married on the 19th of June 1863, at Aquila, in the Abruzzi, to a woman called Felice Baldi--whoever she may have been. The register is extant, and the duplicate of the marriage certificate. I have seen the copies attested by a notary. I tell you it is true," she continued, her voice rising to a harsh treble; "you are engaged to marry a man who has a wife--a peasant woman--somewhere in the mountains." Corona rose from her seat and put out her hand to ring the bell. She was pale, but not excited. She believed Donna Tullia to be insane, perhaps dangerous, and she calmly proceeded to protect herself by calling for assistance. "Either you are mad, or you mean what you say," she said, keeping her eyes upon the angry woman before her. "You will not leave this house except in charge of my physician, if you are mad; and if you mean what you say, you shall not go until you have repeated your words to Don Giovanni Saracinesca himself,--no, do not start or try to escape--it is of no use. I am very sudden and violent--beware!" Donna Tullia bit her red lip. She was beginning to realise that she had got herself into trouble, and that it might be hard to get out of it. But she felt herself strong, and she wished she had with her those proofs which would make her case good. She was so sanguine by nature that she was willing to carry the fight to the end, and to take her chance for the result. "You may send for Don Giovanni if you please," she said. "I have spoken the truth--if he denies it I can prove it. If I were you I would spare him the humiliation--" A servant entered the room in answer to the bell, and Corona interrupted Donna Tullia's speech by giving the man her orders. "Go at once to the Palazzo Saracinesca, and beg Don Giovanni to come here instantly with his father the Prince. Take the carriage--it is waiting below." The man disappeared, and Corona quietly resumed her seat. Donna Tullia was silent for a few moments, attempting to control her anger in an assumption of dignity; but soon she broke out afresh, being rendered very nervous and uncomfortable by the Duchessa's calm manner and apparent indifference to consequences. "I cannot see why you should expose yourself to such a scene," said Madame Mayer presently. "I honestly wished to save you from a terrible danger. It seems to me it would be quite sufficient if I proved the fact to you beyond dispute. I should think that instead of being angry, you would show some gratitude." "I am not angry," answered Corona, quietly. "I am merely giving you an immediate opportunity of proving your assertion and your sanity." "My sanity!" exclaimed Donna Tullia, angrily. "Do you seriously believe--" "Nothing that you say," said Corona, completing the sentence. Unable to bear the situation, Madame Mayer rose suddenly from her seat, and began to pace the small room with short, angry steps. "You shall see," she said, fiercely--"you shall see that it is all true. You shall see this man's face when I accuse him--you shall see him humiliated, overthrown, exposed in his villany--the wretch! You shall see how--" Corona's strong voice interrupted her enemy's invective in ringing tones. "Be silent!" she cried. "In twenty minutes he will be here. But if you say one word against him before he comes, I will lock you into this room and leave you. I certainly will not hear you." Donna Tullia reflected that the Duchessa was in her own house, and moreover that she was not a woman to be trifled with. She threw herself into a chair, and taking up a book that lay upon the table, she pretended to read. Corona remained seated by the fireplace, glancing at her from time to time. She was strangely inclined to laugh at the whole situation, which seemed to her absurd in the extreme--for it never crossed her mind to believe that there was a word of truth in the accusation against Giovanni. Nevertheless she was puzzled to account for Donna Tullia's assurance, and especially for her readiness to face the man she so calumniated. A quarter of an hour elapsed in this armed silence--the two women glancing at each other from time to time, until the distant sound of wheels rolling under the great gate announced that the messenger had returned from the Palazzo Saracinesca, probably conveying Don Giovanni and his father. "Then you have made up your mind to the humiliation of the man you love?" asked Donna Tullia, looking up from her book with a sneer on her face. Corona vouchsafed no answer, but her eyes turned towards the door in expectation. Presently there were steps heard without. The servant entered, and announced Prince Saracinesca and Don Giovanni. Corona rose. The old man came in first, followed by his son. "An unexpected pleasure," he said, gaily. "Such good luck! We were both at home. Ah, Donna Tullia," he cried, seeing Madame Mayer, "how are you?" Then seeing her face, he added, suddenly, "Is anything the matter?" Meanwhile Giovanni had entered, and stood by Corona's side near the fireplace. He saw at once that something was wrong, and he looked anxiously from the Duchessa to Donna Tullia. Corona spoke at once. "Donna Tullia," she said, quietly, "I have the honour to offer you an opportunity of explaining yourself." Madame Mayer remained seated by the table, her face red with anger. She leaned back in her seat, and half closing her eyes with a disagreeable look of contempt, she addressed Giovanni. "I am sorry to cause you such profound humiliation," she began, "but in the interest of the Duchessa d'Astrardente I feel bound to speak. Don Giovanni, do you remember Aquila?" "Certainly," he replied, coolly--"I have often been there. What of it?" Old Saracinesca stared from one to the other. "What is this comedy?" he asked of Corona. But she nodded to him to be silent. "Then you doubtless remember Felice Baldi--poor Felice Baldi," continued Donna Tullia, still gazing scornfully up at Giovanni from where she sat. "I never heard the name, that I can remember," answered Giovanni, as though trying to recall some memory of the past. He could not imagine what she was leading to, but he was willing to answer her questions. "You do not remember that you were married to her at Aquila on the 19th of June--" "I--married?" cried Giovanni, in blank astonishment. "Signora Duchessa," said the Prince, bending his heavy brows, "what is the meaning of all this?" "I will tell you the meaning of it," said Donna Tullia, in low hissing tones, and rising suddenly to her feet she assumed a somewhat theatrical attitude as she pointed to Giovanni. "I will tell what it means. It means that Don Giovanni Saracinesca was married in the church of San Bernardino, at Aquila, on the 19th of June 1863, to the woman Felice Baldi--who is his lawful wife to-day, and for aught we know the mother of his children, while he is here in Rome attempting to marry the Duchessa d'Astrardente--can he deny it? Can he deny that his own signature is there, there in the office of the State Civile at Aquila, to testify against him? Can he--?" "Silence!" roared the Prince. "Silence, woman, or by God in heaven I will stop your talking for ever!" He made a step towards her, and there was a murderous red light in his black eyes. But Giovanni sprang forward and seized his father by the wrist. "You cannot silence me," screamed Donna Tullia. "I will be heard, and by all Rome. I will cry it upon the housetops to all the world--" "Then you will precipitate your confinement in the asylum of Santo Spirito," said Giovanni, in cold, calm tones. "You are clearly mad." "So I said," assented Corona, who was nevertheless pale, and trembling with excitement. "Allow me to speak with her," said Giovanni, who, like most dangerous men, seemed to grow cold as others grew hot. Donna Tullia leaned upon the table, breathing hard between her closed teeth, her face scarlet. "Madame," said Giovanni, advancing a step and confronting her, "you say that I am married, and that I am contemplating a monstrous crime. Upon what do you base your extraordinary assertions?" "Upon attested copies of your marriage certificate, of the civil register where your handwriting has been seen and recognised. What more would you have?" "It is monstrous!" cried the Prince, advancing again. "It is the most abominable lie ever concocted! My son married without my knowledge, and to a peasant! Absurd!" But Giovanni waved his father back, and kept his place before Donna Tullia. "I give you the alternative of producing instantly those proofs you refer to," he said, "and which you certainly cannot produce, or of waiting in this house until a competent physician has decided whether you are sufficiently sane to be allowed to go home alone." Donna Tullia hesitated. She was in a terrible position, for Del Ferice had left Rome suddenly, and though the papers were somewhere in his house, she knew not where, nor how to get at them. It was impossible to imagine a situation more desperate, and she felt it as she looked round and saw the pale dark faces of the three resolute persons whose anger she had thus roused. She believed that Giovanni was capable of anything, but she was astonished at his extraordinary calmness. She hesitated for a moment. "That is perfectly just," said Corona. "If you have proofs, you can produce them. If you have none, you are insane." "I have them, and I will produce them before this hour to-morrow," answered Donna Tullia, not knowing how she should get the papers, but knowing that she was lost if she failed to obtain them. "Why not to-day--at once?" asked Giovanni, with some scorn. "It will take twenty-four hours to forge them," growled his father. "You have no right to insult me so grossly," cried Donna Tullia. "But beware--I have you in my power. By this time to-morrow you shall see with your own eyes that I speak the truth. Let me go," she cried, as the old Prince placed himself between her and the door. "I will," said he. "But before you go, I beg you to observe that if between now and the time you show us these documents you breathe abroad one word of your accusations, I will have you arrested as a dangerous lunatic, and lodged in Santo Spirito; and if these papers are not authentic, you will be arrested to-morrow afternoon on a charge of forgery. You quite understand me?" He stood aside to let her pass. She laughed scornfully in his face, and went out. When she was gone the three looked at each other, as though trying to comprehend what had happened. Indeed, it was beyond their comprehension. Corona leaned against the chimneypiece, and her eyes rested lovingly upon Giovanni. No doubt had ever crossed her mind of his perfect honesty. Old Saracinesca looked from one to the other for a moment, and then, striking the palms of his hands together, turned and began to walk up and down the room. "In the first place," said Giovanni, "at the time she mentions I was in Canada, upon a shooting expedition, with a party of Englishmen. It is easy to prove that, as they are all alive and well now, so far as I have heard. Donna Tullia is clearly out of her mind." "The news of your engagement has driven her mad," said the old Prince, with a grim laugh. "It is a very interesting and romantic case." Corona blushed a little, and her eyes sought Giovanni's, but her face was very grave. It was a terrible thing to see a person she had known so long becoming insane, and for the sake of the man she herself so loved. And yet she had not a doubt of Donna Tullia's madness. It was very sad. "I wonder who could have put this idea into her head," said Giovanni, thoughtfully. "It does not look like a creation of her own brain. I wonder, too, what absurdities she will produce in the way of documents. Of course they must be forged." "She will not bring them," returned his father, in a tone of certainty. "We shall hear to-morrow that she is raving in the delirium of a brain-fever." "Poor thing!" exclaimed Corona. "It is dreadful to think of it." "It is dreadful to think that she should have caused you all this trouble and annoyance," said Giovanni, warmly. "You must have had a terrible scene with her before we came. What did she say?" "Just what she said to you. Then she began to rail against you; and I sent for you, and told her that unless she could be silent I would lock her up alone until you arrived. So she sat down in that chair, and pretended to read. But it was an immense relief when you came!" "You did not once believe what she said might possibly be true?" asked Giovanni, with a loving look. "I? How could you ever think it!" exclaimed Corona. Then she laughed, and added, "But of course you knew that I would not." "Indeed, yes," he answered. "It never entered my head." "By-the-bye," said old Saracinesca, glancing at the Duchessa's black bonnet and gloved hands, "you must have been just ready to go out when she came--we must not keep you. I suppose that when she said she would bring her proofs to-morrow at this hour, she meant she would bring them here. Shall we come to-morrow then?" "Yes--by all means," she answered. "Come to breakfast at one o'clock. I am alone, you know, for Sister Gabrielle has insisted upon going back to her community. But what does it matter now?" "What does it matter?" echoed the Prince. "You are to be married so soon. I really think we can do as we please." He generally did as he pleased. The two men left her, and a few minutes later she descended the steps of the palace and entered her carriage, as though nothing had happened. Six months had passed since she had given her troth to Giovanni upon the tower of Saracinesca, and she knew that she loved him better now than then. Little had happened of interest in the interval of time, and the days had seemed long. But until after Christmas she had remained at Astrardente, busying herself constantly with the improvements she had already begun, and aided by the counsels of Giovanni. He had taken a cottage of hers in the lower part of her village, and had fitted it up with the few comforts he judged necessary. In this lodging he had generally spent half the week, going daily to the palace upon the hill and remaining for long hours in Corona's society, studying her plans and visiting with her the works which grew beneath their joint direction. She had grown to know him as she had not known him before, and to understand more fully his manly character. He was a very resolute man, and very much in earnest when he chanced to be doing anything; but the strain of melancholy which he inherited from his mother made him often inclined to a sort of contemplative idleness, during which his mind seemed preoccupied with absorbing thoughts. Many people called his fits of silence an affectation, or part of his system for rendering himself interesting; but Corona soon saw how real was his abstraction, and she saw also that she alone was able to attract his attention and interest him when the fit was upon him. Slowly, by a gradual study of him, she learned what few had ever guessed, namely, that beneath the experienced man of the world, under his modest manner and his gentle ways, there lay a powerful mainspring of ambition, a mine of strength, which would one day exert itself and make itself felt upon his surroundings. He had developed slowly, feeding upon many experiences of the world in many countries, his quick Italian intelligence comprehending often more than it seemed to do, while the quiet dignity he got from his Spanish blood made him appear often very cold. But now and again, when under the influence of some large idea, his tongue was loosed in the charm of Corona's presence, and he spoke to her, as he had never spoken to any one, of projects and plans which should make the world move. She did not always understand him wholly, but she knew that the man she loved was something more than the world at large believed him to be, and there was a thrill of pride in the thought which delighted her inmost soul. She, too, was ambitious, but her ambition was all for him. She felt that there was little room for common aspirations in his position or in her own. All that high birth, and wealth, and personal consideration could give, they both had abundantly, beyond their utmost wishes; anything they could desire beyond that must lie in a larger sphere of action than mere society, in the world of political power. She herself had had dreams, and entertained them still, of founding some great institution of charity, of doing something for her poorer fellows. But she learned by degrees that Giovanni looked further than to such ordinary means of employing power, and that there was in him a great ambition to bring great forces to bear upon great questions for the accomplishment of great results. The six months of her engagement to him had not only strengthened her love for him, already deep and strong, but had implanted in her an unchanging determination to second him in all his life, to omit nothing in her power which could assist him in the career he should choose for himself, and which she regarded as the ultimate field for his extraordinary powers. It was strange that, while granting him everything else, people had never thought of calling him a man of remarkable intelligence. But no one knew him as Corona knew him; no one suspected that there was in him anything more than the traditional temper of the Saracinesca, with sufficient mind to make him as fair a representative of his race as his father was. There was more than mere love and devotion in the complete security she felt when she saw him attacked by Donna Tullia; there was already the certainty that he was born to be above small things, and to create a sphere of his own in which he would move as other men could not. CHAPTER XXVII. When Donna Tullia quitted the Palazzo Astrardente her head swam. She had utterly failed to do what she had expected; and from being the accuser, she felt that she was suddenly thrust into the position of the accused. Instead of inspiring terror in Corona, and causing Giovanni the terrible humiliation she had supposed he would feel at the exposure of his previous marriage, she had been coldly told that she was mad, and that her pretended proofs were forgeries. Though she herself felt no doubt whatever concerning the authenticity of the documents, it was very disappointing to find that the first mention of them produced no startling effect upon any one, least of all upon Giovanni himself. The man, she thought, was a most accomplished villain; since he was capable of showing such hardened indifference to her accusation, he was capable also of thwarting her in her demonstration of their truth--and she trembled at the thought of what she saw. Old Saracinesca was not a man to be trifled with, nor his son either: they were powerful, and would be revenged for the insult. But in the meanwhile she had promised to produce her proofs; and when she regained enough composure to consider the matter from all its points, she came to the conclusion that after all her game was not lost, seeing that attested documents are evidence not easily refuted, even by powerful men like Leone and Giovanni Saracinesca. She gradually convinced herself that their indifference was a pretence, and that they were accomplices in the matter, their object being to gain Corona with all her fortune for Giovanni's wife. But, at the same time, Donna Tullia felt in the depths of her heart a misgiving: she was clever enough to recognise, even in spite of herself, the difference between a liar and an honest man. She must get possession of these papers--and immediately too; there must be no delay in showing them to Corona, and in convincing her that this was no mere fable, but an assertion founded upon very substantial evidence. Del Ferice was suddenly gone to Naples: obviously the only way to get at the papers was to bribe his servant to deliver them up. Ugo had once or twice mentioned Temistocle to her, and she judged from the few words he had let fall that the fellow was a scoundrel, who would sell his soul for money. Madame Mayer drove home, and put on the only dark-coloured gown she possessed, wound a thick veil about her head, provided herself with a number of bank-notes, which she thrust between the palm of her hand and her glove, left the house on foot, and took a cab. There was nothing to be done but to go herself, for she could trust no one. Her heart beat fast as she ascended the narrow stone steps of Del Ferice's lodging, and stopped upon the landing before the small green door, whereon she read his name. She pulled the bell, and Temistocle appeared in his shirt-sleeves. "Does Count Del Ferice live here?" asked Donna Tullia, peering over the man's shoulder into the dark and narrow passage within. "He lives here, but he is gone to Naples," answered Temistocle, promptly. "When will he be back?" she inquired. The man raised his shoulders to his ears, and spread out the palms of his hands to signify that he did not know. Donna Tullia hesitated. She had never attempted to bribe anybody in her life, and hardly knew how to go about it. She thought that the sight of the money might produce an impression, and she withdrew a bank-note from the hollow of her hand, spreading it out between her fingers. Temistocle eyed it greedily. "There are twenty-five scudi," she said. "If you will help me to find a piece of paper in your master's room, you shall have them." Temistocle drew himself up with an air of mock pride. Madame Mayer looked at him. "Impossible, signora," he said. Then she drew out another. Temistocle eyed the glove curiously to see if it contained more. "Signora," he repeated, "it is impossible. My master would kill me. I cannot think of it." But his tone seemed to yield a little. Donna Tullia found another bank-note; there were now seventy-five scudi in her hand. She thought she saw Temistocle tremble with excitement. But still he hesitated. "Signora, my conscience," he said, in a low voice of protestation. "Come," said Madame Mayer, impatiently, "there is another--there are a hundred scudi--that is all I have got," she added, turning down her empty glove. Suddenly Temistocle put out his hand and grasped the bank-notes eagerly. But instead of retiring to allow her to enter, he pushed roughly past her. "You may go in," he said in a hoarse whisper, and turning quickly, fled precipitately down the narrow steps, in his shirt-sleeves as he was. Madame Mayer stood for a moment looking after him in surprise, even when he had already disappeared. Then she turned and entered the door rather timidly; but before she had gone two steps in the dark passage, she uttered a cry of horror. Del Ferice stood in her way, wrapped in a loose dressing-gown, a curious expression upon his pale face, which from its whiteness was clearly distinguishable in the gloom. Temistocle had cheated her, had lied in telling her that his master was absent, had taken her bribe and had fled. He would easily find an excuse for having allowed her to enter; and with his quick valet's instinct, he guessed that she would not confess to Del Ferice that she had bribed him. Ugo came forward a step and instantly recognised Madame Mayer. "Donna Tullia!" he cried, "what are you doing? You must not be seen here." A less clever man than Ugo would have pretended to be overjoyed at her coming. Del Fence's fine instincts told him that for whatever cause she had come--and he guessed the cause well enough--he would get a firmer hold upon her consideration by appearing to be shocked at her imprudence. Donna Tullia was nearly fainting with fright, and stood leaning against the wall of the passage. "I thought--I--I must see you at once," she stammered. "Not here," he answered, quickly. "Go home at once; I will join you in five minutes. It will ruin you to have it known that you have been here." Madame Mayer took courage at his tone. "You must bring them--those papers," she said, hurriedly. "Something dreadful has happened. Promise me to come at once!" "I will come at once, my dear lady," he said, gently pushing her towards the door. "I cannot even go down-stairs with you--forgive me. You have your carriage of course?" "I have a cab," replied Donna Tullia, faintly, submitting to be put out of the door. He seized her hand and kissed it passionately, or with a magnificent semblance of passion. With a startled look, Donna Tullia turned and went rapidly down the steps. Del Ferice smiled softly to himself when she was gone, and went in again to exchange his dressing-gown for a coat. He had her in his power at last. He had guessed that she would betray the secret--that after the engagement became known, she would not be able to refrain from communicating it to Corona d'Astrardente; and so soon as he heard the news, he had shut himself up in his lodging, pretending a sudden journey to Naples, determined not to set foot out of the house until he heard that Donna Tullia had committed herself. He knew that when she had once spoken she would make a desperate attempt to obtain the papers, for he knew that such an assertion as hers would need to be immediately proved, at the risk of her position in society. His plot had succeeded so far. His only anxiety was to know whether she had mentioned his name in connection with the subject, but he guessed, from his knowledge of her character, that she would not do so: she would respect her oath enough to conceal his name, even while breaking her promise; she would enjoy taking the sole credit of the discovery upon herself, and she would shun an avowal which would prove her to have discussed with any one else the means of preventing the marriage, because it would be a confession of jealousy, and consequently of personal interest in Don Giovanni. Del Ferice was a very clever fellow. He put on his coat, and in five minutes was seated in a cab on his way to Donna Tullia's house, with a large envelope full of papers in his pocket. He found her as she had left him, her face still wrapped in a veil, walking up and down her drawing-room in great excitement. He advanced and saluted her courteously, maintaining a dignified gravity of bearing which he judged fitting for the occasion. "And now, my dear lady," he said, gently, "will you tell me exactly what you have done?" "This morning," answered Madame Mayer, in a stifled voice, "I heard of the Astrardente's engagement to Don Giovanni. It seemed such a terrible thing!" "Terrible, indeed," said Del Ferice, solemnly. "I sent for you at once, to know what to do: they said you were gone to Naples. I thought, of course, that you would approve if you were here, because we ought to prevent such a dreadful crime--of course." She waited for some sign of assent, but Del Ferice's pale face expressed nothing but a sort of grave reproach. "And then," she continued, "as I could not find you, I thought it was best to act at once, and so I went to see the Astrardente, feeling that you would entirely support me. There was a terrific scene. She sent for the two Saracinesca, and I--waited till they came, because I was determined to see justice done. I am sure I was right,--was I not?" "What did they say?" asked Del Ferice, quietly watching her face. "If you will believe it, that monster of villany, Don Giovanni, was as cold as stone, and denied the whole matter from beginning to end; but his father was very angry. Of course they demanded the proofs. I never saw anything like the brazen assurance of Don Giovanni." "Did you mention me?" inquired Del Ferice. "No, I had not seen you: of course I did not want to implicate you. I said I would show them the papers to-morrow at the same hour." "And then you came to see me," said Del Ferice. "That was very rash. You might have seriously compromised yourself. I would have come if you had sent for me." "But they said you had gone to Naples. Your servant," continued Donna Tullia, blushing scarlet at the remembrance of her interview with Temistocle,--"your servant assured me in person that you had gone to Naples--" "I see," replied Del Ferice, quietly. He did not wish to press her to a confession of having tried to get the papers in his absence. His object was to put her at her ease. "My dear lady," he continued, gently, "you have done an exceedingly rash thing; but I will support you in every way, by putting the documents in your possession at once. It is unfortunate that you should have acted so suddenly, for we do not know what has become of this Felice Baldi, nor have we any immediate means of finding out. It might have taken weeks to find her. Why were you so rash? You could have waited till I returned, and we could have discussed the matter carefully, and decided whether it were really wise to make use of my information." "You do not doubt that I did right?" asked Donna Tullia, turning a little pale. "I think you acted precipitately in speaking without consulting me. All may yet be well. But in the first place, as you did not ask my opinion, you will see the propriety of not mentioning my name, since you have not done so already. It can do no good, for the papers speak for themselves, and whatever value they may have is inherent in them. Do you see?" "Of course there is no need of mentioning you, unless you wish to have a share in the exposure of this abominable wickedness." "I am satisfied with my share," replied Del Ferice, with a quiet smile. "It is not an important one," returned Donna Tullia, nervously. "It is the lion's share," he answered. "Most adorable of women, you have not, I am sure, forgotten the terms of our agreement--terms so dear to me, that every word of them is engraven for ever upon the tablet of my heart." Madame Mayer started slightly. She had not realised that her promise to marry Ugo was now due--she did not believe that he would press it; he had exacted it to frighten her, and besides, she had so persuaded herself that he would approve of her conduct, that she had not felt as though she were betraying his secret. "You will not--you cannot hold me to that; you approve of telling the Astrardente, on the whole,--it is the same as though I had consulted you--" "Pardon me, my dear lady; you did not consult me," answered Del Ferice, soothingly. He sat near her by the fire, his hat upon his knee, no longer watching her, but gazing contemplatively at the burning logs. There was a delicacy about his pale face since the wound he had received a year before which was rather attractive: from having been a little inclined to stoutness, he had grown slender and more graceful, partly because his health had really been affected by his illness, and partly because he had determined never again to risk being too fat. "I tried to consult you," objected Donna Tullia. "It is the same thing." "It is not the same thing to me," he answered, "although you have not involved me in the affair. I would have most distinctly advised you to say nothing about it at present. You have acted rashly, have put yourself in a most painful situation; and you have broken your promise to me--a very solemn promise, Donna Tullia, sworn upon the memory of your mother and upon a holy relic. One cannot make light of such promises as that." "You made me give it in order to frighten me. The Church does not bind us to oaths sworn under compulsion," she argued. "Excuse me; there was no compulsion whatever. You wanted to know my secret, and for the sake of knowing it you bound yourself. That is not compulsion. I cannot compel you. I could not think of presuming to compel you to marry me now. But I can say to you that I am devotedly attached to you, that to marry you is the aim and object of my life, and if you refuse, I will tell you that you are doing a great wrong, repudiating a solemn contract--" "If I refuse--well--but you would give me the papers?" asked Donna Tullia, who was beginning to tremble for the result of the interview. She had a vague suspicion that, for the sake of obtaining them, she would even be willing to promise to marry Del Ferice. It would be very wrong, perhaps; but it would be for the sake of accomplishing good, by preventing Corona from falling into the trap--Corona, whom she hated! Still, it would be a generous act to save her. The minds of women like Madame Mayer are apt to be a little tortuous when they find themselves hemmed in between their own jealousies, hatreds, and personal interests. "If you refused--no; if you refused, I am afraid I could not give you the papers," replied Del Ferice, musing as he gazed at the fire. "I love you too much to lose that chance of winning you, even for the sake of saving the Duchessa d'Astrardente from her fate. Why do you refuse? why do you bargain?" he asked, suddenly turning towards her. "Does all my devotion count for nothing--all my love, all my years of patient waiting? Oh, you cannot be so cruel as to snatch the cup from my very lips! It is not for the sake of these miserable documents: what is it to me whether Don Giovanni appears as the criminal in a case of bigamy--whether he is ruined now, as by his evil deeds he will be hereafter, or whether he goes on unharmed and unthwarted upon his career of wickedness? He is nothing to me, nor his pale-faced bride either. It is for you that I care, for you that I will do anything, bad or good, to win you that I would risk my life and my soul. Can you not see it? Have I not been faithful for very long? Take pity on me--forget this whole business, forget that you have promised anything, forget all except that I am here at your feet, a miserable man, unless you speak the word, and turn all my wretchedness into joy!" He slipped from his seat and knelt upon one knee before her, clasping one of her hands passionately between both his own. The scene was well planned and well executed; his voice had a ring of emotion that sounded pleasantly in Donna Tullia's ears, and his hands trembled with excitement. She did not repulse him, being a vain woman and willing to believe in the reality of the passion so well simulated. Perhaps, too, it was not wholly put on, for she was a handsome, dashing woman, in the prime of youth, and Del Ferice was a man who had always been susceptible to charms of that kind. Donna Tullia hesitated, wondering what more he could say. But he, on his part, knew the danger of trusting too much to eloquence when not backed by a greater strength than his, and he pressed her for an answer. "Be generous--trust me," he cried. "Believe that your happiness is everything to me; believe that I will take no unfair advantage of a hasty promise. Tell me that, of your own free will, you will be my wife, and command me anything, that I may prove my devotion. It is so true, so honest,--Tullia, I adore you, I live only for you! Speak the word, and make me the happiest of men!" He really looked handsome as he knelt before her, and she felt the light, nervous pressure of his hand at every word he spoke. After all, what did it matter? She might accept him, and then--well, if she did not like the idea, she could throw him over. It would only cost her a violent scene, and a few moments of discomfort. Meanwhile she would get the papers. "But you would give me the papers, would you not, and leave me to decide whether--Really, Del Ferice," she said, interrupting herself with a nervous laugh, "this is very absurd." "I implore you not to speak of the papers--it is not absurd. It may seem so to you, but it is life or death to me: death if you refuse me--life if you will speak the word and be mine!" Donna Tullia made up her mind. He would evidently not give her what she wanted, except in return for a promise of marriage. She had grown used to him, almost fond of him, in the last year. "Well, I do not know whether I am right," she said, "but I am really very fond of you; and if you will do all I say--" "Everything, my dear lady; everything in the world I will do, if you will make me so supremely happy," cried Del Ferice, ardently. "Then--yes; I will marry you. Only get up and sit upon your chair like a reasonable being. No; you really must be reasonable, or you must go away." Ugo was madly kissing her hands. He was really a good actor, if it was all acting. She could not but be moved by his pale delicate face and passionate words. With a quick movement he sprang to his feet and stood before her, clasping his hands together and gazing into her face. "Oh, I am the happiest man alive to-day!" he exclaimed, and the sense of triumph that he felt lent energy to his voice. "Do sit down," said Donna Tullia, gaily, "and let us talk it all over. In the first place, what am I to do first?" Del Ferice found it convenient to let his excitement subside, and as a preliminary he walked twice the length of the room. "It is so hard to be calm!" he exclaimed; but nevertheless he presently sat down in his former seat, and seemed to collect his faculties with wonderful ease. "What is to be done first?" asked Donna Tullia again. "In the first place," answered Del Ferice, "here are those precious papers. As they are notary's copies themselves, and not the originals, it is of no importance whether Don Giovanni tears them up or not. It is easy to get others if he does. I have noted down all the names and dates. I wish we had some information about Felice Baldi. It is very unfortunate that we have not, but it would perhaps take a month to find her." "I must act at once," said Donna Tullia, firmly; for she remembered old Saracinesca's threats, and was in a hurry. "Of course. These documents speak for themselves. They bear the address of the notary who made the copies in Aquila. If the Saracinesca choose, they can themselves go there and see the originals." "Could they not destroy those too?" asked Donna Tullia, nervously. "No; they can only see one at a time, and the person who will show them will watch them. Besides, it is easy to write to the curate of the church of San Bernardino to be on his guard. We will do that in any case. The matter is perfectly plain. Your best course is to meet the Astrardente to-morrow at the appointed time, and simply present these papers for inspection. No one can deny their authenticity, for they bear the Government stamp and the notary's seal, as you see, here and here. If they ask you, as they certainly will, how you came by them, you can afford to answer, that, since you have them, it is not necessary to know whence they came; that they may go and verify the originals; and that in warning them of the fact, you have fulfilled a duty to society, and have done a service to the Astrardente, if not to Giovanni Saracinesca. You have them in your power, and you can afford to take the high hand in the matter. They must believe the evidence of their senses; and they must either allow that Giovanni's first wife is alive, or they must account for her death, and prove it. There is no denial possible in the face of these proofs." Donna Tullia drew a long breath, for the case seemed perfectly clear; and the anticipation of her triumph already atoned for the sacrifice she had made. "You are a wonderful man, Del Ferice!" she exclaimed. "I do not know whether I am wise in promising to marry you, but I have the greatest admiration for your intellect." Del Ferice glanced at her and smiled. Then he made as though he would return the papers to his pocket. She sprang towards him, and seized him by the wrist. "Do not be afraid!" she cried, "I will keep my promise." "Solemnly?" he asked, still smiling, and holding the envelope firmly in his hand. "Solemnly," she answered; and then added, with a quick laugh, "but you are so abominably clever, that I believe you could make me marry you against my will." "Never!" said Del Ferice, earnestly; "I love you far too much." He had wonderfully clear instincts. "And now," he continued, "we have settled that matter; when shall the happy day be?" "Oh, there is time enough to think of that," answered Donna Tullia, with a blush that might have passed for the result of a coy shyness, but which was in reality caused by a certain annoyance at being pressed. "No," objected Del Ferice, "we must announce our engagement at once. There is no reason for delay--to-day is better than to-morrow." "To-day?" repeated Donna Tullia, in some alarm. "Why not? Why not, my dear lady, since you and I are both in earnest?" "I think it would be much better to let this affair pass first." "On the contrary," he argued, "from the moment we are publicly engaged I become your natural protector. If any one offers you any insult in this matter, I shall then have an acknowledged right to avenge you--a right I dearly covet. Do you think I would dread to meet Don Giovanni again? He wounded me, it is true, but he has the marks of my sword upon his body also. Give me at once the privilege of appearing as your champion, and you will not regret it. But if you delay doing so, all sorts of circumstances may arise, all sorts of unpleasantness--who could protect you? Of course, even in that case I would; but you know the tongues of the gossips in Rome--it would do you harm instead of good." "That is true, and you are very brave and very kind. But it seems almost too soon," objected Donna Tullia, who, however, was fast learning to yield to his judgment. "Those things cannot be done too soon. It gives us liberty, and it gives the world satisfaction; it protects you, and it will be an inestimable pleasure to me. Why delay the inevitable? Let us appear at once as engaged to be married, and you put a sword in my hand to defend you and to enforce your position in this unfortunate affair with the Astrardente." "Well, you may announce it if you please," she answered, reluctantly. "Thank you, my dear lady," said Del Ferice. "And here are the papers. Make the best use of them you can--any use that you make of them will be good, I know. How could it be otherwise?" Donna Tullia's fingers closed upon the large envelope with a grasping grip, as though she would never relinquish that for which she had paid so dear a price. She had, indeed, at one time almost despaired of getting possession of them, and she had passed a terrible hour, besides having abased herself to the fruitless bribery she had practised upon Temistocle. But she had gained her end, even at the expense of permitting Del Ferice to publish her engagement to marry him. She felt that she could break it off if she decided at last that the union was too distasteful to her; but she foresaw that, from the point of worldly ambition, she would be no great loser by marrying a man of such cunning wit, who possessed such weapons against his enemies, and who, on the whole, as she believed, entirely sympathised with her view of life. She recognised that her chances of making a great match were diminishing rapidly; she could not tell precisely why, but she felt, to her mortification, that she had not made a good use of her rich widowhood: people did not respect her much, and as this touched her vanity, she was susceptible to their lack of deference. She had done no harm, but she knew that every one thought her an irresponsible woman, and the thrifty Romans feared her extravagance, though some of them perhaps courted her fortune: many had admired her, and had to some extent expressed their devotion, but no scion of all the great families had asked her to be his wife. The nearest approach to a proposal had been the doubtful attention she had received from Giovanni Saracinesca during the time when his headstrong father had almost persuaded him to marry her, and she thought of her disappointed hopes with much bitterness. To destroy Giovanni by the revelations she now proposed to make, to marry Del Ferice, and then to develop her position by means of the large fortune she had inherited from her first husband, seemed on the whole a wise plan. Del Ferice's title was not much, to be sure, but, on the other hand, he was intimate with every one she knew, and for a few thousand scudi she could buy some small estate with a good title attached to it. She would then change her mode of life, and assume the pose of a social power, which as a young widow she could not do. It was not so bad, after all, especially if she could celebrate the first day of her engagement by destroying the reputation of Giovanni Saracinesca, root and branch, and dealing a blow at Corona's happiness from which it would not recover. As for Del Ferice, he regarded his triumph as complete. He cared little what became of Giovanni--whether he was able to refute the evidence brought against him or not. There had been nothing in the matter which was dishonest, and properly made out marriage-certificates are not easy things to annul. Giovanni might swim or sink--it was nothing to Ugo del Ferice, now that he had gained the great object of his life, and was at liberty to publish his engagement to Donna Tullia Mayer. He lost no time in telling his friends the good news, and before the evening was over a hundred people had congratulated him. Donna Tullia, too, appeared in more than usually gay attire, and smilingly received the expressions of good wishes which were showered upon her. She was not inclined to question the sincerity of those who spoke, for in her present mood the stimulus of a little popular noise was soothing to her nerves, which had been badly strained by the excitement of the day. When she closed her eyes she had evil visions of Temistocle retreating at full speed down the stairs with his unearned bribe, or of Del Ferice's calm, pale face, as he had sat in her house that afternoon grasping the precious documents in his hand until she promised to pay the price he asked, which was herself. But she smiled at each new congratulation readily enough, and said in her heart that she would yet become a great power in society, and make her house the centre of all attractions. And meanwhile she pondered on the title she should buy for her husband: she came of high blood herself, and she knew how such dignities as a "principe" or a "duca" were regarded when bought. There was nothing for it but to find some snug little marquisate--"marchese" sounded very well, though one could not be called "eccellenza" by one's servants; still, as the daughter of a prince, she might manage even that. "Marchese"--yes, that would do. What a pity there were only four "canopy" marquises--"marchesi del baldacchino"--in Rome with the rank of princes! That was exactly the combination of dignities Donna Tullia required for her husband. But once a "marchese," if she was very charitable, and did something in the way of a public work, the Holy Father might condescend to make Del Ferice a "duca" in the ordinary course as a step in the nobility. Donna Tullia dreamed many things that night, and she afterwards accomplished most of them, to the surprise of everybody, and, if the truth were told, to her own considerable astonishment. CHAPTER XXVIII. "Giovanni, you are the victim of some outrageous plot," said old Saracinesca, entering his son's room on the following morning. "I have thought it all out in the night, and I am convinced of it." Giovanni was extended upon a sofa, with a book in his hand and a cigar between his lips. He looked up quietly from his reading. "I am not the victim yet, nor ever will be," he answered; "but it is evident that there is something at the bottom of this besides Madame Mayer's imagination. I will find out." "What pleases me especially," remarked the old Prince, "is the wonderful originality of the idea. It would have been commonplace to make out that you had poisoned half-a-dozen wives, and buried their bodies in the vaults of Saracinesca; it would have been _banal_ to say that you were not yourself, but some one else; or to assert that you were a revolutionary agent in disguise, and that the real Giovanni had been murdered by you, who had taken his place without my discovering it,--very commonplace all that. But to say that you actually have a living wife, and to try to prove it by documents, is an idea worthy of a great mind. It takes one's breath away." Giovanni laughed. "It will end in our having to go to Aquila in search of my supposed better half," he said. "Aquila, of all places! If she had said Paris--or even Florence--but why, in the name of geography, Aquila?" "She probably looked for some out-of-the-way place upon an alphabetical list," laughed the Prince. "Aquila stood first. We shall know in two hours--come along. It is time to be going." They found Corona in her boudoir. She had passed an uneasy hour on the previous afternoon after they had left her, but her equanimity was now entirely restored. She had made up her mind that, however ingenious the concocted evidence might turn out to be, it was absolutely impossible to harm Giovanni by means of it. His position was beyond attack, as, in her mind, his character was above slander. Far from experiencing any sensation of anxiety as to the result of Donna Tullia's visit, what she most felt was curiosity to see what these fancied proofs would be like. She still believed that Madame Mayer was mad. "I have been remarking to Giovanni upon Donna Tullia's originality," said old Saracinesca. "It is charming; it shows a talent for fiction which the world has been long in realising, which we have not even suspected--an amazing and transcendent genius for invention." "It is pure insanity," answered Corona, in a tone of conviction. "The woman is mad." "Mad as an Englishman," asseverated the Prince, using the most powerful simile in the Italian language. "We will have her in Santo Spirito before night, and she will puzzle the doctors." "She is not mad," said Giovanni, quietly. "I do not even believe we shall find that her documents are forgeries." "What?" cried his father. Corona looked quickly at Giovanni. "You yourself," said the latter, turning to old Saracinesca, "were assuring me half an hour ago that I was the victim of a plot. Now, if anything of the kind is seriously attempted, you may be sure it will be well done. She has a good ally in the man to whom she is engaged. Del Ferice is no fool, and he hates me." "Del Ferice!" exclaimed Corona, in surprise. As she went nowhere as yet, she had, of course, not heard the news which had been published on the previous evening. "You do not mean to say that she is going to marry Del Ferice?" "Yes, indeed," said Giovanni. "They both appeared last night and announced the fact, and received everybody's congratulations. It is a most appropriate match." "I agree with you--a beautiful triangular alliteration of wit, wealth, and wickedness," observed the Prince. "He has brains, she has money, and they are both as bad as possible." "I thought you used to like Donna Tullia," said Corona, suppressing a smile. "I did," said old Saracinesea, stoutly. "I wanted Giovanni to marry her. It has pleased Providence to avert that awful catastrophe. I liked Madame Mayer because she was rich and noisy and good-looking, and I thought that, as Giovanni's wife, she would make the house gay. We are such a pair of solemn bears together, that it seemed appropriate that somebody should make us dance. It was a foolish idea, I confess, though I thought it very beautiful at the time. It merely shows how liable we are to make mistakes. Imagine Giovanni married to a lunatic!" "I repeat that she is not mad," said Giovanni. "I cannot tell how they have managed it, but I am sure it has been managed well, and will give us trouble. You will see." "I do not understand at all how there can be any trouble about it," said Corona, proudly. "It is perfectly simple for us to tell the truth, and to show that what they say is a lie. You can prove easily enough that you were in Canada at the time. I wish it were time for her to come. Let us go to breakfast in the meanwhile." The views taken by the three were characteristic of their various natures. The old Prince, who was violent of temper, and inclined always to despise an enemy in any shape, scoffed at the idea that there was anything to show; and though his natural wit suggested from time to time that there was a plot against his son, his general opinion was, that it was a singular case of madness. He hardly believed Donna Tullia would appear at all; and if she did, he expected some extraordinary outburst, some pitiable exhibition of insanity. Corona, on the other hand, maintained a proud indifference, scorning to suppose that anything could possibly injure Giovanni in any way, loving him too entirely to admit that he was vulnerable at all, still less that he could possibly have done anything to give colour to the accusation brought against him. Giovanni alone of all the three foresaw that there would be trouble, and dimly guessed how the thing had been done; for he did not fall into his father's error of despising an enemy, and he had seen too much of the world not to understand that danger is often greatest when the appearance of it is least. Breakfast was hardly over when Donna Tullia was announced. All rose to meet her, and all looked at her with equal interest. She was calmer than on the previous day, and she carried a package of papers in her hand. Her red lips were compressed, and her eyes looked defiantly round upon all present. Whatever might be her faults, she was not a coward when brought face to face with danger. She was determined to carry the matter through, both because she knew that she had no other alternative, and because she believed herself to be doing a righteous act, which, at the same time, fully satisfied her desire for vengeance. She came forward boldly and stood beside the table in the midst of the room. Corona was upon one side of the fireplace, and the two Saracinesea upon the other. All three held their breath in expectation of what Donna Tullia was about to say; the sense of her importance impressed her, and her love of dramatic situations being satisfied, she assumed something of the air of a theatrical avenging angel, and her utterance was rhetorical. "I come here," she said, "at your invitation, to exhibit to your eyes the evidence of what I yesterday asserted--the evidence of the monstrous crime of which I accuse that man." Here she raised her finger with a gesture of scorn, and extending her whole arm, pointed towards Giovanni. "Madam," interrupted the old Prince, "I will trouble you to select your epithets and expressions with more care. Pray be brief, and show what you have brought." "I will show it, indeed," replied Donna Tullia, "and you shall tremble at what you see. When you have evidence of the truth of what I say, you may choose any language you please to define the action of your son. These documents," she said, holding up the package, "are attested copies made from the originals--the first two in the possession of the curate of the church of San Bernardino da Siena, at Aquila, the other in the office of the Stato Civile in the same city. As they are only copies, you need not think that you will gain anything by destroying them." "Spare your comments upon our probable conduct," interrupted the Prince, roughly. Donna Tullia eyed him with a scornful glance, and her face began to grow red. "You may destroy them if you please," she repeated; "but I advise you to observe that they bear the Government stamp and the notarial seal of Gianbattista Caldani, notary public in the city of Aquila, and that they are, consequently, beyond all doubt genuine copies of genuine documents." Donna Tullia proceeded to open the envelope and withdraw the three papers it contained. Spreading them out, she took up the first, which contained the extract from the curate's book of banns. It set forth that upon the three Sundays preceding the 19th of June 1863, the said curate had published, in the parish church of San Bernardino da Siena, the banns of marriage between Giovanni Saracinesca and Felice Baldi. Donna Tullia read it aloud. Giovanni could hardly suppress a laugh, it sounded so strangely. Corona herself turned pale, though she firmly believed the whole thing to be an imposture of some kind. "Permit me, madam," said old Saracinesca, stepping forward and taking the paper from her hand. He carefully examined the seal and stamp. "It is very cleverly done," he said with a sneer; "but there should be only one letter _r_ in the name Saracinesca--here it is spelt with two! Very clever, but a slight mistake! Observe," he said, showing the place to Donna Tullia. "It is a mistake of the copyist," she said, scornfully. "The name is properly spelt in the other papers. Here is the copy of the marriage register. Shall I read it also?" "Spare me the humiliation," said Giovanni, in quiet contempt. "Spare me the unutterable mortification of discovering that there is another Giovanni Saracinesca in the world!" "I could not have believed that any one could be so hardened," said Donna Tullia. "But whether you are humiliated or not by the evidence of your misdeeds, I will spare you nothing. Here it is in full, and you may notice that your name is spelt properly too." She held up the document and then read it out--the copy of the curate's register, stating that on the 19th of June 1863 Giovanni Saracinesca and Felice Baldi were united in holy matrimony in the church of San Bernardino da Siena. She handed the paper to the Prince, and then read the extract from the register of the Civil marriage and the notary's attestation to the signatures. She gave this also to old Saracinesca, and then folding her arms in a fine attitude, confronted the three. "Are you satisfied that I spoke the truth?" she asked, defiantly. "The thing is certainly remarkably well done," answered the old Prince, who scrutinised the papers with a puzzled air. Though he knew perfectly well that his son had been in Canada at the time of this pretended marriage, he confessed to himself that if such evidence had been brought against any other man, he would have believed it. "It is a shameful fraud!" exclaimed Corona, looking at the papers over the old man's shoulder. "That is a lie!" cried Donna Tullia, growing scarlet with anger. "Do not forget your manners, or you will get into trouble," said Giovanni, sternly. "I see through the whole thing. There has been no fraud, and yet the deductions are entirely untrue. In the first place, Donna Tullia, how do you make the statements here given to coincide with the fact that during the whole summer of 1863 and during the early part of 1864 I was in Canada with a party of gentlemen, who are all alive to testify to the fact?" "I do not believe it," answered Madame Mayer, contemptuously. "I would not believe your friends if they were here and swore to it. You will very likely produce witnesses to prove that you were in the arctic regions last summer, as the newspapers said, whereas every one knows now that you were at Saracinesca. You are exceedingly clever at concealing your movements, as we all know." Giovanni did not lose his temper, but calmly proceeded to demonstrate his theory. "You will find that the courts of law will accept the evidence of gentlemen upon oath," he replied, quietly. "Moreover, as a further evidence, and a piece of very singular proof, I can probably produce Giovanni Saracinesca and Felice Baldi themselves to witness against you. And I apprehend that the said Giovanni Saracinesca will vehemently protest that the said Felice Baldi is his wife, and not mine." "You speak in wonderful riddles, but you will not deceive me. Money will doubtless do much, but it will not do what you expect." "Certainly not," returned Giovanni, unmoved by her reply. "Money will certainly not create out of nothing a second Giovanni Saracinesca, nor his circle of acquaintances, nor the police registers concerning him which are kept throughout the kingdom of Italy, very much as they are kept here in the Pontifical States. Money will do none of these things." While he was speaking, his father and the Duchessa listened with intense interest. "Donna Tullia," continued Giovanni, "I am willing to believe from your manner that you are really sure that I am the man mentioned in your papers; but permit me to inform you that you have been made the victim of a shallow trick, probably by the person who gave those same papers into your hands, and suggested to you the use you have made of them." "I? I, the victim of a trick?" repeated Donna Tullia, frightened at last by his obstinately calm manner. "Yes," he replied. "I know Aquila and the Abruzzi very well. It chances that although we, the Saracinesca of Rome, are not numerous, the name is not uncommon in that part of the country. It is the same with all our great names. There are Colonna, Orsini, Caetani all over the country--there are even many families bearing the name of the Medici, who are extinct. You know it as well as I, or you should know it, for I believe your mother was my father's cousin. Has it not struck you that this same Giovanni Saracinesca herein mentioned, is simply some low-born namesake of mine?" Donna Tullia had grown very pale, and she leaned upon the table as though she were faint. The others listened breathlessly. "I do not believe it," said Madame Mayer, in a low and broken voice. "Now I will tell you what I will do," continued Giovanni. "I will go to Aquila at once, and I daresay my father will accompany me--" "Of course I will," broke in the old Prince. "We will go, and in a fortnight's time we will produce the whole history of this Giovanni Saracinesca, together with his wife and himself in his own person, if they are both alive; we will bring them here, and they will assure you that you have been egregiously deceived, played upon and put in a false position by--by the person who furnished you with these documents. I wonder that any Roman of common-sense should not have seen at once the cause of this mistake." "I cannot believe it," murmured Donna Tullia. Then raising her voice, she added, "Whatever may be the result of your inquiry, I cannot but feel that I have done my duty in this affair. I do not believe in your theory, nor in you, and I shall not, until you produce this other man. I have done my duty--" "An exceedingly painful one, no doubt," remarked old Saracinesca. Then he broke into a loud peal of laughter. "And if you do not succeed in your search, it will be my duty, in the interests of society, to put the matter in the hands of the police. Since you have the effrontery to say that those papers are of no use, I demand them back." "Not at all, madam," replied the Prince, whose laughter subsided at the renewed boldness of her tone. "I will not give them back to you. I intend to compare them with the originals. If there are no originals, they will serve very well to commit the notary whose seal is on them, and yourself, upon a well-founded indictment for forgery, wilful calumniation, and a whole list of crimes sufficient to send you to the galleys for life. If, on the other hand, the originals exist, they can be of no possible value to you, as you can send to Aquila and have fresh copies made whenever you please, as you yourself informed me." Things were taking a bad turn for Donna Tullia. She believed the papers to be genuine, but a fearful doubt crossed her mind that Del Ferice might possibly have deceived her by having them manufactured. Anybody could buy Government paper, and it would be but a simple matter to have a notary's seal engraved. She was terrified at the idea, but there was no possibility of getting the documents back from the old Prince, who held them firmly in his broad brown hand. There was nothing to be done but to face the situation out to the end and go. "As you please," she said. "It is natural that you should insult me, a defenceless woman trying to do what is right. It is worthy of your race and reputation. I will leave you to the consideration of the course you intend to follow, and I advise you to omit nothing which can help to prove the innocence of your son." Donna Tullia bestowed one more glance of contemptuous defiance upon the group, and brushed angrily out of the room. "So much for her madness!" exclaimed Giovanni, when she was gone. "I think I have got to the bottom of that affair." "It seems so simple, and yet I never thought of it," said Corona. "How clever you are, Giovanni!" "There was not much cleverness needed to see through so shallow a trick," replied Giovanni. "I suspected it this morning; and when I saw that the documents were genuine and all in order, I was convinced of it. This thing has been done by Del Ferice, I suppose in order to revenge himself upon me for nearly killing him in fair fight. It was a noble plan. With a little more intelligence and a little more pains, he could have given me great trouble. Certificates like those he produced, if they had come from a remote French village in Canada, would have given us occupation for some time." "I wish Donna Tullia joy of her husband," remarked the Prince. "He will spend her money in a year or two, and then leave her to the contemplation of his past extravagance. I wonder how he induced her to consent." "Many people like Del Ferice," said Giovanni. "He is popular, and has attractions." "How can you say that!" exclaimed Corona, indignantly. "You should have a better opinion of women than to think any woman could find attractions in such a man." "Nevertheless, Donna Tullia is going to marry him," returned Giovanni. "She must find him to her taste. I used to think she might have married Valdarno--he is so good-natured, you know!" Giovanni spoke in a tone of reflection; the other two laughed. "And now, Giovannino," said his father, "we must set out for Aquila, and find your namesake." "You will not really go?" asked Corona, with a look of disappointment. She could not bear the thought of being separated even for a day from the man she loved. "I do not see that we can do anything else," returned the Prince. "I must satisfy myself whether those papers are forgeries or not. If they are, that woman must go to prison for them." "But she is our cousin--you cannot do that," objected Giovanni. "Indeed I will. I am angry. Do not try to stop me. Do you suppose I care anything for the relationship in comparison with repaying her for all this trouble? You are not going to turn merciful, Giovanni? I should not recognise you." There was a sort of mournful reproach about the old Prince's tone, as though he were reproving his son for having fallen from the paths of virtue. Corona laughed; she was not hard-hearted, but she was not so angelic of nature as to be beyond feeling deep and lasting resentment for injuries received. At that moment the idea of bringing Donna Tullia to justice was pleasant. "Well," said Giovanni, "no human being can boast of having ever prevented you from doing whatever you were determined to do. The best thing that can happen will be, that you should find the papers genuine, and my namesake alive. I wish Aquila were Florence or Naples," he added, turning to Corona; "you might manage to go at the same time." "That is impossible," she answered, sadly. "How long will you be gone, do you think?" Giovanni did not believe that, if the papers were genuine, and if they had to search for the man mentioned in them, they could return in less than a fortnight. "Why not send a detective--a _sbirro_?" suggested Corona. "He could not accomplish anything," replied the Prince. "He would be at a great disadvantage there; we must go ourselves." "Both?" asked Corona, regretfully, gazing at Giovanni's face. "It is my business," replied the latter. "I can hardly ask my father to go alone." "Absurd!" exclaimed the old Prince, resenting the idea that he needed any help to accomplish his mission. "Do you think I need some one to take care of me, like a baby in arms? I will go alone; you shall not come even if you wish it. Absurd, to talk of my needing anybody with me! I will show you what your father can do when his blood is up." Protestations were useless after that. The old man grew angry at the opposition, and, regardless of all propriety, seized his hat and left the room, growling that he was as good as anybody, and a great deal better. Corona and Giovanni looked at each other when he was gone, and smiled. "I believe my father is the best man alive," said Giovanni. "He would go in a moment if I would let him. I will go after him and bring him back--I suppose I ought." "I suppose so," answered Corona; but as they stood side by side, she passed her hand under his arm affectionately, and looked into his eyes. It was a very tender look, very loving and gentle--such a look as none but Giovanni had ever seen upon her face. He put his arm about her waist and drew her to him, and kissed her dark cheek. "I cannot bear to go away and leave you, even for a day," he said, pressing her to his side. "Why should you?" she murmured, looking up to him. "Why should he go, after all? This has been such a silly affair. I wonder if that woman thought that anything could ever come between you and me? That was what made me think she was really mad." "And an excellent reason," he answered. "Anybody must be insane who dreams of parting us two. It seems as though a year ago I had not loved you at all." "I am so glad," said Corona. "Do you remember, last summer, on the tower at Saracinesca, I told you that you did not know what love was?" "It was true, Corona--I did not know. But I thought I did. I never imagined what the happiness of love was, nor how great it was, nor how it could enter into every thought." "Into every thought? Into your great thoughts too?" "If any thoughts of mine are great, they are so because you are the mainspring of them," he answered. "Will it always be so?" she asked. "You will be a very great man some day, Giovanni; will you always feel that I am something to you?" "Always--more than anything to me, more than all of me together." "I sometimes wonder," said Corona. "I think I understand you better than I used to do. I like to think that you feel how I understand you when you tell me anything. Of course I am not clever like you, but I love you so much that just while you are talking I seem to understand everything. It is like a flash of light in a dark room." Giovanni kissed her again. "What makes you think that I shall be great, Corona? Nobody ever thinks I am even clever. My father would laugh at you, and say it is quite enough greatness to be born a Saracinesca. What makes you think it?" Corona stood up beside him and laid her delicate hand upon his thick, close-cut black hair, and gazed into his eyes. "I know it," she said. "I know it, because I love you so. A man like you must be great. There is something in you that nobody guesses but I, that will amaze people some day--I know it." "I wonder if you could tell me what it is? I wonder if it is really there at all?" said Giovanni. "It is ambition," said Corona, gravely. "You are the most ambitious man I ever knew, and nobody has found it out." "I believe it is true, Corona," said Giovanni, turning away and leaning upon the chimneypiece, his head supported on one hand. "I believe you are right. I am ambitious: if I only had the brains that some men have I would do great things." "You are wrong, Giovanni. It is neither brains nor ambition nor strength that you lack--it is opportunity." "They say that a man who has anything in him creates opportunities for himself," answered Giovanni, rather sadly. "I fear it is because I really have nothing in me that I can do nothing. It sometimes makes me very unhappy to think so. I suppose that is because my vanity is wounded." "Do not talk like that," said Corona. "You have vanity, of course, but it is of the large kind, and I call it ambition. It is not only because I love you better than any man was ever loved before that I say that. It is that I know it instinctively I have heard you say that these are unsettled times. Wait; your opportunity will come, as it came often to your forefathers in other centuries." "I hardly think that their example is a good one," replied Giovanni, with a smile. "They generally did something remarkable in remarkable times," said Corona. "You will do the same. Your father, for instance, would not." "He is far more clever than I," objected Giovanni. "Clever! It passes for cleverness. He is quick, active, a good talker, a man with a ready wit and a sharp answer--kind-hearted when the fancy takes him, cruel when he is so disposed--but not a man of great convictions or of great actions. You are very different from him." "Will you draw my portrait, Corona?" asked Giovanni. "As far as I know you. You are a man quick to think and slow to make a decision. You are not brilliant in conversation--you see I do not flatter you; I am just. You have the very remarkable quality of growing cold when others grow hot, and of keeping the full use of your faculties in any situation. When you have made a decision, you cannot be moved from it; but you are open to conviction in argument. You have a great repose of manner, which conceals a very restless brain. All your passions are very strong. You never forgive, never forget, and scarcely ever repent. Beneath all, you have an untamable ambition which has not yet found its proper field. Those are your qualities--and I love them all, and you more than them all." Corona finished her speech by throwing her arms round his neck, and breaking into a happy laugh as she buried her face upon his shoulder. No one who saw her in the world would have believed her capable of those sudden and violent demonstrations--she was thought so very cold. When Giovanni reached home, he was informed that his father had left Rome an hour earlier by the train for Terni, leaving word that he had gone to Aquila. CHAPTER XXIX. In those days the railroad did not extend beyond Terni in the direction of Aquila, and it was necessary to perform the journey of forty miles between those towns by diligence. It was late in the afternoon of the next day before the cumbrous coach rolled up to the door of the Locanda del Sole in Aquila, and Prince Saracinesca found himself at his destination. The red evening sun gilded the snow of the Gran Sasso d'Italia, the huge domed mountain that towers above the city of Frederick. The city itself had long been in the shade, and the spring air was sharp and biting. Saracinesca deposited his slender luggage with the portly landlord, said he would return for supper in half an hour, and inquired the way to the church of San Bernardino da Siena. There was no difficulty in finding it, at the end of the Corso--the inevitable "Corso" of every Italian town. The old gentleman walked briskly along the broad, clean street, and reached the door of the church just as the sacristan was hoisting the heavy leathern curtain, preparatory to locking up for the night. "Where can I find the Padre Curato?" inquired the Prince. The man looked at him but made no answer, and proceeded to close the doors with great care. He was an old man in a shabby cassock, with four days' beard on his face, and he appeared to have taken snuff recently. "Where is the Curator?" repeated the Prince, plucking him by the sleeve. But the man shook his head, and began turning the ponderous key in the lock. Two little ragged boys were playing a game upon the church steps, piling five chestnuts in a heap and then knocking them down with a small stone. One of them having upset the heap, desisted and came near the Prince. "That one is deaf," he said, pointing to the sacristan. Then running behind, him he stood on tiptoe and screamed in his ear--"_Brutta bestia_!" The sacristan did not hear, but caught sight of the urchin and made a lunge at him. He missed him, however, and nearly fell over. "What education!--_che educazione_!" cried the old man, angrily. Meanwhile the little boy took refuge behind Saracinesca, and pulling his coat asked for a _soldo_. The sacristan calmly withdrew the key from the lock, and went away without vouchsafing a look to the Prince. "He is deaf," screamed the little boy, who was now joined by his companion, and both in great excitement danced round the fine gentleman. "Give me a _soldo_," they yelled together. "Show me the house of the Padre Curato," answered the Prince, "then I will give you each a _soldo. Lesti!_ Quick!" Whereupon both the boys began turning cart-wheels on their feet and hands with marvellous dexterity. At last they subsided into a natural position, and led the way to the curate's house, not twenty yards from the church, in a narrow alley. The Prince pulled the bell by the long chain which hung beside the open street door, and gave the boys the promised coppers. They did not leave him, however, but stood by to see what would happen. An old woman looked out of an upper window, and after surveying the Prince with care, called down to him-- "What do you want?" "Is the Padre Curato at home?" "Of course he is at home," screamed the old woman, "At this hour!" she added, contemptuously. "_Ebbene_--can I see him?" "What! is the door shut?" returned the hag. "No." "Then why don't you come up without asking?" The old woman's head disappeared, and the window was shut with a clattering noise. "She is a woman without education," remarked one of the ragged boys, making a face towards the closed window. The Prince entered the door and stumbled up the dark stairs, and after some further palaver obtained admittance to the curate's lodging. The curate sat in a room which appeared to serve as dining-room, living-room, and study. A small table was spread with a clean cloth, upon which were arranged a plate, a loaf of bread, a battered spoon, a knife, and a small measure of thin-looking wine. A brass lamp with three wicks, one of which only was burning, shed a feeble light through the poor apartment. Against the wall stood a rough table with an inkstand and three or four mouldy books. Above this hung a little black cross bearing a brass Christ, and above this again a coloured print of San Bernardino of Siena. The walls were whitewashed, and perfectly clean,--as indeed was everything else in the room,--and there was a sweet smell of flowers from a huge pot of pinks which had been taken in for the night, and stood upon the stone sill within the closed window. The curate was a tall old man, with a singularly gentle face and soft brown eyes. He wore a threadbare cassock, carefully brushed; and from beneath his three-cornered black cap his thin hair hung in a straight grey fringe. As the Prince entered the room, the old woman called over his shoulder to the priest an uncertain formula of introduction. "Don Paolo, _c'è uno_--there is one." Then she retired, grumbling audibly. The priest removed his cap, and bowing politely, offered one of the two chairs to his visitor. With an apology, he replaced his cap upon his head, and seated himself opposite the Prince. There was much courteous simplicity in his manner. "In what way can I serve you, Signore?" he asked. "These papers," answered the Prince, drawing the famous envelope from his breast-pocket, "are copies of certain documents in your keeping, relating to the supposed marriage of one Giovanni Saracinesca. With your very kind permission, I desire to see the originals." The old curate bowed, as though giving his assent, and looked steadily at his visitor for a moment before he answered. "There is nothing simpler, my good sir. You will pardon me, however, if I venture to inquire your name, and to ask you for what purpose you desire to consult the documents?" "I am Leone Saracinesca of Rome--" The priest started uneasily. "A relation of Giovanni Saracinesca?" he inquired. Then he added immediately, "Will you kindly excuse me for one moment?" and left the room abruptly. The Prince was considerably astonished, but he held his papers firmly in his hand, and did not move from his seat. The curate returned in a few seconds, bringing with him a little painted porcelain basket, much chipped and the worse for age, and which contained a collection of visiting-cards. There were not more than a score of them, turning brown with accumulated dust. The priest found one which was rather newer than the rest, and after carefully adjusting a pair of huge spectacles upon his nose, he went over to the lamp and examined it. "'Il Conte del Ferice,'" he read slowly. "Do you happen to know that gentleman, my good sir?" he inquired, turning to the Prince, and looking keenly at him over his glasses. "Certainly," answered Saracinesca, beginning to understand the situation. "I know him very well." "Ah, that is good!" said the priest. "He was here two years ago, and had those same entries concerning Giovanni Saracinesca copied. Probably--certainly, indeed--the papers you have there are the very ones he took away with him. When he came to see me about it, he gave me this card." "I wonder he did," answered Saracinesca. "Indeed," replied the curate, after a moment's thought, "I remember that he came the next day--yes--and asked to have his card returned. But I could not find it for him. There was a hole in one of my pockets--it had slipped down. Carmela, my old servant, found it a day or two later in the lining of my cassock. I thought it strange that he should have asked for it." "It was very natural. He wished you to forget his existence." "He asked me many questions about Giovanni," said the priest, "but I could not answer him at that time." "You could answer now?" inquired the Prince, eagerly. "Excuse me, my good sir; what relation are you to Giovanni? You say you are from Rome?" "Let us understand each other, Signor Curato," said Saracinesca. "I see I had better explain the position. I am Leone Saracinesca, the prince of that name, and the head of the family." The priest bowed respectfully at this intelligence. "My only son lives with me in Rome--he is now there--and his name is Giovanni Saracinesca. He is engaged to be married. When the engagement became known, an enemy of the family attempted to prove, by means of these papers, that he was married already to a certain Felice Baldi. Now I wish to know who this Giovanni Saracinesca is, where he is, and how he comes to have my son's name. I wish a certificate or some proof that he is not my son,--that he is alive, or that he is dead and buried." The old priest burst into a genial laugh, and rubbed his hands together in delight. "My dear sir--your Excellency, I mean--I baptised Felice Baldi's second baby a fortnight ago! There is nothing simpler--" "I knew it!" cried the Prince, springing from his chair in great excitement; "I knew it! Where is that baby? Send and get the baby at once--the mother--the father--everybody!" "_Subito!_ At once--or come with me. I will show you the whole family together," said the curate, in innocent delight. "Splendid children they are, too. Carmela, my cloak--_sbrigati_, be quick!" "One moment," objected Saracinesca, as though suddenly recollecting something. "One moment, Sign or Curato; who goes slowly goes safely. Where does this man come from, and how does he come by his name? I would like to know something about him before I see him." "True," answered the priest, resuming his seat. "I had forgotten. Well, it is not a long story. Giovanni Saracinesca is from Naples. You know there was once a branch of your family in the Neapolitan kingdom--at least so Giovanni says, and he is an honest fellow. Their title was Marchese di San Giacinto; and if Giovanni liked to claim it, he has a right to the title still." "But those Saracinesca were extinct fifty years ago," objected the Prince, who knew his family history very well. "Giovanni says they were not. They were believed to be. The last Marchese di San Giacinto fought under Napoleon. He lost all he possessed--lands, money, everything--by confiscation, when Ferdinand was restored in 1815. He was a rough man; he dropped his title, married a peasant's only daughter, became a peasant himself, and died obscurely in a village near Salerno. He left a son who worked on the farm and inherited it from his mother, married a woman of the village of some education, and died of the cholera, leaving his son, the present Giovanni Saracinesca. This Giovanni received a better education than his father had before him, improved his farm, began to sell wine and oil for exportation, travelled as far as Aquila, and met Felice Baldi, the daughter of a man of some wealth, who has since established an inn here. Giovanni loved her. I married them. He went back to Naples, sold his farm for a good price last year, and returned to Aquila. He manages his father-in-law's inn, which is the second largest here, and drives a good business, having put his own capital into the enterprise. They have two children, the second one of which was born three weeks ago, and they are perfectly happy." Saracinesca looked thoughtfully at Don Paolo, the old curate. "Has this man any papers to prove the truth of this very singular story?" he inquired at last. "_Altro!_ That was all his grandfather left--a heap of parchments. They seem to be in order--he showed them to me when I married him." "Why does he make no claim to have the attainder of his grandfather reversed?" The curate shrugged his shoulders and spread out the palms of his hands, smiling incredulously. "The lands, he says, have fallen into the hands of certain patriots. There is no chance of getting them back. It is of little use to be a Marchese without property. What he possesses is a modest competence; it is wealth, even, in his present position. For a nobleman it would be nothing. Besides, he is half a peasant by blood and tradition." "He is not the only nobleman in that position," laughed Saracinesca. "But are you aware--" He stopped short. He was going to say that if he himself and his son both died, the innkeeper of Aquila would become Prince Saracinesca. The idea shocked him, and he kept it to himself. "After all," he continued, "the man is of my blood by direct descent. I would like to see him." "Nothing easier. If you will come with me, I will present him to your Excellency," said the priest. "Do you still wish to see the documents?" "It is useless. The mystery is solved. Let us go and see this new-found relation of mine." Don Paolo wrapped his cloak around him, and ushering his guest from the room, led the way down-stairs. He carried a bit of wax taper, which he held low to the steps, frequently stopping and warning the Prince to be careful. It was night when they went out. The air was sharp and cold, and Saracinesca buttoned his greatcoat to his throat as he strode by the side of the old priest. The two walked on in silence for ten minutes, keeping straight down the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele. At last the curate stopped before a clean, new house, from the windows of which the bright light streamed into the street. Don Paolo motioned to the Prince to enter, and followed him in. A man in a white apron, with his arms full of plates, who was probably servant, butler, boots, and factotum to the establishment, came out of the dining-room, which was to the left of the entrance, and which, to judge by the noise, seemed to be full of people. He looked at the curate, and then at the Prince. "Sorry to disappoint you, Don Paolo _mio_," he said, supposing the priest had brought a customer--"very sorry; there is not a bed in the house." "That is no matter, Giacchino," answered the curate. "We want to see Sor Giovanni for a moment." The man disappeared, and a moment later Sor Giovanni himself came down the passage. "_Favorisca_, dear Don Paolo, come in." And he bowed to the Prince as he opened the door which led into a small sitting-room reserved for the innkeeper's family. When they had entered, Saracinesca looked at his son's namesake. He saw before him a man whose face and figure he long remembered with an instinctive dislike. Giovanni the innkeeper was of a powerful build. Two generations of peasant blood had given renewed strength to the old race. He was large, with large bones, vast breadth of shoulder, and massive joints; lean withal, and brown of face, his high cheek-bones making his cheeks look hollow; clean shaved, his hair straight and black and neatly combed; piercing black eyes near together, the heavy eyebrows joining together in the midst of his forehead; thin and cruel lips, now parted in a smile and showing a formidable set of short, white, even teeth; a prominent square jaw, and a broad, strong nose, rather unnaturally pointed,--altogether a striking face, one that would be noticed in a crowd for its strength, but strangely cunning in expression, and not without ferocity. Years afterwards Saracinesca remembered his first meeting with Giovanni the innkeeper, and did not wonder that his first impulse had been to dislike the man. At present, however, he looked at him with considerable curiosity, and if he disliked him at first sight, he told himself that it was beneath him to show antipathy for an innkeeper. "Sor Giovanni," said the curate, "this gentleman is desirous of making your acquaintance." Giovanni, whose manners were above his station, bowed politely, and looked inquiringly at his visitor. "Signor Saracinesca," said the Prince, "I am Leone Saracinesca of Rome. I have just heard of your existence. We have long believed your family to be extinct--I am delighted to find it still represented, and by one who seems likely to perpetuate the name." The innkeeper fixed his piercing eyes on the speaker's face, and looked long before he answered. "So you are Prince Saracinesca," he said, gravely. "And you are the Marchese di San Giacinto," said the Prince, in the same tone, holding out his hand frankly. "Pardon me,--I am Giovanni Saracinesca, the innkeeper of Aquila," returned the other. But he took the Prince's hand. Then they all sat down. "As you please," said the Prince. "The title is none the less yours. If you had signed yourself with it when you married, you would have saved me a vast deal of trouble; but on the other hand, I should not have been so fortunate as to meet you." "I do not understand," said Giovanni. The Prince told his story in as few words as possible. "Amazing! extraordinary! what a chance!" ejaculated the curate, nodding his old head from time to time while the Prince spoke, as though he had not heard it all before. The innkeeper said nothing until old Saracinesca had finished. "I see how it was managed," he said at last. "When that gentleman was making inquiries, I was away. I had taken my wife back to Salerno, and my wife's father had not yet established himself in Aquila. Signor Del--what is his name?" "Del Ferice." "Del Ferice, exactly. He thought we had disappeared, and were not likely to come back. Or else he is a fool." "He is not a fool," said Saracinesca. "He thought he was safe. It is all very clear now. Well, Signor Marchese, or Signor Saracinesca, I am very glad to have made your acquaintance. You have cleared up a very important question by returning to Aquila. It will always give me the greatest pleasure to serve you in any way I can." "A thousand thanks. Anything I can do for you during your stay--" "You are very kind. I will hire horses and return to Terni to-night. My business in Rome is urgent. There is some suspense there in my absence." "You will drink a glass before going?" asked Giovanni; and without waiting for an answer, he strode from the room. "And what does your Excellency think of your relation?" asked the curate, when he was alone with the Prince. "A terrible-looking fellow! But--" The Prince made a face and a gesture indicating a question in regard to the innkeeper's character. "Oh, do not be afraid," answered the priest. "He is the most honest man alive." "Of course," returned the Prince, politely, "you have had many occasions of ascertaining that." Giovanni, the innkeeper, returned with a bottle of wine and three glasses, which he placed upon the table, and proceeded to fill. "By the by," said the Prince, "in the excitement I forgot to inquire for your Signora. She is well, I hope?" "Thank you--she is very well," replied Giovanni, shortly. "A boy, I have no doubt?" "A splendid boy," answered the curate. "Sor Giovanni has a little girl, too. He is a very happy man." "Your health," said the innkeeper, holding up his glass to the light. "And yours," returned the Prince. "And of all the Saracinesca family," said the curate, sipping his wine slowly. He rarely got a glass of old Lacrima, and he enjoyed it thoroughly. "And now," said the Prince, "I must be off. Many thanks for your hospitality. I shall always remember with pleasure the day when I met an unknown relation." "The Albergo di Napoli will not forget that Prince Saracinesca has been its guest," replied Giovanni politely, a smile upon his thin lips. He shook hands with both his guests, and ushered them out to the door with a courteous bow. Before they had gone twenty yards in the street, the Prince looked back and caught a last glimpse of Giovanni's towering figure, standing upon the steps with the bright light falling upon it from within. He remembered that impression long. At the door of his own inn he took leave of the good curate with many expressions of thanks, and with many invitations to the Palazzo Saracinesca, in case the old man ever visited Home. "I have never seen Rome, your Excellency," answered the priest, rather sadly. "I am an old man--I shall never see it now." So they parted, and the Prince had a solitary supper of pigeons and salad in the great dusky hall of the Locanda del Sole, while his horses were being got ready for the long night-journey. The meeting and the whole clearing up of the curious difficulty had produced a profound impression upon the old Prince. He had not the slightest doubt but that the story of the curate was perfectly accurate. It was all so very probable, too. In the wild times between 1806 and 1815 the last of the Neapolitan branch of the Saracinesca had disappeared, and the rich and powerful Roman princes of the name had been quite willing to believe the Marchesi di San Giacinto extinct. They had not even troubled themselves to claim the title, for they possessed more than fifty of their own, and there was no chance of recovering the San Giacinto estate, already mortgaged, and more than half squandered at the time of the confiscation. That the rough soldier of fortune should have hidden himself in his native country after the return of Ferdinand, his lawful king, against whom he had fought, was natural enough; as it was also natural that, with his rough nature, he should accommodate himself to a peasant's life, and marry a peasant's only daughter, with her broad acres of orange and olive and vine land; for peasants in the far south were often rich, and their daughters were generally beautiful--a very different race from the starved tenants of the Roman Campagna. The Prince decided that the story was perfectly true, and he reflected somewhat bitterly that unless his son had heirs after him, this herculean innkeeper of Aquila was the lawful successor to his own title, and to all the Saracinesca lands. He determined that Giovanni's marriage should not be delayed another day, and with his usual impetuosity he hastened back to Rome, hardly remembering that he had spent the previous night and all that day upon the road, and that he had another twenty-four hours of travel before him. At dawn his carriage stopped at a little town not far from the papal frontier. Just as the vehicle was starting, a large man, muffled in a huge cloak, from the folds of which protruded the long brown barrel of a rifle, put his head into the window. The Prince started and grasped his revolver, which lay beside him on the seat. "Good morning, Prince," said the man. "I hope you have slept well." "Sor Giovanni!" exclaimed the old gentleman. "Where did you drop from?" "The roads are not very safe," returned the innkeeper. "So I thought it best to accompany you. Good-bye--_buon viaggio_!" Before the Prince could answer, the carriage rolled off, the horses springing forward at a gallop. Saracinesca put his head out of the window, but his namesake had disappeared, and he rolled on towards Terni, wondering at the innkeeper's anxiety for his safety. CHAPTER XXX. Even old Saracinesca's iron strength was in need of rest when, at the end of forty-eight hours, he again entered his son's rooms, and threw himself upon the great divan. "How is Corona?" was his first question. "She is very anxious about you," returned Giovanni, who was himself considerably disturbed. "We will go and set her mind at rest as soon as I have had something to eat," said his father. "It is all right, then? It was just as I said--a namesake?" "Precisely. Only the namesake happens to be a cousin--the last of the San Giacinto, who keeps an inn in Aquila. I saw him, and shook hands with him." "Impossible!" exclaimed Giovanni. "They are all extinct--" "There has been a resurrection," returned the Prince. He told the whole story of his journey, graphically and quickly. "That is a very extraordinary tale," remarked Giovanni, thoughtfully. "So, if I die without children the innkeeper will be prince." "Precisely. And now, Giovanni, you must be married next week." "As soon as you please--to-morrow if you like." "What shall we do with Del Ferice?" asked the old prince. "Ask him to the wedding," answered Giovanni, magnanimously. "The wedding will have to be a very quiet one, I suppose," remarked his father, thoughtfully. "The year is hardly over--" "The more quiet the better, provided it is done quickly. Of course we must consult Corona at once." "Do you suppose I am going to fix the wedding-day without consulting her?" asked the old man. "For heaven's sake order dinner, and let us be quick about it." The Prince was evidently in a hurry, and moreover, he was tired and very hungry. An hour later, as both the men sat over the coffee in the dining-room, his mood was mellower. A dinner at home has a wonderful effect upon the temper of a man who has travelled and fared badly for eight-and-forty hours. "Giovannino," said old Saracinesca, "have you any idea what the Cardinal thinks of your marriage?" "No; and I do not care," answered the younger man. "He once advised me not to marry Donna Tullia. He has not seen me often since then." "I have an idea that it will please him immensely," said the Prince. "It would be very much the same if it displeased him." "Very much the same. Have you seen Corona to-day?" "Yes--of course," answered Giovanni. "What is the use of my going with you this evening?" asked his father, suddenly. "I should think you could manage your own affairs without my help." "I thought that as you have taken so much trouble, you would enjoy telling her the story yourself." "Do you think I am a vain fool, sir, to be amused by a woman's praise? Nonsense! Go yourself." "By all means," answered Giovanni. He was used to his father's habit of being quarrelsome over trifles, and he was much too happy to take any notice of it now. "You are tired," he continued. "I am sure you have a right to be. You must want to go to bed." "To bed indeed!" growled the old man. "Tired! You think I am good for nothing; I know you do. You look upon me as a doting old cripple. I tell you, boy, I can--" "For heaven's sake, _padre mio_, do precisely as you are inclined. I never said--" "Never said what? Why are you always quarrelling with me?" roared his father, who had not lost his temper for two days, and missed his favourite exercise. "What day shall we fix upon?" asked Giovanni, unmoved. "Day! Any day. What do I care? Oh!--well, since you speak of it, you might say a week from Sunday. To-day is Friday. But I do not care in the least." "Very well--if Corona can get ready." "She shall be ready--she must be ready!" answered the old gentleman, in a tone of conviction. "Why should she not be ready, I would like to know?" "No reason whatever," said Giovanni, with unusual mildness. "Of course not. There is never any reason in anything you say, you unreasonable boy." "Never, of course." Giovanni rose to go, biting his lips to keep down a laugh. "What the devil do you mean by always agreeing with me, you impertinent scapegrace? And you are laughing, too--laughing at me, sir, as I live! Upon my word!" Giovanni turned his back and lighted a cigar. Then, without looking round, he walked towards the door. "Giovannino," called the Prince. "Well?" "I feel better now. I wanted to abuse somebody. Look here--wait a moment." He rose quickly, and left the room. Giovanni sat down and smoked rather impatiently, looking at his watch from time to time. In five minutes his father returned, bringing in his hand an old red morocco case. "Give it to her with my compliments, my boy," he said. "They are some of your mother's diamonds--just a few of them. She shall have the rest on the wedding-day." "Thank you," said Giovanni, and pressed his father's hand. "And give her my love, and say I will call to-morrow at two o'clock," added the Prince, now perfectly serene. With the diamonds under his arm, Giovanni went out. The sky was clear and frosty, and the stars shone brightly, high up between the tall houses of the narrow street. Giovanni had not ordered a carriage, and seeing how fine the night was, he decided to walk to his destination. It was not eight o'clock, and Corona would have scarcely finished dinner at that hour. He walked slowly. As he emerged into the Piazza di Venezia some one overtook him. "Good evening, Prince." Giovanni turned, and recognised Anastase Gouache, the Zouave. "Ah, Gouache--how are you?" "I am going to pay you a visit," answered the Frenchman. "I am very sorry--I have just left home," returned Giovanni, in some surprise. "Not at your house," continued Anastase. "My company is ordered to the mountains. We leave to-morrow morning for Subiaco, and some of us are to be quartered at Saracinesca." "I hope you will be among the number," said Giovanni. "I shall probably be married next week, and the Duchessa wishes to go at once to the mountains. We shall be delighted to see you." "Thank you very much. I will not fail to do myself the honour. My homage to Madame la Duchesse. I must turn here. Good night." "_Au revoir_," said Giovanni, and went on his way. He found Corona in an inner sitting-room, reading beside a great wood-fire. There were soft shades of lilac mingled with the black of her dress. The year of mourning was past, and so soon as she could she modified her widow's weeds into something less solemnly black. It was impossible to wear funeral robes on the eve of her second marriage; and the world had declared that she had shown an extraordinary degree of virtue in mourning so long for a death which every one considered so highly appropriate. Corona, however, felt differently. To her, her dead husband and the man she now so wholly loved belonged to two totally distinct classes of men. Her love, her marriage with Giovanni, seemed so natural a consequence of her being left alone--so absolutely removed from her former life--that, on the eve of her wedding, she could almost wish that poor old Astrardente were alive to look as her friend upon her new-found happiness. She welcomed Giovanni with a bright smile. She had not expected him that evening, for he had been with her all the afternoon. She sprang to her feet and came quickly to meet him. She almost unconsciously took the morocco case from his hands, not looking at it, and hardly noticing what she did. "My father has come back. It is all settled!" cried Giovanni. "So soon! He must have flown!" said she, making him sit down. "Yes, he has never rested, and he has found out all about it. It is a most extraordinary story. By the by, he sends you affectionate messages, and begs you to accept these diamonds. They were my mother's," he added, his voice softening and changing. Corona understood his tone, and perhaps realised, too, how very short the time now was. She opened the case carefully. "They are very beautiful; your mother wore them, Giovanni?" She looked lovingly at him, and then bending down kissed the splendid coronet as though in reverence of the dead Spanish woman who had borne the man she loved. Whereat Giovanni stole to her side, and kissed her own dark hair very tenderly. "I was to tell you that there are a great many more," he said, "which my father will offer you on the wedding--day." Then he kneeled down beside her, and raising the crown from its case, set it with both his hands upon her diadem of braids. "My princess!" he exclaimed. "How beautiful you are!" He took the great necklace, and clasped it about her white throat. "Of course," he said, "you have such splendid jewels of your own, perhaps you hardly care for these and the rest. But I like to see you with them--it makes me feel that you are really mine." Corona smiled happily, and gently took the coronet from her head, returning it to its case. She let the necklace remain about her throat. "You have not told me about your father's discovery," she said, suddenly. "Yes--I will tell you." In a few minutes he communicated to her the details of the journey. She listened with profound interest. "It is very strange," she said. "And yet it is so very natural." "You see it is all Del Ferice's doing," said Giovanni. "I suppose it was really an accident in the first place; but he managed to make a great deal of it. It is certainly very amusing to find that the last of the other branch is an innkeeper in the Abruzzi. However, I daresay we shall never hear of him again. He does not seem inclined to claim his title. Corona _mia_, I have something much more serious to say to you to-night." "What is it?" she asked, turning her great dark eyes rather wonderingly to his face. "There is no reason why we should not be married, now--" "Do you think I ever believed there was?" she asked, reproachfully. "No, dear. Only--would you mind its being very soon?" The dark blood rose slowly to her cheek, but she answered without any hesitation. She was too proud to hesitate. "Whenever you please, Giovanni. Only it must be very quiet, and we will go straight to Saracinesca. If you agree to those two things, it shall be as soon as you please." "Next week? A week from Sunday?" asked Giovanni, eagerly. "Yes--a week from Sunday. I would rather not go through the ordeal of a long engagement. I cannot bear to have every one here, congratulating me from morning till night, as they insist upon doing." "I will send the people out to Saracinesca to-morrow," said Giovanni, in great delight. "They have been at work all winter, making the place respectable." "Not changing, I hope?" exclaimed Corona, who dearly loved the old grey walls. "Only repairing the state apartments. By the by, I met Gouache this evening. He is going out with a company of Zouaves to hunt the brigands, if there really are any." "I hope he will not come near us," answered Corona. "I want to be all alone with you, Giovanni, for ever so long. Would you not rather be alone for a little while?" she asked, looking up suddenly with a timid smile. "Should I bore you very much?" It is unnecessary to record Giovanni's answer. If Corona longed to be alone with him in the hills, Giovanni himself desired such a retreat still more. To be out of the world, even for a month, seemed to him the most delightful of prospects, for he was weary of the city, of society, of everything save the woman he was about to marry. Of her he could never tire; he could not imagine that in her company the days would ever seem long, even in old Saracinesca, among the grey rocks of the Sabines. The average man is gregarious, perhaps; but in strong minds there is often a great desire for solitude, or at least for retirement, in the society of one sympathetic soul. The instinct which bids such people leave the world for a time is never permanent, unless they become morbid. It is a natural feeling; and a strong brain gathers strength from communing with itself or with its natural mate. There are few great men who have not at one time or another withdrawn into solitude, and their retreat has generally been succeeded by a period of extraordinary activity. Strong minds are often, at some time or another, exposed to doubt and uncertainty incomprehensible to a smaller intellect--due, indeed, to that very breadth of view which contemplates the same idea from a vast number of sides. To a man so endowed, the casting-vote of some one whom he loves, and with whom he almost unconsciously sympathises, is sometimes necessary to produce action, to direct the faculties, to guide the overflowing flood of his thought into the mill-race of life's work. Without a certain amount of prejudice to determine the resultant of its forces, many a fine intellect would expend its power in burrowing among its own labyrinths, unrecognised, misunderstood, unheard by the working-day world without. For the working-day world never lacks prejudice to direct its working. For some time Giovanni and Corona talked of their plans for the spring and summer. They would read, they would work together at the schemes for uniting and improving their estates; they would build that new road from Astrardente to Saracinesca, concerning which there had been so much discussion during the last year; they would visit every part of their lands together, and inquire into the condition of every peasant; they would especially devote their attention to extending the forest enclosures, in which Giovanni foresaw a source of wealth for his children; above all, they would talk to their hearts' content, and feel, as each day dawned upon their happiness, that they were free to go where they would, without being confronted at every turn by the troublesome duties of an exigent society. At last the conversation turned again upon recent events, and especially upon the part Del Ferice and Donna Tullia had played in attempting to prevent the marriage. Corona asked what Giovanni intended to do about the matter. "I do not see that there is much to be done," he answered. "I will go to Donna Tullia to-morrow, and explain that there has been a curious mistake--that I am exceedingly obliged to her for calling my attention to the existence of a distant relative, but that I trust she will not in future interfere in my affairs." "Do you think she will marry Del Ferice after all?" asked Corona. "Why not? Of course he gave her the papers. Very possibly he thought they really proved my former marriage. She will perhaps blame him for her failure, but he will defend himself, never fear; he will make her marry him." "I wish they would marry and go away," said Corona to whom the very name of Del Ferice was abhorrent, and who detested Donna Tullia almost as heartily. Corona was a very good and noble woman, but she was very far from that saintly superiority which forgets to resent injuries. Her passions were eminently human, and very strong. She had struggled bravely against her overwhelming love for Giovanni; and she had so far got the mastery of herself, that she would have endured to the end if her husband's death had not set her at liberty. Perhaps, too, while she felt the necessity of fighting against that love, she attained for a time to an elevation of character which would have made such personal injuries as Donna Tullia could inflict seem insignificant in comparison with the great struggle she sustained against an even greater evil. But in the realisation of her freedom, in suddenly giving the rein to her nature, so long controlled by her resolute will, all passion seemed to break out at once with renewed force; and the conviction that her anger against her two enemies was perfectly just and righteous, added fuel to the fire. Her eyes gleamed fiercely as she spoke of Del Ferice and his bride, and no punishment seemed too severe for those who had so treacherously tried to dash the cup of her happiness from her very lips. "I wish they would marry," she repeated, "and I wish the Cardinal would turn them out of Rome the next day." "That might be done," said Giovanni, who had himself revolved more than one scheme of vengeance against the evil-doers. "The trouble is, that the Cardinal despises Del Ferice and his political dilettanteism. He does not care a fig whether the fellow remains in Rome or goes away. I confess it would be a great satisfaction to wring the villain's neck." "You must not fight him again, Giovanni," said Corona, in sudden alarm. "You must not risk your life now--you know it is mine now." She laid her hand tenderly on his, and it trembled. "No, dearest--I certainly will not. But my father is very angry. I think we may safely leave the treatment of Del Fence in his hands. My father is a very sudden and violent man." "I know," replied Corona. "He is magnificent when he is angry. I have no doubt he will settle Del Ferice's affairs satisfactorily." She laughed almost fiercely. Giovanni looked at her anxiously, yet not without pride, as he recognised in her strong anger something akin to himself. "How fierce you are!" he said, with a smile. "Have I not cause to be? Have I not cause to wish these people an evil end? Have they not nearly separated us? Nothing is bad enough for them--what is the use of pretending not to feel? You are calm, Giovanni? Perhaps you are much stronger than I am. I do not think you realise what they meant to do--to separate us--_us!_ As if any torture were bad enough for them!" Giovanni had never seen her so thoroughly roused. He was angry himself, and more than angry, for his cheek paled, and his stern features grew more hard, while his voice dropped to a hoarser tone. "Do not mistake me, Corona," he said. "Do not think I am indifferent because I am quiet. Del Ferice shall expiate all some day, and bitterly too." "Indeed I hope so," answered Corona between her teeth. Had Giovanni foreseen the long and bitter struggle he would one day have to endure before that expiation was complete, he would very likely have renounced his vengeance then and there, for his wife's sake. But we mortals see but in a glass; and when the mirror is darkened by the master-passion of hate, we see not at all. Corona and Giovanni, united, rich and powerful, might indeed appear formidable to a wretch like Del Ferice, dependent upon a system of daily treachery for the very bread he ate. But in those days the wheel of fortune was beginning to turn, and far-sighted men prophesied that many an obscure individual would one day be playing the part of a great personage. Years would still elapse before the change, but the change would surely come at last. Giovanni was very thoughtful as he walked home that night. He was happy, and he had cause to be, for the long-desired day was at hand. He had nearly attained the object of his life, and there was now no longer any obstacle to be overcome. The relief he felt at his father's return was very great; for although he had known that the impediment raised would be soon removed, any impediment whatever was exasperating, and he could not calculate the trouble that might be caused by the further machinations of Donna Tullia and her affianced husband. All difficulties had, however, been overcome by his father's energetic action, and at once Giovanni felt as though a load had fallen from his shoulders, and a veil from his eyes. He saw himself wedded to Corona in less than a fortnight, removed from the sphere of society and of all his troubles, living for a space alone with her in his ancestral home, calling her, at last, his wife. Nevertheless he was thoughtful, and his expression was not one of unmingled gladness, as he threaded the streets on his way home; for his mind reverted to Del Ferice and to Donna Tullia, and Corona's fierce look was still before him. He reflected that she had been nearly as much injured as himself, that her wrath was legitimate, and that it was his duty to visit her sufferings as well as his own upon the offenders. His melancholic nature easily fell to brooding over any evil which was strong enough to break the barrier of his indifference; and the annoyances which had sprung originally from so small a cause had grown to gigantic proportions, and had struck at the very roots of his happiness. He had begun by disliking Del Ferice in an indifferent way whenever he chanced to cross his path. Del Ferice had resented this haughty indifference as a personal insult, and had set about injuring Giovanni, attempting to thwart him whenever he could. Giovanni had caught Del Ferice in a dastardly trick, and had been so far roused as to take summary vengeance upon him in the duel which tools place after the Frangipani ball. The wound had entered into Ugo's soul, and his hatred had grown the faster that he found no opportunity of revenge. Then, at last, when Giovanni's happiness had seemed complete, his enemy had put forward his pretended proof of a former marriage; knowing well enough that his weapons were not invincible--were indeed very weak--but unable to resist any longer the desire for vengeance. Once more Giovanni had triumphed easily, but with victory came the feeling that it was his turn to punish his adversary. And now there was a new and powerful motive added to Giovanni's just resentment, in the anger his future wife felt and had a good right to feel, at the treachery which had been practised upon both. It had taken two years to rouse Giovanni to energetic action against one whom he had in turn regarded with indifference, then despised, then honestly disliked, and finally hated. But his hatred had been doubled each time by a greater injury, and was not likely to be easily satisfied. Nothing short of Del Fence's destruction would be enough, and his destruction must be brought about by legal means. Giovanni had not far to seek for his weapons. He had long suspected Del Ferice of treasonable practices; he did not doubt that with small exertion he could find evidence to convict him. He would, then, allow him to marry Donna Tullia; and on the day after the wedding, Del Ferice should be arrested and lodged in the prison of the Holy Office as a political delinquent of the meanest and most dangerous kind--as a political spy. The determination was soon reached. It did not seem cruel to Giovanni, for he was in a relentless mood; it would not have seemed cruel to Corona,--Del Ferice had deserved all that, and more also. So Giovanni went home and slept the sleep of a man who has made up his mind upon an important matter. And in the morning he rose early and communicated his ideas to his father. The result was that they determined for the present to avoid an interview with Donna Tullia, and to communicate to her by letter the result of old Saracinesca's rapid journey to Aquila. CHAPTER XXXI. When Donna Tullia received Saracinesca's note, explaining the existence of a second Giovanni, his pedigree and present circumstances, she almost fainted with disappointment. It seemed to her that she had compromised herself before the world, that all Rome knew the ridiculous part she had played in Del Ferice's comedy, and that her shame would never be forgotten. Suddenly she saw how she had been led away by her hatred of Giovanni into believing blindly in a foolish tale which ought not to have deceived a child. So soon as she learned the existence of a second Giovanni Saracinesca, it seemed to her that she must have been mad not to foresee such an explanation from the first. She had been duped, she had been made a cat's-paw, she had been abominably deceived by Del Ferice, who had made use of this worthless bribe in order to extort from her a promise of marriage. She felt very ill, as very vain people often do when they feel that they have been made ridiculous. She lay upon the sofa in her little boudoir, where everything was in the worst possible taste--from the gaudy velvet carpet and satin furniture to the gilt clock on the chimney-piece--and she turned red and pale and red again, and wished she were dead, or in Paris, or anywhere save in Rome. If she went out she might meet one of the Saracinesca at any turn of the street, or even Corona herself. How they would bow and smile sweetly at her, enjoying her discomfiture with the polite superiority of people who cannot be hurt! And she herself--she could not tell what she should do. She had announced her engagement to Del Ferice, but she could not marry him. She had been entrapped into making him a promise, into swearing a terrible oath; but the Church did not consider such oaths binding. She would go to Padre Filippo and ask his advice. But then, if she went to Padre Filippo, she would have to confess all she had done, and she was not prepared to do that. A few weeks would pass, and that time would be sufficient to mellow and smooth the remembrance of her revengeful projects into a less questionable shape. No--she could not confess all that just yet. Surely such an oath was not binding; at all events, she could not marry Del Fence, whether she broke her promise or not. In the first place, she would send for him and vent her anger upon him while it was hot. Accordingly, in the space of three-quarters of an hour, Ugo appeared, smiling, smooth and persuasive as usual. Donna Tullia assumed a fine attitude of disdain as she heard his step outside the door. She intended to impress him with a full and sudden view of her just anger. He did not seem much moved, and came forward as usual to take her hand and kiss it. But she folded her arms and stared at him with all the contempt she could concentrate in the gaze of her blue eyes. It was a good comedy. Del Ferice, who had noticed as soon as he entered the room that something was wrong, and had already half guessed the cause, affected to spring back in horror when she refused to give her hand. His pale face expressed sufficiently well a mixture of indignation and sorrow at the harsh treatment he received. Still Donna Tullia's cold eye rested upon him in a fixed stare. "What is this? What have I done?" asked Del Ferice in low tones. "Can you ask? Wretch! Read that, and understand what you have done," answered Donna Tullia, making a step forward and thrusting Saracinesca's letter in his face. Del Ferice had already seen the handwriting, and knew what the contents were likely to be. He took the letter in one hand, and without looking at it, still faced the angry woman. His brows contracted into a heavy frown, and his half-closed eyes gazed menacingly at her. "It will be an evil day for any man who comes between you and me," he said, in tragic tones. Donna Tullia laughed harshly, and again drew herself up, watching his face, and expecting to witness his utter confusion. But she was no match for the actor whom she had promised to marry. Del Ferice began to read, and as he read, his frown relaxed; gradually an ugly smile, intended to represent fiendish cunning, stole over his features, and when he had finished, he uttered a cry of triumph. "Ha!" he said, "I guessed it! I hoped it--and it is true! He is found at last! The very man--the real Saracinesca! It is only a matter of time--" Donna Tullia now stared in unfeigned surprise. Instead of crushing him to the ground as she had expected, the letter seemed to fill him with boundless delight. He paced the room in wild excitement, chattering like a madman. In spite of herself, however, her own spirits rose, and her anger against Del Ferice softened. All was perhaps not lost--who could fathom the intricacy of his great schemes? Surely he was not the man to fall a victim to his own machinations. "Will you please explain your extraordinary satisfaction at this news?" said Madame Mayer. Between her late anger, her revived hopes, and her newly roused curiosity, she was in a terrible state of suspense. "Explain?" he cried. "Explain what, most adorable of women? Does it not explain itself? Have we not found the Marchese di San Giacinto, the real Saracinesca? Is not that enough?" "I do not understand--" Del Ferice was now by her side. He seemed hardly able to control himself for joy. As a matter of fact he was acting, and acting a desperate part too, suggested on the spur of the moment by the risk he ran of losing this woman and her fortune on the very eve of marriage. Now he seized her hand, and drawing her arm through his, led her quickly backwards and forwards, talking fast and earnestly. It would not do to hesitate, for by a moment's appearance of uncertainty all would be lost. "No; of course you cannot understand the vast importance of this discovery. I must explain. I must enter into historic details, and I am so much overcome by this extraordinary turn of fortune that I can hardly speak. Remove all doubt from your mind, my dear lady, for we have already triumphed. This innkeeper, this Giovanni Saracinesca, this Marchese di San Giacinto, is the lawful and right Prince Saracinesca, the head of the house--" "What!" screamed Donna Tullia, stopping short, and gripping his arm as in a vice. "Indeed he is. I suspected it when I first found the signature at Aquila; but the man was gone, with his newly married wife, no one knew whither; and I could not find him, search as I might. He is now returned, and what is more, as this letter says, with all his papers proving his identity. This is how the matter lies. Listen, Tullia _mia_. The old Leone Saracinesca who last bore the title of Marquis--" "The one mentioned here?" asked Donna Tullia, breathlessly. "Yes--the one who took service under Murat, under Napoleon. Well, it is perfectly well known that he laid claim to the Roman title, and with perfect justice. Two generations before that, there had been an amicable arrangement--amicable, but totally illegal--whereby the elder brother, who was an unmarried invalid, transferred the Roman estates to his younger brother, who was married and had children, and, in exchange, took the Neapolitan estates and title, which had just fallen back to the main branch by the death of a childless Marchese di San Giacinto. Late in life this old recluse invalid married, contrary to all expectation--certainly contrary to his own previous intentions. However, a child was born--a boy. The old man found himself deprived by his own act of his principality, and the succession turned from his son to the son of his younger brother. He began a negotiation for again obtaining possession of the Roman title--at least so the family tradition goes--but his brother, who was firmly established in Rome, refused to listen to his demands. At this juncture the old man died, being legally, observe, still the head of the family of Saracinesca; his son should have succeeded him. But his wife, the young daughter of an obscure Neapolitan nobleman, was not more than eighteen years of age, and the child was only six months old. People married young in those days. She entered some kind of protest, which, however, was of no avail; and the boy grew up to be called the Marchese di San Griacinto. He learned the story of his birth from his mother, and protested in his turn. He ruined himself in trying to push his suit in the Neapolitan courts; and finally, in the days of Napoleon's success, he took service under Murat, receiving the solemn promise of the Emperor that he should be reinstated in his title. But the Emperor forgot his promise, or did not find it convenient to keep it, having perhaps reasons of his own for not quarrelling with Pius the Seventh, who protected the Roman Saracinesea Then came 1815, the downfall of the Empire, the restoration of Ferdinand IV. in Naples, the confiscation of property from all who had joined the Emperor, and the consequent complete ruin of San Giacinto's hopes. He was supposed to have been killed, or to have made away with himself. Saracinesea himself acknowledges that his grandson is alive, and possesses all the family papers. Saracinesca himself has discovered, seen, and conversed with the lawful head of his race, who, by the blessing of heaven and the assistance of the courts, will before long turn him out of house and home, and reign in his stead in all the glories of the Palazzo Saracinesca, Prince of Rome, of the Holy Roman Empire, grandee of Spain of the first class, and all the rest of it. Do you wonder I rejoice, now that I am sure of putting an innkeeper over my enemy's head? Fancy the humiliation of old Saracinesca, of Giovanni, who will have to take his wife's title for the sake of respectability, of the Astrardente herself, when she finds she has married the penniless son of a penniless pretender!" Del Ferice knew enough of the Saracinesca's family history to know that something like what he had so fluently detailed to Donna Tullia had actually occurred, and he knew well enough that she would not remember every detail of his rapidly told tale. Hating the family as he did, he had diligently sought out all information about them which he could obtain without gaining access to their private archives. His ready wit helped him to string the whole into a singularly plausible story. So plausible, indeed, that it entirely upset all Donna Tullia's determination to be angry at Del Ferice, and filled her with something of the enthusiasm he showed. For himself he hoped that there was enough in his story to do some palpable injury to the Saracinesca; but his more immediate object was not to lose Donna Tullia by letting her feel any disappointment at the discovery recently made by the old Prince. Donna Tullia listened with breathless interest until he had finished. "What a man you are, Ugo! How you turn defeat into victory! Is it all really true? Do you think we can do it?" "If I were to die this instant," Del Ferice asseverated, solemnly raising his hand, "it is all perfectly true, so help me God!" He hoped, for many reasons, that he was not perjuring himself. "What shall we do, then?" asked Madame Mayer. "Let them marry first, and then we shall be sure of humiliating them both," he answered. Unconsciously he repeated the very determination which Giovanni had formed against him the night before. "Meanwhile, you and I can consult the lawyers and see how this thing can best be accomplished quickly and surely," he added. "You will have to send for the innkeeper--" "I will go and see him. It will not be hard to persuade him to claim his lawful rights." Del Ferice remained some time in conversation with Donna Tullia. The magnitude of the scheme fascinated her, and instead of thinking of breaking her promise to Ugo as she had intended doing, she so far fell under his influence as to name the wedding-day,--Easter Monday, they agreed, would exactly suit them and their plans. Indeed the idea of refusing to fulfil her engagement had been but the result of a transitory fit of anger; if she had had any fear of making a misalliance in marrying Del Ferice, the way in which the world received the news of the engagement removed all such apprehension from her mind. Del Ferice was already treated with increased respect--the very servants began to call him "Eccellenza," a distinction to which he neither had, nor could ever have, any kind of claim, but which pleased Donna Tullia's vain soul. The position which Ugo had obtained for himself by an assiduous attention to the social claims and prejudices of social lights and oracles, was suddenly assured to him, and rendered tenfold more brilliant by the news of his alliance with Donna Tullia. He excited no jealousies either; for Donna Tullia's peculiarities were of a kind which seemed to have interfered from the first with her matrimonial projects. As a young girl, a relation of the Saracinesca, whom she now so bitterly hated, she should have been regarded as marriageable by any of the young Roman nobles, from Valdarno down. But she had only a small dowry, and she was said to be extravagant--two objections then not so easily overcome as now. Moreover, she was considered to be somewhat flighty; and the social jury decided that when she was married, she would be excellent company, but would make a very poor wife. Almost before they had finished discussing her, however, she had found a husband, in the shape of the wealthy foreign contractor, Mayer, who wanted a wife from a good Roman house, and cared not at all for money. She treated him very well, but was speedily delivered from all her cares by his untimely death. Then, of all her fellow-citizens, none was found save the eccentric old Saracinesca, who believed that she would do for his son; wherein it appeared that Giovanni's father was the man of all others who least understood Giovanni's inclinations. But this match fell to the ground, owing to Giovanni's attachment to Corona, and Madame Mayer was left with the prospect of remaining a widow for the rest of her life, or of marrying a poor man. She chose the latter alternative, and fate threw into her way the cleverest poor man in Rome, as though desiring to compensate her for not having married one of the greatest nobles, in the person of Giovanni. Though she was always a centre of attraction, no one of those she most attracted wanted to marry her, and all expressed their unqualified approval of her ultimate choice. One said she was very generous to marry a penniless gentleman; another remarked that she showed wisdom in choosing a man who was in the way of making himself a good position under the Italian Government; a third observed that he was delighted, because he could enjoy her society without being suspected of wanting to marry her; and all agreed in praising her, and in treating Del Ferice with the respect due to a man highly favored by fortune. Donna Tullia named the wedding-day, and her affianced husband departed in high spirits with himself, with her, and with his scheme. He felt still a little excited, and wanted to be alone. He hardly realised the magnitude of the plot he had undertaken, and needed time to reflect upon it; but with the true instinct of an intriguing genius he recognised at once that his new plan was the thing he had sought for long and ardently, and that it was worth all his other plans put together. Accordingly he went home, and proceeded to devote himself to the study of the question, sending a note to a friend of his--a young lawyer of doubtful reputation, but of brilliant parts, whom he at once selected as his chief counsellor in the important affair he had undertaken. Before long he heard that the marriage of Don Giovanni Saracinesca to the Duchessa d'Astrardente was to take place the next week, in the chapel of the Palazzo Saracinesca. At least popular report said that the ceremony was to take place there; and that it was to be performed with great privacy was sufficiently evident from the fact that no invitations appeared to have been issued. Society did not fail to comment upon such exclusiveness, and it commented unfavourably, for it felt that it was being deprived of a long-anticipated spectacle. This state of things lasted for two days, when, upon the Sunday morning precisely a week before the wedding, all Rome was surprised by receiving an imposing invitation, setting forth that the marriage would be solemnised in the Basilica of the Santi Apostoli, and that it would be followed by a state reception at the Palazzo Saracinesca. It was soon known that the ceremony would be performed by the Cardinal Archpriest of St Peter's, that the united choirs of St Peter's and of the Sixtine Chapel would sing the High Mass, and that the whole occasion would be one of unprecedented solemnity and magnificence. This was the programme published by the 'Osservatore Romano,' and that newspaper proceeded to pronounce a eulogy of some length and considerable eloquence upon the happy pair. Rome was fairly taken off its feet; and although some malcontents were found, who said it was improper that Corona's marriage should be celebrated with such pomp so soon after her husband's death, the general verdict was that the whole proceeding was eminently proper and becoming to so important an event. So soon as every one had been invited, no one seemed to think it remarkable that the invitations should have been issued so late. It was not generally known that in the short time which elapsed between the naming of the day and the issuing of the cards, there had been several interviews between old Saracinesca and Cardinal Antonelli; that the former had explained Corona's natural wish that the marriage should be private, and that the latter had urged many reasons why so great an event ought to be public; that Saracinesca had said he did not care at all, and was only expressing the views of his son and of the bride; that the Cardinal had repeatedly asseverated that he wished to please everybody; that Corona had refused to be pleased by a public ceremony; and that, finally, the Cardinal, seeing himself hard pressed, had persuaded his Holiness himself to express a wish that the marriage should take place in the most solemn and public manner; wherefore Corona had reluctantly yielded the point, and the matter was arranged. The fact was that the Cardinal wished to make a sort of demonstration of the solidarity of the Roman nobility: it suited his aims to enter into every detail which could add to the importance of the Roman Court, and which could help to impress upon the foreign Ministers the belief that in all matters the Romans as one man would stand by each other and by the Vatican. No one knew better than he how the spectacle of a religious solemnity, at which the whole nobility would attend in a body, must strike the mind of a stranger in Rome; for in Roman ceremonies of that day there was a pomp and magnificence surpassing that found in any other Court of Europe. The whole marriage would become an event of which he could make an impressive use, and he was determined not to forego any advantages which might arise from it; for he was a man who of all men well understood the value of details in maintaining prestige. But to the two principal actors in the day's doings the affair was an unmitigated annoyance, and even their own great and true happiness could not lighten the excessive fatigue of the pompous ceremony and of the still more pompous reception which followed it. To describe that day would be to make out a catalogue of gorgeous equipages, gorgeous costumes, gorgeous decorations. Many pages would not suffice to enumerate the cardinals, the dignitaries, the ambassadors, the great nobles, whose magnificent coaches drove up in long file through the Piazza dei Santi Apostoli to the door of the Basilica. The columns of the 'Osservatore Romano' were full of it for a week afterwards. There was no end to the descriptions of the costumes, from the white satin and diamonds of the bride to the festal uniforms of the Cardinal Arch-priest's retinue. Not a personage of importance was overlooked in the newspaper account, not a diplomatist, not an officer of Zouaves. And society read the praise of itself, and found it much more interesting than the praise of the bride and bridegroom; and only one or two people were offended because the paper had made a mistake in naming the colours of the hammer-cloths upon their coaches: so that the affair was a great success. But when at last the sun was low and the guests had departed from the Palazzo Saracinesca, Corona and Giovanni got into their travelling carriage under the great dark archway, and sighed a sigh of infinite relief. The old Prince put his arms tenderly around his new daughter and kissed her; and for the second time in the course of this history, it is to be recorded that two tears stole silently down his brown cheeks to his grey beard. Then he embraced Giovanni, whose face was pale and earnest. "This is not the end of our living together, _padre mio,_" he said. "We shall expect you before long at Saracinesca." "Yes, my boy," returned the old man; "I will come and see you after Easter. But do not stay if it is too cold; I have a little business to attend to in Rome before I join you," he added, with a grim smile. "I know," replied Giovanni, a savage light in his black eyes. "If you need help, send to me, or come yourself." "No fear of that, Giovannino; I have got a terrible helper. Now, be off. The guards are growing impatient." "Good-bye. God bless you, _padre mio!_" "God bless you both!" So they drove off, and left old Saracinesca standing bareheaded and alone under the dim archway of his ancestral palace. The great carriage rolled out, and the guard of mounted gendarmes, which the Cardinal had insisted upon sending with the young couple, half out of compliment, half for safety, fell in behind, and trotted down the narrow street, with a deafening clatter of hoofs and clang of scabbards. But Giovanni held Corona's hand in his, and both were silent for a time. Then they rolled under the low vault of the Porta San Lorenzo and out into the evening sunlight of the Campagna beyond. "God be praised that it has come at last!" said Giovanni. "Yes, it has come," answered Corona, her strong white fingers closing upon his brown hand almost convulsively; "and, come what may, you are mine, Giovanni, until we die!" There was something fierce in the way those two loved each other; for they had fought many fights before they were united, and had overcome themselves, each alone, before they had overcome other obstacles together. Relays of horses awaited them on their way, and relays of mounted guards. Late that night they reached Saracinesca, all ablaze with torches and lanterns; and the young men took the horses from the coach and yoked themselves to it with ropes, and dragged the cumbrous carriage up the last hill with furious speed, shouting and singing like madmen in the cool mountain air. Up the steep they rushed, and under the grand old gateway, made as bright as day with flaming torches; and then there went up a shout that struck the old vaults like a wild chord of fierce music, and Corona knew that her journey was ended. So it was that Giovanni Saracinesca brought home his bride. CHAPTER XXXII. The old Prince was left alone, as he had often been left before, when Giovanni was gone to the ends of the earth in pursuit of his amusements. On such occasions old Saracinesca frequently packed up his traps and followed his son's example; but he rarely went further than Paris, where he had many friends, and where he generally succeeded in finding consolation for his solitude. Now, however, he felt more than usually lonely. Giovanni had not gone far, it is true, for with good horses it was scarcely more than eight hours to the castle; but, for the first time in his life, old Saracinesca felt that if he had suddenly determined to follow his son, he would not be welcome. The boy was married at last, and must be left in peace for a few days with his bride. With the contrariety natural to him, old Saracinesca no sooner felt that his son was gone than he experienced the most ardent desire to be with him. He had often seen Giovanni leave the house at twenty-four hours' notice on his way to some distant capital, and had not cared to accompany him, simply because he knew he might do so if he pleased; but now he felt that some one else had taken his place, and that, for a time at least, he was forcibly excluded from Giovanni's society. It is very likely that but for the business which detained him in Rome he would have astonished the happy pair by riding into the gateway of the old castle on the day after the wedding: that business, however, was urgent, secret, and, moreover, very congenial to the old man's present temper. He had discussed the matter fully with Giovanni, and they had agreed upon the course to be pursued. There was, nevertheless, much to be done before the end they both so earnestly desired could be attained. It seemed a simple plan to go to Cardinal Antonelli and to demand the arrest of Del Ferice for his misdeeds; but as yet those misdeeds were undefined, and it was necessary to define them. The Cardinal rarely resorted to such measures except when the case was urgent, and Saracinesca knew perfectly well that it would be hard to prove anything more serious against Del Ferice than the crime of joining in the silly talk of Valdarno and his set. Giovanni had told his father plainly that he was sure Del Ferice derived his living from some illicit source, but he was wholly unable to show what that source was. Most people believed the story that Del Ferice had inherited money from an obscure relative; most people thought he was clever and astute, but were so far deceived by his frank and unaffected manner as to feel sure that he always said everything that came into his head; most people are so much delighted when an unusually clever man deigns to talk to them, that they cannot, for vanity's sake, suspect him of deceiving them. Saracinesca did not doubt that the mere statement of his own belief in regard to Del Ferice would have considerable weight with the Cardinal, for he was used to power of a certain kind, and was accustomed to see his judgment treated with deference; but he knew the Cardinal to be a cautious man, hating despotic measures, because by his use of them he had made himself so bitterly hated--loth always to do by force what might be accomplished by skill, and in the end far more likely to attempt the conversion of Del Ferice to the reactionary view, than to order his expulsion because his views were over liberal. Even if old Saracinesca had possessed a vastly greater diplomatic instinct than he did, coupled with an unscrupulous mendacity which he certainly had not, he would have found it hard to persuade the Cardinal against his will; but Saracinesca was, of all men, a man violent in action and averse to reflection before or after the fact. That he should ultimately be revenged upon Del Ferice and Donna Tullia for the part they had lately played, was a matter which it never entered his head to doubt; but when he endeavoured to find means which should persuade the Cardinal to assist him, he seemed fenced in on all sides by impossibilities. One thing only helped him--namely, the conviction that if the statesman could be induced to examine Del Ferice's conduct seriously, the latter would prove to be not only an enemy to the State, but a bitter enemy to the Cardinal himself. The more Saracinesca thought of the matter, the more convinced he was that he should go boldly to the Cardinal and state his belief that Del Ferice was a dangerous traitor, who ought to be summarily dealt with. If the Cardinal argued the case, the Prince would asseverate, after his manner, and some sort of result was sure to follow. As he thus determined upon his course, his doubts seemed to vanish, as they generally do in the mind of a strong man, when action becomes imminent, and the confidence the old man had exhibited to his son very soon became genuine. It was almost intolerable to have to wait so long, however, before doing anything. Giovanni and he had decided to allow Del Ferice's marriage to take place before producing the explosion, in order the more certainly to strike both the offenders; now it seemed best to strike at once. Supposing, he argued with himself, that Donna Tullia and her husband chose to leave Rome for Paris the day after their wedding, half the triumph would be lost; for half the triumph was to consist in Del Ferice's being imprisoned for a spy in Rome, whereas if he once crossed the frontier, he could at most be forbidden to return, which would be but a small satisfaction to Saracinesca, or to Giovanni. A week passed by, and the gaiety of Carnival was again at its height; and again a week elapsed, and Lent was come. Saracinesca went everywhere and saw everybody as usual, and then after Ash-Wednesday he occasionally showed himself at some of those quiet evening receptions which his son so much detested. But he was restless and discontented. He longed to begin the fight, and could not sleep for thinking of it. Like Giovanni, he was strong and revengeful; but Giovanni had from his mother a certain slowness of temperament, which often deterred him from action just long enough to give him time for reflection, whereas the father, when roused, and he was roused easily, loved to strike at once. It chanced one evening, in a great house, that Saracinesca came upon the Cardinal standing alone in an outer room. He was on his way into the reception; but he had stopped, attracted by a beautiful crystal cup of old workmanship, which stood, among other objects of the kind, upon a marble table in one of the drawing-rooms through which he had to pass. The cup itself, of deeply carved rock crystal, was set in chiselled silver, and if not the work of Cellini himself, must have been made by one of his pupils. Saracinesca stopped by the great man's side. "Good evening, Eminence," he said. "Good evening, Prince," returned the Cardinal, who recognised Saracinesca's voice without looking up. "Have you ever seen this marvellous piece of work? I have been admiring it for a quarter of an hour." He loved all objects of the kind, and understood them with rare knowledge. "It is indeed exceedingly beautiful," answered Saracinesca, who longed to take advantage of the opportunity of speaking to Cardinal Antonelli upon the subject nearest to his heart. "Yes--yes," returned the Cardinal rather vaguely, and made as though he would go on. He saw from Saracinesca's commonplace praise, that he knew nothing of the subject. The old Prince saw his opportunity slipping from him, and lost his head. He did not recollect that he could see the Cardinal alone whenever he pleased, by merely asking for an interview. Fate had thrust the Cardinal in his path, and fate was responsible. "If your Eminence will allow me, I would like a word with you," he said suddenly. "As many as you please," answered the statesman, blandly. "Let us sit down in that corner--no one will disturb us for a while." He seemed unusually affable, as he sat himself down by Saracinesca's side, gathering the skirt of his scarlet mantle across his knee, and folding his delicate hands together in an attitude of restful attention. "You know, I daresay, a certain Del Ferice, Eminence?" began the Prince. "Very well--the _deus ex machinâ_ who has appeared to carry off Donna Tullia Mayer. Yes, I know him." "Precisely, and they will match very well together; the world cannot help applauding the union of the flesh and the devil." The Cardinal smiled. "The metaphor is apt," he said; "but what about them?" "I will tell you in two words," replied Saracinesca. "Del Ferice is a scoundrel of the first water--" "A jewel among scoundrels," interrupted the Cardinal, "for being a scoundrel he is yet harmless--a stage villain." "I believe your Eminence is deceived in him." "That may easily be," answered the statesman. "I am much more often deceived than people imagine." He spoke very mildly, but his small black eyes turned keenly upon Saracinesca. "What has he been doing?" he asked, after a short pause. "He has been trying to do a great deal of harm to my son and to my son's wife. I suspect him strongly of doing harm to you." Whether Saracinesca was strictly honest in saying "you" to the Cardinal, when he meant the whole State as represented by the prime minister, is a matter not easily decided. There is a Latin saying, to the effect that a man who is feared by many should himself fear many, and the saying is true. The Cardinal was personally a brave man; but he knew his danger, and the memory of the murdered Rossi was fresh in his mind. Nevertheless, he smiled blandly as he answered-- "That is rather vague, my friend. How is he doing me harm, if I may ask?" "I argue in this way," returned Saracinesca, thus pressed. "The fellow found a most ingenious way of attacking my son--he searched the whole country till he found that a man called Giovanni Saracinesca had been, married some time ago in Aquila. He copied the certificates, and produced them as pretended proof that my son was already married. If I had not found the man myself, there would have been trouble. Now besides this, Del Ferice is known to hold Liberal views--" "Of the feeblest kind," interrupted the statesman, who nevertheless became very grave. "Those he exhibits are of the feeblest kind, and he takes no trouble to hide them. But a fellow so ingenious as to imagine the scheme he practised against us is not a fool." "I understand, my good friend," said the Cardinal. "You have been injured by this fellow, and you would like me to revenge the injury by locking him up. Is that it?" "Precisely," answered Saracinesca, laughing at his own simplicity. "I might as well have said so from the first." "Much better. You would make a poor diplomatist, Prince. But what in the world shall I gain by revenging your wrongs upon that creature?" "Nothing--unless when you have taken the trouble to examine his conduct, you find that he is really dangerous. In that case your Eminence will be obliged to look to your own safety. If you find him innocent, you will let him go." "And in that case, what will you do?" asked the Cardinal with a smile. "I will cut his throat," answered Saracinesca, unmoved. "Murder him?" "No--call him out and kill him like a gentleman, which is a great deal better than he deserves." "I have no doubt you would," said the Cardinal, gravely. "I think your proposition reasonable, however. If this man is really dangerous, I will look to him myself. But I must really beg you not to do anything rash. I have determined that this duelling shall stop, and I warn you that neither you nor any one else will escape imprisonment if you are involved in any more of these personal encounters." Saracinesca suppressed a smile at the Cardinal's threat; but he perceived that he had gained his point, and was pleased accordingly. He had, he felt sure, sown in the statesman's mind a germ of suspicion which would before long bring forth fruit. In those days danger was plentiful, and people could not afford to overlook it, no matter in what form it presented itself, least of all such people as the Cardinal himself, who, while sustaining an unequal combat against superior forces outside the State, felt that his every step was encompassed by perils from within. That he had long despised Del Ferice as an idle chatterer did not prevent him from understanding that he might have been deceived, as Saracinesca suggested. He had caused Ugo to be watched, it is true, but only from time to time, and by men whose only duty was to follow him and to see whether he frequented suspicious society. The little nest of talkers at Gouache's studio in the Via San Basilio was soon discovered, and proved to be harmless enough. Del Ferice was then allowed to go on his way unobserved. But the half-dozen words in which Saracinesca had described Ugo's scheme for hindering Giovanni's marriage had set the Cardinal thinking, and the Cardinal seldom wasted time in thinking in vain. His interview with Saracinesca ended very soon, and the Prince and the statesman entered the crowded drawing-room and mixed in the throng. It was long before they met again in private. The Cardinal on the following day gave orders that Del Ferice's letters were to be stopped--by no means an uncommon proceeding in those times, nor so rare in our own day as is supposed. The post-office was then in the hands of a private individual so far as all management was concerned, and the Cardinal's word was law. Del Ferice's letters were regularly opened and examined. The first thing that was discovered was that they frequently contained money, generally in the shape of small drafts on London signed by a Florentine banker, and that the envelopes which contained money never contained anything else. They were all posted in Florence. With regard to his letters, they appeared to be very innocent communications from all sorts of people, rarely referring to politics, and then only in the most general terms. If Del Ferice had expected to have his correspondence examined, he could not have arranged matters better for his own safety. To trace the drafts to the person who sent them was not an easy business; it was impossible to introduce a spy into the banking-house in Florence, and among the many drafts daily bought and sold, it was almost impossible to identify, without the aid of the banker's books, the person who chanced to buy any particular one. The addresses were, it is true, uniformly written by the same hand; but the writing was in no way peculiar, and was certainly not that of any prominent person whose autograph the Cardinal possessed. The next step was to get possession of some letter written by Del Ferice himself, and, if possible, to intercept everything he wrote. But although the letters containing the drafts were regularly opened, and, after having been examined and sealed again, were regularly transmitted through the post-office to Ugo's address, the expert persons set to catch the letters he himself wrote were obliged to own, after three weeks' careful watching, that he never seemed to write any letters at all, and that he certainly never posted any. They acknowledged their failure to the Cardinal with timid anxiety, expecting to be reprimanded for their carelessness. But the Cardinal merely told them not to relax their attention, and dismissed them with a bland smile. He knew, now, that he was on the track of mischief; for a man who never writes any letters at all, while he receives many, might reasonably be suspected of having a secret post-office of his own. For some days Del Ferice's movements were narrowly watched, but with no result whatever. Then the Cardinal sent for the police register of the district where Del Ferice lived, and in which the name, nationality, and residence of every individual in the "Rione" or quarter were carefully inscribed, as they still are. Running his eye down the list, the Cardinal came upon the name of "Temistocle Fattorusso, of Naples, servant to Ugo dei Conti del Ferice:" an idea struck him. "His servant is a Neapolitan," he reflected. "He probably sends his letters by way of Naples." Accordingly Temistocle was watched instead of his master. It was found that he frequented the society of other Neapolitans, and especially that he was in the habit of going from time to time to the Ripa Grande, the port of the Tiber, where he seemed to have numerous acquaintances among the Neapolitan boatmen who constantly came up the coast in their "martingane"--heavy, sea-going, lateen-rigged vessels, bringing cargoes of oranges and lemons to the Roman market. The mystery was now solved. One day Temistocle was actually seen giving a letter into the hands of a huge fellow in a red woollen cap. The _sbirro_ who saw him do it marked the sailor and his vessel, and never lost sight of him till he hoisted his jib and floated away down stream. Then the spy took horse and galloped down to Fiumicino, where he waited for the little vessel, boarded her from a boat, escorted by a couple of gendarmes, and had no difficulty in taking the letter from the terrified seaman, who was glad enough to escape without detention. During the next fortnight several letters were stopped in this way, carried by different sailors, and the whole correspondence went straight to the Cardinal. It was not often that he troubled himself to play the detective in person, but when he did so, he was not easily baffled. And now he observed that about a week after the interception of the first letter the small drafts which used to come so frequently to Del Ferice's address from Florence suddenly ceased, proving beyond a doubt that each letter was paid for according to its value so soon as it was received. With regard to the contents of these epistles little need be said. So sure was Del Ferice of his means of transmission that he did not even use a cipher, though he, of course, never signed any of his writings. The matter was invariably a detailed chronicle of Roman sayings and doings, a record as minute as Del Ferice could make it, of everything that took place, and even the Cardinal himself was astonished at the accuracy of the information thus conveyed. His own appearances in public--the names of those with whom he talked--even fragments of his conversation--were given with annoying exactness. The statesman learned with infinite disgust that he had for some time past been subjected to a system of espionage at least as complete as any of his own invention; and, what was still more annoying to his vanity, the spy was the man of all others whom he had most despised, calling him harmless and weak, because he cunningly affected weakness. Where or how Del Ferice procured so much information the Cardinal cared little enough, for he determined there and then that he should procure no more. That there were other traitors in the camp was more than likely, and that they had aided Del Ferice with their counsels; but though by prolonging the situation it might be possible to track them down, such delay would be valuable to enemies abroad. Moreover, if Del Ferice began to find out, as he soon must, that his private correspondence was being overhauled at the Vatican, he was not a man to hesitate about attempting his escape; and he would certainly not be an easy man to catch, if he could once succeed in putting a few miles of Campagna between himself and Rome. There was no knowing what disguise he might not find in which to slip over the frontier; and indeed, as he afterwards proved, he was well prepared for such an emergency. The Cardinal did not hesitate. He had just received the fourth letter, and if he waited any longer Del Ferice would take alarm, and slip through his fingers. He wrote with his own hand a note to the chief of police, ordering the immediate arrest of Ugo dei Conti del Ferice, with instructions that he should be taken in his own house, without any publicity, and conveyed in a private carriage to the Sant' Uffizio by men in plain clothes. It was six o'clock in the evening when he wrote the order, and delivered it to his private servant to be taken to its destination. The man lost no time, and within twenty minutes the chief of police was in possession of his orders, which he hastened to execute with all possible speed. Before seven o'clock two respectable-looking citizens were seated in the chief's own carriage, driving rapidly in the direction of Del Fence's house. In less than half an hour the man who had caused so much trouble would be safely lodged in the prisons of the Holy Office, to be judged for his sins as a political spy. In a fortnight he was to have been married to Donna Tullia Mayer,--and her trousseau had just arrived from Paris. It can hardly be said that the Cardinal's conduct was unjustifiable, though many will say that Del Fence's secret doings were easily defensible on the ground of his patriotism. Cardinal Antonelli had precisely defined the situation in his talk with Anastase Gouache by saying that the temporal power was driven to bay. To all appearances Europe was at peace, but as a matter of fact the peace was but an armed neutrality. An amount of interest was concentrated upon the situation of the Papal States which has rarely been excited by events of much greater apparent importance than the occupation of a small principality by foreign troops. All Europe was arming. In a few months Austria was to sustain one of the most sudden and overwhelming defeats recorded in military history. In a few years the greatest military power in the world was to be overtaken by an even more appalling disaster. And these events, then close at hand, were to deal the death-blow to papal independence. The papacy was driven to bay, and those to whom the last defence was confided were certainly justified in employing every means in their power for strengthening their position. That Rome herself was riddled with rotten conspiracies, and turned into a hunting-ground for political spies, while the support she received from Louis Napoleon had been already partially withdrawn, proves only how hard was the task of that man who, against such odds, maintained so gallant a fight. It is no wonder that he hunted down spies, and signed orders forcing suspicious characters to leave the city at a day's notice; for the city was practically in a state of siege, and any relaxation of the iron discipline by which the great Cardinal governed would at any moment in those twenty years have proved disastrous. He was hated and feared; more than once he was in imminent danger of his life, but he did his duty in his post. Had his authority fallen, it is impossible to say what evil might have ensued to the city and its inhabitants--evils vastly more to be feared than the entrance of an orderly Italian army through the Porta Pia. For the recollections of Count Rossi's murder, and of the short and lawless Republic of 1848, were fresh in the minds of the people, and before they had faded there were dangerous rumours of a rising even less truly Republican in theory, and far more fatal in the practical social anarchy which must have resulted from its success. Giuseppe Mazzini had survived his arch-enemy, the great Cavour, and his influence was incalculable. But my business is not to write the history of those uncertain days, though no one who considers the social life of Rome, either then or now, can afford to overlook the influence of political events upon the everyday doings of men and women. We must follow the private carriage containing the two respectable citizens who were on their way to Del Ferice's house. CHAPTER XXXIII. Now it chanced that Del Ferice was not at home at the hour when the carriage containing the detectives drew up at his door. Indeed he was rarely to be found at that time, for when he was not engaged elsewhere, he dined with Donna Tullia and her old countess, accompanying them afterwards to any of the quiet Lenten receptions to which they desired to go. Temistocle was also out, for it was his hour for supper, a meal which he generally ate in a small _osteria_ opposite his master's lodging. There he sat now, finishing his dish of beans and oil, and debating whether he should indulge himself in another _mezza foglietta_ of his favourite white wine. He was installed upon the wooden bench against the wall, behind the narrow table on which was spread a dirty napkin with the remains of his unctuous meal. The light from the solitary oil-lamp that hung from the black ceiling was not brilliant, and he could see well enough through the panes of the glass door that the carriage which had just stopped on the opposite side of the street was not a cab. Suspecting that some one had called at that unusual hour in search of his master, he rose from his seat and went out. He stood looking at the carriage. It did not please him. It had that peculiar look which used to mark the equipages of the Vatican, and which to this day distinguishes them from all others in the eyes of a born Roman. The vehicle was of rather antiquated shape, the horses were black, the coachman wore a plain black coat, with a somewhat old-fashioned hat; withal, the turnout was respectable enough, and well kept. But it did not please Temistocle. Drawing his hat over his eyes, he passed behind it, and having ascertained that the occupants, if there had been any, had already entered the house, he himself went in. The narrow staircase was dimly lighted by small oil-lamps. Temistocle ascended the steps on tiptoe, for he could already hear the men ringing the bell, and talking together in a low voice. The Neapolitan crept nearer. Again and again the bell was rung, and the men began to grow impatient. "He has escaped," said one angrily. "Perhaps--or he has gone out to dinner--much more likely." "We had better go away and come later," suggested the first. "He is sure to come home. We had better wait. The orders are to take him in his lodgings." "We might go into the _osteria_ opposite and drink a _foglietta_." "No," said the other, who seemed to be the one in authority. "We must wait here, if we wait till midnight. Those are the orders." The second detective grumbled something not clearly audible, and silence ensued. But Temistocle had heard quite enough. He was a quick-witted fellow, as has been seen, much more anxious for his own interests than for his master's, though he had hitherto found it easy to consult both. Indeed, in a certain way he was faithful to Del Ferice, and admired him as a soldier admires his general. The resolution he now formed did honour to his loyalty to Ugo and to his thievish instincts. He determined to save his master if he could, and to rob him at his leisure afterwards. If Del Ferice failed to escape, he would probably reward Temistocle for having done his best to help him; if, on the other hand, he got away, Temistocle had the key of his lodgings, and would help himself. But there was one difficulty in the way. Del Ferice was in evening dress at the house of Donna Tullia. In such a costume he would have no chance of passing the gates, which in those days were closed and guarded all night. Del Ferice was a cautious man, and, like many another in those days, kept in his rooms a couple of disguises which might serve if he was hard pressed. His ready money he always carried with him, because he frequently went into the club before coming home, and played a game of écarté, in which he was usually lucky. The question was how to enter the lodgings, to get possession of the necessary clothes, and to go out again, without exciting the suspicions of the detectives. Temistocle's mind was soon made up. He crept softly down the stairs, so as not to appear to have been too near, and then, making as much noise as he could, ascended boldly, drawing the key of the lodgings from his pocket as he reached the landing where the two men stood under the little oil-lamp. "_Buona sera, signori_," he said, politely, thrusting the key into the lock without hesitation. "Did you wish to see the Conte del Ferice?" "Yes," answered the elder man, affecting an urbane manner. "Is the Count at home?" "I do not think so," returned the Neapolitan. "But I will see. Come in, gentlemen. He will not be long--_sempre verso quest'ora_--he always comes home about this time." "Thank you," said the detective. "If you will allow us to wait--" "_Altro_--what? Should I leave the _padrone's_ friends on the stairs? Come in, gentlemen--sit down. It is dark. I will light the lamp." And striking a match, Temistocle lit a couple of candles and placed them upon the table of the small sitting-room. The two men sat down, holding their hats upon their knees. "If you will excuse me," said Temistocle, "I will go and make the signore's coffee. He dines at the restaurant, and always comes home for his coffee. Perhaps the signori will also take a cup? It is the same to make three as one." But the men thanked Temistocle, and said they wanted none, which was just as well, since Temistocle had no idea of giving them any. He retired, however, to the small kitchen which belongs to every Roman lodging, and made a great clattering with the coffee-pot. Presently he slipped into Del Ferice's bedroom, and extracted from a dark corner a shabby black bag, which he took back with him into the kitchen. From the kitchen window ran the usual iron wire to the well in the small court, bearing an iron traveller with a rope for drawing water. Temistocle, clattering loudly, hooked the bag to the traveller and let it run down noisily; then he tied the rope and went out. He had carefully closed the door of the sitting-room, but he had been careful to leave the door which opened upon the stairs unlatched. He crept noiselessly out, and leaving the door still open, rushed down-stairs, turned into the little court, unhooked his bag from the rope, and taking it in his hand, passed quietly out into the street. The coachman was dozing upon the box of the carriage which still waited before the door, and would not have noticed Temistocle had he been awake. In a moment more the Neapolitan was beyond pursuit. In the Piazza di Spagna he hailed a cab and drove rapidly to Donna Tullia's house, where he paid the man and sent him away. The servants knew him well enough, for scarcely a day passed without his bringing some note or message from his master to Madame Mayer. He sent in to say that he must speak to his master on business. Del Ferice came out hastily in considerable agitation, which was by no means diminished by the sight of the well-known shabby black bag. Temistocle glanced round the hall to see that they were alone. "The _forza_--the police," he whispered, "are in the house, Eccellenza. Here is the bag. Save yourself, for the love of heaven!" Del Ferice turned ghastly pale, and his face twitched nervously. "But--" he began, and then staggering back leaned against the wall. "Quick--fly!" urged Temistocle, shaking him roughly by the arm. "It is the Holy Office--you have time. I told them you would be back, and they are waiting quietly--they will wait all night. Here is your overcoat," he added, almost forcing his master into the garment--"and your hat--here! Come along, there is no time to lose. I will take you to a place where you can dress." Del Ferice submitted almost blindly. By especial good fortune the footman did not come out into the hall. Donna Tullia and her guests had finished dinner, and the servants had retired to theirs; indeed the footman had complained to Temistocle of being called away from his meal to open the door. The Neapolitan pushed his master out upon the stairs, urging him to use all speed. As the two men hurried along the dark street they conversed in low tones. Del Ferice was trembling in every joint. "But Donna Tullia," he almost whined. "I cannot leave her so--she must know--" "Save your own skin from the Holy Office, master," answered Temistocle, dragging him along as fast as he could. "I will go back and tell your lady, never fear. She will leave Rome to-morrow. Of course you will go to Naples. She will follow you. She will be there before you." Del Ferice mumbled an unintelligible answer. His teeth were chattering with cold and fear; but as he began to realise his extreme peril, terror lent wings to his heels, and he almost outstripped the nimble Temistocle in the race for safety. They reached at last the ruined part of the city near the Porta Maggiore, and in the shadow of the deep archway where the road branches to the right towards Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Temistocle halted. "Here," he said, shortly. Del Ferice said never a word, but began to undress himself in the dark. It was a gloomy and lowering night, the roads were muddy, and from time to time a few drops of cold rain fell silently, portending a coming storm. In a few moments the transformation was complete, and Del Ferice stood by his servant's side in the shabby brown cowl and rope-girdle of a Capuchin monk. "Now comes the hard part," said Temistocle, producing a razor and a pair of scissors from the bottom of the bag. Del Ferice had too often contemplated the possibility of flight to have omitted so important a detail. "You cannot see--you will cut my throat," he murmured plaintively. But the fellow was equal to the emergency. Retiring deeper into the recess of the arch, he lit a cigar, and holding it between his teeth, puffed violently at it, producing a feeble light by which he could just see his master's face. He was in the habit of shaving him, and had no difficulty in removing the fair moustache from his upper lip. Then, making him hold his head down, and puffing harder than ever, he cropped his thin hair, and managed to make a tolerably respectable tonsure. But the whole operation had consumed half an hour at the least, and Del Ferice was trembling still. Temistocle thrust the clothes into his bag. "My watch!" objected the unfortunate man, "and my pearl studs--give them to me--what? You villain! you thief! you--" "No _chiacchiere_, no talk, _padrone_," interrupted Temistocle, snapping the lock of the bag. "If you chance to be searched, it would ill become a mendicant friar to be carrying gold watches and pearl studs. I will give them to Donna Tullia this very evening. You have money--you can say that you are taking that to your convent." "Swear to give the watch to Donna Tullia," said Del Ferice. Whereupon Temistocle swore a terrible oath, which he did not fail to break, of course. But his master had to be satisfied, and when all was completed the two parted company. "I will ask Donna Tullia to take me to Naples on her passport," said the Neapolitan. "Take care of my things, Temistocle. Burn all the papers if you can--though I suppose the _sbirri_ have got them by this time. Bring my clothes--if you steal anything, remember there are knives in Rome, and I know where to write to have them used." Whereat Temistocle broke into a torrent of protestations. How could his master think that, after saving him at such risk, his faithful servant would plunder him? "Well," said Del Ferice, thoughtfully, "you are a great scoundrel, you know. But you have saved me, as you say. There is a scudo for you." Temistocle never refused anything. He took the coin, kissed his master's hand as a final exhibition of servility, and turned back towards the city without another word. Del Ferice shuddered, and drew his heavy cowl over his head as he began to walk quickly towards the Porta Maggiore. Then he took the inside road, skirting the walls through the mud to the Porta San Lorenzo. He was perfectly safe in his disguise. He had dined abundantly, he had money in his pocket, and he had escaped the clutches of the Holy Office. A barefooted friar might walk for days unchallenged through the Roman Campagna and the neighbouring hills, and it was not far to the south-eastern frontier. He did not know the way beyond Tivoli, but he could inquire without exciting the least suspicion. There are few disguises more complete than the garb of a Capuchin monk, and Del Ferice had long contemplated playing the part, for it was one which eminently suited him. His face, much thinner now than formerly, was yet naturally round, and without his moustache would certainly pass for a harmless clerical visage. He had received an excellent education, and knew vastly more Latin than the majority of mendicant monks. As a good Roman he was well acquainted with every convent in the city, and knew the names of all the chief dignitaries of the Capuchin order. When a lad he had frequently served at Mass, and was acquainted with most of the ordinary details of monastic life. The worst that could happen to him might be to be called upon in the course of his travels to hear the dying confession of some poor wretch who had been stabbed after a game of _mora_. His case was altogether not so bad as might seem, considering the far greater evils he had escaped. At the Porta San Lorenzo the gates were closed as usual, but the dozing watchman let Del Ferice out of the small door without remark. Any one might leave the city, though it required a pass to gain admittance during the night. The heavily-ironed oak clanged behind the fugitive, and he breathed more freely as he stepped upon the road to Tivoli. In an hour he had crossed the Ponte Mammolo, shuddering as he looked down through the deep gloom at the white foam of the Teverone, swollen with the winter rains. But the fear of the Holy Office was behind him, and he hurried on his lonely way, walking painfully in the sandals he had been obliged to put on to complete his disguise, sinking occasionally ankle-deep in mud, and then trudging over a long stretch of broken stones where the road had been mended; but not noticing nor caring for pain and fatigue, while he felt that every minute took him nearer to the frontier hills where he would be safe from pursuit. And so he toiled on, till he smelled the fetid air of the sulphur springs full fourteen miles from Rome; and at last, as the road began to rise towards Hadrian's Villa, he sat down upon a stone by the wayside to rest a little. He had walked five hours through the darkness, seeing but a few yards of the broad road before him as he went. He was weary and footsore, and the night was growing wilder with gathering wind and rain as the storm swept down the mountains and through the deep gorge of Tivoli on its way to the desolate black Campagna. He felt that if he did not die of exposure he was safe, and to a man in his condition bad weather is the least of evils. His reflections were not sweet. Five hours earlier he had been dressed as a fine gentleman should be, seated at a luxurious table in the company of a handsome and amusing woman who was to be his wife. He could still almost taste the delicate _chaud froid_, the tender woodcock, the dry champagne; he could still almost hear Donna Tullia's last noisy sally ringing in his ears--and behold, he was now sitting by the roadside in the rain, in the wretched garb of a begging monk, five hours' journey from Rome. He had left his affianced bride without a word of warning, had abandoned all his possessions to Temistocle--that scoundrelly thief Temistocle!--and he was utterly alone. But as he rested himself, drawing his monk's hood closely over his head and trying to warm his freezing feet with the skirts of his rough brown frock, he reflected that if he ever got safely across the frontier he would be treated as a patriot, as a man who had suffered for the cause, and certainly as a man who deserved to be rewarded. He reflected that Donna Tullia was a woman who had a theatrical taste for romance, and that his present position was in theory highly romantic, however uncomfortable it might be in the practice. When he was safe his story would be told in the newspapers, and he would himself take care that it was made interesting. Donna Tullia would read it, would be fascinated by the tale of his sufferings, and would follow him. His marriage with her would then add immense importance to his own position. He would play his cards well, and with her wealth at his disposal he might aspire to any distinction he coveted. He only wished the situation could have been prolonged for three weeks, till he was actually married. Meanwhile he must take courage and push on, beyond the reach of pursuit. If once he could gain Subiaco, he could be over the frontier in twelve hours. From Tivoli there were _vetture_ up the valley, cheap conveyances for the country people, in which a barefooted friar could travel unnoticed. He knew that he must cross the boundary by Trevi and the Serra di Sant' Antonio. He would inquire the way from Subiaco. While Del Ferice was thus making his way across the Campagna, Temistocle was taking measures for his own advantage and safety. He had the bag with his master's clothes, the valuable watch and chain, and the pearl studs. He had also the key to Del Ferice's lodgings, of which he promised himself to make some use, as soon as he should be sure that the detectives had left the house. In the first place he made up his mind to leave Donna Tullia in ignorance of his master's sudden departure. There was nothing to be gained by telling her the news, for she would probably in her rash way go to Del Ferice's house herself, as she had done once before, and on finding he was actually gone she would take charge of his effects, whereby Temistocle would be the loser. As he walked briskly away from the ruinous district near the Porta Maggiore, and began to see the lights of the city gleaming before him, his courage rose in his breast. He remembered how easily he had eluded the detectives an hour and a half before, and he determined to cheat them again. But he had reckoned unwisely. Before he had been gone ten minutes the two men suspected, from the prolonged silence, that something was wrong, and after searching the lodging perceived that the polite servant who had offered them coffee had left the house without taking leave. One of the two immediately drove to the house of his chief and asked for instructions. The order to arrest the servant if he appeared again came back at once. The consequence was that when Temistocle boldly opened the door with a ready framed excuse for his absence, he was suddenly pinioned by four strong arms, dragged into the sitting-room, and told to hold his tongue in the name of the law. And that is the last that was heard of Temistocle for some time. But when the day dawned the men knew that Del Ferice had escaped them. The affair had not been well managed. The Cardinal was a good detective, but a bad policeman. In his haste he had made the mistake of ordering Del Ferice to be arrested instantly and in his lodgings. Had the statesman simply told the chief of police to secure Ugo as soon as possible without any scandal, he could not have escaped. But the officer interpreted the Cardinal's note to mean that Del Ferice was actually at his lodgings when the order was given. The Cardinal was supposed to be omniscient by his subordinates, and no one ever thought of giving any interpretation not perfectly literal to his commands. Of course the Cardinal was at once informed, and telegrams and mounted detectives were dispatched in all directions. But Del Ferice's disguise was good, and when just after sunrise a gendarme galloped into Tivoli, he did not suspect that the travel-stained and pale-faced friar, who stood telling his beads before the shrine just outside the Roman gate, was the political delinquent whom he was sent to overtake. Donna Tullia spent an anxious night. She sent down to Del Ferice's lodgings, as Temistocle had anticipated, and the servant brought back word that he had not seen the Neapolitan, and that the house was held in possession by strangers, who refused him admittance. Madame Mayer understood well enough what had happened, and began to tremble for herself. Indeed she began to think of packing together her own valuables, in case she should be ordered to leave Rome, for she did not doubt that the Holy Office was in pursuit of Del Ferice, in consequence of some discovery relating to her little club of malcontents. She trembled for Ugo with an anxiety more genuine than any feeling of hers had been for many a day, not knowing whether he had escaped or not. But on the following evening she was partially reassured by hearing from Valdarno that the police had offered a large reward for Del Ferice's apprehension. Valdarno declared his intention of leaving Rome at once. His life, he said, was not safe for a moment. That villain Gouache, who had turned Zouave, had betrayed them all, and they might be lodged in the Sant' Uffizio any day. As a matter of fact, after he discovered how egregiously he had been deceived by Del Ferice, the Cardinal grew more suspicious, and his emissaries were more busy than they had been before. But Valdarno had never manifested enough wisdom, nor enough folly, to make him a cause of anxiety to the Prime Minister. Nevertheless he actually left Rome and spent a long time in Paris before he was induced to believe that he might safely return to his home. Roman society was shaken to its foundations by the news of the attempted arrest, and Donna Tullia found some slight compensation in becoming for a time the centre of interest. She felt, indeed, great anxiety for the man she was engaged to marry; but for the first time in her life she felt also that she was living in an element of real romance, of which she had long dreamed, but of which she had never found the smallest realisation. Society saw, and speculated, and gossiped, after its fashion; but its gossip was more subdued than of yore, for men began to ask who was safe, since the harmless Del Ferice had been proscribed. Old Saracinesca said little. He would have gone to see the Cardinal and to offer him his congratulations, since it would not be decent to offer his thanks; but the Cardinal was not in a position to be congratulated. If he had caught Del Ferice he would have thanked the Prince instead of waiting for any expressions of gratitude; but he did not catch Del Ferice, for certain very good reasons which will appear in the last scene of this comedy. Three days after Ugo's disappearance, the old Prince got into his carriage and drove out to Saracinesca. More than a month had elapsed since the marriage, and he felt that he must see his son, even at the risk of interrupting the honeymoon. On the whole, he felt that his revenge had been inadequate. Del Fence had escaped the Holy Office, no one knew how; and Donna Tullia, instead of being profoundly humiliated, as she would have been had Del Ferice been tried as a common spy, was become a centre of attraction and interest, because her affianced husband had for some unknown cause incurred the displeasure of the great Cardinal, almost on the eve of her marriage--a state of things significant as regards the tone of Roman society. Indeed the whole circumstance, which, was soon bruited about among all classes with the most lively adornment and exaggeration, tended greatly to increase the fear and hatred which high and low alike felt for Cardinal Antonelli--the man who was always accused and never heard in his own defence. CHAPTER XXXIV. People wondered that Giovanni and Corona should have chosen to retire into the country for their honeymoon, instead of travelling to France and England, and ending their wedding-trip in Switzerland. The hills were so very cold at that early season, and besides, they would be utterly alone. People could not understand why Corona did not take advantage of the termination of her widowhood to mix at once with the world, and indemnify herself for the year of mourning by a year of unusual gaiety. But there were many, on the other hand, who loudly applauded the action, which, it was maintained, showed a wise spirit of economy, and contrasted very favourably with the extravagance recently exhibited by young couples who in reality had far more cause to be careful of their money. Those who held this view belonged to the old, patriarchal class, the still flourishing remnant of the last generation, who prided themselves upon good management, good morals, and ascetic living; the class of people in whose marriage-contracts it was stipulated that the wife was to have meat twice a-day, excepting on fast days, a drive--the _trottata_, as it used to be called--daily, and two new gowns every year. Even in our times, when most of that generation are dead, these clauses are often introduced; in the first half of the century they were universal. A little earlier it used to be stipulated that the "meat" was not to be copra, goat's-flesh, which was considered to be food fit only for servants. But the patriarchal generation were a fine old class in spite of their economy, and they loudly aplauded Giovanni's conduct. No one, however, understood that the solitude of Saracinesca was really the greatest luxury the newly-married couple could desire. They wanted to be left alone, and they got their wish. No one had known of the preparations Giovanni had made for his wife's reception, and had any idea of the changes in the castle reached the ears of the aforesaid patriarchs, they would probably have changed their minds in regard to Giovanni's economy. The Saracinesca were not ostentatious, but they spent their money royally in their own quiet way, and the interior of the old stronghold had undergone a complete transformation, while the ancient grey stones of the outer walls and towers frowned as gloomily as ever upon the valley. Vast halls had been decorated and furnished in a style suited to the antiquity of the fortress, small sunny rooms had been fitted up with the more refined luxury which was beginning to be appreciated in Italy twenty years ago. A great conservatory had been built out upon the southern battlement. The aqueduct had been completed successfully, and fountains now played in the courts. The old-fashioned fireplaces had been again put into use, and huge logs burned upon huge fire-dogs in the halls, shedding a ruddy glow upon the trophies of old armour, the polished floors, and the heavy curtains. Quantities of magnificent tapestry, some of which had been produced when Corona first visited the castle, were now hung upon the stairs and in the corridors. The great _baldacchino_, the canopy which Roman princes are privileged to display in their antechambers, was draped above the quartered arms of Saracinesca and Astrardente, and the same armorial bearings appeared in rich stained glass in the window of the grand staircase. The solidity and rare strength of the ancient stronghold seemed to grow even more imposing under the decorations and improvements of a later age, and for the first time Giovanni felt that justice had been done to the splendour of his ancestral home. Here he and his dark bride dwelt in perfect unity and happiness, in the midst of their own lands, surrounded by their own people, and wholly devoted to each other. But though much of the day was passed in that unceasing conversation and exchange of ideas which seem to belong exclusively to happily-wedded man and wife, the hours were not wholly idle. Daily the two mounted their horses and rode along the level stretch towards Aquaviva till they came to the turning from which Corona had first caught sight of Saracinesca. Here a broad road was already broken out; the construction was so far advanced that two miles at least were already serviceable, the gentle grade winding backwards and forwards, crossing and recrossing the old bridle-path as it descended to the valley below; and now from the furthest point completed Corona could distinguish in the dim distance the great square palace of Astrardente crowning the hills above the town. Thither the two rode daily, pushing on the work, consulting with the engineer they employed, and often looking forward to the day when for the first time their carriage should roll smoothly down from Saracinesca to Astrardente without making the vast detour which the old road followed as it skirted the mountain. There was an inexpressible pleasure in watching the growth of the work they had so long contemplated, in speculating on the advantages they would obtain by so uniting their respective villages, and in feeling that, being at last one, they were working together for the good of their people. For the men who did the work were without exception their own peasants, who were unemployed during the winter time, and who, but for the timely occupation provided for them, would have spent the cold months in that state of half-starved torpor peculiar to the indigent agricultural labourer when he has nothing to do--at that bitter season when father and mother and shivering little ones watch wistfully the ever-dwindling sack of maize, as day by day two or three handfuls are ground between the stones of the hand-mill and kneaded into a thick unwholesome dough, the only food of the poorer peasants in the winter. But now every man who could handle pickaxe and bore, and sledge-hammer and spade, was out upon the road from dawn to dark, and every Saturday night each man took home a silver scudo in his pocket; and where people are sober and do not drink their wages, a silver scudo goes a long way further than nothing. Yet many a lean and swarthy fellow there would have felt that he was cheated if besides his money he had not carried home daily the remembrance of that tall dark lady's face and kindly eyes and encouraging voice, and they used to watch for the coming of the "_gran principessa_" as anxiously as they expected the coming of the steward with the money-bags on a Saturday evening. Often, too, the wives and daughters of the rough workers would bring the men their dinners at noonday, rather than let them carry away their food with them in the morning, just for the sake of catching a sight of Corona, and of her broad-shouldered manly husband. And the men worked with a right good will, for the story had gone abroad that for years to come there would be no lack of work for willing hands. So the days sped, and were not interrupted by any incident for several weeks. One day Gouache, the artist Zouave, called at the castle. He had been quartered at Subiaco with a part of his company, but had not been sent on at once to Saracinesca as he had expected. Now, however, he had arrived with a small detachment of half-a-dozen men, with instructions to watch the pass. There was nothing extraordinary in his being sent in that direction, for Saracinesca was very near the frontier, and lay on one of the direct routes to the Serra di Sant' Antonio, which was the shortest hill-route into the kingdom of Naples; the country around was thought to be particularly liable to disturbance, and though no one had seen a brigand there for some years, the mountain-paths were supposed to be infested with robbers. As a matter of fact there was a great deal of smuggling carried on through the pass, and from time to time some political refugee found his way across the frontier at that point. Gouache was received very well by Giovanni, and rather coldly by Corona, who knew him but slightly. "I congratulate you," said Giovanni, noticing the stripes on the young man's sleeves; "I see that you have risen in grade." "Yes. I hold an important command of six men. I spend much time in studying the strategy of Condé and Napoleon. By the bye, I am here on a very important mission." "Indeed!" "I suppose you give yourselves the luxury of never reading the papers in this delightful retreat. The day before yesterday the Cardinal attempted to arrest our friend Del Ferice--have you heard that?" "No--what--has he escaped?" asked Giovanni and Corona in a breath. But their tones were different. Giovanni had anticipated the news, and was disgusted at the idea that the fellow had got off. Corona was merely surprised. "Yes. Heaven knows how--he has escaped. I am here to cut him off if he tries to get to the Serra di Sant' Antonio." Giovanni laughed. "He will scarcely try to come this way--under the very walls of my house," he said. "He may do anything. He is a slippery fellow." Gouache proceeded to tell all he knew of the circumstances. "That is very strange," said Corona, thoughtfully. Then after a pause, she added, "We are going to visit our road, Monsieur Gouache. Will you not come with us? My husband will give you a horse." Gouache was charmed. He preferred talking to Giovanni and looking at Corona's face to returning to his six Zouaves, or patrolling the hills in search of Del Ferice. In a few minutes the three were mounted, and riding slowly along the level stretch towards the works. As they entered the new road Giovanni and Corona unconsciously fell into conversation, as usual, about what they were doing, and forgot their visitor. Gouache dropped behind, watching the pair and admiring them with true artistic appreciation. He had a Parisian's love of luxury and perfect appointments as well as an artist's love of beauty, and his eyes rested with unmitigated pleasure on the riders and their horses, losing no detail of their dress, their simple English accoutrements, their firm seats and graceful carriage. But at a turn of the grade the two riders suddenly slipped from his field of vision, and his attention was attracted to the marvellous beauty of the landscape, as looking down the valley towards Astrardente he saw range on range of purple hills rising in a deep perspective, crowned with jagged rocks or sharply defined brown villages, ruddy in the lowering sun. He stopped his horse and sat motionless, drinking in the loveliness before him. So it is that accidents in nature make accidents in the lives of men. But Giovanni and Corona rode slowly down the gentle incline, hardly noticing that Gouache had stopped behind, and talking of the work. As they again turned a curve of the grade Corona, who was on the inside, looked up and caught sight of Gouache's motionless figure at the opposite extremity of the gradient they had just descended. Giovanni looked straight before him, and was aware of a pale-faced Capuchin friar who with downcast eyes was toiling up the road, seemingly exhausted; a particularly weather-stained and dilapidated friar even for those wild mountains. "Gouache is studying geography," remarked Corona. "Another of those Capuccini!" exclaimed Giovanni, instinctively feeling in his pocket for coppers. Then with a sudden movement he seized his wife's arm. She was close to him as they rode slowly along side by side. "Good God! Corona," he cried, "it is Del Ferice!" Corona looked quickly at the monk. His cowl was raised enough to show his features; but she would, perhaps, not have recognised his smooth shaven face had Giovanni not called her attention to it. Del Ferice had recognised them too, and, horror-struck, he paused, trembling and uncertain what to do. He had taken the wrong turn from the main road below; unaccustomed to the dialect of the hills, he had misunderstood the peasant who had told him especially not to take the bridle-path if he wished to avoid Saracinesca. He stopped, hesitated, and then, pulling his cowl over his face, walked steadily on. Giovanni glanced up and saw that Gouache was slowly descending the road, still absorbed in contemplating the landscape. "Let him take his chance," muttered Saracinesca. "What should I care?" "No--no! Save him, Giovanni,--he looks so miserable," cried Corona, with ready sympathy. She was pale with excitement. Giovanni looked at her one moment and hesitated, but her pleading eyes were not to be refused. "Then gallop back, darling. Tell Gouache it is cold in the valley--anything. Make him go back with you--I will save him since you wish it." Corona wheeled her horse without a word and cantered up the hill again. The monk had continued his slow walk, and was now almost at Giovanni's saddle-bow. The latter drew rein, staring hard at the pale features under the cowl. "If you go on you are lost," he said, in low distinct tones. "The Zouaves are waiting for you. Stop, I say!" he exclaimed, as the monk attempted to pass on. Leaping to the ground Giovanni seized his arm and held him tightly. Then Del Ferice broke down. "You will not give me up--for the love of Christ!" he whined. "Oh, if you have any pity--let me go--I never meant to harm you--" "Look here," said Giovanni. "I would just as soon give you up to the Holy Office as not; but my wife asked me to save you--" "God bless her! Oh, the saints bless her! God render her kindness!" blubbered Del Ferice, who, between fear and exhaustion, was by this time half idiotic. "Silence!" said Giovanni, sternly. "You may thank her if you ever have a chance. Come with me quietly. I will send one of the workmen round the hill with you. You must sleep at Trevi, and then get over the Serra as best you can." He ran his arm through the bridle of his horse and walked by his enemy's side. "You will not give me up," moaned the wretched man. "For the love of heaven do not betray me--I have come so far--I am so tired." "The wolves may make a meal of you, for all I care," returned Giovanni. "I will not. I give you my word that I will send you safely on, if you will stop this whining and behave like a man." At that moment Del Ferice was past taking offence, but for many a year afterwards the rough words rankled in his heart. Giovanni was brutal for once; he longed to wring the fellow's neck, or to give him up to Gouache and the Zouaves. The tones of Ugo's voice reminded him of injuries not so old as to be yet forgotten. But he smothered his wrath and strode on, having promised his wife to save the wretch, much against his will. It was a quarter of an hour before they reached the works, the longest quarter of an hour Del Ferice remembered in his whole life. Neither spoke a word. Giovanni hailed a sturdy-looking fellow who was breaking stones by the roadside. "Get up, Carluccio," he said. "This good monk has lost his way. You must take him round the mountain, above Ponza to Arcinazzo, and show him the road to Trevi. It is a long way, but the road is good enough after Ponza--it is shorter than to go round by Saracinesca, and the good friar is in a hurry." Carluccio started up with alacrity. He greatly preferred roaming about the hills to breaking stones, provided he was paid for it. He picked up his torn jacket and threw it over one shoulder, setting his battered hat jauntily on his thick black curls. "Give us a benediction, _padre mio_, and let us be off--_non è mica un passo_--it is a good walk to Trevi." Del Ferice hesitated. He hardly knew what to do or say, and even if he had wished to speak he was scarcely able to control his voice. Giovanni cut the situation short by turning on his heel and mounting his horse. A moment later he was cantering up the road again, to the considerable astonishment of the labourers, who were accustomed to see him spend at least half an hour in examining the work done. But Giovanni was in no humour to talk about roads. He had spent a horrible quarter of an hour, between his desire to see Del Ferice punished and the promise he had given his wife to save him. He felt so little sure of himself that he never once looked back, lest he should be tempted to send a second man to stop the fugitive and deliver him up to justice. He ground his teeth together, and his heart was full of bitter curses as he rode up the hill, hardly daring to reflect upon what he had done. That, in the eyes of the law, he had wittingly helped a traitor to escape, troubled his conscience little. His instinct bade him destroy Del Ferice by giving him up, and he would have saved himself a vast deal of trouble if he had followed his impulse. But the impulse really arose from a deep-rooted desire for revenge, which, having resisted, he regretted bitterly--very much as Shakespeare's murderer complained to his companion that the devil was at his elbow bidding him not murder the duke. Giovanni spared his enemy solely to please his wife, and half-a-dozen words from her had produced a result which no consideration of mercy or pity could have brought about. Corona and Gouache had halted at the top of the road to wait for him. By an imperceptible nod, Giovanni informed his wife that Del Ferice was safe. "I am sorry to have cut short our ride," he said, coldly. "My wife found it chilly in the valley." Anastase looked curiously at Giovanni's pale face, and wondered whether anything was wrong. Corona herself seemed strangely agitated. "Yes," answered Gouache, with his gentle smile; "the mountain air is still cold." So the three rode silently back to the castle, and at the gate Gouache dismounted and left them, politely declining a rather cold invitation to come in. Giovanni and Corona went silently up the staircase together, and on into a small apartment which in that cold season they had set apart as a sitting-room. When they were alone, Corona laid her hands upon Giovanni's shoulders and gazed long into his angry eyes. Then she threw her arms round his neck and drew him to her. "My beloved," she cried, proudly, "you are all I thought--and more too." "Do not say that," answered Giovanni. "I would not have lifted a finger to save that hound, but for you." "Ah, but you did it, dear, all the same," she said, and kissed him. On the following evening, without any warning, old Saracinesca arrived, and was warmly greeted. After dinner Giovanni told him the story of Del Ferice's escape. Thereupon the old gentleman flew into a towering rage, swearing and cursing in a most characteristic manner, but finally declaring that to arrest spies was the work of spies, and that Giovanni had behaved like a gentleman, as of course he could not help doing, seeing that he was his own son. * * * * * And so the curtain falls upon the first act. Giovanni and Corona are happily married. Del Ferice is safe across the frontier among his friends in Naples, and Donna Tullia is waiting still for news of him, in the last days of Lent, in the year 1866. To carry on the tale from this point would be to enter upon a new series of events more interesting, perhaps, than those herein detailed, and of like importance in the history of the Saracinesca family, but forming by their very nature a distinct narrative--a second act to the drama, if it may be so called. I am content if in the foregoing pages I have so far acquainted the reader with those characters which hereafter will play more important parts, as to enable him to comprehend the story of their subsequent lives, and in some measure to judge of their future by their past, regarding them as acquaintances, if not sympathetic, yet worthy of some attention. Especially I ask for indulgence in matters political. I am not writing the history of political events, but the history of a Roman family during times of great uncertainty and agitation. If any one says that I have set up Del Ferice as a type of the Italian Liberal party, carefully constructing a villain in order to batter him to pieces with the artillery of poetic justice, I answer that I have done nothing of the kind. Del Ferice is indeed a type, but a type of a depraved class which very unjustly represented the Liberal party in Rome before 1870, and which, among those who witnessed its proceedings, drew upon the great political body which demanded the unity of Italy an opprobrium that body was very far from deserving. The honest and upright Liberals were waiting in 1866. What they did, they did from their own country, and they did it boldly. To no man of intelligence need I say that Del Ferice had no more affinity with Massimo D'Azeglio, with the great Cavour, with Cavour's great enemy Giuseppe Mazzini, or with Garibaldi, than the jackal has with the lion. Del Ferice represented the scum which remained after the revolution of 1848 had subsided. He was one of those men who were used and despised by their betters, and in using whom Cavour himself was provoked into writing "Se noi facessimo per noi quel che faciamo per l'Italia, saremmo gran bricconi"--if we did for ourselves what we do for Italy, we should be great blackguards. And that there were honourable and just men outside of Rome will sufficiently appear in the sequel to this veracious tale. THE END. 
62363	----	LOVE IN IDLENESS A Bar Harbour Tale BY F. MARION CRAWFORD AUTHOR OF "MR. ISAACS," "SARACINESCA," "KATHARINE LAUDERDALE," ETC New York MACMILLAN AND COMPANY AND LONDON 1894 All rights reserved COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY F. MARION CRAWFORD. Norwood Press: J. S. Cushing & Co. -- Berwick & Smith Boston, Mass., U.S.A. LOVE IN IDLENESS. CHAPTER I. "I'm going to stay with the three Miss Miners at the Trehearnes' place," said Louis Lawrence, looking down into the blue water as he leaned over the rail of the _Sappho_, on the sunny side of the steamer. "They're taking care of Miss Trehearne while her mother is away at Karlsbad with Mr. Trehearne," he added, in further explanation. "Yes," answered Professor Knowles, his companion. "Yes," he repeated vaguely, a moment later. "It's fun for the three Miss Miners, having such a place all to themselves for the summer," continued young Lawrence. "It's less amusing for Miss Trehearne, I daresay. I suppose I'm asked to enliven things. It can't be exactly gay in their establishment." "I don't know any of them," observed the Professor, who was a Boston man. "The probability is that I never shall. Who are the three Miss Miners, and who is Miss Trehearne?" "Oh--you don't know them!" Lawrence's voice expressed his surprise that there should be any one who did not know the ladies in question. "Well--they're three old maids, you know." "Excuse me, I don't know. Old maid is such a vague term. How old must a maid be, to be an old maid?" "Oh--it isn't age that makes old maids. It's the absence of youth. They're born so." "A pleasing paradox," remarked the Professor, his exaggerated jaw seeming to check the uneasy smile, as it attacked the gravity of his colourless thin lips. His head, in the full face view, was not too large for his body, which, in the two dimensions of length and breadth, was well proportioned. The absence of the third dimension, that is, of bodily thickness, was very apparent when he was seen sideways, while the exaggeration of the skull was also noticeable only in profile. The forehead and the long delicate jaw were unnaturally prominent; the ear was set much too far back, and there was no development over the eyes, while the nose was small, thin, and sharp, as though cut out of letter paper. "It's not a paradox," said Lawrence, whose respect for professorial statements was small. "The three Miss Miners were old maids before they were born. They're not particularly old, except Cordelia. She must be over forty. Augusta is the youngest--about thirty-two, I should think. Then there's the middle one--she's Elizabeth, you know--she's no particular age. Cordelia must have been pretty--in a former state. Lots of brown hair and beautiful teeth. But she has the religious smile--what they put on when they sing hymns, don't you know? It's chronic. Good teeth and resignation did it. She's good all through, but you get all through her so soon! Elizabeth's clever--comparatively. She's brown, and round, and fat, and ugly. I'd like to paint her portrait. She's really by far the most attractive. As for Augusta--" "Well? What about Augusta?" enquired the Professor, as Lawrence paused. "Oh--she's awful! She's the accomplished one." "I thought you said that the middle one--what's her name?--was the cleverest." "Yes, but cleverness never goes with what they call accomplishments," answered the young man. "I've heard of great men playing the flute, but I never heard of anybody who was 'musical' and came to anything--especially women. Fancy Cleopatra playing the piano--or Catherine the Great painting a salad of wild flowers on a fan! Can you? Or Semiramis sketching a lap dog on a cushion!" "What very strange ideas you have!" observed the Professor, gravely. Lawrence did not say anything in reply, but looked out over the blue water at the dark green islands of the deep bay as the _Sappho_ paddled along, beating up a wake of egg-white froth. He was glad that Professor Knowles was going over to the other side to dwell amongst the placid inhabitants of North East Harbour, where the joke dieth not, even at an advanced age; where there are people who believe in Ruskin and swear by Herbert Spencer, who coin words ending in 'ism,' and intellectually subsist on the 'ologies' with the notable exception of theology. Lawrence had once sat at the Professor's feet, at Harvard, unwillingly, indeed, but not without indirect profit. They had met to-day in the train, and it was not probable that they should meet again in the course of the summer, unless they particularly sought one another's society. They had nothing in common. Lawrence was an artist, or intended to be one, and had recently returned from abroad, after spending three years in Paris. By parentage he belonged to New York. He had been christened Louis because his mother was of French extraction and had an uncle of that name, who might be expected to do something handsome for her son. Louis Lawrence was now about five and twenty years of age, was possessed of considerable talent, and of no particular worldly goods. His most important and valuable possession, indeed, was his character, which showed itself in all he said and did. There is something problematic about the existence of a young artist who is in earnest, which alone is an attraction in the eyes of women. The odds are ten to one, of course, that he will never accomplish anything above the average, but that one-tenth chance is not to be despised, for it is the possibility of a well-earned celebrity, perhaps of greatness. The one last step, out of obscurity into fame, is generally the only one of which the public knows anything, sees anything, or understands anything; and no one can tell when, if ever, that one step may be taken. There is a constant interest in expecting it, and in knowing of its possibility, which lends the artist's life a real charm in his own eyes and the eyes of others. And very often it turns out that the charm is all the life has to recommend it. The young man who had just given Professor Knowles an account of his hostesses was naturally inclined to be communicative, which is a weakness, though he was also frank, which is a virtue. He was a very slim young man, and might have been thought to be in delicate health, for he was pale and thin in the face. The features were long and finely chiselled, and the complexion was decidedly dark. He would have looked well in a lace ruffle, with flowing curls. But his hair was short, and he wore rough grey clothes and an unobtrusive tie. The highly arched black eyebrows gave his expression strength, but the very minute, dark mustache which shaded the upper lip was a little too evidently twisted and trained. That was the only outward sign of personal vanity, however, and was not an offensive one, though it gave him a foreign air which Professor Knowles disliked, but which the three Miss Miners thought charming. His manner pleased them, too; for he was always just as civil to them as though they had been young and pretty and amusing, which is more than can be said of the majority of modern youths. His conversation occasionally shocked them, it is true; but the shock was a mild one and agreeably applied, so that they were willing to undergo it frequently. Lawrence was not thinking of the Miss Miners as he watched the dark green islands. If he had thought of them at all during the last half-hour, it had been with a certain undefined gratitude to them for being the means of allowing him to spend a fortnight in the society of Fanny Trehearne. Professor Knowles had not moved from his side during the long silence. Lawrence looked up and saw that he was still there, his extraordinary profile cut out against the cloudless sky. "Will you smoke?" inquired Lawrence, offering him a cigarette. "No, thank you--certainly not cigarettes," answered the Professor, with a superior air. "You were telling me all about the Miss Miners," he continued; for though he knew none of them, he was of a curious disposition. "You spoke of a Miss Trehearne, I think." "Yes," answered the young man. "Do you know her?" "Oh, no. It's an unusual name, that's all. Are they New York people?" Lawrence smiled at the idea that any one should ask such a question. "Yes, of course," he answered. "New York--since the Flood." "And Miss Trehearne is the only daughter?" enquired the Professor, inquisitively. "She has a brother--Randolph," replied Lawrence, rather shortly; for he was suddenly aware that there was no particular reason why he should talk about the Trehearnes. "Of course, they're relations of the Miners," observed the Professor. "That's the reason why Miss Trehearne has them to stay with her. Excuse me--I can't get a light in this wind." Thereupon Lawrence turned away and got under the lee of the deck saloon, leaving the Professor to himself. Having lighted his cigarette, the artist went forward and stood in the sharp head-breeze that seemed to blow through and through him, disinfecting his whole being from the hot, close air of the train he had left half an hour earlier. Bar Harbour, in common speech, includes Frenchman's Bay, the island of Mount Desert, and the other small islands lying near it,--an extensive tract of land and sea. As a matter of fact, the name belongs to the little harbour between Bar Island and Mount Desert, together with the village which has grown to be the centre of civilization, since the whole place has become fashionable. Earth, sky, and water are of the north,--hard, bright, and cold. In artists' slang, there is no atmosphere. The dark green islands, as one looks at them, seem to be almost before the foreground. The picture is beautiful, and some people call it grand; but it lacks depth. There is something fiercely successful about the colour of it, something brilliantly self-reliant. It suggests a certain type of handsome woman--of the kind that need neither repentance nor cosmetics, and are perfectly sure of the fact, whose virtue is too cold to be kind, and whose complexion is not shadowed by passion, nor softened by suffering, nor even washed pale with tears. Only the sea is eloquent. The deep-breathing tide runs forward to the feet of the over-perfect, heartless earth, to linger and plead love's story while he may; then sighing sadly, sweeps back unsatisfied, baring his desolate bosom to her loveless scorn. The village, the chief centre, lies by the water's edge, facing the islands which enclose the natural harbour. It was and is a fishing village, like many another on the coast. In the midst of it, vast wooden hotels, four times as high as the houses nearest to them, have sprung up to lodge fashion in six-storied discomfort. The effect is astonishing; for the blatant architect, gesticulating in soft wood and ranting in paint, as it were, has sketched an evil dream of mediævalism, incoherent with itself and with the very common-place facts of the village street. There, also, in Mr. Bee's shop window, are plainly visible the more or less startling covers of the newest books, while from on high frowns down the counterfeit presentment of battlements and turrets, and of such terrors as lent like interest when novels were not, neither was the slightest idea of the short story yet conceived. But behind all and above all rise the wooded hills, which are neither modern nor ancient, but eternal. And in them and through them there is secret sweetness, and fragrance, and much that is gentle and lovely--in the heart of the defiantly beautiful earth-woman with her cold face, far beyond the reach of her tide-lover, and altogether out of hearing of his sighs and complaining speeches. There grow in endless greenness the white pines and the pitch pines, the black spruce and the white; there droops the feathery larch by the creeping yew, and there gleam the birches, yellow, white, and grey; the sturdy red oak spreads his arms to the scarlet maple, and the witch hazel rustles softly in the mysterious forest breeze. There, buried in the wood's bosom, bloom and blossom the wild flowers, and redden the blushing berries in unseen succession, from middle June to late September--violets first, and wild iris, strawberries and raspberries, blueberries and blackberries; short-lived wild roses and tender little blue-bells, red lilies, goldenrod and clematis, in the confusion of nature's loveliest order. All this Lawrence knew, and remembered, guessing at what he could neither remember nor know, with an artist's facility for filling up the unfinished sketch left on the mind by one impression. He had been at Bar Harbour three years earlier, and had wandered amongst the woods and pottered along the shore in a skiff. But he had been alone then and had stopped in the mediæval hotel, a rather solitary, thinking unit amidst the horde of thoughtless summer nomads, designated by the clerk at the desk as 'Number a hundred and twenty-three,' and a candidate for a daily portion of the questionable dinner at the hotel table. It was to be different this time, he thought, as he watched for the first sight of the pier when the _Sappho_ rounded Bar Island. The Trehearnes had not been at their house three years ago, and Fanny Trehearne had been then not quite sixteen, just groping her way from the schoolroom to the world, and quite beneath his young importance--even had she been at Bar Harbour to wander among the woods with him. Things had changed, now. He was not quite sure that in her girlish heart she did not consider him beneath her notice. She was straight and tall--almost as tall as he, and she was proud, if she was not pretty, and she carried her head as high as the handsomest. Moreover, she was rich, and Louis Lawrence was at present phenomenally poor, with a rather distant chance of inheriting money. These were some of the excellent reasons why fate had made him fall in love with her, though none of them accounted for the fact that she had encouraged him, and had suggested to the Miss Miners that it would be very pleasant to have him come and stay a fortnight in July. The _Sappho_ slowed down, stopped, backed, and made fast to the wooden pier, and as she swung round, Lawrence saw Fanny Trehearne standing a little apart from the group of people who had come down to meet their own friends or to watch other people meeting theirs. The young girl was evidently looking for him, and he took off his hat and waved it about erratically to attract her attention. When she saw him, she nodded with a faint smile and moved one step nearer to the gangway, to wait until he should come on shore with the crowd. She had a quiet, business-like way of moving, as though she never changed her position without a purpose. As Lawrence came along, trying to gain on the stream of passengers with whom he was moving, he kept his eyes fixed on her face, wondering whether the expression would change when he reached her and took her hand. When the moment came, the change was very slight. "I like you--you're punctual," she said. "Come along!" "I've got some traps, you know," he answered, hesitating. "Well--there's the expressman. Give him your checks." CHAPTER II. "They've all gone out in Mr. Brown's cat-boat--so I came alone," observed Miss Trehearne, when the expressman had been interviewed. "Who are 'all'?" asked Lawrence. "Just the three Miss Miners?" "Yes. Just the three Miss Miners." "I thought you might have somebody stopping with you." "No. Nobody but you. Why do you say 'stopping' instead of 'staying'? I don't like it." "Then I won't say it again," answered Lawrence, meekly. "Why do you object to it, though?" "You're not an Englishman, so there's no reason why you shouldn't speak English. Here's the buckboard. Can you drive?" "Oh--well--yes," replied the young man, rather doubtfully, and looking at the smart little turn-out. Fanny Trehearne fixed her cool grey eyes on his face with a critical expression. "Can you ride?" she asked, pursuing her examination. "Oh, yes--that is--to some extent. I'm not exactly a circus-rider, you know--but I can get on." "Most people can do that. The important thing is not to come off. What can you do--anyway? Are you a good man in a boat? You see I've only met you in society. I've never seen you do anything." "No," answered Lawrence. "I'm not a good man in a boat, as you call it--except that I'm never sea-sick. I don't know anything about boats, if you mean sail-boats. I can row a little--that's all." "If you could 'row' as you call it, you'd say you could 'pull an oar'--you wouldn't talk about 'rowing.' Well, get in, and I'll drive." There was not the least scorn in her manner, at his inability to do all those things which are to be done at Bar Harbour if people do anything at all. She had simply ascertained the fact as a measure of safety. It was not easy to guess whether she despised him for his lack of skill or not, but he was inclined to think that she did, and he made up his mind that he would get up very early, and engage a sailor to go out with him and teach him something about boats. The resolution was half unconscious, for he was really thinking more of her than of himself just then. To tell the truth, he did not attach so much importance to any of the things she had mentioned as to feel greatly humiliated by his own ignorance. "After all," said Miss Trehearne, as Lawrence took his seat beside her, "it doesn't matter. And it's far better to be frank, and say at once that you don't know, than to pretend that you do, and then try to steer and drown one, or to drive and then break my neck. Only one rather wonders where you were brought up, you know." "Oh--I was brought up somehow," answered Lawrence, vaguely. "I don't exactly remember." "It doesn't matter," returned his companion, in a reassuring tone. "No. If you don't mind, I don't." Fanny Trehearne laughed a little, without looking at him, for she was intent upon what she was doing. It was a part of her nature to fix her attention upon whatever she had in hand--a fact which must account for a certain indifference in what she said. Just then, too, she was crossing the main street of the village, and there were other vehicles moving about hither and thither. More than once she nodded to an acquaintance, whom Lawrence also recognized. "It's much more civilized than it was when I was here last," observed Lawrence. "There are lots of people one knows." "Much too civilized," answered the young girl. "I'm beginning to hate it." "I thought you liked society--" "I? What made you think so?" This sort of question is often extremely embarrassing. Lawrence looked at her thoughtfully, and wished that he had not made his innocent remark, since he was called upon to explain it. "I don't know," he replied at last. "Somehow, I always associate you with society, and dancing, and that sort of thing." "Do you? It's very unjust." "Well--it's not exactly a crime to like society, is it? Why are you so angry?" "I wish you wouldn't exaggerate! It does not follow that I'm angry because you're not fair to me." "I didn't mean to be unfair. How you take one up!" "Really, Mr. Lawrence--I think it's you who are doing that!" Miss Trehearne, having a stretch of clear road before her, gave her pair their heads for a moment, and the light buckboard dashed briskly up the gentle ascent. Lawrence was watching her, though she did not look at him, and he thought he saw the colour deepen in her sunburnt cheek, although her grey eyes were as cool as ever. She was certainly not pretty, according to the probable average judgment of younger men. Lawrence, himself, who was an artist, wondered what he saw in her face to attract him, since he could not deny the attraction, and could not attribute it altogether to expression nor to the indirect effect of her character acting upon his imagination. He did not like to believe, either, that the charm was fictitious, and lay in a certain air of superior smartness, the result of good taste and plenty of money. Anybody could wear serge, and a more or less nautical hat and gloves, just in the fashionable degree of looseness or tightness, as the case might be. Anybody who chose had the right to turn up a veil over the brim of the aforesaid hat, and anybody who did so stood a good chance of being sunburnt. Moreover, as Lawrence well knew, there is a quality of healthy complexion which tans to a golden brown, very becoming when the grey eyes have dark lashes, but less so when, as in Fanny Trehearne's case, the lashes and brows are much lighter than the hair--almost white, in fact. It is not certain whether the majority of human noses turn up or down. There was, however, no doubt but that Fanny's turned up. It was also apparent that she had decidedly high cheek bones, a square jaw, and a large mouth, with lips much too even and too little curved for beauty. After all, her best points were perhaps her eyes, her golden-brown complexion, and her crisp, reddish brown hair, which twisted itself into sharp little curls wherever it was not long enough to be smoothed. With a little more regularity of feature, Fanny Trehearne might have been called a milkmaid beauty, so far as her face was concerned. Fortunately for her, her looks were above or below such faint praise. It was doubtful whether she would be said to have charm, but she had individuality, since those terms are in common use to express gifts which escape definition. A short silence followed her somewhat indignant speech. Then, the road being still clear before her, she turned and looked at Lawrence. It was not a mere glance of enquiry, it was certainly not a tender glance, but her eyes lingered with his for a moment. "Look here--are we going to quarrel?" she asked. "Is there any reason why we should?" Lawrence smiled. "Not if we agree," answered the young girl, gravely, as she turned her head from him again. "That means that we shan't quarrel if I agree with you, I suppose," observed the young man. "Well, why shouldn't you?" asked Fanny, frankly. "You may just as well, you know. You will in the end." "By Jove! You seem pretty sure of that!" Lawrence laughed. Fanny said nothing in reply, but shortened the reins as the horses reached the top of the hill. Lawrence looked down towards the sea. The sun was very low, and the water was turning from sapphire to amaranth, while the dark islands gathered gold into their green depths. "How beautiful it is!" exclaimed the artist, not exactly from impulse, though in real enjoyment, while consciously hoping that his companion would say something pleasant. "Of course it's beautiful," she answered. "That's why I come here." "I should put it in the opposite way," said Lawrence. "How?" "Why--it's beautiful because you come here." "Oh--that's ingenious! You think it's my mission to beautify landscapes." "I thought that if I said something pretty in the way of a compliment, we shouldn't go on quarrelling." "Oh! Were we quarrelling? I hadn't noticed it." "You said something about it a moment ago," observed Lawrence, mildly. "Did I? You're an awfully literal person. By the bye, you know all the Miss Miners, don't you? I've forgotten." "I believe I do. There's Miss Miner the elder--to begin with--" "The oldest--since there are three," said Fanny, correcting him. "Yes--she's the one with the hair--and teeth." "Yes, and Miss Elizabeth--isn't that her name? The plainest--" "And the nicest. And Augusta--she's the third. Paints wild flowers and plays the piano. She's about my age, I believe." "Your age! Why, she must be over thirty!" "No. She's nineteen, still. She's got an anchor out to windward--against the storm of time, you know. She swings a little with the tide, though." "I don't understand," said Lawrence, to whom nautical language was incomprehensible. "Never mind. I only mean that she does not want to grow old. It's always funny to see a person of nineteen who's really over thirty." Lawrence laughed a little. "You're fond of them all, aren't you?" he asked, presently. "Of course! They're my relations--how could I help being fond of them?" "Oh--yes," answered Lawrence, vaguely. "But they really are very nice--people." "Why do you hesitate?" "I don't know. I couldn't say 'very nice ladies,' could I? And I shouldn't exactly say 'very nice women'--and 'very nice people' sounds queer, somehow, doesn't it?" "And you wouldn't say 'very nice old maids'--" "Certainly not!" "No. It wouldn't be civil to me, nor kind to them. The truth is generally unkind and usually rude. Besides, they love you." "Me?" "Yes. They rave about you, and your looks, and your manners, and your conversation, and your talents." "The Dickens! I'm flattered! But it's always the wrong people who like one." "Why the wrong people?" asked Fanny Trehearne, not looking at him. "Because all the liking in the world from people one doesn't care for can't make up for the not liking of the one person one does care for." "Oh--in that way. It's rash to care for only one person. It's putting all one's eggs into one basket." "What an extraordinary sentiment!" "I didn't mean it for sentiment." "No--I should think not! Quite the contrary, I should say." "Quite," affirmed Fanny, gravely. "Quite?" "Yes--almost quite." "Oh--'almost' quite?" "It's the same thing." "Not to me." The young girl would not turn her attention from her horses, though in Lawrence's inexpert opinion she could have done so with perfect safety just then, and without impropriety. The most natural and innocent curiosity should have prompted her to look into his eyes for a moment, if only to see whether he were in earnest or not. He would certainly not have thought her a flirt if she had glanced kindly at him. But she looked resolutely at the horses' heads. "Here we are!" she exclaimed suddenly. With a sharp turn to the left the buckboard swept through the open gate, the off horse breaking into a canter which Fanny instantly checked. The near wheels passed within a foot of the gatepost. "Wasn't that rather close?" asked Lawrence. "Why? There was lots of room. Are you nervous?" "I suppose I am, since you say so." "I didn't say so. I asked." "And I answered," said Lawrence, tartly. "How sensitive you are! You act as though I had called you a coward." "I thought you meant to. It sounded rather like it." "You have no right to think that I mean things which I haven't said," answered the young girl. "Oh, very well. I apologize for thinking that what you said meant anything." "Don't lose your temper--don't be a spoilt baby!" Lawrence said nothing, and they reached the house in silence. Fanny was not mistaken in calling him sensitive, though he was by no means so nervous, perhaps, as she seemed ready to believe. She had a harsh way of saying things which, spoken with a smile, could not have given offence, and Lawrence was apt to attach real importance to her careless speeches. He felt himself out of his element from the first, in a place where he might be expected to do things in which he could not but show an awkward inexperience, and he was ready to resent anything like the suggestion that timidity was at the root of his ignorance, or was even its natural result. His face was unnecessarily grave as he held out his hand to help Fanny down from the buckboard, and she neither touched it nor looked at him as she sprang to the ground. "Go into the library, and we'll have tea," she said, without turning her head, as she entered the house before him. "I'll be down in a moment." She pointed carelessly to the open door and went through the hall in the direction of the staircase. Lawrence entered the room alone. The house was very large; for the Trehearnes were rich people, and liked to have their friends with them in considerable numbers. Moreover, they had bought land in Bar Harbour in days when it had been cheap, and had built their dwelling commodiously, in the midst of a big lot which ran down from the road to the sea. With the instinct of a man who has been obliged to live in New York, squeezed in, as it were, between tall houses on each side, Mr. Trehearne had given himself the luxury, in Bar Harbour, of a house as wide and as deep as he could possibly desire, and only two stories high. The library was in the southwest corner of the house, opening on the south side upon a deep verandah from which wooden steps descended to the shrubbery, and having windows to the west, which overlooked the broad lawn. The latter was enclosed by tall trees. The winding avenue led in a northerly direction to the main road. At the east end of the house, the offices ran out towards the boundary of the Trehearnes' land, and beyond them, among the trees, there was a small yard enclosed by a lattice of wood eight or ten feet high. The library was the principal room on the ground floor, and was really larger than the drawing-room which followed it along the line of the south verandah, though it seemed smaller from being more crowded with furniture. As generally happens in the country, it had become a sort of common room in which everybody preferred to sit. The drawing-room had been almost abandoned of late, the three Miss Miners being sociable beings, unaccustomed to magnificence in their own homes, and averse to being alone with it anywhere. They felt that the drawing-room was too fine for them, and by tacit consent they chose the library for their general trysting-place and tea camp when they were indoors. Mrs. Trehearne, who was, perhaps, a little too fond of splendour, would have smiled at the idea as she thought of her gorgeously brocaded reception rooms in New York; but Fanny had simple tastes, like her father, and agreed with her old-maid cousins in preferring the plain, dark woodwork, the comfortable leathern chairs, and the backs of the books, to the dreary wilderness of expensive rugs and unnecessary gilding which lay beyond. For the sake of coolness, the doors were usually opened between the rooms. CHAPTER III. The weather was warm. By contrast with the cool air of the bay he had lately crossed, it seemed hot to Lawrence when he entered the library. Barely glancing at the room, he went straight to one of the doors which opened upon the verandah, and going out, sat down discontentedly in a big cushioned straw chair. It was very warm, and it seemed suddenly very still. In the distance he could hear the wheels of the buckboard in the avenue, as the groom took it round to the stables, and out of the close shrubbery he caught the sharp, dry sound of footsteps rapidly retreating along a concealed cinder path. The air scarcely stirred the creeper which climbed up one of the pillars of the verandah and festooned its way, curtain-like, in both directions to the opposite ends. On his right he could see the broad, sloping lawn, all shadowed now by the tall trees beyond. Without looking directly at it, he felt that the vivid green of the grass was softened and that there must be gold in the tops of the trees. The sensation was restful, but his eyes stared vacantly at the deep shrubbery which began at the foot of the verandah steps and stretched away under the spruces at his left. He was exceedingly discontented, though he had just arrived, or, perhaps, for that very reason among many other minor ones. He had never had any cause to expect from Fanny Trehearne anything in the way of sentiment, but he was none the less persuaded that he had a moral right to look for something more than chaff and good-natured hospitality, spiced with such vigorous reproof as "don't be a spoilt baby." The words rankled. He was asking himself just then whether he was a "spoilt baby" or not. It was of great importance to him to know the truth. If he was a spoilt baby, of course Miss Trehearne had a right to say so if she liked, though the expression was not complimentary. But if not, she was monstrously unjust. He did not deny that the accusation might be well founded; for he was modest as well as sensitive, and did not think very highly of himself at present, though he hoped great things for the future, and believed that he was to be a famous artist. The more he told himself that he had no right to expect anything of Fanny, the more thoroughly convinced he became that his right existed, and that she was trampling upon it. She had ordered him into the library in a very peremptory and high-and-mighty fashion to wait for her, regardless of the fact that he had travelled twenty-four hours, and had acquired the prerogative right of the traveller to soap and water before all else. No doubt he was quite presentable, since the conditions of modern railways had made it possible to come in clean, or comparatively so, from a longish run. But the ancient traditions ought not to be swept out of the way, Louis thought, and the right of scrubbing subsisted still. She might at least have given him a hint as to the whereabouts of his room, since she had left him to himself for a quarter of an hour. She had not been gone four minutes yet, but Louis made it fifteen, and fifteen it was to be, in his estimation. Presently he heard a man's footstep in the library behind him, and the subdued tinkling of a superior tea-service, of which the sound differs from the clatter of the hotel tea-tray, as the voice, say, of Fanny Trehearne differed in refinement from that of an Irish cook. But it irritated Lawrence, nevertheless, and he did not look round. He felt that when Fanny came down again, he intended to refuse tea altogether--presumably, by way of proving that he was not a spoilt baby after all. He crossed one leg over the other impatiently, and hesitated as to whether, if he lit a cigarette, it would seem rude to be smoking when Fanny should come, even though he was really in the open air on the verandah. But in this, his manners had the better of his impatience, and after touching his cigarette case in his pocket, in a longing way, he did not take it out. At last he heard Fanny enter the room. There was no mistaking her tread, for he had noticed that she wore tennis shoes. He knew that she could not see him where he sat, and he turned his head towards the door expectantly. Again he heard the tinkle of the tea-things. Then there was silence. Then the urn began to hiss and sing softly, and there was another sort of tinkling. It was clear that Fanny had sat down. She could have no idea that he was sitting outside, as he knew, but he thought she might have taken the trouble to look for him. He listened intently for the sound of her step again, but it did not come, and, oddly enough, his heart began to beat more quickly. But he did not move. He felt a ridiculous determination to wait until she began to be impatient and to move about and look for him. He could not have told whether it were timidity, or nervousness, or ill-temper which kept him nailed to his chair, and just then he would have scorned the idea that it could be love in any shape, though his heart was beating so fast. Suddenly his straining ear caught the soft rustle made by the pages of a book, turned deliberately and smoothed afterwards. She was calmly reading, indifferent to his coming or staying away--reading while the tea was drawing. How stolid she was, he thought. She was certainly not conscious of the action of her heart as she sat there. For a few moments longer he did not move. Then he felt he wished to see her, to see how she was sitting, and how really indifferent she was. But if he made a sound, she would look up and lay down her book even before he entered the room. The verandah had a floor of painted boards,--which are more noisy than unpainted ones, for some occult reason,--and he could not stir a step without being heard. Besides, his straw easy-chair would creak when he rose. All at once he felt how very foolish he was, and he got up noisily, an angry blush on his young face. He reached the entrance in two strides and stood in the open doorway, with his back to the light. As he had guessed, Fanny was reading. "Oh!" he ejaculated with affected surprise, as he looked at her. She did not raise her eyes nor start, being evidently intent upon finishing the sentence she had begun. "I thought you were never coming," she said, absently. He was more hurt than ever by her indifference, and sat down at a little distance, without moving the light chair he had chosen. Fanny reached the foot of the page, put a letter she held into the place, closed the book upon it, and then at last looked up. "Do you like your tea strong or weak?" she enquired in a business-like tone. "Just as it comes--I don't care," answered Lawrence, gloomily. "Then I'll give it to you now. I like mine strong." "It's bad for the nerves." "I haven't any nerves," said Fanny Trehearne, with conviction. "That's curious," observed Lawrence, with fine sarcasm. Fanny looked at him without smiling, since there was nothing to smile at, and then poured out his tea. He took it in silence, but helped himself to more sugar, with a reproachful air. "Oh--you like it sweet, do you?" said Fanny, interrogatively. "Peculiarity of spoilt babies," answered Lawrence, in bitter tones. "Yes, I see it is." And with this crushing retort Fanny Trehearne relapsed into silence. Lawrence began to drink his tea, burnt his mouth with courageous indifference, stirred up the sugar gravely, and said nothing. "I wonder when they'll get home," said Fanny, after a long interval. "Are you anxious about them?" enquired the young man, with affected politeness. "Anxious? No! I was only wondering." "I'm not very amusing, I know," said Lawrence, grimly. "No, you're not." The blood rushed to his face again with his sudden irritation, and he drank more hot tea to keep himself in countenance. At that moment he sincerely wished that he had not come to Bar Harbour at all. "You're not particularly encouraging, Miss Trehearne," he said presently. "I'm sure, I'm doing my best to be agreeable." "And you think that I'm doing my best to be disagreeable? I'm not, you know. It's your imagination." "I don't know," answered Lawrence, his face unbending a little. "You began by telling me that you despised me because I'm such a duffer at out-of-door things, then you told me I was a spoilt baby, and now you're proving to me that I'm a bore." "Duffer, baby, and bore!" Fanny laughed. "What an appalling combination!" "It is, indeed. But that's what you said--" "Oh, nonsense! I wasn't as rude as that, was I? But I never said anything of the sort, you know." "You really did say that I was a spoilt baby--" "No. I told you not to be, by way of a general warning--" "Well, it's the same thing--" "Is it? If I tell you not to go out of the room, for instance, and if you sit still--is it the same thing as though you got up and went out?" "Why no--of course not! How absurd!" "Well, the other is absurd too." "I'll never say again that women aren't logical," answered Lawrence, smiling in spite of himself. "No--don't. Have some more tea." "Thanks--I've not finished. It's too hot to drink." Thereupon, his good temper returning, he desisted from self-torture by scalding, and set the cup down. Fanny watched him, but turned her eyes away as he looked up and she met his glance. "I'm so glad you've come," she said quietly. "I've looked forward to it." Perhaps she was a little the more ready to say so, because she was inwardly conscious of having rather wilfully teased him, but she meant what she said. Lawrence felt his heart beating again in a moment. Resting his elbow on his knees, he clasped his hands and looked down at the pattern of the rug under his feet. She did not realize how easily she could move him, not being by any means a flirt. "It's nothing to the way I've looked forward to it," he answered. She was silent, but he did not raise his head. He could see her face in the carpet. "You know that, don't you?" he asked, in a low voice, after a few moments. Unfortunately for his information on the subject, the butler appeared just then, announcing a visitor. "Mr. Brinsley." It was clear that the manservant had no option in the matter of admitting the newcomer, who was in the room almost before his name was pronounced. "How do you do, Miss Trehearne?" he began as he came swiftly forward. "I'm tremendously glad to find you at home. You're generally out at this hour." "Is that why you chose it?" asked Fanny, with a little laugh and holding out her hand. "Do you know Mr. Lawrence?" she continued, by way of introducing the two men. "Mr. Brinsley," she added, for Louis's benefit. Lawrence had risen, and he shook hands with a good grace. But he hated Mr. Brinsley at once, both because the latter had come inopportunely and because his own sensitive nature was instantly and strongly repelled by the man. There was no mistaking Mr. Brinsley's Canadian accent, though he seemed anxious to make it as English as possible, and Lawrence disliked Canadians; but that fact alone could not have produced the strongly disagreeable sensation of which the younger man was at once conscious, and he looked at the visitor in something like surprise at the strength of his instantaneous aversion. Brinsley, though dressed quietly, and with irreproachable correctness, was a showy man, of medium height, but magnificently made. His wrists were slender, nervous, and sinewy, his ankles--displayed to advantage by his low russet shoes--were beautifully modelled, whereas his shoulders were almost abnormally broad, and the cords and veins moved visibly in his athletic neck when he spoke or moved. The powerful muscles were apparent under his thin grey clothes, and Lawrence had noticed the perfect grace and strength of his quick step when he had entered. In face he was very dark, and his wiry, short black hair had rusty reflexions. His skin was tanned to a deep brown, and mottled, especially about the eyes, with deep shadows, in which were freckles even darker than the shadows themselves. His beard evidently grew as high as his cheek bones, for the line from which it was shaved was cleanly drawn and marked by the dark fringe remaining above. His mustache was black and heavy, and he wore very small, closely cropped whiskers like those affected by naval officers. He had one of those arrogant, vain, astute noses which seem to point at whatever the small and beady black eyes judge to be worth having. At a glance, Lawrence saw that Brinsley was an athlete, and he guessed instantly that the man must be good at all those things which Louis himself was unable to do. He was a man to ride, drive, run, pull an oar, and beat everybody at tennis. But neither was that the reason why Lawrence hated him from the first. It had been the touch of his hard dry hand, perhaps, or the flash of the light in his small black eyes, or his self-satisfied and all-conquering expression. It was not easy to say. Possibly, too, Louis thought that Brinsley was his rival, and resented the fact that Fanny had betrayed no annoyance at the interruption. But Brinsley barely vouchsafed Lawrence a glance, as the latter thought, and immediately sat himself down much nearer to Miss Trehearne and the tea-table than Louis, in his previous rage, had thought fit to do. "Well, Miss Trehearne," said Brinsley, "how is Tim? Isn't he all right yet?" "He's better," answered Fanny. "He had a bad time of it, but you can't kill a wire-haired terrier, you know. He wouldn't take the phosphate. I believe it was sweetened, and he hates sugar." "So do I. Please don't give me any," he added quickly, watching her as she prepared a cup of tea for him. Lawrence's resentment began to grow again. It was doubtless because Mr. Brinsley never took sugar that Fanny had seemed scornfully surprised at the artist's weakness for it. CHAPTER IV. Louis Lawrence was exceedingly uncomfortable during the next few minutes, and to add to his misery, he was quite conscious that he had nothing to complain of. It was natural that he should not know the people in Bar Harbour, excepting those whom he had known before, and that he should be in complete ignorance of all projected gaieties. Of course no one had suggested to the Reveres, for instance, to ask him to their dance; because they were Boston people, they did not know him, and nobody was aware that he was within reach. Besides, Louis Lawrence was a very insignificant personage, though he was well-connected, well-bred, and not ill-looking. He was just now a mere struggling artist, with no money except in the questionable future, and if he had talent, it was problematical, since he had not distinguished himself in any way as yet. He remembered all these things, but they did not console him. In order not to seem rude, he made vague remarks from time to time, when something occurred to him to say, but he inwardly wished Brinsley a speedy departure and a fearful end. Fanny seemed amused and interested by the man's conversation, and she herself talked fluently. Now and then Brinsley looked at Lawrence, really surprised by the latter's ignorance of everything in the nature of sport, and possibly with a passing contempt which Lawrence noticed and proceeded to exaggerate in importance. The artist was on the point of asking Fanny's permission to go and find the room allotted to him, when a sound of women's voices, high and low, came through the open windows. There was an audible little confusion in the hall, and the three Miss Miners entered the library one after the other in quick succession. "Oh, Mr. Brinsley!" exclaimed Miss Cordelia, the eldest, coming forward with a pale smile which showed many of her very beautiful teeth. "Mr. Brinsley is here," said Miss Elizabeth, the ugly one, in an undertone to Miss Augusta, who possessed the accomplishments. Then they also advanced and shook hands with much cordiality, the remains of which were promptly offered to Lawrence. Mr. Brinsley did not seem in the least overpowered by the sudden entrance of the three old maids. He smiled, moved up several chairs to the tea-table, and laughed agreeably over each chair, though Lawrence could not see that there was anything to laugh at. Brinsley's vitality was tremendous, and his manners were certainly very good, so that he was a useful person in a drawing-room. His assurance, if put to the test, would have been found equal to most emergencies. But on the present occasion he had no need of it. It was evidently his mission to be worshipped by the three Miss Miners and to be liked by Miss Trehearne, who did not like everybody. "I'm sure we've missed the best part of your visit," said Miss Cordelia. "Oh no," answered Brinsley, promptly. "I've only just come--at least it seems so to me," he added, smiling at Fanny across the tea-table. Lawrence thought he must have been in the room more than half an hour, but the sisters were all delighted by the news that their idol meant to stay some time longer. "How nice it would be if everybody made such speeches!" sighed Miss Augusta to Lawrence, who was next to her. "Such a charming way of making Fanny feel that she talks well! I'm sure he's really been here some time." "He has," answered Lawrence, absently and without lowering his voice enough, for Brinsley immediately glanced at him. "We've been having such a pleasant talk about the dogs and horses," said the Canadian, willing to be disagreeable to the one other man present. "I'm afraid we've bored Mr. Lawrence to death, Miss Trehearne--he doesn't seem to care for those things as much as we do." "I don't know anything about them," answered the young man. "I'm afraid you'll bore yourself in Bar Harbour, then," observed Mr. Brinsley. "What can you find to do all day long?" "Nothing. I'm an artist." "Ah? That's very nice--you'll be able to go out sketching with Miss Augusta--long excursions, don't you know? All day--" "Oh, I shouldn't dare to suggest such a thing!" cried Miss Augusta. "I'm sure I should be very happy, if you'd like to go," said Lawrence, politely facing the dreadful possibility of a day with her in the woods, while Brinsley would in all likelihood be riding with Fanny or taking her out in a catboat. But Miss Augusta paid little attention to him, so long as Brinsley was talking, which was most of the time. The man did not say anything worth repeating, but Lawrence knew that he was far from stupid in spite of his empty talk. At last Lawrence merely looked on, controlling his nervousness as well as he could and idly watching the faces of the party. Brinsley talked on and on, twisting to pieces the stem of a flower which he had worn in his coat, but which had unaccountably broken off. Lawrence wondered whether Fanny, too, could be under the charm, and he watched her with some anxiety. There was something oddly inscrutable in the young girl's face and in her quiet eyes that did not often smile, even when she laughed. He had the strong impression, and he had felt it before, that she was very well able to conceal her real thoughts and intentions, behind a mask of genuine frankness and straightforwardness. There are certain men and women who possess that gift. Without ever saying a word which even faintly suggests prevarication, they have a masterly reticence about what they do not wish to have known, whereby their acquaintances are sometimes more completely deceived than they could be by the most ingenious falsehood. Lawrence was quite unable to judge from Fanny's face whether she liked Brinsley or not, but he was wounded by a certain deference, if that word be not too strong, which she showed for the man's opinion, and which contrasted slightly with the dictatorial superiority which she assumed towards Lawrence himself. He consoled himself as well as he could with the reflection that he really knew nothing about dogs, horses, or boats, and that Brinsley was certainly his master in all such knowledge. As an artist, he could not but admire the perfect proportions of the visitor, the strength of him, and the satisfactory equilibrium of forces which showed itself in his whole physical being; but as a gentleman he was repelled by something not easily defined, and as a lover he suspected a rival. He had not much right, indeed, to believe that Fanny Trehearne cared especially for him, any more than to predicate that she was in love with Brinsley. But, being in love himself, he very naturally arrogated to himself such a right without the slightest hesitation, and he boldly asserted in his heart that Brinsley was nothing but a very handsome 'cad,' and that Fanny Trehearne was on the verge of marrying him. The conversation, meanwhile, was lively to the ear, if not to the intelligence. It was amazing to see how the three spinsters flattered their darling at every turn. Miss Cordelia led the chorus of praise, and her sisters, to speak musically, took up the theme, and answer, and counter-theme of the fugue, successively, in many keys. There was nothing that Mr. Brinsley did not know and could not do, according to the three Miss Miners, or if there were anything, it could not be worth knowing or doing. "You'll flatter Mr. Brinsley to death," laughed Fanny, "though I must say that he bears it well." A faint shade of colour rose in Miss Cordelia's pale cheeks, indicative of indignation. "Fanny!" she cried reprovingly. "How rude you are! I'm sure I wasn't saying anything at all flattering." "I only wish people would say such things to me, then!" retorted the young girl. "We're all quite ready to, I'm sure, Miss Trehearne," said Brinsley, smiling in a way that seemed to make his heavy dark mustache retreat outward, up his cheeks, like the whiskers of a cat when it grins. Fanny looked round and met Lawrence's eyes. "You seem to be the only one who is ready," she said, laughing again. "One isn't a crowd, as the little boys say." "Where do you get such expressions, my dear child?" asked Cordelia. "I really think you've learned more slang since you've been here this summer, though I shouldn't have believed it possible!" "There!" exclaimed Fanny, turning to Mr. Brinsley again. "That's the kind of flattery my relatives lavish on me from morning till night! As if you didn't all talk slang, the whole time!" "Fanny!" protested Augusta, whose accomplishments made her sensitive and conscious. "How can you say so?" "Well--dialect, if you like the word better. I'll prove it you. You all say 'won't' and 'shan't'--and most of you say 'I'd like'--for instance--and Mr. Brinsley says 'ain't,' because he's English--" "Well--what ought we to say?" asked Augusta. "Nobody says 'I will not,' and all that." "You ought to. It's dialect not to--and the absurd thing is that people who go in for writing books generally write out all the things you don't say, and write them in the wrong order. We say 'wouldn't you'--don't we? Well, doesn't that stand for 'would not you'? And yet they print 'would you not'--always. It's ridiculous. I read a criticism the other day on a man who had written a book and who wrote 'will not you' for 'won't you' and 'would not you' for 'wouldn't you' because he wanted to be accurate. You've no idea what horrid things the critic said of him--he simply stood on his hind legs and pawed the air! It's so silly! Either we should speak as we write, or write as we speak. I don't mean in philosophy--and things--the steam-engine and the descent of man, and all that--but in writing out conversations. But then, of course, nobody will agree with me--so I talk as I please." "There's a great deal of truth in what you say, Miss Trehearne," observed Brinsley, assuming a wise air. "Besides, I beg to differ from Miss Miner, on one point--I venture to say that I don't dislike your slang, if it's slang at all. It's expressive, of its kind." "At last!" cried Fanny, with a laugh. "I get some praise--faint, but perceptible." "Faint praise isn't supposed to be complimentary," observed Lawrence, laughing too. "That's true," answered Fanny. "It's just the opposite--the thing with a d-- I won't say it on account of Cordelia. She'd all frizzle up with horror if I said it--wouldn't you, dear? There'd positively be nothing left of you--nothing but a dear little withered rose-leaf with a dewdrop in the middle, representing your tears for my sins!" "I'm afraid so," answered Cordelia, with a little accentuation of her tired smile. It was not a disagreeable smile in itself, except that it was perpetual and was the expression of patiently and cheerfully borne adversity, rather than of any satisfaction with things in general. For the lives of the three Miss Miners had not been happy. Sometimes Fanny felt a sincere and loving pity for the three, and especially for the eldest. But there were also times when Cordelia's smile exasperated her beyond endurance. Mr. Brinsley rose to go, rather suddenly, after checking a movement of his hand in the direction of his watch. "You're not going, surely!" cried one or two of the Miss Miners. "You're coming to dinner." "Stay as you are," suggested Fanny, greatly to Lawrence's annoyance. "You're awfully kind," answered the Canadian. "But I can't, to-night. I wish I could. I've asked several people to dine with me at the Kebo Valley Club. I'd cut any other engagement, to dine with you--indeed I would. I'm awfully sorry." Many regrets were expressed that he could not stay, and the leave-taking seemed sudden to Lawrence, who stood looking on, still wondering why he disliked the man so much. At last he heard the front door closed behind him. "Who is Mr. Brinsley?" he asked of Fanny Trehearne, while the three Miss Miners were settling themselves again. "Oh--I don't know. I believe he's a Canadian Englishman. He's very agreeable--don't you think so?" "He's the most delightful man I ever met!" sighed Augusta Miner, before Lawrence had time to say anything. "Did you notice his eyes, Mr. Lawrence?" asked Miss Elizabeth. "Don't you think they're beautiful?" "Beautiful? Well--it depends," Lawrence answered with considerable hesitation, for he did not in the least know what to say. "Oh, but it isn't his eyes, nor his conversation!" put in Cordelia, emphatically. "It is that he's such a perfect gentleman! You feel that he wouldn't do anything that wasn't quite--quite--don't you know?" "I'm not sure that I do," replied Lawrence, in some bewilderment. "But I understand what you mean," he added confidently. "My dear," said Augusta to her eldest sister, "all that is perfectly true, as I always say. But those are not the things that make him the most charming man I ever met. Oh dear, no! Ever so many men one knows have good eyes, and talk well, and are gentlemen in every way. I'm sure you wouldn't have a man about if he wasn't a gentleman. Would you?" "Oh no--in a wider sense--all the men we have to do with are, of course--" "Well," argued Augusta, "that's just what I'm telling you, my dear. It isn't those things. It lies much deeper. It's a sort of refined appreciation--an appreciative refinement--both, you know. Now, the other day, do you remember?--when I was playing that Mazurka of Chopin--did you notice his expression?" "But he always has that expression when anything pleases him very much," said Miss Elizabeth. "Yes, I know. But just then, it was quite extraordinary--there's something almost childlike--" "If you go on about Mr. Brinsley in this way much longer, you'll all have a fit," observed Fanny Trehearne. "My dear," answered Cordelia, gravely, "do you know what a 'fit' means? Really, sometimes, you do exaggerate--" "A fit means convulsions--what babies have, you know. They used to say it was brought on by looking at the moon." Lawrence felt a strong inclination to laugh at this moment, but he controlled it, and only smiled. Then, to his considerable embarrassment, they all appealed to him, probably in the hope of more praise for Brinsley. "Do tell us how he strikes you, Mr. Lawrence," said Cordelia. "Yes, do!" echoed Elizabeth. "Oh, please do!" cried Augusta, at the same moment. "I should be curious to know what you think of him," said Fanny Trehearne. "Well, really," stammered the unfortunate young man, "I've hardly seen him--I've not had time to form an opinion--you must know him, and you all like him, and--it seems to me--that settles it. Doesn't it?" While Lawrence was speaking, Miss Cordelia stooped and picked something up from the floor. He noticed that it was the leafless stem of the flower which Brinsley had been twisting in his fingers. She did not throw it away, but her hand closed over it, and Lawrence did not see it again. CHAPTER V. Louis Lawrence had not been at Bar Harbour a week before he became fully aware--if indeed there had previously been any doubt on the subject in his mind--that he was very much in love with Fanny Trehearne. It became clear to him that, although he had believed himself to be in love once or twice before then, he had been mistaken, and that he had never known until the present time exactly what love meant. He was not even sure that he was pleased with the passion, or, at least, with the form in which it attacked him. Sensitive as he was, it 'took him hard,' as the saying is, and he felt that it had the better of him at every turn, and disposed of him in spite of himself at every hour of the day. When he was alone he wondered why he had been asked to the house, and whether Mr. and Mrs. Trehearne, who were abroad, knew anything about it. He was a modest man, and was inclined to underestimate himself, so that it could never have occurred to him that Fanny Trehearne might have been strongly attracted by him during their acquaintance in town, and might have insisted that he should be asked to come and pass a fortnight. Moreover, Fanny lost no opportunity of impressing upon him that he was a great favourite with the three Miss Miners, and she managed to convey the impression that he had been asked chiefly to please them, though she never said so. Meanwhile, however, it was evident that the three sisters were absorbed in Mr. Brinsley, and that when the latter was present they took very little notice of Lawrence. He laughed at the thought that the three old maids should all be equally in love with the showy Canadian, and he told himself that the thing was ridiculous; that they were merely enthusiastic women,--'gushing' women, he called them in his thoughts,--who were flattered by the diplomatic and unfailing civilities of a man who was evidently in pursuit of Fanny Trehearne. For by this time he was convinced that Brinsley had made up his mind to marry Fanny if he could; and he hated him all the more for it, even to formulating wicked prayers for the suitor's immediate destruction. The worst of it was, that the man might possibly succeed. A girl who will and can ride anything, who beats everybody at tennis, and who is as good as most men in a sail-boat, may naturally be supposed to admire a man who does those things, and many others, in a style bordering upon perfection. This same man, too, though not exactly clever in an intellectual way, possessed at least the gifts of fluency and tact, combined with great coolness under all circumstances, so far as Lawrence had observed him. It was hardly fair to assert that he was dishonest because he flattered the three Miss Miners, and occupied himself largely in trying to anticipate their smallest wishes. He did it so well as to make even Fanny Trehearne believe that he liked them for their own sakes, and that his intentions were disinterested and not directed wholly to herself. Of course she knew that he wished to marry her; but she was used to that. Two, at least, of several men who had already informed her that their happiness depended upon winning her, were even now in Bar Harbour,--presumably repeating that or a similar statement to more or less willing ears. As for Lawrence, he could not fairly blame Brinsley for his behaviour--he confessed in secret that he flattered the three Miss Miners himself, with small regard for unprejudiced truth. Besides, they were very kind to him. But he found it hard to speak fairly of Brinsley when alone with Fanny Trehearne. "I don't like the man," he said, on inadequate provocation, for the twentieth time. "I know you don't," answered Fanny, calmly, "but that's no reason for letting go of the tiller. Mind the boom! she's going about--no--it's of no use to put the helm up now. We've no way on--let her go! No--I don't mean that--oh, do give it to me!" And thereupon Fanny, who was sitting forward of him on the weather side, stretched her long arm across him, pushing him back into his corner, and put the helm hard down with her left hand, while she hauled in the sheet as much as she could with her right, bending her head low to avoid the boom as it came swinging over. Lawrence could not help looking down at her, and he forgot all about the boom, being far too little familiar with boating to avoid it instinctively, when he felt the boat going about. It came slowly, for there was little wind; and the catboat, having no way on to speak of, was in no hurry to right herself and go over on the other tack,--but just as the shadow of the sail warned him that something was coming, he looked up, and at the same instant received the blow full on his forehead, just above his eyes. He wore a soft, knitted woollen cap, which did not even afford the protection of a visor. Fanny turned her head at once, for the blow had been audible, and she saw what had happened. Lawrence had raised his hand to his forehead instinctively. "Are you hurt?" asked Fanny, quickly, keeping her eyes upon him, and still holding the helm hard over so as to give the boat way. Lawrence did not answer at once. He was half stunned, and still covered his forehead with his hand. The young girl looked at him intently, and there was an expression in her eyes which he, at least, had never seen there--a sudden, scared light which had nothing to do with fear. "Are you hurt?" she asked again, gently. His delicate face grew suddenly pale, as the blood, which had rushed up at first under the shock of the blow, subsided as suddenly. Fanny turned her eyes from him and looked ahead and under the sail to leeward. She let out a little more sheet, so that the boat could run very free; for the craft, like most catboats, had a weather helm when the sheet was well aft, and Fanny wanted her hands. Moreover, Lawrence was now on the lee side with her, and the boat would have heeled too far over with the wind abeam. As soon as the sail drew properly, Fanny sat up beside Lawrence, steering across him with her left hand. With her right she could reach the water, and she scooped up what she could in her hollow palm, wetting her sleeve to the shoulder as she did so, for the boat was gaining speed. She dashed the drops in his face. "Are you hurt?" she asked a third time, drawing away his hand and laying her own wet one upon his forehead. "Oh no," he answered faintly. "I'm not hurt at all." She could tell by his voice that he was not speaking the truth, and a moment later, as he leaned against the side of the boat, his head fell back, and his lips parted in a dead faint. There was no scorn in the young girl's face for a man who could faint so easily, as it seemed; but the scared look came into her eyes again, and without hesitation, still steering with her left hand, she passed her right arm round his neck and supported him. The breeze was almost in her face now, for she was looking astern, and she knew by the way it fanned her whether she was keeping the boat fairly before it. Lawrence did not revive immediately, and it was fortunate that there was so little wind, or Fanny might have got into trouble. She looked at him a moment longer and hesitated, for the position was a difficult one, as will be admitted. But she was equal to it and knew what to do. Letting his head fall back as it would, she withdrew her arm, let go the helm, and hauled in the sheet as the boat's head came up. As the boom came over towards Lawrence's head, she caught it and lifted it over him, hauled in the slack and made the sheet fast, springing forward instantly to let go the halliards. The gaff came rattling down, and she gathered in the bellying sail hastily and took a turn round everything with the end of the throat halliard, which chanced to be long enough--the gaskets were out of her reach, in the bottom of the boat. There was little or no sea on, as the tide was near the turning, and the cat-boat was rocking softly to the little waves when Fanny came aft again. Lawrence's head was still hanging back, his lips were parted, and his eyes were half open, showing the whites in a rather ghastly way. With strong arms the young girl half lifted him, and let him gently down upon the cushions in the stern-sheets. Then she leaned over the side and wetted her handkerchief and laid it upon his bruised forehead. The cold water and the change of position brought him to himself. He opened his eyes and looked up into her face as she bent over him. Then, all at once, he seemed to realize what had happened, and with an exclamation he tried to sit up. But she would not let him. "Lie still a minute longer!" she said authoritatively. "You'll be all right in a little while." "But it isn't anything, I assure you," he protested, looking about him in a dazed way. "Please let me sit up! I won't make a fool of myself again--it's only my heart, you know. It stops sometimes--it wasn't the knock." "Your heart?" repeated Fanny, with greater anxiety than Lawrence might have expected. "You haven't got heart disease, have you?" "Oh no--not so bad as that. It's all right now. It will begin to beat very hard presently--there--I can feel it--and then it will go on regularly again. It isn't anything. I fancy I smoke too much--or it's coffee--or something. Please don't look as though you thought it were anything serious, Miss Trehearne. I assure you, it's nothing. Lots of people have it." "It is serious. Anything that has to do with the heart is serious." Lawrence smiled faintly. "Is that a joke?" he asked. "If it is, please let me sit up." "No--that isn't a reason," answered Fanny, laughing a little, though her eyes were still grave. "You must lie still a little longer. You might faint again, you know. It must be dangerous to have one's heart behaving so strangely." "Oh--I don't believe so." "You don't believe so? You mean that it's possible, but that you hope it won't stop? Is that it?" "Oh--well--perhaps. But I don't think there's any real danger. Besides--if it did, it's easy, you know." "What's easy?" "It's an easy death--over at once, in a flash. No lingering and last words and all that." He laughed. Fanny Trehearne's sunburned cheeks grew pale under their tan, and her cool grey eyes turned slowly away from his face, and rested on the blue water. "Please don't talk about such things!" she said in a tone that seemed hard to Lawrence. "Are you afraid of death?" he asked, still smiling. "I?" She turned upon him indignantly. "No--I don't believe that I'm much afraid of anything--for myself." "You turned pale," observed the young man, raising himself on his elbow as he lay on the cushions, and looking at her. Her colour came back more quickly than it had gone. "Did I?" she asked indifferently enough. "It's probably the sun. It's hot, lying here and drifting." "No. It wasn't the sun," said Lawrence, with conviction. "You were thinking that somebody you are fond of might die suddenly. We were talking about death." "What difference does it make whom I was thinking of?" She spoke impatiently now, still watching the water. "It makes all the difference there is, that's all," answered Lawrence. "Won't you tell me?" "No. Certainly not! Why should I? Look here--if you're well enough to talk, you're well enough to help me to get the sail up again." "Of course I am--but--" Lawrence showed no inclination to move. "But what? You're too lazy, I suppose." Fanny laughed. "Let me see your forehead--take your cap off," she added with a change of tone. Lawrence thrust the cap back, which did not help matters much, as his hair grew low and partially hid the bruise. The skin was not broken, but it was almost purple, and a large swelling had already appeared. "It's too bad!" exclaimed Fanny, looking at it, as he bent down his head, and softly touching it with her ungloved hand. "Tell me--do you feel very weak and dizzy still? I was only laughing when I spoke of your helping me with the sail." "Oh no!" answered Lawrence, cheerfully. "It aches a little, of course, but it will soon go off." "And your heart?" asked Fanny, anxiously. "Is it all right now? You don't think you'll faint again, do you?" "Not a bit." "I'm not sure. You're very pale." "I'm always pale, you know. It's my nature. It doesn't mean anything. Some people are naturally pale." "But you're not. You're dark, or brown, and not red, but you're not usually pale. I wish I had some whiskey, or something, to give you." She looked round the boat rather helplessly as though expecting to discover a remedy for his weakness. "Please don't make so much of it," said Lawrence, in a tone which showed that he was almost annoyed by her persistence. "I assure you that I won't have such bad taste as to die on your hands before we get to land!" Fanny rose to her feet and turned away from him with an impatient exclamation. "Just keep the helm amidships while I get the sail up," she said, without looking at him, and stepping upon the seat which ran along the side, she was on the little deck in a moment, with both halliards in her hands. Lawrence sprang forward to help her, forgetting what she had just told him to do. "Do as I told you!" she exclaimed quickly and impatiently. "Do you know what the tiller is? Well, keep it right in the middle till I tell you to do something else." "Don't be fierce about it," laughed Lawrence, obeying her. But when she was not looking, he pressed one hand to his forehead with all his might, as though to drive out the pain, which increased with every minute. Meanwhile, Fanny laid her weight to the halliards, and the sail went flapping up, throat and peak. The girl was very strong, and had been taught to handle a catboat when she had been a mere child, so that there was nothing extraordinary in her accomplishing unaided a little feat which would have puzzled many a smart young gentleman who fancies himself half a sailor. CHAPTER VI. It chanced that on that evening Roger Brinsley was to dine with the Miss Miners. He was often asked, and he accepted as often as he could. As a matter of fact, he was not so much sought after elsewhere, as he was willing to let the four ladies believe, for there were people in Bar Harbour who shared Lawrence's distrust of him, while admitting that, so far as they could tell, it was quite unfounded. There was nothing against him. The men said that he played a good deal at the club, and remarked that he was a good type of the professional gambler, but no one ever said that he won too much. On the contrary, it was believed that he had lost altogether rather heavily during the six weeks since he had first appeared. He paid cheerfully, however, and was thought to be rich. Nevertheless, the men whose opinion was worth having did not like him. They wondered why the Miss Miners had him so often to the house, and whether there were not some danger that Fanny Trehearne might take a fancy to him. It was very late when Fanny and Lawrence got home, for the catboat had been carried far up Frenchman's Bay during the time after the little accident, and it had been necessary to beat to windward for two hours against the rising tide in order to fetch the channel between Bar Island and Sheep Porcupine. The consequence was that the pair had scarcely time to dress for dinner after they reached the house. Lawrence felt ill and tired, and was conscious that the swelling on his forehead was not beautiful to see. He was still dazed, and by no means himself, when he looked into the glass and knotted his tie. But though he might well have given an excuse and stayed in his room instead of going down to dinner, he refused to consider the possibility of such a thing even for a moment. He felt something just then which more than compensated him for his bruises and his wretched sensation of weakness. The conversation, after the boat had got under way again, had languished, and had been so constantly interrupted by the often repeated operation of going about, that Lawrence had not succeeded in bringing it back to the point at which Fanny had broken it off when she had gone forward to hoist the sail. But he had more than half guessed what might have followed, and the reasonable belief that he might be right had changed the face of his world. He believed that Fanny had turned pale at the idea that his life was in danger. One smiles at the simplicity of the thought, in black and white, by itself, just itself, and nothing more. Yet it was a great matter to Louis Lawrence, and as he looked at his bruised face in the glass he felt that he was too happy to shut himself up in his room for the evening, out of sight of the cool grey eyes he loved. He had assuredly not meant to frighten Fanny when he had spoken, and he had been very far from inventing an imaginary ailment with which to excite her sympathy. The whole thing had come up unexpectedly as the result of the accident. Hence its value. As often happens, the two people in the house who had been most hurried in dressing were the first down, and as Lawrence entered the library he heard Fanny's footstep behind him. He bowed as they came forward together to the empty fireplace. She looked at him critically before she spoke. "You're badly knocked about. How do you feel?" There was a man-like directness in her way of asking questions, which was softened by the beauty of her voice. "I feel--as I never felt before," answered Lawrence, conscious that his eyes grew dark as they met hers. "You told me something to-day--though you did not say it." Fanny did not avoid his gaze. "Did I?" she asked very gravely. "Yes. Plainly." "I'm very sorry," she answered, with a little sigh, and turning from him at last. "Are you taking it back?" Louis's voice trembled as he asked the question. "Hush!" Just then the voices of the three Miss Miners were heard in the hall, and at the same instant the distant tinkle of the front-door bell announced the arrival of Roger Brinsley. The conversation turned upon Lawrence's accident, from the first, as was natural, considering his appearance. He dwelt laughingly on his utter helplessness in a boat, while Fanny was inclined to consider the whole affair as rather serious. For some reason or other Brinsley was displeased at it, and ventured to say a disagreeable thing. He had lost at cards in the afternoon and was in bad humour. He spoke to Fanny with affected apprehension. "You really ought to take somebody with you who knows enough to lend a hand at a pinch, Miss Trehearne," he said. "Suppose that you got into a squall and had to take a reef--you'd be in a bad way, you know." "If I couldn't manage a catboat alone, I'd walk," answered Fanny, with contempt. "Yes--no doubt. But if a squall really came up, what would you do? Mr. Lawrence confesses that he couldn't help you." "Are you chaffing, Mr. Brinsley?" asked Fanny, severely. "Or do you think I really shouldn't know what to do?" "I doubt whether you would." "Oh--I'd let go the halliards and lash the helm amidships, and take my reef with the sail down--'hoist 'em up and off again,' after that, as the fishermen say." "I think you could stand an examination," said Brinsley. "I daresay. Could you? If you were going about off a lee shore in a storm and missed stays, could you club-haul your ship, Mr. Brinsley?" The three Miss Miners stared at the two in surprise and wonder, not understanding a word of what they were saying. It was apparent to Lawrence, however, that Fanny was bent on putting Brinsley in the position of confessing his ignorance at last; but where the young girl had learned even the language of seamanship, which she used with such apparent precision, was more than Lawrence could guess. Brinsley did not answer at once, and Fanny pressed him. "Do you even know what club-hauling means?" she asked, mercilessly. "Well--no--really, I think the term must be obsolete." "Not at sea," retorted Fanny. This was crushing, and Brinsley, who was really a very good hand at ordinary sailing, grew angry. "Of course you've had some experience in catboats," Fanny continued. "That isn't serious sailing, you know. It's about equivalent, in horsemanship, to riding a donkey--a degree less dignified than walking, and a little less trouble." "I won't say anything about myself, Miss Trehearne," said Brinsley, "but you might treat the catboat a little less roughly. I didn't know you'd ever sailed anything else." Here the Miss Miners interposed, one after the other, protesting that it was not fair to use up the opportunities of conversation in such nautical jargon. "I only wished to prove to Mr. Brinsley that I'm to be trusted at sea," Fanny answered. "My dear child," said Miss Cordelia, "Mr. Brinsley knows that, and he must be a good judge, having been in the navy." "Oh, I didn't know you'd been in the navy, Mr. Brinsley," said the pitiless young girl, fixing her eyes on his with an expression which he, perhaps, understood, though no one else noticed it. "The English navy, of course?" "The English navy," repeated Mr. Brinsley, sharply. "Oh, well--that accounts for your not knowing how to club-haul a ship. Your own people are always saying that your service is going to the dogs." Even Lawrence was surprised, and Brinsley looked angrily across the table at his tormentor, but found nothing to say on the spur of the moment. "However," Fanny continued with some condescension, "I'm rather glad to know you're a navy man. I'll get you to come out with me some day and verify some of the bearings on our local chart. I believe there are one or two mistakes. We'll take the sextant and my chronometer with us, and the tables, and take the sun--each of us, you know, and work it out separately, and see how near we get. That will be great fun. You must all come and see Mr. Brinsley and me take the sun," she added, looking round at the others. "Let's go to-morrow. We'll take our luncheon with us and picnic on board. Can you come to-morrow, Mr. Brinsley? We must start at eleven so as to get far enough out to have a horizon by noon. I hope you're not engaged? Are you?" "I'm sorry to say I am," answered the unfortunate man. "I'm going to ride with some people just at that hour." "How unlucky!" exclaimed Fanny, who had expected the refusal. "I'll take Mr. Lawrence, anyhow, and give him a lesson in navigation." "I've had one to-day," said Lawrence, affecting to laugh, for it was his instinct to try and turn off any conversation from a disagreeable subject. "You'll be all the better for another to-morrow," answered Fanny. As she spoke to the artist, her tone changed so perceptibly that even the Miss Miners noticed it. Brinsley took the first opportunity of talking to Miss Cordelia, of whose admiration he was sure, and the rest of the dinner passed off in peace, Brinsley avoiding a renewal of hostilities with something almost like fear, for he felt that the extraordinary young girl who knew so much about navigation was watching for another opportunity of humiliating him, and would not be merciful in using it. The change in her manner to him had been very sudden, as though she had on that particular day made up her mind about something concerning him. Hitherto she had treated him almost cordially, certainly with every appearance of liking him. He had even of late begun to fancy that her colour heightened when he entered the room,--a phenomenon which, if real, was attributable rather to another cause, and connected with Lawrence's presence in the house. After dinner the whole party went out upon the verandah, a favourite manoeuvre of Miss Cordelia's, whereby the society of Mr. Brinsley was not wasted upon smoke and men's talk in the dining-room. This evening, however, instead of sitting down at once in her usual place, Cordelia slipped her arm through Fanny's, and led her off to the other side and down the steps into the garden. "The moonlight is so lovely," said Miss Cordelia, "and I want to talk to you. Let us walk a little--do you mind?" The two went along the path in silence, in and out among the trees. The moon was full. From the sea came up the sound of the tide, washing the smooth rocks at high water. The breeze had died away at sunset and the deep sky was cloudless. Here and there the greater stars twinkled softly, but the little ones were all lost in the moonlight, like diamonds in a pure fountain. Everything was asleep except the watchful, wakeful sea. The two women stood still and looked across the lawn. At last Miss Miner spoke. "Why were you so unkind to Mr. Brinsley to-night?" she asked in a low voice. Fanny glanced at her before she answered. The eldest Miss Miner's face had once been almost beautiful. In the moonlight, the delicate, clearly chiselled features were lovely still, but a little ghostly, and the young girl saw that the fixed smile had disappeared for once, leaving a look of pain in its place. "I didn't mean to be unkind," Fanny began. "That is," she added quickly, correcting herself, "I'm not quite sure of what I meant. I think I did mean to hurt him. He's so strong, and he's always showing that he despises Mr. Lawrence, because he isn't an athlete. As though a man must be a prize-fighter to be nice!" "Well--but--Mr. Lawrence doesn't mind. You see how he takes it all. Why should you fight battles for him?" "Perhaps I shouldn't. But--why should you take up the cudgels for Mr. Brinsley? He's quite able to take care of himself, if he will only tell the truth." "If!" exclaimed Miss Cordelia, in ready resentment. "He's the most truthful man alive." "Oh! And he told you he had been in the English navy." "What has that to do with it? Of course he has, if he says so." "He's unwise to say so, because he hasn't," answered Fanny, in her usual direct way. "How in the world can you say that a man like Mr. Brinsley--an honourable man, I'm sure--is telling a deliberate falsehood? I'm surprised at you, Fanny--indeed I am! It isn't like you." "Did you ever know me to tell you anything that wasn't exactly true?" asked the young girl, looking down into her elderly cousin's sweet, sad face, for she was much the taller. "No--of course not--but--" "Well, Cousin Cordelia, I tell you that your Mr. Brinsley has never been in the English navy. I don't say that I think so. I say that I know it. Will you believe me, or him?' "Oh, Fanny!" Miss Cordelia raised her eyes with a frightened glance. "Not that it matters," added Fanny, looking away across the moonlit lawn again. "Who cares? Only, it's one of those lies that go against a man," she continued after a short pause. "A man may pretend that he has shot ten million grisly bears in his back yard, or hooked a salmon that weighed a hundred-weight--people will laugh and say that he's a story-teller. It's all right, you know--and nobody minds. But when a man says he's been in the army or the navy, and hasn't--people call him a liar and cut him. I don't know why it's so, I'm sure, but it is--and we all know it." "Yes," answered Cordelia, almost tremulously; "but you haven't proved that Mr. Brinsley isn't telling the truth--" "Oh yes, I have! There never was a deep-sea sailor yet who had never heard of club-hauling a ship to save her. I know about those things. I always make navy officers talk to me about those things whenever I get a chance. Besides, I can prove it to you. Ask the first captain of a fishing-schooner you meet down at the landing what it means. But don't tell me I don't know--it's too absurd." Miss Cordelia looked down. Her hand still rested on Fanny's arm, and it trembled now so that the young girl felt it. "What does it mean, then?" asked Cordelia, faintly. "Oh, it's a long operation to tell about. It's when you've got a lee-shore in a gale, and you want to go about and can't, because you miss stays every time, and you let go an anchor, and the ship swings to it, and just as she begins to get way on, you slip your chain, and she pays off on the other tack. Of course you lose your anchor." "Oh--you lose the anchor? To save the ship? I see." "Exactly." "You lose the anchor to save the ship," repeated Cordelia, softly, as though she were trying to remember the words for future use. "Shall we go back?" she suggested, rather abruptly. "I wish you'd answer me one question first," said Fanny. "Yes. What is it?" "Why are you so awfully anxious to stand up for Mr. Brinsley? You're not in love with him, are you?" Cordelia started very perceptibly, and turned her face away. Then, all at once, she laughed a little hysterically. "In love? At my age?" And she laughed again, and laughed, strange to say, till she cried, clinging all the time to the young girl's strong arm. Fanny did not ask any more questions as they walked slowly back to the house. CHAPTER VII. "Come with me into the village, and help me to do errands," said Fanny on the following morning, just as Lawrence was feeling for his pipe in his pocket after breakfast. "You can smoke till we get there. It wouldn't hurt you to smoke less, anyway." They went down through the garden, fresh and dewy still from the short, cool night, towards the sea. The path to the village lies along a low sea-wall, just high enough and strong enough to keep the tide from the lawns. But the tide was beginning to run out at that hour, and was singing and rocking itself away from the shore, leaving the big loose stones and the chocolate-coloured rocks all wet and shining in the morning sun. The breeze was springing up in the offing and would reach the land before long, kissing each island as it passed softly by, and gently breaking with dark blue the smoothly undulating water. The sun was almost behind the pair as they walked along the sands, and shone full upon the harbour as it came into view, lighting up the deep green of the islands between which passes the channel, and bringing up the warm brown of the soil through thick weaving spruces. The graceful yachts caught the sunshine, too, their hulls gleaming darkly, or dazzlingly white, their slender masts pencilled in light, against the trees, and standing out like threaded needles when they showed against the pale, clear sky. In the bright northern air, the artist would have complained that there was no atmosphere--no 'depth,' nor 'distance,' but only the distinct farness of the objects a long way off--nothing at all like 'atmospheric perspective.' "Isn't it a glorious day!" exclaimed Fanny, looking seaward at a white-sailed fishing-schooner, which scarcely moved in the morning air. "It's a little bit too swept and garnished," answered Lawrence. "That is--for a picture, you know. It's better to feel than to look at, if you understand what I mean. It feels so northern, that when you look at it, it seems bare and unfinished without a little snow." "But you like it, don't you?" asked the young girl, in prompt protest. "Of course I do. What a question! I thought I'd been showing how much I liked it, ever since I got here." "I'm not sure that you show what you like and don't like," said Fanny, in a tone of reflexion. "Perhaps it's better not to." "You don't, at all events. At least--aren't you rather an inscrutable person? Of course I don't know," he added rather foolishly, pulling his woollen cap over his eyes and glancing at her sideways. "Inscrutable! What a big word! 'The inscrutable ways of Providence'--that's what they always say, don't they? Still--if you mean that I don't 'tell,' you're quite right. I don't--when I can keep my countenance. Do you? It's always far better not to tell. Besides, if you commit yourself to an opinion, you're committing yourself to gaol." "What a way of putting it! But it's really true. I should so much like to ask you a question about one of your opinions." "Why don't you?" asked Fanny, turning her eyes to his. "Oh--lots of reasons: I'm afraid, in the first place; and then, I'm not sure you have one, and then--" "Say it all--I hate people who hesitate!" "Well--no. There's a great deal more to say than I want to say. Let's talk about the landscape." "No. I want to know what the question is which you wished you might ask," insisted Fanny. "It's about Mr. Brinsley," said Lawrence, plunging. "Well, what about him?" Fanny's tone changed perceptibly, and her expression grew cold and forbidding. "Nothing particular--unless it's impertinent--so I won't ask it." "You won't?" asked Fanny, slackening her pace and looking hard at him. "Not if I ask you to?" "No," answered Lawrence. "I'd oblige you by asking a different question, but not that one. You wouldn't know the difference." "That's ingenuous, at all events." She looked away again and laughed. "I never fight when I can help it, and you looked dangerous just now. You always are, in one way or another." "What do you mean?" "Only that when you don't happen to be frightening me out of my wits, you are charming me into a perfect idiot." "Something between an express train and the Lorelei," laughed Fanny. But the quick, girlish blood had sprung to her sunny cheeks and lingered a moment, as though it loved the light. They were now in the village--in the broad street where the shops are. At that hour there were many people moving about on foot and in every sort of vehicle, short of broughams and landaus. There was the smart couple in a high buckboard, just out for a morning drive; there was the elderly farmer with his buggy or his hooded cart--his wife seated beside him, with her queer, sad, winter-blighted face, and her decent, but dusty black frock;--there was the young farmer 'sport' driving his favourite trotting horse in a sulky. And of pedestrians there was no end. A smart party bent on a day's excursion by sea came down the board walk, brilliant in perfectly new blue and white serge, with bits of splendid orange and red here and there, fresh faces, light hearts, great appetites, and the most trifling of cares--the care for trifles themselves. Fanny nodded and smiled, and was smiled at, while Lawrence attempted to lift his soft woollen cap from his head with some sort of grace--a thing impossible, as men who wear soft woollen caps well know. But the air seemed lighter and brighter for so much youth laughing in it. Fanny dived into one shop after another, Lawrence following her, rather awkwardly, as a man always does under the circumstances, until he is old enough to find out that there is a time for watching as well as a time for talking, and that more may be learned of a woman's character from the way she treats shopkeepers than is generally supposed. Fanny showed surprising alternations of firmness and condescension, for she had the gift of managing people and of getting what she wanted, which is a rare gift and one not to be despised. She asked very kindly after the fishmonger's baby, but she did not hesitate to tell the grocer the hardest of truths about the butter. "I always do my own marketing," she said to Lawrence, in answer to his look of surprise. "It amuses me, and I get much better things. My poor dear cousins don't understand marketing a bit--though they ought to. That's the reason why they never get on, somehow. I believe marketing is the best school in the world for learning what's worth having and what isn't. Don't you?" "I never had a chance to learn," laughed Lawrence. "I wish you'd teach me how to get on, as you call it." "Oh--it's very easy! You only need know exactly what you want, and then try to get it as hard as you can. Most people don't know, and don't try." "For that matter I know perfectly well what I want." "Then why don't you try and get it?" asked Fanny, pausing at the door of another shop as though interested in his answer. "I'm not sure that it's in the market," answered the young man, his eyes in hers. "Have you enquired?" Fanny's mouth twitched with the coming smile. "No--not exactly. I'm trying to find out by inspection." "If you don't think it's likely to be too dear, you'd better ask--whatever it is." "Money couldn't buy it. Besides, I've got none," added Lawrence. "You might get it on credit," said Fanny. "But I think it's very doubtful." Thereupon she entered the shop, and Lawrence followed her, meditating deeply upon his chances, and asking himself whether he should run the great risk at once, or wait and watch Brinsley. To tell the truth, he thought his own chances very small; for he under-estimated all his advantages by looking at them in the light of his present poverty, not seeing that in so doing he might be underestimating Fanny Trehearne as well. A somewhat excessive caution, which sometimes goes with timidity, though not at all of the sort which produces cowardice, is often the result of an education which has not brought a man closely into competition with other men. No one in common sense, save the Miss Miners and Lawrence himself, could have imagined that Brinsley had a chance against him. For anything that people knew, Brinsley might turn out to be an adventurer of the worst kind, whereas Lawrence was of good birth, a man of whom many knew who he was, and whence he came, and that he had as good a right to ask for Fanny's hand as any man. He was poor just now, but no one believed that his rich uncle, a childless widower of fifty-five, would marry again, and Lawrence was sure to have money in the end, though he might wait thirty years for it. As for Brinsley, Fanny Trehearne either could not or would not pretend that she liked him, even in the most moderate degree of distant liking, after she had satisfied herself that he was not a truthful person in those matters in which truth decides the right of a man to be considered honourable. Being, on the whole, more careful than most people about the accuracy of what she said, she was less inclined to make allowances for others than a great many of her contemporaries. Besides, Brinsley had not only told a lie, which was mean in itself, but he had allowed himself to be found out, which Fanny considered contemptible. Up to this time she had seemed to think him very pleasant company and not a bad addition to the society of the place. "He's so good-looking!" she had often said to the approving Miss Miners. "And he has good manners, and knows how to come into a room, and how to sit down and get up--and do lots of things," she added vaguely. In this opinion her three old-maid cousins fully concurred, and they were quite ready to say as much in his favour as Fanny could have heard without laughing. They were therefore greatly distressed when she changed her mind. "He's handsome," Fanny now admitted. "But he's a little too showy. I've seen men like him at races, but they were not the men who were introduced to me. I don't think they knew anybody I knew--that sort of man, don't you know? And his English accent isn't quite English, and I don't like his little flat whiskers, and his hands irritate me. Besides, he said he had been in the navy, and now he admits that he never was. That's enough." "My dear Fanny," Cordelia answered, on such occasions, "there was a misunderstanding about that, you know. He was in the navy, since he was an officer of Marines, but of course he wasn't expected to know--" "The Marines!" exclaimed Fanny, contemptuously. "It's only a way of getting out of it, I'm sure!" Thereupon the three Miss Miners told her that she was very unjust and prejudiced, as they retired together to praise Mr. Brinsley, out of hearing of their young cousin's tart comment. Miss Cordelia had made it all right by giving the man an opportunity of justifying himself after he had privately explained to her that the Marines were an integral part of the navy, but that they were not called upon to know anything about navigation,--a fact which must account for his ignorance. He had very firm friends, to say the least of it, in the three spinsters, who might have been said to worship the ground on which he walked, and who thought it a sin and a shame that Fanny should treat him as she did. As for young Lawrence, he looked on, with his observant artist's eyes, and never mentioned Brinsley, except to Fanny herself. For he was not at all lacking in tact, however deficient he might be in the manly accomplishments. "Do you know," Fanny began, one day when they were walking in the woods, "I don't half mind you're being such a bad hand at things. It's funny. I thought I should, at first--but I don't." "I'm awfully glad," answered Lawrence, not finding anything else to say to express his gratitude. "Oh, you may well be!" laughed Fanny. "I don't forgive everybody for being a duffer. And that's what you are, you know. You don't mind my saying so?" "Oh no, not at all." The tone in which he spoke did not express much conviction, however. "I believe you do," said Fanny, thoughtfully. They were following a narrow path which led upwards along the bank of a brook under overarching trees. Here and there the bank had fallen away, and the woodmen had laid down 'slabs' of the rippings first taken off by the saw-mill in squaring timber. It was damp under foot, for it had lately rained, and the wet, chocolate-coloured dead leaves of the previous year filled the chinks between the bits of wood, and sometimes lay all over them, a slippery mass. It was still and hot and damp all through the thick growth on the midsummer's afternoon. The whispered mystery of countless living things filled the quiet air with a vibration more felt than heard, which overcame the silence, but did not break the stillness. The path was very narrow, and Fanny had to walk before her companion. Their voices seemed to echo back to them from very near, as they talked, for amongst the trees the rich undergrowth grew man-high. On their right, below them, the brook laughed softly to itself as a faun might laugh, drowsily, half asleep in a hollow of the deep woods. And then, through the warm-breathing secret places, where all that was living was growing fiercely in the sudden summer, stole the heart-thrilling fragrance of all that lived, than which nothing more surely stirs young blood in the glory of the year. For some minutes the pair walked on in silence, Fanny leading. The young man watched the strong, lithe figure of the girl as she moved swiftly and sure-footed before him. Suddenly she stopped, without turning round, and she seemed to be listening. A low ray of sunlight ran quivering through the trees and played with a crisp ringlet of her hair, too full of life and strength to be smoothed to dull order with the rest. "What is it?" asked Lawrence, in a low voice, watching her. "I thought I heard some one in the woods," she answered quickly, and then listened again. Not a sound broke the dream-like stillness. "I'm sure I heard something," said Fanny. Then she laughed a little. "Besides," she added, "it's very likely. It's awfully hot. Here's a good place to sit down." It was not a particularly good place, being damp and sloping, and Lawrence planted his heels firmly amongst the wet, dead leaves to keep himself from slipping down into the path as he sat beside her. "There's always something going on in the woods," she said softly and dreamily. "The trees talk to each other all day long, and the squirrels sit and crack nuts while they listen to the conversation. I like the woods. Somehow one never feels alone when one gets where things grow--does one?" "I don't mind being alone when I can't be--I mean--" Lawrence did not finish his sentence, but bent down and picked up a twig from the ground. "Isn't it funny!" he exclaimed, twisting it in his hands. "All the bark's loose, and turns round." "Of course--it's an old twig, and it's wet. When don't you mind being alone? You were saying something--'when you couldn't be with'--something, or somebody." "Oh--you know! What's the use of my saying it?" Lawrence kept his eye on the twig. "I don't know, and if I want you to say anything, that's the use," answered Fanny, whose prose style, so to say, was direct if it was anything. "Yes--but you see--I didn't mean anything in particular." He broke the twig in two and tossed it over the path into the brook below. Fanny changed her position a little, leaning forward and clasping her gloved hands round her knees. "You're very nice, you know," she said meditatively. "I like you." "Because I don't answer your questions?" asked Lawrence, looking at her face, which was half turned from him. "Yes. That's one of the reasons." "It's a very funny one. I don't see much reason in it, I confess." "Don't you? Don't you know that a woman sometimes likes a man for what he doesn't say?" "I never thought of it in that way. I daresay you're right. You ought to know much better than I do. Especially if you really like me, as you say you do." "Oh--I'm honest. I never said I'd been in the navy!" Fanny laughed. "Besides, if I didn't like you, why should I say so? Just to say something civil? The way Mr. Brinsley does?" "Brinsley's a horror! Don't talk about him--especially here." "I don't mean to. I hate him. But if we were going to talk about him, this would be a good place--one's sure that he's not just round the corner of the verandah making one of my three cousins miserable." "How do you mean?" "Why--they all love him. Can't you see it? I don't mean figuratively. Not a bit. They're in love with him, poor dears!" "Nonsense! not really?" Lawrence laughed incredulously. "Yes--really. It's a rather dismal sort of love--they've kept their hearts in pickle for such an age, you know--old pickles aren't good, either. I've no patience with old maids who fall in love and make fools of themselves!" "Perhaps they can't help it," suggested the young man. "Nobody can help falling in love, you know." "No," answered Fanny, rather doubtfully. "Perhaps not. I don't know. It depends." "People don't generally try to keep themselves from falling in love," remarked Lawrence, with the air of a philosopher. "It's more apt to be the other way. They are generally trying to make some one else fall in love with them. That's the hard thing." "Is it?" Fanny smiled. "Perhaps it is," she added, after a pause. "I'd like to tell you something--" She hesitated and stopped. Lawrence looked at her, but did not speak, expecting her to go on. The silence continued for some time. Once or twice Fanny turned and met his eyes, and her lips moved as though she were just going to say something. She seemed to be in doubt. "I don't believe in friendship, and I don't believe in promises,--and I don't believe much in anything," she said at last, in magnificent generalization. "But I'd like to tell you, all the same. Do you mind?" "I won't repeat it if you do," said Lawrence, simply. "No--I don't believe you will. You see I haven't any friends, so I never tell things,--at least, not much. I don't believe much in telling, anyway. Do you?" "Not if you mean to keep a secret." "Oh--well--this isn't exactly a secret--only I don't want any one to know it. Yes, I know! You laugh because I'm going to tell you. But you're different, somehow--" "Am I?" "Oh yes,--you don't count!" Lawrence's face fell a little at this last remark, and there was silence again for a few moments. "I'm not sure that I'll tell you, after all," said Fanny, at last. The quiet lids were half closed over the grey eyes, and she seemed to be thinking out something. Lawrence was unconsciously wondering why he did not think the white lashes ugly, especially when she had just told him that he did not 'count.' "Are you sure you won't tell?" asked the young girl, after another long pause. "If you don't want me to, of course I won't," answered Lawrence, mechanically. "It's a sort of confession," said Fanny. "That's the reason why I don't like to tell you. It's cowardly to be afraid of confessing that one's been an idiot, so I am going to do it at once and get it over." "It's a startling confession!" laughed Lawrence, softly. "I don't believe it. Is that all?" "If you laugh at me, I won't tell you anything more. Then you'll be sorry." "Shall I?" "Yes." "All right! I'm serious now," said Lawrence. "Don't you want to smoke?" asked Fanny, suddenly. "I wish you would. I should be less--less nervous, you know." "What a curious idea! But I'll smoke if you like." He proceeded to fill and light a big brier-root pipe. "I like the smell of a pipe," said Fanny, watching the operation. "I'm so tired of the everlasting cigarette." "I'm ready," Lawrence said, puffing slowly into the still, hot air. "Are you sure you won't laugh at me? Well, I'll tell you. I liked Mr. Brinsley awfully--at first." Lawrence looked at her quickly and took his pipe from his mouth. "Not really?" he exclaimed, only half-interrogatively, but with a change of colour. "But then--well--I don't suppose you mean anything particular by that," he added, to comfort himself. "You don't mean that you--" He stopped. Fanny nodded slowly, and the blush that rose in her face reddened her sunny complexion. "Yes. That's what I mean. I cared for him, you know,--that sort of thing." "It hasn't taken you long to get over it, at all events," answered Lawrence, gravely, and wondering inwardly why she made the extraordinary confession, seeing that it hurt him and could do her no good. "No--it hasn't taken long, has it? That's what frightens me. If I weren't frightened, I shouldn't talk to you about it." "I don't understand--why are you frightened? Especially since you've got over it. I don't see--" "I thought you might," said Fanny, enigmatically. A long silence followed, this time. Lawrence crossed his hands on his knees as Fanny was doing, holding his pipe, which was going out. They both sat staring at the opposite bank of the brook. The vital loveliness of the still woods was all around them, whispering in their young ears, breathing into their young nostrils the breath of nature's life, caressing them with bountiful warmth. They sat side by side, very near, staring at the opposite bank, and for a long time no words passed their lips. At last the young girl spoke in a low and almost monotonous tone. "He has an influence over people who come near him," she said. "Besides, that kind of man appeals to me. It's natural, isn't it? I'm so fond of all sorts of things out-of-doors, that I can't help admiring a man who can do everything so well. And he's a splendid creature. You've never seen him ride. You don't know--it's wonderful! I wish you could see him on that thoroughbred Teddy Van De Water has brought up this summer--Teddy's a good rider, but he can't do anything with the mare. You ought to see Brinsley--Mr. Brinsley--you'd understand better." "But I understand perfectly, as it is," said Lawrence, rather gloomily. "Do you? I wonder whether you really do. Do you think there's any--any excuse for me?" The words were spoken in a faltering shamefaced way very unlike Fanny's usual manner. "As though you needed any excuse for taking a fancy to any one who pleases you!" answered Lawrence, rather coldly. "Aren't you perfectly free to like anybody who turns up?" During the pause which followed, he slowly relighted his pipe, which had quite gone out by this time. "I was afraid you wouldn't understand," said Fanny, in a disappointed tone. "But I do--" "No--not what I mean. I hate explaining things, but I shall have to." Louis Lawrence wondered vaguely what there could be to explain, and, if there were anything, why she should be so anxious to explain to him in particular. CHAPTER VIII. "It was in this way," said Fanny. "Mr. Brinsley brought a letter of introduction from Cousin Frank. You know who Frank is, don't you? He's the brother of the three Miss Miners." "Of course," nodded Lawrence. "Everybody knows Frank Miner." "And he knows everybody. But he didn't say much in his note, and Cordelia has written to him since, because she wants to know all about Mr. Brinsley, and it appears that Frank has only met him once or twice at a club, and doesn't know anything about him. However, it doesn't matter! The main point is that he called the day after we got here, and in twenty-four hours we were all in love with him." "Please don't include yourself," said Lawrence, his delicate face betraying that he winced. "I will include myself, because it's true," answered Fanny, very much in earnest. "I shouldn't put it just in that way about myself, perhaps,--but I took a fancy to him, and I took him to drive, and I found that he could drive quite as well as I, and we went out riding with a party, and he rides like an angel--he really does--it's divine. And then I tried him in the boat, and he was good at that. So I began to like him very much." "They're all excellent reasons for liking a man," observed Lawrence, with a little contempt. "Don't scoff at things you can't do yourself," said Fanny, severely. "It's not in good taste. Besides, I don't care. All women admire men who are stronger, and quicker, and better with their hands than other men. One always thinks they must be braver, too." "Yes, that's true," assented Lawrence, seeking to retrieve himself by meekness. "And they generally are. It takes courage to ride well, and it needs nerve to handle a boat in a squall. I don't mean to say that you can't be brave if you don't know how to do those things. That would be nonsense. You--for instance--you could learn. Only nobody has ever taught you anything, and you're getting old." Lawrence laughed outright, and forgot his ill-humour in a moment. "Oh--I don't mean really old," said Fanny, immediately. "I only mean that one ought to learn when one is a child, as I did. Then it's no trouble, you see--and one never forgets. Now, Mr. Brinsley began young--" "Yes," interrupted the young man, "I should say so. I'm sorry I didn't." "So am I. It would have been so nice to do things--" She stopped abruptly, and pulled up a blade of rank grass, which she proceeded to twist thoughtfully round her finger. "I shouldn't like you to think I was a flirt," she said, suddenly turning her grey eyes upon him. He met her glance curiously, being considerably surprised by her remark. "Because I sometimes think I am, myself," she added, still looking at him. "Do you think so?" she asked earnestly. "What is a flirt, anyway?" "A woman who draws a man on for the pleasure of breaking his heart, I suppose," answered Lawrence, keeping his eyes fixed intently on hers. "Then I'm only half a flirt," said Fanny, "because I only draw a man on, without meaning to break anybody's heart." "Don't," said Lawrence. "It hurts, you know." "I wonder--" The young girl laughed a little, and turned away from his eyes. "What?" "Whether it really hurts." She bit the end of the grass blade, and slowly tore it with her teeth, looking dreamily across the brook. "Don't try it, at all events." "Mr. Brinsley doesn't seem to mind." "Brinsley isn't a human being," said Lawrence, savagely. "What is he, then?" "A fraud--of some sort. I don't care. I hate him!" "You're hard on Mr. Brinsley," observed Fanny, slowly, and watching her companion sideways. "Considering what you've been saying about him--" "I said nothing about him except that I began by liking him awfully." "Well--you left the rest to my imagination. I did as well as I could. If you didn't hate him yourself, you'd hardly have been telling me all this, would you?" "Oh--I don't know. I might be going to ask your advice about--about him." "Take him out in your boat and drown him," suggested Lawrence. "That's my advice about him." "What has he done to you, Mr. Lawrence?" enquired Fanny, gravely. "Why do you hate him so?" "Why? It's plain enough, it seems to me--plain as a--what do you call the thing?" "Plain as a marlinespike, you mean. Only it isn't. I want to know two things. Do you think I'm a flirt? And why do you want me to murder poor, innocent Mr. Brinsley? Do you mind answering?" Lawrence's dark eyes began to gleam angrily. He bit his pipe and pulled at it, though it had gone out; then he took it from his lips and answered deliberately. "If you are a flirt, Miss Trehearne, I don't wish Brinsley any further damage. He'll do very well in your hands, I'm sure. I have no anxiety." "I wouldn't hurt a fly," said Fanny. "If I liked the fly," she added. "I believe the spider said something to the same effect, when he invited the fly into his parlour." At this a dark flush rose in the girl's cheeks. "You're rude, Mr. Lawrence," she said. "I'm sorry, Miss Trehearne--but you're unkind, so you'll please to excuse me." Instead of flushing, as she did, Lawrence turned slowly pale, as was his nature. "Even if I were,--but I'm not,--that's no reason why you should be rude." "I didn't mean to be rude," answered Lawrence. "I don't see what I said that was so very dreadful." "It was much worse than anything I said," retorted Fanny, biting her blade of grass again. "Because I didn't say anything at all, you know. Oh, well--if you'll say you're sorry, we'll bury it." "I'm sorry," said Lawrence, without the least show of contrition. "I was going to tell you such lots of things about myself," said the young girl. "You've made me forget them all. What was I talking about when we began to fight? I began by saying that I liked you, and you've been horrid ever since. I won't say that again, at all events." "Excuse me--you began by saying that you'd liked Brinsley--liked him awfully, you said. It must have been awful--anything connected with Brinsley is necessarily awful." "There you go again. Don't bolt so--it makes bad running. I told you why I'd liked him so much at first, and you admitted that it was natural. Do you remember that? Well--that isn't all. After I liked him, I began to care for him. I told you that, too. Horrid of me, wasn't it?" "Horrid!" "I wish you wouldn't agree with me all the time!" exclaimed Fanny, impatiently. "You know I really did care--a little. And then one day in the catboat, he asked me--" She stopped and looked at Lawrence. "To marry you? Why don't you say it? It wouldn't surprise me a bit." "No," said Fanny, slowly, "he didn't ask me to marry him." "In Heaven's name, what did he ask you?" enquired Lawrence, exasperated to impatience. "Oh--I don't know. It was something about the channel between Bar and Sheep, I believe. Nothing very important, anyway. I'm not sure that I could remember, if I tried." "Then--excuse me, but what's the point?" "Oh--I know!" exclaimed Fanny, as though suddenly recollecting something. "Not that it matters much, but I like to be accurate. It was about the bell buoy off Sheep Porcupine. You know, I showed it to you the other day. Well--I told him how it had been carried away in a storm some time ago, and that this was a new one. And the next day I heard him telling Augusta all about it, as though he had known before, you see." "Well--that wasn't exactly a crime," observed Lawrence, who could not understand at all. "You'd told him--" "Yes, but he said he remembered the old one. That was impossible, as he hadn't known anything about it. It was a little slip, but it made me open my eyes and watch him. I used to think he was perfection until then." "Oh, I see! That was when you first began to find out that he wasn't quite straight." "Exactly. It made all the difference. I've caught him out more than once since then. The other night, it was too much for me, when he talked about the navy--so I promptly smashed him. He knows that I know, now." "I should think so. All the same--I don't mean to be rude this time, Miss Trehearne-- "Be careful!" "No--I'll risk it. Just now when you said he had 'asked you'--you stopped short. You knew I should believe that you had been going to say that he had asked you to marry him, didn't you?" "Oh, I know! I couldn't help it--I believe I really am a flirt, after all." "I shouldn't like to believe it," said Lawrence, gravely. "Nor I--either. I only wanted to see how you'd look if you thought he'd offered himself just then." "Just then! Do you mean to say that he has offered himself at any other time?" "Now you're rude again--only, I forgive you, because you don't know that you are. It's rude to ask such questions--so I'll be polite and refuse to answer. Not that there's any good reason why he shouldn't have asked me to marry him, you know. The fact that you hate him isn't a reason." "But you do, yourself--" "Not at all. At least, I haven't said so. I wish you'd listen to me, Mr. Lawrence, instead of interrupting me with questions every other moment. How in the world am I to make a confession, if you won't let me say two words?" "Are you going to make a confession?" asked Lawrence, incredulously. "It's all chaff, you know!" Fanny turned her cool eyes upon him instantly. "There's a lot besides chaff," she said, in a very different tone. "I can be in earnest, too--when I care." She certainly emphasized the last three words in a way which might have meant much, accompanied as they were by her steady look. Lawrence felt himself growing a little pale again. "Do you care?" he asked, and his voice shook perceptibly. "For Mr. Brinsley?" enquired Fanny, instantly changing her tone again and beginning to laugh. "No--for me." "For you! Oh dear, what a question!" She laughed outright. Lawrence leaned down and knocked the ashes out of his pipe against the toe of his heavy walking-shoe without saying a word. Then he put the pipe into his pocket. She watched him. "You've no right to be angry this time," she said. "But you are." The young man faced her quietly and waited a moment before he spoke. "You're playing with me," he said, calmly and without emphasis, as stating a fact. "Of course I am!" laughed Fanny Trehearne. "What did you expect? But I'm sorry that you've found it out," she added, with appalling cynicism. "It won't be fun any more." "Unless we both play," suggested Lawrence, who had either recovered his temper very quickly, or possessed a better control over it than Fanny had supposed. "All right!" she exclaimed cheerfully. "Let's play--let us play. That sounds solemn, somehow--I wonder why? Oh--of course--it's like 'Let us pray' in church." Lawrence laughed drily. "Let us pray beforehand, for the one who gets the worst of it," he said. "He or she will need it. But I shall win at the game, you know. That's a foregone conclusion." Fanny was surprised and amused at the confidence he suddenly affected--very unlike his habitual modesty and self-effacement. "You seem pretty sure of yourself," she answered. "What shall the forfeit be, as they say in the children's games?" "To marry or not to marry, at the discretion of the winner. I think that's fair, don't you? I shouldn't like to propose anything serious--the head of Roger Brinsley in a charger, for instance." Fanny laughed again. "Yes, it's all very well!" she protested. "But of course the one who loses will be in earnest, and the one who wins will not." "He may be, by that time," suggested Lawrence. "Don't say 'he,' so confidently--I mean to win. Besides, are we starting fair? Of course I don't care an atom for you, but don't you care for me--just a little?" "I!" exclaimed Lawrence. "What an idea!" He laughed quite as naturally as Fanny herself. "Do you think that a man in love would propose such a game as we are talking about?" he asked. "I'm sure I don't know what to think," answered the young girl. "Perhaps I shall know in a day or two." She looked down, quite grave again, and pulled a bit of fern from the bank, and crushed it in her hand, and then smelled it. "Don't you like sweet fern?" she asked, holding it out to him. "I love it!" "That's why you crush it, I suppose," said Lawrence. "It doesn't smell sweet unless you do. Oh--I see! You were beginning to play the game. Very well. Why should we lose time about it? But I wish it were a little better defined. What is it we're going to do? Won't you explain? I'm so stupid about these things. Are we going to flirt for a bet?" "What a speech!" "Because it's a plain one? Is that why you object to it? After all, that's what we said." "We only said we'd play," answered Lawrence. "Whichever ends by caring must agree to marry the winner, if required. But I'm afraid the time is too short," he added, more gravely. "I've only a week more." "Only a week!" exclaimed Fanny, in a tone of disappointment. "Why, I thought there was ever so much more. That isn't nearly time enough." "We must play faster--and hope for 'situations,' as they call them on the stage." "Oh--the situation is bad enough, as it is," answered the young girl, with a change of manner that surprised her companion. "If you only knew!" "Was that what you were going to tell me about?" asked Lawrence, quickly, and with renewed interest. "I thought you were making game of me." "That's the trouble! You'll never believe that I'm in earnest, now. That's the worst of practical jokes. Come along! We must be going home. The sun's behind the hill and ever so low, I'm sure. We shan't get home before dusk. How sweet that fern smells! Give it back to me, won't you?" They rose and began to walk homeward in the warm shadow of the woods. As before, Fanny went first along the narrow path, and Lawrence, following close behind her, and watching the supple grace of her as she moved, breathed in also the intoxicating perfume of the aromatic sweet fern which she still carried in her hand. CHAPTER IX. On the following afternoon Fanny Trehearne announced her intention of riding with Mr. Brinsley. "I'd take you, too," she said to Lawrence, with a singularly cold stare. "Only as you can't ride much, you wouldn't enjoy it, you know." "Certainly not," answered Lawrence, returning her glance with all coolness. "I shouldn't enjoy it at all." "You might take my cousins out in the boat, instead." "Are they tired of life?" enquired the young man, smiling. "No. I want to make a sketch in the woods. I'll go out by myself, thank you." "Do you mean to sketch the place where we stopped yesterday?" "Oh no--I'm going in quite another direction. I can't exactly explain where it is, because I've such a bad memory for names of roads, and all that. But I can find it." Miss Cordelia Miner looked up from the magazine she was reading. "You're not going to ride alone with Mr. Brinsley, are you?" she asked suddenly. "Why not?" asked Fanny. "I don't see any reason why I shouldn't, It's safer than riding alone, isn't it?" "I confess, I don't like the idea," said Miss Cordelia. "It looks as though there were something." "Something of what kind?" Fanny watched Lawrence's face. "Something--well--not really an engagement--but--" "Well--why shouldn't I be engaged to Mr. Brinsley, if I like?" enquired the young girl, arching her brows. "Why, Fanny! I'm surprised!" And, indeed, Miss Miner seemed so, for she almost sprang out of her chair. "I don't know why you need be horrified, though," returned Fanny, calmly. "Should you be shocked if any one said that you were engaged to Mr. Brinsley? What's the matter with him, anyway?" she demanded, dropping into her favourite slang. "You'd be proud to be engaged to him--so would Elizabeth--so would Augusta! Then why shouldn't I be proud if I can get him? I'm sure, he's awfully good-looking, and he rides--like an angel." "An angel jockey," suggested Lawrence, without a smile. "Not at all!" exclaimed Fanny. "He rides like a gentleman and not in the least like a jockey." Miss Cordelia had risen from her chair, and turned her back on the young people. "You've no right to say such things to me, Fanny," she said, going slowly towards the window. Her voice shook. The young girl saw that she was deeply hurt, and followed her quickly. "I didn't mean to be horrid!" said Fanny, penitently. "I was only laughing, you know, and of course I shall take Stebbins. And I'm not engaged to Mr. Brinsley at all." "Why didn't you say so at once?" asked Cordelia, half choking, and turning away her face. Fanny, unseen by her cousin, glanced at Lawrence, and then at the door, and the young man departed immediately, leaving the two cousins to make peace. He did not remain long in the house. Thrusting a sketch-book and a pencil into his pocket, with his pipe and pouch, he went out without seeing Fanny again, taking her at her word with regard to her plans for the afternoon. An hour later, he was seated under a tree high upon the side of the hill and almost out of sight of the Otter Cliff road. There was nothing particular in the way of a view from that point, but there were endless trees, and Lawrence amused himself in making a rough study of a mixed group of white pines, firs, and hackmatacks. He did not draw very carefully, nor even industriously, and more than once he stopped working altogether for a quarter of an hour at a time. His principal object in coming had been to get out of the way just a little more promptly and completely than Fanny could have expected. His thoughts were much more concerned with her than with what he was doing. Naturally enough, he was trying to understand the real bent of the girl's feelings. Setting aside the absurd chaff which had formed a good deal of the conversation on the previous afternoon, he tried to extract from it enough of truth to guide him, aiding himself by recalling little circumstances as well as words, for the one had often belied the other. He saw clearly that Fanny Trehearne might have said to him, 'I like you, but I do not love you--win me if you can!' But it was like her to propose to 'flirt for a bet'--being at heart perhaps less of a flirt than she laughingly admitted herself to be. But that was not the point which chiefly interested him. What he wished to know was, just how far that undefined liking for him extended. To speak in the common phrase, he did not 'know where he was' with her, and it seemed that he had no means of finding out. On the other hand, he knew very well indeed that he himself was badly in love. The symptoms were not to be mistaken, nor had he been in love so often already as to make him sceptical as to what he felt. He was more distrustful of the result than of the impulse. In his opinion Fanny was much too frank to be a flirt. Her directness was one of her principal charms, though he could not help suspecting that it must be one of her chief weapons. A little hesitation is often less deceptive than clear-eyed, outspoken truth. But Lawrence was no more able than most men of his age--or, indeed, of any age--to follow out a continuous train of thought where a woman was concerned. It is more often the woman's personality that concerns us, unreasoning men, than the probable direction of her own reasoning about us. We do not make love to an argument, so to speak, nor to a set of ideas, nor to a preconceived opinion of our merits or demerits. We make love to our own idea of what the woman is--and the depth of our disillusionment is the measure of our sincerity, when love is gasping between the death-blow and the death. Moreover, what is called nowadays analysis of human nature, belongs in reality to transcendental thought. 'Transcendent' is defined as designating that which lies beyond the bounds of all possible experience. So far as we know, it is beyond those bounds to enter into the intelligence of our neighbour, subjectively, to identify ourselves with him and to see and understand the world with his eyes and mind. It follows that we are never sure of what we are doing when we attempt to set down exactly another man's train of thought, and it follows also that few are willing to recognize the result as at all resembling the process of which they are conscious within themselves. On certain bases, all men can appeal subjectively to all men, and all women to all women. But, as between the sexes, all observation is objective and tentative, whether it be that of the author, condemned to analyze a woman's character, or that of the man in love and attempting to understand the woman he loves. And further, if we could see--as it is pretended by some that we can see on paper--precisely what is taking place in the intelligence of those we meet in the world, our friends would be as unrecognizable to us as a dissected man is unrecognizable for a human being except in the eyes of a doctor. The soul, laid bare, dissected, and turned inside out, with real success, would not be recognized by its dearest friend, were it ever so truthful a soul. We are all fundamentally and totally incapable of expressing exactly what we feel, and as we have no means of conveying truth without some sort of expression, we are helpless and are all more or less hopelessly misunderstood--a fact to which, if we please, we may ascribe that variety which is proverbially said to be the charm of life. Doubtless, this is a literary heresy; but it is a human truth a little above literature. Lawrence had never attempted to write a book, but as he sat on the slope above the Otter Cliff road, drawing trees, it did not occur to him to draw a picture of what he thought about the inside of each tree, instead of a representation of what he saw. But he made the usual fruitless attempt to understand the woman he loved, and to reason about her, and failed to do either, which is also usual. The conclusion he reached was that he loved her, of which he had been aware before he had set himself to think it out. What he saw was a strong girl's face with cool, inscrutable grey eyes that never took fire and gleamed, nor ever turned dull and vacant. Their unchanging steadiness contradicted the wayward speech, the sudden capricious confidence, even the gay laugh, sometimes. Lawrence had a lively impression that whatever Fanny said or did, she never meant but one thing, whatever that might be. And with this impression he was obliged to content himself. From the place where he sat, he had a glimpse between the trees of the road below. On the side towards him there was a little open bit of meadow, where the gorge widened, and a low fence with a little ditch separated it from the highway. On the hillside, above this stretch of grass, the trees grew here and there, wide apart at first, and then by degrees more close together. He himself was seated just within the thick wood, at the edge of the first underbrush. Now and then, people passed along the road: a light buckboard drawn by a pair of bays and containing a smart-looking couple, with no groom behind; a farmer's wagon, long, hooded, and dusty, dragged at a disjointed trot by a broken-down grey horse; a solitary rider, whose varnished shoes reflected the sunlight even to where Lawrence was sitting; a couple of pedestrians; a lad driving a cow; and then another buckboard; and so on. Lawrence was thinking of shutting up his book and climbing higher up the steep side of New Port Mountain--as the hill is called--in search of another study, when, glancing down through the trees, he saw three riders coming slowly along the road--two in front, and one at some distance behind--a lady and gentleman and then a groom. His eyes were good, and he would have known Fanny Trehearne's figure and bearing even at a greater distance. She sat so straight--hands down, elbows in, head high, square in her saddle, yet flexible, and all moving with every movement of her Kentucky thoroughbred. They came nearer, and Lawrence saw them distinctly now. Brinsley was beside her. Lawrence laughed to himself at the idea that the man could ever have been in the Marines. He sat the horse he rode much more like a Mexican or an Indian than like a sailor or a marine. Even at that distance Lawrence could not help admiring his really magnificent figure, for Brinsley's perfections were showy and massed well afar off. The riders reached the point where the little meadow spread out on their left, and to Lawrence's surprise, they halted and seemed to be consulting about something. They had turned towards him, and as they talked, he could see that Fanny looked across the meadow and up at the woods where he was sitting. It was of course utterly impossible that she should have known where he was, and it was almost incredible that she should see him, seated low upon the ground in the deep shade, when she was only visible to him between the stems of the trees. Nevertheless, not caring to be discovered, he crouched down amongst the ferns and grasses, still keeping his eye on the couple in the road far below. Presently he saw Fanny turn her horse's head, walk him to the other side of the road, and turn again, facing the meadow. She looked up and down the road once, saw that no one was coming, and put her mare at the fence. It was a low one, and the ditch on the outer side was neither broad nor deep. The thoroughbred cleared it with a contemptuously insignificant effort, and cantered a few strides forward into the grass, shaking her bony head almost between her knees as Fanny brought her to a stand and turned again. Brinsley followed her on the big Hungarian horse he rode,--Mr. Trehearne's horse,--jumping the fence and ditch, and taking them again almost immediately, to wait for Fanny on the other side in the road. She followed again, and pulled up by his side. But they did not ride on at once. They seemed to be discussing some point connected with the place, for they pointed here and there with their hands as they spoke. Fanny reined in her mare and backed a little, as though she were going to jump again. The animal seemed nervous, stamping and pawing, and laying back her small ears. A hundred yards or more in the direction from which they had come the road made a short bend round the foot of the spur of the hill, known as Pickett's. Just as Fanny put the mare at the fence a third time, a coach and four turned the corner of the road at a smart pace, leaders cantering and wheelers at a long trot. Seeing three horses apparently halting in the way, some one in the coach sent a terrific and discordant blast from a post-horn ringing along the road as a warning. At that moment Fanny's mare was rising at the bars. She cleared them as easily as ever, but on reaching the ground instantly bolted across the grass, head down, ears back, heels flying. It all happened in a moment. The two men, Brinsley and groom, knew too much to scare the thoroughbred by a pursuit, and confident in Fanny's good riding, sat motionless on their horses in the road, after drawing away enough to let the coach pass. The idiot with the horn continued to blow fiercely, and the big vehicle came swinging along at a great rate, with clattering of hoofs, for the road was hard and dry, baked after a recent rain--and with jingling of harness and sound of voices. The mare grew more and more frightened, and tore up the hillside like a flash, directly away from the noise. The young girl was a first-rate rider and knew the fearful danger, if she should be carried at such a pace amongst the trees. But her strength, great as it was, for a woman, was not able to produce the slightest impression upon the terrified creature she rode. Lawrence knew nothing of riding, but the imminent peril of the woman he loved was clear to him in a moment. He had a horrible vision of the wild-eyed mare tearing straight towards him through the trees--wide apart at first, and then dangerously near together. On they came, the thoroughbred swerving violently at one stem after another--the young girl's strong figure swaying to her balance at each headlong movement. He could see her set face, pale under the tan, and he could see the desperate exertion of her strength. He sprang forward and ran down between the trees at the top of his speed. CHAPTER X. There is nothing equal to the absolute fearlessness of a naturally brave man who has no experience of the risk he runs and is bent on saving the life of the woman he loves. Louis Lawrence remembered afterwards what he had done and how he had done it, but he was unconscious of what he was doing at the time. He rushed down the hill between the closer trees, and with utter recklessness sprang at the bridle as the infuriated mare dashed past him. Grasping snaffle and curb--tight drawn as they were--in both hands, he threw all his light weight upon them and allowed himself to be dragged along the ground between the trees at the imminent risk of his life--a risk so terrible that Fanny Trehearne turned paler for him than for her own danger. In half a dozen more strides they might both have been killed. But the mare stopped, quivering, tried to rear, but could not lift Lawrence far from the ground nor shake off his desperate hold, plunged once and again, and then stood quite still, trembling violently. Lawrence scrambled to his feet, still holding the bridle, and promptly placed himself in front of the mare. For one breathless instant, Lawrence looked into Fanny's face, and neither spoke nor moved. Both were still very pale. Then the young girl slipped off, the reins in her hand. "That was uncommonly well done," she said, with great calm. "You've saved my life." She no longer looked at him while she spoke, but patted and stroked the thoroughbred, looking her over with a critical eye. "Oh--that's all right," answered Lawrence. "Don't mention it!" He laughed nervously, still panting from his violent exertion. Fanny herself was not out of breath, but the colour did not come back to her sunburnt cheeks at once, and her hand was hardly steady yet. She did not laugh with Lawrence, nor even smile, but she looked long into his eyes. "I may not mention it, but I shan't forget it," she said slowly. "It's one to me, isn't it?" asked Lawrence, who, in reality, was by far the cooler and more collected of the two. "How do you mean?" enquired Fanny, knitting her brows half-angrily. "One to me--in our game, you know," said the young fellow. "The game we agreed to play, yesterday." "Yes--it's one to you. By the bye--you're not hurt anywhere, are you?" She looked him over, as she had looked over her mare, with the same critical glance. His clothes were a little torn, here and there, being but light summer things, and his hat had disappeared, but it was tolerably clear that he was in no way injured. "Oh, I'm all right," he answered cheerfully. "I should think you'd feel badly shaken, though," he added, with sudden anxiety. "Not at all," said Fanny, determined to show no more emotion or excitement than he. "It was a case of sitting still--neck or nothing. It's nothing, as it happens." At that moment Brinsley appeared, riding slowly through the trees, for fear of frightening the mare again. "Are you hurt?" he shouted. Fanny looked round, saw him, and shook her head, with a smile. Brinsley trotted up and sprang from his horse. "Are you sure you're not hurt?" he asked again. "Not in the least!" "Thank God!" ejaculated Brinsley, with emphasis. "You'd better thank Mr. Lawrence, too," observed Fanny, quietly. "He caught her going at a gallop, and hung on and was dragged. I don't remember ever seeing anything quite so plucky." Brinsley looked coldly at his rival, and his beady eyes seemed nearer together than usual when he spoke to him. "I think you're quite as much to be congratulated as Miss Trehearne," he said. "Thanks." "We'd better be getting down to the road again," said Fanny. "You can lead the mare and your own horse, too, Mr. Brinsley. She's quiet enough now, and I've all I can do to walk in these things." Brinsley took the mare's bridle over her head and led the way with the two horses. "Aren't you coming?" asked Fanny, seeing that Lawrence did not follow. "Thanks--no," he answered. "I must find my hat, in the first place." Brinsley looked over his shoulder, and saw the two hanging back. He stopped a moment, turning, and laying one hand on the mare's nose. "You must be shaken, Mr. Lawrence," he said. "Why don't you take the groom's horse and ride home with us?" "I can't ride," answered the younger man, loud enough for Brinsley to hear him. "And you know it perfectly well," he added under his breath. Fanny frowned, but took no further notice of the remark. "Good-bye," she said, holding out her hand to Lawrence. "Come home as soon as you can, won't you?" "Oh yes--that is, I think I'll just see you take that fence again, and then I want to get a little higher up the hill and do another bit of a sketch. Then I'll come home. There's no hurry, is there?" "Don't show off," said Fanny, severely. "It isn't pretty. Good-bye." She walked fast and overtook Brinsley in a few moments. At the foot of the hill he prepared to mount her, leaving his own horse to the groom. Then a thing happened which he was never able to explain, though he was an expert in the field and no one could mount a lady better than he, of all Fanny's acquaintances. He bent his knee and held out his hand and stiffened his back and made the necessary effort just at the right moment, as he very well knew. But for some inexplicable reason Fanny did not reach the saddle, nor anywhere near it, and she slipped and would certainly have fallen if he had not caught her with his other hand and held her on her feet. "How awkward you are!" she exclaimed viciously, with a little stamp. "Let me get on alone!" And thereupon, to his astonishment and mortification, she pushed him aside, set her foot in the stirrup,--for she was very tall and could do it easily,--and was up in a flash. Lawrence, looking down at them from the edge of the woods, saw what happened, and so did Stebbins, the groom, who grinned in silence. He hated Brinsley, and it is a bad sign when a good servant hates his master's guest. Lawrence felt that in addition to scoring one in the game, he was avenged on his enemy for the latter's taunting invitation to ride. "I think I may count that, and mark two. I'm sure she did it on purpose," he said audibly to himself. Before Brinsley was mounted, Fanny was over the fence with her mare and waiting for him in the road. "Oh, come along!" she cried, "Don't be all day getting on!" "You needn't be so tremendously rough on a fellow," said Brinsley, as his horse landed in the road. "It wasn't my fault that I wasn't waiting for a runaway under the trees up there." "Yes it was! Everything's your fault," answered Fanny, emphatically. "No--you needn't play Orlando Furioso and make papa's old rocking-horse waltz like that. My mare's got to walk a mile, at least, for her nerves." It didn't require Brinsley's great natural penetration to tell him that Miss Fanny Trehearne was in the very worst of tempers--even to the point of unfairly calling her papa's sturdy Hungarian bad names. But he could not at all see why she should be so angry. It had certainly been her fault if he had failed to put her neatly in the saddle. But her ill-humour did not frighten him in the least, though he was very quiet for several minutes after she had last spoken. "It's not wildly gay to ride with people who don't talk," observed Fanny. "I was trying to think of something appropriate to say," answered Brinsley. "But you're in such an awful rage--" "Am I? I didn't know it. What makes you think so?" "What nerves you've got!" exclaimed Brinsley, in a tone of admiration. "I haven't any nerves at all." "I mean good nerves." "I tell you I haven't any nerves. Why do you talk about nerves? They're not amusing things to have, are they?" "Well--in point of humour--I didn't say they were." "I asked you to say something amusing, and you began talking about nerves," said Fanny, in explanation. "I'm not in luck to-day," said Brinsley, after a pause. "No--you're not," was the answer; but she did not vouchsafe him a glance. "I wish you'd like me," he said boldly. "I do--at a certain distance. You look well in the landscape--and you know it." "Upon my word!" Brinsley laughed roughly, and looked between his horse's ears. "Upon your word--what?" "I never had anything said to me quite equal to that, Miss Trehearne." "No? I'm surprised. Perhaps you haven't known the right sort of people. You must find the truth refreshing." Brinsley waited a few moments before speaking, and then, turning his head, looked at her with great earnestness. "I wish you'd tell me why you've taken such a sudden dislike to me," he said in a low voice. "Why are you so anxious to know, Mr. Brinsley?" asked Fanny, meeting his eyes quietly. "Because I believe that somebody has been saying disagreeable things about me to you," he answered. "If that's the case, it would be fair to give me a chance, you know." "Nobody's been talking against you. You've talked against yourself. Besides," she added, her face suddenly clearing, "it's quite absurd to make such a fuss about nothing! I'm only angry about nothing at all. It's my way, you know. You mustn't mind. I'll get over it before we're at home, and then I'll go off, and my cousins will give you lots of weak tea and flattery." Brinsley, who was clever at most things, was not good at talking nor at understanding a woman's moods, and he felt himself at so great a disadvantage that he slipped into an inane conversation about people and parties without succeeding in finding out what he wished to know. If he had ever conceived any mad hope of winning Fanny's affections, he abandoned it then and there. He was still further handicapped, had Fanny known it, by the desperate state of his own affairs at that moment; and if she had known something of his reflexions, she might have pitied him a little--what she might have thought, if she had guessed the remainder, is hard to guess, for he had a very curious scheme in his mind for improving his finances. He had been playing high for some time, had lost steadily, and was at the end of his present resources, which, with him, meant that he was at the end of all he had in the world. He was not by any means inclined to give up the pleasant intimacy he had formed and fostered with the three Miss Miners, nor the attendant luxuries which he had gained with it, and the introduction to Bar Harbour society, which meant good society elsewhere. But he felt that he had no choice, since the cards went against him. He was not a sharper. He played fair, for the sake of the enjoyment of the thing. It was his one great passion. When he was in luck he won enough for his extravagant needs, for he always played high, on principle. But when fortune foiled him, he had other talents of a more curious description, by the exercise of which to replenish his purse--talents, too, which he had exercised in America for a long time. His happy hunting-ground was really London, which accounted for his evident and almost extraordinary familiarity with its ways. There are indeed few places in the world where a man may follow a doubtful occupation more freely and more successfully. Before they reached the Trehearnes' house, Brinsley had made up his mind that he must drink his last cup of tea with the three Miss Miners on that day or very soon afterwards, unless he were to be even more fortunate in his undertaking than he dared to expect. The immediate consequence was an affectation of a sad and stately manner towards Fanny as he helped her off her mare at the door. "I'm afraid this has been our last ride," he said, in a subdued voice. "What? Oh--'The Last Ride'--Browning--I remember," answered Fanny. "No--I wasn't alluding to Browning. I'm going away very soon." Fanny stared at him in some surprise. "Oh! Are you? I am very sorry." She spoke cheerfully, and led the way into the house, Brinsley following her, with a dejected air. "You'll probably find my cousins in the library," she added. "I'm going to take off my hat--it's so hot." The three Miss Miners were assembled, as usual at that hour, and greeted Brinsley effusively. Not wishing to be anticipated by Fanny in telling a story altogether to Lawrence's credit, he began to tell the three ladies of what had happened during the ride. He was very careful to explain that he had of course not dared to follow the run-away, lest he should have made matters much worse. "It's quite dreadful," cried Miss Cordelia, on hearing of Fanny's narrow escape. "You should never have let her jump the fence at all. What do people do such mad things for!" "If anything happened to the child, we might as well kill ourselves," said Elizabeth. "It's too dreadful to think of!" "Well," answered Brinsley, "nothing has happened, you see. I've brought Miss Trehearne safe home, though I hadn't the good fortune to be the man who stopped her horse. You see," he added, smiling, "I want all the credit you can spare from Mr. Lawrence. I'm afraid there's not much to be got, though. He's had the lion's share." "And where is he?" asked Augusta, who felt more sympathy for the artist than the others. "Oh--he'll come back. He can't ride, you know, so he had to walk, poor fellow! He'd been pretty badly shaken, too, and he's not strong, I'm sure." "You wouldn't have called him weak if you'd seen him hanging on while the mare dragged him," said Fanny, who had entered unnoticed. "Oh, that's only strength in the hands!" said Brinsley, in a depreciative tone, and conscious of his own splendid proportions. "Well, then, he's strong in the hands, that's all," retorted Fanny. "Please, some tea, Elizabeth dear--I'm half dead." The three Miss Miners did their best to console Brinsley for Fanny's continued ill-treatment of him, but they did not succeed in lifting the cloud from his brow. At last he confessed that he was expecting to leave Bar Harbour at any moment. CHAPTER XI. There were to be fireworks that evening at the Canoe Club on the farther side of Bar Island--magnificent fireworks, it was said, which it would be well worth while to see. The night was calm and clear, and the moon, being near the last quarter, would not rise until everything was over. "We'll go in skiffs," said Fanny. "When we're tired of each other, we can change about, you know. Mr. Lawrence can take one of us and Mr. Brinsley another, and the other two must take one of the men from the landing. I ordered the boats this morning when I was out." The three Miss Miners looked consciously at one another, mutely wondering how they were to divide Mr. Brinsley amongst them, and wishing that they had consulted together in private before the moment for decision had come. But no one suggested that, as there were only four ladies, each of the men could very easily take two in a boat. "We might toss up to see who shall take whom," suggested Brinsley, who had been unusually silent during the greater part of dinner. "In how many ways can you arrange six people in couples?" asked Fanny. Nobody succeeded in solving the question, of course. Even Elizabeth Miner, who was considered the clever member, gave it up in despair. "Never mind!" said Fanny. "We'll see how it turns out when we get down to the landing-stage. These things always arrange themselves." To the surprise of every one except Fanny herself, the arrangement turned out to be such that she and Miss Cordelia went together in the skiff pulled by the sailor, while Brinsley and Lawrence each took one of the other Miss Miners. "We'll change by and by," said Fanny, as her boat shoved off first to show the way. "Keep close to us in the crowd when we get over." The distance from the landing, across the harbour, through the channel between Bar Island and Sheep Porcupine to the Canoe Club, is little over half a mile; but at night, amidst a crowd of steamers, large and small, row-boats, canoes, and sail-boats,--the latter all outside the channel,--it took twenty minutes to reach the place where the fireworks were to be. Fanny leaned back beside her cousin, and watched the lights in silence. Yellow, green, and red, they streamed across the brilliant black water in every direction, the yellow rays fixed or moving but slowly, the others gliding along swiftly above their own reflection, as the paddle steamers thrashed their way through the still sea. To left and right the shadowy islands loomed, darkly against the black sky, outlined by the stars. The warm damp air lifted the coolness from the water in little puffs, as the skiff slipped along. Now and then, in the gloom, a boat showed dimly alongside, and the laughing voices of girls and boys told how near it passed, a mere floating dimness upon blackness. The stroke of light sculls swished and tinkled with the laughter. The soft mysterious charm of the summer dark was breathed upon land and water--the distant lights were love-dreaming eyes, and each time, as the oars dipped, swept and rose, the gentle sound was like a stolen kiss. Then, suddenly, with a wild screaming rush, a rocket shot up into the night, splitting the sky with a scar of fire. The burning point of it lingered a moment overhead, then cracked into little stars that shed a soft glow through the gloom, and fell in a swift shower of sparks. Then all was hushed again, and the red and green lights moved quickly over the water, hither and thither. Close to the shore of the island the skiff ran round the point into the shallow water along the beach, and all at once in the distance the festooned lanterns of the Canoe Club came into view, so bright that one could distinguish the branches of the spruces in the red and yellow glare, and the moving crowd of people on the little landing-stage and below, before the clubhouse. And some two hundred yards out the lights began again, gleaming from hundreds of boats and little vessels of all rigs and builds. Between these seaward lights and those on land a deep black void stretched away up Frenchman's Bay. Miss Cordelia started nervously at the rockets, but said nothing. Fanny sat beside her in silence. The sailor, only visible distinctly when the lights were behind him, pulled softly and steadily, glancing over his shoulder every now and then to see that the way was clear. The other skiffs kept near, both Brinsley and Lawrence being keenly on the lookout for a change. Now and then Fanny could hear them talking. "I wonder why one voice should attract one and another should be disagreeable," she said at last, in a meditative tone. "I was thinking of the same thing," answered Cordelia, thoughtfully. "Yes," said Fanny, absently. "Of course you were," she added, a moment later. "I mean--" She paused. "Poor dear!" she exclaimed at last, stroking her cousin's elderly hand in the dark. "I'm so sorry!" "Thank you, dear," answered Miss Miner, simply and gratefully. It was little enough, but little as it was it made them both more silent than ever. With the boatman close before them, it was impossible to talk of what was in their thoughts. Fanny, for her part, was glad of it. She had understood her old-maid cousin since the night when Cordelia had broken down and laughed and cried in the garden, and she knew how little there could be to say. But Cordelia did not understand Fanny in the least. It was a marvel to her that any one should prefer Lawrence to Brinsley--almost as great a marvel as that she herself, in her sober middle age, should have felt what she knew was love and believed to be passion. And now, Brinsley was going, and it was over. He would never come back, and she should never see him again--she was sure of that. She was only an old maid; a middle-aged gentlewoman who had never possessed any great attraction for anybody; who had always been more or less poor and unhappy, though of the best and living amongst the best; whose few pleasures had come to her unexpectedly, like rare gleams of pale sunshine on a very long rainy day; who had looked for little and had got next to nothing out of life, save the crumbs of enjoyment from the feast of rich relations, like the Trehearnes--a woman who had known something more grievous than sorrow and worse than violent grief, trudging through life in the leaden cowl of many limitations--the leaden cowl of that most innocent of all hypocrites, of her, or of him, who knows the daily burden of keeping up appearances on next to nothing, and of doctoring poor little illusions through a feeble existence, worth having because they represent all that there is to have. She had been wounded by one of those arrows shot in the dark which hit hearts unawares and unaimed; and now that the shaft was suddenly drawn out, the heart's blood followed it and the nerves quivered where it had been. It was only one of the little tragedies which no one sees, few guess at, and nothing can hinder. But Fanny Trehearne felt that it was beside her, there in the little boat, while she watched the pretty fireworks, and she was sorry and did what she could to soothe the pain. "Let's change, now," she said at last, just as the glow of a multitude of coloured fires died away on the water. "You take Mr. Brinsley, and I'll take Mr. Lawrence." As she spoke, she gave her cousin's hand a little squeeze of sympathy, and heard the small sigh of satisfaction that answered the proposal. The rearrangement was effected in a few moments, the men holding the boats together by the gunwales while the ladies stepped from one into the other. "Pull away," said Fanny, authoritatively, as soon as Lawrence had shoved off. "Let's get out of this! I'll steer, so you needn't bother about running into things." Fairly seated in a boat, with the sculls shipped, and some one at the tiller lines, Lawrence could get along tolerably well, for he knew just enough not to catch a crab in smooth water, so long as he was not obliged to turn his head. But if he had to look over his shoulder, something was certain to happen, which was natural, considering that when he attempted to feather at all, he did it the wrong way. "You're stronger than anybody would think," observed Fanny, as she saw how quickly the skiff moved. "You might do things quite decently, if you'd only take the trouble to learn." "Oh no! I'm a born duffer," laughed Lawrence. "Besides, I couldn't row long like this. I couldn't keep it up." They were just in front of the clubhouse now; and a score of rockets went up together, with a rushing and a crackling and a gleaming, as they soared and burst, and at last fell sputtering in the water all around the skiff. Lawrence had rested on his sculls to watch the sight. "Pull away!" said Fanny. "We'll get under the foot-bridge by the landing. There's water enough there, and we can see everything." Lawrence obeyed, and pulled as hard as he could. "So your friend Mr. Brinsley is going away," observed the young girl, suddenly. "My friend! I like that! As though I had brought him in my pocket." "I'm very glad that he's going, at all events," said Fanny, without heeding his remark. "I'm not fond of him any more." "I hope you never were--fond of him." "Oh yes, I was--but I'm thankful to say that it's over. Of all the ineffable cads! I could have killed him to-day!" "By the bye," said Lawrence, "when he was mounting you--didn't you do that on purpose?" "Of course. And then I called him awkward. It was so nice! It did me good." "Pure spite, I suppose. You couldn't have had any particular reason for doing it, could you?" "Oh dear, no! What reason could I have? It wasn't his fault that the mare ran away, though I told him it was." "That's interesting," observed Lawrence. "Do you often do things out of pure spite?" "Constantly--without any reason at all!" Fanny laughed. "Perhaps you'll marry out of spite, some day," said Lawrence, calmly. "Women often do, they say, though I never could understand why." "I daresay I shall. I'm quite capable of it. And shouldn't I be just horrid afterwards!" "I like you when you're horrid, as you call it. I didn't at first. You've given my sense of humour a chance to grow since I've been here. I say, Miss Trehearne--" He stopped. "What do you say? It isn't particularly polite to begin in that way, is it? I suppose it's English." "Oh, bother the English! And I apologize for being slangy. It's so dark that I can't see you frown. I meant to say, if you ever marry out of spite, and want to be particularly horrid afterwards, it wouldn't be a bad idea to marry me, for I don't mind that sort of thing a bit, you know." "That's a singular offer!" laughed Fanny, leaning far back, and playing with the tiller lines in the glow of the Bengal lights. "It's genuine of its kind," answered the young man. "Of course it isn't a sure thing, exactly," he added reflectively, "because it depends on your happening to be in the spiteful humour. But, as you say that often happens--" "Well, go on!" "I thought you might feel spiteful enough to accept this evening," concluded Lawrence. "Take care--I might, you know--you're in danger!" She was still laughing. "Don't mind me, you know! I could stand it, I believe." "You're awfully amusing--sometimes, Mr. Lawrence." "Meaning now?" enquired the artist, resting on his sculls, for they were under the shadow of the bridge. "I can't see your face distinctly," answered Fanny. "So much depends on the expression. But I think--" "What do you think? That it's awfully amusing of me to offer to be married as a sacrifice to your spite?" "It's amusing anyway." "A formal proposal would be, you mean?" asked Lawrence. Then he laughed oddly. "I hate formality," answered Fanny. "That is, in earnest, you know. It's so disgusting when a man comes with his gloves buttoned and sits on the edge of a chair and says--" "And says what?" "Oh--you know the sort of thing. You must have done it scores of times." "What? Proposed and been refused? You're complimentary, at all events. I've a great mind to let you be the first, just--well--how shall I say? Just to associate you with a novel sensation." "I might disappoint you," said Fanny, demurely. "I told you so before. Just think, if I were to say 'yes,' you'd be most dreadfully caught. You'd have to eat humble pie and beg off, and say that you hadn't meant it." "Oh no!" laughed the young man. "You'd break it off in a week, and then it would be all right." "Are you going to be rude? Or are you, already? I'm not quite sure." "Neither. Of course you'd break it off, if we had an agreement to that effect." "You don't make any allowance for my spitefulness. It would be just like me to hold you to your engagement. Of course you wouldn't live long. We should be sure to fight." "Oh--sure," assented Lawrence. "That is, if you call this fighting." "It would be worse than this. But why don't you try? I'm dying to refuse you. I'm just in the humour." "Why! I thought you said there was danger! If I'd known there wasn't--by the bye, this counts in the game, doesn't it?" "There isn't anything to count, yet," said Fanny. "Look at those fiery fish--aren't they pretty? See how they squirm about, and fizzle, and behave like mad things! Oh, I never saw anything so pretty as that!" "Yes. If one must have an interruption, they do as well as anything." "You weren't talking very coherently, I believe," said the young girl, turning her head to watch the fireworks. "And you've made me miss lots of pretty things, I'm sure. Oh--they've gone out already! How dark it seems, all at once! What were you asking? Whether this counted in the game? Of course it counts. Everything does. But I don't exactly see how--" She stopped and looked towards him in the dim gloom of the shadow under the bridge. But Lawrence did not speak. He looked over the side of the boat, softly slapping the black water with the blade of his scull. "Why don't you go on?" asked Fanny, tapping the boards under her foot to attract his attention. "I was thinking over the proper words," answered Lawrence. "How does one make a formal proposal of marriage? I never did such a thing in my life." "An informal one would do for fun." "I never did that, either." "Never?" "Never." "Really? Swear it, as they say on the stage." Fanny laughed softly. "Oh, by Jove, yes!" answered Lawrence, promptly. "I'll swear to that by anything you please." "Well--you'll have to do it some day, so you'd better practise at once," suggested Fanny. Lawrence did not notice that there was a sort of little relief in her tone. "I suppose one says, 'My angel, will you be mine?'" he said. "That sounds like some book or other." "It might do," answered Fanny, meditatively. "You ought to throw a little more expression into the tone. Besides, I'm not an angel, whatever the girl in the book may have been. On the whole--no--it's a little too effusive. Angel--you know. It's such nonsense! Try something else; but put lots of expression into it." "Does one get down on one's knees?" enquired Lawrence. "Oh no; I don't believe it's necessary. Besides, you'd upset the boat." "All right--here goes! My dear Miss Trehearne, will you-- "Yes. That's it. Go on. The quaver in the voice is rather well done. 'Will you--' What?" "Will you marry me?" "Yes, Mr. Lawrence, I will." There was a short pause, during which a number of fiery fish were sent off again, and squirmed and wriggled and fizzled their burning little lives away in the water. But neither of the young people looked at them. "You rather took my breath away," said Lawrence, with a change of tone. "Did I do it all right?" "Oh--quite right," answered Fanny, thoughtfully. Immediately after the words Lawrence heard a little sigh. Then Fanny heard one, too. "You didn't happen to be in earnest, did you?" she asked suddenly, in a low, soft voice. "Well--I didn't mean--that I meant--you know we agreed to play a game--" "I know we did--but--were you in earnest." "Yes--but, of course-- Oh, this isn't fair, Miss Trehearne!" "Yes, it is. I said 'yes,' didn't I?" "Certainly, but--" "There's no 'but.' I happened to be in earnest, too--that's all. I've lost the game." 
40386	----	WANDERING GHOSTS [Illustration: Logo] THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO [Illustration: "What?... It's gone, man, the skull is gone!!"] WANDERING GHOSTS BY F. MARION CRAWFORD AUTHOR OF "SARACINESCA," "A ROMAN SINGER," ETC. _WITH FRONTISPIECE_ New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1911 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY STREET AND SMITH. COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY F. MARION CRAWFORD AND BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. COPYRIGHT, 1905 AND 1908, BY P. F. COLLIER AND SON. COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1911. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. CONTENTS PAGE THE DEAD SMILE 1 THE SCREAMING SKULL 41 MAN OVERBOARD! 97 FOR THE BLOOD IS THE LIFE 165 THE UPPER BERTH 195 BY THE WATER OF PARADISE 235 THE DOLL'S GHOST 279 THE DEAD SMILE CHAPTER I Sir Hugh Ockram smiled as he sat by the open window of his study, in the late August afternoon; and just then a curiously yellow cloud obscured the low sun, and the clear summer light turned lurid, as if it had been suddenly poisoned and polluted by the foul vapours of a plague. Sir Hugh's face seemed, at best, to be made of fine parchment drawn skin-tight over a wooden mask, in which two eyes were sunk out of sight, and peered from far within through crevices under the slanting, wrinkled lids, alive and watchful like two toads in their holes, side by side and exactly alike. But as the light changed, then a little yellow glare flashed in each. Nurse Macdonald said once that when Sir Hugh smiled he saw the faces of two women in hell--two dead women he had betrayed. (Nurse Macdonald was a hundred years old.) And the smile widened, stretching the pale lips across the discoloured teeth in an expression of profound self-satisfaction, blended with the most unforgiving hatred and contempt for the human doll. The hideous disease of which he was dying had touched his brain. His son stood beside him, tall, white and delicate as an angel in a primitive picture; and though there was deep distress in his violet eyes as he looked at his father's face, he felt the shadow of that sickening smile stealing across his own lips and parting them and drawing them against his will. And it was like a bad dream, for he tried not to smile and smiled the more. Beside him, strangely like him in her wan, angelic beauty, with the same shadowy golden hair, the same sad violet eyes, the same luminously pale face, Evelyn Warburton rested one hand upon his arm. And as she looked into her uncle's eyes, and could not turn her own away, she knew that the deathly smile was hovering on her own red lips, drawing them tightly across her little teeth, while two bright tears ran down her cheeks to her mouth, and dropped from the upper to the lower lip while she smiled--and the smile was like the shadow of death and the seal of damnation upon her pure, young face. "Of course," said Sir Hugh very slowly, and still looking out at the trees, "if you have made up your mind to be married, I cannot hinder you, and I don't suppose you attach the smallest importance to my consent----" "Father!" exclaimed Gabriel reproachfully. "No; I do not deceive myself," continued the old man, smiling terribly. "You will marry when I am dead, though there is a very good reason why you had better not--why you had better not," he repeated very emphatically, and he slowly turned his toad eyes upon the lovers. "What reason?" asked Evelyn in a frightened voice. "Never mind the reason, my dear. You will marry just as if it did not exist." There was a long pause. "Two gone," he said, his voice lowering strangely, "and two more will be four--all together--for ever and ever, burning, burning, burning bright." At the last words his head sank slowly back, and the little glare of the toad eyes disappeared under the swollen lids; and the lurid cloud passed from the westering sun, so that the earth was green again and the light pure. Sir Hugh had fallen asleep, as he often did in his last illness, even while speaking. Gabriel Ockram drew Evelyn away, and from the study they went out into the dim hall, softly closing the door behind them, and each audibly drew breath, as though some sudden danger had been passed. They laid their hands each in the other's, and their strangely-like eyes met in a long look, in which love and perfect understanding were darkened by the secret terror of an unknown thing. Their pale faces reflected each other's fear. "It is his secret," said Evelyn at last. "He will never tell us what it is." "If he dies with it," answered Gabriel, "let it be on his own head!" "On his head!" echoed the dim hall. It was a strange echo, and some were frightened by it, for they said that if it were a real echo it should repeat everything and not give back a phrase here and there, now speaking, now silent. But Nurse Macdonald said that the great hall would never echo a prayer when an Ockram was to die, though it would give back curses ten for one. "On his head!" it repeated quite softly, and Evelyn started and looked round. "It is only the echo," said Gabriel, leading her away. They went out into the late afternoon light, and sat upon a stone seat behind the chapel, which was built across the end of the east wing. It was very still, not a breath stirred, and there was no sound near them. Only far off in the park a song-bird was whistling the high prelude to the evening chorus. "It is very lonely here," said Evelyn, taking Gabriel's hand nervously, and speaking as if she dreaded to disturb the silence. "If it were dark, I should be afraid." "Of what? Of me?" Gabriel's sad eyes turned to her. "Oh no! How could I be afraid of you? But of the old Ockrams--they say they are just under our feet here in the north vault outside the chapel, all in their shrouds, with no coffins, as they used to bury them." "As they always will--as they will bury my father, and me. They say an Ockram will not lie in a coffin." "But it cannot be true--these are fairy tales--ghost stories!" Evelyn nestled nearer to her companion, grasping his hand more tightly, and the sun began to go down. "Of course. But there is the story of old Sir Vernon, who was beheaded for treason under James II. The family brought his body back from the scaffold in an iron coffin with heavy locks, and they put it in the north vault. But ever afterwards, whenever the vault was opened to bury another of the family, they found the coffin wide open, and the body standing upright against the wall, and the head rolled away in a corner, smiling at it." "As Uncle Hugh smiles?" Evelyn shivered. "Yes, I suppose so," answered Gabriel, thoughtfully. "Of course I never saw it, and the vault has not been opened for thirty years--none of us have died since then." "And if--if Uncle Hugh dies--shall you----" Evelyn stopped, and her beautiful thin face was quite white. "Yes. I shall see him laid there too--with his secret, whatever it is." Gabriel sighed and pressed the girl's little hand. "I do not like to think of it," she said unsteadily. "O Gabriel, what can the secret be? He said we had better not marry--not that he forbade it--but he said it so strangely, and he smiled--ugh!" Her small white teeth chattered with fear, and she looked over her shoulder while drawing still closer to Gabriel. "And, somehow, I felt it in my own face--" "So did I," answered Gabriel in a low, nervous voice. "Nurse Macdonald----" He stopped abruptly. "What? What did she say?" "Oh--nothing. She has told me things--they would frighten you, dear. Come, it is growing chilly." He rose, but Evelyn held his hand in both of hers, still sitting and looking up into his face. "But we shall be married, just the same--Gabriel! Say that we shall!" "Of course, darling--of course. But while my father is so very ill, it is impossible----" "O Gabriel, Gabriel, dear! I wish we were married now!" cried Evelyn in sudden distress. "I know that something will prevent it and keep us apart." "Nothing shall!" "Nothing?" "Nothing human," said Gabriel Ockram, as she drew him down to her. And their faces, that were so strangely alike, met and touched--and Gabriel knew that the kiss had a marvellous savour of evil, but on Evelyn's lips it was like the cool breath of a sweet and mortal fear. And neither of them understood, for they were innocent and young. Yet she drew him to her by her lightest touch, as a sensitive plant shivers and waves its thin leaves, and bends and closes softly upon what it wants; and he let himself be drawn to her willingly, as he would if her touch had been deadly and poisonous; for she strangely loved that half voluptuous breath of fear, and he passionately desired the nameless evil something that lurked in her maiden lips. "It is as if we loved in a strange dream," she said. "I fear the waking," he murmured. "We shall not wake, dear--when the dream is over it will have already turned into death, so softly that we shall not know it. But until then----" She paused, and her eyes sought his, and their faces slowly came nearer. It was as if they had thoughts in their red lips that foresaw and foreknew the deep kiss of each other. "Until then----" she said again, very low, and her mouth was nearer to his. "Dream--till then," murmured his breath. CHAPTER II Nurse Macdonald was a hundred years old. She used to sleep sitting all bent together in a great old leathern arm-chair with wings, her feet in a bag footstool lined with sheepskin, and many warm blankets wrapped about her, even in summer. Beside her a little lamp always burned at night by an old silver cup, in which there was something to drink. Her face was very wrinkled, but the wrinkles were so small and fine and near together that they made shadows instead of lines. Two thin locks of hair, that was turning from white to a smoky yellow again, were drawn over her temples from under her starched white cap. Every now and then she woke, and her eyelids were drawn up in tiny folds like little pink silk curtains, and her queer blue eyes looked straight before her through doors and walls and worlds to a far place beyond. Then she slept again, and her hands lay one upon the other on the edge of the blanket; the thumbs had grown longer than the fingers with age, and the joints shone in the low lamplight like polished crab-apples. It was nearly one o'clock in the night, and the summer breeze was blowing the ivy branch against the panes of the window with a hushing caress. In the small room beyond, with the door ajar, the girl-maid who took care of Nurse Macdonald was fast asleep. All was very quiet. The old woman breathed regularly, and her indrawn lips trembled each time as the breath went out, and her eyes were shut. But outside the closed window there was a face, and violet eyes were looking steadily at the ancient sleeper, for it was like the face of Evelyn Warburton, though there were eighty feet from the sill of the window to the foot of the tower. Yet the cheeks were thinner than Evelyn's, and as white as a gleam, and the eyes stared, and the lips were not red with life; they were dead, and painted with new blood. Slowly Nurse Macdonald's wrinkled eyelids folded themselves back, and she looked straight at the face at the window while one might count ten. "Is it time?" she asked in her little old, faraway voice. While she looked the face at the window changed, for the eyes opened wider and wider till the white glared all round the bright violet, and the bloody lips opened over gleaming teeth, and stretched and widened and stretched again, and the shadowy golden hair rose and streamed against the window in the night breeze. And in answer to Nurse Macdonald's question came the sound that freezes the living flesh. That low-moaning voice that rises suddenly, like the scream of storm, from a moan to a wail, from a wail to a howl, from a howl to the fear-shriek of the tortured dead--he who has heard knows, and he can bear witness that the cry of the banshee is an evil cry to hear alone in the deep night. When it was over and the face was gone, Nurse Macdonald shook a little in her great chair, and still she looked at the black square of the window, but there was nothing more there, nothing but the night, and the whispering ivy branch. She turned her head to the door that was ajar, and there stood the girl in her white gown, her teeth chattering with fright. "It is time, child," said Nurse Macdonald. "I must go to him, for it is the end." She rose slowly, leaning her withered hands upon the arms of the chair, and the girl brought her a woollen gown and a great mantle, and her crutch-stick, and made her ready. But very often the girl looked at the window and was unjointed with fear, and often Nurse Macdonald shook her head and said words which the maid could not understand. "It was like the face of Miss Evelyn," said the girl at last, trembling. But the ancient woman looked up sharply and angrily, and her queer blue eyes glared. She held herself by the arm of the great chair with her left hand, and lifted up her crutch-stick to strike the maid with all her might. But she did not. "You are a good girl," she said, "but you are a fool. Pray for wit, child, pray for wit--or else find service in another house than Ockram Hall. Bring the lamp and help me under my left arm." The crutch-stick clacked on the wooden floor, and the low heels of the woman's slippers clappered after her in slow triplets, as Nurse Macdonald got toward the door. And down the stairs each step she took was a labour in itself, and by the clacking noise the waking servants knew that she was coming, very long before they saw her. No one was sleeping now, and there were lights, and whisperings, and pale faces in the corridors near Sir Hugh's bedroom, and now some one went in, and now some one came out, but every one made way for Nurse Macdonald, who had nursed Sir Hugh's father more than eighty years ago. The light was soft and clear in the room. There stood Gabriel Ockram by his father's bedside, and there knelt Evelyn Warburton, her hair lying like a golden shadow down her shoulders, and her hands clasped nervously together. And opposite Gabriel, a nurse was trying to make Sir Hugh drink. But he would not, and though his lips were parted, his teeth were set. He was very, very thin and yellow now, and his eyes caught the light sideways and were as yellow coals. "Do not torment him," said Nurse Macdonald to the woman who held the cup. "Let me speak to him, for his hour is come." "Let her speak to him," said Gabriel in a dull voice. So the ancient woman leaned to the pillow and laid the feather-weight of her withered hand, that was like a brown moth, upon Sir Hugh's yellow fingers, and she spoke to him earnestly, while only Gabriel and Evelyn were left in the room to hear. "Hugh Ockram," she said, "this is the end of your life; and as I saw you born, and saw your father born before you, I am come to see you die. Hugh Ockram, will you tell me the truth?" The dying man recognised the little faraway voice he had known all his life, and he very slowly turned his yellow face to Nurse Macdonald; but he said nothing. Then she spoke again. "Hugh Ockram, you will never see the daylight again. Will you tell the truth?" His toad-like eyes were not yet dull. They fastened themselves on her face. "What do you want of me?" he asked, and each word struck hollow upon the last. "I have no secrets. I have lived a good life." Nurse Macdonald laughed--a tiny, cracked laugh, that made her old head bob and tremble a little, as if her neck were on a steel spring. But Sir Hugh's eyes grew red, and his pale lips began to twist. "Let me die in peace," he said slowly. But Nurse Macdonald shook her head, and her brown, moth-like hand left his and fluttered to his forehead. "By the mother that bore you and died of grief for the sins you did, tell me the truth!" Sir Hugh's lips tightened on his discoloured teeth. "Not on earth," he answered slowly. "By the wife who bore your son and died heartbroken, tell me the truth!" "Neither to you in life, nor to her in eternal death." His lips writhed, as if the words were coals between them, and a great drop of sweat rolled across the parchment of his forehead. Gabriel Ockram bit his hand as he watched his father die. But Nurse Macdonald spoke a third time. "By the woman whom you betrayed, and who waits for you this night, Hugh Ockram, tell me the truth!" "It is too late. Let me die in peace." The writhing lips began to smile across the set yellow teeth, and the toad eyes glowed like evil jewels in his head. "There is time," said the ancient woman. "Tell me the name of Evelyn Warburton's father. Then I will let you die in peace." Evelyn started back, kneeling as she was, and stared at Nurse Macdonald, and then at her uncle. "The name of Evelyn's father?" he repeated slowly, while the awful smile spread upon his dying face. The light was growing strangely dim in the great room. As Evelyn looked, Nurse Macdonald's crooked shadow on the wall grew gigantic. Sir Hugh's breath came thick, rattling in his throat, as death crept in like a snake and choked it back. Evelyn prayed aloud, high and clear. Then something rapped at the window, and she felt her hair rise upon her head in a cool breeze, as she looked around in spite of herself. And when she saw her own white face looking in at the window, and her own eyes staring at her through the glass, wide and fearful, and her own hair streaming against the pane, and her own lips dashed with blood, she rose slowly from the floor and stood rigid for one moment, till she screamed once and fell straight back into Gabriel's arms. But the shriek that answered hers was the fear-shriek of the tormented corpse, out of which the soul cannot pass for shame of deadly sins, though the devils fight in it with corruption, each for their due share. Sir Hugh Ockram sat upright in his deathbed, and saw and cried aloud: "Evelyn!" His harsh voice broke and rattled in his chest as he sank down. But still Nurse Macdonald tortured him, for there was a little life left in him still. "You have seen the mother as she waits for you, Hugh Ockram. Who was this girl Evelyn's father? What was his name?" For the last time the dreadful smile came upon the twisted lips, very slowly, very surely now, and the toad eyes glared red, and the parchment face glowed a little in the flickering light. For the last time words came. "They know it in hell." Then the glowing eyes went out quickly, the yellow face turned waxen pale, and a great shiver ran through the thin body as Hugh Ockram died. But in death he still smiled, for he knew his secret and kept it still, on the other side, and he would take it with him, to lie with him for ever in the north vault of the chapel where the Ockrams lie uncoffined in their shrouds--all but one. Though he was dead, he smiled, for he had kept his treasure of evil truth to the end, and there was none left to tell the name he had spoken, but there was all the evil he had not undone left to bear fruit. As they watched--Nurse Macdonald and Gabriel, who held Evelyn still unconscious in his arms while he looked at the father--they felt the dead smile crawling along their own lips--the ancient crone and the youth with the angel's face. Then they shivered a little, and both looked at Evelyn as she lay with her head on his shoulder, and, though she was very beautiful, the same sickening smile was twisting her young mouth too, and it was like the foreshadowing of a great evil which they could not understand. But by and by they carried Evelyn out, and she opened her eyes and the smile was gone. From far away in the great house the sound of weeping and crooning came up the stairs and echoed along the dismal corridors, for the women had begun to mourn the dead master, after the Irish fashion, and the hall had echoes of its own all that night, like the far-off wail of the banshee among forest trees. When the time was come they took Sir Hugh in his winding-sheet on a trestle bier, and bore him to the chapel and through the iron door and down the long descent to the north vault, with tapers, to lay him by his father. And two men went in first to prepare the place, and came back staggering like drunken men, and white, leaving their lights behind them. But Gabriel Ockram was not afraid, for he knew. And he went in alone and saw that the body of Sir Vernon Ockram was leaning upright against the stone wall, and that its head lay on the ground near by with the face turned up, and the dried leathern lips smiled horribly at the dried-up corpse, while the iron coffin, lined with black velvet, stood open on the floor. Then Gabriel took the thing in his hands, for it was very light, being quite dried by the air of the vault, and those who peeped in from the door saw him lay it in the coffin again, and it rustled a little, like a bundle of reeds, and sounded hollow as it touched the sides and the bottom. He also placed the head upon the shoulders and shut down the lid, which fell to with a rusty spring that snapped. After that they laid Sir Hugh beside his father, with the trestle bier on which they had brought him, and they went back to the chapel. But when they saw one another's faces, master and men, they were all smiling with the dead smile of the corpse they had left in the vault, so that they could not bear to look at one another until it had faded away. CHAPTER III Gabriel Ockram became Sir Gabriel, inheriting the baronetcy with the half-ruined fortune left by his father, and still Evelyn Warburton lived at Ockram Hall, in the south room that had been hers ever since she could remember anything. She could not go away, for there were no relatives to whom she could have gone, and, besides, there seemed to be no reason why she should not stay. The world would never trouble itself to care what the Ockrams did on their Irish estates, and it was long since the Ockrams had asked anything of the world. So Sir Gabriel took his father's place at the dark old table in the dining-room, and Evelyn sat opposite to him, until such time as their mourning should be over, and they might be married at last. And meanwhile their lives went on as before, since Sir Hugh had been a hopeless invalid during the last year of his life, and they had seen him but once a day for a little while, spending most of their time together in a strangely perfect companionship. But though the late summer saddened into autumn, and autumn darkened into winter, and storm followed storm, and rain poured on rain through the short days and the long nights, yet Ockram Hall seemed less gloomy since Sir Hugh had been laid in the north vault beside his father. And at Christmastide Evelyn decked the great hall with holly and green boughs, and huge fires blazed on every hearth. Then the tenants were all bidden to a New Year's dinner, and they ate and drank well, while Sir Gabriel sat at the head of the table. Evelyn came in when the port wine was brought, and the most respected of the tenants made a speech to propose her health. It was long, he said, since there had been a Lady Ockram. Sir Gabriel shaded his eyes with his hand and looked down at the table, but a faint colour came into Evelyn's transparent cheeks. But, said the grey-haired farmer, it was longer still since there had been a Lady Ockram so fair as the next was to be, and he gave the health of Evelyn Warburton. Then the tenants all stood up and shouted for her, and Sir Gabriel stood up likewise, beside Evelyn. And when the men gave the last and loudest cheer of all there was a voice not theirs, above them all, higher, fiercer, louder--a scream not earthly, shrieking for the bride of Ockram Hall. And the holly and the green boughs over the great chimney-piece shook and slowly waved as if a cool breeze were blowing over them. But the men turned very pale, and many of them set down their glasses, but others let them fall upon the floor for fear. And looking into one another's faces, they were all smiling strangely, a dead smile, like dead Sir Hugh's. One cried out words in Irish, and the fear of death was suddenly upon them all, so that they fled in panic, falling over one another like wild beasts in the burning forest, when the thick smoke runs along before the flame; and the tables were over-set, and drinking glasses and bottles were broken in heaps, and the dark red wine crawled like blood upon the polished floor. Sir Gabriel and Evelyn stood alone at the head of the table before the wreck of the feast, not daring to turn to see each other, for each knew that the other smiled. But his right arm held her and his left hand clasped her right as they stared before them; and but for the shadows of her hair one might not have told their two faces apart. They listened long, but the cry came not again, and the dead smile faded from their lips, while each remembered that Sir Hugh Ockram lay in the north vault, smiling in his winding-sheet, in the dark, because he had died with his secret. So ended the tenants' New Year's dinner. But from that time on Sir Gabriel grew more and more silent, and his face grew even paler and thinner than before. Often, without warning and without words, he would rise from his seat, as if something moved him against his will, and he would go out into the rain or the sunshine to the north side of the chapel, and sit on the stone bench, staring at the ground as if he could see through it, and through the vault below, and through the white winding-sheet in the dark, to the dead smile that would not die. Always when he went out in that way Evelyn came out presently and sat beside him. Once, too, as in summer, their beautiful faces came suddenly near, and their lids drooped, and their red lips were almost joined together. But as their eyes met, they grew wide and wild, so that the white showed in a ring all round the deep violet, and their teeth chattered, and their hands were like hands of corpses, each in the other's, for the terror of what was under their feet, and of what they knew but could not see. Once, also, Evelyn found Sir Gabriel in the chapel alone, standing before the iron door that led down to the place of death, and in his hand there was the key to the door; but he had not put it into the lock. Evelyn drew him away, shivering, for she had also been driven in waking dreams to see that terrible thing again, and to find out whether it had changed since it had lain there. "I'm going mad," said Sir Gabriel, covering his eyes with his hand as he went with her. "I see it in my sleep, I see it when I am awake--it draws me to it, day and night--and unless I see it I shall die!" "I know," answered Evelyn, "I know. It is as if threads were spun from it, like a spider's, drawing us down to it." She was silent for a moment, and then she started violently and grasped his arm with a man's strength, and almost screamed the words she spoke. "But we must not go there!" she cried. "We must not go!" Sir Gabriel's eyes were half shut, and he was not moved by the agony of her face. "I shall die, unless I see it again," he said, in a quiet voice not like his own. And all that day and that evening he scarcely spoke, thinking of it, always thinking, while Evelyn Warburton quivered from head to foot with a terror she had never known. She went alone, on a grey winter's morning, to Nurse Macdonald's room in the tower, and sat down beside the great leathern easy-chair, laying her thin white hand upon the withered fingers. "Nurse," she said, "what was it that Uncle Hugh should have told you, that night before he died? It must have been an awful secret--and yet, though you asked him, I feel somehow that you know it, and that you know why he used to smile so dreadfully." The old woman's head moved slowly from side to side. "I only guess--I shall never know," she answered slowly in her cracked little voice. "But what do you guess? Who am I? Why did you ask who my father was? You know I am Colonel Warburton's daughter, and my mother was Lady Ockram's sister, so that Gabriel and I are cousins. My father was killed in Afghanistan. What secret can there be?" "I do not know. I can only guess." "Guess what?" asked Evelyn imploringly, and pressing the soft withered hands, as she leaned forward. But Nurse Macdonald's wrinkled lids dropped suddenly over her queer blue eyes, and her lips shook a little with her breath, as if she were asleep. Evelyn waited. By the fire the Irish maid was knitting fast, and the needles clicked like three or four clocks ticking against each other. And the real clock on the wall solemnly ticked alone, checking off the seconds of the woman who was a hundred years old, and had not many days left. Outside the ivy branch beat the window in the wintry blast, as it had beaten against the glass a hundred years ago. Then as Evelyn sat there she felt again the waking of a horrible desire--the sickening wish to go down, down to the thing in the north vault, and to open the winding-sheet, and see whether it had changed; and she held Nurse Macdonald's hands as if to keep herself in her place and fight against the appalling attraction of the evil dead. But the old cat that kept Nurse Macdonald's feet warm, lying always on the bag footstool, got up and stretched itself, and looked up into Evelyn's eyes, while its back arched, and its tail thickened and bristled, and its ugly pink lips drew back in a devilish grin, showing its sharp teeth. Evelyn stared at it, half fascinated by its ugliness. Then the creature suddenly put out one paw with all its claws spread, and spat at the girl, and all at once the grinning cat was like the smiling corpse far down below, so that Evelyn shivered down to her small feet, and covered her face with her free hand, lest Nurse Macdonald should wake and see the dead smile there, for she could feel it. The old woman had already opened her eyes again, and she touched her cat with the end of her crutch-stick, whereupon its back went down and its tail shrunk, and it sidled back to its place on the bag footstool. But its yellow eyes looked up sideways at Evelyn, between the slits of its lids. "What is it that you guess, nurse?" asked the young girl again. "A bad thing--a wicked thing. But I dare not tell you, lest it might not be true, and the very thought should blast your life. For if I guess right, he meant that you should not know, and that you two should marry, and pay for his old sin with your souls." "He used to tell us that we ought not to marry----" "Yes--he told you that, perhaps--but it was as if a man put poisoned meat before a starving beast, and said 'do not eat,' but never raised his hand to take the meat away. And if he told you that you should not marry, it was because he hoped you would; for of all men living or dead, Hugh Ockram was the falsest man that ever told a cowardly lie, and the cruelest that ever hurt a weak woman, and the worst that ever loved a sin." "But Gabriel and I love each other," said Evelyn very sadly. Nurse Macdonald's old eyes looked far away, at sights seen long ago, and that rose in the grey winter air amid the mists of an ancient youth. "If you love, you can die together," she said, very slowly. "Why should you live, if it is true? I am a hundred years old. What has life given me? The beginning is fire; the end is a heap of ashes; and between the end and the beginning lies all the pain of the world. Let me sleep, since I cannot die." Then the old woman's eyes closed again, and her head sank a little lower upon her breast. So Evelyn went away and left her asleep, with the cat asleep on the bag footstool; and the young girl tried to forget Nurse Macdonald's words, but she could not, for she heard them over and over again in the wind, and behind her on the stairs. And as she grew sick with fear of the frightful unknown evil to which her soul was bound, she felt a bodily something pressing her, and pushing her, and forcing her on, and from the other side she felt the threads that drew her mysteriously: and when she shut her eyes, she saw in the chapel behind the altar, the low iron door through which she must pass to go to the thing. And as she lay awake at night, she drew the sheet over her face, lest she should see shadows on the wall beckoning to her; and the sound of her own warm breath made whisperings in her ears, while she held the mattress with her hands, to keep from getting up and going to the chapel. It would have been easier if there had not been a way thither through the library, by a door which was never locked. It would be fearfully easy to take her candle and go softly through the sleeping house. And the key of the vault lay under the altar behind a stone that turned. She knew the little secret. She could go alone and see. But when she thought of it, she felt her hair rise on her head, and first she shivered so that the bed shook, and then the horror went through her in a cold thrill that was agony again, like myriads of icy needles boring into her nerves. CHAPTER IV The old clock in Nurse Macdonald's tower struck midnight. From her room she could hear the creaking chains and weights in their box in the corner of the staircase, and overhead the jarring of the rusty lever that lifted the hammer. She had heard it all her life. It struck eleven strokes clearly, and then came the twelfth, with a dull half stroke, as though the hammer were too weary to go on, and had fallen asleep against the bell. The old cat got up from the bag footstool and stretched itself, and Nurse Macdonald opened her ancient eyes and looked slowly round the room by the dim light of the night lamp. She touched the cat with her crutch-stick, and it lay down upon her feet. She drank a few drops from her cup and went to sleep again. But downstairs Sir Gabriel sat straight up as the clock struck, for he had dreamed a fearful dream of horror, and his heart stood still, till he awoke at its stopping, and it beat again furiously with his breath, like a wild thing set free. No Ockram had ever known fear waking, but sometimes it came to Sir Gabriel in his sleep. He pressed his hands to his temples as he sat up in bed, and his hands were icy cold, but his head was hot. The dream faded far, and in its place there came the master thought that racked his life; with the thought also came the sick twisting of his lips in the dark that would have been a smile. Far off, Evelyn Warburton dreamed that the dead smile was on her mouth, and awoke, starting with a little moan, her face in her hands, shivering. But Sir Gabriel struck a light and got up and began to walk up and down his great room. It was midnight, and he had barely slept an hour, and in the north of Ireland the winter nights are long. "I shall go mad," he said to himself, holding his forehead. He knew that it was true. For weeks and months the possession of the thing had grown upon him like a disease, till he could think of nothing without thinking first of that. And now all at once it outgrew his strength, and he knew that he must be its instrument or lose his mind--that he must do the deed he hated and feared, if he could fear anything, or that something would snap in his brain and divide him from life while he was yet alive. He took the candlestick in his hand, the old-fashioned heavy candlestick that had always been used by the head of the house. He did not think of dressing, but went as he was, in his silk night clothes and his slippers, and he opened the door. Everything was very still in the great old house. He shut the door behind him and walked noiselessly on the carpet through the long corridor. A cool breeze blew over his shoulder and blew the flame of his candle straight out from him. Instinctively he stopped and looked round, but all was still, and the upright flame burned steadily. He walked on, and instantly a strong draught was behind him, almost extinguishing the light. It seemed to blow him on his way, ceasing whenever he turned, coming again when he went on--invisible, icy. Down the great staircase to the echoing hall he went, seeing nothing but the flaring flame of the candle standing away from him over the guttering wax, while the cold wind blew over his shoulder and through his hair. On he passed through the open door into the library, dark with old books and carved bookcases; on through the door in the shelves, with painted shelves on it, and the imitated backs of books, so that one needed to know where to find it--and it shut itself after him with a soft click. He entered the low-arched passage, and though the door was shut behind him and fitted tightly in its frame, still the cold breeze blew the flame forward as he walked. And he was not afraid; but his face was very pale, and his eyes were wide and bright, looking before him, seeing already in the dark air the picture of the thing beyond. But in the chapel he stood still, his hand on the little turning stone tablet in the back of the stone altar. On the tablet were engraved words: "_Clavis sepulchri Clarissimorum Dominorum De Ockram_"--("the key to the vault of the most illustrious lords of Ockram"). Sir Gabriel paused and listened. He fancied that he heard a sound far off in the great house where all had been so still, but it did not come again. Yet he waited at the last, and looked at the low iron door. Beyond it, down the long descent, lay his father uncoffined, six months dead, corrupt, terrible in his clinging shroud. The strangely preserving air of the vault could not yet have done its work completely. But on the thing's ghastly features, with their half-dried, open eyes, there would still be the frightful smile with which the man had died--the smile that haunted---- As the thought crossed Sir Gabriel's mind, he felt his lips writhing, and he struck his own mouth in wrath with the back of his hand so fiercely that a drop of blood ran down his chin, and another, and more, falling back in the gloom upon the chapel pavement. But still his bruised lips twisted themselves. He turned the tablet by the simple secret. It needed no safer fastening, for had each Ockram been coffined in pure gold, and had the door been open wide, there was not a man in Tyrone brave enough to go down to that place, saving Gabriel Ockram himself, with his angel's face and his thin, white hands, and his sad unflinching eyes. He took the great old key and set it into the lock of the iron door; and the heavy, rattling noise echoed down the descent beyond like footsteps, as if a watcher had stood behind the iron and were running away within, with heavy dead feet. And though he was standing still, the cool wind was from behind him, and blew the flame of the candle against the iron panel. He turned the key. Sir Gabriel saw that his candle was short. There were new ones on the altar, with long candlesticks, and he lit one, and left his own burning on the floor. As he set it down on the pavement his lip began to bleed again, and another drop fell upon the stones. He drew the iron door open and pushed it back against the chapel wall, so that it should not shut of itself, while he was within; and the horrible draught of the sepulchre came up out of the depths in his face, foul and dark. He went in, but though the fetid air met him, yet the flame of the tall candle was blown straight from him against the wind while he walked down the easy incline with steady steps, his loose slippers slapping the pavement as he trod. He shaded the candle with his hand, and his fingers seemed to be made of wax and blood as the light shone through them. And in spite of him the unearthly draught forced the flame forward, till it was blue over the black wick, and it seemed as if it must go out. But he went straight on, with shining eyes. The downward passage was wide, and he could not always see the walls by the struggling light, but he knew when he was in the place of death by the larger, drearier echo of his steps in the greater space, and by the sensation of a distant blank wall. He stood still, almost enclosing the flame of the candle in the hollow of his hand. He could see a little, for his eyes were growing used to the gloom. Shadowy forms were outlined in the dimness, where the biers of the Ockrams stood crowded together, side by side, each with its straight, shrouded corpse, strangely preserved by the dry air, like the empty shell that the locust sheds in summer. And a few steps before him he saw clearly the dark shape of headless Sir Vernon's iron coffin, and he knew that nearest to it lay the thing he sought. He was as brave as any of those dead men had been, and they were his fathers, and he knew that sooner or later he should lie there himself, beside Sir Hugh, slowly drying to a parchment shell. But he was still alive, and he closed his eyes a moment, and three great drops stood on his forehead. Then he looked again, and by the whiteness of the winding-sheet he knew his father's corpse, for all the others were brown with age; and, moreover, the flame of the candle was blown toward it. He made four steps till he reached it, and suddenly the light burned straight and high, shedding a dazzling yellow glare upon the fine linen that was all white, save over the face, and where the joined hands were laid on the breast. And at those places ugly stains had spread, darkened with outlines of the features and of the tight-clasped fingers. There was a frightful stench of drying death. As Sir Gabriel looked down, something stirred behind him, softly at first, then more noisily, and something fell to the stone floor with a dull thud and rolled up to his feet; he started back and saw a withered head lying almost face upward on the pavement, grinning at him. He felt the cold sweat standing on his face, and his heart beat painfully. For the first time in all his life that evil thing which men call fear was getting hold of him, checking his heart-strings as a cruel driver checks a quivering horse, clawing at his backbone with icy hands, lifting his hair with freezing breath, climbing up and gathering in his midriff with leaden weight. Yet presently he bit his lip and bent down, holding the candle in one hand, to lift the shroud back from the head of the corpse with the other. Slowly he lifted it. Then it clove to the half-dried skin of the face, and his hand shook as if some one had struck him on the elbow, but half in fear and half in anger at himself, he pulled it, so that it came away with a little ripping sound. He caught his breath as he held it, not yet throwing it back, and not yet looking. The horror was working in him, and he felt that old Vernon Ockram was standing up in his iron coffin, headless, yet watching him with the stump of his severed neck. While he held his breath he felt the dead smile twisting his lips. In sudden wrath at his own misery, he tossed the death-stained linen backward, and looked at last. He ground his teeth lest he should shriek aloud. There it was, the thing that haunted him, that haunted Evelyn Warburton, that was like a blight on all that came near him. The dead face was blotched with dark stains, and the thin, grey hair was matted about the discoloured forehead. The sunken lids were half open, and the candle light gleamed on something foul where the toad eyes had lived. But yet the dead thing smiled, as it had smiled in life; the ghastly lips were parted and drawn wide and tight upon the wolfish teeth, cursing still, and still defying hell to do its worst--defying, cursing, and always and for ever smiling alone in the dark. Sir Gabriel opened the winding-sheet where the hands were, and the blackened, withered fingers were closed upon something stained and mottled. Shivering from head to foot, but fighting like a man in agony for his life, he tried to take the package from the dead man's hold. But as he pulled at it the claw-like fingers seemed to close more tightly, and when he pulled harder the shrunken hands and arms rose from the corpse with a horrible look of life following his motion--then as he wrenched the sealed packet loose at last, the hands fell back into their place still folded. He set down the candle on the edge of the bier to break the seals from the stout paper. And, kneeling on one knee, to get a better light, he read what was within, written long ago in Sir Hugh's queer hand. He was no longer afraid. He read how Sir Hugh had written it all down that it might perchance be a witness of evil and of his hatred; how he had loved Evelyn Warburton, his wife's sister; and how his wife had died of a broken heart with his curse upon her, and how Warburton and he had fought side by side in Afghanistan, and Warburton had fallen; but Ockram had brought his comrade's wife back a full year later, and little Evelyn, her child, had been born in Ockram Hall. And next, how he had wearied of the mother, and she had died like her sister with his curse on her. And then, how Evelyn had been brought up as his niece, and how he had trusted that his son Gabriel and his daughter, innocent and unknowing, might love and marry, and the souls of the women he had betrayed might suffer another anguish before eternity was out. And, last of all, he hoped that some day, when nothing could be undone, the two might find his writing and live on, not daring to tell the truth for their children's sake and the world's word, man and wife. This he read, kneeling beside the corpse in the north vault, by the light of the altar candle; and when he had read it all, he thanked God aloud that he had found the secret in time. But when he rose to his feet and looked down at the dead face it was changed, and the smile was gone from it for ever, and the jaw had fallen a little, and the tired, dead lips were relaxed. And then there was a breath behind him and close to him, not cold like that which had blown the flame of the candle as he came, but warm and human. He turned suddenly. There she stood, all in white, with her shadowy golden hair--for she had risen from her bed and had followed him noiselessly, and had found him reading, and had herself read over his shoulder. He started violently when he saw her, for his nerves were unstrung--and then he cried out her name in the still place of death: "Evelyn!" "My brother!" she answered softly and tenderly, putting out both hands to meet his. THE SCREAMING SKULL I have often heard it scream. No, I am not nervous, I am not imaginative, and I never believed in ghosts, unless that thing is one. Whatever it is, it hates me almost as much as it hated Luke Pratt, and it screams at me. If I were you, I would never tell ugly stories about ingenious ways of killing people, for you never can tell but that some one at the table may be tired of his or her nearest and dearest. I have always blamed myself for Mrs. Pratt's death, and I suppose I was responsible for it in a way, though heaven knows I never wished her anything but long life and happiness. If I had not told that story she might be alive yet. That is why the thing screams at me, I fancy. She was a good little woman, with a sweet temper, all things considered, and a nice gentle voice; but I remember hearing her shriek once when she thought her little boy was killed by a pistol that went off, though every one was sure that it was not loaded. It was the same scream; exactly the same, with a sort of rising quaver at the end; do you know what I mean? Unmistakable. The truth is, I had not realised that the doctor and his wife were not on good terms. They used to bicker a bit now and then when I was here, and I often noticed that little Mrs. Pratt got very red and bit her lip hard to keep her temper, while Luke grew pale and said the most offensive things. He was that sort when he was in the nursery, I remember, and afterward at school. He was my cousin, you know; that is how I came by this house; after he died, and his boy Charley was killed in South Africa, there were no relations left. Yes, it's a pretty little property, just the sort of thing for an old sailor like me who has taken to gardening. One always remembers one's mistakes much more vividly than one's cleverest things, doesn't one? I've often noticed it. I was dining with the Pratts one night, when I told them the story that afterwards made so much difference. It was a wet night in November, and the sea was moaning. Hush!--if you don't speak you will hear it now.... Do you hear the tide? Gloomy sound, isn't it? Sometimes, about this time of year--hallo!--there it is! Don't be frightened, man--it won't eat you--it's only a noise, after all! But I'm glad you've heard it, because there are always people who think it's the wind, or my imagination, or something. You won't hear it again to-night, I fancy, for it doesn't often come more than once. Yes--that's right. Put another stick on the fire, and a little more stuff into that weak mixture you're so fond of. Do you remember old Blauklot the carpenter, on that German ship that picked us up when the _Clontarf_ went to the bottom? We were hove to in a howling gale one night, as snug as you please, with no land within five hundred miles, and the ship coming up and falling off as regularly as clockwork--"Biddy te boor beebles ashore tis night, poys!" old Blauklot sang out, as he went off to his quarters with the sail-maker. I often think of that, now that I'm ashore for good and all. Yes, it was on a night like this, when I was at home for a spell, waiting to take the _Olympia_ out on her first trip--it was on the next voyage that she broke the record, you remember--but that dates it. Ninety-two was the year, early in November. The weather was dirty, Pratt was out of temper, and the dinner was bad, very bad indeed, which didn't improve matters, and cold, which made it worse. The poor little lady was very unhappy about it, and insisted on making a Welsh rarebit on the table to counteract the raw turnips and the half-boiled mutton. Pratt must have had a hard day. Perhaps he had lost a patient. At all events, he was in a nasty temper. "My wife is trying to poison me, you see!" he said. "She'll succeed some day." I saw that she was hurt, and I made believe to laugh, and said that Mrs. Pratt was much too clever to get rid of her husband in such a simple way; and then I began to tell them about Japanese tricks with spun glass and chopped horsehair and the like. Pratt was a doctor, and knew a lot more than I did about such things, but that only put me on my mettle, and I told a story about a woman in Ireland who did for three husbands before any one suspected foul play. Did you never hear that tale? The fourth husband managed to keep awake and caught her, and she was hanged. How did she do it? She drugged them, and poured melted lead into their ears through a little horn funnel when they were asleep.... No--that's the wind whistling. It's backing up to the southward again. I can tell by the sound. Besides, the other thing doesn't often come more than once in an evening even at this time of year--when it happened. Yes, it was in November. Poor Mrs. Pratt died suddenly in her bed not long after I dined here. I can fix the date, because I got the news in New York by the steamer that followed the _Olympia_ when I took her out on her first trip. You had the _Leofric_ the same year? Yes, I remember. What a pair of old buffers we are coming to be, you and I. Nearly fifty years since we were apprentices together on the _Clontarf_. Shall you ever forget old Blauklot? "Biddy te boor beebles ashore, poys!" Ha, ha! Take a little more, with all that water. It's the old Hulstkamp I found in the cellar when this house came to me, the same I brought Luke from Amsterdam five-and-twenty years ago. He had never touched a drop of it. Perhaps he's sorry now, poor fellow. Where did I leave off? I told you that Mrs. Pratt died suddenly--yes. Luke must have been lonely here after she was dead, I should think; I came to see him now and then, and he looked worn and nervous, and told me that his practice was growing too heavy for him, though he wouldn't take an assistant on any account. Years went on, and his son was killed in South Africa, and after that he began to be queer. There was something about him not like other people. I believe he kept his senses in his profession to the end; there was no complaint of his having made bad mistakes in cases, or anything of that sort, but he had a look about him---- Luke was a red-headed man with a pale face when he was young, and he was never stout; in middle age he turned a sandy grey, and after his son died he grew thinner and thinner, till his head looked like a skull with parchment stretched over it very tight, and his eyes had a sort of glare in them that was very disagreeable to look at. He had an old dog that poor Mrs. Pratt had been fond of, and that used to follow her everywhere. He was a bull-dog, and the sweetest tempered beast you ever saw, though he had a way of hitching his upper lip behind one of his fangs that frightened strangers a good deal. Sometimes, of an evening, Pratt and Bumble--that was the dog's name--used to sit and look at each other a long time, thinking about old times, I suppose, when Luke's wife used to sit in that chair you've got. That was always her place, and this was the doctor's, where I'm sitting. Bumble used to climb up by the footstool--he was old and fat by that time, and could not jump much, and his teeth were getting shaky. He would look steadily at Luke, and Luke looked steadily at the dog, his face growing more and more like a skull with two little coals for eyes; and after about five minutes or so, though it may have been less, old Bumble would suddenly begin to shake all over, and all on a sudden he would set up an awful howl, as if he had been shot, and tumble out of the easy-chair and trot away, and hide himself under the sideboard, and lie there making odd noises. Considering Pratt's looks in those last months, the thing is not surprising, you know. I'm not nervous or imaginative, but I can quite believe he might have sent a sensitive woman into hysterics--his head looked so much like a skull in parchment. At last I came down one day before Christmas, when my ship was in dock and I had three weeks off. Bumble was not about, and I said casually that I supposed the old dog was dead. "Yes," Pratt answered, and I thought there was something odd in his tone even before he went on after a little pause. "I killed him," he said presently. "I could not stand it any longer." I asked what it was that Luke could not stand, though I guessed well enough. "He had a way of sitting in her chair and glaring at me, and then howling." Luke shivered a little. "He didn't suffer at all, poor old Bumble," he went on in a hurry, as if he thought I might imagine he had been cruel. "I put dionine into his drink to make him sleep soundly, and then I chloroformed him gradually, so that he could not have felt suffocated even if he was dreaming. It's been quieter since then." I wondered what he meant, for the words slipped out as if he could not help saying them. I've understood since. He meant that he did not hear that noise so often after the dog was out of the way. Perhaps he thought at first that it was old Bumble in the yard howling at the moon, though it's not that kind of noise, is it? Besides, I know what it is, if Luke didn't. It's only a noise, after all, and a noise never hurt anybody yet. But he was much more imaginative than I am. No doubt there really is something about this place that I don't understand; but when I don't understand a thing, I call it a phenomenon, and I don't take it for granted that it's going to kill me, as he did. I don't understand everything, by long odds, nor do you, nor does any man who has been to sea. We used to talk of tidal waves, for instance, and we could not account for them; now we account for them by calling them submarine earthquakes, and we branch off into fifty theories, any one of which might make earthquakes quite comprehensible if we only knew what they are. I fell in with one of them once, and the inkstand flew straight up from the table against the ceiling of my cabin. The same thing happened to Captain Lecky--I dare say you've read about it in his "Wrinkles." Very good. If that sort of thing took place ashore, in this room for instance, a nervous person would talk about spirits and levitation and fifty things that mean nothing, instead of just quietly setting it down as a "phenomenon" that has not been explained yet. My view of that voice, you see. Besides, what is there to prove that Luke killed his wife? I would not even suggest such a thing to any one but you. After all, there was nothing but the coincidence that poor little Mrs. Pratt died suddenly in her bed a few days after I told that story at dinner. She was not the only woman who ever died like that. Luke got the doctor over from the next parish, and they agreed that she had died of something the matter with her heart. Why not? It's common enough. Of course, there was the ladle. I never told anybody about that, and it made me start when I found it in the cupboard in the bedroom. It was new, too--a little tinned iron ladle that had not been in the fire more than once or twice, and there was some lead in it that had been melted, and stuck to the bottom of the bowl, all grey, with hardened dross on it. But that proves nothing. A country doctor is generally a handy man, who does everything for himself, and Luke may have had a dozen reasons for melting a little lead in a ladle. He was fond of sea-fishing, for instance, and he may have cast a sinker for a night-line; perhaps it was a weight for the hall clock, or something like that. All the same, when I found it I had a rather queer sensation, because it looked so much like the thing I had described when I told them the story. Do you understand? It affected me unpleasantly, and I threw it away; it's at the bottom of the sea a mile from the Spit, and it will be jolly well rusted beyond recognising if it's ever washed up by the tide. You see, Luke must have bought it in the village, years ago, for the man sells just such ladles still. I suppose they are used in cooking. In any case, there was no reason why an inquisitive housemaid should find such a thing lying about, with lead in it, and wonder what it was, and perhaps talk to the maid who heard me tell the story at dinner--for that girl married the plumber's son in the village, and may remember the whole thing. You understand me, don't you? Now that Luke Pratt is dead and gone, and lies buried beside his wife, with an honest man's tombstone at his head, I should not care to stir up anything that could hurt his memory. They are both dead, and their son, too. There was trouble enough about Luke's death, as it was. How? He was found dead on the beach one morning, and there was a coroner's inquest. There were marks on his throat, but he had not been robbed. The verdict was that he had come to his end "by the hands or teeth of some person or animal unknown," for half the jury thought it might have been a big dog that had thrown him down and gripped his windpipe, though the skin of his throat was not broken. No one knew at what time he had gone out, nor where he had been. He was found lying on his back above high-water mark, and an old cardboard bandbox that had belonged to his wife lay under his hand, open. The lid had fallen off. He seemed to have been carrying home a skull in the box--doctors are fond of collecting such things. It had rolled out and lay near his head, and it was a remarkably fine skull, rather small, beautifully shaped and very white, with perfect teeth. That is to say, the upper jaw was perfect, but there was no lower one at all, when I first saw it. Yes, I found it here when I came. You see, it was very white and polished, like a thing meant to be kept under a glass case, and the people did not know where it came from, nor what to do with it; so they put it back into the bandbox and set it on the shelf of the cupboard in the best bedroom, and of course they showed it to me when I took possession. I was taken down to the beach, too, to be shown the place where Luke was found, and the old fisherman explained just how he was lying, and the skull beside him. The only point he could not explain was why the skull had rolled up the sloping sand toward Luke's head instead of rolling downhill to his feet. It did not seem odd to me at the time, but I have often thought of it since, for the place is rather steep. I'll take you there to-morrow if you like--I made a sort of cairn of stones there afterward. When he fell down, or was thrown down--whichever happened--the bandbox struck the sand, and the lid came off, and the thing came out and ought to have rolled down. But it didn't. It was close to his head, almost touching it, and turned with the face toward it. I say it didn't strike me as odd when the man told me; but I could not help thinking about it afterward, again and again, till I saw a picture of it all when I closed my eyes; and then I began to ask myself why the plaguey thing had rolled up instead of down, and why it had stopped near Luke's head instead of anywhere else, a yard away, for instance. You naturally want to know what conclusion I reached, don't you? None that at all explained the rolling, at all events. But I got something else into my head, after a time, that made me feel downright uncomfortable. Oh, I don't mean as to anything supernatural! There may be ghosts, or there may not be. If there are, I'm not inclined to believe that they can hurt living people except by frightening them, and, for my part, I would rather face any shape of ghost than a fog in the Channel when it's crowded. No. What bothered me was just a foolish idea, that's all, and I cannot tell how it began, nor what made it grow till it turned into a certainty. I was thinking about Luke and his poor wife one evening over my pipe and a dull book, when it occurred to me that the skull might possibly be hers, and I have never got rid of the thought since. You'll tell me there's no sense in it, no doubt; that Mrs. Pratt was buried like a Christian and is lying in the churchyard where they put her, and that it's perfectly monstrous to suppose her husband kept her skull in her old bandbox in his bedroom. All the same, in the face of reason, and common sense, and probability, I'm convinced that he did. Doctors do all sorts of queer things that would make men like you and me feel creepy, and those are just the things that don't seem probable, nor logical, nor sensible to us. Then, don't you see?--if it really was her skull, poor woman, the only way of accounting for his having it is that he really killed her, and did it in that way, as the woman killed her husbands in the story, and that he was afraid there might be an examination some day which would betray him. You see, I told that too, and I believe it had really happened some fifty or sixty years ago. They dug up the three skulls, you know, and there was a small lump of lead rattling about in each one. That was what hanged the woman. Luke remembered that, I'm sure. I don't want to know what he did when he thought of it; my taste never ran in the direction of horrors, and I don't fancy you care for them either, do you? No. If you did, you might supply what is wanting to the story. It must have been rather grim, eh? I wish I did not see the whole thing so distinctly, just as everything must have happened. He took it the night before she was buried, I'm sure, after the coffin had been shut, and when the servant girl was asleep. I would bet anything, that when he'd got it, he put something under the sheet in its place, to fill up and look like it. What do you suppose he put there, under the sheet? I don't wonder you take me up on what I'm saying! First I tell you that I don't want to know what happened, and that I hate to think about horrors, and then I describe the whole thing to you as if I had seen it. I'm quite sure that it was her work-bag that he put there. I remember the bag very well, for she always used it of an evening; it was made of brown plush, and when it was stuffed full it was about the size of--you understand. Yes, there I am, at it again! You may laugh at me, but you don't live here alone, where it was done, and you didn't tell Luke the story about the melted lead. I'm not nervous, I tell you, but sometimes I begin to feel that I understand why some people are. I dwell on all this when I'm alone, and I dream of it, and when that thing screams--well, frankly, I don't like the noise any more than you do, though I should be used to it by this time. I ought not to be nervous. I've sailed in a haunted ship. There was a Man in the Top, and two-thirds of the crew died of the West Coast fever inside of ten days after we anchored; but I was all right, then and afterward. I have seen some ugly sights, too, just as you have, and all the rest of us. But nothing ever stuck in my head in the way this does. You see, I've tried to get rid of the thing, but it doesn't like that. It wants to be there in its place, in Mrs. Pratt's bandbox in the cupboard in the best bedroom. It's not happy anywhere else. How do I know that? Because I've tried it. You don't suppose that I've not tried, do you? As long as it's there it only screams now and then, generally at this time of year, but if I put it out of the house it goes on all night, and no servant will stay here twenty-four hours. As it is, I've often been left alone and have been obliged to shift for myself for a fortnight at a time. No one from the village would ever pass a night under the roof now, and as for selling the place, or even letting it, that's out of the question. The old women say that if I stay here I shall come to a bad end myself before long. I'm not afraid of that. You smile at the mere idea that any one could take such nonsense seriously. Quite right. It's utterly blatant nonsense, I agree with you. Didn't I tell you that it's only a noise after all when you started and looked round as if you expected to see a ghost standing behind your chair? I may be all wrong about the skull, and I like to think that I am--when I can. It may be just a fine specimen which Luke got somewhere long ago, and what rattles about inside when you shake it may be nothing but a pebble, or a bit of hard clay, or anything. Skulls that have lain long in the ground generally have something inside them that rattles, don't they? No, I've never tried to get it out, whatever it is; I'm afraid it might be lead, don't you see? And if it is, I don't want to know the fact, for I'd much rather not be sure. If it really is lead, I killed her quite as much as if I had done the deed myself. Anybody must see that, I should think. As long as I don't know for certain, I have the consolation of saying that it's all utterly ridiculous nonsense, that Mrs. Pratt died a natural death and that the beautiful skull belonged to Luke when he was a student in London. But if I were quite sure, I believe I should have to leave the house; indeed I do, most certainly. As it is, I had to give up trying to sleep in the best bedroom where the cupboard is. You ask me why I don't throw it into the pond--yes, but please don't call it a "confounded bugbear"--it doesn't like being called names. There! Lord, what a shriek! I told you so! You're quite pale, man. Fill up your pipe and draw your chair nearer to the fire, and take some more drink. Old Hollands never hurt anybody yet. I've seen a Dutchman in Java drink half a jug of Hulstkamp in a morning without turning a hair. I don't take much rum myself, because it doesn't agree with my rheumatism, but you are not rheumatic and it won't damage you. Besides, it's a very damp night outside. The wind is howling again, and it will soon be in the southwest; do you hear how the windows rattle? The tide must have turned too, by the moaning. We should not have heard the thing again if you had not said that. I'm pretty sure we should not. Oh yes, if you choose to describe it as a coincidence, you are quite welcome, but I would rather that you should not call the thing names again, if you don't mind. It may be that the poor little woman hears, and perhaps it hurts her, don't you know? Ghost? No! You don't call anything a ghost that you can take in your hands and look at in broad daylight, and that rattles when you shake it. Do you, now? But it's something that hears and understands; there's no doubt about that. I tried sleeping in the best bedroom when I first came to the house, just because it was the best and the most comfortable, but I had to give it up. It was their room, and there's the big bed she died in, and the cupboard is in the thickness of the wall, near the head, on the left. That's where it likes to be kept, in its bandbox. I only used the room for a fortnight after I came, and then I turned out and took the little room downstairs, next to the surgery, where Luke used to sleep when he expected to be called to a patient during the night. I was always a good sleeper ashore; eight hours is my dose, eleven to seven when I'm alone, twelve to eight when I have a friend with me. But I could not sleep after three o'clock in the morning in that room--a quarter past, to be accurate--as a matter of fact, I timed it with my old pocket chronometer, which still keeps good time, and it was always at exactly seventeen minutes past three. I wonder whether that was the hour when she died? It was not what you have heard. If it had been that I could not have stood it two nights. It was just a start and a moan and hard breathing for a few seconds in the cupboard, and it could never have waked me under ordinary circumstances, I'm sure. I suppose you are like me in that, and we are just like other people who have been to sea. No natural sounds disturb us at all, not all the racket of a square-rigger hove to in a heavy gale, or rolling on her beam ends before the wind. But if a lead pencil gets adrift and rattles in the drawer of your cabin table you are awake in a moment. Just so--you always understand. Very well, the noise in the cupboard was no louder than that, but it waked me instantly. I said it was like a "start." I know what I mean, but it's hard to explain without seeming to talk nonsense. Of course you cannot exactly "hear" a person "start"; at the most, you might hear the quick drawing of the breath between the parted lips and closed teeth, and the almost imperceptible sound of clothing that moved suddenly though very slightly. It was like that. You know how one feels what a sailing vessel is going to do, two or three seconds before she does it, when one has the wheel. Riders say the same of a horse, but that's less strange, because the horse is a live animal with feelings of its own, and only poets and landsmen talk about a ship being alive, and all that. But I have always felt somehow that besides being a steaming machine or a sailing machine for carrying weights, a vessel at sea is a sensitive instrument, and a means of communication between nature and man, and most particularly the man at the wheel, if she is steered by hand. She takes her impressions directly from wind and sea, tide and stream, and transmits them to the man's hand, just as the wireless telegraph picks up the interrupted currents aloft and turns them out below in the form of a message. You see what I am driving at; I felt that something started in the cupboard, and I felt it so vividly that I heard it, though there may have been nothing to hear, and the sound inside my head waked me suddenly. But I really heard the other noise. It was as if it were muffled inside a box, as far away as if it came through a long-distance telephone; and yet I knew that it was inside the cupboard near the head of my bed. My hair did not bristle and my blood did not run cold that time. I simply resented being waked up by something that had no business to make a noise, any more than a pencil should rattle in the drawer of my cabin table on board ship. For I did not understand; I just supposed that the cupboard had some communication with the outside air, and that the wind had got in and was moaning through it with a sort of very faint screech. I struck a light and looked at my watch, and it was seventeen minutes past three. Then I turned over and went to sleep on my right ear. That's my good one; I'm pretty deaf with the other, for I struck the water with it when I was a lad in diving from the foretopsail yard. Silly thing to do, it was, but the result is very convenient when I want to go to sleep when there's a noise. That was the first night, and the same thing happened again and several times afterward, but not regularly, though it was always at the same time, to a second; perhaps I was sometimes sleeping on my good ear, and sometimes not. I overhauled the cupboard and there was no way by which the wind could get in, or anything else, for the door makes a good fit, having been meant to keep out moths, I suppose; Mrs. Pratt must have kept her winter things in it, for it still smells of camphor and turpentine. After about a fortnight I had had enough of the noises. So far I had said to myself that it would be silly to yield to it and take the skull out of the room. Things always look differently by daylight, don't they? But the voice grew louder--I suppose one may call it a voice--and it got inside my deaf ear, too, one night. I realised that when I was wide awake, for my good ear was jammed down on the pillow, and I ought not to have heard a fog-horn in that position. But I heard that, and it made me lose my temper, unless it scared me, for sometimes the two are not far apart. I struck a light and got up, and I opened the cupboard, grabbed the bandbox and threw it out of the window, as far as I could. Then my hair stood on end. The thing screamed in the air, like a shell from a twelve-inch gun. It fell on the other side of the road. The night was very dark, and I could not see it fall, but I know it fell beyond the road. The window is just over the front door, it's fifteen yards to the fence, more or less, and the road is ten yards wide. There's a quickset hedge beyond, along the glebe that belongs to the vicarage. I did not sleep much more that night. It was not more than half an hour after I had thrown the bandbox out when I heard a shriek outside--like what we've had to-night, but worse, more despairing, I should call it; and it may have been my imagination, but I could have sworn that the screams came nearer and nearer each time. I lit a pipe, and walked up and down for a bit, and then took a book and sat up reading, but I'll be hanged if I can remember what I read nor even what the book was, for every now and then a shriek came up that would have made a dead man turn in his coffin. A little before dawn some one knocked at the front door. There was no mistaking that for anything else, and I opened my window and looked down, for I guessed that some one wanted the doctor, supposing that the new man had taken Luke's house. It was rather a relief to hear a human knock after that awful noise. You cannot see the door from above, owing to the little porch. The knocking came again, and I called out, asking who was there, but nobody answered, though the knock was repeated. I sang out again, and said that the doctor did not live here any longer. There was no answer, but it occurred to me that it might be some old countryman who was stone deaf. So I took my candle and went down to open the door. Upon my word, I was not thinking of the thing yet, and I had almost forgotten the other noises. I went down convinced that I should find somebody outside, on the doorstep, with a message. I set the candle on the hall table, so that the wind should not blow it out when I opened. While I was drawing the old-fashioned bolt I heard the knocking again. It was not loud, and it had a queer, hollow sound, now that I was close to it, I remember, but I certainly thought it was made by some person who wanted to get in. It wasn't. There was nobody there, but as I opened the door inward, standing a little on one side, so as to see out at once, something rolled across the threshold and stopped against my foot. I drew back as I felt it, for I knew what it was before I looked down. I cannot tell you how I knew, and it seemed unreasonable, for I am still quite sure that I had thrown it across the road. It's a French window, that opens wide, and I got a good swing when I flung it out. Besides, when I went out early in the morning, I found the bandbox beyond the thickset hedge. You may think it opened when I threw it, and that the skull dropped out; but that's impossible, for nobody could throw an empty cardboard box so far. It's out of the question; you might as well try to fling a ball of paper twenty-five yards, or a blown bird's egg. To go back, I shut and bolted the hall door, picked the thing up carefully, and put it on the table beside the candle. I did that mechanically, as one instinctively does the right thing in danger without thinking at all--unless one does the opposite. It may seem odd, but I believe my first thought had been that somebody might come and find me there on the threshold while it was resting against my foot, lying a little on its side, and turning one hollow eye up at my face, as if it meant to accuse me. And the light and shadow from the candle played in the hollows of the eyes as it stood on the table, so that they seemed to open and shut at me. Then the candle went out quite unexpectedly, though the door was fastened and there was not the least draught; and I used up at least half a dozen matches before it would burn again. I sat down rather suddenly, without quite knowing why. Probably I had been badly frightened, and perhaps you will admit there was no great shame in being scared. The thing had come home, and it wanted to go upstairs, back to its cupboard. I sat still and stared at it for a bit, till I began to feel very cold; then I took it and carried it up and set it in its place, and I remember that I spoke to it, and promised that it should have its bandbox again in the morning. You want to know whether I stayed in the room till daybreak? Yes, but I kept a light burning, and sat up smoking and reading, most likely out of fright; plain, undeniable fear, and you need not call it cowardice either, for that's not the same thing. I could not have stayed alone with that thing in the cupboard; I should have been scared to death, though I'm not more timid than other people. Confound it all, man, it had crossed the road alone, and had got up the doorstep and had knocked to be let in. When the dawn came, I put on my boots and went out to find the bandbox. I had to go a good way round, by the gate near the highroad, and I found the box open and hanging on the other side of the hedge. It had caught on the twigs by the string, and the lid had fallen off and was lying on the ground below it. That shows that it did not open till it was well over; and if it had not opened as soon as it left my hand, what was inside it must have gone beyond the road too. That's all. I took the box upstairs to the cupboard, and put the skull back and locked it up. When the girl brought me my breakfast she said she was sorry, but that she must go, and she did not care if she lost her month's wages. I looked at her, and her face was a sort of greenish, yellowish white. I pretended to be surprised, and asked what was the matter; but that was of no use, for she just turned on me and wanted to know whether I meant to stay in a haunted house, and how long I expected to live if I did, for though she noticed I was sometimes a little hard of hearing, she did not believe that even I could sleep through those screams again--and if I could, why had I been moving about the house and opening and shutting the front door, between three and four in the morning? There was no answering that, since she had heard me, so off she went, and I was left to myself. I went down to the village during the morning and found a woman who was willing to come and do the little work there is and cook my dinner, on condition that she might go home every night. As for me, I moved downstairs that day, and I have never tried to sleep in the best bedroom since. After a little while I got a brace of middle-aged Scotch servants from London, and things were quiet enough for a long time. I began by telling them that the house was in a very exposed position, and that the wind whistled round it a good deal in the autumn and winter, which had given it a bad name in the village, the Cornish people being inclined to superstition and telling ghost stories. The two hard-faced, sandy-haired sisters almost smiled, and they answered with great contempt that they had no great opinion of any Southern bogey whatever, having been in service in two English haunted houses, where they had never seen so much as the Boy in Gray, whom they reckoned no very particular rarity in Forfarshire. They stayed with me several months, and while they were in the house we had peace and quiet. One of them is here again now, but she went away with her sister within the year. This one--she was the cook--married the sexton, who works in my garden. That's the way of it. It's a small village and he has not much to do, and he knows enough about flowers to help me nicely, besides doing most of the hard work; for though I'm fond of exercise, I'm getting a little stiff in the hinges. He's a sober, silent sort of fellow, who minds his own business, and he was a widower when I came here--Trehearn is his name, James Trehearn. The Scotch sisters would not admit that there was anything wrong about the house, but when November came they gave me warning that they were going, on the ground that the chapel was such a long walk from here, being in the next parish, and that they could not possibly go to our church. But the younger one came back in the spring, and as soon as the banns could be published she was married to James Trehearn by the vicar, and she seems to have had no scruples about hearing him preach since then. I'm quite satisfied, if she is! The couple live in a small cottage that looks over the churchyard. I suppose you are wondering what all this has to do with what I was talking about. I'm alone so much that when an old friend comes to see me, I sometimes go on talking just for the sake of hearing my own voice. But in this case there is really a connection of ideas. It was James Trehearn who buried poor Mrs. Pratt, and her husband after her in the same grave, and it's not far from the back of his cottage. That's the connection in my mind, you see. It's plain enough. He knows something; I'm quite sure that he does, by his manner, though he's such a reticent beggar. Yes, I'm alone in the house at night now, for Mrs. Trehearn does everything herself, and when I have a friend the sexton's niece comes in to wait on the table. He takes his wife home every evening in winter, but in summer, when there's light, she goes by herself. She's not a nervous woman, but she's less sure than she used to be that there are no bogies in England worth a Scotchwoman's notice. Isn't it amusing, the idea that Scotland has a monopoly of the supernatural? Odd sort of national pride, I call that, don't you? That's a good fire, isn't it? When driftwood gets started at last there's nothing like it, I think. Yes, we get lots of it, for I'm sorry to say there are still a great many wrecks about here. It's a lonely coast, and you may have all the wood you want for the trouble of bringing it in. Trehearn and I borrow a cart now and then, and load it between here and the Spit. I hate a coal fire when I can get wood of any sort. A log is company, even if it's only a piece of a deck-beam or timber sawn off, and the salt in it makes pretty sparks. See how they fly, like Japanese hand-fireworks! Upon my word, with an old friend and a good fire and a pipe, one forgets all about that thing upstairs, especially now that the wind has moderated. It's only a lull, though, and it will blow a gale before morning. You think you would like to see the skull? I've no objection. There's no reason why you shouldn't have a look at it, and you never saw a more perfect one in your life, except that there are two front teeth missing in the lower jaw. Oh yes--I had not told you about the jaw yet. Trehearn found it in the garden last spring when he was digging a pit for a new asparagus bed. You know we make asparagus beds six or eight feet deep here. Yes, yes--I had forgotten to tell you that. He was digging straight down, just as he digs a grave; if you want a good asparagus bed made, I advise you to get a sexton to make it for you. Those fellows have a wonderful knack at that sort of digging. Trehearn had got down about three feet when he cut into a mass of white lime in the side of the trench. He had noticed that the earth was a little looser there, though he says it had not been disturbed for a number of years. I suppose he thought that even old lime might not be good for asparagus, so he broke it out and threw it up. It was pretty hard, he says, in biggish lumps, and out of sheer force of habit he cracked the lumps with his spade as they lay outside the pit beside him; the jawbone of a skull dropped out of one of the pieces. He thinks he must have knocked out the two front teeth in breaking up the lime, but he did not see them anywhere. He's a very experienced man in such things, as you may imagine, and he said at once that the jaw had probably belonged to a young woman, and that the teeth had been complete when she died. He brought it to me, and asked me if I wanted to keep it; if I did not, he said he would drop it into the next grave he made in the churchyard, as he supposed it was a Christian jaw, and ought to have decent burial, wherever the rest of the body might be. I told him that doctors often put bones into quicklime to whiten them nicely, and that I supposed Dr. Pratt had once had a little lime pit in the garden for that purpose, and had forgotten the jaw. Trehearn looked at me quietly. "Maybe it fitted that skull that used to be in the cupboard upstairs, sir," he said. "Maybe Dr. Pratt had put the skull into the lime to clean it, or something, and when he took it out he left the lower jaw behind. There's some human hair sticking in the lime, sir." I saw there was, and that was what Trehearn said. If he did not suspect something, why in the world should he have suggested that the jaw might fit the skull? Besides, it did. That's proof that he knows more than he cares to tell. Do you suppose he looked before she was buried? Or perhaps--when he buried Luke in the same grave---- Well, well, it's of no use to go over that, is it? I said I would keep the jaw with the skull, and I took it upstairs and fitted it into its place. There's not the slightest doubt about the two belonging together, and together they are. Trehearn knows several things. We were talking about plastering the kitchen a while ago, and he happened to remember that it had not been done since the very week when Mrs. Pratt died. He did not say that the mason must have left some lime on the place, but he thought it, and that it was the very same lime he had found in the asparagus pit. He knows a lot. Trehearn is one of your silent beggars who can put two and two together. That grave is very near the back of his cottage, too, and he's one of the quickest men with a spade I ever saw. If he wanted to know the truth, he could, and no one else would ever be the wiser unless he chose to tell. In a quiet village like ours, people don't go and spend the night in the churchyard to see whether the sexton potters about by himself between ten o'clock and daylight. What is awful to think of, is Luke's deliberation, if he did it; his cool certainty that no one would find him out; above all, his nerve, for that must have been extraordinary. I sometimes think it's bad enough to live in the place where it was done, if it really was done. I always put in the condition, you see, for the sake of his memory, and a little bit for my own sake, too. I'll go upstairs and fetch the box in a minute. Let me light my pipe; there's no hurry! We had supper early, and it's only half-past nine o'clock. I never let a friend go to bed before twelve, or with less than three glasses--you may have as many more as you like, but you shan't have less, for the sake of old times. It's breezing up again, do you hear? That was only a lull just now, and we are going to have a bad night. A thing happened that made me start a little when I found that the jaw fitted exactly. I'm not very easily startled in that way myself, but I have seen people make a quick movement, drawing their breath sharply, when they had thought they were alone and suddenly turned and saw some one very near them. Nobody can call that fear. You wouldn't, would you? No. Well, just when I had set the jaw in its place under the skull, the teeth closed sharply on my finger. It felt exactly as if it were biting me hard, and I confess that I jumped before I realised that I had been pressing the jaw and the skull together with my other hand. I assure you I was not at all nervous. It was broad daylight, too, and a fine day, and the sun was streaming into the best bedroom. It would have been absurd to be nervous, and it was only a quick mistaken impression, but it really made me feel queer. Somehow it made me think of the funny verdict of the coroner's jury on Luke's death, "by the hand or teeth of some person or animal unknown." Ever since that I've wished I had seen those marks on his throat, though the lower jaw was missing then. I have often seen a man do insane things with his hands that he does not realise at all. I once saw a man hanging on by an old awning stop with one hand, leaning backward, outboard, with all his weight on it, and he was just cutting the stop with the knife in his other hand when I got my arms round him. We were in mid-ocean, going twenty knots. He had not the smallest idea what he was doing; neither had I when I managed to pinch my finger between the teeth of that thing. I can feel it now. It was exactly as if it were alive and were trying to bite me. It would if it could, for I know it hates me, poor thing! Do you suppose that what rattles about inside is really a bit of lead? Well, I'll get the box down presently, and if whatever it is happens to drop out into your hands that's your affair. If it's only a clod of earth or a pebble, the whole matter would be off my mind, and I don't believe I should ever think of the skull again; but somehow I cannot bring myself to shake out the bit of hard stuff myself. The mere idea that it may be lead makes me confoundedly uncomfortable, yet I've got the conviction that I shall know before long. I shall certainly know. I'm sure Trehearn knows, but he's such a silent beggar. I'll go upstairs now and get it. What? You had better go with me? Ha, ha! do you think I'm afraid of a bandbox and a noise? Nonsense! Bother the candle, it won't light! As if the ridiculous thing understood what it's wanted for! Look at that--the third match. They light fast enough for my pipe. There, do you see? It's a fresh box, just out of the tin safe where I keep the supply on account of the dampness. Oh, you think the wick of the candle may be damp, do you? All right, I'll light the beastly thing in the fire. That won't go out, at all events. Yes, it sputters a bit, but it will keep lighted now. It burns just like any other candle, doesn't it? The fact is, candles are not very good about here. I don't know where they come from, but they have a way of burning low occasionally, with a greenish flame that spits tiny sparks, and I'm often annoyed by their going out of themselves. It cannot be helped, for it will be long before we have electricity in our village. It really is rather a poor light, isn't it? You think I had better leave you the candle and take the lamp, do you? I don't like to carry lamps about, that's the truth. I never dropped one in my life, but I have always thought I might, and it's so confoundedly dangerous if you do. Besides, I am pretty well used to these rotten candles by this time. You may as well finish that glass while I'm getting it, for I don't mean to let you off with less than three before you go to bed. You won't have to go upstairs, either, for I've put you in the old study next to the surgery--that's where I live myself. The fact is, I never ask a friend to sleep upstairs now. The last man who did was Crackenthorpe, and he said he was kept awake all night. You remember old Crack, don't you? He stuck to the Service, and they've just made him an admiral. Yes, I'm off now--unless the candle goes out. I couldn't help asking if you remembered Crackenthorpe. If any one had told us that the skinny little idiot he used to be was to turn out the most successful of the lot of us, we should have laughed at the idea, shouldn't we? You and I did not do badly, it's true--but I'm really going now. I don't mean to let you think that I've been putting it off by talking! As if there were anything to be afraid of! If I were scared, I should tell you so quite frankly, and get you to go upstairs with me. * * * * * Here's the box. I brought it down very carefully, so as not to disturb it, poor thing. You see, if it were shaken, the jaw might get separated from it again, and I'm sure it wouldn't like that. Yes, the candle went out as I was coming downstairs, but that was the draught from the leaky window on the landing. Did you hear anything? Yes, there was another scream. Am I pale, do you say? That's nothing. My heart is a little queer sometimes, and I went upstairs too fast. In fact, that's one reason why I really prefer to live altogether on the ground floor. Wherever that shriek came from, it was not from the skull, for I had the box in my hand when I heard the noise, and here it is now; so we have proved definitely that the screams are produced by something else. I've no doubt I shall find out some day what makes them. Some crevice in the wall, of course, or a crack in a chimney, or a chink in the frame of a window. That's the way all ghost stories end in real life. Do you know, I'm jolly glad I thought of going up and bringing it down for you to see, for that last shriek settles the question. To think that I should have been so weak as to fancy that the poor skull could really cry out like a living thing! Now I'll open the box, and we'll take it out and look at it under the bright light. It's rather awful to think that the poor lady used to sit there, in your chair, evening after evening, in just the same light, isn't it? But then--I've made up my mind that it's all rubbish from beginning to end, and that it's just an old skull that Luke had when he was a student; and perhaps he put it into the lime merely to whiten it, and could not find the jaw. I made a seal on the string, you see, after I had put the jaw in its place, and I wrote on the cover. There's the old white label on it still, from the milliner's, addressed to Mrs. Pratt when the hat was sent to her, and as there was room I wrote on the edge: "A skull, once the property of the late Luke Pratt, M.D." I don't quite know why I wrote that, unless it was with the idea of explaining how the thing happened to be in my possession. I cannot help wondering sometimes what sort of hat it was that came in the bandbox. What colour was it, do you think? Was it a gay spring hat with a bobbing feather and pretty ribands? Strange that the very same box should hold the head that wore the finery--perhaps. No--we made up our minds that it just came from the hospital in London where Luke did his time. It's far better to look at it in that light, isn't it? There's no more connection between that skull and poor Mrs. Pratt than there was between my story about the lead and---- Good Lord! Take the lamp--don't let it go out, if you can help it--I'll have the window fastened again in a second--I say, what a gale! There, it's out! I told you so! Never mind, there's the firelight--I've got the window shut--the bolt was only half down. Was the box blown off the table? Where the deuce is it? There! That won't open again, for I've put up the bar. Good dodge, an old-fashioned bar--there's nothing like it. Now, you find the bandbox while I light the lamp. Confound those wretched matches! Yes, a pipe spill is better--it must light in the fire--I hadn't thought of it--thank you--there we are again. Now, where's the box? Yes, put it back on the table, and we'll open it. That's the first time I have ever known the wind to burst that window open; but it was partly carelessness on my part when I last shut it. Yes, of course I heard the scream. It seemed to go all round the house before it broke in at the window. That proves that it's always been the wind and nothing else, doesn't it? When it was not the wind, it was my imagination. I've always been a very imaginative man: I must have been, though I did not know it. As we grow older we understand ourselves better, don't you know? I'll have a drop of the Hulstkamp neat, by way of an exception, since you are filling up your glass. That damp gust chilled me, and with my rheumatic tendency I'm very much afraid of a chill, for the cold sometimes seems to stick in my joints all winter when it once gets in. By George, that's good stuff! I'll just light a fresh pipe, now that everything is snug again, and then we'll open the box. I'm so glad we heard that last scream together, with the skull here on the table between us, for a thing cannot possibly be in two places at the same time, and the noise most certainly came from outside, as any noise the wind makes must. You thought you heard it scream through the room after the window was burst open? Oh yes, so did I, but that was natural enough when everything was open. Of course we heard the wind. What could one expect? Look here, please. I want you to see that the seal is intact before we open the box together. Will you take my glasses? No, you have your own. All right. The seal is sound, you see, and you can read the words of the motto easily. "Sweet and low"--that's it--because the poem goes on "Wind of the Western sea," and says, "blow him again to me," and all that. Here is the seal on my watch-chain, where it's hung for more than forty years. My poor little wife gave it to me when I was courting, and I never had any other. It was just like her to think of those words--she was always fond of Tennyson. It's of no use to cut the string, for it's fastened to the box, so I'll just break the wax and untie the knot, and afterward we'll seal it up again. You see, I like to feel that the thing is safe in its place, and that nobody can take it out. Not that I should suspect Trehearn of meddling with it, but I always feel that he knows a lot more than he tells. You see, I've managed it without breaking the string, though when I fastened it I never expected to open the bandbox again. The lid comes off easily enough. There! Now look! What? Nothing in it? Empty? It's gone, man, the skull is gone! * * * * * No, there's nothing the matter with me. I'm only trying to collect my thoughts. It's so strange. I'm positively certain that it was inside when I put on the seal last spring. I can't have imagined that: it's utterly impossible. If I ever took a stiff glass with a friend now and then, I would admit that I might have made some idiotic mistake when I had taken too much. But I don't, and I never did. A pint of ale at supper and half a go of rum at bedtime was the most I ever took in my good days. I believe it's always we sober fellows who get rheumatism and gout! Yet there was my seal, and there is the empty bandbox. That's plain enough. I say, I don't half like this. It's not right. There's something wrong about it, in my opinion. You needn't talk to me about supernatural manifestations, for I don't believe in them, not a little bit! Somebody must have tampered with the seal and stolen the skull. Sometimes, when I go out to work in the garden in summer, I leave my watch and chain, on the table. Trehearn must have taken the seal then, and used it, for he would be quite sure that I should not come in for at least an hour. If it was not Trehearn--oh, don't talk to me about the possibility that the thing has got out by itself! If it has, it must be somewhere about the house, in some out-of-the-way corner, waiting. We may come upon it anywhere, waiting for us, don't you know?--just waiting in the dark. Then it will scream at me; it will shriek at me in the dark, for it hates me, I tell you! The bandbox is quite empty. We are not dreaming, either of us. There, I turn it upside down. What's that? Something fell out as I turned it over. It's on the floor, it's near your feet, I know it is, and we must find it. Help me to find it, man. Have you got it? For God's sake, give it to me, quickly! Lead! I knew it when I heard it fall. I knew it couldn't be anything else by the little thud it made on the hearth-rug. So it was lead after all, and Luke did it. I feel a little bit shaken up--not exactly nervous, you know, but badly shaken up, that's the fact. Anybody would, I should think. After all, you cannot say that it's fear of the thing, for I went up and brought it down--at least, I believed I was bringing it down, and that's the same thing, and by George, rather than give in to such silly nonsense, I'll take the box upstairs again and put it back in its place. It's not that. It's the certainty that the poor little woman came to her end in that way, by my fault, because I told the story. That's what is so dreadful. Somehow, I had always hoped that I should never be quite sure of it, but there is no doubting it now. Look at that! Look at it! That little lump of lead with no particular shape. Think of what it did, man! Doesn't it make you shiver? He gave her something to make her sleep, of course, but there must have been one moment of awful agony. Think of having boiling lead poured into your brain. Think of it. She was dead before she could scream, but only think of--oh! there it is again--it's just outside--I know it's just outside--I can't keep it out of my head!--oh!--oh! * * * * * You thought I had fainted? No, I wish I had, for it would have stopped sooner. It's all very well to say that it's only a noise, and that a noise never hurt anybody--you're as white as a shroud yourself. There's only one thing to be done, if we hope to close an eye to-night. We must find it and put it back into its bandbox and shut it up in the cupboard, where it likes to be. I don't know how it got out, but it wants to get in again. That's why it screams so awfully to-night--it was never so bad as this--never since I first---- Bury it? Yes, if we can find it, we'll bury it, if it takes us all night. We'll bury it six feet deep and ram down the earth over it, so that it shall never get out again, and if it screams, we shall hardly hear it so deep down. Quick, we'll get the lantern and look for it. It cannot be far away; I'm sure it's just outside--it was coming in when I shut the window, I know it. Yes, you're quite right. I'm losing my senses, and I must get hold of myself. Don't speak to me for a minute or two; I'll sit quite still and keep my eyes shut and repeat something I know. That's the best way. "Add together the altitude, the latitude, and the polar distance, divide by two and subtract the altitude from the half-sum; then add the logarithm of the secant of the latitude, the cosecant of the polar distance, the cosine of the half-sum and the sine of the half-sum minus the altitude"--there! Don't say that I'm out of my senses, for my memory is all right, isn't it? Of course, you may say that it's mechanical, and that we never forget the things we learned when we were boys and have used almost every day for a lifetime. But that's the very point. When a man is going crazy, it's the mechanical part of his mind that gets out of order and won't work right; he remembers things that never happened, or he sees things that aren't real, or he hears noises when there is perfect silence. That's not what is the matter with either of us, is it? Come, we'll get the lantern and go round the house. It's not raining--only blowing like old boots, as we used to say. The lantern is in the cupboard under the stairs in the hall, and I always keep it trimmed in case of a wreck. No use to look for the thing? I don't see how you can say that. It was nonsense to talk of burying it, of course, for it doesn't want to be buried; it wants to go back into its bandbox and be taken upstairs, poor thing! Trehearn took it out, I know, and made the seal over again. Perhaps he took it to the churchyard, and he may have meant well. I daresay he thought that it would not scream any more if it were quietly laid in consecrated ground, near where it belongs. But it has come home. Yes, that's it. He's not half a bad fellow, Trehearn, and rather religiously inclined, I think. Does not that sound natural, and reasonable, and well meant? He supposed it screamed because it was not decently buried--with the rest. But he was wrong. How should he know that it screams at me because it hates me, and because it's my fault that there was that little lump of lead in it? No use to look for it, anyhow? Nonsense! I tell you it wants to be found--Hark! what's that knocking? Do you hear it? Knock--knock--knock--three times, then a pause, and then again. It has a hollow sound, hasn't it? It has come home. I've heard that knock before. It wants to come in and be taken upstairs, in its box. It's at the front door. Will you come with me? We'll take it in. Yes, I own that I don't like to go alone and open the door. The thing will roll in and stop against my foot, just as it did before, and the light will go out. I'm a good deal shaken by finding that bit of lead, and, besides, my heart isn't quite right--too much strong tobacco, perhaps. Besides, I'm quite willing to own that I'm a bit nervous to-night, if I never was before in my life. That's right, come along! I'll take the box with me, so as not to come back. Do you hear the knocking? It's not like any other knocking I ever heard. If you will hold this door open, I can find the lantern under the stairs by the light from this room without bringing the lamp into the hall--it would only go out. The thing knows we are coming--hark! It's impatient to get in. Don't shut the door till the lantern is ready, whatever you do. There will be the usual trouble with the matches, I suppose--no, the first one, by Jove! I tell you it wants to get in, so there's no trouble. All right with that door now; shut it, please. Now come and hold the lantern, for it's blowing so hard outside that I shall have to use both hands. That's it, hold the light low. Do you hear the knocking still? Here goes--I'll open just enough with my foot against the bottom of the door--now! Catch it! it's only the wind that blows it across the floor, that's all--there's half a hurricane outside, I tell you! Have you got it? The bandbox is on the table. One minute, and I'll have the bar up. There! Why did you throw it into the box so roughly? It doesn't like that, you know. What do you say? Bitten your hand? Nonsense, man! You did just what I did. You pressed the jaws together with your other hand and pinched yourself. Let me see. You don't mean to say you have drawn blood? You must have squeezed hard, by Jove, for the skin is certainly torn. I'll give you some carbolic solution for it before we go to bed, for they say a scratch from a skull's tooth may go bad and give trouble. Come inside again and let me see it by the lamp. I'll bring the bandbox--never mind the lantern, it may just as well burn in the hall, for I shall need it presently when I go up the stairs. Yes, shut the door if you will; it makes it more cheerful and bright. Is your finger still bleeding? I'll get you the carbolic in an instant; just let me see the thing. Ugh! There's a drop of blood on the upper jaw. It's on the eye-tooth. Ghastly, isn't it? When I saw it running along the floor of the hall, the strength almost went out of my hands, and I felt my knees bending; then I understood that it was the gale, driving it over the smooth boards. You don't blame me? No, I should think not! We were boys together, and we've seen a thing or two, and we may just as well own to each other that we were both in a beastly funk when it slid across the floor at you. No wonder you pinched your finger picking it up, after that, if I did the same thing out of sheer nervousness, in broad daylight, with the sun streaming in on me. Strange that the jaw should stick to it so closely, isn't it? I suppose it's the dampness, for it shuts like a vice--I have wiped off the drop of blood, for it was not nice to look at. I'm not going to try to open the jaws, don't be afraid! I shall not play any tricks with the poor thing, but I'll just seal the box again, and we'll take it upstairs and put it away where it wants to be. The wax is on the writing-table by the window. Thank you. It will be long before I leave my seal lying about again, for Trehearn to use, I can tell you. Explain? I don't explain natural phenomena, but if you choose to think that Trehearn had hidden it somewhere in the bushes, and that the gale blew it to the house against the door, and made it knock, as if it wanted to be let in, you're not thinking the impossible, and I'm quite ready to agree with you. Do you see that? You can swear that you've actually seen me seal it this time, in case anything of the kind should occur again. The wax fastens the strings to the lid, which cannot possibly be lifted, even enough to get in one finger. You're quite satisfied, aren't you? Yes. Besides, I shall lock the cupboard and keep the key in my pocket hereafter. Now we can take the lantern and go upstairs. Do you know? I'm very much inclined to agree with your theory that the wind blew it against the house. I'll go ahead, for I know the stairs; just hold the lantern near my feet as we go up. How the wind howls and whistles! Did you feel the sand on the floor under your shoes as we crossed the hall? Yes--this is the door of the best bedroom. Hold up the lantern, please. This side, by the head of the bed. I left the cupboard open when I got the box. Isn't it queer how the faint odour of women's dresses will hang about an old closet for years? This is the shelf. You've seen me set the box there, and now you see me turn the key and put it into my pocket. So that's done! * * * * * Good-night. Are you sure you're quite comfortable? It's not much of a room, but I daresay you would as soon sleep here as upstairs to-night. If you want anything, sing out; there's only a lath and plaster partition between us. There's not so much wind on this side by half. There's the Hollands on the table, if you'll have one more nightcap. No? Well, do as you please. Good-night again, and don't dream about that thing, if you can. * * * * * The following paragraph appeared in the _Penraddon News_, 23rd November, 1906: "MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF A RETIRED SEA CAPTAIN "The village of Tredcombe is much disturbed by the strange death of Captain Charles Braddock, and all sorts of impossible stories are circulating with regard to the circumstances, which certainly seem difficult of explanation. The retired captain, who had successfully commanded in his time the largest and fastest liners belonging to one of the principal transatlantic steamship companies, was found dead in his bed on Tuesday morning in his own cottage, a quarter of a mile from the village. An examination was made at once by the local practitioner, which revealed the horrible fact that the deceased had been bitten in the throat by a human assailant, with such amazing force as to crush the windpipe and cause death. The marks of the teeth of both jaws were so plainly visible on the skin that they could be counted, but the perpetrator of the deed had evidently lost the two lower middle incisors. It is hoped that this peculiarity may help to identify the murderer, who can only be a dangerous escaped maniac. The deceased, though over sixty-five years of age, is said to have been a hale man of considerable physical strength, and it is remarkable that no signs of any struggle were visible in the room, nor could it be ascertained how the murderer had entered the house. Warning has been sent to all the insane asylums in the United Kingdom, but as yet no information has been received regarding the escape of any dangerous patient. "The coroner's jury returned the somewhat singular verdict that Captain Braddock came to his death 'by the hands or teeth of some person unknown.' The local surgeon is said to have expressed privately the opinion that the maniac is a woman, a view he deduces from the small size of the jaws, as shown by the marks of the teeth. The whole affair is shrouded in mystery. Captain Braddock was a widower, and lived alone. He leaves no children." [_Note_.--Students of ghost lore and haunted houses will find the foundation of the foregoing story in the legends about a skull which is still preserved in the farm-house called Bettiscombe Manor, situated, I believe, on the Dorsetshire coast.] MAN OVERBOARD! Yes--I have heard "Man overboard!" a good many times since I was a boy, and once or twice I have seen the man go. There are more men lost in that way than passengers on ocean steamers ever learn of. I have stood looking over the rail on a dark night, when there was a step beside me, and something flew past my head like a big black bat--and then there was a splash! Stokers often go like that. They go mad with the heat, and they slip up on deck and are gone before anybody can stop them, often without being seen or heard. Now and then a passenger will do it, but he generally has what he thinks a pretty good reason. I have seen a man empty his revolver into a crowd of emigrants forward, and then go over like a rocket. Of course, any officer who respects himself will do what he can to pick a man up, if the weather is not so heavy that he would have to risk his ship; but I don't think I remember seeing a man come back when he was once fairly gone more than two or three times in all my life, though we have often picked up the life-buoy, and sometimes the fellow's cap. Stokers and passengers jump over; I never knew a sailor to do that, drunk or sober. Yes, they say it has happened on hard ships, but I never knew a case myself. Once in a long time a man is fished out when it is just too late, and dies in the boat before you can get him aboard, and--well, I don't know that I ever told that story since it happened--I knew a fellow who went over, and came back dead. I didn't see him after he came back; only one of us did, but we all knew he was there. No, I am not giving you "sharks." There isn't a shark in this story, and I don't know that I would tell it at all if we weren't alone, just you and I. But you and I have seen things in various parts, and maybe you will understand. Anyhow, you know that I am telling what I know about, and nothing else; and it has been on my mind to tell you ever since it happened, only there hasn't been a chance. It's a long story, and it took some time to happen; and it began a good many years ago, in October, as well as I can remember. I was mate then; I passed the local Marine Board for master about three years later. She was the _Helen B. Jackson_, of New York, with lumber for the West Indies, four-masted schooner, Captain Hackstaff. She was an old-fashioned one, even then--no steam donkey, and all to do by hand. There were still sailors in the coasting trade in those days, you remember. She wasn't a hard ship, for the Old Man was better than most of them, though he kept to himself and had a face like a monkey-wrench. We were thirteen, all told, in the ship's company; and some of them afterwards thought that might have had something to do with it, but I had all that nonsense knocked out of me when I was a boy. I don't mean to say that I like to go to sea on a Friday, but I _have_ gone to sea on a Friday, and nothing has happened; and twice before that we have been thirteen, because one of the hands didn't turn up at the last minute, and nothing ever happened either--nothing worse than the loss of a light spar or two, or a little canvas. Whenever I have been wrecked, we had sailed as cheerily as you please--no thirteens, no Fridays, no dead men in the hold. I believe it generally happens that way. I daresay you remember those two Benton boys that were so much alike? It is no wonder, for they were twin brothers. They shipped with us as boys on the old _Boston Belle_, when you were mate and I was before the mast. I never was quite sure which was which of those two, even then; and when they both had beards it was harder than ever to tell them apart. One was Jim, and the other was Jack; James Benton and John Benton. The only difference I ever could see was, that one seemed to be rather more cheerful and inclined to talk than the other; but one couldn't even be sure of that. Perhaps they had moods. Anyhow, there was one of them that used to whistle when he was alone. He only knew one tune, and that was "Nancy Lee," and the other didn't know any tune at all; but I may be mistaken about that, too. Perhaps they both knew it. Well, those two Benton boys turned up on board the _Helen B. Jackson_. They had been on half a dozen ships since the _Boston Belle_, and they had grown up and were good seamen. They had reddish beards and bright blue eyes and freckled faces; and they were quiet fellows, good workmen on rigging, pretty willing, and both good men at the wheel. They managed to be in the same watch--it was the port watch on the _Helen B._, and that was mine, and I had great confidence in them both. If there was any job aloft that needed two hands, they were always the first to jump into the rigging; but that doesn't often happen on a fore-and-aft schooner. If it breezed up, and the jibtopsail was to be taken in, they never minded a wetting, and they would be out at the bowsprit end before there was a hand at the downhaul. The men liked them for that, and because they didn't blow about what they could do. I remember one day in a reefing job, the downhaul parted and came down on deck from the peak of the spanker. When the weather moderated, and we shook the reefs out, the downhaul was forgotten until we happened to think we might soon need it again. There was some sea on, and the boom was off, and the gaff was slamming. One of those Benton boys was at the wheel, and before I knew what he was doing, the other was out on the gaff with the end of the new downhaul, trying to reeve it through its block. The one who was steering watched him, and got as white as cheese. The other one was swinging about on the gaff end, and every time she rolled to leeward, he brought up with a jerk that would have sent anything but a monkey flying into space. But he didn't leave it until he had rove the new rope, and he got back all right. I think it was Jack at the wheel; the one that seemed more cheerful, the one that whistled "Nancy Lee." He had rather have been doing the job himself than watch his brother do it, and he had a scared look; but he kept her as steady as he could in the swell, and he drew a long breath when Jim had worked his way back to the peak-halliard block, and had something to hold on to. I think it was Jim. They had good togs, too, and they were neat and clean men in the forecastle. I knew they had nobody belonging to them ashore--no mother, no sisters, and no wives; but somehow they both looked as if a woman overhauled them now and then. I remember that they had one ditty bag between them, and they had a woman's thimble in it. One of the men said something about it to them, and they looked at each other; and one smiled, but the other didn't. Most of their clothes were alike, but they had one red guernsey between them. For some time I used to think it was always the same one that wore it, and I thought that might be a way to tell them apart. But then I heard one asking the other for it, and saying that the other had worn it last. So that was no sign either. The cook was a West Indiaman, called James Lawley; his father had been hanged for putting lights in cocoanut trees where they didn't belong. But he was a good cook, and knew his business; and it wasn't soup-and-bully and dog's-body every Sunday. That's what I meant to say. On Sunday the cook called both those boys Jim, and on weekdays he called them Jack. He used to say he must be right sometimes if he did that, because even the hands on a painted clock point right twice a day. What started me to trying for some way of telling the Bentons apart was this. I heard them talking about a girl. It was at night, in our watch, and the wind had headed us off a little rather suddenly, and when we had flattened in the jibs, we clewed down the topsails, while the two Benton boys got the spanker sheet aft. One of them was at the helm. I coiled down the mizzen-topsail downhaul myself, and was going aft to see how she headed up, when I stopped to look at a light, and leaned against the deck-house. While I was standing there, I heard the two boys talking. It sounded as if they had talked of the same thing before, and, as far as I could tell, the voice I heard first belonged to the one who wasn't quite so cheerful as the other--the one who was Jim when one knew which he was. "Does Mamie know?" Jim asked. "Not yet," Jack answered quietly. He was at the wheel. "I mean to tell her next time we get home." "All right." That was all I heard, because I didn't care to stand there listening while they were talking about their own affairs; so I went aft to look into the binnacle, and I told the one at the wheel to keep her so as long as she had way on her, for I thought the wind would back up again before long, and there was land to leeward. When he answered, his voice, somehow, didn't sound like the cheerful one. Perhaps his brother had relieved the wheel while they had been speaking, but what I had heard set me wondering which of them it was that had a girl at home. There's lots of time for wondering on a schooner in fair weather. After that I thought I noticed that the two brothers were more silent when they were together. Perhaps they guessed that I had overheard something that night, and kept quiet when I was about. Some men would have amused themselves by trying to chaff them separately about the girl at home, and I suppose whichever one it was would have let the cat out of the bag if I had done that. But, somehow, I didn't like to. Yes, I was thinking of getting married myself at that time, so I had a sort of fellow-feeling for whichever one it was, that made me not want to chaff him. They didn't talk much, it seemed to me; but in fair weather, when there was nothing to do at night, and one was steering, the other was everlastingly hanging round as if he were waiting to relieve the wheel, though he might have been enjoying a quiet nap for all I cared in such weather. Or else, when one was taking his turn at the lookout, the other would be sitting on an anchor beside him. One kept near the other, at night more than in the daytime. I noticed that. They were fond of sitting on that anchor, and they generally tucked away their pipes under it, for the _Helen B._ was a dry boat in most weather, and like most fore-and-afters was better on a wind than going free. With a beam sea we sometimes shipped a little water aft. We were by the stern, anyhow, on that voyage, and that is one reason why we lost the man. We fell in with a southerly gale, southeast at first; and then the barometer began to fall while you could watch it, and a long swell began to come up from the south'ard. A couple of months earlier we might have been in for a cyclone, but it's "October all over" in those waters, as you know better than I. It was just going to blow, and then it was to rain, that was all; and we had plenty of time to make everything snug before it breezed up much. It blew harder after sunset, and by the time it was quite dark it was a full gale. We had shortened sail for it, but as we were by the stern we were carrying the spanker close reefed instead of the storm trysail. She steered better so, as long as we didn't have to heave to. I had the first watch with the Benton boys, and we had not been on deck an hour when a child might have seen that the weather meant business. The Old Man came up on deck and looked round, and in less than a minute he told us to give her the trysail. That meant heaving to, and I was glad of it; for though the _Helen B._ was a good vessel enough, she wasn't a new ship by a long way, and it did her no good to drive her in that weather. I asked whether I should call all hands, but just then the cook came aft, and the Old Man said he thought we could manage the job without waking the sleepers, and the trysail was handy on deck already, for we hadn't been expecting anything better. We were all in oilskins, of course, and the night was as black as a coal mine, with only a ray of light from the slit in the binnacle shield, and you couldn't tell one man from another except by his voice. The Old Man took the wheel; we got the boom amidships, and he jammed her into the wind until she had hardly any way. It was blowing now, and it was all that I and two others could do to get in the slack of the downhaul, while the others lowered away at the peak and throat, and we had our hands full to get a couple of turns round the wet sail. It's all child's play on a fore-and-after compared with reefing topsails in anything like weather, but the gear of a schooner sometimes does unhandy things that you don't expect, and those everlasting long halliards get foul of everything if they get adrift. I remember thinking how unhandy that particular job was. Somebody unhooked the throat-halliard block, and thought he had hooked it into the head-cringle of the trysail, and sang out to hoist away, but he had missed it in the dark, and the heavy block went flying into the lee rigging, and nearly killed him when it swung back with the weather roll. Then the Old Man got her up in the wind until the jib was shaking like thunder; then he held her off, and she went off as soon as the headsails filled, and he couldn't get her back again without the spanker. Then the _Helen B._ did her favourite trick, and before we had time to say much, we had a sea over the quarter and were up to our waists, with the parrels of the trysail only half becketed round the mast, and the deck so full of gear that you couldn't put your foot on a plank, and the spanker beginning to get adrift again, being badly stopped, and the general confusion and hell's delight that you can only have on a fore-and-after when there's nothing really serious the matter. Of course, I don't mean to say that the Old Man couldn't have steered his trick as well as you or I or any other seaman; but I don't believe he had ever been on board the _Helen B_. before, or had his hand on her wheel till then; and he didn't know her ways. I don't mean to say that what happened was his fault. I don't know whose fault it was. Perhaps nobody was to blame. But I knew something happened somewhere on board when we shipped that sea, and you'll never get it out of my head. I hadn't any spare time myself, for I was becketing the rest of the trysail to the mast. We were on the starboard tack, and the throat-halliard came down to port as usual, and I suppose there were at least three men at it, hoisting away, while I was at the beckets. Now I am going to tell you something. You have known me, man and boy, several voyages; and you are older than I am; and you have always been a good friend to me. Now, do you think I am the sort of man to think I hear things where there isn't anything to hear, or to think I see things when there is nothing to see? No, you don't. Thank you. Well now, I had passed the last becket, and I sang out to the men to sway away, and I was standing on the jaws of the spanker-gaff, with my left hand on the bolt-rope of the trysail, so that I could feel when it was board-taut, and I wasn't thinking of anything except being glad the job was over, and that we were going to heave her to. It was as black as a coal-pocket, except that you could see the streaks on the seas as they went by, and abaft the deck-house I could see the ray of light from the binnacle on the captain's yellow oilskin as he stood at the wheel--or, rather, I might have seen it if I had looked round at that minute. But I didn't look round. I heard a man whistling. It was "Nancy Lee," and I could have sworn that the man was right over my head in the crosstrees. Only somehow I knew very well that if anybody could have been up there, and could have whistled a tune, there were no living ears sharp enough to hear it on deck then. I heard it distinctly, and at the same time I heard the real whistling of the wind in the weather rigging, sharp and clear as the steam-whistle on a Dago's peanut-cart in New York. That was all right, that was as it should be; but the other wasn't right; and I felt queer and stiff, as if I couldn't move, and my hair was curling against the flannel lining of my sou'wester, and I thought somebody had dropped a lump of ice down my back. I said that the noise of the wind in the rigging was real, as if the other wasn't, for I felt that it wasn't, though I heard it. But it was, all the same; for the captain heard it, too. When I came to relieve the wheel, while the men were clearing up decks, he was swearing. He was a quiet man, and I hadn't heard him swear before, and I don't think I did again, though several queer things happened after that. Perhaps he said all he had to say then; I don't see how he could have said anything more. I used to think nobody could swear like a Dane, except a Neapolitan or a South American; but when I had heard the Old Man, I changed my mind. There's nothing afloat or ashore that can beat one of your quiet American skippers, if he gets off on that tack. I didn't need to ask him what was the matter, for I knew he had heard "Nancy Lee," as I had, only it affected us differently. He did not give me the wheel, but told me to go forward and get the second bonnet off the staysail, so as to keep her up better. As we tailed on to the sheet when it was done, the man next me knocked his sou'wester off against my shoulder, and his face came so close to me that I could see it in the dark. It must have been very white for me to see it, but I only thought of that afterwards. I don't see how any light could have fallen upon it, but I knew it was one of the Benton boys. I don't know what made me speak to him. "Hullo, Jim! Is that you?" I asked. I don't know why I said Jim, rather than Jack. "I am Jack," he answered. We made all fast, and things were much quieter. "The Old Man heard you whistling 'Nancy Lee,' just now," I said, "and he didn't like it." It was as if there were a white light inside his face, and it was ghastly. I know his teeth chattered. But he didn't say anything, and the next minute he was somewhere in the dark trying to find his sou'wester at the foot of the mast. When all was quiet, and she was hove to, coming to and falling off her four points as regularly as a pendulum, and the helm lashed a little to the lee, the Old Man turned in again, and I managed to light a pipe in the lee of the deck-house, for there was nothing more to be done till the gale chose to moderate, and the ship was as easy as a baby in its cradle. Of course the cook had gone below, as he might have done an hour earlier; so there were supposed to be four of us in the watch. There was a man at the lookout, and there was a hand by the wheel, though there was no steering to be done, and I was having my pipe in the lee of the deck-house, and the fourth man was somewhere about decks, probably having a smoke, too. I thought some skippers I had sailed with would have called the watch aft, and given them a drink after that job, but it wasn't cold, and I guessed that our Old Man wouldn't be particularly generous in that way. My hands and feet were red-hot, and it would be time enough to get into dry clothes when it was my watch below; so I stayed where I was, and smoked. But by and by, things being so quiet, I began to wonder why nobody moved on deck; just that sort of restless wanting to know where every man is that one sometimes feels in a gale of wind on a dark night. So when I had finished my pipe, I began to move about. I went aft, and there was a man leaning over the wheel, with his legs apart and both hands hanging down in the light from the binnacle, and his sou'wester over his eyes. Then I went forward, and there was a man at the lookout, with his back against the foremast, getting what shelter he could from the staysail. I knew by his small height that he was not one of the Benton boys. Then I went round by the weather side, and poked about in the dark, for I began to wonder where the other man was. But I couldn't find him, though I searched the decks until I got right aft again. It was certainly one of the Benton boys that was missing, but it wasn't like either of them to go below to change his clothes in such warm weather. The man at the wheel was the other, of course. I spoke to him. "Jim, what's become of your brother?" "I am Jack, sir." "Well, then, Jack, where's Jim? He's not on deck." "I don't know, sir." When I had come up to him he had stood up from force of instinct, and had laid his hands on the spokes as if he were steering, though the wheel was lashed; but he still bent his face down, and it was half hidden by the edge of his sou'wester, while he seemed to be staring at the compass. He spoke in a very low voice, but that was natural, for the captain had left his door open when he turned in, as it was a warm night in spite of the storm, and there was no fear of shipping any more water now. "What put it into your head to whistle like that, Jack? You've been at sea long enough to know better." He said something, but I couldn't hear the words; it sounded as if he were denying the charge. "Somebody whistled," I said. He didn't answer, and then, I don't know why, perhaps because the Old Man hadn't given us a drink, I cut half an inch off the plug of tobacco I had in my oilskin pocket, and gave it to him. He knew my tobacco was good, and he shoved it into his mouth with a word of thanks. I was on the weather side of the wheel. "Go forward and see if you can find Jim," I said. He started a little, and then stepped back and passed behind me, and was going along the weather side. Maybe his silence about the whistling had irritated me, and his taking it for granted that because we were hove to and it was a dark night, he might go forward any way he pleased. Anyhow, I stopped him, though I spoke good-naturedly enough. "Pass to leeward, Jack," I said. He didn't answer, but crossed the deck between the binnacle and the deck-house to the lee side. She was only falling off and coming to, and riding the big seas as easily as possible, but the man was not steady on his feet and reeled against the corner of the deck-house and then against the lee rail. I was quite sure he couldn't have had anything to drink, for neither of the brothers were the kind to hide rum from their shipmates, if they had any, and the only spirits that were aboard were locked up in the captain's cabin. I wondered whether he had been hit by the throat-halliard block and was hurt. I left the wheel and went after him, but when I got to the corner of the deck-house I saw that he was on a full run forward, so I went back. I watched the compass for a while, to see how far she went off, and she must have come to again half a dozen times before I heard voices, more than three or four, forward; and then I heard the little West Indies cook's voice, high and shrill above the rest: "Man overboard!" There wasn't anything to be done, with the ship hove to and the wheel lashed. If there was a man overboard, he must be in the water right alongside. I couldn't imagine how it could have happened, but I ran forward instinctively. I came upon the cook first, half dressed in his shirt and trousers, just as he had tumbled out of his bunk. He was jumping into the main rigging, evidently hoping to see the man, as if any one could have seen anything on such a night, except the foam-streaks on the black water, and now and then the curl of a breaking sea as it went away to leeward. Several of the men were peering over the rail into the dark. I caught the cook by the foot, and asked who was gone. "It's Jim Benton," he shouted down to me. "He's not aboard this ship!" There was no doubt about that. Jim Benton was gone; and I knew in a flash that he had been taken off by that sea when we were setting the storm trysail. It was nearly half an hour since then; she had run like wild for a few minutes until we got her hove to, and no swimmer that ever swam could have lived as long as that in such a sea. The men knew it as well as I, but still they stared into the foam as if they had any chance of seeing the lost man. I let the cook get into the rigging and joined the men, and asked if they had made a thorough search on board, though I knew they had and that it could not take long, for he wasn't on deck, and there was only the forecastle below. "That sea took him over, sir, as sure as you're born," said one of the men close beside me. We had no boat that could have lived in that, sea, of course, and we all knew it. I offered to put one over, and let her drift astern two or three cables' lengths by a line, if the men thought they could haul me aboard again; but none of them would listen to that, and I should probably have been drowned if I had tried it, even with a life-belt; for it was a breaking sea. Besides, they all knew as well as I did that the man could not be right in our wake. I don't know why I spoke again. "Jack Benton, are you there? Will you go if I will?" "No, sir," answered a voice; and that was all. By that time the Old Man was on deck, and I felt his hand on my shoulder rather roughly, as if he meant to shake me. "I'd reckoned you had more sense, Mr. Torkeldsen," he said. "God knows I would risk my ship to look for him, if it were any use; but he must have gone half an hour ago." He was a quiet man, and the men knew he was right, and that they had seen the last of Jim Benton when they were bending the trysail--if anybody had seen him then. The captain went below again, and for some time the men stood around Jack, quite near him, without saying anything, as sailors do when they are sorry for a man and can't help him; and then the watch below turned in again, and we were three on deck. Nobody can understand that there can be much consolation in a funeral, unless he has felt that blank feeling there is when a man's gone overboard whom everybody likes. I suppose landsmen think it would be easier if they didn't have to bury their fathers and mothers and friends; but it wouldn't be. Somehow the funeral keeps up the idea of something beyond. You may believe in that something just the same; but a man who has gone in the dark, between two seas, without a cry, seems much more beyond reach than if he were still lying on his bed, and had only just stopped breathing. Perhaps Jim Benton knew that, and wanted to come back to us. I don't know, and I am only telling you what happened, and you may think what you like. Jack stuck by the wheel that night until the watch was over. I don't know whether he slept afterwards, but when I came on deck four hours later, there he was again, in his oilskins, with his sou'wester over his eyes, staring into the binnacle. We saw that he would rather stand there, and we left him alone. Perhaps it was some consolation to him to get that ray of light when everything was so dark. It began to rain, too, as it can when a southerly gale is going to break up, and we got every bucket and tub on board, and set them under the booms to catch the fresh water for washing our clothes. The rain made it very thick, and I went and stood under the lee of the staysail, looking out. I could tell that day was breaking, because the foam was whiter in the dark where the seas crested, and little by little the black rain grew grey and steamy, and I couldn't see the red glare of the port light on the water when she went off and rolled to leeward. The gale had moderated considerably, and in another hour we should be under way again. I was still standing there when Jack Benton came forward. He stood still a few minutes near me. The rain came down in a solid sheet, and I could see his wet beard and a corner of his cheek, too, grey in the dawn. Then he stooped down and began feeling under the anchor for his pipe. We had hardly shipped any water forward, and I suppose he had some way of tucking the pipe in, so that the rain hadn't floated it off. Presently he got on his legs again, and I saw that he had two pipes in his hand. One of them had belonged to his brother, and after looking at them a moment I suppose he recognized his own, for he put it in his mouth, dripping with water. Then he looked at the other fully a minute without moving. When he had made up his mind, I suppose, he quietly chucked it over the lee rail, without even looking round to see whether I was watching him. I thought it was a pity, for it was a good wooden pipe, with a nickel ferrule, and somebody would have been glad to have it. But I didn't like to make any remark, for he had a right to do what he pleased with what had belonged to his dead brother. He blew the water out of his own pipe, and dried it against his jacket, putting his hand inside his oilskin; he filled it, standing under the lee of the foremast, got a light after wasting two or three matches, and turned the pipe upside down in his teeth, to keep the rain out of the bowl. I don't know why I noticed everything he did, and remember it now; but somehow I felt sorry for him, and I kept wondering whether there was anything I could say that would make him feel better. But I didn't think of anything, and as it was broad daylight I went aft again, for I guessed that the Old Man would turn out before long and order the spanker set and the helm up. But he didn't turn out before seven bells, just as the clouds broke and showed blue sky to leeward--"the Frenchman's barometer," you used to call it. Some people don't seem to be so dead, when they are dead, as others are. Jim Benton was like that. He had been on my watch, and I couldn't get used to the idea that he wasn't about decks with me. I was always expecting to see him, and his brother was so exactly like him that I often felt as if I did see him and forgot he was dead, and made the mistake of calling Jack by his name; though I tried not to, because I knew it must hurt. If ever Jack had been the cheerful one of the two, as I had always supposed he had been, he had changed very much, for he grew to be more silent than Jim had ever been. One fine afternoon I was sitting on the main-hatch, overhauling the clockwork of the taffrail-log, which hadn't been registering very well of late, and I had got the cook to bring me a coffee-cup to hold the small screws as I took them out, and a saucer for the sperm oil I was going to use. I noticed that he didn't go away, but hung round without exactly watching what I was doing, as if he wanted to say something to me. I thought if it were worth much, he would say it anyhow, so I didn't ask him questions; and sure enough he began of his own accord before long. There was nobody on deck but the man at the wheel, and the other man away forward. "Mr. Torkeldsen," the cook began, and then stopped. I supposed he was going to ask me to let the watch break out a barrel of flour, or some salt horse. "Well, doctor?" I asked, as he didn't go on. "Well, Mr. Torkeldsen," he answered, "I somehow want to ask you whether you think I am giving satisfaction on this ship, or not?" "So far as I know, you are, doctor. I haven't heard any complaints from the forecastle, and the captain has said nothing, and I think you know your business, and the cabin-boy is bursting out of his clothes. That looks as if you are giving satisfaction. What makes you think you are not?" I am not good at giving you that West Indies talk, and shan't try; but the doctor beat about the bush awhile, and then he told me he thought the men were beginning to play tricks on him, and he didn't like it, and thought he hadn't deserved it, and would like his discharge at our next port. I told him he was a d----d fool, of course, to begin with; and that men were more apt to try a joke with a chap they liked than with anybody they wanted to get rid of; unless it was a bad joke, like flooding his bunk, or filling his boots with tar. But it wasn't that kind of practical joke. The doctor said that the men were trying to frighten him, and he didn't like it, and that they put things in his way that frightened him. So I told him he was a d----d fool to be frightened, anyway, and I wanted to know what things they put in his way. He gave me a queer answer. He said they were spoons and forks, and odd plates, and a cup now and then, and such things. I set down the taffrail-log on the bit of canvas I had put under it, and looked at the doctor. He was uneasy, and his eyes had a sort of hunted look, and his yellow face looked grey. He wasn't trying to make trouble. He was in trouble. So I asked him questions. He said he could count as well as anybody, and do sums without using his fingers, but that when he couldn't count any other way, he did use his fingers, and it always came out the same. He said that when he and the cabin-boy cleared up after the men's meals there were more things to wash than he had given out. There'd be a fork more, or there'd be a spoon more, and sometimes there'd be a spoon and a fork, and there was always a plate more. It wasn't that he complained of that. Before poor Jim Benton was lost they had a man more to feed, and his gear to wash up after meals, and that was in the contract, the doctor said. It would have been if there were twenty in the ship's company; but he didn't think it was right for the men to play tricks like that. He kept his things in good order, and he counted them, and he was responsible for them, and it wasn't right that the men should take more things than they needed when his back was turned, and just soil them and mix them up with their own, so as to make him think-- He stopped there, and looked at me, and I looked at him. I didn't know what he thought, but I began to guess. I wasn't going to humour any such nonsense as that, so I told him to speak to the men himself, and not come bothering me about such things. "Count the plates and forks and spoons before them when they sit down to table, and tell them that's all they'll get; and when they have finished, count the things again, and if the count isn't right, find out who did it. You know it must be one of them. You're not a green hand; you've been going to sea ten or eleven years, and don't want any lessons about how to behave if the boys play a trick on you." "If I could catch him," said the cook, "I'd have a knife into him before he could say his prayers." Those West India men are always talking about knives, especially when they are badly frightened. I knew what he meant, and didn't ask him, but went on cleaning the brass cog-wheels of the patent log, and oiling the bearings with a feather. "Wouldn't it be better to wash it out with boiling water, sir?" asked the cook in an insinuating tone. He knew that he had made a fool of himself, and was anxious to make it right again. I heard no more about the odd platter and gear for two or three days, though I thought about his story a good deal. The doctor evidently believed that Jim Benton had come back, though he didn't quite like to say so. His story had sounded silly enough on a bright afternoon, in fair weather, when the sun was on the water, and every rag was drawing in the breeze, and the sea looked as pleasant and as harmless as a cat that has just eaten a canary. But when it was toward the end of the first watch, and the waning moon had not risen yet, and the water was like still oil, and the jibs hung down flat and helpless like the wings of a dead bird--it wasn't the same then. More than once I have started then and looked round when a fish jumped, expecting to see a face sticking out of the water with its eyes shut. I think we all felt something like that at the time. One afternoon we were putting a fresh service on the jib-sheet-pennant. It wasn't my watch, but I was standing by, looking on. Just then Jack Benton came up from below, and went to look for his pipe under the anchor. His face was hard and drawn, and his eyes were cold like steel balls. He hardly ever spoke now, but he did his duty as usual, and nobody had to complain of him, though we were all beginning to wonder how long his grief for his dead brother was going to last like that. I watched him as he crouched down, and ran his hand into the hiding-place for the pipe. When he stood up, he had two pipes in his hand. Now, I remembered very well seeing him throw one of those pipes away, early in the morning after the gale; and it came to me now, and I didn't suppose he kept a stock of them under the anchor. I caught sight of his face, and it was greenish white, like the foam on shallow water, and he stood a long time looking at the two pipes. He wasn't looking to see which was his, for I wasn't five yards from him as he stood, and one of those pipes had been smoked that day, and was shiny where his hand had rubbed it, and the bone mouthpiece was chafed white where his teeth had bitten it. The other was water-logged. It was swelled and cracking with wet, and it looked to me as if there were a little green weed on it. Jack Benton turned his head rather stealthily as I looked away, and then he hid the thing in his trousers pocket, and went aft on the lee side, out of sight. The men had got the sheet-pennant on a stretch to serve it, but I ducked under it and stood where I could see what Jack did, just under the fore-staysail. He couldn't see me, and he was looking about for something. His hand shook as he picked up a bit of half-bent iron rod, about a foot long, that had been used for turning an eye-bolt, and had been left on the main-hatch. His hand shook as he got a piece of marline out of his pocket, and made the water-logged pipe fast to the iron. He didn't mean it to get adrift either, for he took his turns carefully, and hove them taut and then rode them, so that they couldn't slip, and made the end fast with two half-hitches round the iron, and hitched it back on itself. Then he tried it with his hands, and looked up and down the deck furtively, and then quietly dropped the pipe and iron over the rail, so that I didn't even hear the splash. If anybody was playing tricks on board, they weren't meant for the cook. I asked some questions about Jack Benton, and one of the men told me that he was off his feed, and hardly ate anything, and swallowed all the coffee he could lay his hands on, and had used up all his own tobacco and had begun on what his brother had left. "The doctor says it ain't so, sir," said the man, looking at me shyly, as if he didn't expect to be believed; "the doctor says there's as much eaten from breakfast to breakfast as there was before Jim fell overboard, though there's a mouth less and another that eats nothing. I says it's the cabin-boy that gets it. He's bu'sting." I told him that if the cabin-boy ate more than his share, he must work more than his share, so as to balance things. But the man laughed queerly, and looked at me again. "I only said that, sir, just like that. We all know it ain't so." "Well, how is it?" "How is it?" asked the man, half-angry all at once. "I don't know how it is, but there's a hand on board that's getting his whack along with us as regular as the bells." "Does he use tobacco?" I asked, meaning to laugh it out of him, but as I spoke, I remembered the water-logged pipe. "I guess he's using his own still," the man answered, in a queer, low voice. "Perhaps he'll take some one else's when his is all gone." It was about nine o'clock in the morning, I remember, for just then the captain called to me to stand by the chronometer while he took his fore observation. Captain Hackstaff wasn't one of those old skippers who do everything themselves with a pocket watch, and keep the key of the chronometer in their waistcoat pocket, and won't tell the mate how far the dead reckoning is out. He was rather the other way, and I was glad of it, for he generally let me work the sights he took, and just ran his eye over my figures afterwards. I am bound to say his eye was pretty good, for he would pick out a mistake in a logarithm, or tell me that I had worked the "Equation of Time" with the wrong sign, before it seemed to me that he could have got as far as "half the sum, minus the altitude." He was always right, too, and besides he knew a lot about iron ships and local deviation, and adjusting the compass, and all that sort of thing. I don't know how he came to be in command of a fore-and-aft schooner. He never talked about himself, and maybe he had just been mate on one of those big steel square-riggers, and something had put him back. Perhaps he had been captain, and had got his ship aground, through no particular fault of his, and had to begin over again. Sometimes he talked just like you and me, and sometimes he would speak more like books do, or some of those Boston people I have heard. I don't know. We have all been shipmates now and then with men who have seen better days. Perhaps he had been in the Navy, but what makes me think he couldn't have been, was that he was a thorough good seaman, a regular old windjammer, and understood sail, which those Navy chaps rarely do. Why, you and I have sailed with men before the mast who had their master's certificates in their pockets--English Board of Trade certificates, too--who could work a double altitude if you would lend them a sextant and give them a look at the chronometer, as well as many a man who commands a big square-rigger. Navigation ain't everything, nor seamanship either. You've got to have it in you, if you mean to get there. I don't know how our captain heard that there was trouble forward. The cabin-boy may have told him, or the men may have talked outside his door when they relieved the wheel at night. Anyhow, he got wind of it, and when he had got his sight that morning, he had all hands aft, and gave them a lecture. It was just the kind of talk you might have expected from him. He said he hadn't any complaint to make, and that so far as he knew everybody on board was doing his duty, and that he was given to understand that the men got their whack, and were satisfied. He said his ship was never a hard ship, and that he liked quiet, and that was the reason he didn't mean to have any nonsense, and the men might just as well understand that, too. We'd had a great misfortune, he said, and it was nobody's fault. We had lost a man we all liked and respected, and he felt that everybody in the ship ought to be sorry for the man's brother, who was left behind, and that it was rotten lubberly childishness, and unjust and unmanly and cowardly, to be playing schoolboy tricks with forks and spoons and pipes, and that sort of gear. He said it had got to stop right now, and that was all, and the men might go forward. And so they did. It got worse after that, and the men watched the cook, and the cook watched the men, as if they were trying to catch each other; but I think everybody felt that there was something else. One evening, at supper-time, I was on deck, and Jack came aft to relieve the wheel while the man who was steering got his supper. He hadn't got past the main-hatch on the lee side, when I heard a man running in slippers that slapped on the deck, and there was a sort of a yell and I saw the coloured cook going for Jack, with a carving knife in his hand. I jumped to get between them, and Jack turned round short, and put out his hand. I was too far to reach them, and the cook jabbed out with his knife. But the blade didn't get anywhere near Benton. The cook seemed to be jabbing it into the air again and again, at least four feet short of the mark. Then he dropped his right hand, and I saw the whites of his eyes in the dusk, and he reeled up against the pin-rail, and caught hold of a belaying-pin with his left. I had reached him by that time, and grabbed hold of his knife-hand, and the other, too, for I thought he was going to use the pin; but Jack Benton was standing staring stupidly at him, as if he didn't understand. But instead, the cook was holding on because he couldn't stand, and his teeth were chattering, and he let go of the knife, and the point stuck into the deck. "He's crazy!" said Jack Benton, and that was all he said; and he went aft. When he was gone, the cook began to come to, and he spoke quite low, near my ear. "There were two of them! So help me God, there were two of them!" I don't know why I didn't take him by the collar, and give him a good shaking; but I didn't. I just picked up the knife and gave it to him, and told him to go back to his galley, and not to make a fool of himself. You see, he hadn't struck at Jack, but at something he thought he saw, and I knew what it was, and I felt that same thing, like a lump of ice sliding down my back, that I felt that night when we were bending the trysail. When the men had seen him running aft, they jumped up after him, but they held off when they saw that I had caught him. By and by, the man who had spoken to me before told me what had happened. He was a stocky little chap, with a red head. "Well," he said, "there isn't much to tell. Jack Benton had been eating his supper with the rest of us. He always sits at the after corner of the table, on the port side. His brother used to sit at the end, next him. The doctor gave him a thundering big piece of pie to finish up with, and when he had finished he didn't stop for a smoke, but went off quick to relieve the wheel. Just as he had gone, the doctor came in from the galley, and when he saw Jack's empty plate he stood stock still staring at it; and we all wondered what was the matter, till we looked at the plate. There were two forks in it, sir, lying side by side. Then the doctor grabbed his knife, and flew up through the hatch like a rocket. The other fork was there all right, Mr. Torkeldsen, for we all saw it and handled it; and we all had our own. That's all I know." I didn't feel that I wanted to laugh when he told me that story; but I hoped the Old Man wouldn't hear it, for I knew he wouldn't believe it, and no captain that ever sailed likes to have stories like that going round about his ship. It gives her a bad name. But that was all anybody ever saw except the cook, and he isn't the first man who has thought he saw things without having any drink in him. I think, if the doctor had been weak in the head, as he was afterwards, he might have done something foolish again, and there might have been serious trouble. But he didn't. Only, two or three times, I saw him looking at Jack Benton in a queer, scared way, and once I heard him talking to himself. "There's two of them! So help me God, there's two of them!" He didn't say anything more about asking for his discharge, but I knew well enough that if he got ashore at the next port we should never see him again, if he had to leave his kit behind him, and his money, too. He was scared all through, for good and all; and he wouldn't be right again till he got another ship. It's no use to talk to a man when he gets like that, any more than it is to send a boy to the main truck when he has lost his nerve. Jack Benton never spoke of what happened that evening. I don't know whether he knew about the two forks, or not; or whether he understood what the trouble was. Whatever he knew from the other men, he was evidently living under a hard strain. He was quiet enough, and too quiet; but his face was set, and sometimes it twitched oddly when he was at the wheel, and he would turn his head round sharp to look behind him. A man doesn't do that naturally, unless there's a vessel that he thinks is creeping up on the quarter. When that happens, if the man at the wheel takes a pride in his ship, he will almost always keep glancing over his shoulder to see whether the other fellow is gaining. But Jack Benton used to look round when there was nothing there; and what is curious, the other men seemed to catch the trick when they were steering. One day the Old Man turned out just as the man at the wheel looked behind him. "What are you looking at?" asked the captain. "Nothing, sir," answered the man. "Then keep your eye on the mizzen-royal," said the Old Man, as if he were forgetting that we weren't a square-rigger. "Ay, ay, sir," said the man. The captain told me to go below and work up the latitude from the dead-reckoning, and he went forward of the deck-house and sat down to read, as he often did. When I came up, the man at the wheel was looking round again, and I stood beside him and just asked him quietly what everybody was looking at, for it was getting to be a general habit. He wouldn't say anything at first, but just answered that it was nothing. But when he saw that I didn't seem to care, and just stood there as if there were nothing more to be said, he naturally began to talk. He said that it wasn't that he saw anything, because there wasn't anything to see except the spanker sheet just straining a little, and working in the sheaves of the blocks as the schooner rose to the short seas. There wasn't anything to be seen, but it seemed to him that the sheet made a queer noise in the blocks. It was a new manilla sheet; and in dry weather it did make a little noise, something between a creak and a wheeze. I looked at it and looked at the man, and said nothing; and presently he went on. He asked me if I didn't notice anything peculiar about the noise. I listened awhile, and said I didn't notice anything. Then he looked rather sheepish, but said he didn't think it could be his own ears, because every man who steered his trick heard the same thing now and then,--sometimes once in a day, sometimes once in a night, sometimes it would go on a whole hour. "It sounds like sawing wood," I said, just like that. "To us it sounds a good deal more like a man whistling 'Nancy Lee.'" He started nervously as he spoke the last words. "There, sir, don't you hear it?" he asked suddenly. I heard nothing but the creaking of the manilla sheet. It was getting near noon, and fine, clear weather in southern waters,--just the sort of day and the time when you would least expect to feel creepy. But I remembered how I had heard that same tune overhead at night in a gale of wind a fortnight earlier, and I am not ashamed to say that the same sensation came over me now, and I wished myself well out of the _Helen B._, and aboard of any old cargo-dragger, with a windmill on deck, and an eighty-nine-forty-eighter for captain, and a fresh leak whenever it breezed up. Little by little during the next few days life on board that vessel came to be about as unbearable as you can imagine. It wasn't that there was much talk, for I think the men were shy even of speaking to each other freely about what they thought. The whole ship's company grew silent, until one hardly ever heard a voice, except giving an order and the answer. The men didn't sit over their meals when their watch was below, but either turned in at once or sat about on the forecastle, smoking their pipes without saying a word. We were all thinking of the same thing. We all felt as if there were a hand on board, sometimes below, sometimes about decks, sometimes aloft, sometimes on the boom end; taking his full share of what the others got, but doing no work for it. We didn't only feel it, we knew it. He took up no room, he cast no shadow, and we never heard his footfall on deck; but he took his whack with the rest as regular as the bells, and--he whistled "Nancy Lee." It was like the worst sort of dream you can imagine; and I daresay a good many of us tried to believe it was nothing else sometimes, when we stood looking over the weather rail in fine weather with the breeze in our faces; but if we happened to turn round and look into each other's eyes, we knew it was something worse than any dream could be; and we would turn away from each other with a queer, sick feeling, wishing that we could just for once see somebody who didn't know what we knew. There's not much more to tell about the _Helen B. Jackson_, so far as I am concerned. We were more like a shipload of lunatics than anything else when we ran in under Morro Castle and anchored in Havana. The cook had brain fever, and was raving mad in his delirium; and the rest of the men weren't far from the same state. The last three or four days had been awful, and we had been as near to having a mutiny on board as I ever want to be. The men didn't want to hurt anybody; but they wanted to get away out of that ship, if they had to swim for it; to get away from that whistling, from that dead shipmate who had come back, and who filled the ship with his unseen self! I know that if the Old Man and I hadn't kept a sharp lookout, the men would have put a boat over quietly on one of those calm nights, and pulled away, leaving the captain and me and the mad cook to work the schooner into harbour. We should have done it somehow, of course, for we hadn't far to run if we could get a breeze; and once or twice I found myself wishing that the crew were really gone, for the awful state of fright in which they lived was beginning to work on me too. You see I partly believed and partly didn't; but, anyhow, I didn't mean to let the thing get the better of me, whatever it was. I turned crusty, too, and kept the men at work on all sorts of jobs, and drove them to it until they wished I was overboard, too. It wasn't that the Old Man and I were trying to drive them to desert without their pay, as I am sorry to say a good many skippers and mates do, even now. Captain Hackstaff was as straight as a string, and I didn't mean those poor fellows should be cheated out of a single cent; and I didn't blame them for wanting to leave the ship, but it seemed to me that the only chance to keep everybody sane through those last days was to work the men till they dropped. When they were dead tired they slept a little, and forgot the thing until they had to tumble up on deck and face it again. That was a good many years ago. Do you believe that I can't hear "Nancy Lee" now, without feeling cold down my back? For I heard it, too, now and then, after the man had explained why he was always looking over his shoulder. Perhaps it was imagination. I don't know. When I look back it seems to me that I only remember a long fight against something I couldn't see, against an appalling presence, against something worse than cholera or Yellow Jack or the plague--and, goodness knows, the mildest of them is bad enough when it breaks out at sea. The men got as white as chalk, and wouldn't go about decks alone at night, no matter what I said to them. With the cook raving in his bunk, the forecastle would have been a perfect hell, and there wasn't a spare cabin on board. There never is on a fore-and-after. So I put him into mine, and he was more quiet there, and at last fell into a sort of stupor as if he were going to die. I don't know what became of him, for we put him ashore alive and left him in the hospital. The men came aft in a body, quiet enough, and asked the captain if he wouldn't pay them off, and let them go ashore. Some men wouldn't have done it, for they had shipped for the voyage, and had signed articles. But the captain knew that when sailors get an idea into their heads, they're no better than children; and if he forced them to stay aboard, he wouldn't get much work out of them, and couldn't rely on them in a difficulty. So he paid them off, and let them go. When they had gone forward to get their kits, he asked me whether I wanted to go, too, and for a minute I had a sort of weak feeling that I might just as well. But I didn't, and he was a good friend to me afterwards. Perhaps he was grateful to me for sticking to him. When the men went off he didn't come on deck; but it was my duty to stand by while they left the ship. They owed me a grudge for making them work during the last few days, and most of them dropped into the boat without so much as a word or a look, as sailors will. Jack Benton was the last to go over the side, and he stood still a minute and looked at me, and his white face twitched. I thought he wanted to say something. "Take care of yourself, Jack," said I. "So long!" It seemed as if he couldn't speak for two or three seconds; then his words came thick. "It wasn't my fault, Mr. Torkeldsen. I swear it wasn't my fault!" That was all; and he dropped over the side, leaving me to wonder what he meant. The captain and I stayed on board, and the ship-chandler got a West India boy to cook for us. That evening, before turning in, we were standing by the rail having a quiet smoke, watching the lights of the city, a quarter of a mile off, reflected in the still water. There was music of some sort ashore, in a sailors' dance-house, I daresay; and I had no doubt that most of the men who had left the ship were there, and already full of jiggy-jiggy. The music played a lot of sailors' tunes that ran into each other, and we could hear the men's voices in the chorus now and then. One followed another, and then it was "Nancy Lee," loud and clear, and the men singing "Yo-ho, heave-ho!" "I have no ear for music," said Captain Hackstaff, "but it appears to me that's the tune that man was whistling the night we lost the man overboard. I don't know why it has stuck in my head, and of course it's all nonsense; but it seems to me that I have heard it all the rest of the trip." I didn't say anything to that, but I wondered just how much the Old Man had understood. Then we turned in, and I slept ten hours without opening my eyes. I stuck to the _Helen B. Jackson_ after that as long as I could stand a fore-and-after; but that night when we lay in Havana was the last time I ever heard "Nancy Lee" on board of her. The spare hand had gone ashore with the rest, and he never came back, and he took his tune with him; but all those things are just as clear in my memory as if they had happened yesterday. After that I was in deep water for a year or more, and after I came home I got my certificate, and what with having friends and having saved a little money, and having had a small legacy from an uncle in Norway, I got the command of a coastwise vessel, with a small share in her. I was at home three weeks before going to sea, and Jack Benton saw my name in the local papers, and wrote to me. He said that he had left the sea, and was trying farming, and he was going to be married, and he asked if I wouldn't come over for that, for it wasn't more than forty minutes by train; and he and Mamie would be proud to have me at the wedding. I remembered how I had heard one brother ask the other whether Mamie knew. That meant, whether she knew he wanted to marry her, I suppose. She had taken her time about it, for it was pretty nearly three years then since we had lost Jim Benton overboard. I had nothing particular to do while we were getting ready for sea; nothing to prevent me from going over for a day, I mean; and I thought I'd like to see Jack Benton, and have a look at the girl he was going to marry. I wondered whether he had grown cheerful again, and had got rid of that drawn look he had when he told me it wasn't his fault. How could it have been his fault, anyhow? So I wrote to Jack that I would come down and see him married; and when the day came I took the train and got there about ten o'clock in the morning. I wish I hadn't. Jack met me at the station, and he told me that the wedding was to be late in the afternoon, and that they weren't going off on any silly wedding trip, he and Mamie, but were just going to walk home from her mother's house to his cottage. That was good enough for him, he said. I looked at him hard for a minute after we met. When we had parted I had a sort of idea that he might take to drink, but he hadn't. He looked very respectable and well-to-do in his black coat and high city collar; but he was thinner and bonier than when I had known him, and there were lines in his face, and I thought his eyes had a queer look in them, half shifty, half scared. He needn't have been afraid of me, for I didn't mean to talk to his bride about the _Helen B. Jackson._ He took me to his cottage first, and I could see that he was proud of it. It wasn't above a cable's length from high-water mark, but the tide was running out, and there was already a broad stretch of hard, wet sand on the other side of the beach road. Jack's bit of land ran back behind the cottage about a quarter of a mile, and he said that some of the trees we saw were his. The fences were neat and well kept, and there was a fair-sized barn a little way from the cottage, and I saw some nice-looking cattle in the meadows; but it didn't look to me to be much of a farm, and I thought that before long Jack would have to leave his wife to take care of it, and go to sea again. But I said it was a nice farm, so as to seem pleasant, and as I don't know much about these things, I daresay it was, all the same. I never saw it but that once. Jack told me that he and his brother had been born in the cottage, and that when their father and mother died they leased the land to Mamie's father, but had kept the cottage to live in when they came home from sea for a spell. It was as neat a little place as you would care to see: the floors as clean as the decks of a yacht, and the paint as fresh as a man-o'-war. Jack always was a good painter. There was a nice parlour on the ground floor, and Jack had papered it and had hung the walls with photographs of ships and foreign ports, and with things he had brought home from his voyages: a boomerang, a South Sea club, Japanese straw hats, and a Gibraltar fan with a bull-fight on it, and all that sort of gear. It looked to me as if Miss Mamie had taken a hand in arranging it. There was a brand-new polished iron Franklin stove set into the old fireplace, and a red table-cloth from Alexandria embroidered with those outlandish Egyptian letters. It was all as bright and homelike as possible, and he showed me everything, and was proud of everything, and I liked him the better for it. But I wished that his voice would sound more cheerful, as it did when we first sailed in the _Helen B._, and that the drawn look would go out of his face for a minute. Jack showed me everything, and took me upstairs, and it was all the same: bright and fresh and ready for the bride. But on the upper landing there was a door that Jack didn't open. When we came out of the bedroom I noticed that it was ajar, and Jack shut it quickly and turned the key. "That lock's no good," he said, half to himself. "The door is always open." I didn't pay much attention to what he said, but as we went down the short stairs, freshly painted and varnished so that I was almost afraid to step on them, he spoke again. "That was his room, sir. I have made a sort of store-room of it." "You may be wanting it in a year or so," I said, wishing to be pleasant. "I guess we won't use his room for that," Jack answered in a low voice. Then he offered me a cigar from a fresh box in the parlour, and he took one, and we lit them, and went out; and as we opened the front door there was Mamie Brewster standing in the path as if she were waiting for us. She was a fine-looking girl, and I didn't wonder that Jack had been willing to wait three years for her. I could see that she hadn't been brought up on steam-heat and cold storage, but had grown into a woman by the sea-shore. She had brown eyes, and fine brown hair, and a good figure. "This is Captain Torkeldsen," said Jack. "This is Miss Brewster, captain; and she is glad to see you." "Well, I am," said Miss Mamie, "for Jack has often talked to us about you, captain." She put out her hand, and took mine and shook it heartily, and I suppose I said something, but I know I didn't say much. The front door of the cottage looked toward the sea, and there was a straight path leading to the gate on the beach road. There was another path from the steps of the cottage that turned to the right, broad enough for two people to walk easily, and it led straight across the fields through gates to a larger house about a quarter of a mile away. That was where Mamie's mother lived, and the wedding was to be there. Jack asked me whether I would like to look round the farm before dinner, but I told him I didn't know much about farms. Then he said he just wanted to look round himself a bit, as he mightn't have much more chance that day; and he smiled, and Mamie laughed. "Show the captain the way to the house, Mamie," he said. "I'll be along in a minute." So Mamie and I began to walk along the path, and Jack went up toward the barn. "It was sweet of you to come, captain," Miss Mamie began, "for I have always wanted to see you." "Yes," I said, expecting something more. "You see, I always knew them both," she went on. "They used to take me out in a dory to catch codfish when I was a little girl, and I liked them both," she added thoughtfully. "Jack doesn't care to talk about his brother now. That's natural. But you won't mind telling me how it happened, will you? I should so much like to know." Well, I told her about the voyage and what happened that night when we fell in with a gale of wind, and that it hadn't been anybody's fault, for I wasn't going to admit that it was my old captain's, if it was. But I didn't tell her anything about what happened afterwards. As she didn't speak, I just went on talking about the two brothers, and how like they had been, and how when poor Jim was drowned and Jack was left, I took Jack for him. I told her that none of us had ever been sure which was which. "I wasn't always sure myself," she said, "unless they were together. Leastways, not for a day or two after they came home from sea. And now it seems to me that Jack is more like poor Jim, as I remember him, than he ever was, for Jim was always more quiet, as if he were thinking." I told her I thought so, too. We passed the gate and went into the next field, walking side by side. Then she turned her head to look for Jack, but he wasn't in sight. I shan't forget what she said next. "Are you sure now?" she asked. I stood stock-still, and she went on a step, and then turned and looked at me. We must have looked at each other while you could count five or six. "I know it's silly," she went on, "it's silly, and it's awful, too, and I have got no right to think it, but sometimes I can't help it. You see it was always Jack I meant to marry." "Yes," I said stupidly, "I suppose so." She waited a minute, and began walking on slowly before she went on again. "I am talking to you as if you were an old friend, captain, and I have only known you five minutes. It was Jack I meant to marry, but now he is so like the other one." When a woman gets a wrong idea into her head, there is only one way to make her tired of it, and that is to agree with her. That's what I did, and she went on talking the same way for a little while, and I kept on agreeing and agreeing until she turned round on me. "You know you don't believe what you say," she said, and laughed. "You know that Jack is Jack, right enough; and it's Jack I am going to marry." Of course I said so, for I didn't care whether she thought me a weak creature or not. I wasn't going to say a word that could interfere with her happiness, and I didn't intend to go back on Jack Benton; but I remembered what he had said when he left the ship in Havana: that it wasn't his fault. "All the same," Miss Mamie went on, as a woman will, without realising what she was saying, "all the same, I wish I had seen it happen. Then I should know." Next minute she knew that she didn't mean that, and was afraid that I would think her heartless, and began to explain that she would really rather have died herself than have seen poor Jim go overboard. Women haven't got much sense, anyhow. All the same, I wondered how she could marry Jack if she had a doubt that he might be Jim after all. I suppose she had really got used to him since he had given up the sea and had stayed ashore, and she cared for him. Before long we heard Jack coming up behind us, for we had walked very slowly to wait for him. "Promise not to tell anybody what I said, captain," said Mamie, as girls do as soon as they have told their secrets. Anyhow, I know I never did tell any one but you. This is the first time I have talked of all that, the first time since I took the train from that place. I am not going to tell you all about the day. Miss Mamie introduced me to her mother, who was a quiet, hard-faced old New England farmer's widow, and to her cousins and relations; and there were plenty of them, too, at dinner, and there was the parson besides. He was what they call a Hard-shell Baptist in those parts, with a long, shaven upper lip and a whacking appetite, and a sort of superior look, as if he didn't expect to see many of us hereafter--the way a New York pilot looks round, and orders things about when he boards an Italian cargo-dragger, as if the ship weren't up to much anyway, though it was his business to see that she didn't get aground. That's the way a good many parsons look, I think. He said grace as if he were ordering the men to sheet home the topgallant-sail and get the helm up. After dinner we went out on the piazza, for it was warm autumn weather; and the young folks went off in pairs along the beach road, and the tide had turned and was beginning to come in. The morning had been clear and fine, but by four o'clock it began to look like a fog, and the damp came up out of the sea and settled on everything. Jack said he'd go down to his cottage and have a last look, for the wedding was to be at five o'clock, or soon after, and he wanted to light the lights, so as to have things look cheerful. "I will just take a last look," he said again, as we reached the house. We went in, and he offered me another cigar, and I lit it and sat down in the parlour. I could hear him moving about, first in the kitchen and then upstairs, and then I heard him in the kitchen again; and then before I knew anything I heard somebody moving upstairs again. I knew he couldn't have got up those stairs as quick as that. He came into the parlour, and he took a cigar himself, and while he was lighting it I heard those steps again overhead. His hand shook, and he dropped the match. "Have you got in somebody to help?" I asked. "No," Jack answered sharply, and struck another match. "There's somebody upstairs, Jack," I said. "Don't you hear footsteps?" "It's the wind, captain," Jack answered; but I could see he was trembling. "That isn't any wind, Jack," I said; "it's still and foggy. I'm sure there's somebody upstairs." "If you are so sure of it, you'd better go and see for yourself, captain," Jack answered, almost angrily. He was angry because he was frightened. I left him before the fireplace, and went upstairs. There was no power on earth that could make me believe I hadn't heard a man's footsteps overhead. I knew there was somebody there. But there wasn't. I went into the bedroom, and it was all quiet, and the evening light was streaming in, reddish through the foggy air; and I went out on the landing and looked in the little back room that was meant for a servant-girl or a child. And as I came back again I saw that the door of the other room was wide open, though I knew Jack had locked it. He had said the lock was no good. I looked in. It was a room as big as the bedroom, but almost dark, for it had shutters, and they were closed. There was a musty smell, as of old gear, and I could make out that the floor was littered with sea-chests, and that there were oilskins and such stuff piled on the bed. But I still believed that there was somebody upstairs, and I went in and struck a match and looked round. I could see the four walls and the shabby old paper, an iron bed and a cracked looking-glass, and the stuff on the floor. But there was nobody there. So I put out the match, and came out and shut the door and turned the key. Now, what I am telling you is the truth. When I had turned the key, I heard footsteps walking away from the door inside the room. Then I felt queer for a minute, and when I went downstairs I looked behind me, as the men at the wheel used to look behind them on board the _Helen B._ Jack was already outside on the steps, smoking. I have an idea that he didn't like to stay inside alone. "Well?" he asked, trying to seem careless. "I didn't find anybody," I answered, "but I heard somebody moving about." "I told you it was the wind," said Jack contemptuously. "I ought to know, for I live here, and I hear it often." There was nothing to be said to that, so we began to walk down toward the beach. Jack said there wasn't any hurry, as it would take Miss Mamie some time to dress for the wedding. So we strolled along, and the sun was setting through the fog, and the tide was coming in. I knew the moon was full, and that when she rose the fog would roll away from the land, as it does sometimes. I felt that Jack didn't like my having heard that noise, so I talked of other things, and asked him about his prospects, and before long we were chatting as pleasantly as possible. I haven't been at many weddings in my life, and I don't suppose you have, but that one seemed to me to be all right until it was pretty near over; and then, I don't know whether it was part of the ceremony or not, but Jack put out his hand and took Mamie's and held it a minute, and looked at her, while the parson was still speaking. Mamie turned as white as a sheet and screamed. It wasn't a loud scream, but just a sort of stifled little shriek, as if she were half frightened to death; and the parson stopped, and asked her what was the matter, and the family gathered round. "Your hand's like ice," said Mamie to Jack, "and it's all wet!" She kept looking at it, as she got hold of herself again. "It don't feel cold to me," said Jack, and he held the back of his hand against his cheek. "Try it again." Mamie held out hers, and touched the back of his hand, timidly at first, and then took hold of it. "Why, that's funny," she said. "She's been as nervous as a witch all day," said Mrs. Brewster severely. "It is natural," said the parson, "that young Mrs. Benton should experience a little agitation at such a moment." Most of the bride's relations lived at a distance, and were busy people, so it had been arranged that the dinner we'd had in the middle of the day was to take the place of a dinner afterwards, and that we should just have a bite after the wedding was over, and then that everybody should go home, and the young couple would walk down to the cottage by themselves. When I looked out I could see the light burning brightly in Jack's cottage, a quarter of a mile away. I said I didn't think I could get any train to take me back before half-past nine, but Mrs. Brewster begged me to stay until it was time, as she said her daughter would want to take off her wedding dress before she went home; for she had put on something white with a wreath that was very pretty, and she couldn't walk home like that, could she? So when we had all had a little supper the party began to break up, and when they were all gone Mrs. Brewster and Mamie went upstairs, and Jack and I went out on the piazza to have a smoke, as the old lady didn't like tobacco in the house. The full moon had risen now, and it was behind me as I looked down toward Jack's cottage, so that everything was clear and white, and there was only the light burning in the window. The fog had rolled down to the water's edge, and a little beyond, for the tide was high, or nearly, and was lapping up over the last reach of sand within fifty feet of the beach road. Jack didn't say much as we sat smoking, but he thanked me for coming to his wedding, and I told him I hoped he would be happy, and so I did. I daresay both of us were thinking of those footsteps upstairs, just then, and that the house wouldn't seem so lonely with a woman in it. By and by we heard Mamie's voice talking to her mother on the stairs, and in a minute she was ready to go. She had put on again the dress she had worn in the morning. Well, they were ready to go now. It was all very quiet after the day's excitement, and I knew they would like to walk down that path alone now that they were man and wife at last. I bade them good-night, although Jack made a show of pressing me to go with them by the path as far as the cottage, instead of going to the station by the beach road. It was all very quiet, and it seemed to me a sensible way of getting married; and when Mamie kissed her mother good-night, I just looked the other way, and knocked my ashes over the rail of the piazza. So they started down the straight path to Jack's cottage, and I waited a minute with Mrs. Brewster, looking after them, before taking my hat to go. They walked side by side, a little shyly at first, and then I saw Jack put his arm round her waist. As I looked he was on her left and I saw the outline of the two figures very distinctly against the moonlight on the path; and the shadow on Mamie's right was broad and black as ink, and it moved along, lengthening and shortening with the unevenness of the ground beside the path. I thanked Mrs. Brewster, and bade her good-night; and though she was a hard New England woman, her voice trembled a little as she answered, but being a sensible person, she went in and shut the door behind her as I stepped out on the path. I looked after the couple in the distance a last time, meaning to go down to the road, so as not to overtake them; but when I had made a few steps I stopped and looked again, for I knew I had seen something queer, though I had only realised it afterwards. I looked again, and it was plain enough now; and I stood stock-still, staring at what I saw. Mamie was walking between two men. The second man was just the same height as Jack, both being about a half a head taller than she; Jack on her left in his black tail-coat and round hat, and the other man on her right--well, he was a sailor-man in wet oilskins. I could see the moonlight shining on the water that ran down him, and on the little puddle that had settled where the flap of his sou'wester was turned up behind: and one of his wet, shiny arms was round Mamie's waist, just above Jack's. I was fast to the spot where I stood, and for a minute I thought I was crazy. We'd had nothing but some cider for dinner, and tea in the evening, otherwise I'd have thought something had got into my head, though I was never drunk in my life. It was more like a bad dream after that. I was glad Mrs. Brewster had gone in. As for me, I couldn't help following the three, in a sort of wonder to see what would happen, to see whether the sailor-man in his wet togs would just melt away into the moonshine. But he didn't. I moved slowly, and I remembered afterwards that I walked on the grass, instead of on the path, as if I were afraid they might hear me coming. I suppose it all happened in less than five minutes after that, but it seemed as if it must have taken an hour. Neither Jack nor Mamie seemed to notice the sailor. She didn't seem to know that his wet arm was round her, and little by little they got near the cottage, and I wasn't a hundred yards from them when they reached the door. Something made me stand still then. Perhaps it was fright, for I saw everything that happened just as I see you now. Mamie set her foot on the step to go up, and as she went forward, I saw the sailor slowly lock his arm in Jack's, and Jack didn't move to go up. Then Mamie turned round on the step, and they all three stood that way for a second or two. She cried out then--I heard a man cry like that once, when his arm was taken off by a steam-crane--and she fell back in a heap on the little piazza. I tried to jump forward, but I couldn't move, and I felt my hair rising under my hat. The sailor turned slowly where he stood, and swung Jack round by the arm steadily and easily, and began to walk him down the pathway from the house. He walked him straight down that path, as steadily as Fate; and all the time I saw the moonlight shining on his wet oilskins. He walked him through the gate, and across the beach road, and out upon the wet sand, where the tide was high. Then I got my breath with a gulp, and ran for them across the grass, and vaulted over the fence, and stumbled across the road. But when I felt the sand under my feet, the two were at the water's edge; and when I reached the water they were far out, and up to their waists; and I saw that Jack Benton's head had fallen forward on his breast, and his free arm hung limp beside him, while his dead brother steadily marched him to his death. The moonlight was on the dark water, but the fog-bank was white beyond, and I saw them against it; and they went slowly and steadily down. The water was up to their armpits, and then up to their shoulders, and then I saw it rise up to the black rim of Jack's hat. But they never wavered; and the two heads went straight on, straight on, till they were under, and there was just a ripple in the moonlight where Jack had been. It has been on my mind to tell you that story, whenever I got a chance. You have known me, man and boy, a good many years; and I thought I would like to hear your opinion. Yes, that's what I always thought. It wasn't Jim that went overboard; it was Jack, and Jim just let him go when he might have saved him; and then Jim passed himself off for Jack with us, and with the girl. If that's what happened, he got what he deserved. People said the next day that Mamie found it out as they reached the house, and that her husband just walked out into the sea, and drowned himself; and they would have blamed me for not stopping him if they'd known that I was there. But I never told what I had seen, for they wouldn't have believed me. I just let them think I had come too late. When I reached the cottage and lifted Mamie up, she was raving mad. She got better afterwards, but she was never right in her head again. Oh, you want to know if they found Jack's body? I don't know whether it was his, but I read in a paper at a Southern port where I was with my new ship that two dead bodies had come ashore in a gale down East, in pretty bad shape. They were locked together, and one was a skeleton in oilskins. FOR THE BLOOD IS THE LIFE We had dined at sunset on the broad roof of the old tower, because it was cooler there during the great heat of summer. Besides, the little kitchen was built at one corner of the great square platform, which made it more convenient than if the dishes had to be carried down the steep stone steps, broken in places and everywhere worn with age. The tower was one of those built all down the west coast of Calabria by the Emperor Charles V. early in the sixteenth century, to keep off the Barbary pirates, when the unbelievers were allied with Francis I. against the Emperor and the Church. They have gone to ruin, a few still stand intact, and mine is one of the largest. How it came into my possession ten years ago, and why I spend a part of each year in it, are matters which do not concern this tale. The tower stands in one of the loneliest spots in Southern Italy, at the extremity of a curving rocky promontory, which forms a small but safe natural harbour at the southern extremity of the Gulf of Policastro, and just north of Cape Scalea, the birthplace of Judas Iscariot, according to the old local legend. The tower stands alone on this hooked spur of the rock, and there is not a house to be seen within three miles of it. When I go there I take a couple of sailors, one of whom is a fair cook, and when I am away it is in charge of a gnome-like little being who was once a miner and who attached himself to me long ago. My friend, who sometimes visits me in my summer solitude, is an artist by profession, a Scandinavian by birth, and a cosmopolitan by force of circumstances. We had dined at sunset; the sunset glow had reddened and faded again, and the evening purple steeped the vast chain of the mountains that embrace the deep gulf to eastward and rear themselves higher and higher toward the south. It was hot, and we sat at the landward corner of the platform, waiting for the night breeze to come down from the lower hills. The colour sank out of the air, there was a little interval of deep-grey twilight, and a lamp sent a yellow streak from the open door of the kitchen, where the men were getting their supper. Then the moon rose suddenly above the crest of the promontory, flooding the platform and lighting up every little spur of rock and knoll of grass below us, down to the edge of the motionless water. My friend lighted his pipe and sat looking at a spot on the hillside. I knew that he was looking at it, and for a long time past I had wondered whether he would ever see anything there that would fix his attention. I knew that spot well. It was clear that he was interested at last, though it was a long time before he spoke. Like most painters, he trusts to his own eyesight, as a lion trusts his strength and a stag his speed, and he is always disturbed when he cannot reconcile what he sees with what he believes that he ought to see. "It's strange," he said. "Do you see that little mound just on this side of the boulder?" "Yes," I said, and I guessed what was coming. "It looks like a grave," observed Holger. "Very true. It does look like a grave." "Yes," continued my friend, his eyes still fixed on the spot. "But the strange thing is that I see the body lying on the top of it. Of course," continued Holger, turning his head on one side as artists do, "it must be an effect of light. In the first place, it is not a grave at all. Secondly, if it were, the body would be inside and not outside. Therefore, it's an effect of the moonlight. Don't you see it?" "Perfectly; I always see it on moonlight nights." "It doesn't seem to interest you much," said Holger. "On the contrary, it does interest me, though I am used to it. You're not so far wrong, either. The mound is really a grave." "Nonsense!" cried Holger, incredulously. "I suppose you'll tell me what I see lying on it is really a corpse!" "No," I answered, "it's not. I know, because I have taken the trouble to go down and see." "Then what is it?" asked Holger. "It's nothing." "You mean that it's an effect of light, I suppose?" "Perhaps it is. But the inexplicable part of the matter is that it makes no difference whether the moon is rising or setting, or waxing or waning. If there's any moonlight at all, from east or west or overhead, so long as it shines on the grave you can see the outline of the body on top." Holger stirred up his pipe with the point of his knife, and then used his finger for a stopper. When the tobacco burned well he rose from his chair. "If you don't mind," he said, "I'll go down and take a look at it." He left me, crossed the roof, and disappeared down the dark steps. I did not move, but sat looking down until he came out of the tower below. I heard him humming an old Danish song as he crossed the open space in the bright moonlight, going straight to the mysterious mound. When he was ten paces from it, Holger stopped short, made two steps forward, and then three or four backward, and then stopped again. I know what that meant. He had reached the spot where the Thing ceased to be visible--where, as he would have said, the effect of light changed. Then he went on till he reached the mound and stood upon it. I could see the Thing still, but it was no longer lying down; it was on its knees now, winding its white arms round Holger's body and looking up into his face. A cool breeze stirred my hair at that moment, as the night wind began to come down from the hills, but it felt like a breath from another world. The Thing seemed to be trying to climb to its feet, helping itself up by Holger's body while he stood upright, quite unconscious of it and apparently looking toward the tower, which is very picturesque when the moonlight falls upon it on that side. "Come along!" I shouted. "Don't stay there all night!" It seemed to me that he moved reluctantly as he stepped from the mound, or else with difficulty. That was it. The Thing's arms were still round his waist, but its feet could not leave the grave. As he came slowly forward it was drawn and lengthened like a wreath of mist, thin and white, till I saw distinctly that Holger shook himself, as a man does who feels a chill. At the same instant a little wail of pain came to me on the breeze--it might have been the cry of the small owl that lives among the rocks--and the misty presence floated swiftly back from Holger's advancing figure and lay once more at its length upon the mound. Again I felt the cool breeze in my hair, and this time an icy thrill of dread ran down my spine. I remembered very well that I had once gone down there alone in the moonlight; that presently, being near, I had seen nothing; that, like Holger, I had gone and had stood upon the mound; and I remembered how, when I came back, sure that there was nothing there, I had felt the sudden conviction that there was something after all if I would only look behind me. I remembered the strong temptation to look back, a temptation I had resisted as unworthy of a man of sense, until, to get rid of it, I had shaken myself just as Holger did. And now I knew that those white, misty arms had been round me too; I knew it in a flash, and I shuddered as I remembered that I had heard the night owl then too. But it had not been the night owl. It was the cry of the Thing. I refilled my pipe and poured out a cup of strong southern wine; in less than a minute Holger was seated beside me again. "Of course there's nothing there," he said, "but it's creepy, all the same. Do you know, when I was coming back I was so sure that there was something behind me that I wanted to turn round and look? It was an effort not to." He laughed a little, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and poured himself out some wine. For a while neither of us spoke, and the moon rose higher, and we both looked at the Thing that lay on the mound. "You might make a story about that," said Holger after a long time. "There is one," I answered. "If you're not sleepy, I'll tell it to you." "Go ahead," said Holger, who likes stories. * * * * * Old Alario was dying up there in the village behind the hill. You remember him, I have no doubt. They say that he made his money by selling sham jewellery in South America, and escaped with his gains when he was found out. Like all those fellows, if they bring anything back with them, he at once set to work to enlarge his house, and as there are no masons here, he sent all the way to Paola for two workmen. They were a rough-looking pair of scoundrels--a Neapolitan who had lost one eye and a Sicilian with an old scar half an inch deep across his left cheek. I often saw them, for on Sundays they used to come down here and fish off the rocks. When Alario caught the fever that killed him the masons were still at work. As he had agreed that part of their pay should be their board and lodging, he made them sleep in the house. His wife was dead, and he had an only son called Angelo, who was a much better sort than himself. Angelo was to marry the daughter of the richest man in the village, and, strange to say, though the marriage was arranged by their parents, the young people were said to be in love with each other. For that matter, the whole village was in love with Angelo, and among the rest a wild, good-looking creature called Cristina, who was more like a gipsy than any girl I ever saw about here. She had very red lips and very black eyes, she was built like a greyhound, and had the tongue of the devil. But Angelo did not care a straw for her. He was rather a simple-minded fellow, quite different from his old scoundrel of a father, and under what I should call normal circumstances I really believe that he would never have looked at any girl except the nice plump little creature, with a fat dowry, whom his father meant him to marry. But things turned up which were neither normal nor natural. On the other hand, a very handsome young shepherd from the hills above Maratea was in love with Cristina, who seems to have been quite indifferent to him. Cristina had no regular means of subsistence, but she was a good girl and willing to do any work or go on errands to any distance for the sake of a loaf of bread or a mess of beans, and permission to sleep under cover. She was especially glad when she could get something to do about the house of Angelo's father. There is no doctor in the village, and when the neighbours saw that old Alario was dying they sent Cristina to Scalea to fetch one. That was late in the afternoon, and if they had waited so long, it was because the dying miser refused to allow any such extravagance while he was able to speak. But while Cristina was gone matters grew rapidly worse, the priest was brought to the bedside, and when he had done what he could he gave it as his opinion to the bystanders that the old man was dead, and left the house. You know these people. They have a physical horror of death. Until the priest spoke, the room had been full of people. The words were hardly out of his mouth before it was empty. It was night now. They hurried down the dark steps and out into the street. Angelo, as I have said, was away, Cristina had not come back--the simple woman-servant who had nursed the sick man fled with the rest, and the body was left alone in the flickering light of the earthen oil lamp. Five minutes later two men looked in cautiously and crept forward toward the bed. They were the one-eyed Neapolitan mason and his Sicilian companion. They knew what they wanted. In a moment they had dragged from under the bed a small but heavy iron-bound box, and long before any one thought of coming back to the dead man they had left the house and the village under cover of the darkness. It was easy enough, for Alario's house is the last toward the gorge which leads down here, and the thieves merely went out by the back door, got over the stone wall, and had nothing to risk after that except the possibility of meeting some belated countryman, which was very small indeed, since few of the people use that path. They had a mattock and shovel, and they made their way here without accident. I am telling you this story as it must have happened, for, of course, there were no witnesses to this part of it. The men brought the box down by the gorge, intending to bury it until they should be able to come back and take it away in a boat. They must have been clever enough to guess that some of the money would be in paper notes, for they would otherwise have buried it on the beach in the wet sand, where it would have been much safer. But the paper would have rotted if they had been obliged to leave it there long, so they dug their hole down there, close to that boulder. Yes, just where the mound is now. Cristina did not find the doctor in Scalea, for he had been sent for from a place up the valley, halfway to San Domenico. If she had found him, he would have come on his mule by the upper road, which is smoother but much longer. But Cristina took the short cut by the rocks, which passes about fifty feet above the mound, and goes round that corner. The men were digging when she passed, and she heard them at work. It would not have been like her to go by without finding out what the noise was, for she was never afraid of anything in her life, and, besides, the fishermen sometimes come ashore here at night to get a stone for an anchor or to gather sticks to make a little fire. The night was dark, and Cristina probably came close to the two men before she could see what they were doing. She knew them, of course, and they knew her, and understood instantly that they were in her power. There was only one thing to be done for their safety, and they did it. They knocked her on the head, they dug the hole deep, and they buried her quickly with the iron-bound chest. They must have understood that their only chance of escaping suspicion lay in getting back to the village before their absence was noticed, for they returned immediately, and were found half an hour later gossiping quietly with the man who was making Alario's coffin. He was a crony of theirs, and had been working at the repairs in the old man's house. So far as I have been able to make out, the only persons who were supposed to know where Alario kept his treasure were Angelo and the one woman-servant I have mentioned. Angelo was away; it was the woman who discovered the theft. It is easy enough to understand why no one else knew where the money was. The old man kept his door locked and the key in his pocket when he was out, and did not let the woman enter to clean the place unless he was there himself. The whole village knew that he had money somewhere, however, and the masons had probably discovered the whereabouts of the chest by climbing in at the window in his absence. If the old man had not been delirious until he lost consciousness, he would have been in frightful agony of mind for his riches. The faithful woman-servant forgot their existence only for a few moments when she fled with the rest, overcome by the horror of death. Twenty minutes had not passed before she returned with the two hideous old hags who are always called in to prepare the dead for burial. Even then she had not at first the courage to go near the bed with them, but she made a pretence of dropping something, went down on her knees as if to find it, and looked under the bedstead. The walls of the room were newly whitewashed down to the floor, and she saw at a glance that the chest was gone. It had been there in the afternoon, it had therefore been stolen in the short interval since she had left the room. There are no carabineers stationed in the village; there is not so much as a municipal watchman, for there is no municipality. There never was such a place, I believe. Scalea is supposed to look after it in some mysterious way, and it takes a couple of hours to get anybody from there. As the old woman had lived in the village all her life, it did not even occur to her to apply to any civil authority for help. She simply set up a howl and ran through the village in the dark, screaming out that her dead master's house had been robbed. Many of the people looked out, but at first no one seemed inclined to help her. Most of them, judging her by themselves, whispered to each other that she had probably stolen the money herself. The first man to move was the father of the girl whom Angelo was to marry; having collected his household, all of whom felt a personal interest in the wealth which was to have come into the family, he declared it to be his opinion that the chest had been stolen by the two journeyman masons who lodged in the house. He headed a search for them, which naturally began in Alario's house and ended in the carpenter's workshop, where the thieves were found discussing a measure of wine with the carpenter over the half-finished coffin, by the light of one earthen lamp filled with oil and tallow. The search party at once accused the delinquents of the crime, and threatened to lock them up in the cellar till the carabineers could be fetched from Scalea. The two men looked at each other for one moment, and then without the slightest hesitation they put out the single light, seized the unfinished coffin between them, and using it as a sort of battering ram, dashed upon their assailants in the dark. In a few moments they were beyond pursuit. That is the end of the first part of the story. The treasure had disappeared, and as no trace of it could be found the people naturally supposed that the thieves had succeeded in carrying it off. The old man was buried, and when Angelo came back at last he had to borrow money to pay for the miserable funeral, and had some difficulty in doing so. He hardly needed to be told that in losing his inheritance he had lost his bride. In this part of the world marriages are made on strictly business principles, and if the promised cash is not forthcoming on the appointed day the bride or the bridegroom whose parents have failed to produce it may as well take themselves off, for there will be no wedding. Poor Angelo knew that well enough. His father had been possessed of hardly any land, and now that the hard cash which he had brought from South America was gone, there was nothing left but debts for the building materials that were to have been used for enlarging and improving the old house. Angelo was beggared, and the nice plump little creature who was to have been his turned up her nose at him in the most approved fashion. As for Cristina, it was several days before she was missed, for no one remembered that she had been sent to Scalea for the doctor, who had never come. She often disappeared in the same way for days together, when she could find a little work here and there at the distant farms among the hills. But when she did not come back at all, people began to wonder, and at last made up their minds that she had connived with the masons and had escaped with them. * * * * * _I paused and emptied my glass._ _"That sort of thing could not happen anywhere else," observed Holger, filling his everlasting pipe again. "It is wonderful what a natural charm there is about murder and sudden death in a romantic country like this. Deeds that would be simply brutal and disgusting anywhere else become dramatic and mysterious because this is Italy and we are living in a genuine tower of Charles V. built against genuine Barbary pirates."_ _"There's something in that" I admitted. Holger is the most romantic man in the world inside of himself, but he always thinks it necessary to explain why he feels anything._ _"I suppose they found the poor girl's body with the box," he said presently._ _"As it seems to interest you," I answered, "I'll tell you the rest of the story."_ _The moon had risen high by this time; the outline of the Thing on the mound was clearer to our eyes than before._ * * * * * The village very soon settled down to its small, dull life. No one missed old Alario, who had been away so much on his voyages to South America that he had never been a familiar figure in his native place. Angelo lived in the half-finished house, and because he had no money to pay the old woman-servant she would not stay with him, but once in a long time she would come and wash a shirt for him for old acquaintance' sake. Besides the house, he had inherited a small patch of ground at some distance from the village; he tried to cultivate it, but he had no heart in the work, for he knew he could never pay the taxes on it and on the house, which would certainly be confiscated by the Government, or seized for the debt of the building material, which the man who had supplied it refused to take back. Angelo was very unhappy. So long as his father had been alive and rich, every girl in the village had been in love with him; but that was all changed now. It had been pleasant to be admired and courted, and invited to drink wine by fathers who had girls to marry. It was hard to be stared at coldly, and sometimes laughed at because he had been robbed of his inheritance. He cooked his miserable meals for himself, and from being sad became melancholy and morose. At twilight, when the day's work was done, instead of hanging about in the open space before the church with young fellows of his own age, he took to wandering in lonely places on the outskirts of the village till it was quite dark. Then he slunk home and went to bed to save the expense of a light. But in those lonely twilight hours he began to have strange waking dreams. He was not always alone, for often when he sat on the stump of a tree, where the narrow path turns down the gorge, he was sure that a woman came up noiselessly over the rough stones, as if her feet were bare; and she stood under a clump of chestnut trees only half a dozen yards down the path, and beckoned to him without speaking. Though she was in the shadow he knew that her lips were red, and that when they parted a little and smiled at him she showed two small sharp teeth. He knew this at first rather than saw it, and he knew that it was Cristina, and that she was dead. Yet he was not afraid; he only wondered whether it was a dream, for he thought that if he had been awake he should have been frightened. Besides, the dead woman had red lips, and that could only happen in a dream. Whenever he went near the gorge after sunset she was already there waiting for him, or else she very soon appeared, and he began to be sure that she came a little nearer to him every day. At first he had only been sure of her blood-red mouth, but now each feature grew distinct, and the pale face looked at him with deep and hungry eyes. It was the eyes that grew dim. Little by little he came to know that some day the dream would not end when he turned away to go home, but would lead him down the gorge out of which the vision rose. She was nearer now when she beckoned to him. Her cheeks were not livid like those of the dead, but pale with starvation, with the furious and unappeased physical hunger of her eyes that devoured him. They feasted on his soul and cast a spell over him, and at last they were close to his own and held him. He could not tell whether her breath was as hot as fire or as cold as ice; he could not tell whether her red lips burned his or froze them, or whether her five fingers on his wrists seared scorching scars or bit his flesh like frost; he could not tell whether he was awake or asleep, whether she was alive or dead, but he knew that she loved him, she alone of all creatures, earthly or unearthly, and her spell had power over him. When the moon rose high that night the shadow of that Thing was not alone down there upon the mound. Angelo awoke in the cool dawn, drenched with dew and chilled through flesh, and blood, and bone. He opened his eyes to the faint grey light, and saw the stars still shining overhead. He was very weak, and his heart was beating so slowly that he was almost like a man fainting. Slowly he turned his head on the mound, as on a pillow, but the other face was not there. Fear seized him suddenly, a fear unspeakable and unknown; he sprang to his feet and fled up the gorge, and he never looked behind him until he reached the door of the house on the outskirts of the village. Drearily he went to his work that day, and wearily the hours dragged themselves after the sun, till at last he touched the sea and sank, and the great sharp hills above Maratea turned purple against the dove-coloured eastern sky. Angelo shouldered his heavy hoe and left the field. He felt less tired now than in the morning when he had begun to work, but he promised himself that he would go home without lingering by the gorge, and eat the best supper he could get himself, and sleep all night in his bed like a Christian man. Not again would he be tempted down the narrow way by a shadow with red lips and icy breath; not again would he dream that dream of terror and delight. He was near the village now; it was half an hour since the sun had set, and the cracked church bell sent little discordant echoes across the rocks and ravines to tell all good people that the day was done. Angelo stood still a moment where the path forked, where it led toward the village on the left, and down to the gorge on the right, where a clump of chestnut trees overhung the narrow way. He stood still a minute, lifting his battered hat from his head and gazing at the fast-fading sea westward, and his lips moved as he silently repeated the familiar evening prayer. His lips moved, but the words that followed them in his brain lost their meaning and turned into others, and ended in a name that he spoke aloud--Cristina! With the name, the tension of his will relaxed suddenly, reality went out and the dream took him again, and bore him on swiftly and surely like a man walking in his sleep, down, down, by the steep path in the gathering darkness. And as she glided beside him, Cristina whispered strange, sweet things in his ear, which somehow, if he had been awake, he knew that he could not quite have understood; but now they were the most wonderful words he had ever heard in his life. And she kissed him also, but not upon his mouth. He felt her sharp kisses upon his white throat, and he knew that her lips were red. So the wild dream sped on through twilight and darkness and moonrise, and all the glory of the summer's night. But in the chilly dawn he lay as one half dead upon the mound down there, recalling and not recalling, drained of his blood, yet strangely longing to give those red lips more. Then came the fear, the awful nameless panic, the mortal horror that guards the confines of the world we see not, neither know of as we know of other things, but which we feel when its icy chill freezes our bones and stirs our hair with the touch of a ghostly hand. Once more Angelo sprang from the mound and fled up the gorge in the breaking day, but his step was less sure this time, and he panted for breath as he ran; and when he came to the bright spring of water that rises halfway up the hillside, he dropped upon his knees and hands and plunged his whole face in and drank as he had never drunk before--for it was the thirst of the wounded man who has lain bleeding all night long upon the battle-field. She had him fast now, and he could not escape her, but would come to her every evening at dusk until she had drained him of his last drop of blood. It was in vain that when the day was done he tried to take another turning and to go home by a path that did not lead near the gorge. It was in vain that he made promises to himself each morning at dawn when he climbed the lonely way up from the shore to the village. It was all in vain, for when the sun sank burning into the sea, and the coolness of the evening stole out as from a hiding-place to delight the weary world, his feet turned toward the old way, and she was waiting for him in the shadow under the chestnut trees; and then all happened as before, and she fell to kissing his white throat even as she flitted lightly down the way, winding one arm about him. And as his blood failed, she grew more hungry and more thirsty every day, and every day when he awoke in the early dawn it was harder to rouse himself to the effort of climbing the steep path to the village; and when he went to his work his feet dragged painfully, and there was hardly strength in his arms to wield the heavy hoe. He scarcely spoke to any one now, but the people said he was "consuming himself" for love of the girl he was to have married when he lost his inheritance; and they laughed heartily at the thought, for this is not a very romantic country. At this time, Antonio, the man who stays here to look after the tower, returned from a visit to his people, who live near Salerno. He had been away all the time since before Alario's death and knew nothing of what had happened. He has told me that he came back late in the afternoon and shut himself up in the tower to eat and sleep, for he was very tired. It was past midnight when he awoke, and when he looked out the waning moon was rising over the shoulder of the hill. He looked out toward the mound, and he saw something, and he did not sleep again that night. When he went out again in the morning it was broad daylight, and there was nothing to be seen on the mound but loose stones and driven sand. Yet he did not go very near it; he went straight up the path to the village and directly to the house of the old priest. "I have seen an evil thing this night," he said; "I have seen how the dead drink the blood of the living. And the blood is the life." "Tell me what you have seen," said the priest in reply. Antonio told him everything he had seen. "You must bring your book and your holy water to-night," he added. "I will be here before sunset to go down with you, and if it pleases your reverence to sup with me while we wait, I will make ready." "I will come," the priest answered, "for I have read in old books of these strange beings which are neither quick nor dead, and which lie ever fresh in their graves, stealing out in the dusk to taste life and blood." Antonio cannot read, but he was glad to see that the priest understood the business; for, of course, the books must have instructed him as to the best means of quieting the half-living Thing for ever. So Antonio went away to his work, which consists largely in sitting on the shady side of the tower, when he is not perched upon a rock with a fishing-line catching nothing. But on that day he went twice to look at the mound in the bright sunlight, and he searched round and round it for some hole through which the being might get in and out; but he found none. When the sun began to sink and the air was cooler in the shadows, he went up to fetch the old priest, carrying a little wicker basket with him; and in this they placed a bottle of holy water, and the basin, and sprinkler, and the stole which the priest would need; and they came down and waited in the door of the tower till it should be dark. But while the light still lingered very grey and faint, they saw something moving, just there, two figures, a man's that walked, and a woman's that flitted beside him, and while her head lay on his shoulder she kissed his throat. The priest has told me that, too, and that his teeth chattered and he grasped Antonio's arm. The vision passed and disappeared into the shadow. Then Antonio got the leathern flask of strong liquor, which he kept for great occasions, and poured such a draught as made the old man feel almost young again; and he got the lantern, and his pick and shovel, and gave the priest his stole to put on and the holy water to carry, and they went out together toward the spot where the work was to be done. Antonio says that in spite of the rum his own knees shook together, and the priest stumbled over his Latin. For when they were yet a few yards from the mound the flickering light of the lantern fell upon Angelo's white face, unconscious as if in sleep, and on his upturned throat, over which a very thin red line of blood trickled down into his collar; and the flickering light of the lantern played upon another face that looked up from the feast--upon two deep, dead eyes that saw in spite of death--upon parted lips redder than life itself--upon two gleaming teeth on which glistened a rosy drop. Then the priest, good old man, shut his eyes tight and showered holy water before him, and his cracked voice rose almost to a scream; and then Antonio, who is no coward after all, raised his pick in one hand and the lantern in the other, as he sprang forward, not knowing what the end should be; and then he swears that he heard a woman's cry, and the Thing was gone, and Angelo lay alone on the mound unconscious, with the red line on his throat and the beads of deathly sweat on his cold forehead. They lifted him, half-dead as he was, and laid him on the ground close by; then Antonio went to work, and the priest helped him, though he was old and could not do much; and they dug deep, and at last Antonio, standing in the grave, stooped down with his lantern to see what he might see. His hair used to be dark brown, with grizzled streaks about the temples; in less than a month from that day he was as grey as a badger. He was a miner when he was young, and most of these fellows have seen ugly sights now and then, when accidents have happened, but he had never seen what he saw that night--that Thing which is neither alive nor dead, that Thing that will abide neither above ground nor in the grave. Antonio had brought something with him which the priest had not noticed. He had made it that afternoon--a sharp stake shaped from a piece of tough old driftwood. He had it with him now, and he had his heavy pick, and he had taken the lantern down into the grave. I don't think any power on earth could make him speak of what happened then, and the old priest was too frightened to look in. He says he heard Antonio breathing like a wild beast, and moving as if he were fighting with something almost as strong as himself; and he heard an evil sound also, with blows, as of something violently driven through flesh and bone; and then the most awful sound of all--a woman's shriek, the unearthly scream of a woman neither dead nor alive, but buried deep for many days. And he, the poor old priest, could only rock himself as he knelt there in the sand, crying aloud his prayers and exorcisms to drown these dreadful sounds. Then suddenly a small iron-bound chest was thrown up and rolled over against the old man's knee, and in a moment more Antonio was beside him, his face as white as tallow in the flickering light of the lantern, shovelling the sand and pebbles into the grave with furious haste, and looking over the edge till the pit was half full; and the priest said that there was much fresh blood on Antonio's hands and on his clothes. _I had come to the end of my story. Holger finished his wine and leaned back in his chair._ _"So Angelo got his own again," he said. "Did he marry the prim and plump young person to whom he had been betrothed?"_ _"No; he had been badly frightened. He went to South America, and has not been heard of since."_ _"And that poor thing's body is there still, I suppose," said Holger. "Is it quite dead yet, I wonder?"_ _I wonder, too. But whether it be dead or alive, I should hardly care to see it, even in broad daylight. Antonio is as grey as a badger, and he has never been quite the same man since that night._ THE UPPER BERTH CHAPTER I Somebody asked for the cigars. We had talked long, and the conversation was beginning to languish; the tobacco smoke had got into the heavy curtains, the wine had got into those brains which were liable to become heavy, and it was already perfectly evident that, unless somebody did something to rouse our oppressed spirits, the meeting would soon come to its natural conclusion, and we, the guests, would speedily go home to bed, and most certainly to sleep. No one had said anything very remarkable; it may be that no one had anything very remarkable to say. Jones had given us every particular of his last hunting adventure in Yorkshire. Mr. Tompkins, of Boston, had explained at elaborate length those working principles, by the due and careful maintenance of which the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railroad not only extended its territory, increased its departmental influence, and transported live stock without starving them to death before the day of actual delivery, but, also, had for years succeeded in deceiving those passengers who bought its tickets into the fallacious belief that the corporation aforesaid was really able to transport human life without destroying it. Signor Tombola had endeavoured to persuade us, by arguments which we took no trouble to oppose, that the unity of his country in no way resembled the average modern torpedo, carefully planned, constructed with all the skill of the greatest European arsenals, but, when constructed, destined to be directed by feeble hands into a region where it must undoubtedly explode, unseen, unfeared, and unheard, into the illimitable wastes of political chaos. It is unnecessary to go into further details. The conversation had assumed proportions which would have bored Prometheus on his rock, which would have driven Tantalus to distraction, and which would have impelled Ixion to seek relaxation in the simple but instructive dialogues of Herr Ollendorff, rather than submit to the greater evil of listening to our talk. We had sat at table for hours; we were bored, we were tired, and nobody showed signs of moving. Somebody called for cigars. We all instinctively looked towards the speaker. Brisbane was a man of five-and-thirty years of age, and remarkable for those gifts which chiefly attract the attention of men. He was a strong man. The external proportions of his figure presented nothing extraordinary to the common eye, though his size was about the average. He was a little over six feet in height, and moderately broad in the shoulder; he did not appear to be stout, but, on the other hand, he was certainly not thin; his small head, was supported by a strong and sinewy neck; his broad, muscular hands appeared to possess a peculiar skill in breaking walnuts without the assistance of the ordinary cracker, and seeing him in profile, one could not help remarking the extraordinary breadth of his sleeves, and the unusual thickness of his chest. He was one of those men who are commonly spoken of among men as deceptive; that is to say, that though he looked exceedingly strong he was in reality very much stronger than he looked. Of his features I need say little. His head is small, his hair is thin, his eyes are blue, his nose is large, he has a small moustache and a square jaw. Everybody knows Brisbane, and when he asked for a cigar everybody looked at him. "It is a very singular thing," said Brisbane. Everybody stopped talking. Brisbane's voice was not loud, but possessed a peculiar quality of penetrating general conversation, and cutting it like a knife. Everybody listened. Brisbane, perceiving that he had attracted their general attention, lit his cigar with great equanimity. "It is very singular," he continued, "that thing about ghosts. People are always asking whether anybody has seen a ghost. I have." "Bosh! What, you? You don't mean to say so, Brisbane? Well, for a man of his intelligence!" A chorus of exclamations greeted Brisbane's remarkable statement. Everybody called for cigars, and Stubbs, the butler, suddenly appeared from the depths of nowhere with a fresh bottle of dry champagne. The situation was saved; Brisbane was going to tell a story. I am an old sailor, said Brisbane, and as I have to cross the Atlantic pretty often, I have my favourites. Most men have their favourites. I have seen a man wait in a Broadway bar for three-quarters of an hour for a particular car which he liked. I believe the bar-keeper made at least one-third of his living by that man's preference. I have a habit of waiting for certain ships when I am obliged to cross that duck-pond. It may be a prejudice, but I was never cheated out of a good passage but once in my life. I remember it very well; it was a warm morning in June, and the Custom House officials, who were hanging about waiting for a steamer already on her way up from the Quarantine, presented a peculiarly hazy and thoughtful appearance. I had not much luggage--I never have. I mingled with a crowd of passengers, porters, and officious individuals in blue coats and brass buttons, who seemed to spring up like mushrooms from the deck of a moored steamer to obtrude their unnecessary services upon the independent passenger. I have often noticed with a certain interest the spontaneous evolution of these fellows. They are not there when you arrive; five minutes after the pilot has called "Go ahead!" they, or at least their blue coats and brass buttons, have disappeared from deck and gangway as completely as though they had been consigned to that locker which tradition unanimously ascribes to Davy Jones. But, at the moment of starting, they are there, clean shaved, blue coated, and ravenous for fees. I hastened on board. The _Kamtschatka_ was one of my favourite ships. I say was, because she emphatically no longer is. I cannot conceive of any inducement which could entice me to make another voyage in her. Yes, I know what you are going to say. She is uncommonly clean in the run aft, she has enough bluffing off in the bows to keep her dry, and the lower berths are most of them double. She has a lot of advantages, but I won't cross in her again. Excuse the digression. I got on board. I hailed a steward, whose red nose and redder whiskers were equally familiar to me. "One hundred and five, lower berth," said I, in the businesslike tone peculiar to men who think no more of crossing the Atlantic than taking a whiskey cocktail at down-town Delmonico's. The steward took my portmanteau, greatcoat, and rug. I shall never forget the expression of his face. Not that he turned pale. It is maintained by the most eminent divines that even miracles cannot change the course of nature. I have no hesitation in saying that he did not turn pale; but, from his expression, I judged that he was either about to shed tears, to sneeze, or to drop my portmanteau. As the latter contained two bottles of particularly fine old sherry presented to me for my voyage by my old friend Snigginson van Pickyns, I felt extremely nervous. But the steward did none of these things. "Well, I'm d----d!" said he in a low voice, and led the way. I supposed my Hermes, as he led me to the lower regions, had had a little grog, but I said nothing and followed him. 105 was on the port side, well aft. There was nothing remarkable about the state-room. The lower berth, like most of those upon the _Kamtschatka_, was double. There was plenty of room; there was the usual washing apparatus, calculated to convey an idea of luxury to the mind of a North American Indian; there were the usual inefficient racks of brown wood, in which it is more easy to hang a large-sized umbrella than the common tooth-brush of commerce. Upon the uninviting mattresses were carefully folded together those blankets which a great modern humourist has aptly compared to cold buckwheat cakes. The question of towels was left entirely to the imagination. The glass decanters were filled with a transparent liquid faintly tinged with brown, but from which an odour less faint, but not more pleasing, ascended to the nostrils, like a far-off sea-sick reminiscence of oily machinery. Sad-coloured curtains half closed the upper berth. The hazy June daylight shed a faint illumination upon the desolate little scene. Ugh! how I hate that state-room! The steward deposited my traps and looked at me as though he wanted to get away--probably in search of more passengers and more fees. It is always a good plan to start in favour with those functionaries, and I accordingly gave him certain coins there and then. "I'll try and make yer comfortable all I can," he remarked, as he put the coins in his pocket. Nevertheless, there was a doubtful intonation in his voice which surprised me. Possibly his scale of fees had gone up, and he was not satisfied; but on the whole I was inclined to think that, as he himself would have expressed it, he was "the better for a glass." I was wrong, however, and did the man injustice. CHAPTER II Nothing especially worthy of mention occurred during that day. We left the pier punctually, and it was very pleasant to be fairly under way, for the weather was warm and sultry, and the motion of the steamer produced a refreshing breeze. Everybody knows what the first day at sea is like. People pace the decks and stare at each other, and occasionally meet acquaintances whom they did not know to be on board. There is the usual uncertainty as to whether the food will be good, bad, or indifferent, until the first two meals have put the matter beyond a doubt; there is the usual uncertainty about the weather, until the ship is fairly off Fire Island. The tables are crowded at first, and then suddenly thinned. Pale-faced people spring from their seats and precipitate themselves towards the door, and each old sailor breathes more freely as his seasick neighbour rushes from his side, leaving him plenty of elbow-room and an unlimited command over the mustard. One passage across the Atlantic is very much like another, and we who cross very often do not make the voyage for the sake of novelty. Whales and icebergs are indeed always objects of interest, but, after all, one whale is very much like another whale, and one rarely sees an iceberg at close quarters. To the majority of us the most delightful moment of the day on board an ocean steamer is when we have taken our last turn on deck, have smoked our last cigar, and having succeeded in tiring ourselves, feel at liberty to turn in with a clear conscience. On that first night of the voyage I felt particularly lazy, and went to bed in 105 rather earlier than I usually do. As I turned in, I was amazed to see that I was to have a companion. A portmanteau, very like my own, lay in the opposite corner, and in the upper berth had been deposited a neatly folded rug, with a stick and umbrella. I had hoped to be alone, and I was disappointed; but I wondered who my room-mate was to be, and I determined to have a look at him. Before I had been long in bed he entered. He was, as far as I could see, a very tall man, very thin, very pale, with sandy hair and whiskers and colourless grey eyes. He had about him, I thought, an air of rather dubious fashion; the sort of man you might see in Wall Street, without being able precisely to say what he was doing there--the sort of man who frequents the Café Anglais, who always seems to be alone and who drinks champagne; you might meet him on a racecourse, but he would never appear to be doing anything there either. A little over-dressed--a little odd. There are three or four of his kind on every ocean steamer. I made up my mind that I did not care to make his acquaintance, and I went to sleep saying to myself that I would study his habits in order to avoid him. If he rose early, I would rise late; if he went to bed late I would go to bed early. I did not care to know him. If you once know people of that kind, they are always turning up. Poor fellow! I need not have taken the trouble to come to so many decisions about him, for I never saw him again after that first night in 105. I was sleeping soundly when I was suddenly waked by a loud noise. To judge from the sound, my room-mate must have sprung with a single leap from the upper berth to the floor. I heard him fumbling with the latch and bolt of the door, which opened almost immediately, and then I heard his footsteps as he ran at full speed down the passage, leaving the door open behind him. The ship was rolling a little, and I expected to hear him stumble or fall, but he ran as though he were running for his life. The door swung on its hinges with the motion of the vessel, and the sound annoyed me. I got up and shut it, and groped my way back to my berth in the darkness. I went to sleep again; but I have no idea how long I slept. When I awoke it was still quite dark, but I felt a disagreeable sensation of cold, and it seemed to me that the air was damp. You know the peculiar smell of a cabin which has been wet with sea-water. I covered myself up as well as I could and dozed off again, framing complaints to be made the next day, and selecting the most powerful epithets in the language. I could hear my room-mate turn over in the upper berth. He had probably returned while I was asleep. Once I thought I heard him groan, and I argued that he was sea-sick. That is particularly unpleasant when one is below. Nevertheless I dozed off and slept till early daylight. The ship was rolling heavily, much more than on the previous evening, and the grey light which came in through the porthole changed in tint with every movement according as the angle of the vessel's side turned the glass seawards or skywards. It was very cold--unaccountably so for the month of June. I turned my head and looked at the porthole, and saw to my surprise that it was wide open and hooked back. I believe I swore audibly. Then I got up and shut it. As I turned back I glanced at the upper berth. The curtains were drawn close together; my companion had probably felt cold as well as I. It struck me that I had slept enough. The state-room was uncomfortable, though, strange to say, I could not smell the dampness which had annoyed me in the night. My room-mate was still asleep--excellent opportunity for avoiding him, so I dressed at once and went on deck. The day was warm and cloudy, with an oily smell on the water. It was seven o'clock as I came out--much later than I had imagined. I came across the doctor, who was taking his first sniff of the morning air. He was a young man from the West of Ireland--a tremendous fellow, with black hair and blue eyes, already inclined to be stout; he had a happy-go-lucky, healthy look about him which was rather attractive. "Fine morning," I remarked, by way of introduction. "Well," said he, eyeing me with an air of ready interest, "it's a fine morning and it's not a fine morning. I don't think it's much of a morning." "Well, no--it is not so very fine," said I. "It's just what I call fuggly weather," replied the doctor. "It was very cold last night, I thought," I remarked. "However, when I looked about, I found that the porthole was wide open. I had not noticed it when I went to bed. And the state-room was damp, too." "Damp!" said he. "Whereabouts are you?" "One hundred and five--" To my surprise the doctor started visibly, and stared at me. "What is the matter?" I asked. "Oh--nothing," he answered; "only everybody has complained of that state-room for the last three trips." "I shall complain, too," I said. "It has certainly not been properly aired. It is a shame!" "I don't believe it can be helped," answered the doctor. "I believe there is something--well, it is not my business to frighten passengers." "You need not be afraid of frightening me," I replied. "I can stand any amount of damp. If I should get a bad cold, I will come to you." I offered the doctor a cigar, which he took and examined very critically. "It is not so much the damp," he remarked. "However, I dare say you will get on very well. Have you a room-mate?" "Yes; a deuce of a fellow, who bolts out in the middle of the night, and leaves the door open." Again the doctor glanced curiously at me. Then he lit the cigar and looked grave. "Did he come back?" he asked presently. "Yes. I was asleep, but I waked up, and heard him moving. Then I felt cold and went to sleep again. This morning I found the porthole open." "Look here," said the doctor quietly, "I don't care much for this ship. I don't care a rap for her reputation. I tell you what I will do. I have a good-sized place up here. I will share it with you, though I don't know you from Adam." I was very much surprised at the proposition. I could not imagine why he should take such a sudden interest in my welfare. However, his manner, as he spoke of the ship, was peculiar. "You are very good, doctor," I said. "But, really, I believe even now the cabin could be aired, or cleaned out, or something. Why do you not care for the ship?" "We are not superstitious in our profession, sir," replied the doctor, "but the sea makes people so. I don't want to prejudice you, and I don't want to frighten you, but if you will take my advice you will move in here. I would as soon see you overboard," he added earnestly, "as know that you or any other man was to sleep in 105." "Good gracious! Why?" I asked. "Just because on the three last trips the people who have slept there actually have gone overboard," he answered gravely. The intelligence was startling and exceedingly unpleasant, I confess. I looked hard at the doctor to see whether he was making game of me, but he looked perfectly serious. I thanked him warmly for his offer, but told him I intended to be the exception to the rule by which every one who slept in that particular state-room went overboard. He did not say much, but looked as grave as ever, and hinted that, before we got across, I should probably reconsider his proposal. In the course of time we went to breakfast, at which only an inconsiderable number of passengers assembled. I noticed that one or two of the officers who breakfasted with us looked grave. After breakfast I went into my state-room in order to get a book. The curtains of the upper berth were still closely drawn. Not a sound was to be heard. My room-mate was probably still asleep. As I came out I met the steward whose business it was to look after me. He whispered that the captain wanted to see me, and then scuttled away down the passage as if very anxious to avoid any questions. I went toward the captain's cabin, and found him waiting for me. "Sir," said he, "I want to ask a favour of you." I answered that I would do anything to oblige him. "Your room-mate has disappeared," he said. "He is known to have turned in early last night. Did you notice anything extraordinary in his manner?" The question, coming as it did in exact confirmation of the fears the doctor had expressed half an hour earlier, staggered me. "You don't mean to say he has gone overboard?" I asked. "I fear he has," answered the captain. "This is the most extraordinary thing--" I began. "Why?" he asked. "He is the fourth, then?" I explained. In answer to another question from the captain, I explained, without mentioning the doctor, that I had heard the story concerning 105. He seemed very much annoyed at hearing that I knew of it. I told him what had occurred in the night. "What you say," he replied, "coincides almost exactly with what was told me by the room-mates of two of the other three. They bolt out of bed and run down the passage. Two of them were seen to go overboard by the watch; we stopped and lowered boats, but they were not found. Nobody, however, saw or heard the man who was lost last night--if he is really lost. The steward, who is a superstitious fellow, perhaps, and expected something to go wrong, went to look for him this morning, and found his berth empty, but his clothes lying about, just as he had left them. The steward was the only man on board who knew him by sight, and he has been searching everywhere for him. He has disappeared! Now, sir, I want to beg you not to mention the circumstance to any of the passengers; I don't want the ship to get a bad name, and nothing hangs about an ocean-goer like stories of suicides. You shall have your choice of any one of the officers' cabins you like, including my own, for the rest of the passage. Is that a fair bargain?" "Very," said I; "and I am much obliged to you. But since I am alone, and have the state-room to myself, I would rather not move. If the steward will take out that unfortunate man's things, I would as lief stay where I am. I will not say anything about the matter, and I think I can promise you that I will not follow my room-mate." The captain tried to dissuade me from my intention, but I preferred having a state-room alone to being the chum of any officer on board. I do not know whether I acted foolishly, but if I had taken his advice I should have had nothing more to tell. There would have remained the disagreeable coincidence of several suicides occurring among men who had slept in the same cabin, but that would have been all. That was not the end of the matter, however, by any means. I obstinately made up my mind that I would not be disturbed by such tales, and I even went so far as to argue the question with the captain. There was something wrong about the state-room, I said. It was rather damp. The porthole had been left open last night. My room-mate might have been ill when he came on board, and he might have become delirious after he went to bed. He might even now be hiding somewhere on board, and might be found later. The place ought to be aired and the fastening of the port looked to. If the captain would give me leave, I would see that what I thought necessary were done immediately. "Of course you have a right to stay where you are if you please," he replied, rather petulantly; "but I wish you would turn out and let me lock the place up, and be done with it." I did not see it in the same light, and left the captain, after promising to be silent concerning the disappearance of my companion. The latter had had no acquaintances on board, and was not missed in the course of the day. Towards evening I met the doctor again, and he asked me whether I had changed my mind. I told him I had not. "Then you will before long," he said, very gravely. CHAPTER III We played whist in the evening, and I went to bed late. I will confess now that I felt a disagreeable sensation when I entered my state-room. I could not help thinking of the tall man I had seen on the previous night, who was now dead, drowned, tossing about in the long swell, two or three hundred miles astern. His face rose very distinctly before me as I undressed, and I even went so far as to draw back the curtains of the upper berth, as though to persuade myself that he was actually gone. I also bolted the door of the state-room. Suddenly I became aware that the porthole was open, and fastened back. This was more than I could stand. I hastily threw on my dressing-gown and went in search of Robert, the steward of my passage. I was very angry, I remember, and when I found him I dragged him roughly to the door of 105, and pushed him towards the open porthole. "What the deuce do you mean, you scoundrel, by leaving that port open every night? Don't you know it is against the regulations? Don't you know that if the ship heeled and the water began to come in, ten men could not shut it? I will report you to the captain, you blackguard, for endangering the ship!" I was exceedingly wroth. The man trembled and turned pale, and then began to shut the round glass plate with the heavy brass fittings. "Why don't you answer me?" I said roughly. "If you please, sir," faltered Robert, "there's nobody on board as can keep this 'ere port shut at night. You can try it yourself, sir. I ain't a-going to stop hany longer on board o' this vessel, sir; I ain't, indeed. But if I was you, sir, I'd just clear out and go and sleep with the surgeon, or something, I would. Look 'ere, sir, is that fastened what you may call securely, or not, sir? Try it, sir, see if it will move a hinch." I tried the port, and found it perfectly tight. "Well, sir," continued Robert, triumphantly, "I wager my reputation as a A1 steward that in 'arf an hour it will be open again; fastened back, too, sir, that's the horful thing--fastened back!" I examined the great screw and the looped nut that ran on it. "If I find it open in the night, Robert, I will give you a sovereign. It is not possible. You may go." "Soverin' did you say, sir? Very good, sir. Thank ye, sir. Good-night, sir. Pleasant reepose, sir, and all manner of hinchantin' dreams, sir." Robert scuttled away, delighted at being released. Of course, I thought he was trying to account for his negligence by a silly story, intended to frighten me, and I disbelieved him. The consequence was that he got his sovereign, and I spent a very peculiarly unpleasant night. I went to bed, and five minutes after I had rolled myself up in my blankets the inexorable Robert extinguished the light that burned steadily behind the ground-glass pane near the door. I lay quite still in the dark trying to go to sleep, but I soon found that impossible. It had been some satisfaction to be angry with the steward, and the diversion had banished that unpleasant sensation I had at first experienced when I thought of the drowned man who had been my chum; but I was no longer sleepy, and I lay awake for some time, occasionally glancing at the porthole, which I could just see from where I lay, and which, in the darkness, looked like a faintly luminous soup-plate suspended in blackness. I believe I must have lain there for an hour, and, as I remember, I was just dozing into sleep when I was roused by a draught of cold air, and by distinctly feeling the spray of the sea blown upon my face. I started to my feet, and not having allowed in the dark for the motion of the ship, I was instantly thrown violently across the state-room upon the couch which was placed beneath the porthole. I recovered myself immediately, however, and climbed upon my knees. The porthole was again wide open and fastened back! Now these things are facts. I was wide awake when I got up, and I should certainly have been waked by the fall had I still been dozing. Moreover, I bruised my elbows and knees badly, and the bruises were there on the following morning to testify to the fact, if I myself had doubted it. The porthole was wide open and fastened back--a thing so unaccountable that I remember very well feeling astonishment rather than fear when I discovered it. I at once closed the plate again, and screwed down the loop nut with all my strength. It was very dark in the state-room. I reflected that the port had certainly been opened within an hour after Robert had at first shut it in my presence, and I determined to watch it, and see whether it would open again. Those brass fittings are very heavy and by no means easy to move; I could not believe that the clump had been turned by the shaking of the screw. I stood peering out through the thick glass at the alternate white and grey streaks of the sea that foamed beneath the ship's side. I must have remained there a quarter of an hour. Suddenly, as I stood, I distinctly heard something moving behind me in one of the berths, and a moment afterwards, just as I turned instinctively to look--though I could, of course, see nothing in the darkness--I heard a very faint groan. I sprang across the state-room, and tore the curtains of the upper berth aside, thrusting in my hands to discover if there were any one there. There was some one. I remember that the sensation as I put my hands forward was as though I were plunging them into the air of a damp cellar, and from behind the curtains came a gust of wind that smelled horribly of stagnant sea-water. I laid hold of something that had the shape of a man's arm, but was smooth, and wet, and icy cold. But suddenly, as I pulled, the creature sprang violently forward against me, a clammy, oozy mass, as it seemed to me, heavy and wet, yet endowed with a sort of supernatural strength. I reeled across the state-room, and in an instant the door opened and the thing rushed out. I had not had time to be frightened, and quickly recovering myself, I sprang through the door and gave chase at the top of my speed, but I was too late. Ten yards before me I could see--I am sure I saw it--a dark shadow moving in the dimly lighted passage, quickly as the shadow of a fast horse thrown before a dogcart by the lamp on a dark night. But in a moment it had disappeared, and I found myself holding on to the polished rail that ran along the bulkhead where the passage turned towards the companion. My hair stood on end, and the cold perspiration rolled down my face. I am not ashamed of it in the least: I was very badly frightened. Still I doubted my senses, and pulled myself together. It was absurd, I thought. The Welsh rarebit I had eaten had disagreed with me. I had been in a nightmare. I made my way back to my state-room, and entered it with an effort. The whole place smelled of stagnant sea-water, as it had when I had waked on the previous evening. It required my utmost strength to go in, and grope among my things for a box of wax lights. As I lighted a railway reading lantern which I always carry in case I want to read after the lamps are out, I perceived that the porthole was again open, and a sort of creeping horror began to take possession of me which I never felt before, nor wish to feel again. But I got a light and proceeded to examine the upper berth, expecting to find it drenched with sea-water. But I was disappointed. The bed had been slept in, and the smell of the sea was strong; but the bedding was as dry as a bone. I fancied that Robert had not had the courage to make the bed after the accident of the previous night--it had all been a hideous dream. I drew the curtains back as far as I could and examined the place very carefully. It was perfectly dry. But the porthole was open again. With a sort of dull bewilderment of horror I closed it and screwed it down, and thrusting my heavy stick through the brass loop, wrenched it with all my might, till the thick metal began to bend under the pressure. Then I hooked my reading lantern into the red velvet at the head of the couch, and sat down to recover my senses if I could. I sat there all night, unable to think of rest--hardly able to think at all. But the porthole remained closed, and I did not believe it would now open again without the application of a considerable force. The morning dawned at last, and I dressed myself slowly, thinking over all that had happened in the night. It was a beautiful day and I went on deck, glad to get out into the early, pure sunshine, and to smell the breeze from the blue water, so different from the noisome, stagnant odour of my state-room. Instinctively I turned aft, towards the surgeon's cabin. There he stood, with a pipe in his mouth, taking his morning airing precisely as on the preceding day. "Good-morning," said he quietly, but looking at me with evident curiosity. "Doctor, you were quite right," said I. "There is something wrong about that place." "I thought you would change your mind," he answered, rather triumphantly. "You have had a bad night, eh? Shall I make you a pick-me-up? I have a capital recipe." "No, thanks," I cried. "But I would like to tell you what happened." I then tried to explain as clearly as possible precisely what had occurred, not omitting to state that I had been scared as I had never been scared in my whole life before. I dwelt particularly on the phenomenon of the porthole, which was a fact to which I could testify, even if the rest had been an illusion. I had closed it twice in the night, and the second time I had actually bent the brass in wrenching it with my stick. I believe I insisted a good deal on this point. "You seem to think I am likely to doubt the story," said the doctor, smiling at the detailed account of the state of the porthole. "I do not doubt it in the least. I renew my invitation to you. Bring your traps here, and take half my cabin." "Come and take half of mine for one night," I said. "Help me to get at the bottom of this thing." "You will get to the bottom of something else if you try," answered the doctor. "What?" I asked. "The bottom of the sea. I am going to leave this ship. It is not canny." "Then you will not help me to find out--" "Not I," said the doctor, quickly. "It is my business to keep my wits about me--not to go fiddling about with ghosts and things." "Do you really believe it is a ghost?" I enquired, rather contemptuously. But as I spoke I remembered very well the horrible sensation of the supernatural which had got possession of me during the night. The doctor turned sharply on me. "Have you any reasonable explanation of these things to offer?" he asked. "No; you have not. Well, you say you will find an explanation. I say that you won't, sir, simply because there is not any." "But, my dear sir," I retorted, "do you, a man of science, mean to tell me that such things cannot be explained?" "I do," he answered stoutly. "And, if they could, I would not be concerned in the explanation." I did not care to spend another night alone in the state-room, and yet I was obstinately determined to get at the root of the disturbances. I do not believe there are many men who would have slept there alone, after passing two such nights. But I made up my mind to try it, if I could not get any one to share a watch with me. The doctor was evidently not inclined for such an experiment. He said he was a surgeon, and that in case any accident occurred on board he must be always in readiness. He could not afford to have his nerves unsettled. Perhaps he was quite right, but I am inclined to think that his precaution was prompted by his inclination. On enquiry, he informed me that there was no one on board who would be likely to join me in my investigations, and after a little more conversation I left him. A little later I met the captain, and told him my story. I said that, if no one would spend the night with me, I would ask leave to have the light burning all night, and would try it alone. "Look here," said he, "I will tell you what I will do. I will share your watch myself, and we will see what happens. It is my belief that we can find out between us. There may be some fellow skulking on board, who steals a passage by frightening the passengers. It is just possible that there may be something queer in the carpentering of that berth." I suggested taking the ship's carpenter below and examining the place; but I was overjoyed at the captain's offer to spend the night with me. He accordingly sent for the workman and ordered him to do anything I required. We went below at once. I had all the bedding cleared out of the upper berth, and we examined the place thoroughly to see if there was a board loose anywhere, or a panel which could be opened or pushed aside. We tried the planks everywhere, tapped the flooring, unscrewed the fittings of the lower berth and took it to pieces--in short, there was not a square inch of the state-room which was not searched and tested. Everything was in perfect order, and we put everything back in its place. As we were finishing our work, Robert came to the door and looked in. "Well, sir--find anything, sir?" he asked, with a ghastly grin. "You were right about the porthole, Robert," I said, and I gave him the promised sovereign. The carpenter did his work silently and skilfully, following my directions. When he had done he spoke. "I'm a plain man, sir," he said. "But it's my belief you had better just turn out your things, and let me run half a dozen four-inch screws through the door of this cabin. There's no good never came o' this cabin yet, sir, and that's all about it. There's been four lives lost out o' here to my own remembrance, and that in four trips. Better give it up, sir--better give it up!" "I will try it for one night more," I said. "Better give it up, sir--better give it up! It's a precious bad job," repeated the workman, putting his tools in his bag and leaving the cabin. But my spirits had risen considerably at the prospect of having the captain's company, and I made up my mind not to be prevented from going to the end of the strange business. I abstained from Welsh rarebits and grog that evening, and did not even join in the customary game of whist. I wanted to be quite sure of my nerves, and my vanity made me anxious to make a good figure in the captain's eyes. CHAPTER IV The captain was one of those splendidly tough and cheerful specimens of seafaring humanity whose combined courage, hardihood, and calmness in difficulty leads them naturally into high positions of trust. He was not the man to be led away by an idle tale, and the mere fact that he was willing to join me in the investigation was proof that he thought there was something seriously wrong, which could not be accounted for on ordinary theories, nor laughed down as a common superstition. To some extent, too, his reputation was at stake, as well as the reputation of the ship. It is no light thing to lose passengers overboard, and he knew it. About ten o'clock that evening, as I was smoking a last cigar, he came up to me, and drew me aside from the beat of the other passengers who were patrolling the deck in the warm darkness. "This is a serious matter, Mr. Brisbane," he said. "We must make up our minds either way--to be disappointed or to have a pretty rough time of it. You see I cannot afford to laugh at the affair, and I will ask you to sign your name to a statement of whatever occurs. If nothing happens to-night, we will try it again to-morrow and next day. Are you ready?" So we went below, and entered the state-room. As we went in I could see Robert the steward, who stood a little further down the passage, watching us, with his usual grin, as though certain that something dreadful was about to happen. The captain closed the door behind us and bolted it. "Supposing we put your portmanteau before the door," he suggested. "One of us can sit on it. Nothing can get out then. Is the port screwed down?" I found it as I had left it in the morning. Indeed, without using a lever, as I had done, no one could have opened it. I drew back the curtains of the upper berth so that I could see well into it. By the captain's advice I lighted my reading lantern, and placed it so that it shone upon the white sheets above. He insisted upon sitting on the portmanteau, declaring that he wished to be able to swear that he had sat before the door. Then he requested me to search the stateroom thoroughly, an operation very soon accomplished, as it consisted merely in looking beneath the lower berth and under the couch below the porthole. The spaces were quite empty. "It is impossible for any human being to get in," I said, "or for any human being to open the port." "Very good," said the captain, calmly. "If we see anything now, it must be either imagination or something supernatural." I sat down on the edge of the lower berth. "The first time it happened," said the captain, crossing his legs and leaning back against the door, "was in March. The passenger who slept here, in the upper berth, turned out to have been a lunatic--at all events, he was known to have been a little touched, and he had taken his passage without the knowledge of his friends. He rushed out in the middle of the night, and threw himself overboard, before the officer who had the watch could stop him. We stopped and lowered a boat; it was a quiet night, just before that heavy weather came on; but we could not find him. Of course his suicide was afterwards accounted for on the ground of his insanity." "I suppose that often happens?" I remarked, rather absently. "Not often--no," said the captain; "never before in my experience, though I have heard of it happening on board of other ships. Well, as I was saying, that occurred in March. On the very next trip--What are you looking at?" he asked, stopping suddenly in his narration. I believe I gave no answer. My eyes were riveted upon the porthole. It seemed to me that the brass loop-nut was beginning to turn very slowly upon the screw--so slowly, however, that I was not sure it moved at all. I watched it intently, fixing its position in my mind, and trying to ascertain whether it changed. Seeing where I was looking, the captain looked too. "It moves!" he exclaimed, in a tone of conviction. "No, it does not," he added, after a minute. "If it were the jarring of the screw," said I, "it would have opened during the day; but I found it this evening jammed tight as I left it this morning." I rose and tried the nut. It was certainly loosened, for by an effort I could move it with my hands. "The queer thing," said the captain, "is that the second man who was lost is supposed to have got through that very port. We had a terrible time over it. It was in the middle of the night, and the weather was very heavy; there was an alarm that one of the ports was open and the sea running in. I came below and found everything flooded, the water pouring in every time she rolled, and the whole port swinging from the top bolts--not the porthole in the middle. Well, we managed to shut it, but the water did some damage. Ever since that the place smells of sea-water from time to time. We supposed the passenger had thrown himself out, though the Lord only knows how he did it. The steward kept telling me that he cannot keep anything shut here. Upon my word--I can smell it now, cannot you?" he enquired, sniffing the air suspiciously. "Yes--distinctly," I said, and I shuddered as that same odour of stagnant sea-water grew stronger in the cabin. "Now, to smell like this, the place must be damp," I continued, "and yet when I examined it with the carpenter this morning everything was perfectly dry. It is most extraordinary--hallo!" My reading lantern, which had been placed in the upper berth, was suddenly extinguished. There was still a good deal of light from the pane of ground glass near the door, behind which loomed the regulation lamp. The ship rolled heavily, and the curtain of the upper berth swung far out into the state-room and back again. I rose quickly from my seat on the edge of the bed, and the captain at the same moment started to his feet with a loud cry of surprise. I had turned with the intention of taking down the lantern to examine it, when I heard his exclamation, and immediately afterwards his call for help. I sprang towards him. He was wrestling with all his might with the brass loop of the port. It seemed to turn against his hands in spite of all his efforts. I caught up my cane, a heavy oak stick I always used to carry, and thrust it through the ring and bore on it with all my strength. But the strong wood snapped suddenly, and I fell upon the couch. When I rose again the port was wide open, and the captain was standing with his back against the door, pale to the lips. "There is something in that berth!" he cried, in a strange voice, his eyes almost starting from his head. "Hold the door, while I look--it shall not escape us, whatever it is!" But instead of taking his place, I sprang upon the lower bed, and seized something which lay in the upper berth. It was something ghostly, horrible beyond words, and it moved in my grip. It was like the body of a man long drowned, and yet it moved, and had the strength of ten men living; but I gripped it with all my might--the slippery, oozy, horrible thing--the dead white eyes seemed to stare at me out of the dusk; the putrid odour of rank sea-water was about it, and its shiny hair hung in foul wet curls over its dead face. I wrestled with the dead thing; it thrust itself upon me and forced me back and nearly broke my arms; it wound its corpse's arms about my neck, the living death, and overpowered me, so that I, at last, cried aloud and fell, and left my hold. As I fell the thing sprang across me, and seemed to throw itself upon the captain. When I last saw him on his feet his face was white and his lips set. It seemed to me that he struck a violent blow at the dead being, and then he, too, fell forward upon his face, with an inarticulate cry of horror. The thing paused an instant, seeming to hover over his prostrate body, and I could have screamed again for very fright, but I had no voice left. The thing vanished suddenly, and it seemed to my disturbed senses that it made its exit through the open port, though how that was possible, considering the smallness of the aperture, is more than any one can tell. I lay a long time upon the floor, and the captain lay beside me. At last I partially recovered my senses and moved, and instantly I knew that my arm was broken--the small bone of the left forearm near the wrist. I got upon my feet somehow, and with my remaining hand I tried to raise the captain. He groaned and moved, and at last came to himself. He was not hurt, but he seemed badly stunned. Well, do you want to hear any more? There is nothing more. That is the end of my story. The carpenter carried out his scheme of running half a dozen four-inch screws through the door of 105; and if ever you take a passage in the _Kamtschatka_, you may ask for a berth in that state-room. You will be told that it is engaged--yes--it is engaged by that dead thing. I finished the trip in the surgeon's cabin. He doctored my broken arm, and advised me not to "fiddle about with ghosts and things" any more. The captain was very silent, and never sailed again in that ship, though it is still running. And I will not sail in her either. It was a very disagreeable experience, and I was very badly frightened, which is a thing I do not like. That is all. That is how I saw a ghost--if it was a ghost. It was dead, anyhow. BY THE WATERS OF PARADISE I remember my childhood very distinctly. I do not think that the fact argues a good memory, for I have never been clever at learning words by heart, in prose or rhyme; so that I believe my remembrance of events depends much more upon the events themselves than upon my possessing any special facility for recalling them. Perhaps I am too imaginative, and the earliest impressions I received were of a kind to stimulate the imagination abnormally. A long series of little misfortunes, connected with each other so as to suggest a sort of weird fatality, so worked upon my melancholy temperament when I was a boy that, before I was of age, I sincerely believed myself to be under a curse, and not only myself, but my whole family, and every individual who bore my name. I was born in the old place where my father, and his father, and all his predecessors had been born, beyond the memory of man. It is a very old house, and the greater part of it was originally a castle, strongly fortified, and surrounded by a deep moat supplied with abundant water from the hills by a hidden aqueduct. Many of the fortifications have been destroyed, and the moat has been filled up. The water from the aqueduct supplies great fountains, and runs down into huge oblong basins in the terraced gardens, one below the other, each surrounded by a broad pavement of marble between the water and the flower-beds. The waste surplus finally escapes through an artificial grotto, some thirty yards long, into a stream, flowing down through the park to the meadows beyond, and thence to the distant river. The buildings were extended a little and greatly altered more than two hundred years ago, in the time of Charles II., but since then little has been done to improve them, though they have been kept in fairly good repair, according to our fortunes. In the gardens there are terraces and huge hedges of box and evergreen, some of which used to be clipped into shapes of animals, in the Italian style. I can remember when I was a lad how I used to try to make out what the trees were cut to represent, and how I used to appeal for explanations to Judith, my Welsh nurse. She dealt in a strange mythology of her own, and peopled the gardens with griffins, dragons, good genii and bad, and filled my mind with them at the same time. My nursery window afforded a view of the great fountains at the head of the upper basin, and on moonlight nights the Welshwoman would hold me up to the glass, and bid me look at the mist and spray rising into mysterious shapes, moving mystically in the white light like living things. "It's the Woman of the Water," she used to say; and sometimes she would threaten that, if I did not go to sleep, the Woman of the Water would steal up to the high window and carry me away in her wet arms. The place was gloomy. The broad basins of water and the tall evergreen hedges gave it a funereal look, and the damp-stained marble causeways by the pools might have been made of tombstones. The grey and weather-beaten walls and towers without, the dark and massively furnished rooms within, the deep, mysterious recesses and the heavy curtains, all affected my spirits. I was silent and sad from my childhood. There was a great clock-tower above, from which the hours rang dismally during the day and tolled like a knell in the dead of night. There was no light nor life in the house, for my mother was a helpless invalid, and my father had grown melancholy in his long task of caring for her. He was a thin, dark man, with sad eyes; kind, I think, but silent and unhappy. Next to my mother, I believe he loved me better than anything on earth, for he took immense pains and trouble in teaching me, and what he taught me I have never forgotten. Perhaps it was his only amusement, and that may be the reason why I had no nursery governess or teacher of any kind while he lived. I used to be taken to see my mother every day, and sometimes twice a day, for an hour at a time. Then I sat upon a little stool near her feet, and she would ask me what I had been doing, and what I wanted to do. I dare say she saw already the seeds of a profound melancholy in my nature, for she looked at me always with a sad smile, and kissed me with a sigh when I was taken away. One night, when I was just six years old, I lay awake in the nursery. The door was not quite shut, and the Welsh nurse was sitting sewing in the next room. Suddenly I heard her groan, and say in a strange voice. "One--two--one--two!" I was frightened, and I jumped up and ran to the door, barefooted as I was. "What is it, Judith?" I cried, clinging to her skirts. I can remember the look in her strange dark eyes as she answered. "One--two leaden coffins, fallen from the ceiling!" she crooned, working herself in her chair. "One--two--a light coffin and a heavy coffin, falling to the floor!" Then she seemed to notice me, and she took me back to bed and sang me to sleep with a queer old Welsh song. I do not know how it was, but the impression got hold of me that she had meant that my father and mother were going to die very soon. They died in the very room where she had been sitting that night. It was a great room, my day nursery, full of sun when there was any; and when the days were dark it was the most cheerful place in the house. My mother grew rapidly worse, and I was transferred to another part of the building to make place for her. They thought my nursery was gayer for her, I suppose; but she could not live. She was beautiful when she was dead, and I cried bitterly. "The light one, the light one--the heavy one to come," crooned the Welshwoman. And she was right. My father took the room after my mother was gone, and day by day he grew thinner and paler and sadder. "The heavy one, the heavy one--all of lead," moaned my nurse, one night in December, standing still, just as she was going to take away the light after putting me to bed. Then she took me up again, and wrapped me in a little gown, and led me away to my father's room. She knocked, but no one answered. She opened the door, and we found him in his easy-chair before the fire, very white, quite dead. So I was alone with the Welshwoman till strange people came, and relations, whom I had never seen; and then I heard them saying that I must be taken away to some more cheerful place. They were kind people, and I will not believe that they were kind only because I was to be very rich when I grew to be a man. The world never seemed to be a very bad place to me, nor all the people to be miserable sinners, even when I was most melancholy. I do not remember that any one ever did me any great injustice, nor that I was ever oppressed or ill-treated in any way, even by the boys at school. I was sad, I suppose, because my childhood was so gloomy, and, later, because I was unlucky in everything I undertook, till I finally believed I was pursued by fate, and I used to dream that the old Welsh nurse and the Woman of the Water between them had vowed to pursue me to my end. But my natural disposition should have been cheerful, as I have often thought. Among lads of my age I was never last, or even among the last, in anything; but I was never first. If I trained for a race, I was sure to sprain my ankle on the day when I was to run. If I pulled an oar with others, my oar was sure to break. If I competed for a prize, some unforseen accident prevented my winning it at the last moment. Nothing to which I put my hand succeeded, and I got the reputation of being unlucky, until my companions felt it was always safe to bet against me, no matter what the appearances might be. I became discouraged and listless in everything. I gave up the idea of competing for any distinction at the University, comforting myself with the thought that I could not fail in the examination for the ordinary degree. The day before the examination began I fell ill; and when at last I recovered, after a narrow escape from death, I turned my back upon Oxford, and went down alone to visit the old place where I had been born, feeble in health and profoundly disgusted and discouraged. I was twenty-one years of age, master of myself and of my fortune; but so deeply had the long chain of small unlucky circumstances affected me, that I thought seriously of shutting myself up from the world to live the life of a hermit, and to die as soon as possible. Death seemed the only cheerful possibility in my existence, and my thoughts soon dwelt upon it altogether. I had never shown any wish to return to my own home since I had been taken away as a little boy, and no one had ever pressed me to do so. The place had been kept in order after a fashion, and did not seem to have suffered during the fifteen years or more of my absence. Nothing earthly could affect those old grey walls that had fought the elements for so many centuries. The garden was more wild than I remembered it; the marble causeways about the pools looked more yellow and damp than of old, and the whole place at first looked smaller. It was not until I had wandered about the house and grounds for many hours that I realised the huge size of the home where I was to live in solitude. Then I began to delight in it, and my resolution to live alone grew stronger. The people had turned out to welcome me, of course, and I tried to recognise the changed faces of the old gardener and the old housekeeper, and to call them by name. My old nurse I knew at once. She had grown very grey since she heard the coffins fall in the nursery fifteen years before, but her strange eyes were the same, and the look in them woke all my old memories. She went over the house with me. "And how is the Woman of the Water?" I asked, trying to laugh a little. "Does she still play in the moonlight?" "She is hungry," answered the Welshwoman, in a low voice. "Hungry? Then we will feed her." I laughed. But old Judith turned very pale, and looked at me strangely. "Feed her? Ay--you will feed her well," she muttered, glancing behind her at the ancient housekeeper, who tottered after us with feeble steps through the halls and passages. I did not think much of her words. She had always talked oddly, as Welshwomen will, and though I was very melancholy I am sure I was not superstitious, and I was certainly not timid. Only, as in a far-off dream, I seemed to see her standing with the light in her hand and muttering, "The heavy one--all of lead," and then leading a little boy through the long corridors to see his father lying dead in a great easy-chair before a smouldering fire. So we went over the house, and I chose the rooms where I would live; and the servants I had brought with me ordered and arranged everything, and I had no more trouble. I did not care what they did, provided I was left in peace, and was not expected to give directions; for I was more listless than ever, owing to the effects of my illness at college. I dined in solitary state, and the melancholy grandeur of the vast old dining-room pleased me. Then I went to the room I had selected for my study, and sat down in a deep chair, under a bright light, to think, or to let my thoughts meander through labyrinths of their own choosing, utterly indifferent to the course they might take. The tall windows of the room opened to the level of the ground upon the terrace at the head of the garden. It was in the end of July, and everything was open, for the weather was warm. As I sat alone I heard the unceasing plash of the great fountains, and I fell to thinking of the Woman of the Water. I rose, and went out into the still night, and sat down upon a seat on the terrace, between two gigantic Italian flower-pots. The air was deliciously soft and sweet with the smell of the flowers, and the garden was more congenial to me than the house. Sad people always like running water and the sound of it at night, though I cannot tell why. I sat and listened in the gloom, for it was dark below, and the pale moon had not yet climbed over the hills in front of me, though all the air above was light with her rising beams. Slowly the white halo in the eastern sky ascended in an arch above the wooded crests, making the outline of the mountains more intensely black by contrast, as though the head of some great white saint were rising from behind a screen in a vast cathedral, throwing misty glories from below. I longed to see the moon herself, and I tried to reckon the seconds before she must appear. Then she sprang up quickly, and in a moment more hung round and perfect in the sky. I gazed at her, and then at the floating spray of the tall fountains, and down at the pools, where the water-lilies were rocking softly in their sleep on the velvet surface of the moonlit water. Just then a great swan floated out silently into the midst of the basin, and wreathed his long neck, catching the water in his broad bill, and scattering showers of diamonds around him. Suddenly, as I gazed, something came between me and the light. I looked up instantly. Between me and the round disc of the moon rose a luminous face of a woman, with great strange eyes, and a woman's mouth, full and soft, but not smiling, hooded in black, staring at me as I sat still upon my bench. She was close to me--so close that I could have touched her with my hand. But I was transfixed and helpless. She stood still for a moment, but her expression did not change. Then she passed swiftly away, and my hair stood up on my head, while the cold breeze from her white dress was wafted to my temples as she moved. The moonlight, shining through the tossing spray of the fountain, made traceries of shadow on the gleaming folds of her garments. In an instant she was gone, and I was alone. I was strangely shaken by the vision, and some time passed before I could rise to my feet, for I was still weak from my illness, and the sight I had seen would have startled any one. I did not reason with myself, for I was certain that I had looked on the unearthly, and no argument could have destroyed that belief. At last I got up and stood unsteadily, gazing in the direction in which I thought the figure had gone; but there was nothing to be seen--nothing but the broad paths, the tall, dark evergreen hedges, the tossing water of the fountains and the smooth pool below. I fell back upon the seat and recalled the face I had seen. Strange to say, now that the first impression had passed, there was nothing startling in the recollection; on the contrary, I felt that I was fascinated by the face, and would give anything to see it again. I could retrace the beautiful straight features, the long dark eyes and the wonderful mouth, most exactly in my mind, and, when I had reconstructed every detail from memory, I knew that the whole was beautiful, and that I should love a woman with such a face. "I wonder whether she is the Woman of the Water!" I said to myself. Then rising once more I wandered down the garden, descending one short flight of steps after another, from terrace to terrace by the edge of the marble basins, through the shadow and through the moonlight; and I crossed the water by the rustic bridge above the artificial grotto, and climbed slowly up again to the highest terrace by the other side. The air seemed sweeter, and I was very calm, so that I think I smiled to myself as I walked, as though a new happiness had come to me. The woman's face seemed always before me, and the thought of it gave me an unwonted thrill of pleasure, unlike anything I had ever felt before. I turned, as I reached the house, and looked back upon the scene. It had certainly changed in the short hour since I had come out, and my mood had changed with it. Just like my luck, I thought, to fall in love with a ghost! But in old times I would have sighed, and gone to bed more sad than ever, at such a melancholy conclusion. To-night I felt happy, almost for the first time in my life. The gloomy old study seemed cheerful when I went in. The old pictures on the walls smiled at me, and I sat down in my deep chair with a new and delightful sensation that I was not alone. The idea of having seen a ghost, and of feeling much the better for it, was so absurd that I laughed softly, as I took up one of the books I had brought with me and began to read. That impression did not wear off. I slept peacefully, and in the morning I threw open my windows to the summer air, and looked down at the garden, at the stretches of green and at the coloured flower-beds, at the circling swallows, and at the bright water. "A man might make a paradise of this place," I exclaimed. "A man and a woman together!" From that day the old castle no longer seemed gloomy, and I think I ceased to be sad; for some time, too, I began to take an interest in the place, and to try and make it more alive. I avoided my old Welsh nurse, lest she should damp my humour with some dismal prophecy, and recall my old self by bringing back memories of my dismal childhood. But what I thought of most was the ghostly figure I had seen in the garden that first night after my arrival. I went out every evening and wandered through the walks and paths; but, try as I might, I did not see my vision again. At last, after many days, the memory grew more faint, and my old moody nature gradually overcame the temporary sense of lightness I had experienced. The summer turned to autumn, and I grew restless. It began to rain. The dampness pervaded the gardens, and the outer halls smelled musty, like tombs; the grey sky oppressed me intolerably. I left the place as it was and went abroad, determined to try anything which might possibly make a second break in the monotonous melancholy from which I suffered. CHAPTER II Most people would be struck by the utter insignificance of the small events which, after the death of my parents influenced my life and made me unhappy. The gruesome forebodings of a Welsh nurse, which chanced to be realised by an odd coincidence of events, should not seem enough to change the nature of a child, and to direct the bent of his character in after years. The little disappointments of schoolboy life, and the somewhat less childish ones of an uneventful and undistinguished academic career, should not have sufficed to turn me out at one-and-twenty years of age a melancholic, listless idler. Some weakness of my own character may have contributed to the result, but in a greater degree it was due to my having a reputation for bad luck. However, I will not try to analyse the causes of my state, for I should satisfy nobody, least of all myself. Still less will I attempt to explain why I felt a temporary revival of my spirits after my adventure in the garden. It is certain that I was in love with the face I had seen, and that I longed to see it again; that I gave up all hope of a second visitation, grew more sad than ever, packed up my traps, and finally went abroad. But in my dreams I went back to my home, and it always appeared to me sunny and bright, as it had looked on that summer's morning after I had seen the woman by the fountain. I went to Paris. I went further, and wandered about Germany. I tried to amuse myself, and I failed miserably. With the aimless whims of an idle and useless man, came all sorts of suggestions for good resolutions. One day I made up my mind that I would go and bury myself in a German university for a time, and live simply like a poor student. I started with the intention of going to Leipzic, determined to stay there until some event should direct my life or change my humour, or make an end of me altogether. The express train stopped at some station of which I did not know the name. It was dusk on a winter's afternoon, and I peered through the thick glass from my seat. Suddenly another train came gliding in from the opposite direction, and stopped alongside of ours. I looked at the carriage which chanced to be abreast of mine, and idly read the black letters painted on a white board swinging from the brass handrail: "BERLIN--COLOGNE--PARIS." Then I looked up at the window above. I started violently and the cold perspiration broke out upon my forehead. In the dim light, not six feet from where I sat, I saw the face of a woman, the face I loved, the straight, fine features, the strange eyes, the wonderful mouth, the pale skin. Her head-dress was a dark veil which seemed to be tied about her head and passed over the shoulders under her chin. As I threw down the window and knelt on the cushioned seat, leaning far out to get a better view, a long whistle screamed through the station, followed by a quick series of dull, clanking sounds; then there was a slight jerk, and my train moved on. Luckily the window was narrow, being the one over the seat, beside the door, or I believe I would have jumped out of it then and there. In an instant the speed increased, and I was being carried swiftly away in the opposite direction from the thing I loved. For a quarter of an hour I lay back in my place, stunned by the suddenness of the apparition. At last one of the two other passengers, a large and gorgeous captain of the White Königsberg Cuirassiers, civilly but firmly suggested that I might shut my window, as the evening was cold. I did so, with an apology, and relapsed into silence. The train ran swiftly on for a long time, and it was already beginning to slacken speed before entering another station when I roused myself, and made a sudden resolution. As the carriage stopped before the brilliantly lighted platform, I seized my belongings, saluted my fellow-passengers, and got out, determined to take the first express back to Paris. This time the circumstances of the vision had been so natural that it did not strike me that there was anything unreal about the face, or about the woman to whom it belonged. I did not try to explain to myself how the face, and the woman, could be travelling by a fast train from Berlin to Paris on a winter's afternoon, when both were in my mind indelibly associated with the moonlight and the fountains in my own English home. I certainly would not have admitted that I had been mistaken in the dusk, attributing to what I had seen a resemblance to my former vision which did not really exist. There was not the slightest doubt in my mind, and I was positively sure that I had again seen the face I loved. I did not hesitate, and in a few hours I was on my way back to Paris. I could not help reflecting on my ill-luck. Wandering as I had been for many months, it might as easily have chanced that I should be travelling in the same train with that woman, instead of going the other way. But my luck was destined to turn for a time. I searched Paris for several days. I dined at the principal hotels; I went to the theatres; I rode in the Bois de Boulogne in the morning, and picked up an acquaintance, whom I forced to drive with me in the afternoon. I went to mass at the Madeleine, and I attended the services at the English Church. I hung about the Louvre and Notre Dame. I went to Versailles. I spent hours in parading the Rue de Rivoli, in the neighbourhood of Meurice's corner, where foreigners pass and re-pass from morning till night. At last I received an invitation to a reception at the English Embassy. I went, and I found what I had sought so long. There she was, sitting by an old lady in grey satin and diamonds, who had a wrinkled but kindly face and keen grey eyes that seemed to take in everything they saw, with very little inclination to give much in return. But I did not notice the chaperon. I saw only the face that had haunted me for months, and in the excitement of the moment I walked quickly towards the pair, forgetting such a trifle as the necessity for an introduction. She was far more beautiful than I had thought, but I never doubted that it was she herself and no other. Vision or no vision before, this was the reality, and I knew it. Twice her hair had been covered, now at last I saw it, and the added beauty of its magnificence glorified the whole woman. It was rich hair, fine and abundant, golden, with deep ruddy tints in it like red bronze spun fine. There was no ornament in it, not a rose, not a thread of gold, and I felt that it needed nothing to enhance its splendour; nothing but her pale face, her dark strange eyes, and her heavy eyebrows. I could see that she was slender, too, but strong withal, as she sat there quietly gazing at the moving scene in the midst of the brilliant lights and the hum of perpetual conversation. I recollected the detail of introduction in time, and turned aside to look for my host. I found him at last. I begged him to present me to the two ladies, pointing them out to him at the same time. "Yes--uh--by all means--uh--" replied his Excellency, with a pleasant smile. He evidently had no idea of my name, which was not to be wondered at. "I am Lord Cairngorm," I observed. "Oh--by all means," answered the Ambassador, with the same hospitable smile. "Yes--uh--the fact is, I must try and find out who they are; such lots of people, you know." "Oh, if you will present me, I will try and find out for you," said I, laughing. "Ah, yes--so kind of you--come along," said my host. We threaded the crowd, and in a few minutes we stood before the two ladies. "'Lowmintrduce L'd Cairngorm," he said; then, adding quickly to me, "Come and dine to-morrow, won't you?" He glided away with his pleasant smile, and disappeared in the crowd. I sat down beside the beautiful girl, conscious that the eyes of the duenna were upon me. "I think we have been very near meeting before," I remarked, by way of opening the conversation. My companion turned her eyes full upon me with an air of enquiry. She evidently did not recall my face, if she had ever seen me. "Really--I cannot remember," she observed, in a low and musical voice. "When?" "In the first place, you came down from Berlin by the express, ten days ago. I was going the other way, and our carriages stopped opposite each other. I saw you at the window." "Yes--we came that way, but I do not remember--" She hesitated. "Secondly," I continued, "I was sitting alone in my garden last summer--near the end of July--do you remember? You must have wandered in there through the park; you came up to the house and looked at me--" "Was that you?" she asked, in evident surprise. Then she broke into a laugh. "I told everybody I had seen a ghost; there had never been any Cairngorms in the place since the memory of man. We left the next day, and never heard that you had come there; indeed, I did not know the castle belonged to you." "Where were you staying?" I asked. "Where? Why, with my aunt, where I always stay. She is your neighbour, since it _is_ you." "I--beg your pardon--but then--is your aunt Lady Bluebell? I did not quite catch--" "Don't be afraid. She is amazingly deaf. Yes. She is the relict of my beloved uncle, the sixteenth or seventeenth Baron Bluebell--I forget exactly how many of them there have been. And I--do you know who I am?" She laughed, well knowing that I did not. "No," I answered frankly. "I have not the least idea. I asked to be introduced because I recognised you. Perhaps--perhaps you are a Miss Bluebell?" "Considering that you are a neighbour, I will tell you who I am," she answered. "No; I am of the tribe of Bluebells, but my name is Lammas, and I have been given to understand that I was christened Margaret. Being a floral family, they call me Daisy. A dreadful American man once told me that my aunt was a Bluebell and that I was a Harebell--with two l's and an e--because my hair is so thick. I warn you, so that you may avoid making such a bad pun." "Do I look like a man who makes puns?" I asked, being very conscious of my melancholy face and sad looks. Miss Lammas eyed me critically. "No; you have a mournful temperament. I think I can trust you," she answered. "Do you think you could communicate to my aunt the fact that you are a Cairngorm and a neighbour? I am sure she would like to know." I leaned towards the old lady, inflating my lungs for a yell. But Miss Lammas stopped me. "That is not of the slightest use," she remarked. "You can write it on a bit of paper. She is utterly deaf." "I have a pencil," I answered, "but I have no paper. Would my cuff do, do you think?" "Oh yes!" replied Miss Lammas, with alacrity; "men often do that." I wrote on my cuff: "Miss Lammas wishes me to explain that I am your neighbour, Cairngorm." Then I held out my arm before the old lady's nose. She seemed perfectly accustomed to the proceeding, put up her glasses, read the words, smiled, nodded, and addressed me in the unearthly voice peculiar to people who hear nothing. "I knew your grandfather very well," she said. Then she smiled and nodded to me again, and to her niece, and relapsed into silence. "It is all right," remarked Miss Lammas. "Aunt Bluebell knows she is deaf, and does not say much, like the parrot. You see, she knew your grandfather. How odd, that we should be neighbours! Why have we never met before?" "If you had told me you knew my grandfather when you appeared in the garden, I should not have been in the least surprised," I answered rather irrelevantly. "I really thought you were the ghost of the old fountain. How in the world did you come there at that hour?" "We were a large party, and we went out for a walk. Then we thought we should like to see what your park was like in the moonlight, and so we trespassed. I got separated from the rest, and came upon you by accident, just as I was admiring the extremely ghostly look of your house, and wondering whether anybody would ever come and live there again. It looks like the castle of Macbeth, or a scene from the opera. Do you know anybody here?" "Hardly a soul. Do you?" "No. Aunt Bluebell said it was our duty to come. It is easy for her to go out; she does not bear the burden of the conversation." "I am sorry you find it a burden," said I. "Shall I go away?" Miss Lammas looked at me with a sudden gravity in her beautiful eyes, and there was a sort of hesitation about the lines of her full, soft mouth. "No," she said at last, quite simply, "don't go away. We may like each other, if you stay a little longer--and we ought to because we are neighbours in the country." I suppose I ought to have thought Miss Lammas a very odd girl. There is, indeed, a sort of freemasonry between people who discover that they live near each other, and that they ought to have known each other before. But there was a sort of unexpected frankness and simplicity in the girl's amusing manner which would have struck any one else as being singular, to say the least of it. To me, however, it all seemed natural enough. I had dreamed of her face too long not to be utterly happy when I met her at last, and could talk to her as much as I pleased. To me, the man of ill-luck in everything, the whole meeting seemed too good to be true. I felt again that strange sensation of lightness which I had experienced after I had seen her face in the garden. The great rooms seemed brighter, life seemed worth living; my sluggish, melancholy blood ran faster, and filled me with a new sense of strength. I said to myself that without this woman I was but an imperfect being, but that with her I could accomplish everything to which I should set my hand. Like the great Doctor, when he thought he had cheated Mephistopheles at last, I could have cried aloud to the fleeting moment, _Verweile doch du bist so schön_! "Are you always gay?" I asked suddenly. "How happy you must be!" "The days would sometimes seem very long if I were gloomy," she answered thoughtfully. "Yes, I think I find life very pleasant, and I tell it so." "How can you 'tell life' anything?" I enquired. "If I could catch my life and talk to it, I would abuse it prodigiously, I assure you." "I dare say. You have a melancholy temper. You ought to live out of doors, dig potatoes, make hay, shoot, hunt, tumble into ditches, and come home muddy and hungry for dinner. It would be much better for you than moping in your rook tower, and hating everything." "It is rather lonely down there," I murmured apologetically, feeling that Miss Lammas was quite right. "Then marry, and quarrel with your wife," she laughed. "Anything is better than being alone." "I am a very peaceable person. I never quarrel with anybody. You can try it. You will find it quite impossible." "Will you let me try?" she asked, still smiling. "By all means--especially if it is to be only a preliminary canter," I answered rashly. "What do you mean?" she enquired, turning quickly upon me. "Oh--nothing. You might try my paces with a view to quarrelling in the future. I cannot imagine how you are going to do it. You will have to resort to immediate and direct abuse." "No. I will only say that if you do not like your life, it is your own fault. How can a man of your age talk of being melancholy, or of the hollowness of existence? Are you consumptive? Are you subject to hereditary insanity? Are you deaf, like Aunt Bluebell? Are you poor, like--lots of people? Have you been crossed in love? Have you lost the world for a woman, or any particular woman for the sake of the world? Are you feebleminded, a cripple, an outcast? Are you--repulsively ugly?" She laughed again. "Is there any reason in the world why you should not enjoy all you have got in life?" "No. There is no reason whatever, except that I am dreadfully unlucky, especially in small things." "Then try big things, just for a change," suggested Miss Lammas. "Try and get married, for instance, and see how it turns out." "If it turned out badly, it would be rather serious." "Not half so serious as it is to abuse everything unreasonably. If abuse is your particular talent, abuse something that ought to be abused. Abuse the Conservatives--or the Liberals--it does not matter which, since they are always abusing each other. Make yourself felt by other people. You will like it, if they don't. It will make a man of you. Fill your mouth with pebbles, and howl at the sea, if you cannot do anything else. It did Demosthenes no end of good, you know. You will have the satisfaction of imitating a great man." "Really, Miss Lammas, I think the list of innocent exercises you propose--" "Very well--if you don't care for that sort of thing, care for some other sort of thing. Care for something, or hate something. Don't be idle. Life is short, and though art may be long, plenty of noise answers nearly as well." "I do care for something--I mean somebody," I said. "A woman? Then marry her. Don't hesitate." "I do not know whether she would marry me," I replied. "I have never asked her." "Then ask her at once," answered Miss Lammas. "I shall die happy if I feel I have persuaded a melancholy fellow-creature to rouse himself to action. Ask her, by all means, and see what she says. If she does not accept you at once, she may take you the next time. Meanwhile, you will have entered for the race. If you lose, there are the 'All-aged Trial Stakes,' and the 'Consolation Race.'" "And plenty of selling races into the bargain. Shall I take you at your word, Miss Lammas?" "I hope you will," she answered. "Since you yourself advise me, I will. Miss Lammas, will you do me the honour to marry me?" For the first time in my life the blood rushed to my head and my sight swam. I cannot tell why I said it. It would be useless to try to explain the extraordinary fascination the girl exercised over me, or the still more extraordinary feeling of intimacy with her which had grown in me during that half-hour. Lonely, sad, unlucky as I had been all my life, I was certainly not timid, nor even shy. But to propose to marry a woman after half an hour's acquaintance was a piece of madness of which I never believed myself capable, and of which I should never be capable again, could I be placed in the same situation. It was as though my whole being had been changed in a moment by magic--by the white magic of her nature brought into contact with mine. The blood sank back to my heart, and a moment later I found myself staring at her with anxious eyes. To my amazement she was as calm as ever, but her beautiful mouth smiled, and there was a mischievous light in her dark-brown eyes. "Fairly caught," she answered. "For an individual who pretends to be listless and sad you are not lacking in humour. I had really not the least idea what you were going to say. Wouldn't it be singularly awkward for you if I had said 'Yes'? I never saw anybody begin to practise so sharply what was preached to him--with so very little loss of time!" "You probably never met a man who had dreamed of you for seven months before being introduced." "No, I never did," she answered gaily. "It smacks of the romantic. Perhaps you are a romantic character after all. I should think you were, if I believed you. Very well; you have taken my advice, entered for a Stranger's Race and lost it. Try the All-aged Trial Stakes. You have another cuff, and a pencil. Propose to Aunt Bluebell; she would dance with astonishment, and she might recover her hearing." CHAPTER III That was how I first asked Margaret Lammas to be my wife, and I will agree with any one who says I behaved very foolishly. But I have not repented of it, and I never shall. I have long ago understood that I was out of my mind that evening, but I think my temporary insanity on that occasion has had the effect of making me a saner man ever since. Her manner turned my head, for it was so different from what I had expected. To hear this lovely creature, who, in my imagination, was a heroine of romance, if not of tragedy, talking familiarly and laughing readily was more than my equanimity could bear, and I lost my head as well as my heart. But when I went back to England in the spring, I went to make certain arrangements at the Castle--certain changes and improvements which would be absolutely necessary. I had won the race for which I had entered myself so rashly, and we were to be married in June. Whether the change was due to the orders I had left with the gardener and the rest of the servants, or to my own state of mind, I cannot tell. At all events, the old place did not look the same to me when I opened my window on the morning after my arrival. There were the grey walls below me, and the grey turrets flanking the huge building; there were the fountains, the marble causeways, the smooth basins, the tall box hedges, the water-lilies and the swans, just as of old. But there was something else there, too--something in the air, in the water, and in the greenness that I did not recognise--a light over everything by which everything was transfigured. The clock in the tower struck seven, and the strokes of the ancient bell sounded like a wedding chime. The air sang with the thrilling treble of the song-birds, with the silvery music of the plashing water, and the softer harmony of the leaves stirred by the fresh morning wind. There was a smell of new-mown hay from the distant meadows, and of blooming roses from the beds below, wafted up together to my window. I stood in the pure sunshine and drank the air and all the sounds and the odours that were in it; and I looked down at my garden and said, "It is Paradise, after all. I think the men of old were right when they called heaven a garden, and Eden a garden inhabited by one man and one woman, the Earthly Paradise." I turned away, wondering what had become of the gloomy memories I had always associated with my home. I tried to recall the impression of my nurse's horrible prophecy before the death of my parents--an impression which hitherto had been vivid enough. I tried to remember my own self, my dejection, my listlessness, my bad luck, and my petty disappointments. I endeavoured to force myself to think as I used to think, if only to satisfy myself that I had not lost my individuality. But I succeeded in none of these efforts. I was a different man, a changed being, incapable of sorrow, of ill-luck, or of sadness. My life had been a dream, not evil, but infinitely gloomy and hopeless. It was now a reality, full of hope, gladness, and all manner of good. My home had been like a tomb; to-day it was Paradise. My heart had been as though it had not existed; to-day it beat with strength and youth, and the certainty of realised happiness. I revelled in the beauty of the world, and called loveliness out of the future to enjoy it before time should bring it to me, as a traveller in the plains looks up to the mountains, and already tastes the cool air through the dust of the road. Here, I thought, we will live and live for years. There we will sit by the fountain towards evening and in the deep moonlight. Down those paths we will wander together. On those benches we will rest and talk. Among those eastern hills we will ride through the soft twilight, and in the old house we will tell tales on winter nights, when the logs burn high, and the holly berries are red, and the old clock tolls out the dying year. On these old steps, in these dark passages and stately rooms, there will one day be the sound of little pattering feet, and laughing child-voices will ring up to the vaults of the ancient hall. Those tiny footsteps shall not be slow and sad as mine were, nor shall the childish words be spoken in an awed whisper. No gloomy Welshwoman shall people the dusky corners with weird horrors, nor utter horrid prophecies of death and ghastly things. All shall be young, and fresh, and joyful, and happy, and we will turn the old luck again, and forget that there was ever any sadness. So I thought, as I looked out of my window that morning and for many mornings after that, and every day it all seemed more real than ever before, and much nearer. But the old nurse looked at me askance, and muttered odd sayings about the Woman of the Water. I cared little what she said, for I was far too happy. At last the time came near for the wedding. Lady Bluebell and all the tribe of Bluebells, as Margaret called them, were at Bluebell Grange, for we had determined to be married in the country, and to come straight to the Castle afterwards. We cared little for travelling, and not at all for a crowded ceremony at St. George's in Hanover Square, with all the tiresome formalities afterwards. I used to ride over to the Grange every day, and very often Margaret would come with her aunt and some of her cousins to the Castle. I was suspicious of my own taste, and was only too glad to let her have her way about the alterations and improvements in our home. We were to be married on the thirtieth of July, and on the evening of the twenty-eighth Margaret drove over with some of the Bluebell party. In the long summer twilight we all went out into the garden. Naturally enough, Margaret and I were left to ourselves, and we wandered down by the marble basins. "It is an odd coincidence," I said; "it was on this very night last year that I first saw you." "Considering that it is the month of July," answered Margaret, with a laugh, "and that we have been here almost every day, I don't think the coincidence is so extraordinary, after all." "No, dear," said I, "I suppose not. I don't know why it struck me. We shall very likely be here a year from to-day, and a year from that. The odd thing, when I think of it, is that you should be here at all. But my luck has turned. I ought not to think anything odd that happens now that I have you. It is all sure to be good." "A slight change in your ideas since that remarkable performance of yours in Paris," said Margaret. "Do you know, I thought you were the most extraordinary man I had ever met." "I thought you were the most charming woman I have ever seen. I naturally did not want to lose any time in frivolities. I took you at your word, I followed your advice, I asked you to marry me, and this is the delightful result--what's the matter?" Margaret had started suddenly, and her hand tightened on my arm. An old woman was coming up the path, and was close to us before we saw her, for the moon had risen, and was shining full in our faces. The woman turned out to be my old nurse. "It's only old Judith, dear--don't be frightened," I said. Then I spoke to the Welshwoman: "What are you about, Judith? Have you been feeding the Woman of the Water?" "Ay--when the clock strikes, Willie--my lord, I mean," muttered the old creature, drawing aside to let us pass, and fixing her strange eyes on Margaret's face. "What does she mean?" asked Margaret, when we had gone by. "Nothing, darling. The old thing is mildly crazy, but she is a good soul." We went on in silence for a few moments, and came to the rustic bridge just above the artificial grotto through which the water ran out into the park, dark and swift in its narrow channel. We stopped, and leaned on the wooden rail. The moon was now behind us, and shone full upon the long vista of basins and on the huge walls and towers of the Castle above. "How proud you ought to be of such a grand old place!" said Margaret, softly. "It is yours now, darling," I answered. "You have as good a right to love it as I--but I only love it because you are to live in it, dear." Her hand stole out and lay on mine, and we were both silent. Just then the clock began to strike far off in the tower. I counted the strokes--eight--nine--ten--eleven--I looked at my watch--twelve--thirteen--I laughed. The bell went on striking. "The old clock has gone crazy, like Judith," I exclaimed. Still it went on, note after note ringing out monotonously through the still air. We leaned over the rail, instinctively looking in the direction whence the sound came. On and on it went. I counted nearly a hundred, out of sheer curiosity, for I understood that something had broken and that the thing was running itself down. Suddenly there was a crack as of breaking wood, a cry and a heavy splash, and I was alone, clinging to the broken end of the rail of the rustic bridge. I do not think I hesitated while my pulse beat twice. I sprang clear of the bridge into the black rushing water, dived to the bottom, came up again with empty hands, turned and swam downwards through the grotto in the thick darkness, plunging and diving at every stroke, striking my head and hands against jagged stones and sharp corners, clutching at last something in my fingers, and dragging it up with all my might. I spoke, I cried aloud, but there was no answer. I was alone in the pitchy blackness with my burden, and the house was five hundred yards away. Struggling still, I felt the ground beneath my feet, I saw a ray of moonlight--the grotto widened, and the deep water became a broad and shallow brook as I stumbled over the stones and at last laid Margaret's body on the bank in the park beyond. "Ay, Willie, as the clock struck!" said the voice of Judith, the Welsh nurse, as she bent down and looked at the white face. The old woman must have turned back and followed us, seen the accident, and slipped out by the lower gate of the garden. "Ay," she groaned, "you have fed the Woman of the Water this night, Willie, while the clock was striking." I scarcely heard her as I knelt beside the lifeless body of the woman I loved, chafing the wet white temples, and gazing wildly into the wide-staring eyes. I remember only the first returning look of consciousness, the first heaving breath, the first movement of those dear hands stretching out towards me. That is not much of a story, you say. It is the story of my life. That is all. It does not pretend to be anything else. Old Judith says my luck turned on that summer's night, when I was struggling in the water to save all that was worth living for. A month later there was a stone bridge above the grotto, and Margaret and I stood on it, and looked up at the moonlit Castle, as we had done once before, and as we have done many times since. For all those things happened ten years ago last summer, and this is the tenth Christmas Eve we have spent together by the roaring logs in the old hall, talking of old times; and every year there are more old times to talk of. There are curly-headed boys, too, with red-gold hair and dark-brown eyes like their mother's, and a little Margaret, with solemn black eyes like mine. Why could she not look like her mother, too, as well as the rest of them? The world is very bright at this glorious Christmas time, and perhaps there is little use in calling up the sadness of long ago, unless it be to make the jolly firelight seem more cheerful, the good wife's face look gladder, and to give the children's laughter a merrier ring, by contrast with all that is gone. Perhaps, too, some sad-faced, listless, melancholy youth, who feels that the world is very hollow, and that life is like a perpetual funeral service, just as I used to feel myself, may take courage from my example, and having found the woman of his heart, ask her to marry him after half an hour's acquaintance. But, on the whole, I would not advise any man to marry, for the simple reason that no man will ever find a wife like mine, and being obliged to go further, he will necessarily fare worse. My wife has done miracles, but I will not assert that any other woman is able to follow her example. Margaret always said that the old place was beautiful, and that I ought to be proud of it. I dare say she is right. She has even more imagination than I. But I have a good answer and a plain one, which is this--that all the beauty of the Castle comes from her. She has breathed upon it all, as the children blow upon the cold glass window-panes in winter; and as their warm breath crystallises into landscapes from fairyland, full of exquisite shapes and traceries upon the blank surface, so her spirit has transformed every grey stone of the old towers, every ancient tree and hedge in the gardens, every thought in my once melancholy self. All that was old is young, and all that was sad is glad, and I am the gladdest of all. Whatever heaven may be, there is no earthly paradise without woman, nor is there anywhere a place so desolate, so dreary, so unutterably miserable that a woman cannot make it seem heaven to the man she loves, and who loves her. I hear certain cynics laugh, and cry that all that has been said before. Do not laugh, my good cynic. You are too small a man to laugh at such a great thing as love. Prayers have been said before now by many, and perhaps you say yours, too. I do not think they lose anything by being repeated, nor you by repeating them. You say that the world is bitter, and full of the Waters of Bitterness. Love, and so live that you may be loved--the world will turn sweet for you, and you shall rest like me by the Waters of Paradise. THE DOLL'S GHOST It was a terrible accident, and for one moment the splendid machinery of Cranston House got out of gear and stood still. The butler emerged from the retirement in which he spent his elegant leisure, two grooms of the chambers appeared simultaneously from opposite directions, there were actually housemaids on the grand staircase, and those who remember the facts most exactly assert that Mrs. Pringle herself positively stood upon the landing. Mrs. Pringle was the housekeeper. As for the head nurse, the under nurse, and the nursery maid, their feelings cannot be described. The head nurse laid one hand upon the polished marble balustrade and stared stupidly before her, the under nurse stood rigid and pale, leaning against the polished marble wall, and the nursery-maid collapsed and sat down upon the polished marble step, just beyond the limits of the velvet carpet, and frankly burst into tears. The Lady Gwendolen Lancaster-Douglas-Scroop, youngest daughter of the ninth Duke of Cranston, and aged six years and three months, picked herself up quite alone, and sat down on the third step from the foot of the grand staircase in Cranston House. "Oh!" ejaculated the butler, and he disappeared again. "Ah!" responded the grooms of the chambers, as they also went away. "It's only that doll," Mrs. Pringle was distinctly heard to say, in a tone of contempt. The under nurse heard her say it. Then the three nurses gathered round Lady Gwendolen and patted her, and gave her unhealthy things out of their pockets, and hurried her out of Cranston House as fast as they could, lest it should be found out upstairs that they had allowed the Lady Gwendolen Lancaster-Douglas-Scroop to tumble down the grand staircase with her doll in her arms. And as the doll was badly broken, the nursery-maid carried it, with the pieces, wrapped up in Lady Gwendolen's little cloak. It was not far to Hyde Park, and when they had reached a quiet place they took means to find out that Lady Gwendolen had no bruises. For the carpet was very thick and soft, and there was thick stuff under it to make it softer. Lady Gwendolen Douglas-Scroop sometimes yelled, but she never cried. It was because she had yelled that the nurse had allowed her to go downstairs alone with Nina, the doll, under one arm, while she steadied herself with her other hand on the balustrade, and trod upon the polished marble steps beyond the edge of the carpet. So she had fallen, and Nina had come to grief. When the nurses were quite sure that she was not hurt, they unwrapped the doll and looked at her in her turn. She had been a very beautiful doll, very large, and fair, and healthy, with real yellow hair, and eyelids that would open and shut over very grown-up dark eyes. Moreover, when you moved her right arm up and down she said "Pa-pa," and when you moved the left she said "Ma-ma," very distinctly. "I heard her say 'Pa' when she fell," said the under nurse, who heard everything. "But she ought to have said 'Pa-pa.'" "That's because her arm went up when she hit the step," said the head nurse. "She'll say the other 'Pa' when I put it down again." "Pa," said Nina, as her right arm was pushed down, and speaking through her broken face. It was cracked right across, from the upper corner of the forehead, with a hideous gash, through the nose and down to the little frilled collar of the pale green silk Mother Hubbard frock, and two little three-cornered pieces of porcelain had fallen out. "I'm sure it's a wonder she can speak at all, being all smashed," said the under nurse. "You'll have to take her to Mr. Puckler," said her superior. "It's not far, and you'd better go at once." Lady Gwendolen was occupied in digging a hole in the ground with a little spade, and paid no attention to the nurses. "What are you doing?" enquired the nursery-maid, looking on. "Nina's dead, and I'm diggin' her a grave," replied her ladyship thoughtfully. "Oh, she'll come to life again all right," said the nursery-maid. The under nurse wrapped Nina up again and departed. Fortunately a kind soldier, with very long legs and a very small cap, happened to be there; and as he had nothing to do, he offered to see the under nurse safely to Mr. Puckler's and back. Mr. Bernard Puckler and his little daughter lived in a little house in a little alley, which led out off a quiet little street not very far from Belgrave Square. He was the great doll doctor, and his extensive practice lay in the most aristocratic quarter. He mended dolls of all sizes and ages, boy dolls and girl dolls, baby dolls in long clothes, and grown-up dolls in fashionable gowns, talking dolls and dumb dolls, those that shut their eyes when they lay down, and those whose eyes had to be shut for them by means of a mysterious wire. His daughter Else was only just over twelve years old, but she was already very clever at mending dolls' clothes, and at doing their hair, which is harder than you might think, though the dolls sit quite still while it is being done. Mr. Puckler had originally been a German, but he had dissolved his nationality in the ocean of London many years ago, like a great many foreigners. He still had one or two German friends, however, who came on Saturday evenings, and smoked with him and played picquet or "skat" with him for farthing points, and called him "Herr Doctor," which seemed to please Mr. Puckler very much. He looked older than he was, for his beard was rather long and ragged, his hair was grizzled and thin, and he wore horn-rimmed spectacles. As for Else, she was a thin, pale child, very quiet and neat, with dark eyes and brown hair that was plaited down her back and tied with a bit of black ribbon. She mended the dolls' clothes and took the dolls back to their homes when they were quite strong again. The house was a little one, but too big for the two people who lived in it. There was a small sitting-room on the street, and the workshop was at the back, and there were three rooms upstairs. But the father and daughter lived most of their time in the workshop, because they were generally at work, even in the evenings. Mr. Puckler laid Nina on the table and looked at her a long time, till the tears began to fill his eyes behind the horn-rimmed spectacles. He was a very susceptible man, and he often fell in love with the dolls he mended, and found it hard to part with them when they had smiled at him for a few days. They were real little people to him, with characters and thoughts and feelings of their own, and he was very tender with them all. But some attracted him especially from the first, and when they were brought to him maimed and injured, their state seemed so pitiful to him that the tears came easily. You must remember that he had lived among dolls during a great part of his life, and understood them. "How do you know that they feel nothing?" he went on to say to Else. "You must be gentle with them. It costs nothing to be kind to the little beings, and perhaps it makes a difference to them." And Else understood him, because she was a child, and she knew that she was more to him than all the dolls. He fell in love with Nina at first sight, perhaps because her beautiful brown glass eyes were something like Else's own, and he loved Else first and best, with all his heart. And, besides, it was a very sorrowful case. Nina had evidently not been long in the world, for her complexion was perfect, her hair was smooth where it should be smooth, and curly where it should be curly, and her silk clothes were perfectly new. But across her face was that frightful gash, like a sabre-cut, deep and shadowy within, but clean and sharp at the edges. When he tenderly pressed her head to close the gaping wound, the edges made a fine grating sound, that was painful to hear, and the lids of the dark eyes quivered and trembled as though Nina were suffering dreadfully. "Poor Nina!" he exclaimed sorrowfully. "But I shall not hurt you much, though you will take a long time to get strong." He always asked the names of the broken dolls when they were brought to him, and sometimes the people knew what the children called them, and told him. He liked "Nina" for a name. Altogether and in every way she pleased him more than any doll he had seen for many years, and he felt drawn to her, and made up his mind to make her perfectly strong and sound, no matter how much labour it might cost him. Mr. Puckler worked patiently a little at a time, and Else watched him. She could do nothing for poor Nina, whose clothes needed no mending. The longer the doll doctor worked, the more fond he became of the yellow hair and the beautiful brown glass eyes. He sometimes forgot all the other dolls that were waiting to be mended, lying side by side on a shelf, and sat for an hour gazing at Nina's face, while he racked his ingenuity for some new invention by which to hide even the smallest trace of the terrible accident. She was wonderfully mended. Even he was obliged to admit that; but the scar was still visible to his keen eyes, a very fine line right across the face, downwards from right to left. Yet all the conditions had been most favourable for a cure, since the cement had set quite hard at the first attempt and the weather had been fine and dry, which makes a great difference in a dolls' hospital. At last he knew that he could do no more, and the under nurse had already come twice to see whether the job was finished, as she coarsely expressed it. "Nina is not quite strong yet," Mr. Puckler had answered each time, for he could not make up his mind to face the parting. And now he sat before the square deal table at which he worked, and Nina lay before him for the last time with a big brown paper box beside her. It stood there like her coffin, waiting for her, he thought. He must put her into it, and lay tissue paper over her dear face, and then put on the lid, and at the thought of tying the string his sight was dim with tears again. He was never to look into the glassy depths of the beautiful brown eyes any more, nor to hear the little wooden voice say "Pa-pa" and "Ma-ma." It was a very painful moment. In the vain hope of gaining time before the separation, he took up the little sticky bottles of cement and glue and gum and colour, looking at each one in turn, and then at Nina's face. And all his small tools lay there, neatly arranged in a row, but he knew that he could not use them again for Nina. She was quite strong at last, and in a country where there should be no cruel children to hurt her she might live a hundred years, with only that almost imperceptible line across her face to tell of the fearful thing that had befallen her on the marble steps of Cranston House. Suddenly Mr. Puckler's heart was quite full, and he rose abruptly from his seat and turned away. "Else," he said unsteadily, "you must do it for me. I cannot bear to see her go into the box." So he went and stood at the window with his back turned, while Else did what he had not the heart to do. "Is it done?" he asked, not turning round. "Then take her away, my dear. Put on your hat, and take her to Cranston House quickly, and when you are gone I will turn round." Else was used to her father's queer ways with the dolls, and though she had never seen him so much moved by a parting, she was not much surprised. "Come back quickly," he said, when he heard her hand on the latch. "It is growing late, and I should not send you at this hour. But I cannot bear to look forward to it any more." When Else was gone, he left the window and sat down in his place before the table again, to wait for the child to come back. He touched the place where Nina had lain, very gently, and he recalled the softly tinted pink face, and the glass eyes, and the ringlets of yellow hair, till he could almost see them. The evenings were long, for it was late in the spring. But it began to grow dark soon, and Mr. Puckler wondered why Else did not come back. She had been gone an hour and a half, and that was much longer than he had expected, for it was barely half a mile from Belgrave Square to Cranston House. He reflected that the child might have been kept waiting, but as the twilight deepened he grew anxious, and walked up and down in the dim workshop, no longer thinking of Nina, but of Else, his own living child, whom he loved. An undefinable, disquieting sensation came upon him by fine degrees, a chilliness and a faint stirring of his thin hair, joined with a wish to be in any company rather than to be alone much longer. It was the beginning of fear. He told himself in strong German-English that he was a foolish old man, and he began to feel about for the matches in the dusk. He knew just where they should be, for he always kept them in the same place, close to the little tin box that held bits of sealing-wax of various colours, for some kinds of mending. But somehow he could not find the matches in the gloom. Something had happened to Else, he was sure, and as his fear increased, he felt as though it might be allayed if he could get a light and see what time it was. Then he called himself a foolish old man again, and the sound of his own voice startled him in the dark. He could not find the matches. The window was grey still; he might see what time it was if he went close to it, and he could go and get matches out of the cupboard afterwards. He stood back from the table, to get out of the way of the chair, and began to cross the board floor. Something was following him in the dark. There was a small pattering, as of tiny feet upon the boards. He stopped and listened, and the roots of his hair tingled. It was nothing, and he was a foolish old man. He made two steps more, and he was sure that he heard the little pattering again. He turned his back to the window, leaning against the sash so that the panes began to crack, and he faced the dark. Everything was quite still, and it smelt of paste and cement and wood-filings as usual. "Is that you, Else?" he asked, and he was surprised by the fear in his voice. There was no answer in the room, and he held up his watch and tried to make out what time it was by the grey dusk that was just not darkness. So far as he could see, it was within two or three minutes of ten o'clock. He had been a long time alone. He was shocked, and frightened for Else, out in London, so late, and he almost ran across the room to the door. As he fumbled for the latch, he distinctly heard the running of the little feet after him. "Mice!" he exclaimed feebly, just as he got the door open. He shut it quickly behind him, and felt as though some cold thing had settled on his back and were writhing upon him. The passage was quite dark, but he found his hat and was out in the alley in a moment, breathing more freely, and surprised to find how much light there still was in the open air. He could see the pavement clearly under his feet, and far off in the street to which the alley led he could hear the laughter and calls of children, playing some game out of doors. He wondered how he could have been so nervous, and for an instant he thought of going back into the house to wait quietly for Else. But instantly he felt that nervous fright of something stealing over him again. In any case it was better to walk up to Cranston House and ask the servants about the child. One of the women had perhaps taken a fancy to her, and was even now giving her tea and cake. He walked quickly to Belgrave Square, and then up the broad streets, listening as he went, whenever there was no other sound, for the tiny footsteps. But he heard nothing, and was laughing at himself when he rang the servants' bell at the big house. Of course, the child must be there. The person who opened the door was quite an inferior person, for it was a back door, but affected the manners of the front, and stared at Mr. Puckler superciliously under the strong light. No little girl had been seen, and he knew "nothing about no dolls." "She is my little girl," said Mr. Puckler tremulously, for all his anxiety was returning tenfold, "and I am afraid something has happened." The inferior person said rudely that "nothing could have happened to her in that house, because she had not been there, which was a jolly good reason why;" and Mr. Puckler was obliged to admit that the man ought to know, as it was his business to keep the door and let people in. He wished to be allowed to speak to the under nurse, who knew him; but the man was ruder than ever, and finally shut the door in his face. When the doll doctor was alone in the street, he steadied himself by the railing, for he felt as though he were breaking in two, just as some dolls break, in the middle of the backbone. Presently he knew that he must be doing something to find Else, and that gave him strength. He began to walk as quickly as he could through the streets, following every highway and byway which his little girl might have taken on her errand. He also asked several policemen in vain if they had seen her, and most of them answered him kindly, for they saw that he was a sober man and in his right senses, and some of them had little girls of their own. It was one o'clock in the morning when he went up to his own door again, worn out and hopeless and broken-hearted. As he turned the key in the lock, his heart stood still, for he knew that he was awake and not dreaming, and that he really heard those tiny footsteps pattering to meet him inside the house along the passage. But he was too unhappy to be much frightened any more, and his heart went on again with a dull regular pain, that found its way all through him with every pulse. So he went in, and hung up his hat in the dark, and found the matches in the cupboard and the candlestick in its place in the corner. Mr. Puckler was so much overcome and so completely worn out that he sat down in his chair before the work-table and almost fainted, as his face dropped forward upon his folded hands. Beside him the solitary candle burned steadily with a low flame in the still warm air. "Else! Else!" he moaned against his yellow knuckles. And that was all he could say, and it was no relief to him. On the contrary, the very sound of the name was a new and sharp pain that pierced his ears and his head and his very soul. For every time he repeated the name it meant that little Else was dead, somewhere out in the streets of London in the dark. He was so terribly hurt that he did not even feel something pulling gently at the skirt of his old coat, so gently that it was like the nibbling of a tiny mouse. He might have thought that it was really a mouse if he had noticed it. "Else! Else!" he groaned right against his hands. Then a cool breath stirred his thin hair, and the low flame of the one candle dropped down almost to a mere spark, not flickering as though a draught were going to blow it out, but just dropping down as if it were tired out. Mr. Puckler felt his hands stiffening with fright under his face; and there was a faint rustling sound, like some small silk thing blown in a gentle breeze. He sat up straight, stark and scared, and a small wooden voice spoke in the stillness. "Pa-pa," it said, with a break between the syllables. Mr. Puckler stood up in a single jump, and his chair fell over backwards with a smashing noise upon the wooden floor. The candle had almost gone out. It was Nina's doll voice that had spoken, and he should have known it among the voices of a hundred other dolls. And yet there was something more in it, a little human ring, with a pitiful cry and a call for help, and the wail of a hurt child. Mr. Puckler stood up, stark and stiff, and tried to look round, but at first he could not, for he seemed to be frozen from head to foot. Then he made a great effort, and he raised one hand to each of his temples, and pressed his own head round as he would have turned a doll's. The candle was burning so low that it might as well have been out altogether, for any light it gave, and the room seemed quite dark at first. Then he saw something. He would not have believed that he could be more frightened than he had been just before that. But he was, and his knees shook, for he saw the doll standing in the middle of the floor, shining with a faint and ghostly radiance, her beautiful glassy brown eyes fixed on his. And across her face the very thin line of the break he had mended shone as though it were drawn in light with a fine point of white flame. Yet there was something more in the eyes, too; there was something human, like Else's own, but as if only the doll saw him through them, and not Else. And there was enough of Else to bring back all his pain and to make him forget his fear. "Else! my little Else!" he cried aloud. The small ghost moved, and its doll-arm slowly rose and fell with a stiff, mechanical motion. "Pa-pa," it said. It seemed this time that there was even more of Else's tone echoing somewhere between the wooden notes that reached his ears so distinctly, and yet so far away. Else was calling him, he was sure. His face was perfectly white in the gloom, but his knees did not shake any more, and he felt that he was less frightened. "Yes, child! But where? Where?" he asked. "Where are you, Else?" "Pa-pa!" The syllables died away in the quiet room. There was a low rustling of silk, the glassy brown eyes turned slowly away, and Mr. Puckler heard the pitter-patter of the small feet in the bronze kid slippers as the figure ran straight to the door. Then the candle burned high again, the room was full of light, and he was alone. Mr. Puckler passed his hand over his eyes and looked about him. He could see everything quite clearly, and he felt that he must have been dreaming, though he was standing instead of sitting down, as he should have been if he had just waked up. The candle burned brightly now. There were the dolls to be mended, lying in a row with their toes up. The third one had lost her right shoe, and Else was making one. He knew that, and he was certainly not dreaming now. He had not been dreaming when he had come in from his fruitless search and had heard the doll's footsteps running to the door. He had not fallen asleep in his chair. How could he possibly have fallen asleep when his heart was breaking? He had been awake all the time. He steadied himself, set the fallen chair upon its legs, and said to himself again very emphatically that he was a foolish old man. He ought to be out in the streets looking for his child, asking questions, and enquiring at the police stations, where all accidents were reported as soon as they were known, or at the hospitals. "Pa-pa!" The longing, wailing, pitiful little wooden cry rang from the passage, outside the door, and Mr. Puckler stood for an instant with white face, transfixed and rooted to the spot. A moment later his hand was on the latch. Then he was in the passage, with the light streaming from the open door behind him. Quite at the other end he saw the little phantom shining clearly in the shadow, and the right hand seemed to beckon to him as the arm rose and fell once more. He knew all at once that it had not come to frighten him but to lead him, and when it disappeared, and he walked boldly towards the door, he knew that it was in the street outside, waiting for him. He forgot that he was tired and had eaten no supper, and had walked many miles, for a sudden hope ran through and through him, like a golden stream of life. And sure enough, at the corner of the alley, and at the corner of the street, and out in Belgrave Square, he saw the small ghost flitting before him. Sometimes it was only a shadow, where there was other light, but then the glare of the lamps made a pale green sheen on its little Mother Hubbard frock of silk; and sometimes, where the streets were dark and silent, the whole figure shone out brightly, with its yellow curls and rosy neck. It seemed to trot along like a tiny child, and Mr. Puckler could almost hear the pattering of the bronze kid slippers on the pavement as it ran. But it went very fast, and he could only just keep up with it, tearing along with his hat on the back of his head and his thin hair blown by the night breeze, and his horn-rimmed spectacles firmly set upon his broad nose. On and on he went, and he had no idea where he was. He did not even care, for he knew certainly that he was going the right way. Then at last, in a wide, quiet street, he was standing before a big, sober-looking door that had two lamps on each side of it, and a polished brass bell-handle, which he pulled. And just inside, when the door was opened, in the bright light, there was the little shadow, and the pale green sheen of the little silk dress, and once more the small cry came to his ears, less pitiful, more longing. "Pa-pa!" The shadow turned suddenly bright, and out of the brightness the beautiful brown glass eyes were turned up happily to his, while the rosy mouth smiled so divinely that the phantom doll looked almost like a little angel just then. "A little girl was brought in soon after ten o'clock," said the quiet voice of the hospital doorkeeper. "I think they thought she was only stunned. She was holding a big brown-paper box against her, and they could not get it out of her arms. She had a long plait of brown hair that hung down as they carried her." "She is my little girl," said Mr. Puckler, but he hardly heard his own voice. He leaned over Else's face in the gentle light of the children's ward, and when he had stood there a minute the beautiful brown eyes opened and looked up to his. "Pa-pa!" cried Else, softly, "I knew you would come!" Then Mr. Puckler did not know what he did or said for a moment, and what he felt was worth all the fear and terror and despair that had almost killed him that night. But by and by Else was telling her story, and the nurse let her speak, for there were only two other children in the room, who were getting well and were sound asleep. "They were big boys with bad faces," said Else, "and they tried to get Nina away from me, but I held on and fought as well as I could till one of them hit me with something, and I don't remember any more, for I tumbled down, and I suppose the boys ran away, and somebody found me there. But I'm afraid Nina is all smashed." "Here is the box," said the nurse. "We could not take it out of her arms till she came to herself. Should you like to see if the doll is broken?" And she undid the string cleverly, but Nina was all smashed to pieces. Only the gentle light of the children's ward made a pale green sheen in the folds of the little Mother Hubbard frock. 
16720	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 16720-h.htm or 16720-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/6/7/2/16720/16720-h/16720-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/6/7/2/16720/16720-h.zip) The Novels of F. Marion Crawford In Twenty-five Volumes, Authorized Edition MARZIO'S CRUCIFIX and ZOROASTER by F. MARION CRAWFORD With Frontispiece P.F. Collier & Son New York 1887 [Illustration: HE MOVED NOT THROUGH THE LONG HOURS OF DAY. --_Zoroaster_.] [Illustration] MARZIO'S CRUCIFIX CHAPTER I "The whole of this modern fabric of existence is a living lie!" cried Marzio Pandolfi, striking his little hammer upon the heavy table with an impatient rap. Then he dropped it and turning on his stool rested one elbow upon the board while he clasped his long, nervous fingers together and stared hard at his handsome apprentice. Gianbattista Bordogni looked up from his work without relinquishing his tools, nodded gravely, stared up at the high window, and then went on hammering gently upon his little chisel, guiding the point carefully among the delicate arabesques traced upon the silver. "Yes," he said quietly, after a few seconds, "it is all a lie. But what do you expect, Maestro Marzio? You might as well talk to a stone wall as preach liberty to these cowards." "Nevertheless, there are some--there are half a dozen--" muttered Marzio, relapsing into sullen discontent and slowly turning the body of the chalice beneath the cord stretched by the pedal on which he pressed his foot. Having brought under his hand a round boss which was to become the head of a cherub under his chisel, he rubbed his fingers over the smooth silver, mechanically, while he contemplated the red wax model before him. Then there was silence for a space, broken only by the quick, irregular striking of the two little hammers upon the heads of the chisels. Maestro Marzio Pandolfi was a skilled workman and an artist. He was one of the last of those workers in metals who once sent their masterpieces from Rome to the great cathedrals of the world; one of the last of the artistic descendants of Caradosso, of Benvenuto Cellini, of Claude Ballin, and of all their successors; one of those men of rare talent who unite the imagination of the artist with the executive skill of the practised workman. They are hard to find nowadays. Of all the twenty chisellers of various ages who hammered from morning till night in the rooms outside, one only--Gianbattista Bordogni--had been thought worthy by his master to share the privacy of the inner studio. The lad had talent, said Maestro Marzio, and, what was more, the lad had ideas--ideas about life, about the future of Italy, about the future of the world's society. Marzio found in him a pupil, an artist and a follower of his own political creed. It was a small room in which they worked together. Plain wooden shelves lined two of the walls from the floor to the ceiling. The third was occupied by tables and a door, and in the fourth high grated windows were situated, from which the clear light fell upon the long bench before which the two men sat upon high stools. Upon the shelves were numerous models in red wax, of chalices, monstrances, marvellous ewers and embossed basins for the ablution of the priests' hands, crucifixes, crowns, palm and olive branches--in a word, models of all those things which pertain to the service and decoration of the church, and upon which it has been the privilege of the silversmith to expend his art and labour from time immemorial until the present day. There were some few casts in plaster, but almost all were of that deep red, strong-smelling wax which is the most fit medium for the temporary expression and study of very fine and intricate designs. There is something in the very colour which, to one acquainted with the art, suggests beautiful fancies. It is the red of the Pompeian walls, and the rich tint seems to call up the matchless traceries of the ancients. Old chisellers say that no one can model anything wholly bad in red wax, and there is truth in the saying. The material is old--the older the better; it has passed under the hand of the artist again and again; it has taken form, served for the model of a lasting work, been kneaded together in a lump, been worked over and over by the boxwood tool. The workman feels that it has absorbed some of the qualities of the master's genius, and touches it with the certainty that its stiff substance will yield new forms of beauty in his fingers, rendering up some of its latent capacity of shape at each pressure and twist of the deftly-handled instrument. At the extremities of the long bench huge iron vices were fixed by staples that ran into the ground. In one of these was fastened the long curved tool which serves to beat out the bosses of hollow and small-necked vessels. Each of the workmen had a pedal beneath his foot from which a soft cord ascended, passed through the table, and pressed the round object on which he was working upon a thick leather cushion, enabling him to hold it tightly in its place, or by lifting his foot to turn it to a new position. In pots full of sand were stuck hundreds of tiny chisels, so that the workmen could select at a glance the exact form of tool needful for the moment. Two or three half balls of heavy stone stood in leathern collars, their flat surfaces upwards and covered with a brown composition of pitch and beeswax an inch thick, in which small pieces of silver were firmly embedded in position to be chiselled. The workshop was pervaded by a smell of wax and pitch, mingled with the curious indefinable odour exhaled from steel tools in constant use, and supplemented by the fumes of Marzio's pipe. The red bricks in the portion of the floor where the two men sat were rubbed into hollows, but the dust had been allowed to accumulate freely in the rest of the room, and the dark corners were full of cobwebs which had all the air of being inhabited by spiders of formidable dimensions. Marzio Pandolfi, who bent over his work and busily plied his little hammer during the interval of silence which followed his apprentice's last remark, was the sole owner and master of the establishment. He was forty years of age, thin and dark. His black hair was turning grey at the temples, and though not long, hung forward over his knitted eyebrows in disorderly locks. He had a strange face. His head, broad enough at the level of the eyes, rose to a high prominence towards the back, while his forehead, which projected forward at the heavy brows, sloped backwards in the direction of the summit. The large black eyes were deep and hollow, and there were broad rings of dark colour around them, so that they seemed strangely thrown into relief above the sunken, colourless cheeks. Marzio's nose was long and pointed, very straight, and descending so suddenly from the forehead as to make an angle with the latter the reverse of the one most common in human faces. Seen in profile, the brows formed the most prominent point, and the line of the head ran back above, while the line of the nose fell inward from the perpendicular down to the small curved nostrils. The short black moustache was thick enough to hide the lips, though deep furrows surrounded the mouth and terminated in a very prominent but pointed chin. The whole face expressed unusual qualities and defects; the gifts of the artist, the tenacity of the workman and the small astuteness of the plebeian were mingled with an appearance of something which was not precisely ideality, but which might easily be fanaticism. Marzio was tall and very thin. His limbs seemed to move rather by the impulse of a nervous current within than by any development of normal force in the muscles, and his long and slender fingers, naturally yellow and discoloured by the use of tools and the handling of cements, might have been parts of a machine, for they had none of that look of humanity which one seeks in the hand, and by which one instinctively judges the character. He was dressed in a woollen blouse, which hung in odd folds about his emaciated frame, but which betrayed the roundness of his shoulders, and the extreme length of his arms. His apprentice, Gianbattista Bordogni, wore the same costume; but beyond his clothing he bore no trace of any resemblance to his master. He was not a bad type of the young Roman of his class at five-and-twenty years of age. His thick black hair curled all over his head, from his low forehead to the back of his neck, and his head was of a good shape, full and round, broad over the brows and high above the orifice of the ear. His eyes were brown and not over large, but well set, and his nose was slightly aquiline, while his delicate black moustache showed the pleasant curve of his even lips. There was colour in his cheeks, too--that rich colour which dark men sometimes have in their youth. He was of middle height, strong and compactly built, with large, well-made hands that seemed to have more power in them, if less subtle skill, than those of Maestro Marzio. "Remember what I told you about the second indentation of the acanthus," said the elder workman, without looking round; "a light, light hand--no holes in this work!" Gianbattista murmured a sort of assent, which showed that the warning was not wanted. He was intent upon the delicate operation he was performing. Again the hammers beat irregularly. "The more I think of it," said Marzio after the pause, "the more I am beside myself. To think that you and I should be nailed to our stools here, weekdays and feast-days, to finish a piece of work for a scoundrelly priest--" "A cardinal," suggested Gianbattista. "Well! What difference is there? He is a priest, I suppose--a creature who dresses himself up like a pulcinella before his altar--to--" "Softly!" ejaculated the young man, looking round to see whether the door was closed. "Why softly?" asked the other angrily, though his annoyance did not seem to communicate itself to the chisel he held in his hand, and which continued its work as delicately as though its master were humming a pastoral. "Why softly? An apoplexy on your softness! The papers speak as loudly as they please--why should I hold my tongue? A dog-butcher of a priest!" "Well," answered Gianbattista in a meditative tone, as he selected another chisel, "he has the money to pay for what he orders. If he had not, we would not work for him, I suppose." "If we had the money, you mean," retorted Marzio. "Why the devil should he have money rather than we? Why don't you answer? Why should he wear silk stockings--red silk stockings, the animal? Why should he want a silver ewer and basin to wash his hands at his mass? Why would not an earthen one do as well, such as I use? Why don't you answer? Eh?" "Why should Prince Borghese live in a palace and keep scores of horses?" inquired the young man calmly. "Ay--why should he? Is there any known reason why he should? Am I not a man as well as he? Are you not a man--you young donkey? I hate to think that we, who are artists, who can work when we are put to it, have to slave for such fellows as that--mumbling priests, bloated princes, a pack of fools who are incapable of an idea! An idea! What am I saying? Who have not the common intelligence of a cabbage-seller in the street! And look at the work we give them--the creation of our minds, the labour of our hands--" "They give us their money in return," observed Gianbattista. "The ancients, whom you are so fond of talking about, used to get their work done by slaves chained to the bench--" "Yes! And it has taken us two thousand years to get to the point we have reached! Two thousand years--and what is it? Are we any better than slaves, except that we work better?" "I doubt whether we work better." "What is the matter with you this morning?" cried Marzio. "Have you been sneaking into some church on your way here? Pah! You smell of the sacristy! Has Paolo been here? Oh, to think that a brother of mine should be a priest! It is not to be believed!" "It is the irony of fate. Moreover, he gets you plenty of orders." "Yes, and no doubt he takes his percentage on the price. He had a new cloak last month, and he asked me to make him a pair of silver buckles for his shoes. Pretty, that--an artist's brother with silver buckles! I told him to go to the devil, his father, for his ornaments. Why does he not steal an old pair from the cardinal, his bondmaster? Not good enough, I suppose--beast!" Marzio laid aside his hammer and chisel, and lit the earthen pipe with the rough wooden stem that lay beside him. Then he examined the beautiful head of the angel he had been making upon the body of the ewer. He touched it lovingly, loosed the cord, and lifted the piece from the pad, turning it towards the light and searching critically for any defect in the modelling of the little face. He replaced it on the table, and selecting a very fine-pointed punch, laid down his pipe for a moment and set about putting the tiny pupils into the eyes. Two touches were enough. He began smoking again, and contemplated what he had done. It was the body of a large silver ewer of which Gianbattista was ornamenting the neck and mouth, which were of a separate piece. Amongst the intricate arabesques little angels'-heads were embossed, and on one side a group of cherubs was bearing a "monstrance" with the sacred Host through silver clouds. A hackneyed subject on church vessels, but which had taken wonderful beauty under the skilled fingers of the artist, who sat cursing the priest who was to use it, while expending his best talents on its perfections. "It is not bad," he said rather doubtfully. "Come and look at it, Tista," he added. The young man left his place and came and bent over his master's shoulder, examining the piece with admiration. It was characteristic of Marzio that he asked his apprentice's opinion. He was an artist, and had the chief peculiarities of artists--namely, diffidence concerning what he had done, and impatience of the criticism of others, together with a strong desire to show his work as soon as it was presentable. "It is a masterpiece!" exclaimed Gianbattista. "What detail! I shall never be able to finish anything like that cherub's face!" "Do you think it is as good as the one I made last year, Tista?" "Better," returned the young man confidently. "It is the best you have ever made. I am quite sure of it. You should always work when you are in a bad humour; you are so successful!" "Bad humour! I am always in a bad humour," grumbled Marzio, rising and walking about the brick floor, while he puffed clouds of acrid smoke from his coarse pipe. "There is enough in this world to keep a man in a bad humour all his life." "I might say that," answered Gianbattista, turning round on his stool and watching his master's angular movements as he rapidly paced the room. "I might abuse fate--but you! You are rich, married, a father, a great artist!" "What stuff!" interrupted Marzio, standing still with his long legs apart, and folding his arms as he spoke through his teeth, between which he still held his pipe. "Rich? Yes--able to have a good coat for feast-days, meat when I want it, and my brother's company when I don't want it--for a luxury, you know! Able to take my wife to Frascati on the last Thursday of October as a great holiday. My wife, too! A creature of beads and saints and little books with crosses on them--who would leer at a friar through the grating of a confessional, and who makes the house hideous with her howling if I choose to eat a bit of pork on a Friday! A good wife indeed! A jewel of a wife, and an apoplexy on all such jewels! A nice wife, who has a face like a head from a tombstone in the Campo Varano for her husband, and who has brought up her daughter to believe that her father is condemned to everlasting flames because he hates cod-fish--salt cod-fish soaked in water! A wife who sticks images in the lining of my hat to convert me, and sprinkles holy water on me Then she thinks I am asleep, but I caught her at that the other night--" "Indeed, they say the devil does not like holy water," remarked Gianbattista, laughing. "And you want to many my daughter, you young fool," continued Marzio, not heeding the interruption. "You do. I will tell you what she is like. My daughter--yes!--she has fine eyes, but she has the tongue of the--" "Of her father," suggested Gianbattista, suddenly frowning. "Yes--of her father, without her father's sense," cried Marzio angrily. "With her eyes, those fine eyes!--those eyes!--you want to marry her. If you wish to take her away, you may, and good riddance. I want no daughter; there are too many women in the world already. They and the priests do all the harm between them, because the priests know how to think too well, and women never think at all. I wish you good luck of your marriage and of your wife. If you were my son you would never have thought of getting married. The mere idea of it made you send your chisel through a cherub's eye last week and cost an hoax's time for repairing. Is that the way to look at the great question of humanity? Ah! if I were only a deputy in the Chambers, I would teach you the philosophy of all that rubbish!" "I thought you said the other day that you would not have any deputies at all," observed the apprentice, playing with his hammer. "Such as these are--no! A few of them I would put into the acid bath, as I would a casting, to clean them before chiselling them down. They might be good for something then. You must begin by knocking down, boy, if you want to build up. You must knock down everything, raze the existing system to the ground, and upon the place where it stood shall rise the mighty temple of immortal liberty." "And who will buy your chalices and monstrances under the new order of things?" inquired Gianbattista coldly. "The foreign market," returned Marzio. "Italy shall be herself again, as she was in the days of Michael Angelo; of Leonardo, who died in the arms of a king; of Cellini, who shot a prince from the walls of Saint Angelo. Italy shall be great, shall monopolise the trade, the art, the greatness of all creation!" "A lucrative monopoly!" exclaimed the young man. "Monopolies! There shall be no monopolies! The free artisan shall sell what he can make and buy what he pleases. The priests shall be turned out in chain gangs and build roads for our convenience, and the superfluous females shall all be deported to the glorious colony of Massowah! If I could but be absolute master of this country for a week I could do much." "I have no doubt of it," answered Gianbattista, with a quiet smile. "I should think not," assented Marzio proudly; then catching sight of the expression on the young man's face, he turned sharply upon him. "You are mocking me, you good-for-nothing!" he cried angrily. "You are laughing at me, at your master, you villain you wretch, you sickly hound, you priest-ridden worm! It is intolerable! It is the first time you have ever dared; do you think I am going to allow you to think for yourself after all the pains I have taken to educate you, to teach you my art, you ungrateful reptile?" "If you were not such a great artist I would have left you long ago," answered the apprentice. "Besides, I believe in your principles. It is your expression of them that makes me laugh now and then; I think you go too far sometimes!" "As if any one had ever gone far enough" exclaimed Marzio, somewhat pacified, for his moods were very quick. "Since there are still men who are richer than others, it is a sign that we have not gone to the end--to the great end in which we believe. I am sure you believe in it too, Tista, don't you?" "Oh yes--in the end--certainly. Do not let us quarrel about the means, Maestro Marzio. I must do another leaf before dinner." "I will get in another cherub's nose," said his master, preparing to relight his pipe for a whiff before going to work again. "Body of a dog, these priests!" he grumbled, as he attacked the next angel on the ewer with matchless dexterity and steadiness. A long pause followed the animated discourse of the chiseller. Both men were intent upon their work, alternately holding their breath for the delicate strokes, and breathing more freely as the chisel reached the end of each tiny curve. "I think you said a little while ago that I might marry Lucia," observed Gianbattista, without looking up, "that is, if I would take her away!" "And if you take her away," retorted the other, "where will you get bread?" "Where I get it now. I could live somewhere else and come here to work; it seems simple enough." "It seems simple, but it is not," replied Marzio. "Perhaps you could try and get Paolo's commissions away from me, and then set up a studio for yourself; but I doubt whether you could succeed. I am not old yet, nor blind, nor shaky, thank God!" "I did not catch the last words," said Gianbattista, hiding his smile over his work. "I said I was not old, nor broken down yet, thanks to my strength," growled the chiseller; "you will not steal my commissions yet awhile. What is the matter with you to-day? You find fault with half I say, and the other half you do not hear at all. You seem to have lost your head, Tista. Be steady over those acanthus leaves; everybody thinks an acanthus leaf is the easiest thing in the world, whereas it is one of the most difficult before you get to figures. Most chisellers seem to copy their acanthus leaves from the cabbage in their soup. They work as though they had never seen the plant growing. When the Greeks began to carve Corinthian capitals, they must have worked from real leaves, as I taught you to model when you were a boy. Few things are harder than a good acanthus leaf." "I should think women could do the delicate part of our work very well," said the apprentice, returning to the subject from which Marzio was evidently trying to lead him. "Lucia has such very clever fingers." "Idiot!" muttered Marzio between his teeth, not deigning to make any further answer. The distant boom of a gun broke upon the silence that followed, and immediately the bells of all the neighbouring churches rang out in quick succession. It was midday. "I did not expect to finish that nose," said Marzio, rising from his stool. He was a punctual man, who exacted punctuality in others, and in spite of his thin frame and nervous ways, he loved his dinner. In five minutes all the men had left the workshop, and Marzio and his apprentice stood in the street, the former locking the heavy door with a lettered padlock, while the younger man sniffed the fresh spring air that blew from the west out of the square of San Carlo a Catenari down the Via dei Falegnami in which the establishment of the silver-chiseller was situated. As Marzio fumbled with the fastenings of the door, two women came up and stopped. Marzio had his back turned, and Gianbattista touched his hat in silence. The younger of the two was a stout, black-haired woman of eight-and-thirty years, dressed in a costume of dark green cloth, which fitted very closely to her exuberantly-developed bust, and was somewhat too elaborately trimmed with imitation of jet and black ribands. A high bonnet, decorated with a bunch of purple glass grapes and dark green leaves, surmounted the lady's massive head, and though carefully put on and neatly tied, seemed too small for the wearer. Her ears were adorned by long gold earrings, in each of which were three large garnets, and these trinkets dangled outside and over the riband of the bonnet, which passed under her chin. In her large hands, covered with tight black gloves, she carried a dark red parasol and a somewhat shabby little black leather bag with steel fastenings. The stout lady's face was of the type common among the Roman women of the lower class--very broad and heavy, of a creamy white complexion, the upper lip shaded by a dark fringe of down, and the deep sleepy eyes surmounted by heavy straight eyebrows. Her hair, brought forward from under her bonnet, made smooth waves upon her low forehead and reappeared in thick coils at the back of her neck. Her nose was relatively small, but too thick and broad at the nostrils, although it departed but little from the straight line of the classic model. Altogether the Signora Pandolfi, christened Maria Luisa, and wife to Marzio the silver-chiseller, was a portly and pompous-looking person, who wore an air of knowing her position, and of being sure to maintain it. Nevertheless, there was a kindly expression in her fat face, and if her eyes looked sleepy they did not look dishonest. Signora Pandolfi's companion was her old maid-of-all-work, Assunta, commonly called Suntarella, without whom she rarely stirred abroad--a little old woman, in neat but dingy-coloured garments, with a grey woollen shawl drawn over her head like a cowl, instead of a bonnet. Marzio finished fastening the door, and then turned round. On seeing his wife he remained silent for a moment, looking at her with an expression of dissatisfied inquiry. He had not expected her. "Well?" he ejaculated at last. "It is dinner time," remarked the stout lady. "Yes, I heard the gun," answered Marzio drily. "It is the same as if you had told me," he added ironically, as he turned and led the way across the street. "A pretty answer!" exclaimed Maria Luisa, tossing her large head as she followed her lord and master to the door of their house. Meanwhile Assunta, the old servant, glanced at Gianbattista, rolled up her eyes with an air of resignation, and spread out her withered hands for a moment with a gesture of despair, instantly drawing them in again beneath the folds of her grey woollen shawl. "Gadding!" muttered Marzio, as he entered the narrow door from which the dark steps led abruptly upwards. "Gadding--always gadding! And who minds the soup-kettle when you are gadding, I should like to know? The cat, I suppose! Oh, these women and their priests! These priests and these women!" "Lucia is minding the soup-kettle," gasped Maria Luisa, as she puffed up stairs behind her thin and active husband. "Lucia!" cried Marzio angrily, a flight of steps higher. "I suppose you will bring her up to be woman of all work? Well, she could earn her living then, which is more than you do! After all, it is better to mind a soup-kettle than to thump a piano and to squeal so that I can hear her in the shop opposite, and it is better than hanging about the church all the morning, or listening to Paolo's drivelling talk. By all means keep her in the kitchen." It was hard to say whether Signora Pandolfi was puffing or sighing as she paused for breath upon the landing, but there was probably something of both in the labour of her lungs. She was used to Marzio. She had lived with him for twenty years, and she knew his moods and his ways, and detected the coming storm from afar. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, for her, there was little variety in the sequence of his ideas. She was accustomed to his beginning at the grumbling stage before dinner, and proceeding by a crescendo movement to the pitch of rage, which was rarely reached until he had finished his meal, when he generally seized his hat and dragged Gianbattista away with him, declaring loudly that women were not fit for human society. The daily excitement of this comedy had long lost its power to elicit anything more than a sigh from the stout Maria Luisa, who generally bore Marzio's unreasonable anger with considerable equanimity, waiting for his departure to eat her boiled beef and salad in peace with Lucia, while old Assunta sat by the table with the cat in her lap, putting in a word of commiseration alternately with a word of gossip about the lodgers on the other side of the landing. The latter were a young and happy pair: the husband, a chorus singer at the Apollo, who worked at glove cleaning during the day time; his wife, a sempstress, who did repairs upon the costumes of the theatre. Their apartments consisted of two rooms and a kitchen, while Marzio and his family occupied the rest of the floor, and entered their lodging by the opposite door. Maria Luisa envied the couple in her sleepy fashion. Her husband was indeed comparatively rich, and though economical in his domestic arrangements, he had money in the bank enough to keep him comfortably for the rest of his days. His violence did not extend beyond words and black looks, and he was not miserly about a few francs for dress, or a dinner at the Falcone two or three times a year. But in the matter of domestic peace his conduct left much to be desired. He was a sober man, but his hours were irregular, for he attended the meetings of a certain club which Maria Luisa held in abhorrence, and brought back opinions which made her cross herself with her fat fingers, shuddering at the things he said. As for Gianbattista Bordogni, who lived with them, and consequently received most of his wages in the shape of board and lodging, he loved Lucia Pandolfi, his master's daughter, and though he shared Marzio's opinions, he held his tongue in the house. He understood how necessary to him the mother's sympathy must be, and, with subtle intelligence, he knew how to create a contrast between himself and his master by being reticent at the right moment. Lucia opened the door in answer to the bell her father had rung, and stood aside in the narrow way to let members of the household pass by, one by one. Lucia was seventeen years old, and probably resembled her mother as the latter had looked at the same age. She was slight, and tall, and dark, with a quantity of glossy black hair coiled behind her head. Her black eyes had not yet acquired that sleepy look which advancing life and stoutness had put into her mother's, as a sort of sign of the difficulty of quick motion. Her figure was lithe, though she was not a very active girl, and one might have predicted that at forty she, too, would pay her debt to time in pounds of flesh. There are thin people who look as though they could never grow stout, and there are others whose leisurely motion and deliberate step foretells increase of weight. But Gianbattista had not studied these matters of physiological horoscopy. It sufficed him that Lucia Pandolfi was at present a very pretty girl, even beautiful, according to some standards. Her thick hair, low forehead, straight classic features, and severe mouth fascinated the handsome apprentice, and the intimacy which had developed between the two during the years of his residence under Marzio's roof, from the time when Lucia was a little girl to the present day, had rendered the transition from friendship to love almost imperceptible to them both. Gianbattista was the last of the party to enter the lodging, and as he paused to shut the door, Lucia was still lingering at the threshold. "Hist! They will see!" she protested under her breath. "What do I care!" whispered the apprentice, as he kissed her cheek in the dusky passage. Then they followed the rest. CHAPTER II That evening Marzio finished the last cherub's head on the ewer before he left the shop. He had sent Gianbattista home, and had dismissed the men who were working at a huge gilded grating ordered by a Roman prince for a church he was decorating. Marzio worked on by the light of a strong lamp until the features were all finished and he had indicated the pupils of the eyes with the fine-pointed punch. Then he sat some time at his bench with the beautiful piece of workmanship under his fingers, looking hard at it and straining his eyes to find imperfections that did not exist. At last he laid it down tenderly upon the stuffed leather pad and stared at the green shade of the lamp, deep in thought. The man's nature was in eternal conflict with itself, and he felt as though he were the battle-ground of forces he could neither understand nor control. A true artist in feeling, in the profound cultivation of his tastes, in the laborious patience with which he executed his designs, there was an element in his character and mind which was in direct contradiction with the essence of what art is. If art can be said to depend upon anything except itself, that something is religion. The arts began in religious surroundings, in treating religious subjects, and the history of the world from the time of the early Egyptians has shown that where genius has lost faith in the supernatural, its efforts to produce great works of lasting beauty in the sensual and material atmosphere of another century have produced comparatively insignificant results. The science of silver-chiselling began, so far as this age is concerned, in the church. The tastes of Francis the First directed the attention of the masters of the art to the making of ornaments for his mistresses, and for a time the men who had made chalices for the Vatican succeeded in making jewelry for Madame de Chateaubriand, Madame d'Etampes, and Diane de Poitiers. But the art itself remained in the church, and the marvels of _repoussé_ gold and silver to be seen in the church of Notre Dame des Victoires, the masterpieces of Ossani of Rome, could not have been produced by any goldsmith who made jewelry for a living. Marzio Pandolfi knew all this better than any one, and he could no more have separated himself from his passion for making chalices and crucifixes than he could have changed the height of his stature or the colour of his eyes. But at the same time he hated the church, the priests, and every one who was to use the beautiful things over which he spent so much time and labour. Had he been indifferent, a careless, good-natured sceptic, he would have been a bad artist. As it was, the very violence of his hatred lent spirit and vigour to his eye and hand. He was willing to work upon the figure, perfecting every detail of expression, until he fancied he could feel and see the silver limbs of the dead Christ suffering upon the cross under the diabolical skill of his long fingers. The monstrous horror of the thought made him work marvels, and the fancied realisation of an idea that would startle even a hardened unbeliever, lent a feverish impulse to this strange man's genius. As for the angels on the chalices, he did not hate them; on the contrary, he saw in them the reflection of those vague images of loveliness and innocence which haunt every artist's soul at times, and the mere manual skill necessary to produce expression in things so minute, fascinated a mind accustomed to cope with difficulties, and so inured to them as almost to love them. Nevertheless, when a man is constantly a prey to strong emotions, his nature cannot long remain unchanged. The conviction had been growing in Marzio's mind that it was his duty, for the sake of consistency, to abandon his trade. The thought saddened him, but the conclusion seemed inevitable. It was absurd, he repeated to himself, that one who hated the priests should work for them. Marzio was a fanatic in his theories, but he had something of the artist's simplicity in his idea of the way they should be carried out. He would have thought it no harm to kill a priest, but it seemed to him contemptible to receive a priest's money for providing the church with vessels which were to serve in a worship he despised. Moreover, he was not poor. Indeed, he was richer than any one knew, and the large sums paid for his matchless work went straight from the workshop to the bank, while Marzio continued to live in the simple lodgings to which he had first brought home his wife, eighteen years before, when he was but a young partner in the establishment he now owned. As he sat at the bench, looking from his silver ewer to the green lampshade, he was asking himself whether he should not give up this life of working for people he hated and launch into that larger work of political agitation, for which he fancied himself so well fitted. He looked forward into an imaginary future, and saw himself declaiming in the Chambers against all that existed, rousing the passions of a multitude to acts of destruction--of justice, as he called it in his thoughts--and leading a vast army of angry men up the steps of the Capitol to proclaim himself the champion of the rights of man against the rights of kings. His eyelids contracted and the concentrated light of his eyes was reduced to two tiny bright specks in the midst of the pupils; his nervous hand went out and the fingers clutched the jaws of the iron vice beside him as he would have wished to grapple with the jaws of the beast oppression, which in his dreams seemed ever tormenting the poor world in which he lived. There was something lacking in his face, even in that moment of secret rage as he sat alone in his workroom before the lamp. There was the frenzy of the fanatic, the exaltation of the dreamer, clearly expressed upon his features, but there was something wanting. There was everything there except the force to accomplish, the initiative which oversteps the bank of words, threats, and angry thoughts, and plunges boldly into the stream, ready to sacrifice itself to lead others. The look of power, of stern determination, which is never absent from the faces of men who change their times, was not visible in the thin dark countenance of the silver-chiseller. Marzio was destined never to rise above the common howling mob which he aspired to lead. This fact asserted itself outwardly as he sat there. After a few minutes the features relaxed, a smile that was almost weak--the smile that shows that a man lacks absolute confidence--passed quickly over his face, the light in his eyes went out, and he rose from his stool with a short, dissatisfied sigh, which was repeated once or twice as he put away his work and arranged his tools. He made the rounds of the workshop, looked to the fastenings of the windows, lighted a taper, and then extinguished the lamp. He threw a loose overcoat over his shoulders without passing his arms through the sleeves, and went out into the street. Glancing up at the windows of his house opposite, he saw that the lights were burning brightly, and he guessed that his wife and daughter were waiting for him before sitting down to supper. "Let them wait," he muttered with a surly grin, as he put out the taper and went down the street in the opposite direction. He turned the street corner by the dark Palazzo Antici Mattei, and threaded the narrow streets towards the Pantheon and the Piazza Sant' Eustachio. The weather had changed, and the damp south-east wind was blowing fiercely behind him. The pavement was wet and slippery with the strange thin coating of greasy mud which sometimes appears suddenly in Rome even when it has not rained. The insufficient gas lamps flickered in the wind as though they would go out, and the few pedestrians who hurried along clung closely to the wall as though it offered them some protection from the moist scirocco. The great doors of the palaces were most of them closed, but here and there a little red light announced a wine-shop, and as Marzio passed by he could see through the dirty panes of glass dark figures sitting in a murky atmosphere over bottles of coarse wine. The streets were foul with the nauseous smell of decaying vegetables and damp walls which the south-east wind brings out of the older parts of Rome, and while few voices were heard in the thick air, the clatter of horses' hoofs on the wet stones rattled loudly from the thoroughfares which lead to the theatres. It was a dismal night, but Marzio Pandolfi felt that his temper was in tune with the weather as he tramped along towards the Pantheon. The streets widened as he neared his destination, and he drew his overcoat more closely about his neck. Presently he reached a small door close to Sant' Eustachio, one of the several entrances to the ancient Falcone, an inn which has existed for centuries upon the same spot, in the same house, and which affords a rather singular variety of accommodation. Down stairs, upon the square, is a modern restaurant with plate-glass windows, marble floor, Vienna cane chairs, and a general appearance of luxury. A flight of steps leads to an upper story, where there are numerous rooms of every shape and dimension, furnished with old-fashioned Italian simplicity, though with considerable cleanliness. Thither resort the large companies of regular guests who have eaten their meals there during most of their lives. But there is much more room in the house than appears. The vast kitchen on the ground floor terminates in a large space, heavily vaulted and lighted by oil lamps, where rougher tables are set and spread, and where you may see the well-to-do wine-carter eating his supper after his journey across the Campagna, in company with some of his city acquaintances of a similar class. In dark corners huge wine-casks present their round dusty faces to the doubtful light, the smell of the kitchen pervades everything, tempered by the smell of wine from the neighbouring cellars; the floor is of rough stone worn by generations of cooks, potboys, and guests. Beyond this again a short flight of steps leads to a narrow doorway, passing through which one enters the last and most retired chamber of the huge inn. Here there is barely room for a dozen persons, and when all the places are full the bottles and dishes are passed from the door by the guests themselves over each other's heads, for there is no room to move about in the narrow space. The walls are whitewashed and the tables are as plain as the chairs, but the food and drink that are consumed there are the best that the house affords, and the society, from the point of view of Marzio Pandolfi and his friends, is of the most agreeable. The chiseller took his favourite seat in the corner furthest from the window. Two or three men of widely different types were already at the table, and Marzio exchanged a friendly nod with each. One was a florid man of large proportions, dressed in the height of the fashion and with scrupulous neatness. He was a jeweller. Another, a lawyer with a keen and anxious face, wore a tightly-buttoned frock coat and a black tie. Immense starched cuffs covered his bony hands and part of his fingers. He was supping on a salad, into which he from time to time poured an additional dose of vinegar. A third man, with a round hat on one side of his head, and who wore a very light-coloured overcoat, displaying a purple scarf with a showy pin at the neck, held a newspaper in one hand and a fork in the other, with which he slowly ate mouthfuls of a ragout of wild boar. He was a journalist on the staff of an advanced radical paper. "Halloa, Sor Marzio!" cried this last guest, suddenly looking up from the sheet he was reading, "here is news of your brother." "What?" asked Marzio briefly, but as though the matter were utterly indifferent to him. "Has he killed anybody, the assassin?" The journalist laughed hoarsely at the jest. "Not so bad as that," he answered. "He is getting advancement. They are going to make him a canon of Santa Maria Maggiore. It is in the _Osservatore Romano_ of this evening." "He is good for nothing else," growled Marzio. "It is just like him not to have told me anything about it." "With the sympathy which exists between you, I am surprised," said the journalist. "After all, you might convert him, and then he would be useful. He will be an archdeacon next, and then a bishop--who knows?--perhaps a cardinal!" "You might as well talk of converting the horses on Monte Cavallo as of making Paolo change his mind," replied Pandolfi, beginning to sip the white wine he had ordered. "You don't know him--he is an angel, my brother! Oh, quite an angel! I wish somebody would send him to heaven, where he is so anxious to be!" "Look out, Marzio!" exclaimed the lawyer, glancing from the vinegar cruet towards the door and then at his friend. "No such luck," returned the chiseller. "Nothing ever happens to those black-birds. When we get as far as hanging them, my dear brother will happen to be in Paris instead of in Rome. You might as well try to catch a street cat by calling to it _micio, micio_! as try and catch a priest. You may as well expect to kill a mule by kicking it as one of those animals, Burn the Vatican over their heads and think you have destroyed them like a wasps' nest, they will write you a letter from Berlin the next day saying that they are alive and well, and that Prince Bismarck protests against your proceedings." "Bravo, Sor Marzio!" cried the journalist. "I will put that in the paper to-morrow--it is a fine fulmination. You always refresh my ideas--why will you not write an article for us in that strain? I will publish it as coming from a priest who has given up his orders, married, and opened a wine-shop in Naples. What an effect! Magnificent! Do go on!" Marzio did not need a second invitation to proceed upon his favourite topic. He was soon launched, and as the little room filled, his pale and sunken cheeks grew red with excitement, his tongue was unloosed, and he poured out a continuous stream of blasphemous ribaldry such as would have shocked the ears of a revolutionist of the year '89 or of a _pétroleuse_ of the nineteenth century. It seemed as though the spring once opened would never dry. His eyes flashed, his fingers writhed convulsively on the table, and his voice rang out, ironical and cutting, with strange intonations that roused strange feelings in his hearers. It was the old subject, but he found something new to say upon it at each meeting with his friends, and they wondered where he got the imagination to construct his telling phrases and specious, virulent arguments. We have all wondered at such men. They are the outcome of this age and of no previous time, as it is also to be hoped that their like may not arise hereafter. They are found everywhere, these agitators, with their excited faces, their nervous utterances, and their furious hatred of all that is. They find their way into the parliaments of the world, into the dining-rooms of the rich, into the wine-shops of the working men, into the press even, and some of their works are published by great houses and read by great ladies, if not by great men. Suddenly, when we least expect it, a flaming advertisement announces a fiery tirade against all that the great mass of mankind hold in honour, if not in reverence. Curiosity drives thousands to read what is an insult to humanity, and even though the many are disgusted, some few are found to admire a rhetoric which exalts their own ignorance to the right of judging God. And still the few increase and grow to be a root and send out shoots and creepers like an evil plant, so that grave men say among themselves that if there is to be a universal war in our times or hereafter it will be fought by Christians of all denominations defending themselves against those who are not Christians. Marzio sat long at his table, and his modest pint of wine was enough to moisten his throat throughout the time during which he held forth. When the liquor was finished he rose, took down his overcoat from the peg on which it hung, pushed his soft hat over his eyes, and with a sort of triumphant wave of the hand, saluted his friends and left the room. He was a perfectly sober man, and no power would have induced him to overstep the narrow limit he allowed to his taste. Indeed, he did not care for wine itself, and still less for any excitement it produced in his brain. He ordered his half-litre as a matter of respect for the house, as he called it, and it served to wet his throat while he was talking. Water would have done as well. Consumed by the intensity of his hatred for the things he attacked, he needed no stimulant to increase his exaltation. When he was gone, there was silence in the room for some few minutes. Then the journalist burst into a loud laugh. "If we only had half a dozen fellows like that in the Chambers, all talking at once!" he cried. "They would be kicked into the middle of Montecitorio in a quarter of an hour," answered the thin voice of the lawyer. "Our friend Marzio is slightly mad, but he is a good fellow in theory. In practice that sort of thing must be dropped into public life a little at a time, as one drops vinegar into a salad, on each leaf. If you don't, all the vinegar goes to the bottom together, and smells horribly sour." While Marzio was holding forth to his friends, the family circle in the Via dei Falegnami was enjoying a very pleasant evening in his absence. The Signora Pandolfi presided at supper in a costume which lacked elegance, but ensured comfort--the traditional skirt and white cotton jacket of the Italian housewife. Lucia wore the same kind of dress, but with less direful effects upon her appearance. Gianbattista, as usual after working hours, was arrayed in clothes of fashionable cut, aiming at a distant imitation of the imaginary but traditional English tourist. A murderous collar supported his round young chin, and a very stiffly-constructed pasteboard-lined tie was adorned by an exquisite silver pin of his own workmanship--the only artistic thing about him. Besides these members of the family, there was a fourth person at supper, the person whom, of all others, Marzio detested, Paolo Pandolfi, his brother the priest, commonly called Don Paolo. He deserves a word of description, for there was in his face a fleeting resemblance to Marzio, which might easily have led a stranger to believe that there was a similarity between their characters. Tall, like his brother, the priest was a little less thin, and evidently far less nervous. The expression of his face was thoughtful, and the deep, heavily-ringed eyes were like Marzio's, but the forehead was broader, and the breadth ascended higher in the skull, which was clearly defined by the short, closely-cropped hair and the smooth tonsure at the back. The nose was larger and of more noble shape, and Paolo's complexion was less yellow than his brother's; the features were not surrounded by furrows or lines, and the leanness of the priest's face threw them into relief. The clean shaven upper lip showed a kind and quiet mouth, which smiled easily and betrayed a sense of humour, but was entirely free from any suggestion of cruelty. Don Paolo was scrupulous of his appearance, and his cassock and mantle were carefully brushed, and his white collar was immaculately clean. His hands were of the student type--white, square at the tips, lean, and somewhat knotty. Marzio, in his ill-humour, had no doubt flattered himself that his family would wait for him for supper. But his family had studied him and knew his ways. When he was not punctual, he seldom came at all, and a quarter of an hour was considered sufficient to decide the matter. "What are we waiting to do?" exclaimed Maria Luisa, in the odd Italian idiom. "Marzio is in his humours--he must have gone to his friends. Ah! those friends of his!" she sighed. "Let us sit down to supper," she added; and, from her tone, the idea of supper seemed to console her for her husband's absence. "Perhaps he guessed that I was coming," remarked Don Paolo, with a smile. "In that case he will be a little nervous with me when he comes back. With your leave, Maria Luisa," he added, by way of announcing that he would say grace. He gave the short Latin benediction, during which Gianbattista never looked away from Lucia's face. The boy fancied she was never so beautiful as when she stood with her hands folded and her eyes cast down. "Marzio does not know what I have come for," began Don Paolo again, as they all sat down to the square table in the little room. "If he knew, perhaps he might have been here--though perhaps he would not care very much after all. You all ask what it is? Yes; I will tell you. His Eminence has obtained for me the canonry that was vacant at Santa Maria Maggiore--" At this announcement everybody sprang up and embraced Don Paolo, and overwhelmed him with congratulations, reproaching him at the same time for having kept the news so long to himself. "Of course, I shall continue to work with the Cardinal," said the priest, when the family gave him time to speak. "But it is a great honour. I have other news for Marzio--" "I imagine that you did not count upon the canonry as a means of pleasing him," remarked the Signora, Pandolfi, with a smile. "No, indeed," laughed Lucia. "Poor papa--he would rather see you sent to be a curate in Cività Lavinia!" "Dear me! I fear so," answered Don Paolo, with a shade of sadness. "But I have a commission for him. The Cardinal has ordered another crucifix, which he desires should be Marzio's masterpiece--silver, of course, and large. It must be altogether the finest thing he has ever made, when it is finished." "I daresay he will be very much pleased," said Maria Luisa, smiling comfortably. "I wish he could make the figure solid, cast and chiselled, instead of _repoussé_," remarked Gianbattista, whose powerful hands craved heavy work by instinct. "It would be a pity to waste so much silver; and besides, the effects are never so light," said Lucia, who, like most artists' daughters, knew something of her father's work. "What is a little silver, more or less, to the Cardinal?" asked Gianbattista, with a little scorn; but as he met the priest's eye his expression instantly became grave. The apprentice was very young; he was not beyond that age at which, to certain natures, it seems a fine thing to be numbered among such men as Marzio's friends. But at the same time he was not old enough, nor independent enough, to exhibit his feelings on all occasions. Don Paolo exercised a dominant influence in the Pandolfi household. He had the advantage of being calm, grave, and thoroughly in earnest, not easily ruffled nor roused to anger, any more than he was easily hurt. By character sensitive, he bore all small attacks upon himself with the equanimity of a man who believes his cause to be above the need of defence against little enemies. The result was that he dominated his brother's family, and even Marzio himself was not free from a certain subjection which he felt, and which was one of the most bitter elements in his existence. Don Paolo imposed respect by his quiet dignity, while Marzio asserted himself by speaking loudly and working himself voluntarily into a state of half-assumed anger. In the contest between quiet force and noisy self-assertion the issue is never doubtful. Marzio lacked real power, and he felt it. He could command attention among the circle of his associates who already sympathised with his views, but in the presence of Paolo he was conscious of struggling against a superior and incomprehensible obstacle, against the cool and unresentful disapprobation of a man stronger than himself. It was many years since he had ventured to talk before his brother as he talked when he was alone with Gianbattista, and the latter saw the change that came over his master's manner before the priest, and guessed that Marzio was morally afraid. The somewhat scornful allusion to the Cardinal's supposed wealth certainly did not constitute an attack upon Don Paolo, but Gianbattista nevertheless felt that he had said something rather foolish, and made haste to ignore his words. The influence could not be escaped. It was this subtle power that Marzio resented, for he saw that it was exerted continually, both upon himself and the members of his household. The chiseller acknowledged to himself that in a great emergency his wife, his daughter, and even Gianbattista Bordogni, would most likely follow the advice of Don Paolo, in spite of his own protests and arguments to the contrary. He fancied that he himself alone was a free agent. He doubted Gianbattista, and began to think that the boy's character would turn out a failure. This was the reason why he no longer encouraged the idea of a marriage between his daughter and his apprentice, a scheme which, somewhat earlier, had been freely discussed. It had seemed an admirable arrangement. The young man promised to turn out a freethinker after Marzio's own heart, and showed a talent for his profession which left nothing to be desired. Some one must be ready to take Marzio's place in the direction of the establishment, and no one could be better fitted to undertake the task than Gianbattista. Lucia would inherit her father's money as the capital for the business, and her husband should inherit the workshop with all the stock-in-trade. Latterly, however, Marzio had changed his mind, and the idea no longer seemed so satisfactory to him as at first. Gianbattista was evidently falling under the influence of Don Paolo, and that was a sufficient reason for breaking off the match. Marzio hardly realised that as far as his outward deportment in the presence of the priest was concerned, the apprentice was only following his master's example. Marzio had been looking about him for another husband for his daughter, and he had actually selected one from among his most intimate friends. His choice had fallen upon the thin lawyer--by name Gasparo Carnesecchi--who, according to the chiseller's views, was in all respects a most excellent match. A true freethinker, a practising lawyer with a considerable acquaintance in the world of politics, a discreet man not far from forty years of age, it seemed as though nothing more were required to make a model husband. Marzio knew very well that Lucia's dowry would alone have sufficed to decide the lawyer to marry her, and an interview with Carnesecchi had almost decided the matter. Of course, he had not been able to allude to the affair this evening at the inn, when so many others were present, but the preliminaries were nearly settled, and Marzio had made up his mind to announce his intention to his family at once. He knew well enough what a storm he would raise, and, like many men who are always trying to seem stronger than they really are, he had determined to choose a moment for making the disclosure when he should be in a thoroughly bad humour. As he walked homewards from the old inn he felt that this moment had arrived. The slimy pavement, the moist wind driving through the streets and round every corner, penetrating to the very joints, contributed to make him feel thoroughly vicious and disagreeable; and the tirade in which he had been indulging before his audience of friends had loosed his tongue, until he was conscious of being able to face any domestic disturbance or opposition. The little party had adjourned from supper, and had been sitting for some time in the small room which served as a place of meeting. Gianbattista was smoking a cigarette, which he judged to be more in keeping with his appearance than a pipe when he was dressed in civilised garments, and he was drawing an elaborate ornament of arabesques upon a broad sheet of paper fixed on a board. Lucia seated at the table was watching the work, while Don Paolo sat in a straight-backed chair, his white hands folded on his knee, from time to time addressing a remark to Maria Luisa. The latter, being too stout to recline in the deep easy-chair near the empty fireplace, sat bolt upright, with her feet upon the edge of a footstool, which was covered by a tapestry of worsted-work, displaying an impossible nosegay upon a vivid green ground. They had discussed the priest's canonry, and the order for the crucifix. They had talked about the weather. They had made some remarks upon Marzio's probable disposition of mind when he should come home, and the conversation was exhausted so far as the two older members were concerned. Gianbattista and Lucia conversed in a low tone, in short, enigmatic phrases. "Do you know?" said the apprentice. "What?" inquired Lucia. "I have spoken of it to-day." Both glanced at the Signora Pandolfi. She was sitting up as straight as ever, but her heavy head was slowly bending forward. "Well?" asked the young girl "He was in a diabolical humour. He said I might take you away." Gianbattista smiled as he spoke, and looked into Lucia's eyes. She returned his gaze rather sadly, and only shook her head and shrugged her shoulders for a reply. "If we took him at his word," suggested Gianbattista. "Just so--it would be a fine affair!" exclaimed Lucia ironically. "After all, he said so," argued the young man. "What does it matter whether he meant it?" "Things are going badly for us," sighed his companion. "It was different a year ago. You must have done something to displease him, Tista. I wish I knew!" Her dark eyes suddenly assumed an angry expression, and she drew in her red lips. "Wish you knew what?" inquired the apprentice, in a colder tone. "Why he does not think about it as he used to. He never made any objections until lately. It was almost settled." Gianbattista glanced significantly at Don Paolo, shrugged his shoulders, and went on drawing. "What has that to do with it?" asked Lucia impatiently. "It is enough for your father that it would please his brother. He would hate a dog that Don Paolo liked." "What nonsense!" exclaimed the girl. "It is something else. Papa sees something--something that I do not see. He knows his own affairs, and perhaps he knows yours too, Tista. I have not forgotten the other evening." "I!" ejaculated the young man, looking up angrily. "You know very well where I was--at the Circolo Artistico. How do you dare to think--" "Why are you so angry if there is no one else in the case?" asked Lucia, with a sudden sweetness, which belied the jealous glitter in her eyes. "It seems to me that I have a right to be angry. That you should suspect me after all these years! How many times have I sworn to you that I went nowhere else?" "What is the use of your swearing? You do not believe in anything--why should you swear? Why should I believe you?" "Oh--if you talk like that, I have finished!" answered Gianbattista. "But there--you are only teasing me. You believe me, just as I believe you. Besides, as for swearing and believing in something besides you--who knows? I love you--is not that enough?" Lucia's eyes softened as they rested on the young man's face. She knew he loved her. She only wanted to be told so once more. "There is Marzio," said Don Paolo, as a key rattled in the latch of the outer door. "At this hour!" exclaimed the Signora Pandolfi, suddenly waking up and rubbing her eyes with her fat fingers. CHAPTER III Marzio, having divested himself of his heavy coat and hat, appeared at the door of the sitting-room. Everybody looked at him, as though to discern the signs of his temper, and no one was perceptibly reassured by the sight of his white face and frowning forehead. "Well, most reverend canon," he began, addressing Don Paolo, "I am in time to congratulate you, it seems. It was natural that I should be the last to hear of your advancement, through the papers." "Thank you," answered Don Paolo quietly. "I came to tell you the news." "You are very considerate," returned Marzio. "I have news also; for you all." He paused a moment, as though to give greater effect to the statement he was about to make. "I refer," he continued very slowly, "to the question of Lucia's marriage." "Indeed!" exclaimed the priest. "I am glad if it is to be arranged at last." The other persons in the room held their breath. The young girl blushed deeply under her white skin, and Gianbattista grew pale as he laid aside his pencil and shaded his eyes with his hands. The Signora Pandolfi panted with excitement and trembled visibly as she looked at her husband. His dark figure stood out strongly from the background of the shabby blue wall paper, and the petroleum lamp cast deep shadows in the hollows of his face. "Yes," he continued, "I talked yesterday with Gasparo Carnesecchi--you know, he is the lawyer I always consult. He is a clever fellow and understands these matters. We talked of the contract; I thought it better to consult him, you see, and he thinks the affair can be arranged in a couple of weeks. He is so intelligent. A marvel of astuteness; we discussed the whole matter, I say, and it is to be concluded as soon as possible. So now, my children--" Gianbattista and Lucia, seated side by side at the table, were looking into each other's eyes, and as Marzio fixed his gaze upon them, their hands joined upon the drawing-board, and an expression of happy surprise overspread their faces. Marzio smiled too, as he paused before completing the sentence. "So that now, my children," he continued, speaking very slowly, "you may as well leave each other's hands and have done with all this nonsense." The lovers looked up suddenly with a puzzled air, supposing that Marzio was jesting. "I am in earnest," he went on. "You see, Tista, that it will not be proper for you to sit and hold Lucia's hand when she is called Signora Carnesecchi, so you may as well get used to it." For a moment there was a dead silence in the room. Then Lucia and Gianbattista both sprang to their feet. "What!" screamed the young girl in an agony of terror. "Carnesecchi! what do you mean?" "_Infame!_ Wretch!" shouted Gianbattista, beside himself with rage as he sprang forward to grasp Marzio in his hands. But the priest had risen too, and placed himself between the young man and Marzio to prevent any struggle. "No violence!" he cried in a tone that dominated the angry voices and the hysterical weeping of Maria Luisa, who sat rocking herself in her chair. Gianbattista stepped back and leaned against the wall, choking with anger. Lucia fell back into her seat and covered her face with her hands. "Violence? Who wants violence?" asked Marzio in contemptuous tones. "Do you suppose I am afraid of Tista? Let him alone, Paolo; let us see whether he will strike me." The priest now turned his back on the apprentice, and confronted Marzio. He was not pale like the rest, for he was not afraid of the chiseller, and the generous flush of a righteous indignation mounted to his calm face. "You are mad," he said, meeting his brother's gaze fearlessly. "Not in the least," returned Marzio. "Lucia shall marry Gasparo Carnesecchi at once, or she shall not marry any one; what am I saying? She shall have no choice. She must and she shall marry the man I have chosen. What have you to do with it? Have you come here to put yourself between me and my family? I advise you to be careful. The law protects me from such interference, and fellows of your cloth are not very popular at present." "The law," answered the priest, controlling his wrath, "protects children against their parents. The law which you invoke provides that a father shall not force his daughter to marry against her will, and I believe that considerable penalties are incurred in such cases." "What do you know of law, except how to elude it?" inquired Marzio defiantly. Not half an hour had elapsed since he had been haranguing the admiring company of his friends, and his words came easily. Moreover, it was a long time since he had broken through the constraint he felt in Don Paolo's presence, and the opportunity having presented itself was not to be lost. "Who are you that should teach me?" he repeated, raising his voice to a strained key and gesticulating fiercely. "You, your very existence is a lie, and you are the server of lies, and you and your fellow liars would have created them if they didn't already exist, you love them so. You live by a fraud, and you want to drag everybody into the comedy you play every day in your churches, everybody who is fool enough to drop a coin into your greedy palm! What right have you to talk to men? Do you work? Do you buy? Do you sell? You are worse than those fine gentlemen who do nothing because their fathers stole our money, for you live by stealing it yourselves! And you set yourselves up as judges over an honest man to tell him what he is to do with his daughter? You fool, you thing in petticoats, you deceiver of women, you charlatan, you mountebank, go! Go and perform your antics before your altars, and leave hardworking men like me to manage their families as they can, and to marry their daughters to whom they will!" Marzio had rolled off his string of invective in such a tone, and so rapidly, that it had been impossible to interrupt him. The two women were sobbing bitterly. Gianbattista, pale and breathing hard, looked as though he would throttle Marzio if he could reach him, and Don Paolo faced the angry artist, with reddening forehead, folding his arms and straining his muscles to control himself. When Marzio paused for breath, the priest answered him with an effort. "You may insult me if it pleases you," he said, "it is nothing to me. I cannot prevent your uttering your senseless blasphemies. I speak to you of the matter in hand. I tell you simply that in treating these two, who love each other, as you are treating them, you are doing a thing unworthy of a man. Moreover, the law protects your daughter, and I will see that the law does its duty." "Oh, to think that I should have such a monster for a husband," groaned the fat Signora Pandolfi, still rocking herself in her chair, and hardly able to speak through her sobs. "You will do a bad day's work for yourself and your art when you try to separate us," said Gianbattista between his teeth. Marzio laughed hoarsely, and turned his back on the rest, beginning to fill his pipe at the chimney-piece. Don Paolo heard the apprentice's words, and understood their meaning. He went and laid his hand on the young man's shoulder. "Do not let us have any threats, Tista," he said quietly. "Sor Marzio will never do this thing--believe me, he cannot if he would." "Go on," cried Marzio, striking a match. "Go on--sow the seeds of discord, teach them all to disobey me. I am listening, my dear Paolo." "All the better, if you are," answered the priest, "for I assure you I am in earnest. You will have time to consider this thing. I have a matter of business with you, Marzio. That is what I came for this evening. If you have done, we will speak of it." "Business?" exclaimed Marzio in loud ironical tones. "This is a good time for talking of business--as good as any other! What is it?" "The Cardinal wants another piece of work done, a very fine piece of work." "The Cardinal? I will not make any more chalices for your cardinals. I am sick of chalices, and monstrances, and such stuff." "It is none of those," answered Don Paolo quietly. "The Cardinal wants a magnificent silver crucifix. Will you undertake it? It must be your greatest work, if you do it at all." "A crucifix?" repeated Marzio, in a changed tone. The angry gleam faded from his eyes, and a dreamy look came into them as he let the heavy lids droop a little, and remained silent, apparently lost in thought. The women ceased sobbing, and watched his altered face, while Gianbattista sank down into a chair and absently fingered the pencil that had fallen across the drawing-board. "Will you do it?" asked Don Paolo, at last. "A crucifix," mused the artist. "Yes, I will make a crucifix. I have made many, but I have never made one to my mind. Yes, tell the Cardinal that I will make it for him, if he will give me time." "I do not think he will need it in less than three or four months," answered Don Paolo. "Four months--that is not a long time for such a work. But I will try." Thereupon Marzio, whose manner had completely changed, puffed at his pipe until it burned freely, and then approached the table, glancing at Gianbattista and Lucia as though nothing had happened. He drew the drawing-board which the apprentice had been using towards him, and, taking the pencil from the hand of the young man, began sketching heads on one corner of the paper. Don Paolo looked at him gravely. After the words Marzio had spoken, it had gone against the priest's nature to communicate to him the commission for the sacred object. He had hesitated a moment, asking himself whether it was right that such a man should be allowed to do such work. Then the urgency of the situation, and his knowledge of his brother's character, had told him that the diversion might avert some worse catastrophe, and he had quickly made up his mind. Even now he asked himself whether he had done right. It was a question of theology, which it would have taken long to analyse, and Don Paolo had other matters to think of in the present, so he dismissed it from his mind. He wanted to be gone, and he only stayed a few minutes to see whether Marzio's mind would change again. He knew his brother well, and he was sure that no violence was to be feared from him, except in his speech. Such scenes as he had just witnessed were not uncommon in the Pandolfi household, and Don Paolo did not believe that any consequence was to be expected after he had left the house. He only felt that Marzio had been more than usually unreasonable, and that the artist could not possibly mean seriously what he had proposed that evening. The priest did not indeed think that Gianbattista was altogether good enough for Lucia. The boy was occasionally a little wild in his speech, and though he was too much in awe of Don Paolo to repeat before him any of the opinions he had learned from his master, his manner showed occasionally that he was inclined to take the side of the latter in most questions that arose. But the habit of controlling his feelings in order not to offend the man of the church, and especially in order not to hurt Lucia's sensitive nature, had begun gradually to change and modify the young man's character. From having been a devoted admirer of Marzio's political creed and extreme free thought, Gianbattista had fallen, into the way of asking questions of the chiseller, to see how he would answer them; and the answers had not always satisfied him. Side by side with his increasing skill in his art, which led him to compare himself with his teacher, there had grown up in the apprentice the habit of comparing himself with Marzio from the intellectual point of view as well as from the artistic. The comparison did not appear to him advantageous to the elder man, as he discovered, in his way of thinking, a lack of logic on the one hand, and a love of frantic exaggeration on the other, which tended to throw a doubt upon the whole system of ideas which had produced these defects. The result was that the young man's mental position was unbalanced, and he was inclined to return to a more normal condition of thought. Don Paolo did not know all this, but he saw that Gianbattista had grown more quiet during the last year, and he hoped that his marriage with Lucia would complete the change. To see her thrown into the arms of a man like Gasparo Carnesecchi was more than the priest's affection for his niece could bear. He hardly believed that Marzio would seriously think again of the scheme, and he entertained a hope that the subject would not even be broached for some time to come. Marzio continued to draw in silence, and after a few minutes, Don Paolo rose to take his leave. The chiseller did not look up from his pencil. "Good-night, Marzio--let it be a good piece of work," said Paolo. "Good-night," growled the artist, his eyes still fixed on the paper. His brother saluted the rest and left the room to go home to his lonely lodgings at the top of an old palace, in the first floor of which dwelt the Cardinal, whom he served as secretary. When he was gone, Lucia rose silently and went to her room, leaving her father and mother with Gianbattista. The Signora Pandolfi hesitated as to whether she should follow her daughter or stay with the two men. Her woman's nature feared further trouble, and visions of drawn knives rose before her swollen eyes, so that, after making as though she would rise twice, she finally remained in her seat, her fat hands resting idly upon her knees, staring at her husband and Gianbattista. The latter sat gloomily watching the paper on which his master was drawing. "Marzio, you do not mean it?" said Maria Luisa, after a long interval of silence. The good woman did not possess the gift of tact. "Do you not see that I have an idea?" asked her husband crossly, by way of an answer, as he bent his head over his work. "I beg your pardon," said the Signora Pandolfi, in a humble tone, looking piteously at Gianbattista. The apprentice shook his head, as though he meant that nothing could be done for the present. Then she rose slowly, and with a word of good-night as she turned to the door, she left the room. The two men were alone. "Now that nobody hears us, Sor Marzio, what do you mean to do?" asked Gianbattista in a low voice. Marzio shrugged his shoulders. "What I told you," he answered, after a few seconds. "Do you suppose that rascally priest of a brother has made me change my mind?" "No, I did not expect that, but I am not a priest; nor am I a boy to be turned round your fingers and put off in this way--sent to the wash like dirty linen. You must answer to me for what you said this evening." "Oh, I will answer as much as you please," replied the artist, with an evil smile. "Very well. Why do you want to turn me out, after promising for years that I should marry Lucia with your full consent when she was old enough?" "Why? because you have turned yourself out, to begin with. Secondly, because Carnesecchi is a better match for my daughter than a beggarly chiseller. Thirdly, because I please; and fourthly, because I do not care a fig whether you like it or not. Are those reasons sufficient or not?" "They may satisfy you," answered Gianbattista. "They leave something to be desired in the way of logic, in my humble opinion." "Since I have told you that I do not care for your opinion--" "I will probably find means to make you care for it," retorted the young man. "Don Paolo is quite right, in the first place, when he tells you that the thing is simply impossible. Fathers do not compel their daughters to marry in this century. Will you do me the favour to explain your first remark a little more clearly? You said I had turned myself out--how?" "You have changed, Tista," said Marzio, leaning back to sharpen his pencil, and staring at the wall. "You change every day. You are not at all what you used to be, and you know it. You are going back to the priests. You fawn on my brother like a dog." "You are joking," answered the apprentice. "Of course I would not want to make trouble in your house by quarrelling with Don Paolo, even if I disliked him. I do not dislike him. This evening he showed that he is a much better man than you." "Dear Gianbattista," returned Marzio in sour tones, "every word you say convinces me that I have done right. Besides, I am busy--you see--you disturb my ideas. If you do not like my house, you can leave it. I will not keep you. I daresay I can educate another artist before I die. You are really only fit to swing a censer behind Paolo, or at the heels of some such animal." "Perhaps it would be better to do that than to serve the mass you sing over your work-bench every day," said Gianbattista. "You are going too far, Sor Marzio. One may trifle with women and their feelings. You had better not attempt it with men." "Such as you and Paolo? There was once a mule in the Pescheria Vecchia; when he got half-way through he did not like the smell of the fish, and he said to his leader, 'I will turn back.' The driver pulled him along. Then said the mule, 'Do not trifle with me. I will turn round and kick you.' But there is not room for a mule to turn round in the Pescheria Vecchia. The mule found it out, and followed the man through the fish market after all. I hope that is clear? It means that you are a fool." "What is the use of bandying words?" cried the apprentice angrily. "I will offer you a bargain, Sor Marzio. I will give you your choice. Either I will leave the house, and in that case I will carry off Lucia and marry her in spite of you. Or else I will stay here--but if Lucia marries any one else, I will cut your throat. Is that a fair bargain?" "Perfectly fair, though I cannot see wherein the bargain consists," answered Marzio, with a rough laugh. "I prefer that you should stay here. I will run the risk of being murdered by you, any day, and you may ran the risk of being sent to the galleys for life, if you choose. You will be well cared for there, and you can try your chisel on paving-stones for a change from silver chalices." "Never mind what becomes of me afterwards, in that case," said the young man. "If Lucia is married to some one else, I do not care what happens. So you have got your warning!" "Thank you. If you had remained what you used to be, you might have married her without further difficulty. But to have you and Lucia and Maria Luisa and Paolo all conspiring against me from morning till night is more than I can bear. Good-night, and the devil be with you, you fool!" "_Et cum spiritu tuo_," answered Gianbattista as he left the room. When Marzio was alone he returned to the head he was drawing--a head of wonderful beauty, inclined downwards and towards one side, bearing a crown of thorns, the eyelids drooped and shaded in death. He glanced at it with a bitter smile and threw aside the pencil without making another stroke upon the paper. He leaned back, lighted another pipe, and began to reflect upon the events of the evening. He was glad it was over, for a strange weakness in his violent nature made it hard for him to face such scenes unless he were thoroughly roused. Now, however, he was satisfied. For a long time he had seen with growing distrust the change in Gianbattista's manner, and in the last words he had spoken to the apprentice he had uttered what was really in his heart. He was afraid of being altogether overwhelmed by the majority against him in his own house. He hated Paolo with his whole soul, and he had hated him all his life. This calm, obliging brother of his stood between him and all peace of mind. It was not the least of his grievances that he received most of his commissions through the priest who was constantly in relation with the cardinal and rich prelates who were the patrons of his art. The sense of obligation which he felt was often almost unbearable, and he longed to throw it off. The man whom he hated for his own sake and despised for his connection with the church, was daily in his house; at every turn he met with Paolo's tacit disapprobation or outspoken resistance. For a long time Paolo had doubted whether the marriage between the two young people would turn out well, and while he expressed his doubts Marzio had remained stubborn in his determination. Latterly, and doubtless owing to the change in Gianbattista's character, Paolo had always spoken of the marriage with favour. This sufficed at first to rouse Marzio's suspicions, and ultimately led to his opposing with all his might what he had so long and so vigorously defended; he resolved to be done with what he considered a sort of slavery, and at one stroke to free himself from his brother's influence, and to assure Lucia's future. During several weeks he had planned the scene which had taken place that evening, waiting for his opportunity, trying to make sure of being strong enough to make it effective, and revolving the probable answers he might expect from the different persons concerned. It had come, and he was satisfied with the result. Marzio Pandolfi's intelligence lacked logic. In its place he possessed furious enthusiasm, an exaggerated estimate of the value of his social doctrines, and a whole vocabulary of terms by which to describe the ideal state after which he hankered. But though he did not possess a logic of his own, his life was itself the logical result of the circumstances he had created. As, in the diagram called the parallelogram of forces, various conflicting powers are seen to act at a point, producing an inevitable resultant in a fixed line, so in the plan of Marzio's life, a number of different tendencies all acted at a centre, in his overstrained intelligence, and continued to push him in a direction he had not expected to follow, and of which even now he was far from suspecting the ultimate termination. He had never loved his brother, but he had loved his wife with all his heart. He had begun to love Lucia when she was a child. He had felt a sort of admiring fondness for Gianbattista Bordogni, and a decided pride in the progress and the talent of the apprentice. By degrees, as the prime mover, his hatred for Paolo, gained force, it had absorbed his affection for Maria Luisa, who, after eighteen years of irreproachable wifehood, seemed to Marzio to be nothing better than an accomplice and a spy of his brother's in the domestic warfare. Next, the lingering love for his child had been eaten up in the same way, and Marzio said to himself that the girl had joined the enemy, and was no longer worthy of his confidence. Lastly, the change in Gianbattista's character and ideas seemed to destroy the last link which bound the chiseller to his family. Henceforth, his hand was against each one of his household, and he fancied that they were all banded together against himself. Every step had followed as the inevitable consequence of what had gone before. The brooding and suspicious nature of the artist had persisted in seeing in each change in himself the blackest treachery in those who surrounded him. His wife was an implacable enemy, his daughter a spy, his apprentice a traitor, and as for Paolo himself, Marzio considered him the blackest of villains. For all this chain of hatreds led backwards, and was concentrated with tenfold virulence in his great hatred for his brother. Paolo, in his estimation, was the author of all the evil, the sole ultimate cause of domestic discord, the arch enemy of the future, the representative, in Marzio's sweeping condemnation, not only of the church and of religion, but of that whole fabric of existing society which the chiseller longed to tear down. Marzio's socialism, for so he called it, had one good feature. It was sincere of its kind, and disinterested. He was not of the common herd, a lazy vagabond, incapable of continuous work, or of perseverance in any productive occupation, desiring only to be enriched by impoverishing others, one of the endless rank and file of Italian republicans, to whom the word "republic" means nothing but bread without work, and the liberty which consists in howling blasphemies by day and night in the public streets. His position was as different from that of a private in the blackguard battalion as his artistic gifts and his industry were superior to those of the throng. He had money, he had talent, and he had been very successful in his occupation. He had nothing to gain by the revolutions he dreamed of, and he might lose much by any upsetting of the existing laws of property. He was, therefore, perfectly sincere, so far as his convictions went, and disinterested to a remarkable degree. These conditions are often found in the social position of the true fanatic, who is the more ready to run to the greatest length, because he entertains no desire to better his own state. Marzio's real weakness lay in the limited scope of his views, and in a certain timid prudence which destroyed his power of initiative. He was an economical man, who distrusted the future; and though such a disposition produces a good effect in causing a man to save money against the day of misfortune, it is incompatible with the career of the true enthusiast, who must be ready to risk everything at any moment. The man who would move other men, and begin great changes, must have an enormous belief in himself, an unbounded confidence in his cause, and a large faith in the future, amounting to the absolute scorn of consequence. These greater qualities Marzio did not possess, and through lack of them the stupendous results of which he was fond of talking had diminished to a series of domestic quarrels, in which he was not always victorious. His hatred of the church was practically reduced to the detestation of his brother, and to an unreasoning jealousy of his brother's influence in his home. His horror of social distinctions, which speculated freely upon the destruction of the monarchy, amounted in practice to nothing more offensive than a somewhat studious rudeness towards the few strangers of high position who from time to time visited the workshop in the Via dei Falegnami. In the back room of his inn, Marzio could find loud and cutting words in which to denounce the Government, the monarchy, the church, and the superiority of the aristocracy. In real fact, Marzio took off his hat when he met the king in the street, paid his taxes with a laudable regularity, and increased the small fortune he had saved by selling sacred vessels to the priests against whom he inveighed. Instead of burning the Vatican and hanging the College of Cardinals to the pillars of the Colonnade, Marzio Pandolfi felt a very unpleasant sense of constraint in the presence of the only priest with whom he ever conversed, his brother Paolo. When, on very rare occasions, he broke out into angry invective, and ventured to heap abuse upon the calm individual who excited his wrath, he soon experienced the counter-shock in the shape of a strong conviction that he had injured his position rather than bettered it, and the melancholy conclusion forced itself upon him that by abusing Paolo he himself lost influence in his own house, and not unfrequently called forth the contempt of those he had sought to terrify. The position was galling in the extreme; for, like many artists who are really remarkable in their profession, Marzio was very vain of his intellectual superiority in other branches. It may be a question whether vanity is not essential to any one who is forced to compete in excellence with other gifted men. Vanity means emptiness, and in the case of the artist it means that emptiness which craves to be filled with praise. The artist may doubt his own work, but he is bitterly disappointed if other people doubt it also. Marzio had his full share of this kind of vanity, which, as in most cases, extended beyond the sphere of his art. How often does one hear two or three painters or sculptors who are gathered together in a studio, laying down the law concerning Government, society, and the distribution of wealth. And yet, though they make excellent statues and paint wonderful pictures, there are very few instances on record of artists having borne any important part in the political history of their times. Not from any want of a desire to do so, in many cases, but from the real want of the power; and yet many of them believe themselves far more able to solve political and social questions than the men who represent them in the Parliament of their country, or the persons who by innate superiority of tact have made themselves the arbiters of society. Marzio's vanity suffered terribly, for he realised the wide difference that existed between his aims and the result actually produced. For this reason he had determined to bring matters to a point of contention in his household, in order to assert once and for all the despotic authority which he believed to be his right. He knew well enough that in proposing the marriage of Lucia with Carnesecchi, he had hit upon a plan which Paolo would oppose with all his might. It seemed as though he could not have selected a question more certain to produce a hot contention. He had brought forward his proposal boldly, and had not hesitated to make a most virulent personal attack on his brother when the latter had shown signs of opposition. And yet, as he sat over his drawing board, staring at the clouds of smoke that rose from his pipe, he was unpleasantly conscious that he had not been altogether victorious, that he had not played the part of the despot to the end, as he had intended to do, that he had suddenly felt his inferiority to Paolo's calmness, and that upon hearing of the proposition concerning the crucifix he had acted as though he had received a bribe to be quiet. He bit his thin lips as he reflected that all the family must have supposed his silence from that moment to have been the effect of the important commission which Paolo had communicated to him; for it seemed impossible that they should understand the current of his thoughts. As he glanced at the head he had drawn he understood himself better than others had understood him, for he saw on the corner of the paper the masterly sketch of an ideal Christ he had sought after for years without ever reaching it. He knew that that ideal had presented itself to his mind at the very moment when Paolo had proposed the work to him--the result perhaps, of the excitement under which he laboured at the moment. From that instant he had been able to think of nothing. He had been impelled to draw, and the expression of his thought had driven everything else out of his mind. Paolo had gained a fancied victory by means of a fancied bribe. Marzio determined to revenge himself for the unfair advantage his brother had then taken, by showing himself inflexible in his resolution concerning the marriage. It was but a small satisfaction to have braved Gianbattista's boyish threats, after having seemed to accept the bribe of a priest. CHAPTER IV On the following morning, Marzio left the house earlier than usual Gianbattista had not finished his black coffee, and was not in a humour to make advances to his master, after the scene of the previous evening. So he did not move from the table when the chiseller left the room, nor did he make any remark upon the hour. The door that led to the stairs had hardly closed after Marzio, when Lucia put her head into the room where Gianbattista was seated. "He is gone," said the young man; "come in, we can talk a few minutes." "Tista," began, Lucia, coming forward and laying her fingers on his curly hair, "what did all that mean last night? Have you understood?" "Who understands that lunatic!" exclaimed Gianbattista, passing his arm round the girl's waist, and drawing her to him. "I only understand one thing, we must be married as soon as possible and be done with it. Is it not true, Lucia?" "I hope so," answered his companion, with a blush and a sigh. "But I am so much afraid." "Do not be afraid, leave it all to me, I will protect you, my darling," replied the young man, tapping his breast with the ready gesture of an Italian, as though to prove his courage. "Oh, I am sure of that! But how can it be managed? Of course he cannot force me to marry Carnesecchi, as Uncle Paolo explained to him. But he will try, and he is so bad!" "Let him try, let him try," repeated Gianbattista. "I made a bargain with him last night after you had gone to bed. Do you know what I told him? I told him that I would stay with him, but that if you married any one but me, I would cut his throat--Sor Marzio's throat, do you understand?" "Oh, Tista!" cried Lucia. "How did you ever have the courage to tell him such a thing? Besides, you know, you would not do it, would you?" "Do not trouble yourself, he saw I was in earnest, and he will think twice about it. Besides, he said yesterday that I might have you if I would take you away." "A nice thing for a father to say of his daughter!" exclaimed the girl angrily. "And what did you answer him then, my love?" "Oh! I said that I had not the slightest objection to the proceeding. And then he tried to prove to me that we should starve without him, and then he swore at me like a Turk. What did it matter? He said I was changed. By Diana! Any man would change, just for the sake of not being like him!" "How do you mean that you are changed, dear?" asked Lucia anxiously. "Who knows? He said I fawned on Don Paolo like a dog, instead of hating the priests as I used to do. What do you think, love?" "I think Uncle Paolo would laugh at the idea," answered the girl, smiling herself, but rather sadly. "I am afraid you are as bad as ever, in that way." "I am not bad, Lucia. I begin to think I like Don Paolo. He was splendid last night. Did you see how he stared your father out of countenance, and then turned him into a lamb with the order for the crucifix? Don Paolo has a much stronger will than Sor Marzio, and a great deal more sense. He will make your father change his mind." "Of course it would be for the better if we could be married without any objection, and I am very glad you are growing fond of Uncle Paolo. But I have seen it for some time. He is so good!" "Yes. That is the truth," answered Gianbattista in meditative tone. "He is too good. It is not natural. And then he has a way of making me feel it. Now, I would have strangled Sor Marzio last night if your uncle had not been there, but he prevented me. Of course he was right. Those people always are. But one hates to be set right by a priest. It is humiliating!" "Well, it is better than not to be set right at all," said Lucia. "You see, if you had strangled poor papa, it would have been dreadful! Oh, Tista, promise me that you will not do anything violent! Of course he is very unkind, I know. But it would be terrible if you were to be angry and hurt him. You will not, Tista? Tell me you will not?" "We shall see; we shall see, my love!" "You do not love me if you will not promise." "Oh, if that is all, my love, I will promise never to lay a finger on him until you are actually married to some one else. But then--" Gianbattista made the gesture which means driving the knife into an enemy. "Then you may do anything you please," answered Lucia, with a laugh. "He will never make me marry any one but you. You know that, my heart!" "In that case we ought to be married very soon," argued the young man. "We need not live here, you know. Indeed, it would be out of the question. We will take one of those pretty little places in the new quarter--" "That is so far away," interrupted the girl. "Yes, but there is the tramway, and there are omnibuses. It only takes a quarter of an hour." "But you would be so far from me all day, my love. I could not run into the studio at all hours, and you would not come home for dinner. Oh! I could not bear it!" "Very well, we will try and find something near here," said Gianbattista, yielding the point. "We will get a little apartment near the Minerva, where there is sun." "And we will have a terrace on the top of the house, with pots of carnations." "And red curtains on rings, that we can draw; it is such a pretty light when the sun shines through them." "And green wall paper with blue furniture," suggested Lucia. "It is so gay." "Or perhaps the furniture of the same colour as the paper--you know they have it so in all fashionable houses." "Well, if it is really the fashion, I suppose we must," assented the girl rather regretfully. "Yes, it is the fashion, my heart, and you must have everything in the fashion. But I must be going," added the young man, rising from his seat. "Already? It is early, Tista--" she hesitated, "Dear Tista," she began again, her dark eyes resting anxiously on his face, "what will you say to him in the workshop? You will tell him that I would rather die than marry Carnesecchi, that we are solemnly promised, that nothing shall part us! You will make him see reason, Tista, will you not? I cannot go to him, or I would; and mamma, poor mamma, is so afraid of him when he is in his humours. There are only you and Uncle Paolo to manage him; and after the way he insulted Uncle Paolo last night, it will be all the harder. Think of it, Tista, while you are at work, and bring me word when you come to dinner." "Never fear, love," replied Gianbattista confidently; "what else should I think of while I am hammering away all day? A little kiss, to give me courage." In a moment he was gone, and his quick step resounded on the stairs as he ran down, leaving Lucia at the door above, to catch the last good-bye he called up to her when he reached the bottom. His fresh voice came up to her mingled with the rattle of the lumbering carts in the street. She answered the cry and went in. Just then the sleepy Signora Pandolfi emerged from her chamber, clad in the inevitable skirt and white cotton jacket, her heavy black hair coiled in an irregular mass on the top of her head, and held in place by hair-pins that seemed to be on the point of dropping out. "Ah, Lucia, my darling! Such a night as I have passed!" she moaned, sinking into a chair beside the table, on which the coffee-pot and the empty cups were still standing. "Such a night, my dear! I have not closed an eye. I am sure it is the last judgment! And this scirocco, too, it is enough to kill one!" "Courage, mamma," answered Lucia gaily. "Things are never so bad as they seem." "Oh, that monster, that monster!" groaned the fat lady. "He would make an angel lose his patience! Imagine, my dear, he insists that you shall be married in a fortnight, and he has left me money to go and buy things for your outfit! Oh dear! What are we to do? I shall go mad, my dear, and you will all have to take me to Santo Spirito! Oh dear! Oh dear! This scirocco!" "I think papa will go mad first," said Lucia. "I never heard of such an insane proposition in my life. All in a moment too--I think I am to marry Tista--papa gets into a rage and--_patatunfate!_ a new husband--like a conjuror's trick, such a comedy! I expected to see the door open at every minute, Pulcinella walk in and beat everybody with a blown bladder! But Uncle Paolo did quite as well." "Oh, my head!" complained the Signora Pandolfi. "I have not slept a wink!" "And then it was shameful to see the way papa grew quiet and submissive when Uncle Paolo gave him the order for the crucifix! If it had been anybody but papa, I should have said that a miracle had been performed. But poor papa! No--the miracle of the soldi--that is the truth. I would like to catch sight of the saint who could work a miracle on papa! Capers, what a saint he would have to be!" "Bacchus!" ejaculated Maria Luisa, "San Filippo Neri would be nowhere! The Holy Father would have to make a saint on purpose to convert that monster! A saint who should have nothing else to do. Oh, how hot it is! My head is splitting. What are we to do, Lucia, my heart? Tell me a little what we are to do--two poor women--all alone--oh dear!" "In the first place, it needs courage, mamma," answered Lucia, "and a cup of coffee. It is still hot, and you have not had any--" "Coffee! Who thinks of coffee?" cried the Signora Pandolfi, taking the cup from her daughter's hands, and drinking the liquid with more calmness than might have been anticipated. "That is right," continued the girl. "Drink, mamma, it will do you good. And then, and then--let me see. And then you must talk to Suntarella about the dinner. That old woman has no head--" "Dinner!" cried the mother, "who thinks of dinner at such a time? And he left me the money for the outfit, too! Lucia, my love, I have the fever--I will go to bed." "Eh! What do you suppose? That is a way out of all difficulties," answered Lucia philosophically. "But you cannot go out alone--" "I will stay at home in that case." "And then he will come to dinner, and ask to see the things--" "There will be no things to show him," returned the young girl. "Well? And then where should we be?" inquired the Signora Pandolfi. "I see him, my husband, coming back and finding that nothing has been done! He would tear his hair! He would kill us! He would bring his broomstick of a lawyer here to marry you this very afternoon, and what should we have gained then? It needs judgment, Lucia, my heart--judgment, judgment!" repeated the fat lady, tapping her forehead. "Eh! If you have not enough for two, mamma, I do not know what we shall do." "At the same time, something must be done," mused Maria Luisa. "My head is positively bursting! We might go out and buy half a dozen handkerchiefs, just to show him that we have begun. Do you think a few handkerchiefs would quiet him, my love? You could always use them afterwards--a dozen would be too many--" "Bacchus!" exclaimed Lucia, "I have only one nose." "It is a pity," answered her mother rather irrelevantly. "After all, handkerchiefs are the cheapest things, and if we spread them out, all six, on the green sofa, they will make a certain effect--these men! One must deceive them, my child." "Suppose we did another thing," began Lucia, looking out of the window. "We might get some things--in earnest, good things. They will always do for the wedding with Tista. Meanwhile, papa will of course have to change his mind, and then it will be all right." "What genius!" cried the Signora Pandolfi. "Oh, Lucia! You have found it! And then we can just step into the workshop on our way--that will reassure your father." "Perhaps, after all, it would be better to go and tell him the truth," said Lucia, beginning to walk slowly up and down the room. "He must know it, sooner or later." "Are you mad, Lucia?" exclaimed her mother, holding up her hands in horror. "Just think how he would act if you went and faced him!" "Then why not go and find Uncle Paolo?" suggested the girl. "He will know what is best to be done, and will help us, you may be sure. Of course, he expected to see us before anything was done in the matter. But I am not afraid to face papa all alone. Besides, Tista is talking to him at this very minute. I told him all he was to say, and he has so much courage!" "I wish I had as much," moaned the Signora Pandolfi, lapsing into hesitation. "Come, mamma, I will decide for you," said Lucia. "We will go and find Uncle Paolo, and we will do exactly as he advises." "After all, that is best," assented her mother, rising slowly from her seat. Half an hour later they left the house upon their errand, but they did not enter the workshop on their way. Indeed, if they had, they would have been surprised to find that Marzio was not there, and that Gianbattista was consequently not talking to him as Lucia had supposed. When Gianbattista reached the workshop, he was told that Marzio had only remained five minutes, and had gone away so soon as everybody was at work. He hesitated a moment, wondering whether he might not go home again and spend another hour in Lucia's company; but it was not possible to foretell whether Marzio would be absent during the whole morning, and Gianbattista decided to remain. Moreover, the peculiar smell of the studio brought with it the idea of work, and with the idea came the love of the art, not equal, perhaps, to the love of the woman but more familiar from the force of habit. All men feel such impressions, and most of all those who follow a fixed calling, and are accustomed to do their work in a certain place every day. Théophile Gautier confessed in his latter days that he could not work except in the office of the _Moniteur_--elsewhere, he said, he missed the smell of the printers' ink, which brought him ideas. Artists know well the effect of the atmosphere of the studio. Five minutes of that paint-laden air suffice to make the outer world a mere dream, and to recall the reality of work. There was an old dressing-gown to which Thackeray was attached as to a friend, and which he believed indispensable to composition. Balzac had his oval writing-room, when he grew rich, and the creamy white colour of the tapestries played a great part in his thoughts. The blacksmith loves the smoke of the forge and the fumes of hot iron on the anvil, and the chiseller's fingers burn to handle the tools that are strewn on the wooden bench. Gianbattista stood at the door of the studio, and had he been master instead of apprentice, he could not have resisted the desire to go to his place and take up the work he had left on the previous evening. In a few minutes he was hammering away as busily as though there were no such thing as marriage in the world, and nothing worth living for but the chiselling of beautiful arabesques on a silver ewer. His head was bent over his hands, his eyes followed intently the smallest movements of the tool he held, he forgot everything else, and became wholly absorbed in his occupation. Nevertheless, much of a chiseller's work is mechanical, and as the smooth iron ran in and out of the tiny curves under the gentle tap of the hammer, the young man's thoughts went back to the girl he had left at the top of the stairs a quarter of an hour earlier; he thought of her, as he did daily, as his promised wife, and he fell to wondering when it would be, and how it would be. They often talked of the place in which they would live, as they had done that morning; and as neither of them was very imaginative, there was a considerable similarity between the speculations they indulged in at one time and at another. It was always to be a snug home, high up, with a terrace, pots of carnations, and red curtains. Their only difference of opinion concerned the colour of the walls and furniture. Like most Italians, they had very little sense of colour, and thought only of having everything gay, as they called it; that is to say, the upholstery was to be chosen of the most vivid hues, probably of those horrible tints known as aniline. Italians, as a rule, and especially those who belong to the same class as the Pandolfi family, have a strong dislike for the darker and softer tones. To them anything which is not vivid is sad, melancholy, and depressing to the senses. Gianbattista saw in his mind's eye a little apartment after his own heart, and was happy in the idea. But, as he followed the train of thought, it led him to the comparison of the home to which he proposed to take his wife with the one in which they now lived under her father's roof, and suddenly the scene of the previous evening rose clearly in the young man's imagination. He dropped his hammer, and stared up at the grated windows. He went over the whole incident, and perhaps for the first time realised its true importance, and all the danger there might be in the future should Marzio attempt to pursue his plan to the end. Gianbattista had only once seen the lawyer who was thus suddenly thrust into his place. He remembered a thin, cadaverous man, in a long and gloomy black coat, but that was all. He did not recall his voice, nor the expression of his face; he had only seen him once, and had thought little enough of the meeting. It seemed altogether impossible, and beyond the bounds of anything rational, that this stranger should ever really be brought forward to be Lucia's husband. For a moment the whole thing looked like an evil dream, and Gianbattista smiled as he looked down again at his work. Then the reality of the occurrence rose up again and confronted him stubbornly. He was not mistaken, Marzio had actually pronounced those words, and Don Paolo had sprung forward to prevent Gianbattista from attacking his master then and there. The young man looked at his work, holding his tools in his hands, but hesitating to lay the point of the chisel on the silver, as he hesitated to believe the evidence of his memory. CHAPTER V Marzio had risen early that morning, as has been said, and had left the house before any one but Gianbattista was up. He was in reality far from inclined to drink his coffee in the company of his apprentice, and would have avoided it, if possible. Nor did he care to meet Lucia until he had found time and occasion to refresh his anger. His wife was too sleepy to quarrel, and hardly seemed to understand him when he gave her money and bade her look to Lucia's outfit, adding that the wedding was to take place immediately. "Will you not let me sleep in peace, even in the morning?" she groaned. "Magari! I wish you would sleep, and for ever!" growled Marzio, as he left the room. He drank his coffee in silence, and went out. After looking into the workshop he walked slowly away in the direction of the Capitol. The damp morning air was pleasant to him, and the gloomy streets through which he passed were agreeable to his state of feeling. He wished Home might always wear such a dismal veil of dampness, scirocco, and cloud. A man in a bad humour will go out of his way to be rained upon and blown against by the weather. We would all like to change our surroundings with our moods, to fill the world with sunshine when we are happy, and with clouds when we have stumbled in the labyrinths of life. Lovers wish that the whole earth might be one garden, crossed and recrossed by silent moonlit paths; and when love has taken the one and left the other, he who stays behind would have his garden changed to an angry ocean, and the sweet moss banks to storm-beaten rocks, that he may drown in the depths, or be dashed to pieces by the waves, before he has had time to know all that he has lost. As we grow older, life becomes the expression of a mood, according to the way we have lived. He who seeks peace will find that with advancing age the peaceful moment, that once came so seldom, returns more readily, and that at last the moments unite to make hours, and the hours to build up days and years. He who stoops to petty strife will find that the oft-recurring quarrel has power to perpetuate the discontented weakness out of which it springs, and that it can make all life a hell. He who rejoices in action will learn that activity becomes a habit, and at last excludes the possibility of rest, and the desire for it; and his lot is the best, for the momentary gladness in a great deed well done is worth a millennium of sinless, nerveless tranquillity. The positive good is as much better than the negative "non-bad," as it is better to save a life than not to destroy a life. But whatever temper of mind we choose will surely become chronic in time, and will be known to those among whom we live as our temper, our own particular temper, as distinguished from the tempers of other people. Marzio had begun life in a bad humour. He delighted in his imaginary grievances, and inflicted his anger on all who came near him, only varying the manifestation of it to suit the position in which he chanced to find himself. With his wife he was overbearing; with his brother he was insolent; with his apprentice he was sullen; and with his associates at the old Falcone he played the demagogue. The reason of these phases was very simple. His wife could not oppose him, Don Paolo would not wrangle with him, Gianbattista imposed upon him by his superior calm and strength of character, and, lastly, his socialist friends applauded him and nattered his vanity. It is impossible for a weak man to appear always the same, and his weakness is made the more noticeable when he affects strength. The sinews of goodness are courage, moral and physical, a fact which places all really good men and women beyond the reach of ridicule and above the high-water mark of the world's contempt. Marzio lacked courage, and his virulence boiled most hotly when he had least to fear for his personal safety. It was owing to this innate weakness that such a combination of artistic sensitiveness and spasmodic arrogance was possible. The man's excitable imagination apprehended opposition where there was none, and his timidity made him fear a struggle, and hate himself for fearing it. As soon as he was alone, however, his thoughts generally returned to his art, and found expression in the delicate execution of the most exquisite fancies. Under other circumstances his character might have developed in a widely different way; his talent would still have been the same. There is a sort of nervous irritability which acts as a stimulant upon the faculties, and makes them work faster. With Marzio this unnatural state was chronic, and had become so because he had given himself up to it. It is a common disease in cities, where a man is forced to associate with his fellow-men, and to compete with them, whether he is naturally inclined to do so or not. If Marzio could have exercised his art while living as a hermit on the top of a lonely mountain he might have been a much better man. He almost understood this himself as he walked slowly through the Via delle Botteghe Oscure--"the street of dark shops"--in the early morning. He was thinking of the crucifix he was to make, and the interest he felt in it made him dread the consequences of the previous night's domestic wrangling. He wanted to be alone, and at the same time he wanted to see places and things which should suggest thoughts to him. He did not care whither he went so long as he kept out of the new Rome. When he reached the little garden in front of San Marco he paused, looked at the deep doorway of the church, remembered the barbarous mosaics within, and turned impatiently into a narrow street on the right--the beginning of the Via di Marforio. The network of by-ways in this place is full of old-time memories. Here is the Via Giulio Romano, where the painter himself once lived; here is the Macel dei Corvi, where Michael Angelo once lodged; hard by stood the statue of Marforio, christened by the mediæval Romans after _Martis Forum_, and famous as the interlocutor of Pasquino. The place was a centre of artists and scholars in those days. Many a simple question was framed here, to fit the two-edged biting answer, repeated from mouth to mouth, and carefully written down among Pasquino's epigrams. First of all the low-born Roman hates all that is, and his next thought is to express his hatred in a stinging satire without being found out. Like every real Roman, Marzio thought of old Marforio as he strolled up the narrow street towards the Capitol, and regretted the lawless days of conspiracy and treacherous deeds when every man's hand was against his fellow. He wandered on, his eyes cast down, and his head bent. Some one jostled against him, walking quickly in the opposite direction. He looked up and recognised Gasparo Carnesecchi's sallow face and long nose. "Eh! Sor Marzio--is it you?" asked the lawyer. "I think so," answered the artist. "Excuse me, I was thinking of something." "No matter. Of what were you thinking, then? Of Pasquino?" "Why not? But I was thinking of something else. You are in a hurry, I am sure. Otherwise we would speak of that affair." "I am never in a hurry when there is business to be treated," replied Carnesecchi, looking down the street and preparing to listen. "You know what I mean," Marzio began. "The matter we spoke of two days ago--my plans for my daughter." The lawyer glanced quickly at his friend and assumed an indifferent expression. He was aware that his position, was socially superior to that of the silver-chiseller, in spite of Marzio's great talent. But he knew also that Lucia was to have a dowry, and that she would ultimately inherit all her father possessed. A dowry covers a multitude of sins in the eyes of a man to whom money is the chief object in life. Carnesecchi, therefore, meant to extract as many thousands of francs from Marzio as should be possible, and prepared himself to bargain. The matter was by no means settled, in spite of the chiseller's instructions to his wife concerning the outfit. "We must talk," said Carnesecchi. "Not that I should be altogether averse to coming easily to an understanding, you know. Bat there are many things to be considered. Let us see." "Yes, let us see," assented the other. "My daughter has education. She is also sufficiently well instructed. She could make a fine marriage. But then, you see, I desire a serious person for my son-in-law. What would you have? One must be prudent." It is not easy to define exactly what a Roman means by the word "serious." In some measure it is the opposite of gay, and especially of what is young and unsettled. The German use of the word Philistine expresses it very nearly. A certain sober, straitlaced way of looking at life, which was considered to represent morality in Rome fifty years ago; a kind of melancholy superiority over all sorts of amusements, joined with a considerable asceticism and the most rigid economy in the household--that is what was meant by the word "serious." To-day its signification has been slightly modified, but a serious man--_un uomo serio_--still represents to the middle-class father the ideal of the correct son-in-law. "Eh, without prudence!" exclaimed Carnesecchi, elliptically, as though to ask where he himself would have been had he not possessed prudence in abundance. "Exactly," answered Marzio, biting off the end of a common cigar and fixing his eyes on the lawyer's thin, keen face. "Precisely. I think--of course I do not know--but I think that you are a serious man. But then, I may be mistaken." "Well, it is human to err, Sor Marzio. But then, I am no longer of that age--what shall I say? Everybody knows I am serious. Do I lead the life of the café? Do I wear out my shoes in Piazza Colonna? Capers! I am a serious man." "Yes," answered Marzio, though with some hesitation, as though he were prepared to argue even this point with the sallow-faced lawyer. He struck a match on the gaudy little paper box he carried and began to smoke thoughtfully. "Let us make a couple of steps," he said at last. Both men moved slowly on for a few seconds, and then stopped again. In Italy "a couple of steps" is taken literally. "Let us see," said Carnesecchi. "Let us look at things as they are. In these days there are many excellent opportunities for investing money." "Hum!" grunted Marzio, pulling a long face and looking up under his eyebrows. "I know that is your opinion, Sor Gasparo. I am sorry that you should put so much faith in the stability of things. So you, too, have got the malady of speculation. I suppose you are thinking of building a Palazzo Carnesecchi out at Sant' Agnese in eight floors and thirty-two apartments." "Yes, I am mad," answered the lawyer ironically. "Who knows?" returned the other. "I tell you they are building a Pompeii in those new quarters. When you and I are old men, crazy Englishmen will pay two francs to be allowed to wander about the ruins." "It may be. I am not thinking of building. In tine first place I have not the _soldi_." "And if you had?" inquired Marzio. "What nonsense! Besides, no one has. It is all done on credit, and the devil take the hindmost. But if I really had a million--eh! I know what I would do." "Let us hear. I also know what I would do. Besta! What is the use of building castles in the air?" "In the air, or not in the air, if I had a million, I know what I would do." "I would have a newspaper," said Marzio. "Whew! how it would sting!" "It would sting you, and bleed you into the bargain," returned the lawyer with some contempt. "No one makes mosey out of newspapers in these times. If I had money, I would be a deputy. With prudence there is much to be earned in the Chambers, and petitioners know that they must pay cash." "It is certainly a career," assented the artist "But, as you say, it needs money for the first investment." "Not so much as a million, though. With a good opening, and some knowledge of the law, a small sum would be enough." "It is a career, as I said," repeated Marzio. "But five thousand francs would not give you an introduction to it." "Five thousand francs!" exclaimed Carnesecchi, with a scornful laugh. "With five thousand francs you had better play at the lottery. After all, if you lose, it is nothing." "It is a great deal of money, Sor Gasparo," replied the chiseller. "When you have made it little by little--then you know what it means." "Perhaps. But we have been standing here more than a quarter of an hour, and I have a client waiting for me about a big affair, an affair of millions." "Bacchus!" ejaculated Marzio. "You are not in a hurry about the matter. Well, we can always talk, and I will not keep you." "We might walk together, and say what we have to say." "I am going to the Capitol," Marzio said, for he had been walking in that direction when they met. "That is my way, too," answered the lawyer, forgetting that he had run into Marzio as he came down the street. "Eh! That is lucky," remarked the artist with an almost imperceptible smile. "As I was saying," he continued, "five thousand francs is not the National Bank, but it is a very pretty little sum, especially when there is something more to be expected in the future." "That depends on the future. But I do not call it a sum. Nothing under twenty thousand is a sum, properly speaking." "Who has twenty thousand francs?" laughed Marzio, shrugging his shoulders with an incredulous look. "You talk as though Rome were an asylum for paupers," returned Carnesecchi. "Who has twenty thousand francs? Why, everybody has. You have, I have. One must be a beggar not to have that much. After all, we are talking about business, Sor Marzio. Why should I not say it? I have always said that I would not marry with less than that for a dowry. Why should one throw away one's opportunities? To please some one? It is not my business to try and please everybody. One must be just." "Of course. What? Am I not just? But if justice were done, where would some people be? I say it, too. If you marry my daughter, you will expect a dowry. Have I denied it? And then, five thousand is not so little. There is the outfit, too; I have to pay for that." "That is not my affair," laughed the lawyer. "That is the business of the woman. But five thousand francs is not my affair either. Think of the responsibilities a man incurs when he marries! Five thousand! It is not even a cup of coffee! You are talking to a _galantuomo_, an honest man, Sor Marzio. Reflect a little." "I reflect--yes! I reflect that you ask a great deal of money, Signer Carnesecchi," replied Marzio with some irritation. "I never heard that anybody gave money unless it was asked for." "It will not be for lack of asking if you do not get it," retorted the artist. "What do you mean, Signor Pandolfi?" inquired Carnesecchi, drawing himself up to his full height and then striking his hollow chest with his lean hand. "Do you mean that I am begging money of you? Do you mean to insult an honest man, a _galantuomo_? By heaven, Signor Pandolfi, I would have you know that Gasparo Carnesecchi never asked a favour of any man! Do you understand? Let us speak clearly." "Who has said anything?" asked Marzio. "Why do you heat yourself in this way? And then, after all, we shall arrange this affair. You wish it. I wish it. Why should it not be arranged? If five thousand does not suit you, name a sum. We are Christians--we will doubtless arrange. But we must talk. How much should you think, Sor Gasparo?" "I have said it. As I told you just now, I have always said that I would not marry with less than eighteen thousand francs of dowry. What is the use of repeating? Words are not roasted chestnuts." "Nor eighteen thousand francs either," answered the other. "Magari! I wish they were. You should have them in a moment. But a franc is a franc." "I did not say it was a cabbage," observed Carnesecchi. "After all, why should I marry?" "Perhaps you will not," suggested Marzio, who was encouraged to continue the negotiations, however, by the diminution in the lawyer's demands. "Why not?" asked the latter sharply, "Do you think nobody else has daughters?"' "If it comes to that, why have you not married before?" "Because I did not choose to marry," answered Carnesecchi, beginning to walk more briskly, as though to push the matter to a conclusion. Marzio said nothing in reply. He saw that his friend was pressing him, and understood that, to do so, the lawyer must be anxious to marry Lucia. The chiseller therefore feigned indifference, and was silent for some minutes. At the foot of the steps of the Capitol he stopped again. "You know, Sor Gasparo," he said, "the reason why I did not arrange about Lucia's marriage a long time ago, was because I was not particularly in a hurry to have her married at all. And I am not in a hurry now, either. We shall have plenty of opportunities of discussing the matter hereafter. Good-bye, Sor Gasparo. I have business up there, and that client of yours is perhaps impatient about his millions." "Good-bye," answered Carnesecchi. "There is plenty of time, as you say. Perhaps we may meet this evening at the Falcone." "Perhaps," said Marab drily, and turned away. He had a good understanding of his friend's character, and though in his present mood he would have been glad to fix the wedding day, and sign the marriage contract at once, he had no intention of yielding to Carnesecchi's exorbitant demands. The lawyer was in need of money, Marzio thought, and as he himself was the possessor of what the other coveted, there could be little doubt as to the side on which the advantage would ultimately be taken. Marzio went half-way up the steps of the Capitol, and then stopped to look at the two wretched wolves which the Roman municipality thinks it incumbent on the descendants of Romulus to support. He thought one of them very like Carnesecchi. He watched the poor beasts a moment or two as they tramped and swung and pressed their lean sides against the bars of their narrow cage. "What a sympathetic animal it is!" he exclaimed aloud. A passer-by stared at him and then went on hurriedly, fearing that he might be mad. Indeed, there was a sort of family likeness between the lawyer, the chiseller, and the wolves. Other thoughts, however, occupied Marzio's attention; and as soon as he was sure that his friend was out of the way, he descended the steps. He did not care whither he went, but he had no especial reason for climbing the steep ascent to the Capitol. The crucifix his brother had ordered from him on the previous evening engaged his attention, and it was as much for the sake of being alone and of thinking about the work that he had taken his solitary morning walk, as with the hope of finding in some church a suggestion or inspiration which might serve him. He knew what was to be found in Roman churches well enough; the Crucifixion in the Trinità dei Pellegrini and the one in San Lorenzo in Lucina--both by Guido Reni, and both eminently unsympathetic to his conception of the subject--he had often looked at them, and did not care to see them again. At last he entered the Church of the Gesù, and sat down upon a chair in a corner. He did not look up. The interior of the building was as familiar to him as the outside. He sat in profound thought, occasionally twisting his soft hat in his hands, and then again remaining quite motionless. He did not know how long he stayed there. The perfect silence was pleasant to him, and when he rose he felt that the idea he had sought was found, and could be readily expressed. With a sort of sigh of satisfaction he went out again into the air and walked quickly towards his workshop. The men told him that Gianbattista was busy within, and after glancing sharply at the work which was proceeding, Marzio opened the inner door and entered the studio. He strode up to the table and took up the body of the ewer, which lay on its pad where he had left it the night before. He held it in his hands for a moment, and then, pushing the leather cushion towards Gianbattista, laid it down. "Finish it," he said shortly; "I have something else to do." The apprentice looked up in astonishment, as though he suspected that Marzio was jesting. "I am afraid--" he answered with hesitation. "It makes no difference; finish it as best you can; I am sick of it; you will do it well enough. If it is bad, I will take the responsibility." "Do you mean me really to finish it--altogether?" "Yes; I tell you I have a great work on hand. I cannot waste my time over such toys as acanthus leaves and cherubs' eyes!" He bent down and examined the thing carefully. "You had better lay aside the neck and take up the body just where I left it, Tista," he continued. "The scirocco is in your favour. If it turns cold to-morrow the cement may shrink, and you will have to melt it out again." Marzio spoke to him as though there had not been the least difference between them, as though Gianbattista had not proposed to cut his throat the night before, as though he himself had not proposed to marry Carnesecchi to Lucia. "Take my place," he said. "The cord is the right length for you, as it is too short for me. I am going to model." Without more words Marzio went and took a large and heavy slate from the corner, washed it carefully, and dried it with his handkerchief. Then he provided himself with a bowl full of twisted lengths of red wax, and with a couple of tools he sat down to his work. Gianbattista, having changed his seat, looked over the tools his master had been using, with a workman's keen glance, and, taking up his own hammer, attacked the task given him. For some time neither of the men spoke. "I have been to church," remarked Marzio at last, as he softened a piece of wax between his fingers before laying it on the slate. The news was so astounding that Gianbattista uttered an exclamation of surprise. "You need not be frightened," answered the artist. "I only went to look at a picture, and I did not look at it after all. I shall go to a great many more churches before I have finished this piece of work. You ought to go to the churches and study, Tista. Everything is useful in our art--pictures, statues, mosaics, metal-work. Now I believe there is not a really good crucifix, nor a crucifixion, in Rome. It is strange, too, I have dreamed of one all my life." Gianbattista did not find any answer ready in reply to the statement. The words sounded so strangely in Marzio's mouth this morning, that the apprentice was confused. And yet the two had often discussed the subject before. "You do not seem to believe me," continued Marzio quietly. "I assure you it is a fact. The other things of the kind are not much better either. Works of art, perhaps, but not satisfactory. Even Michael Angelo's _Pietà_ in Saint Peter's does not please me. They say it did not please the people of his time either--he was too young to do anything of that sort--he was younger than you, Tista, only twenty-four years old when he made that statue." "Yes," answered Gianbattista, "I have heard you say so." He bent over his work, wondering what his master meant by this declaration of taste. It seemed as though Marzio felt the awkwardness of the situation and was exerting himself to make conversation. The idea was so strange that the apprentice could almost have laughed. Marzio continued to soften the wax between his fingers, and to lay the pieces of it on the slate, pressing them roughly into the shape of a figure. "Has Paolo been here?" asked the master after another long pause. Gianbattista merely shook his head to express a negative. "Then he will come," continued Marzio. "He will not leave me in peace all day, you may be sure." "What should he come for? He never comes," said the young man. "He will be afraid that I will have Lucia married before supper time. I know him--and he knows me." "If he thinks that, he does not know you at all," answered Gianbattista quietly. "Indeed?" exclaimed Marzio, raising his voice to the ironical tone he usually affected when any one contradicted him. "To-day, to-morrow, or the next day, what does it matter? I told you last night that I had made up my mind." "And I told you that I had made up mine." "Oh yes--boy's threats! I am not the man to be intimidated by that sort of thing. Look here, Tista, I am in earnest. I have considered this matter a long time; I have determined that I will not be browbeaten any longer by two women and a priest--certainly not by you. If things go on as they are going, I shall soon not be master in my own house." "You would be the only loser," retorted Gianbattista. "Have done with this, Tista!" exclaimed Marzio angrily. "I am tired of your miserable jokes. You have gone over to the enemy, you are Paolo's man, and if I tolerate you here any longer it is merely because I have taught you something, and you are worth your wages. As for the way I have treated you during all these years, I cannot imagine how I could have been such a fool. I should think anybody might see through your hypocritical ways." "Go on," said Gianbattista calmly. "You know our bargain of last night" "I will risk that. If I see any signs of your amiable temper I will have you arrested for threatening my life. I am not afraid of you, my boy, but I do not care to die just at present. You have all had your way long enough, I mean to have mine now." "Let us talk reasonably, Sor Marzio. You say we have had our way. You talk as though you had been in slavery in your own house. I do not think that is the opinion of your wife, nor of your daughter. As for me, I have done nothing but execute your orders for years, and if I have learnt something, it has not been by trying to overrule you or by disregarding your advice. Two years ago, you almost suggested to me that I should marry Lucia. Of course, I asked nothing better, and we agreed to wait until she was old enough. We discussed the matter a thousand times. We settled the details. I agreed to go on working for the same small wages instead of leaving you, as I might have done, to seek my fortune elsewhere. You see I am calm, I acknowledge that I was grateful to you for having taught me so much, and I am grateful still. You have just given me another proof of your confidence in putting this work into my hands to finish. I am grateful for that. Well, we have talked of the marriage often; I have lived in your house; I have seen Lucia every day, for you have let us be together as much as we pleased; the result is that I not only am more anxious to marry her than I was before--I love her; I am not ashamed to say so. I know you laugh at women and say they are no better than monkeys with parrots' heads. I differ from you. Lucia is an angel, and I love her as she loves me. What happens? One day you take an unreasonable dislike for me, without even warning me of the fact, and then, suddenly, last night, you come home and say she is to marry the Avvocato Gasparo Carnesecchi. Now, for a man who has taught me that there is no God but reason, all this strikes me as very unreasonable. Honestly, Sor Marzio, do you not think so yourself?" Marzio looked at his apprentice and frowned, as though hesitating whether to lose his temper and launch into the invective style, or to answer Gianbattista reasonably. Apparently he decided in favour of the more peaceable course. "It is unworthy of a man who follows reason to lose his self-control and indulge in vain threats," he answered, assuming a grand didactic air. "You attempt to argue with me. I will show you what argument really means, and whither it leads. Now answer me some questions, Tista, and I will prove that you are altogether in the wrong. When a man is devoted to a great and glorious cause, should he not do everything in his power to promote its success against those who oppose it?" "Undoubtedly," assented Gianbattista. "And should not a man be willing to sacrifice his individual preferences in order to support and to further the great end of his life?" "Bacchus! I believe it!" "Then how much the more easy must it be for a man to support his cause when there are no individual preferences in the way!" said Marzio triumphantly. "That is true reason, my boy. That is the inevitable logic of the great system." "I do not understand the allegory," answered Gianbattista. "It is as simple as roasted chestnuts," returned Marzio. "Even if I liked you, it would be my duty to prevent you from marrying Lucia. As I do not like you--you understand?" "I understand that," replied the young man. "For some reason or other you hate me. But, apart from the individual preferences, which you say it is your duty to overcome, I do not see why you are morally obliged to hinder our marriage, after having felt morally obliged to promote it?" "Because you are a traitor to the cause," cried Marzio, with sudden fierceness. "Because you are a friend of Paolo. Is not that enough?" "Poor Don Paolo seems to stick in your throat," observed Gianbattista. "I do not see what he has done, except that he prevented me from killing you last night!" "Paolo! Paolo is a snake, a venomous viper! It is his business, his only aim in life, to destroy my peace, to pervert my daughter from the wholesome views I have tried to teach her, to turn you aside from the narrow path of austere Italian virtue, to draw you away from following in the footsteps of Brutus, of Cassius, of the great Romans, of me, your teacher and master! That is all Paolo cares for, and it is enough--more than enough! And he shall pay me for his presumptuous interference, the villain!" Marzio's voice sank into a hissing whisper as he bent over the wax he was twisting and pressing. Gianbattista glanced at his pale face, and inwardly wondered at the strange mixture of artistic genius, of bombastic rhetoric and relentless hatred, all combined in the strange man whom destiny had given him for a master. He wondered, too, how he had ever been able to admire the contrasts of virulence and weakness, of petty hatred and impossible aspirations which had of late revealed themselves to him in a new light. Have we not most of us assisted at the breaking of the Image of Baal, at the destruction of an imaginary representative of an illogical ideal? "Well, Sor Marzio," said Gianbattista after a pause, "if I were to return to my worship of you and your principles--what would you do? Would you take me back to your friendship and give me your daughter?" Marzio looked up suddenly, and stared at the apprentice in surprise. But the fresh young face gave no sign. Gianbattista had spoken quietly, and was again intent upon his work. "If you gave me a proof of your sincerity," answered Marzio, in low tones, "I would do much for you. Yes, I would give you Lucia--and the business too, when I am too old to work. But it must be a serious proof--no child's play." "What do you call a serious proof? A profession of faith?" "Yes--sealed with the red wax that is a little thicker than water," answered Marzio grimly, his eyes still fixed on Gianbattista's face. "In blood," said the young man calmly. "Whose blood would you like, Sor Marzio?" "Paolo's!" The chiseller spoke in a scarcely audible whisper, and bent low over his slate, modelling hard at the figure under his fingers. "I thought so," muttered Gianbattista between his teeth. Then he raised his voice a little and continued: "And have you the courage, Sor Marzio, to sit there and bargain with me to kill your brother, bribing me with the offer of your daughter's hand? Why do you not kill him yourself, since you talk of such things?" "Nonsense, my dear Tista--I was only jesting," said the other nervously. "It is just like your folly to take me in earnest." The anger had died out of Marzio's voice and he spoke almost persuasively. "I do not know," answered the young man. "I think you were in earnest for a moment. I would not advise you to talk in that way before any one else. People might interpret your meaning seriously." "After all, you yourself were threatening to cut my throat last night," said Marzio, with a forced laugh. "It is the same thing. My life is as valuable as Paolo's. I only suggested that you should transfer your tender attentions from me to my brother." "It is one thing to threaten a man to his face. It is quite another to offer a man a serious inducement to commit murder. Since you have been so very frank with me, Sor Marzio, I will confess that if the choice lay between killing you, or killing Don Paolo, under the present circumstances I would not hesitate a moment." "And which would you--" "Neither," replied the young man, with a cool laugh. "Don Paolo is too good to be killed, and you are not good enough. Come and look at the cherub's head I have made." CHAPTER VI Lucia's cheerfulness was not genuine, and any one possessing greater penetration than her mother would have understood that she was, in reality, more frightened than she was willing to show. The girl had a large proportion of common sense, combined with a quicker perception than the stout Signora Pandolfi. She did not think that she knew anything about logic, and she had always shown a certain inconsistency in her affection for Gianbattista, but she had nevertheless a very clear idea of what was reasonable, a quality which is of immense value in difficulties, though it is very often despised in every-day life by people who believe themselves blessed by the inspirations of genius. It seems very hard to make people of other nationalities understand that the Italians of the present day are not an imaginative people. It is nevertheless true, and it is only necessary to notice that they produce few, if any, works of imagination. They have no writers of fiction, no poets, few composers of merit and few artists who rank with those of other nations. They possessed the creative faculty once; they have lost it in our day, and it does not appear that they are likely to regain it. On the other hand, the Italians are remarkable engineers, first-rate mathematicians, clever, if unscrupulous, diplomatists. Though they overrate their power and influence, they have shown a capacity for organisation which is creditable on the whole. If they fail to obtain the position they seek in Europe, their failure will have been due to their inordinate vanity and over-governing, if I may coin the word, rather than to an innate want of intelligence. The qualities and defects of the Italian nation all existed in the Pandolfi family. Marzio possessed more imagination than most of his countrymen, and he had, besides, that extraordinary skill in his manual execution of his work, which Italians have often exhibited on a large scale. On the other hand, he was full of bombastic talk about principles which he called great. His views concerning society, government, and the future of his country, were entirely without balance, and betrayed an amazing ignorance of the laws which, direct the destinies of mankind. He suffered in a remarkable degree from that mental disease which afflicts Italians--the worship of the fetish--of words which mean little, and are supposed to mean much, of names in history which have been exalted by the rhetoric of demagogues from the obscurity to which they had been wisely consigned by the judgment of scholars. He was alternately weak and despotic, cunning about small things which concerned his own fortunes, and amazingly foolish about the set of ideas which he loosely defined as politics. Lucia's nature illustrated another phase of the Italian character, and one which, if it is less remarkable, is much more agreeable. She possessed the character which looks at everything from the point of view of daily life. Without imagination, she regarded only the practical side of existence. Her vanity was confined to a modest wish to make the best of her appearance, while her ambition went no further than the strictest possibility, in the shape of a marriage with Gianbattista Bordogni, and a simple little apartment with a terrace and pots of pinks. Had she known how much richer her father was than she suspected him of being, the enlargement of her views for the future would have been marked by a descent, from the fourth story of the house which was to be her imaginary home, to the third story. It could never have entered her head that Gianbattista ought to give up his profession until he was too old to work any longer. In her estimation, the mere possession of money could not justify a change of social position. She had been accustomed from her childhood to hear her father air his views in regard to the world in general, but his preaching had produced but little impression upon her. When he thought she was listening in profound attention to his discourse, she was usually wishing that he could be made to see the absurdity of his theories. She wished also that he would sacrifice some of his enthusiasm for the sake of a little more quiet in the house, for she saw that his talking distressed her mother. Further than this she cared little what he said, and not at all for what he thought. Her mind was generally occupied with the one subject which absorbed her thoughts, and which had grown to be by far the most important part of her nature, her love for Gianbattista Bordogni. Upon that point she was inflexible. Her Uncle Paolo might have led her to change her mind in regard to many things, for she was open to persuasion where her common sense was concerned. But in her love for Gianbattista she was fixed and determined. It would have been more easy to turn her father from his ideas than to make Lucia give up the man she loved. When Marzio had suddenly declared that she should marry the lawyer, her first feeling had been one of ungovernable anger which had soon found vent in tears. During the night she had thought the matter over, and had come to the conclusion that it was only an evil jest, invented by Marzio to give her pain. But in the morning it seemed to her as though on the far horizon a black cloud of possible trouble were gathering; she had admitted to herself that her father might be in earnest, and she had felt something like the anticipation of the great struggle of her life. Then she felt that she would die rather than submit. She had no theatrical desire to swear a fearful oath with Gianbattista that they should drown themselves at the Ponte Quattro Capi rather than be separated. Her nature was not dramatic, any more than his. The young girl dressed herself quickly, and made up her mind that if any pressure were brought to bear upon her she would not yield, but that, until then, there was no use in making phrases, and it would be better to be as cheerful as possible under the circumstances. But for Lucia's reassuring manner, the Signora Pandolfi would have doubtless succumbed to her feelings and gone to bed. Lucia, however, had no intention of allowing her mother any such weakness, and accordingly alternately comforted her and suggested means of escape from the position, as though she were herself the mother and Maria Luisa were her child. They found Don Paolo in his small lodging, and he bid them enter, that they might all talk the matter over. "In the first place," said the priest, "it is wrong. In the second place it is impossible. Thirdly, Marzio will not attempt to carry out his threat." "Dear me! How simple you make it seem!" acclaimed the Signora Pandolfi, reviving at his first words, like a tired horse when he sees the top of the hill. "But if papa should try and force me to it--what then?" asked Lucia, who was not so easily satisfied. "He cannot force you to it, my child--the law will not allow him to do so. I told you so last night" "But the law is so far off--and he is so violent" answered the young girl. "Never fear," said Don Paolo, reassuring her. "I will manage it all. These will be a struggle, perhaps; but I will make him see reason. He had been with his friends last night, and his mind was excited; he was not himself. He will have thought differently of it this morning;" "On the contrary," put in the Signora Pandolfi, "he waked me up at daylight and gave me a quantity of money to go and buy Lucia's outfit. And he will come home at midday and ask to see the things I have brought, and so I thought perhaps we had better buy something just to show him--half a dozen handkerchiefs--something to make a figure, you understand?" Don Paolo smiled, and Lucia looked sympathetically from him to her mother. "I am afraid that half a dozen handkerchiefs would have a bad effect," said the priest. "Either he would see that you are not in earnest, and then he would be very angry, or else he would be deceived and would think that you were really buying the outfit. In that case you would have done harm. This thing must not go any further. The idea must be got out of his head as soon as possible." "But if I do nothing at all before dinner he will be furious--he will cry out that we are all banded together against him--" "So we are," said Don Paolo simply. "Oh dear, oh dear!" moaned the Signora Pandolfi, looking for her handkerchief in the anticipation of fresh tears. "Do not cry, mamma. It is of no use," said Lucia. "No, it is of no use to cry," assented the priest. "There is nothing to be done but to go and face Marzio, and not leave him until he has changed his mind. You are afraid to meet him at midday. I will go now to the workshop and find him." "Oh, you are an angel, Paolo!" cried Maria Luisa, regaining her composure and replacing her handkerchief in her pocket. "Then we need not buy anything? What a relief!" "I told you Uncle Paolo would know what to do," said Lucia. "He is so good--and so courageous. I would not like to face papa this morning. Will you really go, Uncle Paolo?" The young girl went and took down his cloak and hat from a peg on the wall, and brought them to him. "Of course I will go, and at once," he answered. "But I must give you a word of advice." "We will do everything you tell us," said the two women together. "You must not ask him any questions, nor refer to the matter at all when he comes home." "Diana! I would as soon speak of death!" exclaimed the Signora Pandolfi. "And if he begins to talk about it you must not answer him, nor irritate him in any way." "Be easy about that," answered the fat lady. "Never meddle with sleeping dogs--I know." "If he grows very angry you must refer him to me." "Oh, but that is another matter! I would rather offer pepper to a cat than talk to him of you. You would see how he would curse and swear and call you by bad names." "Well, you must not do anything to make him swear, because that would be a sin; but if he only abuses me, I do not mind. He will do that when I talk to him. Perhaps after all, if he mentions the matter, you had better remain silent." "Eh! that will be easy. He talks so much, and he talks so fast, never waiting for an answer. But are you not afraid for yourself, dear Paolo?" "Oh, he will not hurt me--I am not afraid of him," answered the priest. "He will talk a little, he will use some big words, and then it will be finished. You see, it is not a great thing, after all. Take courage, Maria Luisa, it will be a matter of half an hour." "Heaven grant it may be only that!" murmured Marzio's wife, turning up her eyes, and rising from her chair. Lucia, who, as has been said, had a very keen appreciation of facts, did not believe that things would go so smoothly. "You had better come back with him to our house when it is all over," she said, "just to give us a sign that it is settled, you know, Uncle Paolo." Don Paolo himself had his doubts about the issue, although he put such a brave face on it, and in spite of the Signora Pandolfi. That good lady was by nature very sincere, but she always seemed to bring an irrelevant and comic element into the proceedings. The result of the interview was that, in half an hour, Don Paolo knocked at the door of the workshop in the Via dei Falegnami, where Marzio and Gianbattista were at work. The chiseller's voice bade him enter. Don Paolo had not found much time to collect his thoughts before he reached the scene of battle, but his opinion of the matter in hand was well formed. He loved his niece, and he had begun to like Gianbattista. He knew the lawyer, Carnesecchi, by reputation, and what he had heard of him did not prejudice him in the man's favour. It would have been the same had Marzio chosen any one else. In the priest's estimation, Gianbattista had a right to expect the fulfilment of the many promises which had been made to him. To break those promises for no ostensible reason, just as Gianbattista seemed to be growing up to be a sensible man, was an act of injustice which Don Paolo would not permit if he could help it. Gianbattista was not, perhaps, a model man, but, by contrast with Marzio, he seemed almost saintly. He had a good disposition and no vices; married to Lucia and devoted to his art, much might be expected of him. On the other hand, Gasparo Carnesecchi represented the devil in person. He was known to be an advanced freethinker, a radical, and, perhaps, worse than a radical--a socialist. He was certainly not very rich, and Lucia's dowry would be an object to him; he would doubtless spend the last copper of the money in attempting to be elected to the Chambers. If he succeeded, he would represent another unit in that ill-guided minority which has for its sole end the subversion of the existing state of things. He would probably succeed in getting back the money he had spent, and more also, by illicit means. If he failed, the money would be lost, and he would go from bad to worse, intriguing and mixing himself up with the despicable radical press, in the hope of getting a hearing and a place. There is a scale in the meaning of the word socialist. In France it means about the same thing as a communist, when one uses plain language. When one uses the language of Monsieur Dramont, it means a Jew. In England a socialist is equal to a French conservative republican. In America it means a thief. In Germany it means an ingenious individual of restricted financial resources, who generally fails to blow up some important personage with wet dynamite. In Italy a socialist is an anarchist pure and simple, who wishes to destroy everything existing for the sake of dividing a wealth which does not exist at all. It also means a young man who orders a glass of water and a toothpick at a _café_, and is able to talk politics for a considerable time on this slender nourishment. Signor Succi and Signor Merlatti have discovered nothing new. Their miracles of fasting may be observed by the curious at any time in a Roman _café_. Don Paolo regarded the mere idea of an alliance with Gasparo Carnesecchi as an outrage upon common sense, and when he entered Marzio's workshop he was determined to say so. Marzio looked up with an air of inquiry, and Gianbattista foresaw what was coming. He nodded to the priest, and brought forward the old straw chair from the corner; then he returned to his work in silence. "You will have guessed my errand," Don Paolo began, by way of introducing his subject. "No," answered Marzio doggedly. "Something about the crucifix, I suppose." "Not at all," returned the priest, folding his hands over the handle of his umbrella. "A much more delicate matter. You suggested last night an improbable scheme for marrying Lucia." "You had better say that I told you plainly what I mean to do. If you have come to talk about that, you had better talk to the workmen outside. They may answer you. I will not!" Don Paolo was not to be so easily put off. He waited a moment as though to give Marzio time to change his mind, and then proceeded. "There are three reasons why this marriage will not take place," he said. "In the first place, it is wrong--that is my point of view. In the second place, it is impossible--and that is the view the law takes of it. Thirdly, it will not take place because you will not attempt to push it. What do you say of my reasons, Marzio?" "They are worthy of you," answered the artist. "In the first place, I do not care a fig for what you think is wrong, or right either. Secondly, I will take the law into my own hands. Thirdly, I will bring it about and finish it in a fortnight; and fourthly, you may go to the devil! What do you think of my reasons, Paolo? They are better than yours, and much more likely to prevail." "My dear Marzio," returned the priest quietly, "you may say anything you please, I believe, in these days of liberty. But the law will not permit you to act upon your words. If you can persuade your daughter to marry Gasparo Carnesecchi of her own free will, well and good. If you cannot, there is a statute, I am quite sure, which forbids your dragging her up the steps of the Capitol, and making her sign her name by force or violence in the presence of the authorities. You may take my word for it; and so you had better dismiss the matter from your mind at once, and think no more about it." "I remember that you told her so last night," growled Marzio, growing pale with anger. "Certainly." "You--you--you priest!" cried the chiseller, unable in his rage to find an epithet which he judged more degrading. Don Paolo smiled. "Yes, I am a priest," he answered calmly. "Yea, you are a priest," yelled Marzio, "and what is to become of paternal authority in a household where such fellows as you are listening at the keyholes? Is a man to have no more rights? Are we to be ruled by women and creatures in petticoats? Viper! Poisoning my household, teaching my daughter to disobey me, my wife to despise me, my paid workmen to--" "Silence!" cried Gianbattista in ringing tones, and with the word he sprang to his feet and clapped his hand on Marzio's mouth. The effect was sudden and unexpected. Marzio was utterly taken by surprise. It was incredible to him that any one should dare to forcibly prevent him from indulging in the language he had used with impunity for so many years. He leaned back pale and astonished, and momentarily dumb with amazement. Gianbattista stood over him, his young cheeks flushed with anger, and his broad fist clenched. "If you dare to talk in that way to Don Paolo, I will kill you with my hands!" he said, his voice sinking lower with concentrated determination. "I have had enough of your foul talk. He is a better man than you, as I told you last night, and I repeat it now--take care--" Marzio made a movement as though he would rise, and at the same instant Gianbattista seized the long, fine-pointed punch, which served for the eyes of the cherubs--a dangerous weapon in a determined hand. Don Paolo had risen from his chair, and was trying to push himself between the two. But Gianbattista would not let him. "For heaven's sake," cried the priest in great distress, "no violence, Tista--I will call the men--" "Never fear," answered the apprentice quietly; "the man is a coward." "To me--you dare to say that to me!" exclaimed Marzio, drawing back at the same time. "Yes--it is quite true. But do not suppose that I think any the worse of you on that account, Sor Marzio." With this taunt, delivered in a voice that expressed the most profound contempt, Gianbattista went back to his seat and took up his hammer as though nothing had happened. Don Paolo drew a long breath of relief. As for Marzio, his teeth chattered with rage. His weakness had been betrayed at last, and by Gianbattista. All his life he had succeeded in concealing the physical fear which his words belied. He had cultivated the habit of offering to face danger, speaking of it in a quiet way, as he had observed that brave men did. He had found it good policy to tell people that he was not afraid of them, and his bearing had hitherto saved him from physical violence. Now he felt as though all his nerves had been drawn out of his body. He had been terrified, and he knew that he had shown it. Gianbattista's words stung in his ears like the sting of wasps. "You shall never enter this room again," he hissed out between his teeth. The young man shrugged his shoulders as though he did not care. Don Paolo sat down again and grasped his umbrella. "Gianbattista," said the priest, "I am grateful to you for your friendship, my boy. But it is very wrong to be violent--" "It is one of the seven deadly sins!" cried Marzio, finding his voice at last, and by a strange accident venting his feelings in a sentence which might have been spoken by a confessor to a penitent. Gianbattista could not help laughing, but he shook his head as though to explain that it was not his fault if he was violent with such a man. "It is very wrong to threaten people, Tista," repeated Don Paolo; "and besides it does not hurt me, what Marzio says. Let us all be calm. Marzio, let us discuss this matter reasonably. Tista, do not be angry at anything that is said. There is nothing to be done but to look at the question quietly." "It is very well for you to talk like that," grumbled Marzio, pretending to busy himself over his model in order to cover his agitation. "It is of no use to talk in any other way," answered the priest "I return to the subject. I only want to convince you that you will find it impossible to carry out your determination by force. You have only to ask the very man you have hit upon, the Avvocato Garnesecchi, and he will tell you the same thing. He knows the law better than you or I. He will refuse to be a party to such an attempt. Ask him, if you do not believe me." "Yes; a pretty position you want to put me in, by the body of a dog! To ask a man to marry my daughter by force! A fine opinion he would conceive of my domestic authority! Perhaps you will take upon yourself to go and tell him--won't you, dear Paolo? It would save me the trouble." "I think that is your affair," answered Don Paolo, taking him in earnest. "Nevertheless, if you wish it--" "Oh, this is too much!" cried Marzio, his anger rising again. "It is not enough that you thwart me at every turn, but you come here to mock me, to make a figure of me! Take care, Paolo, take care! You may go too far." "I would not advise you to go too far, Sor Marzio," put in Gianbattista, turning half round on his stool. "Cannot I speak without being interrupted? Go on with your work, Tista, and let us talk this matter out. I tell you, Paolo, that I do not want your advice, and that I have had far too much of your interference. I will inquire into this matter, so far as it concerns the law, and I will show you that I am right, in spite of all your surmises and prophecies. A man is master in his own house and must remain so, whatever laws are made. There is no law which can force a man to submit to the dictation of his brother--even if his brother is a priest." Marzio spoke more calmly than he had done hitherto, in spite of the sneer in the last sentence. He had broken down, and he felt that Paolo and Gianbattista were too much for him. He desired no repetition of the scene which had passed, and he thought the best thing to be done was to temporise for a while. "I am glad you are willing to look into the matter," answered Don Paolo. "I am quite sure you will soon be convinced." Marzio was silent, and it was evident that the interview was at an end. Don Paolo was tolerably well satisfied, for he had gained at least one point in forcing his brother to examine the question. He remained a moment in his seat, reviewing the situation, and asking himself whether there was anything more to be said. He wished indeed that he could produce some deeper impression on the artist. It was not enough, from the moral point of view, that Marzio should be made to see the impossibility of his scheme, although it was as much as could be expected. The good man wished with all his heart that Marzio could be softened a little, that he might be made to consider his daughter's feelings, to betray some sign of an affection which seemed wholly dead, to show some more human side of his character. But the situation at present forbade Don Paolo from making any further effort. The presence of Gianbattista, who had suddenly constituted himself the priest's defender, was a constraint. Alone with his brother, Marzio might possibly have exhibited some sensibility, but while the young man who had violently silenced him a few moments earlier was looking on, the chiseller would continue to be angry, and would not forget the humiliation he had suffered. There was nothing more to be done at present, and Don Paolo prepared to take his departure, gathering his cloak around him, and smoothing the felt of his three-cornered hat while he held his green umbrella under his arm. "Are you going already, Don Paolo?" asked Gianbattista, rising to open the door. "Yes, I must go. Good-bye, Marzio. Bear me no ill-will for pressing you to be cautious. Good-bye, Tista." He pressed the young man's hand warmly, as though to thank him for his courageous defence, and then left the workshop. Marzio paid no attention to his departure. When the door was closed, and as Gianbattista was returning to his bench, the artist dropped his modelling tools and faced his apprentice. "You may go too," he said in a low tone, as though he were choking. "I mean you may go for good. I do not need you any longer." He felt in his pocket for his purse, opened it, and took out some small notes. "I give you an hour to take your things from my house," he continued. "There are your wages--you shall not tell the priest that I cheated you." Gianbattista stood still in the middle of the room while Marzio held out the money to him. A hot flush rose to his young forehead, and he seemed on the point of speaking, but the words did not pass his lips. With a quick step he came forward, took the notes from Marzio's hand, and crumpling them in his fingers, threw them in his face with all his might. Then he turned on his heel, spat on the floor of the room, and went out before Marzio could find words to resent the fresh insult. The door fell back on the latch and Marzio was alone. He was very pale, and for a moment his features worked angrily. Then a cruel smile passed over his face. He stooped down, picked up the crumpled notes, counted them, and replaced them in his purse. The economical instinct never forsook him, and he did the thing mechanically. Glancing at the bench his eyes fell on the pointed punch which Gianbattista had taken up in his anger. He felt it carefully, handled it, looked at it, smiled again and put it into his pocket. "It is not a bad one," he muttered. "How many cherubs' eyes I have made with that thing!" He turned to the slate and examined the rough model he had made in wax, flat still, and only indicated by vigorous touches, the red material smeared on the black surface all around it by his fingers. There was force in the figure, even in its first state, and there was a strange pathos in the bent head, the only part as yet in high relief. But Marzio looked at it angrily. He turned it to the light, closed his eyes a moment, looked at it again, and then, with an incoherent oath, his long, discoloured hand descended on the model, and, with a heavy pressure and one strong push, flattened out what he had done, and smeared it into a shapeless mass upon the dark stone. "I shall never do it," he said in a low voice. "They have destroyed my idea." For some minutes he rested his head in his hand in deep thought. At last he rose and went to a corner of the workshop in which stood a heavily ironed box. Marzio fumbled in his pocket till he found a key, bright from always being carried about with him, and contrasting oddly with the rusty lock into which he thrust it. It turned with difficulty in his nervous fingers, and he raised the heavy lid. The coffer was full of packages wrapped in brown paper. He removed one after another till he came to a wooden case which filled the whole length and breadth of the safe. He lifted it out carefully and laid it on the end of the bench. The cover was fastened down by screws, and he undid them one by one until it moved and came off in his hands. The contents were wrapped carefully in a fine towel, which had once been white, but which had long grown yellow with age. Marzio unfolded the covering with a delicate touch as though he feared to hurt what was within. He took out a large silver crucifix, raising it carefully, and taking care not to touch the figure. He stood it upon the bench before him, and sat down to examine it. It was a work of rare beauty, which he had made more than ten years before. With the strange reticent instinct which artists sometimes feel about their finest works, he had finished it in secret, working at night alone, and when it was done he had put it away. It was his greatest feat, he had said to himself, and, as from time to time he took it out and looked at it, he gradually grew less and less inclined to show it to any one, resolving to leave it in its case, until it should be found after his death. It had seemed priceless to him, and he would not sell it. With a fantastic eccentricity of reasoning he regarded it as a sacred thing, to part with which would be a desecration. So he kept it. Then, taking it out again, it had seemed less good to him, as his mind became occupied with other things, and he had fancied he should do better yet. At last he screwed it up in a wooden case and put it at the bottom of his strong box, resolving never to look at it again. Many years had passed since he had laid eyes upon it. The idea which had come to him when Paolo had communicated the order to him on the previous evening, had seemed absolutely new. It had appeared to him as a glorification of the work he had executed in secret so long ago. Time, and the habit of dissatisfaction had effaced from his mind the precise image of the work of the past, and the emotions of the present had seemed something new to him. He had drawn and modelled during many hours, and yet he was utterly disappointed with the new result. He felt the innate consciousness of having done it before, and of having done it better. And now the wonderful masterpiece of his earlier years stood before him--the tall and massive ebony cross, bearing the marvellous figure of the dead Saviour. A ray of sunlight fell through the grated window upon the dying head, illuminating the points of the thorns in the crown, the falling locks of hair, the tortured hands, and casting a shadow of death beneath the half-closed eyes. For several minutes Marzio sat motionless on his stool, realising the whole strength and beauty of what he had done ten years before. Then he wanted to get a better view of it. It was not high enough above him, for it was meant to stand upon an altar. He could not see the face. He looked about for something upon which to make it stand, but nothing was near. He pushed away his stool, and turning the cross a little, so that the sunlight should strike it at a better angle, he kneeled down on the floor, his hands resting on the edge of the bench, and he looked up at the image of the dead Christ. CHAPTER VII When Don Paolo left the workshop, he immediately crossed over and entered the street door of Marzio's house, intending to tell Maria Luisa and Lucia the result of the interview. He had not got to the top of the first flight of stairs when he heard Gianbattista's step behind him, and turning he saw the young man's angry face. "What is the matter, Tista?" asked the priest, stopping on the steps and laying his hand on the iron railing. "I am discharged, turned out, insulted by that animal!" answered the apprentice hotly. "He is like a piece of wood! You might as well talk to a wall! You had only just closed the door when he pulled out his purse, counted my wages, and told me to take my things from his house in an hour. I threw the money in his face--the beast!" "Hush, Tista," said Don Paolo. "Do not be angry--we will arrange it all before night. He cannot do without you, and after all it is my fault. Calm yourself, Tista, my boy--we will soon set that straight." "Yes--in an hour I will have left the house. Then it will be straight enough, as you call it. Oh! I would like to strangle him! Dear Don Paolo, nobody but you can arrange this affair--" "Hush, hush, Tista. I cannot hear you talk in this way. Come, we will go back to Marzio. He will listen to reason--" "Do you know what he said to me not a quarter of an hour before you came in?" asked Gianbattista quickly, laying his hand on the priest's arm. "He said I might have Lucia and welcome if I would kill you! Do you understand? I wish you could have seen the look in his eyes!" "No, no, my boy--he was angry. He did not mean it." "Mean it! Bacchus! He would kill you himself if he were not such a dastardly coward!" Don Paolo shook his head with an incredulous smile, and looked kindly into the young man's eyes. "You have all lost your heads over this unfortunate affair, Tista. You are all talking of killing each other and yourselves as though it were as simple as 'good-morning.' It is very wrong to talk of such things, and besides, you know, it is not really worth while--" "It seems simple enough to me," answered the young man, frowning and clenching his hand. "Come with me," urged the other, making as though he would descend the steps. "Come back to the workshop, and we will talk it all over." "Wait a minute, Don Paolo. There is one thing--one favour I want to ask of you." Gianbattista lowered his voice. "You can do it for us--I am sure you will. I will call Lucia, and we will go with you--" "Where?" asked the priest, not understanding the look of the young man. "To church, of course. You can marry us in ten minutes, and the thing will be all over. Then we can laugh at Sor Marzio." Don Paolo smiled. "My dear boy," he answered, "those things are not done in a moment like roasting chestnuts. There are banns to be published. There is a civil marriage at the Capitol--" "I should be quite satisfied with your benediction--a _Pater Noster_, an _Oremus_ properly said--eh? Would it not be all right?" "Really, Tista!" exclaimed the good man, holding up his hands in horror. "I had no idea that your religious education had been so neglected! My dear child, marriage is a very solemn thing." "By Diana! I should think so! But that need not make it such a long ceremony. A man dies in a moment--_paff!_--the light is out!--you are dead. It is very solemn. The same thing for marriage. The priest looks at you, says _Oremus_--_paff!_ You are married, and it cannot be undone! I know it is very serious, but it is only the affair of a moment." Don Paolo did not know whether to laugh or to look grave at this exposition of Gianbattista's views of death and matrimony. He put it down to the boy's excitement. "There is another reason, Tista. The law does not allow a girl of seventeen to be married without her father's consent." "The law again!" exclaimed Gianbattista in disgust. "I thought the law protected Lucia from her father. You said so last night, and you repeated it this morning." "Certainly, my boy. But the law also protects parents against any rashness their children may meditate. It would be no marriage if Lucia had not Marzio's consent." "I wish there were no laws," grumbled the young man. "How do you come to know so much about marriage, Don Paolo?" "It is my profession. Come along; we will talk to Marzio." "What can we say to him? You do not suppose I will go and beg to be taken back?" "You must be forgiving--" "I believe in forgiveness when the other side begins," said Gianbattista. "Perhaps Marzio will forgive too," argued the priest. "He has nothing to forgive," answered the young man. The reasoning seemed to him beyond refutation. "But if he says he has no objection, if he begs you to come back, I think you might make some advance on your side, Tista. Besides, you were very rough with him this morning." "He turned me out like a dog--after all these years," said Gianbattista. "I will go back and work for him on one condition. He must give me Lucia at once." "I am afraid that as a basis of negotiations that plan leaves much to be desired," replied Don Paolo, in a meditative tone. "Of course, we are all determined that you shall marry her in the end; but unless Providence is pleased to change Marzio's state of mind, you may have to wait until she is of age. He will never consent at present." "In that case I had better go and take my things away from his house," returned the apprentice. "And say good-bye to Lucia--for a day or two," he added in a low voice. "Of course, if you will not agree to be conciliatory it is of no use for you to come with me," said Don Paolo rather sadly. "Dear me! Here comes Maria Luisa with Suntarella!" "Ah, dear Paolo, dear Paolo!" cried the stout lady, puffing up the stairs with the old woman close behind her. "How good you are! And what did he say? We asked if you had gone at the workshop, and they said you had, so Lucia went in to ask her father whether he would have the chickens boiled or roasted. Well, well, tell me all about it. These stairs! Suntarella, run up and open the door while I get my breath! Dear Paolo, you are an angel of goodness!" "Softly, Maria Luisa," answered the priest. "There is good and bad. He has admitted that he will have to consider the matter because he cannot make Lucia marry without her consent. But on the other hand--poor Tista--" he looked at the young man and hesitated. "He has turned me out," said Gianbattista. "He has given me an hour to leave his house. I believe a good part of the hour has passed already--" "And Tista says he will not go back at any price," put in Don Paolo. The Signora Pandolfi gasped for breath. "Oh! oh! I shall faint!" she sobbed, pressing the handle of her parasol against her breast with both hands. "Oh, what shall we do? We are lost! Paolo, your arm--I shall die!" "Courage, courage, Maria Luisa," said the priest kindly. "We will find a remedy. For the present Tista can come to my house. There is the little room Where the man-servant sleeps, who is gone to see his sick wife in the country. The Cardinal will not mind." "But you are not going like tins?" cried the stout lady, grasping Gianbattista's arm and looking into his face with an expression of forlorn bewilderment. "You cannot go to-day--it is impossible, Tista--your shirts are not even ironed! Oh dear I oh dear! And I had anticipated a feast because I was sure that Marzio would see reason before midday, and there are chickens for dinner--with rice, Tista, just as you like them--oh, you cannot go, Tista, I cannot let you go!" "Courage, Maria Luisa," exhorted Don Paolo. "It is not a question of chickens." "Dear Sora Luisa, you are too good," said Gianbattista. "Let us go upstairs first, to begin with--you will catch cold here on the steps. Come, come, courage, Sora Luisa!" He took the good woman's arm and led her upwards. But Don Paolo stayed behind. He believed it to be his duty to return to the workshop, and to try and undo the harm Gianbattista had done himself by the part he had played in the proceedings of the morning. The Signora Pandolfi suffered herself to be led upstairs, panting and sobbing as she went, and protesting still that Gianbattista could not possibly be allowed to leave the house. When Don Paolo had parted from the two women an hour earlier, they had not gone home as he had supposed, but, chancing to meet old Assunta near the house, the three had gone together to make certain necessary purchases. On their return they had inquired for Paolo at the workshop, as Maria Luisa had explained, and Lucia had entered in the confident expectation of finding that the position of things had mended considerably since the early morning. Moreover, since the announcement of the previous evening, the young girl had not seen her father alone. She wanted to talk to him on her own account, in order to sound the depth of his determination. She was not afraid of him. The fact that for a long time he had regarded favourably the project of her marriage with Gianbattista had given her a confidence which was not to be destroyed in a moment, even by Marzio's strange conduct. She passed through the outer rooms, nodding to the workmen, who touched their caps to the master's daughter. A little passage separated the large workshop from the inner studio. The door at the end was not quite closed. Lucia went up to it, and looked through the opening to see whether Gianbattista were with her father. The sight she saw was so surprising that she leaned against the door-post for support. She could not believe her eyes. There was her father in his woollen blouse, kneeling, on the brick floor of the room, before a crucifix, his back turned towards her, his hands raised, and, as it seemed from the position of the arms, folded in prayer. The sunlight fell upon the silver figure, and upon the dark tangled hair of the artist who remained motionless, as though absorbed in devotion, while his daughter watched him through the half-open door. The scene was one which would have struck any one; the impression it made on Lucia was altogether extraordinary. She easily fancied that Marzio, after his interview with Don Paolo, had felt a great and sudden revulsion of sentiment. She knew that the priest had not left the studio many minutes before, and she saw her father apparently praying before a crucifix. A wonderful conversion had been effected, and the result was there manifest to the girl's eyes. She held her breath, and remained at the door, determined not to move until Marzio should have risen from his knees. To interrupt him at such a moment would have been almost a sacrilege; it might produce the most fatal results; it would be an intrusion upon the privacy of a repentant man. She stood watching and waiting to see what would happen. Presently Marzio moved. Lucia thought he was going to rise from his knees, but she was surprised to see that he only changed the position of the crucifix with one hand. He approached his head so near the lower part of it that Lucia fancied he was in the act of pressing his lips upon the crossed feet of the silver Christ. Then he drew back a little, turned his head to one side, and touched the figure with his right hand. It was evident, now, that he was no longer praying, but that something about the workmanship had attracted his attention. How natural, the girl said to herself, that this man, even in such a supreme moment, should not forget his art--that, even in prayer, his eyes should mechanically detect an error of the chisel, a flaw in the metal, or some such detail familiar to his daily life. She did not think the worse of him for it. He was an artist! The habit of his whole existence could not cease to influence him--he could as soon have ceased to breathe. Lucia watched him and felt something like love for her father. Her sympathy was with him in both actions; in his silent prayer, in the inner privacy of his working-room, as well as in the inherent love of his art, from which he could not escape even when he was doing something contrary to the whole tenor of his life. Lucia thought how Don Paolo's face would light up when she should tell him of what she had seen. Then she wondered, with a delicate sense of respect for her father's secret feelings, whether she would have the right to tell any one what she had accidentally seen through the half-closed door of the studio. Marzio moved again, and this time he rose to his feet and remained standing, so that the crucifix was completely hidden from her view. She knocked at the door. Her father turned suddenly round, and faced the entrance, still hiding the crucifix by his figure. "Who is it?" he asked in a tone that sounded as though he were startled. "Lucia," answered the girl timidly. "May I come in, papa?" "Wait a minute," he answered. She drew back, and, still watching him, saw that he laid the cross down upon the table, and covered it with a towel--the same one in which it had been wrapped. "Come in," he called out "What is the matter?" "I only came for a moment, papa," answered Lucia, entering the room and glancing about her as she came forward. "Mamma sent me in to ask you about the chickens--there are chickens for dinner--she wanted to know whether you would like them roasted or boiled with rice." "Roasted," replied Marzio, taking up a chisel and pretending to be busy. "It is Gianbattista who likes them boiled." "Thank you, I will go home and tell her. Papa--" the girl hesitated. "What is the matter?" "Papa, you are not angry any more as you were last night?" "Angry? No. What makes you ask such a question? I was not angry last night, and I am not angry now. Who put the idea into your head?" "I am so glad," answered Lucia. "Not with me, not with Tista? I am so glad! Where is Tista, papa?" "I have not the slightest idea. You will probably not see Tista any more, nor Gianbattista, nor his excellency the Signorino Bordogni" Lucia turned suddenly pale, and rested her hand upon the old straw chair on which Don Paolo had sat during his visit. "What is this? What do you tell me? Not see Tista?" she asked quickly. "Gianbattista had the bad taste to attack me this morning--here--in my own studio," said Marzio, turning round and facing his daughter. "He put his hands upon my face, do you understand? He would have stabbed me with a chisel if Paolo had not interfered. Do you understand that? Out of deference for your affections I did not kill him, as I might have done. I dismissed him from my service, and gave him an hour to take his effects out of my house. Is that clear? I offered him his money. He threw it in my face and spat at me as he went out. Is that enough? If I find him at home when I come to dinner I will have him turned out by the police. You see, you are not likely to set eyes on him for a day or two. You may go home and tell your mother the news, if she has not heard it already. It will be sauce for her chickens." Lucia leaned upon the chair during this speech, her black eyes growing wider and wider, and her face turning whiter at every word. To her it seemed, in this first moment, like a hopeless separation from the man she loved. With a sudden movement she sprang forward, and fell on her knees at Marzio's feet. "Oh, my father, I beseech you, in the name of heaven," she cried wildly. "It is not of the slightest use," answered Marzio, drawing back. Lucia knelt for one moment before him, with upturned face, an expression of imploring despair on her features. Then she sank down in a heap upon the floor against the three-legged stool, which tottered, lost its balance under her weight, and fell over upon the bricks with a loud crash. The poor girl had fainted away. Marzio was startled by the sight and the sound, and then, seeing what had happened, he was very much frightened. He knelt down beside his daughter's prostrate body and bent over her face. He raised her up in his long, nervous arms, and lifted her to the old chair till she sat upon it, and he supported her head and body, kneeling on the floor beside her. A sharp pain shot through his heart, the faint indication of a love not wholly extinguished. "Lucia, dear Lucia!" he said, in a voice so tender that it sounded strangely in his own ears. But the gill gave no sign. Her head would have fallen forward if he had not supported it with his hands. "My daughter! Little Lucia! You are not dead--tell me you are not dead!" he cried. In his fright and sudden affection he pressed his lips to her face, kissing her again and again. "I did not mean to hurt you, darling child," he repeated, as though she could hear him speak. At last her eyes opened. A shiver ran through her body and she raised her head. She was very pale as she leaned back in the chair. Marzio took her hands and robbed them between his dark fingers, still looking into her eyes. "Ah!" she gasped, "I thought I was dead." Then, as Marzio seemed about to speak, she added faintly: "Don't say it again!" "Lucia--dear Lucia! I knew you were not dead I knew you would come back to me," he said, still in very tender tones. "Forgive me, child--I did not mean to hurt you." "No? Oh, papa! Then why did you say it?" she cried, suddenly bursting into tears and weeping upon his shoulder. "Tell me it is not true--tell me so!" she sobbed. Marzio was almost as much disconcerted by Lucia's return to consciousness as he had been by her fainting away. His nature had unbent, momentarily, under the influence of his strong fear for his daughter's life. Now that she had recovered so quickly, he remembered Gianbattista's violence and scornful words, and he seemed to feel the young man's strong hand upon his mouth, stifling his speech. He hesitated, rose to his feet, and began to pace the floor. Lucia watched him with intense anxiety. There was a conflict in his mind between the resentment which was not half an hour old, and the love for his child, which had been so quickly roused during the last five minutes. "Well--Lucia, my dear--I do not know--" he stopped short in his walk and looked at her. She leaned forward as though to catch his words. "Do you think you could not--that you would be so very unhappy, I mean, if he lived out of the house--I mean to say, if he had lodgings, somewhere, and came back to work?" "Oh, papa--I should faint away again--and I should die. I am quite sure of it." Marzio looked anxiously at her, as though he expected to see her fall to the ground a second time. It went against the grain of his nature to take Gianbattista back, although he had discharged him hastily in the anger of the moment. He turned away and glanced at the bench. There were the young man's tools, the hammer as he had left it, the piece of work on the leathern pad. The old impulse of foresight for the future acted in Marzio's mind. He could never find such another workman. In the uncertainty of the moment, as often happens, details rose to his remembrance and produced their effect. He recollected the particular way in which Gianbattista used to hold the blunt chisel in first tracing over the drawing on a silver plate. He had never seen any one do it in the same way. "Well, Lucia--don't faint away. If you can make him stay, I will take him back. But I am afraid you will have hard work. He will make difficulties. He threw the money in my face, Lucia--in your father's face, girl! Think of that. Well, well, do what you like. He is a good workman. Go away, child, and leave me to myself. What will you say to him?" Lucia threw her arms round her father's neck and kissed him in her sudden joy. Then she stood a moment in thought. "Give me his money," she said. "If he will take the money he will come back." Marzio hesitated, slowly drew out his purse, and began to take out the notes. "Well--if you will have it so," he grumbled. "After all, as he threw it away, I do not see that he has much right to it. There it is. If he says anything about that ten-franc note being torn, tell him he tore it himself. Go home, Lucia, and manage things as you can." Lucia put the money in her glove, and busied herself for a moment in brushing the dust from her clothes. Mechanically, her father helped her. "You are quite sure you did not hurt yourself?" he asked. The whole occurrence seemed indistinct, as though some one had told something which he had not understood--as we sometimes listen to a person reading aloud, and, missing by inattention the verb of the sentence, remain confused, and ask ourselves what the words mean. "No--not at all. It is nothing," answered Lucia, and in a moment she was at the door. Opening it to go out, she saw the tall figure of Don Paolo at the other end of the passage coming rapidly towards her. She raised her finger to her lips and nodded, as though to explain that everything was settled, and that the priest should not speak to Marzio. She, of course, did not know that he had been talking with Gianbattista and her mother, nor that he knew anything about the apprentice's dismissal. She only feared fresh trouble, now that the prospect looked so much clearer, in case Don Paolo should again attack her father upon the subject of the marriage. But her uncle came forward and made as though he would enter the workshop. "It is all settled," she said quietly. Don Paolo looked at her in astonishment. At that moment Marzio caught sight of him over the girl's shoulder, in the dusky entrance. "Come in, Paolo," he called out "I have something to show you. Go home, Lucia, my child." Not knowing what to expect, and marvelling at the softened tone of his brother's voice, Don Paolo entered the room, waited till Lucia was out of the passage, and then closed the door behind him. He stood in the middle of the floor, grasping his umbrella in his hand and wondering upon what new phase the business was entering. "I have something to show you," Marzio repeated, as though to check any question which the priest might be going to put to him. "You asked me for a crucifix last night. I have one here. Will it do! Look at it." While speaking, Marzio had uncovered the cross and lifted it up, so that it stood on the bench where he had at first placed it to examine it himself. Then he stepped back and made way for Don Paolo. The priest stood for a moment speechless before the masterpiece, erect, his hands folded before him. Then, as though recollecting himself, he took off his hat, which he had forgotten to remove on entering the workshop. "What a miracle!" he exclaimed, in a low voice. Marzio stood a little behind him, his hands in the pockets of his woollen blouse. A long silence followed. Don Paolo could not find words to express his admiration, and his wonder was mixed with a profound feeling of devotion. The amazing reality of the figure, clothed at the same time in a sort of divine glory, impressed itself upon him as he gazed, and roused that mystical train of religious contemplation which is both familiar and dear to devout persons. He lost himself in his thoughts, and his refined features showed as in a mirror the current of his meditation. The agony of the Saviour of mankind was renewed before him, culminating in the sacrifice upon the cross. Involuntarily Paolo bent his head and repeated in low tones the words of the Creed, "_Qui propter nos homines et propter_ _nostram, salutem descendit de coelis_," and then, "_Crucifixus etiam pro nobis_." Marzio stood looking on, his hands in his pockets. His fingers grasped the long sharp punch he had taken from the table after Gianbattista's departure. His eyes fixed themselves upon the smooth tonsure at the back of Paolo's head, and slowly his right hand issued from his pocket with the sharp instrument firmly clenched in it. He raised it to the level of his head, just above that smooth shaven circle in the dark hair. His eyes dilated and his mouth worked nervously as the pale lips stretched themselves across the yellow teeth. Don Paolo moved, and turned to speak to his brother concerning the work of art. Seeing Marzio's attitude, he started with a short cry and stretched out his arm as though to parry a blow. "Marzio!" The artist had quickly brought his hand to his forehead, and the ghastly affectation of a smile wreathed about his white lips. His voice was thick. "I was only shading my eyes from the sun. Don't you see how it dazzles me, reflected from the silver? What did you imagine, Paolo? You look frightened." "Oh, nothing," answered the priest bravely. "Perhaps I am a little nervous to-day." "Bacchus! It looks like it," said Marzio, with an attempt to laugh. Then he tossed the tool upon the table among the rest with an impatient gesture. "What do you think of the crucifix?" "It is very wonderful," said Paolo, controlling himself by an effort. "When did you make it, Marzio? You have not had time--" "I made it years ago," answered the chiseller, turning his face away to hide his pallor. "I made it for myself. I never meant to show it, but I believe I cannot do anything better. Will it do for your cardinal? Look at the work. It is as fine as anything of the kind in the world, though I say it. Yes--it is cast. Of course, you do not understand the art, Paolo, but I will explain it all to you in a few minutes--" Marzio talked very fast, almost incoherently, and he was evidently struggling with an emotion. Paolo, standing back a little from the bench, nodded his head from time to time. "It is all very simple," continued the artist, as though he dared not pause for breath. "You see one sometimes makes little figures of real _repoussé_, half and half, done in cement and then soldered together so that they look like one piece, but it is impossible to do them well unless you have dies to press the plate into the first shape--and the die always makes the same figure, though you can vary the face and twist the arms and legs about. Cheap silver crucifixes and angels and those things are all made in that way, and with care a great deal can be done, of course, to give them an artistic look." "Of course," assented Don Paolo, in a low voice. He thought he understood the cause of his brother's eloquence. "Yes, of course," continued Marzio, as rapidly as before. "But to make a really good thing like this, is a different matter. A very different matter. Here you must model your figure in wax, and make moulds of the parts of it, and chisel each part separately, copying the model. And then you must join all the parts together with silver-soldering, and go over the lines carefully. It needs the most delicate handling, for although the casting is very heavy it is not like working on a chalice that is filled with cement and all arranged for you, that can be put in the fire, melted out, softened, cooled, and worked over as often as you please. There is no putting in the fire here--not more than once after you have joined the pieces. Do you understand me? Why do you look at me in that way, Paolo? You look as though you did not follow me." "On the contrary," said the priest, "I think I understand it very well--as well as an outsider can understand such a process. No--I merely look at the finished work. It is superb, Marzio--magnificent! I have never seen anything like it." "Well, you may have it to-night," said Marzio, turning away, and walking about the room. "I will touch it over. I can improve it a little. I have learned something in ten years. I will work all to-day, and I will bring it home this evening to show Maria Luisa. Then you may take it away." "And the price? I must be able to tell the Cardinal." "Oh, never mind the price. I will be content to take whatever he gives me, since it is going. No price would represent the labour. Indeed, Paolo, if it were any one but you, I would not let it go. Nothing but my affection for you would make me give it to you. It is the gem of my studio. Ah, how I worked at it ten years ago!" "Thank you. I think I understand," answered the priest. "I am very much obliged to you, Marzio, and I assure you it will be appreciated. I must be going. Thank you for showing it to me. I will come and get it to-night." "Well, good-bye, Paolo," said Marzio. "Here is your umbrella." As Don Paolo turned away to leave the room, the artist looked curiously at the tonsure on his head, and his eyes followed it until Paolo had covered it with his hat. Then he closed the door and went back to the bench. CHAPTER VIII Lucia hastened homewards with the good news she bore. Her young nature was elastic, and, in the sudden happiness of having secured Gianbattista's recall, she quickly recovered from the shock she had received. She did not reflect very much, for she had not the time. It had all happened so quickly that her senses were confused, and she only knew that the man she loved must be in despair, and that the sooner she reached him the sooner she would be able to relieve him from what he must be suffering. Her breath came fast as she reached the top of the stairs, and she panted as she rang the bell of the lodging. Apparently she had rung so loud in her excitement as to rouse the suspicions of old Assunta, who cautiously peered through the little square that opened behind a grating in the door, before she raised the latch. On seeing Lucia she began to laugh, and opened quickly. "So loud!" chuckled the old thing. "I thought it was the police or Sor Marzio in a rage." Lucia did not heed her, but ran quickly on to the sitting-room, where the Signora Pandolfi was alone, seated on her straight chair and holding her bonnet in her hand, the bonnet with the purple glass grapes; she was the picture of despair. Lucia made haste to comfort her. "Do not cry, mamma," she said quickly. "I have arranged it all. I have seen papa. I have brought Tista's money. Papa wants him to stay after all. Yes--I know you cannot guess how it all happened. I went in to ask about the chickens, and then I asked about Tista, and he told me that I should not see him any more, and then--then I felt this passion--here in the chest, and everything went round and round and round like a whirligig at the Termini, and I fell right down, mamma, down upon the bricks--I know, my frock is all dusty still, here, look, and here, but what does it matter? Patience! I fell down like a sack of flour--_pata tunfate_!" "T-t-t-t!" exclaimed the Signora Pandolfi, holding up her hands and drawing in her breath as she clacked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "T-t-t-t! What a pity!" "And when I came to my senses--I had fainted, you understand--I was sitting on the old straw chair and papa was holding my hands in his and calling me his angel! _Capperi_! But it was worth while. You can imagine the situation when he called me an angel! It is the first time I have ever fainted, mamma--you have no idea--it was so curious!" "Ah, my dear, it must have softened his heart!" cried Maria Luisa. "If I could only faint away like that once in a while! Who knows? He might be converted. But what would you have?" The signora glanced down sadly at her figure, which certainly suggested no such weakness as she seemed to desire. "Well, Lucia," she continued, "and then?" "Yes, I talked to him, I implored him, I told him I should probably faint again, and, indeed, I felt like it. So he said I might have my way, and he told me to come home and tell Tista at once. Where is Tista?" "Eh! He is in his room, packing up his things. I will go and call him. Oh dear! What a wonderful day this is, my child! To think that it is not yet eleven o'clock, and all that has happened! It is enough to make a woman crazy, fit to send to Santo Spirito. First you are to be married, and then you are not to be married! Then Gianbattista is sent away--after all these years, and such a good boy! And then he is taken back! And then--but the chickens, Lucia, you forgot to ask about the chickens--" "Not a bit of it," answered the young girl. "I asked first, before he told me. Afterwards, I don't know--I should not have had the strength to speak of chickens. He said roasted, mamma. Poor Tista! He likes them with rice. Well, one cannot have everything in this world." The Signora Pandolfi had reached the door, and called out at the top of her voice to the young man. "Tista! Tista!" She could have been heard in the street. "Eh, Sora Luisa! We are not in the Piazza Navona," said Gianbattista, appearing at the door of his little room. "What has happened?" "Go and talk to Lucia," answered the good lady, hurrying off in search of Assunta to tell her the decision concerning the dinner. Gianbattista entered the sitting-room, and, from the young girl's radiant expression, he guessed that some favourable change had taken place in his position, or in the positions of them both. Lucia began to tell him what had passed, and gave much the same account as she had given to her mother, though some of the intonations were softer, and accompanied by looks which told her happiness. When she had explained the situation she paused for an answer. Gianbattista stood beside her and held her hand, but he looked out of the window, as though uncertain what to say. "Here is the money," said Lucia. "You will take it, won't you? Then it will be all settled. What is the matter, Tista? Are you not glad?" "I do not trust him," answered the young man. "It is not like him to change his mind like that, all in a minute. He means some mischief." "What can he do?" "I do not know. I feel as if some evil were coming. Patience! Who knows? You are an angel, Lucia, darling." "Everybody is telling me so to-day," answered the young girl. "Papa, you--" "Of course. It is quite true, my heart, and so every one repeats it. What do you think? Will he come home to dinner? It is only eleven o'clock--perhaps I ought to go back and work at the ewer. Somehow I do not want to see him just now--" "Stay with me, Tista. Besides, you were packing up your belongings to go away. You have a right to take an hour to unpack them. Tell me, what is this idea you have that papa is not in earnest? I want to understand it. He was quite in earnest just now--so good, so good, like sugar! Is it because you are still angry with him, that you do not want to see him?" "No--why should I still be angry? He has made reparation. After all, I took a certain liberty with him." "That is all the more reason. If he is willing to forget it--but I could tell you something, Tista, something that would persuade you." "What is it, my treasure?" asked Gianbattista with a smile, bending down to look into her eyes. "Oh, something very wonderful, something of which you would never dream. I could scarcely believe my eyes. Imagine, when I went to find him just now, the door was open. I looked through before I went in, to see if you were there. Do you know what papa was doing? He was kneeling on the floor before a beautiful crucifix, such a beautiful one. I think he was saying prayers, but I could not see his face. He stayed a long time, and then when I knocked he covered it up, was not that strange? That is the reason why I persuaded him so easily to change his mind." Gianbattista smiled incredulously. He had often seen Marzio kneel on the floor to get a different view of a large piece of work. "He was only looking at the work," he answered. "I have seen him do it very often. He would laugh if he could hear you, Lucia. Do you imagine he is such a man as that? Perhaps it would not do him any harm--a little praying. But it is a kind of medicine he does not relish. No, Lucia, you have been deceived, believe me." The girl's expression changed. She had quite persuaded herself that a great moral change had taken place in her father that morning, and had built many hopes upon it. To her sanguine imagination it seemed as though his whole nature must have changed. She had seen visions of him as she had always wished he might be, and the visions had seemed likely to be realised. She had doubted whether she should tell any one the story of what she regarded as Marzio's conversion, but she had made an exception in favour of Gianbattista. Gianbattista simply laughed, and explained the matter away in half a dozen words. Lucia was more deeply disappointed than any one, listening to her light talk, could have believed possible. Her face expressed the pain she felt, and she protested against the apprentice's explanation. "It is too bad of you, Tista," she said in hurt tones. "But I do not think you are right. You have no idea how quietly he knelt, and his hands were folded on the bench. He bent his head once, and I believe he kissed the feet--I wish you could have seen it, you would not doubt me. You think I have invented a silly tale, I am sure you do." The tears filled her eyes as she turned away and stared vacantly out of the window at the dark houses opposite. The sun, which had been shining until that moment, disappeared behind a mass of driving clouds, and a few drops of rain began to beat against the panes of glass. The world seemed suddenly more dreary to Lucia. Gianbattista, who was sensitive where she was concerned, looked at her, and understood that he had destroyed something in which she had wished to believe. "Well, well, my heart, perhaps you are right," he said softly, putting his arm round her. "No, you do not believe it," she answered. "For you, I will believe in anything, in everything--even in Sor Marzio's devotions," he said, pressing her to his side. "Only--you see, darling, he was talking in such a way a few moments before--that it seemed impossible--" "Nothing is quite impossible," replied Lucia. "The heart beats fast. There may be a whole world between one beat and the next." "Yes, my love," assented Gianbattista, looking tenderly into her eyes. "But do you think that between all the beatings of our two hearts there could ever be a world of change?" "Ah--that is different, Tista. Why should we change? We could only change for worse if we began to love each other less, and that is impossible. But papa! Why should he not change for the better? Who can tell you, Tista, dear, that in a moment, in a second, after you were gone, he was not sorry for all he had done? It may have been in an instant. Why not?" "Things done so very quickly are not done well," answered the young man. "I know that from my art. You may stamp a thing in a moment with the die--it is rough, unfinished. It takes weeks to chisel it--" "The good God is not a chiseller, Tista." The words fell very simply from the young girl's lips, and the expression of her face did not change. Only the tone of her voice was grave and quiet, and there was a depth of conviction in it which struck Gianbattista forcibly. In a short sentence she had defined the difference between his mode of thought and her own. To her mind omnipotence was a reality. To him, it was an inconceivable power, the absurdity of which he sought to demonstrate by comparing the magnitude claimed for it with the capacities of man. He remained silent for a moment, as though seeking an answer. He found none, and what he said expressed an aspiration and not a retort. "I sometimes wish that I could believe as you do," he said. "I am sure I could do much greater things, make much more beautiful angels, if I were quite sure that they existed." "Of course you could," answered Lucia. Then, with a tact beyond her years, she changed the subject of their talk. She would not endanger the durability of his aspiration by discussing it. "To go back to what we were speaking of," she said, "you will go to the workshop this afternoon, Tista, won't you?" "Yes," he said mechanically. "What else should I do? Oh, Lucia, my darling, I cannot bear this uncertainty," he cried, suddenly giving vent to his feelings. "Where will it end? He may have changed, he may be all you say he is to-day, all that he was not yesterday, but do you really believe he has given up his wild idea? It is not all as it should be, and that is not his nature. It will come upon us suddenly with something we do not expect. He will do something--I cannot tell what, but I know him better than you do. He is cruel, he plots over his work, and then, when all seems calm, the storm breaks. It will not end well." "We must love each other, Tista. Then all will end well. Who can divide us?" "No one," answered the young maid firmly. "But many things may happen before we are united for ever." He was not subject to presentiments, and his self-confident nature abhorred the prospect of trouble. He had arrived at his conclusion by a logical process, and there seemed no escape from it. As he had told Lucia, he knew the character of the chiseller better than the women of the household could know it, for he had been his constant companion for years, and was not to be deceived in his estimate of Marzio's temper. A man's natural disposition shows itself most clearly when he is in his natural element, at his work, busied in the ordinary occupations of his life. To such a man as Marzio, the workshop is more sympathetic than the house. Disagreeing on most points with his family, obliged to be absent during the whole day, wholly absorbed in the production of works which the women of his household could not thoroughly appreciate, because they did not thoroughly understand the ideas which originated them, nor the methods employed in their execution--under these combined circumstances it was to be expected that the artist's real feelings would find expression at the work-bench rather than in the society of his wife and daughter. Seated by Marzio's side, and learning from him all that could be learned, Gianbattista had acquired at the same time a thorough knowledge of his instincts and emotions, which neither Maria Luisa nor Lucia was able to comprehend. Marzio was tenacious of his ideas and of his schemes. Deficient in power of initiative and in physical courage, he was obstinate beyond all belief in his adherence to his theories. That he should suddenly yield to a devotional impulse, fall upon his knees before a crucifix and cry _meâ culpâ_ over his whole past life, was altogether out of the question. In Gianbattista's opinion it was almost as impossible that he should abandon in a moment the plan which he had announced with so much resolution on the previous evening. It was certain that before declaring his determination to marry his daughter to the lawyer he must have ruminated and planned during many days, as it was his habit to do in all the matters of his life, without consulting any one, or giving the slightest hint of his intention. Some part of his remarkable talent depended upon this faculty of thoroughly considering a resolution before proceeding to carry it out; and it is a part of every really great talent in every branch of creative art, for it is the result of a great continuity in the action of the mind combined with the power of concentration and the virtue of reticence. Many a work has appeared to the world to be the spontaneous creation of transcendent genius, which has, in reality, been conceived, studied, and elaborated during years of silence. Reticence, concentration, and continuity, are characteristics which cannot influence one part of a man's life without influencing the rest as well. The habit of studying before proceeding is co-existent with the necessity of considering before acting; and a man who is reticent concerning one half of his thoughts is not communicative about the other half. Nature does not do things by halves, and the nerves which animate the gesture at the table are the same which guide the chisel at the work-bench. Gianbattista understood Marzio's character, and in his mind tried to construct the future out of the present. He endeavoured to follow out what he supposed to be the chiseller's train of thought to its inevitable conclusion, and the more he reflected on the situation the more certain he became that Lucia's hypothesis was untenable. It was not conceivable, under any circumstances whatever, that Marzio should suddenly turn into a gentle, forgiving creature, anxious only for the welfare of others, and willing to sacrifice his own inclinations and schemes to that laudable end. At twelve o'clock, Marzio appeared, cold, silent, and preoccupied. His manner did not encourage the idea entertained by Lucia, though the girl explained it to herself on the ground that her father was ashamed of having yielded so easily, and was unwilling to have it thought that he was too good-natured. There was truth in her idea, and it showed a good deal of common sense and appreciation of character. But it was not the whole truth. Marzio not only felt humiliated at having suffered himself to be overcome by his daughter's entreaties; he regretted it, and wished he could undo what he had done. It was too late, however. To change his mind a second time would be to show such weakness as his family had never witnessed in his actions. He ate his food in silence, and the rest of the party ventured but few remarks. They inwardly congratulated themselves upon the favourable issue of the affair, in so far as it could be said to have reached a conclusion, and they all dreaded equally some fresh outburst of anger, should Marzio's temper be ruffled. Gianbattista himself set the example of discretion. As for the Signora Pandolfi, she had ready in her pocket the money her husband had given her in the morning for the purchase of Lucia's outfit, and she hoped at every moment that Marzio would ask for it, which would have been a sign that he had abandoned the idea of the marriage with Carnesecchi. But Marzio never mentioned the subject. He ate as quickly as he could, swallowed a draught of weak wine and water, and rose from the table without a word. With a significant nod to Maria Luisa and Lucia, Gianbattista left his seat and followed the artist towards the door. Marzio looked round sharply as he heard the steps behind him. "Lucia told me," said the young man simply. "If you wish it, I will come and work." Marzio hesitated a moment, beating his soft felt hat over his arm to remove the dust. "You can go with the men and put up the prince's grating," he said at last. "The right hand side is ready fitted. If you work hard you can finish it before night." "Very well," answered Gianbattista. "I will see to it. I have the keys here. In fire minutes I will come across." Marzio nodded and went out. Gianbattista returned to the room where the women were finishing their dinner. "It is all right," he said. "I am to put up the grating this afternoon. Will you come and see it, Sora Luisa?" He spoke to the mother, but he included the daughter by his look. "It is very far," objected the Signora Pandolfi, "and we have been walking so much this morning. I think this day will never end!" "Courage, mamma," said Lucia, "it will do you good to walk. Besides, there is the omnibus. What did he say, Tista? Am I not right?" "Who knows? He is very quiet," replied the apprentice. "What is it? What are you right about, my heart?" asked Maria Luisa. "She thinks Sor Marzio has suddenly turned into a sugar doll," answered Gianbattista, with a laugh. "It may be. They say they make sugar out of all sorts of things nowadays." "_Capperi!_ It would be hard!" exclaimed Maria Luisa. "If there is enough sugar in him to sweeten a teaspoonful of coffee, write to me," she added ironically. "Well--I shall be at the church in an hour, but it will be time enough if you come at twenty-three o'clock--between twenty-two and twenty-three." This means between one hour and two hours before sunset. "The light is good then, for there is a big west window," added Gianbattista in explanation. "We will come before that," said Lucia. "Good-bye, Tista, and take care not to catch cold in that damp place." "And you too," he answered, "cover yourselves carefully." With this injunction, and a parting wave of the hand, he left the house, affecting a gay humour he did not really feel. His invitation to the two women to join him in the church had another object besides that of showing them the magnificent gilded grating which was to be put in place. Gianbattista feared that Marzio had sent him upon this business for the sake of getting him out of the way, and he did not know what might happen in his absence. The artist might perhaps choose that time for going in search of Gasparo Carnesecchi in order to bring him to the house and precipitate the catastrophe which the apprentice still feared, in spite of the last events of the morning. It was not unusual for Maria Luisa and her daughter to accompany him and Marzio when a finished work was to be set up, and Gianbattista knew that there could be no reasonable objection to such, a proceeding. With an anxious heart he left the house and crossed the street to the workshop where the men were already waiting for the carts which were to convey the heavy grating to its destination. The pieces were standing against the walls, wrapped in tow and brown paper, and immense parcels lay tied up upon the benches. It was a great piece of work of the decorative kind, but of the sort for which Marzio cared little. Great brass castings were chiselled and finished according to his designs without his touching them with his hands. Huge twining arabesques of solid metal were prepared in pieces and fitted together with screws that ran easily in the thread, and then were taken apart again. Then came the laborious work of gilding by the mercury process, smearing every piece very carefully with an amalgam of mercury and gold, and putting it into a gentle, steady fire, until the mercury had evaporated, tearing only the dull gold in an even deposit on the surfaces. Then the finishing, the burnishing of the high lights, and the cleaning of the portions which were to remain dull. Sometimes the gilding of a piece failed, and had to be begun again, and there was endless trouble in saving the gold, as well as in preventing the workmen from stealing the amalgam. It was slow and troublesome work, and Marzio cared little for it, though his artistic instinct restrained him from allowing it to leave the workshop until it had been perfected to the highest degree. At present the artist stood in the outer room among the wrapped pieces, his pipe in his mouth and his hands in his pockets. A moment after Gianhattista had entered, two carts rolled up to the door and the loading began. "Take the drills and some screws to spare," said Marzio, looking into the bag of tools the foreman had prepared. "One can never tell in these monstrous things." "It will be the first time, if we have to drill a new hole after you have fitted a piece of work, Maestro Marzio," answered the foreman, who had an unlimited admiration for his master's genius and foresight. "Never mind; do as I tell you. We may all make mistakes in this world," returned the artist, giving utterance to a moral sentiment which did not influence him beyond the precincts of the workshop. The workman obeyed, and added the requisite instruments to the furnishing of his leather bag. "And be careful, Tista," added Marzio, turning to the apprentice. "Look to the sockets in the marble when you place the large pieces. Measure them with your compass, you know; if they are too loose you have the thin plates of brass to pack them; if they are tight, file away, but finish and smooth it well Don't leave anything rough." Gianbattista nodded as he lent a helping hand to the workmen who were carrying the heavy pieces to the carts. "Will you come to the church before night?" he asked. "Perhaps. I cannot tell. I am very busy." In ten minutes the pieces were all piled upon the two vehicles, and Gianbattista strode away on foot with the workmen. He had not thought of changing his dress, and had merely thrown an old overcoat over his grey woollen blouse. For the time, he was an artisan at work. When working hours were over, and on Sundays, he loved to put on the stiff high collar and the cheeked clothes which suggested the garments of the English tourist. He was then a different person, and, in accordance with the change, he would smoke a cigarette and pull his cuffs over his hands, like a real gentleman, adjusting the angle of his hat from time to time, and glancing at his reflection in the shop windows as he passed along. But work was work; it was a pity to spoil good clothes with handling tools and castings, and jostling against the men, and, moreover, the change affected his nature. He could not handle a hammer or a chisel when he felt like a real gentleman, and when he felt like an artisan he must enjoy the liberty of being able to tuck up his sleeves and work with a will. At the present moment, too, he was proud of being in sole charge of the work, and he could not help thinking what a fine thing it would be to be married to Lucia and to be the master of the workshop. With the sanguine enthusiasm of a very young man who loves his occupation, he put his whole soul into what he was to do, assured that every skilful stroke of the hammer, every difficulty overcome, brought him nearer to the woman he loved. Marzio entered the inner studio when Gianbattista was gone, leaving a boy who was learning to cut little files--the preliminary to the chiseller's profession--in charge of the outer workshop. The artist shut himself in and bolted the door, glad to be alone with the prospect of not being disturbed during the whole afternoon. He seemed not to hesitate about the work he intended to do, for he immediately took in hand the crucifix, laid it upon the table, and began to study it, using a lens from time to time as he scrutinised each detail. His rough hair fell forward over his forehead, and his shoulders rounded themselves till he looked almost deformed. He had suffered very strong emotions during the last twenty-four hours--enough to have destroyed the steadiness of an ordinary man's hand; but with Marzio manual skill was the first habit of nature, and it would have been hard to find a mental impression which could shake his physical nerves. His mind, however, worked rapidly and almost fiercely, while his eyes searched the minute lines of the work he was examining. Uppermost in his thoughts was a confused sense of humiliation and of exasperation against his brother. The anger he felt had nearly been expressed in a murderous deed not more than two or three hours earlier, and the wish to strike was still present in his mind. He twisted his lips into an ugly smile as he recalled the scene in every detail; but the determination was different from the reality and more in accordance with his feelings. He realised again that moment during which he had held the sharp instrument over his brother's head, and the thought which had then passed so rapidly through his brain recurred again with increased clearness. He remembered that beneath the iron-bound box in the corner there was a trap-door which descended to the unused cellar, for his workshop had in former times been a wine-shop, and he had hired the cellar with it. One sharp blow would have done the business. A few quick movements and Paolo's body would have been thrown down the dark steps beneath, the trap closed again, the safe replaced in its position. It was eleven o'clock then, or thereabouts. He would have sent the workmen to their dinner, and would have returned to the inner studio. They would have supposed afterwards that Don Paolo had left the place with him. He would have gone home and would have said that Paolo had left him--or, no--he would have said that Paolo had not been there, for some one might see him leave the workshop alone. In the night he would have returned, his family thinking he had gone to meet his friends, as he often did. When the streets were quiet he would have carried the body away upon the hand-cart that stood in the entry of the outer room. It was not far--scarcely three hundred yards, allowing for the turnings--to the place where the Via Montella ends in a mud bank by the dark river. A deserted neighbourhood, too--a turn to the left, the low trees of the Piazza de' Branca, the dark, short, straight street to the water. At one o'clock after midnight who was stirring? It would all have been so simple, so terribly effectual. And then there would have been no more Paolo, no more domestic annoyances, no more of the priest's smooth-faced disapprobation and perpetual opposition in the house. He would have soon brought Maria Luisa and Lucia to reason. What could they do without the support of Paolo? They were only women after all. As for Gianbattista, if once the poisonous influence of Paolo were removed--and how surely removed!--Marzio's lips twisted as though he were tasting the sourness of failure, like an acid fruit--if once the priest were gone, Gianbattista would come back to his old ways, to his old scorn of priests in general, of churches, of oppression, of everything that Marzio hated. He might marry Lucia then, and be welcome. After all, he was a finer fellow for the pretty girl than Gasparo Carnesecchi, with his claw fingers and his vinegar salad. That was only a farce, that proposal about the lawyer--the real thing was to get rid of Paolo. There could be no healthy liberty of thought in the house while this fellow was sneaking in and out at all hours. Tumble Paolo into a quiet grave--into the river with a sackful of old castings at his neck--there would be peace then, and freedom. Marzio ground his teeth as he thought how nearly he had done the thing, and how miserably he had failed. It had been the inspiration of the moment, and the details had appeared clear at once to his mind. Going over them he found that he had not been mistaken. If Paolo came again, and he had the chance, he would do it. It was perhaps all the better that he had found time to weigh the matter. But would Paolo come again? Would he ever trust himself alone in the workshop? Had he guessed, when he turned so suddenly and saw the weapon in the air, that the blow was on the very point of descending? Or had he been deceived by the clumsy excuse Marzio had made about the sum shining in his eyes? He had remained calm, or Marzio tried to think so. But the artist himself had been so much moved during the minutes that followed that he could hardly feel sure of Paolo's behaviour. It was a chilling thought, that Paolo might have understood and might have gone away feeling that his life had been saved almost by a miracle. He would not come back, the cunning priest, in that case; he would not risk his precious skin in such company. It was not to be expected--a priest was only human, after all, like any other man. Marzio cursed his ill luck again as he bent over his work. What a moment this would be if Paolo would take it into his head to make another visit! Even the men were gone. He would send the one boy who remained to the church where Gianbattista was working, with a message. They would be alone then, he and Paolo. The priest might scream and call for help--the thick walls would not let any sound through them. It would be even better than in the morning, when he had lost his opportunity by a moment, by the twinkling of an eye. "They say hell is paved with good intentions--or lost opportunities," muttered Marzio. "I will send Paolo with the next opportunity to help in the paving." He laughed softly at his grim joke, and bent lower over the crucifix. By this time he had determined what to do, for his reflections had not interfered with his occupation. Removing two tiny silver screws which fitted with the utmost exactness in the threads, he loosened the figure from the cross, removed the latter to a shelf on the wall, and returning laid the statue on a soft leathern pad, surrounding it with sand-bags till it was propped securely in the position he required. Then he took a very small chisel, adjusted it with the greatest care, and tapped upon it with the round wooden handle of his little hammer. At each touch he examined the surface with his lens to assure himself that he was making the improvement he contemplated. It was very delicate work, and as he did it he felt a certain pride in the reflection that he could not have detected the place where improvement was possible when he had worked upon the piece ten years ago. He found it now, in the infinitesimal touches upon the expression of the face, in the minute increase in the depressions and accentuated lines in the anatomy of the figure. As he went over each portion he became more and more certain that though he could not at present do better in the way of idea and general execution, he had nevertheless gained in subtle knowledge of effects and in skill of handling the chisel upon very delicate points. The certainty gave him the real satisfaction of legitimate pride. He knew that he had reached the zenith of his capacities. His old wish to keep the crucifix for himself began to return. If he disposed of Paolo he might keep his work. Only Paolo had seen it. The absurd want of logic in the conclusion did not strike him. He had not pledged himself to his brother to give this particular crucifix to the Cardinal, and if he had, he could easily have found a reason for keeping it back. But he was too much accustomed to think that Paolo was always in the way of his wishes, to look at so simple a matter in such a simple light. "It is strange," he said to himself. "The smallest things seem to point to it. If he would only come!" Again his mind returned to the contemplation of the deed, and again he reviewed all the circumstances necessary for its safe execution. What an inspiration, he thought, and what a pity it had not found shape in fact at the very moment when it had presented itself! He considered why he had never thought of it before, in all the years, as a means of freeing himself effectually from the despotism he detested. It was a despotism, he reflected, and no other word expressed it. He recalled many scenes in his home, in which Paolo had interfered. He remembered how one Sunday, in the afternoon, they had all been together before going to walk in the Corso, and how he had undertaken to demonstrate to Maria Luisa and Lucia the folly of wasting time in going to church on Sundays. He had argued gently and reasonably, he thought. But suddenly Paolo had interrupted him, saying that he would not allow Marzio to compare a church to a circus, nor priests to mountebanks and tight-rope dancers. Why not? Then the women had begun to scream and cry, and to talk of his blasphemous language until he could not hear himself speak. It was Paolo's fault. If Paolo had not been there the women would have listened patiently enough, and would doubtless have reaped some good from his reasonable discourse. On another occasion Marzio had declared that Lucia should never be taught anything about Christianity, that the definition of God was reason, that Garibaldi had baptized one child in the name of Reason and that he, Marzio, could baptize another quite as effectually. Paolo had interfered, and Maria Luisa had screamed. The contest had lasted nearly a month, at the end of which tune, Marzio had been obliged to abandon the uneven contest, vowing vengeance in some shape for the future. Many and many such scenes rose to his memory, and in every one Paolo was the opposer, the enemy of his peace, the champion of all that he hated and despised. In great things and small his brother had been his antagonist from his early manhood, through eighteen years of married life to the present day. And yet, without Paolo, he could hardly have hoped to find himself in his present state of fortune. This was one of the chief sources of his humiliation in his own eyes. With such a character as his, it is eminently true that it is harder to forgive a benefit than an injury. He might have felt less bitterly against his brother if he had not received at his hands the orders and commissions which had turned into solid money in the bank. It was hard to face Paolo, knowing that he owed two-thirds of his fortune to such a source. If he could get rid of the priest he would be relieved at once from the burden of this annoyance, of this financial subjection, as well of all that embittered his life. He pictured to himself his wife and daughter listening respectfully to his harangues and beginning to practise his principles, Gianbattista, an eloquent member of the society in the inner room of the old inn, reformed, purged from his sneaking fondness for Paolo--since Paolo would not be in the world any longer--and ultimately married to Lucia, the father of children who should all be baptized in the name of Reason, and the worthy successor of himself, Marzio Pandolfi. Scrutinising the statue under his lens, he detected a slight imperfection in the place where one of the sharp thorns touched the silver forehead of the beautiful, tortured head. He looked about for a tool fine enough for the work, but none suited his wants. He took up the long fine-pointed punch he had thrown back upon the table after the scene in the morning. It was too long, and over sharp, but by turning it sideways it would do the work under his dexterous fingers. "Strange!" he muttered, as he tapped upon the tool. "It is like a consecration!" When he had made the stroke he dropped the instrument into the pocket of his blouse, as though fearing to lose it. He had no occasion to use it again, though he went on with his work during several hours. The thoughts which had passed through his brain recurred, and did not diminish in clearness. On the contrary, it was as though the passing impulse of the morning had grown during those short hours into a settled and unchangeable resolution. Once he rose from his stool, and going to the corner, dragged away the iron-bound safe from its place. A rusty ring lay flat in a little hollow in the surface of the trap-door. Marzio bent over it with a pale face and gleaming eyes. It seemed to him as though, if he looked round, he should see Paolo's body lying on the floor, ready to be dropped into the space below. He raised the wood and set the trap back against the wall, peering down into the black depths. A damp smell came up to his nostrils from the moist staircase. He struck a match, and held it into the opening, to see in what direction the stairs led down. Something moved behind him and made a little noise. With a short cry of horror Marzio sprang back from the opening and looked round. It was as though the body of the murdered man had stirred upon the floor. His overstrained imagination terrified him, and his eyes started from his head. He examined the bench and saw the cause of the sound in a moment. The silver Christ, unsteadily propped in the position in which he had just placed it, had fallen upon one side of the pad by its own weight. Marzio's heart still beat desperately as he went back to the hole and carefully reclosed the trap-door, dragging the heavy safe to its position over the ring. Trembling violently, he sat down upon his stool and wiped the cold perspiration from his forehead. Then, as he laid the figure upon the cushion, he glanced uneasily behind him and at the corner. CHAPTER IX When Don Paolo had shut the door of the studio and found himself once more in the open street, he felt a strangely unpleasant sensation about the heart, and for a few moments he was very pale. He had suffered a shock, and in spite of his best efforts to explain away what had occurred, he knew that he had been in danger. Any one who, being himself defenceless, has suddenly seen a pistol pointed at him in earnest, or a sharp weapon raised in the air to strike him, knows the feeling well enough. Probably he has afterwards tried to reason upon what he felt in that moment, and has failed to come to any conclusion except the very simple one, that he was badly frightened. Hector was no coward, but he let Achilles chase him three times round Troy before he could make up his mind to stand and fight, and but for Athena he might have run even further. And yet Hector was armed at all points for battle. He was badly frightened, brave man as he was. But when the first impression was gone, and Paolo was walking quickly in the direction of the palace where the Cardinal lived, he stoutly denied to himself that Marzio had meant to harm him. In the first place, he could find no adequate reason for such an attempt upon his life. It was true that his relations with his brother had not been very amicable for some time; but between quarrelling and doing murder, Paolo saw a gulf too wide to be easily overstepped, even by such a person as Marzio. Then, too, the good man was unwilling to suspect any one of bad intentions, still less of meditating a crime. This consideration, however, was not, logically speaking, in Marzio's favour; for since Paolo was less suspicious than other men, it must necessarily have needed a severe shock to shake his faith in his brother's innocence. He had seem the weapon in the air, and had seen also the murderous look in the artist's eyes. "I had better not think anything more about it," he said to himself, fearing lest he should think anything unjust. So he went on his way towards the palace, and tried to think about Gianbattista and Lucia, their marriage and their future life. The two young faces came up before him as he walked, and he smiled calmly, forgetting what he had so recently passed through, in the pleasant contemplation of a happiness not his own. He reached his rooms, high up at the top of the ancient building, and he sighed with a sense of relief as he sat down upon the battered old chair before his writing-table. Presently the Cardinal sent for him. Don Paolo rose and carefully brushed the dust from his cassock and mantle, and smoothed the long silk nap of his hat. He was a very neat man and scrupulous as to his appearance. Moreover, he regarded the Cardinal with a certain awe, as being far removed beyond the sphere of ordinary humanity, even though he had known him intimately for years. This idea of the great importance of the princes of the Church is inherent in the Roman mind. There is no particular reason why it should be eradicated, since it exists, and does no harm to any one, but it is a singular fact and worthy of remark. It is one of those many relics of old times, which no amount of outward change has been able to obliterate. A cardinal in Rome occupies a position wholly distinct from that of any other dignitary or hereditary noble. It is not so elsewhere, except perhaps in some parts of the south. The Piedmontese scoffs at cardinals, because he scoffs at the church and at all religion in general. The Florentine shrugs his shoulders because cardinals represent Rome, and Rome, with all that is in it, is hateful to Florence, and always was. But the true Roman, even when he has adopted the ideas of the new school, still feels an unaccountable reverence for the scarlet mantle. There is a dignity--often, now, very far from magnificent--about the household of a cardinal, which is not found elsewhere. The servants are more grave and tread more softly, the rooms are darker and more severe, the atmosphere is more still and the silence more intense, than in the houses of lay princes. A man feels in the very air the presence of a far-reaching power, noiselessly working to produce great results. Don Paolo descended the stairs and entered the apartments through the usual green baize door, which swung upon its hinges by its own weight behind him. He passed through several large halls, scantily and sombrely furnished, in the last of which stood the throne chair, turned to the wall, beneath a red canopy. Beyond this great reception-chamber, and communicating with it by a low masked door, was the Cardinal's study, a small room, very high and lighted by a single tall window which opened upon an inner court of the palace. The furniture was very simple, consisting of a large writing-table, a few high-backed chairs, and the Cardinal's own easy-chair, covered with dingy leather and well worn by use. On the dark green walls hung two engravings, one a portrait of Pius IX., the other a likeness of Leo XIII. The Cardinal himself sat in the arm-chair, holding a newspaper spread out upon his knees. "Good-day, Don Paolo," he said, in a pleasant, but not very musical voice. His Eminence was a man about sixty years of age, hale and strong in appearance, but below the middle height and somewhat inclining to stoutness. His face was round, and the complexion very clear, which, with his small and bright brown eyes, gave him a look of cheerful vitality. Short white hair fringed his head where it was not covered by the small scarlet skull-cap. He wore a purple cassock with scarlet buttons and a scarlet silk mantle, which fell in graceful folds over one arm of the chair. "Good-day, Eminence," answered Don Paolo, touching the great ruby ring with his lips. Then, in obedience to a gesture, the priest sat down upon one of the high-backed chairs. "What weather have we to-day?" asked the Cardinal after a pause. "Scirocco, Eminence." "Ah, I thought so--especially this morning, very early. It is very disagreeable. Since Padre Secchi found that the scirocco really brings the sand of the desert with it, I dislike it more than ever. And what have you been doing, Don Paolo? Have you been to see about the crucifix?" "I spoke to my brother about it last night, Eminence. He said he would do his best to make it in the time, but that he would have preferred to have a little longer." "He is a good artist, your brother," said the Cardinal, nodding his head slowly and joining his hands, while the newspaper slipped to the floor. "A good artist," repeated Don Paolo, stooping to pick up the sheet. "I have just seen his best work--a crucifix such as your Eminence wishes. Indeed, he proposed that you should take it, for he says he can make nothing better." "Let us see, let us see," answered the prelate, in a tone which showed that he did not altogether like the proposal. "You say he has it already made. Tell me, has your brother much work to do just now?" "Not much, Eminence. He has just finished the grating of a chapel for some church or other. I think I saw a silver ewer begun upon his table." "I thought that perhaps he had not time for my crucifix." "But he is an artist, my brother!" cried the priest, who resented the idea that Marzio might wish to palm off an ill-made object in order to save time. "He is a good artist, he loves the work, he always does his best! When he says he can do nothing better than what he has already finished, I believe him." "So much the better," replied the Cardinal. "But we must see the work before deciding. You seem to have great faith in your brother's good intentions, Don Paolo. Is it not true? Dear me! You were almost angry with me for suggesting that he might be too busy to undertake my commission." "Angry! I angry? Your Eminence is unjust. Marzio puts much conscience into his work. That is all." "Ah, he is a man of conscience? I did not know. But, being your brother, he should be, Don Paolo." The prelate's bright brown eyes twinkled. Paolo was silent, though he bowed his head in acknowledgment of the indirect praise. "You do not say anything," observed the Cardinal, looking at his secretary with a smile. "He is a man of convictions," answered Paolo, at last. "That is better than nothing, better than being lukewarm. 'Because thou art lukewarm,' you know the rest." "_Incipiam te evomere_," replied the priest mechanically. "Marzio is not lukewarm." "_Frigidusne?_" asked the Cardinal. "Hardly that." "_An calidus?_" "Not very, Eminence. That is, not exactly." "But then, in heaven's name, what is he?" laughed the prelate. "If he is not cold, nor hot, nor lukewarm, what is he? He interests me. He is a singular case." "He is a man who has his opinions," answered Don Paolo. "What shall I say? He is so good an artist that he is a little crazy about other things." "His opinions are not ours, I suppose. I have sometimes thought as much from the way you speak of him. Well, well--he is not old; his opinions will change. You are very much attached to your brother, Don Paolo, are you not?" "We are brothers, Eminence." "So were Cain and Abel, if I am not mistaken," observed the Cardinal. Paolo looked about the room uneasily. "I only mean to say," continued the prelate, "that men may be brothers and yet not love each other." "_Come si fà?_ What can one do about it?" ejaculated Paolo. "You must try and influence him. You must do your best to make him change his views. You must make an effort to bring him to a better state of mind." "Eh! I know," answered the priest. "I do my best, but I do not succeed. He thinks I interfere. I am not San Filippo Neri. Why should I conceal the matter? Marzio is not a bad man, but he is crazy about what he calls politics. He believes in a new state of things. He thinks that everything is bad and ought to be destroyed. Then he and his friends would build up the ideal state." "There would soon be nothing but equality to eat--fried, roast and boiled. I have heard that there are socialists even here in Rome. I cannot imagine what they want." "They want to divide the wealth of the country among themselves," answered Don Paolo. "What strange ideas men have!" "To divide the wealth of the country they have only to subtract a paper currency from an inflated national debt. There would be more unrighteousness than mammon left after such a proceeding. It reminds me of a story I heard last year. A deputation of socialists waited upon a high personage in Vienna. Who knows what for? But they went. They told him that it was his duty to divide his wealth amongst the inhabitants of the city. And he said they were quite right. 'Look here,' said he, 'I possess about seven hundred thousand florins. It chances that Vienna has about seven hundred thousand inhabitants. Here, you have each one florin. It is your share. Good-morning.' You see he was quite just. So, perhaps, if your brother had his way, and destroyed everything, and divided the proceeds equally, he would have less afterwards than he had before. What do you think?" "It is quite true, Eminence. But I am afraid he will never understand that. He has very unchangeable opinions." "They will change all the more suddenly when he is tired of them. Those ideas are morbid, like the ravings of a man in a fever. When the fever has worn itself out, there comes a great sense of lassitude, and a desire for peace." "Provided it ever really does wear itself out," said Don Paolo, sadly. "Eh! it will, some day. With such political ideas, I suppose your brother is an atheist, is he not?" "I hope he believes in something," replied the priest evasively. "And yet he makes a good living by manufacturing vessels for the service of the Church," continued the Cardinal, with a smile. "Why did you never tell me about your brother's peculiar views, Don Paolo?" "Why should I trouble you with such matters? I am sorry I have said so much, for no one can understand exactly what Marzio is, who does not know him. It is an injury to him to let your Eminence know that he is a freethinker. And yet he is not a bad man, I believe. He has no vices that I know of, except a sharp tongue. He is sober and works hard. That is much in these days. Though he is mistaken, he will doubtless come to his senses, as you say. I do not hate him; I would not injure him." "Why do you think it can harm him to let me about him? Do you think that I, or others, would not employ him if we knew all about him?" "It would seem natural that your Eminence should hesitate to do so." "Let us see, Don Paolo. There are some bad priests in the world, I suppose; are there not?" "It is to be feared--" "Yes, there are. There are bad priests in all forms of religion. Yet they say mass. Of course, very often the people know that they are bad. Do you think that the mass is less efficacious for the salvation of those who attend it, provided that they themselves pray with the same earnestness?" "No; certainly not. For otherwise it would be necessary that the people should ascertain whether the priest is in a state of grace every time he celebrates; and since their salvation would then, depend upon that, they would be committing a sin if they did not examine the relative morality of different priests and select the most saintly one." "Well then, so much the more is it indifferent whether the inanimate vessels we use are chiselled by a saint or an unbeliever. Their use sanctifies them, not the moral goodness of the artist. For, by your own argument, we should otherwise he committing a sin if we did not find out the most saintly men and set them to silver-chiselling instead of ordaining them bishops and archbishops. It would take a long time to build a church if you only employed masons who were in a state of grace." "Well, but would you not prefer that the artist should be a good man?" "For his own sake, Don Paolo, for his own sake. The thing he makes is not at all less worthy if he is bad. Are there not in many of our churches pillars that stood in Roman temples? Is not the canopy over the high altar in Saint Peter's made of the bronze roof of the Pantheon? And besides, what is goodness? We are all bad, but some are worse than others. It is not our business to judge, or to distribute commissions for works of art to those whom we think the best among men, as one gives medals and prizes to industrious and well-behaved children." "That is very clear, and very true," answered the priest. He did not really want to discuss the question of Marzio's belief or unbelief. Perhaps, if he had not been disturbed in mind by the events of the morning he would have avoided the subject, as he had often done before when the Cardinal had questioned him. But to-day he was not quite himself, and being unable to tell a falsehood of any kind he had spoken more of idle truth than he had wished. He felt that he had perhaps been unjust to his brother. He looked ill at ease, and the Cardinal noticed it, for he was a kindly man and very fond of his secretary. "You must not let the matter trouble you," said the prelate, after a pause. "I am an inquisitive old man, as you know, and I like to be acquainted with my friends' affairs. But I am afraid I have annoyed you--" "Oh! Your Eminence could never--" "Never intentionally," interrupted the Cardinal. "But it is human to err, and it is especially human to bore one's fellow-creatures with inquisitive questions. We all have our troubles, Don Paolo, and I am yours. Some day, perhaps, you will be a cardinal yourself--who knows? I hope so. And then you will have an excellent secretary, who will be much too good, even for you, and whom you can torture by the hour together with inquiries about his relations. Well, if it is only for your sake, Sor Marzio shall never have any fewer commissions, even if he turn out more in earnest with his socialism than most of those fellows." "You are too kind," said Paolo simply. He was very grateful for the kindly words, for he knew that they were meant and not said merely in jest. The idea that he had perhaps injured Marzio in the Cardinal's estimation was very painful to him, in spite of what he had felt that morning. Moreover, the prelate's plain, common-sense view of the case reassured him, and removed a doubt that had long ago disturbed his peace of mind. On reflection it seemed true enough, and altogether reasonable, but Paolo knew in his heart what a sensation of repulsion, not to say loathing, he would experience if he should ever be called upon to use in the sacred services a vessel of his brother's making. The thought that those long, cruel fingers of Marzio's had hammered and worked out the delicate design would pursue him and disturb his thoughts. The sound of Marzio's voice, mocking at all the priest held holy, would be in his ears and would mingle with the very words of the canon. But then, provided that he himself were not obliged to use his brother's chalices, what could it matter? The Cardinal did not know the artist, and whatever picture he might make to himself of the man would be shadowy and indistinct. The feeling, then, was his own and quite personal. It would be the height of superstitious folly to suppose that any evil principle could be attached to the silver and gold because they were chiselled by impious hands. A simple matter this, but one which had many a time distressed Don Paolo. There was a long pause after the priest's last words, during which the prelate looked at him from time to time, examined his own white hands, and turned his great ruby ring round his finger. "Let us go to work," he said at length, as though dismissing the subject of the conversation from his mind. Paolo fetched a large portfolio of papers and established himself at the writing-table, while the Cardinal examined the documents one by one, and dictated what he had to say about them to his secretary. During two hours or more the two men remained steadily at their task. When the last paper was read and the last note upon it written out, the Cardinal rose from his arm-chair and went to the window. There was no sound in the room but that of the sand rattling upon the stiff surface, as Paolo poured it over the wet ink in the old-fashioned way, shook it about and returned it to the little sandbox by the inkstand. Suddenly the old churchman turned round and faced the priest. "One of these days, when you and I are asleep out there at San Lorenzo, there will be a fight, my friend," he said. "About what, Eminence?" asked the other. "About silver chalices, perhaps. About many things. It will be a great fight, such as the world has never seen before." "I do not understand," said Don Paolo. "Your brother represents an idea," answered the Cardinal. "That idea is the subversion of all social principle. It is an idea which must spread, because there is an enormous number of depraved men in the world who have a very great interest in the destruction of law. The watchword of that party will always be 'there is no God,' because God is order, and they desire disorder. They will, it is true, always be a minority, because the greater part of mankind are determined that order shall not be destroyed. But those fellows will fight to the death, because they know that in that battle there will be no quarter for the vanquished. It will be a mighty struggle and will last long, but it will be decisive, and will perhaps never be revived when it is once over. Men will kill each other where-ever they meet, during months and years, before the end comes, for all men who say that there is a God in Heaven will be upon the one side, and all those who say there is no God will be upon the other." "May we not be alive to see anything so dreadful!" exclaimed Don Paolo devoutly. "No, you and I shall not see it. But those little children who are playing with chestnuts down there in the court--they will see it. The world is uneasy and dreads the very name of war, lest war should become universal if it once breaks out. Tell your brother that." "It is what he longs for. He is always speaking of it." "Then it is inevitable. When many millions like him have determined that there shall be evil done, it cannot long be warded off. Their blood be on their own heads." When Don Paolo had climbed again to his lonely lodging, half an hour later, he pondered long upon what the Cardinal had said to him, and the longer he thought of it, the more truth there seemed to be in the prediction. CHAPTER X Gianbattista reached the church in which he was to do his work, and superintended the unloading of the carts. It was but a little after one o'clock, and he expected to succeed in putting up the grating before night. The pieces were carefully carried to the chapel where they were to be placed, and laid down in the order in which they would be needed. It took a long time to arrange them, and the apprentice was glad he had advised Maria Luisa and Lucia to come late. It would have wearied them, he reflected, to assist at the endless fitting and screwing of the joints, and they would have had no impression of the whole until they were tired of looking at the details. For hours he laboured with the men, not allowing anything to be done without his supervision, and doing more himself than any of the workmen. He grew hot and interested as the time went on, and he began to doubt whether the work could be finished before sunset. The workmen themselves, who preferred a job of this kind to the regular occupation of the studio, seemed in no hurry, though they did what was expected of them quietly and methodically. Each one of them was calculating, as nearly as possible, the length of time needed to drive a screw, to lift a piece into position, to finish off a shank till it fitted closely in the prepared socket. Half an hour wasted by driblets to-day, would ensure them for the morrow the diversion of an hour or two in coming to the church and returning from it. From time to time Gianbattista glanced towards the door, and as the hours advanced his look took the same direction more often. At last, as the rays of the evening sun fell through the western window, he heard steps, and was presently rewarded by the appearance of the Signora Pandolfi, followed closely by Lucia. They greeted Gianbattista from a distance, for the church being under repairs was closed to the public, and had not been in use for years, so that the sound of voices did not seem unnatural nor irreverent. "It is not finished," said Gianbattista, coming forward to meet them; "but you can see what it will be like. Another hour will be enough." At that moment Don Paolo suddenly appeared, walking fast up the aisle in pursuit of the two women. They all greeted him with an exclamation of surprise. "Eh!" he exclaimed, "you are astonished to see me? I was passing and saw you go in, and as I knew about the grating, I guessed what you came for and followed you. Is Marzio here?" "No," answered Gianbattista. "He said he might perhaps come, but I doubt it. I fancy he wants to be alone." "Yes," replied Don Paolo thoughtfully, "I daresay he wants to be alone." "He has had a good many emotions to-day," remarked Gianbattista. "We shall see how he will be this evening. Of course, you have heard the news, Don Paolo? Besides, you see I am at work, so that the first great difference has been settled. Lucia managed it--she has an eloquence, that young lady! She could preach better than you, Don Paolo." "She is a little angel," exclaimed the priest, tapping his niece's dark cheek with his white hand. "That is four to-day!" cried Lucia, laughing. "First mamma, then papa--figure to yourself papa!--then Tista, and now Uncle Paolo. Eh! if the wings don't grow before the Ave Maria--" She broke off with a pretty motion of her shoulders, showing her white teeth and turning to look at Gianbattista. Then the young man took them to see the grating. A good portion of it was put up, and it produced a good effect. The whole thing was about ten or twelve feet high, consisting of widely-set gilt bars, between which were fastened large arabesques and scrolls. On each side of the gate, in the middle, an angel supported a metal drapery, of which the folds were in reality of separate pieces, but which, as it now appeared, all screwed together in its place, had a very free and light effect. It was work of a conventional kind and of a conventional school, but even here Marzio's great talent had shown itself in his rare knowledge of effects and free modelling; the high lights were carefully chosen and followed out, and the deep shadows of the folds in dull gold gave a richness to the drapery not often found in this species of decoration. The figures of the angels, too, were done by an artist's hand--conventional, like the rest, but free from heaviness or anatomical defects. "It is not bad," said Don Paolo, in a tone which surprised every one. He was not often slow to praise his brother's work. "How, not bad? Is that all you say?" asked Gianbattista, in considerable astonishment. He felt, too, that as Marzio and he worked together, he deserved acme part of the credit. "It is church decoration of course, and not a 'piece,' as we say, but I would like to see anybody do better." "Well, well, Tista, forgive me," he answered, "The fact is, Marzio showed me something to-day so wonderful, that I see no beauty in anything else--or, at least, not so much beauty as I ought to see. I went in to find him again, you know, just as Lucia was leaving, and he showed me a crucifix--a marvel, a wonder!--he said he had had it a long time, put away in a box." "I never saw it," said Tista. "I did!" exclaimed Lucia. She regretted the words as soon as she had spoken them, and bit her lip. She had not told her mother what she had told Gianbattista. "When did you see it? Is it so very beautiful?" asked the Signora Pandolfi. "Oh, I only saw it through the door, when I went," she answered quickly. "The door was open, but I knocked and I saw him hide it. But I think it was very fine--splendid! What did you talk about, Uncle Paolo? You have not told us about your visit. I whispered to you that everything was settled, but you looked as though you did not understand. What did you say to each other?" "Oh, nothing--nothing of any importance," said Don Paolo in some embarrassment. He suddenly recollected that, owing to his brother's strange conduct, he had left the studio without saying a word about the errand which had brought him. "Nothing," he repeated. "We talked about the crucifix, and Marzio gave a very long explanation of the way it was made. Besides, as Lucia says, she had told me that everything was settled, and Marzio spoke very quietly." This was literally true. Marzio's words had been gentle enough. It was his action that had at first startled Don Paolo, and had afterwards set him thinking and reflecting on the events of those few minutes. But he would not for anything in the world have allowed any of his three companions to know what had happened. He was himself not sure. Marzio had excused the position of his hand by saying that the sun was in his eyes. There was something else in his eyes, thought Paolo; a look of hatred and of eager desire for blood which it was horrible to remember. Perhaps he ought not to remember it, for he might, be mistaken, after all, and it was a great sin to suspect any one of wishing to commit such a crime; but nevertheless; and in spite of his desire that it might not have been true, Don Paolo was conscious of having received the impression, and he was sure that it had not been the result of any foolish fright. He was not a cowardly, man, and although his physical courage had rarely been put to the test, no one who knew him would have charged him with the contemptible timidity which imagines danger gratuitously, and is afraid where no fear is. He was of a better temper than Marzio, who had been startled so terribly by a slight noise when his back was turned. And yet he had been profoundly affected by the scene of the morning, and had not yet entirely recovered his serenity. Lucia noticed the tone of his answer, and suspected that something had happened, though her suspicion took a direction exactly opposed to the fact. She remembered what she had seen herself, and recalling the fact that Paolo had entered the workshop just as she was leaving it, she saw nothing unnatural in the supposition that her father's conversation with her uncle had taken a religious tone. She used the word religion to express to herself what she meant. She thought it quite possible that after Marzio had been so suddenly softened, and evidently affected, by her own fainting fit, and after having been absorbed in some sort of devotional meditation, he might have spoken of his feelings to Don Paolo, who in his turn would have seized the opportunity for working upon his brother's mind. Paolo, she thought, would naturally not care to speak lightly of such an occurrence, and his somewhat constrained manner at the present moment might be attributed to this cause. To prevent any further questions from her mother or Gianbattista, Lucia interposed. "Yes," she said, "he seemed very quiet. He hardly spoke at dinner. But Tista says he may perhaps be here before long, and then we shall know." It was not very clear what was to be known, and Lucia hastened to direct their attention to the new grating. Gianbattista returned to work with the men, and the two women and Don Paolo stood looking on, occasionally shifting their position to get a better view of the work. Gianbattista was mounted upon a ladder which leaned against one of the marble pillars at the entrance of the side chapel closed by the grating. A heavy piece of arabesque work had just been got into its place, and was tied with cords while the young man ran a screw through the prepared holes to fasten one side of the fragment to the bar. He was awkwardly placed, but he had sent the men to uncover and clean the last pieces, at a little distance from where he was at work. The three visitors observed him with interest, probably remarking to themselves that it must need good nerves to maintain one's self in such a position. Don Paolo, especially, was more nervous than the rest, owing, perhaps, to what had occurred in the morning. All at once, as he watched Gianbattista's twisted attitude, as the apprentice strained himself and turned so as to drive the screw effectually, the foot of the ladder seemed to move a little on the smooth marble pavement. With a quick movement Don Paolo stepped forward, with the intention of grasping the ladder. Hearing the sound of rapid steps, Gianbattista turned his head and a part of his body to see what had happened. The sudden movement shifted the weight, and definitely destroyed the balance of the ladder. With a sharp screech, like that of a bad pencil scratching on a slate, the lower ends of the uprights slipped outward from the pillar. Gianbattista clutched at the metal bars desperately, but the long screw-driver in his hands impeded him, and he missed his hold. Don Paolo, the sound of whose step had at first made the young man turn, and had thus probably precipitated the accident, sprang forward, threw himself under the falling ladder, and grasped it with all his might. But it was too late. Gianbattista was heavy, and the whole ladder with his weight upon it had gained too much impetus to be easily stopped by one man. With a loud crash he fell with the wooden frame upon the smooth marble floor. Rolling to one side, Gianbattista leapt to his feet, dazed but apparently unhurt. The priest lay motionless in a distorted position under the ladder, his head bent almost beneath his body, and one arm projecting upon the pavement, seemingly twisted in its socket, the palm upwards. The long white fingers twitched convulsively once or twice, and then were still. It was all the affair of a moment. Maria Luisa screamed and leaned against the pillar for support, while Lucia ran forward and knelt beside the injured man. Gianbattista, whose life had probably been saved by Don Paolo's quick action, was dragging away the great ladder, and the workmen came running up in confusion to see what had happened. It seemed as though Marzio's wish had been accomplished without his agency. A deadly livid colour overspread the priest's refined features, and as they lifted him his limp limbs hung down as though the vitality would never return to them--all except the left arm, which was turned stiffly out and seemed to refuse to hang down with the rest. It was dislocated at the shoulder. A scene of indescribable confusion followed, in which Gianbattista alone seemed to maintain some semblance of coolness. The rest all spoke and cried at once. Maria Luisa and Lucia knelt beside the body where they had laid it on the steps of the high altar, crying aloud, kissing the white hands and beating their breasts, praying, sobbing, and calling upon Paolo to speak to them, all in a breath. "He is dead as a stone," said one of the workmen in a low voice. "Eh! He is in Paradise," said another, kneeling at the priest's feet and rubbing them. "Take him to the hospital, Sor Tista--" "Better take him home--" "I will run and call Sor Marzio--" "There is an apothecary in the next street." "A doctor is better--apothecaries are all murderers." Gianbattista, very pale, but collected and steady, pushed the men gently away from the body. "_Cari miei_, my dear fellows," he said, "he may be alive. One of you run and get a carriage to the side door of the sacristy. The rest of you put the things together and be careful to leave nothing where it can fall. We will take him to Sor Marzio's house and get the best doctor." "There is not even a drop of holy water in the basins," moaned Maria Luisa. "He will go to Heaven without holy water," sobbed Lucia. "Oh, how good he was--" Gianbattista kneeled down in his turn and tried to find the pulse in the poor limp wrist. Then he listened for the heart. He fancied he could hear a faint flutter in the breast. He looked up and a little colour came to his pale face. "I think he is alive," he said to the two women, and then bent down again and listened. "Yes," he continued joyfully. "The heart beats. Gently--help me to carry him to the sacristy; get his hat one of you. So--carefully--do not twist that arm. I think I see colour in his cheeks--" With four other men Gianbattista raised the body and bore it carefully to the sacristy. The cab was already at the door, and in a few minutes poor Don Paolo was placed in it. The hood was raised, and Maria Luisa got in and sat supporting the drooping head upon her broad bosom. Lucia took the little seat in front, and Gianbattista mounted to the box, after directing the four men to follow in a second cab as fast as they could, to help to carry the priest upstairs. He sent another in search of a surgeon. "Do not tell Sor Marzio--do not go to the workshop," he said in a last injunction. He knew that Marzio would be of no use in such an emergency, and he hoped that Don Paolo might be pronounced out of danger before the chiseller knew anything of the accident. In half an hour the injured man was lying in Gianbattista's bed. It was now evident that he was alive, for he breathed heavily and regularly. But the half-closed eyes had no intelligence in them, and the slight flush in the hollow cheeks was not natural to see. The twisted arm still stuck out of the bed-coverings in a painfully distorted attitude. The two women and Gianbattista stood by the bedside in silence, waiting for the arrival of the surgeon. He came at last, a quiet-looking man of middle age, with grizzled hair and a face deeply pitted with the smallpox. He seemed to know what he was about, for he asked for a detailed account of the accident from Gianbattista while he examined the patient. The young man, who was beginning to feel the effects of the fall, now that the first excitement had subsided, sat down while he told the story. The surgeon urged the two women to leave the room. "The left arm is dislocated at the shoulder, without fracture," said the surgeon. "Lend me a hand, will you? Hold his body firmly--here and here--with all your might, while I pull the joint into place. If his head or spine are not injured the pain may bring him to consciousness. That will be a good thing. Now, ready--one, two, three, pull!" The two men gave a vigorous jerk, and to Gianbattista's surprise the arm fell back in a natural position; but the injured priest's features expressed no pain. He was evidently quite unconscious. A further examination led the surgeon to believe that the harm was more serious. There was a bad bruise on one side of the head, and more than one upon other parts of the body. "Will he live?" asked Gianbattista faintly, as he sank back into his chair. "Oh yes--probably. He is likely to have a brain fever; One cannot tell. How old is he?" He asked one or two other questions, arranging the patient's position with skilful hands while he talked Then he asked for paper and wrote a prescription. "Nothing more can be done for the present," he said. "You should put some ice on his head, and if he recovers consciousness, so as to speak before I come back, observe what he says. He may be in a delirium, or he may talk quite rationally. One cannot tell Send for this medicine and give it to him if he is conscious. Otherwise, only keep his head cool. I will come back early in the evening. You are not hurt yourself?" he inquired, looking at Gianbattista curiously. "No; I am badly shaken, and my hands are a little cut--that is all," answered the young man. "What a beautiful thing youth is!" observed the surgeon philosophically, as he went away. Gianbattista remained alone in the sick-room, seated upon his chair by the head of the bed. With anxious interest and attention he watched the expressionless face as the heavy breath came and went between the parted lips. In the distance he could hear the sobbing and incoherent talk of the two women, as the doctor explained to them Paolo's condition, but he was now too much dazed to give any thought to them. It seemed to him that Don Paolo had sacrificed his life for him, and that he had no other duty than to sit beside the bed and watch his friend. All the impressions of the afternoon were very much confused, and the shock of the fall had told upon his nerves far more severely than he had at first realised. His limbs ached and his hands pained him; at the same time he felt dizzy, and the outline of Don Paolo's face grew indistinct as he watched it. He was roused by the entry of Lucia, who had hastily laid aside her hat. Her face was pale, and her dark eyes were swollen with tears; her hair was in disorder and was falling about her neck. Gianbattista instinctively rose and put his arm about the girl's waist as they stood together and looked at the sick man. He felt that it was his duty to comfort her. "The doctor thinks he may get well," he said. "Who knows," she answered tearfully, and shook her head, "Oh, Tista, he was our best friend!" "It was in trying to save me--" said the young fellow. But he got no further. The words stuck in his throat. "If he lives I will be a son to him!" he added presently. "I will never leave him. But perhaps--perhaps he is too good to live, Lucia!" "He must not die. I will take care of him," answered Lucia. "You must pray for him, Tista, and I will--we all will!" "Eh! I will try, but I don't understand that kind of thing as well as you," said Gianbattista dolefully. "If you think it is of any use--" "Of course it is of use, my heart; do not doubt it," replied the young girl gravely. Then her features suddenly quivered, she turned away, and, hiding her face on the pillow beside the priest's unconscious, head, she sobbed as though her heart would break. Gianbattista knelt down at her side and put his arm round her neck, whispering lovingly in her ear. The day was fading, and the last glow of the sun in the south-western sky came through the small window at the other end of the narrow room, illuminating the simple furniture, the white bed coverings, the upturned face of the injured man, and the two young figures that knelt at the bedside. It was Gianbattista's room, and there was little enough in it. The bare bricks, with only a narrow bit of green drugget by the bed, the plain deal table before the window, the tiny round mirror set in lead, at which the apprentice shaved himself, the crazy old chest of drawers--that was all. The whitewashed walls were relieved by two or three drawings of chalices and other church vessels, the colour of the gold or silver, and of the gems, washed into one half of the design and the other side left in black and white. A little black cross hung above the bedstead, with a bit of an olive branch nailed over it--a reminiscence of the last Palm Sunday. There were two nails in another part of the room, on which some old clothes were hung--that was all. But the deep light of the failing day shed a peaceful halo aver everything, and touched the coarse details of a hardworking existence with the divine light of Heaven. Lucia's sobbing ceased after a while, and, as the sunset faded into twilight and dusk, the silence grew more profound; the sick man's breathing became lighter, as though in his unconsciousness he were beginning to rest after the day in which he had endured so much. From the sitting-room beyond the short passage the sound of Maria Luisa's voice, moaning in concert with old Assunta, gradually diminished till they were heard only at intervals, and at last ceased altogether. The household of Marzio Pandolfi was hushed in the presence of a great sorrow, and awed by the anticipation of a great misfortune. CHAPTER XI Marzio, in ignorance of all that was happening at the church, continued to work in the solitude of his studio, and the current of his thoughts flowed on in the same channel. He tried to force his attention upon the details of the design he meditated against his brother's life, and for some time he succeeded. But another influence had begun to work upon his brain, since the moment when he had been frightened by the sound behind him while he was examining the hole beneath the strong box. He would not own to himself that such a senseless fear could have produced a permanent impression on him, and yet he felt disturbed and unsettled, unaccountably discomposed, and altogether uncomfortable. He could not help looking round from time to time at the door, and more than once his eyes rested for several seconds upon the safe, while a slight shiver ran through his body and seemed to chill his fingers. But he worked on in spite of all this. The habit of the chisel was not to be destroyed by the fancied scare of a moment, and though his eyes wandered now and then, they came back to the silver statue as keen as ever. A little touch with the steel at one point, a little burnishing at another, the accentuation of a line, the deepening of a shadow--he studied every detail with a minute and scrupulous care which betrayed his love for the work he was doing. And yet the uneasiness grew upon him. He felt somehow as though Paolo were present in the room with him, watching him over his shoulder, suggesting improvements to be made, in that voice of his which now rang distinctly in the artist's ear. His imagination worked morbidly, and he thought of Paolo standing beside him, ordering him to do this or that against his will, until he began to doubt his own judgment in regard to what he was doing. He wondered whether he should feel the same thing when Paolo was dead. Again he looked behind him, and the idea that he was not alone gained force. Nevertheless the room was bright, brighter indeed in the afternoon than it ever was in the morning, for the window was towards the south, and though the first rays of the sun reached it at about eleven in the morning, the buildings afterwards darkened it again until the sun was in the west. Moreover to-day, the weather had been changeable, and it had rained a little about noon. Now the air was again clear, and the workshop was lit up so that the light penetrated even to the ancient cobwebs in the corners, and touched the wax models and casts on the shelves, and gilded the old wood of the door opposite with rich brown gold. Marzio had a curtain of dusty grey linen which he drew across the lower part of the window to keep the sunshine off his work. He was impatient with himself, and annoyed by the persistency of the impression that Paolo was in some way present in the place. As though to escape from it by braving it he set himself resolutely to consider the expediency of destroying his brother. The first quick impulse in the morning had developed to a purpose in the afternoon. He had constructed the probable occurrences out of the materials of his imagination, and had done it so vividly as to frighten himself. The fright had in some measure cooled his intention, and had been now replaced by a new element in his thoughts, by the apprehension for the future if the deed were accomplished. He began to speculate upon what would happen afterwards, wondering whether by any means the murder could be discovered, and if in that case it could ever be traced to him. At the first faint suggestion that such a thing as he was devising could possibly have another issue than he had supposed, Marzio felt a cold sensation in his heart, and his thoughts took a different direction. It was all simple enough. To get Paolo into the workshop alone--a blow--the concealment of the dead body until night--then the short three hundred yards with the hand-cart--it seemed very practicable. Yes, but if by any chance he should meet a policeman under those low trees in the Piazza de' Branca, what would happen? A man with a hand-cart, and with something shapeless upon the hand-cart, in the dark, hurrying towards the river--such a man would excite the suspicions of a policeman. Marzio might be stopped and asked what he was taking away. He would answer--what would he answer in such a case? The hand-cart would be examined and found to contain a dead priest. Besides, he reflected that the wheels would make a terrible clatter in the silent streets at night. Of course he might go out and walk down to the river first and see if there was anybody in the way, but even then he could not be sure of finding no one when he returned with his burden. But there was the cellar, after all. He could go down in the night and bury his brother's body there. No one ever went down, not even he himself. Who would suspect the place? It would be a ghastly job, the chiseller thought. He fancied how it would be in the cold, damp vault with a lantern--the white face of the murdered man. No, he shrank from thinking of it. It was too horrible to be thought of until it should be absolutely necessary. But the place was a good one. And then when Paolo was buried deep under the damp stones, who would be the first to ask for him? For two or three days no one would be much surprised if he did not come to the house. Marzio would say that he had met him in the street, and that Paolo had excused himself for not coming, on the ground of extreme pressure of work. But the Cardinal, whom he served as secretary, would ask for the missing man. He would be the first. The Cardinal would be told that Paolo had not slept at home, in his lodging high up in the old palace, and he would send at once to Marzio's house to know where his secretary was. Well, he might send, Marzio would answer that he did not know, and the matter would end there. It would be hard to sit calmly at the bench all day with Gianbattista at his side. He would probably look very often at the iron-bound box. Gianbattista would notice that, and in time he would grow curious, and perhaps explore the cellar. It would be a miserable ending to such a drama to betray himself by his own weakness after it was all done, and Paolo was gone for ever--a termination unworthy of Marzio, the strong-minded freethinker. To kill a priest, and then be as nervous and conscious as a boy in a scrape! The chiseller tried to laugh aloud in his old way, but the effort was ineffectual, and ended in a painful twisting of the lips, accompanied by a glance at the corner. It would not do; he was weak, and was forced to submit to the humiliation of acknowledging the fact to himself. With a bitter scorn of his incapacity, he began to wonder whether he could ever get so far as to kill Paolo in the first instance. He foresaw that if he did kill him, he could never get rid of him afterwards. Where do people go when they die? The question rose suddenly in the mind of the unbeliever, and seemed to demand an answer. He had answered often enough over a pint of wine at the inn, with Gaspare Carnesecchi the lawyer and the rest of his friends. Nowhere. That was the answer, clear enough. When a man dies he goes to the ground, as a slaughtered ox to the butcher's stall, or a dead horse to the knacker's. That is the end of him, and it is of no use asking any more questions. You might as well ask what becomes of the pins that are lost by myriads of millions, to the weight of many tons in a year. You might as well inquire what becomes of anything that is old, or worn out, or broken. A man is like anything else, an agglomeration of matter, capable of a few more tricks than a monkey, and capable of a few less than a priest. He dies, and is swallowed up by the earth and gives no more trouble. These were the answers Marzio was accustomed to give to the question, "Where do people go to when they die?" Hitherto they had satisfied him, as they appear to satisfy a very small minority of idiots. But what would became of Paolo when Marzio had killed him? Well, in time his body would become earth, that was all. There was something else, however. Marzio was conscious to certainty that Paolo would in some way or other be at his elbow ever afterwards, just as he seemed to feel his presence this afternoon in the workshop. What sort of presence would it be? Marzio could not tell, but he knew he should feel it. It did not matter whether it were real to others or not, it would be too real to him. He could never get rid of the sensation; it would haunt him and oppress him for the rest of his life, and he should have no peace. How could it, if it were not a real thing? Even the priests said that the spirits of dead men did not come back to earth; how much more impossible must it be in Marzio's view, since he denied that man had a soul. It would then only be the effect of his imagination recalling constantly the past deed, and a thing which only existed in imagination did not exist at all. If it did not exist, it could not be feared by a sensible man. Consequently there was nothing to fear. The conclusion contradicted the given facts from which he had argued, and the chiseller was puzzled. For the first time his method of reasoning did not satisfy him, and he tried to find out the cause. Was it, he asked to himself, because there lingered in his mind some early tradition of the wickedness of doing murder? Since there was no soul, there was no absolute right and wrong, and everything must be decided by the standard of expediency. It was a mistake to allow people to murder each other openly, of course, because people of less intellectual capacity would take upon themselves to judge such cases in their own way. But provided that public morality, the darling of the real freethinker, were not scandalised, there would be no inherent wrong in doing away with Paolo. On the contrary, his death would be a benefit to the community at large, and an advantage to Marzio in particular. Not a pecuniary advantage either, for in Marzio's strange system there would have been an immorality in murdering Paolo for his money if he had ever had any, though it seemed right enough to kill him for an idea. That is, to a great extent, the code of those persons who believe in nothing but what they call great ideas. The individuals who murdered the Czar would doubtless have scrupled to rob a gentleman in the street of ten francs. The same reasoning developed itself in Marzio's brain. If his brothel had been rich, it would have been a crime to murder him for his wealth. It was no crime to murder him for an idea. Marzio said to himself that to get rid of Paolo would be to emancipate himself and his family from the rule and interference of a priest, and that such a proceeding was only the illustration on a small scale of what he desired for his country; consequently it was just, and therefore it ought to be done. Unfortunately for his logic, the continuity of his deductions was blocked by a consideration which he had not anticipated. That consideration could only be described as fear for the future, and it had been forcibly thrust upon him by the fright he had received while he was examining the hole in the floor. In order to neutralise it, Marzio had tried the experiment of braving what he considered to be a momentary terror by obstinately studying the details of the plan he intended to execute. To his surprise he found that he returned to the same conclusion as before. He came back to that unaccountable fear of the future as surely as a body thrown upwards falls again to the earth. He went over it all in his mind again, twice, three times, twenty times. As often as he reached the stage at which he imagined Paolo dead, hidden, and buried in a cellar, the same shiver passed through him as he glanced involuntarily behind him. Why? What power could a dead body possibly exercise over a living man in the full possession of his senses? Here was something which Marzio could not understand, but of which he was made aware by his own feelings. The difficulty only increased in magnitude as he faced it, considered it, and tried to view it from all its horrible aspects. But he could not overcome it. He might laugh at the existence of the soul and jest about the future state after death; he could not escape from the future in this life if he did the deed he contemplated. He should see the dead man's face by day and night as long as he lived. This forced conclusion was in logical accordance with his original nature and developed character, for it was the result of that economical, cautious disposition which foresees the consequences of action and guides itself accordingly. Even in the moment when he had nearly killed Paolo that morning he had not been free from this tendency. In the instant when he had raised the tool to strike he had thought of the means of disposing of the body and of hindering suspicion. The panorama of coming circumstances had presented itself to his mind with the rapidity of a flash of lightning, but in that infinitesimal duration of time Paolo had turned round, and the opportunity was gone. His mind had worked quickly, but it had not gone to the end of its reasoning. Now in the solitude of his studio he had found leisure to follow out the results to the last link of the chain. He saw clearly that even if he eluded discovery after the crime, he could never escape from the horror of his dead brother's presence. He laid the silver figure of the Christ straight before him upon the leathern pad, and looked intently at it, while his hands played idly with the tools upon the table. His deep-set, heavy eyes gazed fixedly at the wonderful face, with an expression which had not yet been there. There was no longer any smile upon his thin lips, and his dark emaciated features were restful and quiet, almost solemn in their repose. "I am glad I did not do it," he said aloud after some minutes. Still he gazed at his work, and the impression stole over him that but for a slight thing he might yet have killed his brother. If he had left the figure more securely propped upon the pad, it could not have slipped upon the bench; it could not have made that small distinct sound just as he was examining the place which was to have been his brother's grave; he would not have been suddenly frightened; he would not have gone over the matter in his mind as he had done, from the point of view of a future fear; he would have waited anxiously for another opportunity, and when it presented itself he would have struck the blow, and Paolo would have been dead, if not to-day, to-morrow. There would have been a search which might or might not have resulted in the discovery of the body. Then there would have been, the heartrending grief of his wife, of Lucia, and the black suspicious looks of Gianbattista. The young man had heard him express a wish that Paolo might disappear. His home would have been a hell, instead of being emancipated from tyranny as he had at first imagined. Discovery and conviction would have come at last, the galleys for life for himself, dishonour and contempt for his family. He remembered Paolo's words as he stood contemplating the crucifix just before that moment which had nearly been his last. _Qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem_--"Who for us men and for our salvation came down from Heaven." In a strange revulsion of feeling Marzio applied the words to himself, with an odd simplicity that was at once pathetic and startling. "If Christ had not died," he said to himself, "I should not have made this crucifix. If I had not made it, it would not have frightened me. I should have killed my brother. It has saved me. 'For us men and for our salvation'--those are the words--for my salvation, it is very strange. Poor Paolo! If he knew to what he owed his life he would be pleased. Who can believe such things? Who would have believed this if I had told it? And yet it is true." For some minutes still he gazed at the figure. Then he shook himself as though to rouse his mind from a trance, and took up his tools. He did not glance behind him again, and, for the time at least, his nervous dislike of the box in the corner seemed to have ceased. He laboured with patient care, touching and re-touching, believing that each tap of the hammer should be the last, and yet not wholly satisfied. The light waned, and he took down the curtain to admit the last glows of the evening. He could do no more, art itself could have done no more to beautify and perfect the masterpiece that lay upon the cushion before him. The many hours he had spent in putting the last finish upon the work had produced their result. His hand had imparted something to the features of the dying head which had not been there before, and as he stood over the bench he knew that he had surpassed his greatest work. He went and fetched the black cross from the shelf, and polished its smooth surface carefully with a piece of silk. Then he took the figure tenderly in his hands and laid it in its position. The small screws turned evenly in the threads, fitting closely into their well-concealed places, and the work was finished. Marzio placed the whole crucifix upon the bench and sat down to look at it. It made a strong impression upon him, this thing of his own hands, and again he remained a long time resting his chin upon his folded fingers and gazing up at the drooping lids. The shadows lay softly on the modelled silver, so softly that the metal itself seemed to tremble and move, and in his reverie Marzio could almost have expected the divine eyes to open and look into his face. And gradually the shadows deepened more and more, and gathered into gloom till in the dark the black arms of the cross scarcely stood out from the darkness, and in the last lingering twilight he could see only the clear outline of the white head and outstretched hands, that seemed to emit a soft radiance gathered from the brightness of the departed day. Marzio struck a match and lit his lamp. His thoughts were so wholly absorbed that he had not remembered the workmen, nor wondered why they had not come back. After all, most of them lived in the direction of the church, and if they had finished their work late they would very probably go home without returning to the shop. The chiseller wrapped the crucifix in the old white cloth, and laid it in its plain wooden box, but he did not screw the cover down, merely putting it on loosely so that it could be removed in a moment. He laid his tools in order, mechanically, as he did every evening, and then he extinguished the light and made his way to the door, carrying the box under his arm. The boy who alone had remained at work had lighted a tallow candle, and was sitting dangling his heels from his stool as Marzio came out. "Still here!" exclaimed the artist. "Eh! You did not tell me to go," answered the lad. Marzio locked the heavy outer door and crossed over to his house, while the boy went whistling down the street in the dusk. Slowly the artist mounted the stairs, pondering, as he went, on the many emotions of the day, and at last repeating his conclusion, that he was glad that he had not killed Paolo. By a change of feeling which he did not wholly realise, he felt for the first time in many years that he would be glad to see his brother alive and well. He had that day so often fancied him dead, lying on the floor of the workshop, or buried in a dark corner of the cellar, that the idea of meeting him, calm and well as ever, had something refreshing in it. It was like the waking from a hideous dream of evil to find that the harm is still undone, to experience that sense of unutterable relief which every one knows when the dawn suddenly touches the outlines of familiar objects in the room, and dispels in an instant the visions of the night. Paolo might not come that evening, but at least Maria Luisa and Lucia would speak of him, and it would be a comfort to hear his name spoken aloud. Marzio's step quickened with the thought, and in another moment he was at the door. To his surprise it was opened before he could ring, and old Assunta came forward with her wrinkled fingers raised to her lips. "Hist! hist!" she whispered. "It goes a little better--or at least--" "What? Who?" asked Marzio, instinctively whispering also. "Eh! You have not heard? Don Paolo--they have killed him!" "Paolo!" exclaimed Marzio, staggering and leaning against the door-post. "He is not dead--not dead yet at least," went on the old woman in low, excited tones. "He was in the church with Tista--a ladder--" Marzio did not stop to hear more, but pushed past Assunta with his burden under his arm, and entered the passage. The door at the end was open, and he saw his wife standing in the bright light in the sitting-room, anxiously looking towards him as though she had heard his coming. "For God's sake, Gigia," he said, addressing her by her old pet name, "tell me quickly what has happened!" The Signora Pandolfi explained as well as she could, frequently giving way to her grief in passionate sobs. She was incoherent, but the facts were so simple that Marzio understood them. He was standing by the table, his hand resting upon the wooden case he had brought, and his face was very pale. "Let me understand," he said at last. "Tista was on the ladder. The ladder slipped, Paolo ran to catch it, and it fell on him. He is badly hurt, but not dead; is that it, Gigia?" Maria Luisa nodded in the midst of a fit of weeping. "The surgeon has been, you say? Yes. And where is Paolo lying?" "In Tista's room," sobbed his wife. "They are with him now." Marzio stood still and hesitated. He was under the influence of the most violent emotion, and his face betrayed something of what he felt. The idea of Paolo's death had played a tremendous part in his thoughts during the whole day, and he had firmly believed that he had got rid of that idea, and was to realise in meeting his brother that it had all been a dream. The news he now heard filled him with horror. It seemed as if the intense wish for Paolo's death had in some way produced a material result without his knowledge; it was as though he had killed his brother by a thought--as though he had had a real share in his death. He could hardly bear to go and see the wounded man, so strong was the impression that gained possession of him. His fancy called up pictures of Paolo lying wounded in bed, and he dreaded to face the sight. He turned away from the table and began to walk up and down the little room. In a corner his foot struck against something--the drawing board on which he had begun to sketch the night before. Marzio took it up and brought it to the light. Maria Luisa stared at him sorrowfully, as though reproaching him with indifference in the general calamity. But Marzio looked intently at the drawing. It was only a sketch, but it was very beautifully done. He saw that his ideal was still the same, and that upon the piece of paper he had only reproduced the features he had chiselled ten years ago, with an added beauty of expression, with just those additions which to-day he had made upon the original. The moment he was sure of the fact he laid aside the board and opened the wooden case. Maria Luisa, who was very far from guessing what an intimate connection existed between the crucifix and Paolo in her husband's mind, looked on with increasing astonishment as he took out the beautiful object and Bet it upon the table in the light. But when she saw it her admiration overcame her sorrow for one moment. "_Dio mio!_ What a miracle!" she exclaimed. "A miracle?" repeated her husband, with a strange expression. "Who knows? Perhaps!" At that moment Gianbattista and Lucia entered through the open door, and stood together watching the scene without understanding what was passing. The young girl recognised the crucifix at once. She supposed that her father did not realise Paolo's condition, and was merely showing the masterpiece to her mother. "That is the one I saw," she whispered to Gianbattista. The young man said nothing, but fixed his eyes upon the cross. "Papa," said Lucia timidly, "do you know?" "Yes. Is he alone?" asked Marzio in a tone which was not like his own. "There is Assunta," answered the young girl. "I will go to him," said the artist, and without further words he lifted the crucifix from the table and went out. His face was very grave, and his features had something in them that none of the three had seen before--something almost of grandeur. Gianbattista and Lucia followed him. "I will be alone with him," said Marzio, looking back at the pair as he reached the door of the sick chamber. He entered and a moment afterwards old Assunta came out and shuffled away, holding her apron to her eyes. Marzio went in. There was a small shaded lamp on the deal table, which illuminated the room with a soft light. Marzio felt that he could not trust himself at first to look at his brother's face. He set the crucifix upon the old chest of drawers, and put the lamp near it. Then he remained standing before it with his back to the bed, and his hands in the pockets of his blouse. He could hear the regular breathing which told that Paolo was still alive. For a long time he could not turn round; it was as though an unseen power held him motionless in his position. He looked at the crucifix. "If he wakes," he thought, "he will see it. It will comfort him if he is going to die!" With his back still turned towards the bed, he moved to one side, until he thought that Paolo could see what he had brought, if consciousness returned. Very slowly, as though fearing some horrible sight, he changed his position and looked timidly in the direction of the sick man. At last he saw the pale upturned face, and was amazed that such an accident should have produced so little change in the features. He came and stood beside the bed. Paolo had not moved since the surgeon had left; he was lying on his back, propped by pillows so that his face was towards the light. He was pale now, for the flush that had been in his cheeks had subsided; his eyelids, which had been half open, had dropped and closed, so that he seemed to be sleeping peacefully, ready to wake at the slightest sound. Marzio stood and looked at him. This was the man he had hated through so many years of boyhood and manhood--the man who had faced him and opposed him at every step--who had stood up boldly before him in his own house to defend what he believed to be right. This was Paolo, whom he had nearly killed that morning. Marzio's right hand felt the iron tool in the pocket of his blouse, and his fingers trembled as he touched it, while his long arms twitched nervously from the shoulder to the elbow. He took it out, looked at it, and at the sick man's face. He asked himself whether he could think of using it as he had meant to, and then he let it fall upon the bit of green drugget by the bedside. That was Paolo--it would not need any sharpened weapon to kill him now. A little pressure on the throat, a pillow held over his face for a few moments, and it would all be over. And what for? To be pursued for ever by that same white face? No. It was not worth while, it had never been worth while, even were that all. But there was something else to be considered. Paolo might now die of his accident, in his bed. There would be no murder done in that case, no haunting horror of a presence, no discovery to be feared, since there would have been no evil. Let him die, if he was dying! But that was not all either. What would it be when Paolo should be dead? Well, he had his ideas, of course. They were mistaken ideas. Were they? Perhaps, who could tell? But he was not a bad man, this Paolo. He had never tried to wring money out of Marzio, as some people did. On the contrary, Marzio still felt a sense of humiliation when he thought how much he owed to the kindness of this man, his brother, lying here injured to death, and powerless to help himself or to save himself. Powerless? yes--utterly so. How easy it would be, after all, to press a pillow on the unconscious face. There would probably not even be a struggle. Who should save him, or who could know of it? And yet Marzio did not want to do it, as he had wished to a few hours ago. As he looked down on the pale head he realised that he did not want Paolo to die. Standing on the sharp edge of the precipice where life ends and breaks off, close upon the unfathomable depths of eternity, himself firmly standing and fearing no fall, but seeing his brother slipping over the brink, he would put out his hand to save him, to draw him back. He would not have Paolo die. He gazed upon the calm features, and he knew that he feared lest they should be still for ever. The breath came more softly, more and more faintly. Marzio thought. He bent down low and tried to feel the warm air as it issued from the lips. His fears grew to terror as the life seemed to ebb away from the white face. In the agony of his apprehension, Marzio inadvertently laid his hand upon the injured shoulder, unconsciously pressing his weight upon the place. With a faint sigh the priest's eyes opened and seemed to gaze for a moment on the crucifix standing in the bright light of the lamp. An expression of wonderful gentleness and calm overspread the refined features. "_Qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de coelis_." The words came faintly from the dying man's lips, the last syllables scarcely audible in the intense stillness. A deathly pallor crept quickly over the smooth forehead and thin cheeks. Marzio looked for one instant more, and then with a loud cry fell upon his knees by the bedside, his long arms extended across his brother's body. The strong hot tears fell upon the bed coverings, and his breast heaved with passionate sobbing. He did not see that Paolo opened his eyes at the sound. He did not notice the rush of feet in the passage without, as Maria Luisa and Lucia and Gianbattista ran to the door, followed by old Assunta holding up her apron to her eyes. "Courage, Sor Marzio," said Gianbattista, drawing the artist back from the bed. "You will disturb him. Do you not see that he is conscious at last?" Lucia was arranging the pillows under Paolo's head, and Maria Luisa was crying with joy. Marzio sprang to his feet and stared as though he could not believe what he saw. Paolo turned his head and looked kindly at his brother. "Courage, Marzio," he said, "I have been asleep, I believe--what has happened to me? Why are you all crying?" Marzio's tears broke out again, mingled with incoherent words of joy. In his sudden happiness he clasped the two persons nearest to him, and hugged them and kissed them. These two chanced to be Lucia and Gianbattista. Paolo smiled, but the effort of speaking had tired him. "Well," said Marzio at last, with a kinder smile than had been on his face for many a day--"very well, children. For Paolo's sake you shall have your own way." Half an hour later the surgeon made his visit and assured them all that there was no serious injury, nor any further danger to be feared. The patient had been very badly stunned, that was all. Marzio remained by his brother's side. "You see, Tista," said Lucia when they were in the sitting-room, "I was quite right about the crucifix and the rest." "Of course," assented the Signora Pandolfi, though she did not understand the allusion in the least. "Of course you are all of you right. But what a day this has been, _cari miei_! What a day! Dear, dear!" She spread out her fat hands upon her knees, looking the picture of solid contentment. THE END * * * * * ZOROASTER TO My Beloved Wife I DEDICATE THIS DRAMA CHAPTER I. The hall of the banquets was made ready for the feast in the palace of Babylon. That night Belshazzar the king would drink wine with a thousand of his lords, and be merry before them; and everything was made ready. From end to end of the mighty nave, the tables of wood, overlaid with gold and silver, stood spread with those things which the heart of man can desire; with cups of gold and of glass and of jade; with great dishes heaped high with rare fruits and rarer flowers; and over all, the last purple rays of the great southern sun came floating through the open colonnades of the porch, glancing on the polished marbles, tingeing with a softer hue the smooth red plaster of the walls, and lingering lovingly on the golden features and the red-gold draperies of the vast statue that sat on high and overlooked the scene. On his head the head-dress of thrice royal supremacy, in his right hand and his left the sceptre of power and the winged wheel of immortality and life, beneath his feet the bowed necks of prostrate captives;--so sat the kingly presence of great Nebuchadnezzar, as waiting to see what should come to pass upon his son; and the perfume of the flowers and the fruits and the rich wine came up to his mighty nostrils, and he seemed to smile there in the evening sunlight, half in satisfaction, half in scorn. On each side of the great building, in the aisles and wings, among the polished pillars of marble thronged the serving-men, bearing ever fresh spices and flowers and fruits, wherewith to deck the feast, whispering together in a dozen Indian, Persian and Egyptian dialects, or in the rich speech of those nobler captives whose pale faces and eagle eyes stood forth everywhere in strong contrast with the coarser features and duskier skins of their fellows in servitude,--the race not born to dominate, but born to endure even to the end. These all mingled together in the strange and broken reflections of the evening light, and here and there the purple dye of the sun tinged the white tunic of some poor slave to as fair a colour as a king's son might wear. On this side and on that of the tables that were spread for the feast, stood great candlesticks, as tall as the height of two men, tapering from the thickness and heavy carving below to the fineness and delicate tracery above, and bearing upon them cups of bronze, each having its wick steeped in fine oil mixed with wax. Moreover, in the midst of the hall, where the seat of the king was put upon a raised floor, the pillars stood apart for a space, so that there was a chamber, as it were, from the wall on the right to the wall on the left, roofed with great carved rafters; and the colour of the walls was red,--a deep and glorious red that seemed to make of the smooth plaster a sheet of precious marble. Beyond, beneath the pillars, the panels of the aisles were pictured and made many-coloured with the story of Nebuchadnezzar the king, his conquests and his feasts, his captives and his courtiers, in endless train upon the splendid wall. But where the king should sit in the midst of the hall there were neither pillars nor paintings; only the broad blaze of the royal colour, rich and even. Beside the table also stood a great lamp, taller and more cunningly wrought than the rest,--the foot of rare marble and chiselled bronze and the lamp above of pure gold from southern Ophir. But it was not yet kindled, for the sun was not set and the hour for the feast was not fully come. At the upper end of the hall, before the gigantic statue of wrought gold, there was an open space, unencumbered by tables, where the smooth, polished marble floor came to view in all its rich design and colour. Two persons, entering the hall with slow steps, came to this place and stood together, looking up at the face of the golden king. Between the two there was the gulf of a lifetime. The one was already beyond the common limit of age, while he who stood beside him was but a fair boy of fourteen summers. The old man was erect still, and his snowy hair and beard grew like a lion's mane about his massive brow and masterful face. The deep lines of thought, graven deeper by age, followed the noble shaping of his brows in even course, and his dark eyes still shot fire, as piercing the bleared thickness of time to gaze boldly on the eternity beyond. His left hand gathered the folds of a snow-white robe around him, while in his right he grasped a straight staff of ebony and ivory, of fine workmanship, marvellously polished, whereon were wrought strange sayings in the Israelitish manner of writing. The old man stood up to his noble height, and looked from the burnished face of the king's image to the eyes of the boy beside him, in silence, as though urging his young companion to speak for him the thoughts that filled the hearts of both. The youth spoke not, nor gave any sign, but stood with folded hands and gazed up to the great features of Nebuchadnezzar. He was but fourteen years of age, tall and delicately made, full of the promise of a graceful and elastic power, fine of skin, and instinct with the nervous strength of a noble and untainted race. His face was fair and white, tinged with faint colour, and his heavy golden hair fell in long curls upon his shoulders, thick and soft with the silken fineness of early youth. His delicate features were straight and noble, northern rather than Oriental in their type--supremely calm and thoughtful, almost godlike in their young restfulness. The deep blue eyes were turned upward with a touch of sadness, but the broad forehead was as marble, and the straight marking of the brows bounded it and divided it from the face. He wore the straight white tunic, edged about with fine embroideries of gold and gathered at the waist with a rich belt, while his legs were covered with wide Persian trousers wrought in many colours of silk upon fine linen. He wore also a small cap of linen, stiffened to a point and worked with a cunning design in gold and silver. But the old man's head was covered only by the thick masses of his snowy hair, and his wide white mantle hid the details of his dress from view. Again he glanced from the statue to his companion's eyes, and at last he spoke, in a deep smooth voice, in the Hebrew tongue. "Nebuchadnezzar the king is gathered to his fathers, and his son also, and Nabonnedon Belshazzar reigns in his stead, yet have I endured to this day, in Babylon, these threescore and seven years, since Nebuchadnezzar the king destroyed our place upon the earth and led us away captive. Unto this day, Zoroaster, have I endured, and yet a little longer shall I stand and bear witness for Israel." The old man's eyes flashed, and his strong aquiline features assumed an expression of intense vitality and life. Zoroaster turned to him and spoke softly, almost sadly: "Say, O Daniel, prophet and priest of the Lord, why does the golden image seem to smile to-day? Are the times accomplished of thy vision which thou sawest in Shushan, in the palace, and is the dead king glad? I think his face was never so gentle before to look upon,--surely he rejoices at the feast, and the countenance of his image is gladdened." "Nay, rather then should his face be sorrowful for the destruction of his seed and of his kingdom," answered the prophet somewhat scornfully. "Verily the end is at hand, and the stones of Babylon shall no longer cry out for the burden of the sins of Belshazzar, and the people call upon Bel to restore unto life the King Nebuchadnezzar; nay, or to send hither a Persian or a Mede to be a just ruler in the land." "Hast thou read it in the stars, or have thine eyes seen these things in the visions of the night, my master?" The boy came nearer to the aged prophet and spoke in low earnest tones. But Daniel only bent his head, till his brow touched his ebony staff, and so he remained, deep in thought. "For I also have dreamed,"--continued Zoroaster, after a short pause,--"and my dream took hold of me, and I am sorry and full of great weariness. Now this is the manner of my dreaming." He stopped and glanced down the great nave of the hall through the open porch at the other end. The full glory of the red sun, just touching the western plain, streamed upon his face and made the tables, the preparations and the crowd of busy serving-men look like black shadows between him and the light. But Daniel leaned upon his staff and spoke no word, nor moved from his position. "I saw in my dream," said Zoroaster, "and there was darkness; and upon the winds of the night arose the sound of war, and the cry and the clash of battle, mighty men striving one with another for the mastery and the victory, which should be to the stronger. And I saw again, and behold it was morning, and the people were led away captive, by tens, and by hundreds, and by thousands, and the maidens also and young women into a far country. And I looked, and the face of one of the maidens was as the face of the fairest among the daughters of thy people. Then my heart yearned for her, and I would have followed after into the captivity; but darkness came upon me, and I saw her no more. Therefore am I troubled and go heavily all the day." He ceased and the cadence of the boy's voice trembled and was sad. The sun set out of sight beneath the plain, and from far off a great sound of music came in upon the evening breeze. Daniel raised his snowy head and gazed keenly on his young companion, and there was disappointment in his look. "Wouldst thou be a prophet?" he asked, "thou that dreamest of fair maidens and art disquieted for the love of a woman? Thinkest thou, boy, that a woman shall help thee when thou art grown to be a man, or that the word of the Lord dwelleth in vanity? Prophesy, and interpret thy vision, if so be that thou art able to interpret it. Come, let us depart, for the king is at hand, and the night shall be given over for a space to the rioters and the mirth-makers, with whom our portion is not. Verily I also have dreamed a dream. Let us depart." The venerable prophet stood up to his height, and grasping his staff in his right hand, began to lead the way from the hall. Zoroaster laid hold of him by the arm, as though entreating him to remain. "Speak, master," he cried earnestly, "and declare to me thy dream, and see whether it accords with mine, and whether there shall be darkness and rumour of war in the land." But Daniel the prophet would not stay to speak, but went out of the hall, and Zoroaster the Persian youth went with him, pondering deeply on the present and on the future, and on the nature of the vision he had seen; and made fearful by the silence of his friend and teacher. The darkness fell upon the twilight, and within the hall the lamps and candlesticks were kindled and gave out warm light and rare perfumes. All down the endless rows of tables, the preparations for the feast were ready; and from the gardens without, strains of music came up ever stronger and nearer, so that the winged sounds seemed to come into the vast building and hover above the tables and seats of honour, preparing the way for the guests. Nearer and nearer came the harps and the pipes and the trumpets and the heavy reed-toned bagpipes, and above all the strong rich chorus of the singers chanting high the evening hymn of praise to Bel, god of sunlight, honoured in his departing, as in his coming, with the music of the youngest and most tuneful voices in Shinar. First came the priests of Bel, two and two, robed in their white tunics, loose white garments on their legs, the white mitre of the priestly order on their heads, and their great beards curled smooth and glossy as silk. In their midst, with stately dignity, walked their chief, his eyes upon the ground, his hands crossed upon his breast, his face like dark marble in the twilight. On either side, those who had officiated at the sacrifice, bore the implements of their service,--the knife, the axe, the cord, and the fire in its dish; and their hands were red with the blood of the victim lately slain. Grand, great men, mighty of body and broad of brow, were these priests of Bel,--strong with the meat and the wine of the offerings that were their daily portion, and confident in the faith of their ancient wisdom. After the priests the musicians, one hundred chosen men of skill, making strange deep harmonies in a noble and measured rhythm, marching ten and ten abreast, in ten ranks; and as they came on, the light streaming from the porch of the palace caught their silver ornaments and the strange shapes of their instruments in broken reflections between the twilight and the glare of the lamps. Behind these came the singers,--of young boys two hundred, of youths a hundred, and of bearded men also a hundred; the most famous of all that sang praises to Bel in the land of Assur. Ten and ten they marched, with ordered ranks and step in time to the massive beat of the long-drawn measure. _"Mighty to rule the day, great in his glory and the pride of his heat, Shooting great bolts of light into the dark earth, turning death into life, Making the seed to grow, strongly and fairly, high in furrow and field, Making the heart of man glad with his gladness, rideth over the dawn Bel, the prince, the king of kings. "Hotly his flaming hair, streaming with brightness, and the locks of his beard Curl'd into clouds of heat, sweeping the heavens, spread all over the sky: Who shall abide his face, fearful and deadly, when he devours the land, Angry with man and beast, horribly raging, hungry for sacrifice? Bel, the prince, the king of kings. "Striding his three great strides, out of the morning through the noon to the night, Cometh he down at last, ready for feasting, ready for sacrifice: Then doth he tread the wine, purple and golden, foaming deep in the west; Shinar is spread for him, spread as a table, Assur shall be his seat: Bel, the prince, the king of kings. "Bring him the fresh-slain flesh, roast it with fire, with the savour of salt, Pour him the strength of wine, chalice and goblet, trodden for him alone: Raise him the song of songs, cry out in praises, cry out and supplicate That he may drink delight, tasting our off'ring, hearing our evening song: Bel, the prince, the king of kings. "So, in the gentle night, when he is resting, peace descendeth on earth; High in the firmament, where his steps led him, gleam the tracks of his way: Where the day felt his touch, there the night also breaketh forth into stars, These are the flowers of heaven, garlands of blossoms, growing to weave his crown: Bel, the prince, the king of kings. "Hail! thou king of the earth, hail! Belteshazzar, hail! and for ever live! Born of the gods on high, prince of the nations, ruling over the world: Thou art the son of Bel, full of his glory, king over death and life; Let all the people bow, tremble and worship, bow them down and adore The prince of Bel, the king of kings."_ As the musicians played and the singers sang, they divided their ranks and came and stood on each side of the broad marble staircase; and the priests had done so before them, but the chief priest stood alone on the lowest step. Then, between the files of those who stood, advanced the royal procession, like a river of gold and purple and precious stones flowing between banks of pure white. Ten and ten, a thousand lords of Babylon marched in stately throng, and in their midst rode Belshazzar the king, high upon his coal-black steed, crowned with the great tiara of white linen and gold and jewels, the golden sceptre of the kingdom in his right hand. And after the lords and the king came a long procession of litters borne by stalwart slaves, wherein reclined the fairest women of all Assyria, bidden to the great feast. Last of all, the spearmen of the guard in armour all chased with gold, their mantles embroidered with the royal cognisance, and their beards trimmed and curled in the close soldier fashion, brought up the rear; a goodly company of men of war. As the rich voices of the singers intoned the grand plain chant of the last stanza in the hymn, the king was in the middle of the open space at the foot of the staircase; there he drew rein and sat motionless on his horse, awaiting the end. As the ripe corn bends in its furrows to the wind, so the royal host around turned to the monarch, and fell upon their faces as the music died away at the signal of the high priest. With one consent the lords, the priests, the singers and the spearmen bowed and prostrated themselves on the ground; the bearers of the litters set down their burden while they did homage; and each of those beautiful women bent far forward, kneeling in her litter, and hid her head beneath her veil. Only the king sat erect and motionless upon his steed, in the midst of the adoring throng. The light from the palace played strangely on his face, making the sneering smile more scornful upon his pale lips, and shading his sunken eyes with a darker shadow. While you might count a score there was silence, and the faint evening breeze wafted the sweet smell of the roses from the gardens to the king's nostrils, as though even the earth would bring incense of adoration to acknowledge his tremendous power. Then the host rose again and fell back on either side while the king rode to the staircase and dismounted, leading the way to the banquet; and the high priest followed him and all the ranks of the lords and princes and the ladies of Babylon, in their beauty and magnificence, went up the marble steps and under the marble porch, spreading then like a river, about the endless tables, almost to the feet of the golden image of Nebuchadnezzar. And presently, from beneath the colonnades a sound of sweet music stole out again and filled the air; the serving-men hurried hither and thither, the black slaves plied their palm-leaf fans behind each guest, and the banquet was begun. Surely, a most glorious feast, wherein the hearts of the courtiers waxed merry, and the dark eyes of the Assyrian women shot glances sweeter than the sweetmeats of Egypt and stronger than the wine of the south to move the spirit of man. Even the dark king, wasted and hollow-eyed with too much pleasure-seeking, smiled and laughed,--sourly enough at first, it is true, but in time growing careless and merry by reason of his deep draughts. His hand trembled less weakly as the wine gave him back his lost strength, and more than once his fingers toyed playfully with the raven locks and the heavy earrings of the magnificent princess at his elbow. Some word of hers roused a thought in his whirling brain. "Is not this day the feast of victories?" he cried in sudden animation; and there was silence to catch the king's words. "Is not this the day wherein my sire brought home the wealth of the Israelites, kept holy with feasting for ever? Bring me the vessels of the unbelievers' temple, that I may drink and pour out wine this night to Bel, the god of gods!" The keeper of the treasure had anticipated the king's desire and had caused everything to be made ready; for scarcely had Belshazzar spoken when a long train of serving-men entered the hall of the banquet and came and stood before the royal presence, their white garments and the rich vessels they bore aloft standing vividly out against the deep even red of the opposite wall. "Let the vessels be distributed among us," cried the king,--"to every man a cup or a goblet till all are served." And so it was done, and the royal cup-bearer came and filled the huge chalice that the king held, and the serving-men hastened to fill all the cups and the small basins; while the lords and princes laughed at the strange shapes, and eyed greedily enough the thickness and the good workmanship of the gold and silver. And so each man and each woman had a vessel from the temple of Jerusalem wherein to drink to the glory of Bel the god and of Belshazzar his prince. And when all was ready, the king took his chalice in his two hands and stood up, and all that company of courtiers stood up with him, while a mighty strain of music burst through the perfumed air, and the serving-men showered flowers and sprinkled sweet odours on the tables. Without stood the Angel of Death, whetting his sword upon the stones of Babylon. But Belshazzar held the chalice and spoke with a loud voice to the princes and the lords and the fair women that stood about the tables in the great hall: "I, Belshazzar the king, standing in the hall of my fathers, do pour and drink this wine to the mighty majesty of Bel the great god, who lives for ever and ever; before whom the gods of the north and of the west and of the east and of the south are as the sand of the desert in the blast; at whose sight the vain deities of Egypt crumbled into pieces, and the God of the Israelites trembled and was made little in the days of Nebuchadnezzar my sire. And I command you, lords and princes of Babylon, you and your wives and your fair women, that ye also do pour wine and drink it, doing this homage to Bel our god, and to me, Belshazzar the king." And so saying, he turned about to one side and spilled a few drops of wine upon the marble floor, and set the cup to his lips, facing the great throng of his guests; and he drank. But from all the banquet went up a great shout. "Hail! king, live for ever! Hail! prince of Bel, live for ever! Hail! king of kings, live for ever!" Long and loud was the cry, ringing and surging through the pillars and up to the great carved rafters till the very walls seemed to rock and tremble with the din of the king's praise. Slowly Belshazzar drained the cup to the dregs, while with half-closed eyes he listened to the uproar, and perhaps sneered to himself behind the chalice, as was his wont. Then he set the vessel down and looked up. But as he looked he staggered and turned pale, and would have fallen; he grasped the ivory chair behind him and stood trembling in every joint, and his knees knocking together, while his eyes seemed starting from his head, and all his face was changed and distorted with dreadful fear. Upon the red plaster of the wall, over against the candlestick which shed its strong rays upon the fearful sight, the fingers of a vast hand moved and traced letters. Only the fingers could be seen, colossal and of dazzling brightness, and as they slowly did their work, huge characters of fire blazed out upon the dark red surface, and their lambent angry flame dazzled those who beheld, and the terror of terrors fell upon all the great throng; for they stood before Him whose shadow is immortality and death. In a silence that could be felt, the dread hand completed its message and vanished out of sight, but the strange fire burned bright in the horrid characters of the writing that remained upon the wall. This was the inscription in Chaldean letters: SUTMM IPKNN NRLAA Then at last the king found speech and shrieked aloud wildly, and he commanded that they should bring in all the astrologers, the Chaldeans and the diviners, for he was in great terror and he dreaded some fearful and imminent catastrophe. "Whoever shall read this writing," he cried, his voice changed and broken, "and declare to me the meaning of it, shall be clothed in purple, and shall have a chain of gold about his neck and shall rule as the third in the kingdom." Amidst the mighty confusion of fear, the wise men were brought in before the king. CHAPTER II. In Ecbatana of Media Daniel dwelt in his extreme old age. There he built himself a tower within the seven-fold walls of the royal fortress, upon the summit of the hill, looking northward towards the forests of the mountains, and southward over the plain, and eastward to the river, and westward to Mount Zagros. His life was spent, and he was well-nigh a hundred years old. Seventeen years had passed since he had interpreted the fatal writing on the wall of the banquet-hall in Babylon in the night when Nabonnedon Belshazzar was slain, and the kingdom of the Assyrians destroyed for ever. Again and again invested with power and with the governorship of provinces, he had toiled unceasingly in the reigns of Cyrus and Cambyses, and though he was on the very boundary of possible lifetime, his brain was unclouded, and his eye keen and undimmed still. Only his grand figure was more bent and his step slower than before. He dwelt in Ecbatana of the north, in the tower he had built for himself.[1] In the midst of the royal palaces of the stronghold he had laid the foundations duly to the north and south, and story upon story had risen, row upon row of columns, balcony upon balcony of black marble, sculptured richly from basement to turret, and so smooth and hard, that its polished corners and sides and ornaments glittered like black diamonds in the hot sun of the noonday, and cast back the moonbeams at night in a darkly brilliant reflection. [Footnote 1: Josephus, _Antiquities of the Jews_, book x. chap. xi. 7.] Far down below, in the gorgeous dwellings that filled the interior of the fortress, dwelt the kinsfolk of the aged prophet, and the families of the two Levites who had remained with Daniel and had chosen to follow him to his new home in Media rather than to return to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel, when Cyrus issued the writ for the rebuilding of the temple. There lived also in the palace Zoroaster, the Persian prince, being now in the thirty-first year of his age, and captain of the city and of the stronghold. And there, too, surrounded by her handmaidens and slaves, in a wing of the palace apart from the rest, and more beautiful for its gardens and marvellous adornment, lived Nehushta, the last of the descendants of Jehoiakim the king remaining in Media; she was the fairest of all the women in Media, of royal blood and of more than royal beauty. She was born in that year when Babylon was overthrown, and Daniel had brought her with him to Shushan when he had quitted Assyria, and thence to Ecbatana. In the care of the prophet's kinswomen the little maid had thriven and grown fair in the stranger's land. Her soft child's eyes had lost their wondering look and had turned very proud and dark, and the long black lashes that fringed the heavy lids drooped to her cheek when she looked down. Her features were noble and almost straight in outline, but in the slight bend, at the beginning of the nose, in the wide curved nostrils, the strong full lips, and in the pale olive skin, where the blood ebbed and flowed so generously, the signs of the Jewish race were all present and unmistakable. Nehushta, the high-born lady of Judah, was a princess in every movement, in every action, in every word she uttered. The turn of her proud head was sovereign in its expression of approval or contempt, and Zoroaster himself bowed to the simple gesture of her hand as obediently as he would have done before the Great King in all his glory. Even the venerable prophet, sitting in his lofty tower high above the city and the fortress, absorbed in the contemplation of that other life which was so very near to him, smiled tenderly and stretched out his old hands to greet Nehushta when she mounted to his chamber at sunset, attended by her maidens and her slaves. She was the youngest of all his kinsfolk--fatherless and motherless, the last direct descendant of King Jehoiakim remaining in Media, and the aged prophet and governor cherished her and loved her for her royalty, as well as for her beauty and her kinship to himself. Assyrian in his education, Persian in his adherence to the conquering dynasty and in his long and faithful service of the Persians, Daniel was yet in his heart, as in his belief, a true son of Judah; proud of his race and tender of its young branches, as though he were himself the father of his country and the king of his people. The last red glow of the departed day faded and sank above the black Zagros mountains to westward. The opposite sky was cold and gray, and all the green plain turned to a dull soft hue as the twilight crept over it, ever darker and more misty. In the gardens of the palace the birds in thousands sang together in chorus, as only Eastern birds do sing at sunrise and at nightfall, and their voices sounded like one strong, sweet, high chord, unbroken and drawn out. Nehushta wandered in the broad paths alone. The dry warm air of the summer's evening had no chill in it, and though a fine woven mantle of purple from Srinagur hung loosely from her shoulders, she needed not to draw it about her. The delicate folds of her upper tunic fell closely around her to her knees, and were gathered at the waist by a magnificent belt of wrought gold and pearls; the long sleeves, drawn in at the wrist by clasps of pearls, almost covered her slender hands; and as she walked her delicate feet moved daintily in rich embroidered sandals with high golden heels, below the folds of the wide trousers of white and gold embroidery, gathered in at the ankle. Upon her head the stiff linen tiara of spotless white sat proudly as a royal crown, the folds of it held by a single pearl of price, and from beneath it her magnificent hair rolled down below her waist in dark smooth waves. There was a terrace that looked eastward from the gardens. Thither Nehushta bent her steps, slowly, as though in deep thought, and when she reached the smooth marble balustrade, she leaned over it and let her dark eyes rest on the quiet landscape. The peace of the evening descended upon her; the birds of the day ceased singing with the growing darkness; and slowly, out of the plain, the yellow moon soared up and touched the river and the meadows with mystic light; while far off, in the rose-thickets of the gardens, the first notes of a single nightingale floated upon the scented breeze, swelling and trilling, quivering and falling again, in a glory of angelic song. The faint air fanned her cheek, the odours of the box and the myrtle and the roses intoxicated her senses, and as the splendid shield of the rising moon cast its broad light into her dreaming eyes, her heart overflowed, and Nehushta the princess lifted up her voice and sang an ancient song of love, in the tongue of her people, to a soft minor melody, that sounded like a sigh from the southern desert. _"Come unto me, my beloved, in the warmth of the darkness, come-- Rise, and hasten thy footsteps, to be with me at night-time, come! "I wait in the darkness for him, and the sand of the desert whirling Is blown at the door of my tent which is open toward the desert. "My ear in the darkness listeth for the sound of his coming nearer, Mine eyes watch for him and rest not, for I would not he found me sleeping. "For when my beloved cometh, he is like the beam of the morning;[2] Ev'n as the dawn in a strange land to the sight of a man journeying. "Yea, when my beloved cometh, as dew that descendeth from heaven, No man can hear when it falleth, but as rain it refresheth all things. "In his hand bringeth he lilies, in his right hand are many flowers, Roses hath he on his forehead, he is crowned with roses from Shinar. "The night-winds make sweet songs for him, even in the darkness soft music; Whithersoever he goeth, there his sweetness goeth before him."_ [Footnote 2: "Thou art to me as the beam of the east rising in a strange land."--_Ossian_.] Her young voice died away in a soft murmuring cadence, and the nightingale alone poured out her heartful of lore to the ancient moon. But as Nehushta rested immovable by the marble balustrade of the terrace, there was a rustle among the myrtles and a quick step on the pavement. The dark maiden started at the sound, and a happy smile parted her lips. But she did not turn to look; only her hand stole out behind her on the marble where she knew her lover's would meet it. There was in the movement all the certainty of conquest and yet all the tenderness of love. The Persian trod quickly and laid his hand on hers, and bent to her, trying to meet her eyes: for one moment still she gazed out straight before her, then turned and faced him suddenly, as though she had withheld her welcome as long as she could and then given it all at once. "I did not call you," she said, covering him with her eyes in the moonlight, but making as though she would withdraw herself a little from him, as he drew her with his hand, and with his arm, and with his eyes. "And yet I heard you call me, my beloved," answered Zoroaster. "I heard your voice singing very sweet things in your own language--and so I came, for you did call me." "But did you pride yourself it was for you?" laughed Nehushta. "I sang of the desert, and of tents, and of whirling sand--there is none of these things here." "You said that your beloved brought roses in his hand--and so I do. I will crown you with them. May I? No--I shall spoil your head-dress. Take them and do as you will with them." "I will take them--and--I always do as I will." "Then will to take the giver also," answered Zoroaster, letting his arm steal about her, as he half sat upon the balustrade. Nehushta looked at him again, for he was good to see, and perhaps she loved his straight calm features the better in that his face was fair, and not dark like hers. "Methinks I have taken the giver already," she answered. "Not yet--not all," said Zoroaster in a low voice, and a shadow of sadness crossed his noble face that looked white in the moonlight. Nehushta sighed softly and presently she laid her cheek upon his shoulder where the folding of his purple mantle made a pillow between her face and the polished golden scales of his breastplate. "I have strange news to tell you, beloved," said Zoroaster presently. Nehushta started and looked up, for his voice was sad. "Nay, fear not!" he continued, "there is no harm in it, I trust; but there are great changes in the kingdom, and there will be greater changes yet. The seven princes have slain Smerdis in Shushan, and Darius is chosen king, the son of Gushtasp, whom the Greeks call Hystaspes." "He who came hither last year?" asked Nehushta quickly. "He is not fair, this new king." "Not fair," replied the Persian, "but a brave man and a good. He has, moreover, sent for me to go to Shushan--" "For you!" cried Nehushta, suddenly laying her two hands on Zoroaster's shoulders and gazing into his eyes. His face was to the moonlight, while hers was in the dark, and she could see every shade of expression. He smiled. "You laugh at me!" she cried indignantly. "You mock me--you are going away and you are glad!" She would have turned away from him, but he held her two hands. "Not alone," he answered. "The Great King has sent an order that I shall bring to Shushan the kinsfolk of Jehoiakim, saving only Daniel, our master, for he is so old that he cannot perform the journey. The king would honour the royal seed of Judah, and to that end he sends for you, most noble and most beloved princess." Nehushta was silent and thoughtful; her hand slipped from Zoroaster's grasp, and her eyes looked dreamily out at the river, on which the beams of the now fully-risen moon glanced, as on the scales of a silver serpent. "Are you glad, my beloved?" asked Zoroaster. He stood with his back to the balustrade, leaning on one elbow, and his right hand played carelessly with the heavy gold tassels of his cloak. He had come up from the fortress in his armour, as he was, to bring the news to Nehushta and to Daniel; his gilded harness was on his back, half-hidden by the ample purple cloak, his sword was by his side, and on his head he wore the pointed helmet, richly inlaid with gold, bearing in front the winged wheel which the sovereigns of the Persian empire had assumed after the conquest of Assyria. His very tall and graceful body seemed planned to combine the greatest possible strength with the most surpassing activity, and in his whole presence there breathed the consciousness of ready and elastic power, the graceful elasticity of a steel bow always bent, the inexpressible ease of motion and the matchless swiftness that men had when the world was young--that wholeness of harmonious proportion which alone makes rest graceful, and the inactivity of idleness itself like a mode of perfect motion. As they stood there together, the princess of Judah and the noble Persian, they were wholly beautiful and yet wholly contrasted--the Semite and the Aryan, the dark race of the south, on which the hot air of the desert had breathed for generations in the bondage of Egypt, and left its warm sign-manual of southern sunshine,--and the fair man of the people whose faces were already set northwards, on whom the north breathed already its icy fairness, and magnificent coldness of steely strength. "Are you glad, my beloved?" asked Zoroaster again, looking up and laying his right hand on the princess's arm. She had given no answer to his question, but only gazed dreamily out over the river. She seemed about to speak, then paused again, then hesitated and answered his question by another. "Zoroaster--you love me," again she paused, and, as he passionately seized her hands and pressed his lips to them, she said softly, turning her head away, "What is love?" He, too, waited one moment before he answered, and, standing to his lordly height, took her head between his hands and pressed it to his breast; then, with one arm around her, he stood looking eastward and spoke: "Listen, my beloved, and I, who love you, will tell you what love is. In the far-off dawn of the soul-life, in the ethereal distance of the outer firmament, in the mist of the star-dust, our spirits were quickened with the spirit of God, and found one another, and met. Before earth was for us, we were one; before time was for us, we were one--even as we shall be one when there is no time for us any more. Then Ahura Mazda, the all-wise God, took our two souls from among the stars, and set them in the earth, clothed for a time with mortal bodies. But we know each other, that we were together from the first, although these earthly things obscure our immortal vision, and we see each other less clearly. Yet is our love none the less--rather, it seems every day greater, for our bodies can feel joy and sorrow, even as our spirits do; so that I am able to suffer for you, in which I rejoice, and I would that I might be chosen to lay down my life for you, that you might know how I love you; for often you doubt me, and sometimes you doubt yourself. There should be no doubt in love. Love is from the first, and will be to the end, and beyond the end; love is so eternal, so great, so whole, that this mortal life of ours is but as a tiny instant, a moment of pausing in our journey from one star-world to another along the endless paths of heavenly glory we shall tread, together--it is nothing, this worldly life of ours. Before it shall seem long that we have loved, this earth we stand on, these things we touch, these bodies of ours that we think so strong and fair, will be forgotten and dissolved into their elements in the trackless and undiscoverable waste of past mortality, while we ourselves are ever young, and ever fair, and for ever living in our immortal love." Nehushta looked up wonderingly into her lover's eyes, then let her head rest on his shoulder. The high daring of his thoughts seemed ever trying to scale heaven itself, seeking to draw her to some wondrous region of mystic beauty and strange spirit life. She was awed for a moment, then she, too, spoke in her own fashion. "I love life," she said, "I love you because you live, not because you are a spirit chained and tied down for a time. I love this soft sweet earth, the dawn of it, and the twilight of it; I love the sun in his rising and in his setting; I love the moon in her fulness and in her waning; I love the smell of the box and of the myrtle, of the roses and of the violets; I love the glorious light of day, the splendour of heat and greenness, the song of the birds of the air and the song of the labourer in the field, the hum of the locust, and the soft buzzing of the bee; I love the brightness of gold and the richness of fine purple, the tramp of your splendid guards and the ring of their trumpets clanging in the fresh morning, as they march through the marble courts of the palace. I love the gloom of night for its softness, the song of the nightingale in the ivory moonlight, the rustle of the breeze in the dark rose-thickets, and the odour of the sleeping flowers in my gardens; I love even the cry of the owl from the prophet's tower, and the soft thick sound of the bat's wings, as he flits past the netting of my window. I love it all, for the whole earth is rich and young and good to touch, and most sweet to live in. And I love you because you are more beautiful than other men, fairer and stronger and braver, and because you love me, and will let no other love me but yourself, if you were to die for it. Ah, my beloved, I would that I had all the sweet voices of the earth, all the tuneful tongues of the air, to tell you how I love you!" "There is no lack of sweetness, nor of eloquence, my princess," said Zoroaster; "there is no need of any voice sweeter than yours, nor of any tongue more tuneful. You love in your way, I in mine; the two together must surely be the perfect whole. Is it not so? Nay--seal the deed once again--and again--so! 'Love is stronger than death,' says your preacher." "'And jealousy is as cruel as the grave,' he says, too," added Nehushta, her eyes flashing fire as her lips met his. "You must never make me jealous, Zoroaster, never, never! I would be so cruel--you cannot dream how cruel I would be!" Zoroaster laughed under his silken beard, a deep, joyous, ringing laugh that startled the moonlit stillness. "By Nabon and Bel, there is small cause for your jealousy here," he said. "Swear not by your false gods!" laughed Nehushta. "You know not how little it would need to rouse me." "I will not give you that little," answered the Persian. "And as for the false gods, they are well enough for a man to swear by in these days. But I will swear by any one you command me, or by anything!" "Swear not, or you will say again that the oath has need of sealing," replied Nehushta, drawing her mantle around her, so as to cover half her face. "Tell me, when are we to begin our journey? We have talked much and have said little, as it ever is. Shall we go at once, or are we to wait for another order? Is Darius safe upon the throne? Who is to be chiefest at the court--one of the seven princes, I suppose, or his old father? Come, do you know anything of all these changes? Why have you never told me what was going to happen--you who are high in power and know everything?" "Your questions flock upon me like doves to a maiden who feeds them from her hand," said Zoroaster, with a smile, "and I know not which shall be fed first. As for the king, I know that he will be great, and will hold securely the throne, for he has already the love of the people from the Western sea to the wild Eastern mountains. But it seemed as though the seven princes would have divided the empire amongst them, until this news came. I think he will more likely take one of your people for his close friend than trust to the princes. As for our journey, we must depart betimes, or the king will have gone before us from Shushan to Stakhar in the south, where they say he will build himself a royal dwelling and stay in the coming winter time. Prepare yourself for the journey, therefore, my princess, lest anything be forgotten and you should be deprived of what you need for any time." "I am never deprived of what I need," said Nehushta, half in pride and half in jest. "Nor I, when I am with my beloved!" answered the Persian. "And now the moon is high, and I must bear this news to our master, the prophet." "So soon?" said Nehushta reproachfully, and she turned her head away. "I would there were no partings, my beloved, even for the space of an hour," answered Zoroaster, tenderly drawing her to him; but she resisted a little and would not look at him. "Farewell now--good-night, my princess--light of my soul;" he kissed her dark cheek passionately. "Good-night!" He trod swiftly across the terrace. "Zoroaster! prince!" Nehushta called aloud, but without turning. He came back. She threw her arms about his neck and kissed him almost desperately. Then she pushed him gently away from her. "Go--my love--only that," she murmured, and he left her standing by the marble balustrade, while the yellow moon turned slowly pale as she rose in the heavens, and the song of the lorn nightingale re-echoed in the still night, from the gardens to the towers, in long sweet cries of burning love, and soft, complaining, silvery notes of mingled sorrow and joy. CHAPTER III. In the prophet's chamber, also, the moonbeams fell upon the marble floor; but a seven-beaked Hebrew lamp of bronze shed a warmer light around, soft and mellow, yet strong enough to illuminate the scroll that lay open upon the old man's knee. His brows were knit together, and the furrows on his face were shaded deeply by the high light, as he sat propped among many cushions and wrapped in his ample purple cloak that was thickly lined with fur and drawn together over his snowy beard; for the years of his life were nearly accomplished, and the warmth of his body was even then leaving him. Zoroaster raised the heavy curtain of carpet that hung before the low square door, and came and bowed himself before the teacher of his youth and the friend of his manhood. The prophet looked up keenly, and something like a smile crossed his stern features as his eyes rested on the young officer in his magnificent armour; Zoroaster held his helmet in his hand, and his fair hair fell like a glory to his shoulders, mingling with his silky beard upon his breastplate. His dark blue eyes met his master's fearlessly. "Hail! and live for ever, chosen of the Lord!" he said in salutation. "I bring tidings of great moment and importance. If it be thy pleasure, I will speak; but if not, I will come at another season." "Sit upon my right hand, Zoroaster, and tell me all that thou hast to tell. Art thou not my beloved son, whom the Lord hath given me to comfort mine old age?" "I am thy servant and the servant of thine house, my father," answered Zoroaster, seating himself upon a carved chair at a little distance from the prophet. "Speak, my son,--what tidings hast thou?" "There is a messenger come in haste from Shushan, bearing tidings and letters. The seven princes have slain Smerdis in his house, and have chosen Darius the son of Gushtasp to be king." "Praise be to the Lord who hath chosen a just man!" exclaimed the prophet devoutly. "So may good come out of evil, and salvation by the shedding of blood." "Even so, my master," answered Zoroaster. "It is also written that Darius, may he live for ever, will establish himself very surely upon the throne of the Medes and Persians. There are letters by the hand of the same messenger, sealed with the signet of the Great King, wherein I am bidden to bring the kinsfolk of Jehoiakim, who was king over Judah, to Shushan without delay, that the Great King may do them honour as is meet and right; but what that honour may be that he would do to them, I know not." "What is this that thou sayest?" asked Daniel, starting forward from his reclining position, and fixing his dark eyes on Zoroaster. "Will the king take away from me the children of my old age? Art not thou as my son? And is not Nehushta as my daughter? As for the rest, I care not if they go. But Nehushta is as the apple of my eye! She is as a fair flower growing in the desert of my years! What is this that the king hath done to me? Whither will he take her from me?" "Let not my lord be troubled," said Zoroaster, earnestly, for he was moved by the sudden grief of the prophet. "Let not my lord be troubled. It is but for a space, for a few weeks; and thy kinsfolk will be with thee again, and I also." "A space, a few weeks! What is a space to thee, child, or a week that thou shouldest regard it? But I am old and full of years. It may be, if now thou takest my daughter Nehushta from me, that I shall see her face no more, neither thine, before I go hence and return not. Go to! Thou art young, but I am now nigh unto a hundred years old." "Nevertheless, if it be the will of the Great King, I must accomplish this thing," answered the young man. "But I will swear by thy head and by mine that there shall no harm happen to the young princess; and if anything happen to her that is evil, may the Lord do so to me and more also. Behold, I have sworn; let not my lord be troubled any more." But the prophet bowed his head and covered his face with his hands. Aged and childless, Zoroaster and Nehushta were to him children, and he loved them with his whole soul. Moreover, he knew the Persian Court, and he knew that if once they were taken into the whirl and eddy of its intrigue and stirring life, they would not return to Ecbatana; or returning, they would be changed and seem no more the same. He was bitterly grieved and hurt at the thought of such a separation, and in the grand simplicity of his greatness he felt no shame at shedding tears for them. Zoroaster himself, in the pride of his brilliant youth, was overcome with pain at the thought of quitting the sage who had been a father to him for thirty years. He had never been separated from Daniel save for a few months at a time during the wars of Cambyses; at six-and-twenty years of age he had been appointed to the high position of captain of the fortress of Ecbatana; since which time he had enjoyed the closest intercourse with the prophet, his master. Zoroaster was a soldier by force of circumstances, and he wore his gorgeous arms with matchless grace, but there were two things that, with him, went before his military profession, and completely eclipsed it in importance. From his earliest youth he had been the pupil of Daniel, who had inspired him with his own love of the mystic lore to which the prophet owed so much of his singular success in the service of the Assyrian and Persian monarchs. The boy's poetical mind, strengthened and developed by the study of the art of reasoning, and of the profound mathematical knowledge of the Chaldean astronomers, easily grasped the highest subjects, and showed from the first a capacity and lucidity that delighted his master. To attain by a life of rigid ascetic practice to the intuitive comprehension of knowledge, to the understanding of natural laws not discernible to the senses alone, and to the merging of the soul and higher intelligence in the one universal and divine essence, were the objects Daniel proposed to his willing pupil. The noble boy, by his very nature, scorned and despised the pleasures of sense, and yearned ever for the realising of an ideal wherein a sublime wisdom of transcendent things should direct a sublime courage in things earthly to the doing of great deeds. Year after year the young Persian grew up in the splendid surroundings of the court, distinguished before all those of his age for his courage and fearless honesty, for his marvellous beauty, and for his profound understanding of all subjects, great and small, that came within the sphere of his activity; most of all remarkable, perhaps, for the fact that he cared nothing for the society of women, and had never been known to love any woman. He was a favourite with Cyrus; and even Cambyses, steeped in degrading vice, and surrounded by flatterers, panderers, and priests of the Magians, from the time when he began to suspect his brother, the real Smerdis, of designs upon the throne, recognised the exceptional merits and gifts of the young noble, and promoted him to his position in Echatana, at the time when he permitted Daniel to build his great tower in that ancient fortress. The dissipated king may have understood that the presence of such men as Daniel and Zoroaster would be of greater advantage in an outlying district where justice and moderation would have a good effect upon the population, than in his immediate neighbourhood, where the purity and temperance of their lives contrasted too strongly with the degrading spectacle his own vices afforded to the court. Here, in the splendid retirement of a royal palace, the prophet had given himself up completely to the contemplation of those subjects which, through all his life, had engrossed his leisure time, and of which the knowledge had so directly contributed to his singular career; and in the many hours of leisure which Zoroaster's position allowed him, Daniel sought to bring the intelligence of the soldier-philosopher to the perfection of its final development. Living, as he did, entirely in his tower, save when, at rare intervals, he caused himself to be carried down to the gardens, the prophet knew little of what went on in the palace below, so that he sometimes marvelled that his pupil's attention wandered, and that his language betrayed occasionally a keener interest in his future, and in the possible vicissitudes of his military life, than he had formerly been wont to show. For a new element had entered into the current of Zoroaster's thoughts. For years he had seen the lovely child Nehushta growing up. As a boy of twenty summers he had rocked her on his knee; later he had taught her and played with her, and seen the little child turn to the slender girl, haughty and royal in her young ways, and dominating her playfellows as a little lioness might rule a herd of tamer creatures; and at last her sixteenth year had brought with it the bloom of early southern womanhood, and Zoroaster, laughing with her among the roses in the gardens, on a summer's day, had felt his heart leap and sink within him, and his own fair cheek grow hot and cold for the ring of her voice and the touch of her soft hand. He who knew so much of mankind, who had lived so long at the court, and had coldly studied every stage of human nature, where unbridled human nature ever ruled the hour, knew what he felt; and it was as though he had received a sharp wound that thrust him through, body and heart and soul, and cleft his cold pride in two. For days he wandered beneath the pines and the rhododendron trees alone, lamenting for the fabric of mighty philosophy he had built himself, in which no woman was ever to set foot; and which a woman's hand, a woman's eyes had shattered in a day. It seemed as if his whole life were blasted and destroyed, so that he was become even as other men, to suffer love and eat his heart out for a girl's fair word. He would have escaped from meeting the dark young princess again; but one evening, as he stood alone upon the terrace of the gardens, sorrowing for the change in himself, she found him, and there they looked into each other's eyes and saw a new light, and loved each other fiercely from that day, as only the untainted children of godlike races could love. But neither of them dared to tell the prophet, nor to let those of the palace know that they had pledged each other their troth, down there upon the moonlit terrace, behind the myrtles. Instinctively they dreaded lest the knowledge of their love should raise a storm of anger in Daniel's breast at the idea that his chosen philosopher should abandon the paths of mystic learning and reduce himself to the level of common mankind by marriage; and Zoroaster guessed how painful to the true Israelite would be the thought that a daughter and a princess of Judah should be united in wedlock with one who, however noble and true and wise, was, after all, a stranger and an unbeliever. For Zoroaster, while devoting himself heart and soul to the study of Daniel's philosophy, and of the wisdom the latter had acquired from the Chaldeans, had nevertheless firmly maintained his independence of thought. He was not an Israelite, nor would he ever wish to become one; but he was not an idolater nor a Magian, nor a follower of Gomata, the half-Indian Brahmin, who had endeavoured to pass himself off as Smerdis the son of Cyrus. Either of these causes alone would have sufficed to raise a serious obstacle to the marriage. Together they seemed insurmountable. During the disorder and anarchy that prevailed in the seven months of the reign of Pseudo-Smerdis, it would have been madness to have married, trusting to the favour of the wretched semi-monarch for fortune and advancement; nor could Nehushta have married and maintained her state as a princess of Judah without the consent of Daniel, who was her guardian, and whose influence was paramount in Media, and very great even at court. Zoroaster was therefore driven to conceal his passion as best he could, trusting to the turn of future events for the accomplishment of his dearest wish. In the meanwhile, he and the princess met daily in public, and Zoroaster's position as captain of the fortress gave him numerous opportunities of meeting Nehushta in the solitude of the gardens, which were jealously guarded and set apart exclusively for the use of Nehushta and her household. But now that the moment had come when it seemed as though a change were to take place in the destinies of the lovers, they felt constrained. Beyond a few simple questions and answers, they had not discussed the matter of the journey when they were together; for Nehushta was so much surprised and delighted at the idea of again seeing the magnificence of the court at Shushan, which she so well remembered from the period of her childhood, that she feared to let Zoroaster see how glad she was to leave Ecbatana, which, but for him, would have been to her little better than a prison. He, on the contrary, thinking that he foresaw an immediate removal of all obstacle and delay through the favor of Darius, was, nevertheless, too gentle and delicate of tact to bring suddenly before Nehushta's mind the prospect of marrying which presented itself so vividly to his own fancy. But he felt no less disturbed in his heart when face to face with the old prophet's sorrow at losing his foster-daughter; and, for the first time in his life, he felt guilty when he reflected that Daniel was grieved at his own departure almost as deeply as on account of Nehushta. He experienced what is so common with persons of cold and even temperament when brought into close relation with more expansive and affectionate natures; he was overcome with the sense that his old master gave him more love and more thought than he could possibly give in return, and that he was therefore ungrateful; and the knowledge he alone possessed, that he surely intended to marry the princess in spite of the prophet, and by the help of the king, added painfully to his mental suffering. The silence lasted some minutes, till the old man suddenly lifted his head and leaned back among his cushions, gazing at his companion's face. "Hast thou no sorrow, nor any regret?" he asked sadly. "Nay, my lord doth me injustice," answered Zoroaster, his brows contracting in his perplexity. "I should be ungrateful if I repented not leaving thee even for the space of a day. But let my lord be comforted; this parting is not for long, and before the flocks come down from Zagros to take shelter from the winter, we will be with thee." "Swear to me, then, that thou wilt return before the winter," insisted the prophet half-scornfully. "I cannot swear," answered Zoroaster. "Behold, I am in the hands of the Great King. I cannot swear." "Say rather that thou art in the hand of the Lord, and that therefore thou canst not swear. For I say thou wilt not return, and I shall see thy face no more. The winter cometh, and the birds of the air fly towards the south, and I am alone in the land of snow and frost; and the spring cometh also, and I am yet alone, and my time is at hand; for thou comest not any more, neither my daughter Nehushta, neither any of my kinsfolk. And behold, I go down to the grave alone." The yellow light of the hanging lamp above shone upon the old man's eyes, and there was a dull fire in them. His face was drawn and haggard, and every line and furrow traced by the struggles of his hundred years stood out dark and rugged and tremendous in power. Zoroaster shuddered as he looked on him, and, though he would have spoken, he was awed to silence. "Go forth, my son," cried the prophet in deep tones, and as he spoke he slowly raised his body till he sat rigidly erect, and his wan and ancient fingers were stretched out towards the young soldier. "Go forth and do thy part, for thou art in the hand of the Lord, and some things that thou wilt do shall be good, and some things evil. For thou hast departed from the path of crystal that leadeth among the stars, and thou hast fallen away from the ladder whereby the angels ascend and descend upon the earth, and thou art gone after the love of a woman which endureth not. And for a season thou shalt be led astray, and for a time thou shalt suffer great things; and after a time thou shalt return into the way; and again a time, and thou shalt perish in thine own imaginations, because thou hast not known the darkness from the light, nor the good from the evil. By a woman shalt thou go astray, and from a woman shalt thou return; yet thou shalt perish. But because there is some good in thee, it shall endure, and thy name also, for generations; and though the evil that besetteth thee shall undo thee, yet at the last thy soul shall live." Zoroaster buried his face in his hands, overcome by the majesty of the mighty prophet and by the terror of his words. "Rise and go forth, for the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and no man can hinder that thou doest. Thou shalt look upon the sun and shalt delight in him; and again thou shalt look and the light of the air shall be as darkness. Thou shalt boast in thy strength and in thine armour that there is none like thee, and again thou shalt cast thy glory from thee and say, 'This also is vanity.' The king delighteth in thee, and thou shalt stand before the queen in armour of gold and in fine raiment; and the end is near, for the hand of the Lord is upon thee. If the Lord will work great things by thee, what is that to me? Go forth quickly, and rest not by the way, lest the woman tempt thee and thou perish. And as for me, I go also--not with thee, but before thee. See that thou follow after--for I go. Yea, I see even now light in the darkness of the world, and the glory of the triumph of heaven is over me, triumphing greatly in the majesty of light." Zoroaster looked up and fell to the ground upon his knees in wonder and amazement at Daniel's feet, while his heavy helmet rolled clanging on the marble pavement. The prophet stood erect as a giant oak, stretching his withered hands to heaven, all the mass of his snow-white hair and beard falling about him to his waist. His face was illuminated as from within with a strange light, and his dark eyes turned upward seemed to receive and absorb the brightness of an open heaven. His voice rang again with the strength of youth, and his whole figure was clothed as with the majesty of another world. Again he spoke: "Behold, the voice of the ages is in me, and the Lord my God hath taken me up. My days are ended; I am taken up and shall no more be cast down. The earth departeth and the glory of the Lord is come which hath no end for ever." "The Lord cometh--He cometh quickly. In His right hand are the ages, and the days and the nights are under His feet. His ranks of the Cherubim are beside Him, and the armies of the Seraphim are dreadful. The stars of heaven tremble, and the voice of their moaning is as the voice of the uttermost fear. The arch of the outer firmament is shivered like a broken bow, and the curtain of the sky is rent in pieces as a veil in the tempest. The sun and the moon shriek aloud, and the sea crieth horribly before the Lord." "The nations are extinct as the ashes of a fire that is gone out, and the princes of the earth are no more. He hath bruised the earth in a mortar, and the dust of it is scattered abroad in the heavens. The stars in their might hath He pounded to pieces, and the foundations of the ages to fine powder. There is nothing of them left, and their voices are dead. There are dim shapes in the horror of emptiness." "But out of the north ariseth a fair glory with brightness, and the breath of the Lord breatheth life into all things. The beam of the dawn is risen, and there shall again be times and seasons, and the Being of the majesty of God is made manifest in form. From the dust of the earth is the earth made again, and of the beams of His glory shall He make new stars." "Send up the voices of praise, O ye things that are; cry out in exultation with mighty music! Praise the Lord in whom is Life, and in whom all things have Being! Praise Him and glorify Him that is risen with the wings of the morning of heaven; in whose breath the stars breathe, in whose brightness also the firmament is lightened! Praise Him who maketh the wheels of the spheres to run their courses; who maketh the flowers to bloom in the spring, and the little flowers of the field to give forth their sweetness! Praise Him, winter and summer; praise Him, cold and heat! Praise Him, stars of heaven; praise Him, men and women in the earth! Praise and glory and honour be unto the Most High Jehovah, who sitteth upon the Throne for ever, and ever, and ever...." The prophet's voice rang out with tremendous force and majestic clearness as he uttered the last words. Throwing up his arms to their height, he stood one moment longer, immovable, his face radiantly illuminated with an unearthly glory. One instant he stood there, and then fell back, straight and rigid, to his length upon the cushioned floor--dead! Zoroaster started to his feet in amazement and horror, and stood staring at the body of his master and friend lying stiff and stark beneath the yellow light of the hanging lamp. Then suddenly he sprang forward and kneeled again beside the pale noble head that looked so grand in death. He took one of the hands and chafed it, he listened for the beating of the heart that beat no more, and sought for the stirring of the least faint breath of lingering life. But he sought in vain; and there, in the upper chamber of the tower, the young warrior fell upon his face and wept alone by the side of the mighty dead. CHAPTER IV. Thus died Daniel, and for seven days the women sat apart upon the ground and mourned him, while the men embalmed his body and made it ready for burial. They wrapped him in much fine linen and poured out very precious spices and ointments from the store-houses of the palaces. Round about his body they burned frankincense and myrrh and amber, and the gums of the Indian benzoe and of the Persian fir, and great candles of pure wax; for all the seven days the mourners from the city made a great mourning, ceasing not to sing the praises of the prophet and to cry aloud by day and night that the best and the worthiest and the greatest of all men was dead. Thus they watched and mourned, and sang his great deeds. And in the lower chamber of the tower the women sat upon the floor, with Nehushta in their midst, and sorrowed greatly, fasting and mourning in raiment of sackcloth, and strewing ashes upon the floor and upon themselves. Nehushta's face grew thin and very pale and her lips white in that time, and she let her heavy hair hang neglected about her. Many of the men shaved their heads and went barefooted, and the fortress and the palaces were filled with the sound of weeping and grief. The Hebrews who were there mourned their chief, and the two Levites sat beside the dead man and read long chapters from their scriptures. The Medes mourned their great and just governor, under the Assyrian name of Belteshazzar, given first to Daniel by Nebuchadnezzar; and from all the town the noise of their weeping and mourning came up, like the mighty groan of a nation, to the ears of those that dwelt in the fortress and the palace. On the eighth day they buried him, with pomp and state, in a tomb in the garden which they had built during the week of mourning. The two Levites and a young Hebrew and Zoroaster himself, clad in sackcloth and barefooted, raised up the prophet's body upon a bier and bore him upon their shoulders down the broad staircase of the tower and out into the garden to his tomb. The mourners went before, many hundreds of Median women with dishevelled hair, rending their dresses of sackcloth and scattering ashes upon their path and upon their heads, crying aloud in wild voices of grief and piercing the air with their screams, till they came to the tomb and stood round about it while the four men laid their master in his great coffin of black marble beneath the pines and the rhododendrons. And the pipers followed after, making shrill and dreadful music that sounded as though some supernatural beings added their voices to the universal wail of woe. And on either side of the body walked the women, the prophet's kinsfolk; but Nehushta walked by Zoroaster, and ever and anon, as the funeral procession wound through the myrtle walks of the deep gardens, her dark and heavy eyes stole a glance sidelong at her strong fair lover. His face was white as death and set sternly before him, and his dishevelled hair and golden beard flowed wildly over the rough coarseness of his long sackcloth garments. But his step never faltered, though he walked barefooted upon the hard gravel, and from the upper chamber of the tower whence they bore the corpse to the very moment when they laid it in the tomb, his face never changed, neither looked he to the right nor to the left. And then, at last, when they had lowered their beloved master with linen bands to his last resting-place, and the women came near with boxes of nard and ambergris and precious ointments, Zoroaster looked long and fixedly at the swathed head, and the tears rolled down his cheeks and dropped upon his beard and upon the marble of the coffin; till at last he turned in silence, and went away through the multitude that parted before him, as pale as the dead and answering no man's greeting, nor even glancing at Nehushta who had stood at his elbow. And he went away and hid himself for the rest of that day. But in the evening, when the sun was gone down, he came and stood upon the terrace in the darkness, for there was no moon. He wore again his arms, and his purple cloak was about him, for he had his duty to perform in visiting the fortress. The starlight glimmered faintly on his polished helmet and duskily made visible his marble features and his beard. He stood with his back to the pillars of the balustrade, looking towards the myrtles of the garden, for he knew that Nehushta would come to the wonted tryst. He waited long, but at last he heard a step upon the gravel path and the rustle of the myrtles, and presently in the faint light he could see the white skirt of her garment beneath the dark mantle moving swiftly towards him. He sprang forward to meet her and would have taken her in his arms, but she put him back and looked away from him while she walked slowly to the front of the terrace. Even in the gloom of the starlight Zoroaster could see that something had offended her, and a cold weight seemed to fall upon his breast and chilled the rising words of loving greeting. Zoroaster followed her and laid his hand upon her shoulder. Unresponsive, she allowed it to remain there. "My beloved," he said at last, trying in vain to look into her averted face, "have you no word for me to-night?" Still she answered nothing. "Has your sorrow made you forget our love?" he murmured close to her ear. She started back from him a little and looked at him. Even in the dusk he could see her eyes flash as she answered: "Had not your own sorrow so utterly got the mastery over you to-day that you even refused to look at me?" she asked. "In all that long hour when we were so near together, did you give me one glance? You had forgotten me in the extremity of your grief!" she cried, scornfully. "And now that the first torrent of your tears has dwindled to a little stream, you have time to remember me! I thank my lord for the notice he deigns to give his handmaiden, but--I need it not. Well--why are you here?" Zoroaster stood up to his height and folded his arms deliberately, facing Nehushta, and he spoke calmly, though there was in his voice the dulness of a great and sudden pain. He knew men well enough, but he knew little of women. "There is a time to be sorrowful and a time for joy," he said. "There is a time for weeping and a time for the glances of love. I did as I did, because when a man has a great grief for one dead and when he desires to show his sorrow in doing honour to one who has been as a father to him, it is not meet that other thoughts should be in his mind; not even those thoughts which are most dear to him and nearest to his heart. Therefore I looked not at you when we were burying our master, and though I love you and in my heart look ever on your face, yet to-day my eyes were turned from you and I saw you not. Wherefore are you angry with me?" "I am not angry," said Nehushta, "but think you love me little that you turn from me so easily." She looked down, and her face was quite hidden in the dark shadow. Then Zoroaster put his arm about her neck and drew her to him, and, though she resisted a little, in a moment her head rested on his breast. Then she struggled again. "Nay, let me go, for you do not love me!" she said, half in a whisper. But he held her close. "Nay, but you shall not go, for I do love you," he answered tenderly. "Shall not?" cried she, turning in his arms, half fiercely; then her voice sank and thrilled softly. "Say that I will not," she murmured, and her arms went round him and pressed him passionately to her. "Oh, my beloved, why do you ever seem so cold? so cold--when I so love you?" "I am not cold," he said fondly, "and I love you beyond all power of words to tell. Said we not that you had your way and I mine? Who shall tell us which is the sweeter music when both unite in so grand a harmony? Only doubt not, for doubting is as the drop that falls from the eaves upon the marble corner-stone, and, by ever falling, wears furrows in the stone that the whole ocean could not soften." "I will not doubt any more," said Nehushta suddenly, "only--can you not love me a little sometimes in the way I do you? It is so sweet,--my way of loving." "Indeed I will try, for it is very sweet," answered Zoroaster, and, bending down, he kissed her lips. Far off from the tower the melancholy cry of an owl echoed sadly across the gardens, and a cool damp breeze sprang up suddenly, from the east. Nehushta shuddered slightly, and drew her cloak about her. "Let us walk upon the terrace," she said, "it is cold to-night--is not this the last night here?" "Yes; to-morrow we must go hence upon our journey. This is the last night." Nehushta drew closer to her lover as they paced the terrace together, and each wound one arm about the other. For some minutes they walked in silence, each perhaps recalling the many meetings upon that very terrace since the first time their lips met in love under the ivory moonlight of the month Tammuz, more than a year ago. At last Nehushta spoke. "Know you this new king?" she asked. "I saw him but for a few moments last year. He was a young prince, but he is not fair." "A young prince with an old man's head upon his shoulders," answered Zoroaster. "He is a year younger than I--but I would not have his battles to fight; nor, if I had, would I have taken Atossa to be my wife." "Atossa?" repeated Nehushta. "Yes. The king has already married her--she was the wife of Cambyses, and also of the false Smerdis, the Magian, whom Darius has slain." "Is she fair? Have I not seen her?" asked Nehushta quickly. "Indeed, you must have seen her at the court in Shushan, before we came to Ecbatana. She was just married to Cambyses then, but he regarded her little, for he was ever oppressed with wine and feasting. But you were a child then, and were mostly with the women of your house, and you may not have seen her." "Tell me--had she not blue eyes and yellow hair? Had she not a cruel face--very cold?" "Aye, it may be that she had a hard look. I remember that her eyes were blue. She was very unhappy; therefore she helped the Magian. It was not she that betrayed him." "You pitied her even then, did you not?" asked Nehushta. "Yes--she deserved pity." "She will have her revenge now. A woman with a face like hers loves revenge." "Then she will deserve pity no longer," said Zoroaster, with a slight laugh. "I hate her!" said the princess, between her teeth. "Hate her? How can you hate a woman you have never more than seen, and she has done you no evil in the world?" "I am sure I shall hate her," answered Nehushta. "She is not at all beautiful--only cold and white and cruel. How could the Great King be so foolish as to marry her?" "May he live for ever! He marries whom he pleases. But I pray you, do not begin by hating the queen overmuch." "Why not? What have I to gain from the queen?" asked the princess. "Am I not of royal blood as well as she?" "That is true," returned Zoroaster. "Nevertheless there is a prudence for princesses as well as for other people." "I would not be afraid of the Great King himself with you beside me," said Nehushta proudly. "But I will be prudent to please you. Only--I am sure I shall hate her." Zoroaster smiled to himself in the dusk, but he would not have had the princess see he was amused. "It shall be as you please," he said; "we shall soon know how it will end, for we must begin our journey to-morrow." "It will need three weeks, will it not?" asked Nehushta. "Yes--it is at least one hundred and fifty farsangs. It would weary you to travel more than seven or eight farsangs in a day's journey--indeed, that is a long distance for any one." "We shall always be together, shall we not?" asked the princess. "I will ride beside your litter, my beloved," said Zoroaster. "But it will be very tedious for you, and you will often be tired. The country is very wild in some parts, and we must trust to what we can take with us for our comfort. Do not spare the mules, therefore, but take everything you need." "Besides, we may not return," said Nehushta thoughtfully. Her companion was silent. "Do you think we shall ever come back?" she asked presently. "I have dreamed of coming back," answered Zoroaster; "but I fear it is to be even as you say." "Why say you that you fear it! Is it not better to live at the court than here in this distant fortress, so shut off from the world that we might almost as well be among the Scythians? Oh, I long for the palace at Shushan! I am sure it will seem tenfold more beautiful now than it did when I was a child." Zoroaster sighed. In his heart he knew there was to be no returning to Media, and yet he had dreamed of marrying the princess and being made governor of the province, and bringing his wife home to this beautiful land to live out a long life of quiet happiness. But he knew it was not to be; and though he tried hard to shake off the impression, he felt in his inmost self that the words of the dying prophet foretold truly what would happen to him. Only he hoped that there was an escape, and the passion in his heart scorned the idea that in loving Nehushta he was being led astray, or made to abandon the right path. The cold breeze blew steadily from the east, with a chill dampness in it, sighing wearily among the trees. The summer was not yet wholly come, and the after-breath of the winter still made itself felt from time to time. The lovers parted, taking leave of the spot they loved so well,--Zoroaster with a heavy foreboding of evil to come; Nehushta with a great longing for the morrow, a mad desire to be on the way to Shushan. Something in her way of speaking had given Zoroaster a sense of pain. Her interest in the court and in the Great King, the strange capricious hatred that seemed already forming in her breast against Atossa, the evident desire she betrayed to take part in the brilliant life of the capital,--indeed, her whole manner troubled him. It seemed so unaccountable that she should be angry with him for his conduct at the burial of the prophet, that he almost thought she had wished to take advantage of a trifle for the sake of annoying him. He felt that doubt which never comes so suddenly and wounds so keenly as when a man feels the most certain of his position and of himself. He retired to his apartment in the palace with a burden of unhappiness and evil presentiment that was new to him. It was very different from the sincere sorrow he had felt and still suffered for the death of his master and friend. That misfortune had not affected him as regarded Nehushta. But now he had been separated from her during all the week by the exigencies of the funeral ceremonies, and he had looked forward to meeting her this evening as to a great joy after so much mourning, and he was disappointed. She had affected to be offended with him, yet his reason told him that he had acted naturally and rightly. Could he, the bearer of the prophet's body, the captain of all the fortress, the man of all others upon whom all eyes were turned, have exchanged love glances or spoken soft words to the princess by his side at such a time? It was absurd; she had no right to expect such a thing. However, he reflected that a new kind of life was to begin on the morrow. For the best part of a month he would ride by her litter all day long, and sit at her table at noonday and evening; he would watch over her and take care of her, and see that her slightest wants were instantly supplied; a thousand incidents would occur whereby he might re-establish all the loving intimacy which seemed to have been so unexpectedly shaken. And so, consoling himself with the hopes of the future, and striving to overlook the present, he fell asleep, wearied with the fatigues and sorrows of the day. But Nehushta lay all night upon her silken cushions, and watched the flickering little lamp and the strange shadows it cast among the rich, painted carvings of the ceiling. She slept little, but waking she dreamed of the gold and the glitter of Shushan, of the magnificence of the young king, and of the brilliant hard-featured beauty of Atossa, whom she already hated or had determined to hate. The king interested her most. She tried to recall his features and manner as he had appeared when he tarried one night in the fortress a year previous. She remembered a black-browed man in the prime of youth, with heavy brows and an eagle nose; his young beard growing black and square about his strong dark features, which would have seemed coarse saving for his bright eyes that looked every man fearlessly in the face. A short man he seemed in her memory, square built and powerful as a bloodhound, of quick and decisive speech, expecting to be understood before he had half spoken his thoughts; a man, she fancied, who must be untiring and violent of temper, inflexible and brave in the execution of his purpose--a strong contrast outwardly to her tall and graceful lover. Zoroaster's faultless beauty was a constant delight to her eyes; his soft deep voice sounded voluptuously passionate when he spoke to herself, coldly and deliberately dominating when addressing others. He moved with perfect certainty and assurance of purpose, his whole presence breathed a high and superior wisdom and untainted nobility of mind; he looked and acted like a god, like a being from another world, not subject to mortal passions, nor to the temptations of common mankind. She gloried in his perfection and in the secret knowledge that to her alone he was a man simply and utterly dominated by love. As she thought of him she grew proud and happy in the idea that such a man should be her lover, and she reproached herself for doubting his devotion that evening. After all, she had only complained that he had neglected her--as he had really done, she added. She wondered in her heart whether other men would have done the same in his place, or whether this power of coldly disregarding her presence when he was occupied with a serious matter were not due to a real and unconquerable hardness in his nature. But as she lay there, her dark hair streaming over the yellow silk of her pillows, her mind strayed from her lover to the life before her, and the picture rose quickly in her imagination. She even took up the silver mirror that lay beside her and looked at herself by the dim light of the little lamp, and said to herself that she was beautiful, and that many in Shushan would do her homage. She was glad that Atossa was so fair--it would be a better contrast for her own dark southern beauty. Towards morning she slept, and dreamed of the grand figure of the prophet, as she had seen him stretched upon his death-bed in the upper chamber of the tower; she thought the dead man stirred and opened his glazed eyes and pointed at her with his bony fingers, and spoke words of anger and reproach. Then she woke with a short cry in her terror, and the light of the dawn shone gray and clear through the doorway of the corridor at the end of her room, where two of her handmaids slept across the threshold, their white cloaks drawn over their heads against the chill air of the night. Then the trumpets rang out in long-drawn clanging rhythm through the morning air, and Nehushta heard the trampling of the beasts that were being got ready for the journey, in the court without, and the cries of the drivers and of the serving-men. She rose quickly from her bed--a lithe white-clad figure in the dawn light--and pushed the heavy curtains aside and looked out through the lattice; and she forgot her evil dream, for her heart leaped again at the thought that she should no more be shut up in Ecbatana, and that before another month was over she would be in Shushan, in the palace, where she longed to be. CHAPTER V. The sun was almost setting, and his light was already turning to a golden glow upon the vast plain of Shushan, as the caravan of travellers halted for the last time. A few stades away the two mounds rose above the royal city like two tables out of the flat country; the lower one surmounted by the marble columns, the towers and turrets and gleaming architraves of the palace; and in front, upon the right, the higher elevation crowned by the dark and massive citadel of frowning walls and battlements. The place chosen for the halt was the point where the road from Nineveh, into which they had turned when about half-way from Ecbatana, joined the broad road from Babylon, near to the bridge. For some time they had followed the quiet stream of the Choaspes, and, looking across it, had watched how the fortress seemed to come forward and overhang the river, while the mound of the palace fell away to the background. The city itself was, of course, completely hidden from their view by the steep mounds, that looked as inaccessible as though they had been built of solid masonry. Everything in the plain was green. Stade upon stade, and farsang upon farsang, the ploughed furrows stretched away to the west and south; the corn standing already green and high, and the fig-trees putting out their broad green leaves. Here and there in the level expanse of country the rays of the declining sun were reflected from the whitewashed walls of a farmhouse; or in the farther distance lingered upon the burnt-brick buildings of an outlying village. Beyond the river, in the broad meadow beneath the turret-clad mound, half-naked, sunburnt boys drove home the small humped cows to the milking, scaring away, as they went, the troops of white horses that pastured in the same field, clapping their hands and crying out at the little black foals that ran and frisked by the side of their white dams. Here and there a broad-shouldered, bearded fisherman angled in the stream, or flung out a brown casting-net upon the placid waters, drawing it slowly back to the bank, with eyes intent upon the moving cords. The caravan halted on the turf by the side of the dusty road; the mounted guards, threescore stalwart riders from the Median plains, fell back to make room for the travellers, and, springing to the ground, set about picketing and watering their horses--their brazen armour and scarlet and blue mantles blazing in a mass of rich colour in the evening sun; while their wild white horses, untired by the day's march, plunged and snorted, and shook themselves, and bit each other in play by mane and tail, in the delight of being at least half free. Zoroaster himself--his purple mantle somewhat whitened with the dust, and his fair face a little browned by the three weeks' journey--threw the bridle of his horse to a soldier and ran quickly forward. A magnificent litter, closed all around with a gilded lattice, and roofed with three awnings of white linen, one upon the other, as a protection against the sun, was being carefully unyoked from the mules that had borne it. Tall Ethiopian slaves lifted it, and carried it to the greenest spot of the turf by the softly flowing river; and Zoroaster himself pushed back the lattice and spread a rich carpet before it. Nehushta took his proffered hand and stepped lightly out, and stood beside him in the red light. She was veiled, and her purple cloak fell in long folds to her feet, and she stood motionless, with her back to the city, looking towards the setting sun. "Why do we stop here?" she asked suddenly. "The Great King, may he live for ever, is said not to be in the city," answered Zoroaster, "and it would ill become us to enter the palace before him." He spoke aloud in the Median language that the slaves might hear him; then he added in Hebrew and in a lower voice, "It would be scarcely wise, or safe, to enter Shushan when the king is away. Who can tell what may have happened there in these days? Babylon has rebelled; the empire is far from settled. All Persia may be on the very point of a revolt." "A fitting time indeed for our journey--for me and my women to be travelling abroad with a score of horsemen for a guard! Why did you bring me here? How long are we to remain encamped by the roadside, waiting the pleasure of the populace to let us in, or the convenience of this new king to return?" Nehushta turned upon her companion as she spoke, and there was a ring of mingled scorn and disappointment in her voice. Her dark eyes stated coldly at Zoroaster from the straight opening between her veils, and before he could answer, she turned her back upon him and moved a few steps away, gazing out at the setting sun across the fertile meadows. The warrior stood still, and a dark flush overspread his face. Then he turned pale, but whatever were the words that rose to his lips, he did not speak them, but occupied himself with superintending the pitching of the women's tents. The other litters were brought, and set down with their occupants; the long file of camels, some laden with baggage and provisions, some bearing female slaves, kneeled down to be unloaded upon the grass, anxiously craning their long necks the while in the direction of the stream; the tent-pitchers set to work; and at the last another score of horsemen, who had formed the rear-guard of the caravan, cantered up and joined their companions who had already dismounted. With the rapid skill of long practice, all did their share, and in a few minutes all the immense paraphernalia of a Persian encampment were spread out and disposed in place for the night. Contrary to the usual habit Zoroaster had not permitted the tent-pitchers and other slaves to pass on while he and his charges made their noonday halt; for he feared some uprising in the neighbourhood of the city in the absence of the king, and he wished to keep his whole company together as a measure of safety, even at the sacrifice of Nehushta's convenience. She herself still stood apart, and haughtily turned away from her serving-women, giving them no answer when they saluted her and offered her cushions and cooling drinks. She drew her cloak more closely about her and tightened her veil upon her face. She was weary, disappointed, almost angry. For days she had dreamed of the reception she would have at the palace, of the king and of the court; of the luxury of rest after her long journey, and of the thousand diversions and excitements she would find in revisiting the scenes of her childhood. It was no small disappointment to find herself condemned to another night in camp; and her first impulse was to blame Zoroaster. In spite of her love for him, her strong and dominating temper often chafed at his calmness, and resented the resolute superiority of his intelligence; and then, being conscious that her own dignity suffered by the storms of her temper, she was even more angry than before, with herself, with him, with every one. But Zoroaster was as impassive as marble, saving that now and then his brow flushed, and paled quickly; and his words, if he spoke at all, had a chilled icy ring in them. Sooner or later, Nehushta's passionate temper cooled, and she found him the same as ever, devoted and gentle and loving; then her heart went out to him anew, and all her being was filled with the love of him, even to overflowing. She had been disappointed now, and would speak to no one. She moved still farther from the crowd of slaves and tent-pitchers, followed at a respectful distance by her handmaidens, who whispered together as they went; and again she stood still and looked westward. As the sun neared the horizon, his low rays caught upon a raising cloud of dust, small and distant as the smoke of a fire, in the plain towards Babylon, but whirling quickly upwards. Nehushta's eye rested on the far-off point, and she raised one hand to shade her sight. She remembered how, when she was a girl, she had watched the line of that very road from the palace above, and had seen a cloud of dust arise out of a mere speck, as a body of horsemen galloped into view. There was no mistaking what it was. A troop of horse were coming--perhaps the king himself. Instinctively she turned and looked for Zoroaster, and started, as she saw him standing at a little distance from her, with folded arms, his eyes bent on the horizon. She moved towards him in sudden excitement. "What is it?" she asked in low tones. "It is the Great King--may he live for ever!" answered Zoroaster. "None but he would ride so fast along the royal road." For a moment they stood side by side, watching the dust cloud; and as they stood, Nehushta's hand stole out from her cloak and touched the warrior's arm, softly, with a trembling of the fingers, as though she timidly sought something she would not ask for. Zoroaster turned his head and saw that her eyes were moistened with tears; he understood, but he would not take her hand, for there were many slaves near, besides Nehushta's kinsfolk, and he would not have had them see; but he looked on her tenderly, and on a sudden, his eyes grew less sad, and the light returned in them. "My beloved!" he said softly. "I was wrong, Zoroaster--forgive me," she murmured. She suffered him to lead her to her tent, which was already pitched; and he left her there, sitting at the door and watching his movements, while he called together his men and drew them up in a compact rank by the roadside, to be ready to salute the king. Nearer and nearer came the cloud; and the red glow turned to purple and the sun went out of sight; and still it came nearer, that whirling cloud-canopy of fine powdered dust, rising to right and left of the road in vast round puffs, and hanging overhead like the smoke from some great moving fire. Then, from beneath it, there seemed to come a distant roar like thunder, rising and falling on the silent air, but rising ever louder; and a dark gleam of polished bronze, with something more purple than the purple sunset, took shape slowly; then with the low roar of sound, came now and then, and then more often, the clank of harness and arms; till at last, the whole stamping, rushing, clanging crowd of galloping horsemen seemed to emerge suddenly from the dust in a thundering charge, the very earth shaking beneath their weight, and the whole air vibrating to the tremendous shock of pounding hoofs and the din of clashing brass. A few lengths before the serried ranks rode one man alone,--a square figure, wrapped in a cloak of deeper and richer purple than any worn by the ordinary nobles, sitting like a rock upon a great white horse. As he came up, Zoroaster and his fourscore men threw up their hands. "Hail, king of kings! Hail, and live for ever!" they cried, and as one man, they prostrated themselves upon their faces on the grass by the roadside. Darius drew rein suddenly, bringing his steed from his full gallop to his haunches in an instant. After him the rushing riders threw up their right hands as a signal to those behind; and with a deafening concussion, as of the ocean breaking at once against a wall of rock, those matchless Persian horsemen halted in a body in the space of a few yards, their steeds plunging wildly, rearing to their height and struggling on the curb; but helpless to advance against the strong hands that held them. The blossom and flower of all the Persian nobles rode there,--their purple mantles flying with the wild motion, their bronze cuirasses black in the gathering twilight, their bearded faces dark and square beneath their gilded helmets. "I am Darius, the king of kings, on whom ye call," cried the king, whose steed now stood like a marble statue, immovable in the middle of the road. "Rise, speak and fear nothing,--unless ye speak lies." Zoroaster rose to his feet, then bent low, and taking a few grains of dust from the roadside, touched his mouth with his hand and let the dust fall upon his forehead. "Hail, and live for ever! I am thy servant, Zoroaster, who was captain over the fortress and treasury of Ecbatana. According to thy word I have brought the kinsfolk of Jehoiakim, king of Judah,--chief of whom is Nehushta, the princess. I heard that thou wast absent from Shushan, and here I have waited for thy coming. I also sent thee messengers to announce that Daniel, surnamed Belteshazzar, who was Satrap of Media from the time of Cambyses, is dead; and I have buried him fittingly in a new tomb in the garden of the palace of Ecbatana." Darius, quick and impulsive in every thought and action, sprang to the ground as Zoroaster finished speaking, and coming to him, took both his hands and kissed him on both cheeks. "What thou hast done is well done,--I know thee of old. Auramazda is with thee. He is also with me. By his grace I have slain the rebels at Babylon. They spoke lies, so I slew them. Show me Nehushta, the daughter of the kings of Judah." "I am thy servant. The princess is at hand," answered Zoroaster; but as he spoke, he turned pale to the lips. By this time it had grown dark, and the moon, just past the full, had not yet risen from behind the mound of the fortress. The slaves brought torches of mingled wax and fir-gum, and their black figures shone strangely in the red glare, as they pressed toward the door of Nehushta's tent, lighting the way for the king. Darius strode quickly forward, his gilded harness clanging as he walked, the strong flaring light illuminating his bold dark features. Under the striped curtain, drawn up to form the entrance of the tent, stood Nehushta. She had thrown aside her veil and her women had quickly placed upon her head the linen tiara, where a single jewel shown like a star in the white folds. Her thick black hair fell in masses upon her shoulders, and her mantle was thrown back, displaying the grand proportions of her figure, clad in tunic and close-fitting belt. As the king came near, she kneeled and prostrated herself before him, touching her forehead to the ground, and waiting for him to speak. He stood still a full minute and his eyes flashed fire, as he looked on her crouching figure, in very pride that so queenly a woman should be forced to kneel at his feet--but more in sudden admiration of her marvellous beauty. Then he bent down, and took her hand and raised her to her feet. She sprang up, and faced him with glowing cheeks and flashing eyes; and as she stood she was nearly as tall as he. "I would not that a princess of thy line kneeled before me," said he; and in his voice there was a strange touch of softness. "Wilt thou let me rest here awhile before I go up to Shushan? I am weary of riding and thirsty from the road." "Hail, king of the world! I am thy servant. Rest thee and refresh thee here," answered Nehushta, drawing back into the tent. The king beckoned to Zoroaster to follow him and went in. Darius sat upon the carved folding-chair that stood in the midst of the tent by the main pole, and eagerly drained the huge golden goblet of Shiraz wine which Zoroaster poured for him. Then he took off his headpiece, and his thick, coarse hair fell in a mass of dark curls to his neck, like the mane of a black lion. He breathed a long breath as of relief and enjoyment of well-earned repose, and leaned back in his chair, letting his eyes rest on Nehushta's face as she stood before him looking down to the ground. Zoroaster remained on one side, holding the replenished goblet in his hand, in case the king's thirst were not assuaged by a single draught. "Thou art fair, daughter of Jerusalem," said the king presently. "I remember thy beauty, for I saw thee in Ecbatana. I sent for thee and thy kinsfolk that I might do thee honour; and I will also fulfil my words. I will take thee to be my wife." Darius spoke quietly, in his usual tone of absolute determination. But if the concentrated fury of a thousand storms had suddenly broken loose in the very midst of the tent, the effect could not have been more terrible on his hearers. Nehushta's face flushed suddenly, and for a moment she trembled in every joint; then she fell on her knees, prostrate before the king's feet, all the wealth of her splendid hair falling loose about her. Darius sat still, as though watching the result of his speech. He might have sat long, but in an instant, Zoroaster sprang between the king and the kneeling woman; and the golden goblet he had held rolled across the thick carpet on the ground, while the rich red wine ran in a slow stream towards the curtains of the door. His face was livid and his eyes like coals of blue fire, his fair locks and his long golden beard caught the torchlight and shone about him like a glory, as he stood up to his grand height and faced the king. Darius never quailed nor moved; his look met Zoroaster's with fearless boldness. Zoroaster spoke first, in low accents of concentrated fury: "Nehushta the princess is my betrothed bride. Though thou wert king of the stars as well as king of the earth, thou shalt not have her for thy wife." Darius smiled, not scornfully, an honest smile of amusement, as he stared at the wrathful figure of the northern man before him. "I am the king of kings," he answered. "I will marry this princess of Judah to-morrow, and thee I will crucify upon the highest turret of Shushan, because thou speakest lies when thou sayest I shall not marry her." "Fool! tempt not thy God! Threaten not him who is stronger than thou, lest he slay thee with his hands where thou sittest." Zoroaster's voice sounded low and distinct as the knell of relentless fate, and his hand went out towards the king's throat. Until this moment, Darius had sat in his indifferent attitude, smiling carelessly, though never taking his eye from his adversary. Brave as the bravest, he scorned to move until he was attacked, and he would have despised the thought of calling to his guards. But when Zoroaster's hand went out to seize him, he was ready. With a spring like a tiger, he flew at the strong man's throat, and sought to drag him down, striving to fasten his grip about the collar of his cuirass, but Zoroaster slipped his hand quickly under his adversary's, his sleeve went back and his long white arm ran like a fetter of steel about the king's neck, while his other hand gripped him by the middle; so they held each other like wrestlers, one arm above the shoulder and one below, and strove with all their might. The king was short, but in his thick-set broad shoulders and knotted arms there lurked the strength of a bull and the quickness of a tiger. Zoroaster had the advantage, for his right arm was round Darius's neck, but while one might count a score, neither moved a hairbreadth, and the blue veins stood out like cords on the tall man's arm. The fiery might of the southern prince was matched against the stately strength of the fair northerner, whose face grew as white as death, while the king's brow was purple with the agony of effort. They both breathed hard between their clenched teeth, but neither uttered a word. Nehushta had leaped to her feet in terror at the first sign of the coming strife, but she did not cry out, nor call in the slaves or guards. She stood, holding the tent-pole with one hand, and gathering her mantle to her breast with the other, gazing in absolute fascination at the fearful life and death struggle, at the unspeakable and tremendous strength so silently exerted by the two men before her. Suddenly they moved and swayed. Darius had attempted to trip Zoroaster with one foot, but slipping on the carpet wet with wine, had been bent nearly double to the ground; then by a violent effort, he regained his footing. But the great exertion had weakened his strength. Nehushta thought a smile nickered on Zoroaster's pale face and his flashing dark blue eyes met hers for a moment, and then the end began. Slowly, and by imperceptible degrees, Zoroaster forced the king down before him, doubling him backwards with irresistible strength, till it seemed as though bone and sinew and muscle must be broken and torn asunder in the desperate resistance. Then, at last, when his head almost touched the ground, Darius groaned and his limbs relaxed. Instantly Zoroaster threw him on his back and kneeled with his whole weight upon his chest,--the gilded scales of the corselet cracking beneath the burden, and he held the king's hands down on either side, pinioned to the floor. Darius struggled desperately twice and then lay quite still. Zoroaster gazed down upon him with blazing eyes. "Thou who wouldst crucify me upon Shushan," he said through his teeth. "I will slay thee here even as thou didst slay Smerdis. Hast thou anything to say? Speak quickly, for thy hour is come." Even in the extremity of his agony, vanquished and at the point of death, Darius was brave, as brave men are, to the very last. He would indeed have called for help now, but there was no breath in him. He still gazed fearlessly into the eyes of his terrible conqueror. His voice came in a hoarse whisper. "I fear not death. Slay on if thou wilt--thou--hast--conquered." Nehushta had come near. She trembled now that the fight was over, and looked anxiously to the heavy curtains of the tent-door. "Tell him," she whispered to Zoroaster, "that you will spare him if he will do no harm to you, nor to me." "Spare him!" echoed Zoroaster scornfully. "He is almost dead now--why should I spare him?" "For my sake, beloved," answered Nehushta, with a sudden and passionate gesture of entreaty. "He is the king--he speaks truth; if he says he will not harm you, trust him." "If I slay thee not, swear thou wilt not harm me nor Nehushta," said Zoroaster, removing one knee from the chest of his adversary. "By the name of Auramazda," gasped Darius, "I will not harm thee nor her." "It is well," said Zoroaster. "I will let thee go. And as for taking her to be thy wife, thou mayest ask her if she will wed thee," he added. He rose and helped the king to his feet. Darius shook himself and breathed hard for a few minutes. He felt his limbs as a man might do who had fallen from his horse, and then he sat down upon the chair, and broke into a loud laugh. Darius was well known to all Persia and Media before the events of the last two months, and such was his reputation for abiding by his promise that he was universally trusted by those about him. Zoroaster had known him also, and he remembered his easy familiarity and love of jesting, so that even when he held the king at such vantage that he might have killed him by a little additional pressure of his weight, he felt not the least hesitation in accepting his promise of safety. But remembering what a stake had been played for in the desperate issue, he could not join in the king's laugh. He stood silently apart, and looked at Nehushta who leaned back against the tent-pole in violent agitation; her hands wringing each other beneath her long sleeves, and her eyes turning from the king to Zoroaster, and back again to the king, in evident distress and fear. "Thou hast a mighty arm, Zoroaster," cried Darius, as his laughter subsided, "and thou hadst well-nigh made an end of the Great King and of Persia, Media, Babylon and Egypt in thy grip." "Let the king pardon his servant," answered Zoroaster, "if his knee was heavy and his hand strong. Had not the king slipped upon the spilt wine, his servant would have been thrown down." "And thou wouldst have been crucified at dawn," added Darius, laughing again. "It is well for thee that I am Darius and not Cambyses, or thou wouldst not be standing there before me while my guards are gossiping idly in the road. Give me a cup of wine since thou hast spared my life!" Again the king laughed as though his sides would break. Zoroaster hastily filled another goblet and offered it, kneeling before the monarch. Darius paused before he took the cup, and looked at the kneeling warrior's pale proud face. Then he spoke and his voice dropped to a less mirthful key, as he laid his hand on Zoroaster's shoulder. "I love thee, prince," he said, "because thou art stronger than I; and as brave and more merciful. Therefore shalt thou stand ever at my right hand and I will trust thee with my life in thy hand. And in pledge hereunto I put my own chain of gold about thy neck, and I drink this cup to thee; and whosoever shall harm a hair of thine head shall perish in torments." The king drank; and Zoroaster, overcome with genuine admiration of the great soul that could so easily forgive so dire an offence, bent and embraced the king's knees in token of adherence, and as a seal of that friendship which was never to be broken until death parted the two men asunder. Then they arose, and at Zoroaster's order, the princess's litter was brought, and leaving the encampment to follow after them, they went up to the palace. Nehushta was borne between the litters of her women and her slaves on foot, but Zoroaster mounted his horse and rode slowly and in silence by the right side of the Great King. CHAPTER VI. Athwart the gleaming colonnades of the eastern balcony, the early morning sun shone brightly, and all the shadows of the white marble cornices and capitals and jutting frieze work were blue with the reflection of the cloudless sky. The swallows now and then shot in under the overhanging roof and flew up and down the covered terrace; then with a quick rush, they sped forth again into the dancing sunshine with clean sudden sweep, as when a sharp sword is whirled in the air. Far below, the soft mist of the dawn still lay upon the city, whence the distant cries of the water-carriers and fruitsellers came echoing up from the waking streets, the call of the women to one another from the housetops, and now and then the neighing of a horse far out upon the meadows; while the fleet swallows circled over all in swift wide curves, with a silvery fresh stream of unceasing twittering music. Zoroaster paced the balcony alone. He was fully armed, with his helmet upon his head; the crest of the winged wheels was replaced by the ensign Darius had chosen for himself,--the half-figure of a likeness of the king with long straight wings on either side, of wrought gold and very fine workmanship. The long purple mantle hung to his heels and the royal chain of gold was about his neck. As he walked the gilded leather of his shoes was reflected in the polished marble pavement and he trod cautiously, for the clean surface was slippery as the face of a mirror. At one end of the terrace a stairway led down to the lower story of the palace, and at the other end a high square door was masked by a heavy curtain of rich purple and gold stuff, that fell in thick folds to the glassy floor. Each time his walk brought him to this end Zoroaster paused, as though expecting that some one should come out. But as it generally happens when a man is waiting for something or some one that the object or person appears unexpectedly, so it occurred that as he turned back from the staircase towards the curtain, he saw that some one had already advanced half the length of the balcony to meet him--and it was not the person for whom he was looking. At first, he was dazzled for a moment, but his memory served him instantly and he recognised the face and form of a woman he had known and often seen before. She was not tall, but so perfectly proportioned that it was impossible to wish that she were taller. Her close tunic of palest blue, bordered with a gold embroidery at the neck, betrayed the matchless symmetry of her figure, the unspeakable grace of development of a woman in the fullest bloom of beauty. From her knees to her feet, her under tunic showed the purple and white bands that none but the king might wear, and which even for the queen was an undue assumption of the royal insignia. But Zoroaster did not look at her dress, nor at her mantle of royal sea-purple, nor at the marvellous white hands that held together a written scroll. His eyes rested on her face, and he stood still where he was. He knew those straight and perfect features, not large nor heavy, but of such rare mould and faultless type as man has not seen since, neither will see. The perfect curve of the fresh mouth; the white forward chin with its sunk depression in the midst, the deep-set, blue eyes and the straight pencilled brows; the broad smooth forehead and the tiny ear half hidden in the glory of sun-golden hair; the milk-white skin just tinged with the faint rose-light that never changed or reddened in heat or cold, in anger or in joy--he knew them all; the features of royal Cyrus made soft and womanly in substance, but unchanging still and faultlessly cold in his great daughter Atossa, the child of kings, the wife of kings, the mother of kings. The heavy curtains had fallen together behind her, and she came forward alone. She had seen Zoroaster before he had seen her, and she moved on without showing any surprise, the heels of her small golden shoes clicking sharply on the polished floor. Zoroaster remained standing for a moment, and then, removing his helmet in salutation, went to one side of the head of the staircase and waited respectfully for the queen to pass. As she came on, passing alternately through the shadow cast by the columns, and the sunlight that blazed between, her advancing figure flashed with a new illumination at every step. She made as though she were going straight on, but as she passed over the threshold to the staircase, she suddenly stopped and turned half round, and looked straight at Zoroaster. "Thou art Zoroaster," she said in a smooth and musical voice, like the ripple of a clear stream flowing through summer meadows. "I am Zoroaster, thy servant," he answered, bowing his head. He spoke very coldly. "I remember thee well," said the queen, lingering by the head of the staircase. "Thou art little changed, saving that thou art stronger, I should think, and more of a soldier than formerly." Zoroaster stood turning his polished helmet in his hands, but he answered nothing; he cared little for the queen's praises. But she, it seemed, was desirous of pleasing him in proportion as he was less anxious to be pleased, for she turned again and walked forward upon the terrace. "Come into the sunlight--the morning air is cold," she said, "I would speak with thee awhile." A carved chair stood in a corner of the balcony. Zoroaster moved it into the sunshine, and Atossa sat down, smiling her thanks to him, while he stood leaning against the balustrade,--a magnificent figure as the light caught his gilded harness and gold neckchain, and played on his long fair beard and nestled in the folds of his purple mantle. "Tell me--you came last night?" she asked, spreading her dainty hands in the sunshine as though to warm them. She never feared the sun, for he was friendly to her nativity and never seemed to scorch her fair skin like that of meaner women. "Thy servant came last night," answered the prince. "Bringing Nehushta and the other Hebrews?" added the queen. "Even so." "Tell me something of this Nehushta," said Atossa. She had dropped into a more familiar form of speech. But Zoroaster was careful of his words and never allowed his language to relapse from the distant form of address of a subject to his sovereign. "The queen knoweth her. She was here as a young child a few years since," he replied. He chose to let Atossa ask questions for all the information she needed. "It is so long ago," she said, with a little sigh. "Is she fair?" "Nay, she is dark, after the manner of the Hebrews." "And the Persians too," she interrupted. "She is very beautiful," continued Zoroaster. "She is very tall." Atossa looked up quickly with a smile. She was not tall herself, with all her Beauty. "You admire tall women?" "Yes," said Zoroaster calmly--well knowing what he said. He did not wish to flatter the queen; and besides he knew her too well to do so if he wished to please her. She was one of those women who are not accustomed to doubt their own superiority over the rest of their sex. "Then you admire this Hebrew princess?" said she, and paused for an answer. But her companion was as cold and calm as she. Seeing himself directly pressed by a suspicion, he changed his tactics and flattered Atossa for the sake of putting a stop to her questions. "Height is not of itself beauty," he answered with a courteous smile. "There is a kind of beauty which no height can improve,--a perfection which needs not to be set high for all men to acknowledge it." The queen simply took no notice of the compliment, but it had its desired effect, for she changed the tone of her talk a little, speaking more seriously. "Where is she? I will go and see her," she said. "She rested last night in the upper chambers in the southern part of the palace. Thy servant will bid her come if it be thy desire." "Presently, presently," answered the queen. "It is yet early, and she was doubtless weary of the journey." There was a pause. Zoroaster looked down at the beautiful queen as she sat beside him, and wondered whether she had changed; and as he gazed, he fell to comparing her beauty with Nehushta's, and his glance grew more intent than he had meant it should be, so that Atossa looked up suddenly and met his eyes resting on her face. "It is long since we have met, Zoroaster," she said quickly. "Tell me of your life in that wild fortress. You have prospered in your profession of arms--you wear the royal chain." She put up her hand and touched the links as though to feel them. "Indeed it is very like the chain Darius wore when he went to Babylon the other day." She paused a moment as though trying to recall something; then continued: "Yes--now I think of it, he had no chain when he came back. It is his--of course--why has he given it to you?" Her tones had a tinge of uncertainty in the question,--half imperious, as demanding an answer, half persuading, as though not sure the answer would be given. Zoroaster remembered that intonation of her sweet voice, and he smiled in his beard. "Indeed," he answered, "the Great King who liveth for ever, put this chain about my neck with his own hands last night, when he halted by the roadside, as a reward, I presume, for certain qualities he believeth his servant Zoroaster to possess." "Qualities--what qualities?" "Nay, the queen cannot expect me to sing faithfully my own praises. Nevertheless, I am ready to die for the Great King. He knoweth that I am. May he live for ever!" "It may be that one of the qualities was the successful performance of the extremely difficult task you have lately accomplished," said Atossa, with a touch of scorn. "A task?" repeated Zoroaster. "Yes--have you not brought a handful of Hebrew women all the way from Ecbatana to Shushan, through numberless dangers and difficulties, safe and sound, and so carefully prudent of their comfort that they are not even weary, nor have they once hungered or thirsted by the way, nor lost the smallest box of perfume, nor the tiniest of their golden hair-pins? Surely you have deserved to have a royal chain hung about your neck and to be called the king's friend." "The reward was doubtless greater than my desert. It was no great feat of arms that I had to perform; and yet, in these days a man may leave Media under one king, and reach Shushan under another. The queen knoweth better than any one what sudden changes may take place in the empire," answered Zoroaster, looking calmly into her face as he stood; and she who had been the wife of Cambyses and the wife of the murdered Gomata-Smerdis, and who was now the wife of Darius, looked down and was silent, turning over in her beautiful hands the sealed scroll she bore. The sun had risen higher while they talked, and his rays were growing hot in the clear air. The mist had lifted from the city below, and all the streets and open places were alive with noisy buyers and sellers, whose loud talking and disputing came up in a continuous hum to the palace on the hill, like the drone of a swarm of bees. The queen rose from her seat. "It is too warm here," she said, and she once more moved toward the stairway. Zoroaster followed her respectfully, still holding his helmet in his hand. Atossa did not speak till she reached the threshold. Then, as Zoroaster bowed low before her, she paused and looked at him with her clear, deep-blue eyes. "You have grown very formal in four years," she said softly. "You used to be more outspoken and less of a courtier. I am not changed--we must be friends as we were formerly." Zoroaster hesitated a moment before he answered: "I am the Great King's man," he said slowly. "I am, therefore, also the queen's servant." Atossa raised her delicate eyebrows a little and a shade of annoyance passed for the first time over her perfect face, which gave her a look of sternness. "I am the queen," she said coldly. "The king may take other wives, but I am the queen. Take heed that you be indeed my servant." Then, as she gathered her mantle about her and put one foot upon the stairs, she touched his shoulder gently with the tips of her fingers and added with a sudden smile, "And I will be your friend." So she passed down the stairs out of sight, leaving Zoroaster alone. Slowly he paced the terrace again, reflecting profoundly upon his situation. Indeed he had no small cause for anxiety; it was evident that the queen suspected his love for Nehushta, and he was more than half convinced that there were reasons why such an affection would inevitably meet with her disapproval. In former days, before she was married to Cambyses, and afterwards, before Zoroaster had been sent into Media, Atossa had shown so marked a liking for him, that a man more acquainted with the world, would have guessed that she loved him. He had not suspected such a thing, but with a keen perception of character, he had understood that beneath the beautiful features and the frank gentleness of the young princess, there lurked a profound intelligence, an unbending ambition and a cold selfishness without equal; he had mistrusted her, but he had humoured her caprices and been in truth a good friend to her, without in the least wishing to accept her friendship for himself in return. He was but a young captain of five hundred then, although he was the favourite of the court; but his strong arm was dreaded as well as the cutting force of his replies when questioned, and no word of the court gossip had therefore reached his ears concerning Atossa's admiration for him. It was, moreover, so evident that he cared nothing for her beyond the most unaffected friendliness, that her disappointment in not moving his heart was a constant source of satisfaction to her enemies. There had reigned in those days a great and unbridled license in the court, and the fact of the daughter of Cyrus loving and being loved by the handsomest of the king's guards, would not of itself have attracted overmuch notice. But the evident innocence of Zoroaster in the whole affair, and the masterly fashion in which Atossa concealed her anger, if she felt any, caused the matter to be completely forgotten as soon as Zoroaster left Shushan, and events had, since then, succeeded each other too rapidly to give the courtiers leisure for gossiping about old scandals. The isolation in which Gomata had lived during the seven months while he maintained the popular impression that he was not Gomata-Smerdis, but Smerdis the brother of Cambyses, had broken up the court; and the strong, manly character of Darius had checked the license of the nobles suddenly, as a horse-breaker brings up an unbroken colt by flinging the noose about his neck. The king permitted that the ancient custom of marrying as many as four wives should be maintained, and he himself soon set an example by so doing; but he had determined that the whole corrupt fabric of court life should be shattered at one blow; and with his usual intrepid disregard of consequences and his iron determination to maintain his opinions, he had suffered no contradiction of his will. He had married Atossa,--in the first place, because she was the most beautiful woman in Persia; and secondly, because he comprehended her great intelligence and capacity for affairs, and believed himself able to make use of her at his pleasure. As for Atossa herself, she had not hesitated a moment in concurring in the marriage,--she had ruled her former husbands, and she would rule Darius in like manner, she thought, to her own complete aggrandisement and in the face of all rivals. As yet, the king had taken no second wife, although he looked with growing admiration upon the maiden Artystoné, who was then but fifteen years of age, the youngest daughter of Cyrus and own sister to Atossa. All this Zoroaster knew, and he recognised, also from the meeting he had just had with the queen, that she was desirous of maintaining her friendship with himself. But since the violent scene of the previous night, he had determined to be the king's man in truest loyalty, and he feared lest Atossa's plans might, before long, cross her husband's. Therefore he accepted her offer of friendship coldly, and treated her with the most formal courtesy. On the other hand, he understood well enough that if she resented his manner of acting towards her, and ascertained that he really loved Nehushta, it would be in her power to produce difficulties and complications which he would have every cause for fearing. She would certainly discover the king's admiration for Nehushta. Darius was a man almost incapable of concealment; with whom to think was to act instantly and without hesitation. He generally acted rightly, for his instincts were noble and kingly, and his heart as honest and open as the very light of day. He said what he thought and instantly fulfilled his words. He hated a lie as poison, and the only untruth he had ever been guilty of was told when, in order to gain access to the dwelling of the false Smerdis, he had declared to the guards that he brought news of importance from his father. He had justified this falsehood by the most elaborate and logical apology to his companions, the six princes, and had explained that he only lied for the purpose of saving Persia; and when the lot fell to himself to assume the royal authority, he fulfilled most amply every promise he had given of freeing the country from tyranny, religious despotism and, generally, from what he termed "lies." As for the killing of Gomata-Smerdis, it was an act of public justice, approved by all sensible persons as soon as it was known by what frauds that impostor had seized the kingdom. With regard to Atossa, Darius had abstained from asking her questions about her seven months of marriage with the usurper. She must have known well enough who the man was, but Darius understood her character well enough to know that she would marry whomsoever she saw in the chief place, and that her counsel and courage would be of inestimable advantage to a ruler. She herself never mentioned the past events to the king, knowing his hatred of lies on the one hand, and that on the other, the plain truth would redound to her discredit. He had given her to understand as much from the first, telling her that he took her for what she was, and not for what she had been. Her mind was at rest about the past, and as for the future, she promised herself her full share in her husband's success, should he succeed, and unbounded liberty in the choice of his successor, should he fail. But all these considerations did not tend to clear Zoroaster's vision in regard to his own future. He saw himself already placed in a position of extreme difficulty between Nehushta and the king. On the other hand, he dreaded lest he should before long fall into disgrace with the king on account of Atossa's treatment of himself, or incur Atossa's displeasure through the great favour he received from Darius. He knew the queen to be an ambitious woman, capable of the wildest conceptions, and possessed of the utmost skill for their execution. He longed to see Nehushta and talk with her at once,--to tell her many things and to warn her of many possibilities; above all, he desired to discuss with her the scene of the previous night and the strangely sudden determination the king had expressed to make her his wife. But he could not leave his post. His orders had been to await the king in the morning upon the eastern terrace; and there he must abide until it pleased Darius to come forth; and he knew Nehushta would not venture down into that part of the palace. He wondered that the king did not come, and he chafed at the delay as he saw the sun rising higher and higher, and the shadows deepening in the terrace. Weary of waiting he sat down at last upon the chair where Atossa had rested, and folded his hands over his sword-hilt,--resigning himself to the situation with the philosophy of a trained soldier. Sitting thus alone, he fell to dreaming. As he gazed out at the bright sky, he forgot his life and his love, and all things of the present; and his mind wandered away among the thoughts most natural and most congenial to his profound intellect. His attention became fixed in the contemplation of a larger dimension of intelligences,--the veil of darkness parted a little, and for a time he saw clearly in the light of a Greater Universe. CHAPTER VII. Atossa quitted the terrace where she had been talking with Zoroaster, in the full intention of returning speedily, but as she descended the steps, a plan formed itself in her mind, which she determined to put into immediate execution. Instead, therefore, of pursuing her way into the portico of the inner court, when she reached the foot of the staircase, she turned into a narrow passage that led into a long corridor, lighted only by occasional small openings in the wall. A little door gave access to this covered way, and when she entered, she closed it behind her, and tried to fasten it. But the bolt was rusty, and in order to draw it, she laid down the scroll she carried, upon a narrow stone seat by the side of the door; and then, with a strong effort of both her small white hands, she succeeded in moving the lock into its place. Then she turned quickly and hastened down the dusky corridor. At the opposite end a small winding stair led upwards into darkness. There were stains upon the lowest steps, just visible in the half light. Atossa gathered up her mantle and her under tunic, and trod daintily, with a look of repugnance on her beautiful face. The stains were made by the blood of the false Smerdis, her last husband, slain in that dark stairway by Darius, scarcely three months before. Cautiously the queen felt her way upward till she reached a landing, where a narrow aperture admitted a little light. Higher up there were windows, and she looked carefully to her dress, and brushed away a little dust that her mantle had swept from the wall in passing; and once or twice, she looked back at the dark staircase with an expression of something akin to disgust. At last she reached a door which opened upon a terrace, much like the one where she had left Zoroaster a few moments before, saving that the floor was less polished, and that the spaces between the columns were half filled with hanging plants and creepers. Upon the pavement at one end were spread rich carpets, and half a dozen enormous cushions of soft-coloured silk were thrown negligently one upon the other. Three doors, hung with curtains, opened upon the balcony,--and near to the middle one, two slave-girls, clad in white, crouched upon their heels and talked in an undertone. Atossa stepped forward upon the marble, and the rustle of her dress and the quick short sound of her heeled shoes, roused the two slave-girls to spring to their feet. They did not know the queen, but they thought it best to make a low obeisance, while their dark eyes endeavoured quickly to scan the details of her dress, without exhibiting too much boldness. Atossa beckoned to one of them to come to her, and smiled graciously as the dark-skinned girl approached. "Is not thy mistress Nehushta?" she inquired; but the girl looked stupidly at her, not comprehending her speech. "Nehushta," repeated the queen, pronouncing the name very distinctly with a questioning intonation, and pointing to the curtained door. The slave understood the name and the question, and quick as thought, she disappeared within, leaving Atossa in some hesitation. She had not intended to send for the Hebrew princess, for she thought it would be a greater compliment to let Nehushta find her waiting; but since the barbarian slave had gone to call her mistress, there was nothing to be done but to abide the result. Nehushta, however, seemed in no hurry to answer the summons, for the queen had ample time to examine the terrace, and to glance through the hanging plants at the sunlit meadows and the flowing stream to southward, before she heard steps behind the curtain, and saw it lifted to allow the princess to pass. The dark maiden was now fully refreshed and rested from the journey, and she came forward to greet her guest in her tunic, without her mantle, a cloud of soft white Indian gauze loosely pinned upon her black hair and half covering her neck. Her bodice-like belt was of scarlet and gold, and from one side there hung a rich-hilted knife of Indian steel in a jewelled sheath. The long sleeves of her tunic were drawn upon her arms into hundreds of minute folds, and where the delicate stuff hung in an oblong lappet over her hands, there was fine needlework and embroidery of gold. She moved easily, with a languid grace of secure motion; and she bent her head a little as Atossa came quickly to meet her. The queen's frank smile was on her face as she grasped both Nehushta's hands in cordial welcome, and for a moment, the two women looked into each other's eyes. Nehushta had made up her mind to hate Atossa from the first, but she did not belong to that class of women who allow their feelings to show themselves, and afterwards feel bound by the memory of what they have shown. She, too, smiled most sweetly as she surveyed the beautiful fair queen from beneath her long drooping lids, and examined her appearance with all possible minuteness. She remembered her well enough, but so warm was the welcome she received, that she almost thought she had misjudged Atossa in calling her hard and cold. She drew her guest to the cushions upon the carpets, and they sat down side by side. "I have been talking about you already this morning, my princess," began Atossa, speaking at once in familiar terms, as though she were conversing with an intimate friend. Nehushta was very proud; she knew herself to be of a race as royal as Atossa, though now almost extinct; and in answering, she spoke in the same manner as the queen; so that the latter was inwardly amused at the self-confidence of the Hebrew princess. "Indeed?" said Nehushta, "there must be far more interesting things than I in Shushan. I would have talked of you had I found any one to talk with." The queen laughed a little. "As I was coming out this morning, I met an old friend of mine upon the balcony before the king's apartment,--Zoroaster, the handsome captain. We fell into conversation, how handsome he has grown since I saw him last!" The queen watched Nehushta closely while affecting the greatest unconcern, and she thought the shadows about the princess's eyes turned a shade darker at the mention of the brilliant warrior. But Nehushta answered calmly enough: "He took the most excellent care of us. I should like to see him to-day, to thank him for all he did. I was tired last night and must have seemed ungrateful." "What need is there of ever telling men we are grateful for what they do for us?" returned the queen. "I should think there were not a noble in the Great King's guard who would not give his right hand to take care of you for a month, even if you never so much as noticed his existence." Nehushta laughed lightly at the compliment. "You honour me too much," she said, "but I suppose it is because most women think as you do that men call us so ungrateful. I think you judge from the standpoint of the queen, whereas I--" "Whereas you look at things from the position of the beautiful princess, who is worshipped for herself alone, and not for the bounty and favour she may, or may not, dispense to her subjects." "The queen is dispensing much bounty and favour to one of her subjects at this very moment," answered Nehushta quietly, as though deprecating further flattery. "How glad you must be to have left that dreadful fortress at last!" cried the queen sympathetically. "My father used to go there every summer. I hated the miserable place, with those tiresome mountains and those endless gardens without the least variety in them. You must be very glad to have come here!" "It is true," replied Nehushta, "I never ceased to dream of Shushan. I love the great city, and the people, and the court. I thought sometimes that I should have died of the weariness of Ecbatana. The winters were unbearable!" "You must learn to love us, too," said Atossa, very sweetly. "The Great King wishes well to your race, and will certainly do much for your country. There is, moreover, a kinsman of yours, who is coming soon, expressly to confer with the king concerning the further rebuilding of the temple and the city of Jerusalem." "Zorobabel?" asked Nehushta, quickly. "Yes--that is his name, I believe. Do you say Zerub-Ebel, or Zerub-Abel? I know nothing of your language." "His name is Zorob-Abel," answered Nehushta. "Oh, I wish he might persuade the Great King to do something for my people! Your father would have done so much if he had lived." "Doubtless the Great King will do all that is possible for establishing the Hebrews and promoting their welfare," said the queen; but a distant look in her eyes showed that her thoughts were no longer concentrated on the subject. "Your friend Zoroaster," she added presently, "could be of great service to you and your cause, if he wished." "I would that he were a Hebrew!" exclaimed Nehushta, with a little sigh, which did not escape Atossa. "Is he not? I always thought that he had secretly embraced your faith. With his love of study and with his ideas, it seemed so natural." "No," replied Nehushta, "he is not one of us, nor will he ever be. After all, though, it is perhaps of little moment what one believes when one is so just as he." "I have never been able to understand the importance of religion," said the beautiful queen, spreading her white hand upon the purple of her mantle, and contemplating its delicate outline tenderly. "For my own part, I am fond of the sacrifices and the music and the chants. I love to see the priests go up to the altar, two and two, in their white robes,--and then to see how they struggle to hold up the bullock's head, so that his eyes may see the sun,--and how the red blood gushes out like a beautiful fountain. Have you ever seen a great sacrifice?" "Oh yes! I remember when I was quite a little girl, when Cambyses--I mean--when the king came to the throne--it was magnificent!" Nehushta was not used to hesitate in her speech, but as she recalled the day when Cambyses was made king, it suddenly came over her that any reminiscences of the past might be painful to the extraordinary woman by her side. But Atossa showed no signs of being disturbed. On the contrary, she smiled more sweetly than ever, though there was perhaps a slight affectation of sadness in her voice as she answered: "Do not fear to hurt me by referring to those times, dear princess. I am accustomed to speak of them well enough. Yes, indeed I remember that great day, with the bright sun shining upon the procession, and the cars with four horses that they dedicated to the sun, and the milk-white horse that they slaughtered upon the steps of the temple. How I cried for him, poor beast! It seemed so cruel to sacrifice a horse! Even a few black slaves would have been a more natural offering, or a couple of Scythians." "I remember," said Nehushta, somewhat relieved at the queen's tone. "Of course I have now and then seen processions in Ecbatana, but Daniel would not let me go to the temple. They say Ecbatana is very much changed since the Great King has not gone there in summer. It is very quiet--it is given over to horse-merchants and grain-sellers, and they bring all the salted fish there from the Hyrcanian sea, so that some of the streets smell horribly." Atossa laughed at the description, more out of courtesy than because it amused her. "In my time," she answered, "the horse-market was in the meadow by the road toward Zagros, and the fish-sellers were not allowed to come within a farsang of the city. The royal nostrils were delicate. But everything is changed--here, everywhere. We have had several--revolutions--religious ones, I mean of course, and so many people have been killed that there is a savour of death in the air. It is amazing how much trouble people will give themselves about the question of sacrificing a horse to the sun, or a calf to Auramazda, or an Ethiopian to Nabon or Ashtaroth! And these Magians! They are really no more descendants of the priests in the Aryan home than I am a Greek. Half of them are nearly black--they are Hindus and speak Persian with an accent. They believe in a vast number of gods of all sizes and descriptions, and they sing hymns, in which they say that all these gods are the same. It is most confusing, and as the principal part of their chief sacrifice consists in making themselves exceedingly drunk with the detestable milkweed juice of which they are so fond, the performance is disgusting. The Great King began by saying that if they wished to sacrifice to their deities, they might do so, provided no one could find them doing it; and if they wished to be drunk, they might be drunk when and where they pleased; but that if they did the two together, he would crucify every Magian in Persia. His argument was very amusing. He said that a man who is drunk naturally speaks the truth, whereas a man who sacrifices to false gods inevitably tells lies; wherefore a man who sacrifices to false gods when he is drunk, runs the risk of telling lies and speaking the truth at the same time, and is consequently a creature revolting to logic, and must be immediately destroyed for the good of the whole race of mankind." Nehushta had listened with varying attention to the queen's account of the religious difficulties in the kingdom, and she laughed at the Megoeric puzzle by which Darius justified the death of the Magians. But in her heart she longed to see Zoroaster, and was weary of entertaining her royal guest. By way of diversion she clapped her hands, and ordered the slaves who came at her summons to bring sweetmeats and sherbet of crushed fruit and snow. "Are you fond of hunting?" asked Atossa, delicately taking a little piece of white fig-paste. "I have never been allowed to hunt," answered Nehushta. "Besides, it must be very tiring." "I delight in it--the fig-paste is not so good as it used to be--there is a new confectioner. Darius considered that the former one had religious convictions involving the telling of lies--and this is the result! We are fallen low indeed when we cannot eat a Magian's pastry! I am passionately fond of hunting, but it is far from here to the desert and the lions are scarce. Besides, the men who are fit for lion-hunting are generally engaged in hunting their fellow-creatures." "Does the Great King hunt?" inquired Nehushta, languidly sipping her sherbet from a green jade goblet, as she lay among her cushions, supporting herself upon one elbow. "Whenever he has leisure. He will talk of nothing else to you--" "Surely," interrupted Nehushta, with an air of perfect innocence, "I shall not be so far honoured as that the Great King should talk with me?" Atossa raised her blue eyes and looked curiously at the dark princess. She knew nothing of what had passed the night before, save that the king had seen Nehushta for a few moments, but she knew his character well enough to imagine that his frank and, as she thought, undignified manner might have struck Nehushta even in that brief interview. The idea that the princess was already deceiving her flashed across her mind. She smiled more tenderly than ever, with a little added air of sadness that gave her a wonderful charm. "Yes, the Great King is very gracious to the ladies of the court," she said. "You are so beautiful and so different from them all that he will certainly talk long with you after the banquet this evening--when he has drunk much wine." The last words were added with a most special sweetness of tone. Nehushta's face flushed a little as she drank more sherbet before she answered. Then, letting her soft dark eyes rest, as though in admiration, upon the queen's face, she spoke in a tone of gentle deprecation: _"Shall a man prefer the darkness of night to the glories of risen day? Or shall a man turn from the lilies to pluck the lowly flower of the field?"_ "You know our poets, too?" exclaimed Atossa, pleased with the graceful tone of the compliment, but still looking at Nehushta with curious eyes. There was a self-possession about the Hebrew princess that she did not like; it was as though some one had suddenly taken a quality of her own and made it theirs and displayed it before her eyes. There was indeed this difference, that while Atossa's calm and undisturbed manner was generally real, Nehushta's was assumed, and she herself felt that, at any moment, it might desert her at her utmost need. "So you know our poets?" repeated the queen, and this time she laughed lightly. "Indeed I fear the king will talk to you more than ever, for he loves poetry, I daresay Zoroaster, too, has repeated many verses to you in the winter evenings at Ecbatana. He used to know endless poetry when he was a boy." This time Nehushta looked at the queen, and wondered how she, who could not be more than two or three and twenty years old, although now married to her third husband, could speak of having known Zoroaster as a boy, seeing that he was past thirty years of age. She turned the question upon the queen. "You must have seen Zoroaster very often before he left Shushan," she said. "You know him so well." "Yes--every one knew him. He was the favourite of the court, with his beauty and his courage and his strange affection for that old--for the old Hebrew prophet. That is why Cambyses sent them both away," added she with a light laugh. "They were far too good, both of them, to be endured among the doings of those times." Atossa spoke readily enough of Cambyses. Nehushta wondered whether she could be induced to speak of Smerdis. Her supposed ignorance of the true nature of what had occurred in the last few months would permit her to speak of the dead usurper with impunity. "I suppose there have been great changes lately in the manners of the court--during this last year," suggested Nehushta carelessly. She pulled a raisin from the dry stem, and tried to peel it with her delicate fingers. "Indeed there have been changes," answered Atossa, calmly. "A great many things that used to be tolerated will never be heard of now. On the whole, the change has been rather in relation to religion than otherwise. You will understand that in one year we have had three court religions. Cambyses sacrificed to Ashtaroth--and I must say he made a most appropriate choice of his tutelary goddess. Smerdis"--continued the queen in measured tones and with the utmost calmness of manner--"Smerdis devoted himself wholly to the worship of Indra, who appeared to be a convenient association of all the most agreeable gods; and the Great King now rules the earth by the grace of Auramazda. I, for my part, have always inclined to the Hebrew conception of one God--perhaps that is much the same as Auramazda, the All-Wise. What do you think?" Nehushta smiled at the deft way in which the queen avoided speaking of Smerdis by turning the conversation again to religious topics. But fearing another lecture on the comparative merits of idolatry, human sacrifice, and monotheism, she manifested very little interest in the subject. "I daresay it is the same. Zoroaster always says so, and that was the one point that Daniel could never forgive him. The sun is coming through those plants upon your head--shall we not have our cushions moved into the shade at the other end?" She clapped her hands and rose languidly, offering her hand to Atossa. But the queen sprang lightly to her feet. "I have stayed too long," she said. "Come with me, dearest princess, and we will go out into the orange gardens upon the upper terrace. Perhaps," she added, adjusting the folds of her mantle, "we shall find Zoroaster there, or some of the princes, or even the Great King himself. Or, perhaps, it would amuse you to see where I live?" Nehushta received her mantle from her slaves, and one of them brought her a linen tiara in place of the gauze veil she had twisted about her hair. But Atossa would not permit the change. "It is too beautiful!" she cried enthusiastically. "So new! you must really not change it." She put her arm around Nehushta affectionately and led her towards the door of the inner staircase. Then suddenly she paused, as though recollecting herself. "No," she said, "I will show you the way I came. It is shorter and you should know it. It may be of use to you." So they left the balcony by the little door that was almost masked by one of the great pillars, and descended the dark stairs. Nehushta detested every sort of bodily inconvenience, and inwardly wished the queen had not changed her mind, but had led her by an easier way. "It is not far," said the queen, descending rapidly in front of her. "It is dreadfully steep," objected Nehushta, "and I can hardly see my way at all. How many steps are there?" "Only a score more," answered the queen's voice, farther down. She seemed to be hurrying, but Nehushta had no intention of going any faster, and carefully groped her way. As she began to see a glimmer of light at the last turn of the winding stair, she heard loud voices in the corridor below. With the cautious instinct of her race, she paused and listened. The hard, quick tones of an angry man dominated the rest. CHAPTER VIII. Zoroaster had sat for nearly an hour, his eyes fixed on the blue sky, his thoughts wandering in contemplation of things greater and higher than those of earth, when he was roused by the measured tread of armed men marching in a distant room. In an instant he stood up, his helmet on his head,--the whole force of military habit bringing him back suddenly to the world of reality. In a moment the same heavy curtain, from under which Atossa had issued two hours before, was drawn aside, and a double file of spearmen came out upon the balcony, ranging themselves to right and left with well-drilled precision. A moment more, and the king himself appeared, walking alone, in his armour and winged helmet, his left hand upon the hilt of his sword, his splendid mantle hanging to the ground behind his shoulders. As he came between the soldiers, he walked more slowly, and his dark, deep-set eyes seemed to scan the bearing and accoutrements of each separate spearman. It was rarely indeed, in those early days of his power, that he laid aside his breastplate for the tunic, or his helmet for the tiara and royal crown. In his whole air and gait the character of the soldier dominated, and the look of the conqueror was already in his face. Zoroaster strode forward a few paces, and stood still as the king caught sight of him, preparing to prostrate himself, according to the ancient custom. But Darius checked him by a gesture; turning half round, he dismissed the guard, who filed back through the door as they had come, and the curtain fell behind them. "I like not these elaborate customs," said the king. "A simple salutation, the hand to the lips and forehead--it is quite enough. A man might win a battle if he had all the time that it takes him to fall down at my feet and rise up again, twenty times in a day." As the king's speech seemed to require no answer, Zoroaster stood silently waiting for his orders. Darius walked to the balustrade and stood in the full glare of the sun for a moment, looking out. Then he came back again. "The town seems to be quiet this morning," he said. "How long did the queen tarry here talking with thee, Zoroaster?" "The queen talked with her servant for the space of half an hour," answered Zoroaster, without hesitation, though he was astonished at the suddenness and directness of the question. "She is gone to see thy princess," continued the king. "The queen told her servant it was yet too early to see Nehushta," remarked the warrior. "She is gone to see her, nevertheless," asserted Darius, in a tone of conviction. "Now, it stands in reason that when the most beautiful woman in the world has been told that another woman is come who is more beautiful than she, she will not lose a moment in seeing her." He eyed Zoroaster curiously for a moment, and his thick black beard did not altogether hide the smile on his face. "Come," he added, "we shall find the two together." The king led the way and Zoroaster gravely followed. They passed down the staircase by which the queen had gone, and entering the low passage, came to the small door which she had bolted behind her with so much difficulty. The king pushed his weight against it, but it was still fastened. "Thou art stronger than I, Zoroaster," he said, with a deep laugh. "Open the door." The young warrior pushed heavily against the planks, and felt that one of them yielded. Then, standing back, he dealt a heavy blow on the spot with his clenched fist; a second, and the plank broke in. He put his arm through the aperture, and easily slipped the bolt back, and the door flew open. The blood streamed from his hand. "That is well done," said Darius as he entered. His quick eye saw something white upon the stone bench in the dusky corner by the door. He stooped and picked it up quickly. It was the sealed scroll Atossa had left there when she needed both her hands to draw the bolt. Darius took it to one of the narrow windows, looked at it curiously and broke the seal. Zoroaster stood near and wiped the blood from his bruised knuckle. The contents of the scroll were short. It was addressed to one Phraortes, of Ecbatana in Media, and contained the information that the Great King had returned in triumph from Babylon, having subdued the rebels and slain many thousands in two battles. Furthermore, that the said Phraortes should give instant information of the queen's affairs, and do nothing in regard to them until further intimation arrived. The king stood a moment in deep thought. Then he walked slowly down the corridor, holding the scroll loose in his hand. Just at that instant Atossa emerged from the dark staircase, and as she found herself face to face with Darius, she uttered an exclamation and stood still. "This is very convenient place for our interview," said Darius quietly. "No one can hear us. Therefore speak the truth at once." He held up the scroll to her eyes. Atossa's ready wit did not desert her, nor did she change colour, though she knew her life was in the balance with her words. She laughed lightly as she spoke: "I came down the stairs this morning----" "To see the most beautiful woman in the world," interrupted Darius, raising his voice. "You have seen her. I am glad of it. Why did you bolt the door of the passage?" "Because I thought it unfitting that the passage to the women's apartments should be left open when so many in the palace know the way," she answered readily enough. "Where were you taking this letter when you left it at the door?" asked the king, beginning to doubt whether there were anything wrong at all. "I was about to send it to Ecbatana," answered Atossa with perfect simplicity. "Who is this Phraortes?" "He is the governor of the lands my father gave me for my own in Media. I wrote him to tell him of the Great King's victory, and that he should send me information concerning my affairs, and do nothing further until he hears from me." "Why not?" "Because I thought it possible that the Great King would spend the summer in Ecbatana, and that I should therefore be there myself to give my own directions. I forgot the letter because I had to take both hands to draw the bolt, and I was coming back to get it. Nehushta the princess is with me--she is now upon the staircase." The king looked thoughtfully at his wife's beautiful face. "You have evidently spoken the truth," he said slowly. "But it is not always easy to understand what your truth signifies. I often think it would be much wiser to strangle you. Say you that Nehushta is near? Call her, then. Why does she tarry?" In truth Nehushta had trembled as she crouched upon the stairs, not knowing whether to descend or to fly up the steps again. As she heard the queen pronounce her name, however, she judged it prudent to seem to have been out of earshot, and with quick, soft steps, she went up till she came to the lighted part, and there she waited. "Let the Great King go himself and find her," said Atossa proudly, "if he doubts me any further." She stood aside to let him pass. But Darius beckoned to Zoroaster to go. He had remained standing at some distance, an unwilling witness to the royal altercation that had taken place before him; but as he passed the queen, she gave him a glance of imploring sadness, as though beseeching his sympathy in what she was made to suffer. He ran quickly up the steps in spite of the darkness, and found Nehushta waiting by the window higher up. She started as he appeared, for he was the person she least expected. But he took her quickly in his arms, and kissed her passionately twice. "Come quickly, my beloved," he whispered. "The king waits below." "I heard his voice--and then I fled," she whispered hurriedly; and they began to descend again. "I hate her--I knew I should," she whispered, as she leaned upon his arm. So they emerged into the corridor, and met Darius waiting for them. The queen was nowhere to be seen, and the door at the farther extremity of the narrow way was wide open. The king was as calm as though nothing had occurred; he still held the open letter in his hand as Nehushta entered the passage, and bowed herself before him. He took her hand for a moment, and then dropped it; but his eyes flashed suddenly and his arm trembled at her touch. "Thou hadst almost lost thy way," he said. "The palace is large and the passages are many and devious. Come now, I will lead thee to the gardens. There thou canst find friends among the queen's noble women, and amusements of many kinds. Let thy heart delight in the beauty of Shushan, and if there is anything that thou desirest, ask and I will give it thee." Nehushta bent her head in thanks. The only thing she desired was to be alone for half an hour with Zoroaster; and that seemed difficult. "Thy servant desireth what is pleasant in thy sight," she answered. And so they left the passage by the open door, and the king himself conducted Nehushta to the entrance of the garden, and bade the slave-woman who met them to lead her to the pavilion where the ladies of the palace spent the day in the warm summer weather. Zoroaster knew that whatever liberty his singular position allowed him in the quarter of the building where the king himself lived, he was not privileged to enter that place which was set apart for the noble ladies. Darius hated to be always surrounded by guards and slaves, and the terraces and staircases of his dwelling were generally totally deserted,--only small detachments of spearmen guarding jealously the main entrances. But the remainder of the palace swarmed with the gorgeously dressed retinue of the court, with slaves of every colour and degree, from the mute smooth-faced Ethiopian to the accomplished Hebrew scribes of the great nobles; from the black and scantily-clad fan-girls to the dainty Greek tirewomen of the queen's toilet, who loitered near the carved marble fountain at the entrance to the gardens; and in the outer courts, detachments of the horsemen of the guard rubbed their weapons, or reddened their broad leather bridles and trappings with red chalk, or groomed the horse of some lately arrived officer or messenger, or hung about and basked in the sun, with no clothing but their short-sleeved linen tunics and breeches, discussing the affairs of the nation with the certainty of decision peculiar to all soldiers, high and low. There was only room for a squadron of horse in the palace; but though they were few, they were the picked men of the guard, and every one of them felt himself as justly entitled to an opinion concerning the position of the new king, as though he were at least a general. But Darius allowed no gossiping slaves nor wrangling soldiers in his own dwelling. There all was silent and apparently deserted, and thither he led Zoroaster again. The young warrior was astonished at the way in which the king moved about unattended, as carelessly as though he were a mere soldier himself; he was not yet accustomed to the restless independence of character, to the unceasing activity and perfect personal fearlessness of the young Darius. It was hard to realise that this simple, hard-handed, outspoken man was the Great King, and occupied the throne of the magnificent and stately Cyrus, who never stirred abroad without the full state of the court about him; or that he reigned in the stead of the luxurious Cambyses, who feared to tread upon uncovered marble, or to expose himself to the draught of a staircase; and who, after seven years of caring for his body, had destroyed himself in a fit of impotent passion. Darius succeeded to the throne of Persia as a lion coming into the place of jackals, as an eagle into a nest of crows and carrion birds--untiring, violent, relentless and brave. "Knowest thou one Phraortes, of Ecbatana?" the king asked suddenly when he was alone with Zoroaster. "I know him," answered the prince. "A man rich, and powerful, full of vanity as a peacock, and of wiles like a serpent. Not noble. He is the son of a fish-vendor, grown rich by selling salted sturgeons in the market-place. He is also the overseer of the queen's farmlands in Media, and of the Great King's horse-breeding stables." "Go forth and bring him to me," said the king shortly. Without a word, Zoroaster made a brief salute and turned upon his heel to go. But it was as though a man had thrust him through with a knife. The king gazed after him in admiration of his magnificent obedience. "Stay!" he called out. "How long wilt thou be gone?" Zoroaster turned sharply round in military fashion, as he answered: "It is a hundred and fifty farsangs[3] to Ecbatana. By the king's relays I can ride there in six days, and I can bring back Phraortes in six days more--if he die not of the riding," he added, with a grim smile. [Footnote 3: Between five and six hundred English miles. South American postilions at the present day ride six hundred miles a week for a bare living.] "Is he old, or young? Fat, or meagre?" asked the king, laughing. "He is a man of forty years, neither thin nor fat--a good horseman in his way, but not as we are." "Bind him to his horse if he falls off from weariness. And tell him he is summoned to appear before me. Tell him the business brooks no delay. Auramazda be with thee and bring thee help. Go with speed." Again Zoroaster turned and in a moment he was gone. He had sworn to be the king's faithful servant, and he would keep his oath, cost what it might, though it was bitterness to him to leave Nehushta without a word. He bethought him as he hastily put on light garments for the journey, that he might send her a letter, and he wrote a few words upon a piece of parchment, and folded it together. As he passed by the entrance of the garden on his way to the stables, he looked about for one of Nehushta's slaves; but seeing none, he beckoned to one of the Greek tirewomen, and giving her a piece of gold, bade her take the little scroll to Nehushta, the Hebrew princess, who was in the gardens. Then he went quickly on, and mounting the best horse in the king's stables, galloped at a break-neck pace down the steep incline. In five minutes he had crossed the bridge, and was speeding over the straight, dusty road toward Nineveh. In a quarter of an hour, a person watching him from the palace would have seen his flying figure disappearing as in a tiny speck of dust far out upon the broad, green plain. But the Greek slave-woman stood with Zoroaster's letter in her hand and held the gold piece he had given her in her mouth, debating what she should do. She was one of the queen's women, as it chanced, and she immediately reflected that she might turn the writing to some better account than by delivering it to Nehushta, whom she had seen for a moment that morning as she passed, and whose dark Hebrew face displeased the frivolous Greek, for some hidden reason. She thought of giving the scroll to the queen, but then she reflected that she did not know what it contained. The words were written hastily and in the Chaldean character. Their import might displease her mistress. The woman was not a newcomer, and she knew Zoroaster's face well enough from former times; she knew also, or suspected, that the queen secretly loved him, and she argued from the fact of Zoroaster, who was dressed for a journey, sending so hastily a word to Nehushta, that he loved the Hebrew princess. Therefore, if the letter were a mere love greeting, with no name written in it, the queen might apply it to herself, and she would be pleased; whereas, if it were in any way clear that the writing was intended for Nehushta, the queen would certainly be glad that it should never be delivered. The result of this cunning argument was that the Greek woman thrust the letter into her bosom, and the gold piece into her girdle; and went to seek an opportunity of seeing the queen alone. That day, towards evening, Atossa sat in an inner chamber before her great mirror; the table was covered with jade boxes, silver combs, bowls of golden hair-pins, little ivory instruments, and all the appurtenances of her toilet. Two or three magnificent jewels lay among the many articles of use, gleaming in the reflected light of the two tall lamps that stood on bronze stands beside her chair. She was fully attired and had dismissed her women; but she lingered a moment, poring over the little parchment scroll her chief hairdresser had slipped into her hand when they were alone for a moment. Only a black fan-girl stood a few paces behind her, and resting the stem of the long palm against one foot thrust forward, swung the broad round leaf quickly from side to side at arm's length, sending a constant stream of fresh air upon her royal mistress, just below the level of the lamps which burned steadily above. The queen turned the small letter again in her hand, and smiled to herself as she looked into the great burnished sheet of silver that surmounted the table. With some difficulty she had mastered the contents, for she knew enough of Hebrew and of the Chaldean character to comprehend the few simple words. "I go hence for twelve days upon the king's business. My beloved, my soul is with thy soul and my heart with thy heart. As the dove that goeth forth in the morning and returneth in the evening to his mate, so I will return soon to thee." Atossa knew well enough that the letter had been intended for Nehushta. The woman had whispered that Zoroaster had given it to her, and Zoroaster would never have written those words to herself; or, writing anything, would not have written in the Hebrew language. But as the queen read, her heart rose up in wrath against the Persian prince and against the woman he loved. When she had talked with him that morning, she had felt her old yearning affection rising again in her breast. She had wondered at herself, being accustomed to think that she was beyond all feeling for man, and the impression she had received from her half-hour's talk with him was so strong, that she had foolishly delayed sending her letter to Phraortes, in order to see the woman Zoroaster admired, and had, in her absence of mind, forgotten the scroll upon the seat in the corridor, and had brought herself into such desperate danger through the discovery of the missive, that she hardly yet felt safe. The king had dismissed her peremptorily from his presence while he waited for Nehushta, and she had not seen him during the rest of the day. As for Zoroaster, she had soon heard from her women that he had taken the road towards Nineveh before noon, alone and almost unarmed, mounted upon one of the fleetest horses in Persia. She had not a doubt that Darius had despatched him at once to Ecbatana to meet Phraortes, or at least to inquire into the state of affairs in the city. She knew that no one could outride Zoroaster, and that there was nothing to be done but to await the issue. It was not possible to send a word of warning to her agent--he must inevitably take his chance, and if his conduct attracted suspicion, he would, in all probability, be at once put to death. She believed that, even in that event, she could easily clear herself; but she resolved, if possible, to warn him as soon as he reached Shushan, or even to induce the king to be absent from the palace for a few days at the time when Phraortes might be expected. There was plenty of time--at least eleven days. Meanwhile, a desperate struggle was beginning within her, and the letter her woman had brought her hastened the conclusion to which her thoughts were rapidly tending. She felt keenly the fact that Zoroaster, who had been so cold to her advances in former days, had preferred before her a Hebrew woman, and was now actually so deeply in love with Nehushta, that he could not leave the palace for a few days without writing her a word of love--he, who had never loved any one! She fiercely hated this dark woman, who was preferred before her by the man she secretly loved, and whom the king had brutally declared to be the most beautiful woman in the world. She longed for her destruction as she had never longed for anything in her life. Her whole soul rose in bitter resentment; not only did Zoroaster love this black-eyed, dark-browed child of captivity, but the king, who had always maintained that Atossa was unequalled in the world, even when he coldly informed her that he would never trust her, now dared to say before Zoroaster, almost before Nehushta herself, that the princess was the more beautiful of the two. The one man wounded her in her vanity, the other in her heart. It would not be possible at present to be revenged upon the king. There was little chance of eluding his sleepless vigilance, or of leading him into any rash act of self-destruction. Besides, she knew him too well not to understand that he was the only man alive who could save Persia from further revolutions, and keep the throne against all comers. She loved power and the splendour of her royal existence, perhaps more than she loved Zoroaster. The idea of another change in the monarchy was not to be thought of, now that Darius had subdued Babylon. She had indeed a half-concerted plan with Phraortes to seize the power in Media in case the king were defeated in Babylonia, and the scroll she had so imprudently forgotten that very morning was merely an order to lay aside all such plans for the present, since the king had returned in triumph. As far as her conscience was concerned, Atossa would as soon have overthrown and murdered the king to gratify the personal anger she felt against him at the present moment, as she would have wrecked the universe to possess a jewel she fancied. There existed in her mind no idea of proportion between the gratification of her passions and the means she might employ thereto; provided one gratification did not interfere with another which she always saw beyond. Nothing startled her on account of its mere magnitude; no plan was rejected by her merely because it implied ruin to a countless number of human beings who were useless to her. She coldly calculated the amount of satisfaction she could at any time obtain for her wishes and desires, so as not to prejudice the gratification of all the possible passions she might hereafter experience. As for injuring Zoroaster, she would not have thought of it. She loved him in a way peculiar to herself, but it was love, nevertheless,--and she had no idea of wreaking her disappointment upon the object on which she had set her heart. As a logical consequence, she determined to turn all her anger against Nehushta, and she pictured to herself the delicious pleasure of torturing the young princess's jealousy to desperation. To convince Nehushta that Zoroaster was deceiving her, and really loved herself, the queen; to force Zoroaster into some position where he must either silently let Nehushta believe that he was attached to Atossa, or, as an alternative, betray the king's secrets by speaking the truth; to let Nehushta's vanity be flattered by the king's admiration,--nay, even to force her into a marriage with Darius, and then by suffering her again to fall into her first love for Zoroaster, bring her to a public disgrace by suddenly unmasking her to the king--to accomplish these things surely and quickly, reserving for herself the final delight of scoffing at her worsted rival--all this seemed to Atossa to constitute a plan at once worthy of her profound and scheming intelligence, and most sweetly satisfactory to her injured vanity and rejected love. It would be hard for her to see Nehushta married to the king, and occupying the position of chief favourite even for a time. But the triumph would be the sweeter when Nehushta was finally overthrown, and meanwhile there would be much daily delight in tormenting the princess's jealousy. Chance, or rather the cunning of her Greek tirewoman, had thrown a weapon in her way which could easily be turned into an instrument of torture, and as she sat before her mirror, she twisted and untwisted the little bit of parchment, and smiled to herself, a sweet bright smile--and leaned her head back to the pleasant breeze of the fan. CHAPTER IX. The noonday air was hot and dry in the garden of the palace, but in the graceful marble pavilion there was coolness and the sound of gently plashing water. Rose-trees and climbing plants screened the sunlight from the long windows, and gave a soft green tinge to the eight-sided hall, where a fountain played in the midst, its little jet falling into a basin hollowed in the floor. On the rippling surface a few water-lilies swayed gently with the constant motion, anchored by their long stems to the bottom. All was cool and quiet and restful, and Nehushta stood looking at the fountain. She was alone and very unhappy. Zoroaster had left the palace without a word to her, and she knew only by the vague reports her slaves brought her, that he was gone for many days. Her heart sank at the thought of all that might happen before he returned, and the tears stood in her eyes. "Are you here alone, dear princess?" said a soft, clear voice behind her. Nehushta started, as though something had stung her, as she recognised Atossa's tones. There was nothing of her assumed cordiality of the previous day as she answered. She was too unhappy, too weary of the thought that her lover was gone, to be able to act a part, or pretend a friendliness she did not feel. "Yes--I am alone," she said quietly. "So am I," answered Atossa, her blue eyes sparkling with the sunshine she brought in with her, and all her wonderful beauty beaming, as it were, with an overflowing happiness. "The ladies of the court are gone in state to the city, in the Great King's train, and you and I are alone in the palace. How deliciously cool it is in here." She sat down upon a heap of cushions by one of the screened windows and contemplated Nehushta, who still stood by the fountain. "You look sad--and tired, dearest Nehushta," said she presently. "Indeed you must not be sad here--nobody is sad here!" "I am sad," repeated Nehushta, in a dreary, monotonous way, as though scarcely conscious of what she was saying. There was a moment's silence before Atossa spoke again. "Tell me what it is," she said at last, in persuasive accents. "Tell me what is the matter. It may be that you lack something--that you miss something you were used to in Ecbatana. Will you not tell me, dearest?" "Tell you what?" asked Nehushta, as though she had not heard. "Tell me what it is that makes you sad," repeated the queen. "Tell you?" exclaimed the princess, suddenly looking up, with flashing eyes, "tell _you?_ oh no!" Atossa looked a little sadly at Nehushta, as though hurt at the want of confidence she showed. But the Hebrew maiden turned away and went and looked through the hanging plants at the garden without. Then Atossa rose softly and came and stood behind her, and put her arm about her, and let her own fair cheek rest against the princess's dark face. Nehushta said nothing, but she trembled, as though something she hated were touching her. "Is it because your friend has gone away suddenly?" asked Atossa almost in a whisper, with the sweetest accent of sympathy. Nehushta started a little. "No!" she answered, almost fiercely. "Why do you say that?" "Only--he wrote me a little word before he went. I thought you might like to know he was safe," replied the queen, gently pressing her arm about Nehushta's slender waist. "Wrote to you?" repeated the princess, in angry surprise. "Yes, dearest," answered the queen, looking down in well-feigned embarrassment. "I would not have told you, only I thought you would wish to hear of him. If you like, I will read you a part of what he says," she added, producing from her bosom the little piece of parchment carefully rolled together. It was more than Nehushta could bear. Her olive skin turned suddenly pale, and she tore herself away from the queen. "Oh no! no! I will not hear it! Leave me in peace--for your gods' sake, leave me in peace!" Atossa drew herself up and stared coldly at Nehushta, as though she were surprised beyond measure and deeply offended. "Truly, I need not be told twice to leave you in peace," she said proudly. "I thought to comfort you, because I saw you were sad--even at the expense of my own feelings. I will leave you now--but I bear no malice against you. You are very, very young, and very, very foolish." Atossa shook her head, thoughtfully, and swept from the pavilion in stately and offended dignity. But as she walked alone through the garden, she smiled to herself and softly hummed a merry melody she had heard from an Egyptian actor on the previous evening. Darius had brought a company of Egyptians from Babylon, and after the banquet, had commanded that they should perform their music, and dancing, and mimicry, for the amusement of the assembled court. Atossa's sweet voice echoed faintly among the orange trees and the roses, as she went towards the palace, and the sound of it came distantly to Nehushta's ears. She stood for a while where the queen had left her, her face pale and her hands wringing together; and then, with a sudden impulse, she went and threw herself upon the floor, and buried her head in the deep, soft cushions. Her hands wandered in the wealth of her black hair, and her quick, hot tears stained the delicate silk of the pillows. How could he? How was it possible? He said he loved her, and now, when he was sent away for many days, his only thought had been to write to the queen--not to herself! An agony of jealousy overwhelmed her, and she could have torn out her very soul, and trampled her own heart under her feet in her anger. Passionately she clasped her hands to her temples; her head seemed splitting with a new and dreadful pain that swallowed all her thoughts for a moment, until the cold weight seemed again to fall upon her breast and all her passion gushed out in abundant tears. Suddenly a thought struck her. She roused herself, leaning upon one hand, and stared vacantly a moment at her small gilded shoe which had fallen from her bare foot upon the marble pavement. She absently reached forward and took the thing in her hand, and gravely contemplated the delicate embroidery and thick gilding, through her tears,--as one will do a foolish and meaningless thing in the midst of a great sorrow. Was it possible that the queen had deceived her? How she wished she had let her read the writing as she had offered to do. She did not imagine at first that the letter was for herself and had gone astray. But she thought the queen might easily have pretended to have received something, or had even scratched a few words upon a bit of parchment, meaning to pass it off upon her as a letter from Zoroaster. She longed to possess the thing and to judge of it with her own eyes. It would hardly be possible to say whether it were written by him or not, as far as the handwriting was concerned; but Nehushta was sure she should recognise some word, some turn of language that would assure her that it was his. She could almost have risen and gone in search of the queen at once, to prove the lie upon her--to challenge her to show the writing. But her pride forbade her. She had been so weak--she should not have let Atossa see, even for a moment, that she was hurt, not even that she loved Zoroaster. She had tried to conceal her feelings, but Atossa had gone too far, had tortured her beyond all endurance, and she knew that, even if she had known what to expect, she could not have easily borne the soft, infuriating, deadly, caressing, goading taunts of that fair, cruel woman. Then again, the whole possibility of Zoroaster's unfaithfulness came and took shape before her. He had known and loved Atossa of old, perhaps, and now the old love had risen up and killed the new--he had sworn so truly under the ivory moonlight in Ecbatana. And yet--he had written to this other woman and not to her. Was it true? Was it Atossa's cruel lie? In a storm of doubt and furious passion, her tears welled forth again; and once more she hid her face in the pale yellow cushions, and her whole beautiful body trembled and was wrung with her sobs. Suddenly she was aware that some one entered the little hall and stood beside her. She dared not look up at first; she was unstrung and wretched in her grief and anger, and it was the strong, firm tread of a man. The footsteps ceased, and the intruder, whoever he might be, was standing still; she took courage and looked quickly up. It was the king himself. Indeed, she might have known that no other man would dare to penetrate into the recesses of the garden set apart for the ladies of the palace. Darius stood quietly gazing at her with an expression of doubt and curiosity, that was almost amusing, on his stern, dark face. Nehushta was frightened, and sprang to her feet with the graceful quickness of a startled deer. She was indolent by nature, but as swift as light when she was roused by fear or excitement. "Are you so unhappy in my palace?" asked Darius gently. "Why are you weeping? Who has hurt you?" Nehushta turned her face away and dashed the tears from her eyes, while her cheeks flushed hotly. "I am not weeping--no one--has hurt me," she answered, in a voice broken rather by embarrassment and annoyance, than by the sorrow she had nearly forgotten in her sudden astonishment at being face to face with the king. Darius smiled, and almost laughed, as he stroked his thick beard with his broad brown hand. "Princess," he said, "will you sit down again? I will deliver you a discourse upon the extreme folly of ever telling"--he hesitated--"of saying anything which is not precisely true." There was something so simple and honest in his manner of speaking, that Nehushta almost smiled through her half-dried tears as she sat upon the cushions at the king's feet. He himself sat down upon the broad marble seat that ran round the eight-sided little building, and composing his face to a serious expression, that was more than half-assumed, began to deliver his lecture. "I take it for granted that when one tells a lie, he expects to be believed. There must, then, be some thing or circumstance which can help to make his lies credible. Now, my dear princess, in the present instance, while I was looking you in the face and counting the tears upon your very beautiful cheeks, you deliberately told me that you were not weeping. There was, therefore, not even the shadow of a thing, or circumstance which could make what you said credible. It is evident that what you said was not true. Is it not so?" Nehushta could not help smiling as she looked up and saw the kindly light in the king's dark eyes. She thought she understood he was amusing her for the sake of giving her time to collect herself, and in spite of the determined intention of marrying her he had so lately expressed, she felt safe with him. "The king lives for ever," she answered, in the set phrase of assent common at the court. "It is very probable," replied Darius gravely. "So many people say so, that I should have to believe all mankind liars if that were not true. But I must return to your own particular case. It would have been easy for you not to have said what you did. I must therefore suppose that in going out of the way to make an attempt to deceive me in the face of such evidence--by saying you were not weeping when the tears were actually falling from those very soft eyes of yours--you had an object to gain. Men employ truth and falsehood for much the same reason: A man who does not respect truth will, therefore, lie when he can hope to gain more by it. The man who lies expects to gain something by his lie, and the man who tells the truth hopes that, in so doing, he will establish himself a credit which he can use upon future occasions.[4] But the object is the same. Tell me, therefore, princess, what did you hope to gain by trying to deceive me?" Darius laughed as he concluded his argument and looked at Nehushta to see what she would say--Nehushta laughed also, she could hardly tell why. The king's brilliant, active humour was catching. She reached out and thrust her foot into the little slipper that still lay beside her, before she answered. [Footnote 4: Herodotus, book iii. chap. lxxii.] "What I said was true in one way and not in another," she said. "I had been crying bitterly, but I stopped when I heard the king come and stand beside me. So it was only the tears the king saw and not the weeping. As for the object,"--she laughed a little,--"it was, perhaps, that I might gain time to dry my eyes." Darius shifted his position a little. "I know," he said gravely. "And I know why you were weeping, and it is my fault. Will you forgive me, princess? I am a hasty man, not accustomed to think twice when I give my commands." Nehushta looked up suddenly with an expression of inquiry. "I sent him away very quickly," continued the king. "If I had thought, I would have told him to come and bid you farewell. He would not have willingly gone without seeing you--it was my fault. He will return in twelve days." Nehushta was silent and bit her lip as the bitter thought arose in her heart that it was not alone Zoroaster's sudden departure that had pained her. Then it floated across her mind that the king had purposely sent away her lover in order that he might himself try to win her heart. "Why did you send him--and not another?" she asked, without looking up, and forgetting all formality of speech. "Because he is the man of all others whom I can trust, and I needed a faithful messenger," answered Darius, simply. Nehushta gazed into the king's face searching for some sign there, but he had spoken earnestly enough. "I thought--" she began, and then stopped short, blushing crimson. "You thought," answered Darius, "that I had sent him away never to return because I desire you for my wife. It was natural, but it was unjust. I sent him because I was obliged to do so. If you wish it, I will leave you now, and I will promise you that I will not look upon your face till Zoroaster returns." Nehushta looked down and she still blushed. She could hardly believe her ears. "Indeed," she faltered, "it were perhaps--best--I mean--" she could not finish the sentence. Darius rose quietly from his seat: "Farewell, princess; it shall be as you desire," he said gravely, and strode towards the door. His face was pale and his lips set tight. Nehushta hesitated and then, in a moment, she comprehended the whole nobility of soul of the young king,--a man at whose words the whole land trembled, who crushed his enemies like empty egg-shells beneath his feet, and yet who, when he held the woman he loved completely in his power, refused, even for a moment, to intrude his presence upon her against her wish. She sprang from her seat and ran to him, and kneeled on one knee and took his hand. He did not look at her, but his own hand trembled violently in hers, and he made as though he would lift her to her feet. "Nay," she cried, "let not my lord be angry with his handmaiden! Let the king grant me my request, for he is the king of men and of kings!" In her sudden emotion she spoke once more in the form of a humble subject addressing her sovereign. "Speak, princess," answered Darius. "If it be possible, I will grant your request." "I would--" she stopped, and again the generous blood overspread her dark cheek. "I would--I know not what I would, saving to thank thee for thy goodness and kindness--I was unhappy, and thou hast comforted me. I meant not that it was best that I should not look upon the king's face." She spoke the last words in so low a tone as she bent her head, that Darius could scarcely hear them. But his willing ears interpreted rightly what she said, and he understood. "Shall I come to you to-morrow, princess, at the same hour?" he asked, almost humbly. "Nay, the king knoweth that the garden is ever full of the women of the court," said Nehushta, hesitating; for she thought that it would be a very different matter to be seen from a distance by all the ladies of the palace in conversation with the king. "Do not fear," answered Darius. "The garden shall be yours. There are other bowers of roses in Shushan whither the women can go. None but you shall enter here, so long as it be your pleasure. Farewell, I will come to you to-morrow at noon." He turned and looked into her eyes, and then she took his hand and silently placed it upon her forehead in thanks. In a moment he was gone and she could hear his quick tread upon the marble of the steps outside, and in the path through the roses. When she knew that he was out of sight, Nehushta went out and stood in the broad blaze of the noonday sun. She passed her hand over her forehead, as though she had been dazed. It seemed as though a change had come over her and she could not understand it. In the glad security of being alone, she ran swiftly down one of the paths, and across by another. Then she stopped short and bent down a great bough of blooming roses and buried her beautiful dark face in the sweet leaves and smelled the perfume, and laughed. "Oh! I am so happy!" she cried aloud. But her face suddenly became grave, as she tried to understand what she felt. After all, Zoroaster was only gone for twelve days, and meanwhile she had secured her liberty, the freedom of wandering all day in the beautiful gardens, and she could dream of him to her heart's content. And the letter? It was a forgery, of course. That wicked queen loved Zoroaster and wished to make Nehushta give him up! Perhaps she might tell the king something of it when he came on the next day. He would be so royally angry! He would so hate the lie! And yet, in some way, it seemed to her that she could not tell Darius of this trouble. He had been so kind, so gentle, as though he had been her brother, instead of the Great King himself, who bore life and death in his right hand and his left, whose shadow was a terror to the world already, and at whose brief, imperious word a nation rose to arms and victory. Was this the terrible Darius? The man who had slain the impostor with his own sword? who had vanquished rebel Babylon in a few days and brought home four thousand captives at his back? He was as gentle as a girl, this savage warrior--but when she recalled his features, she remembered the stern look that came into his face when he was serious, she grew thoughtful and wandered slowly down the path, biting a rose-leaf delicately with her small white teeth and thinking many things; most of all, how she might be revenged upon Atossa for what she had suffered that morning. But Atossa herself was enjoying at that very moment the triumph of the morning and quietly planning how she might continue the torment she had imagined for Nehushta, without allowing its cruelty to diminish, while keeping herself amused and occupied to the fullest extent until Zoroaster should return. It was not long before she learned from her chief tirewoman that the king had been in the pavilion of the garden with Nehushta that morning, and it at once occurred to her that, if the king returned on the following day, it would be an easy thing to appear while he was with the princess, and by veiled words and allusions to Zoroaster, to make her rival suffer the most excruciating torments, which she would be forced to conceal from the king. But, at the same time, the news gave her cause for serious thought. She had certainly not intended that Nehushta should be left alone for hours with Darius. She knew indeed that the princess loved Zoroaster, but she could not conceive that any woman should be insensible to the consolation the Great King could offer. If affairs took such a turn, she fully intended to allow the king to marry Nehushta, while she confidently believed it in her power to destroy her just when she had reached the summit of her ambition. It chanced that the king chose that day to eat his evening meal in the sole company of Atossa, as he sometimes did when weary of the court ceremony. When, therefore, they reclined at sundown upon a small secluded terrace of the upper story, Atossa found an excellent opportunity of discussing Nehushta and her doings. Darius lay upon a couch on one side of the low table, and Atossa was opposite to him. The air was dry and intensely hot, and on each side two black fan-girls plied their palm-leaves silently with all their might. The king lay back upon his cushions, his head uncovered, and all his shaggy curls of black hair tossed behind him, his broad, strong hand circling a plain goblet of gold that stood beside him on the table. For once, he had laid aside his breastplate, and a vest of white and purple fell loosely over his tunic; but his sword of keen Indian steel lay within reach upon the floor. Atossa had raised herself upon her elbow, and her clear blue eyes were fixed upon the king's face, thoughtfully, as though expecting that he would say something. Contrary to all custom, she wore a Greek tunic with short sleeves caught at the shoulders by golden buckles, and her fair hair was gathered into a heavy knot, low down, behind her head. Her dazzling arms and throat were bare, but above her right elbow she wore a thick twisted snake of gold, her only ornament. "The king is not athirst to-night," said Atossa at last, watching the full goblet that he grasped, but did not raise. "I am not always thirsty," answered Darius moodily. "Would you have me always drunk, like a Babylonian dog?" "No; nor always sober, like a Persian captain." "What Persian captain?" asked the king, suddenly looking at her and knitting his brows. "Why, like him, whom, for his sobriety you have sent to-day on the way to Nineveh," answered Atossa. "I have sent no one to Nineveh to-day." "To Ecbatana then, to inquire whether I told you the truth about my poor servant Phraortes--Fravartish, as you call him," said the queen, with a flash of spite in her blue eyes. "I assure you," answered the king, laughing, "that it is solely on account of your remarkable beauty that I have not had you strangled. So soon as you grow ugly you shall surely die. It is very unwise of me, as it is!" The queen, too, laughed, a low, silvery laugh. "I am greatly indebted for my life," said she. "I am very beautiful, I am aware, but I am no longer the most beautiful woman in the world." She spoke without a trace of annoyance in her voice or face, as though it were a good jest. "No," said Darius, thoughtfully. "I used to think that you were. It is in the nature of man to change his opinion. You are, nevertheless, very beautiful--I admire your Greek dress." "Shall I send my tirewoman with one like it to Nehushta?" inquired Atossa, raising her delicate eyebrows, with a sweet smile. "You will not need to improve her appearance in order that she may find favour in my eyes," answered Darius, laughing. "But the jest is good. You would rather send her an Indian snake than an ornament." "Yes," returned the queen, who understood the king's strange character better than any one. "You cannot in honesty expect me not to hate a woman whom you think more beautiful than me! It would hardly be natural. It is unfortunate that she should prefer the sober Persian captain to the king himself." "It is unfortunate--yes--fortunate for you, however." "I mean, it will chafe sadly upon you when you have married her," said Atossa, calmly. Darius raised the goblet he still held and setting it to his lips drank it at a draught. As he replaced it on the table, Atossa rose swiftly, and with her own hands refilled it from a golden ewer. The wine was of Shiraz, dark and sweet and strong. The king took her small white hand in his, as she stood beside him, and looked at it. "It is a beautiful hand," he said. "Nehushta's fingers are a trifle shorter than yours--a little more pointed--a little less grasping. Shall I marry Nehushta, or not?" He looked up as he asked the question, and he laughed. "No," answered Atossa, laughing too. "Shall I marry her to Zoroaster?" "No," she answered again, but her laugh was less natural. "What shall I do with her?" asked the king. "Strangle her!" replied Atossa, with a little fierce pressure on his hand as he held hers, and without the least hesitation. "There would be frequent sudden deaths in Persia, if you were king," said Darius. "It seems to me there are enough slain, as it is," answered the queen. "There are, perhaps, one--or two----" Suddenly the king's face grew grave, and he dropped her hand. "Look you!" he said, "I love jesting. But jest not overmuch with me. Do no harm to Nehushta, or I will make an end of your jesting for ever, by sure means. That white throat of yours would look ill with a bow-string about it." The queen bit her lip. The king seldom spoke to her in earnest, and she was frightened. On the following day, when she went to the garden, two tall spearmen guarded the entrance, and as she was about to go in, they crossed their lances over the marble door and silently barred the way. CHAPTER X. Atossa started back in pure astonishment and stared for a moment at the two guards, looking from one to the other, and trying to read their stolid faces. Then she laid her hand on their spears, and would have pushed them aside; but she could not. "Whose hounds are ye?" she said angrily. "Know ye not the queen? Make way!" But the two strong soldiers neither answered nor removed their weapons from before the door. "Dog-faced slaves!" she said between her teeth. "I will crucify you both before sundown!" She turned and went away, but she was glad that no one was there in the narrow vestibule before the garden to see her discomfiture. It was the first time in her life she had ever been resisted by an inferior, and she could not bear it easily. But when she discovered, half an hour later, that the guards were obeying the Great King's orders, she bowed her head silently and went to her apartments to consider what she should do. She could do nothing. There was no appeal against the king's word. He had distinctly commanded that no one save Nehushta, not even Atossa herself, was to be allowed to enter; he had placed the guards there himself the previous day, and had himself given the order. For eleven days the door was barred; but Atossa did not again attempt to enter. Darius would have visited roughly such an offence, and she knew how delicate her position was. She resigned herself and occupied her mind with other things. Daily, an hour before noon, Nehushta swept proudly through the gate, and disappeared among the roses and myrtles of the garden; and daily, precisely as the sun reached the meridian, the king went in between the spearmen, and disappeared in like manner. Darius had grown so suddenly stern and cold in manner towards the queen, that she dared not even mention the subject of the garden to him, fearing a sadden outburst of his anger, which would surely put an end to her existence in the court, and very likely to her life. As for Nehushta, she had plentiful cause for reflection and much time for dreaming. If the days were not happy, they were at least made bearable for her by the absolute liberty she enjoyed. The king would have given her slaves and jewels and rich gifts without end, had she been willing to accept them. She said she had all she needed--and she said it a little proudly; only the king's visits grew to be the centre of the day, and each day the visit lengthened, till it came to be nearly evening when Darius issued from the gate. She always waited for him in the eight-sided pavilion, and as their familiarity grew, the king would not even permit her to rise when he came, nor to use any of those forms of the court speech which were so distasteful to him. He simply sat himself down beside her, and talked to her and listened to her answers, as though he were one of his own subjects, no more hampered by the cares and state of royalty than any soldier in the kingdom. It was a week since Zoroaster had mounted to ride to Ecbatana, and Darius sat as usual upon the marble bench by the side of Nehushta, who rested among the cushions, talking now without constraint upon all matters that chanced to occur as subjects of conversation. She thought Darius was more silent than usual, and his dark face was pale. He seemed weary, as though from some great struggle, and presently Nehushta stopped speaking and waited to see whether the king would say anything. During the silence nothing was heard saving the plash of the little fountain, and the low soft ripple of the tiny waves that rocked themselves against the edge of the basin. "Do you know, Nehushta," he said at last, in a weary voice, "that I am doing one of the worst actions of my life?" Nehushta started, and the shadows in her face grew darker. "Say rather the kindest action you ever did," she murmured. "If it is not bad, it is foolish," said Darius, resting his chin upon his hand and leaning forward. "I would rather it were foolish than bad--I fear me it is both." Nehushta could guess well enough what it was he would say. She knew she could have turned the subject, or laughed, or interrupted him in many ways; but she did none of these things. An indescribable longing seized her to hear him say that he loved her. What could it matter? He was so loyal and good that he could never be more than a friend. He was the king of the world--had he not been honest and kind, he would have needed no wooing to do as he pleased to do, utterly and entirely. A word from his lips and the name of Zoroaster would be but the memory of a man dead; and again a word, and Nehushta would be the king's wife! What need had he of concealment, or of devious ways? He was the king of the earth, whose shadow was life and death, whose slightest wish was a law to be enforced by hundreds of thousands of warriors! There was nothing between him and his desires--nothing but that inborn justice and truth, in which he so royally believed. Nehushta felt that she could trust him, and she longed--out of mere curiosity, she thought--to hear him speak words of love to her. It would only be for a moment--they would be so soon spoken; and at her desire, he would surely not speak them again. It seemed so sweet, she knew not why, to make this giant of despotic power do as she pleased; to feel that she could check him, or let him speak--him whom all obeyed and feared, as they feared death itself. She looked up quietly, as she answered: "How can it be either bad or foolish of you to make others so happy?" "It seems as though it could be neither--and yet, all my reason tells me it is both," replied the king earnestly. "Here I sit beside you, day after day, deceiving myself with the thought that I am making your time pass pleasantly till--" "There is not any deception in that," interrupted Nehushta gently. Somehow she did not wish him to pronounce Zoroaster's name. "I can never tell you how grateful I am--" "It is I who am grateful," interrupted the king in his turn. "It is I who am grateful that I am allowed to be daily with you, and that you speak with me, and seem glad when I come--" He hesitated and stopped. "What is there that is bad and foolish in that?" asked Nehushta, with a sudden smile, as she looked up into his face. "There is more than I like to think," answered the king. "You say the time passes pleasantly for you. Do you think it is less pleasant for me?" His voice sank to a deep, soft tone, as he continued: "I sit here day after day, and day after day I love you more and more. I love you--where is the use of concealing that--if I could conceal it? You know it. Perhaps you pity me, for you do not love me. You pity me who hold the whole earth under my feet as an Egyptian juggler stands upon a ball, and rolls it whither he will." He ceased suddenly. "Indeed I would that you did not love me," said Nehushta very gravely. She looked down. The pleasure of hearing the king's words was indeed exquisite, and she feared that her eyes might betray her. But she did not love him. She wondered what he would say next. "You might as well wish that dry pastures should not burn when the sun shines on them, and there is no rain," he answered with a passing bitterness. "It is at least a satisfaction that my love does not harm you--that you are willing to have me for your friend--" "Willing! Your friendship is almost the sweetest thing I know," exclaimed the princess. The king's eyes flashed darkly. "Almost! Yes, truly--my friendship and another man's love are the sweetest things! What would my friendship be without his love? By Auramazda and the six Amshaspands of Heaven, I would it were my love and his friendship! I would that Zoroaster were the king, and I Zoroaster, the king's servant! I would give all Persia and Media, Babylon and Egypt, and all the uttermost parts of my kingdom, to hear your sweet voice say: 'Darius, I love thee!' I would give my right hand, I would give my heart from my breast and my soul from my body--my life and my strength, and my glory and my kingdom would I give to hear you say: 'Come, my beloved, and put thine arms about me!' Ah, child! you know not what my love is--how it is higher than the heavens in worshipping you, and broader than the earth to be filled with you, and deeper than the depths of the sea, to change not, but to abide for you always." The king's voice was strong, and the power of his words found wings in it, and seemed to fly forth irresistibly with a message that demanded an answer. Nehushta regretted within herself that she had let him speak--but for all the world she could not have given up the possession of the words he had spoken. She covered her eyes with one hand and remained silent--for she could say nothing. A new emotion had got possession of her, and seemed to close her lips. "You are silent," continued the king. "You are right. What should you answer me? My voice sounds like the raving of a madman, chained by a chain that he cannot break. If I had the strength of the mountains, I could not move you. I know it. All things I have but this--this love of yours that you have given to another. I would I had it! I should have the strength to surpass the deeds of men, had I your love! Who is this whom you love? A captain? A warrior? I tell you because you have so honoured him, so raised him upon the throne of your heart, I will honour him too, and I will raise him above all men, and all the nation shall bow before him. I will make a decree that he shall be worshipped as a god--this man whom you have made a god of by your love. I will build a great temple for you two, and I will go up with all the people, and fall down and bow before you, and worship you, and love you with every sinew and bone of my body, and with every hope and joy and sorrow of my soul. He whom you love shall ask, and whatsoever he asks I will give to him and to you. There shall not be anything left in the whole world that you desire, but I will give it to you. Am I not the king of the whole earth--the king of all living things but you?" Darius breathed savagely hard through his clenched teeth, and rising suddenly, paced the pavement between Nehushta and the fountain. She was silent still, overcome with a sort of terror at his words--words, every one of which he was able to fulfil, if he so chose. Presently he stood still before her. "Said I not well, that I rave as a madman--that I speak as a fool without understanding? What can I give you that you want? Or what thing can I devise that you have need of? Have you not all that the world holds for mortal woman and living man? Do you not love, and are you not loved in return? Have you not all--all--all? Ah! woe is me that I am lord over the nations, and have not a drop of the waters of peace wherewith to quench the thirst of my tormented soul! Woe is me that I rule the world and trample the whole earth beneath my feet, and cannot have the one thing that all the earth holds which is good! Woe is me, Nehushta, that you have cruelly stolen my peace from me, and I find it not--nor shall find it for evermore!" The strong dark man stood wringing his hands together; his face was pale as the dead, his black eyes were blazing with a mad fire. Nehushta dared not look on the tempest she had roused, but she trembled and clasped her hands to her breast and looked down. "Nay, you are right," he cried bitterly. "Answer me nothing, for you can have nothing to answer! Is it your fault that I am mad? Or is it your doing that I love you so? Has any one sinned in this? I have seen you--I saw you for a brief moment standing in the door of your tent--and seeing, I loved you, and love you, and shall love you till the heavens are rolled together and the scroll of all death is full! There is nothing, nothing that you can say or do. It is not your fault--it is not your sin; but it is by you and through you that I am undone,--broken as the tree in the storm of the mountains, burned up and parched as the beast perishing in the sun of the desert for lack of water, torn asunder and rent into pieces as the rope that breaks at the well! By you, and for you, and through you, I am ruined and lost--lost--lost for ever in the hell of my wretched greatness, in the immeasurable death of my own horrible despair!" With a wild movement of agony, Darius fell at Nehushta's feet, prostrate upon the marble floor, and buried his face in the skirts of her mantle, utterly over-mastered and broken down by the tumult of his passion. Nehushta was not heartless. Of a certainty she would have pitied any one in such distress and grief, even had the cause thereof come less near to herself. But, in all the sudden emotion she felt, the pity, the fear, and the self-reproach, there was joined a vague feeling that no man ever spoke as this man, that no lover ever poured forth such abundant love before, and in the dim suspicion of something greater than she had ever known, her fear and her pity grew stronger, and strove with each other. At first she could not speak, but she put forth her delicate hand and laid it tenderly on the king's thick black hair, as gently as a mother might soothe a passionate child; and he suffered it to rest there. And presently she raised his head and laid it in her lap, and smoothed his forehead with her soft fingers, and spoke to him. "You make me very sad," she almost whispered. "I would that you might be loved as you deserve love--that one more worthy than I might give you all I cannot give." He opened his dark eyes that were now dull and weary, and he looked up to her face. "There is none more worthy than you," he answered in low and broken tones. "Hush," she said gently, "there are many. Will you forgive me--and forget me? Will you blot out this hour from your remembrance, and go forth and do those great and noble deeds which you came into the world to perform? There is none greater than you, none nobler, none more generous." Darius lifted his head from her knee, and sprang to his feet. "I will do all things, but I will not forget," he said. "I will do the great and the good deeds,--for you. I will be generous, for you; noble, for you; while the world lasts my deeds shall endure; and with them, the memory that they were done for you! Grant me only one little thing." "Ask anything--everything," answered Nehushta, in troubled tones. "Nehushta, you know how truly I love you--nay, I will not be mad again; fear not! Tell me this--tell me that if you had not loved Zoroaster, you would have loved me." Nehushta blushed deeply and then turned pale. She rose to her feet, and took the king's outstretched hands. "Indeed, indeed, you are most worthy of love--Darius, I could have loved you well." Her voice was very low, and the tears stood in her eyes. "The grace of the All-Wise God bless thee!" cried the king, and it was as though a sudden bright light shone upon his face. Then he kissed her two hands fervently, and with one long look into her sorrowful eyes, he turned and left her. But no man saw the king that day, nor did any know where he was, saving the two spearmen who stood at the door of his chamber. Within, he lay upon his couch, dry-eyed and stark, staring at the painted carvings of the ceiling. CHAPTER XI. The time passed, and it was eleven days since Zoroaster had set out. The king and Nehushta had continued to meet in the garden as before, and neither had ever referred to the day when the torrent of his heart had been suddenly let loose. The hours sped quietly and swiftly, without any event of importance. Only the strange bond, half friendship and half love, had grown stronger than before; and Nehushta wondered how it was that she could love two men so well, and yet so differently. Indeed they were very different men. She loved Zoroaster, and yet it sometimes seemed as though he would more properly have filled the place of a friend than of a lover. Darius she had accepted as her friend, but there were moments when she almost forgot that he was not something more. She tried to think of her meeting with Zoroaster, whether it would be like former meetings,--whether her heart would beat more strongly, or not beat at all when her lips touched his as of old. Her judgment was utterly disturbed and her heart no longer knew itself. She gave herself over to the pleasure of the king's society in the abandonment of the moment, half foreseeing that some great change was at hand, over which she could exercise no control. The sun was just risen, but the bridge over the quickly flowing Choaspes was still in the shadow cast over the plain by the fortress and the palace, when two horsemen appeared upon the road from Nineveh, riding at full gallop, and, emerging from the blue mist that still lay over the meadows, crossed the bridge and continued at full speed towards the ascent to the palace. The one rider was a dark, ill-favoured man, whose pale flaccid cheeks and drooping form betrayed the utmost fatigue. A bolster was bound across the withers of his horse and another on the croup, so that he sat as in a sort of chair, but he seemed hardly able to support himself even with this artificial assistance, and his body swayed from side to side as his horse bounded over the sharp curve at the foot of the hill. His mantle was white with dust, and the tiara upon his head was reduced to a shapeless and dusty piece of crumpled linen, while his uncurled hair and tangled beard hung forward together in disorderly and dust-clotted ringlets. His companion was Zoroaster, fair and erect upon his horse, as though he had not ridden three hundred farsangs in eleven days. There was dust indeed upon his mantle and garments, as upon those of the man he conducted, but his long fair hair and beard blew back from his face as he held his head erect to the breeze he made in riding, and the light steel cap was bright and burnished on his forehead. A slight flush reddened his pale cheeks as he looked upward to the palace, and thought that his ride was over and his errand accomplished. He was weary, almost to death; but his frame was elastic and erect still. As they rode up the steep, the guards at the outer gate, who had already watched them for twenty minutes as they came up the road, mere moving specks under the white mist, shouted to those within that Zoroaster was returning, and the officer of the gate went at once to announce his coming to the king. Darius himself received the message, and followed the officer down the steps to the tower of the gateway, reaching the open space within, just as the two riders galloped under the square entrance and drew rein upon the pavement of the little court. The spearmen sprang to their feet and filed into rank as the cry came down the steps that the king was approaching, and Zoroaster leaped lightly from his horse, and bid Phraortes do likewise; but the wretched Median could scarce move hand or foot without help, and would have fallen headlong, had not two stout spearmen lifted him to the ground, and held him upon his legs. Darius marched quickly up to the pair and stood still, while Zoroaster made his brief salutation. Phraortes, who between deadly fatigue and deadly fear of his life, had no strength left in him, fell forward upon his knees as the two soldiers relaxed their hold upon his arms. "Hail, king of kings! Live for ever!" said Zoroaster. "I have fulfilled thy bidding. He is alive." Darius laughed grimly as he eyed the prostrate figure of the Median. "Thou art a faithful servant, Zoroaster," he answered, "and thou ridest as the furies that pursue the souls of the wicked--as the devils of the mountains after a liar. He would not have lasted much farther, this bundle of sweating dust. Get up, fellow!" he said, touching Phraortes's head with his toe. "Thou liest grovelling there like a swine in a ditch." The soldiers raised the exhausted man to his feet. The king turned to Zoroaster. "Tell me, thou rider of whirlwinds," he said, laughing, "will a man more readily tell the truth, or speak lies, when he is tired?" "A man who is tired will do whichever will procure him rest," returned Zoroaster, with a smile. "Then I will tell this fellow that the sooner he speaks the truth the sooner he may sleep," said the king. Going near to Zoroaster, he added in an undertone: "Before thou thyself restest, go and tell the queen privately that she send away her slaves, and await me and him thou hast brought in a few minutes. This fellow must have a little refreshment, or he will die upon the steps." Zoroaster turned and went up the broad stairs, and threaded the courts and passages, and mounted to the terrace where he had first met Atossa before the king's apartments. There was no one there, and he was about to enter under the great curtain, when the queen herself came out and met him face to face. Though it was yet very early, she was attired with more than usual care, and the faint colours of her dress and the few ornaments she wore, shone and gleamed brightly in the level beams of the morning sun. She had guessed that Zoroaster would return that day, and she was prepared for him. As she came suddenly upon him, she gave a little cry, that might well have been feigned. "What! Are you already returned?" she asked, and the joy her voice expressed was genuine. He looked so godlike as he stood there in the sunlight--her heart leaped for joy of only seeing him. "Yes--I bear this message from the Great King to the queen. The Great King commands that the queen send away her slaves, and await the king and him I have brought with me, in the space of a few minutes." "It is well," answered Atossa, "There are no slaves here and I await the king." She was silent a moment. "Are you not glad to have come back?" she asked, presently. "Yes," said Zoroaster, whose face brightened quickly as he spoke. "I am indeed glad to be here again. Would not any one be glad to have finished such a journey?" The queen stood with her back to the curtained doorway and could see down the whole length of the balcony to the head of the staircase. Zoroaster faced her and the door. As he spoke, Atossa's quick eyes caught sight of a figure coming quickly up the last steps of the stairway. She recognised Nehushta instantly, but no trembling of her lids or colouring of her cheek, betrayed that she had seen the approach of her enemy. She fixed her deep-blue eyes upon Zoroaster's, and gazing somewhat sadly, she spoke in low and gentle tones: "The time has seemed long to me since you rode away, Zoroaster," she said. Zoroaster, astonished at the manner in which she spoke, turned pale, and looked down coldly at her beautiful face. At that moment Nehushta stepped upon the smooth marble pavement of the balcony. Still Atossa kept her eyes fixed on Zoroaster's. "You answer me nothing?" she said in broken tones. Then suddenly, as though acting under an irresistible impulse, she threw her arms wildly about his neck and kissed him passionately again and again. "Oh Zoroaster, Zoroaster, my beloved!" she cried, "you must never, never leave me again!" And again she kissed him, and fell forward upon his breast, holding him so tightly that, for a moment, he did not know which way to move. He put his hands upon her shoulders, to her waist--to try to push her from him. But it was in vain; she clung to him desperately and sobbed upon his breast. In the sudden and fearful embarrassment in which he was placed, he did not hear a short, low groan far off behind him, nor the sound of quickly retreating steps upon the stairs. But Atossa heard and rejoiced fiercely; and when she looked up, Nehushta was gone, with the incurable wound in her breast. Atossa suddenly let her arms fall from the warrior's neck, looked into his eyes once, and then, with a short, sharp cry, she buried her face in her hands and leaned back against the door-post by the heavy striped curtain. "Oh, my God! What have I done?" she moaned. Zoroaster stood for one moment in hesitation and doubt. It seemed as though he had received a sudden revelation of numberless things he had never understood. He spoke quietly, at last, with a great effort, and his voice sounded kindly. "I thank the good powers that I do not love thee--and I would that thou didst not love me. For I am the Great King's servant, faithful to death--and if I loved thee I should be a liar, and a coward, and the basest of all mankind. Forget, I pray thee, that thou hast spoken, and let me depart in peace. For the Great King is at hand, and thou must not suffer that he find thee weeping, lest he think thou fearest to meet Phraortes the Median face to face. Forget, I pray thee--and forgive thy servant if he have done anything amiss." Atossa looked up suddenly. Her eyes were bright and clear, and there was not a trace of tears in them. She laughed harshly. "I--weep before the king! You do not know me. Go, if thou wilt. Farewell, Zoroaster,"--her voice softened a little,--"farewell. It may be that you shall live, but it may be that you shall die, because I love you." Zoroaster bent his head in respectful homage, and turned and went his way. The queen looked after him, and as he disappeared upon the staircase, she began to smooth her head-dress and the locks of her golden hair, and for a moment, she smiled sweetly to herself. "That was a mortal wound, well dealt," she said aloud. But as she gazed out over the city, her face grew grave and thoughtful. "But I do love him," she added softly, "I do--I do--I loved him long ago." She turned quickly, as though fearing some one had overheard her. "How foolish I am!" she exclaimed impatiently; and she turned and passed away under the heavy curtain, leaving the long balcony once more empty,--save for the rush of a swallow that now and then flew in between the pillars, and hovered for a moment high up by the cornice, and sped out again into the golden sunshine of the summer morning. Zoroaster left Atossa with the hope of finding some means of seeing Nehushta. But it was impossible. He knew well that he could not so far presume as to go to her apartment by the lower passage where he had last seen her on the day of his departure for Ecbatana, and the slave whom he despatched from the main entrance of the women's part of the palace returned with the brief information that Nehushta was alone in her chamber, and that no one dared disturb her. Worn out with fatigue and excitement, and scarcely able to think connectedly upon the strange event of the morning, Zoroaster wearily resigned himself to seeing Nehushta at a later hour, and entering his own cool chamber, lay down to rest. It was evening when he awoke. Meanwhile the king commanded that Phraortes should be fed and refreshed, and immediately brought to the queen's apartment. Half an hour after Zoroaster had left her, Atossa was in the chamber which was devoted to her toilet. She sat alone before her great silver mirror, calmly awaiting the turn of events. Some instinct had told her that she would feel stronger to resist an attack in the sanctuary of her small inner room, where every object was impregnated with her atmosphere, and where the lattices of the two windows were so disposed that she would be able to see the expression of her adversaries without exposing her own face to the light. She leaned forward and looked closely at herself in the glass, and with a delicate brush of camel's hair smoothed one eyebrow that was a little ruffled. It had touched Zoroaster's tunic when she threw herself upon his breast; she looked at herself with a genuine artistic pleasure, and smiled. Before long she heard the sound of leathern shoes upon the pavement outside, and the curtain was suddenly lifted. Darius pushed Phraortes into the room by the shoulders and made him stand before the queen. She rose and made a salutation, and then sat down again in her carved chair. The king threw himself upon a heap of thick, hard cushions that formed a divan on one side of the room, and prepared to watch attentively the two persons before him. Phraortes, trembling with fear and excessive fatigue, fell upon his knees before Atossa, and touched the floor with his forehead. "Get upon thy feet, man," said the king shortly, "and render an account of the queen's affairs." "Stay," said Atossa, calmly; "for what purpose has the Great King brought this man before me?" "For my pleasure," answered Darius. "Speak fellow! Render thy account, and if I like not the manner of thy counting, I will crucify thee." "The king liveth for ever," said Phraortes feebly, his flaccid cheeks trembling, as his limbs moved uneasily. "The queen also liveth for ever," remarked Darius. "What is the state of the queen's lands at Ecbatana?" At this question Phraortes seemed to take courage, and began a rapid enumeration of the goods, cattle and slaves. "This year I have sown two thousand acres of wheat which will soon be ripe for the harvest. I have sown also a thousand acres with other grain. The fields of water-melons are yielding with amazing abundance since I caused the great ditches to be dug last winter towards the road. As for the fruit trees and the vinelands, they are prospering; but at present we have not had rain to push the first budding of the grapes. The olives will doubtless be very abundant this year, for last year there were few, as is the manner with that fruit. As for the yielding of these harvests of grain and wine and oil and fruit, I doubt not that the whole sales will amount to an hundred talents of gold." "Last year they only yielded eighty-five," remarked the queen, who had affected to listen to the whole account with the greatest interest. "I am well pleased, Phraortes. Tell me of the cattle and sheep--and of the slaves; whether many have died this year." "There are five hundred head of cattle, and one hundred calves dropped in the last two months. From the scarcity of rain this year, the fodder has been almost destroyed, and there is little hay from the winter. I have, therefore, sent great numbers of slaves with camels to the farther plains to eastward, whence they return daily with great loads of hay--of a coarse kind, but serviceable. As for the flocks, they are now pasturing for the summer upon the slopes of the Zagros mountains. There were six thousand head of sheep and two thousand head of goats at the shearing in the spring, and the wool is already sold for eight talents. As for the slaves, I have provided for them after a new fashion. There were many young men from the captives that came after the war two years ago. For these I have purchased wives of the dealers from Scythia. These Scythians sell all their women at a low price. They are hideous barbarians, speaking a strange tongue, but they are very strong and enduring, and I doubt not they will multiply exceedingly and bring large profits--" "Thou art extraordinarily fluent in thy speech," interrupted the king. "But there are details that the queen wishes to know. Thou art aware that in a frontier country like the province of Ecbatana, it is often necessary to protect the crops and the flocks from robbers. Hast thou therefore thought of arming any of these slaves for this purpose?" "Let not the king be angry with his servant," returned Phraortes, without hesitation. "There are many thousand soldiers of the king in Echatana, and the horsemen traverse the country continually. I have not armed any of the slaves, for I supposed we were safe in the protection of the king's men. Nevertheless, if the Great King command me--" "Thou couldst arm them immediately, I suppose?" interrupted Darius. He watched Atossa narrowly; her face was in the shadow. "Nay," replied Phraortes, "for we have no arms. But if the king will give us swords and spearheads--" "To what end?" asked Atossa. She was perfectly calm since she saw that there was no fear of Phraortes making a mistake upon this vital point. "What need have I of a force to protect lands that are all within a day's journey of the king's fortress? The idea of carrying weapons would make all the slaves idle and quarrelsome. Leave them their spades and their ploughs, and let them labour while the soldiers fight. How many slaves have I now, Phraortes?" "There were, at the last return, fourteen thousand seven hundred and fifty-three men, ten thousand two hundred and sixteen women, and not less than five thousand children. But I expect--" "What can you do with so many?" asked Darius, turning sharply to the queen. "Many of them work in the carpet-looms," answered Phraortes. "The queen receives fifty talents yearly from the sales of the carpets." "All the carpets in the king's apartments are made in my looms," said Atossa, with a smile. "I am a great merchant." "I have no doubt I paid you dearly enough for them, too," said the king, who was beginning to be weary of the examination. He had firmly expected that either the Median agent, or the queen herself, would betray some emotion at the mention of arming the slaves, for he imagined that if Atossa had really planned any outbreak, she would undoubtedly have employed the large force of men she had at her disposal, by finding them weapons and promising them their liberty in the event of success. He was disappointed at the appearance of the man Phraortes. He had supposed him a strong, determined, man of imperious ways and turbulent instincts, who could be easily led into revolution and sedition from the side of his ambition. He saw before him the traditional cunning, quick-witted merchant of Media, pale-faced and easily frightened; no more capable of a daring stroke of usurpation than a Jewish pedlar of Babylon. He was evidently a mere tool in the hands of the queen; and Darius stamped impatiently upon the floor when he thought that he had perhaps been deceived after all--that the queen had really written to Phraortes simply on account of her property, and that there was no revolution at all to be feared. Impulsive to the last degree, when the king had read the letter to Phraortes, his first thought had been to see the man for himself, to ask him a few questions and to put him at once to death if he found him untruthful. The man had arrived, broken with excessive fatigue and weak from the fearful journey; but under the very eye of the king, he had nevertheless given a clear and concise account of himself; and, though he betrayed considerable fear, he gave no reason for supposing that what he said was not true. As for the queen, she sat calmly by, polishing her nails with a small instrument of ivory, occasionally asking a question, or making a remark, as though it were all the most natural occurrence in the world. Darius was impetuous and fierce. His intuitive decisions were generally right, and he acted upon them instantly, without hesitation; but he had no cunning and little strategy. He was always for doing and never for waiting; and to the extreme rapidity of his movements he owed the success he had. In the first three years of his reign he fought nineteen battles and vanquished nine self-styled kings; but he never, on any occasion, detected a conspiracy, nor destroyed a revolution before it had broken out openly. He was often, therefore, at the mercy of Atossa and frequently found himself baffled by her power of concealing a subtle lie under the letter of truth, and by her supreme indifference and coldness of manner under the most trying circumstances. In his simple judgment it was absolutely impossible for any one to lie directly without betraying some hesitation, and each time he endeavoured to place Atossa in some difficult position, when she must, he thought, inevitably betray herself, he was met by her inexplicable calm; which he was forced to attribute to the fact that she was in the right--no matter how the evidence might be against her. The king decided that he had made a mistake in the present instance and that Phraortes was innocent of any idea of revolution. He could not conceive how such a man should be capable of executing a daring stroke of policy. He determined to let him go. "You ought to be well satisfied with the result of these accounts," he said, staring hard at Atossa. "You see you know more of your affairs, and sooner, than you could have known if you had sent your letter. Let this fellow go, and tell him to send his accounts regularly in future, or he will have the pains of riding hither in haste to deliver them. Thou mayest go now and take thy rest," he added, rising and pushing the willing Phraortes before him out of the room. "Thou hast done well. I am satisfied with thee, Phraortes," said Atossa coldly. Once more the beautiful queen was left alone, and once more she looked at herself in the silver mirror, somewhat more critically than before. It seemed to her as she gazed and turned first one side of her face to the light and then the other, that she was a shade paler than usual. The change would have been imperceptible to any one else, but she noticed it with a little frown of disapproval. But presently she smoothed her brow and smiled happily to herself. She had sustained a terrible danger successfully. She had hoped to have been able to warn Phraortes how to act; but, partly because the meeting had taken place so soon after his arrival, and partly because she had employed a portion of that brief interval with Zoroaster and in the scene she had suddenly invented and acted, she had been obliged to meet her chief agent without a moment's preparation, and she knew enough of his cowardly character to fear lest he should betray her and throw himself upon the king's mercy as a reward for the information he could give. But the crucial moment had passed successfully and there was nothing more to fear. Atossa threw herself upon the couch where the king had sat, and abandoned herself to the delicious contemplation of the pain she must have given in showing herself to Nehushta in Zoroaster's arms. She was sure that as the princess could not have seen Zoroaster's face, she must have thought that it was he who was embracing the queen. She must have suffered horribly, if she really loved him! CHAPTER XII. When Darius left the queen, he gave over the miserable Phraortes to the guards, to be cared for, and bent his steps towards the gardens. It was yet early, but he wished to be alone, and he supposed that Nehushta would come there before noon, as was her wont. Meanwhile, he wished to be free of the court and of the queen. Slowly he entered the marble gate and walked up the long walk of roses, plucking a leaf now and then, and twisting it in his fingers, scenting the fresh blossoms with an almost boyish gladness, and breathing in all the sweet warmth of the summer morning. He had made a mistake, and he was glad to be away, where he could calmly reflect upon the reason of his being deceived. He wandered on until he came to the marble pavilion, and would have gone on to stray farther into the gardens, but that he caught sight of a woman's mantle upon the floor as he passed by the open doorway. He went up the few steps and entered. Nehushta lay upon the marble pavement at her full length, her arms extended above her head. Her face was ghastly pale and her parted lips were white. She looked as one dead. Her white linen tiara had almost fallen from her heavy hair, and the long black locks streamed upon the stone in thick confusion. Her fingers were tightly clenched, and on her face was such an expression of agony, as Darius had never dreamed of, nor seen in those dead in battle. The king started back in horror as he caught sight of the prostrate figure. He thought she was dead--murdered, perhaps--until, as he gazed, he saw a faint movement of breathing. Then he sprang forward, and kneeled, and raised her head upon his knee, and chafed her temples and her hands. He could reach the little fountain as he knelt, and he gathered some water in his palm and sprinkled it upon her face. At last she opened her eyes--then closed them wearily again--then opened them once more in quick astonishment, and recognised the king. She would have made an effort to rise, but he checked her, and she let her head sink back upon his knee. Still he chafed her temples with his broad, brown hand, and gazed with anxious tenderness into her eyes, that looked at him for a moment, and then wandered and then looked again. "What is this?" she asked, vacantly, at last. "I know not," answered the king. "I found you here--lying upon the floor. Are you hurt?" he asked tenderly. "Hurt? No--yes, I am hurt--hurt even to death," she added suddenly. "Oh, Darius, I would I could tell you! Are you really my friend?" She raised herself without his help and sat up. The hot blood rushed back to her cheeks and her eyes regained their light. "Can you doubt that I am your friend, your best friend?" asked the king. Nehushta rose to her feet and paced the little hall in great emotion. Her hands played nervously with the golden tassels of her mantle, her head-dress had fallen quite back upon her shoulders, and the masses of her hair were let loose. From time to time she glanced at the king, who eyed her anxiously as he stood beside the fountain. Presently she stopped before him, and very gravely fixed her eyes on him. "I will tell you something," she said, beginning in low tones. "I will tell you this--I cannot tell you all. I have been horribly deceived, betrayed, made a sport of. I cannot tell you how--you will believe me, will you not? This man I loved--I love him not--has cast me off as an old garment, as a thing of no price--as a shoe that is worn out and that is not fit for his feet to tread upon. I love him not--I hate him--oh, I love him not at all!" Darius's face grew dark and his teeth ground hard together, but he stood still, awaiting what she should say. But Nehushta ceased, and suddenly she began again to walk up and down, putting her hand to her temples, as though in pain. Once more she paused, and, in her great emotion laid her two hands upon the shoulder of the king, who trembled at her touch, as though a strong man had struck him. "You said you loved me, once," said Nehushta, in short, nervous tones, almost under her breath. "Do you love me still?" "Is it so long since I told you I loved you?" asked Darius, with a shade of bitterness. "Ah! do not tempt me--do not stir my sickness. Love you? Yea--as the earth loves the sun--as man never loved woman. Love you? Ay! I love you, and I am the most miserable of men." He shook from head to foot with strong emotion, and the stern lines of his face darkened as he went on speaking. "Yet, though I love you so, I cannot harm him,--for my great oath's sake I cannot--yet for you, almost I could. Ah Nehushta, Nehushta!" he cried passionately, "tempt me not! Ask me not this, for you can almost make a liar of the Great King if you will!" "I tempt you not," answered the princess. "I will not that you harm a hair of his head. He is not worthy that you should lift the least of your fingers to slay him. But this I tell you--" she hesitated. The king in his violent excitement, as though foreseeing what she would say, seized her hands and held them tightly while he gazed into her eyes. "Darius," she said, almost hurriedly, "if you love me, and if you desire it, I will be your wife." A wild light broke from the king's eyes. He dropped her hands and stepped backwards from her, staring hard. Then, with, a quick motion, he turned and threw himself upon the marble seat that ran around the hall, and buried his face and sobbed aloud. Nehushta seemed to regain some of her calmness, when once she had said the fatal words. She went and knelt beside him and smoothed his brow and wild, rough hair. The great tears stained his dark cheek. He raised himself and looked at her and put one arm about her neck. "Nehushta," he whispered, "is it true?" She bowed her head silently. Darius drew her towards him and laid her cheek upon his breast. His face bent down to hers, most tenderly, as though he would have kissed her. But suddenly he drew back, and turned his eyes away. "No," he said, as though he had regained the mastery over himself. "It is too much to ask--that I might kiss you! It is too much--too much--that you give me. I am not worthy that you should be my wife. Nay!" he cried, as she would not let him rise from his seat. "Nay, let me go, it is not right--it is not worthy--I must not see you any more. Oh, you have tempted me till I am too weak--" "Darius, you are the noblest of men, the best and bravest." Then with a sudden impulse it seemed to Nehushta that she really loved him. The majestic strength of Zoroaster seemed cold and meaningless beside the fervour of the brave young king, striving so hard to do right under the sorest temptation, striving to leave her free, even against her will. For the moment she loved him, as such women do, with a passionate impulse. She put her arms about him and drew him down to her. "Darius, it is truth--I never loved you, but I love you now, for, of all living men, you have the bravest heart." She pressed a kiss hotly upon his forehead and her head sank upon his shoulder. For one moment the king trembled, and then, as though all resistance were gone from him, his arms went round her, locking with hers that held him, and he kissed her passionately. When Zoroaster awoke from his long sleep it was night. He had dreamed evil dreams, and he woke with a sense of some great disaster impending. He heard unwonted sounds in the hall outside his chamber, and he sprang to his feet and called one of the soldiers of his guard. "What is happening?" asked Zoroaster quickly. "The Great King, who lives for ever, has taken a new wife to-day," answered the soldier, standing erect, but eyeing Zoroaster somewhat curiously. Zoroaster's heart sank within him. "What? Who is she?" he asked, coming nearer to the man. "The new queen is Nehushta--the Hebrew princess," answered the spearman. "There is a great banquet, and a feast for the guard, and much food and wine for the slaves--" "It is well," answered Zoroaster. "Go thou, and feast with the rest." The man saluted, and left the room. Zoroaster remained standing alone, his teeth chattering together and his strong limbs shaking beneath him. But he abandoned himself to no frenzy of grief, nor weeping; one seeing him would have said he was sick of a fever. His blue eyes stared hard at the lamp-light and his face was white, but he did not so much as utter an exclamation, nor give one groan. He went and sat down upon a chair and folded his hands together, as though waiting for some event. But nothing happened; no one came to disturb him in his solitude, though he could hear the tramping feet and the unceasing talk of the slaves and soldiers without. In the vast palace, where thousands dwelt, where all were feasting or talking of the coming banquet, Zoroaster was utterly alone. At last he rose, slowly, as though with an effort, and paced twice from one end of the room to the other. Upon a low shelf on one side, his garments were folded together, while his burnished cuirass and helmet and other arms which he had not worn upon his rapid journey to Ecbatana, hung upon nails in the wall above. He looked at all these things and turned the clothes over piece by piece, till he had found a great dark mantle and a black hood such as was worn in Media. These he put on, and beneath the cloak he girded a broad, sharp knife about him. Then wrapping himself closely round with the dark-coloured stuff and drawing the hood over his eyes, he lifted the curtain of his door and went out, without casting a look behind him. In the crowd of slaves he passed unnoticed; for the hall was but dimly lighted by a few torches, and every one's attention was upon the doings of the day and the coming feast. Zoroaster soon gathered from the words he heard spoken, that the banquet had not yet begun, and he hastened to the columned porch through which the royal party must pass on the way to the great hall which formed the centre of the main building. Files of spearmen, in their bronze breastplates and scarlet and blue mantles, lined the way, which was strewn with yellow sand and myrtle leaves and roses. At every pillar stood a huge bronze candlestick, in which a torch of wax and fir-gum burned, and flared, and sent up a cloud of half pungent, half aromatic smoke. Throngs of slaves and soldiers pressed close behind the lines of spearmen, elbowing each other with loud jests and surly complaints, to get a better place, a sea of moving, shouting, gesticulating humanity. Zoroaster's great height and broad shoulders enabled him easily to push to the front, and he stood there, disguised and unknown, peering between the heads of two of his own soldiers to obtain the first view of the procession as it came down the broad staircase at the end of the porch. Suddenly the blast of deep-toned trumpets was heard in the distance, and silence fell upon the great multitude. With a rhythmic sway of warlike tone the clangour rose and fell, and rose again as the trumpeters came out upon the great staircase and began to descend. After them came other musicians, whose softer instruments began to be heard in harmony with the resounding bass of the horns, and then, behind them, came singers, whose strong, high voices completed the full burst of music that went before the king. With measured tread the procession advanced. There were neither priests, nor sacrificers, nor any connected with any kind of temple; but after the singers came two hundred noble children clad in white, bearing long garlands of flowers that trailed upon the ground, so that many of the blossoms were torn off and strewed the sand. But Zoroaster looked neither on the singers, nor on the children. His eyes were fixed intently on the two figures that followed them--Darius, the king, and Nehushta, the bride. They walked side by side, and the procession left an open spaced ten paces before and ten paces behind the royal pair. Darius wore the tunic of purple and white stripes, the mantle of Tyrian purple on his shoulders and upon his head the royal crown of gold surrounded the linen tiara; his left hand, bare and brown and soldier-like, rested upon the golden hilt of his sword, and in his right, as he walked, he carried a long golden rod surmounted by a ball, twined with myrtle from end to end. He walked proudly forward, and as he passed, many a spearman thought with pride that the Great King looked as much a soldier as he himself. By his left side came Nehushta, clad entirely in cloth of gold, while a mantle of the royal purple hung down behind her. Her white linen tiara was bound round with myrtle and roses, and in her hands she bore a myrtle bough. Her face was pale in the torchlight, but she seemed composed in manner, and from time to time she glanced at the king with a look which was certainly not one of aversion. Zoroaster felt himself growing as cold as ice as they approached, and his teeth chattered in his head. His brain reeled with the smoke of the torches, the powerful, moving tones of the music and the strangeness of the whole sight. It seemed as though it could not be real. He fixed his eyes upon Nehushta, but his face was shaded all around by his dark hood. Nevertheless, so intently did he gaze upon her that, as she came near, she felt his look, as it were, and, searching in the crowd behind the soldiers, met his eyes. She must have known it was he, even under the disguise that hid his features, for, though she walked calmly on, the angry blood rushed to her face and brow, overspreading her features with a sudden, dark flush. Just as she came up to where Zoroaster stood, he thrust his covered head far out between the soldiers. His eyes gleamed like coals of blue fire and his voice came low, with a cold, clear ring, like the blade of a good sword striking upon a piece of iron. "Faithless!" That was all he said, but all around heard the cutting tone, that neither the voices of the singers, nor the clangour of the trumpets could drown. Nehushta drew herself up and paused for one moment, and turned upon the dark-robed figure a look of such unutterable loathing and scorn as one would not have deemed could be concentrated in a human face. Then she passed on. The two spearmen turned quickly upon the man between them, who had uttered the insult against the new queen, and laid hold of him roughly by the shoulders. A moment more and his life would have been ended by their swords. But his strong, white hands stole out like lightning, and seized each soldier by the wrist, and twisted their arms so suddenly and with such furious strength, that they cried aloud with pain and fell headlong at his feet. The people parted for a space in awe and wonder, and Zoroaster turned, with his dark mantle close drawn around him, and strode out through the gaping crowd. "It is a devil of the mountains!" cried one. "It is Ahriman himself!" said another. "It is the soul of the priest of Bel whom the king slew at Babylon!" "It is the Evil Sprit of Cambyses!" "Nay," quoth one of the spearmen, rubbing his injured hand, "it was Zoroaster, the captain. I saw his face beneath that hood he wore." "It may be," answered his fellow. "They say he can break a bar of iron, as thick as a man's three fingers, with his hand. But I believe it was a devil of the mountains." But the procession marched on, and long before the crowd had recovered enough from its astonishment to give utterance to these surmises, Zoroaster had passed out of the porch and back through the deserted courts, and down the wide staircase to the palace gate, and out into the quiet, starlit night, alone and on foot. He would have no compromise with his grief; he would be alone with it. He needed not mortal sympathy and he would not have the pity of man. The blow had struck home with deadly certainty and the wound was such as man cannot heal, neither woman. The fabric of happiness, which in a year he had built himself, was shattered to its foundation, and the fall of it was fearful. The ruin of it reached over the whole dominion of his soul and rent all the palace of his body. The temple that had stood so fair, whither his heart had gone up to worship his beloved one, was destroyed and utterly beaten to pieces; and the ruin of it was as a heap of dead bones, so loathsome in decay, that the eyes of his spirit turned in horror and disgust from the inward contemplation of so miserable a sight. Alone and on foot, he went upon his dreary way, dry-eyed and calm. There was nothing left of all his past life that he cared for. His armour hung in his chamber in the palace and with it he left the Zoroaster he had known--the strong, the young, the beautiful; the warrior, the lover, the singer of sweet songs, the smiter of swift blows, the peerless horseman, the matchless man. He who went out alone into the great night, was a moving sorrow, a horror of grief made visible as a walking shadow among things real, a man familiar already with death as with a friend, and with the angel of death as with a lover. Alone--it was a beginning of satisfaction to be away from all the crowd of known and unknown faces familiar to his life--but the end and attainment of satisfaction could only come when he should be away from himself, from the heavy body that wearied him, and from the heavier soul that was crushed with itself as with a burden. For sorrow was his companion from that day forth, and grief undying was his counsellor. Ah God! She was so beautiful and her love was so sweet and strong! Her face had been as the face of an angel, and her virgin-heart as the innermost leaves of the rose that are folded together in the bud before the rising of the sun. Her kiss was as the breath of spring that gladdens the earth into new life, her eyes as crystal wells, from the depths whereof truth rose blushing to the golden light of day. Her lips were so sweet that a man wondered how they could ever part, till, when they parted, her gentle breath bore forth the music of her words, that was sweeter than all created sounds. She was of all earthly women the most beautiful--the very most lovely thing that God had made; and of all mortal women that have loved, her love had been the purest, the gentlest, the truest. There was never woman like to her, nor would be again. And yet--scarce ten days had changed her, had so altered and disturbed the pure elements of her wondrous nature that she had lied to herself and lied to her lover the very lie of lies--for what? To wear a piece of purple of a richer dye than other women wore, to bind her hair with a bit of gold, to be called a queen--a queen forsooth! when she had been from her birth up the sovereign queen of all created women! The very lie of lies! Was there ever such a monstrous lie since the world first learned the untruths of the serpent's wisdom? Had she not sworn and promised, by the holiness of her God, to love Zoroaster for ever? For ever. O word, that had meant heaven, and now meant hell!--that had meant joy without any end and peace and all love!--that meant now only pain eternal, and sorrow, and gnawing torment of a wound that would never heal! O Death, that yesterday would have seemed Life for her! O Life, that to-day, by her, was made the Death of deaths! Emptiness of emptiness--the whole world one hollow cavern of vanity--lifeless and lightless, where the ghosts of the sorrows of men moan dismally, and the shadows of men's griefs scream out their wild agony upon the ghastly darkness! Night, through which no dawn shall ever gleam, fleet and fair, to touch with rosy fingers the eyes of a dead world and give them sight! Winter, of unearthly cold, that through all the revolving ages of untiring time, shall never see the face of another spring, nor feel its icy veins thawing with the pulses of a forgotten life, quickened from within with the thrilling hope of a new and glorious birth! Far out upon the southern plain Zoroaster lay upon the dew-wet ground and gazed up into the measureless depths of heaven, where the stars shone out like myriads of jewels set in the dark mantle of night! Gradually, as he lay, the tempest of his heart subsided, and the calm of the vast solitude descended upon him, even as the dew had descended upon the earth. His temples ceased to throb with the wild pulse that sent lightnings through his brain at every beat, and from the intensity of his sorrow, his soul seemed to float upwards to those cool depths of the outer firmament where no sorrow is. His eyes grew glassy and fixed, and his body rigid in the night-dews; and his spirit, soaring beyond the power of earthly forces to weigh down its flight, rose to that lofty sphere where the morning and the evening are but one eternal day, where the mighty unison of the heavenly chorus sends up its grand plain-chant to God Most High. CHAPTER XIII. Far in the wild mountains of the south, where a primeval race of shepherds pastures its flocks of shaggy goats upon the scanty vegetation of rocky slopes, there is a deep gorge whither men seldom penetrate, and where the rays of the sun fall but for a short hour at noonday. A man may walk, or rather climb, along the side of the little stream that rushes impetuously down among the black rocks, for a full hour and a half before he reaches the end of the narrow valley. Then he will come upon a sunken place, like a great natural amphitheatre, the steep walls of boulders rising on all sides to a lofty circle of dark crags. In the midst of this open space a spring rises suddenly from beneath a mass of black stone, with a rushing, gurgling sound, and makes a broad pool, whence the waters flow down in a little torrent through the gorge till they emerge far below into the fertile plain and empty themselves into the Araxes, which flows by the towers and palaces of lordly Stakhar, more than two days' journey from the hidden circle in the mountains. It would have been a hard thing to recognise Zoroaster in the man who sat day after day beside the spring, absorbed in profound meditation. His tall figure was wasted almost to emaciation by fasting and exposure; his hair and beard had turned snow-white, and hung down in abundant masses to his waist, and his fair young face was pale and transparent. But in his deep blue eyes there was a light different from the light of other days--the strange calm fire of a sight that looks on wondrous things, and sees what the eyes of men may not see, and live. Nearly three years had passed since he went forth from the palace of Shushan, to wander southwards in search of a resting-place, and he was but three-and-thirty years of age. But between him and the past there was a great gulf--the interval between the man and the prophet, between the cares of mortality and the divine calm of the higher life. From time to time indeed, he ascended the steep path he had made among the stones and rocks, to the summit of the mountain; and there he met one of the shepherds of the hills, who brought him once every month a bag of parched grain and a few small, hard cheeses of goats' milk; and in return for these scanty provisions, he gave the man each time a link from the golden chain he had worn and which was still about his neck when he left the palace. Three-and-thirty links were gone since he had come there, and the chain was shorter by more than half its length. It would last until the thousand days were accomplished, and there would still be much left. Auramazda, the All-Wise, would provide. Zoroaster sat by the spring and watched the crystal waters sparkle in the brief hour of sunshine at noonday, and turn dark and deep again when the light was gone. He moved not through the long hours of day, sitting as he had sat in that place now for three years neither scorched by the short hours of sunlight, nor chilled by winter's frost and snow. The wild long-haired sheep of the mountain came down to drink at noon, and timidly gazed with their stupid eyes at the immovable figure; and at evening the long-bodied, fierce-eyed wolves would steal stealthily among the rocks and come and snuff the ground about his feet, presently raising their pointed heads with a long howl of fear, and galloping away through the dusk in terror, as though at something unearthly. And when at last the night was come, Zoroaster arose and went to the spot where the rocks, overhanging together, left a space through which one might enter; and the white-haired man gave one long look at the stars overhead, and disappeared within. There was a vast cave, the roof reaching high up in a great vault; the sides black and polished, as though smoothed by the hands of cunning workmen; the floor a bed of soft, black sand, dry and even as the untrodden desert. In the midst, a boulder of black rock lay like a huge ball, and upon its summit burned a fire that was never quenched, and that needed no replenishing with fuel. The tall pointed flame shed a strangely white light around, that flashed and sparkled upon the smooth black walls of the cavern, as though they were mirrors. The flame also was immovable; it neither flickered, nor rose, nor fell; but stood as it were a spear-head of incandescent gold upon the centre of the dark altar. There was no smoke from that strange fire, nor any heat near it, as from other fires. Then Zoroaster bent and put forth his forefinger and traced a figure upon the sand, which was like a circle, save that it was cut from north-west to south-east by two straight lines; and from north-east to south-west by two straight lines; and at each of the four small arcs, where the straight lines cut the circumference of the great circle, a part of a smaller circle outside the great one united the points over each other. And upon the east side, toward the altar, the great circle was not joined, but open for a short distance.[5] [Footnote 5: The Mazdayashnian Dakhma, or place of death. This figure represents the ground-plan of the modern Parsi Tower of Silence.] When the figure was traced, Zoroaster came out from it and touched the black rock whereon the fire burned; and then he turned back and entered the circle, and with his fingers joined it where it was open on the east side through which he had entered. And immediately, as the circle was completed, there sprung up over the whole line he had traced a soft light; like that of the fire, but less strong. Then Zoroaster lay down upon his back, with his feet to the west and his head toward the altar, and he folded his hands upon his breast and closed his eyes. As he lay, his body became rigid and his face as the face of the dead; and his spirit was loosed in the trance and freed from the bonds of earth, while his limbs rested. Lying there, separated from the world, cut off within the circle of a symbolised death by the light of the universal agent,[6] Zoroaster dreamed dreams and saw visions. [Footnote 6: The term "universal agent" has been used in the mysticism of ages, to designate that subtle and all-pervading fluid, of which the phenomena of light, heat, electricity and vitality are considered to be but the grosser and more palpable manifestations.] His mind was first opened to the understanding of those broader conceptions of space and time of which he had read in the books of Daniel, his master. He had understood the principles then, but he had not realised their truth. He was too intimately connected with the life around him, to be able to see in the clearer light which penetrates with universal truth all the base forms of perishable matter. Daniel had taught him the first great principles. All men, in their ignorance, speak of the infinities of space and time as being those ideas which man cannot of himself grasp or understand. Man, they say, is limited in capacity; he can, therefore, not comprehend the infinite. A greater fault than this could not be committed by a thinking being. For infinity being unending, it is incapable of being limited; it rejects definition, which belongs, by its nature, to finite things. For definition means the placing of bounds, and that which is infinite can have no bounds. The man, therefore, who seeks to bound what has no bounds, endeavours to define what is, by its nature, undefinable; and finding that the one poor means which he has of conveying fallacious impressions of illusory things to his mind through his deadened senses, is utterly insufficient to give him an idea of what alone is real, he takes refuge in his crass ignorance and coarse grossness of language, and asserts boldly that the human mind is too limited in its nature to conceive of infinite space, or of infinite time. Not only is the untrammelled mind of man capable of these bolder conceptions, but even the wretched fool who sees in the material world the whole of what man can know, could never get so far as to think even of the delusive objects on which he pins his foolish faith, unless the very mind which he insults and misunderstands, had by its nature that infinite capacity of comprehension which, he says, exists not. For otherwise, if the mind be limited, there must be a definite limit to its comprehensive faculty, and it is easy to conceive that such a limit would soon become apparent to every student; as apparent as it is that a being, confined within three dimensions of space, cannot, without altering his nature, escape from these three dimensions, nor from the laws which govern matter having length, breadth and thickness alone, without the external fourth dimension, with its interchangeability of exterior and interior angles. The very thought that infinite space cannot be understood, is itself a proof that the mind unconsciously realises the precise nature of such infinity, in attributing to it at once the all-comprehensiveness from which there is no escape, in which all dimensions exist, and by virtue of which all other conceptions become possible; since this infinite space contains in itself all dimensions of existence--transitory, real and potential; and if the capacity of the mind is co-extensive with the capacity of infinite space, since it feels itself undoubtedly capable of grasping any limited idea contained in any portion of the illimitable whole, it follows that the mind is of itself as infinite as the space in which all created things have their transitory form of being, and in which all uncreated truths exist eternally. The mind is aware of infinity by that true sort of knowledge which is an intimate conviction not dependent upon the operation of the senses. Gradually, too, as Zoroaster fixed his intuition upon the first main principle of all possible knowledge, he became aware of the chief cause--of the universal principal of vivifying essence, which pervades all things, and in which arises motion as the original generator of transitory being. The great law of division became clear to him--the separation for a time of the universal agent into two parts, by the separation and reuniting of which comes light and heat and the hidden force of life, and the prime rules of attractive action; all things that are accounted material. He saw the division of darkness and light, and how all things that are in the darkness are reflected in the light; and how the light which we call light is in reality darkness made visible, whereas the true light is not visible to the eyes that are darkened by the gross veil of transitory being. And as from the night of earth, his eyes were gradually opened to the astral day, he knew that the forms that move and have being in the night are perishable and utterly unreal; whereas the purer being which is reflected in the real light is true and endures for ever. Then, by his knowledge and power, and by the light that was in him, he divided the portion of the universal agent that was in the cave where he dwelt into two portions, and caused them to reunite in the midst upon the stone that was there; and the flame burned silently and without heat upon his altar, day and night, without intermission; and by the division of the power within him, he could divide the power also that was latent in other transitory beings, according to those laws which, being eternal, are manifested in things not eternal, but perishable. And further, he meditated upon the seven parts of man, and upon their separation, and upon the difference of their nature. For the first element of man is perishable matter. And the second element of man is the portion of the universal agent which gives him life. And the third element of man is the reflection of his perishable substance in the astral light, coincident with him, but not visible to his earthly eye. The fourth element of man is made up of all the desires he feels by his material senses. This part is not real being, nor transitory being, but a result. The fifth element of man is that which says: "I am," whereby a man knows himself from other men; and with it there is an intelligence of lower things, but no intelligence of things higher. The sixth element is the pure understanding, eternal and co-extensive with all infinity of time and space--real, imperishable, invisible to the eye of man. The seventh element is the soul from God. Upon these things Zoroaster meditated long, and as his perishable body became weakened and emaciated with fasting and contemplation, he was aware that, at times, the universal agent ceased to be decomposed and recomposed in the nerves of his material part, so that his body became as though dead, and with, it the fourth element which represents the sense of mortal desires; and he himself, the three highest elements of him,--his individuality, his intelligence and his soul,--became separated for a time from all that weighed them down; and his mind's eyes were opened, and he saw clearly in the astral light, with an intuitive knowledge of true things, and false. And so, night after night, he lay upon the floor of his cavern, rigid and immovable; his body protected from all outer harmful influences by the circle of light he had acquired the power of producing. For though there was no heat in the flame, no mortal breathing animal could so much as touch it with the smallest part of his body without being instantly destroyed as by lightning. And so he was protected from all harm in his trances; and he left his body at will and returned to it, and it breathed again, and was alive. So he saw into the past and into the present and into the future, and his soul was purified beyond the purity of man, and soared upwards, and dreamed of the eternal good and of the endless truth; and at last it seemed to him that he should leave his body in its trance, and never return to it, nor let it breathe again. For since it was possible thus to cast off mortality and put on immortality, it seemed to him that it was but a weariness to take up the flesh and wear it, when it was so easy to lay it down. Almost he had determined that he would then let death come, as it were unawares, upon his perishable substance, and remain for ever in the new life he had found. But as his spirit thought in this wise, he heard a voice speaking to him, and he listened. "One moment is as another, and there is no difference between one time and another time." "One moment in eternity is of as great value as another moment, for eternity changes not, neither is one part of it better than another part." "Though man be immortal as to his soul, he is mortal as to his body, and the time which his soul shall spend in his body is of as great worth to him as the time which he shall spend without it." "Think not that by wilfully abandoning the body, even though you have the power and the knowledge to do so, you will escape from the state in which it has pleased God to put you." "Rather shall your pain and the time of your suffering be increased, because you have not done with the body that which the body shall do." "The life of the soul while it is in the body, has as much value as when it has left it. You shall not shorten the time of dwelling in the flesh." "Though you know all things, you know not God. For though you know your body which is in the world, and the world which is in time, and time which is in space, yet your knowledge goeth no farther, for space and all that therein is, is in God.[7]" [Footnote 7: Hermes Trismegistus, _Poemandres_ xi. 2.] "You have learned earthly things and heavenly things. Learn then that you shall not escape the laws of earth while you are on earth, nor the laws of heaven when you are in heaven. Lift up your heart to God, but do in the body those things which are of the body." "There are other men put into the world besides you. If you leave the world, what does your knowledge profit other men? And yet it is to profit other men that God has put you into the world." "And not you only, but every man. The labour of man is to man, and the labour of angels to angels. But the time of man is as valuable in the sight of God, as the time of angels." "All things that are not accomplished in their time shall be left unaccomplished for ever and ever. If while you are in the flesh, you accomplish not the things of the flesh after the manner of your humanity, you shall enter into the life of the spirit as one blind, or maimed; for your part is not fulfilled." "Wisdom is this. A man shall not care for the things of the world for himself, and his soul shall be lifted and raised above all that is mean and perishable; but he shall perform his part without murmuring. He shall not forget the perishable things, though he soar to the imperishable." "For man is to man as one portion of eternity to another; and as eternity would be imperfect if one moment could be removed, so also the earth would be imperfect if one man should be taken from it before his appointed time." "If a man therefore take himself out of the world, he causes imperfection, and sins against perfection, which is the law of God." "Though the world be in darkness, the darkness is necessary to the light. Though the world perish, and heaven perish not for ever, yet is the perishable necessary to the eternal." "For the transitory and the unchangeable exist alike in eternity and are portions of it. And one moment is as another, and there is no difference between one time and another time." "Go, therefore, and take up your body, and do with it the deeds of the body among men; for you have deeds to do, and unless they are done in their time, which is now, they will be unfulfilled for ever, and you will become an imperfect spirit." "The imperfect spirit shall be finally destroyed, for nothing that is imperfect shall endure. To be perfect all things must be fulfilled, all deeds done, in the season while the spirit is in darkness with the body. The deeds perish, and the body which doeth them, but the soul of the perfect man is eternal, and the reflection of what he has done, abides for ever in the light." "Hasten, for your time is short. You have learned all things that are lawful to be learnt, and your deeds shall be sooner accomplished." "Hasten, for one moment is as another, and there is no difference between the value of one time and of another time." "The moment which passes returns not, and the thing which a man should do in one time cannot be done in another time." The voice ceased, and the spirit of Zoroaster returned to his body in the cave, and his eyes opened. Then he rose, and standing within the circle, cast sand upon the portion towards the east; and so soon as the circle was broken, it was extinguished and there remained nothing but the marks Zoroaster had traced with his fingers upon the black sand. He drew his tattered mantle around him, and went to the entrance of the cave, and passed out. And it was night. Overhead, the full moon cast her broad rays vertically into the little valley, and the smooth black stones gleamed darkly. The reflection caught the surface of the little pool by the spring, and it was turned to a silver shield of light. Zoroaster came forward and stood beside the fountain, and the glory of the moon fell upon his white locks and beard and on the long white hand he laid upon the rock. His acute senses, sharpened beyond those of men by long solitude and fasting, distinguished the step of a man far up the height on the distant crags, and his keen sight soon detected a figure descending cautiously, but surely, towards the deep abyss where Zoroaster stood. More and more clearly he saw him, till the man was near, and stood upon an overhanging boulder within speaking distance. He was the shepherd who, from time to time, brought food to the solitary mystic; and who alone, of all the goatherds in those hills, would have dared to invade the sacred precincts of Zoroaster's retreat. He was a brave fellow, but the sight of the lonely man by the fountain awed him; it seemed as though his white hair emitted a light of its own under the rays of the moon, and he paused in fear lest the unearthly ascetic should do him some mortal hurt. "Wilt thou harm me if I descend?" he called out timidly. "I harm no man," answered Zoroaster. "Come in peace." The active shepherd swung himself from the boulder, and in a few moments he stood among the stones at the bottom, a few paces from the man he sought. He was a dark fellow, clad in goat-skins, with pieces of leather bound around his short, stout legs. His voice was hoarse, perhaps with some still unconquered fear, and his staff rattled as he steadied himself among the stones. "Art not thou he who is called Zoroaster?" he asked. "I am he," answered the mystic. "What wouldest thou?" "Thou knowest that the Great King with his queens and his court are at the palace of Stakhar," replied the man. "I go thither from time to time to sell cheeses to the slaves. The Great King has made a proclamation that whosoever shall bring before him Zoroaster shall receive a talent of gold and a robe of purple. I am a poor shepherd--fearest thou to go to the palace?" "I fear nothing. I am past fear these three years." "Will the Great King harm thee, thinkest thou? Thou hast paid me well for my pains since I first saw thee, and I would not have thee hurt." "No man can harm me. My time is not yet come." "Wilt thou go with me?" cried the shepherd, in sudden delight. "And shall I have the gold and the robe?" "I will go with thee. Thou shalt have all thou wouldest," answered Zoroaster. "Art thou ready? I have no goods to burden me." "But thou art old," objected the shepherd, coming nearer. "Canst thou go so far on foot? I have a beast; I will return with him in the morning, and meet thee upon the height. I came hither in haste, being but just returned from Stakhar with the news." "I am younger than thou, though my hair is white. I will go with thee. Lead the way." He stooped and drank of the fountain in the moonlight, from the hollow of his hand. Then he turned, and began to ascend the steep side of the valley. The shepherd led the way in silence, overcome between his awe of the man and his delight at his own good fortune. CHAPTER XIV. It was now three years since Nehushta had been married to Darius, and the king loved her well. But often, in that time, he had been away from her, called to different parts of the kingdom by the sudden outbreaks of revolution which filled the early years of his reign. Each time he had come back in triumph, and each time he had given her some rich gift. He found indeed that he had no easy task to perform in keeping the peace between his two queens; for Atossa seemed to delight in annoying Nehushta and in making her feel that she was but the second in the king's favour, whatever distinctions might be offered her. But Darius was just and was careful that Atossa should receive her due, neither more nor less. Nehushta was glad when Zoroaster was gone. She had suffered terribly in that moment when he had spoken to her out of the crowd, and the winged word had made a wound that rankled still. In those three years that passed, Atossa never undeceived her concerning the sight she had seen, and she still believed that Zoroaster had basely betrayed her. It was impossible, in her view, that it could be otherwise. Had she not seen him herself? Could any man do such an action who was not utterly base and heartless? She had, of course, never spoken to Darius of the scene upon the terrace. She did not desire the destruction of Atossa, nor of her faithless lover. Amid all the tender kindness the king lavished upon her, the memory of her first love endured still, and she could not have suffered the pain of going over the whole story again. He was gone, perhaps dead, and she would never see him again. He would not dare to set foot in the court. She remembered the king's furious anger against him, when he suspected that the hooded man in the procession was Zoroaster. But Darius had afterwards said, in his usual careless way, that he himself would have done as much, and that for his oath's sake, he would never harm the young Persian. By the grace of Auramazda he swore, he was the king of kings and did not make war upon disappointed lovers! Meanwhile, Darius had built himself a magnificent palace, below the fortress of Stakhar, in the valley of the Araxes, and there he spent the winter and the spring, when the manifold cares of the state would permit him. He had been almost unceasingly at war with the numerous pretenders who set themselves up for petty kings in the provinces. With unheard-of rapidity, he moved from one quarter of his dominions to another, from east to west, from north to south; but each time that he returned, he found some little disturbance going on at the court, and he bent his brows and declared that a parcel of women were harder to govern than all Media, Persia, and Babylon together. Atossa wearied him with her suggestions. "When the king is gone upon an expedition," she said, "there is no head in the palace. Otanes is a weak man. The king will not give me the control of the household, neither will he give it to any one else." "There is no one whom I can trust," answered Darius. "Can you not dwell together in peace for a month?" "No," answered Atossa, with her winning smile, "it is impossible; the king's wives will never agree among themselves. Let the king choose some one and make a head over the palace." "Whom shall I choose?" asked Darius, moodily. "The king had a faithful servant once," suggested Atossa. "Have I none now?" "Yea, but none so faithful as this man of whom I speak, nor so ready to do the king's bidding. He departed from Shushan when the king took Nehushta to wife--" "Mean you Zoroaster?" asked Darius, bending his brows, and eyeing Atossa somewhat fiercely. But she met his glance with indifference. "The same," she answered. "Why not send for him and make him governor of the palace? He was indeed a faithful servant--and a willing one." Still the king gazed hard at her face, as though trying to fathom the reason of her request, or at least to detect some scornful look upon her face to agree with her sneering words. But he was no match for the unparalleled astuteness of Atossa, though he had a vague suspicion that she wished to annoy him by calling up a memory which she knew could not be pleasant, and he retorted in his own fashion. "If Zoroaster be yet alive I will have him brought, and I will make him governor of the palace. He was indeed a faithful servant--he shall rule you all and there shall be no more discord among you." And forthwith the king issued a proclamation that whosoever should bring Zoroaster before him should receive a talent of gold and a robe of purple as a reward. But when Nehushta heard of it she was greatly troubled; for Atossa began to tell her that Zoroaster was to return and to be made governor of the palace; but Nehushta rose and left her forthwith, with such a look of dire hatred and scorn that even the cold queen thought she had, perhaps, gone too far. There were other reasons why the king desired Zoroaster's return. He had often wondered secretly how the man could so have injured Nehushta as to turn her love into hate in a few moments; but he had never questioned her. It was a subject neither of them could have approached, and Darius was far too happy in his marriage to risk endangering that happiness by any untoward discovery. Nehushta's grief and anger had been so genuine when she told him of Zoroaster's treachery that it had never occurred to him that he might be injuring the latter in marrying the princess, though his generous heart had told him more than once, that Nehushta had married him half from gratitude for his kindness, and half out of anger with her false lover; but, capricious as she was in all other things, towards the king she was always the same, gentle and affectionate, though there was nothing passionate in her love. And now, the idea of seeing the man who had betrayed her installed in an official position in the palace, was terrible to her pride. She could not sleep for thinking how she should meet him, and what she should do. She grew pale and hollow-eyed with the anticipation of evil and all her peace went from her. Deep down in her heart there was yet a clinging affection for the old love, which she smothered and choked down bravely; but it was there nevertheless, a sleeping giant, ready to rise and overthrow her whole nature in a moment, if only she could wash away the stain of faithlessness which sullied his fair memory, and lift the load of dishonour which had crushed him from the sovereign place he had held in the dominion of her soul. Darius was himself curious to ascertain the truth about Zoroaster's conduct. But another and a weightier reason existed for which he wished him to return. The king was disturbed about a matter of vital importance to his kingdom, and he knew that, among all his subjects, there was not one more able to give him assistance and advice than Zoroaster, the pupil of the dead prophet Daniel. The religion of the kingdom was of a most uncertain kind. So many changes had passed over the various provinces which made up the great empire that, for generations, there had been almost a new religion for every monarch. Cyrus, inclining to the idolatry of the Phoenicians, had worshipped the sun and moon, and had built temples and done sacrifice to them and to a multitude of deities. Cambyses had converted the temples of his father into places of fire-worship, and had burnt thousands of human victims; rejoicing in the splendour of his ceremonies and in the fierce love of blood that grew upon him as his vices obtained the mastery over his better sense. But under both kings the old Aryan worship of the Magians had existed among the people, and the Magians themselves had asserted, whenever they dared, their right to be considered the priestly caste, the children of the Brahmins of the Aryan house. Gomata--the false Smerdis--was a Brahmin, at least in name, and probably in descent; and during his brief reign the only decrees he issued from his retirement in the palace of Shushan, were for the destruction of the existing temples and the establishment of the Magian worship throughout the kingdom. When Darius had slain Smerdis, he naturally proceeded to the destruction of the Magi, and the streets of Shushan ran with their blood for many days. He then restored the temples and the worship of Auramazda, as well as he was able; but it soon became evident that the religion was in a disorganised state and that it would be no easy matter to enforce a pure monotheism upon a nation of men who, in their hearts, were Magians, nature-worshippers; and who, through successive reigns, had been driven by force to the adoration of strange idols. It followed that the people resisted the change and revolted whenever they could find a leader. The numerous revolutions, which cost Darius no less than nineteen battles, were, almost without exception, brought about in the attempt to restore the Magian worship in various provinces of the kingdom, and it may well be doubted whether, at any time in the world's history, an equal amount of blood was ever shed in so short a period in the defence of religious convictions. Darius himself was a man who had the strongest belief in the power of Auramazda, the All-Wise God, and who did not hesitate to attribute all the evil in the world to Ahriman, the devil. He had a bitter contempt for all idolatry, nature-worship and superstition generally, and he adhered in his daily life to the simple practices of the ancient Mazdayashnians. But he was totally unfitted to be the head of a religious movement; and, although he had collected such of the priesthood as seemed most worthy, and had built them temples and given them privileges of all kinds, he was far from satisfied with their mode of worship. He could not frame a new doctrine, but he had serious doubts whether the ceremonies his priests performed were as simple and religious as he wished them to be. The chants, long hymns of endless repetition and monotony, were well enough, perhaps; the fire that was kept burning perpetually was a fitting emblem of the sleepless wisdom and activity of the Supreme Being in overcoming darkness with light. But the boundless intoxication into which the priests threw themselves by the excessive drinking of the Haoma, the wild and irregular acts of frenzy by which they expressed their religious fervour when under the influence of the subtle drink, were adjuncts to the simple purity of the bloodless sacrifice which disgusted the king, and he hesitated long as to some reform in these matters. The oldest Mazdayashnians declared that the drinking of Haoma was an act, at once pleasing to God and necessary to stimulate the zeal of the priests in the long and monotonous chanting, which would otherwise soon sink to a mere perfunctory performance of a wearisome task. The very repetition which the hymns contained seemed to prove that they were not intended to be recited by men not under some extraordinary influence. Only the wild madness of the Haoma drinker could sustain such an endless series of repeated prayers with fitting devotion and energy. All this the king heard and was not satisfied. He attended the ceremonies with becoming regularity and sat through the performance of the rites with exemplary patience. But he was disgusted, and he desired a reform. Then he remembered how Zoroaster himself was a good Mazdayashnian, and how he had occupied himself with religious studies from his youth up, and how he had enjoyed the advantage of being the companion of Daniel, the Hebrew governor, whose grand simplicity of faith had descended, to some degree, upon his pupil. The Hebrews, Darius knew, were a sober people of the strongest religious convictions, and he had heard that, although eating formed, in some way, a part of their ceremonies, there was no intoxication connected with their worship. Zoroaster, he thought, would be able to give him advice upon this point, which would be good. In sending for the man he would fulfil the double purpose of seeming to grant the queen's request, and at the same time, of providing himself with a sage counsellor in his difficulties. With his usual impetuosity, he at once fulfilled his purpose, assuring himself that Zoroaster must have forgotten Nehushta by this time, and that he, the king, was strong enough to prevent trouble if he had not. But many days passed, and though the proclamation was sent to all parts of the kingdom, nothing was heard of Zoroaster. His retreat was a sure one and there was no possibility of his being found. Atossa, who in her heart longed for Zoroaster's return, both because by his means she hoped to bring trouble upon Nehushta, and because she still felt something akin to love for him, began to fear that he might be dead, or might have wandered out of the kingdom; but Nehushta herself knew not whether to hope that he would return, or to rejoice that she was to escape the ordeal of meeting him. She would have given anything to see him for a moment, to decide, as it were, whether she wished to see him, or not. She was deeply disturbed by the anxiety she felt and longed to know definitely what she was to expect. She began to hate Stakhar with its splendid gardens and gorgeous colonnades, with its soft southern air that blew across the valley of roses all day long, wafting up a wondrous perfume to the south windows. She hated the indolent pomp in which she lived and the idle luxury of her days. Something in her hot-blooded Hebrew nature craved for the blazing sun and the sand-wastes of Syria, for the breath of the desert and for the burning heat of the wilderness. She had scarcely ever seen these things, for she had sojourned during the one-and-twenty years of her life, in the most magnificent palaces of the kingdom, and amid the fairest gardens the hand of man could plant. But the love of the sun and of the sand was bred in the blood. She began to hate the soft cushions and the delicate silks and the endless flowers scenting the heavy air. Stakhar[8] itself was a mighty fortress, in the valley of the Araxes, rising dark and forbidding from the banks of the little river, crowned with towers and turrets and massive battlements, that overlooked the fertile extent of gardens, as a stern schoolmaster frowning over a crowd of fair young children. But Darius had chosen the site of his palace at some distance from the stronghold; where the river bent suddenly round a spur of the mountain, and watered a wider extent of land. The spur of the hill ran down, by an easy gradation, into the valley; and beyond it the hills separated into the wide plain of Merodasht that stretched southward many farsangs to the southern pass. Upon this promontory the king had caused to be built a huge platform which was ascended by the broadest flight of steps in the whole world, so easy of gradation that a man might easily have ridden up and then down again without danger to his horse. Upon the platform was raised the palace, a mighty structure resting on the vast columned porticoes and halls, built entirely of polished black marble, that contrasted strangely with the green slopes of the hills above and with the bright colours of the rose-gardens. Endless buildings rose behind the palace, and stretched far down towards the river below it. Most prominent of those above was the great temple of Auramazda, where the ceremonies were performed which gave Darius so much anxiety. It was a massive, square building, lower than the palace, consisting of stone walls surrounded by a deep portico of polished columns. It was not visible from the great staircase, being placed immediately behind the palace and hidden by it. [Footnote 8: Istakhar, called since the conquest of Alexander, Persepolis.] The walls and the cornices and the capitals of the pillars were richly sculptured with sacrificial processions, and long trains of soldiers and captives, with great inscriptions of wedge-shaped letters, and with animals of all sorts. The work was executed by Egyptian captives; and so carefully was the hard black marble carved and polished, that a man could see his face in the even surfaces, and they sent back the light like dark mirrors. The valley above Stakhar was grand in its great outlines of crags and sharp, dark peaks, and the beetling fortress upon its rocky base, far up the gorge, seemed only a jutting fragment of the great mountain, thrown off and separated from the main chain by an earthquake, or some vast accident of nature. But from the palace itself the contrast of the views was great. On one side, the rugged hills, crag-crowned and bristling black against the north-western sky; on the other, the great bed of rose-gardens and orangeries and cultivated enclosures filled the plain, till in the dim distance rose the level line of the soft blue southern hills, blending mistily in the lazy light of a far-off warmth. It seemed as though on one side of the palace were winter, and on the other summer; on the one side cold, and on the other heat; on the one side rough strength, and on the other gentle rest. But Nehushta gazed northward and was weary of the cold, and southward, and she wearied of the heat. There was nothing--nothing in it all that was worth one moment of the old sweet moonlit evenings among the myrtles at Ecbatana. When she thought, there was nothing of all her royal state and luxury that she would not readily give to have had Zoroaster remain faithful to her. She had put him away from her heart, driven him out utterly, as she believed; but now that he was spoken of again, she knew not whether she loved him a little in spite of all his unfaithfulness, or whether it was only the memory of the love she had felt before which stirred in her breast, and made her unconsciously speak his name when she was alone. She looked back over the three years that were passed, and she knew that she had done her duty by the king. She knew also that she had done it willingly, and that there had been many moments when she said to herself that she loved Darius dearly. Indeed, it was not hard to find a reason for loving him, for he was brave and honest and noble in all his thoughts and ways; and whatever he had been able to do to show his love for Nehushta, he had done. It was not the least of the things that had made her life pass so easily, that she felt daily how she was loved before her rival, and how, in her inmost heart, Atossa chafed at seeing Darius forsake her society for that of the Hebrew princess. If the king had wearied of her, Nehushta would very likely have escaped from the palace, and gone out to face any misfortunes the world might hold for her, rather than remain to bear the scoffing of the fair smiling woman she so hated. Or, she would have stolen in by night to where Atossa slept, and the wicked-looking Indian knife she wore, would have gone down, swift and sure, to the very haft, into the queen's heart. She would not have borne tamely any slight upon her beauty or her claims. But, as it was, she reigned supreme. The king was just, and showed no difference in the state and attendance of the two queens, but it was to Nehushta he turned, when he drank deep at the banquet and pledged the loving cup. It was to Nehushta that he went when the cares of state were heavy and he needed counsel; and it was upon her lap he laid his weary head, when he had ridden far and fast for many days, returning from some hard-fought field. But the queens hated each other with a fierce hatred, and when Darius was absent, their divisions broke out sometimes into something like open strife. Their guards buffeted each other in the courts, and their slave-women tore out each other's hair upon the stairways. Then, when the king returned, there reigned an armed peace for a time, which none dared break. But rumours of the disturbances that had taken place often reached the royal ears, and Darius was angry and swore great oaths, but could do nothing; being no wiser than many great men who have had to choose between the caprices of two women who hated each other. Now the rumour went abroad that Zoroaster would return to the court; and for a space, the two queens kept aloof, for both knew that if he came back, some mortal conflict would of necessity arise between them; and each watched the other, and was cautious. The days passed by, but no one answered the proclamation. No one had seen or heard of Zoroaster, since the night when he left the palace at Shushan. He had taken nothing with him, and had left no trace behind to guide the search. Many said he had left the kingdom; some said he was dead in the wilderness. But Nehushta sighed and took little rest, for do what she would, she had hoped to see him once more. CHAPTER XV. The interior of the temple was lighted with innumerable lamps, suspended from the ceiling, of bronze and of the simplest workmanship, like everything which pertained to the worship of Auramazda. In the midst, upon a small altar of black stone, stood a bronze brazier, shaped like a goblet, wherein a small fire of wood burned quietly, sending up little wreaths of smoke, which spread over the flat ceiling and hung like a mist about the lamps; before the altar lay a supply of fuel--fine, evenly-cut sticks of white pine-wood, piled in regular order in a symmetrical heap. At one extremity of the oblong hall stood a huge mortar of black marble, having a heavy wooden pestle, and standing upon a circular base, in which was cut a channel all around, with an opening in the front from which the Haoma juice poured out abundantly when the fresh milkweed was moistened and pounded together in the mortar. A square receptacle of marble received the fluid, which remained until it had fermented during several days, and had acquired the intoxicating strength for which it was prized, and to which it owed its sacred character. By the side of this vessel, upon a low marble table, lay a huge wooden ladle; and two golden cups, short and wide, but made smaller in the middle like a sand-glass, stood there also. At the opposite end of the temple, before a marble screen which shielded the doorway, was placed a great carved chair of ebony and gold and silver, raised upon a step above the level of the floor. It was already dark when the king entered the temple, dressed in his robes of state, with his sword by his side, his long sceptre tipped with the royal sphere in his right hand, and the many-pointed crown upon his head. His heavy black beard had grown longer in the three years that had passed, and flowed down over his vest of purple and white half-way to his belt. His face was stern, and the deep lines of his strong features had grown more massive in outline. With the pride of every successive triumph had come also something more of repose and conscious power. His step was slower, and his broad brown hand grasped the golden sceptre with less of nervous energy and more unrelenting force. But his brows were bent, and his expression, as he took his seat before the screen, over against the altar of the fire, was that of a man who was prepared to be discontented and cared little to conceal what he felt. After him came the chief priest, completely robed in white, with a thick, white linen sash rolled for a girdle about his waist, the fringed ends hanging stiffly down upon one side. Upon his head he wore a great mitre, also of white linen, and a broad fringed stole of the same material fell in two wide bands from each side of his neck to his feet. His beard was black and glossy, fine as silk, and reached almost to his waist. He came and stood with his back to the king and his face to the altar, ten paces from the second fire. Then, from behind the screen and from each side of it, the other priests filed out, two and two, all clad in white like the chief priest, save that their mitres were smaller and they wore no stole. They came out and ranged themselves around the walls of the temple, threescore and nine men, of holy order, trained in the ancient chanting of the Mazdayashnian hymns; men in the prime and strength of life, black-bearded and broad-shouldered, whose massive brows and straight features indicated noble powers of mind and body. The two who stood nearest to the chief priest came forward, and taking from his hands a square linen cloth he bore, bound it across his mouth and tied it behind his neck in a firm knot by means of strings. Then, one of them put into his left hand a fan of eagles' feathers, and the other gave him a pair of wrought-iron pincers. Then they left him to advance alone to the altar. He went forward till he was close to the bronze brazier, and stooping down, he took from the heap of fuel a clean white stick, with the pincers, which he carefully laid upon the fire. Then with his left hand he gently fanned the flames, and his mouth being protected by the linen cloth in such a manner that his breath could not defile the sacred fire, he began slowly and in a voice muffled by the bandage he wore, to recite the beginning of the sacrificial hymn: _"Best of all goods is purity. Glory, glory to him Who is best and purest in purity. For he who ruleth from purity, he abideth according to the will of the Lord. The All-Wise giveth gifts for the works which man doeth in the world for the Lord. He who protecteth the poor giveth the kingdom to Ahura."_[9] [Footnote 9: Probably the oldest hymns in the Avesta language.] Then all the priests repeated the verses together in chorus, their voices sounding in a unison which, though not precisely song, seemed tending to a musical cadence as the tones rose and fell again upon the last two syllables of each verse. And then again, the chief priest and the other priests together repeated the hymn, many times, in louder and louder chorus, with more and more force of intonation; till the chief priest stepped back from the fire, and delivering up the pincers and the fan, allowed the two assistants to unbind the cloth from his mouth. He walked slowly up the temple on the left side, and keeping his right hand toward the altar, he walked seven times around it, repeating a hymn alone in low tones; till, after the seventh time, he went up to the farther end of the hall, and stood before the black marble trough in which the fermented Haoma stood ready, having been prepared with due ceremony three days before. Then, in a loud voice, he intoned the chant in praise of Zaothra and Bareshma, holding high in his right hand the bundle of sacred stalks; which he, from time to time, moistened a little in the water from a vessel which stood ready, and sprinkled to the four corners of the temple. The priests again took up the strain in chorus, repeating over and over the burden of the song. _"Zaothra, I praise thee and desire thee with praise! Bareshma, I praise thee and desire thee with praise! Zaothra, with Bareshma united, I praise you and desire you with praise! Bareshma, with Zaothra united, I praise you and desire you with praise!"_ Suddenly the chief priest laid down the Bareshma, and seizing one of the golden goblets, filled it, with the wooden ladle, from the dark receptacle of the juice. As he poured it high, the yellow light of the lamp caught the transparent greenish fluid, and made it sparkle strangely. He put the goblet to his lips and drank. The king, sitting in silence upon his carved throne at the other extremity of the temple, bent his brows in a dark frown as he saw the hated ceremony begin. He knew how it ended, and grand as the words were which they would recite when the subtle fluid had fired their veins, he loathed to see the intoxication that got possession of them; and the frenzy with which they howled the sacred strains seemed to him to destroy the solemnity and dignity of a hymn, in which all that was solemn and high would otherwise have seemed to be united. The chief priest drank and then, filling both goblets, gave them to the priests at his right and left hand; who, after drinking, passed each other, and made way for those next them; and so the whole number filed past the Haoma vessel and drank their share till they all had changed places, and those who had stood upon the right, now stood upon the left; and those who were first upon the left hand, were now upon the right. And when all had drunk, the chief priest intoned the great hymn of praise, and all the chorus united with him in high, clear tones: _"The All-Wise Creator, Ahura Mazda, the greatest, the best, the most fair in glory and majesty," "The mightiest in his strength, the wisest in his wisdom, the holiest in his holiness, whose power is of all power the fairest," "Who is very wise, who maketh all things to rejoice afar," "Who hath made us and formed us, who hath saved us, the holiest among the heavenly ones," "Him I adore and praise, unto him I declare the sacrifice, him I invite," "I declare the sacrifice to the Protector, the Peace-maker, who maketh the fire to burn, who preserveth the wealth of the earth; the whole earth and the wisdom thereof, the seas and the waters, the land and all growing things, I invite to the sacrifice." "Cattle and living things, and the fire of Ahura, the sure helper, the lord of the archangels," "The nights and the days, I call upon, the purity of all created light," "The Lord of light, the sun in his glory, glorious in name and worthy of honour," "Who giveth food unto men, and multiplieth the cattle upon the earth, who causeth mankind to increase, I call upon and invite to the sacrifice," "Water, and the centre of all waters, given and made of God, that refresheth all things and maketh all things to grow, I call upon and invite." "The souls of the righteous and pure, the whole multitude of living men and women upon earth, I call upon and invite." "I call upon the triumph and the mighty strength of God," "I call upon the archangels who keep the world, upon the months, upon the pure, new moon, the lordship of purity in heaven," "I call upon the feasts of the years and the seasons, upon the years and the months and days," "I call upon the star Ahura,[10] and upon the one great and eternal in purity, and upon all the stars, the works of God," "Upon the star Tistrya I call, the far-shining, the magnificent--upon the fair moon that shineth upon the young cattle, upon the glorious sun swift in the race of his flight, the eye of the Lord." "I call upon the spirits and souls of the righteous, on the fire-begotten of the Lord, and upon all fires." "Mountains and all hills, lightened and full of light." "Majesty of kingly honour, the Majesty of the king which dieth not, is not diminished," "All wisdom and blessings and true promises, all men who are full of strength and power and might," "All places and lands and countries beneath the heavens, and above the heavens, light without beginning, existing, and without end," "All creatures pure and good, male and female upon the earth." "All you I invite and call upon to the sacrifice." "Havani, pure, lord of purity!" "Shavanghi, pure, lord of purity!" "Rapithwina, pure, lord of purity!" "Uzayêirina, pure, lord of purity!" "Aiwishruthrema, Aibigaya, pure, lord of purity!" "Ushahina, pure, lord of purity!" "To Havani, Shavanghi and Vishya, the pure, the lords of purity most glorious, be honour and prayer and fulfilment and praise." "To the days, and the nights, and the hours, the months and the years and the feasts of years, be honour and prayer and fulfilment and praise before Auramazda, the All-Wise, for ever and ever and ever."_[11] [Footnote 10: Ahura, Jupiter. Tistrya, Sirius.] [Footnote 11: Partly a translation, partly a close imitation in a condensed form of Yashna I.] As the white-robed priests shouted the verses of the long hymn, their eyes flashed and their bodies moved rhythmically from side to side with an ever-increasing motion. From time to time, the golden goblets were filled with the sweet Haoma juice, and passed rapidly from hand to hand along the line, and as each priest drank more freely of the subtle fermented liquor, his eyes gained a new and more unnatural light, and his gestures grew more wild, while the whole body of voices rose together from an even and dignified chant to an indistinguishable discord of deafening yells. Ever more and more they drank, repeating the verses of the hymn without order or sequence. One man repeated a verse over and over again in ear-piercing shrieks, swaying his body to and fro till he dropped forward upon the ground, foaming at the mouth, his features distorted with a wild convulsion, and his limbs as rigid as stone. Here, a band of five locked their arms together, and, back to back, whirled madly round, screaming out the names of the archangels, in an indiscriminate rage of sound and broken syllables. One, less enduring than the rest, relaxed his hold upon his fellow's arm and fell headlong on the pavement, while the remaining four were carried on by the force of their whirling, and fell together against others who steadied themselves against the wall, swaying their heads and arms from side to side. Overthrown by the fall of their companions, these in their turn fell forward upon the others, and in a few moments, the whole company of priests lay grovelling one upon the other, foaming at the mouth, but still howling out detached verses of their hymn--a mass of raging, convulsed humanity, tearing each other in the frenzy of drunkenness, rolling over and over each otter in the twisted contortions of frenzied maniacs. The air grew thick with the smoke of the fire and of the lamps, and the unceasing, indescribable din of the hoarsely howling voices seemed to make the very roof rock upon the pillars that held it up, as though the stones themselves must go mad and shriek in the universal fury of sound. The golden goblets rolled upon the marble pavement, and the sweet green juice ran in slimy streams upon the floor. The high priest himself, utterly intoxicated and screaming with a voice like a wild beast in agony, fell backwards across the marble vase at the foot of the mortar and his hand and arm plashed into the dregs of the fermented Haoma. Never had the drunken frenzy reached such a point before. The king had sat motionless and frowning upon his seat until he saw the high priest fall headlong into the receptacle of the sacred Haoma. Then, with a groan, he laid his two hands upon the arms of his carved chair, and rose to his feet in utter disgust and horror. But, as he turned to go, he stood still and shook from head to foot, for he saw beside him a figure that might, at such a moment, have startled the boldest. A tall man of unearthly looks stood there, whose features he seemed to know, but could not recognise. His face was thin to emaciation, and his long, white hair fell in tangled masses, with his huge beard, upon his half-naked shoulders and bare chest. The torn, dark mantle he wore was falling to the ground as he faced the drunken herd of howling priests and lifted up his thin blanched arms and bony fingers, as though in protest at the hideous sight. His deep-set eyes were blue and fiery, flashing with a strange light. He seemed not to see Darius, but he gazed in deepest horror upon the writhing mass of bestial humanity below. Suddenly his arms shook, and standing there, against the dark marble screen, like the very figure and incarnation of fate, he spoke in a voice that, without effort, seemed to dominate the hideous din of yelling voices--a voice that was calm and clear as a crystal bell, but having that in it which carried instantly the words he spoke to the ears of the very most besotted wretch that lay among the heaps upon the floor--a voice that struck like a sharp steel blade upon iron. "I am the prophet of the Lord. Hold ye your peace." As a wild beast's howling suddenly diminishes and grows less and dies away to silence, when the hunter's arrow has sped close to the heart with a mortal wound, so in one moment, the incoherent din sank down, and the dead stillness that followed was dreadful by contrast. Darius stood with his hand upon the arm of his chair, not understanding the words of the fearful stranger; still less the mastering power those words had upon the drunken priests. But his courage did not desert him, and he feared not to speak. "How sayest thou that thou art a prophet? Who art thou?" he asked. "Thou knowest me and hast sent for me," answered the white-haired man, in his calm tones; but his fiery eyes rested on the king's, and Darius almost quailed under the glance. "I am Zoroaster; I am come to proclaim the truth to thee and to these miserable men, thy priests." The fear they felt had restored the frenzied men to their senses. One by one, they rose and crept back towards the high priest himself, who had struggled to his feet, and stood upon the basement of the mortar above all the rest. Then Darius looked, and he knew that it was Zoroaster, but he knew not the strange look upon his face, and the light in his eyes was not as the light of other days. He turned to the priests. "Ye are unworthy priests," he cried angrily, "for ye are drunk with your own sacrifice, and ye defile God's temple with unseemly cries. Behold this man--can ye tell me whether he be indeed a prophet?" Darius, whose anger was fast taking the place of the awe he had felt when he first saw Zoroaster beside him, strode a step forward, with his hand upon his sword-hilt, as though he would take summary vengeance upon the desecrators of the temple. "He is surely a liar!" cried the high priest from his position beyond the altar, as though hurling defiance at Zoroaster through the flames. "He is surely a liar!" repeated all the priests together, following their head. "He is a Magian, a worshipper of idols, a liar and the father of lies! Down with him! Slay him before the altar; destroy the unbeliever that entereth the temple of Ahura Mazda!" "Down with the Magian! Down with the idolater!" cried the priests, and moved forward in a body toward the thin white-haired man who stood facing them, serene and high. Darius drew his short sword and rushed before Zoroaster to strike down the foremost of the priests. But Zoroaster seized the keen blade in the air as though it had been a reed, and wrenched it from the king's strong grip, and broke it in pieces like glass, and cast the fragments at his feet. Darius staggered back in amazement, and the herd of angry men, in whose eyes still blazed the drunkenness of the Haoma, huddled together for a moment like frightened sheep. "I have no need of swords," said Zoroaster, in his cold, clear voice. Then the high priest cried aloud, and ran forward and seized a brand from the sacred fire. "It is Angramainyus, the Power of Evil," he yelled fiercely. "He is come to fight with Auramazda in his temple! But the fire of the Lord shall destroy him!" As the priest rushed upon him, with the blazing brand raised high to strike, Zoroaster faced him and fixed his eyes upon the angry man. The priest suddenly stood still, his hand in mid-air, and the stout piece of burning wood fell to the floor, and lay smouldering and smoking upon the pavement. "Tempt not the All-Wise Lord, lest he destroy thee," said Zoroaster solemnly. "Harken, ye priests, and obey the word from heaven. Take the brazier from your altar, and scatter the embers upon the floor, for the fire is defiled." Silent and trembling, the priests obeyed, for they were afraid; but the high priest stood looking in amazement upon Zoroaster. When the brazier was gone, and the coals were scattered out upon the pavement, and the priests had trodden out the fire with their leathern shoes, Zoroaster went to the black marble altar, and faced the east, looking towards the stone mortar at the end. He laid his long, thin hands upon the flat surface and drew them slowly together; and, in the sight of the priests, a light sprang up softly between his fingers; gradually at first, then higher and higher, till it stood like a blazing spear-head in the midst, emitting a calm, white effulgence that darkened the lamps overhead, and shed an unearthly whiteness on Zoroaster's white face. He stepped back from the altar, and a low murmur of astonishment rose from all the crowd of white-robed men. Darius stood in silent wonder, gazing alternately upon the figure of Zoroaster, and upon the fragments of his good sword that lay scattered upon the pavement. Zoroaster looked round upon the faces of the priests with blazing eyes: "If ye be true priests of Ahura Mazda, raise with me the hymn of praise," he said. "Let it be heard in the heavens, and let it echo beyond the spheres!" Then his voice rose calm and clear above all the others, and lifting up his eyes and hands, he intoned the solemn chant: _"He, who by truth ruleth in purity, abideth according to the will of the Lord." "The Lord All-Wise is the giver of gifts to men for the works which men in the world shall do in the truth of the Lord." "He who protecteth the poor giveth the kingdom to God." "Best of all earthly goods is truth." "Glory, glory on high for ever to him who is best in heaven, and truest in truth on earth!"_ Zoroaster's grand voice rang out, and all the priests sang melodiously together; and upon the place which had been the scene of such frenzy and fury and drunkenness, there descended a peace as holy and calm as the quiet flame that burned without fuel upon the black stone in the midst. One by one, the priests came and fell at Zoroaster's feet; the chief priest first of all. "Thou art the prophet and priest of the Lord," each said, one after another. "I acknowledge thee to be the chief priest, and I swear to be a true priest with thee." And last of all, the king, who had stood silently by, came and would have kneeled before Zoroaster. But Zoroaster took his hands, and they embraced. "Forgive me the wrong I did thee, Zoroaster," said Darius. "For thou art a holy man, and I will honour thee as thou wast not honoured before." "Thou hast done me no wrong," answered Zoroaster. "Thou hast sent for me, and I am come to be thy faithful friend, as I swore to thee, long ago, in the tent at Shushan." Then they took Zoroaster's torn clothes, and they clad him in white robes and set a spotless mitre upon his head; and the king, for the second time, took his golden chain from his own neck, and put it about Zoroaster's shoulders. And they led him away into the palace. CHAPTER XVI. When it was known that Zoroaster had returned, there was some stir in the palace. The news that he was made high priest soon reached Nehushta's ears, and she wondered what change had come over him in three years that could have made a priest of such a man. She remembered him young and marvellously fair, a warrior at all points, though at the same time an accomplished courtier. She could not imagine him invested with the robes of priesthood, leading a chorus of singers in the chanting of the hymns. But it was not only as a chief priest that Darius had reinstalled Zoroaster in the palace. The king needed a counsellor and adviser, and the learned priest seemed a person fitted for the post. On the following day, Nehushta, as was her wont, went out, in the cool of the evening, to walk in the gardens, attended by her maidens, her fan-girls and the slaves who bore her carpet and cushions in case she wished to sit down. She walked languidly, as though she hardly cared to lift her delicate slippered feet from the smooth walk, and often she paused and plucked a flower, and all her train of serving-women stopped behind her, not daring even to whisper among themselves, for the young queen was in no gentle humour of mind. Her face was pale and her eyes were heavy, for she knew the man she had so loved in other days was near, and though he had so bitterly deceived her, the sound of his sweet promises was yet in her ears; and sometimes, in her dreams, she felt the gentle breath of his mouth upon her sleeping lips, and woke with a start of joy that was but the forerunner of a new sadness. Slowly she paced the walks of the rose-gardens, thinking of another place in the far north, where there had been roses, and myrtles too, upon a terrace where the moonlight was very fair. As she turned a sharp corner where the overhanging shrubbery darkened the declining light to a dusky shade, she found herself face to face with the man of whom she was thinking. His tall thin figure, clad in spotless white robes, seemed like a shadow in the gloom, and his snowy beard and hair made a strange halo about his young face, that was so thin and worn. He walked slowly, his hands folded together, and his eyes upon the ground; while a few paces behind him two young priests followed with measured steps, conversing in low tones, as though fearing to disturb the meditations of their master. Nehushta started a little and would have passed on, although she recognised the face of him she had loved. But Zoroaster lifted his eyes, and looked on her with so strange an expression that she stopped short in the way. The deep, calm light in his eyes awed her, and there was something in his majestic presence that seemed of another world. "Hail, Nehushta!" said the high priest quietly. But, at the sound of his voice, the spell was broken. The Hebrew woman lifted her head proudly, and her black eyes flashed again. "Greet me not," she answered, "for the greeting of a liar is like the sting of the serpent that striketh unawares in the dark." Zoroaster's face never changed, only his luminous eyes gazed on hers intently, and she paused again, as though riveted to the spot. "I lie not, nor have lied to thee ever," he answered calmly. "Go thou hence, ask her whom thou hatest, whether I have deceived thee. Farewell." He turned his gaze from her and passed slowly on, looking down to the ground, his hands folded before him. He left her standing in the way, greatly troubled and not understanding his saying. Had she not seen with her eyes how he held Atossa in his arms on that evil morning in Shushan? Had she not seen how, when he was sent away, he had written a letter to Atossa and no word to herself? Could these things which she had seen and known, be untrue? The thought was horrible--that her whole life had perhaps been wrecked and ruined by a mistake. And yet there was not any mistake, she repeated to herself. She had seen; one must believe what one sees. She had heard Atossa's passionate words of love, and had seen Zoroaster's arms go round her drooping body; one must believe what one sees and hears and knows! But there was a ringing truth in his voice just now when he said: "I lie not, nor have lied to thee ever." A lie--no, not spoken, but done; and the lie of an action is greater than the lie of a word. And yet, his voice sounded true just now in the dusk, and there was something in it, something like the ring of a far regret. "Ask her whom thou hatest," he had said. That was Atossa. There was no other woman whom she hated--no man save him. She had many times asked herself whether or no she loved the king. She felt something for him that she had not felt for Zoroaster. The passionate enthusiasm of the strong, dark warrior sometimes carried her away and raised her with it; she loved his manliness, his honesty, his unchanging constancy of purpose. And yet Zoroaster had had all these, and more also, though they had shown themselves in a different way. She looked back and remembered how calm he had always been, how utterly superior in his wisdom. He seemed scarcely mortal, until he had one day fallen--and fallen so desperately low in her view, that she loathed the memory of that feigned calmness and wisdom and parity. For it must have been feigned. How else could he have put his arms about Atossa, and taken her head upon his breast, while she sobbed out words of love? But if he loved Atossa, she loved him as well. She said so, cried it aloud upon the terrace where any one might have heard it. Why then had he left the court, and hidden himself so long in the wilderness? Why, before going out on his wanderings, had he disguised himself, and gone and stood where the procession passed, and hissed out a bitter insult as Nehushta went by? For her sake he had abandoned his brilliant life these three years, to dwell in the desert, to grow so thin and miserable of aspect that he looked like an old man. And his hair and beard were white--she had heard that a man might turn white from sorrow in a day. Was it grief that had so changed him? Grief to see her wedded to the king before his eyes? His voice rang so true: "Ask her whom thou hatest," he had said. In truth she would ask. It was all too inexplicable, and the sudden thought that she had perhaps wronged him three long years ago--even the possibility of the thought that seemed so little possible to her yesterday--wrought strangely in her breast, and terrified her. She would ask Atossa to her face whether Zoroaster had loved her. She would tell how she had seen them together upon the balcony, and heard Atossa's quick, hot words. She would threaten to tell the king; and if the elder queen refused to answer truth, she would indeed tell him and put her rival to a bitter shame. She walked more quickly upon the smooth path, and her hands wrung each other, and once she felt the haft of that wicked Indian knife she ever wore. When she turned back and went up the broad steps of the palace, the moon was rising above the far misty hills to eastward, and there were lights beneath the columned portico. She paused and looked back across the peaceful valley, and far down below, a solitary nightingale called out a few melancholy notes, and then burst forth into glorious song. Nehushta turned again to go in, and there were tears in her dark eyes, that had not stood there for many a long day. But she clasped her hands together, and went forward between the crouching slaves, straight to Atossa's apartment. It was not usual for any one to gain access to the eider queen's inner chambers without first obtaining permission, from Atossa herself, and Nehushta had never been there. They met rarely in public, and spoke little, though each maintained the appearances of courtesy; but Atossa's smile was the sweeter of the two. In private they never saw each other; and the queen's slaves would perhaps have tried to prevent Nehushta from entering, but her black eyes flashed upon them in such dire wrath as she saw them before her, that they crouched away and let her pass on unmolested. Atossa sat, as ever at that hour in her toilet-chamber, surrounded by her tirewomen. The room was larger than the one at Shushan, for she had caused it to be built after her own plans; but her table was the same as ever, and upon it stood the broad silver mirror, which she never allowed to be left behind when she travelled. Her magnificent beauty had neither changed nor faded in three years. Such strength as hers was not to be broken, nor worn out, by the mere petty annoyances of palace life. She could sustain the constant little warfare she waged against the king, without even so much as looking careworn and pale for a moment, though the king himself often looked dark and weary, and his eyes were heavy with sleeplessness for the trouble she gave him. Yet he could new determine to rid himself of her, even when he began to understand the profound badness of her character. She exercised a certain fascination over him, as a man grows fond of some beautiful, wicked beast he has half-tamed, though it turn and show its teeth at him sometimes, and be altogether more of a care than a pastime. She was so fair and evil that he could not hurt her; it would have seemed a crime to destroy anything so wondrously made. Moreover, she could amuse him and make many an hour pass pleasantly when she was so disposed. She was fully attired for the banquet that was to take place late in the evening, but her women were still about her, and she looked at herself critically in the mirror, and would have changed the pinning of her tiara, so that her fair hair should fall forward upon one side, instead of backwards over her shoulder. She tried the effect of the change upon her face, and peered into the mirror beneath the bright light of the tall lamps; when, on a sudden, as she looked, she met the reflection of two angry dark eyes, and she knew that Nehushta was behind her. She rose to her feet, turning quickly, and the sweep of her long robe overthrew the light carved chair upon the marble floor. She faced Nehushta with a cold smile that betrayed surprise at being thus interrupted in her toilet rather than any dread of the interview. Her delicate eyebrows arched themselves in something of scorn, but her voice came low and sweet as ever. "It is rarely indeed that the queen Nehushta deigns to visit her servant," she said. "Had she sent warning of her coming, she would have been more fittingly received." Nehushta stood still before her. She hated that cool, still voice that choked her like a tightening bow-string about her neck. "We have small need of court formalities," answered the Hebrew woman, shortly. "I desire to speak with you alone upon a matter of importance." "I am alone," returned Atossa, seating herself upon the carved chair, which one of the slaves had instantly set up again, and motioning to Nehushta to be seated. But Nehushta glanced at the serving-women and remained standing. "You are not alone," she said briefly. "They are not women--they are slaves," answered Atossa, with a smile. "Will you not send them away?" "Why should I?" "You need not--I will," returned Nehushta. "Begone, and quickly!" she added, turning to the little group of women and slave-girls who stood together, looking on in wonder. At Nehushta's imperious command, they hurried through the door, and the curtains fell behind them. They knew Nehushta's power in the palace too well to hesitate to obey her, even in the presence of their own mistress. "Strange ways you have!" exclaimed Atossa, in a low voice. She was fiercely angry, but there was no change in her face. She dangled a little chain upon her finger, and tapped the ground with her foot as she sat. That was all. "I am not come here to wrangle with you about your slaves. They will obey me without wrangling. I met Zoroaster in the gardens an hour since." "By a previous arrangement, of course?" suggested Atossa, with a sneer. But her clear blue eyes fixed themselves upon Nehushta with a strange and deadly look. "Hold your peace and listen to me," said Nehushta in a fierce, low voice, and her slender hand stole to the haft of the knife by her side. Atossa was a brave woman, false though she was; but she saw that the Hebrew princess had her in her power--she saw the knife and she saw the gleam in those black eyes. They were riveted on her face, and she grew grave and remained silent. "Tell me the truth," pursued Nehushta hurriedly. "Did Zoroaster love you three years ago--when I saw you in his arms upon the terrace the morning when he came back from Ecbatana?" But she little knew the woman with whom she had to deal. Atossa had found time in that brief moment to calculate her chances of safety. A weaker woman would have lied; but the fair queen saw that the moment had come wherein she could reap a rich harvest of vengeance upon her rival, and she trusted to her coolness and strength to deliver her if Nehushta actually drew the knife she wore. "I loved him," she said slowly. "I love him yet, and I hate you more than I love him. Do you understand?" "Speak--go on!" cried Nehushta, half breathless with anger. "I loved him, and I hated you. I hate you still," repeated the queen slowly and gravely. "The letter I had from him was written to you--but it was brought to me. Nay--be not so angry, it was very long ago. Of course you can murder me, if you please--you have me in your power, and you are but a cowardly Jew, like twenty of my slave-women. I fear you not. Perhaps you would like to hear the end?" Nehushta had come nearer and stood looking down at the beautiful woman, her arms folded before her. Atossa never stirred as Nehushta approached, but kept her eye steadily fixed on hers. Nehushta's arms were folded, and the knife hung below her girdle in its loose sheath. Atossa's white arm went suddenly out and laid hold of the haft, and the keen blue steel flashed out of its scabbard with a sheen like dark lightning on a summer's evening. Nehushta started back as she saw the sharp weapon in her enemy's hand. But Atossa laughed a low sweet laugh of triumph. "You shall hear the end now," she said, holding the knife firmly in her hand. "You shall not escape hearing the end now, and you shall not murder me with your Indian poisoner here." She laughed again as she glanced at the ugly curve of the dagger. "I was talking with Zoroaster," she continued, "when I saw you upon the stairs, and then--oh, it was so sweet! I cried out that he should never leave me again, and I threw my arms about his neck--his lordly neck that you so loved!--and I fell, so that he had to hold me up. And you saw him. Oh, it was sweet! It was the sweetest moment of my life when I heard you groan and hurry away and leave us! It was to hurt you that I did it--that I humbled my queenliness before him; but I loved him, though--and he, he your lover, whom you despised then and cast away for this black-faced king of ours--he thrust me from him, and pushed me off, and drove me weeping to my chamber, and he said he loved me not, nor wished my love. Ay, that was bitter, for I was ashamed--I who never was shamed of man or woman. But there was more sweetness in your torment than bitterness in my shame. He never knew you were there. He screamed out to you from the crowd in the procession his parting curse on your unfaithfulness and went out--but he nearly killed those two strong spearmen who tried to seize him. How strong he was then, how brave! What a noble lover for any woman! So tall and delicate and fair with all his strength! He never knew why you left him--he thought it was to wear the king's purple, to thrust a bit of gold in your hair! He must have suffered--you have suffered too--such delicious torture, I have often soothed myself to sleep with the thought of it. It is very sweet for me to see you lying there with my wound in your heart. It will rankle long; you cannot get it out--you are married to the king now, and Zoroaster has turned priest for love of you. I think even the king would hardly love you if he could see you now--you look so pale. I will send for the Chaldean physician--you might die. I should be sorry if you died, you could not suffer any more then. I could not give up the pleasure of hurting you--you have no idea how delicious it is. Oh, how I hate you!" Atossa rose suddenly to her feet, with flashing eyes. Nehushta, in sheer horror of such hideous cruelty, had fallen back against the door-post, and stood grasping the curtain with one hand while the other was pressed to her heart, as though to control the desperate agony she suffered. Her face was paler than the dead, and her long, black hair fell forward over her ghastly cheeks. "Shall I tell you more?" Atossa began again. "Should you like to hear more of the truth? I could tell you how the king----" But as she spoke, Nehushta threw up her hands and pressed them to her throbbing temples; and with a low wail, she turned and fled through the doorway between the thick curtains, that parted with her weight and fell together again when she had passed. "She will tell the king," said Atossa aloud, when she was gone. "I care not--but I will keep the knife," she added, laying the keen blade upon the table, amid the little instruments of her toilet. But Nehushta ran fast through the corridors and halls till she came to her slaves who had waited for her at the entrance to the queen's apartment. Then she seemed to recollect herself, and slackened her pace, and went on to her own chambers. But, her women saw her pale face, and whispered together as they cautiously followed her. She was wretched beyond all words. In a moment, her doubts and her fears had all been realised, and the stain of unfaithfulness had been washed from the memory of her lover. But it was too late to repent her hastiness. She had been married to Darius now for nearly three years, and Zoroaster was a man so changed that she would hardly have recognised him that evening, had she not known that he was in the palace. He looked more like the aged Daniel whom he had buried at Ecbatana than like the lordly warrior of three years ago. She wondered, as she thought of the sound of his voice in the, garden, how she could ever have doubted him, and the remembrance of his clear eyes was both bitter and sweet to her. She lay upon her silken pillows and wept hot tears for him she had loved long ago, for him and for herself--most of all for the pain she had made him suffer, for that bitter agony that had turned his young, fair locks to snowy white; she wept the tears for him that she could fancy he must have shed in those long years for her. She buried her face and sobbed aloud, so that even the black fan-girl who stood waving the long palm-leaf over her in the dim light of the bedchamber--even the poor black creature from the farther desert, whom her mistress did not half believe human, felt pity for the royal sorrow she saw, and took one hand from the fan to brush the tears from her small red eyes. Nehushta's heart was broken, and from that day none saw her smile. In one hour the whole misery of all possible miseries came upon her, and bowed her to the ground, and crushed out the life and the light of her nature. As she lay there, she longed to die, as she had never longed for anything while she lived, and she would have had small hesitation in killing the heart that beat with such agonising pain in her breast--saving that one thought prevented her. She cared not for revenge any more. What was the life of that cold, cruel thing, the queen, worth, that by taking it, she could gain comfort? But she felt and knew that, before she died, she must see Zoroaster once more, and tell him that she knew all the truth--that she knew he had not deceived her, and that she implored his forgiveness for the wrong she had done him. He would let her rest her head upon his breast and weep out her heartful of piteous sorrow once before she died. And then--the quiet stream of the Araxes flowed softly, cold and clear, among the rose-gardens below the palace. The kindly water would take her to its bosom, beneath the summer's moon, and the nightingales she loved would sing her a gentle good-night--good-night for ever, while the cool wave flowed over her weary breast and aching head. CHAPTER XVII. On the next day, in the cool of the evening, Nehushta walked again in the garden. But Zoroaster was not there. And for several days Nehushta came at that hour, and at other hours in the day, but found him not. She saw him indeed from time to time in public, but she had no opportunity of speaking with him as she desired. At last, she determined to send for him, and to see whether he would come, or not. She went out, attended only by two slaves; the one bearing a fan and the other a small carpet and a cushion--black women from the southern parts of Syria, towards Egypt, who would not understand the high Persian she would be likely to speak with Zoroaster, though her own Hebrew tongue was intelligible to them. When she reached a quiet spot, where one of the walks ended suddenly in a little circle among the rose-trees, far down from the palace, she had her carpet spread, and her cushion was placed upon it, and she wearily sat down. The fan-girl began to ply her palm-leaf, as much to cool the heated summer air as to drive away the swarms of tiny gnats which abounded in the garden. Nehushta rested upon one elbow, her feet drawn together upon the carpet of dark soft colours and waited a few minutes as though in thought. At last she seemed to have decided, and turned to the slave who had brought her cushion, as she stood at a little distance, motionless, her hands folded and hidden under the thickness of the broad sash that girded her tunic at the waist. "Go thou," said the queen, "and seek out the high priest Zoroaster, and bring him hither quickly." The black woman turned and ran like a deer down the narrow path, disappearing in a moment amongst the shrubbery. The breeze of the swinging fan blew softly on Nehushta's pale face and stirred the locks of heavy hair that fell from her tiara about her shoulders. Her eyes were half closed as she leaned back, and her lips were parted in a weary look of weakness that was new to her. Nearly an hour passed and the sun sank low, but Nehushta hardly stirred from her position. It seemed very long before she heard steps upon the walk--the quick soft step of the slave-woman running before, barefooted and fleet, and presently the heavier tread of a man's leather shoe. The slave stopped at the entrance to the little circle of rose-trees, and a moment later, Zoroaster strode forward, and stood still and made a deep obeisance, a few steps from Nehushta. "Forgive me that I sent for thee, Zoroaster," said the queen in quiet tones. But, as she spoke, a slight blush overspread her face, and relieved her deadly pallor. "Forgive me--I have somewhat to say which thou must hear." Zoroaster remained standing before her as she spoke, and his luminous eyes rested upon her quietly. "I wronged thee three years ago, Zoroaster," said the queen in a low voice, but looking up at him. "I pray thee, forgive me--I knew not what I did." "I forgave thee long ago," answered the high priest. "I did thee a bitter wrong--but the wrong I did myself was even greater. I never knew till I went and asked--her!" At the thought of Atossa, the Hebrew woman's eyes flashed fire, and her small fingers clenched upon her palm. But, in an instant, her sad, weary look returned. "That is all--if you forgive me," she said, and turned her head away. It seemed to her that there was nothing more to be said. He did not love her--he was far beyond love. "Now, by Ahura Mazda, I have indeed forgiven thee. The blessing of the All-Wise be upon thee!" Zoroaster bent again, as though to take his leave, and he would have gone from her. But when she heard his first footsteps, Nehushta raised herself a little and turned quickly towards him. It seemed as though the only light she knew were departing from her day. "You loved me once," she said, and stopped, with an appealing look on her pale face. It was very, weak of her; but oh! she was far spent with sorrow and grief. Zoroaster paused, and looked back upon her, very calmly, very gently. "Ay--I loved you once--but not now. There is no more love in the earth for me. But I bless you for the love you gave me." "I loved you so well," said Nehushta. "I love you still," she added, suddenly raising herself and gazing on him with a wild look in her eyes. "Oh, I love you still!" she cried passionately. "I thought I had put you away--forgotten you--trodden out your memory that I so hated I could not bear to hear your name! Ah! why did I do it, miserable woman that I am! I love you now--I love you--I love you with my whole heart--and it is too late!" She fell back upon her cushion, and covered her face with her hands, and her breast heaved with passionate, tearless sobbing. Zoroaster stood still, and a deep melancholy came over his beautiful, ethereal face. No regret stirred his breast, no touch of the love that had been waked his heart that slept for ever in the peace of the higher life. He would not have changed from himself to the young lover of three years ago, if he had been able. But he stood calm and sorrowful, as an angel from heaven gazing on the grief of the world--his thoughts full of sympathy for the pains of men, his soul still breathing the painless peace of the outer firmament whence he had come and whither he would return. "Nehushta," he said at last, seeing that her sobbing did not cease, "it is not meet that you should thus weep for anything that is past. Be comforted; the years of life are few, and you are one of the great ones of the earth. It is needful that all should suffer. Forget not that although your heart be heavy, you are a queen, and must bear yourself as a queen. Take your life strongly in your hands and live it. The end is not far and your peace is at hand." Nehushta looked up suddenly and grew very grave as he spoke. Her heavy eyes rested on his, and she sighed--but the sigh was still broken, by the trembling of her past sobs. "You, who are a priest and a prophet," she said,--"you, who read the heaven as it were a book--tell me, Zoroaster, is it not far? Shall we meet beyond the stars, as you used to tell me--so long ago?" "It is not far," he answered, and a gentle smile illuminated his pale face. "Take courage--for truly it is not far." He gazed into her eyes for a moment, and it seemed as though some of that steadfast light penetrated into her soul, for as he turned and went his way among the roses, a look of peace descended on her tired face, and she fell back upon her cushion and closed her eyes, and let the breeze of the palm-fan play over her wan cheeks and through her heavy hair. But Zoroaster returned into the palace, and he was very thoughtful. He had many duties to perform, besides the daily evening sacrifice in the temple, for Darius consulted him constantly upon many matters connected with the state; and on every occasion Zoroaster's keen foresight and knowledge of men found constant exercise in the development of the laws and statutes Darius was forming for his consolidated kingdom. First of all, the question of religion seemed to him of paramount importance; and here Zoroaster displayed all his great powers of organisation, as well as the true and just ideas he held upon the subject. Himself an ascetic mystic, he foresaw the danger to others of attempting to pursue the same course, or even of founding a system of mystical study. The object of mankind must be the welfare of mankind, and a set of priests who should shut themselves off from their fellow-men to pursue esoteric studies and to acquire knowledge beyond the reach of common humanity, must necessarily forget humanity itself in their effort to escape from it. The only possible scheme upon which a religion for the world could be based--especially for such a world as the empire of Darius--must be one where the broad principle of common good living stood foremost, and where the good of all humanity should be the good of each man's soul. The vast influence of Zoroaster's name grew day by day, as from the palace of Stakhar he sent forth priests to the various provinces, full of his own ideas, bearing with them a simple form of worship and a rigid rule of life, which the iron laws of Darius began at once to enforce to the letter. The vast body of existing hymns, of which many were by no means distinctly Mazdayashnian, were reduced to a limited number containing the best and purest; and the multifarious mass of conflicting caste practices, partly imported from India, and partly inherited by the pure Persians from the Aryan home in Sogdiana, was simplified and reduced to a plain rule. The endless rules of purification were cut down to simple measures of health; the varying practices in regard to the disposal of the dead were all done away with by a great royal edict commanding the building of Dakhmas, or towers of death, all over the kingdom; within which the dead were laid by persons appointed for the purpose, and which were cleansed by them, at stated intervals. Severe measures were taken to prevent the destruction of cattle, for there were evident signs of the decrease of the beasts of the field in consequence of the many internal wars that had waged of late; and special laws were provided for the safety of dogs, which were regarded, for all reasons, as the most valuable companions of men in those times, as a means of protection to the flocks in the wilderness, and as the scavengers and cleansers of the great cities. Human life was protected by the most rigorous laws, and the utmost attention was given to providing for the treatment of women of all classes. It would have been impossible to conceive a system better fitted to develop the resources of a semi-pastoral country, to preserve peace and to provide for the increasing wants and the public health of a multiplying people. As for the religious rites, they assumed a form and a character which made them seem like simplicity itself by the side of the former systems; and which, although somewhat complicated by the additions and alterations of a later and more superstitious, generation, have still maintained the noble and honourable characteristics imparted to them by the great reformer and compiler of the Mazdayashnian religion. The days flew quickly by, and Zoroaster's power grew apace. It was as though the whole court and kingdom had been but waiting for him to come and be the representative of wisdom and justice beside the conquering king, who had in so short a time reduced so many revolutions and fought so many fields in the consolidation of his empire. Zoroaster laid hold of all the existing difficulties with a master-hand. His years of retirement seemed to have given him the accumulated force of many men, and the effect of his wise measures was quickly felt in every quarter of the provinces; while his words went forth like fire in the mouths of the priests he sent from Stakhar. He had that strange and rare gift, whereby a man inspires in his followers the profoundest confidence and the greatest energy to the performance of his will. He would have overthrown a world had he found himself resisted and oppressed, but every one of his statutes and utterances was backed by the royal arms and enforced by decrees against which there was no appeal. In a few months his name was spoken wherever the Persian rule was felt, and spoken everywhere with a high reverence; in which there was no fear mixed, such as people felt when they mentioned the Great King, and added quickly: "May he live for ever!" In a few months the reform was complete, and the half-clad ascetic had risen by his own wisdom and by the power of circumstances into the chiefest position in all Persia. Loaded with dignities, treated as the next to the Great King in all things, wearing the royal chain of office over his white priest's robes, and sitting at the right hand of Darius at the feast, Zoroaster nevertheless excited no envy among the courtiers, nor encroached in any way upon their privileges. The few men whom Darius trusted were indeed rarely at Stakhar,--the princes who had conspired against Smerdis, and Hydarnes and a few of the chief officers of the army,--they were mostly in the various provinces, in command of troops and fortresses, actively employed in enforcing the measures the king was framing with Zoroaster, and which were to work such great changes in the destinies of the empire. But when any of the princes or generals were summoned to the court by the king and learned to know what manner of man this Zoroaster was, they began to love him and to honour him also, as all those did who were near him. And they went away, saying that never king had so wise and just a counsellor as he was, nor one so worthy of trust in the smallest as in the greatest things. But the two queens watched him, and watched his growing power, with different feelings. Nehushta scarcely ever spoke to him, but gazed at him from her sad eyes when none saw her; pondering over his prophecy that foretold the end so near at hand. She had a pride in seeing her old lover the strongest in the whole land, holding the destinies of the kingdom as in a balance; and it was a secret consolation to her to know that he had been faithful to her after all, and that it was for her sake that he had withdrawn into the desert and given himself to those meditations from which he had only issued to enjoy the highest power. And as she looked at him, she saw how he was much changed, and it hardly seemed as though in his body he were the same man she had so loved. Only when he spoke, and she heard the even, musical tones of his commanding voice, she sometimes felt the blood rise to her cheeks with the longing to hear once more some word of tender love, such as he had been used to speak to her. But though he often looked at her and greeted her ever kindly, his quiet, luminous eyes changed not when they gazed on her, nor was there any warmer touch of colour in the waxen whiteness of his face. His youth was utterly gone, as the golden light had faded from his hair. He was not like an old man--he was hardly like a man at all; but rather like some beautiful, strange angel from another world, who moved among men and spoke with them, but was not of them. She seemed to look upon a memory, to love the shadow cast on earth by a being that was gone. But she loved the memory and the shadow well, and month by month, as she gazed, she grew more wan and weary. It would not have been like Darius to take any notice of a trouble that did not present itself palpably before him and demand his attention. Nehushta scarcely ever spoke of Zoroaster, and when the king mentioned him to her, it was always in connection with affairs of state. She seemed cold and indifferent, and the hot-blooded soldier monarch no longer looked on Zoroaster as a possible rival. He had white hair--he was therefore an old man, out of all questions of love. But Darius was glad that the Hebrew queen never referred to former times, nor ever seemed to regret her old lover. Had he known of that night meeting in Atossa's toilet chamber, and of what Atossa had said then, his fury would probably have had no bounds. But he never knew. Nehushta was too utterly broken-hearted by the blow she had received to desire vengeance, and though she quietly scorned all intercourse with the woman who had injured her, she cared not to tell the king of the injury. It was too late. Had she known of the cruel deception that had been practised on her, one hour before she had married Darius, Atossa would have been in her grave these three years, and Nehushta would not have been queen. But the king knew none of these things, and rejoiced daily in the wisdom of his chief counsellor and in the favour Auramazda had shown in sending him such a man in his need. Meanwhile, Atossa's hatred grew apace. She saw with anger that her power of tormenting Nehushta was gone from her, that the spirit she had loved to torture was broken beyond all sensibility, and that the man who had scorned her love was grown greater than she. Against his wisdom and the king's activity, she could do little, and her strength seemed to spend itself in vain. Darius laughed mercilessly at her cunning objections to Zoroaster's reforms; and Zoroaster himself eyed hear coldly, and passed her by in silence when they met. She bethought herself of some scheme whereby to destroy Zoroaster's power by a sudden and violent shock; and for a time, she affected at more than usual serenity of manner, and her smile was sweeter than ever. If it were possible, she thought, to attract the king's attention and forces to some distant point, it would not be a difficult matter to produce a sudden rising or disturbance in Stakhar, situated as the place was upon the very extreme border of the kingdom, within a few hours' march across the hills from the uncivilised desert country, which was infested at that time with hostile and turbulent tribes. She had a certain number of faithful retainers at her command still, whom she could employ as emissaries in both directions, and in spite of the scene that had taken place at Shushan when Phraortes was brought to her by the king, she knew she could still command his services for a revolution. He was a Magian at heart, and hated the existing monarchy. He was rich and powerful, and unboundedly vain--he could easily be prevailed upon to accept the principality of Media as a reward for helping to destroy the Persian kingdom; and indeed the matter had been discussed between him and the queen long ago. Atossa revolved her scheme in her mind most carefully for two whole months, and at last she resolved to act. Eluding all vigilance of the king, and laughing to herself at the folly of Darius and Zoroaster in allowing her such liberty, she succeeded without much trouble in despatching a letter to Phraortes, inquiring whether her affairs were now in such a prosperous condition as to admit of their being extended. On the other hand, she sent a black slave she owned, with gifts, into the country of the barbarian tribes beyond the hills, to discover whether they could be easily tempted. This man she bribed with the promise of freedom and rich possessions, to undertake the dangerous mission. She knew him to be faithful, and able to perform the part he was to play. In less than two months Phraortes sent a reply, wherein he stated that the queen's affairs were so prosperous that they might with safety be extended as she desired, and that he was ready to undertake any improvements provided she sent him the necessary directions and instructions. The slave returned from the land of the dwellers in tents, with the information that they were numerous as the sands of the sea, riding like the whirlwinds across the desert, keen as a race of eagles for prey, devouring as locusts spreading over a field of corn, and greedy as jackals upon the track of a wounded antelope. Nothing but the terror of the Great King's name restrained them within their boundaries; which they would leave at a moment's notice, as allies of any one who would pay them. They dwelt mostly beyond the desert to eastward in the low hill country; and they shaved their beards and slept with their horses in their tents. They were more horrible to look upon than the devils of the mountains, and fiercer than wolves upon the mountain paths. Allowing for the imagery of her slave's account, Atossa comprehended that the people described could be easily excited to make a hostile descent upon the southern part of the kingdom, and notably upon the unprotected region about Stakhar, where the fortress could afford shelter to a handful of troops and fugitives, but could in no wise defend the whole of the fertile district from a hostile incursion. Atossa spent much time in calculating the distance from the palace to the fortress, and she came to the conclusion that a body of persons moving with some encumbrance might easily reach the stronghold in half a day. Her plan was a simple one, and easy of execution; though there was no limit to the evil results its success might have upon the kingdom. She intended that a revolution should break out in Media, not under the leadership of Phraortes, lest she herself should perish, having been already suspected of complicity with him. But a man could be found--some tool of her powerful agent, who could be readily induced to set himself up as a pretender to the principality of the province, and he could easily be crushed at a later period by Phraortes, who would naturally furnish the money and supplies for the insurrection. As soon as the news reached Stakhar, Darius would, in all probability, set out for Media in haste to arrive at the scene of the disturbance. He would probably leave Zoroaster behind to manage the affairs of state, which had centred in Stakhar during the last year and more. If, however, he took him with him, and left the court to follow on as far as Shushan, Atossa could easily cause an incursion of the barbarous tribes from the desert. The people of the south would find themselves abandoned by the king, and would rise against him, and Atossa could easily seize the power. If Zoroaster remained behind, the best plan would be to let the barbarians take their own course and destroy him. Separated from any armed force of magnitude sufficient to cope with a sudden invasion, he would surely fall in the struggle, or take refuge in an ignominious flight. With the boldness of her nature, Atossa trusted to circumstances to provide her with an easy escape for herself; and in the last instance, she trusted, as she had ever done, to her marvellous beauty to save her from harm. To her beauty alone she owed her escape from many a fit of murderous anger in the time of Cambyses, and to her beauty she owed her salvation when Darius found her at Shushan, the wife and accomplice of the impostor Smerdis. She might again save herself by that means, if by no other, should she, by any mischance, fall into the hands of the barbarians. But she was determined to overthrow Zoroaster, even if she had to destroy her husband's kingdom in the effort. It was a bold and simple plan, and she doubted not of being successful. During the months while she was planning these things, she was very calm and placid; her eyes met Zoroaster's with a frank and friendly glance that would have disarmed one less completely convinced of her badness; and her smile never failed the king when he looked for it. She bore his jests with unfailing equanimity and gentleness, for she felt that she should not have to bear them long. Even to Nehushta she gave an occasional glance as though of hurt sympathy--a look that seemed to say to the world that she regretted the Hebrew queen's sullen temper and moody ways, so different from her own, but regarded them all the while as the outward manifestation of some sickness, for which she was to be pitied rather than blamed. But, as the time sped, her heart grew more and more glad, for the end was at hand, and there was a smell of death in the air of the sweet rose-valley. CHAPTER XVIII. Once more the spring months had come, and the fields grew green and the trees put forth their leaves. Four years had passed since Daniel had died in Ecbatana, leaving his legacy of wisdom to Zoroaster; and almost a year had gone by since Zoroaster had returned to the court at Stakhar. The time had sped very swiftly, except for Nehushta, whose life was heavy with a great weariness and her eyes hollow with suffering sleeplessness. She was not always the same, saving that she was always unhappy. There were days when she was resigned to her lot and merely hoped that it would soon be over; and she wondered how it was that she did not slip out of the gardens at evening, and go and sink her care and her great sorrow in the cool waves of the Araxes, far down below. But then the thought came over her that she must see his face once more; and it was always once more, so that the last time never came. And again, there were days when she hoped all things, madly, indiscriminately, without sequence--the king might die, Zoroaster might again love her, all might be well. But the mood of a hope that is senseless is very fleet, and despair follows close in its footsteps. Nehushta grew each time more sad, as she grew more certain that for her there was no hope. At least it seemed as though Atossa had given up loving Zoroaster and thought no more of him than of another. Indeed Atossa seemed more anxious to please the king than formerly, in proportion as Darius seemed less easily pleased by her. But over all, Zoroaster's supremacy was felt in the palace, and though he was never known to be angry with any one, he was more feared than the fierce king himself, for his calm clear eyes were hard to meet and the words that fell from his lips had in them the ring of fate. Moreover, he was known and his power was dreaded from one end of the kingdom to the other, and his name was like the king's signet, which sealed all things, and there was no appeal. Upon a fair morning in the spring-time, when the sun was shining outside upon the roses still wet with dew, the king sat in an inner hall, half lying upon a broad couch, on which the warm rays of the sun fell through an upper window. He was watching with absorbed attention the tricks of an Indian juggler who had lately arrived at the court, and whom he had summoned that morning to amuse a leisure hour, for when the king was not actively engaged in business, or fighting, he loved some amusement, being of a restless temper and mind that needed constant occupation. Atossa sat near him, upon a carved chair, turning over and over in her fingers a string of pearls as she gazed at the performances of the juggler. Two spearmen, clad in blue and scarlet and gold, stood motionless by the door, and Darius and Atossa watched the sleight-handed Indian alone. The man tossed a knife into the air and caught it, then two, then three, increasing the number in rapid succession till a score of bright blades made a shining circle in the air as he quickly tossed them up and passed them from hand to hand and tossed them again. Darius laughed at the man's skill, and looked up at the queen. "You remind me of that fellow," said Darius. "The king is very gracious to his handmaiden," answered Atossa, smiling, "I think I am less skilful, but more fair." "You are fairer, it is true," returned the king; "but as for your skill, I know not. You seem always to be playing with knives, but you never wound yourself any more than he does." The queen looked keenly at Darius, but her lips smiled gently. The thought crossed her mind that the king perhaps knew something of what had passed between her and Nehushta nearly a year before, with regard to a certain Indian dagger. The knives the juggler tossed in the air reminded her of it by their shape. But the king laughed gaily and she answered without hesitation: "I would it were true, for then I could be not only the king's wife, but the king's juggler!" "I meant not so," laughed Darius. "The two would hardly suit one another." "And yet, I need more skill than this Indian fellow, to be the king's wife," answered the queen slowly. "Said I not so?" "Nay--but you meant not so," replied Atossa, looking down. "What I say, I mean," he returned. "You need all the fairness of your face to conceal the evil in your heart, as this man needs all his skill in handling those sharp knives, that would cut off his fingers if, unawares, he touched the wrong edge of them." "I conceal nothing," said the queen, with a light laugh. "The king has a thousand eyes--how should I conceal anything from him?" "That is a question which I constantly ask myself," answered Darius. "And yet, I often think I know your thoughts less well than those of the black girl who fans you when you are hot, and whose attention is honestly concentrated upon keeping the flies from your face--or of yonder stolid spearmen at the door, who watch us, and honestly wish they were kings and queens, to lie all day upon a silken couch, and watch the tricks of a paid conjurer." As Darius spoke, the guards he glanced at turned suddenly and faced each other, standing on each side of the doorway, and brought their heavy spears to the ground with a ringing noise. In a moment the tall, thin figure of Zoroaster, in his white robes, appeared between them. He stopped respectfully at the threshold, waiting for the king to notice him, for, in spite of his power and high rank, he chose to maintain rigidly the formalities of the court. Darius made a sign and the juggler caught his whirling knives, one after the other, and thrust them into his bag, and withdrew. "Hail, Zoroaster!" said the king. "Come near and sit beside me, and tell me your business." Zoroaster came forward and made a salutation, but he remained standing, as though the matter on which he came were urgent. "Hail, king, and live for ever!" he said. "I am a bearer of evil news. A rider has come speeding from Ecbatana, escaped from the confusion. Media has revolted, and the king's guards are besieged within the fortress of Ecbatana." Darius sat upright upon the edge of his couch; the knotted veins upon his temples swelled with sudden anger and his brow flushed darkly. "Doubtless it is Phraortes who has set himself up as king," he said. Then, suddenly and fiercely, he turned upon Atossa. "Now is your hour come," he cried in uncontrollable anger. "You shall surely die this day, for you have done this, and the powers of evil shall have your soul, which is of them, and of none other." Atossa, for the first time in her whole life, turned pale to the lips and trembled, for she already seemed to taste death in the air. But even then, her boldness did not desert her, and she rose to her feet with a stateliness and a calmness that almost awed the king's anger to silence. "Slay me if thou wilt," she said in a low voice, but firmly. "I am innocent of this deed." The great lie fell from her lips with a calmness that a martyr might have envied. But Zoroaster stepped between her and the king. As he passed her, his clear, calm eyes met hers for a moment. He read in her face the fear of death, and he pitied her. "Let the king hear me," he said. "It is not Phraortes who has headed the revolt, and it is told me that Phraortes has fled from Ecbatana. Let the king send forth his armies and subdue the rebels, and let this woman go; for the fear of death is upon her and it may be that she has not sinned in this matter. And if she have indeed sinned, will the king make war upon women, or redden his hands with the blood of his own wife?" "You speak as a priest--I feel as a man," returned the king, savagely. "This woman has deserved death many times--let her die. So shall we be free of her." "It is not lawful to do this thing," returned Zoroaster coldly, and his glance rested upon the angry face of Darius, as he spoke, and seemed to subdue his furious wrath. "The king cannot know whether she have deserved death or not, until he have the rebels of Ecbatana before him. Moreover, the blood of a woman is a perpetual shame to the man who has shed it." The king seemed to waver, and Atossa, who watched him keenly, understood that the moment had come in which she might herself make an appeal to him. In the suddenness of the situation she had time to ask herself why Zoroaster, whom she had so bitterly injured, should intercede for her. She could not understand his nobility of soul, and she feared some trap, into which she should fall by and by. But, meanwhile, she chose to appeal to the king's mercy herself, lest she should feel that she owed her preservation wholly to Zoroaster. It was a bold thought, worthy of a woman of her strength, in a moment of supreme danger. With a quick movement she tore the tiara from her head and let it fall upon the floor. The mass of her silken hair fell all about her like a vesture of gold, and she threw herself at the king's feet, embracing his knees with a passionate gesture of appeal. Her face was very pale, and the beauty of it seemed to grow by the unnatural lack of colour, while her soft blue eyes looked up into the king's face with such an expression of imploring supplication that he was fain to acknowledge to himself that she moved his heart, for she had never looked so fair before. She spoke no word, but held his knees, and as she gazed, two beautiful great tears rolled slowly from under her eyelids, and trembled upon her pale, soft cheeks, and her warm, quick breath went up to his face. Darius tried to push her from him, but she would not go, and he was forced to look at her, and his anger melted, and he smiled somewhat grimly, though his brows were bent. "Go to," he said, "I jested. It is impossible for a man to slay anything so beautiful as you." Atossa's colour returned to her cheeks, and bending down, she kissed the king's knees and his hands, and her golden hair fell all about her and upon the king's lap. But Darius rose impatiently, and left her kneeling by the couch. He was already angry with himself for having forgiven her, and he hated his own weakness bitterly. "I will myself go hence at once with the guards, and I will take half the force from the fortress of Stakhar and go to Shushan, and thence, with the army that is there, I will be in Ecbatana in a few days. And I will utterly crush out these rebels who speak lies and do not acknowledge me. Remain here, Zoroaster, and govern this province until I return in triumph." Darius glanced once more at Atossa, who lay by the couch, half upon it and half upon the floor, seemingly dazed at what had occurred; and then he turned upon his heel and strode out of the room between the two spearmen of the guard, who raised their weapons as he passed, and followed him with a quick, rhythmical tread down the broad corridor outside. Zoroaster was left alone with the queen. As soon as Darius was gone, Atossa rose to her feet, and with all possible calmness proceeded to rearrange her disordered hair and to place her head-dress upon her head. Zoroaster stood and watched her; her hand trembled a little, but she seemed otherwise unmoved by what had occurred. She glanced up at him from under her eyelids as she stood with her head bent down and her hands raised, to arrange her hair. "Why did you beg the king to spare my life?" she asked. "You, of all men, must wish me dead." "I do not wish you dead," he answered coldly. "You have yet much evil to do in the world, but it will not be all evil. Neither did I need to intercede for you. Your time is not come, and though the king's hand were raised to strike you, it would not fall upon you, for you are fated to accomplish many things." "Do you not hate me, Zoroaster?" It was one of the queen's chief characteristics that she never attempted concealment when it could be of no use, and in such cases affected an almost brutal frankness. She almost laughed as she asked the question--it seemed so foolish, and yet she asked it. "I do not hate you," answered the priest. "You are beneath hatred." "And I presume you are far above it?" she said very scornfully, and eyed him in silence for a moment. "You are a poor creature," she pursued, presently. "I heartily despise you. You suffered yourself to be deceived by a mere trick; you let the woman you loved go from you without an effort to keep her. You might have been a queen's lover, and you despised her. And now, when you could have the woman who did you a mortal injury be led forth to death before your eyes, you interceded for her and saved her life. You are a fool. I despise you." "I rejoice that you do," returned Zoroaster coldly. "I would not have your admiration, if I might be paid for receiving it with the whole world and the wisdom thereof." "Not even if you might have for your wife the woman you loved in your poor, insipid way--but you loved her nevertheless? She is pale and sorrowful, poor creature; she haunts the gardens like the shadow of death; she wearies the king with her wan face. She is eating her heart out for you--the king took her from you, you could take her from him to-morrow, if you pleased. The greater your folly, because you do not. As for her, her foolishness is such that she would follow you to the ends of the earth--poor girl! she little knows what a pale, wretched, sapless thing you have in your breast for a heart." But Zoroaster gazed calmly at the queen in quiet scorn at her scoffing. "Think you that the sun is obscured, because you can draw yonder curtain before your window and keep out his rays?" he asked. "Think you that the children of light feel pain because the children of darkness say in their ignorance that there is no light?" "You speak in parables--having nothing plain to say," returned the queen, thrusting a golden pin through her hair at the back and through the folds of her linen tiara. But she felt Zoroaster's eyes upon her, and looking up, she was fascinated by the strange light in them. She strove to look away from him, but could not. Suddenly her heart sank within her. She had heard of Indian charmers and of Chaldean necromancers and wise men, who could perform wonders and slay their enemies with a glance. She struggled to take her eyes from his, but it was of no use. The subtle power of the universal agent had got hold upon her, and she was riveted to the spot so long as he kept his eyes upon her. He spoke again, and his voice seemed to come to her with a deafening metallic force, as though it vibrated to her very brain. "You may scoff at me; shield yourself from me, if you can," said Zoroaster. "Lift one hand, if you are able--make one step from me, if you have the strength. You cannot; you are altogether in my power. If I would, I could kill you as you stand, and there would be no mark of violence upon you, that a man should be able to say you were slain. You boast of your strength and power. See, you follow the motion of my hand, as a dog would. See, you kneel before me, and prostrate yourself in the dust at my feet, at my bidding. Lie there, and think well whether you are able to scoff any more. You kneeled to the king of your own will; you kneel to me at mine, and though you had the strength of a hundred men, you must kneel there till I bid you rise." The queen was wholly under the influence of the terrible power Zoroaster possessed. She was no more able to resist his will than a drowning man can resist the swift torrent that bears him down to his death. She lay at the priest's feet, helpless and nerveless. He gazed at her for a moment as she crouched before him. "Rise," he said, "go your way, and remember me." Relieved from the force of the subtle influence he projected, Atossa sprang to her feet and staggered back a few paces, till she fell upon the couch. "What manner of man art thou?" she said, staring wildly before her, as though recovering from some heavy blow that had stunned her. But she saw Zoroaster's white robes disappear through the door, even while the words were on her lips, and she sank back in stupefaction upon the cushions of the couch. Meanwhile the trumpets sounded in the courts of the palace and the guards were marshalled out at the king's command. Messengers mounted and rode furiously up the valley to the fortress, to warn the troops there to make ready for the march; and before the sun reached the meridian, Darius was on horseback, in his armour, at the foot of the great staircase. The blazing noonday light shone upon his polished helmet and on the golden wings that stood out on either side of it, and the hot rays were sent flashing back from his gilded harness, and from the broad scales of his horse's armour. The slaves of the palace stood in long ranks before the columns of the portico and upon the broad stairs on each side, and Zoroaster stood on the lowest step, attended by a score of his priests, to receive the king's last instructions. "I go forth, and in two months I will return in triumph," said Darius. "Meanwhile keep thou the government in thy hand, and let not the laws be relaxed because the king is not here. Let the sacrifice be performed daily in the temple, and let all things proceed as though I myself were present. I will not that petty strifes arise because I am away. There shall be peace--peace--peace forever throughout my kingdom, though I shed much blood to obtain it. And all the people who are evildoers and makers of strife and sedition shall tremble at the name of Darius, the king of kings, and of Zoroaster, the high priest of the All-Wise. In peace I leave you, to cause peace whither I go; and in peace I will come again to you. Farewell, Zoroaster, truest friend and wisest counsellor; in thy keeping I leave all things. Take thou the signet and bear it wisely till I come." Zoroaster received the royal ring and bowed a low obeisance. Then Darius pressed his knees to his horse's sides and the noble steed sprang forward upon the straight, broad road, like an arrow from a bow. The mounted guards grasped their spears and gathered their bridles in their hands and followed swiftly, four and four, shoulder to shoulder, and knee to knee, their bronze cuirasses and polished helmets blazing in the noonday sun and dashing as they galloped on; and in a moment there was nothing seen of the royal guard but a tossing wave of light far up the valley; and the white dust, that had risen, as they plunged forward, settled slowly in the still, hot air upon the roses and shrubs that hung over the enclosure of the garden at the foot of the broad staircase. Zoroaster gazed for a moment on the track of the swift warriors; then went up the steps, followed by his priests, and entered the palace. Atossa and Nehushta had watched the departure of the king from their upper windows, at the opposite ends of the building, from behind the gilded lattices. Atossa had recovered somewhat from the astonishment and fear that had taken possession of her when she had found herself under Zoroaster's strange influence, and as she saw Darius ride away, while Zoroaster remained standing upon the steps, her courage rose. She resolved that nothing should induce her again to expose herself to the chief priest's unearthly power, and she laughed to herself as she thought that she might yet destroy him, and free herself from him for ever. She wondered how she could ever have given a thought of love to such a man, and she summoned her black slave, and sent him upon his last errand, by which he was to obtain his freedom. But Nehushta gazed sadly after the galloping guards, and her eye strove to distinguish the king's crest before the others, till all was mingled in the distance, in an indiscriminate reflection of moving light, and then lost to view altogether in the rising dust. Whether she loved him truly, or loved him not, he had been true and kind to her, and had rested his dark head upon her shoulder that very morning before he went, and had told her that, of all living women, he loved her best. But she had felt a quick sting of pain in her heart, because she knew that she would give her life to lie for one short hour on Zoroaster's breast and sob out all her sorrow and die. CHAPTER XIX. Four days after the king's departure, Nehushta was wandering in the gardens as the sun was going down, according to her daily custom. There was a place she loved well--a spot where the path widened to a circle, round which the roses grew, thick and fragrant with the breath of the coming summer, and soft green shrubs and climbing things that twisted their tender arms about the myrtle trees. The hedge was so high that it cut off all view of the gardens beyond, and only the black north-western hills could just be seen above the mass of shrubbery; beyond the mountains and all over the sky, the glow of the setting sun spread like a rosy veil; and the light tinged the crests of the dark hills and turned the myrtle leaves to a strange colour, and gilded the highest roses to a deep red gold. The birds were all singing their evening song in loud, happy chorus, as only Eastern birds can sing; the air was warm and still, and the tiny gnats chased each other with lightning quickness in hazy swarms overhead, in the reflected glow. Nehushta loved the little open space, for it was there that, a year ago, she had sent for Zoroaster to come to her that she might tell him she knew the truth at last. She stood still and listened to the singing of the birds, gazing upwards at the glowing sky, where the red was fast turning to purple; she breathed in the warm air and sighed softly; wishing, as she wished every night, that the sunset might fade to darkness, and there might be no morning for her any more. She had lived almost entirely alone since Darius had gone to Shushan; she avoided Atossa, and she made no effort to see Zoroaster, who was entirely absorbed by the management of the affairs of the state. In the king's absence there were no banquets, as there used to be when he was in the palace, and the two queens were free to lead whatever life seemed best to them, independently of each other and of the courtiers. Atossa had chosen to shut herself up in the seclusion of her own apartments, and Nehushta rarely left her own part of the palace until the evening. But when the sun was low, she loved to linger among the roses in the garden, till the bright shield of the moon was high in the east, or till the faint stars burned in their full splendour, and the nightingales began to call and trill their melancholy song from end to end of the sweet valley. So she stood on this evening, looking up into the sky, and her slaves waited her pleasure at a little distance. But while she gazed, she heard quick steps along the walk, and the slave-women sprang aside to let some one pass. Nehushta turned and found herself face to face with Atossa, who stood before her, wrapped in a dark mantle, a white veil of Indian gauze wound about her head, and half-concealing her face. It was a year since they had met in private, and Nehushta drew herself suddenly to her height, and the old look of scorn came over her dark features. She would have asked haughtily what brought Atossa there, but the fair queen was first in her speech. There was hardly even the affectation of friendliness in her tones, as she stood there alone and unattended, facing her enemy. "I came to ask if you wished to go with me," said Atossa. "Where? Why should I go with you?" "I am weary of the palace. I think I will go to Shushan to be nearer the king. To-night I will rest at the fortress." Nehushta stared coldly at the fair woman, muffled in her cloak and veil. "What is it to me whether you go to the ends of the earth, or whether you remain here?" she asked. "I wished to know whether you desired to accompany me, else I should not have asked you the question. I feared that you might be lonely here in Stakhar--will you not come?" "Again I say, why do you ask me? What have I to do with you?" returned Nehushta, drawing her mantle about her as though to leave Atossa. "If the king were here, he would bid you go," said Atossa, looking intently upon her enemy. "It is for me to judge what the king would wish me to do--not for you. Leave me in peace. Go your way if you will--it is nothing to me." "You will not come?" Atossa's voice softened and she smiled serenely. Nehushta turned fiercely upon her. "No! If you are going--go! I want you not!" "You are glad I am going, are you not?" asked Atossa, gently. "I am glad--with a gladness only you can know. I would you were already gone!" "You rejoice that I leave you alone with your lover. It is very natural----" "My lover!" cried Nehushta, her wrath rising and blazing in her eyes. "Ay, your lover! the thin, white-haired priest, that once was Zoroaster--your old lover--your poor old lover!" Nehushta steadied herself for a moment. She felt as though she must tear this woman in pieces. But she controlled her anger by a great effort, though she was nearly choking as she drew herself up and answered. "I would that the powers of evil, of whom you are, might strangle the thrice-accursed lie in your false throat!" she said, in low fierce tones, and turned away. Still Atossa stood there, smiling as ever. Nehushta looked back as she reached the opposite end of the little plot. "Are you not yet gone? Shall I bid my slaves take you by the throat and force you from me?" But, as she spoke, she looked beyond Atossa, and saw that a body of dark men and women stood in the path. Atossa had not come unprotected. "I see you are the same foolish woman you ever were," answered the older queen. Just then, a strange sound echoed far off among the hills above, strange and far as the scream of a distant vulture sailing its mate to the carrion feast--an unearthly cry that rang high in the air from side to side of the valley, and struck the dark crags and doubled in the echo, and died away in short, faint pulsations of sound upon the startled air. Nehushta started slightly. It might have been the cry of a wolf, or of some wild beast prowling upon the heights, but she had never heard such a sound before. But Atossa showed no surprise, and her smile returned to her lips more sweetly than ever--those lips that had kissed three kings, and that had never spoken truly a kind or a merciful word to living man, or child, or woman. "Farewell, Nehushta," she said, "if you will not come, I will leave you to yourself--and to your lover. I daresay he can protect you from harm. Heard you that sound? It is the cry of your fate. Farewell, foolish girl, and may every undreamed-of quality of evil attend you to your dying day----" "Go!" cried Nehushta, turning and pointing to the path with a gesture of terrible anger. Atossa moved back a little. "It is no wonder I linger awhile--I thought you were past suffering. If I had time, I might yet find some way of tormenting you--you are very foolish----" Nehushta walked rapidly forward upon her, as though to do her some violence with her own hands. But Atossa, as she gave way before the angry Hebrew woman, drew from beneath her mantle the Indian knife she had once taken from her. Nehushta stopped short, as she saw the bright blade thrust out against her bosom. But Atossa held it up one moment, and then threw it down upon the grass at her feet. "Take it!" she cried, and in her voice, that had been so sweet and gentle a moment before, there suddenly rang out a strange defiance and a bitter wrath. "Take what is yours--I loathe it, for it smells of you--and you, and all that is yours, I loathe and hate and scorn!" She turned with a quick movement and disappeared amongst her slaves, who closed in their ranks behind her, and followed her rapidly down the path. Nehushta remained standing upon the grass, peering after her retreating enemy through the gloom; for the glow had faded from the western sky while they had been speaking, and it was now dusk. Suddenly, as she stood, almost transfixed with the horror of her fearful anger, that strange cry rang again through the lofty crags and crests of the mountains, and echoed and died away. Nehushta's slave-women, who had hung back in fear and trembling during the altercation between the two queens, came forward and gathered about her. "What is it?" asked the queen in a low voice, for her own heart beat with the anticipation of a sudden danger. "It is the cry of your fate," Atossa had said--verily it sounded like the scream of a coming death. "It is the Druksh of the mountains!" said one. "It is the howling of wolves," said another, a Median woman from the Zagros mountains. "The war-cry of the children of Anak is like that," said a little Syrian maid, and her teeth chattered with fear. As they listened, crouching and pressing about their royal mistress in their terror, they heard below in the road, the sound of horses and men moving quickly past the foot of the gardens. It was Atossa and her train, hurrying along the highway in the direction of the fortress. Nehushta suddenly pushed the slaves aside, and fled down the path towards the palace, and the dark women hurried after. One of them stooped and picked up the Indian knife and hid it in her bosom as she ran. The whole truth had flashed across Nehushta's mind in an instant. Some armed force was collecting upon the hills to descend in a body upon the palace, to accomplish her destruction. Atossa had fled to a place of safety, after enjoying the pleasure of tormenting her doomed enemy to the last moment, well knowing that no power would induce Nehushta to accompany her. But one thought filled Nehushta's mind in her instantaneous comprehension of the truth; she must find Zoroaster, and warn him of the danger. They would have time to fly together, yet. Atossa must have known how to time her flight, since the plot was hers, and she had not yet been many minutes upon the road. Through the garden she ran, and up the broad steps to the portico. Slaves were moving about under the colonnade, leisurely lighting the great torches that burned there all night. They had not heard the strange cries from the hills; or, hearing only a faint echo, had paid no attention to the sound. Nehushta paused, breathless with running. As she realised the quiet that reigned in the palace, where the slaves went about their duties as though nothing had occurred, or were likely to occur, it seemed to her as though she must have been dreaming. It was impossible that if there were any real danger, it should not have become known at least to some one of the hundreds of slaves who thronged the outer halls and corridors. Moreover there were numerous scribes and officers connected with the government; some few nobles whom Darius had left behind when he went to Shushan; there were their wives and families residing in various parts, of the palace and in the buildings below it, and there was a strong detachment of Persian guards. If there were danger, some one must have known it. She did not know that at that moment the inhabitants of the lower palace were already alarmed, while some were flying, leaving everything behind, in their haste to reach the fortress higher up the valley. Everything seemed quiet where she was, and she determined to go alone in search of Zoroaster, without raising any alarm. Just as she entered the doorway of the great hall, she heard the cry again echoing behind her through the valley. It was as much as she could do to control the terror that again took hold of her at the dreaded sound, as she passed the files of bowing slaves, and went in between the two tall spearmen who guarded the inner entrance, and grounded their spears with military precision as she went by. She had one slave whom she trusted more than the rest. It was the little Syrian maid, who was half a Hebrew. "Go," she said quickly, in her own tongue. "Go in one direction and I will go in another, and search out Zoroaster, the high priest, and bring him to my chamber. I also will search, but if I find him not, I will wait for thee there." The dark girl turned and ran through the halls, swift as a startled fawn, to fulfil her errand, and Nehushta went another way upon her search. She was ashamed to ask for Zoroaster. The words of her enemy were still ringing in her ears--"alone with your lover;" it might be the common talk of the court for all she knew. She went silently on her way. She knew where Zoroaster dwelt. The curtain of his simple chamber was thrown aside and a faint light burned in the room. It was empty; a scroll lay open upon the floor beside a purple cushion, as he had left it, and his long white mantle lay tossed upon the couch which served him for a bed. She gazed lovingly for one moment into the open chamber, and then went on through the broad corridor, dimly lighted everywhere with small oil lamps. She looked into the council chamber and it was deserted. The long rows of double seats were empty, and gleamed faintly in the light. High upon the dais at the end, a lamp burned above the carved chair of ivory and gold, whereon the king sat when the council was assembled. There was no one there. Farther on, the low entrance to the treasury was guarded by four spearmen, whose arms clanged upon the floor as the queen passed. But she saw that the massive bolts and the huge square locks upon them were in their places. There was no one within. In the colonnade beyond, a few nobles stood talking carelessly together, waiting for their evening meal to be served them in a brightly illuminated hall, of which the doors stood wide open to admit the cool air of the coming night. The magnificently-arrayed courtiers made a low obeisance and then stood in astonishment as the queen went by. She held up her head and nodded to them, trying to look as though nothing disturbed her. On and on she went through the whole wing, till she came to her own apartment. Not so much as one white-robed priest had she seen upon all her long search. Zoroaster was certainly not in the portion of the palace through, which she had come. Entering her own chambers, she looked round for the little Syrian maid, but she had not returned. Unable to bear the suspense any longer, she hastily despatched a second slave in search of the chief priest--a Median woman, who had been with her in Ecbatana. It seemed as though the minutes were lengthened to hours. Nehushta sat with her hands pressed to her temples, that throbbed as though the fever would burst her brain, and the black fan-girl plied the palm-leaf with all her might, thinking that her mistress suffered from the heat. The other women she dismissed; and she sat waiting beneath the soft light of the perfumed lamp, the very figure and incarnation of anxiety. Something within her told her that she was in great and imminent danger, and the calm she had seen in the palace could not allay in her mind the terror of that unearthly cry she had heard three times from the hills. As she thought of it, she shuddered, and the icy fear seemed to run through all her limbs, chilling the marrow in her bones, and freezing her blood suddenly in its mad course. "Left alone with your lover"--"it is the cry of your fate"--Atossa's words kept ringing in her ears like a knell--the knell of a shameful death; and as she went over the bitter taunts of her enemy, her chilled pulses beat again more feverishly than before. She could not bear to sit still, but rose and paced the room in intense agitation. Would they never come back, those dallying slave-women? The fan-girl tried to follow her mistress, and her small red eyes watched cautiously every one of Nehushta's movements. But the queen waved her off and the slave went and stood beside the chair where she had sat, her fan hanging idly in her hand. At that moment, the Median woman entered the chamber. "Where is he?" asked Nehushta, turning suddenly upon her. The woman made a low obeisance and answered in trembling tones: "They say that the high priest left the palace two hours ago, with the queen Atossa. They say----" "Thou liest!" cried Nehushta vehemently, and her face turned white, as she stamped her foot upon the black marble pavement. The woman sprang back with a cry of terror, and ran towards the door. She had never seen her mistress so angry. But Nehushta called her back. "Come hither--what else do they say?" she asked, controlling herself as best she could. "They say that the wild riders of the eastern desert are descending from the hills," answered the slave hurriedly and almost under her breath. "Every one is flying--everything is in confusion--I hear them even now, hurrying to and fro in the courts, the soldiers----" But, even as she spoke, an echo of distant voices and discordant cries came through the curtains of the door from without, the rapid, uneven tread of people running hither and thither in confusion, the loud voices of startled men and the screams of frightened women--all blending together in a wild roar that grew every moment louder. Just then, the little Syrian maid came running in, almost tearing the curtains from their brazen rods as she thrust the hangings aside. She came and fell breathless at Nehushta's feet and clasped her knees. "Fly, fly, beloved mistress," she cried, "the devils of the mountains are upon us--they cover the hills--they are closing every entrance--the people in the lower palace are all slain----" "Where is Zoroaster?" In the moment of supreme danger, Nehushta grew calm, and her senses were restored to her again. "He is in the temple with the priests--by this time he is surely slain--he could know of nothing that is going on--fly, fly!" cried the poor Syrian girl in an agony of terror. Nehushta laid her hand kindly upon the head of the little maid, and turning in the pride of her courage, now that she knew the worst, she spoke calmly to the other slaves who thronged in from the outer hall, some breathless with fear, others screaming in an agony of acute dread. "On which side are they coming?" she asked. "Prom the hills, from the hills they are descending in thousands," cried half a dozen of the frightened women at once, the rest huddled together like sheep, moaning in their fear. "Go you all to the farther window," cried Nehushta, in commanding tones. "Leap down upon the balcony--it is scarce a man's height--follow it to the end and past the corner where it joins the main wall of the garden. Run along upon the wall till you find a place where you can descend. Through the gardens you can easily reach the road by the northern gate. Fly and save yourselves in the darkness. You will reach the fortress before dawn if you hasten. You will hasten," she added with something of disdain in her voice, for before she had half uttered her directions, the last of the slave-women, mad with terror, disappeared through the open window, and she could hear them drop, one after the other, in quick succession upon the marble balcony below. She was alone. But, looking down, she saw at her feet the little Syrian maid, looking with imploring eyes to her face. "Why do you not go with the rest?" asked Nehushta, stooping down and laying one hand upon the girl's shoulder. "I have eaten thy bread--shall I leave thee in the hour of death?" asked the little slave, humbly. "Go, child," replied Nehushta, very kindly. "I have seen thy devotion and truth--thou must not perish." But the Syrian leaped to her feet, and there was pride in her small face, as she answered: "I am a bondwoman, but I am a daughter of Israel, even as thou art. Though all the others leave thee, I will not. It may be I can help thee." "Thou art a brave child," said Nehushta; and she drew the girl to her and pressed her kindly. "I must go to Zoroaster--stay thou here, hide thyself among the curtains--escape by the window, if any come to harm thee." She turned and went rapidly out between the curtains, as calm and as pale as death. The din in the palace had partially subsided, and new and strange cries re-echoed through the vast halls and corridors. An occasional wild scream--a momentary distant crash as of a door breaking down and thundering upon the marble pavement; and then again, the long, strange cries, mingled with a dull, low sound as of a great moaning--all came up together, and seemed to meet Nehushta as she lifted the curtains and went out. But the little Syrian maid grasped the Indian knife in her girdle, and stole stealthily upon her mistress's steps. CHAPTER XX. Nehushta glided like a ghost along the corridors and dimly-lighted halls. As yet, the confusion seemed to be all in the lower story of the palace, but the roaring din rose louder every moment--the shrieks of wounded women with the moaning of wounded men, the clash of swords and arms, and, occasionally, a quick, loud rattle, as half a dozen arrows that had missed their mark struck the wall together. Onward she flew, not pausing to listen, lest in a moment more the tide of fight should be forced up the stairs and overtake her. She shuddered as she passed the head of the great staircase and heard, as though but a few steps from her, a wild shriek that died suddenly into a gurgling death hiss. She passed the treasury, whence the guards had fled, and in a moment more she was above the staircase that led down to the temple behind the palace. There was no one there as yet, as far as she could see in the starlight. The doors were shut, and the massive square building frowned through the gloom, blacker than its own black shadow. Nehushta paused as she reached the door, and listened. Very faintly through the thick walls she could hear the sound of the evening chant. The priests were all within with Zoroaster, unconscious of their danger and of all that was going on in the palace, singing the hymns of the sacrifice before the sacred fire,--chanting, as it were, a dirge for themselves. Nehushta tried the door. The great bronze gates were locked together, and though she pushed, with her whole strength, they would not move a hair's breadth. "Press the nail nearest the middle," said a small voice behind her. Nehushta started and looked round. It was the little Syrian slave, who had followed her out of the palace, and stood watching her in the dark. Nehushta put her hand upon the round head of the nail and pressed, as the slave told her to do. The door opened, turning slowly and noiselessly upon its hinges. Both women entered; the Syrian girl looked cautiously back and pushed the heavy bronze back to its place. The Egyptian artisan who had made the lock, had told one of the queen's women whom he loved the secret by which it was opened, and the Syrian had heard it repeated and remembered it. Once inside, Nehushta ran quickly through the corridor between the walls and rushing into the inner temple, found herself behind the screen and in a moment more she stood before all the priests and before Zoroaster himself. But even as she entered, the Syrian slave, who had lingered to close the gates, heard the rushing of many feet outside, and the yelling of hoarse voices, mixed with the clang of arms. Solemnly the chant rose around the sacred fire that seemed to burn by unearthly means upon the black stone altar. Zoroaster stood before it, his hands lifted in prayer, and his waxen face and snow-white beard illuminated by the dazzling effulgence. The seventy priests, in even rank, stood around the walls, their hands raised in like manner as their chief priest's; their voices going up in a rich chorus, strong and tuneful, in the grand plain-chant. But Nehushta broke upon their melody, with a sudden cry, as she rushed before them. "Zoroaster--fly--there is yet time. The enemy are come in thousands--they are in the palace. There is barely time!" As she cried to him and to them all, she rushed forward and laid one hand upon his shoulder. But the high priest turned calmly upon her, his face unmoved, although all the priests ceased their chanting and gathered about their chief in sudden fear. As their voices ceased, a low roar was heard from without, as though the ocean were beating at the gates. Zoroaster gently took Nehushta's hand from his shoulder. "Go thou, and save thyself," he said kindly. "I will not go. If it be the will of the All-Wise that I perish, I will perish before this altar. Go thou quickly, and save thyself while there is yet time." But Nehushta took his hand in hers, that trembled with the great emotion, and gazed into his calm eyes as he spoke--her look was very loving and very sad. "Knowest thou not, Zoroaster, that I would rather die with thee than live with any other? I swear to thee, by the God of my fathers, I will not leave thee." Her soft voice trembled--for she was uttering her own sentence of death. "There is no more time!" cried the voice of the little Syrian maid, as she came running into the temple. "There is no more time! Ye are all dead men! Behold, they are breaking down the doors!" As she spoke, the noise of some heavy mass striking against the bronze gates echoed like thunder through the temple, and at each blow a chorus of hideous yells rose, wild and long-drawn-out, as though the fiends of hell were screaming in joy over the souls of the lost. The priests drew together, trembling with fear, brave and devoted though they were. Some of them would have run towards the door, but the Syrian maid stood before them. "Ye are dead men and there is no salvation--ye must die like men," said the little maid, quietly. "Let me go to my mistress." And she pushed through the crowd of white-robed men, who surged together in their sudden fear, like a white-crested wave heaved up from the deep by a fierce wind. Nehushta still held Zoroaster's hand and stared wildly upon the helpless priests. Her one thought was to save the man she loved, but she saw well enough that it was too late. Nevertheless she appealed to the priests. "Can none of you save him?" she cried. Foremost in the little crowd was a stern, dark man--the same who had been the high priest before Zoroaster came, the same who had first hurled defiance at the intruder, and then had given him his whole allegiance. He spoke out loudly: "We will save him and thee if we are able," he cried in brave enthusiasm for his chief. "We will take you between us and open the doors, and it may be that we can fight our way out--though we are all slain, he may be saved." He would have laid hold on Zoroaster, and there was not one of the priests who would not have laid down his life in the gallant attempt. But Zoroaster gently put him back. "Ye cannot save me, for my hour is come," he said, and a radiance of unearthly glory stole upon his features, so that he seemed transfigured and changed before them all. "The foe are as a thousand men against one. Here we must die like men, and like priests of the Lord before His altar." The thundering at the doors continued to echo through the whole temple, almost drowning every other sound as it came; and the yells of the infuriated besiegers rose louder and louder between. Zoroaster's voice rang out clear and strong and the band of priests gathered more and more closely about him. Nehushta still held his hand tightly between her own, and, pale as death, she looked up to him as he spoke. The little Syrian girl stood, beside her mistress, very quite and grave. "Hear me, ye priests of the Lord," said Zoroaster. "We are doomed men and must surely die, though we know not by whose hand we perish. Now, therefore, I beseech you to think not of this death which we must suffer in our mortal bodies, but to open your eyes to the things which are not mortal and which perish not eternally. For man is but a frail and changing creature as regards his mortality, seeing that his life is not longer than the lives of other created things, and he is delicate and sickly and exposed to manifold dangers from his birth. But the soul of man dieth not, neither is there any taint of death in it, but it liveth for ever and is made glorious above the stars. For the stars, also, shall have an end, and the earth--even as our bodies must end here this night; but our soul shall see the glory of God, the All-Wise, and shall live." "The sun riseth and the earth is made glad, and it is day; and again he setteth and it is night, and the whole earth is sorrowful. But though our sun is gone down and we shall see him rise no more, yet shall we see a sun which setteth not for ever, and of whose gladness there is no end. The morning cometh, after which there shall be no evening. The Lord Ahura Mazda, who made all things, made also these our bodies, and put us in them to live and move and have being for a space on earth. And now he demands them again; for he gave them and they are his. Let us give them readily as a sacrifice, for he who knoweth all things, knoweth also why it is meet that we should die. And he who hath created all things which we see and which perish quickly, hath created also the things which we have not seen, but shall see hereafter;--and the time is at hand when our eyes shall be opened to the world which endureth, though they be closed in death upon the things which perish. Raise then a hymn of thanks with me to the All-Wise God, who is pleased to take us from time into eternity, from darkness into light, from change to immortality, from death by death to life undying." _"Praise we the All-Wise God, who hath made and created the years and the ages; Praise him who in the heavens hath sown and hath scattered the seed of the stars; Praise him who moves between the three ages that are, and that have been, and shall be; Praise him who rides on death, in whose hand are all power and honour and glory; Praise him who made what seemeth, the image of living, the shadow of life; Praise him who made what is, and hath made it eternal for ever and ever, Who made the days and nights, and created the darkness to follow the light, Who made the day of life, that should rise up and lighten the shadow of death."_ Zoroaster raised one hand to heaven as he chanted the hymn, and all the priests sang with him in calm and holy melody, as though death were not even then with them. But Nehushta still held his other hand fast, and her own were icy cold. With a crash, as though the elements of the earth were dissolving into primeval confusion, the great bronze doors gave way, and fell clanging in--and the yells of the besiegers came to the ears of the priests, as though the cover had been taken from the caldron of hell, suffering the din of the damned and their devils to burst forth in demoniac discord. In an instant the temple was filled with a swarm of hideous men, whose eyes were red with the lust of blood and their hands with slaughter. Their crooked swords gleamed aloft as they pressed forward in the rush, and their yells rent the very roof. They had hoped for treasure,--they saw but a handful of white-robed unarmed men, standing around one taller than the rest; and in the throng they saw two women. Their rage knew no bounds, and their screams rose more piercing than ever, as they surrounded the doomed band, and overwhelmed them, and dyed their misshapen blades in the crimson blood that flowed so red and strong over the fair white vestures. The priests struggled like brave men to the last. They grasped their hideous foes by arm and limb and neck, and tossed some of them back upon their fellows; fighting desperately with their bare hands against the armed murderers. But the foe were a hundred to one, and the priests fell in heaps upon each other while the blood flowed out between the feet of the wild, surging throng, who yelled and slew, and yelled again, as each priest tottered back and fell, with the death-wound in his breast. At last, one tall wretch, with bloodied eyes and distorted features, leaped across a heap of slain and laid hold of Nehushta by the hair with his reeking hand, and strove to drag her out. But Zoroaster's thin arms went round her like lightning and clasped her to his breast. Then the little Syrian maid raised her Indian knife, with both hands, high above her head, and smote the villain with all her might beneath the fifth rib, that he died in the very act; but ere he had fallen, a sharp blade fell swiftly, like a crooked flash of light, and severed the small hands at the wrist; and the brave, true-hearted little maid fell shrieking to the floor. One shriek--and that was all; for the same sword smote her again as she lay, and so she died. But Nehushta's head fell forward on the high priest's breast, and her arms clasped him wildly as his clasped her. "Oh, Zoroaster, my beloved, my beloved! Say not any more that I am unfaithful, for I have been faithful even unto death, and I shall be with you beyond the stars for ever!" He pressed her closer still, and in that awful moment, his white face blazed with the radiant light of the new life that comes by death alone. "Beyond the stars and for ever!" he cried. "In the light of the glory of God most high!" The keen sword flashed out once more and severed Nehushta's neck, and found its sheath in her lover's heart; and they fell down dead together, and the slaughter was done. But on the third day, Darius the king returned; for a messenger met him, bringing news that his soldiers had slain the rebels in Echatana, though they were ten to one. And when he saw what things had been done in Stakhar, and looked upon the body of the wife he had loved, lying clasped in the arms of his most faithful and beloved servant, he wept most bitterly. And he rode forth and destroyed utterly the wild riders of the eastern hills, and left not one child to weep for its father that was dead. But two thousand of them he brought to Stakhar, and crucified them all upon the roadside, that their blood might avenge the blood of those he had loved so well. And he took the bodies of Zoroaster the high priest, and of Nehushta the queen, and of the little Syrian maid, and he buried them with spices and fine linen, and in plates of pure gold, together in a tomb over against the palace, hewn in the rock of the mountain. 
7374	----	AN AMERICAN POLITICIAN _A Novel_ BY F. MARION CRAWFORD AUTHOR OF "MR. ISAACS," "DR. CLAUDIUS," "A ROMAN SINGER," "TO LEEWARD," ETC. TO MY DEAR FRIEND, ELIZABETH CHRISTOPHERS HOBSON, IN GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION, I DEDICATE THIS STORY. CONSTANTINOPLE, _October 7,1884._ CHAPTER I. Mrs. Sam Wyndham was generally at home after five o'clock. The established custom whereby the ladies who live in Beacon Street all receive their friends on Monday afternoon did not seem to her satisfactory. She was willing to conform to the practice, but she reserved the right of seeing people on other days as well. Mrs. Sam Wyndham was never very popular. That is to say, she was not one of those women who are seemingly never spoken ill of, and are invited as a matter of course, or rather as an element of success, to every dinner, musical party, and dance in the season. Women did not all regard her with envy, all young men did not think she was capital fun, nor did all old men come and confide to her the weaknesses of their approaching second childhood. She was not invariably quoted as the standard authority on dress, classical music, and Boston literature, and it was not an unpardonable heresy to say that some other women might be, had been, or could be, more amusing in ordinary conversation. Nevertheless, Mrs. Sam Wyndham held a position in Boston which Boston acknowledged, and which Boston insisted that foreigners such as New Yorkers, Philadelphians and the like, should acknowledge also in that spirit of reverence which is justly due to a descent on both sides from several signers of the Declaration of Independence, and to the wife of one of the ruling financial spirits of the aristocratic part of Boston business. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Wyndham was about forty years of age, as all her friends of course knew; for it is as easy for a Bostonian to conceal a question of age as for a crowned head. In a place where one half of society calls the other half cousin, and went to school with it, every one knows and accurately remembers just how old everybody else is. But Mrs. Wyndham might have passed for younger than she was among the world at large, for she was fresh to look at, and of good figure and complexion. Her black hair showed no signs of turning gray, and her dark eyes were bright and penetrating still. There were lines in her face, those microscopic lines that come so abundantly to American women in middle age, speaking of a certain restless nervousness that belongs to them especially; but on the whole Mrs. Sam Wyndham was fair to see, having a dignity of carriage and a grace of ease about her that at once gave the impression of a woman thoroughly equal to the part she had to play in the world, and not by any means incapable of enjoying it. For the rest, Mrs. Sam led a life very much like the lives of many rich Americans. She went abroad frequently, wandered about the continent with her husband, went to Egypt and Algiers, stayed in England, where she had a good many friends, avoided her countrymen and countrywomen when away from home, and did her duty in the social state to which she was called in Boston. She read the books of the period, and generally pronounced them ridiculous; she believed in her husband's politics, and aristocratically approved the way in which he abstained from putting theory into practice, from voting, and in a general way from dirtying his fingers with anything so corrupt as government, or so despicable as elections; she understood Boston business to some extent, and called it finance, but she despised the New York Stock Market and denounced its doings as gambling. She made fine distinctions, but she was a woman of sense, and was generally more likely to be right than wrong when she had a definite opinion, or expressed a definite dislike. Her religious views were simple and unobtrusive, and never changed. Her custom of being at home after five o'clock was perhaps the only deviation she allowed herself from the established manners of her native city, and since two or three other ladies had followed her example, it had come to be regarded as a perfectly harmless idiosyncrasy for which she could not properly be blamed. The people who came to see her were chiefly men, except, of course, on the inevitable Monday. A day or two before Christmas, then, Mrs. Sam Wyndham was at home in the afternoon. The snow lay thick and hard outside, and the sleigh bells tinkled unceasingly as the sleighs slipped by the window, gleaming and glittering in the deep red glow of the sunset. The track was well beaten for miles away, down Beacon Street and across the Milldam to the country, and the pavements were strewn with ashes to give a foothold for pedestrians. For the frost was sharp and lasting. But within, Mrs. Wyndham sat by the fire with a small table before her, and one companion by her side, for whom she was pouring tea. "Tell me all about your summer, Mr. Vancouver," said she, teasing the flame of the spirit-lamp into better shape with a small silver instrument. Mr. Pocock Vancouver leaned back in his corner of the sofa and looked at the fire, then at the window, and finally at his hostess, before he answered. He was a pale man and slight of figure, with dark eyes, and his carefully brushed hair, turning gray at the temples and over his forehead, threw his delicate, intelligent face into relief. "I have not done much," he answered, rather absently, as though trying to find something interesting in his reminiscences; and he watched Mrs. Wyndham as she filled a cup. He was not the least anxious to talk, it seemed, and he had an air of being thoroughly at home. "You were in England most of the time, were you not?" "Yes--I believe I was. Oh, by the bye, I met Harrington in Paris; I thought he meant to stay at home." "He often goes abroad," said Mrs. Wyndham indifferently. "One lump of sugar?" "Two, if you please--no cream--thanks. Does he go to Paris to convert the French, or to glean materials for converting other people?" inquired Mr. Vancouver languidly. "I am sure I cannot tell you," answered the lady, still indifferently. "What do you go to Paris for?" "Principally to renew my acquaintance with civilized institutions and humanizing influences. What does anybody go abroad for?" "You always talk like that when you come home, Mr. Vancouver," said Mrs. Wyndham. "But nevertheless you come back and seem to find Boston bearable. It is not such a bad place after all, is it?" "If it were not for half a dozen people here, I would never come back at all," said Mr. Vancouver. "But then, I am not originally one of you, and I suppose that makes a difference." "And pray, who are the half dozen people who procure us the honor of your presence?" "You are one of them, Mrs. Wyndham," he answered, looking at her. "I am much obliged," she replied, demurely. "Any one else?" "Oh--John Harrington," said Vancouver with a little laugh. "Really?" said Mrs. Wyndham, innocently; "I did not know you were such good friends." Mr. Vancouver sipped his tea in silence for a moment and stared at the fire. "I have a great respect for Harrington," he said at last. "He interests me very much, and I like to meet him." He spoke seriously, as though thoroughly in earnest. The faintest look of amusement came to Mrs. Wyndham's face for a moment. "I am glad of that," she said; "Mr. Harrington is a very good friend of mine. Do you mind lighting those candles? The days are dreadfully short." Pocock Vancouver rose with alacrity and performed the service required. "By the way," said Mrs. Wyndham, watching him, "I have a surprise for you." "Indeed?" "Yes, an immense surprise. Do you remember Sybil Brandon?" "Charlie Brandon's daughter? Very well--saw her at Newport some time ago. Lily-white style--all eyes and hair." "You ought to remember her. You used to rave about her, and you nearly ruined yourself in roses. You will have another chance; she is going to spend the winter with me." "Not really?" ejaculated Mr. Vancouver, in some surprise, as he again sat down upon the sofa. "Yes; you know she is all alone in the world now." "What? Is her mother dead too?" "She died last spring, in Paris. I thought you knew." "No," said Vancouver, thoughtfully. "How awfully sad!" "Poor girl," said Mrs. Wyndham; "I thought it would do her good to be among live people, even if she does not go out." "When is she coming?" There was a show of interest about the question. "She is here now," answered Mrs. Sam. "Dear me!" said Vancouver. "May I have another cup?" His hostess began the usual series of operations necessary to produce a second cup of tea. "Mrs. Wyndham," began Vancouver again after a pause, "I have an idea--do not laugh, it is a very good one, I am sure." "I am not laughing." "Why not marry Sibyl Brandon to John Harrington?" Mrs. Wyndham stared for a moment. "How perfectly ridiculous!" she cried at last. "Why?" "They would starve, to begin with." "I doubt it," said Vancouver. "Why, I am sure Mr. Harrington never had more than five thousand a year in his life. You could not marry on that, you know--possibly." "No; but Miss Brandon is very well off--rich, in fact." "I thought she had nothing." "She must have thirty or forty thousand a year from her mother, at the least. You know Charlie never did anything in his life; he lived on his wife's money, and Miss Brandon must have it all." Mrs. Wyndham did not appear surprised at the information; she hardly seemed to think it of any importance. "I knew she had something," she repeated; "but I am glad if you are right. But that does not make it any more feasible to marry her to Mr. Harrington." "I thought that starvation was your objection," said Vancouver. "Oh, no; not that only. Besides, he would not marry her." "He would be very foolish not to, if he had the chance," remarked Vancouver. "Perhaps he might not even have the chance--perhaps she would not marry him," said Mrs. Wyndham, thoughtfully. "Besides, I do not think John Harrington ought to marry yet; he has other things to do." Mr. Vancouver seemed about to say something in answer, but he checked himself; possibly he did not speak because he saw some one enter the room at that moment, and was willing to leave the discussion of John Harrington to a future time. In fact, the person who entered the room should have been the very last to hear the conversation that was taking place, for it was Miss Brandon herself, though Mr. Vancouver had not recognized her at once. There were greetings and hand-shakings, and then Miss Brandon sat down by the fire and spread out her hands as though to warm them. She looked white and cold. There are women in the world, both young and old, who seem to move among us like visions from another world, a world that is purer and fairer, and more heavenly than this one in which the rest of us move. It is hard to say what such women have that marks them so distinctly; sometimes it is beauty, sometimes only a manner, often it is both. It is very certain that we know and feel their influence, and that many men fear it as something strange and contrary to the common order of things, a living reproach and protest against all that is base and earthly and badly human. Most people would have said first of Sybil Brandon that she was cold, and many would have added that she was beautiful. Ill-natured people sometimes said she was deathly. No one ever said she was pretty. Vancouver's description--lily-white, all eyes and hair--certainly struck the principal facts of her appearance, for her skin was whiter than is commonly natural, her eyes were very deep and large and blue, and her soft brown hair seemed to be almost a burden to her from its great quantity. She was dressed entirely in black, and being rather tall and very slight of figure, the dress somewhat exaggerated the ethereal look that was natural to her. She seemed cold, and spread out her delicate hands to the bright flame of the blazing wood-fire. Mrs. Wyndham and Pocock Vancouver looked at her in silence for a moment. Then Mrs. Wyndham rose with a cup of tea in her hand, and crossed to the other side of the fireplace where Sybil was sitting and offered it to her. "Poor Sybil, you are so cold. Drink some tea." The elder woman sat down by the young girl, and lightly kissed her cheek. "You must not be sad, darling," she whispered sympathetically. "I am not sad at all, really," answered Miss Brandon aloud, quite naturally, but pressing Mrs. Wyndham's hand a little, as though in acknowledgment of her sympathy. "No one can be sad in Boston," said Vancouver, putting in a word. "Our city is altogether too wildly gay." He laughed a little. "You must not make fun of us to visitors, Mr. Vancouver," answered Mrs. Wyndham, still holding Sybil's hand. "It is Mr. Vancouver's ruling passion, though he never acknowledges it," said Miss Brandon, calmly. "I remember it of old." "I am flattered at being remembered," said Mr. Vancouver, whose delicate features betrayed neither pleasure nor interest, however. "But," he continued, "I am not particularly flattered at being called a scoffer at my own people--" "I did not say that," interrupted Miss Brandon. "Well, you said my ruling passion was making fun of Boston to visitors; at least, you and Mrs. Wyndham said it between you. I really never do that, unless I give the other side of the question as well." "What other side?" asked Mrs. Sam, who wanted to make conversation. "Boston," said Vancouver with some solemnity. "It is not more often ridiculous than other great institutions." "You simply take one's breath away, Mr. Vancouver," said Mrs. Wyndham, with a good deal of emphasis. "The idea of calling Boston 'an institution!'" "Why, certainly. The United States are only an institution after all. You could not soberly call us a nation. Even you could not reasonably be moved to fine patriotic phrases about your native country, if your ancestors had signed twenty Declarations of Independence. We live in a great institution, and we have every right to flatter ourselves on the success of its management; but in the long run this thing will not do for a nation." Miss Brandon looked at Vancouver with a sort of calm incredulity. Mrs. Wyndham always quarreled with him on points like the one now raised, and accordingly took up the cudgels. "I do not see how you can congratulate yourself on the management of your institution, as you call it, when you know very well you would rather die than have anything to do with it." "Very true. But then, you always say that gentlemen should not touch anything so dirty as politics, Mrs. Wyndham," retorted Vancouver. "Well, that just shows that it is not an institution at all, and that you are quite wrong, and that we are a great nation supported and carried on by real patriotism." "And the Irish and German votes," added Vancouver, with that scorn which only the true son of freedom can exhibit in speaking of his fellow-citizens. "Oh, the Irish vote! That is always the last word in the argument," answered Mrs. Sam. "I do not see exactly what the Irish have to do with it," remarked Miss Brandon, innocently. She did not understand politics. Vancouver glanced at the clock and took his hat. "It is very simple," he said, rising to go. "It is the bull in the china shop--the Irish bull amongst the American china--dangerous, you know. Good evening, Mrs. Wyndham; good evening, Miss Brandon." And he took his leave. Miss Brandon watched his slim figure disappear through the heavy curtains of the door. "He has not changed much since I knew him," she said, turning again to the fire. "I used to think he was clever." "And have you changed your mind?" asked Mrs. Wyndham, laughing. "Not quite, but I begin to doubt. He has very good manners, and looks altogether like a gentleman." "Of course," said Mrs. "Wyndham." His mother was a Shaw, although his father came from South Carolina. But he is really very bright; Sam always says he is one of the ablest men in Boston." "In what way?" inquired Sybil. "Oh, he is a lawyer, don't you know?--great railroad man." "Oh," ejaculated Miss Brandon, and relapsed into silence. Mrs. Wyndham rose and stood before the fire, and pushed a log back with her small foot. Miss Brandon watched her, half wondering whether the flames would not catch her dress. "I have been to see that Miss Thorn," said Sybil presently. "Oh," exclaimed Mrs. Sam, with sudden interest, "tell me all about her this minute, dear. Is not she the most extraordinary creature?" "I rather like her," answered Miss Brandon. "She is very pretty." "What style? Dark?" "No; not exactly. Brown hair, and lots of eyebrows. She is a little thing, but very much alive, you know." "Awfully English, of course," suggested Mrs. Sam. "Well--yes, I suppose so. She is wild about horses, and says she shoots. But I like her--I am sure I shall like her very much. She does not seem very pleased with her aunt." "I do not wonder," said Mrs. Sam. "Poor little thing--she has nobody else belonging to her, has she?" "Oh, yes," answered Sybil, with a little tremor in her voice; "she has a mother in England." "I want to see her ever so much," said Mrs. Sam. "Bring her to luncheon." "You will see her to-night, I think; she said she was going to that party." "I hate to leave you alone," said Mrs. Wyndham. "I really think I had better not go." "Dear Mrs. Wyndham," said Sybil, rising, and laying her hands on her hostess's shoulders, half affectionately, half in protest, "this idea must be stopped from the first, and I mean to stop it. You are not to give up any party, or any society, or anything at all for me. If you do I will go away again. Promise me, will you not?" "Very well, dear. But you know you are the dearest girl in the world." And so they kissed, and agreed that Mrs. Wyndham should go out, and that Sybil should stay at home. Mrs. Wyndham was really a very kind-hearted woman and a loving friend. That might be the reason why she was never popular. Popularity is a curious combination of friendliness and indifference, but very popular people rarely have devoted friends, and still more rarely suffer great passions. Everybody's friend is far too apt to be nobody's, for it is impossible to rely on the support of a person whose devotion is liable to be called upon a hundred times a day, from a hundred different quarters. The friendships that mean anything mean sacrifice for friendship's sake; and a man or a woman really ready to make sacrifices for a considerable number of people is likely to be asked to do it very often, and to be soon spent in the effort to be true to every one. But popularity makes no great demands. The popular man is known to be so busy in being popular that his offenses of omission are readily pardoned. His engagements are legion, his obligations are innumerable, and far more than he can fulfill. But, meet him when you will, his smile is as bright, his greeting as cordial, and his sayings as universally good-natured and satisfactory as ever. He has acquired the habit of pleasing, and it is almost impossible for him to displease. He enjoys it all, is agreeable to every one, and is never expected to catch cold in attending a friend's funeral, or otherwise to sacrifice his comfort, because he is quite certain to have important engagements elsewhere, in which the world always believes. There is probably no individual more absolutely free and untrammeled than the thoroughly popular man. CHAPTER II. Fate, the artist, mixes her own colors. She grinds them with a pestle in the fashion of the old masters, and out of the most strange pigments she produces often only soft neutral tints for background and shadow, kneading a vast deal of bright colors away among the grays and browns; but now and then she takes a palette loaded with strong paint, and a great brush, and splashes a startling full length portrait upon the canvas, without much regard for drawing or general composition, but with very startling effect. To paint well needs life-long study; to paint so as merely to attract attention needs courage and a heart hardened against artistic sensitiveness. John Harrington was a high light against the mezzotint of his surroundings. He was a constant source of interest, and not infrequently of terror, to the good town of Boston. True, he was a Bostonian himself, a chip of the old block, whose progenitors had lived in Salem, and whose very name breathed Pilgrim memories. He even had a teapot that had come over in the Mayflower. This was greatly venerated, and whenever John Harrington said anything more than usually modern, his friends brandished the teapot, morally speaking, in his defense, and put it in the clouds as a kind of rainbow--a promise that Puritan blood could not go wrong. Nevertheless, John Harrington continued to startle his fellow-townsmen by his writings and sayings, so that many of the grave sort shook their heads and swore that he sympathized with the Irish and believed in Chinese labor. As a matter-of-fact, he did not mince matters. Endowed with unbounded courage and an extraordinary command of language, when he got upon his feet he spoke his mind in a way that was good to hear. Moreover, he had the strong oratorical temperament that forces attention and commands men in a body. He said that things were wrong and should be put right; and when he had said so for half an hour to a couple of thousand people, most of them were ready to follow him out of the hall and go and put things right on the spot, with their own hands. As yet the opportunity had not offered for proceeding in so simple a manner, but the aforesaid Bostonians of the graver sort said that John Harrington would some day be seen heading a desperate mob of socialists in an assault upon the State House. What he had to do with socialism, or to what end he should thus fiercely invade the headquarters of all earthly respectability, was not exactly apparent, but the picture thus evoked in the minds of the solemn burghers satisfactorily defined for them the personality of the man, and they said it and said it again. It was somewhat remarkable that he had never been called clever. At first he was regarded as a fool by most of his own class, though he always had friends who believed in him. By and by, as it came to be seen that he had a purpose and would be listened to while he stated it, Boston said there was something in him; but he was never said to be clever or "bright"--he was John Harrington, neither more nor less. He was never even called "Jack." He was a friend of Mrs. Wyndham's; her keen instincts had long ago recognized the true metal in the man, and of all who came and went in her house there was none more welcome than he. Sam Wyndham utterly disagreed with him in politics, but always defended him in private, saying that he would "calm down a lot when he got older," and that meanwhile he was "a very good fellow if you did not stir him up." He was therefore very intimate at the Sam Wyndham establishment; in fact, at the very hour when Pocock Vancouver was drinking Mrs. Sam's tea, John had intended to be enjoying the same privilege. Unfortunately for his intention he was caught elsewhere and could not get away. He was drinking tea, it is true, but the position in which he found himself was not entirely to his taste. Old Miss Schenectady, whose niece, Miss Josephine Thorn, had lately come over from England to pass the winter, had asked John Harrington to call that afternoon. The old lady believed in John on account of the Mayflower teapot, and consequently thought him a desirable acquaintance for her niece. Accordingly, John went to the house, and met Miss Sybil Brandon just as she was leaving it; which he regretted, suspecting that her society would have been more interesting than that of Miss Thorn. As it turned out, he was right, for his first impression of the young English girl was not altogether agreeable; and he found himself obliged to stay and talk to her until an ancient lady, who had come to gossip with Miss Schenectady, and was fully carrying out her intentions, should go away and make it possible for him to take his leave without absolutely abandoning Miss Thorn in the corner of the room she had selected for the _tête-à-tête_. "All that, of course, you know," said Miss Thorn, in answer to some remark of John's, "but what sort of things do you really care for?" "People," answered John without hesitation. "Of course," returned his companion, "everybody likes people. It is not very original. One could not live without lots of society, could one?" "That depends on the meaning of society." "Oh, I am not in the least learned about meanings," answered Miss Thorn. "I mean what one means by society, you know. Heaps of men and women, and tea-parties, and staying in the country, and that." "That is a sketch indeed," said John, laughing. "But then it is rather different here. We do not relapse into the country as you do in England, and then come back to town like lions refreshed with sleep." "Why not?" "Because once in society here one is always in it. At least, most people are. As soon as heat begins Boston goes to New York; and by-and-by New York goes to Saratoga, and takes Boston with it; and then all three go to Newport, and the thing begins again, until there is a general rush to Lenox, to see the glories of the autumn; and by the time the glories are getting a little thin it is time to be in Beacon Street again." "But when do people shoot and ride?--do they ever hunt?" asked Miss Thorn, opening her wide brown eyes in some astonishment at John Harrington's description of society life in America. "Oh yes, they hunt at Newport with a drag and a bagged fox. They do it in July and August, when it is as hot as it can be, and the farmers turn out with pitchforks and stones to warn them off the growing crops." "How ridiculous!" exclaimed Miss Josephine. "It is absurd, of course," said Harrington, "and cruel. But I must say they ride as though there were no hereafter, and it is a stiff country." "They must, I should think; no one who believed in a hereafter would hunt in summer." "I will wager that if you go to Newport this summer you will hunt, just like everybody else," said John boldly. Josephine Thorn knew in her heart that it was true, but she did not like the tone in which John said it. There was an air of certainty about his way of talking that roused her opposition. "I would do nothing so foolish," said she. "You do not know me. And do you mean to tell me that you like these people who rush madly about the country and hunt in summer, and those sort of things?" "No," said John, "not always." "But you said you liked people. How awfully inconsistent you are!" "Excuse me, I think not. I meant that I liked people and having to do with them--with men and women--better than I like things." "What are 'things'?" inquired Josephine, sarcastically. "You are not very clear in your way of expressing yourself." "I will be as clear as you please," answered John, looking across the room at Miss Schenectady and her ancient friend, and devoutly wishing he could get away. "I mean by 'things' the study of the inanimate part of creation, of such sciences as are not directly connected with man's thoughts and actions, and such pursuits as hunting, shooting, and sporting of all kinds, which lead only to the amusement of the individual. I mean also the production of literature for literature's sake, and of works of art for the mere sake of themselves. When I say I like 'people,' I mean men and women, their opinions and their relations to each other." "I should think you would get very tired of them," said Miss Thorn scornfully. "They are all dreadfully alike." She never forgot the look Harrington turned upon her as he answered. His calm, deep-set gray eyes gazed steadily at her, and his square features assumed an air of gravity that almost startled her. "I am never tired of men and women," he said. "Has it ever struck you, Miss Thorn, that the study of men and women means the study of government, and that a knowledge of men and women may give the power to influence the destiny of mankind?" "I never thought of it like that," said Josephine, very quietly. She was surprised at his manner, and she suddenly felt that he was no ordinary man. To tell the truth, her aunt had informed her that John Harrington was coming that afternoon, and had told her he was an exceedingly able man, a statement which at once roused Josephine's opposition to its fiercest pitch. She thoroughly hated to be warned about people, to be primed as it were with a dose of their superiority beforehand. It always prepared her to dislike the admirable individual when he appeared. It seemed as though it were taken for granted that she herself had not enough intelligence to discover wit in others, and needed to be told of it with great circumstance in order to be upon her good behavior. Consequently Josephine began by disliking John. She thought he was a Philistine; his hair was too straight, and besides, it was red; he shaved all his face, whereas the men she liked always had beards; she liked men with black eyes, or blue--John's were gray and hard; he spoke quietly, without expression, and she liked men who were enthusiastic. After all, too, the things he said were not very clever; anybody could have said them. She meant to show her Boston aunt that she had no intention of accepting Boston genius on faith. It was not her way; she liked to find out for herself whether people were able or not, without being told, and if she ascertained that John Harrington enjoyed a fictitious reputation for genius it would amuse her to destroy it--or at all events to write a long letter home to a friend, expressing her supreme opinion on that and other matters. John, on his part, did not very much care what impression he produced. He never did on such occasions, and just now he was rendered doubly indifferent by the fact that he was wishing himself somewhere else. True, there was a certain novelty in being asked point-blank questions about his tastes. Boston people knew what he liked, and generally only asked him about what he did. Perhaps, if he had met Josephine by daylight, instead of in the dim shadows of Miss Schenectady's front drawing-room, he might have been struck by her appearance and interested by her manner. As it was, he was merely endeavoring to get through his visit with a proper amount of civility, in the hope that he might get away in time to see Mrs. Sam Wyndham before dinner. Josephine thought John dull, probably well informed, and utterly without interest in anything. She felt inclined to do something desperate--to throw the cushions at him, to do anything, in short, to rouse him from his calmness. Then he made that remark about government, and his voice deepened, and his gray eyes shone, and she was aware that he had a great and absorbing interest in life, and that he could be roused in one direction at least. To do her justice, she had quick perceptions, and the impression on her mind was instantaneous. "I never thought of it like that," she said. "Do you know?" she added in a moment, "I should not have thought you took much interest in anything at all." John laughed. He was amused at the idea that he, who knew himself to be one of the most enthusiastic of mortals, should be thought indifferent; and he was amused at the outspoken frankness of the girl's remark. "You know that is just like me," continued Miss Thorn quickly. "I always say what I think, you know. I cannot help it a bit." "What a pity all the world is not like you!" said John. "It would save a great deal of trouble, I am sure." "The frump is going at last," said Josephine, in an undertone, as the ancient friend rose and showed signs of taking leave of Miss Schenectady. "There is certainly no mistake about the frankness of that speech," said John, rising to his feet and laughing again. "There is no mistaking its truth," answered Josephine. "She is the real thing--the real old-fashioned frump--we have lots of them at home." "You remind me of Heine," said John. "He said he called a spade a spade, and Herr Schmidt an ass." Miss Thorn laughed. "Exactly," she answered, "that is the knowledge of men which you say leads to power." She rose also, and there was a little stir as the old lady departed. Josephine watched John as he bowed and opened the door of the room to let the visitor out. She wondered vaguely whether she would like him, whether he might not really be a remarkable man--a fact she doubted in proportion as her aunt assured her of its truth; she liked his looks and tried to determine whether he was handsome or not, and she watched closely for any awkwardness or shyness of manner, that being the fault in a man which she never pardoned. He was very different from the men she had generally known, and most completely different from those she had known as her admirers. In fact she had never admired her admirers at all,--except dear Ronald, of course. They competed with her on her own ground, and she knew well enough she was more than a match for any of them. Ronald was different; she had known him all her life. But all those other men! They could ride--but she rode as well, or better. They could shoot, but so could she, and allowing for the disadvantages of a woman in field sports, she was as good a shot as they. She knew she could do anything they could do, and understood most things they understood. All in all, she did not care for the average young Englishman. He was great fun in his own way, but there were probably more interesting things in the world than pheasants and fences. Politics would be interesting, she thought; she had known three or four men who were young and already prominent in Parliament, and they were undeniably interesting; but they were generally either ugly or clumsy,--the unpardonable sin,--or perhaps they were vain. Josephine could not bear vain men. John Harrington probably had some one or more of these defects. He was certainly no "beauty man," to begin with, nevertheless, she wondered whether he might not be called handsome by stretching a point. She rather hoped, inwardly and unconsciously, that her ultimate judgment would decide in favor of his good looks. She always judged; it was the first thing she did, and she was surprised, on the present occasion, to find her judgment so slow. People who pride themselves on being critical are often annoyed when they find themselves uncertain of their own opinion. As for his accomplishments, they were doubtful, to say the least. Miss Thorn was not used to considering American men as manly. She had read a great many books which made game of them, and showed how unused they were to all those good things which make up the life of an English country gentleman; she had met one or two Americans who turned up their noses in impotent scorn of all field sports except horse-racing, which they regarded from a financial point of view. Probably John Harrington had never killed a pheasant in his life. Lastly, he might be vain. A man with such a reputation for ability would most likely be conceited. And yet, despite probability, she could not help thinking John interesting. That one speech of his about government had meant something. He was a man with a strong personality, with a great interest in the world led by a dominant aspiration of some sort; and Josephine, in her heart, loved power and admired those who possessed it. Political power especially had that charm for her which it has for most English people of the upper class. There is some quality in the English race which breeds an inordinate admiration for all kinds of superiority: it is certain that if one class of English society can be justly accused of an over-great veneration for rank, the class which is rank itself is not behindhand in doing homage to the political stars of the day. In favor of this peculiarity of English people it may fairly be said that they love to associate with persons of rank and power from a disinterested love of those things themselves, whereas in most other countries the society of noble and influential persons is chiefly sought from the most cynical motives of personal advantage. Politics--that is, the outward and appreciable manifestations of political life--must always furnish abundant food for the curiosity of the many and the intelligent criticism of the few. There is no exception to that rule, be the state great or small. But politics in England and politics in America, so far as the main points are concerned, are as different as it is possible for any two social functions to be. Roughly, Government and the doings of Government are centripetal in England, and centrifugal in America. In England the will of the people assists the workings of Providence, whereas in America devout persons pray that Providence may on occasion modify the will of the people. In England men believe in the Queen, the Royal Family, the Established Church, and Belgravia first, and in themselves afterwards. Americans believe in themselves devoutly, and a man who could "establish" upon them a church, a royalty, or a peerage, would be a very clever fellow. Josephine Thorn and John Harrington were fair examples of their nationalities. Josephine believed in England and the English; John Harrington believed in America and the Americans. How far England and America are ever likely to believe in each other, however, is a question of future history and not of past experience, and any reasonable amount of doubt may be cast upon the possibility of such mutual confidence. But as Josephine stood watching John Harrington while he opened the drawing-room door for the visitor to go out, she thought of none of these things. She certainly did not consider herself a type of her nation--a distinction to which few English people aspire--and she as certainly would have denied that the man before her was a type of the modern American. John remained standing when the lady was gone. "Do sit down," said Miss Schenectady, settling herself once more in her corner. "Thank you, I think I must be going now," answered John. "It is late." As he spoke he turned toward Miss Thorn, and for the first time saw her under the bright light of the old-fashioned gas chandelier. The young girl was perhaps not what is called a great beauty, but she was undeniably handsome, and she possessed that quality which often goes with quick perceptions and great activity, and which is commonly defined by the expression "striking." Short, rather than tall, she was yet so proportioned between strength and fineness as to be very graceful, and her head sat proudly on her shoulders--too proudly sometimes, for she could command and she could be angry. Her wide brown eyes were bright and fearless and honest. The faint color came and went under the clear skin as freely as the heart could send it, and though her hair was brown and soft, there were ruddy tints among the coils, that flashed out unexpectedly here and there like threads of red gold twined in a mass of fine silk. John looked at her in some astonishment, for in his anxiety to be gone and in the dimness of the corner where they had sat, he had not realized that Josephine was any more remarkable in her appearance than most of the extremely young women who annually make their entrance into society, with the average stock of pink and white prettiness. They call them "buds" in Boston--an abbreviation for rosebuds. Fresh young roses of each opening year, fresh with the dew of heaven and the blush of innocence, coming up in this wild garden of a world, what would the gardener do without you? Where would all beauty and sweetness be found among the thorny bushes and the withering old shrubs and the rotting weeds, were it not for you? Maidens with clean hands and pure hearts, in whose touch there is something that heals the ills and soothes the pains of mortality, roses whose petals are yet unspotted by dust and rain, and whose divine perfume the hot south wind has not scorched, nor the east wind nipped and frozen--you are the protest, set every year among us, against the rottenness of the world's doings, the protest of the angelic life against the earthly, of the eternal good against the eternal bad. John Harrington looked at Miss Thorn, and looked at her with pleasure, for he saw that she was fair--but in spite of her newly discovered beauty he resisted Miss Schenectady's invitation to sit down again, and departed. Any other man would have stayed, under the circumstances. "Well, Josephine," said Miss Schenectady, when he was gone, "now you have seen John Harrington." Josephine looked at her aunt and laughed a little; it seemed to her a very self-evident fact, since John had just gone. "Exactly," said she. "Won't you call me Joe, aunt Zoruiah? They all do at home--even Ronald." "Joe? Boy's name. Well, if you insist upon it. As I was saying, you have seen John Harrington, now." "Exactly," repeated Joe. "But I mean, how does he strike you?" "Clever I should think," answered the young lady. "Clever, you know--that sort of thing. Not bad looking, either." "I told you so," said Miss Schenectady. "Yes--but I expected ever so much more from what you said," returned Joe, kneeling on the rug before the fire and poking the coals with the tongs. Miss Schenectady looked somewhat offended at the slight cast upon her late guest. "You are very _difficile_, Josephi--I mean Joe, I forgot." "Ye--es, very diffyseal--that sort of thing," repeated Josephine, mimicking her aunt's pronunciation of the foreign word, "I know I am, I can't possibly help it, you know." A dashing thrust with the tongs finally destroyed the equilibrium of the fire, and the coals came tumbling down upon the hearth. "Goodness gracious me!" exclaimed the old lady in great anxiety, "you will have the house on fire in no time! Give me the tongs right away, my dear. You do not understand American fires!" CHAPTER III. "Dear Ronald,--You can't imagine what a funny place Boston is. I wish you were here, it would be so nice to talk about them together--I mean the people, of course, for they are much funnier than the place they live in. But I think they are very nice, too, particularly some of the men. I don't understand the women in the least--they go in awfully for sets, if you understand that kind of thing--and art, too, and literature. The other day at a lunch party--that is what they call it here--they sat and talked about pictures for ever so long. I wonder what you would have said if you had been there! but then there were no men, and so you couldn't have been, could you? And the sets, too. The girls who come out together, all in a batch, like a hive of bees swarming, spend the rest of their lives together; and they have what they call sewing circles, that go on all their lives. There are sewing circles of old frumps sixty years old who have never been parted since they all went to their first ball together. They sew for the poor; they don't sew so very much, you know; but then they have a tremendous lunch afterwards. I sewed for the poor the other day, because one of the sewing circles asked me to their meeting. I sewed two buttons on to the end of something, and then I ate six kinds of salad, and went to drive with Mr. Vancouver. I dare say it does a lot of good in its way, but I think the poor must be awfully good-natured. "It is quite too funny about driving, too. You may go out with a man in a sleigh, but you couldn't possibly go with him on wheels--on the same road, at the same hour, same man, same everything, except the wheels. You agree to go out next week in a sleigh with Mr. Vancouver; but when the day comes, if it has happened to thaw and there is no snow, and he comes in a buggy, you couldn't possibly go with him, because it would be quite too improper. But I mean to, some day, just to see what they will say. I wish you would come! We would do a lot of driving together, and by and by, in the spring, they say one can ride here, but only along the roads, for everything else is so thick with steam-engines and Irishmen that one could not possibly go across country. "But although they are so funny, they are really very nice, and awfully clever. I don't think there are nearly so many clever men anywhere else in society, when once you have got over their Americanisms. Most of them would be in Parliament at home; but nobody goes into Parliament here, except Mr. Harrington--that is, into Congress, which is the same thing, you know. They say politics in America are not at all fit for gentlemen, and they spend an hour or two every day in abusing all the politicians, instead of turning them out and managing things themselves. But Mr. Harrington is going to be a senator as soon as he can, and he is so clever that I am sure he will make a great reform. "I don't think of anything else to say just now, but if I do I will write again--only it's unfeminine to write two letters running, so you must answer at once. And if you should want to travel this winter you can come here; they will treat you ever so much better than you deserve. So good-by. Yours ever sincerely, "JOE THORN." The precise nature of the friendship that existed between Josephine Thorn and Ronald Surbiton could not be accurately inferred from the above specimen of correspondence; and indeed the letter served rather to confuse than to enlighten the recipient as to the nature of his relations with the writer. He was, of course, very much in love with Joe Thorn; he knew it, because he had always been in love with her since they were children together, so there could be no possible doubt in the matter. But whether she cared a jot for him and his feelings he could not clearly make out, from the style of the hurried, ungrammatical sentences, crammed with abbreviations and unpermissible elisions. True, she said three times that she hoped he would come to America; but America was a long way off, and she very likely reckoned on his laziness and dislike to foreign traveling. It is so easy for a young woman writing from Boston to say to a young man residing in Scotland, "Do come over for a few days"--Surbiton thought it would be a good joke to take her at her word and go. The idea of seeing her again so much sooner than he had expected was certainly uppermost in his mind as he began to make his resolution; but it was sustained and strengthened by a couple of allusions Joe had made to men of her acquaintance in Boston, not to say by the sweeping remark that there were more clever men in Boston society than anywhere else, which made his vanity smart rather unpleasantly. When Josephine used to tell him, half in earnest, half in jest, that he was "so dreadfully stupid," he did not feel much hurt; but it was different when she took the trouble to write all the way from America to tell him that the men there were much cleverer than at home. He had a great mind to go and see for himself whether it were true. Nevertheless, the hunting was particularly good just at the time when he got the letter, and being rather prudent of counsel, Ronald determined to wait until a hard frost should spoil his temper and give the necessary stimulus to his activity, before he packed his boxes for a western voyage. As for Josephine, it was very natural that she should feel a little homesick, and wish to have some one of her own people with her. In spite of the favorable views she expressed about America, Boston, and her new acquaintances, her position was not without some drawbacks in her own eyes. She felt herself out of her natural element, and the very great admiration she received in society, though pleasant enough in itself, was not to her so entirely satisfactory as it would have been to a woman older or younger than she, or to a more thorough flirt. An older woman would have enjoyed more keenly the flattery of it; a younger girl would have found it more novel and fresh, and the accomplished professional society flirt--there is no other word to express her--would have rejoiced exceedingly over a great holocaust of victims. In writing to Surbiton and suggesting to him to come to Boston, Joe had no intention of fanning his hopes into flame. She never thought much about Ronald. She had long been used to him, and regarded him in the light of a marriage fixture, though she had never exactly promised to marry him; she had been brought up to suppose she would, and that was all. When or where the marriage would actually take place was a question she did not care to raise, and if ever Surbiton raised it she repressed him ruthlessly. For the present she would look about the world, seeing she had been transported into a new part of it, and she found it amusing. Only she would like to have a companion to whom she could talk. Ronald would be so convenient, and after all it was a great advantage to be able to make use of the man to whom she was engaged. She never had known any other girl who could do that, and she rather prided herself on the fact that she was not ridiculous, although she was in the most traditionally absurd position, that of betrothal. She would like to compare Ronald with the men she had met lately. The desire for comparison had increased of late. A fortnight had passed since she had first met John Harrington, and she had made up her mind. He was handsome, though his hair was red and he had no beard, and she liked him; she liked him very much; it was quite different from her liking for Ronald. She liked Ronald, she said to herself that she loved him dearly, partly because she expected to marry him, and partly because he was so good and so much in love with herself. He would take any amount of trouble for anything she wanted. But John was different. She knew very well that she was thinking much more of him than he of her, if indeed he thought of her at all. But she was a little ashamed of it, and in order to justify herself in her own eyes she was cold and sarcastic in her manner to him, so that people noticed it, and even John Harrington himself, who never thought twice whether his acquaintances liked him or disliked him, remarked one day to Mrs. Wyndham that he feared he had offended Miss Thorn, as she took such particular pains to treat him differently from others. On the other hand Joe was always extremely candid to Pocock Vancouver. It was on a Monday that John made the aforesaid remark. All Boston was at Mrs. Wyndham's, excepting all the other ladies who lived in Beacon Street, and that is a very considerable portion of Boston, as every schoolboy knows. John was standing near the tea-table talking to Mrs. Sam, when Joe entered the room and came up to the hostess, who welcomed her warmly. She nodded coldly to John without shaking hands, and joined a group of young girls near by. "It is very strange," said John to Mrs. Wyndham. "I wonder whether I can have done anything Miss Thorn resents. I am not sensitive, but it is impossible to mistake people when they look at one like that. She always does it just in that way." Mrs. Wyndham looked inquiringly at John for a moment, and the quick smile of ready comprehension played on her sensitive mouth. "Are you really quite sure you have not offended her?" she asked. "Quite sure," John answered, in a tone of conviction. "Besides, I never offend any one, certainly not ladies. I never did such a thing in my whole life." "Not singly," said Mrs. Wyndham, laughing. "You offend people in large numbers when you do it at all, especially newspaper people. Sam read that ridiculous article in the paper to me last night." "Which paper?" asked John, smiling. "They have most of them been at me this week." "_The_ paper," answered Mrs. Sam, "the _horrid_ paper. You do not suppose I would mention such a publication in my house?" "Oh, my old enemy," laughed John. "I do not mind that in the least. One might almost think those articles were written by Miss Thorn." "Perhaps they are," answered Mrs. Wyndham. "Really," she added, glancing at Josephine, whom Pocock Vancouver had just detached from her group of girls, "really you may not be so very, very far wrong." John's glance followed the direction of her eyes, and he saw Vancouver. He looked steadily at the man's delicate pale features and intellectual head, and at the end of half a minute he and Mrs. Wyndham looked at each other again. She probably regretted the hint she had carelessly dropped, but she met Harrington's gaze frankly. "I did not mean to say it," she said, for John looked so grave that she was frightened. "It was only a guess." "But have you any reason to think it might be the truth?" asked John. "None whatever--really none, except that he differs so much from you in every way, politically speaking." She knew very well that Vancouver hated John, and she had often thought it possible that the offensive articles in question came from the pen of the former. There was a tone of superior wit and a ring of truer English in them than are generally met with in the average office work of a daily newspaper. "I do not believe Vancouver writes them," said John, slowly. "He is not exactly a friend, but he is not an enemy either." Mrs. Wyndham, who knew better than that, held her peace. She was not a mischief-maker, and moreover she liked both the men too well to wish a quarrel between them. She busied herself at the tea-table for a moment, and John stood near her, watching the moving crowd. Now and then his eyes rested on Josephine Thorn's graceful figure, and he noticed how her expressive features lighted up in the conversation. John could hear something of their conversation, which was somewhat noisy. They were talking in that strain of objectless question and answer which may be stupid to idiocy or clever to the verge of wit, according to the talkers. Joe called it "chaff." "I have learned America," said Joe. "Indeed!" said Vancouver. "You have not been long about it; but then, you will say there is not much to learn." "I never believe in places till I have lived in them," said Joe. "Nor in people till you have seen them, I suppose," returned Vancouver. "But now that you have learned America, of course you believe in us all without exception. We are the greatest nation on earth--I suppose you have heard that?" "Yes; you told me so the other day; but it needs all the faith I have in your judgment to believe it. If any one else had said it, you know, I should have thought there was some mistake." "Oh no; it is pretty true, taking it all round," returned Vancouver, with a smile. "But I am tremendously flattered at the faith you put in my sayings." "Oh, are you? That is odd, you know, because if you are so much flattered at my believing you, you would not be much disappointed if I doubted you." "I beg to differ. Excuse me"-- "Not at all," answered Joe, laughing. "Only we have old-fashioned prejudices at home. We begin by expecting to be believed, and are sometimes a good deal annoyed if any one says we are telling fibs." "Of course, if you put it in that way," said Vancouver. "But I suppose it is not a very bad fib to say one's country is the greatest on earth. I am sure you English say it quite as often and as loudly as we do, and, you see, we cannot both be right, possibly." "No, not exactly. But suppose two men, any two, like you and Mr. Harrington for instance, each made a point of telling every one you met that you were the greatest man on earth." "It is conceivable that we might both be wrong," said Vancouver, laughing at the idea. "But one of you might be right," objected Joe. "No--that is not conceivable," retorted Vancouver. "No? Let us ask Mr. Harrington. Mr. Harrington!" Joe turned towards John and called him. He was only a step from her, and joined the two instantly. He looked from one to the other inquiringly. "Here is a great question to be decided, Mr. Harrington," said Joe. "I was saying to Mr. Vancouver that, supposing each of you asserted that he was the greatest man on earth, it would--I mean, how could the point be settled?" John stared for a moment. "If you insist upon raising such a very remarkable point of precedence, Miss Thorn," he answered calmly, "I am sure Vancouver will agree with me to leave the decision to you also." Joe looked slightly annoyed. She had brought the retort on herself. "Pardon me," said Vancouver, quickly, "I object to the contest. The match is not a fair one. Mr. Harrington means to be the greatest man on earth, or in the water under the earth, whereas I have no such aspiration." Instead of being grateful to Vancouver for coming to her rescue in the rather foolish position in which she was placed, Joe felt unaccountably annoyed. She was willing to make sure of John herself, if she could, but she was not prepared to allow that privilege to any one else. Accordingly she turned upon Vancouver before John could answer. "The question began in a foolish comparison, Mr. Vancouver," she said coldly. "I think you are inclined to make it personal?" "I believe it became personal from the moment you hit upon Mr. Harrington and me as illustrations of what you were saying, Miss Thorn," retorted Vancouver, very blandly, but with a disagreeable look in his eyes. He was angry at Joe's rebuke. John stood calmly by without exhibiting the least shade of annoyance. The chaff of a mere girl, and the little satirical thrusts of a lady's man like Vancouver, did not seem to him of much importance. Joe, however, did not vouchsafe any answer to Vancouver's last remark, and it devolved on John to say something to relieve the awkwardness of the situation. "Have you become reconciled to our methods of amusement, Miss Thorn?" he asked, "or shall we devise something different from the everlasting sleighing and five o'clock tea, and dinner parties and 'dancing classes'?" "Oh, do not remind me of all that," said Joe. "I did not mean half of it, you know." She turned to John, and Vancouver moved away in pursuit of Sybil Brandon, who had just entered the room. "Tell me," said Joe, when Pocock was gone, "do you like Mr. Vancouver? You are great friends, are you not?" John looked at her inquiringly. "I should not say we were very great friends," he answered, "because we are not intimate; but we have always been on excellent terms, as far as I know. Vancouver is a very clever fellow." "Yes," said Joe, thoughtfully, "I fancy he is. You do not mind my having asked, do you?" "Not in the least," said John, quietly. His face had grown very grave again, and he seemed suddenly absorbed by some thought. "Let us sit down," he said presently, and the two installed themselves on a divan in a corner. "You are not in the least inquisitive," remarked Joe, as soon as they were settled. "What makes you say that?" asked John. "It was such a silly thing, you know, and you never asked what it was all about." "When you called me? No--I did not hear what led up to it, and I supposed from what you said afterwards that I understood." "Did you? What did you think?" asked Joe. "I thought from the question about Vancouver that you wanted to put us into an awkward position in order to find out whether we were friends." "No," said Joe, with a little laugh, "I am not so clever as that. It was pure silliness--chaff, you know--that sort of thing." "Oh," ejaculated John, still quite unmoved, "then it was not of any importance." "Very silly things sometimes turn out to be very important. Saul, you know--was not it he?--was looking for asses and he found a kingdom." John laughed suddenly. "And so it is clear which part Vancouver and I played in the business," he said. "But where is the kingdom?" "I did not mean that," said Joe, seriously. "I am not making fun any more. I have not been successful in my chaff to-day. I should think that in your career it would be very important for you to know who are your friends. Is it not?" "Certainly," said John, looking at her curiously. "It is very important; but I think political life is generally much simpler than people suppose. It is rather like fighting. The man who hits you is your enemy. The man who does not is practically your friend. Do you mean in regard to Vancouver?" "Yes." "Vancouver never hit me, that I can swear," said John, "and I am very sure I never hit him." "I dare say I am mistaken," said Joe. "You ought to know best. Let us leave him alone." "With all my heart," answered John. "Tell me what you have been doing, Mr. Harrington," said Joe, after a moment's pause; "all the papers are full of you." "Yes, I have been rather in the passive mood during the last week. I have been standing up to be shot at." "Without shooting back? What are they so angry about?" "The truth," said John, calmly. "They do not like to hear it." "What is truth--in this instance?" "Apparently something so unpleasant that the mere mention of it has roused the bile of every penny-a-liner in the Republican press. I undertook to demonstrate that one of the fifteen millions of the 'ablest men in the country,' whom you are always hearing about, is a swindler. He is, but he does not like to be told so." "I suppose not," said Joe. "I wonder if any one likes unpleasant truths. But what do you mean to do now? Are you going to fight it out? I hope so!" "Of course, in good time. One can hardly retire from such a position as mine; they would make an end of me in a week and quarrel over my bones. But the real fight will be fought by and by, when the elections come on." "How exciting it must all be," said Joe. "I wish I were a man!" "And an American?" asked John, smiling. "How are the mighty fallen! You were laughing at us and our politics the day before yesterday, and now you are wishing you were one of us yourself. I think you must be naturally fond of fighting"-- "Fond of a row?" suggested Miss Thorn, with a laugh. "Yes, I fancy I am. I am fond of all active things. Are not you?" "I do not know," said John. "I never thought much about it. But I suppose I should be called rather an active person." "Is not she beautiful?" ejaculated Miss Thorn, looking across the room at Sybil Brandon, whose fair head was just visible between two groups of people. "Who?" asked John, who was looking at his companion. "Miss Brandon," said Joe. "Look at her, over there. I think she is the most beautiful thing I ever saw." "Yes," said John, "she is very beautiful." CHAPTER IV. All sorts and conditions of men and women elbowed and crowded each other under the dim gaslight at the three entrances to the Boston Music Hall. The snow was thick on the ground outside, and it had been thawing all the afternoon. The great booby sleighs slid and slipped and rocked through the wet stuff, the policemen vociferated, the horse-car drivers on Tremont Street rang their bells furiously, and a great crowd of pedestrians stumbled and tumbled about in the mud and slush and snow of the crossings, all bent on getting inside the Music Hall in time for the beginning of the lecture. The affair was called a "lecture" in accordance with the time-honored custom of Boston, and unless it were termed an oration, it would be hard to find a better name for it. A "meeting" implies a number of orators, or at least a well-filled row of chairs upon the platform. A "lecture," on the other hand, does not convey to the ordinary mind the idea of a political speech, and critical persons with a taste for etymology say that the word means something which is read. John Harrington had determined to speak in public on certain subjects connected with modern politics, and had caused the fact to be extensively made known. His name alone would have sufficed to draw a large audience, but the great attention he had attracted by his doings for some time past, and the severe criticisms lately made upon him by the local press, rendered the interest even greater than it would otherwise have been. Moreover, the lecture was free. Harrington was a poor man, as fortunes go in Boston, but it was his chiefest principle that a man had no right to be paid for speaking the truth, even though it might sometimes be just that people should pay something for hearing it. Accordingly the lecture was free, and at the appointed hour the house was full to overflowing. In the front row of the first gallery sat old Miss Schenectady, and by her side was Josephine Thorn. A little colony of "Beacon Street" had collected there, and Pocock Vancouver was not far off. It is not often that Beacon Street goes to such lectures, but John was one of themselves, and had too many friends and enemies among them not to be certain of a large attendance. Miss Schenectady was there, partly because she believed in John Harrington, and partly because Joe insisted upon going; and, generally speaking, what Joe insisted upon was done. The old lady did not understand why her niece was so very anxious to be present, but as the proposition fell in with her own desires, she made no objection. The fact was that Joe's interest in John had very greatly increased of late, and her curiosity to hear the man she met so often speak to a great audience was excited to its highest pitch. She fancied, too, from many things she had heard said, that a large proportion of his audience would be hostile to him, and that she would see him roused to his greatest strength and eloquence. She did not consider her impulse in the least, for though she felt a stronger interest in Harrington than she had ever before felt in any individual, it had not struck her that she was beginning to care overmuch for the sight of his face and the sound of his voice. She could not have believed she was beginning to love him; and if any secret voice had suggested to her conscience that it was so, she could have silenced it at once to her own satisfaction by merely remembering the coldness with which she generally treated him. She had got into the habit of treating him in that way from the first, when she had been prejudiced against him and the annoyance she often felt at his indifference made her think that she ought to be consistent and never allow her formal manner to change. Unfortunately she now and then forgot herself, as she had done after the little skirmish with Vancouver at Mrs. Wyndham's, and then she talked to him and asked him questions of himself almost as though he were an intimate friend. John, who was a man of the world as well as a man of talent, thought she was capricious, and since he was infinitely removed from falling in love with her, or indeed with any other woman, he found it agreeable to talk to her when she was in a good humor, and when she was ungracious he merely kept out of her way. If he had deliberately made up his mind to attract her attention and interest, he could have chosen no surer way than this. But although he admired her beauty and vivacity, and now and then took a real pleasure in her conversation, his mind was too full of other matters to receive any lasting impression of such a kind. Besides, she was capricious, and he hated mere caprice. And now there was a hush in the house, and then a short burst of applause, and Josephine, looking down, saw John standing alone upon the platform in front of the great bronze statue of Beethoven. He looked exactly as he did when she met him in society; there was no change in the even color of his face, nor any awkwardness or self-consciousness in his easy attitude as he stood there, broad-shouldered and square, his strong hand just resting on the plain desk that had been placed in the middle of the stage. He waited a few seconds for silence in the audience, and then began to speak. His voice sounded as natural and his accent as unaffected as though he were talking alone with a friend, saving only that every syllable he uttered was audible in the furthest gallery. Josephine leaned forward upon the red leather cushion of the railing before her, watching and listening intently. She did not understand the subject well. John Harrington was a reformer, she knew; or, to speak more accurately, he desired to be one. He believed great changes were necessary. He believed in an established Civil Service, in something which, if not exactly Free Trade, was much nearer to it than the existing tariff. Above all, he believed in truth and freedom instead of lying and bribery. As he spoke and cleared the way to his main points, his voice never quavered or faltered. He was perfectly sure of himself, and he reserved all his strength for the time when it should be most required. For a quarter of an hour he proceeded, and the people sat in dead silence before him. Then he paused a moment, and shifted his position a little, moving a step forward as though to gain a better hearing. "I am coming to the point," he said,--"the point that I must come to sooner or later. I am a Democrat, as perhaps some of you know." Here there was an uneasy movement in the house. "Yes, I guess you are!" cried a voice from somewhere, in a tone of high nasal irony. Some one laughed, and some one hissed, and then there was silence again. "Exactly," continued John, unmoved by the interruption. "I am a Democrat, and though the sight does not astonish you so much as it might have done twenty years ago, it is worthy of remark, nevertheless. But I have a peculiarity which I think you will allow to be extremely novel. I do not begin by saying that salvation is only to be found with Democrats, and I will not believe any man who says it belongs exclusively to Republicans. If we were suddenly put in great danger of any kind, war, famine, or revolution, I think that in some way or other we should manage to save the country between us, Republicans and Democrats, for the common good." "That's so!" said more than one voice. "Of course we should. Is there any one among us all who would not give up his individual views about a local election rather than see the country go to pieces? Would any man be such a coward as to be afraid to change his mind in order to prevent another Rebellion, another Civil War? No, no, we are more civilized than that. We want our own men in Congress, our own friends in office, just so long as they are serviceable--just so long as the country can stand it, if you like it in that way. But if it comes to be a question between the public good and having your cousin made postmaster in a country village, I think there is enough patriotism in the average Democrat or Republican to send the country cousin about his business. If worst comes to worst, we can save the country between us, depend upon it. We have done it before." Here there was a burst of willing applause. It is a great point to bring an audience into the position of applauding themselves. Joe watched John's every gesture, and listened intently to every word. His voice rang clear and strong through the great hall, and he was beginning to be roused. He had gained a decided advantage in the success of his last words, and as he gathered his strength for the real effort which was to come, his cheek paled and his gray eyes grew brighter. He spoke out again through the subsiding clamor. "Now I say that the country is in danger. It is in very great danger, the greatest danger that can threaten any community. The institutions of a nation are like the habits of a man, except that they are harder to improve and easier to spoil. We have got into bad habits, and if we do not mend them they will take us to a more certain destruction than revolution, famine, or war,--or all three together. It is easier to fight a thing that has a head to it and a name, than a thing that is everywhere and has no name, because no one has the courage to christen it. "We are like a man who has grown from being a peddler of tape and buttons to be the greatest dry-goods-man in his town, and then to being a great dealer for many towns. When he was a peddler he could carry the profit and loss on his buttons and tape in his head, because the profits were literally in his pocket, and the losses were literally out of it. But when he has grown into a great merchant he must keep books, and he must keep a great many of them, and they must be kept accurately, or he will get into trouble and go to ruin. That is true, is it not? And when he was a peddler he could buy his stock-in-trade himself, and be sure that it was what he wanted; but when he is one of the great merchants he must employ other people to help him, and unless they are the right people and understand the business, he will be ruined. Nobody can deny that. "Very well. We began in a small way as a nation, without much stock-in-trade, and we kept our accounts by rule of thumb. But it seems to me we are doing a pretty large business as a nation just now." There was a laugh, and sundry remarks to the effect that the audience understood what John was driving at. "Yes, we are doing a great business, and to all intents and purposes we are doing it on false business principles, and with an absolutely incompetent staff of clerks. What would you think of a merchant who dismissed all his book-keepers every four years, and engaged a set of shoemakers, or tailors, or artists, or musicians to fill up the vacancies?" A low murmur ran through the hall, a murmur of disapprobation. Probably a large number out of the three thousand men and women present had cousins in country post offices. But John did not pause; his voice grew full and clear, ringing high above the dull sounds in the house. From her place in the gallery Josephine looked down, never taking her eyes from the face of the orator. She too was pale with excitement; had she been willing to acknowledge it, it was fear. That deep-toned beginning of a protest from the great concourse was like an omen of failure to her sensitive ear. She longed to see John Harrington succeed and carry his hearers with him into an access of enthusiasm. John expected no such thing. He only wanted the people to understand thoroughly what he meant, for he was sure that if once they knew the truth clearly they would feel for it as he himself did. "Nevertheless," he continued, "I tell you that is what we are doing, what we have been doing for years, from the very beginning. And if we go on doing it we shall get into trouble. We choose schoolboys to do the work of men, we expect that by the mere signature of the head of the executive any man can be turned into an accomplished public officer fit to be compared with one whose whole life has been spent in the public service. We wish to be represented abroad among foreign nations in a way becoming to our dignity and very great power, and we select as our ministers a number of gentlemen who in most cases have never read a diplomatic dispatch in their lives, and who sometimes are not even acquainted with any language save their own. Perhaps you will say that our dignity is not of much importance provided our power is great enough. I do not think you will say it, but there are communities in our country where it would most certainly be said. Very well, so be it. But where do you think our power comes from? Do you think there is a boundless store of some natural product called power, of which we need only take as much as we want in order to stand a head and shoulders higher than any other nation in the world? What is power? Can a man be strong if he has an internal disease, or is his strength any use to him if his arms and legs are out of joint? Would you believe in the strength of a great firm that hired a company of actors from a theatre, and made the tragedian cashier and the low-comedy man head book-keeper? "The sick man may live for years with his sickness, and the man whose limbs are all distorted may still deal a formidable blow with his head, if it is thick enough. The firm may prosper for a time with its staff of theatrical clerks, provided there is enough business to pay for all their mistakes and leave a margin of profit. But the sick man does not live because he is diseased, but in spite of it. The distorted joints of the cripple do not help him to fight. The firm is not rich because its business is done by tragedians and walking-gentlemen, but in spite of them. If the doctor fails to give his medicine, if the fighting grows too rough for the cripple, if business grows slack, or if some good business man with competent assistants starts a strong opposition--what happens? What must inevitably happen? Why, the sick man dies, the cripple gets the worst of it, and the theatrical firm of merchants goes straight into bankruptcy. "And so I tell you that we are in danger. We are sick with the foul disease of office seeking; we are crippled hand and foot not only for fighting but for working, because our public officers are inexperienced men who spend four years in learning a trade not theirs, and are very generally turned out before they have half learnt it; we are doing a political business which will succeed fairly well just so long as we are rich enough to provide funds for any amount of extravagance and keep enough in our pockets to buy bread and cheese with afterwards. Just so long. "When we have been lanced here in Boston and the blood is running freely, we can still cut a slice out of the West and use it like court-plaster to stop the bleeding. Some day there will be no more slices to be had. It will be a bad day in State Street." This remark raised a laugh and a good deal of noise for a moment. But the audience were soon silent again. Whether they meant to approve or disapprove, they kept their opinions to themselves. Miss Thorn did not comprehend the allusion, but she was listening with all her ears. "You understand that," John went on. "Then understand it about the rest of the country as well. Understand that we are all the time patching our income with our capital; and it answers pretty well because there is a good deal of capital and not so very many of ourselves, as yet. There will be twice as many of us in a few years, and very much less than half as much capital. Understand above all that we are getting into bad habits--habits we should despise in a corporation, and condemn by very bad names in any individual man of our acquaintance. "And when you have understood it, look at matters as they stand. Look at the incompetence of our public officers, look at our ruined carrying trade, at those vile enactions of fools, and worse than fools, the Navigation Laws of the United States, and tell me whether things are as they should be. Tell me what has become of liberty if you cannot buy a ship where you can get her best and cheapest, and hoist your own flag upon her, and call her your own? You may pay for her and bring her home with you, but though she were ten times paid for, you cannot hoist the American flag, nor register her in your own port, nor claim the protection of your country for your own property--because, forsooth, the ship was not built on American stocks, where she would cost three times her value, and put a job into the hands of a set of builders of river steamboats and harbor mudscows." Loud murmurs ran through the audience, and cries of "That's so!" and counter cries of "Freetrader!" were heard on all sides. John's great voice rang out like a trumpet. He knew the sensitiveness of his townsmen on the point. "I am not speaking against protection," he said, and at the magic word "protection" a dead silence again fell over the vast crowd. "I say to you, 'Protect!' Protect, all of you, merchants, tradesmen, the great body of the commerce of this country; protect whatever you all decide together needs protection. But by the greatness and the power you have, by the Heaven that gave us this land of ours to till and to enjoy, protect also yourselves and your liberties." A patriotic phrase in the mouth of a man who has the golden gift of speech, coupled with the statement of a principle popular with his audience, is a sure point in an oration. Something in John's tone and gesture touched the sympathetic chord, and the house broke out in a great cry of applause. An orator cannot always talk in strict logical sequence. He must search about for the right nail till he has found it, and then drive it home. "Aye, that is the point," he said. "You men of Boston here, look to your harbors, crowded with English craft, and think of what is gone, lost to you forever, unless you will strike a blow for it. Many of you are old enough to remember how it used to be. Look at Salem Harbor, at Marblehead. Where are the fleets of noble ships that lay side by side along the great docks, the ships that did half the carrying trade of the world? Where are the great merchantmen that used to sail so grandly away to the East and that came home so richly laden? They are sunk or gone to pieces, or sold as old timber and copper and nails to the gentlemen who build mudscows. What are the great merchants doing who owned those fleets? They are employing their time in building railroads with English iron and foreign labor into desolate deserts in the West, which they hope to sell for a handsome profit, and probably will. But when there are no more desolate deserts and English iron and foreign labor to be had, they will wish they had their ships again, and that in all these years they had got possession of the carrying trade of the world, as they might have done. "That is what I am here to say. The time is come to give up the shifts and unstable expedients that we needed, or thought we needed, in our early beginnings. Let us pull down all these scaffoldings and stages that have helped us to build, and let us see whether our fabric will stand upon its base, erect, without the paltry support of a few rotting timbers. Let us substitute the permanent for the transitory, the stable for the unstable, and the reality for the sham. Let us have a Civil Service in fact as well as in name, a service of men trained to their duties, and who shall spend their lives in fulfilling them; a service of competent men to represent us abroad, and a service of honest men to do the country's business at home, instead of making the country do theirs and being paid for it into the bargain. Let us put men into Congress who will cover the seas with our ships again, as well as make our harbors impassable with a competition of cheap ferry-boats. Begin here, as you began here more than a hundred years ago, and as you succeeded then you will succeed now. "Begin, and go on, and God prosper you; and when the work is done, when bribery and extortion and all corruption are crushed forever out of our public life, when the Navigation Act is a thing of the past, and you are again the carriers of the world's commerce as well as the greatest sharers in it, then it will be time enough to give a name to the men who shall have done all these things, Republicans and Democrats together, a new party, the last and the greatest of all parties that the country has ever seen. You will find a name, surely enough, that will answer the purpose then; but whatever that name may be, it will not be forgotten that, for the third time in the history of our land, Massachusetts has struck the first and the strongest blow in the struggle for liberty, honor, and truth." Few men in public life had as good a right as John Harrington to denounce all manner of dishonesty. Many a speaker would have raised a sneering laugh by that last phrase, but even John's enemies admitted that his hands were clean. Coming from one of themselves it was a strong appeal, and the applause was long and loud. With a courteous inclination John turned and left the platform through the door at the back. He was well enough satisfied. His hearers had been moved for a moment to enthusiasm. They would go home and on mature reflection would not agree with him; but a blow struck is a point in the fight so long as it is felt at all, and John was well pleased at the reception he had met with. He had avoided every detail, and had confined himself to the widest generalities, but his homely illustrations would not be forgotten, and his strong individuality had created a sincere desire in many who had been there that night to hear him speak again. For some minutes after John had left the platform, Josephine sat unmoved in her seat beside her aunt, lost in thought as she watched the surging crowd below. "Well," said Miss Schenectady, "you have heard John Harrington now." Joe started. She had grown used to the implied interrogation her aunt usually conveyed in that way. "He is a great man, Aunt Zoë," she said quietly, and looked round. There was a moisture in her beautiful brown eyes that told of great excitement. She was very pale too, and looked tired. "Yes, my dear," said Aunt Zoruiah. "But we had better go home right away, Joe darling. You are so pale, I suppose you must be a good deal used up." "Allow me to see you to your carriage," said Pocock Vancouver in dulcet tones, coming up to the two ladies as they rose. CHAPTER V. "Why can't you get in, Mr. Vancouver?" inquired Miss Schenectady, when she and Joe were at last packed into the deep booby. It was simply a form of invitation. There was no reason why Mr. Vancouver should not get in, and with a word of thanks he did so. Ten minutes later the three were seated round the fire in Miss Schenectady's drawing-room. "It was very fine, was it not, Miss Thorn?" said Vancouver. "Yes," said Joe, staring at the fire. "There are some people," said Miss Schenectady, "it does not seem to make much difference what they say, but it is always fine." "Is that ironical?" asked Vancouver. "Why, goodness gracious no! Of course not! I am John Harrington's very best friend. I only mean to say." "What, Aunt Zoë?" inquired Joe, not yet altogether accustomed to the peculiar implications of her aunt's language. "Why, what I said, of course; it sounds very fine." "Then you do not believe it all?" asked Vancouver. "I don't understand politics," said the old lady. "You might ring the bell, Joe, and ask Sarah for some tea." "Nobody understands politics," said Vancouver. "When people do, there will be an end of them. Politics consist in one half of the world trying to drive paradoxes down the throats of the other half." Joe laughed a little. "I do not know anything about politics here," she said, "though I do at home, of course. I must say, though, Mr. Harrington did not seem so very paradoxical." "Oh no," answered Vancouver, blandly, "I did not mean in this case. Harrington is very much in earnest. But it is like war, you see. When every one understands it thoroughly, it will stop by universal consent. Did you ever read Bulwer's 'Coming Race'?" "Yes," said Joe. "I always read those books. _Vril_, and that sort of thing, you mean? Oh yes." "Approximately," answered Vancouver. "It was an allegory, you know. A hundred years hence people will write a book to explain what Bulwer meant. _Vril_ stands for the cumulative power of potential science, of course." "I think Bulwer's word shorter, and a good deal easier to understand," said Joe, laughing. "It is a great thing to be great," remarked Miss Schenectady. "Sarah, I think you might bring us some tea, please, and ask John if he couldn't stir the furnace a little. And then to have people explain you. Goethe must be a good deal amused, I expect, when people write books to prove that Byron was Euphorion." Miss Schenectady was fond of German literature, and the extent of her reading was a constant surprise to her niece. "What a lot of things you know, Aunt Zoë!" said Joe. "But what had Bulwer to do with war, Mr. Vancouver?" "Oh, in the book--the 'Coming Race,' you know--they abolished war because they could kill each other so easily." "How nice that would be!" exclaimed Joe, looking at him. "Why, you perfectly shock me, Joe," cried Miss Schenectady. "I mean, to have no war," returned Joe, sweetly. "Oh; I belonged to the Peace Conference myself," said her aunt, immediately pacified. "Well, yes. Perhaps you could bring us a little cake, Sarah? War is a terrible thing, my dear, as Mr. Vancouver will tell you." Vancouver, however, was silent. He probably did not care to have it remembered that he was old enough to carry a musket in the Rebellion. Joe understood and asked no Questions about it, and Vancouver was grateful for her tact. She rose and began to pour out some tea. "You began talking about Mr. Harrington's speech," said she presently, "but we got away from the subject. Is it all true?" "That is scarcely a fair question, Miss Thorn," answered Vancouver. "You see, I belong to the opposite party in politics." "But Mr. Harrington said he wanted both parties to combine. Besides, you do not take any active part in it all." "I have very strong opinions, nevertheless," replied Pocock. "Strong opinions and activity ought to go together," said Joe. "Not always." "But if you have strong opinions and disagree with Mr. Harrington," persisted Miss Thorn, "then you have a strong opinion against your two parties acting together for the common good." "Not exactly that," said Vancouver, embarrassed between the directness of Joe's question and a very strong impression that he had better not say anything against John Harrington. "Then what do you believe? Will you please give this cup to Miss Schenectady?" Vancouver rose quickly to escape. "Cream and sugar, Miss Schenectady?" he said. "Ah, Miss Thorn has already put them in. It is such celebrated tea of yours! Do you know, I always look forward to a cup of it as one of the greatest pleasures in life!" "When you have quite done praising the tea, will you please tell me what you believe about Mr. Harrington's speech?" said the inexorable Joe, drowning her aunt's reply to Vancouver's polite remark. Thus cornered, Vancouver faced the difficulty. "I believe it was a very good speech," he said mildly. "Do you believe what he said was true?" "A great deal of it was true, but I assure you that Harrington is very enthusiastic. Much of it was extremely imaginative." "I dare say; all that about making a Civil Service, I suppose?" "Well, not exactly. I think all good Republicans hope to have a regular Civil Service some day. It is necessary, or will be so before long." "But then it is what he said about that ridiculous Navigation Act that you object to?" pursued Joe, without mercy. "Really, I think it would be an advantage to repeal it. It is only kept up for the sake of a few builders who have influence." "Ah, I see," exclaimed Joe triumphantly, "you think the hope he expressed that bribery and that sort of thing might be suppressed was altogether imaginary?" "I hope not, Miss Thorn. But I am sure there is not nearly so much of it as he made out. It was a very great exaggeration." "Was there? Really, he only used the word once in the most general way. I remember very well, at the end; he said, 'when bribery, corruption, and all extortion are crushed forever;' anybody might say that!" "You make out a wonderfully good case, Miss Thorn," said Vancouver, who was not altogether pleased; "was the speech printed before Harrington spoke it this evening?" "No!" exclaimed Joe. "I have a very good memory, in that way, just to remember what I hear. I could repeat word for word everything he said, and everything you have said since during the evening." "What a terrible person you are!" said Vancouver, smiling pleasantly. "Well, then, now that you have proved every word of Harrington's speech out of an opponent's evidence, I will tell you frankly how it is that I do not agree with him. He is a Democrat, I am a Republican. That is the whole story. I do not believe, nor shall I ever believe, that any large number of the two parties can work together. I cannot help my belief in the least; it is a matter of conscience. Nevertheless, I have a very great respect for Harrington, and as I take no active part whatever in any political contest, my opinion of his politics will never interfere with my personal feeling for him." Frankness seemed to be Mr. Vancouver's strong point. Joe was obliged to admit that he spoke clearly, even if she did not greatly respect his logic. During all this time, Miss Schenectady had been sipping her tea in silence. "Joe," she said at last, "you are a perfect Socrates for questions. You ought to have been a lawyer." "I wish I were," said Joe, laughing, "or Socrates himself." "Yes, you ought to have been. Here you know nothing at all about this thing, and you have been talking like anything for half an hour. I think Socrates was perfectly horrid." "So do I," said Vancouver, laughing aloud. "Why?" Joe asked, turning to her aunt. "To be always stopping people in the street, and button-holing them with his questions. Of course it was very clever, as Plato makes it out; but I do wish he could have met me--when I was young, my dear. I would have answered him once and for all!" "Try me, Aunt Zoë, for practice," said Joe, "until you meet him." "Really, I expect you would do almost as well. Look at Mr. Vancouver, he is quite used up." The case was not so serious with Mr. Vancouver as the old lady made it out to be. He was silent and to all intents vanquished for the present, but it was not long before he turned the conversation to other things, and succeeded in making himself very agreeable. He admired Josephine very much, and though she occasionally made him feel very uncomfortable, he always returned to the charge with renewed intelligence and sweetness. Joe liked him too, in spite of an unfounded suspicion she felt that he was dangerous. He was always ready when she needed anything at a party; he never bored her, but whenever he saw she was wearied by any one else he came up and saved her, clearing a place for himself at her side with an ease that bespoke long and constant experience of the world. Women, especially young women, always like men of that description; they are flattered at the attention of a man who is so evidently able to choose, and they enjoy the immunity from all annoyance and weariness that such men are able to carry with them. Consequently Joe accepted the attentions of Pocock Vancouver with a certain amount of satisfaction, and she had not been displeased that he should come to Miss Schenectady's house for tea. The evening passed quickly, and Vancouver took his leave. As he opened the front door to let himself out he nearly fell over a small telegraph messenger. "Thorn here?" inquired the boy, laconically. "Yes, I'll take it in," said Vancouver quickly. He went back with the telegram, and the boy stood inside the door waiting for the receipt. He noticed the stamp of the Cable Office on the envelope. "Miss Thorn," said Vancouver, entering the drawing-room again, hat in hand, "I just met this telegram on the steps, so I brought it in. It may need an answer, you know." "Thanks, so much," said Joe, tearing open the pale yellow cover. She was startled, not being accustomed to receive telegrams. Her brow contracted as she read the contents, and she tapped her small foot on the carpet impatiently. THORN, care Schenectady, Beacon, Boston. Sailed to-day. RONALD. Josephine crushed the paper in her hand and signed the receipt with the pencil Vancouver offered her. "Thanks, so much," she said again, but in a different tone of voice. "Any answer?" suggested Vancouver. "Thanks, no," answered Joe. "Good-night again." "Good-night." And Vancouver departed, wondering what the message could have been. Miss Schenectady had looked on calmly throughout the little scene, and nodded to Pocock as he left the room; her peculiarities were chiefly those of diction; she was a well-bred old lady, not without wisdom. "Nothing wrong, Joe?" she inquired, when alone with her niece. "I hardly know," answered Joe. "Ronald has just sailed from England. I suppose he will be here in ten days." "Business here?" asked Miss Schenectady. "Oh dear, no! He knows nothing about business. I wish he would stay at home. What a bore!" It was evident that Joe had changed her mind since she had written to Ronald a fortnight before. It seemed to her now, when she looked forward to Surbiton's coming, that he would not find his place in Boston society so easily as she had done. Of course he would expect to see her every day, and to spend all his leisure hours at Miss Schenectady's house. Whatever she happened to be doing, it would always be necessary to take Ronald into consideration, and the prospect did not please her at all. Ronald was a dear good fellow, of course, and she meant to marry him in the end--at least, she probably would. But then, she intended to marry him at a more convenient season, some time in the future. She knew him well, and she was certain that when he saw her surrounded by her Boston acquaintances, his British nature would assert itself, and he would claim her, or try to claim her, and persuade her to go away. She bid Miss Schenectady good night, and went to her room; and presently, when she was sure every one was in bed in the house, she stole down to the drawing-room again, and sat alone by the remains of the coal-fire, thinking what she should do. Josephine Thorn was young and more full of life and activity than most girls of her age. She enjoyed what came in her way to enjoy with a passionate zest, and she had the reputation of being somewhat capricious and changeable. But she was honest in all her thoughts, and very clear-sighted. People often said she spoke her mind too freely, and was not enough in awe of the veiled deity known in society as "The Thing." How she hated it! How many times she had been told that what she said and did was not quite "The Thing." She knew now what Ronald would say when he came, if he found her worshiped on all sides by Pocock Vancouver and his younger and less accomplished compeers. Ronald would say "it was rather rough, you know." She sat by the fire and thought the matter over, and when she came to formulating in her mind the exact words that Ronald would say, she paused to think of him and how he would look. He was handsome--far handsomer than Vancouver or--or John Harrington. He was very nice; much nicer than Vancouver. John Harrington was different, "nice" did not describe him; but Ronald was nicer than all the other men she knew. He would make a charming husband. At the thought Joe started. "My husband!" she repeated aloud to herself in the silence. Then she rose quickly to her feet and leaned against the smooth white marble mantelpiece, and buried her face in her small white hands for an instant. "Oh no, no, no, no!" she cried aloud. "It is impossible; oh no! never! I never really meant it; did I?" She stared at herself in the glass for a few seconds, and her face was very pale. Then she bent over her hands again, and the tears came and wetted them a little, and at last she sat down as she had sat before, and stared vacantly at the fire. It would be very wrong to break Ronald's heart, she thought. He would come to her so full of hope and gladness; how could she tell him she did not love him? But how was it possible that in all these years she had never before understood that she could not marry him? It had always seemed so natural to marry Ronald. And yet she must have always really felt just as she did to-night; only she had never realized it, never at all. Why had it come over her so suddenly too? It would have been so much better if she could have seen the truth at home, before she parted from him; for it would be so hard for him to bear it now, after coming across the ocean to see her--so cruelly hard. Dear Ronald; and yet he must be told. Yes, there was no doubt about it, the very first meeting must explain it to him. He would say--what would he say? He would tell her she liked some one else better. Some one else! Some one who had stolen away her heart; of course he would say that. But he would be wrong, for there was no one else, not one of all these men she had seen, who had so much as breathed a word of love to her. None whom she liked nearly so much as Ronald, no, not one. For a long time she sat very quietly, following a train of thought that was half unconscious. Her lips moved now and then, as though she were repeating something to herself, and gradually the pained and anxious expression of her face melted away into a look of peace. The old gilt clock upon the chimney-piece struck twelve in its shrill steel tones. Josephine started at the sound, and passed one hand over her eyes as though to rouse herself, and at the same time a deep blush spread over her delicate cheek. For with the voice of midnight there was also the voice of a man ringing in her ears, and she heard the two together, so that it seemed as though all the world must hear them also, and her gentle maiden's soul was shamed at the thought. So it is that our loves are always with us, and though we search ourselves diligently to find them and rebuke them, we find them not; but if we give up searching they come upon us unawares, and speak very soft words. Love also is a gentle thing, full of sweetness and peace, when he comes to us so; and though the maiden blushes at his speaking, she would not stop the ears of her heart against him for all the world; and although the boy trembles and turn pale, and forgets to be boyish when, the fit is on him, nevertheless he goes near and worships, and loses his heart in learning a new language. So kind and soft is love, so tender and sweet-spoken, that you would think he would not so much as ruffle the leaf of a rose, nor breathe too sharply on a violet, lest he should hurt the flower-soul within; and if you treat him hospitably he is kind to the last, so that when he is gone there is still a sweet savor of him left. But if you would drive him roughly away with scorn and rude language, he will stand at your door and will not leave you. Then his wings drop from him, and he grows strong and fierce, and deadly and beautiful, as the fallen archangel of heaven, crying aloud bitter things to you by day and night; till at the last he will break down bolt and bar and panel, and enter your chamber, and drag you out with him to your death in the wild darkness. But Josephine blushed deeply there in the old-fashioned drawing-room at midnight, and as she turned away she wondered at herself, for she could not believe nor understand what was happening. Poor girl! She had talked of love so often as an abstract thing, she had seen so many love-makings of others, and so many men had tried to make love to her in her short brilliant life, and she had always thought it could not come near her, because, of course, she really loved Ronald. She had marveled, indeed, at what people were willing to do, and at what they were ready to sacrifice, for a feeling that seemed to her of such little importance as that. It had been an illusion, and the waking had come at last very suddenly. Whoever it might be whom she was destined to take, it was not Ronald. It was madness to think she could be bound forever to him, however much she might admire him and desire him as a friend. When the clock struck she was thinking of John, and the words he had said that night to his great audience were ringing again in her ears. She blushed indeed at the idea that she was thinking so much of him, but it was not that she believed she loved him. If as yet she really did, she was herself most honestly unconscious of it; and so the blush was not accounted for in the reckoning she made. She lay awake long, trying to determine what was best to be done, but she could not. One thing she must do; she must explain to Ronald, when he came, that she could never, never marry him. If only she had a sister, or some one! Dear Aunt Zoruiah was so horrid about such things that it was impossible to talk to her! CHAPTER VI. "Do you know how to skate?" Sybil Brandon asked of Joe as the two young girls, clad in heavy furs, walked down the sunny side of Beacon Street two days later. They were going from Miss Schenectady's to a "lunch party"--one of those social institutions of Boston which had most surprised Joe on her first arrival. "Of course," answered Joe. "I do not know anything, but I can do everything." "How nice!" said Sybil. "Then you can go with us to-night. That will be too lovely!" "What is it?" "We are all going skating on Jamaica Pond. Nobody has skated for so long here that it is a novelty. I used to be so fond of it." "We always skate at home, when there is ice," said Joe. "It will be enchanting though, with the full moon and all. What time?" "Mrs. Sam Wyndham will arrange that," said Sybil. "She is going to matronize us." "How dreadful, to have to be chaperoned!" ejaculated Joe. "But Mrs. Wyndham is very jolly after all, so it does not much matter." "I believe they used to have Germans here without any mothers," remarked Sybil, "but they never do now." "Poor little things, how awfully lonely for them!" laughed Joe. "Who?" "The Germans--without their mothers. Oh, I forgot the German was the cotillon. You mean cotillons, without tapestry, as we say." "Yes, exactly. But about the skating party. It will be very select, you know; just ourselves. You know I never go out," Sybil added rather sadly, "but I do love skating so." "Who are 'ourselves'--exactly?" "Why, you and I, and the Sam Wyndhams, and the Aitchison girls, and Mr. Topeka, and Mr. Harrington, and Mr. Vancouver--let me see--and Miss St. Joseph, and young Hannibal. He is very nice, and is very attentive to Miss St. Joseph." "Is it nice, like that, skating about in couples?" asked Joe. "No; that is the disagreeable part; but the skating is delicious." "Let us stay together all the time," said Joe spontaneously, "it will be ever so much pleasanter. I would not exactly like to be paired off with any of those men, you know." Sybil looked at Joe, opening her wide blue eyes in some astonishment. She did not think Joe was exactly one of those young women who object to a moonlight _tête-à-tête_, if properly chaperoned. "Yes, if you like, dear," she said. "I would like it much better myself, of course." "Do you know, Sybil," said Joe, looking up at her taller companion, "I should not think you would care for skating and that sort of thing." "Why?" asked Sybil. "You do not look strong enough. You are not a bit like me, brought up on horseback." "Oh, I am very strong," answered Sybil, "only I am naturally pale, you see, and people think I am delicate." But the north wind kissed her fair face and the faint color came beneath the white and through it, so that Joe looked at her and thought she was the fairest woman in the world that day. "When I was a little girl," said Joe, "mamma used to tell me a story about the beautiful Snow Angel: she must have been just like you, dear." "What is the story?" asked Sybil, the delicate color in her cheek deepening a little. "I will tell you to-night when we are skating, we have not time now. Here we are." And the two girls went up the steps of the house where they were going to lunch. On the other side of the street Pocock Vancouver and John Harrington met, and stopped to speak just as Joe and Sybil had rung the bell, and stood waiting at the head of the steps. "Don't let us look at each other so long as we can look at them," said Vancouver, shaking hands with John, but looking across the street at the two girls. John looked too, and both men bowed. "They are pretty enough for anything, are they not?" continued Vancouver. "Yes," said John, "they are very pretty." With a nod and a smile Joe and Sybil disappeared into the house. "Why don't you marry her?" asked Vancouver. "Which? The English girl?" "No; Sybil Brandon." "Thank you, I am not thinking of being married," said John, a half-comic, half-contemptuous look in his strong face. "Miss Brandon could do better than marry a penniless politician, and besides, even if I wanted it, I care too much for Miss Brandon's friendship to risk losing it by asking her to marry me." "Nonsense, my dear fellow," said Vancouver, "she would accept you straight off. So would the other." "You ought to know," said John, eyeing his companion calmly. Vancouver looked away; it was generally believed that he had been refused by Miss Brandon more than a year previous. "Well, you can take my word for it, you could not do better," he answered, ambiguously. "There is no knowing how the moonlight effects on Jamaica Pond may strike you this evening. I say, though, you were pretty lucky in having such warm weather the night before last." "Yes," said John. "The house was full. Were you there?" "Of course. If I were not a Republican I would congratulate you on your success. It is a long time since any one has made a Boston audience listen to those opinions. You did it surprisingly well; that sentence about protection was a masterpiece. I wish you were one of us." "It is of no use arguing with you," said John. "If it were, I could make a Democrat of you in an afternoon." "I make a pretty good thing of arguing, though," answered the other. "It's my trade, you see, and it is not yours. You lay down the law; it is my business to make a living out of it." "I wish I _could_ lay it down, as you say, and lay it down according to my own ideas," said John. "I would have something to say to you railroad men." "As for that, I should not care. Railroad law is stronger than iron and more flexible than india-rubber, and the shape of it is of no importance whatever. So long as there is enough of it to work with, you can twist it and untwist it as much as you please." John laughed. "It would simplify matters to untwist it and cut it up into lengths," he said. "But then your occupation would be gone." "I think my occupation will last my life-time," answered Vancouver, laughing in his turn. "Not if I can help it," returned John. "But we can provide you with another. Good-by. I am going to Cambridge." They shook hands cordially, and John Harrington turned down Charles Street, while Vancouver pursued his way up the hill. He had been going in the opposite direction when he met Harrington, but he seemed to have changed his mind. He was not seen again that day until he went to dine with Mrs. Sam Wyndham. There was no one there but Mr. Topeka and young John C. Hannibal, well-dressed men of five-and-thirty and five-and-twenty respectively, belonging to good families of immense fortune, and educated regardless of expense. No homely Boston phrase defiled their anglicized lips, their great collars stood up under their chins in an ecstasy of stiffness, and their shirt-fronts bore two buttons, avoiding the antiquity of three and the vulgarity of one. Well-bred Anglo-maniacs both, but gentlemen withal, and courteous to the ladies. Mr. Topeka was a widower, John C. Hannibal was understood to be looking for a wife. They came, they dined, and they retired to Sam Wyndham's rooms to don their boots and skating clothes. At nine o'clock the remaining ladies arrived, and then the whole party got into a great sleigh and were driven rapidly out of town over the smooth snow to Jamaica Pond. John Harrington had not come, and only three persons missed him--Joe Thorn, Mrs. Sam, and Pocock Vancouver. The ice had been cut away in great quantities for storing and the thaw had kept the pond open for a day or two. Then came the sharpest frost of the winter, and in a few hours the water was covered with a broad sheet of black ice that would bear any weight. It was a rare piece of good fortune, but the fashion of skating had become so antiquated that no one took advantage of the opportunity; and as the party got out of the sleigh and made their way down the bank, they saw that there was but one skater before them, sweeping in vast solitary circles out in the middle of the pond, under the cold moonlight. The party sat on the bank in the shadow of some tall pine trees, preparing for the amusement, piling spare coats and shawls on the shoulders of a patient groom, and screwing and buckling their skates on their feet. "What beautiful ice!" exclaimed Joe, when Vancouver had done his duty by the straps and fastenings. She tapped the steel blade twice or thrice on the hard black surface, still leaning on Vancouver's arm, and then, without a word of warning, shot away in a long sweeping roll. The glorious vitality in her was all alive, and her blood thrilled and beat wildly in utter enjoyment. She did not go far at first, but seeing the others were long in their preparations, she turned and faced them, skating away backwards, leaning far over to right and left on each changing stroke, and listening with intense pleasure to the musical ring of the clanging steel on the clean ice. Some pride she felt, too, at showing the little knot of Bostonians how thoroughly at home she was in a sport they seemed to consider essentially American. Joe had not noticed the solitary skater, and thought herself alone, but in a few moments she was aware of a man in an overcoat bowing before her as he slackened his speed. She turned quickly to one side and stopped herself, for the man was John Harrington. "Why, where did you come from, Mr. Harrington?" she asked in some astonishment. "You were not hidden under the seats of the sleigh, were you?" "Not exactly," said John, looking about for the rest of the party. "I was belated in Cambridge this afternoon, so I borrowed a pair of skates and walked over. Splendid ice, is it not?" "I am so glad you came," said Joe. She was in such high spirits and was so genuinely pleased at meeting John that she forgot to be cold to him. "It would have been a dreadful pity to have missed this." "It would indeed," said John, skating slowly by her side. For down by the pine trees two or three figures began to move on the ice. "I want to thank you, Mr. Harrington," said Joe. "What for, Miss Thorn?" he asked. "For the pleasure you gave me the other night," she answered. "I have not seen you since to speak to. It was splendid!" "Thanks," said John. "I saw you there, in the gallery on my left." "Yes; but how could you have time to look about and recognize people? You must have splendid eyes." "It is all a habit," said John. "When one has been before an audience a few times one does not feel nervous, and so one has time to look about. Do you care for that sort of thing, Miss Thorn?" "Oh, ever so much. But I was frightened once, when they began to grumble." "There was nothing to fear," said John, laughing. "Audiences of that kind do not punctuate one's speeches with cabbages and rotten eggs." "They do sometimes in England," said Joe. "But here come the others!" Two and two, in a certain grace of order, the little party came out from the shore into the moonlight. The women's faces looked white and waxen against their rich furs, and the moonbeams sparkled on their ornaments. A very pretty sight is a moonlight skating party, and Pocock Vancouver knew what he was saying when he hinted at the mysterious and romantic influences that are likely to be abroad on such occasions. Indeed, it was not long before young Hannibal was sliding away hand in hand with Miss St. Joseph at a pace that did not invite competition. And Mr. Topeka decided which of the Aitchison girls he preferred, and gave her his arm, so that the other fell to the lot of Sam Wyndham, while Mrs. Sam and Sybil Brandon came out escorted by Vancouver, who noticed with some dismay that the party was "a man short." The moment he saw Joe talking to the solitary skater, he knew that the latter must be Harrington, who had gone to Cambridge and come across. John bowed to every one and shook hands with Mrs. Wyndham. Joe eluded Vancouver and put her arm through Sybil's, as though to take possession of her. Joe would have been well enough pleased at first to have been left with John, but the sight of Vancouver somehow reminded her of the compact she had made in the morning with Sybil, and in a few moments the two girls were away together, talking so persistently to each other that Vancouver, who at first followed them and tried to join their conversation, was fain to understand that he was not wanted, so that he returned to Mrs. Wyndham. "I want so much to talk to you," Joe began, when they were alone. "Yes, dear?" said Sybil half interrogatively, as they moved along. "We can talk here charmingly, unless Mr. Vancouver comes after us again. But you do skate beautifully, you know. I had no idea you could." "Oh, I told you I could do everything," said Joe, with some pride. "Where _did_ you get that beautiful fur, my dear? It is magnificent. You are just like the Snow Angel now." "In Russia. Everybody wears white fur there, you know. We were in St. Petersburg some time." "I know. We cannot get it in England. If one could I would have told Ronald to bring me some when he comes." "Who is Ronald?" asked Sybil innocently. "Oh, he is the dearest boy," said Joe, with a little sigh, "but I do so wish he were not coming!" "Because he has not got the white fur?" suggested Sybil. "Oh no! But because"--Joe lowered her voice and spoke demurely, at the same time linking her arm more closely in Sybil's. "You see, dear, he wants to marry me, and I am afraid he is coming to say so." "And you do not want to marry him? Is that it?" Joe's small mouth closed tightly, and she merely nodded her head gravely, looking straight before her. Sybil pressed her arm sympathetically and was silent, expecting more. "It was such a long time ago, you see," said Joe, after a while. "I was not out when it was arranged, and it seemed so natural. But now--it is quite different." "But of course, if you do not love him, you must not think of marrying him," said Sybil, simply. "I won't," answered Joe, with sudden emphasis. "But I shall have to tell him, you know," she added despondently. "It is very hard to say those things," said Sybil, in a tone of reflection. "But of course it must be done--if you were really engaged, that is." "Yes, almost really," said Joe. "Not quite?" suggested Sybil. "I think not quite; but I know he thinks it is quite quite, you know." "Well, but perhaps he is not so certain, after all. Do you know, I do not think men really care so much; do you?" "Oh, of course not," said Joe scornfully. "But it does not seem quite honest to let a man think you are going to marry him if you do not mean to." "But you did mean to, dear, until you found out you did not care for him enough. And just think how dreadful it would be to be married if you did not care enough!" "Yes, that is true," answered Joe. "It would be dreadful for him too." "When is he coming?" asked Sybil. "I think next week. He sailed the day before yesterday." "Then there is plenty of time to settle on what you want to say," said Sybil. "If you make up your mind just how to put it, you know, it will be ever so much easier." "Oh no!" cried Joe. "I will trust to luck. I always do; it is much easier." "Excuse me, Miss Brandon," said the voice of Vancouver, who came up behind them at a great pace, and holding his feet together let himself slide rapidly along beside the two girls,--"excuse me, but do you not think you are very unsociable, going off in this way?" "May I give you my arm, Miss Thorn?" asked Harrington, coming up on the other side. Without leaving each other Joe and Sybil took the proffered arms of the two men, and the four skated smoothly out into the middle of the ice, that rang again in the frosty air under their joint weight. Mrs. Wyndham had insisted that Vancouver and Harrington should leave her and follow the young girls, and they had obeyed in mutual understanding. "Which do you like better, Miss Brandon, boating in Newport or skating on Jamaica Pond?" asked Vancouver. "This is better than the Music Hall, is it not?" remarked John to Miss Thorn. "Oh, Jamaica Pond, by far," Sybil answered, and her hold on Joe's arm relaxed a very little. "Oh no! I would a thousand times rather be in the Music Hall!" exclaimed Joe, and her hand slipped away from Sybil's white fur. And so the four were separated into couples, and went their ways swiftly under the glorious moonlight. As they parted Sybil turned her head and looked after Joe, but Joe did not see her. "I would rather be here," said John quietly. "Why?" asked Joe. "There is enough fighting in life to make peace a very desirable thing sometimes," John answered. "A man cannot be always swinging his battle-axe." There was a very slight shade of despondency in the tone of his voice. Joe noticed it at once. Women do not all worship success, however much they may wish their champion to win when they are watching him fight. In the brilliant, unfailing, all-conquering man, the woman who loves him feels pride; if she be vain and ambitious, she feels wholly satisfied, for the time. But woman's best part is her gentle sympathy, and where there is no room at all for that, there is very often little room for love. In the changing hopes and fears of uncertain struggles, a woman's love well given and truly kept may turn the scale for a man, and it is at such times, perhaps, that her heart is given best, and most loyally held by him who has it. "I wish I could do anything to help him to succeed," thought Joe, in the innocent generosity of her half-conscious devotion. "Has anything gone wrong?" she asked aloud. CHAPTER VII. "Has anything gone wrong?" There was so much of interest and sympathy in her tone, as Joe put the simple question, that John turned and looked into her face. The magic of moonlight softens the hardest features, makes interest look like friendship, and friendship like love; but it can harden too at times, and make a human face look like carved stone. "No, there is nothing wrong," John answered presently; "what made you think so?" "You spoke a little regretfully," answered Joe. "Did I? I did not mean to. Perhaps one is less gay and less hopeful at some times than at others. It has nothing to do with success or failure." "I know," answered Joe. "One can be dreadfully depressed when one is enjoying one's self to any extent. But I should not have thought you were that sort of person. You seem always the same." "I try to be. That is the great difference between people who live to work and people who live to amuse and be amused." "How do you mean?" "I mean," said John, "that people who work, especially people who have to do with large ideas and great movements, need to be more or less monotonous. The men who succeed are the men of one idea or at least they are the men who only have one idea at a time." "Whereas people who live to amuse and be amused must have as many ideas as possible." "Yes, to play with," said John, completing the sentence. "Their life is play, their ideas are their playthings, and so soon as they have spoiled one toy they must have another. The people who supply ideas to an idle public are very valuable, and may have great power." "Novel-writers, and that sort of people," suggested Joe. "All producers of light literature and second-rate poetry, and a very great variety of other people besides. A man who amuses others may often be a worker himself. He raises a laugh or excites a momentary interest by getting rid of his superfluous ideas and imaginations, reserving to himself all the time the one idea in which he believes." "Not at all a bad theory," said Joe. "There are more men of that sort with you in Europe than with us. You need more amusement, and you will generally give more for it. You English, who are uncommonly fond of doing nothing, give yourselves vast trouble in the pursuit of pleasure. We Americans, who are ill when we are idle, are content to surround ourselves with the paraphernalia of pleasure when office hours are over; but we make very little use of our opportunities for amusement, being tired out at the end of the day with other things which we think more important. The result is that we have no such thing as what you denominate 'Society,' because we lack the prime element of aristocratic social intercourse, the ingrained determination to be idle." "You are very hard on us," remarked Joe. "Excuse me," returned John, "you are compensated by having what we have not. Europeans are the most agreeable people in the world, wherever mutual and daily conversation and intercourse are to be considered. The majority of you, of polite European society, are not troubled with any very large ideas, but you have an immense number of very charming and attractive small ones. In America there are only two ideas that practically affect society, but they are very big ones indeed." "What?" asked Joe laconically, growing interested in John's queer lecture. "Money and political influence," answered John Harrington. "They are the two great motors of our machine. All men who are respected among us are in pursuit of one or the other, or have attained to one or the other by their own efforts. The result is, that European society is amusing and agreeable; whereas Americans of the same class are more interesting, less polished, better acquainted with the general laws that govern the development of nations." "Really, Mr. Harrington," said Joe, "you are making us out to be very insignificant. And I think it would be very dull if we all had to understand ever so many general laws. Besides, I do not agree with you." "About what, Miss Thorn?" "About Americans. They talk better than Englishmen, as a rule." "But I am comparing Americans with the whole mass of Europeans," John objected. "The English are a rather silent race, I should say." "Cold, you think?" suggested Joe. "No, not cold. Perhaps less cold than we are; but less demonstrative." "I like that," answered Joe. "I like people to feel more than they show." "Why?" asked John. "Why should not people be perfectly natural, and show when they feel anything, or be cold when they do not?" "I think when you know some one feels a great deal and hides it, that gives one the idea of reserved strength." They had reached a distant part of the ice, and were slowly skating round the limits of a little bay, where the slanting moonbeams fell through tall old trees upon the glinting black surface. They were quite alone, only in the distance they could hear the long-drawn clang and ring of the other skaters, echoing all along the lake with a tremulous musical sound in the still bright night. "You must be very cold yourself, Mr. Harrington," Joe began again after a pause, stopping and looking at him. John laughed a little. "I?" he cried. "No, indeed, I am the most enthusiastic man alive." "You are when you are speaking in public," said Joe. "But that may be all comedy, you know. Orators always study their speeches, with all the gestures and that, before a glass, don't they?" "I do not know," said John. "Of course I know by heart what I am going to say, when I make a speech like that of the other evening, but I often insert a great deal on the spur of the moment. It is not comedy. I grow very much excited when I am speaking." "Never at any other time?" asked Joe. "Seldom; why should I? I do not feel other things or situations so strongly." "In other words," replied Joe, "it is just as I said; you are generally very cold." "I suppose so," John acquiesced, "since you will not allow the occasions when I am not cold to be counted." Joe looked down as she stood, and moved her skates slowly on the ice; the shadows hid her face. "Do you know," she said presently, "you lose a great deal; you must, you cannot help it. You only like people in a body, so as to see what you can do with them. You only care for things on a tremendously big scale, so that you may try to influence them. When you have not a crowd to talk to, or a huge scheme to argue about, you are bored to extinction." "No," said John; "I am not bored at present, by any means." "Because you are talking about big things. Most men in your place would be talking about the moonlight, and quoting Shelley." "To oblige you, Miss Thorn, I could quote a little now and then," said John, laughing. "Would it please you? I dare say you have seen elephants stand upon their hind legs and their heads alternately. I should feel very much like one; but I will do anything to oblige you." "That is frivolous," said Joe, who did not smile. "Of course it is. I am heavy by nature. You may teach me all sorts of tricks, but they will not be at all pretty." "No, you are very interesting as you are," said Joe quietly. "But I do not think you will be happy." "It is not a question of happiness." "What is it then?" "Usefulness," said John. "You do not care to be happy, you only care to be useful?" Joe asked. "Yes. But my ideas of usefulness include many things. Some of the people who listen to me would be very much astonished if they knew what I dream." "Nothing would astonish me," said Joe, thoughtfully. "Of course you must think of everything in a large way--it is your nature. You will be a great man." John looked at his companion. She had struck the main chord of his nature in her words, and he felt suddenly that thrill of pleasure which comes from the flattery of our pride and our hopes. John was not a vain man, but he was capable of being intoxicated by the grandeur of a scheme when the possibility of its realization was suddenly thrust before him. Like all men of exceptional gifts who are constantly before the public, he could estimate very justly the extent of the results he could produce on any given occasion, but his enthusiastic belief in his ideas could see no limit to the multiplication of those results. His strong will and natural modesty about himself constantly repressed any desire he might have to speak over-confidently of ultimate success, so that the prediction of ultimate success by some one else was doubly sweet to him. We Americans have said of ourselves that we are the only nation who accomplish what we have boasted of. Rash speech and rash action are our national characteristics, and lead us into all manner of trouble, but in so far as such qualifications or defects imply a positive conviction of success, they contribute largely to the realization of great schemes. No one can succeed who does not believe in himself, nor can any scheme be realized which has not gained the support of a sufficient number of men who believe in it and in themselves. John was gratified by Miss Thorn's speech, for he saw that it was spontaneous. "I will try to be great," he said, "for the sake of what I think is great." There was a short pause, and the pair by common consent skated slowly out of the shadow into the broad moonlight. "Not that I believe you will be happy if you think of nothing else," said Joe presently. "In order to do anything well, one must think of nothing else," answered John. "Many great men find time to be great and to do many other things," said Joe. "Look at Mr. Gladstone; he has an immense private correspondence about things that interest him, quite apart from the big things he is always doing." "When a man has reached that point he may find plenty of time to spare," answered Harrington. "But until he has accomplished the main object of his life he must not let anything take him from his pursuit. He must form no ties, he must have no interests, that do not conduce to his success. I think a man who enters on a political career must devote himself to it as exclusively as a missionary Jesuit attacks the conversion of unbelievers, as wholly as a Buddhist ascetic gives himself to the work of uniting his individual intelligence with the immortal spirit that gives it life." "I do not agree with you," said Joe decisively, and in her womanly intelligence of life she understood the mistake John made. "I cannot agree with you. You are mixing up political activity, which deals with the government of men, with spiritual ideas and immortality, and that sort of thing." "How so?" asked John, in some surprise. "I am quite sure," said Joe, "that to govern man a man must be human, and the imaginary politician you tell me of is not human at all." "And yet I aspire to be that imaginary politician," said John. "Do not think me too dreadfully conceited," Joe answered, "in talking about such things. Of course I do not pretend to understand them, but I am quite sure people must be like other people--I mean in good ways--or other people will not believe in them, you know. You are not vexed, are you?" She looked up into John's face with a little timid smile that might have done wonders to persuade a less prejudiced person than Harrington. "No indeed! why should I be vexed? But perhaps some day you will believe that I am right." "Oh no, never!" exclaimed Joe, in a tone of profound conviction. "You will never persuade me that people are meant to shut themselves from their fellow-creatures, and not be human, and that." "And yet you were so good as to say that you thought I might attain greatness," said John, smiling. "Yes, I think you will. But you will change your mind about a great many things before you do." John's strong face grew thoughtful, and the white moonlight made his features seem harder and sterner than ever. Slowly the pair glided over the polished black ice, now marked here and there with clean white curves from the skates, and in a few minutes they were once more within hail of the remainder of their party. CHAPTER VIII. Eight days after the skating party, Ronald Surbiton telegraphed from New York that he would reach Boston the next morning, and Josephine Thorn knew that the hour had come. She was not afraid of the scene that must take place, but she wished with all her heart that it were over. As Sybil Brandon had told her, there had been time to think of what she should say, and although she had answered recklessly that she would "trust to luck," she knew when the day was come that she had in reality thought intensely of the very words which must be spoken. To Miss Schenectady she had said nothing, but on the other hand she had become very intimate with Sybil, and to tell the truth, she hoped inwardly for the support and sympathy of her beautiful friend. Meanwhile, since her long evening with John Harrington on the ice, she had made every effort to avoid his society. Like many very young women with a vivid love of enjoyment and a fairly wide experience, she was something of a fatalist. That is to say, she believed that her evil destiny might spring upon her unawares at any moment, and she felt something when she was with Harrington that warned her. For the first time in her life she knew what it was to have moods of melancholy; she caught herself asking what was really the end and object of her gay life, whether it amounted to anything worthy in comparison with the trouble one had to take to amuse one's self, whether it would not be far better in the end to live like Miss Schenectady, reading and studying and caring nothing for the world. Not that Josephine admired Miss Schenectady, or thought that she herself could ever be like her. The old lady was a type of her class; intelligent and well versed in many subjects--even learned she might have been called by some. But to Joe's view, essentially European by nature and education, it seemed as though her aunt, like many Bostonians, judged everything--literature, music, art of all kinds, history and the doings of great men--by one invariable standard. Her comments on what she heard and read were uniformly delivered from the same point of view, in the same tone of practical judgment, and with the same assumption of original superiority. It was the everlasting "Carthago delenda" of the Roman orator. Whatever the world wrote, sang, painted, thought, or did, the conviction remained unshaken in Miss Schenectady's mind that Beacon Street was better than those things, and that of all speeches and languages known and spoken in the world's history, the familiar dialect of Boston was the one best calculated by Providence and nature to express and formulate all manner of wisdom. It is a strange thing that where criticism is on the whole so fair, and cultivation of the best faculties so general, the manner of expressing a judgment and of exhibiting acquired knowledge should be such as to jar unpleasantly on the sensibilities of Europeans. Where is the real difference? It probably lies in some subtle point of proportion in the psychic chemistry of the Boston mind, but the analyst who shall express the formula is not yet born; though there be those who can cast the spectrum of Boston existence and thought upon their printed screens with matchless accuracy. Joe judged but did not analyze. She said Miss Schenectady was always right, but that the way she was right was "horrid." Consequently she did not look to her aunt for sympathy or assistance, and though they had more than once talked of Ronald Surbiton since receiving his cable from England, Joe had not said anything of her intentions regarding him. When the second telegram arrived from New York, saying that he would be in Boston on the following morning, Joe begged that Miss Schenectady would be at home to receive him when he came. "Well, if you insist upon it, I expect I shall have to," said Miss Schenectady. She did not see why her niece should require her presence at the interview; young men may call on young ladies in Boston without encountering the inevitable chaperon, or being obliged to do their talking in the hearing of a police of papas, mammas, and aunts. But as Joe "insisted upon it," as the old lady said, she "expected there were no two ways about it." Her expectations were correct, for Joe would have refused absolutely to receive Ronald alone. "I know the value of a stern aunt, my dear," she had said to Sybil the day previous. When matters were arranged, therefore, they went to bed, and in the morning Miss Schenectady sat in state in the front drawing-room, reading the life of Mr. Ticknor until Ronald should arrive. Joe was up-stairs writing a note to Sybil Brandon, wherein the latter was asked to lunch and to drive in the afternoon. Ronald could not come before ten o'clock with any kind of propriety, and they could have luncheon early and then go out; after which the bitterness of death would be past. It was not quite ten o'clock when Ronald Surbiton rang the bell, and was turned into the drawing-room to face an American aunt for the first time in his life. "Miss Schenectady?" said he, taking the proffered hand of the old lady and then bowing slightly. He pronounced her name Schenectady, with a strong accent on the penultimate syllable. "Sche_nec_tady," corrected his hostess. "I expect you are Mr. Surbiton." "A--exactly so," said Ronald, in some embarrassment. "Well, we are glad to see you in Boston, Mr. Surbiton." Miss Schenectady resumed her seat, and Ronald sat down beside her, holding his hat in his hand. "Put your hat down," said the old lady. "What sort of a journey did you have?" "Very fair, thanks," said Ronald, depositing his hat on the floor beside him, "in fact I believe we came over uncommonly quick for the time of year. How is"-- "What steamer did you come by?" interrupted Miss Schenectady. "The Gallia. She is one of the Cunarders. But as I was going to ask"-- "Yes, an old boat, I expect. So you came on right away from New York without stopping?" "Exactly," answered Ronald. "I took the first train. The fact is, I was so anxious--so very anxious to"-- "What hotel are you at here?" inquired Miss Schenectady, without letting him finish. "Brunswick. How is Miss Thorn?" Ronald succeeded at last in putting the question he so greatly longed to ask--the only one, he supposed, which would cause a message to be sent to Joe announcing his arrival. "Joe? She is pretty well. I expect she will be down in a minute. Are you going to stay some while, Mr. Surbiton?" Ronald thought Miss Schenectady the most pitiless old woman he had ever met. In reality she had not the most remote intention of being anything but hospitable. But her idea of hospitality at a first meeting seemed to consist chiefly in exhibiting a great and inquisitive interest in the individual she wished to welcome. Besides, Joe would probably come down when she was ready, and so it was necessary to talk in the mean time. At last Ronald succeeded in asking another question. "Excuse the anxiety I show," he said simply, "but may I ask whether Miss Thorn is at home?" "Perhaps if you rang the bell I could send for her," remarked the old lady in problematic answer. "Oh, certainly!" exclaimed Ronald, springing to his feet, and searching madly round the room for the bell. Miss Schenectady watched him calmly. "I think if you went to the further side of the fire-place you would find it--back of the screen," she suggested. "Thanks; here it is," cried Ronald, discovering the handle in the wall. "Yes, you have found it now," said Miss Schenectady with much indifference. "Perhaps you find it cold here?" she continued, observing that Ronald lingered near the fire-place. "Oh dear, no, thanks, quite the contrary," he answered. "Because if it is you might--Sarah, I think you could tell Miss Josephine that Mr. Surbiton is in the parlor, could not you?" "Oh, if it is any inconvenience"--Ronald began, misunderstanding the form of address Miss Schenectady used to her handmaiden. "Why?" asked Miss Schenectady, in some astonishment. "Nothing," said Ronald, looking rather confused; "I did not quite catch what you said." There was a silence, and the old lady and the young man looked at each other. Ronald was a very handsome man, as Joe knew. He was tall and straight and deep-chested. His complexion was like a child's, and his fine moustache like silk. His thick fair hair was parted accurately in the middle, and his smooth, white forehead betrayed no sign of care or thought. His eyes were blue and very bright, and looked fearlessly at every one and everything, and his hands were broad and clean-looking. He was perfectly well dressed, but in a fashion far less extreme than that affected by Mr. Topeka and young John C. Hannibal. There was less collar and more shoulder to him, and his legs were longer and straighter than theirs. Nevertheless, had he stood beside John Harrington, no one would have hesitated an instant in deciding which was the stronger man. With all his beauty and grace, Ronald Surbiton was but one of a class of handsome and graceful men. John Harrington bore on his square brow and in the singular compactness of his active frame the peculiar sign-manual of an especial purpose. He would have been an exception in any class and in any age. It was no wonder Joe had wished to compare the two. In a few moments the door opened, and Joe entered the drawing-room. She was pale, and her great brown eyes had a serious expression in them that was unusual. There was something prim in the close dark dress she wore, and the military collar of most modern cut met severely about her throat. If Ronald had expected a very affectionate welcome he was destined to disappointment; Joe had determined not to be affectionate until all was over. To prepare him in some measure for what was in store, she had planned that he should be left alone for a time with Miss Schenectady, who, she thought, would chill any suitor to the bone. "My dear Ronald," said Joe, holding out her hand, "I am so glad to see you." Her voice was even and gentle, but there was no gladness in it. "Not half so glad as I am to see you," said Ronald, holding her hand in his, his face beaming with delight. "It seems such an age since you left!" "It is only two months, though," said Joe, with a faint smile. "I ought to apologize, but I suppose you have introduced yourself to Aunt Zoë." She could not call her Aunt Zoruiah, even for the sake of frightening Ronald. "What did you think when you got my telegram?" asked the latter. "I thought it was very foolish of you to run away just when the hunting was so good," answered Joe with decision. "But you are glad, are you not?" he asked, lowering his voice, and looking affectionately at her. Miss Schenectady was again absorbed in the life of Mr. Ticknor. "Yes," said Joe, gravely. "It is as well that you have come, because I have something to say to you, and I should have had to write it. Let us go out. Would you like to go for a walk?" Ronald was delighted to do anything that would give him a chance of escaping from Aunt Zoruiah and being alone with Joe. "I think you had best be back to lunch," remarked Miss Schenectady as they left the room. "Of course, Aunt Zoë," answered Joe. "Besides, Sybil is coming, you know." So they sallied forth. It was a warm day; the snow had melted from the brick pavement, and the great icicles on the gutters and on the trees were running water in the mid-day sun. Joe thought a scene would be better to get over in the publicity of the street than in private. Ronald, all unsuspecting of her intention, walked calmly by her side, looking at her occasionally with a certain pride, mixed with a good deal of sentimental benevolence. "Do you know," Joe began presently, "when your cable came I felt very guilty at having written to you that you might come?" "Why?" asked Ronald, innocently. "You know I would come from the end of the world to see you. I have, in fact." "Yes, I know," said Joe wearily, wishing she knew exactly how to say what she was so thoroughly determined should be said. "What is the matter, Joe?" asked Ronald, suddenly. He smiled rather nervously, but his smooth brow was a little contracted. He anticipated mischief. "There is something the matter, Ronald," she said at last, resolved to make short work of the revelation of her feelings. "There is something very much the matter." "Well?" said Surbiton, beginning to be alarmed. "You know, Ronald dear, somehow I think you have thought--honestly, I know you have thought for a long time that you were to marry me." "Yes," said Ronald with a forced laugh, for he was frightened. "I have always thought so; I think so now." "It is of no use to think it, Ronald dear," said Joe, turning very pale. "I have thought of it too--thought it all over. I cannot possibly marry you, dear boy. Honestly, I cannot." Her voice trembled violently. However firmly she had decided within herself, it was a very bitter thing to say; she was so fond of him. "What?" asked Ronald hoarsely. But he turned red instead of pale. It was rather disappointment and anger that he felt at the first shock than sorrow or deep pain. "Do not make me say it again," said Joe, entreatingly. She was not used to entreating so much as to commanding, and her voice quavered uncertainly. "Do you mean to say," said Ronald, speaking loudly in his anger, and then dropping his voice as he remembered the passers-by,--"do you mean to tell me, Joe, after all this, when I have come to America just because you told me to, that you will not marry me? I do not believe it. You are making fun of me." "No, Ronald," Joe answered sorrowfully, but regaining her equanimity in the face of Surbiton's wrath, "I am in earnest. I am very, very fond of you, but I do not love you at all, and I never can marry you." Ronald was red in the face, and he trod fast and angrily, tapping the pavement with his stick. He was very angry, but he said nothing. "It is much better to be honest about it," said Joe, still very pale; and when she had spoken, her little mouth closed tightly. "Oh, yes," said Ronald, who was serious by this time; "it is much better to be honest, now that you have brought me three thousand miles to hear what you have to say--much better. By all means." "I am very sorry, Ronald," Joe answered. "I really did not mean you to come, and I am very sorry,--oh, more sorry than I can tell you,--but I cannot do it, you know." "If you won't, of course you can't," he said. "Will you please tell me who he is?" "Who?--what?" asked Joe, coldly. She was offended at the tone. "The fellow you have pitched upon in my place," he said roughly. Joe looked up into his face with an expression that frightened him. Her dark eyes flashed with an honest fire, He stared angrily at her as they walked slowly along. "I made a mistake," she said slowly. "I am not sorry. I am glad. I would be ashamed to marry a man who could speak like that to any woman. I am sorry for you, but I am glad for myself." She looked straight into his eyes, until he turned away. For some minutes they went on in silence. "I beg your pardon, Joe," said Ronald presently, in a subdued tone. "Never mind, Ronald dear, I was angry," Joe answered. But her eyes were full of tears, and her lips quivered. Again they went on in silence, but for a longer time than before. Joe felt that the blow was struck, and there was nothing to be done but to wait the result. It had been much harder than she had expected, because Ronald was so angry; she had expected he would be pained. He, poor fellow, was really startled out of all self-control. The idea that Joe could ever ultimately hesitate about marrying him had never seemed to exist, even among the remotest possibilities. But he was a gentleman in his way, and so he begged her pardon, and chewed the cud of his wrath in silence for some time. "Joe," he said at last, with something of his usual calm, though he was still red, "of course you are really perfectly serious? I mean, you have thought about it?" "Yes," said Joe; "I am quite sure." "Then perhaps it is better we should go home," he continued. "Perhaps so," said Joe. "Indeed, it would be better." "I would like to see you again, Joe," he said in a somewhat broken fashion. "I mean, by and by, when I am not angry, you know." Joe smiled at the simple honesty of the proposition. "Yes, Ronald dear, whenever you like. You are very good, Ronald," she added. "No, I am not good at all," said Ronald sharply, and they did not speak again until he left her at Miss Schenectady's door. Then she gave him her hand. "I shall be at home until three o'clock," said she. "Thanks," he answered; so they parted. Joe had accomplished her object, but she was very far from happy. The consciousness of having done right did not outweigh the pain she felt for Ronald, who was, after all, her very dear friend. They had grown up together from earliest childhood, and so it had been settled; for Ronald was left an orphan when almost a baby, and had been brought up with his cousin as a matter of expediency. Therefore, as Joe said, it had always seemed so very natural. They had plighted vows when still in pinafores with a ring of grass, and later they had spoken more serious things, which it hurt Joe to remember, and now they were suffering the consequence of it all, and the putting off childish illusions was bitter. It was not long before Sybil Brandon came in answer to Joe's invitation. She knew what trouble her friend was likely to be in, and was ready to do anything in the world to make matters easier for her. Besides, though Sybil was so white and fair, and seemingly cold, she had a warm heart, and had conceived a very real affection for the impulsive English girl. Miss Schenectady had retired to put on another green ribbon, leaving the life of Mr. Ticknor open on the table, and the two girls met in the drawing-room. Joe was still pale, and the tears seemed ready to start from her eyes. "Dear Sybil--it is so good of you to come," said she. Sybil kissed her affectionately and put her arm round her waist. They stood thus for a moment before the fire. "You have seen him?" Sybil asked presently. Joe had let her head rest wearily against her friend's shoulder, and nodded silently in answer. Sybil bent down and kissed her soft hair, and whispered gently in her ear,--"Was it very hard, dear?" "Oh, yes--indeed it was!" cried Joe, hiding her face on Sybil's breast. Then, as though ashamed of seeming weak, she stood up boldly, turning slightly away as she spoke. "It was dreadfully hard," she continued; "but it is all over, and it is very much better--very, very much, you know." "I am so glad," said Sybil, looking thoughtfully at the fire. "And now we will go out into the country and forget all about it--all about the disagreeable part of it." "Perhaps," said Joe, who had recovered her equanimity, "Ronald may come too. You see he is so used to me that after a while it will not seem to make so very much difference after all." "Of course, if he would," said Sybil, "it would be very nice. He will have to get used to the idea, and if he does not begin at once, perhaps he never may." "He will be just the same as ever when he gets over his wrath," answered Joe confidently. "Was he very angry?" "Oh, dreadfully! I never saw him so angry." "It is better when men are angry than when they are sorry," said Sybil. "Something like this once happened to me, and he got over it very well. I think it was much more my fault, too," she added thoughtfully. "Oh, I am sure you never did anything bad in your life," said Joe affectionately. "Nothing half so bad as this--my dear Snow Angel!" And so they kissed again and went to lunch. "I suppose you went to walk," remarked Miss Schenectady, when they met at table. "Yes," said Joe, "we walked a little." "Well, all Englishmen walk, of course," continued her aunt. "Most of them can," said Joe, smiling. "I mean, it is a great deal the right thing there. Perhaps you might pass me the pepper." Before they had finished their meal the door opened, and Ronald Surbiton entered the room. "Oh--excuse me," he began, "I did not know"-- "Oh, I am so glad you have come, Ronald," cried Joe, rising to greet him, and taking his hand. "Sybil, let me introduce Mr. Surbiton--Miss Brandon." Sybil smiled and bent her head slightly. Ronald bowed and sat down between Sybil and Miss Schenectady. CHAPTER IX. Josephine Thorn never read newspapers, partly because she did not care for the style of literature known as journalistic, and partly, too, because the papers always came at such exceedingly inconvenient hours. If she had possessed and practiced the estimable habit of "keeping up with the times," she would have observed an article which appeared on the morning after the skating party, and which dealt with the speech John Harrington had made in the Music Hall two days previous. Miss Schenectady had read it, but she did not mention it to Joe, because she believed in John Harrington, and wished Joe to do likewise, wherefore she avoided the subject; for the article treated him roughly. Nevertheless, some unknown person sent Joe a copy of the paper through the post some days later, with a bright red pencil mark at the place, and Joe, seeing what the subject was, read it with avidity. As she read, her cheek flushed, her small mouth closed like a vise, and she stamped her little foot upon the floor. It was evident that the writer was greatly incensed at the views expressed by John, and he wrote with an ease and a virulence which proclaimed a practiced hand. "The spectacle of an accomplished Democrat," said the paper, "is always sufficiently unusual to attract attention: but to find so rare a bird among ourselves is indeed a novel delight. The orator who alternately enthralled and insulted a considerable audience at the Music Hall, two nights ago, laid a decided claim both to accomplishment and to democracy. He himself informed his hearers that he was a Democrat; and, indeed, it was necessary that he should state his position, for it would have been impossible to decide from the tone and quality of his opinions whether he were a socialist, a reformer, a conservative, or an Irishman. Perchance he has discovered the talisman by which it is possible for a man to be all four, and yet to be a man, Furthermore, he claims to be an orator. No one could listen to the manifold intonations of his voice, or witness the declamatory evolutions of his body, without feeling an inward conviction that the gentleman on the platform intended to present himself to us as an orator. "Lest we be accused of partiality and prejudice, we will at once state that we believe it possible for a man to be singular in his manner and quaint in his mode of phrasing, and yet to utter an opinion in some one direction which, if neither novel nor interesting, nor even tenable, shall yet have the one redeeming merit of representing a conceivable point of view. But when a man begins by stating that he belongs to the Democrats and then claims as his own the views of his political opponents, winding up by demanding the sympathy and support of a third party, the obvious conclusion is that he is either a lunatic, a charlatan, or both. A man cannot serve God and Mammon, neither can any man serve both the Irish and Chinese. "Mr. John Harrington has made a great discovery. He has discovered that we require a Civil Service. This is apparently the ground on which he states himself to be a Democrat. If we remember rightly, the Civil Service Convention, which sat in discussion of the subject in the summer of 1881, was presided over by a prominent member of the Republican party. As some time has elapsed since then, and the gentlemen connected with the movement are as active and as much interested in it as ever, our orator will pardon us for questioning his right of discovery on the one hand, and his claim to be considered a Democrat on the strength of it, on the other. A Civil Service is doubtless a good thing, even a very good thing, and in due time we shall certainly have it; but that the Constitution of the United States is on the verge of dissolution at the hands of our corrupt public officers, that our finance is only another name for imminent bankruptcy, or that the new millennium of Washington morals will be organized by Mr. John Harrington--these things we deny _in toto_, from beginning to end. So wide and deep is our skepticism, that we even doubt whether 'war, famine, revolution, or all three together' would have instantly ensued if Mr. John Harrington had not delivered his speech on Wednesday evening. "In illustration--or rather, in the futile attempt to illustrate--Mr. Harrington put forth a series of similes that should make any dead orator turn in his grave. The nation was successively held up to our admiration in the guise of a sick man, a cripple, a banker, a theatrical company, and a peddler of tape and buttons. We were bankrupt, diseased; and our bones, like those of the Psalmist, were all out of joint; and if our hearts did not become like melting wax in the midst of our bodies, it was not the fault of Mr. John Harrington, but rather was it due to the hardening of those organs against the voice of the charmer. "The Navigation Act called down the choicest of the orator's vessels of wrath. Fools had made it, worse than fools submitted to it, and the reason why the Salem docks were no longer crowded with the shipping of the Peabody family was that there were ferry-boats in Boston harbor, a train of reasoning that must be clear to the mind of the merest schoolboy. Mr. Harrington further stated that these same ferry-boats--not to mention certain articles he terms 'mudscows,' with which we have no acquaintance--are built of old timber, copper, and nails, obtained by breaking tip the fleets of the Peabody family, which is manifestly a fraud on the nation. As far as the ferry-boats are concerned, we believe we are in a position to state that they are not built of old material; as regards the aforesaid 'mudscows' we can give no opinion, not having before heard of the article, which we presume is not common in commerce, and may therefore be regarded as an exception to the universal rule that things in general should not be made of old timber, copper, and rusty nails. "We will not weary our readers with any further attempt at unraveling the opinions, illustrations, and rhetoric of Mr. John Harrington, Democrat and orator. The possession of an abundant vocabulary without any especial use for it in the shape of an idea will not revolutionize modern government, whatever may be the opinion of the individual so richly gifted; nor will any accomplished Democrat find a true key to success in following a course of politics which consists in one half of the world trying to drive paradoxes down the throat of the other half. It will not do, and Mr. Harrington will find it out. He will find out also that the differences which exist between the Republican and the Democratic parties are far deeper and wider than he suspects, and do not consist in such things as the existence or non-existence of a Civil Service, free trade, or mudscows; and when these things are forever crushed out of his imagination it will be time enough to give him a name, seeing he is neither Republican nor Democrat, nor Tammany, nor even a Stalwart, nor a three-hundred-and-sixer--seeing, in fact, that he is not an astronomical point in any political heaven with which the world is acquainted, but only the most nebulous of nebulae which have yet come within our observation." Joe read the article rapidly, and then read the last paragraph again and threw the paper aside. She sat by the fire after breakfast, and Miss Schenectady had come into the room several times and had gone out again, busied with much housekeeping. For Miss Schenectady belonged to the elder school of Boston women, who "see to things" themselves in the intervals of literature, gossip, and transcendental philosophy. But Joe sat still for nearly half an hour after she had done reading and nursed her wrath, while she toasted her little feet at the fire. At last she made up her mind and rose. "I am going to see Sybil, Aunt Zoë," she said, meeting the old lady at the door. "Well, if she is up at this time of day," answered Miss Schenectady. "Oh, I fancy so," said Joe. Mrs. Sam Wyndham's establishment was of the modern kind, and nobody was expected to attend an early breakfast of fish, beefsteaks, buckwheat cakes, hot rolls, tea, coffee, and chocolate at eight o'clock in the morning. Visitors did as they pleased, and so did Mrs. Sam, and they met at luncheon, a meal which Sam Wyndham himself was of course unable to attend. Joe knew this, and knew she was certain to find Sybil alone. It was Sybil she wanted to see, and not Mrs. Wyndham. But as she walked down Beacon Street the aspect of affairs changed in her mind. Joe had not exaggerated when she said to Vancouver that she had a very good memory, and it would have been better for him if he had remembered the fact. Joe had not forgotten the conversation with him in the evening after Harrington's speech, and in reading the article that had been sent to her she instantly recognized a phrase, word for word as Vancouver had uttered it. In speaking to her he had said that politics "consisted in one half of the world trying to drive paradoxes down the throat of the other half." It was true that in the article John Harrington was warned that he would discover the fallacy of this proposition, but in Joe's judgment this did not constitute an objection. Vancouver had written the article, and none other; Vancouver, who professed a boundless respect for John, and who constantly asserted that he took no active part whatever in politics. It was inconceivable that the coincidence of language should be an accident. Vancouver had made the phrase when making conversation, and had used it in his article; Joe was absolutely certain of that, and being full of her discovery and of wrath, she was determined to consult with her dearest friend as to the best way of revenging the offense on its author. But as she walked down Beacon Street she reflected on the situation. She was sure Sybil would not understand why she cared so much, and Sybil would form hasty ideas as to the interest Joe took in Harrington. That would never do. It would be better to speak to Mrs. Sam Wyndham, who was herself so fond of John that she would seize with avidity on the information, from whatever source it came. But then Mrs. Wyndham was fond of Vancouver also. No, she was not. When Joe thought of it she was sure that though Vancouver was devoted to Mrs. Sam, Mrs. Sam did not care for him excepting as an agreeable person of even temper, who was useful in society. But for Harrington she had a real friendship. If it came to the doing of a service, Mrs. Wyndham would do it. Joe's perceptions were wonderfully clear and just. But when she reached the house she was still uncertain, and she passed on, intending to turn back and go in as soon as she had made up her mind. In spite of all that she could argue to herself it seemed unsafe--unwise, at least. Sybil might laugh at her, after all; Mrs. Wyndham might possibly tell Vancouver instead of telling John. It would be better to tell John herself; she remembered having once spoken to him about Vancouver, and she could easily remind him of the conversation. She would probably see him that evening at a party she was going to; and yet it was so hard to have to keep it all to herself for so many hours, instead of telling. Nevertheless she would go and see Sybil, taking care, of course, to say nothing about the article. At the time Joe was walking up and down Beacon Street in the effort to come to a decision, John Harrington found himself face to face with a very much more formidable problem. He stood before the fire-place in his rooms in Charles Street, with an extinguished cigar between his teeth, his face paler than usual, and a look of uncertainty on his features that was oddly out of keeping with his usual mood. He wore an ancient shooting coat, and his feet were trust into a pair of dingy leather slippers; his hands were in his pockets, and he was staring vacantly at the clock. On the oak writing-table that filled the middle of the room lay an open telegram. It was dated from Washington, and conveyed the simple information that Senator Caleb Jenkins had died at five o'clock that morning. It was signed by an abbreviation that meant nothing except to John himself. The name of the senator was itself fictitious, and stood for another which John knew. The table was covered with Government reports, for when the message came John was busy studying a financial point of importance to him. The telegram had lain on the table for half an hour, and John still stood before the fire-place, staring at the clock. The senator had not been expected to live, in fact it was remarkable that he should have lived so long. But when a man has been preparing for a struggle during many months, he is apt to feel that the actual moment of the battle is indefinitely far off. But now the senator was dead, and John meant to stand in his place. The battle was begun. No one who has not seen some of the inside workings of political life can have any idea of what a man feels who is about to stand as a candidate in an election for the first time in his life. For months, perhaps for years, he has been engaged with political matters; his opinions have been formed by himself or by others into a very definite shape; it may be that, like Harrington, he has frequently spoken to large audiences with more or less success; he may have written pamphlets and volumes upon questions of the day, and his writings may have roused the fiercest criticism and the most loyal support. All this he may have done, and done it well, but when the actual moment arrives for him to stand upon his feet and address his constituents, no longer for the purpose of making them believe in his opinions, but in order to make them believe in himself, he is more than mortal if he does not feel something very unpleasantly resembling fear. It is one thing to express a truth, it is another to set one's self upon a pedestal and declare that one represents it, and is in one's own person the living truth itself. John was too honest and true a man not to feel a positive reluctance to singing his own praises, and yet that is what most electioneering consists in. But to be elected a senator in Massachusetts is a complicated affair. A man who intends to succeed in such an enterprise must not let the grass grow under his feet. In a few hours the whole machinery of election must be at work, and before night he would have to receive all sorts and conditions of men and electioneering agents. The morning papers did not contain any notice of the senator's death, as they had already gone to press when the news reached them, if indeed it was as yet public property. But other papers appeared at mid-day, and by that time the circumstances would undoubtedly be known. John struck a match and relit his cigar. The moment of hesitation was over, the last breathing-space before the fight, and all his activity returned. Half an hour later he went out with a number of written telegrams in his hand, and proceeded to the central telegraph office. The case was urgent. In the first place the governor of the state would, according to law and custom, immediately appoint a senator _pro tempore_ to act until the legislature should elect the new senator in place of the one deceased. Secondly, the legislature, which meets once a year, was already in session, and the election would therefore take place immediately, unless some unusual delay were created, and this was improbable. In spite of the article which had so outraged Josephine Thorn's sense of justice, there were many who believed in John Harrington as the prophet of the new faith, as the senator of reform and the orator of the future, and his friends were numerous and powerful, both in the electing body and among the non-official mass of prominent persons who make up the aggregate of public opinion. It had long been known that John Harrington would be brought forward at the next vacancy, which, in the ordinary course of things, would have occurred in about a year's time, at the expiration of the senior senator's term of office, but which had now been suddenly caused by the death of his colleague. John was therefore aware that his success must depend almost immediately upon the present existing opinion of him that prevailed, and as he made his way through the crowded streets to the telegraph office, he realized that no effort of his own would be likely to make a change in that opinion at such short notice. At first it had seemed to him as though he were on a sudden brought face to face with a body of men whom he must persuade to elect him as their representative, and in spite of his great familiarity with political proceedings, the idea was extremely disagreeable to him. But on more mature reflection it was clear to him that he was in the hands of his friends, that he had said his say and had done all he would now be able to do in the way of public speaking or public writing, and that his only possible sphere of present action lay in exerting such personal influence as he possessed. John Harrington was ambitious, or, to speak more accurately, he was wholly ruled by a dominant aspiration. He was convinced by his own study and observation, as well as by a considerable amount of personal experience, that great reforms were becoming necessary in the government of the country, and he was equally sure that a man was needed who should be willing to make any sacrifice for the sake of creating a party to inaugurate such changes. In his opinion the surest step towards obtaining influence in the affairs of the country was a seat in the senate, and with an unhesitating belief in the truth and honesty of the principles he desired to make known, he devoted every energy he possessed to the attainment of his object. To him government seemed the most important function of society, the largest, the broadest, and the noblest; to help, if possible, to be a leader in the establishment of what was good for the country, and to be the very foremost in destroying that which was bad, were in his view the best objects and aims for a strong man to follow. And John Harrington knew himself to be strong, and believed himself to be right, and thus armed he was prepared for any struggle. The quality of vanity exists in all men, not least in those whose chief profession is modesty; and seeing that it is a universal element, created and inherent in every one, it is impossible to say it is bad in itself. For it is impossible to conceive any human creature without it. A recent philosopher of reputation has taught that by vanity, by the desire to appear attractive to the other sex, man has changed his own person from the form of a beast to the image of God. Vanity is a mighty power and incentive, as great as hunger and thirst, and much more generally active in the affairs of civilized humanity. And yet its very name means hollowness. "The hollowness of hollowness, all things are hollowness," said the preacher, and his translators have put the word vanity in his mouth, because it means the same thing. But in itself, being hollow, it is neither bad nor good; its badness or goodness lies in those things whereof a man makes choice to fill the void, the inexpressible and indefinable craving within his soul; as also hunger is only bad when it is satisfied by bad things, or not satisfied at all, so that in the one case it leads to disease, and in the other to the committing of crimes in the desire for satisfaction. Many a poor fellow was hung by the neck in old times for stealing a loaf to stop his hunger, and many a man of wit goes to the mad-house nowadays because the void of his vanity is unfilled. But vanity is called by yet another name when its disagreeable side is hidden, and when its emptiness has come to crave for great things. It is pride, then honorable pride, then ambition, and perhaps at the last it is called heroic sacrifice. Vanity is an unsatisfied desire, hollow in itself, but capable of holding both bad and good. It is not identical with self-complacency, nor yet with conceit. Probably John Harrington had originally possessed as much of this mysterious quality as most men who are conscious of strength and talent. It had never manifested itself in small things, and its very extent had made many things seem small which were of the highest importance to other men. He had worked as a boy at all manner of studies like other boys, but the idea of laboring in distasteful matters for the sake of being first among his companions seemed utterly absurd to him. From the time he had begun to think for himself--and he was young when he reached that stage--he had formed a rooted determination to be first in his country, to be a great reformer or a great patriot, and he cared to study nothing that was not connected with this idea. When his name was first heard in public life, it was as the author of a pamphlet advocating certain sweeping measures of which no one else had ventured to dream as yet. He would have smiled now had he taken the trouble to read again some of those earlier productions of his. It had seemed so easy to move the world then, and it seemed so hard now. But nevertheless he meant to move it, and as each year brought him increased strength and wider experience, it brought with it also the conviction of ultimate success. He had long forgotten to hope for the sudden and immediate power to stir the world, for he had discovered that it was a labor of years, the work of a lifetime; but if he had ever had any doubts as to the result of that work, he had forgotten them also. And now his strength, his aspirations, his vanity, and his intellect were roused together to the highest activity of which they were capable, the hour having come for which he had longed through half his lifetime, and though it was but the first trial, in which he might fail, it had for him all the importance of the supreme crisis of his existence. No wonder that his face was pale and his lips set as he walked back to his lodgings from the telegraph office. As he walked down the hill by the railings of the Common he came upon Josephine Thorn, standing at the entrance of one of the boarded walks, as though hesitating whether to go in. He was close to her as he bowed, and something in her face made him stop. "Good morning, Miss Thorn," he said. She nodded gravely and hesitated. He was about to go on, thinking she was in one of those moods which he called capricious. But she stopped him. "Mr. Harrington, I want to speak to you," she said quickly, seeing that her opportunity was on the point of slipping away. "Yes?" said John, smiling faintly. "Mr. Harrington--did you read that article about you, the day after the skating party?" "Yes," said John. "It was not complimentary, if I remember." "It was vile," said Joe, the angry color rising to her temples again. "It was abominable. It was written by Mr. Vancouver." John started slightly. "I think you must be mistaken," he said. "No, I am not mistaken. There were things in it, word for word as he said them to me just after the speech. I am perfectly sure." John looked very gravely at Joe, as though to be sure of her honesty. There was no mistaking the look in her eyes. "Miss Thorn," John said, "Vancouver may have said those very things to some one else, who wrote them and printed them. But in any case, I am exceedingly obliged to you for the information"-- "You are not angry?" Joe began, already repenting. "No--how could I be? It may be important. The junior senator for Massachusetts died this morning, and there may be an election at any moment. I have not told any one else, but it will be known everywhere in an hour's time. Good-by, and many thanks." "You will be senator, of course?" said Joe, in great excitement. "I cannot tell," John answered. "Are you going down the hill?" "No--thanks--I am going home," said Joe. "Good-by." CHAPTER X. Joe had been mistaken in thinking that Ronald would be less well received than herself. There was of course the usual amount of gossip concerning him, but as he refrained from eccentricities of dress when asked to dinner, and did not bet that he would ride his horse into the smoking-room of the Somerset Club, the gossip soon lost ground against the list of his good qualities. Moreover, he was extremely good-looking, and his manner was modesty itself. He admired everything he saw, partly because it was new to him, and partly because there was a good deal to admire. For a day or two after the final scene with Joe he had avoided seeing her. He had not been able to resist the temptation to go back on the same day, and he had spent some hours in considering that human affairs are extremely mutable. But the scenes about him were too new, and very many of the faces he saw were too attractive, to allow of his brooding for long over his misfortune. His first impulse had been to go away again on the very evening of his arrival. He had gone to see Joe, arriving during luncheon, in the expectation of seeing her alone again. There would be a scene of solemn farewell, in which he would bid her be happy in her own way, in a tone of semi-paternal benevolence, after which he would give her his blessing, and bid farewell to the pomps and vanities of society. He would naturally retire gloomily from the gay world, and end his miserable existence in the approved Guy Livingstone fashion of life, between cavendish tobacco, deep drinking, and high play. Joe would then repent of the ruin she had caused, and that would be a great satisfaction. There was once a little boy in Boston whose hands were very cold as he went to school. But he blew on them savagely, saying, "I am glad of it! It serves my father right for not buying me my gloves." That was Ronald's state of mind. He had led the most sober of lives, and the wildest dissipation he remembered was the Lord Mayor's supper to the Oxford and Cambridge crews, when he himself had been one of the winners. But surely, for a disappointed lover there could be no course so proper as a speedy death by dissipation--which would serve Joe right. Therefore, on his return to his hotel, he ordered whiskey, in a sepulchral tone of voice. He tasted it, and thought it detestable. On reflection, he would put off the commencement of his wild career until the evening after he had seen Joe again. The ravages of drink would not be perceptible so soon, after all. He changed his tie for one of a darker hue, ate sparingly of a beefsteak, and went back to bid Joe a last farewell. Sybil Brandon and Miss Schenectady were elements in the solemn leave-taking which Ronald had not anticipated. Sybil, moreover, made a great effort, for she was anxious to help Joe as much as possible in her difficulties. She talked to Ronald with a vivacity that was unusual, and Joe herself was astonished at the brilliance of her conversation. She had always thought Sybil very reserved, if not somewhat shy. Perhaps Sybil pitied Ronald a little. He was very quiet in his manner, though after the first few minutes he found himself talking much as usual. True, he often looked at Joe, and then was silent; but then again he looked at Sybil, and his tongue was unloosed. He was grateful after a time, and he was also flattered. Besides, he could not help noticing that his new acquaintance was extremely beautiful. His conscience smote him as he realized that he was thinking of her appearance, and he immediately quieted the qualm by saying that it was but natural admiration for an artistic object. Ronald did not know much about artists and that sort of people, but the expression formed itself conveniently in his mind. The consequence was that he accepted an invitation to drive with the two girls after luncheon, and when they left him at his hotel, a proceeding against which he vehemently protested on the score of propriety, he reluctantly acknowledged to himself that he had enjoyed the afternoon very much. "Come and see us after five o'clock," said Sybil. "I will present you to Mrs. Wyndham. Nine hundred and thirty-six, Beacon Street," she added, laughing. "With great pleasure--thanks," said Ronald. "Good-by, Ronald dear," said Joe pleasantly. "Good-by," he answered in a doubtful tone of voice, as he raised his hat; and the two girls drove away. Sybil was apparently in very good spirits. "Do not be frightened, Joe dearest," she said. "We will manage it very well. He is not hurt in the least." "Really, I do not believe he is--so very much, you know," Joe answered. But she was thoughtful, and did not speak again for some time. It was on the morning after this that Joe read the article on John's speech, and met him by the Common. Ronald did not call during the day, and in the evening Joe went to her party as she had intended; but neither Sybil nor John Harrington were there. Sybil did not go to parties, and John probably had too much to do. But at supper Joe chanced to be standing near Mrs. Sam Wyndham. "Oh, I so much wanted to see you, Miss Thorn," said the latter. "I wanted to tell you how much we like your cousin, Mr. Surbiton. He came today, and I have asked him to dinner to-morrow." "Yes?" said Joe, turning a shade paler. "I am so glad you like him. He is a very nice boy." "He is perfectly lovely," said Mrs. Sam, enthusiastically. "And he is so natural, you would not know he was English at all." "Really?" said Joe, raising her eyebrows a little, but laughing at the same time. "Oh my dear," said Mrs. Wyndham, "I always forget you are not one of us. Besides, you are, you see." Mrs. Wyndham rarely said a tactless thing, but this evening she was in such good spirits that she said what came uppermost in her thoughts. Joe was not offended; she was only bored. "Will you not come and dine too, to-morrow night?" asked Mrs. Wyndham, who was anxious to atone. "Thanks, awfully," said Joe, "but I have to dine with the Aitchisons." Pocock Vancouver, pale and exquisite as ever, came up to the two ladies. "Can I get you anything, Mrs. Wyndham?" he inquired, after a double bow. "No, thank you. Johnny Hannibal is taking care of me," answered Mrs. Sam, coldly. "Miss Thorn, what can I get you?" he asked, turning to Joe. "Nothing, thanks," said Joe, "Mr. Biggielow is getting me something." She did not look at Vancouver as she answered, and the angry color began to rise to her temples. Vancouver, who was not used to repulses such as these, and was too old a soldier to give up a situation so easily, stood a moment playing with his coat tails. A sudden thought passed through Joe's mind. It struck her that, considering the situation of affairs, it would be unwise to break off her acquaintance with Vancouver at the present time. Her first honest impulse was to cut him and never speak to him again. But it was better to act with more deliberation. In the first place, there might be more to be learnt which might be of service to John; secondly, people would talk about it if she cut him, and would invent some story to the effect that he had proposed to marry her, or that she had proposed to marry him. It was contrary to her nature to pretend anything she did not feel, but it would nevertheless be a mistake to quarrel openly with Vancouver. "On second thoughts--if you would get me a glass of water"--she said, speaking to him. He instantly disappeared; but even in the moment before he departed to execute her command he had time to express by his look a sense of injury forgiven, which did not escape Joe. "What a hypocrite the man is!" she thought. Vancouver on his part could form no conception of the cause of the coldness the two ladies had shown him. He could not know that Joe had discovered in him the writer of the article, still less could he have guessed that Joe had told John, and that John had told Mrs. Sam. He could only suppose that the two had been talking of something, and were annoyed at being interrupted. When he came back with the glass of water Mr. Biggielow had just brought Joe some salad. The usual struggle began between the two men. Mr. Bonamy Biggielow was a little poet. "I ought to thank you, Miss Thorn, instead of you thanking me," said Vancouver, in a seductive voice, on one side of Joe. "Is it not the most crowded supper you ever saw?" remarked Mr. Biggielow on the other side. "Why?" said Joe, eating her salad and looking straight before her. "I thought you were going to send me away. I was so glad when you condescended to make use of me," answered Vancouver. Mr. Biggielow also answered Joe's interrogation. "Well," he said, "I mean it is thronged with people. There is a decided 'sound of revelry by night'." "Youth and beauty? That sort of thing?" said Joe to Biggielow. Then turning to Vancouver, she added, "Why should I send you away?" "I hope there is no reason," he said gravely. "In fact, I am sure there is none, except that you would of course always do exactly as you pleased about that and everything else." "Yes, indeed," Joe answered, and her lip curled a little proudly, "you are quite right about that. But then, you know, I did not send you away." "Thanks, again," said Vancouver. "Do let me get you something more, Miss Thorn," suggested Mr. Biggielow. "No? There is any amount of _pâtés_. You always like"-- "Of course you have heard about Harrington?" said Vancouver in a low voice close to Josephine's ear. "No, really," she answered. "Will you take my plate? And the glass--thanks." Mr. Bonamy Biggielow was obliged to retire. "You mean about the senatorship?" asked Joe. "Yes. The senator died this morning. Harrington will make a fight for it. He has many friends." "Among whom you count yourself, doubtless," remarked Joe. "Not politically, of course. I take no active part"-- "Yes, I know." Joe knew the remainder of the sentence by heart. "Then you will have a glorious opportunity for maintaining an armed neutrality." "Oh, if it comes to that," said Vancouver mildly, "I would rather see Harrington senator than some of our own men. At all events, he is honest." "At all events!" Joe repeated. "You think, perhaps, that some man of your own party may be elected who will not turn out to be honest?" "Well, the thing is possible. You see, politics are such a dirty business--all kinds of men get in." Joe laughed in a way that made Vancouver nervous. He was beginning to know her, and he could tell when some sharp thrust was coming by the way she laughed. Nevertheless, he was fascinated by her. "It is not long since you told me that Mr. Harrington's very mild remark about extinguishing bribery and corruption was a piece of gross exaggeration," said Joe. "Why do you say politics are dirty work?" "There is a great difference," answered Vancouver. "What difference? Between what?" "Between saying that the business of politics is not clean, and saying that all public officers are liars, like the Cretans." "Who is exaggerating now?" asked Joe scornfully. "Of course it is I," answered Vancouver, submissively. "If it is not a rude question, did not that dress come from Egypt?" "Yes." The garment in question was made of a kind of soft white, fluted material over a rose-colored silk ground. The raised flutings followed the exquisite lines of Joe's figure, and had the double merit of accentuating its symmetry, and of so leading the eye as to make her height seem greater than it really was. Cut square at the neck, it showed her dazzling throat at its best advantage, and a knot of pink lilies at the waist harmonized delicately with the color of the whole. "It is just like you," said Vancouver, "to have something different from everybody else. I admire Eastern things so much, and one gets so tired of the everlasting round of French dresses." "I am glad you like it," said Joe, indifferently. "I am so anxious to meet your cousin, Miss Thorn," said Vancouver, trying a new subject. "I hear there is to be a dinner for him to-morrow night at Mrs. Sam Wyndham's. But of course I am not asked." "Why 'of course'?" inquired Joe quickly. "I believe Mrs. Wyndham thinks I dislike Englishmen," said Vancouver at random. "But she is really very much mistaken." "Really?" "Yes--I should be willing to like any number of Englishmen for the sake of being liked by one Englishwoman." He looked at Joe expressively as he spoke. "Really?" "Indeed, yes. Do you not believe me?" "Oh, yes," said Joe. "Why should I not believe you?" Her voice was calm, but that same angry flush that had of late so often shown itself began to rise slowly at her temples. Vancouver saw it, and thought she was blushing at what he said. "I trust you will," said Vancouver. "I trust that some day you will let me tell you who that Englishwoman is." It was horrible; he was making love to her, this wretch, whom she despised. She turned her head away to hide the angry look in her eyes. "Thanks--no, if you do not mind," said she. "I do not care to receive confidences,--I always forget to forget them." It was not in order that Pocock Vancouver might make love to her that she had sent away Bonamy Biggielow, the harmless little poet. She wished him back again, but he was embarked in an enterprise to dispute with Johnny Hannibal a place near Miss St. Joseph. Mrs. Wyndham had long since disappeared. "Will you please take me back to my aunt?" said Joe. As they passed from the supper-room they suddenly came upon John Harrington, who was wandering about in an unattached fashion, apparently looking for some one. He bowed and stared a little at seeing Joe on Vancouver's arm, but she gave him a look of such earnest entreaty that he turned and followed her at a distance to see what would happen. Seeing her sit down by her aunt, he came up and spoke to her, almost thrusting Vancouver aside with his broad shoulders. Vancouver, however, did not dispute the position, but turned on his heel and went away. "Oh, I am so glad," said Joe, with a sigh of relief. "I thought I should never get away from him!" It is amazing what a difference the common knowledge of a secret will make in the intimacy of two people. "I was rather taken aback at seeing you with him," said John. "Not that it can make any difference to you," he added quickly, "only you seemed so angry at him this morning." "But it does"--Joe began, impulsively. "That is, I began by meaning to cut him, and then I thought it would be a mistake to make a scandal." "Yes," said John, "it would be a great mistake. Besides, I would not for all the world have you take a part in this thing. It would do no good, and it might do harm." "I think I have taken a part already," said Joe, somewhat hurt. "Yes, I know. I am very grateful, but I hope you will not think any more about it, nor allow it to influence you in any way." "But what is the use of friends if they do not take a part in one's quarrels?" asked Joe. John looked at her earnestly for a few seconds, and saw that she was perfectly sincere. He had grown to like Josephine of late, and he was grateful to her for her friendship. Her manner that morning, when she told him of her discovery, had made a deep impression on him. "My dear Miss Thorn," he said earnestly, in a low voice, "you are too good and kind, and I thank you very heartily for your friendship. But I think you were very wise not to cut Vancouver, and I hope you will not quarrel with anybody for any matter so trivial." The color came to Joe's face, but not for anger this time. "Trivial!" she exclaimed. "Yes, trivial," John repeated. "Remember that it is the policy of that paper to abuse me, and that if Vancouver had not written the article, the editor could have found some one else easily enough who would have done it." "But it is such a dastardly thing!" said Joe. "He always says to every one that he has the greatest respect for you, and then he does a thing like this. If I were you I would kill him--I am sure I would." "That would not be the way to win an election nowadays," said John, laughing. "Oh, I would not care about that," said Joe, hotly. "But I dare say it is very silly of me," she added. "You do not seem to mind it at all." "It is not worth while to lose one's temper or one's soul for the iniquities of Mr. Pocock Vancouver," said John. "The man may do me harm, but as I never expected his friendship or help, he neither falls nor rises in my estimation on that account. Blessed are they who expect nothing!" "Blessed indeed," said Joe. "But one cannot help expecting men who have the reputation of being gentlemen to behave decently." "Vancouver has a right to his political opinions, and a perfect right to express them in any way he sees fit," said John. "Oh, of course," said Joe, impatiently. "This is a free country, and that sort of thing. But if he means to express political opinions he should not cry aloud at every tea-party in town that he is neutral and takes no active part in politics. I think that writing violent articles in a newspaper is a very active part indeed. And he should not go about saying that he has the highest reverence for a man, and then call him a lunatic and a charlatan in print, unless he is willing to sign his name to it, and take the consequences. Should he? I think it is vile, and horrid, and abominable, and nasty, and I hate him." "With the exception of the peroration to that speech," said John, who was very much amused, "I am afraid I must agree with you. A man certainly ought not to do any of those things." "Then why do you defend him?" asked Joe, with flashing eyes. "Because, on general principles, I do not think a man is so much worse than his fellows because he does things they would very likely do in his place. There are things done every day, all over the world, quite as bad as that, and no one takes much notice of them. Almost every businessman is trying to get the better of some other business man by fair means or foul." "You do not seem to have a very exalted idea of humanity," said Joe. "A large part of humanity is sick," said John, "and it is as well to be prepared for the worst in any illness." "I wish you were not so tremendously calm, you know," said Joe, looking thoughtfully into John's face. "I am afraid it will injure you." "Why in the world should it injure me?" asked John, much astonished at the remark. "I have a presentiment"--she checked herself suddenly. "I do not like to tell you," she added. "I would like to hear what you think, if you will tell me," said John, gravely. "Well, do not be angry. I have a presentiment that you will not be made senator. Are you angry?" "No indeed. But why?" "Just for that very reason; you are too calm. You are not enough of a partisan. Every one is a partisan here." John was silent, and his face was grave and thoughtful. The remark was profound in its way, and showed a far deeper insight into political matters than he imagined Joe possessed. He had long regarded Mrs. Wyndham as a woman of fine sense and judgment, and had often asked her opinion on important questions. But in all his experience she had never said anything that seemed to strike so deeply at the root of things as this simple remark of Josephine's. "I am afraid you are angry," said Joe, seeing that he was grave and silent. "You have set me thinking, Miss Thorn," he answered. "You think I may be right?" she said. "The idea is quite new to me, I think it is perhaps the best definition of the fact that I ever heard. But it is not what ought to be." "Of course not," Joe answered. "Nothing is just what it ought to be. But one has to take things as they are." "And make them what they should be," added John, and the look of strong determination came into his face. "Ah, yes," said Joe, softly. "Make things what they should be. That is the best thing a man can live for." "Perhaps we might go home, Joe," said Miss Schenectady, who had been conversing for a couple of hours with another old lady of literary tastes. "Yes, Aunt Zoë," said Joe, rousing herself, "I think we might." "Shall I see you to-morrow night at Mrs. Wyndham's dinner?" asked John, as they parted. "No, I refused. Good-night." As Joe sat by her aunt's side in the deep dark carriage on the way home, her hands were cold and she trembled from head to foot. And when at last she laid her head upon her pillow there were tears in her eyes and on her cheeks. "Is it possible that I can be so heartless?" she murmured to herself. CHAPTER XI. Ronald went to see Sybil Brandon at five o'clock, and as it chanced he found her alone. Mrs. Wyndham, she said, had gone out, or rather she had not yet come home; but if Ronald would wait, she would certainly be in. Ronald waited, and talked to Miss Brandon in the mean while. He had a bereaved air when he arrived, which was calculated to excite sympathy, and his conversation was subdued in tone, and grave in subject. But Sybil did her best to cheer him, and in the fullness of her sympathy did perhaps more than was absolutely necessary. Ronald's wound was not deep, but he had a firm conviction that it ought to be. Any man would have thought the same in his place. Certainly, few people would have understood what they felt in such a position. He had grown up believing he was to marry a young and charming woman of whom he was really exceedingly fond, and now he was suddenly told that the whole thing was a mistake. It was enough to break a man's heart, and yet Ronald's heart was not broken, and to his great surprise beat nearly as regularly the day after his disaster as it had done during the whole two-and-twenty years of his life. He could not understand his own calmness, and he was sure that he ought to be profoundly grieved over the whole affair, so that his face was drawn into an expression of solemnity somewhat out of keeping with its singular youthful freshness of color and outline. The idea of devoting himself to the infernal gods as a sacrifice to the blighted passion had passed away in the course of the drive on the previous afternoon. He had felt no inclination to drown his cares in drink during the evening, but on the contrary he had gone for a brisk walk in Beacon Street, and had ascertained by actual observation, and the assistance of a box of matches, the precise position of No. 936. This had occupied some time, as it is a peculiarity of Boston to put the number of the houses on the back instead of the front, so that the only certain course to follow in searching for a friend, is to reach the rear of his house by a circuitous route through side streets and back alleys, and then, having fixed the exact position of his residence by astronomical observation, to return to the front and inquire for him. It is true that even then one is frequently mistaken, but there is nothing else to be done. It was perhaps not extraordinary that Ronald should be at some pains to find out where Mrs. Wyndham lived, for Sybil was the only person besides Joe and Miss Schenectady whom he had yet met, and he wanted company, for he hated and dreaded solitude with his whole heart. Having traveled all the night previous, he went home and slept a sounder sleep than falls to the lot of most jilted lovers. The next day he rose early and "did" Boston. It did not take him long, and he said to himself that half of it was very jolly, and half of it was too utterly beastly for anything. The Common, and the Gardens, and Commonwealth Avenue, you know, were rather pretty, and must have cost a deuce of a lot of money in this country; but as for the State House, and Paul Revere's Church, and the Old South, and the city generally, why, it was simply disgusting, all that, you know. And in the afternoon he went to see Sybil Brandon, and began talking about what he had seen. She was, if anything, more beautiful than ever, and as she looked at him, and held out her hand with a friendly greeting, Ronald felt himself actually blushing, and Sybil saw it and blushed too, a very little. Then they sat down by the window where there were plants, and they looked out at the snow and the people passing. Sybil asked Ronald what he had been doing. "I have been doing Boston," he said. "Of course it was the proper thing. But I am afraid I do not know much about it." "But do you like it?" she asked. "It is much more important, I think, to know whether you like things or dislike them, than to know everything about them. Do not you think so?" "Oh, of course," said Ronald. "But I like Boston very much; I mean the part where you live. All this, you know--Commonwealth Place, and the Public Park, you know, and Beacon Avenue, of course, very much. But the city"-- "You do not like the city?" suggested Sybil, seeing he hesitated, and smiling at his strange confusion of names. "No," said Ronald. "I think it is so cramped and ugly, and all little narrow streets. But then, of course, it is such a little place. You get into the country the moment you walk anywhere." "It seems very big to the Bostonians," said Sybil, laughing. "Oh, of course. You have lived here all your life, and so it is quite different." "I? Dear me no! I am not a Bostonian at all." "Oh," said Ronald, "I thought you were. That was the reason I was not sure of abusing the city to you. But it is not a bad place, I should think, when you know lots of people, and that was such a pretty drive we went yesterday." "Yes, it must seem very new to you. Everything must, I should think, most of all this casual way we have of receiving people. But there really is a Mrs. Wyndham, with whom I am staying, and she will be in before long." "Oh--don't--don't mention her," said Ronald, hastily, "I mean it--it is of no importance whatever, you know." He blushed violently. Sybil laughed, and Ronald blushed again, but in all his embarrassment lie could not help thinking what a silvery ring there was in her voice. "I am afraid Mrs. Wyndham would not like it, if she heard you telling me she was not to be mentioned, and was not of any importance whatever. But she is a very charming woman, and I am very fond of her." "She is your aunt, I presume, Miss Brandon?" said Ronald. "My aunt?" repeated Sybil. "Oh no, not at all--only a friend." "Oh, I thought all unattached young ladies lived with aunts here, like Miss Schenectady." Ronald smiled grimly at the recollections of the previous day. "Not quite that," said Sybil, laughing. "Mrs. Wyndham is not the least like Miss Schenectady. She is less clever and more human." "Really, I am so glad," said Ronald. "And she talks so oddly--Joe's--Miss Thorn's aunt. Could you tell me, if it is not a rude question, why so many people here are never certain of anything? It strikes me as so absurdly ridiculous, you know. She said yesterday that 'perhaps, if I rang the bell, she could send a message.' And the man at the hotel this morning had no postage stamps, and said that perhaps if I went to the General Post Office I might be able to get some there." "Yes," said Sybil, "it is absurd, and one catches it so easily." "But would it not be ridiculous if the guard called out at a station, 'Perhaps this is Boston!' or 'Perhaps this is New York?' It would be too utterly funny." "I am afraid that if you begin to make a list of our peculiarities yon will find funnier things than that," said Sybil, laughing. "But then we always laugh at you in England, so that it is quite fair." "Oh, we are very absurd, I know," said Ronald, "but I think we are much more comfortable. For instance, we do not have niggers about who call us 'Mister.'" "You must not use such words in Boston, Mr. Surbiton," said Sybil. "Seriously, there are people who would be very much offended. You must speak of 'waiters of color,' or 'the colored help;' you must be very careful." "I will," said Ronald. "Thanks. Is everything rechristened in that way? I am afraid I shall always be in hot water." "Oh yes, there are no men and women here. They are all ladies and gentlemen, or 'the gurls,' and 'the fellows.' But it is very soon learnt." "Yes, I can imagine," said Ronald, very much amused. "But--by the bye, this is the season here, is not it?" So they chattered together for nearly an hour about the merest nothings, not saying anything particularly witty, but never seeming to each other in the least dull. Ronald had gone to Sybil for consolation, and he was so well consoled that he was annoyed when Mrs. Wyndham came in and interrupted his _tête-à-tête_. Sybil introduced Ronald, and when he rose to go, after a quarter of an hour, Mrs. Wyndham asked him to dinner on the following day. That night, when Ronald was alone in his room at the hotel, he took Josephine's photograph from a case in his bag and set it before him on the table. He would think about her for a while, and reflect on his situation; and he sat down for that purpose, his chin resting on his folded hands. Dear Joe--he loved her so dearly, and she was so cruel not to marry him! But, somehow, as he looked, he seemed to see through the photograph, and another face came and smiled on him. Again and again he called his attention back, and tried to realize that the future would be very blank and dreary without Joe; but do what he would, it did not seem so blank and dreary after all; there was somebody else there. "Joe is quite right," he said aloud. "I am a brute." And he went to bed, trying hard to be disgusted with himself. But his dreams were sweet, for he dreamed he was sitting among the ferns at Mrs. Wyndham's house, talking to Sybil Brandon. "Why, my dear," said Mrs. Wyndham, when Ronald was gone, "he is perfectly charming. We have positively found a new man." "Yes," said Sybil. "I am so glad you asked him to dinner. I do not think he is very clever, but he talks easily, and says funny things." "I suppose he has come over to marry his cousin--has not he?" inquired Mrs. Wyndham. "No," replied Sybil, "he is not going to marry Joe Thorn," she answered absently; for she was thinking of something, and her tone indicated such absolute certainty in the matter that Mrs. Wyndham looked quickly at her. "Well, you seem quite certain about it, any way," she said. "I? Oh--well, yes. I think it is extremely unlikely that he will marry her." "I almost wish I had offered to take him to the party to-night," said Mrs. Wyndham, evidently unsatisfied. "However, as he is coming to-morrow, that will do quite as well. Sybil, dear, you look tired. Why don't you go and lie down before dinner?" "Oh, because--I am not tired, really. I am always pale, you know." "Well, I am tired to death myself, my dear, and as there is no one here I will say I am not at home, and rest till dinner." Mrs. Wyndham had been as much startled as any one by news of the senator's death that morning, and though she always professed to agree with her husband she was delighted at the prospect of John Harrington's election. She had been a good friend to him, and he to her, for years, and she cared much more for his success than for the turn of events. She had met him in the street that afternoon, and they had perambulated the pavement of Beacon Street for more than an hour in the discussion of the future. John had also told her that he was now certain that Vancouver was the writer of the offensive articles that had so long puzzled him; at all events that the especial one which had appeared the morning after the skating-party was undoubtedly from his pen. Mrs. Wyndham, who had long suspected as much, was very angry when she found that her suspicions had been so just, and she proposed to deal summarily with Vancouver. John, however, begged her to temporize, and she promised to be prudent. "By the way," she said to Sybil, as she was about to leave the room, "it was a special providence that you did not marry Vancouver. He has turned out badly." Sybil started slightly and looked up. Her experience with Pocock Vancouver was a thing she rarely referred to. She had undoubtedly given him great encouragement, and had then mercilessly refused him, to the great surprise of every one. But as that had occurred a year and a half ago, it was quite natural that she should treat him like any one else, now, just as though nothing had happened. She looked up at Mrs. Wyndham in some surprise. "What has he done?" she asked. "You know how he always talks about John Harrington?" "He always says he respects him immensely." "Very well. It is he who has been writing those scurrilous articles that we have talked about so much." "How disgraceful!" exclaimed Sybil. "How perfectly detestable! Are you quite sure?" "There is not the least doubt about it. John Harrington told me himself." "Oh, then of course it is true," said Sybil. "How dreadful!" "Harrington takes it in the calmest way, as though he had expected it all his life. He says they were never friends, and that Vancouver has a perfect right to his political opinions. I never saw anybody so cool in my life." "What a splendid fellow he is!" exclaimed Sybil. "There is something lion-like about him. He would forgive an enemy a thousand times a day, and say the man who injured him had a perfect right to his opinions." "Why gracious goodness, Sybil, how you talk!" cried Mrs. Wyndham; "you are not in love with the man yourself, are you, my dear?" "I?" asked Sybil. Then she laughed. "No, indeed! I would not marry him if he asked me." "Why not?" "Oh, I would never marry a celebrity like that. He is splendid, and noble, and honest; but everything in him is devoted to his career. There is no room for a woman at all." "I think the amount of solid knowledge about men that you dear, sweet, lovely, beautiful, innocent little girls possess is something just too perfectly amazing!" said Mrs. Wyndham, slowly, and with great emphasis. "If we do," said Sybil, "it is not surprising. I am sure I do not wonder at girls knowing a great deal about the world. Everything is discussed before them, and marriage and men are the usual topics of conversation. The wonder is that girls still make so many mistakes in their choice, after listening to the combined experience of all the married women of their acquaintance for several years. It shows that no one is infallible." "What a funny girl you are, Sybil!" exclaimed Mrs. Wyndham. "I think you turn the tables on me altogether." "Yes? Well, I have experiences of my own now," said Sybil, leaning back against an enormous cushion. Mrs. Wyndham came and sat upon the arm of the easy-chair, and put one arm round Sybil's neck and kissed her. "Sybil, dear," she said affectionately, and then stopped. They sat in silence for some time, looking at the great logs burning in the deep fire-place. "Sybil, dear," Mrs. Wyndham began again, presently, "why did you refuse Vancouver? You do not mind telling me, do you?" "Why do you ask?" said Sybil. "It makes no difference now." "No, perhaps not. Only I always thought it strange. He must have done something you did not like, of course." "Yes, that was it. He did something I did not like. Mr. Harrington would have said he had a perfect right to do as he pleased. But I could not marry him after that." "Was it anything so very bad?" asked Mrs. Wyndham, affectionately, smoothing Sybil's thick fair hair. "It was not as deep as a well, nor as broad as a house," said Sybil, with a faint, scornful laugh; "but it was enough. It would do." "I wish you would tell me, dear," persisted Mrs. Wyndham. "I have a particular reason for wanting to know." "Well, I would not have told before this other affair came out," said Sybil. "I would not marry him because he tried to find out from poor mamma's man of business whether we were rich. And the day after he got the information that I was rich enough to suit him, he proposed. But mamma knew all about what had gone on and told me, and so I refused him. She said I was wrong, and would not have told me if she had known it would make any difference. And now you say I was right. I am sure I was; it was only a fancy I had for him, because he was so clever and well-bred. Besides, he is much too old." "He is old enough to be your father, my dear," said Mrs. Wyndham; "but I think you were a little hard on him. Almost any man would do the same. We here in Boston, of course, always know about each other. It was a little mean of him, no doubt, but it was not a mortal crime." "I think it was low," said Sybil, decisively. "To think of a man as rich as that caring for a paltry twenty or thirty thousand a year." "I know, my dear," said Mrs. Wyndham, "it is mean; but they all do it, and life is uncertain, and so is business I suppose, and twenty or thirty thousand a year does make a difference to most people, I expect." Mrs. Wyndham looked at the fire reflectively, as though not absolutely certain of the truth of the proposition. Sam Wyndham was commonly reputed to be worth a dozen millions or so. He would have been very well off even in New York, and in Boston he was rich. "It would make a great difference to me," said Sybil, laughing, "for it is all I have in the world. But I am glad I refused Vancouver on that ground, all the same. If it had not been for that I should have married him--just imagine!" "Yes, just imagine!" exclaimed Mrs. Wyndham. "And to have had him turn out such an abominable blackguard!" "There is no mistaking what you think of him now, at all events," said Sybil. "No, my dear. And now we have talked so long that it is time to dress for dinner." How Mrs. Wyndham went to the party and met Joe Thorn has already been told. It was no wonder that Mrs. Sam treated Vancouver so coldly, and she repulsed him again more than once during the evening. When Joe was gone, John Harrington went up to her. "I came very late," he said, "and at first I could not find you, and then I had to say something to Miss Thorn. But I wanted to see you especially." "Give me your arm," said Mrs. Wyndham, "and we will go into the conservatory. I have something especial to say to you, too." Once out of the thick of the party, they sat down. "I have discovered something more about our amiable friend," she continued. "It is a side-light on his character--something he did a year and a half ago. Do you remember his flirtation with Sybil Brandon at Saratoga and then at Newport?" "Yes, I was in Newport most of the summer." "You don't know why she refused him, though. It's perfectly rich!" Mrs. Sam laughed dryly. "No; I only know she did, and every one seemed very much astonished," answered John. "She refused him because he had been trying to find out how much she was worth. It speaks volumes for the characters of both of them, does it not?" "Yes, indeed," said John. "What a Jew that man is! He is as rich as Croesus." "Oh, well, as I told her, most men would do it." "I suppose so," John answered, laughing a little. "A man the other night told me he was going to make inquiries concerning the fortunes of his beloved one. He said he had no idea of buying a pig in a poke. That was graceful, was it not?" Mrs. Wyndham laughed aloud. "He was honest, at all events. By the bye, do you know you have a fanatic admirer in Sybil Brandon?" "No, really? I like her very much, too: and I am very glad if she likes me." "She said she would not marry you if you asked her, though," said Mrs. Sam, laughing again. "You see you must not flatter yourself too much." "I do not. I should not think of asking her to marry me. Did she give any especial reason why she would inevitably refuse me?" "Yes, indeed; she said you were lion-like, and, oh, the most delightful things! But she said she would not marry you if you asked her, because you are a celebrity and devoted to your career, so that there is no room for a woman in your life. Is that true?" "I am not so sure," said John, thoughtfully. "Perhaps she is right in the way she means. I never thought much about it." CHAPTER XII. The idea Joe had formed about Vancouver was just, in the main, and she was not far wrong in disliking him and thinking him dangerous. Nevertheless John Harrington understood the man better. Vancouver was so constituted that his fine intellect and quick perception were unsupported by any strong principle of individuality. He was not capable of hatred--he could only be spiteful; he could not love, he could only give a woman what he could spare of himself. He would at all times rather avoid an open encounter, but he rarely neglected an opportunity of dealing a thrust at any one he disliked, when he could do so safely. He was the very opposite of John, who never said of any one what he would not say to themselves, and granted to every man the broadest right of judgment and freedom of opinion. Nevertheless there was not enough real strength in anything Vancouver felt to make him very dangerous as an opponent, nor valuable as a friend. Had it not been for the important position he had attained by his clever subtlety in affairs, and by the assistance of great railroad magnates who found in him a character and intelligence precisely suited to their ends, Pocock Vancouver would have been a neutral figure in the world, lacking both the enterprise to create an idea and the courage to follow it out. It was most characteristic of his inherent smallness, that in spite of his wealth and the very large operations that must be constantly occupying his thoughts, he could demean himself to write anonymous articles in a daily paper, in the hope of injuring a man he disliked. It is true that his feeling against Harrington was as strong as anything in his nature. He detested John's strength because he had once made him a confidence and John had done him a favor. He disliked him also because he knew that wherever they chanced to be together John received an amount of consideration and even of respect which he himself could not obtain with all his money and all his cleverness. His mind, too, delighted in detail and revolted against John's sweeping generalities. For these several reasons Vancouver had taken great delight in writing and printing sundry vicious criticisms upon John in the absolute certainty of not being found out. The editor of the paper did not know Vancouver's name, for the articles came through the post with a modest request that they might be inserted if they were of any use; and they were generally so pungent and to the point that the editor was glad to get them, especially as no remuneration was demanded. As for the confidence Vancouver had once made to John, it was another instance of his littleness. At the time when Vancouver was anxious to marry Sybil Brandon, John Harrington was very intimate at the house, and was, in Vancouver's opinion, a dangerous rival; at all events he felt that the contest was not an agreeable one, nor altogether to his own advantage. Accordingly he tried every means to clear the coast, as he expressed it; but although John probably had no intention of marrying Sybil, and Sybil certainly had never thought of marrying John, the latter was fond of her society, and of her mother's, and came to the cottage on the Newport cliff with a regularity that drove Vancouver to the verge of despair. Pocock at last could bear it no longer and asked John to dinner. Over a bottle of Pommery Sec he confided his passion, and hinted that John was the obstacle to his wooing. Harrington raised his eyebrows, smiled, wished Vancouver all success, and left Newport the next day. If Vancouver had not disgusted Sybil by his inquiries concerning her fortune, he would have married her, and his feelings towards John would have been different. But to know that Harrington had done him the favor of going away, knowing that he was about to offer himself to Miss Brandon, and then to have failed in his suit was more than the vanity of Mr. Pocock Vancouver could bear with any sort of calmness, and the consequence was that he disliked John as much as he disliked anybody or anything in the world. There is no resentment like the resentment of wounded vanity, nor any self-reproach like that of a man who has shown his weakness. When Mrs. Wyndham told John the story of Vancouver's failure he could have told her the rest, had he chosen, and she would certainly have been very much amused. But John was not a man to betray a confidence, even that of a man who had injured him, and so he merely laughed and kept his own counsel. He would have scorned to speak to Vancouver about the articles, or to make any change in his manner towards him. As he had said to Josephine, he had expected nothing from the man, and now he was not disappointed. Meanwhile Vancouver, who was weakly but frequently susceptible to the charms of woman, had made up his mind that if Josephine had enough pin-money she would make him an admirable wife, and he accordingly began to make love to her in his own fashion, as has been seen. A day or two earlier Joe would have laughed at him, and it would perhaps have amused her to hear what he had to say, as it amuses most young women to listen to pretty speeches. But Joe was between two fires, so to speak; she was under the two influences that were strongest with her. She loved John Harrington with all her heart, and she hated Vancouver with all her strength. It is true that her hatred was the only acknowledged passion, for her maidenly nature was not able yet to comprehend her love; and the mere thought that she cared for a man who did not care for her brought the hot blush to her cheek. But the love was in her heart all the same, strong and enduring, so that Vancouver found the fortress doubly guarded. He could not entirely explain to himself her conduct at the party. She had always seemed rather willing to accept his attentions and to listen to his conversation, but on this particular evening, just when he wished to make a most favorable impression, she had treated him with surprising coldness. There was a supreme superiority in the way she had at first declined his services, and had then told him he might be permitted to get her a glass of water. The subsequent satisfaction of having ousted Mr. Bonamy Biggielow, the little poet, from his position at her side was small enough, and was more than counterbalanced and destroyed by her returning to her chaperon at the first soft-tongued insinuation of a desire to flirt, which Vancouver ventured to speak. Moreover, when Harrington almost pushed him aside and sat down by Josephine, Vancouver could bear it no longer, but turned on his heel and went away, with black thoughts in his heart. It seemed as though John was to be always in his way. It would be hard to say what he would have felt had he known that Josephine Thorn, John Harrington, and Mrs. Sam Wyndham all knew of his journalistic doings. And yet it was nearly certain that no one of the three would ever speak to him on the subject. Joe would not, because she knew John would not like it; John himself despised the whole business too much to condescend to reproach Vancouver; and, finally, Mrs. Wyndham was too much a woman of the world to be willing to cause a scandal when it could possibly be avoided. She liked Vancouver too, and regretted what he had done. Her liking only extended to his conversation and agreeable manners, for she was beginning to despise his character; but he had so long been an _habitué_ about the house that she could not make up her mind to turn him out. But for all that, she could not help being cold to him at first. John himself was too busy with important matters to bestow much thought on Vancouver or his doings. His day had been spent in interviews and letter-writing; fifty people had been to see him at his rooms, and he had dispatched more than that number of letters. At five o'clock he had slipped out with the intention of dining at his club before any one else was there, but he had met Mrs. Wyndham in the street, and had spent his dinner-hour with her. At half-past six he had another appointment in his rooms, and it was not till nearly eleven that he was able to get away and look in upon the party, when he met Joe. For a week this kind of life would probably last, and then all would be over, in one way or another, but meanwhile the excitement was intense. On the next day Ronald came to see Joe before ten o'clock. The time hung heavily on his hands, and he found it impossible to occupy himself with his troubles. There were moments when the first impression of disappointment returned upon him very strongly, but he was conscious of a curious duplicity about his feelings, and he knew well enough in his inmost heart that he was only evoking a fictitious regret out of respect for what he thought he ought to feel. "Tell me all about the people here, Joe," said he, sitting down beside her almost as though nothing had happened. "Who is Mrs. Wyndham, to begin with?" "Mrs. Wyndham--she is Sam Wyndham's wife. Just that," said Joe. "And Sam Wyndham?" "Oh--he is one of the prevalent profession. He is a millionaire. In fact he is one of the real ones." "When do they get to be real?" asked Ronald. "Oh, when they have more than ten millions. The other ones do not count much. It is much more the thing to be poor, unless you have ten millions." "That is something in my favor, at all events," said Ronald. "Very much. You have been to see Mrs. Wyndham, then?" "Oh yes, I went yesterday, and she has asked me to dinner to-night. It is awfully good of her, I must say." "You will like her very much, and Sybil Brandon too," said Joe. "Sybil is an adorable creature." "She is most decidedly good-looking, certainly. There is no doubt about it." Ronald pulled his delicate moustache a little. "Though she is quite different style from you, Joe," he added presently, as though he had discovered a curious fact in natural history. "Of course. Sybil is a great beauty, and I am only pretty," answered Joe in perfectly good faith. "I think you are a great beauty too," said Ronald critically. "I am sure most people think so, and I have heard lots of men say so. Besides, you are much more striking-looking than she is." "Oh, nonsense, Ronald!" "Joe--who is Mr. Vancouver?" "Vancouver! Why do you ask especially?" "It is very natural, I am sure," said Ronald in a somewhat injured tone. "You wrote about him. He was the only person you mentioned in your letter-that is, he and a man called Harrington." "Mr. Vancouver--Mr. Pocock Vancouver--is a middle-aged man of various accomplishments," said Joe, "more especially distinguished by the fact that Sybil Brandon refused to marry him some time ago. He is an enemy of Mr. Harrington's, and they are both friends of Mrs. Wyndham's." "Ah!" ejaculated Ronald, "and who is Harrington?" "Mr. John Harrington is a very clever person who has to do with politics," said Joe, without hesitation, but as she continued she blushed a little. "He is always being talked about because he wants to reform everything. He is a great friend of ours." "Oh--I thought so," said Ronald. "What sort of a fellow is he?" "I suppose he is five-and-thirty years old; he is neither tall nor short, and he has red hair," said Joe. "What a beauty!" laughed Ronald. "He is not at all ugly, you know," said Joe, still blushing. "Shall I ever see him?" "You will see him to-night at Mrs. Wyndham's; he told me he was going." "Oh--are you going too, Joe?" "No. I have another dinner-party. You will have to do without me." "I suppose I shall always have to do without you, now." said Ronald disconsolately. "Don't be silly, Ronald!" "Silly!" repeated Surbiton in injured tones. "You call it silly to be cut up when one is treated as you have treated me! It is too bad, Joe!" "You are a dear, silly old thing," said his cousin affectionately, "and I will say it as much as I please. It is ever so much better, because we can always be like brother and sister now, and we shall not marry and quarrel over everything till we hate each other." "I think you are very heartless, all the same," said Ronald. "Listen to me, Ronald"-- "You will go and marry one of these middle-aged people with red hair"-- "Be quiet," said Joe, stamping her little foot. "Listen to me. I will not marry you because I like you and I do not love you, and I never mean to marry any middle-aged person. I shall not marry at all, most probably. Will you please to imagine what life would have been like if we had married first, and found out afterwards that we had made a mistake." "Of course that would have been awful," said Ronald. "But then it would not be a mistake, because I love you--like anything, Joe!" "Oh, nonsense! You are quite mistaken, my dear boy, because some day you will fall desperately in love with some one else, and you will like me just as much as ever"-- "Of course I should," said Ronald indignantly. "Nothing would ever make any difference at all!" "But, Ronald," retorted Joe laughing, "if you were desperately in love with some one else, how could you still be just as fond of me?" "I don't know, but I should," said Ronald. "Besides, it is absurd, for I shall never love any one else." "We shall see; but of course if you never do, we shall always be just the same as we are now." "Well--that would not be so bad, you know," said Ronald with a certain air of resignation. After this conversation Ronald became reconciled to the situation. Joe's remark that he would be able to love some one else very much without being--any the less fond of herself made him reflect, and he came to the conclusion that the case was conceivable after all. He therefore agreed within himself that he would think no more about the matter for the present, but would take what came in his way, and trust that Joe would ultimately change her mind. But he went to Mrs. Wyndham's that evening with a firm determination to dislike John Harrington to the best of his ability. A middle-aged man with red hair! Five-and-thirty was undoubtedly middle-age. Short, too. But Joe had blushed, and there was no doubt about it; this was the man who had won her affections. Ronald would hate him cordially. But John refused to be hated. His manner was easy and courteous, but not gentle. He was evidently no lady's man. He talked to the men more than to the women, and he was utterly without affectation. Indeed, he was not in the least like what Ronald had expected. Moreover, Ronald was seated next to Sybil Brandon at dinner, and drove every one away who tried to disturb the _tête-à-tête_ he succeeded in procuring with her afterwards. He was surprised at his own conduct, but he somehow connected it in his mind with his desire to hate Harrington. It was not very clear to himself, and it certainly would have been incomprehensible to any one else, but the presence of Harrington stimulated him in his efforts to amuse Miss Brandon. Sybil, too, in her quiet way, was very willing to be amused, and she found in Ronald Surbiton an absolute freshness of ideas that gave her a new sense of pleasure. Her affair with Vancouver had made a deep impression on her mind, and her mother's death soon afterwards had had the effect of withdrawing her entirely from the world. It was no wonder, therefore, that she liked this young Englishman, so different from most of the men she knew best. It was natural, too, that he should want to talk to her, for she was the only young girl present. At last, as Ronald began to feel that intimacy which sometimes grows out of a simple conversation between two sympathetic people, he turned to the subject he had most in mind, if not most in his heart. "You and my cousin are very intimate, Miss Brandon, I believe?" he said. "Yes--I have grown very fond of her in a few weeks." Sybil wondered whether Ronald was going to make confidences. It seemed to her rather early in the acquaintance. "Yes, she told me," said Ronald. "She is very fond of you, too; I went to see her this morning." "I suppose you go every day," said Sybil, smiling. "No--not every day," answered Ronald. "But this morning I was asking her about some of the people here. She seems to know every one." "Yes indeed, she is immensely popular. Whom did she tell you about?" "Oh--Mrs. Wyndham, and Mr. Wyndham, and Mr. Vancouver, and Mr. Harrington. He is immensely clever, she says," added Ronald, with a touch of irony in his voice. "What do you think about him, Miss Brandon?" "I cannot judge very well," said Sybil. "He is a great friend of mine, and I do not care in the least whether my friends are clever or not." "Joe does," said Ronald. "She hates stupid people. She is very clever too, you know, and so I suppose she is right about Harrington." "Oh yes; I was only speaking of myself," answered Sybil. "He is probably the strongest man in this part of the world." "He looks strong," said Ronald, who was a judge of athletes. "I mean in the way of brains," said Sybil. "But he is more than that, for he is so splendidly honest." "But lots of people are honest," said Ronald, who did not want to concede too much to the man he meant to dislike. "Perhaps, but not so much as he is. I do not believe John Harrington ever in his life said anything that could possibly convey a false impression, or ever betrayed a confidence." Sybil looked calmly across the room at John, who was talking earnestly to Sam Wyndham. "But has he no defects at all? What a model of faultlessness!" exclaimed Ronald. "People say he is self-centred, whatever that may mean. He is certainly a very ambitious man, but his ambitions are large, and he makes no secret of them. He will make a great stir in the world some day." Ronald would have liked to ask about Vancouver also, but he fortunately remembered what Joe had told him that morning, and did not ask his questions of Sybil. But he went home that night wondering what manner of man this Harrington might be, concerning whom such great things were said. He was conscious also that he had not been very wise in what he had asked of Sybil, and he was dissatisfied at not having heard anything about the friendship that existed between Harrington and Joe. But on the whole he had enjoyed the evening very much--almost too much, when he remembered the things Joe had said to him in the morning. It ought not to be possible, he thought, for a jilted lover to look so pleasantly on life. "Well," said Sam Wyndham to his wife when everybody was gone, and he had lit a big cigar; "well, it was a pleasant kind of an evening, was not it?" "Yes," said Mrs. Sam, sitting down in a low easy-chair for a chat with her husband. "What a nice boy that young Englishman is." "I was just going to say so," said Sam. "He made himself pretty comfortable with Sybil, did he not? I could not help thinking they looked a very pretty pair as they sat in that corner. What is he?" "He is Miss Thorn's cousin. Sam, you really must not drop your ashes on the carpet. There are no end of saucers and things about." "Oh, bother the carpet, my dear," said Sam good-naturedly; "tell me about that young fellow--what is his name?--Surbiton, is not it?" "Yes--well, there is not very much to tell. He is here traveling for amusement, just like any other young Englishman. For my part I expected he had come here to marry his cousin, because Englishmen always marry their cousins. But Sybil says it is not true." "How does she come to know?" inquired Sam, rolling his cigar in his mouth and looking at the ceiling. "I suppose Miss Thorn told her. She ought to know, any way." "Well, one would think so. By the way, this election is going to turn out a queer sort of a business, I expect. John says the only thing that is doubtful is that fellow Patrick Ballymolloy and his men. Now is not that just about the queerest thing you ever heard of? A set of Irishmen in the Legislature who are not sure they can manage to vote for a Democratic senator?" "Yes, that is something altogether new," said Mrs. Wyndham. "But it seems so funny that John should come telling you all about his election, when you are such a Republican, and would go straight against him if you had anything to say about it." "Oh, he knows I don't vote or anything," said Sam. "Of course you don't vote, because you are not in the Legislature. But if you did, you would go against him, would not you?" "Well, I am not sure," answered Sam in a drawl of uncertainty. "I tell you what it is, my dear, John Harrington is not such a bad Republican after all, though he _is_ a Democrat. And it is my belief he could call himself a Republican, and could profess to believe just the same things as he does now, if he only took a little care." CHAPTER XIII A council of three men sat in certain rooms, in Conduit Street, London. There was nothing whatever about the bachelor's front room overlooking the thoroughfare to suggest secrecy, nor did any one of the three gentlemen who sat in easy-chairs, with cigars in their mouths, in any way resemble a conspirator. They were neither masked nor wrapped in cloaks, but wore the ordinary garb of fashionably civilized life. For the sake of clearness and convenience, they can be designated as X, Y, and Z. X was the president on the present occasion, but the office was not held permanently, devolving upon each of the three in succession at each successive meeting. X was a man sixty years of age, clean-shaved, with smooth iron-gray hair and bushy eyebrows, from beneath which shone a pair of preternaturally bright blue eyes. His face was of a strong, even, healthy red; he was stout, but rather thick and massive than corpulent; his hands were of the square type, with thick straight fingers and large nails, the great blue veins showing strongly through the white skin. He was dressed in black, as though in mourning, and his clothes fitted smoothly over his short heavy figure. Y was very tall and slight, and it was not easy to make a guess at his age, for his hair was sandy and thick, and his military moustache concealed the lines about his mouth. His forehead was high and broad, and the extreme prominence between his brows made his profile look as though the facial angles were reversed, as in certain busts of Greek philosophers. His fingers were well shaped, but extremely long and thin. He wore the high collar of the period, with a white tie fastened by a pin consisting of a single large pearl, and it was evident that the remainder of his dress was with him a subject of great attention. Y might be anywhere from forty to fifty years of age. Z was the eldest of the three, and in some respects the most remarkable in appearance. He was well proportioned, except that his head seemed large for his body. His face was perfectly colorless, and his thin hair was white and long and disorderly. A fringe of snowy beard encircled his throat like a scarf, but his lips and cheeks were clean-shaved. The dead waxen whiteness of his face was thrown into startling relief by his great black eyes, in which there was a depth and a fire when he was roused that contrasted strongly with his aged appearance. His dress was simple in the extreme, and of the darkest colors. The three sat in their easy-chairs round the coal fire. It was high noon in London, and the weather was moderately fine; that is to say, it was possible to read in the room without lighting the gas. X held a telegram in his hand. "This is a perfectly clear case against us," he remarked in a quiet, business-like manner. "It has occurred at such an unfortunate time," said Y, who spoke very slowly and distinctly, with an English accent. "We shall do it yet," said Z, confidently. "Gentlemen," said the president, "it will not do to hesitate. There is an individual in this case who will not let the grass grow under his feet. His name is Mr. Patrick Ballymolloy. We all know about him, I expect?" "I know him very well indeed," said old Z. "It was I who put him in the book." He rose quickly and took a large volume from a shelf near by. It was a sort of ledger, with the letters of the alphabet printed on the cut edges of the leaves. "I don't believe Y knows him," said the president. "Please read him to us." Z turned over the leaves quickly. "B--Bally--Ballymolloy-Patrick--Yes," he said, finding the place. "Patrick Ballymolloy. Irish iron man. Boston, Mass. Drinks. Takes money from both sides. Voted generally Democratic ticket. P.S. 1882, opposed B. in election for Governor. Iron interest increased. P.S. 1883, owns twenty votes in House. Costs more than he did. That is all," said Z, shutting up the book. "Quite enough," said the president. "Mr. Patrick Ballymolloy and his twenty votes will bother us. What a pity J.H. made that speech!" "It appears that as Patrick has grown rich, Patrick has grown fond of protection, then," remarked Y, crossing one long leg over the other. "Exactly," said Z. "That is it. Now the question is, who owns Patrick? Anybody know?" "Whoever can pay for him, I expect," said the president. "Now I have an idea," said the old man suddenly, and again he dived into the book. "Did either of you ever know a man called Vancouver?" "Yes--I know all about him," said Y, and a contemptuous smile hinted beforehand what he thought of the man. "I made an entry about him the other day," said the president. "You will find a good deal against his name." "Here he is," said Z again. "Pocock Vancouver. Railways. Rep. Boston, Mass. Was taxed in 1870 for nearly a million dollars. Weak character, very astute. Takes no money. Believed to be dissipated, but he cleverly conceals it. Never votes. Has extensive financial interests. 1880, taxed for nearly three millions. 1881, paid ten thousand dollars to Patrick Ballymolloy (D) for carrying a motion for the Monadminck Railroad (see Railroads). 1882, voted for Butler"-- "Hollo!" exclaimed the president. "Wait," said Z, "there is more. 1883, thought to be writer of articles against J.H. in Boston 'Daily Standard.' Subsequently confirmed by J.H. That is all." "Yes," said the president, "that last note is mine. Harrington wired it yesterday with other things. But I was hurried and did not read his old record. Things could not be much worse. You see Harrington has no book with him, or he would know all this, and be on the lookout." "Has he figured it out?" inquired Y. "Yes, he has figured it out. He is a first-rate man, and he has the whole thing down cold. Ballymolloy and his twenty votes will carry the election, and if Vancouver cares he can buy Mr. Ballymolloy as he has done before. He does care, if he is going to take the trouble to write articles against J.H., depend upon it." "Well, there is nothing for it," said Z, who, in spite of his age, was the most impulsive of the three. "We must buy Ballymolloy ourselves, with his twenty men." "I think that would be a mistake," said the president. "Do you?" said Z. "What do you say?" he asked, turning to Y. "Nothing," replied Y. "Then we will argue it, I suppose," said Z. "Certainly," said the president. "I will begin." He settled himself in his chair and knocked the ashes from his cigar. "I will begin by stating the exact position," he said. "In the first place this whole affair is accidental, resulting from the death of the junior senator. No one could foresee this event. We had arranged to put in John Harrington at the regular vacancy next year, and we are now very busy with a most important business here in London. If we were on the spot, as one of us could have been had we known that the senator would die, it would have been another matter. This thing will be settled by next Saturday at the latest, but probably earlier. I am opposed to buying Ballymolloy, because it is an uncertain purchase. He has taken money from both sides, and if he has the chance he will do it again. If we were present it would be different, for we could hold him to his bargain. "We do not like buying, and we only do it in very urgent cases, and when we are certain of the result. To buy without certainty is simply to begin a system of reckless bribery, which is exactly what we want to put down. Moreover, it is a bad plan to bribe a man who is interested in iron. The man in that business ought to be with us any way, without anything but a little talking to. When you have stated any reasons to the contrary I will tell you what I propose instead. That is all." During the president's little speech, Y and Z had listened attentively. When he had finished, Z turned in his chair and took his cigar from his lips. "I think," said Z, "that the case is urgent. The question is just about coming to a head, and we want all the men we can get at any price. It will not do to let a chance slip. If we can put J.H. in the senate now, we may put another man in at the vacancy. That makes two men instead of one. I am aware that it would be an improbable thing to get two of our men in for Massachusetts; but I believe it can be done, and for that reason I think we ought to make an effort to get J.H. in now. It may cost something, but I do not believe it is uncertain. I expect Vancouver is not the sort of man to spend much just for the sake of spite. The question of buying as a rule is another matter. None of us want that; but if the case is urgent I think there is no question about its being right. Of course it is a great pity J.H. said anything about protection in that speech. He did not mean to, but he could not help it, and at all events he had no idea his election was so near. If we are not certain of the result, J.H. ought to withdraw, because it will injure his chance at the vacancy to have him defeated now. That is all I have to say." "I am of opinion," said the president, "that our best plan is to let John Harrington take his chance. You know who his opponent is, I suppose?" "Ira C. Calvin," said Y and Z together. "Calvin refused last night," said the president, "and they have put Jobbins in his place. Here is the telegram. It is code three," he remarked, handing it to Z. Z read it, and his face expressed the greatest surprise. "But Jobbins belongs to us," he cried. "He will not move hand or foot unless we advise him!" "Of course," said the president. "But Mr. Ballymolloy does not know that, nor any other member of the Legislature. Harrington himself does not know it. Verdict, please." "Verdict against buying," said Y. "Naturally," said Z. "What a set of fools they are! How about withdrawing Harrington?" "I object," said the president. "Proceed." "I think it will injure his chance at the vacancy to have him defeated now, as I said before. That is all," said Z. "I think it would be dangerous to withdraw him before so weak a man as Jobbins. It would hurt his reputation. Besides, our second man is in Washington arguing a case; and, after all, there is a bare chance that J.H. may win. If he does not, we win all the same, for Jobbins is in chains. Verdict, please." Y was silent, and smoked thoughtfully. For five minutes no one spoke, and the president occupied the time in arranging some papers. "Let him stand his chance," said Y, at last. In spite of the apparent informality of the meetings of the three, there was an unchangeable rule in their proceedings. Whenever a question arose, the member who first objected to the proposition argued the case briefly, or at length, with the proposer, and the third gave the verdict, against which there was no appeal. These three strong men possessed between them an enormous power. It rarely happened that they could all meet together and settle upon their course of action by word of month, but constant correspondence and the use of an extensive set of telegraphic codes kept them in unbroken communication. No oaths or ceremonies bound them together, for they belonged to a small community of men which has existed from the earliest days of American independence, and which took its rise before that period. Into this council of three, men of remarkable ability and spotless character were elected without much respect of age whenever a vacancy occurred. They worked quietly, with one immutable political purpose, with which they allowed no prejudiced party view to interfere. Always having under their immediate control some of the best talent in the country, and frequently commanding vast financial resources, these men and their predecessors had more than once turned the scale of the country's future. They had committed great mistakes, but they had also brought about noble results. It had frequently occurred that all the three members of the council simultaneously held seats in the senate, or that one or more were high in office. More than one President since Washington had sat at one time or another in the triumvirate; secretaries of state, orators, lawyers, financiers, and philanthropists had given the best years of their lives to the duties of the council; and yet, so perfect was the organization, the tests were so careful, and so marvelously profound was the insight of the leaders into human character, that of all these men, not one had ever betrayed the confidence placed in him. In the truest sense they and their immediate supporters formed an order; an order of true men, with whom the love of justice, honor, and freedom took the place of oath and ceremonial, binding them by stronger obligations than ever bound a ring of conspirators or a community of religious zealots. The great element of secrecy as regards the outer world lay in the fact that only two men at any one time knew of the existence of the council of three, and these were those who were considered fit to sit in the council themselves. Even these two did not know more than one of the three leaders as such, though probably personally and even intimately acquainted with all three. The body of men whom the council controlled was ignorant of its existence therefore, and was composed of the personal adherents of each of the three. Manifestly one member of the council could, with the consent and cooperation of the other two, command the influence of the whole body of political adherents in favor of one of his friends, at any time, leaving the individual in entire ignorance of the power employed for his advancement. When a vacancy occurred in the council, by death or old age of any member, one of the two already designated took the place, while the other remained ignorant of the fact that any change had occurred, unless the vacancy was caused by the withdrawal of the member he had known, in which case he was put in communication with that member with whom he was most intimately acquainted. By this system of management no one man knew more than one of the actual leaders until he was himself one of the three. At the present time Z had been in the council nearly thirty years, and X for upwards of twenty, while Y, who was in reality fifty years old, had received his seat fifteen years before, at the age of thirty-five. A year ago one of the men selected to fill a possible vacancy had died, and John Harrington was chosen in his place. It has been seen that the three kept a sort of political ledger, which was always in the hands of the president for the time being, whose duty it was to make the insertions necessary from time to time. Some conception of the extent and value of the book may be formed from the fact that it contained upwards of ten thousand names, including those of almost every prominent man, and of not a few remarkable women in the principal centres of the country. The details given were invariably brief and to the point, written down in a simple but safe form of cipher which was perfectly familiar to every one of the three. This vast mass of information was simply the outcome of the personal experience of the leaders, and of their trusted friends, but no detail which could by any possibility be of use escaped being committed to paper, and the result was in many cases a positive knowledge of future events, which, to any one unacquainted with the system, must have appeared little short of miraculous. "What time is it in Boston?" inquired the president, rising and going to the writing-table. "Twenty-eight minutes past seven," said Y, producing an enormous three-dial time-piece, set to indicate simultaneously the time of day in London, Boston, and Washington. "All right, there is plenty of time," answered X, writing out a dispatch on a broad white sheet of cable office paper. "See here--is this all right?" he asked, when he had done. The message ran as follows: "Do not withdraw. If possible gain Ballymolloy and men, but on no account pay for them. If asked, say iron protection necessary at present, and probably for many years." Y and Z read the telegram, and said it would do. In ten minutes it was taken to the telegraph office by X's servant. "And now," said X, lighting a fresh cigar, "we have disposed of this accident, and we can turn to our regular business. The question is broadly, what effect will be produced by suddenly throwing eight or ten millions of English money into an American enterprise?" "When Englishmen are not making money, they are a particularly disagreeable set of people to deal with," remarked Y, who would have been taken for an Englishman himself in any part of the world. And so the council left John Harrington, and turned to other matters which do not in any way concern this tale. John received the dispatch at half-past ten o'clock in the morning after the dinner at Mrs. Wyndham's, and he read it without comprehending precisely the position taken by his instructor. Nevertheless, the order coincided with what he would have done if left to himself. He of course could not know that even if his opponent were elected it would be a gain to his own party, for the outward life of Mr. Jobbins gave no cause for believing that he was in anybody's power. Harrington was left to suppose that, if he failed to get the votes of Patrick Ballymolloy and his party, the election would be a dead loss. Nevertheless, he rejoiced that the said Patrick was not to be bought. An honorable failure, wherein he might honestly say that he had bribed no one, nor used any undue pressure, would in his opinion be better than to be elected ten times over by money and promises of political jobbery. The end rarely justifies the means, and there are means so foul that they would blot any result into their own filthiness. All that the world can write; or think, or say, will never make it honorable or noble to bribe and tell lies. Men who lie are not brave because they are willing to be shot at, in some instances, by the men their falsehoods have injured. Men who pay others to agree with them are doing a wrong upon the dignity of human nature, and they very generally end by saying that human nature has no dignity at all, and very possibly by being themselves corrupted. Nevertheless, so great is the interest which men, even upright and honorable men, take in the aims they follow, that they believe it possible to wade knee-deep through mud, and then ascend to the temple of fame without dragging the mud with them, and befouling the white marble steps. "Political necessity!" What deeds are done in thy name! What a merciful and polite goddess was the necessity of the ancients, compared with the necessity of the moderns. Political necessity has been hard at work in our times from Robespierre to Sedan, from St. Helena to the Vatican, from the Tea-chests of Boston Harbor to the Great Rebellion. Political necessity has done more lying, more bribery, more murdering, and more stealing in a century, than could have been invented by all the Roman emperors together, with the assistance of the devil himself. CHAPTER XIV. In all the endless folk-lore of proverbs, there is perhaps no adage more true than that which warns young people to beware of a new love until they have done with the old, and as Ronald Surbiton reflected on his position, the old rhyme ran through his head. Ho was strongly attracted by Sybil Brandon, but, at the same time, he still felt that he ought to make an effort to win Joe back. It seemed so unmanly to relinquish her without a struggle, just because she said she did not love him. It could not be true, for they had loved each other so long. When Ronald looked out of the window of his room in the hotel, on the morning after Mrs. Wyndham's dinner, the snow was falling as it can only fall in Boston. The great houses opposite were almost hidden from view by the soft, fluttering flakes, and below, in the broad street, the horse-cars moved slowly along like immense white turtles ploughing their way through deep white sand. The sound of the bells was muffled as it came up, and the scraping of the Irishmen's heavy spades on the pavement before the hotel followed by the regular fall of the great shovels full on the heap, as they stacked the snow, sounded like the digging of a gigantic grave. Ronald felt that his spirits were depressed. He watched the drifting storm for a few minutes, and then turned away and looked for a novel in his bag, and filled a pipe with some English tobacco he had jealously guarded from the lynx-eyed custom-house men in New York, and then sat down with a sigh before his small coal fire, and prepared to pass the morning, in solitude. But Ronald was not fond of reading, and at the end of half an hour he threw his book and his pipe aside, and stretched his long limbs. Then he rose and went to the window again with an expression of utter weariness such as only an Englishman can put on when he is thoroughly bored. The snow was falling as thickly as ever, and the turtle-backed horse-cars crawled by through the drifts, more and more slowly. Ronald turned away with an impatient ejaculation, and made up his mind that he would go and see Joe at once. He wrapped himself carefully in a huge ulster overcoat and went out. Joe was sitting alone in the drawing-room, curled up in an old-fashioned arm-chair by the fire, with a book in her lap which she was not reading. She had asked her aunt for something about politics, and Miss Schenectady had given her the "Life of Rufus Choate," in two large black volumes. The book was interesting, but in Joe's mind it was but a step from the speeches and doings of the great and brilliant lawyer-senator to the speeches and doings of John Harrington. And so after a while the book dropped upon her knee and she leaned far back in the chair, her great brown eyes staring dreamily at the glowing coals. "I was so awfully lonely," said Ronald, sitting down beside her, "that I came here. You do not mind, Joe, do you?" "Mind? No! I am very glad. It must be dreadfully lonely for you at the hotel. What have you been doing with yourself?" "Oh--trying to read. And then, I was thinking about you." "That is not much of an occupation. See how industrious I am. I have been reading the 'Life and Writings of Rufus Choate.' I am getting to be a complete Bostonian." "Have you read it all? I never heard of him. Who was he?" "He was an extremely clever man. He must have been very nice, and his speeches are splendid. You ought to read them." "Joe, you are going to be a regular blue-stocking! The idea of spending your time in reading such stuff. Why, it would be almost better to read the parliamentary reports in the 'Times!' Just fancy!" Ronald laughed at the idea of any human being descending to such drudgery. "Don't be silly, Ronald. You do not know anything about it," said Joe. "Oh, it is of no use discussing the question," answered Ronald. "You young women are growing altogether too clever, with your politics, and your philosophy, and your culture. I hate America!" "If you really knew anything about it, you would like it very much. Besides, you have no right to say you hate it. The people here have been very good to you already. You ought not to abuse them." "No--not the people. But just look at that snow-storm, Joe, and tell me whether America is a place for human beings to live in." "It is much prettier than a Scotch mist, and ever so much clearer than a fog in London," retorted Joe. "But there is nothing for a fellow to do on a day like this," said Ronald sulkily. "Nothing, but to come and see his cousin, and abuse everything to her, and try to make her as discontented as himself," said Joe, mimicking his tone. "If I thought you liked me to come and see you"--began Ronald. "Well?" "It would be different, you know." "I like you when you are nice and good-tempered," said Joe. "But when you are bored you are simply--well, you are dreadful." Joe raised her eyebrows and tapped with her fingers on the arm of the chair. "Do you think I can ever be bored when I come to see you, Joe?" asked Ronald, changing his tone. "You act as if you were, precisely. You know people who are bored are generally bores themselves." "Thanks," said Ronald. "How kind you are!" "Do say something nice, Ronald. You have done nothing but find fault since you came. Have you heard from home?" "No. There has not been time yet. Why do you ask?" "Because I thought you might say something less disagreeable about home than you seem able to say about things here," said Joe tartly. "You do not want me this morning. I will go away again," said Ronald with a gloomy frown. He rose to his feet, as though about to take his leave. "Oh, don't go, Ronald." He paused. "Besides," added Joe, "Sybil will be here in a little while." "You need not offer me Miss Brandon as an inducement to stay with you, Joe, if you really want me. Twenty Miss Brandons would not make any difference!" "Really?" said Joe smiling. "You are a dear good boy, Ronald, when you are nice," she added presently. "Sit down again." Ronald went back to his seat beside her, and they were both silent for a while. Joe repented a little, for she thought she had been teasing him, and she reflected that she ought to be doing her best to make him happy. "Joe--do not you think it would be very pleasant to be always like this?" said Ronald after a time. "How--like this?" "Together," said Ronald softly, and a gentle look came into his handsome face, as he looked up at his cousin. "Together--only in our own home." Joe did not answer, but the color came to her cheeks, and she looked annoyed. She had hoped that the matter was settled forever, for it seemed so easy for her. Ronald misinterpreted the blush. For the moment the old conviction came back to him that she was to be his wife, and if it was not exactly love that he felt, it was a satisfaction almost great enough to take its place. "Would it not?" said he presently. "Please do not talk about it, Ronald. What is the use? I have said all there is to say, I am sure." "But I have not," he answered, insisting. "Please, Joe dearest, think about it seriously. Think what a cruel thing it is you are doing." His voice was very tender, but he was perfectly calm; there was not the slightest vibration of passion in the tones. Joe did not wholly understand; she only knew that he was not satisfied with the first explanation she had given him, and that she felt sorry for him, but was incapable of changing her decision. "Must I go over it all again?" she asked piteously. "Did I not make it clear to you, Ronald? Oh--don't talk about it!" "You have no heart, Joe," said Ronald hotly. "You don't know what you make me suffer. You don't know that this sort of thing is enough to wreck a man's existence altogether. You don't know what you are doing, because you have no heart--not the least bit of one." "Do not say that--please do not," Joe entreated, looking at him with imploring eyes, for his words hurt her. Then suddenly the tears came in a quick hot gush, and she hid her face in her hands. "Oh, Ronald, Ronald--it is you who do not know," she sobbed. Ronald did not quite know what to do; he never did when Joe cried, but fortunately that disaster had not occurred often since he was very small. He was angry with himself for having disturbed and hurt her, but he did not know what to do, most probably because he did not really love her. "Joe," he said, looking at her in some embarrassment, "don't!" Then he rose and rather timidly laid a hand on her shoulder. But she shrank from him with a petulant motion, and the tears trickled through her small white hands and fell upon her dark dress and on the "Life of Rufus Choate." "Joe, dear"--Ronald began again. And then, in great uncertainty of mind, he went and looked out of the window. Presently he came back and stood before her once more. "I am awfully sorry I said it, Joe. Please forgive me. You don't often cry, you know, and so"--He hesitated. Joe looked up at him with a smile through her tears, beautiful as a rose just wet with a summer shower. "And so--you did not think I could," she said. She dried her eyes quickly and rose to her feet. "It is very silly of me, I know, but I cannot help it in the least," said she, turning from him in pretense of arranging the knickknacks on the mantel. "Of course you cannot help it, Joe, dear; as if you had not a perfect right to cry, if you like! I am such a brute--I know." "Come and look at the snow," said Joe, taking his hand and leading him to the window. Enormous Irishmen in pilot coats, comforters, and india-rubber boots, armed with broad wooden spades, were struggling to keep the drifts from the pavement. Joe and Ronald stood and watched them idly, absorbed in their own thoughts. Presently a booby sleigh drawn by a pair of strong black horses floundered up the hill and stopped at the door. "Oh, Ronald, there is Sybil, and she will see I have been crying. You must amuse her, and I will come back in a few minutes." She turned and fled, leaving Ronald at the window. A footman sprang to the ground, and nearly lost his footing in the snow as he opened a large umbrella and rang the bell. In a moment Sybil was out of the sleigh and at the door of the house; she could not sit still till it was opened, although the flakes were falling as thickly as ever. "Oh"--she exclaimed, as she entered the room and was met by Ronald, "I thought Joe was here." There was color in her face, and she took Ronald's hand cordially. He blushed to the eyes, and stammered. "Miss Thorn is--she--indeed, she will be back in a moment. How do you do? Dreadful weather, is not it?" "Oh, it is only a snowstorm," said Sybil, brushing a few flakes from her furs as she came near the fire. "We do not mind it at all here. But of course you never have snow in England." "Not like this, certainly," said Ronald. "Let me help you," he added, as Sybil began to remove her cloak. It was a very sudden change of company for Ronald; five minutes ago he was trying, very clumsily and hopelessly, to console Joe Thorn in her tears, feeling angry enough with himself all the while for having caused them. Now he was face to face with Sybil Brandon, the most beautiful woman he remembered to have seen, and she smiled at him as he took her heavy cloak from her shoulders, and the touch of the fur sent a thrill to his heart, and the blood to his cheeks. "I must say," he remarked, depositing the things on a sofa, "you are very courageous to come out, even though you are used to it." "You have come yourself," said Sybil, laughing a little. "You told me last night that you did not come here every day." "Oh--I told my cousin I had come because I was so lonely at the hotel. It is amazingly dull to sit all day in a close room, reading stupid novels." "I should think it would be. Have you nothing else to do?" "Nothing in the wide world," said Ronald with a smile. "What should I do here, in a strange place, where I know so few people?" "I suppose there is not much for a man to do, unless he is in business. Every one here is in some kind of business, you know, so they are never bored." Ronald wished he could say the right thing to reestablish the half-intimacy he had felt when talking to Sybil the night before. But it was not easy to get back to the same point. There was an interval of hours between yesterday and to-day--and there was Joe. "I read novels to pass the time," he said, "and because they are sometimes so like one's own life. But when they are not, they bore me." Sybil was fond of reading, and she was especially fond of fiction, not because she cared for sensational interests, but because she was naturally contemplative, and it interested her to read about the human nature of the present, rather than to learn what any individual historian thought of the human nature of the past. "What kind of novels do you like best?" she asked, sitting down to pass the time with Ronald until Josephine should make her appearance. "I like love stories best," said Ronald. "Oh, of course," said Sybil gravely, "so do I. But what kind do you like best? The sad ones, or those that end well?" "I like them to end well," said Ronald, "because the best ones never do, you know." "Never?" There was something in Sybil's tone that made Ronald look quickly at her. She said the word as though she, too, had something to regret. "Not in my experience," answered Surbiton, with the decision of a man past loving or being loved. "How dreadfully gloomy! One would think you had done with life, Mr. Surbiton," said Sybil, laughing. "Sometimes I think so, Miss Brandon," answered Ronald in solemn tones. "I suppose we all think it would be nice to die, sometimes. But then the next morning things look so much brighter." "I think they often look much brighter in the evening," said Ronald, thinking of the night before. "I am sure something disagreeable has happened to you to-day, Mr. Surbiton," said Sybil, looking at him. Ronald looked into her eyes as though to see if there were any sympathy there. "Yes, something disagreeable has happened to me," he answered slowly. "Something very disagreeable and painful." "I am sorry," said Sybil simply. But her voice sounded very kind and comforting. "That is why I say that love stories always end badly in real life," said Ronald. "But I suppose I ought not to complain." It was not until he had thought over this speech, some minutes later, that he realized that in a few words he had told Sybil the main part of his troubles. He never guessed that she was so far in Joe's confidence as to have heard the whole story before. But Sybil was silent and thoughtful. "Love is such an uncertain thing," she began, after a pause; and it chanced that at that very moment Joe opened the door and entered the room. She caught the sentence. "So you are instructing my cousin," she said to Sybil, laughing. "I approve of the way you spend your time, my children!" No one would have believed that, twenty minutes earlier, Joe had been in tears. She was as fresh and as gay as ever, and Ronald said to himself that she most certainly had no heart, but that Sybil had a great deal,--he was sure of it from the tone of her voice. "What is the news about the election, Sybil?" she asked. "Of course you know all about it at the Wyndhams'." "My dear, the family politics are in a state of confusion that is simply too delightful," said Sybil. "You know it is said that Ira C. Calvin has refused to be a candidate, and the Republicans mean to put in Mr. Jobbins in his place, who is such a popular man, and so good and benevolent-quite a philanthropist." "Does it make very much difference?" asked Joe anxiously. "I wish I understood all about it, but the local names are so hard to learn." "I thought you had been learning them all the morning in Choate," put in Ronald, who perceived that the conversation was to be about Harrington. "It does make a difference," said Sybil, not noticing Ronald's remark, "because Jobbins is much more popular than Calvin, and they say he is a friend of Patrick Ballymolloy, who will win the election for either side he favors." "Who is this Irishman?" inquired Ronald. "He is the chief Irishman," said Sybil laughing, "and I cannot describe him any better. He has twenty votes with him, and as things stand he always carries whichever point he favors. But Mr. Wyndham says he is glad he is not in the Legislature, because it would drive him out of his mind to decide on which side to vote--though he is a good Republican, you know." "Of course he could vote for Mr. Harrington in spite of that," said Joe, confidently. "Anybody would, who knows him, I am sure. But when is the election to come off?" "They say it is to begin to-day," said Sybil. "We shall never hear anything unless we go to Mrs. Wyndham's," said Joe. "Aunt Zoë is awfully clever, and that, but she never knows in the least what is going on. She says she does not understand politics." "If you were a Bostonian, Mr. Surbiton," said Sybil, "you would get into the State House and hear the earliest news." "I will do anything in the world to oblige you," said Ronald gravely, "if you will only explain a little"-- "Oh no! It is quite impossible. Come with me, both of you, and we will get some lunch at the Wyndhams' and hear all about it by telephone." "Very well," said Joe. "One moment, while I get my things." She left the room. Ronald and Sybil were again alone together. "You were saying when my cousin came in, that love was a very uncertain thing," suggested Ronald, rather timidly. "Was I?" said Sybil, standing before the mirror above the mantelpiece, and touching her hat first on one side and then on the other. "Yes," answered Ronald, watching her. "Do you know, I have often thought so too." "Yes?" "I think it would be something different if it were quite certain. Perhaps it would be something much less interesting, but much better." "I think you are a little confused, Mr. Surbiton," said Sybil, and as she smiled, Ronald could see her face reflected in the mirror. "I--yes--that is--I dare say I am," said he, hesitatingly. "But I know exactly what I mean." "But do you know exactly what you want?" she asked with a laugh. "Yes indeed," said he confidently. "But I do not believe I shall ever get it." "Then that is the 'disagreeable and painful thing' you referred to, as having happened this morning, I suppose," remarked Sybil, calmly, as she turned to take up her cloak which lay on the sofa. Ronald blushed scarlet. "Well--yes," he said, forgetting in his embarrassment to help her. "It is so heavy," said Sybil. "Thanks. Do you know that you have been making confidences to me, Mr. Surbiton?" she asked, turning and facing him, with a half-amused, half-serious look in her blue eyes. "I am afraid I have," he answered, after a short pause. "You must think I am very foolish." "Never mind," she said gravely. "They are safe with me." "Thanks," said Ronald in a low voice. Josephine entered the room, clad in many furs, and a few minutes later all three were on their way to Mrs. Wyndham's, the big booby sleigh rocking and leaping and ploughing in the heavy dry snow. CHAPTER XV. Pocock Vancouver was also abroad in the snowstorm. He would not in any case have stayed at home on account of the weather, but on this particular morning he had very urgent business with a gentleman who, like Lamb, rose with the lark, though he did not go to bed with the chickens. There are no larks in Boston, but the scream of the locomotives answers nearly as well. Vancouver accordingly had himself driven at an early hour to a certain house not situated in the West End, but of stone quite as brown, and having a bay window as prominent as any sixteen-foot-front on Beacon Street; those advantages, however, did not prevent Mr. Vancouver from wearing an expression of fastidious scorn as he mounted the steps and pulled the polished German silver handle of the door-bell. The curl on his lip gave way to a smile of joyous cordiality as he was ushered into the presence of the owner of the house. "Indeed, I'm glad to see you, Mr. Vancouver," said his host, whose extremely Celtic appearance was not belied by unctuous modulation of his voice, and the pleasant roll of his softly aspirated consonants. This great man was no other than Mr. Patrick Ballymolloy. He received Vancouver in his study, which was handsomely furnished with bright green wall-paper, a sideboard on which stood a number of decanters and glasses, several leather easy-chairs, and a green china spittoon. In personal appearance, Mr. Patrick Ballymolloy was vastly more striking than attractive. He was both corpulent and truculent, and his hands and feet were of a size and thickness calculated to crush a paving-stone at a step, or to fell an ox at a blow. The nails of his fingers were of a hue which is made artificially fashionable in eastern countries, but which excites prejudice in western civilization from an undue display of real estate. A neck which the Minotaur might have justly envied surmounted the thickness and roundness of Mr. Ballymolloy's shoulders, and supported a head more remarkable for the immense cavity of the mouth, and for a quantity of highly pomaded sandy hair, than for any intellectuality of the brows or high-bred fineness of the nose. Mr. Ballymolloy's nose was nevertheless an astonishing feature, and at a distance called vividly to mind the effect of one of those great glass bottles of reddened water, behind which apothecaries of all degrees put a lamp at dusk in order that their light may the better shine in the darkness. It was one of the most surprising feats of nature's alchemy that a liquid so brown as that contained in the decanters on Patrick's sideboard should be able to produce and maintain anything so supernaturally red as Patrick's nose. Mr. Ballymolloy was clad in a beautiful suit of shiny black broadcloth, and the front of his coat was irregularly but richly adorned with a profusion of grease-spots of all sizes. A delicate suggestive mezzotint shaded the edges of his collar and cuffs, and from his heavy gold watch-chain depended a malachite seal of unusual greenness and brilliancy. Vancouver took the gigantic outstretched hand of his host in his delicate fingers, with an air of cordiality which, if not genuine, was very well assumed. "I'm glad to see you, sir," said the Irishman again. "Thanks," said Vancouver, "and I am fortunate in finding you at home." Mr. Ballymolloy smiled, and pushed one of his leather easy-chairs towards the fire. Both men sat down. "I suppose you are pretty busy over this election, Mr. Ballymolloy," said Vancouver; blandly. "Now, that's just it, Mr. Vancouver," replied the Irishman. "That's just exactly what's the matter with me, for indeed I am very busy, and that's the truth." "Just so, Mr. Ballymolloy. Especially since the change last night. I remember what a good friend you have always been to Mr. Jobbins." "Well, as you say, Mr. Vancouver, I have been thinking that I and Mr. Jobbins are pretty good friends, and that's just about what it is, I think." "Yes, I remember that on more than one occasion you and he have acted together in the affairs of the state," said Vancouver, thoughtfully. '"Ah, but it's the soul of him that I like," answered Mr. Ballymolloy very sweetly. "He has such a beautiful soul, Mr. Jobbins; it does me good, and indeed it does, Mr. Vancouver." "As you say, sir, a man full of broad human sympathies. Nevertheless I feel sure that on the present occasion your political interests will lead you to follow the promptings of duty, and to vote in favor of the Democratic candidate. I wish you and I did not differ in politics, Mr. Ballymolloy." "And, indeed, there is not so very much difference, if it comes to that, Mr. Vancouver," replied Patrick in conciliating tones. "But it's just what I have been thinking, that I will vote for Mr. Harrington. It's a matter of principle with me, Mr. Vancouver, and that's it exactly." "And where should we all be without principles, Mr. Ballymolloy? Indeed I may say that the importance of principles in political matters is very great." "And it's just the greatest pity in the world that every one has not principles like you, Mr. Vancouver. I'm speaking the truth now." According to Mr. Patrick Ballymolloy's view of destiny, it was the truth and nothing but the truth. He knew Vancouver of old, and Vancouver knew him. "You flatter me, sir," said Pocock, affecting a pleased smile. "To tell the truth, there is a little matter I wanted to speak to you about, if you can spare me half an hour.". "Indeed, I'm most entirely delighted to be at your service, Mr. Vancouver, and I'm glad you came so early in the morning." "The fact is, Mr. Ballymolloy, we are thinking of making an extension on one of our lines; a small matter, but of importance to us." "I guess it must be the branch of the Pocahontas and Dead Man's Valley you'll be speaking of, Mr. Vancouver," said the Irishman, with sudden and cheerful interest. "Really, Mr. Ballymolloy, you are a man of the most surprising quickness. It is a real pleasure to talk with you on such matters. I have no doubt you understand the whole question thoroughly." "Well, it's of no use at all to say I know nothing about it, because I _have_ heard it mentioned, and that's the plain truth, Mr. Vancouver. And it will take a deal of rail, too, and that's another thing. And where do you think of getting the iron from, Mr. Vancouver?" "Well, I had hoped, Mr. Ballmolly," said Vancouver, with some affected hesitation, "that as an old friend, we might be able to manage matters with you. But, of course, this is entirely unofficial, and between ourselves." Mr. Ballymolloy nodded with something very like a wink of one bloodshot eye. He knew what he was about. "And when will you be thinking of beginning the work, Mr. Vancouver?" he inquired, after a short pause. "That is just the question, or rather, perhaps, I should say the difficulty. We do not expect to begin work for a year or so." "And surely that makes no difference, then, at all," returned Patrick. "For the longer the time, the easier it will be for me to accommodate you." "Ah--but you see, Mr. Ballymolloy, it may be that in a year's time these new-fangled ideas about free trade may be law, and it may be much cheaper for us to get our rails from England, as Mr. Vanderbilt did three or four years ago, when he was in such a hurry, you remember." "And, indeed, I remember it very well, Mr. Vancouver." "Just so. Now you see, Mr. Ballymolloy, I am speaking to you entirely as a friend, though I hope I may before long bring about an official agreement. But you see the difficulty of making a contract a year ahead, when a party of Democratic senators and Congressmen may by that time have upset the duty on steel rails, don't you?" "And indeed, I see it as plain as day, Mr. Vancouver. And that's why I was saying I wished every one had such principles as yourself, and I'm telling you no lie when I say it again." Verily Mr. Ballymolloy was a truthful person! "Very well. Now, do not you think, Mr. Ballymolloy, that all this talk about free trade is great nonsense?" "And, surely, it will be the ruin of the whole country, Mr. Vancouver." "Besides, free trade has nothing to do with Democratic principles, has it? You see here am I, the best Republican in Massachusetts, and here are you, the best Democrat in the country, and we both agree in saying that it is great nonsense to leave iron unprotected." "Ah, it's the principle of you I like, Mr. Vancouver!" exclaimed Ballymolloy in great admiration. "It's your principles are beautiful, just!" "Very good, sir. Now of course you are going to vote for Mr. Harrington to-day, or to-morrow, or whenever the election is to be. Don't you think yon might say something to him that would be of some use? I believe he is very uncertain about protection, you see. I think you could persuade him, somehow." "Well, now, Mr. Vancouver, it's the truth when I tell you I was just thinking of speaking to him about it, just a little, before I went up to the State House. And indeed I'll be going to him immediately." "I think it is the wisest plan," said Vancouver, rising to go, "and we will speak about the contract next week, when all this election business is over." "Ah, and indeed, I hope it will be soon, sir," said Ballymolloy. "But you'll not think of going out again in the snow without taking a drop of something, will you, Mr. Vancouver?" He went to the sideboard and poured out two stiff doses of the amber liquid. "Since you are so kind," said Vancouver, graciously taking the proffered glass. He knew better than to refuse to drink over a bargain. "Well, here goes," he said. "And luck to yourself, Mr. Vancouver," said Ballymolloy. "I think you can persuade him, somehow," said Vancouver, as his host opened the street-door for him to go out. "And, indeed, I think so too," said Ballymolloy. Then he went back to his study and poured out a second glass of whiskey. "And if I cannot persuade him," he continued in soliloquy, "why, then, it will just be old Jobbins who will be senator, and that's the plain truth." Vancouver went away with a light heart, and the frank smile on his delicate features was most pleasant to see. He knew John Harrington well, and he was certain that Mr. Ballymolloy's proposal would rouse the honest wrath of the man he detested. Half an hour later Mr. Ballymolloy entered Harrington's room in Charles Street. John was seated at the table, fully dressed, and writing letters. He offered his visitor a seat. "So the election is coming on right away, Mr. Harrington," began Patrick, making himself comfortable, and lighting one of John's cigars. "So I hear, Mr. Ballymolloy," answered John with a pleasant smile. "I hope I may count on you, in spite of what you said yesterday. These are the times when men must keep together." "Now Mr. Harrington, you'll not believe that I could go to the House and vote against my own party, surely, will you now?" said Patrick. But there was a tinge of irony in his soft tones. He knew that Vancouver could make him great and advantageous business transactions, and he treated him accordingly. John Harrington was, on the other hand, a mere candidate for his twenty votes; he could make John senator if he chose, or defeat him, if he preferred it, and he accordingly behaved to John with an air of benevolent superiority. "I trust you would do no such thing, Mr. Ballymolloy," said John gravely. "Without advocating myself as in any way fit for the honors of the Senate, I can say that it is of the utmost importance that we should have as many Democrats in Congress as possible, in the Senate as well as in the House." "Surely you don't think I doubt that, Mr. Harrington? And indeed the Senate is pretty well Democratic as it is." "Yes," said John, smiling, "but the more the better, I should think. It is a very different matter from the local legislature, where changes may often do good." "Indeed and it is, Mr. Harrington. And will you please to tell me what you will do about free trade, when you're in the Senate, sir?" "I am afraid I cannot tell you anything that I did not tell you yesterday, Mr. Ballymolloy. I am a tariff reform man. It is a great Democratic movement, and I should be bound to support it, even if I were not myself so thorough a believer in it as I am." "Now see here, Mr. Harrington, it's the gospel truth I'm telling you, when I say you're mistaken. Here are plenty of us Democrats who don't want the least little bit of free trade. I'm in the iron business, Mr. Harrington, and you won't be after thinking me such an all-powerful galoot as to cut my own nose off, will you?" "Well, not exactly," said John, who was used to many peculiarities of language in his visitors. "But, of course, iron will be the thing last on the tariff. I am of opinion that it is necessary to put enough tax on iron to protect home-producers at the time of greatest depression. That is fair, is not it?" "I dare say you may think so, Mr. Harrington," said Ballymolloy, knocking the ashes from his cigar. "But you are not an iron man, now, are you?" "Certainly not," said John. "But I have studied the question, and I know its importance. In a reformation of the tariff, iron would be one of the things most carefully provided for." "Oh, I know all that," said Ballymolloy, somewhat roughly, "and there's not much you can tell me about tariff reform that I don't know, neither. And when you have reformed other things, you'll be for reforming iron, too, just to keep your hands in. And, indeed, I've no objection whatever to your reforming everything you like, so long as you don't interfere with me and mine. But I don't trust the principles of the thing, sir; I don't trust them the least little bit, and for me I would rather there were not to be any reforming at all, except for the Chinamen, and I don't care much for them, neither, and that's a fact." "Very good, Mr. Ballymolloy. Every man has a right to his free opinion. But we stand on the reform platform, for there is no country in the world where reform is more needed than it is here. I can only repeat that the interests of the iron trade stand high with the Democratic party, and that it is highly improbable that any law will interfere with iron for many years. I cannot say more than that and yet stick to facts." "Always stick to facts, Mr. Harrington. You will find the truth a very important thing indeed, and good principles too, in dealing with plain-spoken men like myself, sir. Stick to the truth, Mr. Harrington, forever and ever." "I propose to, Mr. Ballymolloy," answered John, internally amused at the solemn manner of his interlocutor. "And then I will put the matter to you, Mr. Harrington, and indeed it's a plain matter, too, and not the least taste of dishonesty in it, at all. I've been thinking I'd make you senator if you'll agree to go against free trade, and that's just what I'll do, and no more." "It is impossible for me to make such a bargain, Mr. Ballymolloy. After your exposition of the importance of truth I am surprised that you should expect me to belie my whole political life. As I have told you, I am prepared to support laws to protect iron as much as is necessary. Free trade nowadays does not mean cutting away all duties; it means a proper adjustment of them to the requirements of our commerce. A proper adjustment of duties could not possibly be interpreted to mean any injury to the iron trade. You may rely upon that, at all events." "Oh, and I'm sure I can," said Ballymolloy incredulously, and he grew, if possible, redder in the face than nature and the action of alcohol had made him. "And I'm not only sure of it, but I'll swear it's gospel truth. But then, you know, I'm of opinion that by the time you've done reforming the other things, the reformed gentlemen won't like it, and then they'll just turn round and eat you up unless you reform us too, and that just means the ruin of us." "Come now, Mr. Ballymolloy, that is exaggeration," said John. "If you will listen to me for a moment"-- "I haven't got the time, sir, and that's all about it. If you'll protect our interests and promise to do it, you'll be senator. The election is coming on, Mr. Harrington, and I'd be sorry to see you thrown out." "Mr. Ballymolloy, I had sincerely hoped that you would support me in this matter, but I must tell you once more that I think you are unreasonable. I vouch for the sufficient protection of your interests, because it is the belief of our party that they need protection. But it is not necessary for you to have an anti-reform senator for that purpose, in the first place; and secondly, the offer of a seat in the Senate would never induce me to change my mind, nor to turn round and deny everything that I have said and written on the subject." "Then that is your last word of all, Mr. Harrington?" said Ballymolloy, heaving his heavy body out of the easy-chair. But his voice, which had sounded somewhat irate during the discussion, again rolled out in mellifluous tones. "Yes, Mr. Ballymolloy, that is all I have to say." "And indeed it's not so very bad at all," said Patrick. "You see I just wanted to see how far you were likely to go, because, though I'm a good Democrat, sir, I'm against free trade in the main points, and that's just the truth. But if you say you will stand up for iron right through, and use your best judgment, why, I guess you'll have to be senator after all. It's a great position, Mr. Harrington, and I hope you'll do honor to it." "I hope so, indeed," said John. "Can I offer you a glass of wine, or anything else, Mr. Ballymolloy?" "Indeed, and it's dirty weather, too," said Patrick. "Thank you, I'll take a little whiskey." John poured out a glass. "You won't let me drink alone, Mr. Harrington?" inquired Patrick, holding his tumbler in his hand. To oblige him, after the manner of the country, John poured out a small glass of sherry, and put his lips to it. Ballymolloy drained the whiskey to the last drop. "You were not really thinking I would vote for Mr. Jobbins, were you now, Mr. Harrington?" he asked, with a sly look on his red face. "I always hope that the men of my party are to be relied upon, Mr. Ballymolloy," said John, smiling politely. "Very well, they are to be relied upon, sir. We are, every man of us, to the last drop of Christian blood in our blessed bodies," said Patrick, with a gush of patriotic enthusiasm, at the same time holding out his heavy hand. Then he took his leave. "You had better have said 'to the last drop of Bourbon whiskey in the blessed bottle!'" said John to himself when his visitor was gone. Then he sat down for a while to think over the situation. "That man will vote against me yet," he thought. He was astonished to find himself nervous and excited for the first time in his life. With characteristic determination he went back to his desk, and continued the letter which the visit of the Irish elector had interrupted. Meanwhile Mr. Patrick Ballymolloy was driven to the house of the Republican candidate, Mr. Jobbing. CHAPTER XVI. Sybil was right when she said the family politics at the Wyndhams' were disturbed. Indeed the disturbance was so great that Mrs. Wyndham was dressed and down-stairs before twelve o'clock, which had never before occurred in the memory of the oldest servant. "It is too perfectly exciting, my dears," she exclaimed as Joe and Sybil entered the room, followed--at a respectful distance by Ronald. "I can't stand it one minute longer! How do you do, Mr. Surbiton?" "What is the latest news?" asked Sybil. "I have not heard anything for ever so long. Sam has gone round to see--perhaps he will be back soon. I do wish we had 'tickers' here in the house, as they do in New York; it _is_ such fun watching when anything is going on." She walked about the room as she talked, touching a book on one table and a photograph on another, in a state of great excitement. Ronald watched her in some surprise; it seemed odd to him that any one should take so much interest in a mere election. Joe and Sybil, who knew her better, made themselves at home. It appeared that although Sam had gone to make inquiries, it was very improbable that anything would be known until late in the afternoon. There was to be a contest of some sort, but whether it would end in a single day, or whether Ballymolloy and his men intended to prolong the struggle for their own ends, remained to be seen. Meanwhile Mrs. Wyndham walked about her drawing-room descanting upon the iniquities of political life, with an animation that delighted Joe and amused Ronald. "Well, there is nothing for it, you see," she said at last. "Sam evidently does not mean to come home, and you must just stay here and have some lunch until he does." The three agreed, nothing loath to enjoying one another's company. There is nothing like a day spent together in waiting for an event, to bring out the characteristics of individuals. Mrs. Wyndham fretted and talked, and fretted again. Joe grew silent, pale, and anxious as the morning passed, while Sybil and Ronald seemed to enjoy themselves extremely, and talked without ceasing. Outside the snow fell thick and fast as ever, and the drifts rose higher and higher. "I do wish Sam would come back," exclaimed Mrs. Wyndham at last, as she threw herself into an easy-chair, and looked at the clock. But Sam did not come, nevertheless, and Joe sat quietly by the fire, wishing she were alone, and yet unwilling to leave the house where she hoped to have the earliest information. The two who seemed rapidly growing indifferent to the issue of the election were Sybil and Ronald, who sat together with a huge portfolio of photographs and sketches between them, laughing and talking pleasantly enough. Joe did not hear a word of their conversation, and Mrs. Wyndham paid little attention to it, though her practiced ears could have heard it all if need be, while she herself was profoundly occupied with some one else. The four had a somewhat dreary meal together, and Ronald was told to go into Sam's study and smoke if he liked, while Mrs. Wyndham led Joe and Sybil away to look at a quantity of new things that had just come from Paris. Ronald did as he was bid and settled himself for an hour, with a plentiful supply of newspapers and railroad literature. It was past three o'clock when Sam Wyndham entered the room, his face wet with the snowflakes and red with excitement. "Hollo!" he exclaimed, seeing Ronald comfortably ensconced in his favorite easy-chair. "How are you?" "Excuse me," said Ronald, rising quickly. "They told me to come in here after lunch, and so I was waiting until I was sent for, or told to come out." "Very glad to see you, any way," said Sam cordially. "Well, I have been to hear about an election--a friend of ours got put up for senator. But I don't expect that interests you much?" "On the contrary," said Ronald, "I have heard it so much talked of that I am as much interested as anybody. Is it all over?" "Oh yes, and a pretty queer business it was. Well, our friend is not elected, anyway"-- "Has Mr. Harrington been defeated?" asked Ronald quickly. "It's my belief he has been sold," said Sam. "But as I am a Republican myself and a friend of Jobbins, more or less, I don't suppose I feel so very bad about it, after all. But I don't know how my wife will take it, I'm sure," said Sam presently. "I expect we had better go and tell her, right off." "Then he has really lost the election?" inquired Ronald, who was not altogether sorry to hear it. "Why, yes--as I say, Jobbins is senator now. I should not wonder if Harrington were a good deal cut up. Come along with me, now, and we will tell the ladies." The three ladies were in the drawing-room. Mrs. Wyndham and Joe sprang to their feet as Sam and Ronald entered, but Sybil remained seated and merely looked up inquiringly. "Oh now, Sam," cried Mrs. Wyndham, in great excitement, "tell us all about it right away. We are dying to know!" Joe came close to Mrs. Wyndham, her face very pale and her teeth clenched in her great anxiety. Sam threw back the lapels of his coat, put his thumbs in the armholes of his broad waistcoat, and turned his head slightly on one side. "Well," he said slowly, "John's wiped out." "Do you mean to say he has lost the election?" cried Mrs. Wyndham. "Yes--he's lost it. Jobbins is senator." "Sam, you are perfectly horrid!" exclaimed his spouse, in deepest vexation. Josephine Thorn spoke no word, but turned away and went alone to the window. She was deathly pale, and she trembled from head to foot as she clutched the heavy curtain with her small white fingers. "Poor Mr. Harrington!" said Sybil thoughtfully. "I am dreadfully sorry." Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham and Ronald moved toward the fire where Sybil was sitting. No one spoke for a few seconds. At last Mrs. Wyndham broke out: "Sam, it's a perfect shame!" she said. "I think all those people ought to be locked up for bribery. I am certain it was all done by some horrid stealing, or something, now, was not it?" "I don't know about that, my dear," said Sam reflectively. "You see they generally vote fair enough in these things. Well, may be that fellow Ballymolloy has made something out of it. He's a pretty bad sort of a scamp, any way, I expect. Sorry you are so put out about it, but Jobbins is not so very bad, after all." Sybil suddenly missed Joe from the group, and looked across to where she stood by the window. A glance told her that something was wrong, and she rose from her seat and went to her friend. The sight of Josephine's pale face frightened her. "Joe, dear," she said affectionately, "you are ill--come to my room." Sybil put one arm round her waist and quietly led her away. Ronald had watched the little scene from a distance, but Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham continued to discuss the result of the election. "It is exactly like you, Sam, to be talking in that way, instead of telling me just how it happened," said Mrs. Wyndham. "And then to say it is not so very bad after all!" "Oh, I will tell you all about it right away, my dear, if you'll only give me a little time. You're always in such an immense fever about everything that it's perfectly impossible to get along." "Are you going to begin?" said Mrs. Wyndham, half vexed with her husband's deliberate indifference. "Well, as near as I can make out it was generally thought at the start that John had a pretty good show. The Senate elected him right away by a majority of four, which was so much to the good, for of course his friends reckoned on getting him in, if the Senate hadn't elected him, by the bigger majority of the House swamping the Senate in the General Court. But it's gone just the other way." "Whatever is the General Court?" asked Ronald, much puzzled. "Oh, the General Court is when the House and the Senate meet together next day to formally declare a senator elected, if they have both chosen the same man, or to elect one by a general majority if they haven't." "Yes, that is it," added Mrs. Wyndham to Ronald, and then addressing her husband, "Do go on, Sam; you've not told us anything yet." "Well, as I said, the Senate elected John Harrington by a majority of four. The House took a long time getting to work, and then there was some mistake about the first vote, so they had to take a second. And when that was done Jobbins actually had a majority of eighteen. So John's beaten, and Jobbins will be senator anyhow, and you must just make the best you can out of it." "But I thought you said when the House and the Senate did not agree, the General Court met next day and elected a senator?" asked Ronald again; "and in that case Mr. Harrington is not really beaten yet." "Well, theoretically he's not," said Sam, "because of course Jobbins is not actually senator until he has been elected by the General Court, but the majority for him in the House was so surprisingly large, and the majority for John so small in the Senate, and the House is so much larger than the Senate, that the vote to-morrow is a dead sure thing, and Jobbins is just as much senator as if he were sitting in Washington." "I suppose you will expect me to have Mr. Jobbins to dinner, now. I think the whole business is perfectly mean!" "Don't blame me, my dear," said Sam calmly. "I did not create the Massachusetts Legislature, and I did not found the State House, nor discover America, nor any of these things. And after all, Jobbins is a very respectable man and belongs to our own party, while Harrington does not. When I set up creating I'll make a note of one or two points, and I'll see that John is properly attended to." "You need not be silly, Sam," said Mrs. Wyndham. "What has become of those girls?" "They went out of the room some time ago," said Ronald, who had been listening with much amusement to the description of the election. He was never quite sure whether people could be serious when they talked such peculiar language, and he observed with surprise that Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham talked to each other in phrases very different from those they used in addressing himself. Sybil had led Joe away to her room. She did not guess the cause of Joe's faintness, but supposed it to be a momentary indisposition, amenable to the effects of eau-de-cologne. She made her lie upon the great cretonne sofa, moistening her forehead, and giving her a bottle of salts to smell. But Joe, who had never been ill in her life, recovered her strength in a few minutes, and regaining her feet began to walk about the room. "What do you think it was, Joe, dear?" asked Sybil, watching her. "Oh, it was nothing. Perhaps the room was hot, and I was tired." "I thought you looked tired all the morning," said Sybil, "and just when I looked at you I thought you were going to faint. You were as pale as death, and you seemed holding yourself up by the curtains." "Did I?" said Joe, trying to laugh. "How silly of me! I felt faint for a moment--that was all. I think I will go home." "Yes, dear--but stay a few minutes longer and rest yourself. I will order a carriage--it is still snowing hard." Sybil left the room. Once alone, Joe threw herself upon the sofa again. She would rather have died than have told any one, even Sybil Brandon, that it was no sickness she felt, but only a great and overwhelming disappointment for the man she loved. Her love was doubly hers--her very own--in that it was fast locked in her own heart, beyond the reach of any human being to know. Of all that came and went about her, and flattered her, and strove for her graces, not one suspected that she loved a man in their very midst, passionately, fervently, with all the strength she had. Ronald's suspicions were too vague, and too much the result of a preconceived idea, to represent anything like a certainty to himself, and he had not mentioned them to her. If anything can determine the passion of love in a woman, it is the great flood of sympathy that overflows her heart when the man she loves is hurt, or overcome in a great cause. When, for a little moment, that which she thinks strongest and bravest and most manly is struck down and wounded and brought low, her love rises up and is strong within her, and makes her more noble in the devotion of perfect gentleness than a man can ever be. "Oh, if only he could have won!" Joe said again and again to herself. "If only he could have won, I would have given anything!" Sybil came back in a few moments, and saw Joe lying down, still white and apparently far from well. She knelt upon the floor by her side and taking her hands, looked affectionately into her face. "There is something the matter," she said. "I know--you cannot deceive me--there is something serious the matter. Will you tell me, Joe? Can I do anything at all to help you?" Joe smiled faintly, grateful for the sympathy and for the gentle words of her friend. "No, Sybil dear. It is nothing--there is nothing you can do. Thanks, dearest--I shall be very well in a little while. It is nothing, really. Is the carriage there?" A few minutes later, Joe and Ronald were again at Miss Schenectady's house. Joe recovered her self-control on the way, and asked Ronald to come in, an invitation which he cheerfully accepted. John Harrington had spent the day in a state of anxiety which was new to him. Enthusiastic by nature, he was calm by habit, and he was surprised to find his hand unsteady and his brain not capable of the intense application he could usually command. Ten minutes after the results of the election were known at the State House, he received a note from a friend informing him with expressions of hearty sympathy how the day had gone. The strong physical sense of pain which accompanies all great disappointments, took hold of him, and he fell back in his seat and closed his eyes, his teeth set and his face pale with the suffering, while his broad hands convulsively grasped the heavy oaken arms of his chair. It may be that this same bodily agony, which is of itself but the gross reflection in our material selves of what the soul is bearing, is a wholesome provision that draws our finer senses away from looking at what might blind them altogether. There are times when a man would go mad if his mind were not detached from its sorrow by the quick, sharp beating of his bodily heart, and by the keen torture of the physical body, that is like the thrusting of a red-hot knife between breastbone and midriff. The expression "self-control" is daily in the blatant mouths of preachers and moralists, the very cant of emptiness and folly. It means nothing, nor can any play of words or cunning twisting of conception ever give it meaning. For the "self" is the divine, imperishable portion of the eternal God which is in man. I may control my limbs and the strength that is in them, and I may force under the appetites and passions of this mortal body, but I cannot myself, for it is myself that controls, being of nature godlike and stronger than all which is material. And although, for an infinitely brief space of time, I myself may inhabit and give life to this handful of most changeable atoms, I have it in my supreme power and choice to make them act according to my pleasure. If I become enamored of the body and its ways, and of the subtleties of a fleeting bodily intelligence, I have forgotten to control those things; and having forgotten that I have free will given me from heaven to rule what is mine, I am no longer a man, but a beast. But while I, who am an immortal soul, command the perishable engine in which I dwell, I am in truth a man. For the soul is of God and forever, whereas the body is a thing of to-day that vanishes into dust to-morrow; but the two together are the living man. And thus it is that God is made man in us every day. All that which we know by our senses is but an illusion. What is true of its own nature, we can neither see, nor hear, nor feel, nor taste. It is a matter of time, and nothing more, and whatever palpable thing a man can name will inevitably be dissolved into its constituent parts, that these may again agglomerate into a new illusion for future ages. But that which is subject to no change, nor disintegration, nor reconstruction, is the immortal truth, to attain to a knowledge and understanding of which is to be saved from the endless shifting of the material and illusory universe. John Harrington lay in his chair alone in his rooms, while the snow whirled against the windows outside and made little drifts on the sills. The fire had gone out and the bitter storm beat against the casements and howled in the chimney, and the dusk of the night began to mingle with the thick white flakes, and brought upon the solitary man a great gloom and horror of loneliness. It seemed to him that his life was done, and his strength gone from him. He had labored in vain for years, for this end, and he had failed to attain it. It were better to have died than to suffer the ignominy of this defeat. It were better never to have lived at all than to have lived so utterly in vain. One by one the struggles of the past came up to him; each had seemed a triumph when he was in the glory of strength and hope. The splendid aims of a higher and nobler government, built by sheer truth and nobility of purpose upon the ashes and dust of present corruption, the magnificent purity of the ideal State of which he had loved to dream--all that he had thought of and striven after as most worthy of a true man to follow, dwindled now away into a hollow and mocking image, more false than hollowness itself, poorer and of less substance than a juggler's show. He clasped his hands over his forehead, and tried to think, but it was of no use. Everything was vague, broken, crushed, and shapeless. Faces seemed to rise to his disturbed sight, and he wondered whether he had ever known these people; a ghastly weariness as of death was upon him, and his arms fell heavily by his sides. He groaned aloud, and if in that bitter sigh he could have breathed away his existence he would have gladly done it. Some one entered the room, struck a match, and lit the gas. It was his servant, or rather the joint servant of two or three of the bachelors who lived in the house, a huge, smooth-faced colored man. "Oh, excuthe _me_, Mister Harrington, I thought you wath out, Thir. There's two o' them notes for you." John roused himself, and took the letters without a word. They were both addressed in feminine handwriting. The one he knew, for it was from Mrs. Wyndham. The other he did not recognize. He opened Mrs. Wyndham's first. "DEAR MR. HARRINGTON,--Sam and I are very much put out about it, and sympathize most cordially. We think you might like to come and dine this evening, if you have no other invitation, so I write to say we will be all alone and very glad to see you. Cordially yours, "JANE WYNDHAM." "P.S. Don't trouble about the answer." John read the note through and laid it on the table. Then he turned the other missive over in his fingers, and finally tore open the envelope. It ran as follows:-- "MY DEAR MR. HARRINGTON,--Please don't be surprised at my writing to you in this way. I was at Mrs. Wyndham's this afternoon and heard all about it, and I must write to tell you that I am very, _very_ sorry. It is too horrible to think how bad and wicked and foolish people are, and how they invariably do the wrong thing. I cannot tell you how sorry we all are, because it is just such men as you who are most needed nowadays, though of course I know nothing about politics here. But I am quite sure that all of them _will live to regret it_, and that you will win in the end. Don't think it foolish of me to write, because I'm so angry that I can't in the least help it, and I think everybody ought to. "Yours in sincerity," "JOSEPHINE THORN." CHAPTER XVII. John read Joe's note many times over before he quite realized what it contained. It seemed at first a singular thing that she should have written to him, and he did not understand it. He knew her as an enthusiastic and capricious girl who had sometimes laughed at him, and sometimes treated him coldly; but who, again, had sometimes talked with him as though he were an old friend. He called to mind the interest she had taken in his doings of late, and how she had denounced Vancouver as his enemy, and he thought of the long conversation he had had with her on the ice under the cold moonlight. He thought of many a sympathetic glance she had given when he spoke of his aims and intentions, of many a gentle word spoken in praise of him, and which at the time he had taken merely as so much small, good-natured flattery, such as agreeable people deal out to each other in society without any thought of evil nor any especial meaning of good. All these things came back to him, and he read the little note again. It was a kindly word, nothing more, penned by a wild, good-hearted girl, in the scorn of consequence or social propriety. It was nothing but that. And yet, there was something more in it all--something not expressed in the abbreviated words and hurriedly-composed sentences, but something that seemed to struggle for expression. John's experience of womankind was limited, for he was no lady's man, and had led a life singularly lacking in woman's love or sentiment, though singularly dependent on the friendship of some woman. Nevertheless he knew that Joe's note breathed the essence of a sympathy wider than that of mere every-day acquaintance, and deeper, perhaps, than that of any friendship he had known. He could not have explained the feeling, nor reasoned upon it, but he knew well enough that when he next met Joe it would be on new terms. She had declared herself his friend in a way no longer mistakable, for she must have followed her first impulse in writing such a note, and the impulse must have been a strong one. For a while he debated whether to answer the note or not, almost forgetting his troubles in the tumult of new thoughts it had suggested to him. A note, thought he, required an answer, on general principles--but such a note as this would be better answered in person than by any pen and paper. He would call and see Joe, and thank her for it. But, again, he knew he could not see her until the next day, and that seemed a long time to wait. It would not have been long under ordinary circumstances, but in this case it seemed to him an unreasonable delay. He sat down and took a pen in his fingers. "Dear Miss Thorn"--he began, and stopped. In America it is more formal to begin without the preliminary "my;" in England the "my" is indispensable, unless people are on familiar terms. John knew this, and reflected that Joe was English. While he was reflecting his eye fell upon a heap of telegraph blanks, and he remembered that he had not given notice of his defeat to the council. He pushed aside the note paper and took a form for a cable dispatch. In a moment Joe was forgotten in the sudden shock that brought his thoughts back to his position. He wrote out a simple message addressed to Z, who was the only one of the three whom he officially knew. But when he had done that, he fell to thinking about Joe again, and resolved to write the note. "MY DEAR MISS THORN,--I cannot allow your very friendly words to remain unanswered until tomorrow. It is kind of you to be sorry for the defeat I have suffered, it is kinder still to express your sympathy so directly and so soon. Concerning the circumstances which brought the contest to such a result, I have nothing to say. It is the privilege of elective bodies to choose as they please, and indeed, that is the object of their existence. No one has any right to complain of not being elected, for a man who is a candidate knows from the first what he is undertaking, and what manner of men he has to deal with. Personally, I am a man who has fought a fight and has lost it, and however firmly I still believe in the cause which led me to the struggle, I confess that I am disappointed and disheartened at being vanquished. You are good enough to say you believe I shall win in the end; I can only answer that I thank you very heartily indeed for saying so, though I do not think it is likely that any efforts of mine will be attended with success for a long time. "Believe me, with great gratitude, "Very sincerely yours, "JOHN HARRINGTON." It was a longer note than he had meant to write, in fact it was almost a letter; but he read it over and was convinced he had said what he meant to say, which was always the principal consideration in such matters. Accordingly the missive was dispatched to its destination. As for Mrs. Wyndham, John determined to accept her invitation, and to answer it in person by appearing at the dinner-hour. He would not let any one think he was so broken-hearted as to be unable to show himself. He was too strong for that, and he had too much pride in his strength. He was right in going to Mrs. Wyndham's, for she and her husband were his oldest friends, and he understood well enough what true hearts and what honest loyalty lie sometimes concealed in the bosoms of those brisk, peculiar people, who seem unable to speak seriously for long about the most serious subjects, and whose quaint turns of language seem often so unfit to express any deep feeling. But while he talked with his hosts his own thoughts strayed again and again to Joe, and he wondered what kind of woman she really was. He intended to visit her the next day. The next day came, however, and yet John did not turn his steps up the hill towards Miss Schenectady's house. It was a cloudless morning after the heavy storm, and the great drifts of snow flashed like heaps of diamonds in the sun. All the air was clear and cold, and the red brick pavements were spotted here and there with white patches left from the shovels of the Irishmen. Sleighs of all sizes were ploughing their way hither and thither, breaking out a track in the heavy mass that encumbered the streets. Every one was wrapped in furs, and every one's face was red with the smarting cold. Joe stayed at home until mid-day, when she went to a luncheon-party of young girls. As usual, they had been sewing for the poor, but Joe thought that she was not depriving the poor people of any very material assistance by staying away from the more industrious part of the entertainment. The sewing they all did together in a morning did not produce results whereby even the very smallest baby could have been clothed, and the part effected by each separate damsel in this whole was consequently somewhat insignificant. Joe would have stayed at home outright had the weather not been so magnificent, and possibly she thought that she might meet John Harrington on her way to the house of her friend in Dartmouth Street. Fate, however, was against her, for she had not walked thirty yards down the hill before she was overtaken by Pocock Vancouver. He had been standing in one of the semi-circular bay windows of the Somerset Club, and seeing Joe coming down the steep incline, had hurriedly taken his coat and hat and gone out in pursuit of her. Had he suspected in the least how Joe felt toward him, he would have fled to the end of the world rather than meet her. "Good morning, Miss Thorn," he said, walking rapidly by her side and taking off his hat, "how very early you are to-day." "It is not early," said Joe, looking at him coldly, "it is nearly one o'clock." "It would be called early for most people," said Vancouver; "for Mrs. Wyndham, for instance." "I am not Mrs. Wyndham," said Joe. "I am going to see Harrington," remarked Vancouver, who perceived that Joe was not in a good humor. "I am afraid he must be dreadfully cut up about this business." "So you are going to condole with him? I do not believe he is in the least disturbed. He has far too much sense." "I fancy the most sensible man in the world would be a trifle annoyed at being defeated in an election, Miss Thorn," said Vancouver blandly. "I am afraid you are not very sorry for him. He is an old friend of mine, and though I differ from him in politics, very passively, I cannot do less than go and see him, and tell him how much I regret, personally, that he should be defeated." Joe's lip curled in scorn, and she flushed angrily. She could have struck Vancouver's pale face with infinite pleasure and satisfaction, but she said nothing in immediate answer. "Do you not think I am right?" asked Vancouver. "I am sure you do; you have such a good heart." They passed Charles Street as he was speaking, and yet he gave no sign of leaving her. "I am not sure that I have a good heart, and I am quite sure that you are utterly wrong, Mr. Vancouver," said Joe, in calm tones. "Really? Why, you quite surprise me, Miss Thorn. Any man in my place ought"-- "Most men in your place would avoid Mr. Harrington," interrupted Joe, turning her clear brown eyes full upon him. Had she been less angry she would have been more cautious. But her blood was up, and she took no thought, but said what she meant, boldly. "Indeed, Miss Thorn," said Vancouver, stiffly, "I do not understand you in the least. I think what you say is very extraordinary. John Harrington has always been a friend of mine." "That may be, Mr. Vancouver, but you are certainly no friend of his," said Joe, with a scornful laugh. "You astonish me beyond measure," rejoined Pocock, maintaining his air of injured virtue, although he inwardly felt that he was in some imminent danger. "How can you possibly say such a thing?" Joe could bear it no longer. She was very imprudent, but her honest anger boiled over. She stopped in her walk, her back against the iron railings, and she faced Vancouver with a look that frightened him. He was forced to stop also, and he could not do less than return her glance. "Do you dare to stand there and tell me that you are Mr. Harrington's friend?" she asked in low distinct tones. "You, the writer of articles in the 'Daily Standard,' calling him a fool and a charlatan? You, who have done your very best to defeat him in this election? Indeed, it is too absurd!" She laughed aloud in utter scorn, and then turned to continue her way. Vancouver turned a shade paler than was natural with him, and looked down. He was very much frightened, for he was a coward. "Miss Thorn," he said, "I am sorry you should believe such calumnies. I give you my word of honor that I have never either written or spoken against Mr. Harrington. He is one of my best friends." Joe did not answer; she did not even look at him, but walked on in silence. He did not dare to speak again, and as they reached the corner of the Public Garden he lifted his hat. "I am quite sure that you will find you have misjudged me, Miss Thorn," he said, with a grieved look. "In the mean while I wish you a very good morning." "Good-morning," said Joe, without looking at him; and she passed on, full of indignation and wrath. To tell the truth, she was so much delighted at having spoken her mind for once, that she had not a thought of any possible consequences. The delight of having dealt Vancouver such a buffet was very great, and she felt her heart beat fast with a triumphant pleasure. But Vancouver turned and went away with a very unpleasant sensation in, him. He wished with all his might that he had not left the comfortable bay window of the Somerset Club that morning, and more than all he wished he could ascertain how Joe had come to know of his journalistic doings. As a matter of fact, what she had said concerning Pocock's efforts against John in the election had been meant in a most general way. But Vancouver thought she was referring to his interview with Ballymolloy, and that she understood the whole matter. Of course, there was nothing to be done but to deny the accusations from beginning to end; but they nevertheless had struck deep, and he was thoroughly alarmed. When he left the club he had had no intention of going to see Harrington; the idea had formed itself while talking with her. But now, again, he felt that he could not go. He had not the courage to face the man he had injured, principally because he strongly suspected that if Joe knew what he had done, John Harrington most likely knew it too. He was doubly hit. He would have been less completely confused and frightened if the attack had come from Sybil Brandon; but he had had vague ideas of trying to marry Joe, and he guessed that any such plan was now hopelessly out of the question. He turned his steps homeward, uncertain what to do, and hoping to find counsel in solitude. He took up the letters and papers that lay on his study table, brought by the mid-day post. One letter in particular attracted his attention, and he singled it out and opened it. It was dated from London, and had been twelve days on its way. "MY DEAR VANCOUVER, "Enclosed please find Bank of England Post Note for your usual quarterly honorarium, £1250. My firm will address you upon the use to be made of the Proxies lately sent you for the ensuing election of officers of the Pocahontas and Dead Man's Valley R. R., touching your possession of which I beg to reiterate the importance of a more than Masonic discretion. I apprehend that unless the scattered shares should have been quickly absorbed for the purpose of obtaining a majority, these Proxies will enable you to control the election of the proper ticket. If not, and if the Leviathan should decline the overtures that will be made to him during his summer visit to London, I should like your estimate of five thousand shares more, to be picked up in the next three months, which will assure our friends the control. Should the prospective figure be too high, we may elect to sell out, after rigging the market for a boom. "In either event there will be lots of pickings in the rise and fall of the shares for the old joint account, which has been so profitable because you have so skillfully covered up your tracks. "Yours faithfully," "SAUNDERS GRABBLES." "P. S. The expectations of the young lady about whom you inquire are involved in such a tangle of conditions as could only have occurred to the excited fancy of an old Anglo-Indian. He left about twenty lacs of rupees in various bonds--G. I. P. and others--to his nephew, Ronald Surbiton, and to his niece jointly, provided that they marry each other. If they do not, one quarter of the estate is to go to the one who marries first, and the remaining three quarters to the other. The estate is in the hands of trustees, who pay an allowance to the heirs. In case they marry each other, the said heirs have power to dispose by will of the inheritance. Otherwise the whole of it reverts to the last survivor, and at his or her death it is to be devoted to founding a home for superannuated governesses." Vancouver read the letter through with care, and held it a moment in his hand. Then he crushed it angrily together and tossed it into the fire. It seemed as though everything went wrong with him to-day. Not only was no information concerning Joe of any use now. It would be a hard thing to disabuse her of the idea that he had written those articles. After all, though, as he thought the matter over, it could be only guess-work. The manuscripts had always gone through the post, signed with a feigned name, and it was utterly impossible that the editor himself could know who had written them. It would be still more impossible, therefore, for any one else to do more than make a guess. It is easy to deny any statement, however correct, when founded on such a basis. But there was the other thing: Joe had accused him of having opposed John's election to the best of his ability. No one could prove that either. He had even advised Ballymolloy to vote for John, in so many words. On the whole, his conscience was clear enough. Vancouver's conscience was represented by all those things which could by any possibility be found out; the things that no one could ever know gave him no anxiety. In the present case the first thing to be done was plainly to put the whole blame of the articles on the shoulders of some one else, a person of violent political views and very great vanity, who would be greatly flattered at being thought the author of anything so clever. That would not be a difficult task. He would broach the subject to Mrs. Wyndham, telling her that the man, whoever he should be, had told him in strictest confidence that he was the writer. Vancouver would of course tell it to Mrs. Wyndham as a state secret, and she would tell some one else--it would soon be public property, and Joe would hear of it. It would be easy enough to pitch upon some individual who would not deny the imputation, or who would deny it in such a way as to leave the impression on the public mind unchanged, more especially as the articles had accomplished the desired result. The prime cause of all this, John Harrington himself, sat in his room, unconscious, for the time, of Vancouver's existence. He was in a state of great depression and uncertainty, for he had not yet rallied from the blow of the defeat. Moreover he was thinking of Joe, and her letter lay open on the table beside him. His whole heart went out to her in thanks for her ready sympathy, and he had almost made up his mind to go and see her, as he had at first determined to do. He would have laughed very heartily at the idea of being in love, for he had never thought of himself in such a position. But he realized that he was fond of Josephine Thorn, that he was thinking of her a great deal, and that the thought was a comfort to him in his distress. He knew very well that he would find a great rest and refreshment in talking to her at present, and yet he could not decide to go to her. John was a man of calm manner and with plenty of hard, practical sense, in spite of the great enthusiasm that burned like a fire within him, and that was the mainspring of his existence. But like all orators and men much accustomed to dealing with the passions of others, he was full of quick intuitions and instincts which rarely betrayed him. Something warned him not to seek her society, and though he said to himself that he was very far from being in love, the thought that he might some day find that he wished to marry her presented itself continually to his mind; and since John had elected to devote himself to celibacy and politics, there was nothing more repugnant to his whole life than the idea of marriage. At this juncture, while he was revolving in his mind what was best to be done, a telegram was brought to him. It was from Z, and in briefest terms of authority commanded John to hold himself ready to start for London at a moment's notice. It must have been dispatched within a few hours after receiving his own message of the night before, and considering the difference of time, must have been sent from London early in the afternoon. It was clearly an urgent case, and the supreme three had work for John to do, even though he had not been made senator. The order was a great relief. It solved all his uncertainty and scattered all his doubts to the wind. It gave him new courage and stimulated his curiosity. Z had only sent for him twice before, and then only to call him from Boston or New York to Washington. It was clear that something of very great importance was likely to occur. His energy returned in full, with the anticipation of work to do and of a journey to be made, and before night he was fully prepared to leave on receipt of his orders. His box was packed, and he had drawn the money necessary to take him to London. As for Joe, he could go and see her now if he pleased. In twenty-four hours he might be gone, never to see her again. But it was too late on that day--he would go on the following morning. It was still the height of the Boston season, which is short, but merry while it lasts. John had a dinner-party, a musical evening, and a ball on his list for the evening, and he resolved that he would go to all three, and show himself bravely to the world. He was full of new courage and strength since he had received Z's message, and he was determined that no one should know what he had suffered. The dinner passed pleasantly enough, and by ten o'clock he was at the musical party. There he found the Wyndhams and many other friends, but he looked in vain for Joe; she was not there. Before midnight he was at the dance, pushing his way through crowds of acquaintances, stumbling over loving couples ensconced on the landings of the stairs, and running against forlorn old ladies, whose mouths were full of ice-cream and their hearts of bitterness against the younger generation; and so, at last, he reached the ball-room, where everything that was youngest and most fresh was assembled, swaying and gliding, and backing and turning in the easy, graceful half-walk, half-slide of the Boston step. As John stood looking on, Joe passed him, leaving the room on Mr. Topeka's arm. There was a little open space before her in the crowd, and Pocock Vancouver darted out with the evident intention of speaking to her. But as she caught sight of him she turned suddenly away, pulling Mr. Topeka round by his arm. It was an extremely "marked thing to do." As she turned she unexpectedly came face to face with John, who had watched the maneuver. The color came quickly to her face, and she was slightly embarrassed; nevertheless she held out her hand and greeted John cordially. CHAPTER XVIII. "I am so glad to have found you," said John to Josephine, when the latter had disposed of Mr. Topeka. They had chosen a quiet corner in a dimly-lighted room away from the dancers. "But I suppose it is useless to ask you for a dance?" "No," said Joe, looking at her card; "I always leave two dances free in the middle of the evening in case I am tired. We will sit them out." "Thank you," said John, looking at her. She looked pale and a little tired, but wonderfully lovely. "Thank you," he repeated, "and thank you also for your most kind note." "I wish I could tell you better how very sorry I am," said Joe, impulsively. "It is bad enough to look on and see such things done, but I should think you must be nearly distracted." "I think I was at first," said John, simply. "But one soon grows used to it. Man is a vain animal, and I suppose no one could lose a fight as I have without being disappointed." "If you were not disappointed it would be a sign you did not really care," answered Joe. "And of course you must care--a great, great deal. It is a loss to your cause, as well as a loss to yourself. But you cannot possibly give it up; you will win next time." "Yes," said John, "I hope I shall win some day." But his voice sounded uncertain; it lacked that determined ring that Joe loved so well. She felt as she sat beside him that he was deeply hurt and needed fresh encouragement and strength to restore him to his old self. She longed to help him and to rouse him once more to the consciousness of power and the hope of victory. "It is my experience," said she with an air of superiority that would have been amusing if she had spoken less earnestly--"it is my experience that one should never think of anything in which one has come to grief. I know, when one is going at a big thing--a double post and rails with a ditch, or anything like that, you know--it would never do to remember that you have come off at the same thing or at something else before. When a man is always remembering his last tumble he has lost his nerve, and had better give up hunting altogether. Thinking that you may get an ugly fall will not help you over anything." "No," said John, "that is very true." "You must forget all about it and begin again. You have missed one bird, but you are a good shot, and you will not miss the next." "You are a most encouraging person, Miss Thorn," said John with a faint smile. "But you know the only test of a good shot is that one hits the mark. I have missed at the first trial, and that is no reason why I should not miss at the second, too." "You are disappointed and unhappy now," said Joe, gently. "It is very natural indeed. Anybody would feel like that. But you must not believe in yourself any less than your friends believe in you." "I fancy my friends do not all think alike," answered John. "But I am grateful to you for what you say." He was indeed grateful, and the soothing sound of her gentle voice was the best refreshment for his troubled spirit. He thought for a moment how brave a man could be with such a woman by his side; and the thought pleased him, the more because he knew that it could not be realized. They sat in silence for a while, contented to be together, and in sympathy. But before long the anxiety for the future and the sense of his peculiar position came over John again. "Do you know," he said, "there are times when I regret it all very much? I never told any one so before--perhaps I was never so sure of it as I have been since this affair." "What is it that you regret so much?" asked Joe, softly. "It is a noble life." "It is, indeed, if only a man knows how to live it," answered John. "But sometimes I think I do not. You once said a very true thing to me about it all. Do you remember?" "No; what was it?" "You said I should not succeed because I am not enough of a partisan, and because every one is a partisan here." "Did I? Yes, I remember saying it," answered Joe, secretly pleased that he should not have forgotten it. "I do not think it is so very true, after all. It is true to-day; but it is for men like you to set things right, to make partisanship a thing of the past. Men ought to make laws because they are just and necessary, not in order that they may profit by them at the expense of the rest of the world. And to have such good laws men ought to choose good men to represent them." "There is no denying the truth of that," said John. "That is the way to construct the ideal republic. It would be the way to do a great many ideal things. You need only persuade humanity to do right, and humanity will do it. Verily, it is an easy task!" He laughed, a little bitterly. "It is not like you to laugh in that way," said Joe, gravely. "No; to tell the truth, I am not overmuch inclined to laugh at anything to-day, excepting myself, and I dare say there are plenty of people who will do that for me without the asking. They will have no chance when I am gone." Joe started slightly. "Gone?" she repeated. "Are you going away?" "It is very likely," said John. "A friend of mine has warned me to be ready to start at a moment's notice on very important business." "But it is uncertain, then?" asked Joe, quickly. She had turned very white in an instant, and she looked straight across the little room and pulled nervously at her fan. She would not have dared to let her eyes meet John's at that moment. "Yes, rather uncertain," answered John. "But he would not have sent me such a warning unless it were very likely that he would really want me." Joe was silent; she could not speak. "So you see," continued Harrington, "I may leave to-morrow, and I cannot tell when I may come back. That is the reason I was glad to find you here. I would have called to-day, if it had been possible, after I got the message." He spoke calmly, not dreaming of the storm of fear and passion he was rousing in the heart of the fair girl beside him. "Where--where are you going?" asked Joe in a low voice. "Probably to England," said John. Before the words were out of his mouth he turned and looked at her, suddenly realizing the change in her tones. But she had turned away from him. He could see the quiver of her lips and the beating throb of her beautiful throat; and as he watched the outline of her cheek a tear stole slowly over the delicate skin, and trembled, and fell upon her white neck. But still she looked away. Ah, John Harrington, what have you done? You have taken the most precious and pure thing in this world, the thing men as brave as you have given their heart's best blood to win and have perished for failing, the thing which angels guard and Heaven has in its keeping--the love of a good and noble woman. It has come into your hands and you do not want it. You hardly know it is yours; and if you fully knew it you would not know what to do! You are innocent, indeed; you have done nothing, spoken no word, given no look that, in your opinion, your cold indifferent opinion, could attract a woman's love. But the harm is done, nevertheless, and a great harm too. When you are old and sensible you will look back to this day as one of sorrow and evil, and you will know then that all greatness and power and glory of realized ambition are nothing unless a man have a woman's love. You will know that a man who cannot love is blind to half the world he seeks to conquer, and that a man who cannot love truly is no true man, for he who is not true to one cannot be true to many. That is the sum and reckoning of what love is worth. But John knew of nothing beyond friendship, and he could not conceive how friendship could turn into anything else. When he saw the tear on Josephine Thorn's cheek he was greatly disturbed, and vaguely wondered what in the world he should do. The idea that any woman could care enough for him to shed a tear when he left her had never crossed his mind; even now, with the actual fact before his eyes, he doubted whether it were possible. She was ill, perhaps, and suffering pain. Pshaw! it was absurd, it could not be that she cared so much for him. Seeing she did not move, he sat quite still for a while. His usual tact had deserted him in the extremity of the situation. He revolved in his mind what was best to say. It was safest to suppose that Joe was ill, but he would say something indifferent, in order to see whether she recovered, before he suggested that he might be of assistance. "It is cold here," he remarked, trying to speak as naturally as possible. "Would you not like to take a turn, Miss Thorn?" Joe moved a little. She was deadly pale, and in the effort she had made to control her feelings she was unconscious of the tears in her eyes. "Oh no, thanks," she faltered, "I will not dance just now." She could not say more. John made up his mind. "You are ill, Miss Thorn," he said anxiously. "I am sure you are very far from well. Let me get you something, or call your aunt. Shall I?" "Oh no--don't--that is--please, I think so. I will go home." John rose quickly, but before he reached the door she called him back. "Mr. Harrington, it is nothing. Please sit down." John came back and did as he was bid, more and more surprised and confused. "I was afraid it was something serious," he said nervously, for he was greatly disturbed. Joe laughed, a bitter, harsh little laugh, that was bad to hear. She was making a great effort, but she was strong, and bravely forced back her bursting tears. "Oh no! I was only choking," she said. "I often do. Go on, please, with what you were saying. Why are you going away so suddenly?" "Indeed," answered John, "I do not know what the business is. I am going if I am required, simply because my friend wants me." "Do you mean to say," asked Joe, speaking more calmly, "that you will pack up your belongings and go to the end of the world whenever a friend asks you to? It is most tremendously obliging, you know." "Not for any friend," John replied. "But I would most certainly do it for this particular one." "You must be very fond of him to do that," said Joe. "I am under great obligations to him, too. He is certainly the most important man with whom I have any relations. We can trust each other-it would not do to endanger the certainty of good faith that exists between us." "He must be a very wonderful person," said Joe, who had grown quite calm by this time. "I should like to know him." "Very possibly you may meet him, some day. He is a very wonderful person indeed, as you say. He has devoted fifty years of his life and strength to the unremitting pursuit of the best aim that any man can set before him." "In other words," said Joe, "he is your ideal. He is what you hope to be at his age. He must be very old." "Yes, he is old. As for his representing my ideal, I think he approaches more nearly to it than any man alive. But you would probably not like him." "Why?" "He belongs to a class of men whom old-world people especially dislike," answered John. "He does not believe in any monarchy, aristocracy, or distinction of birth. He looks upon titles as a decaying institution of barbarous ages, and he confidently asserts that in two or three generations the republic will be the only form of social contract known amongst the inhabitants of the civilized world." John was watching Joe while he spoke. He was merely talking because it seemed necessary, and he saw that in spite of her assumed calm she was still greatly agitated. She seemed anxious, however, to continue the conversation. "It is absurd," said she, "to say that all men are born equal." "Everything depends on what you mean by the word 'equal.' I mean by it that all men are born with an equal claim to a share in all the essential rights of free citizenship. When a man demands more than that, he is infringing on the rights of others; when he is content with less, he is allowing himself to be robbed." "But who is to decide just how much belongs to each man?" asked Joe, leaning back wearily against the cushions. She wished now that she had allowed him to call her aunt. It was a fearful strain on her faculties to continue talking upon general subjects and listening to John Harrington's calm, almost indifferent tones. "The majority decides that," said John. "But a majority has just decided that you are not to be senator," said Joe. "According to you they were right, were they not?" "It is necessary that the majority should be free," said John, "and that they should judge of themselves, each man according to his honest belief. Majorities with us are very frequently produced by a handful of dishonest men, who can turn the scale on either side, to suit their private ends. It is the aim we set before us to protect the freedom of majorities. That is the true doctrine of a republic." "And for that aim," said Joe, slowly, "you would sacrifice everything?" "Yes, indeed we would," said John, gravely. "For that end we will sacrifice all that we have to give--the care for personal satisfaction, the hope of personal distinction, the peace of a home and the love of a wife. We seek neither distinction nor satisfaction, and we renounce all ties that could hamper our strength or interfere with the persevering and undivided attention we try to give to our work." "That is a magnificent programme," said Joe, somewhat incredulously. "Do you not think it is possible sometimes to aim too high? You say 'we seek,' 'we try,' as though there were several of you, or at least, some one besides yourself. Do you believe that such ideas as you tell me of are really and seriously held by any body of men?" Nothing had seemed too high to Josephine an hour earlier, nothing too exalted, nothing so noble but that John Harrington might do it, then and there. But a sudden change had come over her, the deadly cold phase of half melancholy unbelief that often follows close upon an unexpected disappointment, so that she looked with distaste on anything that seemed so full of the enthusiasm she had lost. The tears that bad risen so passionately to her dimmed eyes were suddenly frozen, and seemed to flow back with chilling force to her heart. She coldly asked herself whether she were mad, that she could have suffered thus for such a man, even ever so briefly. He was a man, she said, who loved an unattainable, fanatic idea in the first place, and who dearly loved himself as well for his own fanaticism's sake. He was a man in whom the heart was crushed, even annihilated, by his intellect, which he valued far too highly, and by his vanity, which he dignified into a philosophy of self-sacrifice. He was aiming at what no man can reach, and though he knew his object to be beyond human grasp, he desired all possible credit for having madly dreamed of anything so high. In the sudden revulsion of her strong passion, she almost hated him, she almost felt the power to refute his theories, to destroy his edifice of fantastic morality, and finally to show him that he was a fool among men, and doubly a fool, because he was not even happy in his own folly. Joe vaguely felt all this, and with it she felt a sense of shame at having so nearly broken down at the news that he was going away. He had thought she was ill; most assuredly he could not have guessed the cause of what he had seen; but nevertheless she had suffered a keen pain, and the tears had come to her eyes. She did not understand it. He might leave her now, if he pleased, and she would not care; indeed, it would be rather a relief if he would go. She no longer asked what she was to him, she simply reflected that, after all was said, he was nothing to her. She felt a quick antagonism to his ideas, to his words, and to himself, and she was willing to show it. She asked him incredulously whether his ideas were really held by others. "It makes little difference," answered John, "whether they are many or few who think as I do, and I cannot tell how many there may be. The truth is not made truth because many people believe it. The world went round, as Galileo knew, although he alone stood up and said it in the face of mankind, who scoffed at him for his pains." "In other words, you occupy the position of Galileo," suggested Joe, calmly. "Not I," said John; "but there are men, and there have been men, in our country who know truths as great as any he discovered, and who have spent their lives in proclaiming them. I _know_ that they are right, and that I am right, and that, however we may fail, others will succeed at last. I know that, come what may, honor and truth and justice will win the day in the end!" His gray eyes glittered as he spoke, and his broad white hands clasped nervously together in his enthusiasm. He was depressed and heartsick at his failure, but it needed only one word of opposition to rouse the strong main thought of his life into the most active expression. But Joe sat coldly by, her whole nature seemingly changed in the few minutes that had passed. "And all this will be brought about by the measures you advocated the other day," said she with a little laugh. "A civil service, a little tariff reform--that is enough to inaugurate the reign of honor, truth, and justice?" John turned his keen eyes upon hers. He had begun talking because she had required it of him, and he had been roused by the subject. He remembered the sympathy she had given him, and he was annoyed at her caprice. "Such things are the mere passing needs of a time," he said. "The truth, justice, and honor, at which you are pleased to be amused, would insure the execution at all times of what is right and needful. Without a foundation composed of the said truth, justice, and honor, to get what is right and needful is often a matter so stupendous that the half of a nation's blood is drained in accomplishing the task, if even it is accomplished after all. I see nothing to laugh at." Indeed, Joe was only smiling faintly, but John was so deeply impressed and penetrated by the absolute truth of what he was saying, that he had altogether ceased to make any allowances for Joe's caprice of mood or for the disturbance in her manner that he had so lately witnessed. He was beginning to be angry, and she had never seen him in such a mood. "The world would be a very nice tiresome place to live in," she said, "if every one always did exactly what is absolutely right. I should not like to live among people who would be always so entirely padded and lined with goodness as they must be in your ideal republic." "It is a favorite and characteristic notion of modern society to associate goodness with dullness, and consequently, I suppose, to connect badness with all that is gay, interesting, and diverting. There is nothing more perverted, absurd, and contemptible than that notion in the whole history of the world." John was not gentle with an idea when he despised it, and the adjectives fell in his clear utterance like the blows of a sledge-hammer. But as the idea he was abusing had been suggested by Joe, she resented the strong language. "I am flattered that you should call anything I say by such bad names," she said. "I am not good at arguing and that sort of thing. If I were I think I could answer you very easily. Will you please take me back to my aunt?" She rose in a somewhat stately fashion. John was suddenly aware that he had talked too much and too strongly, and he was very sorry to have displeased her. She had always let him talk as he pleased, especially of late, and she had almost invariably agreed with him in everything he said, so that he had acquired too much confidence. At all events, that was the way he explained to himself the present difficulty. "Please forgive me, Miss Thorn," he said humbly, as he gave her his arm to leave the room. "I am a very sanguine person, and I often talk great nonsense. Please do not be angry." Joe paused just as they reached the door. "Angry? I am not angry," she said with sudden gentleness. "Besides, you know, this is--you are really going away?" "I think so," said John. "Then, if you do," she said with some hesitation--"if you do, this is good-by, is it not?" "Yes, I am afraid it is," said John; "but not for long." "Not for long, perhaps," she answered; "but I would not like you to think I was angry the very last time I saw you." "No, indeed. I should be very sorry if you were. But you are not?" "No. Well then"--she held out her hand--"Good-by, then." She had almost hated him a few minutes ago. Half an hour earlier she had loved him. Now her voice faltered a little, but her face was calm. John took the proffered hand and grasped it warmly. With all her caprice, and despite the strange changes of her manner toward him, she had been a good friend in a bad time during the last days, and he was more sorry to leave her than he would himself have believed. "Good-by," he said, "and thank you once more, with all my heart, for your friendship and kindness." Their hands remained clasped for a moment; then she took his arm again, and he led her out of the dimly-lighted sitting-room back among the brilliant dancers and the noise and the music and the whirling crowd. CHAPTER XIX. A change has come over Boston in four months, since John Harrington and Josephine Thorn parted. The breath of the spring has been busy everywhere, and the haze of the hot summer is ripening the buds that the spring has brought out. The trees on the Common are thick and heavy with foliage, the Public Garden is a carpet of bright flowers, and on the walls of Beacon Street the great creepers have burst into blossom and are stretching long shoots over the brown stone and the iron balconies. There is a smell of violets and flowers in the warm air, and down on the little pond the swan-shaped boats are paddling about with their cargoes of merry children and calico nursery-maids, while the Irish boys look on from the banks and throw pebbles when the policemen are not looking, wishing they had the spare coin necessary to embark for a ten minutes' voyage on the mimic sea. Unfamiliar figures wander through the streets of the West End, and more than half the houses show by the boarded windows and doors that the owners are out of town. The migration of the "tax-dodgers" took place on the last day of April; they will return on the second day of December, having spent just six months and one day in their country places, whereby they have shifted the paying of a large proportion of their taxes to more economical regions. It is a very equitable arrangement, for it is only the rich man who can save money in this way, while his poorer neighbor, who has no country-seat to which he may escape, must pay to the uttermost farthing. The system stimulates the impecunious to become wealthy and helps the rich to become richer. It is, therefore, perfectly good and just. But Boston is more beautiful in the absence of the "tax-dodger" than at any other season. There is a stillness and a peace over the fair city that one may long for in vain during the winter. Business indeed goes on without interruption, but the habitation of the great men of business knows them not. They come up from their cool bowers by the sea, in special trains, in steamers, and in yachts, every morning, and early in the afternoon they go back, so that all day long the broad streets at the west are quiet and deserted, and seem to be basking in the sunshine to recover from the combined strain of the bitter winter and the unceasing gayety that accompanies it. In the warm June weather Miss Schenectady and Joe still linger in town. The old lady has no new-fangled notions about taxes, and though she is rich and has a pretty place near Newport, she will not go there until she is ready, no, not for all the tax-gatherers in Massachusetts. As for Joe, she does not want to go away. Urgent letters come by every mail entreating her to return to England in time for a taste of the season in London, but they lie unanswered on her table, and often she does not read more than half of what they contain. The books and the letters accumulate in her room, and she takes no thought whether she reads them or not, for the time is weary on her hands and she only wishes it gone, no matter how. Nevertheless she will not go home, and she even begs her aunt not to leave Boston yet. She is paler than she was and her face looks thin. She says she is well and as strong as ever, but the elasticity is gone from her step, and the light has faded in her brown eyes, so that one might meet her in the street and hardly know her. As she sits by the window, behind the closed blinds, the softened light falls on her face, and it is sad and weary. It was not until John Harrington was gone that she realized all. He had received the message he expected early on the morning after that memorable parting, and before mid-day he was on his way. Since then she had heard no word of tidings concerning him, save that she knew he had arrived in England. For anything she knew he might even now be in America again, but she would not believe it. If he had come back he would surely have come to see her, she thought. There were times when she would have given all the world to look on his face again, but for the most part she said to herself it was far better that she should never see him. Where was the use? Joe was not of the women who have intimate confidants and can get rid of much sorrow by much talking about it. She was too proud and too strong to ask for help or sympathy in any real distress. She had gone to Sybil Brandon when she was about to tell Ronald of her decision, because she thought that Sybil would be kind to him and help him to forget the past; but where she herself was alone concerned, she would rather have died many deaths than confess what was in her heart. She had gone bravely through the remainder of the season, until all was over, and no one had guessed her disappointment. Such perfect physical strength as hers was not to be broken down by the effort of a few weeks, and still she smiled and talked and danced and kept her secret. But as the long months crawled out their tale of dreary days, the passion in her soul spread out great roots and grew fiercely against the will that strove to break it down. It was a love against which there was no appeal, which had taken possession silently and stealthily, with no outward show of wooing or sweet words; and then, safe within the fortress of her maidenly soul, it had grown up to a towering strength, feeding upon her whole life, and ruthlessly dealing with her as it would. But this love sought no confidence, nor help, nor assistance, being of itself utterly without hope, strong and despairing. One satisfaction only she had daily. She rejoiced that she had broken away from the old ties, from Ronald and from her English life. To have found herself positively loving one man while she was betrothed to another would have driven her to terrible extremity; the mere idea of going back to her mother and to the old life at home with this wild thought forever gnawing at her heart was intolerable. She might bear it to the end, whatever the end might be, and in silence, so long as none of her former associations made the contrast between past and present too strong. Old Miss Schenectady, with her books and her odd conversation, was as good a companion as any one, since she could not live alone. Sybil Brandon would have wearied her by her sympathy, gentle and loving as it would have been; and besides, Sybil was away from Boston and very happy; it would be unkind, as well as foolish, to disturb her serenity with useless confidences. And so the days went by and the hot summer was come, and yet Joe lingered in Boston, suffering silently and sometimes wondering how it would all end. Sybil was staying near Newport with her only surviving relation, an uncle of her mother. He was an old man, upward of eighty years of age, and he lived in a strange old place six or seven miles from the town. But Ronald had been there more than once, and he was always enthusiastic in his description of what he had seen, and he seemed particularly anxious that Joe should know how very happy Sybil was in her country surroundings. Ronald had traveled during the spring, making short journeys in every direction, and constantly talking of going out to see the West, a feat which he never accomplished. He would go away for a week at a time and then suddenly appear again, and at last had gravitated to Newport. Thence he came to town occasionally and visited Joe, never remaining more than a day, and sometimes only a few hours. Joe was indifferent to his comings and goings, but always welcomed him in a friendly way. She saw that he was amusing himself, and was more glad than ever that the relations formerly existing between them had been so opportunely broken off. He had never referred to the past since the final interview when Joe had answered him by bursting into tears, and he talked about the present cheerfully enough. One morning he arrived without warning, as usual, to make one of his short visits. Joe was sitting by the window dressed all in white, and the uniform absence of color in her dress rather exaggerated the pallor of her face than masked it. She was reading, apparently with some interest, in a book of which the dark-lined binding sufficiently declared the sober contents. As she read, her brows bent in the effort of understanding, while the warm breeze that blew through the blinds fanned her tired face and gently stirred the small stray ringlets of her soft brown hair. Ronald opened the door and entered. "Oh, Ronald!" exclaimed Joe, starting a little nervously, "have you come up? You look like the sunshine. Come in, and shut the door." He did as he was bidden, and came and sat beside her. "Yes, I nave come up for the day. How are you, Joe dear? You look pale. It is this beastly heat--you ought to come down to Newport for a month. It is utterly idiotic, you know, staying in town in this weather." "I like it," said Joe. "I like the heat so much that I think I should be cold in Newport. Tell me all about what you have been doing." "Oh, I hardly know," said Ronald. "Lots of things." "Tell me what you do in one day--yesterday, for instance. I want to be amused this morning." "It is not so very amusing, you know, but it is very jolly," answered Ronald. "To begin with, I get up at unholy hours and go and bathe in the surf at the second beach. There are no end of a a lot of people there even at that hour." "Yes, I dare say. And then?" "Oh, then I go home and dress: and later, if I do not ride, I go to the club--casino, I beg its pardon!--and play tennis. They play very decently, some of those fellows." "Are there any nice rides?" "Just along the roads, you know. But when you get out to Sherwood there are meadows and things--with a brook. That is very fair." "Do you still go to Sherwood often? How is Sybil?" "Yes," said Ronald, and a blush rose quickly to his face, "I often go there. It is such a queer old place, you know, full of trees and old summer-houses and graveyards--awfully funny." "Tell me, Ronald," said Joe, insisting a little, "how is Sybil?" "She looks very well, so I suppose she is. But she never goes to anything in Newport; she has not been in the town at all yet, since she went to stay with her uncle." "But of course lots of people go out to see her, do they not?" "Oh, well, not many. In fact I do not remember to have met any one there," answered Ronald, as though he were trying to recall some face besides Miss Brandon's. "Her uncle is such an odd bird, you have no idea." "I do not imagine you see very much of him when you go out there," said Joe, with a faint laugh. "Oh, I always see him, of course," said Ronald, blushing again. "He is about a hundred years old, and wears all kinds of clothes, and wanders about the garden perpetually. But I do not talk to him unless I am driven to it"-- "Which does not occur often," interrupted Joe. "Oh, well, I suppose not very often. Why should it?" Ronald was visibly embarrassed. Joe watched him with a look of amusement on her face; but affectionately, too, as though what he said pleased her as well as amused her. There was a short pause, during which Ronald rubbed his hat slowly and gently. Then he looked up suddenly and met Joe's eyes; but he turned away again instantly, blushing redder than ever. "Ronald," Joe said presently, "I am so glad." "Glad? Why? About what?" "I am glad that you like her, and that she likes you. I think you like her very much, Ronald." "Oh yes, very much," repeated Ronald, trying to seem indifferent. "Do you not feel as though we were much more like brother and sister now?" asked Joe, after a little while. "Oh, much!" assented Ronald. "I suppose it is better, too, though I did not think so at first." "It is far better," said Joe, laying her small, thin hand across her cousin's strong fingers and pressing them a little. "You are free now, and you will probably be very happy before long. Do you not think so?" she asked, looking affectionately into his eyes. "I hope so," said Ronald, with a last attempt at indifference. Then suddenly his face softened, and he added in a gentler tone, "Indeed, Joe, I think I shall be very happy soon." "I am so glad," said Joe again, still holding his hand, but leaning her head back wearily in the deep chair. "There is only one thing that troubles me." "What is that?" "That horrid will," said Joe. "I am sure we could get it altered in some way." "We never thought about it before, Joe. Why should we think about it now? It seems to me it is a very good will as things have turned out." "But, my dear boy," said Joe, "if you are married to Sybil Brandon, you will need ever so much money." Ronald blushed again. "I have not asked her to marry me," he said quickly. "That makes no difference at all," replied Joe. "As I was saying, when you have married her you will need money." "What an idea!" exclaimed Ronald, indignantly. "As if any one wanted to be rich in order to be happy. Besides, between what I have of my own, and my share of the money, there is nearly four thousand a year; and then there is the place in Lanarkshire for us to live in. As if that were not enough!" "It is not so very much, though," said Joe, reflecting. "I do not think Sybil has anything at all. You will be as poor as two little church mice; but I will come and stay with you sometimes," Joe added, laughing, "and help you about the bills." "The bills would take care of themselves," said Ronald, gravely. "They always do. But whatever happens, Joe, my home is always yours. You will always remember that, will you not?" "Dear Ronald," answered his cousin affectionately, "you are as good as it is possible to be--you really are." "Ronald," said Joe, after a pause, "I have an idea." He looked at her inquiringly, but said nothing. "I might," she continued, smiling at the thought--"I may go and marry first, you know, after all, and spoil it." "But you will not, will you? Promise me you will not." "I wish I could," said Joe, "and then you could have the money"-- "But I would not let you," interrupted Ronald. "I would go off and get married by license, and that sort of thing." "Without asking Miss Brandon?" suggested Joe. "Nonsense!" ejaculated Ronald, coloring for the twentieth time. "I think we are talking nonsense altogether," said Joe, seriously. "I do not think, indeed I am quite sure, I shall never marry." "How absurd!" cried Ronald. "The idea of your not marrying. It is perfectly ridiculous." The name of John Harrington was on his lips, but he checked himself. John was gone abroad, and with more than usual tact, Ronald reflected that, if Joe had really cared for the man, an allusion to him would be unkind. But Joe only shook her head, and let her cousin's words pass unanswered. She had long suspected, from Ronald's frequent allusions to Sybil, which were generally accompanied by some change of manner, that he was either already in love with the fair American girl, or that he soon would be, and the acknowledgment she had now received from himself gave her infinite pleasure. In her reflections upon her own conduct she had never blamed herself, but she had more than once thought that he was greatly to be pitied. To have married him six months ago, when she was fully conscious that she did not love him, would have been very wrong; and to have gone back at a later period, when she realized that her whole life was full of her love for John Harrington, would have been a crime. But in spite of that she was often very sorry for Ronald, and feared that she had hurt his happiness past curing. Now, therefore, when she saw how much he loved another, she was exceedingly glad, for she knew that the thing she had done had been wholly good, both for him and for her. They soon began to talk of other things, but the conversation fell back to the discussion of Newport, and Joe learned with some surprise that Pocock Vancouver assiduously cultivated Ronald's acquaintance, and was always ready to do anything in the world that Ronald desired. It appeared that Vancouver lent Ronald his horses at all times, and was apparently delighted when Ronald would take a mount and stay away all day. The young Englishman, of course, was not loath to accept such offers, having a radical and undisguised contempt for hired horseflesh, and as Sybil lived several miles out of town, it was far the most pleasant plan to ride out to her, and after spending the day there, to ride back in the evening, more especially as it cost him nothing. Joe was on the point of making some remark upon Vancouver, which would very likely have had the effect of cooling the intimacy between him and Ronald; but she thought better of it, and said nothing. Ronald had had no part in all the questions connected with John's election, and knew nothing of what Vancouver had done in the matter. It was better on many grounds not to stir up fresh trouble, and so long as Vancouver's stables afforded Ronald an easy and economical means of locomotion from Newport to the house of the woman he loved, the friendship that had sprung up was a positive gain. She could not understand the motives that prompted Vancouver in the least. He had made more than one attempt to regain his position with her after the direct cut he had sustained on the evening when she parted with John; but Joe had resolutely set her face against him. Possibly she thought Vancouver might hope to regain her good opinion by a regular system of kindness to Ronald; but it hardly seemed to her as though such a result would reward him for the pains of his diplomacy. Meanwhile it would be foolish of her to interfere with any intimacy which was of real use to Ronald in his suit. As a matter of fact, Vancouver was carrying out a deliberate plan, and one which was far from ill-conceived. He had not been so blind as not to suspect Joe's secret attachment for John, when she was willing to go to such lengths in her indignation against himself for being John's enemy. But he had disposed of John, as he thought, by assisting, if not actually causing, his defeat. He imagined that Harrington had gone abroad to conceal the mortification he felt at having lost the election, and he rightly argued that for some time Joe would not bestow a glance upon any one else. In the mean time, however, he was in possession of certain details concerning Joe's fortune which could be of use, and he accordingly set about encouraging Ronald's affections in any direction they might take, so long as they were not set upon his cousin. He was not surprised that Ronald should fall in love with Sybil, though he almost wished the choice could have fallen upon some one else, and accordingly he did everything in his power to make life in Newport agreeable for the young Englishman. It was convenient in some respects that the wooing should take place at so central a resort; but had the case been different, Vancouver would not have hesitated to go to Saratoga, Lenox, or Mount Desert, in the prosecution of his immediate purpose, which was to help Ronald to marry any living woman rather than let him return to England a bachelor. When Ronald should be married, Joe would be in possession of three quarters of her uncle's money--a very considerable fortune. If she was human, thought Vancouver, she would be eternally grateful to him for ridding her of her cousin, whom she evidently did not wish to marry, and for helping her thereby to so much wealth. He reflected that he had been unfortunate in the time when he had decided to be a candidate for her hand; but whatever turn affairs took, no harm was done to his own prospects by removing Ronald from the list of possible rivals. He was delighted at the preference Surbiton showed for Sybil Brandon, and in case Ronald hesitated, he reserved the knowledge he possessed of her private fortune as a final stimulus to his flagging affections. Hitherto it had not seemed necessary to acquaint his friend with the fact that Sybil had an income of some thirty thousand dollars yearly--indeed, no one seemed to know it, and she was supposed to be in rather straitened circumstances. As for his own chances with Joe, he had carefully hidden the tracks of his journalistic doings in the way he had at once proposed to himself when Joe attacked him on the subject. A gentleman had been found upon whom he had fastened the authorship of the articles in the public estimation, and the gentleman would live and die with the reputation for writing he had thus unexpectedly obtained. He had ascertained beyond a doubt that Joe knew nothing of his interview with Ballymolloy, and he felt himself in a strong position. Pocock Vancouver had for years taken an infinite amount of pains in planning and furthering his matrimonial schemes. He was fond of money; but in a slightly less degree he was fond of all that is beautiful and intelligent in woman; so that his efforts to obtain for himself what he considered a perfect combination of wit, good looks, and money, although ineffectual, had occupied a great deal of his spare time very agreeably. CHAPTER XX. Sherwood was a very old place. It had been built a hundred years at least before the Revolution in the days when the States had English governors, and when its founder had been governor of Rhode Island. His last descendant in the direct line was Sybil Brandon's great-uncle. The old country-seat was remarkable chiefly for the extent of the gardens attached to the house, and for the singularly advanced state of dilapidation in which everything was allowed to remain. Beyond the gardens the woods stretched down to the sea, unpruned and thick with a heavy undergrowth; from the road the gardens were hidden by thick hedges, and by the forbidding gray front of the building. It was not an attractive place to look at, and once within the precincts there was a heavy sense of loneliness and utter desolation, that seemed to fit it for the very home of melancholy. The damp sea air had drawn green streaks of mould downwards from each several jointing of the stones; the long-closed shutters of some of the windows were more than half hidden by creepers, bushy and straggling by turns, and the eaves were all green with moss and mould. From the deep-arched porch at the back a weed-grown gravel walk led away through untrimmed hedges of box and myrtle to an ancient summer-house on the edge of a steep slope of grass. To right and left of this path, the rose-trees and box that had once marked the gayest of flower gardens now grew in such exuberance of wild profusion that it would have needed strong arms and a sharp axe to cut a way through. Far away on a wooded knoll above the sea was the old graveyard, where generations of Sherwoods lay dead in their quiet rest, side by side. But for a space in every year the desolation was touched with the breath of life, and the sweet June air blew away the mould and the smell of death, and the wild flowers and roses sprang up joyfully in the wilderness to greet the song-birds and the butterflies of summer. And in this copious year a double spring had come to Sherwood, for Sybil Brandon had arrived one day, and her soft eyes and golden hair had banished all sadness and shadow from the old place. Even the thin old man, who lived there among the ghosts and shadows of the dead and dying past, smoothed the wrinkles from his forehead, forgetting to long selfishly for his own death, when Sybil came; and with touching thoughtfulness he strove to amuse her, and to be younger for her sake. He found old garments of a gayer time, full thirty years hidden away in the great wardrobes up-stairs, and he put them on and wore them, though they hung loosely about his shaken and withered frame, lest he should be too sad a thing for such young eyes to look upon. Then Ronald came one day, and the old man took kindly to him, and bade him come often. In the innocence of his old age it seemed good that what youth and life there was in the world should come together; and Ronald treated him with a deference and respect to which he had long been unused. Moreover, Ronald accepted the invitation given him and came as often as he pleased, which, before long, meant every day. When he came in the morning he generally stayed until the evening, and when he came in the afternoon he always stayed as long as Sybil would let him, and rode home late through the misty June moonlight pondering on the happiness the world had suddenly brought forth for him who had supposed, but a few months ago, that all happiness was at an end. Six months had gone by since Ronald had first seen Sybil, and he had changed in that time from boy to man. Looking back through the past years he knew that he was glad Joe had not married him, for the new purpose of his new life was to love and marry Sybil Brandon. There was no doubt in his mind as to what he would do; the strong nature in him was at last roused, and he was capable of anything in reason or without it to get what he wanted. Some one has said that an Englishman's idea of happiness is to find something he can kill and to hunt it. That is a metaphor as well as a fact. It may take an Englishman half a lifetime to find out what he wants, but when he is once decided he is very likely to get it, or to die in the attempt. The American is fond of trying everything until he reaches the age at which Americans normally become dyspeptic, and during his comparatively brief career he succeeds in experiencing a surprising variety of sensations. Both Americans and English are tenacious in their different ways, and it is certain that between them they have gotten more things that they have wanted than any other existing nation. What most surprised Ronald was that, having made up his mind to marry Sybil, he should not have had the opportunity, or perhaps the courage, to tell her so. He remembered how easily he had always been able to speak to Joe about matrimony, and he wondered why it should be so hard to approach the subject with one whom he loved infinitely more dearly than he had ever loved his cousin. But love brings tact and the knowledge of fitness, besides having the effect of partially hiding the past and exaggerating the future into an eternity of rose-colored happiness; wherefore Ronald supposed that everything would come right in time, and that the time for everything to come right could not possibly be very far off. On the day after he had seen Joe in Boston he rode over to Sherwood in the morning, as usual, upon one of Vancouver's horses. He was lighter at heart than ever, for he had somewhat dreaded the revelation of his intentions to Joe; but she had so led him on and helped him that it had all seemed very easy. He was not long in reaching his destination, and having put his horse in the hands of the single man who did duty as gardener, groom, and dairyman for old Mr. Sherwood, he entered the garden, where he hoped to meet Sybil alone. He was not disappointed, for as he walked down the path through the wilderness of shrubbery he caught sight of her near the summer-house, stooping down in the act of plucking certain flowers that grew there. She, too, was dressed all in white, as he had seen his cousin on the previous day; but the difference struck him forcibly as he came up and took her outstretched hand. They had changed places and character, one could almost have thought. Joe had looked so tired and weary, so "wilted," as they say in Boston, that it had shocked Ronald to see her. Sybil, who had formerly been so pale and cold, now was the very incarnation of life; delicate and exquisitely fine in every movement and expression, but most thoroughly alive. The fresh soft color seemed to float beneath the transparent skin, and her deep eyes were full of light and laughter and sunshine. Ronald's heart leaped in his breast for love and pride as she greeted him, and his brow turned hot and his hands cold in the confusion of his happiness. "You have been away again?" she asked presently, looking down at the wild white lilies which she had been gathering. "Yes, I was in Boston yesterday," answered Ronald, who had immediately begun to help in plucking the flowers. "I went to see Joe. She looks dreadfully knocked up with the heat, poor child." And so they talked about Joe and Boston for a little while, and Sybil sat upon the steps of the summer-house on the side where there was shade from the hot morning sun, while Ronald brought her handfuls of the white lilies. At last there were enough, and he came and stood before her. She was so radiantly lovely as she sat in the warm shade with the still slanting sunlight just falling over her white dress, he thought her so super-humanly beautiful that he stood watching her without thinking of speaking or caring that she should speak to him. She looked up and smiled, a quick bright smile, for she was woman enough to know his thoughts. But she busied herself with the lilies and looked down again. "Let me help you," said Ronald suddenly, kneeling down before her on the path. "I don't think you can--very much," said Sybil, demurely. "You are not very clever about flowers, you know. Oh, take care! You will crush it--give it back to me!" Ronald had taken one of the lilies and was smelling it, but it looked to Sybil very much as though he were pressing it to his lips. He would not give it back, but held it away at arm's length as he knelt. Sybil made as though she were annoyed. "Of course," said she, "I cannot take it, if you will not give it to me." Ronald gently laid the flower in her lap with the others. She pretended to take no notice of what he did, but went on composing her nosegay. "Miss Brandon"--began Ronald, and stopped. "Well?" said Sybil, without looking up. "May I tell you something?" he asked. "That depends," said Sybil. "Is it anything very interesting?" "Yes," said Ronald. There seemed to be something the matter with his throat all at once, as though he were going to choke. Sybil looked up and saw that he was very pale. She had never seen him otherwise than ruddy before, and she was startled; she dropped the lilies on her knees and looked at him anxiously. Ronald suddenly laid his hands over hers and held them. Still she faced him. "I am very unworthy of you--I know I am-but I love you very, very much." He spoke distinctly enough now, and slowly. He was as white as marble, and his fingers were cold, and trembled as they held hers. For an instant after he had spoken, Sybil did not move. Then she quietly drew back her hands and hid her face in a sudden, convulsive movement. She, too, trembled, and her heart beat as though it would break; but she said nothing. Ronald sprang from the ground and kneeled again upon the step beside her; very gently his arm stole about her and drew her to him. She took one hand from her face and tried to disentangle his hold, but he held her strongly, and whispered in her ear,-- "Sybil, I love you--do you love me?" Sybil made a struggle to rise, but it was not a very brave struggle, and in another moment she had fallen into his arms and was sobbing out her whole love passionately. "Oh, Ronald, you mu--must not!" But Ronald did. Half an hour later they were still sitting side by side on the steps, but the storm of uncertainty was passed, and they had plighted their faith for better and for worse, for this world and the next. Ronald had foreseen the event, and had hoped for it as he never had hoped for anything in his life; Sybil had perhaps guessed it; at all events, now that the supreme moment was over, they both felt that it was the natural climax to all that had happened during the spring. "I think," said Sybil, quietly, "that we ought to tell my uncle at once. He is the only relation I have in the world." "Oh yes, of course," said Ronald, holding her hand. "That is, you know, I think we might tell him after lunch. Because I suppose it would not be the right thing for me to stay all day after he knows. Would it?" "Why not?" asked Sybil. "He must know it soon, and you will come to-morrow." "To-morrow, and the next day, and the day after that, and always," said Ronald, lovingly. "But he will not like it, I suppose." "Why not?" asked Sybil, again. "Because I am poor," said Ronald, quietly. "You know I am not rich at all, Sybil dearest. We shall have to be very economical, and live on the place in Scotland. But it is a very pretty place," he added, reassuringly. Sybil flushed a little. He did not know, then, that she had a fortune of her own. It was a new pleasure. She did not say anything for a moment. "Do you mind very much, dearest?" asked Ronald, doubtfully. "Do you think it would bore you dreadfully to live in the country?" Sybil hesitated before she answered. She hardly knew whether to tell him or not, but at last she decided it would be better. "No, Ronald," said she, smiling a little; "I like the country. But, you know, we can live anywhere we please. I am rich, Ronald--you did not know it?" Ronald started slightly. It was indeed an unexpected revelation. "Really?" he cried. "Oh, I am so glad for you. You will not miss anything, then. I was so afraid." That evening Ronald telegraphed to Joe the news of his engagement, and the next day he wrote her a long letter, which was more remarkable for the redundant passion expressed than for the literary merit of the expression. It seemed far easier to write it since he had seen her and talked with her about Sybil, not because he felt in the least ashamed of having fallen in love within six months of the dissolution of his former engagement with Joe, but because it seemed a terribly difficult thing to speak to any one about Sybil. Ronald was very far from being poetical, or in any way given to lofty and medieval reflections of the chivalric sort, but he was a very honest fellow, loving for the first time, and he understood that his love was something more to be guarded and respected than anything that had yet come into his life; wherefore it seemed almost ungentlemanly to speak about it. When Joe received the intelligence her satisfaction knew no bounds, for although she had guessed that the climax of the affair was not far off, she had not expected it so very soon. Had she searched through the whole of her acquaintance at home and in America she could have found no one whom she considered more fit to be Ronald's wife, and that alone was enough to make her very happy; but the sensation of freedom from all further responsibility to Ronald, and the consciousness that every possible good result had followed upon her action, added so much to her pleasure in the matter, that for a time she utterly forgot herself and her own troubles. She instantly wrote a long and sympathetic letter to Ronald, and another to Sybil. Sybil replied at once, begging Joe to come and spend a month at Sherwood, or as much time as she was able to give. "I expect you had best go," remarked Miss Schenectady. "It is getting pretty hot here, and you look quite sick." "Oh no, I am very well," said Joe; "but I think I will go for a week or ten days." "Well, if you find you are going to have a good time, you can always stay, any way," replied the old lady. "I think if I were you I would take some books and a Bible and a pair of old boots." Miss Schenectady did not smile, but Joe laughed outright. "A Bible and a pair of old boots!" she cried. "Yes, I would," said her aunt. "Old Tom Sherwood cannot have seen a Bible for fifty years, I expect, and it might sort of freshen him up." The old lady's eye twinkled slightly and the corners of her mouth twitched a little. "As for the old boots, if you conclude to go, you will want them, for you will be right out in the country there." Joe laughed again, but she took her aunt's advice; and on the following day she reached Newport, and was met by Sybil and Ronald, who conveyed her to Sherwood in a thing which Joe learned was called a "carryall." Late in the afternoon, when Ronald was gone, the two girls sat in an angle of the old walls, looking over the sea to eastward. The glow of the setting sun behind them touched them softly, and threw a rosy color upon Joe's pale face, and gilded Sybil's bright hair, hovering about her brows in a halo of radiant glory. Joe looked at her and wondered at the change love had wrought in so short a time. Sybil had once seemed so cold and white that only a nun's veil could be a fit thing to bind upon her saintly head; but now the orange blossoms would look better there, Joe thought, twined in a bride's wreath of white and green, of purity and hope. "My Snow Angel," she exclaimed, "the sun has melted you at last!" "Tell me the story of the Snow Angel," said Sybil, smiling. "You once said that you would." "I will tell you," said Joe, "as well I can remember it. Mamma used to tell it to me years and years ago, when I was quite a small thing. It is a pretty story. Listen." "Once on a time, far away in the north, there lived an angel. She was very, very beautiful, and all of the purest snow, quite white, her face and her hands and her dress and her wings. She lived alone, ever so far away, all through the long winter, in a valley of beautiful snow, where the sun never shone even in the summer. She was the most lovely angel that ever was, but she was so cold that she could not fly at all, and so she waited in the valley, always looking southward and wishing with all her heart that the sun would rise above the hill. "Sometimes people passed, far down below, in sledges, and she almost would have asked some one of them to take her out of the valley. But once, when she came near the track, a man came by and saw her, and he was so dreadfully frightened that he almost fell out of the sled. "Sometimes, too, the little angels, who were young and curious, would fly down into the cold valley and look at her and speak to her. "'Pretty angel,' they would say, 'why do you stay all alone in this dreary place?' "'They forgot me here,' she used to answer, 'and now I cannot fly until the sun is over the hill. But I am very happy. It will soon come.' "It was too cold for the little angels, and so they soon flew away and left her; and they began to call her the Snow Angel among themselves, and some of them said she was not real, but the other ones said she must be, because she was so beautiful. She was not unhappy, because angels never can be, you know; only it seemed a long time to wait for the sun to come. "But at last the sun heard of her, and the little angels who had seen her told him it was a shame that he should not rise high enough to warm her and help her to fly. So, as he is big and good-natured and strong, he said he would try, and would do his best; and on midsummer's day he determined to make a great effort. He shook himself, and pushed and struggled very hard, and got hotter than he had ever been in his whole life with his exertions, but at last, with a great brave leap, he found himself so high that he could see right down into the valley, and he saw the Snow Angel standing there, and she was so beautiful that he almost cried with joy. And then, as he looked, he saw a very wonderful sight. "The Snow Angel, all white and glistening, looked up into the sun's face and stretched her arms towards him and trembled all over; and as she felt that he was come at last and had begun to warm her, she thrust out her delicate long wings, and they gleamed and shone and struck the cold clear air. Then the least possible tinge of exquisite color came into her face, and she opened her lips and sang for joy; and presently, as she was singing, she rose straight upward with a rushing sound, like a lark in the sunlight, the whitest and purest and most beautiful angel that ever flew in the sky. And her voice was so grand and clear and ringing, that all the other angels stopped in their songs to listen, and then sang with her in joy because the Snow Angel was free at last. "That is the story mamma used to tell me, long ago, and when I first saw you I thought of it, because you were so cold and beautiful that you seemed all made of snow. But now the sun is over the hill, Sybil dear, is it not?" "Dear Joe," said Sybil, winding her arm round her friend's neck and laying her face close to hers, "you are so nice." The sun sank suddenly behind them, and all the eastern water caught the purple glow. It was dark when the two girls walked slowly back to the old house. Joe stayed many days with Sybil at Sherwood, and the days ran into weeks and the weeks to months as the summer sped by. Ronald came and went daily, spending long hours with Sybil in the garden, and growing more manly and quiet in his happiness, while Sybil grew ever fairer in the gradual perfecting of her beauty. It was comforting to Joe to see them together, knowing what honest hearts they were. She occupied herself as she could with books and a few letters, but she would often sit for hours in a deep chair under the overhanging porch, where the untrimmed honeysuckle waved in the summer breeze like a living curtain, and the birds would come and swing themselves upon its tendrils. But Joe's cheek was always pale, and her heart weary with longing and with fighting against the poor imprisoned love that no one must ever guess. CHAPTER XXI. The wedding-day was fixed for the middle of August, and the ceremony was to take place in Newport. It is not an easy matter to arrange the marriage of two young people neither of whom has father or mother, though their subsequent happiness is not likely to suffer much by the bereavement. It was agreed, however, that Mrs. Wyndham, who was Sybil's oldest friend, should come and stay at Sherwood until everything was finished; and she answered the invitation by saying she was "perfectly wild to come,"--and she came at once. Uncle Tom Sherwood was a little confused at the notion of having his house full of people; but Sybil had been amusing herself by reorganizing the place for some time back, and there is nothing easier than to render a great old-fashioned country mansion habitable for a few days in the summer, when carpets are useless and smoking chimneys are not a necessity. Mrs. Wyndham said that Sam would come down for the wedding and stay over the day, but that she expected he was pretty busy just now. "By the way," she remarked, "you know John Harrington has come home. We must send him an invitation." The three ladies were walking in the garden after breakfast, hatless and armed with parasols. Joe started slightly, but no one noticed it. "When did he come--where has he been all this time?" asked Sybil. "Oh, I do not know. He came down to see Sam the other day at our place. He seems to have taken to business. They talked about the Monroe doctrine and the Panama canal, and all kinds of things. Sam says somebody has died and left him money. Anyway, he seems a good deal interested in the canal." Mrs. Wyndham chatted on, planning with Sybil the details of the wedding. The breakfast was to be at Sherwood, and there were not to be many people. Indeed, the distance would keep many away, a fact for which no one of those principally concerned was at all sorry. John Harrington, sweltering in the heat of New York, and busier than he had ever been in his life, received an engraved card to the effect that Mr. Thomas Sherwood requested the pleasure of Mr. Harrington's company at the marriage of his grandniece, Miss Sybil Brandon, to Mr. Ronald Surbiton, at Sherwood, on the 15th of August. There was also a note from Mrs. Wyndham, saying that she was staying at Sherwood, and that she hoped John would be able to come. John had, of course, heard of the engagement, but he had not suspected that the wedding would take place so soon. In spite of his business, however, he determined to be present. A great change had come over his life since he had bid Joe good-by six months earlier. He had been called to London as he had expected, and had arrived there to find that Z was dead, and that he was to take his place in the council. The fiery old man had died very suddenly, having worked almost to his last hour, in spite of desperate illness; but when it was suspected that his case was hopeless, John Harrington was warned that he must be ready to join the survivors at once. In the great excitement, and amidst the constant labor of his new position, the past seemed to sink away to utter insignificance. His previous exertions, the short sharp struggle for the senatorship ending in defeat, the hopes and fears of ten years of a most active life, were forgotten and despised in the realization of what he had so long and so ardently desired, and now at last he saw that his dreams were no impossibility, and that his theories were not myths. But he knew also that, with all his strength and devotion and energy, he was as yet no match for the two men with whom he had to do. Their vast experience of men and things threw his own knowledge into the shade, and cool as he was in emergencies, he recognized that the magnitude of the matters they handled astonished and even startled him more than he could have believed possible. Years must elapse before he understood what seemed as plain as the day to them, and he must fight many desperate battles before he was their equal. But the determination to devote his life wholly and honestly to the one object for which a man should live had grown stronger than ever. In his exalted view the ideal republic assumed grand and noble proportions, and already overshadowed the whole earth with the glory of honor and peace and perfect justice. Before the advancing tide of a spotless civilization, all poverty, all corruption and filthiness, all crime, all war and corroding seeds of discord were swept utterly away and washed from the world, to leave only forever and ever the magnificent harmony of nations and peoples, wherein none of those vile, base, and wicked things should even be dreamed of, or so much as remembered. He thought of Joe sometimes, wondering rather vaguely why she had acted as she had, and whether any other motive than pure sympathy with his work had made her resent so violently Vancouver's position towards him. It was odd, he thought, that an English girl should find such extreme interest in American political doings, and then the scene in the dim sitting-room during the ball came vividly back to his memory. It was not in his nature to fancy that every woman who was taken with a fit of coughing was in love with him, but the conviction formed itself in his mind that he might possibly have fallen in love with Joe if things had been different. As it was, he had put away such childish things, and meant to live out his years of work, with their failure or success, without love and without a wife. He would always be grateful to Joe, but that would be all, and he would be glad to see her whenever an opportunity offered, just as he would be glad to see any other friend. In this frame of mind he arrived in Newport on the morning of the wedding, and reached the little church among the trees just in time to witness the ceremony. It was not different from other weddings, excepting perhaps that the place where the High Church portion of Newport elects to worship is probably smaller than any other consecrated building in the world. Every seat was crowded, and it was with difficulty that John could find standing room just within the door. The heat was intense, and the horses that stood waiting in the avenue, sweated in the sun as they fought the flies, and pawed the hard road in an agony of impatience. Sybil was exquisitely lovely as she went by on old Mr. Sherwood's arm. The old gentleman had consented to assume a civilized garb for once in his life, and looked pleased with his aged self, as well he might be, seeing that the engagement had been made under his roof. Then Ronald passed, paler than usual, but certainly the handsomest man present, carrying himself with a new dignity, as though he knew himself a better man than ever in being found worthy of his beautiful bride. It was soon over, and the crowd streamed out after the bride and bridegroom. "Hallo, Harrington, how are you?" said Vancouver, overtaking John as he turned into the road. "You had better get in with me and drive out. I have not seen you for an age." John stood still and surveyed Vancouver with a curiously calm air of absolute superiority. "Thank you very much," he answered civilly. "I have hired a carriage to take me there. I dare say we shall meet. Good-morning." John had been to Sherwood some years before, but he was surprised at the change that had been wrought in honor of the marriage. The place looked inhabited, the windows were all open, and the paths had been weeded, though Sybil had not allowed the wild shrubbery to be pruned nor the box hedges to be trimmed. She loved the pathless confusion of the old grounds, and most of all she loved the dilapidated summer-house. John shook hands with many people that he knew. Mrs. Wyndham led him aside a little way. "Is it not just perfectly splendid?" she exclaimed. "They are so exactly suited to each other. I feel as if I had done it all. You are not at all enthusiastic." "On the contrary," said John, "I am very enthusiastic. It is the best thing that could possibly have happened." "Then go and do likewise," returned Mrs. Sam, laughing. Then she changed her tone. "There is a young lady here who will be very glad to see you. Go and try and cheer her up a little, can't you?" "Who is that?" "A young lady over there--close to Sybil-dressed in white with roses. Don't you see? How stupid you are! There--the second on the left." "Do you mean to say that is Miss Thorn?" exclaimed John in much surprise, and looking where Mrs. Sam directed him. "Good Heavens! How she has changed!" "Yes, she has changed a good deal," said Mrs. Wyndham, looking at John's face. "I hardly think I should have known her," said John. "She must have been very ill; what has been the matter?" "The matter? Well, perhaps if you will go and speak to her, you will see what the matter is," answered Mrs. Sam, enigmatically. "What do you mean?" John looked at his companion in astonishment. "I mean just exactly what I say. Go and talk to her, and cheer her up a little." She dropped her voice, and spoke close to Harrington's ear--"No one else in the world can," she added. John's impulse was to answer Mrs. Wyndham sharply. What possible right could she have to say such things? It was extremely bad taste, if it was nothing worse, even with an old friend like John. But he checked the words on his lips and spoke coldly. "It is not fair to say things like that about any girl," he answered. "I will certainly go and speak to her at once, and if you will be good enough to watch, you will see that I am the most indifferent of persons in her eyes." "Very well, I will watch," said Mrs. Wyndham, not in the least disconcerted. "Only take care." John smiled quietly, and made his way through the crowd of gaily-dressed, laughing people to here Joe was standing. She had not yet caught sight of him, but she knew he was in the room, and she felt very nervous. She intended to treat him with friendly coolness, as a protest against her conduct in former days. Poor Joe! she was very miserable, but she had made a brave effort. Her pale cheeks and darkened eyes contrasted painfully with the roses she wore, and her short nervous remarks to those who spoke to her sounded very unlike her former self. "How do you do, Miss Thorn?" John said, very quietly. "It is a long time since we met." Joe put her small cold hand in his, and it trembled so much that John noticed it. She turned her head a little away from him, frightened now that he was at last come. "Yes," she said in a low voice, "it is a long time." She felt herself turn red and then pale, and as she looked away from John she met Mrs. Wyndham's black eyes turned full upon her in an inquiring way. She started as though she had been caught in some wrong thing; but she was naturally brave, and after the first shock she spoke to John more naturally. "We seem destined for festivities, Mr. Harrington," she said, trying to laugh. "We parted at a ball, and we meet again at a wedding." "It is always more gay to meet than to part," answered John. "I think this is altogether one of the gayest things I ever saw. What a splendid fellow your cousin is. It does one good to see men like that." "Yes, Ronald is very good-looking," said Joe. "I am so very glad, you do not know; and he is so happy." "Any man ought to be who marries such a woman," said John. "By the bye," he added with a smile, "Vancouver takes it all very comfortably, does he not? I would like to know what he really feels." "I am sure that whatever it is, it is something bad," said Joe. "How you hate him!" exclaimed John with a laugh. "I--I do not hate him. But you ought to, Mr. Harrington. I simply despise him, that is all." "No, I do not hate him either," answered John. "I would not disturb my peace of mind for the sake of hating any one. It is not worth while." Some one came and spoke to Joe, and John moved away in the crowd, more disturbed in mind than he cared to acknowledge. He had gone to Joe's side in the firm conviction that Mrs. Wyndham was only making an untimely jest, and that Joe would greet him indifferently. Instead she had blushed, turned paler, hesitated in her speech, and had shown every sign of confusion and embarrassment. He knew that Mrs. Wyndham was right, after all, and he avoided her, not wishing to give a fresh opportunity for making remarks upon Joe's manner. The breakfast progressed, and the people wandered out into the garden from the hot rooms, seeking some coolness in the shady walks. By some chain of circumstances which John could not explain, he found himself left alone with Joe an hour after he had first met her in the house. A little knot of acquaintances had gone out to the end of one of the walks, where there was a shady old bower, and presently they had paired off and moved away in various directions, leaving John and Joe together. The excitement had brought the faint color to the girl's face at last, and she was more than usually inclined to talk, partly from nervous embarrassment, and partly from the enlivening effect of so many faces she had not seen for so long. "Tell me," she said, pulling a leaf from the creepers and twisting it in her fingers--"tell me, how long was it before you forgot your disappointment about the election? Or did you think it was not worth while to disturb your peace of mind for anything so trivial?" "I suppose I could not help it," said John. "I was dreadfully depressed at first. I told you so, do you remember?" "Of course you were, and I was very sorry for you. I told you you would lose it, long before, but you do not seem to care in the least now. I do not understand you at all." "I soon got over it," said John. "I left Boston on the day after I saw you, and went straight to London. And then I found that a friend of mine was dead, and I had so much to do that I forgot everything that had gone before." Joe gave a little sigh, short and sharp, and quickly checked. "You have a great many friends, have you not?" she said. "Yes, very many. A man cannot have too many of the right sort." "I do not think you and I mean the same thing by friendship," said Joe. "I should say one cannot have too few." "I mean friends who will help you at the right moment, that is, when you ask help. Surely it must be good to have many." "Everything that you do and say always turns to one and the same end," said Joe, a little impatiently. "The one thing you live for is power and the hope of power. Is there nothing in the world worth while save that?" "Power itself is worth nothing. It is the thing one means to get with it that is the real test." "Of course. But tell me, is anything you can obtain by all the power the world holds better than the simple happiness of natural people, who are born and live good lives, and--fall in love, and marry, and that sort of thing, and are happy, and die?" Joe looked down and turned the leaf she held in her fingers, as she stated her proposition. John Harrington paused before he answered. A moment earlier he had been as calm and cold as he was wont to be; now, he suddenly hesitated. The strong blood rushed to his brain and beat furiously in his temples, and then sank heavily back to his heart, leaving his face very pale. His fingers wrung each other fiercely for a moment. He looked away at the trees; he turned to Josephine Thorn; and then once more he gazed at the dark foliage, motionless in the hot air of the summer's afternoon. "Yes," he said, "I think there are things much better than those in the world." But his voice shook strangely, and there was no true ring in it. Joe sighed again. In the distance she could see Ronald and Sybil, as they stood under the porch shaking hands with the departing guests. She looked at them, so radiant and beautiful with the fulfilled joy of a perfect love, and she looked at the stern, strong man by her side, whose commanding face bore already the lines of care and trouble, and who, he said, had found something better than the happiness of yonder bride and bridegroom. She sighed, and she said in her woman's heart that they were right, and that John Harrington was wrong. "Come," she said, rising, and her words had a bitter tone, "let us go in; it is late." John did not move. He sat like a stone, paler than death, and said no word in answer. Joe turned and looked at him, as though wondering why he did not follow her. She was terrified at the expression in his face. "Are you not coming?" she asked, suddenly going close to him and looking into his eyes. CHAPTER XXII. Joe was frightened; she stood and looked into Harrington's eyes, doubting what she should do, not understanding what was occurring. He looked so pale and strange as he sat there, that she was terrified. She came a step nearer to him, and tried to speak. "What is the matter, Mr. Harrington?" she stammered. "Speak--you frighten me!" Harrington looked at her for one moment more, and then, without speaking, buried his face in his hands. Joe clasped her hands to her side in a sudden pain; her heart beat as though it would break, and the scene swam round before her in the hot air. She tried to move another step towards the bench, and her strength almost failed her; she caught at the lattice of the old summer-house, still pressing one hand to her breast. The rotten slabs of the wood-work cracked under her light weight. She breathed hard, and her face was as pale as the shadows on driven snow; in another moment she sank down upon the bench beside John, and sat there, staring vacantly out at the sunlight. Harrington felt her gentle presence close to him and at last looked up; every feature of his strong face seemed changed in the convulsive fight that rent his heart and soul to their very depths; the enormous strength of his cold and dominant nature rose with tremendous force to meet and quell the tempest of his passion, and could not; dark circles made heavy shadows under his deep-set eyes, and his even lips, left colorless and white, were strained upon his clenched teeth. "God help me--I love you." That was all he said, but in his words the deep agony of a mortal struggle rang strangely--the knell of the old life and the birth-chime of the new. One by one, the words he had never thought to speak fell from his lips, distinctly; the oracle of the heart answered the great question of fate in its own way. Josephine Thorn sat by his side, her hands lying idly in her lap, her thin white face pressing against the old brown lattice, while a spray of the sweet honeysuckle that climbed over the wood-work just touched her bright brown hair. As John spoke she tried to lift her head and struggled to put out her hand, but could not. As the shadows steal at evening over the earth, softly closing the flowers and touching them to sleep, silently and lovingly, in the promise of a bright waking--so, as she sat there, her eyelids drooped and the light faded gently from her face, her lips parted a very little, and with a soft-breathed sigh she sank into unconsciousness. John Harrington was in no state to be surprised or startled by anything that happened. He saw, indeed, that she had fainted, but with the unerring instinct of a great love he understood. With the tenderness of his strength he put one arm about her, and drew her to him till her fair head rested upon his shoulder, and he looked into her face. In a few moments he had passed completely from the old life to a life which he had never believed possible, but which had nevertheless been long present with him. He knew it and felt it, quickly realizing that for the first time since he could remember he was wholly and perfectly happy. He was a man who had dreamed of all that is noble and great for man to do, who had consecrated his every hour and minute to the attainment of his end; and though his aim was in itself a good one, the undivided concentration which the pursuit of it required had driven him into a state outwardly resembling extreme egotism. He had loved his own purposes as he had loved nothing else, and as he had been persuaded that he could love nothing else, in the whole world. Now, suddenly, he knew his own heart. There is something beyond mere greatness, beyond the pursuit of even the highest worldly aims; there is something which is not a means to the attainment of happiness, which is happiness itself. It is an inner sympathy of hearts and souls and minds, a perfect union of all that is most worthy in the natures of man and woman; it is a plant so sensitive that a breath of unkindness will hurt it and blight its beauty, and yet it is a tree so strong that neither time nor tempest can overthrow it when it has taken root; and if you would tear it out and destroy it, the place where it grew is as deep and as wide as a grave. It is a bond that is as soft as silk and as strong as death, binding hearts, not hands; so long as it is not strained a man will hardly know that he is bound, but if he would break it he will spend his strength in vain and suffer the pains of hell, for it is the very essence and nature of a true love that it cannot be broken. With such men as John Harrington love at first sight is an utter impossibility. The strong dominant aspirations that lead them are a light too brilliant to be outshone by any sudden flash of hot passion. Love, when it comes to them, is of slow growth, but enduring in the same proportion as it is slow; identifying itself, by degrees so small that a man himself is unconscious of it, with the deepest feelings of the heart and the highest workings of the intellect. It steals silently into the soul in the guise of friendship, asking nothing but loyal friendship in return; in the appearance of kindness which asks but a little gratitude; in the semblance of a calm and passionless trustfulness, demanding only a like trust as its equivalent pledge, a like faith as a gauge for its own, an equal measure of charity for an equal; and so love builds himself a temple of faith and charity, and trust and kindness, and honest friendship, and rejoices exceedingly in the whole goodness and strength and beauty of the place where he will presently worship. When that day comes he stands in the midst and kindles a strong clear flame upon the altar, and the fire burns and leaps and illuminates the whole temple of love, which is indeed the holy of holies of the temple of life. John Harrington, through five and thirty years of his life, had believed that the patient labor of a powerful intellect could suffice to a man, in its results, for the attainment of all that humanity most honors, even for the wise and unerring government of humanity itself. To that end and in that belief he had honestly given every energy he possessed, and had sternly choked down every tendency he felt in his inner nature toward a life less intellectual and more full of sympathy for the affairs of individual mankind. With him to be strong was to be cold--to be warm was to be weak and subject to error; a supreme devotion to his career and a supreme disdain of all personal affections were the conditions of success which he deemed foremostly necessary, and he had come to an almost superstitious belief in the idea that the love of woman is the destruction of the intellectual man. Himself ready to sacrifice all he possessed, and to spend his last strength in the struggle for an ideal, he had nevertheless so identified his own person with the object he strove to attain that he regarded all the means he could possibly control with as much jealousy as though he had been the most selfish of men. Friends he looked upon as tools for his trade, and he valued them not only in proportion to their honesty and loyalty of heart, but also in the degree of their power and intelligence. He sought no friendships which could not help him, and relinquished none that could be of service in the future. But the world is not ruled by intellect, though it is sometimes governed by brute force and yet more brutal passions. The dominant power in the affairs of men is the heart. Humanity is moved far more by what it feels than by what it knows, and those who would be rulers of men must before all things be men themselves, and not merely highly finished intellectual machines. The guests were gone, no one had missed Harrington and Joe, and Ronald and Sybil had gone into the house. They sat side by side in the little bower at the end of the long walk--Joe's fair head resting in her unconsciousness upon John's shoulder. Presently she stirred, and opening her eyes, looked up into his face. She drew gently away from him, and a warm blush spread quickly over her pale cheek; she glanced down at her small white hands and they clasped each other convulsively. John looked at her; suddenly his gray eyes grew dark and deep, and the mighty passion took all his strength into its own, so that he trembled and turned pale again. But the words failed him no longer now. He knew in a moment all that he had to say, and he said it. "You must not be angry with me, Miss Thorn," he began, "you must not think I am losing my head. Let me tell you now--perhaps you will listen to me. God knows, I am not worthy to say such things to you, but I will try to be. It is soon said. I love you; I can no more help loving you than I can help breathing. You have utterly changed me, and saved me, and made a life for me out of what was not life at all. Do not think it is sudden--what is really to last forever must take some time in growing. I never knew till to-day-I honored you and would have done everything in the world for you, and I was more grateful to you than I ever was to any human being. But I thought when we met we should be friends just as we always were, and instead of that I know that this is the great day of my life, and that my life with all that it holds is yours now, for always, to do with as you will. Pray hear me out, do not be afraid; no man ever honored you as I honor you." Joe glanced quickly at him and then again looked down; but the surging blood came and went in her face, coursing madly in her pulses, every beat of her heart crying gladness. "It is little enough I have to offer you," said John, his voice growing unsteady in the great effort to speak calmly. There was something almost terrible in the strength of his rising passion. "It is little enough--my poor life, with its wretched struggles after what is perhaps far too great for me. But such as it is I offer it to you. Take it if you will. Be my wife, and give me the right to do all I do for your sake, and for your sake only." He stretched out his hand and took hers, very gently, but the strained sinews of his wrist trembled violently. Josephine made no resistance, but she still looked down and said nothing. "Use me as you will," he continued almost in a whisper. "I will be all to you that man ever was to a living woman. Do not say I have no right to ask you for as much. I have this right, that I love you beyond the love of other men, so truly and wholly I love you; I will serve you so faithfully, I will honor you so loyally that you will love me too. Say the word, my beloved, say that it is not impossible! I will wait--I will work--I will strive to be worthy of you." He pressed his white lips to her white hand, and tried to look into her eyes, but she turned away from him. "Will you not speak to me? Will you not give to me some word--some hope? I can never love you less, whatever you may answer me--yes or no--but oh, if you knew the difference to me!" Pale as death, John looked at Joe. She turned to him, very white, and gazed into the dark gray depths of his eyes, where the raging force of a transcendent passion played so wildly; but she felt no fear, only a mad longing to speak. "Tell me--for God's sake tell me," John said in low, trembling tones, "have I hurt you? Is it too much that I ask?" For one moment there was silence as they gazed at each other. Then with a passionate impulse Josephine buried her face in her hands upon John's shoulder. "No, it is not that!" she sobbed. "I love you so much--I have loved you so long!" CHAPTER XXIII. John Harrington and Josephine Thorn were married in the autumn of that year, and six months later John was elected to the Senate. With characteristic patience he determined to await a favorable opportunity before speaking at any length in the Capitol. He loved his new life, and the instinct to take a leading part was strong in him, but he knew too well the importance of the first impression made by a long speech to thrust himself forward until the right moment came. It chanced that the presidential election took place in that year, just a twelvemonth after John's marriage, and the unusual occurrences that attended the struggle gave him the chance he desired. Three candidates were supported nearly equally by the East, the West, and the South, and on opening the sealed documents in the presence of the two houses, it was found that no one of the three had obtained the majority necessary to elect him. The country was in a state of unparalleled agitation. The imminent danger was that the non-election of the candidate from the West would produce a secession of the Western States from the Union, in the same way that a revolution was nearly brought about in 1876, during the contest between Mr. Hayes and Mr. Tilden. In this position of affairs, the electors being unable to agree upon any one of the three candidates, the election was thrown into the hands of Congress, in accordance with the clause of the Constitution which provides that in such cases the House of Representatives shall elect a president, each State having but one vote. Harrington had made many speeches in different parts of the country during the election campaign, and had attracted much attention by his calm good sense in such excited times. There was consequently a manifest desire among senators and representatives to hear him speak in the Capitol, and upon the day when the final election of the President took place he judged that his opportunity had come. Josephine was in the ladies' gallery, and as John rose to his feet he looked long and fixedly up to her, gathering more strength to do well what he so much loved to do, from gazing at her whom he loved better than power, or fame, or any earthly thing. His eyes shone and his cheek paled; his old life with all its energy and active work was associated in his mind with failure, with discontent, and with solitude; his new life, with her by his side, was brilliant, happy, and successful. He felt within him the strength to move thousands, the faith in his cause and in his power to help it which culminates in great deeds. His strong voice rang out, clear and far-heard, as he spoke. "MR. PRESIDENT,--We are here to decide, on behalf of our country, a great matter. Many of us, many more who are scattered over the land, will look back upon this day as one of the most important in our times, and for their sakes as well as our own we are bound to summon all our strength of intelligence and all our calmness of judgment to aid us in our decision. "The question in which a certain number of ourselves are to become arbitrators is briefly this: Are we to act on this occasion like partisans, straining every nerve for the advantage of our several parties? or are we to act like free men, exerting our united forces in one harmonious body for the immediate good of the whole country? The struggle may seem at first sight to be a battle between the East, the West, and the South. In sober earnest, it is a contest between the changing principles of party politics on the one hand and the undying principle of freedom on the other. "I need not make any long statement of the case to you. We are here assembled to elect a President. Our position is almost unprecedented in the history of the country. Instead of acquiescing in the declared will of the people, our fellow-citizens, we are told that the people's wish is divided, and we are called upon to act spontaneously for the people, in accordance with the constitution of our country. By our individual and unhampered votes the life of the country is to be determined for the next four years. Let us not forget the vast responsibility that is upon us. Let us join our hands and say to each other, 'We are no longer Republicans, nor Democrats, nor Independents--we are one party, the party of the Union, and there are none against us.' "A partisan is not necessarily a man who asserts a truth and defends it with his whole strength. A partisan means one who takes up his position with a party. There is a limit where a partisan becomes an asserter of falsehood, and that limit is reached when a man resigns his own principles into the judgment of another, his conscience into another's keeping; when a man gives up free thought, free judgment, and free will in absolute and blind adherence to a set of thoughts, judgments, and decisions over which he exercises no control, and in the formation of which he has but one voice in many millions. Every one remembers the fable of the old man who, when dying, made his sons break their staves one by one, and then bade them bind a bundle of others together, and to try and break them by one effort. In the uniting of individuals in a party there is strength, but there must also be complete unity. If the old man had bidden his sons bind their staves in several bundles instead of in one, the result would have been doubtful. That is what party spirit makes men do. Party spirit is a universal solvent; it is the great acid, the _aqua fortis_ of political alchemy, which eats through bands of steel and corrodes pillars of iron in its acrid virulence, till the whole engine of a nation's government is crumbled and dissolved into a shapeless and a worse than useless mass of broken metal. "Man is free, his will is free, his choice, his judgments, his capacity for thought, and his power to profit by it are all as free as air, just so long as he remembers that they are his own--no longer. When he forgets that he is his own master, absolutely and entirely, he becomes another man's slave. "The contest here is between political passion roused to its fiercest pitch by the antagonism of parties, and the universal liberty of opinion, which we all say we possess, while so few of us dare honestly exercise it. This passion, this political frenzy that seizes men and whirls them in its eddies, is a most singular compound of patriotism, of enthusiasm for an individual, and of the personal hopes, fears, generosity, and avarice of the individual who is enthusiastic. It is a passion which, existing in others, can be turned to account by the cool leader who does not possess it, but which may too easily bring ruin upon the man who is led. "The danger ahead is this same party spirit, this wild and thoughtless frenzy in matters where unbiased judgment is most of all necessary. It is a rock upon which we have split before; it has taken us many years to recover from the shock, and now we are in danger of altogether losing our political life upon the same reef. Unless we mend our course we inevitably shall. Men forego every consideration of public honor and private conscience for the sake of electing a party candidate. The man at the helm of the party ship has declared that he will sail due north, or south, or east, or west, whatever happens, and his crew laugh together and keep no lookout; they even feel a certain pride in their leader, who thus defies the accidents of nature for the sake of sailing in a fixed direction. "What is the result of all this? It is here before us. The country is splitting into parties. Three candidates are set up for the office of President. Three distinct parties stand in the field, each one vowing vengeance, secession, revolution, utter dismemberment of the Union, unless its chosen champion is elected to be chief of the Executive Department. Is this to be the life of our Republic in future? Is this all that so many millions of free citizens can do for the public good and for public harmony? What shall we gain by electing the candidate from the North, if the defeated candidate from the South is determined to produce a revolution; and if the disappointed candidate from the West threatens to touch off the dry powder and spring the mine of a great western secession? Have we not seen all this before? Has not the bitter cry of a nation's broken heart gone up to heaven already in mortal agony for these very things to which our uncontrollable political passions are hourly leading us? "The contest is between political passion on the one hand and universal liberty on the other. "Liberty in some countries is a kind of charade word, an anagram, a symbol representing an imaginary quantity, a password invented by unhappy men to express all that they do not possess; a term meaning in the minds of slaves a conglomerate of conditions so absurd, of aspirations so futile, of imaginary delights so fantastically unreasonable, that if the ideal state of which the chained dreamers rave were realized but for one moment, humanity would start in amazement at the first glimpse of so much monstrosity, and by and by would hold its sides with laughter at the folly of its deluded fellows. In most countries where liberty is talked of it is but a dream, and such a dream as could only occur to the sickened fancy of a generation of bondsmen. But it means something else with us. It is here, in this country, in this capital, in this hall, it is in the air we breathe, in the light we see, in the strong, free pulses of our blood; it is the heritage of men whose sires died for it, whose fathers laid down all they had for it, of men whose own veins have bled for it--and not in vain. In these United States, liberty is a fact. "We must decide quickly, then, between the conditions of our liberty and the requirements of frantic political passion. We must decide between peace and war, for that is where the issue will come in the end. Between freedom, prosperity, and peace on the one side, and a civil war on the other; an alternative so horrible and inhuman and hideous, that the very mention of it makes brave men shiver in disgust at the memories the word recalls. Do you think we are much further from it now than we were in 1860? Do you think we were far from it in 1876? It is a short step from the threat to the deed when political passion is already turning to bitter personal hate. "In our times there is much talk of civilization and culture. Two words define all that is necessary to be known about them. Civilization is peace. The uncivilized state of man is incessant war. Culture is conscience, because conscience means the exercise of honest judgment, and an ignorant people can form no honest judgment of their own which can be exercised. "In a state of peace, educated and truthful men judge fairly, and act sensibly on their decisions. In other words, the majority is right and free. In times of war and in times of great ignorance majorities have rarely been either free or right. "It is a bad sign of the times when education increases and truth disappears. They ought to grow together, for education means absolutely nothing but the teaching and learning of what is true. If it does not mean that, it means nothing. In some countries the idea of truth is coexistent with the idea of destroying all existing forms of belief. Some silly person recently went so far as to raise the cry in this country, 'Separate Church and State!' If there is a country where they are absolutely separated, it is ours; but let the beliefs of mankind take care of themselves. I dare say there will be Christians left in the world even when Professor Huxley has written his last book, and when Colonel Ingersoll has delivered his last lecture. I am reminded of the Chinese philosopher and political economist, who answered when he was asked about religious matters: 'Do you understand this world so well that you need occupy yourselves with another?' "The issue turns upon no such absurdities, neither does it rest with any consideration of so-called platforms--free trade, civil service, free navigation, tariff reform, and all the rest of those things. The real issue is between civilization and barbarism, between peace and war. "Be warned in this great strait. I believe we need few principles, but universal ones. I believe in the republic because it was founded in simplicity, and has been built up in strength by the strongest of strong men; because its existence proves the greatest truth with which we ever have to do, namely, that men are born equal and free, although they may grow up slaves to their evil passions, and become greater or less according as they manfully put their hands to the plough, or ignobly lie down and let themselves be trampled upon. The battle of life is to the stronger, but no man is so weak that he cannot raise himself a little if he will, according to the abilities that are born in him; and nowhere can he raise himself so speedily and securely as on this free soil of ours. Nowhere can he go so far without being molested; for nowhere can man put himself so closely and trustfully in the keeping of nature, certain that she will not fail him, certain that she will yield him a thousand fold for his labor. "There are indeed times in the history of a great institution when it is just as well as necessary to reconsider the principles upon which it is founded. There are times in the life of a great nation when it behooves her chief men to examine and see whether the basis of her constitution is a sound one, and whether she can continue to grow great without any change in the fundamental conditions of her development. It is a bad and a dangerous time for a growing nation, but it is an almost inevitable stage in her life. Thank God, that time is past with us! Let us not think of the possibility of exposing ourselves again to civil war as an alternative against retrogression into barbarism. "Civilization is peace, and to extend civilization is to increase the security of property in the world--of property and life and conscience. The natural and barbarous state of man is that where the human animal satisfies its cravings without any thought of consequences. The cultivated state is that where humanity has ceased to be merely animal, and considers the consequences first and the cravings afterwards. Civilization unites men so that they dwell together in harmony; to separate them into parties that strive to annihilate each other is to undo the work of civilization, to plunge the state into civil war; to hew it in pieces, and split it and tear it to shreds, till the magnificent body of thinking beings, acting as one man for the public good, is reduced to the miserable condition of a handful of hostile tribes, whose very existence depends upon successful robbery and well-timed violence. "Party spirit, so long as it is only a force which binds together a number of men of honest purposes and opinions, is a good thing, and it is by its means that just and powerful majorities are formed and guided. But where party spirit loses sight of the characters of men, and judges them according as they are Republicans or Democrats, instead of considering whether they are good or bad citizens; when party spirit becomes a machine for obtaining power by fair or foul means, instead of a fixed principle for upholding the fair against the foul--then there is great danger that the majority itself is losing its liberty, and upon the liberty of majorities depends ultimately the stability and prosperity of the republic. "Consider what is the history of the average politician to-day, of the man whose personal character is as good as that of his neighbor, who has always belonged to the same party, and who looks forward to the hope of political distinction. Consider how he has struggled through all manner of difficulties to his present position, striving always to maintain good relations with the chiefs of his party, while often acknowledging in his heart that he would act differently were his connection with those chiefs a matter of less vital importance to himself. He probably will tell you that his profession is politics. He has sacrificed much to obtain his seat in Congress, or his position in office, and he knows that henceforth he must live by it or else begin life over again in another sphere. At all events, for a term of years, his personal prosperity depends upon the use he can make of his hold upon the public goods. He is not individually to be blamed, perhaps, for he follows a precedent as widely recognized as it is universally pernicious. It is the system that is to be blamed, the general belief that a man can, and justly may, support himself by clinging to a set of principles of which he does not honestly approve; that he may earn his daily meal, since it comes to that in the end, by doing jobs which in the free state he would despise as unworthy, and by speaking boldly in support of measures which he knows to be injurious to the welfare of the country. That is the history, the epitome of the ends and aims and manner of being of the average politician in our day. He has ventured into the waters of political life, and they have risen around him till he must use all his strength in keeping his head above them, though the torrent carry him whither it will and whither he would not. There are no compromises when a man is drowning. "There are many who are not in any such position. There are men great and honest, and disinterested in the highest sense of the word--men whose whole lives prove it, whose whole record is one of honor and truth, whose following consists of men they have themselves chosen as their friends. We are not obliged to select a drowning man for our President; we can choose a man who stands on his own feet upon dry ground. "There is an old proverb which contains much wisdom: 'Tell me who are your friends, and I will tell you what you are.' Is a man fit to stand at the head of a community of men when he has associated with a set of parasites, who live upon his leavings, and will starve him if they can, in order to enjoy his portion? Consider what is the position of the President of the United States. Think what vast power is placed in the hands of one man; what vast interests of public and private good are at stake; what an endless sequence of events and results of events must follow upon the individual action of the chief of the Executive Department; and remember how free and untrammeled that individual action is. A people who elect an officer to such a position need surely to be cautious in their choice and circumspect in their judgment of the man elected. They must satisfy themselves about what he is likely to do by judging honestly what he has done; they must know who are his friends, his supporters, his advisers, in order to judge of the friends he will make. They must take into their consideration also the character of his colleague, the vice-president, and the effect upon the country and the country's relation with, the world, should any disaster suddenly throw the vice-president into office. We cannot afford to elect a vice-president who would destroy the national credit in a week, should the President himself be overtaken by death. We must remember to count the cost of what we are doing, not passing over one item because another item seems just. We cannot overlook the future, nor disregard the influence which our election has upon the next; the steps which men, once in office, may take in order to secure to themselves another term, or to strengthen the position of the men whom they desire to succeed them. "In a word, we must put forth all our strength. We must be cool, far-sighted, and impartial in such times as these. And yet, how has this campaign been hitherto conducted? Practically, by raising a party cry; by exciting every species of evil passion of which man is capable; by tickling the cupidity of one man and flattering the ambitions of another; by intimidating the weak, and groveling before the strong; by every species of fawning sycophancy on the one hand, and brutal overbearing bullying on the other. "Party, party, party! A man would rather commit a crime than vote against his party. The evil runs through the country from East to West, from North to South, eating at the nation's heartstrings, gnawing at her sinews, and undermining her strength. The time is coming, is even now come, when two or three parties no longer suffice to express the disunion of the Union. There are three to-day: to-morrow there will be five, the next day ten, twenty, a hundred, till every man's hand is against his fellow, and his fellow's against him. The divisions have grown so wide that the majority and the minority are but the extremities of a countless set of internecine majorities and minorities. "Members of parties are bound no longer by the honest determination to do the right, to choose the right, and to uphold the right--they are bound by fearful penalties to support their own man, were he the very chiefest outcast of the earth, lest the man of another party be elected in his place. The adverse candidate is perhaps avowedly better fitted for the office, a hundred times more honest, more experienced, more worthy of respect. But he belongs to the enemy. Down with him! let him perish in his honesty and righteousness! There is no good in him, for he is a Democrat! There is no good in him, for he is a Republican! He is a scoundrel, for he is a Southerner! He is a thief, for he is a Northerner! He is the prince of liars, for he comes from the West! He is the scum of mankind, for he is from the East! The people rage and rend each other, and the frenzy grows apace with the hour, till honor and justice, truth and manliness, are lost together in the furious chaos of human elements. The tortured airs of heaven howl out curses in a horrid unison, this fair free soil of ours, dishonored and befouled, moans beneath our feet in a dismal drone of hopeless woe; there is no rock or cavern or ghostly den of our mighty land but hisses back the echo of some hideous curse, and hell itself is upon earth, split and rent into multiplied hells. "And the ultimate expression of the senses of these things is money. There is the chiefest disgrace. We are not worse than the old nations, but we have a right to be very much better; we have the obligation to be better, the unchanging moral obligation which lies upon every man to use the advantage he has. We alone among nations are free, we alone among nations inhabit a quarter of the world by ourselves, and live and grow great in our own way with no thought of the rest. Let us think more of living greatly than of prosecuting greatness for the sake of its pecuniary emoluments. Let us elect presidents who will give their efforts to making us all great together, and not to making some citizens rich at the expense of others who are also citizens. A President can do much toward either of these results, bad or good. He has the future of the republic in his hands, as well as the present. Let us be the richest among nations, since the course of events makes us so, but let us not be the most sordid. Let it never be said, in the land which has given birth to the only true liberty the world has ever seen, that liberty can be sold for a few dollars in the market-place, and bartered against the promise of four years of civil employment at a small salary! "This party spirit, this miserable craving for the good things that may be extracted from the service of a party, has produced the crying evil of our times. A certain class--a very large class--call our politics dirty, and our politicians dishonest. Young men whose education and position in the commonwealth entitle them to a voice in public matters withdraw entirely from all contact with the real life of the country. Liberty has become a leper, a blind outcast in the eyes of the gilded youth of to-day. She sits apart in ashes and in rags, and asks a little charity of the richest of her children--a miserable mother despised and cast out by her sons. They will not own her for their mother, nor spare one crust to feed her from their plenty. They pass by on the other side, staring in admiration at the image they have set up for themselves--the image of what they consider social excellence, an idol compounded of decayed customs, and breathing the poisonous emanations of a dead world, a monument raised to the prejudices of former times, to the petty thirst for aristocratic distinctions which they cherish in their hearts, to their love of money, show, superficial culture, and armorial bearings. "Truly let them perish in the fruition of their contemptible desires! Let them set up a thing called society and worship it; let them lose themselves in the contemplation of objects whose beauty they can never appreciate save by counting the cost; let them disgrace the names their honest fathers bore, by striving to establish their descent from houses stained with crime and denied with blood; let them disown their fathers and spit in their mothers' faces,--but let them not call themselves free, nor give themselves the airs of men. They toss their foolish heads in scorn of all that a man holds truest and best. We can afford to let them speak, if they please, even words of contempt and dishonor; we can afford to let them say that in laboring for our country we are groveling in mud and defiling our hands with impurity; but we cannot afford to let them steal our children from us, nor to submit to the pestilent influence of their corruption in our ranks. Those who would be of the republic must labor for the public good, instead of insolently asserting that there is no good in the public on which they have fattened and thriven so well. "All honor to those who have set their faces against the growing evil, to check it if they can, and to lay the foundation of a barrier against which the tidal wave of corruption and dishonesty shall break in vain. All praise to the brave men who might live in the indolent lotus-eating atmosphere of wasteful idleness, but who have put their hand to the wheel of state, determined to bear all their might upon the whirling spokes rather than see the good ship go to pieces on the rock ahead. They have begun a good work, and they have sown a good seed; they ask for no reward, nor look for the reaping of the harvest. They mean to do right, and they do it, because right is right, not because they expect to be rewarded with the spoils or fed with fat tit-bits from the feast of party. Upon such men as these, be they rich or poor, we must rely. The poor man can make sacrifices as great as the rich, for he can forego for his country's sake, the promise of ease and the hope of wealth as well as any million-maker in the land. "In the tremendous issue now before us we are called to decide upon the life of the country during the next four years. We are chosen to direct the course of a stream from its very source, and to turn it into a channel where it will run smoothly to the end. For the four years of an administration are like a river. The water rises suddenly from the spring and flows swiftly, ever increasing in volume as it is swollen by tributaries and absorbs into itself other rivers by the way. It may run smoothly in a fair stream, moistening barren lands and softening the parched desert into fertility; moving great engines of industry with a ceaseless, even strength; bearing the burden of a mighty and prosperous commerce on its broad bosom; spreading plenty and refreshment through the wide pastures by its banks, fed on its way by waters so clear that at the last it merges untainted and unsullied into the ocean, whence its limpid drops may again be taken up and poured in soft, life-giving rain upon the earth. "But in digging for a spring men may find suddenly a torrent that they cannot control. It suddenly bursts its bounds and banks, and rushes headlong down, carrying everything before it in a resistless whirl of devastation, tearing great trees up by the roots, crashing through villages and towns and factories, girding the world with a liquid tempest that sends the works of man spinning down upon its dreadful course, till it plunges into the abyss, a frantic chaos of indiscriminate destruction, storm, and death. "Can any of us here present say that he will, that he dare, take upon himself the responsibility of electing a President from motives of party prejudice? Having it in our power to agree upon the very best man, would any of us remember this day without shame if we disgraced those who trust us, by giving our votes to a mere party candidate? The danger is great, imminent, universal. We can save the country from it, I would almost say from, death itself, by acting in accordance with our honest convictions. Is any man so despicable, so lost to honor, that in such a case he will put aside the welfare of a nation for the miserable sake of party popularity? Are we to stand here in the guise and manner of free men, knowing that we are driven together like a flock of sheep into the fold by the howling of the wolves outside? Are we to strut and plume ourselves upon our unhampered freedom, while we act like slaves? Worse than slaves we should be if we allowed one breath of party spirit, one thought of party aggrandizement, to enter into the choice we are about to make. Slaves are driven to their work; shall we willingly let ourselves be beaten into doing the dirty work of others by sacrificing the nobility of our manhood? Do we meet here, like paid gladiators of old, to cut each other's throats in earnest while attacking and defending a sham fortress, raised in the arena for the diversion of those who set us on to the butchery and promise to pay the survivors? Are we to provide a feast of carrion for a flock of vultures and unclean beasts of prey, when we need only stand together, and be true to ourselves and to each other, to accomplish one of the greatest acts in history? The vultures will leave us alone unless we destroy each other; we need not fear them. We are not slaves to be terrified into compliance with evil, neither are we sheep that we need huddle trembling together at the snarling of a wolf." "No, no, indeed!" were the words heard on all sides in the audience, now thoroughly roused. "I do not say, elect this candidate, or that one. I am not canvassing for any candidate. It is too late for that, even if it were seemly for me to do so. I am canvassing for the cause of liberty against slavery, as better men have done before me in this very house. I am defending the reputation of unity against the slanderous attack of disunion, against the fearful peril of secession. I appeal to you, as you are men, to act as men in this great crisis, to put out your strong hands together and avert the overwhelming disaster that threatens us; to stand side by side as brothers,--for we are indeed brothers, children of one father and one mother, heirs of such magnificent heritage as has not fallen to the lot of mortality before, co-heirs of freedom, and inheritors of the free estate, five and fifty millions of free children, born to our mother, the great republic, who bow the knee to no man, and call no man master." Loud applause greeted this part of the speech. "I appeal from license to law, from division to harmony, from the raging turmoil of angry and devouring passion without to the calm serenity that reigns within these walls. As we turn in horror and loathing from the unbridled fury of human beings, changed almost to beasts, so let us turn in hope and security to those things we can honor and respect, to the dignity of truth and the unbending strength of unquestioned right. "I appeal to you to make this day the greatest in your lives, the most memorable in our history as a nation. Lay aside this day the memories of the past, and look forward to the brightness of the future. Throw down the weapons of petty and murderous strife, and join together in perfect harmony of mutual trust. Be neither Republicans, nor Democrats, nor Independents. Be what it is your greatest privilege to be--American citizens. Cast parties to the winds, and uphold the state. Trample under your free-born feet the badges of party bondage, the ignoble chains of party slavery, the wretched hopes of party preferment." "Yes. Hear, hear! He is right!" cried many voices. "Yes," answered John Harrington, in tones that rose to the very roof of the vast building. "'Yes, by that blood our fathers shed, O Union, in thy sacred cause, Whilst, streaming from the gallant dead, It sealed and sanctified thy laws.' "Yes, and strong hearts and strong hands will hold their own; the promise of brave men will prevail, and echoing down the avenues of time will strike grand chords of harmony in the lives of our children and children's children. So, in the far-off ages, when hundreds of millions of our flesh and blood shall fill this land, dwelling together in the glory of such peace as no turmoil can trouble and no discontent disturb, those men of the dim future will remember what we swore to do, and what we did; and looking back, they will say one to another: 'On that day our fathers struck a mighty blow, and shattered and crushed and trampled out all dissensions and all party strife forever and ever.' "Choose, then, of your own heart and will a man to be our President and our leader. Elect him with one accord, and as you give your voices in the choice, stand here together, knee to knee, shoulder to shoulder, hand to hand; and let the mighty oath go thundering up to heaven, "'THIS UNION SHALL NOT BE BROKEN!'" 
5847	----	THE HEART OF ROME A Tale of the "Lost water" BY FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD Author of "Cecilia," "Saracinesca," "In the Palace of the King," Etc. THE HEART OF ROME CHAPTER I The Baroness Volterra drove to the Palazzo Conti in the heart of Rome at nine o'clock in the morning, to be sure of finding Donna Clementina at home. She had tried twice to telephone, on the previous afternoon, but the central office had answered that "the communication was interrupted." She was very anxious to see Clementina at once, in order to get her support for a new and complicated charity. She only wanted the name, and expected nothing else, for the Conti had very little ready money, though they still lived as if they were rich. This did not matter to their friends, but was a source of constant anxiety to their creditors, and to the good Pompeo Sassi, the steward of the ruined estate. He alone knew what the Conti owed, for none of them knew much about it themselves, though he had done his best to make the state of things clear to them. The big porter of the palace was sweeping the pavement of the great entrance, as the cab drove in. He wore his working clothes of grey linen with silver buttons bearing the ancient arms of his masters, and his third best gold-laced cap. There was nothing surprising in this, at such an early hour, and as he was a grave man with a long grey beard that made him look very important, the lady who drove up in the open cab did not notice that he was even more solemn than usual. When she appeared, he gave one more glance at the spot he had been sweeping, and then grounded his broom like a musket, folded his hands on the end of the broomstick and looked at her as if he wondered what on earth had brought her to the palace at that moment, and wished that she would take herself off again as soon as possible. He did not even lift his cap to her, yet there was nothing rude in his manner. He behaved like a man upon whom some one intrudes when he is in great trouble. The Baroness was rather more exigent in requiring respect from servants than most princesses of the Holy Roman Empire, for her position in the aristocratic scale was not very well defined. She was not pleased, and spoke with excessive coldness when she asked if Donna Clementina was at home. The porter stood motionless beside the cab, leaning on his broom. After a pause he said in a rather strange voice that Donna Clementina was certainly in, but that he could not tell whether she were awake or not. "Please find out," answered the Baroness, with impatience. "I am waiting," she added with an indescribable accent of annoyance and surprise, as if she had never been kept waiting before, in all the fifty years of her more or less fashionable life. There were speaking-tubes in the porter's lodge, communicating with each floor of the great Conti palace, but the porter did not move. "I cannot go upstairs and leave the door," he said. "You can speak to the servant through the tube, I suppose!" The porter slowly shook his massive head, and his long grey beard wagged from side to side. "There are no servants upstairs," he said. "There is only the family." "No servants? Are you crazy?" "Oh, no!" answered the man meditatively. "I do not think I am mad. The servants all went away last night after dinner, with their belongings. There were only sixteen left, men and women, for I counted them." "Do you mean to say--" The Baroness stopped in the middle of her question, staring in amazement. The porter now nodded, as solemnly as he had before shaken his head. "Yes. This is the end of the house of Conti." Then he looked at her as if he wished to be questioned, for he knew that she was not really a great lady, and guessed that in spite of her magnificent superiority and coldness she was not above talking to a servant about her friends. "But they must have somebody," she said. "They must eat, I suppose! Somebody must cook for them. They cannot starve!" "Who knows? Who knows? Perhaps they will starve." The porter evidently took a gloomy view of the case. "But why did the servants go away in a body?" asked the Baroness, descending from her social perch by the inviting ladder of curiosity. "They never were paid. None of us ever got our wages. For some time the family has paid nobody. The day before yesterday, the telephone company sent a man to take away the instrument. Then the electric light was cut off. When that happens, it is all over." The man had heard of the phenomenon from a colleague. "And there is nobody? They have nobody at all?" The Baroness had always been rich, and was really trying to guess what would happen to people who had no servants. "There is my wife," said the porter. "But she is old," he added apologetically, "and the palace is big. Can she sweep out three hundred rooms, cook for two families of masters and dress the Princess's hair? She cannot do it." This was stated with gloomy gravity. The Baroness also shook her head in sympathy. "There were sixteen servants in the house yesterday," continued the porter. "I remember when there were thirty, in the times of the old Prince." "There would be still, if the family had been wise," said the Baroness severely. "Is your wife upstairs?" "Who knows where she is?" enquired the porter by way of answer, and with the air of a man who fears that he may never see his wife again. "There are three hundred rooms. Who knows where she is?" The Baroness was a practical woman by nature and by force of circumstances; she made up her mind to go upstairs and see for herself how matters stood. The name of Donna Clementina might not just now carry much weight beside those of the patronesses of a complicated charitable organization; in fact the poor lady must be in a position to need charity herself rather than to dispense it to others. But the Baroness had a deep-rooted prejudice in favour of the old aristocracy, and guessed that it would afterwards be counted to her for righteousness if she could be the first to offer boundless sympathy and limited help to the distressed family. It would be thought distinctly smart, for instance, if she should take the Princess, or even one of the unmarried daughters, to her own house for a few days, as a refuge from the sordid atmosphere of debt and ruin, and beyond the reach of vulgar creditors, one of whom, by the way, she knew to be her own excellent husband. The Princess was probably not aware of that fact, for she had always lived in sublime ignorance of everything connected with money, even since her husband's death; and when good Pompeo Sassi tried to explain things, telling her that she was quite ruined, she never listened to what he said. If the family had debts, why did he not borrow money and pay them? That was what he was paid for doing, after all. It was true that he had not been paid for a year or two, but that was a wretched detail. Economy? Had not the Princess given up her second maid, as an extravagance? What more did the man expect? The Baroness knew all this and reflected upon what she knew, as she deliberately got out of her cab at the foot of the grand staircase. "I will go upstairs myself," she said. "Padrona," observed the porter, standing aside with his broom. He explained in a single word that she was at liberty to go upstairs if she chose, that it was not of the least use to go, and that he would not be responsible for any disappointment if she were afterwards not pleased. There is no language in the world which can say more in one word than the Italian, or less in ten thousand, according to the humour of the speaker. The Baroness took no notice as she went up the stairs. She was not very tall, and was growing slowly and surely stout, but she carried her rather large head high and had cultivated importance, as a fine art, with some success. She moved steadily, with a muffled sound as of voluminous invisible silk bellows that opened and shut at each step; her outer dress was sombre, but fashionable, and she wore a long gold chain of curious and fine workmanship to carry her hand-glass, for she was near-sighted. Her thick hair was iron-grey, her small round eyes were vaguely dark with greenish lights, her complexion was like weak coffee and milk, sallow, but smooth, even and healthy. She was a strong woman of fifty years, well used to the world and its ways; acquisitive, inquisitive and socially progressive; not knowing how to wish back anything from the past, so long as there was anything in the future to wish for; a good wife for an ambitious man. The magnificent marble staircase already looked neglected; there were deep shadows of dust in corners that should have been polished, there was a coat of grey dust on the head and shoulders of the colossal marble statue of Commodus in the niche on the first landing; in the great window over the next, the armorial crowned eagle of the Conti, cheeky, argent and sable, had a dejected look, as if he were moulting. It was in March, and though the sun was shining brightly outside, and the old porter wore his linen jacket, as if it were already spring, there was a cold draught down the staircase, and the Baroness instinctively made haste up the steps, and was glad when she reached the big swinging door covered with red baize and studded with smart brass nails, which gave access to the grand apartment. By force of habit, she opened it and went in. There used to be always two men in the outer hall, all day long, and sometimes four, ready to announce visitors or to answer questions, as the case might be. It was deserted now, a great, dismal, paved hall, already dingy with dust. One of the box-benches was open, and the tail of a footman's livery greatcoat which had been thrown in carelessly, hung over the edge and dragged on the marble floor. The Baroness realized that the porter had spoken the truth and that all the servants had left the house, as the rats leave a sinking ship. One must really have seen an old ship sink in harbour to know how the rats look, black and grey, fat and thin, old and young, their tiny beads of eyes glittering with fright as they scurry up the hatches and make for every deck port and scupper, scrambling and tumbling over each other till they flop into the water and swim away, racing for safety, each making a long forked wake on the smooth surface, with a steady quick ripple like the tearing of thin paper into strips. The strong middle-aged woman who stood alone in the empty hall knew nothing of sinking vessels or the ways of rats, but she had known incidentally of more than one catastrophe like this, in the course of her husband's ascendant career, and somehow he had always been mysteriously connected with each one. An evil-speaking old diplomatist had once said that he remembered Baron Volterra as a pawn-broking dealer in antiquities, in Florence, thirty years earlier; there was probably no truth in the story, but after Volterra was elected a Senator of the Kingdom, a member of the opposition had alluded to it with piquant irony and the result had been the exchange of several bullets at forty paces, whereby honour was satisfied without bloodshed. The seconds, who were well disposed to both parties, alone knew how much or how little powder there was in the pistols, and they were discreet men, who kept the secret. The door leading to the antechamber was wide open, and the Baroness went on deliberately, looking about through her hand-glass, in the half light, for the shutters were not all open. Dust everywhere, the dust that falls silently at night from the ancient wooden ceilings and painted beams of Roman palaces, the dust of centuries accumulated above and sifting for ever to the floors below. It was on the yellow marble pier tables, on the dim mirrors in their eighteenth century frames, on the high canopy draped with silver and black beneath which the effigy of another big cheeky eagle seemed to be silently moulting under his antique crown, the emblem of a race that had lived almost on the same spot for eight hundred years, through good and bad repute, but in nearly uninterrupted prosperity. The Baroness, who hankered after greatness, felt that the gloom was a twilight of gods. She stood still before the canopy, the symbol of princely rank and privilege, the invisible silk bellows were silent for a few seconds, and she wondered whether there were any procurable sum which she and her husband would grudge in exchange for the acknowledged right to display a crowned eagle, cheeky, argent and sable, in their hall, under a canopy draped with their own colours. She sighed, since no one could hear her, and she went on. The sigh was not only for the hopelessness of ever reaching such social greatness; it was in part the outward show of a real regret that it should have come to an untimely end. Her admiration of princes was as sincere as her longing to be one of them; she had at least the melancholy satisfaction of sympathizing with them in their downfall. It brought her a little nearer to them in imagination if not in fact. The evolution of the snob has been going on quickly of late, and quicker than ever since vast wealth has given so many of the species the balance of at least one sort of power in society. His thoughts are still the same, but his outward shape approaches strangely near to that of the human being. There are snobs now, who behave almost as nicely in the privacy of their homes as in the presence of a duchess. They are much more particular as to the way in which others shall behave to them. That is a test, by the bye. The snob thinks most of the treatment he receives from the world; the gentleman thinks first how he shall act courteously to others. The Baroness went on and entered the outer reception room, and looking before her she could see through the open doors of the succeeding drawing-rooms, where the windows had been opened or perhaps not closed on the previous evening. It was all vast, stately and deserted. Only ten days earlier she had been in the same place at a great reception, brilliant with beautiful women and handsome men, alive with the flashing of jewels and decorations in the vivid light, full of the discreet noise of society in good-humour, full of faces she knew, and voices familiar, and of the moonlight of priceless pearls and the sunlight of historic diamonds; all of which manifestations she dearly loved. Her husband had perhaps known what was coming, and how soon, but she had not. There was something awful in the contrast. As she went through one of the rooms a mouse ran from under the fringe of a velvet curtain and took refuge under an armchair. She had sat in that very chair ten days ago and the Russian ambassador had talked to her; she remembered how he had tried to extract information from her about the new issue of three and a half per cent national bonds, because her husband was one of the financiers who were expected to "manipulate" the loan. A portrait of a Conti in black velvet, by Velasquez, looked down, coldly supercilious, at the empty armchair under which the mouse was hiding. It could make no difference, great or small, to him, whether the Baroness Volterra ever sat there again to talk with an ambassador; he had sat where he pleased, undisturbed in his own house, to the end of his days, and no one can take the past from the dead, except a modern German historian. Not a sound broke the stillness, except the steady plash of the water falling into the fountain in the wide court, heard distinctly through the closed windows. The Baroness wondered if any one were awake except the old porter downstairs. She knew the house tolerably well. Only the Princess and her two unmarried daughters slept in the apartment she had entered, far off, at the very end, in rooms at the corner overlooking the small square and the narrow street. The rest of the old palace was surrounded by dark and narrow streets, but the court was wide and full of sunshine. The only son of the house, though he was now the Prince, lived on the floor above, with his young wife and their only child, in what had been a separate establishment, after the old Roman custom. The Baroness went to one of the embrasures of the great drawing-room and looked through the panes at the windows of the upper story. All that she could see were shut; there was not a sign of life in the huge building. Ruin had closed in upon it and all it held, softly, without noise and without pity. It was their own fault, of course, but the Baroness was sorry for them, for she was not quite heartless, in spite of her hard face. The gloomiest landscape must have a ray of light in it, somewhere. It was all their own fault; they should have known better; they should have counted what they had instead of spending what they had not. But their fall was great, as everything had been in their prosperity, and it was interesting to be connected with it. She faintly hoped Volterra would keep the palace now that they could certainly never pay any more interest on the mortgage, and it was barely possible that she might some day live in it herself, though she understood that it would be in very bad taste to occupy it at once. But this was unlikely, for her husband had a predilection for a new house, in the new part of the city, full of new furniture and modern French pictures. He had a pronounced dislike for old things, including old pictures and old jewellery, though he knew much about both. Possibly they reminded him of that absurd story, and of his duel at forty paces. Volterra would sell the palace to the Vatican, with everything in it, and would look about for another lucrative investment. The Vatican bought all the palaces in the market for religious institutions, and when there were not enough "it" built the finest buildings in Rome for its own purposes. Volterra was mildly anti-clerical in politics, but he was particularly fond of dealing with the Vatican for real estate. The Vatican was a most admirable house of business, in his estimation, keen, punctual and always solvent; it was good for a financier to be associated with such an institution. It drove a hard bargain, but there was never any hesitation about fulfilling its obligations to the last farthing. Dreaming over one of his enormous Havanas after a perfect dinner, Baron Volterra, Senator of the Kingdom of Italy, often wondered whether the prosperity of the whole world would not be vastly increased if the Vatican would consent to be the general financial agent for the European nations. Such stability as there would be, such order! Above all, such guarantees of good faith! Besides all that, there were its cordial relations with the United States, that is to say, with the chief source of the world's future wealth! The Senator's strongly-marked face grew sweetly thoughtful as he followed his own visions in the air, and when his wife spoke of living in an antiquated Roman palace and buying an estate with an old title attached to it, which the King might graciously be pleased to ratify, he playfully tapped his wife's sallow cheek with two fat fingers and smiled in a way that showed how superior he was to such weakness. It was not even worth while to say anything. Once more the Baroness sighed as she turned from the window. She meant to have her own way in the end, but it was hard to wait so long. She turned from the window, glanced at a beautiful holy family by Bonifazio which hung on the opposite wall above an alabaster table, estimated its value instinctively and went on into the next drawing-room. As she passed through the door, a low cry of pain made her start and hesitate, and she stood still. The degree of her acquaintance with the members of the family was just such that she would not quite dare to intrude upon them if they had given way to an expression of pardonable weakness under their final misfortune, whereas if they were bearing it with reasonable fortitude she could allow herself to offer her sympathy and even some judicious help. She stood still and the sound was repeated, the pitiful little tearless complaint of a young thing suffering alone. It was somewhere in the big room, hidden amongst the furniture; which was less stiffly arranged here than in the outer apartments. There were books and newspapers on the table, the fireplace was half-full of the ashes of a burnt-out fire, there were faded flowers in a tall vase near the window, there was the undefinable presence of life in the heavier and warmer air. At first the Baroness had thought that the cry came from some small animal, hurt and forgotten there in the great catastrophe; a moment later she was sure that there was some one in the room. She moved cautiously forward in the direction whence the sound had come. Then she saw the edge of a fawn-coloured cloth skirt on the red carpet by an armchair. She went on, hesitating no longer. She had seen the frock only a day or two ago, and it belonged to Sabina Conti. A very fair young girl was kneeling in the shadow, crouching over something on the floor. Her hair was like the pale mist in the morning, tinged with gold. She was very slight, and as she bent down, her slender neck was dazzling white above the collar of her frock. She was trembling a little. "My dear Sabina, what has happened?" asked the Baroness Volterra, leaning over her with an audible crack in the region of the waist. At the words the girl turned up her pale face, without the least start of surprise. "It is dead," she said, in a very low voice. The Baroness looked down, and saw a small bunch of yellow feathers lying on the floor at the girl's knees; the poor little head with its colourless beak lay quite still on the red carpet, turned upon one side, as if it were resting. "A canary," observed the Baroness, who had never had a pet in her life, and had always wondered how any one could care for such stupid things. But the violet eyes gazed up to hers reproachfully and wonderingly. "It is dead." That should explain everything; surely the woman must understand. Yet there was no response. The Baroness stood upright again, grasping her parasol and looking down with a sort of respectful indifference. Sabina said nothing, but took up the dead bird very tenderly, as if it could still feel that she loved it, and she pressed it softly to her breast, bending her head to it, and then kissing the yellow feathers. When it was alive it used to nestle there, almost as it lay now. It had been very tame. "I suppose a cat killed it," said the Baroness, wishing to say something. Sabina shook her head. She had found it lying there, not wounded, its feathers not torn--just dead. It was of no use to answer. She rose to her feet, still holding the tiny body against her bosom, and she looked at the Baroness, mutely asking what had brought her there, and wishing that she would go away. "I came to see your sister," said the elder woman, with something like apology in the tone. Sabina was still very pale, and her delicate lips were pressed together, but there were no tears in her eyes, as she waited for the Baroness to say more. "Then I heard the bad news," the latter continued. "I heard it from the porter." Sabina looked at her quietly. If she had heard the bad news, why had she not gone away? The Baroness began to feel uncomfortable. She almost quailed before the pale girl of seventeen, slender as a birch sapling in her light frock. "It occurred to me," she continued nervously, "that I might be of use." "You are very kind," Sabina answered, with the faintest air of surprise, "but I really do not see that you could do anything." "Perhaps your mother would allow you to spend a few days with me--until things are more settled," suggested the Baroness. "Thank you very much. I do not think she would like that. She would not wish me to be away from her just now, I am sure. Why should I leave her?" The Baroness Volterra did not like to point out that the Princess Conti might soon be literally homeless. "May I ask your mother?" she enquired. "Should you like to come to me for a few days?" "If my mother wishes it." "But should you like to come?" persisted the elder woman. "If my mother thinks it is best," answered Sabina, avoiding the Baroness's eyes, as she resolutely avoided answering the direct question. But the Baroness was determined if possible to take in one of the family, and it had occurred to her that Sabina would really be less trouble than her mother or elder sister. Clementina was the eldest and was already looked upon as an old maid. She was intensely devout, and that was always troublesome, for it meant that she would insist upon going to church at impossibly early hours, and must have fish-dinners on Fridays. But it would certainly be conferring a favour on the Princess to take Sabina off her hands at such a time. The devout Clementina could take care of herself. With her face, the Baroness reflected, she would be safe among Cossacks; besides, she could go into a retreat, and stay there, if necessary. Sabina was quite different. The Princess thought so too, as it turned out. Sabina took the visitor to her mother's door, knocked, opened and then went away, still pressing her dead canary to her bosom, and infinitely glad to be alone with it at last. There was confusion in the Princess Conti's bedroom, the amazing confusion which boils up about an utterly careless woman of the great world, if she be accidentally left without a maid for twenty-four hours. It seemed as if everything the Princess possessed in the way of clothes, necessary and unnecessary, had been torn from wardrobes and chests of drawers by a cyclone and scattered in every direction, till there was not space to move or sit down in a room which was thirty feet square. Princess Conti was a very stout woman of about the same age as her visitor, but not resembling her in the least. She had been beautiful, and still kept the dazzling complexion and magnificent eyes for which she had been famous. It was her boast that she slept eight hours every night, without waking, whatever happened, and she always advised everybody to do the same, with an airy indifference to possibilities which would have done credit to a doctor. She was dressed, or rather wrapped, in a magnificent purple velvet dressing-gown, trimmed with sable, and tied round her ample waist with a silver cord; her rather scanty grey hair stood out about her head like a cloud in a high wind; and her plump hands were encased in a pair of old white gloves, which looked oddly out of place. She was standing in the middle of the room, and she smiled calmly as the Baroness entered. On a beautiful inlaid table beside her stood a battered brass tray with an almost shapeless little brass coffee-pot, a common earthenware cup, chipped at the edges, and three pieces of doubtful-looking sugar in a tiny saucer, also of brass. The whole had evidently been brought from a small cafe near by, which had long been frequented by the servants from the palace. Judging from her smile, the Princess seemed to think total ruin rather an amusing incident. She had always complained that the Romans were very dull; for she was not a Roman herself, but came of a very great old Polish family, the members of which had been distinguished for divers forms of amiable eccentricity during a couple of centuries. She looked at the Baroness, and smiled pleasantly, showing her still perfect teeth. "I always said that this would happen," she observed. "I always told my poor husband so." As the Prince had been dead ten years, the Baroness thought that he might not be wholly responsible for the ruin of his estate, but she discreetly avoided the suggestion. She began to make a little apology for her visit. "But I am delighted to see you!" cried the Princess. "You can help me to pack. You know I have not a single maid, not a woman in the house, nor a man either. Those ridiculous servants fled last night as if we had the plague!" "So you are going out of town?" enquired the Baroness, laying down her parasol. "Of course. Clementina has decided to be a nun, and is going to the convent this morning. So sensible of her, poor dear! It is true that she has made up her mind to do it three or four times before now, but the circumstances were different, and I hope this will be final. She will be much happier." The Princess stirred the muddy coffee in the chipped earthenware cup, and then sipped it thoughtfully, sipped it again, and made a face. "You see my breakfast," she said, and then laughed, as if the shabby brass tray were a part of the train of amusing circumstances. "The porter's wife went and got it at some dirty little cafe," she added. "How dreadful!" exclaimed the Baroness, with more real sympathy in her voice than she had yet shown. "I assure you," the Princess answered serenely, "that I am glad to have any coffee at all. I always told poor dear Paolo that it would come to this." She swallowed the rest of the coffee with a grimace, and set down the cup. Then, with the most natural gesture in the world, she pushed the tray a little way across the inlaid table, towards the Baroness, as she would have pushed it towards her maid, and as if she wished the thing taken away. She did it merely from force of habit, no doubt. Baroness Volterra understood well enough, and for a moment she affected not to see. The Princess had the blood of Polish kings in her veins, mingled with that of several mediatized princes, but that was no reason why she should treat a friend like a servant; especially as the friend's husband practically owned the palace and its contents, and had lent the money with which the high and mighty lady and her son had finally ruined themselves. Yet so overpowering is the moral domination of the born aristocrat over the born snob, that the Baroness changed her mind, and humbly took the obnoxious tray away and set it down on another table near the door. "Thank you so much," said the Princess graciously. "It smells, you know." "Of course," answered the Baroness. "It is not coffee at all! It is made of chicory and acorns." "I do not know what it is made of," said the Princess, without interest, "but it has an atrociously bad smell, and it has made a green stain on my handkerchief." She looked at the bit of transparently fine linen with which she had touched her lips, and threw it under the table. "And Sabina?" began the Baroness. "What shall you do with her?" "I wish I knew! You see, my daughter-in-law has a little place somewhere in the Maremma. It is an awful hole, I believe, and very unhealthy, but we shall have to stay there for a few days. Then I shall go to Poland and see my brother. I am sure he can arrange everything at once, and we shall come back to Rome in the autumn, of course, just as usual. Sassi told me only last week that two or three millions would be enough. And what is that? My brother is so rich!" The stout Princess shrugged her shoulders carelessly, as if a few millions of francs more or less could really not be such a great matter. Somebody had always found money for her to spend, and there was no reason why obliging persons should not continue to do the same. The Baroness showed no surprise, but wondered whether the Princess might not have to lunch, and dine too, on some nauseous little mess brought to her on a battered brass tray. It was quite possible that she might not find five francs in her purse; it was equally possible that she might find five thousand; the only thing quite sure was that she had not taken the trouble to look, and did not care a straw. "Can I be of any immediate use?" asked the Baroness with unnecessary timidity. "Do you need ready money?" "Ready money?" echoed the Princess with alacrity. "Of course I do! I told you, Sassi says that two or three millions would be enough to go on with." "I did not mean that. I am afraid--" "Oh!" ejaculated the Princess with a little disappointment. "Nothing else would be of any use. Of course I have money for any little thing I need. There is my purse. Do you mind looking? I know I had two or three thousand francs the other day. There must be something left. Please count it. I never can count right, you know." The Baroness took up the mauve morocco pocket-book to which the Princess pointed. It had a clasp in which a pretty sapphire was set; she opened it and took out a few notes and silver coins, which she counted. "There are fifty-seven francs," she said. "Is that all?" asked the Princess with supreme indifference. "How very odd!" "You can hardly leave Rome with so little," observed the Baroness. "Will you not allow me to lend you five hundred? I happen to have a five hundred franc note in my purse, for I was going to pay a bill on my way home." "Thanks," said the Princess. "That will save me the trouble of sending for Sassi. He always bores me dreadfully with his figures. Thank you very much." "Not at all, dear friend," the Baroness answered. "It is a pleasure, I assure you. But I had thought of asking if you would let Sabina come and stay with me for a little while, until your affairs are more settled." "Oh, would you do that?" asked the Princess with something like enthusiasm. "I really do not know what to do with the girl. Of course, I could take her to Poland and marry her there, but she is so peculiar, such a strange child, not at all like me. It really would be immensely kind of you to take her, if your husband does not object." "He will be delighted." "Yes," acquiesced the Princess calmly. "You see," she continued in a meditative tone, "if I sent her to stay with any of our cousins here, I am sure they would ask her all sorts of questions about our affairs, and she is so silly that she would blurt out everything she fancied she knew, whether it were true or not--about my son and his wife, you know, and then, the money questions. Poor Sabina! she has not a particle of tact! It really would be good of you to take her. I shall be so grateful." "I will bring my maid to pack her things," suggested the Baroness. "Yes. If she could only help me to pack mine too! Do you think she would?" "Of course!" "You are really the kindest person in the world," said the Princess. "I was quite in despair, when you came. Just look at those things!" She pointed to the chairs and sofas, covered with clothes and dresses. "But your boxes, where are they?" asked the Baroness. "I have not the least idea! I sent the porter's wife to try and find them, but she has never come back. She is so stupid, poor old thing!" "I think I had better bring a couple of men-servants," said the Baroness. "They may be of use. Should you like my carriage to take you to the station? Anything I can do--" The Princess stared, as if quite puzzled. "Thanks, but we have plenty of horses," she said. "Yes, but you said that all your servants had left last night. I supposed the coachman and grooms were gone too." "I daresay they are!" The Princess laughed. "Then we will go in cabs. It will be very amusing. By the bye, I wonder whether those brutes of men thought of leaving the poor horses anything to eat, and water! I must really go and see. Poor beasts! They will be starving. Will you come with me?" She moved towards the door, really very much concerned, for she loved horses. "Will you go down like that?" asked the Baroness aghast, glancing at the purple velvet dressing-gown, and noticing, as the Princess moved, that her feet, on which she wore small kid slippers, were stockingless. "Why not? I shall not catch cold. I never do." The Baroness would have given anything to be above caring whether any one should ever see her, or not, on the stairs of her house in a purple dressing-gown, without stockings and with her hair standing on end; and she pondered on the ways of the aristocracy she adored, especially as represented by her Excellency Marie-Sophie-Hedwige-Zenaide-Honorine-Pia Rubomirska, Dowager Princess Conti. Ever afterwards she associated purple velvet and bare feet with the idea of financial catastrophe, knowing in her heart that even ruin would seem bearable if it could bring her such magnificent indifference to the details of commonplace existence. At that moment, however, she felt that she was in the position of a heaven-sent protectress to the Princess. "No," she said firmly. "I will go myself to the stables, and the porter shall feed the horses if there is no groom. You really must not go downstairs looking like that!" "Why not?" asked the Princess, surprised. "But of course, if you will be so kind as to see whether the horses need anything, it is quite useless for me to go myself. You will promise? I am sure they are starving by this time." The Baroness promised solemnly, and said that she would come back within an hour, with her servants, to take away Sabina and to help the Princess's preparations. In consideration of all she was doing the Princess kissed her on both her sallow cheeks as she took her leave. The Princess attached no importance at all to this mark of affectionate esteem, but it pleased the Baroness very much. Just as the latter was going away, the door opened suddenly, and a weak-looking young man put in his head. "Mamma! Mamma!" he cried, in a thin tone of distress, almost as if he were going to cry. He was nearly thirty years old, though he looked younger. He was thin, and pale, with a muddy and spotted complexion, and his scanty black hair grew far back on his poorly developed forehead. His eyes had a look that was half startled, half false. Though he was carefully dressed he had not shaved, because he could not shave himself and his valet had departed with the rest of the servants. He was the Princess's only son, himself the present Prince, and the heir of all the Conti since the year eleven hundred. "Mamma!" "What is the matter, sweetheart?" asked the Princess, with ready sympathy. "Your hands are quite cold! Are you ill?" "The child! Something has happened to it--we do not know--it looks so strange--its eyes are turned in and it is such a dreadful colour--do come--" But the Princess was already on her way, and he spoke the last words as he ran after her. She turned her head as she went on. "For heaven's sake send a doctor!" she cried to the Baroness, and in a moment she was gone, with the weak young man close at her side. The Baroness nodded quickly, and when all three reached the door she left the two to go upstairs and ran down, with a tremendous puffing of the invisible silk bellows. "The Prince's little girl is very ill," she said, as she passed the porter, who was now polishing the panes of glass in the door of his lodge, because he had done the same thing every morning for twenty years. He almost dropped the dingy leather he was using, but before he could answer, the cab passed out, bearing the Baroness on her errand. CHAPTER II Signor Pompeo Sassi sat in his dingy office and tore his hair, in the good old literal Italian sense. His elbows rested on the shabby black oilcloth glued to the table, and his long knotted fingers twisted his few remaining locks, on each side of his head, in a way that was painful to see. From time to time he desisted for an instant, and held up his open hands, the fingers quivering with emotion, and his watery eyes were turned upwards, too, as if directing an unspoken prayer to the dusty rafters of the ceiling. The furrows had deepened of late in his respectable, trust-inspiring face, and he was as thin as a skeleton in leather. His heart was broken. On the big sheet of thick hand-made paper, that lay on the desk, scribbled over with rough calculations in violet ink, there were a number of trial impressions of the old stamp he had once been so proud to use. It bore a rough representation of the Conti eagle, encircled by the legend: "Eccellentissima Casa Conti." When his eyes fell upon it, they filled with tears. The Most Excellent House of Conti had come to a pitiful end, and it had been Pompeo Sassi's unhappy fate to see its fall. Judging from his looks, he was not to survive the catastrophe very long. He loved the family, and yet he disliked every member of it personally except Sabina. He loved the "Eccellentissima Casa," the checky eagle, the Velasquez portraits and his dingy office, but he never had spoken with the Princess, her son, his wife, or his sister Clementina, without a distinct feeling of disapproving aversion. The old Prince had been different. In him Sassi had still been able to respect those traditional Ciceronian virtues which were inculcated with terrific severity in the Roman youth of fifty years ago. But the Prince had died prematurely at the age of fifty, and with him the Ciceronian traditions had ended in Casa Conti, and their place had been taken by the caprices of the big, healthy, indolent, extravagant Polish woman, by the miserable weaknesses of a degenerate heir, and the fanatic religious practices of Donna Clementina. Sassi was sure that they all three hated him or despised him, or both; yet they could not spare him. For different reasons, they all needed money, and they had long been used to believing that no one but Sassi could get it for them, since no one else knew how deeply the family was involved. He always made difficulties, he protested, he wrung his hands, he warned, he implored; but caprice, vice and devotion always overcame his objections, and year after year the exhausted estate was squeezed and pressed and mortgaged and sold, till it had yielded the uttermost farthing. Then, one day, the whole organization of Casa Conti stood still; the unpaid servants fled, the unpaid tradesmen refused to trust any longer, the unpaid holders of mortgages foreclosed, the Princess departed to Poland, the Prince slunk away to live on what was left of his wife's small estate, Donna Clementina buried herself in a convent to which she had given immense sums, the Conti palace was for sale, and Pompeo Sassi sat alone in his office, tearing his hair, while the old porter sat in his lodge downstairs peeling potatoes. It was not for himself that the old steward of the estate was in danger of being totally bald. He had done for himself what others would not allow him to do for them, a proceeding which affords some virtuous people boundless satisfaction, though it procured him none at all. He was provided for in his old age. During more than thirty years he had saved and scraped and invested and added to the little sum of money left him by his father, an honest old notary of the old school, until he possessed what was a very comfortable competence for a childless old man. He had a small house of his own near the Pantheon, in which he occupied two rooms, letting the rest, and he had a hundred thousand francs in government bonds, besides a few acres of vineyard on the slope of Monte Mario. More than once, in the sincerity of his devotion to the family he served, he had thought of sacrificing all he possessed in an attempt to stave off final ruin; but a very little reflection had convinced him that all he had would be a mere drop in the flood of extravagance, and would forthwith disappear with the rest into the bottomless pit of debt. Even that generous temptation was gone now. The house having collapsed, its members appeared to him only in their true natures, a good-for-nothing young man, tainted with a mortal disease, a foolish mother, a devout spinster threatened with religious mania, and the last descendant of the great old race, one little girl-child not likely to live, and perhaps better dead. In their several ways they had treated him as the contemptible instrument of their inclinations; they were gone from his life and he was glad of it, when he thought of each one separately. Yet, collectively, he wished them all in the palace again, even a month ago, even on the day before the exodus; good, bad, indifferent, no matter what, they had been Casa Conti still, to the end, the family he had served faithfully, honestly and hopelessly for upwards of a third of a century. That might seem to be inconsistent, but it was the only consistency he had ever known, and it was loyalty, of a kind. But there was one whom he wished back for her own sake; there was Donna Sabina. When he thought of her, his hands fell from his head at last, and folded themselves over the scrawled figures on the big sheet of paper, and he looked long and steadily at them, without seeing them at all. He wondered what would become of her. He had seen her on the last day and he should never forget it. Before going away with the Baroness Volterra she had found her way to his dark office, and had stood a few moments before the shabby old table, with a small package in her hand. He could see the slight figure still, when he closed his eyes, and her misty hair against the cold light of the window. She had come to ask him if he would bury her dead canary, somewhere under the sky where there was grass and it would not be disturbed. Where could she bury it, down in the heart of Rome? She had wrapped it in a bit of pink satin and had laid it in a little brown cardboard box which had been full of chocolates from Ronzi and Singer's in Piazza Colonna. She pushed back the lid a finger's breadth and he saw the pink satin for a second. She laid the box before him. Would he please do what she asked? Very timidly she slipped a simple little ring off her finger, one of those gold ones with the sacred monogram which foreigners insist upon calling "Pax." She said she had bought it with her own money, and could give it away. She wished to give it to him. He protested, refused, but the fathomless violet eyes gazed into his very reproachfully. He had always been so kind to her, she said; would he not keep the little ring to remember her by? So he had taken it, and that same day he had gone all the way to his lonely vineyard on Monte Mario carrying the chocolate box in his hands, and he had buried it under the chestnut-tree at the upper end, where there was some grass; and the breeze always blew there on summer afternoons. Then he had sat on the roots of the tree for a while, looking towards Rome. He would have plenty of time to go to the vineyard now, for in a little while he should have nothing to do, as the palace was going to be sold. When he got home, he wrote a formal letter to Donna Sabina, informing her that he had fulfilled the commands she had deigned to give him, and ventured to subscribe himself her Excellency's most devoted, humble and grateful servant, as indeed he was, from the bottom of his heart. In twenty-four hours he received a note from her, written in a delicate tall hand, not without character, on paper bearing the address of Baron Volterra's house in Via Ludovisi. She thanked him in few words, warmly and simply. He read the note several times and then put it away in an old-fashioned brass-bound secretary, of which he always kept the key in his pocket. It was the only word of thanks he had received from any living member of the Conti family. A month had passed since then, but as he sat at his desk it was all as vivid as if it had happened yesterday. He was in his office to-day because he had received notice that some one was coming to look at the palace with a view to buying it, and he considered it his duty to show it to possible purchasers. Baron Volterra had sent him word in the morning, and he had come early. Then, as he sat in his old place, the ruin of the great house had enacted itself again before his eyes, so vividly that the pain had been almost physical. And then, he had fallen to thinking of Sabina, and wondering what was to become of her. That was the history of one half-hour in his life, on a May afternoon; but the whole man was in it, what he had been thirty years earlier, and a month ago, what he was to-day and what he would be to the end of his life. CHAPTER III If Sabina had known what was before her when she got into the Baroness Volterra's carriage and was driven up to the Via Ludovisi, followed by a cab with her luggage, she would probably have begged leave to go with her elder sister to the convent. Her mother would most likely have refused the permission, and she would have been obliged to accept the Volterras' hospitality after all, but she would have had the satisfaction of having made an effort to keep her freedom before entering into what she soon looked upon as slavery. Her mother would have considered this another evidence of the folly inherent in all the Conti family. Sabina lived in a luxurious house, she was treated with consideration, she saw her friends, and desirable young men saw her. What more could she wish? All this was true. The Baroness was at great pains to make much of her, and the Baron's manner to her was at once flattering, respectful and paternal. During the first few days she had discovered that if she accidentally expressed the smallest wish it was instantly fulfilled, and this was so embarrassing that she had since taken endless pains never to express any wish at all. Moreover not the slightest allusion to the misfortunes of her family was ever made before her, and if she was in total ignorance of the state of affairs, she was at least spared the humiliation of hearing that the palace was for sale, and might be sold any day, to any one who would pay the price asked. From time to time the Baroness said she hoped that Sabina had good news of her mother, but showed no curiosity in the matter, and the girl always answered that she believed her mother to be quite well. Indeed she did believe it, for she supposed that if the Princess were ill some one would let her know. She wrote stiff little letters herself, every Sunday morning, and addressed them to her uncle's place in Poland; but no one ever took the least notice of these conscientious communications, and she wondered why she sent them, after all. It was a remnant of the sense of duty to her parents instilled into her in the convent, and she could not help clinging to it still, from habit. She had a few friends of her own age, and they came to see her now and then. They were mostly companions of her recent convent days, and they asked her many questions, to most of which she had no answer. She noticed that they looked surprised, but they were well brought up girls, and kept their reflections to themselves, until they were at home. The Conti had fewer near relations than most Roman families, for of late they had not been numerous. The Prince's only sister had died childless, the dowager Princess was a Pole, and her daughter-in-law was a Tuscan. Sabina and her generation had therefore no first cousins; and those who were one degree or more removed were glad that they had not been asked to take charge of the girl after the catastrophe. It would have been all very well merely to give her a room and a place at table, but the older ones shook their heads, and said that before long the Baroness Volterra would have to dress her too, and give her pocket-money. Her good-for-nothing brother would not do anything for her, if he could, and the Princess, who was amusing herself in Poland, if not in Paris, was capable of forgetting her existence for a year at a time. All these things greatly enhanced the outward and visible merit of the Volterra couple, but made Sabina's position daily less endurable. So the Baroness laid up treasures in heaven while Sabina unwillingly stored trouble on earth. She was proud, to begin with. It was bad enough to have been ordered by her mother to accept the hospitality of people she did not like, but it was almost unbearable to realize by degrees that she was living on their effusive charity. If she had been as vain as she was proud, she would probably have left their house to take refuge in her sister's convent, for her vanity could not have borne the certainty that all society knew what her position was. The foundation of pride is the wish to respect oneself, whatever others may think; the mainspring of vanity is the craving for the admiration of others, no matter at what cost to one's self-respect. In the Conti family these qualities and defects were unevenly distributed, for while pride seemed to have been left out in the character of Sabina's brother, who was vain and arrogant, she herself was as unspoilt by vanity as she was plentifully supplied with the characteristic which is said to have caused Lucifer's fall, but which has been the mainstay of many a greatly-tempted man and woman. Perhaps what is a fault in angels may seem to be almost a virtue in humanity, compared with the meanness of worse failings. Sabina was not suspicious, yet she could not help wondering why the Baroness had been so very anxious to take her in, and sometimes she thought that the object might be to marry her to one of Volterra's two sons. One was in a cavalry regiment stationed in Turin, the other was in the diplomacy and was now in Washington. They were both doing very well in their careers and their father and mother often talked of them. The Baron was inclined to be playful now and then. "Ah, my dear young lady," he would cry, shaking one fat finger at Sabina across the dinner table, "take care, take care! You will lose your heart to both my boys and sow discord in my family!" At this he never failed to laugh, and his wife responded with a smile of motherly pride, followed by a discreet side glance at Sabina's delicate face. Then the finely-pencilled eyebrows were just the least bit more arched for a second, and the slender neck grew slightly straighter, but that was all, and the Baron did not even see the change. Sometimes Sabina said nothing, but sometimes she asked if the sons were coming home on leave. No, they were not coming at present. In the spring Volterra and his wife generally spent a few weeks in Turin, to see the elder son, on their way to Aix and Paris, but his brother could hardly expect to come home for another year. Then the couple would talk about both the young men, until Sabina's attention wandered, and she no longer heard what they were saying. She did not believe that they really thought of trying to marry her to one of the sons. In her own opinion they could gain nothing by it; she had no dowry now, and her mother had always talked of marriage as a business transaction. It did not occur to her that they could care to be allied with a ruined family, and that her mere name could be worth anything in their scale of values. They were millionaires, of course, and even the dowry which she might formerly have expected would have been nothing compared with their fortune; but her mother had always said that rich people were the very people who cared the most for money. That was the reason why they were rich. This explanation was so logical that Sabina had accepted it as the true one. Her knowledge of the world was really limited to what she had learned from her mother, after she had come back from the convent six months before the crash, and it was an odd mixture of limitations and exaggerations. When the Princess was in a good humour she believed in everybody; when she was not, which was when she had no money to throw away, she attributed the basest motives to all mankind. According to her moods, she had encouraged Sabina to look forward to a life of perpetual pleasure, or had assured her with energy that all men were liars, and that the world was a wretched place after all. It was true that the Princess entertained the cheerful view more often than not, which was perhaps fortunate for her daughter; but in her heart the young girl felt that she would have to rely on her own common sense to form any opinion of life, and as her position became more difficult, while the future did not grow more defined, she tried to think connectedly about it all, and to reach some useful conclusion. It was not easy. In her native city, living under the roof of people who held a strong position in the society to which she belonged, though they had not been born to it, she was as completely isolated as if she had been suddenly taken away and set down amongst strangers in Australia. She was as lonely as she could have been on a desert island. The Volterra couple were radically, constitutionally, congenitally different from the men and women she had seen in her mother's house. She could not have told exactly where the difference lay, for she was too young, and perhaps too simple. She did not instinctively like them, but she had never really felt any affection for her mother either, and her own brother and sister had always repelled her. Her mother had sometimes treated her like a toy, but more often as a nuisance and a hindrance in life, to be kept out of the way as much, as possible, and married off on the first opportunity. Yet Sabina knew that far down in her nature there was a mysterious tie of some sort, an intuition that often told her what her mother would say or do, though she herself would have spoken and acted otherwise. She had felt it even with her brother and sister, but she could not feel it at all with the Baron or his wife. She never could guess what they might do or say under the most ordinary circumstances, nor what things they would like and dislike, nor how they would regard anything she said or did; least of all could she understand why they were so anxious to keep her with them. It was all a mystery, but life itself was mysterious, and she was little more than a child in years though she had never had what one calls a real childhood. She often used to sit by her window, the sliding blinds partly drawn together, but leaving a space through which she could look down at the city, with a glimpse of Saint Peter's in the distance against the warm haze of the low Campagna. Rome seemed as far from her then as if she saw it in a vision a thousand miles away, and the very faint sounds from the distance were like voices in a dream. Then, if she closed her eyes a moment, she could see the dark streets about the Palazzo Conti, and the one open corner of the palace, high up in the sunlight; she could smell the acrid air that used to come up to her in the early morning when the panes were opened, damp and laden with odours not sweet but familiar in the heart of Rome; odours compounded of cabbages, stables, cheese and mud, and occasionally varied by the fumes of roasting coffee, or the sour vapours from a wine cart that was unloading stained casks, all wet with red juice, at the door of the wine shop far below, a dark little wine shop with a dry bush stuck out through a smoky little grated window, and a humble sign displaying the prices of drink in roughly painted blue and red figures. For her room had looked upon the narrowest and darkest of the streets, though it had been stately enough within, and luxuriously furnished, besides containing some objects of value and beauty over which there would be much bidding and squabbling of amateurs and experts when the great sale took place. It had been gloomy and silent and loveless, the life down there; and yet she would have gone back to it if she could, from the sunshine of the Via Ludovisi, and from the overpowering freshness of the Volterra house, where everything was modern, and polished, and varnished, and in perfect condition, suggesting that things had been just paid for. She had not liked the old life, but she liked her present surroundings even less, and at times she felt a furious longing to leave them suddenly, without warning; to go out when no one would notice her, and never to come back; to go she knew not where, out into the world, risking she knew not what, a high-born, penniless, fair-haired girl not yet eighteen. What would happen, if she did? She rarely laughed, but she would laugh at that, when she thought of the consternation her flight would produce. How puzzled the fat Baron would look, how the Baroness's thin mouth would be drawn down at the corners! How the invisible silk bellows would puff as she ran up and down stairs, searching the house for Sabina! There was more than one strain of wild blood in the delicate girl's veins, and the spring had come suddenly, with a bursting out of blossom and life and colour, and a twittering of nesting birds in the old gardens, and a rush of strange longings in her heart. Then Sabina told herself that there was nothing to keep her where she was, but her own will, and that no one would really care what became of her in the wide world; certainly not her mother, who had never written her so much as a line, nor sent her a message, since they had parted on the day of the catastrophe; certainly not her brother; probably not even her sister, whose whole being was absorbed in the tyrannical government of what she called her soul. Sabina, in her thoughts, irreverently compared Clementina's soul to a race-horse, and her sister to a jockey, riding it cruelly with whip and spur to the goal of salvation, whether it liked it or not. Sabina rose from her seat by the window, when she thought of liberty, and she walked up and down her room, driven by something she could not understand, and yet withheld by something she understood even less. For it was not fear, nor reflection, nor even common sense nor the thought of giving pain to any one that hindered her from leaving the house at such moments. It was not even the memory of the one human being who had hitherto loved her, and for whom she had felt affection and gratitude,--one of the nuns at the convent school, a brave, quiet little lady who made her believe in good. She meant to do no harm if she were free, and the nun would not really blame her, if she knew the truth. It was not that. It was the secret conviction that there was harm in the world from which mere courage could not protect her; it was the sort of instinct that warns young animals not to eat plants that are poisonous; it was the maiden intuition of a strange and unknown danger. She sat down again disconsolately. It was absurd, of course, and she could not run away. Where could she go? She had no money, and she would have to starve or beg before one day was out. She would be homeless, she would be driven to some house of charity, for a meal and a place to sleep, or else to sleep out under the sky. That would be delightful for once. She had always longed to sleep out of doors, to feel the breeze playing with her feathery hair in the dark, to watch the constellations turning slowly westwards, to listen to the night sounds, to the low rhythmical piping of the tree toad, the sorrowful cry of the little southern owl and the tolling of the hour in a far-off belfry. But it might rain. At the idea, Sabina laughed again. It would be very unpleasant to be caught in a shower while napping on a bench in a public garden. Besides, if the policemen found her there, an extremely young lady, extremely well dressed but apparently belonging to no one, they would in all likelihood ask her name, and she would have to tell them who she was; and then she would be brought back to Baron Volterra's house, unless they thought it more prudent to take her to a lunatic asylum. At that stage in her imaginings it was generally time to go out with the Baroness for the daily drive, which began with the leaving of cards and notes, then led to the country or one of the villas, and generally ended in a turn or two through the Corso before coming home. The worst part of the daily round was dinner when the Baron was at home. It was then that she felt most strongly the temptation to slip out of the house and never to come back. Often, however, he and his wife dined out, and then Sabina was served alone by two solemn men-servants, so extremely correct that they reminded her a little of her old home. These were the pleasantest evenings she spent during that spring, for when dinner was over she was free to go to her own room and curl herself up in a big armchair with a book, and read or dream till bedtime, as she pleased. When she was alone, her life seemed less objectless, less inexplicably empty, less stupidly incomprehensible, less lonely than in the company of those excellent people with whom she had nothing in common, but to whom she felt that she was under a great obligation. In their company, it was as if her life had stopped suddenly at the beginning and was never to go on again, as if she had stuck fast like a fly in a drop of amber, as if nothing of interest could ever happen to her though she might live a hundred years. She could hardly remember anything which had given her great pleasure. She did not remember to have been ever radiantly happy, though she could not recall much unhappiness since she had left the convent school. The last thing that had really hurt her had been the death of her pet canary, and she had kept her feelings to herself as well as she could, with the old aristocratic instinct of hiding pain. It was all idle and strangely empty, and yet hard to understand. She would have been much surprised if she could have guessed how much its emptiness interested other people in Rome; how the dowagers chattered about her over their tea, abusing her mother and all her relations for abandoning her like a waif; how the men reasoned about Baron Volterra's deep-laid schemes, trying to make out that his semi-adoption of Sabina, as they called it, must certainly bode ruin to some one, since he had never in his life done anything without a financial object; how the young girls unanimously declared that the Baroness wanted Sabina for one of her sons, because she was such a dreadful snob; how Cardinal Della Crusca shook his wise old head knowingly, as he, who knew so much, always did on the rare occasions when he knew nothing about the matter in hand; how a romantic young English secretary of Embassy christened her the Princess in the Tower; and how old Pompeo Sassi went up to his vineyard on Monte Mario every Sunday and Thursday and sat almost all the afternoon under the chestnut-tree thinking about her and making unpractical plans of his own. CHAPTER IV If Baron Volterra did not choose to sell the Palazzo Conti to the first comer, he doubtless knew his own business best, and he was not answerable to every one for his opinion that the fine old building was worth a good deal more than the highest offer he had yet received. Everybody knew that the palace was for sale, and some of the attempts made to buy it were openly discussed. A speculator had offered four hundred thousand francs for it, a rich South American had offered half a million; it was rumoured that the Vatican would give five hundred and fifty thousand, provided that the timbers of the carved ceilings were in good condition, but Volterra steadily refused to allow any of the carvings to be disturbed in order to examine the beams. During several days a snuffy little man with a clever face poked about with a light in dark places between floors, trying to find out whether the wood were sound or rotten, and asking all sorts of questions of the old porter, and of two workmen who went with him, and who had been employed in repairs in the palace, as their fathers had been before them, perhaps for generations. But their answers were never quite satisfactory, and the snuffy man disappeared to the mysterious regions beyond the Tiber, and did not come back. Some people, knowing the ways of the Romans, might have inferred that the two workmen, a mason and a carpenter, had not been treated by Baron Volterra in such a way as to make them give a favourable report; and as he seemed perfectly indifferent about the result this is quite possible. At all events the carpenter made out that he could not get at the beams in question, without moving the decorations which covered them, and the mason affirmed that it was quite impossible to get a view of the foundations of the north-west corner of the palace, which were said to be weak, without knocking a hole through a wall upon which depended such solidity as there was. It was useless, he said. The snuffy gentleman could ask the Baron, if he pleased, and the Baron could do what he liked since the property now belonged to him: but he, the mason, would not lay hand to pick or crowbar without the Baron's express authorization. The Baron was a Senator of the Kingdom, said the mason, and could therefore of course send him to penal servitude in the galleys for life, if he pleased. That is the average Roman workman's idea of justice. The snuffy expert, who looked very much like a poor priest in plain clothes, though he evidently knew his business, made no reply, nor any attempt to help the mason's conscience with money. But he stood a little while by the wall, with his lantern in his hands, and presently put his ear to the damp stones, and listened. "There is running water somewhere not far off," he said, looking keenly at the workman. "It is certainly not wine," answered the man, with a rough laugh, for he thought it a very good joke. "Are there any 'lost waters' under the palace?" asked the expert. "I do not know," replied the mason, looking away from the lantern towards the gloom of the cellars. "I believe," said the snuffy gentleman, setting down his lantern, and taking a large pinch from a battered silver snuff-box, on which the arms of Pius Ninth were still distinguishable, "I believe that the nearest 'lost water' to this place is somewhere under the Vicolo del Soldati." "I do not know." The expert skilfully inserted the brown dust into his nostrils with his right thumb, scarcely wasting a grain in the operation. "You do not seem to know much," he observed thoughtfully, and took up his lantern again. "I know what I have been taught," replied the mason without resentment. The expert glanced at him quickly, but said nothing more. His inspection was finished, and he led the way out of the intricate cellars as if he knew them by heart, though he had only passed through them once, and he left the palace on foot when he had brushed some of the dust from his shabby clothes. The porter looked enquiringly at the two men, as they filled little clay pipes that had cane stems, standing under the deep entrance. "Not even the price of half a litre of wine," said the mason in answer to the mute question. "Church stuff," observed the carpenter discontentedly. The porter nodded gravely, and the men nodded to him as they went out into the street. They had nothing more to do that day, and they turned into the dark little wine shop, where the withered bush stuck out of the blackened grating. They sat down opposite each other, with the end of the grimy board of the table between them, and the carpenter made a sign. The host brought a litre measure of thin red wine and set it down between them with two tumblers. He was ghastly pale, flabby and sullen, with a quarter of an inch of stubbly black beard on his unhealthy face. The carpenter poured a few drops of wine into one of the tumblers, shook it about, turned it into the other, shook it again, and finally poured it on the unctuous stone floor beside him. Then he filled both glasses to the brim, and both men drank in silence. They repeated the operation, and after the second glass there was not much left in the measure. The flabby host had retired to the gloomy vaults within, where he played cards with a crony by the light of a small smoking lamp with a cracked chimney. "That was the very place, was it not?" asked the carpenter at last, in a low tone, and almost without moving his lips. The mason said nothing, but shrugged his shoulders, in a sort of enigmatic assent. Both drank again, and after a long time the carpenter smiled faintly. "He was looking for the 'lost water,'" he said, in a tone of contempt. The faint smile slowly reflected itself in the mason's face. The two finished their wine, lit their pipes again, left the price of their drink on the table without disturbing the host and went away. So far as any outsider could have judged, the expert's curiosity and the few words exchanged by the workmen referred to the so-called "lost water," which might be somewhere under the north-west corner of the Palazzo Conti, and no one unacquainted with subterranean Rome could possibly have understood what any of the three meant. The "lost waters" of Rome are very mysterious. Here and there, under old streets and far down amongst the foundations of ancient palaces, there are channels of running water which have no apparent connection with any of the aqueducts now restored and in use. It is a water that comes no one knows whence and finds its way to the Tiber, no one knows how. It is generally clear and very cold, and in the days when the aqueducts were all broken and most people drank of the river, the "lost water" was highly prized. It appears in the most unexpected places, sometimes in great quantities and seriously interfering with any attempt to lay the foundations of a new building, sometimes black and silent, under a huge flagstone in an old courtyard, sometimes running with an audible rush through hidden passages deeper than the deepest cellars. It has puzzled archaeologists, hydraulic engineers and architects for generations, its presence has never been satisfactorily explained, there seems not to be any plan of the city which shows its whereabouts, and the modern improvements of the Tiber's banks do not appear to have affected its occult courses. By tradition handed down from father to son, certain workmen, chiefly masons and always genuine Romans, claim to know more about it than other people; but that is as much as can be said. It is known as the "lost water," and it rises and falls, and seeks different levels in unaccountable ways, as water will when it is confined under the earth but is here and there confronted by the pressure of the air. But though the old-fashioned Roman workman still looks upon all traditional information about his trade as secret and never to be revealed, that fact alone might seem insufficient to account for the behaviour of Gigi the carpenter and of Toto the mason under the particular circumstances here narrated, still less for the contempt they showed for the snuffy expert who was apparently looking for the "lost water." An invisible witness would have gathered that they had something of more importance to conceal. To the expert, their conduct and answers must have been thoroughly unsatisfactory, for the Vatican was even said to have refused to pay the additional fifty thousand francs, On the ground that the state of the foundations was doubtful and that the timbers of the upper story were not sound. Baron Volterra's equanimity was not in the least disturbed by this. On the contrary, instead of setting the price lower, he frankly told all applicants, through his agent, that he was in no hurry to sell, as he had reason to believe that the land about the Palazzo Conti would soon rise in value. He had settled with the representatives of the Conti family, and it was said that he had behaved generously. The family had nothing left after the crash, which might partially account for such an exhibition of generosity; but it was hinted that Baron Volterra had given them the option of buying back the palace and some other property upon which he had foreclosed, if they should be able to pay for it in ten years. Soon after the visit of the snuffy expert, Volterra's agent informed the porter that a gentleman had taken the small apartment on the intermediate story, which had formerly been occupied by a chaplain but had been disused for years. It had been part of the Conti's folly that they had steadily refused to let any part of the vast building since the old Prince's death. On the following day, the new-comer moved in, with his belongings, consisting of a small quantity of new furniture, barely sufficient for himself and his one servant, and a number of very heavy cases, which turned out to be full of books. Gigi, the carpenter, was at once sent for to put up plain shelves for these, and he took stock of the lodger while the latter was explaining what he wanted. "He is a gentleman," said Gigi to Toto, that very evening, as they stood filling their pipes at the corner of the Vicolo del Soldati. "His name is Malipieri. He is as black as the horses at a funeral of the first-class, and he is not a Roman." "Who knows what race of animal this may be?" Toto was not in a good humour. "He is of the race of gentlemen," asserted Gigi confidently. "Then he will end badly," observed Toto. "Let us go and drink. It is better." "Let us go and drink," repeated Gigi. "You have a sensible thought sometimes. I think this man is an engineer, or an architect. He wants a draughtsman's table." "Evil befall his little dead ones, whatever he is," returned the other, by way of welcome to the young man who had moved into the palace. "He advanced me ten francs to buy wood for the shelves," said Gigi, who was by far the more cheerful of the two. "Come and drink," returned Toto, relevantly or irrelevantly. "That is much better." So they turned into the wine shop. CHAPTER V Baron Volterra introduced Marino Malipieri to the two ladies. The guest had come punctually, for the Baron had looked at his watch a moment before he was announced, and it was precisely eight o'clock. Malipieri bowed to the Baroness, who held out her hand cordially, and then to Sabina. "Donna Sabina Conti," said the Baron with extreme distinctness, in order that his guest should be quite sure of the young girl's identity. Sabina looked down modestly, as the nuns had told her to do when a young man was introduced to her. At the same moment Malipieri's eyes turned quietly and quickly to the Baron, and a look of intelligence passed between the two men. Malipieri understood that Sabina was one of the family in whose former palace he was living. Then he glanced again at the young girl for one moment, before making a commonplace remark to the Baroness, and after that Sabina felt that she was at liberty to look at him. She saw a very dark man of average height, with short black hair that grew rather far back from his very white forehead, and wearing a closely clipped black beard and moustache which did not by any means hide the firm lines of the mouth and chin. From the strongly marked eyebrows downward his face was almost of the colour of newly cast bronze, and the dusky hue contrasted oddly with the clear whiteness of his forehead. He was evidently a man who had lately been living much out of doors under a burning sun. Sabina thought that his very bright black eyes and boldly curved features suggested a young hawk, and he had a look of compact strength and a way of moving which betrayed both great energy and extreme quickness. But there was something more, which Sabina recognized at the first glance. She felt instantly that he was not like the Baron and his wife; that he belonged in some way to the same variety of humanity as herself; that she would understand him when he spoke, that she would often feel intuitively what he was going to say next, and that he would understand her. She listened while he talked to the Baroness. He had a slight Venetian accent, but his voice had not the soft Venetian ring. It was a little veiled, and though not at all loud it was somewhat harsh. Sabina did not dislike the manly tone, though it was not musical, nor the Venetian pronunciation, although that was unfamiliar. In countries like Italy and Germany, which have had many centres and many historical capital cities, almost all educated people speak with the accents of their several origins, and are rather tenacious of the habit than anxious to get rid of it, generally maintaining that their own pronunciation is the right one. "Signor Malipieri," said the Baron to Sabina, as they went in to dinner, "is the celebrated archaeologist." "Yes," Sabina answered, as if she knew all about him, though she had never heard him mentioned. Malipieri probably overheard the Baron's speech, but he took no notice of it. At dinner, he seemed inclined to be silent. The Baron asked him questions about his discoveries, to which he gave rather short answers, but Sabina gathered that he had found something extraordinary in Carthage. She did not know where Carthage was, and did not like to ask, but she remembered that Marius had sat there among some ruins. Perhaps Malipieri had found his bones, for no one had ever told her that Marius did not continue to sit among the ruins to his dying day. She connected him vaguely with AEneas and another person called Regulus. It was all rather uncertain. What she saw clearly was that the Baron wished to make Malipieri feel at his ease, but that Malipieri's idea of being at his ease was certainly not founded on a wish to talk about himself. So the conversation languished for some time. The Baroness, who knew about as much about Carthage as Sabina, made a few disconnected remarks, interspersed with laudatory allusions to the young man's immense learning, for she wished to please her husband, though she had not the slightest idea why Malipieri was asked to dinner. Finding that he was not perceptibly flattered by what she said, she began to talk about the Venetian aristocracy, for she knew that his name was historical, and she recognized in him at once the characteristics of the nobility she worshipped. Malipieri smiled politely, and in answer to a direct question admitted that his mother had been a Gradenigo. The Baroness was delighted at this information. "To think," she said, "that by a mere accident you and Donna Sabina should meet here, the descendants of two of the oldest families of the Italian aristocracy!" "I am a republican," observed Malipieri quietly. "You!" cried the Baroness in amazement. "You, the offspring of such races as the Malipieri and the Gradenigo a republican, a socialist, an anarchist!" "There is a difference," said Malipieri with a smile. "A republican is not an anarchist!" "I can never believe it," answered the Baroness solemnly. She ate a few green peas and shook her head. "I went to Carthage because I was condemned to three years' confinement in prison," replied Malipieri with calm. "Prison!" exclaimed the Baroness in horror, and she looked at her husband, mutely asking why in the world he had brought a convict to their table. The Baron smiled benignly, as he disposed of an ample mouthful of green peas, before he spoke. "Signor Malipieri," he said, when he had swallowed the last one, "founded and edited a republican newspaper in the north of Italy." "And you were sent to prison for that?" asked Sabina with indignation. "It is one thing to send a man to prison," said Malipieri. "It is another to make him go there. I escaped to Switzerland, and I came back to Italy quite lately, after the amnesty." "I am amazed!" The Baroness looked at the servants timidly, as if she expected the butler and the footman to express their disapprobation of the guest. "I have left politics for the present," Malipieri replied, looking at Sabina and smiling. "Of course!" cried the Baroness. "But--" she stopped short. "My wife," said the financier with a grin, "is afraid you have dynamite about you." "How absurd!" The Baroness felt that she was ridiculous. "But I do not understand how you can be friends," she added, glancing from her husband to Malipieri. "We are at least on good terms of acquaintance," said the younger man a little markedly. Sabina liked the speech and the way in which it was spoken. "We have a common ground for it in our interest in antiquities. Is it not true, Signer Malipieri?" The Baron looked at him and smiled again, as if there were a secret between them, and Malipieri glanced at Sabina. "It is quite true," he said gravely. "The Baron has read all I have written about Carthage." Volterra possessed a sort of rough social tact, together with the native astuteness and great knowledge of men which had made him rich and a Senator. He suddenly became voluble and led the conversation in a new direction, which it followed till the end of dinner. Several people came in afterwards, as often happened, before the coffee was taken away. They were chiefly men in politics, and two of them brought their wives with them. They were not the sort of guests whom the Baroness preferred, for they were not by any means all noble Romans, but they were of importance to her husband and she took great pains to make them welcome. To one she offered his favourite liqueur, which happened to be a Sicilian ratafia; for another she made the Baron send for some of those horribly coarse black cigars known as Tuscans, which some Italians prefer to anything else; for a third, she ordered fresh coffee to be especially made. She took endless trouble. Malipieri seemed to know none of the guests, and he took advantage of the Baroness's preoccupation for their comforts to sit down by Sabina. He did not look at her, and she thought he looked bored, as he sat a moment in silence. Then a thin deputy with a magnificent forehead and thick grey hair began to hold forth on the subject of a projected divorce law and the guests gathered round him. Sabina had never heard of Sydney Smith, but she had a suspicion that nobody could be as great as the speaker looked. While she was thinking of this, Malipieri spoke to her in a low voice. "I suppose that you are stopping in the house," he said. "Yes." Sabina turned her eyes a little, but did not look straight at him. She saw, however, that he was still watching the people in the room, and still looked bored, and she was quite unprepared for what followed. "Are the affairs of your family finally settled?" he enquired, without changing his tone. Sabina was so much surprised that she waited a moment before answering. Her first instinct was to ask him stiffly why he put such a question, and she would have replied to it in that way if it had come from any other guest in the room; but she changed her mind almost instantly. "No one has told me anything," she said simply, in a low voice. Malipieri turned his head a little with a quick movement, and clasped his brown hands over one knee. "You know nothing?" he asked. "Nothing whatever about the matter?" "Nothing." He bit his lip as if he were indignant, and were repressing an exclamation. "No one has written to me--for a long time," Sabina said, after a moment. She had been on the point of saying that she had never received a line from any member of her family since the crash, but that seemed to sound like a confidence, and what she really said was quite true. "Has not the Senator told you anything either?" Malipieri asked. "No. I suppose he does not like to speak about our misfortunes before me." "Have you, I mean you yourself, any interest in the Palazzo Conti now? Can you tell me that?" "I know nothing--nothing!" Sabina repeated the word with a slight tremor, for just then she felt her position more keenly than ever before. "Why do you ask?" She could not help putting the question which rose to her lips the second time, but there was no coldness in her voice. She was very lonely, and she felt that Malipieri was speaking from some honourable motive. "I am living in the palace," Malipieri answered. Sabina looked up quickly, with an expression of interest in her pale young face. The thought that the man beside her was living in her old home was like a bond of acquaintance. "Really?" she cried. "In which part of the house?" "Do not seem interested, please," said Malipieri, suddenly looking very bored again. "If you do, we shall not be allowed to talk. I am living in the little apartment on the intermediate story. They tell me that a chaplain once lived there." "I know where it is," answered Sabina, "but I was never in the rooms. They used to be shut up, I think." The deputy who was haranguing on the subject of divorce seemed to be approaching his peroration. His great voice filled the large room with incessant noise, and everybody seemed anxiously waiting for a chance to contradict him. Malipieri was in no danger of being overheard. "If it happens," he said, "that I wish to communicate with you on a matter of importance, how can I reach you best?" He asked the question quite naturally, as if he had known Sabina all his life. At first she was so much surprised that she could hardly speak. "I--I do not know," she stammered. She had never received letters from any one but her own family or her school friends, and a very faint colour rose in her pale cheek. Malipieri looked more bored and weary than ever. "It may be absolutely necessary for me to write to you before long," he said. "Shall I write by post?" Sabina hesitated. "Is there no one in all Rome whom you can trust to bring a note and give it to you when you are alone?" "There is Signor Sassi," Sabina answered almost instinctively. "But really, why should you--" "How can I find Sassi?" asked Malipieri, interrupting the question. "Who is he?" "He was our agent. Is he gone? The old porter will know where to find him. I think he lived near the palace. But perhaps the porter has been sent away too." "He is still there. Have you been made to sign any papers since you have been here?" "No." "Will you promise me something?" Sabina could not understand how it was that a man who had been a stranger two hours earlier was speaking to her almost as if he were an intimate friend, still less why she no longer felt that she ought to check him and assert her dignity. "If it is right, I will promise it," she answered quietly, and looking down. "It is right," he said. "If the Senator, or any one else asks you to sign a paper, will you promise to consult me before doing so?" "But I hardly know you!" she laughed, a little shyly. "It is of no use to waste time and trouble on social conventions," said Malipieri. "If you do not trust me, can you trust this Sassi?" "Oh yes!" "Then consult him. I will make him consult me, and it will be the same--and ten times more conventional and proper." He smiled. "Will you promise that?" he asked. "Yes. I promise. But I wish you would tell me more." "I wish I could. But I hardly know you!" He smiled again, as he repeated her own words. "Never mind that! Tell me!" "No. I cannot. If there is trouble I will tell you everything--through Sassi, of course." Sabina laughed, and all at once she felt as if she had known him for years. At that moment the deputy finished his speech, and all who had anything to say in answer said it at once, in order to lose no time, while the speaker relighted his villainous black cigar, puffing tremendously. The Baroness suddenly remembered Sabina and Malipieri in the corner, and after screaming out several incoherent phrases, which might have been taken for applause or dissent and were almost lost in the general din, she moved across the room. "It is atrocious!" she cried, as she reached Sabina. "I hope you have not heard a word he said!" "When a man has such a voice as that, it is impossible not to hear him," said Malipieri, rising and answering before Sabina had time to speak. Sabina rose, too, rather reluctantly. "And of course you agreed with everything he said," the Baroness replied. "All anarchists do!" "I beg your pardon. I do not agree with him at all, and I am really not an anarchist." He smiled politely, and Sabina noticed with an unaccountable little thrill of satisfaction that the smile was quite different from the one she had seen in his face more than once while they had been talking together. As for the deputy's discourse, she had not heard a word of it. The Baroness sat down on the sofa, and Sabina slipped away. She was not supposed to be in society yet, as she was not quite eighteen, and there was certainly no reason why she should stay in the drawing-room that evening, while there were many reasons why she should go away. The Baroness breathed an audible sigh of relief when she was gone, for it was never possible to predict what some excited politician might say before her in the heat of argument. In the silence of her own room she sat down to think over the unexpected events of the evening. Very young girls love to look forward to the moment when they shall be able to "think" of what has happened, after they have met men they are inclined to like, and who interest them. But when the time really comes they hardly ever think at all. They see pictures, they hear voices, they feel again what they have felt, they laugh, they shed tears all alone, and they believe they are thinking, or even reasoning. Their little joys come back to them, the little triumphs of their vanity, and also all the little hurts their sensitiveness has suffered, and which men do not often guess and still more rarely understand. There must be some original reason why all boys call girls silly, and all girls think boys stupid. It must be part of the first manifestation of that enormous difference which exists between the point of view of men and women in after life. Women are, in a sense, the embodiment of practice, while men are the representatives of theory. In practice, in a race for life, the runner who jumps everything in his way is always right, unless he breaks his neck. In theory, he is as likely to break his neck at the first jump as at the second, and the chances of his coming to grief increase quickly, always in theory, as he grows tired. So theory says that it is safer never to jump at all, but to go round through the gates, or wade ignominiously through the water. Women jump; men go round. The difference is everything. Women believe in what often succeeds in practice, and they take all risks and sometimes come down with a crash. Men theorize about danger, make elaborate calculations to avoid it and occasionally stick in the mud. When women fall at a stone wall they scream, when men are stuck in a bog they swear. The difference is fundamental. In nine cases out of ten it is the woman who enjoys the ecstatic delight of saying "I told you so," and there are plenty of women who would ask no greater joy in paradise than to say so to their husbands for ever and ever. Indeed, eternal reward and punishment could thus be at once combined and distributed in a simple manner. Sabina took her first fence that evening, for when she put out her candle she was sure that Malipieri was already her friend, and that she could trust him in any emergency. Moreover, though she would not have acknowledged it, she inwardly hoped that some emergency might not be far in the future. But Malipieri walked all the way from the Via Ludovisi to the Palazzo Conti, which is more than a mile, without noticing that he had forgotten to light the cigar he had taken out on leaving Volterra's house. CHAPTER VI Malipieri had the Palazzo Conti to himself. The main entrance was always shut now, and only a small postern, cut in one side of the great door, was left ajar. The porter loafed about in the great court with his broom and his pipe; in the morning his wife went upstairs and opened a few windows, merely as a formality, and late in the afternoon she shut them again. Malipieri's man generally went out twice every day, carrying a military dinner-pail, made in three sections, which he brought back half an hour later. Malipieri sometimes was not seen for several days, but frequently he went out in the morning and did not come back till dark. Now and then, things were delivered for him at the door,--a tin of oil for his lamps, a large box of candles, packages of odd shapes, sometimes very heavy, and which the porter was told to handle with care. The old man tried to make acquaintance with Malipieri's man, but found it less easy than he had expected. In the first place, Masin came from some outlandish part of Italy where an abominable dialect was spoken, and though he could speak school Italian when he pleased, he chose to talk to the porter in his native jargon, when he talked at all. He might just as well have spoken Greek. Secondly, he refused the porter's repeated offers of a litre at the wine shop, always saying something which sounded like a reference to his delicate health. As he was evidently as strong as an ox, and as healthy as a savage or a street dog, the excuse carried no conviction. He was a big, quiet fellow, with china-blue eyes and a reddish moustache. The porter was not used to such people, nor to servants who wore moustaches, and was inclined to distrust the man. On the other hand, though Masin would not drink, he often gave the porter a cigar, with a friendly smile. One day, in the morning, Baron Volterra came to see Malipieri, and stayed over an hour, a part of which time the two men spent in the courtyard, walking up and down in the north-west corner, and then taking some measurements with a long tape which Malipieri produced from his pocket. When the Baron went away he stopped and spoke with the porter. First he gave him five francs; then he informed him that his wages would be raised in future by that amount; and finally he told him that Signor Malipieri was an architect and would superintend the repairs necessary to the foundations at the north-west corner, that while the work was going on even the little postern door was to be kept shut all day, and no one was to be admitted on any condition without Signor Malipieri's express permission. The fat Baron fixed his eyes on the porter's with an oddly hard look, and said that he himself might come at any moment to see how the work was going on, and that if he found anybody inside the gate without Signor Malipieri's authority, it would be bad for the porter. During this conversation, Malipieri stood listening, and when it ended he nodded, as if he were satisfied, and after shaking hands with the Baron he went up the grand staircase without a word. It was all very mysterious, and the porter shook his head as he turned into his lodge after fastening the postern; but he said nothing to his wife about what had passed. From what he had been told, he now naturally expected that a number of masons would come in a day or two in order to begin the work of strengthening the foundations; but no one came, and everything went on as usual, except that the postern was kept shut. He supposed that Malipieri was not ready, but he wisely abstained from asking questions. Then Malipieri asked him for the address of Pompeo Sassi, and wrote it down in his pocket-book, and went out. That was on the morning after he had dined at the Baron's house, for it was not his habit to waste time when he wanted information. Sassi received Malipieri in a little sitting-room furnished with a heterogeneous collection of utterly useless objects, all of which the old agent treasured with jealous affection, and daily recommended to the care of the elderly woman who was his only servant. The sofa and chairs had been new forty years ago, and though the hideous red-and-green stuffs with which they were covered were still tolerably vivid in colours the legs did not look safe, and Malipieri kept his feet well under him and sat down cautiously. Two rickety but well-dusted tables were loaded with ancient nicknacks, dating from the early part of the second French Empire, with impossibly ugly little figures carved out of cheap alabaster, small decayed photograph albums, and ingeniously bad wax flowers under glass shades. On the walls hung bad lithographs of Pius Ninth, Napoleon Third and Metternich, with a large faded photograph of old Prince Conti as a young man. Malipieri looked at it curiously, for he guessed that it represented Sabina's father. The face was clean-shaven, thin and sad, with deep eyes and fair hair that looked almost white now, as if the photograph had grown old with the man, while he had lived. Sassi sat down opposite his visitor. He wore a black cloth cap with a green tassel, and rubbed his hands slowly while he waited for Malipieri to speak. The latter hesitated a moment and then went to the point at once. "You were the agent of the Conti estate for many years," he said. "I know the Senator Volterra and have met Donna Sabina. I understand that her mother has left her under the charge of the Senator's wife, and seems to have forgotten her existence. The young lady is apparently without resources of her own, and it is not clear what would become of her if the Volterra couple should not find it convenient to keep her with them. Is that the state of affairs?" Sassi nodded gravely. Then he looked keenly at the young man, and asked him a question. "May I enquire why you take an interest in Donna Sabina Conti?" Malipieri returned the other's gaze quietly. "I am an architect, called in by the Senator to superintend some work on the palace. The Senator, as you know, took over the building when he foreclosed the mortgage, and he has not yet sold it, though he has refused several good offers. I have an idea that he believes it to be very valuable property. If this should turn out to be true, and if he should have made a very profitable transaction, he ought in honour, if not in law, to make over a part of the profits to Donna Sabina, who has practically been cheated of her share in her father's estate. Her mother, and her brother and sister, spent everything they could lay hands on, whereas she never had anything. Is that true?" "Quite true, quite true," repeated Sassi sadly. "And if Donna Sabina were to call them to account, I fancy the law would take a rather unpleasant view of what they did. I have heard that sort of thing called stealing when the persons who did it were not princes and princesses, but plain people like you and me. Do you happen to think of any better word?" Sassi was silent. He had eaten the bread of the Conti all his life. He glanced at the faded photograph of the Prince, as if to explain, and Malipieri understood. "You are an honorable man," he said. "I can no more tell you why I wish to help Donna Sabina to her rights, if she has any, than I can explain a great many things I have done in my life. When I see a dog kicked, I always kick the man, if I can, and I do not remember to have regretted any momentary unpleasantness that has followed in such cases. I have only seen Donna Sabina once, but I mean to help her if possible. Now tell me this. Has she any legal claim in the value of the palace or not?" "I am afraid not," Sassi answered. "Do you know whether she was ever induced to sign any release of her guardians?" "She never did." "That might be bad for them. That is all I wished to know. Thank you." Malipieri rose to take his leave. "If anything of importance happens, can you communicate with Donna Sabina?" he asked. "I can write to her," Sassi answered. "I suppose she would receive me if I went to the house." "That would be better." "Excuse me," said the old man, before opening the door to let his visitor out, "am I right in supposing that the work the Baron wishes done is connected with the foundations?" "Yes." "At the north-west corner within the courtyard?" "Yes," answered Malipieri, looking at him attentively. "Do you happen to know anything about the condition of that part of the palace?" "Most people," Sassi replied, "have now forgotten that a good deal of work was done there long ago, under Pope Gregory Sixteenth." "Indeed? I did not know that. What was the result?" "The workmen came across the 'lost water.' It rose suddenly one day and one of them was drowned. I believe his body was never recovered. Everything was filled in again after that. For my own part I do not think the building is in any danger." "Perhaps not," said Malipieri, suddenly looking bored. "I only carry out the Senator's wishes," he added, as if with an afterthought. "It is my business to find out whether there is danger or not." He took his leave and went away, convinced that the old agent knew about other things besides Sabina's friendless condition, but unwilling to question him just then. The information Sassi had volunteered was interesting but not useful. Malipieri thought he himself knew well enough where the "lost water" was, under the Palazzo Conti. It was not far from Sassi's house to the palace, but he walked very slowly through the narrow streets, and stopped more than once, deliberately looking back, as if he were trying to keep the exact direction of some point in his mind, and he seemed interested in the gutters, and in the walls, at their base, just above the pavement. At the corner of the Vicolo dei Soldati he saw a little marble tablet let into the masonry and yellow with age. He stopped a moment and read the inscription. Then he turned away with a look of annoyance, for it set forth that "by order of the most Eminent Vicar all persons were warned not to empty garbage there, on pain of a fine." It was a forgotten document of the old papal administration, as he could have told without reading it if he had known Rome better. From the corner he counted his paces and then stopped again and examined the wall and the pavement minutely. There was nothing to be seen at all different from the pavement and the wall for many yards further on and further back, and Malipieri apparently abandoned the search, for he now walked on quickly till he reached the entrance of the palace, on the other side, and went in. From the low door of the wine shop, Toto, the mason, had seen him, and stood watching him till he was out of sight. "He does not know where it is," Toto said, sitting down again opposite Gigi. "Engineers know everything," retorted the carpenter. "If this one knew anything, he would not have stood there looking at the stones. I do not suppose the municipality is going to put up a monument to my grandfather, whom may the Lord preserve in glory!" At this Gigi laughed, for he knew that Toto's grandfather had been drowned in the "lost water" somewhere deep down under that spot, and had never been found. The two men drank in silence. After a long time Toto spoke again. "A woman," he said, with a shrug of the shoulders. "A woman drowned him?" asked Gigi. "How could a woman do it?" "A man did it. But it was for jealousy of a woman." "The man was a mason, I suppose," suggested Gigi. "Of course. He was working with the others in the morning, and he knew where they would be after dinner. He did not come back with them, and half an hour after they had gone down the water came. How many times have I told you that?" "It is always a new tale," answered Gigi. "It gives me pleasure to hear it. Your father was a young man then, was he not?" "Eighteen." Toto lighted his pipe. "And the man who did it died soon afterwards?" Gigi said. "Of course," said Toto. "What else could my father do? He killed him. It was the least he could have done. My father is also in Paradise." "Requiescat!" ejaculated the carpenter devoutly. "Amen," answered Toto. "He killed him with a mattock." "It was well done," observed Gigi with satisfaction. "I suppose," he continued after a pause, "that if anybody went down there now, you could let in the water." "Why should I? I do not care what they do. If they send for me, I may serve them. If they think they can do without me, let them try. I do not care a cabbage!" "Perhaps not," Gigi answered thoughtfully. "But it must be a fine satisfaction to know that you can drown them all, like rats in a hole." "Yes," said Toto, "it is a fine satisfaction." "And even to know that you can make the water come before they begin, so that they can never do anything without you." "That too," assented the mason. "They would pay you a great deal to help them, if they could not pump the water out. There is no one else in Rome who knows how to turn it off." Gigi made the remark tentatively, but Toto did not answer. "You will need some one to help you," suggested the carpenter in an insinuating tone. "I can do it alone." "It is somewhere in the cellars of number thirteen, is it not?" asked Gigi. He would have given all he had to know what Toto knew, and the bargain would have been a very profitable one, no doubt. But though the mason was his closest friend there were secrets of the trade which Toto would not reveal to him. "The numbers in the street were all changed ten years ago," Toto answered. He rose from his seat by the grimy table, and Gigi followed his example with a sigh of disappointment. They were moderate men, and hardly ever drank more than their litre of their wine. Toto smelt of mortar and his fustian clothes and hairy arms were generally splashed with it. Gigi smelt of glue and sawdust, and there were plentiful marks of his calling on his shiny old cloth trousers and his coarse linen shirt. Toto's face was square, stony and impenetrable; Gigi's was sharp as a bill and alive with curiosity. Gigi wore a square paper cap; Toto wore a battered felt hat of no shape at all. On Sundays and holidays they both shaved and turned out in immaculate white shirts, well brushed broadcloth and decent hats, recognizable to each other but not to their employers. Malipieri was accosted by a stranger at the gate of the palace. The porter, faithfully obedient to his orders, was standing inside the open postern, completely blocking it with his bulk, and when Malipieri came up the visitor was still parleying with him. "This gentleman is asking for you, sir," said the old man. The individual bowed politely and stepped back a little. He had a singularly worthy appearance, Malipieri thought, and he would have inspired confidence if employed in a bank; his thick grey hair was parted in the middle, and at first sight Malipieri felt perfectly sure that it was parted down the back. His brown eyes were very wide open, and steady, his slightly grizzled moustache was neither twisted straight up at the ends in the imperial German manner, nor straight out like a cat's whiskers, nor waxed to fine points in the old French fashion. It grew naturally and was rather short, but it hid his mouth almost completely. The man was extremely well dressed in half-mourning, wore dark grey gloves and carried a plain black stick. He spoke quietly and Malipieri thought he recognized the Genoese accent. "Signor Marino Malipieri?" "Yes," answered the architect, in a tone that asked the visitor's name in return. "My name is Vittorio Bruni. May I have a few words with you?" "Certainly," Malipieri answered, with considerable coolness. "Thank you. I have been much interested by your discoveries in Carthage, and if you would allow me to ask you one or two questions--" "Pray come in." "Thanks. After you." "After you," insisted Malipieri, standing aside. They went in. Before shutting the postern, the porter looked out into the street. It was almost deserted. Two men were standing together near the corner, apparently arguing some question, and stopping in their walk in order to talk more at their ease, as Romans often do. The porter shut the little door with a clang, and went back to his lodge. Malipieri and his visitor were already on the stairs. Malipieri let himself in with a small latch-key, for he had ordered a modern patent lock to be put on his door as soon as he moved into the house. Masin appeared almost at once, however, and stood waiting for his master at the door of the sitting-room, like a large, placid mastiff. Malipieri nodded to him, and went in with Signor Bruni. They sat down by the open window and Signor Bruni began to talk. In a few minutes it became evident that whether the man knew anything of the subject or not he had read everything that Malipieri had written, and remembered most of it by heart. He spoke fluently and asked intelligent questions. He had never been to Carthage, he said, but he thought of making the trip to Tunis during the following winter. Yes, he was a man of leisure, though he had formerly been in business; he had a taste for archaeology, and did not think it was too late to cultivate it, in a modest way, for his own pleasure. Of course, he could never hope to accomplish anything of importance, still less to become famous like Malipieri. It was merely a taste, and was better than nothing as an interest in life. Malipieri protested that he was not famous, but agreed with Signor Bruni about other matters. It was better to follow a serious pursuit than to do nothing with one's life. "Or to dash into politics," suggested Bruni carelessly, as if he had thought of trying that. Perhaps he had heard of Malipieri's republican newspaper, but if he had thought of drawing the young man into conversation about it, he was disappointed. Malipieri continued to agree with him, listening attentively to all he said without once looking bored. "And now," continued Bruni presently, "if it is not indiscreet, may I ask whether you have any new field of discovery in view?" The phrases ran along as if they had been all prepared beforehand. The accent was now decidedly Genoese, and Malipieri, who was a Venetian, disliked it. "Not at present," he said. "I have undertaken a little professional work in Rome, and I am trying to learn more about the Phoenician language." "That is beyond me!" Bruni smiled pleasantly. Malipieri looked at him a moment. "If you are going to look into Carthaginian antiquities," he said, with much gravity, "I strongly advise you to study Phoenician." "Dear me!" exclaimed Bruni with a sigh of regret, "I had hoped it might not be necessary." He rose to take his leave, but as if seeing the bookshelves for the first time, asked permission to look at their contents. Malipieri saw that his glance ran sharply along the titles of the volumes, and that he was reading them as quickly as he could. "I suppose you live here quite alone," he said. "Yes. I have a servant." "Of course. They tell me that Baron Volterra has not decided what he will do with the palace, and will not give a lease of it to any one." "I do not know what he means to do," answered Malipieri, looking at the straight part down the back of his worthy visitor's hair, as the latter bent to look at the books. "I suppose he lends you this apartment, as a friend," said Bruni. "No. I pay rent for it." Signor Bruni was becoming distinctly inquisitive, thought Malipieri, who answered coldly. Possibly the visitor perceived the hint, for he now finally took his leave. In spite of his protestations Malipieri went all the way downstairs with him, and let him out himself, just as the porter came out of his lodge at the sound of their footsteps. Signor Bruni bowed a last time, and then walked briskly away. By force of habit, the porter looked up and down the street before shutting the door after him, and he was somewhat surprised to see that the two men whom he had noticed half an hour earlier had only just finished their argument and turned to go on as Signor Bruni passed them. Then the porter watched them all three till they disappeared round the corner. At the same moment, from the opposite direction, Toto reached the door of the palace, and greeted the porter with a rough good-evening. "I have forgotten the name of this palace," he added, by way of a joke, meaning that he had not been called to do any work for a long time. "Perhaps you can tell me what it is called." "It used to be a madhouse," returned the porter in the same strain. "Now that the madmen are gone, a mole lives here. I kept the door open for the lunatics, and they all got out. I keep it shut for the mole, when he does not shut it himself." "I will come in and smoke a pipe with you," said Toto. "We will talk of old times." The porter shook his head, and blocked the way. "Not if you were the blessed soul of my father come back from the dead," he said. "The Baron's instructions are to let no one in without the mole's orders." "But I am an old friend," objected Toto. "Not if you were my mother, and the Holy Father, and Saint Peter, and all the souls of Purgatory at once," answered the porter. "May an apoplexy seize you!" observed Toto pleasantly, and he went off, his pipe in his mouth. The porter shrugged his shoulders at the imprecation, shut the door reluctantly, and went in to supper. Upstairs, Malipieri stood at his open window, smoking and watching the old fountain in the court. It was evening, and a deep violet light filled the air and was reflected in the young man's bronzed face. He was very thoughtful now, and was not aware that he heard the irregular splash of the water in the dark basin at the feet of the statue of Hercules, and the eager little scream of the swallows as they shot past him, upward to the high old eaves, where their young were, and downwards almost to the gravel of the court, and in wide circles and madly sudden curves. The violet light faded softly, and the dusk drank the last drop of it, and the last swallow disappeared under the eaves; but still Malipieri leaned upon the stone window-sill, looking down. For a long time he thought of Signor Bruni. He wondered whether he had ever seen the man before, or whether the face only seemed familiar because it was the type of a class of faces all more or less alike, all intensely respectable and not without refinement, expressing a grave reticence that did not agree with the fluent speech, and a polite reserve at odds with the inquisitive nature that revealed itself. Malipieri was inclined to think he had never met Bruni, but somehow the latter recalled the hot times in Milan, and his short political career, and the association was not to the man's advantage. He could not recall the name at all. It was like any other, and rather especially unobtrusive. Anybody might be called Vittorio Bruni, and Vittorio Bruni might be anybody, from a senator to a shoemaker; but if he had been a senator, or any political personage, Malipieri would have heard of him. There was something very odd, too, about his knowledge of Carthaginian antiquities, which was entirely limited to the contents of Malipieri's own pamphlets. He knew nothing of the Egyptians and very little about the Greeks, beyond what Malipieri had necessarily written about both. He had talked much as a man does who has read up an unfamiliar subject in order to make a speech about it, and though the speech is skilful, an expert can easily detect the shallowness of attainment behind it. There could be only one reason why any one should take so much trouble; the object was evidently to make Malipieri's acquaintance, in the absence of an ordinary introduction. And yet Signor Bruni had quite forgotten to give his card with his address, as almost any Italian would have done under the circumstances, whether he expected the meeting to be followed by another or not. Malipieri spent most of his time in his rooms, but he knew very well that he might go about Rome for weeks and not come across the man again. He recalled the whole conversation. He had in the first place expected that Bruni would be inquisitive about the palace, and perhaps ask to be shown over it, but it was only at the last that he had put one or two questions which suggested an interest in the building, and then he had at once taken the hint given him by Malipieri's cold tone, and had not persisted. On the other hand he had looked carefully at the titles of the books on the shelves, as if in search of something. Then Malipieri was conscious again of the association, in his own mind, between the man's personality and his own political experiences, and he suddenly laughed aloud. "What a precious fool I am!" he thought. "The man is nothing but a detective!" The echo of his laugh came back to him from across the dusky court in rather a ghostly way. The evening air was all at once chilly, and he shut his window and called for Masin, who instantly appeared with a lamp. Masin was always ready, and, indeed, possessed many qualities excellent in a faithful servant, among which gratitude to Malipieri held a high place. He had something to be grateful for, which is not, however, always a cause of gratitude in the receiver of favours and mercies. He had been a convict, and had served a term of several years in penal servitude. The sentence had been passed upon him for having stabbed a man in the back, in a drunken brawl, but Masin had steadily denied the charge, and the evidence against him had been merely circumstantial. It had happened in Rome, where Masin had worked as a mason during the construction of the new Courts of Justice. He was from the far north of Italy, and was, of course, hated by his companions, as only Italians of different parts of the country can hate one another. To shield one of themselves, they unanimously gave evidence against Masin; the jury was chiefly composed of Romans, the judge was a Sicilian, and Masin had no chance. Fortunately for him, the man lived, though much injured; if he had died, Masin would have got a life sentence. It was an old story; false witnesses, a prejudiced jury, and a judge who, though willing to put his prejudices aside, had little choice but to convict. Masin had been sent to Elba to the penitentiary, had been a "good-behaviour man" from first to last, and his term had been slightly abridged in consequence. When he was discharged, he went back to the north. Malipieri had found him working as a mason when some repairs were being made in the cathedral of Milan, and had taken a fancy to him. Masin had told his story simply and frankly, explaining that he found it hard to get a living at all since he had been a convict, and that he was trying to save enough money to emigrate to New York. Malipieri had thought over the matter for a week, speaking to him now and then, and watching him, and had at last proposed to take him into his own service. Later, Masin had helped Malipieri to escape, had followed him into exile, and had been of the greatest use to him during the excavations in Carthage, where he had acted as body-servant, foreman, and often as a trusted friend. He was certainly not an accomplished valet, but Malipieri did not care for that. He was sober, he was honest, he was trustworthy, he was cool in danger, and he was very strong. Moreover, he was an excellent and experienced mason, a fact of little or no use in the scientific treatment of shoes, trousers, silk hats, hair-brushes and coffee, but which had more than once been valuable to Malipieri during the last few years. Finally, his gratitude to the man who had believed in his innocence was deep and lasting. Masin would really have given his life to save Malipieri's, and would have been glad to give it. He set the lamp down on the table, and waited for orders, his blue eyes quietly fixed on his master. "I never saw that gentleman before," said Malipieri, setting some papers in order, under the bright light, but still standing. "Did you look at his face?" "Yes, sir," answered Masin, and waited. "What sort of man should you take him to be?" "A spy, sir," replied Masin promptly. "I think you are right," Malipieri answered. "We will begin work to-morrow morning." "Yes, sir." Malipieri ate his supper without noticing what Masin brought him, and then installed himself with his shaded lamp at his work-table. He took from the drawer a number of sketches of plans and studied them attentively, by a rather odd process. He had drawn only one plan on heavy paper, in strong black lines. An architect would have seen at once that it represented a part of the foundations of a very large building; and two or three persons then living in Rome might have recognized the plan of the cellars under the north-west corner of the Palazzo Conti--certainly not more than two or three, one of whom was the snuffy expert who had come from beyond the Tiber, and another was Baron Volterra. Toto, the mason, could have threaded the intricate ways in the dark, but could assuredly have made nothing of the drawings. On the other hand, the persons who were acquainted with them did not know what Toto knew, and he was not at all inclined to impart his knowledge to any one, for reasons best known to himself. Furthermore, an architect would have understood at a glance that the plan was incomplete, and that there was some reason why it could not be completed. A part of it was quite blank, but in one place the probable continuation of a main wall not explored, or altogether inaccessible, was indicated by dotted lines. Besides this main drawing, Malipieri had several others made on tracing paper to the same scale, which he laid over the first, and moved about, trying to make the one fit the other, and in each of these the part which was blank in the one underneath was filled in according to different imaginary plans. Lastly, he had a large transparent sheet on which were accurately laid out the walls and doors of the ground floor of the palace at the north-west corner, and in this there was marked a square piece of masonry, shaded as if to represent a solid pilaster, and which came over the unexplored part of the cellars. Sometimes Malipieri placed this drawing over the first, and then one of the others on both, trying to make the three agree. It was like an odd puzzle, and there was not a word written on any of the plans to explain what they meant. On most of the thin ones there were blue lines, indicating water, or at least its possible course. The imaginary architect, if he could have watched the real one, would have understood before long that the latter was theorizing about the probable construction of what was hitherto inaccessible, and about the probable position of certain channels through which water flowed, or might be expected to flow. He would also have gathered that Malipieri could reach no definite conclusion unless he could break through one of two walls in the cellar, or descend through an opening in the floor above, which would be by far the easiest way. He might even have wondered why Malipieri did not at once adopt the latter expedient. It is not a serious matter to make an aperture through a vault, large enough to allow the passage of a man's body, and it could not be attended with any danger to the building. It would be much less safe and far more difficult to cut a hole through one of the main foundation walls, which might be many feet thick and yet not wholly secure. Nevertheless the movements made by the point of Malipieri's pencil showed that he was contemplating that method of gaining an entrance. CHAPTER VII Sabina had been more than two months in Baron Volterra's house, when she at last received a line from her mother. The short letter was characteristic and was, after all, what the girl had expected, neither more nor less. The Princess told her that for the present she must stay with the "kind friends" who had offered her a home; that everything would be right before long; that if she needed any advice she had better send for Sassi, who had always served the family faithfully; that gowns were going to be short next year, which would be becoming to Sabina when she "came out," because she had small feet and admirable ankles; and that the weather was heavenly. The Princess added that she would send her some pocket-money before long, and that she was trying to find the best way of sending it. In spite of her position Sabina smiled at the last sentence. It was so like her mother to promise what she would never perform, that it amused her. She sat still for some time with the letter in her hand and then took it to the Baroness, for she felt that it was time to speak out and that the interview could not be put off any longer. The Baroness was writing in her boudoir. She wrote her letters on large sheets of an especial paper, stamped with her initials, over which appeared a very minute Italian baron's coronet, with seven points; it was so small that one might easily have thought that it had nine, like a count's, but it was undeniably smart and suggested an assured position in the aristocracy. No one quite remembered why the late King had made Volterra a baron, but he undoubtedly had done so, and no one disputed Volterra's right to use the title. Sabina read her letter aloud, and the Baroness listened attentively, with a grave expression. "Your dear mother--" she began in a soothing tone. "She is not my 'dear mother' at all," said Sabina, interrupting her. "She is not any more 'dear' to me than I am to her." "Oh!" exclaimed the Baroness, affecting to be shocked by the girl's heartlessness. "If it were not for my 'dear mother,' I should not be a beggar," said Sabina. "A beggar! What a word!" "There is no other, that I know of. I am living on your charity." "For heaven's sake, do not say such things!" cried the Baroness. "There is nothing else to say. If you had not taken me in and lodged me and fed me, I should like to know where I should be now. I am quite sure that my 'dear mother' would not care, but I cannot help wondering what is to become of me. Are you surprised?" "Are you not provided for here?" The question was put in a tone almost of deprecation. "Provided for! I am surrounded with every sort of luxury, when I ought to be working for my living." "Working!" The Baroness was filled with horror. "You, my dear, the daughter of a Roman Prince! You, working for your living! You, a Conti!" Sabina smiled and looked down at her delicate hands. "I cannot see what my name has to do with it," she said. "It is not much to be proud of, considering how my relatives behave." "It is a great name," said the Baroness solemnly and emphatically. "It was once," Sabina answered, leaning back in the low chair she had taken, and looking at the ceiling. "My mother and my brother have not added lustre to it, and I would much rather be called Signorina Emilia Moscetti and be a governess, than be Sabina Conti and live on charity. I have no right to what I do not possess and cannot earn." "My dear child! This is rank socialism! I am afraid you talked too long with Malipieri the other night." "There is a man who works, though he has what you call a great name," observed Sabina. "I admire that. He was poor, I suppose--perhaps not so poor as I am--and he made up his mind to earn his living and a reputation." "You are quite mistaken," said the Baroness drily. Sabina looked at her in surprise. "I thought he was a distinguished architect and engineer," she answered. "Yes. But he was never poor, and he will be very rich some day." "Indeed!" Sabina seemed rather disappointed at the information. There was a little pause, and the Baroness looted at her unfinished letter as if she wished that Sabina would go away. She had foreseen that before long the girl would make some protest against her position as a perpetual guest in the house, but had no clear idea of how to meet it. Sabina seemed so very decided. "We have done our best to make you feel at home, like one of the family," the Baroness said presently, in a rather injured tone. Sabina did not wish to be one of the family at all, but she knew that she was under great obligations to her hosts, and she did not wish to be thought ungrateful. "You have been more than kind," she answered gently, "and I shall never forget it. You have taken more trouble with me in two or three months than my mother in all my life. Please do not imagine that I am not thankful for all you have done." The words were spoken sincerely, and when Sabina was very much in earnest there was something at once convincing and touching in her voice. The Baroness's sallow cheek actually flushed with pleasure, and she was impelled to leave her seat and kiss Sabina affectionately. She was restrained by a reasonable doubt as to the consequences of such demonstrative familiarity, though she would not have hesitated to kiss the girl's mother under like circumstances. "It was the least we could do," she said, knowing very well that the phrase meant nothing. "Excuse me," Sabina objected, "but there was no reason in the world why you should do anything at all for me! In the natural course of things I should either have been sent to the country with my sister-in-law, or to the convent with Clementina." "You would have been very unhappy, my dear child." "I do not know which would have been worse," said Sabina frankly. "They both hate me, and I hate them." "Dear me!" exclaimed the Baroness, shocked again, or pretending to be. "In our family," Sabina answered calmly, "we all hate each other." "I am sure your sister Clementina is far too religious to feel hatred for any one." "You do not know her!" Sabina laughed, and looked at the ceiling. "She hates 'the wicked' with a mortal hatred!" "Perhaps you mean that she hates wickedness, my dear," suggested the Baroness in a moralizing tone. "Not at all!" laughed the young girl. "She would like to destroy everybody who is not like her, and she would begin with her own family. She used to tell me that I was doomed to eternal flames because I loved my canary better than I loved her. I did. It was quite true. As for my brother, she said he was wicked, too. I quite believe he is, but she had a friendly understanding with him, because they used to make Signor Sassi get money for them both. In the end they got so much that there was nothing left. Her share all went to convents and extraordinary charities, and his went heaven knows where!" "And yours?" asked the Baroness, to see what she would say. "I suppose it went to them too, like everything else, and to my mother, who spent a great deal of money. At all events, none of us have anything now. That is why I want to work." "It is an honourable impulse, no doubt," the Baroness said, in a tone of meditative disapproval. Sabina leaned forward, her chin on her hand. "You think I am too young," she said. "And I really know nothing, except bad French and dancing. I cannot even sew, at least, not very well, and I cannot cook." She laughed. "I once made some very good toast," she added thoughtfully. "You must marry," said the Baroness. "You must make a good marriage." "No one will marry me, because I have no dowry," answered Sabina with perfect simplicity. "Some men marry girls who have none. You are very pretty, you know." "So my mother used to tell me when she was in a good humour. But Clementina always said I was hideous, that my eyes were like a little pig's, quite inside my head, and that my hair was grey, like an old woman's, and that I was as thin as a grasshopper." "You are very pretty," the Baroness repeated with conviction; "and I am sure you would make a good wife." "I am afraid not!" Sabina laughed. "We are none of us good, you know. Why should I be?" The Baroness disapproved. "That is a flippant speech," she said severely. "I do not feel flippant at all. I am very serious. I wish to earn my living." "But you cannot--" "But I wish to," answered Sabina, as if that settled the question. "Have you always done what you wished?" asked the Baroness wisely. "No, never. That is why I mean to begin at once. I am sure I can learn to be a maid, or to make hats, or feed babies with bottles. Many girls of eighteen can." The Baroness shrugged her shoulders in a decidedly plebeian way. Sabina's talk seemed very silly to her, no doubt, but she felt slightly foolish herself just then. At close quarters and in the relative intimacy that had grown up between them, the descendant of all the Conti had turned out to be very different from what the financier's wife had expected, and it was not easy to understand her. Sometimes the girl talked like a woman of the world, and sometimes like a child. Her character seemed to be a compound of cynicism and simplicity, indifference and daring, gentleness, hardness and pride, all wonderfully amalgamated under a perfectly self-possessed manner, and pervaded by the most undeniable charm. It was no wonder that the poor Baroness was as puzzled as a hen that has hatched a swan. Sabina had behaved perfectly, so far; the Baroness admitted this, and it had added considerably to her growing social importance to be regarded as the girl's temporary guardian. Even royalty had expressed its approval of her conduct and its appreciation of her generosity, and it was one of the Baroness's chief ambitions to be noticed by royalty. She had shown a good deal of tact, too, for she was woman enough to guess what the girl must feel, and how hard it must be to accept so much without any prospect of being able to make a return. So far, however, matters had gone very well, and she had really begun to look forward to the glory of presenting Sabina in society during the following winter, and of steering her to a rich marriage, penniless though she was. But this morning she had received a new impression which disturbed her. It was not that she attached much importance to Sabina's wild talk about working for a living, for that was absurd, on the face of it; but there was something daring in the tone, something in the little careless laugh which made her feel that the delicate girl might be capable of doing very unexpected and dangerous things. The sudden conviction came upon her that Sabina was of the kind that run away and make love matches, and otherwise break through social conventions in a manner quite irreparable. And if Sabina did anything of that sort, the Baroness would not only lose all the glory she had gained, but would of course be severely blamed by Roman society, which would be an awful calamity if it did not amount to a social fall. She alone knew how hard she had worked to build up her position, and she guessed how easily an accident might destroy it. Her husband had his politics and his finance to interest him, but what would be left to his wife if she once lost her hold upon the aristocracy? Even the smile of royalty would not make up for that, and royalty would certainly not smile if Sabina, being in her charge, did anything very startlingly unconventional. Sabina was quite conscious that the Baroness did not understand; indeed, she had not really expected to be understood, and when she saw the shrug of the shoulders that answered her last speech she rose quietly and went to the window. The blinds were drawn together, for it was now late in May, but she could see down to the street, and as she looked she started a little. "There is Signor Malipieri!" she cried, and it was clear that she was glad. The Baroness uttered an exclamation of surprise. "Are you sure?" she asked. Yes, Sabina was quite sure. He had just driven up to the door in a cab. Now he was paying the cabman, too, instead of making him wait. The Baroness glanced at the showy little clock set in turquoises, which stood on her writing-table, and she put away her unfinished letter. "We will ask him to stay to luncheon," she said, in a decided tone. After sending up to ask if he would be received, Malipieri entered the room with an apology. He said that he had hoped to find the Baron in, and had been told that he might come at any moment. The Baroness thereupon asked the visitor to stay to luncheon, and Malipieri accepted, and sat down. It had always amused Sabina to watch how the Baroness's manner changed when any one appeared whom she did not know very well. Her mouth assumed a stereotyped smile, she held her head a little forward and on one side, and she spoke in quite another tone. But just now Sabina did not notice these things. She was renewing her impression of Malipieri, whom she had only seen once and in evening dress. She liked him even better now, she thought, and it would have pleased her to look at him longer. Their eyes met in a glance as he told the Baroness that he had come to see Volterra on a matter of business. He did not explain what the business was, and at once began to talk of other things, as if to escape possible questions. Sabina thought he was paler than before, or less sunburnt, perhaps; at all events, the contrast between his very white forehead and his bronzed face was less strong. She could see his eyes more distinctly, too, than she had seen them in the evening, and she liked their expression better, for he did not look at all bored now. She liked his voice, too, for the slight harshness that seemed always ready to command. She liked the man altogether, and was conscious of the fact, and wished she could talk with him again, as she had talked that evening on the sofa in the corner, without fear of interruption. That was impossible, and she listened to what he said. It was merely the small talk of a man of the world who knows that he is expected to say something not altogether dull, and takes pains to be agreeable, but Sabina felt all through it a sort of sympathy which she missed very much in the Volterra household, the certainty of fellowship which people who have been brought up in similar surroundings feel when they meet in an atmosphere not their own. A few minutes after he had come, a servant opened the door and said that the Baron wished to speak to the Baroness at the telephone. She rose, hesitated a moment and went out, leaving the two young people together. "I have seen Sassi," said Malipieri in a low voice, as soon as the door was shut. "Yes," answered Sabina, with a little interrogation. She was very much surprised to hear a slight tremor in her own voice as she uttered the one word. "I like him very much," Malipieri continued. "He is a good friend to you. He said that if anything of importance happened he would come and see you." "I shall be glad," Sabina said. "Something is happening, which may bring him. Be sure to see him alone, when he comes." "Yes, but what is it? What can possibly happen that can make a difference?" Malipieri glanced at the door, fearing that the Baroness might enter suddenly. "Can you keep a secret?" he asked quickly. "Of course! Tell me!" She leaned forward with eager interest, expecting his next words. "Did you ever hear that something very valuable is said to be hidden somewhere under the palace?" Sabina's face fell and the eagerness faded from her eyes instantly. She had often heard the story from her nurses when she had been a little girl, and she did not believe a word of it, any more than she believed that the marble statue of Cardinal Conti in the library really came down from its pedestal on the eve of All Souls' and walked through the state apartments, or the myth about the armour of Francesco Conti, of which the nurses used to tell her that on the anniversary of the night of his murder his eyes could be seen through the bars of the helmet, glowing with the infernal fire. As for any hidden treasure, she was quite positive that if it existed her brother and sister would have got at it long ago. Malipieri sank in her estimation as soon as he mentioned it. He was only a Venetian, of course, and could not be expected to know much about Rome, but he must be very weak-minded if he could be imposed upon by such nonsense. Her delicate lip curled with a little contempt. "Is that the great secret?" she asked. "I thought you were in earnest." "The Senator is," observed Malipieri drily. "If the old gentleman has made you believe that he is, he must have some very deep scheme. He does not like to seem foolish." Malipieri did not answer at once, but he betrayed no annoyance. In the short silence, he could hear the Baroness's powerful voice yelling at the telephone. It ceased suddenly, and he guessed that she was coming back. "If I find anything, I wish you to see it before any one else does," he said quickly. "That would be very amusing!" Sabina laughed incredulously, just as the door opened. The Baroness heard the light laughter, and stood still with her hand on the latch, as if she had forgotten something. She was not a woman of sudden intuitions nor much given to acting on impulses, and when a new idea crossed her mind she almost always paused to think it over, no matter what she chanced to be doing. It was as if she had accidentally run against something which stunned her a little. "What is it?" asked Sabina, very naturally. The Baroness beckoned silently to her, and she rose. "Only one moment, Signor Malipieri," said the Baroness, apologizing for leaving him alone. When she and Sabina were out of the room, she shut the door and went on a few paces before speaking. "My husband has telephoned that he cannot leave the Senate," she said. "Well?" Sabina did not understand. "But Malipieri has come expressly to see him." "He can see him at the Senate," suggested Sabina. "But I have asked Malipieri to stay to luncheon. If I tell him that my husband is not coming, perhaps he will not stay after all." "Perhaps not," echoed Sabina with great calmness. "You do not seem to care," said the Baroness. "Why should I?" "I thought you liked him. I thought it would amuse you if he lunched with us." Sabina looked at her with some curiosity. "Did you tell the Baron that Signor Malipieri is here?" she asked carelessly. "No," answered the Baroness, looking away. "As my husband said he could not come to luncheon, it seemed useless." Sabina understood now, and smiled. This was the direct consequence of the talk which had preceded Malipieri's coming; the Baroness had at once conceived the idea of marrying her to Malipieri. "What shall we do?" asked the Baroness. "Whatever you think best," answered Sabina, with sudden meekness. "I think you ought at least to tell Signor Malipieri that the Baron is not coming. He may be in a hurry, you know. He may be wasting time." The Baroness smiled incredulously. "My dear," she said, "if he had been so very anxious to see my husband, he would have gone to the Senate first. It is near the palace." She said no more, but led the way back to the morning room, while Sabina reflected upon the possible truth of the last suggestion, and wondered whether Malipieri had really made his visit for the sake of exchanging a few words with her rather than in order to see Volterra. The Baroness spoke to him as she opened the door. "My husband has not come yet," she said. "We will not wait for him." She rang the bell to order luncheon, and Malipieri glanced at Sabina's face, wondering what the Baroness had said to her, for it was not reasonable to suppose that the two had left the room in order to consult in secret upon the question of waiting for Volterra. But Sabina did not meet his look, and her pale young face was impenetrably calm, for she was thinking about what she had just discovered. She was as certain that she knew what had passed in the Baroness's thoughts, as if the latter had spoken aloud. The knowledge, for it amounted to that, momentarily chased away the recollection of what Malipieri had said. It was rather amusing to be looked upon as marriageable, and to a man she already knew. Her mother had often talked to her with cynical frankness, telling her that she was to make the best match that could be obtained for her, naming numbers of young men she had never seen and assuring her that likes and dislikes had nothing to do with matrimony. They came afterwards, the Princess said, and it generally pleased Providence to send a mild form of aversion as the permanent condition of the bond. But Sabina had never believed her mother, who had cheated her when she was a child, as many foolish and heartless women do, promising rewards which were never given, and excursions which were always put off and little joys which always turned to sorrows less little by far. Moreover, her sister Clementina had told her that there was only one way to treat the world, and that was to leave it with the contempt it deserved; and she had heard her brother tell his wife in one of his miserable fits of weakly brutal anger that marriage was hell, and nothing else; to which the young princess had coldly replied that he was only where he deserved to be. Sabina had not been brought up with the traditional pious and proper views about matrimony, and if she did not think even worse of it, the merit was due to her own nature, in which there was much good and hardly any real evil. But she could not escape from a little inherited and acquired cynicism either, and while Malipieri chatted quietly during luncheon, an explanation of the whole matter occurred to her which was not pleasant to contemplate. The story about the treasure might or might not be true, but he believed in it, and so did Volterra. The Baron was therefore employing him to discover the prize. But Malipieri showed plainly that he wished her to possess it, if it were ever found, and perhaps he meant it to be her dowry, in which case it would come into his own hands if he could marry her. This was ingenious, if it was nothing else, and though Sabina felt that there was something mean about it, she resented the idea that he should expect her to think him a model of generosity when she hardly knew him. She was therefore very quiet, and looked at him rather coldly when he spoke to her, but the Baroness put this down to her admirably correct manners, and was already beginning to consider how she could approach Malipieri on the subject of his marrying Sabina. She was quite in ignorance of the business which had brought him and her husband together, as Sabina now knew from many remarks she remembered. Volterra was accustomed to tell his wife what he had been doing when the matter was settled, and she had long ago given up trying to make him talk of his affairs when he chose to be silent. On the whole, so far as Sabina was concerned, the circumstances were not at first very favourable to the Baroness's newly formed plan on this occasion, though she did not know it. On the other hand, Malipieri discovered before luncheon was over, that Sabina interested him very much, that she was much prettier than he had realized at his first meeting with her, and that he had unconsciously thought about her a good deal in the interval. CHAPTER VIII Malipieri was convinced before long that his doings interested some one who was able to employ men to watch him, and he connected the fact with Bruni's visit. He was not much disturbed by it, however, and was careful not to show that he noticed it at all. Naturally enough, he supposed that his short career as a promoter of republican ideas had caused him to be remembered as a dangerous person, and that a careful ministry was anxious to know why he lived alone in a vast palace, in the heart of Rome, knowing very few people and seeing hardly any one except Volterra. The Baron himself was apparently quite indifferent to any risk in the matter, and yet, as a staunch monarchist and supporter of the ministry then in office, it might have been expected that he would not openly associate with the monarchy's professed enemies. That was his affair, as Malipieri had frankly told him at the beginning. For the rest, the young architect smiled as he thought of the time and money the government was wasting on the supposition that he was plotting against it, but it annoyed him to find that certain faces of men in the streets were becoming familiar to him, quiet, blank faces of respectable middle-aged men, who always avoided meeting his eyes, and were very polite in standing aside to let him pass them on the pavement. There were now three whom he knew by sight, and he saw one of them every time he went out of the house. He knew what that meant. He had not the smallest doubt but that all three reported what they saw of his movements to Signor Vittorio Bruni, every day, in some particularly quiet little office in one of the government buildings connected with the Ministry of the Interior. It troubled him very little, since he was quite innocent of any political machinations for the present. He had determined from the first not to employ any workmen to help him unless it should be absolutely necessary. He was strong and his practical experience in Carthage had taught him the use of pick and crowbar. Masin was equal to two ordinary men for such work, and could be trusted to hold his tongue. Malipieri told the porter that he was exploring the foundations before attempting to strengthen them, and from time to time he gave him a little money. At first the old man offered to call Toto, who had always served the house, he said; but Malipieri answered that no help was needed in a mere preliminary exploration, and that another man would only be in the way. He made no secret of the fact that he was working with his own hands, however. Every morning, he and his servant went down into the north-west cellars by a winding staircase that was entered from a passage between the disused stables and the empty coach-house. Like every large Roman palace, the Palazzo Conti had two arched entrances, one of which had never been opened except on important occasions, when the carriages that drove in on the one side drove out at the other after their owner had alighted. This second gate was at the west end of the court, not far from the coach-house. To reach their work Malipieri and Masin had to go down the grand staircase and pass the porter's lodge. Masin wore the rough clothes of a working mason and Malipieri appeared in overalls and a heavy canvas jacket. Very soon the garments of both were so effectually stained with mud, green mould and water that the two men could hardly have been distinguished from ordinary day labourers, even in broad daylight. They began work on the very spot at which the snuffy little expert had stopped to listen to the water. It was evidently out of the question to break through the wall at the level of the cellar floor, for the water could be heard running steadily through its hidden channel, and if this were opened the cellars might be completely flooded. Besides, Malipieri knew that the water might rise unexpectedly to a considerable height. It was therefore best to make the opening as high as possible, under the vault, which at that point was not more than ten feet from the ground. The simplest plan would have been to put up a small scaffolding on which to work, but there was no timber suitable for the purpose in the cellar, and Malipieri did not wish to endanger the secrecy of his operations by having any brought down. He therefore set to work to excavate an inclined aperture, like a tunnel, which began at a height of about five feet and was intended to slope upwards so as to reach the interior chamber at the highest point practicable. It was very hard work at first, and it was not unattended by danger. Masin declared at the outset that it was impracticable without blasting. The wall appeared to be built of solid blocks of travertine stone, rough hewn on the face but neatly fitted together. It would take two men several days to loosen a single one of these blocks, and if they finally succeeded in moving it, it must fall to the ground at once, for their united strength would not have sufficed to lower it gently. "The facing is stone," said Malipieri, "but we shall find bricks behind it. If we do not, we must try to get in by some other way." In order to get any leverage at all, it was necessary to chisel out a space between the first block to be moved and those that touched it, an operation which occupied two whole days. Masin worked doggedly and systematically, and Malipieri imitated him as well as he could, but more than once nearly blinded himself with the flying chips of stone, and though he was strong his hands ached and trembled at the end of the day, so that he could hardly hold a pen. To Masin it was easy enough, and was merely a question of time and patience. He begged Malipieri to let him do it alone, but the architect would not hear of that, since there was room for two to use their tools at the same time, at opposite ends of the block. He was in haste to get over the first obstacle, which he believed to be by far the most difficult, and he was not the kind of man to sit idly watching another at work without trying to help him. On the third day they made an attempt to use a crowbar. They had two very heavy ones, but they did not try to use both, and united their strength upon one only. They might as well have tried to move the whole palace, and it looked as if they would be obliged to cut the block itself away with hammer and chisel, a labour of a fortnight, perhaps, considering the awkward position in which they had to work. "One dynamite cartridge would do it!" laughed Malipieri, as he looked at the huge stone. "Thank you, sir," answered Masin, taking the suggestion seriously. "I have been in the galleys seven years, and that is enough for a lifetime. We must try and split it with wedges." "There is no other way." They had all the tools necessary for the old-fashioned operation; three drilling irons, of different sizes, and a small sledge-hammer, and they went to work without delay. Malipieri held the iron horizontally against the stone with both hands, turning it a little after Masin had struck it with the sledge. It was very exhausting after a time, as the whole weight of the tool was at first carried by Malipieri's uplifted hands. Moreover, if he forgot to grasp it very firmly, the vibration of the blow made the palms of his hands sting till they were numb. At regular intervals the men changed places, Masin held the drill and Malipieri took the hammer. Every now and then they raked out the dust from the deepening hole with a little round scoop made for the purpose and riveted to the end of a light iron rod a yard long. Hour after hour they toiled thus together, far down under the palace, in the damp, close air, that was cold and yet stifling to breathe. The hole was now over two feet deep. Suddenly, as Masin delivered a heavy blow, the drill ran in an inch instead of recoiling in Malipieri's tight hold. "Bricks," said Masin, resting on the haft of the long hammer. Malipieri removed the drill, took the scoop and drew out the dust and minute chips. Hitherto the stuff had been grey, but now, as he held his hand under the round hole to catch what came, a little bit of dark red brick fell into his palm. He picked it out carefully and held it close to the bright unshaded lamp. "Roman brick," he said, after a moment. "We are not in Milan," observed Masin, by way of telling his master that he did not understand. "Ancient Roman brick," said Malipieri. "It is just what I expected. This is part of the wall of an old Roman building, built of bricks and faced with travertine. If we can get this block out, the worst will be over." "It is easier to drill holes in stone than in water," said Masin, who had put his ear to the hole. "I can hear it much louder now." "Of course you can," answered Malipieri. "We are wasting time," he added, picking up the drill and holding it against the block at a point six inches higher than before. Masin took his sledge again and hammered away with dogged regularity. So the work went on all that day, and all the next. And after that they took another tool and widened the holes, and then a third till they were two inches in diameter. Masin suggested that they might drive an iron on through the brickwork, and find out how much of it there was beyond the stone, but Malipieri pointed out that if the "lost water" should rise it would pour out through the hole and stop their operations effectually. The entrance must incline upwards, he said. They made long round plugs of soft pine to fit the holes exactly, each one scored with a channel a quarter of an inch deep, which was on the upper side when they had driven the plugs into their places, and was intended to lead the water along the wood, so as to wet it more thoroughly. To do this Malipieri poked long cotton wicks into each channel with a wire, as far as possible. He made Masin buy half-a-dozen coarse sponges and tied one upon the upper end of each projecting plug. Finally he wet all the sponges thoroughly and wound coarse cloths loosely round them to keep in as much of the water as possible. By pouring on water from time to time the soft wood was to be ultimately wet through, the wicks leading the moisture constantly inward, and in the end the great block must inevitably be split into halves. It is the prehistoric method, and there never was any other way of cleaving very hard stone until gunpowder first brought in blasting. It is slow, but it is quite sure. The place where the two men had been working was many feet below the level of the courtyard, but the porter could now and then hear the sound of blows echoing underground through the vast empty cellars, even when he stood near the great entrance. Toto heard the noise too, one day, as he was standing still to light his pipe in the Vicolo dei Soldati. When it struck his ear he let the match burn out till it singed his horny fingers. His expression became even more blank than usual, but he looked up and down the street, to see if he were alone, and upward at the windows of the house opposite. Nobody was in sight, but in order to place his ear close to the wall and listen, he made a pretence of fastening his shoe-string. The sound came to him from very far beneath, regular as the panting of an engine. He knew his trade, and recognized the steady hammering on the end of a stone drill, very unlike the irregular blows of a pickaxe or a crowbar. The "moles" were at work, and knew their business; sooner or later they would break through. But Toto could not guess that the work was being actually done by Malipieri and his servant, without help. One man alone could not do it, and the profound contempt of the artisan for any outsider who attempts his trade, made Toto feel quite sure that one or more masons had been called in to make a breach in the foundation wall. As he stood up and lighted his pipe at last, he grinned all alone, and then slouched on, his heart full of very evil designs. Had he not always been the mason of the Palazzo Conti? And his father before him? And his grandfather, who had lost his life down there, where the moles were working? And now that he was turned out, and others were called in to do a particularly confidential job, should he not be revenged? He bit his pipe and thrust his rough hands deep into the pockets of his fustian trousers, and instead of turning into the wine shop to meet Gigi, he went off for a walk by himself through all the narrow and winding streets that lie between the Palazzo Conti and Monte Giordano. He came to no immediate conclusion, and moreover there was no great hurry. He knew well enough that it would take time to pierce the wall, after the drilling was over, and he could easily tell when that point was reached by listening every day in the Vicolo dei Soldati. It would still be soon enough to play tricks with the water, if he chose that form of vengeance, and he grinned again as he thought of the vast expense he could force upon Volterra in order to save the palace. But he might do something else. Instead of flooding the cellars and possibly drowning the masons who had ousted him, he could turn informer and defeat the schemes of Volterra and Malipieri, for he never doubted but that if they found anything of value they meant to keep the whole profit of it to themselves. He had the most vague notions of what the treasure might be. When the fatal accident had happened his grandfather had been the only man who had actually penetrated into the innermost hiding-place; the rest had fled when the water rose and had left him to drown. They had seen nothing, and their story had been handed down as a mere record of the catastrophe. Toto knew at least that the vaults had then been entered from above, which was by far the easier way, but a new pavement had long ago covered all traces of the aperture. There was probably gold down there, gold of the ancients, in earthen jars. That was Toto's belief, and he also believed that when it was found it would belong to the government, because the government took everything, but that somehow, in real justice, it should belong to the Pope. For Toto was not only a genuine Roman of the people, but had always regarded himself as a sort of hereditary retainer of an ancient house. His mind worked slowly. A day passed, and he heard the steady hammering still, and after a second night he reached a final conclusion. The Pope must have the treasure, whatever it might be. That, he decided, was the only truly moral view, and the only one which satisfied his conscience. It would doubtless be very amusing to be revenged on the masons by drowning them in a cellar, with the absolute certainty of never being suspected of the deed. The plan had great attractions. The masons themselves should have known better than to accept a job which belonged by right to him, and they undoubtedly deserved to be drowned. Yet Toto somehow felt that as there was no woman in the case he might some day, in his far old age, be sorry for having killed several men in cold blood. It was really not strictly moral, after all, especially as his grandfather's death had been properly avenged by the death of the murderer. As for allowing the government to have a share in the profits of the discovery, that was not to be thought of. He was a Roman, and the Italian government was his natural enemy. If he could have turned all the "lost water" in the city upon the whole government collectively, in the cellars of the Palazzo Conti, he would have felt that it was strictly moral to do so. The government had stolen more than two years of his life by making him serve in the army, and he was not going to return good for evil. With beautiful simplicity of reasoning he cursed the souls of the government's dead daily, as if it had been a family of his acquaintance. But the Pope was quite another personage. There had always been popes, and there always would be till the last judgment, and everything connected with the Vatican would last as long as the world itself. Toto was a conservative. His work had always kept him among lasting things of brick and stone, and he was proud of never having taken a day's wages for helping to put up the modern new-fangled buildings he despised. The most lasting of all buildings in the world was the Vatican, and the most permanent institution conceivable was the Pope. Gigi, who made wretched, perishable objects of wood and nails and glue, such as doors and windows, sometimes launched into modern ideas. Toto would have liked to know how many times the doors and windows of the Palazzo Conti had been renewed since the walls had been built! He pitied Gigi always, and sometimes he despised him, though they were good friends enough in the ordinary sense. The Pope should have the treasure. That was settled, and the only question remaining concerned the means of transferring it to him when it was discovered. CHAPTER IX One evening it chanced that the Volterra couple were dining out, and that Sabina, having gone up to her room to spend the evening, had forgotten the book she was reading and came downstairs half-an-hour later to get it. She opened the drawing-room door and went straight to the table on which she had left the volume. As she turned to go back she started and uttered a little cry, almost of terror. Malipieri was standing before the mantelpiece, looking at her. "I am afraid I frightened you," he said quietly. "Pray forgive me." "Not at all," Sabina answered, resting the book she held in her hand upon the edge of the table. "I did not know any one was here." "I said I would wait till the Senator came home," Malipieri said. "Yes." Sabina hesitated a moment and then sat down. She smiled, perhaps at herself. In her mother's house it would have been thought extremely improper for her to be left alone with a young man during ten minutes, but she knew that the Baroness held much more modern views, and would probably be delighted that she and Malipieri should spend an hour together. He had been asked to luncheon again, but had declined on the ground of being too busy, much to the Baroness's annoyance. Malipieri seated himself on a small chair at a discreet distance. "I happened to know that they were going out," he said, "so I came." Sabina looked at him in surprise. It was an odd way to begin a conversation. "I wanted to see you alone," he explained. "I thought perhaps you would come down." "It was an accident," Sabina answered. "I had left my book here. No one told me that you had come." "Of course not. I took the chance that a lucky accident might happen. It has, but I hope you are not displeased. If you are, you can turn me out." "I could go back to my room." Sabina laughed. "Why should I be displeased?" "I have not the least idea whether you like me or not," answered Malipieri. Sabina wondered whether all men talked like this, or whether it were not more usual to begin with a few generalities. She was really quite sure that she liked Malipieri, but it was a little embarrassing to be called upon to tell him so at once. "If I wanted you to go away, I should not sit down," she said, still smiling. "I hate conventions," answered Malipieri, "and I fancy that you do, too. We were both brought up in them, and I suppose we think alike about them." "Perhaps." Sabina turned over the book she still held, and looked at the back of it. "Exactly," continued Malipieri. "But I do not mean that what we are doing now is so dreadfully unconventional after all. Thank heaven, manners have changed since I was a boy, and even in Italy we may be allowed to talk together a few minutes without being suspected of planning a runaway marriage. I wanted to see you alone because I wish you to do something very much more 'improper,' as society calls it." Sabina looked up with innocent and inquiring eyes, but said nothing in answer. "I have found something," he said. "I should like you to see it." "There is nothing so very terrible in that," replied Sabina, looking at him steadily. "The world would think differently. But if you will trust me the world need never know anything about it. You will have to come alone. That is the difficulty." "Alone?" Sabina repeated the word, and instinctively drew herself up a little. "Yes." A short silence followed, and Malipieri waited for her to speak, but she hesitated. In years, she was but lately out of childhood, but the evil of the world had long been near her in her mother's house, and she knew well enough that if she did what he asked, and if it were known, her reputation would be gone. She was a little indignant at first, and was on the point of showing it, but as she met his eyes once more she felt certain that he meant no offence to her. "You must have a very good reason for asking me to do such a dangerous thing," she said at last. "The reasons are complicated," answered Malipieri. "Perhaps I could understand, if you explained them." "Yes, I am sure you can. I will try. In the first place, you know of the story about a treasure being concealed in the palace. I spoke of it the other day, and you laughed at it. When I began, I was not inclined to believe it myself, for it seems never to have been anything more than a tradition. One or two old chronicles speak of it. A Venetian ambassador wrote about it in the sixteenth century in one of his reports to his government, suggesting that the Republic should buy the palace if it were ever sold. I daresay you have heard that." "No. It does not matter. You say you have found something--that is the important point." "Yes; and the next thing is to keep the secret for the present, because so many people would like to know it. The third point of importance is that you should see the treasure before it is moved, before I can move it myself, or even see all of it." "What is this treasure?" asked Sabina, with a little impatience, for she was really interested. "All I have seen of it is the hand of what must be a colossal statue, of gilt bronze. On one of the fingers there is a ring with a stone which I believe to be a ruby. If it is, it is worth a great deal, perhaps as much as the statue itself." Sabina's eyes had opened very wide in her surprise, for she had never really believed the tale, and even when he had told her that he had found something she had not thought it could be anything very valuable. "Are you quite sure you have seen it?" she asked with childlike wonder. "Yes. I lowered a light into the place, but I did not go down. There may be other things. They belong to you." "To me? Why?" asked Sabina in surprise. "For a good many reasons which may or may not be good in law but which are good enough for me. You were robbed of your dowry--forgive the expression. I cannot think of another word. The Senator got possession of the palace for much less than its market value, let alone what I have found. He sent for me because I have been fortunate in finding things, and he believed it just possible that there might be something hidden in the foundations. Your family spent long ago what he lent them on the mortgage, and Sassi assures me that you never had a penny of it. I mean you to have your share now. That is all." Sabina listened quietly enough to the end. "Thank you, very much," she said gravely, when he had finished. Then there was another pause. To her imagination the possibilities of wealth seemed fabulous, and even Malipieri thought them large; but Sabina was not thinking of a fortune for its own sake. Of late none of her family had cared for money except to spend it without counting. What struck her first was that she would be free to leave the Volterras' house, that she would be independent, and that there would be an end of the almost unbearable situation in which she had lived since the crash. "If the Senator can keep it all for himself, he will," Malipieri observed, "and his wife will help him." "Do you think this had anything to do with their anxiety to have me stay with them?" asked Sabina, and as the thought occurred to her the expression of her eyes changed. "The Baroness knows nothing at all about the matter," answered Malipieri. "I fancy she only wanted the social glory of taking charge of you when your people came to grief. But her husband will take advantage of the obligation you are under. I suspect that he will ask you to sign a paper of some sort, very vaguely drawn up, but legally binding, by which you will make over to him all claim whatever on your father's estate." "But I have none, have I?" "If the facts were known to-morrow, your brother might at once begin an action to recover, on the equitable ground that by an extraordinary chain of circumstances the property has turned out to be worth much more than any one could have expected. Do you understand?" "Yes. Go on." "Very well. The Senator knows that in all probability the court would decide against your brother, who has the reputation of a spendthrift, unless your claim is pushed; but that any honest judge, if it were legally possible, would do his best to award you something. If you had made over your claim to Volterra, that would be impossible, and would only strengthen his case." "I see," said Sabina. "It is very complicated." "Of course it is. And there are many other sides to it. The Senator, on his part, is as anxious to keep the whole matter a secret as I am, for your sake. He has no idea that there is a colossal statue in the vaults. He probably hopes to find gold and jewels which could be taken away quietly and disposed of without the knowledge of the government." "What has the government to do with it?" "It has all sorts of claims on such discoveries, and especially on works of art. It reserves the right to buy them from the owners at a valuation, if they are sold at all." "Then the government will buy this statue, I suppose." "In the end, unless it allows the Vatican to buy it." "I do not see what is going to happen," said Sabina, growing bewildered. "The Senator must make everything over to you before it is sold," answered Malipieri calmly. "How can he be made to do that?" "I do not know, but he shall." "Do you mean that the law can force him to?" "The law might, perhaps, but I shall find some much shorter way." Sabina was silent for a moment. "But he employs you on this work," she said suddenly. "Not exactly." Malipieri smiled. "I would not let Volterra pay me to grub underground for his benefit, any more than I would live in his house without paying him rent." Sabina bit her lip and turned her face away suddenly, for the thoughtless words had hurt her. "I agreed to make the search merely because I am interested in archaeology," he continued. "Until I met you I did not care what might become of anything we found in the palace." "Why should you care now?" The question rose to her lips before she knew what she was saying, for what had gone before had disturbed her a little. It had been a very cruel speech, though he had not meant it. He looked at her thoughtfully. "I am not quite sure why I care," he answered, "but I do." Neither spoke for some time. "I suppose you pity me," Sabina observed at last, rather resentfully. He said nothing. "You probably felt sorry for me as soon as you saw me," she continued, leaning back in her chair and speaking almost coldly. "I am an object of pity, of course!" Malipieri laughed a little at the very girlish speech. "No," he answered. "I had not thought of you in that light. I liked you, the first time I saw you. That is much simpler than pitying." He laughed again, but it was at himself. "You treat me like a child," Sabina said with a little petulance. "You have no right to!" "Shall I treat you like a woman, Donna Sabina?" he said, suddenly serious. "Yes. I am sure I am old enough." "If you were not, I should certainly not feel as I do towards you." "What do you mean?" "If you are a woman, you probably guess." "No." "You may be offended," suggested Malipieri. "Not unless you are rude--or pity me." She smiled now. "Is it very rude to like a person?" he asked. "If you think it is, I will not go on." "I am not sure," said Sabina demurely, and she looked down. "In that case it is wiser not to run the risk of offending you past forgiveness!" It was very amusing to hear him talk, for no man had ever talked to her in this way before. She knew that he was thought immensely clever, but he did not seem at all superior now, and she was glad of it. She should have felt very foolish if he had discoursed to her learnedly about Carthage and antiquities. Instead, he was simple and natural, and she liked him very much; and the little devil that enters into every woman about the age of sixteen and is not often cast out before fifty, even by prayer and fasting, suddenly possessed her. "Rudeness is not always past forgiveness," she said, with a sweet smile. Malipieri looked at her gravely and wondered whether he had any right to take up the challenge. He had never been in love with a young girl in his life, and somehow it did not seem fair to speak as he had been speaking. It was very odd that his sense of honour should assert itself just then. It might have been due to the artificial traditions of generations without end, before him. At the same time, he knew something of women, and in her last speech he recognized the womanly cooing, the call of the mate, that has drawn men to happiness or destruction ever since the world began. She was a mere girl, of course, but since he had said so much, she could not help tempting him to go to the end and tell her he loved her. Though Malipieri did not pretend to be a model of all the virtues, he was thoroughly fair in all his dealings, according to his lights, and just then he would have thought it the contrary of fair to say what she seemed to expect. He knew instinctively that no one had ever said it to her before, which was a good reason for not saying it lightly; and he was sure that he could not say it quite seriously, and almost certain also that she had not even begun to be really in love herself, though he felt that she liked him. On the other hand--for in the flash of a second he argued the case--he did not feel that she was the hypothetical defenceless maiden, helpless to resist the wiles of an equally hypothetical wicked young man. She had been brought up by a worldly mother since she had left the convent where she had associated with other girls, most of whom also had worldly mothers; and some of the wildest blood in Europe ran in her veins. On the whole, he thought it would be justifiable to tell her exactly what he felt, and she might do as she pleased about answering him. "I think I shall fall in love with you before long," he said, with almost unnecessary calmness. Sabina had not expected that the first declaration she received in her life would take this mild form, but it affected her much more strongly than she could understand. Her hand tightened suddenly on the book she held, and she noticed a little fluttering at her heart and in her throat, and at the same time she was conscious of a tremendous determination not to show that she felt anything at all, but to act as if she had heard just such things before, and more also. "Indeed!" she said, with admirable indifference. Malipieri looked at her in surprise. An experienced flirt of thirty could not have uttered the single word more effectively. "I wonder whether you will ever like me better than you do now," he said, by way of answer. She was wondering, too, but it was not likely that she would admit it. "I am very fickle," she replied, with a perfectly self-possessed little laugh. "So am I," Malipieri answered, following her lead. "My most desperate love affairs have never lasted more than a month or two." "You have had a great many, I daresay," Sabina observed, with no show of interest. She was amazed and delighted to find how easy it was to act her new part. "And you," he asked, laughing, "how often have you been in love already?" "Let me see!" She turned her eyes to his, without turning her head, and letting the book lie in her lap she pretended to count on her fingers. He watched her gravely, and nodded as she touched each finger, as if he were counting with her. Suddenly she dropped both hands and laughed gaily. "How childish you are!" she exclaimed. "How deliciously frank you are!" he retorted, laughing with her. It was mere banter, and not witty at that, but they were growing intimate in it, much faster than either of them realized, for it was the first time they had been able to talk together quite without constraint, and it was the very first time Sabina had ever had a chance of talking as she pleased to a man whom she really thought young. Moreover they were quite modern young people, and therefore entirely devoid of all the sentimentality and "world-sorrow" which made youth so delightfully gloomy and desperately cynical, without the least real cynicism, in the middle of the nineteenth century. In those days no young man who showed a ray of belief in anything had a chance with a woman, and no woman had a chance with men unless she had a hidden sorrow. Women used to construct themselves a secret and romantic grief in those times, with as much skill as they bestowed on their figure and face, and there were men who spent hours in reading Schopenhauer in order to pick out and treasure up a few terribly telling phrases; and love-making turned upon the myth that life was not worth living. We have changed all that now; whether for better or worse, the social historians of the future will decide for us after we are dead, so we need not trouble our heads about the decision unless we set up to be moralists ourselves. The enormous tidal wave of hypocrisy is retiring, and if the shore discovered by the receding waves is here and there horribly devastated and hopelessly bare, it is at least dry land. The wave covered everything for a long time, from religion to manners, from science to furniture, and we who are old enough to remember, and not old enough to regret, are rubbing our eyes and looking about us, as on a new world, amazed at having submitted so long to what we so heartily despised, glad to be able to speak our minds at last about many things, and astounded that people should at last be allowed to be good and suffered to be bad, without the affectation of seeming one or the other, in a certain accepted manner governed by fashion, and imposed by a civilized and perfectly intolerant society. While progress advances, it really looks as if humanity were reverting to its types, with an honest effort at simplicity. There is a revival of the moral individuality of the middle ages. The despot proudly says, like Alexander, or Montrose in love, that he will reign, and he will reign alone; and he does. The financier plunders mankind and does not pretend that he is a long-lost type of philanthropist. The anarchist proclaims that it is virtuous to kill kings, and he kills them. The wicked do not even make a pretence of going to church on Sundays. If this goes on, we shall have saints before long. Hypocrisy has disappeared even from literature, since no one who now writes books fit to read can be supposed to do so out of respect for public opinion, still less from any such base motive as a desire for gain. Malipieri and Sabina both felt that they had been drawn much nearer together by what had sounded like idle chatter, and yet neither of them was inclined to continue talking in the same way. Moreover time was passing quickly, and there was a matter to be decided before they parted. Malipieri returned to the subject of his discovery, and his desire that Sabina should see it. "But I cannot possibly come to the palace alone," she objected. "It is quite out of the question. Even if--" she stopped. "What?" he asked. "Even if I were willing to do it--" she hesitated again. "You are not afraid, are you?" There was a slight intonation of irony in his question. "No, I am not afraid." She paused a moment. "I suppose that if I saw a way of coming, I would come," she said, then. "But I see no way. I cannot go out alone. Every one would know it. There would be a terrible fuss about it!" The idea evidently amused her. "Could you come with Sassi?" asked Malipieri presently. "He is respectable enough for anything." "Even that would be thought very strange," answered Sabina. "I have no good reason to give for going out alone with him." "You would not give any reason till afterwards, and when it is over there cannot really be anything to be said about it. The Baroness goes out every afternoon. You can make an excuse for staying at home to-morrow, and then you will be alone in the house. Sassi will call for you in a closed cab and bring you to the palace, and I will be at the door to receive you. The chances are that you will be at home again before the Baroness comes in, and she will never know that you have been out. Does that look very hard?" "No, it looks easy." "What time shall Sassi call for you to-morrow?" asked Malipieri, who wished to settle the matter at once. "At five o'clock," answered Sabina, after a moment's thought. "At five to-morrow, then. You had better not wear anything very new. The place where the statue lies is not a drawing-room, you know, and your frock may be spoilt." "Very well." She glanced at the clock, looked at Malipieri as if hesitating, and then rose. "I shall go back to my room now," she said. "Yes. It is better. They may come in at any moment." He had risen also. Their eyes met again, and they smiled at each other, as they realized what they were doing, that they had been nearly an hour together, unknown to any one, and had arranged something very like a clandestine meeting for the next day. Sabina put out her hand. "At five o'clock," she said again. "Good-night." He felt her touch for the first time since they had met. It was light and elastic as the pressure of a very delicate spring, perfectly balanced and controlled. But she, on her side, looked down suddenly and uttered an exclamation of surprise. "Oh! How rough your hand is!" He laughed, and held out his palm, which was callous as a day-labourer's. "My man and I have done all the work ourselves," he said, "and it has not been play." "It must be delightful!" answered Sabina with admiration. "I wish I were a man! We could have done it together." She went to the door, and she turned to smile at him again as she laid her hand on the knob. He remembered her afterwards as she stood there a single moment with the light on her misty hair and white cheeks, and the little shadow round her small bare throat. He remembered that he would have given anything to bring her back to the place where she had sat. There was much less doubt in his mind as to what he felt then than there had been a few minutes earlier. Half an hour after Sabina had disappeared Malipieri and Volterra were seated in deep armchairs in the smoking-room, the Baron having sent his wife to bed a few minutes after they had come in. She obeyed meekly as she always did, for she had early discovered that although she was a very energetic woman, Volterra was her master and that it was hopeless to oppose his slightest wish. It is true that in return for the most absolute obedience the fat financier gave her the strictest fidelity and all the affection of which he was capable. Like more than one of the great modern freebooters, the Baron's private life was very exemplary, yet his wife would have been willing to forgive him something if she might occasionally have had her own way. This evening he was not in good-humour, as Malipieri found out as soon as they were alone together. He chewed the end of the enormous Havana he had lighted, he stuck his feet out straight in front of him, resting his heels on the floor and turning his shining patent leather toes straight up, he folded his hands upon the magnificent curve of his white waistcoat, and leaning his head well back he looked steadily at the ceiling. All these were very bad signs, as his wife could have told Malipieri if she had stayed in the room. Malipieri smoked in silence for some time, entirely forgetting him and thinking of Sabina. "Well, Mr. Archaeologist," the Baron said at last, allowing his big cigar to settle well into one corner of his mouth, "there is the devil to pay." He spoke as if the trouble were Malipieri's fault. The younger man eyed him coldly. "What is the matter?" he enquired, without the least show of interest. "You are being watched," answered Volterra, still looking at the ceiling. "You are now one of those interesting people whose movements are recorded like the weather, every twelve hours." "Yes," said Malipieri. "I have known that for some time." "The next time you know anything so interesting I wish you would inform me," replied Volterra. His voice and his way of speaking irritated Malipieri. The Baroness had been better educated than her husband from the first; she was more adaptable and she had really learned the ways of the society she loved, but the Baron was never far from the verge of vulgarity, and he often overstepped it. "When you asked me to help you," Malipieri said, "you knew perfectly well what my political career had been. I believe you voted for the bill which drove me out of the country." "Did I?" The Baron watched the smoke of his cigar curling upwards. "I think you did. Not that I bear you the least malice. I only mean that you might very naturally expect that I should be thought a suspicious person, and that detectives would follow me about." "Nobody cares a straw for your politics," retorted Volterra rudely. "Then I shall be the more free to think as I please," Malipieri answered with calm. "Perfectly so. In the meantime it is not the Ministry of the Interior that is watching you. The present Ministry does not waste time and money on such nonsense. You are being watched because you are suspected of trying to get some statues or pictures out of Italy, in defiance of the Pacca law." "Oh!" Malipieri blew a whiff of smoke out with the ejaculation, for he was surprised. "I have it from one of the cabinet," Volterra continued. "He told me the facts confidentially after dinner. You see, as you are living in my house, the suspicion is reflected on me." "In your house?" "The Palazzo Conti is my house," answered the Baron, taking his cigar from his mouth for the first time since he had lighted it, and holding it out at arm's length with a possessive sweep while he leaned back and looked at the ceiling again. "It all belongs to me," he said. "I took it for the mortgage, with everything in it." "By the bye," said Malipieri, "what became of that Velasquez, and those other pictures?" "Was there a Velasquez?" enquired the Baron carelessly, without changing his attitude. "Yes. It was famous all over Europe. It was a family portrait." "I remember! It turned out to be a copy after all." "A copy!" repeated Malipieri incredulously. "Yes, the original is in Madrid," answered the Baron with imperturbable self-possession. "And all those other pictures turned out to be copies, too, I daresay," suggested Malipieri. "Every one of them. It was a worthless collection." "In that case it was hardly worth while to take so much trouble in getting them out of the country secretly." Malipieri smiled. "That was the dealer's affair," answered Volterra without the least hesitation. "Dealers are such fools! They always make a mystery of everything." Malipieri could not help admiring the proportions and qualities of the Baron's lies. The financier was well aware that Malipieri knew the pictures to be genuine beyond all doubt. The disposal of them had been well managed, for when Malipieri moved into the palace there was not a painting of value left on the walls, yet there had been no mention of them in the newspapers, nor any gossip about them, and the public at large believed them to be still in their places. As a matter of fact most of them were already in France and England, and the Velasquez was in Saint Petersburg. "I understand why you are anxious that the Palazzo Conti should not be watched just now," Malipieri said. "For my part, as I do not believe in your government, I cannot be expected to believe in its laws. It is not my business whether you respect them yourselves or not." "Who is breaking the law?" asked the Baron roughly. "It is absurd to talk in that way. But as the government has taken it into its head to suspect that you do, it is not advisable for me, who am a staunch supporter of the government, to see too much of you. I am sure you must understand that--it is so simple." "In other words?" Malipieri looked at him coldly, waiting for an explanation. "I cannot afford to have it said that you are living in the palace for the purpose of helping dealers to smuggle objects of art out of the country. That is what I mean." "I see. But what objects of art do you mean, since you have already sent away everything there was?" "It is believed that you had something to do with that ridiculous affair of the copies," said Volterra, his voice suddenly becoming oily. "They were gone when I moved in." "I daresay they were. But it would be hard to prove, and of course the people who bought the pictures from the dealer insist that they are genuine, so that there may be trouble some day, and you may be annoyed about the things if you stay here any longer." "You mean that you advise me to leave Rome. Is that it?" Malipieri now spoke with the utmost indifference, and glanced carelessly at the end of his cigar as he knocked the ash into the gold cup at his side. "You certainly cannot stay any longer in the palace," Volterra said, in an advisory and deprecatory tone. "You seem to be badly frightened," observed Malipieri. "I really cannot see why I should change my quarters until we have finished what we are doing." "I am afraid you will have to go. You are looked upon as very 'suspicious.' It would not be so bad, if your servant had not been a convict." "How do you know that?" Malipieri asked with sudden sternness. "Everything of that sort is known to the police," answered Volterra, whose manner had become very mild. "Of course you have your own reasons for employing such a person." "He is an innocent man, who was unjustly convicted." "Oh, indeed! Poor fellow! Those things happen sometimes, I know. It is more than kind of you to employ him. Nevertheless, you cannot help seeing that the association of ideas is unfortunate and gives a bad impression. The man was never proved to be innocent, and when he had served his term, he was involved as your servant in your political escapade. You do not mind my speaking of that matter lightly? It is the safest way to look at it, is it not? Yes. The trouble is that you and your man are both on the black book, and since the affair has come to the notice of the government my colleagues are naturally surprised that you should both be living in a house that belongs to me." "You can explain to your colleagues that you have let the apartment in the palace to me, and that as I pay my rent regularly you cannot turn me out without notice." Malipieri smiled indifferently. "Surely," said the Baron, affecting some surprise, "if I ask you, as a favour, to move somewhere else, you will do so!" To tell the truth, he was not prepared for Malipieri's extreme forbearance, for he had expected an outbreak of temper, at the least, and he still feared a positive refusal. Instead, the young man did not seem to care a straw. "Of course," he said, "if you ask it as a favour, I cannot refuse. When should you like me to go?" "You are really too kind!" The Baron was genuinely delighted and almost grateful--as near to feeling gratitude, perhaps, as he had ever been in his life. "I should hate to hurry you," he continued. "But really, since you are so very good, I think the sooner you can make it convenient to move, the better it will be for every one." "I could not manage to pack my books and drawings so soon as to-morrow," said Malipieri. "Oh, no! certainly not! By all means take a couple of days about it. I could not think of putting you to any inconvenience." "Thanks." Malipieri smiled pleasantly. "If I cannot get off by the day after to-morrow, I shall certainly move the day after that." "I am infinitely obliged. And now that this unpleasant matter is settled, owing to your wonderful amiability, do tell me how the work is proceeding." "Fairly well," Malipieri answered. "You had better come and see for yourself before I go. Let me see. To-morrow I shall have to look about for a lodging. Could you come the day after to-morrow? Then we can go down together." "How far have you got?" asked Volterra, with a little less interest than might have been expected. "I am positively sure that there is an inner chamber, where I expected to find it," Malipieri answered, with perfect truth. "Perhaps we can get into it when you come." "I hope so," said the Baron, watching the other's face from the corner of his eye. "I have made a curious discovery in the course of the excavation," Malipieri continued. "The pillar of masonry which you showed me is hollow after all. It was the shaft of an oubliette which must have opened somewhere in the upper part of the house. There is a well under it." "Full of water?" "No. It is dry. We shall have to pass through it to get to the inner chamber. You shall see for yourself--a very singular construction." "Was there nothing in it?" "Several skeletons," answered Malipieri indifferently. "One of the skulls has a rusty knife driven through it." "Dear me!" exclaimed the Baron, shaking his fat head. "Those Conti were terrible people! We must not tell the Baroness these dreadful stories. They would upset her nerves." Malipieri had not supposed Volterra's wife to be intensely sensitive. He moved, as if he meant to take his leave presently. "By the bye," he said, "whereabouts should you recommend me to look for a lodging?" The Baron reflected a moment. "If I were you," he said, "I would go to a hotel. In fact, I think you would be wiser to leave Rome for a time, until all these absurd stories are forgotten. The least I can do is to warn you that you may be exposed to a good deal of annoyance if you stay here. The minister with whom I was talking this evening told me as much in a friendly way." "Really? That was very kind of him. But what do you mean by the word 'annoyance'? It is rather vague. It is one thing to suspect a man of trying to evade the Pacca law; it is quite another matter to issue a warrant of arrest against him." "Oh, quite," answered Volterra readily. "I did not mean that, of course, though when one has once been arrested for anything, innocent or not, our police always like to repeat the operation as soon as possible, just as a matter of principle." "In other words, if a man has once been suspected, even unjustly, he had better leave his country for ever." The Baron shrugged his big round shoulders, and drew a final puff from his cigar before throwing the end away. "Injustice is only what the majority thinks of the minority," he observed. "If you do not happen to be a man of genius, the first step towards success in life is to join the majority." Malipieri laughed as he rose to his feet, reflecting that in delivering himself of this piece of worldly wisdom the Baron had probably spoken the truth for the first time since they had been talking. "Shall we say day after to-morrow, about five o'clock?" asked Malipieri before going. "By all means. And let me thank you again for meeting my views so very obligingly." "Not at all." So Malipieri went home to think matters over, and the Baron sat a long time in his chair, looking much pleased with himself and apparently admiring a magnificent diamond which he wore on one of his thick fingers. CHAPTER X Malipieri was convinced that Volterra not only knew exactly how far the work under the palace had proceeded, but was also acquainted with the general nature of the objects found in the inner chamber, beyond the well shaft. The apparent impossibility of such a thing was of no importance. The Baron would never have been so anxious to get rid of Malipieri unless he had been sure that the difficult part of the work was finished and that the things discovered were of such dimensions as to make it impossible to remove them secretly. Malipieri knew the man and guessed that if he could not pocket the value of everything found in the excavations by disposing of the discoveries secretly, he would take the government into his confidence at once, as the surest means of preventing any one else from getting a share. What was hard to understand was that Volterra should know how far the work had gone before Malipieri had told him anything about it. That he did know, could hardly be doubted. He had practically betrayed the fact by the mistake he had made in assuring himself that Malipieri was willing to leave the house, before even questioning him as to the progress made since they had last met. He had been a little too eager to get rid of the helper he no longer needed. It did not even occur to Malipieri that Masin could have betrayed him, yet so far as it was possible to judge, Masin was the only living man who had looked into the underground chamber. As he walked home, he recalled the conversation from beginning to end, and his conviction was confirmed. Volterra had been in a bad temper, nervous, a little afraid of the result and therefore inclined to talk in a rough and bullying tone. As soon as he had ascertained that Malipieri was not going to oppose him, he had become oily to obsequiousness. On his part Malipieri had accepted everything Volterra proposed, for two reasons. In the first place he would not for the world have had the financier think that he wanted a share of the treasure, or any remuneration for what he had done. Secondly, he knew that possession is nine points of the law, and that if anything could ever be obtained for Sabina it would not be got by making a show of violent opposition to the Baron's wishes. If Malipieri had refused to leave his lodging in the palace, Volterra could have answered by filling the house with people in his own employ, or by calling in government architects, archaeologists and engineers, and taking the whole matter out of Malipieri's hands. The first thing to be ascertained was, who had entered the vaults and reported the state of the work to Volterra. Malipieri might have suspected the porter himself, for it was possible that there might be another key to the outer entrance of the cellar; but there was a second door further in, to which Masin had put a patent padlock, and even Masin had not the key to that. The little flat bit of steel, with its irregular indentations, was always in Malipieri's pocket. As he walked, he felt for it, and it was in its place, with his silver pencil-case and the small penknife he always carried for sharpening pencils. The porter could not possibly have picked that lock; indeed, scarcely any one could have done so without injuring it, and Malipieri had locked it himself at about seven o'clock that evening. Even if the porter could have got in by any means, Malipieri doubted whether he could have reached the inner chamber of the vaults. There was some climbing to be done, and the man was old and stiff in the joints. The place was not so easy to find as might have been supposed, either, after the first breach in the Roman wall was past. Malipieri intended to improve the passage the next morning, in order to make it more practicable for Sabina. He racked his brains for an explanation of the mystery, and when he reached the door of the palace, after eleven o'clock, he had come to the conclusion that in spite of appearances there must be some entrance to the vaults of which he knew nothing, and it was all-important to find it. He regretted the quixotic impulse which had restrained him from exploring everything at once. It would have been far better to go to the end of his discovery, and he wondered why he had not done go. He would not have insulted himself by supposing that Sabina could believe him capable of taking the gem from the ring of the statue, in other words, of stealing, since whoever the rightful owner might be, nothing in the vault could possibly belong to him, and he regarded it all as her property, though he doubted whether he could ever obtain for her a tenth part of the value it represented. He had acted on an impulse, which was strengthened until it looked plausible by the thought of the intense pleasure he would take in showing her the wonderful discovery, and in leading her safely through the mysterious intricacies of the strange place. It had been a very selfish impulse after all, and if he really let her come the next day, there might even be a little danger to her. He let himself in and locked the postern door behind him. The porter and his wife were asleep and the glass window of the lodge door was quite dark. Malipieri lighted a wax taper and went upstairs. Masin was waiting, and opened when he heard his master's footsteps on the landing. As a rule, he went to bed, if Malipieri went out in the evening; both men were usually tired out by their day's work. "What is the matter?" Malipieri asked. "There is somebody in the vaults," Masin answered. "I had left my pipe on a stone close to the padlocked door and when you were gone I took a lantern and went down to get it. When I came near the door I was sure I heard some one trying it gently from the other side. I stopped to listen and I distinctly heard footsteps going away. I ran forward and tried to find a crack, to see if there were a light, but the door is swollen with the dampness and fits tightly. Besides, by the time I had reached it the person inside must have got well away." "What time was it?" asked Malipieri, slipping off his light overcoat. "You went out at nine o'clock, sir. It could not have been more than half an hour later." "Light both lanterns. We must go down at once. See that there is plenty of oil in them." In five minutes both men were ready. "You had better take your revolver, sir," suggested Masin. Malipieri laughed. "I have had that revolver since I was eighteen," he said, "and I have never needed it yet. Our tools are there, and they are better than firearms." They went down the staircase quietly, fearing to wake the porter, and kept close to the north wall till they reached the further end of the courtyard. When they had passed the outer door at the head of the winding staircase, Malipieri told Masin to lock it after them. "We cannot padlock the other door from the inside," he explained, "for there are no hasps. If the man managed to pass us he might get out this way." He led the way down, making as little noise as possible. Masin held up his lantern, peering into the gloom over Malipieri's shoulder. "No one could pass the other door without breaking it down," Malipieri said. They reached the floor of the cellars, which extended in both directions from the foot of the staircase, far to the left by low, dark vaults like railway tunnels, and a short distance to the right, where they ended at the north-west corner. The two men turned that way, but after walking a dozen yards, they turned to the left and entered a damp passage barely wide enough for them both abreast. It ended at the padlocked door, and before unlocking the latter Malipieri laid his ear to the rough panel and listened attentively. Not a sound broke the stillness. He turned the key, and took off the padlock and slipped it into his pocket before going on. Without it the door could not be fastened. The passage widened suddenly beyond, in another short tunnel ending at the outer foundation wall of the palace. In this tunnel, on the right-hand side, was the breach the two men had first made in order to gain access to the unexplored region. Now that there was an aperture, the running water on the other side could be heard very distinctly, like a little brook in a rocky channel, but more steady. Both men examined the damp floor carefully with their lanterns, in the hope of finding some trace of footsteps; but the surface was hard and almost black, and where there had been a little slime their own feet had rubbed it off, as they came and went during many days. The stones and rubbish they had taken from the wall had been piled up and hardened to form an inclined causeway by which to reach the irregular hole. This was now just big enough to allow a man to walk through it, bending almost double. Masin lighted one of the lamps, which they generally left at that place, and set it on a stone. Malipieri began to go up, his stick in his right hand, the lantern in his left. "Let me go first, sir," said Masin, trying to pass him. "Nonsense!" Malipieri answered sharply, and went on. Masin kept as close to him as possible. He had picked up the lightest of the drilling irons for a weapon. It must have weighed at least ten pounds and it was a yard long. In such a hand as Masin's a blow from it would have broken a man's bones like pipe stems. The wall was about eight feet thick, and when Malipieri got to the other end of the hole he stopped and looked down, holding out his lantern at arm's length. He could see nothing unusual, and he heard no sound, except the gurgle of the little black stream that ran ten feet below him. He began to descend. The masonry was very irregular, and sloped outwards towards the ground, so that some of the irregularities made rough steps here and there, which he knew by heart. Below, several large fragments of Roman brick and cement lay here and there, where they had fallen in the destruction of the original building. It was not hard to get down, and the space was not large. It was bounded by the old wall on one side, and most of the other was taken up by a part of a rectangular mass of masonry, of rough mediaeval construction, which projected inward. The place was familiar, but Malipieri looked about him carefully, while Masin was climbing down. Along the base of the straight wall there was a channel about two feet wide, through which the dark water flowed rapidly. It entered from the right-hand corner, by a low, arched aperture, through which it seemed out of the question that a man could crawl, or even an ordinary boy of twelve. When they had first come to this place Masin had succeeded in poking in a long stick with a bit of lighted wax taper fastened to it, and both men had seen that the channel ran on as far as it could be seen, with no widening. At the other end of the chamber it ran out again by a similar conduit. What had at first surprised Malipieri had been that the water did not enter from the side of the foundations near the Vicolo dei Soldati, but ran out that way. He had also been astonished at the quantity and speed of the current. A channel a foot deep and two feet wide carries a large quantity of water if the velocity be great, and Malipieri had made a calculation which had convinced him that if the outflow were suddenly closed, the small space in which he now stood would in a few minutes be full up to within three or four feet of the vault. He would have given much to know whence the water came and whither it went, and what devilry had made it rise suddenly and drown a man when the excavations had been made under Gregory Sixteenth. From below, the place where an entrance had then been opened was clearly visible. The vault had been broken into and had afterwards been rebuilt from above. The bits of timber which had been used for the frame during the operation were still there, a rotting and mouldy nest for hideous spiders and noisome creatures that haunt the dark. The air was very cold, and was laden with the indescribable smell of dried slime which belongs to deep wells which have long been almost quite dry. It was clearly a long time since the little stream had overflowed its channel, but at the first examination he had made Malipieri had understood that in former times the water had risen to within three feet of the vault. Up to that height there was a thin coating of the dry mud, which peeled off in irregular scales if lightly touched. The large fragments of masonry that half covered the floor were all coated in the same way with what had once been a film of slime. The air, though cold, could be breathed easily, and the lights did not grow dim in it as they do in subterranean places where the atmosphere is foul. The stream of water, flowing swiftly in its deep channel from under the little arch, brought plentiful ventilation into it. Above, there was no aperture in the vaulting, but there was one in the mediaeval masonry that projected into the chamber. There, on the side towards the right, where the water flowed in, Malipieri had found a narrow slit, barely wide enough to admit a man's open hand and wrist, but nearly five feet high, evidently a passage intended for letting the water flow into the interior of the construction when it overflowed its channel and rose above the floor of the chamber. At first Malipieri had supposed that this aperture communicated with some ancient and long-forgotten drain by which the water could escape to the Tiber; it was not until he had gained an entrance to the hollow mass of masonry that he understood the hideous use to which it had been applied. It had not been hard to enlarge it. Any one who has worked among ruins in Italy could tell, even blindfold, the difference between the work done in ancient times and that of the middle ages. Roman brickwork is quite as compact as solid sandstone, but mediaeval masonry was almost invariably built in a hurry by bad workmen, of all sorts of fragments embedded in poorly mingled cement, and it breaks up with tolerable ease under a heavy pickaxe. In half a day Malipieri and Masin had widened the slit to a convenient passage, but as soon as it had been possible to squeeze through, the architect had gone in. He never forgot what he felt when he first looked about him. Masin could not follow him until many blows of the pick had widened the way for his bulkier frame. Malipieri stopped at the entrance now, holding his lantern close to the ground, and looking for traces of footsteps. He found none, but as he was about to move forward he uttered an exclamation of surprise, and picked up a tiny object which he held close to the light. It was only a wax match, of which the head had been broken off when it had been struck, so that it had not been lighted. That was all, but neither he nor Masin carried wax matches in the vaults, because the dampness soon made them useless. They took common sulphur matches in tin match-boxes. Besides, this was an English wax light, as any one could tell at a glance, for it was thicker, and stiffer, and longer than the cheaper Italian ones. Malipieri drew back and showed it to his man, who examined it, understood, and put it into his pocket without a word. Then they both went in through the aperture in the wall. The masonry outside was rectangular, as far as it could be seen. Inside, it was built like a small circular cistern, smoothly cemented, and contracting above in a dome, that opened by a square hole to the well-shaft above. Like the stones in the outer chamber, the cement was coated with scales of dried mud. The shaft was now certainly closed at the top, for in the daytime not a ray of light penetrated into its blackness. The lanterns illuminated the place completely, and the two men looked about, searching for some new trace of a living being. The yellow light fell only on the remains of men dead long ago. Some of the bones lay as they had lain since then, when the drowned bodies had gently reached the floor as the "lost water" subsided. Malipieri had not touched them, nor Masin either. Two skeletons lay at full length, face downwards, as a drowned body always sinks at last, when decay has done its loathsome work. A third lay on its side, in a frightfully natural attitude, the skull a little raised up and resting against the cemented wall, the arms stretched out together, the hands still clutching a rusty crowbar. This one was near the entrance, and if, in breaking their way in, Malipieri and Masin had not necessarily destroyed the cement on each side of the slit, they would have found the marks where the dead man's crowbar had worked desperately for a few minutes before he had been drowned. Malipieri had immediately reflected that the unfortunate wretch, who was evidently the mason of whom Sassi had told him, had certainly not entered through the aperture formerly made from above in the outer chamber, since the narrow slit afforded no possible passage to the well. That doubtless belonged to some other attempt to find the treasure, and the fact that the mason's skeleton lay inside would alone have shown that he had got in from above, most likely through a low opening just where the dome began to curve inward. A further search had discovered some bits of wood, almost rotted to powder, which had apparently once been a ladder. A much less practised eye than the architect's would have understood at a glance that if a living man were let down through the shaft in the centre of the dome, and left on the floor, he could not possibly get up even as far as the other hole, since the smooth cement offered not the slightest hold; and that if the outflow of the stream from the first chamber were arrested, the water would immediately fill it and rise simultaneously in the well, to drown the victim, or to strip his bones by its action, if he had been allowed to die of hunger or thirst. It was clear, too, that if the latter form of death were chosen, he must have suffered to the last minute of his life the agony of hearing the stream flowing outside, not three paces from him, beyond the slit. Human imagination could hardly invent a more hideously cruel death-trap, nor one more ingeniously secret from the world without. The unhappy mason's ladder had perhaps broken with his weight, or his light had gone out, and he had then been unable to find the horizontal aperture, but he had probably entered through the latter, when he had met his fate. The fact was, as Malipieri afterwards guessed, that the hole through the vault outside had been made hastily after the accident, in the hope of recovering the man's body, but that it had been at once closed again because it appeared to open over a deep pit full of still water. A stout rope ladder now dangled from the lateral aperture in the dome, which Malipieri had immediately understood to have been made to allow the water to overflow when the well was full. He had also felt tolerably sure that the well itself had not been originally constructed for the deadly use to which it had evidently been put in later times, but for the purpose of confining the water in a reservoir that could be easily cleaned, since it could be easily emptied, and in which the supply could be kept at a permanent level, convenient for drawing it from above. In the days when all the ancient aqueducts of Rome were broken, a well of the "lost water" was a valuable possession in houses that were turned into fortresses at a moment's notice and were sometimes exposed to long and desperate sieges. In order to reach the horizontal opening, Malipieri had climbed upon Masin's sturdy shoulders, steadying himself as well as he might till he had laid his hands on the edge of the orifice. As he hung there, Masin had held up the handle of a pickaxe as high as he could reach against the smooth wall, as a crossbar on which Malipieri had succeeded in getting a slight foothold, enough for a man who was not heavy and was extraordinarily active. A moment later he had drawn himself up and inward. At the imminent risk of his life, as he afterwards found, he had crawled on in total darkness till the way widened enough for him to turn round and get back. He had then lowered a string he had with him, and had drawn up a lantern first, then the end of a coil of rope, then the tools for carrying on the exploration. The rest had been easy. Masin had climbed up by the rope, after making knots in it and when Malipieri had called out, from the inner place to which he had retired with the end, that it was made fast. But the light showed the architect that in turning round, he had narrowly escaped falling into an open shaft, of which he could not see the bottom, but which was evidently meant for the final escape of the overflowing water. There was room to pass this danger, however, and they had since laid a couple of stout boards over it, weighted with stones to keep them in place. Beyond, the passage rose till it was high enough for a man to walk upright. Judging from the elevation now reached this passage was hollowed in the thickness of one of the main walls of the palace, and it was clear that the water could not reach it. A few yards from the chasm, it inclined quickly downwards, and at the end there were half a dozen steps, which evidently descended to a greater depth than the floor of the first outer chamber. So far as it had hitherto been possible to judge, there was no way of getting to these last steps, except that opened by the two men, and leading through the dry well. In former times, there might have been an entrance through the wall at the highest level, but if it had ever existed it had been so carefully closed that no trace of it could now be found. This tedious explanation of a rather complicated construction has been necessary to explain what afterwards happened. Reducing it to its simplest terms, it becomes clear that if the water rose, a person in the passage, or anywhere beyond the overflow shaft, could not possibly get back through the well, though he would apparently be safe from drowning if he stayed where he was; and to the best of Malipieri's knowledge there was no other way out. Any one caught there would have to wait till the water subsided, and if that did not happen he would starve to death. The two men stood still and listened. They could still distinguish the faint gurgling of the water, very far off, but that was all. "I believe you heard a rat," said Malipieri, discontentedly, after a long pause. "Rats do not carry English wax matches," observed Masin. "They eat them when they can find them," answered Malipieri. "They carry them off, and hide them, and drop them, too. And a big rat running away makes a noise very like a man's footsteps." "That is true," assented Masin. "There were many of them in the prison, and I sometimes thought they were the keepers when I heard them at night." "At all events, we will go to the end," said Malipieri, beginning to walk down the inclined way, and carrying his lantern low, so as not to be dazzled by the light. Masin followed closely, grasping his drilling-iron, and still expecting to use it. The end of the passage had once been walled up, but they had found the fragments of brick and mortar lying much as they had fallen when knocked away. It was impossible to tell from which side the obstacle had been destroyed. Going further, they stepped upon the curve of a tunnel vault, and were obliged to stoop low to avoid striking against another overhead. The two vaults had been carefully constructed, one outside the other, leaving a space of about five feet between them. The one under their feet covered the inner chamber in which Malipieri had seen the bronze statue. He and Masin had made a hole a little on one side of the middle, in order not to disturb the keystones, working very carefully lest any heavy fragments should fall through; for they had at once been sure that if any thing was to be found, it must be concealed in that place. Before making the opening, they had thoroughly explored the dark curved space from end to end and from side to side, but could discover no aperture. The inner vault had never been opened since it had been built. Malipieri, reconstructing the circumstances of the accident in the last century, came to the conclusion that the mason who had been drowned had been already between the vaults, when some of the men behind had discovered that the water was rising in the well, and that they had somehow got out in time, but that their unfortunate companion had come back too late, or had perished while trying to break his way out by the slit, through which the water must have been rushing in. How they had originally entered the place was a mystery. Possibly they had been lowered from above, down the well-shaft, but it was all very hard to explain. The only thing that seemed certain was that the treasure had never been seen by any one since it had been closed in under the vault, ages ago. Malipieri had not yet found time to make a careful plan of all the places through which he had passed. There were so many turns and changes of level, that it would be impossible to get an accurate drawing without using a theodolite or some similar instrument of precision. From the measurements he had taken, however, and the rough sketches he had made, he believed that the double vault was not under the palace itself, but under the open courtyard, at the depth of about forty feet, and therefore below the level of the Tiber at average high water. Both men now knelt by the hole, and Masin thrust his lantern down to the full length of his arm. The light shone upon the vast hand of the statue, and made a deep reflection in the great ruby of the ring, as if the gem was not a stone, but a little gold cup filled with rich wine. The hand itself, the wrist and the great muscles of the chest on which it lay, seemed of pure gold. But Malipieri's eyes fixed themselves on something else. There were marks on the bright surface of the metal which had not been there when he had looked at it in the afternoon; there were patches of dust, and there were several small scratches, which might have been made by the nails of heavy shoes. "You were right after all," said Malipieri, withdrawing the lantern and setting it down beside him. "The man is here." Masin's china-blue eyes brightened at the thought of a possible fight, and his hold tightened again on his drill. "What shall we do with him?" he asked, looking down into the hole. Cunning, as the Italian peasant is by nature, Masin made a sign to his master that the man, if he were really below, could hear all that was said. "Shall I go down and kill him, sir?" Masin enquired with a quiet grin and raising his voice a little. "I am not sure," Malipieri answered, at once entering into his man's scheme. "He is caught in his own trap. It is not midnight yet, and there is plenty of time to consider the matter. Let us sit here and talk about it." He now turned himself and sat beside the hole, placing his lantern near the edge. He took out a cigar and lit it carefully. Masin sat on the other side, his drill in his hand. "If he tries to get out while we are talking," he said, "I can break his skull with a touch of this." "Yes," Malipieri answered, puffing at his cigar. "There is no hurry. Keep your iron ready." "Yes, sir." Masin made the heavy drill ring on the stones of the vault. A pause followed. "Have you got your pipe with you?" asked Malipieri presently. "We must talk over this quietly." "Yes, sir. Will you hold the iron while I get a light? He might try to jump out, and he may have firearms. Thank you, sir." Masin produced a short black pipe, filled it and lighted it. "I was thinking, sir," he said, as he threw away the wooden match, "that if we kill him here we may have trouble in disposing of his body. Thank you, sir," he added as he took over the drill again and made it clang on the stones. "There will be no trouble about that," Malipieri answered, speaking over the hole. "We can drop him down the overflow shaft in the passage." "Where do you think the shaft leads, sir?" asked Masin, grinning with delight. "To some old drain and then to the Tiber, of course. The body will be found in a week or two, jammed against the pier of some bridge, probably at the island of Saint Bartholomew." "Yes, sir. But the drain is dry now. The body will lie at the bottom of the shaft, where we drop it, and in a few days the cellars will be perfumed." He laughed roughly at his horrible joke, which was certainly calculated to affect the nerves of the intruder who was meant to hear it. Malipieri began to wonder when the man would give a sign of life. "We can fill the well by plugging the arch in the outer chamber," he suggested. "Then the water will pour down the shaft and wash the body away." "Yes, sir," assented Masin. "That is a good idea. Shall I go down and kill him now, sir?" "Not yet," Malipieri answered, knocking the ash from his cigar. "We have not finished smoking, and there is no hurry. Besides, it occurs to me that if we drive anything into the hole when the water runs out, we shall not be able to get the plug away afterwards. Then we ourselves could never get here again." A long silence followed. From time to time Masin made a little noise with the drill. "Perhaps the fellow is asleep," he observed pleasantly at last. "So much the better, he will wake in Paradise!" "It is of no use to run any risks," said Malipieri. "If we go down to kill him he may kill one of us first, especially if he has a revolver. There is no hurry, I tell you. Do you happen to know how long it takes to starve a man to death?" "Without water, a man cannot live a week, sir. That is the best idea you have had yet." "Yes. We will wall him up in the vault. That is easy enough. Those boards that are over the shaft will do to make a little frame, and the stones are all here, just as we got them out. We can fasten up the frame with ends of rope." "We have no mortar, sir." "Mud will do as well for such a small job," answered Malipieri. "We can easily make enough. Give me your iron, in case he tries to get out, and go and get the boards and the rope." Masin began to rise. "In a week we can come and take him out," he remarked in a matter-of-fact way. "By that time he will be dead, and we can have his grave ready." He laughed again, as he thought of the sensations his cheerful talk must produce in the mind of the man below. "Yes," said Malipieri. "We may as well do it at once and go to bed. It is of no use to sit up all night talking about the fellow's body. Go and get the rope and the boards." Masin was now on his feet and his heavy shoes made a grinding noise on the stones. At that moment a sound was heard from below, and Malipieri held up a finger and listened. Somebody was moving in the vault. "You had better stay where you are," said Malipieri, speaking down. "If you show yourself I will drop a stone on your head." A hollow voice answered him from the depths. "Are you Christians," it asked, "to wall a man up alive?" "That is what we are going to do," Malipieri answered coolly. "Have you anything to say? It will not take us long to do the job, so you had better speak at once. How did you get in?" "If I am to die without getting out, why should I tell you?" enquired the voice. Malipieri looked at Masin. "There is a certain sense in what the man says, sir," Masin said thoughtfully. "My good man," said Malipieri, speaking down, "we do not want anybody to know the way to this place for a few days, and as you evidently know it better than we do, we intend to keep you quiet." "If you will let me out, I can serve you," answered the man below. "There is nobody in Rome who can serve you as I can." "Who are you?" asked Malipieri. "Are you going to let me out, Signor Malipieri?" enquired the man. "If you are, I will tell you." "Oh, you know my name, do you?" "Perfectly. You are the engineer engaged by the Senator Volterra to find the treasure." "Yes. Quite right. What of that?" "You have found it," answered the other. "Of what use will it be to kill me? I cannot take that statue away in my waistcoat pocket, if you let me out, can I?" "You had better not make too many jokes, my man, or we will put the boards over this hole in five minutes. If you can really be of use to me, I will let you out. What is your name?" "Toto," answered the voice sullenly. "Yes. That means Theodore, I suppose. Now make haste, for I am tired of waiting. What are you, and how did you get in?" "I was the mason of the palace, until the devil flew away with the people who lived in it. I know all the secrets of the house. I can be very useful to you." "That changes matters, my friend. I have no doubt you can be useful if you like, though we have managed to find one of the secrets without you. It happens to be the only one we wanted to know." "No," answered Toto. "There are two others. You do not know how I got in, and you do not know how to manage the 'lost water.'" "That is true," said Malipieri. "But if I let you out you may do me harm, by talking before it is time. The government is not to know of this discovery until I am ready." "The government!" exclaimed Toto contemptuously, from his hiding-place. "May an apoplexy seize it! Do you take me for a spy? I am a Christian." "I begin to think he is, sir," put in Masin, knocking the ash from his pipe. "I think so, too," said Malipieri. "Throw away that iron, Masin. He shall show himself, at all events, and if we like his face we can talk to him here." Masin dropped the drill with a clang. Toto's hairy hand appeared, grasping the golden wrist of the statue, as he raised himself to approach the hole. "He is a mason, as he says," said Masin, catching sight of the rough fingers. "Did you take me for a coachman?" enquired Toto, thrusting his shaggy head forward cautiously, and looking up through the aperture. "Before you come up here," Malipieri answered, "tell me how you got in." "You seem to know so much about the overflow shaft that I should think you might have guessed. If you do not believe that I came that way, look at my clothes!" He now crawled upon the body of the statue, and Malipieri saw that he was covered with half-dried mud and ooze. "You got through some old drain, I suppose, and found your way up." "It seems so," answered Toto, shaking his shoulders, as if he were stiff. "Are you going to let him go free, sir?" asked Masin, standing ready. "If you do, he will be down the shaft, before you can catch him. These men know their way underground like moles." "Moles, yourselves!" answered Toto in a growl, putting his head up above the level of the vault. Masin measured him with his eye, and saw that he was a strong man, probably much more active than he looked in his heavy, mud-plastered clothes. "Get up here," said Malipieri. Toto obeyed, and in a moment he sat on the edge of the hole, his legs dangling down into it. "Not so bad," he said, settling himself with a grunt of satisfaction. "I like you, Master Toto," said Malipieri. "You might have thought that we really meant to kill you, but you did not seem much frightened." "There is no woman in the affair," answered Toto. "Why should you kill me? And I can help you." "How am I to know that you will?" asked Malipieri. "I am a man of honour," Toto replied, turning his stony face to the light of the lanterns. "I have not a doubt of it, my friend," returned Malipieri, without conviction. "Just now, the only help I need of you, is that you should hold your tongue. How can I be sure that you will do that? Does any one else know the way in through the drain?" "No. I only found it to-night. If there is a day's rain in the mountains, and the Tiber rises even a little, nobody can pass through it. The lower part is barely above the level of the river now." "How did you guess that you could get here by that way?" "We know many secrets in our trade, from father to son," answered Toto gruffly. "You must have lifted the boards, with the stones on them, to get out of the shaft. Why did you put them back in their place?" "You seem to think I am a fool! I did not mean to let you know that I had been here, so I put them back, of course. I supposed that I could get out through the cellars, but you have put a padlock on the inner door." "Is there any way of turning water into that shaft?" "Only by filling the well, I think. If the Tiber rises, the water will back up the shaft through the drain. That is why the ancients who built the well made another way for the water to run off. When the river is swollen in a flood it must be much higher in the shaft than the bottom of the well, and if the 'lost water' were running in all the time, the air would probably make it back, so that the shaft would be useless and the well would be soiled with the river water." "You evidently know your trade, Master Toto," said Masin, with some admiration for his fellow-craftsman's clear understanding. "You know yours," retorted Toto, who was seldom at a loss, "for just now you talked of killing like a professional assassin." This pleasing banter delighted Masin, who laughed heartily, and patted Toto on the back. "We shall be good friends," he said. "In this world one never knows," Toto answered philosophically. "What are you going to do?" "You must come back with as to my apartment," said Malipieri, who had been considering the matter, "You must stay there a couple of days, without going out. I will pay you for your time, and give you a handsome present, and plenty to eat and drink. After that you will be free to go where you please and say what you like, for the secret will be out." "Thank you," answered Toto without enthusiasm. "Are you going to tell the government about the treasure?" "The Senator will certainly inform the government, which has a right to buy it." To this Toto said nothing, but he lifted his legs out of the hole and stood up, ready to go. Malipieri and Masin took up their lanterns. CHAPTER XI Masin led the way back, Toto followed and Malipieri went last, so that the mason was between his two captors. They did not quite trust him, and Masin was careful not to walk too fast where the way was so familiar to him, while Malipieri was equally careful not to lag behind. In this order they reached the mouth of the overflow shaft, covered with the loaded boards. Masin bent down and examined them, for he wished to convince himself that the stones had been moved since he had himself placed them there. A glance showed that this was the case, and he was about to go on, when he bent down again suddenly and listened, holding up his hand. "There is water," he said, and began to lift off the stones, one by one. Toto helped him quickly. There were only three or four, and they were not heavy. When the mouth of the shaft was uncovered all three knelt down and listened, instinctively lowering their lanterns into the blackness below. The shaft was not wider than a good-sized old-fashioned chimney, like those in Roman palaces, up and down which sweeps can just manage to climb. The three men listened, and distinctly heard the steady falling of a small stream of water upon the stones at the bottom. "It is raining," Toto said confidently, but he was evidently as much surprised by the sound as the others. "There must be some communication with the gutters in the courtyard," he added. "There is probably a thunderstorm," answered Malipieri. "We can hear nothing down here." "If I had gone down again, I should have been drowned," Toto said, shaking his head. "Do you hear? Half the water from the courtyard must be running down there!" The sound of the falling stream increased to a hollow roar. "Do you think the water can rise in the shaft?" asked Malipieri. "Not unless the river rises and backs into it," replied Toto. "The drain is large below." "That cannot be 'lost water,' can it?" "No. That is impossible." "Put the boards in their place again," Malipieri said. "It is growing late." It was done in a few moments, but now the dismal roar of the water came up very distinctly through the covering. Malipieri had been in many excavations, and in mines, too, but did not remember that he had ever felt so strongly the vague sense of apprehension that filled him now. There is something especially gloomy and mysterious about the noise of unexplained water heard at a great depth under the earth and coming out of darkness. Even the rough men with him felt that. "It is bad to hear," observed Masin, putting one more stone upon the boards, as if the weight could keep the sound down. "You may say that!" answered Toto. "And in this tomb, too!" They went on, in the same order as before. The passage to the dry well had been so much enlarged that by bending down they could walk to the top of the rope ladder. Malipieri went down first, with his lantern. Toto followed, and while Masin was descending, stood looking at the bones of the dead mason, and at the skull that grinned horribly in the uncertain yellow glare. He took a half-burnt candle from his pocket, and some sulphur matches, and made a light for himself, with which he carefully examined the bones. Malipieri watched him. "The man who was drowned over sixty years ago," said the architect. "This," answered Toto, with more feeling than accuracy, "is the blessed soul of my grandfather." "He shall have Christian burial in a few days," Malipieri said gravely. Toto shrugged his shoulders, not irreverently, but as if to say that when a dead man has been without Christian burial sixty years, it cannot make any difference whether he gets it after all or not. "The crowbar is still good," Toto said, stooping down to disengage it from the skeleton's grasp. But Malipieri laid a hand on his shoulder, for it occurred to him that the mason, armed with an iron bar, might be a dangerous adversary if he tried to escape. "You do not need that just now," said the architect. Toto glanced at Malipieri furtively and saw that he was understood. He stood upright, affecting indifference. They went on, through the breach to which the slit had been widened. Toto moved slowly, and held his candle down to the running water in the channel. "There is plenty of it," he observed. "Where does it come from?" asked Malipieri, suddenly, in the hope of an unguarded answer. "From heaven," answered Toto without hesitation; "and everything that falls from heaven is good," he added, quoting an ancient proverb. "What would happen if we closed the entrance, so that it could not get in at all?" "The book of wisdom," Toto replied, "is buried under Pasquino. How should I know what would happen?" "You know a good many things, my friend." Malipieri understood that the man would not say more, and led the way out. "Good-bye, grandpapa," growled Toto, waving his hairy hand towards the well. "Who knows whether we shall meet again?" They went on, and in due time emerged into the upper air. It was raining heavily, as Toto had guessed, and before they had reached the other end of the courtyard they were drenched. But it was a relief to be out of doors, and Malipieri breathed the fresh air with keen delight, as a thirsty man drinks. The rain poured down steadily and ran in rivers along the paved gutters, and roared into the openings that carried it off. Malipieri could not help thinking how it must be roaring now, far down at the bottom of the old shaft, led thither through deep-buried and long-forgotten channels. Upstairs, Masin was inclined to be friendly with his fellow-craftsman, and gave him dry clothes to sleep in, and bread and cheese and wine in his own room. In spite of his experiences, Masin had never known how to be suspicious. But as Malipieri looked once more at the man's stony face and indistinguishable eyes, he thought differently of his prisoner. He locked the outer door and took the key of the patent lock with him when he went to bed at last. It does not often rain heavily in Rome, late in the spring, for any long time, but when Malipieri looked out the next morning, it was still pouring steadily, and the sky over the courtyard was uniformly grey. It is apparently a law of nature that exceptions should come when least wanted. In spite of the weather Malipieri went out, however, and did not even send for a cab. The porter was in a particularly bad humour and eyed him distrustfully, for he had been put to the trouble of cleaning the stairs where the three men had left plentiful mud in their track during the night. Malipieri nodded to the old man as usual, and was about to go out, but turned back and gave him five francs. Thus mollified the porter at once made a remark about the atrocious weather and proceeded to ask how the work was progressing. "I have explored a good deal," answered Malipieri. "The Senator is coming to-morrow, and you had better sweep carefully. He looks at everything, you know." He went out into the pouring rain, keeping a sharp lookout from under the edge of the umbrella he held low over his head. He had grown cautious of late. As he expected, he came upon one of the respectable men he now met so often, before he had turned into the Piazza Agonale. The respectable man was also carrying his umbrella low, and looking about him as he walked along at a leisurely pace. Malipieri hailed a cab. Even in wet weather there are no closed cabs in that part of Rome. One is protected from the wet, more or less, by the hood and by a high leathern apron which is hooked to it inside. The cabman, seated under a huge standing umbrella, bends over and unhooks it on one side for you to get in and out. Malipieri employed the usual means of eluding pursuit. He gave an address and told the man to drive fast, got out quickly on reaching the house, enquired for an imaginary person with a foreign name, who, he was of course told, did not live there, got in again and had himself driven to Sassi's door, sure of losing his pursuer, if the detective followed him in another cab. Then he paid the man two fares, to save time, and went in. He had never taken the trouble to do such a thing since his political adventures, but he was now very anxious not to let it be known that he had any dealings with the former agent of the Conti family. The matter was settled easily enough and to his satisfaction. Old Sassi worshipped Sabina, and was already fully persuaded that whatever could be found under the palace should belong to her, as also that she had a right to see what was discovered before Volterra did, and before anything was moved. He was at least as quixotic in his crabbed fashion as Malipieri himself; and besides, he really could not see that there was the least harm or danger in the scheme. It certainly would have been improper for Malipieri to go and fetch the young lady himself, but it was absurd to suppose that a man over sixty could be blamed for accompanying a girl of eighteen on a visit to her old home, in her own interest, especially when the man had been all his life employed by her family in a position of trust and confidence. Finally, Sassi hated Volterra with all his heart, as the faithful adherents of ruined gentlefolks often hate those who have profited by their ruin. Sassi, as an old Roman, predicted that the weather would improve in the afternoon. Malipieri advised him nevertheless to keep the hood of his cab raised when he brought Sabina to the palace. To this Sassi answered that he should of course get a closed carriage from a livery stable, and an argument followed which took some time. In the opinion of the excellent old agent, it would be almost an affront to fetch the very noble Donna Sabina in a vehicle so plebeian as a cab, and it was with the greatest difficulty that Malipieri made him understand that a cab was much safer on such an occasion. What was important was that the weather should be fine, for otherwise the Baroness might not go out, and the whole scheme would fail. In that case, it must be arranged for the following day, and Malipieri would find an excuse for putting off Volterra's visit. He left the house on foot. So far, he had not allowed himself to think too much of the future, and had found little time for such reflection. He was a man who put all his energy into what he was doing, and was inclined to let consequences take care of themselves rather than waste thought in providing for them. He believed he was doing what was just and honourable, and if there was a spice of adventure and romance in it, that only made it the more easy to do. The only danger he could think of was that Sabina might slip in one of the difficult passages and hurt her foot a little, or might catch cold in the damp vaults. Nothing else could happen. He congratulated himself on having got Toto in his power, since Toto was the only man who understood the ways of the "lost water." If he had before suspected that there was any one at large in Rome who knew as much he would have hesitated. But he had made the discovery of the man and had taken him prisoner at the same moment, and all danger in that quarter seemed to be removed. As for the material difficulty, he and Masin could smooth the way very much in two or three hours, and could substitute a solid wooden ladder for the one of rope in the well. Sabina was young, slight, and probably active, and with a little help she would have no difficulty in reaching the inner chamber. It might be well to cover the skeletons. Young girls were supposed to be sensitive about such things, and Malipieri had no experience of their ways. Nevertheless he had an inward conviction that Sabina would not go into hysterics at the sight. Old Sassi might not be able to get up the ladder, but once beyond the reach of social observation, he would trust Sabina to Malipieri and Masin for a quarter of an hour, and he could wait in the outer cellar. Malipieri had prepared him for this, and he had made no objection, only saying that he should like to see the treasure himself if it could possibly be managed. In his heart, Malipieri hoped that it would prove too much for the old man and that he might have the pleasure of showing Sabina what he had found without having the old agent at his elbow. Toto would be locked in, upstairs, for the day. He could not get out by the door, and he would not risk breaking his legs by jumping from the window. The intermediate story of the Palazzo Conti was far too high for that. Malipieri calculated that if Sassi were punctual, Sabina would be at the door of the palace at a quarter-past five. At five minutes past, he came down, and sent the porter on an errand which would occupy at least half an hour even if executed with despatch. Masin would keep the door, he said. The old man was delighted to have an excuse for going out, and promised himself to spend a comfortable hour in a wine shop if he could find a friend. His wife, as there was so little to do, had found some employment in a laundry, to which she went in the morning and which kept her out all day. No one would see Sabina and Sassi enter, and if it seemed advisable they could be got out in the same way. No one but Masin and Malipieri himself need ever know that they had been in the palace that afternoon. It was all very well prepared, by a man well accustomed to emergencies, and it was not easy to see how anything could go wrong. Even allowing more time than was necessary, Sabina's visit to the vaults could not possibly occupy much more than an hour. CHAPTER XII Malipieri was beginning to realize that his work in the vaults had been watched with much more interest than he had supposed possible, and that in some way or other news of his progress had reached various quarters. In the first place, his reputation was much wider than he knew, and many scholars and archaeologists throughout Europe had been profoundly impressed both by what he had discovered and by the learning he had shown in discussing his discoveries. It followed that many were curious to see what he would do next, and there were paragraphs about him in grave reviews, and flattering references to him in speeches made at learned conventions. He had friends whose names he had never heard, and enemies, too, ready to attack him on the one side and to defend him on the other. Some praised his modesty, and others called it affectation. His experience of the wider world was short, so far, and he did not understand that it had taken people a year to appreciate his success. He had hoped for immediate recognition of his great services to archaeology, and had been somewhat disappointed because that recognition had not been instantaneous. Like most men of superior talent, in the same situation, when praise came in due time and abundantly, he did not care for it because he was already interested in new work. To the man of genius the past is always insignificant as compared with the future. When Goethe, dying, asked for "more light," he may or may not have merely meant that he wished the window opened because the room seemed dark to his failing eyes; the higher interpretation which has been put upon his last words remains the true one, in the spirit, if not in the letter. He died, as he had lived, the man of genius looking forward, not backward, to the last, crying for light, more light, thinking not of dying and ending, but of living, hoping, doing, winning. Besides the general body of students and archaeologists, the Italian government was exceedingly interested in Malipieri's explorations. The government is rightly jealous in such matters, and does its very best to keep all artistic objects of real value in the country. It is right that this should be so. The law relating to the matter was framed by Cardinal Pacca, under the papal administration many years ago, and the modern rulers have had the intelligence to maintain it and enforce it. Like other laws it is frequently broken. In this it resembles the Ten Commandments and most other rules framed by divine or human intelligence for the good of mankind and the advancement of civilization. The most sanguine lovers of their fellow-men have always admitted the existence of a certain number of flagitious persons who obstinately object to being good. David, who was hasty, included a large proportion of humanity amongst "the wicked"; Monsieur Drumont limited the number to David's descendants; and Professor Lombroso, whatever he may really mean, conveys the impression that men of genius, criminals and lunatics are different manifestations of the same thing; as diamonds, charcoal and ham fat are all carbon and nothing else. We should be thankful for the small favours of providence in excepting us from the gifted minority of madmen, murderers and poets and making us just plain human beings, like other people. There is no international law forbidding a man from making digressions when he is telling a story. Malipieri was watched by the government, as Volterra had told him, because it was feared in high quarters that if he found anything of value under the palace, he would try to get it out of the country. He had always hated the government and had got himself into trouble by attacking the monarchy. Besides, it was known in high quarters that Senator Baron Volterra held singular views about the authenticity of works of art. It would be inconvenient to have a scandal in the Senate about the Velasquez and the other pictures; on the other hand, if anything more of the same sort should happen, it would be very convenient indeed to catch a pair of culprits in the shape of Malipieri, a pardoned political offender, and his ex-convict servant. Then, too, in quite another direction, the Vatican was very anxious to buy any really good work of art which might be discovered, and would pay quite as much for it as the government itself. Therefore the Vatican was profoundly interested in Malipieri on its own account. As if this were not enough, Sabina's brother, the ruined Prince Conti, had got wind of the excavations and scented some possible advantage to himself, with the vague chance of more money to throw away on automobiles, at Monte Carlo, and in the company of a cosmopolitan young person of semi-Oriental extraction whose varied accomplishments had made her the talk of Europe. Lastly, the Russian embassy was on the alert, for the dowager Princess had heard from her maid, who had heard it from her sister in Rome, who had learned it from the washerwoman, who had been told the secret by the porter's wife, that the celebrated Malipieri was exploring the north-west foundations of the palace. The Princess had repeated the story, and the legend which accounted for it, to her brother Prince Rubomirsky, who was a very great personage in his own country. And the Prince, though good-natured, foresaw that he might in time grow tired of giving his sister unlimited money; and it occurred to him that something might turn up under the palace, after all, to which she might have some claim. So he had used his influence in Saint Petersburg with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the latter had instructed the Russian Ambassador in Rome to find out what he could about the excavations, without attracting attention; and Russian diplomatists have ways of finding out things without attracting attention, which are extremely great and wonderful. Also, if Russia puts her paw upon anything and declares that it is the property of a Russian subject, it often happens that smaller people take their paws away hastily. It follows that there must have been a good deal of quiet talk, in Rome, not overheard in society, about what Malipieri was doing in the Palazzo Conti, and as the people who occupied themselves with his affairs were particularly anxious that he should not know what they said, he was in ignorance of it. But Volterra was not. He had valuable friends, because his influence was of value, and he was informed of much that was going on. If he was anxious to get rid of the architect, it was not so much because he wanted for himself the whole price which the statue or statues might bring, as because he feared lest the government should suddenly descend upon Malipieri and make an enquiry which would involve also the question of the pictures. So far, Volterra had created the impression that the young man had been concerned with a dealer in smuggling them out of the country; but in case of an investigation it could easily be proved that they were gone before Malipieri had arrived in Rome in answer to Volterra's invitation. Besides, the Senator had discovered that the young archaeologist was much more celebrated than was convenient. In private affairs there is nothing so tiresome and inconvenient as the presence of a celebrity. Burglars, when exercising their professional functions, are not accompanied by a brass band. Toto was very docile and quiet all that day. Masin thought him philosophical, and continued to like him, after his fashion, providing him with a plentiful supply of tobacco, a good meal at noon, and a bottle of wine. The man's stony face was almost placid. At rare intervals he made a remark. After eating he looked out of the window and said rather regretfully that he thought the rain was over for the day. Masin took this to mean that he wished he might go out, and offered him more wine by way of consolation. But Toto refused. He was a moderate man. Then he asked Masin how many rooms Malipieri occupied, and learned that the whole of the little apartment was rented by the architect. The information did not seem to interest him much. In the morning, when Malipieri had come back from his visit to Sassi, he had given Masin the keys of the vaults, and had told him to buy a stout ladder and take it into the dry well. But Toto said that this was a useless expense. "There is a strong ladder about the right length, lying along the wall at the other end of the west cellar," he said. "You had better take that." Malipieri looked at him and smiled. "For a prisoner, you are very obliging," he said, and he gave him a five-franc note, which Toto took with a grunt of thanks. Masin was gone an hour, during which time Malipieri busied himself in the next room, leaving the door open. He went out when Masin came back. When the two men were together Toto produced the five francs. "Can you change?" he enquired. "Why?" asked Masin with some surprise. "Half is two francs fifty," answered Toto. "That is your share." Masin laughed and shook his head. "No," he said. "What is given to you is not given to me. Why should I share with you?" "It is our custom," Toto replied. "Take your half." Masin refused stoutly, but Toto insisted and grew angry at last. So Masin changed the note and kept two francs and fifty centimes for himself, reflecting that he could give the money back to Malipieri, since he had no sort of right to it. Toto was at once pacified. When Malipieri returned, Masin went out and got dinner for all three, bringing it as usual in the three tin cases strapped one above the other. Toto supposed that he was not to be left alone in the apartment that day; but at half-past four Malipieri entered the room, with a padlock and a couple of screw-eyes in his hand. "You would not think it worth while to risk jumping out," he said in a good-humoured tone. "But you might take it into your head to open the window, and the porter might be there, and you might talk to him. Masin and I shall be out together for a little while." Masin shut the tall window, screwed the stout little eye-bolts into the frame and ran the bolt of the padlock through both. He gave the key to Malipieri. Toto watched the operation indifferently. "If you please," he said, "I am accustomed to have a little wine about half-past five every day. I will pay for it." He held out half a franc to Masin and nodded. "Nonsense!" interposed Malipieri, laughing. "You are my guest, Master Toto." Masin brought a bottle and a glass, and a couple of cigars. "Thank you, sir," said Toto politely. "I shall be very comfortable till you come back." "You will find the time quite as profitable as if you were working," said Malipieri. He nodded and went out followed by Masin, and Toto heard the key turned twice in the solid old lock. The door was strong, and they would probably lock the front door of the apartment too. Toto listened quietly till he heard it shut after them in the distance. Then he rose and flattened his face against the window pane. He waited some time. He could see one half of the great arched entrance, but the projecting stone jamb of the window hindered him from seeing more. It was very quiet, and he could hear footsteps below, on the gravel of the courtyard, if any one passed. At the end of ten minutes he heard a man's heavy tread, and knew that it was Masin's. Masin must have come out of the great archway on the side of it which Toto could not see. The steps went on steadily along the gravel. Masin was going to the vaults. Toto waited ten minutes, and began to think that no one else was coming, and that Malipieri had left the palace, though he had been convinced that the architect and his man meant to go down to the vaults together. Just as he was beginning to give up the idea, he saw Sassi under the archway, in a tall hat, a black coat and gloves, and Malipieri was just visible for a moment as he came out too. He was unmistakably speaking to some one on his right, who was hidden from Toto's view by the projecting stonework. His manner was also distinctly deferential. The third person was probably Baron Volterra. The footsteps took a longer time to reach the other end of the court than Masin had occupied. After all was silent, Toto listened breathlessly for five minutes more. There was not a sound. He looked about him, then took up a chair, thrust one of the legs between the bolt and the body of the padlock and quietly applied his strength. The wood of the frames was old, and the heavy strain drew the screw-eyes straight out. Toto opened the window noiselessly and looked out with caution. No one was in sight. By this time the three were in the vaults, with Masin. Toto knew every inch of the palace by heart, inside and out, and he knew that one of the cast-iron leaders that carried the rain from the roof to the ground was within reach of that particular window, on the left side. He looked out once more, up and down the courtyard, and then, in an instant, he was kneeling on the stone sill, he had grasped the iron leader with one hand, then with the other, swinging himself to it and clutching it below with his rough boots. A few moments later he was on the ground, running for the great entrance. No one was there, no one saw him. He let himself out quietly, shut the postern door after him, and slouched away towards the Vicolo dei Soldati. CHAPTER XIII Sabina had the delightful sensation of doing something she ought not to do, but which was perfectly innocent; she had moreover the rarer pleasure, quite new to her, of committing the little social misdeed in the company of the first man she had ever liked in her life. She knew very well that old Sassi would not be able to reach the inner chamber of the excavation, and she inwardly hoped that Malipieri's servant would discreetly wait outside of it, so that she might be alone with Malipieri when she first set eyes on the wonderful statue. It was amusing to think how the nuns would have scolded her for the mere wish, and how her pious sister would have condemned her to eternal flames for entertaining the temptation. Malipieri had told her to put on an old frock, as she might spoil her clothes in spite of the efforts he had made to enlarge and smooth the way for her to pass. Her mother had a way of calling everything old which she had possessed three months, and for once Sabina was of her mother's opinion. She had a very smart cloth costume, with a rather short skirt, which had come home in February, and which she had worn only four times because the spring had been warm. It was undoubtedly "old" for she could not wear it in summer, and next winter the fashion would change; and it had rained all the morning, so that the air was damp and cold. Besides, the costume fitted her slender figure to perfection--it was such a pity that it was old already, for she might never have another as smart. The least she could do was to try and wear it out when she had the chance. It was of a delicate fawn colour; it had no pocket and it was fastened in a mysterious way. The skirt was particularly successful, and, as has been said, it was short, which was a great advantage in scrambling about a damp cellar. In order to show that she was in earnest, she put on russet leather shoes. Her hat was large, because that was the fashion, but nothing could have been simpler; it matched the frock in colour, and no colour was so becoming to her clear girlish pallor and misty hair as light fawn. Malipieri had carried out his intention of getting rid of the porter, and was waiting inside the open postern when the cab drove up. Hitherto he had only seen Sabina indoors, at luncheon and in the evening, and when he saw her now he received an altogether new impression. Somehow, in her walking dress, she seemed more womanly, more "grown up" as she herself would have called it. As she got out of the wretched little cab, and came forward to greet him, her grace stirred his blood. It was final; he was in love. Her intuition told her the truth, of course. There was something in his look and voice which had not quite been in either on the previous evening. He had been glad, last night, because she had come to the drawing-room, as he had hoped that she would; but to-day he was more than glad, he was happy, merely because he saw her. There never was a woman yet that could not tell that difference at a glance. She was proud of being loved by him, and as he walked by her side, she looked up at the blue sky above the courtyard, and was glad that the clouds had passed away, for it must be sweeter to be loved when there was sunshine overhead than when it rained; but all the time, she saw his face, without looking at it, and it was after her own heart, and much to her liking. Besides, he was not only a manly man, and strong, and, of course, brave; he was already famous, and might be great some day; and she knew that he loved her, which was much to his advantage. As for being madly, wildly, desperately in love with him herself, she was not that yet; it was simply a very delicious sensation of being adored by somebody very sympathetic. Some women never get nearer to love than that, in all their lives, and are quite satisfied, and as they grow older they realize how much more convenient it is to be adored than to adore, and are careful to keep their likings within very manageable limits, while encouraging the men who love them to behave like lunatics. Sabina was not of that kind; she was only very young, which, as Pitt pointed out, is a disadvantage but not a real crime. They walked side by side, almost touching as they moved; they were drawn one to another, as all nature draws together those pairs of helpless atoms that are destined to one end. Old Sassi went gravely with them. To him, it was a sad thing to see Sabina come to the palace in a way almost clandestine, as if she had no right there, and he shook his head again and again, silently grieving over the departed glory of the Conti, and wishing that he could express his sympathy to the young girl in dignified yet tender language. But Sabina was not in need of sympathy just then. Life in the Volterra establishment had been distinctly more bearable since Malipieri's appearance on the scene, and her old existence in the palace had been almost as really gloomy as it now seemed to her to have been. Moreover, she was intensely interested in what Malipieri was going to shew her. Masin was waiting at the head of the winding stair with lanterns already lighted. When they had all entered, he turned the key. Sassi asked why he did this, and as they began to go down Malipieri explained that it was a measure of safety against the old porter's curiosity. Sabina stepped carefully on the damp steps, while Malipieri held his lantern very low so that she could see them. "I am sure-footed," she said, with a little laugh. "This is the easiest part," he answered. "There are places where you will have to be careful." "Then you will help me." She thought it would, be pleasant to rest her hand on his arm, where the way was not easy, and she knew instinctively that he hoped she would do so. They reached the floor of the cellar, and Masin walked in front, lighting the way. Sassi looked about him; he had been in the cellars two or three times before. "They did not get in by this way when the first attempt was made," he said. "No," answered Malipieri. "I cannot find out how they made an entrance." "There used to be a story of an oubliette that was supposed to be somewhere in the house," said Sabina. "I have found it. You will see it in a moment, for we have to pass through the bottom of it." "How amusing! I never saw one." They came to the first breach in the cellar wall. A small lamp had been placed on a stone in a position to illuminate the entrance, and was burning brightly. Masin had lighted two others, further on, and had covered the bones in the dry well with pieces of sacking. Malipieri went up the causeway first. At first he held out his hand to Sabina, but she shook her head and smiled. There would be no satisfaction in being helped over an easy place; she should like him to help her where it would need some strength and skill to do so. She drew her skirt round her and walked up unaided, and followed by Sassi, leaning on his stick with one hand and on Masin with the other. The descent into the first chamber was less easy. Standing at the top, Sabina looked down at Malipieri, who held his lantern to her feet. She felt a delicious little uneasiness now, and listened to the ghostly gurgle from the channel in the dark. "What is that?" she asked, and her voice was a little awed by the darkness and strangeness of the place. "The 'lost water.' It runs through here." She listened a moment longer, and began to descend, placing her feet on the stones upon which Malipieri laid his hand, one after another, to show her the way. "Perhaps you might help me a little here," she said. "If you will let me put your feet on the right step, it will be easier," he answered. "Yes. Do that, please. Show me the place first." "There. Do you see? Now!" He laid his hand firmly upon her small russet shoe, guided the little foot to a safe position and steadied it there a moment. "So," he said. "Now the next. There are only four or five more." She was rather sorry that there were so few, for they seemed delightfully safe, or just dangerous enough to be amusing; she was not quite sure which. Women never analyze the present, unless it is utterly dull. At the bottom of the descent, both looked up, and saw at a glance that poor old Sassi could never get down, even with assistance. He seemed unable to put his foot down without slipping, in spite of Masin's help. "I think you had better not try it," said Malipieri quietly. "In a few days I am sure that the Senator will have a way broken through from above, and then it will be easy enough." "Yes," answered the old man regretfully. "I will go back again to the other side and wait for you." "I am so sorry," said Sabina untruthfully, but looking up with sympathy. "Take Signor Sassi back to the cellar," said Malipieri to Masin. "Then you can follow us." Sassi and Masin disappeared through the breach. Malipieri led the way into the dry well, where there was another light. In her haste to reach the end, Sabina did not even glance at the sacking that covered the skeletons. "Can you climb a ladder?" asked Malipieri. "Of course!" Such a question was almost a slight. Malipieri went up nimbly with his lantern, and knelt on the masonry to hold the top of the ladder. Sabina mounted almost as quickly as he had done, till she reached the last few steps and could no longer hold by the uprights. Then she put out her hands; he grasped then both and slid backwards on his knees as she landed safely on the edge. She had not felt that she could possibly fall, even if her feet slipped, and she now knew that he was strong, and that it was good to lean on him. "You will have to stoop very low for a few steps," he said, taking up his lantern, and he kept his hold on one of her hands as he led her on. "It is not far, now," he added encouragingly, "and the rest is easy." He guided her past the boards and stones that covered the overflow shaft, and down the inclined passage and the steps to the space between the vaults. A third lamp was burning here, close to the hole beneath which the statue lay. Malipieri lowered his lantern for her to see it. She uttered an exclamation of surprise and delight. The pure gold that covered the bronze was as bright as if it had not lain in the vault for many centuries, twelve, fourteen, fifteen, no one could tell yet. The light fell into the huge ruby as into a tiny cup of wine. "Can one get down?" asked Sabina breathlessly, after a moment's silence. "Certainly. I have not gone down myself yet, but it is easy. I wanted you to be the first to see it all. You will have to sit on the edge and step upon the wrist of the statue." Sabina gathered her skirt neatly round her, and with a little help she seated herself as he directed. "Are you sure it will not hurt it, to step on it?" she asked, looking up. "Quite sure." Malipieri smiled, as he thought of Toto's hobnailed shoes. "When you are standing firmly, I will get down too, if there is room." "It is not a very big hole," observed Sabina, letting herself down till her feet rested on the smooth surface. She did not quite wish to be as near him as that; at least, not yet. "I will creep down over the arm," she said, "and then you can follow me. I hope there are no beasts," she added. "I hate spiders." Malipieri lowered his lantern beside her, and she crept along towards the statue's head. In a few moments he was beside her, bringing both the lantern and the lamp with him. They had both forgotten Masin's existence, as he had not yet appeared. Sabina looked about for spiders, but there were none in sight. The vault was perfectly dry, and there was hardly any dust clinging to the rough mortar that covered the stones. It was clear that the framework must have been carefully removed, and the place thoroughly cleaned, before the statue had been drawn into the vault from one end. "He is perfectly hideous," said Sabina, as they reached the huge face. "But it is magnificent," she added, passing her gloved hand over the great golden features. "I wonder who it is meant for." "A Roman emperor as Hercules, I think," Malipieri answered. "It may be Commodus. We are so near that it is hard to know how the head would look if the statue were set up." He was thinking very little of the statue just then, as he knelt on its colossal chest beside Sabina, and watched the play of the yellow light on her delicate face. There was just room for them to kneel there, side by side. It was magnificent, as Sabina had said, the great glittering thing, lying all alone in the depths of the earth, an enormous golden demigod in his tomb. "You are wonderful!" exclaimed Sabina, suddenly turning her face to Malipieri. "Why?" "To have found it," she explained. "I wish I had found something more practical," he answered. "In my opinion this thing belongs to you, and I suppose it represents a small fortune. But the only way for you to get even a share of it will be by bringing a suit against Volterra. Half a dozen rubies like the one in the ring would have been enough for you, and you could have taken them home with you in your pocket." "I am afraid I have none!" Sabina laughed. "This one will be safe in mine," Malipieri answered. "You are not going to take it?" cried Sabina, a little frightened. "Yes. I am going to take it for you. I daresay it is worth a good deal of money." "But--is it yours?" "No. It is yours." "I wonder whether I have any right to it." Sabina was perhaps justly doubtful about the proceeding. "I do not care a straw for the government, or the laws, or Volterra, where you are concerned. You shall have what is yours. Shall we get down to the ground and see if there is anything else in the vault?" He let himself slide over the left shoulder, and the lion's skin that was modelled over it, and Sabina followed him cautiously. By bending their heads they could now stand and walk, and there was a space fully five feet wide, between the statue and the perpendicular masonry from which the vault sprang. Malipieri stopped short, with both lights in his hand, and uttered an exclamation. "What is it?" asked Sabina. "Oh!" she cried, as she saw what he had come upon. For some moments neither spoke, and they stood side by side, pressed against each other in the narrow way and gazing down, for before them lay the most beautiful marble statue Sabina had ever seen. In the yellow light it was like a living woman asleep rather than a marble goddess, hewn and chipped, smoothed and polished into shape ages ago, by men's hands. She lay a little turned to one side and away; the arm that was undermost was raised, so that the head seemed to be resting against it, though it was not; the other lying along and across the body, its perfect hand just gathering up a delicately futile drapery. The figure was whole and unbroken, of cream-like marble, that made soft living shadows in each dimple and hollow and seemed to quiver along the lines of beauty, the shoulder just edging forwards, the bent arm, the marvellous sweep of the limbs from hip to heel. "It is a Venus, is it not?" asked Sabina with an odd little timidity. "Aphrodite," answered Malipieri, almost unconsciously. It was not the plump, thick-ankled, doubtfully decent Venus which the late Greeks made for their Roman masters; it was not that at all. It was their own Aphrodite, delicate, tender and deadly as the foam of the sea whence she came to them. Sabina would scarcely have wondered if she had turned and smiled, there on the ground, to brush the shadows of ages from her opening eyes, and to say "I must have slept," like a woman waked by her lover from a dream of kisses. That would have seemed natural. Malipieri felt that he was holding his breath. Sabina was so close to him that it was as if he could feel her heart beating near his own, and as fast; and for a moment he felt one of those strong impulses which strong men know when to resist, but to resist which is like wrestling against iron hands. He longed, as he had never longed for anything in his life, to draw her yet closer to him and to press his lips hard upon hers, without a word. Instead, he edged away from her, and held the lights low beside the wonderful statue so that she might see it better; and Aphrodite's longing mouth, that had kissed gods, was curved with a little scorn for men. The air was still and dry, and Sabina felt a strange little thrill in her hair and just at the back of her neck. Perhaps, in the unknown ways of fruitful nature, the girl was dimly aware of the tremendous manly impulse of possession, so near her in that narrow and silent place. Something sent a faint blush to her cheek, and she was glad there was not much light, and she did not wish to speak for a little while. "I hate to think that she has lain so long beside that gilded Roman monster," said Malipieri presently. The vast brutality of the herculean emperor had not disgusted him at first; it had merely displeased his taste. Now, it became suddenly an atrocious contrast to the secret loveliness of unveiled beauty. That was a manly instinct in him, too, and Sabina felt it. "Yes," she said softly. "And she seems almost alive." "The gods and goddesses live for ever," Malipieri answered, smiling and looking at her, in spite of himself. Her eyes met his at once, and did not turn away. He fancied that they grew darker in the shadow, and in the short silence. "I suppose we ought to be going," she said, still looking at him. "Poor old Sassi is waiting in the cellar." "We have not been all round the vault yet," he answered. "There may be something more." "No, she has been alone with the monster, all these centuries. I am sure of it. There cannot be anything else." "We had better look, nevertheless," said Malipieri. "I want you to see everything there is, and you cannot come here again--not in this way." "Well, let us go round." Sabina moved. "Besides," continued Malipieri, going slowly forward and lighting the way, "I am going to leave the palace the day after to-morrow." "Why?" asked Sabina, in surprise. "Because Volterra has requested me to go. I may have to leave Rome altogether." "Leave Rome?" Her own voice sounded harsh to her as she spoke the words. She had been so sure that he was in love with her, she had begun to know that she would soon love him; and he was going away already. "Perhaps," he answered, going on. "I am not sure." "But--" Sabina checked herself and bit her lip. "What?" "Nothing. Go on, please. It must be getting late." There was nothing more in the vault. They went all round the gilt statue without speaking, came back to the feet of the Aphrodite from the further side and stopped to look again. Still neither spoke for a long time. Malipieri held the lights in several positions, trying to find the best. "Why must you leave Rome?" Sabina asked, at last, without turning her face to him. "I am not sure that I must. I said I might, that was all." Sabina tapped the ground impatiently with her foot. "Why 'may' you have to go, then?" she asked a little sharply. "Volterra may be able to drive me away. He will try, because he is afraid I may wish to get a share in the discovery." "Oh! Then you will not leave Rome, unless you are driven away?" Malipieri tried to see her eyes, but she looked steadily down at the statue. "No," he said. "Certainly not." Sabina said nothing, but her expression changed and softened at once. He could see that, even in the play of the shadows. She raised her head, glanced at him, and moved to go on. After making a few steps in the direction of the aperture she stopped suddenly as if listening. Malipieri held his breath, and then he heard, too. It was the unmistakable sound of water trickling faster and faster over stones. For an instant his blood stood still. Then he set the lamp down, grasped Sabina's wrist and hurried her along, carrying only the lantern. "Come as fast as you can," he said, controlling his voice. She understood that there was danger and obeyed without losing her head. As he helped her up through the hole in the vault, she felt herself very light in his hands. In a moment he was beside her, and they were hurrying towards the inclined passage, bending low. CHAPTER XIV A broad stream of water was pouring down, and spreading on each side in the space between the vaults. In a flash, Malipieri understood. The dry well had filled, but the overflow shaft was covered with the weighted boards, and only a little water could get down through the cracks. The rest was pouring down the passage, and would soon fill the vault, which was at a much lower level. "Stay here! Do not move!" Sabina stood still, but she trembled a little, as he dashed up through the swift, shallow stream, not ankle deep, but steady as fate. In a moment he had disappeared from her sight, and she was all alone in the dismal place, in darkness, save for a little light that forced its way up from below through the hole. It seemed five minutes before his plashing footsteps stopped, up there in the passage; then came instantly the noise of stones thrown aside into the water, and of heavy pieces of board grating and bumping, as they floated for a moment. Almost instantly a loud roar came from the same direction, as the inflowing stream from the well thundered down the shaft. Sabina heard Malipieri's voice calling to her, and his approaching footsteps. "The water cannot reach you now!" he cried. It had already stopped running down the passage, when Malipieri emerged, dripping and holding out the lantern in front of him, as his feet slipped on the wet stones. Sabina was very pale, but quite quiet. "What has happened?" she asked mechanically. "The water has risen suddenly," he said, paler than she, for he knew the whole danger. "We cannot get out till it goes down." "How soon will that be?" Sabina asked steadily. "I do not know." They looked at each other, and neither spoke for a moment. "Do you think it may be several hours?" asked Sabina. "Yes, perhaps several hours." Something in his tone told her that matters might be worse than that. "Tell me the truth," she said. "It may be days before the water goes down. We may die here. Is that what you mean?" "Unless I can make another way out, that is what may happen. We may starve here." "You will find the other way out," Sabina said quietly. "I know you will." She would rather have died that moment than have let him think her a coward; and she was really brave, and was vaguely conscious that she was, and that she could trust her nerves, as long as her bodily strength lasted. But it would be very horrible to die of hunger, and in such a place. It was better not to think of it. He stood before her, with his lantern, a pale, courageous, strong man, whom she could not help trusting; he would find that other way. "You had better get down again," he said, after a little reflection. "It is dry below, and the lamp is there." "I can help you." Malipieri looked at the slight figure and the little gloved hands and smiled. "I am very strong," Sabina said, "much stronger than you think. Besides, I could not sit all alone down there while you are groping about. The water might come down and drown me, you know." "It cannot run down, now. If it could, I should be drowned first." "That would not exactly be a consolation," answered Sabina. "What are you going to do? I suppose we cannot break through the roof where we are, can we?" "There must be ten or fifteen feet of earth above it. We are under the courtyard here." Sabina's slight shoulders shuddered a little, for the first time, as she realized that she was perhaps buried alive, far beyond the possibility of being heard by any human being. "The water must have risen very soon after we came down," Malipieri said thoughtfully. "That is why my man could not get to us. He could not get into the well." "At all events he is not here," Sabina answered, "so it makes no difference where he is." "He will try to help us from without. That is what I am thinking of. The first thing to be done is to put out that lamp, for we must not waste light. I had forgotten that." Sabina had not thought of it either, and she waited while he went down again and brought the lamp up. He extinguished it at once and set it down. "Only three ways are possible," he said, "and two are out of the question. We cannot get up the old shaft above the well. It is of no use to think of that. We cannot get down the overflow and out by the drains because the water is pouring down there, and besides, the Tiber must have risen with the rain." "Which is the third way?" "To break an opening through the wall in the highest part of the passage. It may take a long time, for I have no idea how thick the wall may be, and the passage is narrow. But we must try it, and perhaps Masin will go to work nearly at the same spot, for he knows as much about this place as I do, and we have often talked about it. I have some tools down here. Will you come? We must not waste time." "I can hold the lantern," said Sabina. "That may be of some use." Malipieri gave her the lantern and took up the crowbar and pickaxe which lay near the hole in the vault. "You will wet your feet, I am afraid," he said, as they went up the passage, and he was obliged to speak in a louder tone to be heard above the steady roar of the water. He had marked the spot where he had expected that a breach would have to be made to admit visitors conveniently, and he had no trouble in finding it. He set the stones he had taken off the boards in a proper position, laid one of the wet boards upon them, and then took off his coat and folded it for a cushion, more or less dry. He made Sabina sit down with the lantern, though she protested. "I cannot work with my coat on," he answered, "so you may as well sit on it." He set to work, and said no more. The first thing to be done was to sound the thickness of the wall, if possible, by making a small hole through the bricks. If this could be done, and if Masin was on the other side, a communication could be established. He knew well enough that even with help from without, many hours might be necessary in order to make a way big enough for Sabina to get out; it was most important to make an opening through which food could be passed in for her. He had to begin by using his pick-axe because the passage was so narrow that he could not get his crowbar across it, much less use it with any effect. It was very slow work at first, but he did it systematically and with steady energy. Sabina watched him in silence for a long time, vaguely wondering when he would be tired and would be obliged to stop and rest. Somehow, it was impossible to feel that the situation was really horrible, while such a man was toiling before her eyes to set her free. From the first, she was perfectly sure that he would succeed, but she had not at all understood what the actual labour must be. He had used his pickaxe for more than half an hour, and had made a hollow about a foot and a half deep, when he rested on the shaft of the tool, and listened attentively. If the wall were not enormously thick, and if any one were working on the other side, he was sure that he could hear the blows, even above the roar of the water. But he could distinguish no sound. The water came in steadily from the full well, a stream filling the passage beyond the dark chasm into which it was falling, and at least six inches deep. It sent back the light of the lantern in broken reflections and shivered gleams. Sabina did not like to look that way. She was cold, now, and she felt that her clothes were damp, and a strange drowsiness came over her, brought on by the monotonous tone of the water. Malipieri had taken up his crowbar. "I wonder what time it is," Sabina said, before he struck the wall again. He looked at his watch. "It is six o'clock," he answered, trying to speak cheerfully. "It is not at all late yet. Are you hungry?" "Oh, no! We never dine till eight." "But you are cold?" "A little. It is no matter." "If you will get up I will put my waistcoat on the board for you to sit upon, and then you can put my coat over your shoulders. I am too hot." "Thank you." She obeyed, and he made her as comfortable as he could, a forlorn little figure in her fawn-coloured hat, wrapped in his grey tweed coat, that looked utterly shapeless on her. "Courage," he said, as he picked up his crowbar. "I am not afraid," she answered. "Most women would be." He went to work again, with the end of the heavy bar, striking regularly at the deepest part of the hollow, and working the iron round and round, to loosen the brick wherever that was possible. But he made slow progress, horribly slow, as Sabina realized when nearly half an hour had passed again, and he paused to listen. He was much more alarmed than he would allow her to guess, for he was now quite convinced that Masin was not working on the other side; he knew that his strength would never be equal to breaking through, unless the crowbar ran suddenly into an open space beyond, within the next half-hour. The wall might be of any thickness, perhaps as much as six or seven feet, and the bricks were very hard and were well cemented. Perhaps, too, he had made a mistake in his rough calculations and was not working at the right spot after all. He was possibly hammering away at the end of a cross wall, following it in its length. That risk had to be taken, however, for there was at least as good a chance of breaking through at this point as at any other. He believed that by resting now and then for a short time, he could use his tools for sixteen or eighteen hours, after which, if he were without food, his strength would begin to give way. There was nothing to be done but to go on patiently, doing his best not to waste time, and yet not overtaxing his energy so as to break down before he had done the utmost possible. He would not think of what must come after that, if he failed, and if the water did not subside. Sabina understood very imperfectly what had happened, and there had been no time to explain. He could not work and yet talk to her so as to be heard above the roaring of the water and the noise of the iron bar striking against the bricks. She knew that, and she expected nothing of him beyond what he was doing, which was all a man could do. She drew his coat closely round her and leaned back against the damp wall; and with half-closed eyes she watched the moving shadows of his arms cast on the wall opposite by the lantern. He worked as steadily as a machine, except when he withdrew the bar for a moment, in order to clear out the broken brick and mortar with his hand; then again the bar struck the solid stuff, and recoiled in his grasp and struck again, regularly as the swinging of a pendulum. But no echo came back from an emptiness beyond. Ignorant as Sabina was of all such things, her instinct told her that the masonry was enormously thick; and yet her faith in him made him sure that he had chosen the only spot where there was a chance at all. Sometimes she almost forgot the danger for a little while. It pleased her to watch him, and to follow the rhythmic movements of his strong and graceful body. It is a good sight to see an athletic man exerting every nerve and muscle wisely and skilfully in a very long-continued effort; and the woman who has seen a man do that to save her own life is not likely to forget it. And then, again, the drowsiness came over her, and she was almost asleep, and woke with a shiver, feeling cold. He had given her his watch to hold, when he had made her sit on his waistcoat, and she had squeezed it under her glove into the palm of her hand. It was a plain silver watch with no chain. She got it out and looked at it. Eight o'clock, now. The time had passed quickly, and she must have really been asleep. The Baron and his wife were just going to sit down to dinner, unless her disappearance had produced confusion in the house. But they would not be frightened, though they might be angry. The servants would have told them that Signor Sassi, whose card was there to prove his coming, had asked for Donna Sabina, and that she had gone out with him in a cab, dressed for walking. Signor Sassi was a highly respectable person, and though it might be a little eccentric, according to the Baroness's view, for Sabina to go out with him in a cab, especially in the afternoon, there could really be no great harm in it. The Baroness would be angry because she had stayed out so late. The Baroness would be much angrier by and by, when she knew what had really happened, and it must all be known, of course. When Sassi was sure that Masin could not get the two out of the vault himself, or with such ordinary help as he could procure, he would have to go to the Baron, who would instantly inform the authorities, and bring an engineer and a crowd of masons to break a way. There was some comfort in that, after all. It was quite impossible that she and Malipieri should be left to starve to death. Besides, she was not at all hungry, though it was dinner time. She was only cold and sleepy. She wished she could take the crowbar from Malipieri's hands and use it for a few minutes, just to warm herself. He had said that he was too hot, and by the uncertain light she fancied she could see a little moisture on his white forehead. She was right in that, for he was growing tired and knew that before long he must rest for at least a quarter of an hour. The hole was now three feet deep or more, yet no hollow sound came back from, the blows he dealt. His arms were beginning to ache, and he began to count the strokes. He would strike a hundred more, and then he would rest. He kept up the effort steadily to the end, and then laid down the bar and passed his handkerchief over his forehead. Sabina watched him and looked up into his face when he turned to her. "You are tired," she said, rising and standing beside him, so as to speak more easily. "I shall be quite rested in a few minutes," he answered, "and then I will go on." "You must be very strong," said Sabina. Then she told him what she had been thinking of, and how it was certain that the Baron would bring a large force of men to set them free. Malipieri listened to the end, and nodded thoughtfully. She was right, supposing that nothing had happened to Sassi and Masin; but he knew his own man, and judged that he must have made some desperate attempt to stop the inflowing water in the outer chamber, and it was not impossible that poor old Sassi, in his devotion to Sabina, had made a mad effort to help Masin, and that they had both lost their lives together. If that had happened, there was no one to tell Volterra where Sabina was. Enquiries at Sassi's house would be useless; all that could be known would be that he had gone out between four and five o'clock, that he had called at the house in the Via Ludovisi, and that he and Sabina had driven away together. No doubt, in time, the police could find the cab they had taken, and the cabman would remember that they had paid him at the Palazzo Conti. But all that would take a long time. The porter knew nothing of their coming, and being used to Malipieri's ways would not think of ringing at his door. In time Toto would doubtless break out, but he had not seen Sabina, for Malipieri had been very careful to make her walk close to the wall. He did not tell Sabina these things, as it was better that she should look forward to being set free in a few hours, but he had very grave doubts about the likelihood of any such good fortune. "You must sit down," said Sabina. "You cannot rest unless you sit down. I will stand for a while." "There is room for us both," Malipieri answered. They sat down side by side on the board with the lantern at their feet, and they were very close together. "But you will catch cold, now that you have stopped, working," Sabina said suddenly. "How stupid of me!" As she spoke she pulled his coat off her shoulders, and tried to throw it over his, but he resisted, saying that he could not possibly have time to catch cold, if he went back to work in a few minutes. Yet he already felt the horrible dampness that came up out of the overflow shaft and settled on everything in glistening beads. It only made him understand how cold she must be, after sitting idle for two hours. "Do you think we shall get out to-night?" Sabina asked suddenly, with the coat in her hand. "I hope so," he answered. She stood up, and looked at the cavity he had made in the wall. "Where will that lead to?" she enquired. He had risen, too. "It ought to lead into the coach-house, so far as I can judge." Instinctively, he went forward to examine the hole, and at that moment Sabina cleverly threw the coat over his shoulders and held it round his neck with both her hands. "There!" she cried. "You are caught now!" And she laughed as lightly as if there were no such thing as danger. Malipieri wondered whether she realized the gravity of the situation, or whether she were only pretending to be gay in order to make it easier for him. In either case she was perfectly brave. "You must not!" he answered, gently trying to free himself. "You need it more than I." "I wonder if it is big enough to cover us both," Sabina said, as the idea struck her. "Come! Sit down beside me and we will try." He smiled and sat down beside her, and they managed to hold the coat so that it just covered their shoulders. "Paul and Virginia," said Malipieri, and they both laughed a little. But as their laughter died away, Sabina's teeth chattered, and she drew in her breath. At the slight sound Malipieri looked anxiously into her face, and saw that her lips were blue. "This is folly," he said. "You will fall ill if you stay here any longer. It is quite dry in the vault, and warm by comparison with this place. You must go down there, while I stay here and work." He got up, and in spite of a little resistance he made her put her arms into the sleeves of the coat, and turned the cuffs back, and fastened the buttons. She was shivering from head to foot. "What a miserable little thing I am!" she cried impatiently. "You are not a miserable little thing, and you are much braver than most men," said Malipieri. "But it will be of very little use to get you out of the vault alive if you are to die of a fever in a day or two." She said nothing and he led her carefully down the inclined passage and the steps, away from the gloomy overflow, and the roaring water and the fearful dampness. He helped her down into the vault very gently, over the glittering chest of the great imperial statue. The air felt warm and dry, now that she was so badly chilled, and her lips looked a little less blue. "I will light the lamp, and turn it very low," said Malipieri. "I am not afraid of the dark," Sabina answered. "You said that we must not waste our light." "Shall you really not be nervous?" Malipieri supposed that all women were afraid to be in the dark alone. "Of course not. Why should I? There are no spiders, and I do not believe in ghosts. Besides, I shall hear you hammering at the wall." "You had better sit on the body of the Venus. I think the marble is warmer than the bronze. But there is the board--I forgot. Wait a minute." He was not gone long, and came back bringing the board and his waistcoat. To his surprise, he found her sitting on the ground, propping herself with one hand. "I felt a little dizzy in the dark," she explained, "so I sat down, for fear of falling." He glanced at her face, and his own was grave, as he placed the board on the ground, and laid the waistcoat over the curving waist of the Aphrodite, so that she could lean against it. She got up quickly when it was ready and seated herself, drawing up her knees and pulling her skirt closely round her damp shoes to keep her feet warm, if possible. He set the lamp beside her and gave her a little silver box of matches, so that she could get a light if she felt nervous. He looked at her face thoughtfully as he stood with his lantern in his hand, ready to go. "But you have nothing to put on, if you have to rest again!" she said, rather feebly. "I will come and rest here, about once an hour," he answered. Her face brightened a little, and she nodded, looking up into his eyes. "Yes. Come and rest beside me," she said. He went away, climbing over the statue and out through the hole in the vault. Just before he disappeared, he held up his lantern and looked towards her. She was watching him. "Good-night," he said. "Try to sleep a little." "Come back soon," she answered faintly, and smiled. Presently he was at work again, steadily driving the bar against the hard bricks, steadily chipping away a little at a time, steadily making progress against the enormous obstacle. The only question was whether his strength would last, for if he had been able to get food, it would have been merely a matter of time. A crowbar does not wear down much on bricks. At first, perfectly mechanical work helps a man to think, as walking generally does; but little by little it dulls the faculties and makes thought almost impossible. Senseless words begin to repeat themselves with the movement, fragments of tunes fit themselves to the words, and play a monotonous and exasperating music in the brain, till a man has the sensation of having a hurdy-gurdy in his head, though he may be working for his life, as Malipieri was. Yet the unchanging repetition makes the work easier, as a sailor's chanty helps at the topsail halliards. "We must get out before we starve, we must get out before we starve," sang the regular blows of the bar to a queer little tune which Malipieri had never heard. When he stopped to clear out the chips, the song stopped too, and he thought of Sabina sitting alone in the vault, propped against the Aphrodite; and he hoped that she might be asleep. But when he swung the bar back into position and heard it strike the bricks, the tune and the words came back with the pendulum rhythm; and went on and on, till they were almost maddening, though there no longer seemed to be any sense in them. They made the time pass. Sabina heard the dull blows, too, though not very loud. It was a comfort to hear anything in the total darkness, and she tried to amuse herself by counting the strokes up to a hundred and then checking the hundreds by turning in one finger after another. It would be something to tell him when he came back. She wondered whether there would be a thousand, and then, as she was wondering, she lost the count, and by way of a change she tried to reckon how many seconds there were in an hour. But she got into trouble with the ciphers when she tried to multiply sixty by sixty in her head, and she began counting the strokes again. They always stopped for a few seconds somewhere between thirty and forty. She wished he would come back soon, for she was beginning to feel very cold again, so cold that presently she got upon her feet and walked a dozen steps, feeling her way along the great bronze statue. It was better than sitting still. She had heard of prisoners who had kept themselves sane in a dark dungeon by throwing away a few pins they had, and finding them again. It was a famous prisoner who did that. It was the prisoner of Quillon--no, "quillon" had something to do with a sword--no, it was Chillon. Then she felt dizzy again, and steadied herself against the statue, and presently groped her way back to her seat. She almost fell, when she sat down, but saved herself and at last succeeded in getting to her original position. It was not that she was faint from hunger yet; her dizziness was probably the result of cold and weariness and discomfort, and most of all, of the unaccustomed darkness. She was ashamed of being so weak, when she listened to the steady strokes, far off, and thought of the strength and endurance it must need to do what Malipieri seemed to be doing so easily. But she was very cold indeed, chilled to the bone and shivering, and she could not think of any way of getting warm. She rose again, and struck one of the matches he had given her, and by its feeble light she walked a few seconds without feeling dizzy, and then sat down just as the little taper was going to burn her fingers. A few minutes later she heard footsteps overhead, and saw a faint light through the hole. He was coming at last, and she smiled happily before she saw him. He came down and asked how she was, and he sat on the Aphrodite beside her. "If I could only get warm!" she answered. "Perhaps you can warm your hands a little on the sides of the lantern," he said. She tried that and felt a momentary sensation of comfort, and asked him what progress he was making. "Very slow," he replied. "I cannot hear the least sound from the other side yet. Masin is not there." She did not expect any other answer, and said nothing, as she sat shivering beside him. "You are very brave," he said presently. A long pause followed. She had bent her head low, so that her face almost touched her knees. "Signor Malipieri--" she began, at last, in rather a trembling tone. "Yes? What is it?" He bent down to her, but she did not look up. "I--I--hardly know how to say it," she faltered. "Shall you think very, very badly of me if I ask you to do something--something that--" She stopped. "There is nothing in heaven or earth I will not do for you," he answered. "And I shall certainly not think anything very dreadful." He tried to speak cheerfully. "I think I shall die of the cold," she said. "There might be a way--" "Yes? Anything!" Then she spoke very low. "Do you think you could just put your arms round me for a minute or two?" she asked. Piteously cold though she was, the blood rushed to her face as she uttered the words; but Malipieri felt it in his throat and eyes. "Certainly," he answered, as if she had asked the most natural thing in the world. "Sit upon my knees, and I will hold my arms round you, till you are warm." He settled himself on the marble limbs of the Aphrodite, and the frail young girl seated herself on his knees, and nestled to him for warmth, while he held her close to him, covering her with his arms as much as he could. They went quite round her, one above the other, and she hid her face against his shoulder. He could feel her trembling with the cold like a leaf, under the coat he had made her put on. Suddenly she started a little, but not as if she wished to go; it was more like a sob than anything else. "What is the matter?" he asked, steadying his voice with difficulty. "I am so ashamed of myself!" she answered, and she buried her face against his shoulder again. "There is nothing to be ashamed of," he said gently. "Are you a little warmer now?" "Oh, much, much! Let me stay just a little longer." "As long as you will," he answered, pressing her to him quietly. He wondered if she could hear his heart, which was beating like a hammer, and whether she noticed anything strange in his voice. If she did, she would not understand. She was only a child after all. He told himself that he was old enough to be her father, though he was not; he tried not to think of her at all. But that was of no use. He would have given his body, his freedom, his soul and the life to come, to kiss her as she lay helpless in his arms; he would have given anything the world held, or heaven, if it had been his; anything, except his honour. But that he would not give. His heart might beat itself to pieces, his brain might whirl, the little fires might flash furiously in his closed eyes, his throat might be as parched as the rich man's in hell--she had trusted herself to him like a child, in sheer despair and misery, and safe as a child she should lie on his breast. She should die there, if they were to die. "I am warm now," she said at last, "really quite warm again, if you want to go back." He did not wonder. He felt as if he were on fire from his head to his feet. At her words he relaxed his arms at once, and she stood up. "You are so good to me," she said, with an impulse of gratitude for safety which she herself did not understand. "What makes you so good to me?" He shook his head, as if he could not answer then, and smiled a little sadly. "Now that you are warm, I must not lose time," he said, a moment later, taking up his lantern. She sat down in her old place, and gathered her skirt to her feet and watched him as he climbed out and the last rays of light disappeared. Then the pounding at the wall began again, far off, and she tried to count the strokes, as she had done before; but she wished him back, and whether she felt cold or not, she wished herself again quietly folded in his arms, and though she was alone and it was quite dark she blushed at the thought. It seemed to her that the blows were struck in quicker succession now than before. Was he willing to tire himself out a little sooner, so as to earn the right to come back to her? That was not it. He was growing desperate, and could not control the speed of his hands so perfectly as before. The night was advancing, he knew, though he had not looked at the watch, which was still in Sabina's glove. It was growing late, and he could distinguish no sound but that of the blows he struck at the bricks and the steady roar of the water. The conviction grew on him that Masin was drowned, and perhaps old Sassi too, and that their bodies lay at the bottom of the outer chamber, between the well and the wall of the cellar. If Masin had been able to get into the well, before the water was too high, he would have risen with it, for he was a good swimmer. So was Malipieri, and more than once he thought of making an attempt to reach the widened slit in the wall by diving. That he could find the opening he was sure, but he was almost equally sure that he could never get through it alive and up to the surface on the other side. If he were drowned too, Sabina would be left to die alone, or perhaps to go mad with horror before she was found. He had heard of such things. It was no wonder that he unconsciously struck faster as he worked, and at first he felt himself stronger than before, as men do when they are almost despairing. The sweat stood out on his forehead, and his hands tingled, when he drew back the iron to clear away the chips. He worked harder and harder. The queer little tune did not ring in his head now, for he could think of nothing but Sabina and of what was to become of her, even if he succeeded in saving her life. It was almost impossible that such a strange adventure should remain a secret, and, being once known, the injury to the girl might be irreparable. He hated himself for having brought her to the place. Yet, as he thought it over, he knew that he would have done it again. It had seemed perfectly safe. Any one could have seen that the water had not risen in the well for many years. Day after day, for a long time, he and Masin had worked in the vaults in perfect safety. The way to the statues had been made so easy that only a timid old man like Sassi could have found it impassable. There had been absolutely no cause to fear that after fifty or sixty years the course of the water should be affected, and the chances against such an accident happening during that single hour of Sabina's visit were as many millions to one. His motive in bringing her had been quixotic, no doubt, but good and just, and so far as Sabina's reputation was concerned, Sassi's presence had constituted a sufficient social protection. He hammered away at the bricks furiously, and the cavity grew deeper and wider. Surely he had made a mistake at first in wishing to husband his strength too carefully. If he had worked from the beginning as he was working now, he would have made the breach by this time. Unless that were impossible; unless, after all, he had struck the end of a cross wall and was working through the length of it instead of through its thickness. The fear of such a misfortune took possession of him, and he laid down his crowbar to examine the wall carefully. There was one way of finding out the truth, if he could only get light enough; no mason that ever lived would lay his bricks in any way except lengthwise along each course. If he had struck into a cross wall, he must be demolishing the bricks from their ends instead of across them, and he could find out which way they lay at the end of the cavity, if he could make the light of the lantern shine in as far as that. The depth was more than five feet now, and his experience told him that even in the construction of a mediaeval palace the walls above the level of the ground were very rarely as thick as that, when built of good brick and cement like this one. When he took up his lantern, he was amazed at what he had done in less than four hours; if he had been told that an ordinary man had accomplished anything approaching to it in that time, he would have been incredulous. He had hardly realized that he had made a hole big enough for him to work in, kneeling on one knee, and bracing himself with the other foot. But the end was narrow, of course, and when he held the light before it, he could not see past the body of the lantern. He opened the latter, took out the little oil lamp carefully and thrust it into the hole. He could see now, as he carefully examined the bricks; and he was easily convinced that he had not entered a cross wall. Nevertheless, when he had been working with the bar, he had not detected any change in the sound, as he thought he must have done, if he had been near the further side. Was the wall ten feet thick? He looked again. It was not a vaulting, that was clear; and it could not be anything but a wall. There was some comfort in that. He drew back a little, put the lamp into the lantern again and got out backwards. The passage was bright; he looked up quickly and started. Sabina was standing beside him, holding the large lamp. Her big hat had fallen back and her hair made a fair cloud between it and her white face. "I thought something had happened to you," she said, "so I brought the lamp. You stopped working for such a long time," she explained, "I thought you must have hurt yourself, or fainted." "No," answered Malipieri. "There is nothing the matter with me. I was looking at the bricks." "You must need rest, for it is past ten o'clock. I looked at the watch." "I will rest when I get through the wall. There is no time to be lost. Are you very hungry?" "No. I am a little thirsty." She looked at the black water, pouring down the overflow shaft. "That water is not good to drink," said Malipieri, thinking of what was at the bottom of the well. "We had better not drink it unless we are absolutely forced to. I hope to get you out in two hours." He stood leaning on his crowbar, his dark hair covered with dust, his white shirt damp and clinging to him, and all stained from rubbing against the broken masonry. "It would be better to rest for a few minutes," she said, not moving. He knew she was right, but he went with her reluctantly, and presently he was sitting beside her on the marble limbs of the Aphrodite. She turned her face to him a little shyly, and then looked away again. "Were ever two human beings in such a situation before!" "Everything has happened before," Malipieri answered. "There is nothing new." "Does it hurt very much to die of starvation?" Sabina asked after a little pause. "Not if one has plenty of water. It is thirst that drives people mad. Hunger makes one weak, that is all." "And cold, I am sure." "Very cold." They were both silent. She looked steadily at the gleaming bronze statue before her, and Malipieri looked down at his hands. "How long does it take to starve to death?" she asked at last. "Strong men may live two or three weeks if they have water." "I should not live many days," Sabina said thoughtfully. "It would be awful for you to be living on here, with me lying dead." "Horrible. Do not think about it. We shall get out before morning." "I am afraid not," she said quietly. "I am afraid we are going to die here." "Not if I can help it," answered Malipieri. "No. Of course not. I know you will do everything possible, and I am sure that if you could save me by losing your life, you would. Yes. But if you cannot break through the wall, there is nothing to be done." "The water may go down to-morrow. It is almost sure to go down before long. Then we can get out by the way we came in." "It will not go down. I am sure it will not." "It is too soon to lose courage," Malipieri said. "I am not frightened. It will not be hard to die, if it does not hurt. It will be much harder for you, because you are so strong. You will live a long time." "Not unless I can save you," he answered, rising. "I am going back to work. It will be time enough to talk about death when my strength is all gone." He spoke almost roughly, partly because for one moment she had made him feel a sort of sudden dread that she might be right, partly to make her think that he thought the supposition sheer nonsense. "Are you angry?" she asked, like a child. "No!" He made an effort and laughed almost cheerfully. "But you had better think about what you should like for supper in two or three hours! It is hardly worth while to put out that lamp," he added. "It will burn nearly twelve hours, for it is big, and it was quite full. There is a great deal of heat in it, too." He went away again. But when he was gone, she drew the lamp over to her without leaving her seat, and put it out. She was very tired and a little faint, and by and by the distant sound of the crowbar brought back the drowsiness she had felt before, and leaning her head against the Aphrodite's curving waist, she lost consciousness. He worked a good hour or more without result, came down to her, and found her in a deep sleep. As he noiselessly left her, he wondered how many men could have slept peacefully in such a case as hers. Once more he took the heavy bar, and toiled on, but he felt that his strength was failing fast for want of food. He had eaten nothing since midday, and had not even drunk water, and in six hours he had done as much hard work as two ordinary workmen could have accomplished in a day. With a certain amount of rest, he could still go on, but a quarter of an hour would no longer be enough. He was very thirsty, too, but though he might have drunk his fill from the hollow of his hand, he could not yet bring himself to taste the water. He was afraid that he might be driven to it before long, but he would resist as long as he could. Every stroke was an effort now, as he struggled on blindly, not only against the material obstacle, but against the growing terror that was taking possession of him, the hideous probability of having worked in vain after all, and the still worse certainty of what the end must be if he really failed. Effort after effort, stroke after stroke, though each seemed impossible after the last. He could not fail, and let that poor girl die, unless he could die first, of sheer exhaustion. If he were to stop now, it might be hours before he could go on again, and then he would be already weakened by hunger. There was nothing to be done but to keep at it, to strike and strike, with such half-frantic energy as was left in him. Every bone and sinew ached, and his breath came short, while the sweat ran down into his short beard, and fell in rain on his dusty hands. But do what he would, the blows followed each other in slower succession. He could not strike twenty more, not ten, not five perhaps; he would not count them; he would cheat himself into doing what could not be done; he would count backwards and forwards, one, two, three, three, two, one, one, two-- And then, all at once, the tired sinews were braced like steel, and his back straightened, and his breath came full and clear. The blow had rung hollow. He could have yelled as he sent the great bar flying against the bricks again and again, far in the shadow, and the echo rang back, louder and louder, every time. The bar ran through and the end he held shot from his hands, as the resistance failed at last, and half the iron went out on the other side. He drew it back quickly and looked to see if there were any light, but there was none. He did not care, for the rest would be child's play compared with what he had done, and easier than play now that he had the certainty of safety. The first thing to be done was to tell Sabina that the danger was past. He crept back with his light and stood upright. It hurt him to straighten himself, and he now knew how tremendous the labour had been; the last furious minutes had been like the delirium of a fever. But he was tough and used to every sort of fatigue, and hope had come back; he forgot how thirsty he had been, and did not even glance behind him at the water. Sabina was still asleep. He stood before her, and hesitated, for it seemed cruel to wake her, even to tell her the good news. He would go back and widen the breach, and when there was room to get out, he could come and fetch her. She had put out the lamp. He lighted it again quietly, and was going to place it where it could not shine in her eyes and perhaps wake her, when he paused to look at her face. It was very still, and deadly pale, and her lips were blue. He could not see that she was breathing, for his coat hung loosely over her slender figure. She looked almost dead. Her gloved hands lay with the palms upwards, the one in her lap, the other on the ground beside her. He touched that one gently with the back of his own, and it seemed to him that it was very cold, through the glove. He touched her cheek in the same way, and it felt like ice. It would surely be better to wake her, and make her move about a little. He spoke to her, at first softly, and then quite loud, but she made no sign. Perhaps she was not asleep, but had fainted from weariness and cold; he knelt beside her, and took her hand in both his own, chafing it between them, but still she gave no sign. It was certainly a fainting fit, and he knew that if a woman was pale when she fainted, she should be laid down at full length, to make the blood return to her head. Kneeling beside her, he lifted her carefully and placed her on her back beside the Aphrodite, smoothing out his waistcoat under her head, not for a pillow but for a little protection from the cold ground. Then he hesitated, and remained some time kneeling beside her. She needed warmth more than anything else; he knew that, and he knew that the best way to warm her a little was to hold her in his arms. Yet he would try something else first. He bent over her and undoing one of the buttons of the coat, he breathed into it again and again, long, warm breaths. He did this for a long time, and then looked at her face, but it had not changed. He felt the ground with his hand, and it was cold; as long as she lay there, she could never get warm. He lifted her again, still quite unconscious, and sat with her in his arms, as he had done before, laying her head against the hollow of his shoulder, and pressing her gently, trying to instil into her some of his own strong life. At last she gave a little sigh and moved her head, nestling herself to him, but it was long before she spoke. He felt the consciousness coming back in her, and the inclination to move, rather than any real motion in her delicate frame; the more perceptible breathing, and then the little sigh came again, and at last the words. "I thought we were dead," she said, so low that he could barely hear. "No, you fainted," he answered. "We are safe. I have got the bar through the wall." She turned up her face feebly, without lifting her head. "Really? Have you done it?" "Yes. In another hour, or a little more, the hole will be wide enough for us to get through it." She hid her face again, and breathed quietly. "You do not seem glad," he said. "It seemed so easy to die like this," she answered. But presently she moved in his arms, and looked up again, and smiled, though she did not try to speak again. He himself, almost worn out by what he had done, was glad to sit still for a while. His blood was not racing through him now, his head was not on fire. It seemed quite natural that he should be sitting there, holding her close to him and warming her back to life with his own warmth. It was a strange sensation, he thought afterwards, when many other things had happened which were not long in following upon the events of that night. He could not quite believe that he was almost stupid with extreme fatigue, and yet he remembered that it had been more like a calm dream than anything else, a dream of peace and rest. At the time, it all seemed natural, as the strangest things do when one has been face to face with death for a few hours, and when one is so tired that one can hardly think at all. CHAPTER XV There was less consternation in the Volterra household than might have been expected when Sabina did not return before bedtime. The servants knew that she had gone out with an old gentleman, a certain Signor Sassi, at about five o'clock, but until Volterra came in, the Baroness could not find out who Sassi was, and she insisted on searching every corner of the house, as if she were in quest of his biography, for the servants assured her that Sabina was still out, and they certainly knew. She carefully examined Sabina's room too, looking for a note, a line of writing, anything to explain the girl's unexpected absence. She could find nothing except the short letter from Sabina's mother to which reference has been made, and she read it over several times. Sabina received no letters, and had been living in something like total isolation. The Baroness had reached a certain degree of intimacy with her beloved aristocracy; but though she occasionally dropped in upon it, and was fairly well received, it rarely, if ever, dropped in upon her. It showed itself quite willing, however, to accept a formal invitation to a good dinner at her house. She telephoned to the Senate and to a club, but Volterra could not be found. Then she went to dress, giving orders that Sabina was to be sent to her the moment she came in. She was very angry, and her sallow face was drawn into severe angles; she scolded her maid for everything, and rustled whenever she moved. At last the Baron came home, and she learned who Sassi was. Volterra was very much surprised, but said that Sassi must have come for Sabina in connection with some urgent family matter. Perhaps some one of her family had died suddenly, or was dying. It was very thoughtless of Sabina not to leave a word of explanation, but Sassi was an eminently respectable person, and she was quite safe with him. The Baron ate his dinner, and repeated the substance of this to his wife before the servants, whose good opinion they valued. Probably Donna Clementina, the nun, was very ill, and Sabina was at the convent. No, Sabina did not love her sister, of course; but one always went to see one's relations when they were dying, in order to forgive them their disagreeable conduct; all Romans did that, said the Baroness, and it was very proper. By and by a note could be sent to the convent, or the carriage could go there to bring Sabina back. But the Baron did not order the carriage, and became very thoughtful over his coffee and his Havana. Sabina had been gone more than four hours, and that was certainly a longer time than could be necessary for visiting a dying relative. He said so. "Perhaps," suggested his wife, "it is the Prince who is ill, and Signor Sassi has taken Sabina to the country to see her brother." "No," answered the Baron after a moment's thought. "That family is eccentric, but the girl would not have gone to the country without a bag." "There is something in that," answered the Baroness, and they relapsed into silence. Yet she was not satisfied, for, as her husband said, the Conti were all eccentric. Nevertheless, Sabina would at least have telegraphed, or sent a line from the station, or Sassi would have done it for her, for he was a man of business. After a long time, the Baroness suggested that if her husband knew Sassi's address, some one should be sent to his house to find out if he had gone out of town. "I have not the least idea where he lives," the Baron said. "As long as I had any business with him, I addressed him at the palace." "The porter may know," observed the Baroness. "The porter is an idiot," retorted the Baron, puffing at his cigar. His wife knew what that meant, and did not enquire why an idiot was left in charge of the palace. Volterra did not intend to take that way of making enquiries about Sabina, if he made any at all, and the Baroness knew that when he did not mean to do a thing, the obstinacy of a Calabrian mule was docility compared with his dogged opposition. Moreover, she would not have dared to do it unknown to him. There was some good reason why he did not intend to look for Sassi. "Besides," he condescended to say after a long time, "she is quite safe with that old man, wherever they are." "Society might not think so, my dear," answered the Baroness in mild protest. "Society had better mind its business, and let us take care of ours." "Yes, my dear, yes, of course!" She did not agree with him at all. Her ideal of a happy life was quite different, for she was very much pleased when society took a lively interest in her doings, and nothing interested her more than the doings of society. She presently ventured to argue the case. "Yes, of course," she repeated, by way of preliminary conciliation. "I was only wondering what people will think, if anything happens to the girl while she is under our charge." "What can happen to her?" "There might be some talk about her going out in this way. The servants know it, you see, and she is evidently not coming home this evening. They know that she went out without leaving any message, and they must think it strange." "I agree with you." "Well, then, there will be some story about her. Do you see what I mean?" "Perfectly. But that will not affect us in the least. Every one knows what strange people the Conti are, and everybody knows that we are perfectly respectable. If there is a word said about the girl's character, you will put her into the carriage, my dear, and deposit her at the convent under the charge of her sister. Everybody will say that you have done right, and the matter will be settled." "You would not really send her to the convent!" "I will certainly not let her live under my roof, if she stays out all night without giving a satisfactory account of herself." "But her mother--" "Her mother is no better than she should be," observed the Baron virtuously, by way of answer. The Baroness was very much disturbed. She had been delighted to be looked upon as a sort of providence to the distressed great, and had looked forward to the social importance of being regarded as a second mother to Donna Sabina Conti. She had hoped to make a good match for her, and to shine at the wedding; she had dreamed of marrying the girl to Malipieri, who was such a fine fellow, and would be so rich some day that he might be trapped into taking a wife without a dowry. These castles in the air were all knocked to pieces by the Baron's evident determination to get rid of Sabina. "I thought you liked the girl," said the Baroness in a tone of disappointment. Volterra stuck out both his feet and crossed his hands on his stomach, after his manner, smoking vigorously. Then, with his cigar in one corner of his mouth, he laughed out of the other, and assumed a playful expression. "I do not like anybody but you, my darling," he said, looking at the ceiling. "Nobody in the whole wide world! You are the deposited security. All the other people are the floating circulation." He seemed pleased with this extraordinary view of mankind, and the Baroness smiled at her faithful husband. She rarely understood what he was doing, and hardly ever guessed what he meant to do, but she was absolutely certain of his conjugal fidelity, and he gave her everything she wanted. "The other people," he said, "are just notes, and nothing else. When a note is damaged or worn out, you can always get a new one at the bank, in exchange for it. Do you understand?" "Yes, my dear. That is very clever." "It is very true," said the Baron. "The Conti family consists chiefly of damaged notes." He had not moved his cigar from the corner of his mouth to speak. "Yes, my dear," answered the Baroness meekly, and when she thought of her last interview with the dowager Princess, she was obliged to admit the fitness of the simile. "The only one of them at all fit to remain in circulation," he continued, "was this girl. If she stays out all night she will be distinctly damaged, too. Then you will have to pass her off to some one else, as one does, you know, when a note is doubtful." "The cook can generally change them," observed the Baroness irrelevantly. "I do not think she is coming home," said the Baron, much more to the point. "I hope she will! After all, if she does not, you yourself say that she is quite safe with this Signor Sassi--" "I did not say that she would be safe from gossip afterwards, did I?" It was perfectly clear by this time that he wished Sabina to leave the house as soon as possible, and that he would take the first opportunity of obliging her to do so. Even if his wife had dared to interfere, it would have been quite useless, for she knew him to be capable of hinting to the girl herself that she was no longer welcome. Sabina was very proud, and she would not stay under the roof an hour after that. "I did not suggest that you should bring her here," Volterra continued presently. "Please remember that. I simply did not object to her coming. That was all the share I had in it. In any case I should have wished her to leave us before we go away for the summer." "I had not understood that," answered the Baroness resignedly. "I had hoped that she might come with us." "She has settled the matter for herself, my dear. After this extraordinary performance, I must really decline to be responsible for her any longer." It was characteristic of his methods that when he had begun to talk over the matter before dinner, she had not been able to guess at all how he would ultimately look at it, and that he only let her know his real intention by degrees. Possibly, he had only wished to gain time to think it over. She did not know that he had asked Malipieri to leave the Palazzo Conti, and if she had, it might not have occurred to her that there was any connection between that and his desire to get rid of Sabina. His ways were complicated, when they were not unpleasantly direct, not to say brutal. But the Baroness was much more human, and had grown fond of the girl, largely because she had no daughter of her own, and had always longed to have one. Ambitious women, if they have the motherly instinct, prefer daughters to sons. One cannot easily tell what a boy may do when he grows up, but a girl can be made to do almost anything by her own mother, or to marry almost any one. The Baroness's regret for losing Sabina took the form of confiding to her husband what she had hoped to do for the girl. "I am very sorry," she said, "but if you wish her to go, she must leave us. Of late, I had been thinking that we might perhaps marry her to that clever Malipieri." The Baron smiled thoughtfully, took his cigar from his lips at last, and looked at his wife. "To Malipieri?" he asked, as if not quite understanding the suggestion. "Yes, I am sure he would make her a very good husband. He evidently admires her, too." "Possibly. I never thought of it. But she has no dowry. That is an objection." "He will be rich some day. Is he poor now?" "No. Not at all." "And she certainly likes him very much. It would be a very good match for her." "Admirable. But I do not think we need trouble ourselves with such speculations, since she is going to leave us so soon." "I shall always take a friendly interest in her," said the Baroness, "wherever she may be." "Very well, my dear," Volterra answered, dropping the end of his cigar and preparing to rise. "That will be very charitable of you. But your friendly interest can never marry her to Malipieri." "Perhaps not. But it might have been done, if she had not been so foolish." "No," said the Baron, getting to his feet, "it never could have been done." "Why not?" asked his wife, surprised by the decision of his tone. "Because there is a very good reason why Malipieri cannot marry her, my dear." "A good reason?" "A very good reason. My dear, I am sleepy. I am going to bed." Volterra rang the bell by the fireplace, and a man appeared almost instantly. "You may put out the lights," he said. "We are going to bed." "Shall any one sit up, in case Donna Sabina should come in, Excellency?" asked the servant. "No." He went towards the door, and his wife followed him meekly. CHAPTER XVI Sabina's strength revived in the warm night air, out in the courtyard, under the stars, and the awful danger from which Malipieri had saved her and himself looked unreal, after the first few moments of liberty. She got his watch out of her glove where it had been so many hours, and by the clear starlight they could see that it was nearly twenty minutes past two o'clock. Malipieri had put out the lamp, and the lantern had gone out for lack of oil, at the last moment. It was important that Sabina should not be seen by the porter, in the very unlikely event of his being up at that hour. They had not thought that it could be so late, for it was long since Sabina had looked at the watch. The first thing that became clear to Malipieri was that it would be out of the question for him to take her home that night. The question was where else to take her. She was exhausted, too, and needed food at once, and her clothes were wet from the dampness. It would be almost a miracle if she did not fall ill, even if she were well taken care of at once. There was only one thing to be done: she must go up to his apartment, and have something to eat, and then she must rest. In the meantime they would make some plan in order to explain her absence. The porter's wife might have been of some use, if she could have been trusted with what must for ever remain a dead secret, namely, that Sabina had spent the night in Malipieri's rooms; for that would be the plain fact to-morrow morning. What had happened to Sassi and Masin was a mystery, but it was inconceivable that either of them should have been free to act during the past eight or nine hours and should have made no effort to save the two persons to whom they were respectively devoted as to no one else in the world. Exhausted though he was, Malipieri would have gone down into the cellars at once to try and find some trace of them, if he had not felt that Sabina must be cared for first; and moreover he was sure that if he found them at all, he should find them both dead. All this had been clear to him before he had at last succeeded in bringing her out into the open air. "There is no help for it," he whispered, "you must come upstairs. Do you think you can walk so far?" "Of course I can!" she answered, straightening herself bravely. "I am not at all tired." Nevertheless she gladly laid her hand on his aching arm, and they both walked cautiously along the paved gutter that separated the wall from the gravel, for their steps would have made much more noise on the latter. All was quiet, and they reached Malipieri's door, by the help of a wax light. He led her in, still carrying the match, and he shut the door softly after him. "At least," Sabina said, "no one can hear us here." "Hush!" He suspected that Toto must have got out, but was not sure. After lighting a candle, he led the way into his study, and made Sabina sit down, while he went back. He returned in a few moments, having assured himself that Toto had escaped by the window, and that Masin was not in, and asleep. "Masin has disappeared," he said. "We can talk as much as we please, while you have your supper." He had brought bread and wine and water, which he set before her, and he went off again to find something else. She ate hungrily after drinking a glass at a draught. He reappeared with the remains of some cold meat and ham. "It is all I have," he explained, "but there is plenty of bread." "Nothing ever tasted so good," answered Sabina gravely. He sat down opposite to her and drank, and began to eat the bread. His hands were grimy, and had bled here and there at the knuckles where they had grazed the broken masonry. His face was streaked with dried perspiration and dust, his collar was no longer a collar at all. As for Sabina, she had tried to take off the fawn-coloured hat, but it had in some way become entangled with her unruly hair, and it was hanging down her back. Otherwise, as she sat there her dress was not visibly much the worse for the terrible adventure. Her skirt was torn and soiled, indeed, but the table hid it, and the coat had kept the body of her frock quite clean. She did not look much more dishevelled than if she had been at a romping picnic in the country. Nor did she look at all ill, after the wine and the first mouthfuls of food had brought all the warmth back to her. If anything, she was less pale than usual now, her lips were red again, and there was light in her eyes. There are little women who look as if they had no strength at all, and seem often on the point of breaking down, but who could go through a battle or a shipwreck almost without turning a hair, and without much thought of their appearance either; nor are they by any means generally the mildest and least reckless of their sex. The two ate in silence for several minutes, but they looked at each other and smiled now and then, while they swallowed mouthful after mouthful. "I wish I had counted the slices of bread I have eaten," said Sabina at last. Malipieri laughed gaily. It did not seem possible that an hour or two earlier they had been looking death in the face. But his laughter died away suddenly, and he was very grave in a moment. "I do not know what to do now," he said. "We shall have to make the Baroness believe that you have spent the night at Sassi's house. That is the only place where you can possibly be supposed to have been. I am not good at lying, I believe. Can you help me at all?" Sabina laughed. "That is a flattering way of putting it!" she answered. "It is true that I was brought up to lie about everything, but I never liked it. The others used to ask me why I would not, and whether I thought myself better than they." "What are we to do?" "Suppose that we tell the truth," said Sabina, nibbling thoughtfully at a last slice of bread. "It is much easier, you know." "Yes." Malipieri set his elbows on the table, leaned his bearded chin upon his scarred knuckles and looked at her. He wondered whether in her innocence she even faintly guessed what people would think of her, if they knew that she had spent a night in his rooms. He had no experience at all of young girls, and he wondered whether there were many like Sabina. He thought it unlikely. "I believe in telling the truth, too," he said at last. "But when you do, you must trust the person to whom it is told. Now the person in this case will be the Baroness Volterra. I shall have to go and see her in the morning, and tell her what has happened. Then, if she believes me, she must come here in a cab and take you back. That will be absolutely necessary. You need say nothing that I have not said, and I shall say nothing that is not true." "That is the best way," said Sabina, who liked the simplicity of the plan. Her voice sounded sleepy, and she suppressed a little yawn. "But suppose that she refuses to believe me," Malipieri continued, without noticing her weariness, "what then?" "What else can she believe?" asked Sabina indifferently. Malipieri did not answer for a long time, and looked away, while he thought over the very difficult situation. When he turned to her again, he saw that she was resting her head in her hand and that her eyes were closed. "You are sleepy," he said. She looked up, and smiled, hardly able to keep her eyes open. "So sleepy!" she answered slowly. "I cannot keep awake a moment longer." "You must go to bed," he said, rising. "Yes--anywhere! Only let me sleep." "You will have to sleep in my room. Do you mind very much?" "Anywhere!" She hardly knew what she said, she hardly saw his face any longer. He led the way with one of the lights, and she followed him with her eyes half shut. "It seems to be in tolerably good order," he said, glancing round, and setting down the candle. "The key is in the inside. Turn it, please, when I am gone." The room was scrupulously neat. Malipieri shut the window carefully. When he turned, he saw that she was sitting on the edge of the bed, nodding with sleep. "Good-night," he said, in a low voice that was nevertheless harsh. "Lock your door." "Good-night," she answered, with an effort. He did not look at her again as he went out and shut the door, and he went quickly through the small room which divided the bedroom from the study, and in which he kept most of his clothes. He was very wide awake now, in spite of being tired, and he sat down in his armchair and smoked for some time. Suddenly he noticed the state of his hands, and he realized what his appearance must be. Without making any noise, though he was sure that Sabina was in a deep sleep by this time, he went back through the first door and quietly got a supply of clothes, and took them with him to Masin's room, and washed there, and dressed himself as carefully as if he were going out. Then he went back to his study and sat down wearily in his armchair. Worn out at last, he was asleep in a few minutes, asleep as men are after a battle, whether the fight has ended in victory or defeat. Even the thought of Sabina did not keep him awake, and he would not have thought of her at all as he sat down, if he could have helped it. After such a night as they had passed it was not likely that they should wake before ten o'clock on the following morning. But the porter was up early, as usual, with his broom, to sweep the stairs and the paved entrance under the arch. When he had come back from the errand on which Malipieri had sent him, it had been already dusk. He had gone up and had rung the bell several times, but as no one opened he had returned to his lodge. It was not unusual for Malipieri and Masin to be both out at the same time, and he thought it likely that they were in the vaults. He cursed them both quietly for the trouble they had given him of mounting the stairs for nothing, and went to his supper, and in due time to bed. He must go up again at eight o'clock, by which time Malipieri was always dressed, and as it was now only seven o'clock he had plenty of time to sweep. So he lit his pipe deliberately and took his broom, and went out of his lodge. The first thing that met his eye was a dark stain on the stones, close to the postern. He passed his broom over it, and saw that it was dry; and it was red, but not like wine. Wine makes a purple stain on stones. He stooped and scratched it with his thick thumbnail. It was undoubtedly blood, and nothing else. Some one had been badly hurt there, or being wounded had stood some moments on the spot to open the door and get out. The old man leaned on his broom awhile, considering the matter, and debating whether he should call his wife. His natural impulse was not to do so, but to get a bucket of water and wash the place before she could see it. The idea of going out and calling a policeman never occurred to him, for he was a real Roman, and his first instinct was to remove every trace of blood from the house in which he lived, whether it had been shed by accident or in quarrel. On the other hand, his wife might come out at any moment, to go to her work, and find him washing the pavement, and she would of course suppose that he had killed somebody or had helped to kill somebody during the night, and would begin to scream, and call him an assassin, and there would be a great noise, and much trouble afterwards. According to his view, any woman would naturally behave in this way, and as his views were founded on his own experience, he was probably right, so far as his wife was concerned. He therefore determined to call her. She came, she saw, she threw up her hands and moaned a little about the curse that was on the house, and she helped him to scrub the stones as quickly as possible. When that was done, and when they had flooded the whole pavement under the arch, in order to conceal the fact that it had been washed in one place, it occurred to them that they should look on the stairs, to see if there were any blood there, and in the courtyard, too, near the entrance; but they could not find anything, and it was time for the woman to go to the place where she worked all day at ironing fine linen, which had been her occupation before she had been married. So she went away, leaving her husband alone. He smoked thoughtfully and swept the stone gutter, towards the other end of the courtyard. He noticed nothing unusual, until he reached the door of the coach-house, and saw that it was ajar, whereas it was always locked, and he had the key in his lodge. He opened it, and looked in. The flood of morning light fell upon a little heap of broken brick and mortar, and he saw at a glance that a small breach had been made in the wall. This did not surprise him, for he knew that Malipieri and Masin had made holes in more than one place, and the architect had more than once taken the key of the coach-house. What frightened him was the steady, roaring sound that came from the breach. He would as soon have thought of trusting himself to enter the place, as of facing the powers of darkness, even if his big body could have squeezed itself through the aperture. But he guessed that the sound came from the "lost water," which he had more than once heard in the cellar below, in its own channel, and he was instinctively sure that something had happened which might endanger the palace. The cellars were probably flooded. On the mere chance that the door of the winding staircase might not be locked, he went out and turned into the passage where it was. He found it wide open. He had in his pocket one of those long wax tapers rolled into a little ball, which Roman porters generally have about them; he lit it and went down. There was water at the foot of the steps, water several feet deep. He retreated, and with more haste than he usually showed to do anything, he crossed the courtyard and went up to call Malipieri. But Malipieri was asleep in his armchair in the inner room, and the bell only rang in the outer hall. The old man rang it again and again, but no one came. Then he stood still on the landing, took off his cap and deliberately scratched his head. In former times, it would have been his duty to inform Sassi, in whom centred every responsibility connected with the palace. But the porter did not know whether Sassi were dead or alive now, and was quite sure that the Baron would not approve of sending for him. There was nothing to be done but to inform the Baron himself, without delay, since Malipieri was apparently already gone out. The Baron would take the responsibility, since the house was his. The porter went down to his lodge, took off his old linen jacket and put on his best coat and cap, put some change into his pocket, went out and turned the key of the lock in the postern, and then stumped off towards the Piazza Sant' Apollinare to get a cab, for there was no time to be lost. It was eight o'clock when he rang at the smart new house in the Via Ludovisi. Sabina and Malipieri had slept barely five hours. A footman in an apron opened the door, and without waiting to know his business, asked him why he did not go to the servants' entrance. "I live in a palace where there is a porter," answered the old man, assuming the overpowering manner that belongs to the retainers of really great old Roman houses. "Please inform the Baron that the 'lost water' has broken out and flooded the cellars of the Palazzo Conti, and that I am waiting for instructions." CHAPTER XVII Volterra went to bed early, but he did not rise late, for he was always busy, and had many interests that needed constant attention; and he had preserved the habits of a man who had enriched himself and succeeded in life by being wide awake and at work when other people were napping or amusing themselves. At eight o'clock in the morning, he was already in his study, reading his letters, and waiting for his secretary. He sent for the porter, listened to his story attentively, and without expressing any opinion about what had happened, went directly to the palace in the cab which had brought the old man. He made the latter sit beside him, because it would be an excellent opportunity of showing the world that he was truly democratic. Half of Rome knew him by sight at least, though not one in twenty thousand could have defined his political opinions. At the palace he paid the cabman instead of keeping him by the hour, for he expected to stay some time, and it was against his principles to spend a farthing for what he did not want. As he entered through the postern, he glanced approvingly at the damp pavement. He did not in the least believe that the porter washed it every morning, of course, but he appreciated the fact that the man evidently wished him to think so, and was afraid of him. "You say that you rang several times at Signor Malipieri's door," he said. "Has he not told you that he is going to live somewhere else?" "No, sir." "Does he never leave his key with you when he goes out?" "No, sir." "Did you see him come in last night? Was he at home?" "No, sir. I rang several times, about dusk, but no one opened. I did not hear him come in after that. Shall I go up and ring again?" "No." Volterra reflected for a moment. "He has left, and has taken his key by mistake," he said. "But I should think that you must have seen him go. He would have had some luggage with him." The porter explained that Malipieri had sent him on an errand on the previous afternoon, and had been gone when he returned. This seemed suspicious to Volterra, as indeed it must have looked to any one. Considering his views of mankind generally, it was not surprising if he thought that Malipieri might have absconded with something valuable which he had found in the vaults. He remembered, too, that Malipieri had been unwilling to let him visit the treasure on the previous day, and had named the coming afternoon instead. "Can you get a man to open the door?" he asked. "There is Gigi, the carpenter of the palace," answered the porter. "He is better than a locksmith and his shop is close by--but there is the water in the cellars--" "Go and get him," said the Baron. "I will wait here." The porter went out, and Volterra began to walk slowly up and down under the archway, breathing the morning air with satisfaction, and jingling a little bunch of keys in his pocket. There was a knock at the postern. He listened and stood still. He knew that the porter had the key, for he had just seen him return it to his pocket after they had both come in; he did not wish to be disturbed by any one else just then, so he neither answered nor moved. The knock was repeated, louder than before. It had an authoritative sound, and no one but Malipieri himself would have a right to knock in that way. Volterra went to the door at once, but did not open it. "Who is there?" he asked, through the heavy panel. "The police," came the answer, short and sharp. "Open at once." Volterra opened, and was confronted by a man in plain clothes, who was accompanied by two soldiers in grey uniforms, and another man, who looked like a cabman. On seeing a gentleman, the detective, who had been about to enter unceremoniously, checked himself and raised his hat, with an apology. Volterra stepped back. "Come in," he said, "and tell me what your business is. I am the owner of this palace, at present. I am Baron Volterra, and a Senator." The men all became very polite at once, and entered rather sheepishly. The cabman came in last, and Volterra shut the door. "Who is this individual?" he asked, looking at the cabman. "Tell your story," said the man in plain clothes, addressing the latter. "I am a coachman, Excellency," the man answered in a servile tone. "I have a cab, number eight hundred and seventy-six, at the service of your Excellency, and it was I who drove the gentleman to the hospital yesterday afternoon." "What gentleman?" "The gentleman who was hurt in the house of your Excellency." Volterra stared from the cabman to the man in plain clothes, not understanding. Then it occurred to him that the man in uniform might be wearing it as a disguise, and that he had to do with a party of clever thieves, and he felt for a little revolver which he always carried about with him. "I know nothing about the matter," he said. "Excellency," continued the cabman, "the poor gentleman was lying here, close to the door, bleeding from his head. You see the porter has washed the stones this morning." "Go on." Volterra listened attentively. "A big man who looked more like a workman than a servant came to call me in the square. When we got here, he unlocked the door himself, and made me help him to put the gentleman into the cab. It was about half-past five or a quarter to six, Excellency, and I waited at the hospital door till eight o'clock, but could not get any money." "What became of the big man who called you?" asked Volterra. "Why did he not pay you?" "He was arrested, Excellency." "Arrested? Why? For taking a wounded man to the hospital?" "Yes. You can imagine that I did not wish to be concerned in other people's troubles, Excellency, nor to be asked questions. So when I had seen the man and the doorkeepers take the gentleman in, I drove on about twenty paces, and waited for the man to come out. But soon two policemen came and went in, and came out again a few minutes later with the big man walking quietly between them, and they went off in the other direction, so that he did not even notice me." "What did you do then?" "May it please your Excellency, I went back to the door and asked the doorkeeper why the man had been arrested, and told him I had not been paid. But he laughed in my face, and advised me to go to the police for my fare, since the police had taken the man away. And I asked him many questions but he drove me away with several evil words." "Is that all that happened?" asked Volterra. "Do you know nothing more?" "Nothing, your Excellency," whined the man, "and I am a poor father of a family with eight children, and my wife is ill--" "Yes," interrupted Volterra, "I suppose so. And what do you know about it all?" he enquired, turning to the man in plain clothes. "This, sir. The gentleman was still unconscious this morning, but turns out to be a certain Signor Pompeo Sassi. His cards were in his pocket-book. The man who took him to the hospital was arrested because he entirely declined to give his name, or to explain what had happened, or where he had found the wounded gentleman. Of course all the police stations were informed during the night, as the affair seemed mysterious, and when this cabman came this morning and lodged a complaint of not having been paid for a fare from this palace to the hospital, it looked as if whatever had happened, must have happened here, or near here, and I was sent to make enquiries." "That is perfectly clear," the Baron said, taking out his pocket-book. "You have no complaint to make, except that you were not paid," he continued, speaking to the cabman. "There are ten francs, which is much more than is owing to you. Give me your number." The man knew that it was useless to ask for more, and as he produced his printed number and gave it, he implored the most complicated benedictions, even to miracles, including a thousand years of life and everlasting salvation afterwards, all for the Baron, his family, and his descendants. "I suppose he may go now," Volterra said to the police officer. The cabman would have liked to stay, but one of the soldiers opened the postern and stood waiting by it till he had gone out, and closed it upon his parting volley of blessings. The Senator reflected that they might mean a vote, some day, and did not regret his ten francs. "I know Signor Sassi," he said to the detective. "He was the agent of Prince Conti's estate, and of this palace. But I did not know that he had been here yesterday afternoon. I live in the Via Ludovisi and had just come here on business, when you knocked." He was very affable now, and explained the porter's absence, and the fact that a gentleman who had lived in the house, but had left it, had accidentally taken his key with him, so that it was necessary to get a workman to open the door. "And it is as well that you should be here," he added, "for the big man of whom the cabman spoke may be the servant of that gentleman. I remember seeing him once, and I noticed that he was unusually big. He may have been here yesterday after his master left, and we may find some clue in the apartment." "Excellent!" said the detective, rubbing his hands. He was particularly fond of cases in which doors had to be opened by force, and understood that part of his business thoroughly. The key turned in the lock of the postern, and the porter entered, bringing Gigi with him. They both started and turned pale when they saw the policeman and the detective. "At what time did Signor Malipieri send you out on that errand yesterday afternoon?" asked Volterra, looking hard at the porter. The old man drew himself up, wiped his forehead with a blue cotton handkerchief, and looked from the Baron to the detective, trying to make out whether his employer wished him to speak the truth. A moment's reflection told him that he had better do so, as the visit of the police must be connected with the stain of blood he had washed from the pavement, and he could prove that he had nothing to do with it. "It was about five o'clock," he answered quietly. "And when did you come back?" enquired the detective. "It was dusk. It was after Ave Maria, for I heard the bells ringing before I got here." "And you did not notice the blood on the stones when you came in, because it was dusk, I suppose," said the detective, assuming a knowing smile, as if he had caught the man. "I saw it this morning," answered the porter without hesitation, "and I washed it away." "You should have called the police," said the other severely. "Should I, sir?" The porter affected great politeness all at once. "You will excuse my ignorance." "We are wasting time," Volterra said to the detective. "The porter knows nothing about it. Let us go upstairs." He led the way, and the others followed, including Gigi, who carried a leathern bag containing a few tools. "It is of no use to ring again," observed Volterra. "There cannot be anybody in the apartment, and this is my own house. Open that door for us, my man, and do as little damage as you can." Gigi looked at the patent lock. "I cannot pick that, sir," he said. "The gentleman made me put it on for him, and it is one of those American patent locks." "Break it, then," Volterra answered. Gigi selected a strong chisel, and inserted the blade in the crack of the door, on a level with the brass disk. He found the steel bolt easily. "Take care," he said to the Baron, who was nearest to him and drew back to give him room to swing his hammer. He struck three heavy blows, and the door flew open at the third. The detective had looked at his watch, for it was his business to note the hour at which any forcible entrance was made. It was twenty minutes to nine. Malipieri and Sabina had slept a little more than five hours and a half. Malipieri, still sleeping heavily in his armchair, heard the noise in a dream. He fancied he was in the vaults again, driving his crowbar into the bricks, and that he suddenly heard Masin working from the other side. But Masin was not alone, for there were voices, and he had several people with him. Malipieri awoke with a violent start. Volterra, the detective, the two police soldiers, Gigi and the porter were all in the study, looking at him as he sat there in his armchair, in the broad light, carefully dressed as if he had been about to go out when he had sat down. "You sleep soundly, Signer Malipieri," said the fat Baron, with a caressing smile. Malipieri had good nerves, but for a moment he was dazed, and then, perhaps for the first time in his life, he was thoroughly frightened, for he knew that Sabina must be still asleep in his room, and in spite of his urgent request when he had left her, he did not believe that she had locked the door after all. The first thought that flashed upon him was that Volterra had somehow discovered that she was there, and had come to find her. There were six men in the room; he guessed that the Baron was one of those people who carry revolvers about with them, and two of the others were police soldiers, also armed with revolvers. He was evidently at their mercy. Short of throwing at least three of the party out of the window, nothing could avail. Such things are done without an effort on the stage by the merest wisp of a man, but in real life one must be a Hercules or a gladiator even to attempt them. Malipieri thought of what Sabina had said in the vault. Had any two people ever been in such a situation before? For one instant, his heart stood still, and he passed his hand over his eyes. "Excuse me," he said then, quite naturally. "I had dressed to go to your house this morning, and I fell asleep in my chair while waiting till it should be time. How did you get in? And why have you brought these people with you?" He was perfectly cool now, and the Baron regretted that he had made a forcible entrance. "I must really apologize," he answered. "The porter rang yesterday evening, several times, and again this morning, but could get no answer, and as you had told me that you were going to change your quarters, we supposed that you had left and had accidentally taken the key with you." Malipieri did not believe a word of what he said, but the tone was very apologetic. "The cellars are flooded," said the porter, speaking over Volterra's shoulder. "I know it," Malipieri answered. "I was going to inform you of that this morning," he continued, speaking to the Baron. "I do not think that the police are necessary to our conversation," he added, smiling at the detective. "I beg your pardon, sir," answered the latter, "but we are here to ask if you know anything of a grave accident to a certain Signor Sassi, who was taken from this palace unconscious, yesterday afternoon, at about a quarter to six, by a very large man, who would not give any name, nor any explanation, and who was consequently arrested." Malipieri did not hesitate. "Only this much," he replied. "With the authority of the Senator here, who is the owner of the palace, I have been making some archaeological excavations in the cellars. Signor Sassi was the agent--" "I have explained that," interrupted the Baron, turning to the detective. "I will assume the whole responsibility of this affair. Signor Sassi shall be well cared for. I shall be much obliged if you will leave us." He spoke rather hurriedly. "It is my duty to make a search in order to discover the motive of the crime," said the detective with importance. "What crime?" asked Malipieri with sudden sternness. "Signor Sassi was very badly injured in this palace," answered the other. "The man who took him to the hospital would give no account of himself, and the circumstances are suspicious. The Baron thinks that the man may be your servant." "Yes, he is my servant," Malipieri said. "Signor Sassi was trying to follow me into the excavations--" "Yes, yes--that is of no importance," interrupted Volterra. "I think it is," retorted Malipieri. "I will not let any man remain in prison suspected of having tried to murder poor old Sassi! I went on," he continued, explaining to the detective, "leaving the two together. The old gentleman must have fallen and hurt himself so badly that my man thought it necessary to carry him out at once. When I tried to get back, I found that the water had risen in the excavations and that the passage was entirely closed, and I had to work all night with a crowbar and pickaxe to break another way for myself. As for my man, if he refused to give any explanations, it was because he had express orders to preserve the utmost secrecy about the excavations. He is a faithful fellow, and he obeyed. That is all." "A very connected account, sir, from your point of view," said the detective. "If you will allow me, I will write it down. You see, the service requires us to note everything." "Write it down by all means," Malipieri answered quietly. "You will find what you need at that table." The detective sat down, pulled back the cuff of his coat, took up the pen and began his report with a magnificent flourish. "You two may go," said Malipieri to the porter and Gigi. "We shall not want you any more." "As witnesses, perhaps," said the detective, overhearing. "Pray let them stay." He went on writing, and the Baron settled himself in Malipieri's armchair, and lit a cigar. Malipieri walked slowly up and down the room, determined to keep perfectly cool. "I hope the Baroness is quite well," he said after a time. "Quite well, thank you," answered Volterra, nodding and smiling. Malipieri continued to pace the floor, trying to see some way out of the situation in which he was caught, and praying to heaven that Sabina might still be sound asleep. If she were up, she would certainly come to the study in search of him before long, as the doors opened in no other direction. All his nerves and faculties were strung to the utmost tension, and if the worst came he was prepared to attempt anything. "It is a very fine day after the rain," observed the Baron presently. "It never rains long in Rome, in the spring," answered Malipieri. The detective wrote steadily, and neither spoke again till he had finished. "Of course," he said to Malipieri, "you are quite sure of your statements." "Provided that you have written down exactly what I said," Malipieri answered. The detective rose and handed him the sheets, at which he glanced rapidly. "Yes. That is what I said." "Let me see," Volterra put in, rising and holding out his hand. He took the paper and read every word carefully, before he returned the manuscript. "You might add," he said, "that I have been most anxious to keep the excavations a secret because I do not wish to be pestered by reporters before I have handed over to the government any discoveries which may be made." "Certainly," answered the man, taking his pen again, and writing rapidly. Volterra was almost as anxious to get rid of him as Malipieri himself. What the latter had said had informed him that in spite of the water the vaults could be reached, and he was in haste to go down. He had, indeed, noted the fact that whereas Sabina had left his house with Sassi at five o'clock, the latter had been taken to the hospital only three quarters of an hour later, and he wondered where she could be; but it did not even occur to him as possible that she should be in Malipieri's apartment. The idea would have seemed preposterous. The detective rose, folded the sheets of paper and placed them in a large pocket-book which he produced. "And now, gentlemen," he said, "we have only one more formality to fulfil, before I have the honour of taking my leave." "What is that?" asked the Baron, beginning to show his impatience at last. "Signor Malipieri--is that your name, sir? Yes. Signer Malipieri will be kind enough to let me and my men walk through the rooms of the apartment." "I think that is quite unnecessary," Malipieri answered. "By this time Signor Sassi has probably recovered consciousness, and has told his own story, which will explain the accident." "In the performance of my duty," objected the detective, "I must go through the house, to see whether there are any traces of blood. I am sure that you will make no opposition." Fate was closing in upon Malipieri, but he kept his head as well as he could. He opened the door that led back to the hall. "Will you come?" he said, showing the way. The detective glanced at the other door, but said nothing and prepared to follow. "I will stay here," said the Baron, settling himself in the armchair again. "Oh, no! Pray come," Malipieri said. "I should like you to see for yourself that Sassi was not hurt here." Volterra rose reluctantly and went with the rest. His chief preoccupation was to get rid of the detective and his men as quickly as possible. Malipieri opened the doors as he went along, and showed several empty rooms, before he came to Masin's. "This is where my man sleeps," he said carelessly. The detective went in, looked about and suddenly pounced upon a towel on which there were stains of blood. "What is this?" he asked sharply. "What is the meaning of this?" Malipieri showed his scarred hands. "After I got out of the vault, I washed here," he said. "I had cut my hands a good deal, as you see. Of course the blood came off on the towels." The detective assumed his smile of professional cunning. "I understand," he said. "But do you generally wash in your servant's room?" "No. It happened to be convenient when I got in. There was water here, and there were towels." "It is strange," said the detective. Even Volterra looked curiously at Malipieri, for he was much puzzled. But he was impatient, too, and came to the rescue. "Do you not see," he asked of the detective, "that Signor Malipieri was covered with dust and that his clothes were very wet? There they are, lying on the floor. He did not wish to go to his bedroom as he was, taking all that dirt and dampness with him, so he came here." "That is a sufficient explanation, I am sure," said Malipieri. "Perfectly, perfectly," answered the detective, smiling. "Wrap up those towels in a newspaper," he said to the two soldiers. "We will take them with us. You see," he continued in an apologetic tone, "we are obliged to be very careful in the execution of our duties. If Signor Sassi should unfortunately die in the hospital, and especially if he should die unconscious, the matter would become very serious, and I should be blamed if I had not made a thorough examination." "I hope he is not so seriously injured," said Malipieri. "The report we received was that his skull was fractured," answered the detective calmly. "The hospitals report all suspicious cases to the police stations by telephone during the night, and of course, as your man refused to speak, special enquiries were made about the wounded gentleman." "I understand," said Malipieri. "And now, I suppose, you have made a sufficient search." "We have not seen your own room. If you will show me that, as a mere formality, I think I need not trouble you any further." It had come at last. Malipieri felt himself growing cold, and said nothing for a moment. Volterra again began to watch him curiously. "I fancy," the detective said, "that your room opens from the study in which we have already been. I only wish to look in." "There is a small room before it, where I keep my clothes." "I suppose we can go through the small room?" "You may see that," said Malipieri, "but I shall not allow you to go into my bedroom." "How very strange!" cried Volterra, staring at him. Then the fat Baron broke into a laugh, that, made his watch-chain dance on his smooth and rotund speckled waistcoat. "I see! I see!" he tried to say. The detective understood, and smiled in a subdued way. Malipieri knit his brows angrily, as he felt himself becoming more and more utterly powerless to stave off the frightful catastrophe that threatened Sabina. But the detective was anxious to make matters pleasant by diplomatic means. "I had not been told that Signor Malipieri was a married man," he said. "Of course, if the Signora Malipieri is not yet visible, I shall be delighted to give her time to dress." Malipieri bit his lip and made a few steps up and down. "I did not know that your wife was in Rome," Volterra said, glancing at him, and apparently confirming the detective in his mistake. "For that matter," said the detective, "I am a married man myself, and if the lady is in bed, she might allow me merely to stand at the door, and glance in." "I think she is still asleep," Malipieri answered. "I do not like to disturb her, and the room is quite dark." "My time is at your disposal," said the detective. "Shall we go back and wait in the study? You would perhaps be so kind as to see whether the Signora is awake or not, but I am quite ready to wait till she comes out of her room. I would not put her to any inconvenience for the world, I assure you." "Really," the Baron said to Malipieri, "I think you might wake her." The soldiers looked on stolidly, the porter kept his eyes and ears open, and Gigi, full of curiosity, wore the expression of a smiling weasel. To the porter's knowledge, so far as it went, no woman but his own wife had entered the palace since Malipieri had been living in it. Malipieri made no answer to Volterra's last speech, and walked up and down, seeking a solution. The least possible one seemed to be that suggested by the Baron himself. The latter, though now very curious, was more than ever in a hurry to bring the long enquiry to a close. It occurred to him that it would simplify matters if he and Malipieri and the detective were left alone together, and he said so, urging that as there was unexpectedly a lady in the case, the presence of so many witnesses should be avoided. Even now he never thought of the possibility that the lady in question might be Sabina. The detective now yielded the point willingly enough, and the soldiers were sent off with Gigi and the porter to wait in the latter's lodge. It was a slight relief to Malipieri to see them go. He and his two companions went back to the study together. The Baron resumed his seat in the armchair; he always sat down when he had time, and he had not yet finished his big cigar. The detective went to the window and looked out through the panes, as if to give Malipieri time to make up his mind what to do; and Malipieri paced the floor with bent head, his hands in his pockets, in utter desperation. At any moment Sabina might appear, yet he dared not even go to her door, lest the two men should follow him. But at least he could prevent her from coming in, for he could lock the entrance to the small room. As he reached the end of his walk he turned the key and put it into his pocket. The detective turned round sharply and Volterra moved his head at the sound. "Why do you do that?" he asked, in a tone of annoyance. "Because no one shall go in, while I have the key," Malipieri answered. "I must go in, sooner or later," said the detective, "I can wait all day, and all night, if you please, for I shall not use force where a lady is concerned. But I must see that room." Like all such men, he was obstinate, when he believed that he was doing his duty. Malipieri looked from him to Volterra, and back again, and suddenly made up his mind. He preferred the detective, of the two, if he must trust any one, the more so as the latter probably did not know Sabina by sight. "If you will be so kind as to stay there, in that armchair," he said to Volterra, "I will see what I can do to hasten matters. Will you?" "Certainly. I am very comfortable here." The Baron laughed a little. "Then," said Malipieri, turning to the detective, "kindly come with me, and I will explain as far as I can." He took the key from his pocket again, and opened the door of the small room, let in the detective and shut it after him without locking it. He had hardly made up his mind what to say, but he knew what he wished. "This is a very delicate affair," he began in a whisper. "I will see whether the lady is awake." He went to the door of the bedroom on tiptoe and listened. Not a sound reached him. The room was quite out of hearing of the rest of the apartment, and Sabina, accustomed as she was to sleep eight hours without waking, was still resting peacefully. Malipieri came back noiselessly. "She is asleep," he whispered. "Will you not take my word for it that there is nothing to be found in the room which can have the least connection with Sassi's accident?" The detective shook his head gravely, and raised his eyebrows, while he shut his eyes, as some men do when they mean that nothing can convince them. "I advise you to go in and wake your wife," he whispered, still very politely. "She can wrap herself up and sit in a chair while I look in." "That is impossible. I cannot go in and wake her." The detective looked surprised, and was silent for a moment. "This is a very strange situation," he muttered. "A man who dares not go into his wife's room when she is asleep--I do not understand." "I cannot explain," answered Malipieri, "but it is altogether impossible. I ask you to believe me, on my oath, that you will find nothing in the room." "I have already told you, sir, that I must fulfil the formalities, whatever I may wish to believe. And it is my firm belief that Signor Sassi came by the injuries of which he may possibly die, somewhere in this apartment, yesterday afternoon. My reputation is at stake, and I am a government servant. To oblige you, I will wait an hour, but if the lady is not awake then, I shall go and knock at that door and call until she answers. It would be simpler if you would do it yourself. That is all, and you must take your choice." Malipieri saw that he must wake Sabina, and explain to her through the door that she must dress. He reflected a moment, and was about to ask the detective to go back to the study, when a sound of voices came from that direction, and one was a woman's. "It seems that there is another lady in the house," said the detective. "Perhaps she can help us. Surely you will allow a lady to enter your wife's room and wake her." But Malipieri was speechless at that moment and was leaning stupidly against the jamb of the study door. He had recognized the voice of the Baroness talking excitedly with her husband. Fate had caught him now, and there was no escape. Instinctively, he was sure that the Baroness had come in search of Sabina, and would not leave the house till she had found her, do what he might. CHAPTER XVIII The Baroness had been called to the telephone five minutes after Volterra had gone out with the porter, leaving word that he was going to the Palazzo Conti and would be back within two hours. The message she received was from the Russian Embassy, and informed her that the dowager Princess Conti had arrived at midnight, was the guest of the Ambassador, and wished her daughter Sabina to come and see her between eleven and twelve o'clock. In trembling tones the Baroness had succeeded in saying that Sabina should obey, and had rung off the connection at once. Then, for the first time in her life, she had felt for a moment as if she were going to faint. The facts, which were unknown to her, were simple enough. The Ambassador had been informed that a treasure had been discovered, and had telegraphed the fact in cipher to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in St. Petersburg, who had telegraphed the news to Prince Rubomirska, who had telegraphed to the Ambassador, who was his intimate friend, requesting him to receive the Princess for a few days. As the Prince and his sister were already in the country, in Poland, not far from the Austrian frontier, it had not taken her long to reach Rome. Of all this, the poor Baroness was in ignorance. The one fact stared her in the face, that the Princess had come to claim Sabina, and Sabina had disappeared. She had learned that the porter had come to say that the cellars of the Palazzo Conti were flooded, and she knew that her husband would be there some time. She found Sassi's card, on which his address was printed, and she drove there in a cab, climbed the stairs and rang the bell. The old woman who opened was in terrible trouble, and was just going out. She showed the Baroness the news of Sassi's mysterious accident shortly given in a paragraph of the _Messaggero_, the little morning paper which is universally read greedily by the lower classes. She was just going to the accident hospital, the "Consolazione," to see her poor master. He had gone out at half past four on the previous afternoon, and she had sat up all night, hoping that he would come in. She was quite sure that he had not returned at all after he had gone out. She was quite sure, too, that he had been knocked down and robbed, for he had a gold watch and chain, and always carried money in his pocket. The Baroness looked at her, and saw that she was speaking the truth and was in real distress. It would be quite useless to search the rooms for Sabina. The old woman-servant had no idea who the Baroness was, and in her sudden trouble would certainly have confided to her that there was a young lady in the house, who had not been able to get home. "For the love of heaven, Signora," she cried, "come with me to the hospital, if you know him, for he may be dying." The Baroness promised to go later, and really intended to do so. She drove to the convent in which Donna Clementina was now a cloistered nun, and asked the portress whether Donna Sabina Conti had been to see her sister on the previous day. The portress answered that she had not, and was quite positive of the fact. The Baroness looked at her watch and hastened to the Palazzo Conti. When she got there, the porter had already returned to his lodge, and he led her upstairs and to the door of the study. Finding her husband alone, she explained what was the matter, in a few words and in a low voice. The Princess had come back, and wished to see Sabina that very morning, and Sabina could not be found. She sank into a chair, and her sallow face expressed the utmost fright and perplexity. "Sassi left our house at five o'clock with Sabina," said the Baron, "and at a quarter to six he was taken from the door of this palace to the hospital by Malipieri's man. Either Malipieri or his man must have seen her." "She is here!" cried the Baroness in a loud tone, something of the truth flashing upon her. "I know she is here!" Volterra's mind worked rapidly at the possibility, as at a problem. If his wife were not mistaken it was easy to explain Malipieri's flat refusal to let any one enter the bedroom. "You may be right," he said, rising. "If she is in the palace she is in the room beyond that one." He pointed to the door. "You must go in," he said. "Never mind Malipieri. I will manage him." At that moment the door opened. Malipieri had recovered his senses enough to attempt a final resistance, and stood there, very pale, ready for anything. But the fat Baron knew what he was about, and as he came forward with his wife he suddenly thrust out his hand at Malipieri's head, and the latter saw down the barrel of Volterra's revolver. "You must let my wife pass," cried Volterra coolly, "or I will shoot you." Malipieri was as active as a sailor. In an instant he had hurled himself, bending low, at the Baron's knees, and the fat man fell over him, while the revolver flew from his hand, half across the room, fortunately not going off as it fell on its side. While Malipieri was struggling to get the upper hand, the detective ran forward and helped Volterra. The two threw themselves upon the younger man, and between the detective's wiry strength and the Baron's tremendous weight, he lay panting and powerless on his back for an instant. The Baroness had possibly assisted at some scenes of violence in the course of her husband's checkered career. At all events, she did not stop to see what happened after the way was clear, but ran to the door of the bedroom, and threw it wide open, for it was not locked. The light that entered showed her where the window was; she opened it in an instant, and looked round. Sabina was sitting up in bed, staring at her with a dazed expression, her hair in wild confusion round her pale face and falling over her bare neck. Her clothes lay in a heap on the floor, beside the bed, Never was any woman more fairly caught in a situation impossible to explain. Even in that first moment she felt it, when she looked at the Baroness's face. The latter did not speak, for she was utterly incapable of finding words. The sound of a scuffle could be heard from the study in the distance; she quietly shut the door and turned the key. Then she came and stood by the bed, facing the window. Sabina had sunk back upon the pillows, but her eyes looked up bravely and steadily. Of the two she was certainly the one less disturbed, even then, for she remembered that Malipieri had meant to go and tell the Baroness the whole truth, early in the morning. He had done so, of course, and the Baroness had come to take her back, very angry of course, but that was all. This was what Sabina told herself, but she guessed that matters would turn out much worse. "Did he tell you how it happened that I could not get home?" she asked, almost calmly. "No one has told me anything. Your mother arrived in Rome last night. She is at the Russian Embassy and wishes to see you at eleven o'clock." "My mother?" Sabina raised herself on one hand in surprise. "Yes. And I find you here." The Baroness folded her arms like a man, her brows contracted, and her face was almost livid. "Have you the face to meet your mother, after this?" she asked sternly. "Yes--of course," answered Sabina. "But I must go home and dress. My frock is ruined." "You are a brazen creature," said the Baroness in disgust and anger. "You do not seem to know what shame means." Sabina's deep young eyes flashed; it was not safe to say such things to her. "I have done nothing to be ashamed of," she answered proudly, "and you shall not speak to me like that. Do you understand?" "Nothing to be ashamed of!" The Baroness stared at her in genuine amazement. "Nothing to be ashamed of!" she repeated, and her voice shook with emotion. "You leave my house by stealth, you let no one know where you are going, and the next morning I find you here, in your lover's house, in your lover's room, the door not even locked, your head upon your lover's pillow! Nothing to be ashamed of! Merciful heavens! And you have not only ruined yourself, but you have done an irreparable injury to honest people who took you in when you were starving!" The poor woman paused for breath, and in her horror, she hid her face in her hands. She had her faults, no doubt, and she knew that the world was bad, but she had never dreamt of such barefaced and utterly monstrous cynicism as Sabina's. If the girl had been overcome with shame and repentance, and had broken down entirely, imploring help and forgiveness, as would have seemed natural, the Baroness, for her own social sake, might have been at last moved to help her out of her trouble. Instead, being a person of rigid virtue and judging the situation in the only way really possible for her to see it, she was both disgusted and horrified. It was no wonder. But she was not prepared for Sabina's answer. "If I were strong enough, I would kill you," said the young girl, quietly laying her head on the pillow again. The Baroness laughed hysterically. She felt as if she were in the presence of the devil himself. She was not at all a hysterical woman nor often given to dramatic exhibitions of feeling, but she had never dreamt that a human being could behave with such horribly brazen shamelessness. For some moments there was silence. Then Sabina spoke, in a quietly scornful tone, while the Baroness turned her back on her and stood quite still, looking out of the window. "I suppose you have a right to be surprised," Sabina said, "but you have no right to insult me and say things that are not true. Perhaps Signor Malipieri likes me very much. I do not know. He has never told me he loved me." The Baroness's large figure shook with fury, but she did not turn round. What more was the girl going to say? That she did not even care a little for the man with whom she had ruined herself? Yes. That was what she was going on to explain. It was beyond belief. "I have only seen him a few times," Sabina said. "I daresay I shall be very fond of him if I see him often. I think he is very like my ideal of what a man should be." The Baroness turned her face half round with an expression that was positively savage. But she said nothing, and again looked through the panes. She remembered afterwards that the room smelt slightly of stale cigar smoke, soap and leather. "He wished me to see the things he has found before any one else should," Sabina continued. "So he got Sassi to bring me here. While we were in the vaults, the water came, and we could not get out. He worked for hours to break a hole, and it was two o'clock in the morning when we were free. I had not had any dinner, and of course I could not go with him to your house at that hour, even if I had not been worn out. So he brought me here and gave me something to eat, and his room to sleep in. As for the door not being locked, he told me twice to lock it, and I was so sleepy that I forgot to. That is what happened." After an ominous silence, the Baroness turned round. Her face was almost yellow now. "I do not believe a word you have told me," she said, half choking. "Then go!" cried Sabina, sitting up with flashing eyes. "I do not care a straw whether you believe the truth or not! Go! Go!" She stretched out one straight white arm and pointed to the door, in wrath. The Baroness looked at her, and stood still a moment. Then she shrugged her shoulders in a manner anything but aristocratic, and left the room without deigning to turn her head. The instant she was gone Sabina sprang out of bed and locked the door after her. Meanwhile, the struggle between Malipieri and his two adversaries had come to an end very soon. Malipieri had not really expected to prevent the Baroness from going to Sabina, but he had wished to try and explain matters to her before she went. He had upset Volterra, because the latter had pointed a revolver at his head, which will seem a sufficient reason to most hot-tempered men. The detective had suggested putting handcuffs on him, while they held him down, but Volterra was anxious to settle matters amicably. "It was my fault," he said, drawing back. "I thought that you were going to resist, and I pulled out my pistol too soon. I offer you all my apologies." He had got to his feet with more alacrity than might have been expected of such a fat man, and was adjusting his collar and tie, and smoothing his waistcoat over his rotundity. Malipieri had risen the moment he was free. The detective looked as if nothing had happened out of the common way, and the neatness of his appearance was not in the least disturbed. "I offer you my apologies, Signor Malipieri," repeated the Baron cordially and smiling in a friendly way. "I should not have drawn my pistol on you. I presume you will accept the excuses I make?" "Do not mention the matter," answered Malipieri with coolness, but civilly enough, seeing that there was nothing else to be done. "I trust you are none the worse for your fall." "Not at all, not at all," replied Volterra. "I hope," he said, turning to the detective, "that you will say nothing about this incident, since no harm has been done. It concerns a private matter,--I may almost say, a family matter. I have some little influence, and if I can be of any use to you, I shall always be most happy." The gratitude of so important a personage was not to be despised, as the detective knew. He produced a card bearing his name, and handed it to the Senator with a bow. "Always at your service, sir," he said. "It is very fortunate that the revolver did not go off and hurt one of us," he added, picking up the weapon and handing it to Volterra. "I have noticed that these things almost invariably kill the wrong person, when they kill anybody at all, which is rare." Volterra smiled, thanked him and returned the revolver to his pocket. Malipieri had watched the two in silence. Fate had taken matters out of his hands, and there was absolutely nothing to be done. In due time, Sabina would come out with the Baroness, but he could not guess what would happen then. Volterra would probably not speak out before the detective, who would not recognize Sabina, even if he knew her by sight. The Baroness would take care that he should not see the girl's face, as both Volterra and Malipieri knew. The three men sat down and waited in silence after the detective had last spoken. Volterra lit a fresh cigar, and offered one to the detective a few moments later. The latter took it with a bow and put it into his pocket for a future occasion. The door opened at last, and the Baroness entered, her face discoloured to a blotchy yellowness by her suppressed anger. She stood still a moment after she had come in, and glared at Malipieri. He and the detective rose, but Volterra kept his seat. "Were you right, my dear?" the latter enquired, looking at her. "Yes," she answered in a thick voice, turning to him for an instant, and then glaring at Malipieri again, as if she could hardly keep her hands from him in her righteous anger. He saw clearly enough that she had not believed the strange story which Sabina must have told her, and he wondered whether any earthly power could possibly make her believe it in spite of herself. During the moments of silence that followed, the whole situation rose before him, in the only light under which it could at first appear to any ordinary person. It was frightful to think that what had been a bit of romantic quixotism on his part, in wishing Sabina to see the statues which should have been hers, should end in her social disgrace, perhaps in her utter ruin if the Baroness and her husband could not be mollified. He did not know that there was one point in Sabina's favour, in the shape of the Princess's sudden return to Rome, though he guessed the Baroness's character well enough to have foreseen, had he known of the new complication, that she would swallow her pride and even overlook Sabina's supposed misdeeds, rather than allow the Princess to accuse her of betraying her trust and letting the young girl ruin herself. "I must consult with you," the Baroness said to her husband, controlling herself as she came forward into the room and passed Malipieri. "We cannot talk here," she added, glancing at the detective. "This gentleman," said Volterra, waving his hand towards the latter, "is here officially, to make an enquiry about Sassi's accident." "I shall be happy to wait outside if you have private matters to discuss," said the detective, who wished to show himself worthy of the Baron's favour, if he could do so without neglecting his duties. "You are extremely obliging," Volterra said, in a friendly tone. The detective smiled, bowed and left the room by the door leading towards the hall. "It seems to me," the Baroness said, still suppressing her anger, as she turned her face a little towards Malipieri and spoke at him over her shoulder, "it seems to me that you might go too." It was not for Malipieri to resent her tone or words just then, and he knew it, though he hated her for believing the evidence of her senses rather than Sabina's story. He made a step towards the door. "No," Volterra said, without rising, "I think he had better stay, and hear what we have to say about this. After all, the responsibility for what has happened falls upon him." "I should think it did!" cried the Baroness, breaking out at last, in harsh tones. "You abominable villain, you monster of iniquity, you snake, you viper--" "Hush, hush, my dear!" interposed the Baron, realizing vaguely that his wife's justifiable excitement was showing itself in unjustifiably vulgar vituperation. "You toad!" yelled the Baroness, shaking her fist in Malipieri's face. "You reptile, you accursed ruffian, you false, black-hearted, lying son of Satan!" She gasped for breath, and her whole frame quivered with fury, while her livid lips twisted themselves to hiss out the epithets of abuse. Volterra feared lest she should fall down in an apoplexy, and he rose from his seat quickly. He gathered her to his corpulent side with one arm and made her turn away towards the window, which he opened with his free hand. "I should be all that, and worse, if a tenth of what you believe were true," Malipieri said, coming nearer and then standing still. He was very pale, and he was conscious of a cowardly wish that Volterra's revolver might have killed him ten minutes earlier. But he was ashamed of the mere thought when he remembered what Sabina would have to face. Volterra, while holding his wife firmly against the window sill, to force her to breathe the outer air, turned his head towards Malipieri. "She is quite beside herself, you see," he said apologetically. The Baroness was a strong woman, and after the first explosion of her fury she regained enough self-control to speak connectedly. She turned round, in spite of the pressure of her husband's arm. "He is not even ashamed of what he has done!" she said. "He stands there--" The Baron interrupted her, fearing another outburst. "Let me speak," he said in the tone she could not help obeying. "What explanation have you to offer of Donna Sabina's presence here?" he asked. As he put the question, he nodded significantly to Malipieri, over his wife's shoulder, evidently to make the latter understand that he must at least invent some excuse if he had none ready. The Baron did not care a straw what became of him, or of Sabina, and wished them both out of his way for ever, but he had always avoided scandal, and was especially anxious to avoid it now. Malipieri resented the hint much more than the Baroness's anger, but he was far too much in the wrong, innocent though he was, to show his resentment. He told his story firmly and coolly, and it agreed exactly with Sabina's. "That is exactly what happened last night," he concluded. "If you will go down, you will find the breach I made, and the first vaults full of water. I have nothing more to say." "You taught her the lesson admirably," said the Baroness with withering scorn. "She told me the same story almost word for word!" "Madam," Malipieri answered, "I give you my word of honour that it is true." "My dear," Volterra said, speaking to his wife, "when a gentleman gives his word of honour, you are bound to accept it." "I hope so," said Malipieri. "Any man would perjure himself for a woman," retorted the Baroness with contempt. "No, my dear," the Baron objected, trying to mollify her. "Perjury is a crime, you know." "And what he has done is a much worse crime!" she cried. "I have not committed any crime," Malipieri answered. "I would give all I possess, and my life, to undo what has happened, but I have neither said nor done anything to be ashamed of. For Donna Sabina's sake, you must accept my explanation. In time you will believe it." "Yes, yes," urged Volterra, "I am sure you will, my dear. In any case you must accept it as the only one. I will go downstairs with Signor Malipieri and we will take the porter to the cellars. Then you can go out with Sabina, and if you are careful no one will ever know that she has been here." "And do you mean to let her live under your roof after this?" asked the Baroness indignantly. "Her mother is now in Rome," answered Volterra readily. "When she is dressed, you will take her to the Princess, and you will say that as we are going away, we are reluctantly obliged to decline the responsibility of keeping the young girl with us any longer. That is what you will do." "I am glad you admit at least that she cannot live with us any longer," the Baroness answered. "I am sure I have no wish to ruin the poor girl, who has been this man's unhappy victim--" "Hush, hush!" interposed Volterra. "You must really accept the explanation he has given." "For decency's sake, you may, and I shall have to pretend that I do. At least," she continued, turning coldly to Malipieri, "you will make such reparation as is in your power." "I will do anything I can," answered Malipieri gravely. "You will marry her as soon as possible," the Baroness said with frigid severity. "It is the only thing you can do." Malipieri was silent. The Baron looked at him, and a disagreeable smile passed over his fat features. But at that moment the door opened, and Sabina entered. Without the least hesitation she came forward to Malipieri, frankly holding out her hand. "Good morning," she said. "Before I go, I wish to thank you again for saving my life, and for taking care of me here." He held her hand a moment. "I ask your pardon, with all my heart, for having brought you into danger and trouble," he answered. "It was not your fault," she said. "It was nobody's fault, and I am glad I saw the statues before any one else. You told me last night that you were probably going away. If we never meet again, I wish you to remember that you are not to reproach yourself for anything that may happen to me. You might, you know. Will you remember?" She spoke quite naturally and without the least fear of Volterra and his wife, who looked on and listened in dumb surprise at her self-possession. She meant every word she said, and more too, but she had thought out the little speech while she was dressing, for she had guessed what must be happening in the study. Malipieri fixed his eyes on hers gratefully, but did not find an answer at once. "Will you remember?" she repeated. "I shall never forget," he answered, not quite steadily, By one of those miracles which are the birthright of certain women, she had made her dress look almost fresh again. The fawn-coloured hat was restored to its shape, or nearly. The mud that had soiled her skirt had dried and she had brushed it away, though it had left faint spots on the cloth, here and there; pins hid the little rents so cleverly that only a woman's eye could have detected anything wrong, and the russet shoes were tolerably presentable. The Baroness saw traces of the adventure to which the costume had been exposed, but Volterra smiled and was less inclined than ever to believe the story which both had told, though he did not say so. "My wife and I," he said cordially, "quite understand what has happened, and no one shall ever know about it, unless you speak of it yourself. She will go home with you now, and will then take you to the Russian Embassy to see your mother." Sabina looked at him in surprise, for she had expected a disagreeable scene. Then she glanced at the Baroness's sallow and angry face, and she partly understood the position. "Thank you," she said proudly, "but if you do not mind, I will go to my mother directly. You will perhaps be so kind as to have my things sent to the Embassy, or my mother's maid will come and get them." "You cannot go looking like that," said the Baroness severely. "On the contrary," Volterra interposed, "I think that considering your dangerous adventure, you look perfectly presentable. Of course, we quite understand that as the Princess has returned, you should wish to go back to her at once, though we are very sorry to let you go." Sabina paused a moment before answering. Then she spoke to the Baroness, only glancing at Volterra. "Until to-day, you have been very kind to me," she said with an effort. "I thank you for your kindness, and I am sorry that you think so badly of me." "My dear young lady," cried the Baron, lying with hearty cordiality, "you are much mistaken! I assure you, it was only a momentary misapprehension on the part of my wife, who had not even spoken with Signor Malipieri. His explanation has been more than satisfactory. Is it not so, my dear?" he asked, turning to the Baroness for confirmation of his fluent assurances. "Of course," she answered, half choking, and with a face like thunder; but she dared not disobey. "If my mother says anything about my frock, I shall tell her the whole story," said Sabina, glancing at her skirt. "If you do," said the Baroness, "I shall deny it from beginning to end." "I think that it would perhaps be wiser to explain that in some other way," the Baron suggested. "Signor Malipieri, will you be so very kind as to go down first, and take the porter with a light to the entrance of the cellars? He knows Donna Sabina, you see. I will come down presently, for I shall stay behind and ask the detective to look out of the window in the next room, while my wife and Donna Sabina pass through. In that way we shall be quite sure that she will not be recognized. Will you do that, Signor Malipieri? Unless you have a better plan to suggest, of course." Malipieri saw that the plan was simple and apparently safe. He looked once more at Sabina, and she smiled, and just bent her head, but said nothing. He left the room. The detective was sitting in a corner of the room beyond, and the two men exchanged a silent nod as Malipieri passed. Everything was arranged as the Baron had planned, and ten minutes later the Baroness and Sabina descended the stairs together in silence and reached the great entrance. The two soldiers were standing by the open door of the lodge, and saluted in military fashion. Gigi, the carpenter, sprang forward and opened the postern door, touching his paper cap to the ladies. They did not exchange a word as they walked to the Piazza Sant' Apollinare to find a cab. Sabina held her head high and looked straight before her, and the Baroness's invisible silk bellows were distinctly audible in the quiet street. "By the hour," said the Baroness, as they got into the first cab they reached on the stand. "Go to the Russian Embassy, in the Corso." CHAPTER XIX "So you spent last night in the rooms of a man you have not seen half a dozen times," said the Princess, speaking with a cigarette in her mouth. "And what is worse, those dreadful Volterra people found you there. No Conti ever had any common sense!" What Sabina had foreseen had happened. Her mother had looked her over, from head to foot, to see what sort of condition she was in, as a horse-dealer looks over a promising colt he has not seen for some time; and the Princess had instantly detected the signs of an accident. In answer to her question Sabina told the truth. Her mother had watched her face and her innocent eyes while she was telling the story, and needed no other confirmation. "You are a good girl," she continued, as Sabina did not reply to the last speech. "But you are a little fool. I wonder why my children are all idiots! I am not so stupid after all. I suppose it must have been your poor father." The white lids closed thoughtfully over her magnificent eyes, and opened again after a moment, as if she had called up a vision of her departed husband and had sent it away again. "I suppose it was silly of me to go at all," Sabina admitted, leaning back in her chair. "But I wanted so much to see the statues!" She felt at home. Her mother had brought her up badly and foolishly, and of late had neglected her shamefully. Sabina knew that and neither loved her nor respected her, and it was not because she was her mother that the girl felt suddenly at ease in her presence, as she never could feel with the Baroness. She did not wish to be at all like her mother in character, or even in manner, and yet she felt that they belonged to the same kind, spoke the same language, and had an instinctive understanding of each other, though these things implied neither mutual respect nor affection. "That horrible old Volterra!" said the Princess, with emphasis. "He means to keep everything he has found, for himself, if he can. I have come only just in time." Sabina did not answer. She knew nothing of the law, and though she fancied that she might have some morally just claim to a share in the treasure, she had never believed that it could be proved. "Of course," the Princess continued, smoking thoughtfully, "there is only one thing to be done. You must marry this Malipieri at once, whether you like him or not. What sort of man is he?" The faint colour rose in Sabina's cheeks and not altogether at the mere thought of marrying Malipieri; she was hurt by the way her mother spoke of him. "What kind of man is he?" the Princess repeated, "I suppose he is a Venetian, a son of the man who married the Gradenigo heiress, about the time when I was married myself. Is he the man who discovered Troy?" "Carthage, I think," said Sabina. "Troy, Carthage, America, it is all the same. He discovered something, and I fancy he will be rich. But what is he like? Dark, fair, good, bad, snuffy or smart? As he is an archaeologist, he must be snuffy, a bore, probably, and what the English call a male frump. It cannot be helped, my dear! You will have to marry him. Describe him to me." "He is dark," said Sabina. "I am glad of that. I always liked dark men--your father was fair, like you. Besides, as you are a blonde, you will always look better beside a dark husband. But of course he is dreadfully careless, with long hair and doubtful nails. All those people are." "No," said Sabina. "He is very nice-looking and neat, and wears good clothes." The Princess's brow cleared. "All the better," she said. "Well, my dear, it is not so bad after all. We have found a husband for you, rich, of good family--quite as good as yours, my child! Good-looking, smart--what more do you expect? Besides, he cannot possibly refuse to marry you after what has happened. On the whole, I think your adventure has turned out rather well. You can be married in a month. Every one will think it quite natural that it should have been kept quiet until I came, you see." "But even if I wanted to marry him, he will never ask for me," objected Sabina, who was less surprised than might be expected, for she knew her mother thoroughly. The Princess laughed, and blew a cloud of smoke from her lips, and then showed her handsome teeth. "I have only to say the word," she answered. "When a young girl of our world has spent the night in a man's rooms, he marries her, if her family wishes it. No man of honour can possibly refuse. I suppose that this Malipieri is a gentleman?" "Indeed he is!" Sabina spoke with considerable indignation. "Precisely. Then he will come to me this afternoon and tell his story frankly, just as you have done--it was very sensible of you, my dear--and he will offer to marry you. Of course I shall accept." "But, mother," cried Sabina, aghast at the suddenness of the conclusion, "I am not at all sure--" She stopped, feeling that she was much more sure of being in love with Malipieri than she had been when she had driven to the palace with Sassi on the previous afternoon. "Is there any one you like better?" asked the Princess sharply. "Are you in love with any one else?" "No! But--" "I had never seen your father when our marriage was arranged," the Princess observed. "And you were very unhappy together," Sabina answered promptly. "You always say so." "Oh, unhappy? I am not so sure, now. Certainly Hot nearly so miserable as half the people I know. After all, what is happiness, child? Doing what you please, is it not?" Sabina had not thought of this definition, and she laughed, without accepting it. In one way, everything looked suddenly bright and cheerful, since her mother had believed her story, and she knew that she was not to go back to the Baroness, who had not believed her at all, and had called her bad names. "And I almost always did as I pleased," the Princess continued, after a moment's reflection. "The only trouble was that your dear father did not always like what I did. He was a very religious man. That was what ruined us. He gave half his income to charities and then scolded me because I could not live on the other half. Besides, he turned the Ten Commandments into a hundred. It was a perfect multiplication, table of things one was not to do." Poor Sabina's recollections of her father had nothing of affection in them, and she did not feel called upon to defend his memory. Like many weak but devout men, he had been severe to his children, even to cruelty, while perfectly incapable of controlling his wife's caprices. "I remember, though I was only a little girl when he died," Sabina said. "Is Malipieri very religious?" the Princess asked "I mean, does he make a fuss about having fish on Fridays?" She spoke quite gravely. "I fancy not," Sabina answered, seeing nothing odd in her mother's implied definition of righteousness. "He never talked to me about religion, I am sure." "Thank God!" exclaimed the Princess devoutly. "He always says he is a republican," Sabina remarked, glad to talk about him. "Really?" The Princess was interested. "I adore revolutionaries," she said thoughtfully. "They always have something to say. I have always longed to meet a real anarchist." "Signor Malipieri is not an anarchist," said Sabina. "Of course not, child! I never said he was. All anarchists are shoemakers or miners, or something like that. I only said that I always longed to meet one. People who do not value their lives are generally amusing. When I was a girl, I was desperately in love with a cousin of mine who drove a four-in-hand down a flight of steps, and won a bet by jumping on a wild bear's back. He was always doing those things. I loved him dearly." The Princess laughed. "What became of him?" Sabina asked. "He shot himself one day in Geneva, poor boy, because he was bored. I was always sorry, though they would not have let me marry him, because he had lost all his money at cards." The Princess sighed. "Of course you want a lot of new clothes, my dear," she said, changing the subject rather suddenly. "Have you nothing but that to wear?" Sabina's things had not yet come from the Via Ludovisi. She explained that she had plenty of clothes. "I fancy they are nothing but rags," her mother answered incredulously. "We shall have to go to Paris in any case for your trousseau. You cannot get anything here." "But we have no money," objected Sabina. "As if that made any difference! We can always get money, somehow. What a child you are!" Sabina said nothing, for she knew that her mother always managed to have what she wanted, even when it looked quite impossible. The girl had been brought up in the atmosphere of perpetual debt and borrowing which seemed natural to the Princess, and nothing of that sort surprised her, though it was all contrary to her own instinctively conscientious and honourable nature. Her mother had always been a mystery to her, and now, as Sabina sat near her, she crossed her feet, which were encased in a pair of the Princess's slippers, and looked at her as she had often looked before, wondering how such a reckless, scatter-brained, almost penniless woman could have remained the great personage which the world always considered her to be, and that, too, without the slightest effort on her part to maintain her position. Then Sabina reflected upon the Baroness's existence, which was one long struggle to reach a social elevation not even remotely rivalling that of the Princess Conti; a struggle in which she was armed with a large fortune, with her husband's political power, with the most strictly virtuous views of life, and an iron will; a struggle which could never raise her much beyond the point she had already reached. Sabina's meditations were soon interrupted by the arrival of her belongings, in charge of her mother's maid, and the immediate necessity of dressing more carefully than had been possible when she had been so rudely roused by the Baroness. She was surprised to find herself so little tired by the desperate adventure, and without even a cold as the result of the never-to-be-forgotten chill she had felt in the vaults. In the afternoon, the Princess declared that she would not go out. She was sure that Malipieri would present himself, and she would receive him in her boudoir. The ambassador had given her a very pretty set of rooms. He was a bachelor, and was of course delighted to have her stay with him, and still more pleased that her pretty daughter should join her. It was late in the season, he was detained in Rome by an international complication, and he looked upon the arrival of the two guests as a godsend, more especially as the Princess was an old acquaintance of his and the wife of an intimate friend. Nothing could have been more delightful, and everything was for the best. The Princess herself felt that fortune was shining upon her, for she never doubted that she could lay hands on some of the money which the statues would bring, and she was sure, at least, of marrying Sabina extremely well in a few weeks, which was an advantage not to be despised. During the hours that followed her first conversation with her mother, Sabina found time to reflect upon her own future, and the more she thought of it, the more rosy it seemed. She was sure that Malipieri loved her, though he had certainly not told her so yet, and she was sure that she had never met a man whom she liked half so much. It was true that she had not met many, and none at all in even such intimacy as had established itself between him and her at their very first meeting; but that mattered little, and last night she had seen him as few women ever see a man, fighting for her life and his own for hours together, and winning in the end. Indeed, had she known it, their situation had been really desperate, for while Masin was in prison and in ignorance of what had happened, and Sassi lying unconscious at the hospital after a fall that had nearly killed him outright, it was doubtful whether any one else could have guessed that they were in the vaults or would have been able to get them out alive, had it been known. She had always expected to be married against her will by her mother, or at all events without any inclination on her own part. She had been taught that it was the way of the world, which it was better to accept. If the proposed husband had been a cripple, or an old man, she would have been capable of rebellion, of choosing the convent, of running away alone into the world, of almost anything. But if he had turned out to be an average individual, neither uglier, nor older, nor more repulsive than many others, she would probably have accepted her fate with indifference, or at least with the necessary resignation, especially if she had never met Malipieri. Instead of that, it was probably Malipieri whom she was to marry, the one of all others whom she had chosen for herself, and in place of a dreary existence, stretching out through endless blank years in the future, she saw a valley of light, carpeted with roses, opening suddenly in the wilderness to receive her and the man she loved. It was no wonder that she smiled in her sleep as she lay resting in the warm afternoon, in her own room. Her mother had made her lie down, partly because she was still tired, and partly because it would be convenient that she should be out of the way if Malipieri came. He came, as the Princess had expected, and between two and three o'clock, an hour at which he was almost sure to find her at home. From what Sabina had said to the Baroness in his presence, and from his judgment of the girl's character, he felt certain that she would tell her mother the whole story at once. As they had acknowledged to each other in the vaults, they were neither of them good at inventing falsehoods, and Sabina would surely tell the truth. In the extremely improbable case that she had not been obliged to say anything about the events of the night, his visit would not seem at all out of place. He had seen a good deal of Sabina during her mother's absence, and it was proper that he should present himself in order to make the Princess's acquaintance. He studied her face quickly as he came forward, and made up his mind that she expected him, though she looked up with an air of languid surprise as he entered. She leaned forward a little in her comfortable seat, and held out her plump hand. "I think I knew your mother, and my daughter has told me about you," she said. "I am glad to see you." "You are very kind," Malipieri answered, raising her hand to his lips, which encountered a large, cool sapphire. "I have had the pleasure of meeting Donna Sabina several times." "Yes, I know." The Princess laughed. "Sit down here beside me, and tell me all about your strange adventure. You are really the man I mean, are you not?" she asked, still smiling. "Your mother was a Gradenigo?" "Yes. My father is alive. You may have met him, though he rarely leaves Venice." "I think I have, years ago, but I am not sure. Does he never come to Rome?" "He is an invalid now," Malipieri explained gravely. "He cannot leave the house." "Indeed? I am very sorry. It must be dreadful to be an invalid. I was never ill in my life. But now that we have made acquaintance, do tell me all about last night I Were you really in danger, as Sabina thinks, or is she exaggerating?" "There was certainly no exaggeration in saying that we were in great danger, as matters have turned out," Malipieri answered. "Of the two men who knew that we were in the vault, one is lying insensible, with a fractured skull, in the hospital of the Consolazione, and the other has been arrested by a mistake and is in prison. Besides, both of them would have had every reason to suppose that we had got out." "Sabina did not tell me that. How awful! I must know all the details, please!" Malipieri told the whole story, from the time when Volterra had first invited him to come and make a search. The Princess nodded her energetic approval of his view that Sabina had a right to a large share in anything that was found. The poor girl's dowry, she said, had been eaten up by her father's absurd charities and by the bad administration of the estates which had ruined the whole family. Malipieri paid no attention to this statement, for he knew the truth, and he went on to the end, telling everything, up to the moment when Volterra had at last quitted the palace that morning and had left him free. "Poor Sassi!" exclaimed the Princess, when he had finished. "He was a foolish old man, but he always seemed very willing. Is that all?" "Yes. That is all. I think I have forgotten nothing." The Princess looked at him and smiled encouragingly, expecting him to say something more, but he was grave and silent. Gradually, the smile faded from her face, till she looked away, and took a cigarette from the table at her elbow. Still he said nothing. She lit the cigarette and puffed at it two or three times, slowly and thoughtfully. "I hope that Donna Sabina is none the worse for the fatigue," Malipieri said at last. "She seemed quite well this morning. I wondered that she had not caught cold." "She never caught cold easily, even as a child," answered the Princess indifferently. "This affair may have much more serious consequences than a cold in the head," she added, after a long pause. "I think the Volterra couple will be discreet, for their own sakes," Malipieri answered. "Their servants must know that Sabina was out all night." "They do not know that poor Sassi did not bring her to you here, and the Baroness will be careful to let them understand that she is here now, and with you. Those people dread nothing like a scandal. The secret is between them and us. I do not see how any one else can possibly know it, or guess it." "The fact remains," said the Princess, speaking out, "that my daughter spent last night in your rooms, and slept there, as if she had been in her own home. If it is ever known she will be ruined." "It will never be known, I am quite sure." "I am not, and it is a possibility I cannot really afford to contemplate." She looked fixedly at him. Malipieri was silent, and his face showed that he was trying to find some way out of the imaginary difficulty, or at least some argument which might quiet the Princess's fears. She did not understand his silence. If he was a man of honour, it was manifestly his duty at least to offer the reparation that lay in his power; but he showed no inclination to do so. It was incomprehensible. "I cannot see what is to be done," he said at last. "Is it possible that I must tell you, Signer Malipieri?" asked the Princess, and her splendid eyes flashed angrily. Malipieri's met them without flinching. "You mean, of course, that I should offer to marry Donna Sabina," he said. "What else could an honourable man do, in your position?" "I wish I knew." Malipieri passed his hand over his eyes in evident distress. "Do you mean to say that you refuse?" the Princess asked, between scorn and anger. "Are you so little one of us that you suppose this to be a question of inclination?" Malipieri looked up again. "I wish it were. I love your daughter with all my heart and soul. I did, before I saved her life last night." The Princess's anger gave way to stupefaction. "Well--but then? I do not understand. There is something else?" "Yes, there is something else. I have kept the secret a long time, and it is not all my own." "I have a right to know it," the Princess answered firmly, and bending her brows. "I never expected to tell it to any one," Malipieri said, in a low voice, and evidently struggling with himself. "I see that I shall have to trust you." "You must," insisted the Princess. "My daughter has a right to know, as well as I; and you say that you love her." "I am married." "Good heavens!" She sank back in her chair, overwhelmed with surprise at the simple statement, which, after all, need not have astonished her so much, as she reflected a moment later. She had never heard of Malipieri until that day, and since he had never told any one of his marriage, it was impossible that her daughter should have known of it. She was tolerably sure that the latter's adventure would not be known, but she had formed the determination to take advantage of it in order to secure Malipieri for Sabina, and had been so perfectly sure of the result that she fell from the clouds on learning that he had a wife already. On his part, he was not thinking of what was passing in her mind, but of what he should have thought of himself, had he, with his character, been in her position. The bald statement that he was married and his confession of his love for Sabina looked badly side by side, in the clear light of his own honour; all the more, because he knew that, without positively or directly speaking out his heart to the girl, he had let her guess that he was falling in love with her. He had said so, though in jest, on that night when he had been alone with her in Volterra's house; his going there, on the mere chance of seeing her alone, and the interest he had shown in her from their first meeting, must have made her think that he was in love. Moreover, he really was, and like most people who are consciously in love where they ought not to be, he felt as if everybody knew it; and yet he was a married man. "I am legally married under Italian law," he said, after a pause. "But that is all. My wife bears my name, and lives honourably under it, but that is all there has ever been of marriage in my life. I can honestly say that not even a word of affection ever passed between us." "How strange!" The Princess listened with interest, wondering what was coming next. "I never saw her but once," Malipieri continued. "We met in the morning, we were married at noon, at the municipality, we parted at the railway station twenty minutes later, and have never met again." "But you are not married at all!" cried the Princess. "The Church would annul such a marriage without making the least trouble." "We were not even married in church," said Malipieri. "We were married at the municipality only." "It is not a marriage at all, then." "Excuse me. It is perfectly valid in law, and my wife has a certified copy of the register to prove that she has a right to my name." "Were you mad? What made you do it? It is utterly incomprehensible--to bind yourself for life to a woman you had never seen! What possible motive--" "I will tell you," said Malipieri. "It all happened long ago, when I was little more than twenty-one. It is not a very long story, but I beg you not to tell it. You do not suppose me capable of keeping it a secret in order to make another marriage, not really legal do you?" "Certainly not," answered the Princess. "I believe you to be an honourable man. I will not tell your story to any one." "You may tell Donna Sabina as much of it as you think she need hear. This is what happened. I served my time in a cavalry regiment--no matter where, and I had an intimate friend, nearly of my own age, and a Venetian. He was very much in love with a young girl of a respectable family, but not of his own station. Of course his family would not hear of a marriage, but she loved him, and he promised that he would marry her as soon as he had finished his military service, in spite of his own people. He would have been of age by that time, for he was only a few months younger than I, and he was willing to sacrifice most of his inheritance for love of the girl. Do you understand?" "Yes. Go on." "He and I were devotedly attached to each other, said I sympathized with him, of course, and promised to help him if he made a runaway match. He used to get leave for a couple of days, to go and see her, for she lived with her parents in a small city within two hours of our garrison town. You guess what happened.--They were young, they were foolish, and they were madly in love." The Princess nodded, and Malipieri continued. "Not long afterwards, my friend was killed by a fall. His horse crushed him. It was a horrible accident, and he lived twelve hours after it, in great pain. He would not let the doctors give him morphia. He said he would die like a man, and he did, with all his senses about him. While he lay dying, I was with him, and then he told me all the truth. The girl would not be able to conceal it much longer. There was no time to bring her to his bedside and marry her while he still breathed. He could not even leave her money, for he was a minor. He could do nothing for her and her parents would turn her into the street; in any case she was ruined. He was in frightful agony of mind for her sake, he was dying before my eyes, powerless to help her and taking his suffering and his fault with him to the next world, and he was my friend. I did what I could. I gave him my word of honour that I would marry her legally, give her and her child my name, and provide for them as well as I could. He thanked me--I shall never forget how he looked--and he died quietly, half an hour afterwards. You know now. I kept my word. That is all." The Princess looked at his quiet face a moment in silence, and all that was best in her rose up through all that was artificial and worldly, and untruthful and vain. "I did not know that there were such men," she said simply. CHAPTER XX "So he got out," said Gigi to Toto, filling the latter's glass to the brim. "May he die assassinated!" answered Toto. "I will burn a candle to the Madonna every day, in order that an apoplexy may seize him. He is the devil in person, this cursed engineer. Even the earth and the water will not have him. They spit him out, like that." Toto illustrated the simile with force and noise before drinking. Gigi's cunning face was wreathed in smiles. "You know nothing," he observed. "What is it?" asked Toto, with his glass in his hand and between two sips. "There was old Sassi, who was hurt, and the engineer's gaol-bird mason-servant. They were with him. It was all in the _Messaggero_ this morning." "I know that without the newspaper, you imbecile. It was I that told you, for I saw all three pass under the window while I was locked in. Is there anything else you know?" "Oh, yes! There was another person with them." "I daresay," Toto answered, pretending blank indifference. "He must have been close to the wall as they went by. What difference does it make since that pig of an engineer got out?" "The other person was caught with him when the water rose," said Gigi, who meant to give his information by inches. "Curse him, whoever he was! He helped the engineer and that is why they got out. No man alone could have broken through that wall in a night, except one of us." "The other person was only a woman, after all," answered Gigi. "But you do not care, I suppose." "Speak, animal of a Jesuit that you are!" cried Toto. "Do not make me lose my soul!" Gigi smiled and drank some of his wine. "There are people who would pay to know," he said, "and you would never tell me whether the sluice gate of the 'lost water' is under number thirteen or not." "It is under number thirteen, Master Judas. Speak!" "It was the little fair girl of Casa Conti who was caught with the engineer in the vaults." Even Toto was surprised, and opened his eyes and his mouth at the same time. "The little Princess Sabina?" he asked in a low voice. Gigi shrugged his shoulders with a pitying air and grinned. "I told you that you knew nothing," he observed in triumph. "They were together all night, and she slept in his room, and the Senator's wife came to get her in the morning. The engineer took the porter off to the cellars before they came down, so that he should not see her pass; but he forgot me, the old carpenter of the house, and I opened the postern for the two ladies to go out. The little Princess's skirt had been torn. I saw the pins with these eyes. It was also spotted with mud which had been brushed off. But thanks be to heaven I have still my sight. I see, and am not blind." "Are you sure it was she?" asked Toto, forgetting to curse anybody. "I saw her as I see you. Have I not seen her grow up, since she used to be wheeled about in a baby carriage in Piazza Navona, like a flower in a basket? Her nurse made love with the 'woodpecker' who was always on duty there." The Romans call the municipal watchmen "woodpeckers," because they wear little pointed cocked hats with a bunch of feathers. They have nothing to do with police soldiers, nor with the carabineers. Toto made Gigi tell him everything he knew. At the porter's suggestion Volterra had sent for the mason, as the only man who knew anything about the "lost water," and Toto had agreed, with apparent reluctance, to do what he could at once, as soon as he had satisfied himself that Malipieri had really made another opening by which the statues could be reached. Toto laid down conditions, however. He pretended that he must expose himself to great danger, and insisted upon being paid fifty francs for the job. Furthermore, he obtained from Volterra, in the presence of the porter as witness, a formal promise that his grandfather's bones should have Christian burial, with a fine hearse and feathers, and a permanent grave in the cemetery of Saint Lawrence, which latter is rather an expensive luxury, beyond the means of the working people. But the Baron made no objection. The story would look very well in a newspaper paragraph, as a fine illustration of the Senator's liberality as well as of his desire to maintain the forms of religion. It would please everybody, and what will do that is cheap at any price, in politics. The result of these negotiations had of course been that the water had subsided in the vaults within a few hours, and Toto even found a way of draining the outer cellars, which had been flooded to the depth of a couple of feet, because the first breach made by Malipieri had turned out to be an inch or two lower than the level of the overflow shaft. When the two workmen had exchanged confidences, they ordered another half litre of wine, and sat in silence till the grimy host had set it down between them on the blackened table, and had retired to his den. Then they looked at each other. "There is an affair here," observed Gigi presently. "I suppose you mean the newspapers," said Toto nodding gravely. "They pay for such stories." "Newspapers!" Gigi made a face. "All journalists are pigs who are dying of hunger." Toto seemed inclined to agree with this somewhat extreme statement, on the whole, but he distinguished. There were papers, he said, which would pay as much as a hundred francs for a scandalous story about the Roman princes. A hundred francs was not a gold mine, it was not Peru. But it was a hundred francs. What did Gigi expect? The treasure of Saint Peter's? A story was a story, after all, and anybody could deny it. "It is worth more than a hundred francs," Gigi answered, with his weasel smile, "but not to the newspapers. The honour of a Roman princess is worth a hundred thousand." Toto whistled, and then looked incredulous, but it began to dawn upon him that the "affair" was of more importance than he had supposed. Gigi was much cleverer than he; that was why he always called Gigi an imbecile. The carpenter unfolded his plan. He knew as well as any one that the Conti were ruined and could not raise any such sum as he proposed to demand, even to save Sabina's good name. It would apparently be necessary to extract the blackmail from Volterra by some means to be discovered. On the other hand, Volterra was not only rich, he also possessed much power, and it would be somewhat dangerous to incur his displeasure. Toto, though dull, had a certain rough common sense and pointed this out. He said that the Princess must have jewels which she could sell to save her daughter from disgrace. She and Donna Sabina were at the Russian Embassy, for the _Messaggero_ said so. Gigi, who could write, might send her a letter there. "No doubt," assented the carpenter with a superior air. "I have some instruction, and can write a letter. But the jewels are paste. Half the Roman princesses wear sham jewellery nowadays. Do you suppose the Conti have not sold everything long ago? They had to live." "I do not see why," observed Toto. "Princes without money might as well be dead, an apoplexy on them all! Well, what do you propose to do? That old franc-eater of a Senator will not pay you for the girl's reputation, since she is not his daughter." "We must think," said Gigi. "Perhaps it would do no harm to write a letter to the Princess. The engineer is poor, of course. It is of no use to go to him." "All engineers are starving to death," Toto answered cheerfully. "I have seen them eat bread and onions and drink water, like us. Would they eat onions and dry bread if they could have meat? It is when they become contractors that they get money, by cheating the rich and strangling the poor. I know them. They are all evil people." "This is true," assented Gigi, "I have seen several, before this one." "This one is the eternal father of all assassins," growled Toto. "He talked of walling me up alive." "That was only a joke, to frighten you into holding your tongue," said Gigi. "And you did." "A fine joke! I wish you had been down there, hiding beside the gold statue instead of me, while two murderers sat by the little hole above and talked of walling it up for a week or ten days! A fine joke. The joke the cat makes to the mouse before eating it!" "I can tell the Princess that the money must be sent In thousand-franc notes," said Gigi, who was not listening. "It cannot go to the post-office registered, because it must be addressed to a false name. Somebody must bring it to us." "And bring the police to catch us at the same time," suggested Toto contemptuously. "That will not do." "She must bring it herself, to a safe place." "How?" "For instance, I can write that she must take a cab and drive out of the city on the Via Appia, and drive, and drive, until she meets two men--they will be you and me--one with a red handkerchief hanging out of his coat pocket, and the other with an old green riband for a band to his hat. I have an old green riband that will do. She must come alone in the cab. If we see any one with her, she shall not see us. She will not know how far out we shall be, so she cannot send the police to the place. It may be one mile from the gate, or five. I will write that if she does not come alone, the story will be printed in all the papers the next morning." Toto now looked at his friend with something almost like admiration. "I did not know that you had been a brigand," he remarked pleasantly. "That is well thought. Only the Princess may not be able to get the money, and if she does, she had better bring it in gold. We will then go to America." Neither of the men had the least idea that a hundred thousand francs in gold would be an uncommonly awkward and heavy load to carry. They supposed it would go into their pockets. "If she does not come, we will try the Senator before we publish the story," said Gigi. "By that time we shall have been able to think of some way of putting him under the oil-press to squeeze the gold out of him." "In any case, this is a good affair," Toto concluded, filling his pipe. "Nothing is bad which ends well, and we may both be gentlemen in America before long." So the two ruffians disposed of poor little Sabina's reputation in the reeking wine shop, very much to their own imaginary advantage; and the small yellow-and-blue clouds from their stinking pipes circled up slowly through the gloom into the darkness above their heads, as the light failed in the narrow street outside. Then Gigi, the carpenter, bought two sheets of paper and an envelope, and a pen and a wretched little bottle of ink, and a stamp, all at the small tobacconist's at the corner of Via della Scrofa, and went to Toto's lodging to compose his letter, because Toto lived alone, and there were no women in the house. Just at the same time, Volterra was leaving the Palazzo Madama, where the Senate sits, not a couple of hundred yards away. And the two workmen would have been very much surprised if they could have guessed what was beginning to grow in the fertile but tortuous furrows of his financial and political intelligence, and that in the end their schemes might possibly fall in with his. CHAPTER XXI As it had become manifestly impossible to keep the secret of the discovery in the Palazzo Conti any longer, Volterra had behaved with his accustomed magnanimity. He had not only communicated all the circumstances to the authorities at once, offering the government the refusal of the statues, which the law could not oblige him to sell if he chose to keep them in the palace, but also publicly giving full credit to the "learned archaeologist and intrepid engineer, Signer Marino Malipieri, already famous throughout Europe for his recent discoveries in Carthage." In two or three days the papers were full of Malipieri's praises. Those that were inclined to differ with the existing state of things called him a hero, and even a martyr of liberty, besides a very great man; and those which were staunch to the monarchy poked mild fun at his early political flights and congratulated him upon having descended from the skies, after burning his wings, not only to earth, but to the waters that are under the earth, returning to the upper air laden with treasures of art which reflected new glory upon Italy. All this was very fine, and much of it was undoubtedly true, but it did not in the least help Malipieri to solve the problem which had presented itself so suddenly in his life. The roads to happiness and to reputation rarely lead to the same point of the compass when he who hopes to attain both has more heart than ambition. It is not given to many, as it was to Baron Volterra, to lead an admiring, submissive and highly efficient wife up the broad steps of political power, financial success and social glory. Neither Caesar nor Bonaparte reached the top with the wife of his heart, yet Volterra, more moderately endowed, though with almost equal ambition, bade fair to climb high with the virtuous helpmeet of his choice on his arm. Malipieri slept badly and grew thinner during those days. His devotion to his dying friend had been absurdly quixotic, according to ordinary standards, but it had never seemed foolish to him, and he had never regretted it. He had always believed that a man of action and thought is freer to think and act if he remains unmarried, and it had never occurred to him that he might fall in love with a young girl, without whom life would seem empty. He was quixotic, generous and impulsive, but like many men who do extremely romantic things, he thought himself quite above sentimentality and entirely master of his heart. Hitherto the theory had worked very well, because he had never really tried to practise it. Nothing had seemed easier than not to fall in love with marriageable young women, and he had grown used to believing that he never could. With that brutality to his own feelings of which only a thoroughly sentimental man is capable, he left the Palazzo Conti on the day following the adventure, and took rooms in a hotel in the upper part of the city. Nothing would have induced him to spend a night in his room since Sabina's head had lain upon his pillow. With Volterra's powerful help, Masin had been released, though poor Sassi had not returned to consciousness, and Malipieri learned that the old man had changed his mind at the last minute, had insisted upon trying to follow Sabina after all, and had fallen heavily upon his head in trying to get down into the first chamber; while Masin, behind him, implored him to come back, or at least to wait for help where he was. The rest needs no explanation. Malipieri took a few things with him to the hotel, and left Masin to collect his papers and books on the following day, instructing him to send the scanty furniture, linen and household belongings to the nearest auction rooms, to be sold at once. Masin, none the worse for a night and day in prison, came back to his functions as if nothing had happened. He and his master had been in more than one adventure together. This one was over and he was quite ready for the next. There was probably not another man in Italy, and there are not many alive anywhere, who would have done what Malipieri did, out of pure sentiment and nothing else. To him, it seemed like a natural sacrifice to his inward honour, to refuse which would have been cowardly. He had weakly allowed himself to fall in love with a girl whom he could not possibly marry, and whom he respected as much as he loved. He guessed, though he tried to deny it, that she was more than half in love with him, since love sometimes comes by halves. To lie where she had lain, dreaming of her with his aching eyes open and his blood on fire, would be a violation of her maiden privacy, morally not much less cowardly in the spirit than it could have been in the letter, since he could not marry her. The world laughs at such refinements of delicate feeling in a man, but cannot help inwardly respecting them a little, as it respects many things at which it jeers and rails. Moreover, Malipieri did not care a fig for the world's opinion, and if he had needed to take a motto he would have chosen "Si omnes, ego non"; for if there was a circumstance which always inclined him to do anything especially quixotic, it was the conviction that other people would probably do the exact opposite. So Masin took the furniture to an auction room on a cart, and Malipieri never saw it again. While the press was ringing his praises, and he himself was preparing a carefully written paper on the two statues, while the public was pouring into the gate of the Palazzo Conti to see them, and Volterra was driving a hard bargain with the government for their sale, he lived in a state of anxiety and nervousness impossible to describe. He was haunted by the fear that some one might find out where Sabina had been on the night after she had left Volterra's house, and the mere thought of such a possibility was real torment, worse than the knowledge that he could never marry her, and that without her his life did not seem worth living. Whatever happened to Sabina would be the result of his folly in taking her to the vaults. He might recover from any wound he had himself received, but to see the good name of the innocent girl he loved utterly ruined and dragged through the mud of newspaper scandal would be a good deal worse than being flayed alive. It was horrible to think of it, and yet he could not keep it out of his thoughts. There had been too many people about the palace on the morning when Sabina had left it with the Baroness. Especially, there had been that carpenter, of whom no one had thought till it was too late. If Gigi had recognized Sabina, that would be Malipieri's fault too, for Volterra had not known that the man had been employed about the house for years. A week passed, and nothing happened. He had neither seen Sabina nor heard of her from any one. He was besieged by journalists, artists, men of letters and men of learning, and the municipal authorities had declared their intention of giving a banquet in his honour and Volterra's, to celebrate the safe removal of the two statues from the vault in which they had lain so long. He, who hated noisy feasting and speech-making above all things, could not refuse the public invitation. All sorts of people came to see him, in connection with the whole affair, and he was at last obliged to shut himself in during several hours of the day, in order to work at his dissertation. Masin alone was free to reach him in case of any urgent necessity. One morning, while he was writing, surrounded by books, drawings and papers, Masin came and stood silently at his elbow, waiting till it should please him to look up. Malipieri carefully finished the sentence he had begun, and laid down his pen. Then Masin spoke. "There is a lady downstairs, sir, who says that you will certainly receive her upon very important business. She would not give her name, but told the porter to try and get me to hand you this note." Malipieri sighed wearily and opened the note without even glancing at the address. He knew that Sabina would not write to him, and no one else interested him in the least. But he looked at the signature before reading the lines, and his expression changed. The dowager Princess Conti wrote a few words to say that she must see him at once and was waiting. That was all, but his heart sank. He sent Masin to show her the way, and sat resting his forehead in his hand until she appeared. She entered and stood before him, softly magnificent as a sunset in spring; looking as even a very stout woman of fifty can, if she has a matchless complexion, perfect teeth, splendid eyes, faultless taste, a wonderful dressmaker and a maid who does not hate her. Malipieri vaguely wondered how Sabina could be her daughter, drew an armchair into place for her, and sat down again by his writing-table. The windows were open and the blinds were drawn together to keep out the glare, for it was a hot day. A vague and delicious suggestion of Florentine orris-root spread through the warm air as the Princess sat down. Malipieri watched her face, but her expression showed no signs of any inward disturbance. "Are you sure that nobody will interrupt us?" she asked, as Masin went out and shut the door. "Quite sure. What can I do to serve you?" "I have had this disgusting letter." She produced a small, coarse envelope from the pale mauve pocket-book she carried in her hand, and held it out to Malipieri, who took it and read it carefully. It was not quite easy for him to understand, as Gigi wrote in the Roman dialect without any particular punctuation, and using capitals whenever it occurred to him, except at the beginning of a sentence. To Malipieri, as a Venetian, it was at first sight about as easy as a chorus of Aeschylus looks to an average pass-man. As the sense became clear to him, his eyelids contracted and his face was drawn as if he were in bodily pain. "When did you get this?" he asked, folding the letter and putting it back into the envelope. "Five or six days ago, I think. I am not sure of the date, but it does not matter. It says the money must be paid in ten days, does it not? Yes--something like that. I know there is some time left. I have come to you because I have tried everything else." "Everything else?" cried Malipieri, in sudden anxiety. "What in the world have you tried?" "I sent for Volterra the day after I got this." "Oh!" Malipieri was somewhat relieved. "What did he advise you to do? To employ a detective?" "O dear, no! Nothing so simple and natural. That man is an utter brute, and I am sorry I left Sabina so long with his wife. She would have been much better in the convent with her sister. I am afraid that is where she will end, poor child, and it will be all your fault, though you never meant any harm. You do not think you could divorce and marry her, do you?" Malipieri stared at her a moment, and then bit his lip to check the answer. He had no right to resent whatever she chose to say to him, for he was responsible for all the trouble and for Sabina's good name. "There is no divorce law in Italy," he answered, controlling himself. "Why do you say that Volterra is an utter brute? What did he advise you to do?" "He offered to silence the creature who wrote this letter if I would make a bargain with him. He said he would pay the money, if I would give Sabina to his second son, who is a cavalry officer in Turin, and whom none of us has ever seen." Malipieri's lips moved, but he said nothing that could be heard. A vein that ran down the middle of his forehead was swollen, and there was a bad look in his eyes. "I would rather see the child dead than married to one of those disgusting people," the Princess said. "Did you ever hear of such impertinence?" "You let her live with them for more than two months," observed Malipieri. "I know I did. It was simply impossible to think of anything better in the confusion, and as they offered to take charge of her, I consented. Yes, it was foolish, but I did not suppose that they would let her go off in a cab with that old dotard and stay out all night." Malipieri felt as if she were driving a blunt nail into his head. "Poor Sassil" he said. "He was buried yesterday." "Was he? I am not in the least sorry for him. He always made trouble, and this was the worst of all Sabina almost cried because I would not let her go and see him at the hospital. You know, he never spoke after he was taken there--he did not feel anything." Malipieri wondered whether the Princess, in another sense, had ever felt anything, a touch of real pity, or real love, for any human being. He did not remember to have ever met a woman who had struck him as so utterly heartless; and yet he could not forget the look that had come into her face, and the simple word she had spoken, when he had told her his story. "I understand that you refused Volterra's proposal," he said, returning to the present trouble. "Do you mean to say that he declined to help you unless you would accept it?" "Oh, no! He only said that as I was not disposed to accept what would make it so much easier, he would have to think it over. I have not seen him since." "But you understand what he had planned, do you not?" Malipieri asked. "It is very simple." "It is not so clear to me. I am not at all clever, you know." The Princess laughed carelessly. "He must have a very good reason for offering to pay a hundred thousand francs in order that his son may marry Sabina, who has not a penny. I confess, if it were not an impertinence, it would look like a foolish caprice. I suppose he thinks it would be socially advantageous." Her lip curled and showed her even white teeth. "His wife is a snob," Malipieri answered, "but Volterra does not care for anything but power and money, except perhaps for the sort of reputation he has, which helps him to get both." "Then of what possible use could it be to him to marry his son to Sabina, and to throw all that money away for the sake of getting her?" Malipieri hesitated, not sure whether it would be wise to tell her all he thought. "In the first place," he said slowly, "I do not believe he would really pay the blackmail, or if he did, he would catch the man, get the money back, and have him sent to penal servitude. He is very clever, and in his position he can have whatever help he asks from the government, especially in a just cause, as that would be. Perhaps he thinks that he has guessed who the man is." "Have you any idea?" asked the Princess, glancing down at the dirty little letter she still held. "In the second place," Malipieri continued, without heeding the question, "I am almost sure that when you were in difficulties, two or three months ago, he got the better of you, as he gets the better of every one. With the value of these statues, he has probably pocketed a couple of million francs by the transaction." "The wretch!" exclaimed the Princess. "I wish you were my lawyer! You have such a clear way of putting things." Even then Malipieri smiled. "I have always believed what I have just told you," he answered. "That was the reason why I hoped that Donna Sabina might yet recover what she should have had from the estate. Volterra is sure that if you can take proper steps, you will recover a large sum, and that is why he is so anxious to marry his son to your daughter. He thinks the match would settle the whole affair." "The idiot! As if I did not need the money myself!" Again Malipieri smiled. "But you will not get it," he answered. "You will certainly not get it if Volterra is interested in the matter, for it will all go to your daughter. Your other two children have had their share of their father's estate, and that of the daughters should have amounted to at least two millions each. But Donna Sabina has never had a penny. Whatever is recovered from Volterra will go to her, not to you." "It would be the same thing," observed the Princess carelessly. "Not exactly," Malipieri said, "for the court will appoint legal guardians, and the money will be paid to her intact when she comes of age. In other words, if she marries Volterra's son, the little fortune will return to Volterra's family. But of course, if you consented to the marriage, he would compromise for the money, before the suit was brought, by settling the two millions upon his daughter-in-law, and if he offered to do that, as he would, no respectable lawyer in the world would undertake to carry on the suit, because Volterra would have acted in strict justice. Do you see?" "Yes. It is very disappointing, but I suppose you are right." "I know I am, except about the exact sum involved. I am an architect by profession, I know something of Volterra's affairs and I do not think I am very far wrong. Very good. But Volterra has accidentally got hold of a terrible weapon against you, in the shape of this blackmailer's letter." "Then you advise me to accept his offer after all?" "He knows that you must, unless you can find something better. You are in his power." "But why should I, if I am to get nothing by it?" asked the Princess absent-mindedly. "There is Donna Sabina's good name at stake," Malipieri answered, with a little sternness. "I had forgotten. Of course! How stupid of me!" For a moment Malipieri knew that he should like to box her ears, woman though she was; then he felt a sort of pity for her, such as one feels for half-witted creatures that cannot help themselves nor control their instincts. "Then I must accept, and let Sabina marry that man," she said, after a moment's silence. "Tell me frankly, is that what you think I ought to do?" "If Donna Sabina wishes to marry him, it will be a safe solution," Malipieri answered steadily. "My dear man, she is in love with you!" cried the Princess in one of her sudden fits of frankness. "She told me so the other day in so many words, when she was so angry because I would not let her go to see poor old Sassi die. She said that you and he and her schoolmistress were the only human beings who had ever been good to her, or for whom she had ever cared, You may just as well know it, since you cannot marry her!" In a calmer moment, Malipieri might have doubted the logic of the last statement; but at the present moment he was not very calm, and he turned a pencil nervously in his fingers, standing it alternately on its point and its blunt end, upon the blotting-paper beside him, and looking at the marks it made. "How can she possibly wish to marry that Volterra creature?" asked the Princess, by way of conclusion. "She will have to, that is all, whether she likes it or not. After all, nobody seems to care much, nowadays," she added in a tone of reflection. "It is only the idea I always heard that Volterra kept a pawnshop in Florence, and then became a dealer in bric-a-brac, and afterwards a banker, and all sorts of things. But it may not be true, and after all, it is only prejudice. A banker may be a very respectable person, you know." "Certainly," assented Malipieri, wishing that he could feel able to smile at her absurd talk, as a sick man wishes that he could feel hungry when he sees a dish he likes very much, and only feels the worse for the mere thought of touching food. "Nothing but prejudice," the Princess repeated. "I daresay he was never really a pawnbroker and is quite respectable. By the bye, do you think he wrote this letter himself? It would be just like him." "No," Malipieri answered. "I am sure he did not. Volterra never did anything in his life which could not at least be defended in law. The letter is genuine." "Then there is some one who knows, besides ourselves and Volterra and his wife?" "Yes. I am sure of it." "You are so clever. You must be able to find out who it is." "I will try. But I am sure of one thing. Even if the money is not paid on the day, the story will not be published at once. The man will try again and again to get money from you. There is plenty of time." "Unless it is a piece of servants' vengeance," the Princess said. "Our servants were always making trouble before we left the palace, I could never understand why. If it is that, we shall never be safe. Will you come and see me, if you think of any plan?" She rose to go. "I will go to the Embassy to-morrow afternoon, between three and four." "Thanks. Do you know? I really cannot help liking you, though I think you are behaving abominably. I am sure you could get a divorce in Switzerland." "We will not talk about that," Malipieri answered, a little harshly. When she was gone, he called Masin, and then, instead of explaining what he wanted, he threw himself into an armchair and sat in silence for nearly half an hour. Masin was used to his master's ways and did not speak, but occupied himself in noiselessly dusting the mantelpiece at least a hundred times over. CHAPTER XXII Volterra had not explained to the Princess the reason why her acceptance of his offer would make it so much easier for him to help her out of her difficulty. He had only said that it would, for he never explained anything to a woman if an explanation could be avoided, and he had found that there are certain general ways of stating things to which women will assent rather than seem not to understand. If the Princess had asked questions, he would have found plausible answers, but she did not. She refused his offer, saying that she had other views for her daughter. She promptly invented a rich cousin in Poland, who had fallen in love with Sabina's photograph and was only waiting for her to be eighteen years old in order to marry her. She had gone to Malipieri as a last resource, not thinking it probable that he could help her, or that he would change his mind and try to free himself in order to marry Sabina. She came back with the certainty that he would not do the latter and could not give any real assistance. So far, she had not spoken to Sabina of her interview with the Baron, but she felt that the time had come to sound her on the subject of the marriage, since there might not be any other way. She had not lost time since her arrival, for she had at once seen one of the best lawyers in Rome, who looked after such legal business as the Russian Embassy occasionally had; and he had immediately applied for a revision of the settlement of the Conti affairs, on the ground of large errors in the estimates of the property, supporting his application with the plea that many of the proceedings in the matter had been technically faulty because certain documents should have been signed by Sabina, as a minor interested in the estate, and whose consent was necessary. He was of opinion that the revision would certainly be granted, but he would say nothing as to the amount which might be recovered by the Conti family. As a matter of fact, the settlement had been made hastily, between Volterra, old Sassi and a notary who was not a lawyer; and Volterra, who knew what he was about, and profited largely by it, had run the risk of a revision being required. For the rest, Malipieri's explanation of his motives was the true one. At the first suggestion of a marriage with Volterra's son Sabina flatly refused to entertain the thought. She made no outcry, she did not even raise her voice, nor change colour; but she planted her little feet firmly together on the footstool before her chair, folded her hands in her lap and looked straight at her mother. "I will not marry him," she said. "It is of no use to try to make me. I will not." Her mother began to draw a flattering though imaginary portrait of the young cavalry officer, and enlarged upon his fortune and future position. Volterra was immensely rich, and though he was not quite one of themselves, society had accepted him, his sons had been admirably brought up, and would be as good as any one. There was not a prince in Rome who would not be glad to make such a match for his daughter. "It is quite useless, mother," said Sabina. "I would not marry him if he were Prince Colonna and had the Rothschilds' money." "That is absurd," answered the Princess. "Just because you have taken a fancy to that Malipieri, who cannot marry you because he has done the most insane thing any one ever heard of." "It was splendid," Sabina retorted. "Besides," her mother said, "you do not know that it is true." Sabina's eyes flashed. "Whatever he says, is true," she answered, "and you know it is. He never lied in his life!" "No," said the Princess, "I really think he never did." "Then why did you suggest such a thing, when you know that I love him?" "One says things, sometimes," replied the Princess vaguely. "I did not really mean it, and I cannot help liking the man. I told him so this morning. Now listen. Volterra is a perfect beast, and if you refuse, he is quite capable of letting that story get about, and you will be ruined." "I will go into a convent." "You know that you hate Clementina," observed the Princess. "Of course I do. She used to beat me when I was small, because she said I was wicked. Of course I hate her. I shall join the Little Sisters of the Poor, or be a Sister of Charity. Even Clementina could not object to that, I should think." "You are a little fool!" To this observation Sabina made no reply, for it was not new to her, and she paid no attention to it. She supposed that all mothers called their children fools when they were angry. It was one of the privileges of motherhood. The discussion ended there, for Sabina presently went away and shut herself up in her room, leaving her mother to meditate in solitude on the incredible difficulties that surrounded her. Sabina was thinking, too, but her thoughts ran in quite another direction, as she sat bolt upright on a straight-backed chair, staring at the wall opposite. She was wondering how Malipieri looked at that moment, and how it was possible that she should not even have seen him since she had left his rooms with the Baroness a week ago, and more; and why, when every hour had dragged like an age, it seemed as if they had parted only yesterday, sure to meet again. She sat still a long time, trying to think out a future for herself, a future life without Malipieri and yet bearable. It would have been easy before the night in the vaults; it would have seemed possible a week ago, though very hard; now, it was beyond her imagination. She had talked of entering a sisterhood, but she knew that she did not mean to do it, even if her reputation were ruined. She guessed that in that event her mother would try to force her into a convent. The Princess was not the sort of woman who would devote the rest of her life to consoling her disgraced daughter, no matter how spotlessly blameless the girl might be. She would look upon her as a burden and a nuisance, would shut her up if she could, and would certainly go off to Russia or to Paris, to amuse herself as far as possible from the scene of Sabina's unfortunate adventure. "Poor child!" she would say to her intimate friends, "She was perfectly innocent, of course, but there was nothing else to be done. No decent man would have married her, you know!" And she would tell Malipieri's story to everybody, too, to explain why he had not married Sabina. She had no heart at all, for her children or for any one else. She had always despised her son for his weaknesses and miserable life, and she had always laughed at her elder daughter; if she had been relatively kind to Sabina, it was because the girl had never given any trouble nor asked for anything extravagantly inconvenient. She had never felt the least sympathy with the Roman life into which she had been brought by force, and after her husband had died she had plainly shown his quiet Roman relatives what she thought of them. She would cast Sabina off without even a careless kind word, if Sabina became a drag on her and hindered her from doing what she pleased in the world. And this would happen, if the story about the night in the Palazzo Conti were made public. Just so long, and no longer, would the Princess acknowledge her daughter's existence; and that meant so long as Volterra chose that the secret should be kept. At least, Sabina thought so. But matters turned out differently and were hurried to an issue in a terribly unexpected way. Both Volterra and Malipieri had guessed that the anonymous letter had been written by Gigi, the carpenter, but Volterra had seen it several days before the Princess had shown it to Malipieri. Not unnaturally, the Baron thought that it would be a good move to get the man into his power. Italy is probably not the only country where men powerful in politics and finance can induce the law to act with something more than normal promptitude, and Volterra, as usual, was not going to do anything illegal. The Minister of Justice, too, was one of those men who had been fighting against the Sicilian "mafia" and the Neapolitan "camorra" for many years, and he hated all blackmailers with a just and deadly hatred. He was also glad to oblige the strong Senator, who was just now supporting the government with his influence and his millions. Volterra was sure of the culprit's identity and explained that the detective who had been sent to investigate the palace after Sassi's accident had seen the carpenter and would recognize him. Nothing would be easier than to send for Gigi to do a job at the palace, towards evening, to arrest him as soon as he came, and to take him away quietly. This was done, and in twenty-four hours Gigi was safely lodged in a cell by himself, with orders that he was on no account to be allowed any communication with other prisoners. Then Volterra went to see him, and instead of threatening him, offered him his help if he would only tell the exact truth. Gigi was frightened out of his wits and grasped at the straw, though he did not trust the Baron much. He told what he had done; but with the loyalty to friends, stimulated by the fear of vengeance, which belongs to the Roman working man, he flatly denied that he had an accomplice. Yes, he had spoken in the letter of two men who would be walking on the Via Appia, and he had intended to take his brother-in-law with him, but he said that he had not meant to explain why he took him until the last minute. It was a matter for the galleys! Did his Excellency the Senator suppose that he would trust anybody with that, until it was necessary? The consequence was that Gigi was kept quietly in prison for a few days before any further steps were taken, having been arrested at the instance of the Ministry of Justice for trying to extract blackmail from the Conti family, and being undoubtedly guilty of the misdeed. Volterra's name did not even appear in the statement. Malipieri had not Volterra's influence, and intended to try more personal methods with the carpenter; but when he appeared at the palace in the afternoon, and asked the porter to go and call Gigi, the old man shook his head and said that Gigi had been in prison three days, and that nobody knew why he had been arrested. The matter had not even been mentioned by the _Messaggero_. Malipieri had never connected Toto with Gigi, and did not even know that the two men were acquainted with each other. He had not the slightest doubt but that it was Toto who had caused the water to rise in the well, out of revenge, but he knew that it would now be impossible to prove it. Strange to say, Malipieri bore him no grudge, for he knew the people well, and after all, he himself had acted in a high-handed way. Nevertheless, he asked the porter if the man were anywhere in the neighbourhood. But Toto had not been seen for some time. He had not even been to the wine shop, and was probably at work in some distant part of Rome. Perhaps he was celebrating his grandfather's funeral with his friends. Nobody could tell where he might be. Malipieri went back to his hotel disconsolately. That evening he read in the _Italie_ that after poor Sassi had been buried, the authorities had at once proceeded to take charge of his property and effects, because the old woman-servant had declared that he had no near relations in the world; and the notary who had served the Conti family had at once produced Sassi's will. He had left all his little property, valued roughly at over a hundred thousand francs, to Donna Sabina Conti. Had any one known it, the date of the will was that of the day on which he had received her little note thanking him for burying her canary, out on Monte Mario. The notary's brother and son, notaries themselves, were named as guardians. The income was to be paid to Sabina at once, the capital on her marriage. The newspaper paragraph recalled the ruin of the great family, and spoke of the will as a rare instance of devotion in an old and trusted servant. Sabina and the Princess learned the news at dinner that evening from a young attache of the Embassy who always read the _Italie_ because it is published in French, and he had not yet learned Italian. He laughingly congratulated Sabina on her accession to a vast fortune. To every one's amazement, Sabina's eyes filled with tears, though even her own mother had scarcely ever seen her cry. She tried hard to control herself, pressed her lids hastily with her fingers, bit her lips till they almost bled, and then, as the drops rolled down her cheeks in spite of all she could do, she left the table with a broken word of excuse. "She is nothing but a child, still," the Princess explained in a tone of rather condescending pity. The young attache was sorry for having laughed when he told the story. He had not supposed that Donna Sabina knew much about the old agent, and after dinner he apologized to his ambassador for his lack of tact. "That little girl has a heart of gold," answered the wise old man of the world. The Princess had a profoundly superstitious belief in luck, and was convinced that Sabina's and her own had turned with this first piece of good fortune, and that on the following day Malipieri would appear and tell her that he had caught the writer of the letter and was ready to divorce his wife in order to marry Sabina. Secure in these hopes she slept eight hours without waking, as she always did. But she was destined to the most complete disappointment of her life, and to spend one of the most horribly unpleasant days she could remember. Long before she was awake boys and men, with sheaves of damp papers, were yelling the news in the Corso and throughout Rome. "The _Messaggero!_ The great scandal in Casa Conti! The _Messaggero!_ One sou!" CHAPTER XXIII Toto had done it. In his heart, the thick-headed, practical fellow had never quite believed in Gigi's ingenious scheme, and the idea of getting a hundred thousand francs had seemed very visionary. Since Gigi had got himself locked up it would be more sensible to realize a little cash for the story from the _Messaggero_, saying nothing about the carpenter. The only lie he needed to invent was to the effect that he had been standing near the door of the palace when Sabina had come out. The porter, being relieved from the order to keep the postern shut against everybody had been quite willing to gossip with Toto about the detective's visit, the closed room and Malipieri's refusal to let any one enter it. As for what had happened in the vaults, Toto could reconstruct the exact truth much more accurately than Gigi could have done, even with his help. It was a thrilling story; the newspaper paid him well for it and printed it with reservations. There was not a suggestion of offence to Sabina, such as might have afforded ground for an action against the paper, or against those that copied the story from it. The writer was careful to extol Malipieri's heroic courage and strength, and to point out that Sabina had been half-dead of fatigue and cold, as Toto knew must have been the case. It was all a justification, and not in the least an accusation. But the plain, bald fact was proved, that Donna Sabina Conti had spent the night in the rooms of the now famous Signor Malipieri, no one else being in the apartment during the whole time. He had saved her life like a hero, and had acted like a Bayard in all he had done for the unfortunate young lady. It was an adventure worthy of the middle ages. It was magnificent. Her family, informed at once by Malipieri, had come to get her on the following morning. Toto had told the people at the office of the _Messaggero_, who it was that had represented the "family," but the little newspaper was far too worldly-wise to mention Volterra in such a connection. Donna Sabina, the article concluded, was now with her mother at the Russian Embassy. The evening papers simply enlarged upon this first story, and in the same strain. Malipieri was held up to the admiration of the public. Sabina's name was treated with profound respect, there was not a word which could be denied with truth, or resented with a show of justice. And yet, in Italy, and most of all in Rome, it meant ruin to Sabina, and the reprobation of all decent people upon Malipieri if he did not immediately marry her. It was the ambassador himself who informed the Princess of what had happened, coming himself to the sitting-room as soon as he learned that she was visible. He stayed with her a long time, and they sent for Sabina, who was by far the least disturbed of the three. It was all true, she said, and there was nothing against her in the article. Masin brought the news to Malipieri with his coffee, and the paper itself. Malipieri scarcely ever read it, but Masin never failed to, and his big, healthy face was very grave. Malipieri felt as if he were going to have brain fever, as his eye ran along the lines. "Masin," he said, when he had finished, "did you ever kill a man?" "No, sir," answered Masin. "You have always believed that I was innocent, though I had to serve my seven years." "I did not mean that," said Malipieri. Then he sat a long time with his untasted coffee at his elbow and the crumpled little sheet in his hand. "Of course, sir," Masin said at last, "I owe you everything, and if you ordered me--" He paused significantly, but his master did not understand. "What?" he asked, starting nervously. "Well, sir, if it were necessary for your safety, that somebody should be killed, I would risk the galleys for life, sir. What am I, without you?" Malipieri laughed a little wildly, and dropped the paper. "No, my friend," he said presently, "we would risk our lives for each other, but we are not murderers. Besides, there is nobody to be killed, unless you will have the goodness to put a bullet through my head." And he laughed again, in a way that frightened the quiet man beside him. What drove him almost mad was that he was powerless. He longed to lay his hands on the editor of the paper, yet there was not a word, not a suggestion, not an implied allusion for which any man in his senses could have demanded an apology. It was the plain truth, and nothing else; except that it was adorned by fragmentary panegyrics of himself, which made it even more exasperating if that were possible. He had not only wrecked Sabina's reputation by his quixotic folly; he was to be praised to the skies for doing it. His feverish anger turned into a dull pain that was much worse. The situation looked utterly hopeless. Masin stood still beside him watching him with profound concern, and presently took the cup of coffee and held it to his lips. He drank a little, like a sick man, only half consciously, and drew back, and shook his head. Masin did not know what to do and waited in mute distress, as a big dog, knowing that his master is in trouble, looks up into his face and feebly wags his sympathetic tail, just a little, at long intervals, and then keeps quite still. Malipieri gradually recovered his senses enough to think connectedly, and he tried to remember whether he had ever heard of a situation like his own. As he was neither a novelist nor a critic, he failed, and frankly asked himself whether suicide might not be a way out of the difficulty for Sabina. He was not an unbeliever, and he had always abhorred and despised the idea of suicide, as most thoroughly healthy men do when it occurs to them; but if at that time he could have persuaded himself that his death could undo the harm he had brought upon Sabina he would not have hesitated a moment. Neither his body nor his soul could matter much in comparison with her good name. Hell was full of people who had got there because they had done bad things for their own advantage; if he went there, it would at least not be for that. He did not think of hell at all, just then, nor of heaven or of anything else that was very far off. He only thought of Sabina, and if he once wished himself dead for his own sake, he drove the cowardly thought away. As long as he was alive, he could still do something for her--surely, there must be something that he could do. There must be a way out, if he could only use his wits and his strength, as he had made a way out of the vaults, for her to pass through, ten days ago. There was nothing, or at least he could think of nothing, that could help her. To try and free himself from the bond he had put upon himself would be to break a solemn promise given to a dying man whom he had dearly loved. The woman he had seen that once, to marry her and leave her, had been worthy of the sacrifice, too, as far as lay in her. He had given her a small income, enough for her and her little girl to live on comfortably. She had not only kept within it, but had learned to support herself, little by little, till she had refused to take the money that was sent to her. At regular times, she wrote to him, as to a benefactor, touching and truthful letters, with news of the growing child. He knew that it was all without affectation of any sort, and that she had turned out a thoroughly good and honest woman. The little girl knew that her father was dead, and that her own name was really and legally Malipieri, beyond a doubt. Her mother kept the copy of her certificate of birth together with the certificate of marriage. The Signora Malipieri lived as a widow in Florence and gave lessons in music and Italian. She had never asked but one thing of Malipieri, which was that he would never try to see her, nor let her daughter know that he was alive. It was easy to promise that. He knew that she had been most faithful to her lover's memory, cherishing the conviction that in the justice of heaven he was her true husband, as he would have been indeed had he lived but a few months longer. She was bringing up her child to be like herself, save for her one fault. Malipieri had settled a sufficient dowry on the girl, lest anything should happen to him before she was old enough to marry. The mere suggestion of divorcing a woman who had acted as she had done since his friend's death, was horrible to him. It was like receiving a blow in the face, it was mud upon his honour, it was an insult to his conscience, it was far worse than merely taking back a gift once given in a generous impulse. If he had felt himself capable of such baseness he could never again have looked honest men fairly in the eyes. It would mean that he must turn upon her, to insult her by accusing her of something she had never done; he knew nothing of the divorce laws in foreign countries, except that Italians could obtain divorce by a short residence and could then come back and marry again under Italian law. That was all he knew. The Princess had not asked of him a legal impossibility, but he had felt, when she spoke, that it would be easier to explain the dogma of papal infallibility to a Chinese pirate than to make her understand how he felt towards the good woman who had a right to live under his name and had borne it so honourably for many years. Sabina would understand. He wished now, with all his heart, that in the hours they had spent together he had told her the secret which he had been obliged to confide to her mother. He wondered whether she knew it, and hoped that she did. She would at least understand his silence now, she would know why he was not at the Embassy that morning as soon as he could be received by her mother. She might not forgive him, because she knew that he loved her, but she would see why he could not divorce in order to marry her. An hour passed, and two hours, and still he sat in his chair, while Masin came and went softly, as if his master were ill. Then reporters sent up cards, with urgently polite requests to be received, and he had to give orders that he was not to be disturbed on any account. He would see no one, he would answer no questions, until he had made up his mind what to do. At last he rose, shook himself, walked twice up and down the room and then spoke to Masin. "I am going out," he said. "I shall be back in an hour." He had seen that there was at least one thing which he must do at once, and after stopping short, stunned to stupor by what had happened, his life began to move on again. It was manifestly his duty to see the Princess again, and he knew that she would receive him, for she would think that he had changed his mind after all, and meant to free himself. He must see her and say something, he knew not what, to convince her that he was acting honourably. He was shown to her sitting-room, as if he were expected. It was not long since the ambassador had left her and her daughter had gone back to her room, and she was in a humour in which he had not seen her before, as he guessed when he saw her face. Her wonderful complexion was paler than usual, her brows were drawn together, her eyes were angry, there was nothing languid or careless in her attitude, and she held her head high. "I expected you," she said. "I sent word that you were to come up at once." She did not even put out her hand, but there was a chair opposite her and she nodded towards it. He sat down, feeling that a struggle was before him. "The ambassador has just been here," she said. "He brought the newspaper with him, and I have read the article. I suppose you have seen it." Malipieri bent his head, but kept his eyes upon her. "I have told the ambassador that Sabina is engaged to marry you," she said calmly. Malipieri started and sat upright in his chair. If he had known her better, he might have guessed that what she said was untrue, as yet; but she had made the statement with magnificent assurance. "Your engagement will be announced in the papers this evening," she continued. "Shall you deny it?" She looked at him steadily, and he returned her gaze, but for a long time he could not answer. She had him at a terrible advantage. "I shall not deny it publicly," he said at last. "That would be an injury to your daughter." "Shall you deny it at all?" She was conscious of her strong position, and meant to hold it. "I shall write to the lady who is living under my name, and I shall tell her the circumstances, and that I am obliged to allow the announcement to be made by you." "Give me your word that you will not deny your engagement to any one else. You know that I have a right to require that. My daughter knows that you are married." Malipieri hesitated only a moment. "I give you my word," he said. She rose at once and went towards one of the doors, without looking at him. He wondered whether she meant to dismiss him rudely, and stood looking after her. She stopped a moment, with her hand on the knob of the lock, and glanced back. "I will call Sabina," she said, and she was gone. He stood still and waited, and two or three minutes passed before Sabina entered. She glanced at him, smiled rather gravely, and looked round the room as she came forward, as if expecting to see some one else. "Where is my mother?" she asked, holding out her hand. "She said she was going to call you," Malipieri answered. "So she did, and she told me she was coming back to you, because I was not quite ready." "She did not come back." "She means us to be alone," Sabina said, and suddenly she took both his hands and pressed them a little, shaking them up and down, almost childishly. "I am so glad!" she cried. "I was longing to see you!" Even then, Malipieri could not help smiling, and for a moment he forgot all his troubles. When they sat down, side by side, upon a little sofa, the Princess was already telling the ambassador that Malipieri had come and that they were engaged to be married. She had carried the situation by a master stroke. "She has told you all about me," Malipieri said, turning his face to Sabina. "You know what my life is. Has she told you everything?" "Yes," Sabina answered softly, but not meeting his look, "everything. But I want to hear it from you. Will you tell me? Will it hurt you to tell me about what you did for your friend? You know my mother is not always very accurate in telling a story. I shall understand why you did it." He had known that she would, and he told her the story, a little less baldly than he had told her mother, yet leaving out such details as she need not hear. He hesitated a little, once or twice. "I understand," she repeated, watching him with innocent eyes. "She felt just as if they were really married, and he could not bear to die, feeling that she would be without protection, and that other men would all want to marry her, because she was beautiful. And her father and mother were angry because she loved him so much." "Yes," Malipieri answered, smiling, "that was it. They loved each other dearly." "It was splendid of you," she said. "I never dreamt that any man would do such a thing." "It cannot be undone." He was at least free to say that much, sadly. There was a pause, and they looked away from each other. At last Sabina laid her hand lightly upon his for a moment, though she did not turn her face to him. "I should not like you so much, if you wished to undo it," she said. "Thank you," he answered, withdrawing the hand she released when she had finished speaking, and folding it upon his other. "I should love you less, if you did not understand me so well." "It is more than understanding. It is much more." He remembered how he had taken her slender body in his arms to warm her when she had been almost dead of the cold and dampness, and a mad impulse was in him to press her to him now, as he had done then, and to feel her small fair head lay itself upon his shoulder peacefully, as it surely would. He sat upright and pressed one hand upon the other rather harder than before. "You believe it, do you not?" she asked. "Why is your face so hard?" "Because I am bound hand and foot, like a man who is carried to execution." "But we can always love each other just the same," Sabina said, and her voice was warm and soft. "Yes, always, and that will not make it easier to live without you," he answered rather harshly. "You need not," she said, after an instant's pause. He turned suddenly, startled, not understanding, wondering what she could mean. She met his eyes quite quietly, and he saw how deep and steady hers were, and the light in them. "You need not live without me unless you please," she said. "But I must, since I cannot marry you, and you understand that I could not be divorced--" "My mother has just told me that no decent man will marry me, because all the world knows that I stayed at the palace that night. She must be right, for she could have no object in saying it if it were not true, could she? Then what does it matter how any one talks about me now? I will go with you. We cannot marry, but we shall always be together." Malipieri's face expressed his amazement. "But it is impossible!" he cried. "You cannot do that! You do not know what you are saying!" "Oh, yes, I do! That poor, kind old Sassi has left me all he had, and I can go where I please. I will go with you. Would you rather have me shut up in a convent to die? That is what my mother will try to do with me, and she will tell people that I was 'mad, poor girl'! Do you think I do not know her? She wants this little sum of money that I am to have, too, as if she and the others had not spent all I should have had. Do you think I am bound to obey my mother, if she takes me to the convent door, and tells me that I am to stay there for the rest of my life?" The gentle voice was clear and strong and indignant now. Malipieri twisted his fingers one upon another, and sat with his head bent low. He knew that she had no clear idea of what she was saying when she proposed to join her existence with his. Her maiden thoughts could find no harm in it. "You do not know what your mother said to me, before you came in," he answered. "She told me that she would announce our engagement at once, and made me give my word that I would not deny it to any one but my legal wife." "You gave your word?" Sabina asked quickly, not at all displeased. "What could I do?" "Nothing else! I am glad you did, for we can see each other as much as we like now. But how shall we manage it in the end, since we cannot marry?" "Break the imaginary engagement, I suppose," Malipieri answered gloomily. "I see nothing else to be done." "But then my mother says that no decent man will marry me. It will be just the same, all over again. It was very clever of her; she is trying to force you to do what she wants. In the meantime you can come and see me every day--that is the best part of it. Besides, she will leave us alone together here, for hours, because she thinks that the more you fall in love with me the more you will wish to get a divorce. Oh, she is a very clever woman! You do not know her as I do!" Malipieri marvelled at the amazing combination of girlish innocence and keen insight into her mother's worldly and cynical character, which Sabina had shown during the last few minutes. There never yet was a man in love with girl or woman who did not find in her something he had never dreamt of before. "She is clever," he assented gravely, "but she cannot make me break that promise, even for your sake. I cannot help looking forward and thinking what the end must be." "It is much better to enjoy the present," Sabina answered. "We can be together every day. You will write to your--no, she is not your wife, and I will not call her so! She would not be really your wife if she could, for she made you promise never to go and see her. That was nice of her, for of course she knew that if she saw you often, she must end by falling in love with you. Any woman would; you know it perfectly well. You need not shake your head at me, like that. You will write to her, and explain, and she will understand, and then we will let things go on as long as they can till something else happens." "What can possibly happen?" "Something always happens. Things never go on very long without a change, do they? I am sure, everything in my life has changed half a dozen times in the last fortnight." "In mine, too," Malipieri answered. "And if things get worse, and if worse comes to worst," Sabina answered, "I have told you what I mean to do. I shall come to you, wherever you are, and you will have to let me stay, no matter what people choose to say. That is, if you still care for me!" She laughed softly and happily, and not in the least recklessly, though she was talking of throwing the world and all connection with it to the winds. The immediate future looked bright to her, since they were to meet every day, and after that, "something" would happen. If nothing did, and they had to face trouble again, they would meet it bravely. That was all any one could do in life. She had found happiness too suddenly after an unhappy childhood, to dream of letting it go, cost what it might to keep it. But she saw how grave he looked and the hopeless expression in his loving eyes, as he turned them to her. "Why are you sad?" she asked, smiling, and laying her hand on his. "We can be happy in the present. We love each other, and can meet often. You have made a great discovery and are much more famous than you were a few days ago. A newspaper has told our story, it is true, but there was not a word against either of us in it, for I made them let me read it myself. And now people will say that we are engaged to be married, and that we got into a foolish scrape and were nearly killed together, and that we are a very romantic couple, like lovers in a book! Every girl I know wishes she were in my place, I am sure, and half the men in Rome wish that they could have saved some girl's life as you did mine. What is there so very dreadful in all that? What is there to cry about--dear?" Half in banter, half in earnest, she spoke to him as if he were a child compared with her, and leaned affectionately towards him; and the last word, the word neither of them had spoken yet, came so softly and sweetly to him on her breath, that he caught his own, and turned a little pale; and the barriers broke all at once, and he kissed her. Then he got hold upon himself again, and gently pushed her a little further from him, while he put his other hand to his throat and closed his eyes. "Forgive me," he said, in a thick voice. "I could not help it." "What is there to forgive? We are not betraying any one. You are not breaking a promise to any other woman. What harm is there? You did not give your friend your word that you would never love any one, did you? How could you? How could you know?" "I could not know," he answered in a low voice. "But I should not have kissed you." He knew that she could not understand the point of honour that was so clear to him. "Let me think for you, sometimes," she said. Her voice was as low as his, but dreamily passionate, and the strange young magic vibrated in it, which perfect innocence wields with a destroying strength not even guessed at by itself. The door opened and the Princess entered the room in a leisurely fashion, wreathed in smiles. She had successfully done what it would be very hard for Malipieri to undo. He rose. "Have you told Sabina what I said?" she enquired. "Yes." She turned to the girl, who was leaning back in the corner of the sofa. "Of course you agree, my child?" she said, with a question in her voice, though with no intonation of doubt as to the answer. "Certainly," Sabina answered, with perfect self-possession. "I think it was by far the most sensible we could do. Signor Malipieri will come to see us, as if he and I were really engaged." "Yes," assented the Princess. "You cannot go on calling him Signor Malipieri when we are together in the family, my dear. What is your Christian name?" she asked, turning to him. "Marino." "I did not know," Sabina said, with truth, and looking at him, as if she had found something new to like in him. "Is he to call me Sabina, mother?" "Naturally. Well, my dear Marino--" Malipieri started visibly. The Princess explained. "I shall call you so, too. It looks better before people, you know. You must leave a card for the ambassador, at the porter's, when you go downstairs, He is going to ask you to dinner, with a lot of our relations, to announce the engagement. I have arranged it all beautifully--he is so kind!" CHAPTER XXIV Masin was very much relieved when his master came home, looking much calmer than when he had gone out and evidently having all his senses about him. Malipieri sent to ask at what time the mails left Rome for Florence, and he sat down to his table without remembering that he had eaten nothing that day. It was not easy to write out in a concise form the story of all that has here been told in detail. Besides, he had not the habit of writing to the Signora Malipieri, except such brief acknowledgments of her regular letters to him as were necessary and kind. For years she had been to him little more than a recollection of his youth, a figure that had crossed his life like a shadow in a dream, taking with it a promise which he had never found it hard to keep. He remembered her as she had been then, and it had not even occurred to him to consider how she looked now. She sometimes sent him photographs of the pretty little girl, and Malipieri kept them, and occasionally looked at them, because they reminded him of his friend, of whom he had no portrait. He found it very hard to tell this half-mythical woman and wholly mythical wife of all that had happened, while scrupulously avoiding the main fact, which was that he and Sabina loved each other. To have told that, too, would have seemed like a reproach, or still worse, like a request to be set at liberty. He wrote carefully, reading over his sentences, now and then correcting one, and even entertaining a vague idea of copying the whole when he had finished it. The important point was that she should fully understand the necessity of announcing his engagement to marry Donna Sabina Conti, together with his firm intention of breaking it off as soon as the story should be so far forgotten as to make it safe to do so, having due regard for Donna Sabina's reputation and good name. He laid so much stress on these points, and expressed so strongly his repentance for having led the girl into a dangerous scrape, that many a woman would have guessed at something more. But of this he was quite unaware when he read the letter over, believing that he could judge it without prejudice, as if it had been written by some one else. The explanation was thorough and logical, but there was a little too much protest in the expressions of regret. Besides, there were several references to Sabina's unhappy position as the daughter of an abominably worldly and heartless woman, who would lock her up in a convent for life rather than have the least trouble about her. He could not help showing his anxious interest in her future, much more clearly than he supposed. The consequence was that when the Signora Malipieri read the letter on the following morning, she guessed the truth, as almost any woman would, without being positively sure of it; and she was absent-minded with her pupils all that day, and looked at her watch uneasily, and was very glad when she was able to go home at last and think matters over. It was not easy to decide what to do. She could not write to Malipieri and ask him directly if he was in love with Sabina Conti and wished to marry her. She answered him at once, however, telling him that she fully understood his position, and thanking him for having written to her before she could have heard the story from any other source. He showed the letter to Sabina, and it pleased her by its frank simplicity, and perfect readiness to accept Malipieri's statement without question, and without the smallest resentment. Somehow the girl had felt that this shadowy woman, who stood between her and Malipieri, would make some claim upon him, and assert herself in some disagreeable way, or criticise his action. It was hateful to think she really had a right to call herself his wife, and was therefore legally privileged to tell him unpleasant truths. Sabina always connected that with matrimony, remembering how her father and mother used to quarrel when he was alive, and how her brother and sister-in-law continued the tradition. If the Volterra couple were always peaceful, that was because the Baroness was in mortal awe of her fat husband, a state of life to which Sabina did not wish to be called. It was true that Malipieri's position with regard to his so-called wife had nothing to do with a real marriage, but Sabina had felt the disapproving presence of the woman she had never seen, and whom she imagined to be perpetually shaking a warning finger at Malipieri and reminding him sourly that he could not call his soul his own. The letter had destroyed the impression. Meanwhile Malipieri was appalled by the publicity of a betrothal which was never to lead to marriage. The Princess took care that as much light as possible should be cast upon the whole affair, and to the Baroness Volterra's stupefaction and delight, told every one that the match had been made under her auspices, and that the Conti family owed her eternal gratitude for it and for her care of Sabina during nearly three months. The Princess told the story of the night in the vaults again and again, to her friends and relations, extolling everything that Malipieri had done, and especially his romantic determination to show the girl he was going to marry the treasures which should have belonged to her, before any one else should see them. The Princess told Volterra, laughingly and quite frankly, that her lawyer would do everything possible to get for her a share in the value of the statues discovered, and Volterra, following her clever cue, laughed with her, and said it should be a friendly suit, and that the lawyers should decide among themselves how it should be settled, without going into court. Volterra was probably the only man in Rome who entertained a profound respect for the Princess's intelligence; yet he was reckoned a good judge in such matters. He himself was far too wise to waste regrets upon the failure of his tactics, and the stake had not been large, after all, compared with his great fortune. Magnanimity was a form of commodity which could be exchanged for popularity, and popularity was ready money. A thousand votes were as good as two million francs, any day, when one was not a senator for life, and wished to be re-elected; and a reputation for spotless integrity would cover a multitude of financial sins. Since it had been impossible to keep what did not belong to him, the next best thing was to restore it to the accompaniment of a brass band and a chorus of public approval. The Princess, clever woman, knew exactly how he felt and helped him to do the inevitable in a showy way; and it all helped her to carry her daughter and herself out of a difficult position in a blaze of triumph. "My dear," she said to the girl, "you may do anything you please, if you will only do it in public. Lock your door to say your prayers, and the world will shriek out that you have a scandal to conceal." It dawned upon Sabina that her cynical, careless, spendthrift, scatter-brained mother had perhaps after all a share of the cunning and the force which rule the world to-day, and which were so thoroughly combined in Volterra's character. That would account for the way in which she sailed through storms that would have wrecked the Baroness and drowned poor little Sabina herself. Meanwhile a hundred workmen had dug down to the vault under the courtyard of the Palazzo Conti, the statues had been lifted out intact, with cranes, and had been set upon temporary pedestals, under a spacious wooden shed; and the world, the flesh and the devil, including royalty, went to see them and talked of nothing else. All Europe heard the story of Malipieri's discovery, and of his adventure with his betrothed wife, and praised him and called him and her an "ideal couple." Sabina's brother came up from the country to be present at the Embassy dinner, and of course stopped at the Grand Hotel, and made up his mind to have an automobile at once. His wife stayed in the country with the delicate little child, but sent Sabina a note of congratulation. Clementina, writing from her convent, said she hoped that Sabina might redeem the follies of her youth in a respectable married life, but the hope was not expressed with much conviction. Sabina need not disturb the peace of a religious house by coming to see her. The Princess boldly gave out that the marriage would take place in the autumn, and confided to two or three gossips that she really meant to have a quiet wedding in the summer, because it would be so much more economical, and the young couple did not like the idea of waiting so long. As for a dowry, everybody knew that Sassi, dear, kind-hearted old man, had left Sabina what he had; and there were the statues. Prince Conti came to the Embassy as soon as he arrived, and met Malipieri, to whom he was overpoweringly cordial in his weak way. On the whole, at their first interview, he judged that it would not be easy to borrow money of him, and went away disappointed. Society asked where Malipieri's father was, and learned that he was nearly seventy and was paralysed, and never left his house in Venice, but that he highly approved of his son's marriage and wished to see his future daughter-in-law as soon as possible. The Princess said that Sabina and Malipieri would live with him, but would come to Rome for the winter. Prince Rubomirsky, Sabina's uncle, sent her a very handsome diamond necklace, which the Princess showed to all her friends, and some of them began to send wedding presents likewise, because they had been privately informed that the marriage was to take place very soon. Sabina lived joyously in the moment, apparently convinced that fate would bring everything right, and doing her best to drive away the melancholy that had settled upon Malipieri. Something would happen, she said. It was impossible that heaven could be so cruel as to part them and ruin both their lives for the sake of a promise given to a man dead long ago. Malipieri wished that he could believe it. He grew almost desperate as time went on and he saw how the Princess was doing everything to make the engagement irrevocable. He grew thin, and nervous, and his eyes were restless. The deep tan of the African sun was disappearing, too, and sometimes he looked almost ill. People said he was too much in love, and laughed. Little by little Sabina understood that she could not persuade him to trust to the future, and she grew anxious about him. He wondered how she could still deceive herself as to the inevitable end. "We can go on being engaged as long as we please," she said hopefully. "There are plenty of possible excuses." "You and I are not good at lying," he answered, with a weary smile. "We told each other so, that night." "But it is perfectly true that I am almost too young to be married," said she; "and really, you know, it might be more sensible to wait till I am nineteen." "We should not think it sensible to wait a week, if there were no hindrance. You know that." "Of course! But when there is a hindrance, as you call it, it is very sensible indeed to wait," retorted Sabina, with a truly feminine sense of the value of logic. "I shall think so, and I shall say so, if I must. Then you will have to wait, too, and what will it matter, so long as we can see each other every day? Have people never waited a year to be married?" "You know that we may wait all our lives." "No. I will not do that," Sabina said with sudden energy. "If nothing happens, I will make something happen. You know what I told you. Have you forgotten? And I am sure your father will understand." "I doubt it," Malipieri answered, smiling in spite of himself. To tell the truth, since her mother had cleared away so many dangers, and showed no intention of shutting her up in a convent, Sabina had begun to see that it would be quite another matter to run away and follow Malipieri to the ideal desert island, especially after they had been openly engaged to be married and the engagement had been broken. The world would have to know the story of his marriage then, and it would call him dishonourable for having allowed himself to be engaged to her when he was not free. It would say that she had found out the truth, and that he was a villain, or something unpleasant of that sort. But she meant to keep up the illusion bravely, as long as there was any life in it at all, and then "something must happen." "It seems so strange that I should be braver than you," she said. He did not wonder at that as much as she did. Her reputation was saved now, but his honour was in the balance, and at the mercy of a worldly and unscrupulous woman. When he broke the engagement, the Princess would tell the story of his marriage and publish it on the housetops. He told Sabina so. "You are safe," he added; "but when I lose you, I shall lose my place among honourable men." "Then I shall tell the truth, and the whole truth, to every one I know," Sabina answered, in the full conviction that truth, like faith, could perform miracles, and that a grain of it could remove mountains of evil. "I shall tell the whole world!" she cried. "I do not care what my mother says." He was silent, for it was better, after all, that she should believe in her happiness as long as she could. She said nothing more for some time and they sat quite still, thinking widely opposite thoughts. At last she laid her hand on his; the loving little way had become familiar to her since it had come instinctively the first time. "Marino!" "Yes?" "You know that I love you?" "Indeed I know it." "And you love me? Just as much? In the same way?" "Perhaps more. Who knows?" "No, that is impossible," she answered. "Now listen to me. It is out of the question that we should ever be parted, loving each other as we do, is it not?" The door opened and a servant entered, with a card. "The lady told me to inform your Excellency that she is a connection of Signor Malipieri," said the man. "She hopes that she may be received, as she is in Rome for only a few hours." Sabina looked at the card and handed it silently to Malipieri, and her fingers trembled. "Angelica Malipieri." That was the name and there was the address in Florence, in Via del Mandorlo. "Ask the lady to come here," said Sabina, quietly; but her face was suddenly very white. CHAPTER XXV Sabina and Malipieri sat in silence during the minutes that followed. From time to time, they looked at each other. His self-possession and courage had returned, now that something decisive was to take place, but Sabina's heart was almost standing still. She felt that the woman had come to make a scene, to threaten a scandal and utterly to destroy the illusion of happiness. If not, and if she had merely had something of importance to communicate, why had she not gone to Malipieri first, or written to ask for this interview with Sabina? She had come suddenly, in order to take advantage of the surprise her appearance must cause. For once, Sabina wished that her mother were with her, her high and mighty, insolent, terrible mother, who was afraid of nobody in the world. The door opened, and the footman admitted a quiet little woman, about thirty years old, already inclined to be stout. She was very simply but very well dressed, she had beautiful brown hair, and when she came forward Sabina looked into a pair of luminous and trustful hazel eyes. "Donna Sabina Conti?" asked the Signora Malipieri in a gentle voice. "Yes," Sabina answered. She and Malipieri had both risen. The Signora made a timid movement with her hand, as if she expected that Sabina would offer hers, which Sabina did, rather late, when she saw that it was expected. The lady glanced at Malipieri and then at Sabina with a look of enquiry, as he held out his hand to her and she took it. He saw that she did not recognize him. "I am Marino Malipieri," he said. "You?" she cried in surprise. Then a faint flush rose in her smooth cheeks, and Sabina, who was watching her, saw that her lip trembled a little, and that tears rose in her eyes. "Forgive me," she said, in an unsteady voice. "I should have known you, after all you have done for me." "I think it is nearly thirteen years since we met," Malipieri answered. "I had no beard then." She looked at him long, evidently in strong emotion, but the tears did not overflow, and the clear light came back gradually in her gaze. Then the three sat down. "I thought I had better come," she said. "It seemed easier than to write." "Yes," Sabina answered, not knowing what to say. "You see," said the Signora, "I could not easily write to you frankly, as I had never seen you, and I did not like to write to Signor Malipieri about what I wanted to know." "Yes," said Sabina, once more, but this time she looked at Malipieri. "What is it that you wish to know, Signora?" he asked kindly, "Whether it is all exactly as my letter told you? Is that it?" She turned to him with a look of reproach. "Does a woman doubt a man who has done what you have done for me?" she asked. "I wanted to know something more--a little more than what you wrote to me. It would make a difference, perhaps." "To you, Signora?" asked Sabina quickly. "No. To you. Perhaps it would make a great difference in the way I should act." She paused an instant. "It is rather hard to ask, I know," she added shyly. She seemed to be a timid little woman. "Please tell us what it is that you wish to know, Signora," said Malipieri, in the same kind tone, trying to encourage her. "I should like to ask--I hardly know just how to say it--if you would tell me whether you are fond of each other--" "What difference can that make to you, Signora?" Malipieri asked with sudden hardness. "You know that I shall not break my word." She was hurt by the tone, and looked down meekly, as if she had deserved the words. "We love each other with all our hearts," said Sabina, before either of the others could say more. "Nothing shall ever part us, in this world or the next." There was a ring of clear defiance to fate in the girl's voice, and Signora Malipieri turned to her quickly, with a look of sympathy. She knew the cry that comes from the heart. "But you think that you can never be married," she said, almost to herself. "How can we? You know that we cannot!" It was Malipieri who answered. Then the timid little woman raised her head and looked him full in the face, and spoke without any more hesitation. "Do you think that I have never thought of this possibility, during all these years?" she asked. "Do you really believe that I would let you suffer for me, let your life be broken, let you give up the best thing that any life holds, after you have done for me what perhaps no man ever did for a woman before?" "I know you are grateful," Malipieri answered very gently. "Do not speak of what I have done. It has not been at any sacrifice, till now." But Sabina leaned forward and grasped the Signora Malipieri's hands. Her own were trembling. "You have come to help us!" she cried. "It is so easy, now that I know that you love each other." "How?" asked Sabina, breathless. "By a divorce?" "Yes." "I shall never ask for that," Malipieri said, shaking his head. "You are the best and truest gentleman that ever protected a woman in trouble, Signor Malipieri," said the little woman quietly. "I know that you will never divorce me. I know you would not even think of it." "Well, but then--" Malipieri stopped and looked at her. "I shall get a divorce from you," she said, and then she looked happily from one to the other. Malipieri covered his eyes with his hand. He had not even thought of such a solution, and the thought came upon him in his despair like a flood of dazzling light. Sabina was on her knees, and had thrown her arms wildly round the Signora Malipieri's neck, and was kissing her again and again. "But it is nothing," protested the Signora, beaming with delight. "It is so simple, so easy, and I know exactly what to do." "You?" cried Sabina between laughing and crying. "Yes. I once gave lessons in the house of a famous lawyer, and sometimes I was asked to stay to luncheon, and I heard a great case discussed, and I asked questions, until I thoroughly understood it all. You see, it was what I always meant to do. There is a little fiction about the way it is managed, but it is perfectly legal. Though Italians may naturalize themselves in a foreign country, they can regain their own nationality by a simple declaration. Now, Signor Malipieri and I must be naturalized in Switzerland. I know a place where it can be done easily. Then we can be divorced by mutual consent at once. We come back to Italy, declare our nationality wherever we please, and we are free to be married to any one else, under Italian law. The fiction is only that by paying some money, it can all be done in three months, instead of in three years." Malipieri had listened attentively. "Are you positively sure of that?" he asked. "I have the authority of one of the first lawyers in Italy." "But the Church?" asked Sabina anxiously. "I should not think it a marriage at all, if I were not married in church." "I have asked a good priest about that," answered the Signora. "I go to confession to him, and he is a good man, and wise too. He told me that the Church could make no objection at all, since there has really been no marriage at all, and since Signor Malipieri will present himself after being properly and legally married to you at the municipality. He told me, on the contrary, that it is my duty to do everything in my power to help you." "God bless you!" Sabina cried. "You are the best woman in the world!" Malipieri took the Signora's hand and pressed it to his lips fervently, for he could not find any words. "I shall only ask one thing," she said, speaking timidly again. "Ask all I have," he answered, her hand still in his. "But you may not like it. I should like to keep the name, if you do not mind very much, on account of my little girl. She need never know. I can leave her with a friend while we are in Switzerland." "It is yours," he said. "Few of my own people have borne it as worthily as you have, since I gave it to you." * * * * * * Here, therefore, ends the story of Sabina Conti and Marino Malipieri, whose marriage took place quietly during the autumn, as the Princess had confidently said that it should. It is a tale without a "purpose" and without any particular "moral," in the present appalling acceptation, of those simple words. If it has interested or pleased those who have read it, the writer is glad; if it has not, he can find some consolation in having made two young people unutterably blissful in his own imagination, whereas he manifestly had it in his power to bring them to awful grief; and when one cannot make living men and women happy in real life, it is a harmless satisfaction to do it in a novel. If this one shows anything worth learning about the world, it is that a gifted man of strong character and honourable life may do a foolish and generous thing whereby he may become in a few days the helpless toy of fate. He who has never repented of a good impulse which has brought great trouble to other people, must be indeed a selfish soul. As for the strange circumstances I have described, I do not think any of them impossible, and many of them are founded upon well-known facts. I have myself seen, within not many years, a construction like the dry well in the Palazzo Conti, which was discovered in the foundations of a Roman palace, and had been used as an oubliette. There were skeletons in it and fragments of weapons of the sixteenth century and even of the seventeenth. There was also a communication between the cellars of the palace and the Tiber. I read George Sand's fantastic novel _Consuelo_ many years ago, and I am aware that she introduced a well, in an ancient castle, in which the water could be made to rise and fall at will, in order to establish or interrupt communication with a secret chamber. I do not know whether she imagined the construction or had seen a similar one, for such wells are said to be found in more than one old fortress in Europe. The "lost water" really exists at many points under Rome; its rising and falling are sometimes unaccountable; and I know at least one old palace in which it has been used and found pure, within the memory of man. So far, the explanations suggested by engineers have neither satisfied those who have propounded them, nor those who have had practical experience of the "lost water." The subject is extremely interesting but is one of very great difficulty, as it is generally quite impossible to make explorations in the places where the water is near the surface. The older part of modern Rome was built haphazard, and often upon the enormous substructures of ancient buildings, of which the positions can be conjectured only, and of which the plans and dimensions are very vaguely guessed by archaeologists. All that can be said with approximate certainty of the "lost water" is that it must run through long-forgotten conduits, that it rises here and there in wells, and that it is mostly uncontaminated by the river. Those familiar with the Vatican museum will have at once recognized the colossal statue of gilt bronze which now stands in the circular hall known as the "Rotonda." It was accidentally found, when I was a boy, in the courtyard of the Palazzo Righetti in the Campo dei Fiori, carefully and securely concealed by a well-built vault, evidently constructed for the purpose, in the foundations of the Theatre of Pompey. I went to see it, when only a portion of the vault had been removed, and I shall never forget the vivid impression it made upon me. So far as I know, there has not been any explanation of its having been hidden there, but among the lower classes in Rome there are traditions of great treasure supposed to be buried in other parts of the city. I have taken the liberty of making the discovery over again at a point some distance from the Palazzo Righetti, and in the present time. The statue was really found in 1864, and the gem in the ring was stolen. The marble Venus which Malipieri saw with it is imaginary, but I was also taken to see the beautiful statue of Augustus, now in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican, on the spot where it came to light in the Villa of Livia, in 1863. The great mediaeval family of Conti became extinct long ago. The palace to which I have given their name would stand on the site of one now the property of the Vatican, but would be of a somewhat different construction. Finally, I wish to protest that there are no so-called "portraits" in this story of the heart of old Rome. Many Romans were ruined by the financial crisis of 1888 and its consequences, either at the time or later. The family to which Sabina belonged is wholly imaginary, and its fall was due to other causes. I trust that no ingenious reader will try to trace a parallel where none exists. I would not even have a certain young and famous architect and engineer, for whom I entertain the highest admiration and esteem, recognize a "portrait" of himself in Marino Malipieri, if these pages should ever come to his notice, and I have purposely made my imaginary hero as unlike him as possible, in appearance, manner and speech. Those who have noticed the increasing tendency of modern readers to bring accusations of plagiarism against novels that deal partly with facts will understand why I have said this much about my own work. To others, the few details I have given may be of some interest. 
34959	----	Transcriber's Notes: Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_. Passages in bold are surrounded by =equal signs=. Passages in gothic fonts are surrounded by +plus signs+. Other transcription notes appear at the end of this e-text. KHALED: A TALE OF ARABIA [Illustration: M. M. & Co.] KHALED A Tale of Arabia BY F. MARION CRAWFORD +London+ MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1901 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT 1891 BY F. MARION CRAWFORD _First Edition (2 Vols. Globe 8vo) May 1891. Second Edition (1 Vol. Crown 8vo) November 1891, 1892 Re-issue 1901_ TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I 1 CHAPTER II 22 CHAPTER III 43 CHAPTER IV 64 CHAPTER V 86 CHAPTER VI 107 CHAPTER VII 128 CHAPTER VIII 150 CHAPTER IX 171 CHAPTER X 192 CHAPTER XI 213 CHAPTER XII 235 CHAPTER I Khaled stood in the third heaven, which is the heaven of precious stones, and of Asrael, the angel of Death. In the midst of the light shed by the fruit of the trees Asrael himself is sitting, and will sit until the day of the resurrection from the dead, writing in his book the names of those who are to be born, and blotting out the names of those who have lived their years and must die. Each of the trees has seventy thousand branches, each branch bears seventy thousand fruits, each fruit is composed of seventy thousand diamonds, rubies, emeralds, carbuncles, jacinths, and other precious stones. The stature and proportions of Asrael are so great that his eyes are seventy thousand days' journey apart, the one from the other. Khaled stood motionless during ten months and thirteen days, waiting until Asrael should rest from his writing and look towards him. Then came the holy night called Al Kadr, the night of peace in which the Koran came down from heaven. Asrael paused, and raising his eyes from the scroll saw Khaled standing before him. Asrael knew Khaled, who was one of the genii converted to the faith on hearing Mohammed read the Koran by night in the valley Al Nakhlah. He wondered, however, when he saw him standing in his presence; for the genii are not allowed to pass even the gate of the first heaven, in which the stars hang by chains of gold, each star being inhabited by an angel who guards the entrance against the approach of devils. Asrael looked at Khaled in displeasure, therefore, supposing that he had eluded the heavenly sentinels and concealed an evil purpose. But Khaled inclined himself respectfully. 'There is no Allah but Allah. Mohammed is the prophet of Allah,' he said, thus declaring himself to be of the Moslem genii, who are upright and are true believers. 'How camest thou hither?' asked Asrael. 'By the will of Allah, who sent his angel with me to the gate,' Khaled answered. 'I am come hither that thou mayest write down my name in the book of life and death, that I may be a man on earth, and after an appointed time thou shalt blot it out again and I shall die.' Asrael gazed at him and knew that this was the will of Allah, for the angels are thus immediately made conscious of the divine commands. He took up his pen to write, but before he had traced the first letter he paused. 'This is the night Al Kadr,' he said. 'If thou wilt, tell me therefore thy story, for I am now at leisure to hear it.' 'Thou knowest that I am of the upright genii,' Khaled answered, 'and I am well disposed towards men. In the city of Riad, in Arabia, there rules a powerful king, the Sultan of the kingdom of Nejed, blessed in all things save that he has no son to inherit his vast dominions. One daughter only has been born to him in his old age, of such marvellous beauty that even the Black Eyed Virgins enclosed in the fruit of the tree Sedrat, who wait for the coming of the faithful, would seem but mortal women beside her. Her eyes are as the deep water in the wells of Zobeideh when it is night and the stars are reflected therein. Her hair is finer than silk, red with henna, and abundant as the foliage of the young cypress tree. Her face is as fair as the kernels of young almonds, and her mouth is sweeter than the mellow date and more fragrant than 'Ood mingled with ambergris. She possesses moreover all the virtues which become women, for she is as modest as she is beautiful and as charitable as she is modest. From all parts of Arabia and Egypt, and from Syria and from Persia, and even from Samarkand, from Afghanistan, and from India princes and kings' sons continually come to ask her in marriage, for the fame of her beauty and of her virtues is as wide as the world. But her father, desiring only her happiness, leaves the choice of a husband to herself, and for a long time she refused all her suitors. For there is in the palace at Riad a certain secret chamber from which she can observe all those who come and hear their conversation and see the gifts which they bring with them. 'At last there came as a suitor an unbeliever, a prince of an island by the shores of India, beautiful as the moon, whose speech was honey, and who surpassed all the suitors in riches and in the magnificence of the presents he brought. For he came bearing with him a hundred pounds' weight of pure gold, and five hundred ounces of ambergris, and a great weight of musk and aloes and sandal wood, and rich garments without number, and many woven shawls of Kashmir, of which the least splendid was valued at a thousand sherifs of gold. An innumerable retinue accompanied him, and twenty elephants, and horses without number, besides camels. 'The Sultan's daughter beheld this beautiful prince from her secret hiding-place, and all that he had brought with him. The Sultan received him with kindness and hospitality, but assured him that unless he would renounce idolatry and embrace the true faith he could not hope to succeed in his purpose. Thereupon he was much cast down, and soon afterwards, having received magnificent gifts in his turn, he would have departed on his way, disappointed and heavy at heart. But Zehowah sent for her father and entreated him to bid the young prince remain. "For it is not impossible," she said, "that he may yet be converted to the true faith. And have I the right to refuse to sacrifice my freedom when the sacrifice may be the means of converting an idolater to the right way? And if I marry him and go with him to his kingdom, shall we not make true believers of all his subjects, so that I shall deserve to be called the mother of the faithful like Ayesha, beloved by the Prophet, upon whom be peace?" The Sultan found it hard to oppose this argument which was founded upon virtue and edified in righteousness. He therefore entreated the Indian prince to remain and to profess Islam, promising the hand of Zehowah when he should be converted. 'Then I heard the prince taking secret counsel with a certain old man who was with him, who shaved his face and wore white clothing and ate food which he prepared for himself alone. The prince told all, and then the old man counselled him in this way. "Speak whatsoever words they require of thee," he said, "for words are but garments wherewith to make the nakedness of truth modest and agreeable. And take the woman, and by and by, when we are returned to our own land, if she consent to worship thy gods, it is good; and if not, it is yet good, for thou shalt possess her as thy wife, and her unbelief shall be of consequence only to her own soul, but thy soul shall not be retarded in its progress." And the young prince was pleased, and promised to do as his counsellor advised him. 'So I saw that he was false and that Zehowah's righteousness would be but the means to her sorrow if she were allowed to persist. Therefore in the night, when all were asleep in the palace, I entered into the room where the prince was lying, and I took him in my arms and flew with him to the midst of the Red Desert, and there I slew him and buried him in the sand, for I saw that he was a liar and had determined to be a hypocrite. 'But Allah immediately sent an angel to destroy me because I had put to death a man who was about to become a believer, thereby killing his soul also, since he had not yet made profession of the faith. But I stood up and defended myself, saying that I had slain a hypocrite who had planned in his heart to carry away the daughter of a Moslem. Then the angel asked the truth of the prince's soul, which was sitting upon the red sand that covered the body. The soul answered, weeping, and said: "These are true words, and I am fuel for hell." "Have I then deserved death?" I asked. "I have killed an unbeliever." The angel answered that I had deserved life; and he would have left me and returned to paradise, but I would not let him go, and I besought him to entreat Allah that I might be allowed to live the life of a mortal man upon earth. "For," I said, "thou sayest that I deserve life. But even if thou destroy me not now I am only one of the genii, who shall all die at the first blast of the trumpet before the resurrection of the dead. Obtain for me therefore that I may have a soul and live a few years, and if I do good I shall then be with the faithful in paradise; and if not, I shall be bound with red-hot chains and burn everlastingly like a sinful man." The angel promised to intercede for me and departed. So I sat down upon the mound of red sand beside the soul of the Indian prince, to wait for the angel's coming again. 'Then the soul reproached me angrily. "But for thee," it said, "I should have married Zehowah and returned to my own people, and although I purposed to be a hypocrite, yet in time Zehowah might have convinced me and I should have believed in my heart. For I now see that there is no Allah but Allah, and that Mohammed is the prophet of Allah. And I should perhaps have died full of years, a good Moslem, and should have entered paradise. Therefore I pray Allah that this may be remembered in thy condemnation." At these words I was very angry and reviled the soul, scoffing at it. "No doubt Allah will hear thy prayer," I answered, "and will hear also at the same time thy lies. And as for Zehowah, thinkest thou that she would have loved thee, even if she had married thee? I tell thee that her soul rejoices only in the light of the faith, and that although she might have married thee, she would have done so in the hope of turning thy people from the worship of false gods and not for love of thee. For she will never love any man." When I had said this the soul groaned aloud and then remained silent. 'In a little while the angel came back, and I saw that his face was no longer clouded with anger. "Hear the judgment of Allah," he said. "Inasmuch as thou tookest the law upon thyself, which belonged to Allah alone, thou deservest to die. But in so far as thou hast indeed slain a hypocrite and an unbeliever thou hast earned life. Allah is just, merciful and forgiving. It is not meet that in thy lot there should be nothing but reward or nothing but punishment. Therefore thou shalt not yet receive a soul. Go hence to the third heaven and when the angel Asrael shall be at leisure he will write thy name in the book of the living. Then thou shalt return hither and go into the city of Riad bearing gifts. And Zehowah will accept thee in marriage, though she love thee not, for Allah commands that it be so. But if in the course of time this virtuous woman be moved to love, and say to thee, 'Khaled, I love thee,' then at that moment thou shalt receive an immortal soul, and if thy deeds be good thy soul shall enter paradise with the believers, but if not, thou shalt burn. Thus saith Allah. Thus art thou rewarded, indeed, but wisely and temperately, since thou hast not obtained life directly, but only the hope of life." Then the angel departed again, leading the way. 'But the soul mocked me. "Thou that sayest of Zehowah that she will never love any man, thou art fallen into thine own trap," it cried. "For now, if she love thee not thou must perish. Truly, Allah heard my prayer." But I was filled with thankfulness and departed after the angel, leaving the soul sitting alone upon the red sand. 'Thus have I told thee my history, O Asrael. And now I pray thee to write my name in the book of the living that I may fulfil the command of Allah and go my way to the city of Riad.' Then Asrael again took up his pen to write in the book. 'Now thou art become a living man, though thou hast as yet no soul,' he said. 'And thou art subject to death by the sword and by sickness and by all those evils which spring up in the path of the living. And the day of thy death is already known to Allah who knows all things. But he is merciful and will doubtless grant thee a term of years in which to make thy trial. Nevertheless be swift in thy journey and speedy in all thou doest, for though mortal man may live for ever hereafter in glory, his years on earth are but as the breath which springs up in the desert towards evening and is gone before the stars appear.' Khaled made a salutation before Asrael and went out of the third heaven, and passed through the second which is of burnished steel, and through the first in which the stars hang by golden chains, where Adam waits for the day of the resurrection, and at the gate he found the angel who had led him, and who now lifted him in his arms and bore him back to the Red Desert; for as he was now a mortal man he could no longer move through the air like the genii between the outer gate of heaven and the earth. Nor could he any longer see the soul of the Indian prince sitting upon the sand, though it was still there. But the angel was visible to him. So they stood together, and the angel spoke to him. 'Thou art now a mortal man,' he said, 'and subject to time as to death. To thee it seems but a moment since we went up together to the gate, and yet thou wast standing ten months and thirteen days before Asrael, and of the body of the man whom thou slewest only the bones remain.' So saying the angel blew upon the red sand and Khaled saw the white bones of the prince in the place where he had laid his body. So he was first made conscious of time. 'Nearly a year has passed, and though Allah be very merciful to thee, yet he will assuredly not suffer thee to live beyond the time of other men. Make haste therefore and depart upon thine errand. Yet because thou art come into the world a grown man, having neither father nor mother nor inheritance, I will give thee what is most necessary for thy journey.' Then the angel took a handful of leaves from a ghada bush close by and gave them to Khaled, and as he gave them they were changed into a rich garment, and into linen, and into a shawl with which to make a turban, and shoes of red leather. 'Clothe thyself with these,' said the angel. He broke a twig from the bush and placed it in Khaled's hand. Immediately it became a sabre of Damascus steel, in a sheath of leather with a belt. 'Take this sword, which is of such fine temper that it will cleave through an iron headpiece and a shirt of mail. But remember that it is not a sword made by magic. Let thy magic reside in thy arm, wield it for the faith, and put thy trust in Allah.' Afterwards the angel took up a locust that was asleep on the sand waiting for the warmth of the morning sun. The angel held the locust up before Khaled, and then let it fall. But as it fell it became at once a beautiful bay mare with round black eyes wide apart and an arching tail which swept down to the sand like a river of silk. 'Take this mare,' said the angel; 'she is of the pure breed of Nejed and as swift as the wind, but mortal like thyself.' 'But how shall I ride her without saddle or bridle?' asked Khaled. 'That is true,' answered the angel. He laid leaves of the ghada upon the mare's back and they became a saddle, and placed a twig in her mouth and it turned into a bit and bridle. Khaled thanked the angel and mounted. 'Farewell and prosper, and put thy trust in Allah, and forget not the day of judgment,' the angel said, and immediately returned to paradise. So Khaled was left alone in the Red Desert, a living man obliged to shift for himself, liable to suffer hunger and thirst or to be slain by robbers, with no worldly possessions but his sword, his bay mare, and the clothes on his back. He knew moreover that he was more than two hundred miles from the city of Riad, and he knew that he could not accomplish this journey in less than four days. For when he was one of the genii he had often watched men toiling through desert on foot, and on camels and on horses, and had laughed with his companions at the slow progress they made. But now it was no laughing matter, for he had forgotten to ask the angel for dates and water, or even for a few handfuls of barley meal. He turned the mare's head westward of the Goat, in which is the polar star, for he remembered that when he had carried away the Indian prince he had flown toward the south-east, and as he began to gallop over the dark sand he laughed to himself. 'What poor things are men and their horses,' he said. 'To destroy me, this mare need only stumble and lame herself, and we shall both die of hunger and thirst in the desert.' This reflection made him at first urge the mare to her greatest speed, for he thought that the sooner he should be out of the desert and among the villages beyond, the present danger would be passed. But presently he bethought him that the mare would be more likely to stumble and hurt herself in the dark if she were galloping than if she were moving at a moderate pace. He therefore drew bridle and patted her neck and made her walk slowly and cautiously forward. But this did not please him either, after a time, for he remembered that if he rode too slowly he must die of hunger before reaching the end of his journey. 'Truly,' he said, 'one must learn what it is to be a man, in order to understand the uses of moderation. Gallop not lest thy horse fall and thou perish! Nor delay walking slowly by the road, lest thou die of thirst and hunger! Yet thou art not safe, for Al Walid died from treading upon an arrow, and Oda ibn Kais perished by perpetual sneezing. Allah is just and merciful! I will let the mare go at her own pace, for the end of all things is known.' The mare, being left to herself, began to canter and carried Khaled onward all night without changing her gait. 'Nevertheless,' thought Khaled, 'if we are not soon out of the desert we shall suffer thirst during the day as well as hunger.' When there was enough daylight to distinguish a black thread from a white, Khaled looked before him and saw that there was nothing but red sand in hillocks and ridges, with ghada bushes here and there. But still the mare cantered on and did not seem tired. Soon the sun rose and it grew very hot, for the air was quite still and it was summer time. Khaled looked always before him and at last he saw a white patch in the distance and he knew that there must be water near it. For the water of the Red Desert whitens the sand. He therefore rode on cheerfully, for he was now thirsty, and the mare quickened her pace, for she also knew that she was near a drinking-place. But as they came close to the spot Khaled remembered that the preceding night had been Al Kadr, which falls between the seventh and eighth latter days of the month Ramadhan, during which the true believers neither eat nor drink so long as there is light enough to distinguish a white thread from a black one. So, when they reached the well, he let his mare drink her fill, and he took off the saddle and bridle and let her loose, after which he sat down with his head in the shade of a ghada bush to rest himself. 'Allah is merciful,' he said; 'the night will come, and then I will drink.' For he dared not ride farther, for fear of not finding water again. Then again he was disturbed, for he had nothing to eat, and he thought that if he waited until night he would be hungry as well as thirsty. But presently he saw the mare trying to catch the locusts that flew about. She could only catch one or two, because it was now hot and they were able to fly quickly. 'When the night comes,' he said, 'the locusts will lie on the ground and cling to the bushes, being stiff with the cold, and then I will eat my fill, and drink also.' Soon afterwards he fell asleep, being weary, and when he awoke it was night again and the stars were shining overhead. Khaled rose hastily and drank at the well and made ablutions and prayed, prostrating himself towards the Kebla. He remembered that he had slept a long time, and that he had not performed his devotions for a day and a night, so that he repeated them five times, to atone for the omission. The mare was eating the locusts that now lay in great black patches on the sand unable to move and save themselves. Khaled threw his cloak over a great number of them and gathered them together. Then he kindled a fire of ghada by striking sparks from the blade of his sword, and when he had made a bed of coals he roasted the locusts after pulling off their legs, and ate his fill. While he was doing this he was much disturbed in mind. 'I have only just begun to live as a man,' he thought. 'Did I not stand ten months and thirteen days in the third heaven, unconscious of the passing of time? Who shall tell me whether I have not slept another ten months or more under this bush, like the companions of Al Rakim?' So, when he had done eating and had drunk again from the well, and had made the mare drink, he saddled her quickly and mounted, and cantered on through the night, guiding his course by the stars. On the following day he again found a well, but much later than before, and he suffered much from thirst as he watched his mare dip her black lips into the pool. Nevertheless he would not break his fast, for he was resolved to be a true believer in practice as well as in belief. So he fell asleep and awoke when it was night again, and ate and drank. In this way he journeyed several days until he began to see the hill country which borders the desert towards Riad, and he understood that he had been much farther away than he had imagined. But he reflected that Allah had doubtless intended to try his constancy by imposing upon him the journey through the desert during the days of fasting. But at last, he awoke one day just at sunset, instead of sleeping until the night. He had been travelling up the first slopes where the ground, though barren, is harder than in the desert, and had lain down in a hollow by an abundant spring. He rose now and made ablutions and prayed, as usual, towards Mecca; that is to say, being where he was, he turned his face to the west as the sun was setting. When he had finished he stood some minutes watching the red light over the desert below him, and then he was suddenly aware that the new moon was hanging just above the diminishing fire of the evening, and he knew that the fast of Ramadhan was over and that the feast of Bairam had begun. Thereat he was glad, and determined to take an unusual number of locusts for his evening meal. But when he looked about he saw that there were no locusts in the place, though there was grass, which his mare was eating. Then he looked everywhere near the well to see whether some traveller had not perhaps dropped a few dates or a little barley by accident, but there was nothing. 'Doubtless,' he said, 'Allah wishes to show me that greediness is a sin even on the day of feasting.' He drank as much of the water as he could in order to stay his hunger as well as assuage his thirst, and then he saddled the mare and rode up out of the hollow towards the hill country. Towards the middle of the night he came to a small village where all the people were celebrating the feast, having killed a young camel and several sheep. Seeing that he was a traveller they bade him be welcome, and he sat down among them and ate his fill of meat, praising Allah. And corn was given to his mare, so that the dumb animal also kept the feast. 'Truly,' said the people, 'thy mare is a daughter of Al Borak, the heavenly steed called "the Lightning," upon which the nocturnal journey was accomplished by the Prophet, upon whom be peace.' They said this not because they divined that the mare had been given to Khaled by an angel, but because they saw by her beauty that she must be swift as the wind. For she had a large head, with bony cheeks, and a full forehead and round black eyes wide apart, with smooth black skin about them, and a pointed nose, and the under lip was like that of a camel, projecting a little. And she was neither too long nor too short, having straight legs like steel, and small feet and round hoofs, neither overgrown in idleness nor overworn with much work. And her tail lay flat and long and smooth when she was standing still but arched like the plume of an ostrich when she moved. Her coat was bright bay, glossy and smooth and without any white markings. By all these signs, which belong to the purest blood, the people of the village knew that she was of the fleetest reared in Arabia. And Khaled was glad that the people admired her, since she was the chief of his few possessions, which indeed were not many. He did not know beforehand what he should do, nor what he should say when in the presence of the Sultan of Nejed, still less how he could venture to ask Zehowah in marriage, having no gifts to offer and not being himself a prince. Before he had become a man it would have been easy for him to find treasures in the earth such as men had never seen, for, like all the genii, he had been acquainted with the most deeply hidden mines and with all places where men had hidden wealth in old times. But this knowledge does not belong to the intelligence becoming mortals, but rather to the faculty of seeing through solid substance which is exercised by the spirits of the air, and in his present state it was taken from him, together with all possibility of communicating with his former companions. He had nothing but his mare and his sword and the garments he wore, and though the mare was indeed a gift for a king he did not know whether he was meant to offer it to any one, seeing that it had been given him by an angel. Nevertheless he did not lose heart, for the celestial messenger had told him that by the will of Allah he should marry Zehowah, and Allah was certainly able to give him a king's daughter in marriage without the aid of gifts, of gold, of musk, of 'Ood, of aloes or of pearls. He rose, therefore, when he had eaten enough and had rested himself and his mare, and after thanking the people of the village for their entertainment he rode on his way. He passed through a hill country, sometimes fertile and sometimes stony and deserted, but he found water by the way and such food as he needed; and accomplished the remainder of the journey without hindrance. On the morning of the second day he came to a halting-place from which he could see the city of Riad, and he was astonished at the size and magnificence of the Sultan's palace, which was visible above the walls of the fortification. Yet he was aware that he had seen all this before as in a dream not altogether forgotten when a man wakes at dawn after a long and restless night. He gazed awhile, after he had made his ablutions, and then calling to his mare to come to him, he mounted and rode through the southern gate into the heart of the city. CHAPTER II When Khaled reached the palace he dismounted from his mare, and leading her by the bridle entered the gateway. Here he met many persons, guards, and slaves both black and white, and porters bearing provisions, and a few women, all hurrying hither and thither; and many noticed him, but a few gazed curiously into his face, and two or three grooms followed him a little way, pointing out to each other the beauties of his mare. 'Truly,' they said, 'if we did not know the mares of the stud better than the faces of our mothers, we should swear by Allah that this beast had been stolen from the Sultan's stables by a thief in the night, for she is of the best blood in Nejed.' These being curious they saluted Khaled and asked him whence he came and whither he was going, seeing that it is not courteous to ask a stranger any other questions. 'I come from the Red Desert,' Khaled answered, 'and I am going into the palace as you see.' The grooms saw that there was a rebuke in the last part of his answer and hung back and presently went their way. 'Are such mares bred in the Red Desert?' they exclaimed. 'The stranger is doubtless the sheikh of some powerful tribe. But if this be true, where are the men that came with him? And why is he dressed like a man of the city?' So they hastened out of the gateway to find the Bedouins who, they supposed, must have accompanied Khaled on his journey. But Khaled went forward and came to a great court in which were stone seats by the walls. Here a number of people were waiting. So he sat down upon one of the seats and his mare laid her nose upon his shoulder as though inquiring what he would do. 'Allah knows,' Khaled said, as though answering her. So he waited patiently. At last a man came out into the courtyard who was richly dressed, and whom all the people saluted as he passed. But he came straight towards Khaled, who rose from his seat. 'Whence come you, my friend?' he inquired after they had exchanged the salutation. 'From the Red Desert, and I desire permission to speak with the Sultan when it shall please his majesty to see me.' 'And what do you desire of his majesty? I ask that I may inform him beforehand. So you will have a better reception.' 'Tell the Sultan,' said Khaled, 'that a man is here who has neither father nor mother nor any possessions beyond a swift mare, a keen sword and a strong hand, but who is come nevertheless to ask in marriage Zehowah, the Sultan's daughter.' The minister smiled and gazed at Khaled in silence for a moment, but when he had looked keenly at his face, he became grave. 'It may be,' he thought, 'that this is some great prince who comes thus simply as in a disguise, and it were best not to anger him.' 'I will deliver your message,' he answered aloud, 'though it is a strange one. It is customary for those who come to ask for a maiden in marriage to bring gifts--and to receive others in return,' he added. 'I neither bring gifts nor ask any,' said Khaled. 'Allah is great and will provide me with what I need.' 'I fear that he will not provide you with the Sultan's daughter for a wife,' said the minister as he went away, but Khaled did not hear the words, though he would have cared little if he had. Now it chanced that Zehowah was sitting in a balcony surrounded with lattice, over the courtyard, on that morning and she had seen Khaled enter, leading his mare by the bridle. But though she watched the stranger and his beast idly for some time she thought as little of the one as of the other, for her heart was not turned to love, and she knew nothing of horses. But her women thought differently and spoke loudly, praising the beauty of both. 'There is indeed a warrior able to fight in the front of our armies,' they said. 'Truly such a man must have been Khaled ibn Walad, the Sword of the Lord, in the days of the Prophet--upon whom peace.' By and by there was a cry that the Sultan was coming into the room, and the women rose and retired. The Sultan sat down upon the carpet by his daughter, in the balcony. 'Do you see that stranger, holding a beautiful mare by the bridle?' he asked. 'Yes, I see him,' answered Zehowah indifferently. 'He is come to ask you in marriage.' 'Another!' she exclaimed with a careless laugh. 'If it is the will of Allah I will marry him. If not, he will go away like the rest.' 'This man is not like the rest, my daughter. He is either a madman or some powerful prince in disguise.' 'Or both, perhaps,' laughed Zehowah. She laughed often, for although she was not inclined to love, she was of a gentle and merry temper. 'His message was a strange one,' said the Sultan. 'He says that he neither brings gifts nor asks them, that he has neither father nor mother, nor any possessions excepting a swift mare, a keen sword and a strong hand.' 'I see the mare, the sword and the hand,' answered Zehowah. 'But the hand is like any other hand--how can I tell whether it be strong? The sword is in its sheath, and I cannot see its edge, and though the mare is pretty enough, I have seen many of your own I liked as well. The elephants of the Indian prince were more amusing, and the prince himself was more beautiful than this stranger with his black beard and his solemn face.' 'That is true,' said the Sultan with a sigh. 'Do you wish me to marry this man?' Zehowah asked. 'My daughter, I wish you to choose of your own free will. Nevertheless I trust that you will choose before long, that I may see my child's children before I die.' For the Sultan was old and white-bearded, and was already somewhat bowed with advancing years and with burden of many cares and the fatigues of many wars. Yet his eye was bright and his heart fearless still, though his judgment was often weak and vacillating. 'Do you wish me to marry this man?' Zehowah asked again. 'He will be a strange husband, for he is a strange suitor, coming without gifts and having neither father nor mother. But I will do as you command. If you leave it to me I shall never marry.' 'I did not say that I desired you to take this one especially,' protested the Sultan, 'though for the matter of gifts I care little, since heaven has sent me wealth in abundance. But my remaining years are few, and the years of life are like stones slipping from a mountain which move slowly at first, and then faster until they outrun the lightning and leap into the dark valley below. And what is required of a husband is that he be a true believer, young and whole in every part, and of a charitable disposition.' 'Truly,' laughed Zehowah, 'if he have no possessions, charity will avail him little, since he has nothing to give.' 'There is other charity besides the giving of alms, my daughter, since it is charity even to think charitably of others, as you know. But I have not said that you should marry this man, for you are free. And indeed I have not yet talked with him. But I have sent for him and you shall hear him speak. See--they are just now conducting him to the hall of audiences. But indeed I think he is no husband for you, after all.' The Sultan rose and went to receive Khaled, and Zehowah went to the secret window above her father's raised seat in the hall. Khaled made the customary salutation with the greatest respect, and the Sultan made him sit down at his right hand as though he had been a prince, and asked him whence he had come. Then a refreshment was brought, and Khaled ate and drank a little, after which the Sultan inquired his business. 'I come,' said Khaled boldly, 'to ask your daughter Zehowah in marriage. I bring no gifts, for I have none to offer, nor have I any inheritance. My mare is my fortune, my sword is my argument and my wit is in my arm.' 'You are a strange suitor,' said the Sultan; but he kept a pleasant countenance, since Khaled was his guest. 'You are no doubt the sheikh of a tribe of the Red Desert, though I was not aware that any tribes dwelt there.' 'So far as being the sheikh of my tribe,' said Khaled with a smile, 'your majesty may call me so, for my tribe consists of myself alone, seeing that I have neither father nor mother nor any relations.' 'Truly, I have never talked with such a suitor before,' answered the Sultan. 'At least I presume that you are a son of some prince, and that you have chosen to disguise yourself as a rich traveller and to hide your history under an allegory.' The Sultan would certainly not have allowed himself to overstep the bounds of courtesy so far, but for his astonishment at Khaled's daring manner. He was too keen, however, not to see that this man was something above the ordinary and that, whatever else he might be, he was not a common impostor. Such a fellow would have found means to rob a caravan of valuable goods, to offer as gifts, would have brought himself a train of camels and slaves and would have given himself out as a prince of some distant country from which it would not be possible to obtain information. 'Istaghfir Allah! I am no prince,' Khaled answered. 'I ask for the hand of your daughter. The will of Allah will be accomplished.' He knew that Zehowah was watching and listening behind the lattice in her place of concealment, for the memory of such things had not been taken from him when he had lost the supernatural vision of the genii and had become an ordinary man. He was determined therefore to be truthful and to say nothing which he might afterwards be called upon to explain. For he never doubted but that Zehowah would be his wife, since the angel had told him that it should be so. 'And what if I refuse even to consider your proposal?' inquired the Sultan, to see what he would say. 'If it is the will of Allah that I marry your daughter, your refusal would be useless, but if it is not his will, your refusal would be altogether unnecessary.' The Sultan was much struck by this argument which showed a ready wit in the stranger and which he could only have opposed by asserting that his own will was superior to that of heaven itself. 'But,' said he, defending himself, 'any of the previous suitors might have said the same.' 'Undoubtedly,' replied Khaled, unabashed. 'But they did not say it. Your majesty will certainly now consider the matter.' 'In the meanwhile,' the Sultan answered, very graciously, 'you are my guest, and you have come in time to take part in the third day of the feast, to which you are welcome in the name of Allah, the merciful.' Thereupon the Sultan rose and Khaled was conducted to the apartments set apart for the guests. But the Sultan returned to the harem in a very thoughtful mood, and before long he found Zehowah who had returned to her seat in the balcony. 'This is a very strange suitor,' he said, shaking his head and looking into his daughter's face. 'He is at least bold and outspoken,' she answered. 'He makes no secret of his poverty nor of his wishes. Whatever he be, he is in earnest and speaks truth. I would like well to know the only secret which he wishes to keep--who he really is.' 'It may be,' said the Sultan thoughtfully, 'that if I threaten to cut off his head he will tell us. But on the other hand, he is a guest.' 'He is not of those who are easily terrified, I think. Tell me, my father, do you wish me to marry him?' 'How could you marry a man who has no family and no inheritance? Would such a marriage befit the daughter of kings?' 'Why not?' asked Zehowah with much calmness. The Sultan stared at her in astonishment. 'Has this stranger enchanted your imagination?' he inquired by way of answer. 'No,' replied Zehowah scornfully. 'I have seen the noblest, the most beautiful and the richest of the earth, ready to take me to wife, and I have not loved. Shall I love an outcast?' 'Then how can you ask my wishes?' 'Because there are good reasons why I should marry this man.' 'Good reasons? In the name of Allah let me hear them, if there are any.' 'You are old, my father,' said Zehowah, 'and it has not pleased heaven to send you a son, nor to leave you any living relation to sit upon the throne when your years are accomplished. You must needs think of your successor.' 'The better reason for choosing some powerful prince, whose territory shall increase the kingdom he inherits from me, and whose alliance shall strengthen the empire I leave behind me.' 'Istaghfir Allah! The worse reason. For such a prince would be attached to his own country, and would take me thither with him and would neglect the kingdom of Nejed, regarding it as a land of strangers whom he may oppress with taxes to increase his own splendour. And this is not unreasonable, since no king can wisely govern two kingdoms separated from each other by more than three days' journey. No man can have other than the one of two reasons for asking me in marriage. Either he has heard of me and desires to possess me, or he wishes to increase his dominions by the inheritance which will be mine.' 'Doubtless, this is the truth,' said the Sultan. 'But so much the more does this stranger in all probability covet my kingdom, since he has nothing of his own.' 'This is what I mean. For, having no other possessions to distract his attention, he will remain always here, and will govern your kingdom for its own advantage in order that it may profit himself.' 'This is a subtle argument, my daughter, and one requiring consideration.' 'The more so because the man seems otherwise well fitted to be my husband, since he is a true believer, and young, and fearless and outspoken.' 'But if this is all,' objected the Sultan, 'there are in Nejed several young men, sons of my chief courtiers, who possess the same qualifications. Choose one of them.' 'On the contrary, to choose one of them would arouse the jealousy of all the rest, with their families and slaves and freedmen, whereby the kingdom would easily be exposed to civil war. But if I take a stranger it is more probable that all will be for him, since you are beloved, and there is no reason why one party should oppose him and another support him, since none of them know anything of him.' 'But he will not be beloved by the people unless he is liberal, and he has nothing wherewith to be generous.' 'And where are the treasures of Riad?' laughed Zehowah. 'Is it not easy for you to go secretly to his chamber and to give him as much gold as he needs?' 'That is also true. I see that you have set your heart upon him.' 'Not my heart, my father, but my head. For I have infinitely more head than heart, and I see that the welfare of the kingdom will be better secured with such a ruler, than it would have been under a foreign prince whose right hand would be perpetually thrust out to take in Nejed that which his left hand would throw to courtiers in his own country. Do I speak wisdom or folly?' 'It is neither all folly nor all wisdom.' 'I have seen this man, I have heard him speak,' said Zehowah. 'He is as well as another since I must marry sooner or later. Moreover I have another argument.' 'What is that?' 'Either he is a man strong enough to rule me, or he is not,' Zehowah answered with a laugh. 'If he can govern me, he can govern the kingdom of Nejed. But if not I will govern it for him, and rule him also.' The Sultan looked up to heaven and slightly raised his hands from his knees. 'Allah is merciful and forgiving!' he exclaimed. 'Is this the spirit befitting a wife?' 'Is it charity to cause happiness?' 'Undoubtedly it is charity.' 'And which is greater, the happiness of many or the happiness of one?' 'The happiness of many is greater,' answered the Sultan. 'What then?' he asked after a time, seeing that she said nothing more. 'I have spoken,' she replied. 'It is best that I should marry him.' Then there was silence for a long time, during which the Sultan sat quite motionless in his place, watching his daughter, while she looked idly through the lattice at the people who came and went in the court below. She seemed to feel no emotion. The Sultan did not know how to oppose Zehowah's will any more than he could answer her arguments, although his worldly wisdom was altogether at variance with her decision. For she was the beloved child of his old age and he could refuse her nothing. Moreover, in what she had said, there was much which recommended itself to his judgment, though by no means enough to persuade him. At last he rose from the carpet and embraced her. 'If it is your will, let it be so,' he said. 'It is the will of Allah,' answered Zehowah. 'Let it be accomplished immediately.' With a sigh the Sultan withdrew and sent a messenger to Khaled requesting him to come to another and more secluded chamber, where they could be alone and talk freely. Khaled showed no surprise on hearing that his suit was accepted, but he thought it fitting to express much gratitude for the favourable decision. Then the Sultan, who did not wish to seem too readily yielding, began to explain to Khaled Zehowah's reasons for accepting a poor stranger, presenting them as though they were his own. 'For,' he said, 'whatever you may in reality be, you have chosen to present yourself to us in such a manner as would not have failed to bring about a refusal under any other circumstances. But I have considered that as it will be your destiny, if heaven grants you life, to rule my kingdom after me, you will in all likelihood rule it more wisely and carefully, for having no other cares in a distant country to distract your attention; and because you have no relations you are the less liable to the attacks of open or secret jealousy.' The Sultan then gave him a large sum of money in gold pieces, which Khaled gladly accepted, since he had not even wherewithal to buy himself a garment for the wedding feast, still less to distribute gifts to the courtiers and to the multitude. The Sultan also presented him with a black slave to attend to his personal wants. Khaled then sent for merchants from the bazar, and they brought him all manner of rich stuffs, such as he needed. There came also two tailors, who sat down upon a matting in his apartment and immediately began to make him clothes, while the black slave sat beside them and watched them, lest they should steal any of the gold of the embroideries. When it was known in the palace that the Sultan's only daughter was to be married at once, there were great rejoicings, and many camels were slaughtered and a great number of sheep, to supply food for so great a feast. A number of cooks were hired also to help those who belonged to the palace, for although the Sultan fed daily more than three hundred persons, guests, travellers, and poor, besides all the members of the household, yet this was as nothing compared with the multitude to be provided for on the present occasion. Then it was that Hadji Mohammed, the chief of the cooks, sat down upon the floor in the midst of the main kitchen and beat his breast and wept. For the confusion was great so that the voice of one man could not be heard for the diabolical screaming of the many, and the cooks smote the young lads who helped them, and these, running to escape from the blows, fell against the porters who came in from outside bearing sacks of sugar, and great baskets of fruit and quarters of meat and skins of water, and bushels of meal and a hundred other things equally necessary to the cooking; and the porters, staggering under their burdens, fell between the legs of the mules loaded with firewood, that had been brought to the gate, and the dumb beasts kicked violently in all directions, while the slaves who drove them struck them with their staves, and the mules began to run among the camels, and the camels, being terrified, rose from the ground and began to plunge and skip like young foals, while more porters and more mules and more slaves came on in multitudes to the door of the kitchen. And it was very hot, for it was noontide, and in summer, and there were flies without number, and the dogs that had been sleeping in the shade sprang up and barked loudly and bit whomsoever they could reach, and all the men bellowed together, so that the confusion was extreme. 'Verily,' cried Hadji Mohammed, 'this is not a kitchen but Yemamah, and I am not the chief of the cooks, but the chief of sinners and fuel for hell.' So he wept bitterly and beat his breast. But at last matters mended, for there were many who were willing to do well, so that when the time came Hadji Mohammed was able to serve an honourable feast to all, though the number of the guests was not less than two thousand. But Khaled, having visited the bath, arrayed himself magnificently and rode upon his bay mare to the mosque, surrounded by the courtiers and the chief officers of the state, and by a great throng of slaves from the palace. As he rode, he scattered gold pieces among the people from the bags which he carried, and all praised his liberality and swore by Allah that Zehowah was taking a very goodly husband. And as none knew whence he came, all were equally pleased, but most of all the Bedouins from the desert, of whom there were many at that time in Riad, who had come to keep the feast Bairam, for Khaled's own words had been repeated, and they had heard that he came from the desert like themselves. And when he had finished his prayers, he rode back to the palace. When the time for the feast came the Sultan led Khaled into the great hall and made him sit at his right hand. The Sultan himself was magnificently dressed and covered with priceless jewels, so that he shone like the sun among all the rest. Then he presented Khaled to the assembly. 'This,' said he, 'is Khaled, my beloved son-in-law, the husband of my only daughter, whom it has pleased Allah to send me, as the stay of my old age and as the successor to my kingdom. He will be terrible in war as Khaled ibn Walid, his namesake, the Sword of the Lord, and gentle and just in peace as Abu Bakr of blessed memory. He is as brave as the lion, as strong as the camel, as swift as the ostrich, as sagacious as the fox and as generous as the pelican, who feeds her young with the blood of her own breast. Love him therefore, as you have loved me, for he is extremely worthy of affection, and hate his enemies and be faithful to him in the time of danger. By the blessing of Allah he shall rear up children to me in my old age, to be with you when he is gone.' Thereupon Khaled turned and answered, speaking modestly but with much dignity in his manner. 'Ye men of Nejed, this is my marriage feast and I invite you all to be merry with me. Whether it shall please Allah to give me a long life, or whether it shall please him to take me this night I know not. We are in the hand of Allah. But this I do know. I will love you as my own people, seeing that I have no people of my own. I will fight for you as a man fights for his own soul, for his wife and for his children, and I will divide justly the spoils in war, and give in peace whatsoever I am able, to all those who are in need. I swear by Allah! You are all witnesses.' The courtiers and all the guests were much pleased with this short speech, for they saw that Khaled was a man of few words and not proud or overbearing, and none could look into his face and doubt his promise. For the present moment at least Zehowah's prediction had been verified, for no one was jealous of him, and there was but one party among them all and that was for him. So they all feasted together in harmony until the sun was low. In the meantime Zehowah remained in the harem, surrounded by her women, and a separate meal was brought to them. They all sat upon the rich carpets leaning on cushions set against the walls, and small low tables were brought in, covered with dishes and bowls containing delicately prepared rice and mutton in great abundance and fresh blanket bread, hot from the stones, and olives brought from Syria. Afterwards came sweetmeats without number, such as Hadji Mohammed knew how to prepare, and gold and silver goblets filled with a drink made from large sweet lemons and water, which is called 'treng.' Zehowah indeed ate sparingly, for she was accustomed to such dainties every day, but her women were delighted with the abundance and left nothing to be taken away. While they were eating six of the women played upon musical instruments by turns, while others danced slow and graceful measures, singing as they moved, and describing the unspeakable happiness which awaited their princess in marriage. Afterwards when the tables had been taken away and they had washed their hands with rose water from Ajjem, Zehowah commanded the singing and the dancing to cease, and the women brought her one by one the dresses which she was to wear before Khaled. They were very magnificent, for it had needed many years to prepare them, and a great weight of gold and silver threads had been weighed out to the tailors and embroiderers who had worked in the preparation of them ever since Zehowah had been two years old. For the piece of material is weighed first, and then the gold, and afterwards, when the work is finished, the whole is weighed together, lest the tailors should steal anything. But Zehowah looked coldly at the garments, one after the other, as they were brought and taken away, and the women fancied that she was to be married to the stranger against her will, and that she remembered the Indian prince. 'It is a pity,' one of them ventured to say, 'that the bridegroom has not brought any elephants with him, for we would have watched them from the balconies, since they are diverting beasts.' 'And it is a pity,' said Zehowah scornfully, 'that my husband has not a round, soft face, like the moon in May, and the eyes of a gazelle and the heart of a hare. Truly, such a one would have made you a good king, seeing that he was also an unbeliever!' 'Nay,' said the woman humbly, 'Allah forbid that I should make a comparison, or bring an ill omen on the day by speaking of that which chanced a year ago. Truly, I only spoke of elephants, and not of men. For, surely, we all said when we saw him in the court that he looked a brave warrior and a goodly man.' Then a messenger came from the Sultan saying that it was time to make ready. So they went to another apartment, where the nuptial chamber had been prepared. The Sultan came, then, leading Khaled, and followed by the Kadi, and all the women veiled themselves while the latter read the declaration of marriage. After that they all withdrew and Khaled took his seat upon the high couch in the middle of the room. Presently all the women returned, unveiled, with loud singing and playing of instruments, leading Zehowah dressed in the first of the dresses which she was to put on, and which, though it was very splendid, was of course the least magnificent of all those which had been prepared. But Khaled sat in his place looking on quietly, for he was acquainted with the custom, and he cared little for the rich garments, but looked always into Zehowah's face. CHAPTER III Khaled sat with his sword upon his feet, and when Zehowah was not in the room he played with the hilt and thought of all that was happening. 'Truly,' he said to himself, 'Allah is great. Was I not, but a few days since, one of the genii condemned to perish at the day of the resurrection? And am I not now a man, married to the most beautiful woman in the whole world, and the wisest and the best, needing only to be loved by her in order to obtain an undying soul? And why should this woman not love me? Truly, we shall see before long, when this mummery is finished.' So he sat on the couch while Zehowah was led before him again and again each time in clothing more splendid than before, and each time with new songs and new music. But at the last time the attendants left her standing before him and went away, and only a very old woman remained at the door, screaming out in a cracked voice the customary exhortations. Then she, too, went away and the door was shut and Khaled and Zehowah were alone. It was now near the middle of the night. The chamber was large and high, lighted by a number of hanging lamps such as are made in Bagdad, of brass perforated with beautiful designs and filled with coloured glasses, in each of which a little wick floats upon oil. Upon the walls rich carpets were hung, both Arabian and Persian, some taken in war as booty, and some brought by merchants in time of peace. A brass chafing dish stood at some distance from the couch, and upon the coals the women had thrown powdered myrrh and benzoin before they went away. But Khaled cared little for these things, since he had seen all the treasures of the earth in their most secret depositories. Zehowah had watched him narrowly during the ceremony of the dresses and had seen that he felt no surprise at anything which was brought before him. 'His own country must be full of great wealth and magnificence,' she thought, 'since so much treasure does not astonish him.' And she was disappointed. Now that they were alone, he still sat in silence, gazing at her as she stood beside him, and not even thinking of any speech, for he was overcome and struck dumb by her eyes. 'You are not pleased with what I have shown you,' Zehowah said at last in a tone of displeasure and disappointment. 'And yet you have seen the wealth of my father's palace.' 'I have seen neither wealth nor treasure, neither rich garments, nor precious stones nor chains of gold nor embroideries of pearls,' Khaled answered slowly. But Zehowah frowned and tapped the carpet impatiently with her foot where she stood, for she was annoyed, having expected him to praise the beauty of her many dresses. 'They who have eyes can see,' she said. 'But if you are not pleased, my father will give me a hundred dresses more beautiful than these, and pearls and jewels without end.' 'I should not see them,' Khaled replied. 'I have seen two jewels which have dazzled me so that I can see nothing else.' Zehowah gazed at him with a look of inquiry. 'I have seen the eyes of Zehowah,' he continued, 'which are as the stars Sirius and Aldebaran, when they are over the desert in the nights of winter. What jewels can you show me like these?' Then Zehowah laughed softly and sat down beside her husband on the edge of the couch. 'Nevertheless,' she said, 'the dresses are very rich. You might admire them also.' 'I will look at them when you are not near me, for then my sight will be restored for other things.' Khaled took her hand in his and held it. 'Tell me, Zehowah, will you love me?' he asked in a soft voice. 'You are my lord and my master,' she answered, looking modestly downward, and her hand lay quite still. She was so very beautiful that as Khaled sat beside her and looked at her downcast face, and knew that she was his, he could not easily believe that she was cold and indifferent to him. 'By Allah!' he thought, 'can it be so hard to get a woman's love? Truly, I think she begins to love me already.' Zehowah looked up and smiled carelessly as though answering his question, but Khaled was obliged to admit in his heart that the answer lacked clearness, for he found it no easier to interpret a woman's smile than men had found it before him, and have found it since, even to this day. 'You have had many suitors,' he said at last, 'and it is said that your father has given you your own free choice, allowing you to see them and hear them speak while he was receiving them. Tell me why you have chosen me rather than the rest, unless it is because you love me? For I came with empty hands, and without servants or slaves, or retinue of any kind, riding alone out of the Red Desert. It was therefore for myself that you took me.' 'You are right. It was for yourself that I took you.' 'Then it was for love of me, was it not?' 'There were and still are many and good reasons,' answered Zehowah calmly, and at the same time withdrawing her hand from his and smoothing back the black hair from her forehead. 'I told them all to my father, and he was convinced.' 'Tell them to me also,' said Khaled. So she explained all to him in detail, making him see everything as she saw it herself. And the explanation was so very clear, that Khaled felt a cold chill in his heart as he understood that she had chosen him rather for politic reasons, than because she wished him for her husband. 'And yet,' she added at the end, 'it was the will of Allah, for otherwise I would not have chosen you.' 'But surely,' he said, somewhat encouraged by these last words, 'there was some love in the choice, too.' 'How can I tell!' she exclaimed, with a little laugh. 'What is love?' Finding himself confronted by such an amazing question, Khaled was silent, and took her hand again. For though many have asked what love is, no one has ever been able to find an answer in words to satisfy the questioner, seeing that the answer can have no more to do with words than love itself, a matter sufficiently explained by a certain wise man, who understood the heart of man. If, said he, a man who loves a woman, or a woman who loves a man could give in words the precise reason why he or she loves, then love itself could be defined in language; but as no man or woman has ever succeeded in doing this, I infer that they who love best do not themselves know in what love consists--still less therefore can any one else know, wherefore the definition is impossible, and no one need waste time in trying to find it. A certain wit has also said that although it be impossible for any man to explain the nature of love to many persons at the same time, he generally finds it easy to make his explanations to one person only. But this is a mere quibbling jest and not deserving of any attention. Zehowah expected an answer to her question, and Khaled was silent, not because he was as yet too little acquainted with the feelings of a man to give them expression, but because he already felt so much that it was hard for him to speak at all. Zehowah laughed and shook her head, for she was not of a timid temper. 'How can you expect me to say that I love you, when you yourself are unable to answer such a simple question?' she asked. 'And besides, are you not my lord and my master? What is it then to you, whether I love you or not?' But again Khaled was silent, debating whether he should tell her the truth, how the angel had promised in Allah's name that if she loved him he should obtain an undying soul, and how the task of obtaining her love had been laid upon him as a sort of atonement for having slain the Indian prince. But as he reflected he understood that this would probably estrange her all the more from him. 'Yet I can answer your question,' he said at last. 'What is love? It is that which is in me for you only.' 'But how am I to know what that is?' asked Zehowah, drawing up the smooth gold bracelets upon her arm and letting them fall down to her wrist, so that they jangled like a camel's bell. 'If you love me you will know,' Khaled answered, 'for then, perhaps, you will feel a tenth part of what I feel.' 'And why not all that you feel?' she asked, looking at him, but still playing with the bracelets. 'Because it is impossible for any woman to love as much as I love you, Zehowah.' 'You mean, perhaps, that a woman is too weak to love so well,' she suggested. 'And you think, perhaps, that we are weak because we sit all our lives upon the carpets in the harem eating sweetmeats, and listening to singing girls and to old women who tell us tales of long ago. Yet there have been strong women too--as strong as men. Kenda, who tore out the heart of Kamsa--was she weak?' 'Women are stronger to hate than to love,' said Khaled. 'But a man can forget his hatred in the love of a woman, and his strength also,' laughed Zehowah. 'I would rather that you should not love me at all, than that you should forget to be strong in the day of battle. For I have married you that you may lead my people to war and bring home the spoil.' 'And if I destroy all your enemies and the enemies of your people, will you love me then, Zehowah?' 'Why should I love you then, more than now? What has war to do with love? Again, I ask, what is it to you whether I love you or not? Am I not your wife, and are you not my master? What is this love of which you talk? Is it a rich garment that you can wear? A precious stone that you can fasten in your turban? A rich carpet to spread in your house? A treasure of gold, a mountain of ambergris, a bushel of pearls from Oman? Why do you covet it? Am I not beautiful enough? Then is love henna to make my hair bright, or kohl to darken my eyes, or a boiled egg with almonds to smooth my face? I have all these things, and ointments from Egypt, and perfumes from Syria, and if I am not beautiful enough to please you, it is the will of Allah, and love will not make me fairer.' 'Yet love is beauty,' Khaled answered. 'For Kadijah was lovely in the eyes of the Prophet, upon whom be peace, because she loved him, though she was a widow and old.' 'Am I a widow? Am I old?' asked Zehowah with some indignation. 'Do I need the imaginary cosmetic you call love to smooth my wrinkles, to lighten my eyes, or to make my teeth white?' 'No. You need nothing to make you beautiful.' 'And for the matter of that, I can say it of you. You tell me that you love me. Is it love that makes your body tall and straight, your beard black, your forehead smooth, your hand strong? Would not any woman see what I see, whether you loved her or not? See! Is your hand whiter than mine because you love and I do not?' She laughed again as she held her hand beside his. 'Truly,' thought Khaled, 'it is less easy than I supposed. For the heart of a woman who does not love is like the desert, when the wind blows over it, and there are neither tracks nor landmarks. And I am wandering in this desert like a man seeking lost camels.' But he said nothing, for he was not yet skilled in the arguments of love. Thereupon Zehowah smiled, and resting her cheek upon her hand, looked into his face, as though saying scornfully, 'Is it not all vanity and folly?' Khaled sighed, for he was disappointed, as a thirsty man who, coming to drink of a clear spring, finds the water bitter, while his thirst increases and grows unbearable. 'Why do you sigh?' Zehowah asked, after a little silence. 'Are you weary? Are you tired with the feasting? Are you full of bitterness, because I do not love you? Command me and I will obey. Are you not my lord to whom I am subject?' He did not speak, but she drew him to her, so that his head rested upon her bosom, and she began to sing to him in a low voice. For a long time Khaled kept his eyes shut, listening to her voice. Then, on a sudden, he looked up, and without speaking so much as a word, he clasped her in his arms and kissed her. Before it was day there was a great tumult in the streets of Riad, of which the noise came up even to the chamber where Khaled and Zehowah were sleeping. Zehowah awoke and listened, wondering what had happened and trying to understand the cries of the distant multitude. Then she laid her hand upon Khaled's forehead and waked him. 'What is it?' he asked. 'It is war,' she answered. 'The enemy have surprised the city in the night of the feast. Arise and take arms and go out to the people.' Khaled sprang up and in a moment he was clothed and had girt on his sword. Then he took Zehowah in his arms. 'While I live, you are safe,' he said. 'Am I afraid? Go quickly,' she answered. At that time the Sultan of Nejed was at war with the northern tribes of Shammar, and the enemy had taken advantage of the month of Ramadhan, in which few persons travel, to advance in great numbers to Riad. During the three days' feast of Bairam they had moved on every night, slaying the inhabitants of the villages so that not one had escaped to bring the news, and in the daytime they had hidden themselves wherever they could find shelter. But in the night in which Khaled and Zehowah were married they reached the very walls of the city, and waiting until all the people were asleep, a party of them had climbed up upon the ramparts and had opened one of the gates to their companions after killing the guards. Khaled found his mare and mounted her without saddle or bridle in his haste, then drawing his sabre he rode swiftly out of the palace into the confusion. The enemy with their long spears were driving the panicstricken guards and the shrieking people before them towards the palace, slaughtering all whom they overtook, so that the gutters of the streets were already flowing with blood, and the horses of the enemy stumbled over the bodies of the defenders. The whole multitude of the pursued and the pursuers were just breaking out of the principal street into the open space before the palace when Khaled met them, a single man facing ten thousand. 'I shall certainly perish in this fight,' he said to himself, 'and yet I shall not receive the reward of the faithful, since Allah has not given me a soul. Nevertheless certain of these dogs shall eat dirt before the rest get into the palace.' So he pressed his legs to the bare sides of his mare and lifted up his sword and rode at the foe, having neither buckler, nor helmet, nor shirt of mail to protect him, but only his clothes and his turban. But his arm was strong, and it has been said by the wise that it is better to fall upon an old lion with a reed than to stand armed in the way of a man who seeks death. 'Yallah! The Sword of the Lord!' shouted Khaled, in such a terrible voice that the assailants ceased to kill for a moment, and the terrified guards turned to see whence so great a voice could proceed; and some who had seen Khaled recognised him and ran to meet him, and the others followed. When the enemy saw a single man riding towards them across the great square before the palace, they sent up a shout of derision, and turned again to the slaughter of such of the inhabitants as could not extricate themselves. 'Shall one man stop an army?' they said. 'Shall a fox turn back a herd of hyænas?' But when Khaled was among them they found less matter for laughter. For the sword was keen, the mare was swift to double and turn, and Khaled's hand was strong. In the twinkling of an eye two of the enemy lay dead, the one cloven to the chin, the other headless. Then a strange fever seized Khaled, such as he had not heard of, and all things turned to scarlet before his eyes, both the walls of the houses, and the faces and the garments of his foes. Men who saw him say that his face was white and shining in the dawn, and that the flashing of the sword was like a storm of lightning about his head, and after each flash there was a great rain of blood, and a crashing like thunder as the horses and men of the enemy fell to the earth. In the meantime, too, the soldiers of the city and the Bedouins of the desert who were within the walls for the feast, took courage, and turning fiercely began to drive the assailants back by the way they had come, towards the market-place in the bazar. But those behind still kept pressing forward, while those in front were driven back, and the press became so great that the Shammars could no longer wield their weapons. The enemy were crowded together like sheep in a fold, and Khaled, with his men, began to cut a broad road through the very midst of them, hewing them down in ranks and throwing them aside, as corn is harvested in Egypt. But after some time Khaled saw that he was alone, with a few followers, surrounded by a great throng of the enemy, for some of his men had been slain after slaying many of their foes, and some had not been able to follow, being hindered at first by the heaps of dead and afterwards by the multitude of their opponents who closed in again over the bloody way through which Khaled had passed. And now the Shammars saw that Khaled could not escape them, and they pressed him on every side, but the archers dared not shoot at him for fear of hitting their own friends, if their arrows chanced to go by the mark. Otherwise he would undoubtedly have perished, since he had no armour, and not even a buckler with which to ward off the darts. But they thrust at him with spears and struck at him with their swords, and wounded him more than once, though he was not conscious of pain or loss of blood, being hot with the fever of the fight. He was hard pressed therefore, and while he smote without ceasing he began to know that unless a speedy rescue came to him, his hour was at hand. From the borders of the market-place, the men of Riad could still see his sword flashing and striking, and they still heard his fierce cry. He looked about him as he fought, and he saw that he was now almost alone. One after another, the few who had penetrated so far forward with him into the press, were overwhelmed by numbers and fell bleeding from a hundred wounds till only a score were left, and Khaled saw that unless he could now cut his way free, he must inevitably perish. But the press was stubborn and a man might as well hope to make his way through a herd of camels crowded together in a narrow street. Then Khaled bethought him of a stratagem. He alone was on horseback, for the enemy's riders had ridden before, and he had met them in the street leading to the palace, when he had himself slain many, and where the rest were even now falling under the swords of the men of Riad. And the few men who were with him were also all on foot. Therefore looking across the market-place he made as though he saw a great force coming to his assistance, and he shouted with all his breath, while his arm never rested. 'Smite, men of Nejed!' he cried. 'For I see the Sultan himself coming to meet us with five hundred horsemen! Smite! Yallah! It is the Sword of the Lord!' Hearing these words, his men were encouraged, and of the enemy many turned their heads to see the new danger. But being on foot they were hindered from seeing by the throng. Yet so much the more Khaled shouted that the Sultan was coming, and many of the heads that turned to look were not turned back again, but rolled down to the feet of those to whom they had belonged. The brave men who were with Khaled took heart and hewed with all their might, taking up the cry of their leader when they saw that it disconcerted their foes, so that the last took fright, and the panic ran through the whole multitude. 'We shall be slain like sheep, and taken like locusts under a mantle, for we cannot move!' they cried, and they began to press away out of the market-place, forcing their comrades before them into the narrow streets. But here many perished. For while every man in Riad had taken his sword and had gone out of his house to fight, the women had dragged up cauldrons of boiling water, and also hand-mill stones, to the roofs, and they scalded and crushed their retreating foes. Then too, as the market-place was cleared, the soldiers came on from the side of the palace, having slain all that stood in their way and taken most of their horses alive, which alone was a great booty, for there are not many horses in Nejed besides those of the Sultan, though these are the very best and fleetest in all Arabia. But the Shammars of the north are great horse-breeders. So the soldiers mounted and joined Khaled in the pursuit, and a great slaughter followed in the streets, though some of the enemy were able to escape to the gates, and warn those of their fellows who were outside to flee to the hills for safety, leaving much booty behind. At the time of the second call to prayer Khaled dismounted from his mare in the market-place, and there was not one of the enemy left alive within the walls. Those who remember that day say that there were five thousand dead in the streets in Riad. Khaled made such ablution as he could, and having prayed and given thanks to Allah, he went back on foot to the palace, his bay mare following him, and thrusting her nose into his hand as he walked. For she was little hurt, and the blood that covered her shoulders and her flanks was not her own. But Khaled had many wounds on him, so that his companions wondered how he was able to walk. In the court of the palace the Sultan came to meet him, and fell upon his neck and embraced him, for many messengers had come, from time to time, telling how the fight went, and of the great slaughter. And Khaled smiled, for he thought that he should now win the love of Zehowah. 'Said I not truly that he is as brave as the lion, and as strong as the camel?' cried the Sultan, addressing those who stood in the court. 'Has he not scattered our enemies as the wind scatters the sand? Surely he is well called by the name Khaled.' 'Forget not your own men,' Khaled answered, 'for they have shared in the danger and have slain more than I, and deserve the spoil. There was a score of stout fellows with me at the last in the market-place, whose faces I should know again on a cloudy night. They fought as well as I, and it was the will of Allah that their enemies should broil everlastingly and drink boiling water. Let them be rewarded.' 'They shall every one have a rich garment and a sum of money, besides their share of the spoil. But as for you, my beloved son, go in and rest, and bind up your wounds, and afterwards there shall be feasting and merriment until the night.' 'The enemy is not destroyed yet,' answered Khaled. 'Command rather that the army make ready for the pursuit, and when I have washed I will arm myself and we will ride out and pursue the dogs until not one of them is left alive, and by the help of Allah we will take all Shammar and lay it under tribute and bring back the women captive. After that we shall feast more safely, and sleep without fear of being waked by a herd of hyænas in our streets.' 'Nay, but you must rest before going upon this expedition,' objected the Sultan. 'The true believer will find rest in the grave, and feasting in paradise,' answered Khaled. 'This is true. But even the camel must eat and drink on the journey, or both he and his master will perish.' 'Let us then eat and drink quickly, that we may the sooner go.' 'As you will, let it be,' said the Sultan, with a sigh, for he loved feasting and music, being now too old to go out and fight himself as he had formerly done. Thereupon Khaled went into the harem and returned to Zehowah's apartment. As he went the women gathered round him with cries of gladness and songs of triumph, staunching the blood that flowed from his wounds with their veils and garments as he walked. And others ran before to prepare the bath and to tell Zehowah of his coming. When she saw him she ran forward and took him by the hands and led him in, and herself she bathed his wounds and bound them up with precious balsams of great healing power, not suffering any of the women to help her nor to touch him, but sending them away so that she might be alone with Khaled. 'I have slain certain of your enemies, Zehowah,' he said, at last, 'and I have driven out the rest from the city.' As yet neither of them had spoken. 'Do you think that I have not heard what you have done?' Zehowah asked. 'You have saved us all from death and captivity. You are our father and our mother. And now I will bring you food and drink and afterwards you shall sleep.' 'So you are well pleased with the doings of the husband you have married,' he said. He was displeased, for he had supposed that she would love him for his deeds and for his wounds and that she would speak differently. But though she tended him and bound his wounds, and bathed his brow with perfumed waters, and laid pillows under his head and fanned him, as a slave might have done, he saw that there was no warmth in her cheek, and that the depths of her eyes were empty, and that her hands were neither hot nor cold. By all these signs he knew that she felt no love for him, so he spoke coldly to her. 'Is it for me to be pleased or displeased with the deeds of my lord and master?' she asked. 'Nevertheless, thousands are even now blessing your name and returning thanks to Allah for having sent them a preserver in the hour of danger. I am but one of them.' 'I would rather see a faint light in your eyes, as of a star rising in the desert than hear the blessings of all the men of Nejed. I would rather that your hand were cold when it touches mine, and your cheek hot when I kiss it, than that your father should bestow upon me all the treasures of Riad.' 'Is that love?' asked Zehowah with a laugh. 'A cold hand, a hot cheek, a bright eye?' Khaled was silent, for he saw that she understood his words but not his meaning. It was now noon and it was very hot, even in the inner shade of the harem, and Khaled was glad to rest after the hard fighting, for his many slight wounds smarted with the healing balsam, and his heart was heavy and discontented. Then Zehowah called a slave woman to fan him with a palm leaf, and presently she brought him meat and rice and dates to eat, and cool drink in a golden cup, and she sat at his feet while he refreshed himself. 'How many did you slay with your own hand?' she asked at last, taking up the good sword which lay beside him on the carpet. CHAPTER IV Khaled pondered deeply, being uncertain what to do, and trying to find out some action which could win for him what he wanted. Zehowah received no answer to her question as to the number of enemies he had slain and she did not ask again, for she thought that he was weary and wished to rest in silence. 'What do you like best in the whole world?' he asked after a long time, to see what she would say. 'I like you best,' she answered, smiling, while she still played with his sword. 'That is very strange,' Khaled answered, musing. But the colour rose darkly in his cheeks above his beard, for he was pleased now as he had been displeased before. 'Why is it strange?' asked Zehowah. 'Are you not the palm tree in my plain, and a tower of refuge for my people?' 'And will you dry up the well from which the tree draws life, and take away the corner-stone of the tower's foundation?' 'You speak in fables,' said Zehowah, laughing. 'Yet you imagined the fable yourself, when you likened me to a palm and to a tower. But I am no lover of allegories. The sword is my argument, and my wit is in my arm. The wall by the tree is the wall of love, and the chief foundation of the tower is the love of Zehowah. If you destroy that, the tree will wither and the tower will fall.' 'Surely there was never such a man as you,' Zehowah answered, half jesting but half in earnest. 'You are as one who has bought a white mare; and though she is fleet, and good to look at, and obedient to his voice and knee, yet he is discontented because she cannot speak to him, and he would fain have her black instead of white, and if possible would teach her to sing like a Persian nightingale.' 'Is it then not natural in a woman to love man? Have you heard no tales of love from the story-tellers of the harem?' 'I have heard many such tales, but none of them were told of me,' Zehowah replied. 'Will you drink again? Is the drink too sweet, or is it not cool?' She had risen from her seat and held the golden cup, bending down to him, so that her face was near his. He laid his hand upon her shoulder. 'Hear me, Zehowah,' he said. 'I want but one thing in the world, and it was for that I came out of the Red Desert to be your husband. And that thing I will have, though the price be greater than rubies, or than blood, or than life itself.' 'If it is mine, I freely give it to you. If it is not mine, take it by force, or I will help you to take it by a stratagem, if I can. Am I not your wife?' She spoke thus, supposing from his face that he meant some treasure that could be taken by strength or by wile, for she could not believe a man could speak so seriously of a mere thought such as love. 'Neither my right hand nor your wit can give me this, but only your heart, Zehowah,' he answered, still holding her and looking at her. But now she did not laugh, for she saw that he was greatly in earnest. 'You are still talking of love,' she said. 'And you are not jesting. I do not know what to answer you. Gladly will I say, I love you. Is that all? What is it else? Are those the words?' 'I care little for the words. But I will have the reality, though it cost your life and mine.' 'My life? Will you take my life, for the sake of a thought?' 'A thought!' he exclaimed. 'Do you call love a thought? I had not believed a woman could be so cold as that.' 'If not a thought, what then? I have spoken the truth. If it were a treasure, or anything that can be taken, you could take it, and I could help you. But if the possibility of possessing it lie not in deeds, it lies in thoughts, and is itself a thought. If you can teach me, I will think what you will; but if you cannot teach me, who shall? And how will it profit you to take my life or your own?' 'Is it possible that love is only a thought?' asked Khaled, speaking rather to himself than to her. 'It must be,' she answered. 'The body is what it is in the eyes of others, but the soul is what it thinks itself to be, happy or unhappy, loving or not loving.' 'You are too subtle for me, Zehowah,' Khaled said. 'Yet I know that this is not all true.' For he knew that he possessed no soul, and yet he loved her. Moreover he could think himself happy or unhappy. 'You are too subtle,' he repeated. 'I will take my sword again and I will go out and fight, and pursue the enemy and waste their country, for it is not so hard to cut through steel as to touch the heart of a woman who does not love, and it is easier to tear down towers and strongholds of stone with the naked hands than to build a temple upon the moving sand of an empty heart.' Khaled would have risen at once, but Zehowah took his hand and entreated him to stay with her. 'Will you go out in the heat of the day, wounded and wearied?' she asked. 'Surely you will take a fever and die before you have followed the Shammars so far as two days' journey.' 'My wounds are slight, and I am not weary,' Khaled answered. 'When the smith has heated the iron in the forge, does he wait until it is cold before striking?' 'But think also of the soldiers, who have striven hard, and cannot thus go out upon a great expedition without preparation as well as rest.' 'I will take those whom I can find. And if they will go with me, it is well. But if not, I will go alone, and they and the rest will follow after.' 'It is summer, too,' said Zehowah, keeping him back. 'Is this a time to go out into the northern desert? Both men and beasts will perish by the way.' 'Has not Allah bound every man's fate about his neck? And can a man cast it from him?' 'I know not otherwise, but if heat and hunger and thirst do not kill the men, they will certainly destroy the beasts, whose names are not recorded by Asrael, and who have no destiny of their own.' 'You hinder me,' said Khaled. 'And yet you do not know how many of the Shammar may be yet lurking within a day's march of the city, slaying your people, burning their houses and destroying their harvest. Let me go. Will you love me better if I stay?' 'You will be the better able to get the victory.' 'Will you love me better if I stay?' 'If you go now, you may fail in your purpose and perish as well. How could I love you at all then?' 'It is the victory you love then--not me?' 'Could I love defeat? Nay, do not be angry with me. Stay here at least until the evening. Think of the burning sun and the raging thirst and the smarting of your wounds which have only been dressed this first time. Think of the soldiers, too----' 'They can bear what I can bear. Was it not summer-time when the Prophet went out against the Romans?' 'I do not know. Stay with me, Khaled.' 'I will come back when I have destroyed the Shammars.' 'And if the soldiers will not go with you, will you indeed go out alone?' 'Yes. I will go alone. When they see that they will follow me. They are not foxes. They are brave men.' Khaled rose and girt his sword about him. Zehowah helped him, seeing that she could not persuade him to stay. 'Farewell,' he said, shortly, and without so much as touching her hand he turned and went out. She followed him to the door of the room and stood watching as he went away. 'One of us two was to rule,' she said to herself, 'and it is he, for I cannot move him. But what is this talk of love? Does he need love, who is himself the master?' She sighed and went back to the carpet on which they had been sitting. Then she called in her women and bid them tell her all they had heard about the fight in the morning; and they, thinking to please her, extolled the deeds of Khaled and of the tens he had slain they made hundreds, and of the thousands of the enemy's army, they made tens of thousands, till the walls of Riad could not have contained the hosts of which they spoke, and the dry sand of the desert could not have drunk all the blood which had been shed. Meanwhile Khaled went into the outer court of the palace, where many soldiers were congregated together in the shade of the high wall, eating camel's meat and blanket bread and drinking the water from the well. They were all able-bodied and unhurt, for those who had been wounded were at their houses, tended by their wives. 'Men of Riad!' cried Khaled, standing before them. 'We have fought a good fight this morning and the power of our foes is broken. But all are not yet destroyed, and it may be that there are many thousands still lurking within a day's march of the city, slaying the people, burning their houses and destroying their harvests. Let us go out and kill them all before they are able to go back to their own country. Afterwards we will pursue those who are already escaping, and we will lay all the tribes of Shammar under tribute and bring back the women captive.' Thereupon a division arose among the soldiers. Some were for going at once with Khaled, but others said it was the hot season and no time for war. 'It is indeed summer,' said Khaled. 'But if the Shammars were able to come to Riad in the heat, the men of Riad are able to go to them. And I at least will go at once, and those who wish to share the spoil will go with me, but those who are satisfied to sit in the shade and eat camel's meat will stay behind. In an hour's time I will ride out of the northern gate.' So saying, Khaled rode slowly down into the city towards the market-place. The people were carrying away their own dead, and dragging off the bodies of their enemies, with camels, by fours and fives tied together to bury them in a great ditch without the walls. When Khaled appeared, many of the men gathered round him, with cries of joy, for they had supposed that some of his wounds were dangerous and that they should not see him for many days. 'Wallah! He is with us again!' they shouted, jostling each other to get near, and standing on tiptoe to see the good mare that had carried him so well in the fight. 'Masallah! I am with you,' answered Khaled, 'and if you will go with me we will send many more of the Shammars to eat thorns and thistles, as many as dwell in Kasim and Tabal Shammar as far as Haïl; and by the help of Allah we will take the city of Haïl itself and divide the spoil and bring away the women captive; and when we have taken all that there is we will lay the land under tribute and make it subject to Nejed. So let those who will go with me arm themselves and take every man his horse or his camel, and dates and barley and water-skins, and in an hour's time we will ride out. For Allah will certainly give us the victory.' 'Let us bury the dead to-day and to-morrow we will go,' said many of those nearest to him. 'Are there no old men and boys in Riad to bind the sheaves you have mown?' asked Khaled. 'And are there no women to mourn over the dead of your kindred who have fallen in a good fight? And as for to-morrow, it is yet in Allah's hand. But to-day we have already with us. However, if you will not go with me, I will go alone.' The men were pleased with Khaled's speech, and indeed the greater part of the dead were buried by this time, for all the people had made haste to the work, fearing lest the bodies should bring a pestilence among them, since it was summer-time and very hot. Then all those who were unhurt and could bear arms, went and washed themselves, and took their weapons and food, as Khaled had directed them. Before the call to afternoon prayers the whole host went out of the northern gate. Then Khaled accomplished all that he had spoken of, and much more, for he drove the scattered force of the enemy before him, overtaking all at last and slaying all whom he overtook as far as Zulfah which is by the narrow end of the Nefud. Here he rested a short time, and then quickly crossing the sand, he entered the country called Kasim which is subject to the Shammars. Here he was told by a woman who had been taken that the Shammars were coming with a new army against him out of Haïl. He therefore hid his host in a pass of the hills just above the plain, and sent down a few Bedouins to encamp at the foot of the mountains, bidding them call themselves Shammars and make a show of being friendly to the enemy. So when the army of the Shammars reached the foot of the hills, they saw the tents and only one or two camels, and Khaled's Bedouins came out and welcomed them, and told them that Khaled was still crossing the Nefud, and that if they made haste through the hills they might come upon him unawares and at an advantage as he began to ascend. Thereupon the enemy rejoiced and entered the pass in haste, after filling their water-skins. When they were in the midst of the hills, Khaled and his army sprang up from the ambush and fell upon them, and utterly destroyed them, taking all their horses and camels and arms; after which he went down into the plain and laid waste the country about Haïl. He took the city as the Shammars had taken Riad. For he himself got upon the wall at night, with the strongest and the bravest of his followers, and slew the guards and opened the gate just before the dawn. But there was no Khaled in Haïl to rally the soldiers and give them heart to turn and make a stand in the streets. Khaled then entered the palace and took the Sultan of Shammar alive, not suffering him to be hurt, for he wished to bring him to Riad. This Sultan was a man of middle age, having only one eye, and also otherwise ill-favoured, besides being cowardly and fat. So Khaled ordered that he should be put into a litter, and the litter into a cage, and the cage slung between two camels. But he commanded that the women of the harem should be well treated and brought before him, that he might see them, intending to bring back the most beautiful of them as presents to his father-in-law. 'Surely,' said the men who were with him, 'you will keep the fairest for yourself.' But Khaled turned angrily upon them. 'Have I not lately married the most beautiful woman in the world?' he asked. 'I tell you it is for her sake that I have destroyed the Shammars. But the Sultan shall have the best of these women, and afterwards the rest of them will be divided amongst you by lot.' When the women heard that they were to be distributed among the men of Nejed they at first made a pretence of howling and beating their breasts, but they rejoiced secretly and soon began to laugh and talk among themselves, pointing out to each other the strongest and most richly dressed of Khaled's followers, as though choosing husbands among them. But one of them neither wept nor spoke to her companions, but stood silently watching Khaled, and when he sat down upon a carpet in the chief kahwah of the house, she brought him drink in a goblet set with pearls from Katar, and sat down at his feet as though she had been his wife. But he took little heed of her at first, for he was busy with grave matters. The other women, seeing what she did, thought that she was acting wisely in the hope of gaining Khaled's favour, seeing that he was the chief of their enemies, so they, too, came near, and brought water for his hands, and perfumes, and sweetmeats, thinking to outdo her. But she pushed them away, taking what they brought for him, and offering it herself. 'Are you better than we?' the women said angrily. 'Has our lord chosen you for himself, that you will not let us come near him?' Then Khaled noticed her and began to wonder at her attention and zeal. 'What is your name?' he asked. But she did not speak. 'Who is she?' he inquired of the other women. 'She is an unbeliever,' they answered contemptuously. 'And she is proud, for she trusts in her white skin and her blue eyes, and her hair which is red without henna. She thinks she is better than we. Command us to uncover our faces, that you may see and judge between us.' 'Let it be so. Let us see who is the fairest,' said Khaled, and he laughed. Then the woman who sat at his feet threw aside her veil, and all the others did the same. Khaled saw that the one was certainly more beautiful than the rest, for her skin was as white as milk, and her eyes like the sea of Oman when it is blue in winter. She had also long hair, plaited in three tresses which came down to her feet, red as the locusts when the sun shines upon them at evening, and not dyed. 'There is a bay mare in a stable of black ones,' Khaled said. 'What is the name of the bay mare?' 'Her name is Aziz, and she is a Christian,' said one of the women. 'Not Aziz--Almasta,' said the beautiful woman in an accent which showed that she could not speak Arabic fluently. 'Almasta, a Christian.' 'She was lately sent as a present to our master by the Emir of Basrah,' said one of the others. 'He paid a thousand and five hundred sequins for her, for she was brought from Georgia,' said another. 'But I am a free woman, and myself the daughter of an emir.' Then all the others began to scream. 'It is a lie,' they cried. 'Your father was a white slave from Syria.' 'You are fools,' retorted the woman who had spoken. 'You should have said that you were also free women and the daughters of emirs. So our lord would have treated you with more consideration.' The others saw their folly and were silent and drew back, but Khaled only smiled. 'As good mares are bred in the stable as in the desert,' he said, and the women laughed with him at the jest, for they saw that it pleased him. But Almasta was silent and sat at his feet, looking into his face. 'You must learn to talk in Arabic,' he said, 'and then you will be able to tell stories of your native country to the Sultan, for he loves tales of travel.' Almasta smiled and bent her head a little, but she did not understand all he said, being but lately come into Arabia. 'I will go with you,' she answered. 'Yes. You will go with me to Riad to the Sultan, and perhaps he will make you his wife, for he has none at present.' 'I will go with you,' she repeated, looking at him. 'She does not understand you,' said the women, laughing at her ignorance of their own tongue. 'It is no matter,' said Khaled. 'She will learn in due time. Perhaps it has pleased Allah to send my lord the Sultan a wife without a tongue for a blessing in his old age.' 'I will go with you,' Almasta said again. 'She can say nothing else,' jeered the women. One of them pulled her by her upper garment, so that she looked round. 'Can you say this, "My father was a dog and the son of dogs"?' asked the woman. But Almasta pushed her angrily away, for she half understood. Then the woman grew angry too, and shook her fist in Almasta's face. 'If you fight, you shall eat sticks,' said Khaled, and then they were all quiet. Thus he took possession of the city of Haïl and remaining there some time he reduced all the country to submission, so that it remained a part of the kingdom of Nejed for many years after that. For the power of the Shammars was broken, and they could nowhere have mustered a thousand men able to bear arms. Khaled set a governor in the place of the Sultan and ordered all the laws of the country in the same manner as those of Nejed, and after he had been absent from Riad nearly two months, he set aside a part of his force to remain behind and keep the peace in case there should be an outbreak, and with the rest he began to journey homeward, taking a great spoil and many captives with him. During the march most of the women captives rode on camels, but a few of the most beautiful were taken in litters lest the fatigues of riding should injure their appearance and thus diminish their value. Almasta was one of these, and the Sultan of Haïl was taken in a cage as has been said, though he was not otherwise ill-treated, and received his portion of camel's meat and bread, equal to that of the soldiers. Khaled sent messengers on fleet mares to Riad to give warning of his coming, but he could not himself proceed very quickly, because his army was burdened with so much spoil; and as there was now no haste to overtake an enemy he journeyed chiefly at night, resting during the day wherever there was water, for although the summer was far advanced it was still hot. He thought continually of Zehowah, by day in his tent and by night on the march, for he supposed that she would be glad when she heard of the victory and that she would now love him, because he had avenged her people, and taken Haïl, and brought back gold and captives, besides other treasures. 'She was already pleased with my deeds, before we left Riad,' he thought, 'for she asked me how many of the Shammars I had slain with my own hand, and at the last she wished me to stay with her, most probably that I might tell her more about the fight. How much the more will she be glad now, since I have killed so many more and have brought back treasure, and made a whole country subject to her father. Shall not blood and gold buy the love of a woman?' It chanced once during this journey that Khaled was sitting at the door of his tent after the sun had gone down and before the night march had begun. Upon the one side, at a little distance, was the tent of the women captives who had been taken from the palace in Haïl, and upon the other the soldiers had set down the cage in which the Sultan of Shammar was carried. The men had laid a carpet over the cage to keep the sun from the prisoner during the heat of the day, lest he should not reach Riad alive as Khaled desired. For the Sultan was fat and of a choleric temper. Now the soldiers had given him food but had forgotten to bring him water, and it was hot under the carpet now that the evening had come. But he could lift it up a little on one side, and having done so, he began to cry out, cursing Khaled and railing at him, not knowing that he was so near at hand. 'Oh you whose portion it shall be to broil everlastingly, and to eat thistles and thorns, and to lie bound in red-hot chains as I lie in this cage! Have you brought me out into the desert to die of thirst like a lame camel? Surely your entertainment on the day of judgment shall be boiling water and the fruit of Al Zakkam, and whenever you try to get out of hell you shall be dragged back again and beaten with iron clubs, and your skin shall dissolve, and the boiling water shall be poured upon your head!' In this way the captive cried out, for he was very thirsty. But when Khaled saw that no one gave him water he called in the darkness to the women who sat by their tent. 'Fetch water and give the man to drink,' he said. One of the women rose quickly and filled a jar at the well close by, and took it to the cage. But then the railing and cursing broke out afresh, so that Khaled wondered what had happened. 'Who has sent me this unbelieving woman to torture me with thirst?' cried the prisoner. 'Are you not Aziz whom I was about to take for my fourth wife on account of your red hair? But your hair shall be a perpetual flame hereafter, burning the bones of your head, and your flesh shall be white with heat as iron in a forge. If I were still in my kingdom you should eat many sticks! If Allah delivers me from my enemies I will cause your skin to be embroidered with gold for a trapping to my horse!' The moon rose at this time, being a little past the full, and Khaled looked towards the cage and saw that the woman was standing two paces away from the Sultan's outstretched hand. She dabbled in the cool water with her fingers so that a plashing sound was heard, and then drank herself, and scattered afterwards a few drops in the face of the thirsty captive. 'It is good water,' she said. 'It is cold.' Khaled knew from her broken speech that it was Almasta, and he understood that she was torturing the prisoner with the sound and sight of the water, and with her words. So he rose from his place and went to the cage. 'Did I not tell you to give him drink?' he asked, standing before the woman. 'Oh my lord, be merciful,' cried the captive, when he saw that Khaled himself was there. 'Be merciful and let me drink, for your heart is easily moved to pity, and by an act of charity you shall hereafter sit in the shade of the tree Sedrat and drink for ever of the wine of paradise.' 'I do not desire wine,' said Khaled. 'But you shall certainly not thirst. Give him the jar,' he said to Almasta. But she shook her head. 'He is bad and ugly,' she said. 'If he does not drink, he will die.' Then Khaled put out his hand to take the jar of water, but Almasta threw it violently to the ground, and it broke to pieces. Thereupon the captive began again to rail and curse at Almasta and to implore Khaled with many blessings. 'You shall drink, for I will bring water myself,' said Khaled. He went back to his tent and took his own jar to the well, and filled it carefully. When he turned he saw that Almasta was running from his tent towards the cage, with a drawn sword in her hand. He then ran also, and being very swift of foot, he overtook her just as she thrust at the Sultan through the bars. But the sword caught in the folds of the soft carpet, and Khaled took it from her hand, and thrust her down so that she fell upon her knees. Then he gave the prisoner the jar with the water that remained in it, for some had been spilt as he ran. 'Who has given you the right to kill my captives?' he asked of Almasta. 'Kill me, then!' she cried. 'Indeed, if you were not so valuable, I would cut off your head,' Khaled answered. 'Why do you wish me to kill you?' 'I hate him,' she said, pointing to the captive who was drinking like a thirsty camel. 'That is no reason why I should kill you. Go back to the tents.' But Almasta laid her hand on the sword he held and tried to bring it to her own throat. 'This is a strange woman,' said Khaled. 'Why do you wish to die? You shall go to Riad and be the Sultan's wife.' 'No, no!' she cried. 'Kill me! Not him, not him!' 'Of whom do you speak?' 'Him!' she answered, again pointing to the prisoner. 'Is he not the Sultan?' Khaled laughed aloud, for he saw that she had supposed she was to be taken to Riad to be made the wife of the Sultan of Shammar. Indeed, the other women had told her so, to anger her. 'Not this man,' he said, endeavouring to make her understand. 'There is another Sultan at Riad. The Sultan of Shammar is one, the Sultan of Nejed another.' 'You?' she asked, suddenly springing up. 'With you?' The moon was bright and Khaled saw that her eyes gleamed like stars and her face grew warm, and when she took his hands her own were cold. 'No, not I,' he answered. 'I am not the Sultan.' But her face became grey in the moonlight, and she covered her head with her veil and went slowly back to her tent. 'This woman loves me,' Khaled thought. 'And as I have not talked much with her, it must be because I am strong and have conquered the people among whom she was captive. How much the more then, will Zehowah love me, for the same reason.' So he was light of heart, and soon afterwards he commanded everything to be made ready and mounted his bay mare for the night march. CHAPTER V When Khaled was within half a day's march of Riad, the Sultan came out to meet him with a great train of attendants and courtiers, with cooks bringing food and sweetmeats, and a number of musicians. And they all encamped together for a short time in the shade of the trees, for there were gardens in the place. The Sultan embraced Khaled and put upon him a very magnificent garment, after which they sat down together in a large tent which the Sultan had brought with him. When they had eaten and refreshed themselves they began to talk, and Khaled told his father-in-law all that he had done, and gave him an account of the spoils which he had brought back, commanding the most valuable objects to be brought into the tent. After this the Sultan desired to see the women captives. 'There is one especially whom it may please you to take for yourself,' said Khaled, and he ordered Almasta to be brought in. When the male slaves had left the tent, Almasta drew aside her veil. The Sultan looked at her and smiled, stroking his beard, for he was much pleased. 'Her face is like a pearl and her hair is a setting of red gold,' he said. 'Truly she is like the sunrise on a fair morning when there are red clouds in the east.' Almasta looked attentively at him, and afterwards she glanced at Khaled, who could not avoid looking at her on account of her beauty. Her face was grave and indifferent. Then Khaled told the Sultan how she had hated the Sultan of Shammar and had tried to kill him on the journey. 'This is a dangerous woman, my son,' said the old man. But he laughed as he said it, for although he was old, he was no coward. 'She is dangerous, indeed. Will you love me, pearl of my soul's treasures?' he inquired of her, still smiling. 'You are my lord and my master,' she answered, looking down. When Khaled heard this he wondered whether his father-in-law would get any affection from her. Zehowah had answered in the same words. 'By Allah, I will give you such gifts as will make you love me,' said the Sultan. 'What shall I give you?' 'His head,' answered Almasta, raising her eyes quickly. 'The head of the Sultan of Shammar?' Almasta nodded, and Khaled could see that her lips trembled. 'A dead man has no companions,' said the Sultan, looking at Khaled to see what he would do. But Khaled cared little, and said nothing. So the Sultan called a slave and ordered the captive's head to be struck off immediately. Then Almasta threw herself upon the carpet on the floor of the tent and embraced his feet. 'See how easily the love of a woman is got,' Khaled thought, 'even by an old man whose beard is grey and his limbs heavy.' When Almasta rose again, she looked at Khaled triumphantly, as though to remind him of the night on the journey when he had hindered her from killing the captive in his cage. But though he understood her, he held his peace, for he had cared nothing whether the prisoner lived or died after he had delivered him over to his father-in-law, and he was considering whether he might not please Zehowah in some similar manner. This was not easy, however, for he was not aware that Zehowah had any private enemy, whose head he might offer her. After the Sultan had seen the other women and the best of the spoils, Khaled begged that he might be allowed to ride on into Riad alone, for he saw that the Sultan intended to spend the night in feasting where he had encamped. The Sultan was so much pleased with Almasta and so greatly diverted in examining the rich stuffs and the gold and silver vessels and jewels, that he let Khaled go, almost without trying to detain him, though he made him many speeches praising his conduct of the war, and would have loaded him with gifts. But Khaled would take nothing with him, saying that he would only receive his just share with the rest; and the fame of his generosity immediately went abroad among the soldiers and the Bedouins throughout all the camp. 'For,' said Khaled, 'there is not a fleeter mare than mine among all those we have taken; my sword proves to be a good one, for I have tried it well; as for women, I am satisfied with one wife; and besides a wife, a sword and a horse, there are no treasures in the world which I covet.' So Khaled rode away alone into Riad, for he desired no company, being busy with his own thoughts. He reached the gates at nightfall and went immediately to the palace and entered Zehowah's apartments. He found her sitting among her women in her accustomed place, listening to the tales of an old woman who sat in the midst of the circle. As soon as Zehowah saw her husband she sprang up gladly to meet him, as a friend would have done. 'Though it is summer-time, I have pursued the enemy,' said Khaled. 'And though the sun was hot, I have got the victory and brought home the spoil.' He said this remembering how she had tried to hinder him from going. Then he gave her his sword and he sat down with her, while the women brought food and drink, for he was weary, and hungry and thirsty. The women also brought their musical instruments and began to sing songs in praise of Khaled's deeds; but after a time he sent them all away and remained alone with Zehowah. 'O Zehowah,' he said, 'you are my law and my rule. You are my speech and my occupation. You are my Kebla to which I turn in prayer. For the love of you I have got the victory over many foes. And yet I see that your cheek is cold and the light of your eyes is undisturbed. Have you no other enemies for me to destroy, or have you no secret foe whose head would be a pleasant gift?' Zehowah laughed, as she fanned him with a palm leaf. 'Do you still thirst for war, Khaled?' she asked. 'Truly you have swallowed up all our enemies as the dry sand swallows up water. Where shall I find enemies enough for you to slay? You went out in pride and you have returned in glory. Are you not yet satisfied? And as for any secret foe, if I have any I do not know him. Rest, therefore; eat and drink and spend your days in peace.' 'I care little for either food or drink,' Khaled answered, 'and I need little rest.' 'Will nothing but war please you? Must you overcome Egypt and make Syria pay tribute as far as Damascus before you will rest?' 'I will conquer the whole world for you, if you wish it,' said Khaled. 'What should I do with the world?' asked Zehowah. 'Have I not treasures and garments enough and to spare, besides the spoil you have now brought home? And besides, if you would conquer the world you must needs make war upon true believers, amongst whom we do not count the people of Shammar. Be satisfied therefore and rest in peace.' 'How shall I be satisfied until I have kindled the light in Zehowah's eyes at my coming, and until I feel that her hand is cold and trembles when I take it in mine?' 'Do I say to my eyes, "be dull"--or to my hand, "do not tremble"?' Zehowah asked. 'Is this, which you ask of me, something I can command at will, as I can a smile or a word? If it is, teach me and I will learn. But if not, why do you expect of me what I cannot do? Can a camel gallop like a horse, or a horse trot like a camel, or bear great burdens through the desert? Have you come back from a great war only to talk of this something which you call love, which is yours and not mine, which you feel and I cannot feel, which you cannot explain nor describe, and which, after all, is but a whim of the fancy, as one man loves sour drink and another sweet?' 'Do you think that love is nothing but a whim of the fancy?' asked Khaled bitterly. 'What else can it be? Would you love me if you were blind?' 'Yes.' 'And if you were deaf?' 'Yes.' 'And if you could not touch my face with your hands, nor kiss me with your lips?' 'Yes.' Zehowah laughed. 'Then love is indeed a fancy. For if you could not see me, nor touch me, nor hear me, what would remain to you but an empty thought?' 'Have I seen you, or touched you, or heard your voice for these two months and a half?' asked Khaled. 'Yet I have loved you as much during all that time.' 'You mean that you have thought of me, as I have thought of you, by the memory of what was not fancy, but reality. Would you dispute with me, Khaled? You will find me subtle.' 'There is more wit in my arm than in my head,' Khaled answered, 'and it is not easy for a man to persuade a woman.' 'It is very easy, provided that the man have reason on his side. But where are the treasures you have brought back, the slaves and the rich spoils? I would gladly see some of them, for the messengers you sent told great tales of the riches of Haïl.' 'To-morrow they will be brought into the city. Your father has remained feasting in the gardens towards Dereyiyah, and the whole army with him. I rode hither alone.' 'Why did you not remain too?' 'Because that whim of the fancy which I call love brought me back,' Khaled answered. 'Then I am glad you love me,' said Zehowah. 'For I am glad you came quickly.' 'Are you truly glad?' 'I was very tired of my women,' she answered. 'I am sorry you have brought nothing with you. Are there any among the captives who are beautiful?' 'There is one, a present sent lately to the Sultan of Shammar. She is very beautiful, and unlike all the rest. Your father is much pleased with her, and will perhaps marry her.' 'Of what kind is her beauty?' asked Zehowah. 'She is as white as milk, her eyes are twin sapphires, her mouth is a rose, her hair is like gold reddened in fire.' Zehowah was silent for a while, and twisted a string of musk-beads round her fingers. 'The others are all Arabian women,' Khaled said at last. 'Why did you not keep the beautiful one for yourself?' asked Zehowah, suddenly throwing aside her beads and looking at him curiously. 'Surely you, who have borne the brunt of the war, might have chosen for yourself what pleased you best.' Khaled looked at her in great astonishment. 'Have I not married Zehowah? Would you have me take another wife?' 'Why not? Is it not lawful for a man to take four wives at one time? And this woman might have loved you, as you desire to be loved.' 'Would it be nothing to you, if I took her?' 'Nothing. I am the King's daughter. I shall always be first in the house. I say, she might love you. Then you would be satisfied.' 'Zehowah, Zehowah!' cried Khaled. 'Is love a piece of gold, that it matters not whence it be, so long as a man has it in his own possession? Or is it wood of the 'Ood tree that one may buy it and bring it home and make the whole house fragrant with it? Is a man's heart like his belly, which is alike satisfied with different kinds of food?' 'He who eats, knows by the taste whether he eats Persian mutton, or barley bread, or only broiled locusts. But a man who believes that he is loved, knows that he is loved, so far as knowing is possible, and must be satisfied, if to be loved is what he desires.' 'That may be true. But he who desires bread is not satisfied with locusts. It is your love which I would have. Not the love of another.' 'You are like a man who hopes to get by argument a sum of money from one who has nothing,' said Zehowah, smiling at him. 'Can you make gold grow in the purse of a beggar? Or can you cause a ghada bush to bear dates by reasoning with it? Your heart is a palm tree, but mine is a ghada bush.' 'Yet an angel may touch the ghada and it will bear fruit,' answered Khaled, for he remembered how the angel had turned dry leaves into rich garments for him to wear. 'Doubtless, Allah can do all things. But where is the angel? Hear me, Khaled, for I speak very reasonably, as a wife should speak to her husband, who is her lord and master. My lord is not satisfied with me and desires something of me which is not mine to give. Let him take another wife beside me. I have given my lord a kingdom and great riches and power. Let him take another wife now, who will give him this fancy of his thoughts for which he yearns, though she have no other possessions. In this way my lord will be satisfied.' Khaled listened sadly to what Zehowah said, and he began to despair, for he was not subtle in argument nor eloquent in speech. The reason of this was plain. In the days when he had been one of the genii he had wandered over the whole earth and had heard the eloquence of all nations and the arguments of all philosophers, learning therefrom that deeds are no part of words, and that they who would be believed must speak little and do much. But the genii possess no insight into the hearts of women. Khaled reflected also that the length of life granted him was uncertain, and that he had already spent two months and a half at a distance from Zehowah in accomplishing the conquest whereby he had hoped to win her love. But since this had utterly failed, he cast about in his mind for some new deed to do, which could be done without leaving her even for a short time. But he was troubled by her indifference, and most of all by her proposing that he should take another wife. As he thought of this, he was filled with horror, and he understood that he loved Zehowah more than he had supposed, since he could not bear to think of setting another woman beside her. Then his face became very dark and his eyes were like camp fires far off in the desert, and he took Zehowah's wrist in his hand, holding it tightly as though he would not let it go. As his heart grew hot in his breast, words came to his lips unawares like the speech of a man in a dream, and he heard his own voice as it were from a distance. 'I will not take another,' he said. 'What is the love of any other woman to me? It is as dust in the throat of a man thirsting for water. Show me a woman who loves me. Her face shall be but a cold mirror in which the image of a fire is reflected without warmth, her soft words shall be to me as the screaming of a parrot, her touch a thorn and her lips ashes. What is it to me if all the women of the world love me? Kindle a fire and burn them before me, for I care not. Let them perish all together, for I shall not know that they are gone. I love you and not another. Shall it profit a man to fill his mouth with dust, though it be the dust of gold mingled with precious stones, when he desires water? Or shall he be warmed in winter by the reflection of a fire in a mirror? By Allah! I want neither the wealth of Haïl, nor a wife with red hair. Let them take gold who do not ask for love. I want but one thing, and Zehowah alone can give it to me. Wallah! My heart burns. But I would give it to be burned for ever in hell if I might get your love now. This I ask. This only I desire. For this I will suffer and for this I am ready to die before my time.' Zehowah was silent, looking at him with wonder, and yet not altogether pleased. She saw that she could not understand him, though she did as well as she could. 'Has he not all that the heart of man can desire?' she thought. 'Am I not young and beautiful, and possessed of many jewels and treasures? Have I not given him wealth and power, and has he not with his own hand got the victory over his enemies and mine? And yet he is not satisfied. Surely, he is too hard to please.' But he, reading her thoughts from her face, continued in his speech. 'What is all the happiness of the world without love?' he asked. 'It is like a banquet in which many rich viands are served, but the guests cannot eat them because there is no salt in any of them. And what is a beautiful woman without love? She is like a garden in which there are all kinds of rare flowers, and much grass, and deep shade, but in which a man cannot live, because nothing grows there which he can eat when he is hungry.' 'Truly,' said Zehowah, 'that is what you will make of your life. For there is a garden called Irem, planted in a secret place of the deserts about Aden, by Sheddad the son of Ad, who desired to outdo the gardens of paradise, and was destroyed for his impiety with all his people, by the hand of Allah. But a certain man named Abdullah ibn Kelabah was searching in the desert for a lost camel, and came unawares upon this place. There were fruits and water there and all that a man could wish for, and Abdullah dwelt in peace and plenty, praising Allah. Then on a certain day he desired to eat an onion, and finding none anywhere, he went out, intending to obtain one, and having eaten it, to return immediately. But though he searched the desert many months he was never able to find the garden again. Wherefore it is said that Abdullah ibn Kelabah lost the earthly paradise of Irem for a mouthful of onion.' 'How can you understand me if you do not love me?' asked Khaled. 'Love has its own language, and when two love they understand each the other's words. But when the one loves and the other loves not, they are strangers, though they be man and wife; or they are like Persians and Arabians not understanding either the other's speech, or that if the wife cries "father," her husband will bring her a cup of water supposing her to be thirsty. For those who would speak one language must be of one heart, and they who would be of one heart must love each other.' Then Zehowah sighed and leaned against the cushions by the wall and drew her hand away from Khaled. 'What is it?' she asked in a low voice. 'What is it you would have?' But though she had already asked the question many times she found no answer, and none that he was able to give could enlighten her darkness. 'It is the spark that kindles the flame,' Khaled said, and he pointed to the lights that hung in the room. 'Your beauty is like that of a cunningly designed lamp, inlaid with gold and silver and covered with rich ornament, which is seen by day. But there is no light within, and it is cold, though it be full of oil and the wick be ready.' Zehowah turned towards him somewhat impatiently. 'And you are as one who would kindle the flame with words, having no torch,' she answered. 'Have I not done deeds also?' asked Khaled. 'Or have I spoken much, that you should reproach me? Surely I have slain more of your enemies than I have spoken words to you to-night.' 'But have I asked for an offering of blood, or a marriage dower of dead bodies?' Khaled was silent, for he was bitterly disappointed, and as his eyes fell upon the sword which hung on the wall, he felt that he could almost have taken it and made an end of Zehowah for very anger that she would not love him. Had he not gone out for her into the raging heat of summer, and borne the burden of a great war, and destroyed a nation and taken a city? Moreover, if neither words nor deeds could gain her love, what means remained to him to try? All through the night Khaled pondered, calling up all that he had seen in the world in former times, until he fell asleep at last, wearied in heart. Very early in the morning one of Zehowah's women came and stood by his bed and waked him. He could see that her face was pale in the dawn, her limbs trembled and her voice was uncertain. 'Arise, my lord!' she said. 'A messenger has come from the army with evil news, and stands waiting in the court.' Khaled sprang up, and Zehowah awoke also. 'What is this message?' he asked hastily. But the woman threw herself upon the floor and covered her face, as though begging forgiveness because she brought evil tidings. 'Speak!' said Zehowah. 'What is it?' 'Our lord the Sultan is dead!' cried the woman, and she broke out into weeping and crying and would say nothing more. But when Zehowah heard that her father was dead, she sat down upon the floor and beat her breast and tore her hair, and wailed and wept, while all the women of the harem came and gathered round her and joined in her mourning, so that the whole palace was filled with the noise of their lamentations. Khaled went out into the court and questioned the messenger, who told him that the Sultan had held a great feast in the evening in the gardens of Dereyiyah, having with him the woman Almasta and the other captive women, and being served by black slaves. But, suddenly, in the night, when most of the soldiers were already asleep, there had been a great cry, and the slaves and women had come running from the tent, crying that the Sultan was dead. This was true, and the Jewish physician who had gone out with his master declared that he had died from an access of humours to the head, brought on by a surfeit of sweetmeats, there being at the time an evil conjunction of Zoharah and Al Marech in square aspect to the moon and in the house of death. Khaled therefore mounted his bay mare and rode quickly out to Dereyiyah, where he found that the news was true, and the women were already preparing the Sultan's body for burial. Having ordered the mourning, and commanded the army to prepare for the return to the city, Khaled set out with the funeral procession; and when he reached the walls of Riad he turned to the left and passed round to the north-east side of the city where the burial-ground is situated. Here he laid the body of his father-in-law in the tomb which the latter had prepared for himself during his lifetime, and afterwards, dismissing the mourners, he went back into the city to the palace. After the days of mourning were accomplished, the will of the Sultan was made known, though indeed the people were well acquainted with it already. By his will Khaled succeeded to the sovereignty of the kingdom of Nejed and to all the riches and treasures which the Sultan had accumulated during his lifetime. But the people received the announcement with acclamations and much joy, followed by a great feasting, for which innumerable camels were slain. Khaled also called all the chief officers and courtiers to a banquet and addressed them in a few words, according to his manner. 'Men of Nejed,' he said, 'it has pleased Allah to remove to the companionship of the faithful our master the Sultan, my revered father-in-law, upon whom be peace, and to set me up among you as King in his stead, being the husband of his only daughter, which you all know. As for the past, you know me; but if I have wronged any man let him declare it and I will make reparation. And if not, let none complain hereafter. But as for the future I will be a just ruler so long as I live, and will lead the men of Nejed to war, when there is war, and will divide the spoil fairly; and in peace I will not oppress the people with taxes nor change the just and good laws of the kingdom. And now the feast is prepared. Sit down cheerfully, and may Allah give us both the appetite to enjoy and the strength to digest all the good things which shall be set before us.' But Khaled himself ate sparingly, for his heart was heavy, and when they had feasted and drunk treng juice and heard music, he retired to the harem, where he found Zehowah sitting with Almasta, the Georgian woman, there being no other women present in the room. He was surprised when he saw Almasta, though he knew that the captive women had been lodged in the palace, the distribution of the spoil from the war having been put off by the mourning for the Sultan. When Almasta heard him enter, she looked up quickly and a bright colour rose in her face, as when the juice of a pomegranate is poured into milk, and disappeared again as the false dawn before morning, leaving no trace. Khaled sat down. 'Is not this the woman of whom you spoke?' Zehowah asked. 'I knew her from the rest by her red hair.' 'This is the woman. Your father would have taken her for his wife. But Allah has disposed otherwise.' 'She is beautiful. She is worthy to be a king's wife,' said Zehowah. 'The Sultan?' asked Almasta, for she hardly understood. Her face turned as white as bone bleached by the sun, and her fingers trembled, while her eyes were cast down. Zehowah looked at Khaled and laughed. 'See how she trembles and turns pale before you,' she said. 'And a little while ago her face was red. You have found a torch wherewith to kindle this lamp, and a breath that can extinguish it.' 'I do not know,' Khaled answered. But he looked attentively at Almasta and remained silent for some time. 'It is now necessary to divide the spoils of the war,' he said at last, 'and to bestow such of these women as you do not wish to keep upon the most deserving of the officers.' 'My lord will surely take the fairest for himself, since she loves him,' said Zehowah, again laughing, but somewhat bitterly. 'May my tongue be cloven and my eyes be put out, may my hands wither at the wrists and my feet fall from my ankles, if I ever take any wife but you,' said Khaled. 'Yallah! So be it.' When Zehowah heard him say this, even while Almasta's face was unveiled before him, she understood that he was greatly in earnest. 'Let me keep her for my handmaid,' she said at last. 'Is she mine that you need ask me? But it will be wiser to give her to Abdul Kerim, the sheikh of the horsemen. I have promised that the spoil should be fairly divided, and though few have seen this woman many have heard of her beauty. And besides, she would weary you, for she cannot talk in Arabian, nor does she seem quick to learn. Abdul Kerim has the first right, since Allah has removed your father, upon whom be peace.' 'Your words are my laws,' answered Zehowah obediently. 'And, indeed, it may be that you are right, for I believe she can neither dance nor sing, nor play upon any musical instrument. She would certainly weary me after a time, as you say. Give her therefore to Abdul Kerim for his share.' They then made Almasta understand that she was to be given to the sheikh of the horsemen; but when she had understood she shook her head and smiled, though at first she said nothing, so that Khaled and Zehowah wondered whether she had comprehended what they had told her. 'Do you understand what we have told you?' asked Zehowah, who was diverted by her ignorance of the Arabic language. 'I understand.' 'And are you not pleased that you are to be the wife of Abdul Kerim, who is a rich man and still young?' 'I was to be the Sultan's wife,' said Almasta, with difficulty, looking at Khaled. 'You told me so.' 'The Sultan is dead,' Khaled answered. 'Who is the Sultan now?' she asked. 'Khaled is the Sultan,' said Zehowah. 'You said that I should be the Sultan's wife,' Almasta repeated. 'Doubtless, I said so,' Khaled replied. 'But Allah has ordered it otherwise.' Almasta again smiled and shook her head. CHAPTER VI On the following day Khaled made a division of the spoils, and gave Almasta to Abdul Kerim, enjoining upon him to marry her, since he had but two wives and could do so lawfully. The sheikh of the horsemen was glad, for he had heard much of Almasta's beauty, and he loved fair women, being of a fierce temper and not more than forty years old. So he called his friends to the marriage feast that same day, and Zehowah sent Almasta in a litter to his harem, giving her also numerous rich garments by way of a dower, but which in fact were due to Abdul Kerim as his share of the booty. So the men feasted, with music, until the evening, when the bridegroom retired to the harem and the Kadi came and read the contract; after which Abdul Kerim sat down while Almasta was brought before him in various dresses, one after the other, as is customary. When the women were all gone away, Abdul Kerim began to talk to his wife, but she only laughed and said the few words she knew, not knowing what he said, and presently she began to sing to him in a low voice, in her own language. Her voice was very clear and quite different from that of the Arabian women whom Abdul had heard, and the tones vibrated with great passion and sweetness, so that he was enchanted and listened, as in a dream, while his head rested against Almasta's knee. She continued to sing in such a manner that his soul was transported with delight; and at last, as the sound soothed him, he fell into a gentle sleep. Almasta, still singing softly, loosened his vest, touching him so gently that he did not wake. She then drew out of one of the three tresses of her hair a fine steel needle, extremely long and sharp, having at one end a small wooden ball for a handle, and while she sang, she thrust it very quickly into his breast to its full length, so that it pierced his heart and he died instantly. But she continued to sing, lest any of the women should be listening from a distance. Presently she withdrew the needle so slowly that not a drop of blood followed it, and having made it pass thrice through the carpet she restored it to her hair, after which she fastened the dead man's vest again, so that nothing was disarranged. She sang on, after this for some time, and then after a short silence she sprang up from the couch, uttering loud screams and lamentations and beating her breast violently. The women of the harem came in quickly, and when they saw that their master was dead, they sat down with Almasta and wept with her, for as he lay dead there was no mark of any violence nor any sign whereby it could be told that he had not died naturally. When Khaled heard that Abdul Kerim was dead, he was much grieved at heart, for the man had been brave and had been often at his right hand in battle. But the news being brought to him at dawn when he awoke, he immediately sent the Jewish physician of the court to ascertain if possible the cause of the sudden death. The physician made careful examination of the body, and having purified himself returned to Khaled to give an account. 'I have executed my lord's orders with scrupulous exactness,' he said, 'and I find that without doubt the sheikh of the horsemen died suddenly by an access of humours to the heart, the sun being at that time in the Nadir, for he died about midnight, and being moreover in evil conjunction with the Dragon's Tail in the Heart of the Lion, and not yet far from the square aspect of Al Marech which caused the death of his majesty the late Sultan, upon whom be peace.' But Khaled was thoughtful, for he reflected that this was the second time that a man had died suddenly when he was about to be Almasta's husband, and he remembered, how she had attempted to kill the Sultan of Haïl, and had ultimately brought about his death. 'Have you examined the dead man as minutely as you have observed the stars?' he inquired. 'Is there no mark of violence upon him, nor of poison, nor of strangling?' 'There is no mark. By Allah! I speak truth. My lord may see for himself, for the man is not yet buried.' 'Am I a jackal, that I should sniff at dead bodies?' asked Khaled. 'Go in peace.' The physician withdrew, for he saw that Khaled was displeased, and he was himself as much surprised as any one by the death of Abdul Kerim, a man lean and strong, not given to surfeiting and in the prime of health. 'Min Allah!' he said as he departed. 'We are in the hand of the Lord, who knoweth our rising up and our lying down. It is possible that if I had seen this man at the moment of death, or a little before, I might have discovered the nature of his disease, for I could have talked with him and questioned him.' But Khaled went in and talked with Zehowah. She was greatly astonished when she heard that Almasta's husband was dead, but she was satisfied with the answer of the Jewish physician, who enjoyed great reputation and was believed to be at that time the wisest man in Arabia. 'Give her back to me, to be one of my women,' said she. 'It is not written that she should marry a man of Nejed, unless you will take her yourself.' But Khaled bent his brow angrily and his eyes glowed like the coals of a camp fire which is almost extinguished, when the night wind blows suddenly over the ashes. 'I have spoken,' he said. 'And I have heard,' she answered. 'Let there be an end. But give me this woman to divert me with her broken speech.' 'I fear she will do you an injury of which you may not live,' said Khaled. 'What injury can she do me?' asked Zehowah in astonishment, not understanding him. 'She asked of your father the head of the Sultan of Haïl, whom she hated. And your father gave it to her.' 'Peace be upon him!' exclaimed Zehowah piously. 'Upon him peace. And when he would have married her, he died suddenly at the feasting. And now this Abdul Kerim, who was to have been her husband, is dead also, without sign, in the night, as a man stung by a serpent in his sleep. These are strange doings.' 'If you think she has done evil, let her be put to death,' said Zehowah. 'But the physician found no mark upon Abdul Kerim. By the hand of Allah he was taken.' 'Doubtless his fate was about his neck. But it is strange.' Zehowah looked at Khaled in silence, but presently she smiled and laid her hand upon his. 'This woman loves you with her whole soul,' she said. 'You think that she has slain Abdul Kerim by secret arts, in the hope that she may marry you.' 'And your father also.' Then they were both silent, and Zehowah covered her face, since she could not prevent tears from falling when she thought of her father, whom she had loved. 'If this be so,' she said after a long time, 'let the woman die immediately.' 'It is necessary to be just,' Khaled answered. 'I will put no one to death without witnesses, not even a captive woman, who is certainly an unbeliever at heart. Has any one seen her do these deeds, or does any one know by what means a man may be slain in his sleep, or at a feast, so that no mark is left upon his body? At Dereyiyah your father was alone with her in the inner part of the tent, and she was singing to him that he might sleep. For I have made inquiry. And when Abdul Kerim died he was also alone with her. I cannot understand these things. But you are a woman and subtle. It may be that you can see what is too dark for me.' 'It may be. Therefore give her back to me, and I will lay a trap for her, so that she will betray herself if she has really done evil. And when we have convicted her by her own words she shall die.' 'Are you not afraid, Zehowah?' 'Can I change my destiny? If my hour is come, I shall die of a fever, or of a cold, whether she be with me or not. But if my years are not full, she cannot hurt me.' 'This is undoubtedly true,' answered Khaled, who could find nothing to say. 'But I will first question the woman myself.' So he sent slaves with a litter to bring Almasta from the house of mourning to the palace, and when she was come he sent out all the other women and remained alone with her and Zehowah, making her sit down before him so that he could see her face. Her cheeks were pale, for she had not slept, having been occupied in weeping and lamentation during the whole night, and her eyes moved restlessly as those of a person distracted with grief. Khaled then drew his sword and laid it across his feet as he sat and looked fixedly at Almasta. 'If you do not speak the truth,' he said, 'I will cut off your head with my own hand. Allah is witness.' When Almasta saw the drawn sword, her face grew whiter than before, and for some moments she seemed not able to breathe. But suddenly she began to beat her breast, and broke out into loud wailings, rocking herself to and fro as she sat on the carpet. 'My husband is dead!' she cried. 'He was young; he was beautiful! He is dead! Wah! Wah! my husband is dead! Kill me too!' Khaled looked at Zehowah, but she said nothing, though she watched Almasta attentively. Then Khaled spoke to the woman again. 'Make an end of lamenting for the present,' he said. 'It has pleased Allah to take your husband to the fellowship of the faithful. Peace be upon him. Tell us in what manner he died, and what words he spoke when he felt his end approaching, for he was my good friend and I wish to know all.' Almasta either did not understand or made a pretence of not understanding, but when she heard Khaled's words she ceased from wailing and sobbed silently, beating her breast from time to time. 'How did he die?' Khaled asked in a stern voice. 'He was asleep. He died,' replied Almasta in broken tones. 'You will get no other answer,' said Zehowah. 'She cannot speak our tongue.' 'Is there no woman among them all who can talk this woman's language?' asked Khaled with impatience, for he saw how useless it was to question her. 'There is no one. I have inquired. Leave her with me, and if there is anything to be known, I will try to find it out.' So Khaled went away and Zehowah endeavoured to soothe Almasta and make her talk in her broken words. But the woman made as though she would not be comforted, and went and sat apart upon the stone floor where there was no carpet, rocking to and fro, and wailing in a low voice. Zehowah understood that whatever the truth might be Almasta was determined to express her sorrow in the customary way, and that it would be better to leave her alone. For seven days she sat thus apart, covering her head and mourning, and refusing to speak with any one, so that all the women supposed her to be indeed distracted with grief at the death of Abdul Kerim. And each day Khaled inquired of his wife whether she had yet learned anything, and received the same answer. But in the meantime he was occupied with his own thoughts, as well as with the affairs of the kingdom, though the latter were as nothing in his mind compared with the workings of his heart when he thought of Zehowah. It chanced one evening that Khaled was riding among the gardens without the city, attended only by a few horsemen, for he was simple in all his ways and liked little to have a great throng of attendants about him. So he rode alone, while the horsemen followed at a distance. 'Was ever a man, or an angel, so placed in the world as I am placed?' he thought. 'How much better would it have been had I never seen Zehowah, and if I had never slain the Indian prince. For I should still have been with my fellows, the genii, from whom I am now cut off, and at least I should have lived until the day of the resurrection. But now my horse may stumble and fall, and my neck may be broken, and there is no hereafter. Or I may die in my sleep, or be killed in my sleep, and there will be no resurrection for me, nor any more life, anywhere in earth or heaven. For Zehowah will never love me. Was ever a man so placed? And I am ashamed to complain to her any more, for she is a good wife, obedient and careful of my wants, and beautiful as the moon at the full, rising amidst palm trees, besides being very wise and subtle. How can I complain? Has she not given me herself, whom I desired, and a great kingdom which, indeed, I did not desire, but which no man can despise as a gift? Yet I am burned up within, and my heart is melting as a piece of frankincense laid upon coals in an empty chamber, when no man cares for its sweet savour. Surely, I am the most wretched of mankind. Oh, that the angel who made garments for me of a ghada bush, and a bay mare of a locust, would come down and lay his hand upon Zehowah's breast and make a living heart of the stone which Allah has set in its place!' So he rode slowly on, reasoning as he had often reasoned before, and reaching the same conclusion in all his argument, which availed him nothing. But suddenly, as the sun went down, a new thought entered his mind and gave him a little hope. 'The sun is gone down,' he said to himself. 'But Allah has not destroyed the sun. It will rise in the east to-morrow when the white cock crows in the first heaven. Many things have being, which the sight of man cannot see. It may be that although I see no signs of love in the heaven of Zehowah's eyes, yet love is already there and will before long rise as the sun and illuminate my darkness. For I am not subtle as the evil genii are, but I must see very clearly before I am able to distinguish.' He rode back into the city, planning how he might surprise Zehowah and obtain from her unawares some proof that she indeed loved him. To this end he entered the palace by a secret gate, covering his garments with his aba, and his head with the kefiyeh he wore, in order to disguise himself from the slaves and the soldiers whom he met on his way to the harem. He passed on towards Zehowah's apartment by an unlighted passage not generally used, and hid himself in a niche of the wall close to the open door, from which he could see all that happened, and hear what was said. Zehowah was seated in her accustomed place and Almasta was beside her. Khaled could watch their faces by the light of the hanging lamps, as the two women talked together. 'You must put aside all mourning now,' Zehowah was saying. 'For I will find another husband for you.' 'Another husband?' Almasta smiled and shook her head. 'Yes, there are other goodly men in Riad, though Abdul Kerim was of the goodliest, as all say who knew him. He was the Sultan's friend, but he was more soldier than courtier. He deserved a better death.' 'Abdul Kerim died in peace. He was asleep.' Almasta smiled still, but more sadly, and her eyes were cast down. 'He died in peace,' Zehowah repeated, watching her narrowly. 'But it is better to die in battle by the enemy's hand. Such a man, falling in the front of the fight for the true faith, enters immediately into paradise, to dwell for ever under the perpetual shade of the tree Sedrat, and neither blackness nor shame shall cover his face. There the rivers flow with milk and with clarified honey, and he shall rest on a couch covered with thick silk embroidered with gold, and shall possess seventy beautiful virgins whose eyes are blacker than mine and their skin whiter than yours, having colour like rubies and pearls, and their voices like the song of nightingales in Ajjem, of which travellers tell. These are the rewards of the true believer as set forth in Al Koran by our prophet, upon whom peace. A man slain in battle for the faith enters directly into the possession of all this, but unbelievers shall be taken by the forelock and the heels and cast into hell, to drink boiling molten brass, as a thirsty camel drinks clear water.' Almasta understood very little of what Zehowah said, but she smiled, nevertheless, catching the meaning of some of the words. 'The Sultan Khaled loves black eyes,' she said. 'He will go to paradise.' 'Doubtless, he will quench his thirst in the incorruptible milk of heavenly rivers,' Zehowah replied. 'He is the chief of the brave, the light of the faith and the burning torch of righteousness. Otherwise Allah would not have chosen him to rule. But I spoke of Abdul Kerim.' 'He died in peace,' said Almasta the second time, and again looking down. 'I do not know how he died,' Zehowah answered, looking steadily at the woman's face. 'It was a great misfortune for you. Do you understand? I am very sorry for you. You would have been happy with Abdul Kerim.' 'I mourn for him,' Almasta said, not raising her eyes. 'It is natural and right. Doubtless you loved him as soon as you saw him.' Almasta glanced quickly at Zehowah, as though suspecting a hidden meaning in the words, and for a moment each of the women looked into the other's eyes, but Zehowah saw nothing. For a wise man has truly said that one may see into the depths of black eyes as into a deep well, but that blue eyes are like the sea of Oman in winter, sparkling in the sun as a plain of blue sand, but underneath more unfathomable than the desert. Almasta was too wise and deceitful to let the silence last. So when she had looked at Zehowah and understood, she smiled somewhat sorrowfully and spoke. 'I could have loved him,' she said. 'I desire no husband now.' 'That is not true,' Zehowah answered quickly. 'You wish to marry Khaled, and that is the reason why you killed Abdul Kerim.' Almasta started as a camel struck by a flight of locusts. 'What is this lie?' she cried out with indignation. 'Who has told you this lie?' But her face was as grey as a stone, and her lips trembled. 'You probably killed him by magic arts learned in your own country,' said Zehowah quietly. 'Do not be afraid. We are alone, and no one can hear us. Tell me how you killed him. Truly it was very skilful of you, since the physician, who is the wisest man in Arabia, could not tell how it was done.' But Almasta began to beat her breast and to make oaths and asseverations in her own language, which Zehowah could not understand. 'If you will tell me how you did it, I will give you a rich gift,' Zehowah continued. But so much the more Almasta cried out, stretching her hands upwards and speaking incomprehensible words. So Zehowah waited until she became quiet again. 'It may be that Khaled will marry you, if you will tell me your secret,' Zehowah said, after a time. Then Almasta's cheek burned and she bent down her eyes. 'Will you tell me how to kill a man and leave no trace?' asked Zehowah, still pressing her. 'Look at this pearl. Is it not beautiful? See how well it looks upon your hair. It is as the leaf of a white rose upon a river of red gold. And on your neck--you cannot see it yourself--it is like the full moon hanging upon a milky cloud. Khaled would give you many pearls like this, if he married you. Will you not tell me?' 'Whom do you wish to kill?' Almasta asked, very suddenly. But Zehowah was unmoved. 'It may be that I have a private enemy,' she said. 'Perhaps there is one who disturbs me, against whom I plot in the night, but can find no way of ridding myself of him. A woman might give much to destroy such a one.' 'Khaled will kill your enemies. He loves you. He will kill all whom you hate.' 'You make progress. You speak our language better,' said Zehowah, laughing a little. 'You will soon be able to tell the Sultan that you love him, as well as I could myself.' 'But you do not love him,' Almasta answered boldly. Zehowah bent her brows so that they met between her eyes as the grip of a bow. Then Khaled's heart leaped in his breast, for he saw that she was angry with the woman, and he supposed it was because she secretly loved him. But he held his breath lest even his breathing should betray him. 'The portion of fools is fire,' said Zehowah, not deigning to give any other answer. For she was a king's daughter and Almasta a bought slave, though Khaled had taken her in war. 'Be merciful!' exclaimed Almasta, in humble tones. 'I am your handmaid, and I speak Arabic badly.' 'You speak with exceeding clearness when it pleases you.' 'Indeed I cannot talk in your language, for it is not long since I came into Arabia.' 'We will have you taught, for we will give you a husband who will teach you with sticks. There is a certain hunchback, having one eye and marked with the smallpox, whose fists are as the feet of an old camel. He will be a good husband for you and will teach you the Arabic language, and your skin shall be dissolved but your mind will be enlightened thereby.' 'Be merciful! I desire no husband.' 'It is good that a woman should marry, even though the bridegroom be a hunchback. But if you will tell me your secret I will give you a better husband and forgive you.' 'There is no secret! I have killed no one!' cried Almasta. 'Who has told you the lie?' 'And moreover,' continued Zehowah, not regarding her protestations, 'there are other ways of learning secrets, besides by kindness; such, for instance, as sticks, and hot irons, and hunger and thirst in a prison where there are reptiles and poisonous spiders, besides many other things with which I have no doubt the slaves of the palace are acquainted. It is better that you should tell your secret and be happy.' 'There is no secret,' Almasta repeated, and she would say nothing else, for she did not trust Zehowah and feared a cruel death if she told the truth. But Zehowah wearied of the contest at last, being by no means sure that the woman had really done any evil, and having no intention of using any violent means such as she had suggested. For she was as just as she was wise and would have no one suffer wrongly. Khaled, indeed, cared little for the pain of others, having seen much blood shed in war, and would have caused Almasta to be tortured if Zehowah had desired it. But she did not, preferring to wait and see whether she could not entrap the slave into a confession. Khaled now came out of his hiding-place into the room and advanced towards Zehowah, who remained sitting upon the carpet, while Almasta rose and made a respectful salutation. But neither of the women knew that he had been hidden in the niche. Zehowah did not seem surprised, but Almasta's face was white and her eyes were cast down, though indeed Khaled wished that it had been otherwise. He was encouraged, however, by what he had seen, for Zehowah had certainly been angry with Almasta on his account, and he dismissed the latter that he might be alone with his wife. 'You are wise, Zehowah,' he said, 'and gifted with much insight, but you will learn nothing from this woman, though you talk with her a whole year. For she suspects you and is guarded in her speech and manner. I was standing by the doorway a long time. You did not see me, but I heard all that you said.' 'Why did you hide yourself?' Zehowah asked, looking at him curiously. 'In order to listen,' he answered. 'And I heard something and saw something which pleased me. For when she said that you did not love me, you were angry.' 'Did that please you? You are more easily pleased than I had thought. Shall I bear such things from a slave? How is it her business whether I love or not?' 'But you were angry,' Khaled repeated, vainly hoping that she would say more, yet not wishing to press her too far, lest she should say again that she did not love him. She, however, said nothing in reply, but busied herself in taking his kefiyeh from his head and his sword from his side that he might be at ease. He rested against the cushions and drank of the cool drink she offered him. 'This woman, Almasta, is exceedingly beautiful,' he said at last. 'It would indeed be a pity that a slave of such value should go into the possession of another so that we could see her no more. It is best that you should keep her with you.' Zehowah laughed a little, as she sat down beside him and began to play with her beads. 'This is what I have always said,' she answered. 'I will keep her with me.' 'It is better so,' said Khaled. Then he remained silent in deep thought, having devised a new plan for gaining what he most desired. It seemed to him possible that Zehowah might be moved by jealousy, if by nothing else; for although he had sworn to her, and angrily, that he would never take Almasta for his wife, and though nothing could really have prevailed upon him to make him do so, yet it would be easy for him to talk to the woman and speak to her of her beauty, and appear to take delight in her singing, which was more melodious than that of a Persian nightingale. Since she would be now permanently established in his harem, nothing would be easier than for him to spend many hours in the woman's society. Being a simple-minded man the plan seemed to him subtle, and he determined to put it into execution without delay. He knew also that Almasta had loved him since the first day when she had been brought before him in the palace at Haïl, and this would make it still more easy to rouse Zehowah's jealousy. Though she had herself advised him to marry Almasta, he did not believe that she was greatly in earnest, and he felt assured that if the possibility were presented before her, in such a way as to appear imminent, she would be deceived by the appearance. 'It is better that she should remain here,' he said after a long time. 'For we cannot put her to death without evidence of her guilt, and if we are obstinate in wishing to give her a husband, we do not know how many husbands she may destroy before she is satisfied. She is beautiful, and will be an ornament in your kahwah. Indeed I do not know why I sent her away just now, when I came in. Let us call her back, that she may sing to us some of her own songs.' Zehowah clapped her hands and Almasta immediately returned, for she had indeed been waiting outside the door, endeavouring to hear what was said, since she suspected that Khaled would speak of her and ask questions. She understood well enough, and often much better than she was willing to show, though she could as yet speak but few words of the Arabic language. 'Sit at my feet,' said Khaled, 'and sing to me the songs of your own people.' Almasta took a musical instrument from the wall and sat down to sing. Her voice, indeed, was of enchanting sweetness, but as for the words of her songs, the seven wise men themselves could not have understood a syllable of them, seeing that they were neither Arabic nor Persian, nor even Greek. Nevertheless, Khaled made a pretence of being much pleased, resting his head against the cushions and closing his eyes as though the sound soothed him. As for Zehowah, she watched the woman with great curiosity, wondering whether it were possible that a creature so fair as Almasta could have done the evil deeds of which she was suspected, and planning how she might surprise her into a confession of guilt. CHAPTER VII Not many days passed after this, before the women of the harem began to whisper among themselves in the passages and outer chambers. 'See,' they said, 'how our master favours this foreign woman, who is in all probability a devil from the Persian mountains. Every day he will have her to sing to him, and to bring him drink, and to sit at his feet. And he has given her several bracelets of gold and a large ruby. Surely it will be better for us to flatter her and show her reverence, for if not she will before long give us sticks to eat, and we shall mourn our folly.' So they began to exhibit great respect for Almasta, giving her always the best seat amongst them and setting aside for her the best portions of the mutton, and the whitest of the rice, and the largest of the sweetmeats and the mellowest of the old sugar dates, so that Almasta fared sumptuously. But though she understood the reason why the women treated her so much more kindly than before, she was careful always to appear thankful and to speak softly to them, for she feared Zehowah, to whom they might speak of her, and who was very powerful with the Sultan. She was indeed secretly transported with joy, for she loved Khaled and she began to think that before long he would marry her. This was her only motive, also, for she was not otherwise ambitious, and though she afterwards did many evil deeds, she did them all out of love for him. Though Khaled was by no means soft-hearted, he could not but pity her sometimes, seeing how she was deceived by his kindness, while he was only making a pretence of preferring her in order to gain Zehowah's love. Often he sat long with closed eyes while she sang to him or played softly upon the barbat, and he tried to fancy that the voice and the presence were Zehowah's. But her strange language disturbed him, for there were sounds in it like the hissing of serpents and like choking, which caused him to start suddenly just when her voice was sweetest. For the Georgian tongue is barbarous and not like any human speech under the sun, resembling by turns the inarticulate warbling of birds, and the croaking of ravens, and the noises made by an angry cat. Nevertheless, Khaled always made a pretence of being pleased, though he enjoined upon Almasta to learn to sing in Arabic. 'For Arabic,' he said to her, 'is the language of paradise, and is spoken by all beings among the blessed, from Adam, our father, who waits for the resurrection in the first heaven, to the birds that fly among the branches of the tree Sedrat, near the throne of Allah, singing perpetually the verses of Al Koran. The black-eyed virgins reserved for the faithful, also speak only in Arabic.' 'Shall I be of the Hur al Oyun of whom you speak?' Almasta inquired. 'How is it possible that you should be of the black-eyed ones, when your eyes are blue?' Khaled asked, laughing. 'And besides, are you not an unbeliever?' 'I believe what you believe, and am learning your language. There is no Allah beside Allah.' 'And Mohammed is Allah's prophet.' 'And Mohammed is Allah's prophet,' Almasta repeated devoutly. 'Good. And the six articles of belief are also necessary.' 'Teach me,' said Almasta, laying the barbat upon the carpet and folding her hands. 'You must believe first in Allah, and secondly in all the angels. Thirdly you must believe in Al Koran, fourthly in the prophets of Allah, fifthly in the resurrection of the dead and the last judgment, and lastly that your destiny is about your neck so that you cannot escape it.' 'I believe in everything,' said Almasta, who understood nothing of these sacred matters. 'Shall I now be one of the Hur al Oyun?' 'But you have blue eyes.' 'When I know that I am dying, I will paint them black,' said Almasta, laughing sweetly. 'The angels Monkar and Nakir will discover your deception,' said Khaled. 'When you are dead and buried, these two angels, who are black, will enter your tomb. They are of extremely terrible appearance. Then they will make you sit upright in the grave and will examine you first as to your belief and then as to your deeds. You will then not be able to tell lies. If you truly believe and have done good, your soul will then be breathed out of your lips and will float in a state of rest over your grave until the last judgment. But if not, the black angels will beat your head with iron maces, and tear your soul from your body with a torment greater than that caused by tearing the flesh from the bones.' 'I believe in everything,' Almasta said again, supposing that her assent would please him. 'You find it an easy matter to believe what I tell you,' he said, for he could see that she would have received any other faith as readily. 'But it is not easy for a woman to enter paradise, and since it is your destiny to have blue eyes, they will not become black. The Hur al Oyun, however, are not mortal women and no mortal woman can ever be one of them, since they are especially prepared for the faithful. But a man's wives may enter paradise with him, in a glorified beauty which may not be inferior to that of the black-eyed ones. If, for instance, Abdul Kerim had lived and been your husband, you might, by faith and good works, have entered heaven with him as one of his wives.' Almasta looked long at Khaled, trying to see whether he still suspected her, and indeed he found it very hard to do so, for her look was clear and innocent as that of a young dove that is fed by a familiar hand. 'I would like to enter paradise with you,' said Almasta, with an appearance of timidity. 'Is it not possible?' 'It may be possible. But I doubt it,' Khaled answered, with gravity. In those days, while Khaled thus spent many hours with Almasta, Zehowah often remained for a long time in another part of the harem, either surrounded by her women, or sitting alone upon the balcony over the court, absorbed in watching the people who came and went. The slaves were surprised to see that Khaled seemed to prefer the society of the Georgian to that of his wife, but they dared say nothing to Zehowah and contented themselves with watching her face and endeavouring to find out whether she were displeased at what was happening, or really indifferent as she appeared to be. Almasta herself was distrustful, supposing that Khaled and Zehowah were in league together to entrap her into a self-accusation, and though her heart was transported with happiness while she was with Khaled, yet she did not forget to be cautious whenever any reference was made to Abdul Kerim's death. She also took the long needle out of her hair and hid it carefully in a corner, in a crevice between the pavement and the wall, lest it should at any time fall from its place and bring suspicion upon her. Khaled watched Zehowah as narrowly as the women did, to see whether any signs of jealousy showed themselves in her face, and sometimes they talked together of Almasta. 'It is strange,' said Khaled, 'that Allah, being all powerful, should have provided matter for dissension on earth by creating one woman more beautiful than another, the one with blue eyes, the other with black, the one with red hair and the other with hair needing henna to brighten it. Are not all women the children of one mother?' 'And are not all men her sons also?' asked Zehowah. 'It is strange that Allah, being all powerful, should have provided matter for sorrow by creating one man with a spirit easily satisfied, and the other with a soul tormented by discontent.' Khaled looked fixedly at his wife, and bent his brows. But in secret he was glad, for he supposed that she was beginning to be jealous. However, he made a pretence of being displeased. 'Is man a rock that he should never change?' he asked. 'Or has he but one eye with which to see but one kind of beauty? Have I not two hands, two feet, two ears, two nostrils and two eyes?' 'That is true,' Zehowah answered. 'But a man has only one heart with which to love, one voice with which to speak kind words, and one mouth with which to kiss the woman he has chosen. And if a man had two souls, they would rend him so that he would be mad.' At this Khaled laughed a little and would gladly have shown Zehowah that she was right. But he feared to be treated with indifference, if he yielded to her argument so soon, and he held his peace. 'Nevertheless,' Zehowah continued, after a time, 'you are right and so am I. You said, indeed, not many days ago that your two hands should wither at the wrists if you took another wife, yet I advised you to do so; and now it is clear from what you say that you wish to marry Almasta. I am your handmaiden. Take her, therefore, and be contented, for she loves you.' But now Khaled was much disturbed as to what he should answer, for he had hoped that Zehowah would break out into jealous anger. He could not accept her advice, because of his oath and still more because of his love for her; yet he could not send away Almasta, since by so doing he would be giving over his last hope of obtaining Zehowah's love by rousing her jealousy. 'Take her,' Zehowah repeated. 'The palace is wide and spacious. There is room for us both, and for two others also, if need be, according to divine law. Take her, and let there be contentment. Have you not said that she is more beautiful than I?' 'No,' answered Khaled, 'I have not said so.' 'You have thought it, which is much the same, for you said that her hair was red but that mine needed henna to brighten it. Marry her therefore, this very day. Send for the Kadi, and order a feast, and let it be done quickly.' 'Is it nothing to you, whether I take her or not?' Khaled asked, seeking desperately for something to say. 'Is it for me to set myself up against the holy law? Or did any one exact from you a promise that you would not take another wife? And if you rashly promised anything of your own free will, the promise is not binding seeing that there is no authority for it in Al Koran, and that no one desires you to keep it--neither I, nor Almasta.' Zehowah laughed at her own speech, and Khaled was too much disturbed to notice that the laugh was rather of scorn than of mirth. 'How shall I take a woman who is perhaps a murderess?' he asked. 'Shall I take her who was perhaps the cause of your revered father's death? May Allah give him peace! Surely, the very thought is terrible to me, and I will not do it.' 'Will you convict her without witnesses? And where is your witness? Did not the physician explain the reason of the death, and did he suspect that there was anything unnatural about it? But if you still think that she destroyed my father and Abdul Kerim--peace on them both--why do you make her sit all day long at your feet and sing to you in her barbarous language, which resembles the barking of jackals? And why do you command her to bring you drink and fan you when it is hot, and you sleep in the afternoon? This shows a forgiving and trustful disposition.' 'This is an unanswerable argument,' thought Khaled, being very much perplexed. 'Can I answer that I do all this in order to see whether Zehowah is jealous? She would certainly laugh to herself and say in her heart that she has married a fool.' So he said nothing, but bent his brows again, and endeavoured to seem angry. But Zehowah took no notice of his face and continued to urge him to marry Almasta. 'Have you ever seen such a woman?' she asked. 'Have you ever seen such eyes? Are they not like twin heavens of a deep blue, each having a shining sun in the midst? Is not her hair like seventy thousand pieces of gold poured out upon the carpet from a height? Her nose is a straight piece of pure ivory. Her lips are redder than pomegranates when they are ripe, and her cheeks are as smooth as silk. Moreover she is as white as milk, freshly taken from the camel, whereas my hands are of the colour of blanket-bread before it is baked.' 'Your hands are much smaller than hers,' said Khaled, who could not suffer Zehowah to discredit her own beauty. 'I do not know,' she answered, looking at her fingers. 'But they are less white. And Almasta is far more beautiful than I. You yourself said so.' 'I never said so,' Khaled replied, more and more perplexed. 'There are two kinds of beauty. That is what I said. Allah has willed it. Almasta is a slave, and her hands are large. It is a pity, for she is like a mare that has many good points, but whose hoofs are overgrown through too much idleness in the stable. I say that there are two kinds of beauty. Yours is that of the free woman of a pure and beautiful race; hers is that of the slave accidentally born beautiful.' Zehowah gathered up her three long black tresses and laid them across her knees as she sat. Then she shook off her golden bracelets, one after the other, to the number of a score and heaped them upon the hair. 'Which do you like best?' she asked. 'The black or the gold? The day or the night? Here you see them together and can judge fairly between them.' Khaled sought for a crafty answer and made a pretence of pondering the matter deeply. 'After the night,' he said at last, 'the day is very bright and glorious. But when we have looked on it long, only the night can bring rest and peace.' He was pleased with himself when he had made this answer, supposing that Zehowah would find nothing to say. But he had only laid a new trap for himself. 'That is quite true,' she answered, laughing. 'That is also the reason why Allah made the day and the night to follow each other in succession, lest men should grow weary of eternal light or eternal darkness. For the same reason also, since you have a wife whose hair is black, I counsel you to take a red-haired one. In this way you will obtain that variety which the taste of man craves.' 'If I follow your advice, you will regret it,' said Khaled. 'You think I shall be jealous, but you are mistaken. I am what I am. Can another woman make me more or less beautiful? Moreover, I shall always be first in the palace, though you take three other wives. The others will rise up when you come in, but I shall remain sitting. I shall always be the first wife.' 'Undoubtedly, that is your right,' Khaled replied. 'Do you suppose that I wish to put any woman in your place?' Then Zehowah laughed, and laid her hand upon Khaled's arm. 'How foolish men are!' she exclaimed. 'Do you think you can deceive me? Do you imagine, because I have answered you and talked with you to-day, and listened to your arguments, that I do not understand your heart? Oh, Khaled, this is true which you often say of yourself, that your wit is in your arm. If I were a warrior and stood before you with a sword in my hand, you could argue better, for you would cut off my head, and the argument would end suddenly. But Allah has not made you subtle, and words in your mouth are of no more avail than a sword would be in mine, for you entangle yourself in your own language, as I should wound myself if I tried to handle a weapon.' At this Khaled was much disconcerted, and he stroked his beard thoughtfully, looking away so as not to meet her eyes. 'I do not know what you mean,' he said, at last. 'You certainly imagine something which has no existence.' 'I imagine nothing, for I have seen the truth, ever since the first day when you desired to be alone with Almasta. You are only foolishly trying to make me jealous of her, in order that I may love you better.' When Khaled saw that she understood him, he was without any defence, for he had built a wall of sand for himself, like a child playing in the desert, which the first breath of wind causes to crumble, and the second blast leaves no trace of it behind. 'And am I foolish, because I have done this thing?' he cried, not attempting to deny the truth. 'Am I a fool because I desire your love? But it is folly to speak of it, for you will reproach me and say that I am discontented, and will offer me another woman for my wife. Go. Leave me alone. If you do not love me, the sight of you is as vinegar poured into a fresh wound, and as salt rubbed into eyes that are sore with the sand. Go. Why do you stay? Do you not believe me? Do you wish me to kill you that I may have peace from you? It is a pity that you did not marry one of the hundred suitors who came before me, for you certainly loved one of them, since you cannot love me. You doubtless loved the Indian prince. Would you have him back? I can give you his bones, for I slew him with my own hands and buried him in the Red Desert, where his soul is sitting upon a heap of sand, waiting for the day of resurrection.' Then Zehowah was greatly astonished, for neither she nor any one else had ever known what had been the end of that suitor, and after waiting a long time, his people who had been with him had departed sorrowing to their own country, and she had heard no more of them. 'What is this?' she asked in amazement. 'Why did you kill him? And how could you have done this thing unseen, since he was guarded by many attendants?' 'I took him out of the palace in the night, when all were asleep, and then I killed him,' said Khaled, and Zehowah could get no other answer, for he would not confess that he had been one of the genii, lest she should not believe the truth, or else, believing, should be afraid of him in the future. 'I will give you his bones,' he said, 'if you desire them, for I know where they are, and you certainly loved him, and are still mourning for him. If he could be alive, I would kill him again.' 'I never loved him,' Zehowah answered, at last. 'How was it possible? But I would perhaps have married him, hoping to convert all his people to the true faith.' 'As you have married me in the hope, or the assurance, of giving your people a just king.' 'You are angry, Khaled. And, indeed, I could be angry, too, but with myself and not with you, as you are with me, though it be for the same reason. For I begin to see and understand why you are discontented, and indeed I will do what I can to satisfy you.' 'You must love me, as I love you, if you would save me from destruction,' said Khaled. Though Zehowah could not comprehend the meaning of the words, she saw by his face that he was terribly moved, and she herself began to be more sorry for him. 'Indeed, Khaled,' she said, 'I will try to love you from this hour. But it is a hard thing, because you cannot explain it, and it is not easy to learn what cannot be explained. Do you think that all women love their husbands in this way you mean? Am I unlike all the rest?' Khaled took her hand and held it, and looked into her eyes. 'Love is the first mystery of the world,' he said. 'Death is the second. Between the two there is nothing but a weariness darkened with shadows and thick with mists. What is gold? A cinder that glows in the darkness for a moment and falls away to a cold ash in our hand when we have taken it. But love is a treasure which remains. What is renown? A cry uttered in the bazar by men whose minds are subject to change as their bodies are to death. But the voice of love is heard in paradise, singing beside the fountains Tasnim and Salsahil. What is power? A net with which to draw wealth and fame from the waters of life? To what end? We must die. Or is power a sword to kill our enemies? If their time is come they will die without the sword. Or is it a stick to purify the hides of fools? The fool will die also, like his master, and both will be forgotten. But they who love shall enter the seventh heaven together, according to the promise of Allah. Death is stronger than man or woman, but love is stronger than death, and all else is but a vision seen in the desert, having no reality.' 'I will try to understand it, for I see that you are very unhappy,' said Zehowah. She was silent after this, for Khaled's words were earnest and sank into her soul. Yet the more she tried to imagine what the passion in him could be like, the less she was able to understand it, for some of Khaled's actions had been foolish, but she supposed that there must have been some wisdom in them, having its foundation in the nature of love. 'What he says is true,' she thought. 'I married him in order to give my people a just and brave king, and he is both brave and just. And I am certainly a good wife, for I should be dissolved in shame if another man were to see my face, and moreover I am careful of his wants, and I take his kefiyeh from his head with my own hands, and smooth the cushions for him and bring him food and drink when he desires it. Or have I withheld from him any of the treasures of the palace, or stood in the way of his taking another wife? Until to-day, I thought indeed that this talk of love meant but little, and that he spoke of it because he desired an excuse for marrying Almasta who loves him. But when I said at a venture that he wished to make me jealous, he confessed the truth. Now all the tales of love told by the old women are of young persons who have seen each other from a distance, but are hindered from marrying. And we are already married. Surely, it is very hard to understand.' After this Khaled never called Almasta to sit at his feet and sing to him, as he had done before, and Zehowah was constantly with him in her stead. At first Almasta supposed that Khaled only made a pretence of disregarding her, out of respect for his wife, but she soon perceived that he was indifferent and no longer noticed her. She then grew fierce and jealous, and her voice was not heard singing in the harem; but she went and took her needle again from the crevice in the pavement and hid it in her hair, and though Zehowah often called her, when Khaled was not in the house, she made as though she understood even less of the Arabic language than before and sat stupidly on the carpet, gazing at her hands. Zehowah wearied of her silence, for she understood the reason of it well enough. 'I am tired of this woman,' she said to Khaled. 'Do you think I am jealous of her now?' Khaled smiled a little, but said nothing, only shaking his head. 'I am tired of her,' Zehowah repeated. 'She sits before me like a sack of barley in a grainseller's shop, neither moving nor speaking.' 'She is yours,' Khaled answered. 'Send her away. Or we will give her in marriage to one of the sheikhs who will take her away to the desert. In this way she will not be able even to visit you except when her husband comes into the city.' But they decided nothing at that time. Some days later Khaled was sitting alone upon a balcony, Zehowah having gone to the bath, when Almasta came suddenly before him and threw herself at his feet, beating her forehead and tearing her hair, though not indeed in a way to injure it. 'What have I done?' she cried. 'Why is my lord displeased?' Khaled looked at her in surprise, but answered nothing at first. 'Why are my lord's eyes like frozen pools by the Kura, and why is his forehead like Kasbek in a mist?' Khaled laughed a little at her words. 'Kasbek is far from Riad,' he answered, 'and the waters of the Kura do not irrigate the Red Desert. I am not displeased. On the contrary, I will give you a husband and a sufficient dowry. Go in peace.' But Almasta remained where she was, weeping and beating her forehead. 'Let me stay!' she cried. 'Let me stay, for I love you. I will eat the dust under your feet. Only let me stay.' 'I think not,' Khaled answered. 'You weary Zehowah with your silence and your sullenness.' 'Let me stay!' she repeated, over and over again. She was not making any pretence of grief, for the tears ran down abundantly and stained the red leather of Khaled's shoes. Though he was hard-hearted he was not altogether cruel, for a man who loves one woman greatly is somewhat softened towards all such as do not stand immediately in his way. 'It is true,' he thought, 'that I have given this woman some occasion of hope, for I have treated her kindly during many days, and she has probably supposed that I would marry her. For she is less keen-sighted than Zehowah, and moreover she loves me.' 'Do not drive me out!' cried Almasta. 'For I shall die if I cannot see your face. What have I done?' 'You have indeed done nothing worthy of death, for I cannot prove that you killed Abdul Kerim. I will therefore give you a good husband and you shall be happy.' But Almasta would not go away, and embracing his knees she looked up into his face, imploring him to let her remain. Khaled could not but see that she was beautiful, for the mid-day light fell upon her white face and her red lips, and made shadows in her hair of the colour of mellow dates, and reflections as bright as gold when the burnisher is still in the goldsmith's hand. Though he cared nothing for Almasta and little for her sorrow, his eye was pleased and he smiled. Then he looked up and saw Zehowah standing before him, just as she had come from the bath, wrapped in loose garments of silk and gold. He gazed at her attentively for there was a distant gleam of light in her eyes and her cheeks were warm, though she stood in the shadow, so that he thought she had never been more beautiful, and he did not care to look at Almasta's face again. 'Why is Almasta lamenting in this way?' Zehowah asked. 'She desires to stay in the palace,' Khaled answered; 'but I have told her that she shall be married, and yet she wishes to stay.' 'Let her be married quickly, then. Is she a free woman, that she should resist, or is she rich that she should refuse alms? Let her be married.' 'There is a certain young man, cousin to Abdul Kerim, a Bedouin of pure descent. Let him take her, if he will, and let the marriage be celebrated to-morrow.' But Almasta shook her head, and her tears never ceased from flowing. 'You will marry him,' said Khaled. 'And if any harm comes to him, I will cause you to be put to death before the second call to prayer on the following morning.' When Almasta heard this, her tears were suddenly dried and her lips closed tightly. She rose from the floor and retired to a distance within the room. On that day Khaled sent for the young man of whom he had spoken, whose name was Abdullah ibn Mohammed el Herir, and offered him Almasta for a wife. And he accepted her joyfully, for he had heard of her wonderful beauty, and was moreover much gratified by being given a woman whom the former Sultan would probably have married if he had lived. Khaled also gave him a grey mare as a wedding gift, and a handsome garment. The marriage was therefore celebrated in the customary manner, and no harm came to Abdullah. But as the autumn had now set in, he soon afterwards left the city, taking Almasta with him, to live in tents, after the manner of the Bedouins. CHAPTER VIII Abdullah ibn Mohammed, though a young man, was now the sheikh of a considerable tribe which had frequently done good service to the late Sultan, Zehowah's father, and which had also borne a prominent part in the recent war. Abdul Kerim, whom Almasta had murdered, had been the sheikh during his lifetime, and if the claims of birth had been justly considered, his son, though a mere boy, should have succeeded him. But Abdullah had found it easy to usurp the chief place, and in the council which was held after Abdul Kerim's death he was chosen by acclamation. It chanced, too, that he was not married at the time when he took Almasta, for of two wives the one had died of a fever during the summer, and he had divorced the other on account of her unbearable temper, having been deceived in respect of this by her parents, who had assured him that she was as gentle as a dove and as submissive as a lamb. But she had turned out to be as quarrelsome as a wasp and as unmanageable as an untrained hawk, so he divorced her, and the more readily because she was not beautiful and her dower had been insignificant. Almasta therefore found that she was her husband's only wife. She would certainly have killed him, as she had killed Abdul Kerim, and, indeed, the late Sultan, in the hope of being taken back into the palace, but she was prevented by the fear of death, for she had seen that Khaled's threat was not empty and would be executed if harm came to Abdullah after his marriage. She accordingly set herself to please him, and first of all she learned to speak the Arabic language, in order that she might sing to him in his own tongue and tell him tales of distant countries, which she had learned in her own home. Abdullah passed the months of autumn and the early winter in the desert, moving about from place to place, as is the custom of the Bedouins, it being his intention to reach a northerly point of Ajman in the spring, in order to fall upon the Persian pilgrims and extort a ransom before they entered the territory of Nejed. For it would not be lawful to attack them after that, since there was a treaty with the Emir of Basrah, allowing the pilgrims a safe and free passage towards Mecca, for which the Emir paid yearly a sum of money to the Sultan of Nejed. But Almasta knew nothing of this, for she was wholly ignorant of the desert; and moreover Abdullah was a cautious man, who held that whatsoever is to be kept secret must not be uttered aloud, though there be no one within three days' journey to hear it. Abdullah treated her with great consideration, not obliging her to weary herself overmuch with cooking and other work of the tents. For he rejoiced in her beauty and in the sweetness of her voice, and his chief delight was to sit in the door of the tent at night, chewing frankincense, while Almasta sat within, close behind him, and told him tales of her own country, or of the life in the palace of Riad. The latter indeed was as strange to him as the former, and much more interesting. Now one evening they were alone together in this manner, and it was not yet very cold. But the stars shone brightly as though there would be a frost before morning, and the other tents were all closed and no one was near the coals which remained from the fire after baking the blanket-bread. One might hear the chewing of the camels in the dark and the tramping of a mare that moved slowly about, her hind feet being chained together. 'Tell me more of the palace at Riad,' said Abdullah. 'For your Kura, and your snow-covered Kasbek, and your Tiflis with its warm springs and gardens, I shall never see. But I have seen the courts of the palace from my youth, and the Sultan's kahwah, and the latticed windows of the harem, from which you say that you saw me and loved me in the last days of summer.' Almasta had said this to please him, though it was not true. For she knew that men easily believe what flatters them, as women believe that what they desire must come to pass. 'The palace is a wonderful palace,' said Almasta, 'and I will tell you of the treasures which are in it.' 'That is what I wish to hear,' answered Abdullah, putting a piece of frankincense into his mouth and beginning to chew it. 'Tell me of the treasures, for it is said that they are great and of extraordinary value.' 'The value of them cannot be calculated, O Abdullah, for if you had seventy thousand hands and on each hand seventy thousand fingers you could not count upon your fingers in a whole lifetime the gold sherifs and sequins and tomans which are hidden away there in bags. Beneath the court of strangers there is a great chamber built of stone in which the sacks of gold are kept, and they are piled up to the roof of the vault on all sides and in the middle, leaving only narrow passages between.' 'If it is all gold, what is the use of the passages?' asked Abdullah. 'I do not know, but they are there, and there is another room filled with silver in the same manner. There are also secret places underground in which jewels are kept in chests, rubies and pearls and Indian diamonds and emeralds, in such quantities that they would suffice to make necklaces of a thousand rows each for each of the mountains in my country. And we have many mountains, great ones, not such as the little hills you have seen, but several days' journey in height. For we say that when the Lord made the earth it was at first unsteady, and He set our mountains upon it, in the middle, to make it firm, and it has never moved since.' 'I do not believe this,' said Abdullah. 'Tell me more about the jewels in Riad.' 'There is no end of them. They are like the grains of sand in the desert, and no one of them is worth less than a thousand gold sherifs. I do not even know the names of the different kinds, but there are turquoises without number, of the Maidan, and all good, so that you may write upon them with a piece of gold as with a pen; and there are red stones as large as a dove's egg, red and fiery as the wine of Kachetia, and others, blue as the sky in winter, and yellow ones, and some with leaves of gold in them, like morsels of treng floating in the juice. But besides the gold and silver and precious stones there are thousands of rich garments which are kept in chests of fragrant wood, in upper chambers, abas woven of gold and silk and linen, and vests embroidered with pearls, and shoes of which even the soles appear to be of gold. And there are great pieces of stuff, Indian silk, and Persian velvet, and even satin from Stamboul, woven by unbelievers with the help of devils. Then too, in the palace of Riad, there are stored great quantities of precious weapons, most of them made in Syria, with many swords of Sham, which you say are the best, though I do not understand the matter, each having an inscription in letters of gold upon the blade, and the hilt most cunningly chiselled in the same metal, or carved out of ivory.' 'I saw the treasure of Haïl when we took it away after the war, and most of it was distributed among us, but there was nothing like this,' said Abdullah. 'The treasure of Haïl is to the treasure of Riad, as a small black fly walking upon the face of the sun,' answered Almasta. 'And yet there was wealth there also, and there was much which you never saw. For that Khaled, who is now Sultan, is crafty and avaricious, and he loaded many camels secretly by night, being helped by black slaves, all of whom he slew afterwards with his own hand lest they should tell the tale, and he then called camel-drivers and sent them away with the beasts to Riad. And he said to them: "These are certain loads of fine wheat and of mellow dates, for the Sultan's table, such as cannot be found in Riad." But he sent a letter to his father-in-law, who caused all the packs to be taken immediately to one of the secret chambers, where he and his daughter Zehowah took out the jewels and stored them with their own. And as for me, I believe that Khaled made an end of the Sultan himself by means of poison in Dereyiyah, for he rode away suddenly after they had met, as though his conscience smote him.' 'What is this evil tale which you are telling me?' cried Abdullah. 'Surely, it is a lie, for Khaled is a brave man who gives every one his due and deceives no one. And he is by no means subtle, for I have heard him in council, and he generally said only, "Smite," but sometimes he said "Strike," and that was all his eloquence. But whether he said the one or the other, he was generally the first to follow his own advice which, indeed, by the merciful dispensation of Allah, procured us the victory. But what is this tale which you have invented?' 'And who is this Khaled whom you praise?' asked Almasta. 'And how can you know his craftiness as I know it, who have lived in the palace and braided his wife's hair, and brought him drink when he was thirsty? Is he a man of your tribe whose descent you can count upon your fingers, from him to his grandfather and to Ishmael and Abraham? Or is he a man of a tribe known to you, and whose generations you also know? Has any man called him Khaled ibn Mohammed, or Khaled ibn Abdullah? Or has he ever spoken of his father, who is probably now drinking boiling water, and the black angels are pounding his head with iron maces. Yet he says that he came from the desert. Then you, who are of the desert, do not know the desert, for you do not know whence he is. But there are those who do know, and he fears them, lest they should tell the truth and destroy him.' 'These are idle tales,' said Abdullah. 'Is it probable that the Sultan would have bestowed his daughter and all the treasures you have described upon such a man without having made inquiries concerning his family? And if the Sultan said nothing to us about it, and if Khaled holds his peace, they have doubtless their reasons. For it may be that there is a blood feud between the people of Khaled and some great person in Riad, so that he would be in danger of his life if he revealed his father's name. Allah knows. It is not our business.' 'O Abdullah, you are simple, and you believe all things!' cried Almasta. 'But I heard of him in Basrah.' 'What did you hear in Basrah? And how could you have heard of him there?' 'I was in the Emir's harem, being kept there to rest from the journey after they had brought me from the north. And there I heard of Khaled, for the women talked of him, having been told tales about him by a merchant who was admitted to the palace.' 'Now this is great folly,' answered Abdullah. 'For Khaled came suddenly to Riad, and was married immediately to Zehowah, and on the next day he went out with us against Haïl, which we took from the Shammar in three weeks' time from the day of our marching. Moreover we found you there in the palace. How then could news of Khaled have reached Basrah before you left that place?' 'I had come to Haïl but the day before you attacked the city,' said Almasta. 'But did I say that I had heard of him as already married to Zehowah?' For she saw that she had run the risk of being found out in a lie, and she made haste to defend herself. 'What did you hear of him?' asked Abdullah. 'He was a notable fellow and a robber,' answered Almasta. 'For he is a Persian, and a Shiyah, who offers prayers to Ali in secret. But because he had done many outrageous deeds, a great price was set upon his head throughout Persia, so he fled into Arabia and by his boldness and craft he married Zehowah. And now he has made a secret covenant to deliver over the kingdom of Nejed to the Persians.' Then Abdullah laughed aloud. 'Who shall deliver over the Bedouin to a white-faced people, who live on boiled chestnuts and ride astride of a camel? And when a man has got a kingdom, why should he give it up to any one, except under force?' 'There is a reason for this, too,' Almasta answered unabashed. 'For the King of the Persians, whom they call the Padeshah, has an only daughter, of great beauty, and Khaled is to receive her in marriage as the price of Nejed. Then he will by treachery destroy the Padeshah's sons and will inherit Persia also, as he has inherited Nejed; and after that he will make war upon the Romans in Stamboul and will become the master of the whole world.' 'This is a strange tale, and seems full of madness,' said Abdullah. 'I do not believe it. Tell me rather a story of your own country, and afterwards we will sleep, for to-morrow we will leave this place.' 'I will tell you a wonderful history, which is quite true,' answered Almasta. 'Take this fresh piece of frankincense which I have prepared for you, and put it into your mouth, for you will then not interrupt me with questions while I am speaking.' So Abdullah took the savoury gum and chewed it, and Almasta told him the tale which here follows. 'There is in the north, beyond Persia, a great and prosperous kingdom, lying between two seas, and resembling paradise for its wonderful beauty. All the hills are covered with trees of every description in which innumerable birds make their nests, all of a beautiful plumage and good for man to eat. And in these forests there are also great herds of animals, whose name I do not know in Arabic, having branching horns and kindred to the little beast which you call the cow of the desert, but far better to eat and as large as full-grown camels. A man who is hungry need only shoot an arrow at a venture, for the birds and animals are so numerous that he will certainly hit something. This kingdom is watered everywhere by rivers and streams abounding in fish, all good to eat and easily caught, and all the valleys are filled with vineyards of black and white grapes. But the people of this country are chiefly Christians. May Allah send them enlightenment! Now the King was an old man, who delighted in feasting and cared little for the affairs of the nation, preferring a lute to a sword, and a wine-cup to a shield, and the feet of dancing girls to the hoofs of war horses. He had no son to go out to war for him, but only one beautiful daughter.' 'Like the Sultan of our country who died,' said Abdullah. 'Very much. There were also other points of resemblance. Now there was a certain Tartar in the kingdom of Samarkand, called Ismaïl, who was a robber and had destroyed many caravans on the march, and had broken into many houses both in Samarkand and Tashkent, a notable evildoer. But having one day stolen a fleet mare from the Sultan's stables, the soldiers pursued him, and in order to escape impalement he fled. No one could catch him because the mare he had stolen was the fleetest in Great Tartary. So he rode westward through many countries, and by the shores of the inland sea, until he came to the kingdom which I have described. There he hid himself in the forest for some time and waylaid travellers, making them tell him all that they knew of the kingdom, and afterwards killing them. But when he had obtained all that he wanted, both rich garments and splendid weapons, and the necessary information, he left the forest and rode into the capital city. Then he went to the King and desired of him a private audience, which was granted. He said that he was the son of a powerful Christian prince, and had been taken captive by the Tartars, but had escaped, and he offered to make all Tartary subject to the King, if only he might marry his daughter. And whether by magic, or by eloquence, he succeeded, for the King was old and feeble-minded. But soon after the wedding, he poisoned his father-in-law and became king in his place, though there were many in the land who had a better right, being closely connected with the royal blood.' 'This is the story of Khaled,' said Abdullah. 'I know the truth. Why do you weary me, trying to deceive me, and calling him a robber? But it is true that in Nejed there are men of good descent who have a better right to sit on the throne.' 'Hear what followed,' answered Almasta. 'This man Ismaïl afterwards took captive a woman of the Tartars, who knew who he was, though he supposed her ignorant. And he gave her in marriage to the youngest and bravest of his captains, a man to whom Allah had vouchsafed the tongue of eloquence, and the teeth of strength, and the lips of discretion to close together and hide both at the proper season. The woman told her husband who Ismaïl was, and instructed him concerning the palace, its passages and secret places, and the treasures that were hidden there. And she told him also that Ismaïl had made a covenant with the Sultan of his own country, which would bring destruction upon the nation he now ruled. For she loved her husband on account of his youth and beauty, and she had embraced his faith and was ready to die for him.' 'The husband's name was Abdullah,' said Abdullah. 'And he also loved his wife, who surpassed other women in beauty, as a bay mare surpasses pigs.' 'He afterwards loved her still better,' answered Almasta, 'for though he was only chief over four hundred tents, she gave him a kingdom. Hear what followed. But I will call him Abdullah if you please, though his name was Mskhet.' 'Allah is merciful! There are no such names in Arabia. This one is like the breaking of earthen vessels upon stones. Call him Abdullah.' 'Abdullah therefore went to the wisest and most discreet of his kindred, and spoke to them of the great treasures which were hidden in the palace, and he pointed out to their obscured sight that all this wealth had been got by them and their fathers in war, and had been taken in tithes from the people, and was now in the possession of Ismaïl. And they talked among themselves and saw that this was indeed true. And at another time, he told them that Ismaïl was not really of their religion, but a hypocrite. And again a third time he told them the whole truth, so that their hearts burned when they knew that their King was but a robber who had been condemned to death. Though they were discreet men, the story was in some way told abroad among the soldiers, doubtless by the intervention of angels, so that all the people knew it, and were angry against Ismaïl and ready to break out against him so soon as a man could be found to lead them.' 'But,' said Abdullah, 'this Ismaïl doubtless had a strong guard of soldiers about him, and had given gifts to his captains, and shown honour to them, so that they were attached to him.' 'Undoubtedly,' replied Almasta, 'and but for his wife, Abdullah could not have succeeded. She advised him to go to his discreet kindred and friends and say to them, "See, if you will afterwards support me, I will go alone into the palace and will get the better of this Ismaïl, when he is asleep, and I will so do that the soldiers shall not oppose me. And afterwards, you will all enter together and the treasure shall be divided. But we will throw some of it to the people, lest they be disappointed." And so he did. For his wife knew the secret entrances to the palace and took him in with her by night, disguised as a woman. And they went together silently into the harem, and slew Ismaïl and bound his wife, and took the keys of the treasure chambers from under the pillow. After this they took from the gold as many bags as there were soldiers, and waked each man, giving him a sack of sherifs, and bidding him take as much more as he could find, for the King was dead. Then Abdullah's friends were admitted and they divided the treasure, and went abroad before it was day, calling upon the people that Ismaïl was dead and that a man of their own nation was King in his place, and scattering handfuls of gold into every house as they passed. And, behold, before the second call to prayer, Abdullah was King, and all the people came and did homage to him. And Abdullah himself was astonished when he saw how easy it had been, and loved his wife even better than before.' So Almasta finished her tale and there was silence for a time, while Abdullah sat still and gazed at the closed tents in the starlight, and listened to the distant chewing of the camels. 'Give me some water,' he said at last. 'I am very thirsty.' She brought him drink from the skin, and soon afterwards he lay down to rest. But they said nothing more to each other that night of the story which Almasta had told. On the following day they journeyed fully eleven hours, to a place where there was much water, and in the evening, when the camels were chewing, and all the Bedouins had eaten and were resting in their tents, Abdullah sat again in his accustomed place. 'Almasta, light of my darkness,' he said, 'I would gladly hear again something of the tale you told me last night, for I have not remembered it well, being overburdened with the cares of my people and the direction of the march. Surely you said that when the woman and her husband had killed Ismaïl they took the keys of the treasure chambers from under his pillow. Is it not so?' 'They did so, Abdullah,' 'And they immediately went and took the gold and gave it to the guards? But I have forgotten, for it is a matter of little importance, being but a tale.' 'That is what they did,' answered Almasta. 'But surely this is a fable. How could the woman know the way to the treasure chambers and find it in the dark? For you said also that these secret places were underground and therefore a great way from the harem.' 'I did not say that, Abdullah, for the secret places underground are those in Riad, which I described to you before I began the other story.' 'This may be true, for I am very forgetful. But I daresay that the treasures in the city you described were also hidden in similar places.' 'Since you speak of this, I remember that it was so. The glorious light of your intelligence penetrates the darkness of my memory and makes it clear. The places were exactly similar.' 'How then could the woman, who only knew the harem, find her way in the dark, and lead her husband, to a part of the palace which she had never visited? This is a hard thing.' 'It was not hard for her. She had seen Ismaïl open with his key a door in his sleeping chamber, and he had gone in and after some time had returned bearing sacks of gold pieces. Was this a hard thing? Or does a wise man make two doors to his treasure-house, the one for himself and the other for thieves? The one leading to his own chamber, for his own use, and the other opening upon the highway for the convenience of robbers? It is possible, but I think not. Ismaïl had but one door. He was not an Egyptian jackass.' 'This is reasonable,' said Abdullah. 'And I am now satisfied. But my imagination was not at rest, for the story is a good one and deserves to be well told.' After this Abdullah wandered for a long time with the Bedouins who accompanied him, often changing his direction, so that they wondered whither he was leading them, and began to question him. But he answered that he had heard secretly of a great spoil to be taken, and that they should all have a share of it, and whenever they came upon Arabs of another tribe Abdullah invited the sheikh and the most notable men to his tent and entertained them sumptuously with camel's meat, afterwards talking long with them in private. Before many weeks had passed, the skilful men of the tribe, who knew the signs, were aware that many other Bedouins were travelling in the same direction as themselves, though they could not be seen. But neither Abdullah's men, nor Almasta herself, could know that in three months the sheikhs of all the tribes from Hasa to Harb, and from Ajman to El Kora, had heard that Khaled the Sultan was a Persian robber, and a Shiyah at heart, venerating Ali and execrating the true Sonna, a man who in all probability drank wine in secret, and who was certainly plotting to deliver up all Nejed to the power of the Ajjem. Some of them believed the tale readily enough, for all had asked whence Khaled was and none had got an answer. Could a man be of the desert, they asked, and yet not be known by name in any of the tribes, nor his father before him? Surely, there was a secret, they said, and he who will not tell the name of his father has a reason for changing his own. And as for his being brave and having fought well in the war with the Shammar, how could a man have been a robber if he were not brave, and why should he not fight manfully, since he had everything to gain and nothing to lose? As for the spoils, too, he had made a pretence of dividing them justly, but it was now well known that he had laden camels by stealth at Haïl and had sent them secretly to Riad, slaughtering with his own hand all those who had helped him. Little by little, too, the story came to Riad and was told in a low voice by merchants in the bazar, and repeated by their wives among their acquaintance, and by the slaves in the market and among the beggars who begged by the doors of the great mosque but were fed daily from the palace. And though many persons of the better sort thought that the story might be true, and wagged their heads when Khaled's name was spoken, yet the beggars with one accord declared that it was a lie. For Khaled was generous in almsgiving, and they said, 'If Khaled is overthrown and another Sultan set up in his place, how do we know whether there will be boiled camel's meat from time to time as well as blanket-bread and a small measure of barley meal? And will the next Sultan scatter gold in the streets as Khaled did on the first day when he rode to the mosque? Truly these chatterers of Bedouins talk much of the treasure in the palace which will be divided, but they who talk most of gold, are they who most desire it, and we shall get none. Therefore we say it is a lie, and Khaled is a true man, and a Sonna like ourselves, not a swiller of wine nor a devourer of pigs. Allah show him mercy now and at the day of resurrection! The cock-sparrow is pluming his breast while the hunter is pulling the string of the snare.' Thus the beggars talked among themselves all day, reasoning after the manner of their kind. But they suffered other people to talk as they pleased, for one who desires alms must not exhibit a contradictory disposition, lest the rich man be offended and eat the melon together with the melon peels, and exclaim that the dirt-scraper has become a preacher. For the rich man's anger is at the edge of his nostrils and always ready. As the winter passed away and the spring began, the tribes of the desert drew nearer and nearer to the city, as is their wont at that season. For many of the sheikhs had houses in the city, in which they spent the hot months of the year, while their people were encamped in the low hill country not far off, where the heat is less fierce than in the plains and the deserts. And now also the season of the Haj was approaching, for Ramadhan was not far off, and the beggars congregated at the gates waiting for the first pilgrims, and expecting plentiful alms, which in due time they received, for in that year Abdullah did not molest the Persian pilgrimage, his mind being occupied with other matters. CHAPTER IX The story which was thus repeated from mouth to mouth in Riad reached the palace at the last, and the guards told it to each other as they sat together under the shadow of the great wall, the cooks related it among themselves in the kitchen, and the black slaves gossiped about it in the corners of the courtyard, and the women slaves stood and listened while they talked and carried the tale into the harem. But the people of the palace were more slow to believe than the people of the city, for they shared in a measure in Khaled's right of possession, and desired no change of master, so that for a long time neither Zehowah nor Khaled heard anything of what was commonly reported. Yet at last the old woman who had been Zehowah's nurse told her the substance of the story, with many protestations of unbelief, and of anger against those who had invented the lie. 'It is right that my lady and mistress should know these things,' she said, 'and when our lord the Sultan has been informed of them, he will doubtless cause his soldiers to go forth with sticks and purify the hides of the chief evil-speakers in the bazar. There is one especially, a merchant whose shop is opposite the door of the little mosque, who is continually bold in falsehood, being the same who sold me this garment for linen; but it afterwards turned out to be cotton and the gold threads are brass and have turned black. I pray Allah to be just as well as merciful.' At first Zehowah laughed, but soon afterwards her face became grave, and she bent her brows, for though the story was but a lie she saw how easily it would find credence. She therefore sent the old woman away with a gift and she herself went to Khaled, and sat down beside him and took his hand. 'You have secret enemies,' she said, 'who are plotting against your life, and who have already begun to attack you by filling the air of the city with falsehoods which fly from house to house like flies in summer entering at the window and going out by the door. You must sift this matter, for it is worthy of attention.' 'And what are these lies of which you speak?' 'It is said openly in the city that you are a Shiyah and a Persian, having been a robber before you came here, and that you are plotting to deliver over Nejed to the Persians. Look to this, Khaled, for they say that you are no Bedouin since no one knows your descent nor the name of your father.' 'Do you believe this of me, Zehowah?' Khaled asked. 'Do I believe that the sun is black and the night as white as the sun? But it is true that I do not know your father's name.' Then Khaled was troubled, for he saw that it would be a hard matter to explain, and that without explanation his safety might be endangered. Zehowah sat still beside him, holding his hand and looking into his face, as though expecting an answer. 'Have I done wisely in telling you?' she asked at last. 'You are troubled. I should have said nothing.' 'You have done wisely,' he answered. 'For I will go and speak to them, and if they believe me, the matter is finished, but if not I have lost nothing.' 'It will be well to give the chief men presents, and to distribute something among the people, for gifts are great persuaders of unbelief.' 'Shall I give them presents because they have believed evil of me?' asked Khaled, laughing. 'Rather would I give you the treasures of the whole earth because you have not believed it.' 'If I had the wealth of the whole world I would give it to them rather than that they should hurt a hair of your head,' Zehowah answered. 'Am I more dear to you than so much gold, Zehowah?' 'What is gold that it should be weighed in the balance with the life of a man? You are dearer to me than gold.' 'Is this love, Zehowah?' Khaled asked, in a low voice. 'I do not know whether it be love or not.' 'The wing of night is lifted for a moment, and the false dawn is seen, and afterwards it is night again. But the true dawn will come by and by, when night folds her wings before the day.' 'You speak in a riddle, Khaled.' 'It is no matter. I will neither make a speech to the people, nor give them gifts. What is it to me? Let them chatter from the first call to prayer until the lights are put out in the evening. My fate is about my neck, and I cannot change it, any more than I can make you love me. Allah is great. I will wait and see what happens.' 'Everything is undoubtedly in Allah's hand,' said Zehowah. 'But if a man, having meat set before him, will not raise his right hand to thrust it into the dish, he will die of hunger.' 'And do you think that Allah does not know before whether the man will stretch out his hand or not?' 'Undoubtedly Allah knows. And he also knows that if you will not sift this matter and stop the mouths of the liars, I will, though I am but a woman, for otherwise we may both perish.' 'If they destroy me, yet they cannot take the kingdom from you, nor hurt you,' said Khaled. 'How then are you in danger? If I am slain you will then choose a husband, whose father's name is known to them. They will be satisfied and you will be no worse off than before and possibly better. This is truth. I will therefore wait for the end.' 'Who has put these words into your mouth, Khaled? For the thought is not in your heart. Moreover, if the tribes should rise up and overthrow you, they would not spare me, for I would fight against them with my hands and they would kill me.' 'Why should you fight for me, since you do not love me? But this is folly. No one ever heard of a woman taking arms and fighting.' 'I have heard of such deeds. And if I had not heard of them, others should through me, for I would be the first to do them.' 'I think that so long as Khaled lives, Zehowah need not bear arms,' said Khaled. 'I will therefore go and call the chief men together and speak to them.' And so he did. When the principal officers who had remained in the city during the winter season were assembled in the kahwah, and had hung up their swords on the pegs and partaken of a refreshment, Khaled sent the slaves away, and spoke in a few words as was his manner. 'Men of Riad, Aared and all Nejed,' he said, 'I regret that more of you are not present here, but a great number of sheikhs are still in the desert, and it cannot be helped. I desire to tell you that I have heard of a tale concerning me which is circulated from mouth to ear throughout Riad and the whole kingdom. This tale is untrue, a lie such as no honest man repeats even to his own wife at home in the harem. For it is said that I am not called Khaled, but perhaps Ali Hassan, or perhaps Ali Hussein, that I am a Shiyah, a wine-bibber and an idolatrous one who prays for the intercession of Ali, besides being a Persian and a robber. It is also said that I plot to deliver over the kingdom of Nejed to the Persians, though how this could be done I do not know, seeing that the Persians are a meal-faced people of white jackals who do not know how to ride a camel. These are all lies. I swear by Allah.' When the men heard these words, they looked stealthily one at another, to see who would answer Khaled, for they had all heard the story and most of them were inclined to believe it. Peace is the mother of evil-speaking, as garbage breeds flies in a corner, which afterwards fly into clean houses and men ask whence they come. But none of the chief men found anything to say at first, so that Khaled sat in silence a long time, waiting for some one to speak. He therefore turned to the one nearest to him, and addressed him. 'Have you heard this tale?' he inquired. 'And if you have heard it do you believe it?' 'I think, indeed, that I have heard something of the kind,' answered the man. 'But it was as the chattering of an uncertain vision in a dream, which rings in the ears for a moment while it is yet dark in the morning, but is forgotten when the sun rises. By the instrumentality of a just mind Allah caused that which entered at one ear to run out from the other as the rinsing of a water-skin.' 'Good,' answered Khaled. 'Yet it is not well to rinse the brains with falsehoods. And you?' he inquired, turning to the next. 'Have you heard it also?' 'Just lord, I have heard,' replied this one. 'But if I have believed, may my head be shaved with a red-hot razor having a jagged edge.' 'This is well,' Khaled said, and he questioned a third. 'O Khaled!' cried the man. 'Is the milk sour, because the slave has imagined a lie saying, "I will say it is bad and then it will be given to me to drink"? Or is honey bitter because the cook has put salt in the sweetmeats? Or is it night because the woman has shut the door and the window, to keep out the sun?' The next also found an answer, having collected his thoughts while the others were speaking. 'A certain man,' said he, 'kept sheep in Tabal Shammar, and the dog was with the sheep in the fold. Then two foxes came to the fold in the evening and one of them said to the man: "All dogs are wolves, for we have seen their like in the mountains, and your dog is also a wolf and will eat up your sheep. Make haste to kill him therefore and cast out his carcass." And to the sheep the other fox said: "How many sheep hang by the heels at the butcher's! And how many dogs live in sheepfolds! This is an evil world for innocent people." And the sheep were at first persuaded, but presently the dog ran out and caught one of the foxes and broke his neck, and the man threw a stone at the other and hit him, so that he also died. Then the sheep said one to another: "The foxes have suffered justly, for they were liars and robbers and the dog and our master have protected us against them, which they would not have done had they desired our destruction." And so are the people, O Khaled. For if you let the liars go unhurt the people will believe them, but if you destroy them the faith of the multitude will be turned again to you.' 'This is a fable,' said Khaled, 'and it is not without truth. I am the sheep-dog and the people are the sheep. But in the name of Allah, which are the foxes?' Then he turned to another, an old man who was the Kadi, celebrated for his wisdom and for his religious teaching in the chief mosque. 'I ask you last of all,' said Khaled, 'because you are the wisest, and when the wisest words are heard last they are most easily remembered. For we first put water into the lamp, and then oil to float upon the surface, and next the wick, and last of all we take a torch and light the lamp and the darkness disappears. Light our lamp, therefore, O Kadi, and let us see clearly.' 'O Khaled,' replied the Kadi, 'I am old and have seen the world. You cannot destroy the tree by cutting off one or two of its branches. It is necessary to strike at the root. Now the root of this tree of lies which has grown up is this. Neither we nor the people know whence you are, nor what was your father's name, and though I for my part do not impiously ask whence Allah takes the good gifts which he gives to men, there are many who are not satisfied, and who will go about in jealousy to make trouble until their questioning is answered. If you ask counsel of me, I say, tell us here present of what tribe you are, for we believe you a pure Bedouin like the best of us, and tell us your father's name, and peace be upon him. We are men in authority and will speak to the people, and I will address them from the pulpit of the great mosque, and they will believe us. Then all will be ended, and the lies will be extinguished as the coals of an evening fire go out when the night frost descends upon the camp in winter. But if you will not tell us, yet I, for one, do not believe ill of you; and moreover you are lord, and we are vassals, so long as you are King and hold good and evil in your hand.' 'So long as I am King,' Khaled repeated. 'And you think that if I do not tell my father's name, I shall not be where I am for a long time.' 'Allah is wise, and knows,' answered the Kadi, but he would say nothing more. 'This is plain speaking,' said Khaled, 'such as I like. But I might plainly take advantage of it. You desire to know my father's name and whence I come. Then is it not easy for me to say that I come from a distant part of the Great Dahna? Is there a man in Nejed who has crossed the Red Desert? And if I say that my father was Mohammed ibn Abd el Hamid ibn Abd el Latif, and so on to our father Ismaïl, upon whom be peace, shall any one deny that I speak truth? This is a very easy matter.' 'So much the more will it be easy for us to satisfy the people,' answered the Kadi. 'No doubt. I will think of what you have said. And now, I pray you, partake of another refreshment and go in peace.' At this all the chief men looked one at the other again, for they saw that Khaled would not tell them what they wished to know. And those of them who had doubted the story before now began to believe it. But they held their peace, and presently made their salutation and took their swords from the wall and departed. Khaled then left the kahwah and returned to Zehowah in the harem. 'I have told them that these tales are lies,' he said, 'but they do not believe me.' He repeated to Zehowah all that had been said, and she listened attentively, for she began to understand that there was danger not far off. 'And I told them,' he said at last, 'that it would be as easy for me to invent names, as for them to hear them. Then they looked sideways each at the other and kept silent.' 'This is a foolish thing which you have done,' answered Zehowah. 'They will now all believe that your father was an evildoer and that you yourself are no better. Otherwise, they will say, why should he wish to conceal anything? You should have told them the truth, whatever it is.' 'You also wish to know it, I see,' said Khaled, looking at Zehowah curiously. 'But if I were to tell you, you would not believe me, I think, any more than they would.' Then Zehowah looked at him in her turn, but he could not understand the language of her eyes. 'What is this secret of yours?' she asked. 'I would indeed like to hear it, and if you swear to me that it is true, by Allah, I will believe you. For you are a very truthful man, and not subtle.' But Khaled was troubled at this. For he knew that she would find it hard to believe; and that if she did believe it, she would be terrified to think that she had married one of the genii, and if not, she would suspect him of a hidden purpose in telling her an empty fable, and he would then be further from her love than before. He held his peace, therefore, for some time, while she watched him, playing with her beads. In reality she was very curious to know the truth, though she had always been unwilling to ask it of him, seeing that she had married him as a stranger, of her own will and choice, without inquiry. 'Is it just,' she asked at last, 'that the people should accuse you of evil deeds and fill the air of the city with falsehoods concerning you, so that the very slaves hear the guards repeating the lies to each other in the courtyard, and that I, who am your wife, should not know the truth? What have I done that you should not trust me? Or what have I said that you should regard me no more than a slave who sprinkles the floor and makes the fire, and while she is present in the room you hold your peace lest she should know your thoughts and betray them? Am I not your wife, and faithful? Have I not given you a kingdom and treasure beyond counting? Surely there were times when you talked more freely with that barbarian slave-woman, whose hair was red, than you ever talk with me.' 'This is not true,' said Khaled. 'And if I talked familiarly with Almasta, you know the reason, for you yourself found it out, and called me simple for trying to deceive you. And now she is gone to the desert with her husband and there is no more question of her, or her red hair. But all the rest is true, and you have indeed given me a kingdom, which I am likely to lose and wealth which I do not desire, though you have not given me that which I covet more than gold or kingdoms, for I desire it indeed, and that is your love. Moreover if you have given me the rest, I have done something in return, for I have fought for your people, and shed my blood freely, and given you a nation captive, besides loving you and refusing to take another wife into my house. And this last is a matter of which some women would think more highly than you.' But Zehowah's curiosity was burning within her like a thirst, for although she had at first cared little to know of Khaled's former life, she was astonished at his persistency in keeping the secret now, seeing that the whole country was full of false rumours about him. 'How can a man expect that a woman should love him, if he will not put his trust in her?' she asked. Then Khaled did not hesitate any longer, for he was never slow to do anything by which there seemed to be any hope of gaining her love. He therefore took her hand in his, and it trembled a little so that he was pleased, though indeed the unsteadiness came more from her anxiety to know the story he was about to tell, than from any love she felt at that moment. 'You have sworn that you will believe me, Zehowah,' he said. 'But I forewarn you that there are hard things to understand. For the reason why I will not tell my father's name, nor the name of my tribe is a plain one, seeing that I was not born like other men, and have no father at all, and my brethren are not men but genii of the air, created from the beginning and destined to die at the second blast of the trumpet before the resurrection of the dead.' At this Zehowah started suddenly in fright and looked into his face, expecting to see that he had coals of fire for eyes and an appalling countenance. But when she saw that he was not changed and had the face of a man and the eyes of a man, she laughed. 'What is this idle tale of Afrits?' she exclaimed. 'Frighten children with it.' 'This is what I foresaw in you,' said Khaled. 'You cannot believe me. Of what use is it then to tell you my story?' Zehowah answered nothing, for she was angry, supposing that Khaled was attempting to put her off with a foolish tale. She had heard, indeed, of Genii and Afrits and she was sure that they had existence, since they were expressly mentioned in the Koran, but she had never heard that any of them had taken the shape and manner of a man. She remembered also how Khaled had always fought with his hands in war, like other men and been wounded, and she was sure that if his story were true he would have summoned whole legions of his fellows through the air to destroy the enemy. 'You do not believe me,' he repeated somewhat bitterly. 'And if you do not believe me, how shall others do so?' 'You ask me to believe too much. If you ask for my faith, you must offer me truths and not fables. It is true that I am curious, which is foolish and womanly. But if you do not wish to tell me your secret, I cannot force you to do so, nor have I any right to expect confidence. Let us therefore talk of other things, or else not talk at all, for though you will not satisfy me you cannot deceive me in this way.' 'So you also believe that I am a Persian and a robber,' said Khaled. 'Is it not so?' 'How can I tell what you are, if you will not tell me? Is your name written in your face that I may know it is indeed Khaled and not Ali Hassan as the people say? Or is the record of your deeds inscribed upon your forehead for me to read? You may be a Persian. I cannot tell.' Then Khaled bent his brows and turned his eyes away from her, for he was angry and disappointed, though indeed she knew in her heart that he was no Persian. But she let him suppose that she thought so, hoping perhaps to goad him into satisfying her curiosity. If Khaled had been a man like other men, as Zehowah supposed him to be, he would doubtless have invented a well-framed history such as she would have believed, at least for the present. But to him such a falsehood appeared useless, for he had seen the world during many ages and had observed that a lie is never really successful except by chance, seeing that no intelligence is profound enough to foresee the manner in which it will be some day examined, whereas the truth, being always coincident with the reality, can never be wholly refuted. Khaled therefore hesitated as to whether he should tell his story from the beginning, or hold his peace; but in the end he decided to speak, because it was intolerable to him to be thought an evildoer by her. 'You make haste to disbelieve, before you have heard all,' he said at last. 'Hear me to the end. I have told you that I slew the Indian prince. That was before I became a man. You yourself could not understand how I was able to enter the palace and carry him away without being observed. But as I was at that time able to fly and to make both myself and him invisible, this need not surprise you. If you do not believe that I did it, let us order a litter to be brought for you, and I will take my mare and a sufficient number of attendants, and let us ride southwards into the Red Desert. There I will show you the man's bones. You will probably recognise them by the gold chain which he wore about his neck and by his ring. After that, when I had buried him, the messenger of Allah came to me, and because the man was an unbeliever, and had intended to embrace the faith outwardly, having evil in his heart, Allah did not destroy me immediately, but commanded that the angel Asrael should write my name in the book of life, that I might become a man. But Allah gave me no soul, promising only that if I could win your love, whose suitor I had killed, I should receive an immortal spirit, which should then be judged according to my deeds. This is truth. I swear it in the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate. Then an angel gave me garments such as men wear, and a sword, and a good mare, and I travelled hither to Riad, eating locusts for food. And though no man knew me, you married me at once, for it was the will of Allah, whose will shall also be done to the end. The rest you know. If, therefore, you will love me before I die, I shall receive a soul and it may be that I shall inherit paradise, for I am a true believer and have shed blood for the faith. But if you do not love me, when I die I shall perish as the flame of a lamp that is blown out at dawn. This is the truth.' He ceased from speaking and looked again at Zehowah. At first he supposed from her face that she believed him, and his heart was comforted, but presently she smiled, and he understood that she was not convinced. For the story had interested her greatly and she had almost forgotten not to believe it, but when she no longer heard his voice, it seemed too hard for her. 'This is a strange tale,' she said, 'and it will probably not satisfy the people.' 'I do not care whether they are satisfied or not,' Khaled answered. 'All I desire is to be believed by you, for I cannot bear that you should think me what I am not.' 'What can I do? I cannot say to my intelligence, take this and reject that, any more than I can say to my heart, love or love not. It would indeed have been easier if you had said, "I am a certain Persian, a fugitive, protect me, for my enemies are upon me." I could perhaps give you protection if you require it, as you may. But you come to me with a monstrous tale, and you ask me to love, not a man, but a Jinn or an Afrit, or whatever it pleases you to call yourself. Assuredly this is too hard for me.' And again Zehowah smiled scornfully, for she was really beginning to think that he might be a Persian disguised as the people said. 'I need no protection from man or woman,' said Khaled, 'for I fear neither the one nor the other. For I am strong, and if I am able to give out of charity I am also able to take by force. My fate is ever with me. I cannot escape it. But neither can others escape theirs. I will fight alone if need be, for if you will not love me I care little how I may end. Moreover, in battle, it is not good to stand in the way of a man who seeks death.' But Zehowah thought this might be the speech of a desperate man such as Ali Hassan, the robber, as well as of Khaled, the Jinn, and she was not convinced, though she no longer smiled. For she knew little of supernatural beings, and a devil might easily call himself a good spirit, so that she was convinced that she was married either to a demon or to a dangerous robber, and she could not even decide which of the two she would have preferred, for either was bad enough, and as for love there could no longer be any question of that. Khaled understood well enough and rose from his seat and went away, desiring to be alone. He knew that he was now surrounded by danger on every side and that he could not even look to his wife for comfort, since she also believed him to be an impostor. 'Truly,' he said to himself, 'this is a task beyond accomplishment, which Allah has laid upon me. It is harder to get a woman's love than to win kingdoms, and it is easier to destroy a whole army with one stroke of a sword than to make a woman believe that which she does not desire. And now the end is at hand. For she will never love me and I shall certainly perish in this fight, being alone against so many. Allah assuredly did not intend me to run away, and moreover there is no reason left for remaining alive.' On that day Khaled again called the chief men together in his kahwah, and addressed them briefly. 'Men of Riad,' he said, 'I am aware that there is a conspiracy to overthrow and destroy me, and I daresay that you yourselves are among the plotters. I will not tell you who I am, but I swear by Allah that I am neither a Persian nor a robber, nor yet a Shiyah. You will doubtless attack me unawares, but you will not find me sleeping. I will kill as many of you as I can, and afterwards I also shall undoubtedly be killed, for I am alone and you have many thousands on your side. Min Allah--it is in Allah's hands. Go in peace.' So they departed, shaking their heads, but saying nothing. CHAPTER X The Sheikh of the beggars was an old man, blind from his childhood, but otherwise strong and full of health, delighting in quarrels and swift to handle his staff. He had at first become a beggar, being still a young man, for his father and mother had died without making provision for him, and he had no brothers. As he boasted that he was of the pure blood of the desert on both sides, the other beggars jeered at him in the beginning, calling him Ibn el Sheikh in derision and sometimes stealing his food from him. But he beat them mightily, the just and the unjust together, since he could not see, and acquired great consideration amongst them, after which he behaved generously, giving his share with the rest for the common good, and something more. His companions learned also that his story was true and that his blood was as good as any from Ajman to El Kara, for a Bedouin of the same tribe as Abdullah, the husband of Almasta, came to see him not less than once every year, and called him brother and filled his sack with barley. This Bedouin was a person of consideration, also, as the beggars saw from his having a mare of his own, provided with a good saddle, and from his weapons. In the course of time therefore the blind man grew great in the eyes of his fellows, until they called him Sheikh respectfully, and waited on him when he performed his ablutions, and he obtained over them a supremacy as great as was Khaled's over the kingdom he governed. He was very wise also, acquainted with the interpretation of dreams, and able to recite various chapters of the Koran. It was even said that he was able to distinguish a good man from a bad by the sound of his tread, though some thought that he only heard the jingling of coins in the girdle, and judged by this, having a finer hearing than other men. At all events he was often aware that a person able to give alms was approaching, while his companions were talking among themselves and noticed nothing, though they had eyes to see, being mostly only cripples and lepers. On a certain day in the spring, when the sun was beginning to be hot and not long after Khaled had told Zehowah his story, many of the beggars were sitting in the eastern gate, by which the great road issues out of the city towards Hasa. They expected the coming of the first pilgrims every day, for the season was advancing. And now they sat talking together of the good prospects before them, and rejoicing that the winter was over so that they would not suffer any more from the cold. 'There is a horseman on the road,' said the Sheikh of the beggars, interrupting the conversation. 'O you to whom Allah has preserved the light of day, look forth and tell me who the rider is.' 'It is undoubtedly a pilgrim,' answered a young beggar, who was a stranger but had found his way to Riad without legs, no man knew how. 'Ass of Egypt,' replied the Sheikh reprovingly, 'do pilgrims ride at a full gallop upon steeds of pure blood? But though your eyes are open your ears are deaf with the sleep of stupidity from which there is no awakening. That is a good horse, ridden by a light rider. Truly a man must itch to be called Haji who gallops thus on the road to Mecca.' Then the others looked, and at last one of them spoke, a hunchback having but one eye, but that one was keen. 'O Sheikh,' he said, 'rejoice and praise Allah, for I think it is he whom you call your brother, who comes in from the desert to visit you.' 'If that is the case, I will indeed give thanks,' answered the blind man, 'for there is little in my barley-sack, less in my wallet and nothing at all in my stomach. Allah is gracious and compassionate!' The hunchback's eye had not deceived him, and before long the Bedouin dismounted at the gate and looked about until he saw the Sheikh of the beggars, who indeed had already risen to welcome him. When they had embraced the Bedouin led the blind man along in the shadow of the eastern wall until they were so far from the rest that they might freely talk without being overheard. Then they sat down together, and the mare stood waiting before them. 'O my brother,' the Bedouin began, 'was not my mother the adopted daughter of your uncle, upon whom be peace? And have I not called you brother and filled your barley-sack from time to time these many years?' 'This is true,' answered the Sheikh of the beggars. 'Allah will requite you with seventy thousand days of unspeakable bliss for every grain of barley you have caused to pass my teeth. "Be constant in prayer and in giving alms," says the holy book, "and you shall find with Allah all the good which you have sent before you, for your souls." And it is also said, "Give alms to your kindred, and to the poor and to orphans." I am also grateful for all you have done, and my gratitude grows as a palm tree in the garden of my soul which is irrigated by your charity.' 'It is well, my brother, it is well. I know the uprightness of your heart, and I have not ridden hither from the desert to count the treasure which may be in store for me in paradise. Allah knows the good, as well as the evil. I have come for another purpose. But tell me first, what is the news in the city? Are there no strange rumours afloat of late concerning Khaled the Sultan?' 'In each man's soul there are two wells,' said the blind man. 'The one is the spring of truth, the other is the fountain of lies.' 'You are wise and full of years,' said the Bedouin, 'and I understand your caution, for I also am not very young. But here we must speak plainly, for the time is short in which to act. A sand-storm has darkened the eyes of the men of the desert and they are saying that Khaled is a Shiyah, a Persian and a robber, and that he must be overthrown and a man of our own people made king in his stead.' 'I have indeed heard such a rumour.' 'It is more than a rumour. The tribes are even now assembling towards Riad, and before many days are past the end will come. Abdullah is the chief mover in this. But with your help, my brother, we will make his plotting empty and his scheming fruitless as a twig of ghada stuck into the sand, which will neither strike root nor bear leaves.' When the Sheikh of the beggars heard that he was expected to give help in frustrating Abdullah's plans he was troubled and much astonished. 'Shall the blind sheep go out and fight the lion?' he inquired tremulously. 'Even so,' replied the Bedouin unmoved, 'and, moreover, without danger to himself. Hear me first. Abdullah and his tribe will encamp in the low hills, in a few days, as usual, but somewhat earlier than in other years, and a great number of other Bedouins will be in the neighbouring valleys at the same time. Then Abdullah will come into the city openly and go to his house with his wife and slaves, and during several days he will receive the visits of his friends and return them, and go to the palace and salute Khaled, as though nothing were about to happen. But in the meantime he will make everything ready, for it is his intention to go into the palace at night, disguised in a woman's garment, with his wife, and they will slay Khaled in his sleep, and bind Zehowah, and distribute much treasure among the guards and slaves, and before morning the city will be full of Bedouins all ready to proclaim Abdullah Sultan. And you alone can prevent all this.' But the blind man laughed in his beard. 'This is a good jest!' he cried. 'You have sought out a valiant warrior to stand between the Sultan and death! I am blind and old, and a beggar, and you would have me stand in the path of Abdullah and a thousand armed men. They would certainly laugh, as I do. Let me take with me a few lepers and the Egyptian jackass without legs, who has flown among us lately like a locust out of the clear air. Verily, their strength shall avail against the lances of the desert.' 'This is no jest, my brother,' answered the Bedouin, gravely. 'Neither I, nor a hundred armed horsemen with me could do what you will do unhurt. But I will save Khaled. For in the battle of the pass before we came to Haïl last summer when I had an arrow in my right arm and a spear thrust in my side, certain dogs of Shammars encompassed me, and darkness was already descending upon my eyes when Khaled rode in like a whirlwind of scythes, and sent four of them to hell, where they are now drinking molten brass like thirsty camels. Then I swore by Allah that I would defend him in the hour of need.' 'Why do you not then lie in wait for Abdullah yourself and slay him as he passes you in the dark?' 'Is he not the sheikh of my tribe? How then can I lay a hand on him? But I have thought of this during many nights in my tent, and you alone can do what is needed.' 'Surely this is folly,' said the Sheikh of the beggars. 'You have met a hot wind in the desert and your mind is unsettled by it. I pray you come with me into the city to my dwelling, and take some refreshment, or at least let me send to the well for a drink of water.' 'My head is cool and I am not thirsty, nor is the hot wind blowing at this time of year. Hear me. I will tell you how to save Khaled from destruction, and you shall receive more gold than you have dreamed of, and a house, and rich garments, and a young wife of a good family to comfort your old age. For the deed is easy and safe, but the reward will be great, and you alone can do the one and earn the other.' 'I perceive,' said the blind man, 'that you are indeed in earnest, but I cannot understand what I can do. We know that Khaled is forewarned, for it is not many days since he summoned the chief men in Riad, with the Kadi, to the palace, and refused to tell them the name of his father, but said that if they attacked him he would kill as many of them as he could.' 'I did not know this,' answered the Bedouin. 'But the knowledge does not change my plan. Now hear me. You are the Sheikh of all the beggars in Riad--may Allah send you long life and much gain--they are an army and you are a captain. Moreover the beggars are doubtless attached to Khaled by his generosity, and all of you say in your hearts that under Abdullah there may be more sticks and less barley for you.' 'This is true. But then, my brother, it is otherwise with you, for you are of Abdullah's tribe and will have honour and riches if he is made Sultan. How then is my advantage also yours?' 'And did not this Abdullah in the first place divorce with ignominy his second wife, who is my kinswoman, being the daughter of my father's sister? And has he restored the dowry as the law commands? Truly his new wife is even now sitting upon my cousin's carpet. And secondly Abdullah made himself sheikh unjustly, for our sheikh should be Abdul Kerim's son.' 'Yet you accepted Abdullah and promised him allegiance.' 'Does the camel say to his driver: "I do not like to carry a load of barley, I would rather bear a basket of dates"? "Eat what you please in your tent, but dress as other men," says the proverb. Hear me, for I speak wisdom. Abdullah will come into the city and go to his house, intending to prepare the way for evil. And he will walk about the streets as usual, without attendants, both because he knows that the people are mostly with him, and also in order not to attract notice. Now Abdullah is the spring from which all this wickedness flows, he is the chief camel whom the others follow, the coal in the ashes by which the fire is kept alive, the head without which the body cannot live. Dry up the spring, therefore, let the chief camel fall into a pit suddenly, extinguish the coal, strike off the head. Let them ask in the morning: "Where is he?" And let him not be found anywhere. Then the people will be amazed and will not know what to do, having no leader. This is for you to do, and it can easily be done.' 'What folly is this?' asked the blind man, shaking his head. 'And how can I do what you wish?' 'It is very easy, for I know that you and your companions are as one man, living together for the common good. Go to the beggars therefore and tell them what I have told you, and be not afraid, for they will not betray you. And when Abdullah walks about the city alone lie in wait for him, for you will easily catch him in a narrow street, and two or three score of you can run after him begging for alms, until he is surrounded on all sides. Then fall upon him, and bind him, and take him secretly to one of your dwellings and keep him there, so that none find him, until the storm is past. In this way you will save Khaled and the kingdom, and when all is quiet you can deliver him up to be a laughing-stock at the palace and to all who believed in him. For there is nothing to fear, and I, for my part, am sure that Abdul Kerim's son will immediately be made sheikh of our tribe so that Abdullah will not return to us.' 'You are subtle, my brother,' said the Sheikh of the beggars, smiling and stroking his beard. 'This is a good plan, being very simple, and Khaled will be grateful to us, and honour us beggars exceedingly. Said I not well that the jest was good? Surely it is better than I had thought, and more profitable.' 'I have thought of it long in the nights of winter, both by the camp fire and in my tent and on the march. But I have told no one, nor will tell any one until all is done. But so soon as you have taken Abdullah and hidden him, let me know of it. To this end, when we are encamped outside the city I will come every evening to prayers in the great mosque and afterwards will wait for you near the door. As soon as I know that Abdullah is out of finding I will spread the report that he is lost, and before long all our tribe will give up the search, being indeed glad to get rid of him. And the rest is in the hand of Allah. I have done what I can, you must now do your share.' 'By Allah! You shall not complain of me,' answered the blind man, 'nor of my people, for the jest is surpassingly good, and shall be well carried out.' 'I will therefore go into the city, where I have business,' said the Bedouin. 'For I gave a reason for coming alone to Riad, and must needs show myself there to those who know me.' So the Bedouin filled the blind beggar's sack with barley and dates from his own supply and embraced him and went into the city, but the Sheikh of the beggars remained sitting in the same place for some time, at a distance from the rest, in an attitude of inward contemplation, though he was in reality listening to what the hunchback was telling the new cripple from Egypt. The Sheikh's ears were sharper than those of other men and he heard very clearly what was said. 'This Bedouin,' said the hunchback, 'is a near relation of our Sheikh, and holds him in great veneration, coming frequently to see him even from a considerable distance, and always bringing him a present of food. And you may see by his mare and by his weapons that he is a person of consideration in his tribe. For our Sheikh is not a negro, nor the son of a Syrian camel-driver, but an Arab of the best blood in the desert, and wise enough to sit in the council in the Sultan's palace. You, who are but lately arrived, being transported into our midst by the mercy of Allah, must learn all these things, and you will also find out that our Sheikh has eyes in his ears, and in his fingers and in his staff, though he is counted blind, and you cannot deceive him easily as you might suppose.' The Sheikh of the beggars was pleased when he heard this and listened attentively to hear the answer made by the Egyptian, whom he did not yet trust because he was a newcomer and a stranger. 'Truly,' replied the cripple, 'Allah has been merciful and compassionate to me, for he has brought me into the society of the wise and the good, which is better than much feasting in the company of the ignorant and the ill-mannered. And as for the Sheikh, he is evidently a very holy man, to whom eyes are not in any way necessary, his inward sight being constantly fixed upon heavenly things.' This answer did not altogether please the blind man, for it savoured somewhat of flattery. But the other beggars approved of the speech, deeming that it showed a submissive spirit, and readiness to obey and respect their chief. 'O you of Egypt!' cried the Sheikh, calling to him. 'Come here and sit beside me, for I have heard what you said and desire your company.' The cripple immediately began to crawl along by the wall, dragging himself upon his hands and body, for he had no legs. 'He is obedient,' thought the blind man, 'though it costs him much labour to move.' When the man was beside him, the Sheikh took an onion and a date from his wallet and set them down upon the ground. 'Eat,' he said, 'and give thanks.' The cripple thanked him and taking the food, began to eat the onion. 'You have taken the onion in your right hand and the date in your left,' said the Sheikh. 'And you are eating the onion first.' 'This is true,' answered the Egyptian. 'I see that my lord has indeed eyes in his fingers.' 'I have,' said the Sheikh. 'But that is not all, for this is an allegory. All men like to eat the onion first and the date afterwards, for though the onion be ever so sweet and tender, its taste is bitter when a man has eaten sugar-dates before it. But you have begun by giving us the mellow fruit of flattery, and when you give us the wholesome vegetable of truth it will be too sharp for our palates. Ponder this in your heart, chew it as the camel does her cud, and the well-digested food of wisdom shall nourish your understanding.' The cripple listened in astonishment at the depth of the Sheikh's thought, and he would have spoken out his admiration, but it is not possible to eat an onion and to be eloquent at the same time. The blind man knew this and continued to give him instruction. 'The onion has saved you,' he said, 'for your mouth being full you could say nothing flattering, and now you will think before you speak. Consider how I have treated you. Have I at once rendered thanks to Allah for sending into our midst a young man whose gifts of eloquence are at least equal to those of the Kadi himself? I have said nothing so foolish. I have called you an ass of Egypt and otherwise rebuked you, for the good of your understanding, though I begin to think that you are indeed a very estimable young man, and it is possible that your wit may ripen in our society. But now I perceive by my hearing that you are eating the date. I pray you now, eat another onion after it.' 'I cannot,' answered the cripple, 'for my lips are puckered at the thought of it.' 'Neither is truth sweet after flattery,' said the Sheikh, who then began to eat the other onion himself. 'I will endeavour to profit by your precepts, my lord,' replied the Egyptian. 'Allah will then certainly enlighten you, my son. Remember also another thing. We are ourselves here a community, distinct from the citizens of Riad, and what we do, we do for the common good. Remember therefore to share what you receive with the rest, as they will share what they have with you, and take part with them in whatsoever is done by common consent. In this way it will be well with you and you shall grow fat; but if you are against us you will find evil in every man's hand, for since it has pleased Allah to give you no legs, you cannot possibly run away.' Having said this much the Sheikh of the beggars was silent. But afterwards on the same day he gathered about him the strongest of his companions, being mostly men who had the use of both arms and both legs, though some of them were lepers and some had but one eye, and some were deaf and dumb, according to the affliction which it had pleased Allah to send upon each. These were the most trusty and faithful of his people, and to them he communicated openly what the Bedouin had proposed to him in secret. All of them approved the plan, for they greatly feared the overthrow of Khaled. 'But,' said one, 'we cannot keep this Abdullah for ever, and we can surely not kill him, for we should bring upon ourselves a grievous punishment.' 'Allah forbid that we should shed blood,' replied the Sheikh. 'But when Abdul Kerim's son is made Sheikh of the tribe, Abdullah will probably not wish to go back to his people. Moreover it shall be for Khaled to judge what shall be done to the man, and he will probably cut off his head. But in the meantime it is necessary to choose amongst us spies, two for each gate of the city, to the number of twenty-two men, to watch for Abdullah. For we do not know when he will come, and of the two spies who see him enter, both must follow him and see whither he goes, and then the one will immediately inform all the rest while the other waits for him. From the time he enters the city he will not be able to go anywhere without our knowledge, and we shall certainly catch him one day towards dusk in some narrow street of the city.' The beggars saw that this plan was wise and safe for themselves, and they did as the Sheikh advised, posting men at all the gates to wait for Abdullah. He was, indeed, not far distant, and before many days he rode into the city towards evening, attended by a few slaves and two Bedouins, his wife Almasta riding in the midst of them upon a camel. His face was not hidden and the two beggars who were watching recognised him immediately. They both followed him, until he entered his own house, and then the one sat down in the street to watch until he should come out, asking alms of those who accompanied him, until they also went in, with the beasts. But the other made haste to find the Sheikh and to inform him that Abdullah had come and was now in his own dwelling. 'It is well,' said the blind man. 'The cat is now asleep, and dreams of mice, but he shall wake in the midst of dogs. Abdullah will not leave his house to-night, for it is late, and though he is not afraid in the daytime, he will not go out much at night, lest a secret messenger from Khaled, bearing evil in his hand, should meet him by the way. But to-morrow before dawn, some of us will wait in the neighbourhood of his house, and two or three score of others feigning to be all blind, as I am, must always be near at hand, watching us. We will then begin to importune him for alms, flattering him with fine language, as though we knew his plans. And this we will do continually, when he is abroad, until one day to escape from us he will turn quickly into a narrow street, supposing that we cannot see him. For he will not wish to be pursued by our cries in the bazar lest he be obliged for shame to give something to each. Then those who can see will open their eyes and we will catch him in the lane, and bind rags over his head so that he cannot cry out, and lead him away to my dwelling by the Yemamah gate. And if any meet us by the way and inquire whom we are taking with us, we will say that he is one of ourselves, who is an epileptic and has fallen down in a fit, and that we are taking him to the farrier's by the gate, to be burned with red-hot irons for his recovery, as the physicians recommend in such cases. Surely we have now foreseen most things, but if we have forgotten anything, Allah will doubtless provide.' All the beggars in council approved this plan, for they saw that it could be easily carried out, if they could only catch Abdullah in a lonely street at the hour of prayer when few persons are passing. But Abdullah himself was ignorant of the evil in store for him, and feared nothing, having been secretly informed that most of the better sort of people were ready to support him if he would strike the blow; for they suspected Khaled of being a traitor, especially since he had last addressed the chief men and refused to tell the name of his father. Abdullah therefore came and went openly in the city. In the meantime, however, Khaled was informed of his presence and was warned of the danger. The aged Kadi came secretly by night to the palace and desired to be received by the Sultan in order to communicate to him news of great importance, as he said. Khaled immediately received him, and the Kadi proceeded to give a full account of Abdullah's designs; but the Sultan expressed no astonishment. 'Let him do what he will,' he answered, 'for I care little and, after all, what must be will be.' 'But I beseech you to consider,' said the Kadi, 'that by acting promptly you could easily quell this revolution, in which I, by Allah, have no part and will have none. For though many persons may just now desire your overthrow, because they expect to get a share of the treasure in the confusion, yet few are disposed to accept such a man as Abdullah ibn Mohammed el Herir in your place. Even his own tribe are not all faithful to him, and I am credibly informed that many look upon him as an intruder, and would prefer the son of Abdul Kerim for sheikh, as would be just, if the rights of birth were considered. And it would be an easy matter to remove this Abdullah. I implore you to think of the matter.' 'Would this not be a murder?' asked Khaled, looking curiously at the venerable preacher. 'Allah is merciful and forgiving,' replied the old man, looking down and stroking his beard. 'And moreover, if you suffer Abdullah to go about a few days longer he will certainly destroy you, whereas it is an easy matter to give him a cup of such good drink as will save him from thirst ever afterwards, and you would obtain quiet and the kingdom would be at peace.' 'They shall not find me sleeping,' said Khaled, 'and so that I may only slay a score of them first, I care not how soon I perish.' 'This is indeed a new kind of madness!' exclaimed the Kadi. 'I cannot understand it. But I have done what I could, and I can do nothing more.' 'Nor is there anything more to be done,' said Khaled. 'But I thank you, for it is clear that you have spoken from a good intention.' So the Kadi went away again, and Khaled returned to Zehowah, caring not at all whether he lived or died. But Zehowah began to watch him narrowly. 'If this man were a Persian, an enemy and a traitor,' she thought, 'he would now begin to take measures for his own safety, seeing that he is threatened on every side. Yet he does not lift a hand to defend himself. This can proceed only from one of two causes. Either he is a Jinn, as he has told me, and they cannot kill him, and so he does not fear them; or else he desires death, out of a sort of madness which has grown up in him through this love of which he is always speaking.' CHAPTER XI In these days many of the Bedouin tribes came near the city and encamped in great numbers within half a day's journey and less. Abdullah was exceedingly busy with his preparations, and spent much time in talking with other sheikhs, hardly making any concealment of his movements or plans. For by this time it seemed clear to him that the greater part of the people were with him, and every one spoke of the coming overthrow of Khaled as an open matter. Khaled himself, too, was reported to be in fear of his life, and he was no longer seen in the streets as formerly, nor in the courts of the palace, nor even every day in the hall, but remained shut up in the harem, and none saw him except the women and a few slaves. Men said aloud that he was in great fear and distress, and as this story gained credence, so Abdullah's importance increased, since it was he who had brought such terror upon Khaled. All this was open talk in the bazar, but Abdullah was himself somewhat suspicious, supposing that Khaled must have a plan in reserve for defending his possession of the throne. Abdullah, however, kept secret the manner in which he intended to enter the palace, though he promised his adherents to open to them the gates of the castle, and the doors of the treasure chambers on a certain day, which he named, at the time of the first call to prayer in the morning, warning all those who were with him to come together in the great square before that hour in order to be ready to help him, if necessary, and to overwhelm the guards of the palace if they should make any resistance. But he did not know that the man of his tribe who was kinsman to the chief of the beggars had overheard his talk with his wife. Meanwhile the beggars seemed to be multiplied exceedingly in Riad, for whenever Abdullah went out of his house they came upon him, sometimes by twos and threes and sometimes in scores, pressing close to him and begging alms. They also cried out a great deal, praising his generosity and praying for blessings upon him. 'Behold the sheikh of sheikhs!' they exclaimed. 'He bears gold in his right hand and silver in his left. Yallah! Send him a long life and prosperity, for he loves the poor and his name is the Alms-giver. He is not El Herir but Er Rahman and his heart over-flows with mercy as his purse does with small coins. Come, O brothers, and taste of his charity, which is a perpetual spring of good water beside a palm tree full of sugar-dates! Ya Abdullah, Servant of Allah, we love you! You are our father and mother. Your kefiyeh is the banner which goes before our pilgrimage. Come, O brothers, and taste of his charity.' Abdullah was not dissatisfied with these words, and the beggars said much more to the same effect, which he regarded as signs of his popularity, so that he opened his purse from time to time and threw handfuls of money into the crowd, not counting the cost since he expected to be master of all the treasure in Riad within a few days. But the beggars were disappointed, for they had hoped that he would turn out to be avaricious, and endeavour to elude them by walking through narrow and lonely streets, where they might catch him. So they pressed more and more upon him every day, trying to exhaust his patience and his charity. In this however they failed, not understanding that the vanity of such a man is inexhaustible and knows no price. Abdullah, too, chose rather to be abroad during the daytime than in the evening or the early morning, for he desired to be seen by the multitude and spoken of as he went through the market-place. Yet on the last evening of all he fell into the hands of the Sheikh of the beggars, and evil befell him. The hour of prayer was passed and it was almost the time when lights are extinguished. Then Abdullah took his sword under his aba, and also a good knife, which he had proved in battle, and which in his hand would pierce a coat of mail as though it were silk. Almasta, his wife, also made a bundle of woman's clothing and carried it in her arms. For they intended to go to a lonely place by the city wall, that Abdullah might there put on female garments, before entering the palace. He feared, indeed, lest if it were afterwards known by what disguise he had accomplished his purpose, he might receive some name in derision, from which he should never escape so long as he lived. Yet he had no choice but to dress as a woman, since he could not otherwise by any means have gone into the harem. As he came out of his house, accompanied only by Almasta he was seen at once by the two beggars who were always on the watch. And then, wishing to warn their companions, of whom many were lying asleep upon doorsteps in the same street and in others close by, these two made haste to get up, pretending to be lame and making a great clatter with their staves, as they limped after Abdullah. Then he, who loved to exercise charity in the market-place, but not in the dark where none could applaud him, made a pretence of not seeing the poor men, and went swiftly on with Almasta running by his side. But as he walked fast, the two beggars although apparently lame increased their speed with his, and their clatter also. 'Does a sound man need a horse to escape from cripples?' asked Abdullah. And he turned quickly into a narrow lane. 'It will be wiser to scatter a few coins to them,' said Almasta. 'They will then stop and search for them in the dark. For these men are very importunate and will certainly hinder us.' But Abdullah was confident in his legs as a strong man and only walked the faster, so that Almasta could with great difficulty keep beside him. Then they heard the beggars running after them in the dark and calling upon them. 'O Abdullah!' they cried. 'The light of your charitable countenance goes before us like a lantern, and illuminates the whole street! Be merciful and give us a small coin, and Allah will reward you!' Then Abdullah stopped in the darkest part of the narrow lane, seeing that they had recognised him, and conceiving that it would be a reproach for a sheikh of pure blood to run from beggars; and he feared also that it would be remembered against him on the morrow. He therefore made a pretence of being diverted, and laughed. 'Surely,' he said, 'the lame men of Riad could outrun in a race the sound men of any other city. And, by Allah, I have little money with me, for I was going to a friend's house to receive a sum due to me for certain mares; yet I will give you what I have, and I pray you, go in peace.' Thereupon he sought in his wallet for something to give them, and while he was seeking they began to praise him after their manner. 'See this Abdullah!' they said. 'He is the father of the poor and distressed, and is ever ready to divide all he has with us. Yallah! Bless him exceedingly! Yallah! Increase his family!' But when Abdullah had found the money and was putting it into their hands, he was suddenly aware that instead of two beggars there were now ten or more, and these again multiplied in an extraordinary manner, so that he felt himself hemmed in on every side in a close press. 'O Allah!' he exclaimed. 'Thou art witness that unless these small coins are multiplied a hundredfold, as the basket of dates by the Prophet at the trench before Medina, I shall have nothing to give these worthy persons.' By this time the blind Sheikh of the beggars was present, and he pushed forward, pretending to rebuke his companions. 'O you greedy ones!' he cried. 'How often have I told you not to be so importunate? Yet you crowd upon him like wasps upon a date, presuming upon the goodness of his heart, and when there is no more room you crowd upon each other. Forgive them, O Abdullah!' he said, addressing him directly, 'for they have the appetites of jackals together with the understanding of little children. They would thrust into the dish a hand as small as a crow's foot and withdraw it looking as big as a camel's hoof. Their manners are also----' 'My friend,' said Abdullah, 'I have given what I can. Let me therefore pass on, for my business is of importance, yet the throng is so great that I cannot move a step. To-morrow I will distribute much alms to you all.' 'The radiance of your merciful countenance is enough for us,' replied the Sheikh of the beggars, 'and even I who am blind am comforted by its rays as by those of the sun in spring, and my hunger is appeased by the honey of your incomparable eloquence----' 'My friend,' said Abdullah, interrupting him again, 'I pray you to let me go forward now, for I have a very important matter in hand, though it is with difficulty that I tear myself away from your society and I would willingly listen much longer to the words of the wise.' Then the blind man turned to the other beggars, and his hearing told him that by this time there were at least threescore in the street. 'Come, my brothers!' he cried. 'Let us accompany our benefactor to the house of his friend, and afterwards we will wait for him and see that he reaches his own dwelling in safety. Surely it is not fitting that a sheikh of such great consideration should go about the streets at night without so much as an attendant carrying a lantern. Let us go with him.' Now these last words were the signal agreed upon, and even as Abdullah began to protest that he desired no such honourable escort as the beggars offered him, one came from behind and suddenly drew a thick barley-sack over his head, so that his voice was heard no more, and he was dragged down by the throat, while the one-eyed hunchback caught him by the legs and bound his feet and four others laid hold of his hands and tied them firmly behind him. Nor had Almasta time to utter a single cry before she was bound hand and foot with her head in a sack, like her husband. Then at a signal the beggars took up the two as though they had been bales packed ready for a camel's back, and carried them away swiftly into the darkness, towards the eastern gate where the blind man lived in a ruined house together with three or four of his most trusted companions. He also sent a messenger to his relation, the Bedouin, as had been agreed. It was already quite dark in the streets and the few persons who met the beggars did not see what they were carrying, nor ask questions of them, merely supposing that they had lingered long in the public square after evening prayers and were now returning in a body to their own quarter. The blind man's house was built of three rooms and a wall, standing in a square around a small court. But only one of the rooms had a roof of its own, though there was a sort of cellar under the floor of one of the others which served at once as a lodging for beggars in winter, as a storehouse for food when there was any in supply and as a place of deposit for the ancient iron chest in which the common fund of money was kept. To this vault the Sheikh of the beggars made his companions bring the two prisoners, and having set them on the floor, side by side, he proceeded to hold a council, in which the captives themselves had no part, since their heads were tied up in dusty barley-sacks and they could not speak so as to be heard. 'O my brothers!' said the blind man. 'Allah has delivered the enemies of the kingdom into our hand, and it is necessary to decide what we will do with them. Let the oldest and the wisest give their opinions first, and after them the others, even to the youngest, and last of all I will speak, and let us see whether we can agree.' 'Let us kill the man and bury him, and then cast lots among us for the woman,' said one. 'No,' said the next, a man who had twice made the pilgrimage, and was much respected, 'we cannot do this, for the man is a true believer, and evil will befall us if we shed his blood. Let us rather keep him here, and purify his hide every day with our staves, until Khaled is in no more danger, and then we will take him to the palace and deliver him up.' 'It is to be feared,' said the Sheikh of the beggars, 'that the man might chance to die of this sort of purification, though indeed it be very wholesome for him, and I am not altogether against it.' 'Let us make him our slave,' said a third who had himself been the slave of a poor man who had died without heirs. 'The fellow is strong. Let us buy millstones and make him grind barley for us in this cellar. In this way he will not eat our food for nothing.' After this many others gave advice of the same kind. But while they were talking there was a great clattering and noise upon the stone steps which led down into the cellar, and a man fell over the last step and rolled over and over into the very midst of the council, railing and lamenting. 'It is that ass of Egypt,' said the Sheikh of the beggars. 'I know him by the clattering of the wooden hoofs he wears on his hands, and also by his braying. Let him also give his opinion when he is recovered from his fall.' 'It is strange and marvellous,' said one, 'that he who has no legs should suffer so many falls, being, by the will of Allah, always upon the earth. For when we first saw him we found him fainting upon the ground, having fallen from the wall of a garden, though no man could tell how he had climbed upon it.' 'I had been transported to the top of the wall as in a dream,' replied the cripple, 'for there were dates in that garden. But having eaten too greedily of them I fell asleep on the top and I dreamed that my body was torn by hyænas; and waking suddenly I fell down. For the dates were yet green.' 'This may or may not be true,' said the blind man. 'For you are an Egyptian. Let us, however, hear what you have to advise in the matter of Abdullah and his wife, whom we have taken prisoners.' 'I fear that you mock me, O my lord,' answered the man. 'But if I am mocked, I will advise that this Abdullah be also made a sport of, for us first, and for the people of Riad afterwards.' 'Tell us how this may be done, for a good jest is better than salt for roasting, and the sheep lie here bound before us.' 'Take this man, then,' said the cripple, 'and uncover his face, and hold him fast. Then let one of us get the razor and shave off all his beard and his eyebrows, and the hair of his head even to the nape of his neck. Then if he came suddenly before her who bore him and cried, "Mother," she would cover her face and answer, "Begone, thou ostrich's egg!" For she would not know him. And to-morrow we will take his excellent clothes from him and put them upon our Sheikh. But we will dress Abdullah in rags such as would not serve to wipe the mud from a slave's shoes in the time of the subsiding waters, and we will tie his hands under his arm-pits and put a halter over his head and lead him about the city. Then he will cry out against us to the people, saying that he is Abdullah, but we will also cry out in answer: "See this madman, who believes himself to be a sheikh of Bedouins though Allah has given him no beard! O people of Riad, you may know that the spring is come, by the braying of this ass."' 'Yet I see now that there may be wisdom in brayings,' said the Sheikh of the beggars, 'though Balaam ibn Beor shut his ears against it, and was punished for his cursing so that his tongue hung down to his breast, all his days, like that of a thirsty dog. This is good counsel, for in this way we shall not shed the man's blood, nor render ourselves guilty of his death; but I think we shall earn a great reward from Khaled, and his kingdom will be saved in laughter.' During all this time Abdullah had not moved, knowing that he was in the power of many enemies and beyond all reach of help, but when he heard the decision of the Sheikh of the beggars he was filled with shame and rolled himself from side to side upon the floor, as though trying to escape from the bonds that held him. Almasta, for her part, lay quietly where they had put her, for she saw that all chance of success was gone and was pondering how she might take advantage of what happened, to save herself. Then the beggars laid hold of Abdullah and held him, while others took the sack from his head. He was indeed half smothered with dust, so that at first he could not speak aloud, but coughed and sneezed like a dog that has thrust its nose into a dust-heap to find the bone which is hidden underneath. But presently he recovered his breath and began to rail at them and curse them. To this they paid no attention, but brought the oil lamp near him, and one began to rub soap upon his face and head while another got the razor with which the beggars shaved their heads and began to whet it upon his leathern girdle. 'Do not waste the precious stones of your eloquence upon a barber,' said the Sheikh of the beggars, 'but reserve your breath and the rich treasures of your speech until you are brought as a plucked bird before the people of Riad. Moreover we only wish to shave off your beard, but if you are restless some of your hide will certainly be removed also, whereby you will be hurt and it will be still harder for your friends to recognise you to-morrow. It is also useless to shout and scream as though you were driving camels, for you are in the cellar of my house which is at a good distance from other habitations, on the borders of the city.' So Abdullah saw that there was no escape, and that his fate was about his neck, and he sat still as they had placed him, while the one-eyed hunchback shaved off his beard and the hair on his upper lip and his eyebrows, and the lock at the back of his head. When this was done the blind man put out his hand and felt Abdullah's face. 'Surely,' he said, 'this is not a man's head, but the round end of a walking-staff, rubbed smooth by much use.' They also tied his hands under his arm-pits and put upon him a ragged shirt with sleeves so that he seemed to have lost both arms at the elbow. 'This is very well done,' said the hunchback turning his head from side to side in order to see all with his one eye. 'But what shall we do with the woman? Let us cast lots for her, and he who wins her shall marry her, and we will hold the feast immediately, for we have not yet supped and there is some of the camel's meat which we received to-day at the palace.' 'O my brothers,' answered the Sheikh of the beggars, 'let us do nothing unlawful in our haste. For this woman is certainly one of Abdullah's wives, as you may see by her clothes, and unless he divorces her none of us can take her for ourselves, seeing that she is the wife of a believer. Take the sack from her head, however, and if she deafens us with her screaming we can put it on again. But you must by no means put her to shame by taking the veil from her face, for she may be an honest wife, though her husband be a dog. If she has done well, we shall find it out, and no harm will have come to her; but if she is a sharer in this fellow's plans, her punishment will be grievous, since she will be the wife of an outcast, having neither beard nor eyebrows and rejected by all men.' Some of the beggars murmured at this, but most of them praised their Sheikh's wisdom, and would indeed have feared greatly to break the holy law, being chiefly devout men who prayed daily in the mosque and listened to the Khotbah on Friday. They therefore placed Almasta in one corner of the cellar and Abdullah in another, so that the two could not converse together, and then they took out such food as they had and began to eat their supper, laughing and talking over the jest and anticipating the reward which awaited them for saving Khaled. In the meanwhile the night was advancing and many of Abdullah's friends left their houses secretly and gathered in the neighbourhood of the palace to wait for the first signal from within. By threes and by twos and singly they came out of their dwellings, looking to the right and left to see whether they were not the first, as men do who are not sure of being in the right. All had their swords with them, and some their bows also, and some few carried their spears, and they made no secret of their bearing weapons; but under each man's aba was concealed the largest barley-sack he could find in his house, and concerning this no one of the multitude said anything to his neighbour, for each hoped to get a greater share than the others of the gold and precious stones from the fabulous treasure stored in the palace. Then most of these men sat down to wait, as vultures do before the camel is quite dead. But not long after the middle of the night they were joined by a great throng of Bedouins from Abdullah's tribe. These had been admitted into the city by the watchman according to the agreement, and passed up the great street from the Hasa gate, in a close body, not speaking and making but little noise with their feet as they walked; yet all of them together could be heard from a distance, because they were so many, and the sound was like the night wind among the branches of dry palm trees. After them, other Bedouins came in from camps both near and far, some of them having made half a day's journey since sunset; and they surrounded the palace on all sides, and filled the great street, and the street which passes by the mosque towards the Dereyiyah gate and all the other approaches to the open square, sitting down wherever there was room, or leaning against the closed shops of the bazar, or standing up in a thick crowd when they were too closely pressed to be at ease. They talked together from time to time in low tones, but when their voices rose above a whisper some man in authority hushed them saying that the hour was not yet come. 'By this time Abdullah has slain Khaled,' said some, 'and the daughter of the old Sultan is a prisoner.' 'And by this time,' said others, 'Abdullah is surely unlocking the treasure chamber and filling a barley-sack with pearls and rubies. It is certain that he who slays the lion deserves his bride, but we hope that something will be left for us.' 'Hush!' said the voice of one moving in the darkness. 'Be patient. It is not yet time.' Then, for a space, a deep silence fell on the speakers and they crouched in their places watching the high black walls of the palace and marking the motion of the stars by the highest point of the tower. Before long whispered words were heard again. 'It would have been more just if Abdullah had opened the gate to us as soon as he had slain Khaled, for then we could have seen what he took. But now, who shall tell us what share of the riches he is hiding away in the more secret vaults?' 'This is true,' answered others. 'And besides, what need have we of Abdullah to help us into the palace? Surely we could have broken down the gates and slain the guards and Khaled himself without Abdullah's help. Yet we, for our part, would not shed the blood of a man who has always dealt very generously with us, nor do we believe the story of the camels laden secretly in Haïl. However, what is ordained will take place, and we shall undoubtedly receive plentiful gold merely for sitting here to watch the stars through the night.' 'The story of the camels is not true,' said a certain man, speaking alone. 'For I was of the drivers sent with them, and being hungry, we opened one of the bales on the way. By Allah! There was nothing but wheat in it, and it was white and good; but there was nothing else, not so much as a few small coins----' Then there was the sound of a blow, and the man who was speaking was struck on the mouth, so that his speech was interrupted. 'Peace and be silent!' said a voice. 'They who speak lies will receive no share with the rest when the time comes.' But the man who had been struck was the strongest of all his tribe, though he who had struck him did not know it. And the man caught his assailant by the waist in the dark, and wrestled with him violently, being very angry, and broke his forearm and his collar-bone and several of his ribs, and when he had done with him, he threw him over his shoulder so that he fell fainting and moaning three paces away. 'O you who strike honest men on the mouth in the dark, you have been over-rash!' he cried. 'Go home and hide yourself lest I recognise you and break such bones as you have still whole!' 'This is well done,' said one of the bystanders in a loud voice. 'For the story of the camels laden secretly with treasure is a lie. I also was with the drivers and ate of the wheat. Nor do I believe that Khaled is a robber and a Persian.' 'We do not believe it!' cried a score of Bedouins together. 'And if we have come here, it is to get our share like other men, since they tell us that Khaled is dead. But now we believe that Abdullah has shut himself into the palace and means to keep all for himself, and is cheating us.' These men were none of them of Abdullah's tribe, but as the voices grew louder, Abdullah's kinsmen came up, and endeavoured to quiet the growing tumult. The crowd had parted a little and the strong man stood alone in the midst. 'We pray you to be patient,' said Abdullah's men, 'for the time is at hand and the false dawn has already passed, though you have not seen it, so that before long it will be day. Then the gates will be opened and you shall all go in.' 'We have no need of your sheikh to open gates for us,' said the strong man, in a voice that could be heard very far through the crowd. 'And moreover it will be better for you not to strike any more of us, or, by Allah, we will not only break your bones but shed your blood.' At this there was a sullen cry and men sprang to their feet and laid their hands upon their weapons. But a youth who had come up with Abdullah's kinsmen, though not one of them, bent very low over the man who had been thrown down and then spoke out with a loud and laughing voice. 'Truly they say that crows lead people to the carcases of dogs!' he said. 'This fellow is of the family which murdered my father, upon whom may Allah send peace! Nor will I exceed the bounds of moderation and justice.' Thereupon the young man drew out his knife and immediately killed his father's enemy as he lay upon the ground, and then he withdrew quickly into the dark crowd so that none knew him. But though there was only the light of the stars and the multitude was great, many had seen the deed and each man stood closer by his neighbour and grasped his weapon to be in readiness. The kinsmen of Abdullah saw that they were separated from their own tribe and drew back, warning the others to keep the peace and be silent, lest they should be cut off from their share of the spoil. But their voices trembled with fears for their own safety, and they were answered by scornful shouts and jeers. 'The young man says well that you are crows,' cried the angry men, 'for you wish to keep the carcase for yourselves. Come and take it if you are able!' Now indeed the quarrel which had been begun by the blow struck in the dark spread suddenly to great dimensions, for the words spoken were caught up as grains of sand by the wind and blown into all men's ears. Many were ready enough to believe that Abdullah cared only for enriching himself and his tribe, and many more who had been persuaded to the enterprise by the hope of gain turned again to their faith in Khaled as the dream of gold disappeared from their eyes. Yet Abdullah's tribe was numerous, and it was easy to see that if the dissension grew into a strife of arms the fight would be long and fierce on both sides. Then certain of those who were against Abdullah raised the cry that he had slain Khaled and escaped with the treasure by a secret passage leading under the walls of the city, which passage was spoken of in old tales, though no one knew where to find it. But the multitude believed and pressed forward in a strong body and began to beat against the iron-bound gate of the palace with great stones and pieces of wood. Abdullah's men came on fiercely to prevent them, but were opposed by many, and as the wing of night was lifted and the dawn drank the stars, the wide square was filled with the clashing of arms and the noise of a terrible tumult. CHAPTER XII At the time when the beggars were carrying away Abdullah and his wife, Khaled was sitting in his accustomed place, silent and heavy at heart, and Zehowah played softly to him upon a barbat and sang a sad song in a low voice. For she saw that gloominess had overcome him and she feared to disturb his mood, though she would gladly have made him smile if she had been able. A black slave of Khaled's whom he had treated with great kindness had secretly told him that there was a plan to enter the palace with evil during that night, for the fellow had spied upon those who knew and had overheard what he now told his master. He had also asked whether he should not warn the guards of the palace, in order that a strict watch should be kept, but Khaled had bidden him be silent. 'Either the guards are conspiring with the rest,' said Khaled, 'and will be the first to attack me, or they are ignorant of the plan; and if so how can they withstand so great a multitude? I will abide by my own fate, and no man shall lose his life for my sake unless he desires to do so.' But he privately put on a coat of mail under his aba, and when he sat down in the harem to await the end he would not let Zehowah take his sword, but laid it upon his feet and sat upright against the wall, looking towards the door. 'Since I have no soul,' he said to himself, 'this is probably the end of all things. But there is no reason why I should not kill as many of these murderers as possible.' He was gloomy and desponding, however, since he saw that his hour was at hand, and that Zehowah was no nearer to loving him than before. He watched her fingers as she played upon the instrument, and he listened to the soft notes of her voice. 'It is a strange thing,' he thought, 'and I believe that she is not able to love, any more than my sword upon my feet, which is good and true and beautiful, and ever ready to my hand, but is itself cold, having no feeling in it.' Still Zehowah sang and Khaled heard her song, listening watchfully for a man's tread upon the threshold and looking to see a man's face and the light of steel in the shadow beyond the lamps. 'The night is long,' he said at last, aloud. 'It is not yet midnight,' Zehowah answered. 'But you are tired. Will you not go to rest?' 'I shall rest to-morrow,' said Khaled. 'To-night I will sit here and look at you, if you will sing to me.' Zehowah gazed into his eyes, wondering a little at his exceeding sadness. Then she bowed her head and struck the strings of the instrument to a new measure more melancholy than the last, and sang an old song of many verses, with a weeping refrain. 'Are you also heavy at heart to-night?' Khaled asked, when he had listened to the end. 'It is not easy to kindle a lamp when the rain is falling heavily,' Zehowah said. 'Your sadness has taken hold of me, like the chill of a fever. I cannot laugh to-night.' 'And yet you have a good cause, for they say that to-night the earth is to be delivered of a great malefactor, a certain Persian, whose name is perhaps Hassan, a notorious robber.' Khaled turned away his head, smiling bitterly, for he desired not to see the satisfaction which would come into her face. 'This is a poor jest,' she answered in a low voice, and the barbat rolled from her knees to the carpet beside her. 'I mean no jesting, for I do not desire to disappoint you, since you will naturally be glad to be freed from me. But I am glad if you are willing to sing to me, for this night is very long.' 'Do you think that I believe this of you?' asked Zehowah, after some time. 'You believed it yesterday, you believe it to-day, and you will believe it to-morrow when you are free to make choice of some other man--whom you will doubtless love.' 'Yet I know that it is not true,' she said suddenly. 'It is too late,' Khaled answered. 'The more I love you, the more I see how little faith you have in me--and the less faith can I put in you. Will you sing to me again?' 'This is very cruel and bitter.' Zehowah sighed and looked at him. 'Will you sing to me again, Zehowah?' he repeated. 'I like your sad music.' Then she took up the barbat from the carpet, but though she struck a chord she could not go on and her hand lay idle upon the strings, and her voice was still. 'You are perhaps tired,' said Khaled after some time. 'Then lay aside the instrument and sleep.' He composed himself in his seat, his sword being ready and his eyes towards the door. But Zehowah shook her head as though awaking from a dream, her fingers ran swiftly over the strings and gentle tones came from her lips. Khaled listened thoughtfully to the song and the words soothed him, but before she had reached the end, she stopped suddenly. 'Why do you not finish it?' he asked. 'If you have told me truth,' she answered, 'this is no time for singing and music. But if not, why should I labour to amuse you, as though I were a slave? I will call one of the women who has a sweet voice and a good memory. She will sing you a kasid which will last till morning.' 'You are wrong,' said Khaled. 'There is no reason in what you say.' But he reflected upon her nature, while he spoke. 'Surely,' he thought, 'there is nothing in the world so contradictory as a woman. I ask of her a song and she is silent. I bid her rest, supposing her to be weary, and she sings to me. If I tell her that I hate her she will perhaps answer that she loves me. Min Allah! Let us see.' 'You inspire hatred in me,' he said aloud, after a few moments. At this Zehowah was very much astonished, and she again let the barbat fall from her knees. 'You wished me to believe that you loved me, and this not long since,' she answered. 'It may be so. I did not know you then.' He looked towards the door as though he would say nothing further. Zehowah sighed, not understanding him yet being wounded in that sensitive tissue of the heart which divides the outer desert of pride from the inner garden of love, belonging to neither but separating the two as a veil. And when there is a rent in that veil, pride looks on love and scoffs bitterly, and love looks on pride and weeps tears of fire. 'I am sorry that you hate me,' she said, but the words were bitter in her mouth as a draught from a spring into which the enemy have cast wormwood, that none may drink of it. 'Allah is great!' thought Khaled. 'This is already an advantage.' Then Zehowah took up the barbat and began to sing a careless song not like any which Khaled had ever heard. This is the song-- 'The fisherman of Oman tied the halter under his arms, The sky was as blue as the sea in winter. The fisherman dived into the deep waters As a ray of light shoots through a sapphire of price. The sea was as blue as the sky, for it was winter. Among the rocks below the water it was dark and cold Though the sky above was as blue as a fine sapphire. The fisherman saw a rough shell lying there in the dark between two crabs, "In that shell there must be a large pearl," he said. But when he would have taken it the crabs ran together and fastened upon his hand. His heart was bursting in his ribs for lack of breath And he thought of the sky above, as blue as the sea in winter. So he pulled the halter and was taken half-fainting into the boat. The crabs held his hand but he struck them off, And his heart beat merrily as he breathed the wind Blowing over the sea as blue as the sky in winter. "There are no pearls in this ocean," he said to his companions, "But there are crabs if any one cares to dive." One of them saw the shell caught between the legs of the crabs, He opened it and found a pearl of the value of a kingdom. "The pearl is mine, but you may eat the crabs," he said to the fisherman, "Since you say there are no pearls in this ocean, Which is as blue as the sky in winter." Then the fisherman smote him and tried to take the pearl, But as they strove it fell into the deep water and sank, Where the sea was as blue as the sky in winter. "I will drown you with a heavy weight," said the fisherman, "for you have robbed me of my fortune." "I have not robbed you, O brother, for the pearl is again where you found it, In the sea which is as blue as the sky in winter." Then the fisherman dived again many times in vain Till the drums of his ears were broken and his heart was dissolved for lack of breath. But the pearl is still there, at the bottom of the sea, And the sea is as blue as the sky in winter. This is the kasid of the fisherman of Oman Which Zehowah Bint ul Mahomed el Hamid Has made and sung for her lord, Khaled the Sultan. May Allah send him long life and many such hearts As the one which fell into the ocean When the sky was as blue as the sea in winter.' 'This is a new song,' said Khaled, when she had finished. 'Is it? I made it many months ago,' Zehowah answered. 'Does it please you?' 'It is not very melodious, nor do I think there is much truth in the matter of it. But I thank you, for it has served to pass the time.' Zehowah laughed a little scornfully. 'I daresay you would prefer the song of a Persian nightingale,' she said. 'Nevertheless my song is full of truth, though you cannot see it. There are many who seek for things of great value and do not know when they have found them because a crab has bitten their hands.' 'Verily,' thought Khaled, 'this is indeed the spirit of contradiction.' But he was silent for a time, not wishing that she should think him easily moved. In the meantime Zehowah played softly upon the little instrument and Khaled watched her, wondering whether she were not playing upon the strings of his heart, for her own pleasure, as skilfully as her fingers ran upon the chords of the barbat. Many words rose to his lips then, and he wished that he also had the science of music that he might sing sweetly to her. Then he laughed aloud at his own imagination, which was indeed that of a foolish youth. 'The lion roaring for a sweetmeat,' he thought, 'and the sword-hand aching to scratch little tunes upon a lute!' Zehowah turned suddenly when he laughed, and ceased from playing. 'I am glad that you are merry,' she said. 'I like laughter better than reproaches and prefer it to gloomy forebodings of evil when none is at hand.' Khaled's face grew dark, and he looked again towards the door. 'If you will stay with me, you shall see that evil is not far off,' he answered, for she had reminded him of what he was expecting, and he knew that it was no jesting matter. 'But you shall please yourself in this as in all other matters, though it were better for you to go now and shut yourself up in an inner room and wait for the end. The night is advancing, and all will soon be over.' 'Hear me, Khaled,' said Zehowah, speaking earnestly. 'If you bid me go, I will go, or if you desire me to stay, I will remain with you. But if you are indeed in danger, as you say, let us call up the guards and the watchmen who sleep in the palace, that they may stand by you with their swords and help you to fight if there is to be strife.' 'I will have no treacherous fellows about me,' Khaled answered, 'and there are none here whom I can trust. My hour is coming and I will fight this fight alone. But if you were such as I once hoped, I would say: "Remain with me, so long as you are safe." Now, since Allah has willed it thus, I say to you: "Go and seek safety where you can find it." Go, therefore, Zehowah, and leave me alone, for I need no one beside me, and you least of all.' He turned away his head, lest she should see his face, and with his hand made a gesture bidding her to leave him. She rose from her seat softly and hung the barbat upon the wall with the other musical instruments, looking over her shoulder to see whether he would call her back. But he neither moved nor spoke, being resolved to venture all upon this trial, for he knew that if she loved him even but a little, she would not leave him alone in the extremity of danger. Then she went towards the door of the room, turning her head to look at him as she passed near him. 'Farewell,' she said. But he did not answer nor show that he heard her voice. As she lifted the curtain to go out, she lingered and gazed at him. He sat motionless upon the carpet, upright against the wall, his sword lying across his feet, his hands hidden under his sleeves, looking towards her indeed but not seeming to see her. 'There can be no real danger,' she thought. 'Could any man sit thus, expecting death, and refusing to let any one stand by him to fight with him? Surely, he is playing with me, and setting a trap for me. But he shall not catch me.' She turned to go and the curtain was falling behind her when the night wind from the open passage brought a sound to her ears from a far distance. She started and listened, as camels do when they hear the first moving of the hot wind. There were no voices in the noise, which was low and dull, like the breathing of a great multitude and the soft moving of feet, and altogether it was as the slow rising and falling back of the sea upon the shores of Oman, when the great summer storm is coming from the south-west. Zehowah stood still a moment and drank in every murmur that reached her from without. Then her face grew white and her lips trembled when she thought of Khaled sitting alone on the other side of the curtain, with his sword upon his feet, waiting for the end. She lifted the hanging a little and looked at him again. He saw her, but made no sign. Even as she looked, the distant murmur grew louder and she fancied that he moved his head as though he heard it. Then she entered the room and came and stood before him. 'There is a great multitude in the square before the palace,' she said. 'I know it,' he answered, calmly looking up to her face. 'It needed not that you should tell me.' 'Will you not let me stay with you now?' asked Zehowah. 'Why should you stay here?' he asked with a pretence of indifference. 'Of what use are you to me? Take this sword. Can you strike with it? Your wrist is feeble. Or take a bow from the weapons on the wall. Can you draw the string? Your strength is sufficient for the lute, and your skill for scratching the strings of the barbat. Go and save yourself. I am alone and every man's hand is against me.' Zehowah stood still in the room and hesitated, looking into his eyes for something which she all at once desired with a hot thirst. At last she spoke in an uncertain voice. 'Yet you said not long since that if I were such as you once hoped, you would bid me remain.' 'I do not care,' he answered. 'Yet for your own sake, I advise you to go away.' 'For my own sake!' she repeated, trying to speak scornfully, and turning to go a second time. But she did not reach the door. She stood still before the weapons which hung upon the wall, and paused a moment and then took a sword from its place. Khaled watched her. She grasped the hilt as well as she could and swung the weapon in the air once with all her might. Then she uttered a little cry of pain, for she had twisted her wrist. The sword fell to the floor. 'He is right,' she said in a low tone, speaking aloud to herself. 'I am weak and can be of no use to him.' She went on once more towards the door, slowly, her head bent down, then stopped and then looked back again. She feared that she might see a smile on his face, but his eyes were grave and calm. Then he saw her turn and lean against the wall as though she were suddenly weak. She hid her face, and there was silence for a moment, and after that a low sound of weeping filled the still room. 'Why do you shed tears?' Khaled asked presently. 'There is no danger for you, I think. If you will go and shut yourself in the inner rooms you will be safe.' She turned fiercely and their eyes met. 'What do I care for myself?' she cried. 'Among so many deaths there is surely one for me!' Even as she spoke Khaled felt a cool breath upon his forehead, stirring the stillness. He knew that it came from the beating of an angel's wings. All his body trembled, his head fell forward a little and his eyes closed. 'This is death,' he thought, 'and my fate has come. A little longer, and she would have loved me.' But he did not speak aloud. Again Zehowah's face was turned towards the wall, and still the sound of her weeping filled the air, not subsiding and dying away, but rather increasing with every moment. 'Life is not yet gone,' said Khaled in his heart. 'There is yet hope.' For he no longer felt the cold breath on his forehead, and the trembling had ceased for a moment. He tried to speak aloud, but his lips could not form words nor his throat utter sounds, and he was amazed at his weakness. A great despair came upon him and his eyes were darkened so that he could not see the lights. 'If only I could speak to her now, she might love me yet!' he thought. The distant murmur from without was louder now and reached the room, and he heard it. He tried with all his might to raise his hand, to lift his head, to speak a single word. 'It may be that this is the nature of death,' he thought again, 'and I am already dead.' The noise from the multitude came louder and louder. Zehowah heard it and her breath was caught in her throat. She looked up and saw that the high window of the chamber was no longer quite dark. The day was dawning. Then pressing her bosom with her hands she looked again at Khaled. His head was bent upon his breast and he was so still that she thought he had fallen asleep. A cry broke from her lips. 'He cares not!' she exclaimed. 'What is it to him, whether I go, or stay?' Again Khaled felt the cool breeze in the room, fanning his forehead, and once more his limbs trembled. Then he felt that his strength was returning and that he could move. He raised his head and looked at Zehowah, and just then there was a distant crashing roar, as the Bedouins began to strike upon the gates. 'It is time,' he said, and taking his sword in his hand he rose from his seat. Zehowah came towards him with outstretched hands, wet cheeks and burning eyes. She stood before him as though to bar the way, and hinder him from going out. 'What is it to you, whether I go, or stay?' he asked, repeating her own words. 'What is it? By Allah, it is all my life--I will not let you go!' And she took hold of his wrists with her weak woman's hands, and tried to thrust him back. 'Go, Zehowah,' he answered, gently pressing her from him. 'Go now, and let me meet them alone, knowing that you are safe. For though this be pity which you feel, I know it is nothing more.' He would have passed by her, but still she held him and kept before him. 'You shall not go!' she cried. 'I will prevent you with my body. Pity, you say? Oh, Khaled! Is pity fierce? Is pity strong? Does pity burn like fire? You shall not go, I say!' Then her hands grew cold upon his wrists, her cheeks burned and in her eyes there was a deep and gleaming light. All this Khaled felt and saw, while he heard the raging of the multitude without. His sight grew again uncertain. A third time the cool breath blew in his face. 'Yet it cannot be love,' he said uncertainly. Yet she heard him. 'Not love? Khaled, Khaled--my life, my breath, my soul--breath of my life, life of my spirit--oh, Khaled, you have never loved as I love you now!' Her hands let go his wrists and clasped about his neck, and her face was hidden upon his shoulder while her breath came and went like the gusts of the burning storm in summer. But as he held her, Khaled looked up and saw that the Angel of Allah was before him, having a smiling countenance and bearing in his hand a bright flame like the crescent moon. 'It is well done, O Khaled,' said the Angel, 'and this is thy reward. Allah sends thee this to be thy own and to live after thy body, saying that thou hast well earned it, for love such as thou hast got now is a rare thing, not common with women and least of all with wives of kings. And now Allah alone knows what thy fate is to be, but thou shalt be judged at the end like other men, according to thy deeds, be they good or evil. And so receive thy soul and do with it as thou wilt.' The Angel then held out the flame which was like the crescent moon and it immediately took shape and became the brighter image of Khaled himself, endowed with immortality, and the knowledge of its own good and evil. And when Khaled had looked at it fixedly for a moment, being overcome with joy, the vision of himself disappeared, and he was aware that it had entered his own body and taken up its life within him. 'Return thanks to Allah, and go thy way to the end,' said the Angel, who then unfolded his wings and departed to paradise whence he had come. But Khaled clasped Zehowah tightly in his arms, and looking upwards repeated the first chapter of the Koran and also the one hundred and tenth chapter, which is entitled, Assistance. When he had performed these inward devotions he turned his gaze upon Zehowah and kissed her. 'Praise be to Allah,' he said, 'for this and all blessings. But now let us defend ourselves if we can, my beloved, for I think my enemies are at hand.' And so he would have stooped to take up his sword which had fallen upon the floor. But still Zehowah held him and would not let him go. 'Not yet, Khaled!' she cried. 'Not yet, soul of my soul! The gates are very strong, and will withstand this battering for some time.' 'Would you have him whom you love sit still in the net until the hunters come to catch him?' he asked in a tender voice. 'You said you would wait here,' she pleaded. 'If we must die, let us die here--our life will be a little longer so.' 'Did I say so? I thought you did not love me then, and I would have slain a few only, for my own sake, that my blood might not be unavenged. But now I will slay them all, for your sake, and the bodies of the dead shall be a rampart for you.' 'Oh, do not go!' she cried again. 'I know a secret passage from the palace, that leads out by the wall of the city--come quickly, there is yet time, and we shall escape--for Allah will protect us. Surely, when I was fainting in your arms I heard an angel's voice--and surely the angel is yet with us, and will lighten the way as we go.' 'The Angel was indeed here, for he brought me the soul that was promised, if you loved me. And now all is changed, for if we live, we get the victory and if we die we shall inherit paradise.' And Zehowah looked into his eyes and saw the living soul flaming within, and she believed him. 'If you had always been as you are now, I should have always loved you,' she said softly, and stooping down she took up his sword and drew it out and put it into his hand. 'I tried to wield one when you were not looking,' she said, 'but it hurt my wrist. Come, Khaled--let us go together.' Then he kissed her once more, and she kissed him, and putting one arm about her, he led her swiftly out by the passage towards the great gate. It was now broad dawn and the light was coming in by the narrow windows. Zehowah clung to Khaled closely, for the noise of the thundering blows was terrible and deafening, and the multitude without were shouting to each other and calling upon Abdullah to come out, for they supposed him to be in the palace. But the guards and soldiers within had all hidden themselves though they were awake, for there was no one to command them nor to lead them, and they dared not open the gate lest they themselves should be slain in the first rush of the crowd. Then Khaled and Zehowah paused for a moment near the gate. 'It is better that you should go back, my beloved,' said Khaled. 'Hear what a multitude of angry men are waiting outside.' 'I will not leave you--neither in life nor in death,' she answered. 'Let it be so, then,' said Khaled, 'and I will do my best. For a hundred men could not stop the way before me now, and I think that of five hundred I could slay many.' So he went up to the gate, and Zehowah stood a little behind him so as to be free of the first sweep of his sword. 'Abdullah!' cried some of the crowd without, while battering at the iron-bound doors. 'Abdullah, thou son of Mohammed and father of lies, come out to us, or we will go to thee!' 'Abdullah, thou thief, thou Persian, thou cheat, come out, and may boiling water be thy portion!' 'Stand back from the gate, and I will open it to you!' cried Khaled in a voice that might have been heard across the Red Desert as far as the shores of the great ocean. 'I, Khaled, will open,' he cried again. Then there was a great silence and the people fell back a little. Khaled drew the bolts and unfastened the locks, and opened the gates inward and stood forth alone in the morning light, his sword in his hand and his soul burning in his eyes. 'Khaled!' cried the first who saw him, and the cry was taken up. The shout was great, and full of joy and shook the earth. For the multitude had grown hot in anger against Abdullah, while they battered at the gates, supposing that he had slain Khaled. But he himself could not at first distinguish whether they were angry or glad. 'If any man wishes to take my life,' he cried, 'let him come and take it.' And the sword they all knew in battle, began to make a storm of lightning about his head in the morning sun. Then the strong man who had wrestled and thrown the other before dawn, stood out alone and spoke in a loud voice. 'We will have no Sultan but Khaled!' he cried. 'Give us Abdullah that we may make trappings for our camels from his skin.' Then Khaled sheathed his sword and came forward from under the gate, and Zehowah stood veiled beside him. 'Where is this Abdullah?' he asked. 'Find him if you can, for I would like to speak with him.' Then there was silence for a space. But by this time Abdullah's men had fled, for they had already been forced back in the crowding, and so soon as they saw Khaled standing unhurt under the palace gate, they turned quickly and ran for their lives to escape from the city, seeing that all was lost. 'Where is Abdullah?' Khaled asked again. And a voice from afar off answered, as though heralding the coming of a great personage. 'Behold Abdullah, the Sultan of Nejed!' it cried. Then the multitude turned angrily, grasping swords and spears and breathing curses. But the murmur broke suddenly into a shout of laughter louder even than the cry for Khaled had been. For a great procession had entered the square and the people made way for it as it advanced towards the palace. First came a score of lepers, singing in hideous voices and dancing in the early sun, filthy and loathsome to behold. And then came all manner of cripples, laughing and chattering, with coloured rags fastened to their staves, an army of distorted apes. Then, walking alone and feeling his way with his staff came the Sheikh of the beggars. And in one hand he held the end of a halter, which was fastened about Abdullah's head and neck and between his teeth, so that he could not cry out. And the blind man chanted a kasid which he had composed in the night in honour of Abdullah ibn Mohammed el Herir, the victorious Sultan of Nejed. 'Upon whom may Allah send much boiling water,' sang the Sheikh of the beggars after each stave. And Abdullah, his head and face shaven as bald as an ostrich's egg, was bent by the weight he carried, for upon his shoulders rode the cripple whom they called the Ass of Egypt, clapping the wooden shoes he used on his hands, like cymbals to accompany the song of the blind man. And last of all came a veiled woman, walking sadly, for she could not escape, being surrounded and driven on by many scores of beggars, all dancing and shouting and crying out mock praises of the Sultan Abdullah and his wife. But as the procession moved on the laughter increased a hundredfold, until all men's eyes were blind with mirth, and their breasts were bursting and aching with so much merriment. At last the Sheikh of the beggars stood before Khaled holding the halter. And here he made a deep obeisance, pulling the halter so that Abdullah nearly fell to the ground. 'In the name of the beggars,' he said, 'I present to your high majesty the Sultan of Nejed, Abdullah ibn Mohammed, and his chief minister the Ass of Egypt, and moreover the sultan's wife. May it please your high majesty to reward the beggars with a few small coins and a little barley, for having brought his high majesty, the new sultan, safely to the gate of the palace and to the steps of the throne.' Thereupon all the beggars, the lepers, the cripples, the blind men and those of weak understanding fell down together at Khaled's feet. * * * * * This is the story of Khaled the believing genius, which he caused to be written down in letters of gold by the most accomplished scribe in Nejed, that all men might remember it. But of what afterwards occurred there is nothing told in the scribe's manuscript. It is recounted, however, in the commentaries of one Abd ul Latif that Khaled did not cause Abdullah to be beheaded, nor in any way hurt, save that he was driven out of the city with his wife, where certain Bedouins affirmed that he lived for many years with her in great destitution. But it is well known that after this Zehowah bore Khaled many strong sons, whose children and children's children reigned gloriously for many generations in Nejed. And Khaled and Zehowah died full of years on the same day, and lie buried together in a garden without the Hasa gate, and the pilgrims from Ajman and the east visit their tombs even to the present time. _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_. MESSRS. MACMILLAN AND CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. POPULAR NOVELS BY MR. MARION CRAWFORD. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 3s. 6d. each. MR. ISAACS: A Tale of Modern India. _DAILY NEWS_--"The best novel that has ever laid its scene in our Indian dominions." _ATHEN�UM_--"A work of unusual ability." DR. CLAUDIUS. A True Story. _ATHEN�UM_--"Mr. Crawford has achieved another success." A ROMAN SINGER. _TIMES_--"A masterpiece of narrative.... In Mr. Crawford's skilful hands it is unlike any other romance in English literature." ZOROASTER. _GUARDIAN_--"An instance of the highest and noblest form of novel.... Alike in the originality of its conception and the power with which it is wrought out, it stands on a level that is almost entirely its own." MARZIO'S CRUCIFIX. A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. _GUARDIAN_--"The tale is written with all Mr. Crawford's skill." _SATURDAY REVIEW_--"Unlike most novels, goes on improving up to the end." PAUL PATOFF. _ATHEN�UM_--"The originality of the story, the charm of the description, and the brilliancy of the narrative are undeniable." WITH THE IMMORTALS. _SPECTATOR_--"To do justice to Mr. Crawford's remarkable book by extracts would be impossible.... 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A CIGARETTE-MAKER'S ROMANCE. _OXFORD MAGAZINE_--"The idea of the story is original, the characters well drawn, and the interest sustained to the very last page. That Mr. Crawford, having a good story to tell, should tell it well, was only to be expected." _GLOBE_--"We are inclined to think this the best of Mr. Marion Crawford's stories.... His art is here at its best, and those who read his book will feel grateful to him for its keen humanity." NOVELS BY ROLF BOLDREWOOD. New and Uniform Edition. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 3s. 6d. each. =ROBBERY UNDER ARMS.= A STORY OF LIFE AND ADVENTURE IN THE BUSH AND IN THE GOLD-FIELDS OF AUSTRALIA. =GUARDIAN=--"A singularly spirited and stirring tale of Australian life, chiefly in the remoter settlements.... 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Walter Paget. Sir George Reid, P.R.S.A. Frank Short. W. Strang. Sir Henry Raeburn, R.A., P.R.S.A. Arthur Hopkins, A.R.W.S. R. Herdman, R.S.A. D. Herdman. Hugh Cameron, R.S.A. =MACMILLAN & CO., Limited, LONDON= * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Minor punctuation corrections have been made without comment. On p. 155 the word "Sham" has a macron (straight line) above the "a" in the original text which has been removed in this e-text. A Table of Contents has been created by the transcriber to aid reader navigation in this e-text. Word Variations: "carcase(s)" (2) (Br. sp.) and "carcass" (1) "Khaled ibn Walid" (1) and "Khaled ibn Walad" (1) (both referred to as "the Sword of the Lord") 
41929	----	Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Inconsistent punctuation in the ads section has been left as printed. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=. ARETHUSA [Illustration: ARETHUSA] ARETHUSA BY F. MARION CRAWFORD AUTHOR OF "SARACINESCA," "A LADY OF ROME," ETC., ETC. _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY GERTRUDE DEMAIN HAMMOND_ New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1907 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1906, 1907, BY THE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING CO. COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY F. MARION CRAWFORD. Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1907. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. THE STORY-TELLER OF THE BAZAAR DEDICATES THIS TALE OF CONSTANTINOPLE TO HIS DEAR DAUGHTER ELEANOR LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Arethusa _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE He was talking with an old beggar woman 30 She tenderly kissed the wrinkled face 44 'Yes,' replied the negress. 'Rustan is very affectionate. He says that I am his Zoë, his "life," because he would surely die of starvation without me!' 66 'Tell me your story,' he said in a lower tone. 'Do not be afraid! no one shall hurt you.' 88 'Forty ducats!' cried Omobono, casting up his eyes, and preparing to bargain for at least half an hour 94 All sorts of confused thoughts crowded her brain, as Zeno sat down on a seat beside the divan 108 There was something so oddly fixed in his look and so dull in his voice that Omobono began to fear that he might be a lunatic 128 'I know them,' Zoë answered. 'If I am not telling you the truth, sell me in the market to-morrow.' 164 'I did not mean to love you!' 194 The captain's wife obeyed, less frightened than she had been at first 218 Saw her sink down there exhausted, and draw a heavy silk shawl across her body 240 'Tell me what you see,' she said to the maids 262 'Yes!' roared the Tartar. 'Ten thousand ducats! And if I do not find the money in the house, you two must find it in yours! Do you understand?' 274 Then, all at once, he felt that she had received one of those inspirations of the practical sense which visit women who are driven to extremities 310 'Am I not your bought slave?' she asked. 'I must obey.' 352 CHAPTER I Carlo Zeno, gentleman of Venice, ex-clerk, ex-gambler, ex-soldier of fortune, ex-lay prebendary of Patras, ex-duellist, and ex-Greek general, being about twenty-nine years of age, and having in his tough body the scars of half-a-dozen wounds that would have killed an ordinary man, had resolved to turn over a new leaf, had become a merchant, and was established in Constantinople in the year 1376. He had bought a house in the city itself because the merchants of Genoa all dwelt in the town of Pera, on the other side of the Golden Horn. A Venetian could not have lived in the same place with Genoese, for the air would have poisoned him, to a certainty; and besides, the sight of a Genoese face, the sound of the Genoese dialect, the smell of Genoese cookery, were all equally sickening to any one brought up in the lagoons. Genoa was not fit to be mentioned within hearing of polite Venetian ears, its very name was unspeakable by decent Venetian lips; and even to pronounce the syllables for purposes of business was horribly unlucky. Therefore Carlo Zeno and his friends had taken up their abode in the old city, amongst the Greeks and the Bokharians, the Jews and the Circassians, and they left the Genoese to themselves in Pera, pretending that they did not even exist. It was not always easy to keep up the pretence, it is true, for Zeno had extremely good eyes and could not help seeing those abominations of mankind on the other side of the Golden Horn when he sat in his balcony on spring evenings; and his only consolation was to dream of destroying them wholesale, of hewing them in pieces by the hundred and the thousand, and of piling up pyramids of their ugly grinning heads. Why were they Genoese? Carlo Zeno would rather have taken a box on the ear from Sultan Amurad, the Turk, over there in Asia Minor, than a civil word from the least objectionable of those utterly unspeakable monsters of Genoese. 'Behold,' said Tertullian one day in scorn, 'how these Christians love one another.' Matters had not improved in eleven hundred years, since that learned Doctor of the Church had departed this life, presumably for a more charitable world; but Carlo Zeno would have answered that the Genoese were no more Christians than mules, and much less so than the pigs, which are all under the special protection of the blessed Saint Anthony. At the very time, too, when my story begins, those obnoxious villains of Genoa were on the successful side of a revolution; for they had helped Emperor Andronicus to imprison his father, Emperor John, in the tall Amena tower on the north side of the city, by the Golden Horn, and to lock up his two younger brothers in a separate dungeon. It was true that Emperor John had ordered Andronicus and his little son of five to be blinded with boiling vinegar, but Genoese money had miraculously converted the vinegar into bland white wine, and had reduced the temperature from the boiling point to that of a healthful lotion, so that neither the boy nor the man were any the worse after the application than before; but Andronicus had resented the mere intention on the part of his father, and had avenged himself by taking the Empire, such as it was, for the present, while reserving the delight of murdering his parent and his brothers at a convenient season in the future. All this was very well, no doubt, and Andronicus was undisputed Emperor for the time being, because the Genoese and Sultan Amurad were willing that he should be; but Amurad had not always been his friend, and the Genoese had not always had the upper hand of the Venetians; the wind might change in a moment and a tempest might whirl him away from the throne even more quickly than the fair breeze had wafted him towards it. Zeno thought so too, and wondered whether it would please fate to make him the spirit of the storm. He cared very little about Handsome John, as Paleologus was nicknamed, but he cared a great deal for a possible chance of driving the Genoese out of Pera and of getting the island of Tenedos for the Venetian Republic. And now he had transacted the business of the day, and had dined on a roasted palamit, for it was a Friday and the palamit is the best fish that swims, from the Dardanelles to the Black Sea; and Zeno would no more have eaten meat on a day of abstinence than he would have sat down to table with a Genoese. He had been brought up to be a churchman, and though the attempt to make a priest of him had failed for obvious reasons, he was constant in observing those little rules and regulations which he had been taught to believe conducive to salvation, seeing that he was of a rash temper, prone to seek danger, and never sure of coming home alive when it pleased him to walk abroad. He was not a quarrelsome man on his own account, but he had a most wonderful facility for taking up the quarrels of other people who seemed to be in the right. The more hopeless the just case, or cause, the more certain it was that Carlo Zeno would take it up and fight for it as if it were his own. But now, if ever, he was peacefully inclined; for the palamit had been done to a turn by the Dalmatian cook; the salad which had followed it had been composed to his liking, with shredded red peppers, pickled olives, anchovies, and cardamom seeds, all mixed among the crisp lettuce; and the draught of wine that had finished the meal had gleamed in the Murano glass like spirit of gold, and the flavour of it, as he had thoughtfully sipped it, had made him think of the scent that still sunshine draws from fruit hanging on vine and tree. He sat in a deep chair on his covered balcony, and was conscious that for the moment peace and privacy were almost as delightful as the best fight in the world. It would have been impossible to say more than that. The sun was low, for the spring days were not yet long, and the shadow of the city already fell across the deep blue water of the Golden Horn. Zeno gazed down at the moving scene; his keen brown eyes watched the boats gliding by and softened, for what he saw made him think of Venice, the lagoons, and his home. Of all people, the most incorrigible wanderer is generally the most hopelessly sentimental about his native place. Zeno had brown eyes that could soften like a woman's, but they were much more often keen and quick, turning suddenly to take in at a glance all that could be seen at all, until they fixed themselves with a piercing gaze on whatever interested their owner most for the time being,--his friend, or his adversary, his quarry if he were hunting, a woman's face or figure. He was not a big man, but he was thoroughly well made and well put together, elastic, tough, and active. His small brown hands, compact and firm, seemed ready to seize or strike at instant notice--the ideal hands of a fighting man. There was the same ready and fearless look in his clean-shaven face and small, energetic head, and when he moved his least motion betrayed the same gifts. Women did not think him handsome in those days, when the idea of beauty in man or woman alike was associated with fair or auburn hair and milk-white skin and cherry lips. In fact, Carlo Zeno hardly showed his lips at all, his thick hair was almost black, and his complexion was already as tanned and weather-stained as an old sailor's. But like many men of action he was careful of his dress, and extremely fastidious in his ways. In the ranks, the greatest dandies are often the best soldiers, explain the fact as you will. Some officers say that such men are far too vain to run away. Many a French noble who perished on the scaffold in the revolution bestowed more of his last moments on his toilet than he devoted to his prayers, and died like a hero and a gentleman. There are defects, like vanity, which may sometimes pass for virtues. Carlo Zeno was one of those men whose outward appearance is little affected by what they do, on whom the dust and heat of travel seem to leave no trace; who are invariably clean, neat, and fresh, the envy and despair of ordinary people. His dark-red velvet cap was always set on his thick hair at the same angle, and its sheen was as speckless as if dust did not exist. The narrow miniver border of his wine-coloured cloth coat was never ragged or worn at the edges; the fine linen, gathered at his throat and wrists, never betrayed the least suspicion of dinginess; the mud of Constantinople never clung to the soft Bulgarian leather of his well-made shoes. Just now, the latter were stuck out in front of him as he leaned back in his deep chair and stretched his legs, asking himself vaguely whether he could be contented for any long time with the quiet life he was leading. As if in answer to the question, his clerk and secretary, an important little grey-bearded personage, appeared on the balcony at that very moment with a letter in his hand. 'From Venice, sir,' said Omobono--that was his name--'and by the handwriting and the seal I judge it is written by Messer Marco Pesaro.' Zeno frowned and then smiled, as he generally did at the manifestations of Omobono's incorrigible curiosity. It was the only defect of a most excellent person who was indispensable to Zeno's daily life, and invaluable in his business. Omobono had the sad and gentle face of an honest man who has failed on his own account, but whose excellent qualities are immensely serviceable to stronger men. Zeno took the letter and glanced towards the harbour, far to the right of his house. Omobono made a short step backwards, but kept his eyes fixed on the paper. 'No foreign vessel has anchored to-day,' said the merchant; 'who brought this?' 'The captain of a Venetian ship, sir, which is anchored outside, before the Port of Theodosius.' Zeno nodded carelessly as he cut the string. The letter was written on strong cotton paper from Padua, folded six times and secured by twisted hemp threads, of which the final knot had been squeezed into red wax and flattened under a heavy seal. Omobono watched his employer quietly, hoping to learn that he had rightly guessed the correspondent's name. Zeno, intent on reading, paid no attention to the secretary, who gradually edged nearer until he could almost make out the words. This was what Zeno read, in very long sentences and in the Venetian dialect:-- MOST BELOVED AND HONOURED FRIEND--I despatch this writing by the opportunity of Sebastian Cornèr's good ship, sailing to-morrow, with the help of God, for Constantinople with a cargo of Florence cloth, Dalmatian linen, crossbows, Venetian lace, straw hats, and blind nightingales. May the Lord preserve the vessel, the crew, and the cargo from those unmentionable dogs of Genoese, and bring all safely to the end of the voyage within two months. The cloth, lace, and straw hats are mine, the rest of the cargo belongs to Sebastian Cornèr, except the nightingales, which are a gift from the Most Serene Republic to his majesty the Emperor, together with the man who takes care of the birds. What I say of my share in the cargo, most noble friend, is not as in the way of boasting myself a wealthy merchant, for indeed I am by no means rich, though by my constant industry, my sleepless watchfulness, and my honest dealing I have saved a crust of bread. Nay, I say it rather because I come with a request to you, and in order that you may know that there will be money due to me in Constantinople for the sale of this cargo, through the house of Marin Cornèr, the brother of Sebastian, who will pay you on your demand, most beloved and honoured friend, the sum of three hundred gold ducats. For I feel sure that you will undertake the business I ask, for love of me and a commission of a lira of piccoli for each ducat. I desire, in fact, that you will buy for me the most handsome slave that can be had for the money I offer, or even, if the girl were surpassingly beautiful, for three hundred and fifty ducats. The truth is, most noble friend, that my wife, who is, as you know, ten years older than I, and impeded by rheumatisms, is in need of a youthful and accomplished companion to help her to pass the time, and as I have always made it my duty and my business to fulfil and even, as in the present case, to anticipate her wishes, I am willing to spend this large sum of money for the sole purpose of pleasing her. Moreover I turn to you, most dear sir and friend, well knowing that your kindness is only matched by your fine taste. My wife would, I am sure, prefer as a companion a girl with fine natural hair, either quite black or very fair, the red auburn colour being so common here as to make one almost wish that women would not dye their hair at all. My dear and honoured friend, the teeth are a very important matter; pray give your most particular attention to their whiteness and regularity, for my wife is very fastidious. And also, I entreat you, choose a slave with small ankles, not larger than you can span with your thumb and middle finger. My wife will care less about a very small waist, though if it be naturally slender it is certainly a point of beauty. In all this, dearest sir, employ for love of me those gifts of discernment with which heaven has so richly endowed you, and I trust you will consider the commission a fair one. Sebastian Cornèr, who is an old man, will take charge of the slave and bring her to Venice, if you will only see that she is properly protected and fed until he is ready to sail, and this at the usual rate. I have also agreed with him that she is not to be lodged in the common cabin with the other female slaves whom he will bring from the Black Sea on his own account, but separately and with better food, lest she should grow unpleasingly thin. Yet it is understood that his regular slave-master is to be responsible for her protection, and will watch over her behaviour during the voyage. This, my most worthy, dear and honourable sir and friend, is the commission which I beg you to undertake; and in this and all your other affairs I pray that the hand of Providence, the intercession of the saints, and the wisdom of the one hundred and eighteen Nicene fathers may be always with you. From Venice. Marco Pesaro to the most noble patrician, Carlo Zeno, his friend. The fourteenth day of March in the year 1376. Zeno smiled repeatedly as he read the letter, but he did not look up till he had finished it. His eyes met those of his secretary, who was now much nearer than before. 'Omobono,' said Zeno gravely, 'curiosity is unbecoming in a man of your years. With your grey beard and solemn air you are as prying and curious as a girl.' Omobono looked contritely at his folded hands and moved the left one slowly within the right. 'Alas, sir,' he answered, 'I know it. I would that these hands held but a thousandth part of what my eyes have seen.' 'They would be rich if they did,' observed Zeno bluntly. 'It is fortunate that with your uncommon taste for other men's affairs you can at least keep something to yourself. Since you have no doubt mastered the contents of this letter as well as I----' The good man protested. 'Indeed, sir, how could I have read a single word at this distance? Try for yourself, sir, for your eyes are far younger and better than mine.' 'Younger,' answered Zeno, 'but hardly better. And now send for Barlaam, the Syrian merchant, and bid him come quickly, for he may do business with me before the sun sets.' 'He will not do business to-day,' answered Omobono. 'This is Friday, which the Muslemin keep holy.' 'So much the worse for Barlaam. He will miss a good bargain. Send for Abraham of Smyrna, the Jewish caravan-broker.' 'He will not do business either,' said Omobono, 'for to-morrow is Sabbath, and Shabbes begins on Friday evening.' 'In the name of the blessed Mark our Evangelist, then send me some Christian, for Sunday cannot begin on Friday, even in Constantinople.' 'There is Rustan Karaboghazji, the Bokharian,' suggested Omobono. Zeno looked sharply at the secretary. 'The slave-dealer?' he enquired. Omobono nodded, but he reddened a little, poor man, and looked down at his hands again, for he had betrayed himself, after protesting that he knew nothing of the contents of the letter. Zeno laughed gaily. 'You are a good man, Omobono,' he said. 'You could not deceive a child. Do you happen to have heard that Rustan has what Messer Marco wants?' But Omobono shook his head and grew still redder. 'Indeed, sir,--I--I do not know what your friend wants--I only guessed----' 'A very good guess, Omobono. If I could guess the future as you can the present, I should be a rich man. Yes, send for Rustan. I believe he will do better for me than the Jew or the Mohammedan.' 'They say here that it takes ten Jews to cheat a Greek, and ten Greeks to cheat a Bokharian, sir,' said Omobono. 'To say nothing of those Genoese swine who cheat the whole Eastern Empire! What chance have we poor Venetians in such a place?' 'May heaven send the Genoese the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the halter of Judas Iscariot!' prayed Omobono very devoutly. 'By all means,' returned Zeno, 'I hope so. Now send for the Bokharian.' Omobono bowed and left the balcony, and his employer leaned back in his chair again, still holding the folded paper in his hand. His expressive face wore a look of amusement for a while, but presently it turned into something more like good-natured contempt, as his thoughts went back from his secretary's last speech, to Marco Pesaro and his letter. This Pesaro was a fat little man of forty, who had married a rich widow ten years older than himself. Carlo Zeno had known him well before he had been married, a boon companion, a jolly good-for-nothing who loved the society of younger men, and did them no good by example or precept. His father and mother had both perished in the great plague that raged in the year when Zeno was born, and Marco had been brought up by two old aunts who doted on him. The result usual in such cases had followed in due time; he had spent his own fortune and what he inherited from his aunts, who died conveniently, and when near forty he had found himself penniless, a poor relation of a great family, none the worse in health for nearly a quarter of a century of gaiety and feasting, and in temper much inclined to lead the same life for at least another twenty years. The heart was young yet, the round, pink face was absurdly youthful still, but the purse was in a state of permanent collapse, without any prospect of recovery. Then Marco sold everything he had, down to the sword which he had never drawn, and the jewelled dagger which had never done any worse damage than to cut the string of a love-letter; he sold his last silver spoons, his silver drinking-cup and the gold chain and ball from his cloak, and with the proceeds he gave a dozen of his friends one last farewell feast. Then, on the following day, his spirit broken and resigned to his fate, he offered himself to the very rich, elderly, and devout widow who had been making eyes at him for six months, and he was promptly accepted. With some of her money he engaged in the Eastern trade, renounced the follies of his youth, and became a respectable merchant. It was affluence, it was luxury, but it was slavery and he knew it, and accepted the fact at first with much philosophy. Surely, he said to himself, a good cook and a good cellar, with a fine house at San Cassian, and a virtuous, if elderly, wife ought to satisfy any man of forty. The rest was but vanity. Could anything be more absurd, at his age, than to go on for ever playing the butterfly--such an elderly butterfly!--from one pair of bright eyes to another? But he had counted without the fact that the butterfly is the final development of its genus and cannot turn into anything else. It must be a butterfly to the end. Poor Marco soon found that his heart was as susceptible as ever, and could beat like a boy's on very slight provocation, but that unfortunately it was never his rich wife who provoked it to such unseemly and lively action. Yet her facial angle inspired him with a terror even greater than the attraction of a pretty face and a well-turned figure. She had a way of setting her thin lips over her prominent teeth which at the same time stretched the skin upon the bridge of her hooked nose while she looked at him from under her half-closed lids, that made his blood run cold, robbed the richest sauce of its delicious flavour, and turned the wine of Samos to vinegar in his glass. Daily, she grew older, sharper, more irritable; and daily, too, the heart of Marco Pesaro seemed to grow younger and the more to crave the companionship of a mate much younger still, or at least the near presence of those outward, visible, and tangible gifts of the gods, such as a deep warm eye, and a soft white hand, with which man has always associated the heart of woman. Zeno guessed all this and the rest too; the letter he had received needed no further explanation, and for old acquaintance's sake he had no objection to executing the commission Marco had thrust upon him. And now, all you who stop and gather round the story-teller in this world's great bazaar, to listen, if his tale please you, and to find fault with him if it does not, you cry out that if Carlo Zeno was really the hero history describes him to have been, he would have been very, very grieved at being asked to do anything so inhuman as to buy a pretty slave abroad to be sent home to a friend, even though the latter protested that the girl was to be trained as a companion for his wife. He would have been grieved and angry, he would have torn the letter to shreds, and would either not have answered it at all, or would have written to tell Pesaro that he was a brute, that men and women are all free and equal, and that to buy and sell them is high treason against the majesty of the rights of men. But to those protests and outcries the story-teller has many answers ready. In the first place, no one had even dreamt of the rights of men in 1376; and secondly, the trade in white slaves was almost as profitable to Venice then as it is in 1906 to certain great states the story-teller could name, with the advantage that there was no hypocritical secret about it, and that it was provided for in international treaties, in spite of the Pope, who said it was wrong; and thirdly, heroes are heroes for ever in respect of their heroic deeds, but in their daily lives they are very much like the other men of their class and time, as you will soon learn if you read the life of Bayard, 'without fear or reproach,' written by his Faithful Servitor; for the faithful one set down some doings of the virtuous knight which a modern biographer would have altogether left out, but which were no more a 'reproach' to a man in the year 1500, than getting drunk was a 'reproach' in 1700, or than stealing anything over a million is a 'reproach' to-day; fourthly and lastly, if Zeno had virtuously refused to buy a slave for Marco Pesaro, there would have been no story to tell, and this seems an excellent argument to the story-teller himself. Zeno's thoughts soon wandered from Pesaro and the letter, and followed the old thread of life in Venice, till it led his soul through the labyrinth of daily existence far out into the dreamland beyond; and the place of his dreams was a calm and resplendent water, where stately palaces rose through vapours of purple and gold against an evening sky. Over the lagoon came music of old chimes from San Giorgio, and the deeper bells of Venice answered back again; at the instant the sunset breeze floated off the land and breathed into the dyed sails of the Istrians without a sound, so that the boats began to move by magic, gliding out one by one with a soft, low rush, heard only for a moment, as of a woman's hand drawn across silk. The mere thought of Venice called up the vision of her before the inward eye of his heart; for he loved his native city better than he had ever loved any woman yet, and much better than his own life. When he could think of Venice, until the broad expanse of the lagoon seemed to spread itself over the deeper and darker waters of the Golden Horn, and when he could fancy himself at home, he was supremely and calmly happy, and would not have changed his dream for any reality except its own. CHAPTER II Omobono had drawn on a pair of well-greased raw-hide boots that came half-way up his thin legs, and had wrapped himself in his big brown cloak before going out. On his smooth grey head he wore a soft felt hat, the brim turned up round the crown at the back but pulled out to a long point in front, and he carried a tough cornel stick in his right hand. He had been careful to leave in the strong box the purse that contained money belonging to his employer, and had but a few small coins of his own in his wallet to pay a ferryman if he should need one, or to give to a hungry beggar. Like most men who have failed to make money Omobono was very sorry for poor people, and did not believe that all beggars could be rich if they would work. But he was poor himself, and his charity was of the humble kind. There was a fairly broad street behind Carlo Zeno's house, and here the early spring sun had dried the mud to something like a solid surface; but Omobono followed this thoroughfare only for a little distance, and then turned into a narrow and filthy lane that led to other lanes, and to others still beyond, all crowded with humanity, all dark and muddy, all foul with garbage, all reeking with the overpowering smell of Eastern cooking made up of garlic, frying onions, sour cream, oil of sesame, and roasting mutton where there were Jews or Mohammedans, or fried fish where Christians lived, since it was Friday. The small wooden houses, black with smoke and the dampness of the past winter, overhung the way so that the opposite balconies of the second stories almost touched each other. Had the buildings been higher, scarcely any light at all would have reached the lower windows; as it was, a man with good eyes might just see to read at noon if he were not too far within. Omobono evidently knew his way well enough, for he did not pause as he threaded the labyrinth, and only now and then glanced up at certain dingy signs that hung from the crazy wooden balconies, or from wooden arms that stuck out here and there like gallows from the walls. As he walked, he was chiefly occupied in not running against the people he met, and in not stepping upon the half-naked children that squirmed and squalled in the mud before every doorstep. For there were children everywhere, children and dirt, dirt and children, all of much the same colour in those dusky lanes. Near almost every open door the slatternly mother stirred a dark mess of some sort over a little earthen pan of coals, or toasted gobbets of fat mutton on a black iron fork, or fried some wretched fish in boiling oil. The Christian women were by far the dirtiest, and their children were the least healthy and the most neglected, for many of the little creatures had not a stitch of clothing on them. Most decent were the Mohammedans; they had already the bearing and the self-respect of the conquering race, and they treated their Greek and Bokharian neighbours with silent contempt. Did not Sultan Amurad, over there on the Asian shore, make and unmake these miserable little Greek emperors as he pleased? If he chose could he not take Constantinople and turn a stream of Christian blood into the Golden Horn that would redden the Sea of Marmora as far as Antigone and Prinkipo? Omobono went on and on, picking his way as he might, and little noticed by the people. He was not by any means in the poorest quarter of the city, and no one begged of him as he went by. If he thought of anything except of not setting his booted foot down on some child's sprawling leg or arm, he thanked heaven and the saints that he had been born a Venetian, and had been washed and sent to school like a Christian boy when he was little instead of having first seen the light, or what passed for light, in a back street of Constantinople. He turned another corner, entered a lane even narrower than those he had yet traversed, but almost deserted, and much less dark because one side of it was occupied by a wall not more than ten feet high, in which only one small door was to be seen. Along the top of the masonry all sorts of sharp bits of rusty iron and a quantity of broken crockery were set in mortar with the evident intention of discouraging any attempt to climb over, either from within or from without. The door itself was in good repair, and had been recently coated with tar and sharp sand by way of preserving it against the damp. A well-worn horizontal slit an inch long, and an upright one a foot higher up, showed that it had two separate Persian locks into which keys were often thrust. Omobono rapped on the tarred wood with the iron-shod end of his stick and listened. He could hear a number of girls' voices chattering, and one was singing softly in a language he did not understand. He knocked again, a moment later the voices were suddenly silent, and he heard the clacking of heavy slippers on wet flags as some one came to open. 'Who knocks?' asked a deep and harsh female voice from within, in the Greek tongue but with a thick accent. 'A Venetian who has business with the worthy Karaboghazji,' answered Omobono in a conciliatory tone. 'Which Karaboghazji?' enquired the voice suspiciously. 'Rustan,' explained Omobono mildly. From his voice, the woman probably judged that if he had come with any nefarious purpose she was more than a match for him. The door opened after some rattling and creaking of locks, and Omobono started in spite of himself. She was indeed a match for him, or for any other man who was likely to knock at the door. It was no wonder that the Venetian secretary drew back and hesitated before he spoke again. The woman was a huge red-haired negress in yellow, fully six feet tall in her heelless slippers, and her black arms, bare above the elbow, were as sinewy and muscular as any fisherman's or porter's. Her thick lips were parted in a sort of savage grin that showed two rows of teeth as sharp and white as a shark's; her hair must have been just dyed that day, for it was as red as flame to the very roots, and it stood out almost straight from her shiny black forehead and temples; as she rather contemptuously scrutinised Omobono from head to foot the whites of her coal-black eyes gleamed in a way that was positively terrifying. She wore wide Greek trousers of blue cotton, gathered at the ankle, and a wadded coat of yellow, that hung down below her knees in loose folds, like a sort of skirt, but fitted tightly over her tremendous shoulders. This garment was closely girded round her ample waist by a red sash, in which she carried her armoury, consisting of a serviceable Arab knife with a bone hilt and brass sheath, and a small whip made of a broad flat thong of hippopotamus hide with a short oak stock. This terrific apparition stood in the little vestibule holding the door open and grinning at Omobono. She had closed another door behind her before opening the outer one, for the slave-dealer's establishment was evidently managed with a view to the safety of his merchandise. 'And what do you want of Rustan Karaboghazji at this time of the afternoon?' enquired the negress. 'Who are you?' 'I am only a clerk,' answered Omobono in a deprecating tone, and shrinking a little under his cloak, as the awful virago thrust her head forward. 'I am the clerk of Messer Carlo Zeno, a rich Venetian merchant, who sends a message by me to your master----' 'My master!' interrupted the black woman, with a scornful laugh. 'My master, indeed!' 'I--I supposed----' faltered Omobono apologetically. The negress moved a little and rested one huge hand on her hip, while she slipped the other slowly up the door-post till it was above her head. In this attitude she looked gigantic. 'You mean my husband,' she said, showing all her teeth. 'Rustan Karaboghazji is my husband. Do you understand?' 'Yes, Kokóna--I--I mean Kyría--yes, certainly! I should have known at once that you were the mistress of the house if you had not condescended to open the door yourself, Kyría.' 'And what would become of the cattle,' enquired the negress with a backward toss of her head towards the yard behind her, 'if the stable door were in charge of a slave? If your master--' she dwelt on the two words contemptuously--'wishes to buy of us, he will have to come here and choose for himself.' 'No, no!' answered Omobono hastily. 'It is another matter. I think it is a commission for a friend. It is something very especial. That is why I beg to be allowed to speak with the Kyrios, your husband.' The black woman had listened attentively. 'At this hour,' she said after a moment's thought, 'Rustan is at his devotions.' 'I would not interrupt them for the world,' protested Omobono. 'I can wait----' 'No. You will probably find him at the church of Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus. If he is not there, ask the sacristan where he is. My husband is a very devout man; the sacristan knows him well.' 'I hope,' said Omobono, whose curiosity scented a mystery, 'that the sacristan will not take me for an importunate stranger and send me on a fool's errand. If the Kyría would give me some sign by which the sacristan may know that I came from her----' Omobono paused on this suggestion, hoping for a favourable answer. Again the big woman waited a moment before speaking. 'Ask the sacristan to direct you to find Rustan Karaboghazji, by four toes and by five toes,' she said at last. 'He will certainly tell you the truth if you ask him in that way.' 'By four toes and by five toes,' repeated Omobono. 'I cannot forget that. I thank you, Kyría Karaboghazji, and I wish you a good day.' The negress nodded and showed her teeth but said nothing more, drew back and shut the door without waiting any longer. Omobono stood still a moment, listened to the slapping of the heavy slippers on the wet flags within, and then went away down the almost deserted lane, wondering much at the taste of the Bokharian merchant in marrying an African giantess. But soon his natural curiosity began to occupy itself more actively with the hidden meaning of the password given him by Rustan's wife; and, meditating on this problem, he made his way through the heart of the city, traversing many narrow and tortuous streets, till he suddenly emerged into a broad highway where marble buildings gleamed in the late afternoon sunshine, and richly dressed Greeks lounged in the wide exedræ and stately porticoes, discussing the affairs of the Empire in general and their neighbours' most particularly. Omobono trudged along, past the corner of the wide Forum of Theodosius, once the centre of the city's teeming life, but now given over to the tanners and leather-dressers, for one end of it was used as a slaughterhouse and the hides had not to be dragged far to be cured; he walked on quickly, keeping to the left, and was soon in narrow streets again, where afterwards the Grand Bazaar was built, and where even in those days the Persian merchants and the jewellers, the dealers in fine carpets and Eastern merchandise, the perfumers, the Egyptian goldsmiths and the Bokharian money-changers had their homes and the headquarters of their business. Here Omobono exchanged greetings now and then with men of all nationalities except Genoese, and very few of these last were to be seen, for they kept to their own quarter beyond the Golden Horn, in Pera. But Omobono would not stop to talk, and the streets were clean here, and well kept, and the children were not to be seen, so that he could walk quickly, without picking his way. On still, and farther on; through the almost classic Forum of Constantine, past the hill on which the bronze-bound porphyry column still stands, and down on the other side, keeping the Hippodrome on his left and diving into the Bokharian quarter, as different from the last through which he had come, as that had been from those he had passed before. For then, as now, Constantinople was a patchwork of divers nations and languages and customs, and their quarters were like distinct towns,--some filthy, noisy and unhealthy, some rich and stately, some quiet and poor, some asleep all day and riotous all night, others silent as sleep itself from nightfall till dawn, and noisy all day with the hum of business or the ceaseless hammering clang and clatter of workmen's tools. Before Omobono emerged upon the little square which then surrounded the churches of Saints Sergius and Bacchus and of Saints Peter and Paul--the latter is now destroyed--he heartily wished that he had hired a horse and man at one of the street corners; but he forgot his weariness when his destination was reached, and he saw a little bandy-legged sacristan in an absurdly short cassock of shabby black and purple cloth, leaning against one of the columns of the portico. Omobono ascended the broad steps that led up from the level of the street, as though he were going in, but just as he was close to the sacristan he stopped, as if without any premeditation, and made a gesture of salutation, smiling in a friendly way. 'Praised be our Lord,' he said, in the Greek manner. 'Our Lord be praised. Amen,' answered the sacristan indifferently, for it was the custom to do so. 'Could you inform me,' proceeded the Venetian clerk, 'whether that good man Kyrios Rustan Karaboghazji is now in the church at his devotions?' The sacristan had a perfectly round head with a pair of very small round eyes; moreover, his snub nose was quite round at the end. He now pursed out his lips and made his mouth round, too, as if he were going to whistle. Intentionally or unintentionally, he made himself look like an idiot, and slowly wagged his bullet head as if he did not understand. 'The church is open,' he said, at last. 'You may see,' Omobono now applauded himself for having asked and obtained a password, but he meant to be cautious in using it. 'Thank you,' he said politely, and he went on, into the church. The sun was low and cast a rich light through the open door, full upon the grating and closed gate of the sanctuary, and the gilt and burnished bars reflected and diffused the warm rays, like a glory before the unseen high altar. Omobono glanced quickly to the right and left as he passed between the pillars, but he saw no one. Farther on, before him and under the wide dome, two women in brown were at their prayers, the one kneeling, the other prostrate, in Eastern fashion, her forehead resting on the marble pavement. There was no man in sight. Omobono chose a clean spot, hitched up his cloak in front and knelt upon one knee. He crossed himself and said a little prayer. 'O Lord,' he prayed, 'grant wealth and honour to the Most Serene Republic and give Venice the victory over the Genoese. Bless Messer Carlo Zeno, O Lord, and preserve him from sudden death. Send bread to the poor. Give Omobono strength to resist curiosity. For ever and ever. Amen.' It was not a very eloquent little prayer and it lacked the set forms of invocation and doxology which devout persons use; but Omobono had made it up for himself long ago, and said it every day at least once, for it precisely expressed what he sincerely wished and intended to ask with due humility; and he was a good man, in spite of his besetting fault, and believed that what he asked would be granted. As yet, Venice had not triumphed over those unspeakable dogs of Genoese, though the day of glory was much nearer than even the Venetians dared to hope. But so far Carlo Zeno had been preserved from sudden death in spite of his manifest tendency to break his neck for any whim; for the rest, Omobono had more than once been the means of saving poor people from starvation, though at some risk of it to himself, poor man; and as for his curiosity, he had at least kept it so far in bounds as never to read his master's letters until his master had opened them himself, which was something for Omobono to be grateful for. On the whole, he judged that his small prayer was not unacceptable, and he used it every day. He knelt a moment after he had finished it, partly because he was a little ashamed of its being very short though he never could think of anything to add to it, and he did not wish people to think that he was irreverent and gabbled over a prayer merely as a form; for he was very sensitive about such things, being a shy man. And partly he remained on his knees a little longer because the gilded grating was very handsome in the light of the setting sun, and reminded him of the grating in Saint Mark's, and that naturally made him think of heaven. But presently he rose and went out. The sacristan was still standing by the same pillar. 'Kyrios Rustan is not in the church,' said Omobono, stopping again. Once more the sacristan seemed to be about to purse his lips into a circle, and to put on an air of blank stupidity, and the clerk saw that the time had come to use the password. 'I must see him,' he said, dropping his voice, but speaking very distinctly. 'I beg you to direct me by four toes and five toes, so that I may find him.' The sacristan's face and manner changed at once. His small eyes were suddenly full of intelligence, his mouth expanded in a friendly smile, and his snub nose seemed to draw itself to a point like the muzzle of a hound on a scent. 'Why did you not say that at once?' he asked. 'Rustan left the church a quarter of an hour before you came, but he is not far away. Do you see the entrance to the lane down there?' He pointed towards the place. 'Yes,' said Omobono, 'by the corner.' 'Yes. Go into that lane. Take the first turn to the left, and then the second to the right again. Before you have gone far you will find Rustan walking up and down.' 'Walking up and down?' repeated Omobono, surprised that the Bokharian should select for his afternoon stroll such a place as one might expect to find in the direction indicated. 'Yes.' The sacristan grinned and winked at the Venetian clerk in a knowing way. 'He is a devout man. When he has said his prayers he walks up and down in that little lane.' The man laughed audibly, but immediately looked behind him to see whether any one coming from within the church had heard him, for he considered himself a clerical character. Omobono thanked him politely. 'It is nothing,' answered the sacristan. 'A mere direction--what is it? If I had asked you for your purse and cloak by four toes and five toes, I am quite sure that you would have given me both.' 'Of course,' replied Omobono nervously, seeing that the reply was evidently expected of him. 'Of course I would. And so, good-day, my friend.' 'And good-day to you, friend,' returned the sacristan. The clerk went away, devoutly hoping that no unknown person would suddenly accost him and demand of him his cloak in the name of four toes and five toes, and he wondered what in the world he should do if such a thing happened to him. He was quite sure that he should be unable to hide the fact that he knew the magic formula, for he had never been very good at deception; and if the words could procure such instant obedience from such a disagreeable person as the sacristan had at first seemed to be, some dreadful penalty was probably the portion of those who disobeyed the mandate. Thus reflecting, and by no means easy in his mind, the clerk crossed the square and entered the lane. He had supposed that it led to a continuation of the Bokharian quarter, but he at once saw his mistake. Even now a man may live for years in Constantinople and yet be far from knowing every corner of it, and Omobono found himself in a part of the city which he had never seen. It was in ruins, and yet it was inhabited. Few of the houses had doors, hardly any window had a shutter, and as he passed, he saw that in many lower rooms the light fell from above, through a fallen floor and a broken roof above it. Yet in every ruined dwelling, and almost at every door, there was some one, and all were frightful to see; all were in rags that hardly clung together, and some could scarcely cover themselves modestly; one was blind, another had no arms or no legs, another was devoured by hideous disease--many were mere bundles of bones in scanty rags, and stretched out filthy skeleton hands for alms as the decently dressed clerk came near. Omobono stood still for a moment when he realised that he was in the beggars' quarter, where more than half the dying paupers of the great city took refuge amidst houses ruined and burnt long ago when the Crusaders had sacked Constantinople, and never more than half repaired since then. The clerk stood still, for the sight of so much misery hurt him, and it hurt him still more to think that he had but very few small coins in his wallet. The poor creatures should have them all, one by one, but there would be few indeed for so many. [Illustration: He was talking with an old beggar woman.] And then, as he took out a little piece of bronze money, he heard sounds like nothing he had heard before; like many hundred sighs of suffering all breathed out together; and again, like many dying persons praying in low, exhausted voices; and again, like a gentle, hopeless wail; and through it all there was a pitiful tremor of weakness and pain that went to the clerk's heart. He could do very little, and he was obliged to go on, for his errand was pressing, and the people were as wretched at one door as they would be at the next, so that it was better not to give all his coins at once. He dropped one here, one there, into the wasted hands, and went on quickly, scarcely daring to glance at the faces that appeared at the low doors and ruined windows. Yet here and there he looked in, almost against his will, and he saw sights that sent a cold chill down his back, sights I have seen, too, but need not tell of. And so he went on, turning as the sacristan had instructed him, till he saw a tall, thin man in a brown cloth gown edged with cheap fox's fur, and having a tight fur cap on his head. He was talking with an old beggar woman, and his back was turned so that Omobono could only see that he had a long black beard, but he recognised Rustan, the Bokharian dealer. The house before which the two were standing seemed a trifle better than the rest in the street; there were crazy shutters to the large lower windows, which were open, however; there was a door which was ajar, and an attempt had been made to scrape the mud from the threshold. For the street was damp and muddy after the spring rains, but not otherwise very dirty. There was no garbage, not so much as a cabbage-stalk or a bleaching bone; for bones can be ground to dust between stones and eaten with water, and a cabbage-stalk is half a dinner to a starving man. In spite of the prayer he had recently offered up against his besetting fault of curiosity, Omobono could not help treading very lightly as he came up behind the Bokharian, and as the mud was in a pasty state, neither hard nor slimy, his heavy boots made hardly any more noise in treading on it than a beggar's bare feet. In this way he advanced till he could see through an open window of the house, and he stood still and looked in, but he made as if he were politely waiting for Rustan to turn round. Either the old beggar woman was blind, or she thought fit not to call the Bokharian's attention to the fact that a well-dressed stranger was standing within a few feet of him. The two talked volubly in low tones and in the Bokharian language, which Omobono did not understand at all, and when he was quite sure that he could not follow the conversation he occupied his curiosity in watching what was going on inside the house. The window was low, having apparently once served as a shop in which the shopkeeper had sat, in Eastern fashion, half inside and half out, to wait upon his customers. During half a minute, which elapsed before Rustan turned round, the clerk saw a good deal. In the first place his eyes fell on the upturned face of a woman who was certainly in the extremity of dangerous illness, and was probably dying. She had been beautiful once and she had beauty still, that was not only the soft shadow of coming death. The wasted body was covered with nameless rags, but the pillow was white and clean; the refined face was the colour of pure wax, and the dark hair, grey at the temples, had been carefully combed out and smoothed back from the forehead. The woman's eyes were closed, and deeply shadowed by suffering, but her delicate nostrils quivered now and then as she drew breath, and her pale lips moved a little as though trying to speak. There were young children round the wretched bed, silent, thin, and wondering, as children are when the great mystery is very near them and they feel it. In their miserable tatters one could hardly have told whether the younger ones were boys or girls, but one was much older than the rest, and Omobono's eyes fixed themselves upon her, and he held his breath, lest the Bokharian should hear him and turn, and hide the vision and break the spell. The girl was standing on the other side of the sick woman, bending down a very little, and watching her features with a look of infinite care and sorrow. One exquisite white hand touched the poor coverings of the bed, rather than rested on them, as if it longed to be of some use, and to relieve the woman's suffering ever so little. But the clerk did not look at the delicate fingers, for his eyes were riveted on the young girl's face. It was thin and white, but its lines were beautiful beyond comparison with all that he had ever seen, even in Venice, the city of beautiful women. I think that true beauty is beyond description; you may describe the changeless, faultless outlines of a statue to a man who has seen good statues and can recall them; you can perhaps find words to describe the glow, and warmth, and deep texture of a famous picture, and what you write will mean something to those who know the master's work; you may even conjure up an image before untutored eyes. But neither minute description nor well-turned phrase, neither sensuous adjective nor spiritual simile can tell half the truth of a beautiful living thing. And the fairest living woman is twice beautiful when gladness or love or anger or sorrow rises in her eyes, for then her soul is in her face. As Omobono looked through the window and watched the beggar girl leaning over her dying mother, he hardly saw the perfect line of the cheek, the dark and sweeping lashes or the deep brown eyes--the firm and rounded chin, the very tender mouth, the high-bred nostrils or the rich brown hair. He could not clearly recall any of those things a few minutes later; he only knew that he had seen for once something he had heard of all his life. It was not till he dreamt of her face that night--dreaming, poor man, that she was his guardian angel come to reprove him for his curiosity--that the details all came back, and most of all that brave and tender little mouth of hers, so delicately womanly and yet so strong, and that unspeakable turn of the cheek between the eye and the ear, and that poise of the small head on the slender neck--the details came back then. But in the first moment he only saw the whole and felt that it was perfect; then, for an instant, the eyes looked at him across the dying woman; and in a moment more the Bokharian turned, caught sight of him and came quickly forward, and the spell was broken. Rustan Karaboghazji held out both hands to Omobono, as if he were greeting his dearest friend, and he spoke in fluent Italian. He was a young man still, not much past thirty, with dark, straight features, stony grey eyes, and a magnificent black beard. 'What happy chance brings you here?' he cried, immediately drawing the Venetian in the direction whence the latter had come. 'Fortunate indeed is Friday, the day of Venus, since it brings me into the path of my honoured Ser Omobono!' 'Indeed, it is no accident, Kyrios Rustan----' began Omobono. 'A double fortune, then, since a friend needs me,' continued the Bokharian, without the slightest hesitation. 'But do not call me Kyrios, Ser Omobono! First, I am not Greek, and then, my honoured friend, I am no Kyrios, but only a poor exile from my country, struggling to keep body and soul together among strangers.' While he talked he had drawn Omobono's arm through his own and was leading him away from the house with considerable haste. The Venetian looked back, and saw that the old woman had disappeared. 'I have a message from my master,' he said, 'but before we go on, I should like to----' he hesitated, and stopped in spite of Rustan. 'What should you like to do?' asked the latter, with sudden sharpness. Omobono's hand felt for the last of the small coins in his wallet. 'I wish to give a trifle to the poor people in that house,' he said, summoning his courage. 'I saw a sick woman--she seemed to be dying----' But Rustan grasped his wrist and held it firmly, as if to make him put the money back, but he smiled gently at the same time. 'No, no, my friend,' he answered. 'I would not have spoken of it, but you force me to tell you that I have been before you there! I take some interest in those poor people, and I have just given enough to keep them for a week, when I shall come again. It is not wise to give too much. The other beggars would rob them if they guessed that there was anything to take. Come, come! The sun is setting, and it is not well to be in this quarter so late.' Omobono remembered how the sacristan had winked and laughed, when he had spoken of Rustan's walks in the dismal lane, and the Venetian now proceeded to draw from what he had seen and heard a multitude of very logical inferences. That Rustan was an utter scoundrel he had never doubted since he had known him, and that his domestic life was perhaps not to his taste, Omobono guessed since he had seen the red-haired negress who was his wife. Nothing could be more natural than that the Bokharian, having discovered the beautiful, half-starved creature whom Omobono had first seen through the window, should plot to get her into his power for his own ends. Having reached this conclusion, the mild little clerk suddenly felt the blood of a hero beating in his veins and longed to take Karaboghazji by the throat and shake him till he was senseless, never doubting but that the cause of justice would miraculously give him the strength needed for the enterprise. He submitted to be hurried away, indeed, because the moment was evidently not propitious for a feat of knight-errantry; but as he walked he struck his cornel stick viciously into the pasty mud and shut his mouth tight under his well-trimmed grey beard. 'And now,' said Rustan, drawing something like a breath of relief as they emerged into the open space before the church, 'pray tell me what urgent business brings you so far to find me, and tell me, too, how you came to know where I was.' Here Omobono suddenly realised that in his deductions he had made some great mistake; for if Rustan had been in the beggars' quarter for such a purpose as the Venetian suspected, how was it possible that he should have left any sort of directions with his wife and the sacristan for finding him, in case he should be wanted on some urgent business? Omobono, always charitable, at once concluded that he had been led away into judging the man unjustly. 'Messer Carlo Zeno, the Venetian merchant, is very anxious to see you this very evening,' he said. 'From his manner, I suspect that the business will not bear any delay and that it may be profitable to you.' Rustan smiled, bent his head and walked quickly, but said nothing for several moments. 'Does Messer Zeno need money?' he asked presently. 'If so, let us stop at my house and I will see what little sum I can dispose of.' Mild as Omobono was, an angry, contemptuous answer rose to his lips, but he checked it in time. 'My master never borrows,' he answered, with immense dignity. 'I can only tell you that so far as I know he wishes to see you in regard to some commission with which a friend in Venice has charged him.' Rustan smiled more pleasantly than ever, and walked still faster. 'We will go directly to Messer Zeno's house, then,' he said. 'This is a most fortunate day for buying and selling, and perhaps I have precisely what he wants. We shall see, we shall see!' Omobono's thin little legs had hard work to keep up with the Bokharian's untiring stride, and though Rustan made a remark now and then, the clerk could hardly answer him for lack of breath. The sun had set and it was almost dark when they reached Zeno's house, and the secretary knocked at the door of his master's private room. CHAPTER III When it was quite dark the old woman came back with something hidden under her tattered shawl, and Zoë drew the rotten shutters that barely hung by the hinges and fastened them inside with bits of rain-bleached cord that were knotted through holes in the wood. She also shut the door and put up a wooden bar across it. While she was doing this she could hear Anastasia, the crazy paralytic who lived farther down the lane, singing a sort of mad litany of hunger to herself in the dark. It was the thin nasal voice of a starving lunatic, rising sharply and then dying away in a tuneless wail:-- Holy Mother, send us a little food, for we are hungry! Kyrie eleeison! Eleeison! Blessed Michael Archangel, gives us meat, for we starve! Eleeison! O blessed Charalambos, for the love of Heaven, a kid roasted on the coals and good bread with it! Eleeison, eleeison! We are hungry! Holy Sergius and Bacchus, Martyrs, have mercy upon us and send us a savoury meal of pottage! Eleeison! Pottage with oil and pepper! Eleeison, eleeison! Holy Peter and Paul and Zacharius, send your angels with fish, and with meat, and with sweet cooked herbs! Eleeison, let us eat and be filled, and sleep! Eleeison! Spread us your heavenly tables, and let us drink of the good water from the heavenly spring! Oh, we are hungry! We are starving! Eleeison! Eleeison! Eleeison! The miserable, crazy voice rose to a piercing scream, that made Zoë shudder; and then there came a little low, faint wailing, as the mad woman collapsed in her chair, dreaming perhaps that her prayer was about to be answered. Zoë had shut the door, and there was now a little light in the ruined room; for Nectaria, the old beggar woman, had been crouching in a corner over an earthen pan in which a few live coals were buried under ashes, and she had blown upon them till they glowed and had kindled a splinter of dry wood to a flame, and with this she had lit the small wick of an earthen lamp which held mingled oil and sheep's fat. But she placed the light on the stone floor so shaded that not a single ray could fall towards the door or the cracked shutters, lest some late returning beggar should see a glimmer from outside and guess that there was something to get by breaking in and stealing; for they were only three women, one dying, one very old, and the third Zoë herself, and two young children, and some of the beggars were strong men who had only lost one eye, or perhaps one hand, which had been chopped off for stealing. When the light was burning Zoë could see that the sick woman was awake, and she poured out some milk from a small jug which Nectaria had brought, and warmed it over the coals in a cracked cup, and held it to the tired lips, propping up the pillow with her other hand. And the sick one drank, and tried to smile. Meanwhile Nectaria spread out the rest of the supplies she had brought on a clean board; there was a small black loaf and three little fishes fried in oil, such as could be bought where food is cooked at the corners of the streets for the very poor. The two children gazed at this delicious meal with hungry eyes. They were boys, not more than seven and eight years old, and their rags were tied to them, to cover them, with all sorts of bits of string and strips of torn linen. But they were quite quiet, and did not try to take their share till Zoë came to the board and broke the black loaf into four equal portions with her white fingers. There was a piece for each of the boys, and a piece for Nectaria, and the girl kept a piece for herself; but she would not take a fish, as there were only three. 'This is all I could buy for the money,' said Nectaria. 'The milk is very dear now.' 'Why do you give it to me?' asked the sick woman, in a sweet and faint voice. 'You are only feeding the dead, and the living need the food.' 'Mother!' cried Zoë reproachfully, 'if you love us, do not talk of leaving us! The Bokharian has promised to bring a physician to see you, and to give us money for what you need. He will come in the morning, early in the morning, and you shall be cured, and live! Is it not as I say, Nectaria?' The old woman nodded her head in answer as she munched her black bread, but would say nothing, and would not look up. There was silence for a while. 'And what have you promised the Bokharian?' asked the mother at last, fixing her sad eyes on Zoë's face. 'Did ever one of his people give one of us anything without return?' 'I have promised nothing,' Zoë answered, meeting her mother's gaze quietly. Yet there was a shade of effort in her tone. 'Nothing yet,' said the sick woman. 'I understand. But it will come--it will come too soon!' She turned away her face on the pillow and the last words were hardly audible. The little boys did not hear them, and would not have understood; but old Nectaria heard and made signs to Zoë. The signs meant that by and by, when the sick woman should be dozing, Nectaria had something to tell; and Zoë nodded. There was silence again till all had finished eating and had drunk in turn from the earthen jar of water. Then they sat still and silent for a little while, and though the windows and the door were shut they could hear the mad woman singing again:-- Eleeison! Spread heavenly tables! Eleeison! We are starving! Eleeison! Eleeison! Eleeison! The sick woman breathed softly and regularly. The little boys grew sleepy and nodded, and huddled against each other as they sat. Then old Nectaria took the light and led them, half asleep, to a sort of bunk of boards and dry straw, in a small inner room, and put them to bed, covering them as well as she could; and they were soon asleep. She came back, shading the light carefully with her hand; and presently, when the sick woman seemed to be sleeping also, Nectaria and Zoë crept softly to the other end of the room and talked in whispers. 'She is better to-night,' said the girl. Nectaria shook her head doubtfully. 'How can any one get well here, without medicine, without food, without fire?' she asked. 'Yes--she is better--a little. It will only take her longer to die.' 'She shall not die,' said Zoë. 'The Bokharian has promised money and help.' 'For nothing? he will give nothing,' Nectaria answered sadly. 'He talked long with me this afternoon, out in the street. I implored him to give us a little help now, till the danger is passed, because if you leave her she will die.' 'Did you try to make him believe that if he would help us now you would betray me to him in a few days?' 'Yes, but he laughed at me--softly and wisely as Bokharians laugh. He asked me if one should feed wolves with flesh before baiting the pit-fall that is to catch them. He says plainly that until you can make up your mind, we shall have only the three pennies he gives us every day, and if your mother dies, so much the worse; and if the children die, so much the worse; and if I die, so much the worse; for he says you are the strongest of us and will outlive us all.' 'It is true!' Zoë clasped her hands against the wall and pressed her forehead against them, closing her eyes. 'It is true,' she repeated, in the same whisper, 'I am so strong!' Old Nectaria stood beside her and laid one wrinkled cheek to the cold wall, so that her face was near Zoë's, and they could still talk. 'If I refuse,' said the girl, quivering a little in her distress, 'I shall see you all die before my eyes, one by one!' 'Yet, if you leave your mother now----' the old woman began. 'She has lived through much more than losing me,' answered Zoë. 'My father's long imprisonment, his awful death!' she shuddered now, from head to foot. Nectaria laid a withered hand sympathetically on her trembling shoulder, but Zoë mastered herself after a moment's silence and turned her face to her companion. 'You must make her think that I shall come back,' she whispered. 'There is no other way--unless I give my soul, too. That would kill her indeed--she could not live through that!' 'And to think that my old bones are worth nothing!' sighed the poor old woman; she took the rags of Zoë's tattered sleeve and pressed them to her lips. But Zoë bent down, for she was the taller by a head, and she tenderly kissed the wrinkled face. 'Hush!' she whispered softly. 'You will wake her if you cry. I must do it, Ria, to save you all from death, since I can. If I wait longer, I shall grow thinner, and though I am so strong I may fall ill. Then I shall be worth nothing to the Bokharian.' 'But it is slavery, child! Do you not understand that it is slavery? That he will take you and sell you in the market, as he would sell an Arab mare, to the highest bidder?' [Illustration: She tenderly kissed the wrinkled face.] Zoë leaned sideways against the wall, and the faint light that shone upwards from the earthen lamp on the floor, fell upon her lovely upturned face, and on the outlines of her graceful body, ill-concealed by her thin rags. 'Is it true that I am still beautiful?' she asked after a pause. 'Yes,' answered the old woman, looking at her, 'it is true. You were not a pretty child, you were sallow, and your nose----' Zoë interrupted her. 'Do you think that many girls as beautiful as I are offered in the slave market?' 'Not in my time,' answered the old woman. 'When I was in the market I never saw one that could compare with you.' She had been sold herself, when she was thirteen. 'Of course,' she added, 'the handsome ones were kept apart from us and were better fed before they were sold, but we waited on them--we whom no one would buy except to make us work--and so we saw them every day.' 'He says he will give a hundred Venetian ducats for me, does he not?' 'Yes; and you are worth three hundred anywhere,' answered the old slave, and the tears came to her eyes, though she tried to squeeze them back with her crooked fingers. The sick woman called to the two in a weak voice. Zoë was at her side instantly, and Nectaria shuffled as fast as she could to the pan of coals and crouched down to blow upon the embers in order to warm some milk. 'I am cold,' complained the sufferer, 'so cold!' Zoë found one of her hands and began to chafe it gently between her own. 'It is like ice,' she said. The girl was ill-clothed enough, as it was, and the early spring night was chilly; but she slipped off her ragged outer garment, the long-skirted coat of the Greeks, and spread it over the other wretched coverings of the bed, tucking it in round her mother's neck. 'But you, child?' protested the sick woman feebly. 'I am too hot, mother,' answered Zoë, whose teeth were chattering. Nectaria brought the warm milk, and Zoë lifted the pillow as she had done before, and held the cup to the eager lips till the liquid was all gone. 'It is of no use,' sighed her mother. 'I shall die. I shall not live till morning.' She had been a very great lady of Constantinople, the Kyría Agatha, wife of the Protosparthos Michael Rhangabé, whom the Emperor Andronicus had put to death with frightful tortures more than a year ago, because he had been faithful to the Emperor Johannes. Until her husband had been imprisoned, she had spent her life in a marble palace by the Golden Horn, or in a beautiful villa on the Bosphorus. She had lived delicately and had loved her existence, and even after all her husband's goods had been confiscated as well as all her own, she had lived in plenty for many months with her children, borrowing here and there of her friends and relatives. But they had forsaken her at last; not but that some of them were generous and would have supported her for years, if it had been only a matter of money, but it had become a question of life and death after Rhangabé had been executed, and none of them would risk being blinded, or maimed, or perhaps strangled for the sake of helping her. Then she had fallen into abject poverty; her slaves had all been taken from her with the rest of the property and sold again in the market, but old Nectaria had hidden herself and so had escaped; and she, who knew the city, had brought Kyría Agatha and her three children to the beggars' quarter as a last refuge, when no one would take them in. The old slave had toiled for them, and begged for them, and would have stolen for them if she had not been profoundly convinced that stealing was not only a crime punishable at the very least by the loss of the right hand, but that it was also a much greater sin because it proved that the thief did not believe in the goodness of Providence. For Providence, said Nectaria, was always right, and so long as men did right, men and Providence must necessarily agree; in other words, all would end well, either on earth or in heaven. But to steal, or kill by treachery, or otherwise to injure one's neighbour for one's own advantage, was to interfere with the ways of Providence, and people who did such things would in the end find themselves in a place diametrically opposite to that heaven in which Providence resided. Of its kind, Nectaria's reasoning was sound, and whether truly philosophical or not, it was undeniably moral. Zoë was not Kyría Agatha's own daughter. No children had been born to the Protosparthos and his wife for several years after their marriage, and at last, in despair, they had adopted a little baby girl, the child of a young Venetian couple who had both died of the cholera that periodically visited Constantinople. Kyría Agatha and Rhangabé brought her up as their own daughter, and again years passed by; then, at last, two boys were born to them within eighteen months. Michael Rhangabé's affection for the adopted girl never suffered the slightest change. Kyría Agatha loved her own children better, as any mother would, and as any children would have a right to expect when they were old enough to reason. She had not been unkind to Zoë, still less had she conceived a dislike for her; but she had grown indifferent to her and had looked forward with pleasure to the time when the girl should marry and leave the house. Then the great catastrophe had come, and loss of fortune, and at last beggary and actual starvation; and though Zoë's devotion had grown deeper and more unselfish with every trial, the elder woman's anxiety now, in her last dire extremity, was for her boys first, then for herself, and for Zoë last of all. The girl knew the truth about her birth, for Rhangabé himself had not thought it right that she should be deceived, but she had not the least recollection of her own parents; the Protosparthos and his wife had been her real father and mother and had been kind, and it was her nature to be grateful and devoted. She saw that the Kyría loved the boys best, but she was already too womanly not to feel that human nature must have its way where the ties of flesh and blood are concerned; and besides, if her adoptive mother had been cruel and cold, instead of only indifferent where she had once been loving, the girl would still have given her life for her, for dead Rhangabé's sake. While he had lived, she had almost worshipped him; in his last agonies he had sent a message to his wife and children, and to her, which by some happy miracle had been delivered; and now that he was dead she was ready to die for those who had been his; more than that, she was willing to be sold into slavery for them. She stood by the bedside only half covered, and she tried to think of something more that she might do, while she gazed on the pale face that was turned up to hers. 'Are you warmer, now?' she asked tenderly. 'Yes--a little. Thank you, child.' Kyría Agatha closed her eyes again, but Zoë still watched her. The conviction grew in the girl that the real danger was over, and that the delicately nurtured woman only needed care and warmth and food. That was all, but that was the unattainable, since there was nothing left that could be sold; nothing but Zoë's rare and lovely self. A hundred golden ducats were a fortune. In old Nectaria's hands such a sum would buy real comfort for more than a year, and in that time no one could tell what might happen. A turn of fortune might bring the Emperor John back to the throne. He had been a weak ruler, but neither cruel nor ungrateful, and surely he would provide for the widow of the Commander of his Guards who had perished in torment for being faithful to him. Then Zoë's freedom might be bought again, and she would go into a convent and live a good life to the end, in expiation of such evil as might be thrust upon her as a bought slave. This she could do, and this she must do, for there was no other way to save Agatha's life, and the lives of the little boys. 'A little more milk,' said the sick woman, opening her eyes again. Nectaria crouched over the embers, and warmed what was left of the milk. Zoë, watching her movements, saw that it was the last; but Kyría Agatha was surely better, and would ask for more during the night, and there would be none to give her; none, perhaps, until nearly noon to-morrow. Nectaria took the pan of coals away to replenish it, going out to the back of the ruined house in order to light the charcoal in the open air. The sick woman closed her eyes again, being momentarily satisfied and warm. Zoë sank upon her knees beside the bed, forgetting that she was cold and half-starved, as the tide of her thoughts rose in a wave of despair. The fitful night breeze wafted the words of the mad woman's crooning along the lane, 'Eleeison! Eleeison!' And Zoë unconsciously answered, as she would have answered in church, 'Kyrie eleeison!' 'Blessed Michael, Archangel, give us meat, we starve!' came the wild song, now high and distinct. 'Kyrie eleeison!' answered Zoë on her knees. Then she sprang to her feet like a startled animal. Some one had knocked at the door. With one hand she gathered her thin rags across her bosom, the other unconsciously went to the sick woman's shoulder, as if at once to reassure her and to bid her be silent. Again the knocking came, discreet still, but a little louder than before. Nectaria was still away and busy with the pan of coals, and the sick woman heard nothing, for she was sound asleep at last. Zoë saw this, and drew her bare feet out of her patched slippers before she ran lightly to the door. 'Who knocks?' she asked in a very low tone, clasping her tattered garment to her body. The Bokharian's smooth voice answered her in oily accents. 'I am Rustan,' he said. 'I am suddenly obliged to go on a journey, and I start at dawn.' Zoë held her breath, for she felt that the last chance of saving her mother was slipping away. 'Do you hear me?' asked Rustan, outside. 'Yes.' 'Will you make up your mind? I will give half as much again as I promised.' The girl's face had been pale; it turned white now, for the great moment had come very suddenly. She made an effort to swallow, in order to speak distinctly, and she glanced towards the bed. Kyría Agatha was in a deep sleep. 'Have your brought the money with you?' Zoë asked, almost panting. 'Yes.' The hand that grasped the rags to keep them together pressed desperately against her heart. While Rustan could have counted ten, there was silence. Twice again she looked towards the bed and then, with infinite precaution, she slipped out the wooden bar that kept the door closed. Once more she drew her rags over her, for they had fallen back when she used both her hands. She opened the door a little, and saw Rustan muffled in a cloak, his eager face and black beard thrust forward in anticipation of entering. But she stopped him, and held out one hand. 'My mother has fallen into a deep sleep,' she said. 'Give me the money and I will go with you.' Without hesitation Rustan placed in her outstretched hand a small bag made of coarse sail-cloth, and closely tied with hemp twine. 'How much is it?' she whispered. 'One hundred and fifty gold ducats,' answered the Bokharian under his breath, for he knew that if he did not wake the sleeping woman there would be less trouble. At that moment Nectaria came back from within, with the pan of coals. Zoë caught her eye and held out the heavy little bag. The woman stared, looked at Kyría Agatha's sleeping face, set down the pan upon the floor, and came forward. 'He has brought the money, a hundred and fifty ducats,' Zoë whispered, forcing the bag into Nectaria's trembling hands. 'It is the only way. Good-bye--quick--shut the door before she wakes--tell her I am asleep in the straw--God bless you----' 'Eleeison! Eleeison!' came the wail of the mad woman on the wind. Before Nectaria could answer Zoë had pulled the door till it shut behind her, and was outside, barefooted on the hardening mud, and scarcely covered. She said nothing now, and Rustan was silent too, but he had taken one of her wrists and held it firmly without hurting it. The fleet young creature might make a dash for freedom yet, foolish as that would be, since he could easily force his way into the ruined house and take back his money if she escaped him. But he had nearly lost a young slave once before, and he would risk nothing, so he kept his strong hand tightly clasped round the slender wrist, though Zoë walked beside him quietly in the deep gloom, thinking only of covering herself from his gaze, though indeed he could scarcely see the outline of her figure. They went on quickly. For the last time, as Rustan led her round a sharp turn, she heard the wild cry of the poor mad creature she had listened to so often by day and in the dead of night. Then she was in another street and could hear it no more. She was not allowed time to think of her condition yet. A few steps farther and Rustan stopped short, still holding her fast by the wrist, and she saw that they had come upon a group of men who were waiting for them. One suddenly held up a lantern which had been covered, and now shed a yellow light through thin leaves of horn, and Zoë saw that he was a big Ethiopian, as black as ebony. She drew her tatters still more closely over her with her free hand and turned away from the light, as well as Rustan's unrelaxing hold would allow. A moment later some one she could not see threw a wide warm cloak over her shoulders from behind her, and she caught it gladly and drew the folds to her breast. 'Get into the litter,' said Rustan, sharply but not loudly. There was nothing soft or oily in his tone now. He had bought her and she was a part of his property. Four men had lifted a covered palanquin and held it up with the small open door just in front of her. She turned, sat upon the edge, and bent her head to slip into the conveyance backwards, as Eastern women learn to do very easily. Rustan held her wrist till she was ready to draw in her feet, and as he let her go at last she disappeared within. He instantly closed the sliding panel and fastened it with a bronze pin. There were half-a-dozen round holes in each door to let in air, not quite big enough to allow the passage of an ordinary woman's hand. Zoë sank back in the close darkness and found herself leaning against yielding pillows covered with soft leather. The palanquin began to move steadily forwards, hardly swaying from side to side, and not rising or falling at all, as the porters walked on with a smooth, shuffling gait, each timing his step a fraction of a second later than that of the man next before him; lest, by all keeping step together, they should set their burden swinging, which is intolerable to the person carried. Four men carried the litter, a fifth, armed with an iron-shod staff, went before with the lantern, and Rustan followed after. There was nothing in the appearance of the party to excite surprise or curiosity in a city where every well-to-do person who went out in the evening was carried in a palanquin, and accompanied by at least two trusty servants. For that matter, too, Rustan's business was perfectly legitimate, and it concerned no one that he should have a newly bought beauty carried in a closed litter from a distant quarter of the city to his home. It was true that he had no receipt for his money, acknowledging that it was the stipulated price paid for a full-grown white maid between eighteen and nineteen years old, with brown eyes, brown hair, twenty-eight teeth, all sound, and a pale complexion; who weighed about two Attic talents and five minæ, and measured just six palms, standing on her bare feet. In strict law, he should have had such a document, signed by the father or mother or owner of the slave, but he knew that he was quite safe without it. Like all Bokharians, he was a profound judge of human nature, and he was quite sure that having once submitted to her fate Zoë would not cheat him by claiming the freedom she had sacrificed; moreover, he knew that the adopted daughter of Michael Rhangabé who had died on the stake in the Hippodrome as an enemy of the reigning Emperor, would have but a small chance of obtaining justice, even if she attempted to prove that she had been carried off by force. Rustan Karaboghazji felt that his position was unassailable as he followed the litter that carried his latest bargain through the winding streets of Constantinople towards the narrow lane, one side of which was formed by that mysterious wall which had but one door in it. He was well pleased with his day's business, for he was quite sure that he had netted a handsome profit. Under his cloak he held a string of beads in one hand, and as he walked he made the calculation of his probable gains, pushing the beads along the string with his thumb. He had paid one hundred and fifty gold ducats for Zoë; but fifty of them were at least a quarter of their value under weight, so that the actual value of the gold was one hundred and thirty-seven and a half ducats. He was quite sure that Zeno would approve the purchase on a careful inspection, and that he would be willing to give three hundred and fifty sequins, though the girl was a little over age, as slaves' ages were counted. She should have been between sixteen and seventeen, yet she was exceptionally pretty, and spoke three languages--Greek, Latin, and Italian. If Zeno paid the price, the clear profit would be two hundred and twelve and a half ducats. The beads worked quickly in Rustan's fingers, and his hard grey eyes gleamed in the dark. Two hundred and twelve and a half on one hundred and thirty-seven and a half, by the new Venetian method of so much in the hundred, which was a very convenient way of reckoning profits, meant one hundred and fifty-four and a half per centum. The beads worked furiously, as the merchant's imagination carried him off into a mercantile paradise where he could make a hundred and fifty per cent on his capital every day of the year except Sundays and high feast days. This calculation was complicated, even for a Bokharian brain, but it was a delightful one to follow out, and Rustan's blood coursed pleasantly through his veins as he walked behind his purchase. He had lost no time after he had left the beggars' quarter late in the afternoon, by no means sure that Zoë meant to surrender at all, and very doubtful as to her doing so within the next three days. Yet he had boldly promised that Carlo Zeno should see her on approval on the following morning. After all, he risked nothing but a first failure, for if he did not succeed in buying Zoë in time he could nevertheless show the Venetian merchant some very pretty wares. Zeno was not a man to waste words with such a creature as a slave-dealer, and the interview had not lasted ten minutes. It had taken longer than that to weigh the ducats in order to be sure that a certain number of them were under weight. The only thing Rustan now wished was that he had put many more light ones into the bag, since it had not even been opened; for he had naturally expected to be obliged to count them out before old Nectaria, who had a born slave's intelligence about money. Inside the litter the girl lay on her cushions in the dark, wondering with a sort of horror at what she had done. She had thought of it indeed, through many days and sleepless nights, and she did not regret it; she would not have gone back, now that she had left plenty and comfort where there had been nothing but ruin and hunger; but she thought of what was before her and prayed that she might close her eyes and die before the morning came, or better still, before the litter stopped and Rustan drew back the sliding door. In an age and a land of slavery, the slave's fate was familiar to her. She knew that there were public markets and private markets, and that her beauty, which meant her value, would save her from the former; but to the daughter of freeborn parents the difference between the one and the other was not so great as to be a consolation. She would be well lodged, well covered, and well fed, it was true, and she need not fear cruel treatment; but customers would come, perhaps to-morrow, and she was to be shown to them like a valuable horse; they would judge her points and discuss her and the sum that Rustan would ask; and if they thought the price too high they would go away and others would come, and others, till a bargain was struck at last. After that, she could only think of death as the end. She knew that many handsome girls were secretly sold to Sultan Amurad and the Turkish chiefs over in Asia Minor or in Adrianople, and it was more than likely that she herself would fare no better, for the conquerors were lavish with their gold, whereas the Greeks were either half-ruined nobles or sordid merchants who counted every penny. The men carried the litter smoothly and steadily, never slackening and never hastening their pace. The time seemed endless. Now and then she heard voices and many steps, with the clatter of horses' hoofs, which told her that she was in one of the more frequented streets, but most of the time she heard scarcely anything but the shuffling walk of the men in their heavy sandals and the firmer tread of Rustan's well-shod feet where the road was hard. She guessed that he was avoiding the great thoroughfares, probably because the people who thronged them even at that hour would have hindered the progress of the palanquin. Zoë knew as well as the dealer that there was nothing as yet in the transaction which need be hidden; possibly, if she were afterwards sold to the Turks, she would be taken across the Bosphorus secretly, for though there was no law against selling Christian girls to unbelievers the people of the city looked upon the traffic with something like horror, and an angry crowd might rescue the merchandise from the dealer's hands. Zoë did not expect that rare good fortune, for Rustan was not a man to run any risks in his business. As she lay among her cushions, dreading the end of the journey, but gradually wearying of the future, her thoughts went back to the first cause of all her misfortunes, of Michael Rhangabé's awful death, of all the suffering that had followed them. One man alone had wrought that evil and much more, one man, the reigning Emperor Andronicus. Zoë was not revengeful, not cruel, very far from bloodthirsty; but when she thought of him she felt that she would kill him if she could, and that it would only be justice. Suddenly a ray of something like hope flashed through her darkness. Nectaria had told her how beautiful she was; perhaps, being so much more valuable than most of the slaves that went to the market, she might be destined for the Emperor himself. It was just possible. She set her teeth and clenched her little hands in the dark. If that should be her fate, the usurper's days were numbered. She would free her country from its tyrant and be revenged for Rhangabé's murder and for all the rest at one quick stroke, though she might be condemned to die within the hour. That was indeed something to hope for. The litter stopped and she heard keys thrust into locks, and felt that the porters turned short to the left to enter a door. Her journey through the city was at an end. CHAPTER IV Rustan stayed behind to shut the outer door, and Zoë felt that she was carried as much as twenty paces forward and upwards before the bearers stood still at last. Then the sliding panel opened, letting in light, and a strange voice told her to get out. She turned inside the palanquin and thrust out her naked feet. As she put them down, expecting to touch bare earth or a stone pavement, they rested on a rough carpet; at the same instant she sat on the edge of the litter bending her head to get out of it and looking round curiously. Rustan was not there, and in his place she saw a huge young negress with flaming red hair and rolling eyes, who roughly ordered the porters to take away the palanquin and at the same time caught Zoë's wrist, whether to help her to stand upright or to secure her person it was hard to say. The girl was much more fearless than Omobono, the Venetian secretary, and she was not frightened by the gigantic woman's appearance, as he had been. In getting out she had managed to gather the cloak round her, so that the men should not see her in her rags; for there was light in the large room where she found herself, and now that she could look about her she saw a dozen or more girls and young women standing in small groups a few paces behind the negress. They surveyed the new arrival curiously, but with different expressions. Some seemed to pity her, others smiled as if to welcome her; one good-looking girl had noticed that she had no shoes, and her lip curled contemptuously at such a proof of abject poverty, for she herself was the daughter of a prosperous Caucasian horse-thief who had brought her up in plenty and ease in order that she might fetch a high price. The bearers had now left the room and there were no men present. Zoë vaguely wished that they would come back, even the black bearers of the litter, for she felt a very womanly woman's distrust of her own sex, where so many who were strangers, and possibly not well-disposed to her, were gathered together to look at her. The negress surveyed her critically by the light of the large bronze lamp that stood on a stand beside her, and showed her sharp teeth in an approving smile that made her thick upper lip roll upwards on itself. She took the cloak from Zoë's shoulders and scrutinised her half-clad figure, till she blushed red. Then the daughter of the Caucasian horse-thief laughed rudely, and some of the others tittered while the negress gently pinched Zoë's bare arms and neck to judge of their firmness and of her general condition. Apparently the examination was tolerably satisfactory, for the woman nodded and grinned again. As yet not a word had been spoken since she had dismissed the bearers, but now she turned towards the other girls and called two of them. 'Lucilla and Yulia, you shall wait on her,' she said in Greek. 'The rest of you, to bed! It is already three hours of the night.' Two dark-skinned girls in coarse blue linen clothes came forward with alacrity, evidently much pleased at being chosen for the office. They were ordinary slave-girls of fourteen or fifteen years, who would be sold for house-work, and had no pretensions to good looks. Their tightly plaited black hair was compressed into the smallest possible space at the backs of their heads, and they wore small red caps, coarsely embroidered, but neat and fresh. Their faces were much alike though they were not sisters. Zoë saw instantly that they were children of slaves of nondescript breed with a small admixture of African blood, of the race that swarmed in Constantinople. 'Go to bed, I say!' cried the negress to the others, seeing that some of them were inclined to linger. 'Be off!' They saw her hand move towards the whip in her girdle and they ran for the door, crowding on each other like sheep at the gate when the dogs drive them into the fold. Having produced this desired result, the negress turned to Zoë again, and her manner suddenly became caressing and almost fawning. 'You are mistress here, Kokóna,' she said. 'These two girls shall wait on you while our humble roof is honoured by your presence. If you have the slightest cause of discontent with their service, only tell me, and they shall be taught their duty.' Again her hand went significantly to her girdle, and she rolled her terrible eyes. The two maids shrank visibly at a threat of which they had already felt the meaning. Zoë was not so dull as to misunderstand the negress's manner. The favourite slave of some high and mighty personage, of the Emperor himself, perhaps, would have power, if only for a time, and the wife of Karaboghazji lost no time in making a bid for such patronage. 'I am a slave, as these girls are,' Zoë answered, laying a kindly hand on the shoulder of the one nearest to her. Both maids gazed up into her face with a sort of wondering gratitude. 'I am here to be sold, just as you are,' Zoë added, returning their look. The negress laughed loudly, for she was evidently in a good humour. 'Also the noble peacock and the sparrow are both birds, though the feathers are different!' she cried. 'But the Kokóna is hungry and cold,' she continued, in a tone of servile anxiety for Zoë's comfort. 'Will she not perhaps take a bath and change her clothes before supper? Everything is ready.' 'I have supped,' answered Zoë, who had eaten a piece of black bread, 'but as for clothes, I should like to put on the cloak again, for I feel cold.' She had hardly spoken before the two maids had wrapped her in the warm mantle. 'Thank you,' she said to them, and she turned to the negress. 'You seem to be mistress here. May I go to bed now?' 'Yes, I am the mistress,' answered the African woman, all her teeth gleaming in the lamplight. 'I am Rustan Karaboghazji's wife, Kokóna.' Zoë could not repress a movement of surprise. The negress laughed. 'Rustan is a wise man,' she said with a tremendous grin. 'It is cheaper to marry one woman with a strong hand than to keep a couple of smooth-faced thieves for gaolers, as most of the people in our business do. If the Kokóna will please to follow me I will show her the room I have prepared.' Zoë bent her head and followed, for the negress was already leading the way. They entered a room of fair dimensions which had evidently been got ready with considerable care, for it contained everything that a woman accustomed to comfort could require. A good Persian carpet covered the floor; a narrow, but handsomely chiselled bronze bedstead was furnished with two mattresses, spotless linen, and a warm coverlet of silk and wool; on a marble table stood a little mirror of polished metal, before which lay two ivory combs and a number of ivory and silver hairpins and other little things needful for a woman's toilet; there stood also a gilt lamp with three beaks, which shed a pleasant light upon everything; a low curtained door at the end of the room gave access to the small bathroom, where another little lamp was burning. The negress drew the curtain back and showed the place to Zoë, who had certainly not expected to spend her first night of slavery in such luxurious quarters. Rustan's wife opened a large wardrobe, too, and showed her a plentiful supply of fine linen and clothes, neatly folded and lying on shelves. In the middle of the room a round table was prepared with three dishes, one containing some small cold birds, another a salad, and a third mixed sweetmeats, and there was also wine and water in small silver flagons, and one silver drinking-cup. It was long indeed since Zoë had seen anything like this, and her eyes smarted suddenly when she realised that the slave-dealer's prison reminded her faintly of her old home. For it was a prison after all; she guessed that beyond the shutters of the closed window there were stout iron bars, and as she had entered she had seen a big key in the lock on the outside of the door. 'It is late,' said the negress, when she had shown everything. 'The girls will sleep on the floor, for the carpet is good and there are two blankets for them, there in the corner. Good-night, Kokóna. By what name shall I call the Kokóna? The Kokóna will excuse her servant's ignorance!' Zoë hesitated a moment. She had not thought of changing her name, but now she felt all at once that as a slave she must cut off all connection with her former life. What if the personage who was to buy her should turn out to have known her mother, and even herself, and should recognise her by her name? A resemblance of face could be explained away, but her face and her name together would certainly betray her. It was not so much that she feared the open shame of being recognised as Michael Rhangabé's adopted daughter; she had grown used to the meaning of the word slavery during those last desperate days. But people would not fail to say that Kyría Agatha had sold her adopted daughter into slavery in order to save herself and her own children from misery. Zoë could prevent that, and she only hesitated long enough to choose the name by which she was to be known. 'Call me Arethusa,' she said. Her thoughts had flown back to the deed of justice she meant to do if she should ever be near the Emperor Andronicus; and if Areté had come later to mean virtue, it had meant courage first, manly, unflinching courage; and as Zoë was only a Greek girl and not a German professor, she naturally supposed that Areté was the very word from which Arethusa was derived. 'It is a fine name,' observed her gaoler obsequiously. 'And what shall I call you?' asked Zoë. 'I am Kyría Karaboghazji.' The negress tossed her flaming head and smiled with satisfied vanity. 'My husband calls me Zoë,' she added, with an amazing smirk, and some affectation of shyness. 'Zoë!' The high-born girl repeated her own name in genuine astonishment. [Illustration: 'Yes,' replied the negress. 'Rustan is very affectionate. He says that I am his Zoë, his "life," because he would surely die of starvation without me!'] 'Yes,' replied the negress. 'Rustan is very affectionate. He says that I am his Zoë, his "life," because he would surely die of starvation without me!' 'I see,' said the Greek girl. She would not have believed that before lying down in her prison that night she would be forced to make an effort to suppress a laugh. 'And now it is growing late,' said the negress again, 'and Rustan is wondering why I do not come to comb his beard and smooth his pillow, and prepare his drink for the night. Good-night, Kokóna Arethusa! May Holy Charalambos send you dreams of delight!' 'And to you also, Kyría Karaboghazji,' Zoë answered, though the form of the woman's salutation was new to her. The negress went out, still much pleased with herself, and swaying her massive hips as she walked. She shut the door, and Zoë heard the big key move in the lock. The two slave-girls had stood at a respectful distance throughout the conversation, their hands crossed submissively and their eyes bent on the floor, for Rustan's wife had already taught them manners in order to improve their price. But she was no sooner gone than they looked at each other, and their lips began to twitch nervously; in another moment they were both seized with a convulsion of silent laughter. They shook from head to foot, they held their sides, they bent and swayed, and twisted their hands together, but not a sound escaped their lips. Beyond this, they could not control their mirth, and while they laughed they looked anxiously at Zoë. She herself could not help smiling when she thought of the negress's enormous self-satisfaction, but presently she shook her head at the girls and laid her finger on her lips. Their amusement subsided quickly, for though she seemed kind, they knew what they had to expect if one word from her should expose them to the negress's displeasure. Zoë was very tired, now that the great sacrifice was made, and she let the slave-girls help her as much as they would. They even made her eat something and drink a little water. Now and then, when they looked up at her, she patted them on the shoulder and smiled faintly, but her thoughts were far away in the ruined house in the beggars' quarter. When the girls had helped her in the bath and had dried her feet that had been stained with mud and blue with the cold, they chafed them with their hands and kissed them. 'They are like two little white mice!' said Yulia, laughing softly. 'No, they are like young doves!' said Lucilla. And they each slipped one of her feet into a slipper of deerskin; and then they clothed her for the night, in fine dry linen and a small green silk jacket. They were skilful with their hands though they were still so young, and she let them do what they thought she needed, and lay down at last, to be covered and tucked in as warmly and comfortably as when Kyría Agatha used to put her to bed, before the boys had been born and had taken her place. In a few minutes the little maids had put out the lamp, leaving only the small light in the bath; then they noiselessly devoured all the sweetmeats left on the table, after which they curled themselves upon the carpet under their blankets and were asleep in a moment, like young animals. For a few moments Zoë still tried to think; tired though she was, she hated herself for being able to rest in such comfort while Kyría Agatha was perhaps awake under her pile of rags, and Nectaria was hugging the straw to keep a little warmth in her old body. But then she thought of the morrow, and of all that Nectaria would do with the gold for the sick woman and the little boys, and in this soothing reflexion she was borne softly away out of this world of slavery, through the ivory gates to the infinite gardens of dreamland. She was waked by the sunshine streaming into the room through the window, and as she opened her eyes she saw the iron bars, and remembered where she was. She sighed, for she had been happy in her sleep. The girls were sitting cross-legged on the carpet, side by side, at a little distance, silently awaiting her pleasure. She turned her head on the pillow and lay on one side, looking at their small dark faces; but she did not speak to them yet. They were very much alike, she thought, commonplace girls, differing so little from thousands of other young slaves in the great city, that it would be hard for her to recognise them, if she should not see them for a few days. They would be disposed of soon, of course, for there was always a demand for healthy young house slaves who had been properly taught. She envied them their homely features, their coarse black hair, their angular figures, their sallow cheeks, and their cunning little black eyes. They could only be sold as workers. All her life Zoë had heard the price of house-slaves discussed, even more freely than the price of clothes or jewels, and she knew that neither of the girls was worth more than five-and-twenty ducats. She wondered what Rustan meant to ask for herself; he would certainly not demand less than double the sum he had paid. While she was reflecting on these questions, and wishing all the time that she might have news of Kyría Agatha during the day, the big key moved in the Persian lock. The two girls sprang to their feet and stood in a respectful attitude, Zoë turned her eyes as she heard the sound, the door opened, and the negress's flaming head appeared in the sunlight. She saw that Zoë was awake, and she entered the room, shutting the door behind her. She greeted her valuable prisoner in the half-familiar, half-obsequious tone she had adopted from the first, asking her how she had slept, and whether the little maids had done their duty. The latter question was accompanied by a fierce look at the two girls. Zoë answered that they were most skilful and well behaved. The negress looked at the remains of the supper on the table. 'So the Kokóna Arethusa is fond of sweetmeats,' she observed. 'She eats only a mouthful from one bird and all the sugar-plums!' Zoë was on the point of uttering an exclamation of surprised denial, when she met the terrified eyes of the two slave-girls and checked herself with a smile. 'I am very fond of sweets,' she answered carelessly. The black woman seemed satisfied and turned from the table. She opened the wardrobe next, and selected what she considered the handsomest of the dresses that lay folded on the shelves within. Zoë watched her curiously. She unfolded garments of apple-green silk, and one of peach-coloured Persian velvet embroidered with silver, with a sash of plaited green silk and gold threads. The two girls took the things from her and laid them out. 'Surely,' Zoë said, 'you do not wish me to wear those clothes!' 'They are very good clothes,' observed the negress coaxingly. 'Look at this velvet coat! There are even seed-pearls in the embroidery, and it is quite new and fresh. My husband bought it from the Blachernæ palace, when Handsome John was imprisoned. It belonged to one of the favourite ladies. The slaves who ran away stole all the things and sold them.' 'I would rather wear something plainer,' said Zoë; but at the mention of the captive Emperor her brown eyes had grown very dark and hard, and her voice almost trembled. 'Kokóna Arethusa must look her best this morning,' objected Rustan's wife. 'She will receive a visit.' Zoë started a little, and instinctively drew the bed-clothes up to her chin. 'Already!' she exclaimed in a low tone. The negress grinned from ear to ear. 'The Kokóna will perhaps not spend another night under our humble roof,' she said. 'I do not know anything certainly as yet, because the customer has not seen you,' she continued more familiarly, 'but Rustan has consulted the astrologer, who says that these are fortunate days for our buying and our selling. So I do not doubt but that the customer will be pleased with your looks, Kokóna, for indeed, though I do not wish to flatter you, we have not entertained such a beauty in our modest home for a long time!' All this was, of course, intended to put Zoë in a good humour, in order that she might produce an agreeable impression on the expected purchaser. Rustan had once missed a very good bargain because the merchandise had burst into tears at the wrong moment. 'What sort of person is the customer?' asked the girl. 'Do you know who he is?' She asked the question quietly, but she held her breath as she waited for the reply. 'I forget his name,' answered the negress after a moment's thought. 'He is a foreigner, a rich young merchant who lives in a fine house by the Golden Horn.' 'A Christian, then?' Zoë asked, controlling her voice. The other pretended to be shocked. 'Does the Kokóna Arethusa believe that Rustan would be so wicked as to sell a Christian maid to the Turks? Rustan is a very devout man, Kokóna! He would not do such an irreligious thing!' Zoë remembered the allowance of three copper pennies daily, and how he had driven her to sell herself for Kyría Agatha's sake; but she did not care to impugn Rustan's piety. 'So the astrologer says that I shall be sold to-day,' she observed with an affectation of carelessness, though her heart was sinking, and she felt a little sick. 'Is he a great astrologer?' 'He is Rustan's friend, Gorlias Pietrogliant,' answered the negress, who was now turning over certain fine linen in the wardrobe. 'Yes, he is a good star-gazer, especially for merchants. He is very poor, but many have grown rich through consulting him.' She found what she wanted, and held up a beautifully embroidered garment of linen as fine as a web. 'And if you are so fortunate as to go to the rich merchant's house,' she added, 'you may win favour of him by telling him to consult Gorlias about his affairs whenever he is in doubt.' 'Gorlias.' Zoë repeated the name, for she had never heard it. 'Gorlias Pietrogliant, who lives near the church of Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus. Every one in that quarter knows him.' 'I shall remember,' Zoë said. She understood at last why Rustan had been in the habit of going often to that church, where she had been kneeling in a dark corner when he had first seen her. Thence he had followed her to the ruined house. But she did not know that it was part of his regular business to frequent the churches of the poorest quarters, because it was there that starving girls were most often to be seen, praying to heaven for the bread that so rarely came from that direction. Many a good bargain had Rustan made by following a poor little ragged figure with a pretty face to a den of misery, and he was a perfect expert in doling out alms until his victim yielded or was forced to yield by her parents, for a handful of gold; nor has his method of conducting the business greatly changed, even in our own day, excepting that the slave-dealers themselves are mostly women now. Having selected all the garments necessary for Zoë's costume, the negress bade one of the slave-girls take away the remains of the supper and bring what was already prepared for the morning. The maid obeyed, and was not gone two minutes. She brought in a bowl of cherries, with white bread and butter and fresh water, all on a polished tray of chiselled brass. 'Fruit is better for the health than sweetmeats at this time of day,' observed the mistress of the house. 'By and by, at dinner, the Kokóna shall have all she wishes.' The little slaves looked at Zoë furtively and she smiled. 'Yes,' she said, 'fruit is much better in the morning.' Rustan's wife came and stood beside the bed and scrutinised Zoë's face. 'I think,' she said critically, 'that as the customer is a foreigner, it will be better not to paint your eyes. The natural shadows under them are not bad.' 'I never painted my face in my life!' cried the girl, rather indignantly. 'And the Kokóna is quite right!' answered the negress, anxious to keep her in a good humour. 'Besides,' she continued, fawning again, 'I am here only to do your bidding and to wait on you to-day. Will it please you to bathe now? I shall wait on you myself.' 'The little maids are very quick and clever,' objected Zoë, who hardly looked upon the strapping African as a woman. 'No doubt, Kokóna, but this is a part of our business, and I do it better than they.' 'I would rather let them help me, if I must be helped,' said Zoë. 'But, indeed, I am quite used to dressing myself.' 'And pray,' argued the negress, grinning and growing familiar again, 'how could Rustan give his customers a written guarantee, unless I assured him, that there is no cause for complaint, no blemish, no scar, no hidden deformity, no ugly birthmark?' Zoë turned her face away on the pillow. 'I had not thought of that,' she answered. 'Heaven forbid that I should myself,' returned the woman, relapsing into her obsequious manner again, 'if it were not to save the young Kokóna from any trouble or annoyance with our customer! If it will but please her to call herself my mistress and me her slave, she shall not be disappointed. If I am rough or clumsy she shall box my ears whenever she pleases, and I shall not complain!' The little maids devoutly wished that Zoë would avail herself of their tyrant's extraordinary offer, but they dared not smile. She still turned her face away and was silent. 'See!' coaxed the African. 'I take off my coat!' She suited the action to the word and divested herself of her outer garment, which was the long coat and skirt in one, worn only by free women. 'I cover my head, in the Kokóna's presence!' She quickly flattened her wild red hair under a kerchief which she knotted at the back of her neck. 'I roll up my sleeves! Am I anything but a slave, a bath-woman? Why will the beautiful Kokóna not let me wait on her?' Zoë turned her eyes and saw the change, and suddenly her objection vanished; for Rustan's wife looked precisely like the black slave-women who used to attend the ladies in the Roman bath in Rhangabé's palace. The association of ideas was so strong that the young girl could not help smiling faintly. 'As you please,' she said, raising herself upon one hand and preparing to get up. CHAPTER V Carlo Zeno's interview with Rustan had been short and business-like, as has been said. It was indeed not at all likely that a man of the Venetian's temper and tastes would talk with a Bokharian slave-dealer a moment longer than necessary. Rustan, on hearing what was wanted, declared that he had the very thing; in fact, by a wonderful coincidence, it was the very thing in the acme of perfection, a dream, a vision, fully worth four hundred ducats, and certainly not to be sold for three hundred; it had fine natural hair that had never been dyed; its teeth were twenty-eight in number, the wisdom teeth not having yet appeared, and Rustan would wager that Messer Carlo could not find a single pearl in all Constantinople to match one of those eight-and-twenty; its ankles were so finely turned that a woman could span them with her thumb and forefinger. Rustan felt safe in saying this, for his black wife's huge hand could have spanned Zoë's throat; also it had a most beautiful and slender waist, which, as Messer Carlo remarked, was certainly a point of beauty. Moreover, Rustan would deliver a signed and sealed certificate with it. For Zeno was conscientious, and held Marco Pesaro's letter in his hand while he questioned the Bokharian in regard to the various points in succession, lest he should forget any one of them. He did not in the least believe a word that Rustan said, of course. The East was never the land of simple, trusting faith between man and man. He would even have wagered that Rustan had nothing in his prison of the sort Pesaro wanted, and at the moment of the interview he would have been quite right. But he was tolerably sure that if he insisted on having the best, the best to be had would be forthcoming in a week at the utmost. Satisfied with this prospect, he dismissed Rustan and thought no more about the matter, except to wish that Marco Pesaro had not troubled him with such an absurd commission. A fine young gentleman of later times would probably have thought few quests more amusing than this, and would have dreamt that night of the beauties he intended to see before at last deciding upon the purchase. Doubtless, there were young Venetians even then in Constantinople who would have envied Zeno the amusing task of criticising pretty faces, hands, and ankles. But he was not of the same temper or disposition as those gay youths. He could not remember that any woman had ever made a very profound impression on him, even in his boyish days. When he was in Greece, it had been suggested to him that he might as well marry, like other young men, and he had allowed himself to be betrothed to a sleepy Greek heiress who had conceived an indolent but tenacious admiration for his fighting qualities; but it had pleased the fates that she should die before the wedding-day of a complication of the spleen superinduced by a surfeit of rose-leaf jam and honey-cakes. He was rather ashamed to own to himself that her translation to a better world had been a distinct relief to his feelings, for he had soon discovered that he did not love her, though he had been too kind to tell her so, and too honourable to think of breaking his promise of marriage. He did not despise women either; indeed, his conduct in the affair of his betrothal had proved that. Now and then he had paused in his restless career to think of a more peaceful life, and in the pictures that rose before his imagination there was generally a woman. Unhappily, he had never seen any one like her in real life, and when he was tired of dreaming he shrugged his shoulders at such impossibilities and went back to his adventurous existence without a sigh. Yet it might be thought that although he did not fall in love he might now and then spend careless hours with the free and frail, for he made no profession or show of austerity, and whatever he really might be, he did not aspire to be called a saint. He had been a wild student in Padua once, and had drunk deep and played high, until he had suddenly grown tired of stupid dissipation and had left the dice to play the more exciting game of life and death as a soldier of fortune under a condottiere, during five long wandering years. But at the core of his nature there was something ascetic which his comrades could never understand, and at which they laughed when he was not within hearing; for he was an evil man to quarrel with, as they had found out. He never killed his man in a duel if he could help it, but he had a way of leaving his mark for life on his adversary's face which few cared to risk. And now it was long indeed since his lips had touched a woman's, for his character had taken its final manly shape, and the only folly to which he still yielded now and then was that of risking his life recklessly whenever he fancied that a cause was worth it; but this he did not look upon as madness, still less as weakness, and there was no one to argue the question with him. His honest brown eyes softened sometimes, almost like a woman's, but only for pity or kindness, never for word or look of love. He rose in the bright spring morning just before the sun was up, and went down the steps at the water's edge below his house and swam far out in clear water that was still icy cold. Then he dressed himself completely as strong and healthy men do, who hate to feel that they are not ready to face anything from the beginning of the day. But while he was dressing he was not thinking of the errand that was to take him to Rustan's house an hour before noon. Indeed, he had quite forgotten it, till he saw Omobono folding Pesaro's letter in his neat way in order to file it for reference. As the secretary knew what it contained, and had been actively employed in the matter to which it referred, he had thought there could be no great sin of curiosity in reading it carefully while his master was at his toilet. It would have been wrong, he thought, to find out what was in it before Zeno himself had broken the seal, but since it was open, it was evidently better that the secretary should understand precisely what was wanted of his employer, for such knowledge could only increase his own usefulness. For the rest, he vaguely hoped that Zeno would take him into close confidence and ask his opinion of any merchandise he thought of buying; for Omobono had a high opinion of his own taste in beauty, and had wished to pass for a lively spark in his young days. But Zeno evidently considered himself qualified to decide the matter without help, for when it lacked an hour of noon he set his secretary at work on a fair copy of a letter he had been preparing, ordered his horse and running footman, and went upon his errand without any other attendant or companion. Omobono looked out of the window and watched him as he mounted, innocently envying him his youth and strength. The greatest fighting man of his century moved as such men generally do, without haste and without effort, never wasting a movement and never making an awkward one, never taking a fine attitude for the sake of effect, as the young men of Raphael's pictures so often seem to be doing, but always and everywhere unconsciously graceful, self-possessed, and ready for anything. He rode a half-bred brown Arab mare, for he was not a heavy man, and he preferred a serviceable mount at all times to the showy and ill-tempered white Barbary, or the rather delicate thoroughbred of the desert, which were favourites with the rich Greeks of Constantinople. He was quietly dressed, too; and his bare-legged runner, who cleared the way for him when the streets were crowded, wore a plain brown tunic and cap, and did not yell at the poorer people and slaves or strike them in passing as the footmen of great personages always did. Zeno had picked him out of at least a hundred for his endurance and his long wind. So they went quietly and quickly along, the man and his master, following very nearly the way which Omobono had taken on the previous afternoon, till they came to the long wall crested with sharp bits of rusty iron and broken crockery, and stopped before the only door that broke its blank length. Zeno looked at the defence critically, and wondered just how great an inducement would make him take the trouble of getting over it, at the risk of cutting his hands and tearing his clothes. Before any one answered his footman's knock, he had decided that it would be an easy matter to bring his well-broken horse close to the wall, to stand on the saddle, draw himself up and throw a heavy cloak over the spiky iron and the sharp-edged shards with one hand while hanging by the other. The rest would be easy enough. It was always his instinct to make such calculations when he entered or passed by any place that was meant to be defended. This time the door was opened by Rustan Karaboghazji in person, and he bowed to the ground as Zeno got off his horse and stood beside him. Still bending low he made way and with a wide gesture invited his visitor to enter. But Zeno had no intention of wasting time by going in till he was assured that there was something ready for his inspection in the way of merchandise. In answer to his question Rustan turned up his face sideways and smiled cunningly as he gradually straightened himself. 'Your Magnificence shall see!' he answered. 'Where is the letter? Every point is perfect, as I promised.' 'Were you really speaking the truth?' laughed Zeno. 'I expected to come at least three times before seeing anything!' Rustan assumed an expression of gentle reproach. 'If your Splendour had dealt with Barlaam, the Syrian merchant, or with Abraham of Smyrna, the Jewish caravan-broker,' he said, 'it would have been as your Greatness deigns to suggest. Moreover, your Highness would not have been satisfied after all, and would have come at last to the house of your servant Rustan Karaboghazji, surnamed the Truth-speaker and the Just, and also the Keeper of Promises, by those who know him. It must have been so, since there is but one treasure in all the Empire such as your Mightiness asks for, and it is in this house.' Zeno laughed carelessly, and entered. 'Your Unspeakableness is amused,' said Rustan, fastening the outer door carefully with both keys. 'But if it is not as I say, I entreat your High Mightiness to kick his humble servant from this door to the Seven Towers and back again, passing by the Chora, Blachernæ, and the Church of the Blessed Pantokrator on the way.' 'That would take a long time,' observed Zeno. 'Open the door and let me see the girl.' 'Your Grandeur shall see, indeed!' answered Rustan, smiling confidently as he led the way. 'Rustan the Truth-speaker,' he continued, as if to himself while walking, 'Karaboghazji the faithful Keeper of Promises!' He gently caressed his beautiful black beard as he went on. He took Zeno through the small part of the house which he reserved for his own use, far from the larger rooms where he kept his stock of slaves. In an inner apartment they met the negress, resplendent in scarlet velvet and a heavy gold chain, her red hair combed straight out from her head. When Zeno appeared, she at once assumed what she considered a modest but engaging attitude, crossing her great hands upon her splendid coat, and looking down with a marvellous attempt at a simper. Rustan stood still and for a moment Zeno thought that the dealer had ventured to jest with him, by showing him the terrific negress in her finery as the incomparable treasure of which he had spoken. But Rustan's words explained everything. 'My Life,' he said, speaking to his wife in a caressing tone, 'is the girl ready to be seen?' 'As my lord commanded me,' replied the negress, keeping her hands folded and bending a little. 'This lady,' said Rustan to Zeno, 'is my wife, and my right hand.' He turned to her. 'Sweet Dove,' he said, 'pray lead his Magnificence to the slave's room. I will wait here.' Zeno seemed surprised at this arrangement. 'My wife' explained Rustan, 'understands the creatures better than I. My business is buying and selling; it is her part to keep the merchandise in good condition, and to show it to the customers who honour us.' He smiled pleasantly as he said this, and remained standing while Zeno followed the negress out of the room. As he walked behind her he could not help noting her strong square shoulders, and the swing of her powerful hips, and her firm tread, and he conceived the idea that she would be a match for any ordinary man in a tussle. He was certainly not thinking of the slave-girl he was about to inspect. Another door opened, and he was in a room flooded with sunshine and sweet with spring flowers; he stopped, and unconsciously drew one sharp breath of surprise. Zoë had been sitting in a big chair in the sun, and had half risen as the door opened, her hand resting on one of the arms of the seat. Her eyes met Zeno's, and for a moment no one moved. If Rustan had been present he would have raised the price of the merchandise to five hundred ducats at least; the black woman only grinned, well pleased with the appearance of the girl whom she had herself dressed to receive the customer's visit of inspection. Zoë's hand tightened a little on the arm of the chair and she sank quietly into her seat again as she turned her eyes from Zeno's face, forgetting that she had promised herself to stand erect and cold as a slave should when she is being exhibited. If the Venetian still doubted that by some mysterious chance of fate the girl he had come to buy at the slave-dealer's was as well born as himself, her movement as she sat down dispelled his lingering uncertainty. He had entered the room carelessly, still wearing his cap. As Zoë resumed her seat, he took it from his head, bowing instinctively, as he would have done on meeting a woman of his own class. A faint colour rose in the girl's cheeks, as she looked at him again. Rustan's wife laughed silently, standing a little behind him. Zoë spoke first. 'Pray, sir,' she said, 'be covered.' 'His High Mightiness uncovers his head for coolness,' said the negress. Zeno gave her a sharp glance and then turned to Zoë. 'It is not possible that you are a slave,' he said, coming a little nearer and looking down into her face. But she would not meet his eyes. 'It is the truth, sir,' she said. 'I am a slave and any one may buy me and take me away.' 'Then you have been carried off by force,' Zeno answered with conviction, 'in war, perhaps, or in some raid of enemies on enemies. Tell me who you are and how it happened, and by the body of blessed Saint Mark, I will give you back free to your own people!' Zoë looked at him in silent surprise. The negress answered him at once, for she did not like the turn affairs were taking, and though she had never heard of Carlo Zeno, she judged from his looks that he was able to make good his promise. 'Your Splendour does not really believe that my husband would risk the punishment of a robber for carrying off a free woman!' she cried. 'I am a slave,' Zoë said quietly. 'Only a slave and nothing else. There is no more than that to tell.' She drew one hand across her brow and eyes as if to shut out something or to drive it away. Zeno came nearer and stood alone beside her. 'Tell me your story,' he said in a lower tone. 'Do not be afraid! no one shall hurt you.' 'There is no more to tell,' she repeated, shaking her head. 'But you are kind, and I thank you very much.' She raised her clear brown eyes gratefully to his for a moment. There was sadness in them, but he saw that she had not been weeping; and like a man, he argued that if she were very unhappy she would, of course, shed copious tears the live-long day, like the captive maidens in the tales of chivalry. He looked at the beautiful young hand, now lying on the arm of the chair, and for the first time in his life he felt embarrassed. The negress, who was not at all used to such methods in the buying and selling of humanity, now came forward and began to call attention to the fine quality of her goods. 'Very fine natural hair,' she observed. 'Your Gorgeousness will see at once that it has never been dyed.' She took one of Zoë's plaits in her hand, and the girl shrank a little at the touch. 'Let her alone!' Zeno said sharply. 'I am not blind.' 'It is her business to show me,' Zoë answered for her, in a tone of submission. [Illustration: 'Tell me your story,' he said in a lower tone. 'Do not be afraid! no one shall hurt you.'] 'It shall not be her business much longer,' replied Zeno, almost to himself. He suddenly turned away from her, went to the open window, and looked out, laying one hand on the iron bars. It was not often that he hesitated, but he found himself faced by a very unexpected difficulty. He was executing a commission for a friend, and if he bought a slave with his friend's money, he should feel bound in honour to send her to her new master at the first opportunity. On the other hand, though it was perfectly clear from the girl's behaviour that she expected no better fate, he was intimately convinced that in some way a great wrong was being done, and he had never yet passed a wrong by without trying to right it with his purse or his sword. Clearly, he was still at liberty to buy Zoë for himself, and take her to his home; yet he shrank from such a solution of the problem, as if it were the hardest of all. What should he do with a young and lovely girl in his house, where there were no women, where no woman ever set foot? She would need female attendants, and of course he could buy them for her, or hire them; but he thought with strong distaste of such an establishment as all this would force upon him. Besides, he could not keep the girl for ever, merely because he suspected that she was born a lady and was the victim of some great injustice. She denied that she was. What if she should persist in her denial after he had bought her to set her free? What if she really had no family, no home, no one to whom she could go, or wished to go? He would not turn her out, then; he would not sell her again, and he should not want her. Moreover, he knew well enough that it was not his nature to go on leading the peaceful life of a merchant much longer, even if the threatening times would permit it. He had always been as free as air. As he was now living, if it should please him to leave Constantinople, he could do so in twenty-four hours, leaving his business, though at a loss, to another merchant--for he had prospered. But it would be otherwise if this girl were in the house, under his protection, and it never occurred to him, after he had looked into her eyes, that she could live under his roof except in order that he might protect her--protect her from imaginary enemies, right imaginary wrongs she had never suffered, and altogether make of her what she protested that she was not. It was absurd to think of such a thing, and having come to this conclusion in a shorter time than it has taken me to describe his thoughts, he turned abruptly with the intention of buying her for Marco Pesaro's account. Unfortunately, when he saw her face he could not do it. 'I will send a palanquin for you in an hour,' he said hurriedly, and he made for the door in evident anxiety to get away without exchanging another word with Zoë. The negress followed him quickly into the next room, very much surprised at his way of doing business. 'If it please your Glory,' she began, overtaking him with difficulty, but he would not listen, and hurried on. 'I will settle with Rustan,' he said. But in the room where he had left her, Zoë was leaning back in her chair alone, gazing at the sunlit window. At that very moment, so far as she knew, the gold was being counted out that was the price of her young life. In an hour she would be taken away in a closed litter, as she had been brought last night, she would be carried into another house, the slide would slip back, and she would be told to get down. The voice would be a man's. Who was he? What was his name? What was she to be to him? He was a Venetian, she guessed by his dress, and she felt that his blood was gentle, like her own. But that was all, though she was already his property. It was dreadful; or, at least, it should be dreadful to think of! She felt that she ought to long for death now, a thousand times more earnestly than last night. But she did not. For she was a most womanly woman already, though not nineteen, and there are few women of that intensely feminine temper who cannot judge at a first meeting with a man whether they can gain power over him or not. Moreover, this strength is greatest with men who are most profoundly masculine, because it is not the influence of one character over another, but the deeper, stronger, more mysterious power of sex over sex. CHAPTER VI Little Omobono's thin legs carried him up and down the stairs of Zeno's house at an astonishing pace during the next hour; for Carlo gave fifty orders, every one of which he insisted should be executed at once. It was not a small thing to instal a woman luxuriously in a house in which no woman had set foot since Carlo had lived there, and to do this within sixty minutes. It is true that the rich young merchant had great store of thick carpets and fine stuffs, and all sorts of silver vessels, and weapons from Damascus, and carved ivory chessmen from India; but though some of these things quickly furnished the upper rooms which Zeno set apart for the valuable slave's use while she remained under his roof, yet scimitars, chessmen, and heathen idols of jade were poor substitutes for all the things a woman might be expected to need at a moment's notice, from hairpins and hand-mirrors to fine linen pillow-cases, sweetmeats, and a lap-dog. Zeno's ideas of a woman's requirements were a little vague, but he determined that Zoë should want nothing, and he charged Omobono with the minute execution of his smallest commands. He himself lived simply and almost rudely. He slept on a small hard divan with a little hard cushion under his head, and a cloak to cover him in cold weather. He hated hot water, scented soap, and all the soft luxuries of the Roman bath. There was no mirror in his room, no elaborate toilet service of gold and silver, such as fine young gentlemen used even then. He liked a good dinner when he was hungry, good wine when he was thirsty, and a wide easy-chair when he had worked all day; but it never had cost him a moment's discomfort to exchange such a home as he now lived in for the camp or the sea. Women were different beings, however, so he made all allowances for them, and went to extreme lengths in estimating their necessities, as Omobono found to his cost. Yet with all his preoccupation for details, Zeno forgot that Zoë must have a woman to wait on her at once, and when he realised the omission, almost at the last minute, the future conqueror of the Genoese, the terror of the Mediterranean, the victorious general of the Paduan campaign, the hero of thirty pitched battles and a score of sea-fights, felt his heart sink with something like fear. What would have happened if he had not remembered just in time that Marco Pesaro's slave must have a maid? She should have two, or three, or as many as she needed. 'Omobono,' he said, as the little secretary came up the stairs for the twentieth time, 'go out quickly and buy two maids. They must be young, healthy, clean, clever, and silent. Lose no time!' 'Two maids?' The secretary's jaw dropped. 'Two maids?' he repeated almost stupidly. 'Yes. Is there anything wonderful in that? Did you expect to wait on the lady yourself?' 'The lady?' Omobono opened his little eyes very wide. 'I mean,' answered Zeno, correcting himself, 'the--the young person who is going to be lodged here. Lose no time, I say! Go as fast as you can!' Omobono turned and went, not having the least idea where to go. Before he had reached the outer door, Zeno called after him down the stairs. 'Stop!' cried the merchant. 'It is too late. You must go and get the lady--the young person. Take two palanquins instead of one, and tell Rustan to let her choose her own slaves. You can put the two into one litter and bring them all together.' 'But the price, sir?' enquired Omobono, who was a man of business. 'Rustan will ask what he pleases if I take him such a message!' 'Tell him that if he is not reasonable he shall do no more business with Venetians,' answered Zeno, from the head of the marble stairs. Omobono nodded obediently and followed his instructions. So it came to pass that before long he found himself within Rustan's outer wall with two palanquins and eight bearers, besides a couple of Zeno's trusty men-servants, well armed, for he carried a large sum of money in gold. The Bokharian and the secretary went into an inner room to count and weigh the ducats, but before this began Omobono delivered his message in full. [Illustration: 'Forty ducats!' cried Omobono, casting up his eyes, and preparing to bargain for at least half an hour.] 'I have the very thing,' said Karaboghazji. 'There are two girls who have waited on her and with whom she is much pleased. As for asking too high a price, forty ducats for the two is nothing. They are a gift, at that.' 'Forty ducats!' cried Omobono, casting up his eyes, and preparing to bargain for at least half an hour. 'If it is dear,' said Rustan, his face becoming like stone, 'may my tongue never speak the truth again!' Considering attentively the consequences of such an awful fate Omobono did not think that the Bokharian risked any great inconvenience if the imprecation should take effect. 'It is far from me,' said the secretary, 'to suggest that your words are not literally true, according to your own light. But you must be aware that the price of maid-servants has fallen much since yesterday, owing to the arrival of a shipload of them from Tanais.' Rustan shook his head and maintained his stony expression. 'They are worthless,' he said. 'Do you suppose I should not have bought the best of them? There has been a plague of smallpox in their country, and they are all pitted. They are as oranges, blighted by hail.' As Omobono had invented the ship and its cargo, he found it hard to refute Rustan's argument, which was quite as good as his own. 'May my fingers be turned round in their sockets and close on the back of my hand, if I have asked one ducat too much,' said the Bokharian with stolid calm. Omobono hesitated, for a new idea had struck him. Before he could answer, a door opened and Rustan's wife, who had put off her finery, ushered in Zoë, closely veiled and wrapped in the cloak she had worn on the previous night. It was, in fact, necessary that she should be delivered up in return for the gold, and the negress had supposed that the counting was almost over. 'My turtle dove,' said Rustan in dulcet tones, 'fetch those two girls who have waited on Kokóna Arethusa. The Venetian merchant will buy them for her.' The negress grinned and went out. By this time Omobono had made up his mind what to say. 'My dear sir,' he began, in a conciliatory tone, consider that we are friends, and do not ask an exorbitant price. I beseech you to be obliging, by four toes and five toes.' Omobono wondered what would happen after he had pronounced the mysterious words. Rustan looked keenly at him and was silent for a moment. Neither of them noticed that Zoë made a quick movement as she stood by the table between them. The Bokharian rose suddenly and went to shut the door. 'Where?' he asked as he crossed the small room. Omobono's face fell at the unexpected and apparently irrelevant question. Instantly Zoë bent down and whispered three words in his ear. Before Rustan turned back to hear the clerk's answer, she was standing erect and motionless again, and he did not suspect that she had moved. 'Over the water,' answered Omobono, with perfect confidence. 'You may have the two for four-and-twenty ducats,' said Rustan. 'But you cannot expect me to take anything off the price of the Kokóna,' he added. 'I bargained with your master, and he agreed.' 'No, no! Certainly! And I thank you, sir.' 'I suppose,' said Rustan, 'that you would do as much for me.' 'Of course, of course,' answered Omobono. 'Shall we count the ducats?' When the operation was almost finished, the negress returned with the two slave-girls, whose commonplace features were wreathed in smiles, and they began to kiss the hem of Zoë's cloak. Omobono inspected them critically. 'Are you pleased with them, Kokóna?' he enquired of Zoë. 'My master is very anxious that you should be satisfied.' 'Indeed I am,' Zoë answered readily. 'They are very clever little maids.' The two were almost crying with delight, and only a meaning movement of the negress's hand to her girdle checked them. They were not out of her power yet. Omobono eyed them, and really thought them cheap at twelve ducats each, as indeed they were. He was paying four hundred for Zoë, but Rustan did not mean her to see the gold, and had covered it with one of his loose sleeves as she entered. He now begged his wife take the three slaves to the palanquins while he finished counting and weighing, and wrote out his receipt for the money. He called the negress his pet mouse, his little bird, and the down-quilted waistcoat of his heart, and but for her terrific appearance, and the weapon she carried in her girdle, Omobono would have laughed outright. Rustan wrote on a strip of parchment, in bad Greek:-- In the name of the Holy Trinity, Constantinople, the Saturday before Passion Sunday, the second year of Andronicus Augustus Cæsar, and the fourteenth of the Indiction, I have received from the Most Magnificent Carlo Zeno, a Venetian, the sum of four hundred and forty gold ducats of Venice, for the following merchandise:-- For one Greek maid slave, slave-born, between seventeen and eighteen years old, answering to the name of Arethusa, without blemish, scar, or birthmark, having natural brown hair, brown eyes, twenty-eight teeth all sound, weighing two Attic talents and five minæ more or less, and speaking Greek, Latin, and Italian Ducats 400 For two maid slaves, from Tanais, slave-born, of fourteen and fifteen, answering to the names of Lucilla and Yulia, sound, healthy, never having been tortured or branded, each having black hair, black eyes, and twenty-eight teeth, trained to wait on a lady, and speaking intelligible Greek, besides a barbarous dialect of their own, warranted docile, and not given to stealing; at 20 ducats each Ducats 40 ---------- In all Ducats 440 ========== RUSTAN KARABOGHAZJI, the son of Daddirján, _Merchant_. (_Witness_)--SEBASTIAN OMOBONO, of Venice, _Clerk_. Omobono observed that the receipt acknowledged forty ducats as the price of the two girls, instead of twenty-four. 'Rustan Karaboghazji, surnamed the Truth-speaker, does not sell slaves at twelve ducats,' answered the Bokharian with dignity. 'Moreover, your employer will see that he has paid forty, and you can justly keep the sixteen ducats for yourself.' 'That would not be honest,' protested Omobono, shaking his neat grey beard. Rustan smiled, in a pitying way. 'You Venetians do not really understand business,' he said, tightening the strings of the canvas bag into which he had swept the gold, and knotting them as he rose. A few minutes later Omobono was trudging along after the two palanquins, wondering much at certain things that had happened to him during the last twenty-four hours and less. For he was curious, as you know, and it irritated him to feel that something was going on in the world, all about him and near him, of which he could not even guess the nature, manifesting itself in such nonsensical phrases as 'four toes and five toes,' and 'over the water,' which nevertheless produced such truly astonishing results. Since the previous afternoon he had met four persons who knew those absurd words,--the negress, her Bokharian husband, the sacristan to Saints Sergius and Bacchus, and a Greek slave-girl, whom he was far from recognising as the beautiful creature he had seen yesterday in the ruined house in the beggars' quarter. She was so closely veiled to-day that he could not in the least guess what her face was like. Since she not only knew the first password, but had whispered the second to him, he wondered why she had not used her knowledge to get her freedom. It was incredible that the people who knew the words should not be banded together in some secret brotherhood; but if they were brethren, how could they sell one another into slavery? Omobono was so much interested in these problems that he did not see where he was till the leading palanquin entered Zeno's gate. Zeno himself was not to be seen. The servant at the door gave Omobono a slip of cotton paper on which the merchant had written an order. The secretary was to take his charges to what was now the women's apartment and leave them there. Zoë obeyed Omobono's directions in silence, still veiled, and the two maids tripped up the marble stairs after her, as happy as birds on a May morning, and taking in all they saw with wondering eyes; for they had never been in a fine house before. 'This is the Kokóna's apartment,' Omobono said, standing aside to let Zoë pass. 'If the Kokóna desires anything, she will please to send one of her maids to me. I am the master's secretary.' He had been surprised when Zeno spoke of her as a 'lady,' but somehow, since she had whispered in his ear at the slave-dealer's house, and since he had seen her movement and carriage when she walked upstairs, he instinctively treated her and spoke to her as if she were his superior. She nodded her thanks now, but said nothing, and he went away. She looked after him and listened, but no key was turned after the door was closed, and she heard only his retreating steps on the marble stairs. Then she turned to the window, which was open, and she threw aside her veil and looked out upon the Golden Horn. The two little maids at once began a minute examination of the rooms, which occupied more than half the upper story of the house, and were, if anything, too crowded with rich furniture, with divans, carved tables, hanging lamps, cushioned seats, and pillows of every size, shape, and colour. There were handsome wardrobes, too, full of the fine clothes Zoë was to wear. The girls touched everything and talked by signs, lest they should disturb Zoë's meditations. They told each other that the master of the house must be highly pleased with his slave, since he surrounded her with beautiful things; that these things were all new, which was a sign that there was no other woman in the house; and that they were very fortunate and happy to have been sold, after only a month of apprenticeship under the negress's merciless training. They also explained to each other that they were hungry, for it was past noon. The idea of running away had probably never occurred to either of them, even in Rustan's house. Where should they go? And besides, the fate of runaway slaves was before their eyes. Meanwhile Zeno sat in his balconied room alone. Omobono had delivered the receipt and had simply told him that sixteen ducats had been saved on the bargain, though Rustan did not wish it known. Thereupon Zeno gave the secretary a couple of ducats for himself, which Omobono saw no reason for not taking. Zeno was preoccupied and chose to be alone, so he dismissed his secretary with injunctions to rest after the labour of installing the new arrival, which had not been light, and he walked up and down his room in deep thought. He had acted on an impulse altogether against his own judgment, and now he was faced by the unpleasant necessity of justifying his conduct in his own eyes. One thing was quite clear; so long as he did not draw from the house of Cornèr the money which Marco Pesaro had sent to the banker for the commission, the merchandise was his property, since he had paid for it. But he must make up his mind whether he meant to call it his own, or not. If he decided to keep Arethusa, he must at once set about finding another slave for Marco Pesaro, or else write to say that he declined to execute the commission. In that case, Arethusa remained his. The reason why he had so suddenly determined to buy her was that he fancied she was a girl of good family whom some great misfortune had brought into her present distress. But she had calmly declared that she was a slave, and expected nothing better than to be sold. If this were true he had paid four hundred ducats for a foolish fancy. She was perhaps the child of some beautiful slave, and had been carefully educated by her mother's owner; and the latter, needing money perhaps, had sent her to the market; or perhaps he had died and his heirs were selling his property. All this was very unsatisfactory. If she was slave-born, Zeno's best course was to send Arethusa to Pesaro, as soon as the Venetian ship sailed, for he had not the least intention of wasting money in a futile attempt to free slaves whom the law regarded as born to their condition. Their position was a misfortune, no doubt, but they were used to it, and no one had then dreamed of man's inherent right of freedom, excepting one or two popes and fanatics who had been considered visionaries. To Zeno, who was a man of his own times, it seemed quite as absurd that every one should be born free, as it would seem to you that everybody should be born an English duke, a Tammany boss, a great opera tenor, or Crown Prince of the Empire. Moreover, in the case of a beauty, especially of one sold to live in Venice, there were palliations, as Zeno knew. Arethusa would live in luxury; she would also soon be the real dominant in Marco Pesaro's household, as favourite slaves very generally were in the palaces of those who owned them. They had not yet all the vast influence in Venice which they gained in the following century, but their power was already waxing balefully. Zeno did not hesitate long; he never did, and when he had made up his mind he sent for one of Arethusa's maids. 'What is your name, child?' he asked, scrutinising the girl's commonplace features and intelligent eyes. 'Yulia, Magnificence,' she answered. 'If it please you,' she added diffidently, as if half-expecting that he would choose to call her something else. 'Yulia,' repeated Zeno, fixing the name in his memory, 'and what do you call your mistress?' he asked abruptly. The girl was puzzled by the question. 'Her name is Arethusa,' she answered, after a moment's reflection. 'I know that. But when you speak to her, what do you call her? When she gives you an order, how do you answer her? You do not merely say, "Yes, Arethusa," or "No, Arethusa," do you? She would not be pleased.' Yulia smiled and shook her head. 'We call her Kokóna,' she answered. 'Is not that the Greek word for young lady, your Magnificence?' 'Yes,' said Zeno, 'that is the Greek word for young lady. But Arethusa is only a slave as you are. Why do you give her a title? What makes you think she is a lady?' 'She is a different kind of slave. She cost much gold. Besides, if we did not call her Kokóna she would perhaps pull our hair or scratch our faces. Who knows? We are only ignorant little maids, but so much the big negress at the slave-prison taught us.' 'She taught you manners, did she?' Zeno smiled at the idea. 'She made us cry very often, but it was the better for us,' answered the maid, with philosophy beyond her years. 'We have fetched a good price, and we have a good master, and we are together, all because we waited cleverly on the Kokóna one night and one morning.' 'One night?' asked Zeno, in surprise. 'She was only brought to the slave-prison yesterday evening, Magnificence.' 'At what time?' 'It was the third hour of darkness, for the black woman sent the others to bed as soon as she was brought.' Zeno thought over this information for a moment. 'Tell her,' said he, 'that I shall sup with her this evening. That is all.' Yulia, who had kept her hands respectfully before her, made a little obeisance, turned quickly, and ran away, leaving the master of the house to his meditations. She found Zoë still sitting by the window, and the dainty dishes which Lucilla had received on a chiselled bronze tray and had placed beside her were untasted. 'The master bids me say that he will sup with you to-night, Kokóna,' said Yulia. Zoë made a slight movement, but controlled herself, and said nothing, though the colour rose to her face, and she turned quite away from the maids lest they should see it. They stood still a long time, waiting her pleasure. 'Will it not please you to eat something?' asked Yulia timidly, after a time. 'You have eaten nothing since last night, and even then it was little.' 'I thought I ate all the sweetmeats,' answered Zoë, turning and smiling a little at the recollection of the girls' terror. The hours passed and nothing happened. Some time after dinner she saw from her upper window that Zeno came out of the house and went down the marble steps to a beautiful skiff that was waiting there. As he stepped in, she drew far back from the window lest he should look up and see that she had been watching him. She heard his voice as he gave an order to the two watermen; their oars fell with a gentle plash, and when she looked again they were pulling the boat away upstream, towards the palace of Blachernæ and the Sweet Waters. The maids, having eaten of the most delicious food they had ever tasted till they could eat no more, had curled themselves up together on a carpet not far from their mistress, and were fast asleep. The shadow of the house lengthened till it slanted out to the right beyond the marble steps upon the placid water, and the bright sunlight that fell on Pera and Galata began to turn golden; so, when gold has been melted to white heat in the crucible, it begins to cool, grows tawny, and is shot with streaks of red. As the day waned in a purple haze and the air grew colder, the two maids awoke together, rubbed their eyes, and instantly sprung to their feet. Zoë had not even noticed them, but just then the even plashing of oars was heard again, and she saw the skiff coming back, but without Zeno. She looked again to be sure that it was the same boat, and a ray of hope flashed in her thoughts like summer lightning. Perhaps he had changed his mind, and would not come--not to-night. The maids reminded her of his message, and she let them dress her again for the evening. They arranged her hair, and twined strings of pearls in it, which they had found in a sandal-wood box on the dressing-table. They took clothes from the wardrobes, fine linen, wrought with wonderful needlework, and pale silks, and velvet of faintest blue embroidered with silver threads; and when they had done their best they held two burnished metal mirrors before her and behind her, that she might admire herself. They had lighted many little lamps that were all prepared, for it was now dark out of doors, and they had spent two hours in arraying Zoë. And she smiled and patted their cheeks, and called them clever girls, for she was sure that Zeno had changed his mind. He would not come to her to-night. But even as she repeated the words to herself, he came softly through the warm lamplight and stood before her, and her heart stopped beating. For the first time since she had taken the final step, she felt the whole extent and meaning of what she had done. She was really a slave, and she was alone with her master. CHAPTER VII 'Are you afraid of me?' Zeno asked the question gently, for the colour had left her face; and she looked up at him with a frightened stare. He had once seen a like terror in the eyes of a startled doe, as if a clouded opal passed across its sight. Zoë did not answer, but she moved instinctively, drawing herself together, as it were, and turning one shoulder to him. He heard her breathing hard. It was a very new thing that he felt; for often, in fight, and often again, he had seen strong men turn pale before him, just when they felt that he was a master of the sword and was going to kill, but he had never seen a woman afraid of him in his life. In his narrow experience, they had always seemed glad that he should be near them, and should speak to them. Therefore, when he saw that Zoë was terrified, he did not know what to do or say, and he stupidly repeated his question, 'Are you afraid of me?' Zoë dug her little nails into the palms of her hands, and looked round the room, as if for help; but the two maids had disappeared as soon as the master had entered, for so they had been taught to do by their trainer. She was quite alone with the man who had paid for her. [Illustration: All sorts of confused thoughts crowded her brain, as Zeno sat down on a seat beside the divan.] All sorts of confused thoughts crowded her brain, as Zeno sat down on a seat beside the divan. She wondered what would happen if she told him her story in a few words, and appealed to his generosity. She guessed that he was kind; at least, sometimes. But perhaps he was a friend of the new Emperor, and it would amuse him to know that he had bought Michael Rhangabé's daughter. Or he might send for Rustan, and insist on revoking the bargain, and Rustan might take her back to the beggars' quarter, and force poor Kyría Agatha to give up the money. Zoë knew at once little and much of the world of Constantinople, but of one thing she was certain, there would be neither mercy nor kindness for any of her name while Andronicus reigned in Blachernæ. She was terrified by the presence of her master, but she was perfectly brave in her resolve; the sight of death itself before her eyes should not make her do anything whereby those for whom she had sold herself might suffer. Zeno sat still and looked at her. It seemed to him that she was far more beautiful than he had at first realised. As she leaned sideways against the big cushions, turning her face away and her shoulder towards him, there was something in the line of her cheek and of her neck where it joined the ear, and in the little downy ringlets at the roots of her hair that stirred his blood, against his will. Also, the devil came and whispered to his heart that she was his personal property, as much as his horse, his house and his stores of merchandise. The laws about slaves were uncertain enough in Italy, but there was no doubt of the law in Constantinople. The slave Arethusa, weighing so many talents and minæ, having so many sound teeth, and other good points, was the absolute property of Carlo Zeno. He might kill her, if he liked, in any way he chose, and the law would not call it murder. There would be one slave less, and he would have thrown away four hundred gold ducats; but that would be all. She seemed to him the most beautiful creature in the world, and the devil was not suggesting that he should kill her; not by any means. For a long time, the man and his slave were silent, and scarcely moved, and neither of them afterwards forgot those minutes. In their thoughts each was struggling with what seemed an impossibility, a something which could never be done. The high-born girl, for the sake of a mother who was not her mother, and of brothers who were not of her blood, was resolved to be to the end what she had made herself to save their lives, the obedient slave of a merchant who had paid gold for her. It was worse than death, but if she did not die of it, she must live through it, lest the good she had done should be undone again. The man who had the law's own right of life and death over her, and whose warm young blood her beauty stirred so profoundly, chose to resist and play that he was not the master after all. His lean face was calm enough in the quiet lamplight, as it would have been in raging battle; but within was that he would not care to feel again, nor perhaps to let others know that he had felt. At last, wondering at the stillness, half-believing and quite hoping that he was no longer in the room, Zoë turned her head. His eyes were on her, but there was something in them that she could not fear. 'Tell me who you are,' he said quietly. Of all questions she had least expected this one, which seemed so natural to him. She waited a moment before she spoke. 'Are you dissatisfied, sir?' she asked in a low voice. 'Has the Bokharian cheated you?' 'No! What a thought!' 'Then you know what I am, and I can tell you nothing more, my lord. Can a slave have a pedigree?' 'I do not believe that you were born a slave,' said Zeno, leaning forward a little and looking into her eyes. After a moment, her lids drooped under his gaze, but she would not speak. 'Have you nothing to say?' he asked, disappointed at her silence. Again the temptation seized her to tell him all, since he spoke so kindly; but still she thought of what might happen to Kyría Agatha. 'I am your bought slave,' she said, almost directly. 'I have nothing else to tell.' 'But you had a mother?' 'I never knew her.' 'Your father, then?' 'I never knew him.' Zeno was not always patient, even with women, and there was no reason why he should be forbearing with his own property. 'I do not believe you,' he said in a tone of annoyance, and he rose and began to pace the room. Now it chanced that Zoë had been able to answer his last two questions quite truthfully, for she had not the least recollection of her own father and mother, who had died of the plague when she was three months old. 'I will swear to you on all holy things that it is true,' she said, watching him. He made an impatient gesture. 'A slave cannot take an oath,' he answered roughly. Zoë lifted her beautiful head at once, and her eyes shone; but he did not see, for he had turned his back on her in his walk, and a moment later she resumed her former submissive attitude. Zeno stopped near the door and clapped his hands; the two maids appeared. 'Bring supper,' he said. As they went to obey he came back and sat down again beside the divan. There was just room to place a small table between him and Zoë. The girls came back and waited on them, but neither spoke. Zeno prepared a salad himself with ingredients brought ready for making it, and when it was dressed he helped Zoë to a little of it. She had watched him, for the Italian custom was new to her and she had never known how a salad was composed. Zeno poured Greek wine into her glass, a delicate white goblet from Murano, with faint blue lines round the stem. But she neither ate nor drank. 'Go,' said Zeno to the maids. 'I will call you.' The two slipped away noiselessly. Zeno had forgotten his displeasure, and he felt her presence again. 'You must eat and drink,' he said gently. 'If there is anything you like, tell me. You shall have it.' 'You are kind,' she answered, but she did not lift her hand. 'I have no appetite,' she added, after a little pause. I do not know why no man believes a woman when she says that she is not hungry. Zeno was annoyed, and by way of showing his displeasure he himself began to eat more than he wanted. Zoë looked on in silence while he finished another bird and all the salad he had made. She would not have been a woman if she had not seen that he felt a little shy, all at once, as the most fearless and energetic men may before a woman they do not understand. Then there was a change for the better in her own state; she breathed more freely, her heart beat more steadily, the weight that lay like lead on her chest, just below her throat, was lightened. When a woman sees that a man is shy with her, she is sure that sooner or later he will turn at her will; and though she is sometimes mistaken, the chances are that she is right. Zeno had never been shy before; but now, when he wished to speak, he could find nothing to say, and Zoë knew it, and would not help him. It was strange that as her fear subsided she thought him handsomer than at first sight, in the morning. When he had finished eating, he drank some wine, set down the glass, and looked at her with an expression that was meant to show something like anger; for he already regretted the time--distant five minutes--when she had been afraid of him, and he had been master of the situation. He drew his brows together, set his lips, and glared at her, but to his amazement she did not seem frightened. He had lost the thread, for the time, and she had found it. She answered his look with one of gentle surprise. 'Have you finished supper already?' she asked sweetly. A slight flush rose in his brown cheek, as he felt his shyness increase, but he kept his eyes steadily on her. 'You do not seem to be afraid of me any longer,' he said, by way of answer. 'Have I anything to fear from you?' she asked, in a trusting tone. She risked everything on the question, or thought she did. She won. His face changed and softened, for by appealing to his generosity she had put him at ease. 'No,' he answered. 'You never were in danger from me. Besides,' he added, with something like an effort, 'I have not made up my mind what to do with you.' Zoë sat up straight, resting one hand on the edge of the little table. 'The truth is,' he went on, 'I did not buy you for myself.' Zoë made a quick movement in her seat. Then her tender mouth hardened in a look of contempt. 'So you are only another slave-dealer!' she cried scornfully. But Zeno laughed at the mere idea, and was glad to laugh. It was a relief. 'No,' he said, 'I am not a slave-dealer. I am a Venetian merchant, I believe. I have been a soldier, and I came near being a prebendary!' 'A priest!' Zoë's face showed her disgust. 'No, for I never was in orders,' answered Zeno, growing more sure of himself as she grew more angry. 'But as for you, a friend of mine, a rich gentleman of Venice, has asked me as a favour to send him the most beautiful slave to be had in Constantinople for the large price he named. As a matter of fact----' But here he was interrupted, for Zoë turned from him and buried her face in the leathern cushion. Her body shook a little, and Zeno thought she was crying. She had grown almost used to him, and had begun to feel that she might have some power over him; and she was ashamed to own that he attracted her, though she meant to hate him. But the idea that he had only bought her like a piece of goods, to pass her on to an unknown man far away, was more than she could bear at first. Moreover, though the idea of eating sickened her, she was really weakened by need of food, and she had undergone within twenty-four hours as much as her nature could bear without breaking down in some way. Zeno was distressed, and bent over her, rather awkwardly, anxious to soothe her. She turned her face to him suddenly, without warning, and he saw that her eyes were dry and her cheeks flushed. 'Venice is a beautiful city,' he said coaxingly. 'You will be a great person in my friend's house--he will give you----' 'When are you going to send me? To-morrow?' The girl had mastered herself a little. 'I have told you that I have not made up my mind about you,' Zeno answered. 'The money I gave the Bokharian was my own. I may keep you here after all.' Zoë detested him in that moment. She longed to insult him, to strike him, to drive him away. There was something so condescending in what he said. He would make up his mind about her! He might keep her after all! He had paid his own money for her! It was not possible that she could have thought him handsome, that she could have been even momentarily attracted by his face, his manner, or his voice. 'I hate you!' she cried, shutting her teeth tightly as she spoke. He was near her, and she drew back from him as far as she could against the cushions of the divan. He resumed his seat, for he saw how angry she was. He had purposely spoken as if she were really the slave she told him that she was, and against the natural instinct which bade him treat her as his equal. 'Indeed,' he said coldly, and he took a cracked walnut from the table and began to peel the kernel, 'it is not easy to know what will please you. You seem horrified at the idea of going to Venice and furious at the thought of staying here! Of course, there is a third possibility. I would not send my friend a slave who would be so discontented as to poison him and his family, and I shall certainly not keep one in my house who hates me and may take it into her head to cut my throat in my sleep. The only thing that remains will be to sell you back to the Bokharian at a loss. Should you like that?' Zoë felt again that he was her master. 'You made me think you would be kind to me!' she said, and her voice quavered. Zeno laughed, for he had been too much annoyed to yield at once to her appeal. 'That did not prevent you from saying that you hated me, a while ago,' he answered. 'You must not expect too much Christian virtue of me, for I am no saint. I never learned to love those that hate me!' She liked him better now; as he threw back his head a little, looking at her from under his half-closed lids, she glanced at his brown throat and she did not think of cutting it, as he had suggested. But she was angry with herself for passing through so many phases of like and dislike in so short a time, and for not feeling relief at the thought of being sent on a long journey, which certainly would mean safety while it lasted, and perhaps a chance of freedom. She wondered, too, why she no longer wished to die outright now that she had saved Kyría Agatha. Her answer to his last speech was humble. 'You made me say it,' she said. 'I am sorry, sir.' 'At least, I have learnt that you would rather stay here than go back to Rustan Karaboghazji and that gentle wife of his--his red-haired dove!' 'Anything rather than that!' Her tone was earnest, for it was the fate she feared most, both for herself and because she fancied that the dealer would in some way claim his money from Kyría Agatha. Zeno was apparently satisfied with her answer, for he looked more kindly at her and was silent for a time. Again he allowed his eyes to be delighted with her beauty. 'I will not send you back,' he said at last; and he held out his hand towards her, as if he were giving a promise to an equal. She was grateful, but she thought that perhaps he was trying to make her betray her birth. No slave would take the master's hand familiarly in her own; she knew the ways of slaves, for there had been many in her adopted father's house, and she touched the tips of Zeno's fingers with her own and pressed her lips to the back of her own hand when she withdrew it. The action disconcerted him a little, for it was performed perfectly, with all the deference of born servitude. 'You were not long in Rustan's house, were you?' he asked, not seeming to be much interested in the answer, for he hoped to take her unawares. If she told the truth, which he knew, he would show surprise and press her with another question; if she answered with an untruth he should gain that much knowledge of her character for future use. Quick-witted, she did neither. 'It pleased my lord to remind me a while ago that a slave's oath is never to be believed,' she said. 'It is the law that a slave must be tortured when giving evidence, is it not?' 'I believe it is,' answered Zeno, with a smile. 'But you are quite safe! I only ask you how long you were in Rustan's house.' 'One night and part of a day,' Zoë answered after a moment. Zeno pretended surprise. 'So short a time! Then he only bought you yesterday?' 'Yesterday evening.' 'And of whom? Will you tell me that?' Zoë reflected a moment and then smiled. 'Yes. I will tell you that. He bought me of a lady of Constantinople, in whose closest intimacy I was brought up. She is just of my own age and we are much alike.' 'I see,' said Zeno, completely deceived, and speaking almost to himself. 'Poor girl! The same father, I suppose--hence the----' Zoë drooped her eyes and looked at the carpet. 'Yes--since you have guessed it, sir. We had the same father, though we never knew him. He died of the plague when we were a few months old.' Zeno was perfectly satisfied with this logical explanation which entirely explained Zoë's aristocratic beauty, her nobility of manner, and the delicate rearing that was so apparent in all her ways, as well as the fearlessness which had made her turn upon him and tell him that she hated him. The only point he could not understand, was that Zoë should have smiled. But he thought, as was quite possible, that there might have been jealousy and even hatred between the mistress and her slave-born sister, and he would not enquire too closely yet, since all was so clear to him. Such unnatural doings were not rare in a city half-filled with slaves. Zoë's mistress had probably sold her in a fit of anger, or perhaps deliberately and with a cruel purpose, or even out of avarice, to buy a string of pearls. The girl did not offer to say more, but she looked away from her owner and seemed to be thinking of the past, as indeed she was, though it was so different from that which his imagination was inventing for her. He, on his side, peeled another walnut thoughtfully, and looked at her from time to time, sure that he knew the truth, and wondering what he ought to do, and above all what he really wished to do. He had believed her deeply wronged, and had paid a great sum to redress that wrong, almost without hesitating, because it was his nature to help any one in distress, and because he, who counted neither life nor limb when his cause was good, had never counted such stuff as gold in a like case. But now, it was all clear. She was a slave, in spite of all appearances. She had suffered no injustice; her smile had told him that the change in her life had not been to greater unhappiness. That she should fear to be sent back to Rustan was only natural; she, who had no doubt always lived delicately in the great house where she had been born, must have felt the sordidness and the degradation of the slave-prison, in spite of the special care she had received in consideration of her beauty and value. Very likely, too, she had not much real feeling, in spite of her behaviour; slave women rarely have. What should he do with her? He was passionate rather than material or pleasure-loving; he was consequently an optimist and an idealist where women were concerned, and was full of a vague belief in the romantic side of love. He could no more really love a slave-girl than he could have loved a hired maid, though she might be beautiful beyond comparison, for he was incapable of attaching himself to beauty alone. Only his equal could be his mate, and he never could care long or truly for any creature that was less. At twenty, the youth in him would have boiled up and over for a week, or a month; but he was verging on thirty, his thirty years that had been crammed with the deeds of many a daring man's whole life-time, and his nature had hardened in a nobler mould than his early youth had promised. He would not make a plaything of any woman now; and since he would not, he wondered what he should do with Zoë, now that she was his. In this mood of uncertainty he rose to leave her, more or less resolved not to see her again until he had come to some conclusion as to her future; for in spite of all he still felt himself attracted to her, and the line of her cheek and throat when her face was half-turned away was of exquisite beauty. Standing beside her for a moment, he knew that if ever again in his life he stooped to take a woman for a toy, lovelessly, stupidly, contemptibly, the plaything would be this Arethusa whom he had bought of a scoundrelly Bokharian dealer. 'Good-night,' he said, looking down into her upturned eyes. 'If you need anything, if you want anything, send for Omobono, and you shall have it. Good-night, Arethusa.' It was the first time he had called her by her name, as he knew it. He did not even hold out his hand. She looked up steadily. 'What shall you do with me?' she asked, very anxiously, surprised by his sudden leave-taking. She was so lovely then that he felt a despicable impulse to take her into his arms, just for her loveliness, and close her sad eyes with kisses. Instead, he shook his head and turned away. 'I do not know,' he said, half-aloud. He reached the door. 'I do not know,' he repeated, as if the problem were very hard to solve; and he went out, not turning back to look at her. Thus ended the first hour the slave spent with her master; and when he was gone she felt suddenly exhausted, as if she had fought with her hands; and strangely enough she knew all at once that she was weak from want of food, and that the thought of eating no longer disgusted her. Half-ashamed of herself, she glanced at the door through which Zeno had disappeared, as if she thought he might come back, and listened, as though expecting his footstep. Then, not seeing or hearing anything, she began to eat quickly, and almost ravenously, as if she were doing something to be a little ashamed of, and she hoped that the maids would not come in and see her. She was soon satisfied, for it had been a nervous craving rather than anything else, and every woman who reads these lines knows precisely how Zoë felt, or will know one of these days; for in all that belongs to the instinctive side of life, women are much more alike than men are; whereas, because they are not led, pushed, or dragged through one average course of teaching, as most men are, but are left to think and above all, to guess at truth for themselves, they are much more unlike in their way of looking at things. This also is the reason why many gifted men and a good many really learned ones would rather talk to women than to men; for among men they hear the same things everlastingly, but women always have something new to say, which is flattering, pleasant, amusing, or irritating--perhaps, as they choose. Women have also a sort of mock-humble, wholly appealing way of asking the great man how it is possible that he can really care to talk with a poor, ignorant, little woman, when he might be engaged in a memorable conversation with the other great man, who is talking to the other poor, ignorant little woman with lovely eyes, on the other side of the room. In this way we learn that life is full of contradictions. Zoë slept ten hours without dreaming, and awoke refreshed and rested, to wonder presently why her mood had changed so much. But Zeno was restless in the night, and dissatisfied with himself and with what he had done; when he lay awake he found fault with his impulsive action, but when he fell asleep for half-an-hour Zoë haunted his dreams. More than once he got up and walked barefoot on the marble mosaic pavement of his room, and he threw open the shutters and looked out. The night was calm and clear, and the air was almost wintry. To the left of Pera's towering outline the northern constellations shone bright and cold. Each time he looked he wondered at the slow motion of the Bear; the seven stars hung above the Pole, for it was springtime, and they hardly seemed to have moved a handbreadth to their westward sinking in a whole hour, when he looked again. When morning came his face was a little paler than usual, and he felt that he was in a bad humour. Omobono only guessed it from a certain increase of his natural reserve, but that was enough for the experienced secretary, who was wonderfully careful not to speak unless Zeno spoke to him, and, above all, not to mention the existence of the women's apartment upstairs. On the other hand, although it was a Sunday, he had expected to be sent by his master to draw the money from the house of Cornèr, according to Pesaro's letter, of which he had thoroughly mastered the contents. But the order was not given, and as Zeno was neither forgetful of details nor slack in matters of business, Omobono began to wonder what had happened. On Monday Zeno's mood had not changed, nor did he send for the money, and the secretary's curiosity grew mightily; on Tuesday it became almost unbearable. So far as he knew, and he knew most things that went on in the house, Zeno had only once gone upstairs, when he had supped with Zoë on Saturday evening, and had remained barely an hour. Since then he had not even asked after the slave, and no one had seen her except the two little maids, who came out upon the landing to receive the meals at regular hours, but never spoke to the men-servants. The secretary could have asked to see Zoë, to enquire if she needed anything, and she would certainly have received him; but he was afraid to do so without orders, and Zeno gave none, and might come in at the very moment when Omobono was there. The industrious secretary had fits of abstraction over his letters and accounts, and stared out of the window, stroking his neatly-trimmed grey beard very thoughtfully. On Wednesday, a little before noon, Zoë was sitting in her window, and she again saw Zeno go down the steps to the water and get into his skiff. It was always there now, even at dawn, for since there had been women in the house Zeno had been rowed to another place for his morning plunge in the Golden Horn. To-day he was dressed with particular care, Zoë thought, as she caught sight of him, and she did not draw back from the window, as she had done the first time, but stayed where she was, and she wished in her heart that he would look up and see her. He did not even turn as he stepped into the boat, and she thought he held his head lower than when she had last seen him, and looked down, and raised his shoulders a little like a person determined not to look to the right or the left. Then the two men pulled the skiff away upstream, and she watched it till she could no longer distinguish it from many others that moved about on the water in the direction of the palace. She wondered where he went. He had not been gone ten minutes when a man came to the gate of the fore-court on the other side of the house, and asked to see the secretary. He was simply dressed in a clean brown woollen tunic, that hung almost to the ground. It had wide sleeves, and they hid his joined hands as he stood waiting, in the attitude monks often take before a superior, or when reciting prayers before meals. But the man was not a monk, for he wore a broad belt of dark red leather, in which he carried a sheathed knife, a Syrian ink-horn, and a small cylindrical case of hammered brass, which held his reed pens. On his head he wore a tall felt cap, such as dervishes now wear. The slave at the door looked at him attentively before admitting him. There was something unusual in his expression, though his features were not very marked, and he had the rather pasty complexion that is so common in the East. His eyes were perhaps a little longer and more almond-shaped than those of the average Greek or Bokharian, and he kept them half-closed. His scanty black beard had a few grey hairs in it. His nostrils curved sharply, but the nose was neither very large nor markedly aquiline. A commonplace face enough in Constantinople; but there was something oddly fixed in its expression, that made the slave feel uncomfortable and yet submissive. Many persons of all conditions came to the merchant's house on business during the day, and it was the rule to send them to Omobono. The slave's business was to keep out thieves, beggars, and suspicious characters; he stood aside, admitted the visitor to the court which separated the house from the street, and shut the gate again. One of the free house-servants, of whom two or three were always waiting, came forward--a square-shouldered Venetian named Vito, who had been a sailor and had followed Zeno for years. He enquired the stranger's name and business. 'I am Gorlias Pietrogliant,' was the answer. 'My business with the secretary is private.' The serving-man disappeared, and returned a moment later to conduct the visitor to the private room of the counting-house on the ground floor, where Omobono sat behind a high desk covered with papers and slips of parchment. Omobono straightened himself on his stool and eyed the newcomer with a look of enquiry, at the same time drawing from his right arm the half sleeve of grey cotton which he always put on when he was going to write long, lest a spot of ink should stain the soft linen wrist-band which just showed below the tight cuff of his coat. He was a careful man. He looked at his visitor keenly, till he suddenly became aware that his scrutiny was returned with a rather disquieting fixedness. 'I am Gorlias Pietrogliant,' said the stranger. Omobono bent his head politely, and wondered whether he should be able to repeat such an outlandish name. 'I am Messer Zeno's secretary,' he answered. 'What is your business, Master Porlias Dietroplant?' 'Gorlias,' corrected the other, quite unmoved. Gorlias Pietrogliant.' 'Master Gorlias--I beg your pardon.' 'I am an astrologer,' observed the visitor, seating himself on a high stool at Omobono's elbow, and relapsing into silence. 'You are an astrologer,' said the secretary tentatively, after a long pause, for he did not know what to say. 'Yes, I told you so,' replied Gorlias; and for a few seconds longer it did not seem to occur to him that there was anything else to be said. There was something so oddly fixed in his look and so dull in his voice that Omobono began to fear that he might be a lunatic, which was indeed, in the secretary's opinion, much the same as an astrologer, for the Venetians were never great believers in the influence of the stars. But the visitor soon made him forget his suspicions by reviving his curiosity. 'The matter which brings me to you is of a very delicate nature,' said Gorlias, all at once speaking fluently and in a low voice. 'I have reason to believe that we are interested in the same business.' 'Are we?' asked the secretary in some surprise. 'I think we are. I think we are, by four toes and by five toes!' 'Over the water,' answered Omobono promptly, and hoping to learn more. 'Both salt and fresh,' returned Gorlias. 'By these tokens I shall trust to your fidelity and discretion.' [Illustration: There was something so oddly fixed in his look and so dull in his voice that Omobono began to fear that he might be a lunatic.] 'Implicitly,' replied the Venetian, who was sure of being discreet, but wondered what the matter might be to which his fidelity was pledged beforehand. He inwardly hoped that his visitor was not going to ask him for money, for he suspected that some awful fate must be in store for those who refused a service when appealed to by the mysterious passwords, of which he had now learnt one more. 'Messer Carlo is gone out,' said Gorlias. 'By this time he is in the house of Messer Sebastian Polo, who wishes to marry him to his daughter. He will not come home till after dinner.' Omobono stared at the speaker. 'You know more than I do,' he observed. 'Of course. I am an astrologer. You are in charge of the house and all it contains, and the servants and slaves are afraid of you because you have the master's ear, but they love you because you are kind to them. Therefore, whatever you do is right in their eyes. Upstairs there are three female slaves; one is Arethusa, the other two are called Yulia and Lucilla, and wait on her. You see, I know everything. Now, for the sake of that business in which we are both interested, you must take me up to their apartment, for I must speak with the one called Arethusa.' Omobono wished that Gorlias had asked him for his coat, or his money, or anything that was his, rather than for such a favour; and he was about to risk refusing it, whatever the penalty might be, when a luminous idea revealed itself to him. 'There is only one condition,' he answered, after a moment's thought. 'I must be present while you talk with her.' 'That need not disturb you,' said Gorlias calmly. 'I have seen the room where she is by virtue of my knowledge of the stars. It has a small covered balcony with an outer lattice against the sun, on the south side. There I will talk with Arethusa, while you stand by the door and watch us. I will draw figures, and appear to explain them to her, so that the two girl-slaves may think that I have come to amuse her by setting up her horoscope. Even Messer Carlo could not object to that, and Arethusa can veil herself, so that I shall not be able to see her face.' Omobono reflected a moment, but could now see no good reason for refusing the request, whereas he saw a prospect of learning something more about the mystery that interested him. Zoë herself had prompted him with the second password of the chain, in Rustan's house, and he was almost sure that in some way she knew the rest, and the meaning of them all. The two went up the marble stairs to the second story, and Omobono tapped at the entrance to the women's apartment. There came a little pattering of slippered feet, and Lucilla opened the door just enough to put her head out, for it was not yet time for the mid-day meal, and she wondered what was wanted. 'Bid your mistress veil herself, my child,' said Omobono. 'Here is a famous astrologer come to tell her the future, which will help her to pass the time.' Lucilla glanced at Gorlias with curiosity and smiled, showing all her teeth. 'Indeed it is very dull here,' she observed, and disappeared, shutting the door behind her. While the two men waited Gorlias produced from the folds of his wide tunic a big roll of parchment, which he unrolled a foot or two, displaying a multitude of incomprehensible signs and figures; he also took out a large brass compass, a sheet of cotton paper from Padua, also rolled up, and an Arabic almanack with a silver clasp. Omobono surveyed these preparations with mingled curiosity and sceptical amusement, till Lucilla opened the door again and ushered both men into Zoë's presence. The astrologer made cabalistic signs with his right hand while he advanced, as if he were drawing imaginary figures in the air with his extended forefinger. Zoë's face was quite concealed in the double folds of a white gauze veil, but she seemed to watch him attentively as he came towards her. CHAPTER VIII Zoë and the astrologer sat in the covered balcony in full view of the secretary, who remained near the door, straining his sharp ears in vain to catch some words of the whispered conversation. The maids had been dismissed. From time to time Gorlias spoke aloud, pointing with his compass to different parts of the figure, but what he said only made it more impossible to guess at what he whispered. Zoë sat almost motionless, but she had opened the folds of her veil so as to uncover her mouth, and after her companion had been speaking some time she bent down and answered in his ear, pretending, however, to point to the figures on the paper, as if she were asking questions. The substance of what Gorlias told her was that he and his friends were interested in a mighty enterprise, and had often tried to sound Carlo Zeno with regard to helping them to carry it out, but they had met with no success, for he either did not understand, or he would not. Messer Sebastian Polo, whose house he frequented, was a timid man, and was not to be trusted with such a secret; moreover, he was so extremely anxious to make Zeno marry his daughter, that he would certainly never allow him to run any risks. All this he put very clearly, and Omobono might have been surprised to learn that he had not used any password. Then Zoë bent down to his ear. 'What is the name of Sebastian Polo's daughter?' she asked. 'Giustina,' whispered the astrologer. 'The sun near to mid-heaven,' he continued aloud, 'and in trine aspect to Mars, signifies fine horses and a retinue of servants.' He dropped his voice again. 'She is thirty, and has had the smallpox,' he whispered. 'The master has only been here once since I came,' said Zoë, bending to his ear again. 'I have no influence with him.' Gorlias turned his face towards her in slow surprise. 'Had he not seen you before he bought you, Kokóna Arethusa?' he enquired. 'Yes, indeed!' 'Oh! I thought that you also might have had the smallpox,' was the whispered answer. Zoë could not help laughing a little. The pretty notes, muffled by the veil, seemed to come from far away. It was the first time she had laughed naturally since many weeks. The astrologer bent nearer to her when she was silent again, and spoke aloud, pointing to his figure. 'Venus is in the Seventh House in benign aspect to the Moon,' he said aloud. 'You will be fortunate in love.' Then he whispered again, 'I will give you a philtre that has never failed. The next time he comes----' Zoë shook her head decidedly, with something that looked like indignation. 'It is for a good matter, Kokóna,' Gorlias answered. 'If you will help us, you shall have pearls and diamonds, and gold and liberty.' 'Liberty? How?' Gorlias thought that he had tempted her with that, at least. 'If you will promise your help with Messer Carlo, I will tell you.' 'How can I promise what is not mine to give?' asked the girl. The astrologer was not discouraged, and after more talk about the planets, in a tone loud enough to be heard by the maids if they were listening at the door, he went on quickly again. 'Messer Carlo is a man who loves adventures, who has led desperate and forlorn hope to victory, both in Italy and Greece, who has the gift of the leader, if ever a man had it. Surely, you knew all this.' 'I know he has been a soldier,' Zoë answered, for Zeno had told her so. 'He also possesses some fortune, and has great connexions in Venice. Moreover, I can tell you, Kokóna, that this is no small matter. If he succeeds, he will earn gratitude of the Serene Republic and honour everywhere.' 'As much as that?' asked Zoë, looking attentively at the astrologer through her veil. 'How am I to believe you?' 'I thought I had spoken clearly enough,' Gorlias answered, 'but lest you should doubt my word and promise, take these.' He had furtively slipped his hand into the bosom of his tunic, and when he withdrew it his fingers closed over something he held gathered in his palm. Cleverly turning the sheet of paper on which he had shown his astrological figures, so as to hinder Omobono from seeing, he disclosed to Zoë a short string of very large and beautiful pearls. 'In your nativity,' he rattled on, aloud, 'the beneficent influences altogether outweigh the malefic ones.' He said much more to the same effect, and while he was speaking he let the pearls slip down upon the skirts of Zoë's over-garment on the side away from the secretary. 'They are yours,' he whispered. 'You shall have a hundred strings like them if you succeed.' 'Give such things to my maids,' Zoë answered, 'not to me! If you are in earnest make a sign, that I may know whence you come.' 'A sign?' repeated Gorlias, as if not understanding. 'Yes, where?' Her mouth was close to his ear as she whispered the question, and she turned her ear towards him for the answer. He hesitated, and for the first time the dull fixedness of his expression was momentarily dispelled by a very faint look of surprise. 'I ask, where?' Zoë repeated, with strong emphasis, bending to him again. 'Over the water,' he answered at last. 'Both salt and fresh,' she replied instantly. Gorlias looked at her veiled face long. 'Who are you?' he asked at length. 'Who taught you these things?' He glanced suspiciously at Omobono, who, as he had reason to believe, was acquainted with the secret. Zoë shook her head. 'No,' she answered. 'One greater than he taught me what I know. You may go now, for your message is delivered. What I can do, I will do, and there is no more to say, for it is my own cause as well as his--the cause of justice, and God is with it.' Gorlias spoke aloud again, and brought his explanation of the horoscope to a conclusion by informing Zoë that if she wished to know the smaller details of her wonderful future, she must consult him at intervals, as the phases of the moon had a great influence on her fate. 'When the Kokóna wishes to see me,' he said, rising, 'Messer Omobono will send for me, and I will come.' Before Zoë realised that he had not picked up the string of pearls, he had made his obeisance and was at the door with Omobono, who bowed low to her, and ushered him out. When she was alone she took the necklace from the folds of her dress, where it had lain, and looked at it a moment before she hid it in her bosom. For she would not allow the maids to see it, and was already debating how she should hide it till she could find an opportunity of giving it back. But when the cold pearls touched her flesh they sent a little chill to her heart, and she thought it was somehow like a warning. She understood well enough what had happened, for she was quick-witted. Rustan, who had shown that he knew the secret, and his wife, who had spoken to him of Gorlias, had told the latter that Carlo Zeno was in love with a beautiful Greek slave, who could, of course, be easily induced by gifts to use her influence with her master. For Zeno's past deeds had already woven a sort of legend about his name, so that even the soldiers talked of him among themselves, and told stories of the desperate bravery and amazing skill with which he had kept a small Turkish army at bay in Greece with a handful of men for nearly a whole year, and many other tales, of which the most fantastic was less strange than much that afterwards happened to him in his life. It must have seemed easy enough to the astrologer, and even to Omobono perhaps; but it looked strangely impossible to Zoë herself, when she remembered her only interview with the man whom she was now pledged to win over. The whole situation was known to her. A conspiracy was on foot to take the Emperor Johannes from his prison and restore him to the throne, imprisoning his son Andronicus in the Amena tower in his stead. Thousands of John's loyal subjects recognised each other by passwords, and talked secretly of a great rising, in which some foresaw vengeance for the wrongs they had suffered, while others, like the Bokharian Rustan, hoped for fortune, reward, and perhaps honour. But the body of the army was not with them yet, the disaffected men lacked skill or courage to preach the cause of the lawful Emperor to their comrades, and the revolution had no guiding spirit. It is far easier to choose a general among soldiers than to pick out a leader of revolt amongst untried and untrained men. Before he lost his liberty the Emperor had known Zeno, and though a weak man, had judged him rightly. In his prison he possessed means of communicating occasionally with his friends, and he had instructed them to ask Zeno's help; but so far his message had either not been delivered or Zeno had been deaf to the appeal, perhaps judging that the time was not come for the attempt, or that, after all, the cause was not a good one. Having failed to move him in all other ways, the revolutionaries had seized the unexpected opportunity that now presented itself. The thought that such a man might turn the tide of history, restore the rightful sovereign to the throne, and avenge the awful death of Michael Rhangabé, had crossed Zoë's mind when she had first seen her purchaser in Rustan's house, for the born leader and fighting man generally has something in his face that is not to be mistaken; but to influence Carlo was another matter, as she had understood when he had supped with her. It would be as hard to induce him to do anything he was not inclined to do of his own accord as it would be impossible to hinder him from attempting whatever he chose to try. As for winning him to the cause by gentler means, the high-born girl blushed at the suggestion. He was certainly not in love with her at first sight; of that she was as sure as that she did not love him either. Yet while she was thinking, she suddenly wondered whether Gorlias had spoken the truth about Giustina Polo. Was she really thirty, and was her face pitted like a cheese-grater, as Gorlias had told her? If she was ugly, why did Zeno go to Polo's house so often? For Zoë had no doubt but that he went there every time he was rowed up the Golden Horn in his pretty skiff. He was always carefully dressed when he stepped into his boat; it was not for old Polo that he wore such fine clothes. She was very lonely now. During the first two days she had rested herself in her luxurious surroundings, not without the excitement of expecting another visit from Zeno, and she had thought with satisfaction of all the comfort her sacrifice must have brought to her adopted mother, to the little boys, and to poor old Nectaria. But now she wished she could at least be sure that all was well with them, though she was rather sadly conscious that she did not miss them as she had thought she must. During many months she had nursed Kyría Agatha most tenderly, and had helped the old slave to take care of the children; the last weeks had been spent in abject misery, the last days in the final struggle with starvation and sickness, and still she had bravely done her best. Yet she had long felt that Kyría Agatha had not much real affection for her, and would let her starve herself to death to feed her and the boys. It would have been otherwise if Rhangabé had lived; she would have willingly died of hunger for him, but he was gone, and though she had done and borne the impossible, it had not been for her own blood, but for the sake of the good and brave man's memory. He was in peace, after the agony of his death, his wife and his sons were provided for, so far as Zoë could provide by giving her freedom and her life for them. As far as she could she had paid her debt of gratitude to the dead, and the debt that was not wiped out was due to her; those who had murdered Rhangabé owed her his unspeakable sufferings and every precious drop of his heart's blood. They should pay. If she lived, they should pay all to the uttermost. And now, fate had placed within her reach the instrument of vengeance, the bravest, rashest, wisest, most desperate of mankind. Her heart had silently and joyfully drunk in every word that Gorlias had said about the man who owned her as he owned the carpet under her feet, the roof over her head, and the clothes that covered her. He was within her reach, but he was not within her power. Not yet. Her mood had changed, and for a while, not knowing what she dreamt of, she wished that she were indeed one of those Eastern enchantresses of whom she had often heard, without half understanding, who roused men to frenzy, or lulled their lovers to sleep and ruin, as they would; she wished she were that wicked Antonina, for whom brave, pure-hearted Belisarius had humbled himself in the dust; she wished she were Theodora, shamelessly great and fair, an imperial Vision of Sin, compelling to her heel the church-going, priest-haunted master of half the known world--Justinian. She knew the story of her adopted country. What had either of those women that she had not, wherewith to master a man? Then the tide of shame came back, and she turned her face away from the empty room, as if it had guessed her thoughts; and then, to get away from them, she called her maids, clapping her hands sharply. They came running in and stood before her. 'Go, Yulia,' she said, 'find the secretary and beg him to come to me.' While she waited, she made Lucilla arrange her veil again so that it hid her face, and this was scarcely done when Omobono was ushered in by the other girl. He bowed to Zoë and gravely stroked his pointed beard. 'What is the Kokóna's pleasure?' he asked, after a pause. 'Do you speak Latin?' Zoë enquired, in that language. The little man drew himself up proudly, and cleared his throat. 'In my family we have been notaries for five generations,' he answered, in language that was comprehensible but would have filled an average Churchman with vague uneasiness, and would have made Cicero's ashes rattle in their urn. Zoë was satisfied, however, for though her maids might understand Italian, she was quite sure that Latin was beyond them. She herself spoke it far more correctly than Omobono, though with a rather lisping Greek accent. She could not have helped saying 'vonus' for 'bonus,' 'eyo' for 'ego,' and 'Thominus' for 'Dominus.' 'Where is Thominus Carolus?' she enquired, so suddenly that the secretary was almost taken off his guard. 'He is--he is gone out,' he answered. 'Yes. He is gone to dine with Messer Sebastian Polo. He goes there two or three times a week.' Zoë watched the secretary's face with amusement; his surprise was comical. 'Then the man is really an astrologer,' he said, in a wondering tone, 'and star-gazing is not all nonsense!' 'Sebastian Polo's daughter is young and beautiful,' observed Zoë, who apparently did not place implicit faith in astrology. Omobono's face and gesture expressed a qualified assent, but he said nothing. 'Tell me at once,' said Zoë, 'that she is thirty, that her complexion resembles the dust when it is pitted by raindrops after a shower----' 'That would not be true,' cried the secretary. 'Giustina Polo is not supremely beautiful, but she is young and pretty, and as fresh as roses.' 'But she is very poor,' suggested Zoë. 'She has no dowry.' 'Who says so?' asked Omobono indignantly. 'The house of Sebastian Polo is as prosperous as any in Constantinople! He is as rich as any Venetian here except, perhaps, Marin Cornèr!' 'Then it is true that the master is going to marry his daughter,' Zoë replied, as if stating a fact that could no longer be denied. She was rapidly working the secretary into a state of excitement in which his Latin grammar went to the winds. 'No, indeed!' he cried. 'It is altogether a lie! Who has told you such things?' 'She is young, pretty, fresh as roses, and very rich,' said Zoë, recapitulating. 'Did you not say so?' 'Yes----' 'And the master goes to dine in her father's house three times a week----' 'Perhaps----' 'Do you suppose that Polo would invite the master so often unless he wanted him for his daughter?' 'Perhaps not----' 'Or that the master would wilfully deceive Polo and the girl?' 'What are you saying?' 'Simply that Thominus Carolus is going to marry Thomna Justina.' 'But I tell you----' 'Either you are very simple, or you think I am,' interrupted Zoë, with crushing logic. 'Which shall it be, Master Secretary?' Omobono thought her a terrible young person just then. He spread out his hands and looked up to the ceiling in despair, but still protesting. 'And meanwhile,' she continued, 'what is the master going to do with me? Am I to be locked up here for ever?' If anything could further disturb Omobono's equanimity it was this question. His gentle temper was beginning to be ruffled. 'How can I tell?' he asked. 'He will do what he thinks best! Ask him yourself!' After all, she was only a slave, he said in his heart, and he was the descendant of five generations of notaries. What right had she to cross-examine him? He was the more angry with her for asking the question, because his own curiosity had tormented him for days to find an answer to it. 'Omobono,' Zoë said, affecting a very grave tone, 'you know very well what the master means to do. Now I ask you solemnly, and you are warned that you must answer me--by four----' 'No, no!' cried the secretary, in sudden distress. 'Do not ask me by that!' 'I must, Omobono; and of course you have been told what you have to expect if you refuse to help a friend over the water.' She emphasised the last words in a way that made him tremble. 'Yes, yes--I know----' he said feebly, though he had not the least notion of the penalty. 'You will be broken to pieces by inches with a small hammer, beginning at the tips of your fingers till there is not a whole bone in your body. That is only the beginning.' Omobono's knees knocked together. 'Then your skin will be turned inside out over your head and your living heart will be cut out of your body, Omobono, and you will die.' The secretary had already such belief in the power of those who knew the magic words that he turned pale and the cold sweat stood on his forehead. 'If all this were to be done to me now,' he faltered, 'I could not tell you what the master intends!' She saw that it was the truth. 'Very well,' she said; 'then you must manage that he shall come here to-day as soon as he returns from Polo's house.' 'I will tell him that you have asked to see him----' 'No. Tell him that I shall fall ill if I am shut up in these rooms any longer, and that if he does not believe it, he had better come and see how I am. He will probably take your advice. I do not choose to show you my face, but I assure you I am very pale, and I have no appetite.' 'He will come,' said the secretary confidently. 'You can also do me another service, Omobono,' continued Zoë. 'I have learned that last Friday, when you went to find Rustan about buying me, you came upon him in the beggars' quarter, near the church of Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus, at a house where some very poor people lived. This is true, is it not?' Omobono nodded, wondering how she knew of the circumstance. 'A poor woman lay there ill, with children and a very old nurse, and Rustan gave them something. I wish to know how these poor people are, and where they live, if they have left that house. I am sure the master is charitable, and will let you give them something if they are still in need. There were two little boys, and there was a grown girl besides the sick woman and the other.' 'You know everything!' cried Omobono. 'The man must be a great astrologer! I will go myself to the beggars' quarter and do your bidding.' Zoë had played her little comedy because she had by this time guessed the man's character, and wished to make sure that she could rely on his help in anything she decided to do; for it was clear that whenever Zeno was absent, the secretary was in charge of the whole establishment, and the servants would obey him without hesitation. As Gorlias had told him, whatever he did was right in their eyes. That he was in haste to do her bidding she discovered before the afternoon was half over, for as she sat in her window she saw him go down to wait for his master at the marble steps, and he walked slowly on the strip of black and white pavement by the water's edge. At last he stood still, and looked towards Blachernæ, for the skiff was in sight. Zoë drew her veil across her face and rested her head against the right-hand side of the open window as if she were very tired, and she did not move from this position as the boat came near. Zeno was leaning back in the stern, and could not help seeing her as he approached the house, but from her attitude he thought she did not see him, and he looked up at her steadily for two or three seconds. She was quite motionless. Omobono stood by the water's edge as Zeno stepped ashore, and asked permission to say a few words to him at once. Zeno dismissed the boat by a gesture. 'Has anything happened?' he asked, glancing up at the window again. Zoë had not moved, but she could see him through her veil. Then the two men walked up and down, while Omobono spoke in a low tone, but though she could not hear the words she knew what the substance was. Then came Zeno's voice, cold and clear. 'Certainly not,' he said decidedly. 'I shall do nothing of the sort! If she has no appetite send for a doctor. Do you take me for one? Send for old Solomon the Jewish physician. He is the best, and he is an old man. If he says the girl needs air, take her out in the boat, her and the maids, on fine mornings.' A question from Omobono followed, which Zoë could not hear distinctly. Zeno was evidently annoyed. 'Omobono, you are a good man,' he said; 'but you have no more sense than a cackling hen! Never think! It is not your strong point. When you do just what I tell you, you never make a mistake.' The secretary's voice was heard again, low and indistinct. 'No,' answered Zeno. 'You need not go and tell her what I have said, for she has probably heard every word of it herself, from the window. It is useless ever to tell women anything. They always know before they are told.' Thereupon Zeno went in, apparently in a bad temper. If anything can make a woman angry when she is overhearing a conversation about herself, it is to hear it said that she is undoubtedly listening. Zoë had not hidden herself, and Zeno must have meant her to hear what he was saying, but she felt the more deeply insulted. Her cheek burned, and she drew back her veil to feel the cool air. So he had no intention of coming to see her again! A Jewish doctor and an airing in the boat, with Omobono for company! And she had been told that she had been listening--it was not to be borne! She threw her veil on one side, her silk shawl on the other, and then walked up and down the long room with restless steps, like a young wild animal in a cage. The little maids picked up the things and watched her uneasily, for she had always seemed very gentle. They looked at her with wide eyes now, and their gaze irritated her, till she felt that she wanted to box their ears, and wished she had the negress's whip in her belt. Then, without any apparent reason, she threw her arms round the one that stood nearest and kissed the astonished girl a dozen times, almost lifting her from the floor. As she let her go, she laughed nervously at herself. She was thirsty, and she drank off a tall glass of cold water at a draught; and all the time she was unconsciously repeating one phrase to herself. 'He shall pay me for this, he shall pay me for this!' The words rang in her ears, to a sort of silly tune that would not go away. There is a vile natural hurdy-gurdy somewhere in our brains, and when we are angry, or in love, or broken-hearted, or otherwise beside ourselves, it plays its absurd little tunes at us till we are ready to go mad. I sometimes think that devil's music may have brought on the final fatal irritation against life, that has decided the fate of many half-mad suicides. 'He shall pay me for this!' She heard the words keeping time with her movements; she walked slower--faster, but it made no difference, for the infernal little notes took the beat from her steps. She had not the least notion how Zeno was to pay for having made her so very angry, and that question did not obtrude itself on her thoughts till her temper was beginning to subside; then she suddenly felt how utterly helpless she was, and her wrath boiled up again. The only way of paying him out that suggested itself was to throw herself out of the window. Then he would be sorry for what he had done. Would he? He would probably send Omobono to have her corpse taken away as quickly as possible. And the day after to-morrow he would go again to see Giustina Polo in her father's house, and she would have thrown herself out of the window for nothing. Besides, it would be wicked. She realised how childish her thoughts were, and she sat down to think--'like a grown-up woman,' she said to herself. But just then she remembered Zeno's words to Omobono. 'Never think, for it is not your strong point,' he had said to his secretary; but he had of course meant it for her. Everything had been meant for her. She wished she could hold his brown throat in her hands and dig her little nails into it. Appetite, indeed! Was it strange that she should not be hungry? How could any one eat who lived such a life, shut up between four walls?--with a tyrant downstairs who did not even take the trouble to come and look at her, but sent his silly old clerk to keep her company! He took trouble enough to go and see Giustina Polo! This was thinking 'like a grown-up woman,' as she had proposed to do! She was disgusted with herself, and looked about for something to occupy her thoughts. There were sweetmeats, whole boxes of sweetmeats of every sort. Twice already they had been emptied and refilled with fresh ones, since she had been brought to the house. That was Zeno's idea of what a woman needed to occupy her thoughts and be happy! Sweetmeats! Preserve of rose-leaves! Figs in syrup! That was all he knew of her wants! She lay back among her cushions, her brown eyes gleamed angrily, her lips were a little parted, and her nostrils quivered now and then as she drew a sharp breath. Presently, she called Yulia to her side. 'Go to the secretary,' she said, 'and tell him to send me a book.' 'A book?' repeated the slave stupidly, for she had never seen a woman who could read. 'Yes. A book in Greek, Latin, or Italian; it does not matter which. I am sick of doing nothing. Tell him to be quick, too,' she added, in a tone of authority. The girl tripped away and found Omobono in the counting-house on the ground floor. He was in a bad humour too, but in his case it took the form of dignified sorrow. His master had compared him to a fowl, and to one that cackled. 'What does she want with a book?' he asked, in a dreary tone, looking up from his accounts. 'To read, I think, sir,' answered the little maid timidly; 'and she told me to beg you to let her have it soon.' 'As if a slave could read!' He looked about him in a melancholy way, and rose to take from the shelf above his head a good-sized volume bound in soft brown leather, with little thongs tied in slip knots, for clasps, to keep it shut. 'Take her that,' he said, thrusting the book into the girl's hands. Yulia took it, and before she had left the room Omobono was gravely busy with his figures again; but each time he added up a column the sum seemed to be 'cackling hen,' instead of anything reasonable. But Yulia ran upstairs. Zoë untied the thongs and opened the book in the middle. An exclamation of anger and disgust escaped her lips. The secretary, who did not believe she could really read, though she spoke Latin fluently, had sent an old volume of accounts in answer to her request. There were pages and pages of entries and columns of figures, all neatly written in his small, clear hand, on stout cotton paper. Here and there some one else had made a note, as if checking his work. Zoë pushed the book away from her on the divan, and it fell over the edge and lay face downwards and open on the floor. Then the little tune began again in her head. 'He shall pay me for this!' She wished he would open the door noiselessly and be all at once beside her, as on that first evening. That had been Friday, and to-day was Wednesday; five days had gone by. Counting Friday there were six, and six days were practically a week! She had been under his roof a whole week and he had only cared to see her face once. 'He shall pay me for this!' The tune went on, and she quite forgot how she had longed for death, and how his first anticipated coming had been dreadful beyond anything she had ever suffered, beyond cold, starvation, and misery. Or if she remembered it at all, she told herself that the man she had seen was not the kind of man she had expected, and that she had nothing to fear from him. She was quite sure of that. She turned on one side, as she half lay on the divan, till she could reach the account-book to pick it up. One of the maids jumped up from the carpet to help her. 'Go away!' she exclaimed crossly, for she had got hold of the cover and had drawn the volume over the edge of the divan. 'I will call if I want anything.' The girls slipped away in silence and left her alone. She turned over the pages with a sort of angry curiosity, half expecting to find an entry concerning slaves bought and sold like herself. Just then she could have believed Zeno capable of anything. But though she found a great many strange words which she did not understand, and which referred to tonnage, insurance, profit and loss, and all the complicated matters of an Eastern merchant's business, there was nothing which could possibly be interpreted to mean that Zeno had dealt in humanity, as most of the Venetians who lived in Constantinople certainly did. Sebastian Polo's name occurred very often. Large sums had been paid to him, and other large sums had been received from him. It was clear that the two men were in close relations of business, and constantly made ventures together, dividing the profits and sharing the losses. That might account for Zeno's constant visits to his fellow-merchant, though Zoë was not inclined to admit such a view. On the contrary, she made herself believe that Zeno dealt with Polo solely in order to make an excuse for seeing more of the latter's daughter. He should pay for that, too! The little tune hammered away in her head at a great rate. She clapped her hands. 'Take this back to the secretary,' she said, giving the book to Yulia. 'Tell him I am not a merchant's clerk, and that I want something to read.' Again little Yulia tripped downstairs to the ground floor. But the counting-house was locked, and the men-servants told her that Omobono had gone out. She would not leave the book with them, for she had a superstitiously exaggerated idea of the value of all written things; therefore, after a moment's hesitation, she turned and carried it upstairs again, though she did not like the idea of facing her mistress. At the first landing she almost ran against the master of the house, who asked her what she was carrying and where she was going. He spoke rather sharply, and Yulia was frightened and told him the whole story, explaining that Zoë seemed to be in a bad temper, and would be angry with her for bringing back the account-book, but that it was Omobono's fault. How could he dare to suppose that the Kokóna could not read? And why was he out? And if he was not out why had the men-servants told her that he was? The little slave did as all slaves and servants naturally do when they wish to gain favour with the master; she hinted that all the other servants in the house were in league to do evil, and that she only was righteous. Zeno carelessly looked through the pages of the account-book as he stood listening to her tale. 'You talk too much,' he observed, when she paused. 'Go upstairs.' Thereupon he turned his back on her and went in under the heavy curtain to his own room, taking the book with him and leaving Yulia considerably disconcerted. She looked at the curtain disconsolately for a few seconds, and then slowly ascended the second flight of steps to the women's apartments. A few minutes later Zeno himself followed her, with another book in his hand. He knocked discreetly at the outer door, and Lucilla opened, for Yulia was still explaining to Zoë what had happened. The maid stood aside to let the master pass through the vestibule which separated the inner rooms from the staircase. Zeno raised the curtain and went in. 'I am no great reader,' he said, as he came forward towards the divan, 'but I have brought you this old book. It may amuse you. The man died more than fifty years ago, and I fancy he was mad; but there must be something in his poem, for it has been copied again and again. This was given me by the Emperor Charles when I was with him in Venice.' Zoë had time to recover from her surprise and to study his face and manner while he spoke, and again she was convinced that he was a little shy in her presence. If she changed colour at all he did not see it, for though he glanced at her two or three times, he looked more often at the book he held. As he finished speaking he placed it in her hands and his eyes met hers. Possibly Zoë had guessed that if she could make a stir in the house by sending messages to Omobono, the master would at last come in person; at all events she felt a little thrill of triumph when he was before her bringing his book and speaking pleasantly, as a sort of peace-offering for having neglected her so long. 'Thank you,' said she, very sweetly. 'Will it please your lordship to be seated?' Yulia had pushed forward a large fold-stool, and Zoë motioned to her and her companion to sit down in a corner. Zeno thought she had sent them out of the room, and he looked round and saw them squatting on their carpet, side by side. 'Shall I send them away?' asked Zoë, with a sweet smile. 'They are not in the way,' Zeno answered coldly; for he felt that they might be if they understood, but nothing would have induced him to dismiss them just then. A little pause followed, during which Zoë opened the manuscript and read the illuminated title-page. 'It is dull for you, here,' said Carlo awkwardly. Zoë did not even look up, and affected to answer absently, while she turned over the pages. 'Oh no!' she said. 'Not in the least, I assure you!' She went back to the title and read it aloud. '"The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri"--I have heard his name. A Sicilian, was he not? Or a Lombard? I cannot remember. Have you read the poetry? The paintings are very pretty, I see. There is much more life in Italian painting than in our stiff pictures with their gilt backgrounds. Of course, there is a certain childlike simplicity about them, an absence of school, of the traditions of good masters, of reverence for the old art! But they mean something that is, whereas our Greek pictures mean something that never was. Do you agree with me?' She had talked on in a careless tone, toying with the book, and only looking up as she asked a question without waiting for a reply. By the time she paused she had asked so many that Zeno only noticed the last. 'You would like Venice,' he said, 'but you would like Florence better. There are good pictures there, I believe.' 'You have not seen them yourself?' 'Oh yes! But I do not understand such things. This man Alighieri describes some of them in his book. He was a Florentine.' As Zeno showed himself more willing to talk, Zoë seemed to grow more indifferent. She laid the book down beside her, leaned back, and looked out of the window, turning her face half away from him. It was the first time he had seen her by daylight since she had come, and the strong afternoon light glowed in her white skin, her eyes, and her brown hair. He could have seen on her cheek the very smallest imperfection, had it been as tiny as the point of a pin, but there was none. He looked at her tender mouth; and in the strong glare he could have detected the least roughness on her lips, if they had not been as smooth as fresh fruit. Moreover, the line from her ear to her neck was really as perfect as it had seemed at first sight. Her nervous, high-bred young hand lay on the folds of her over-garment, within his reach, and he felt much inclined to take it and hold it. He did not remember that any woman's near presence had disturbed him in the same way, nor had he ever hesitated on the few occasions in his life when he had been inclined to take a woman's hand. He had the fullest rights which the laws of the Empire could give him, for Arethusa, as he called her, was his property out-and-out, and if he died suddenly she would be sold at auction with the furniture. Yet, for some wholly inexplicable reason he did not quite dare to touch the tips of her fingers. 'I have heard that you are a hero,' Zoë observed, without looking at him. 'Is it true?' Then she turned her eyes to him and smiled a little maliciously, he fancied, as if she had guessed his timidity from his silence. 'Who told you such nonsense?' Zeno asked, with a laugh, for her question had broken the ice--or perhaps had quenched the fire for a while. 'I am a man like any other!' 'That I doubt, sir,' answered Zoë, laughing too, though not much. 'You have no experience of men,' he said. 'They are all like me, I assure you. One sheep is not more like another in a flock.' 'I should not have taken you for one of the common herd. Besides, I know of your deeds in Italy and Greece, and how you fought a Turkish army for a whole year with a handful of men----' 'I have seen some fighting, of course,' Zeno replied. 'But that is all in the past. I am a sober, peace-loving Venetian merchant now, and nothing else.' 'It must be very dull to be a sober, peace-loving Venetian merchant,' said Zoë, faintly mimicking his tone. 'Making money is too hard work to be dull.' 'I suppose so. And then,' she added, with magnificent calm, 'I have always heard that avarice is the passion of old age.' Zeno fell into the trap. 'Dear me!' he cried in astonishment. 'How old do you think I am?' Zoë looked at him quietly. 'I have no experience of men,' she said, with perfect gravity, 'but from your manner, sir, I should judge you to be--about fifty.' Zeno's jaw dropped, for she spoke so naturally and quietly that he could not believe she was laughing at him. 'I shall be twenty-nine in August,' he answered. 'Only twenty-nine?' Zoë affected great surprise. 'I should have thought you were much, much older! Are you quite sure?' 'Yes.' Carlo laughed. 'I am quite sure. But I suppose I seem very old to you.' 'Oh yes! Very!' She nodded gravely as she spoke. 'You are seventeen, are you not?' Zeno asked. 'How in the world should I know!' she enquired. 'Is not my age set down in the receipt Rustan gave you with me? How should a slave know her own age, sir? And if we knew it, do you think that any of us could speak the truth, except under torture? It would not be worth while to dislocate my arms and burn my feet with hot irons, just to know how old I am, would it? You could not even sell me again, if I had once been tortured!' 'What horrible ideas you have! Imagine torturing this little thing!' Thereupon, without warning, he took her hand in his and looked at it. She made a very slight instinctive movement to withdraw it, and then it lay quite still and passive. 'I am sure I could never bear pain,' she said, smiling. 'I should tell everything at once! I should never make a good conspirator. I suppose you must have been wounded once or twice, when you were young. Tell me, did it hurt very much?' He let her hand fall as he answered, and she drew it back and hid it under her wide sleeve. 'A cut with a sharp sword feels like a stream of icy-cold water,' he answered. 'A thrust through the flesh pricks like a big thorn, and pricks again when the point comes out on the other side. One feels very little, or nothing at all, if one is badly wounded in the head, for one is stunned at once; it is the headache afterwards that really hurts. If one is wounded in the lungs, one feels nothing, but one is choked by the blood, and one must turn on one's face at once in order not to suffocate. Broken bones hurt afterwards as a rule, more than at first, but it is a curious sensation to have one's collar bone smashed by a blow from a two-handed sword----' 'Good heavens!' cried Zoë. 'What a catalogue! How do you know how each thing feels?' 'I can remember,' Zeno answered simply. 'You have been wounded in all those different ways, and you are alive?' Zeno smiled. 'Yes; and you understand now why I look so old.' 'I was not in earnest,' Zoë said. 'You knew that I was not. You need only look at yourself in a mirror to see that I was laughing.' 'I was not very deeply hurt by being taken for a man of fifty,' Zeno answered, not quite truthfully. 'Oh no!' laughed Zoë. 'I cannot imagine that my opinion of your age could make any difference to you. It was silly of me--only, for a man who has had so many adventures, you do look absurdly young!' 'So much the better, since my fighting days are over.' 'And since you are a sober, peace-loving merchant,' said Zoë, continuing the sentence for him. 'But are you so very sure, my lord? Would nothing make you draw your sword again and risk your life on your fencing? Nothing?' 'Nothing that did not affect my honour, I truly believe.' 'You would not do it for a woman's sake?' She turned to him, to watch his face, but its expression did not change. 'Three things can drive a wise man mad,--wine, women, and dice.' 'I daresay! Your lordship reckons us in good company. But that is no answer to my question.' 'Yes it is,' said Zeno with a laugh. 'Why should I do for a woman what I would not do for dice or wine?' 'But dice and wine never tempted you,' Zoë objected. Zeno laughed louder. 'Never? When I was a student at Padua I sold everything, even my books, to get money for both. It was only when the books were gone that I turned soldier, and learned the greatest game of hazard in the world. Compared with that, dice are an opiate, and wine is a sleeping-draught.' He only smiled now, after laughing, but there was a look in his face as he spoke which she saw then for the first time and did not forget, and recognised when she saw it again. It was subtle, and might have passed unnoticed among men, but it spoke to the sex in the girl, and made her young blood thrill. For worlds, she would not have had him guess what she felt just then. 'Fighting for its own sake would tempt you, if nothing else could,' she answered quietly. 'Ah--perhaps, perhaps,' he answered, musing. 'But you would need a cause, though ever so slight, and you have none here, have you?' 'None that I care to take up.' 'You may find something to fight for--over the water,' Zoë suggested, emphasising the words a little and watching his face. The phrase meant nothing to him. 'Over the water?' he repeated carelessly. 'At home, in Venice, you mean. Yes, if Venice needed me, I should not wait to be called twice!' It was quite clear that he attached no meaning to the words she had used, and this fact tallied with what the astrologer had told her in the morning as to his having been deaf to all advances made to him by the imprisoned Emperor's party. Zoë leaned back in silence for a while, almost closing her eyes, and she saw that he watched her, and that an unmistakable look of admiration stole into his face. She was wondering whether it would ever turn into something more, and whether she should ever see the gleam of fight in his eyes, for her sake, that had flashed in them a moment ago at the mere thought of battle. What did women do, to make men love them? There is an age when girls believe that love need only be called, like a tame dove, and that he will fly in at the window; and there is an age when he comes to them uncalled-for. If only the ages were the same for all, much trouble might be spared. Zoë was perhaps between the two, but she still believed that there was some fixed rule on which clever women acted to make men fall in love with them, those wicked women who are described to young girls as 'designing,' and are supposed to know precisely the effect they can produce on men at any moment, to the very nicety of an eyelash. Zeno broke the long silence with an unexpected speech which roughly awakened Zoë from her reflection. 'As for this Emperor John whom his son has locked up,' he said, 'his friends have done their best to interest me in his cause. He has even sent me messages, begging me to help him to escape. Why? What difference can it make to me whether he or his son dies in the Amena tower? They are poor things, both of them, and for all I care John may starve in his chains before I will lift a finger!' Zoë sighed and bit her lip to check herself, for his voluntary declaration had dashed the palace of her hopes to pieces in an instant. Then she was ashamed of having even dreamt that he might love her, since he despised the very cause for which she had wished to win his love. But this state of mind did not last long, either. She was too brave to let such a speech pass, as if she agreed with it. 'You are wrong,' she said, quite forgetting that she had set herself to play the part of the slave. 'You ought to help him, if you can--and you can, if you will.' Zeno looked at her in surprise. There was something like authority in her tone, and the two little maids, whom he had forgotten in their corner behind him, stared in astonishment at her audacity. Not a word of the conversation had escaped them. 'I mean,' continued Zoë, before he could find an answer to her plain statement, 'if you are a true Venetian you should wish to put down the man whom the Genoese and the Turks have set on the throne. Johannes is your friend and your country's friend, though he is a weak man and always will be. Andronicus is an enemy to Venice and a friend to her enemies. He is even now ready to give the island of Tenedos to them--the key to the Dardanelles----' 'What?' asked Zeno in a loud and angry tone. 'Tenedos?' His manner had changed, and he almost rose from his seat as he bent forwards and seized her wrist in his excitement. She was glad, and smiled at him. 'Yes,' she answered, 'the Genoese demand it as the price of their protection, and they will force him to give it to them. But it may not be easy, for the governor of the island is loyal to Johannes.' 'How do you know these things?' asked Zeno, still holding her wrist and trying to look into her eyes. 'I know them,' Zoë answered. 'If I am not telling you the truth, sell me in the market to-morrow.' [Illustration: 'I know them,' Zoë answered. 'If I am not telling you the truth, sell me in the market to-morrow.'] 'By the Evangelist,' swore Zeno, 'you will deserve it.' CHAPTER IX A month had passed, and yet, to all outward appearance, Zeno's manner of living had undergone no change. He rose early and bathed in the Golden Horn on fine days. He attended to his business in the morning, and dined with Sebastian Polo twice a week, but generally at home on the remaining days; and he rode out in the afternoon with a single running footman, or stayed indoors if it rained. Even his own servants and slaves hardly noticed any change in his habits, and only observed that he often looked preoccupied, and sometimes sat on his balcony for an hour without moving, his eyes fixed on the towers of the Blachernæ palace. They did not know how much time he spent with his beautiful Greek slave; and they found that the two little maids, Yulia and Lucilla, were not inclined to gossip when they came downstairs on an errand. Omobono probably knew a good deal, but he kept it to himself, and stored the fruits of his lively curiosity to enjoy alone the delicious sensation of the miser gloating over his useless gold. On the whole, therefore, life in the Venetian merchant's house had gone on much as usual for a whole month after Zoë had fired a train which was destined to produce momentous results when it reached the mine at last. Zeno saw her every day now, and often twice, and she had become a part of his life, and necessary to him; though he did not believe that he was in love with her, any more than she would have admitted that she loved him. For each was possessed by one dominant thought; and it chanced, as it rarely chances in real life, that one deed, if it could be performed, would satisfy the hopes of both. Zeno, born patriot and leader, saw that the whole influence of his country in the East was at stake in the matter of Tenedos; Zoë thirsted to revenge the death of Michael Rhangabé, her adopted father and the idol of her childhood. If the imprisoned Emperor Johannes could be delivered from the Amena tower, both would certainly obtain what they most desired. Johannes would give Tenedos to Venice, in gratitude for his liberty, and the people of Constantinople would probably tear Andronicus to ribands in the Hippodrome, on the very spot where Rhangabé had suffered. They would rally round their lawful sovereign if he could only be got out of the precincts of the palace, where the usurper was strongly guarded by his foreign mercenaries, mostly Circassians, Mingrelians, Avars, and Slavonians. The people would not rise of themselves to storm Blachernæ, nor would the Greek troops revolt of their own accord; but as they all feared the soldiers of the foreign legion, they hated them and their master Andronicus, and the presence of Johannes amongst them would restore their courage and make the issue certain. Such a leader as Carlo Zeno might indeed have successfully besieged Andronicus in his palace; but he knew, and every man and woman in Constantinople knew well enough, that Andronicus would make an end of his father and of his two younger brothers in prison, at the first sign of a revolution, so that there might be no lawful heir to the throne left alive but he himself. Therefore it was the first and the chief object of the patriots to bring Johannes secretly from his place of confinement to the heart of the city, or to one of the islands, beyond the reach of danger, till the revolution should be over and his son a prisoner in his stead; though it was much more probable that the latter would be summarily put to death as a traitor. All this Zeno had understood before Zoë had spoken to him about it; but he had not known that the Genoese had demanded Tenedos of Andronicus as the price of their protection against the Turks; for the negotiations had been kept very secret, and at first Carlo had not believed the girl, and had deemed that the tale might be a pure invention. He had come again to see her on the following day, and again he had vainly tried to find out who she was, and in what great Fanariote house she had been brought up. It was impossible to get a word from her on this subject; and she warned him that what she had told him must not be repeated in the hearing of any Genoese, nor of any one connected with the Court. The Genoese meant that no one should know of the treaty till it was carried out, and until Tenedos was theirs; for the place was very strong, as they afterwards found by experience, and Andronicus needed their help too much to risk losing their favour by an indiscretion. These injunctions of silence made Carlo still more doubtful as to the veracity of Zoë's story, and he frankly told her so and demanded proof; but she only answered as she had at first. 'If it is not true,' she said, 'brand me in the forehead, as they brand thieves, and sell me in the open market.' And again he was angry, and swore that he would do so by her indeed if the story was a lie; but she smiled confidently, and nodded her assent. 'If you do not save the Emperor,' she said, 'you Venetians will be driven out of Constantinople before many months; and if Genoa once holds Tenedos how shall you ever again sail up the Dardanelles?' Many a time she had heard Michael Rhangabé say as much to his friends, and she knew that it was wisdom. So did Zeno, and he wondered at the knowledge of his bought slave. So he came and went, turning over the great question in his brain; and she awaited his coming gladly, because she saw that he was roused, and because the longing for just revenge was uppermost in her thoughts. Thus were the two drawn together more and more, fate helping. Yet he told her nothing of the steps he took so quickly after he had once made up his mind to act. She no longer asked him what he meant to do with her; she did not again send for the secretary to complain that her existence was dull; she no longer was impatient with her maids; she seemed perfectly satisfied with her existence. She went out when she pleased to go, in the beautiful skiff, in charge of Omobono, and always with one of the girls; and she sat in the deep cushioned seat as the great ladies did when they were rowed to the Sweet Waters, and as she had sat many times in old days, beside Kyría Agatha. The secretary sat on a little movable seat in the waist of the boat, which was built almost exactly like a modern Venetian gondola without the hood, and the slave-girl sat in the bottom at her mistress's feet. Zoë, the adopted daughter of the Protosparthos, had gone abroad with uncovered face, but Arethusa, the slave, was closely veiled, though that was not the general custom. And often, as she glided along in the spring afternoons, she passed people she had known only a year ago, or a little more, who wondered why she hid her features; or told each other, as was more or less true, that she was some handsome white slave, whose jealous master would not suffer her beauty to be seen. For it was clear that Omobono was only a respectable elderly person placed in charge of her. The two generally conversed in Latin, and the secretary told her of his search for Kyría Agatha, the children, and old Nectaria. She had never shown him her face since she had been a slave, and she believed that he did not connect her with the ragged girl he had seen bending over the sick woman's bed in the beggars' quarter. She had enjoined upon him the greatest discretion in case he found the little family, and with Omobono such an injunction was quite unnecessary, for outward discretion is the characteristic quality of curiosity, which is inwardly the least discreet of failings. People who look through keyholes, listen behind curtains, and read other people's letters are generally the last to talk of what they learn in that way. As yet, the secretary's search had been fruitless, but he had long ago made up his mind that Zoë was Kyría Agatha's daughter. The bandy-legged sacristan of Saint Bacchus had helped him to this conclusion by informing him that Rustan Karaboghazji had not come to perform his devotions in the church for some time; never, in fact, since that Friday afternoon on which Omobono had inquired after him. The secretary had searched the beggars' quarter in vain. He remembered the ruined house very well, and the crazy shutters with bits of rain-bleached string tied to them for fastenings. There were people living in it, but they were not the same beggars; it was now inhabited by the chief physician of the beggars himself, whose business it was to prepare misery for the public eye, at fixed rates. For among those who were really starving there lived a small tribe of professional paupers, who displayed the horrors of their loathsome diseases at the doors of the churches all over Constantinople. The physician was skilful in his way, and though he preferred a real cripple, or a real sore for his art to improve upon, he could produce the semblance of either on sound limbs and a whole skin, though the process was expensive. Yet that increased cost was balanced by the ability of his healthy patients to go alone to a great distance, and thus to vary the scene of their industry. They thus picked up the charity which should have reached the real poor, most of whom could hardly crawl as far as the great thoroughfares more than once or twice a week, at the risk of their lives. The sham beggar always has a marvellous power of covering the ground, but you must generally seek the real one in the lair where he is dying. Omobono had learnt much about beggars which he had not known before then, and he had found no trace whatever of the people whom he was seeking. They seemed very far away when Zoë thought of them. She wondered whether any of them missed her, except Nectaria, now that they had warm clothes and plenty to eat. The sacrifice had been very terrible at first,--it did not seem so now; and she knew that on that very afternoon when she went home after being out in the boat, she would listen for Zeno's footstep in the vestibule, and think the time long till he came. But Omobono had gathered a good deal of information about her from his acquaintance, the sacristan, whom he strongly suspected of being in league with Rustan to inform him when there was anything worth buying in the beggars' quarter; for the Bokharian was a busy man, and had no time to spend in searching for unusual merchandise, nor, when there was any to be had, would it have been to his advantage to be seen often in its neighborhood. So he paid the sacristan to quarter the ground continually for him, while he was engaged elsewhere. It is to the credit of Rustan's splendid business intelligence that the system he employed has not been improved on in five hundred years; for when the modern slave-dealers make their annual journeys to the centres of supply they find everything ready for them, like any other commercial traveller. Having understood Rustan's mode of procedure, Omobono had extracted from the sacristan such information as the latter possessed about Zoë and Kyría Agatha, but that was not very much after all. They had lived three or four weeks in the ruined house, or perhaps six; he could not remember exactly. At first they all came to the church, but they had sold their miserable clothes and their wretched belongings. The last time the girl had come, she had been alone, and she had worn a blanket over her shoulders to keep her warm. That had been at dusk. Then Rustan had bought her, and soon afterwards they must have gone away, since the beggars' physician was now installed in the house. Why should the sacristan take any interest in them? They were gone, and Constantinople was a vast city. No, the woman had not died, for he would have known it. When people died they were buried, even if they had starved to death in the beggars' quarter. Zoë thanked Omobono for the information, and begged him to continue her search. He wondered why she did not burst into tears, and concluded that she was either quite heartless, or was in love with Zeno, or both. He inclined to the latter theory. Love, he told himself with all the conviction of middle-aged inexperience, was a selfish passion. Zoë loved Zeno, and did not care what had become of her mother. Besides, he knew that she was jealous. She had heard of Giustina, and was determined to see her. She insisted that the boat should keep to the left, going up the Golden Horn, and she made the secretary point out Sebastian Polo's dwelling. It was a small palace, a hundred yards below the gardens of Blachernæ, and it had marble steps, like those at Zeno's house. A girl with dyed hair sat in the shade in an upper balcony; her hair was red auburn, like that of the Venetian women, and her face was white, but that was all Zoë could see. She wished she had a hawk's eyes. Omobono said it might be Giustina, but as the latter had many friends, it might also be one of them, for most Venetian women had hair of that colour. Farther up, they neared Blachernæ, and came first to the great Amena tower, of which the foundations stood on an escarped pier in the water. Zoë looked up, trying to guess the height of the upper windows from the water, but she had no experience, and they were very high--perhaps a hundred palms, perhaps fifty--Zeno would know. Could he get up there by a rope? She wondered, and she thought of what she should feel if she herself were hanging there in mid-air by a single rope against the smooth wall. Then in her imagination she saw Zeno half-way up, and some one cut the line above, for he was discovered, and he fell. A painful thrill ran down the back of her neck and her spine and through her limbs, and she shrank in her seat. It was up there, in the highest story, that Johannes had been a prisoner nearly two years. The windows needed no gratings, for it would be death to leap out, and no one could climb up to get in. The pier below the tower sloped to the stream, and its base ran out so far that no man could have jumped clear of it from above--even if he dared the desperate risk of striking the water. Bertrandon de la Broquière saw it, years afterwards, when Zeno was an old man, and you may look at a good picture of it in his illuminated book. A solitary fisherman was perched on the edge of the sloping pier, apparently hindered from slipping off by the very slight projection of the lowest course of stones, which was perpendicular. His brown legs were bare far above the knee, he wore a brown fisherman's coat of a woollen stuff, not woven but fulled like felt; a wide hat of sennet, sewn round and round a small crown of tarred sailcloth, flapped over his ears. He angled in the slow stream with a long reed and a short line. Zoë looked at him attentively as the boat passed near him, and she saw that he was watching her, too, from under the limp brim of his queer hat. Her left hand hung over the gunwale of the skiff, and when she was opposite the fisherman she wetted her fingers and carelessly raised them to her lips as if she were tasting the drops. The man instantly replied by waving his rod over the water thrice, and he cast his short line each time. She had seen his mouth and chin and scanty beard below the hanging brim of his hat, and she had fancied that she recognised him; she had no doubt of it now. The solitary fisherman was Gorlias Pietrogliant, the astrologer. Omobono had scarcely noticed him, for his own natural curiosity made him look steadily up at the high windows, on the chance that the imperial prisoner might look out just then. He had seen him once or twice before the revolution, and wondered whether he was much changed by his long confinement. But instead of the handsome bearded face the secretary remembered, a woman appeared and looked towards Pera for a moment, and drew back hastily as she caught sight of the skiff; she was rather a stout woman with red cheeks, and she wore the Greek head-dress of the upper classes. So much Omobono saw at a glance, though the window was fully ninety feet above him, and she had only remained in sight a few seconds. He had always had good eyes. But without seeing her at all Zoë had understood that communication between the prisoner and the outer world was carried on through Gorlias, and that by him a message could be sent directly to the Emperor. She did not speak till the boat had passed the whole length of the palace and was turning in the direction of the Sweet Waters. 'That astrologer,' she said, 'do you remember him? Why has he never come again?' Omobono promised to send for him the very next day. After that there was silence for a while, and the skiff slipped along upstream, till the secretary spoke again, to correct what he had last said. 'He had better not come to-morrow. I will tell him to come the next morning.' 'Why?' Zoë asked, in some surprise. 'To-morrow,' said Omobono, 'Messer Sebastian Polo comes to dine with the master. There will be confusion in the house.' 'Confusion, because one guest comes to dinner?' Zoë spoke incredulously. 'I believe,' said Omobono rather timidly, 'that he will not be the only guest.' 'He brings his daughter with him, then?' Zoë felt that she changed colour under her veil. 'I do not know,' the secretary said smoothly; 'but there will be several guests.' Zoë turned towards him impatiently. 'You will have orders to keep me out of the way while they are in the house,' she said. 'I shall receive through you the master's commands not to show myself at my window!' 'How can you think such a thing?' cried Omobono, protesting. 'Rather than put you to such inconvenience I am sure the master will beg his guests to enter by the other side of the house. If it was his object to exasperate her, he had succeeded, but if he expected her to break out in anger he was mistaken. She was too proud, and she already regretted the few hasty words she had spoken. Moreover, her anger told her something that surprised her, and wounded her self-respect. She understood for the first time how jealous she was, and that she could feel no such jealousy if she were not in love. She was not a child, and but for misfortune she would have been married at least two years by this time. This was not the dreamy and slowly stealing dawn of girlhood's day; her sun had risen in a flash amidst angry clouds, as he does in India in mid-June, when the south-west monsoon is just going to break and the rain is very near. When Omobono had spoken she leaned back in her seat and drew the folds of her mantle more closely round her, as if to separate herself from him more completely, and she did not speak again for a long time. On his side, the secretary understood, and instead of feeling rebuked by her silence, he was pleased with himself because his curiosity had made another step forward in the land of discovery. It occurred to him that it would be very interesting to bring Zoë and Giustina within sight of each other, if no nearer. Zeno had not said that his guests were to come by land instead of by water; the secretary had only argued that he would request them to do so, to avoid their seeing Zoë if she happened to be at her window. Omobono had power to do whatever he thought necessary for keeping the house and the approach to it in repair without consulting any one. That was a part of his duty. It was usual to repair the road in the spring. Omobono chose to have the work done now, sent for a gang of labourers, and gave a few simple orders. Before Zeno knew what was going on the way to the main entrance was quite impassable, though a narrow passage had been left to the door of the kitchen for the servants and slaves. The secretary had suddenly discovered that the road was in such a deplorable condition as to make it necessary to dig it out to the depth of a yard here and there, where the soil was soft, thus making a series of pits, over which no horse could pass. 'What in the world possessed you to do this now?' asked Zeno, with annoyance, 'I told you that Messer Sebastian and his daughter were coming to dine with me to-morrow, as well as other friends.' 'They will see nothing, sir,' answered the secretary imperturbably. 'The guests always come by water, they dine on that side of the house, and they go away by water. How could they see the road, sir? It is beyond the court!' Zeno did not choose to explain that he had especially begged Polo and the others to come by land, and he now concealed his displeasure, or believed that he did. But when Omobono had gone to his own room Zeno sent for the running footmen and bade them go to each of the invited guests early the next morning to say that the road was torn up and that they must be good enough to come in their boats. Then he went upstairs, for he had not seen Zoë all day, and it pleased him to sup with her. As soon as he entered the room and saw her he felt that something was wrong, but he made as if he noticed nothing, and sat down in his usual place. 'We will have supper together,' he said in a cheerful tone, settling himself in his big chair, and rubbing his hands, like a man who has finished his day's work and looks forward to something pleasant. As a matter of fact he had done nothing in particular, and had set himself a rather disagreeable task; for he did not wish Messer Sebastian to know that Zoë or any other woman was in the house, and he was reduced to the necessity of telling the girl not to show herself. She was legally his chattel, and if he chose he might lock her up in a room on the other side of the house for a few hours, or in the cellar. He told himself this; and for the hundredth time he recalled her own story of her birth and bringing up, which was logical and clear, and explained both her gentle breeding and the careful education she had evidently received. But logic is often least convincing when it is most unanswerable, and Zeno remained in the belief that the most important part of Zoë's story was still a secret. She said nothing now in answer to his announcement, but she beckoned to Yulia to bring supper, and the maid disappeared. Being out of temper with him at that moment, she was asking herself how she could possibly be jealous of Giustina Polo; she mentally added that she would no more think of sitting at the window to see her go by, than of looking at her through a keyhole. Also, she wished Zeno would sit where he was for an hour or two, and not utter a word, so that she might show him how utterly indifferent she was to his presence, and that she could be just as silent as he; and women much older than Zoë have felt just as she did then. But Zeno, who was uncomfortable, was also resolved to be cheerful and at his ease. 'It has been a beautiful day,' he observed. 'I hope you had a pleasant morning on the water.' 'Thanks,' Zoë answered, and said no more. This was not encouraging, but Zeno was not easily put off. After a few moments he tried again. 'I fear you do not find my secretary very amusing,' he said. Zoë was on the point of asking him whether he himself considered Omobono a diverting person, but she checked herself with a little snort of indignation which might have passed for a laugh without a smile. Zeno glanced at her profile, raised his eyebrows, and said nothing more till the slave-girls came with the supper. While they brought the small table and set it between the two, he leaned back in his carved chair, crossed one shapely leg over the other, and drummed a noiseless tattoo with the end of his fingers on his knee, the picture of unconcern. Zoë half sat and half lay on her divan, apparently scrutinising the nail of one little finger, pushing it and rubbing it gently with the thumb of the same hand, and then looking at it again as if she expected to observe a change in its appearance after being touched. The maids placed the dishes on the table and poured out wine, and Zoë began to eat in silence, without paying any attention to Zeno. That is one way of showing indifference, and both men and women use it, yet it still remains surprisingly effective. 'What is the matter with you?' Zeno asked, suddenly. Zoë pretended to be surprised and then smiled coldly. 'Oh! you mean, because I am hungry, I suppose. I have been in the open air. It must be that.' She at once took another mouthful, and went on eating. 'No,' answered Zeno, watching her. 'I did not mean that.' She raised her beautiful eyebrows, just as he had raised his a few minutes earlier, but she said nothing and seemed very busy with the fish. Carlo took another piece, swallowed some of it deliberately, and drank a little before he leaned back in his chair and spoke again. 'Something has happened,' he said at last with great conviction. 'Really?' Zoë pretended surprised interest. 'What?' she asked with affected eagerness. 'You understand me perfectly,' he replied with a shade of sternness, for he was growing tired of her mood. She glanced at him sideways, as a woman does when she hears a man's tone change suddenly, and she is not sure what he may do or say next. 'You do not make it easy to understand you, my lord,' she said after an instant's hesitation. 'The matter is simple enough. I find you in a bad humour----' 'Oh no! I assure you!' Zoë broke in, with a woman's diabolical facility in interrupting a man just at the right moment for her own advantage. 'I was never in a better temper in my life!' To prove this, she took a bird and some salad, and smiled sweetly at her plate, leaving him to prove his assertion, but he did not fall into the trap. 'Then you are not easy to live with,' he observed bluntly. 'I am glad it is over.' 'Do take some of this salad!' suggested Zoë. 'It is really delicious!' 'To-morrow,' Zeno said, without paying any attention to her recommendation, 'I shall have a few guests at dinner.' 'I should advise you to give them a salad exactly like this,' answered Zoë. 'It could not be better!' 'I am glad you like it. I leave the fare to Omobono. It is about another matter that I have to speak.' 'You need not!' Zoë laughed carelessly. 'I know what you are going to say. Shall I save you the trouble?' 'I do not see how you can guess what it is----' 'Oh, easily! You do not wish your friends to see me and you are going to order me not to look out of the window when they come. Is that it?' 'Yes--more or less----' Zeno was surprised. 'Yes, that is it,' laughed Zoë. 'But it is quite useless, sir. I shall most certainly look out of the window, unless you lock me up in another room; and as for your doing that, I will yield only to force!' She laughed again, much amused at the dilemma in which she was placing him. And indeed, he did not at first know how to answer her declaration of independence. 'I cannot imagine why you should be so anxious to show yourself to people you do not know,' he said. 'Or perhaps you fancy they may be friends--you think that if they recognise you--but that is absurd. I have told you that if you have friends in the world you may go to them, and you say you have none.' Zoë's tone changed again and became girlishly petulant. 'It is nothing but curiosity, of course!' she answered. 'I want to see the people you like. Is that so unnatural? In a whole month I have never seen one of your friends--' 'I have not many. But such as I have, I value, and I do not care to let them get a mistaken impression of me, or of the way I live.' 'Especially not the women amongst them,' Zoë added, half interrogatively. 'There are none,' said Zeno, as if to cut short the suggestion. 'I see. You do not want your men friends to know that there are women living in your house, do you? They are doubtless all grave and elderly persons, who would be much shocked and grieved to learn that you have bought a pretty Greek slave. After all, you came near being a priest, did you not? They naturally associate you in their minds with the clergy, and for some reason or other you think it just as well for you, or your affairs, that they should! I have always heard that the Venetians are good men of business!' 'You are probably the only person alive who would risk saying that to me,' said Zeno, looking at her. 'What do I risk, my lord?' asked Zoë, with a sort of submissive gravity. 'My anger,' Zeno answered curtly. 'Yes sir, I understand. Your anger--but pray, my lord, how will it show itself? Shall I be beaten, or put in chains and starved, or turned out of your house and sold at auction? Those are the usual punishments for disobedient slaves, are they not?' 'I am not a Greek,' said Zeno, annoyed. 'If you were,' answered Zoë, turning her face from him to hide her smile, 'you would probably wish to tear out my tongue!' 'Perhaps.' 'It might be a wise precaution!' she laughed. Zeno looked at her sharply now, for the words sounded like a threat that was only half-playful. She knew enough to compass his destruction at the hands of Andronicus if she betrayed him, but he did not believe she would do that, and he wondered what she was driving at, for his experience of women's ways was small. 'Listen,' he said, dropping his voice a little. 'I shall not beat you, I shall not starve you, and I shall not sell you. But if you try to betray me, I will kill you.' She raised her head proudly and met his eyes without fear. 'I would spare you the trouble--if I ever betrayed you or any one.' 'It is one thing to talk of death, it is another to die!' Zeno laughed rather incredulously, as he quoted the old Italian proverb. 'I have seen death,' Zoë answered, in a different tone. 'I know what it is.' He wondered what she meant, but he knew it was useless to question her, and for a few moments there was silence. The lamps burned steadily in the quiet air, for the evenings were still and cool, and the windows were shut and curtained; through the curtains and the shutters the song of a passing waterman was heard in the stillness, a long-drawn, plaintive melody in the Lydian Mode, familiar to Zoë's ears since she had been a child. But Zeno saw how intensely she listened to the words. She clasped her hands tightly over her knee, and bent forwards to catch each note and syllable. The waters are blue as the eyes of the Emperor's daughter, In the crystal pools of her eyes there are salt tears. The water is both salt and fresh. Over the water to my love, this night, over the water-- The voice died away, and Zoë no longer heard the words distinctly; presently she could not hear the voice at all, yet she strained her ears for a few seconds longer. The boat must have passed, on its way down to the Bosphorus. For a whole month she had sat in the same room at that hour, and many times already she had heard men singing in their boats, sometimes to that same ancient Lydian Mode, but never once had they pronounced those meaning words. Often and often again she had passed within sight of the Amena tower, but not until to-day had she seen a solitary fisherman sitting at the pier's edge below it, and he had waved his rod thrice over the water when she passed by. And now in a flash of intuition she guessed that the singer was the fisherman and none other, and that the song was for her, and for no one else; and it was a signal which she could understand and should answer if she could; and there was but one way of answering, and that was to show some light. 'It is hot,' she said, beckoning to Yulia. 'Open the large window wide for a few minutes and let in the fresh air.' Yulia obeyed quickly. The night was very dark. 'Besides,' Zoë continued carelessly, as Zeno looked at her, 'that fellow has a fine voice, and we shall still hear him.' And indeed, as the window was opened, the song was heard again, at some distance-- Over the water to my love, she is awake to-night, I see her eyes amongst the stars. Love, I am here in the dark, but to-morrow I shall see the day in your face, I shall see the noon in your eyes, I shall look upon the sun in your hair. Over the water, the blue water, the water both salt and fresh---- Once more the voice died away and the faint plash of oars told Zoë that the message was all delivered, and that Gorlias was gone, on his way downstream. Zeno, whose maternal tongue was not Greek, could not be supposed to understand much of the song, for unfamiliar words sung to such ancient melodies can only be caught by native-born ears, and sharp ones at that. At a signal from Zoë, the maid shut the window again, and drew the curtains. 'Could you understand the fellow?' Zeno asked, glad in reality that the conversation had been interrupted. 'Yes,' Zoë answered lightly, 'as you would understand an Italian fisherman, I suppose. The man gave you a message, my lord. Shall I interpret what he said?' 'Can you?' He laughed a little. 'He tells you that if you will not try to force Arethusa to keep away from the window to-morrow, she will probably do as you wish--probably!' 'Your friend must have good ears!' Zeno smiled. 'But then he only said "probably." That is not a promise.' 'Why should you trust the promise of a poor slave, sir? You would not believe a lady of Constantinople in the same case if she took oath on the four Gospels! Imagine any woman missing a chance of looking at another about whom she is curious!' 'Who is the other?' asked Zeno, not much pleased. 'She is young, and as fresh as spring. Her hair is like that of all the Venetian ladies----' 'Since you have seen her, why are you so anxious to see her again?' 'Ah! You see! It is she! I knew it! She is coming to-morrow with her father.' 'Well? If she is, what of it?' asked Zeno, impatiently. 'Nothing. Since you admit that it is she, I do not care to see her at all. I will be good and you need not lock me up.' Thereupon she bent towards the table and began to eat again, daintily, but as if she were still hungry. Zeno watched her in silence for some time, conscious that of all women he had ever seen none had so easily touched him, none had played upon his moods as she did, making him impatient, uneasy, angry, and forgiving by turns, within a quarter of an hour. A few minutes ago he had been so exasperated that he had rudely longed to box her little ears; and now he felt much more inclined to kiss her, and did not care to think how very easy and wholly lawful it was for him to do so. That was one of his many dilemmas; if he spoke to her as his equal she told him she was a slave, but when he treated her ever so little as if she were one, her proud little head went up, and she looked like an empress. She had never been so much like one as to-night, he thought, though there was nothing very imperial in the action of eating a very sticky strawberry, drawn up out of thick syrup with a forked silver pin. She did it with grace, no doubt, twisting the pin dexterously, so that the big drop of syrup spread all round the berry just at the right moment, and it never dripped. Zeno had often seen the wife of the Emperor Charles eating stewed prunes with her fingers, which was not neat or pleasant to see, though it might be imperial, since she was a genuine empress. But it was neither Zoë's grace nor her delicate ways that pleased him and puzzled him most; the mystery lay rather in the fearless tone of her voice and the proud carriage of her head when she was offended, in the flashing answer of her brave eyes and the noble curve of her tender mouth; for these are things given, not learnt, and if they could be taught at all, thought Zeno, they would not be taught to a slave. He let his head rest against the back of his chair and wished many things, rather incoherently. For once in his life he felt inclined for anything rather than action or danger, or any sudden change; and in the detestable natural contradiction of duty and inclination it chanced that on that night, of all nights, he could not stay where he was to idle away two or three hours in careless talk, till it should be time to go downstairs and sleep. The habit of spending his evenings in that way had grown upon him during the past month more than he realised; but to-night he knew that he must break through it, and perhaps to-morrow, too, and for long afterwards, if not for ever. That was one reason why it had annoyed him to find Zoë out of temper. He rose with an effort, and with something like a sigh. 'I must be going,' he said, standing beside the divan. 'Good-night.' Zoë had looked up in surprise when he left his seat, and now her face fell. 'Already? Must you go already?' she asked. 'Yes. I have to keep an appointment. Good-night.' 'Good-night, Messer Carlo,' answered Zoë softly and a little sadly. She had never before addressed him in that way, as an equal and a Venetian would have done, and the expression, with the tone in which it was uttered, arrested his attention and stopped him when he was in the act of turning away. He said nothing, but there was a question in his look. 'I am sorry that I made you angry,' she said, and she turned her face up to him with one of those half-pathetic, hesitating little smiles that ask forgiveness of a man and invariably get it, unless he is a brute. 'I am sorry that I let you see I was annoyed,' he answered simply. 'If I had not been so foolish, you would not go away so early!' Her tone was contrite and regretfully thoughtful, as if the explanation were irrefutable but humiliating. Eve was, on the whole, a good woman, and is believed to be in Paradise; yet with the slight previous training of a few minutes' conversation with the serpent she was an accomplished temptress, and her rustic taste for apples has sent untold millions down into unquenchable fire. It was a mere coincidence that Eve should have been always called Zoë in the early Greek translations of Genesis, and that Zoë Rhangabé should have inherited a dangerous resemblance to the first beautiful--and enterprising--mother of men. 'I would stay if I could,' Zeno said. 'But indeed I have an appointment, and I must go.' 'Is it very important, very--very?' Zeno smiled at her now, but did not answer at once. Instead, he walked to the window, opened the shutters again, and looked out. The night was very dark. Here and there little lights twinkled in the houses of Pera, and those that were near the water's edge made tiny paths over the black stream. After his eyes had grown used to the gloom Zeno could make out that there was a boat near the marble steps, and a very soft sound of oars moving in the water told him that the boatman was paddling gently to keep his position against the slow current. Zeno shut the window again and turned back to Zoë. 'Yes,' he said, answering her last speech after the interval, 'it is very important. If it were not, I would not go out to-night.' He was going out of the house, then. She knew that he rarely did so after dark, and she could not help connecting his going with the invitation he had given to Polo and his daughter for the next day. Zoë's imagination instantly spun a thread across the chasms of improbability, and ran along the fairy bridge to the regions of the impossible beyond. He was to be betrothed to Giustina to-morrow, he was going now to settle some urgent matter of business connected with the marriage-contract; or he was betrothed already; yes, and he was to be married in the morning and would bring his bride home; Zoë, in her lonely room upstairs, would hear the noisy feasting of the wedding-guests below---- When the thread broke, leaving her in the unreality, her lip quivered, and she was a little pale. Zeno was standing beside her, holding her hand. 'Good-night, Arethusa,' he said in a tone that frightened her. The words sounded like 'good-bye,' for that was what they might mean; he knew it, and she guessed it. 'You are going away!' she cried, springing to her feet and slipping her hand from his to catch his wrist. 'Not if I can help it,' he answered. 'But you may not see me to-morrow.' 'Not in the evening?' she asked in great anxiety. 'Not even after they are gone?' 'I cannot tell,' he replied gravely. 'Perhaps not.' She dropped his wrist and turned from him. 'You are going to be married,' she said in a low voice. 'I was sure of it.' 'No!' he answered with emphasis. 'Not that!' She turned to him again; it did not occur to her to doubt his word, and her eyes asked him the next question with eager anxiety, but he would not answer. He only repeated the three words, very tenderly and softly-- 'Good-night--Arethusa!' She knew it was good-bye, though he would not say it; she was not guessing his meaning now. But she was proud. He should not see how hurt she was. 'Good-night,' she answered. 'If you are going away--then, good-bye.' Her voice almost broke, but she pressed her lips tight together when the last word had passed them, and though the tears seemed to be burning her brain she would not shed them while his eyes were on her. 'God keep you,' he said, as one says who goes on a long journey. Again he was turning from her, not meaning to look back; but it was more than she could bear. In an inward tempest of fear and pain she had been taught suddenly that she truly loved him more than her soul, and in the same instant he was leaving her for a long time, perhaps for ever. She could not bear it, and her pride broke down. She caught his hand as he turned to go and held it fast. 'Take me with you!' she cried. 'Oh, do not go away and leave me behind!' A silence of three seconds. 'I will come back,' he said. 'If I am alive, I will come back.' 'You are going into danger!' Her hand tightened on his, and she grew paler still. He would not answer, but he patted her wrist kindly, trying to soothe her anxiety. He seemed quiet enough at that moment, but he felt the slow, full beat of his own heart and the rush of the swelling pulse in his throat. He had not guessed before to-night that she loved him; he was too simple, and far too sure that he himself could not love a slave. Even now he did not like to own it, but he knew that the hand she held was not passive; it pressed hers tighter in return, and drew it to him instead of pushing it away, till at last it was close to his breast. 'Oh, let me go with you, take me with you!' she repeated, beseeching with all her heart. He was not thinking of danger now, he had forgotten it so far that he scarcely paid attention to her words or to her passionate entreaty. Words had lost sense and value, as they do in battle, and the fire ran along his arm to her hand. It had been cold; it was hot now, and throbbed strangely. Then he dropped it and took her suddenly by her small throat, almost violently, and turned her face up to his; but she was not frightened, and she smiled in his grasp. 'I did not mean to love you!' He still held her as he spoke; she put up her hands together and took his wrists, but not to free herself; instead, she pressed his hold closer upon her throat, as if to make him choke her. 'I wish you would kill me now!' she cried, in a trembling, happy little voice. He laughed low, and shook her the least bit, as a strong man shakes a child in play, but her eyes drew him to her more and more. 'It would be so easy now,' she almost whispered, 'and I should be so happy!' Then they kissed; and as their lips touched they closed their eyes, for they were too near to see each other any longer. Her head sank back from his upon his arm, for she was almost fainting, and he laid his palm gently on her forehead and pushed away her hair, and looked at her long. 'I had not meant to love you,' he said again. Her lips were still parted, tender as rose-leaves at dewfall, and her eyes glistened as she opened them at the sound of his voice. 'Are you sorry?' she asked faintly. [Illustration: 'I did not mean to love you!'] He kissed the question from her lips, and her right hand went up to his brown throat and round it, and drew him, to press the kiss closer; and then it held him down while she moved her head till she could whisper in his ear:-- 'It was only because you were angry,' she said. 'You are not really going out to-night! Tell me you are not!' He would not answer at first, and he tried to kiss her again, but she would not let him, and she pushed him away till she could see his face. He met her eyes frankly, but he shook his head. 'It must be to-night, and no other night,' he said gravely. 'I have made an appointment, and I have given my word. I cannot break it, but I shall come back.' She slipped from his hold, and sat down on the broad divan, against the cushions. 'You are going into danger,' she said. 'You may not come back. You told me so.' He tried to laugh, and answered in a careless tone:-- 'I have come back from far more dangerous expeditions. Besides, I have guests to-morrow--that is a good reason for not being killed!' He stood beside her, one hand half-thrust into his loose belt. She took the other, which hung down, and looked up to him, still pleading. 'Please, please do not go to-night!' Still he shook his head; nothing could move him, and he would go. A piteous look came into her eyes while they appealed to his in vain, and suddenly she dropped his hand and buried her face in the soft leathern pillow. 'You had made me forget that I am only a slave!' she cried. The cushion muffled her voice, and the sentence was broken by a sob, though no tears came with it. 'I would go to-night, though my own mother begged me to stay,' Zeno answered. Zoë turned her head without lifting it, and looked up at him sideways. 'Then much depends on your going,' she said, with a question in her tone. 'If it were only for yourself, for your pleasure, or your fortune, you would not refuse your own mother!' Zeno turned and began to walk up and down the room, but he said nothing in reply. A thought began to dawn in her mind. 'But if it were for your country--for Venice----' He glanced sharply at her as he turned back towards her in his walk, and he slackened his pace. Zoë waited a moment before she spoke again, looked down, thoughtfully pinched the folds of silk on her knee, and looked up suddenly again as if an idea had struck her. 'And though I am only your bought slave,' she said, 'I would not hinder you then. I mean, I would not even try to keep you from running into danger--for Venice!' She held her head up proudly now, and the last words rang out in a tone that went to the man's heart. He was not far from her when she spoke them. The last syllable had not died away on the quiet air and he already held her up in his arms, lifted clear from the floor, and his kisses were raining on her lips, and on her eyes, and her hair. She laughed low at the storm she had raised. 'I love you!' he whispered again and again softly, roughly, and triumphantly by turns. She loved him too, and quite as passionately just then; every kiss woke a deep and delicious thrill that made her whole body quiver with delight, and each oft-repeated syllable of the three whispered words rang like a silver trumpet-note in her heart. But for all that her thoughts raced on, already following him in the coming hours. With every woman, to love a man is to feel that she must positively know just where he is going as soon as he is out of her sight. If it were possible, he should never leave the house without a ticket-of-leave and a policeman, followed by a detective to watch both; but that a man should assert any corresponding right to watch the dear object of his affections throws her into a paroxysm of fury; and it is hard to decide which woman most resents being spied upon, the angel of light, the siren that walketh in darkness, or the semi-virginal flirt. Zoë really loved Zeno more truly at that moment, because the glorious tempest of kisses her speech had called down upon her willing little head brought with it the certainty that he was not going to spend the rest of the evening at the house of Sebastian Polo. This, at least, is how it strikes the story-teller in the bazaar; but the truth is that no man ever really understood any woman. It is uncertain whether any one woman understands any other woman; it is doubtful whether any woman understands her own nature; but one thing is sure, beyond question--every woman who loves a man believes, or tells him, that he helps her to understand herself. This shows us that men are not altogether useless. Yet, to do Zoë justice, there was one other element in her joy. She had waited long to learn that Zeno meant to free Johannes if it could be done, and he had met all her questions with answers that told her nothing; she was convinced that he did not even know the passwords of those who called themselves conspirators, but who had done nothing in two years beyond inventing a few signs and syllables by which to recognise each other. Whether he knew them or not, he was ready to act at last, and the deed on which hung the destinies of Constantinople was to be attempted that very night. Before dawn Michael Rhangabé's death might be avenged, and Kyría Agatha's wrongs with Zoë's own. 'I want to help you,' she said, when he let her speak. 'Tell me how you are going to do it.' 'With a boat and a rope,' he answered. 'Take me! I will sit quite still in the bottom. I will watch; no one has better eyes or ears than I.' 'More beautiful you mean!' He shut her eyes with his lips and kissed the lobe of one little ear. But she moved impatiently in his arms, with a small laugh that meant many things--that she was happy, and that she loved him, but that a kiss was no answer to what she had just said, and that he must not kiss her again till he had replied in words. 'Take me!' she repeated. 'This is man's work,' he answered. 'Besides, it is the work of one man only, and no more.' 'Some one must watch below,' Zoë suggested. 'There is the man in the boat. But watching is useless. If any one surprises us in the tower, I can get away; but if I am caught by an enemy from the water the game is up. That is the only danger.' 'That is the only danger,' Zoë repeated, more to herself than for him. He saw that she had understood now, and that she would not try to keep him longer, nor again beg to be taken. She went with him to the door of the vestibule without calling the maids, and she parted from him there, very quietly. 'God speed you!' she said, for good-bye. When he reached the outer entrance and looked back once more, she was already gone within, and the quiet lamplight fell across the folds of the heavy curtain. CHAPTER X Zeno left his house noiselessly half an hour later, after changing his clothes. He was now lightly clad in dark hose and a soft deerskin doublet with tight sleeves, a close-fitting woollen skull-cap covered his head, and he had no weapon but one good knife of which the sheath was fastened to the back of his belt, as a sailor carries it when he goes aloft to work on rigging. The night was cool, and he had a wide cloak over his shoulders, ready to drop in an instant if necessary. It was intensely dark as he came out, and after being in the light he could hardly see the white marble steps of the landing. He almost lost his balance at the last one, and when he stepped quickly towards the boat, to save himself, he could not see it at all, and was considerably relieved to find himself in the stern sheets instead of in the water. 'Gorlias!' he whispered, leaning forwards. 'Yes!' answered the astrologer-fisherman. The light skiff shot out into the darkness, away from the shore, instead of heading directly for Blachernæ. After a few minutes Gorlias rested on his oars. Zeno had grown used to the gloom and could now see him quite distinctly. Both men peered about them and listened for the sound of other oars, but there was nothing; they were alone on the water. 'Is everything ready?' Zeno asked in a low tone. 'Everything. At the signal over eight hundred men will be before Blachernæ in a few minutes. There are fifty ladders in the ruined houses by the wall of the city. The money has had an excellent effect on the guard, for most of them were drunk this evening, and are asleep now. In the tower, the captain is asleep too, for his wife showed the red light an hour ago. She took up the package of opium last night by the thread.' 'And Johannes himself? Is he ready?' 'He is timid, but he will risk his life to get out of the tower. You may be sure of that!' 'Have you everything we need? The fishing-line, the tail-block, and the two ropes? And the basket? Is everything ready in the bows, there?' 'Everything, just as you ordered it, and the rope clear to pay out.' 'Give way, then.' 'In the name of God,' said Gorlias, as he dipped his oars again. 'Amen,' answered Zeno quietly. The oars were muffled with rags at the thole-pins, and Gorlias was an accomplished oarsman. He dipped the blades into the stream so gently that there was hardly a ripple, and he pulled them through with long, steady strokes, keeping the boat on its course by the scattered lights of the city. Zeno watched the lights, too, leaning back in the stern, and turning over the last details of his plan. Everything depended on getting the imprisoned man out of the Amena tower at once, and he believed he could do that without much difficulty. At first sight it might seem madness to attempt a revolution with only eight hundred men to bear arms in the cause, against ten or fifteen thousand, but the Venetian knew what sort of men they were, and how profoundly Andronicus was hated by all the army except his body-guard. The latter would fight, no doubt, and perhaps die to a man, for they had everything to lose, and expected no quarter; but for the next two hours most of them would be still helplessly asleep after their potations, and if they woke at all they would hardly be in a condition to defend themselves. Money had been distributed to them without knowledge of their officers, purporting to be sent to them from Sultan Amurad, now in Asia Minor. It had pleased the Turk more than once to keep the guards in a good humour towards him, and the soldiers were not surprised. Besides, they cared very little whence money came, provided it got into their hands, and could be spent in drink, for they were not sober Greeks or Italians; most of them were wild barbarians, who would rather drink than eat, and rather fight than drink, as the saying goes. For nearly twenty minutes Gorlias pulled steadily upstream. Then he slackened speed, and brought the boat slowly to the foot of the tower. The windows were all dark now, and the great mass towered up into the night till the top was lost in the black sky. During the hours Gorlias had spent in fishing from the pier he had succeeded in wedging a stout oak peg between the stones; he found it at once in the dark, got out and made the boat fast to it by the painter. His bare feet clung to the sloping surface like a fly's to a smooth wall; he pulled the boat alongside the pier, holding it by the gunwale, and held up his other hand to help Zeno. But the Venetian was in no need of that, and was standing beside his companion in an instant. It was only then, a whole second after the fact, that he knew he had stepped upon something oddly soft and at the same time elastic and resisting, that lay amidships in the bottom of the boat, covered with canvas. The quick recollection was that of having unconsciously placed one foot on a human body when getting out. He had taken off his shoes, but the cloth soles of his hose were thick, and he could not feel sure of what he had touched. Besides, he had no time to lose in speculating as to what Gorlias might have in the skiff besides his lines and his coil of rope. Gorlias now got the end of the fishing-line ashore, and took it in his teeth in order to climb up the inclined plane of the pier on his hands and feet, ape-fashion. In a few seconds he had found the end of a string that hung down from the blackness above, with a small stone tied to it to keep it from being blown adrift. To this string he bent the fishing-line. Until this was done neither of the men had made the least sound that could possibly be heard above, but now Gorlias gave a signal. It was the cry of the beautiful little owl that haunts ruined houses in Italy and the East, one soft and musical note, repeated at short and regular intervals. The bird always gives it thus, but for the signal Gorlias whistled it twice each time, instead of once. No living owl ever did that, and yet it was a thousand to one that nobody would notice the difference, if any one heard him at all, except the person for whom the call was meant. He had not been whistling more than a quarter of a minute when he felt the twine passing upwards through his fingers, and then the line after it. He let the latter run through his hand to be sure that it did not foul and kink, though he had purposely chosen one that had been long in use, and he had kept it in a dry place for a week. Zeno had dropped his cloak in the stern of the boat before getting out, and he now sat at the water's edge with his hands on the moving line ready to check the end when it came, in case it were not already fast to the rope that was to follow it. But Gorlias had done that beforehand, lest any time should be lost, and presently Zeno felt the line growing taut as it began to pull on the rope itself. This had single overhand knots in it, about two feet apart, for climbing, and instead of coiling it down, Gorlias had ranged it fore and aft on the forward thwarts so that it came ashore clear. Whatever the astrologer's original profession had been, it was evident that he understood how to handle rope as well as if he had been to sea. Moreover Zeno, who was as much a sailor as a soldier, understood from the speed at which the rope was now taken up, that there was a tolerably strong person at the other end of it, high up in the topmost story of the tower. The end came sooner than he expected, and a slight noise of something catching and knocking against the inner side of the boat brought Gorlias instantly to the water's edge. 'The tail-block is fast to the end,' he whispered; 'and the other line is already rove, with the basket at one end of it. When you are aloft, you must haul up the climbing rope and make the block fast--you understand.' 'Of course,' Zeno answered, 'I have been to sea.' 'Whistle when you are ready and I will answer. As he comes down I can check the rope with a turn round a smooth stone I have found at the corner of the tower. You must come down the climbing rope at the same time, and steer the basket as well as you can with your foot.' 'Yes. Is all fast above?' Gorlias listened. 'Not yet,' he whispered. 'Wait for the signal.' It came presently, the cry of the owlet repeated, as Gorlias had repeated it. Zeno heard it and began to climb, while Gorlias steadied the rope, though there was hardly any need for that. The young Venetian walked up with his feet to the wall, taking the rope hand over hand, as if he were going up a bare pole by a gant-line. When he was twenty feet above the pier and was fast disappearing in the darkness, something moved in the boat, and a white face looked up cautiously over the gunwale. It was a woman's face. Zeno had stepped upon her with his whole weight when he was getting ashore, but she had made no sound. Her eyes tried to pierce the gloom, to follow him upwards in his dizzy ascent. Soon she could not see him any longer, nor hear the soft sound of his cloth-shod feet as he planted them against the stones. Up he went, higher and higher. Gorlias steadied the end below, keeping one foot on the block lest it should thrash about on the stones and make a noise. He could feel each of Zeno's movements along the rope; and though he had seen many feats in his life, he wondered at the wind and endurance of a man who could make such an ascent without once crooking his leg round the rope to rest and take breath. But Carlo Zeno never stopped till his feet were on the slight projecting moulding of the highest story, and his hands on the stone sill. As he drew himself up with a spring his face almost struck the chest of a large woman who was standing at the window to receive him. He saw her outline faintly, for there was a little light from one small lamp, placed on the floor in the farthest corner of the oblong room. The tower was square, but the north side of the chamber was walled off to make a space for the head of the staircase and a narrow entry. The single door was in this partition. Zeno looked round while he took breath, and he was aware of a tall man with a long beard who stood on one side of the window, and seemed inclined to flatten himself against the wall, as if he feared being seen from without, even at that height and in the dark. The woman moved a step backwards, and Carlo put one leg over the window-sill and got in. He took his skull-cap from his head and bowed low to the imprisoned Emperor before he spoke to the woman in a whisper. 'I will haul up the basket,' he said, and he laid his hands on the knotted rope to do so. But the tall man with the beard touched him on the shoulder, and spoke in a low voice. 'We must talk together,' he said. Zeno hardly turned his head, and did not stop hauling in the rope. Below, Gorlias was steering the tail-block clear of the wall, lest it should strike the stones and make a noise. 'This is no time for talking,' Zeno said. 'When your Majesty is free and in safety we can talk at leisure.' The knotted rope was coming in fast; Zeno threw it upon the floor behind him in a wide coil to keep it clear. 'Stop!' commanded the Emperor, laying one hand on the Venetian's arm. Zeno set his foot on the rope to keep it from running out, and turned to the prisoner in surprise. 'Every moment is precious,' he said. 'If we are discovered from outside the tower the game is up, and we shall be caught like rats in a trap. I have a basket at the end of this rope in which you will be quite safe from falling, if that is what makes you hesitate. Fear nothing. We are two good men, I and my companion below.' 'You are a good man indeed, to have risked your life in climbing here,' answered Johannes. He made a few steps, bending his still handsome head in thought. He limped slightly in his walk, and he was said to have only four toes on his left foot. Zeno at once continued hauling up the rope, but a moment later the Emperor stopped close beside him. 'It is of no use,' he said; 'I cannot go with you.' Zeno was thunderstruck, and stood still with the rope in his two hands. 'You will not go?' he repeated, almost stupidly. 'You will not be free, now that everything is ready?' 'I cannot. Go down your rope before there is an alarm. Take God's blessing for your generous courage, and my heartfelt thanks. I am ashamed that I should have nothing else to offer you. I cannot go.' 'But why? Why?' Carlo Zeno could not remember that he had ever been so much surprised in his life, and so are they who gather round the story-teller and listen to his tale. But it is a true one; and many years afterwards one of Carlo Zeno's grandsons, the good old Bishop of Belluno, wrote it down as he had heard it from his grandsire's lips. Moreover it is history. The imprisoned Emperor Johannes refused to leave his prison, after Zeno had risked life and limb to prepare a revolution, and had scaled the tower alone. 'Andronicus has my little son in the palace,' said the prisoner; 'if I escape he will put out the child's eyes with boiling vinegar, and perhaps mutilate him or kill him by inches. Save him first, then I will go with you.' There was something very noble in the prisoner's tone, and in the turn of his handsome head as he spoke. Zeno could not help respecting him, yet he was profoundly disappointed. He tried one argument. 'If you will come at once,' he said, 'I promise you that we shall hold the palace before daybreak, and the little prince will be as free as you.' Johannes shook his head sadly. 'The guards will kill him instantly,' he said; 'the more certainly if they see that they must fight for their lives.' 'In short, your Majesty is resolved? You will not come with me?' 'I cannot.' The Emperor turned away, and covered his face with his hands, more as if trying to concentrate his thoughts than as if in despair. 'No, I cannot,' he repeated presently. 'Save the boy first,' he repeated, dropping his hands and turning to Zeno again, 'then I will go with you.' Zeno was silent for a moment, and then spoke in a determined tone. 'Hear me, sire,' he said. 'A man does not run such risks twice, except for his own blood. You must either come with me at once, or give up the idea that I shall ever help you to escape. The boy may be in danger, but so are you yourself, and your life is worth more to this unhappy Empire than his. To-night, to-morrow, at any moment, your son Andronicus may send the executioner here, and there will be an end of you and of many hopes. You must risk your younger boy's life for your cause. I see no other way.' 'The other way is this; I will stay here and risk my own. I would rather die ten deaths than let my child be tortured, blinded, and murdered.' 'Very well,' answered Zeno; 'then I must go.' He let the knotted rope go over the sill again till it was all out, and he sat astride the window mullion ready to begin the descent. 'Cast off the rope when I whistle,' he said, 'and let it down by the line, and the line after it by the twine.' He spoke to the big woman, who was the wife of the keeper, himself a trusted captain of veterans. She nodded by way of answer. 'For the last time,' Zeno said, looking towards Johannes, 'will you come with me? There is still time.' The Emperor looked prematurely old in the faint light, and his figure was bent as he rested with one hand on the heavy table. His voice was weak too, as if he were very tired after some great effort. 'For the last time, no,' he answered. 'I am sorry. I thank you with all my heart----' Zeno did not wait for more, and his head disappeared below the window almost before the prisoner had spoken the last words. Five minutes had not elapsed since he had reached the chamber. Below, Gorlias had been surprised when he felt the second rope slack in his hand, and when the basket and block, which had been half-way up the wall, began to come down again. The astrologer could only suppose that there was an alarm within the tower, and that Zeno was getting away as fast as he could. The last written message, lowered by the yarn at dusk that evening, had been to say that the Emperor was ready, and that a red light would be shown when the captain was asleep, under the influence of the drug his wife had given him. It could not possibly occur to the astrologer that Johannes would change his mind at the very last moment. 'Take care!' Gorlias whispered quickly to the woman at his elbow, as soon as he was sure of what was happening. 'He is coming down again.' 'Alone?' The anxious inquiry answered his words in the same breath. 'Alone--yes! He is on the rope now, he is coming down, hand under hand.' The woman slipped down the inclined surface, almost fell, recovered her foothold, and nearly fell again as she sprang into the boat, and threw herself at full length upon the bottom boards. Zeno was half-way down, and before she covered herself with the canvas she glanced up and distinctly saw his dark figure descending through the gloom. She had scarcely stretched herself out when she was startled by a loud cry, close at hand. 'Phylaké! Aho--ho--o! Watch, ho! Watch, ho!' A boat had shot out of the darkness to the edge of the pier. In an instant three men had sprung ashore, and were clambering up the sloping masonry towards Gorlias. The woman stood up in Zeno's skiff, almost upsetting it, and her eyes pierced the gloom to see what was happening. Gorlias threw himself desperately against the three men, with outstretched arms, hoping to sweep them altogether into the water from a place where they had so little foothold. The woman held her breath. One of the three men, active as a monkey, dodged past the astrologer, caught the knotted rope, and began climbing it. The other two fell, their feet entangled in the line-rove through the tail-block, and with the strong man's weight behind them they tumbled headlong down the incline. With a heavy splash, and scarcely more than one for all three, Gorlias and his opponents fell into the water. There was silence then, while the other man climbed higher and higher. The woman watched in horror. In falling, the men had struck against the stem of the skiff, dragging the painter from the peg. The other boat was not moored at all, and both were now adrift on the sluggish stream. The woman steadied herself, and tried to see. The man climbed fast, and above him the dark figure moved quickly upwards. But Zeno's pursuer was fresher than he, and as quick as a cat, and gained on him. If he caught him, he might crook his leg round the knotted rope to drag Zeno down and hurl him to the ground. Still he gained, while the boats began to drift, but still the woman could make out both figures, nearer and nearer to each other. Now there were not ten feet between them. A faint cry was heard, a heavy thud on the stones, and silence again. Zeno had cut the rope below him. The woman drew a sharp breath between her closed teeth. There was no noise, now, for the man that had been as active as a cat was dead. But an instant later one of the other three was out of the water, and on the edge of the pier, panting for breath. The woman took up one of the oars, and tried to paddle with it. She thought that the man who had come up must be Gorlias, and that the other two were drowned, and she tried to get the boat to the pier again; she had never held an oar in her life, and she was trembling now. High in mid-air Zeno was hanging on what was left of the rope, slowly working his way upwards, fully fifty feet above the base of the tower. The skiff bumped against the other boat alongside, and the woman began to despair of getting nearer to the land, and tried to shove the empty boat away with her hands. The effect was to push her own skiff towards the pier, for the other was much the heavier of the two. Then, paddling a little, she made a little way. The man ashore seemed to be examining the body of the one who had been killed; it lay sprawling on the stones, the head smashed. The living one was not Gorlias; the woman could see his outline now. She was strong, and with the one oar shoved her skiff still farther from the other boat, and nearer to the pier. The man heard her, got upon his feet, and slipped down to the water's edge again. 'Hold out the end of the oar to me,' he said, 'and I will pull the boat in.' It was not the voice of Gorlias that spoke, and the woman did not obey the instructions it gave. On the contrary she tried to paddle away, lest the man should jump aboard. Strangely enough the skiff seemed to answer at once to her will, as if some unseen power were helping her. It could not be her unskilled, almost helpless movements of the oar that guided it away. But the man rose to his feet, on the lowest course of the stones, where there was a ledge, and he sprang forwards, struck the water without putting his head under, and was at the stern of the boat in a few seconds. The woman seemed fearless, for she stepped quickly over the after thwart, taking her oar with her, and a moment later she struck a desperate blow with it at the swimmer, and raised it again. She could not see him any more, and she knew that if she had struck his head he must have sunk instantly; but she waited a little longer in the stern, the oar still uplifted in both her hands. At that moment, the repeated call of the owlet came down from far above. It could only mean that Zeno had reached the upper window in safety. Then the boat rocked violently two or three times, and the woman was thrown down, sitting, in the stern sheets; she saw that a man was getting in over the bows, and was already on board. 'That was well done, Kokóna,' said the voice of Gorlias, softly. Zoë sank back in the stern, half-fainting with exhaustion, pain, and past anxiety. 'Is he safe?' she managed to ask. 'That was his call. He has reached the window again, but it was a narrow escape.' She could hardly breathe. Gorlias had taken the oars, and the skiff was moving. CHAPTER XI Zeno found the two occupants of the room terrorstruck, and standing on one side of the window, from which they had not dared to look out after the cry of alarm had been given from below. Indeed they were in a dangerous pass, unless all three of the men who had attempted to stop Zeno were dead, or if the first cry had roused the sleeping captain and guards of the tower from their drugged sleep. But Zeno's own situation was quite as bad. It was out of the question to shout to Gorlias, on the mere chance of his being still alive and on the pier. No communication was possible, and the rope was cut below. It was true that the whole of the fishing-line still lay coiled on the floor of the room, but even if it were long enough to double it would hardly bear the man's weight; and Carlo guessed that he had cut off nearly three-quarters of the knotted rope below him. There was no time to be lost either. He did not know the number of his assailants, and though he gave his signal when he reached the window, on the mere chance of being heard, he would not have trusted the answer to it if it had come. Any one could imitate such a sound after hearing it once. If he let down the remaining length of the rope by the fishing-line, and if his enemies were on the pier instead of Gorlias, they would have wit enough to knot the rope where it had been cut, and to send it up again, for him to come down by, and he would drop into their very midst. He understood all this in an instant, and without hesitation he cast off everything above, and dropped the rope and the fishing-line out of the window. He knew Gorlias well enough to be sure that he would come back before daylight and land if there were no one on the pier, and remove all traces of the attempt. 'We are all lost!' moaned the big woman. 'My hour has come,' said the Emperor Johannes in solemn terror. Thereupon he began to say his prayers, and paid no more attention to the others. Zeno took the woman by the wrist. 'We are not lost unless your husband is awake,' he said. 'Take me to him.' The captain's wife stared at him. 'There is no other way. If he is awake, you will tell him that I got into the tower, and that you have betrayed me into his hands. You will be safe at least, and I will take my chance. If he is asleep I have nothing to fear.' He drew her to the door and began to unbar it himself. She had understood that he was right, so far as her own safety was concerned, and she helped him. A horn lantern stood on the stone floor in the entry at the head of the stair, where she had left it when she had last come up. Before going down she barred the door outside as usual, and then led the way. At the first landing she opened a door as softly as she could and went in, leaving Zeno on the threshold. It was the sleeping room, and Zeno heard the captain's stertorous breathing with relief. He went in and looked at the sleeping man's face, which was congested to a dark red by the powerful drug, and Zeno thought it doubtful whether he would ever wake again. The woman, ignorant of the effects of much opium, was afraid her husband might open his eyes, and she plucked at Zeno's sleeve, anxious to get him away; but the Venetian smiled. 'He is good for twelve hours' sleep,' he said. 'Give me his cloak and helmet. If I find no one awake I will leave them at the outer gate. Otherwise I will send them to the tower in a clothes-basket to-morrow morning.' The captain's wife obeyed, less frightened than she had been at first; Zeno muffled half his face in the big cloak, and threw the end over his shoulder whence it hung down, displaying the three broad stripes of gold lace that formed the border distinctive of a captain's rank in the guards. The bright helmet had a gilt eagle for a crest, scarcely differing from that of the modern German Gardes du Corps regiment. 'Now show me the way,' Zeno said. Under the folds of the cloak he had the short broad sheath-knife ready in his grasp, and it was no bad weapon in the hand of such a fighter as Carlo Zeno. The captain's wife led the way with the lantern. [Illustration: The captain's wife obeyed, less frightened than she had been at first.] At the foot of the next flight of stairs she almost stumbled over the sentinel, half-seated on the lowest step in a drunken sleep; his shaggy head had fallen forwards on his breast, and his legs stuck straight out before him, wide apart, like the legs of a wooden doll. His hands lay open with the palms upwards, one on his knee, the other on the step beside him; and his helmet, which had rolled off his head, had happened to stop just between his feet, the right side up, and facing him, as if it were watching him in his slumber like a living thing. The story they had now reached contained the living room of the captain and his wife, and no sentinel was needed higher up in the tower. An iron door, fastened on the inside, cut off the descent, and had to be opened for Zeno to pass. But being constantly in use the lock was well oiled, and the bolts slipped back almost without noise. Nevertheless, as he followed his companion down the next flight, Zeno drew up the folds of the cloak on his right arm till the edge barely covered the drawn knife in his hand. They reached the next story below, where the upper guard-room was. The door was half-open, and a lamp was burning within, but as the window was over the great court of Blachernæ no light had been visible from the water. Zeno heard voices, and caught sight of two guards carousing at the end of an oak table. At the sound of footsteps one of the men rose quickly, but staggered when he tried to walk to the door. 'Who goes there?' he called out, steadying himself by the door-post, and looking out. The captain's wife had the presence of mind to hold up the lantern, so that the light fell full upon the helmet Zeno wore. Instantly the soldier tried to straighten himself to an attitude of attention, with his hands by his sides. But this was too much for his unstable balance, and he reeled backwards half across the room within, till he struck the table behind him, and tumbled down with a clatter of accoutrements and a rattling of the horn drinking-cups that were thrown to the ground. His companion, who was altogether too drunk even to leave his seat, broke into a loud idiotic laugh at his accident. 'You have done your share well, Kyría,' said Zeno, as he followed her again. 'The Emperor's friends could have brought him down by the stairs in triumph without being stopped.' 'You are not out of the palace precincts yet,' answered the captain's wife in a warning tone. She went on, treading more softly as she descended, and carrying the lantern low lest she or her companion should stumble over another sleeping sentinel; but the staircase and the door that led into the court were deserted, for the captain was a very exact man, and had his supper at the same hour every evening, and went to bed soon afterwards like an honest citizen, after setting the watch and locking the iron door of his own lower landing. In two years he had never once come down the tower after sunset. The consequence was that the guards, who were mostly rough barbarians from the Don country and the shores of the Black Sea, did as they pleased, or as their lieutenant pleased; for he found it pleasant to spend his nights in another part of the palace, and was extremely popular with his men, because they were thus enabled to go to bed like good Christians and sleep all night. All this the captain's wife knew well enough. Her apprehension was for what might happen to Zeno between leaving the tower and passing the great gate, which was the only way to get out of the fortified precincts. The wide courtyard was very dark, but there were lights here and there in the windows of the buildings that surrounded it on three sides, the great mass of the palace on the right, the barracks of the guards along the wall to the left, and the main post at the great gate in front with the buildings on each side of it, some occupied by slaves and some used as stables. Zeno wished that he had stripped one of the sleeping soldiers and had put on his dress, for he had been informed of the captain's habits, and knew that the disguise was no longer a safe one after leaving the tower. Indeed it was a chief part of the captain's duty never to go out after dark, on any excuse, and he apparently made sure of obeying this permanent order by going to bed early and getting up late. For the rest, he had always left the personal care of his prisoner to his wife, judging that her stout middle-age and fiery cheeks sufficiently protected his domestic honour. She had been young and very pretty once, it was true, but the captain did not know that Johannes had even seen her then, much less did he guess that many years ago, when the Emperor was a handsome young prince and she was a lovely girl in the old Empress's train, she had worshipped him and he had condescended to accept her admiration for a few weeks. But this was the truth, as Zeno's grandson the bishop very clearly explains. She left her lantern just inside the door and came out with Carlo into the open air. After walking a few steps she laid her hand on his arm, stopped, looked round, and listened. As yet they had not exchanged two words about the situation, and were far from sure that the watch which had detected Carlo from the water and had failed to catch him, had not come round by land to the palace gate to give the alarm. Zeno slipped the cloak from his shoulders and wrapped it round the helmet, so that the captain's wife could carry both conveniently. 'It is hopeless,' she whispered, as she took them. 'This morning he promised that he would leave the prison if you could bring him out. He has often spoken to me as he spoke to you this evening--he loves the boy dearly; but I was sure that he had made up his mind to risk everything, else I would not have shown the red light.' 'After all,' Zeno observed, 'it is just as well that he would not come, since we were seen, though I really believe Gorlias was too much for the men who almost caught us. He and I together could certainly have settled them all--there were only three. I saw them distinctly when they first jumped ashore, and one was killed by the fall when I cut the rope. Gorlias silenced the other two, for if they were alive there would have been an alarm here by this time.' 'Yes,' the woman answered. 'But some one must have betrayed us. We cannot try that way again.' 'I shall not try that, or any other way again!' Zeno said with emphasis. 'In the name of the Evangelist, why should I risk my neck to free a man who prefers to be a prisoner?' 'The wonder is that you are alive this time!' 'It will not even be safe to communicate by the thread again. Will you take him a message?' 'As well as I can remember it.' 'Tell him that the next time he asks my help he must send me, by the same messenger, a deed giving Tenedos to Venice, signed and sealed. Otherwise I will not stir!' 'Shall I tell him that?' 'Yes. Tell him so from me. And now, go back, Kyría, and thank you for your guidance and your lantern in those dark stairs.' 'How shall you pass the gate?' asked the captain's wife. She spoke anxiously, for Zeno was a handsome man, and she had seen how brave he was. 'I do not know,' he answered, 'but one of two things must happen.' 'What things?' 'Either I shall get out or I shall never see daylight again! I shall not let myself be taken alive to be impaled in the Hippodrome, I assure you. Thank you again, and good-night.' She drew back into the shadow of the tower door and watched the handsome young man with the peculiar half-motherly, half-sentimental anxiety of the middle-aged woman, who was a flirt in her youth and turned the heads of just such men, who knows that she is grown fat and ugly and can never turn the head of another, but who has preserved many tender and pleasant recollections of all the sex. Zeno did not walk straight towards the gate, though it was easily distinguished from the adjacent buildings by the greater number of its lights. He crossed the wide court diagonally to the right, in the direction of the stables, till he was near enough to see distinctly any one who chanced to come under the rays of one of the scattered lamps that burned here and there in doorways and open windows. Before long he saw a trooper of the guards emerging rather unsteadily out of the darkness into one of these small circles of light. Zeno could not help smiling to himself at the idea that there was hardly one sober man awake among the guards that night, and that they had all drunk themselves stupid with his money. He overtook the man in half-a-dozen strides, and spoke to him in a low voice. 'Hi! comrade! You who are still perfectly sober, help a friend who is very drunk!' The man stopped, steadied himself, and answered with ponderous gravity. 'Perfectly--hic--hic--sober!' 'I wish I were!' replied Zeno. 'The truth is, I am exceedingly drunk, though I do not show it. Wine only affects my brains, never my legs or my tongue. It is a very strange thing!' 'Very--cu--hic--rious!' responded the soldier, trying to see his interlocutor clearly, by screwing up his eyes. 'Extraordinarily cuhicrious, as you justly observe,' Zeno answered gravely. 'But the fact is----' 'Excuse me--hic,' interrupted the soldier. 'Are you one man--hic--or two men?' 'One man,' Zeno answered. 'Only one, and so drunk that I have quite forgotten the password.' 'Sec--hic--ret,' hiccoughed the man. 'Password secret,' he repeated, with a tremendous effort. 'Here is a gold piece, my dear friend. You will help a comrade in trouble.' The man took the money eagerly, and tried to put it into his wallet. To do so he had to bend his head down so as to see the thongs that fastened it. It took a long time to find them. 'Just give me the password before you do that,' Zeno said in a coaxing tone. 'Password?' The man looked up stupidly. The effort of undoing the thongs had been too much for him, and had sent the blood to his head. He staggered against the Venetian, and tried to speak. After many efforts he got the words out suddenly. 'Drunk, by Moses!' he cried, quite distinctly, as he fell in a heap at Zeno's feet. In his vexation Zeno could have kicked the stupid mass of humanity across the great yard, but he was far too wise to waste his time so unprofitably. Instead of kicking him he stepped across him, thrust his hands under the unconscious man's armpits, hove him up like a sack of flour, got him over his shoulder, and carried him to the open door of the nearest stable, whence the light came. Five horses stood or lay in their stalls, but the sixth stall was vacant, and there was fresh straw in it. Zeno threw the man down there, and looked round, to see that no one else was in the place. He hesitated a moment as to whether he should shut the door, but decided that to do so might attract the attention of a sober man, if there were any about, which was doubtful. The trooper was now sound asleep, and it was the work of a few moments to pull off his boots of soft leather and slip them on, for Zeno had left his own in the boat, and had walked in his cloth hose; he took off the soldier's sword-belt and tunic next, the latter of rich scarlet cloth trimmed with heavy silver lace, the belt being entirely covered with silver scales. The drunken sleeper grunted with satisfaction when he felt himself relieved of his useless clothes, and settled himself comfortably in the straw while Zeno put on the tunic over his own buff jerkin and drew the belt tight round his waist, settled the man's tall Greek cap on his own head at the proper angle, as the troopers wore it, and threw the military cloak over his arm. He could now easily pass himself for a trooper at the gate, and a man who has been a soldier is rarely at a loss amongst soldiers, especially if he wears a uniform. In consideration of what he had taken, Zeno, who was an honest man of business, left the man his wallet with the piece of gold and anything else it might contain, and after carefully removing a few wisps of straw that clung to his clothes, he went towards the door of the stable. His plan was to saunter to the gate and loiter there till a chance offered of opening the small night-postern in the great door, which he had noticed in passing the palace when the gates were open. The fact of his being sober when almost every one else was more or less intoxicated, would give him a great advantage. But as he turned from the sleeper and walked along the line from the empty stall, which was the last, his eye fell on the saddles and bridles, neatly arranged on stout pegs that projected from the walls, each set opposite the stall of the horse to which it belonged. He peered out into the wide court, and listened for the sound of voices. From very far away he heard the echo of a drinking chorus, less loud than the noise made behind him by one of the horses that had a fancy for a mouthful of hay just then, and was chewing it conscientiously as only animals can chew. All was very quiet outside. Zeno changed his plan, turned back into the stable, and began to saddle the horse farthest from the door. He did not mean to ride far, else he would have picked out his mount with all the judgement he possessed. There was but a dash to make, and it was far more important that no passing trooper should see him in the act of putting on saddle and bridle than that he should have the best horse under him afterwards. Besides, they were all big, hay-fed animals, sleek and sleepy, mostly white Tunisians, and much more fit for a procession than a campaign. When he had finished, he led the charger past the other stalls, stopping just before he reached the door to put out the oil lamp that hung by the entrance. This done, he slipped his arm through the bridle and left the stable. He struck across the deserted court towards the palace, until he was almost in the middle of the yard, and opposite the great gate, towards which he looked steadily for some seconds, trying to make out, by the uncertain light that dimly illuminated it from within, whether the doors under the arch were open or shut. There was just a possibility that they might be open. It was worth trying for; and after all, if they were barred, he was sure that he could impose upon the sentinels to open them. A man accustomed to command does not doubt that he must be obeyed when he asserts himself. Zeno mounted the big horse, which was as quiet as any old circus hack in the Hippodrome, trained to let a dancing-girl skip the rope on his broad back. His rider put him from a walk to a canter, and from a canter to a thundering gallop that roused echoes all round the court. As he came near he saw that the doors were shut, but he did not slacken speed till he was almost upon the startled sentinels. Then he drew rein suddenly, as was the practice of horsemanship in those days, and the great Tunisian threw himself back on his haunches with outstretched forefeet, while Zeno called out to the watch. 'On the Emperor's service!' he shouted. 'The gates, and quickly!' The sentinels were tolerably sober, for they were not to get their full share of the flood of wine that was flowing till their guard was relieved. But they could hardly be blamed for obeying Zeno's imperative command. It was not likely that a guardsman of their troop who wished to slip out of barracks for a night's amusement would dress himself in full uniform and come galloping and shouting to the gate, nor that any trooper would dare to pretend that he rode on the Emperor's business if it were not true. The two sentinels therefore did not hesitate, but set their long cavalry lances upright against the walls on either side, took down the bar, and laid hold of the ponderous gates, each man taking one and throwing himself backwards with all his weight to move it. When once started, the doors swung slowly but easily backwards. Zeno sat motionless in the saddle, ready to dash forward as soon as there was room for him to pass. He had halted just far enough away to allow the doors to swing clear of his horse's head as they were pulled inward. It was an anxious moment. A second more and there would be space between the yawning gates. But that second had not yet passed when a tall officer in scarlet rushed shouting from the open door of the guard-house, and seized Zeno's bridle. 'Stop him!' yelled the lieutenant. 'Shut the gates!' The two soldiers did their best to obey instantly, but the leaves of the gate were of cypress wood four inches thick, and covered with bronze, and were swinging back faster now under the impulse they had received. It was impossible to check them suddenly, and the order was hardly spoken when Zeno saw that there was room to ride through. He would have given his fortune for a pair of Arab spurs at that moment, but he struck the corners of his heels at the horse's sides with all his might, and almost lifted him by the bridle at the same time. The big Tunisian answered the call upon his strength better than the rider had dared to hope; he gathered himself and lifted his forequarters, shaking his head savagely to get rid of the hands that grasped the off rein close to the bit, and then he dashed forwards, straight between the doors, throwing the officer to the ground and dragging him violently away in the powerful stride of his heavy gallop. Seeing what had happened the sentinels started in pursuit at full speed, following the sound of the charger's shoes on the cobble-stones rather than anything they could see, for it was as dark as pitch outside. The officer, who was very active and seemed indifferent to the frightful risk he ran, still clung to the bridle, regained his feet, ran nimbly by the side of the galloping horse, and seemed about to spring up and close with Zeno to drag him from the saddle. Zeno had no weapon within reach now, for his knife was in his own belt, under the belted tunic he wore over his clothes, and he could not possibly get at it. But the officer was unarmed, too, as he had sprung from his couch, and was at a great disadvantage on foot. They dashed on into the darkness of the broad street. Zeno bent down, and tried to get at his adversary's collar with his right hand, but the officer dodged him and jerked the bridle with desperate energy, bringing the Tunisian to a stand after one more furious plunge. At the same instant Zeno heard the footsteps of the two guardsmen running up behind, and he realised that the odds were three to one against him, and that he had no weapon in his hand. The troopers, of course, had their Greek sabres. If he could not escape, he must either be taken alive or cut to pieces on the spot, with no defence but his bare hands. He did not hesitate. The officer, dragging down the charger's head by his weight to stop him, was almost on his knees for a moment, on the off side, of course, and the soldiers had not yet come up. Zeno dropped the reins, sprang from the saddle, and ran for his life. CHAPTER XII Zoë sat in the dark just within the open doorway of Zeno's house, before the marble steps. She was shivering with cold, now that the danger to herself was over, and she was bent with pain, though she scarcely knew she was hurt; for she was conscious only of her anxiety for Zeno. If he got out of the tower and reached his home, he would certainly come in by that door, since he had left it open, and the one on the land side was barred; and there was a way of coming round the house to the water's edge without entering the gate or passing through the fore-court. Zeno had unconsciously stepped upon her body with his whole weight in getting out, when she lay hidden in the bottom of the boat, but she would rather have died than have made a sound or winced under the pressure. And now her side hurt her, and the pain ran down to her knee and her foot, so that she had hardly been able to walk after Gorlias had helped her ashore. It had been impossible to hinder her from getting in, when she had run down to the landing while Zeno was changing his clothes; there had not been time, and she had not waited to argue the question, but had simply whispered to Gorlias that she was going, and that he must hide her as well as he could, and say nothing. He was not a man to be easily surprised, and he reflected that as she was in the secret, and as it was her influence that had decided Zeno to act at last, she might possibly be useful; as indeed she afterwards proved herself to be. Besides, Gorlias thought it likely that Zeno had told her all his plans, although he did not wish to take her with him; for the astrologer was not at all clear as to the relations existing between the master and the slave. She sat alone and shivering in the dark. Gorlias had left her and had hastened back to the foot of the tower to remove all traces of the unsuccessful attempt before daybreak, by throwing the dead body into the water with a weight, and carrying off the gear that had been left lying on the sloping pier. Zoë thought he must be of iron. He had been some time in the water in his clothes, and had probably been more or less bruised in the struggle, and in rolling down the stones, if not by the fall at the end. But he seemed as calm and collected as ever, and apparently had no idea of drying himself before morning. Zoë thought of him only very vaguely as of a person connected with Zeno, round whom alone the whole world had moved since she had known that he loved her; and in her imagination she followed him on after he had reached the tower window the second time and had whistled the call that told her he was safe so far. It was agonising to think of his danger. She did not believe that he could possibly escape from within the prison through the palace precincts; in some way or other he must succeed in climbing down the wall again, and Gorlias would find him and bring him home. But when she had said this to the astrologer, he had shaken his head. There were good reasons why Zeno should not attempt the perilous descent that night, when there had just been an alarm from below of which it was not possible to let him know the result. Moreover, no one knew whether the man whom Zoë had struck had sunk and was drowned, or had parried the blow with his arm and had succeeded in swimming ashore. Neither Gorlias nor Zoë knew that yet, and they might never know it. She waited, but not a sound disturbed the silence of the chilly night. Within the house every one was sleeping; the two little slave-girls, curled up on their carpet in the corner, where Zoë had left them, would not wake till dawn; Omobono slept the sleep of the just in his small bedroom behind the counting-house, dreaming of the mysteries of four toes and five toes, and quenching his insatiable curiosity at last in the overflowing fountain of fancy. As for the servants and slaves, all slumbered profoundly, after the way of their kind. But Zeno did not come. Zoë crouched in the doorway, and drew the skirts of her long Greek coat round her little white feet more than half instinctively, for she did not care if she died of the cold, since he did not come. A mad longing seized her to go out into the city to look for him in the dark and silent streets; he might be lying somewhere, wounded and alone, perhaps left for dead; if she did not come upon him she would push on to the great gate of Blachernæ; and she was sure that she could find the way, though it was far. She would slip in, unnoticed by the sentries; she would pass herself for a woman of the palace, where she had often been taken by Kyría Agatha in the happy days; she remembered where the great tower stood in the corner of the palace yard, the farthest corner to the right, and she could almost see its door, though indeed she had never noticed one. He was somewhere behind it, somewhere in there, above or below ground, caught in the trap, waiting for the dawn of his dying day. For Andronicus would not let him live. If he was taken, his hours were numbered. He must die the death Michael Rhangabé had died; there was none more cruel. As she thought of it, there alone in the cold, a sharp pain bit at her heart, and in the gloom she could no longer make out the white marble steps, the chequered black-and-white pavement, nor the last unextinguished lights of Pera reflected in the water; she saw nothing, and she sank back against the step behind her, fainting and unconscious. She lay there alone, quite still; but he did not come. When she opened her eyes again she thought she had fallen asleep, and was angry with herself at the thought of having rested while he was in danger of his life. She would go out to find him, come what might. Then she tried to get upon her feet, and was startled to find that she could not. Chilled to the bone and bruised as she was, she could not move her limbs, and she wondered in terror whether she were paralysed. But she was brave still, and after a time she managed to turn on one side, and with her hands on the cold step she laboriously got upon her knees. Sensation came back and pain with it, and presently she was able to raise herself by holding the edge of the door, first on one knee, then on her feet. But that was all, and she knew that she could do no more. Perhaps she might crawl upstairs by and by, after resting a little. She stood still a long time, holding the door and hesitating, for in her intense anxiety it seemed impossible to think of giving up and going to bed. He must come. It would be late, it might be daylight, but he must come; for if he came not, that could only mean that he was taken, and if he was taken he must die. Again the pain bit savagely at her heart, but she set her lips and grasped the door with both hands, and refused to let herself faint. She could at least rouse Omobono and the household to go out and search for the master. She had almost let go of the door to make the first step forward, when the counter-thought checked her. The attempt to free the Emperor had been made very secretly; if she called the secretary, the servants, the slaves, she would be revealing that secret, and if, by some miracle, Zeno were still free and safe, some one might betray him. Some one must have betrayed him already, else the watch would not have come upon him exactly at the most critical moment. The three men had been lurking near, waiting till he was on the rope the second time, and expecting to catch him in the very act of bringing out the prisoner. Who was the traitor? Most probably some one in the house. It would not be wise to call the servants, after all. The hopelessness of it all came over the lonely girl now, and she almost let herself sink down again upon the steps to wait till daylight, if need be, for the awful news that was sure to reach her only too soon. Gorlias would bring it, and no one else. But she was too proud to give way altogether, unless she fainted outright. It was torture, but she would bear it, as he would if he were taken. Perhaps at that very moment they were questioning him before Andronicus, twisting his handsome limbs till the joints cracked, or holding red-hot irons close to his blistering feet. He would set his teeth and turn white, but he would not speak; he would be torn piecemeal and die, but his tormentors would not get a word from him, not a syllable. Again and again, she felt the pain in imagination; but she wished that she could indeed feel it for him, and be in his place at that moment, if he were suffering. The pain would be less, even the pain of the rack and the glowing irons, than the agony of being powerless to help him. Now, the time seemed endless; now, again, an hour passed quickly in a waking dream, wherein Zeno was vividly before her, and she lived again the moments that had taught her the truth in the touch of his lips. Then, the world was dark once more and she was alone and shivering, and mad with anxiety for the one living thing she loved. He did not come. The northern stars sank to the west and he did not come; they touched the horizon, yet he did not come; an icy breath foreran the coming dawn, and still he came not, but still Zoë waited. Then the stars faded, and the sky was less black, and she thought day was coming; but it was the faint light of the waning moon rising above the Bosphorus. It was not light, now, but the thick darkness had become transparent; it was possible to see through it, and Zoë saw a skiff come silently alongside the landing. It was Gorlias; he moored the craft quickly and came up the steps. Zoë had recognised his outline, because she expected him, and she made a step to meet him, though it hurt her very much to move. He came quickly and securely, as men do who can see at night, like cats and wild animals; when he was near, Zoë even fancied that his eyes emitted a faint light of their own in the dark, but her imagination was no doubt disturbed by her bodily pain and terrible mental anxiety. 'Has he not come yet?' Gorlias asked in a low tone. The question could only mean that Zeno was taken, and Zoë grasped the astrologer's arm in sudden fear. 'He is lost!' she exclaimed. 'They will kill him to-morrow!' 'It is not easy to kill Carlo Zeno,' answered Gorlias, rubbing his stiffened hands, and then slowly pulling each finger in succession till the joints cracked. 'He is not dead yet,' he added. 'Not yet!' echoed Zoë despairingly. 'No,' said Gorlias, 'for he got out of the palace.' 'Got out? You are sure?' Zoë could have screamed for joy; the revulsion was almost too sudden. 'Yes, I am sure of that. There is a search for him in all the quarters about the palace. When I had cleared everything away below the tower, I dropped downstream to a quiet place I know, and went ashore to learn what I could. The great gate of Blachernæ was open, the court was full of lights, and the guards had been called out. Half of them were reeling about, still very drunk, but I met many that were more sober, searching the streets and lanes with lanterns. I lingered till the same party found me twice and looked at me suspiciously, and then I slipped away again and came here. I do not believe any of them know whom they are looking for; they have only been told that some one has broken out of the palace, I suppose. That made me think that Zeno had come quietly home, quite sure that he had not been recognised.' Gorlias told his story in the low, monotonous tone peculiar to him, which seemed to express the most perfect indifference to anything that might happen. But Zoë cared nothing for his way of telling what was just then the best possible news. Zeno was not safe yet, but she knew him well enough to feel sure that if he had not been taken within the palace, he had little to fear. Sooner or later he would come home, as if nothing had happened. Gorlias understood her sigh of relief. 'You must go in and rest, Kokóna,' he said, and he quietly pushed her towards the door. 'I will watch till daylight in the boat, in case he should come and need anything.' She could hardly walk, and he now noticed her lameness for the first time, and asked the cause of it. 'He stepped on me when I was lying under the canvas,' she answered. 'But it is nothing,' she added quietly. 'I hardly felt anything at first.' 'I will carry you,' said Gorlias. Before she could prevent him, he had lifted her in his arms and was carrying her into the house. He knew the way up to her apartment, having been to see her there, and he stepped easily and surely with his burden, his bare feet hardly making any sound on the marble steps. She lay across his arms like a thing without weight, borne along as a maid carries a fresh gown that she is afraid of ruffling. But the man's arms and clothes were wet and cold, and even his breath chilled her. Her nerves were overwrought, and she was foolishly frightened now. The stairs were very dark, and the touch of the man who carried her was like that of a wet monster of night, cold and horribly strong, holding her and carrying her in his vast arms as the autumn night wind whirls the leaves along. He never paused for breath, he never stopped to try and see the steps under his feet; he only went on and up, up, up, till she fancied she was not in Zeno's house, but in some high and mysterious tower to which she had been suddenly transported by an awful being from another world who was taking her to the top and would hurl her from the highest turret into space. But now Gorlias stood still and set her on her feet at her own door, steadying her by her shoulders, and guiding her in, for he could see the ray of light that crept out between the curtain and the doorpost of the inner entrance. He lifted the heavy stuff and still supported her with his other hand. After being so long in the dark the light of the little lamps was dazzling, though they were burning low. Three or four of them had already gone out, and the acrid smell of the burnt-out olive-oil and the singed wicks hung in the air. [Illustration: Saw her sink down there exhausted, and draw a heavy silk shawl across her body.] Gorlias watched Zoë while she limped over the thick carpet to the divan, and he saw her sink down there exhausted, and draw a heavy silk shawl across her body. 'Thank you,' she sighed, as her weary head pressed the pillow at last. But he had already dropped the curtain again and was gone, and almost at the same instant she shut her eyes and fell asleep. Gorlias reached the bottom of the stairs without waking any one, closed the door, which he could not fasten, and got into his boat to wait for Zeno until daybreak, and also to watch lest any one should try to enter the house. But no one came, neither Zeno, nor any messenger from him, nor any stealthy thief; and at last the dawn rose behind Constantinople and dissolved the night, and the poor waning moon had not much light left and almost went out altogether as the day broke. Then Gorlias drew his oars inboard, and laid them across the boat before him, leaning his elbows on them and resting his chin upon his folded hands, like a man in deep thought; and he let the craft drift slowly away towards the Bosphorus, into the morning mist. Also, the dawn crept into the house between the half-closed shutters of Zoë's room and made the lingering flame of the last lamp seem but a smoky little yellow point in the cold clearness; and the girl's pale face, that had taken a golden tinge from the lamplight, now turned as white as silver. Also, the coming sun waked Omobono, and he sat up in bed and gravely rubbed his eyes, quite unaware that anything had happened during the night; and it roused the slaves and the servants, and presently all the house was astir; and Yulia and Lucilla got up too and came softly and stood beside Zoë, who did not stir, and they wondered at her deep sleep and at the weariness of her face, and at the look of pain all about her mouth. But where Zeno was the light did not enter; for dawn and sunset, and noon and midnight were all alike there. CHAPTER XIII When Zeno slipped from his borrowed charger and ran for his life towards that part of the square that looked darkest, he had no time to choose the direction he would afterwards take, nor to think of anything but covering the ground at the greatest possible speed without stumbling over an unseen obstacle. On those singular occasions when a perfectly brave man has no choice but to run, there is not much time to spare. The young Venetian strained his strength and his wind to get as far as he could from his pursuers in the shortest possible time, and he was so successful that he was out of their reach almost before they were aware that he had fled. At first he had run straight across the wide open space before Blachernæ; he had then found the entrance to a street which he had followed for about fifty yards, and he had turned a corner to his left without meeting any one; he had rushed on without pausing till he judged it time to double again and had then turned to the right. A few steps farther on, he stopped short and listened, believing himself alone and not at all sure where he was. Suddenly a light flashed in his face, very near him. 'Is it time?' asked a low voice in Greek, and the lantern was closed again, leaving him dazzled. Accident, or his fate, had taken him into the very midst of the men he had enlisted in the cause of the revolution, to storm the palace before daybreak. They had waited two hours and were impatient, and even before Zeno answered the question they saw that matters had gone ill with him. 'There is an alarm,' he said hurriedly. 'I barely got away. Disperse quickly, and get to your quarters, all of you! I will let you know when we can do it.' A murmur of discontent came from the invisible crowd of soldiers. Zeno knew them to be a desperate crew, who would hold him responsible for failure, and would not thank him for success. 'We must separate at once,' he said calmly. 'I thank you for having been ready. If possible, we will meet a week from to-night.' He did not choose to let them know that Johannes himself had refused to quit the tower, and he was about to leave them, meaning to find his way home alone, when the sound of feet moving behind him, and of men whispering together told him that he was surrounded on all sides by the soldiers. Then some one spoke in a tone of authority. 'You must stay with us,' the voice said. 'You have our lives in your hand, and we cannot let you go. It might suit your interests to give us up to the Emperor any day.' Seeing his liberty threatened, Zeno laid his hand to the knife at the back of his belt and was about to try and break his way through. In the dark, a man with a drawn weapon in his hand easily inspires terror in a crowd. But it was clear that the soldiers had determined beforehand what to do, for they closed in upon him instantly, and his arm was caught by a dozen hands when he was in the very act of drawing his knife. He was held by twenty men, as it seemed to him, who all took hold of him and lifted him from the ground, not very roughly, but irresistibly. He had no chance against so many; Gorlias Pietrogliant himself could have done nothing, and he was far stronger than Zeno, stronger perhaps than any man in Constantinople. Zeno knew that it would be worse than useless to shout for help; at his first cry he would most likely be strangled by men whose own lives were more or less at stake. They carried him quickly along the street and through unfamiliar and narrow ways which he could hardly have recognised even in broad daylight, much less at night. They turned sharp corners to the right, to the left, to the right again, and he thought he could distinguish the broken outlines of a ruined wall against the faint greyness of the ink-and-water sky. Then all was dark for an instant, and he felt that his bearers were pausing at some obstacle or difficulty. The lantern flashed again, and he saw a rough vault above him; there was a big cobweb just above his head, and a loathsome fat spider jumped out of a crevice and ran along the threads till it disappeared as if by magic in the very middle of the web. He saw it in an instant in the sudden light as some one held up the lantern to show the way. Such things take hold of the memory and stick to it afterwards, as little burs fasten themselves upon one's clothes in autumn fields. Besides, though Zeno was one of the bravest men of any age, he detested fat spiders, and was very nearly afraid of them. He felt himself carried down an inclined plane at a swinging rate; the air smelt of dry earth, and presently it grew much warmer, though it was not at all close. It seemed a long time until the men stopped, set him on his feet, and left their hold on him. The man who had acted as the leader now pushed the others aside, and stood before him, a broad-shouldered Tartar with a huge tawny beard, dressed in leather and wearing a breastplate embossed with the Roman eagle. Zeno knew him well; he was a Mohammedan, like many soldiers of fortune in the Greek army at that time, his name was Tocktamish, and he had been with Zeno in Patras. He spoke a barbarous dialect, compounded of Greek and Italian. 'Messer Zeno,' he said, 'we are not going to hurt you, but we think it better for your own safety to keep you here for a while, till everything is quiet again. Do you understand?' 'Perfectly,' Zeno answered, with a laugh. 'Nothing could be clearer! You naturally suppose that if I found myself in danger I would turn evidence against you to save myself, and you propose to make that impossible.' Tocktamish pretended to be hurt. 'How can you think that I could take my old leader for a traitor, sir?' he asked. 'The idea would occur naturally to a man of your intelligence,' Zeno answered, laughing again. 'Listen to me, man. I am a soldier, and I do not take you for a flight of angels or heavenly doves settling round me for my consolation. You are an infernal deal more like a pack of wolves! So let us be plain, as wolves generally are when they are hungry. You joined me because you hoped to be plundering the palace by this time. As that has failed, you want something instead. You know very well that I am not the man to betray a comrade, and that if I am free I shall probably get Johannes out of his prison in the end. But you expect something now. How much do you want?' The Tartar looked down sheepishly and passed his thumb round the lower edge of his corselet, backwards and forwards, as if he were slowly polishing the steel. 'Come,' continued Zeno, 'what is the use of hanging back? As I could not succeed in turning you all into patriots to-night and regenerators of your country, you have, of course, turned yourselves into bandits; you have got me a prisoner, and you want a ransom. How much is it to be?' Tocktamish still hesitated, feeling very much ashamed of himself before his old captain. 'Well, sir, you see--there are eight hundred of us--and----' 'And if any one gets less than the rest he will sell all your skins to Andronicus for the balance,' laughed Zeno. 'Quite right, too! I love justice above all things.' 'Then give us ten ducats each,' cried the clear voice of a Greek from the background. 'Ten ducats apiece will make eight thousand,' said Zeno. 'I am sorry, but I have not so much money at my disposal.' 'You can borrow,' answered the Greek. 'I am afraid not, my friend.' He turned to the Tartar leader again. 'You are a fool, Tocktamish,' he said calmly. 'As long as you keep me here I cannot get money at all. Do you suppose that we merchants put away thousands of ducats in strong boxes under our beds? If we did that, you would have broken into our houses long ago, to help yourselves!' 'What promise will you make, sir?' inquired the Tartar, beginning to waver. But half-a-dozen voices protested. 'No promises!' they cried. 'Let him send you for the money!' 'You hear them?' said Tocktamish. 'Yes,' answered Zeno, 'I hear them. Their nonsense will not change facts. If you had the souls of mice in your miserable bodies,' he continued, turning to the men with a contemptuous little laugh, 'you would come with me now and seize the palace. The gates are open, and the guards are all beastly drunk. There will be more than eight thousand ducats to divide there!' The men were silent; many shook their heads. 'The moment is passed,' answered the Tartar, speaking for them. 'The whole city is roused by this time.' 'We shall have so many more good men to help us, then,' Zeno said. 'Not that we need any one. A handful could do the work.' 'Send for the money!' cried the voice of the Greek again. 'I have told you that I have not got it,' Zeno answered. 'If you have nothing more sensible to say, go to your quarters and let me sleep.' 'Pleasant dreams!' jeered the Greek; and several men laughed. 'I hope my dreams will be pleasant, for I am extremely sleepy,' Zeno answered carelessly. 'If you cut my throat before I wake you will get nothing at all, not even my funeral expenses! Now good-night, and be off!' 'We had better leave him,' Tocktamish said, pushing the nearest men away. 'You will get nothing at present, and it is impossible to frighten him. But he cannot get out, as you know. It is for our own safety, sir,' he added, changing his tone as he addressed Zeno. 'We cannot let you out till the city is quiet again, but you shall lack nothing. There are two cloaks for you to sleep on and for covering yourself, and I will bring you food and drink, and anything you want, in the morning.' Zeno had found time to look about him during the conversation, as far as the light of the lanterns and the men who crowded upon him allowed him to see. He had understood very soon that he was not in the cellar of a ruined house, as he had at first supposed, but in one of those great disused cisterns, of which there are several in Constantinople, and of which two may still be seen. Centuries had passed since there had been water in this one, and the dust lay thick on the paved floor. Two or three score columns of grey marble supported the high vaulted roof, in which Zeno guessed that there was no longer any visible opening to the outer air. Yet air there was, in abundance, for it entered by the narrow entrance through which Zeno had been carried in, and probably found its way out through the disused aqueduct which had once supplied the water, and which still communicated with some distant exit. Zeno could only guess at this from his experience of fortresses, which always contained some similar cistern; every one he had seen was provided with openings, almost always both at the top; a few had staircases in order that men might more conveniently go down to clean them when they were empty. His captors left him reluctantly at the bidding of their chief. They set one lantern against a pillar and filed out, carrying away the other. Zeno listened to their departing footsteps for a moment, when the last man had gone out, and then he went quickly to the entrance and listened again. In two or three minutes he heard what he expected; a heavy door creaked and was shut with a loud noise that boomed down the inclined passage. Then came another sound, which was not that of bolt or bar, and was worse to hear. The men were rolling big loose stones against the door to keep it shut--two, three, more, a dozen at least, a weight no one man could push outward. Then there was no more noise, and Zeno was alone. His situation was serious, and his face was very thoughtful as he went back to the lantern and picked up one of the two cloaks Tocktamish had left him. He put it on and drew it closely round him, for he was beginning to feel cold in spite of the heavy guardsman's tunic he wore over his own clothes. He thought of Arethusa, as he called Zoë; she had been in his mind constantly, and most of all in each of the moments of danger through which he had passed since he had left her. He thought of her lying awake on her divan in the soft light of the small lamps, waiting to hear his footsteps on the landing below her window, then falling gently asleep out of sheer weariness, to dream of him; starting in her rest, perhaps, as she dreamt that he was in peril, but smiling again, without opening her eyes, when the vision changed, and he held her in his arms once more. He little guessed what that yielding something beneath the canvas had been, on which he had pressed his foot so heavily when he had stepped ashore. She was happily ignorant, he fancied, of the succession of hairbreadth escapes through which he had passed unhurt so far. What weighed most on his mind, after all, was the thought that when he met her he should have to tell her that he had failed. But he was not thinking of her only as he sat there, for his own situation stared him in the face, and he could not think of Arethusa without wondering whether he was ever to see her again. He had heard those big stones rolled to the door, and something told him that neither Tocktamish nor his men would bring the promised bread and water in the morning. They did not believe that he was unable to pay the ransom they demanded, and they meant to starve him into yielding. But he had spoken the truth; he had not such a sum of money at his command. The question was, what the end would be. For the present they had not left him so much as a jug of water, and he suddenly realised that he was thirsty after his many exertions. He could not help laughing to himself at the idea that he might die of thirst in a cistern. But it was not in him to waste time in idly reflecting on the detestable irony of his fate, when there was any possibility that his own action might help him. He rose again and took up the lantern to make a systematic examination of his prison. After all, Tocktamish and his soldiers must have acted on the spur of the moment, and though they evidently knew the entrance to the cistern, and had probably been aware that it had a door which could be shut, it was not impossible that there might be another way out which they had overlooked in their haste. But Zeno could find none, and the place was not so large as he had at first supposed. He counted eight columns in each direction, which gave sixty-four for the whole number, and he guessed the cistern to be about one hundred feet square. The walls were covered with smooth cement, to which the dust hardly adhered, and which extended upwards to the spring of the vault, at the same level as the capitals of the columns. There was no opening to be found except the one entrance. Zeno followed the steep inclined passage upwards till he reached the closed door which, as he well understood, must be at a considerable distance from the cistern. It was made of oak, and though it might have been in its place a couple of hundred years it was still perfectly sound. The lock had been wrenched off long ago, probably to be used for some neighbouring house, but Zeno had heard the stones rolled up outside the door, and even before he tried it, he knew that he could not make it move. He wondered whether Tocktamish had set a watch, and he called out and listened for an answer, but none came; he shouted, with the same result. Then he took up his lantern and went down again, for it was clear that the soldiers thought him so safely confined that it would not be necessary to guard the entrance. Since that was their opinion, there was nothing to be done but to agree with them. Zeno lay down in the dust, rolled himself in the spare cloak, placing a doubled fold of it between his head and the base of a column, and he was soon fast asleep. CHAPTER XIV There was consternation in little Omobono's face the next morning when he learnt that his master had gone out during the night, and had not come home. The secretary would not believe it at first, and he went himself to Zeno's bedroom and saw that the couch had not been slept on; he could tell that easily, though it was not a bed but a narrow divan covered with a carpet; for the two leathern pillows were not disturbed, and the old dark red cloak which Zeno always used as a covering was neatly folded in its place. It had been with him through the long campaign in Greece, and he had the almost affectionate associations with it which men of action often connect with objects that have served them well in dangerous times. Zeno had not slept at home, and he had changed his clothes before going out. Questioned by Omobono, Vito could not say with any certainty what the master had put on; in fact, he could not tell at all. All the cloth hose and doublets and tunics were in their places in the cedar wardrobes and chests of drawers, except those he had taken off, which lay on a chair. It looked, said the servant, as if the master had gone out without any clothes at all! Omobono felt that if he had been a bigger man he would have boxed the fellow's ears for the impertinent suggestion. But it was not quite safe, for the man was a big Venetian gondolier and sailor. Besides, as he went on to explain, the master had often gone down to the marble steps at dawn for a plunge and a swim, with nothing but a sheet round him, coming back to dress in his room. Perhaps he had done so now, and perhaps---- The man stopped short. Perhaps Zeno was drowned. He looked at Omobono, but the secretary shook his head, and pointed to the undisturbed couch. Zeno would certainly not have gone out bathing before going to bed. Neither of them thought of looking into the small military trunk which stood in a dark corner, and from which Zeno had taken the leathern jerkin and stout hose which he had put on for the expedition. Omobono had, of course, already questioned the slave-girls. They told what they knew, that the master had supped upstairs, and had dismissed them. When they came back to the room he was gone, they said; and this was true, since they had slept all night. The Kokóna was now asleep, they added; but they did not say that she was sleeping dressed as she had been on the previous evening, and looked very tired, for that was none of the secretary's business. Omobono went up and down the stairs almost as often that morning as on the day of Zoë's first coming, and again and again he instructed Yulia to call him when her mistress awoke. The answer was always the same: the Kokóna was still asleep, and the secretary should be called as soon as she rose. At last he began to think that she, too, had left the house, and that the girls were in the secret, and he threatened to go in and see for himself. To his surprise Yulia stood aside to let him pass, laying one finger on her lips as a warning to make no noise; for the little slave saw well enough that he suspected her of lying, and she was afraid of him in Zeno's absence. Seeing that she did not oppose him, he was convinced, and did not go in. He would not send out messengers to ask for his master at the houses of the Venetian merchants, or at their places of business, for he had a true Italian's instinct to conceal from the outer world everything that happens in the house. Yet he found himself in a dilemma; for Zeno had invited Sebastian Polo, his wife and his daughter, and other friends to dinner, and they would come, and be amazed to find that he was not there to receive them. Yet if word were sent to them not to come, Zeno might return in time and be justly angry; and then he would call the poor secretary something worse than a cackling hen. It was a terrible difficulty, and all the servants and slaves downstairs were chattering about it like magpies, except when the secretary was just passing. The cook sent to ask whether he was to prepare the dinner. 'Certainly,' answered Omobono. 'The master is no doubt gone out on pressing business, and will be back in plenty of time to receive his friends.' He tried to speak calmly, poor man, but he was in a terrible stew. Anxiety had brought out two round red spots on his grey cheeks; for once his trim beard was almost ruffled, and his small round eyes were haggard and bloodshot. As the time for the arrival of the guests drew near, he felt his brain reeling, and the rooms whirled round him, till he felt that the universe was going raving mad, and that he was in the very centre of it. Still Zoë slept, and still the master did not come. At last there was but half an hour left. Omobono strained every nerve he possessed, and determined to meet the tremendous difficulty in a way that should elicit Zeno's admiration. He would receive the ladies and gentlemen as major-duomo, he would make an excuse for his master, he would instal them in their places at table, and would direct the service. Of the cook and the cellar the little man felt quite sure, and that was a great consolation in his extremity. If he gave Zeno's friends of the best, and made a polite apology, and saw that nothing went wrong, it would be impossible to ask more of him or to suggest that he had failed in his duty. When the guests were gone he would go to bed and have an attack of fever; of that he felt quite sure, but then the terrible ordeal would be over, and it would be a relief to lie on his back and feel very ill. He retired and dressed himself in his best clothes. His cloth hose were of a dark wine colour, but were now a little loose for his legs. He looked at them affectionately as he examined them in the light. They recalled many cheerful hours and some proud moments; they remembered also the days when his little legs had not been so thin. Yet by pulling them up almost to the tearing point they lost in width what they gained in length, and made a very good appearance after all, for he secured them by an ingenious contrivance of belt and string. It was true that when he walked he felt as if he were being lifted from the floor by the back of his waistband, but that only made him feel a little taller than he was, and forced him to hold himself very straight, which was a distinct advantage. Now in all this trouble it never occurred to him that his master was in any great danger or trouble, much less that he might have been killed in some mad adventure. Carlo Zeno had lived through such desperate perils again and again, that Omobono had formed the habit of believing him to be indestructible, if not invulnerable, and sure to fall on his feet whatever happened. The secretary only wished he would not choose to disappear on the very day when he had asked five friends to dine with him. Omobono stood in his fine clean shirt and his wine-coloured hose, combing and smoothing his beard carefully with the help of a little mirror no bigger than the bottom of a tumbler. The glass was indeed so small that he could only get an impression of his whole face by moving the thing about, from his chin to his nose, from one cheek to the other, and from his forehead to his thin throat, round which he admired the neatly fitting line of the narrow linen collar. But this last effort required a good deal of squinting, for the point of his beard was in the way. While he was thus engaged some one tapped at his door, and a small voice informed him that Kokóna Arethusa was now awake, and wished to see him instantly. Though the door was not opened by the speaker, Omobono hastily laid down his glass and his comb, and struggled into his tunic as if his life depended on his getting it on before he answered; for he was a very modest man, and the voice was a girl's; moreover, he was aware that the device of belt and strings by which his hose were drawn up so very tightly must present a ridiculous appearance until covered by his over-garment; then, however, the effect would be excellent. So he got on his tunic as fast as he could, and then answered with the calmness of perfectly restored dignity through the closed door. 'Tell the Kokóna that I am at her service,' he said; 'and that I shall be with her immediately.' 'Yes, sir,' said the small voice, and he heard the girl's retreating footsteps immediately after she had spoken. A few moments later he was going up the stairs as fast as the tremendous tension of his hose would allow, and as he went he reflected with satisfaction that as major-duomo he could not by any possibility be called upon to sit down in the presence of his master's guests. One of the slave-girls ushered him into Zoë's presence. The latter was seated on the edge of the divan, looking anxiously towards the door when he entered, and for the first time since she had been in the house he saw her face uncovered. It was very pale, and there were deep shadows under her eyes. Her beautiful brown hair was in wild disorder, too, and fell in a loosened tress upon one shoulder. The hand that rested on the edge of the divan strained upon a fold of the delicate silk carpet that covered the couch. She spoke as soon as Omobono appeared. 'Have you heard from him?' she asked anxiously. 'Is he coming?' It did not seem strange to the secretary that she should already know of Zeno's absence, since no one in the house could think or talk of anything else. On his part he was resolved to maintain the calm dignity becoming to the major-duomo of a noble house. 'The master will doubtless come home when he has finished the urgent business that called him away,' he answered. 'In his absence, it will be my duty to make excuses to his guests----' 'Are they coming? Have you not sent them word to stay away?' Omobono smiled in a sort of superiorly humble way. 'And what if the master should return just at the hour of dinner?' he asked. 'What would he say if I had ventured to take upon myself such a responsibility? The Kokóna does not know the master! Happily I have been in his service too long not to understand my duty. If it pleases him to come home, he will find that his friends have been entertained as he desired. If he does not come, he will be glad to learn afterwards that the proper excuses were offered to them for his unavoidable absence, and that they were treated with the honour due to their station.' Zoë stared at the secretary, really amazed by his calmness, and almost reassured by his evident belief in Zeno's safety. It was true that he knew nothing of the facts, and had not seen his master hanging by the end of a rope, fifty feet above the ground, within twelve hours. It would have been hard to imagine Omobono's state of mind if he had spent the night as Zoë had. But nevertheless his assurance rested her, and restored a little of her confidence in Zeno's good fortune. Of his courage and his strength she needed not to be reminded; but she knew well enough that unless chance were in his favour, he could never leave Blachernæ except to die. 'Do you really think he is safe?' Zoë asked, glad to hear the reassuring words, even in her own voice. 'Of course, Kokóna----' But at this moment the sound of oars in the water, and of several voices talking together, came up through the open window from the landing below. All Omobono's excitement returned at the thought that he might not get down the stairs in time to receive the guests at the marble steps just as the boats came alongside. Without another word he turned and fled precipitately. Zoë had heard the voices too, and had understood; and, in spite of her anxiety, a gentle smile at the secretary's nervousness flitted across her tired face. The two slave-girls had run to the window to see who was coming, and as they had always been told not to show themselves at windows, they crouched down in the balcony and looked through the open-work of marble which formed the parapet. Zoë rose to cross the room. In the first rush of memory that came with waking, she had almost forgotten that she had been hurt, and now she bit her lip as the pain shot down her right side. But she smiled almost instantly. She would rather have been hurt unawares by the man she loved, than that he should not have touched her at the very moment of going into danger. The memory of his crushing weight upon her for that instant was something she would not part with. Women know what that is. She thought how tenderly he would have stooped to kiss her, if he had known that she was lying there under the canvas. Instead, he had stepped upon her body; and it was almost better than a kiss, for that would have left nothing of itself; but now each movement that hurt her brought him close to her again. She had received no real injury, but she limped as she walked to the window. Then she stood still just within it, where she could not see down to the steps below, but could talk with the slave-girls in a whisper. Doubtless, since Zeno had not wished her to be seen, she would not have shown herself; but she was quite conscious that she looked ill and tired, and by no means fit to face a rival who had been described to her as fresher than spring roses; so that the sacrifice was, after all, not so great as it might have been. 'Tell me what you see,' she said to the maids. Lucilla turned up her sallow little face. 'There are three,' she answered. 'There is a Venetian lord, and his lady, and a young lady. At least, I suppose she is young.' [Illustration: 'Tell me what you see,' she said to the maids.] 'I should think you could see that,' Zoë said. 'Her face is veiled,' Lucilla replied, after peering down; 'but I can see her hair. It is red, and she has a great deal of it.' 'Red like Rustan's wife's hair?' asked Zoë. 'Oh no! It is red like a lady's; for it is well dyed with the good khenna that comes from Alexandria. Now they are getting out--the old lady first--she is fat--the secretary and her husband help her on each side. She is all wrapped in a long green silk mantle embroidered with red roses. She is like a dish of spinach in flames. How fat she is!' Lucilla shook a little, as if she were laughing internally. 'What does her daughter wear?' asked Zoë. 'A dark purple cloak, with a broad silver trimming.' 'How hideous!' exclaimed Zoë, for no particular reason. 'The secretary bows to the ground,' Lucilla said. 'He is saying something.' She stopped speaking, and all three listened. Zoë could hear Omobono's voice quite distinctly. 'By a most unfortunate circumstance,' he was saying, 'Messer Carlo Zeno was obliged to go out on very urgent business, and has not yet returned. I am his secretary and major-duomo, as your lordship may deign to remember. In my master's absence I have the honour to welcome his guests, and to wait upon them.' Sebastian Polo said something in answer to this fine speech; but in a low tone, and Zoë could not hear the words. Then a peculiarly disagreeable woman's voice asked a question. Zoë thought it sounded like something between the croaking of many frogs and the clucking of an old hen. 'We hope you will give us our dinner, whatever happens,' said the lady, who seemed to be of a practical turn of mind. 'Is that the girl's voice?' asked Zoë of Lucilla, in a whisper. The maid shook her head. 'The mother,' she answered. 'Now they are going in. I cannot hear what Omobono says, for he is leading the way. They are all gone.' Zoë did not care who else came, and now that the moment was over she was much less disturbed by the fact that Giustina was under the same roof with her than she had expected to be. She did not believe that Zeno had ever kissed Giustina, and he had certainly never stepped on her. She let her maids do what they would with her now, hardly noticing the skill they showed in helping her to move, and in smoothing away the pain she felt, as only the people of the East know how to do it. As she did not speak to them they dared not ask her questions about the master's absence. They had left him with her when they had been sent away; they had slept till morning; when they awoke they had found Zoë lying on the divan asleep in her clothes, and the master had gone out of the house unseen and had not returned. That was as far as their knowledge went; but they were sure that she knew everything, and they hoped that if they pleased her even more than usual she would let fall some words of explanation, as mistresses sometimes do when their servants are particularly satisfactory. Most young women, when they are in a good humour, let their maids know what they have been doing; and as soon as they are cross the maids revenge themselves by telling the other servants everything. In this way the balance of power is maintained between the employer and the employed, like the hydrostatic equilibrium in the human body, which cannot be destroyed without bringing on a syncope. But though Zoë felt very much less pain after Yulia and Lucilla had bathed her and rubbed her, and had gently pulled at all her joints till she felt supple and light again, she said nothing about Zeno; and though they dressed her so skilfully that she could not help smiling with pleasure when they showed her to herself in the large mirror they held up between them, yet she only thanked them kindly, and gave them each two spoonfuls of roseleaf preserve, which represented to them an almost heavenly delight, as she well knew, and which she herself did not at all despise. That was all, however; and they were a little disappointed, because she did not condescend to talk to them about the master's disappearance, which was the greatest event that had happened since they had all three lived under Zeno's roof. Meanwhile Omobono was playing his part of major-duomo downstairs, and had installed the guests at the table set for them in the large hall looking over the Golden Horn. After Polo and his wife, another Venetian merchant had arrived, the rich old banker Marin Cornèr, long established in Constantinople, and a friend of Sebastian Polo. The fifth person invited did not appear, so that two seats were vacant, the sixth being Zeno's own; and behind his high carved chair Omobono installed himself, to direct the servants, quite an imposing figure in his dark purple tunic and the handsome silver chain, which he had put on to-day to indicate his high office in the establishment. Poor Omobono! He little dreamt of what was in store for him that day. The three older guests were moderately sorry that Zeno was not present. In their several ways they were all a little afraid of their eccentric countryman, about whom the most wild tales were told. Though in truth he was extremely punctual in meeting his financial engagements, both Sebastian Polo and Marin Cornèr had always felt a little nervous about doing business with a young man who was known to have kept an army at bay for a whole winter, who was reported to have slain at least a hundred Turks with his own hand, and whose brown eyes gleamed like a tiger's at the mere mention of a fight. It would be so extremely awkward if, instead of meeting a bill that fell due, he should appear at Cornèr's bank armed to the teeth and demand the contents of the strong box. On the whole the two elderly merchants ate with a better appetite in his absence. But Giustina was inconsolable, and the good things did not appeal to her, neither the fresh sturgeon's roe from the Black Sea, nor the noble palamit, nor the delicate quails, nor even the roasted peacock, whose magnificent tail rose out of a vast silver dish like a rainbow with spots on it. She was a big, sleepy creature with quantities of handsomely dyed hair, as Lucilla had told Zoë. She had large and regular features, a perfectly colourless white skin, and a discontented mouth. She often turned her eyes to see what was going on, without turning her head at all, as if she were too lazy to make even that small effort. Her hands were well shaped, but heavy in the fingers, and they looked like new marble, too white to be interesting, too cold to touch. She was terribly disappointed and deeply offended by what seemed to her a deliberate insult; for she did not believe a word of Omobono's polite apology. The truth was that Zeno had only invited the party because her mother had invited herself in the hope of bringing him to the point of offering to marry Giustina. As a matter of fact nothing had ever been farther from his thoughts. Sebastian Polo, urged by his wife, had entered into the closest relations of business with Zeno, and had again and again given him a share in transactions that had been extraordinarily profitable. He had rendered it necessary for Zeno to see him often, and had made it easy by his constant hospitality; in these things lay the whole secret of Zeno's visits to his house. But seeing that matters did not take a matrimonial direction as quickly as she had expected, Polo's wife had adopted a course which she intended to make decisive; she had asked herself and her daughter to dine with Zeno. From this to hinting that he had compromised Giustina, and thence to extracting an offer of marriage, would be easy steps, familiar to every enterprising mother, since the beginning of the matrimonial ages. And that was a long time ago--even before Solomon's day, when the horseleech's two daughters cried, 'Give, give!' Zeno's value as a possible husband lay less in his fortune than in his very magnificent connections at home, and in the fact that the Emperor Charles had been his godfather and afterwards his friend and patron. Giustina understood her thoughtful parent's policy; she was therefore unhappy, and would eat no peacock, a circumstance which greatly distressed Omobono. Happily for him, the young woman's abstention was fully compensated by the readiness of the elder guests to partake of what she obstinately refused, even to something like repletion. While they ate, they talked; that is to say, Sebastian Polo and Marin Cornèr compared opinions on business matters such as the value of Persian silks, Greek wines, and white slaves, without giving away to each other the least thread of information that could be turned into money. And Polo's wife, who had an eye to the main chance, croaked a few words now and then, encouraging Cornèr to talk more freely of his affairs; perhaps, thought she, he might betray the secret of his wonderful success in obtaining from the Caucasus certain priceless furs which no merchant but he had ever been able to get. But though the fat dame lured him on to talk and made signs to have his glass filled again and again with Chian wine, and though the colours of a most beautiful sunset began to creep up his thin nose and his high cheek bones, as the rich evening light climbs in the western sky, Marin Cornèr's speech was as quiet and clear as ever, and what he said was, if anything, a trifle more cautious than before. And meanwhile Giustina stared across her empty plate at the boats on the Golden Horn, and nursed her wrath against the man she wished to marry. 'My child,' croaked her mother, 'we fully understand your disappointment. But you should make an effort to be cheerful, if only for the sake of Messer Marin Cornèr, your father's valued friend.' 'I beg you to excuse my dulness, Madam,' answered the daughter dutifully, and with all the ceremony that children were taught to use in addressing their parents. 'I shall endeavour to obey you.' 'Come, come, Donna Giustina!' cried Cornèr. 'We will drink your health and happiness in this good----' The sentence remained unfinished, and his lips did not close; as he set down the untasted wine, his eyes fixed themselves on a point between Omobono and Polo, and the sunset effects faded from his nose, leaving a grey twilight behind. The fat dame thought it was an apoplexy, and half rose from her seat; but Giustina's eyes followed the direction of his look and she uttered a cry of real fear. Sebastian Polo, who sat with his back to the sight that terrified his daughter, gazed at the other three in astonishment. But Omobono turned half round and gasped, and seized the back of Zeno's empty chair, swinging it round on one of its legs till it was between him and the vision. Tocktamish stood there, grinning at the assembled company in a way to terrify the stoutest heart amongst them. He was magnificently arrayed in his full dress uniform of flaming yellow and gold, and his huge round fur papakh was set well back on his shaggy head. His right hand toyed amidst a perfect arsenal of weapons in his belt, and his blood-shot eyes rolled frightfully as he looked from one guest to the other, showing his shark's teeth as he grinned and grinned again. It was certainly Tocktamish, the Tartar; and Tocktamish was not perfectly sober. He was the more pleased by the impression his appearance had produced. He at once came forward to the empty place of the absent guest, which was next to Giustina's. 'I see that you have kept a place for me,' he said in barbarous Greek. 'That was very kind of you! And I am in time for the peacock, too!' Thereupon he sat down in the chair, looked round the table, and grinned again. The fat lady collapsed in a fainting fit, the two elderly merchants edged away from the board as far as they could, and Giustina uttered another piercing shriek when the Tartar leered at her. 'Who is this person?' her father tried to ask with dignity, meaning the question for Omobono. But Omobono had vanished, and the servants had fled after him. CHAPTER XV Tocktamish poured half a flagon of Chian wine into a tall Venetian beaker and drank it off by way of whetting his appetite. 'The master of the house is unavoidably absent,' he observed, when he had smacked his lips noisily. 'He has sent me to beg that you will excuse him and make yourselves at home.' By this time Dame Polo was beginning to revive, and the two men were somewhat reassured as to the Tartar's intentions. When he had entered he had looked as if he meant to murder them all, but it was now evident from his manner that he wished to produce a pleasant impression. He drew the peacock towards him, and at once took all the best pieces that were left on the dish, using his fingers to save trouble. Giustina watched him without turning her head, and judged that, after all, he had only meant to show his admiration for her beauty when he had leered so horribly. She was in reality the least timid of all the party, though she had shrieked so loudly, and she remembered a fairy story about a frightful monster that had loved a beautiful princess. She was already pondering on the means of making a similar conquest. 'Are we to understand,' asked Marin Cornèr, politely, but in a shaky tone, 'that you come from Messer Carlo Zeno?' Tocktamish grunted assent, for his mouth was full, and he nodded emphatically. 'Messer Carlo Zeno is in need of a large sum of money without delay,' he said, when he was able to speak again. Sebastian Polo looked at Marin Cornèr significantly; and Marin Cornèr looked at Sebastian Polo. The fat lady pricked her ears, figuratively speaking, for indeed they were much too deeply embedded in their exuberant surroundings of cheek and jowl to suggest that they could ever prick at all. The Tartar crammed his mouth full again, and his great beard wagged with his jaws in the inevitable silence that followed. In her heart Giustina compared him to a ravenous lion, but her father thought he resembled a hungry hyena. Finding that his throat was not cut yet, and learning that there was to be a question of money, Marin Cornèr felt that the colour was returning to his nose and the warmth to his heart. 'Why does Messer Carlo not come home himself and get the money he needs?' he asked. By this time Omobono had recovered from his fright enough to creep into the room behind Tocktamish. He was already making anxious gestures to the two Venetian gentlemen to enjoin caution. The Tartar drank again before he answered the question. 'He happened to be so busy that he preferred to send me to get the money for him,' said the soldier. 'You see we are old friends. We fought together in Greece.' Then Omobono's voice was heard, quavering with anxiety. 'There is no money in the house!' he cried, winking violently at Polo and Cornèr. 'There is not a penny, I swear! There were large payments to make yesterday.' The poor little secretary was so anxious to be heard that he had come within arm's length of the Tartar, though behind him. Tocktamish turned his big head, and put out his hand unexpectedly, and Omobono felt himself caught and whirled round like a child till he was close to the table and face to face with the tipsy giant. He was sure that he felt his liver shrivelling up inside him with sheer fright. 'What is this little animal?' the Tartar asked, cocking one eye in a knowing way and examining him with a sort of boozy gravity. But Omobono really could not find a word. His captor shook him playfully. 'What is your name, you funny little beast?' he enquired, and he roared with laughter by way of answering himself. Giustina, strange to say, was the only one to join in his mirth, and she laughed quite prettily, to the inexpressible surprise of her parents, who were shocked and grieved, as well as scared almost to death. 'Come, come!' laughed the Tartar, shaking the little man like a bean-bag. 'If you cannot speak, you can at least give up your keys, and I will see for myself if there is any money!' Thereupon he seized the bunch of keys which the secretary wore at his belt, and wrenched it off with a pull that snapped the thong by which it hung. Again Giustina laughed, but a little more nervously now; her mother sat transfixed, open-mouthed, with an almost idiotic expression. Again the two merchants glanced at each other, and then both looked towards the door. Between his fright and the terrible indignity of having his keys torn from him, Omobono had never been nearer to fainting in his life. 'Robbery!' he gasped. 'Rank robbery!' Tocktamish sent him spinning into the nearest corner by a turn of the wrist, after which the ruffian took another mouthful of meat, and slowly filled his glass while he was disposing of it. Omobono had steadied himself in the corner, but his face was deadly white, and his lips were moving nervously in a delirium of terror. 'Messer Carlo needs ten thousand ducats before sunset,' observed the Tartar before he drank. Polo and Cornèr started to their feet; to their commercial souls the mere mention of such a demand was more terrifying than all the crooked weapons that gleamed in Tocktamish's broad belt. 'Ten thousand ducats!' they repeated together in a breath. 'Yes!' roared the Tartar, in a voice that made the glasses on the table shake together and ring. 'Ten thousand ducats! And if I do not find the money in the house, you two must find it in yours! Do you understand?' [Illustration: 'Yes!' roared the Tartar. 'Ten thousand ducats! And if I do not find the money in the house, you two must find it in yours! Do you understand?'] They understood, for his voice was like thunder, and he had risen too, and towered above them with his full glass in one hand and Omobono's keys in the other. Then, being already tolerably drunk, he solemnly raised the keys to his lips, thinking that he held the glass in that hand, and rolled his eyes terribly at the two merchants; and he set the glass down with an emphatic gesture, as if it had been the bunch of keys, and it broke to pieces, and the yellow wine splashed out across the table and ran down and streamed upon the mosaic floor. A terrific Tartar oath announced that he had realised his mistake, and as he at once made up his mind that the Venetians were responsible for it, his next action was to hurl the foot of the broken glass at Polo's head; and he instantly seized the empty silver flagon and flung it at Cornèr's face. The lighter weapon missed its aim and broke to atoms against the opposite wall, but the jug struck Cornèr full on the bridge of his thin nose with awful effect, and he fell to the floor and lay there, a moaning, bleeding heap. Polo looked neither at his wife nor at his daughter, but fled through the open door at the top of his not very great speed. His wife fainted outright, and in real earnest now, and with a final croak rolled gently from her chair, without hurting herself at all. Omobono flattened his lean body against the wall, trembling in every joint, and gibbering with fear; and Tocktamish, seeing that he had so satisfactorily cleared the field, proceeded to address his attentions to Giustina, who had not fainted, but was really much too frightened to rise from her seat or try to escape. The Tartar drew his chair nearer to hers, and suddenly smiled, as if he had done nothing unusual, and was only anxious to make himself agreeable. He had been drinking since early morning, but he would be good for at least another gallon of wine before it made him senseless. He addressed Giustina in the poetic language of his native country. 'Come, pet parrot of my soul!' he began, coaxingly. 'Fill me a cup and let me hear your ravishing voice! Tocktamish has cleared the house as the thunderstorm clears the hot air from the valley! Drink, my pretty nightingale, and the golden wine shall warm your speech in your little throat, as the morning sunshine melts the icicles in my beard when I have been hunting all night in winter! Drink, my fawn, my spring lamb, my soft wood-pigeon, my white bunny rabbit! Drink, sweet one!' The Tartar's similes were in hopeless confusion, possibly because he translated them into Greek, but he was convinced that he was eloquent, and he was undeniably as strong as a bear. He had filled a fresh glass and was evidently anxious to make Giustina drink out of it before him, for he held it to her lips with his left hand while his right tried to take her round the waist and draw her to his knee. But this was much more than she was prepared to submit to. In the fairy story, Beast was less enterprising in the presence of Beauty, and collapsed into obedience at the mere lifting of her finger. Giustina was a big creature, usually sleepy and not inclined to move quickly; but she was capable of exerting considerable strength in an emergency. The instant she felt Tocktamish's hand at her waist, she rose with a quick, serpentine motion that unwound her, as it were, from his encircling hold, and almost before he knew that she was on her feet she had fled from the room and slammed the door behind her. Tocktamish tried to follow her, but he stumbled successively over the still unconscious dame and the still moaning Cornèr, so that when he reached the door at last his purpose had undergone a change, and, as he thought, an improvement. Women never ran out of the house into the street, he argued; therefore Giustina was now upstairs and would stay there; hence it would be wiser to finish the peacock and anything else he could lay hands on before going to pay her a visit. For Tocktamish found the food and the wine to his liking, and such as were not to be had every day, even by a Tartar officer with plenty of money in his wallet. He was tolerably steady still, as he made his way back towards his seat. His eye fell on Omobono, flattened against the wall and still in a palsy of fear; for all that has been told since Cornèr had fallen and Polo had run away had occupied barely two minutes. Tocktamish suddenly felt lonely, and the little secretary amused him. He took him by the collar and whirled him into Giustina's vacant chair at the table. 'You may keep me company, while I finish my dinner,' he explained. 'I cannot eat alone--it disturbs my digestion.' He roared with laughter, and slapped Omobono on the back playfully. The little man felt as if he had been struck between the shoulders by a large ham, and the breath was almost knocked out of his body; and he wondered how in the world his tight hose had survived the strain of his sitting down so suddenly. 'You look starved,' observed the Tartar, in a tone of concern, after observing his face attentively. 'What you want is food and drink, man!' With a sudden impulse of hospitality he began to heap up food on Giustina's unused plate, with a fine indifference to gastronomy, or possibly with a tipsy sense of humour. He piled up bits of roast peacock, little salt fish, olives, salad, raisins, dried figs, candied strawberries, and honey cake, till he could put no more on the plate, which he then set before Omobono. 'Eat that,' he said. 'It will do you good.' Then he addressed himself to the peacock again, with a good will. Omobono would have got up and slipped away, if he had dared. Next to his bodily fear, he was oppressed by the terrible impropriety of sitting at his master's table, where the guests should have been. This seemed to him a dreadful thing. 'Really, sir,' he began, 'if you will allow me I would rather----' 'Do not talk. Eat!' Tocktamish set the example by tearing the meat off a peacock's leg with his teeth. 'You need it,' he added, with his mouth very full. The poor secretary looked at the curiously mixed mess which his tormentor had set before him, and he felt very uncomfortable at the mere idea of tasting the stuff. Then he glanced at the Tartar and saw the latter's bloodshot eye rolling at him hideously, while the shark-like teeth picked a leg bone, and terror chilled his heart again. What would happen if he refused to eat? Tocktamish dropped the bone and filled two glasses. 'To Messer Carlo Zeno!' he cried, setting the wine to his lips. Omobono thought a little wine might steady his nerves; and, moreover, he could not well refuse to drink his master's health. 'Good!' laughed Tocktamish. 'If you cannot eat, you can drink!' Just then Cornèr groaned piteously, where he lay in a heap on the floor. His nose was much hurt, but he was even more badly frightened. The Tartar was not pleased. 'If that man is dead, take him out and bury him!' he cried, turning on Omobono. 'If he is alive, kick him and tell him to hold his tongue! He disturbs us at our dinner.' Omobono thought he saw a chance of escaping, and rose, as if to obey. But the Tartar's long arm reached him instantly and he was forced back into his seat. 'I thought you meant me to take him away,' he feebly explained. 'I was speaking to the slaves,' said Tocktamish gravely, though there was no servant or slave within hearing. The unfortunate merchant, who was not at all unconscious, and had probably groaned with a vague idea of exciting compassion, now held his peace, for he did not desire to be kicked, still less to be taken out and buried. The Tartar seemed satisfied by the silence that followed. After another glass he rose to his feet and took Omobono by the arm; considering his potations he was still wonderfully steady on his legs. 'Where is the strong box?' he asked, dragging the secretary towards the door opposite to the one through which Giustina had gone out. 'There is no money in the house,' cried Omobono, in renewed terror. 'I swear to you that there is no money!' 'Very well,' answered the Tartar, who had taken the keys from the table. 'Show me the empty box.' 'There is no strong box, sir,' answered the secretary, resolving to control his fear and die in defending his master's property. The difficulty was to carry out this noble resolution. Tocktamish grabbed him by both arms and held him in the vice of his grasp. 'Little man,' he said gravely. 'There is a box, and I will find the box, and I will put you into the box, and I will throw the box into the water. Then you will know that it is not good to lie to Tocktamish. Now show me where it is.' Omobono shrank to something like half his natural size in his shame and fear, and led the way to the counting-house. Once only he stopped, and made a gallant attempt to be brave, and tried to repeat his queer little prayer, as he did on all the great occasions of his life. 'O Lord, grant wealth and honour to the Most Serene Republic,' he began, and though he realised that in his present situation this request was not much to the point, he would have gone on to ask for victory over the Genoese, on general principles. But at that moment he felt something as sharp as a pin sticking into him just where his hose would naturally have been most tight, and where, in fact, the strain that pulled them up was most severe; in that part of the human body, in short, which, as most of us have known since childhood is peculiarly sensitive to pain. There was no answer to such an argument _a posteriori_; the little man's head went down, his shoulders went up, and he trotted on; and though he could not be put off from finishing his prayer he had reached the door of the counting-house when he was only just beginning to pray that he might have strength to resist curiosity, a request even more out of place, just then, than a petition for the destruction of the Genoese. A moment later he and Tocktamish entered the room, and the Tartar shut the door behind him. Neither of the two had heard two little bare feet following them softly at a distance; but when the door was shut Lucilla ran nimbly up to it and quickly drew the great old iron bolt which had been left where it had once been useful, at a time when the disposition of the house had been different. Lucilla knew that all the windows within had heavy gratings, and that neither Omobono nor his captor could get out. Giustina had fled upstairs, as women generally do to save themselves from any immediate danger. They are born with the idea that when a house has more than one story the upper one is set apart for them and their children, as indeed it always was in the Middle Ages, and they feel sure that there must be other women there who will help them, or defend them, or hide them. For it is a curious fact that whereas women distrust each other profoundly where the one man of their affections is concerned, they rely on each other as a whole body, banded together to resist and get the better of the male sex, in a way that would do credit to any army in an enemy's country. Therefore Giustina went upstairs, quite certain of finding other women. Now there was but one door on the upper landing, and that was Zoë's, and it was open; and just outside it Lucilla was hiding in the curtain, listening to the strange sounds that came up from below; but when Giustina ran in without seeing her, the little slave stayed outside and slipped downstairs noiselessly, listened again at the dining-room door, watched the Tartar and the secretary from a place of safety, and then ran nimbly after them on purpose to lock them in, as she did, for she was a clever little slave and remembered the bolt. Meanwhile Giustina rushed on like a whirlwind till she fell panting on the divan beside Zoë, hardly seeing her at all, and staring at the door, through which she expected every moment to see the burly Tartar enter in pursuit; so that Yulia, who guessed the danger, ran and shut it of her own accord. Then Giustina drew a long breath and looked round, and she met Zoë's eyes scrutinising her face with a look she never forgot. 'That monster!' she exclaimed, by way of explanation and apology. Zoë had heard nothing, for the house was solidly built, and she had not the least idea who had frightened Giustina. It occurred to her that Gorlias might be in the house, and that on being seen by the Venetians it had suited him to terrify them in order to get out again without being questioned. 'You are Giustina Polo,' she said. 'I am Arethusa, Messer Carlo Zeno's slave. Will you tell me what has happened?' Giustina had now recovered herself enough to see that this Arethusa was very lovely, and she momentarily forgot the danger she had escaped. 'You are his slave!' she repeated slowly, and still breathing hard. 'Ah--I begin to understand.' 'So do I,' Zoë answered, looking at the handsome, heavy face, the dyed hair, and marble hands. There was something like relief in her tone, now that she had examined her rival well. 'When did Carlo buy you?' asked Giustina, growing coldly insolent as she recovered her breath and realised her social superiority. 'I think it was just five weeks ago,' Zoë answered simply. 'But it seems as if I had always been here.' 'I have no doubt,' said Giustina. 'Five weeks! Yes, I understand now.' Then a fancied sound waked her fear of pursuit again, and her eyes turned quickly towards the door. Yulia was standing beside it, listening with her ear to the crack; she shook her head as she met Giustina's anxious glance. There was nothing; no one was coming. 'You had better tell me what has happened,' Zoë said. 'You met some one who frightened you,' she suggested. Giustina saw that Zoë was in complete ignorance of the Tartar's visit, and she told what she had seen and heard downstairs. As she went on, explaining that Tocktamish demanded ten thousand ducats in Zeno's name, Zoë's expression grew more anxious, for she gathered the truth from the broken and exaggerated narrative. After failing in his attempt to free Johannes, Zeno had fallen into the hands of the soldiers he had won over to the revolution; they demanded an enormous ransom, and if it was not forthcoming they would give him up to Andronicus. It was bad enough, yet it was better than it might have been, for it meant that Zeno was still alive and safe, and would not be hurt so long as his captors could be made to wait for the money they asked. 'Ten thousand ducats!' Zoë repeated. 'It is more than can ever be got together!' 'My father could pay twice as much if he pleased,' answered the rich merchant's daughter, vain of his immense wealth. 'But I hardly think he will give anything,' she added slowly, while she watched Zoë's face to see what effect the statement might have. 'Messer Carlo has many friends,' Zoë answered quietly. 'But if he is alive it is very probable that he may come home without paying any ransom at all. And if he does, he will certainly repay the soldiers for the trick they have played him.' 'You do not seem anxious about him,' said Giustina, deceived and surprised by her assumed calmness. 'Are you?' Zoë asked. At that moment Yulia opened the door, for she had been listening from within and had heard her companion's bare feet on the pavement outside. Lucilla slipped in, almost dancing with delight at her last feat, and looking like a queer little sprite escaped from a fairy tale. 'I have locked them up in the counting-house, Kokóna!' she cried. 'The Tartar giant and the secretary! They are quite safe!' She laughed gleefully and Yulia laughed too. Giustina suddenly recollected her mother, who had fainted in the dining-room. As for her father, her knowledge of his character told her that since there had been danger he was certainly in a place of safety. She did not care what became of Marin Cornèr, whom she detested because he had once dared to ask for her hand, though he was a widower of fifty. But her mother was entitled to some consideration after all, if only for having brought into the world such a wonderful creature as Giustina really believed herself to be. Yet in her heart the young woman felt a secret resentment against her for having grown so enormously fat; since it very often happens that as daughters grow older they grow more and more like their mothers, and Giustina was aware that she herself was already rather heavy for her age. It would be a terrible thing to be a fat woman at thirty, and it would be her mother's fault if she were. Many daughters are familiar with this argument, though they may cry out and rail at the story-teller in the bazaar who has betrayed it to the young men. Giustina rose with much dignity now that she was fully reassured as to the safety of the house. Zoë was questioning Lucilla, who could hardly answer without breaking into laughter at the idea of having imprisoned Omobono and the terrible Tartar. The little secretary had never been unkind to any one in his life, but once or twice, when the master had been out and he had been on his dignity, he had found the slave-girls loitering on the stairs and had threatened them with the master's displeasure and with a consequent condign punishment if they were ever again caught doing nothing outside their mistress's apartment; and it was therefore delightful to know that he was shut up with Tocktamish, in terror of his life, and that his tremendous dignity was all gone to pieces in his fright. 'You are a clever girl,' said Zoë. 'I only hope the door is strong.' 'I called the servants and the slaves before I came upstairs,' Lucilla answered. 'I left them piling up furniture against the door. A giant could not get out now.' 'Poor Omobono!' Zoë exclaimed. 'How frightened he must be.' Giustina meanwhile prepared to go away, settling and smoothing the folds of her gown, and pressing her hair on one side and the other. Yulia brought her a mirror and held it up, and watched the young lady's complacent smile as she looked at her own reflection. When she had finished she barely nodded to Zoë, as she might have done to a slave who had served her, and she went out in an exceedingly stately and leisurely manner, quite sure that she had impressed Zoë with her immeasurable superiority. She was much surprised and displeased because Zoë did not rise and remain respectfully standing while she went out, and she promised herself to remember this also against the beautiful favourite when she herself should be Carlo Zeno's wife. But at a sign from Zoë, Lucilla followed her downstairs since there was no one else to escort her; and a few minutes later Yulia saw the little party come out upon the landing below. The fat lady in green silk was in a very limp condition, the embroidered roses seemed to droop and wither, and she was helped by three of Zeno's men; Marin Cornèr was holding a large napkin to his injured nose, so that he could not see where he put his feet and had to be helped by the door porter. As for Sebastian Polo, his wife and daughter well knew that he was by this time safe at home, and was probably recovering his lost courage by beating his slaves. 'They are gone,' said Yulia, when the boat had shoved off at last. Zoë rose then, and went slowly to the window. She stood there a few moments looking after the skiff, and in spite of her deep anxiety a faint smile played round her tender mouth as she thought of her meeting with Giustina; but it vanished almost at once. Her own situation was critical and perhaps dangerous. She knew that although she was a slave she was the only person in the house who could exercise any authority now that Omobono was locked up in the counting-house, and that it would be impossible to let him out without liberating Tocktamish at the same time, which was not to be thought of. If the Tartar got out now he would probably murder the first person he met, and every one else whom he found in his way; indeed, Zoë thought it not impossible that he was already murdering Omobono out of sheer rage. 'Come,' she said to Lucilla. 'We must go downstairs and see what can be done.' CHAPTER XVI Neither Tocktamish nor his victim knew that Lucilla had slipped the bolt after them, for Omobono was too terrified to hear anything but the Tartar's voice, and the latter was just in that state of intoxication in which a man perceives nothing that is not closely connected with the idea that possesses him for the time being; it is a state of mind familiar to those whose business it is to catch men, or to cheat them. The strong box stood against the wall at the farther end of the room, and close to the high desk at which Omobono usually worked. When he came to it the secretary stood still, and Tocktamish bent down and began to fumble with the keys. The box had three locks, each having a hasp that closed with a strong spring when the lid was shut down, and each requiring a separate key. It was a large chest, completely covered with sheet-iron and heavily bound with iron straps, the whole being kept bright by daily polishing. Tocktamish could not make the keys fit, and desisted with an oath. 'Open it!' he commanded, seizing the trembling secretary by the collar and forcing him to his knees before the chest. It would have been death to disobey, in the Tartar's present mood. Omobono put each key into the lock to which it belonged, turned each three times, and the middle one a fourth time, which had the effect of drawing back all the springs at once; at the same time he raised the heavy lid a little with one hand, and then opened it with both. Tocktamish began to throw the contents out on the floor with eager haste, seizing upon the money-bags first; but these were not many, nor were they very heavy, for the young merchant's capital was invested in many enterprises and was rarely lying idle, and as for spare cash he had taken out a goodly sum within the past two days to be given away to the guards at the palace. The Tartar soon saw that there were not a thousand gold ducats in the chest, and there was but a little silver. The rest of the contents consisted of accounts, papers, and parchments, many of which represented wealth, but could not be turned into gold by a thief. Tocktamish had an ignorant barbarian's primitive idea of riches, and being profoundly disappointed he at once became furiously angry. 'Where is the treasure?' he roared, and his face grew purple. He shook Omobono like a rat, as he repeated his question again and again. The wretched secretary felt that his hour was indeed come, and though he tried to speak and protest he really made no sound. Then Tocktamish remembered his own words. 'I said I would drown you in the box!' he cried. 'And by the sun and moon, full and new, I will! I will, by the vine, the wine, and the drinkers, you rat, you miserable Italian flea, you skinny little bag of bones!' Thereupon he hove up Omobono sideways by one arm and one leg and dropped him, fainting, into the empty money-chest, of which he instantly shut the lid. It closed with a loud snap as the three springs simultaneously fell into the slots in the three hasps. At the same moment Omobono lost consciousness; his last impression had been that he was killed and was to wake up in purgatory, and he had made one wild attempt to say a prayer when Tocktamish whirled him off his feet, but he could only remember the last words-- '... strength to resist curiosity.' Then everything was dark, the big locks snapped above his head and he knew nothing more. Having successfully accomplished this brave feat, the tipsy giant gravely sat down on the chest to think, for he had already forgotten that he had meant to throw it into the Golden Horn, and besides, even in his condition, he knew very well that four men could hardly have moved such a weight. As he sat he stooped down and drew the scattered contents of the chest towards him, and picked the small bags from the heaps of documents. Then it occurred to him that it would be more convenient to put all the coin into one sack which he could fasten to his belt. It would not be a very heavy weight, and it was not possible to cram all the bags into his wallet. A thousand gold ducats only weighed about twenty pounds, by goldsmiths' weight. When he had put all together in a soft leathern sack which he found empty, he got upon his feet, with the idea of going back to rifle the house since he had not found what he expected in the safe. It was familiar work to him, for after he had left Greece he had been a robber before he had turned respectable by taking service with the Emperor. He kicked the strong box before he went away. 'Good-bye, little man!' he laughed. But there was no answer, and at the idea that Omobono was such a fragile creature as to have died of fright, he laughed louder and slapped his huge thigh with his hand. It seemed quite inexpressibly funny to him that any one should actually die of fear, of all disorders in the world. He had fastened the leathern sack securely to his belt, and he went to the door to let himself out. When he found it fastened he looked at it curiously, and scratched his big head, trying to remember whether he had locked it after him or not, for he recollected that he had shut it lest any one should come upon him suddenly. But there was no key in the lock on the inside. He might have dropped it, or slipped it into his wallet, and he began to look for it, going round and round the room and kicking the papers and account-books hither and thither. It was not to be seen, and the windows were heavily grated; but he did not doubt his strength to break the door down. That was a mere trifle after all. He shook it violently, struck it, kicked it, and shook it again, but to his stupefaction it would not budge an inch. The servants had pushed a heavy marble table against it, and had piled up half a ton of furniture; he might as well have tried to break through the wall. Then it occurred to him that Omobono might have taken the key. He would open the box, though it was a pity to disturb a dead man in such an excellent coffin. But the box could not be opened any more than the door, for the springs had snapped, and he did not understand the complicated locks. He tried again and again, but failed each time. Perhaps the secretary was not dead after all. Tocktamish would speak to him, and ask him how to open the safe. 'Little man,' he said, 'I will let you out if you will tell me how to use the keys.' But the little man did not answer. If he was alive and heard, he had no desire to be let out while his tormentor was in the house. At the thought that he could perhaps hear, but would not speak, Tocktamish went into a paroxysm of fury. He seized the high stool that stood beside the desk and swung it with terrific force, bringing it down on the strong box, so that it flew into splinters with an appalling din. He raged, he foamed at the mouth, he bawled and yelled, and he smashed one piece of furniture after another on the heavy iron without producing the smallest impression on it, and without getting the least answer from Omobono, who was still half-unconscious, happily for his nerves, and was dreaming that he had taken refuge in a baker's oven during a terrible thunderstorm. The stool was reduced to kindling wood, two large chairs had followed it, and Tocktamish was in the act of heaving up the desk itself, sending inkstand, pens, and papers flying to the four corners of the room, and determined to crack the strong box with one tremendous blow, when a musical voice spoke gently through the window nearest to him. Zoë and her maids were there, and the whole household of men-servants and slaves were behind them. The three girls were standing on the broad stone seat that ran round the outside of the house in the Italian way, and they could easily look through the bars. In her haste Zoë had not veiled herself, and when the Tartar caught sight of her beautiful face at the window, the effect on his susceptible sentiments was instantaneous. The vision was a hundred times more lovely than the handsome Giustina who had escaped him. He had never seen any one like Zoë as she stood outside in the quiet afternoon sunshine. For a moment or two he was almost sober; the desk fell from his hands upon the iron chest, and was not even broken, and Tocktamish's hands hung down by his sides while he stared in stupid wonder. Zoë was glad that there were iron bars between him and her, for she had never seen a human being more like a raging wild beast. She had looked anxiously for Omobono, but as there was no trace of him nor of any blood, she at once decided that he had been able to get out by some secret way, after Lucilla had barred the door. 'Where is Messer Carlo?' were the words which arrested Tocktamish in the act of smashing the desk. He stood gazing at Zoë stupidly, and as he did not answer she repeated her question, watching him quietly so that he should understand that he was completely in her power. When he heard her voice again he made a sort of instinctive attempt to smooth himself, as the peacock spreads his tail before the female; he pulled out his immense moustaches, drew his shaggy beard through his two hands, settled his fur papakh on his head, and smiled complacently as he approached the window, prepared, in his own estimation, to win the heart of any woman in Constantinople. The exercise of breaking up the furniture had probably done him good, for he walked quite steadily, with his eyes wide open and his big head a little on one side. 'Messer Carlo is quite safe and very well,' he answered when he was near the grating. 'He has sent me to get him a little money, which he greatly needs.' 'You have a singular way of executing his commission,' observed Zoë, looking at the splinters of the smashed furniture. Tocktamish felt that the havoc round him must be explained. 'I have been killing the rats,' he said. 'It is extraordinary how many rats and mice get into counting-houses!' 'Where is Messer Carlo?' Zoë asked a third time. 'Sweet woolly ewe-lamb of heaven,' said Tocktamish, leaning on the window-sill and bringing his face close to the bars, 'if you will only give me one little kiss, I will tell you where Carlo is!' Zoë stepped to one side along the stone seat on which she stood, for she saw that he was going to slip one of his hands through the grating to catch her; and even with the bars between them he looked as if he could twist one of her arms off if she resisted him. Indeed, she was hardly out of his reach in time. He laughed rather vacantly as he grasped the air. The grating projected several inches beyond the window, like the end of a cage, as the gratings generally do in old Italian houses; and though Zoë was on one side, Tocktamish could still look at her. 'If you will come inside, I will tell you what you wish to know, my little dove,' he said with an engaging leer, for he did not really believe that any woman could resist him. 'Thank you,' Zoë answered. 'I will not come in, but I will warn you. If you will not tell me where Messer Carlo is, I shall have you shot with the master's crossbow, like a mad dog.' 'Shall I get the bow?' asked the voice of Carlo's man, the Venetian gondolier, who was an excellent shot, and had won a prize at the Lido. But Tocktamish laughed scornfully. 'Your crossbow cannot shoot through the shutters,' he said, for they were very heavy ones, at least three inches thick. 'Besides,' he added, 'I can sit on the floor under the window, and you will not even see me.' 'If we cannot shoot you, we can starve you,' retorted Zoë. 'Little ewe-lamb,' said the Tartar, 'the heart of Tocktamish is fluttering for you like a moth in a lamp. For one kiss you shall have anything you ask!' 'Do you understand that I mean to starve you?' Zoë asked sternly. 'Oh no, my beautiful pink-and-white rabbit! You will not be so hard-hearted! And besides, if you will not let me out and give me a kiss, my men will come presently and burn Carlo's house down, and I shall carry you away! Ha ha! You had not thought of it! But Tocktamish is not caught in the trap like a cub. He is an old wolf, and knows the forest. My men know I am here, and if I do not go back to them within this hour they will come to get me. That was agreed, and I can wait as long as that. Then sixty of them will come, and before night we shall take Carlo to the Emperor and give him up, and tell all we know; and to-morrow morning he will be on a stake in the middle of the Hippodrome, and it will be the third day before he is quite dead! Ha ha! I remember how we watched that old scoundrel Michael Rhangabé! I and my men were on duty at that execution!' Zoë's cheeks turned ghastly white, and her eyes gleamed dangerously. If there had been a weapon in her hand at that moment she could have aimed well through the grating, and Tocktamish's days would have ended abruptly. But on the other side of the bars the drunken Tartar was laughing at his own skill in frightening her, for he thought she turned pale from fear. 'Can no one silence this brute?' she cried in a tone that trembled with anger. 'It is easily done,' said a voice she knew. She turned and looked down from the little elevation of the stone seat, and she saw the impassive face of Gorlias Pietrogliant looking up to her. 'Come into the house, Kokóna,' he said, holding up a hand to help her down. 'We will send him a pitcher of Messer Carlo's oldest wine to help him pass an hour before his men come to burn the house down!' Zoë understood the wisdom of the advice; Tocktamish would drink himself into a stupor in a short time. 'The astrologer is right,' she said to the servants. 'Come in with me, all of you.' She led the way, but Gorlias lingered a moment, stepped upon the stone seat, and spoke to the prisoner in a low voice. 'They will be here in half an hour,' he said. 'Meanwhile I will send you wine to drink. Are you hungry?' 'Hungry?' Tocktamish laughed at the recollection of the peacock. 'I never dined better! But send me some wine, and when we divide, I will have that white-faced girl for my share. The men may have the money here. Tell them so.' He slapped the well-filled leathern sack at his girdle as he spoke. 'As you please,' Gorlias answered indifferently. He stepped to the ground again and reached the door in time to enter with the last of the train that followed Zoë. In the dining-hall things had been left as they were when Tocktamish and Omobono went out. The table was in confusion, and flooded with wine that had run down to the floor, and two or three chairs were upset. Gorlias filled a silver pitcher with Chian; but when he turned towards the window Zoë was the only one who saw him empty into the wine the contents of a small vial which he seemed to have had ready in the palm of his hand. He called Carlo's man. 'Take it to him,' he said. 'You can easily pass it through the bars.' 'It is not much wine,' observed the man doubtfully. 'He will drink that at a draught.' 'If he asks for more, fill the pitcher again,' answered Gorlias. 'If he falls asleep, let me know.' The man went off. 'Clear away all that,' said Zoë to the men-servants who stood looking on. 'The master must not find this confusion when he comes home.' Her tone and her manner imposed obedience, and besides, they knew that Tocktamish was safe for a while. They began to clear the table at once, and Zoë left the room followed by Gorlias and her two maids, who had been silent witnesses of what had passed. Upstairs, they left her alone with the astrologer, and disappeared to discuss in whispers the wonderful things that were happening in the house. 'Where is he?' asked Zoë, as soon as the maids were gone. 'He is in a dry cistern near the north wall of the city.' 'Hiding?' 'No--a prisoner. In escaping last night he ran among the soldiers who were to have helped us, and they held him for a ransom. The Tartar came to extort the money. You know all.' 'At least, he is safe for the present,' Zoë said, but very doubtfully, for she did not half believe what she said. 'No,' Gorlias answered; 'he is not safe for long, and we must get him out. They demand a ransom, but they know well enough that even if they get it they will not dare to let him go free, since he could hang them all by a word.' 'What will they do?' 'If they can get the money they will let him starve to death in the cistern. If they do not, they will give him up to Andronicus for the reward. The Emperor has proclaimed that he will give ten pounds of gold to any one who will bring him Carlo Zeno, dead or alive. That is not enough.' 'The Emperor knows it was he?' asked Zoë with increasing anxiety. 'Yes.' 'How?' 'I do not know. Some one has betrayed us.' 'Us all?' 'I fear so.' 'But you yourself? Do you dare go about?' 'I have many disguises, and they who know the fisherman do not know the astrologer.' 'But if you should be taken?' 'A man cannot change his destiny. But look here. I have something from Johannes already. He has changed his mind; he regrets not having let us take him out last night, and he sends me this by the captain's wife.' Gorlias produced a parchment document. 'What is it?' 'The gift of Tenedos to Venice.' 'Ah! If Messer Carlo were only free!' 'Yes--if!' Gorlias shook his head thoughtfully. 'It will not be easy to send an answer to this,' he went on. 'The woman brought it to me at the risk of her life, and said it would be impossible for her to come again. The guard is doubled, and a very different watch will be kept in future. I do not believe that we can bring Johannes out, as we might have done in spite of those fellows last night. Yet I am sure that if Messer Carlo were at liberty he would try. He would at least send word, in answer to this. But the days are over when we used to send letters up and down by a thread--the tower is watched from the river now.' 'Can you not get in by a disguise?' 'No. There is not the least chance of gaining admittance at present.' 'I could,' said Zoë confidently. 'I am sure I could! If I went in carrying a basket of linen on my head and dressed like a slave-girl in blue cotton with yellow leathern shoes, I am sure they would let me go to the captain's wife.' 'What if your basket were searched and the letter found?' 'I would put it into my shoe. They would not look for it there.' 'You would run a fearful risk.' 'For him, if it were of any use,' Zoë answered. 'But it will not help him at all, and if anything happened to me he would be sorry. Besides, why should we send a message that pretends to come from Messer Carlo when he himself is a prisoner?' 'This is the case,' Gorlias answered. 'The soldiers will never let him out till they feel safe themselves; and the only way to make them sure that there is no danger is really and truly to bring Johannes out and set him on the throne again. So long as Andronicus reigns and may take vengeance on them, they will keep Messer Carlo a prisoner to give up at any moment, or to starve him to death for their own safety--unless they murder him outright. But I do not believe that any ten of them would dare to set upon him, for they know him well.' Zoë smiled, for she was proud to love a man whom ten men would not dare to kill. 'Then the only way to save him is to free Johannes?' she said. 'Yes,' she went on, not waiting for an answer, 'I think you are right. Even if we got them their ten thousand ducats they would not let him out as long as Andronicus is at Blachernæ.' 'That is the truth of it,' Gorlias answered. 'Neither more nor less. Messer Carlo's life depends upon it.' 'Then it must be done, come what may. Thank God, I have a life to risk for him!' 'You have two,' said Gorlias quietly. 'You have mine also.' 'You are very loyal to Johannes, even to risking death. Is that what you mean?' 'More than that.' 'For Messer Carlo, then?' Zoë asked. 'You owe him some great debt of gratitude?' 'I never saw him until quite lately,' Gorlias answered. 'You need not know why I am ready to die in this attempt, Kokóna Arethusa.' Some one knocked at the outer door; Zoë clapped her hands for her maids, and one of them went to the entrance. The voice of Zeno's man spoke from outside. 'The Tartar is fast asleep already,' he said, 'and I can hear the secretary moaning as if he were in great pain; but I cannot see him through the window. He must be somewhere in the room, for it is his voice.' Zoë made a movement to go towards the door, but Gorlias raised his hand. 'I will see to it,' he said, 'I will have the fellow taken back to his quarters.' Zoë bit her lip for she knew that it would be cruel and cowardly to hurt even such a ruffian as Tocktamish, while he was helpless under the drug Gorlias had given him. But the words he had spoken rankled deep, and it was not likely that she should forget them. 'Do as you will,' she said. Half an hour later poor little Omobono was in his bed, and Zeno's man was giving him a warm infusion of marsh-mallows and camomile for his shaken nerves. The money-bags and the papers had been restored to the strong box in the counting-house, and Tocktamish the Tartar, sunk in a beatific slumber, was being carried to his quarters in a hired palanquin by four stalwart bearers. That was the end of the memorable feast in Carlo Zeno's house. But Zoë sat by the open window, and her heart beat sometimes very fast and sometimes very slow; for she understood that the plight of the man she loved was desperate indeed. CHAPTER XVII The position of Zeno was quite clear to Zoë now, and a great wave of happiness lifted her and bore her on with it as she realised that she might save his life just when his chances looked most hopeless, and that whether she succeeded or failed her own must certainly be staked for his. Heroism is nearer the surface in women than in most men, and often goes quite as deep. Zoë had understood very suddenly how matters stood, and that Tocktamish and his men meant to let Zeno perish, simply because he might ruin them all if he regained his liberty; or, if it were found out that he was taken, they intended to hand him over to Andronicus. It was not at all likely that they would set him free even if they got the great ransom they demanded. But if by any means Johannes could be brought suddenly from his prison, all Constantinople would rise in revolution to set him on the throne, and it would be as dangerous to keep his friend Zeno in confinement as it now seemed rash to his captors to let him out. The first thing to be done was to reach Johannes himself and warn him, and this could only be accomplished by a woman. Gorlias knew the soldiers, and had as much influence with them as any one, perhaps, and whatever could be done from without he would do; yet it was quite certain that the men could not be got together again unless Johannes were actually free. The difficulty lay there. To reach him was one thing, and was within the bounds of possibility; to bring him out would be quite another. But Zoë had confidence in the devotion of the captain's wife, of whom Gorlias had told her, and believed that in such a case two women could do more than ten men. Yet she saw that it might be fatal to let the imprisoned Emperor know that Zeno was himself a prisoner. To prevent this she conceived the plan of writing a letter in the Venetian's name, accepting on behalf of the Republic the gift of Tenedos, and promising instant help and liberty. Zeno had given his word that he would renew the attempt for the sake of Tenedos, though for nothing else; this condition being accepted, she knew that nothing could hinder him from keeping his word if he were free. She would therefore only be writing for him what he himself would write if he could; and besides, if she needed a more valid excuse, it would be done to save his life. Her learning stood her in good stead now as she carefully penned the answer on stout Paduan paper. She made Zeno thank the Emperor on behalf of the Serene Republic for his generous gift, and say that he was ready, that not a moment should be lost, and that in an hour the sovereign should be restored to his people, or Carlo Zeno would die in the attempt. This last phrase, as it ran from her pen, seemed to her a little too theatrical to be Zeno's own, but she determined to let it stand for the sake of the impression it should make on Johannes. Zeno would no more have mentioned such a trifle as the risk of life and limb in anything he meant to do than seamen would stop to talk of danger when ordered to shorten sail in a dangerous gale. Such things are a part of the game. No sailor will spin a yarn about a storm unless he has seen the Flying Dutchman or the Sea Serpent or the Man in the Top; he is in danger half his life. But the average modern soldier, who may be under fire three or four times in his career, repeats the story of his battles to any one who will listen. Zoë did not know whether Johannes had ever seen Zeno's handwriting or not, but that mattered little in those days, when many fine gentlemen could not write their own letters. She folded the sheet neatly in a small square, and placed it in her shoe by way of experiment, to see whether it would stay there while she walked. She did all this while Gorlias was gone, and before he came back the afternoon was half over, though the spring days were growing long. He told her that the Tartar was safe in his quarters, where he would probably sleep till midnight at the very least, to the infinite rage and disgust of his men. They had expected him to return laden with gold or with the secure promise of it, and he had come back not only empty-handed, but hopelessly drunk; and as they knew him well, but did not know that he had swallowed a dose of opium that would have sent a tiger to sleep, they meditated in gloomy thirst on the quantity of strong wine he must have absorbed during an absence which had only lasted two hours. What he had told Zoë of their coming to fetch him if he stayed too long had been a pure invention to frighten her; they did not even know where he had been, for he had merely announced his intention of going out to collect Zeno's ransom from the Venetian merchants, and his reputation for strength and ferocity was such that they had not dreamed of his needing help. Thus much Gorlias had found out, and he had also ascertained that the men were in a thoroughly bad temper in consequence of the turn affairs had taken, and much more inclined to murder Zeno than to let him out. As for his whereabouts, Gorlias only knew that he was in one of the many dry cisterns, which existed under old Constantinople, and which had never been in use since the crusaders had cut the aqueducts and sacked the city more than a hundred and seventy years earlier. The men who had shut up Zeno knew where he was, but it was very likely that they had not told their comrades. In those last days of the Empire the foreign mercenaries were little better than bands of robbers, half-trained at that, who preyed on the peasant part of the population, obeying their officers only when it was worth the trouble, and not even practising thieves' honour in the division of plunder. Not a day passed then without brawl and bloodshed amongst the soldiery; hardly a night went by without some act of violence and depredation for which they were responsible. They had stolen under Johannes, they robbed under Andronicus; under Johannes restored, they would steal again. And they drank perpetually. If Sultan Amurad had been the man that Mohammed the Conqueror turned out to be, the Turks would have been in possession of Constantinople fully eighty years before they actually stormed it, and with a tenth of the loss. If Zeno had relied on the eight hundred soldiers who had agreed to make a revolution for Johannes, he had done so because he knew they could be trusted to rise if there was a chance of plundering the palace and of cutting the throats of a few hundred of their divers countrymen who had been preferred before them as a body-guard, and were therefore their sworn enemies. But the instant those delightful prospects disappeared they cared no more who was Emperor than a cur cares who throws him a bone; the existing condition of things was good enough for them, and they would risk nothing to change it, unless change meant wine, women, and loot. Many of them were in reality Mohammedans like Tocktamish, and looked upon all Christians, including their employers, as their lawful prey--as dogs, moreover, and no great fighters at that, but mostly cowardly curs. It was agreeable to live amongst them because one could beat them and drink wine without the disapproval of the greybeards; but as for respecting them, a Tartar like Tocktamish would as soon have thought of fearing them. Zoë knew all this, and so did Gorlias, and they agreed that unless Johannes could be brought visibly before the soldiers there was little chance of success, and none of saving Zeno. The difficulty lay in the fact that Johannes was kept in a place even more inaccessible than Zeno's cistern. The whole matter was a vicious circle. He could not be set free unless the troops rose for him; but the troops would not rise unless they saw him in their midst; and if there were no rising Zeno would be starved to death in the well. Gorlias Pietrogliant was a man of resources, but the problem completely baffled him. He stood silent and in thought at Zoë's window; she sat quite motionless on the great divan, watching him and thinking too. Her knees were drawn up almost to her chin, and her folded hands clasped them while she looked straight at the astrologer's back with unwinking eyes. Neither he nor she knew how long they kept silence; it might have been five minutes, or it might have been half an hour. Time plays queer tricks when people are in great danger or in great distress. Then Zoë's expression began to change very slowly, as an idea dawned upon her. It was as if she saw something between her and Gorlias, something that took shape by degrees, something new and unexpected that presently grew to be a whole picture, and from a picture became a real scene, full of living people, moving and talking; the tender mouth opened a little as if she were going to speak, and the delicate nostril quivered, the colour spread like dawn in her pale cheeks, and a deep warm light came into her eyes. When the scene was over and the vision disappeared, she nodded slowly, as if satisfied that in her waking dream she had dreamed true. [Illustration: Then, all at once, he felt that she had received one of those inspirations of the practical sense which visit women who are driven to extremities.] 'I have thought of a way,' she said at last. Gorlias turned, crossed the room, and stood beside her to listen; but he did not think she had any practicable scheme to propose, and at first, while she was speaking, he was much more inclined to follow his own line of thought than hers. Then, all at once, he felt that she had received one of those inspirations of the practical sense which visit women who are driven to extremities, and which have been the wonder of men since Jacob's mother showed him how to steal his father's blessing. It is quite certain that it was a woman who showed Columbus the trick with the egg, when he himself was trying to balance one on its point. Only a woman could have thought of anything so simple. And now, after Gorlias had vainly racked his ingenious brain for an idea, it was the girl that suggested the only possible one. He grasped it easily. 'It is a daring plan, and it could not succeed in broad daylight,' he said, when she had finished, 'but it may at dusk.' 'It must,' Zoë said emphatically. 'If it fails, we shall not see each other again.' 'Not unless it occurs to Andronicus to crucify us together,' Gorlias answered, rather gravely. 'Very much depends on our timing ourselves as exactly as possible.' 'Yes. Let it be a little more than half an hour after sunset, just when the dusk is closing in. Have you everything you need?' 'I can get what is lacking. We have three good hours still before us.' 'Go, then, and do not be late. You know what will happen to me if you do not come just at the right time.' 'You are risking more than I,' Gorlias said. 'I have more to lose, and more to win,' Zoë answered. She was thinking of Zeno,--of life with him, of life without him, and of the life she would give for his. But Gorlias wondered at her courage, for it was held nothing in those days to tear a living man or woman to shreds, piecemeal, on the mere suspicion of treason, and that would surely be her fate if he could not carry out precisely and successfully the plan she had thought of. A delay of half an hour might mean death to her, though it would not of necessity affect the result so far as Johannes and Zeno were concerned. Gorlias left her to make his own preparations. When he was gone Zoë sent Yulia for Zeno's own man, Vito, the Venetian boatman. He came and stood on the threshold while she spoke to him, out of the maids' hearing, and in Italian, lest they should creep near and listen. 'Vito,' said Zoë, 'how is the secretary?' 'Excellency,' the Venetian answered, 'fear is an ugly sickness, which makes healthy men tremble worse than the fever does.' He either forgot that he was supposed to be speaking to a slave who had no more claim to be called 'Excellency' than he had himself, and less, if anything; or else he had made up his mind that this beautiful Arethusa whom he had to-day seen for the first time, was not a slave at all, but a great lady in disguise. 'You are never frightened, are you, Vito?' she asked with a smile. 'I?' Vito grinned. 'Am I of iron, or of stone? Or am I perhaps a lion? When there is fear I am afraid.' 'But the master is never frightened,' suggested Zoë. 'Is he of stone, then?' 'Oh, he!' Vito laughed now, and shrugged his shoulders. 'Would you compare me with the master? Then compare copper with gold. The master is the master, and that is enough, but I am only a sailor man in his service. If there is fighting, I fight while I see that I am the stronger, but when I see that I may die I run away. We are all thus.' 'But surely you would not run away and leave Messer Carlo to be killed, would you?' 'No,' Vito answered quite simply. 'That would be another affair. It would be shame to go home alive if the master were killed. When one must die, one must, as God wills. It may be for the master, it may be for Venice. But for myself, I ask you? Why should I die for nothing? I run away. It is more sensible.' 'You need not risk being killed if you do what I am going to ask,' Zoë said, for after talking with the man she liked his honest face, and thought none the less of him for his frankness. 'It is a very simple matter.' 'What is it, Excellency?' 'You need not call me that, Vito,' answered Zoë. 'I want you to row me at sunset to the landing which is nearest to the palace gate. It must be the dirty little one on this side of the Amena tower, is it not?' 'That is it. But without the master's orders----' Vito looked at her doubtfully, for he had been reminded that she considered herself a slave, and it occurred to him that she meant to escape in Zeno's absence. 'Messer Carlo would wish me to go, if he were here,' said Zoë quietly, and not at all as if she were insisting, for she saw what was the matter. 'I have no doubt it is as you say,' Vito answered. 'But I have no orders.' 'There is a message from the master to some one in the palace,' Zoë explained. 'No one but I can deliver it.' 'That is easily said,' observed Vito bluntly. 'There are no orders.' Zoë felt the blood rising to her forehead at the man's rudeness and distrust of her, but she controlled herself, for much depended on obtaining what she wished. 'It is not a message,' she said; 'it is a letter.' 'Where is it?' asked Vito incredulously. 'I will show it to you,' Zoë answered, but she first turned to the maids, who waited at the end of the room. 'Go and prepare me the bath,' she said. The two disappeared, though they did not believe that their mistress really wished to bathe again so soon. When they were gone, she stooped and took the letter from her shoe, unfolded it, and spread it out for Vito to see. The effect it made upon him was instantaneous; he looked at it carefully, and took a corner of it between his thumb and finger. 'This is the paper on which the master writes,' he said, as if convinced. It did not occur to him that the slave Arethusa could write at all, nor any one else in the house except Omobono; and as for the latter, if he had written anything he must have done so under Zeno's orders. Writing of any sort commanded his profound and almost superstitious respect. 'This is certainly a letter from the master,' he said, satisfied at last, after what he considered a thoroughly conscientious inspection. 'And he wishes me to deliver it,' Zoë said. 'If I am to do that, you must be good enough to take me to the landing in the boat. There is no other way.' 'I could take the letter myself,' Vito suggested. 'No. Only a woman will be allowed to pass, where this must go.' Vito began to understand, and nodded his head wisely. 'It is for Handsome John,' he said, with conviction, and fixing his eyes on Zoë's. 'It is for the other Emperor, whom the master wishes to set free.' 'Yes--since you have guessed it,' Zoë answered. 'Will you take me now?' 'You will take one of your slaves with you, as you do when you go out in the boat with the secretary, I suppose?' Vito still felt a little hesitation. 'No. I must go alone with you. And I myself shall be dressed like a slave, and I shall have a basket of things to carry on my head to the wife of the gaoler.' 'I see,' said Vito, who really loved adventure for its own sake, and was much less inclined to run away from danger than he represented. 'Did you say you wished to go at sunset?' 'Yes.' 'I shall be ready. But it will be better to take an old boat, and I will put on ragged clothes, to look like a hired boatman.' 'Yes; that will be better.' Vito went away, delighted with the prospect before him. He was too young and too true a Venetian not to look forward with pleasure to rowing the beautiful Arethusa up the Golden Horn, though he was only a servant and she was the master's most treasured possession. He felt, too, some manly pride in the thought of possibly protecting her, for he meant to follow her ashore and look on from a distance, to see whether she got safely into the tower, and he would wait until she came out. The master would expect that much of him, at least. As yet, neither Vito nor any member of the household, except Zoë, knew that Zeno was a prisoner, held for ransom. It had pleased him to go out of his house during the previous night, and some important business detained him; that was all. When he was at leisure he would come home. The men-servants who had waited on the guests and had heard Tocktamish's words, to the effect that Zeno had sent him for money, looked upon the statement as a clumsy trick which the half-drunken robber was trying to play in Zeno's absence, and as nothing more. But they had been far too badly frightened to stay and listen, as has been seen. To Vito, who was, nevertheless, by far the best of them, it had been a matter of utter indifference whether the Tartar cut the throats of the four guests or not, compared with the urgent necessity of keeping out of his reach. If the master had been present another side of their character would have come into play, but as he was absent they had thought of their own safety first. CHAPTER XVIII The sun had set, and the wide court of Blachernæ was filled with purple light to the wall tops, like a wine-vat full to the brim; and everything that was in the glow took colour from it, as silver does in claret, the polished trappings of the guards' uniforms, the creamy marble steps of the palace, the white Tunisian charger of the officer who rode in just then, and the swallows that circled round and round the courtyard. The world moved in that short deep dream that comes just when the sun has slipped away to rest, when the light is everywhere at once, so that things cast no shadows on the ground, because they glow from within, as in fairyland, or perhaps in heaven. The officer rode in on his charger, and after him entered a girl slave, dressed in coarse blue cotton, and carrying on her head a small round basket, which was covered with a clean white cloth. The four corners of the napkin hung down, and one of them would have flapped across her face if she had not held it between her teeth to keep it down. It partly hid her features, and her head was tied up in a blue cotton kerchief passed twice round and knotted upon her forehead. She limped a little as she walked. What could be seen of her face was pale and quiet, and had a rather fixed look. She was walking boldly through the gate, without slackening her pace, when one of the two sentinels stopped her, and asked where she was going. She stood still, and one hand steadied the basket on her head, while the other pointed to the Amena tower. 'My mistress sends some fine wheat bread and cream cheese to the wife of the captain who keeps the tower,' said Zoë, affecting the mincing accent very common with female slaves and Greek ladies' maids. The second sentinel, returning on his short beat, now came up and stood on her other side. He was a big Bulgarian, and he lifted one corner of the cloth and looked down into the basket, merely for the sake of detaining the girl. He saw the wheaten loaves and the cream cheese neatly disposed on a second napkin, and the cheese was nested in green leaves to keep it fresh. Both the soldiers at once thought of tasting it with the points of their daggers, but at that moment the officer of the watch strolled out of the guard-house, a magnificent young man in scarlet and gold. The two sentinels at once turned their backs on the cheese and Zoë, and marched away in opposite directions on their beats, leaving her standing in the middle. The officer was far too high and mighty a person to look at a slave-girl or her basket, and Zoë therefore went on without turning her head, taking it for granted that she was now free to enter. In her baggy blue cotton clothes, and with her face almost covered by the napkin, there was nothing about her to attract attention, unless it were her slightly limping gait; and she instinctively made an effort to walk evenly, for she could not help feeling ashamed of being suddenly lame, as perfectly sound and healthy people do. But she realised that the folded letter was in the wrong shoe and increased her lameness, whereas if she had carried it in the other it might have made walking easier. She went from under the great gate into the liquid purple light in the court, and it was pleasant to be in it. But then again it made her think of yesterday, when she had sat in her window at sunset, not dreaming of all that was to happen to her in one night and one day. It made her think of the man she loved so dearly, imprisoned somewhere under the great city, starving and thirsting no doubt, and face to face with thoughts of death; and it was to save him that she was crossing the courtyard of Blachernæ disguised as a household slave. It was because there was no other way; and if Gorlias Pietrogliant failed her, or came too late, the end would overtake her in a few hours, or perhaps quite suddenly, which would be more merciful. She knew what she was doing, and she did not deceive herself. They would put out her eyes first; but that would be the least of the cruel things they would do to her, if Gorlias failed. She was only a weak girl, after all, and once or twice, when she thought of the pain, a sharp little shiver ran down her back to her very heels, and things swam before her for an instant in the deep sea of colour; but that only lasted for a moment, and when she reached the foot of the tower and went in under the archway that led to the door, she was thinking of Zeno again, and of nothing else. It was as Gorlias had told her. A very different watch was set there since the attempt of the previous night, and she found herself face to face with an obstacle she had not anticipated. The iron door was shut and was guarded by two huge Africans in black mail armour, who stood on either side with drawn scimitars. They looked over her head as she approached them, and they seemed to take no notice of her existence. She thought she had never seen such expressionless faces as theirs; the features were as shiny and motionless as bronze, and the purple haze of the sunset without filled the deep arch and lent them an unnatural colour which was positively terrifying. 'If you please, kind sirs,' Zoë began as she stood still, 'my mistress sends some fine wheat bread and fresh cream cheese to the wife of the captain.' She might as well have spoken to statues; neither of the negroes paid the slightest attention. But she was not to be put off so easily. 'If you please,' she repeated with pleading emphasis and more loudly, 'my mistress----' She stopped speaking in the middle of the sentence, suddenly scared by the immobility of the two black men, and by their size, and by the purple glare that was reflected from their great polished scimitars, of which one noiseless sweep could sever her head from her body. They were like the genii in one of those tales of the Arabian Nights which Greek story-tellers were then just learning from the Persians, and from the Tartar merchants of Samarcand and Tashkent. Zoë had listened to them by the hour when she was a little girl, and now she suddenly felt an irrational conviction that she had dreamed herself into one of them, and that the imprisoned Emperor was guarded by supernatural beings. However, when she looked at the motionless features and at the broad, polished blades, she did not feel that painful shiver which had run down her when she had thought of being tortured by the people of the palace, and she soon took courage again and began to speak a third time. 'If you please,' she said, but she got no further, for she had gently plucked at the mailed sleeve of the man on her right, to attract his attention, and he moved at once, and bent down a little. He touched his ear with his left forefinger and shook his head slowly to show that he was deaf, and pointed to his companion and back to his own ear and shook his head again; and then, to Zoë's horror, he opened his enormous mouth just before her eyes, and she saw that it was empty. He had no tongue. Johannes was guarded by deaf mutes, and Zoë knew Constantinople and the ways of the palace well enough to understand that they were placed there to make an end of any one, man or woman, who should attempt to pass. She tried signs, now. She took her basket from her head and set it down on the step between the sentinels, and crouched on her heels to uncover it and show the contents. The men saw and nodded, and then inclined their heads to one side in that peculiar way which means indifference all over the East. And indeed they did not care whether the basket held cheese or sweetmeats, and their faces grew stony again as they looked outwards, over her head. She covered up her little basket disconsolately and rose to her feet. The glow was beginning to fade in the courtyard, and she felt her heart sink as the shadows deepened. It was absolutely necessary to the success of the dangerous enterprise on which she and Gorlias had embarked, that Johannes himself, or at least the captain's wife should be warned of what was to take place in less than half an hour. If this could not be done, everything might go wrong at the last minute, their cleverly concerted trick would fail and be exposed, and she and Gorlias, and Zeno himself, would probably pay for their audacity with their lives. The closed door between the sentinels was covered with iron and studded with big nails. It was perfectly clear that it must be opened from within, if at all, and that the men themselves would have to knock or make some other signal by sound in order to obtain entrance for any one who was really authorised to go in. It was also clear that if the men on the other side of the door were stone deaf like the two guards, they could not hear any such knocking, and no entrance would be possible at all except when those within opened for some reason of their own or at fixed hours. Again, thought Zoë, it followed that there was probably some one near who could hear sounds from without, and there was always a bare possibility, in such times, that this person might be a secret friend to the prisoner, though supposed to be one of his gaolers. All these thoughts flashed across her mind in a few seconds, while she was covering her basket. She therefore took rather more time over this than was necessary, and as the mutes did not show signs of driving her away, she at once began to sing, quite sure that they could not hear her. It was a forlorn hope, indeed, but anything was worth trying. Her voice sounded loud and clear under the archway:-- Over the water to my love, for the hour is come! The water, the blue water, the water salt and the water fresh! Open, my very dear love, open thy door to me, For I have come swiftly over the water---- At this point, to Zoë's inexpressible amazement and delight, the door really opened, and she almost choked for sheer joy. The captain's wife appeared in the dim evening light, standing well within, and Zoë recognised her at once from the description Gorlias had given of her. The sentinels, being perfectly deaf, did not at first know that the door had been opened, as they stood looking straight before them. The stout woman spoke in a low voice. 'By four toes and by five toes,' she said, by way of answer to the words Zoë had sung. The girl lost no time, for there was none to lose, and though there was little light she saw that there were four or five more armed Ethiopians in the small chamber, so that it would be impossible to deliver her letter. 'Tell him from Carlo Zeno to be ready at once,' she said quickly, 'and not to show surprise at anything that happens.' The deaf mutes outside now perceived that she was speaking with some one, and that the entrance behind them was open. She had just handed her basket to the captain's wife when the two turned together to see who had opened, but almost at the same instant the heavy iron door swung quickly on its hinges again and shut with a clang that echoed out to the courtyard. Zoë sprang back hastily lest the door itself should strike her as it closed, and the quick movement hurt her a little, for she made a false step on the foot with which she limped, turning it slightly as her weight came upon it. That one step nearly cost her life, for though the sentinels were deaf and dumb they were not blind. She thought they were going to let her go away unhindered, and she was already almost out of the archway when she felt herself seized by the arms from behind. When she had stumbled, her low shoe had turned a little, and the folded letter, now useless, had fallen out. As it was white, the guards had seen it instantly on the dark pavement, and one of them had picked it up while the other had caught her. Zoë instinctively struggled with all her might for a few seconds, but the dumb man twisted one of her arms behind her till it was agony to move, and she was powerless. Her captor now handed her over to his companion, who had sheathed his scimitar and had placed the letter inside his steel cap. She could not look round, but she felt that the grip on her twisted wrist changed, and she was pushed out into the courtyard and made to walk in the direction of the palace. She could not help limping much more than before, and in the grasp of the big Ethiopian she felt what a small weak thing she would be in the tormentors' hands if Gorlias did not come in time. The purple light had almost faded below, and the grey dusk was creeping up out of the ground, though the high upper story of the marble palace was still bathed in the evening glow, and still a few swallows circled round the eaves. Zoë looked up to the vast cornices and at the fleecy pink clouds that floated in the sky, and as she was forced along, almost as fast as she could walk, she wondered whether she should ever again see the bright noonday sun. It would not take long to kill her if Gorlias did not come in time. There were many men coming and going now, and there were guards in scarlet, drawn up at the entrance to the palace as if they were waiting. Some slaves, hastening away, paused a moment to watch Zoë go by, smooth-faced creatures who lived among the Emperor's women. 'There goes five hundred ducats' worth!' laughed one, in a voice like a girl's. 'What has she done?' asked another, of the dumb Ethiopian. The speaker was a newcomer in the palace, and the others jeered at him for not knowing that the man was one of the mutes. And he pushed and dragged Zoë along without noticing them. She looked straight before her now, at the palace door, and as she went, she was in a kind of dream, and she wondered what the room to which she was being taken would be like, the place where she was presently to be tortured if Gorlias did not come in time; she wondered whether it would be light or dark, and what the colour of the walls would be. The African hurt her very much as he forced her along, though she made no resistance; but she did not think of the pain she felt, nor of the pain she would surely be made to feel presently. It was as if she were detached from her own personality, and could speculate about what was going to happen to her, and about the men who would ask her questions, and about the queer-looking instruments of torture that would be brought, and even the colour of the executioner's hair. She fancied him a red-haired man with ugly, yellow eyes and bad teeth that he showed. She did not know whether it were fear or courage that so took her out of herself. But all the time she was listening for a distant sound that might come, or that might not; and her hearing grew so sharp that she could have heard it a mile away, and the distance between her and the palace door grew shorter very quickly, and the ruthless mute urged her along faster and faster, though she limped so badly. Then her heart leapt and stood still a moment, and the Ethiopian's grasp relaxed a little, and he slackened his pace. Not that he heard what she heard, for he was stone deaf; but the guards who stood about the door had begun to range themselves in even ranks on either side, and a tall officer made signs to the African to stand out of the way. The air rang with the music of distant silver trumpets, there was a subdued hum of many voices and the trampling of many horses' hoofs on the hard earth outside the court. 'The Emperor comes!' cried the officer, again motioning the mute and his prisoner away. The man understood well enough, and dragged her aside quickly and roughly out of the straight way, but not out of sight; and the sounds grew louder, and the trumpet-notes clearer, as the imperial cavalcade passed in under the great gate. First there rode a score of guards on their white horses; six running footmen came next, in short hose and red tunics that fitted close to their bodies and glared in the twilight; then two officers of the household on their chargers; and young Andronicus himself rode in on a bay Arab mare between two ministers of state, followed by many more guards who pressed close upon him to protect him from any treacherous attack. He was dressed all in cloth of gold, and his tall Greek cap was wrought with gold and jewels; but the day had gone down, and neither the metal nor the stones gave any light, while the scarlet uniforms of the guards and footmen surged about him like waves of blood in the gathering dusk. The Ethiopian held Zoë pinioned by the arms and looked over her head as the Emperor came near. Andronicus had pale and suspicious eyes that searched every crowd for danger, and saw peril everywhere. He hung his head a little, his jaw was heavy, his lip was loose, and his uneasy glance wandered continually hither and thither. There was still plenty of light near the palace, and Zoë saw every little thing; and the cloth of gold he wore was lit up again by the reflexion from the marble walls. He saw the girl, too, but though her hands were behind her, he did not see at once that the African held them, for she stood quite still and met his gaze. Then he perceived that the face was the most lovely he had ever seen, and he made a motion in the saddle that was like the rising of the snake when its prey is near, and his pale eyes gleamed, and his loose lower lip shook and moved against the upper one. He drew rein and spoke in a low tone to the minister on his right, a Greek with a fawning face, who instantly made a sign to the girl to come nearer; and the Ethiopian mute saw the gesture, and pushed her forward with one hand, close to the Emperor's stirrup, and with the other hand he took his steel cap very carefully from his head, drawing it down close to his head and over his ear so that the letter should not fall out; then, still grasping Zoë's wrist, he held the helmet up like a cup, so that Andronicus might see what was in it. The action needed no explaining, for the young usurper had himself ordered that his father should be guarded by the dumb Ethiopians after the alarm of the previous night. The Emperor looked down at the girl's beautiful white face, but he took the letter from the soldier's steel cap and spread it out, and read it quickly, and then passed it to the minister at his elbow, who read it too. He looked at Zoë again, but in his eyes her beauty was all gone at once. She was one of those monsters that were always conspiring against him, against his throne and his life; she was one of those thousands whom he saw nightly in his dreams of fear, stealing upon him when he was alone and helpless, to blind him and kill him, and to bear his crowned father to the throne high on their shoulders. Zoë might have been as lovely as Aphrodite herself, just wafted from the foam of the sea by the breath of spring; to Andronicus she would have been but one of the countless evil beings who for ever plotted his destruction. But this one was in his power. He sat on his horse and looked down at her, and his loose lips smiled; yet her face was still and proud, and in her poor blue cotton slave's dress she faced him like a young goddess. 'Who sent you with this?' he asked in the deep silence, and every man there listened for her answer. 'Since you have read it, you know,' she answered, and there was no tremor in her voice. 'Take care! Where is this Venetian, this Zeno?' 'I do not know.' 'Take care, again! I ask, where is he?' Zoë was silent for a moment, and though she did not take her eyes from the young Emperor's face she listened intently for a distant sound that did not come. 'I do not know where he is,' she said at last, 'but I think you will see him before long, for he is coming here.' 'Here?' Andronicus was taken by surprise. 'Here?' he repeated in wonder. 'Yes, here,' Zoë answered, 'and soon. He has business here to-night.' 'The girl is mad,' said the Emperor, looking towards the ministers. 'Quite mad, your august Majesty,' said one. 'Evidently out of her mind, Sire,' echoed the other. 'It will be well to put out her eyes and let her go.' The one who had spoken first, the fawning Greek, made a sign to an officer near him, and the latter gave an order to one of the running footmen who stood waiting. The latter instantly ran in through the great open doorway of the palace. Where Andronicus was, the torturer was never hard to find. 'And pray,' asked the Emperor, with an ugly smile, 'what possible business can a Venetian merchant have here at this hour? Will you please to tell us?' 'A business that will be soon despatched, if God will,' answered Zoë. She could not look away from the man who had murdered Michael Rhangabé, and though she knew what she was risking if she did not gain time, the longing for just vengeance was too strong for her, so that she could not control her speech, and in her clear young voice Andronicus heard an accent that struck terror to his heart. 'She is not mad!' he exclaimed in sudden anxiety. 'She knows something! Make her speak!' While the words were on his lips the running footman returned, and after him another man came quickly, carrying a worn leathern bag. He was very tall and thin, and he stooped, he had the face of a corpse and there was no light in his eyes. Zoë did not see him, but he came and stood behind her, close to the Ethiopian, and he fumbled in his bag; and all around the uniforms of the guard were as red as blood in the twilight. 'I am not afraid to speak, since I am caught,' Zoë said, answering the Emperor's words, 'and what I say is true. For what you owe me, you owe to many and many more, and the name of that debt is blood!' 'She is raving!' cried Andronicus in an unsteady voice. 'No, I am not mad,' Zoë answered, speaking loud and clear. 'Your reckoning has been due these two years, and a man is coming within the hour to claim it, and you shall pay all, both to others and to me, whether you will or not!' 'Who is this creature?' asked the Emperor, but his cheeks were whiter now. Not a sound broke the silence, and the man with the leathern bag crept a little nearer to the defenceless girl, and the Ethiopian's grip tightened on her wrists. From somewhere beyond the walls of the courtyard the neighing of a horse broke the stillness. 'Who is this girl that dares me within my own gates?' Andronicus asked again, turning to his ministers and officers. The Greek with the fawning face bent in his saddle towards the young Emperor as if he were prostrating himself, and he spoke in a very low voice. 'Your Majesty would do well to have her tongue torn out before she says more.' 'Who is she, I say?' cried the sovereign, suddenly furious, as cowards can be. No one spoke. The corpse-faced man crept nearer to Zoë, his dull eyes fixed on her features. Beyond the wall and far off the unseen horse neighed again. It was growing darker, but all around the scarlet tunics of the guards were as red as blood. Then the answer came. The twisted lips of the tormentor moved slowly, and words came from them in a thin, harsh voice, like the creaking of the rack. 'She is Michael Rhangabé's daughter.' 'The Protosparthos?' The Emperor's voice shook again. The corpse-faced man nodded twice in assent, and his thin lips writhed hideously when Zoë's eyes fell on him. 'I saw her at the prison when I took him out to die,' he said. His bony hand, all knotty and stained from his horrid work, took the girl's delicate chin, forcing her to turn her full face to him; and she quivered from head to foot at his touch. He knew well the convulsive shiver that ran through the victim he touched for the first time; he could feel it in his fingers as the musician feels the strings; he was familiar with it, as the fisherman's hand is with the tremor and tension of his rod when a fish strikes; and he smiled in a ghastly way. 'Yes,' he said, 'it is she.' And he laughed. He held her by the chin and wagged her beautiful head to right and left. Since the Emperor had spoken no sound had been heard but the torturer's discordant voice; but now the outraged girl's shriek of fury split the air. 'Wretch!' Her small hands suddenly slipped through the Ethiopian's capacious hold. Before he could catch her she had wrenched herself free from both men and had struck a furious blow full in the torturer's livid face; and though she was but a slender girl her anger gave her a man's strength, and her swiftness lent her a sudden advantage. The man reeled back three paces before he could steady himself again. 'Hold her!' cried Andronicus, for he feared she might have a knife hidden on her, and both her hands were free. But only for that instant. Though the African was huge, he was quick, and he was behind her. Almost before the Emperor had called out, Zoë was a prisoner again, and the man she had struck was close to her with his battered leathern bag. He looked up to Andronicus for a command before he began his work. 'Make her tell what she knows,' the Emperor said, reassured since she was again fast in the African's great hands. He leaned forward a little, the better to hear the words which pain was to draw from Zoë's lips, and the Greek minister settled himself comfortably in the saddle to enjoy the rare amusement of seeing a beautiful and noble girl deliberately tortured before half a hundred men. Some of the guards also pressed upon each other to see; but there were some among them who had served under Rhangabé, and these looked into one another's faces and spoke words almost under their breath, that all together swelled to a low murmur, such as the tide makes on a still night, just when it turns back from the ebb. The sunset had faded, but there was light enough to see the dark bruise across the corpse-like face where Zoë had struck it with all her might. The man opened his old leathern bag, and his stained hands fumbled in it, amongst irons that were brown but not rusty, and thongs plaited with wire, and strangely shaped tools in which there were well-greased screws that turned easily. But all these his knotty fingers rejected. He knew each by the touch. They were good enough for ordinary slaves, or perhaps for a double-dealing steward, or even a lying courtier. For a highborn maiden victim he had an instrument far more refined and exquisitely keen than any of these things, and he treasured it as a very rare possession which never left him day or night; for it had been sent to him from very far away in the south as a present of great value; and it was alive, and needed the warmth of his body constantly lest it should die. But there was something in the bag that belonged to it and must be found before it could be taken from its little cage of silver filigree in the bosom of the corpse-faced man. He found it. His stained hand drew from the bag a dry walnut. With the point of the knife he wore at his belt he split it carefully, and turned the nut out of one of the half shells, tossing the other into the bag. The Greek minister watched him with the deepest interest, but Andronicus drummed impatiently with his gloved fingers on the high gilt pommel of his saddle. Yet it was all very quickly done, and though there was less light there was still enough; and while he waited the Emperor again read the letter Zoë had dropped. But she watched him, calm and fearless, and ready to face death if need be; she wondered what sort of hold Carlo Zeno would take on his neck, when all was known. And she saw red all round him and behind him and beside him up to his knees, the red of the guards' tunics that were like scarlet stains in the twilight air. Once more the restless horse neighed, far off, and another answered him. Then the man was ready. He took his knife and ripped Zoë's blue cotton tunic from her throat to her left shoulder and down her side, and she tried not even to shudder, for she did not know what was coming but she would die bravely; and when she was dead Zeno would come, and Gorlias, and they would avenge her. Death was but death, even by torture, and there were worse things in life which had been spared her. Furthermore, if she died, it would be for a good cause, as well as to help Zeno to be free. Therefore, now that it was all decided, she looked a last time at the face of Andronicus, loose-lipped and cruel, and then shut her eyes and prayed God that she might neither flinch nor utter one word that could hinder the end, if it was at hand, as she still hoped. She felt the chilly air on her shoulder and side, and then something small and hard was pressed against her, just under her arm; and hands that felt like horns, but were horribly quick and skilful, put a bandage round her and drew it tight, and it kept the thing in its place. But under that thing, which was the half walnut shell, something small was alive and moved slowly round and round. There was no real pain at first, but she felt that the slow and delicate irritation might drive her mad. Then, suddenly, a thrill of wild agony ran through her and convulsed her body against her will, but many hands held her now and she could not move. The horrible borer-beetle had begun to work its way into her flesh, under the walnut shell. The corpse-faced man had watched her attentively, and when he saw her start his creaking voice was heard in the stillness. 'She will speak before you can count ten score,' he said. CHAPTER XIX Zoë had closed her eyes to bear the pain better, and a tiny drop of blood slowly trickled from the lip she had bitten in the first moment of the torture. It made a thin, dark line from her mouth downward, a little on the left side, over her white chin. Her breath came in deep and quivering sobs, drawn through her clenched teeth, but no other sound escaped her in those awful seconds. She was praying that death might come soon, but she did not ask for strength to be silent; that she had, for Carlo Zeno's sake, and for the sake of the just vengeance that would overtake Andronicus when she was dead, if only he were not warned of what was perhaps so near. She thought she might die of the pain only; she was sure that she must faint away if it lasted many moments longer. The Emperor bent down in his saddle to see her agonised white face more clearly in the gathering gloom, and to catch the least syllable she might speak; and his loose lip moved, for he was counting to himself, counting the ten score, after which she would be able to bear no more and would tell him where the danger was. For the corpse-faced man knew his business, and his experience had been wide and long, and the Emperor knew that he never made a mistake. Moreover, the Greek minister smiled with sheer pleasure at the sight, and hoped that his master would command them to put the girl to death by very slow torments. The guards, too, crowded upon each other to see, but they were not all silent now; for there were brave men amongst them, savage adventurers from the wild mountains beyond the Black Sea, who feared neither God, nor Emperor, nor man; and they did not like the sight they saw, and they said words one to another in strange tongues which the Greeks could not understand. Andronicus counted slowly to twenty, and then still more slowly to forty, and the tortured girl's sharp breathing irritated him. 'Speak!' he cried, in a tone that was low and angry. 'Tell me where the danger is, or the thing shall eat out your heart!' Then the answer came, but not in Zoë's voice, nor by one voice, but by many, loud and deep; and though the words were confused, some could be heard well enough; and they told the loose-lipped cowardly youth where the danger was, for it was upon him. 'Johannes! Johannes reigns! God and the Emperor! Emperor Johannes!' That was what the voices shouted from the gate, as the multitude swept in, driving the sentinels and guards before them as the gale drives dry leaves. With but one breathing-space for thought and resolve, the guards in their scarlet tunics closed round Andronicus like waves of blood in the deep dusk, and he went down under them, and heard them answer the coming people-- 'Johannes reigns! Emperor Johannes!' Zoë heard the cry through her torment and forgot the pain for one moment, and the next, the dumb Ethiopian who had held her, slit the torturer's bandage and plucked the walnut shell from under her arm, with its living contents, and threw them away; for he had seen Andronicus go down, and knew that there was a new master. Then some of the men, who remembered it afterwards, saw the corpse-faced man grovelling on the ground and searching for his treasure, which could make the toughest victim speak before one could count ten score; for he served the Emperor, whoever he might be, as he and his father before him had served many. No one ever killed the torturer. So he went amongst the trampling feet on his hands and knees, feeling nothing, if so be that he might find his pet and get it back safely into its cage in his bosom. And when he found it still in the walnut shell, by the strange chance that protects all evil, he laughed like a maniac and slipped between the guards' legs on all fours, like a hideous white-faced ape, and ran away into the palace. Zoë had opened her eyes, and the pain was gone, leaving only a throb behind, and she gathered her torn tunic to her neck with one hand as best she could and slipped out of the turmoil; and only she, of all those that heard the first shout, knew how it was that the people were cheering for the delivered Emperor, while Johannes was still shut up in the tower and guarded by the deaf-and-dumb Africans; and in the glorious triumph of her plan she forgot everything else but the man she loved, and he was safe now, beyond all doubt. Was he not the friend of the restored Johannes? The soldiers would not dare, on their lives, to keep him a prisoner now, not for one hour, not for one moment. And there he rode, surely enough, in the front rank of the multitude, on the right hand of Emperor John. She knew him, though the last grey light was fading from the sky. She would have known him in the dark, it seemed to her that if she had been blind she would have known that he was near; and her joy rose in her throat, after the torture she had endured, and almost choked her, so that she reeled unsteadily and gasped for breath. He was on the right hand of the Emperor John, 'Handsome John,' whom the people had once loved and whom they were now ready to love again, having tasted of the scorpions with which Andronicus had regaled them. 'Handsome John,' with his splendid brown beard--the light of torches flashed upon it now--and his cloth-of-gold cloak drawn closely round him like a bishop's cope, so that it hid his hands and half his bridle on each side, and covered the back of his head, too, and a great part of his cheeks; he wore the tall imperial head-dress also, and it shaded his eyes. The people had recognised him more by his fine beard and his cloth of gold than by his face, but the beard was unmistakable; and besides, there were men with him who scattered coins to the multitude, and those coins were good. But the followers who were nearest to him and Zeno, and who pressed round them both to defend them, if need be, were almost all sailors, Venetian shipwrights and workmen from the docks, though Tocktamish's Tartars were close behind, making a tremendous shouting, and striking their long tasselled spears against each other after their manner, with a clatter of wood like a monstrous rattle; and other soldiers had joined them by hundreds, and after them pressed the artisans of Constantinople, the Bulgarian blacksmiths, the Italian stone-cutters and masons, the Moorish armourers and the Syrian sword-smiths from Damascus, the Sicilian rope-makers, the Persian silk-weavers, and the Smyrniote carpet-weavers, and the linen-weavers from Alexandria with many others; and every man who was not a soldier had something in his hand for a weapon--a hammer, a mallet, or a carpet-maker's staff, or only a stout cudgel. And they ran, and pushed, and forced their way through the gate, spreading out again within the court, cheering and yelling for Johannes in a dozen languages at once. The Emperor John sat quite still on his horse, wrapped in his cloak, but Zeno rode forward, till he was almost upon the knot of the guards who had pulled down Andronicus, and he threw up his hand, crying out to the men not to kill, in a voice that dominated the terrific din; and he was but just in time, for he was only obeyed because he offered a reward. 'Ten pounds of gold for Andronicus alive!' he shouted. For that was the price Andronicus had set on his head that morning, and what was enough for Zeno was enough for an Emperor. So half a dozen of the guards dragged the man alive into the palace, and bound him securely with his hands behind him, and stripped off his jewels and his gold, and kicked him into a small secret room behind the porter's lodge, and shut the door. There the corpse-faced man was squatting in a dark corner, blowing some coals to a glow in an earthen pan, because he might soon be called to do more work, and unless the vinegar was really boiling hot the fumes of it would not put out the eyesight. As Andronicus lay on the floor he could see the man. But outside, the confusion grew and the noise increased as the people poured into the vast courtyard and pressed behind upon those who had entered before them. Then the door of the tower in the corner was opened from within, and the African mutes came out and joined the other soldiers, and from an upper window the captain and his wife looked down, and by the help of what she told him he understood that it was time to set his prisoner free, if he did not mean to risk being torn to shreds by the people, though he could not at all understand who it was whom he saw on horseback in the torchlight, dressed in cloth of gold, with the imperial head-dress on his head, for he knew well enough that so long as the key of the upper prison hung at his own belt, Johannes could not get out. Yet there was no mistaking the cry of the people, and his wife urged him not to lose time. The crowd was surging towards the tower now, led by Zeno and the Emperor, and they and their sailors and dockmen kept in front of the crowd to be the first to dismount and enter the tower, and then the sailors kept the throng back, telling them that Johannes had gone in to free his youngest son, and the two men who had the deep bags of money threw lavish handfuls to the people, to amuse them while they waited. But when Zeno and the Emperor came out again, Johannes' face was all uncovered, and the cloth-of-gold cope hung loosely on his shoulders; and by the glare of many torches every one knew that it was Johannes himself, and none other, and men cheered and yelled till they were hoarse. After the Emperor and Zeno came a man whom no one had seen go in with them, and he had a very scanty dark beard and was dressed in quiet brown, though he wore a horseman's boots, and he was Gorlias Pietrogliant, who had acted so well the part which Zoë had imagined for him. But Zeno knew nothing of Arethusa, yesterday his slave, and since last night the woman of his heart, for in the haste and stress of that tremendous half-hour, Gorlias could tell him nothing, except that he was Gorlias and not the Emperor, and that the deed giving Tenedos over to Venice was signed and in his bosom; and Zeno supposed that he had devised all the wonderful scheme, which looked so simple as soon as it began to be carried out. Arethusa, he thought, was safe at home; sleepless, worn out with waiting, trembling with anxiety, perhaps, but safe. Now that the deed was done, now that Andronicus was bound, and Johannes, his father, was restored to the throne, Carlo Zeno thought only of leaving Constantinople without delay, before the Emperor could take back his word, and revoke the cession of Tenedos. For Zeno did not put his trust in Oriental princes, and feared the Greeks even when they offered gifts. With a swift Venetian vessel and a fair wind, the coveted island could be reached in two days, or even less; its governor had always at heart been faithful to Johannes, and would obey the deed which Gorlias had thrust into Zeno's hand in the tower, and if once the standard of St. Mark were raised on the fort there was small chance that any enemy would be able to tear it down. Therefore, just when the soldiers were lifting Johannes from his horse to carry him to the throne-room with wild triumph and rejoicing, Zeno slipped from the saddle to escape notice, elbowed his way to the outskirts of the crowd, and was on the point of making for the gate when Gorlias found him again. 'Arethusa asks you to come to her,' Gorlias said. 'I am going----' 'No. She is here. It was all her plan; she risked her life for it, we were a few moments late, and she has been tortured. Come quickly!' Zeno's face changed. Gorlias saw that, even in the dim light of the now distant torches. It was the change that comes into a master swordman's face when he makes up his mind to kill, after only defending himself because his adversary has tried some dastardly murderous trick of fence. But Zeno said nothing as he strode swiftly by his companion's side. Gorlias had found her and had brought her into the lower chamber of the tower, now deserted by the guards. The captain's wife had been standing at the door, not daring to go out amongst the half-frantic soldiers. She might have fared ill at their hands if she had been recognised just then as the wife of the Emperor's gaoler. So she had stood under the archway, watching and listening, and Gorlias had given Zoë half-fainting into her care while he went to find Zeno. She had taken the girl on her knees like a child, while she herself sat on the narrow stone bench that ran round the wall, for there was no furniture of any sort there. Zoë's head lay upon the shoulder of the big woman who gently smoothed and patted the soft brown hair, and rocked the light figure on her knees with a side motion as nurses do. She did not know what was the matter, but she recognised the girl who had brought the message and who had been caught outside the door. Then Zeno came, and in a moment he was close beside Zoë; resting one knee on the stone bench, bending down, and very tenderly lifting the lovely head into his own arm. She knew his touch, she turned her face up with a great effort, for she had hardly any strength left, and her lids that were but half-closed like a dying person's, quivered and opened, and for one instant her eyes were full of light. Her voice came to him from far off, almost from the other world. 'Safe! Ah, thank God! It was worth the pain!' Then she fainted quite away in his arms, but he knew that she was not dying, for he had seen many pass from life, and the signs were familiar to him. He gathered her to him and carried her lightly through the open door, where Gorlias was ready; and Gorlias knew where Vito was waiting with the skiff at the old landing not far below the tower, and he helped the boatman to row them home. Thus ended that long day, which had so nearly been Zoë's last and Zeno's too; and when she opened her eyes again and found herself lying on her own divan under the soft light of the lamps, and looked into his anxious, loving face, all the weariness sank away from her own, and for an instant she felt as strong as if she had freshly waked from rest; then she put up her arms together, though it hurt her very much to lift the left one, and she clasped her hands round his handsome brown neck and drew him down to her without a word. It was only for a moment. Her strength failed her again, and he felt her little hands relax; so he knelt down by the divan and laid his cheek upon the edge of her pillow, so that he could look into her face, and they both smiled; and his smile was anxious, but hers was satisfied. He did not know what they had done to her, but he was sure that she needed care. 'You are suffering,' he said. 'What shall I do? Shall I send for a physician?' 'No. Stay with me. Let me look at you. That is all I need.' Her speech came in short, soft phrases, like kisses from lips half-asleep, when there is a little dream between each sentence and the next. But even when she was asleep he still knelt beside her, and now and then her body quivered, and she drew a sharp breath suddenly as if the pain she had borne ran through her again, though more in memory than in real suffering now. CHAPTER XX Zeno left her when she was breathing quietly, after ordering the two little maids to watch her by turns, or at least to go to sleep very near her, in case she should wake and call. He himself was worn out with fatigue and hunger, for he had not tasted anything since he had supped with Zoë on the previous evening. He went down to his own rooms, where Vito had prepared him food and wine, which he had asked Gorlias to share with him. But the ex-astrologer was gone, and the master ate and drank alone that night, smiling now and then at the recollection of the dark hours in the dry cistern, and giving orders to Vito about the journey which was to be begun on the morrow, if possible. And Vito gave him a detailed account of what had happened in his absence. Now that Zoë was safe he was supremely happy. In his heart the fighting man had detested the peaceful merchant's life he had chosen to lead for more than two years, and already, in imagination, his hands were on the helm, the salt spray was in his face, and his ship was going free on her course for the wonderful Isles of Adventure. But by the orders he gave while he ate his supper, Vito understood that he was not going alone. When had Carlo Zeno ever taken rich carpets, soft cushions, silver basins, and delicate provisions to sea with him, except as merchandise, packed in bales and stowed below? A camp-bed ashore, a hammock at sea, were enough for his comfort. Vito mentally noted each order, and when the time came he had forgotten nothing; but he asked no questions. Early in the morning, when Zeno had learned that Zoë was still asleep, he went down to the harbour and found that Sebastian Cornèr's ship was to sail the next day at dawn, the same vessel that had brought the letter from Venice which had led him to buy Arethusa; the very galley by which she should have been carried to Marco Pesaro, if Zeno had not thought better of the matter before drawing the three hundred ducats. Now Sebastian Cornèr was a brave captain, as well as a man of business, and could be trusted; and when Zeno had shown him the deed which gave Tenedos to the Serene Republic he did not hesitate, but promised to help Carlo to take possession of the island within three days, before Johannes could change his mind. So that matter was settled, and Zeno departed, saying that he would send his baggage on board during the day. When he came home he found the secretary waiting with his tale of woe. Omobono looked and felt like an elderly sick lamb, very sorry for himself and terribly anxious not to be blamed for what had happened, while equally afraid of being scolded for talking too much. He had passed through the most awful ordeal of his peaceful life very bravely, he believed; and if Zeno had called him a cackling hen that morning the shock might have unsettled his brain, and would certainly have broken his heart. But Zeno had been informed by Vito of the events that had disturbed his household, and knew that Omobono had done his best, considering what his worst might have been, he being of a timid temperament. 'You did very well,' said the master. 'In ancient days, Omobono, those who died for their faith were indeed venerated as martyrs, but those who suffered and lived were afterwards revered as confessors. That is your position.' This piece of information Zeno had acquired, with more of the same kind, when he had expected to be made a canon of Patras. Omobono's heart glowed at the praise. 'And the confessor, sir, has the advantage of being alive and can still be useful,' he ventured to suggest, though with some diffidence. 'Precisely,' Zeno assented. 'A live dog is better than a dead lion. I mean a watch-dog, of course, Omobono,' he added rather hastily, 'a faithful watch-dog.' Omobono's appearance that morning did not suggest the guardian of the flock, the shepherd's shaggy friend. Not in the least; but he was pleased, and when he was told that he was to pack his belongings and make ready to leave Constantinople for a trip to Venice his delight actually brought a little colour into his grey cheeks. 'And may I enquire, sir,' he began, 'about the----' he paused and looked significantly at the ceiling, to indicate the upper story of the house,--'about the lady?' he added, finishing his question at last. 'She goes with us,' answered Zeno briefly. 'Yes, sir. But may I ask whether it will be part of my duty to be responsible for her?' 'You?' Zeno looked at the little man in undisguised astonishment. 'I mean, sir, on Messer Marco Pesaro's account. I had understood----' 'No,' said Zeno, 'you had not understood.' 'But then, sir----' 'Omobono, I have often warned you against your curiosity.' 'Yes, sir. I pray every day for strength to withstand it. Nevertheless, though I know it is a sin it sometimes leads me to learn things which are of use. I do not think that if you knew what I know, sir, you would contemplate the possibility of disposing of----' 'You talk too much,' said Zeno. 'If you have anything to say, then say it. If you have nothing to say, then say nothing. But do not talk. What have you found out?' Thus deprived of the pleasure of telling a long story, Omobono conscientiously tried to impart his information in the fewest possible words. 'The lady is not called Arethusa, sir. Before she sold herself to Rustan to save her people from starvation she was called Zoë Rhangabé, the daughter of the Protosparthos who was executed by Andronicus----' 'Rhangabé?' repeated Zeno, not believing him; for it was a great name, and is still. 'Yes, sir. But that was not her name, either, for he and his wife had adopted her because they had no children, but afterwards two boys were born to them----' 'Confound their boys!' interrupted Zeno. 'Who is she?' 'Her real name is Bianca Giustiniani; she is a Venetian by birth, and her father and mother died of the plague here soon after she was born. You see, sir, under the circumstances, and although the lady called herself a slave, such a commission as Messer Marco Pesaro's----' 'Omobono,' said Zeno, interrupting him again, 'get a priest here at once. I am going to be married.' 'Married, sir?' The little secretary was aghast. 'Send Vito for the priest!' And before Omobono could say more, Zeno had left the room. He found Zoë standing by the open window, and the morning sun was still streaming in. Her hair was not taken up yet, but lay like silk all over her shoulders, still damp from the bath. She was a little pale, as a flower that has blossomed in a dark room, and the rough white silk of the robe she drew closely round her showed by contrast the delicate tint and texture of her skin, and the sweet freshness of the tender and spiritual mouth. He took her hand and looked at her earnestly before he spoke. Only a night, a day and a night, had passed since he had understood what had hidden itself in his heart for weeks. That same truth had stolen into hers, too, but she had known what it meant. 'You kept your secret well,' he said--'too well!' She shook her head, thinking he spoke of her love. 'You knew it long ago,' she answered. 'And what you did not know, you guessed. You kept yours better far.' 'I kept that one from myself, as best I could,' said he, understanding what she meant. 'I could not keep it for ever! But since we know that we love, our life begins here, and together. Together, because you saved mine--I know everything, for they have told me; and so my life is yours, and yours is mine, because we were born to mate, as falcons mate with falcons, doves with doves, and song-birds with song-birds.' 'Say falcons!' laughed Zoë. 'I like the brave bird better!' 'I do, too,--and so my little falcon, Arethusa, we must wing it together to a safer nest before Tocktamish or some other barbarian stirs up a counter-revolution. Will you come with me?' [Illustration: 'Am I not your bought slave?' she asked. 'I must obey.'] She smiled and laid her hand in his. 'Am I not your bought slave?' she asked. 'I must obey.' 'That is not enough. We are Christian man and maid. You shall go with me in honour to my own people.' 'A gentleman of Venice cannot marry a slave,' she objected, though she smiled. He laughed, happily, and drew back from her a little. 'A gentleman of Venice may do what seems good in his own eyes, if it be not treason,' he said. 'I publish the banns of marriage between Messer Carlo Zeno, of Venice, bachelor, and Arethusa----' 'Of Rustan Karaboghazji's slave market, spinster!' suggested Zoë, laughing with him. 'It is a noble alliance for the great Doge's house, sir!' 'Oh! You talk of Doges? Then I will put it in another way, as the priest will say it presently, for I think he is waiting downstairs by this time, and Omobono is teaching him his lesson.' 'How shall you put it?' 'Bianca Giustiniani, wilt thou take this man to be thy wedded husband?' She was taken by surprise, and for a moment the words would not come. 'Wilt thou take this man?' he asked again, but more softly now, and nearer to her lips, though he did not see them; for he thought he saw her soul in her brave brown eyes, and as for her answer, he knew it. * * * * * Now the rest of Zeno's life, with much of what the story-teller has told here, is extant in very bad Latin, written by one of his grandsons, the good bishop Jacopo Zeno of Belluno: how he sailed down the Dardanelles, and made good the Emperor John's gift of Tenedos to the Republic; and how the Genoese tried hard to take it from him; and how he fought like the hero he was, with a handful of men against a host, and drove them off and saved the island; and also how he lived to save Venice herself from them when all seemed lost, and broke their power for ever afterwards; and how he did many other glorious and great things, all after he had taken Bianca Giustiniani to wife. Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS THE SARACINESCA SERIES _In the binding of the Uniform Edition, each, $1.50_ =Saracinesca= "The work has two distinct merits, either of which would serve to make it great,--that of telling a perfect story in a perfect way, and of giving a graphic picture of Roman society in the last days of the Pope's temporal power.... The story is exquisitely told."--_Boston Traveler._ =Sant' Ilario.= A Sequel to "Saracinesca" "A singularly powerful and beautiful story.... It fulfils every requirement of artistic fiction. It brings out what is most impressive in human action, without owing any of its effectiveness to sensationalism or artifice. It is natural, fluent in evolution, accordant with experience, graphic in description, penetrating in analysis, and absorbing in interest."--_New York Tribune._ =Don Orsino.= A Sequel to "Sant' Ilario" "Perhaps the cleverest novel of the year.... There is not a dull paragraph in the book, and the reader may be assured that once begun, the story of _Don Orsino_ will fascinate him until its close."--_The Critic._ =Taquisara= "To Mr. Crawford's Roman novels belongs the supreme quality of uniting subtly drawn characters to a plot of uncommon interest."--_Chicago Tribune._ =Corleone= "Mr. Crawford is the novelist born ... a natural story-teller, with wit, imagination, and insight added to a varied and profound knowledge of social life."--_The Inter-Ocean_, Chicago. =Casa Braccio.= _In two volumes, $2.00._ Illustrated by A. Castaigne Like _Taquisara_ and _Corleone_, it is closely related in plot to the fortunes of the Saracinesca family. "Mr. Crawford's books have life, pathos, and insight; he tells a dramatic story with many exquisite touches."--_New York Sun._ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS NOVELS OF ROMAN SOCIAL LIFE _In decorated cloth covers, each, $1.50_ =A Roman Singer= "One of the earliest and best works of this famous novelist.... None but a genuine artist could have made so true a picture of human life, crossed by human passions and interwoven with human weakness. It is a perfect specimen of literary art."--_The Newark Advertiser._ =Marzio's Crucifix= "We have repeatedly had occasion to say that Mr. Crawford possesses in an extraordinary degree the art of constructing a story. It is as if it could not have been written otherwise, so naturally does the story unfold itself, and so logical and consistent is the sequence of incident after incident. As a story, Marzio's Crucifix is perfectly constructed."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ =Heart of Rome.= A Tale of the Lost Water "Mr. Crawford has written a story of absorbing interest, a story with a genuine thrill in it; he has drawn his characters with a sure and brilliant touch, and he has said many things surpassingly well."--_New York Times Saturday Review._ =Cecilia.= A Story of Modern Rome "That F. Marion Crawford is a master of mystery needs no new telling.... His latest novel, _Cecilia_, is as weird as anything he has done since the memorable _Mr. Isaacs_.... A strong, interesting, dramatic story, with the picturesque Roman setting beautifully handled as only a master's touch could do it."--_Philadelphia Evening Telegraph._ =Whosoever Shall Offend= "It is a story sustained from beginning to end by an ever increasing dramatic quality."--_New York Evening Post._ =Pietro Ghisleri= "The imaginative richness, the marvellous ingenuity of plot, the power and subtlety of the portrayal of character, the charm of the romantic environment,--the entire atmosphere, indeed,--rank this novel at once among the great creations."--_The Boston Budget._ =To Leeward= "The four characters with whose fortunes this novel deals, are, perhaps, the most brilliantly executed portraits in the whole of Mr. Crawford's long picture gallery, while for subtle insight into the springs of human passion and for swift dramatic action none of the novels surpasses this one."--_The News and Courier._ =A Lady of Rome= Mr. Crawford has no equal as a writer of brilliant cosmopolitan fiction, in which the characters really belong to the chosen scene and the story interest is strong. His novels possess atmosphere in a high degree. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS Mr. Crawford has no equal as a writer of brilliant cosmopolitan fiction, in which the characters really belong to the chosen scene and the story interest is strong. His novels possess atmosphere in a high degree. =Mr. Isaacs= (India) Its scenes are laid in Simla, chiefly. This is the work which first placed its author among the most brilliant novelists of his day. =Greifenstein= (The Black Forest) "... Another notable contribution to the literature of the day. It possesses originality in its conception and is a work of unusual ability. Its interest is sustained to the close, and it is an advance even on the previous work of this talented author. Like all Mr. Crawford's work, this novel is crisp, clear, and vigorous, and will be read with a great deal of interest."--New _York Evening Telegram._ =Zoroaster= (Persia) "It is a drama in the force of its situations and in the poetry and dignity of its language; but its men and women are not men and women of a play. By the naturalness of their conversation and behavior they seem to live and lay hold of our human sympathy more than the same characters on a stage could possibly do."--_The New York Times._ =The Witch of Prague= (Bohemia) _"A fantastic tale," illustrated by W. J. Hennessy._ "The artistic skill with which this extraordinary story is constructed and carried out is admirable and delightful.... Mr. Crawford has scored a decided triumph, for the interest of the tale is sustained throughout.... A very remarkable, powerful, and interesting story."--_New York Tribune._ =Paul Patoff= (Constantinople) "Mr. Crawford has a marked talent for assimilating local color, not to make mention of a broader historical sense. Even though he may adopt, as it is the romancer's right to do, the extreme romantic view of history, it is always a living and moving picture that he evolves for us, varied and stirring."--_New York Evening Post._ =Marietta= (Venice) "No living writer can surpass Mr. Crawford in the construction of a complicated plot and the skilful unravelling of the tangled skein."--_Chicago Record-Herald._ "He has gone back to the field of his earlier triumphs, and has, perhaps, scored the greatest triumph of them all."--_New York Herald._ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS _In the binding of the new Uniform Edition, each, $1.50_ =Via Crucis.= A Romance of the Second Crusade. Illustrated by Louis Loeb "_Via Crucis_ ... A tale of former days, possessing an air of reality and an absorbing interest such as few writers since Scott have been able to accomplish when dealing with historical characters."--_Boston Transcript._ =In the Palace of the King= (Spain) "_In the Palace of the King_ is a masterpiece; there is a picturesqueness, a sincerity which will catch all readers in an agreeable storm of emotion, and even leave a hardened reviewer impressed and delighted."--_Literature_, London. =With the Immortals= "The strange central idea of the story could have occurred only to a writer whose mind was very sensitive to the current of modern thought and progress, while its execution, the setting it forth in proper literary clothing, could be successfully attempted only by one whose active literary ability should be fully equalled by his power of assimilative knowledge both literary and scientific, and no less by his courage and capacity for hard work. The book will be found to have a fascination entirely new for the habitual reader of novels. Indeed, Mr. Crawford has succeeded in taking his readers quite above the ordinary plane of novel interest."--_Boston Advertiser._ =Children of the King= (Calabria) "One of the most artistic and exquisitely finished pieces of work that Crawford has produced. The picturesque setting, Calabria and its surroundings, the beautiful Sorrento and the Gulf of Salerno, with the bewitching accessories that climate, sea, and sky afford, give Mr. Crawford rich opportunities to show his rare descriptive powers. As a whole the book is strong and beautiful through its simplicity, and ranks among the choicest of the author's many fine productions."--_Public Opinion._ =A Cigarette Maker's Romance= (Munich) =and Khaled=, a Tale of Arabia "Two gems of subtle analysis of human passion and motive."--_Times._ "The interest is unflagging throughout. Never has Mr. Crawford done more brilliant realistic work than here. But his realism is only the case and cover for those intense feelings which, placed under no matter what humble conditions, produce the most dramatic and the most tragic situations.... This is a secret of genius, to take the most coarse and common material, the meanest surroundings, the most sordid material prospects, and out of the vehement passions which sometimes dominate all human beings to build up with these poor elements, scenes and passages the dramatic and emotional power of which at once enforce attention and awaken the profoundest interest."--_New York Tribune._ =Fair Margaret.= A Portrait "An exhilarating romance ... alluring in its naturalness and grace."--_Boston Herald._ Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS WITH SCENES LAID IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA _In the binding of the Uniform Edition_ =A Tale of a Lonely Parish= "It is a pleasure to have anything so perfect of its kind as this brief and vivid story.... It is doubly a success, being full of human sympathy, as well as thoroughly artistic in its nice balancing of the unusual with the commonplace, the clever juxtaposition of innocence and guilt, comedy and tragedy, simplicity and intrigue."--_Critic._ =Dr. Claudius.= A True Story The scene changes from Heidelberg to New York, and much of the story develops during the ocean voyage. "There is a satisfying quality in Mr. Crawford's strong, vital, forceful stories."--_Boston Herald._ =An American Politician.= The scenes are laid in Boston "It need scarcely be said that the story is skilfully and picturesquely written, portraying sharply individual characters in well-defined surroundings."-_New York Commercial Advertiser._ =The Three Fates= "Mr. Crawford has manifestly brought his best qualities as a student of human nature and his finest resources as a master of an original and picturesque style to bear upon this story. Taken for all in all, it is one of the most pleasing of all his productions in fiction, and it affords a view of certain phases of American, or perhaps we should say of New York, life that have not hitherto been treated with anything like the same adequacy and felicity."--_Boston Beacon._ =Marion Darche= "Full enough of incident to have furnished material for three or four stories.... A most interesting and engrossing book. Every page unfolds new possibilities, and the incidents multiply rapidly."--_Detroit Free Press._ "We are disposed to rank Marion Darche as the best of Mr. Crawford's American stories."-_The Literary World._ =Katharine Lauderdale= =The Ralstons.= A Sequel to "Katharine Lauderdale" "Mr. Crawford at his best is a great novelist, and in _Katharine Lauderdale_ we have him at his best."--_Boston Daily Advertiser._ "A most admirable novel, excellent in style, flashing with humor, and full of the ripest and wisest reflections upon men and women."--_The Westminster Gazette._ "It is the first time, we think, in American fiction that any such breadth of view has shown itself in the study of our social framework."--_Life._ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S NOVELS _Each, cloth, gilt tops and titles, $1.50_ =The Celebrity.= An Episode "No such piece of inimitable comedy in a literary way has appeared for years.... It is the purest, keenest fun."--Chicago Inter-_Ocean._ =Richard Carvel= Illustrated "... In breadth of canvas, massing of dramatic effect, depth of feeling, and rare wholesomeness of spirit, it has seldom, if ever, been surpassed by an American romance."--_Chicago Tribune._ =The Crossing= Illustrated "_The Crossing_ is a thoroughly interesting book, packed with exciting adventure and sentimental incident, yet faithful to historical fact both in detail and in spirit."--_The Dial._ =The Crisis= Illustrated "It is a charming love story, and never loses its interest.... The intense political bitterness, the intense patriotism of both parties, are shown understandingly."--_Evening Telegraph_, Philadelphia. =Coniston= Illustrated "Coniston has a lighter, gayer spirit, and a deeper, tenderer touch than Mr. Churchill has ever achieved before.... It is one of the truest and finest transcripts of modern American life thus far achieved in our fiction."--_Chicago Record-Herald._ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Mr. JAMES LANE ALLEN'S NOVELS _Each, cloth, 12mo, $1.50_ =The Choir Invisible= _This can also be had in a special edition illustrated by Orson Lowell, $2.50_ "One reads the story for the story's sake, and then re-reads the book out of pure delight in its beauty. The story is American to the very core.... Mr. Allen stands to-day in the front rank of American novelists. _The Choir Invisible_ will solidify a reputation already established and bring into clear light his rare gifts as an artist. For this latest story is as genuine a work of art as has come from an American hand."--HAMILTON MABIE in _The Outlook_. =The Reign of Law.= A Tale of the Kentucky Hempfields "Mr. Allen has a style as original and almost as perfectly finished as Hawthorne's, and he has also Hawthorne's fondness for spiritual suggestion that makes all his stories rich in the qualities that are lacking in so many novels of the period.... If read in the right way, it cannot fail to add to one's spiritual possessions."--_San Francisco Chronicle._ =Summer in Arcady.= A Tale of Nature "This story by James Lane Allen is one of the gems of the season. It is artistic in its setting, realistic and true to nature and life in its descriptions, dramatic, pathetic, tragic, in its incidents; indeed, a veritable masterpiece that must become classic. It is difficult to give an outline of the story; it is one of the stories which do not outline; it must be read."--_Boston Daily Advertiser._ =The Mettle of the Pasture= "It may be that _The Mettle of the Pasture_ will live and become a part of our literature; it certainly will live far beyond the allotted term of present-day fiction. Our principal concern is that it is a notable novel, that it ranks high in the range of American and English fiction, and that it is worth the reading, the re-reading, and the continuous appreciation of those who care for modern literature at its best."--By E. F. E. in the _Boston Transcript_. _Shorter Stories. Each, $1.50_ =The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky= =Flute and Violin, and Other Kentucky Tales= _Each, illustrated, $1.00_ =A Kentucky Cardinal= =Aftermath.= A Sequel to "A Kentucky Cardinal" THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Mr. OWEN WISTER'S NOVELS _Each, in decorated cloth cover, $1.50_ =The Virginian= "The vanished West is made to live again by Owen Wister in a manner which makes his book easily the best that deals with the cowboy and the cattle country.... It is picturesque, racy, and above all it is original."--_The Philadelphia Press._ =Lady Baltimore= "After cowboy stories innumerable, _The Virginian_ came as the last and definite word on that romantic subject in our fiction. _Lady Baltimore_ will serve in much the same way as the most subtly drawn picture of the old-world dignity of the vanished South."--_The New York Evening Mail._ Mr. EDEN PHILPOTTS'S NOVELS _Each, in decorated cloth, $1.50_ =The American Prisoner= Illustrated "Intensely readable ... perfectly admirable in its elemental humor and racy turns of speech."--_The Spectator_, London. =The Secret Woman= "There cannot be two opinions as to the interest and the power of _The Secret Woman_. It is not only its author's masterpiece, but it is far in advance of anything he has yet written--and that is to give it higher praise than almost any other comparison with contemporary fiction could afford."--Times Saturday Review. =Knock at a Venture= Sketches of the rustic life of Devon, rich in racy, quaint, and humorous touches. =The Portreeve= THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Mr. ROBERT HERRICK'S NOVELS _Cloth, extra, gilt tops, $1.50_ =The Gospel of Freedom= "A novel that may truly be called the greatest study of social life, in a broad and very much up-to-date sense, that has ever been contributed to American fiction."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._ =The Web of Life= "It is strong in that it faithfully depicts many phases of American life, and uses them to strengthen a web of fiction, which is most artistically wrought out."--_Buffalo Express._ =The Real World= "The title of the book has a subtle intention. It indicates, and is true to the verities in doing so, the strange dreamlike quality of life to the man who has not yet fought his own battles, or come into conscious possession of his will--only such battles bite into the consciousness."--_Chicago Tribune._ =The Common Lot= "It grips the reader tremendously.... It is the drama of a human soul the reader watches ... the finest study of human motive that has appeared for many a day."--_The World To-day._ =The Memoirs of an American Citizen.= Illustrated with about fifty drawings by F. B. Masters "Mr. Herrick's book is a book among many, and he comes nearer to reflecting a certain kind of recognizable, contemporaneous American spirit than anybody has yet done."--_New York Times._ "Intensely absorbing as a story, it is also a crisp, vigorous document of startling significance. More than any other writer to-day he is giving us the American novel."--_New York Globe._ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Mr. JACK LONDON'S NOVELS, etc. _Each, in decorated cloth binding, $1.50_ =The Call of the Wild= Illustrated in colors "A big story in sober English, and with thorough art in the construction; a wonderfully perfect bit of work; a book that will be heard of long. The dog's adventures are as exciting as any man's exploits could be, and Mr. London's workmanship is wholly satisfying."--_The New York Sun._ =The Sea-Wolf= Illustrated in colors "Jack London's The Sea-Wolf is marvellously truthful.... Reading it through at a sitting, we have found it poignantly interesting; ... a superb piece of craftsmanship."--_The New York Tribune._ =White Fang= Illustrated in colors "A thrilling story of adventure ... stirring indeed ... and it touches a chord of tenderness that is all too rare in Mr. London's work."--_Record-Herald, Chicago._ =Before Adam= Illustrated in colors "The story moves with a wonderful sequence of interesting and wholly credible events. The marvel of it all is not in the story itself, but in the audacity of the man who undertook such a task as the writing of it.... From an artistic standpoint the book is an undoubted success. And it is no less a success from the standpoint of the reader who seeks to be entertained."--_The Plain Dealer_, Cleveland. _Shorter Stories_ Children of the Frost Faith of Men Tales of the Fish Patrol The Game Moon Face Love of Life THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Mr. WILLIAM STEARNS DAVIS'S NOVELS _Each, in decorated cloth cover, $1.50_ =A Friend of Cæsar= "As a story ... there can be no question of its success.... While the beautiful love of Cornelia and Drusus lies at the sound sweet heart of the story, to say so is to give a most meagre idea of the large sustained interest of the whole.... There are many incidents so vivid, so brilliant, that they fix themselves in the memory."--NANCY HUSTON BANKS in _The Bookman_. "=God Wills It.=" A Tale of the First Crusade. Illustrated by Louis Betts "Not since Sir Walter Scott cast his spell over us with _Ivanhoe, Count Robert of Paris_, and _Quentin Durward_ have we been so completely captivated by a story as by '_God Wills It_.' It grips the attention of the reader in the first chapter and holds it till the last."--_Christian Endeavor World._ =Falaise of the Blessed Voice.= A Tale of the Youth of St. Louis, King of France "In this tale of the youth of Louis, King of France and afterward saint in the calendar of the Catholic Church, Mr. Davis has fulfilled the promises contained in _A Friend of Cæsar_ and '_God Wills It_.' The novel is not only interesting and written with skill in the scenes which are really dramatic, but it is convincing in its character drawing and its analysis of motives."--_Evening Post_, New York. =A Victor of Salamis.= A Tale of the Days of Xerxes, Leonidas, and Themistocles "An altogether admirable picture of Hellenic life and Hellenic ideals. It is just such a book as will convey to the average reader what is the eternal value of Greek Life to the world ... carried breathlessly along by a style which never poses, and yet is always strong and dignified.... This remarkable book takes its place with the best of historical fiction. Those who have made their acquaintance with the characters in the days of their youth will find delight in the remembrance. Those who would fain learn something of the golden days of Greece could not do better than use Mr. Davis for guide."--_The Daily Post_, Liverpool. "It is seldom that the London critics admit that an American may wear the mantle of Scott, but they are declaring that this book entitles Mr. Davis to a place among novelists not far below the author of _The Talisman_." THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT'S NOVELS, etc. (Published originally as by "Barbara," the Commuter's wife) _Each, in decorated cloth binding, $1.50_ =The Garden of a Commuter's Wife.= Illustrated from photographs "Reading it is like having the entry into a home of the class that is the proudest product of our land, a home where love of books and love of nature go hand in hand with hearty simple love of 'folks.'... It is a charming book."--_The Interior._ =People of the Whirlpool= Illustrated "The whole book is delicious, with its wise and kindly humor, its just perspective of the true values of things, its clever pen pictures of people and customs, and its healthy optimism for the great world in general."--_Philadelphia Evening Telegraph._ =The Woman Errant= "The book is worth reading. It will cause discussion. It is an interesting, fictional presentation of an important modern question, treated with fascinating feminine adroitness."--Miss JEANNETTE GILDER in _The Chicago Tribune_. =At the Sign of the Fox= "Her little pictures of country life are fragrant with a genuine love of nature, and there is fun as genuine in her notes on rural character. A travelling pieman is one of her most lovable personages; another is Tatters, a dog, who is humanly winsome and wise, and will not soon be forgotten by the reader of this very entertaining book."--_New York Tribune._ =The Garden, You and I= "This volume is simply the best she has yet put forth, and quite too deliciously torturing to the reviewer, whose only garden is in Spain.... The delightful humor which persuaded the earlier books, and without which Barbara would not be Barbara, has lost nothing of its poignancy, and would make _The Garden, You and I_ pleasant reading even to the man who doesn't know a pink from a phlox or a _Daphne cneorum_ from a Cherokee rose."--_Congregationalist._ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK THE MERWIN-WEBSTER NOVELS _Each, in decorated cloth covers, $1.50_ =Calumet "K"= Illustrated by Harry C. Edwards "_Calumet 'K'_ is a novel that is exciting and absorbing, but not the least bit sensational. It is the story of a rush.... The book is an unusually good story; one that shows the inner workings of the labor union, and portrays men who are the bone and sinew of the earth."--_The Toledo Blade._ =The Short Line War= "A capital story of adventure in the field of railroading."--_Outlook._ Mr. MARK LEE LUTHER'S NOVELS _Each, in cloth, decorated covers, $1.50_ =The Henchman= "It wins admiration on almost every page by the cleverness of its inventions."--CHURCHILL WILLIAMS in _The Bookman_. =The Mastery= "A story of really notable power remarkable for its strength."--_Times._ Mr. and Mrs. CASTLE'S NOVELS _Each, in decorated cloth binding, $1.50_ =The Pride of Jennico= "This lively story has a half-historic flavor which adds to its interest ... told with an intensity of style which almost takes away the breath of the reader."--_Boston Transcript._ =If Youth But Knew= "They should be the most delightful of comrades, for their writing is so apt, so responsive, so joyous, so saturated with the promptings and the glamour of spring. It is because _If Youth But Knew_ has all these adorable qualities that it is so fascinating."--_Cleveland Leader._ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Mr. JOHN LUTHER LONG'S NOVELS, etc. _Each, in decorated cloth covers, $1.50_ =The Way of the Gods= "There can be no doubt as to the artistic quality of his story. It rings true with the golden ring of chivalry and of woman's love, it rings true for all lovers of romance, wherever they be, ... and is told with an art worthy of the idea."--_New York Mail._ =Heimweh and Other Stories= "As in _Madam Butterfly_ his subtle appreciation of love's tender mystery creates an exquisite thrill of 'the heavenly longing--for the love--the loved ones' the one thing that through poverty and age can keep the door open to joy."--_New York Times._ Miss BEULAH MARIE DIX'S NOVELS, etc. _Each, in decorated cloth covers, $1.50_ =The Making of Christopher Ferringham= "In brilliancy, exciting interest, and verisimilitude, _The Making of Christopher Ferringham_ is one of the best of the semi-historical novels of the day, and not unworthy of comparison with Maurice Hewlett's best."--_Boston Advertiser._ =The Life, Treason, and Death of James Blount of Breckenhow= "A novel that may fairly challenge comparison with the very best, telling the story of treason and a love, of many good fights, a few mistakes, and a good death at the last."--_The Boston Transcript._ =The Fair Maid of Greystones= "The plot of _The Fair Maid of Greystones_ is not unworthy of Weyman at his best. This is strong praise, but it is deserved. From the moment Jack Hetherington, the Cavalier volunteer, assumes the identity of his blackguard cousin, and thus escapes certain death to face the responsibility for his kinsman's dark deeds, until the end, which is sanely happy, the adventure never flags. This is one of the few historical novels in whose favor an exception may well be made by those who long since lost interest in the school."--_New York Mail._ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Mr. CHARLES MAJOR'S NOVELS _Each, in decorated cloth binding, $1.50_ =Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall.= Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy "Dorothy is a splendid creation, a superb creature of brains, beauty, force, capacity, and passion, a riot of energy, love, and red blood. She is the fairest, fiercest, strongest, tenderest heroine that ever woke up a jaded novel reader and made him realize that life will be worth living so long as the writers of fiction create her like.... The story has brains, 'go,' virility, gumption, and originality."--_The Boston Herald._ =A Forest Hearth.= A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties. Illustrated "This work is a novel full of charm and action, picturing the life and love of the fascinating indomitably adventurous men and women, boys and girls, who developed Indiana. It is a vigorous, breezy, outdoor book, with the especial intimate touch that is possible only when the subject is one which has long lain close to its author's heart."--_Daily News._ =Yolanda, Maid of Burgundy= Illustrated "Charles Major has done the best work of his life in _Yolanda_. The volume is a genuine romance ... and after the reviewer has become surfeited with problem novels, it is like coming out into the sunlight to read the fresh, sweet story of her love for Max."--_The World To-day._ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Mr. JOHN OXENHAM'S NOVEL =The Long Road= With frontispiece _Cloth, decorated cover, $1.50_ "Not since Robert Louis Stevenson has there appeared a writer of English who can so thoroughly serve his turn with simple Anglo-Saxon phrases ... invested with sympathetic interest, convincing sincerity, and indefinable charm of romance."--_North American._ "It is original both in plot and in treatment, and its skilful mingling of idyllic beauty and tragedy plays curious tricks with one's emotions ... and leaves an impression of happiness and spiritual uplift. It is a story that any man or woman will be the better for reading."--_Record-Herald_, Chicago. Mr. MAURICE HEWLETT'S NOVELS _Each, in decorated cloth covers, $1.50_ =The Forest Lovers= "The book is a joy to read and to remember, a source of clean and pure delight to the spiritual sense, a triumph of romance reduced to the essentials, and interpreted with a mastery of expression that is well-nigh beyond praise."--_The Dial._ =The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay= "Mr. Hewlett has done one of the most notable things in recent literature, a thing to talk about with bated breath, as a bit of master-craftsmanship touched by the splendid dignity of real creation."--_The Interior._ =The Queen's Quair= "_The Queen's Quair_ is, from every point of view, a notable contribution to historical portraiture in its subtlety, its vividness of color, its consistency, and its fascination.... Above all, it is intensely interesting."--_The Outlook._ =The Fool Errant= "It is full of excellent description, of amusing characters, and of picaresque adventure brilliantly related ... with infinite humor and vivacity."--_The New York Herald._ =Little Novels of Italy= "These singularly romantic stories are so true to their locality that they read almost like translations."--_New York Times._ =New Canterbury Tales= "In the key and style of the author's Little Novels of Italy, it shows again the brilliant qualities of that remarkable book; ... daring but successful."--_New York Tribune._ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
28614	----	AVE ROMA IMMORTALIS STUDIES FROM THE CHRONICLES OF ROME BY FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1899 _All rights reserved_ Copyright, 1898, By The Macmillan Company. Set up and electrotyped October, 1898. Reprinted November, December, 1898. _Norwood Press_ _J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith_ _Norwood, Mass., U.S.A._ TABLE OF CONTENTS VOLUME I PAGE THE MAKING OF THE CITY 1 THE EMPIRE 22 THE CITY OF AUGUSTUS 57 THE MIDDLE AGE 78 THE FOURTEEN REGIONS 100 REGION I MONTI 106 REGION II TREVI 155 REGION III COLONNA 190 REGION IV CAMPO MARZO 243 REGION V PONTE 274 REGION VI PARIONE 297 LIST OF PHOTOGRAVURE PLATES VOLUME I Map of Rome _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE The Wall of Romulus 4 Palace of the Cæsars 30 The Campagna and Ruins of the Claudian Aqueduct 50 Temple of Castor and Pollux 70 Basilica Constantine 90 Basilica of Saint John Lateran 114 Baths of Diocletian 140 Fountain of Trevi 158 Piazza Barberini 188 Porta San Lorenzo 214 Villa Borghese 230 Piazza del Popolo 256 Island in the Tiber 280 Palazzo Massimo alle Colonna 306 ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT VOLUME I PAGE Palatine Hill and Mouth of the Cloaca Maxima 1 Ruins of the Servian Wall 8 Etruscan Bridge at Veii 16 Tombs on the Appian Way 22 Brass of Tiberius, showing the Temple of Concord 24 The Tarpeian Rock 28 Caius Julius Cæsar 36 Octavius Augustus Cæsar 45 Brass of Trajan, showing the Circus Maximus 56 Brass of Antoninus Pius, in Honour of Faustina, with Reverse showing Vesta bearing the Palladium 57 Ponte Rotto, now destroyed 67 Atrium of Vesta 72 Brass of Gordian, showing the Colosseum 78 The Colosseum 87 Ruins of the Temple of Saturn 92 Brass of Gordian, showing Roman Games 99 Ruins of the Julian Basilica 100 Brass of Titus, showing the Colosseum 105 Region I Monti, Device of 106 Santa Francesca Romana 111 San Giovanni in Laterano 116 Piazza Colonna 119 Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano 126 Santa Maria Maggiore 134 Porta Maggiore, supporting the Channels of the Aqueduct of Claudius and the Anio Novus 145 Interior of the Colosseum 152 Region II Trevi, Device of 155 Grand Hall of the Colonna Palace 162 Interior of the Mausoleum of Augustus 169 Forum of Trajan 171 Ruins of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli 180 Palazzo del Quirinale 185 Region III Colonna, Device of 190 Arch of Titus 191 Twin Churches at the Entrance of the Corso 197 San Lorenzo in Lucina 204 Palazzo Doria-Pamfili 208 Palazzo di Monte Citorio 223 Palazzo di Venezia 234 Region IV Campo Marzo, Device of 248 Piazza di Spagna 251 Trinità de Monti 257 Villa Medici 265 Region V Ponte 274 Bridge of Sant' Angelo 285 Villa Negroni 292 Region VI Parione, Device of 297 Piazza Navona 303 Ponte Sisto 307 The Cancelleria 316 WORKS CONSULTED NOT INCLUDING CLASSIC WRITERS NOR ENCYCLOPÆDIAS 1. AMPÈRE--Histoire Romaine à Rome. AMPÈRE--L'Empire Remain à Rome. 2. BARACCONI--I Rioni di Roma. 3. BOISSIER--Promenades Archéologiques. 4. BRYCE--The Holy Roman Empire. 5. CELLINI--Memoirs. 6. COPPI--Memoire Colonnesi. 7. FORTUNATO--Storia delle vite delle Imperatrici Romane. 8. GIBBON--Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 9. GNOLI--Vittoria Accoramboni. 10. GREGOROVIUS--Geschichte der Stadt Rom. 11. HARE--Walks in Rome. 12. JOSEPHUS--Life of. 13. LANCIANI--Ancient Rome. 14. LETI--Vita di Sisto V. 15. MURATORI--Scriptores Rerum Italicarum. MURATORI--Annali d'Italia. MURATORI--Antichità Italiane. 16. RAMSAY AND LANCIANI--A Manual of Roman Antiquities. 17. SCHNEIDER--Das Alte Rom. 18. SILVAGNI--La Corte e la Società Romana. [Illustration: PALATINE HILL AND MOUTH OF THE CLOACA MAXIMA] Ave Roma Immortalis I The story of Rome is the most splendid romance in all history. A few shepherds tend their flocks among volcanic hills, listening by day and night to the awful warnings of the subterranean voice,--born in danger, reared in peril, living their lives under perpetual menace of destruction, from generation to generation. Then, at last, the deep voice swells to thunder, roaring up from the earth's heart, the lightning shoots madly round the mountain top, the ground rocks, and the air is darkened with ashes. The moment has come. One man is a leader, but not all will follow him. He leads his small band swiftly down from the heights, and they drive a flock and a little herd before them, while each man carries his few belongings as best he can, and there are few women in the company. The rest would not be saved, and they perish among their huts before another day is over. Down, always downwards, march the wanderers, rough, rugged, young with the terrible youth of those days, and wise only with the wisdom of nature. Down the steep mountain they go, down over the rich, rolling land, down through the deep forests, unhewn of man, down at last to the river, where seven low hills rise out of the wide plain. One of those hills the leader chooses, rounded and grassy; there they encamp, and they dig a trench and build huts. Pales, protectress of flocks, gives her name to the Palatine Hill. Rumon, the flowing river, names the village Rome, and Rome names the leader Romulus, the Man of the River, the Man of the Village by the River; and to our own time the twenty-first of April is kept and remembered, and even now honoured, for the very day on which the shepherds began to dig their trench on the Palatine, the date of the Foundation of Rome, from which seven hundred and fifty-four years were reckoned to the birth of Christ. And the shepherds called their leader King, though his kingship was over but few men. Yet they were such men as begin history, and in the scant company there were all the seeds of empire. First the profound faith of natural mankind, unquestioning, immovable, inseparable from every daily thought and action; then fierce strength, and courage, and love of life and of possession; last, obedience to the chosen leader, in clear liberty, when one should fail, to choose another. So the Romans began to win the world, and won it in about six hundred years. By their camp-fires, by their firesides in their little huts, they told old tales of their race, and round the truth grew up romantic legend, ever dear to the fighting man and to the husbandman alike, with strange tales of their first leader's birth, fit for poets, and woven to stir young hearts to daring, and young hands to smiting. Truth there was under their stories, but how much of it no man can tell: how Amulius of Alba Longa slew his sons, and slew also his daughter, loved of Mars, mother of twin sons left to die in the forest, like Oedipus, father-slayers, as Oedipus was, wolf-suckled, of whom one was born to kill the other and be the first King, and be taken up to Jupiter in storm and lightning at the last. The legend of wise Numa, next, taught by Egeria; her stony image still weeps trickling tears for her royal adept, and his earthen cup, jealously guarded, was worshipped for more than a thousand years; legends of the first Arval brotherhood, dim as the story of Melchisedec, King and priest, but lasting as Rome itself. Tales of King Tullus, when the three Horatii fought for Rome against the three Curiatii, who smote for Alba and lost the day--Tullus Hostilius, grandson of that first Hostus who had fought against the Sabines; and always more legend, and more, and more, sometimes misty, sometimes clear and direct in action as a Greek tragedy. They hover upon the threshold of history, with faces of beauty or of terror, sublime, ridiculous, insignificant, some born of desperate, real deeds, many another, perhaps, first told by some black-haired shepherd mother to her wondering boys at evening, when the brazen pot simmered on the smouldering fire, and the father had not yet come home. But down beneath the legend lies the fact, in hewn stones already far in the third thousand of their years. Digging for truth, searchers have come here and there upon the first walls and gates of the Palatine village, straight, strong and deeply founded. The men who made them meant to hold their own, and their own was whatsoever they were able to take from others by force. They built their walls round a four-sided space, wide enough for them, scarcely big enough a thousand years later for the houses of their children's rulers, the palaces of the Cæsars of which so much still stands today. Then came the man who built the first bridge across the river, of wooden piles and beams, bolted with bronze, because the Romans had no iron yet, and ever afterwards repaired with wood and bronze, for its sanctity, in perpetual veneration of Ancus Martius, fourth King of Rome. That was the bridge Horatius kept against Porsena of Clusium, while the fathers hewed it down behind him. [Illustration: WALL OF ROMULUS] Tarquin the first came next, a stranger of Greek blood, chosen, perhaps, because the factions in Rome could not agree. Then Servius, great and good, built his tremendous fortification, and the King of Italy today, driving through the streets in his carriage, may look upon the wall of the King who reigned in Rome more than two thousand and four hundred years ago. Under those six rulers, from Romulus to Servius, from the man of the River Village to the man of walls, Rome had grown from a sheepfold to a town, from a town to a walled city, from a city to a little nation, matched against all mankind, to win or die, inch by inch, sword in hand. She was a kingdom now, and her men were subjects; and still the third law of great races was strong and waking. Romans obeyed their leader so long as he could lead them well--no longer. The twilight of the Kings gathered suddenly, and their names were darkened, and their sun went down in shame and hate. In the confusion, tragic legend rises to tell the story. For the first time in Rome, a woman, famous in all history, turned the scale. The King's son, passionate, terrible, false, steals upon her in the dark. 'I am Sextus Tarquin, and there is a sword in my hand.' Yet she yielded to no fear of steel, but to the horror of unearned shame beyond death. On the next day, when she lay before her husband and her father and the strong Brutus, her story told, her deed done, splendidly dead by her own hand, they swore the oath in which the Republic was born. While father, husband and friend were stunned with grief, Brutus held up the dripping knife before their eyes. 'By this most chaste blood, I swear--Gods be my witnesses--that I will hunt down Tarquin the Proud, himself, his infamous wife and every child of his, with fire and sword, and with all my might, and neither he nor any other man shall ever again be King in Rome.' So they all swore, and bore the dead woman out into the market-place, and called on all men to stand by them. They kept their word, and the tale tells how the Tarquins were driven out to a perpetual exile, and by and by allied themselves with Porsena, and marched on Rome, and were stopped only at the Sublician bridge by brave Horatius. Chaos next. Then all at once the Republic stands out, born full grown and ready armed, stern, organized and grasping, but having already within itself the quickened opposites that were to fight for power so long and so fiercely,--the rich and the poor, the patrician and the plebeian, the might and the right. There is a wonder in that quick change from Kingdom to Commonwealth, which nothing can make clear, except, perhaps, modern history. Say that two thousand or more years hereafter men shall read of what our grandfathers, our fathers and ourselves have seen done in France within a hundred years, out of two or three old books founded mostly on tradition; they may be confused by the sudden disappearance of kings, by the chaos, the wild wars and the unforeseen birth of a lasting republic, just as we are puzzled when we read of the same sequence in ancient Rome. Men who come after us will have more documents, too. It is not possible that all books and traces of written history should be destroyed throughout the world, as the Gauls burned everything in Rome, except the Capitol itself, held by the handful of men who had taken refuge there. So the Kingdom fell with a woman's death, and the Commonwealth was made by her avengers. Take the story as you will, for truth or truth's legend, it is for ever humanly true, and such deeds would rouse a nation today as they did then and as they set Rome on fire once more nearly sixty years later. But all the time Rome was growing as if the very stones had life to put out shoots and blossoms and bear fruit. Round about the city the great Servian wall had wound like a vast finger, in and out, grasping the seven hills, and taking in what would be a fair-sized city even in our day. They were the last defences Rome built for herself, for nearly nine hundred years. Nothing can give a larger idea of Rome's greatness than that; not all the temples, monuments, palaces, public buildings of later years can tell half the certainty of her power expressed by that one fact--Rome needed no walls when once she had won the world. But it is very hard to guess at what the city was, in those grim times of the early fight for life. We know the walls, and there were nineteen gates in all, and there were paved roads; the wooden bridge, the Capitol with its first temple and first fortress, the first Forum with the Sacred Way, were all there, and the public fountain, called the Tullianum, and a few other sites are certain. The rest must be imagined. [Illustration: RUINS OF THE SERVIAN WALL] Rome was a brown city in those days, when there was no marble and little stucco: a brown city teeming with men and women clothed mostly in grey and brown and black woollen cloaks, like those the hill shepherds wear today, caught up under one arm and thrown far over the shoulder in dark folds. The low houses without any outer windows, entered by one rough door, were built close together, and those near the Forum had shops outside them, low-browed places, dark but not deep, where the cloaked keeper sat behind a stone counter among his wares, waiting for custom, watching all that happened in the market-place, gathering in gossip from one buyer to exchange it for more with the next, altogether not unlike the small Eastern merchant of today. Yet during more than half the time, there were few young men, or men in prime, in the streets of Rome. They were fighting more than half the year, while their fathers and their children stayed behind with the women. The women sat spinning and weaving wool in their little brown houses; the boys played, fought, ran races naked in the streets; the small girls had their quiet games and, surely, their dolls, made of rags, stuffed with the soft wool waste from their mothers' spindles and looms. The old men, scarred and seamed in the battles of an age when fighting was all hand to hand, kept the shops, or sunned themselves in the market-place, shelling and chewing lupins to pass the time, as the Romans have always done, and telling old tales, or boasting to each other of their half-grown grandchildren, and of their full-grown sons, fighting far away in the hills and the plains that Rome might have more possession. Meanwhile the maidens went in pairs to the springs to fetch water, or down to the river in small companies to wash the woollen clothes and dry them in the shade of the old wild trees, lest in the sun they should shrink and thicken; black-haired, black-eyed, dark-skinned maids, all of them, strong and light of foot, fit to be mothers of more soldiers, to slay more enemies, and bring back more spoil. Then, as in our own times, the flocks of goats were driven in from the pastures at early morning and milked from door to door, for each household, and driven out again to the grass before the sun was high. In the old wall there was the Cattle Gate, the Porta Mugonia, named, as the learned say, from the lowing of the herds. Then, as in the hill towns not long ago, the serving women, who were slaves, sat cross-legged on the ground in the narrow court within the house, with the hand-mill of two stones between them, and ground the wheat to flour for the day's meal. There have been wonderful survivals of the first age even to our own time. But that which has not come down to us is the huge vitality of those men and women. The world's holders have never risen suddenly in hordes; they have always grown by degrees out of little nations, that could live through more than their neighbours. Calling up the vision of the first Rome, one must see, too, such human faces and figures of men as are hardly to be found among us nowadays,--the big features, the great, square, devouring jaws, the steadily bright eyes, the strongly built brows, coarse, shagged hair, big bones, iron muscles and starting sinews. There are savage countries that still breed such men. They may have their turn next, when we are worn out. Browning has made John the Smith a memorable type. Rome was a clean city in those days. One of the Tarquins had built the great arched drain which still stands unshaken and in use, and smaller ones led to it, draining the Forum and all the low part of the town. The people were clean, far beyond our ordinary idea of them, as is plain enough from the contemptuous way in which the Latin authors use their strong words for uncleanliness. A dirty man was an object of pity, and men sometimes went about in soiled clothes to excite the public sympathy, as beggars do today in all countries. Dirt meant abject poverty, and in a grasping, getting race, poverty was the exception, even while simplicity was the rule. For all was simple with them, their dress, their homes, their lives, their motives, and if one could see the Rome of Tarquin the Proud, this simplicity would be of all characteristics the most striking, compared with what we know of later Rome, and with what we see about us in our own times. Simplicity is not strength, but the condition in which strength is least hampered in its full action. It was easy to live simply in such a place and in such a climate, under a wise King. The check in the first straight run of Rome's history brought the Romans suddenly face to face with the first great complication of their career, which was the struggle between the rich and the poor; and again the half truth rises up to explain the fact. Men whose first instinct was to take and hold took from one another in peace when they could not take from their enemies in war, since they must needs be always taking from some one. So the few strong took all from the many weak, till the weak banded themselves together to resist the strong, and the struggle for life took a new direction. The grim figure of Lucius Junius Brutus rises as the incarnation of that character which, at great times, made history, but in peace made trouble. The man who avenged Lucretia, who drove out the Tarquins, and founded the Republic, is most often remembered as the father who sat unmoved in judgment on his two traitor sons, and looked on with stony eyes while they paid the price of their treason in torment and death. That one deed stands out, and we forget how he himself fell fighting for Rome's freedom. But still the evil grew at home, and the hideous law of creditor and debtor, which only fiercest avarice could have devised, ground the poor, who were obliged to borrow to pay the tax-gatherer, and made slaves of them almost to the ruin of the state. Just then Etruria wakes, shadowy, half Greek, the central power of Italy, between Rome and Gaul. Porsena, the Lar of Clusium, comes against the city with a great host in gilded arms. Terror descends like a dark mist over the young nation. The rich fear for their riches, the poor for their lives. In haste the fathers gather great supplies of corn against a siege; credit and debt are forgotten; patrician and plebeian join hands as Porsena reaches Janiculum, and three heroic figures of romance stand forth from a host of heroes. Horatius keeps the bridge, first with two comrades, then, at the last, alone in the glory of single-handed fight against an army, sure of immortality whether he live or die. Scævola, sworn with the three hundred to slay the Lar, stabs the wrong man, and burns his hand to the wrist to show what tortures he can bear unmoved. Cloelia, the maiden hostage, rides her young steed at the yellow torrent, and swims the raging flood back to the Palatine. Cloelia and Horatius get statues in the Forum; Scævola is endowed with great lands, which his race holds for centuries, and leaves a name so great that two thousand years later, Sforza, greatest leader of the Middle Age, coveting long ancestry, makes himself descend from the man who burned off his own hand. They are great figures, the two men and the noble girl, and real to us, in a way, because we can stand on the very ground they trod, where Horatius fought, where Scævola suffered and where Cloelia took the river. They are nearer to us than Romulus, nearer even than Lucretia, as each figure, following the city's quick life, has more of reality about it, and not less of heroism. For two hundred years the Romans strove with each other in law making; the fathers for exclusive power and wealth, the plebeians for freedom, first, and then for office in the state; a time of fighting abroad for land, and of contention at home about its division. In fifty years the poor had their Tribunes, but it took them nearly three times as long, after that, to make themselves almost the fathers' equals in power. Once they tried a new kind of government by a board of ten, and it held for a while, till again a woman's life turned the tide of Roman history, and fair young Virginia, stabbed by her father in the Forum, left a name as lasting as any of that day. Romance again, but the true romance, above doubt, at last; not at all mythical, but full of fate's unanswerable logic, which makes dim stories clear to living eyes. You may see the actors in the Forum, where it all happened,--the lovely girl with frightened, wondering eyes; the father, desperate, white-lipped, shaking with the thing not yet done; Appius Claudius smiling among his friends and clients; the sullen crowd of strong plebeians, and the something in the chill autumn air that was a warning of fate and fateful change. Then the deed. A shriek at the edge of the throng; a long, thin knife, high in air, trembling before a thousand eyes; a harsh, heartbroken, vengeful voice; a confusion and a swaying of the multitude, and then the rising yell of men overlaid, ringing high in the air from the Capitol right across the Forum to the Palatine, and echoing back the doom of the Ten. The deed is vivid still, and then there is sudden darkness. One thinks of how that man lived afterwards. Had Virginius a home, a wife, other children to mourn the dead one? Or was he a lonely man, ten times alone after that day, with the memory of one flashing moment always undimmed in a bright horror? Who knows? Did anyone care? Rome's story changed its course, turning aside at the river of Virginia's blood, and going on swiftly in another way. To defeat this time, straight to Rome's first and greatest humiliation; to the coming of the Gauls, sweeping everything before them, Etruscans, Italians, Romans, up to the gates of the city and over the great moat and wall of Servius, burning, destroying, killing everything, to the foot of the central rock; baffled at the last stronghold on a dark night by a flock of cackling geese, but not caring for so small a thing when they had swallowed up the rest, or not liking the Latin land, perhaps, and so, taking ransom for peace and marching away northwards again through the starved and harried hills and valleys of Etruria to their own country. And six centuries passed away before an enemy entered Rome again. But the Gauls left wreck and ruin and scarcely one stone upon another in the great desolation; they swept away all records of history, then and there, and the general destruction was absolute, so that the Rome of the Republic and of the Empire, the centre and capital of the world, began to exist from that day. Unwillingly the people bore back Juno's image from Veii, where they had taken refuge and would have stayed, and built houses, and would have called that place Rome. But the nobles had their own way, and the great construction began, of which there was to be no end for many hundreds of years, in peace and war, mostly while hard fighting was going on abroad. [Illustration: ETRUSCAN BRIDGE AT VEII] They built hurriedly at first, for shelter, and as best they could, crowding their little houses in narrow streets with small care for symmetry or adornment. The second Rome must have seemed but a poor village compared with the solidly built city which the Gauls had burnt, and it was long before the present could compare with the past. In haste men seized on fragments of all sorts, blocks of stone, cracked and defaced in the flames, charred beams that could still serve, a door here, a window there, and such bits of metal as they could pick up. An irregular, crowded town sprang up, and a few rough temples, no doubt as pied and meanly pieced as many of those early churches built of odds and ends of ruin, which stand to this day. It is not impossible that the motley character of Rome, of which all writers speak in one way or another, had its first cause in that second building of the city. Rome without ruins would hardly seem Rome at all, and all was ruined in that first inroad of the savage Gauls,--houses, temples, public places. When the Romans came back from Veii they must have found the Forum not altogether unlike what it is today, but blackened with smoke, half choked with mouldering humanity, strewn with charred timbers, broken roof tiles and the wreck of much household furniture; a sorrowful confusion reeking with vapours of death, and pestilential with decay. It was no wonder that the poor plebeians lost heart and would have chosen to go back to the clear streets and cleaner air of Veii. Their little houses were lost and untraceable in the universal chaos. But the rich man's ruins stood out in bolder relief; he had his lands still; he still had slaves; he could rebuild his home; and he had his way. But ever afterwards, though the Republic and the Empire spent the wealth of nations in beautifying the city, the trace of that first defeat remained. Dark and narrow lanes wound in and out, round the great public squares, and within earshot of the broad white streets, and the time-blackened houses of the poor stood huddled out of sight behind the palaces of the rich, making perpetual contrast of wealth and poverty, splendour and squalor, just as one may see today in Rome, in London, in Paris, in Constantinople, in all the mistress cities of the world that have long histories of triumph and defeat behind them. The first Rome sprang from the ashes of the Alban volcano, the second Rome rose from the ashes of herself, as she has risen again and again since then. But the Gauls had done Rome a service, too. In crushing her to the earth, they had crushed many of her enemies out of existence; and when she stood up to face the world once more, she fought not to beat the Æquians or the Etruscans at her gates, but to conquer Italy. And by steady fighting she won it all, and brought home the spoils and divided the lands; here and there a battle lost, as in the bloody Caudine pass, but always more battles won, and more, and more, sternly relentless to revolt. Brutus had seen his own sons' heads fall at his own word; should Caius Pontius, the Samnite, be spared, because he was the bravest of the brave? To her faithful friends Rome was just, and now and then half-contemptuously generous. The idle Greek fine gentlemen of Tarentum sat in their theatre one day, overlooking the sea, shaded by dyed awnings from the afternoon sun, listening entranced to some grand play,--the Oedipus King, perhaps, or Alcestis, or Medea. Ten Roman trading ships came sailing round the point; and the wind failed, and they lay there with drooping sails, waiting for the land breeze that springs up at night. Perhaps some rough Latin sailor, as is the way today in calm weather when there is no work to be done, began to howl out one of those strange, endless songs which have been sung down to us, from ear to ear, out of the primeval Aryan darkness,--loud, long drawn out, exasperating in its unfinished cadence, jarring on the refined Greek ear, discordant with the actor's finely measured tones. In sudden rage at the noise--so it must have been--those delicate idlers sprang up and ran down to the harbour, and took the boats that lay there, and overwhelmed the unarmed Roman traders, slaying many of them. Foolish, cruel, almost comic. So a sensitive musician, driven half mad by a street organ, longs to rush out and break the thing to pieces, and kill the poor grinder for his barbarous noise. But when there was blood in the harbour of Tarentum, and some of the ships had escaped on their oars, the Greeks were afraid; and when the message of war came swiftly down to them from inexorable Rome, their terror grew, and they sent to Pyrrhus of Epirus, who had set up to be a conqueror, to come and conquer Rome for the sake of certain æsthetic fine gentlemen who could not bear to be disturbed at a good play on a spring afternoon. He came with all the pomp and splendour of Eastern warfare; he won a battle, and a battle, and half a battle, and then the Romans beat him at Beneventum, famous again and again, and utterly destroyed his army, and took back with them his gold and his jewels, and the tusks of his elephants, and the mastery of all Italy to boot, but not yet beyond dispute. Creeping down into Sicily, Rome met Carthage, both giants in those days, and the greatest and last struggle began, with half the known world and all the known sea for a battle-ground. Round and round the Mediterranean, by water and land, they fought for a hundred and eighteen years, through four generations of men, as we should reckon it, both grasping and strong, both relentless, both sworn to win or perish for ever, both doing great deeds that are remembered still. The mere name of Regulus is a legion of legends in itself; the name of Hannibal is in itself a history, that of Fabius Maximus a lesson; and while history lasts, Cornelius Scipio and Scipio the African will not be forgotten. It is the story of many and terrible defeats, from each of which Rome rose, fiercely young, to win a dozen terrible little victories. It is strange that we remember the lost days best; misty Thrasymene and Cannæ's fearful slaughter rise first in the memory. Then all at once, within ten years, the scale turns, and Caius Claudius Nero hurls Hasdrubal's disfigured head high over ditch and palisade into his brother's camp, right to his brother's feet. And five years later, the battle of Zama, won almost at the gates of Carthage; and then, almost the end, as great heartbroken Hannibal, defeated, ruined and exiled, drinks up the poison and rests at last, some forty years after he led his first army to victory. But he had been dead nearly forty years, when another Scipio at last tore down the walls of Carthage, and utterly destroyed the city to the foundations, for ever. And a dozen years later than that, Rome had conquered all the civilized world round about the Mediterranean sea, from Spain to Asia. [Illustration: TOMBS ON THE APPIAN WAY] II There was a mother in Rome, not rich, but of great race, for she was daughter to Scipio of Africa; and she called her sons her jewels when other women showed their golden ornaments and their precious stones and boasted of their husbands' wealth. Cornelia's two sons, Tiberius and Caius, lost their lives successively in a struggle against the avarice of the rich men who ruled Rome, Italy and the world; against that grasping avarice which far surpassed the greed of any other race before the Romans, or after them, and which had suddenly taken new growth as the spoils of the East and South and West poured into the city. Yet the vast booty men could see was but an earnest of the wide lands which had fallen to Rome, called 'Public Lands' almost as if in derision, while they fell into the power of the few and strong, by the hundred thousand acres at a time. Three hundred and fifty years before the Gracchi, when little conquests still seemed great, Spurius Cassius had died in defence of his Agrarian Law, at the hands of the savage rich who accused him of conspiring for a crown. Tiberius Gracchus set up the rights of the people to the public land, and perished. He fell within a stone's throw of the spot on which the great tribune, Nicholas Rienzi, died. The strong, small band of nobles, armed with staves and clubs, and with that supremacy of contemptuous bearing that cows the simple, plough their way through the rioting throng, murderously clubbing to right and left. Tiberius, retreating, stumbles against a corpse and his enemies are upon him; a stave swung high in air, a dull blow, and all is finished for that day, save to throw the body into the Tiber lest the people should make a revolution of its funeral. Next came Caius, a boy of six and twenty, fighting the same fight for a few years. On his head the nobles set a price--its weight in gold. He hides on the Aventine, and the Aventine is stormed. He escapes by the Sublician bridge and the bridge is held behind him by one friend, almost as Horatius held it against an army. Yet the nobles and their hired Cretan bowmen force the way and pursue him into Furina's grove. There a Greek slave ends him, and to get more gold fills the poor head with metal--and is paid in full. Three hundred died with Tiberius, three thousand were put to death for his brother's sake. With the goods of the slain and the dowries of their wives, Opimius built the Temple of Concord on the spot where the later one still stands in part, between the Comitium and the Capitol. The poor of Rome, and Cornelia, and the widows and children of the murdered men, knew what that 'Concord' meant. [Illustration: BRASS OF TIBERIUS, SHOWING THE TEMPLE OF CONCORD] Then followed revolution, war with runaway slaves, war with the immediate allies, then civil war, while wealth and love of wealth grew side by side, the one, insatiate, devouring the other. First the slaves made for Sicily, wild, mountainous, half-governed then as it is today, and they held much of it against their masters for five years. Within short memory, almost yesterday, a handful of outlaws has defied a powerful nation's best soldiers in the same mountains. It is small wonder that many thousand men, fighting for liberty and life, should have held out so long. And meanwhile Jugurtha of Numidia had for long years bought every Roman general sent against him, had come to Rome himself and bought the laws, and had gone back to his country with contemptuous leave-taking--'Thou city where all is sold!' And still he bought, till Caius Marius, high-hearted plebeian and great soldier, brought him back to die in the Mamertine prison. Then against wealth arose the last and greatest power of Rome, her terrible armies that set up whom they would, to have their will of Senate and fathers and people. First Marius, then Sylla whom he had taught to fight, and taught to beat him in the end, after Cinna had been murdered for his sake at Ancona. Marius and Sylla, the plebeian and the patrician, were matched at first as leader and lieutenant, then both as conquerors, then as alternate despots of Rome and mortal foes, till their long duel wrecked what had been and opened ways for what was to be. First, Sylla claims that he, and not Marius, took Jugurtha, when the Numidian ally betrayed him, though the King and his two sons marched in the train of the plebeian's triumph. Marius answers by a stupendous victory over the Cimbrians and Teutons, slays a hundred thousand in one battle, comes home, triumphs again, sets up his trophies in the city and builds a temple to Honour and Courage. Next, in greed of popular power, he perjures himself to support a pair of murderous demagogues, betrays them in turn to the patricians, and Saturninus is pounded to death with roof tiles in the Capitol. Then, being made leader in the war with the allies, already old for fighting, he fails at the outset, and his rival Sylla is General in his stead. Then riot on riot in the Forum, violence after violence in the struggle for the consulship, murder after murder, blood upon blood not yet dry. Sylla gets the expedition against Mithridates; Marius, at home, undermines his enemy's influence and forces the tribes to give him the command, and sends out his lieutenants to the East. Sylla's soldiers murder them, and Sylla marches back against Rome with six legions. Marius is unprepared; Sylla breaks into the city, torch in hand, at the head of his troops, burning and slaying; the rivals meet face to face in the Esquiline market-place, Roman fights Roman, and the plebeian loses the day and escapes to the sea. The reign of terror begins, and a great slaying. Sylla declares his rival an enemy of Rome, and Marius is found hiding in the marshes of Minturnæ, is dragged out naked, covered with mud, a rope about his neck, and led into a little house of the town to be slain by a slave. 'Darest thou kill Caius Marius?' asks the old man with flashing eyes, and the slave executioner trembles before the unarmed prisoner. They let him go. He wanders to Africa and sits alone among the ruins of Carthage, while Sylla fights victoriously in the East. Rome, momentarily free of both, is torn by dissensions about the voting of the newly enfranchised. Instead of the greater rivals, Cinna and Octavius are matched for plebs and nobles. Knife-armed the parties fight it out in the Forum, the bodies of citizens lie in heaps, and the gutters are gorged with free blood, and again the patricians win the day. Cinna, fleeing from wrath, is deposed from office. Marius sees his chance again. Unshaven and unshorn since he left Rome last, he joins Cinna, leading six thousand fugitives, seizes and plunders the towns about Rome, while Cinna encamps beneath the walls. Together they enter Rome and nail Octavius' head to the Rostra. Then the vengeance of wholesale slaying, in another reign of terror, and Marius is despot of the city for a while, as Sylla had been before, till spent with age, his life goes out amid drunkenness and blood. The people tear down Sylla's house, burn his villa and drive out his wife and his children. Back he comes after four years, victorious, fighting his way right and left, against Lucanians and Samnites, back to Rome still fighting them, almost loses the battle, is saved by Crassus to take vengeance again, and again the long lists of the proscribed are written out and hung up in the Forum, and the city runs blood in a third Terror. Amid heaps of severed heads, Sylla sits before the temple of Castor and sells the lands of his dead enemies; and Catiline is first known to history as the executioner of Caius Gratidianus, whom he slices to death, piecemeal, beyond the Tiber. [Illustration: THE TARPEIAN ROCK] Sylla, cold, aristocratic, sublimely ironical monster, was Rome's first absolute and undisputed military lord. Tired of blood, he tried reform, invented an aristocratic constitution, saw that it must fail, and then, to the amazement of his friends and enemies, abdicated and withdrew to private life, protected by a hundred thousand veterans of his army, and many thousands of freedmen, to die at the last without violence. Of the chaos he left behind him, Cæsar made the Roman Empire. The Gracchi, champions of the people, were foully done to death. Marius and Sylla, tearing the proud Republic to pieces for their own greatness, both died in their beds, the one of old age, the other of disease. There is no irony like that which often ended the lives of great Romans. Marcus Manlius, who saved the Capitol from the Gauls, was hurled to his death from the same rock, by the tribunes of the people, and Rome's citadel and sanctuary was desecrated by the blood of its preserver. Scipio of Africa breathed his last in exile, but Appius Claudius, the Decemvir, died rich and honoured. One asks, naturally enough, how Rome could hold the civilized nations in subjection while she was fighting out a civil war that lasted fifty years. We have but little idea of her great military organization, after arms became a profession and a career. We can but call up scattered pictures to show us rags and fragments of the immense host that patrolled the world with measured tread and matchless precision of serried rank, in tens and scores and hundreds of thousands, for centuries, shoulder to shoulder and flank to flank, learning its own strength by degrees, till it suddenly grasped all power, gave it to one man, and made Caius Julius Cæsar Dictator of the earth. The greatest figure in all history suddenly springs out of the dim chaos and shines in undying glory, the figure of a man so great that the office he held means Empire, and the mere name he bore means Emperor today in four empires,--Cæsar, Kaiser, Czar, Kaisár,--a man of so vast power that the history of humanity for centuries after him was the history of those who were chosen to fill his place--the history of nearly half the twelve centuries foretold by the augur Attus, from Romulus, first King, to Romulus Augustulus, last Emperor. He was a man whose deeds and laws have marked out the life of the world even to this far day. Before him and with him comes Pompey, with him and after him Mark Antony, next to him in line and greatness, Augustus--all dwarfs compared with him, while two of them were failures outright, and the third could never have reached power but in his steps. [Illustration: PALACE OF THE CÆSARS] In that long tempest of parties wherein the Republic went down for ever, it is hard to trace the truth, or number the slain, or reckon up account of gain and loss. But when Cæsar rises in the centre of the storm the end is sure and there can be no other, for he drives it before him like a captive whirlwind, to do his bidding and clear the earth for his coming. Other men, and great men, too, are overwhelmed by it, dashed down and stunned out of all sense and judgment, to be lost and forgotten like leaves in autumn, whirled away before the gale. Pompey, great general and great statesman, conqueror in Spain, subduer of Spartacus and the Gladiators, destroyer of pirates and final victor over Mithridates, comes back and lives as a simple citizen. Noble of birth, but not trusted by his peers, he joins with Cæsar, leader of all the people, and with Crassus, for more power, and loses the world by giving Cæsar an army, and Gaul to conquer. Crassus, brave general, too, is slain in battle in far Parthia, and Pompey steals a march by getting a long term in Spain. Cæsar demands as much and is refused by Pompey's friends. Then the storm breaks and Cæsar comes back from Gaul to cross the Rubicon, and take all Italy in sixty days. Pompey, ambitious, ill-starred, fights losing battles everywhere. Murdered at last in Egypt, he, too, is dead, and Cæsar stands alone, master of Rome and of the world. One year he ruled, and then they slew him; but no one of them that struck him died a natural death. Creation presupposes chaos, and it is the divine prerogative of genius to evolve order from confusion. Julius Cæsar found the world of his day consisting of disordered elements of strength, all at strife with each other in a central turmoil, skirted and surrounded by the relative peace of an ancient and long undisturbed barbarism. It was out of these elements that he created what has become modern Europe, and the direction which he gave to the evolution of mankind has never wholly changed since his day. Of all great conquerors he was the least cruel, for he never sacrificed human life without the direct intention of benefiting mankind by an increased social stability. Of all great lawgivers, he was the most wise and just, and the truths he set down in the Julian Code are the foundation of modern justice. Of all great men who have leaped upon the world as upon an unbroken horse, who have guided it with relentless hands, and ridden it breathless to the goal of glory, Cæsar is the only one who turned the race into the track of civilization and, dying, left mankind a future in the memory of his past. He is the one great man of all, without whom it is impossible to imagine history. We cannot take him away and yet leave anything of what we have. The world could have been as it is without Alexander, without Charlemagne, without Napoleon; it could not have been the world we know without Caius Julius Cæsar. That fact alone places him at the head of mankind. In Cæsar's life there is the same matter for astonishment as in Napoleon's; there is the vast disproportion between beginnings and climax, between the relative modesty of early aims and the stupendous magnitude of the climacteric result. One asks how in a few years the impecunious son of the Corsican notary became the world's despot, and how the fashionable young spendthrift lawyer of Rome, dabbling in politics and almost ignorant of warfare, rose in a quarter of a century to be the world's conqueror, lawgiver and civilizer. The daily miracle of genius is the incalculable speed at which it simultaneously thinks and acts. Nothing is so logical as creation, and creation is the first sign as well as the only proof that genius is present. Hitherto the life of Cæsar has not been logically presented. His youth appears almost always to be totally disconnected from his maturity. The first success, the conquest of Gaul, comes as a surprise, because its preparation is not described. After it everything seems natural, and conquest follows victory as daylight follows dawn; but when we try to think backwards from that first expedition, we either see nothing clearly, or we find Cæsar an insignificant unit in a general disorder, as hard to identify as an individual ant in a swarming ant-hill. In the lives of all 'great men,' which are almost always totally unlike the lives of the so-called 'great,'--those born, not to power, but in power,--there is a point which must inevitably be enigmatical. It may be called the Hour of Fate--the time when in the suddenly loosed play of many circumstances, strained like springs and held back upon themselves, a man who has been known to a few thousands finds himself the chief of millions and the despot of a nation. Things which are only steps to great men are magnified to attainments in ordinary lives, and remembered with pride. The man of genius is sure of the great result, if he can but get a fulcrum for his lever. What strikes one most in the careers of such men as Cæsar and Napoleon is the tremendous advance realized at the first step--the difference between Napoleon's half-subordinate position before the first campaign in Italy and his dominion of France immediately after it, or the distance which separated Cæsar, the impeached Consul, from Cæsar, the conqueror of Gaul. It must not be forgotten that Cæsar came of a family that had held great positions, and which, though impoverished, still had credit, subsequently stretched by Cæsar to the extreme limit of its borrowing power. At sixteen, an age when Bonaparte was still an unknown student, Cæsar was Flamen Dialis, or high priest of Jupiter, and at one and twenty, the 'ill-girt boy,' as Sylla called him from his way of wearing his toga, was important enough to be driven from Rome, a fugitive. His first attempt at a larger notoriety had failed, and Dolabella, whom he had impeached, had been acquitted through the influence of friends. Yet the young lawyer had found the opportunity of showing what he could do, and it was not without reason that Sylla said of him, 'You will find many a Marius in this one Cæsar.' Twenty years passed before the prophecy began to be realized with the commencement of Cæsar's career in Gaul, and more than once during that time his life seemed a failure in his own eyes, and he said scornfully and sadly of himself that he had done nothing to be remembered at an age when Alexander had already conquered the world. Those twenty years which, to the thoughtful man, are by far the most interesting of all, appear in history as a confused and shapeless medley of political, military and forensic activity, strongly coloured by social scandals, which rested upon a foundation of truth, and darkened by accusations of worse kind, for which there is no sort of evidence, and which may be safely attributed to the jealousy of unscrupulous adversaries. The first account of him, which we have in the seventeenth year of his age, evokes a picture of youthful beauty. The boy who is to win the world is appointed high priest of Jove in Rome,--by what strong influence we know not,--and we fancy the splendid youth with his tall figure, full of elastic endurance, the brilliant face, the piercing, bold, black eyes; we see him with the small mitre set back upon the dark and curling locks that grow low on the forehead, as hair often does that is to fall early, clad in the purple robe of his high office, summoning all his young dignity to lend importance to his youthful grace as he moves up to Jove's high altar to perform his first solemn sacrifice with his young consort; for the high priesthood of Jove was held jointly by man and wife, and if the wife died the husband lost his office. He was about twenty when he cast his lot with the people, and within the year he fled from Sylla's persecution. The life of sudden changes and contrasts had begun. Straight from the sacred office, with all its pomp, and splendour, and solemnity, Cæsar is a fugitive in the Sabine hills, homeless, wifeless, fever-stricken, a price on his head. Such quick chances of evil fell to many in the days of the great struggle between Marius and Sylla, between the people and the nobles. Then as Sylla yielded to the insistence of the young 'populist' nobleman's many friends, the quick reverse is turned to us. Cæsar has a military command, sees some fighting and much idleness by the shores of the Bosphorus, in Bithynia--then in a fit of sudden energy, the soldier's spirit rises; he dashes to the attack on Mytilene, and shows himself a man. [Illustration: CAIUS JULIUS CÆSAR After a statue in the Palazzo dei Conservatori] One or two unimportant campaigns, as a subordinate officer, a civic crown won for personal bravery, an unsuccessful action brought against a citizen of high rank in the hope of forcing himself into notice, a trip to Rhodes made to escape the disgrace of failure, and an adventure with pirates--there, in a few words, is the story of Julius Cæsar's youth, as history tells it. But then suddenly, when his projected studies in quiet Rhodes were hardly begun, he crosses to the mainland, raises troops, seizes cities, drives Mithridates' governor out of the province, returns to Rome and is elected military tribune. The change is too quick, and one does not understand it. Truth should tell that those early years had been spent in the profound study of philosophy, history, biography, languages and mankind, of the genesis of events from the germ to the branching tree, of that chemistry of fate which brews effect out of cause, and distils the imperishable essence of glory from the rougher liquor of vulgar success. What strikes one most in the lives of the very great is that every action has a cumulative force beyond what it ever has in the existence of ordinary men. Success moves onward, passing through events on the same plane, as it were, and often losing brilliancy till it fades away, leaving those who have had it to outlive it in sorrow and weakness. Genius moves upward, treading events under its feet, scaling Olympus, making a ladder of mankind, outlasting its own activity for ever in a final and fixed glory more splendid than its own bright path. The really great man gathers power in action, the average successful man expends it. And so it must be understood that Cæsar, in his early youth, was not wasting his gifts in what seemed to be a half-voluptuous, half-adventurous, wholly careless life, but was accumulating strength by absorbing into himself the forces with which he came in contact, exhausting the intelligence of his companions in order to stock his own, learning everything simultaneously, forgetting nothing he learned till he could use all he knew to the extreme limit of its value. There is something mysterious in the almost unlimited credit which Cæsar seems to have enjoyed when still a very young man; and if the control of enormous sums of money by which he made himself beloved among the people explains, in a measure, his rapid rise from office to office, it is, on the other hand, hard to account for the trust which his creditors placed in his promises, and to explain why, when he was taken by pirates, the cities of Asia Minor should have voluntarily contributed money to make up the ransom demanded, seeing that he had never served in Asia, except as a subordinate. The only possible explanation is that while there, his real energies were devoted to the attainment of the greatest possible popularity in the shortest possible time, and that he was making himself beloved by the Asiatic cities, while his enemies said of him that he was wasting his time in idleness and dissipation. In any case, it was the control of money that most helped him in obtaining high offices in Rome, and from the very first he seems to have acted on the principle that in great enterprises economy spells ruin, and that to check expenditure is to trip up success. And this is explained, if not justified, by his close association with the people, from his very childhood. Until he was made Pontifex Maximus he seems to have lived in a small house in the Suburra, in one of the most crowded and least fashionable quarters of Rome; and as a mere boy, it was his influence with the common people that roused Sylla's anxiety. To live with the people, to take their part against the nobles, to give them of all he had and of all he could borrow, were the chief rules of his conduct, and the fact that he obtained such enormous loans proves that there were rich lenders who were ready to risk fortunes upon his success. And it was in dealing with the Roman plebeian that he learned to command the Roman soldier, with the tact of a demagogue and the firmness of an autocrat. He knew that a man must give largely, even recklessly, to be beloved, and that in order to be respected he must be able to refuse coldly and without condition, and that in all ages the people are but as little children before genius, though they may rise against talent like wild beasts and tear it to death. He knew also that in youth ten failures are nothing compared with one success, while in the full meridian of power one failure undoes a score of victories; hence his recklessness at first, his magnificent caution in his latter days; his daring resistance of Sylla's power before he was twenty, and his mildness towards the ringleaders of popular conspiracies against him when he was near his end; his violence upon the son of King Juba, whom he seized by the beard in open court when he himself was but a young lawyer, and his moderation in bearing the most atrocious libels, to punish which might have only increased their force. Cæsar's career divides itself not unnaturally into three periods, corresponding with his youth, his manhood and his maturity; with the absorption of force in gaining experience, the lavish expenditure of force in conquest, the calm employment of force in final supremacy. The man who never lost a battle in which he commanded in person, began life by failing in everything he attempted, and ended it as the foremost man of all humanity, past and to come, the greatest general, the greatest speaker, the greatest lawgiver, the greatest writer of Latin prose whom the great Roman people ever produced, and also the bravest man of his day, as he was the kindest. In an age when torture was a legitimate part of justice, he caused the pirates who had taken him, and whom he took in turn, to be mercifully put to death before he crucified their dead bodies for his oath's sake, and when his long-trusted servant tried to poison him he would not allow the wretch to be hurt save by the sudden stroke of instant death; nor ever in a long career of conquest did he inflict unnecessary pain. Never was man loved of women as he was, and his sins were many even for those days, yet in them we find no unkindness, and when his own wife should have been condemned for her love of Clodius, Cæsar would not testify against her. He divorced her, he said, not because he knew anything, but because his family should be above suspicion. He plundered the world, but he gave it back its gold in splendid gifts and public works, keeping its glory alone for himself. He was hated by the few because he was beloved by the many, and it was not revenge, but envy, that slew the benefactor of mankind. The weaknesses of the supreme conqueror were love of woman and trust of man, and as the first Brutus made his name glorious by setting his people free, the second disgraced it and blackened the name of friendship with a stain that will outlast time, and by a deed second only in infamy to that of Judas Iscariot. The last cry of the murdered master was the cry of a broken heart--'And thou, too, Brutus, my son!' Alexander left chaos behind him; Cæsar left Europe, and it may be truly said that the crowning manifestation of his sublime wisdom was his choice of Octavius--of the young Augustus--to complete the carving of a world which he himself had sketched and blocked out in the rough. The first period of his life ended with his election to the military tribuneship on his return to Rome after his Asian adventures, and his first acts were directed towards the reconstruction of what Sylla had destroyed, by reëstablishing the authority of tribunes and recalling some of Sylla's victims from their political exile. From that time onward, in his second period, he was more or less continually in office. Successively a tribune, a quæstor, governor of Farther Spain, ædile, pontifex maximus, prætor, governor of Spain again, and consul with the insignificant Bibulus, a man of so small importance that people used to date documents, by way of a jest, 'in the Consulship of Julius and Cæsar.' Then he obtained Gaul for his province, and lived the life of a soldier for nine years, during which he created the army that gave him at last the mastery of Rome. And in the tenth year Rome was afraid, and his enemies tried to deprive him of his power and passed bills against him, and drove out the tribunes of the people who took his part; and if he had returned to Rome then, yielding up his province and his legions, as he was called upon to do, he would have been judged and destroyed by his enemies. But he knew that the people loved him, and he crossed the Rubicon in arms. This second period of his life closed with the last triumph decreed to him for his victories in Spain. The third and final period had covered but one year when his assassins cut it short. Nothing demonstrates Cæsar's greatness so satisfactorily as this, that at his death Rome relapsed at once into civil war and strife as violent as that to which Cæsar had put an end, and that the man who brought lasting peace and unity into the distracted state, was the man of Cæsar's choice. But in endeavouring to realize his supreme wisdom, nothing helps us more than the pettiness of the accusations brought against him by such historians as Suetonius--that he once remained seated to receive the whole body of Conscript fathers, that he had a gilded chair in the Senate house, and appointed magistrates at his own pleasure to hold office for terms of years, that he laughed at an unfavourable omen and made himself dictator for life; and such things, says the historian, 'are of so much more importance than all his good qualities that he is considered to have abused his power and to have been justly assassinated.' But it is the people, not the historian, who make history, and when Caius Julius Cæsar was dead, the people called him God. Beardless Octavius, his sister's daughter's son, barely eighteen years old, brings in by force the golden age of Rome. As Triumvir, with Antony and Lepidus, he hunts down the murderers first, then his rebellious colleagues, and wins the Empire back in thirteen years. He rules long and well, and very simply, as commanding general of the army and by no other power, taking all into his hands besides, the Senate, the chief priesthood, and the Majesty of Rome over the whole earth, for which he was called Augustus, the 'Majestic.' And his strength lay in this, that by the army, he was master of Senate and people alike, so that they could no longer strive with each other in perpetual bloodshed, and the everlasting wars of Rome were fought against barbarians far away, while Rome at home was prosperous and calm and peaceful. Then Virgil sang, and Horace gave Latin life to Grecian verse, and smiled and laughed, and wept and dallied with love, while Livy wrote the story of greatness for us all to this day, and Ovid touched another note still unforgotten. Then temple rose by temple, and grand basilicas reared their height by the Sacred Way; the gold of the earth poured in and Art was queen and mistress of the age. Julius Cæsar was master in Rome for one year. Augustus ruled nearly half a century. Four and forty years he was sole monarch after Antony's fall at Actium. About the thirtieth year of his reign, Christ was born. All men have an original claim to be judged by the standard of their own time. Counting one by one the victims of the proscription proclaimed by the triumvirate in which Augustus was the chief power, some historians have brought down his greatness in quick declination to the level of a cold-blooded and cruel selfishness; and they account for his subsequent just and merciful conduct on the ground that he foresaw political advantage in clemency, and extension of power in the exercise of justice. The death of Cicero, sacrificed to Antony's not unreasonable vengeance, is magnified into a crime that belittles the Augustan age. Yet compared with the wholesale murders done by Marius and Sylla, and by the patricians themselves in their struggles with the people, the few political executions ordered by Augustus sink into comparative insignificance, and it will generally be seen that those who most find fault with him are ready to extol the murderers of Julius Cæsar as devoted patriots, if not as glorious martyrs to the divine cause of liberty. [Illustration: OCTAVIUS AUGUSTUS CÆSAR After a bust in the British Museum] It is easier, perhaps, to describe the growth of Rome from the early Kings to Augustus, than to account for the change from the Rome of the Empire at the beginning of our era to the Rome of the Popes in the year eight hundred. Probably the easiest and truest way of looking at the transition is to regard it according to the periods of supremacy, decadence and ultimate disappearance from Rome of the Roman Army. For the Army made the Emperors, and the Emperors made the times. The great military organization had in it the elements of long life, together with all sudden and terrible possibilities. The Army made Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, the Julian Emperors; then destroyed Nero and set up Vespasian after one or two experiments. The Army chose such men as Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, and such monsters as Domitian and Commodus; the Army conquered the world, held the world and gave the world to whomsoever it pleased. The Army and the Emperor, each the other's tool, governed Rome for good and ill, for ill and good, by fear and bounty and largely by amusement, but ultimately to their own and Rome's destruction. For all the time the two great adversaries of the Empire, the spiritual and material, the Christian and the men of the North, were gaining strength and unity. Under Augustus, Christ was born. Under Augustus, Hermann the German chieftain destroyed Varus and his legions. By sheer strength and endurance, the Army widened and broadened the Empire, forcing back the Northmen upon themselves like a spring that gathers force by tension. Unnoticed, at first, Christianity quietly grew to power. Between Christians and Northmen, the Empire of Rome went down at last, leaving the Empire of Constantinople behind it. The great change was wrought in about five hundred years, by the Empire, from the City of the Republic to what had become the City of the Middle Age; between the reign of Augustus, first Emperor, and the deposition of the last Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, by Odoacer, Rome's hired Pomeranian general. In that time Rome was transubstantiated in all its elements, in population, in language, in religion and in customs. To all intents and purposes, the original Latin race utterly disappeared, and the Latin tongue became the broken dialect of a mixed people, out of which the modern Italian speech was to grow, decadent in form, degenerate in strength but renascent in a grace and beauty which the Latin never possessed. First the vast population of slaves brought in their civilized and their barbarous words--Greek, Hebrew and Arabic, or Celtic, German and Slav; then came the Goth, and filled all Italy with himself and his rough language for a hundred years. The Latin of the Roman Mass is the Latin of slaves in Rome between the first and fifth centuries, from the time of the Apostles to that of Pope Gelasius, whose prayer for peace and rest is the last known addition to the Canon, according to most authorities. Compare it with the Latin of Livy and Tacitus; it is not the same language, for to read the one by no means implies an understanding of the other. Or take the dress. It is told of Augustus, as a strange and almost unknown thing, that he wore breeches and stockings, or leg swathings, because he suffered continually with cold. Men went barelegged and wrapped themselves in the huge toga which came down to their feet. In the days of Augustulus the toga was almost forgotten; men wore leggings, tunics and the short Greek cloak. In the change of religion, too, all customs were transformed, private and public, in a way impossible to realize today. The Roman household, with the father as absolute head, lord and despot, gradually gave way to a sort of half-patriarchal, half-religious family life, resembling the first in principle but absolutely different from it in details and result, and which, in a measure, has survived in Italy to the present time. In the lives of men, the terror of one man, as each despot lost power, began to give way to the fear of half-defined institutions, of the distant government in Constantinople and of the Church as a secular power, till the time came when the title of Emperor raised a smile, whereas the name of the Pope--of the 'Father-Bishop'--was spoken with reverence by Christians and with respect even by unbelievers. The time came when the army that had made Emperors and unmade them at its pleasure became a mere band of foreign mercenaries, who fought for wages and plunder when they could be induced to fight for Rome at all. So the change came. But in the long five hundred years of the Western Empire Rome had filled the world with the results of her own life and had founded modern Europe, from the Danube to England and from the Rhine to Gibraltar; so that when the tide set towards the south again, the Northmen brought back to Italy some of the spirit and some of the institutions which Rome had carried northwards to them in the days of conquest; and they came not altogether as strangers and barbarians, as the Huns had come, to ravage and destroy, and be themselves destroyed and scattered and forgotten, but, in a measure, as Europeans against Europeans, hoping to grasp the remnants of a civilized power. Theodoric tried to make a real kingdom, Totila and Teias fell fighting for one; the Franks established one in Gaul, and at last it was a Frank who gave the Empire life again, and conquests and laws, and was crowned by the Christian Pontifex Maximus in Rome when Julius Cæsar had been dead more than eight hundred years. One of the greatest of the world's historians has told the story of the change, calling it the 'Decline and Fall of the Empire,' and describing it in some three thousand pages, of which scarcely one can be spared for the understanding of the whole. Thereby its magnitude may be gauged, but neither fairly judged nor accurately measured. The man who would grasp the whole meaning of Rome's name, must spend a lifetime in study and look forward to disappointment in the end. It was Ampère, I believe, who told a young student that he might get a superficial impression of the city in ten years, but that twenty would be necessary in order to know anything about it worthy to be written. And perhaps the largest part of the knowledge worth having lies in the change from the ancient capital of the Empire to the mediæval seat of ecclesiastic domination. And, indeed, nothing in all history is more extraordinary than the rise of Rome's second power under the Popes. In the ordinary course of human events, great nations appear to have had but one life. When that was lived out, and when they had passed through the artistic period so often coincident with early decadence, they were either swept away, or they sank to the insignificance of mere commercial prosperity, thereafter deriving their fashions, arts, tastes, and in fact almost everything except their wealth, from nations far gone in decay. [Illustration: THE CAMPAGNA And Ruins of the Claudian Aqueduct] But in Rome it was otherwise. The growth of the faith which subjected the civilized world was a matter of first importance to civilization, and Rome was the centre of that growing. Moreover, that development and that faith had one head, chosen by election, and the headship itself became an object of the highest ambition, whereby the strength and genius of individuals and families were constantly called into activity, and both families and isolated individuals of foreign race were attracted to Rome. It was no small thing to hold the kings of the earth in spiritual subjection, to be the arbiter of the new Empire founded by Charlemagne, the director of the kingdoms built up in France and England, and, almost literally, the feudal lord over all other temporal powers. The force of a predominant idea gave Rome new life, vivifying new elements with the vitality of new ambitions. The theatre was the same. The actors and the play had changed. The world was no longer governed by one man as monarch; it was directed by one man, who was the chief personage in the vast and intricate feudal system by which strong men agreed to live, and to which they forced the weak to submit. The Barons came into existence, and Rome was a city of fortresses and towers, as well as churches. Orsini and Colonna, Caetani and Vitelleschi, Savelli and Frangipani, fought with each other for centuries among ruins, built strongholds of the stones of temples, and burned the marble treasures of the world to make lime. And fiercely they held their own. Nicholas Rienzi wanders amid the deserted places, deciphers the broken inscriptions, gathers a little crowd of plebeians about him and tells them of ancient Rome, and of the rights of the people in old times. All at once he rises, a grand shadow of a Roman, a true tribune, brave, impulsive, eloquent. A little while longer and he is half mad with vanity and ambition, a public fool in a high place, decking himself in silks and satins, and ornaments of gold, and the angry nobles slay him on the steps of the Aracoeli, as other nobles long ago slew Tiberius Gracchus, a greater and a better man, almost on the same spot. Meanwhile the great schism of the Church rages, before and after Rienzi. The Empire and its Kingdoms join issue with each other and with the Barons for the lordship of Christendom; there are two Popes, waging war with nations on both sides, and Rome is reduced to a town of barely twenty thousand souls. Then comes Hildebrand, Pope Gregory the Seventh, friend of the Great Countess, humbler of the Emperor, a restorer of things, the Julius Cæsar of the Church, and from his day there is stability again, as Urban the Second follows, like an Augustus; Nicholas the Fifth, the next great Pontiff, comes in with the Renascence. Last of destroyers Charles, the wild Constable of Bourbon, marches in open rebellion against King, State and Church, friend to the Emperor, straight to his death at the walls, his work of destruction carried out to the terrible end by revengeful Spaniards who spare only the churches and the convents. Out of those ashes Rome rose again, for the last time, the Rome of Sixtus the Fifth, which is, substantially, the Rome we see today; less powerful in the world after that time, but more beautiful as she grew more peaceful by degrees; flourishing in a strange, motley way, like no other city in the world, as the Empire of the Hapsburgs and the Kingdoms of Europe learned to live apart from her, and she was concentrated again upon herself, still and always a factor among nations, and ever to be. But even in latter days, Napoleon could not do without her, and Francis the Second of Austria had to resign the Empire, in order that Pius the Seventh might call the self-crowned Corsican soldier, girt with Charlemagne's huge sword, the anointed Emperor of Christendom. Once more a new idea gives life to fragments hewn in pieces and scattered in confusion. A dream of unity disturbs Italy's sleep. Never, in truth, in all history, has Italy been united save by violence. By the sword the Republic brought Latins, Samnites and Etruscans into subjection; by sheer strength she crushed the rebellion of the slaves and then forced the Italian allies to a second submission; by terror Marius and Sylla ruled Rome and Italy; and it was the overwhelming power of a paid army that held the Italians in check under the Empire, till they broke away from each other as soon as the pressure was removed, to live in separate kingdoms and principalities for thirteen or fourteen hundred years, from Romulus Augustulus--or at least from Justinian--to Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, in whose veins ran not one drop of Italian blood. One asks whence came the idea of unity which has had such power to move these Italians, in modern times. The answer is plain and simple. Unity is the word; the interpretation of it is the name of Rome. The desire is for all the romance and the legends and the visions of supreme greatness which no other name can ever call up. What will be called hereafter the madness of the Italian people took possession of them on the day when Rome was theirs to do with as they pleased. Their financial ruin had its origin at that moment, when they became masters of the legendary Mistress of the world. What the end will be, no one can foretell, but the Rome of old was not made great by dreams. Her walls were founded in blood, and her temples were built with the wealth of conquered nations, by captives and slaves of subject races. The Rome we see today owes its mystery, its sadness and its charm to six and twenty centuries of history, mostly filled with battle, murder and sudden death, deeds horrible in that long-past present which we try to call up, but alternately grand, fascinating and touching now, as we shape our scant knowledge into visions and fill out our broken dreams with the stuff of fancy. In most men's minds, perhaps, the charm lies in that very confusion of suggestions, for few indeed know Rome so well as to divide clearly the truth from the legend in her composition. Such knowledge is perhaps altogether unattainable in any history; it is most surely so here, where city is built on city, monument upon monument, road upon road, from the heart of the soil upwards--the hardened lava left by many eruptions of life; where the tablets of Clio have been shattered again and again, where fire has eaten, and sword has hacked, and hammer has bruised ages of records out of existence, where even the race and type of humanity have changed and have been forgotten twice and three times over. Therefore, unless one have half a lifetime to spend in patient study and deep research, it is better, if one come to Rome, to feel much than to try and know a little, for in much feeling there is more human truth than in that dangerous little knowledge which dulls the heart and hampers the clear instincts of natural thought. Let him who comes hither be satisfied with a little history and much legend, with rough warp of fact and rich woof of old-time fancy, and not look too closely for the perfect sum of all, where more than half the parts have perished for ever. It matters not much whether we know the exact site of Virgil's Laurentum; it is more interesting to remember how Commodus, cruel, cowardly and selfish, fled thither from the great plague, caring not at all that his people perished by tens of thousands in the city, since he himself was safe, with the famous Galen to take care of him. We can leave the task of tracing the enclosures of Nero's golden house to learned archælogists, and let our imagination find wonder and delight in their accounts of its porticos three thousand feet long, its game park, its baths, its thousands of columns with their gilded capitals, and its walls encrusted with mother-of-pearl. And we may realize the depth of Rome's abhorrence for the dead tyrant, as we think of how Vespasian and his son Titus pulled down the enchanted palace for the people's sake, and built the Colosseum where the artificial lake had been, and their great baths on the very foundations of Nero's gorgeous dwelling. [Illustration: BRASS OF TRAJAN, SHOWING THE CIRCUS MAXIMUS] [Illustration: BRASS OF ANTONINUS PIUS, IN HONOUR OF FAUSTINA, WITH REVERSE SHOWING VESTA BEARING THE PALLADIUM] III It is impossible to conceive of the Augustan age without Horace, nor to imagine a possible Horace without Greece and Greek influence. At the same time Horace is in many ways the prototype of the old-fashioned, cultivated, gifted, idle, sarcastic, middle-class Roman official, making the most of life on a small salary and the friendship of a great personage; praising poverty, but making the most of the good things that fell in his way; extolling pristine austerity of life and yielding with a smile to every agreeable temptation; painting the idyllic life of a small gentleman farmer as the highest state of happiness, but secretly preferring the town; prudently avoiding marriage, but far too human to care for an existence in which woman had no share; more sensible in theory than in practice, and more religious in manner than in heart; full of quaint superstitions, queer odds and ends of knowledge, amusing anecdotes and pictures of personal experience; the whole compound permeated with a sort of indolent sadness at the unfulfilled promises of younger years, in which there had been more of impulse than of ambition, and more of ambition than real strength. The early struggles for Italian unity left many such half-disappointed patriots, and many less fortunate in their subsequent lives than Horace. Born in the far South, and the son of a freed slave, brought to Rome as a boy and carefully taught, then sent to Athens to study Greek, he was barely twenty years of age when he joined Brutus after Cæsar's death, was with him in Asia, and, in the lack of educated officers perhaps, found himself one day, still a mere boy, tribune of a Legion--or, as we should say, in command of a brigade of six thousand men, fighting for what he believed to be the liberty of Rome, in the disastrous battle of Philippi. Brutus being dead, the dream of glory ended, after the amnesty, in a scribe's office under one of the quæstors, and the would-be liberator of his country became a humble clerk in the Treasury, eking out his meagre salary with the sale of a few verses. Many an old soldier of Garibaldi's early republican dreams has ended in much the same way in our own times under the monarchy. But Horace was born to other things. Chaucer was a clerk in the Custom House, and found time to be the father of English poetry. Horace's daily work did not hinder him from becoming a poet. His love of Greek, acquired in Athens and Asia Minor, and the natural bent of his mind made him the greatest imitator and adapter of foreign verses that ever lived; and his character, by its eminently Italian combination of prim respectability and elastic morality, gave him a two-sided view of men and things that has left us representations of life in three dimensions instead of the flat, though often violent, pictures which prejudice loves best to paint. In his admiration of Greek poetry, Horace was not a discoverer; he was rather the highest expression of Rome's artistic want. If Scipio of Africa had never conquered the Carthaginians at Zama, he would be notable still as one of the first and most sincere lovers of Hellenic literature, and as one of the earliest imitators of Athenian manners. The great conqueror is remembered also as the first man in Rome who shaved every day, more than a hundred and fifty years before Horace's time. He was laughed at by some, despised by others and disliked by the majority for his cultivated tastes and his refined manners. The Romans had most gifts excepting those we call creative. Instead of creating, therefore, Rome took her art whole, and by force, from the most artistic nation the world ever produced. Sculptors, architects, painters and even poets, such as there were, came captive to Rome in gangs, were sold at auction as slaves, and became the property of the rich, to work all their lives at their several arts for their master's pleasure; and the State rifled Greece and Asia, and even the Greek Italy of the south, and brought back the masterpieces of an age to adorn Rome's public places. The Roman was the engineer, the maker of roads, of aqueducts, of fortifications, the layer out of cities, and the planner of harbours. In a word, the Roman made the solid and practical foundation, and then set the Greek slave to beautify it. When he had watched the slave at work for a century or two, he occasionally attempted to imitate him. That was as far as Rome ever went in original art. But her love of the beautiful, though often indiscriminating and lacking in taste, was profound and sincere. It does not appear that in all her conquests her armies ever wantonly destroyed beautiful things. On the contrary, her generals brought home all they could with uncommon care, and the consequence was that in Horace's day the public places of the city were vast open-air museums, and the great temples picture galleries of which we have not the like now in the whole world. And with those things came all the rest; the manners, the household life, the necessaries and the fancies of a conquering and already decadent nation, the thousands of slaves whose only duty was to amuse their owners and the public; the countless men and women and girls and boys, whose souls and bodies went to feed the corruption of the gorgeous capital, or to minister to its enormous luxuries; the companies of flute-players and dancing-girls, the sharp-tongued jesters, the coarse buffoons, the play-actors and the singers. And then, the endless small commerce of an idle and pleasure-seeking people, easily attracted by bright colours, new fashions and new toys; the drug-sellers and distillers of perfumes, the venders of Eastern silks and linens and lace, the barbers and hairdressers, the jewellers and tailors, the pastry cooks and makers of honey-sweetmeats; and everywhere the poor rabble of failures, like scum in the wake of a great ship; the beggars everywhere, and the pickpockets and the petty thieves. It is no wonder that Horace was fond of strolling in Rome. In contrast, the great and wonderful things of the Augustan city stand out in high relief, above the varied crowd that fills the streets, with all the dignity that centuries of power can lend. To the tawdry is opposed the splendid, the Roman general in his chiselled corselet and dyed mantle faces the Greek actor in his tinsel; the band of painted, half-clad, bedizened dancing-girls falls back cowering in awestruck silence as the noble Vestal passes by, high-browed, white-robed, untainted, the incarnation of purity in an age of vice. And the old Senator in his white cloak with its broad purple hem, his smooth-faced clients at his elbows, his silent slaves before him and behind, meets the low-chattering knot of Hebrew money-lenders, making the price of short loans for the day, and discussing the assets of a famous spendthrift, as their yellow-turbaned, bearded fathers had talked over the chances of Julius Cæsar when he was as yet but a fashionable young lawyer of doubtful fortune, with an unlimited gift of persuasion and an equally unbounded talent for amusement. Between the contrasts lived men of such position as Horace occupied, but not many. For the great middle element of society is a growth of later centuries, and even Horace himself, as time went on, became attached to Mæcenas and then, more or less, to the person of the Emperor, by a process of natural attraction, just as his butt, Tigellius, gravitated to the common herd that mourned his death. The 'golden mean' of which Horace wrote was a mere expression, taught him, perhaps, by his father, a part of his stock of maxims. Where there were only great people on the one side, and a rabble on the other, the man of genius necessarily rose to the level of the high, by his own instinct and their liking. What was best of Greek was for them, what was worst was for the populace. But the Greek was everywhere, with his keen weak face, his sly look and his skilful fingers. Scipio and Paulus Emilius had brought him, and he stayed in Rome till the Goth came, and afterwards. Greek poetry, Greek philosophy, Greek sculpture, Greek painting, Greek music everywhere--to succeed at all in such society, Virgil and Horace and Ovid must needs make Greek of Latin, and bend the stiff syllables to Alcaics and Sapphics and Hexameters. The task looked easy enough, though it was within the powers of so very few. Thousands tried it, no doubt, when the three or four had set the fashion, and failed, as the second-rate fail, with some little brief success in their own day, turned into the total failure of complete disappearance when they had been dead awhile. Supreme of them all, for his humanity, Horace remains. Epic Virgil, appealing to the traditions of a living race of nobles and to the carefully hidden, sober vanity of the world's absolute monarch, does not appeal to modern man. The twilight of the gods has long deepened into night, and Ovid's tales of them and their goddesses move us by their own beauty rather than by our sympathy for them, though we feel the tender touch of the exiled man whose life was more than half love, in the marvellous Letters of Heroes' Sweethearts--in the complaint of Briseïs to Achilles, in the passionately sad appeal of Hermione to Orestes. Whoever has not read these things does not know the extreme limit of man's understanding of woman. Yet Horace, with little or nothing of such tenderness, has outdone Ovid and Virgil in this later age. He strolled through life, and all life was a play of which he became the easy-going but unforgetful critic. There was something good-natured even in his occasional outbursts of contempt and hatred for the things and the people he did not like. There was something at once caressing and good-humouredly sceptical in his way of addressing the gods, something charitable in his attacks on all that was ridiculous,--men, manners and fashions. He strolled wherever he would, alone; in the market, looking at everything and asking the price of what he saw, of vegetables and grain and the like; in the Forum, or the Circus, at evening, when 'society' was dining, and the poor people and slaves thronged the open places for rest and air, and there he used to listen to the fortune-tellers, and among them, no doubt, was that old hag, Canidia, immortalized in the huge joke of his comic resentment. He goes home to sup on lupins and fritters and leeks,--or says so,--though his stomach abhorred garlic; and his three slaves--the fewest a man could have--wait on him as he lies before the clean white marble table, leaning on his elbow. He does not forget the household gods, and pours a few drops upon the cement floor in libation to them, out of the little earthen saucer filled from the slim-necked bottle of Campanian earthenware. Then to sleep, careless of getting up early or late, just as he might feel, to stay at home and read or write, or to wander about the city, or to play the favourite left-handed game of ball in the Campus Marius before his bath and his light midday meal. With a little change here and there, it is the life of the idle middle-class Italian today, which will always be much the same, let the world wag and change as it will, with all its extravagances, its fashions and its madnesses. Now and then he exclaims that there is no average common sense left in the world, no half-way stopping-place between extremes. One man wears his tunic to his heels, another is girt up as if for a race; Rufillus smells of perfumery, Gargonius of anything but scent; and so on--and he cries out that when a fool tries to avoid a mistake he will run to any length in the opposite direction. And Horace had a most particular dislike for fools and bores, and has left us the most famous description of the latter ever set down by an accomplished observer. By chance, he says, he was walking one morning along the Sacred Street with one slave behind him, thinking of some trifle and altogether absorbed in it, when a man whom he barely knew by name came up with him in a great hurry and grasped his hand. 'How do you do, sweet friend?' asks the Bore. 'Pretty well, as times go,' answers Horace, stopping politely for a moment; and then beginning to move on, he sees to his horror that the Bore walks by his side. 'Can I do anything for you?' asks the poet, still civil, but hinting that he prefers his own company. The Bore plunges into the important business of praising himself, with a frankness not yet forgotten in his species, and Horace tries to get rid of him, walking very fast, then very slowly, then turning to whisper a word to his slave, and in his anxiety he feels the perspiration breaking out all over him, while his Tormentor chatters on, as they skirt the splendid Julian Basilica, gleaming in the morning sun. Horace looks nervously and eagerly to right and left, hoping to catch sight of a friend and deliverer. Not a friendly face was in sight, and the Bore knew it, and was pitilessly frank. 'Oh, I know you would like to get away from me!' he exclaimed. 'I shall not let you go so easily! Where are you going?' 'Across the Tiber,' answered Horace, inventing a distant visit. 'I am going to see someone who lives far off, in Cæsar's gardens--a man you do not know. He is ill.' 'Very well,' said the other; 'I have nothing to do, and am far from lazy. I will go all the way with you.' Horace hung his head, as a poor little Italian donkey does when a heavy load is piled upon his back, for he was fairly caught, and he thought of the long road before him, and he had moreover the unpleasant consciousness that the Bore was laughing at his imaginary errand, since they were walking in a direction exactly opposite from the Tiber, and would have to go all the way round the Palatine by the Triumphal Road and the Circus Maximus and then cross by the Sublician bridge, instead of turning back towards the Velabrum, the Provision Market and the Bridge of Æmilius, which we have known and crossed as the Ponte Rotto, but of which only one arch is left now, in midstream. [Illustration: PONTE ROTTO, NOW DESTROYED After an engraving made about 1850] Then, pressing his advantage, the Bore began again. 'If I am any judge of myself,' he observed, 'you will make me one of your most intimate friends. I am sure nobody can write such good verses as fast as I can. As for my singing, I know it for a fact that Hermogenes is decidedly jealous of me!' 'Have you a mother, Sir?' asked Horace, gravely. 'Have you any relations to whom your safety is a matter of importance?' 'No,' answered the other, 'no one. I have buried them all!' 'Lucky people!' said the poet to himself, and he wished he were dead, too, at that moment, and he thought of all the deaths he might have died. It was evidently not written that he should die of poison nor in battle, nor of a cough, nor of the liver, nor even of gout. He was to be slowly talked to death by a bore. By this time they were before the temple of Castor and Pollux, where the great Twin Brethren bathed their horses at Juturna's spring. The temple of Vesta was before them, and the Sacred Street turned at right angles to the left, crossing over between a row of shops on one side and the Julian Rostra on the other, to the Courts of Law. The Bore suddenly remembered that he was to appear in answer to an action on that very morning, and as it was already nine o'clock, he could not possibly walk all the way to Cæsar's gardens and be back before noon, and if he was late, he must forfeit his bail, and the suit would go against him by default. On the other hand, he had succeeded in catching the great poet alone, after a hundred fruitless attempts, and the action was not a very important one, after all. He stopped short. 'If you have the slightest regard for me,' he said, 'you will just go across with me to the Courts for a moment.' Horace looked at him curiously, seeing a chance of escape. 'You know where I am going,' he answered with a smile; 'and as for law, I do not know the first thing about it.' The Bore hesitated, considered what the loss of the suit must cost him, and what he might gain by pushing his acquaintance with the friend of Mæcenas and Augustus. 'I am not sure,' he said doubtfully, 'whether I had better give up your company, or my case,' 'My company, by all means!' cried Horace, with alacrity. 'No!' answered the other, looking at his victim thoughtfully, 'I think not!' And he began to move on again by the Nova Via towards the House of the Vestals. Having made up his mind to sacrifice his money, however, he lost no time before trying to get an equivalent for it. 'How do you stand with Mæcenas?' he asked suddenly, fixing his small eyes on Horace's weary profile, and without waiting for an answer he ran on to praise the great man. 'He is keen and sensible,' he continued, 'and has not many intimate friends. No one knows how to take advantage of luck as he does. You would find me a valuable ally, if you would introduce me. I believe you might drive everybody else out of the field--with my help, of course.' 'You are quite mistaken there!' answered Horace, rather indignantly. 'He is not at all that kind of man! There is not a house in Rome where any sort of intrigue would be more utterly useless!' 'Really, I can hardly believe it!' 'It is a fact, nevertheless,' retorted Horace, stoutly. 'Well,' said the Bore, 'if it is, I am of course all the more anxious to know such a man!' Horace smiled quietly. 'You have only to wish it, my dear Sir,' he answered, with the faintest modulation of polite irony in his tone. 'With such gifts at your command, you will certainly charm him. Why, the very reason of his keeping most people at arm's length is that he knows how easily he yields!' 'In that case, I will show you what I can do,' replied the Bore, delighted. 'I shall bribe the slaves; I will not give it up, if I am not received at first! I will bide my time and catch him in the street, and follow him about. One gets nothing in life without taking trouble!' As the man was chattering on, Horace's quick eyes caught sight of an old friend at last, coming towards him from the corner of the Triumphal Road, for they had already almost passed the Palatine. Aristius, sauntering along and enjoying the morning air, with a couple of slaves at his heels, saw Horace's trouble in a moment, for he knew the Bore well enough, and realized at once that if he delivered his friend, he himself would be the next victim. He was far too clever for that, and with a cold-blooded smile pretended not to understand Horace's signals of distress. 'I forget what it was you wished to speak about with me so particularly, my dear Aristius,' said the poet, in despair. 'It was something very important, was it not?' 'Yes,' answered the other, with another grin, 'I remember very well; but this is an unlucky day, and I shall choose another time. Today is the thirtieth Sabbath,' he continued, inventing a purely imaginary Hebrew feast, 'and you surely would not risk a Jew's curse for a few moments of conversation, would you?' 'I have no religion!' exclaimed Horace, eagerly. 'No superstition! Nothing!' 'But I have,' retorted Aristius, still smiling. 'My health is not good--perhaps you did not know? I will tell you about it some other time.' And he turned on his heel, with a laugh, leaving Horace to his awful fate. Even the sunshine looked black. But salvation came suddenly in the shape of the man who had brought the action against the Bore, and who, on his way to the Court, saw his adversary going off in the opposite direction. 'Coward! Villain!' yelled the man, springing forward and catching the poet's tormentor by his cloak. 'Where are you going now? You are witness, Sir, that I am in my right,' he added, turning to look for Horace. But Horace had disappeared in the crowd that had collected to see the quarrel, and his gods had saved him after all. [Illustration: TEMPLE OF CASTOR AND POLLUX] A part of the life of the times is in the little story, and anyone may stroll today along the Sacred Street, past the Basilica and the sharp turn that leads to the block of old houses where the Court House stood, between St. Adrian's and San Lorenzo in Miranda. Anyone may see just how it happened, and many know exactly how Horace felt from the moment when the Bore buttonholed him at the corner of the Julian Basilica till his final deliverance near the corner of the Triumphal Road, which is now the Via di San Gregorio. [Illustration: ATRIUM OF VESTA] There was much more resemblance to our modern life than one might think at first sight. Perhaps, after his timely escape, Horace turned back along the Sacred Street, followed by his single slave, and retraced his steps, past the temple of Vesta, the temple of Julius Cæsar, skirting the Roman Forum to the Golden Milestone at the foot of the ascent to the Capitol, from which landmark all the distances in the Roman Empire were reckoned, the very centre of the known world. Thence, perhaps, he turned up towards the Argiletum, with something of that instinct which takes a modern man of letters to his publisher's when he is in the neighbourhood. There the 'Brothers Sosii' had their publishing establishment, among many others of the same nature, and employed a great staff of copyists in preparing volumes for sale. All the year round the skilled scribes sat within in rows, with pen and ink, working at the manufacture of books. The Sosii Brothers were rich, and probably owned their workmen as slaves, both the writers and those who prepared the delicate materials, the wonderful ink, of which we have not the like today, the fine sheets of papyrus,--Pliny tells how they were sometimes too rough, and how they sometimes soaked up the ink like a cloth, as happens with our own paper,--and the carefully cut pens of Egyptian reed on which so much of the neatness in writing depended, though Cicero says somewhere that he could write with any pen he chanced to take up. It was natural enough that Horace should look in to ask how his latest book was selling, or more probably his first, for he had written but a few Epodes and not many Satires at the time when he met the immortal Bore. Later in his life, his books were published in editions of a thousand, as is the modern custom in Paris, and were sold all over the Empire, like those of other famous authors. The Satires did him little credit, and probably brought him but little money at their first publication. It seems certain that they have come down to us through a single copy. The Greek form of the Odes pleased people better. Moreover, some of the early Satires made distinguished people shy of his acquaintance, and when he told the Bore that Mæcenas was difficult of access he remembered that nine months had elapsed from the time of his own introduction to the great man until he had received the latter's first invitation to dinner. More than once he went almost too far in his attacks on men and things and then tried to remove the disagreeable impression he had produced, and wrote again of the same subject in a different spirit--notably when he attacked the works of the dead poet Lucilius and was afterwards obliged to explain himself. No doubt he often idled away a whole morning at his publisher's, looking over new books of other authors, and very probably borrowing them to take home with him, because he was poor, and he assuredly must have talked over with the Sosii the impression produced on the public by his latest poems. He was undoubtedly a quæstor's scribe, but it is more than doubtful whether he ever went near the Treasury or did any kind of clerk's work. If he ever did, it is odd that he should never speak of it, nor take anecdotes from such an occupation and from the clerks with whom he must have been thrown, for he certainly used every other sort of social material in the Satires. Among the few allusions to anything of the kind in his works are his ridicule of the over-dressed prætor of the town of Fundi, who had been a government clerk in Rome, and in the same story, his jest at one of Mæcenas' parasites, a freedman, and nominally a Treasury clerk, as Horace had been. In another Satire, the clerks in a body wish him to be present at one of their meetings. Perhaps what strikes one most in the study of Horace, which means the study of the Augustan age, is the vivid contrast between the man who composed the Carmen Sæculare, the sacred hymn sung on the Tenth anniversary of Augustus' accession to the imperial power, besides many odes that breathe a pristine reverence for the gods, and, on the other hand, the writer of satirical, playfully sceptical verses, who comments on the story of the incense melting without fire at the temple of Egnatia, with the famous and often-quoted 'Credat Judæus'! The original Romans had been a believing people, most careful in all ceremonies and observances, visiting anything like sacrilege with a cool ferocity worthy of the Christian religious wars in later days. Horace, at one time or another, laughs at almost every god and goddess in the heathen calendar, and publishes his jests, in editions of a thousand copies, with perfect indifference and complete immunity from censorship, while apparently bestowing a certain amount of care on household sacrifices and the like. The fact is that the Romans were a religious people, whereas the Italians were not. It is a singular fact that Rome, when left long to herself, has always shown a tendency to become systematically devout, whereas most of the other Italian states have exhibited an equally strong inclination to a scepticism not unfrequently mixed with the grossest superstition. It must be left to more profound students of humanity to decide whether certain places have a permanent influence in one determined direction upon the successive races that inhabit them; but it is quite undeniably true that the Romans of all ages have tended to religion of some sort in the most marked manner. In Roman history there is a succession of religious epochs not to be found in the annals of any other city. First, the early faith of the Kings, interrupted by the irruption of Greek influences which began approximately with Scipio Africanus; next, the wild Bacchic worship that produced the secret orgies on the Aventine, the discovery of which led to a religious persecution and the execution of thousands of persons on religious grounds; then the worship of the Egyptian deities, brought over to Rome in a new fit of belief, and at the same time, or soon afterwards, the mysterious adoration of the Persian Mithras, a gross and ignorant form of mysticism which, nevertheless, took hold of the people, at a time when other religions were almost reduced to a matter of form. Then, as all these many faiths lost vitality, Christianity arose, the terribly simple and earnest Christianity of the early centuries, sown first under the Cæsars, in Rome's secure days, developing to a power when Rome was left to herself by the transference of the Empire to the East, culminating for the first time in the crowning of Charlemagne, again in the Crusades, sinking under the revival of mythology and Hellenism during the Renascence, rising again, by slow degrees, to the extreme level of devotion under Pius the Ninth and the French protectorate, sinking suddenly with the movement of Italian unity, and the coming of the Italians in 1870, then rising again, as we see it now, with undying energy, under Leo the Thirteenth, and showing itself in the building of new churches, in the magnificent restoration of old ones, and in the vast second growth of ecclesiastical institutions, which are once more turning Rome into a clerical city, now that she is again at peace with herself, under a constitutional monarchy, but threatened only too plainly by an impending anarchic revolution. It would be hard to find in the history of any other city a parallel to such periodical recurrences of religious domination. Nor, in times when belief has been at its lowest ebb, have outward religious practices anywhere continued to hold so important a place in men's lives as they have always held in Rome. Of all Rome's mad tyrants, Elagabalus alone dared to break into the temple of Vesta and carry out the sacred Palladium. During more than eleven hundred years, six Vestal Virgins guarded the sacred fire and the Holy Things of Rome, in peace and war, through kingdom, republic, revolution and empire. For fifteen hundred years since then, the bones of Saint Peter have been respected by the Emperors, by Goths, by Kings, revolutions and short-lived republics. [Illustration: BRASS OF GORDIAN, SHOWING THE COLOSSEUM] IV There was a surprising strength in those early institutions of which the fragmentary survival has made Rome what it is. Strongest of all, perhaps, was the patriarchal mode of life which the shepherds of Alba Longa brought with them when they fled from the volcano, and of which the most distinct traces remain to the present day, while its origin goes back to the original Aryan home. Upon that principle all the household life ultimately turned in Rome's greatest times. The Senators were Patres, conscript fathers, heads of strong houses; the Patricians were those who had known 'fathers,' that is, a known and noble descent. Horace called Senators simply 'Conscripts,' and the Roman nobles of today call themselves the 'Conscript' families. The chain of tradition is unbroken from Romulus to our own time, while everything else has changed in greater or less degree. It is hard for Anglo-Saxons to believe that, for more than a thousand years, a Roman father possessed the absolute legal right to try, condemn and execute any of his children, without witnesses, in his own house and without consulting anyone. Yet nothing is more certain. 'From the most remote ages,' says Professor Lanciani, the highest existing authority, 'the power of a Roman father over his children, including those by adoption as well as by blood, was unlimited. A father might, without violating any law, scourge or imprison his son, or sell him for a slave, or put him to death, even after that son had risen to the highest honours in the state.' During the life of the father, a child, no matter of what age, could own no property independently, nor keep any private accounts, nor dispose of any little belongings, no matter how insignificant, without the father's consent, which was never anything more than an act of favour, and was revocable at any moment, without notice. If a son became a public magistrate, the power was suspended, but was again in force as soon as the period of office terminated. A man who had been Dictator of Rome became his father's slave and property again, as soon as his dictatorship ended. But if the son married with his father's consent, he was partly free, and became a 'father' in his turn, and absolute despot of his own household. So, if a daughter married, she passed from her father's dominion to that of her husband. A Priest of Jupiter for life was free. So was a Vestal Virgin. There was a complicated legal trick by which the father could liberate his son if he wished to do so for any reason, but he had no power to set any of his children free by a mere act of will, without legal formality. The bare fact that the men of a people should be not only trusted with such power, but that it should be forcibly thrust upon them, gives an idea of the Roman character, and it is natural enough that the condition of family life imposed by such laws should have had pronounced effects that may still be felt. As the Romans were a hardy race and long-lived, when they were not killed in battle, the majority of men were under the absolute control of their fathers till the age of forty or fifty years, unless they married with their parents' consent, in which case they advanced one step towards liberty, and at all events, could not be sold as slaves by their fathers, though they still had no right to buy or sell property nor to make a will. There are few instances of the law being abused, even in the most ferocious times. Brutus had the right to execute his sons, who conspired for the Tarquins, without any public trial. He preferred the latter. Titus Manlius caused his son to be publicly beheaded for disobeying a military order in challenging an enemy to single combat, slaying him, and bringing back the spoils. He might have cut off his head in private, so far as the law was concerned, for any reason whatsoever, great or small. As for the condition of real slaves, it was not so bad in early times as it became later, but the master's power was absolute to inflict torture and death in any shape. In slave-owning communities, barbarity has always been, to some extent, restrained by the actual value of the humanity in question, and slaves were not as cheap in Rome as might be supposed. A perfectly ignorant labourer of sound body was worth from eighty to a hundred dollars of our money, which meant much more in those days, though in later times twice that sum was sometimes paid for a single fine fish. The money value of the slave was, nevertheless, always a sort of guarantee of safety to himself; but men who had right of life and death over their own children, and who occasionally exercised it, were probably not, as a rule, very considerate to creatures who were bought and sold like cattle. Nevertheless, the number of slaves who were freed and enriched by their masters is really surprising. The point of all this, however, is that the head of a Roman family was, under protection of all laws and traditions, an absolute tyrant over his wife, his children, and his servants; and the Roman Senate was a chosen association of such tyrants. It is astonishing that they should have held so long to the forms of a republican government, and should never have completely lost their republican traditions. In this household tyranny, existing side by side with certain general ideas of liberty and constitutional government, under the ultimate domination of the Emperors' despotism as introduced by Augustus, is to be found the keynote of Rome's subsequent social life. Without those things, the condition of society in the Middle Age would be inexplicable, and the feudal system could never have developed. The old Roman principle that 'order should have precedence over order, not man over man,' rules most of Europe at the present day, though in Rome and Italy it is now completely eclipsed by a form of government which can only be defined as a monarchic democracy. The mere fact that under Augustus no man was eligible to the Senate who possessed less than a sum equal to a quarter of a million dollars, shows plainly enough what one of the most skilful despots who ever ruled mankind wisely, thought of the institution. It was intended to balance, by its solidity, the ever-unsettled instincts of the people, to prevent as far as possible the unwise passage of laws by popular acclamation, and, so to say, to regulate the pulse of the nation. It has been imitated, in one way or another, by all the nations we call civilized. But the father of the family was in his own person the despot, the senate, the magistrate and the executive of the law; his wife, his children and his slaves represented the people, constantly and eternally in real or theoretical opposition, while he was protected by all the force of the most ferocious laws. A father could behead his son with impunity; but the son who killed his father was condemned to be all but beaten to death, and then to be sewn up in a leathern sack and drowned. The father could take everything from the son; but if the son took the smallest thing from his father he was a common thief and malefactor, and liable to be treated as one, at his father's pleasure. The conception of justice in Rome never rested upon any equality, but always upon the precedence of one order over another, from the highest to the lowest. There were orders even among the slaves, and one who had been allowed to save money out of his allowances could himself buy a slave to wait on him, if he chose. Hence the immediate origin of European caste, of different degrees of nobility, of the relative standing of the liberal professions, of the mediæval guilds of artisans and tradesmen, and of the numerous subdivisions of the agricultural classes, of which traces survive all over Europe. The tendency to caste is essentially and originally Aryan, and will never be wholly eliminated from any branch of the Aryan race. One may fairly compare the internal life of a great nation to a building which rises from its foundations story by story until the lower part can no longer carry the weight of the superstructure, and the first signs of weakness begin to show themselves in the oldest and lowest portion of the whole. Carefully repaired, when the weakness is noticed at all, it can bear a little more, and again a little, but at last the breaking strain is reached, the tall building totters, the highest pinnacles topple over, then the upper story collapses, and the end comes either in the crash of a great falling or, by degrees, in the irreparable ruin of ages. But when all is over, and wind and weather and time have swept away what they can, parts of the original foundation still stand up rough and heavy, on which a younger and smaller people must build their new dwelling, if they build at all. The aptness of the simile is still more apparent when we confront the material constructions of a nation with the degree of the nation's development or decadence at the time when the work was done. It is only by doing something of that sort that we can at all realize the connection between the settlement of the shepherds, the Rome of the Cæsars, and the desolate and scantily populated fighting ground of the Barons, upon which, with the Renascence, the city of the later Popes began to rise under Nicholas the Fifth. And lastly, without a little of such general knowledge it would be utterly impossible to call up, even faintly, the lives of Romans in successive ages. Read the earlier parts of Livy's histories and try to picture the pristine simplicity of those primeval times. Read Cæsar's Gallic War, the marvellously concise reports of the greatest man that ever lived, during ten years of his conquests. Read Horace, and attempt to see a little of what he describes in his good-natured, easy way. Read the correspondence of the younger Pliny when proconsul in Bithynia under Trajan, and follow the extraordinary details of administration which, with ten thousand others, the Spanish Emperor of Rome carried in his memory, and directed and decided. Take Petronius Arbiter's 'novel' next, the Satyricon, if you be not over-delicate in taste, and glance at the daily journal of a dissolute wretch wandering from one scene of incredible vice to another. And so on, through the later writers; and from among the vast annals of the industrious Muratori pick out bits of Roman life at different periods, and try to piece them together. At first sight it seems utterly impossible that one and the same people should have passed through such social changes and vicissitudes. Every educated man knows the main points through which the chain ran. Scholars have spent their lives in the attempt to restore even a few of the links and, for the most part, have lost their way in the dry quicksands that have swallowed up so much. 'I have raised a monument more enduring than bronze!' exclaimed Horace, in one of his rare moments of pardonable vanity. The expression meant much more then than it does now. The golden age of Rome was an age of brazen statues apparently destined to last as long as history. Yet the marble outlasted the gilded metal, and Horace's verse outlived both, and the names of the artists of that day are mostly forgotten, while his is a household word. In conquering races, literature has generally attained higher excellence than painting or sculpture, or architecture, for the arts are the expression of a people's tastes, often incomprehensible to men who live a thousand years later; but literature, if it expresses anything, either by poetry, history, or fiction, shows the feeling of humanity; and the human being, as such, changes very little in twenty or thirty centuries. Achilles, in his wrath at being robbed of the lovely Briseïs, brings the age of Troy nearer to most men in its living vitality than the matchless Hermes of Olympia can ever bring the century of Greece's supremacy. One line of Catullus makes his time more alive today than the huge mass of the Colosseum can ever make Titus seem. We see the great stones piled up to heaven, but we do not see the men who hewed them, and lifted them, and set them in place. The true poet gives us the real man, and after all, men are more important than stones. Yet the work of men's hands explains the working of men's hearts, telling us not what they felt, but how the feelings which ever belong to all men more particularly affected the actors at one time or another during the action of the world's long play. Little things sometimes tell the longest stories. [Illustration: THE COLOSSEUM] Pliny, suffering from sore eyes, going about in a closed carriage, or lying in the darkened basement portico of his house, obliged to dictate his letters, and unable to read, sends his thanks--by dictation--to his friend and colleague, Cornutus, for a fowl sent him, and says that although he is half blind, his eyes are sharp enough to see that it is a very fat one. The touch of human nature makes the whole picture live. Horace, journeying to Brindisi, and trying to sleep a little on a canal boat, is kept awake by mosquitoes and croaking frogs, and by the long-drawn-out, tipsy singing of a drunken sailor, who at last turns off the towing mule to graze, and goes to sleep till daylight. It is easier to see all this than to call up one instant of a chariot race in the great circus, or one of the ten thousand fights in the Colosseum, wherein gladiators fought and died, and left no word of themselves. Yet, without the setting, the play is imperfect, and we must have some of the one to understand the other. For human art is, in the first place, a progressive commentary on human nature, and again, in quick reaction, stimulates it with a suggestive force. Little as we really know of the imperial times, we cannot conceive of Rome without the Romans, nor of the Romans without Rome. They belonged together; when the seat of Empire became cosmopolitan, the great dominion began to be weakened; and when a homogeneous power dwelt in the city again, a new domination had its beginning, and was built up on the ruins of the old. Napoleon is believed to have said that the object of art is to create and foster agreeable illusions. Admitting the general truth of the definition, it appears perfectly natural that since the Romans had little or no art of their own, they should have begun to import Greek art just when they did, after the successful issue of the Second Punic War. Up to that time the great struggle had lasted. When it was over, the rest was almost a foregone conclusion. Rome and Carthage had made a great part of the known world their fighting ground in the duel that lasted a hundred and eighteen years; and the known world was the portion of the victor. Spoil first, for spoil's sake, he brought home; then spoil for the sake of art; then art for what itself could give him. In the fight for Empire, as in each man's struggle for life, success means leisure, and therefore civilization, which is the growth of people who have time at their disposal--time to 'create and foster agreeable illusions.' When the Romans conquered the Samnites they were the least artistic people in the world; when Augustus Cæsar died, they possessed and valued the greater part of the world's artistic treasures, many of these already centuries old, and they owned literally, and as slaves, a majority of the best living artists. Augustus had been educated in Athens; he determined that Rome should be as Athens, magnified a hundred times. Athens had her thousand statues, Rome should have her ten thousand; Rome should have state libraries holding a score of volumes for every one that Greece could boast; Rome's temples should be galleries of rare paintings, ten for each that Athens had. Rome should be so great, so rich, so gorgeous, that Greece should be as nothing beside her; Egypt should dwindle to littleness, and the memory of Babylon should be forgotten. Greece had her Homer, her Sophocles, her Anacreon; Rome should have her immortals also. Greatly Augustus laboured for his thought, and grandly he carried out his plan. He became the greatest 'art-collector' in all history, and the men of his time imitated him. Domitius Tullus, a Roman gentleman, had collected so much, that he was able to adorn certain extensive gardens, on the very day of the purchase, with an immense number of genuine ancient statues, which had been lying, half neglected, in a barn--or, as some read the passage, in other gardens of his. [Illustration: BASILICA CONSTANTINE] Augustus succeeded in one way. Possibly he was successful in his own estimation. 'Have I not acted the play well?' they say he asked, just before he died. The keynote is there, whether he spoke the words or not. He did all from calculation, nothing from conviction. The artist, active and creative or passive and appreciative, calculates nothing except the means of expressing his conviction. And in the over-calculating of effects by Augustus and his successors, one of the most singular weaknesses of the Latin race was thrust forward; namely, that giantism or megalomania, which has so often stamped the principal works of the Latins in all ages--that effort to express greatness by size, which is so conspicuously absent from all that the Greeks have left us. Agrippa builds a threefold temple and Hadrian rears the Pantheon upon its charred ruins; Constantine builds his Basilica; Michelangelo says, 'I will set the Pantheon upon the Basilica of Constantine.' He does it, and the result is Saint Peter's, which covers more ground than that other piece of giantism, the Colosseum; in Rome's last and modern revival, the Palazzo delle Finanze is built, the Treasury of the poorest of the Powers, which, incredible as it may seem, fills a far greater area than either the Colosseum or the Church of Saint Peter's. What else is such constructive enormity but 'giantism'? For the great Cathedral of Christendom, it may be said, at least, that it has more than once in history been nearly filled by devout multitudes, numbering fifty or sixty thousand people; in the days of public baths, nearly sixty-three thousand Romans could bathe daily with every luxury of service; when bread and games were free, a hundred thousand men and women often sat down in the Flavian Amphitheatre to see men tear each other to pieces; of the modern Ministry of Finance there is nothing to be said. The Roman curses it for the millions it cost; but the stranger looks, smiles and passes by a blank and hideous building three hundred yards long. There is no reason why a nation should not wish to be great, but there is every reason why a small nation should not try to look big; and the enormous follies of modern Italy must be charitably attributed to a defect of judgment which has existed in the Latin peoples from the beginning, and has by no means disappeared today. The younger Gordian began a portico which was to cover forty-four thousand square yards, and intended to raise a statue of himself two hundred and nineteen feet high. The modern Treasury building covers about thirty thousand square yards, and goes far to rival the foolish Emperor's insane scheme. [Illustration: RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF SATURN] Great contrasts lie in the past, between his age and ours. One must guess at them at least, if one have but little knowledge, in order to understand at all the city of the Middle Age and the Rome we see today. Imagine it at its greatest, a capital inhabited by more than two millions of souls, filling all that is left to be seen within and without the walls, and half the Campagna besides, spreading out in a vast disc of seething life from the central Golden Milestone at the corner of the temple of Saturn--the god of remote ages, and of earth's dim beginning; see, if you can, the splendid roads, where to right and left the ashes of the great rested in tombs gorgeous with marble and gold and bronze; see the endless villas and gardens and terraces lining both banks of the Tiber, with trees and flowers and marble palaces, from Rome to Ostia and the sea, and both banks of the Anio, from Rome to Tivoli in the hills; conceive of the vast commerce, even of the mere business of supply to feed two millions of mouths; picture the great harbour with its thousand vessels--and some of those that brought grain from Egypt were four hundred feet long; remember its vast granaries and store-barns and offices; think of the desolate Isola Sacra as a lovely garden, of the ruins of Laurentum as an imperial palace and park; reckon up roughly what all that meant of life, of power, of incalculable wealth. Mark Antony squandered, in his short lifetime, eight hundred millions of pounds sterling, four thousand millions of dollars. Guess, if possible, at the myriad million details of the vast city. Then let twelve hundred years pass in a dream, and look at the Rome of Rienzi. Some twenty thousand souls, the remnant and the one hundredth part of the two millions, dwell pitifully in the ruins of which the strongest men have fortified bits here and there. The walls of Aurelian, broken and war-worn and full of half-repaired breaches, enclose a desert, a world too wide for its inhabitants, a vast straggling heterogeneous mass of buildings in every stage of preservation and decay, splendid temples, mossy and ivy-grown, but scarcely injured by time, then wastes of broken brick and mortar; stern dark towers of Savelli, and Frangipani, and Orsini, and Colonna, dominating and threatening whole quarters of ruins; strange small churches built of odds and ends and remnants not too heavy for a few workmen to move; broken-down aqueducts sticking up here and there in a city that had to drink the muddy water of the Tiber because not a single channel remained whole to feed a single fountain, from the distant springs that had once filled baths for sixty thousand people every day. And round about all, the waste Campagna, scratched here and there by fever-stricken peasants to yield the little grain that so few men could need. The villas gone, the trees burned or cut down, the terraces slipped away into the rivers, the tombs of the Appian Way broken and falling to pieces, or transformed into rude fortresses held by wild-looking men in rusty armour, who sallied out to fight each other or, at rare intervals, to rob some train of wretched merchants, riding horses as rough and wild as themselves. Law gone, and order gone with it; wealth departed, and self-respect forgotten in abject poverty; each man defending his little with his own hand against the many who coveted it; Rome a den of robbers and thieves; the Pope, when there was one,--there was none in the year of Rienzi's birth,--either defended by one baron against another, or forced to fly for his life. Men brawling in the streets, ill clad, savage, ready with sword and knife and club for any imaginable violence. Women safe from none but their own husbands and sons, and not always from them. Children wild and untaught, growing up to be fierce and unlettered like their fathers. And in the midst of such a city, Cola di Rienzi, with great heart and scanty learning, labouring to decipher the inscriptions that told of dead and ruined greatness, dreaming of a republic, of a tribune's power, of the humiliation of the Barons, of a resurrection for Italy and of her sudden return to the dominion of the world. Rome, then, was like a field long fallow, of rich soil, but long unploughed. Scarcely below the surface lay the treasures of ages, undreamt of by the few descendants of those who had brought them thither. Above ground, overgrown with wild creepers and flowers, there still stood some such monuments of magnificence as we find it hard to recall by mere words, not yet voluntarily destroyed, but already falling to pieces under the slow destruction of grinding time, when violence had spared them. Robert Guiscard had burned the city in 1084, but he had not destroyed everything. The Emperors of the East had plundered Rome long before that, carrying off works of art without end to adorn their city of Constantinople. Builders had burned a thousand marble statues to lime for their cement, for the statues were ready to hand and easily broken up to be thrown into the kiln, so that it seemed a waste of time and tools to quarry out the blocks from the temples. The Barbarians of Genseric and the Jews of Trastevere had seized upon such of the four thousand bronze statues as the Emperors had left, and had melted many of them down for metal, often hiding them in strange places while waiting for an opportunity of heating the furnace. And some have been found, here and there, piled up in little vaults, most generally near the Tiber, by which it was always easy to ship the metal away. Already temples had been turned into churches, in a travesty only saved from the ridiculous by the high solemnity of the Christian faith. Other temples and buildings, here and there, had been partly stripped of columns and marble facings to make other churches even more nondescript than the first. Much of the old was still standing, but nothing of the old was whole. The Colosseum had not yet been turned into a quarry. The Septizonium of Septimius Severus, with its seven stories of columns and its lofty terrace, nearly half as high as the dome of Saint Peter's, though beginning to crumble, still crowned the south end of the Palatine; Minerva's temple was almost entire, and its huge architrave had not been taken to make the high altar of Saint Peter's; and the triumphal arch of Marcus Aurelius was standing in what was perhaps not yet called the Corso in those days, but the Via Lata--'Broad Street.' The things that had not yet fallen, nor been torn down, were the more sadly grand by contrast with the chaos around them. There was also the difference between ruins then, and ruins now, which there is between a king just dead in his greatness, in whose features lingers the smile of a life so near that it seems ready to come back, and a dried mummy set up in a museum and carefully dusted for critics to study. In even stronger and rougher contrast, in the wreck of all that had been, there was the fierce reality of the daily fight for life amid the seething elements of the new things that were yet to be; the preparation for another time of domination and splendour; the deadly wrestling of men who meant to outlive one another by sheer strength and grim power of killing; the dark ignorance, darkest just before the waking of new thought, and art, and learning; the universal cruelty of all living things to each other, that had grown out of the black past; and, with all this, the undying belief in Rome's greatness, in Rome's future, in Rome's latent power to rule the world again. That was the beginning of the new story, for the old one was ended, the race of men who had lived it was gone, and their works were following them, to the universal dust. Out of the memories they left and the departed glory of the places wherein they had dwelt, the magic of the Middle Age was to weave another long romance, less grand but more stirring, less glorious but infinitely more human. Perhaps it is not altogether beyond the bounds of reason to say that Rome was masculine from Romulus to the dark age, and that with the first dawn of the Renascence she began to be feminine. As in old days the Republic and the Empire fought for power and conquest and got both by force, endurance and hardness of character, so, in her second life, others fought for Rome, and courted her, and coveted her, and sometimes oppressed her and treated her cruelly, and sometimes cherished her and adorned her, and gave her all they had. In a way, too, the elder patriots reverenced their city as a father, and those of after-times loved her as a woman, with a tender and romantic love. Be that as it may, for it matters little how we explain what we feel. And assuredly we all feel that what we call the 'charm,' the feminine charm, of Rome, proceeds first from that misty time between two greatnesses, when her humanity was driven back upon itself, and simple passions, good and evil, suddenly felt and violently expressed, made up the whole life of a people that had ceased to rule by force, and had not yet reached power by diplomacy. It is fair, moreover, to dwell a little on that time, that we may not judge too hardly the men who came afterwards. If we have any virtues ourselves of which to boast, we owe them to a long growth of civilization, as a child owes its manners to its mother; the men of the Renascence had behind them chaos, the ruin of a slave-ridden, Hun-harried, worm-eaten Empire, in which law and order had gone down together, and the whole world seemed to the few good men who lived in it to be but one degree better than hell itself. Much may be forgiven them, and for what just things they did they should be honoured, for the hardship of having done right at all against such odds. [Illustration: BRASS OF GORDIAN, SHOWING ROMAN GAMES] [Illustration: RUINS OF THE JULIAN BASILICA] V Here and there, in out-of-the-way places, overlooked in the modern rage for improvement, little marble tablets are set into the walls of old houses, bearing semi-heraldic devices such as a Crescent, a Column, a Griffin, a Stag, a Wheel and the like. Italian heraldry has always been eccentric, and has shown a tendency to display all sorts of strange things, such as comets, trees, landscapes and buildings in the escutcheon, and it would naturally occur to the stranger that the small marble shields, still visible here and there at the corners of old streets, must be the coats of arms of Roman families that held property in that particular neighbourhood. But this is not the case. They are the distinctive devices of the Fourteen Rioni, or wards, into which the city was divided, with occasional modifications, from the time of Augustus to the coming of Victor Emmanuel, and which with some further changes survive to the present day. The tablets themselves were put up by Pope Benedict the Fourteenth, who reigned from 1740 to 1758, and who finally brought them up to the ancient number of fourteen; but from the dark ages the devices themselves were borne upon flags on all public occasions by the people of the different Regions. For 'Rione' is only a corruption of the Latin 'Regio,' the same with our 'Region,' by which English word it will be convenient to speak of these divisions that played so large a part in the history of the city during many successive centuries. For the sake of clearness, it is as well to enumerate them in their order and with the numbers that have always belonged to each. They are: I. Monti, II. Trevi, III. Colonna, IV. Campo Marzo, V. Ponte VI. Parione, VII. Regola, VIII. Sant' Eustachio, IX. Pigna, X. Campitelli, XI. Sant' Angelo, XII. Ripa, XIII. Trastevere, XIV. Borgo. Five of these names, that is to say, Ponte, Parione, Regola, Pigna and Sant' Angelo, indicate in a general way the part of the city designated by each. Ponte, the Bridge, is the Region about the Bridge of Sant' Angelo, on the left bank at the sharp bend of the river seen from that point; but the original bridge which gave the name was the Pons Triumphalis, of which the foundations are still sometimes visible a little below the Ælian bridge leading to the Mausoleum of Hadrian. Parione, the Sixth ward, is the next division to the preceding one, towards the interior of the city, on both sides of the modern Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, taking in the ancient palace of the Massimo family, the Cancelleria, famous as the most consistent piece of architecture in Rome, and the Piazza Navona. Regola is next, towards the river, comprising the Theatre of Pompey and the Palazzo Farnese. Pigna takes in the Pantheon, the Collegio Romano and the Palazzo di Venezia. Sant' Angelo has nothing to do with the castle or the bridge, but takes its name from the little church of Sant' Angelo in the Fishmarket, and includes the old Ghetto with some neighbouring streets. The rest explain themselves well enough to anyone who has even a very slight acquaintance with the city. At first sight these more or less arbitrary divisions may seem of little importance. It was, of course, necessary, even in early times, to divide the population and classify it for political and municipal purposes. There is no modern city in the world that is not thus managed by wards and districts, and the consideration of such management and of its means might appear to be a very flat and unprofitable study, tiresome alike to the reader and to the writer. And so it would be, if it were not true that the Fourteen Regions of Rome were fourteen elements of romance, each playing its part in due season, while all were frequently the stage at once, under the collective name of the people, in their ever-latent opposition and in their occasional violent outbreaks against the nobles and the popes, who alternately oppressed and spoiled them for private and public ends. In other words, the Regions with their elected captains under one chief captain were the survival of the Roman People, for ever at odds with the Roman Senate. In times when there was no government, in any reasonable sense of the word, the people tried to govern themselves, or at least to protect themselves as best they could by a rough system which was all that remained of the elaborate municipality of the Empire. Without the Regions the struggles of the Barons would probably have destroyed Rome altogether; nine out of the twenty-four Popes who reigned in the tenth century would not have been murdered and otherwise done to death; Peter the Prefect could not have dragged Pope John the Thirteenth a prisoner through the streets; Stefaneschi could never have terrorized the Barons, and half destroyed their castles in a week; Rienzi could not have made himself dictator; Ludovico Migliorati could not have murdered the eleven captains of Regions in his house and thrown their bodies to the people from the windows, for which Giovanni Colonna drove out the Pope and the cardinals, and sacked the Vatican; in a word, the strangest, wildest, bloodiest scenes of mediæval Rome could not have found a place in history. It is no wonder that to men born and bred in the city the Regions seem even now to be an integral factor in its existence. There were two other elements of power, namely, the Pope and the Barons. The three are almost perpetually at war, two on a side, against the third. Philippe de Commines, ambassador of Lewis the Eleventh in Rome, said that without the Orsini and the Colonna, the States of the Church would be the happiest country in the world. He forgot the People, and was doubtless too politic to speak of the Popes to his extremely devout sovereign. Take away the three elements of discord, and there would certainly have been peace in Rome, for there would have been no one to disturb the bats and the owls, when everybody was gone. The excellent advice of Ampère, already quoted, is by no means easy to follow, since there are not many who have the time and the inclination to acquire a 'superficial knowledge' of Rome by a ten years' visit. If, therefore, we merely presuppose an average knowledge of history and a guide-book acquaintance with the chief points in the city, the simplest and most direct way of learning more about it is to take the Regions in their ancient order, as the learned Baracconi has done in his invaluable little work, and to try as far as possible to make past deeds live again where they were done, with such description of the places themselves as may serve the main purpose best. To follow any other plan would be either to attempt a new history of the city of Rome, or to piece together a new archæological manual. In either case, even supposing that one could be successful where so much has already been done by the most learned, the end aimed at would be defeated, for romance would be stiffened to a record, and beauty would be dissected to an anatomical preparation. [Illustration: BRASS OF TITUS, SHOWING THE COLOSSEUM] [Illustration] REGION I MONTI 'Monti' means 'The Hills,' and the device of the Region represents three, figuring those enclosed within the boundaries of this district; namely, the Quirinal, the Esquiline and the Coelian. The line encircling them includes the most hilly part of the mediæval city; beginning at the Porta Salaria, it runs through the new quarter, formerly Villa Ludovisi, to the Piazza Barberini, thence by the Tritone to the Corso, by the Via Marforio, skirting the eastern side of the Capitoline Hill and the eastern side of the Roman Forum to the Colosseum, which it does not include; on almost to the Lateran, back again, so as to include the Basilica, by San Stefano Rotondo, and out by the Navicella to the now closed Porta Metronia. The remainder of the circuit is completed by the Aurelian wall, which is the present wall of the city, though the modern Electoral Wards extend in some places beyond it. The modern gates included in this portion are the Porta Salaria, the Porta Pia, the new gate at the end of the Via Montebello, the next, an unnamed opening through which passes the Viale Castro Pretorio, then the Porta Tiburtina, the Porta San Lorenzo, the exit of the railway, Porta Maggiore, and lastly the Porta San Giovanni. The Region of the Hills takes in by far the largest area of the fourteen districts, but also that portion which in later times has been the least thickly populated, the wildest districts of mediæval and recent Rome, great open spaces now partially covered by new though hardly inhabited buildings, but which were very lately either fallow land or ploughed fields, or cultivated vineyards, out of which huge masses of ruins rose here and there in brown outline against the distant mountains, in the midst of which towered the enormous basilicas of Santa Maria Maggiore and Saint John Lateran, the half-utilized, half-consecrated remains of the Baths of Diocletian, the Baths of Titus, and over against the latter, just beyond the southwestern boundary, the gloomy Colosseum, and on the west the tall square tower of the Capitol with its deep-toned bell, the 'Patarina,' which at last was sounded only when the Pope was dead, and when Carnival was over on Shrove Tuesday night. It must first be remembered that each Region had a small independent existence, with night watchmen of its own, who dared not step beyond the limits of their beat; defined by parishes, there were separate charities for each Region, separate funds for giving dowries to poor girls, separate 'Confraternite' or pious societies to which laymen belonged, and, in a small way, a sort of distinct nationality. There was rivalry between each Region and its neighbours, and when the one encroached upon the other there was strife and bloodshed in the streets. In the public races, of which the last survived in the running of riderless horses through the Corso in Carnival, each Region had its colours, its right of place, and its separate triumph if it won in the contest. There was all that intricate opposition of small parties which arose in every mediæval city, when children followed their fathers' trades from generation to generation, and lived in their fathers' houses from one century to another; and there was all the individuality and the local tradition which never really hindered civilization, but were always an insurmountable barrier against progress. Some one has called democracy Rome's 'Original Sin.' It would be more just and true to say that most of Rome's misfortunes, and Italy's too, have been the result of the instinct to oppose all that is, whether good or bad, as soon as it has existed for a while; in short, the original sin of Italians is an original detestation of that unity of which the empty name has been a fetish for ages. Rome, thrown back upon herself in the dark times, when she was shorn of her possessions, was a true picture of what Italy was before Rome's iron hand had bound the Italian peoples together by force, of what she became again as soon as that force was relaxed, of what she has grown to be once more, now that the delight of revolution has disappeared in the dismal swamp of financial disappointment, of what she will be to all time, because, from all time, she has been populated by races of different descent, who hated each other as only neighbours can. The redeeming feature of a factional life has sometimes been found in a readiness to unite against foreign oppression; it has often shown itself in an equal willingness to submit to one foreign ruler in order to get rid of another. Circumstances have made the result good or bad. In the year 799, the Romans attacked and wounded Pope Leo the Third in a solemn procession, almost killed him and drove him to flight, because he had sent the keys of the city to Charles the Great, in self-protection against the splendid, beautiful, gifted, black-hearted Irene, Empress of the East, who had put out her own son's eyes and taken the throne by force. Two years later the people of Rome shouted "Life and Victory to Charles the Emperor," when the same Pope Leo, his scars still fresh, crowned Charlemagne in Saint Peter's. One remembers, for that matter, that Napoleon Bonaparte, crowned in French Paris by another Pope, girt on the very sword of that same Frankish Charles, whose bones the French had scattered to the elements at Aix. Savonarola, of more than doubtful patriotism, to whom Saint Philip Neri prayed, but whom the English historian, Roscoe, flatly calls a traitor, would have taken Florence from the Italian Medici and given it to the French king. Dante was for German Emperors against Italian Popes. Modern Italy has driven out Bourbons and Austrians and given the crown of her Unity to a house of Kings, brave and honourable, but in whose veins there is no drop of Italian blood, any more than their old Dukedom of Savoy was ever Italian in any sense. The glory of history is rarely the glory of any ideal; it is more often the glory of success. The Roman Republic was the result of internal opposition, and the instinct to oppose power, often rightly, sometimes wrongly, will be the last to survive in the Latin race. In the Middle Age, when Rome had shrunk from the boundaries of civilization to the narrow limits of the Aurelian walls, it produced the hatred between the Barons and the people, and within the people themselves, the less harmful rivalry of the Regions and their Captains. [Illustration: SANTA FRANCESCA ROMANA] These Captains held office for three months only. At the expiration of the term, they and the people of their Region proceeded in procession, all bearing olive branches, to the temple of Venus and Rome, of which a part was early converted into the Church of Santa Maria Nuova, now known as Santa Francesca Romana, between the Forum and the Colosseum, and just within the limits of 'Monti.' Down from the hills on the one side the crowd came; up from the regions of the Tiber, round the Capitol from Colonna, and Trevi, and Campo Marzo, as ages before them the people had thronged to the Comitium, only a few hundred yards away. There, before the church in the ruins, each Region dropped the names of its own two candidates into the ballot box, and chance decided which of the two should be Captain next. In procession, then, all round the Capitol, they went to Aracoeli, and the single Senator, the lone shadow of the Conscript Fathers, ratified each choice. Lastly, among themselves, they used to choose the Prior, or Chief Captain, until it became the custom that the captain of the First Region, Monti, should of right be head of all the rest, and in reality one of the principal powers in the city. And the principal church of Monti also held preëminence over others. The Basilica of Saint John Lateran was entitled 'Mother and Head of all Churches of the City and of the World'; and it took its distinctive name from a rich Roman family, whose splendid house stood on the same spot as far back as the early days of the Empire. Even Juvenal speaks of it. Overthrown by earthquake, erected again at once, twice burned and immediately rebuilt, five times the seat of Councils of the Church, enlarged even in our day at enormous cost, it seems destined to stand on the same spot for ages, and to perpetuate the memory of the Laterans to all time, playing monument to an obscure family of rich citizens, whose name should have been almost lost, but can never be forgotten now. Constantine, sentimental before he was great, and great before he was a Christian, gave the house of the Roman gentleman to Pope Sylvester. He bought it, or it fell to the crown at the extinction of the family, for he was not the man to confiscate property for a whim; and within the palace he made a church, which was called by more than one name, till after nearly six hundred years it was finally dedicated to Saint John the Baptist; until then it had been generally called the church 'in the Lateran house,' and to this day it is San Giovanni in Laterano. Close by it, in the palace of the Annii, Marcus Aurelius, last of the so-called Antonines, and last of the great emperors, was born and educated; and in his honour was made the famous statue of him on horseback, which now stands in the square of the Capitol. The learned say that it was set up before the house where he was born, and so found itself also before the Lateran in later times, with the older Wolf, at the place of public justice and execution. In the wild days of the tenth century, when the world was boiling with faction, and trembling at the prospect of the Last Judgment, clearly predicted to overtake mankind in the thousandth year of the Christian era, the whole Roman people, without sanction of the Emperor and without precedent, chose John the Thirteenth to be their Pope. The Regions with their Captains had their way, and the new Pontiff was enthroned by their acclamation. Then came their disappointment, then their anger. Pope John, strong, high-handed, a man of order in days of chaos, ruled from the Lateran for one short year, with such wisdom as he possessed, such law as he chanced to have learnt, and all the strength he had. Neither Barons nor people wanted justice, much less learning. The Latin chronicle is brief: 'At that time, Count Roffredo and Peter the Prefect,'--he was the Prior of the Regions' Captains,--'with certain other Romans, seized Pope John, and first threw him into the Castle of Sant' Angelo, but at last drove him into exile in Campania for more than ten months. But when the Count had been murdered by one of the Crescenzi,'--in whose house Rienzi afterwards lived,--'the Pope was released and returned to his See.' Back came Otto the Great, Saxon Emperor, at Christmas time, as he came more than once, to put down revolution with a strong hand and avenge the wrongs of Pope John by executing all but one of the Captains of the Regions. Twelve of them he hanged. Peter the Prefect, or Prior, was bound naked upon an ass with an earthen jar over his head, flogged through the city, and cruelly put to death; and at last his torn body was hung by the hair to the head of the bronze horse whereon the stately figure of Marcus Aurelius sat in triumph before the door of the Pope's house, as it sits today on the Capitol before the Palace of the Senator. And Otto caused the body of murdered Roffredo to be dragged from its grave and quartered by the hangman and scattered abroad, a warning to the Regions and their leaders. They left Pope John in peace after that, and he lived five years and held a council in the Lateran, and died in his bed. Possibly after his rough experience, his rule was more gentle, and when he was dead he was spoken of as 'that most worthy Pontiff.' Who Count Roffredo was no one can tell surely, but his name belongs to the great house of Caetani. [Illustration: BASILICA OF ST JOHN LATERAN] It is hard to see past terror in present peace; it is not easy to fancy the rough rabble of Rome in those days, strangely clad, more strangely armed, far out in the waste fields about the Lateran, surging up like demons in the lurid torchlight before the house of the Pope, pressing upon the mailed Count's stout horse, and thronging upon the heels of the Captains and the Prefect, pounding down the heavy doors with stones, and with deep shouts for every heavy blow, while white-robed John and his frightened priests cower together within, expecting death. Down goes the oak with a crash like artillery, that booms along the empty corridors; a moment's pause, and silence, and then the rush, headed by the Knight and the leaders who mean no murder, but mean to have their way, once and for ever, and buffet back their furious followers when they have reached the Pope's room, lest he should be torn in pieces. Then, the subsidence of the din, and the old man and his priests bound and dragged out and forced to go on foot by all the long dark way through the city to the black dungeons of Sant' Angelo beyond the rushing river. [Illustration: SAN GIOVANNI IN LATERANO] It seems far away. Yet we who have seen the Roman people rise, overlaid with burdens and maddened by the news of a horrible defeat, can guess at what it must have been. Those who saw the sea of murderous pale faces, and heard the deep cry, 'Death to Crispi,' go howling and echoing through the city can guess what that must have been a thousand years ago, and many another night since then, when the Romans were roused and there was a smell of blood in the air. But today there is peace in the great Mother of Churches, with an atmosphere of solemn rest that one may not breathe in Saint Peter's nor perhaps anywhere else in Rome within consecrated walls. There is mystery in the enormous pillars that answer back the softest whispered word from niche to niche across the silent aisle; there is simplicity and dignity of peace in the lofty nave, far down and out of jarring distance from the over-gorgeous splendour of the modern transept. In Holy Week, towards evening at the Tenebræ, the divine tenor voice of Padre Giovanni, monk and singer, soft as a summer night, clear as a silver bell, touching as sadness itself, used to float through the dim air with a ring of Heaven in it, full of that strange fatefulness that followed his short life, till he died, nearly twenty years ago, foully poisoned by a layman singer in envy of a gift not matched in the memory of man. Sometimes, if one wanders upward towards the Monti when the moon is high, a far-off voice rings through the quiet air--one of those voices which hardly ever find their way to the theatre nowadays, and which, perhaps, would not satisfy the nervous taste of our Wagnerian times. Perhaps it sounds better in the moonlight, in those lonely, echoing streets, than it would on the stage. At all events, it is beautiful as one hears it, clear, strong, natural, ringing. It belongs to the place and hour, as the humming of honey bees to a field of flowers at noon, or the desolate moaning of the tide to a lonely ocean coast at night. It is not an exaggeration, nor a mere bit of ill nature, to say that there are thousands of fastidiously cultivated people today who would think it all theatrical in the extreme, and would be inclined to despise their own taste if they felt a secret pleasure in the scene and the song. But in Rome even such as they might condescend to the romantic for an hour, because in Rome such deeds have been dared, such loves have been loved, such deaths have been died, that any romance, no matter how wild, has larger probability in the light of what has actually been the lot of real men and women. So going alone through the winding moonlit ways about Tor de' Conti, Santa Maria dei Monti and San Pietro in Vincoli, a man need take no account of modern fashions in sensation; and if he will but let himself be charmed, the enchantment will take hold of him and lead him on through a city of dreams and visions, and memories strange and great, without end. Ever since Rome began there must have been just such silvery nights; just such a voice rang through the same air ages ago; just as now the velvet shadows fell pall-like and unrolled themselves along the grey pavement under the lofty columns of Mars the Avenger and beneath the wall of the Forum of Augustus. [Illustration: PIAZZA COLONNA] Perhaps it is true that the impressions which Rome makes upon a thoughtful man vary more according to the wind and the time of day than those he feels in other cities. Perhaps, too, there is no capital in all the world which has such contrasts to show within a mile of each other--one might almost say within a dozen steps. One of the most crowded thoroughfares of Rome, for instance, is the Via del Tritone, which is the only passage through the valley between the Pincian and the Quirinal hills, from the region of Piazza Colonna towards the railway station and the new quarter. During the busy hours of the day a carriage can rarely move through its narrower portions any faster than at a foot pace, and the insufficient pavements are thronged with pedestrians. In a measure, the Tritone in Rome corresponds to Galata bridge in Constantinople. In the course of the week most of the population of the city must have passed at least once through the crowded little street, which somehow in the rain of millions that lasted for two years, did not manage to attract to itself even the small sum which would have sufficed to widen it by a few yards. It is as though the contents of Rome were daily drawn through a keyhole. In the Tritone are to be seen magnificent equipages, jammed in the line between milk carts, omnibuses and dustmen's barrows, preceded by butcher's vans and followed by miserable cabs, smart dogcarts and high-wheeled country vehicles driven by rough, booted men wearing green-lined cloaks and looking like stage bandits; even saddle horses are led sometimes that way to save time; and on each side flow two streams of human beings of every type to be found between Porta Angelica and Porta San Giovanni. A prince of the Holy Roman Empire pushes past a troop of dirty school children, and is almost driven into an open barrel of salt codfish, in the door of a poor shop, by a black-faced charcoal man carrying a sack on his head more than half as high as himself. A party of jolly young German tourists in loose clothes, with red books in their hands, and their field-glasses hanging by straps across their shoulders, try to rid themselves of the flower-girls dressed in sham Sabine costumes, and utter exclamations of astonishment and admiration when they themselves are almost run down by a couple of the giant Royal Grenadiers, each six feet five or thereabouts, besides nine inches, or so, of crested helmet aloft, gorgeous, gigantic and spotless. Clerks by the dozen and liveried messengers of the ministries struggle in the press; ladies gather their skirts closely, and try to pick a dainty way where, indeed, there is nothing 'dain' (a word which Doctor Johnson confesses that he could not find in any dictionary, but which he thinks might be very useful); servant girls, smart children with nurses and hoops going up to the Pincio, black-browed washerwomen with big baskets of clothes on their heads, stumpy little infantry soldiers in grey uniforms, priests, friars, venders of boot-laces and thread, vegetable sellers pushing hand-carts of green things in and out among the horses and vehicles with amazing dexterity, and yelling their cries in super-humanly high voices--there is no end to the multitude. If the day is showery, it is a sight to see the confusion in the Tritone when umbrellas of every age, material and colour are all opened at once, while the people who have none crowd into the codfish shop and the liquor seller's and the tobacconist's, with traditional 'con permesso' of excuse for entering when they do not mean to buy anything; for the Romans are mostly civil people and fairly good-natured. But rain or shine, at the busy hours, the place is always crowded to overflowing with every description of vehicle and every type of humanity. Out of Babel--a horizontal Babel--you may turn into the little church, dedicated to the 'Holy Guardian Angel.' It stands on the south side of the Tritone, in that part which is broader, and which a little while ago was still called the Via dell' Angelo Custode--Guardian Angel Street. It is an altogether insignificant little church, and strangers scarcely ever visit it. But going down the Tritone, when your ears are splitting, and your eyes are confused with the kaleidoscopic figures of the scurrying crowd, you may lift the heavy leathern curtain, and leave the hurly-burly outside, and find yourself all alone in the quiet presence of death, the end of all hurly-burly and confusion. It is quite possible that under the high, still light in the round church, with its four niche-like chapels, you may see, draped in black, that thing which no one ever mistakes for anything else; and round about the coffin a dozen tall wax candles may be burning with a steady yellow flame. Possibly, at the sound of the leathern curtain slapping the stone door-posts, as it falls behind you, a sad-looking sacristan may shuffle out of a dark corner to see who has come in; possibly not. He may be asleep, or he may be busy folding vestments in the sacristy. The dead need little protection from the living, nor does a sacristan readily put himself out for nothing. You may stand there undisturbed as long as you please, and see what all the world's noise comes to in the end. Or it may be, if the departed person belonged to a pious confraternity, that you chance upon the brothers of the society--clad in dark hoods with only holes for their eyes, and no man recognized by his neighbour--chanting penitential psalms and hymns for the one whom they all know because he is dead, and they are living. Such contrasts are not lacking in Rome. There are plenty of them everywhere in the world, perhaps, but they are more striking here, in proportion as the outward forms of religious practice are more ancient, unchanging and impressive. For there is nothing very impressive or unchanging about the daily outside world, especially in Rome. Rome, the worldly, is the capital of one of the smaller kingdoms of the world, which those who rule it are anxious to force into the position of a great power. One need not criticise their action too hardly; their motives can hardly be anything but patriotic, considering the fearful sacrifices they impose upon their country. But they are not the men who brought about Italian unity. They are the successors of those men; they are not satisfied with that unification, and they have dreamed a dream of ambition, beside which, considering the means at their disposal, the projects of Alexander, Cæsar and Napoleon sink into comparative insignificance. At all events, the worldly, modern, outward Italian Rome is very far behind the great European capitals in development, not to say wealth and magnificence. 'Lay' Rome, if one may use the expression, is not in the least a remarkable city. 'Ecclesiastic' Rome is the stronghold of a most tremendous fact, from whatever point of view Christianity may be considered. If one could, in imagination, detach the head of the Catholic Church from the Church, one would be obliged to admit that no single living man possesses the far-reaching and lasting power which in each succeeding papal reign belongs to the Pope. Behind the Pope stands the fact which confers, maintains and extends that power from century to century; a power which is one of the hugest elements of the world's moral activity, both in its own direct action and in the counteraction and antagonism which it calls forth continually. It is the all-pervading presence of this greatest fact in Christendom which has carried on Rome's importance from the days of the Cæsars, across the chasm of the dark ages, to the days of the modern popes; and its really enormous importance continually throws forward into cruel relief the puerilities and inanities of the daily outward world. It is the consciousness of that importance which makes old Roman society what it is, with its virtues, its vices, its prejudices and its strange, old-fashioned, close-fisted kindliness; which makes the contrast between the Saturnalia of Shrove Tuesday night and the cross signed with ashes upon the forehead on Ash Wednesday morning, between the careless laughter of the Roman beauty in Carnival, and the tragic earnestness of the same lovely face when the great lady kneels in Lent, before the confessional, to receive upon her bent head the light touch of the penitentiary's wand, taking her turn, perhaps, with a score of women of the people. It is the knowledge of an always present power, active throughout the whole world, which throws deep, straight shadows, as it were, through the Roman character, just as in certain ancient families there is a secret that makes grave the lives of those who know it. The Roman Forum and the land between it and the Colosseum, though strictly within the limits of Monti, were in reality a neutral ground, the chosen place for all struggles of rivalry between the Regions. The final destruction of its monuments dates from the sacking of Rome by Robert Guiscard with his Normans and Saracens in the year one thousand and eighty-four, when the great Duke of Apulia came in arms to succour Hildebrand, Pope Gregory the Seventh, against the Emperor Henry the Fourth, smarting under the bitter humiliation of Canossa; and against his Antipope Clement, more than a hundred years after Otto had come back in anger to avenge Pope John. There is no more striking picture of the fearful contest between the Church and the Empire. [Illustration: PIAZZA DI SAN GIOVANNI IN LATERANO] Alexis, Emperor of the East, had sent Henry, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, one hundred and forty-four thousand pieces of gold, and one hundred pieces of woven scarlet, as an inducement to make war upon the Norman Duke, the Pope's friend. But the Romans feared Henry and sent ambassadors to him, and on the twenty-first of March, being the Thursday before Palm Sunday, the Lateran gate was opened for him to enter in triumph. The city was divided against itself, the nobles were for Hildebrand, the people were against him. The Emperor seized the Lateran palace and all the bridges. The Pope fled to the Castle of Sant' Angelo, an impregnable fortress in those times, ever ready and ever provisioned for a siege. Of the nobles Henry required fifty hostages as earnest of their neutrality. On the next day he threw his gold to the rabble and they elected his Antipope Gilbert, who called himself Clement the Third, and certain bishops from North Italy consecrated him in the Lateran on Palm Sunday. Meanwhile Hildebrand secretly sent swift riders to Apulia, calling on Robert Guiscard for help, and still the nobles were faithful to him, and though Henry held the bridges, they were strong in Trastevere and the Borgo, which is the region between the Castle of Sant' Angelo and Saint Peter's. So it turned out that when Henry tried to bring his Antipope in solemn procession to enthrone him in the Pontifical chair, on Easter day, he found mailed knights and footmen waiting for him, and had to fight his way to the Vatican, and forty of his men were killed and wounded in the fray, while the armed nobles lost not one. Yet he reached the Vatican at last, and there he was crowned by the false Pope he had made, with the crown of the Holy Roman Empire. The chronicler apologizes for calling him an emperor at all. Then he set to work to destroy the dwellings of the faithful nobles, and laid siege to the wonderful Septizonium of Severus, in which the true Pope's nephew had fortified himself, and began to batter it down with catapults and battering-rams. Presently came the message of vengeance, brought by one man outriding a host, while the rabble were still building a great wall to encircle Sant' Angelo and starve Hildebrand to death or submission, working day and night like madmen, tearing down everything at hand to pile the great stones one upon another. Swiftly came the terrible Norman from the south, with his six thousand horse, Normans and Saracens, and thirty thousand foot, forcing his march and hungry for the Emperor. But Henry fled, making pretext of great affairs in Lombardy, promising great and wonderful gifts to the Roman rabble, and entrusting to their care his imperial city. Like a destroying whirlwind of fire and steel Robert swept on to the gates and into Rome, burning and slaying as he rode, and sparing neither man, nor woman, nor child, till the red blood ran in rivers between walls of yellow flame. And he took Hildebrand from Sant' Angelo, and brought him back to the Lateran through the reeking ruins of the city in grim and fearful triumph of carnage and destruction. That was the end of the Roman Forum, and afterwards, when the blood-soaked ashes and heaps of red-hot rubbish had sunk down and hardened to a level surface, the place where the shepherd fathers of Alba Longa had pastured their flocks was called the Campo Vaccino, the Cattle Field, because it was turned into the market for beeves, and rows of trees were planted, and on one side there was a walk where ropes were made, even to our own time. It became also the fighting ground of the Regions. Among the strangest scenes in the story of the city are those regular encounters between the Regions of Monti and Trastevere which for centuries took place on feast days, by appointment, on the site of the Forum, or occasionally on the wide ground before the Baths of Diocletian. They were battles fought with stones, and far from bloodless. Monti was traditionally of the Imperial or Ghibelline party; Trastevere was Guelph and for the Popes. The enmity was natural and lasting, on a small scale, as it was throughout Italy. The challenge to the fray was regularly sent out by young boys as messengers, and the place and hour were named and the word passed in secret from mouth to mouth. It was even determined by agreement whether the stones were to be thrown by hand or whether the more deadly sling was to be used. At the appointed time, the combatants appear in the arena, sometimes as many as a hundred on a side, and the tournament begins, as in Homeric times, with taunts and abuse, which presently end in skirmishes between the boys who have come to look on. Scouts are placed at distant points to cry 'Fire' at the approach of the dreaded Bargello and his men, who are the only representatives of order in the city and not, indeed, anxious to face two hundred infuriated slingers for the sake of making peace. One boy throws a stone and runs away, followed by the rest, all prudently retiring to a safe distance. The real combatants wrap their long cloaks about their left arms, as the old Romans used their togas on the same ground, to shield their heads from the blows; a sling whirls half a dozen times like lightning, and a smooth round stone flies like a bullet straight at an enemy's face, followed by a hundred more in a deadly hail, thick and fast. Men fall, blood flows, short deep curses ring through the sunny air, the fighters creep up to one another, dodging behind trees and broken ruins, till they are at cruelly short range; faster and faster fly the stones, and scores are lying prostrate, bleeding, groaning and cursing. Strength, courage, fierce endurance and luck have it at last, as in every battle. Down goes the leader of Trastevere, half dead, with an eye gone, down goes the next man to him, his teeth broken under his torn lips, down half a dozen more, dead or wounded, and the day is lost. Trastevere flies towards the bridge, pursued by Monti with hoots and yells and catcalls, and the thousands who have seen the fight go howling after them, women and children screaming, dogs racing and barking and biting at their heels. And far behind on the deserted Campo Vaccino, as the sun goes down, women weep and frightened children sob beside the young dead. But the next feast day would come, and a counter-victory and vengeance. That has always been the temper of the Romans; but few know how fiercely it used to show itself in those days. It would have been natural enough that men should meet in sudden anger and kill each other with such weapons as they chanced to have or could pick up, clubs, knives, stones, anything, when fighting was half the life of every grown man. It is harder to understand the murderous stone throwing by agreement and appointment. In principle, indeed, it approached the tournament, and the combat of champions representing two parties is an expression of the ancient instinct of the Latin peoples; so the Horatii and Curiatii fought for Rome and Alba--so Francis the First of France offered to fight the Emperor Charles the Fifth for settlement of all quarrels between the Kingdom and the Empire--and so the modern Frenchman and Italian are accustomed to settle their differences by an appeal to what they still call 'arms,' for the sake of what modern society is pleased to dignify by the name of 'honour.' But in the stone-throwing combats of Campo Vaccino there was something else. The games of the circus and the bloody shows of the amphitheatre were not forgotten. As will be seen hereafter, bull-fighting was a favourite sport in Rome as it is in Spain today, and the hand-to-hand fights between champions of the Regions were as much more exciting and delightful to the crowd as the blood of men is of more price than the blood of beasts. The habit of fighting for its own sake, with dangerous weapons, made the Roman rabble terrible when the fray turned quite to earnest; the deadly hail of stones, well aimed by sling and hand, was familiar to every Roman from his childhood, and the sight of naked steel at arm's length inspired no sudden, keen and unaccustomed terror, when men had little but life to lose and set small value on that, throwing it into the balance for a word, rising in arms for a name, doing deeds of blood and flame for a handful of gold or a day of power. Monti was both the battlefield of the Regions and also, in times early and late, the scene of the most splendid pageants of Church and State. There is a strange passage in the writings of Ammianus Marcellinus, a pagan Roman of Greek birth, contemporary with Pope Damasus in the latter part of the fourth century. Muratori quotes it, as showing what the Bishopric of Rome meant even in those days. It is worth reading, for a heathen's view of things under Valens and Valentinian, before the coming of the Huns and the breaking up of the Roman Empire, and, indeed, before the official disestablishment, as we should say, of the heathen religion; while the High Priest of Jupiter still offered sacrifices on the Capitol, and the six Vestal Virgins still guarded the Seven Holy Things of Rome, and held their vast lands and dwelt in their splendid palace in all freedom of high privilege, as of old. 'For my part,' says Ammianus, 'when I see the magnificence in which the Bishops live in Rome, I am not surprised that those who covet the dignity should use force and cunning to obtain it. For if they succeed, they are sure of becoming enormously rich by the gifts of the devout Roman matrons; they will drive about Rome in their carriages, as they please, gorgeously dressed, and they will not only keep an abundant table, but will give banquets so sumptuous as to outdo those of kings and emperors. They do not see that they could be truly happy if instead of making the greatness of Rome an excuse for their excesses, they would live as some of the Bishops of the Provinces do, who are sparing and frugal, poorly clad and modest, but who make the humility of their manners and the purity of their lives at once acceptable to their God and to their fellow worshippers.' So much Ammianus says. And Saint Jerome tells how Prætextatus, Prefect of the City, when Pope Damasus tried to convert him, answered with a laugh, 'I will become a Christian if you will make me Bishop of Rome.' Yet Damasus, famous for the good Latin and beautiful carving of the many inscriptions he composed and set up, was undeniably also a good man in the evil days which foreshadowed the great schism. [Illustration: SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE] And here, in the year 366, in the Region of Monti, in the church where now stands Santa Maria Maggiore, a great and terrible name stands out for the first time in history. Orsino, Deacon of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, rouses a party of the people, declares the election of Damasus invalid, proclaims himself Pope in his stead, and officiates as Pontiff in the Basilica of Sicininus. Up from the deep city comes the roaring crowd, furious and hungry for fight; the great doors are closed and Orsino's followers gather round him as he stands on the steps of the altar; but they are few, and those for Damasus are many; down go the doors, burst inward with battering-rams, up shoot the flames to the roof, and the short, wild fray lasts while one may count five score, and is over. Orsino and a hundred and thirty-six of his men lie dead on the pavement, the fire licks the rafters, the crowd press outward, and the great roof falls crashing down into wide pools of blood. And after that Damasus reigns eighteen years in peace and splendour. No one knows whether the daring Deacon was of the race that made and unmade popes afterwards, and held half Italy with its fortresses, giving its daughters to kings and taking kings' daughters for its sons, till Vittoria Accoramboni of bad memory began to bring down a name that is yet great. But Orsino he was called, and he had in him much of the lawless strength of those namesakes of his who outfought all other barons but the Colonna, for centuries; and romance may well make him one of them. Three hundred years later, and a little nearer to us in the dim perspective of the dark ages, another scene is enacted in the same cathedral. Martin the First was afterwards canonized as Saint Martin for the persecutions he suffered at the hands of Constans, who feared and hated him and set up an antipope in his stead, and at last sent him prisoner to die a miserable death in the Crimea. Olympius, Exarch of Italy, was the chosen tool of the Emperor, sent again and again to Rome to destroy the brave Bishop and make way for the impostor. At last, says the greatest of Italian chroniclers, fearing the Roman people and their soldiers, he attempted to murder the Pope foully, in hideous sacrilege. To that end he pretended penitence, and begged to be allowed to receive the Eucharist from the Pope himself at solemn high Mass, secretly instructing one of his body-guards to stab the Bishop at the very moment when he should present Olympius with the consecrated bread. Up to the basilica they went, in grave and splendid procession. One may guess the picture, with its deep colour, with the strong faces of those men, the Eastern guards, the gorgeous robes, the gilded arms, the high sunlight crossing the low nave and falling through the yellow clouds of incense upon the venerable bearded head of the holy man whose death was purposed in the sacred office. First, the measured tread of the Exarch's band moving in order; then, the silence over all the kneeling throng, and upon it the bursting unison of the 'Gloria in Excelsis' from the choir. Chant upon chant as the Pontiff and his Ministers intone the Epistle and the Gospel and are taken up by the singers in chorus at the first words of the Creed. By and by, the Pope's voice alone, still clear and brave in the Preface. 'Therefore with Angels and Archangels, and all the company of Heaven,' he chants, and again the harmony of many voices singing 'Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth.' Silence then, at the Consecration, and the dark-browed Exarch bowing to the pavement, beside the paid murderer whose hand is already on his dagger's hilt. 'O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world,' sings the choir in its sad, high chant, and Saint Martin bows, standing, over the altar, himself communicating, while the Exarch holds his breath, and the slayer fixes his small, keen eyes on the embroidered vestments and guesses how they will look with a red splash upon them. As the soldier looks, the sunlight falls more brightly on the gold, the incense curls in mystic spiral wreaths, its strong perfume penetrates and dims his senses; little by little, his thoughts wander till they are strangely fixed on something far away, and he no longer sees Pope nor altar nor altar-piece beyond, and is wrapped in a sort of waking sleep that is blindness. Olympius kneels at the steps within the rail, and his heart beats loud as the grand figure of the Bishop bends over him, and the thin old hand with its strong blue veins offers the sacred bread to his open lips. He trembles, and tries to glance sideways to his left with downcast eyes, for the moment has come, and the blow must be struck then or never. Not a breath, not a movement in the church, not the faintest clink of all those gilded arms, as the Saint pronounces the few solemn words, then gravely and slowly turns, with his deacons to right and left of him, and ascends the altar steps once more, unhurt. A miracle, says the chronicler. A miracle, says the amazed soldier, and repeats it upon solemn oath. A miracle, says Olympius himself, penitent and converted from error, and ready to save the Pope by all means he has, as he was ready to slay him before. But he only, and the hired assassin beside him, had known what was to be, and the people say that the Exarch and the Pope were already reconciled and agreed against the Emperor. The vast church has had many names. It seems at one time to have been known as the Basilica of Sicininus, for so Ammianus Marcellinus still speaks of it. But just before that, there is the lovely legend of Pope Liberius' dream. To him and to the Roman patrician, John, came the Blessed Virgin in a dream, one night in high summer, commanding them to build her a church wheresoever they should find snow on the morrow. And together they found it, glistening in the morning sun, and they traced, on the white, the plan of the foundation, and together built the first church, calling it 'Our Lady of Snows,' for Damasus to burn when Orsino seized it,--but the people spoke of it as the Basilica of Liberius. It was called also 'Our Lady of the Manger,' from the relic held holy there; and Sixtus the Third named it 'Our Lady, Mother of God'; and under many popes it was rebuilt and grew, until at last, for its size, it was called, as it is today, 'The Greater Saint Mary's.' At one time, the popes lived near it, and in our own century, when the palace had long been transferred to the Quirinal, a mile to northward of the basilica, Papal Bulls were dated 'From Santa Maria Maggiore.' It is too gorgeous now, too overladen, too rich; and yet it is imposing. The first gold brought from South America gilds the profusely decorated roof, the dark red polished porphyry pillars of the high altar gleam in the warm haze of light, the endless marble columns rise in shining ranks, all is gold, marble and colour. Many dead lie there, great men and good; and one over whom a sort of mystery hangs, for he was Bartolommeo Sacchi, Cardinal Platina, historian of the Church, a chief member of the famous Roman Academy of the fifteenth century, and a mediæval pagan, accused with Pomponius Letus and others of worshipping false gods; tried, acquitted for lack of evidence; dead in the odour of sanctity; proved at last ten times a heathen, and a bad one, today, by inscriptions found in the remotest part of the Catacombs, where he and his companions met in darkest secret to perform their extravagant rites. He lies beneath the chapel of Sixtus the Fifth, but the stone that marked the spot is gone. Strange survivals of ideas and customs cling to some places like ghosts, and will not be driven away. The Esquiline was long ago the haunt of witches, who chanted their nightly incantations over the shallow graves where slaves were buried, and under the hideous crosses whereon dead malefactors had groaned away their last hours of life. Mæcenas cleared the land and beautified it with gardens, but still the witches came by stealth to their old haunts. The popes built churches and palaces on it, but the dark memories never vanished in the light; and even in our own days, on Saint John's Eve, which is the witches' night of the Latin race, as the Eve of May-day is the Walpurgis of the Northmen, the people went out in thousands, with torches and lights, and laughing tricks of exorcism, to scare away the powers of evil for the year. On that night the vast open spaces around the Lateran were thronged with men and women and children; against the witches' dreaded influence they carried each an onion, torn up by the roots with stalk and flower; all about, on the outskirts of the place, were kitchen booths, set up with boughs and bits of awnings, yellow with the glare of earthen and iron oil lamps, where snails--great counter-charms against spells--were fried and baked in oil, and sold with bread and wine, and eaten with more or less appetite, according to the strength of men's stomachs. All night, till the early summer dawn, the people came and went, and wandered round and round, and in and out, in parties and by families, to go laughing homeward at last, scarce knowing why they had gone there at all, unless it were because their fathers and mothers had done as they did for generations unnumbered. [Illustration: BATHS OF DIOCLETIAN] And the Lateran once had another half-heathen festival, on the Saturday after Easter, in memory of the ancient Floralia of the Romans, which had formerly been celebrated on the 28th of April. It was a most strange festival, now long forgotten, in which Christianity and paganism were blended together. Baracconi, from whom the following account is taken, quotes three sober writers as authority for his description. Yet there is a doubt about the very name of the feast, which is variously called the 'Coromania' and the 'Cornomania.' On the afternoon of the Saturday in Easter week, say these writers, the priests of the eighteen principal 'deaconries'--an ecclesiastical division of the city long ago abolished and now somewhat obscure--caused the bells to be rung, and the people assembled at their parish churches, where they were received by a 'mansionarius,'--probably meaning here 'a visitor of houses,'--and a layman, who was arrayed in a tunic, and crowned with the flowers of the cornel cherry. In his hand he carried a concave musical instrument of copper, by which hung many little bells. One of these mysterious personages, who evidently represented the pagan element in the ceremony, preceded each parish procession, being followed immediately by the parish priest, wearing the cope. From all parts of the city they went up to the Lateran, and waited before the palace of the Pope till all were assembled. The Pope descended the steps to receive the homage of the people. Immediately, those of each parish formed themselves into wide circles round their respective 'visitors' and priests, and the strange rite began. In the midst the priest stood still. Round and round him the lay 'visitor' moved in a solemn dance, striking his copper bells rhythmically to his steps, while all the circle followed his gyrations, chanting a barbarous invocation, half Latin and half Greek: 'Hail, divinity of this spot! Receive our prayers in fortunate hour!' and many verses more to the same purpose, and quite beyond being construed grammatically. The dance is over with the song. One of the parish priests mounts upon an ass, backwards, facing the beast's tail, and a papal chamberlain leads the animal, holding over its head a basin containing twenty pieces of copper money. When they have passed three rows of benches--which benches, by the bye?--the priest leans back, puts his hand behind him into the basin, and pockets the coins. Then all the priests lay garlands at the feet of the Pope. But the priest of Santa Maria in Via Lata also lets a live fox out of a bag, and the little creature suddenly let loose flies for its life, through the parting crowd, out to the open country, seeking cover. It is like the Hebrew scapegoat. In return each priest receives a golden coin from the Pontiff's hand. The rite being finished, all return to their respective parishes, the dancing 'visitor' still leading the procession. Each priest is accompanied then by acolytes who bear holy water, branches of laurel, and baskets of little rolls, or of those big, sweet wafers, rolled into a cylinder and baked, which are called 'cialdoni,' and are eaten to this day by Romans with ice cream. From house to house they go; the priest blesses each dwelling, sprinkling water about with the laurel, and then burning the branch on the hearth and giving some of the rolls to the children. And all the time the dancer slowly dances and chants the strange words made up of some Hebrew, a little Chaldean and a leavening of nonsense. Jaritan, jaritan, iarariasti Raphaym, akrhoin, azariasti! One may leave the interpretation of the jargon to curious scholars. As for the rite itself, were it not attested by trustworthy writers, one would be inclined to treat it as a mere invention, no more to be believed than the legend of Pope Joan, who was supposed to have been stoned to death near San Clemente, on the way to the Lateran. An extraordinary number of traditions cling to the Region of Monti, and considering that in later times a great part of this quarter was a wilderness, the fact would seem strange. As for the 'Coromania' it seems to have disappeared after the devastation of Monti by Robert Guiscard in 1084, and the general destruction of the city from the Lateran to the Capitol is attributed to the Saracens who were with him. But a more logical cause of depopulation is found in the disappearance of water from the upper Region by the breaking of the aqueducts, from which alone it was derived. The consequence of this, in the Middle Age, was that the only obtainable water came from the river, and was naturally taken from it up-stream, towards the Piazza del Popolo, in the neighbourhood of which it was collected in tanks and kept until the mud sank to the bottom and it was approximately fit to drink. In Imperial times the greater number of the public baths were situated in the Monti. The great Piazza di Termini, now re-named Piazza delle Terme, before the railway station, took its name from the Baths of Diocletian--'Thermæ,' 'Terme,' 'Termini.' The Baths of Titus, the Baths of Constantine, of Philippus, Novatus and others were all in Monti, supplied by the aqueduct of Claudius, the Anio Novus, the Aqua Marcia, Tepula, Julia, Marcia Nova and Anio Vetus. No people in the world were such bathers as the old Romans; yet few cities have ever suffered so much or so long from lack of good water as Rome in the Middle Age. The supply cut off, the whole use of the vast institutions was instantly gone, and the huge halls and porticos and playgrounds fell to ruin and base uses. Owing to their peculiar construction and being purposely made easy of access on all sides, like the temples, the buildings could not even be turned to account by the Barons for purposes of fortification, except as quarries for material with which to build their towers and bastions. The inner chambers became hiding-places for thieves, herdsmen in winter penned their flocks in the shelter of the great halls, grooms used the old playground as a track for breaking horses, and round and about the ruins, on feast days, the men of Monti and Trastevere chased one another in their murderous tournaments of stone throwing. A fanatic Sicilian priest saved the great hall of Diocletian's Baths from destruction in Michelangelo's time. [Illustration: PORTA MAGGIORE, SUPPORTING THE CHANNELS OF THE AQUEDUCT OF CLAUDIUS AND THE ANIO NOVUS] The story is worth telling, for it is little known. In a little church in Palermo, in which the humble priest Antonio Del Duca officiated, he discovered under the wall-plaster a beautiful fresco or mosaic of the Seven Archangels, with their names and attributes. Day after day he looked at the fair figures till they took possession of his mind and heart and soul, and inspired him with the apparently hopeless desire to erect a church in Rome in their honour. To Rome he came, persuaded of his righteous mission, to fail of course, after seven years of indefatigable effort. Back to Palermo then, to the contemplation of his beloved angels. And again they seemed to drive him to Rome. Scarcely had he returned when in a dream he seemed to see his ideal church among the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian, which had been built, as tradition said, by thousands of condemned Christians. To dream was to wake with new enthusiasm, to wake was to act. In an hour, in the early dawn, he was in the great hall which is now the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, 'Saint Mary of the Angels.' But it was long before his purpose was finally accomplished. Thirty years of his life he spent in unremitting labour for his purpose, and an accident at last determined his success. He had brought a nephew with him from Sicily, a certain Giacomo Del Duca, a sculptor, who was employed by Michelangelo to carve the great mask over the Porta Pia. Pope Pius the Fourth, for whom the gate was named, praised the stone face to Michelangelo, who told him who had made it. The name recalled the sculptor's uncle and his mad project, which appealed to Michelangelo's love of the gigantic. Even the coincidence of appellation pleased the Pope, for he himself had been christened Angelo, and his great architect and sculptor bore an archangel's name. So the work was done in short time, the great church was consecrated, and one of the noblest of Roman buildings was saved from ruin by the poor Sicilian,--and there, in 1896, the heir to the throne of Italy was married with great magnificence, that particular church being chosen because, as a historical monument, it is regarded as the property of the Italian State, and is therefore not under the immediate management of the Vatican. Probably not one in a thousand of the splendid throng that filled the church had heard the name of Antonio Del Duca, who lies buried before the high altar without a line to tell of all he did. So lies Bernini, somewhere in Santa Maria Maggiore, so lies Platina,--he, at least, the better for no epitaph,--and Beatrice Cenci and many others, rest unforgotten in nameless graves. From the church to the railway station stretch the ruins, continuous, massive, almost useless, yet dear to all who love old Rome. On the south side, there used to be a long row of buildings, ending in a tall old mansion of good architecture, which was the 'Casino' of the great old Villa Negroni. In that house, but recently gone, Thomas Crawford, sculptor, lived for many years, and in the long, low studio that stood before what is now the station, but was then a field, he modelled the great statue of Liberty that crowns the Capitol in Washington, and Washington's own monument which stands in Richmond, and many of his other works. My own early childhood was spent there, among the old-time gardens, and avenues of lordly cypresses and of bitter orange trees, and the moss-grown fountains, and long walks fragrant with half-wild roses and sweet flowers that no one thinks of planting now. Beyond, a wild waste of field and broken land led up to Santa Maria Maggiore; and the grand old bells sent their far voices ringing in deep harmony to our windows; and on the Eve of Saint Peter's day, when Saint Peter's was a dream of stars in the distance and the gorgeous fireworks gleamed in the dark sky above the Pincio, we used to climb the high tower above the house and watch the still illumination and the soaring rockets through a grated window, till the last one had burst and spent itself, and we crept down the steep stone steps, half frightened at the sound of our own voices in the ghostly place. And in that same villa once lived Vittoria Accoramboni, married to Francesco Peretti, nephew of Cardinal Montalto, who built the house, and was afterwards Sixtus the Fifth, and filled Rome with his works in the five years of his stirring reign. Hers also is a story worth telling, for few know it, even among Romans, and it is a tale of bloodshed, and of murder, and of all crimes against God and man, and of the fall of the great house of Orsini. But it may better be told in another place, when we reach the Region where they lived and fought and ruled, by terror and the sword. Near the Baths of Diocletian, and most probably on the site of that same Villa Negroni, too, was that vineyard, or 'villa' as we should say, where Cæsar Borgia and his elder brother, the Duke of Gandia, supped together for the last time with their mother Vanozza, on the night of the 14th of June, in the year 1497. There has always been a dark mystery about what followed. Many say that Cæsar feared his brother's power and influence with the Pope. Not a few others suggest that the cause of the mutual hatred was a jealousy so horrible to think of that one may hardly find words for it, for its object was their own sister Lucrezia. However that may be, they supped together with their mother in her villa, after the manner of Romans in those times, and long before then, and long since. In the first days of summer heat, when the freshness of spring is gone and June grows sultry, the people of the city have ever loved to breathe a cooler air. In the Region of Monti there were a score of villas, and there were wide vineyards and little groves of trees, such as could grow where there was not much water, or none at all perhaps, saving what was collected in cisterns from the roofs of the few scattered houses, when it rained. In the long June twilight the three met together, the mother and her two sons, and sat down under an arbour in the garden, for the air was dry with the south wind and there was no fear of fever. Screened lamps and wax torches shed changing tints of gold and yellow on the fine linen, and the deep-chiselled dishes and vessels of silver, and the tall glasses and beakers of many hues. Fruit was piled up in the midst, such as the season afforded, cherries and strawberries, and bright oranges from the south. One may fancy the dark-browed woman of forty years, in the beauty of maturity almost too ripe, with her black eyes and hair of auburn, her jewelled cap, her gold laces just open at her marble throat, her gleaming earrings, her sleeves slashed to show gauze-fine linen, her white, ring-laden fingers that delicately took the finely carved meats in her plate--before forks were used in Rome--and dabbled themselves clean from each touch in the scented water the little page poured over them. On her right, her eldest, Gandia, fair, weak-mouthed, sensually beautiful, splendid in velvet, and chain of gold, and deep-red silk, his blue eyes glancing now and then, half scornfully, half anxiously at his strong brother. And he, Cæsar, the man of infamous memory, sitting there the very incarnation of bodily strength and mental daring; square as a gladiator, dark as a Moor, with deep and fiery eyes, now black, now red in the lamplight, the marvellous smile wreathing his thin lips now and then, and showing white, wolfish teeth, his sinewy brown hands direct in every little action, his soft voice the very music of a lie to those who knew the terrible brief tones it had in wrath. Long they sat, sipping the strong iced wine, toying with fruits and nuts, talking of State affairs, of the Pope, of Maximilian, the jousting Emperor,--discussing, perhaps, with a smile, his love of dress and the beautiful fluted armour which he first invented;--of Lewis the Eleventh of France, tottering to his grave, strangest compound of devotion, avarice and fear that ever filled a throne; of Frederick of Naples, to whom Cæsar was to bear the crown within a few days; of Lucrezia's quarrel with her husband, which had brought her to Rome; and at her name Cæsar's eyes blazed once and looked down at the strawberries on the silver dish, and Gandia turned pale, and felt the chill of the night air, and stately Vanozza rose slowly in the silence, and bade her evil sons good-night, for it was late. Two hours later, Gandia's thrice-stabbed corpse lay rolling and bobbing at the Tiber's edge, as dead things do in the water, caught by its silks and velvets in wild branches that dipped in the muddy stream; and the waning moon rose as the dawn forelightened. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE COLOSSEUM] If the secrets of old Rome could be known and told, they would fill the world with books. Every stone has tasted blood, every house has had its tragedy, every shrub and tree and blade of grass and wild flower has sucked life from death, and blossoms on a grave. There is no end of memories, in this one Region, as in all the rest. Far up by Porta Pia, over against the new Treasury, under a modern street, lie the bones of guilty Vestals, buried living, each in a little vault two fathoms deep, with the small dish and crust and the earthen lamp that soon flickered out in the close damp air; and there lies that innocent one, Domitian's victim, who shrank from the foul help of the headsman's hand, as her foot slipped on the fatal ladder, and fixed her pure eyes once upon the rabble, and turned and went down alone into the deadly darkness. Down by the Colosseum, where the ruins of Titus' Baths still stand in part, stood Nero's dwelling palace, above the artificial lake in which the Colosseum itself was built, and whose waters reflected the flames of the great fire. To northward, in a contrast that leaps ages, rise the huge walls of the Tor de' Conti, greatest of mediæval fortresses built within the city, the stronghold of a dim, great house, long passed away, kinsmen of Innocent the Third. What is left of it helps to enclose a peaceful nunnery. There were other towers, too, and fortresses, though none so strong as that, when it faced the Colosseum, filled then by the armed thousands of the great Frangipani. The desolate wastes of land in the Monti were ever good battlefields for the nobles and the people. But the stronger and wiser and greater Orsini fortified themselves in the town, in Pompey's theatre, while the Colonna held the midst, and the popes dwelt far aloof on the boundary, with the open country behind them for ready escape, and the changing, factious, fighting city before. The everlasting struggle, the furious jealousy, the always ready knife, kept the Regions distinct and individual and often at enmity with each other, most of all Monti and Trastevere, hereditary adversaries, Ghibelline and Guelph. Trastevere has something of that proud and violent character still. Monti lost it in the short eruption of 'progress' and 'development.' In the wild rage of speculation which culminated in 1889, its desolate open lands, its ancient villas and its strange old houses were the natural prey of a foolish greediness the like of which has never been seen before. Progress ate up romance, and hundreds of acres of wretched, cheaply built, hideous, unsafe buildings sprang up like the unhealthy growth of a foul disease, between the Lateran gate and the old inhabited districts. They are destined to a graceless and ignoble ruin. Ugly cracks in the miserable stucco show where the masonry is already parting, as the hollow foundations subside, and walls on which the paint is still almost fresh are shored up with dusty beams lest they should fall and crush the few paupers who dwell within. Filthy, half-washed clothes of beggars hang down from the windows, drying in the sun as they flap and flutter against pretentious moulded masks of empty plaster. Miserable children loiter in the high-arched gates, under which smart carriages were meant to drive, and gnaw their dirty fingers, or fight for a cold boiled chestnut one of them has saved. Squalor, misery, ruin and vile stucco, with a sprinkling of half-desperate humanity,--those are the elements of the modern picture,--that is what the 'great development' of modern Rome brought forth and left behind it. Peace to the past, and to its ashes of romance and beauty. [Illustration] REGION II TREVI In Imperial times, the street now called the Tritone, from the Triton on the fountain in Piazza Barberini, led up from the Portico of Vipsanius Agrippa's sister in the modern Corso to the temple of Flora at the beginning of the Quattro Fontane. It was met at right angles by a long street leading straight from the Forum of Trajan, and which struck it close to the Arch of Claudius. Then, as now, this point was the meeting of two principal thoroughfares, and it was called Trivium, or the 'crossroads.' Trivium turned itself into the Italian 'Trevi,' called in some chronicles 'the Cross of Trevi.' The Arch of Claudius carried the Aqua Virgo, still officially called the Acqua Vergine, across the highway; the water, itself, came to be called the water 'of the crossroads' or 'of Trevi,' and 'Trevi' gave its name at last to the Region, long before the splendid fountain was built in the early part of the last century. The device of the Region seems to have nothing to do with the water, except, perhaps, that the idea of a triplicity is preserved in the three horizontally disposed rapiers. The legend that tells how the water was discovered gave it the first name it bore. A detachment of Roman soldiers, marching down from Præneste, or Palestrina, in the summer heat, were overcome by thirst, and could find neither stream nor well. A little girl, passing that way, led them aside from the high-road and brought them to a welling spring, clear and icy cold, known only to shepherds and peasants. They drank their fill and called it Aqua Virgo, the Maiden Water. And so it has remained for all ages. But it is commonly called 'Trevi' in Rome, by the people and by strangers, and the name has a ring of poetry, by its associations. For they say that whoever will go to the great fountain, when the high moon rays dance upon the rippling water, and drink, and toss a coin far out into the middle, in offering to the genius of the place, shall surely come back to Rome again, old or young, sooner or later. Many have performed the rite, some secretly, sadly, heartbroken, for love of Rome and what it holds, and others gayly, many together, laughing, while they half believe, and sometimes believing altogether while they laugh. And some who loved, and could meet only in Rome, have gone there together, and women's tears have sometimes dropped upon the silvered water that reflected the sad faces of grave men. The foremost memories of the past in Trevi centre about the ancient family of the Colonna, still numerous, distinguished and flourishing after a career of nearly a thousand years--longer than that, it may be, if one take into account the traditions of them that go back beyond the earliest authentic mention of their greatness; a race of singular independence and energy, which has given popes to Rome, and great patriots, and great generals as well, and neither least nor last, Vittoria, princess and poetess, whose name calls up the gentlest memories of Michelangelo's elder years. The Colonna were originally hill men. The earliest record of them tells that their great lands towards Palestrina were confiscated by the Church, in the eleventh century. The oldest of their titles is that of Duke of Paliano, a town still belonging to them, rising on an eminence out of the plain beyond the Alban hills. The greatest of their early fortresses was Palestrina, still the seat and title estate of the Barberini branch of the family. Their original stronghold in Rome was almost on the site of their present palace, being then situated on the opposite side of the Basilica of the Santi Apostoli, where the headquarters of the Dominicans now are, and running upwards and backwards, thence, to the Piazza della Pilotta; but they held Rome by a chain of towers and fortifications, from the Quirinal to the Mausoleum of Augustus, now hidden among the later buildings, between the Corso, the Tiber, the Via de' Pontefici and the Via de' Schiavoni. The present palace and the basilica stood partly upon the site of the ancient quarters occupied by the first Cohort of the Vigiles, or city police, of whom about seven thousand preserved order when the population of ancient Rome exceeded two millions. The 'column,' from which the Colonna take their name, is generally supposed to have stood in the market-place of the village of that name in the higher part of the Campagna, between the Alban and the Samnite hills, on the way to Palestrina. It is a peaceful and vine-clad country, now. South of it rise the low heights of Tusculum, and it is more than probable that the Colonna were originally descended from the great counts who tyrannized over Rome from that strong point of vantage and, through them, from Theodora Senatrix. Be that as it may, their arms consist of a simple column, used on a shield, or as a crest, or as the badge of the family, and it is found in many a threadbare tapestry, in many a painting, in the frescos and carved ornaments of many a dim old church in Rome. [Illustration: FOUNTAIN OF TREVI] In their history, the first fact that stands out is their adherence to the Emperors, as Ghibellines, whereas their rivals, the Orsini, were Guelphs and supporters of the Church in most of the great contests of the Middle Age. The exceptions to the rule are found when the Colonna had a Pope of their own, or one who, like Nicholas the Fourth, was of their own making. 'That Pope,' says Muratori, 'had so boundlessly favoured the aggrandizement of the Colonna that his actions depended entirely upon their dictates, and a libel was published upon him, entitled the Source of Evil, illustrated by a caricature, in which the mitred head of the Pontiff was seen issuing from a tall column between two smaller ones, the latter intended to represent the two living cardinals of the house, Jacopo and Pietro.' Yet in the next reign, when they impeached the election of Boniface the Eighth, they found themselves in opposition to the Holy See, and they and theirs were almost utterly destroyed by the Pope's partisans and kinsmen, the powerful Caetani. Just before him, after the Holy See had been vacant for two years and nearly four months, because the Conclave of Perugia could not agree upon a Pope, a humble southern hermit of the Abruzzi, Pietro da Morrone, had been suddenly elevated to the Pontificate, to his own inexpressible surprise and confusion, and after a few months of honest, but utterly fruitless, effort to understand and do what was required of him, he had taken the wholly unprecedented step of abdicating the papacy. He was succeeded by Benedict Caetani, Boniface the Eighth, keen, learned, brave, unforgiving and the mortal foe of the Colonna; 'the magnanimous sinner,' as Gibbon quotes from a chronicle, 'who entered like a fox, reigned like a lion and died like a dog.' Yet the judgment is harsh, for though his sins were great, the expiation was fearful, and he was brave as few men have been. Samson slew a lion with his hands, and the Philistines with the jaw-bone of an ass. Men have always accepted the Bible's account of the slaughter. But when an ass, without the aid of any Samson, killed a lion in the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Priori, in Florence, the event was looked upon as of evil portent, exceeding the laws of nature. For Pope Boniface had presented the Commonwealth of Florence with a young and handsome lion, which was chained up and kept in the court of the palace aforesaid. A donkey laden with firewood was driven in, and 'either from fear, or by a miracle,' as the chronicle says, at once assailed the lion with the utmost ferocity, and kicked him to death, in spite of the efforts of a number of men to drag the beast of burden off. Of the two hypotheses, the wise men of the day preferred the supernatural explanation, and one of them found an ancient Sibylline prophecy to the effect that 'when the tame beast should kill the king of beasts, the dissolution of the Church should begin.' Which saying, adds Villani, was presently fulfilled in Pope Boniface. For the Pope had a mortal quarrel with Philip the Fair of France whom he had promised to make Emperor, and had then passed over in favour of Albert, son of Rudolph of Hapsburg; and Philip made a friend and ally of Stephen Colonna, the head of the great house, who was then in France, and drove Boniface's legate out of his kingdom, and allowed the Count of Artois to burn the papal letters. The Pope retorted by a Major Excommunication, and the quarrel became furious. The Colonna being under his hand, Boniface vented his anger upon them, drove them from Rome, destroyed their houses, levelled Palestrina to the ground, and ploughed up the land where it had stood. The six brothers of the house were exiles and wanderers. Old Stephen, the idol of Petrarch, alone and wretched, was surrounded by highwaymen, who asked who he was. 'Stephen Colonna,' he answered, 'a Roman citizen.' And the thieves fell back at the sound of the great name. Again, someone asked him with a sneer where all his strongholds were, since Palestrina was gone. 'Here,' he answered, unmoved, and laying his hand upon his heart. Of such stuff were the Pope's enemies. Nor could he crush them. Boniface was of Anagni, a city of prehistoric walls and ancient memories which belonged to the Caetani; and there, in the late summer, he was sojourning for rest and country air, with his cardinals and his court and his kinsmen about him. Among the cardinals was Napoleon Orsini. [Illustration: GRAND HALL OF THE COLONNA PALACE] Then came William of Nogaret, sent by the King of France, and Sciarra Colonna, the boldest man of his day, and many other nobles, with three hundred knights and many footmen. For a long time they had secretly plotted a master-stroke of violence, spending money freely among the people, and using all persuasion to bring the country to their side, yet with such skill and caution that not the slightest warning reached the Pope's ears. In calm security he rose early on the morning of the seventh of September. He believed his position assured, his friends loyal and the Colonna ruined for ever; and Colonna was at the gate. Suddenly, from below the walls, a cry of words came up to the palace windows; long drawn out, distinct in the still mountain air. 'Long live the King of France! Death to Pope Boniface!' It was taken up by hundreds of voices, and repeated, loud, long and terrible, by the people of the town, by men going out to their work in the hills, by women loitering on their doorsteps, by children peering out, half frightened, from behind their mothers' scarlet woollen skirts, to see the armed men ride up the stony way. Cardinals, chamberlains, secretaries, men-at-arms, fled like sheep; and when Colonna reached the palace wall, only the Pope's own kinsmen remained within to help him as they could, barring the great doors and posting themselves with crossbows at the grated window. For the Caetani were always brave men. But Boniface knew that he was lost, and calmly, courageously, even grandly, he prepared to face death. 'Since I am betrayed,' he said, 'and am to die, I will at least die as a Pope should!' So he put on the great pontifical chasuble, and set the tiara of Constantine upon his head, and, taking the keys and the crosier in his hands, sat down on the papal throne to await death. The palace gates were broken down, and then there was no more resistance, for the defenders were few. In a moment Colonna in his armour stood before the Pontiff in his robes; but he saw only the enemy of his race, who had driven out his great kinsmen, beggars and wanderers on the earth, and he lifted his visor and looked long at his victim, and then at last found words for his wrath, and bitter reproaches and taunts without end and savage curses in the broad-spoken Roman tongue. And William of Nogaret began to speak, too, and threatened to take Boniface to Lyons where a council of the Church should depose him and condemn him to ignominy. Boniface answered that he should expect nothing better than to be deposed and condemned by a man whose father and mother had been publicly burned for their crimes. And this was true of Nogaret, who was no gentleman. A legend says that Colonna struck the Pope in the face, and that he afterwards made him ride on an ass, sitting backwards, after the manner of the times. But no trustworthy chronicle tells of this. On the contrary, no one laid hands upon him while he was kept a prisoner under strict watch for three days, refusing to touch food; for even if he could have eaten he feared poison. And Colonna tried to force him to abdicate, as Pope Celestin had done before him, but he refused stoutly; and when the three days were over, Colonna went away, driven out, some say, by the people of Anagni who turned against him. But that is absurd, for Anagni is a little place and Colonna had a strong force of good soldiers with him. Possibly, seeing that the old man refused to eat, Sciarra feared lest he should be said to have starved the Pope to death. They went away and left him, carrying off his treasures with them, and he returned to Rome, half mad with anger, and fell into the hands of the Orsini cardinals, who judged him not sane and kept him a prisoner at the Vatican, where he died soon afterwards, consumed by his wrath. And before long the Colonna had their own again and rebuilt Palestrina and their palace in Rome. Twenty-five years later they were divided against each other, in the wild days when Lewis the Bavarian, excommunicated and at war with the Pope, was crowned and consecrated Emperor, by the efforts of an extraordinary man of genius, Castruccio degli Interminelli, known better as Castruccio Castracane, the Ghibelline lord of Lucca who made Italy ring with his deeds for twenty years, and died of a fever, in the height of his success and glory, at the age of forty-seven years. Sciarra Colonna was for him and for Lewis. Stephen, head of the house, was against them, and in those days when Rome was frantic for an Emperor, Stephen's son Jacopo had the quiet courage to bring out the Bull of Excommunication against the chosen Emperor and nail it to the door of San Marcello, in the Corso, in the heart of Rome and in the sight of a thousand angry men, in protest against what they meant to do--against what was doing even at that moment. And he reached Palestrina in safety, shaking the dust of Rome from his feet. But on that bright winter's day, Lewis of Bavaria and his queen rode down from Santa Maria Maggiore by the long and winding ways towards Saint Peter's. The streets were all swept and strewn with yellow sand and box leaves and myrtle that made the air fragrant, and from every window and balcony gorgeous silks and tapestries were hung, and even ornaments of gold and silver and jewels. Before the procession rode standard-bearers, four for each Region, on horses most richly caparisoned. There rode Sciarra Colonna, and beside him, for once in history, Orsino Orsini, and others, all dressed in cloth of gold, and Castruccio Castracane, wearing that famous sword which in our own times was offered by Italy to King Victor Emmanuel; and many other Barons rode there in splendid array, and there was great concourse of the people. So they came to Saint Peter's; and because the Count of the Lateran should by right have been the Emperor's sponsor at the anointing, and had left Rome in anger and disdain, Lewis made Castruccio a knight of the Empire and Count of the Lateran in his stead, and sponsor; and two excommunicated Bishops consecrated the Emperor, and anointed him, and Sciarra Colonna crowned him and his queen. After which they feasted in the evening at the Aracoeli, and slept in the Capitol, because they were all weary with the long ceremony, and it was too late to go home. The chronicler's comment is curious. 'Note,' he says, 'what presumption was this, of the aforesaid damned Bavarian, such as thou shalt not find in any ancient or recent history; for never did any Christian Emperor cause himself to be crowned save by the Pope or his legate, even though opposed to the Church, neither before then nor since, except this Bavarian.' But Sciarra and Castruccio had their way, and Lewis did what even Napoleon, master of the world by violent chance, would not do. And twenty years later, in the same chronicle, it is told how 'Lewis of Bavaria, who called himself Emperor, fell with his horse, and was killed suddenly, without penitence, excommunicated and damned by Holy Church.' It is a curious coincidence that Boniface the Eighth, Sciarra's prisoner, and Lewis the Bavarian, whom he crowned Emperor, both died on the eleventh of October, according to most authorities. The Senate of Rome had dwindled to a pitiable office, held by one man. At or about this time, the Colonna and the Orsini agreed by a compromise that there should be two, chosen from their two houses. The Popes were in Avignon, and men who could make Emperors were more than able to do as they pleased with a town of twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants, so long as the latter had no leader. One may judge of what Rome was, when even pilgrims did not dare to go thither and visit the tomb of Saint Peter. The discord of the great houses made Rienzi's life a career; the defection of the Orsini from the Pope's party led to his flight; their battles suggested to the exiled Pope the idea of sending him back to Rome to break their power and restore a republic by which the Pope might restore himself; and the rage of their retainers expended itself in his violent death. For it was their retainers who fought for their masters, till the younger Stephen Colonna killed Bertoldo Orsini, the bravest man of his day, in an ambush, and the Orsini basely murdered a boy of the Colonna on the steps of a church. But Rienzi was of another Region, of the Regola by the Tiber, and it is not yet time to tell his story. And by and by, as the power of the Popes rose and they became again as the Cæsars had been, Colonna and Orsini forgot their feuds, and were glad to stand on the Pope's right and left as hereditary 'Assistants of the Holy See.' In the petty ending of all old greatnesses in modern times, the result of the greatest feud that ever made two races mortal foes is merely that no prudent host dare ask the heads of the two houses to dinner together, lest a question of precedence should arise, such as no master of ceremonies would presume to settle. That is what it has come to. Once upon a time an Orsini quarrelled with a Colonna in the Corso, just where Aragno's café is now situated, and ran him through with his rapier, wounding him almost to death. He was carried into the palace of the Theodoli, close by, and the records of that family tell that within the hour eight hundred of the Colonna's retainers were in the house to guard him. In as short space, the Orsini called out three thousand men in arms, when Cæsar Borgia's henchman claimed the payment of a tax. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE MAUSOLEUM OF AUGUSTUS From a print of the last century] Times have changed since then. The Mausoleum of Augustus, once a fortress, has been an open air theatre in our time, and there the great Salvini and Ristori often acted in their early youth; it is a circus now. And in less violent contrast, but with change as great from what it was, the palace of the Colonna suggests no thought of defence nowadays, and the wide gates and courtyard recall rather the splendours of the Constable and of his wife, Maria Mancini, niece of Cardinal Mazarin, than the fiercer days when Castracane was Sciarra's guest on the other side of the church. The Basilica of the Apostles is said to have been built by Pelagius the First, who was made Pope in the year 555, and who dedicated it to Saint Philip and Saint James. Recent advances in the study of archæology make it seem more than probable that he adapted for the purpose a part of the ancient barracks of the Vigiles, of which the central portion appears almost to coincide with the present church, at a somewhat different angle; and in the same way it is likely that the remains of the north wing were rebuilt at a later period by the Colonna as a fortified palace. In those times men would not have neglected to utilize the massive substructures and walls. However that may be, the Colonna dwelt there at a very early date, and in eight hundred years or more have only removed their headquarters from one side of the church to the other. The latter has been changed and rebuilt, and altered again, like most of the great Roman sanctuaries, till it bears no resemblance to the original building. The present church is distinctly ugly, with the worst defects of the early eighteenth century; and that age was as deficient in cultivated taste as it was abhorrent of natural beauty. Some fragments of the original frescos that adorned the apse are now preserved in a hall behind the main Sacristy of Saint Peter's. Against the flat walls, under the inquisition of the crudest daylight, the fragments of Melozzo da Forli's masterpiece are masterpieces still; the angelic faces, imprisoned in a place not theirs, reflect the sadness of art's captivity; and the irretrievable destruction of an inimitable past excites the pity and resentment of thoughtful men. The attempt to outdo the works of the great has exhibited the contemptible imbecility of the little, and the coarse-grained vanity of Clement the Eleventh has parodied the poetry of art in the bombastic prose of a vulgar tongue. Pope Pelagius took for his church the pillars and marbles of Trajan's Forum, in the belief that his acts were acceptable to God; but Clement had no such excuse, and the edifice which was a monument of faith has given place to the temple of a monumental vanity. [Illustration: FORUM OF TRAJAN] It is remarkable that the Colonna rarely laid their dead in the Church of the Apostles, for it was virtually theirs by right of immediate neighbourhood, and during their domination they could easily have assumed actual possession of it as a private property. A very curious custom, which survived in the sixteenth century, and perhaps much later, bears witness to the close connection between their family and the church. At that time a gallery existed, accessible from the palace and looking down into the basilica, so that the family could assist at Mass without leaving their dwelling. On the afternoon of the first of May, which is the traditional feast of this church, the poor of the neighbourhood assembled within. The windows of the palace gallery were then thrown open and a great number of fat fowls were thrown alive to the crowd, turkeys, geese and the like, to flutter down to the pavement and be caught by the luckiest of the people in a tumultuous scramble. When this was over, a young pig was swung out and lowered in slings by a purchase of which the block was seized to a roof beam. When just out of reach the rope was made fast, and the most active of the men jumped for the animal from below, till one was fortunate enough to catch it with his hands, when the rope was let go, and he carried off the prize. The custom was evidently similar to that of climbing the May-pole, which was set up on the same day in the Campo Vaccino. May-day was one of the oldest festivals of the Romans, for it was sacred to the tutelary Lares, or spirits of ancestors, and was kept holy, both publicly by the whole city as the habitation of the Roman people, and by each family in its private dwelling. It is of Aryan origin and is remembered in one way or another by all Aryan races in our own time, and it is not surprising that in the general conversion of Paganism to Christianity a new feast should have been intentionally made to coincide with an old one; but it is hard to understand the lack of all reverence for sacred places which could admit such a scene as the scrambling for live fowls and pigs in honour of the twelve Apostles, a pious exercise which is perhaps paralleled, though assuredly not equalled, in crudeness, by the old Highland custom of smoking tobacco in kirk throughout the sermon. At the very time when we have historical record of a Pope's presence as an amused spectator of the proceedings, Michelangelo had lately painted the ceiling of the Sixtine chapel, and had not yet begun his Last Judgment; and 'Diva' Vittoria Colonna, not yet the friend of his later years, was perhaps even then composing those strangely passionate spiritual sonnets which appeal to the soul through the heart, by the womanly pride that strove to make the heart subject to the soul. The commonplace romance which has represented Vittoria Colonna and Michelangelo as in love with each other is as unworthy of both as it is wholly without foundation. They first met nine years before her death, when she was almost fifty and he was already sixty-four. She had then been widowed twelve years, and it was long since she had refused in Naples the princely suitors who made overtures for her hand. The true romance of her life was simpler, nobler and more enduring, for it began when she was a child, and it ended when she breathed her last in the house of Giuliano Cesarini, the kinsman of her people, whose descendant married her namesake in our own time. At the age of four, Vittoria was formally betrothed to Francesco d'Avalos, heir of Pescara, one of that fated race whose family history has furnished matter for more than one stirring tale. Vittoria was born in Marino, the Roman town and duchy which still gives its title to Prince Colonna's eldest son, and she was brought up in Rome and Naples, of which latter city her father was Grand Constable. Long before she was married, she saw her future husband and loved him at first sight, as she loved him to her dying day, so that although even greater offers were made for her, she steadfastly refused to marry any other man. They were united when she was seventeen years old, he loved her devotedly, and they spent many months together almost without other society in the island of Ischia. The Emperor Charles the Fifth was fighting his lifelong fight with Francis the First of France. Colonna and Pescara were for the Empire, and Francesco d'Avalos joined the imperial army; he was taken prisoner at Ravenna and carried captive to France; released, he again fought for Charles, who offered him the crown of the kingdom of Naples; but he refused it, and still he fought on, to fall at last at Pavia, in the strength of his mature manhood, and to die of his wounds in Milan when Vittoria was barely five and thirty years of age, still young, surpassingly beautiful, and gifted as few women have ever been. What their love was, their long correspondence tells,--a love passionate as youth and enduring as age, mutual, whole and faithful. For many years the heartbroken woman lived in Naples, where she had been most happy, feeding her soul with fire and tears. At last she returned to Rome, to her own people, in her forty-ninth year. There she was visited by the old Emperor for whom her husband had given his life, and there she met Michelangelo. It was natural enough that they should be friends. It is monstrous to suppose them lovers. The melancholy of their natures drew them together, and the sympathy of their tastes cemented the bond. To the woman-hating man of genius, this woman was a revelation and a wonder; to the great princess in her perpetual sorrow the greatest of creative minds was a solace and a constant intellectual delight. Their friendship was mutual, fitting and beautiful, which last is more than can be said for the absurd stories about their intercourse which are extant in print and have been made the subject of imaginary pictures by more than one painter. The tradition that they used to meet often in the little Church of Saint Sylvester, behind the Colonna gardens, rests upon the fact that they once held a consultation there in the presence of Francesco d'Olanda, a Portuguese artist, when Vittoria was planning the Convent of Saint Catherine, which she afterwards built not very far away. The truth is that she did not live in the palace of her kinsfolk after her return to Rome, but most probably in the convent attached to the other and greater Church of Saint Sylvester which stands in the square of that name not far from the Corso. The convent itself is said to have been originally built for the ladies of the Colonna who took the veil, and was only recently destroyed to make room for the modern Post-office, the church itself having passed into the hands of the English. The coincidence of the two churches being dedicated to the same saint doubtless helped the growth of the unjust fable. But in an age of great women, in the times of Lucrezia Borgia, great and bad, of Catherine Sforza, great and warlike, Vittoria Colonna was great and good; and the ascetic Michelangelo, discovering in her the realization of an ideal, laid at her feet the homage of a sexagenarian's friendship. In the battle of the archæologists the opposing forces traverse and break ground, and rush upon each other again, 'hurtling together like wild boars,'--as Mallory describes the duels of his knights,--and when learned doctors disagree it is not the province of a searcher after romance to attempt a definition of exact truths. 'Some romances entertain the genius,' quotes Johnson, 'and strengthen it by the noble ideas which they give of things; but they corrupt the truth of history.' Professor Lanciani, who is probably the greatest authority, living or dead, on Roman antiquities, places the site of the temple of the Sun in the Colonna gardens, and another writer compares the latter to the hanging gardens of Babylon, supported entirely on ancient arches and substructures rising high above the natural soil below. But before Aurelian erected the splendid building to record his conquest of Palmyra, the same spot was the site of the 'Little Senate,' instituted by Elagabalus in mirthful humour, between an attack of sacrilegious folly and a fit of cruelty. The 'Little Senate' was a woman's senate; in other words, it was a regular assembly of the fashionable Roman matrons of the day, who met there in hours of idleness under the presidency of the Emperor's mother, Semiamira. Ælius Lampridius, quoted by Baracconi, has a passage about it. 'From this Senate,' he says, 'issued the absurd laws for the matrons, entitled Semiamiran Senatorial Decrees, which determined for each matron how she might dress, to whom she must yield precedence, by whom she might be kissed, deciding which ladies might drive in chariots, and which in carts, and whether the latter should be drawn by caparisoned horses, or by asses, or by mules, or oxen; who should be allowed to be carried in a litter or a chair, which might be of leather or of bone with fittings of ivory or of silver, as the case might be; and it was even determined which ladies might wear shoes adorned only with gold, and which might have gems set in their boots.' Considering how little human nature has changed in eighteen hundred years it is easy enough to imagine what the debates in the 'Little Senate' must have been with Semiamira in the chair ruling everything 'out of order' which did not please her capricious fancy: the shrill discussions about a fashionable head-dress, the whispered intrigues for a jewel-studded slipper, the stormy divisions on the question of gold hairpins, and the atmosphere of beauty, perfumes, gossip, vanity and all feminine dissension. But the 'Little Senate' was short-lived. Some fifty years after Elagabalus, Aurelian triumphed over Zenobia of Palmyra, and built his temple of the Sun. That triumph was the finest sight, perhaps, ever seen in imperial Rome. Twenty richly caparisoned elephants and two hundred captive wild beasts led the immense procession; eight hundred pairs of gladiators came next, the glory and strength of fighting manhood, with all their gleaming arms and accoutrements, marching by the huge Flavian Amphitheatre, where sooner or later they must fight each other to the death; then countless captives of the East and South and West and North, Syrian nobles, Gothic warriors, Persian dignitaries beside Frankish chieftains, and Tetricus, the great Gallic usurper, in the attire of his nation, with his young son whom he had dared to make a Senator in defiance of the Empire. Three royal equipages followed, rich with silver, gold and precious stones, one of them Zenobia's own, and she herself seated therein, young, beautiful, proud and vanquished, loaded from head to foot with gems, most bitterly against her will, her hands and feet bound with a golden chain, and about her neck another, long and heavy, of which the end was held by a Persian captive who walked beside the chariot and seemed to lead her. Then Aurelian, the untiring conqueror, in the car of the Gothic king, drawn by four great stags, which he himself was to sacrifice to Jove that day according to his vow, and a long line of wagons loaded down and groaning under the weight of the vast spoil; the Roman army, horse and foot, the Senate and the people, a million, perhaps, all following the indescribable magnificence of the great triumph, along the Sacred Way, that was yellow with fresh strewn sand and sweet with box and myrtle. [Illustration: RUINS OF HADRIAN'S VILLA AT TIVOLI] But when it was over, Aurelian, who was generous when he was not violent, honoured Zenobia and endowed her with great fortune, and she lived for many years as a Roman Matron in Hadrian's villa at Tivoli. And the Emperor made light of the 'Little Senate' and built his Sun temple on the spot, with singular magnificence, enriching its decoration with pearls and precious stones and with fifteen thousand pounds in weight of pure gold. Much of that temple was still standing in the seventeenth century and was destroyed by Urban the Eighth, the Pope who built the heavy round tower on the south side of the Quirinal palace, facing Monte Cavallo. Monte Cavallo itself was a part of the Colonna villa, and its name, only recently changed to Piazza del Quirinale, was given to it by the great horses that stand on each side of the fountain, and which were found long ago, according to tradition, between the Palazzo Rospigliosi and the Palazzo della Consulta. In the times of Sixtus the Fifth, they were in a pitiable state, their forelegs and tails gone, their necks broken, their heads propped up by bits of masonry. When he finished the Quirinal palace he restored them and set them up, side by side, before the entrance, and when Pius the Sixth changed their position and turned them round, the ever conservative and ever discontented Roman people were disgusted by the change. On the pedestal of one of them are the words, 'Opus Phidiae,' 'the work of Phidias,' A punning placard was at once stuck upon the inscription with the legend, 'Opus Perfidiae Pii Sexti'--'the work of perfidy of Pius the Sixth.' The Quirinal palace cannot be said to have played a part in the history of Rome. Its existence is largely due to the common sense of Sixtus the Fifth, and to his love of good air. He was a shepherd by birth, and it is recorded that the first of his bitter disappointments was that the farmer whom he served set him to feed the pigs because he could not learn how to drive sheep to pasture; a disgrace which ultimately made him run away, when he fell in with a monk whose face he liked. He informed the astonished father that he meant to follow him everywhere, 'to Hell, if he chose,'--which was a forcible if not a pious resolution,--and explained that the pigs would find their way home alone. Later, when he had quarrelled with all the monks in Naples, including his superiors, he came to Rome, and, being by that time very learned, he was employed to expound the 'Formalities' of Scotus to the 'Signor' Marcantonio Colonna, abbot of the Monastery of the Apostles; and there he resided as a guest for a long time till his brilliant pupil was himself master of the subject, as well as a firm friend of the quarrelsome monk; and in their intercourse the seeds were no doubt sown of that implacable hatred against the Orsini which, under the great and just provocation of a kinsman's murder, ended in the exile and temporary ruin of the Colonna's rivals. No doubt, also, the abbot and the monk often strolled together in the Colonna gardens, and the future Pope breathed the high air of the Quirinal hill with a sense of relief, and dreamed of living up there, far above the city, literally in an atmosphere of his own. Therefore, when he was Pope, he made the great palace that crowns the eminence, completing and extending a much smaller building planned by the wise Gregory the Thirteenth, and ever since then, until 1870, the Popes lived there during some part of the year. It is modern, as age is reckoned in Rome, and it has modern associations in the memory of living men. It was from the great balcony of the Quirinal that Pius the Ninth pronounced his famous benediction to an enthusiastic and patriotic multitude in 1846. It will be remembered that a month after his election, Pius proclaimed a general amnesty in favour of all persons imprisoned for political crimes, and a decree by which all criminal prosecutions for political offences should be immediately discontinued, unless the persons accused were ecclesiastics, soldiers, or servants of the government, or criminals in the universal sense of the word. The announcement was received with a frenzy of enthusiasm, and Rome went mad with delight. Instinctively, the people began to move towards the Quirinal from all parts of the city, as soon as the proclamation was published; the stragglers became a band, and swelled to a crowd; music was heard, flags appeared and the crowd swelled to a multitude that thronged the streets, singing, cheering and shouting for joy as they pushed their way up to the palace, filling the square, the streets that led to it and the Via della Dateria below it, to overflowing. In answer to this popular demonstration the Pope appeared upon the great balcony above the main entrance; a shout louder than all the rest burst from below, the long drawn 'Viva!' of the southern races; he lifted his hand, and there was silence; and in the calm summer air his quiet eyes were raised towards the sky as he imparted his benediction to the people of Rome. Twenty-four years later, when the Italians had taken Rome, a detachment of soldiers accompanied by a smith and his assistants marched up to the same gate. Not a soul was within, and they had instructions to enter and take possession of the palace. In the presence of a small and silent crowd of sullen-looking men of the people, the doors were forced. The difference between Unity under Augustus and Unity under Victor Emmanuel is that under the Empire the Romans took Italy, whereas under the Kingdom the Italians have taken Rome. Without pretending that there can be any moral distinction between the two, one may safely admit that there is a great and vital one between the two conditions of Rome, at the two periods of history, a distinction no less than that which separates the conqueror from the conquered, and the fruits of conquest from the consequences of subjection. But thinking men do not forget that they look at the past in one way and at the present in another; and that while the actions of a nation are dictated by the impulses of contagious sentiment, the judgments of history are too often based upon an all but commercial reckoning and balancing of profit and loss. When Sixtus the Fifth was building the Quirinal palace, he was not working in a wilderness resembling the deserted fields of the outlying Monti. The hill was covered with gardens and villas. Ippolito d'Este, the son of Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, and of Lucrezia Borgia, had built himself a residence on the west side of the hill, surrounded by gardens. It was in the manner of his magnificent palace at Tivoli, that Villa d'Este of which the melancholy charm had such a mysterious attraction for Liszt, where the dark cypresses reflect their solemn beauty in the stagnant water, and a weed-grown terrace mourns the dead artist in the silence of decay. [Illustration: PALAZZO DEL QUIRINALE] Further on, along the Via Venti Settembre, stretched the pleasure grounds of Oliviero, Cardinal Carafa, who is remembered as the man who first recognized the merits of the beautiful mutilated group subsequently known as 'Pasquino,' and set it upon the pedestal which made it famous, and gave its name a place in all languages, by the witty lampoons and stinging satires almost daily affixed to the block of stone. Many other villas followed in the same direction, and in those insecure days not a few Romans, when the summer days grew hot, were content to move up from their palaces in the lower parts of the city to breathe the somewhat better air of the Quirinal and the Esquiline, instead of risking a journey to the country. Sixtus the Fifth died in the Quirinal palace, and twenty-one other Popes have died there since, all following the curious custom of bequeathing their hearts and viscera to the parish Church of the Saints Vincent and Anastasius, which is known as the Church of Cardinal Mazarin, because the tasteless front was built by him, though the rest existed much earlier. It stands opposite the fountain of Trevi, at one corner of the little square; the vault in which the urns were placed is just behind and below the high altar; but Benedict the Fourteenth built a special monument for them on the left of the apse, and a tablet on the right records the names of the Popes who left these strange legacies to the church. In passing, one may remember that Mazarin himself was born in the Region of Trevi, the son of a Sicilian,--like Crispi and Rudinì. His father was employed at first as a butler and then as a steward by the Colonna, married an illegitimate daughter of the family, and lived to see his granddaughter, Maria Mancini, married to the head of the house, and his son a cardinal and despot of France, and himself, after the death of his first wife, the honoured husband of Porzia Orsini, so that he was the only man in history who was married both to an Orsini and to a Colonna. In the light of his father's extraordinary good fortune, the success of the son, though not less great, is at least less astonishing. The magnificent Rospigliosi palace, often ascribed by a mistake to Cardinal Scipio Borghese, was the Palazzo Mazarini and Mazarin's father died there; it was inherited by the Dukes of Nevers, through another niece of the Cardinal's, and was bought from them between 1667 and 1670, by Prince Rospigliosi, brother of Pope Clement the Ninth, then reigning. Urban the Eighth, the Barberini Pope, had already left his mark on the Quirinal hill. The great Barberini palace was built by him, it is said, of stones taken from the Colosseum, whereupon a Pasquinade announced that 'the Barberini had done what the Barbarians had not.' The Barbarians did not pull down the Colosseum, it is true, but they could assuredly not have built as Urban did, and in that particular instance, without wishing to justify the vandalisms of the centuries succeeding the Renascence, it may well be asked whether the Amphitheatre is not more picturesque in its half-ruined state, as it stands, and whether the city is not richer by a great work of art in the princely dwelling which faces the street of the Four Fountains. Among the many memories of the Quirinal there is one more mysterious than the rest. The great Baths of Constantine extended over the site of the Palazzo Rospigliosi, and the ruins were in part standing at the end of the sixteenth century. It is related by a writer of those days and an eye-witness of the fact, that a vault was discovered beneath the old baths, about eighty feet long by twenty wide, closed at one end by a wall thrown up with evident haste and lack of skill, and completely filled with human bodies that fell to dust at the first touch, evidently laid there all at the same time, just after death, and probably numbering at least a thousand. In vain one conjectures the reason of such wholesale burial--one of Nero's massacres, perhaps, or a plague. No one can tell. The invaluable Baracconi, often quoted, recalls the fact that Tasso, when a child, lived with his father in some house on the Monte Cavallo, when the execrable Carafa cardinal and his brother had temporarily succeeded in seizing all the Colonna property; and he gives a letter of Bernardo, the poet's father, written in July to his wife, who was away just then. [Illustration: PIAZZA BARBERINI] 'I do not wish the children to go to the vineyard because they get too hot, and the air is bad there this summer, but in order that they may have a change, I took steps to have the use of the Boccaccio Vineyard [Villa Colonna], and the Duke of Paliano [then a Carafa, for the latter had stolen the title as well as the lands] has let me have it, and we have been here a week and shall stay all summer in this good air.' The words call up a picture of Tasso, a small boy, pale with the heat of a Roman summer, but restless and for ever running about, overheated and catching cold like all delicate children, which brings the unhappy poet a little nearer to us. Of those great villas and gardens there remain the Colonna, the Rospigliosi and the Quirinal, by far the largest of the three, and enclosing between four walls an area almost, if not quite, equal to the Pincio. The great palace where twenty-two popes died is inhabited by the royal family of Italy and crowns the height, as the Vatican, far away across the Tiber, is also on an eminence of its own. They face each other, like two principles in natural and eternal opposition,--Rome the conqueror of the world, and Italy the conqueror of Rome. And he who loves the land for its own sake can only pray that if they must oppose each other for ever in heart, they may abide in that state of civilized though unreconciled peace, which is the nation's last and only hope of prosperity. [Illustration] REGION III COLONNA When the present Queen of Italy first came to Rome as Princess Margaret, and drove through the city to obtain a general impression of it, she reached the Piazza Colonna and asked what the column might be which is the most conspicuous landmark in that part of Rome and gives a name to the square, and to the whole Region. The answer of the elderly officer who accompanied the Princess and her ladies is historical. 'That column,' he answered, 'is the Column of Piazza Colonna'--'the Column of Column Square,' as we might say--and that was all he could tell concerning it, for his business was not archæology, but soldiering. The column was erected by the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, whose equestrian statue stands on the Capitol, to commemorate his victory over the Marcomanni. [Illustration: ARCH OF TITUS] It is remarkable that so many of the monuments still preserved comparatively intact should have been set up by the adoptive line of the so-called Antonines, from Trajan to Marcus Aurelius, and that the two monster columns, the one in Piazza Colonna and the one in Trajan's Forum, should be the work of the last and the first of those emperors, respectively. Among other memorials of them are the Colosseum, the Arch of Titus and the statue mentioned above. The lofty Septizonium is levelled to the ground, the Palaces of the Cæsars are a mountain of ruins, the triumphal arches of Marcus Aurelius and of Domitian have disappeared with those of Gratian, of Valens, of Arcadius and of many others; but the two gigantic columns still stand erect with their sculptured tales of victory and triumph almost unbroken, surmounted by the statues of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, whose memory was sacred to all Christians long before the monuments were erected, and to whom, respectively, they have been dedicated by a later age. There may have been a connection, too, in the minds of the people, between the 'Column of Piazza Colonna' and the Column of the Colonna family, since a great part of this Region had fallen under the domination of the noble house, and was held by them with a chain of towers and fortifications; but the pillar which is the device of the Region terminates in the statue of the Apostle Peter, whereas the one which figures in the shield of Colonna is crowned with a royal crown, in memory of the coronation of Lewis the Bavarian by Sciarra, who himself generally lived in a palace facing the small square which bears his name, and which is only a widening of the Corso just north of San Marcello, the scene of Jacopo Colonna's brave protest against his kinsman's mistaken imperialism. The straight Corso itself, or what is the most important part of it to Romans, runs through the Region from San Lorenzo in Lucina to Piazza di Sciarra, and beyond that, southwards, it forms the western boundary of Trevi as far as the Palazzo di Venezia, and the Ripresa de' Barberi--the 'Catching of the Racers.' West of the Corso, the Region takes in the Monte Citorio and the Piazza of the Pantheon, but not the Pantheon itself, and eastwards it embraces the new quarter which was formerly the Villa Ludovisi, and follows the Aurelian wall, from Porta Salaria to Porta Pinciana. Corso means a 'course,' and the Venetian Paul the Second, who found Rome dull compared with Venice, gave it the name when he made it a race-course for the Carnival, towards the close of the fifteenth century. Before that it was Via Lata,--'Broad Street,'--and was a straight continuation of the Via Flaminia, the main northern highway from the city. For centuries it has been the chief playground of the Roman Carnival, a festival of which, perhaps, nothing but the memory will remain in a few years, when the world will wonder how it could be possible that the population of the grave old city should have gone mad each year for ten days and behaved itself by day and night like a crowd of schoolboys let loose. 'Carnival' is supposed to be derived from 'Carnelevamen,' a 'solace for the flesh.' Byron alone is responsible for the barbarous derivation 'Carne Vale,' farewell meat--a philological impossibility. In the minds of the people it is probably most often translated as 'Meat Time,' a name which had full meaning in times when occasional strict fasting and frequent abstinence were imposed on Romans almost by law. Its beginnings are lost in the dawnless night of time--of Time, who was Kronos, of Kronos who was Saturn, of Saturn who gave his mysterious name to the Saturnalia in which Carnival had its origin. His temple stood at the foot of the Capitol hill, facing the corner of the Forum, and there are remains of it today, tall columns in a row, with architrave and frieze and cornice; from the golden milestone close at hand, as from the beginning of time, were measured the ways of the world to the ends of the earth; and the rites performed within it were older than any others, and different, for here the pious Roman worshipped with uncovered head, whereas in all other temples he drew up his robes as a veil lest any sight of evil omen should meet his eyes, and here waxen tapers were first burned in Rome in honour of a god. And those same tapers played a part, to the end, on the last night of Carnival. But in the coincidence of old feasts with new ones, the festival of Lupercus falls nearer to the time of Ash Wednesday, for the Lupercalia were celebrated on the fifteenth of February, whereas the Carnival of Saturn began on the seventeenth of December. Lupercus was but a little god, yet he was great among the shepherds in Rome's pastoral beginnings, for he was the driver away of wolves, and on his day the early settlers ran round and round their sheepfold on the Palatine, all dressed in skins of fresh-slain goats, praising the Faun god, and calling upon him to protect their flocks. And in truth, as the winter, when wolves are hungry and daring, was over, his protection was a foregone conclusion till the cold days came again. The grotto dedicated to him was on the northwest slope of the Palatine, nearly opposite the Church of Saint George in Velabro, across the Via di San Teodoro; and all that remains of the great festival in which Mark Antony and the rest ran like wild men through the streets of Rome, smiting men and women with the purifying leathern thong, and offering at last that crown which Cæsar thrice refused, is merged and forgotten, with the Saturnalia, in the ten days' feasting and rioting that change to the ashes and sadness of Lent, as the darkest night follows the brightest day. For the Romans always loved strong contrasts. Carnival, in the wider sense, begins at Christmas and ends when Lent begins; but to most people it means but the last ten days of the season, when festivities crowd upon each other till pleasure fights for minutes as for jewels; when tables are spread all night and lights are put out at dawn; when society dances itself into distraction and poor men make such feasting as they can; when no one works who can help it, and no work done is worth having, because it is done for double price and half its value; when affairs of love are hastened to solution or catastrophe, and affairs of state are treated with the scorn they merit in the eyes of youth, because the only sense is laughter, and the only wisdom, folly. That is Carnival, personified by the people as a riotous old red-cheeked, bottle-nosed hunchback, animated by the spirit of fun. In a still closer sense, Carnival is the Carnival in the Corso, or was; for it is dead beyond resuscitation, and such efforts as are made to give it life again are but foolish incantations that call up sad ghosts of joy, spiritless and witless. But within living memory, it was very different. In those days which can never come back, the Corso was a sight to see and not to be forgotten. The small citizens who had small houses in the street let every window to the topmost story for the whole ten days; the rich whose palaces faced the favoured line threw open their doors to their friends; every window was decorated, from every balcony gorgeous hangings, or rich carpets, or even richer tapestries hung down; the street was strewn thick with yellow sand, and wheresoever there was an open space wooden seats were built up, row above row, where one might hire a place to see the show and join in throwing flowers, and the lime-covered 'confetti' that stung like small shot and whitened everything like meal, and forced everyone in the street or within reach of it to wear a shield of thin wire netting to guard the face, and thick gloves to shield the hands; or, in older times, a mask, black, white, or red, or modelled and painted with extravagant features, like evil beings in a dream. [Illustration: TWIN CHURCHES AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE CORSO From a print of the last century] In the early afternoon of each day except Sunday it all began, day after day the same, save that the fun grew wilder and often rougher as the doom of Ash Wednesday drew near. First when the people had gathered in their places, high and low, and already thronged the street from side to side, there was a distant rattle of scabbards and a thunder of hoofs, and all fell back, crowding and climbing upon one another, to let a score of cavalrymen trot through, clearing the way for the carriages of the 'Senator' and Municipality, which drove from end to end of the Corso with their scarlet and yellow liveries, before any other vehicles were allowed to pass, or any pelting with 'confetti' began. But on the instant when they had gone by, the showers began, right, left, upwards, downwards, like little storms of flowers and snow in the afternoon sunshine, and the whole air was filled with the laughter and laughing chatter of twenty thousand men and women and children--such a sound as could be heard nowhere else in the world. Many have heard a great host cheer, many have heard the battle-cries of armies, many have heard the terrible deep yell that goes up from an angry multitude in times of revolution; but only those who remember the Carnival as it used to be have heard a whole city laugh, and the memory is worth having, for it is like no other. The sound used to flow along in great waves, following the sights that passed, and swelling with them to a peal that was like a cheer, and ebbing then to a steady, even ripple of enjoyment that never ceased till it rose again in sheer joy of something new to see. Nothing can give an idea of the picture in times when Rome was still Roman; no power of description can call up the crowd that thronged and jammed the long, narrow street, till the slowly moving carriages and cars seemed to force their way through the stiffly packed mass of humanity as a strong vessel ploughs her course up-stream through packed ice in winter. Yet no one was hurt, and an order reigned which could never have been produced by any means except the most thorough good temper and the determination of each individual to do no harm to his neighbour, though all respect of individuals was as completely gone as in any anarchy of revolution. The more respectable a man looked who ventured into the press in ordinary clothes, the more certainly he became at once the general mark for hail-storms of 'confetti.' No uniform nor distinguishing badge was respected, excepting those of the squad of cavalrymen who cleared the way, and the liveries of the Municipality's coaches. Men and women were travestied and disguised in every conceivable way, as Punch and Judy, as judges and lawyers with enormous square black caps, black robes and bands, or in dresses of the eighteenth century, or as Harlequins, or even as bears and monkeys, singly, or in twos and threes, or in little companies of fifteen or twenty, all dressed precisely alike and performing comic evolutions with military exactness. Everyone carried a capacious pouch, or a fishing-basket, or some receptacle of the kind for the white 'confetti,' and arms and hands were ceaselessly swung in air, flinging vast quantities of the snowy stuff at long range and short. At every corner and in every side street, men sold it out of huge baskets, by the five, and ten, and twenty pounds, weighing it out with the ancient steelyard balance. Every balcony was lined with long troughs of it, constantly replenished by the house servants; every carriage and car had a full supply. And through all the air the odd, clean odour of the fresh plaster mingled with the fragrance of the box-leaves and the perfume of countless flowers. For flowers were thrown, too, in every way, loose and scattered, or in hard little bunches, the 'mazzetti,' that almost hurt when they struck the mark, and in beautiful nosegays, rarely flung at random when a pretty face was within sight at a window. The cars, often charmingly decorated, were filled with men and women representing some period of fashion, or some incident in history, or some allegorical subject, and were sometimes two or three stories high, and covered all over with garlands of flowers and box and myrtle. In the intervals between them endless open carriages moved along, lined with white, filled with white dominos, drawn by horses all protected and covered with white cotton robes, against the whiter 'confetti'--everyone fighting mock battles with everyone else, till it seemed impossible that anything could be left to throw, and the long perspective of the narrow street grew dim between the high palaces, and misty and purple in the evening light. A gun fired somewhere far away as a signal warned the carriages to turn out, and make way for the race that was to follow. The last moments were the hottest and the wildest, as flowers, 'confetti,' sugar plums with comet-like tails, wreaths, garlands, everything, went flying through the air in a final and reckless profusion, and as the last car rolled away the laughter and shouting ceased, and all was hushed in the expectation of the day's last sight. Again, the clatter of hoofs and scabbards, as the dragoons cleared the way; twenty thousand heads and necks craning to look northward, as the people pushed back to the side pavements; silence, and the inevitable yellow dog that haunts all race-courses, scampering over the white street, scared by the shouts, and catcalls, and bursts of spasmodic laughter; then a far sound of flying hoofs, a dead silence, and the quick breathing of suppressed excitement; louder and louder the hoofs, deader the hush; and then, in the dash of a second, in the scud of a storm, in a whirlwind of light and colour and sparkling gold leaf, with straining necks, and flashing eyes, and wide red nostrils flecked with foam, the racing colts flew by as fleet as darting lightning, riderless and swift as rock-swallows by the sea. Then, if it were the last night of Carnival, as the purple air grew brown in the dusk, myriads of those wax tapers first used in Saturn's temple of old lit up the street like magic and the last game of all began, for every man and woman and child strove to put out another's candle, and the long, laughing cry, 'No taper! No taper! Senza moccolo!' went ringing up to the darkling sky. Long canes with cloths or damp sponges or extinguishers fixed to them started up from nowhere, down from everywhere, from window and balcony to the street below, and from the street to the low balconies above. Put out at every instant, the little candles were instantly relighted, till they were consumed down to the hand; and as they burned low, another cry went up, 'Carnival is dead! Carnival is dead!' But he was not really dead till midnight, when the last play of the season had been acted in the playhouses, the last dance danced, the last feast eaten amid song and laughter, and the solemn Patarina of the Capitol tolled out the midnight warning like a funeral knell. That was the end. The riderless race was at least four hundred years old when it was given up. The horses were always called Bárberi, with the accent on the first syllable, and there has been much discussion about the origin of the name. Some say that it meant horses from Barbary, but then it should be pronounced Barbéri, accented on the penultimate. Others think it stood for Bárbari--barbarian, that is, unridden. The Romans never misplace an accent, and rarely mistake the proper quantity of a syllable long or short. For my own part, though no scholar has as yet suggested it, I believe that the common people, always fond of easy witticisms and catchwords, coined the appellation, with an eye to the meaning of both the other derivations, out of Barbo, the family name of Pope Paul the Second, who first instituted the Carnival races, and set the winning post under the balcony of the huge Palazzo di Venezia, which he had built beside the Church of Saint Mark, to the honour and glory of his native city. He made men run foot-races, too: men, youths and boys, of all ages; and the poor Jews, in heavy cloth garments, were first fed and stuffed with cakes and then made to run, too. The jests of the Middle Age were savage compared with the roughest play of later times. The pictures of old Rome are fading fast. I can remember, when a little boy, seeing the great Carnival of 1859, when the Prince of Wales was in Rome, and the masks which had been forbidden since the revolution were allowed again in his honour; and before the flower throwing began, I saw Liszt, the pianist, not yet in orders, but dressed in a close-fitting and very fashionable grey frock-coat, with a grey high hat, young then, tall, athletic and erect; he came out suddenly from a doorway, looked to the right and left in evident fear of being made a mark for 'confetti,' crossed the street hurriedly and disappeared--not at all the silver-haired, priestly figure the world knew so well in later days. And by and by the Prince of Wales came by in a simple open carriage, a thin young man in a black coat, with a pale, face and a quiet smile, looking all about him with an almost boyish interest, and bowing to the right and left. Then in deep contrast of sadness, out of the past years comes a great funeral by night, down the Corso; hundreds of brown, white-bearded friars, two and two with huge wax candles, singing the ancient chant of the penitential psalms; hundreds of hooded lay brethren of the Confraternities, some in black, some in white, with round holes for their eyes that flashed through, now and then, in the yellow glare of the flaming tapers; hundreds of little street boys beside them in the shadow, holding up big horns of grocers' paper to catch the dripping wax; and then, among priests in cotta and stole, the open bier carried on men's shoulders, and on it the peaceful figure of a dead girl, white-robed, blossom crowned, delicate as a frozen flower in the cold winter air. She had died of an innocent love, they said, and she was borne in through the gates of the Santi Apostoli to her rest in the solemn darkness. Nor has anyone been buried in that way since then. [Illustration: SAN LORENZO IN LUCINA] In the days of Paul the Second, what might be called living Rome, taken in the direction of the Corso, began at the Arch of Marcus Aurelius, long attributed to Domitian, which stood at the corner of the small square called after San Lorenzo in Lucina. Beyond that point, northwards and eastwards, the city was a mere desert, and on the west side the dwelling-houses fell away towards the Mausoleum of Augustus, the fortress of the Colonna. The arch itself used to be called the Arch of Portugal, because a Portuguese Cardinal, Giovanni da Costa, lived in the Fiano palace at the corner of the Corso. No one would suppose that very modern-looking building, with its smooth front and conventional balconies, to be six hundred years old, the ancient habitation of all the successive Cardinals of Saint Lawrence. Its only other interest, perhaps, lies in the fact that it formed part of the great estates bestowed by Sixtus the Fifth on his nephews, and was nevertheless sold over their children's heads for debt, fifty-five years after his death. The swineherd's race was prodigal, excepting the 'Great Friar' himself, and, like the Prodigal Son, it was not long before the Peretti were reduced to eating the husks. It was natural that the palaces of the Renascence should rise along the only straight street of any length in what was then the inhabited part of the city, and that the great old Roman Barons, the Colonna, the Orsini, the Caetani, should continue to live in their strongholds, where they had always dwelt. The Caetani, indeed, once bought from a Florentine banker what is now the Ruspoli palace, and Sciarra Colonna had lived far down the Corso; but with these two exceptions, the princely habitations between the Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza di Venezia are almost all the property of families once thought foreigners in Rome. The greatest, the most magnificent private dwelling in the world is the Doria Pamfili palace, as the Doria themselves were the most famous, and became the most powerful of those many nobles who, in the course of centuries, settled in the capital and became Romans, not only in name but in fact--Doria, Borghese, Rospigliosi, Pallavicini and others of less enduring fame or reputation, who came in the train or alliance of a Pope, and remained in virtue of accumulated riches and acquired honour. Two hundred and fifty years have passed since a council of learned doctors and casuists decided for Pope Innocent the Tenth the precise limit of his just power to enrich his nephews and relations, the Pamfili, by an alliance with whom the original Doria of Genoa added another name to their own, and inherited the vast estates. But nearly four hundred years before Innocent, the Doria had been high admirals and almost despots of Genoa. For they were a race of seamen from the first, in a republic where seamanship was the first essential to distinction. Albert Doria overcame the Pisans off Meloria in 1284, slaying five thousand, and taking eleven thousand prisoners. Conrad, his son, was 'Captain of the Genoese Freedom,' and 'Captain of the People.' Lamba Doria vanquished the Venetians under the brave Andrea Dandolo, and Paganino Doria conquered them again under another Andrea Dandolo; and then an Andrea Doria took service with the Pope, and became the greatest sailor in Europe, the hero of a hundred sea-fights, at one time the ally of Francis the First of France, and the most dangerous opponent of Gonzalvo da Cordova, then high admiral of the Empire under Charles the Fifth, a destroyer of pirates, by turns the idol, the enemy and the despot of his own city, Genoa, and altogether such a type of a soldier-sailor of fortune as the world has not seen before or since. And there were others after him, notably Gian Andrea Doria, remembered by the great victory over the Turks at Lepanto, whence he brought home those gorgeous Eastern spoils of tapestry and embroideries which hang in the Doria palace today. [Illustration: PALAZZO DORIA PAMFILI] The history of the palace itself is not without interest, for it shows how property, which was not in the possession of the original Barons, sometimes passed from hand to hand, changing names with each new owner, in the rise and fall of fortunes in those times. The first building seems to have belonged to the Chapter of Santa Maria Maggiore, which somehow ceded it to Cardinal Santorio, who spent an immense sum in rebuilding, extending and beautifying it. When it was almost finished, Julius the Second came to see it, and after expressing the highest admiration for the work, observed that such a habitation was less fitting for a prince of the church than for a secular duke--meaning, by the latter, his own nephew, Francesco della Rovere, then Duke of Urbino; and the unfortunate Santorio, who had succeeded in preserving his possessions under the domination of the Borgia, was forced to offer the most splendid palace in Rome as a gift to the person designated by his master. He died of a broken heart within the year. A hundred years later, the Florentine Aldobrandini, nephew of Clement the Eighth, bought it from the Dukes of Urbino for twelve thousand measures of grain, furnished them for the purpose by their uncle, and finally, when it had fallen in inheritance to Donna Olimpia Aldobrandini, Innocent the Tenth married her to his nephew, Camillo Pamfili, from whom, by the fusion of the two families, it at last came into the hands of the Doria-Pamfili. The Doria palace is almost two-thirds of the size of Saint Peter's, and within the ground plan of Saint Peter's the Colosseum could stand. It used to be said that a thousand persons lived under the roof outside of the gallery and the private apartments, which alone surpass in extent the majority of royal residences. Without some such comparison mere words can convey nothing to a mind unaccustomed to such size and space, and when the idea is grasped, one asks, naturally enough, how the people lived who built such houses--the people whose heirs, far reduced in splendour, if not in fortune, are driven to let four-fifths of their family mansion, because they find it impossible to occupy more rooms than suffice the Emperor of Germany or the Queen of England. One often hears foreign visitors, ignorant of the real size of palaces in Rome, observe, with contempt, that the Roman princes 'let their palaces.' It would be more reasonable to inquire what use could be made of such buildings, if they were not let, or how any family could be expected to inhabit a thousand rooms, and, ultimately, for what purpose such monstrous residences were ever built at all. The first thing that suggests itself in answer to the latter question as the cause of such boundless extravagance is the inherited giantism of the Latins, to which reference has been more than once made in these pages, and to which the existence of many of the principal buildings in Rome must be ascribed. Next, we may consider that at one time or another, each of the greater Roman palaces has been, in all essentials, the court of a pope or of a reigning feudal prince. Lastly, it must be remembered that each palace was the seat of management of all its owner's estates, and that such administration in those times required a number of scribes and an amount of labour altogether out of proportion with the income derived from the land. At first sight the study of Italian life in the Middle Age does not seem very difficult, because it is so interesting. But when one has read the old chronicles that have survived, and the histories of those times, one is amazed to see how much we are told about people and their actions, and how very little about the way in which people lived. It is easier to learn the habits of the Egyptians, or the Greeks, or the ancient Romans, or the Assyrians, than to get at the daily life of an Italian family between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries, from such books as we have. There are two reasons for this. One is the scarcity of literature, excepting historical chronicles, until the time of Boccaccio and the Italian storytellers. The other is the fact that what we call the Middle Age was an age of transition from barbarism to the civilization of the Renascence, and the Renascence was reached by sweeping away all the barbarous things that had gone before it. One must have lived a lifetime in Italy to be able to call up a fairly vivid picture of the eleventh, twelfth, or thirteenth centuries. One must have actually seen the grand old castles and gloomy monasteries, and feudal villages of Calabria and Sicily, where all things are least changed from what they were, and one should understand something of the nature of the Italian people, where the original people have survived; one must try also to realize the violence of those passions which are ugly excrescences on Italian character even now, and which were once the main movers of that character. There are extant many inventories of lordly residences of earlier times in Italy, for the inventory was taken every time the property changed hands by inheritance or sale. Everyone of these inventories begins at the main gate of the stronghold, and the first item is 'Rope for giving the cord.' Now 'to give the cord' was a torture, and all feudal lords had the right to inflict it. The victim's hands were tied behind his back, the rope was made fast to his bound wrists, and he was hoisted some twenty feet or so to the heavy iron ring which is fixed in the middle of the arch of every old Italian castle gateway; he was then allowed to drop suddenly till his feet, to which heavy weights were sometimes attached, were a few inches from the ground, so that the strain of his whole weight fell upon his arms, twisted them backwards, and generally dislocated them at the shoulders. And this was usually done three times, and sometimes twenty times, in succession, to the same prisoner, either as a punishment or by way of examination, to extract a confession of the truth. As the rope of torture was permanently rove through the pulley over the front door, it must have been impossible not to see it and remember what it meant every time one went in or out. And such quick reminders of danger and torture, and sudden, painful death, give the pitch and key of daily existence in the Middle Age. Every man's life was in his hand until it was in his enemy's. Every man might be forced, at a moment's notice, to defend not only his honour, and his belongings, and his life, but his women and children, too,--not against public enemies only, but far more often against private spite and personal hatred. Nowadays, when most men only stake their money on their convictions, it is hard to realize how men reasoned who staked their lives at every turn; or to guess, for instance, at what women felt whose husbands and sons, going out for a stroll of an afternoon, in the streets of Rome, might as likely as not be brought home dead of a dozen sword-wounds before evening. A husband, a father, was stabbed in the dark by treachery; try and imagine the daily and year-long sensations of the widowed mother, bringing up her only son deliberately to kill her husband's murderer; teaching him to look upon vengeance as the first, most real and most honourable aim of life, from the time he was old enough to speak, to the time when he should be strong enough to kill. Everything was earnest then. One should remember that most of the stories told by Boccaccio, Sacchetti and Bandello--the stories from which Shakespeare got his Italian plays, his Romeo and Juliet, his Merchant of Venice--were not inventions, but were founded on the truth. Everyone has read about Cæsar Borgia, his murders, his treacheries and his end, and he is held up to us as a type of monstrous wickedness. But a learned Frenchman, Émile Gebhart, has recently written a rather convincing treatise, to show that Cæsar Borgia was not a monster at all, nor even much of an exception to the general rule among the Italian despots of his day, and his day was civilized compared with that of Rienzi, of Boniface the Eighth, of Sciarra Colonna. In order to understand anything about the real life of the Middle Age, one should begin at the beginning; one should see the dwellings, the castles, and the palaces with their furniture and arrangements, one should realize the stern necessities as well as the few luxuries of that time. And one should make acquaintance with the people themselves, from the grey-haired old baron, the head of the house, down to the scullery man and the cellarer's boy and the stable lads. And then, knowing something of the people and their homes, one might begin to learn something about their household occupations, their tremendously tragic interests and their few and simple amusements. [Illustration: PORTA SAN LORENZO] The first thing that strikes one about the dwellings is the enormous strength of those that remain. The main idea, in those days, when a man built a house, was to fortify himself and his belongings against attacks from the outside, and every other consideration was secondary to that. That is true not only of the Barons' castles in the country and of their fortified palaces in town,--which were castles, too, for that matter,--but of the dwellings of all classes of people who could afford to live independently, that is, who were not serfs and retainers of the rich. We talk of fire-proof buildings nowadays, which are mere shells of iron and brick and stone that shrivel up like writing-paper in a great fire. The only really fire-proof buildings were those of the Middle Age, which consisted of nothing but stone and mortar throughout, stone walls, stone vaults, stone floors, and often stone tables and stone seats. I once visited the ancient castle of Muro, in the Basilicata, one of the southern provinces in Italy, where Queen Joanna the First paid her life for her sins at last, and died under the feather pillow that was forced down upon her face by two Hungarian soldiers. It is as wild and lonely a place as you will meet with in Europe, and yet the great castle has never been a ruin, nor at any time uninhabited, since it was built in the eleventh century, over eight hundred years ago. Nor has the lower part of it ever needed repair. The walls are in places twenty-five feet thick, of solid stone and mortar, so that the embrasure by which each narrow window is reached is like a tunnel cut through rock, while the deep prisons below are hewn out of the rock itself. Up to what we should call the third story, every room is vaulted. Above that the floors are laid on beams, and the walls are not more than eight feet thick--comparatively flimsy for such a place! Nine-tenths of it was built for strength--the small remainder for comfort; there is not a single large hall in all the great fortress, and the courtyard within the main gate is a gloomy, ill-shaped little paved space, barely big enough to give fifty men standing room. Nothing can give any idea of the crookedness of it all, of the small dark corridors, the narrow winding steps, the dusky inclined ascents, paved with broad flagstones that echo the lightest tread, and that must have rung and roared like sea caves to the tramp of armed men. And so it was in the cities, too. In Rome, bits of the old strongholds survive still. There were more of them thirty years ago. Even the more modern palaces of the late Renascence are built in such a way that they must have afforded a safe refuge against everything except artillery. The strong iron-studded doors and the heavily grated windows of the ground floor would stand a siege from the street. The Palazzo Gabrielli, for two or three centuries the chief dwelling of the Orsini, is built in the midst of the city like a great fortification, with escarpments and buttresses and loop-holes; and at the main gate there is still a portcullis which sinks into the ground by a system of chains and balance weights and is kept in working order even now. In the Middle Age, each town palace had one or more towers, tall, square and solid, which were used as lookouts and as a refuge in case the rest of the palace should be taken by an enemy. The general principle of all mediæval towers was that they were entered through a small window at a great height above the ground, by means of a jointed wooden ladder. Once inside, the people drew the ladder up after them and took it in with them, in separate pieces. When that was done, they were comparatively safe, before the age of gunpowder. There were no windows to break, it was impossible to get in, and the besieged party could easily keep anyone from scaling the tower, by pouring boiling oil or melted lead from above, or with stones and missiles, so that as long as provisions and water held out, the besiegers could do nothing. As for water, the great rainwater cistern was always in the foundations of the tower itself, immediately under the prison, which got neither light nor air excepting from a hole in the floor above. Walls from fifteen to twenty feet thick could not be battered down with any engines then in existence. Altogether, the tower was a safe place in times of danger. It is said that at one time there were over four hundred of these in Rome, belonging to the nobles, great and small. The small class of well-to-do commoners, the merchants and goldsmiths, such as they were, who stood between the nobles and the poor people, imitated the nobles as much as they could, and strengthened their houses by every means. For their dwellings were their warehouses, and in times of disturbance the first instinct of the people was to rob the merchants, unless they chanced to be strong enough to rob the nobles, as sometimes happened. But in Rome the merchants were few, and were very generally retainers or dependants of the great houses. It is frequent in the chronicles to find a man mentioned as the 'merchant' of the Colonna family, or of the Orsini, or of one of the independent Italian princes, like the Duke of Urbino. Such a man acted as agent to sell the produce of a great estate; part of his business was to lend money to the owner, and he also imported from abroad the scanty merchandise which could be imported at all. About half of it usually fell into the hands of highwaymen before it reached the city, and the price of luxuries was proportionately high. Such men, of course, lived well, though there was a wide difference between their mode of life and that of the nobles, not so much in matters of abundance and luxury, as in principle. The chief rule was that the wives and daughters of the middle class did a certain amount of housekeeping work, whereas the wives and daughters of the nobles did not. The burgher's wife kept house herself, overlooked the cooking, and sometimes cooked a choice dish with her own hands, and taught her daughters to do so. A merchant might have a considerable retinue of men, for his service and protection, and they carried staves when they accompanied their master abroad, and lanterns at night. But the baron's men were men-at-arms,--practically soldiers,--who wore his colours, and carried swords and pikes, and lit the way for their lord at night with torches, always the privilege of the nobles. As a matter of fact, they were generally the most dangerous cutthroats whom the nobleman was able to engage, highwaymen, brigands and outlaws, whom he protected against the semblance of the law; whereas the merchant's train consisted of honest men who worked for him in his warehouse, or they were countrymen from his farms, if he had any. It is not easy to give any adequate idea of those great mediæval establishments, except by their analogy with the later ones that came after them. They were enormous in extent, and singularly uncomfortable in their internal arrangement. A curious book, published in 1543, and therefore at the first culmination of the Renascence, has lately been reprinted. It is entitled 'Concerning the management of a Roman Nobleman's Court,' and was dedicated to 'The magnificent and Honourable Messer Cola da Benevento,' forty years after the death of the Borgia Pope and during the reign of Paul the Third, Farnese, who granted the writer a copyright for ten years. The little volume is full of interesting details, and the attendant gentlemen and servants enumerated give some idea of what according to the author was not considered extravagant for a nobleman of the sixteenth century. There were to be two chief chamberlains, a general controller of the estates, a chief steward, four chaplains, a master of the horse, a private secretary and an assistant secretary, an auditor, a lawyer and four literary personages, 'Letterati,' who, among them, must know 'the four principal languages of the world, namely, Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Italian.' The omission of every other living language but the latter, when Francis the First, Charles the Fifth and Henry the Eighth were reigning, is pristinely Roman in its contempt of 'barbarians.' There were also to be six gentlemen of the chambers, a private master of the table, a chief carver and ten waiting men, a butler of the pantry with an assistant, a butler of the wines, six head grooms, a marketer with an assistant, a storekeeper, a cellarer, a carver for the serving gentlemen, a chief cook, an under cook and assistant, a chief scullery man, a water carrier, a sweeper,--and last in the list, a physician, whom the author puts at the end of the list, 'not because a doctor is not worthy of honour, but in order not to seem to expect any infirmity for his lordship or his household.' This was considered a 'sufficient household' for a nobleman, but by no means an extravagant one, and many of the officials enumerated were provided with one or more servants, while no mention is made of any ladies in the establishment nor of the numerous retinue they required. But one remembers the six thousand servants of Augustus, all honourably buried in one place, and the six hundred who waited on Livia alone; and the modest one hundred and seven which were reckoned 'sufficient' for the Lord Cola of Benevento sink into comparative insignificance. For Livia, besides endless keepers of her robes and folders of her clothes--a special office--and hairdressers, perfumers, jewellers and shoe keepers, had a special adorner of her ears, a keeper of her chair and a governess for her favourite lap-dog. The little book contains the most complete details concerning daily expenditure for food and drink for the head of the house and his numerous gentlemen, which amounted in a year to the really not extravagant sum of four thousand scudi, or dollars, over fourteen hundred being spent on wine alone. The allowance was a jug--rather more than a quart--of pure wine daily to each of the 'gentlemen,' and the same measure diluted with one-third of water to all the rest. Sixteen ounces of beef, mutton, or veal were reckoned for every person, and each received twenty ounces of bread of more or less fine quality, according to his station; and an average of twenty scudi was allowed daily as given away in charity,--which was not ungenerous, either, for such a household. The olive oil used for the table and for lamps was the same, and was measured together, and the household received each a pound of cheese, monthly, besides a multitude of other eatables, all of which are carefully enumerated and valued. Among other items of a different nature are 'four or five large wax candles daily, for his lordship,' and wax for torches 'to accompany the dishes brought to his table, and to accompany his lordship and the gentlemen out of doors at night,' and 'candles for the altar,' and tallow candles for use about the house. As for salaries and wages, the controller and chief steward received ten scudi, each month, whereas the chaplain only got two, and the 'literary men,' who were expected to know Hebrew, Greek and Latin, were each paid one hundred scudi yearly. The physician was required to be not only 'learned, faithful, diligent and affectionate,' but also 'fortunate' in his profession. Considering the medical practices of those days, a doctor could certainly not hope to heal his patients without the element of luck. The old-fashioned Roman character is careful, if not avaricious, with occasional flashes of astonishing extravagance, and its idea of riches is so closely associated with that of power as to make the display of a numerous retinue its first and most congenial means of exhibiting great wealth; so that to this day a Roman in reduced fortune will live very poorly before he will consent to exist without the two or three superfluous footmen who loiter all day in his hall, or the handsome equipage in which his wife and daughters are accustomed to take the daily drive, called from ancient times the 'trottata,' or 'trot,' in the Villa Borghese, or the Corso, or on the Pincio, and gravely provided for in the terms of the marriage contract. At a period when servants were necessary, not only for show but also for personal protection, it is not surprising that the nobles should have kept an extravagant number of them. [Illustration: PALAZZO DI MONTE CITORIO From a print of the last century] Then also, to account for the size of Roman palaces, there was the patriarchal system of life, now rapidly falling into disuse. The so-called 'noble floor' of every mansion is supposed to be reserved exclusively for the father and mother of the family, and the order of arranging the rooms is as much a matter of rigid rule as in the houses of the ancient Romans, where the vestibule preceded the atrium, the atrium the peristyle, and the latter the last rooms which looked upon the garden. So in the later palace, the door from the first landing of the grand staircase opens upon an outer hall, uncarpeted, but crossed by a strip of matting, and furnished only with a huge table and old-fashioned chests, made with high backs, on which are painted or carved the arms of the family. Here, at least two or three footmen are supposed to be in perpetual readiness to answer the door, the lineally descended representatives of the armed footmen who lounged there four hundred years ago. Next to the hall comes the antechamber, sometimes followed by a second, and here is erected the 'baldacchino,' the coloured canopy which marks the privilege of the sixty 'conscript families' of Rome, who rank as princes. It recalls the times when, having powers of justice, and of life and death, the lords sat in state under the overhanging silks, embroidered with their coats of arms, to administer the law. Beyond the antechamber comes the long succession of state apartments, lofty, ponderously decorated, heavily furnished with old-fashioned gilt or carved chairs that stand symmetrically against the walls, and on the latter are hung pictures, priceless works of old masters beside crude portraits of the last century, often arranged much more with regard to the frames than to the paintings. Stiff-legged pier-tables of marble and alabaster face the windows or are placed between them; thick curtains that can be drawn quite back cover the doors; strips of hemp carpet lead straight from one door to another; the light is dim and cold, half shut out by the window curtains, and gets a peculiar quality of sadness and chilliness, which is essentially characteristic of every old Roman house, where the reception rooms are only intended to be used at night, and the sunny side is exclusively appropriated to the more intimate life of the owners. There may be three, four, six, ten of those big drawing-rooms in succession, each covering about as much space as a small house in New York or London, before one comes to the closed door that gives access to the princess' boudoir, beyond which, generally returning in a direction parallel with the reception rooms, is her bedroom, and the prince's, and the latter's study, and then the private dining-room, the state dining-room, the great ballroom, with clear-story windows, and as many more rooms as the size of the apartment will admit. In the great palaces, the picture gallery takes a whole wing and sometimes two, the library being generally situated on a higher story. The patriarchal system required that all the married sons, with their wives and children and servants, should be lodged in the same building with their parents. The eldest invariably lived on the second floor, the second son on the third, which is the highest, though there is generally a low rambling attic, occupied by servants, and sometimes by the chaplain, the librarian and the steward, in better rooms. When there were more than two married sons, which hardly ever happened under the old system of primogeniture, they divided the apartments between them as best they could. The unmarried younger children had to put up with what was left. Moreover, in the greatest houses, where there was usually a cardinal of the name, one wing of the first floor was entirely given up to him; and instead of the canopy in the antechamber, flanked by the hereditary coloured umbrellas carried on state occasions by two lackeys behind the family coach, the prince of the Church was entitled to a throne room, as all cardinals are. The eldest son's apartment was generally more or less a repetition of the state one below, but the rooms were lower, the decorations less elaborate, though seldom less stiff in character, and a large part of the available space was given up to the children. It is clear from all this that even in modern times a large family might take up a great deal of room. Looking back across two or three centuries, therefore, to the days when every princely household was a court, and was called a court, it is easier to understand the existence of such phenomenally vast mansions as the Doria palace, or those of the Borghese, the Altieri, the Barberini and others, who lived in almost royal state, and lodged hundreds upon hundreds of retainers in their homes. And not only did all the members of the family live under one roof, as a few of them still live, but the custom of dining together at one huge table was universal. A daily dinner of twenty persons--grandparents, parents and children, down to the youngest that is old enough to sit up to its plate in a high chair, would be a serious matter to most European households. But in Rome it was looked upon as a matter of course, and was managed through the steward by a contract with the cook, who was bound to provide a certain number of dishes daily for the fixed meals, but nothing else--not so much as an egg or a slice of toast beyond that. This system still prevails in many households, and as it is to be expected that meals at unusual hours may sometimes be required, an elaborate system of accounts is kept by the steward and his clerks, and the smallest things ordered by any of the sons or daughters are charged against an allowance usually made them, while separate reckonings are kept for the daughters-in-law, for whom certain regular pin-money is provided out of their own dowries at the marriage settlement, all of which goes through the steward's hands. The same settlement, even in recent years, stipulated for a fixed number of dishes of meat daily, generally only two, I believe, for a certain number of new gowns and other clothes, and for a great variety of details, besides the use of a carriage every day, to be harnessed not more than twice, that is, either in the morning and afternoon, or once in the daytime and once at night. Everything,--a cup of tea, a glass of lemonade,--if not mentioned in the marriage settlement, had to be paid for separately. The justice of such an arrangement--for it is just--is only equalled by its inconvenience, for it requires the machinery of a hotel, combined with an honesty not usual in hotels. Undoubtedly, the whole system is directly descended from the practice of the ancients, which made every father of a family the absolute despot of his household, and made it impossible for a son to hold property or have any individual independence during his father's life, and it has not been perceptibly much modified since the Middle Age, until the last few years. Its existence shows in the strongest light the main difference between the Latin and the Anglo-Saxon races, in the marked tendency of the one to submit to despotic government, and of the other to govern itself; of the one to stay at home under paternal authority, and of the other to leave the father's house and plunder the world for itself; of the sons of the one to accept wives given them, and of the other's children to marry as they please. Roman family life, from Romulus to the year 1870, was centred in the head of the house, whose position was altogether unassailable, whose requirements were necessities, and whose word was law. Next to him in place came the heir, who was brought up with a view to his exercising the same powers in his turn. After him, but far behind him in importance, if he promised to be strong, came the other sons, who, if they took wives at all, were expected to marry heiresses, and one of whom, almost as a matter of course, was brought up to be a churchman. The rest, if there were any, generally followed the career of arms, and remained unmarried; for heiresses of noble birth were few, and their guardians married them to eldest sons of great houses whenever possible, while the strength of caste prejudice made alliances of nobles with the daughters of rich plebeians extremely unusual. It is possible to trace the daily life of a Roman family in the Middle Age from its regular routine of today, as out of what anyone may see in Italy the habits of the ancients can be reconstructed with more than approximate exactness. And yet it is out of the question to fix the period of the general transformation which ultimately turned the Rome of the Barons into the Rome of Napoleon's time, and converted the high-handed men of Sciarra Colonna's age into the effeminate fops of 1800, when a gentleman of noble lineage, having received a box on the ear from another at high noon in the Corso, willingly followed the advice of his confessor, who counselled him to bear the affront with Christian meekness and present his other cheek to the smiter. Customs have remained, fashions have altogether changed; the outward forms of early living have survived, the spirit of life is quite another; and though some families still follow the patriarchal mode of existence, the patriarchs are gone, the law no longer lends itself to support household tyranny, and the subdivision of estates under the Napoleonic code is guiding an already existing democracy to the untried issue of a problematic socialism. Without attempting to establish a comparison upon the basis of a single cause, where so many are at work, it is permissible to note that while in England and Germany a more or less voluntary system of primogeniture is admitted and largely followed from choice, and while in the United States men are almost everywhere entirely free to dispose of their property as they please, and while the population and wealth of those countries are rapidly increasing, France, enforcing the division of estates among children, though she is accumulating riches, is faced by the terrible fact of a steadily diminishing census; and Italy, under the same laws, is not only rapidly approaching national bankruptcy, but is in parts already depopulated by an emigration so extensive that it can only be compared with the westward migration of the Aryan tribes. The forced subdivision of property from generation to generation is undeniably a socialistic measure, since it must, in the end, destroy both aristocracy and plutocracy; and it is surely a notable point that the two great European nations which have adopted it as a fundamental principle of good government should both be on the road to certain destruction, while those powers that have wholly and entirely rejected any such measure are filling the world with themselves and absorbing its wealth at an enormous and alarming rate. [Illustration: VILLA BORGHESE] The art of the Renascence has left us splendid pictures of mediæval public life, which are naturally accepted as equally faithful representations of the life of every day. Princes and knights, in gorgeous robes and highly polished armour, ride on faultlessly caparisoned milk-white steeds; wondrous ladies wear not less wonderful gowns, fitted with a perfection which women seek in vain today, and embroidered with pearls and precious stones that might ransom a rajah; young pages, with glorious golden hair, stand ready at the elbows of their lords and ladies, or kneel in graceful attitude to deliver a letter, or stoop to bear a silken train, clad in garments which the modern costumer strives in vain to copy. After three or four centuries, the colours of those painted silks and satins are still richer than anything the loom can weave. In the great fresco, each individual of the multitude that fills a public place, or defiles in open procession under the noonday light, is not only a masterpiece of fashion, but a model of neatness; linen, delicate as woven gossamer, falls into folds as finely exact as an engraver's point could draw; velvet shoes tread without speck or spot upon the well-scoured pavement of a public street; men-at-arms grasp weapons and hold bridles with hands as carefully tended as any idle fine gentleman's, and there is neither fleck nor breath of dimness on the mirror-like steel of their armour; the very flowers, the roses and lilies that strew the way, are the perfection of fresh-cut hothouse blossoms; and when birds and beasts chance to be necessary to the composition of the picture, they are represented with no less care for a more than possible neatness, their coats are combed and curled, their attitudes are studied and graceful, they wear carefully made collars, ornamented with chased silver and gold. Centuries have dimmed the wall-painting, sunshine has faded it, mould has mottled the broad surfaces of red and blue and green, and a later age has done away with the dresses represented; yet, when the frescos in the library of the Cathedral at Siena, for instance, were newly finished, they were the fashion-plates of the year and month, executed by a great artist, it is true, grouped with matchless skill and drawn with supreme mastery of art, but as far from representing the ordinary scenes of daily life as those terrible coloured prints published nowadays for tailors, in which a number of beautiful young gentlemen, in perfectly new clothes, lounge in stage attitudes on the one side, and an equal number of equally beautiful young butlers, coachmen, grooms and pages, in equally perfect liveries, appear to be discussing the æsthetics of an ideal and highly salaried service, at the other end of the same room. In the comparison there is all the brutal profanity of truth that shocks the reverence of romance; but in the respective relations of the great artist's masterpiece and of the poor modern lithograph to the realities of each period, there is the clue to the daily life of the Middle Age. Living was outwardly rough as compared with the representations of it, though it was far more refined than in any other part of Europe, and Italy long set the fashion to the world in habits and manners. People kept their fine clothes for great occasions, there was a keeper of robes in every large household, and there were rooms set apart for the purpose. In every-day life, the Barons wore patched hose and leathern jerkins, stained and rusted by the joints of the armour that was so often buckled over them, or they went about their dwellings in long dressing-gowns which hid many shortcomings. When gowns, and hose, and jerkins were well worn, they were cut down for the boys of the family, and the fine dresses, only put on for great days, were preserved as heirlooms from generation to generation, whether they fitted the successive wearers or not. The beautiful tight-fitting hose which, in the paintings of the time, seem to fit like theatrical tights, were neither woven nor knitted, but were made of stout cloth, and must often have been baggy at the knees in spite of the most skilful cutting; and the party-coloured hose, having one leg of one piece of stuff and one of another, and sometimes each leg of two or more colours, were very likely first invented from motives of economy, to use up cuttings and leavings. Clothes were looked upon as permanent and very desirable property, and kings did not despise a gift of fine scarlet cloth, in the piece, to make them a gown or a cloak. As for linen, as late as the sixteenth century, the English thought the French nobles very extravagant because they put on a clean shirt once a fortnight and changed their ruffles once a week. [Illustration: PALAZZO DI VENEZIA] The mediæval Roman nobles were most of them great farmers as well as fighters. Then, as now, land was the ultimate form of property, and its produce the usual form of wealth; and then, as now, many families were 'land-poor,' in the sense of owning tracts of country which yielded little or no income but represented considerable power, and furnished the owners with most of the necessaries of life, such rents as were collected being usually paid in kind, in oil and wine, in grain, fruit and vegetables, and even in salt meat, and horses, cattle for slaughtering and beasts of burden, not to speak of wool, hemp and flax, as well as firewood. But money was scarce and, consequently, all the things which only money could buy, so that a gown was a possession, and a corselet or a good sword a treasure. The small farmer of our times knows what it means to have plenty to eat and little to wear. His position is not essentially different from that of the average landed gentry in the Middle Age, not only in Italy, but all over Europe. In times when superiority lay in physical strength, courage, horsemanship and skill in the use of arms, the so-called gentleman was not distinguished from the plebeian by the newness or neatness of his clothes so much as by the nature and quality of the weapons he wore when he went abroad in peace or war, and very generally by being mounted on a good horse. In his home he was simple, even primitive. He desired space more than comfort, and comfort more than luxury. His furniture consisted almost entirely of beds, chests and benches, with few tables except such as were needed for eating. Beds were supported by boards laid on trestles, raised very high above the floor to be beyond the reach of rats, mice and other creatures. The lower mattress was filled with the dried leaves of the maize, and the upper one contained wool, with which the pillows also were stuffed. The floors of dwelling rooms were generally either paved with bricks or made of a sort of cement, composed of lime, sand and crushed brick, the whole being beaten down with iron pounders, while in the moist state, during three days. There were no carpets, and fresh rushes were strewn everywhere on the floors, which in summer were first watered, like a garden path, to lay the dust. There was no glass in the windows of ordinary rooms, and the consequence was that during the daytime people lived almost in the open air, in winter as well as summer; sunshine was a necessity of existence, and sheltered courts and cloistered walks were built like reservoirs for the light and heat. In the rooms, ark-shaped chests stood against the walls, to contain the ordinary clothes not kept in the general 'guardaroba.' In the deep embrasures of the windows there were stone seats, but there were few chairs, or none at all, in the bedrooms. At the head of each bed hung a rough little cross of dark wood--later, as carving became more general, a crucifix--and a bit of an olive branch preserved from Palm Sunday throughout the year. The walls themselves were scrupulously whitewashed; the ceilings were of heavy beams, supporting lighter cross-beams, on which in turn thick boards were laid to carry the cement floor of the room overhead. Many hundred men-at-arms could be drawn up in the courtyards, and their horses stalled in the spacious stables. The kitchens, usually situated on the ground floor, were large enough to provide meals for half a thousand retainers, if necessary; and the cellars and underground prisons were a vast labyrinth of vaulted chambers, which not unfrequently communicated with the Tiber by secret passages. In restoring the palace of the Santacroce, a few years ago, a number of skeletons were discovered, some still wearing armour, and all most evidently the remains of men who had died violent deaths. One of them was found with a dagger driven through the skull and helmet. The hand that drove it must have been strong beyond the hands of common men. The grand staircase led up from the sunny court to the state apartments, such as they were in those days. There, at least, there were sometimes carpets, luxuries of enormous value, and even before the Renascence the white walls were hung with tapestries, at least in part. In those times, too, there were large fireplaces in almost every room, for fuel was still plentiful in the Campagna and in the near mountains; and where the houses were practically open to the air all day, fires were an absolute necessity. Even in ancient times it is recorded that the Roman Senate, amidst the derisive jests of the plebeians, once had to adjourn on account of the extreme cold. People rose early in the Middle Age, dined at noon, slept in the afternoon when the weather was warm, and supped, as a rule, at 'one hour of the night,' that is to say an hour after 'Ave Maria,' which was rung half an hour after sunset, and was the end of the day of twenty-four hours. Noon was taken from the sun, but did not fall at a regular hour of the clock, and never fell at twelve. In winter, for instance, if the Ave Maria bell rang at half-past five of our modern time, the noon of the following day fell at 'half-past eighteen o'clock' by the mediæval clocks. In summer, it might fall as early as three quarters past fifteen; and this manner of reckoning time was common in Rome thirty-five years ago, and is not wholly unpractised in some parts of Italy still. It was always an Italian habit, and a very healthy one, to get out of doors immediately on rising, and to put off making anything like a careful toilet till a much later hour. Breakfast, as we understand it, is an unknown meal in Italy, even now. Most people drink a cup of black coffee, standing; many eat a morsel of bread or biscuit with it and get out of doors as soon as they can; but the greediness of an Anglo-Saxon breakfast disgusts all Latins alike, and two set meals daily are thought to be enough for anyone, as indeed they are. The hard-working Italian hill peasant will sometimes toast himself a piece of corn bread before going to work, and eat it with a few drops of olive oil; and in the absence of tea or coffee, the people of the Middle Age often drank a mouthful of wine on rising to 'move the blood,' as they said. But that was all. Every mediæval palace had its chapel, which was sometimes an adjacent church communicating with the house, and in many families it is even now the custom to hear the short low Mass at a very early hour. But probably nothing can give an adequate idea of the idleness of the Middle Age, when the day was once begun. Before the Renascence, there was no such thing as study, and there were hardly any pastimes except gambling and chess, both of which the girls and youths of the Decameron seem to have included in one contemptuous condemnation when they elected to spend their time in telling stories. The younger men of the household, of course, when not actually fighting, passed a certain number of hours in the practice of horsemanship and arms; but the only real excitement they knew was in love and war, the latter including everything between the battles of the Popes and Emperors, and the street brawls of private enemies, which generally drew blood and often ended in a death. It does not appear that the idea of 'housekeeping' as the chief occupation of the Baron's wife ever entered into the Roman mind. In northern countries there has always been more equality between men and women, more respect for woman as an intelligent being, and less care for her as a valuable possession to be guarded against possible attacks from without. In Rome and the south of Italy the women in a great household were carefully separated from the men, and beyond the outer halls in which visitors were received, business transacted and politics discussed, there were closed doors, securely locked, leading to the women's apartments beyond. In every Roman palace and fortress there was a revolving 'dumb-waiter' between the women's quarters and the men's, called the 'wheel,' and used as a means of communication. Through this the household supplies were daily handed in, for the cooking was very generally done by women, and through the same machine the prepared food was passed out to the men, the wheel being so arranged that men and women could not see each other, though they might hear each other speak. To all intents and purposes the system was oriental and the women were shut up in a harem. The use of the dumb-waiter survived the revolution in manners under the Renascence, and the wheel itself remains as a curiosity of past times in more than one Roman dwelling today. It had its uses and was not a piece of senseless tyranny. In order to keep up an armed force for all emergencies the Baron took under his protection as men-at-arms the most desperate ruffians, outlaws and outcasts whom he could collect, mostly men under sentence of banishment or death for highway robbery and murder, whose only chance of escaping torture and death lay in risking life and limb for a master strong enough to defy the law, the 'bargello' and the executioner, in his own house or castle, where such henchmen were lodged and fed, and were controlled by nothing but fear of the Baron himself, of his sons, when they were grown up, and of his poorer kinsmen who lived with him. There were no crimes which such malefactors had not committed, or were not ready to commit for a word, or even for a jest. The women, on the other hand, were in the first place the ladies and daughters of the house, and of kinsmen, brought up in almost conventual solitude, when they were not actually educated in convents; and, secondly, young girls from the Baron's estates who served for a certain length of time, and were then generally married to respectable retainers. The position of twenty or thirty women and girls under the same roof with several hundreds of the most atrocious cutthroats of any age was undeniably such as to justify the most tyrannical measures for their protection. There are traces, even now, of the enforced privacy in which they lived. For instance, no Roman lady of today will ever show herself at a window that looks on the street, except during Carnival, and in most houses something of the old arrangement of rooms is still preserved, whereby the men and women occupy different parts of the house. One must try to call up the pictures of one day, to get any idea of those times; one must try and see the grey dawn stealing down the dark, unwindowed lower walls of the fortress that flanks the Church of the Holy Apostles,--the narrow and murky street below, the broad, dim space beyond, the mystery of the winding distances whence comes the first sound of the day, the far, high cry of the waterman driving his little donkey with its heavy load of water-casks. The beast stumbles along in the foul gloom, through the muddy ruts, over heaps of garbage at the corners, picking its way as best it can, till it starts with a snort and almost falls with its knees upon a dead man, whose thrice-stabbed body lies right across the way. The waterman, ragged, sandal-shod, stops, crosses himself, and drags his beast back hurriedly with a muttered exclamation of mingled horror, disgust and fear for himself, and makes for the nearest corner, stumbling along in his haste lest he should be found with the corpse and taken for the murderer. As the dawn forelightens, and the cries go up from the city, the black-hooded Brothers of Prayer and Death come in a little troop, their lantern still burning as they carry their empty stretcher, seeking for dead men; and they take up the poor nameless body and bear it away quickly from the sight of the coming day. Then, as they disappear, the great bell of the Apostles' Church begins to toll the morning Angelus, half an hour before sunrise,--three strokes, then four, then five, then one, according to ancient custom, and then after a moment's silence, the swinging peal rings out, taken up and answered from end to end of the half-wasted city. A troop of men-at-arms ride up to the great closed gate 'in rusty armour marvellous ill-favoured,' as Shakespeare's stage direction has it, mud-splashed, their brown cloaks half concealing their dark and war-worn mail, their long swords hanging down and clanking against their huge stirrups, their beasts jaded and worn and filthy from the night raid in the Campagna, or the long gallop from Palestrina. The leader pounds three times at the iron-studded door with the hilt of his dagger, a sleepy porter, grey-bearded and cloaked, slowly swings back one half of the gate and the ruffians troop in, followed by the waterman who has gone round the fortress to avoid the dead body. The gate shuts again, with a long thundering rumble. High up, wooden shutters, behind which there is no glass, are thrown open upon the courtyard, and one window after another is opened to the morning air; on one side, girls and women look out, muffled in dark shawls; from the other grim, unwashed, bearded men call down to their companions, who have dismounted and are unsaddling their weary horses, and measuring out a little water to them, where water is a thing of price. The leader goes up into the house to his master, to tell him of the night's doings, and while he speaks the Baron sits in a great wooden chair, in his long gown of heavy cloth, edged with coarse fox's fur, his feet in fur slippers, and a shabby cap upon his head, but a manly and stern figure, all the same, slowly munching a piece of toasted bread and sipping a few drops of old white wine from a battered silver cup. Then Mass in the church, the Baron, his kinsmen, the ladies and the women kneeling in the high gallery above the altar, the men-at-arms and men-servants and retainers crouching below on the stone pavement; a dusky multitude, with a gleam of steel here and there, and red flashing eyes turned up with greedy longing towards the half-veiled faces of the women, met perhaps, now and then, by a furtive answering glance from under a veil or hoodlike shawl, for every woman's head is covered, but of the men only the old lord wears his cap, which he devoutly lifts at 'Gloria Patri' and 'Verbum Caro,' and at 'Sanctus' and at the consecration. It is soon over, and the day is begun, for the sun is fully risen and streams through the open unglazed windows as the maids sprinkle water on the brick floors, and sweep and strew fresh rushes, and roll back the mattresses on the trestle beds, which are not made again till evening. In the great courtyard, the men lead out the horses and mount them bareback and ride out in a troop, each with his sword by his side, to water them at the river, half a mile away, for not a single public fountain is left in Rome; and the grooms clean out the stables, while the peasants come in from the country, driving mules laden with provisions for the great household, and far away, behind barred doors, the women light the fires in the big kitchen. Later again, the children of the noble house are taught to ride and fence in the open court; splendid boys with flowing hair, bright as gold or dark as night, dressed in rough hose and leathern jerkin, bright-eyed, fearless, masterful already in their play as a lion's whelps, watched from an upper window by their lady mother and their little sisters, and not soon tired of saddle or sword--familiar with the grooms and men by the great common instinct of fighting, but as far from vulgar as Polonius bade Laertes learn to be. So morning warms to broad noon, and hunger makes it dinner-time, and the young kinsmen who have strolled abroad come home, one of them with his hand bound up in a white rag that has drops of blood on it, for he has picked a quarrel in the street and steel has been out, as usual, though no one has been killed, because the 'bargello' and his men were in sight, down there near the Orsini's theatre-fortress. And at dinner when the priest has blessed the table, the young men laugh about the scrimmage, while the Baron himself, who has killed a dozen men in battle, with his own hand, rebukes his sons and nephews with all the useless austerity which worn-out age wears in the face of unbroken youth. The meal is long, and they eat much, for there will be nothing more till night; they eat meat broth, thick with many vegetables and broken bread and lumps of boiled meat, and there are roasted meats and huge earthen bowls of salad, and there is cheese in great blocks, and vast quantities of bread, with wine in abundance, poured for each man by the butler into little earthen jugs from big earthenware flagons. They eat from trenchers of wood, well scoured with ashes; forks they have none, and most of the men use their own knives or daggers when they are not satisfied with the carving done for them by the carver. Each man, when he has picked a bone, throws it under the table to the house-dogs lying in wait on the floor, and from time to time a basin is passed and a little water poured upon the fingers. The Baron has a napkin of his own; there is one napkin for all the other men; the women generally eat by themselves in their own apartments, the so-called 'gentlemen' in the 'tinello,' and the men-at-arms and grooms, and all the rest, in the big lower halls near the kitchens, whence their food is passed out to them through the wheel. After dinner, if it be summer and the weather hot, the gates are barred, the windows shut, and the whole household sleeps. Early or late, as the case may be, the lords and ladies and children take the air, guarded by scores of mounted men, riding towards that part of the city where they may neither meet their enemies nor catch a fever in the warm months. In rainy weather they pass the time as they can, with telling of many tales, short, dramatic and strong as the framework of a good play, with music, sometimes, and with songs, and with discussing of such news as there may be in such times. And at dusk the great bells ring to even-song, the oil lamp is swung up in the great staircase, the windows and gates are shut again, the torches and candles and little lamps are lit for supper, and at last, with rushlights, each finds the way along the ghostly corridors to bed and sleep. That was the day's round, and there was little to vary it in more peaceful times. Over all life there was the hopeless, resentful dulness that oppressed men and women till it drove them half mad, to the doing of desperate things in love and war; there was the everlasting restraint of danger without and of forced idleness within--danger so constant that it ceased to be exciting and grew tiresome, idleness so oppressive that battle, murder and sudden death were a relief from the inactivity of sluggish peace; a state in which the mind was no longer a moving power in man, but only by turns the smelting pot and the anvil of half-smothered passions that now and then broke out with fire and flame and sword to slash and burn the world with a history of unimaginable horror. That was the Middle Age in Italy. A poorer race would have gone down therein to a bloody destruction; but it was out of the Middle Age that the Italians were born again in the Renascence. It deserved the name. [Illustration] REGION IV CAMPO MARZO It was harvest time when the Romans at last freed themselves from the very name of Tarquin. In all the great field, between the Tiber and the City, the corn stood high and ripe, waiting for the sickle, while Brutus did justice upon his two sons, and upon the sons of his sister, and upon those 'very noble youths,' still the Tarquins' friends, who laid down their lives for their mistaken loyalty and friendship, and for whose devotion no historian has ever been brave enough, or generous enough, to say a word. It has been said that revolution is patriotism when it succeeds, treason when it fails, and in the converse, more than one brave man has died a traitor's death for keeping faith with a fallen king. Successful revolution denied those young royalists the charitable handful of earth and the four words of peace--'sit eis terra levis'--that should have laid their unquiet ghosts, and the brutal cynicism of history has handed down their names to the perpetual execration of mankind. The corn stood high in the broad field which the Tarquins had taken from Mars and had ploughed and tilled for generations. The people went out and reaped the crop, and bound it in sheaves to be threshed for the public bread, but their new masters told them that it would be impious to eat what had been meant for kings, and they did as was commanded to them, meekly, and threw all into the river. Sheaf upon sheaf, load upon load, the yellow stream swept away the yellow ears and stalks, down to the shallows, where the whole mass stuck fast, and the seeds took root in the watery mud, and the stalks rotted in great heaps, and the island of the Tiber was first raised above the level of the water. Then the people burned the stubble and gave back the land to Mars, calling it the Campus Martius, after him. There the young Romans learned the use of arms, and were taught to ride; and under sheds there stood those rows of wooden horses, upon which youths learned to vault, without step or stirrup, in their armour and sword in hand. There they ran foot-races in the clouds of dust whirled up from the dry ground, and threw the discus by the twisted thong as the young men of the hills do today, and the one who could reach the goal with the smallest number of throws was the winner,--there, under the summer sun and in the biting wind of winter, half naked, and tough as wolves, the boys of Rome laboured to grow up and be Roman men. There, also, the great assemblies were held, the public meetings and the elections, when the people voted by passing into the wooden lists that were called 'Sheepfolds,' till Julius Cæsar planned the great marble portico for voting, and Agrippa finished it, making it nearly a mile round; and behind it, on the west side, a huge space was kept open for centuries, called the Villa Publica, where the censors numbered the people. The ancient Campus took in a wide extent of land, for it included everything outside the Servian wall, from the Colline Gate to the river. All that visibly bears its name today is a narrow street that runs southward from the western end of San Lorenzo in Lucina. The Region of Campo Marzo, however, is still one of the largest in the city, including all that lies within the walls from Porta Pinciana, by Capo le Case, Via Frattina, Via di Campo Marzo and Via della Stelletta, past the Church of the Portuguese and the Palazzo Moroni,--known by Hawthorne's novel as 'Hilda's Tower,'--and thence to the banks of the Tiber. [Illustration: PIAZZA DI SPAGNA] From the Renascence until the recent extension of the city on the south and southeast, this Region was the more modern part of Rome. In the Middle Age it was held by the Colonna, who had fortified the tomb of Augustus and one or two other ruins. Later it became the strangers' quarter. The Lombards established themselves near the Church of Saint Charles, in the Corso; the English, near Saint Ives, the little church with the strange spiral tower, built against the University of the Sapienza; the Greeks lived in the Via de' Greci; the Burgundians in the Via Borgognona, and thence to San Claudio, where they had their Hospice; and so on, almost every nationality being established in a colony of its own; and the English visitors of today are still inclined to think the Piazza di Spagna the most central point of Rome, whereas to Romans it seems to be very much out of the way. The tomb of Augustus, which served as the model for the greater Mausoleum of Hadrian, dominated the Campus Martius, and its main walls are still standing, though hidden by many modern houses. The tomb of the Julian Cæsars rose on white marble foundations, a series of concentric terraces, planted with cypress trees, to the great bronze statue of Augustus that crowned the summit. Here rested the ashes of Augustus, of the young Marcellus, of Livia, of Tiberius, of Caligula, and of many others whose bodies were burned in the family Ustrinum near the tomb itself. Plundered by Alaric, and finally ruined by Robert Guiscard, when he burnt the city, it became a fortress under the Colonna, and is included, with the fortress of Monte Citorio, in a transfer of property made by one member of the family to another in the year 1252. Ruined at last, it became a bull ring in the last century and in the beginning of this one, when Leo the Twelfth forbade bull-fighting. Then it was a theatre, the scene of Salvini's early triumphs. Today it is a circus, dignified by the name of the reigning sovereign. Few people know that bull-fights were common in Rome eighty years ago. The indefatigable Baracconi once talked with the son of the last bull-fighter. So far as one may judge, it appears that during the Middle Age, and much later, it was the practice of butchers to bait animals in their own yards, before slaughtering them, in the belief that the cruel treatment made the meat more tender, and they admitted the people to see the sport. From this to a regular arena was but a step, and no more suitable place than the tomb of the Cæsars could be found for the purpose. A regular manager took possession of it, provided the victims, both bulls and Roman buffaloes, and hired the fighters. It does not appear that the beasts were killed during the entertainment, and one of the principal attractions was the riding of the maddened bull three times round the circus; savage dogs were also introduced, but in all other respects the affair was much like a Spanish bull-fight, and quite as popular; when the chosen bulls were led in from the Campagna, the Roman princes used to ride far out to meet them with long files of mounted servants in gala liveries, coming back at night in torchlight procession. And again, after the fight was over, the circus was illuminated, and there was a small display of Bengal lights, while the fashionable world of Rome met and gossiped away the evening in the arena, happily thoughtless and forgetful of all the spot had been and had meant in history. The new Rome sinks out of sight below the level of the old, as one climbs the heights of the Janiculum on the west of the city, or the gardens of the Pincio on the east. The old monuments and the old churches still rise above the dreary wastes of modern streets, and from the spot whence Messalina looked down upon the cypresses of the first Emperor's mausoleum, the traveller of today descries the cheap metallic roof which makes a circus of the ancient tomb. For it was in the gardens of Lucullus that Mark Antony's great-grandchild felt the tribune's sword in her throat, and in the neat drives and walks of the Pincio, where pretty women in smart carriages laugh over today's gossip and tomorrow's fashion, and the immaculate dandy idles away an hour and a cigarette, the memory of Messalina calls up a tragedy of shades. Less than thirty years after Augustus had breathed out his old age in peace, Rome was ruled again by terror and blood, and the triumph of a woman's sins was the beginning of the end of the Julian race. The great historian who writes of her guesses that posterity may call the truth a fable, and tells the tale so tersely and soberly from first to last, that the strength of his words suggests a whole mystery of evil. Without Tiberius, there could have been no Messalina, nor, without her, could Nero have been possible; and the worst of the three is the woman--the archpriestess of all conceivable crime. Tacitus gives Tiberius one redeeming touch. Often the old Emperor came almost to Rome, even to the gardens by the Tiber, and then turned back to the rocks of Capri and the solitude of the sea, in mortal shame of his monstrous deeds, as if not daring to show himself in the city. With Nero, the measure was full, and the world rose and destroyed him. Messalina knew no shame, and the Romans submitted to her, and but for a court intrigue and a frightened favourite she might have lived out her life unhurt. In the eyes of the historian and of the people of her time her greatest misdeed was that while her husband Claudius, the Emperor, was alive she publicly celebrated her marriage with the handsome Silius, using all outward legal forms. Our modern laws of divorce have so far accustomed our minds to such deeds that, although we miss the legal formalities which would necessarily precede such an act in our time, we secretly wonder at the effect it produced upon the men of that day, and are inclined to smile at the epithets of 'impious' and 'sacrilegious' which it called down upon Messalina, whose many other frightful crimes had elicited much more moderate condemnation. Claudius, himself no novice or beginner in horrors, hesitated long after he knew the truth, and it was the favourite Narcissus who took upon himself to order the Empress' death. Euodus, his freedman, and a tribune of the guard were sent to make an end of her. Swiftly they went up to the gardens--the gardens of the Pincian--and there they found her, beautiful, dark, dishevelled, stretched upon the marble floor, her mother Lepida crouching beside her, her mother, who in the bloom of her daughter's evil life had turned from her, but in her extreme need was overcome with pity. There knelt Domitia Lepida, urging the terror-mad woman not to wait the executioner, since life was over and nothing remained but to lend death the dignity of suicide. But the dishonoured self was empty of courage, and long-drawn weeping choked her useless lamentations. Then suddenly the doors were flung open with a crash, and the stern tribune stood silent in the hall, while the freedman Euodus screamed out curses, after the way of triumphant slaves. From her mother's hand the lost Empress took the knife at last and trembling laid it to her breast and throat, with weakly frantic fingers that could not hurt herself; the silent tribune killed her with one straight thrust, and when they brought the news to Claudius sitting at supper, and told him that Messalina had perished, his face did not change, and he said nothing as he held out his cup to be filled. [Illustration: PIAZZA DEL POPOLO] She died somewhere on the Pincian hill. Romance would choose the spot exactly where the nunnery of the Sacred Heart stands, at the Trinità de' Monti, looking down De Sanctis' imposing 'Spanish' steps; and the house in which the noble girls of modern Rome are sent to school may have risen upon the foundations of Messalina's last abode. Or it may be that the place was further west, in the high grounds of the French Academy, or on the site of the academy itself, at the gates of the public garden, just where the old stone fountain bubbles and murmurs under the shade of the thick ilex trees. Most of that land once belonged to Lucullus, the conqueror of Mithridates, the Academic philosopher, the arch feaster, and the man who first brought cherries to Italy. [Illustration: TRINITÀ DE' MONTI] The last descendant of Julia, the last sterile monster of the Julian race, Nero, was buried at the foot of the same hill. Alive, he was condemned by the Senate to be beaten to death in the Comitium; dead by his own hand, he received imperial honours, and his ashes rested for a thousand years where they had been laid by his two old nurses and a woman who had loved him. And during ten centuries the people believed that his terrible ghost haunted the hill, attended and served by thousands of demon crows that rested in the branches of the trees about his tomb, and flew forth to do evil at his bidding, till at last Pope Paschal the Second cut down with his own hands the walnut trees which crowned the summit, and commanded that the mausoleum should be destroyed, and the ashes of Nero scattered to the winds, that he might build a parish church on the spot and dedicate it to Saint Mary. It is said, too, that the Romans took the marble urn in which the ashes had been, and used it as a public measure for salt in the old market-place of the Capitol. A number of the rich Romans of the Renascence afterwards contributed money to the restoration of the church and built themselves chapels within it, as tombs for their descendants, so that it is the burial-place of many of those wealthy families that settled in Rome and took possession of the Corso when the Barons still held the less central parts of the city with their mediæval fortresses. Sixtus the Fourth and Julius the Second are buried in Saint Peter's, but their chapel was here, and here lie others of the della Rovere race, and many of the Chigi and Pallavicini and Theodoli; and here, in strange coincidence, Alexander the Sixth, the worst of the Popes, erected a high altar on the very spot where the worst of the Emperors had been buried. It is gone now, but the strange fact is not forgotten. Far across the beautiful square, at the entrance to the Corso, twin churches seem to guard the way like sentinels, built, it is said, to replace two chapels which once stood at the head of the bridge of Sant' Angelo; demolished because, when Rome was sacked by the Constable of Bourbon, they had been held as important points by the Spanish soldiers in besieging the Castle, and it was not thought wise to leave such useful outworks for any possible enemy in the future. Alexander the Seventh, the Chigi Pope, died, and left the work unfinished; and a folk story tells how a poor old woman who lived near by saved what she could for many years, and, dying, left one hundred and fifty scudi to help the completion of the buildings; and Cardinal Gastaldi, who had been refused the privilege of placing his arms upon a church which he had desired to build in Bologna, and was looking about for an opportunity of perpetuating his name, finished the two churches, his attention having been first called to them by the old woman's humble bequest. As for the Pincio itself, and the ascent to it from the Piazza del Popolo, all that land was but a grass-grown hillside, crowned by a few small and scattered villas and scantily furnished with trees, until the beginning of the present century; and the public gardens of the earlier time were those of the famous and beautiful Villa Medici, which Napoleon the First bestowed upon the French Academy. It was there that the fashionable Romans of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries used to meet, and walk, and be carried about in gilded sedan-chairs, and flirt, and gossip, and exchange views on politics and opinions about the latest scandal. That was indeed a very strange society, further from us in many ways than the world of the Renascence, or even of the Crusades; for the Middle Age was strong in the sincerity of its beliefs, as we are powerful in the cynicism of our single-hearted faith in riches; but the fabric of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was founded upon the abuse of an already declining power; it was built up in the most extraordinary and elaborate affectation, and it was guarded by a system of dissimulation which outdid that of our own day by many degrees, and possibly surpassed the hypocrisy of any preceding age. No one, indeed, can successfully uphold the idea that the high development of art in any shape is of necessity coincident with a strong growth of religion or moral conviction. Perugino made no secret of being an atheist; Lionardo da Vinci was a scientific sceptic; Raphael was an amiable rake, no better and no worse than the majority of those gifted pupils to whom he was at once a model of perfection and an example of free living; and those who maintain that art is always the expression of a people's religion have but an imperfect acquaintance with the age of Praxiteles, Apelles and Zeuxis. Yet the idea itself has a foundation, lying in something which is as hard to define as it is impossible to ignore; for if art be not a growth out of faith, it is always the result of a faith that has been, since although it is possible to conceive of religion without art, it is out of the question to think of art as a whole, without a religious origin; and as the majority of writers find it easier to describe scenes and emotions, when a certain lapse of time has given them what painters call atmospheric perspective, so the Renascence began when memory already clothed the ferocious realism of mediæval Christianity in the softer tones of gentle chivalry and tender romance. It is often said, half in jest, that, in order to have intellectual culture, a man must at least have forgotten Latin, if he cannot remember it, because the fact of having learned it leaves something behind that cannot be acquired in any other way. Similarly, I think that art of all sorts has reached its highest level in successive ages when it has aimed at recalling, by an illusion, a once vivid reality from a not too distant past. And so when it gives itself up to the realism of the present, it impresses the senses rather than the thoughts, and misses its object, which is to bring within our mental reach what is beyond our physical grasp; and when, on the other hand, it goes back too far, it fails in execution, because its models are not only out of sight, but out of mind, and it cannot touch us because we can no longer feel even a romantic interest in the real or imaginary events which it attempts to describe. The subject is too high to be lightly touched, and too wide to be touched more than lightly here; but in this view of it may perhaps be found some explanation of the miserable poverty of Italian art in the eighteenth century, foreshadowed by the decadence of the seventeenth, which again is traceable to the dissipation of force and the disappearance of individuality that followed the Renascence, as inevitably as old age follows youth. Besides all necessary gifts of genius, the development of art seems to require that a race should not only have leisure for remembering, but should also have something to remember which may be worthy of being recalled and perhaps of being imitated. Progress may be the road to wealth and health, and to such happiness as may be derived from both; but the advance of civilization is the path of thought, and its landmarks are not inventions nor discoveries, but those very great creations of the mind which ennoble the heart in all ages; and as the idea of progress is inseparable from that of growing riches, so is the true conception of civilization indivisible from thoughts of beauty and nobility. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Italy had almost altogether lost sight of these; art was execrable, fashion was hideous, morality meant hypocrisy; the surest way to power lay in the most despicable sort of intrigue, and inward and spiritual faith was as rare as outward and visible devoutness was general. That was the society which frequented the Villa Medici on fine afternoons, and it is hard to see wherein its charm lay, if, indeed, it had any. Instead of originality, its conversation teemed with artificial conventionalisms; instead of nature, it exhibited itself in the disguise of fashions more inconvenient, uncomfortable and ridiculous than those of any previous or later times; it delighted in the impossibly nonsensical 'pastoral' verses which we find too silly to read; and in place of wit, it clothed gross and cruel sayings in a thin remnant of worn-out classicism. It had not the frankly wicked recklessness of the French aristocracy between Lewis the Fourteenth and the Revolution, nor the changing contrasts of brutality, genius, affectation and Puritanical austerity which marked England's ascent, from the death of Edward the Sixth to the victories of Nelson and Wellington; still less had it any of those real motives for existence which carried Germany through her long struggle for life. It had little which we are accustomed to respect in men and women, and yet it had something which we lack today, and which we unconsciously envy--it had a colour of its own. Wandering under the ancient ilexes of those sad and beautiful gardens, meeting here and there a few silent and soberly clad strangers, one cannot but long for the brilliancy of two centuries ago, when the walks were gay with brilliant dresses, and gilded chairs, and servants in liveries of scarlet and green and gold, and noble ladies, tottering a few steps on their ridiculous high heels, and men bewigged and becurled, their useless little hats under their arms, and their embroidered coat tails flapping against their padded, silk-stockinged calves; and red-legged, unpriestly Cardinals who were not priests even in name, but only the lay life-peers of the Church; and grave Bishops with their secretaries; and laughing abbés, whose clerical dress was the accustomed uniform of government office, which they still wore when they were married, and were fathers of families. There is little besides colour to recommend the picture, but at least there is that. The Pincian hill has always been the favourite home of artists of all kinds, and many lived at one time or another in the little villas that once stood there, and in the houses in the Via Sistina and southward, and up towards the Porta Pinciana. Guido Reni, the Caracci, Salvator Rosa, Poussin, Claude Lorrain, have all left the place the association of their presence, and the Zuccheri brothers built themselves the house which still bears their name, just below the one at the corner of the Trinità de' Monti, known to all foreigners as the 'Tempietto' or little temple. But the Villa Medici stands as it did long ago, its walls uninjured, its trees grander than ever, its walks unchanged. Soft-hearted Baracconi, in love with those times more than with the Middle Age, speaks half tenderly of the people who used to meet there, calling them collectively a gay and light-hearted society, gentle, idle, full of graceful thoughts and delicate perceptions, brilliant reflections and light charms; he regrets the gilded chairs, the huge built-up wigs, the small sword of the 'cavalier servente,' and the abbé's silk mantle, the semi-platonic friendships, the jests borrowed from Goldoni, the 'pastoral' scandal, and exchange of compliments and madrigals and epigrams, and all the brilliant powdered train of that extinct world. [Illustration: VILLA MEDICI] Whatever life may have been in those times, that world died in a pretty tableau, after the manner of Watteau's paintings; it meant little and accomplished little, and though its bright colouring brings it for a moment to the foreground, it has really not much to do with the Rome we know nor with the Rome one thinks of in the past, always great, always sad, always tragic, as no other city in the world can ever be. Ignorance, tradition, imagination, romance,--call it what you will,--has chosen the long-closed Pincian Gate for the last station of blind Belisarius. There, says the tale, the ancient conqueror, the banisher and maker of Popes, the favourite and the instrument of imperial Theodora, stood begging his bread at the gate of the city he had won and lost, leaning upon the arm of the fair girl child who would not leave him, and stretching forth his hand to those that passed by, with a feeble prayer for alms, pathetic as Oedipus in the utter ruin of his life and fortune. A truer story tells how Pope Silverius, humble and gentle, and hated by Theodora, went up to the Pincian villa to answer the accusation of conspiring with the Goths, when he himself had opened the gates of Rome to Belisarius; and how he was led into the great hall where the warrior's wife, Theodora's friend, the beautiful and evil Antonina, lay with half-closed eyes upon her splendid couch, while Belisarius sat beside her feet, toying with her jewels. There the husband and wife accused the Pope, and judged him without hearing, and condemned him without right; and they caused him to be stripped of his robes, and clad as a poor monk and driven out to far exile, that they might set up the Empress Theodora's Pope in his place; and with him they drove out many Roman nobles. And it is said that when Silverius was dead of a broken heart in the little island of Palmaria, Belisarius repented of his deeds and built the small Church of Santa Maria de' Crociferi, behind the fountain of Trevi, in partial expiation of his fault, and there, to prove the truth of the story, the tablet that tells of his repentance has stood nearly fourteen hundred years and may be read today, on the east wall, towards the Via de' Poli. The man who conquered Africa for Justinian, seized Sicily, took Rome, defended it successfully against the Goths, reduced Ravenna, took Rome from the Goths again, and finally rescued Constantinople, was disgraced more than once; but he was not blinded, nor did he die in exile or in prison, for at the end he breathed his last in the enjoyment of his freedom and his honours; and the story of his blindness is the fabrication of an ignorant Greek monk who lived six hundred years later and confounded Justinian's great general with the romantic and unhappy John of Cappadocia, who lived at the same time, was a general at the same time, and incurred the displeasure of that same pious, proud, avaricious Theodora, actress, penitent and Empress, whose paramount beauty held the Emperor in thrall for life, and whose surpassing cruelty imprinted an indelible seal of horror upon his glorious reign--of her who, when she delivered a man to death, admonished the executioner with an oath, saying, 'By Him who liveth for ever, if thou failest, I will cause thee to be flayed alive.' Another figure rises at the window of the Tuscan Ambassador's great villa, with the face of a man concerning whom legend has also found much to invent and little to say that is true, a man of whom modern science has rightly made a hero, but whom prejudice and ignorance have wrongly crowned as a martyr--Galileo Galilei. Tradition represents him as languishing, laden with chains, in the more or less mythical prisons of the Inquisition; history tells very plainly that his first confinement consisted in being the honoured guest of the Tuscan Ambassador in the latter's splendid residence in Rome, and that his last imprisonment was a relegation to the beautiful castle of the Piccolomini near Siena, than which the heart of man could hardly desire a more lovely home. History affirms beyond doubt, moreover, that Galileo was the personal friend of that learned and not illiberal Barberini, Pope Urban the Eighth, under whose long reign the Copernican system was put on trial, who believed in that system as Galileo did, who read his books and talked with him; and who, when the stupid technicalities of the ecclesiastic courts declared the laws of the universe to be nonsense, gave his voice against the decision, though he could not officially annul it without scandal. 'It was not my intention,' said the Pope in the presence of witnesses, 'to condemn Galileo. If the matter had depended upon me, the decree of the Index which condemned his doctrines should never have been pronounced.' That Galileo's life was saddened by the result of the absurd trial, and that he was nominally a prisoner for a long time, is not to be denied. But that he suffered the indignities and torments recorded in legend is no more true than that Belisarius begged his bread at the Porta Pinciana. He lived in comfort and in honour with the Ambassador in the Villa Medici, and many a time from those lofty windows, unchanged since before his day, he must have watched the earth turning with him from the sun at evening, and meditated upon the emptiness of the ancient phrase that makes the sun 'set' when the day is done--thinking of the world, perhaps, as turning upon its other side, with tired eyes, and ready for rest and darkness and refreshment, after long toil and heat. * * * * * One may stand under those old trees before the Villa Medici, beside the ancient fountain facing Saint Peter's distant dome, and dream the great review of history, and call up a vast, changing picture at one's feet between the heights and the yellow river. First, the broad corn-field of the Tarquin Kings, rich and ripe under the evening breeze of summer that runs along swiftly, bending the golden surface in soft moving waves from the Tiber's edge to the foot of the wooded slope. Then, the hurried harvesting, the sheaves cast into the river, the dry, stiff stubble baking in the sun, and presently the men of Rome coming forth in procession from the dark Servian wall on the left to dedicate the field to the War God with prayer and chant and smoking sacrifice. By and by the stubble trodden down under horses' hoofs, the dusty plain the exercising ground of young conquerors, the voting place, later, of a strong Republic, whither the centuries went out to choose their consuls, to decide upon peace or war, to declare the voice of the people in grave matters, while the great signal flag waved on the Janiculum, well in sight though far away, to fall suddenly at the approach of any foe and suspend the 'comitia' on the instant. And in the flat and dusty plain, buildings begin to rise; first, the Altar of Mars and the holy place of the infernal gods, Dis and Proserpine; later, the great 'Sheepfold,' the lists and hustings for the voting, and, encroaching a little upon the training ground, the temple of Venus Victorious and the huge theatre of Pompey, wherein the Orsini held their own so long; but in the times of Lucullus, when his gardens and his marvellous villa covered the Pincian hill, the plain was still a wide field, and still the field of Mars, without the walls, broken by few landmarks, and trodden to deep white dust by the scampering hoofs of half-drilled cavalry. Under the Emperors, then, first beautified in part, as Cæsar traces the great Septa for the voting, and Augustus erects the Altar of Peace and builds up his cypress-clad tomb, crowned by his own image, and Agrippa raises his triple temple, and Hadrian builds the Pantheon upon its ruins, while the obelisk that now stands on Monte Citorio before the House of Parliament points out the brass-figured hours on the broad marble floor of the first Emperor's sun-clock and marks the high noon of Rome's glory--and the Portico of Neptune and many other splendid works spring up. Isis and Serapis have a temple next, and Domitian's race-course appears behind Agrippa's Baths, straight and white. By and by the Antonines raise columns and triumphal arches, but always to southward, leaving the field of Mars a field still, for its old uses, and the tired recruits, sweating from exercise, gather under the high shade of Augustus' tomb at midday for an hour's rest. Last of all, the great temple of the Sun, with its vast portico, and the Mithræum at the other end, and when the walls of Aurelian are built, and when ruin comes upon Rome from the north, the Campus Martius is still almost an open stretch of dusty earth on which soldiers have learned their trade through a thousand years of hard training. Not till the poor days when the waterless, ruined city sends its people down from the heights to drink of the muddy stream does Campo Marzo become a town, and then, around the castle-tomb of the Colonna and the castle-theatre of the Orsini the wretched houses begin to rise here and there, thickening to a low, dark forest of miserable dwellings threaded through and through, up and down and crosswise, by narrow and crooked streets, out of which by degrees the lofty churches and palaces of the later age are to spring up. From a training ground it has become a fighting ground, a labyrinth of often barricaded ways and lanes, deeper and darker towards the water-gates cut in the wall that runs along the Tiber, from Porta del Popolo nearly to the island of Saint Bartholomew, and almost all that is left of Rome is crowded and huddled into the narrow pen overshadowed and dominated here and there by black fortresses and brown brick towers. The man who then might have looked down from the Pincian hill would have seen that sight; houses little better than those of the poorest mountain village in the Southern Italy of today, black with smoke, black with dirt, blacker with patches made by shadowy windows that had no glass. A silent town, too, surly and defensive; now and then the call of the water-carrier disturbs the stillness, more rarely, the cry of a wandering peddler; and sometimes a distant sound of hoofs, a far clash of iron and steel, and the echoing yell of furious fighting men--'Orsini!' 'Colonna!'--the long-drawn syllables coming up distinct through the evening air to the garden where Messalina died, while the sun sets red behind the spire of old Saint Peter's across the river, and gilds the huge girth of dark Sant' Angelo to a rusty red, like battered iron bathed in blood. Back come the Popes from Avignon, and streets grow wider and houses cleaner and men richer--all for the Bourbon's Spaniards to sack, and burn, and destroy before the last city grows up, and the rounded domes raise their helmet-like heads out of the chaos, and the broad Piazza del Popolo is cleared, and old Saint Peter's goes down in dust to make way for the Cathedral of all Christendom as it stands. Then far away, on Saint Peter's evening, when it is dusk, the great dome, and the small domes, and the colonnades, and the broad façade are traced in silver lights that shine out quietly as the air darkens. The solemn bells toll the first hour of the June night; the city is hushed, and all at once the silver lines are turned to gold, as the red flame runs in magic change from the topmost cross down the dome, in rivers, to the roof, and the pillars and the columns of the square below--the grandest illumination of the grandest church the world has ever seen. [Illustration] REGION V PONTE The Region of Ponte, 'the Bridge,' takes its name from the ancient Triumphal Bridge which led from the city to the Vatican Fields, and at low water some fragments of the original piers may be seen in the river at the bend just below Ponte Sant' Angelo, between the Church of Saint John of the Florentines on the one bank, and the Hospital of Santo Spirito on the other. In the Middle Age, according to Baracconi and others, the broken arches still extended into the stream, and upon them was built a small fortress, the outpost of the Orsini on that side. The device, however, appears to represent a portion of the later Bridge of Sant' Angelo, built upon the foundations of the Ælian Bridge of Hadrian, which connected his tomb with the Campus Martius. The Region consists of the northwest point of the city, bounded by the Tiber, from Monte Brianzo round the bend, and down stream to the new Lungara bridge, and on the land side by a very irregular line running across the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, close to the Chiesa Nuova, and then eastward and northward in a zigzag, so as to take in most of the fortresses of the Orsini family, Monte Giordano, Tor Millina, Tor Sanguigna, and the now demolished Torre di Nona. The Sixth and Seventh Regions adjacent to the Fifth and to each other would have to be included in order to take in all that part of Rome once held by the only family that rivalled, and sometimes surpassed, the Colonna in power. As has been said before, the original difference between the two was that the Colonna were Ghibellines and for the Emperors, while the Orsini were Guelphs and generally adhered to the Popes. In the violent changes of the Middle Age, it happened indeed that the Colonna had at least one Pope of their own, and that more than one, such as Nicholas the Fourth, favoured their race to the point of exciting popular indignation. But, on the whole, they kept to their parties. When Lewis the Bavarian was to be crowned by force, Sciarra Colonna crowned him; when Henry the Seventh of Luxemburg had come to Rome for the same purpose, a few years earlier, the Orsini had been obliged to be satisfied with a sort of second-rate coronation at Saint John Lateran's; and when the struggle between the two families was at its height, nearly two centuries later, and Sixtus the Fourth 'assumed the part of mediator,' as the chronicle expresses it, one of his first acts of mediation was to cut off the head of a Colonna, and his next was to lay regular siege to the strongholds of the family in the Roman hills; but before he had brought this singular process of mediation to an issue he suddenly died, the Colonna returned to their dwellings in Rome 'with great clamour and triumph,' got the better of the Orsini, and proceeded to elect a Pope after their own hearts, in the person of Cardinal Cibo, of Genoa, known as Innocent the Eighth. He it is who lies under the beautiful bronze monument in the inner left aisle of Saint Peter's, which shows him holding in his hand a model of the spear-head that pierced Christ's side, a relic believed to have been sent to the Pope as a gift by Sultan Bajazet the Second. The origin of the hatred between Colonna and Orsini is unknown, for the archives of the former have as yet thrown no light upon the subject, and those of the latter were almost entirely destroyed by fire in the last century. In the year 1305, Pope Clement the Fifth was elected Pope at Perugia. He was a Frenchman, and was Archbishop of Bordeaux, the candidate of Philip the Fair, whose tutor had been a Colonna, and he was chosen by the opposing factions of two Orsini cardinals because the people of Perugia were tired of a quarrel that had lasted eleven months, and had adopted the practical and always infallible expedient of deliberately starving the conclave to a vote. Muratori calls it a scandalous and illicit election, which brought about the ruin of Italy and struck a memorable blow at the power of the Holy See. Though not a great man, Philip the Fair was one of the cleverest that ever lived. Before the election he had made his bishop swear upon the Sacred Host to accept his conditions, without expressing them all; and the most important proved to be the transference of the Papal See to France. The new Pope obeyed his master, established himself in Avignon, and the King to all intents and purposes had taken the Pontificate captive and lost no time in using it for his own ends against the Empire, his hereditary foe. Such, in a few words, is the history of that memorable transaction; and but for the previous quarrels of Colonna, Caetani and Orsini, it could never have taken place. The Orsini repented bitterly of what they had done, for one of Clement the Fifth's first acts was to 'annul altogether all sentences whatsoever pronounced against the Colonna.' But the Pope being gone, the Barons had Rome in their power and used it for a battlefield. Four years later, we find in Villani the first record of a skirmish fought between Orsini and Colonna. In the month of October, 1309, says the chronicler, certain of the Orsini and of the Colonna met outside the walls of Rome with their followers, to the number of four hundred horse, and fought together, and the Colonna won; and there died the Count of Anguillara, and six of the Orsini were taken, and Messer Riccardo degli Annibaleschi who was in their company. Three years afterwards, Henry of Luxemburg alternately feasted and fought his way to Rome to be crowned Emperor in spite of Philip the Fair, the Tuscan league and Robert, King of Naples, who sent a thousand horsemen out of the south to hinder the coronation. In a day Rome was divided into two great camps. Colonna held for the Emperor the Lateran, Santa Maria Maggiore, the Colosseum, the Torre delle Milizie,--the brick tower on the lower part of the modern Via Nazionale,--the Pantheon, as an advanced post in one direction, and Santa Sabina, a church that was almost a fortress, on the south, by the Tiber,--a chain of fortresses which would be formidable in any modern revolution. Against Henry, however, the Orsini held the Vatican and Saint Peter's, the Castle of Sant' Angelo and all Trastevere, their fortresses in the Region of Ponte, and, moreover, the Capitol itself. The parties were well matched, for, though Henry entered Rome on the seventh of May, the struggle lasted till the twenty-ninth of June. Those who have seen revolutions can guess at the desperate fighting in the barricaded streets, and at the well-guarded bridges from one end of the city to the other. Backwards and forwards the battle raged for days and weeks, by day and night, with small time for rest and refreshment. Forward rode the Colonna, the stolid Germans, Henry himself, the eagle of the Empire waving in the dim streets beside the flag that displayed the simple column in a plain field. It is not hard to hear and see it all again--the clanging gallop of armoured knights, princes, nobles and bishops, with visors down, and long swords and maces in their hands, the high, fierce cries of the light-armed footmen, the bowmen and the slingers, the roar of the rabble rout behind, the shrill voices of women at upper windows, peering down for the face of brother, husband, or lover in the dashing press below,--the dust, the heat, the fierce June sunshine blazing on broad steel, and the deep, black shadows putting out all light as the bands rush past. Then, on a sudden, the answering shout of the Orsini, the standard of the Bear, the Bourbon lilies of Anjou, the scarlet and white colours of the Guelph house, the great black horses, and the dark mail--the enemies surging together in the street like swift rivers of loose iron meeting in a stone channel, with a rending crash and the quick hammering of steel raining desperate blows on steel--horses rearing their height, footmen crushed, knights reeling in the saddle, sparks flying, steel-clad arms and long swords whirling in great circles through the air. Foremost of all in fight the Bishop of Liège, his purple mantle flying back from his corselet, trampling down everything, sworn to win the barricade or die, riding at it like a madman, forcing his horse up to it over the heaps of quivering bodies that made a causeway, leaping it alone at last, like a demon in air, and standing in the thick of the Orsini, slaying to right and left. In an instant they had him down and bound and prisoner, one man against a thousand; and they fastened him behind a man-at-arms, on the crupper, to take him into Sant' Angelo alive. But a soldier, whose brother he had slain a moment earlier, followed stealthily on foot and sought the joint in the back of the armour, and ran in his pike quickly, and killed him--'whereof,' says the chronicle, 'was great pity, for the Bishop was a man of high courage and authority.' But on the other side of the barricade, those who had followed him so far, and lost him, felt their hearts sink, for not one of them could do what he had done; and after that, though they fought a whole month longer, they had but little hope of ever getting to the Vatican. So the Colonna took Henry up to the Lateran, where they were masters, and he was crowned there by three cardinals in the Pope's stead, while the Orsini remained grimly intrenched in their own quarter, and each party held its own, even after Henry had prudently retired to Tivoli, in the hills. [Illustration: ISLAND IN THE TIBER] At last the great houses made a truce and a compromise, by which they attempted to govern Rome jointly, and chose Sciarra--the same who had taken Pope Boniface prisoner in Anagni--and Matteo Orsini of Monte Giordano, to be Senators together; and there was peace between them for a time, in the year in which Rienzi was born. But in that very year, as though foreshadowing his destiny, the rabble of Rome rose up, and chose a dictator; and somehow, by surprise or treachery, he got possession of the Barons' chief fortresses, and of Sant' Angelo, and set up the standard of terror against the nobles. In a few days he sacked and burned their strongholds, and the high and mighty lords who had made the reigning Pope, and had fought to an issue for the Crown of the Holy Roman Empire, were conquered, humiliated and imprisoned by an upstart plebeian of Trastevere. The portcullis of Monte Giordano was lifted, and the mysterious gates were thrown wide to the curiosity of a populace drunk with victory; Giovanni degli Stefaneschi issued edicts of sovereign power from the sacred precincts of the Capitol; and the vagabond thieves of Rome feasted in the lordly halls of the Colonna palace. But though the tribune and the people could seize Rome, outnumbering the nobles as ten to one, they had neither the means nor the organization to besiege the fortified towns of the great houses, which hemmed in the city and the Campagna on every side. Thither the nobles retired to recruit fresh armies among their retainers, to forge new swords in their own smithies, and to concert new plans for recovering their ancient domination; and thence they returned in their strength, from their towers and their towns and fortresses, from Palestrina and Subiaco, Genazzano, San Vito and Paliano on the south, and from Bracciano and Galera and Anguillara, and all the Orsini castles on the north, to teach the people of Rome the great truth of those days, that 'aristocracy' meant not the careless supremacy of the nobly born, but the power of the strongest hands and the coolest heads to take and hold. Back came Colonna and Orsini, and the people, who a few months earlier had acclaimed their dictator in a fit of justifiable ill-temper against their masters, opened the gates for the nobles again, and no man lifted a hand to help Giovanni degli Stefaneschi, when the men-at-arms bound him and dragged him off to prison. Strange to say, no further vengeance was taken upon him, and for once in their history, the nobles shed no blood in revenge for a mortal injury. No man could count the tragedies that swept over the Region of Ponte from the first outbreak of war between the Orsini and the Colonna, till Paolo Giordano Orsini, the last of the elder branch, breathed out his life in exile under the ban of Sixtus the Fifth, three hundred years later. There was no end of them till then, and there was little interruption of them while they lasted; there is no stone left standing from those days in that great quarter that may not have been splashed with their fierce blood, nor is there, perhaps, a church or chapel within their old holding into which an Orsini has not been borne dead or dying from some deadly fight. Even today it is gloomy, and the broad modern street, which swept down a straight harvest of memories through the quarter to the very Bridge of Sant' Angelo, has left the mediæval shadows on each side as dark as ever. Of the three parts of the city, which still recall the Middle Age most vividly, namely, the neighbourhood of San Pietro in Vincoli, in the first Region, the by-ways of Trastevere and the Region of Ponte, the latter is by far the most interesting. It was the abode of the Orsini; it was also the chief place of business for the bankers and money-changers who congregated there under the comparatively secure protection of the Guelph lords; and it was the quarter of prisons, of tortures, and of executions both secret and public. The names of the streets had terrible meaning: there was the Vicolo della Corda, and the Corda was the rope by which criminals were hoisted twenty feet in the air, and allowed to drop till their toes were just above the ground; there was the Piazza della Berlina Vecchia, the place of the Old Pillory; there was a little church known as the 'Church of the Gallows'; and there was a lane ominously called Vicolo dello Mastro; the Mastro was the Master of judicial executions, in other words, the Executioner himself. Before the Castle of Sant' Angelo stood the permanent gallows, rarely long unoccupied, and from an upper window of the dark Torre di Nona, on the hither side of the bridge, a rope hung swinging slowly in the wind, sometimes with a human body at the end of it, sometimes without. It was the place, and that was the manner, of executions that took place in the night. In Via di Monserrato stood the old fortress of the Savelli, long ago converted into a prison, and called the Corte Savella, the most terrible of all Roman dungeons for the horror of damp darkness, for ever associated with Beatrice Cenci's trial and death. Through those very streets she was taken in the cart to the little open space before the bridge, where she laid down her life upon the scaffold three hundred years ago, and left her story of offended innocence, of revenge and of expiation, which will not be forgotten while Rome is remembered. Beatrice Cenci's story has been often told, but nowhere more clearly and justly than in Shelley's famous letter, written to explain his play. There are several manuscript accounts of the last scene at the Ponte Sant' Angelo, and I myself have lately read one, written by a contemporary and not elsewhere mentioned, but differing only from the rest in the horrible realism with which the picture is presented. The truth is plain enough; the unspeakable crimes of Francesco Cenci, his more than inhuman cruelty to his children and his wives, his monstrous lust and devilish nature, outdo anything to be found in any history of the world, not excepting the private lives of Tiberius, Nero, or Commodus. His daughter and his second wife killed him in his sleep. His death was merciful and swift, in an age when far less crimes were visited with tortures at the very name of which we shudder. They were driven to absolute desperation, and the world has forgiven them their one quick blow, struck for freedom, for woman's honour and for life itself in the dim castle of Petrella. Tormented with rack and cord they all confessed the deed, save Beatrice, whom no bodily pain could move; and if Paolo Santacroce had not murdered his mother for her money before their death was determined, Clement the Eighth would have pardoned them. But the times were evil, an example was called for, Santacroce had escaped to Brescia, and the Pope's heart was hardened against the Cenci. [Illustration: BRIDGE OF SANT' ANGELO] They died bravely, there at the head of the bridge, in the calm May morning, in the midst of a vast and restless crowd, among whom more than one person was killed by accident, as by the falling of a pot of flowers from a high window, and by the breaking down of a balcony over a shop, where too many had crowded in to see. The old house opposite looked down upon the scene, and the people watched Beatrice Cenci die from those same arched windows. Above the sea of faces, high on the wooden scaffold, rises the tall figure of a lovely girl, her hair gleaming in the sunshine like threads of dazzling gold, her marvellous blue eyes turned up to Heaven, her fresh young dimpled face not pale with fear, her exquisite lips moving softly as she repeats the De Profundis of her last appeal to God. Let the axe not fall. Let her stand there for ever in the spotless purity that cost her life on earth and set her name for ever among the high constellated stars of maidenly romance. Close by the bridge, just opposite the Torre di Nona, stood the 'Lion Inn,' once kept by the beautiful Vanozza de Catanei, the mother of Rodrigo Borgia's children, of Cæsar, and Gandia, and Lucrezia, and the place was her property still when she was nominally married to her second husband, Carlo Canale, the keeper of the prison across the way. In the changing vicissitudes of the city, the Torre di Nona made way for the once famous Apollo Theatre, built upon the lower dungeons and foundations, and Faust's demon companion rose to the stage out of the depths that had heard the groans of tortured criminals; the theatre itself disappeared a few years ago in the works for improving the Tiber's banks, and a name is all that remains of a fact that made men tremble. In the late destruction, the old houses opposite were not altogether pulled down, but were sliced, as it were, through their roofs and rooms, at a safe angle; and there, no doubt, are still standing portions of Vanozza's inn, while far below, the cellars where she kept her wine free of excise, by papal privilege, are still as cool and silent as ever. Not far beyond her hostelry stands another Inn, famous from early days and still open to such travellers as deign to accept its poor hospitality. It is an inn for the people now, for wine carters, and the better sort of hill peasants; it was once the best and most fashionable in Rome, and there the great Montaigne once dwelt, and is believed to have written at least a part of his famous Essay on Vanity. It is the Albergo dell' Orso, the 'Bear Inn,' and perhaps it is not a coincidence that Vanozza's sign of the Lion should have faced the approach to the Leonine City beyond the Tiber, and that the sign of the Bear, 'The Orsini Arms,' as an English innkeeper would christen it, should have been the principal resort of the kind in a quarter which was three-fourths the property and altogether the possession of the great house that overshadowed it, from Monte Giordano on the one side, and from Pompey's Theatre on the other. The temporary fall of the Orsini at the end of the sixteenth century came about by one of the most extraordinary concatenations of events to be found in the chronicles. The story has filled more than one volume and is nevertheless very far from complete; nor is it possible, since the destruction of the Orsini archives, to reconstruct it with absolute accuracy. Briefly told, it is this. Felice Peretti, monk and Cardinal of Montalto, and still nominally one of the so-called 'poor cardinals' who received from the Pope a daily allowance known as 'the Dish,' had nevertheless accumulated a good deal of property before he became Pope under the name of Sixtus the Fifth, and had brought some of his relatives to Rome. Among these was his well beloved nephew, Francesco Peretti, for whom he naturally sought an advantageous marriage. There was at that time in Rome a notary, named Accoramboni, a native of the Marches of Ancona and a man of some wealth and of good repute. He had one daughter, Vittoria, a girl of excessive vanity, as ambitious as she was vain and as singularly beautiful as she was ambitious. But she was also clever in a remarkable degree, and seems to have had no difficulty in hiding her bad qualities. Francesco Peretti fell in love with her, the Cardinal approved the match, though he was a man not easily deceived, and the two were married and settled in the Villa Negroni, which the Cardinal had built near the Baths of Diocletian. Having attained her first object, Vittoria took less pains to play the saint, and began to dress with unbecoming magnificence and to live on a very extravagant scale. Her name became a byword in Rome and her lovely face was one of the city's sights. The Cardinal, devotedly attached to his nephew, disapproved of the latter's young wife and regretted the many gifts he had bestowed upon her. Like most clever men, too, he was more than reasonably angry at having been deceived in his judgment of a girl's character. So far, there is nothing not commonplace about the tale. At that time Paolo Giordano Orsini, the head of the house, Duke of Bracciano and lord of a hundred domains, was one of the greatest personages in Italy. No longer young and already enormously fat, he was married to Isabella de' Medici, the daughter of Cosimo, reigning in Florence. She was a beautiful and evil woman, and those who have endeavoured to make a martyr of her forget the nameless doings of her youth. Giordano was weak and extravagant, and paid little attention to his wife. She consoled herself with his kinsman, the young and handsome Troilo Orsini, who was as constantly at her side as an official 'cavalier servente' of later days. But the fat Giordano, indolent and pleasure seeking, saw nothing. Nor is there anything much more than vulgar and commonplace in all this. Paolo Giordano meets Vittoria Peretti in Rome, and the two commonplaces begin the tragedy. On his part, love at first sight; ridiculous, at first, when one thinks of his vast bulk and advancing years, terrible, by and by, as the hereditary passions of his fierce race could be, backed by the almost boundless power which a great Italian lord possessed in his surroundings. Vittoria, tired of her dull and virtuous husband and of the lectures and parsimony of his uncle, and not dreaming that the latter was soon to be Pope, saw herself in a dream of glory controlling every mood and action of the greatest noble in the land. And she met Giordano again and again, and he pleaded and implored, and was alternately ridiculous and almost pathetic in his hopeless passion for the notary's daughter. But she had no thought of yielding to his entreaties. She would have marriage, or nothing. Neither words nor gifts could move her. She had a husband, he had a wife; and she demanded that he should marry her, and was grimly silent as to the means. Until she was married to him he should not so much as touch the tips of her jewelled fingers, nor have a lock of her hair to wear in his bosom. He was blindly in love, and he was Paolo Giordano Orsini. It was not likely that he should hesitate. He who had seen nothing of his wife's doings, suddenly saw his kinsman, Troilo, and Isabella was doomed. Troilo fled to Paris, and Orsini took Isabella from Bracciano to the lonely castle of Galera. There he told her his mind and strangled her, as was his right, being feudal lord and master with powers of life and death. Then from Bracciano he sent messengers to kill Francesco Peretti. One of them had a slight acquaintance with the Cardinal's nephew. They came to the Villa Negroni by night, and called him out, saying that his best friend was in need of him, and was waiting for him at Monte Cavallo. He hesitated, for it was very late. They had torches and weapons, and would protect him, they said. Still he wavered. Then Vittoria, his wife, scoffed at him, and called him coward, and thrust him out to die; for she knew. The men walked beside him with their torches, talking as they went. They passed the deserted land in the Baths of Diocletian, and turned at Saint Bernard's Church to go towards the Quirinal. Then they put out the lights and killed him quickly in the dark. His body lay there all night, and when it was told the next day that Montalto's nephew had been murdered, the two men said that they had left him at Monte Cavallo and that he must have been killed as he came home alone. The Cardinal buried him without a word, and though he guessed the truth he asked neither vengeance nor justice of the Pope. [Illustration: VILLA NEGRONI From a print of the last century] Gregory the Thirteenth guessed it, too, and when Orsini would have married Vittoria, the Pope forbade the banns and interdicted their union for ever. That much he dared to do against the greatest peer in the country. To this, Orsini replied by plighting his faith to Vittoria with a ring, in the presence of a serving woman, an irregular ceremony which he afterwards described as a marriage, and he thereupon took his bride and her mother under his protection. The Pope retorted by a determined effort to arrest the murderers of Francesco; the Bargello and his men went in the evening to the Orsini palace at Pompey's Theatre and demanded that Giordano should give up the criminals; the porter replied that the Duke was asleep; the Orsini men-at-arms lunged out with their weapons, looked on during the interview, and considering the presence of the Bargello derogatory to their master, drove him away, killing one of his men and wounding several others. Thereupon Pope Gregory forbade the Duke from seeing Vittoria or communicating with her by messengers, on pain of a fine of ten thousand gold ducats, an order to which Orsini would have paid no attention but which Vittoria was too prudent to disregard, and she retired to her brother's house, leaving the Duke in a state of frenzied rage that threatened insanity. Then the Pope seemed to waver again, and then again learning that the lovers saw each other constantly in spite of his commands, he suddenly had Vittoria seized and imprisoned in Sant' Angelo. It is impossible to follow the long struggle that ensued. It lasted four years, at the end of which time the Duke and Vittoria were living at Bracciano, where the Orsini was absolute lord and master and beyond the jurisdiction of the Church--two hours' ride from the gates of Rome. But no further formality of marriage had taken place and Vittoria was not satisfied. Then Gregory the Thirteenth died. During the vacancy of the Holy See, all interdictions of the late Pope were suspended. Instantly Giordano determined to be married, and came to Rome with Vittoria. They believed that the Conclave would last some time and were making their arrangements without haste, living in Pompey's Theatre, when a messenger brought word that Cardinal Montalto would surely be elected Pope within a few hours. In the fortress is the small family church of Santa Maria di Grotta Pinta. The Duke sent down word to his chaplain that the latter must marry him at once. That night a retainer of the house had been found murdered at the gate; his body lay on a trestle bier before the altar of the chapel when the Duke's message came; the Duke himself and Vittoria were already in the little winding stair that leads down from the apartments; there was not a moment to be lost; the frightened chaplain and the messenger hurriedly raised a marble slab which closed an unused vault, dropped the murdered man's body into the chasm, and had scarcely replaced the stone when the ducal pair entered the church. The priest married them before the altar in fear and trembling, and when they were gone entered the whole story in the little register in the sacristy. The leaf is extant. Within a few hours, Montalto was Pope, the humble cardinal was changed in a moment to the despotic pontiff, whose nephew's murder was unavenged; instead of the vacillating Gregory, Orsini had to face the terrible Sixtus, and his defeat and exile were foregone conclusions. He could no longer hold his own and he took refuge in the States of Venice, where his kinsman, Ludovico, was a fortunate general. He made a will which divided his personal estate between Vittoria and his son, Virginio, greatly to the woman's advantage; and overcome by the infirmity of his monstrous size, spent by the terrible passions of his later years, and broken in heart by an edict of exile which he could no longer defy, he died at Salò within seven months of his great enemy's coronation, in the forty-ninth year of his age. Vittoria retired to Padua, and the authorities declared the inheritance valid, but Ludovico Orsini's long standing hatred of her was inflamed to madness by the conditions of the will. Six weeks after the Duke's death, at evening, Vittoria was in her chamber; her boy brother, Flaminio, was singing a Miserere to his lute by the fire in the great hall. A sound of quick feet, the glare of torches, and Ludovico's masked men filled the house. Vittoria died bravely with one deep stab in her heart. The boy, Flaminio, was torn to pieces with seventy-four wounds. But Venice would permit no such outrageous deeds. Ludovico was besieged in his house, by horse and foot and artillery, and was taken alive with many of his men and swiftly conveyed to Venice; and a week had not passed from the day of the murder before he was strangled by the Bargello in the latter's own room, with the red silk cord by which it was a noble's privilege to die. The first one broke, and they had to take another, but Ludovico Orsini did not wince. An hour later his body was borne out with forty torches, in solemn procession, to lie in state in Saint Mark's Church. His men were done to death with hideous tortures in the public square. So ended the story of Vittoria Accoramboni. [Illustration] REGION VI PARIONE The principal point of this Region is Piazza Navona, which exactly coincides with Domitian's race-course, and the Region consists of an irregular triangle of which the huge square is at the northern angle, the western one being the Piazza della Chiesa Nuova and the southern extremity the theatre of Pompey, so often referred to in these pages as one of the Orsini's strongholds and containing the little church in which Paolo Giordano married Vittoria Accoramboni, close to the Campo dei Fiori which was the place of public executions by fire. The name Parione is said to be derived from the Latin 'Paries,' a wall, applied to a massive remnant of ancient masonry which once stood somewhere in the Via di Parione. It matters little; nor can we find any satisfactory explanation of the gryphon which serves as a device for the whole quarter, included during the Middle Age, with Ponte and Regola, in the large portion of the city dominated by the Orsini. The Befana, which is a corruption of Epifania, the Feast of the Epiphany, is and always has been the season of giving presents in Rome, corresponding with our Christmas; and the Befana is personated as a gruff old woman who brings gifts to little children after the manner of our Saint Nicholas. But in the minds of Romans, from earliest childhood, the name is associated with the night fair, opened on the eve of the Epiphany in Piazza Navona, and which was certainly one of the most extraordinary popular festivals ever invented to amuse children and make children of grown people, a sort of foreshadowing of Carnival, but having at the same time a flavour and a colour of its own, unlike anything else in the world. During the days after Christmas a regular line of booths is erected, encircling the whole circus-shaped space. It is a peculiarity of Roman festivals that all the material for adornment is kept together from year to year, ready for use at a moment's notice, and when one sees the enormous amount of lumber required for the Carnival, for the fireworks on the Pincio, or for the Befana, one cannot help wondering where it is all kept. From year to year it lies somewhere, in those vast subterranean places and great empty houses used for that especial purpose, of which only Romans guess the extent. When needed, it is suddenly produced without confusion, marked and numbered, ready to be put together and regilt or repainted, or hung with the acres of draperies which Latins know so well how to display in everything approaching to public pageantry. At dark, on the Eve of the Epiphany, the Befana begins. The hundreds of booths are choked with toys and gleam with thousands of little lights, the open spaces are thronged by a moving crowd, the air splits with the infernal din of ten thousand whistles and tin trumpets. Noise is the first consideration for a successful befana, noise of any kind, shrill, gruff, high, low--any sort of noise; and the first purchase of everyone who comes must be a tin horn, a pipe, or one of those grotesque little figures of painted earthenware, representing some characteristic type of Roman life and having a whistle attached to it, so cleverly modelled in the clay as to produce the most hideous noises without even the addition of a wooden plug. But anything will do. On a memorable night nearly thirty years ago, the whole cornopean stop of an organ was sold in the fair, amounting to seventy or eighty pipes with their reeds. The instrument in the old English Protestant Church outside of Porta del Popolo had been improved, and the organist, who was a practical Anglo-Saxon, conceived the original and economical idea of selling the useless pipes at the night fair for the benefit of the church. The braying of the high, cracked reeds was frightful and never to be forgotten. Round and round the square, three generations of families, children, parents and even grandparents, move in a regular stream, closer and closer towards midnight and supper-time; nor is the place deserted till three o'clock in the morning. Toys everywhere, original with an attractive ugliness, nine-tenths of them made of earthenware dashed with a kind of bright and harmless paint of which every Roman child remembers the taste for life; and old and young and middle-aged all blow their whistles and horns with solemnly ridiculous pertinacity, pausing only to make some little purchase at the booths, or to exchange a greeting with passing friends, followed by an especially vigorous burst of noise as the whistles are brought close to each other's ears, and the party that can make the more atrocious din drives the other half deafened from the field. And the old women who help to keep the booths sit warming their skinny hands over earthen pots of coals and looking on without a smile on their Sibylline faces, while their sons and daughters sell clay hunchbacks and little old women of clay, the counterparts of their mothers, to the passing customers. Thousands upon thousands of people throng the place, and it is warm with the presence of so much humanity, even under the clear winter sky. And there is no confusion, no accident, no trouble, there are no drunken men and no pickpockets. But Romans are not like other people. In a few days all is cleared away again, and Bernini's great fountain faces Borromini's big Church of Saint Agnes, in the silence; and the officious guide tells the credulous foreigner how the figure of the Nile in the group is veiling his head to hide the sight of the hideous architecture, and how the face of the Danube expresses the River God's terror lest the tower should fall upon him; and how the architect retorted upon the sculptor by placing Saint Agnes on the summit of the church, in the act of reassuring the Romans as to the safety of her shrine; and again, how Bernini's enemies said that the obelisk of the fountain was tottering, till he came alone on foot and tied four lengths of twine to the four corners of the pedestal, and fastened the strings to the nearest houses, in derision, and went away laughing. It was at that time that he modelled four grinning masks for the corners of his sedan-chair, so that they seemed to be making scornful grimaces at his detractors as he was carried along. He could afford to laugh. He had been the favourite of Urban the Eighth who, when Cardinal Barberini, had actually held the looking-glass by the aid of which the handsome young sculptor modelled his own portrait in the figure of David with the sling, now in the Museum of Villa Borghese. After a brief period of disgrace under the next reign, brought about by the sharpness of his Neapolitan tongue, Bernini was restored to the favour of Innocent the Tenth, the Pamfili Pope, to please whose economical tastes he executed the fountain in Piazza Navona, after a design greatly reduced in extent as well as in beauty, compared with the first he had sketched. But an account of Bernini would lead far and profit little; the catalogue of his works would fill a small volume; and after all, he was successful only in an age when art had fallen low. In place of Michelangelo's universal genius, Bernini possessed a born Neapolitan's universal facility. He could do something of everything, circumstances gave him enormous opportunities, and there were few things which he did not attempt, from classic sculpture to the final architecture of Saint Peter's and the fortifications of Sant' Angelo. He was afflicted by the hereditary giantism of the Latins, and was often moved by motives of petty spite against his inferior rival, Borromini. His best work is the statue of Saint Teresa in Santa Maria della Vittoria, a figure which has recently excited the ecstatic admiration of a French critic, expressed in language that betrays at once the fault of the conception, the taste of the age in which Bernini lived, and the unhealthy nature of the sculptor's prolific talent. Only the seventeenth century could have represented such a disquieting fusion of the sensuous and the spiritual, and it was reserved for the decadence of our own days to find words that could describe it. Bernini has been praised as the Michelangelo of his day, but no one has yet been bold enough, or foolish enough, to call Michelangelo the Bernini of the sixteenth century. Barely sixty years elapsed between the death of the one and birth of the other, and the space of a single lifetime separates the zenith of the Renascence from the nadir of Barocco art. [Illustration: PIAZZA NAVONA] The names of Bernini and of Piazza Navona recall Innocent the Tenth, who built the palace beside the Church of Saint Agnes, his meannesses, his nepotism, his weakness, and his miserable end; how his relatives stripped him of all they could lay hands on, and how at the last, when he died in the only shirt he possessed, covered by a single ragged blanket, his sister-in-law, Olimpia Maldachini, dragged from beneath his pallet bed the two small chests of money which he had succeeded in concealing to the end. A brass candlestick with a single burning taper stood beside him in his last moments, and before he was quite dead, a servant stole it and put a wooden one in its place. When he was dead at the Quirinal, his body was carried to Saint Peter's in a bier so short that the poor Pope's feet stuck out over the end, and three days later, no one could be found to pay for the burial. Olimpia declared that she was a starving widow and could do nothing; the corpse was thrust into a place where the masons of the Vatican kept their tools, and one of the workmen, out of charity or superstition, lit a tallow candle beside it. In the end, the maggiordomo paid for a deal coffin, and Monsignor Segni gave five scudi--an English pound--to have the body taken away and buried. It was slung between two mules and taken by night to the Church of Saint Agnes, where in the changing course of human and domestic events, it ultimately got an expensive monument in the worst possible taste. The learned and sometimes witty Baracconi, who has set down the story, notes the fact that Leo the Tenth, Pius the Fourth and Gregory the Sixteenth fared little better in their obsequies, and he comments upon the democratic spirit of a city in which such things can happen. Close to the Piazza Navona stands the famous mutilated group, known as Pasquino, of which the mere name conveys a better idea of the Roman character than volumes of description, for it was here that the pasquinades were published, by affixing them to a pedestal at the corner of the Palazzo Braschi. And one of Pasquino's bitterest jests was directed against Olimpia Maldachini. Her name was cut in two, to make a good Latin pun: 'Olim pia, nunc impia,' 'once pious, now impious,' or 'Olimpia, now impious,' as one chose to join or separate the syllables. Whole books have been filled with the short and pithy imaginary conversations between Marforio, the statue of a river god which used to stand in the Monti, and Pasquino, beneath whom the Roman children used to be told that the book of all wisdom was buried for ever. In the Region of Parione stands the famous Cancelleria, a masterpiece of Bramante's architecture, celebrated for many events in the later history of Rome, and successively the princely residence of several cardinals, chief of whom was that strong Pompeo Colonna, the ally of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, who was responsible for the sacking of Rome by the Constable of Bourbon, who ultimately ruined the Holy League, and imposed his terrible terms of peace upon Clement the Seventh, a prisoner in Sant' Angelo. Considering the devastation and the horrors which were the result of that contest, and its importance in Rome's history, it is worth while to tell the story again. Connected with it was the last great struggle between Orsini and Colonna, Orsini, as usual, siding for the Pope, and therefore for the Holy League, and Colonna for the Emperor. Charles the Fifth had vanquished Francis the First at Pavia, in the year 1525, and had taken the French King prisoner. A year later the Holy League was formed, between Pope Clement the Seventh, the King of France, the Republics of Venice and Florence, and Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan. Its object was to fight the Emperor, to sustain Sforza, and to seize the Kingdom of Naples by force. Immediately upon the proclamation of the League, the Emperor's ambassadors left Rome, the Colonna retired to their strongholds, and the Emperor made preparations to send Charles, Duke of Bourbon, the disgraced relative of King Francis, to storm Rome and reduce the imprisoned Pope to submission. The latter's first and nearest source of fear lay in the Colonna, who held the fortresses and passes between Rome and the Neapolitan frontier, and his first instinct was to attack them with the help of the Orsini. But neither side was ready for the fight, and the timid Pontiff eagerly accepted the promise of peace made by the Colonna in order to gain time, and he dismissed the forces he had hastily raised against them. [Illustration: PALAZZO MASSIMO ALLE COLONNA] [Illustration: PONTE SISTO From a print of the last century] They, in the mean time, treated with Moncada, Regent of Naples for the Emperor, and at once seized Anagni, put several thousand men in the field, marched upon Rome with incredible speed, seized three gates in the night, and entered the city in triumph on the following morning. The Pope and the Orsini, completely taken by surprise, offered little or no resistance. According to some writers, it was Pompeo Colonna's daring plan to murder the Pope, force his own election to the Pontificate by arms, destroy the Orsini, and open Rome to Charles the Fifth; and when the Colonna advanced on the same day, by Ponte Sisto, to Trastevere, and threatened to attack Saint Peter's and the Vatican, Clement the Seventh, remembering Sciarra and Pope Boniface, was on the point of imitating the latter and arraying himself in his Pontifical robes to await his enemy with such dignity as he could command. But the remonstrances of the more prudent cardinals prevailed, and about noon they conveyed him safely to Sant' Angelo by the secret covered passage, leaving the Colonna to sack Trastevere and even Saint Peter's itself, though they dared not come too near to Sant' Angelo for fear of its cannons. The tumult over at last, Don Ugo de Moncada, in the Emperor's name, took possession of the Pope's two nephews as hostages for his own safety, entered Sant' Angelo under a truce, and stated the Emperor's conditions of peace. These were, to all intents and purposes, that the Pope should withdraw his troops, wherever he had any, and that the Emperor should be free to advance wherever he pleased, except through the Papal States, that the Pope should give hostages for his good faith, and that he should grant a free pardon to all the Colonna, who vaguely agreed to withdraw their forces into the Kingdom of Naples. To this humiliating peace, or armistice, for it was nothing more, the Pope was forced by the prospect of starvation, and he would even have agreed to sail to Barcelona in order to confer with the Emperor; but from this he was ultimately dissuaded by Henry the Eighth of England and the King of France, 'who sent him certain sums of money and promised him their support.' The consequence was that he broke the truce as soon as he dared, deprived the Cardinal of his hat, and, with the help of the Orsini, attacked the Colonna by surprise on their estates, giving orders to burn their castles and raze their fortresses to the ground. Four villages were burned before the surprised party could recover itself; but with some assistance from the imperial troops they were soon able to face their enemies on equal terms, and the little war raged fiercely during several months, with varying success and all possible cruelty on both sides. Meanwhile Charles, Duke of Bourbon, known as the Constable, and more or less in the pay of the Emperor, had gathered an army in Lombardy. His force consisted of the most atrocious ruffians of the time,--Lutheran Germans, superstitious Spaniards, revolutionary Italians, and such other nondescripts as would join his standard,--all fellows who had in reality neither country nor conscience, and were ready to serve any soldier of fortune who promised them plunder and license. The predominating element was Spanish, but there was not much to choose among them all so far as their instincts were concerned. Charles was penniless, as usual; he offered his horde of cutthroats the rich spoils of Tuscany and Rome, they swore to follow him to death and perdition, and he began his southward march. The Emperor looked on with an approving eye, and the Pope was overcome by abject terror. In the vain hope of saving himself and the city he concluded a truce with the Viceroy of Naples, agreeing to pay sixty thousand ducats, to give back everything taken from the Colonna, and to restore Pompeo to the honours of the cardinalate. The conditions of the armistice were forthwith carried out, by the disbanding of the Pope's hired soldiers and the payment of the indemnity, and Clement the Seventh enjoyed during a few weeks the pleasant illusion of fancied safety. He awoke from the dream, in horror and fear, to find that the Constable considered himself in no way bound by a peace concluded with the Emperor's Viceroy, and was advancing rapidly upon Rome, ravaging and burning everything in his way. Hasty preparations for defence were made; a certain Renzo da Ceri armed such men as he could enlist with such weapons as he could find, and sent out a little force of grooms and artificers to face the Constable's ruthless Spaniards and the fierce Germans of his companion freebooter, George of Fransperg, or Franzberg, who carried about a silken cord by which he swore to strangle the Pope with his own hands. The enemy reached the walls of Rome on the night of the fifth of May; devastation and famine lay behind them in their track, the plunder of the Church was behind the walls, and far from northward came rumours of the army of the League on its way to cut off their retreat. They resolved to win the spoil or die, and at dawn the Constable, clad in a white cloak, led the assault and set up the first scaling ladder, close to the Porta San Spirito. In the very act a bullet struck him in a vital part and he fell headlong to the earth. Benvenuto Cellini claimed the credit of the shot, but it is more than probable that it sped from another hand, that of Bernardino Passeri; it matters little now, it mattered less then, as the infuriated Spaniards stormed the walls in the face of Camillo Orsini's desperate and hopeless resistance, yelling 'Blood and the Bourbon,' for a war-cry. Once more the wretched Pope fled along the secret corridor with his cardinals, his prelates and his servants; for although he might yet have escaped from the doomed city, messengers had brought word that Cardinal Pompeo Colonna had ten thousand men-at-arms in the Campagna, ready to cut off his flight, and he was condemned to be a terrified spectator of Rome's destruction from the summit of a fortress which he dared not surrender and could hardly hope to defend. Seven thousand Romans were slaughtered in the storming of the walls; the enemy gained all Trastevere at a blow and the sack began; the torrent of fury poured across Ponte Sisto into Rome itself, thousands upon thousands of steel-clad madmen, drunk with blood and mad with the glitter of gold, a storm of unimaginable terror. Cardinals, Princes and Ambassadors were dragged from their palaces, and when greedy hands had gathered up all that could be taken away, fire consumed the rest, and the miserable captives were tortured into promising fabulous ransoms for life and limb. Abbots, priors and heads of religious orders were treated with like barbarity, and the few who escaped the clutches of the bloodthirsty Spanish soldiers fell into the reeking hands of the brutal German adventurers. The enormous sum of six million ducats was gathered together in value of gold and silver bullion and of precious things, and as much more was extorted as promised ransom from the gentlemen and churchmen and merchants of Rome by the savage tortures of the lash, the iron boot and the rack. The churches were stripped of all consecrated vessels, the Sacred Wafers were scattered abroad by the Catholic Spaniards and trampled in the bloody ooze that filled the ways, the convents were stormed by a rabble in arms and the nuns were distributed as booty among their fiendish captors, mothers and children were slaughtered in the streets and drunken Spaniards played dice for the daughters of honourable citizens. From the surrounding Campagna the Colonna entered the city in arms, orderly, silent and sober, and from their well-guarded fortresses they contemplated the ruin they had brought upon Rome. Cardinal Pompeo installed himself in his palace of the Cancelleria in the Region of Parione, and gave shelter to such of his friends as might be useful to him thereafter. In revenge upon John de' Medici, the Captain of the Black Bands, whose assistance the Pope had invoked, the Cardinal caused the Villa Medici on Monte Mario to be burned to the ground, and Clement the Seventh watched the flames from the ramparts of Sant' Angelo. One good action is recorded of the savage churchman. He ransomed and protected in his house the wife and the daughter of that Giorgio Santacroce who had murdered the Cardinal's father by night, when the Cardinal himself was an infant in arms, more than forty years earlier; and he helped some of his friends to escape by a chimney from the room in which they had been confined and tortured into promising a ransom they could not pay. But beyond those few acts he did little to mitigate the horrors of the month-long sack, and nothing to relieve the city from the yoke of its terrible captors. The Holy League sent a small force to the Pope's assistance and it reached the gates of Rome; but the Spaniards were in possession of immense stores of ammunition and provisions, they had more horses than they needed and more arms than they could bear; the forces of the League had traversed a country in which not a blade of grass had been left undevoured nor a measure of corn uneaten; and the avengers of the dead Constable, securely fortified within the walls, looked down with contempt upon an army already decimated by sickness and starvation. At this juncture, Clement the Seventh resolved to abandon further resistance and sue for peace. The guns of Sant' Angelo had all but fired their last shot, and the supply of food was nearly exhausted, when the Pope sent for Cardinal Colonna; the churchman consented to a parley, and the man who had suffered confiscation and disgrace entered the castle as the arbiter of destiny. He was received as the mediator of peace and a benefactor of humanity, and when he stated his terms they were not refused. The Pope and the thirteen Cardinals who were with him were to remain prisoners until the payment of four hundred thousand ducats of gold, after which they were to be conducted to Naples to await the further pleasure of the Emperor; the Colonna were to be absolutely and freely pardoned for all they had done; in the hope of some subsequent assistance the Pope promised to make Cardinal Colonna the Legate of the Marches. As a hostage for the performance of these and other conditions, Cardinal Orsini was delivered over to his enemy, who conducted him as his prisoner to the Castle of Grottaferrata, and the Colonna secretly agreed to allow the Pope to go free from Sant' Angelo. On the night of December the ninth, seven months after the storming of the city, the head of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church fled from the castle in the humble garb of a market gardener, and made good his escape to Orvieto and to the protection of the Holy League. Meanwhile a pestilence had broken out in Rome, and the spectre of a mysterious and mortal sickness distracted those who had survived the terrors of sword and flame. The Spanish and German soldiery either fell victims to the plague or deserted in haste and fear; and though Cardinal Pompeo's peace contained no promise that the city should be evacuated, it was afterwards stated upon credible authority that, within two years from their coming, not one of the barbarous horde was left alive within the walls. When all was over the city was little more than a heap of ruins, but the Colonna had been victorious, and were sated with revenge. This, in brief, is the history of the storming and sacking of Rome which took place in the year 1527, at the highest development of the Renascence, in the youth of Benvenuto Cellini, when Michelangelo had not yet painted the Last Judgment, when Titian was just fifty years old, and when Raphael and Lionardo da Vinci were but lately dead; and the contrast between the sublimity of art and the barbarity of human nature in that day is only paralleled in the annals of our own century, at once the bloodiest and the most civilized in the history of the world. The Cancelleria, wherein Pompeo Colonna sheltered the wife and daughter of his father's murderer, is remembered for some modern political events: for the opening of the first representative parliament under Pius the Ninth, in 1848, for the assassination of the Pope's minister, Pellegrino Rossi, on the steps of the entrance in the same year, and as the place where the so-called Roman Republic was proclaimed in 1849. But it is most of all interesting for the nobility of its proportions and the simplicity of its architecture. It is undeniably, and almost undeniedly, the best building in Rome today, though that may not be saying much in a city which has been more exclusively the prey of the Barocco than any other. [Illustration: THE CANCELLERIA From a print of the last century] The Palace of the Massimo, once built to follow the curve of a narrow winding street, but now facing the same great thoroughfare as the Cancelleria, has something of the same quality, with a wholly different character. It is smaller and more gloomy, and its columns are almost black with age; it was here, in 1455, that Pannartz and Schweinheim, two of those nomadic German scholars who have not yet forgotten the road to Italy, established their printing-press in the house of Pietro de' Massimi, and here took place one of those many romantic tragedies which darkened the end of the sixteenth century. For a certain Signore Massimo, in the year 1585, had been married and had eight sons, mostly grown men, when he fell in love with a light-hearted lady of more wit than virtue, and announced that he would make her his wife, though his sons warned him that they would not bear the slight upon their mother's memory. The old man, infatuated and beside himself with love, would not listen to them, but published the banns, married the woman, and brought her home for his wife. One of the sons, the youngest, was too timid to join the rest; but on the next morning the seven others went to the bridal apartment, and killed their step-mother when their father was away. But he came back before she was quite dead, and he took the Crucifix from the wall by the bed and cursed his children. And the curse was fulfilled upon them. Parione is the heart of Mediæval Rome, the very centre of that black cloud of mystery which hangs over the city of the Middle Age. A history might be composed out of Pasquin's sayings, volumes have been written about Cardinal Pompeo Colonna and the ruin he wrought, whole books have been filled with the life and teachings and miracles of Saint Philip Neri, who belonged to this quarter, erected here his great oratory, and is believed to have recalled from the dead a youth of the house of Massimo in that same gloomy palace. The story of Rome is a tale of murder and sudden death, varied, changing, never repeated in the same way; there is blood on every threshold; a tragedy lies buried in every church and chapel; and again we ask in vain wherein lies the magic of the city that has fed on terror and grown old in carnage, the charm that draws men to her, the power that holds, the magic that enthralls men soul and body, as Lady Venus cast her spells upon Tannhäuser in her mountain of old. Yet none deny it, and as centuries roll on, the poets, the men of letters, the musicians, the artists of all ages, have come to her from far countries and have dwelt here while they might, some for long years, some for the few months they could spare; and all of them have left something, a verse, a line, a sketch, a song that breathes the threefold mystery of love, eternity and death. Index A Abruzzi, i. 159; ii. 230 Accoramboni, Flaminio, i. 296 Vittoria, i. 135, 148, 289-296, 297 Agrarian Law, i. 23 Agrippa, i. 90, 271; ii. 102 the Younger, ii. 103 Alaric, i. 252; ii. 297 Alba Longa, i. 3, 78, 130 Albergo dell' Orso, i. 288 Alberic, ii. 29 Albornoz, ii. 19, 20, 74 Aldobrandini, i. 209; ii. 149 Olimpia, i. 209 Alfonso, i. 185 Aliturius, ii. 103 Altieri, i. 226; ii. 45 Ammianus Marcellinus, i. 132, 133, 138 Amphitheatre, Flavian, i. 91, 179 Amulius, i. 3 Anacletus, ii. 295, 296, 304 Anagni, i. 161, 165, 307; ii. 4, 5 Ancus Martius, i. 4 Angelico, Beato, ii. 158, 169, 190-192, 195, 285 Anguillara, i. 278; ii. 138 Titta della, ii. 138, 139 Anio, the, i. 93 Novus, i. 144 Vetus, i. 144 Annibaleschi, Riccardo degli, i. 278 Antiochus, ii. 120 Antipope-- Anacletus, ii. 84 Boniface, ii. 28 Clement, i. 126 Gilbert, i. 127 John of Calabria, ii. 33-37 Antonelli, Cardinal, ii. 217, 223, 224 Antonina, i. 266 Antonines, the, i. 113, 191, 271 Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius, i. 46, 96, 113, 114, 190, 191 Appian Way, i. 22, 94 Appius Claudius, i. 14, 29 Apulia, Duke of, i. 126, 127; ii. 77 Aqua Virgo, i. 155 Aqueduct of Claudius, i. 144 Arbiter, Petronius, i. 85 Arch of-- Arcadius, i. 192 Claudius, i. 155 Domitian, i. 191, 205 Gratian, i. 191 Marcus Aurelius, i. 96, 191, 205 Portugal, i. 205 Septimius Severus, ii. 93 Valens, i. 191 Archive House, ii. 75 Argiletum, the, i. 72 Ariosto, ii. 149, 174 Aristius, i. 70, 71 Arnold of Brescia, ii. 73, 76-89 Arnulf, ii. 41 Art, i. 87; ii 152 and morality, i. 260, 261; ii. 178, 179 religion, i. 260, 261 Barocco, i. 303, 316 Byzantine in Italy, ii. 155, 184, 185 development of taste in, ii. 198 factors in the progress of art, ii. 181 engraving, ii. 186 improved tools, ii. 181 individuality, i. 262; ii. 175-177 Greek influence on, i. 57-63 modes of expression of, ii. 181 fresco, ii. 181-183 oil painting, ii. 184-186 of the Renascence, i. 231, 262; ii. 154 phases of, in Italy, ii. 188 progress of, during the Middle Age, ii. 166, 180 transition from handicraft to, ii. 153 Artois, Count of, i. 161 Augustan Age, i. 57-77 Augustulus, i. 30, 47, 53; ii. 64 Augustus, i. 30, 43-48, 69, 82, 89, 90, 184, 219, 251, 252, 254, 270; ii. 64, 75, 95,102, 291 Aurelian, i. 177, 179, 180; ii. 150 Avalos, Francesco, d', i. 174, 175 Aventine, the, i. 23, 76; ii. 10, 40, 85, 119-121, 124, 125, 126, 127, 129, 132, 302 Avignon, i. 167, 273, 277; ii. 6, 9 B Bacchanalia, ii. 122 Bacchic worship, i. 76; ii. 120 Bajazet the Second, Sultan, i. 276 Baracconi, i. 104, 141, 178, 188, 252, 264, 274, 304; ii. 41, 45, 128, 130, 138, 323 Barberi, i. 202 Barberini, the, i. 157, 187, 226, 268, 301; ii. 7 Barbo, i. 202; ii. 45 Barcelona, i. 308 Bargello, the, i. 129, 293, 296; ii. 42 Basil and Constantine, ii. 33 Basilica (Pagan)-- Julia, i. 66, 71, 106; ii. 92 Basilicas (Christian) of-- Constantine, i. 90; ii. 292, 297 Liberius, i. 138 Philip and Saint James, i. 170 Saint John Lateran, i. 107, 112, 117, 278, 281 Santa Maria Maggiore, i. 107, 135, 139, 147, 148, 166, 208, 278; ii. 118 Santi Apostoli, i. 157, 170-172, 205, 241, 242; ii. 213 Sicininus, i. 134, 138 Baths, i. 91 of Agrippa, i. 271 of Caracalla, ii. 119 of Constantine, i. 144, 188 of Diocletian, i. 107, 129, 145-147, 149, 289, 292 of Novatus, i. 145 of Philippus, i. 145 of public, i. 144 of Severus Alexander, ii. 28 of Titus, i. 55, 107, 152 Befana, the, i. 298, 299, 300; ii. 25 Belisarius, i. 266, 267, 269 Benediction of 1846, the, i. 183 Benevento, Cola da, i. 219, 220 Bernard, ii. 77-80 Bernardi, Gianbattista, ii. 54 Bernini, i. 147, 301, 302, 303; ii. 24 Bibbiena, Cardinal, ii. 146, 285 Maria, ii. 146 Bismarck, ii. 224, 232, 236, 237 Boccaccio, i. 211, 213 Vineyard, the, i. 189 Bologna, i. 259; ii. 58 Borghese, the, i. 206, 226 Scipio, i. 187 Borgia, the, i. 209 Cæsar, i. 149, 151, 169, 213, 287; ii. 150, 171, 282, 283 Gandia, i. 149, 150, 151, 287 Lucrezia, i. 149, 177, 185, 287; ii. 129, 151, 174 Rodrigo, i. 287; ii. 242, 265, 282 Vanozza, i. 149, 151, 287 Borgo, the Region, i. 101, 127; ii. 132, 147, 202-214, 269 Borroinini, i. 301, 302; ii. 24 Botticelli, ii. 188, 190, 195, 200, 276 Bracci, ii. 318 Bracciano, i. 282, 291, 292, 294 Duke of, i. 289 Bramante, i. 305; ii. 144, 145, 274, 298, 322 Brescia, i. 286 Bridge. See _Ponte_ Ælian, the, i. 274 Cestian, ii. 105 Fabrician, ii. 105 Sublician, i. 6, 23, 67; ii. 127, 294. Brotherhood of Saint John Beheaded, ii. 129, 131 Brothers of Prayer and Death, i. 123, 204, 242 Brunelli, ii. 244 Brutus, i. 6, 12, 18, 41, 58, 80; ii. 96 Buffalmacco, ii. 196 Bull-fights, i. 252 Burgundians, i. 251 C Cæsar, Julius, i. 29-33, 35-41, 250; ii. 102, 224, 297 Cæsars, the, i. 44-46, 125, 249, 252, 253; ii. 224 Julian, i. 252 Palaces of, i. 4, 191; ii. 95 Caetani, i. 51, 115, 159, 161, 163, 206, 277 Benedict, i. 160 Caligula, i. 46, 252, ii. 96 Campagna, the, i. 92, 94, 158, 237, 243, 253, 282, 312; ii. 88, 107, 120 Campitelli, the Region, i. 101; ii. 64 Campo-- dei Fiori, i. 297 Marzo (Campus Martius), i. 65, 112, 271 the Region, i. 101, 248, 250, 275; ii. 6, 44 Vaccino, i. 128-131, 173 Canale, Carle, i. 287 Cancelleria, i. 102, 305, 312, 315, 316; ii. 223 Canidia, i. 64; ii. 293 Canossa, i. 126; ii. 307 Canova, ii. 320 Capet, Hugh, ii. 29 Capitol, the, i. 8, 14, 24, 29, 72, 107, 112, 167, 190, 204, 278, 282; ii. 12, 13, 21, 22, 52, 64, 65, 67-75, 84, 121, 148, 302 Capitoline hill, i. 106, 194 Captains of the Regions, i. 110, 112, 114 Election of, i. 112 Caracci, the, i. 264 Carafa, the, ii. 46, 49, 50, 56, 111 Cardinal, i. 186, 188; ii. 56, 204 Carnival, i. 107, 193-203, 241, 298; ii. 113 of Saturn, i. 194 Carpineto, ii. 229, 230, 232, 239, 287 Carthage, i. 20, 26, 88 Castagno, Andrea, ii. 89, 185 Castle of-- Grottaferrata, i. 314 Petrella, i. 286 the Piccolomini, i. 268 Sant' Angelo, i. 114, 116, 120, 126, 127, 128, 129, 259, 278, 284, 308, 314; ii. 17, 28, 37, 40, 56, 59, 60, 109, 152, 202-214, 216, 269 Castracane, Castruccio, i. 165, 166, 170 Catacombs, the, i. 139 of Saint Petronilla, ii. 125 Sebastian, ii. 296 Catanei, Vanossa de, i. 287 Catharine, Queen of Cyprus, ii. 305 Cathedral of Siena, i. 232 Catiline, i. 27; ii. 96, 294 Cato, ii. 121 Catullus, i. 86 Cavour, Count, ii. 90, 224, 228, 237 Cellini, Benvenuto, i. 311, 315; ii. 157, 195 Cenci, the, ii. 1 Beatrice, i. 147, 285-287; ii. 2, 129, 151 Francesco, i, 285; ii. 2 Centra Pio, ii. 238, 239 Ceri, Renzo da, i. 310 Cesarini, Giuliano, i. 174; ii. 54, 89 Chapel, Sixtine. See under _Vatican_ Charlemagne, i. 32, 49, 51, 53, 76, 109; ii. 297 Charles of Anjou, i. ii. 160 Albert of Sardinia, ii. 221 the Fifth, i. 131, 174, 206, 220, 305, 306; ii. 138 Chiesa. See _Church_ Nuova, i. 275 Chigi, the, i. 258 Agostino, ii. 144, 146 Fabio, ii. 146 Christianity in Rome, i. 176 Christina, Queen of Sweden, ii. 150, 151, 304, 308 Chrysostom, ii. 104, 105. Churches of,-- the Apostles, i. 157, 170-172, 205, 241, 242; ii. 213 Aracoeli, i. 52, 112, 167; ii. 57, 70, 75 Cardinal Mazarin, i. 186 the Gallows, i. 284 Holy Guardian Angel, i. 122 the Minerva, ii. 55 the Penitentiaries, ii. 216 the Portuguese, i. 250 Saint Adrian, i. 71 Agnes, i. 301, 304 Augustine, ii. 207 Bernard, i. 291 Callixtus, ii. 125 Charles, i. 251 Eustace, ii. 23, 24, 26, 39 George in Velabro, i. 195; ii. 10 Gregory on the Aventine, ii. 129 Ives, i. 251; ii. 23, 24 John of the Florentines, i. 273 Pine Cone, ii. 56 Peter's on the Janiculum, ii. 129 Sylvester, i. 176 Saints Nereus and Achillæus, ii. 125 Vincent and Anastasius, i. 186 San Clemente, i. 143 Giovanni in Laterano, i. 113 Lorenzo in Lucina, i. 192 Miranda, i. 71 Marcello, i. 165, 192 Pietro in Montorio, ii. 151 Vincoli, i. 118, 283; ii. 322 Salvatore in Cacaberis, i. 112 Stefano Rotondo, i. 106 Sant' Angelo in Pescheria, i. 102; ii. 3, 10, 110 Santa Francesca Romana, i. 111 Maria de Crociferi, i. 267 degli Angeli, i. 146, 258, 259 dei Monti, i. 118 del Pianto, i. 113 di Grotto Pinta, i. 294 in Campo Marzo, ii. 23 in Via Lata, i. 142 Nuova, i. 111, 273 Transpontina, ii. 212 della Vittoria, i. 302 Prisca, ii. 124 Sabina, i. 278; ii. 40 Trinità dei Pellegrini, ii. 110 Cicero, i. 45, 73; ii. 96, 294 Cimabue, ii. 156, 157, 162, 163, 169, 188, 189 Cinna, i. 25, 27 Circolo, ii. 245 Circus, the, i. 64, 253 Maximus, i. 64, 66; ii. 84, 119 City of Augustus, i. 57-77 Making of the, i. 1-21 of Rienzi, i. 93; ii. 6-8 of the Empire, i. 22-56 of the Middle Age, i. 47, 78-99, 92 of the Republic, i. 47 today, i. 55, 92 Civilization, ii. 177 and bloodshed, ii. 218 morality, ii. 178 progress, ii. 177-180 Claudius, i. 46, 255, 256; ii. 102 Cloelia, i. 13 Coelian hill, i. 106 Collegio Romano, i. 102; ii. 45, 61 Colonna, the, i. 51, 94, 104, 135, 153, 157-170, 172, 176, 187, 206, 217, 251, 252, 271, 272, 275-283, 306-315; ii. 2, 6, 8, 10, 16, 20, 37, 51, 54, 60, 106, 107, 126, 204 Giovanni, i. 104 Jacopo, i. 159, 165, 192 Lorenzo, ii. 126, 204-213 Marcantonio, i. 182; ii. 54 Pietro, i. 159 Pompeo, i. 305, 310-317; ii. 205 Prospero, ii. 205 Sciarra, i. 162-166, 192, 206, 213, 229, 279, 275, 281, 307 Stephen, i. 161, 165; ii. 13, 16 the Younger, i. 168 Vittoria, i. 157, 173-177; ii. 174 the Region, i. 101, 190-192; ii. 209 War between Orsini and, i. 51, 104, 159, 168, 182, 275-283, 306-315; ii. 12, 18, 126, 204-211 Colosseum, i. 56, 86, 90, 96, 106, 107, 111, 125, 152, 153, 187, 191, 209, 278; ii. 25, 64, 66, 84, 97, 202, 203, 301 Column of Piazza Colonna i. 190, 192 Comitium, i. 112, 257, 268 Commodus, i. 46, 55; ii. 97, 285 Confraternities, i. 108, 204 Conscript Fathers, i. 78, 112 Constable of Bourbon, i. 52, 259, 273, 304, 309-311; ii. 308 Constans, i. 135, 136 Constantine, i. 90, 113, 163 Constantinople, i. 95, 119 Contests in the Forum, i. 27, 130 Convent of Saint Catharine, i. 176 Convent of Saint Sylvester, i. 176 Corneto, Cardinal of, ii. 282, 283 Cornomania, i. 141 Cornutis, i. 87 Coromania, i. 141, 144 Corsini, the, ii. 150 Corso, i. 96, 106, 108, 192, 196, 205, 206, 229, 251 Vittorio Emanuele, i. 275 Corte Savella, i. 284; ii. 52 Cosmas, the, ii. 156, 157 Costa, Giovanni da, i. 205 Court House, i. 71 Crassus, i. 27, 31; ii. 128 Crawford, Thomas, i. 147 Crescentius, ii. 40, 41 Crescenzi, i. 114; ii. 27, 40, 209 Crescenzio, ii. 28-40 Stefana, ii. 39 Crispi, i. 116, 187 Crusade, the Second, ii. 86, 105 Crusades, the, i. 76 Curatii, i. 3, 131 Customs of early Rome, i. 9, 48 in dress, i. 48 religion, i. 48 D Dante, i. 110; ii. 164, 175, 244 Decameron, i. 239 Decemvirs, i. 14; ii. 120 Decrees, Semiamiran, i. 178 Democracy, i. 108 Development of Rome, i. 7, 18 some results of, i. 154 under Barons, i. 51 Decemvirs, i. 14 the Empire, i. 29, 30 Gallic invasion, i. 15-18 Kings, i. 2-7, 14-45 Middle Age, i. 47, 92, 210-247 Papal rule, i. 46-50 Republic, i. 7-14 Tribunes, i. 14 Dictator of Rome, i. 29, 79 Dietrich of Bern, ii. 297 Dionysus, ii. 121 Dolabella, i. 34 Domenichino, ii. 147 Domestic life in Rome, i. 9 Dominicans, i. 158; ii. 45, 46, 49, 50, 60, 61 Domitian, i. 45, 152, 205; ii. 104, 114, 124, 295 Doria, the, i. 206; ii. 45 Albert, i. 207 Andrea, i. 207 Conrad, i. 207 Gian Andrea, i. 207 Lamba, i. 207 Paganino, i. 207 Doria-Pamfili, i. 206-209 Dress in early Rome, i. 48 Drusus, ii. 102 Duca, Antonio del, i. 146, 147 Giacomo del, i. 146 Dürer, Albert, ii. 198 E Education, ii. 179 Egnatia, i. 75 Elagabalus, i. 77, 177, 179; ii. 296, 297 Election of the Pope, ii. 41, 42, 277 Electoral Wards, i. 107 Elizabeth, Queen of England, ii. 47 Emperors, Roman, i. 46 of the East, i. 95, 126 Empire of Constantinople, i. 46 of Rome, i. 15, 17, 22-28, 31, 45, 47, 53, 60, 72, 99 Encyclicals, ii. 244 Erasmus, ii. 151 Esquiline, the, i. 26, 106, 139, 186; ii. 95, 131, 193 Este, Ippolito d', i. 185 Etruria, i. 12, 15 Euodus, i. 255, 256 Eustace, Saint, ii. 24, 25 square of, ii. 25, 42 Eustachio. See _Sant' Eustachio_ Eutichianus, ii. 296 Eve of Saint John, i. 140 the Epiphany, 299 F Fabius, i. 20 Fabatosta, ii. 64, 84 Farnese, the, ii. 151 Julia, ii. 324 Farnesina, the, ii. 144, 149, 151 Fathers, Roman, i. 13, 78, 79-84 Ferdinand, ii. 205 Ferrara, Duke of, i. 185 Festivals, i. 193, 298 Aryan in origin, i. 173 Befana, i. 299-301 Carnival, i. 193-203 Church of the Apostle, i. 172, 173 Coromania, i. 141 Epifania, i. 298-301 Floralia, i. 141 Lupercalia, i. 194 May-day in the Campo Vaccino, i. 173 Saturnalia, i. 194 Saint John's Eve, i. 140 Festus, ii. 128 Feuds, family, i. 168 Field of Mars. See _Campo Marzo_ Finiguerra, Maso, ii. 186-188 Flamen Dialis, i. 34 Floralia. See _Festivals_ Florence, i. 160 Forli, Melozzo da, i. 171 Fornarina, the, ii. 144, 146 Forum, i, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 17, 26, 27, 64, 72, 111, 126, 129, 194; ii. 64, 92-94, 97, 102, 294, 295 of Augustus, i. 119 Trajan, i. 155, 171, 172, 191 Fountains (Fontane) of-- Egeria, ii. 124 Trevi, i. 155, 156, 186, 267 Tullianum, i. 8 Franconia, Duke of, ii. 36, 53 Francis the First, i. 131, 174, 206, 219, 304 Frangipani, i. 50, 94, 153; ii. 77, 79, 84, 85 Frederick, Barbarossa, ii. 34, 85, 87 of Naples, i. 151 the Second, ii. 34 Fulvius, ii. 121 G Gabrini, Lawrence, ii. 4 Nicholas, i. 23, 93, 103, 168, 211, 281; ii. 3-23, 308 Gaeta, ii. 36 Galba, ii. 295 Galen, i. 55 Galera, i. 282, 291 Galileo, i. 268 Gardens, i. 93 Cæsar's, i. 66, 68 of Lucullus, i. 254, 270 of the Pigna, ii. 273 Pincian, i. 255 the Vatican, ii. 243, 271, 287 Gargonius, i. 65 Garibaldi, ii. 90, 219, 220, 228, 237 Gastaldi, Cardinal, i. 259 Gate. See _Porta_ the Colline, i. 250 Lateran, i. 126, 154 Septimian, ii. 144, 147 Gebhardt, Émile, i. 213 Gemonian Steps, ii. 67, 294 Genseric, i. 96; ii. 70 George of Franzburg, i. 310 Gherardesca, Ugolino della, ii. 160 Ghetto, i. 102; ii. 2, 101, 110-118 Ghibellines, the, i. 129, 153, 158; ii. 6 Ghiberti, ii. 157. Ghirlandajo, ii. 157, 172, 276 Giantism, i. 90-92, 210, 302 Gibbon, i. 160 Giotto, ii. 157, 160-165, 169, 188, 189, 200 Gladstone, ii. 231, 232 Golden Milestone, i. 72, 92, 194 Goldoni, i. 265 Goldsmithing, ii. 156, 157, 186, 187 "Good Estate" of Rienzi, ii. 10-12 Gordian, i. 91 Goths, ii. 297, 307. Gozzoli, Benozzo, ii. 190, 195 Gracchi, the, i. 22, 28 Caius, i. 23; ii. 84 Cornelia, i. 22, 24 Tiberius, i. 23; ii. 102 Gratidianus, i. 27 Guards, Noble, ii. 241, 243, 247, 248, 309, 310, 312 Palatine, ii. 247, 248 Swiss, ii. 246, 247, 310 Guelphs, i. 159; ii. 42, 126, 138 and Ghibellines, i. 129, 153, 275; ii. 160, 162, 173 Guiscard, Robert, i. 95, 126, 127, 129, 144, 252; ii. 70 H Hadrian, i. 90, 180; i. 25, 202, 203 Hannibal, i. 20 Hasdrubal, i. 21 Henry the Second, ii. 47 Fourth, i. 126, 127; ii. 307 Fifth, ii. 307 Seventh of Luxemburg, i. 273, 276-279; ii. 5 Eighth, i. 219; ii. 47, 274 Hermann, i. 46 Hermes of Olympia, i. 86 Hermogenes, i. 67 Hilda's Tower, i. 250 Hildebrand, i. 52, 126-129; ii. Honorius, ii. 323, 324 Horace, i. 44, 57-75, 85, 87; ii. 293 and the Bore, i. 65-71 Camen Seculare of, i. 75 the Satires of, i. 73, 74 Horatii, i. 3, 131 Horatius, i. 5, 6, 13, 23; ii. 127 Horses of Monte Cavallo, i. 181 Hospice of San Claudio, i. 251 Hospital of-- Santo Spirito, i. 274; ii. 214, 215 House of Parliament, i. 271 Hugh of Burgundy, ii. 30 of Tuscany, ii. 30 Huns' invasion, i. 15, 49, 132 Huxley, ii. 225, 226 I Imperia, ii. 144 Infessura, Stephen, ii. 59, 60, 204-213 Inn of-- The Bear, i. 288 Falcone, ii. 26 Lion, i. 287 Vanossa, i. 288 Inquisition, i. 286; ii. 46, 49, 52, 53, 54 Interminelli, Castruccio degli, i. 165 Irene, Empress, i. 109 Ischia, i. 175 Island of Saint Bartholomew, i. 272; ii. 1 Isola Sacra, i. 93 Italian life during the Middle Age, i. 210, 247 from 17th to 18th centuries, i. 260, 263, 264 J Janiculum, the, i. 15, 253, 270; ii. 268, 293, 294, 295 Jesuit College, ii. 61 Jesuits, ii. 45, 46, 61-63 Jews, i. 96; ii. 101-119 John of Cappadocia, i. 267, 268 Josephus, ii. 103 Juba, i. 40 Jugurtha, i. 25 Jupiter Capitolinus, ii. 324, 325 priest of, i. 80, 133 Justinian, i. 267 Juvenal, i. 112; ii. 105, 107, 124 K Kings of Rome, i. 2-7 L Lampridius, Ælius, i. 178 Lanciani, i. 79, 177 Lateran, the, i. 106, 112-114, 129, 140-142 Count of, i. 166 Latin language, i. 47 Latini Brunetto, ii. 163 Laurentum, i. 55, 93 Lazaret of Saint Martha, ii. 245 League, Holy, i. 305, 306, 313, 314 Lentulus, ii. 128 Lepida, Domitia, i. 255, 256 Letus, Pomponius, i. 139; ii. 210 Lewis of Bavaria, i. 165, 167, 192, 275 the Seventh, ii. 86, 105 Eleventh, i. 104, 151 Fourteenth, i. 253 Library of-- Collegio Romano, ii. 45 Vatican, ii. 275, 276, 282 Victor Emmanuel, ii. 45, 61 Lieges, Bishop of, i. 280 Lincoln, Abraham, ii. 231, 236 Lippi, Filippo, ii. 190, 191, 192-195, 200 Liszt, i. 185, 203; ii. 176 Livia, i. 220, 252 Livy, i. 44, 47 Lombards, the, i. 251 Lombardy, i. 309 Lorrain, i. 264 Loyola, Ignatius, ii. 46, 62 Lucilius, i. 74 Lucretia, i. 5, 12, 13 Lucullus, i. 257, 270 Lupercalia, i. 194 Lupercus, i. 194 M Macchiavelli, ii. 174 Mæcenas, i. 62, 69, 74, 140; ii. 293 Mænads, ii. 122 Maldachini, Olimpia, i. 304, 305 Mamertine Prison, i. 25; ii. 72, 293 Mancini, Maria, i. 170, 187 Mancino, Paul, ii. 210 Manlius, Cnæus, ii. 121 Marcus, i. 29; ii. 71, 84 Titus, i. 80 Mantegna, Andrea, ii. 157, 169, 188, 196-198 Marcomanni, i. 190 Marforio, i. 305 Marino, i. 174 Marius, Caius, i. 25, 29 Marius and Sylla, i. 25, 29, 36, 45, 53; ii. 69 Mark Antony, i. 30, 93, 195, 254 Marozia, ii. 27, 28 Marriage Laws, i. 79, 80 Mary, Queen of Scots, ii. 47 Masaccio, ii. 190 Massimi, Pietro de', i. 317 Massimo, i. 102, 317 Mattei, the, ii. 137, 139, 140, 143 Alessandro, ii. 140-143 Curzio, ii. 140-143 Girolamo, ii. 141-143 Marcantonio, ii. 140, 141 Olimpia, ii. 141, 142 Piero, ii. 140, 141 Matilda, Countess, ii. 307 Mausoleum of-- Augustus, i. 158, 169, 205, 251, 252, 270, 271 Hadrian, i. 102, 252; ii. 28, 202, 270. See _Castle of Sant' Angelo_ Maximilian, i. 151 Mazarin, i. 170, 187 Mazzini, ii. 219, 220 Mediævalism, death of, ii. 225 Medici, the, i. 110; ii. 276 Cosimo de', i. 289; ii. 194 Isabella de', i. 290, 291 John de', i. 313 Messalina, i. 254, 272; ii. 255, 256, 257 Michelangelo, i. 90, 146, 147, 173, 175, 177, 302, 303, 315; ii. 129, 130, 157, 159, 166, 169, 171, 172, 175, 188, 200, 276-281, 284, 317-319, 322 "Last Judgment" by, i. 173; ii. 171, 276, 280, 315 "Moses" by, ii. 278, 286 "Pietà" by, ii. 286 Middle Age, the, i. 47, 92, 210-247, 274; ii. 163, 166, 172-175, 180, 196 Migliorati, Ludovico, i. 103 Milan, i. 175 Duke of, i. 306 Milestone, golden, i. 72 Mithræum, i. 271 Mithras, i. 76 Mithridates, i. 26, 30, 37, 358 Mocenni, Mario, ii. 249 Monaldeschi, ii. 308 Monastery of-- the Apostles, i. 182 Dominicans, ii. 45, 61 Grottaferrata, ii. 37 Saint Anastasia, ii. 38 Gregory, ii. 85 Sant' Onofrio, ii. 147 Moncada, Ugo de, i. 307, 308 Mons Vaticanus, ii. 268 Montaigne, i. 288 Montalto. See _Felice Peretti_ Monte Briano, i. 274 Cavallo, i. 181, 188, 292, 293; ii. 205, 209 Citorio, i. 193, 252, 271 Giordano, i. 274, 281, 282, 288; ii. 206 Mario, i. 313; ii. 268 Montefeltro, Guido da, ii. 160 Monti-- the Region, i. 101, 106, 107, 111, 112, 125, 133, 134, 144, 150, 185, 305; ii. 133, 209 and Trastevere, i. 129, 145, 153; ii. 133, 209 by moonlight, i. 117 Morrone, Pietro da, i. 159 Muratori, i. 85, 132, 159, 277; ii. 40, 48, 76, 126, 324 Museums of Rome, i. 66 Vatican, ii. 272, 273, 283, 286, 287 Villa Borghese, i. 301 Mustafa, ii. 247 N Naples, i. 175, 182, 307, 308 Napoleon, i. 32, 34, 53, 88, 109, 258; ii. 218, 221, 298 Louis, ii. 221, 223, 237 Narcissus, i. 255 Navicella, i. 106 Nelson, i. 253 Neri, Saint Philip, i. 318 Nero, i. 46, 56, 188, 254, 257, 285; ii. 163, 211, 291 Nilus, Saint, ii. 36, 37, 40 Nogaret, i. 162, 164 Northmen, i. 46, 49 Numa, i. 3; ii. 268 Nunnery of the Sacred Heart, i. 256 O Octavius, i. 27, 30, 43, 89; ii. 291 Odoacer, i. 47; ii. 297 Olanda, Francesco d', i. 176 Oliviero, Cardinal Carafa, i. 186, 188 Olympius, i. 136, 137, 138 Opimius, i. 24 Orgies of Bacchus, i. 76; ii. 120 Orgies of the Mænads, ii. 121 on the Aventine, i. 76; ii. 121 Orsini, the, i. 94, 149, 153, 159, 167-169, 183, 216, 217, 271, 274, 306-314; ii. 16, 126, 138, 204 Bertoldo, i. 168 Camillo, i. 311 Isabella, i. 291 Ludovico, i. 295 Matteo, i. 281 Napoleon, i. 161 Orsino, i. 166 Paolo Giordano, i. 283, 290-295 Porzia, i. 187 Troilo, i. 290, 291 Virginio, i. 295 war between Colonna and, i. 51, 104, 159, 168, 182, 275-283, 306-315; ii. 18, 126, 204 Orsino, Deacon, i. 134, 135 Orvieto, i. 314 Otho, ii. 295 the Second, ii. 304 Otto, the Great, i. 114; ii. 28, 30 Second, ii. 28 Third, ii. 29-37 Ovid, i. 44, 63 P Painting, ii. 181 in fresco, ii. 181-183 oil, ii. 184-186 Palace (Palazzo)-- Annii, i. 113 Barberini, i. 106, 187 Borromeo, ii. 61 Braschi, i. 305 Cæsars, i. 4, 191; ii. 64 Colonna, i. 169, 189; ii. 205 Consulta, i. 181 Corsini, ii. 149, 308 Doria, i. 207, 226 Pamfili, i. 206, 208 Farnese, i. 102 Fiano, i. 205 della Finanze, i. 91 Gabrielli, i. 216 the Lateran, i. 127; ii. 30 Massimo alle Colonna, i. 316, 317 Mattei, ii. 140 Mazarini, i. 187 of Nero, i. 152 della Pilotta, i. 158 Priori, i. 160 Quirinale, i. 139, 181, 185, 186, 188, 189, 304 of the Renascence, i. 205 Rospigliosi, i. 181, 187, 188, 189 Ruspoli, i. 206 Santacroce, i. 237; ii. 23 of the Senator, i. 114 Serristori, ii. 214, 216 Theodoli, i. 169 di Venezia, i. 102, 192, 202 Palatine, the, i. 2, 13, 67, 69, 194, 195; ii. 64, 119 Palermo, i. 146 Palestrina, i. 156, 157, 158, 161, 165, 166, 243, 282; ii. 13, 315 Paliano, i. 282 Duke of, i. 157, 189 Palladium, i. 77 Pallavicini, i. 206, 258 Palmaria, i. 267 Pamfili, the, i. 206 Pannartz, i. 317 Pantheon, i. 90, 102, 195, 271, 278; ii. 44, 45, 146 Parione, the Region, i. 101, 297, 312, 317; ii. 42 Square of, ii. 42 Pasquino, the, i. 186, 305, 317 Passavant, ii. 285 Passeri, Bernardino, i. 313; ii. 308 Patarina, i. 107, 202 Patriarchal System, i. 223-228 Pavia, i. 175 Pecci, the, ii. 229 Joachim Vincent, ii. 229, 230. Peretti, the, i. 205 Felice, i. 149, 289-295 Francesco, i. 149, 289, 292 Vittoria. See _Accoramboni_ Perugia, i. 159, 276, 277 Perugino, ii. 157, 260, 276 Pescara, i. 174 Peter the Prefect, i. 114; ii. 230 Petrarch, i. 161 Petrella, i. 286 Philip the Fair, i. 160, 276, 278 Second of Spain, ii. 47 Phocas, column of, ii. 93. Piazza-- Barberini, i. 155 della Berlina Vecchia, i. 283 Chiesa Nuova, i. 155 del Colonna, i. 119, 190 Gesù, ii. 45 della Minerva, ii. 45 Moroni, i. 250 Navona, i. 102, 297, 298, 302, 303, 305; ii. 25, 46, 57 Pigna, ii. 55 of the Pantheon, i. 193; ii. 26 Pilotta, i. 158 del Popolo, i. 144, 206, 259, 273 Quirinale, i. 181 Romana, ii. 136 Sant' Eustachio, ii. 25 San Lorenzo in Lucina, i. 192, 205, 250 Saint Peter's, ii. 251, 309 di Sciarra, i. 192 Spagna, i. 251; ii. 42 delle Terme, i. 144 di Termini, i. 144 Venezia, i. 206 Pierleoni, the, ii. 77, 79, 82, 101, 105, 106, 109, 114 Pigna, ii. 45 the Region, i, 101, 102; ii. 44 Pilgrimages, ii. 245 Pincian (hill), i. 119, 270, 272 Pincio, the, i. 121, 189, 223, 253, 255, 256, 259, 264, 272 Pintelli, Baccio, ii. 278, 279 Pinturicchio, ii. 147 Pliny, the Younger, i. 85, 87 Pompey, i. 30 Pons Æmilius, i. 67 Cestius, ii. 102, 105 Fabricius, ii. 105 Triumphalis, i. 102, 274 Ponte. See also _Bridge_ Garibaldi, ii. 138 Rotto, i. 67 Sant' Angelo, i. 274, 283, 284, 287; ii. 42, 55, 270 Sisto, i. 307, 311; ii. 136 the Region, i. 274, 275 Pontifex Maximus, i. 39, 48 Pontiff, origin of title, ii. 127 Pope-- Adrian the Fourth, ii. 87 Alexander the Sixth, i. 258; ii. 269, 282 Seventh, i. 259 Anastasius, ii. 88 Benedict the Sixth, ii. 28-30 Fourteenth, i. 186 Boniface the Eighth, i. 159, 160, 167, 213, 280, 306; ii. 304 Celestin the First, i. 164 Second, ii. 83 Clement the Fifth, i. 275, 276 Sixth, ii. 9, 17-19 Seventh, i. 306, 307, 310, 313, 314; ii. 308 Eighth, i. 286 Ninth, i. 187; ii. 110 Eleventh, i. 171 Thirteenth, ii. 320 Damascus, i. 133, 135, 136 Eugenius the Third, ii. 85 Fourth, ii. 7, 56 Ghisleri, ii. 52, 53 Gregory the Fifth, ii. 32-37 Seventh, i. 52, 126; ii. 307 Thirteenth, i. 183, 293 Sixteenth, i. 305; ii. 221, 223 Honorius the Third, ii. 126 Fourth, ii. 126 Innocent the Second, ii. 77, 79, 82, 105 Third, i. 153; ii. 6 Sixth, ii. 19 Eighth, i. 275 Tenth, i. 206, 209,302,303 Joan, i. 143 John the Twelfth, ii. 282 Thirteenth, i. 113 Fifteenth, ii. 29 Twenty-third, ii. 269 Julius the Second, i. 208, 258; ii. 276, 298, 304 Leo the Third, i. 109; ii. 146, 297 Fourth, ii. 242 Tenth, i. 304; ii. 276, 304 Twelfth, i. 202; ii. 111 Thirteenth, i. 77; ii. 218-267, 282, 287, 308, 312, 313 Liberius, i. 138 Lucius the Second, ii. 84, 85 Martin the First, i. 136 Nicholas the Fourth, i. 159, 274 Fifth, i. 52; ii. 58, 268, 269, 298, 304 Paschal the Second, i. 258; ii. 307 Paul the Second, i. 202, 205 Third, i. 219; ii. 41, 130, 304, 323, 324 Fourth, ii. 46, 47, 48-51, 111, 112 Fifth, ii. 289 Pelagius the First, i. 170, 171; ii. 307 Pius the Fourth, i. 147, 305 Sixth, i. 181, 182 Seventh, i. 53; ii. 221 Ninth, i. 76, 183, 315; ii. 66, 110, 111, 216, 221-225, 252, 253, 255, 257, 258, 265, 298, 308, 311 Silverius, i. 266 Sixtus the Fourth, i. 258, 275; ii. 127, 204-213, 274, 278, 321 Fifth, i. 52, 139, 149, 181, 184, 186, 205, 283; ii. 43, 157, 241, 304, 323 Sylvester, i. 113; ii. 297, 298 Symmachus, ii. 44 Urban the Second, i. 52 Sixth, ii. 322, 323 Eighth, i. 181, 187, 268, 301; ii. 132, 203, 298 Vigilius, ii. 307 Popes, the, i. 125, 142, 273 at Avignon, i. 167, 273, 277; ii. 9 among sovereigns, ii. 228 election of, ii. 41, 42 hatred for, ii. 262-264 temporal power of, i. 168; ii. 255-259 Poppæa, i. 103 Porcari, the, ii. 56 Stephen, ii. 56-60, 204 Porsena of Clusium, i. 5, 6, 12 Porta. See also _Gate_-- Angelica, i. 120 Maggiore, i. 107 Metronia, i. 106 Mugonia, i. 10 Pia, i. 107, 147, 152; ii. 224 Pinciana, i. 193, 250, 264, 266, 269 del Popolo, i. 272, 299 Portese, ii. 132 Salaria, i. 106, 107, 193 San Giovanni, i. 107, 120 Lorenzo, i. 107 Sebastiano, ii. 119, 125 Spirito, i. 311; ii. 132, 152 Tiburtina, i. 107 Portico of Neptune, i. 271 Octavia, ii. 3, 105 Poussin, Nicholas, i. 264 Præneste, i. 156 Prætextatus, i. 134 Prefect of Rome, i. 103, 114, 134 Presepi, ii. 139 Prince of Wales, i. 203 Prior of the Regions, i. 112, 114 Processions of-- the Brotherhood of Saint John, ii. 130 Captains of Regions, i. 112 Coromania, i. 141 Coronation of Lewis of Bavaria, i. 166, 167 Ides of May, ii. 127-129 the Triumph of Aurelian, i. 179 Progress and civilization, i. 262; ii. 177-180 romance, i. 154 Prosper of Cicigliano, ii. 213 Q Quæstor, i. 58 Quirinal, the (hill), i. 106, 119, 158, 182, 184, 186, 187; ii. 205 R Rabble, Roman, i. 115, 128, 132, 153, 281; ii. 131 Race course of Domitian, i. 270, 297 Races, Carnival, i. 108, 202, 203 Raimondi, ii. 315 Rampolla, ii. 239, 249, 250 Raphael, i. 260, 315; ii. 159, 169, 175, 188, 200, 281, 285, 322 in Trastevere, ii. 144-147 the "Transfiguration" by, ii. 146, 281 Ravenna, i. 175 Regions (Rioni), i. 100-105, 110-114, 166 Captains of, i. 110 devices of, i. 100 fighting ground of, i. 129 Prior, i. 112, 114 rivalry of, i. 108, 110, 125 Regola, the Region, i. 101, 168; ii. 1-3 Regulus, i. 20 Religion, i. 48, 50, 75 Religious epochs in Roman history, i. 76 Renascence in Italy, i. 52, 77, 84, 98, 99, 188, 237, 240, 250, 258, 261, 262, 303; ii. 152-201, 280 art of, i. 231 frescoes of, i. 232 highest development of, i. 303, 315 leaders of, ii. 152, 157-159 manifestation of, ii. 197 palaces of, i. 205, 216 represented in "The Last Judgment," ii. 280 results of development of, ii. 199 Reni, Guido, i. 264; ii. 317 Republic, the, i. 6, 12, 15, 53, 110; ii. 291 and Arnold of Brescia, ii. 86 Porcari, ii. 56-60 Rienzi, i. 93; ii. 6-8 modern ideas of, ii. 219 Revolts in Rome-- against the nobles, ii. 73 of the army, i. 25 Arnold of Brescia, ii. 73-89 Marius and Sylla, i. 25 Porcari, ii. 56-60 Rienzi, i. 93; ii. 6-8, 73 slaves, i. 24 Stefaneschi, i. 281-283; ii. 219-222 Revolutionary idea, the, ii. 219-222 Riario, the, ii. 149, 150, 151 Jerome, ii. 205 Rienzi, Nicholas, i. 23, 93, 103, 168, 211, 281; ii. 3-23, 308 Rioni. See _Regions_ Ripa, the Region, i. 101; ii. 118 Ripa Grande, ii. 127 Ripetta, ii. 52 Ristori, Mme., i. 169 Robert of Naples, i. 278 Roffredo, Count, i. 114, 115 Rome-- a day in mediæval, i. 241-247 Bishop of, i. 133 charm of, i. 54, 98, 318 ecclesiastic, i. 124 lay, i. 124 a modern Capital, i. 123, 124 foundation of, i. 2 of the Augustan Age, i. 60-62 Barons, i. 50, 84, 104, 229-247; ii. 75 Cæsars, i. 84 Empire, i. 15, 17, 28, 31, 45, 47, 53, 60, 99 Kings, i. 2-7, 10, 11 Middle Age, i. 110, 210-247, 274; ii. 172-175 Napoleonic era, i. 229 Popes, i. 50, 77, 84, 104 Republic, i. 6, 12, 16, 53, 110 Rienzi, i. 93; ii. 6-8 today, i. 55 sack of, by Constable of Bourbon, i. 259, 273, 309-315 sack of, by Gauls, i. 15, 49, 252 Guiscard, i. 95, 126-129, 252 seen from dome of Saint Peter's, ii. 302 under Tribunes, i. 14 Decemvirs, i. 14 Dictator, i. 28 Romulus, i. 2, 5, 30, 78, 228 Rospigliosi, i. 206 Rossi, Pellegrino, i. 316 Count, ii. 223 Rostra, i. 27; ii. 93 Julia, i. 68; ii. 93 Rota, ii. 215 Rovere, the, i. 258; ii. 276, 279, 321 Rudinì, i. 187 Rudolph of Hapsburg, i. 161 Rufillus, i. 65 S Sacchi, Bartolommeo, i. 139, 147 Saint Peter's Church, i. 166, 278; ii. 202, 212, 243, 246, 268, 289, 294, 295, 326 altar of, i. 96 architects of, ii. 304 bronze doors of, ii. 299, 300 builders of, ii. 304 Chapel of the Choir, ii. 310, 313, 314 Chapel of the Sacrament, ii. 274, 306, 308, 310, 312, 313 Choir of, ii. 313-316 Colonna Santa, ii. 319 dome of, i. 96; ii. 302 Piazza of, ii. 251 Sacristy of, i. 171 Salvini, i. 169, 252 Giorgio, i. 313 Santacroce Paolo, i. 286 Sant' Angelo the Region, i. 101; ii. 101 Santorio, Cardinal, i. 208 San Vito, i. 282 Saracens, i. 128, 144 Sarto, Andrea del, ii. 157, 169 Saturnalia, i. 125, 194, 195 Saturninus, i. 25 Satyricon, the, i. 85 Savelli, the, i. 284; ii. 1, 16, 126, 206 John Philip, ii. 207-210 Savonarola, i. 110 Savoy, house of, i. 110; ii. 219, 220, 224 Scævola, i. 13 Schweinheim, i. 317 Scipio, Cornelius, i. 20 of Africa, i. 20, 22, 29, 59, 76; ii. 121 Asia, i. 21; ii. 120 Scotus, i. 182 See, Holy, i. 159, 168; ii. 264-267, 277, 294 Segni, Monseignor, i. 304 Sejanuo, ii. 294 Semiamira, i. 178 Senate, Roman, i. 167, 168, 257 the Little, i. 177, 180 Senators, i. 78, 112, 167 Servius, i. 5, 15 Severus-- Arch of, ii. 92 Septizonium of, i. 96, 127 Sforza, i. 13; ii. 89 Sforza, Catharine, i. 177; ii. 150 Francesco, i. 306 Siena, i. 232, 268; ii. 229 Signorelli, ii. 277 Slaves, i. 81, 24 Sosii Brothers, i. 72, 73 Spencer, Herbert, ii. 225, 226 Stefaneschi, Giovanni degli, i. 103, 282 Stilicho, ii. 323 Stradella, Alessandro, ii. 315 Streets, See _Via_ Subiaco, i. 282 Suburra, i. 39; ii. 95 Suetonius, i. 43 Sylla, ii. 25-29, 36-42 T Tacitus, i. 46, 254; ii. 103 Tarentum, i. 18, 19 Tarpeia, i. 29; ii. 68, 69 Tarpeian Rock, ii. 67 Tarquins, the, i. 6, 11, 12, 80, 248, 249, 269; ii. 69 Sextus, i. 5, 11 Tasso, i. 188, 189; ii. 147-149 Bernardo, i. 188 Tatius, i. 68, 69 Tempietto, the, i. 264 Temple of-- Castor, i. 27 Castor and Pollux, i. 68; ii. 92, 94 Ceres, ii. 119 Concord, i. 24; ii. 92 Flora, i. 155 Hercules, ii. 40 Isis and Serapis, i. 271 Julius Cæsar, i. 72 Minerva, i. 96 Saturn, i. 194, 201; ii. 94 the Sun, i. 177, 179, 180, 271 Venus and Rome, i. 110 Venus Victorius, i. 270 Vesta, i. 68 Tenebræ, i. 117 Tetricius, i. 179 Theatre of-- Apollo, i. 286 Balbus, ii. 1 Marcellus, ii. 1, 101, 105, 106, 119 Pompey, i. 103, 153 Thedoric of Verona, ii. 297 Theodoli, the, i. 258 Theodora Senatrix, i. 158, 266, 267; ii. 27-29, 203, 282 Tiber, i. 23, 27, 66, 93, 94, 151, 158, 168, 189, 237, 248, 249, 254, 269, 272, 288 Tiberius, i. 254, 287; ii. 102 Titian, i. 315; ii. 165, 166, 175, 188, 278 Titus, i. 56, 86; ii. 102, 295 Tivoli, i. 180, 185; ii. 76, 85 Torre (Tower)-- Anguillara, ii. 138, 139, 140 Borgia, ii. 269, 285 dei Conti, i. 118, 153 Milizie, i. 277 Millina, i. 274 di Nona, i. 274, 284, 287; ii. 52, 54, 72 Sanguigna, i. 274 Torrione, ii. 241, 242 Trajan, i. 85, 192; ii. 206 Trastevere, the Region, i. 101, 127, 129, 278, 307, 311; ii. 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 143, 151 Trevi, the Fountain, i. 155, 186 the Region, i. 155, 187; ii. 209 Tribunes, i. 14 Trinità de' Monti, i. 256, 264 dei Pellegrini, ii. 110 Triumph, the, of Aurelian, i. 179 Triumphal Road, i. 66, 69, 70, 71 Tullianum, i. 8 Tullus, i. 3 Domitius, i. 90 Tuscany, Duke of, ii. 30 Tusculum, i. 158 U Unity, of Italy, i. 53, 77, 123, 184; ii. 224 under Augustus, i. 184 Victor Emmanuel, i. 184 University, Gregorian, the, ii. 61 of the Sapienza, i. 251; ii. 24, 25 Urbino, Duke of, i. 208, 217 V Valens, i. 133 Valentinian, i. 133 Varus, i. 46 Vatican, the, i. 127, 128, 147, 165, 189, 278, 281, 307; ii. 44, 202, 207, 228, 243, 245, 249, 250, 252, 253, 269, 271 barracks of the Swiss Guard, ii. 275 chapels in, Pauline, ii. Nicholas, ii. 285 Sixtine, ii. 246, 274, 275, 276, 278-281, 285 fields, i. 274 Court of the Belvedere, ii. 269 Saint Damasus, ii. 273 finances of, ii. 253 gardens of, ii. 243, 271, 287 of the Pigna, ii. 273 library, ii. 275, 276, 282 Borgia apartments of, ii. 282 Loggia of the Beatification, ii. 245 Raphael, ii. 273, 274, 276, 285 Maestro di Camera, ii. 239, 248, 250 museums of, ii. 272, 273, 283, 286, 287 picture galleries, ii. 273-284 Pontifical residence, ii. 249 private apartments, ii. 249 Sala Clementina, ii. 248 del Concistoro, ii. 246 Ducale, ii. 245, 247 Regia, ii. 246 throne room, ii. 247 Torre Borgia, ii. 269, 285 Veii, i. 16, 17 Velabrum, i. 67 Veneziano, Domenico, ii. 185 Venice, i. 193, 296, 306; ii. 35, 205 Vercingetorix, ii. 294 Vespasian, i. 46, 56; ii. 295 Vespignani, ii. 241, 242 Vesta, i. 57 temple of, i. 71, 77 Vestals, i. 77, 80, 133, 152; ii. 99 house of, i. 69 Via-- della Angelo Custode, i. 122 Appia, i. 22, 94 Arenula, ii. 45 Borgognona, i. 251 Campo Marzo, i. 150 di Caravita, ii. 45 del Corso, i. 155, 158, 192, 193, 251; ii. 45 della Dateria, i. 183 Dogana Vecchia, ii. 26 Flaminia, i. 193 Florida, ii. 45 Frattina, i. 250 de' Greci, i. 251 Lata, i. 193 Lungara, i. 274; ii. 144, 145, 147 Lungaretta, ii. 140 della Maestro, i. 283 Marforio, i. 106 di Monserrato, i. 283 Montebello, i. 107 Nazionale, i. 277 Nova, i. 69 di Parione, i. 297 de' Poli, i. 267 de Pontefici, i. 158 de Prefetti, ii. 6 Quattro Fontane, i. 155, 187 Sacra, i. 65, 71, 180 San Gregorio, i. 71 San Teodoro, i. 195 de' Schiavoni, i. 158 Sistina, i. 260 della Stelleta, i. 250 della Tritone, i. 106, 119-122, 155 Triumphalis, i. 66, 70, 71 Venti Settembre, i. 186 Vittorio Emanuele, i. 275 Viale Castro Pretorio, i. 107 Vicolo della Corda, i. 283 Victor Emmanuel, i. 53, 166, 184; ii. 90, 221, 224, 225, 238 monument to, ii. 90 Victoria, Queen of England, ii. 263 Vigiles, cohort of the, i. 158, 170 Villa Borghese, i. 223 Colonna, i. 181, 189 d'Este, i. 185 of Hadrian, i. 180 Ludovisi, i. 106, 193 Medici, i. 259, 262, 264, 265, 269, 313 Negroni, i. 148, 149, 289, 292 Publica, i. 250 Villani, i. 160, 277; ii. 164 Villas, in the Region of Monti, i. 149, 150 Vinci, Lionardo da, i. 260, 315; ii. 147, 159, 169, 171, 175, 184, 188, 195, 200 "The Last Supper," by, ii. 171, 184 Virgil, i. 44, 56, 63 Virginia, i. 14 Virginius, i. 15 Volscians, ii. 230 W Walls-- Aurelian, i. 93, 106, 110, 193, 271; ii. 119, 144 Servian, i. 5, 7, 15, 250, 270 of Urban the Eighth, ii. 132 Water supply, i. 145 William the Silent, ii. 263 Witches on the Æsquiline, i. 140 Women's life in Rome, i. 9 Z Zama, i. 21, 59 Zenobia of Palmyra, i. 179; ii. 150. Zouaves, the, ii. 216 
22879	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 22879-h.htm or 22879-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/2/8/7/22879/22879-h/22879-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/2/8/7/22879/22879-h.zip) PAUL PATOFF by F. MARION CRAWFORD Author of "A Roman Singer," "To Leeward," "An American Politician," "Saracinesca," Etc. New York The MacMillan Company London: MacMillan & Co., Ltd. 1911 All rights reserved Copyright, 1887, by F. Marion Crawford. Copyright, 1892, by F. Marion Crawford. First published elsewhere. Reprinted with corrections, April, 1893; June, 1894; June, 1899; July, 1906; January, 1912. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. PAUL PATOFF. My dear lady--my dear friend--you have asked me to tell you a story, and I am going to try, because there is not anything I would not try if you asked it of me. I do not yet know what it will be about, but it is impossible that I should disappoint you; and if the proverb says, "Needs must when the devil drives," I can mend the proverb into a show of grace, and say, The most barren earth must needs bear flowers when an angel sows the seed. When you asked for the story I could only find a dry tale of my own doings, which I detailed to you somewhat at length, as we cantered down into the Valley of the Sweet Waters. The south wind was warm this afternoon, though it brought rain with it and wetted us a little as we rode; it was soft and dreamy, and made everything look sleepy, and misty, and a little uncertain in outline. Baghdad sniffed it in his deep red nostrils, for it was the wind of his home; but Haroun al Raschid shook the raindrops restlessly from his gray mane, as though he hated to be damp, and was thinking longingly of the hot sand and the desert sun. But he had no right to complain, for water must needs come in the oases,--and truly I know of no fairer and sweeter resting-place in life's journey than the Valley of the Sweet Waters above the Golden Horn. That same south wind--when I think, it is a point or two easterly, and it seems to smell of Persia--well, that same soft wind is blowing at my windows now in the dark night, and is murmuring, sometimes almost complaining, then dying away in a fitful, tearful sigh, sorry even to weeping for its restless fate, sorry perhaps for me and sighing for me. God knows, there is enough to sigh for in this working-day world, is there not? I have heard you sigh, too, very sadly, as though something hurt you, although you are so bright and young and fair. The wind sighs hopelessly, in great sobs of weariness and despair, for he is filled with the ghosts of the past; but your breath has a music in it that is more like the song of the sunrise that used to break out from the heart of the beautiful marble at dawn. Poor wind! He is trying to speak to me through the pines,--perhaps he is bringing a message. It is long since any one brought me a message I cared to hear. I will open the door to the terrace and let him in, and see what he has to say. Truly, he speaks great words:-- "I am the belt and the girdle of this world. I carry in my arms the souls of the dead and the sins of them; the souls of them that have not yet lived, with their deeds, are in my bosom. I am sorrowful with the sorrow of ages, and strong with the strength of ages yet unlived. What is thy sorrow to my sorrow, or thy strength to my strength? Listen. "Knowest thou whence I come, or whither I go? Fool, thou knowest not even of thyself what thou shalt do to-morrow, and it may be that on the next day I shall have thy soul, to take it away, and hold it, and buffet it, and tear it as I will. Fool, thou knowest little! The gardens of Persia are sweet this night; this night the maidens of Hindustan have gone forth to greet the new moon, and I am full of their soft prayers and gentle thoughts, for I am come from them. But the north, whither I go, is cold and cruel, full of snow and darkness and gloom. Along the lands where I will pass I shall see men and women dying in the frost, and little children, too, poor and hungry, and shivering out the last breathings of a wretched life; and some of them I will take with me this night, to my journey's end among the ice-floes and the brown, driving mists of the uttermost north. Dost thou wonder that I am sad? "That is thy life. Thou art come from the sweet-scented gardens of thy youth, thou must go to the ice desert of thine old age; and now thou art full of strength and boastfulness, and thinkest thou shalt perchance be the first mortal who shall cheat death. Go to! Thou shalt die like the rest, the more miserably that thou lovest life more than the others." The wind is in an ill humor to-night; I should not have thought he could say such hard things. But he is a hopeless old cynic, even when he blows warm from the south; he has seen so much and done so much, and has furnished so many metaphors to threadbare poets, that he believes in nothing good, or young, or in any way fresh. He is bad company, and I have shut the window again. You asked me for a story, and you are beginning to wonder why I do not tell you one. Do you like long stories or short stories? Sad or gay? True or fanciful? What shall it be? My true stories are all sad, but the ones I imagine are often merry. Could I not think of one true, and gay as well? There was once a bad old man who said that when the truth ceased to be solemn it became dull. Between solemnity and dullness you would not find what you want, which, I take it, is a little laughter, a little sadness, and, when it is done, the comfortable assurance of your own senses that you have been amused, and not bored. The bad old gentleman was right. When our lives are not filled with great emotions they are crammed with insignificant details, and one may tell them ever so well, they will be insignificant to the end. But the fancy is a great store-house, filled with all the beautiful things that we do not find in our lives. My dear friend, if true love were an every-day phenomenon, experienced by everybody, it would cease to be in any way interesting; people would be so familiar with it that it would bore them to extinction; they would have it for breakfast, dinner, and supper as a matter of course, and would be as fastidious of its niceties as an Anglo-Indian about the quality of the pepper. It is because only one man or woman in a hundred thousand is personally acquainted with the sufferings of true-love fever that the other ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine take delight in observing the contortions and convulsions of the patient. It is a great satisfaction to them to compare the slight touch of ague they once had when they were young with the raging sickness of a breaking heart; to see a resemblance between the tiny scratch upon themselves, which they delight in irritating, and the ghastly wound by which the tortured soul has sped from its prison. To tell the truth, they are not so very much to blame. Even the momentary reflection of love is a good thing; at least, it is better than to know nothing of it. One can fancy that a violin upon which no one had ever played would yet be glad to vibrate faintly in unison with the music of a more favored neighbor; it would bring a sensation of the possibility of music. The stronger harmony is caught up and carried on forever in endless sound waves, but the slight responsive murmur of the passive strings is lost and forgotten. And now you will tell me that I am making phrases. That is my profession: I am a twister of words; I torture language by trade. You know it, for you have known me a long time, and, if you will pardon my vanity, or rudeness, I observe that my mode of putting the dictionary on the rack amuses you. The fact that you ask for a story shows that well enough. I am a plain man, and there never was any poetry in me, but I have seen it in other people, and I understand why some persons like it. As for stories, I have plenty of them. I, Paul Griggs, have seen a variety of sights, and I have a good memory. There is the south-east wind again. I was speaking of love, a moment ago,--there is a story of the wind falling in love. There is a garden of roses far away to the east, where a maiden lies asleep; the roses have no thorns in that garden, and they grow softly about her and make a pillow for her fair head. A blustering wind came once and nearly waked her, but she was so beautiful that he fell deep in love; and he turned into the softest breeze that ever fanned a woman's cheek in summer, for fear lest he should trouble her sleep. There was a poor woman in rags, in the streets of London, on that March night, but she could not soften the heart of the cruel blast for all her shivering and praying; for she was very poor and wretched, and never was beautiful, even when she was young. That is a short tale, and it has no moral application, for it is too common a truth. If people would only act directly on things instead of expecting the morality of their cant phrases to act for them, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to pay their bills, and to save their souls into the bargain, what a vast deal of good would be done, and what an incalculable amount of foolish talk would be spared! But there is a diplomatic spirit abroad in our day, and it is necessary to enter into polite relations with a drowning man before it is possible to pull him out of the water. But the story, you say,--where is it? Forgive me. I am rusty and ponderous at the start, like an old dredger that has stuck too long in the mud. Let me move a little and swing out with the tide till I am in clearer waters, and I will promise to bring up something pretty from the bottom of the sea for you to look at. I would not have you see any of the blackness that lies in the stagnant harbor. I will tell you the story of Paul Patoff. I played a small part in it myself last summer, and so, in a certain way, it is a tale of my own experience. I say a tale, because it is emphatically a tale, and nothing else. I might almost call it a yarn, though the word would look strangely on a printed title-page. We are vain in our generation; we fancy we have discovered something new under the sun, and we give the name "novel" to the things we write. I will not insult literature by honoring this story with any such high-sounding designation. A great many of the things I am going to tell you were told to me, so that I shall have some difficulty in putting the whole together in a connected shape, and I must begin by asking your indulgence if I transgress all sorts of rules, and if I do not succeed in getting the interesting points into the places assigned to them by the traditional laws of art. I tell what happened, and I do not pretend to tell any more. I. If places could speak, they would describe people far better than people can describe places. No two men agree together in giving an account of a country, of natural scenery, or of a city; and though we may read the most accurate descriptions of a place, and vividly picture to ourselves what we have never seen, yet, when we are at last upon the spot, we realize that we have known nothing about it, and we loudly blame the author, whose word-painting is so palpably false. People will always think of places as being full of poetry if they are in love, as being beautiful if they are well, hideous if they are ill, wearisome if they are bored, and gay if they are making money. Constantinople and the Bosphorus are no exceptions to this general rule. People who live there are sometimes well and sometimes ill, sometimes rich and sometimes poor, sometimes in love with themselves and sometimes in love with each other. A grave Persian carpet merchant sits smoking on the quay of Buyukdere. He sees them all go by, from the gay French secretary of embassy, puffing at a cigarette as he hurries from one visit to the next, to the neat and military German diplomat, landing from his steam launch on his return from the palace; from the devil-may-care English youth in white flannel to the graceful Turkish adjutant on his beautiful Arab horse; from the dark-eyed Armenian lady, walking slowly by the water's edge, to the terrifically arrayed little Greek dandy, with a spotted waistcoat and a thunder-and-lightning tie. He sees them all: the Levantine with the weak and cunning face, the swarthy Kurdish porter, the gorgeously arrayed Dalmatian embassy servant, the huge, fair Turkish waterman in his spotless white dress, and the countless veiled Turkish women from the small harems of the little town, shuffling along in silence, or squatted peacefully upon a jutting point of the pier, veiled in _yashmaks_, the more transparent as they have the more beauty to show or the less ugliness to conceal. The carpet merchant sees them all, and sits like Patience upon a monumental heap of stuffs, waiting for customers and smoking his water-pipe. His eyes are greedy and his fingers are long, but the peace of a superior mendacity is on his brow, and in his heart the lawful price of goods is multiplied exceedingly. By the side of the quay, separated from the quiet water by the broad white road, stand the villas, the embassies, the houses, large and small, a varying front, following the curve of the Bosphorus for half a mile between the Turkish towns of Buyukdere and Mesar Burnu. Behind the villas rise the gardens, terraces upon terraces of roses, laurels, lemons, Japanese medlars, and trees and shrubs of all sorts, with a stone pine or a cypress here and there, dark green against the faint blue sky. Beyond the breadth of smooth sapphire water, scarcely rippling under the gentle northerly breeze, the long hills of the Asian mainland stretch to the left as far as the mouth of the Black Sea, and to the right until the quick bend of the narrow channel hides Asia from view behind the low promontories of the European shore. Now and then a big ferry-boat puffs into sight, churning the tranquil waters into foam with her huge paddles; a dozen sailing craft are in view, from Lord Mavourneen's smart yawl to the outlandishly rigged Turkish schooner, her masts raking forward like the antlers of a stag at bay, and spreading a motley collection of lateen-sails, stay-sails, square top-sails, and vast spinnakers rigged out with booms and sprits, which it would puzzle a northern sailor to name. Far to the right, towards Therapia, glimmer the brilliant uniforms and the long bright oars of an ambassador's twelve-oared caïque, returning from an official visit at the palace; and near the shore are loitering half a dozen _barcas_,--commodious row-boats, with awnings and cushioned seats,--on the lookout for a fare. It is the month of June, and the afternoon air is warm and hazy upon the land, though a gentle northerly breeze is on the water, just enough to fill the sails of Lord Mavourneen's little yacht, so that by making many short tacks he may beat up to the mouth of the Black Sea before sunset. But his excellency the British ambassador is in no hurry; he would go on tacking in his little yawl to all eternity of nautical time, with vast satisfaction, rather than be bored and worried and harrowed by the predestinating servants of Allah, at the palace of his majesty the commander of the faithful. Even Fate, the universal Kismet, procrastinates in Turkey, and Lord Mavourneen's special mission is to out-procrastinate the procrastinator. For the present the little yawl is an important factor in his operations, and as he stands in his rough blue clothes, looking up through his single eyeglass at the bellying canvas, a gentle smile upon his strongly marked face betrays considerable satisfaction. Lord Mavourneen is a very successful man, and his smile and his yacht have been elements of no small importance in his success. They characterize him historically, like the tear which always trembles under the left eyelid of Prince Bismarck, like the gray overcoat of Bonaparte, the black tights and gloomy looks of Hamlet the Dane, or Richelieu's kitten. Lord Mavourneen is a man of action, but he can wait. When he came to Constantinople the Turks thought they could keep him waiting, but they have discovered that they are more generally kept waiting themselves, while his excellency is up the Bosphorus, beating about in his little yawl near the mouth of the Black Sea. His actions are thought worthy of high praise, but on some occasions his inaction borders upon the sublime. Of the men who moved along the Buyukdere quay, many paused and glanced out over the water at the white-sailed yawl, with the single streamer flying from the mast-head; and some smiled as they recognized the ambassadorial yacht, and some looked grave. The sun sank lower towards the point where he disappears from the sight of the inhabitants of Buyukdere; for he is not seen to set from this part of the upper Bosphorus. He sinks early behind the wooded hills above Therapia, and when he is hidden the evening freshness begins, and the crowd upon the quay swells to a multitude, as the people from the embassies and villas sally forth to mount their horses or to get into their caïques. Two young men came out of the white gates of the Russian embassy, and, crossing the road, stood upon the edge of the stone pier. They were brothers, but the resemblance was slight between them. The one looked like an Englishman, tall, fair, and rather angular, with hard blue eyes, an aquiline nose, a heavy yellow mustache concealing his mouth, and a ruddy complexion. He was extremely well dressed, and, though one might detect some awkwardness in his movements, his manner had that composure which comes from a great knowledge of the world, and from a natural self-possession and independence of character. His brother, though older by a year, might have passed for being several years younger. He was in reality two and thirty years of age, but his clear complexion was that of a boy, his dark brown hair curled closely on his head, and his soft brown eyes had a young and trustful look in them, which contrasted strangely with his brother's hard and dominating expression. He was shorter, too, and more slender, but also more graceful; his hands and feet were small and well shaped. Nevertheless, his manner was at least as self-possessed as that of his tall brother, and there was something in his look which suggested the dashing, reckless spirit sometimes found in delicately constituted men. Alexander Patoff was a soldier, and had obtained leave to visit his younger brother Paul in Constantinople, where the latter held the position of second secretary in the Russian embassy. At first sight one would have said that Paul should have been the cavalry officer, and Alexander the diplomatist: but fate had ordered it otherwise, for the elder son had inherited the bulk of his father's fortune, and was, consequently, able to bear the expenses of a career in a guard regiment; while Paul, the younger, just managed to live comfortably the life of a fashionable diplomacy, by dint of economy and an intelligent use of his small income. They were Russians, but their mother was an Englishwoman. Their father had married a Miss Anne Dabstreak, with whom he had fallen in love when in London, shortly before the Crimean War. She was a beautiful woman, and had a moderate portion. Old Patoff's fortune, however, was sufficient, and they had lived happily for ten years, when he had died very suddenly, leaving a comfortable provision for his wife, and the chief part of his possessions to Alexander Paolovitch Patoff, his eldest boy. Paul, he thought, showed even as a child the character necessary to fight his own way; and as he had since advanced regularly in the diplomacy, it seemed probable that he would fulfill his father's predictions, and die an embassador. At the time when this story opens Madame Patoff was traveling in Switzerland for her health. She was not strong, and dared not undertake a journey to Constantinople at present. On the other hand, the climate of northern Russia suited her even less well in summer than in winter, and, to her great regret, her son Alexander, whom she loved better than Paul, as he was also more like herself, had persisted in spending his leave in a visit to his brother. Madame Patoff had been surprised at Alexander's determination. Her sons were not congenial to each other. They had been brought up differently to different careers, which might partially account for the lack of sympathy between them, but in reality the evil had a deeper root. Madame Patoff had either never realized that Alexander had been the favored son, and that Paul had suffered acutely from the preference shown to his elder brother, or she had loved the latter too passionately to care to hide her preference. Alexander had been a beautiful child, full of grace, and gifted with that charm which in young children is not easily resisted. Paul was ugly in his boyhood, cold and reserved, rarely showing sympathy, and too proud to ask for what was not given him freely. Alexander was quick-witted, talented, and showy, if I may use so barbarous a word. Paul was slow at first, ungainly as a young foal, strong without grace, shy of attempting anything new to him, and not liking to be noticed. Both father and mother, as the boys grew up, loved the older lad, and spoiled him, while the younger was kept forever at his books, was treated coldly, and got little praise for the performance of his tasks. Had Paul possessed less real energy of character, he must have hated his brother; as it was, he silently disliked him, but inwardly resolved to outshine him in everything, laboring to that end from his boyhood, and especially after his father's death, with a dogged determination which promised success. The result was that, although Paul never outgrew a certain ungainliness of appearance, due to his large and bony frame, he nevertheless acquired a perfection of manner, an ease and confidence in conversation, which, in the end, might well impress people who knew him more favorably than the bearing of Alexander, whose soft voice and graceful attitudes began to savor of affectation when he had attained to mature manhood. As they stood together on the quay at Buyukdere, one could guess that, in the course of years, Alexander would be an irritable, peevish old dandy, while Paul would turn out a stern, successful old man. They stood looking at the water, watching the caïques shoot out from the shore upon the bosom of the broad stream. "Have you made up your mind?" asked Paul, without looking at his brother. "Oh, yes. I do not care where we go. I suppose it is worth seeing?" "Well worth seeing. You have never seen anything like it." "Is it as fine as Easter Eve in Moscow?" asked Alexander, incredulously. "It is different," said Paul. "It corresponds to our Easter Eve in some ways. All through the Ramazán they fast all day--never smoke, nor drink a glass of water, and of course they eat nothing--until sunset, when the gun is fired. During the last week there are services in Santa Sophia every night, and that is what is most remarkable. They go on until the news comes that the new moon has been seen." "That does not sound very interesting," remarked Alexander, languidly, lighting a cigarette with a bit of yellow fuse that dangled from his heavy Moscow case. "It is interesting, nevertheless, and you must see it. You cannot be here at this time and not see what is most worth seeing." "Is there nothing else this evening?" asked Alexander. "No. We have to respect the prejudices of the country a little. After all, we really have a holiday during this month. Nothing can be done. The people at the palace do not get up until one o'clock or later, so as to make the time while they fast seem shorter." "Very sensible of them. I wonder why they get up at all, until their ridiculous gun fires, and they can smoke." "Whether you like it or not, you must go to Santa Sophia to-night, and see the service," said Paul, firmly. "You need not stay long, unless you like." "If you take me there, I will stay rather than have the trouble of coming away," answered the other. "Bah!" he exclaimed suddenly, "there is that caïque again!" Paul followed the direction of his brother's glance, and saw a graceful caïque pulling slowly upstream towards them. Four sturdy Turks in snow-white cotton tugged at the long oars, and in the deep body of the boat, upon low cushions, sat two ladies, side by side. Behind them, upon the stern, was perched a hideous and beardless African, gorgeously arrayed in a dark tunic heavily laced with gold, a richly chased and adorned scimiter at his side, and a red fez jauntily set on one side of his misshapen head. But Alexander's attention was arrested by the ladies, or rather by one of them, as the caïque passed within oar's length of the quay. "She must be hideous," said Paul, contemptuously. "I never saw such a yashmak. It is as thick as a towel. You cannot see her face at all." "Look at her hand," said Alexander. "I tell you she is not hideous." The figures of the two ladies were completely hidden in the wide black silk garments they wore, the eternal ferigee which makes all women alike. Upon their heads they wore caps, such as in the jargon of fashion are called toques, and their faces were enveloped in yashmaks, white veils which cross the forehead above the eyes and are brought back just below them, so as to cover the rest of the face. But there was this difference; that whereas the veil worn by one of the ladies was of the thinnest gauze, showing every feature of her dark, coarse face through its transparent texture, the veil of the other was perfectly opaque, and disguised her like a mask. Paul Patoff justly remarked that this was very unusual. He had observed the same peculiarity at least twenty times; for in the course of three weeks, since Alexander arrived, the brothers had seen this same lady almost every day, till they had grown to expect her, and had exhausted all speculation in regard to her personality. Paul maintained that she was ugly, because she would not show her face. Alexander swore that she was beautiful, because her hand was young and white and shapely, and because, as he said, her attitude was graceful and her head moved well when she turned it. Concerning her hand, at least, there was no doubt, for as the delicate fingers stole out from the black folds of the ferigee their whiteness shone by contrast upon the dark silk; there was something youthful and nervous and sensitive in their shape and movement which fascinated the young Russian, and made him mad with curiosity to see the face of the veiled woman to whom they belonged. She turned her head a little, as the caïque passed, and her dark eyes met his with an expression which seemed one of intelligence; but unfortunately all black eyes look very much alike when they are just visible between the upper and the lower folds of a thick yashmak, and Alexander uttered an exclamation of discontent. Thereupon the hideous negro at the stern, who had noticed the stare of the two Russians, shook his light stick at Alexander, and hissed out something that sounded very like "Kiope 'oul kiopek,"--dog and son of a dog; the oarsmen grinned and pulled harder than ever, and the caïque shot past the pier. Paul shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, but did not translate the Turkish ejaculation to his brother. A boatman stood lounging near them, leaning on a stone post, and following the retreating caïque with his eyes. "Ask that fellow who she is," said Alexander. "He does not know," answered Paul. "Those fellows never know anything." "Ask him," insisted his brother. "I am sure he knows." Paul was willing to be obliging, and went up to the man. "Do you know who that Khanum is?" he asked, in Turkish. "Bilmem,--I don't know," replied the man, without moving a muscle of his face. "Do you know who her father is?" "Allah bilir,--God knows. Probably Abraham, who is the father of all the faithful." Paul laughed. "I told you he knew nothing about her," he said, turning to his brother. "It did you no harm to ask," answered Alexander testily. "Let us take a caïque and follow her." "You may, if you please," said Paul. "I have no intention of getting myself into trouble." "Nonsense! Why should we get into trouble? We have as good a right to row on the Bosphorus as they have." "We have no right to go near them. It is contrary to the customs of the country." "I do not care for custom," retorted Alexander. "If you walked down the Boulevard des Italiens in Paris on Easter Day and kissed every woman you met, merely saying, 'The Lord is risen,' by way of excuse, as we do in Russia, you would discover that customs are not the same everywhere." "You are as slow as an ox-cart, Paul," said Alexander. "The simile is graceful. Thank you. As I say, you may do anything you please, as you are a stranger here. But if you do anything flagrantly contrary to the manners of the country, you will not find my chief disposed to help you out of trouble. We are disliked enough already,--hated expresses it better. Come along. Take a turn upon the quay before dinner, and then we will go to Stamboul and see the ceremony." "I hate the quay," replied Alexander, who was now in a very bad humor. "Then we will go the other way. We can walk through Mesar Burnu and get to the Valley of Roses." "That sounds better." So the two turned northwards, and followed the quay upstream till they came to the wooden steamboat landing, and then, turning to the left, they entered the small Turkish village of Mesar Burnu. While they walked upon the road Alexander could still follow the caïque, now far ahead, shooting along through the smooth water, and he slackened his pace more slowly when it was out of sight. The dirty little bazaar of the village did not interest him, and he was not inclined to talk as he picked his way over the muddy stones, chewing his discontent and regretting the varnish of his neat boots. Presently they emerged from the crowd of vegetable venders, fishmongers, and sweetmeat sellers into a broad green lane between two grave-yards, where the huge silent trees grew up straight and sad from the sea of white tombstones which stood at every angle, some already fallen, some looking as though they must fall at once, some still erect, according to the length of time which had elapsed since they were set up. For in Turkey the headstones of graves are narrow at the base and broaden like leaves towards the top, and they are not set deep in the ground; so that they are top-heavy, and with the sinking of the soil they invariably fall to one side or the other. Paul turned again, where four roads meet at a drinking fountain, and the two brothers entered the narrow Valley of Roses. The roses are not, indeed, so numerous as one might expect, but the path is beautiful, green and quiet, and below it the tinkle of a little stream is heard, flowing down from the spring where the lane ends. There they sat down beneath a giant tree on a beaten terrace, where a Kaffegee has his little shop. The water pours from the spring in the hillside into a great basin bordered with green, the air is cool, and there is a delicious sense of rest after leaving the noise and dust of the quay. Both men smoked and drank their coffee in silence. Paul could not help wishing that his brother would take a little more interest in Turkey and a little less in the lady of the thick yashmak; and especially he wished that Alexander might finish his visit without getting into trouble. He had successfully controlled him during three weeks, and in another fortnight he must return to Russia. Paul confessed to himself that his brother's visit was not an unmitigated blessing, and found it hard to explain the object of it. Indeed, it was so simple that his diplomatic mind did not find it out; for Alexander had merely said to himself that he had never seen Constantinople, and that, as his brother was there, in the embassy, he could see it under favorable circumstances, at a very moderate cost. He was impetuous, spoiled by too much flattery, and incapable of imagining that Paul could consider his visit in any light but that of a compliment. Accordingly he had come, and had enjoyed himself very much. "Let us dine here," he said suddenly, as he finished his coffee. "There is nothing to eat," answered Paul. "Coffee, cold water, and a few cakes. That is all, and that would hardly satisfy you." "What a nuisance!" exclaimed the elder brother. "What a barbarous country this is! Nothing to eat but coffee, cold water, and cakes!" "It is rather hard on the Turks to abuse them for not keeping restaurants in their woods," remarked Paul. "I detest the Turks. I shall never forget the discomfort I had to put up with in the war. They might have learned something from us then; but they never learn anything. Come along. Let us go and dine in your rooms." "It is impossible to be more discontented than you are," said Paul, rather bitterly. "It is utterly impossible to please you,--and yet you have most things which are necessary to happiness." "I suppose you mean the money?" sneered his brother. But Paul kept his temper. "I mean everything," he answered. "You have money, youth, good looks, and social success; and yet you can hardly see anything without abusing it." "You forget that I do not know the name of the lady in the yashmak," objected Alexander. Paul shrugged his shoulders, and said nothing. Both men rose, and began to go down the green lane, returning towards Mesar Burnu. By this time the sun had sunk low behind the western hills, and the cool of the evening had descended on the woods and the Valley of Roses. The green grass and the thick growth of shrubs took a darker color, and the first dampness of the dew was in the air. The two walked briskly down the path. Suddenly a turn in the narrow way brought them face to face with a party of three persons, strolling slowly towards them. "Luck!" ejaculated Alexander. "Here they are again!" He was right. There was no mistaking the lady with the thick, impenetrable veil, nor her companion, whose heavy dark face was distinctly visible through the thin Indian gauze. Behind them walked the hideous negro, swinging his light cane jauntily, but beginning to cast angry glances at the two Russians, whom he had already recognized. The way was very narrow, and the ladies saw that retreat was impossible. Paul bit his lip, fearing some foolish rashness on the part of his brother. As they all met, the ladies drew close to the hedge on one side of the path, their black attendant standing before them, as though to prevent the Giaours from even brushing against the wide silken ferigees of his charges. Paul pushed his brother in front of him, hoping that Alexander would have the sense to pass quietly by; but he trembled for the result. Alexander moved slowly forward, turning his head as he passed, and looking long into the black eyes of the veiled lady. "Pek güzel,--very pretty indeed," he said aloud, using the only words of Turkish he had learned in three weeks. But they were enough; the effect was instantaneous. Without a word and without hesitation, the tall negro struck a violent blow at Alexander with the light bamboo he carried. Paul, who was immediately behind his brother, saw the action and caught the man's hand in the air, but the end of the flexible cane flew down and knocked Alexander's hat from his head. "Run!" cried Paul excitedly, as the negro struggled in his grip. The two Turkish ladies laughed aloud. They were used to such adventures, but the spectacle of the negro beating a Frank gentleman was novel and refreshing. Alexander picked up his hat, but showed no disposition to move. The African struggled vainly in Paul's powerful arms. "Go, I say!" cried the latter authoritatively. "There will be trouble if any one comes." But Alexander had received a blow, and his blood was up. Moreover, he was a Russian, and utterly regardless of consequences,--or perhaps he only wanted to annoy his brother by a show of violence. "I think I will shoot him," he said, quietly producing a small revolver from his pocket. At the sight of the weapon, the two ladies, who, on seeing the fight prolonged, had retired a few paces up the path, began to scream loudly for help. The negro, who was proof against blows and would not have shown much fear at the sight of a knife, fell on his knees, crying aloud for mercy. Thereupon Paul released him and bid him go. "For God's sake, Alexander, do not make a fool of yourself!" he said coldly, walking up to his brother. But he turned once more to the black attendant, and added quietly in Turkish, "You had better go. We both have pistols." The negro did not wait, but sprang back and flew towards the two ladies, speaking excitedly, and imploring them to make haste. The two brothers made their way quickly down the path, Paul pushing Alexander before him. "You have done it now. You will have to leave Constantinople to-morrow," he said, sternly. "You cannot play these tricks here." "Bah!" returned Alexander, "it is of no consequence. They do not know who we are." "They have not seen us coming out of our embassy half a dozen times without knowing where to look for us. There will be a complaint made within two hours, and there will be trouble. The law protects them. These fellows are authorized to strike anybody who speaks to the women they have in charge, or who even goes too near them. Be quick! We must get back to the quay before there is any alarm raised." Alexander knew that his brother Paul was no coward, and, being thoroughly convinced of the danger, he quickened his walk. In twenty minutes they reached Mesar Burnu, and in five minutes more they were within the gates of the embassy. The huge Cossack who stood by the entrance saluted them gravely, and Paul drew a long breath of relief as he entered the pretty pavilion in the garden in which he had his quarters. Alexander threw himself upon a low divan, and laughed with true Russian indifference. Paul pretended not to notice him, but silently took up the local French paper, which came every evening, and began to read. "You are excellent company, upon my word!" exclaimed Alexander, irritated at his brother's coldness. Paul laid down the paper, and stared at him with his hard blue eyes. "Alexander, you are a fool," he said coolly. "Look here," said the other, suddenly losing his temper, and rising to his feet, "I will not submit to this sort of language." "Then do not expose yourself to it. Are you aware that you do me very serious injury by your escapades?" "Escapades indeed!" cried Alexander indignantly. "As if there were any harm in telling a woman she is pretty!" "You will probably have occasion to hear what the chief thinks of it before long," retorted his brother. "There will be a complaint. It will get to the palace, and the result will be that I shall be sent to another post, with a black mark in the service. Do you call that a joke? It is very well for you, a rich officer in the guards, taking a turn in the East by way of recreation. You will go back to Petersburg and tell the story and enjoy the laugh. I may be sent to China or Japan for three or four years, in consequence." "Bah!" ejaculated the soldier, sitting down on the divan. "I do not believe it. You are an old woman. You are always afraid of injuring your career." "If it is to be injured at all, I prefer that it should be by my own fault." "What do you want me to do?" asked Alexander, rising once more. "I think I will go back to the Valley of Roses, and see if I cannot find her again." Suiting the action to the word, he moved towards the door. All the willfulness of the angry Slav shone in his dark eyes, and he was really capable of fulfilling his threat. "If you try it," said Paul, touching an electric bell behind his chair, "I will have you arrested. We are in Russia inside these gates, and there are a couple of Cossacks outside. I am quite willing to assume the responsibility." Paul was certainly justified in taking active measures to coerce his headstrong brother. The spoilt child of a brilliant society was not accustomed to being thwarted in his caprices, and beneath his delicate pale skin the angry blood boiled up to his face. He strode towards his brother as though he would have struck him, but something in Paul's eyes checked the intention. He held his heavy silver cigarette case in his hand; turning on his heel with an oath, he dashed it angrily across the room. It struck a small mirror that stood upon a table in the corner, and broke it into shivers with a loud crash. At that moment the door opened, and Paul's servant appeared in answer to the bell. "A glass of water," said Paul calmly. The man glanced at Alexander's angry face and at the broken looking-glass, and then retired. "What do you mean by calling in your accursed servants when I am angry?" cried the soldier. "You shall pay for this, Paul,--you shall pay for it!" His soft voice rose to loud and harsh tones, as he impatiently paced the room. "You shall pay for it!" he almost yelled, and then stood still, suddenly, while Paul rose from his chair. The door was opened again, but instead of the servant with the glass of water a tall and military figure stood in the entrance. It was the ambassador himself. He looked sternly from one brother to the other. "Gentlemen," he said, "what is this quarrel? Lieutenant Patoff, I must beg you to remember that you are my guest as well as your brother's, and that the windows are open. Even the soldiers at the gates can hear your cries. Be good enough either to cease quarreling, or to retire to some place where you cannot be heard." Without waiting for an answer, the old diplomat faced about and walked away. "That is the beginning," said Paul, in a low voice. "You see what you are doing? You are ruining me,--and for what? Not even because you have a caprice for a woman, but merely because I have warned you not to make trouble." Paul crossed the room and picked up the fallen cigarette case. Then he handed it to his brother, with a conciliatory look. "There,--smoke a cigarette and be quiet, like a good fellow," he said. The servant entered with the glass of water, and put it down upon the table. Glancing at the fragments of the mirror upon the floor, he looked inquiringly at his master. Paul made a gesture signifying that he might leave the room. The presence of the servant did not tend to pacify Alexander, whose face was still flushed with anger, as he roughly took the silver case and turned away with a furious glance. The servant had noticed, in the course of three weeks, that the brothers were not congenial to each other, but this was the first time he had witnessed a violent quarrel between them. When he was gone Alexander turned again and confronted Paul. "You are insufferable," he said, in low tones. "It is easy for you to escape my company," returned the other. "The Varna boat leaves here to-morrow afternoon at three." "Set your mind at rest," said Alexander, regaining some control of his temper at the prospect of immediate departure. "I will leave to-morrow." He went towards the door. "Dinner is at seven," said Paul quietly. But his brother left the room without noticing the remark, and, retiring to his room, he revenged himself by writing a long letter to his mother, in which he explained at length the violence and, as he described it, the "impossibility" of his brother's character. He had all the pettiness of a bad child; he knew that he was his mother's favorite, and he naturally went to her for sympathy when he was angry with his brother, as he had done from his infancy. Having so far vented his wrath, he closed his letter without re-reading it, and delivered it to be posted before the clock struck seven. He found Paul waiting for him in the sitting-room, and was received by him as though nothing had happened. Paul was indeed neither so forgiving nor so long-suffering as he appeared. He cordially disliked his brother, and was annoyed at his presence and outraged at his rashness. He felt bitterly enough that Alexander had quartered himself in the little pavilion for nearly a month without an invitation, and that, even financially, the visit caused him inconvenience; but he felt still more the danger to himself which lay in Alexander's folly, and he was not far wrong when he said that the ambassador's rebuke was the beginning of trouble. Accustomed to rely upon himself and his own wise conduct in the pursuance of his career, he resented the injury done him by such incidents as had taken place that afternoon. On the other hand, since Alexander had expressed his determination to leave Buyukdere the next day, he was determined that on his side the parting should be amicable. He could control his mood so far as to be civil during dinner, and to converse upon general topics. Alexander sat down to table in silence. His face was pale again, and his eyes had regained that simple, trustful look which was so much at variance with his character, and which, in the opinion of his admirers, constituted one of his chief attractions. It is unfortunate that, in general, the expression of the eyes should have less importance than that of the other features, for it always seems that by the eyes we should judge most justly. As a matter of fact, I think that the passions leave no trace in them, although they express the emotions of the moment clearly enough. The dark pupils may flash with anger, contract with determination, expand with love or fear; but so soon as the mind ceases to be under the momentary influence of any of these, the pupil returns to its normal state, the iris takes its natural color, and the eye, if seen through a hole in a screen, expresses nothing. If we were in the habit of studying men's mouths rather than their eyes, we should less often be deceived in the estimates we form of their character. Alexander Patoff's eyes were like a child's when he was peaceably inclined, like a wild-cat's when he was angry; but his nervous, scornful lips were concealed by the carefully trained dark brown mustache, and with them lay hidden the secret of his ill-controlled, ill-balanced nature. When dinner was finished, the servant announced that the steam launch was at the pier, and that the embassy _kaváss_ was waiting outside to conduct them to Santa Sophia. Alexander, who wanted diversion of some kind during the evening, said he would go, and the two brothers left the pavilion together. The kaváss is a very important functionary in Constantinople, and, though his office is lucrative, it is no sinecure. In former times the appearance of Franks in the streets of Constantinople was very likely to cause disturbance. Those were the great days of Turkey, when the Osmanli was master of the East, and regarded himself as the master of the world. A Frank--that is to say, a person from the west of Europe--was scarcely safe out of Pera without an escort; and even at the present day most people are advised not to venture into Stamboul without the attendance of a native, unless willing to wear a fez instead of a hat. It became necessary to furnish the embassies with some outward and visible means of protection, and the kaváss was accordingly instituted. This man, who was formerly always a Janizary, is at present a veteran soldier, and therefore a Mussulman; for Christians rarely enter the army in Constantinople, being permitted to buy themselves off. He is usually a man remarkable for his trustworthy character, of fine presence, and generally courageous. He wears a magnificent Turkish military dress, very richly adorned with gold embroidery, girt with a splendid sash, in which are thrust enough weapons to fill an armory,--knives, dirks, pistols, and daggers,--while a huge scimiter hangs from his sword-belt. When he is on active service, you will detect somewhere among his trappings the brown leather case of a serviceable army revolver. The reason of this outfit is a very simple one. The kaváss is answerable with his head for those he protects,--neither more nor less. Whenever the ambassador or the minister goes to the palace, or to Stamboul, or on any expedition whatsoever, the kaváss follows him, frequently acting as interpreter, and certainly never failing to impose respect upon the populace. Moreover, when he is not needed by the head of the mission in person, he is ready to accompany any member of the household when necessary. A lady may cross Stamboul in safety with no other attendant, for he is answerable for her with his life. Whether or not, in existing circumstances, he would be put to death, in case his charge were killed by a mob, is not easy to say; it is at least highly probable that he would be executed within twenty-four hours. It chanced, on the evening chosen by Paul and Alexander for their visit to Santa Sophia, that no other members of the embassy accompanied them. Some had seen the ceremony before, some intended to go the next day, and some were too lazy to go at all. They followed the kaváss in silence across the road, and went on board the beautiful steam launch which lay alongside the quay. The night was exceedingly dark, for as the appearance of the new moon terminates the month Ramazán, and as the ceremonies take place only during the last week of the month, there can, of course, be no moonlight. But a dark night is darker on the black waters of the Bosphorus than anywhere else in the world; and the darkness is not relieved by the illumination of the shores. On the contrary, the countless twinkling points seem to make the shadow in midstream deeper, and accidents are not unfrequent. In some places the current is very rapid, and it is no easy matter to steer a steam launch skillfully through it, without running over some belated fisherman or some shadowy caïque, slowly making way against the stream in the dark. The two brothers sat in the deep cane easy-chairs on the small raised deck at the stern, the weather being too warm to admit of remaining in the cushioned cabin. The sailors cast off the moorings, and the strong little screw began to beat the water. In two minutes the launch was far out in the darkness. The kaváss gave the order to the man at the wheel, an experienced old pilot:-- "To the Vinegar Sellers' Landing." The engine was put at full speed, and the launch rushed down stream towards Constantinople. Paul and Alexander looked at the retreating shore and at the lights of the embassy, fast growing dim in the distance. Paul wished himself alone in his quiet pavilion, with a cigarette and one of Gogol's novels. His brother, who was ashamed of his violent temper and disgusted with his brother's coldness, wished that he might never come back. Indeed, he was inclined to say so, and to spend the night at a hotel in Pera; but he was ashamed of that too, now that his anger had subsided, and he made up his mind to be morally uncomfortable for at least twenty-four hours. For it is the nature of violent people to be ashamed of themselves, and then to work themselves into new fits of anger in order to escape their shame, a process which may be exactly compared to the drunkard's glass of brandy in the morning, and which generally leads to very much the same result. But Paul said nothing, and so long as he was silent it was impossible to quarrel with him. Alexander, therefore, stretched out his legs and puffed at his cigarette, wondering whether he should ever see the lady in the yashmak again, trying to imagine what her face could be like, but never doubting that she was beautiful. He had been in love with many faces. It was the first time he had ever fallen in love with a veil. The sweet air of the Bosphorus blew in his face, the distant lights twinkled and flashed past as the steam launch ran swiftly on, and Alexander dozed in his chair, dreaming that the scented breeze had blown aside the folds of the yashmak, and that he was gazing on the most beautiful face in the world. That is one of the characteristics of the true Russian. The Slav is easily roused to frenzied excitement, and he as easily falls back to an indolent and luxurious repose. There is something poetic in his temperament, but the extremes are too violent for all poetry. To be easily sad and easily gay may belong to the temper of the poet, but to be bloodthirsty and luxurious by turns savors of the barbarian. Alexander was aroused by the lights of Stamboul and by the noise of the large ferry-boats just making up to the wooden piers of Galata bridge, or rushing away into the darkness amidst tremendous splashing of paddles and blowing of steam whistles. A few minutes later the launch ran alongside of the Vinegar Sellers' Landing on the Stamboul shore, and the kaváss came aft to inform the brothers that the carriage was waiting by the water-stairs. II. There is probably no nation in the world more attached to religion, both in form and principle, than the Osmanli; and it is probably for this reason that their public ceremonies bear a stamp of vigor and sincerity rarely equaled in Christian countries. No one can witness the rites practiced in the mosque of Agia Sophia without being profoundly impressed with the power of the Mohammedan faith. The famous church of Justinian is indeed in itself magnificent and awe-inspiring; the vast dome is more effective than that of Saint Peter's, in proportion as the masses which support it are smaller and less apparent; the double stories of the nave are less burdened with detail and ornament, and are therefore better calculated to convey an impression of size; the view from the galleries is less obstructed in all directions, and there is something startling in the enormous shields of green inscribed in gold with the names of God, Mohammed, and the earliest khalifs. Everything in the building produces a sensation of smallness in the beholder, almost amounting to stupor. But the Agia Sophia seen by day, in the company of a chattering Greek guide, is one thing; it is quite another when viewed at night from the solitude of the vast galleries, during the religious ceremonies of the last week in the month Ramazán. Paul and Alexander Patoff were driven through dark streets to a narrow lane, where the carriage stopped before a flight of broad steps which suddenly descended into blackness. The kaváss was at the door, and seemed anxious that they should be quick in their movements. He held a small lantern in his hand, and, carrying it low down, showed them the way. Entering a gloomy doorway, they were aware of a number of Turks, clad mostly in white tunics, with white turbans, and congregated near the heavy leathern curtain which separates this back entrance from the portico. One of these men, a tall fellow with an ugly scowl, came forward, holding a pair of keys in his hand, and after a moment's parley with the kaváss unlocked a heavily ironed door, lighting a taper at the lantern. As they entered, both the brothers cast a glance at the knot of scowling men, and Alexander felt in his pocket for his pistol. He had forgotten it, and the discovery did not tend to make him feel more safe. Then he smiled to himself, recognizing that it was but a passing feeling of distrust which he experienced, and remembering how many thousands of Franks must have passed through that very door to reach the winding staircase. As for Paul, he had been there the previous year, and was accustomed to the sour looks of Mussulmans when a Frank visitor enters one of their mosques. He also went in, and the kaváss, who was the last of the party, followed, pulling the door on its hinges behind him. During several minutes they mounted the rough stone steps in silence, by the dim light of the lantern and the taper. Then emerging into the gallery through a narrow arch, a strange sound reached them, and Alexander stood still for a moment. Far down in the vast church an Imam was intoning a passage of the Koran in a voice which hardly seemed human; indeed, such a sound is probably not to be heard anywhere else in the world. The pitch was higher than what is attainable by the highest men's voices elsewhere, and yet the voice possessed the ringing, manly quality of the tenor, and its immense volume never dwindled to the proportions of a soprano. The priest recited and modulated in this extraordinary key, introducing all the ornaments peculiar to the ancient Arabic chant with a facility which an operatic singer might have envied. Then there was a moment's silence, broken again almost immediately by a succession of heavy sounds which can only be described as resembling rhythmical thunder, rising and falling three times at equal intervals; another short but intense silence, and again the voice burst out with the wild clang of a trumpet, echoing and reverberating through the galleries and among the hundred marble pillars of the vast temple. The two brothers walked forward to the carved stone balustrade of the high gallery, and gazed down from the height upon the scene below. The multitude of worshipers surged like crested waves blown obliquely on a shingly shore. For the apse of the Christian church is not built so that, facing it, the true believer shall look towards Mecca, and the Mussulmans have made their _mihrab_--their shrine--a little to the right of what was once the altar, in the true direction of the sacred city. The long lines of matting spread on the floor all lie evenly at an angle with the axis of the nave, and when the mosque is full the whole congregation, amounting to thousands of men, are drawn up like regiments of soldiers in even ranks to face the mihrab, but not at right angles with the nave. The effect is startling and strangely inharmonious, like the studied distortions of some Japanese patterns, but yet fascinating from its very contrariety to what the eye expects. There they stand, the ranks of the faithful, as they have stood yearly for centuries in the last week of Ramazán. As the trumpet notes of each recited verse die away among the arches, every man raises his hands above his head, then falls upon his knees, prostrates himself, and rises again, renewing the act of homage three times with the precision of a military evolution. At each prostration, performed exactly and simultaneously by that countless multitude, the air is filled with the tremendous roar of muffled rhythmical thunder, in which no voice is heard, but only the motion of ten thousand human bodies, swaying, bending, and kneeling in unison. Nor is the sound alone impressive. From the vaulted roof, from the galleries, from the dome itself, are hung hundreds of gigantic chandeliers, each having concentric rings of lighted lamps, suspended a few feet above the heads of the worshipers. Seen from the great height of the gallery, these thousands of lights do not dazzle nor hide the multitude below, which seems too great to be hidden, as the heavens are not hid by the stars; but the soft illumination fills every corner and angle of the immense building, and, lest any detail of the architecture and splendid music should escape the light, rows of little lamps are kindled along the cornices of the galleries and roof, filling up the interstices of darkness as a carver burnishes the inner petals of the roses on a huge gilt frame of exquisite design, in which not the smallest beauty of the workmanship can be allowed to pass unnoticed. This whole flood of glorious illumination descends then to the floor of the nave, and envelops the ranks of white and green clothed men, who rise and fall in long sloping lines, like a field of corn under the slanting breeze. There is something mystic and awe-inspiring in the sight, the sound, the whole condition, of this strange worship. A man looks down upon the serried army of believers, closely packed, but not crowded nor irregular, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee, not one of them standing a hair's breadth in front of his rank nor behind it, moving all as one body, animated by one principle of harmonious motion, elevated by one unquestioning faith in something divine,--a man looks down upon this scene, and, whatever be his own belief, he cannot but feel an unwonted thrill of admiration, a tremor of awe, a quiver of dread, at the grand solemnity of this unanimous worship of the unseen. And then, as the movement ceases, and the files of white turbans remain motionless, the unearthly voice of the Imam rings out like a battle signal from the lofty balcony of the _mastaba_,[1] awaking in the fervent spirits of the believers the warlike memories of mighty conquest. For the Osmanli is a warrior, and his nation is a warrior tribe; his belief is too simple for civilization, his courage too blind and devoted for the military operations of our times, his heart too easily roused by the bloodthirsty instincts of the fanatic, and too ready to bear the misfortunes of life with the grave indifference of the fatalist. He lacks the balance of the faculties which is imposed upon civilized man by a conscious distinction of the possible from the impossible; he lacks the capacity for being contented with that state of life in which he is placed. Instead of the quiet courage and self-knowledge of a serviceable strength, he possesses the reckless and all-destroying zeal of the frenzied iconoclast; in place of patience under misfortune, in the hope of better times, he cultivates the insensibility begotten of a belief in hopeless predestination,--instead of strength he has fury, instead of patience, apathy. He is a strange being, beyond our understanding, as he is too often beyond our sympathy. It is only when we see him roused to the highest expression of his religious fervor that we involuntarily feel that thrill of astonishment and awe which in our hearts we know to be genuine admiration. [Note 1: The tribune, or marble platform, from which the prayers are read; not to be confounded with the _minber_, or pulpit, from which the Khatib preaches on Fridays, with a drawn sword in his hand.] Alexander Patoff stood by his brother's side, watching the ceremony with intense interest. He hated the Turks and despised their faith, but what he now saw appealed to the Orientalism of his nature. Himself capable of the most distant extremes of feeling, sensitive, passionate, and accustomed to delight in strong impressions, he could not fail to be moved by the profound solemnity of the scene and by the indescribable wildness of the Imam's chant. Paul, too, was silent, and, though far less able to feel such emotions than his elder brother, the sight of such unanimous and heart-felt devotion called up strange trains of thought in his mind, and forced him to speculate upon the qualities and the character which still survived in these hereditary enemies of his nation. It was not possible, he said to himself, that such men could ever be really conquered. They might be driven from the capital of the East by overwhelming force, but they would soon rally in greater numbers on the Asian shore. They might be crushed for a moment, but they could never be kept under, nor really dominated. Their religion might be oppressed and condemned by the oppressor, but it was of the sort to gain new strength at every fresh persecution. To slay such men was to sow dragon's teeth and to reap a harvest of still more furious fanatics, who, in their turn being destroyed, would multiply as the heads of the Hydra beneath the blows of Heracles. The even rise and fall of those long lines of stalwart Mussulmans seemed like the irrepressible tide of an ocean, which if restrained, would soon break every barrier raised to obstruct it. Paul sickened at the thought that these men were bowing themselves upon the pavement from which their forefathers had washed the dust of Christian feet in the blood of twenty thousand Christians, and the sullen longing for vengeance rankled in his heart. At that moment he wished he were a soldier, like his brother; he wished he could feel a soldier's pride in the strong fellowship of the ranks, and a soldier's hope of retaliation. He almost shuddered when he reflected that he and his brother stood alone, two hated Russians, with that mighty, rhythmically surging mass of enemies below. The bravest man might feel his nerves a little shaken in such a place, at such an hour. Paul leaned his chin upon his hand, and gazed intently down into the body of the church. The armed kaváss stood a few paces from him on his left, and Alexander was leaning against a column on his right. The kaváss was a good Mussulman, and regarded the ceremony not only with interest, but with a devotion akin to that of those who took part in it. He also looked fixedly down, turning his eyes to the mihrab, and listening attentively to the chanting of the Imam, of whose Arabic recitation, however, he could not understand any more than Paul himself. For a long time no one of the three spoke, nor indeed noticed his companions. "Shall we go to the other side of the gallery?" asked Paul, presently, in a low voice, but without looking round. Alexander did not answer, but the kaváss moved, and uttered a low exclamation of surprise. Paul turned his head to repeat his question, and saw that Alexander was no longer in the place where he had been standing. He was nowhere to be seen. "He is gone round the gallery alone," said Paul to the kaváss, and leading the way he went to the end of the balcony, and turning in the shadow looked down the long gallery which runs parallel with the nave. Alexander was not in sight, and Paul, supposing him to be hidden behind one of the heavy pillars which divided the balustrade into equal portions, walked rapidly to the end. But his brother was not there. "Bah!" Paul exclaimed to the kaváss, "he is on the other side." He looked attentively at the opposite balconies, across the brilliantly lighted church, but saw no one. He and the soldier retraced their steps, and explored every corner of the galleries, without success. The kaváss was pale to the lips. "He is gone down alone," he muttered, hastening to the head of the winding stair in the northwest corner of the dim gallery. He had left his lantern by the door, but it was not there. Alexander must have taken it with him. The Turk with the keys and the taper had long since gone down, in expectation of some other Frank visitors, but as yet none had appeared. Paul breathed hard, for he knew that a stranger could not with safety descend alone, on such a night, to the vestibule of the mosque, filled as it was with turbaned Mussulmans who had not found room in the interior, and who were pursuing their devotions before the great open doors. On the other hand, if Alexander had not entered the vestibule, he must have gone out into the street, where he would not be much safer, for his hat proclaimed him a Frank to every party of strolling Turks he chanced to meet. Paul lit a wax taper from his case, and, holding others in readiness, began to follow the rugged descent, the kaváss close at his elbow. It seemed interminable. At every deep embrasure Paul paused, searching the recess by the flickering glare of the match, and then, finding nothing, both men went on. At last they reached the bottom, and the heavy door creaked as the kaváss pressed it back. "You must stay here," he said, in his broken jargon. "Or, better still, you should go outside with me and get into the carriage. I will come back and search." "No," said Paul. "I will go with you. I am not afraid of them." "You cannot," answered the kaváss firmly. "I cannot protect you inside the vestibule." "I tell you I will go!" exclaimed Paul impatiently. "I do not expect you to protect me. I will protect myself." But the kaváss would not yield so easily. He was a powerful man, and stood calmly in the doorway. Paul could not pass him without using violence. "Effendim," said the man, speaking Turkish, which he knew that Paul understood, "if I let you go in there, and anything happens to you, my life is forfeited." Paul hesitated. The man was in earnest, and they were losing time which might be precious. It was clear that Alexander might already be in trouble, and that the kaváss was the only person capable of imposing respect upon the crowd. "Go," said Paul. "I will wait by the carriage." The kaváss opened the door, and both men went out into the dim entry. Paul turned to the right and the soldier to the left, towards the heavy curtain which closed the entrance of the vestibule. The knot of Turks who had stood there when the Russians had arrived had disappeared, and the place was silent and deserted, while from behind the curtain faint echoes of the priest's high voice were audible, and at intervals the distant thundering roll from the church told that the worshipers were prostrating themselves in the intervals of the chanting. Paul retired up the dark way, but paused at the deserted gate, unwilling to go so far as the carriage, and thus lengthen the time before the kaváss could rejoin him with his brother. He trembled lest Alexander should have given way to some foolhardy impulse to enter the mosque in defiance of the ceremony which was then proceeding, but it did not strike him that anything very serious could have occurred, nor that the kaváss would really have any great difficulty in finding him. Alexander would probably escape with some rough treatment, which might not be altogether unprofitable, provided he sustained no serious injury. It was indeed a rash and foolish thing to go alone and unarmed among a crowd of fanatic Mohammedans at their devotions; but, after all, civilization had progressed in Turkey, and the intruder was no longer liable to be torn in pieces by the mob. He would most likely be forcibly ejected from the vestibule, and left to repent of his folly in peace. All these reflections passed through Paul's mind, as he stood waiting in the shadow of the gate at the back of the mosque; but the time began to seem unreasonably long, and his doubts presently took the shape of positive fears. Still the echoes came to his ears through the heavy curtain, while from without the distant hum of the city, given up to gayety after the day's long fast, mingled discordantly with the sounds from within. He was aware that his heart was beating faster than usual, and that he was beginning to suffer the excitement of fear. He tried to reason with himself, saying that it was foolish to make so much of so little; but in the arguments of reason against terror, the latter generally gets the advantage and keeps it. Paul had a strong desire to follow the kaváss into the vestibule, and to see for himself whether his brother were there or not. He rarely carried weapons, as Alexander did, but he trusted in his own strength to save him. He drew his watch from his pocket, resolving to wait five minutes longer, and then, if the kaváss did not return, to lift the curtain, come what might. He struck a match, and looked at the dial. It was a quarter past ten o'clock. Then, to occupy his mind, he began to try and count the three hundred seconds, fancying that he could see a pendulum swinging before his eyes in the dark. At twenty minutes past ten he would go in. But he did not reach the end of his counting. The curtain suddenly moved a little, allowing a ray of bright light to fall out into the darkness, and in the momentary flash Paul saw the gorgeous uniform and accoutrements of the embassy kaváss. He was alone, and Paul's heart sank. He remembered very vividly the dark and scowling faces and the fiery eyes of the turbaned men who had stood before the door an hour earlier, and he began to fear some dreadful catastrophe. The kaváss came quickly forward, and Paul stepped out of the shadow and confronted him. "Well?" "He has not been there," answered the soldier, in agitated tones. "I went all through the crowd, and searched everywhere. I asked many persons. They laughed at the idea of a Frank gentleman in a hat appearing amongst them. He must have gone out into the street." "We searched the gallery thoroughly, did we not?" asked Paul. "Are you sure he could not have been hidden somewhere?" "Perfectly, Effendim. He is not there." "Then we must look for him in the streets," said Paul, growing very pale. He turned to ascend the steps from the gate to the road. "It is not my fault, Effendim," answered the soldier. "Did you not see him leave the gallery?" "It is nobody's fault but his own," returned Patoff. "I was looking down at the people. He must have slipped away like a cat." They reached the carriage, and Paul got inside. It was a landau, and the kaváss and the coachman opened the front, so that Patoff might get a better view of the streets. The kaváss mounted the box, and explained to the coachman that they must search Stamboul as far as possible for the lost Effendi. But the coachman turned sharply round on his seat and spoke to Paul. "The gentleman did not come out," he said emphatically. "I have been watching for you ever since you went in. He is inside the Agia Sophia--somewhere." Paul was disconcerted. He had not thought of making inquiries of the coachman, supposing that Alexander might easily have slipped past in the darkness. But the man seemed very positive. "Wait in the carriage, Effendim," said the kaváss, once more descending from his seat. "If he is inside I will find him. I will search the galleries again. He cannot have gone through the vestibule." Before Paul could answer him the man had plunged once more down the black steps, and the Russian was condemned a second time to a long suspense, during which he was frequently tempted to leave the carriage and explore the church for himself. He felt the cold perspiration on his brow, and his hand trembled as he took out his watch again and again. It was nearly a quarter of an hour before the kaváss returned. The man was now very pale, and seemed as much distressed as Paul himself. He silently shook his head, and, mounting to the box seat, ordered the coachman to drive on. The city was ablaze with lights. Every mosque was illuminated, and the minarets, decked out with thousands of little lamps, looked like fiery needles piercing the black bosom of the sky. The carriage drove from place to place, passing where a crowd was gathered together, hastening down dark and deserted streets, to emerge again upon some brilliantly lighted square, thronged with men in fez and turban and with women veiled in the eternal yashmak. More than once Paul started in his seat, fancying that he could discover on the borders of the crowd the two ladies, with their attendant, who had been the cause of the scuffle in the Valley of Roses that afternoon. Again, he thought he could distinguish his brother's features among the moving faces, but always the sight of the dark red fez told him that he was wrong. He was driven round Agia Sophia, beneath the splendid festoons of lamps, some hung so as to form huge Arabic letters, some merely bound together in great ropes of light; back towards the water and through the Atmaidam, the ancient Hippodrome, down to the Serai point, then up to the Seraskierat, where the glorious tower shot upwards like the pillar of flame that went before the Israelites of old; on to the mosque of Suleiman, over whose tomb the great dome burned like a fiery mountain, round once more to the Atmaidam, past the tall trees amidst which blazed the six minarets of Sultan Achmet; then, trying a new route, down by the bazaar gates to Sultan Validé and the head of Galata bridge, and at last back again to the Seraskierat, and, leaving the Dove Mosque of Bajazet on the right, once more to the Vinegar Sellers' Landing, in the vain hope that Alexander might have found his way down to the quay where the steam launch was moored. In vain did the terrified kaváss bid the coachman turn and turn again; in vain did Paul, in agonized excitement, try to pierce the darkness with his eyes, and to distinguish the well-known face in the throngs that crowded the brightly lighted squares. At the end of two hours he began to realize the hopelessness of the search. Suddenly it struck him that Alexander might have found the bridge, and, recognizing it, might have crossed to Pera rather than run the risk of losing himself in Stamboul again. "Tell the launch to be at Beschik Tasch to-morrow morning at ten o'clock," said Paul. "Take me to Galata bridge. I will cross on foot to Pera. Then go back and wait behind Agia Sophia, in case he comes that way again to look for the carriage. If I find him in Pera, I will send a messenger to tell you. If he does not come, meet me at Missiri's early to-morrow morning." "Pek eyi--very good," answered the kaváss, who understood the wisdom of the plan. Again the carriage turned, and in five minutes Paul was crossing Galata bridge, alone, on his way to Pera. He was terribly agitated. Stories of the disappearance of foreigners in the labyrinths of Stamboul rose to his mind, and though he had never known of such a case in his own experience, he did not believe the thing impossible. His brother was the rashest and most foolhardy of men, capable of risking his life for a mere caprice, and perhaps the more inclined to do so on that night because he had had a violent quarrel with Paul that very afternoon, about his own foolish conduct. Of all nights in the year, the last four or five of Ramazán are the most dangerous to unprotected foreigners, and as he walked the spectacle of the scowling Turks thrust itself once more before Paul's mental vision. If Alexander had descended the steps, and had ventured, as well he might, to push past those fellows into the vestibule of the mosque, it must have gone hard with him. The fanatic worshipers of Allah were not in a mood that night to bear with the capricious humors of a haughty Frank; and though Alexander was active, strong, and brave, his strength would avail him little against such odds. He would be overpowered, stunned, and thrown out before he could utter a cry, and he might think himself lucky if he escaped with one or two broken bones. But then, again, if he had suffered such treatment, some one must have heard of it, and Paul remembered the blank face and frightened look of the kaváss when he returned the second time from his search. They had gone carefully round the great building, and must have seen such an object as the body of a man lying in the street. Perhaps Alexander had broken away without injury, and fled out into the streets of Stamboul. If so, he was in no common danger, for, utterly ignorant of the topography of the great city, he might as easily have gone towards the Seven Towers or to Aiwán Serai as to Galata bridge or Topkapussi, the Canon Gate at Serai point. There was still one hope left. He might have reached Pera, and be at that very moment refreshing himself with coffee and cigarettes at Missiri's hotel. Paul hastened his walk, and, reaching Galata, began at once to ascend the steep street which further on is called the Grande Rue, but which of all "great" streets least deserves the name. He then walked slowly, scrutinizing every face he saw. But indeed there were few people about, for Christian Pera does not fast in Ramazán, and consequently does not spend the night in parading the streets. Nevertheless, Paul began a systematic search, leaving no small café or eating-house unvisited, rousing the sleepy porters of the inns with his inquiries, and finally entering the hotel. It was now past midnight, but he would not give up the quest. He caused all the guides to be collected from their obscure habitations by messengers from the hotel, and representing to them the urgency of the case, and giving them money in advance with the promise of more to come, he dispatched them in all directions. Alexander had been at the hotel very often during the last month, while visiting the sights of the city, and most of these fellows knew him by sight. At all events, it would be easy for them to recognize a well-dressed Frank gentleman in trouble. Patoff saw the last of them leave the hotel, and stood staring out upon the Grande Rue de Pera, wondering what should be done next. The town residence of the embassy was closed for the summer, and there were only two or three sleepy servants in the place, who could be of no use. He thought of getting a horse and riding rapidly back to Buyukdere, in order to warn the ambassador of his brother's disappearance; but on reflection it seemed that he would do better to stay where he was. The short June night would soon be past, and by daylight he could at once prosecute his search in Stamboul with safety and with far greater probability of finding the lost man. He knew that the kaváss would remain with the carriage all night behind Santa Sophia, and then at dawn he should still find them there. Meanwhile, he took a _hamál_,--a luggage porter from the hotel,--and, armed with a lantern and a stick, began to beat the different quarters of Pera, judging that in the three or four hours before daylight he could pass through most of the streets. Hour after hour he trudged along, pale with fatigue and anxiety, his big features hardening with despairing determination as he walked. He searched every street and alley; he interviewed the Bekjees, who stamp along the streets, pounding the pavement with their iron-shod clubs; he tramped out to the Taksim, and down again to Galata tower, plunging into the dark alleys about the Oriental Bank, skirting lower Pera to the Austrian embassy, and climbing up the narrow path between tall houses, till he was once more in the Grande Rue; crossing to the filthy quarters of Kassim Paschá and emerging at the German Lutheran church, crossing, recrossing, stumbling over gutters and up dirty back lanes, silent and determined still, addressing only the sturdy Kurd by his side to ask if there were any streets still unexplored, and entering every new by-path with new hope. At last he found himself once more at Galata bridge, and the light of the lantern began to pale before the grayness of the coming morning. He paid the Kurdish porter a generous fee, and giving his tiny coin to the tall keeper of the bridge, whose white garments looked whiter in the dawn, he walked on until he was half way over the Golden Horn. Stepping aside on to the wooden pier where the great ferry-boats were moored, he leaned upon the rail and looked out over the water, momentarily exhausted and unable to go further. The tender light tinged the southeastern sky, and the far mist of the horizon seemed already hot with the rising day. On the lapping water of the Horn the light fell like petals of roses tossed in a mantle of some soft dark fabric interwoven with a silvery sheen. Far across the mouth of the Bosphorus the minarets of Scutari came faintly into view, and on the Stamboul side the few lingering lamps which had outlasted the darkness, upon the lofty minarets, paled and lost their yellow color, and then ceased to shine, outdone in their turn by the rosy morning light. A wonderful stillness had fallen on the great city, as one by one the tired parties of friends had gone to rest, to shorten the day of fasting by prolonging their sleep till late in the hot afternoon. The clank of some capstan on one of the ferry-boats struck loud and clear on the still air, as the reluctant sailors and firemen prepared for their first run to the Black Sea, or across to Kadi Köi on the Sea of Marmara. Paul turned and looked towards the mighty dome of Santa Sophia, and his haggard face was almost as pale as the white walls. He lingered still, and suddenly the sun sprang up behind the Serai, and gilded the delicate spires, and caught the gold of the crescents on the mosques, and shone full upon the broad water. Paul followed the light as it touched one glorious building after another, and his hand trembled convulsively on the railing. Somewhere in that great awakening city--his brother was somewhere, alive or dead, amongst those white walls and glittering crescents and towering minarets--somewhere, and he must be found. Paul bent his head, and turning away hurried across the bridge, and plunged once more into Stamboul, alone as he had come. The streets were deserted, and the early morning air was full of the smell of thousands of extinguished oil lamps, that peculiar and pervading odor which suggests past revelry, sleepless hours, and the vanity of turning night into day. It oppressed Paul's overwrought senses, as he passed the melancholy remains of the illumination before the post-office and the Sultan Validé mosque, and he hurried on towards the more secluded streets leading to Santa Sophia, in which the night's gayety had left no perceptible signs. At last he came to the narrow lane behind the huge pile, feeling that he had at last reached the end of his five hours' tramp. There stood the carriage, all dusty with the night's driving, looking dilapidated and forlorn; the tired horses drooped their heads in the flaccid and empty canvas nose-bags. The extinguished lamps were black with the smoke from the last flare of their sputtering wicks. The coachman lay inside, snoring,--a mere heap of cloth and brass buttons surmounted by a shapeless fez. On the stone steps leading down to the church sat the kaváss; his head had fallen on the low parapet behind him, and his half-shaved scalp was bare. His face was deadly pale, and his mouth was wide open as he slept, breathing heavily; his left hand rested on the hilt of his scimiter; his right was extended, palm upwards, on the stone step on which he sat, the very picture of exhaustion. At any other time Paul would have laughed at the scene. But he was very far from mirth now, as he bent down and laid his hand upon the sleeping kaváss's shoulder. III. At ten o'clock on that morning, Paul and the kaváss went on board the steam launch at Beschik Tasch, the landing most convenient for persons coming from the upper part of Pera. They had done everything possible, and it was manifestly Paul's duty to inform his chief of the occurrences of the night. The authorities had been put in possession of the details of Alexander's disappearance, and the scanty machinery of the Stamboul police had been set in motion; notice had been given at every hotel and circulated to every place of resort, and it was impossible that if Alexander showed himself in Pera he should escape observation, even if he desired to do so. But Stamboul was not Pera, and as Paul gave the order to steam to Buyukdere he resolutely turned his back on the eastern shore of the Golden Horn, unable to bear the sight of the buildings so intimately associated with his night's search. He was convinced that his brother was in Stamboul, and he knew that the search in Pera was a mere formality. He knew, also, that to find any one in Stamboul was only possible provided the person were free, or at least able to give some sign of his presence; and he began to believe that Alexander had fallen a victim to some rash prank. He had, perhaps, repeated his folly of the previous afternoon,--had wandered into the streets, had foolishly ventured to look too closely at a pair of black eyes, and had been spirited away by the prompt vengeance of the lady's attendants. But Paul's speculations concerning the fate of his brother were just now interrupted by the consideration of the difficulties which lay before him. Cold and resolute by nature, he found himself in a position in which any man's calmness would have been shaken. He knew that he must tell his tale to his chief, and he knew that he was to blame for not having watched Alexander more closely. It was improbable that any one who had not been present could understand how, in the intense interest caused by the ceremony, Paul could have overlooked his brother's departure from the gallery. But not only had Paul failed to notice his going; the kaváss had not observed the lost man's movements any more than Paul himself. It was inconceivable to any one except Paul that Alexander should have been capable of creeping past him and the soldier, on tip-toe, purposely eluding observation; nevertheless, such an action would not be unnatural to his character. He had perhaps conceived a sudden desire to go down into the church and view the ceremony more closely. He must have known that both his companions would forcibly prevent him from such a course, and it was like him to escape them, laughing to himself at their carelessness. The passion for adventure was in his blood, and his training had not tended to cool it; fate had thrown an attractive possibility into his way, and he had seized the opportunity of doing something unusual, and annoying his more prudent brother at the same time. But though Paul understood this clearly enough, he felt that it would be anything but easy to make it clear to his chief; and yet, if he did not succeed in doing so, it would be hard for him to account for his carelessness, and he might spend a very unpleasant season of waiting until the missing man was found. In such a case as this, Paul was too good a diplomatist not to tell the truth very exactly. Indeed, he was always a truthful man, according to his lights; but had it been necessary to shield his brother's reputation in any way, he would have so arranged his story as not to tell any more of the truth than was necessary. What had occurred was probably more to his own discredit than to Alexander's, and Paul reflected that, on the other hand, there was no need to inform the ambassador of the quarrel on the previous afternoon, since the chief had overheard it, and had himself interposed to produce quiet, if not peace. He resolved, therefore, to tell every particular, from the moment of his arrival with Alexander at the Vinegar Sellers' Landing to the time of his leaving Pera, that morning, on his way back to Buyukdere. There was some relief in having thus decided upon the course he should follow; but the momentary satisfaction did not in the least lighten the burden that weighed upon his heart. His anxiety was intense, and he could not escape it, nor find any argument whereby to alleviate it. He did not love his brother, or at least had never loved him before; but we often find in life that a sudden fear for the safety of an individual, for whom we believe we care nothing, brings out a latent affection which we had not expected to feel. The bond of blood is a very strong one, and asserts itself in extreme moments with an unsuspected tenacity which works wonders, and which astonishes ourselves. The silken cord is slender, but the hands must be strong that can break it. In spite of all the misery his brother had caused him in boyhood, in spite of the coolness which had existed between them in later years, in spite of the humiliation he had so often suffered in seeing Alexander preferred before him, yet at this moment, when, for a time, the only man who bore his name had suddenly disappeared from the scene of life, Paul discovered deep down in his heart a strange sympathy for the lost man. He blamed himself bitterly for his carelessness, and, going back in his memory, he recalled with sorrow the hard words which had passed between them. He would have given much to be able to revoke the past and to weave more affection into his remembrance of his brother; and at the idea that he might perhaps never see him again, he turned pale, and twisted his fingers uneasily in his agitation. Meanwhile, the launch steamed bravely against the current, deftly avoiding the swift eddies under the skillful hand of the pilot, slackening her pace to let a big ferry-boat cross before her from Europe to Asia, facing the fierce stream at Bala Hissar,--the devil's stream, as the Turks call it,--and finally ploughing through the rushing waters of Yeni Köj round the point where the Therapia pier juts out into the placid bay of Buyukdere. Paul could see far down the pier the white gates of the Russian embassy, and when, some ten minutes later, the launch ran alongside the landing, he gathered his courage with all his might, and stepped boldly ashore, and entered the grounds, the kaváss following him with bent head and dejected looks. His excellency the Russian ambassador was seated in his private study, alternately sipping a cup of tea and puffing at a cigarette. The green blinds were closed, and the air of the luxurious little apartment was cool and refreshing. The diplomatist had very little to do, as no business could be transacted until after the Bairam feast, which begins with the new moon succeeding the month Ramazán; he sat late over his tea, smoking and turning over a few letters, while he enjoyed the gentle breeze which found its way into his room with the softened light. He was a gray-headed man, but not old. His keen gray eyes seemed exceedingly alive to every sight presented to them, and the lines on his face were the expression of thought and power rather than of age. He was tall, thin, and soldier-like, extremely courteous in manner and speech, but grave and not inclined to mirth; he belonged to that class of active men in whom the constant exercise of vitality and intelligence appears to prolong life instead of exhausting its force, who possess a constitution in which the body is governed by the mind, and who, being generally little capable of enjoying the pleasure of the moment, find it easy to devote their energies to the attainment of an object in the future. Count Ananoff was the ideal diplomatist: cautious, far-sighted, impenetrable, and exact, outwardly ceremonious and dignified, not too skeptical of other men's qualities nor too confident of his own. His convictions might be summed up, according to the old Russian joke, in the one word Nabuchadnezar,--_Na Bogh ad ne Czar_,--"There is no God but the Czar." As Paul entered the ambassador's study, he was glad that he had always been on good terms with his chief. Indeed, there was much sympathy between them, and it might well have been predicted at that time that Paul would some day become just such a man as he under whom he now served. Convinced as he was that in his present career quite as much of success depended upon the manner of carrying out a scheme as on the scheme itself, Paul had long come to the conclusion that no manner could possibly be so effective as that of Count Ananoff, and that in order to cultivate it the utmost attention must be bestowed upon the study of his chief's motives. Himself grave and cautious, he possessed the two main elements noticeable in the character of his model, and to acquire the rest could only be a matter of time. The ambassador noticed the ease with which Paul comprehended his point of view, and fancied that he saw in his secretary a desire to imitate himself, which of course was flattering. The result was that a sincere good feeling existed between the two, made up of a genuine admiration on the one side, and of considerable self-satisfaction on the other. Patoff felt that the moment had come when he must test the extent of the regard his chief felt for him, and, considering the difficulty of his position and the personal anxiety he felt for his brother, it is not surprising that he was nervous and ill at ease. "I have a painful story to tell, excellency," he said, standing before the broad writing-desk at which the count was sitting. The latter looked up from his tea. "Be seated," he said gravely, but fixing a keen look on Paul's haggard face. "I will tell you everything, with all the details," said Patoff, sitting down; and he forthwith began his story. The narrative was clear and connected, and embraced the history of the night from the time when Paul had left Buyukdere with his brother to the time of his return. Nothing was omitted which he could remember, but when he had done he was conscious that he had only told the tale of his long search for the missing man. He had thrown no light upon the cause of the disappearance. The ambassador looked very grave, and his thoughtful brows knit themselves together, while he never took his eyes from Paul's face. "It is very serious," he said at last. "Will you kindly explain to me, if you can do so without indiscretion, the causes of the violent quarrel which took place between you yesterday afternoon?" Paul had foreseen the question, and proceeded to detail the occurrences in the Valley of Roses, explaining the part he had played, and how he had remonstrated with Alexander. The latter, he said, had lost his temper, after they had got home. "I would not tell that story to any one else," said Paul, in conclusion. "It shows the disposition of my brother, and does him no credit. It was a foolish escapade, but I should be sorry to have it known. I expected that a complaint would have been lodged already." "None has been made. Is the kaváss who went with you come back?" "Yes." "Do you think," said the count, looking quietly at Paul, "that he can tell us anything you have forgotten?" There was a peculiar emphasis upon the last words which did not escape the secretary, though in that first moment he did not understand what was meant. "No," he answered, quite simply, returning his chief's look with perfect calmness. "I do not believe he can tell anything more. I will call him." "By all means. There is the bell," said the ambassador. Paul rang, and sent the servant to call his kaváss, who had been waiting, and appeared immediately, looking very ill and exhausted with the fatigue of the night. He trembled visibly, as he stood before the table and made his military salute, bringing his right hand quickly to his mouth, then to his forehead, and letting it drop again to his side. Count Ananoff cross-examined him with short, sharp questions. The man was very pale, and stammered his replies, but the extraordinary accuracy with which he recounted the details already given by Patoff did not escape the diplomatist. "Have you anything more to tell?" asked the ambassador, at last. "It was not my fault, Effendim," said the kaváss, in great agitation. "Paul Effendi and I were looking at the people, and when we turned Alexander Effendi was gone, and we could not find him. I had warned him beforehand not to separate himself from us"---- "Do you think he can be found?" inquired Ananoff, cutting short the man's repetitions. "Surely, the Effendi can be found," returned the kaváss. "But it may take time." "Why should it take time? Unless he is injured or imprisoned somewhere, he ought to find his way to Pera to-day." "Effendim, he may have strayed into the dark streets. If the _bekji_ found him without a lantern, he would be arrested, according to the law." "He had our lantern," said Paul. "We could not find it." "That is true," answered the kaváss, in dejected tones. "There is the Persian ambassador, Effendim," he said, with a sudden revival of hope. "What can he do?" asked the count. "He is lord over all the donkey-drivers in Stamboul, Effendim. The Sultan allows him to exact tribute of them, which is the most part of his fortune.[2] Perhaps if he gave orders that they should all be beaten unless they found Alexander Effendi, they would find him. They go everywhere and see everybody." [Note 2: Fact.] "That is an idea," said the ambassador, hardly able to repress a grim smile. "I will send word to his excellency at once. I have no doubt but that he will do it." "But it was not my fault"--began the kaváss again. "I am not sure of that," answered the diplomatist. "If you find him, you will be excused." "I think the man is not to be blamed," remarked Paul, who had not forgotten the anxiety the kaváss had shown in trying to find Alexander. "It is my belief that my brother's disappearance did not occur in any ordinary way." "I think so, too," replied the count. "You may go," he said to the soldier, who at once left the room. A short silence followed his departure. "Monsieur Patoff," resumed the elder man presently, "you are in a very dangerous and distressing position." "Distressing," said Paul. "Not dangerous, so far as I can see." "Let us be frank," answered the other. "Alexander Patoff is your elder brother. You feel that he had too large a share of your father's fortune. You have never liked him. He came here without an invitation, and made himself very disagreeable to you. You had a violent quarrel yesterday afternoon, and you were justly provoked,--quite justly, I have no doubt. You go to Stamboul at night with only one man to attend you. You come back without your rich, overbearing, intolerable brother. What will the world say to all that?" In spite of his pallor, the blood rushed violently to Paul's face, and he sprang from his chair in the wildest excitement. "You have no right--you do not mean to say it--Great God! How can you think of such a"---- "I do not think it," said the ambassador, seizing him by the arm and trying to calm him. "I do not think anything of the kind. Command yourself, and be a man. Sit down,--there, be reasonable. I only mean to put you in your right position." "You will drive me mad," answered Paul in low tones, sinking into the chair again. "Now listen to me," continued the count, "and understand that you are listening to your best friend. The world will not fail to say that you have spirited away your brother,--got rid of him, in short, for your own ends. There is no one but a Turkish soldier to prove the contrary. No, do not excite yourself again. I am telling you the truth. I know perfectly well that Alexander has lost himself by his own folly, but I must foresee what other people will say, in case he is not found"---- "But he must be found!" interrupted Paul. "I say he shall be found!" "Yes, so do I. But there is just a possibility that he may not be found. Meanwhile, the alarm is given. The story will be in every one's mouth to-night, and to-morrow you will be assailed with all manner of questions. My dear Patoff, if Alexander does not turn up in a few days, you had better go away, until the whole matter has blown over. You can safely leave your reputation in my hands, as well as the care of finding your brother, if he can be found at all, and you will be spared much that is painful and embarrassing. I will arrange that you may be transferred for a year to some distant post, and when the mystery is cleared up you can come back and brave your accusers." "But," said Paul, who had grown pale again, "it seems to me impossible that I could be accused of murdering my brother on such slender grounds, even if the worst were to happen and he were never found. It is an awful imputation to put upon a man. I do not see how any one would dare to suggest such a thing." "In the first place," answered the ambassador, arguing the point as he would have discussed the framing of a dispatch, "the Turks are very cunning, and they hate us. They will begin by saying that you had an interest in disposing of Alexander. They will search out the whole story, and will assert the fact because they will be safe in saying that there is no evidence to the contrary. They will take care that the suggestion shall reach our ears, and that it shall spread throughout our little society. What can you answer to the question, 'Where is your brother?' If people do not ask it, they will let you know that it is in their hearts." "I do not know," said Paul, stunned by the possible truth of his chief's argument. "Exactly. You do not know, nor I either. But if you stay here, you will have to fight for your own reputation. If you are absent, I can put down such scandal by my authority, and it will soon be forgotten. I do not believe that this disappearance can remain a secret forever. At present, and for some time to come, it is only a disappearance, and it will be expected that your brother may yet come back. But when months are past,--should such a catastrophe occur,--people will find another word, and the murder of Alexander Patoff will be the common topic of conversation." "It is awful to think of," murmured Paul. "But why do you suppose that he will not come back? He may have got into some scrape, and he may appear this evening. There is hope yet and for days to come." "I am sorry to say I do not believe it," answered the count. "There have been several disappearances of insignificant individuals since I have been here. No pains were spared to find them, but no one ever obtained the smallest trace of their fate. They were probably murdered for the small sums of money they carried. Of course there is possibility, but I think there is very little hope." "But I cannot bear to think that poor Alexander should have come to such an end," cried Paul. "I could not go away feeling that I had left anything untried in searching for him. I never loved him, God forgive me! But he was my brother, and my mother's favorite son. He was with me, and by my carelessness he lost himself. Who is to tell her that? No, I cannot go until I know what has become of him." "My friend," said old Ananoff gently, "you have all my sympathy, and you shall have all my help. I will myself write to your mother, if Alexander does not return in a week. But if in a month he is not heard of, there will be no hope at all. Then you must go away, and I will shut the mouths of the gossips. Now go and rest, for you are exhausted. Be quite sure that between the measures you have taken yourself and those which I shall take, everything possible will be done." Paul rose unsteadily to his feet, and took the count's hand. Then, without a word, he went to his pavilion, and gave himself up to his own agonizing thoughts. The ambassador lost no time, for he felt how serious the case was. In spite of the heat, he proceeded to Stamboul at once, visited Santa Sophia, and explored every foot of the gallery whence Alexander had disappeared, but without discovering any trace. He asked questions of the warden of the church, the scowling Turk who had admitted the brothers on the previous night; but the man only answered that Allah was great, and that he knew nothing of the circumstances, having left the two gentlemen in charge of their kaváss. Then the count went to the house of the Persian ambassador, and obtained his promise to aid in the search by means of his army of donkey-drivers. He went in person to the Ottoman Bank, to the chief of police, to every office through which he could hope for any information. Returning to Buyukdere, he sent notes to all his colleagues, informing them of what had occurred, and requesting their assistance in searching for the lost man. At last he felt that he had done everything in his power, and he desisted from his labors. But, as he had said, he had small expectation of ever hearing again from Lieutenant Alexander Patoff, and he meditated upon the letter he had promised to write to the missing man's mother. He was shocked at the accident, and he felt a real sympathy for Paul, besides the responsibility for the safety of Russian subjects in Turkey, which in some measure rested with him. As for Paul, he paced his room for an hour after he had left his chief, and then at last he fell upon the divan, faint with bodily fatigue and exhausted by mental anxiety. He slept a troubled sleep for some hours, and did not leave his apartments again that day. The view of the situation presented to him by Count Ananoff had stunned him almost beyond the power of thought, and when he tried to think his reflections only confirmed his fears. He saw himself branded as a murderer, though the deed could not be proved, and he knew how such an accusation, once put upon a man, will cling to him in spite of the lack of evidence. He realized with awful force the meaning of the question, "Where is your brother?" and he understood how easily such a question would suggest itself to the minds of those who knew his position. That question which was put to the first murderer, and which will be put to the last, has been asked many times of innocent men, and the mere fact that they could find no ready answer has sufficed to send them to their death. Why should it not be the same with him? Until he could show them his brother, they would have a right to ask, and they would ask, rejoicing in the pain inflicted. Paul cursed the day when Alexander had come to visit him, and he had received him with a show of satisfaction. Had he been more honest in showing his dislike, the poor fellow would perhaps have gone angrily away, but he would not have been lost in the night in the labyrinths of Stamboul. And then again Paul repented bitterly of the hard words he had spoken, and, working himself into a fever of unreasonable remorse, walked the floor of his room as a wild beast tramps in its cage. The night was interminable, though there were only six hours of darkness; but when the morning rose the light was more intolerable still, and Paul felt as though he must go mad from inaction. He dressed hastily, and went out into the cool dawn to wait for the first boat to Pera. Even the early shadows on the water reminded him of yesterday, when he had crossed Galata bridge on foot, still feeling some hope. He closed his eyes as he leaned upon the rail of the landing, wishing that the sun would rise and dispel at least some portion of his sorrow. He reached Pera, and spent the whole day in fruitless inquiries. In the evening he returned, and the next morning he went back again; sleeping little, hardly eating at all, speaking to no one he knew, and growing hourly more thin and haggard, till the Cossacks at the gate hardly recognized him. But day after day he searched, and all the countless messengers, officials, guides, porters, and people of every class searched, too, attracted by the large reward which the ambassador offered for any information concerning Alexander Patoff. But not the slightest clue could be obtained. Alexander Patoff had disappeared hopelessly and completely, and had left no more trace than if he had been thrown into the Bosphorus, with a couple of round shot at his neck. The days lengthened into weeks, and the weeks became a month, and still Paul hoped against all possibility of hope, and wearied the officials of every class with his perpetual inquiries. Count Ananoff had long since communicated the news of Alexander's disappearance to the authorities in St. Petersburg, thinking it barely possible that he might have gone home secretly, out of anger against his brother. But the only answer was an instruction to leave nothing untried in attempting to find the lost man, provided that no harm should be done to the progress of certain diplomatic negotiations then proceeding. As the count had foreseen, the Turkish authorities, while exhibiting considerable alacrity in the prosecution of the search, vaguely hinted that Paul Patoff himself was the only person able to give a satisfactory explanation of the case; and in due time these hints found their way into the gossip of the Bosphorus tea-parties. Paul was not unpopular, but in spite of his studied ease in conversation there was a reserve in his manner which many persons foolishly resented; and they were not slow to find out that his brother's disappearance was very odd,--so strange, they said, that it seemed impossible that Paul should know nothing of it. The ambassador thought it was time to speak to him on the subject. Moreover, in his present state of excitement Paul was utterly useless in the embassy, and the work which had accumulated during the month of Ramazán was now unusually heavy. Count Ananoff had arranged this matter, without speaking of it to any one, a fortnight after Alexander's disappearance, and now a secretary who had been in Athens had arrived, ostensibly on a visit to the ambassador. But Ananoff had Paul's appointment to Teheran in his pocket, with the permission to take a month's leave for procuring his outfit for Persia. The explanation was inevitable. It was impossible that things should go on any longer as they had proceeded during the last fortnight; and now that there was really no hope whatever, and people were beginning to talk as they had not talked before, the best thing to be done was to send Paul away. Count Ananoff came to his rooms one morning, and found him staring at the wall, his untasted breakfast on the table beside him, his face very thin and drawn, looking altogether like a man in a severe illness. The ambassador explained the reason of his visit, reminded him of what had been said at their first interview, and entreated him to spend his month's leave in regaining some of his former calmness. "Go to the Crimea, or to Tiflis," he said. "You will not be far from your way. I will write to Madame Patoff." "You are kind,--too kind," answered Paul. "Thank you, but I will go to my mother myself. I will be back in time," he added bitterly. "She will not care to keep me, now that poor Alexander is gone. Yes, I know; you need not tell me. There is no hope left. We shall not even find his body now. But I must tell my mother. I have already written, for I thought it better. I told her the story, just as it all happened. She has never answered my letter. I fancy she must have had news from some one else, or perhaps she is ill." "Do not go," said his chief, looking sorrowfully at Paul's white face and wasted, nervous hands. "You are not able to bear the strain of such a meeting. I will write to her, and explain." "No," answered Paul firmly. "I must go myself. There is no help for it. May I leave to-day? I think there is a boat to Varna. As for my strength, I am as strong as ever, though I am a little thinner than I was." The old diplomatist shook his head gravely, but he knew that it was of no use to try and prevent Paul from undertaking the journey. After all, if he could bear it, it was the most manly course. He had done his best, had labored in the search as no one else could have labored, and if he were strong enough he was entitled to tell his own tale. The two men parted affectionately that day, and when Paul was fairly on board the Varna boat Count Ananoff owned to himself that he had lost one of the best secretaries he had ever known. IV. Three days later Paul descended from the train which runs twice a day from Pforzheim to Constance, at a station in the heart of the Swabian Black Forest. The name painted in black Gothic letters over the neat, cottage-like building before which the train stopped was _Teinach_. Paul had never heard of the place until his mother had telegraphed that she was there, and he looked about him with curiosity, while a dark youth, in leather breeches, rough stockings, and a blouse, possessed himself of the traveler's slender luggage, and began to lead the way to the hotel. It was late in the afternoon, and the sinking sun had almost touched the top of the hill. On all sides but one the pines and firs presented a black, absorbing surface to the light, while at the upper end of the valley the ancient and ruined castle of Zavelstein caught the sun's rays, and stood clearly out against the dark background. It is impossible to imagine anything more monotonous in color than this boundless forest of greenish-black trees, and it is perhaps for this reason that the ruins of the many old fortresses, which once commanded every eminence from Weissenstein to the Boden-See, are seen to such singular advantage. The sober gray or brown masonry, which anywhere else would offer but a neutral tint in the landscape, here constitutes high lights as compared with the impenetrable shadows of the woods; and even the sky above, generally seen through the thick masses of evergreen, seems to be of a more sombre blue. In the deep gorges the black water of the Nagold foams and tumbles among the hollow rocks, or glides smoothly over the long and shallow races by which the jointed timber rafts are shot down to the Neckar, and thence to the Rhine and the ocean, many hundreds of miles away. For the chief wealth of Swabia and of the kingdom of Würtemberg lies in the splendid timber of the forest, which is carefully preserved, and in which no tree is felled without the order of the royal foresters. Indeed, Nature herself does most of the felling, for in winter fierce wind-storms gather and spread themselves in the winding valleys, tearing down acres of trees upon the hill-sides in broad, straight bands, and leaving them there, uprooted and fallen over each other in every direction, like a box of wooden matches carelessly emptied upon a dark green table. Then come the wood-cutters in the spring, and lop off the branches, and roll the great logs down to the torrent below, and float them away in long flexible rafts, which spin down the smooth water-ways at a giddy speed, or float silently along the broad, still reaches of the widening river, or dash over the dangerous rapids, skillfully guided by the wild raftsmen, bare-legged and armed with long poles, whose practiced feet support them as safely on the slippery, rolling timber as ours would carry us on the smoothest pavement. At Teinach the valley is wider than in other places, and a huge establishment, built over the wonderful iron springs, rears above the tops of the trees its walls of mingled stone, wood and stucco, gayly painted and ornamented with balconies and pavilions, in startling and unpleasant contrast with the sober darkness of the surroundings. The broad post-road runs past the hotels and bath-houses, and a great garden, or rather an esplanade with a few scattered beds of flowers, has been cleared and smoothed for the benefit of the visitors, who take their gentle exercise in the wide walks, or sip their weak German coffee, to the accompaniment of a small band, at the wooden tables set up under the few remaining trees. The place is little known, either to tourists or invalids, beyond the limits of the kingdom of Würtemberg, but its waters are full of healing properties, and the seclusion of the little village amidst the wild scenery of the Black Forest is refreshing to soul and body. Paul followed his guide along the winding path which leads from the railway station to the hotel, smelling with delight the aromatic odor of the pines, and enjoying the coolness of the evening air. The fatigues of the last month and of the rapid journey from Varna had told upon his strength, as the fearful anxiety he had endured had wearied his brain. He felt, as he walked, how delicious it would be to forget all the past, to shoulder a broad axe, and to plunge forever into the silent forest; to lead the life of one of those rude woodmen, without a thought at night save of the trees to be felled to-morrow; to rise in the morning with no care save to accomplish the daily task before night; to sleep in summer on the carpet of sweet pine needles, and to watch the stars peep through the lofty branches of the ancient trees; in winter to lie by the warm fire of some mountain hut, with no disturbing dreams or nervous wakings, master of himself, his axe, and his freedom. But the thought of such peace only made the present moment more painful, and Paul bent his head as though to shut out all pleasant thoughts, till presently he reached the wide porch of the hotel, and, summoning his courage, asked for Madame Patoff. "Number seventeen," said the Swiss clerk, laconically, to the waiter who stood at hand, by way of intimating that he should conduct the gentleman to the number he had mentioned. As Paul turned to follow the functionary in the white tie and the shabby dress-coat, he was stopped by a thick-set, broad-shouldered man, with gold-rimmed spectacles and a bushy beard, who addressed him in English:-- "I beg your pardon, I heard you ask for Madame Patoff. Have I the honor of addressing her son?" "Yes," said Paul, bowing stiffly, for the man was evidently a gentleman. "May I ask to whom"---- "I am Dr. Cutter," replied the other, interrupting him. "Madame Patoff is ill, and I am taking care of her." The average doctor would have said, "I am attending her," and Paul, whose English mother had brought him up to speak English as fluently and correctly as Russian, noticed the shade in the expression. But he was startled by the news of his mother's illness, and did not stop to think of such a trifle. "What is the matter with her?" he asked briefly, turning from the desk of the hotel office, and walking across the vestibule by Dr. Cutter's side. "I don't know," replied the doctor, quietly. "You are a strange physician, sir," said Paul sternly. "You tell me that you are attending my mother, and yet you do not know what is the matter with her." The doctor was not in the least offended by Paul's sharp answer. He smiled a little, but instantly became grave again, as he answered,-- "I am not a practicing physician. I am a specialist, and I devote my life to the study of mental complaints. Your mother is ill in mind, not in body." "Mad!" exclaimed Paul, turning very pale. His life seemed to be nothing but a series of misfortunes. "Certainly not hopelessly insane," replied Dr. Cutter, in a musing tone. "She has suffered a terrible shock, as you may imagine." "Yes," said Paul, "of course. That is the reason why I have come all the way from Constantinople to see her. I could not go to my new post without telling her the whole story myself." "Her manner is very strange," returned the other. "That is the reason why I waited for you here. I could not have allowed you to see her without being warned. She has a strange delusion, and you ought to know it." "What is it?" asked Paul, in a thick voice. "It is a very delicate matter. Come out into the garden, and I will tell you what I know." The two men went out together, and walked slowly along the open path towards the woods. In the distance a few invalids moved painfully about the garden, or rested on the benches beneath the trees. Far off a party of children were playing and laughing merrily at their games. "It is a delicate matter," repeated Dr. Cutter. "In the first place, I must explain my own position here. I am an Englishman, devoted to scientific pursuits. Originally a physician, subsequently professor in one of our universities, I have given up both practice and professorship in order to be at liberty to follow my studies. I am often abroad, and I generally spend the summer in Switzerland or somewhere in South Germany. I was at Rugby with Madame Patoff's brother-in-law, John Carvel, whom I dare say you know, and I met Madame Patoff two years ago at Wiesbaden. I met her there again, last year, and this summer, as I was coming to the South, I found her in the same place,--little more than a month ago. In both the former years your brother Alexander came to visit her, on leave from St. Petersburg. I knew him, therefore, and was aware of her deep affection for him. This time I found her very much depressed in spirits because he had resolved to join you in Constantinople. Excuse me if I pain you by referring to him. It is unavoidable. One morning she told me that she had made up her mind to go to Turkey, traveling by easy stages through Switzerland to Italy, and thence by steamer to the East. She dreaded the long railway journey through Austria, and preferred the sea. She was in bad health, and seemed very melancholy, and I proposed to accompany her as far as the Italian frontier. We went to Lucerne, and thence to Como, where I intended to leave her. She chose to wait there a few days, in order to have her letters sent on to her before going to the East. Among those which came was a long letter from you, in which you told in detail the story of your brother's disappearance. Your mother was alone in her sitting-room when she received it, but the effect of the news was such that her maid found her lying insensible in her chair some time afterwards, and thought it best to call me. I easily revived her from the fit of fainting, and when she came to herself she thrust your letter into my hand, and insisted that I should read it. She was very hysterical, and I judged that I should comply with her request. The scene which followed was very painful." "Well?" asked Paul, who was visibly agitated. "What then?" he inquired rather sharply, seeing that Dr. Cutter was silent. "To be short about it," said the professor, "it has been evident to me from that moment that her mind is deranged. No argument can affect the distorted view she takes." "But what is the view? What does she think?" inquired Paul, trembling with excitement. "She thinks that you were the cause of your brother's death," answered Cutter shortly. "That I murdered him?" cried Paul, feeling that his worst fears were realized. "Poor lady!" exclaimed the professor, fixing his gray eyes on Paul's face. "It is of no use to go over the story. That is what she thinks." Paul turned from his companion, and leaned against a tree for support. He was utterly overcome, and unmanned for the moment. Cutter stood beside him, fearing lest he might fall, for he could see that he was wasted with anxiety and weak with fatigue. But he possessed great strength of will and that command of himself which is acquired by living much among strangers. After a few seconds he stood erect, and, making a great effort, continued to walk upon the road, steadying himself with his stick. "Go on, please," he said. "How did you come here?" "You will understand that I could not leave Madame Patoff at such a time," continued the professor, inwardly admiring the strength of his new acquaintance. "She insisted upon returning northwards, saying that she would go to her relations in England. Fearing lest her mind should become more deranged, I suggested traveling slowly by an unfrequented route. I intended to take her to England by short stages, endeavoring to avoid all places where she might, at this season, have met any of her numerous acquaintances. I chose to cross the Splügen Pass to the Lake of Constance. Thence we came here by the Nagold railway. I propose to take her to the Rhine, where we will take the Rhine boat to Rotterdam. Nobody travels by the Rhine nowadays. You got my telegram at Vienna? Yes. Yours went to Wiesbaden, was telegraphed to Como, and thence here. I had just time to send an answer directed to you at Vienna, as a passenger by the Oriental Express, giving you the name of this place. I signed it with your mother's name." "She does not know I have left Constantinople, then?" "No. I feared that the news would have a bad effect. She receives her letters, of course, but telegrams often do harm to people in her state,--so I naturally opened yours." "Is she perfectly sane in all other respects?" asked Paul, speaking with an effort. "Perfectly." "Then she is not insane at all," said Paul, in a tone of conviction. "I do not understand you," answered the professor, staring at him in some surprise. "If you knew how she loved my poor brother, and how little she loves me, you would understand better. Without being insane, she might well believe that I had let him lose himself in Stamboul, or even that I had killed him. You read my letter,--you can remember how strange a story it was. There is nothing but the evidence of a Turkish soldier to show that I did not contribute to Alexander's disappearance." "It was certainly a very queer story," said the professor gravely. "Nevertheless, I am of opinion that Madame Patoff is under the influence of a delusion. I cannot think that if she were in her right mind she would insist as she does, and with such violence, that you are guilty of making away with your brother." "I must see her," said Paul firmly. "I have come from Constantinople to see her, and I cannot go back disappointed." "I think it would be a great mistake for you to seek an interview," answered the professor, no less decidedly. "It might bring on a fit of anger." "Which might be fatal?" inquired Paul. "No, but which might affect her brain." "I do not think so. Pardon my contradicting you, professor, but I have a very strong impression that my mother is not in the least insane, and that I may succeed in bringing her to look at this dreadful business in its true light." "I fear not," answered Dr. Cutter sadly. "But you do not know," insisted Paul. "Unless you are perfectly sure that my mother is really mad, you can have no right to prevent my seeing her. I may possibly persuade her. I am the only one left," he added bitterly, "and I must be a son to her in fact as well as in relation. I cannot, for my own sake, let her go to our English relatives, with this story to tell, without at least contradicting it." "It is of no use to contradict it to her." "Of no use!" exclaimed Paul, impatiently. "Do you think that if the slightest suspicion, however unfounded, had rested on me, my chief would have allowed me to leave Constantinople without clearing it up? I should think that anybody in his senses would see that!" "Yes,--anybody in his or her senses," answered the professor coldly. Paul stopped in his walk, and faced the strong man with the gold spectacles and the intelligent features who had thus obstinately thrust himself in his path. "Sir," he said, "I know you very slightly, and I do not want to insult you. But if you continue to oppose me, I shall begin to think that you have some other object in view besides a concern for my mother's health." His drawn and haggard features wore an expression of desperate determination as he spoke, and his cold blue eyes began to brighten dangerously. "I have nothing more to say," replied the scientist, meeting his look with perfect steadiness. "I admit the justice of your argument. I can only implore you to take my advice, and to reflect on what you are doing. I have no moral right to oppose you." "No," said Paul, "and you must not prevent this meeting. I wish to see her only once. Then I will go. I need not tell you that I am deeply indebted to you for the assistance you have rendered to my mother in this affair. If she does not believe my story, she will certainly not tolerate my presence, and I venture to hope that you will see her safely to England. If possible, I should like to meet her to-night." "You shall," replied the professor. "But if any harm comes of it, remember that I protested against the meeting. That is all I ask." "I will remember," answered Paul quietly. Both men turned in their walk, and went back towards the hotel. "You must give me time to warn her of your presence," said Cutter, as they reached the steps. Paul nodded, and they both went in. Cutter disappeared up-stairs, and Patoff was shown to his room by a servant. "I shall probably leave to-morrow morning," he remarked, as the man deposited his effects in the corner, and looked round, waiting for orders. Paul threw himself on the bed, closing his eyes, and trying to collect his courage and his senses for this meeting, which had turned out so much more difficult than he had expected. Nevertheless, he was glad that Cutter had met him, and had warned him of the state of his mother's mind. He did not in the least believe her insane,--he almost wished that he could. Lying there on his bed, he remembered his youth, and the time when he had longed for some little portion of the affection lavished on his elder brother. He remembered how often he had in vain looked to his mother for a smile of approbation, and how he had ever been disappointed. He had grown up feeling that, by some fault not his own, he was disliked and despised, a victim to one of those unreasoning antipathies which parents sometimes feel for one of their children. He remembered how he had choked down his anger, swallowed his tears, and affected indifference to censure, until his child's heart had grown case-hardened and steely; asking nothing, doing his tasks for his own satisfaction, and finally taking a sad pleasure in that silence which was so frequently imposed upon him. Then he had grown up, and the sullen determination to outdo his brother in everything had got possession of his strong nature. He remembered how, coming home from school, he had presented his mother with the report which spoke of his final examinations as brilliant compared with Alexander's; how his mother had said a cold word of praise; and how he himself had turned silently away, able already, in his young self-dependence, to rejoice secretly over his victory, without demanding the least approbation from those who should have loved him best. He remembered, when his brother was an ensign in the guards, spoiled and reckless, making debts and getting into all kinds of trouble, how he himself had labored at the dry work assigned to him in the foreign office, without amusements, without pleasure, and without pocket money, toiling day and night to win by force that position which Alexander had got for nothing; never relaxing in his exertions, and scrupulous in the performance of his duties. Even in the present moment of anxiety he thought with satisfaction of his well-earned advancement, and of the promotion which could not now be far distant. He remembered himself a big, bony youth of twenty, and he reflected that he had made himself what he now was, the accomplished man of the world, the rising diplomatist among those of his years, steadily moving on to success. But he saw that he was the same to-day as he had been then; if he had not gained affection in his life, he had gained strength and hardness and indifference to opposition. Then this blow had come upon him. This brother, whom he had striven to surpass in everything, had been suddenly and mysteriously taken from his very side; and not that only, but the mother who had borne them both had put the crowning touch to her life-long injustice, and had accused him of being his brother's murderer,--accused him to a stranger, or to one who was little nearer than a stranger,--refusing to hear him in his own defense. He wished that she might be indeed mad. He hoped that she was beside herself with grief, even wholly insane, rather than that he should be forced to believe that she could be so unjust. What construction the world would put upon the catastrophe he knew from Count Ananoff; but surely he might expect his mother to be more merciful. A mother should hope against hope for her child's innocence, even when every one else has forsaken him; how was it possible that this mother of his could so harden her heart as to be first to suspect him of such a crime, and to be of all people the one to refuse to hear his defense! He hoped she was mad, as he lay there on his bed, in the little room of the hotel, in the gathering gloom. At last some one knocked at the door, and Professor Cutter entered, admitting a stream of light from the corridor outside. Paul sprang to his feet, pale and haggard. "You are in the dark," said the professor quietly, as he shut the door behind him. Then he struck a match, and lit the two candles which stood on each side of the mirror on the bare dressing-table. "Can I go now?" asked Paul. The scientist eyed him deliberately. "Pardon me," he said. "You have not thought of your appearance. You have traveled for three or four days, and look rather disheveled." Paul understood. The professor did not want him to be seen as he was. He was wild and excited, and his clothes were in disorder. Silently he unlocked his dressing-case and bag, and proceeded to dress himself. Cutter sat quietly watching him, as though still studying his character; for he was a student of men, and prided himself on his ability to detect people's peculiarities from their unconscious movements. Paul dressed rapidly, with the neatness of a man accustomed to wait upon himself. In twenty minutes his toilet was completed, during which time neither of the two spoke a word. At last Paul turned to the professor. "Did you have difficulty in arranging it?" he asked coldly. "Yes. But you may see her, if you go at once," answered the other. "I am ready," said Paul. "Let us go." They left the room, and went down the corridor together. The quiet and solitude of his room had strengthened Paul's nerves, and he walked more erect and with a firmer step than before. Presently the professor stopped before one of the doors. "Go in," he said. "This is a little passage room. Knock at the door opposite. She is there, and will receive you." Paul followed the professor's instructions, and knocked at the door within. A voice which he hardly recognized as his mother's bid him enter, and he was in the presence of Madame Patoff. A bright lamp, unshaded and filling the little sitting-room with a broad yellow light, stood upon the table. The details of the apartment were insignificant, and seemed to throw the figure of the seated woman into strong relief. She had been beautiful, and was beautiful still, though now in her fifty-second year. Her features were high and noble, and her rich dark hair was only lightly streaked with gray. Her eyes were brown, but of that brown which easily looks black when not exposed directly to the light. Her face was now very pale, but there was a slight flush upon her cheeks, which for a moment brought back a reflection of her former brilliant beauty. She was dressed entirely in black, and her thin white hands lay folded on the dark material of her gown; she wore no ring save the plain band of gold upon the third finger of her left hand. Paul entered, and closed the door behind him without taking his eyes from his mother. She rose from her seat as he came forward, as though to draw back. He came nearer, and bending low would have taken her hand, but she stepped backwards and withdrew it, while the flush darkened on her cheek. "Mother, will you not give me your hand?" he asked, in a low and broken voice. "No," she answered sternly. "Why have you come here?" "To tell you my brother's story," said Paul, drawing himself up and facing her. When he entered the room he had felt sorrow and pity for her, in spite of Cutter's account, and he would willingly have kneeled and kissed her hand. But her rough refusal brought vividly to his mind the situation. "You have told me already, by your letter," she replied. "Have you found him, that you come here? Do you think I want to see you--you?" she repeated, with rising emphasis. "I might think it natural that you should," said Paul, very coldly. "Be calm. I am going to-morrow. Had I supposed that you would meet me as you have, I should have spared myself the trouble of coming here." "Indeed you might!" she exclaimed scornfully. "Have you come here to tell me how you did it?" Her voice trembled hysterically. "Did what?" asked Paul, in the same cold tone. "Do you mean to accuse me to my face of my brother's death, as your doctor says you do behind my back? And if you dare to do so, do you think I will permit it without defending myself?" His mother looked at him for one moment; then, clasping her hands to her forehead, she staggered across the room, and hid her face in the cushions of the sofa, moaning and crying aloud. "Alexis, Alexis!" she sobbed. "Ah--my beloved son--if only I could have seen your dear face once more--to close your eyes--and kiss you--those sweet eyes--oh, my boy, my boy! Where are you--my own child?" She was beside herself with grief, and ceased to notice Paul's presence for some minutes, moaning, and tossing herself upon the sofa, and wringing her hands as the tears streamed down. Paul could not look unmoved on such a sight. He came near and touched her shoulder. "You must not give up all hope, mother," he said softly. "He may yet come back." He did not know what else to say, to comfort her. "Come back?" she cried hysterically, suddenly sitting up and facing him. "Come back, when you are standing there with his blood on your hands! You murderer! You monster! Go--for God's sake, go! Don't touch me! Don't look at me!" Paul was horrified at her violence, and could not believe that she was in her senses. But he had heard the words she had spoken, and the wound had entered into his soul. His look was colder than ever as he answered. "You are evidently insane," he said "Go--go, I tell you! Let me never see you again!" cried the frantic woman, rising to her feet, and staring at him with wide and blood-shot eyes. Paul went up to her, and quickly seizing her hands held them in his firm grip, without pressure, but so that she could not withdraw them. "Mother," he said, in low and distinct tones, "I believe you are mad. If you are not, God forgive you, and grant that you may forget what you have said. I am as innocent of Alexander's death--if indeed he is dead--as you are yourself." She seemed awed by his manner, and spoke more quietly. "Where is he, then? Paul, where is your brother?" "I cannot tell where he is. He left me and never returned, as the man who was with me can testify. I came here to tell you the story with my own lips. If you do not care to hear it, I will go, and you shall have your wish, for you need never see me again." He released her hands, and turned from her as though to leave the room. Madame Patoff's mood changed. Though Alexander was more like her, she possessed, too, some of the inexorable coldness which Paul had inherited so abundantly. She now drew herself up, and retired to the other side of the room. Paul's hand was on the door. Then she turned once more, and he saw that her face was as pale as death. "Go," she said, for the last time. "And above all, do not come back. Unless you can bring Alexis with you, and show him to me alive, I will always believe that you killed him, like the heartless, cruel monster you have been from a child." "Is that your last word, mother?" asked Paul, controlling his voice by a great effort. "My very last word, to you," she answered, pointing to the door. Paul went out, and left her alone. In the corridor he found Professor Cutter, calmly walking up and down. The scientist stopped, and looked at Paul's pale face. "Was I right?" he asked. "Too right." "I thought so," said the professor. "Do you mean to leave to-morrow?" "Yes," answered Paul quietly. "I must eat something. I am exhausted." He staggered against Dr. Cutter's strong arm, and caught himself by it. The professor held him firmly on his feet, and looked at him curiously. "You are worn out," he said. "Come with me." He led him through the corridor to the restaurant of the hotel, and poured out a glass of wine from a bottle which stood on a table set ready for dinner. Paul drank it slowly, stopping twice to look at his companion, who watched him with the eye of a physician. "Have you ever had any trouble with your heart?" asked the latter. "No," said Paul. "I have never been ill." "Then you must have been half starved on your journey," replied the professor, philosophically. "Let us dine here." They sat down, and ordered dinner. Paul was conscious that his manner must seem strange to his new acquaintance, and indeed what he felt was strange to himself. He was conscious that since he had left his mother his ideas had undergone a change. He was calmer than he had been before, and he could not account for it on the ground of his having begun to eat something. He was indeed exhausted, for he had hardly thought of taking any nourishment during his long journey, and the dinner revived him. But the odd consciousness that he was not exactly the same man he had been before had come upon him as he closed the door of his mother's room. Up to the time he had entered her presence he had been in a state of the wildest anxiety and excitement. The moment the interview was over his mind worked normally and easily, and he felt himself completely master of his own actions. Indeed, a change had taken place. He had gone to his mother feeling that he was accountable to her for his brother's disappearance, and prepared to tell his story with every detail he could recall, yet knowing that he was wholly innocent of the catastrophe, and that he had done everything in his power to find the lost man. But in that moment he was unconscious of two things: first, of the extreme hardness of his own nature; and secondly, that he had not in reality the slightest real love either for his mother or for Alexander. The moral sufferings of his childhood had killed the natural affections in him, and there had remained nothing in their stead but a strong sense of duty to his nearest relations. It was this sense which had prompted him to receive Alexander kindly, and to take the utmost care of him during his visit; and it was the same feeling which had impelled him to come to his mother, in order to give the best account he could of the terrible catastrophe. But the frightful accusation she had put upon him, and her stubborn determination to abide by it, had destroyed even that lingering sense of duty which he had so long obeyed. He knew now that he experienced no more pain at Alexander's loss than he would naturally have felt at the death of an ordinary acquaintance, and that his mother had absolved him by her crowning injustice from the last tie which bound him to his family. In the first month at Buyukdere, after Alexander had disappeared, he had been overcome by the horror of the situation, and by the knowledge that he must tell his mother of the loss of her favorite son. He had mistaken these two incentives to the search for a feeling of love for the missing man. A quarter of an hour with his mother had shown him how little love there had ever been between them, and her frantic behavior, which he felt was not insanity, had disgusted him, and had shown him that he was henceforth free from all responsibility towards her. The love of a child for his mother may be instinctive in the first instance, but as the child grows to manhood he becomes subject to reason; and that which reason first rejects is injustice, because injustice is the most destructive form of lie imaginable. Paul had borne much, had cherished to the last his feeling of duty and his outward rendering of respect, but his mother had gone too far. He felt that she was not mad, and that in accusing him she was only treating him as she had always done since he was a boy; giving way to her unaccountable dislike, and suffering her antipathy to get the better of all sense of truth. As Paul sat at table with Professor Cutter, he felt that the yoke had suddenly been taken from his neck, and that he was henceforth free to follow his own career and his own interests, without further thought for her who had cast him off. He was not a boy, to grow sulky at an unkind word, or to resent a fancied insult. He was a grown man, more than thirty years of age, and he fully realized his position, without exaggeration and without any superfluous exhibition of feeling. All at once he felt like a man who has done his day's work, and has a right to think no more about it. "I am glad to see that you have a good appetite," observed the professor. "I am conscious of not having eaten for a long time," answered Paul. "I suppose I was too much excited to be hungry before." "You are not excited any longer?" inquired Dr. Cutter, with a smile. "No. I believe I am perfectly calm. I have accomplished the journey, I have seen my mother, I have heard her last word, and I shall go to Persia to-morrow." "Your programme is a simple one," answered his companion. "However, I am sure you can be of no use here. Your mother is quite safe under my care." "It is my belief that she would be quite safe alone," said Paul, "though your presence is a help to her. You are a friend of her family, you knew my poor brother, you are intimate with my uncle by marriage, Mr. John Carvel. I am sure that, since you are good enough to accompany my mother, she cannot fail to appreciate your kindness and to enjoy your society. But I do not think she really stands in need of assistance." "That is a matter of opinion," replied the professor, sipping his wine. "Yes; but shall I be frank with you, Dr. Cutter? I fancy that, as a scientist and a student of diseases of the mind, you are over-ready to suspect insanity where my mother's conduct can be explained by ordinary causes." "My dear sir," said the professor, "if I am a scientist, I am not one for nothing. I know how very little science knows, and in due time I shall be quite ready to own myself mistaken, if your mother turns out to be perfectly sane." "You are very honest," returned Patoff. "All I want to express is that, although I am grateful to you for taking her home, I think she is quite able to take care of herself. I should be very sorry to think that you felt yourself bound not to leave her. She is fifty-two years old, I believe, but she is very strong, though she used to fancy herself in bad health, for some reason or other; she has a maid, a courier, and plenty of money. You yourself admit that she has no delusion except about this sad business. I think that under the circumstances she could safely travel alone." "Possibly. But the case is an interesting one. I am a free man, and your mother's age and my position procure me the advantage of studying the state of her mind by traveling with her without causing any scandal. I am not disposed to abandon my patient." "I can assure you," said Paul, "that if I thought she would tolerate my presence I should go with her myself, and I repeat that I am sincerely obliged to you. Only, I do not believe she is mad. I hope you will write to me, however, and tell me how she is." "Of course. And I hope you will tell me whether you have changed your mind about her. I confess that you seem to me to be the calmest person I ever met." "I?" exclaimed Paul. "Yes, I am calm now, but I have not had a moment's rest during the last month." "I can understand that. You know the worst now, and you have nothing more to anticipate. I have no right to inquire into your personal feelings, but I should say that you cared very little for your mother, and less for your brother, and that hitherto you had been animated by a sort of fictitious sense of responsibility. That has ceased, and you feel like a man released from prison." The professor fixed his keen gray eyes on Paul's face as he spoke. His speech was rather incisive, considering how little he had seen of Paul. Perhaps he intended that it should be, for he watched the effect of his words with interest. "You are not a bad judge of human nature," answered Patoff, coolly. But he did not vouchsafe any further answer. "It is my business," said the professor. "If, as a friend of Madame Patoff's family, I take the liberty of being plain, and of telling you what I think, you may believe that I have not wholly misjudged your mother, since I have hit the mark in judging you." "I am not sure that you have hit the mark," replied Paul. "Perhaps you have. Time will show. Meanwhile, I am going to Teheran to reflect upon it. It is impossible to choose a more secluded spot," he added, with a smile. "Why do you not return to Constantinople?" asked the inquisitive professor. "Because it has pleased the Minister for Foreign Affairs to send me to Persia. I am a government servant, and must go whither I am sent. I dare say I shall not be there very long. The climate is not very pleasant, and the society is limited. But it will be an agreeable change for me." "I suppose that efforts will still be made to find your brother?" "Yes. The search will never be given up while there is the least hope." "I wonder what the effect would be upon Madame Patoff, if Alexander were found after six months?" "I have not the least idea," answered Paul. "I suppose we should all return to our former relations with each other. Perhaps the shock might drive her mad in earnest,--I cannot tell. You are a psychologist; it is a case for you." "A puzzle without an answer. I am afraid it can never be tried." "No, I am afraid not," said Paul quietly. The two men finished their dinner, and went out. Paul meant to leave early the next morning, and was anxious to go to bed. He felt that at last he could sleep, and he took his leave of Professor Cutter. "Good-by," he said, with more feeling than he had shown since he had left his mother's room. "I am glad we have met. Believe me, I am really grateful to you for your kindness, and I hope you will let me know that you have reached England safely. If my mother refers to me, please tell her that after what she said to me I thought it best to leave here at once. Good-by, and thank you again." "Good-by," said the professor, shaking Paul's hand warmly. "The world is a little place, and I dare say we shall meet again somewhere." "I hope so," answered Paul. And so these two parted, to go to the opposite ends of the earth, not satisfied with each other, and yet each feeling that he should like to meet his new acquaintance again. But Persia and England, in the present imperfect state of civilization, are tolerably far apart. V. Early on the next morning Paul was on his way to Munich, Vienna, and the East again, and on the afternoon of the same day Professor Cutter and Madame Patoff, with two servants, got into a spacious carriage, in which they had determined to drive as far as Weissenstein, the last village of the Black Forest before reaching Pforzheim. Pursuing his plan of traveling by unfrequented routes, the professor had proposed to spend the night in the beautiful old place which he had formerly visited, intending to proceed the next day by rail to Carlsruhe, and thence down the Rhine. He had not seen Madame Patoff in the evening after her interview with Paul, and when he met her in the morning it struck him that her manner was greatly changed. She was very silent, and when she spoke at all talked of indifferent subjects. She never referred in any way to the meeting with her son, and the professor observed that for the first time she allowed the day to pass without once mentioning the disappearance of Alexander. He attributed this silence to the deep emotion she had felt on seeing Paul, and to her natural desire to avoid any reference to the pain she had suffered. As usual she allowed him to make all the necessary arrangements for the journey, and she even spoke with some pleasure of the long drive through the forest. She was evidently fatigued and nervous, and her face was much paler than usual, but she was quiet and did not seem ill. All through the long afternoon they drove over the beautiful winding road, enjoying the views, discussing the scenery, and breathing in the healthy odor of the pines. The professor was an agreeable companion, for he had traveled much in Southern Germany, and amused Madame Patoff with all manner of curious information concerning the people, the legends connected with the different parts of the Black Forest, the fairy tales of the Rhine, and the history of the barons before Rudolf of Hapsburg destroyed them in his raid upon the freebooters. This he sprinkled with anecdotes, small talk about books, and comments on European society; speaking with ease and remarkable knowledge of his subjects, and so pleasantly that Madame Patoff never perceived that he wished to amuse her, and was trying to distract her thoughts from the one subject which too easily beset them. Indeed, the professor in the society of a woman of the world was a very different man from the earnest, plain-speaking person who had dined with Paul on the previous night. Even his gold-rimmed spectacles were worn with a less professional air. His well-cut traveling costume of plain tweed did not suggest the traditional scientist, and his bronzed and manly face was that of a sportsman or an Alpine Club man rather than of a student. Madame Patoff leaned back in the carriage, and fairly enjoyed the hours; saying to herself that Cutter had never been so agreeable before, and that indeed in her long life she had met few men who possessed so much charm in conversation. She was an old lady, and could judge of men, for she had spent nearly forty years in the midst of the most brilliant society in Europe, and was not to be deceived by the ring of false metal. At last they reached the place in the road where they had to descend from the carriage and mount the ascent to Weissenstein. Madame Patoff was well pleased with the place, and said so as she slowly climbed the narrow path, leaning on the professor's arm. The inn--the old Gasthaus zum Goldenen Anker--stands upon the very edge of the precipice above the tumbling Nagold, and is indeed partly built down the face of the cliff. Rooms have been hollowed, so that their windows look down on the river from a sheer height of two hundred feet, the surface of the natural wall, broken only here and there by a projecting ledge, or by the crooked stem of a strong wild cherry tree which somehow finds enough soil and moisture there to support its hardy growth. The inn is very primitive, but comfortable in its simple way, and the scenery is surpassingly beautiful. Far below, on the other side of the torrent, the small village nestles among the dark pines, the single spire of the diminutive church standing high above the surrounding cottages. Above, the hill is crowned by the ruins of the ancient castle of Weissenstein,--the castle of Bellrem, the crusader, who fell from the lofty ramparts on a moonlight night in the twelfth century, terrified by the ghost of a woman he had loved and wronged. At least, the legend says so, and as the ruined ramparts are still there it is probably all quite true. On the back of the hill, where the narrow path descends from the inn to the road, the still, deep waters of the great mill pool lie stagnant in the hot air, and the long-legged water spiders shoot over the surface, inviting the old carp to snap at them, well knowing that they will not, but skimming away like mad when a mountain trout, who has strayed in from the river through the sluices, comes suddenly to the surface with a short, sharp splash. But there are flies for the trout, and he prefers them, so that the water spiders lead, on the whole, a quiet and unmolested life. The travelers entered the inn, and were soon established for the night. Madame Patoff was still enchanted with the view, and insisted on sitting out upon the low balcony until late at night, though the air was very cool and the dampness rose from the river. There was something in the wild place which soothed her. She almost wished she could stay there forever, and hide her sorrow from the world in such a nest as this, overhanging the wild water, perched high in air, and surrounded on all sides by the soft black forest. For the Black Forest is indeed black, as only such impenetrable masses of evergreen can be. In the early morning the tall old lady in black was again at her place on the balcony when Professor Cutter appeared. She sat by the low parapet, and gazed down as in a trance at the tumbling water, and at the solitary fisherman who stood bare-legged on a jutting rock, casting his rough tackle on the eddying stream. She was calmer than she had seemed for a long time, and the professor began seriously to doubt the wisdom of taking her to England, although he had already written to her brother-in-law, naming the date when they expected to arrive. "Shall we go on this morning?" he asked, in a tone which left the answer wholly at Madame Patoff's decision. "Where?" she asked, dreamily. "Another stage on our way home," answered the professor. "Yes," she said, with sudden determination. "If we stay here any longer, I shall be so much in love with the place that I shall never be able to leave it. Let us go at once. I feel as though something might happen to prevent us." "Very well. I will make all the arrangements." Professor Cutter forthwith went to consult the landlord, leaving Madame Patoff upon the balcony. She sat there without moving, absorbed in the beauty of the scene, and happy to forget her troubles even for a moment in the sight of something altogether new. Her thoughts were indeed confused. It was but the day before yesterday that she had seen her son Paul after years of separation, and that alone was sufficient to disturb her. She had never liked him,--she could not tell why, except it were because she loved Alexander better,--and she could not help looking on Paul as on the man who had robbed her of what she loved best in the world. But the recollection of the interview was cloudy and uncertain. She had given way to a violent burst of anger, and was not quite sure of what had happened. She tried to thrust it all away from her weary brain, and she looked down again at the fisherman, far below. He had moved a little, and just then she could see him only through the branches of a projecting cherry-tree. He seemed to be baiting his hook for another cast in the river. "Madame Patoff, are you quite ready?" asked the professor's voice from the window. "Yes," she said, rising to her feet. "I am coming." "One moment,--I am just paying the bill," answered Cutter from within; and Madame Patoff could hear the landlord counting out the small change upon a plate, the ringing silver marks and the dull little clatter of the nickel ten-pfennig pieces. She was standing now, and she looked over the torrent at the dark forest beyond, endeavoring to fix the beautiful scene in her mind, and trying to forget her trouble. But it would not be forgotten, and as she stood up the whole scene with Paul came vividly to her mind. She remembered all her loathing for him, all the horror and all the furious anger she had felt at the sight of him. In the keen memory of that bitter meeting, rendered tenfold more vivid by the overwrought state of her brain, the blood rushed violently to her face, her head swam, and she put out her hand to steady herself, thinking there was a railing before her. But the parapet was low, scarcely reaching to her knees. She tottered, lost her balance, and with a wild shriek fell headlong into the abyss. Cutter dropped his change and rushed frantically to the window, well-nigh falling over the low parapet himself. His face was ghastly, as he leaned far forward and looked down. Then he uttered an exclamation of terror, and seemed about to attempt to climb over the balcony. Not ten feet below him the wretched woman hung suspended in the thick branches of the wild cherry tree, caught by her clothes. Cutter breathed hard, for he had never seen so horrible a sight. At any moment the material of her dress might give way, the branches might break under the heavy strain. He looked wildly round for help. Between the balcony and the trees there were ten feet of smooth rock, which would not have given a foothold to a lizard. "Catch hold, there!" cried a loud voice from above, and Cutter saw a new rope dangling before him into the abyss. He looked up as he seized the means of help, and saw at the upper window the square dark face of a strong man, who was clad in a flannel shirt and had a silver-mounted pipe in his mouth. "Go ahead,--it's fast," said the man, letting out more rope. "Or if you're afraid, I'll come down the rope myself." But Cutter was not afraid. It was the work of a moment to make a wide bowline knot in the pliant Manilla cord. With an agility which in so heavily built a frame surprised the dark man above, the doctor let himself down as far as the tree; then seizing the insensible lady firmly by the arm, and bracing himself on the roots of the cherry close to the rock, so that he could stand for a moment without support from above, he deftly slipped the rope twice round her waist with what are called technically two half hitches, close to his own loop, in which he intended to sit, clasping her body with his arms. "Can you haul us up?" he shouted. Slowly the rope was raised, with its heavy burden. The strong tourist had got help from the terrified landlord, who had followed Cutter to the balcony, but who was a stalwart Swabian, and not easily disconcerted. He had rushed up-stairs, and was hauling away with all his might. In less than a minute and a half Cutter was on a level with the balcony, and in a few seconds more he had disengaged himself and the rescued lady from the coils of the rope. It is not surprising that his first thought should have been for her, and not for the quiet man with the pipe, who had been the means of her escape. He bore Madame Patoff to her room, and with the assistance of her maid set about reviving her as fast as possible, though the perspiration streamed from his forehead, and he was trembling with fright in every limb and joint. The tourist wound up his rope, and took his pipe from his mouth, which he had forgotten to do in the hurry of the moment. Then he slipped on an old jacket, and descended the stairs, to inquire whether he could be of any use, and whether the lady were alive or dead. He was a strongly built man, with an ugly but not unkindly face, small gray eyes, and black hair just beginning to grizzle at the temples. He was an extremely quiet fellow, and the people of the inn remarked that he gave very little trouble, though he had been at Weissenstein nearly a week. He had told the landlord that he was going to Switzerland, but that he liked roundabout ways, and was loitering along the road, as the season was not yet far enough advanced for a certain ascent which he meditated. He had nothing with him but a knapsack, a coil of rope, and a weather-beaten ice-axe, besides one small book, which he read whenever he read at all. He spoke German fluently, but said he was an American. Thereupon the landlady, who had a cousin who had a nephew who had gone to Brazil, asked the tourist if he did not know August Bürgin, and was very much disappointed to find that he did not. The excitement outside of Madame Patoff's room was intense. But the Herr Doctor, as the landlord called Cutter, had admitted no one but the maid, and as yet had not given any news of the patient. The little group stood in the passage a long time before Cutter came out. "She is not badly hurt," he said, and was about to re-enter the apartment, when his eye fell on the tall tourist, who, on hearing the news, had turned quickly away. Cutter went hastily after him, and, grasping his hand, thanked him warmly for his timely help. "Don't mention it," said the stranger. "You did the thing beautifully when once you had got hold of the rope. Excuse me--I have an engagement--good-by--glad to hear the lady is not hurt." Wherewith the tourist quickly shook the professor's hand once more, and was gone before the latter could ask his name. "Queer fellow," muttered Cutter, as he returned to Madame Patoff's side. She was not injured, as he had at once announced, but it was impossible to say what effect the awful shock might produce upon her overwrought brain. She opened her eyes, indeed, but she did not seem to recognize any one; and when the professor asked her how she felt, in order to see if she could speak intelligibly, she laughed harshly, and turned her head away. She was badly bruised, but he could discover no mark of any blow upon the head which could have caused a suspension of intelligence. There was therefore nothing to be done but to take care of her, and if she recovered her normal health she must be removed to her home at once. All day he sat beside her bed, with the patience of a man accustomed to tend the sick, and to regard them as studies for his own improvement. Towards evening she slept, and Cutter went out, hoping to find the tourist again. But the landlord said he was gone, and as the little inn kept no book wherein strangers were asked to register their names, and as the landlord could only say that the gentleman had declared his name to be Paul, Cutter was obliged to suffer the pangs of unsatisfied curiosity. "I am sick of the name of Paul!" exclaimed the professor, half angrily. "Is the fellow a Russian, too, I wonder? Paul, Paul,--everybody seems to be called Paul!" Therewith he turned away, and began to walk up and down before the house, lighting a cigar, and smoking savagely in his annoyance with things in general. He was thinking that if it had been so easy for Madame Patoff to throw herself over the balcony, just when he was not looking, it was after all not so very improbable that Alexander might have slipped away from his brother in the dark. The coincidence of the two cases was remarkable. As for Madame Patoff, he did not doubt for a moment that she had intended to commit suicide by throwing herself down the precipice. According to his theory, all her calmness of yesterday and this morning, succeeding the great excitement of her meeting with Paul, proved that she had been quietly meditating death. She had escaped. But had her mind escaped the suicide she had attempted on her body? In its effects, her anger against Paul and her fixed idea concerning him were as nothing when compared with the terrible shock she had experienced that morning. It was absolutely impossible to predict what would occur: whether she would recover her faculties, or remain apathetic for the rest of her life. She was a nervous, sensitive, and overstrung woman at all times, and would suffer far more under a sudden and violent strain than a duller nature could. The view she took in regard to Alexander's disappearance proved that her faculties were not evenly balanced. Of course the story was a very queer one, and Russians are queer people, as the professor said to himself. It was not going beyond the bounds of possibility to suppose that Paul might have murdered his brother, but Cutter would have expected that Madame Patoff would be the last person to suspect it, and especially to say it aloud. The way she had raved against Paul on more than one occasion sufficiently showed that she seized at false conclusions, like a person of unsound mind. Alexander had resembled her, too, and had always acted like an irritable, beautiful, spoiled child. There was a distinct streak of "queerness," as Cutter expressed it, in the family. Probably Paul had inherited it in a different way. His conduct at Teinach, after leaving his mother, had been strange. He had shown no sorrow, scarcely any annoyance, indeed, and during their dinner had seemed thoroughly at his ease. Scientifically speaking, the professor regretted the accident of the morning. Madame Patoff had been a very interesting study so long as she was under the influence of a dominating idea. Her case might now degenerate into one of common apathy such as Cutter had seen hundreds of times. There would be nothing to be done but to try the usual methods, with the usual unsatisfactory results, abandoning her at last to the care of her relations and nurses as a hopeless idiot. But Professor Cutter was not destined to such a disappointment. His patient recovered in a way which was new to him, and he realized that in losing his former case he had found one even more interesting. She was apathetic, indeed, in a certain degree, and did not appear to understand everything that was said to her, but this was the only sign of any degeneracy. She never again addressed by name either the professor or her maid, and never spoke except to express her wants, which she did in few words, and very concisely and correctly. Nothing would induce her, in conversation, to make any answer save a simple yes or no, and Cutter was struck by the fact that her color ceased to change when he spoke of Alexander. This, he thought, showed that she no longer associated any painful idea with the name of her lost son. But there were none of the signs of a softening brain,--no foolish ravings, nor any expressed desire to do anything not perfectly rational. She accomplished the journey with evident comfort, and was evidently delighted at the beautiful sights she saw on the way, though she said nothing, but only smiled and looked pleased. Her habitual expression was one of calm melancholy. Her features wore a sad but placid expression, and she appeared to thrive in health, and to be better than when the professor had first known her. She was more scrupulous than ever about her appearance, and there was an almost unnatural perfection in her dress and in her calm and graceful manner. Cutter was puzzled. With these symptoms he would have expected some apparent delusion on one point. But he could detect nothing of the kind, and he exhausted his theories in trying to find out what particular form of insanity afflicted her. He could see nothing and define nothing, save her absolute refusal to talk. She asked for what she wanted, or got it for herself, and she answered readily yes and no to direct questions. Gradually, as they traveled by short stages, drawing near to their destination, Cutter altogether lost the habit of talking to her, and almost ceased to notice her one peculiarity. She would sit for hours in the same position, apparently never wearied of her silence, her placid expression never changing save into a gentle smile when she saw anything that pleased her. They reached England at last, and Madame Patoff was installed in her brother-in-law's house in the country. Cutter came frequently from town to see her, and always studied her case with new interest; but after a whole year he could detect no change whatever in her condition, and began to despair of ever classifying her malady in the scientific catalogue of his mind. * * * * * It was at this point, my dear friend, that I became an actor in the story of Paul Patoff and his mother, and I will now for a time tell my tale in my own person,--in the prosaic person of Paul Griggs, with whom you are so well acquainted that you are good enough to call him your friend. To give you at once an idea of my own connection with this history, I will confess that it was I who dropped the rope out of the window at Weissenstein, as you may have already guessed from the description I have given of myself. VI. Mankind may be divided and classified in many ways, according to the tests applied, and the reason why any new classification of people is always striking is not far to seek. For, since all the mental and moral qualities of which we have ever heard belong to men and women, it is obviously easy to say that we can divide our fellow-creatures into two classes, one class possessing the vice or virtue in point, and the other not possessing it. The only division which is hard to make is that which should separate the human race into classes of good and bad,--to speak biblically, the division of the sheep from the goats; but as no one has ever been able to draw the line, some people have said, in their haste, that all men are bad, while others have arrived at the no less hasty and equally false conclusion that all men are good. The Preacher was nearer the truth when he said, "All is vanity," than was David when he said in his heart, "All men are liars;" for if the bad man is foolish enough to boast of his error, the good man is generally inclined to vaunt his virtue after the most mature reflection, and the secret of success, whether in good or in evil, is not to allow the right hand to know the doings of the left. There are men who give lavishly with the one hand, while they steal even more freely with the other, and are covered with glory, until their biography is written by an intelligent enemy. The faculty of persuading the world at large to consider that you are in the right is called your "prestige," a word closely connected with the term "prestidigitation,"--if not in derivation, most certainly in meaning. When you have found out your neighbor's sin, your prestige is increased; when your neighbor has found out yours, your prestige is gone. There is little credit to be got from charity; for if you conceal your good deeds it is certain that nobody will suspect you of doing them, and if you do them before the world every one will say that you are vainglorious and purse-proud, and altogether a dangerous hypocrite. On the other hand, there is undeniably much social interest attached to a man who is supposed to be bad, but who has never been caught in his wickedness; and if a thorough-going sinner is discovered, after having concealed his doings for many years, people at least give him all the credit he can expect, saying, "Surely he was a very clever fellow to deceive us for so long!" There are plenty of ways which serve to conceal evil doings, from the vulgar lies which make up the code of schoolboy honor, to the national bad faith which systematically violates all treaties when they cease to be lucrative; from the promising youth who borrows money from his tailor, and has it charged to his father with compound interest as "account rendered for clothes furnished," down to the driveling dishonesty of some old statesman who clings to office because his ornate eloquence still survives his scanty wit. Verily, if the boy be father to the man, it is not pleasant to imagine what manner of men they will be to whom the modern boy stands in the relation of paternity. The big boys who kill little ones with their fists, and spend a pleasant hour in watching a couple of cats, slung over a clothes-line by the tails, fight each other to death, are likely to be less remarkable for their singular lack of intelligence than for their extraordinary excess of brutality. It is true that a nation's greatest activity for good is developed in the time of its transition from coarseness to refinement. It may also be true that its period of greatest harmfulness is when, from a fictitious refinement, it is dragged down again by the natural brutality of its nature; when the ideal has ceased to correspond with the real; when the poet has lost his hold upon the hearts of the people; when poetry itself is no longer the strong fire bursting through the thick, foul crust of the earth, but is only the faint and shadowy smoke of the fire, wreathed for a moment into ethereal shapes of fleeting grace that have neither heat enough to burn the earth from which they come, nor strength to withstand the rough winds of heaven by which they shall soon be scattered. For as the evolution of the ideal from the real is life, so the final separation of the soul from the body is death. Almost all men have the qualities which can give moderate success. Very few have those gifts which lead to greatness, and those who have them invariably become great. There is no unrecognized genius; for genius means the production of what is not only beautiful, but enduring, and the works of man are all sooner or later judged by his fellows, and judged fairly. But it is unprofitable to discuss these matters; for those who are very great seldom know that they are, and those who are not cannot be persuaded that they might not attain to greatness if circumstances were slightly changed in their favor. Perhaps also there is very little use in making any preamble to what I have to tell. I remember to have been at a great meeting of American bankers at Niagara some years ago, where, as usual at American meetings, many speeches were made. There was an old gentleman there from the West who appeared to have something to say, but although his voice rose to impassioned tones and his gestures were highly effective as he delivered a variety of ornate phrases, he did not come to the point. An irreverent hearer rose and inquired what was the object of his distinguished friend's discourse, which did not appear to bear at all upon the matters in hand. The old gentleman stopped instantly in his flow of words, and said very quietly and naturally, "I feel a little shy, and I want to speak some before getting to the point, so as to get used to you." There was a good-natured laugh, in which the speaker joined. But he presently began again, and before long he was talking very well and very much to the point. It may be doubted, however, whether any well-conditioned chronicler needs a preliminary breather before so short a race as this is likely to be. In these wild days there is small time for man to work or for woman to weep, and those who would tell a tale must tell it quickly, lest the traveler be out of hearing before the song is ended, and the minstrel be left harping at the empty air and wasting his eloquence upon the stones. Last year I was staying in an English country house on the borders of Hertfordshire and Essex. It is not what is called a "romantic neighborhood," but there are plenty of pretty places and some fine old trees where the green lanes of Essex begin to undulate into the wooded valleys of Herts. The name of the place where I was stopping is Carvel Place, and the people who generally live in it are John Carvel, Esq., formerly member for the borough; Mary Carvel, his wife, who was a Miss Dabstreak; Hermione Carvel, their daughter; and, when he is at home on leave, Macaulay Carvel, their son, a young man who has been in the diplomatic service several years, and who once had the good fortune to be selected as private secretary to Lord Mavourneen, when that noble diplomatist was sent on a special mission to India. Mrs. Carvel has a younger sister, a spinster, thirty-eight years of age, who rejoices in the name of Chrysophrasia. Her parents had christened their eldest daughter Anne, their second Mary, and had regretted the simple appellations bitterly, so that when a third little girl came into the world, seven years afterwards, their latent love for euphony was poured out upon her in a double measure at the baptismal font. Anne, eldest sister of Mrs. Carvel and Miss Chrysophrasia Dabstreak, married a Russian in the year 1850, and was never mentioned after the Crimean War, until her son, Paul Patoff, being a diplomatist, made the acquaintance of his first cousin in the person of Macaulay Carvel, who happened to be third secretary in Berlin, when Paul passed through that capital, on his return from a distant post in the East. It is taken for granted that the Carvels have lived at Carvel Place since the memory of man. I know very little of their family history; my acquaintance with John Carvel is of comparatively recent date, and Miss Chrysophrasia eyes me with evident suspicion, as being an American and probably an adventurer. I cannot say that Carvel and I are precisely old friends, but we enjoy each other's society, and have been of considerable service to each other in the last ten years. There is a certain kind of mutual respect, not untempered by substantial mutual obligation, which very nearly approaches to friendship when the parties concerned have common tastes and are not unsympathetic. John Carvel is a man fifty years of age: he is short, well built, and active, delighting in the chase; slender rather than stout, but not thin; red in the face from constant exposure, scrupulous in the shaving of his smooth chin and in the scrubbing processes, dressed with untarnishing neatness; having large hands with large nails, smooth and tolerably thick gray hair, strongly marked eyebrows, and small, bright eyes of a gray-blue color. In his personal appearance he is a type of a fine race; in character and tastes he is a specimen of the best class of men to be met with in our day. He is a country gentleman, educated in the traditions of Rugby and Oxford at a time when those institutions had not succumbed to the subtle evils of our times, whereby the weak are corrupted into effeminate fools and the strong into abominable bullies. John Carvel's Latin has survived his school-days, and his manliness has outlived the university. He belongs to that class of Englishmen who proverbially speak the truth. When he began life, an orphan at twenty-two years of age, he found himself comparatively poor, but in spite of the prejudices of those days he was not ashamed to better his fortunes by manufacture, and he is now a rich man. He married Mary Dabstreak for love, and has never regretted it. He has lived most of his life at Carvel Place, has hunted perpetually, and has of late years developed a taste for books which is likely to stand him in good stead in his old age. There is a fine library in the house, and much has been added to it in the last ten years. Miss Chrysophrasia occasionally strays into the repository of learning, but she has little sympathy with the contents of the shelves. Miss Chrysophrasia Dabstreak is a lady concerning whom there is much speculation, to very little purpose, in the world as represented by the select society in which she droops,--not moves. She is an amateur. Her eye rejoices only in the tints of the crushed strawberry and the faded olive; her ear loves the limited poetry of doubtful sound produced by abortive attempts to revive the unbarred melodies of the troubadours; and her soul thrills responsively in the checkered light falling through a stained-glass window, as a sensitive-plant waves its sticky leaves when a fly is in the neighborhood. But life has attractions for Chrysophrasia. She enjoys it after her own fashion. It is a little disconnected. The relation between cause and effect is a little obscure. She is fragmentary. She is a series of unfinished sketches in various manners. She has her being in the past tense, and her future, if she could have it after her taste, would be the past made present. She has many aspirations, and few of them are realized, but all of them are sketched in faint hues upon the mist of her mediæval atmosphere. She is, in the language of a lyric from her own pen, "The shadow of fair and of joyous impossible, infinite, faintness That is cast on the mist of the sea by the light of the ages to come." Her handwriting is Gothic. Her heart is of the type created by Mr. Swinburne in the minds of those who do not understand him,--in their minds, for in the flesh the type is not found. Moreover, she resents modernness of every kind, including the steam-engine, the electric telegraph, the continent of North America, and myself. Her political creed shadows forth the government of the future as a pleasant combination of communism and knight-baronry, wherein all oppressed persons shall have republics, and all nice people shall wear armor, and live in castles, and strew the floors of their rooms with rushes and their garments with the anatomic monstrosities of heraldic blazon. As for religion, her mind is disturbed in its choice between a palatable form of Buddhism and a particularly luscious adaptation of Greek mythology; but in either case as much Christianity would be indispensable as would give the whole a flavor of crusading. I hope I am not hard upon Miss Chrysophrasia, but the fact is she is not--what shall I say?--not sympathetic to me. John Carvel does not often speak of her, but he has more than once attempted to argue with her, and on these occasions his sister-in-law invariably winds up her defense by remarking very wearily that "argument is the negation of poetry, and, indeed, of all that is fair and joyous." Personally Miss Dabstreak is a faded blonde, with a very large nose, a wide mouth garnished with imperfect teeth, a very thin figure of considerable height, a poor complexion ill set off by scanty, straggling fair hair; garments of unusual greenish hues, fitted in an unusual and irregular manner, hang in fantastic folds about the angles of her frame, and her attitudes are strange and improbable. I repeat that I do not mean to be hard upon Chrysophrasia, but her looks are not much to my taste. She is too strongly contrasted with her niece, Miss Carvel. There is, besides, something in Chrysophrasia's cold green eyes which gives me an unpleasant sensation. She was at Carvel Place when I arrived, and she is generally there, although she has a little house in Brompton, where she preserves the objects she most loves, consisting chiefly of earthen vessels, abominable in color and useless to civilized man; nevertheless, so great is her influence with her sister's family that even John speaks of majolica with a certain reverence, as a man lowers his voice when he mentions some dear relation not long dead. As for Mrs. Carvel, she is silent when Chrysophrasia holds forth concerning pots and plates, though I have seen her raise her gentle face and cast up her eyes with a faint, hopeless smile when her sister was more than usually eloquent about her Spanow-Morescow things, as she calls them, her Marstrow-Geawgiow and her Robby-ah. It seems to me that objects of that description are a trifle too perishable. Perhaps John Carvel wishes Miss Dabstreak were perishable, too; but she is not. I would not weary you with too many portraits, my dear lady, and I will describe the beautiful Hermione another day. As for her mother, Mary Carvel, she is an angel upon earth, and if her trials have not been many until lately, her good deeds are without number as the sands of the sea; for it is a poor country that lies on the borders of Essex, and there have been bad times in these years. The harvests have failed, and many other misfortunes have happened, not the least of which is that the old race of farmers is dying out, and that the young ones cannot live as their fathers did, but sell their goods and chattels and emigrate, one after another, to the far, rich West. Some of them prosper, and some of them die on the road; but they leave the land behind them a waste, and there are eleven millions of acres now lying fallow in England which were ploughed and sowed and reaped ten years ago. People are poor, and Mrs. Carvel takes care of them. Her soft brown eyes have a way of finding out trouble, and when it is found her great heart cannot help easing it. She loves her husband and her daughter, understanding them in different degrees. She loves her son also, but she does not pretend to understand him; he is the outcome of a new state of things; but he has no vices, and is thought exceedingly clever. As for her sister, she is very good to her, but she does not profess to understand her, either. I had been in Persia and Turkey some time, and had not been many days in London, when John Carvel wrote to ask me if I would spend the winter with him. I was tired and wanted to be quiet, so I accepted his offer. Carvel Place is peaceful, and I like the woods about it, and the old towers, and the great library in the house itself, and the general sense of satisfaction at being among congenial people who are friendly. I knew I should have to encounter Miss Chrysophrasia, but I reflected that there was room for both of us, and that if it were not easy to agree with her it was not easy to quarrel with her, either. I packed my traps, and went down to the country one afternoon in November. John Carvel had grown a trifle older; I thought he was a little less cheerful than he had been in former days, but I was welcomed as warmly as ever. The great fire burned brightly in the old hall, lighting up the dark wainscoting and the heavy furniture with a glow that turned the old oak from brown to red. The dim portraits looked down as of old from the panels, and Fang, the white deerhound, shook his shaggy coat and stretched his vast jaws as I came in. It was cold outside, and the rain was falling fast, as the early darkness gathered gloomily over the landscape, so that I was glad to stand by the blazing logs after the disagreeable drive. John Carvel was alone in the hall. He stretched out his broad hand and grasped mine, and it did my heart good to see the smile of honest gladness on his clean, manly face. "I hardly thought you would come," he said, looking into my eyes. "I was never so glad to see you in my life. You have been wandering again,--half over the world. How are you? You look tougher than ever, and here am I growing palpably old. How in the world do you manage it?" "A hard heart, a melancholy temperament, and a large appetite," I answered, with a laugh. "Besides, you have four or five years the better of me." "The worse, you mean. I'm as gray as a badger." "Nonsense. It is your climate that makes people gray. How is Mrs. Carvel, and Hermione,--she must have grown up since I saw her,--and Miss Dabstreak?" "She is after her pots and pans as usual," said John. "Mary and Hermy are all right, thank you. We will have tea with them presently." He turned and poked the fire with a huge pair of old-fashioned tongs. I thought his cheerful manner subsided a little as he took me to my room. He lingered a moment, till the man who brought in my boxes had unstrapped them, and trimmed the candles, and was gone. "Is there anything you would like?" he asked. "A little whiskey? a glass of sherry?" "No, thanks,--nothing. I will come down to tea in a few minutes. It is in the same old room, I suppose?" "Oh, yes, same as ever. By the bye, Griggs," he added suddenly, as he laid his hand on the handle of the door, "how long is it since you were here?" "Three years and a month," I answered, after a moment's thought. "It does not seem so long. I suppose that is because we have met abroad since then." "No, it does not seem long," said John Carvel, thoughtfully. Then he opened the door, and went out without another word. Nothing especially worthy of mention happened on that evening, nor on the next day, nor for many days. I hunted a little, and shot a great deal more, and spent many hours in the library. The weather improved in the first week of December; it was rather warmer, and the scent lay very well. I gave myself up to the pleasant country life, and enjoyed the society of my host, without much thought of the present or care for the future. Hermione had grown, since I had seen her, from a grave and rather silent girl of seventeen to a somewhat less reserved young woman of twenty, always beautiful, but apparently not much changed. Her mother had taken her out in London during the previous season, and there was occasionally some talk about London and society, in which the young girl did not appear to take very much interest. With this exception the people and things at Carvel Place were the same as I had always known them. I was treated as one of the household, and was allowed to go my own ways without question or interference. Of course, I had to answer many questions about my wanderings and my doings in the last years, but I am used to that and do not mind it. All this sounds as though I were going to give you some quiet chronicle of English country life, as if I were about to begin a report of household doings: how Mrs. Carvel and Hermione went to church on Sunday; how the Rev. Trumpington Soulsby used to stroll back with them across the park on fine days, and how he and Miss Dabstreak raved over the joyousness of a certain majolica plate; how the curate gently reproved, yet half indulged, Chrysophrasia's erratic religionism; how Mrs. Carvel distributed blankets to the old men and red cloaks to the old women; how the deerhound followed Hermione like Mary's little lamb, and how the worthy keeper, James Grubb, did not quite catch the wicked William Saltmarsh in the act of setting a beautiful new brass wire snare at a particular spot in the quickset hedge between the park and the twelve-acre field, but was confident he would catch him the next time he tried it, how Moses Skingle, the sexton, fell out with Mr. Speller, the superannuated village schoolmaster, because the juvenile Spellers would not refrain from the preparation of luscious mud pies upon the newly made grave of the late Peter Sullins, farmer, whose promising heir had not yet recovered sufficiently from the dissipation attending the funeral to erect a monument to his uncle; and so on and so forth, cackling through a volume or two of village chronicle, "and so home to bed." I do not care a straw for the ducks in the horse-pond, nor for the naughty boy who throws stones at them, robs bird's-nests, and sets snares for hares under the wire fence of Carvel Park. I blush to say I have done most things of that kind myself, in one part of the world or in another, and they no longer have any sort of interest for me. No, my dear friend, the world is not yet turned into a farm-yard; there are other things to tell of besides the mud pies of the Speller children and the marks of little Billy Saltmarsh's hob-nailed shoes in the grass where he set the snare. The Turks say that a fool has three points in common with an ass,--he eats, he drinks, and he brays at other asses. I must fain eat and drink; let me at least refrain from braying. It is not every one who cares for the beauty of nature as reflected in a horse-pond, or for the conversations of a class of people who have not more than seven or eight hundred words in their language, and with whom every word does not by any means correspond with an idea; we cannot all be farmer's lads, nor, if we were, could each of us find a Wordsworth to describe feelings we should certainly not possess. I had been nearly a month at Carvel Place, and Christmas was approaching. We sat one afternoon in the drawing-room, drinking tea. John Carvel was turning over the leaves of a rare book he had just received, before transferring it to its place in the library. His heavy brows were contracted, and his large, clean hands touched the pages lovingly. Mrs. Carvel was installed in her favorite upright chair near an enormous student-lamp that had a pink shade, and her fingers were busy with some sort of needle-work. She, too, was silent, and her gentle face was bent over her hand. I can remember exactly how she always looks when she is working, and how her soft brown hair, that is just turning a little gray at the temples, waves above her forehead. Chrysophrasia Dabstreak lay languidly extended upon a couch, her thin hands clasped together in a studied attitude. She was bemoaning the evils of civilization, and no one was listening to her, for Hermione and I were engaged in putting a new silver collar round the neck of Fang; the great hound sat up patiently between us, yawning prodigiously from time to time, for the operation was tedious, and the patent lock of the collar would not fasten. "I was just going to say it was time the letters came," said Mrs. Carvel, as the door opened and a servant entered with the post-bag. The master of the house unlocked the leathern case, and distributed the contents. We each received our share, and without ceremony opened our letters. There was a short silence while we were all reading. "Macaulay has got his leave," said Mrs. Carvel, joyfully. "Is not that delightful! And he is going to bring--wait a minute--I cannot make out the name--let me get nearer to the light, dear--John, look here, is it not Paul Patoff? Look, dear!" John looked. "It is certainly Paul Patoff," he said quietly. "I told Macaulay to bring him." "Gracious!" ejaculated Hermione. "How extremely interesting!" said Miss Chrysophrasia. "I adore Russians! They have such a joyous savor of the wild, free steppes!" "You have exactly described the Russian of the steppes, Miss Dabstreak," I remarked. "His savor is so wild that it is perceptible at a great distance. But Patoff is not at all a bad fellow. I met him in Teheran last year. He had a trick of beating his servants which excited the wildest admiration among the Persians. The Shah decorated him before he left." "Do you know him?" asked John Carvel quickly, as he caught my last words. "Yes. I was just telling Miss Dabstreak that I met Paul Patoff last year. He was at the Russian legation in Teheran." John showed do surprise, and relapsed into silence. "He and Macaulay are both in Paris," said Mrs. Carvel, "and I suppose Macaulay has made up his mind that we must know his cousin." "Is not Professor Cutter coming, too, mamma?" asked Hermione. "I heard papa say so the other day." "Oh, dear, yes!" exclaimed Chrysophrasia, wearily. "Professor Cutter is coming, with his nasty science, and his lenses, and his mathematics. Of course he will wear those vivid green spectacles morning, noon, and night,--such a dreadfully offensive color." "Yes," said John, gazing down at his neat shoes, as he stood rubbing his broad hands slowly together before the fire, "Cutter is coming, too. What a queer party we shall be at Christmas." And when Christmas came, we were a very queer party indeed. At the prospect of seeing united, under an English roof, an English family, consisting of a great manufacturer,--at the same time a thorough-going country gentleman of old descent,--his wife, his beautiful daughter, and his æsthetic sister-in-law, having with them as guests the son of the master of the house, being a young English diplomatist; an English professor, who had given up his professorship to devote himself to the study of diseases of the mind; a Russian secretary of the embassy, who had seen the world, and was thirty years old; and, lastly, your humble slave of the pen, being an American,--at the prospect of such a heterogeneous assembly of men and women, you will suppose, my dear lady, that I am about to embark upon the cerulean waters of a potentially platonic republic, humbly steering my craft by the charts of a recent voyager, who, after making a noble but ineffectual attempt to discover the Isles of the Blessed, appears to have stumbled into the drawing-rooms of the Damned. I am not going to do anything of the kind. My story is written for the sole purpose of amusing you, and as a form of diversion for your leisure moments I would select neither the Wordsworthian pastoral, nor the platonic doctrine of Ideas. Mary Carvel would give her vote for the Dalesman, and Chrysophrasia for Plato, but I have not consulted them; and if I do not consult you, it is because I think I understand your tastes. You will, moreover, readily understand that in telling this tale I sometimes speak of things I did not actually see, because I know the people concerned very well, and some of them told me at the time, and have told me since, what they felt and thought about the things they did and saw done. For myself, I am the man you have long known, Paul Griggs, the American; a man of many acquaintances and of few friends, who has seen the world, and is forty-three years of age, ugly and tough, not so poor as I have been, not so good as I might be, melancholic by temperament, and a little sour by force of circumstances. VII. It chanced, one evening, that I was walking alone through the park. I had been on foot to the village to send a telegram, which I had not cared to trust to a servant. The weather had suddenly cleared, and there had been a sharp frost in the morning; towards midday it had thawed a little, but by the time it was dark everything was frozen hard again. The moon was nearly full, and shone brightly upon the frozen grass, casting queer shadows through the bare branches of the trees; it was very cold, and I walked fast; the brittle, frozen mud of the road broke beneath my feet with a creaking, crunching sound, and startled the deep stillness. As I neared the house the moon was before me, and the mass of buildings cast a dark shadow. Carvel Place is like many old country houses in England; it is a typical dwelling of its kind, irregular, yet imposing, and though it has no plan, for it has been added to and enlarged, and in part rebuilt, it is yet harmonious and of good proportion. I had often reflected that it was too large for the use of the present family, and I knew that there must be a great number of rooms in the house which were never opened; but no one had ever proposed to show them to me, and I was not sufficiently curious to ask permission to visit the disused apartments. I had observed, however, that a wing of the building ran into an inclosure, surrounded by a wall seven or eight feet high, against which were ranged upon the one side a series of hot-houses, while another formed the back of a covered tennis court. The third wall of the inclosure was covered with a lattice, upon which fruit trees had been trained without any great success, and I had noticed that the lattice now completely covered an old oak door which led into the inclosure. I had never seen the door open, but I remembered very well that it was uncovered the last time I had been at Carvel Place. When I reached the house I was no longer cold, and the night was so clear and sparkling that I idly strolled round the great place, wandering across the frozen lawn and through the winding paths of the flower garden beyond, till I came to the wall I have described, and stood still, half wondering why the door had been covered over with fruit trees, as though no one would ever wish to enter the house from that side. The space could hardly be so valuable for gardening purposes, I thought, for the slender peach-trees that were bound upon the lattice on each side of the door had not thriven. There was something melancholy about the unsuccessful attempt to cultivate the delicate southern fruit in the unkindly air of England, and the branches and stems, all wrapped in straw against the frost, looked unhappy and unnatural in the cold moonlight. I stood looking at them, with my hands in my pockets, thinking somewhat regretfully of my southern birthplace. I smiled at myself and turned away, but as I went the very faintest echo of a laugh seemed to come from the other side of the wall. It sounded disagreeably in the stillness, and I slowly finished my walk around the house and came back to the front door, still wondering who it was that had laughed at me from behind the wall in the moonlight. There was certainly no original reason in the nature of things why it should not chance that some one should laugh on the other side of the wall just as I happened to be standing before the closed gate. The inclosure was probably in connection with the servants' apartments; or it might be the exclusive privilege of Chrysophrasia to walk there, composing anapæstic verse to the infinite faintness of the moon,--or anything. A quarter of an hour later I was in the drawing-room drinking a cup of tea. I came in when the others had finished reading their evening letters, and there were none for me. The tea was cold. I wished I had walked half an hour longer, and had not come into the drawing-room at all. "Let me make you a fresh cup, Mr. Griggs," said Hermione; "do,--it will be ready in a moment!" I politely declined, and the conversation of the rest soon began where it had left off. It appeared that Professor Cutter was expected that night, and the son of the house, with Patoff, on the following day. It was Thursday, and Christmas was that day week. John Carvel seemed unusually depressed; his words were few and very grave, and he did not smile, but answered in the shortest manner possible the questions addressed to him. He thought Cutter might arrive at any moment. Hermione hazarded a remark to the effect that the professor was rather dull. "No, my dear," answered John, "he is not at all dull." "But, papa, I thought he was so immensely learned"---- "He is very learned," said her father, shortly, and buried himself in his newspaper, so that hardly anything was visible of him but his feet, encased in exceedingly neat shoes; those nether extremities moved impatiently from time to time. Chrysophrasia was not present, a circumstance which made it seem likely that she might have been the person who had laughed behind the wall. Mary Carvel, like her husband, was unusually silent, and I was sitting not far from Hermione. She looked at me after her father's curt answer to her innocent remark, and smiled faintly. The drawing-room where we sat exhibited a curious instance of the effect produced upon inanimate things when subjected to the contact of persons who differ widely from each other in taste. You smile, dear lady, at the complicated form of expression. I mean merely that if two people who like very different things live in the same room, each of them will try to give the place the look he or she likes. At Carvel Place there were four to be consulted, instead of two; for John had his own opinions as to taste, and they were certainly sounder than those of his wife and sister-in-law, and at least as clearly defined. John Carvel liked fine pictures, and he had placed three or four in the drawing-room,--a couple of good Hogarths, a beautiful woman's head by Andrea del Sarto, and a military scene by Meissonnier,--about as heterogeneous a quartette of really valuable works as could be got for money; and John had given a great deal of money for them. Besides the pictures, there stood in the drawing-room an enormous leathern easy-chair, of the old-fashioned type with semicircular wings projecting forward from the high back on each side, made to protect the rheumatic old head of some ancestor who suffered from the toothache before the invention of dentists. Near this stood a low, square, revolving bookcase, which always contained the volumes which John was reading at the time, to be changed from day to day as circumstances required. Mary Carvel was, and is, an exceedingly religious woman, and her tastes are to some extent the expression of her religious feelings. She has a number of excellent engravings of celebrated pictures, such as Holbein's Madonna, Raphael's Transfiguration, and the Dresden Madonna di San Sisto; she owns the entire collection of chromo-lithographs published by the Arundel Society, and many other reproductions of a similar nature. Many of these she had hung in the drawing-room at Carvel Place. Here and there, also, were little shelves of oak in the common Anglomaniac style of woodwork, ornamented with trefoils, crosses, circles, and triangles, and containing a curious collection of sacred literature, beginning with the ancient volume entitled Wilberforce's View, including the poetry published in a series of Lyras,--Lyra Anglicana, Lyra Germanica, and so on,--culminating at last in the works of Dr. Pusey; the whole perhaps exhibiting in a succinct form the stages through which Mary Carvel had passed, or was still passing, in her religious convictions. And here let me say at once that I am very far from intending to jest at those same convictions of Mary Carvel's, and if you smile it is because the picture is true, not because it is ridiculous. She may read what she pleases, but the world would be a better place if there were more women like her. There were many other possessions of hers in the drawing-room: for instance, upon the mantel-piece were placed three magnificent Wedgwood urns, after Flaxman's designs, inherited from her father, and now of great value; upon the tables there were several vases of old Vienna, but of a green color, vivid enough to elicit Chrysophrasia's most eloquent disapprobation; there were several embroideries of a sufficiently harmless nature, the work of Mary Carvel's patient fingers, but conceived in a style no longer popular; and on the whole, there was a great number of objects in the drawing-room which belonged to her and by which she set great store, but which bore decidedly the character of English household decoration and furniture at the beginning of the present century, and are consequently abhorrent to the true æsthete. Chrysophrasia Dabstreak, however, had sworn to cast the shadow of beauty over what she called the substance of the hideous, and to this end and intention, by dint of honeyed eloquence and stinging satire, she had persuaded John and Mary to allow her to insert stained glass in one of the windows, which formerly opened upon and afforded a view of a certain particularly brilliant flower bed. Beneath the many-colored light from this Gothic window--for she insisted upon the pointed arch--Miss Dabstreak had made her own especial corner of the drawing-room. There one might see strange pots and plates, and withered rushes, and fantastic greenish draperies of Eastern weft, which, however, would not fetch five piastres a yard in the bazaar of Stamboul, curious water-colors said to represent "impressions," though one would be shy of meeting, beyond the bounds of an insane asylum, the individual whose impressions could take so questionable a shape; lastly, the centre of the collection, a "polka mazurka harmony in yellow," by Sardanapalus Stiggins, the great impressionist painter of the day. Chrysophrasia paid five hundred pounds for this little gem. But it was not enough for Miss Dabstreak to have collected so many worthless objects of price in her own little corner of the room. She had encumbered the tables with useless articles of pottery; she had fastened a green plate between the better of the two Hogarths and an Arundel chromo-lithograph, and connected it with both the pictures by a drooping scarf of faint pink silk; she had adorned the engraving of Raphael's Transfiguration with a bit of Broussa embroidery, because it looked so very Oriental; and she had bedizened Mary Carvel's water-color view of Carisbrooke Castle with peacock's feathers, because they looked so very English. There was no spot in the room where Chrysophrasia's hand had not fallen, and often it had fallen heavily. She had respected John Carvel's easy-chair and revolving bookcase, but she had respected nothing else. There was a fourth person, however, who had set her especial impress on the appearance of the room where all met in common. I mean Hermione Carvel. Educated and brought up among the conflicting tastes and views of her parents and her aunt, she had imbibed some of the characteristics of each, although in widely different degrees. At that time, perhaps, the various traits which were united in her had not yet blended harmoniously so as to form a satisfactory whole. The resultant of so many more or less conflicting forces was prone to extremes of enthusiasm or of indifference. Her heart was capable of feeling the warmest sympathy, but was liable also to conceive unwarrantable antipathies; her mind was of admirable quality, fairly well gifted and sensibly trained; though not marvelously quick to understand, yet tenacious and slow to forget. The constant attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable opinions of her mother and aunt had given Hermione a certain versatility of thought, and a certain capacity to see both sides of the question when not under the momentary influence of her enthusiasm. She is, and was even then, a fine type of the English girl who has grown up under the most favorable circumstances; that is to say, with an excellent education and a decided preference for the country. It is not necessary to allow her any of the privileges and immunities usually granted to exceptional people; in any ordinary position of life she would bear the test of any ordinary difficulty very well. She inherits common sense from her father, an honest country gentleman of the kind now unfortunately growing every day more rare; a man not so countrified as to break his connection with the intelligent world, nor so foolishly ambitious as to abandon a happy life in the country in order to pursue the mirage of petty political importance: a man who holds humbug in supreme contempt, and having purged it from his being has still something to fall back upon. From her mother Hermione inherits an extreme conscientiousness in the things of every-day life; but whereas in Mary Carvel this scrupulous pursuance of what is right is on the verge of degenerating into morbid religionism, in Hermione it is tempered by occasional bursts of enthusiasm, and relieved by a wholesome and natural capacity for liking some people and disliking others. In the drawing-room I have been describing, Hermione touched everything, and did her best to cast over the various objects some grace, some air of harmony, which should make the contrasted tastes of the rest of her family less glaring and unpleasant to the eye. Her task was not easy, and it was no fault of hers if the room was out of joint. Her love of flowers showed itself everywhere, and she knew how to take advantage of each inch of room on shelf, or table, or window-seat, filling all available spaces with a profusion of roses, geraniums, and blossoms of every kind that chanced to be in season. Flowers in a room will do what nothing else can accomplish. The eye turns gladly to the living plant, when wearied and strained with the incongruities of inanimate things. A pot of pinks makes the lowliest and most dismal cottage chamber look gay by comparison; a single rose in a glass of water lights up the most dusty den of the most dusty student. A bit of climbing ivy converts a hideous ruin into a bower, as the Alp roses and the Iva make a garden for one short month of the roughest rocks in the Grisons. Only that which lives and of which the life is beautiful can reconcile us to those surroundings which would otherwise offend our sense of harmony, or oppress us with a dullness even more deadly than mere ugliness can ever be. Hermione loves all flowers, and at Carvel Place she was the sweetest blossom of them all. Her fresh vitality is of the contagious kind, and even plants seem to revive and get new life from the touch of her small fingers, as though feeling the necessity of growing like her. Her beauty may not last. It is not of the imperious kind, nor even quite classic, but it has a wonderful fineness and delicacy. Her soft brown hair coils closely on her small, well-shaped head; her gentle, serious blue eyes look tenderly on all that lives and has being within the circle of her sight; her small mouth smiles graciously and readily, though sometimes a little sadly; and her pleasant voice has a frank ring in it that is good to hear. Her slight fingers, neither too long nor too short, are often busy, but her labors are generally labors of love, and she is never weary of them. Of middle height, she has the grace of a taller woman, and the ease in motion which comes only from natural, healthy, elastic strength, not weakened by enforced idleness, not overdeveloped by abominable and unwomanly gymnastic exercises. Everything she does is graceful. It is very strange and interesting to see in her the combination of such different elements. Even her aunt Chrysophrasia's queer nature is represented, though it needs some ingenuity to trace the resemblance between the two. There are indeed tones of the voice, phrases and expressions, which seem to belong to particular families, and by which one may sometimes discover the relationship. But the modification of leading characteristics in the individual is not so easily detected. Miss Dabstreak is eccentric, but the wild ideas which continue to flourish in the æsthetic cells of Chrysophrasia's brain are softened and made more gentle and delicate in Hermione, so that even if they were inconsequent they would not seem offensive; though one might not admire them, one could not despise them. The young girl loves all that is beautiful: not as Chrysophrasia loves it, by sheer force of habitual affectation, without discernment and without real enjoyment, but from the bottom of her heart, from the well-springs of her own beautiful soul; knowing and understanding the great divisions between the graceful and the clumsy, between the true and the false, the lovely and the unlovely. The extraordinary passion for the eccentric is tempered to an honest and natural craving after the beautiful; the admixture of the gentleness the girl has inherited from her saintly mother and of the genuine common sense which characterizes her father has produced a rational desire and ability to do good to every one. Mary Carvel is sometimes exaggerated in her ideas of charity, and John on rare occasions--very rarely--used to be a little too much inclined to the practice of economy; "near" was the term applied by the village people. It was at first with him but the reminiscence of poorer years, when economy was necessary, and forethought was an indispensable element in his life; but the tendency has remained and sometimes shows itself. All that can be traced of this quality in the daughter is a certain power of keen discernment, which saves her from being cheated by the sham paupers who abound in the neighborhood of Carvel Place, and from being led into spoiling the school-children with too many feasts of tea, jam, and cake. It is not easy to be brief in describing Hermione Carvel, because in her fair self she combines a great many qualities belonging to contradictory persons, which one would suppose impossible to unite in one harmonious whole; and yet Hermione is one of the most harmonious persons I ever knew. Nothing about her ever offended my sense of fitness. I often used to wonder how she managed to be loved equally by the different members of the household, but there is no doubt of the fact that all the members of her family not only love her, but excuse readily enough those of their own bad qualities which they fancy they recognize in her; for, indeed, nothing ever seems bad in Hermione, and I doubt greatly whether there is not some touch of white magic in her nature that protects her and shields her, so that bad things turn to good when they come near her. If she likes the curious notions of her aunt, she certainly changes them so that they become delicate fancies, and agree together with the gentle charity she has from her mother and the sterling honesty she gets from her father. John sometimes shrugs his shoulders at what he calls his wife's extraordinary faith in human nature, and both he and Mary are sometimes driven to the verge of distraction by Chrysophrasia's perpetual moaning over civilization; but no one is ever out of temper with Hermione, nor is Hermione ever impatient with any one of the three. She is the peace-maker, the one whose sympathy never fails, whose gentleness is never ruffled, and whose fair judgment is never at fault. When John Carvel answered Hermione's question about Professor Cutter by a simple affirmation to the effect that he was a very learned man, the young girl did not press her father with any more inquiries, but turned to me. "Do you not think learned people are very often dull, Mr. Griggs?" she asked. "Oppressively," I answered. "What makes them so?" "It is the very low and common view which they take of life," put in Miss Dabstreak, who entered the room while we were speaking, and sank upon the couch with a little sigh. "They have no aspirations after the beautiful,--and what else can satisfy the human mind? The Greeks were never dull." "What do you call dull?" asked Mrs. Carvel very mildly. "Oh--anything; parliamentary reports, for instance, and agricultural shows, and the Rural Dean,--anything of that sort," answered Miss Chrysophrasia languidly. "In other words, civilization as compared with barbarism," I suggested. "It is true that there cannot be much boredom among barbarous tribes who are always scalping their enemies or being scalped themselves; those things help to pass the time." "Yes, scalping must be most interesting," murmured Chrysophrasia, with an air of conviction. Hermione laughed. "I really believe you would like to see it done, aunt Chrysophrasia," said she. "Hermy, Hermy, what dreadful ideas you have!" exclaimed Mrs. Carvel, in gentle horror. But she immediately returned to her embroidery, and relapsed into silence. "It is Mr. Griggs, mamma," said Hermione, still laughing. "He agrees with me that learned people are all oppressively dull, and that the only tolerably exciting society is found among scalping Indians." "Did you not once scalp somebody yourself, Griggs?" asked John, suddenly lowering his newspaper. "Not quite," I answered; "but I once shaved a poodle with a pocket-knife. Perhaps you were thinking of that?" While I spoke there was a sound of wheels without, and John rose to his feet. He seemed impatient. "That must be Cutter at last'" he exclaimed, moving towards the door that led into the hall. "I thought he was never coming." I rose also, and followed him. It was Cutter. The learned professor arrived wrapped in a huge ulster overcoat, his hands in the deep pockets thereof, and the end of an extinguished cigar between his teeth. He furtively disposed of the remains of the weed before shaking hands with our host. After the first greetings John led him away to his room, and I remained standing in the hall. The professor's luggage was rather voluminous, and various boxes, bags, and portmanteaus bore the labels of many journeys. The men brought them in from the dog-cart; the strong cob pawed the gravel a little, and the moonlight flashed back from the silver harness, from the smooth varnished dashboard, the polished chains, and the plated lamps. I stood staring out of the door, hardly seeing anything. Indeed, I was lost in a fruitless effort of memory. The groom gathered up the reins and drove away, and presently I was aware that Stubbs, the butler, was offering me a hat, as a hint, I supposed, that he wanted to shut the front door. I mechanically covered my head and strolled away. I was trying to remember where I had seen Professor Cutter. I could not have known him well, for I never forget a man I have met three or four times; and yet his face was perfectly familiar to me, and came vividly before me as I paced the garden walks. Instinctively I walked round the house again, and paused before the door that had attracted my attention an hour earlier. I listened, but heard nothing, and still I tried to recall my former meeting with Cutter. Strange, I thought, that I should seem to know him so well, and that I should nevertheless be unable to connect him in my mind with any date, or country, or circumstance. In vain I went over many scenes of my life, endeavoring to limit this remembrance to a particular period. I argued that our meeting, if we really had met, could not have taken place many years ago, for I recognized exactly the curling gray hairs in the professor's beard, the wrinkles in his forehead, and a slight mark upon one cheek, just below the eye. I recollected the same spectacles; the same bushy, cropped gray hair; the same massive, square head set upon a short but powerful body; the same huge hands, spotlessly clean, the big nails kept closely pared and polished, but so large that they might have belonged to an extinct species of gigantic man. The whole of him and his belongings, to the very clothes he wore, seemed familiar to me and witnesses to his identity; but though I did my best for half an hour, I could not bring back one circumstance connected with him. I grew impatient and returned to the house, for it was time to dress for dinner, and I felt cold as I strolled about in the frosty moonlight. We met again before dinner, for a few minutes, in the drawing-room. I went near to the professor, and examined his appearance very carefully. His evening dress set off the robust proportions of his frame, and the recollection I had of him struck me more forcibly than ever. I am not superstitious, but I began to fancy that we must have met in some former state, in some other sphere. He stood before the fire, rubbing his hands and answering all manner of questions that were put to him. He appeared to be an old friend of the family, to judge by the conversation, and yet I was positively certain that I had never seen him at Carvel Place. He knew all the family, however, and seemed familiar with their tastes and pursuits: he inquired about John's manufacturing interests, and about Mrs. Carvel's poor people; he asked Hermione several questions about the recent exhibitions of flowers, and discussed with Chrysophrasia a sale of majolica which had just taken place in London. After this round of remarks I suspected that the professor would address himself to me, for his gray eyes rested on me from time to time with a look of recognition. But he held his peace, and we presently went to dinner. Professor Cutter talked much and talked well, in a continuous, consistent manner that was satisfactory for a time, but a little wearisome in the long run. His ideas were often brilliant, and his expression of them was always original, but he had an extraordinary faculty of dominating the conversation. Even John Carvel, who knew a great deal in his way, found it hard to make any headway against the professor's eloquence, though I could sometimes see that he was far from being convinced. The professor had been everywhere and had seen most things; he talked with absolute conviction of what he had seen, and avoided talking of what he had not seen, doubtless inferring that it was not worth seeing. Nevertheless, he was not a disagreeable person, as such men often are; on the contrary, there was a charm of manner about him that was felt by every one present. I longed for the meal to be over, however, for I intended to seize the first opportunity which presented itself of asking him whether he remembered where we had met before. I was destined to remain in suspense for some time. We had no sooner risen from dinner than John Carvel came up to me and spoke in a low voice. "Will you excuse me if I leave you alone, Griggs?" he said. "I have very important business with Professor Cutter, which will not keep until to-morrow. We will join you in the drawing-room in about an hour." It was nothing to me if the two men had business together; I was sufficiently intimate in the house to be treated without ceremony, and I did not care for anybody's company until I could find what I was searching for in the forgotten corners of my brain. "Do not mind me," I answered, and I retired into the smoking-room, and began to turn over the evening papers. How long I read I do not know, nor whether the news of the day was more or less interesting and credible than usual; I do not believe that an hour elapsed, either, for an hour is a long time when a man is not interested in what he is doing, and is trying to recall something to his mind. I cannot even tell why I so longed to recollect the professor's face; I only remember that the effort was intense, but wholly fruitless. I lay back in the deep leathern easy-chair, and all sorts of visions flitted before my half-closed eyes,--visions of good and visions of evil, visions of yesterday and visions of long ago. Somehow I fell to thinking about the lattice-covered door in the wall, and I caught myself wondering who had been behind it when I passed; and then I laughed, for I had made up my mind that it must have been Miss Chrysophrasia, who had entered the drawing-room five minutes after I did. I sat staring at the fire. I was conscious that some one had entered the room, and presently the scratching of a match upon something rough roused me from my reverie. I looked round, and saw Professor Cutter standing by the table. It sometimes happens that a very slight thing will recall a very long chain of circumstances; a look, the intonation of a word, the attitude of a moment, will call up other looks and words and attitudes in quick succession, until the chain is complete. So it happened to me, when I saw the learned professor standing by the table, with a cigar in his mouth, and his great gray eyes fixed upon me from behind his enormous spectacles. I recognized the man, and the little I knew of him came back to me. The professor is one of the most learned specialists in neurology and the study of the brain now living; he is, moreover, a famous anthropologist. He began his career as a surgeon, and would have been celebrated as an operator had he not one day inherited a private fortune, which permitted him to abandon his surgical practice in favor of a special branch for which he knew himself more particularly fitted. So soon as I recalled the circumstances of our first meeting I realized that I had been in his company only a few moments, and had not known his name. He came and sat himself down in an easy-chair by my side, and puffed in silence at a big cigar. "We have met before," I said. "I could not make you out at first. You were at Weissenstein last year. You remember that affair?" Professor Cutter looked at me curiously for several seconds before he answered. "You are the man who let down the rope," he said at last. "I remember you now very well." There was a short pause. "Did you ever hear any more of that lady?" asked he, presently. "No, I did not even know her name, any more than I knew yours," I replied. "I took you for a physician, and the lady for your patient." We heard steps on the polished floor outside the smoking-room. "If I were you, I would not say anything to Carvel about that matter," said the professor quickly. The door opened, and John entered the room. He was a little pale and looked nervous. "Ah," he ejaculated, "I thought you would fraternize over the tobacco." "We are doing our best," said I. "It is written that the free should be brothers and equal," said the professor, with a laugh. "I never knew two brothers who were equal," said Carvel, in reflective tones. "I do not know why the ideal freedom and equality, attaching to the ideal brothers, should not be as good as any other visionary aim for tangible earthly government; but it certainly does not seem so easy of realization, nor so sound in the working, as our good English principle that exceptions prove the rule, and that the more exceptions there are the better the rule will be." "Is that speech an attack upon American freedom?" asked the professor, laughing a little. "I believe Mr. Griggs is an American." "No, indeed. Why should I attack American freedom?" said John. "American freedom is not so easily attacked," I remarked. "It eludes definition and rejects political paradox. No one ever connects our republic with the fashionable liberty-fraternity-and-equality doctrines of European emancipation; still less with the communistic idea that, although men have very different capacities for originating things, all men have an equal right to destroy them." "Griggs is mounted upon his hobby," remarked John Carvel, stretching his feet out towards the fire. The professor turned the light of his spectacles upon me, and puffed a cloud of smoke. "Are you a political enthusiast and a rider of hobby-horses, Mr. Griggs?" he asked. "I do not know; you must ask our host." "Pardon me. I think you know very well," said the professor. "I should say you belonged to a class of persons who know very well what they think." "How do you judge?" "That is, of all questions a man can ask, the most difficult to answer. How do you judge of anything?" "By applying the test of past experience to present fact," I replied. "Then past experience is that by which I judge. How can you expect me to tell you the whole of my past experience, in order that you may understand how my judgment is formed? It would take years." "You are a pair of very singular men," remarked John Carvel. "You seem to take to argument as fish to the water. You ought to be successful in a school of walking philosophers." John seemed more depressed than I had ever seen him, and only made an observation from time to time, as though to make a show of hospitality. The professor interested me, but I could see that we were boring Carvel. The conversation languished, and before long the latter proposed that we should go into the drawing-room for half an hour before bed-time. We found the ladies seated around the fire. Their voices fell suddenly as we entered the room, and all of them looked towards John and the professor, as though expecting something. It struck me that they had been talking of some matter which was not intended for our ears. "We have been making plans for Christmas," said Mrs. Carvel, as though to break the awkward silence that followed our entrance. VIII. Early on the following morning John Carvel came to my room. He looked less anxious than on the previous night, but he was evidently not altogether his former self. "Would you care to drive to the station and meet those boys?" he asked, cheerfully. The weather was bright and frosty, and I was glad enough of an excuse for being alone for half an hour with my friend. I assented, therefore, to his proposition, and presently we were rattling along the hard road through the park. The hoar-frost was on the trees and on the blue-green frozen grass beneath them, and on the reeds and sedges beside the pond, which was overspread with a sheet of black ice. The breath flew from the horses' nostrils in white clouds to right and left, and the low morning sun flashed back from the harness, and made the little icicles and laces of frost upon the trees shine like diamonds. "Carvel," I said presently, as we spun past the lodge, through the great iron gates, "I am not inquisitive, but it is easy to see that there is something going on in your house which is not agreeable to you. Will you tell me frankly whether you would like me to go away?" "Not for worlds," my companion ejaculated, and he turned a shade paler as he spoke. "I would rather tell you all about it--only"---- He paused. "Don't," said I. "I don't want to know. I merely thought you might prefer to be left free of outsiders at present." "We hardly look upon you as an outsider, Griggs," said John, quietly. "You have been here so much and we have been so intimate that you are almost like one of the family. Besides, you know this young nephew of my wife's, Paul Patoff; and your knowing him will make matters a little easier. I am not at all sure I shall like him." "I think you will. At all events, I can give you some idea of him." "I wish you would," answered John. "He is a thorough Russian in his ideas and an Englishman in appearance,--perhaps you might say he is more like a Scotchman. He is fair, with blue eyes, a brown mustache, and a prominent nose. He is angular in his movements and rather tall. He has a remarkable talent for languages, and is regarded as a very promising diplomatist. His temper is violent and changeable, but he has excellent manners and is full of tact. I should call him an extremely clever fellow in a general way, and he has done wisely in the selection of his career." "That is not a bad description. Is there anything against him?" "I cannot say; I only knew him in Persia,--a chance acquaintance. People said he was very eccentric." "Eccentric?" asked John. "How?" "Moody, I suppose, because he would sometimes shut himself up for days, and see nobody unless the minister sent for him. He used to beat his native servants when he was in a bad humor, and was said to be a reckless sort of fellow." "I hope he will not indulge his eccentricities here. Heaven knows, he has reason enough for being odd, poor fellow. We must make the best of him," continued John hurriedly, as though regretting his last remark, "and you must help us to amuse him and keep him out of mischief. Those Russians are the very devil, sometimes, as I have no doubt you know, and just at present our relations with them are not of the best; but, after all, he is my nephew and one of the family, so that we must do what we can for him, and avoid trouble. Macaulay likes him, and I dare say he likes Macaulay. They will get on together very well." "Yes--perhaps so--though I do not see what the two can have in common," I answered. "Macaulay can hardly have much sympathy for Patoff's peculiarities, however much he may like the man himself." "Macaulay is very young, although he has seen something of the world. He has not outgrown the age which mistakes eccentricity for genius and bad temper for boldness. We shall see,--we shall see very soon. They will both hate Cutter, with his professorial wisdom and his immense experience of things they have never seen. How do you like him yourself?" "Without being congenial to me, he represents what I would like to be myself." "Would you change with him, if you could?" asked John. "No, indeed. I, in my person, would like to be what he is in his,--that is all. People often talk of changing. No man alive would really exchange his personality for that of another man, if he had the chance. He only wishes to adorn what he most admires in himself with those things which, in his neighbor, excite the admiration of others. He meditates no change which does not give his vanity a better appearance to himself, and his reputation a dash of more brilliant color in the popular eye." "Perhaps you are right," said John. "At all events, the professor has qualities that any man might envy." We reached the station just as the train ran in, and Macaulay Carvel and Patoff waved their hats from the carriage window. In a moment we were all shaking hands upon the platform. "Papa, this is cousin Paul," said Macaulay, and he turned to greet me next. He is a good-looking fellow, with rather delicate features and a quiet, conscientious sort of expression, exquisite in his dress and scrupulous in his manners, with more of his mother's gentleness than of his father's bold frankness in his brown eyes. His small hand grasped mine readily enough, but seemed nerveless and lacking in vitality, a contrast to Paul Patoff's grip. The Russian was as angular as ever, and his wiry fingers seemed to discharge an electric shock as they touched mine. I realized that he was a very tall man, and that he was far from ugly. His prominent nose and high cheek-bones gave a singular eagle-like look to his face, and his cold, bright eyes added to the impression. He lacked grace of form, but he had plenty of force, and though his movements were sometimes sudden and ungainly he was not without a certain air of nobility. His brown mustache did not altogether hide the half-scornful expression of his mouth. "How is everybody?" asked Macaulay Carvel of his father. "We shall have a most jolly Christmas, all together." "Well, Mr. Griggs," said Patoff to me, "I did not expect, when we parted in Persia, that we should meet again in my uncle's house, did you? You will hardly believe that this is my first visit to England, and to my relations here." "You will certainly not be taken for a foreigner here," I said, laughing. "Oh, of course not. You see my mother is English, so that I speak the language. The difficulty for me will lie in learning the customs. The English have so many peculiar habits. Is Professor Cutter at the house?" "Yes. You know him?" "Very well. He has been my mother's physician for some time." "Indeed--I was not aware that he practiced as a physician." I was surprised by the news, and a suspicion crossed my mind that the lady at Weissenstein might have been Patoff's mother. Instantly the meaning of the professor's warning flashed upon me,--I was not to mention that affair in the Black Forest to Carvel. Of course not. Carvel was the brother-in-law of the lady in question. However, I kept my own counsel as we drove rapidly homewards. The sun had risen higher in the cloudless sky, and the frozen ground was beginning to thaw, so that now and then the mud splashed high from under the horses' hoofs. The vehicle in which we drove was a mail phaeton, and Macaulay sat in front by his father's side, while Patoff and I sat behind. We chatted pleasantly along the road, and in half an hour were deposited at Carvel Place, where the ladies came out to meet us, and the new cousin was introduced to every one. He seemed to make himself at home very easily, and I think the first impression he produced was favorable. Mrs. Carvel held his hand for several seconds, and looked up into his cold blue eyes as though searching for some resemblance to his mother, and he met her gentle look frankly enough. Chrysophrasia eyed him and eyed him again, trying to discover in him the attributes she had bestowed upon him in her imagination; he was certainly a bold-looking fellow, and she was not altogether disappointed. She allowed her hand to linger in his, and her sentimental eyes turned upwards towards him with a look that was intended to express profound sympathy. As for Paul, he looked at his aunt Chrysophrasia with a certain surprise, and he looked upon Hermione with a great admiration as she came forward and put out her hand. John Carvel stood near by, and I thought his expression changed as he saw the glance his nephew bestowed upon his daughter. I slipped away to the library, and left the family party to themselves. Professor Cutter had not yet appeared, and I hoped to find him. Sure enough, he was among the books. Three or four large volumes lay open upon a table near the window, and the sturdy professor was turning over the leaves, holding a pencil in his mouth and a sheet of paper in one hand, the image of a student in the pursuit of knowledge. I went straight up to him. "Professor Cutter," I said, "you asked me last night whether I had ever heard anything more of the lady with whom I met you at Weissenstein. I have heard of her this morning." The scientist took the pencil from his mouth, and thrust his hands into his pockets, gazing upon me through the large round lenses of his spectacles. He glanced towards the door before he spoke. "Well, what have you heard?" he asked. "Only that she was Paul Patoff's mother," I answered. "Nothing else?" "Nothing." "And how did you come by the information, if you please?" he inquired. "Very simply. Paul Patoff volunteered to tell me that you had been his mother's physician for some time. I remembered that you warned me not to speak of the Weissenstein affair to our friend Carvel; that was natural enough, since the lady was his sister-in-law. She did not look at all like Paul, it is true, but you are not in the habit of playing physician, and it is a thousand to one that you have attended no one else in the last year who is in any way connected with John Carvel." The learned doctor smiled. "You have made a very good guess, Mr. Griggs," he said. "Paul Patoff is a silly fellow enough, or he would not have spoken so plainly. Why do you tell me that you have found me out?" "Because I imagine that you are still interested in the lady, and that you had better be informed of everything connected with the case." "The case--yes--it is a very singular case, and I am intensely interested in it. Besides, it has very nearly cost me my reputation, as well as my life. I assure you I have rarely had to do with such a case, nor have I ever experienced such a sensation as when I went over the cliff at Weissenstein after Madame Patoff." "Probably not," I remarked. "I never saw a braver thing more successfully accomplished." "There is small courage in acting under necessity," said the professor, walking slowly across the room towards the fire. "If I had not rescued my patient, I should have been much more injured than if I had broken my neck in the attempt. I was responsible for her. What would have become of the 'great neurologist,' the celebrated 'mad-doctor,' as they call me, if one of the few patients to whom I ever devoted my whole personal attention had committed suicide under my very eyes? You can understand that there was something more than her life and mine at stake." "I never knew exactly how it happened," I replied. "I was looking out of my window, when I saw a woman fall over the balcony below me. Her clothes caught in the crooked branches of a wild cherry tree that grew some ten feet below; and as she struggled, I saw you leaning over the parapet, as if you meant to scramble down the face of the cliff after her. I had a hundred feet of manilla rope which I was taking with me to Switzerland for a special expedition, and I let it down to you. The people of the inn came to my assistance, and we managed to haul you up together, thanks to your knowing how to tie the rope around you both. Then I saw you down-stairs for a few minutes and you told me the lady was not hurt. I left almost immediately. I never knew what led to the accident." Professor Cutter passed his heavy hand slowly over his thick gray hair, and looked pensively into the fire. "It was simple enough," he said at last. "I was paying our bill to the landlord, and in doing so I turned my back upon Madame Patoff for a moment. She was standing on a low balcony outside the window, and she must have thrown herself over. Luckily she was dressed in a gown of strong Scotch stuff, which did not tear when it caught in the tree. It was the most extraordinary escape I ever saw." "I should think so, indeed. But why did she want to kill herself? Was she insane?" "Are people always insane who try to kill themselves?" asked the professor, eying me keenly through his glasses. "Very generally they are. I suppose that she was." "That is precisely the question," said the scientist. "Insanity is an expression that covers a multitude of sins of all kinds, but explains none of them, nor is itself explained. If I could tell you what insanity is, I could tell you whether Madame Patoff was insane or not. I can say that a man possesses a dog, because I can classify the dogs I have seen all over the world. But supposing I had never met any specimen of the canine race but a King Charles spaniel, and on seeing a Scotch deerhound in the possession of a friend was told that the man had a 'dog:' I should be justified in doubting whether the deerhound was a dog at all in the sense in which the tiny spaniel--the only dog I had ever seen--represented the canine race in my mind and experience. The biblical 'devil,' which 'possessed' men, took as many shapes and characteristics as the _genus_ 'dog' does: there was the devil that dwelt in tombs, the devil that tore its victim, the devil that entered into swine, the devil that spoke false prophecies, and many more. It is the same with insanity. No two mad people are alike. If I find a person with any madness I know, I can say he is mad; but if I find a person acting in a very unusual way under the influence of strong and protracted emotion, I am not justified in concluding that he is crazy. I have not seen everything in the world yet. I have not seen every kind of dog, nor every kind of devil, nor every kind of madness." "You choose strange illustrations," I said, "but you speak clearly." "Strange cases and strange examples. Insanity is the strangest phase of human nature, because it is the least common state of humanity. If a majority of men were mad, they would have a right to consider themselves sane, and sane men crazy. Your original question was whether, when she attempted suicide, Madame Patoff were sane or not. I do not know. I have known many persons to attempt to take their lives when, according to all their other actions, they were perfectly sane. The question of their sanity could be decided by placing a large number of sensible people in similar circumstances, in order to see whether the majority of them would kill themselves or not. That sort of experiment is not likely to be tried. I found Madame Patoff placed in very extraordinary circumstances, but I did not know her before she was so placed. The case interests me exceedingly. I am still trying to understand it." "You speak as though you were still treating it," I remarked. "A physician, in his imagination, will continue to study a case for years after it has passed out of his treatment," answered my companion. "I must go and see Paul, however, since he was good enough to mention me to you." Whereupon Professor Cutter buttoned up his coat and went away, leaving me to my reflections by the library fire. If Carvel had intended to have a family party in his house at Christmas, including his nephew whom he had never seen, and whose mother had been mad, and the great scientist who had attended her, it seemed strange that he should have asked me as directly as he had done to spend the whole winter under his roof. I had never been asked for so long a visit before, and had never been treated with such confidence and received so intimately as I now was. I could not help wondering whether I was to be told the reason of what was going on, whether, indeed, anything was going on at all, and whether the air of depression and mystery which I thought I observed were not the result of my own imagination, rather than of any actual foundation in fact. The professor might be making a visit for his pleasure, but I knew how valuable his time must be, and I wondered how he could afford to spend it in mere amusement. I remembered John Carvel's hesitation as we drove to the station that morning, and his evident annoyance when I proposed to leave. He knew me well enough to say, "All right, if you don't mind, run up to town for a day or two," but he had not said it. He had manifested the strongest desire that I should stay, and I had determined to comply with his request. At the same time I was left entirely in the dark as to what was going on in the family, and whispered words, conversations that ceased abruptly on my approach, and many other little signs told me beyond all doubt that something was occurring of which I had no knowledge. Without being inquisitive, it is hard to live in such surroundings without having one's curiosity roused, and the circumstance of my former meeting with the professor, now so suddenly illuminated by the discovery that the lady whose life he had saved was the sister-in-law of our host, led me to believe, almost intuitively, that the mystery, if mystery there were, was connected in some way with Madame Patoff. As I thought of her, the memory of the little inn, the Gasthof zum Goldenen Anker, in Weissenstein, came vividly back to me. The splash of the plunging Nagold was in my ears, the smell of the boundless pine forest was in my nostrils; once more I seemed to be looking down from the upper window of the hostelry upon the deep ravine, a sheer precipice from the back of the house, broken only by some few struggling trees that appeared scarcely able to find roothold on the straight fall of rock,--one tree projecting just below the foundations of the inn, ten feet lower than the lowest window, a knotted wild cherry, storm-beaten and crooked,--and then, suddenly, something of uncertain shape, huddled together and falling from the balcony down the precipice,--a woman's figure, caught in the gnarled boughs of the cherry-tree, hanging and swinging over the abyss, while shriek on shriek echoed down to the swollen torrent and up to the turrets of the old inn in an agonized reverberation of horror. It was a fearful memory, and the thought of being brought into the company of the woman whose life I had seen so risked and so saved was strange and fascinating. Often and often I had wondered about her fate, speculating upon the question whether her fall was due to accident or to the intention of suicide, and I had tried to realize the terrible waking when she found herself saved from the destruction she sought by the man I had seen,--perhaps by the very man from whom she was endeavoring to escape. I was thrown off my balance by being so suddenly brought face to face with this woman's son, the tall, blue-eyed, awkward fine gentleman, Paul Patoff. I sat by the library fire and thought it all over, and I said to myself at last, "Paul Griggs, thou art an ass for thy pains, and an inquisitive idiot for thy curiosity." I, who am rarely out of conceit with myself, was disgusted at my lack of dignity at actually desiring to find out things that were in no way my business, nor ever concerned me. So I took a book and fell to reading. Far off in the house I could hear voices now and then, the voices of the family making the acquaintance of their new-found relation. The great fire blazed upon the broad hearth within, and the wintry sun shone brightly without, and there came gradually upon me the delight of comfort that reigns within a luxurious library when the frost is biting without, and there is no scent upon the frozen fields,--the comfort that lies in the contrasts we make for ourselves against nature; most of all, the peace that a wanderer on the face of the earth, as I am, can feel when he rests his weary limbs in some quiet home, half wishing he might at last be allowed to lay down the staff and scrip, and taste freely of the world's good things, yet knowing that before many days the devil of unrest will drive him forth again upon his road. So I sat in John Carvel's library, and read his books, and enjoyed his cushioned easy-chair with the swinging desk; and I envied John Carvel his home, and his quiet life, and his defenses against intrusion, saying that I also might be made happy by the trifling addition of twenty thousand pounds a year to my income. But I was not long permitted to enjoy the undisturbed possession of this temple of sweet dreams, reveling in my imagination at the idea of what I should do if I possessed such a place. The door of the library opened suddenly with the noise of many feet upon the polished floor. "And this is the library," said the voice of Hermione, who led the way, followed by her mother and aunt and Paul; John Carvel brought up the rear, quietly looking on while his daughter showed the new cousin the wonders of Carvel Place. "This is the library," she repeated, "and this is Mr. Griggs," she added, with a little laugh, as she discovered me in the deep easy-chair. "This is the celebrated Mr. Griggs. His name is Paul, like yours, but otherwise he is not in the least like you, I fancy. Everybody knows him, and he knows everybody." "We have met before," said Patoff, "not only this morning, but in the East. Mr. Griggs certainly seemed to know everybody there, from the Shah to the Greek consul. What a splendid room! It must have taken you years of thought to construct such a literary retreat, uncle John," he added, turning to the master of the house as he spoke. Indeed, Paul Patoff appeared much struck with everything he saw at Carvel Place. I left my chair and joined the party, who wandered through the rooms and into the great conservatory, and finally gravitated to the drawing-room. Patoff examined everything with an air of extreme interest, and seemed to understand intuitively the tastes of each member of the household. He praised John's pictures and Mrs. Carvel's engravings; he admired Chrysophrasia's stained-glass window, and her pots, and plates, and bits of drapery, he glanced reverently at Mrs. Carvel's religious books, and stopped now and then to smell the flowers Hermione loved. He noted the view upon the park from the south windows, and thought the disposal of the shrubbery near the house was a masterpiece of landscape gardening. As he proceeded, surrounded by his relations, remarking upon everything he saw, and giving upon all things opinions which marvelously flattered the individual tastes of each one of the family, it became evident that he was making a very favorable impression upon them. "It is delightful to show you things," said Hermione. "You are so appreciative." "It needs little skill to appreciate, where everything is so beautiful," he answered. "Indeed," he continued, addressing himself to all present, "your home is the most charming I ever saw: I had no idea that the English understood luxury so well. You know that with us Continental people you have the reputation of being extravagant, even magnificent, in your ideas, but of being also ascetics in some measure,--loving to make yourselves strangely uncomfortable, fond of getting very hot, and of taking very cold baths, and of living on raw meat and cold potatoes and all manner of strange things. I do not see here any evidences of great asceticism." "How wonderfully he speaks English!" exclaimed Mrs. Carvel, aside, to her husband. "I should say," continued Paul, without noticing the flattering interruption, "that you are the most luxurious people in the world, that you have more taste than any people I have ever known, and that if I had had the least idea how charming my relations were, I should have come from our Russian wilds ten years ago to visit you and tell you how superior I think you are to ourselves." Paul laughed pleasantly as he made this speech, and there was a little murmur of applause. "We were very different, ten years ago," said John Carvel. "In the first place, there was no Hermione then, to do the honors and show you the sights. She was quite a little thing, ten years ago." "That would have made no difference in the place, though," said Hermione, simply. "On the contrary," said Paul. "I am inclined to think, on reflection, that I would have postponed my visit, after all, for the sake of having my cousin for a guide." "Ah, how gracefully these wild northern men can turn a phrase!" whispered Chrysophrasia in my ear,--"so strong and yet so tender!" She could not take her eyes from her nephew, and he appeared to understand that he had already made a conquest of the æsthetic old maid, for he took her admiration for granted, and addressed himself to Mrs. Carvel; not losing sight of Chrysophrasia, however, but looking pleasantly at her as he talked, though his words were meant for her sister. "It is the whole atmosphere of this life that is delightful, and every little thing seems so harmonious," he said. "You have here the solidity of traditional English country life, combined with the comforts of the most advanced civilization; and, to make it all perfection, you have at every turn the lingering romance of the glorious mediæval life," with a glance at Miss Dabstreak, "that middle age which in beauty was the prime of age, from which began and spread all your most glorious ideas, your government, your warfare, your science. Did you never have an alchemist in your family, Uncle John? Surely he found for you the golden secret, and it is his touch which has beautified these old walls!" "I don't know," said John Carvel. "Indeed there was!" cried Chrysophrasia, in delight. "I have found out all about him. He was not exactly an alchemist; he was an astrologer, and there are the ruins of his tower in the park. There are some old books up-stairs, upon the Black Art, with his name in them, Johannes Carvellius, written in the most enchanting angular handwriting." "I believe there was somebody of that name," remarked John. "They are full of delicious incantations for raising the devil,--such exquisite ceremonies, with all the dress described that you must wear, and the phases of the moon, and hazel wands cut at midnight. Imagine how delightful!" "The tower in the park is a beautiful place," said Hermione. "I have it all filled with flowers in summer, and the gardener's boy once saw a ghost there on All Hallow E'en." "You must take me there," said Paul, smiling good-humoredly at the reference to the alchemist. "I have a passion for ruins, and I had no idea that you had any; nothing seems ruined here, and yet everything appears old. What a delightful place!" Paul sat far back in his comfortable chair, and inserted a single eyeglass in the angle between his heavy brow and his aquiline nose; his bony fingers were spotless, long, and white, and as he sat there he had the appearance of a personage receiving the respectful homage of a body of devoted attendants, the indescribable air of easy superiority and condescending good-nature which a Roman patrician might have assumed when visiting the country villa of one of his clients. Everybody seemed delighted to be noticed by him and flattered by his words. I am by nature cross-grained and crabbed, I presume. I admitted that Paul Patoff, though not graceful in his movements, was a fine-looking fellow, with an undeniable distinction of manner; he had a pleasant voice, an extraordinary command of English, though he was but half an Englishman, and a tact which he certainly owed to his foreign blood; he was irreproachable in appearance, in the simplicity of his dress, in the smoothness of his fair hair and well-trimmed mustache; he appeared thoroughly at home among his new-found relations, and anxious to please them all alike; he was modest and unassuming, for he did not speak of himself, and he gave no opinion saving such as should be pleasing to his audience. He had all this, and yet in the cold stare of his stony eyes, in the ungainly twist of his broad white hand, where the bones and sinews crossed and recrossed like a network of marble, in the decisive tone with which he uttered the most flattering remarks, there was something which betrayed a tyrannical and unyielding character,--something which struck me at first sight, and which suggested a nature by no means so gentle and amiable as he was willing it should appear. Nevertheless, I was the only one to notice these signs, to judge by the enthusiasm which Patoff produced at Carvel Place in those first hours of his stay. It is true that the professor was not present, although he had left me on the pretense of going to see Paul, and Macaulay Carvel was resting from his journey in his own rooms, in a remote part of the house; but I judged that the latter had already fallen under the spell of Patoff's manner, and that it would not be easy to find out what the man of science really thought about the Anglo-Russian. They probably knew each other of old, and whatever opinions they held of each other were fully formed. Paul sat in his easy-chair in the midst of the family, and smiled and surveyed everything through his single eyeglass, and if anything did not please him he did not say so. John had something to do, and went away, then Mrs. Carvel wanted to see her son alone, and she left us too; so that Chrysophrasia and Hermione and I remained to amuse Patoff. Hermione immediately began to do so after her own fashion. I think that of all of us she was the one least inclined to give him absolute supremacy at first, but he interested her, for she had seen little of the world, and nothing of such men as her cousin Paul, who was thirty years of age, and had been to most of the courts of the world in the course of twelve years in the diplomatic service. She was not inclined to admit that knowledge of the world was superiority of itself, nor that an easy manner and an irreproachable appearance constituted the ideal of a man; but she was barely twenty, and had seen little of those things. She recognized their importance, and desired to understand them; she felt that wonderful suspicion of possibilities which a young girl loves to dwell on in connection with every exceptional man she meets; she unconsciously said to herself that such a man as Patoff might possibly be her ideal, because there was nothing apparent to her at first sight which was in direct contradiction with the typical picture she had conceived of the typical man she hoped to meet. Every young girl has an ideal, I presume. If it be possible to reason about so unreasonable a thing as love, I should say that love at first sight is probably due to the sudden supposed realization in every respect of an ideal long cherished and carefully developed in the imagination. But in most cases a young girl sees one man after another, hopes in each one to find those qualities which she has elected to admire, and finally submits to be satisfied with far less than she had at first supposed could satisfy her. As for young men, they are mostly fools, and they talk of love with a vast deal of swagger and bravery, laughing it to scorn, as a landsman talks of seasickness, telling you it is nothing but an impression and a mere lack of courage, till one day the land-bred boaster puts to sea in a Channel steamer, and experiences a new sensation, and becomes a very sick man indeed before he is out of sight of Dover cliffs. But with Hermione there was certainly no realization of her ideal, but probably only the faint, unformulated hope that in her cousin Paul she might find some of those qualities which her own many-sided nature longed to find in man. "You must tell us all about Russia, cousin Paul," she said, when her father and mother were gone. "Aunt Chrysophrasia believes that you are the most extraordinary set of barbarians up there, and she adores barbarians, you know." "Of course we are rather barbarous." "Hermione! How can you say I ever said such a thing!" interposed Miss Dabstreak, with a deprecating glance at Paul. "I only said the Russians were such a young and manly race, so interesting, so unlike the inhabitants of this dreary den of printing-presses and steam-engines, so"---- "Thanks, aunt Chrysophrasia," said Paul, "for the delightful ideal you have formed of us. We are certainly less civilized than you, and perhaps, as you are so good as to believe, we are the more interesting. I suppose the unbroken colt of the desert is more interesting than an American trotting horse, but for downright practical use"---- "There is such a tremendous talk of usefulness!" ejaculated Chrysophrasia, a faint, sad smile flickering over her sallow features. "Usefulness is so remarkably useful," I remarked. "Oh, Mr. Griggs," exclaimed Hermione, "what an immensely witty speech!" "There is nothing so witty as truth, Miss Carvel, though you laugh at it," I answered, "for where there is no truth, there is no wit. I maintain that usefulness is really useful. Miss Dabstreak, I believe, maintains the contrary." "Indeed, I care more for beauty than for usefulness," replied the æsthetic lady, with a fine smile. "Beauty is indeed truly useful," said Paul, with a very faint imitation of Chrysophrasia's accent, "and it should be sought in everything. But that need not prevent us from seeing true beauty in all that is truly useful." I had a faint suspicion that if Patoff had mimicked Miss Dabstreak in the first half of his speech, he had imitated me in the second portion of the sentiment. I do not like to be made game of, because I am aware that I am naturally pedantic. It is an old trick of the schools to rouse a pedant to desperate and distracted self-contradiction by quietly imitating everything he says. "You are very clever at taking both sides of a question at once," said Hermione, with a smile. "Almost all questions have two sides," answered Paul, "but very often both sides are true. A man may perfectly appreciate and approve of the opinions of two persons who take diametrically opposite views of the same point, provided there be no question of right and wrong involved." "Perhaps," retorted Hermione; "but then the man who takes both sides has no opinion of his own. I do not like that." "In general, cousin Hermione," said Paul, with a polite smile, "you may be sure that any man will make your opinion his. In this case, I submit that both beauty and usefulness are good, and that they need not at all interfere with each other. As for the compliment my aunt Chrysophrasia has paid to us Russians, I do not think we can be said to have gone very far in either direction as yet." After which diplomatic speech Paul dropped his eyeglass, and looked pleasantly round upon all three of us, as much as to say that it was impossible to draw him into the position of disagreeing with any one present by any device whatsoever. IX. Professor Cutter and I walked to the village that afternoon. He is a great pedestrian, and is never satisfied unless he can walk four or five miles a day. His robust and somewhat heavy frame was planned rather for bodily labor than for the housing of so active a mind, and he often complains that the exercise of his body has robbed him of years of intellectual labor. He grumbles at the necessity of wasting time in that way, but he never omits his daily walk. "I should like to possess your temperament, Mr. Griggs," he remarked, as we walked briskly through the park. "You might renounce exercise and open air for the rest of your life, and never be the worse for it." "I hardly know," I answered. "I have never tried any regular method of life, and I have never been ill. I do not believe in regular methods." "That is the ideal constitution. By the by, I had hoped to induce Patoff to come with us, but he said he would stay with the ladies." "You will never induce him to do anything he does not want to do," I replied. "However, I dare say you know that as well as I do." "What makes you say that?" "I can see it,--it is plain enough. Carvel wanted him to go and shoot something after lunch, you wanted him to come for a walk, Macaulay wanted him to bury himself up-stairs and talk out the Egyptian question, I wanted to get him into the smoking-room to ask him questions about some friends of mine in the East, Miss Dabstreak had plans to waylay him with her pottery. Not a bit of it! He smiled at us all, and serenely sat by Mrs. Carvel, talking to her and Miss Hermione. He has a will of his own." "Indeed he has," assented the professor. "He is a moderately clever fellow, with a smooth tongue and a despotic character, a much better combination than a weak will and the mind of a genius. You are right, he is not to be turned by trifles." "I see that he must be a good diplomatist in these days." "Diplomacy has got past the stage of being intellectual," said the professor. "There was a time when a fine intellect was thought important in an ambassador; nowadays it is enough if his excellency can hold his tongue and show his teeth. The question is, whether the low estimate of intellect in our day is due to the exigency of modern affairs, or to the exiguity of modern intelligence." "Men are stronger in our time," I answered, "and consequently have less need to be clever. The transition from the joint government of the world by a herd of wily foxes to the domination of the universe by the mammoth ox is marked by the increase of clumsy strength and the disappearance of graceful deception." "That is true; but the graceful deception continues to be the more interesting, if not the more agreeable. As for me, I would rather be gracefully deceived, as you call it, than pounded to jelly by the hoofs of the mammoth,--unless I could be the mammoth myself." "To return to Patoff," said I, "what are they going to do with him?" "The question is much more likely to be what he will do with them, I should say," answered the scientist, looking straight before him, and increasing the speed of his walk. "I am not at all sure what he might do, if no one prevented him. He is capable of considerable originality if left to himself, and they follow him up there at the Place as the boys and girls followed the Pied Piper." "Is he at all like his mother?" I asked. "In point of originality?" inquired the professor, with a curious smile. "She was certainly a most original woman. I hardly know whether he is like her. Boys are said to resemble their mother in appearance and their father in character. He is certainly not of the same type of constitution as his mother, he has not even the same shape of head, and I am glad of it. But his father was a Slav, and what is madness in an Englishwoman is sanity in a Russian. Her most extraordinary aberrations might not seem at all extraordinary when set off by the natural violence he inherits from his father." "That is a novel idea to me," I remarked. "You mean that what is madness in one man is not necessarily insanity in another; besides, you refused to allow this morning that Madame Patoff was crazy." "I did not refuse to allow it; I only said I did not know it to be the case. But as for what I just said, take two types of mankind, a Chinese and an Englishman, for instance. If you met a fair-haired, blue-eyed, sanguine Englishman, whose head and features were shaped precisely like those of a Chinaman, you could predicate of him that he must be a very extraordinary creature, capable, perhaps, of becoming a driveling idiot. The same of a Chinese, if you met one with a brain shaped like that of an Englishman, and similar features, but with straight black hair, a yellow skin, and red eyes. He would have the brain of the Anglo-Saxon with the temperament of the Mongol, and would probably become a raving maniac. It is not the temperament only, nor the intellect only, which produces the idiot or the madman; it is the lack of balance between the two. Arrant cowards frequently have very warlike imaginations, and in their dreams conceive themselves doing extremely violent things. Suppose that with such an imagination you unite the temperament of an Arab fanatic, or the coarse, brutal courage of an English prize-fighter, you can put no bounds to the possible actions of the monster you create. The salvation of the human race lies in the fact that very strong and brave people commonly have a peaceable disposition, or else commit murder and get hanged for it. It is far better that they should be hanged, because nobody knows where violence ends and insanity begins, and it is just as well to be on the safe side. Whenever a given form of intellect happens to be joined to a totally inappropriate temperament, we say it is a case of idiocy or insanity. Of course there are many other cases which arise from the mind or the body being injured by extraneous causes; but they are not genuine cases of insanity, because the evil has not been transmitted from the parents, nor will it be to the children." The professor marched forward as he gave his lecture on unsoundness of brain, and I strode by his side, silent and listening. What he said seemed very natural, and yet I had never heard it before. Was Madame Patoff such a monster as he described? It was more likely that her son might be, seeing that he in some points answered precisely to the description of a man with the intellect of one race and the temperament of another; and yet any one would scoff at the idea that Paul Patoff could go mad. He was so correct, so staid, so absolutely master of what he said, and probably of what he felt, that one could not imagine him a pray to insanity. "What you say is very interesting," I remarked, at last, "but how does it apply to Madame Patoff?" "It does not apply to her," returned Professor Cutter. "She belongs to the class of people in whom the mind has been injured by extraneous circumstances." "I suppose it is possible. I suppose a perfectly sound mind may be completely destroyed by an accident, even by the moral shock from a sorrow or disappointment." "Yes," said the professor. "It is even possible to produce artificial insanity,--perfectly genuine while it lasts; but it is not possible for any one to pretend to be insane." "Really? I should have thought it quite possible," said I. "No. It is impossible. I was once called to give my opinion in such a case. The man betrayed himself in half an hour, and yet he was a very clever fellow. He was a servant; murdered his master to rob him; was caught, but succeeded in restoring the valuables to their places, and pretended to be crazy. It was very well managed and he played the fool splendidly, but I caught him." "How?" I asked. "Simply by bullying. I treated him roughly, and never stopped talking to him,--just the worst treatment for a person really insane. In less than an hour I had wearied him out, his feigned madness became so fatiguing to him that there was finally only a spasmodic attempt, and when I had done with him the sane man was perfectly apparent. He grew too much frightened and too tired to act a part. He was hanged, to the satisfaction of all concerned, and he made a complete confession." "But how about the artificial insanity you spoke of? How can it be produced?" "By any poison, from coffee to alcohol, from tobacco to belladonna. A man who is drunk is insane." "I wonder whether, if a madman got drunk, he would be sane?" I said. "Sometimes. A man who has delirium tremens can be brought to his right mind for a time by alcohol, unless he is too far gone. The habitual drunkard is not in his right mind until he has had a certain amount of liquor. All habitual poisons act in that way, even tea. How often do you hear a woman or a student say, 'I do not feel like myself to-day,--I have not had my tea'! When a man does not feel like himself, he means that he feels like some one else, and he is mildly crazy. Generally speaking, any sudden change in our habits of eating and drinking will produce a temporary unsoundness of the mind. Every one knows that thirst sometimes brings on a dangerous madness, and hunger produces hallucinations and visions which take a very real character." "I know,--I have seen that. In the East it is thought that insanity can be caused by mesmerism, or something like it." "It is not impossible," answered the scientist. "We do not deny that some very extraordinary circumstances can be induced by sympathy and antipathy." "I suppose you do not believe in actual mesmerism, do you?" "I neither affirm nor deny,--I wait; and until I have been convinced I do not consider my opinion worth giving." "That is the only rational position for a man of science. I fancy that nothing but experience satisfies you,--why should it?" "The trouble is that experiments, according to the old maxim, are generally made, and should be made, upon worthless bodies, and that they are necessarily very far from being conclusive in regard to the human body. There is no doubt that dogs are subject to grief, joy, hope, and disappointment; but it is not possible to conclude from the conduct of a dog who is deprived of a particularly interesting bone he is gnawing, for instance, how a man will act who is robbed of his possessions. Similarity of misfortune does not imply analogy in the consequences." "Certainly not. Otherwise everybody would act in the same way, if put in the same case." The professor's conversation was interesting if only on account of the extreme simplicity with which he spoke of such a complicated subject. I was impressed with the belief that he belonged to a class of scientists whose interest in what they hope to learn surpasses their enthusiasm for what they have already learned,--a class of scientists unfortunately very rare in our day. For we talk more nonsense about science than would fill many volumes, because we devote so much time to the pursuit of knowledge; nevertheless, the amount of knowledge actually acquired, beyond all possibility of contradiction, is ludicrously small as compared with the energy expended in the pursuit of it and the noise made over its attainment. Science lays many eggs, but few are hatched. Science boasts much, but accomplishes little; is vainglorious, puffed up, and uncharitable; desires to be considered as the root of all civilization and the seed of all good, whereas it is the heart that civilizes, never the head. I walked by the professor's side in deep thought, and he, too, became silent, so that we talked little more until we were coming home and had almost reached the house. "Why has Patoff never been in England before?" I asked, suddenly. "I believe he has," answered Cutter. "He says he has not." "Never mind. I believe he was in London during nearly eighteen months, about four or five years ago, as secretary in the Russian embassy. He never went near his relations." "Why should he say now that he never was in the country?" "Because they would not like it, if they knew he had been so near them without ever visiting them." "Was his mother with him? Did she never write to her people?" "No," said Cutter, with a short laugh, "she never wrote to them." "How very odd!" I exclaimed, as we entered the hall-door. "It was odd," answered my companion, and went up-stairs. There was something very unsatisfactory about him, I thought; and then I cursed my own curiosity. What business was it all of mine? If Paul Patoff chose to tell a diplomatic falsehood, it certainly did not concern me. It was possible that his mother might have quarreled with her family,--indeed, in former years I had sometimes thought as much from their never mentioning her; and in that case it would be natural that her son might not have cared to visit his relations when he was in England before. He need not have made such a show of never having visited the country, but people often do that sort of thing. And now it was probable that since Madame Patoff had been insane there might have been a reconciliation and a smoothing over of the family difficulties. I had no idea where Madame Patoff might be. I could not ask any one such a delicate question, for I supposed she was confined in an asylum, and no one volunteered the information. Probably Cutter's visit to Carvel Place was connected with her sad state; perhaps Patoff's coming might be the result of it, also. It was impossible to say. But of this I was certain: that John Carvel and his wife had both grown older and sadder in the past two years, and that there was an air of concealment about the house which made me very uncomfortable. I have been connected with more than one odd story in my time, and I confess that I no longer care for excitement as I once did. If people are going to get into trouble, I would rather not be there to see it, and I have a strong dislike to being suddenly called upon to play an unexpected part in sensational events. Above all, I hate mystery; I hate the mournful air of superior sorrow that hangs about people who have a disagreeable secret, and the constant depression of long-protracted anxiety in those about me. It spoiled my pleasure in the quiet country life to see John's face grow every day more grave and Mary Carvel's eyes turn sadder. Pain of any sort is unpleasant to witness, but there is nothing so depressing as to watch the progress of melancholy in one's friends; to feel that from some cause which they will not confide they are losing peace and health and happiness. Even if one knew the cause one might not be able to do anything to remove it, for it is no bodily ill, that can be doctored and studied and experimented upon, a subject for dissertation and barbarous, semi-classic nomenclature; quacks do not pretend to cure it with patent medicines, and great physicians do not write nebulous articles about it in the reviews. There is little room for speculation in the matter of grief, for most people know well enough what it is, and need no Latin words with Greek terminations to express it. It is the breaking of the sea of life over the harbor bar where science ends and humanity begins. Poor John! It needed something strong indeed to sadden his cheerfulness and leaden his energy. That evening I talked with Hermione in the drawing room. She looked more lovely than ever dressed all in white, with a single row of pearls around her throat. Her delicate features were pale and luminous, and her brown eyes brighter than usual,--a mere girl, scarcely yet gone into the world, but such a woman! It was no wonder that Paul glanced from time to time in admiration at his cousin. We were seated in Chrysophrasia's corner, Hermione and I. There was nothing odd in that; the young girl likes me and enjoys talking to me, and I am no longer young. You know, dear friend, that I am forty-six years old this summer, and it is a long time since any one thought of flirting with me. I am not dangerous,--nature has taken care of that,--and I am thought very safe company for the young. "Tell me one of your stories, Mr. Griggs. I am so tired this evening," said Hermione. "I do not know what to tell you," I answered. "I was hoping that you would tell me one of yours, all about the fairies and the elves in the park, as you used to when you were a little girl." "I do not believe in fairies any more," said Hermione, with a little sigh. "I believed in them once,--it was so nice. I want stories of real life now,--sad ones, that end happily." "A great many happy stories end sadly," I replied, "but few sad ones end happily. Why do you want a sad story? You ought to be gay." "Ought I? I am not, I am sure. I cannot take everything with a laugh, as some people can; and I cannot be always resigned and religious, as mamma is." "The pleasantest people are the ones who are always good, but not always alike," I remarked. "It is variety that makes life charming, and goodness that makes it worth living." Hermione laughed a little. "That sounds very good,--a little goody, as we used to say when we were small. I wonder whether it is true. I suppose I have not enough variety, or not enough goodness, just at present." "Why?" I asked. "I should think you had both." "I do not see the great variety," she answered. "Have you not found a new relation to-day? An interesting cousin who has seen the whole world ought to go far towards making a variety in life." "What should you think of a man, Mr. Griggs, whose brother has not been dead eighteen months, and whose mother is dangerously ill, perhaps dying, and who shows no more feeling than a stone?" The question came sharply and distinctly; Hermione's short lip curled in scorn, and the words were spoken through her closed teeth. Of course she was speaking of Paul Patoff. She turned to me for an answer, and there was an angry light in her eyes. "Is your cousin's mother very ill?" I asked. "She is not really dying, but she can never get well. Oh, Mr. Griggs," she cried, clasping her hands together on her knees, and leaning back in her seat, "I wish I could tell you all about it! I am sure you might do some good, but they would be very angry if I told you. I wonder whether he is really so hard-hearted as he looks!" "Oh, no," I answered. "Men who have lived so much in the world learn to conceal their feelings." "It is not thought good manners to have any feeling, is it?" "Most people try to hide what they feel. What is good of showing every one that you are hurt, when nobody can do anything to help you? It is undignified to make an exhibition of sorrow for the benefit of one's neighbors." "Perhaps. But I almost think aunt Chrysophrasia is right: the world was a nicer place, and life was more interesting, when everybody showed what they felt, and fought for what they wanted, and ran away with people they loved, and killed people they hated." "I think you would get very tired of it," I said, laughing. "It is uncomfortable to live in constant danger of one's life. You used not to talk so, Miss Carvel; what has happened to you?" "Oh, I do not know; everything is happening that ought not. I should think you might see that we are all very anxious. But I do not half understand it myself. Will you not tell me a story, and help me to forget all about it? Here comes papa with Professor Cutter, looking graver than ever; they have been to see--I mean they have been talking about it again." "Once upon a time there was a"---- I stopped. John Carvel came straight across the room to where we were sitting. "Griggs," he said, in a low voice, "will you come with me for a moment?" I sprang to my feet. John laid his hand upon my arm; he was very pale. "Don't look as though anything were the matter," he added. Accordingly I sauntered across the room, and made a show of stopping a moment before the fire to warm my hands and listen to the general conversation that was going on there. Presently I walked away, and John followed me. As I passed, I looked at the professor, who seemed already absorbed in listening to one of Chrysophrasia's speeches. He did not return my glance, and I left the room with my friend. A moment later we were in his study. A student's lamp with a green shade burned steadily upon the table, and there was a bright fire on the hearth. A huge writing-table filled the centre of the room, covered with papers and pamphlets. John did not sit down, but stood leaning back against a heavy bookcase, with one hand behind him. "Griggs," he said, and his voice trembled with excitement, "I am going to ask you a favor, and in order to ask it I am obliged to take you into my confidence." "I am ready," said I. "You can trust me." "Since you were here last, very painful things have occurred. In consequence of the death of her eldest son, and of certain circumstances attending it which I need not, cannot, detail, my wife's sister, Madame Patoff, became insane about eighteen months ago. Professor Cutter chanced to be with her at the time, and informed me at once. Her husband, as you know, died twenty years ago, and Paul was away, so that Cutter was so good as to take care of her. He said her only chance of recovery lay in being removed to her native country and carefully nursed. Thank God, I am rich. I received her here, and she has been here ever since. Do not look surprised. For the sake of all I have taken every precaution to keep her absolutely removed from us, though we visit her from time to time. Cutter told me that dreadful story of her trying to kill herself in Suabia. He has just informed me that it was you who saved both her life and his with your rope,--not knowing either of them. I need not tell you my gratitude." John paused, and grasped my hand; his own was cold and moist. "It was nothing," I said. "I did not even incur any danger; it was Cutter who risked his life." "No matter," continued Carvel. "It was you who saved them both. From that time she has recognized no one. Cutter brought her here, and the north wing of the house was fitted up for her. He has come from time to time to see her, and she has proper attendants. You never see them nor her, for she has a walled garden,--the one against which the hot-houses and the tennis-court are built. Of course the servants know,--everybody in the house knows all about it; but this is a huge old place, and there is plenty of room. It is not thought safe to take her out, and there appears to be something so peculiar about her insanity that Cutter discourages the idea of the ordinary treatment of placing the patient in the company of other insane, giving them all manner of amusement, and so on. He seems to think that if she is left alone, and is well cared for, seeing only, from time to time, the faces of persons she has known before, she may recover." "I trust so, indeed," I said earnestly. "We all pray that she may, poor thing!" rejoined Carvel, very sadly. "Now listen. Her son. Paul Patoff, arrived this morning, and insisted upon seeing her this afternoon. Cutter said it could do no harm, as she probably would not recognize him. To our astonishment and delight she knew him at once for her son, though she treated him with a coldness almost amounting to horror. She stepped back from him, and folded her arms, only saying, over and over again, 'Paul, why did you come here,--why did you come?' We could get nothing more from her than that, and at the end of ten minutes we left her. She seemed very much exhausted, excited, too, and the nurse who was with her advised us to go." "It is a great step, however, that she should have recognized any one, especially her own son," I remarked. "So Cutter holds. She never takes the least notice of him. But he has suggested to me that while she is still in this humor it would be worth while trying whether she has any recollection of you. He says that anything which recalls so violent a shock as the one she experienced when you saved her life may possibly recall a connected train of thought, even though it be a very painful reminiscence; and anything which helps memory helps recovery. He considers hers the most extraordinary case he has ever seen, and he must have seen a great many; he says that there is almost always some delusion, some fixed idea, in insanity. Madame Patoff seems to have none, but she has absolutely no recognition for any one, nor any memory for events beyond a few minutes. She can hardly be induced to speak at all, but will sit quite still for hours with any book that is given her, turning over the pages mechanically. She has a curious fancy for big books, and will always select the thickest from a number of volumes; but whether or not she retains any impression of what she reads, or whether, in fact, she really reads at all, it is quite impossible to say. She will sometimes answer 'yes' or 'no' to a question, but she will give opposite answers to the same question in five minutes. She will stare stolidly at any one who talks to her consecutively; or will simply turn away, and close her eyes as though she were going to sleep. In other respects she is in normal health. She eats little, but regularly, and sleeps soundly; goes out into her garden at certain hours, and seems to enjoy fine weather, and to be annoyed when it rains. She is not easily startled by a sudden noise, or the abrupt appearance of those of us who go to see her. Cutter does not know what to make of it. She was once a very beautiful woman, and is still as handsome as a woman can be at fifty. Cutter says that if she had softening of the brain she would behave very differently, and that if she had become feeble-minded the decay of her faculties would show in her face; but there is nothing of that observable in her. She has as much dignity and beauty as ever, and, excepting when she stares blankly at those who talk to her, her face is intelligent, though very sad." "Poor lady!" I said. "How old did you say she is?" "She must be fifty-two, in her fifty-third year. Her hair is gray, but it is not white." "Had she any children besides Paul and his brother?" "No. I know very little of her family life. It was a love match; but old Patoff was rich. I never heard that they quarreled. Alexander entered the army, and remained in a guard regiment in St. Petersburg, while Paul went into the diplomacy. Madame Patoff must have spent much of her time with Alexander until he died, and Cutter says he was always the favorite son. I dare say that Paul has a bad temper, and he may have been extravagant. At all events, she loved Alexander devotedly, and it was his death that first affected her mind." John had grown more calm during this long conversation. To tell the truth, I did not precisely understand why he should have looked so pale and seemed so anxious, seeing that the news of Madame Patoff was decidedly of an encouraging nature. I myself was too much astonished at learning that the insane lady was actually an inmate of the house, and I was too much interested at the prospect of seeing her so soon, to think much of John and his anxiety; but on looking back I remember that his mournful manner produced a certain impression upon me at the moment. The story was strange enough. I began to comprehend what Hermione had meant when she spoke of Paul's cold nature. An hour before dinner the man had seen his mother for the first time in eighteen months,--it might be more, for all I knew,--for the first time since she had been out of her mind. I had learned from John that she had recognized him, indeed, but had coldly repulsed him when he came before her. If Paul Patoff had been a warm-hearted man, he could not have been at that very moment making conversation for his cousins in the drawing-room, laughing and chatting, his eyeglass in his eye, his bony fingers toying with the flower Chrysophrasia had given him. It struck me that neither Mrs. Carvel nor her sister could have known of the interview, or they would have manifested some feeling, or at least would not have behaved just as they always did. I asked John if they knew. "No," he answered. "He told my daughter because he broke off his conversation with her to go and see his mother, but Hermy never tells anything except to me." "When would you like me to go?" I asked. "Now, if you will. I will call Cutter. He thinks that, as she last saw you with him, your coming together now will be more likely to recall some memory of the accident. Besides, it is better to go this evening, before she has slept, as the return of memory this afternoon may have been very transitory, and anything which might stimulate it again should be tried before the mood changes. Will you go now?" "Certainly," I replied, and John Carvel left the room to call the professor. While I was waiting alone in the study, I happened to take up a pamphlet that lay upon the table. It was something about the relations of England with Russia. An idea crossed my mind. "I wonder," I said to myself, "whether they have ever tried speaking to her in Russian. Cutter does not know a word of the language; I suppose nobody else here does, either, except Paul, and she seems to have spoken to him in English." The door opened, and John entered with the professor. I laid down the pamphlet, and prepared to accompany them. "I suppose Carvel has told you all that I could not tell you, Mr. Griggs," said the learned man, eying me through his glasses with an air of inquiry, and slowly rubbing his enormous hands together. "Yes," I said. "I understand that we are about to make an experiment in order to ascertain if this unfortunate lady will recognize me." "Precisely. It is not impossible that she may know you, though, if she saw you at all, it was only for a moment. You have a very striking face and figure, and you have not changed in the least. Besides, the moment was that in which she experienced an awful shock. Such things are sometimes photographed on the mind." "Has she never recognized you in any way?" I asked. "Never since that day at Weissenstein. There is just a faint possibility that when she sees us together she may recall that catastrophe. I think Carvel had better stay behind." "Very well," said John, "I will leave you at the door." Carvel led the way to the great hall, and then turned through a passage I had never entered. The narrow corridor was brightly lighted by a number of lamps; at the end of it we came to a massive door. John took a little key from a niche in the wall, and inserted it in the small metal plate of the patent lock. "Cutter will lead you now," he said, as he pushed the heavy mahogany back upon its hinges. Beyond it the passage continued, still brilliantly illuminated, to a dark curtain which closed the other end. It was very warm. Carvel closed the door behind us, and the professor and I proceeded alone. X. The professor pushed aside the heavy curtain, and we entered a small room, simply furnished with a couple of tables, a bookcase, one or two easy-chairs, and a divan. The walls were dark, and the color of the curtains and carpet was a dark green, but two large lamps illuminated every corner of the apartment. At one of the tables a middle-aged woman sat reading; as we entered she looked up at us, and I saw that she was one of the nurses in charge of Madame Patoff. She wore a simple gown of dark material, and upon her head a dainty cap of French appearance was pinned, with a certain show of taste. The nurse had a kindly face and quiet eyes, accustomed, one would think, to look calmly upon sights which would astonish ordinary people. Her features were strongly marked, but gentle in expression and somewhat pale, and as she sat facing us, her large white hands were folded together on the foot of the open page, with an air of resolution that seemed appropriate to her character. She rose deliberately to her feet, as we came forward, and I saw that she was short, though when seated I should have guessed her to be tall. "Mrs. North," said the professor, "this is my friend Mr. Griggs, who formerly knew Madame Patoff. I have hopes that she may recognize him. Can we see her now?" "If you will wait one moment," answered Mrs. North, "I will see whether you may go in." Her voice was like herself, calm and gentle, but with a ring of strength and determination in it that was very attractive. She moved to the door opposite to the one by which we had entered, and opened it cautiously; after looking in, she turned and beckoned to us to advance. We went in, and she softly closed the door behind us. I shall never forget the impression made upon me when I saw Madame Patoff. She was tall, and, though she was much over fifty years of age, her figure was erect and commanding, slight, but of good proportion; whether by nature, or owing to her mental disease, it seemed as though she had escaped the effects of time, and had she concealed her hair with a veil she might easily have passed for a woman still young. Mary Carvel had been beautiful, and was beautiful still in a matronly, old-fashioned way; Hermione was beautiful after another and a smaller manner, slender and delicate and lovely; but Madame Patoff belonged to a very different category. She was on a grander scale, and in her dark eyes there was room for deeper feeling than in the gentle looks of her sister and niece. One could understand how in her youth she had braved the opposition of father and mother and sisters, and had married the brilliant Russian, and had followed him to the ends of the earth during ten years, through peace and through war, till he died. One could understand how some great trouble and despair, which would send a duller, gentler soul to prayers and sad meditations, might have driven this grand, passionate creature to the very defiance of all despair and trouble, into the abyss of a self-sought death. I shuddered when I remembered that I had seen this very woman suspended in mid-air, her life depending on the slender strength of a wild cherry tree upon the cliff side. I had seen her, and yet had not seen her; for the sudden impression of that terrible moment bore little or no relation to the calmer view of the present time. Madame Patoff stood before us, dressed in a close-fitting gown of black velvet, closed at the throat with a clasp of pearls; her thick hair, just turning gray, was coiled in masses low behind her head, drawn back in long broad waves on each side, in the manner of the Greeks. Her features, slightly aquiline and strongly defined, wore an expression of haughty indifference, not at all like the stolid stare which John Carvel had described to me, and though her dark eyes gazed upon us without apparent recognition, their look was not without intelligence. She had been walking up and down in the long drawing-room where we found her, and she had paused in her walk as we entered, standing beneath a chandelier which carried five lamps; there were others upon the wall, high up on brackets and beyond her reach. There was no fireplace, but the air was very warm, heated, I suppose, by some concealed apparatus. The furniture consisted of deep chairs, lounges and divans of every description; three or four bookcases were filled with books, and there were many volumes piled in a disorderly fashion upon the different tables, and some lay upon the floor beside a cushioned lounge, which looked as though it were the favorite resting-place of the inmate of the apartment. At first sight it seemed to me that few precautions were observed; the nurse was seated in an outer apartment, and Madame Patoff was quite alone and free. But the room where she was left was so constructed that she could do herself no harm. There was no fire; the lamps were all out of reach; the windows were locked, and she could only go out by passing through the antechamber where the nurse was watching. There was a singular lack of all those little objects which encumbered the drawing-room of Carvel Place; there was not a bit of porcelain or glass, nor a paper-knife, nor any kind of metal object. There were a few pictures upon the walls, and the walls themselves were hung with a light gray material, that looked like silk and brilliantly reflected the strong light, making an extraordinary background for Madame Patoff's figure, clad as she was in black velvet and white lace. We stood before her, Cutter and I, for several seconds, watching for some change of expression in her face. He had hoped that my sudden appearance would arouse a memory in her disordered mind. I understood his anxiety, but it appeared to me very unlikely that when she failed to recognize him she should remember me. For some moments she gazed upon me, and then a slight flush rose to her pale cheeks, her fixed stare wavered, and her eyes fell. I could hear Cutter's long-drawn breath of excitement. She clasped her hands together and turned away, resuming her walk. It was strange,--perhaps she really remembered. "He saved your life in Weissenstein," said Cutter, in loud, clear tones. "You ought to thank him for it,--you never did." The unhappy woman paused in her walk, stood still, then came swiftly towards us, and again paused. Her face had changed completely in its expression. Her teeth were closely set together, and her lip curled in scorn, while a dark flush overspread her pale face, and her hands twisted each other convulsively. "Do you remember Weissenstein?" asked the professor, in the same incisive voice, and through his round glasses he fixed his commanding glance upon her. But as he looked her eyes grew dull, and the blush subsided from her cheek. With a low, short laugh she turned away. I started. I had forgotten the laugh behind the latticed wall, and if I had found time to reflect I should have known, from what John Carvel had told me, that it could have come from no one but the mad lady, who had been walking in the garden with her nurse, on that bright evening. It was the same low, rippling sound, silvery and clear, and it came so suddenly that I was startled. I thought that the professor sighed as he heard it. It was, perhaps, a strong evidence of insanity. In all my life of wandering and various experience I have chanced to be thrown into the society of but one insane person besides Madame Patoff. That was a curious case: a hardy old sea-captain, who chanced to make a fortune upon the New York stock exchange, and went stark mad a few weeks later. His madness seemed to come from elation at his success, and it was very curious to watch its progress, and very sad. He was a strong man, and in all his active life had never touched liquor nor tobacco. Nothing but wealth could have driven him out of his mind; but within two months of his acquiring a fortune he was confined in an asylum, and within the year he died of softening of the brain. I only mention this to show you that I had had no experience of insanity worth speaking of before I met Madame Patoff. I knew next to nothing of the signs of the disease. Madame Patoff turned away, and crossed the room; then she sank down upon the lounge which I have described as surrounded with books, and, taking a volume in her hand, she began to read, with the utmost unconcern. "Come," said the professor, "we may as well go." "Wait a minute," I suggested. "Stay where you are." Cutter looked at me, and shrugged his shoulders. "You can't do any harm," he replied, indifferently. "I think she has a faint remembrance of you." You know I can speak the Russian language fairly well, for I have lived some time in the country. It had struck me, while I was waiting in the study, that it would be worth while to try the effect of a remark in a tongue with which Madame Patoff had been familiar for over thirty years. I went quietly up to the couch where she was lying, and spoke to her. "I am sorry I saved your life, since you wished to die," I said, in a low voice, in Russian. "Forgive me." Madame Patoff started violently, and her white hands closed upon her book with such force that the strong binding bent and cracked. Cutter could not have seen this, for I was between him and her. She looked up at me, and fixed her dark eyes on mine. There was a great sadness in them, and at the same time a certain terror, but she did not speak. However, as I had made an impression, I addressed her again in the same language. "Do you remember seeing Paul to-day?" I asked. "Paul?" she repeated, in a soft, sad voice, that seemed to stir the heart into sympathy. "Paul is dead." I thought it might have been her husband's name as well as her son's. "I mean your son. He was with you to-day; you were unkind to him." "Was I?" she asked. "I have no son." Still her eyes gazed into mine as though searching for something, and as I looked I thought the tears rose in them and trembled, but they did not overflow. I was profoundly surprised. They had told me that she had no memory for any one, and yet she seemed to have told me that her husband was dead,--if indeed his name had been Paul,--and although she said she had no son, her tears rose at the mention of him. Probably for the very reason that I had not then had any experience of insane persons, the impression formed itself in my mind that this poor lady was not mad, after all. It seemed madness on my own part to doubt the evidence before me,--the evidence of attendants trained to the duty of watching lunatics, the assurances of a man who had grown famous by studying diseases of the brain as Professor Cutter had, the unanimous opinion of Madame Patoff's family. How could they all be mistaken? Besides, she might have been really mad, and she might be now recovering; this might be one of her first lucid moments. I hardly knew how to continue, but I was so much interested by her first answers that I felt I must say something. "Why do you say you have no son! He is here in the house; you have seen him to-day. Your son is Paul Patoff. He loves you, and has come to see you." Again the low, silvery laugh came rippling from her lips. She let the book fall from her hands upon her lap, and leaned far back upon the couch. "Why do you torment me so?" she asked. "I tell you I have no son." Again she laughed,--less sweetly than before. "Why do you torment me?" "I do not want to torment you. I will leave you. Shall I come again?" "Again?" she repeated, vacantly, as though not understanding. But as I stood beside her I moved a little, and I thought her eyes rested on the figure of the professor, standing at the other end of the room, and her face expressed dislike of him, while her answer to me was a meaningless repetition of my own word. "Yes," I said. "Shall I come again? Do you like to talk Russian?" This time she said nothing, but her eyes remained fixed upon the professor. "I am going," I added. "Good-by." She looked up suddenly. I bowed to her, out of habit, I suppose. Do people generally bow to insane persons? To my surprise, she put out her hand and took mine, and shook it, in the most natural way imaginable; but she did not answer me. Just as I was turning from her she spoke again. "Who are you?" she asked in English. "My name is Griggs," I replied, and lingered to see if she would say more. But she laughed again,--very little this time,--and she took up the book she had dropped and began to read. Cutter smiled, too, as we left the room. I glanced back at the graceful figure of the gray-haired woman, extended upon her couch. She did not look up, and a moment later Cutter and I stood again in the antechamber. The professor slowly rubbed his hands together,--his gigantic hands, modeled by nature for dealing with big things. Mrs. North rose from her reading. "I have an idea that our patient has recognized this gentleman," said the scientist. "This has been a remarkably eventful day. She is probably very tired, and if you could induce her to go to bed it would be a very good thing, Mrs. North. Good-evening." "Good-evening," I said. Mrs. North made a slight inclination with her head, in answer to our salutation. I pushed aside the heavy curtain, and we went out. Cutter had a pass-key to the heavy door in the passage, and opened it and closed it noiselessly behind us. I felt as though I had been in a dream, as we emerged into the dimly lighted great hall, where a huge fire burned in the old-fashioned fireplace, and Fang, the white deerhound, lay asleep upon the thick rug. "And now, Mr. Griggs," said the professor, stopping short and thrusting his hands into his pockets, "will you tell me what she said to you, and whether she gave any signs of intelligence?" He faced me very sharply, as though to disconcert me by the suddenness of his question. It was a habit he had. "She said very little," I replied. "She said that 'Paul' was dead. Was that her husband's name as well as her son's?" "Yes. What else?" "She told me she had no son; and when I reminded her that she had seen him that very afternoon, she laughed and answered, 'I tell you I have no son,--why do you torment me?' She said all that in Russian. As I was going away you heard her ask me who I was, in English. My name appeared to amuse her." "Yes," assented Cutter, with a smile. "Was that all?" "That was all she said," I answered, with perfect truth. Somehow I did not care to tell the professor of the look I thought I had seen in her face when her eyes rested on him. In the first place, as he was doing his best to cure her, it seemed useless to tell him that I thought she disliked him. It might have been only my imagination. Besides, that nameless, undefined suspicion had crossed my brain that Madame Patoff was not really mad; and though her apparently meaningless words might have been interpreted to mean something in connection with her expression of face in speaking, it was all too vague to be worth detailing. I had determined that I would see her again and see her alone, before long. I might then make some discovery, or satisfy myself that she was really insane. "Well," observed the professor, "it looks as though she remembered her husband's death, at all events; and if she remembers that, she has the memory of her own identity, which is something in such cases. I think she faintly recognized you. That flush that came into her face was there when she saw her son this afternoon, so far as I can gather from Carvel's description. I wish they had waited for me. This remark about her son is very curious, too. It is more like a monomania than anything we have had yet. It is like a fixed idea in character; she certainly is not sane enough to have meant it ironically,--to have meant that Paul Patoff is not a son to her while thinking only of the other one who is dead. Did she speak Russian fluently? She has not spoken it for more than eighteen months,--perhaps longer." "She speaks it perfectly," I replied. "What strange tricks this brain of ours will play us!" exclaimed the professor. "Here is a woman who has forgotten every circumstance of her former life, has forgotten her friends and relations, and is puzzling us all with her extraordinary lack of memory, and who, nevertheless, remembers fluently the forms and expressions of one of the most complicated languages in the world. At the same time we do not think that she remembers what she reads. I wish we could find out. She acts like a person who has had an injury to some part of the head which has not affected the rest. But then, she never received any injury, to my knowledge." "Not even when she fell at Weissenstein?" "Not the least. I made a careful examination." "I do not see that we are likely to arrive at a conclusion by any amount of guessing," I remarked. "Nothing but time and experiments will show what is the matter with her." "I have not the time, and I cannot invent the experiments," replied the professor, impatiently. "I have a great mind to advise Carvel to put her into an asylum, and have done with all this sort of thing." "He will never consent to do that," I answered. "He evidently believes that she is recovering. I could see it in his face this evening. What do the nurses think of it?" "Mrs. North never says anything very encouraging, excepting that she has taken care of many insane women before, and remembers no case like this. She is a famous nurse, too. Those people, from their constant daily experience, sometimes understand things that we specialists do not. But on the other hand, she is so taciturn and cautious that she can hardly be induced to speak at all. The other woman is younger and more enthusiastic, but she has not half so much sense." I was silent. I was thinking that, according to all accounts, I had been more successful than any one hitherto, and that a possible clue to Madame Patoff's condition might be obtained by encouraging her to speak in her adopted language. Perhaps something of the sort crossed the professor's mind. "Should you like to see her again?" he inquired. "It will be interesting to know whether this return of memory is wholly transitory. She recognized her son to-day, and I think she had some recognition of you. You might both see her again to-morrow, and discover if the same symptoms present themselves." "I should be glad to go again," I replied. "But if I can be of any service, it seems to me that I ought to be informed of the circumstances which led to her insanity. I might have a better chance of rousing her attention." "Carvel will never consent to that," said the professor, shortly, and he looked away from me as I spoke. I was about to ask whether Cutter himself was acquainted with the whole story, when Fang, the dog, who had taken no notice whatever of our presence in the hall, suddenly sprang to his feet and trotted across the floor, wagging his tail. He had recognized the tread of his mistress, and a moment later Hermione entered and came towards us. Hermione did not like the professor very much, and the professor knew it; for he was a man of quick and intuitive perceptions, who had a marvelous understanding of the sympathies and antipathies of those with whom he was thrown. He sniffed the air rather discontentedly as the young girl approached, and he looked at his watch. "Fang has good ears, Miss Carvel," said he. "He knew your step before you came in." "Yes," answered Hermione, seating herself in one of the deep chairs by the fireside, and caressing the dog's head as he laid his long muzzle upon her knee. "Poor Fang, you know your friends, don't you? Mr. Griggs, this new collar is always unfastening itself. I believe you have bewitched it! See, here it is falling off again." I bent down to examine the lock. The professor was not interested in the dog nor his collar, and, muttering something about speaking to Carvel before he went to bed, he left us. "I could not stay in there," said Hermione. "Aunt Chrysophrasia is talking to cousin Paul in her usual way, and Macaulay has got into a corner with mamma, so that I was left alone. Where have you been all this time?" "I have heard what you could not tell me," I answered. "I have been to see Madame Patoff with the professor." "Not really? Oh, I am so glad! Now I can always talk to you about it. Did papa tell you? Why did he want you to go?" I briefly explained the circumstances of my seeing Madame Patoff in the Black Forest, and the hope that was entertained of her recognizing me. "Do you ever go in to see her, Miss Carvel?" I asked. "Sometimes. They do not like me to go," said she; "they think it is too depressing for me. I cannot tell why. Poor dear aunt! she used to be glad to see me. Is not it dreadfully sad? Can you imagine a man who has just seen his mother in such a condition, behaving as Paul Patoff behaves this evening? He talks as if nothing had happened." "No, I cannot imagine it. I suppose he does not want to make everybody feel badly about it." "Mr. Griggs, is she really mad?" asked Hermione, in a low voice, leaning forward and clasping her hands. "Why," I began, very much surprised, "does anybody doubt that she is insane?" "I do," said the young girl, decidedly. "I do not believe she is any more insane than you and I are." "That is a very bold thing to say," I objected, "when a man of Professor Cutter's reputation in those things says that she is crazy, and gives up so much time to visiting her." "All the same," said Hermione, "I do not believe it. I am sure people sometimes try to kill themselves without being insane, and that is all it rests on." "But she has never recognized any one since that," I urged. "Perhaps she is ashamed," suggested my companion, simply. I was struck by the reply. It was such a simple idea that it seemed almost foolish. But it was a woman's thought about another woman, and it had its value. I laughed a little, but I answered seriously enough. "Why should she be ashamed?" "It seems to me," said the young girl, "that if I had done something very foolish and wicked, like trying to kill myself, and if people took it for granted that I was crazy, I would let them believe it, because I should be too much ashamed of myself to allow that I had consciously done anything so bad. Perhaps that is very silly; do you think so?" "I do not think it is silly," I replied. "It is a very original idea." "Well, I will tell you something. Soon after she was first brought here I used to go and see her more often than I do now. She interested me so much. I was often alone with her. She never answered any questions, but she would sometimes let me read aloud to her. I do not know whether she understood anything I read, but it soothed her, and occasionally she would go to sleep while I was reading. One day I was sitting quite quietly beside her, and she looked at me very sadly, as though she were thinking of somebody she had loved,--I cannot tell why; and without thinking I looked at her, and said, 'Dear aunt Annie, tell me, you are not really mad, are you?' Then she turned very pale and began to cry, so that I was frightened, and called the nurse, and went away. I never told anybody, because it seemed so foolish of me, and I thought I had been unkind, and had hurt her feelings. But after that she did not seem to want to see me when I came, and so I have thought a great deal about it. Do you see? Perhaps there is not much connection." "I think you ought to have told some one; your father, for instance," I said. "It is very interesting." "I have told you, though it is so long since it happened," she answered; and then she added, quickly, "Shall you tell Professor Cutter?" "No," I replied, after a moment's hesitation. "I do not think I shall. Should you like me to tell him?" "Oh, no," she exclaimed quickly, "I should much rather you would not." "Why?" I inquired. "I agree with you, but I should like to know your reason." "I think Professor Cutter knows more already than he will tell you or me"---- She checked herself, and then continued in a lower voice: "It is prejudice, of course, but I do not like him. I positively cannot bear the sight of him." "I fancy he knows that you do not like him," I remarked. "Tell me, Miss Carvel, do you know anything of the reason why Madame Patoff became insane? If you do know, you must not tell me what it was, because your father does not wish me to hear it. But I should like to be sure whether you know all about it or not; whether you and I judge her from the same point of view, or whether you are better instructed than I am." "I know nothing about it," said Hermione, quietly. She sat gazing into the great fire, one small hand supporting her chin, and the other resting upon the sharp white head of Fang, who never moved from her knee. There was a pause, during which we were both wondering what strange circumstance could have brought the unhappy woman to her present condition, whether it were that of real or of assumed insanity. "I do not know," she repeated, at last. "I wish I did; but I suppose it was something too dreadful to be told. There are such dreadful things in the world, you know." "Yes, I know there are," I answered, gravely; and in truth I was persuaded that the prime cause must have been extraordinary indeed, since even John Carvel had said that he could not tell me. "There are such dreadful things," Hermione said again. "Just think how horrible it would be if"---- She stopped short, and blushed crimson in the ruddy firelight. "What?" I asked. But she did not answer, and I saw that the idea had pained her, whatever it might be. Presently she turned the phrase so as to make it appear natural enough. "What a horrible thing it would be if we found that poor aunt Annie only let us believe she was mad, because she had done something she was sorry for, and would not own it!" "Dreadful indeed," I replied. Hermione rose from her deep chair. "Good-night, Mr. Griggs," she said. "I hope we may all understand everything some day." "Good-night, Miss Carvel." "How careful you are of the formalities!" she said, laughing. "How two years change everything! It used to be 'Good-night, Hermy,' so short a time ago!" "Good-night, Hermy," I said, laughing too, as she took my hand. "If you are old enough to be called Miss Carvel, I am old enough to call you Hermy still." "Oh, I did not mean that," she said, and went away. I sat a few minutes by the fire after she had gone, and then, fearing lest I should be disturbed by the professor or John Carvel, I too left the hall, and went to my own room, to think over the events of the day. I had learned so much that I was confused, and needed rest and leisure to reflect. That morning I had waked with a sensation of unsatisfied curiosity. All I had wanted to discover had been told me before bed-time, and more also; and now I was unpleasantly aware that this very curiosity was redoubled, and that, having been promoted from knowing nothing to knowing something, I felt I had only begun to guess how much there was to be known. Oh, this interest in other people's business! How grand and beautiful and simple a thing it is to mind one's own affairs, and leave other people to mind what concerns them! And yet I defy the most indifferent man alive to let himself be put in my position, and not to feel curiosity; to be taken into a half confidence of the most intense interest, and not to desire exceedingly to be trusted with the remainder; to be asked to consider and give an opinion upon certain effects, and to be deliberately informed that he may never know the causes which led to the results he sees. On mature reflection, what had struck me as most remarkable in connection with the whole matter was Hermione's simple, almost childlike guess,--that Madame Patoff was ashamed of something, and was willing to be considered insane, rather than let it be thought she was in possession of her faculties at the time when she did the deed, whatever it might be. That this was a conceivable hypothesis there was no manner of doubt, only I could hardly imagine what action, apart from the poor woman's attempt at suicide, could have been so serious as to persuade her to act insanity for the rest of her life. Surely John Carvel, with his great, kind heart, would not be unforgiving. But John Carvel might not have been concerned in the matter at all. He spoke of knowing the details and being unable to tell them to me, but he never said they concerned any one but Madame Patoff. Strange that Hermione should not know, either. Whatever the details were, they were not fit for her young ears. It was strange, too, that she should have conceived an antipathy for the professor. He was a man who was generally popular, or who at least had the faculty of making himself acceptable when he chose; but it was perfectly evident that the scientist and the young girl disliked each other. There was more in it than appeared upon the surface. Innocent young girls do not suddenly contract violent prejudices against elderly and inoffensive men who do not weary them or annoy them in some way; still less do men of large intellect and experience take unreasoning and foolish dislikes to young and beautiful maidens. We know little of the hidden sympathies and antipathies of the human heart, but we know enough to say with certainty that in broad cases the average human being will not, without cause, act wholly in contradiction to the dictates of reason and the probabilities of human nature. I lay awake long that night, and for many nights afterwards, trying to explain to myself these problems, and planning ways and means for discovering whether or not the beautiful old lady down-stairs was in her right mind, or was playing a shameful and wicked trick upon the man who sheltered her. But though other events followed each other with rapidity, it was long before I got at the truth and settled the question. Whether or not I was right in wishing to pursue the secret to its ultimate source and explanation, I leave you to judge. I will only say that, although I was at first impelled by what seems now a wretched and worthless curiosity, I found, as time went on, that there was such a multiplicity of interests at stake, that the complications were so singular and unexpected and the passions aroused so masterful and desperate, that, being in the fight, I had no choice but to fight it to the end. So I did my very best in helping those to whom I owed allegiance by all the laws of hospitality and gratitude, and in concentrating my whole strength and intelligence and activity in the discovery of an evil which I suspected from the first to be very great, but of which I was far from realizing the magnitude and extent. You will forgive my thus speaking of myself, and this apology for my doings at this stage of my story; but I am aware that my motives hitherto may have appeared contemptible, and I am anxious to have you understand that when I found myself suddenly placed in what I regard as one of the most extraordinary situations of my life, I honestly put my hand out, and strove to become an agent for good in that strange series of events into which my poor curiosity had originally brought me. And having thus explained and expressed myself in concluding what I may regard as the first part of my story, I promise that I will not trouble you again, dear lady, with any unnecessary asseverations of my good faith, nor with any useless defense of my actions; conceiving that although I am responsible to you for the telling of this tale, I am answerable to many for the part I played in the circumstances here related; and that, on the other hand, though no one can find much fault with me for my doings, none but you will have occasion to criticise my mode of telling them. Henceforth, therefore, and to the end, I will speak of events which happened from an historical point of view, frequently detailing conversations in which I took no part and scenes of which I had not at the time any knowledge, and only introducing myself in the first person when the nature of the story requires it. XI. One might perhaps define the difference between Professor Cutter and Paul Patoff by saying that the Russian endeavored to make a favorable impression upon people about him, and then to lead them on by means of the impression he had created, whereas the scientist enjoyed feeling that he had a hidden power over his surroundings, while he allowed people to think that he was only blunt and outspoken. Essentially, there was between the two men the difference that exists between a diplomatist and a conspirator. Patoff loved to appear brilliant, to talk well, to be liked by everybody, and to accomplish everything by persuasion; he seemed to enjoy the world and his position in it, and it was part of his plan of life to acknowledge his little vanities, and to make others feel that they need only take a sufficient pride in themselves to become as shining lights in the social world as Paul Patoff. At a small cost to himself, he favored the general opinion in regard to his eccentricity, because the reputation of it gave him a certain amount of freedom he would not otherwise have enjoyed. He undertook many obligations, in his constant readiness to be agreeable to all men, and perhaps, if he had not reserved to himself the liberty of some occasional repose, he would have found the burden of his responsibilities intolerable. It was his maxim that one should never appear to refuse anything to any one, and it is no easy matter to do that, especially when it is necessary never to neglect an opportunity of gaining an advantage for one's self. For the whole aim of Patoff's policy at that time was selfish. He believed that he possessed the secret of power in his own indomitable will, and he cultivated the science of persuasion, until he acquired an infinite art in adapting the means to the end. Every kind of knowledge served him, and though his mind was perhaps not really profound, it was far from being superficial, and the surface of it which he presented when he chose was vast. It was impossible to speak of any question of history, science, ethics, or æsthetics of which Patoff was ignorant, and his information on most points was more than sufficient to help him in artfully indorsing the opinions of those about him. He was full of tact. It was impossible to make him disagree with any one, and yet he was so skillful in his conversation that he was generally thought to have a very sound judgment. His system was substantially one of harmless flattery, and he never departed from it. He reckoned on the unfathomable vanity of man, and he rarely was out in his reckoning; he counted upon woman's admiration of dominating characters, and was not disappointed, for women respected him, and were proportionately delighted when he asked their opinion. In this, as in all other things, the professor was the precise opposite of the diplomatist. Cutter affected an air of sublime simplicity, and cultivated a straightforward bluntness of expression which was not without weight. He prided himself on saying at once that he either had an opinion upon a subject, or had none; and if he chanced to have formed any judgment he was hot in its support. His intellect was really profound within the limits he had chosen for his activity, and his experience of mankind was varied and singular. He was a man who cared little for detail, except when details tended to elucidate the whole, for his first impressions were accurate and large. With his strong and sanguine nature he exhibited a rough frankness appropriate to his character. He was strong-handed, strong-minded, and strong-tongued; a man who loved to rule others, and who made no secret of it; impatient of contradiction when he stated his views, but sure never to assume a position in argument or in affairs which he did not believe himself able to maintain against all comers. But with this appearance of hearty honesty the scientist possessed the remarkable quality of discretion, not often found in sanguine temperaments. He loved to understand the secrets of men's lives, and to feel that if need be he could govern people by main force and wholly against their will. He could conceal anything, any knowledge he possessed, any strong passion he felt, with amazing skill. At the very time when he seemed to be most frankly speaking his mind, when he made his honest strength appear as open as the day, as though scorning all concealment and courting inquiry into his motives, he was capable of completely hiding his real intentions, of professing ignorance in matters in which he was profoundly versed, of appearing to be as cold as stone when his heart was as hot as fire. He was a man of violent passions in love and hate, unforgetting and unforgiving, who never relented in the pursuit of an object, nor weighed the cruelty of the means in comparison with the importance of the end. He had by nature a temperament fitted for conspiracy and planned to disarm suspicion. He was incomparably superior to Paul Patoff in powers of mind and in the art of concealment, he was equal to him in the unchanging determination of his will, but he was by far inferior to him in those external gifts which charm the world and command social success. These two remarkable men had met before they found themselves together under John Carvel's roof, but they did not appear to have been intimate. It was, indeed, very difficult to imagine what their relations could have been, for they occasionally seemed to understand each other perfectly upon matters not understood by the rest of us, whereas they sometimes betrayed a surprising ignorance in regard to each other's affairs. From the time when the professor arrived it was apparent that Hermione did not like him; and that Cutter was aware of the fact. It had not needed the young girl's own assurance to inform me of the antipathy she felt for the man of science. He had seen her before, but Hermione had suddenly grown into a young lady since his last visit, and the consequence was that she was thrown far more often into the society of the man she disliked than had been the case when she was still in the schoolroom. John Carvel never liked governesses, and as soon as practicable the last one had been discharged, so that Hermione was left to the society of her mother and aunt and of such visitors as chanced to be staying in the house. She was fond of her brother, but had seen little of him, and stood rather in awe of his superior genius; for Macaulay was a young man who possessed in a very high degree what we call the advantages of modern education. She loved him and looked up to him, but did not understand him in the least, because people who have a great deal of heart do not easily comprehend the nature of people who have little; and Macaulay Carvel's manner of talking about men, and even nations, as though they were mere wooden pawns, or sets of pawns, puzzled his sister's simpler views of humanity. Her mother did not always interest her, either; she was devotedly attached to her, but Mrs. Carvel, as she grew older, became more and more absolved in the strange sort of inner religious life which she had created for herself as a kind of stronghold in the midst of her surroundings, and when alone with her daughter was apt to talk too much upon serious subjects. To a young and beautiful girl, who felt herself entering the vestibule of the world in the glow of a wondrous dawn, the somewhat mournful contemplation of the spiritual future could not possibly have the charm such meditation possessed for a woman in middle age, who had passed through the halls of the palace of life without seeing many of its beauties, and who already, in the dim distance, caught sight of the shadowy gate whereby we must all descend from this world's sumptuous dwelling, to tread the silent labyrinths of the unknown future. Such society as Mrs. Carvel's was not good for Hermione. It is not good for any girl. It is before all things important that youth should be young, lest it should not know how to be old when age comes upon it. Nor is there anything that should be further removed from youth than the contemplation of death, which to old age is but a haven of rest to be desired, whereas to those who are still young it is an abyss to be abhorred. It is well to say, "_Memento, homo, quia pulvis es_," but not to say it too often, lest the dust of individual human existence make cobwebs in the existence of humanity. As for her aunt Chrysophrasia, Hermione liked to talk to her, because Miss Dabstreak was amusing, with her everlasting paradoxes upon everything; and because, not being by nature of an evil heart, and desiring to be eccentric beyond her fellows, she was not altogether averse to the mild martyrdom of being thought ridiculous by those who held contrary opinions. Nevertheless, her aunt's company did not satisfy all Hermione's want of society, and the advent of strangers, even of myself, was hailed by her with delight. The fact of her conceiving a particular antipathy for the professor was therefore all the more remarkable, because she rarely shunned the society of any one with whom she had an opportunity of exchanging ideas. But Cutter did not like to be disliked, and he sought an occasion of making her change her mind in regard to him. A few days after my visit to Madame Patoff, the professor found his chance. Macaulay Carvel, Paul Patoff, and I left the house early to ride to a distant meet, for Patoff had expressed his desire to follow the hounds, and, as usual, everybody was anxious to oblige him. After breakfast the professor watched until he saw Hermione enter the conservatory, where she usually spent a part of the morning alone among the flowers; sometimes making an elaborate inspection of the plants she loved best, sometimes sitting for an hour or two with a book in some remote corner, among the giant tropical leaves and the bright-colored blossoms. She loved not only the flowers, but the warmth of the place, in the bitter winter weather. Cutter entered with a supremely unconscious air, as though he believed there was no one in the conservatory. There was nothing professorial about his appearance, except his great spectacles, through which he gazed benignly at the luxuriant growth of plants, as he advanced, his hands in the pockets of his plaid shooting-coat. He was dressed as any other man might be in the country; he had selected an unostentatious plaid for the material of his clothes, and he wore a colored tie, which just showed beneath the wave of his thick beard. He trod slowly but firmly, putting his feet down as though prepared to prove his right to the ground he trod on. "Oh! Are you here, Miss Carvel?" he exclaimed, as he caught sight of Hermione installed in a cane chair behind some plants. She was not much pleased at being disturbed, but she looked up with a slight smile, willing to be civil. "Since you ask me, I am," she replied. "Whereas if I had not asked you, you would have affected not to be here, you mean? How odd it is that just when one sees a person one should always ask them if one sees them or not! In this case, I suppose the pleasure of seeing you was so great that I doubted the evidence of my senses. Is that the way to turn a speech?" "It is a way of turning one, certainly," answered Hermione. "There may be other ways. I have not much experience of people who turn speeches." "I have had great experience of them," said the professor, "and I confess to you that I consider the practice of turning everything into compliment as a disagreeable and tiresome humbug." "I was just thinking the same thing," said Hermione. "Then we shall agree." "Provided you practice what you preach, we shall." "Did you ever know me to preach what I did not practice?" asked Cutter, with a smile of honest amusement. "I have not known much of you, either in preaching or in practicing, as yet. We shall see." "Shall I begin now?" "If you like," answered the young girl. "Which shall it be, preaching or practicing?" "I should say that, as you have me entirely at your mercy, the opportunity is favorable for preaching." "I would not make such an unfair use of my advantage," said the professor. "I detest preaching. In practice I never preach"---- "You are making too much conversation out of those two words," interrupted Hermione. "If I let you go on, you will be making puns upon them." "You do not like puns?" "I think nothing is more contemptible." "Merely because that way of being funny is grown old-fashioned," said Cutter. "Fifty or sixty years ago, a hundred years ago, when a man wanted to be very bitingly sarcastic, he would compose a criticism upon his enemy which was only a long string of abominable puns; each pun was printed in italics. That was thought to be very funny." "You would not imitate that sort of fun, would you?" asked Hermione. "No. You would think it no joke if I did," answered Cutter, gravely. "I am not going to laugh," said Hermione. But she laughed, nevertheless. "Pray do not laugh if you do not want to," said Cutter. "I am used to being thought dull. Your gravity would not wound me though I were chief clown to the whole universe, and yours were the only grave face in the world. By the by, you are laughing, I see. I am much obliged for the appreciation. Shall I go on being funny?" "Not if you can help it," said Hermione. "Do you insinuate that I am naturally an object for laughter?" asked Cutter, smiling. "Do you mean that 'I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men'? If so, I may yet make you spend a pleasant hour in despite of yourself, without any great effort on my own part. I will sit here, and you shall laugh at me. The morning will pass very agreeably." "I should think you might find something better to do," returned Hermione. "But they say that small things amuse great minds." "If I had a great mind, do you think I should look upon it as a small thing to be laughed at by you, Miss Carvel?" inquired Cutter, quietly. "You offer yourself so readily to be my laughing-stock that I am forced to consider what you offer a small thing," returned his companion. "You are exceedingly sarcastic. In that case, I have not a great mind, as you supposed." "You are fishing for a compliment, I presume." "Perhaps. I wish you would pay me compliments--in earnest. I am vain. I like to be appreciated. You do not like me,--I should like to be liked by you." "You are talking nonsense, Professor Cutter," said the young girl, raising her eyebrows a little. "If I did not like you, it would be uncivil of you to say you had found it out, unless I treated you rudely." "It may be nonsense, Miss Carvel. I speak according to my lights." "Then I should say that for a luminary of science your light is very limited," returned Hermione. "In future I will hide my light under a bushel, since it displeases you." "Something smaller than a bushel would serve the purpose. But it does not please me that you should be in the dark; I would rather you had more light." "You have only to look at me," said the scientist, with a laugh. "I thought you professed not to make silly compliments. My mother tells me that the true light should come from within," added Hermione, with a little scorn. "Religious enthusiasts, who make those phrases, spend their lives in studying themselves," retorted Cutter. "They think they see light where they most wish to find it. I spend my time in studying other people." "I should think you would find it vastly more interesting." "I do; especially when you are one of the people I am permitted to study." "If you think I will permit it long, you are mistaken," said Hermione, who was beginning to lose her temper, without precisely knowing why. She took up her book and a piece of embroidery she had brought with her, as though she would go. "You cannot help my making a study of you," returned the professor, calmly. "If you leave me now, I regard it as an interesting feature in your case." "I will afford you that much interest, at all events," answered Hermione, rising to her feet. She was annoyed, and the blood rose to her delicate cheeks, while her downcast lashes hid the anger in her eyes. But she did not know the man, if she thought he would let himself be treated so lightly. She knew neither him nor his weapons. "Miss Carvel, permit me to ask your forgiveness," he said. "I am so fond of hearing myself talk that my tongue runs away with me." "Why do you tease me so?" asked Hermione, suddenly raising her eyes and facing Cutter. But before he could answer her she laid down her work and her book, and walked slowly away from him. She reached the opposite side of the broad conservatory, and turned back. Cutter's whole manner had changed the moment he saw that she was seriously annoyed. He knew well enough that he had said nothing for which the girl could be legitimately angry, but he understood her antipathy to him too well not to know that it could easily be excited at any moment to an open expression of dislike. On the present occasion, however, he had resolved to fathom, if possible, the secret cause of the feeling the beautiful Hermione entertained against him. "Miss Carvel," he said, very gently, as she advanced again towards him, "I like to talk to you, of all people, but you do not like me,--forgive my saying it, for I am in earnest,--and I lose my temper because I cannot find out why." Hermione stood still for a moment, and looked straight into the professor's eyes; she saw that they met hers with such an honest expression of regret that her heart was touched. She stooped and picked a flower, and held it in her hand some seconds before she answered. "It was I who was wrong," she said, presently. "Let us be friends. It is not that I do not like you,--really I believe it is not that. It is that, somehow, you do manage to--to tease me, I suppose." She blushed. "I am sure you do not mean it. It is very foolish of me, I know." "If you could only tell me exactly where my fault lies," said Cutter, earnestly, "I am sure I would never commit it again. You do not seriously believe that I ever intend to annoy you?" "N--no," hesitated Hermione. "No, you do not intend to annoy me, and yet I think it amuses you sometimes to see that I am angry about nothing." "It does not amuse me," said Cutter. "My tongue gets the better of me, and then I am very sorry afterwards. Let us be friends, as you say. We have more serious things to think of than quarreling in our conversation. Say you forgive me, as freely as I say that it has been my fault." There was something so natural and humble in the way the man spoke that Hermione had no choice but to put out her hand and agree to the truce. Professor Cutter was as old as her father, though he looked ten years younger, or more; he had a world-wide reputation in more than one branch of science; he was altogether what is called a celebrated man; and he stood before her asking to "make friends," as simply as a schoolboy. Hermione had no choice. "Of course," she answered, and then added with a smile, "only you must really not tease me any more." "I won't," said Cutter, emphatically. They sat down again, side by side, and were silent for some moments. It seemed to Hermione as though she had made an important compact, and she did not feel altogether certain of the result. She could have laughed at the idea that her making up her differences with the professor was of any real importance in her life, but nevertheless she felt that it was so, and she was inclined to think over what she had done. Her hands lay folded upon her lap, and she idly gazed at them, and thought how small and white they looked upon the dark blue serge. Cutter spoke first. "I suppose," he began, "that when we are not concerned with our own immediate affairs, we are all of us thinking of the same thing. Indeed, though we live very much as though nothing were the matter, we are constantly aware that one subject occupies us all alike." To tell the truth, Hermione was not at that moment thinking of poor Madame Patoff. She raised her eyes with an inquiring glance. "I am very much preoccupied," continued the professor. "I have not the least idea whether we have done wisely in allowing Paul to see his mother." "If she knew him, I imagine it was a good thing," answered Hermione. "How long is it since they met?" "Eighteen months, or more. They met last in very painful circumstances, I believe. You see the impression was strong enough to outlive her insanity. She was not glad to see him." "Why will they not tell me what drove her mad?" asked Hermione. "It is not a very nice story," answered the professor. "It is probably on account of Paul." There was a short pause. "Do you mean that she went mad on account of something Paul did?" asked Hermione presently. "I am not sure I can tell you that. I wish you could know the whole story, but your father would never consent to it, I am sure." "If it is not nice, I do not wish to hear it," said Hermione, quietly. "I only wanted to know about Paul. You gave me the impression that it was in some way his fault." "In some way it was," replied Cutter. "Poor lady,--I am not sure we should have let her see him." "Does she suffer much, do you think?" "No. If she suffered much, she would fall ill and probably die. I do not think she has any consciousness of her situation. I have known people like that who were mad only three or four days in the week. She never has a lucid moment. I am beginning to think it is hopeless, and we might as well advise your father to have her taken to a private asylum. The experiment would be interesting." "Why?" asked Hermione. "She gives nobody any trouble here. It would be unkind. She is not violent, nor anything of that sort. We should all feel dreadfully if anything happened to her in the asylum. Besides, I thought it was a great thing that she should have known Paul yesterday." "Not so great as one might fancy. I think that if there were much chance of her recovery, the recognition of her son ought to have brought back a long train of memories, amounting almost to a lucid interval." "I understood that you had spoken more hopefully last night," said Hermione, doubtfully. "You seem discouraged to-day." "With most people it is necessary to appear hopeful at any price," answered Cutter. "I feel that with you I am perfectly safe in saying precisely what I think. You will not misinterpret what I say, nor repeat it to every other member of the household." "No, indeed. I am glad you tell me the truth, but I had hoped it was not as bad as you say." "Your aunt is very mad indeed, Miss Carvel," said the professor. I may observe, in passing, that what the professor said to me differed very materially from what he said to Hermione, a circumstance we did not discover until a later date. For Hermione, having given her promise not to repeat what Cutter told her about her aunt, kept it faithfully, and did not even assume an air of superiority when speaking about the case to others. She believed exactly what the professor said, namely, that he trusted her, and no one else, with his true views of the matter; and that, to all others, he assumed an air of hopefulness very far removed from his actual state of mind. Singularly,--or naturally, as you look at it,--the result of the conversation between Hermione and the professor was the complete disappearance, for some time, of all their differences. Cutter ceased to annoy her with his sharp answers to all she said, and she showed a growing interest in him and in his conversation. They were frequently seen talking together, apparently taking pleasure in each other's society, a fact which I alone noticed as interesting, for Patoff had not been long enough at Carvel Place to discover that there had ever been any antipathy between the two. On looking back, I ascribe the change to the influence Cutter obtained over Hermione by suddenly affecting a great earnestness and a sincere regret for the annoyance he had given in the past, and by admitting her, as he gave her to understand that he did, to his confidence in the matter of Madame Patoff's insanity. Be that as it may, the result was obtained very easily by the professor; and when Hermione left him, before lunch, it is probable that in the solitude of the conservatory the man of science rubbed his gigantic hands together, and beamed upon the orchids with unusual benignity. But while this new alliance was being formed in the conservatory, another conversation was taking place in a distant part of the house, not less interesting, perhaps, but not destined to reach so peaceable a conclusion. The scene of this other meeting was Miss Chrysophrasia Dabstreak's especial boudoir, an apartment so singular in its furniture and adornment that I will leave out all description of it, and ask you merely to imagine, at will, the most æsthetic retreat of the most æsthetic old maid in existence. After breakfast, that morning, Chrysophrasia had sent word to Mrs. Carvel that she should be glad to see her, if she could come up to her boudoir. Chrysophrasia never came down to breakfast. She regarded that meal as a barbarism, forgetting that the mediæval persons she admired began their days by taking to themselves a goodly supply of food. She never appeared before lunch, but spent her mornings in the solitude of her own apartment, probably in the composition of verses which have remained hitherto unpublished. Mrs. Carvel at once acceded to the request conveyed in her sister's message, and went to answer the summons. She was not greatly pleased at the idea of spending the morning with her sister, for she devoted the early hours to religious reading whenever she was able; but she was the most obliging woman in the world, and so she quietly put aside her own wishes, and mounted the stairs to Miss Dabstreak's boudoir. She found the latter clad in loose garments of strange cut and hue, and a green silk handkerchief was tied about her forehead, presumably out of respect for certain concealed curl papers rather than for any direct purpose of adornment. Chrysophrasia looked very faded in the morning. As Mrs. Carvel entered the room, her sister pointed languidly to a chair, and then paused a moment, as though to recover from the exertion. "Mary," said she at last, and even from the first tone of her voice Mrs. Carvel felt that a severe lecture was imminent,--"Mary, this thing is a hollow sham. It cannot be allowed to go on any longer." Mrs. Carvel's face assumed a sweet and sad expression, and folding her hands upon her knees, she leaned slightly forward from the chair upon which she sat, and prepared to soothe her sister's views upon hollow shams in general. "My dear," said she, "you must endeavor to be charitable." "I do not see the use of being charitable," returned Chrysophrasia, with more energy than she was wont to display. "Dear me, Mary, what in the world has charity to do with the matter? Can you look at me and say that it has anything to do with it?" No. Mary could not look at her and say so, for a very good reason. She had not the most distant idea what Chrysophrasia was talking about. On general principles, she had made a remark about being charitable, and was now held to account for it. She smiled timidly, as though to deprecate her sister's vengeance. "Mary," said Chrysophrasia, in a tone of sorrowful rebuke, "I am afraid you are not listening to me." "Indeed I am," said Mrs. Carvel, patiently. "Well, then, Mary, I say it is a hollow sham, and that it cannot go on any longer." "Yes, my dear," assented her sister. "I have no doubt you are right; but what were you referring to as a hollow sham?" "You are hopeless, Mary,--you have no intuitions. Of course I mean Paul." Even this was not perfectly clear, and Mrs. Carvel looked inquiringly at her sister. "Is it possible you do not understand?" asked Chrysophrasia. "Do you propose to allow my niece--my niece, Mary, and your daughter," she repeated with awful emphasis--"to fall in love with her own cousin?" "I am sure the dear child would never think of such a thing," answered Mary Carvel, very gently, and as though not wishing to contradict her sister. "He has not been here twenty-four hours." "The dear child is thinking of it at this very moment," said Chrysophrasia. "And what is more, Paul has come here with the deliberate intention of marrying her. I have seen it from the first moment he entered the house. I can see it in his eyes." "Well, my dear, you may be right. But I have not noticed anything of the sort, and I think you go too far. You will jump at conclusions, Chrysophrasia." "If I went at them at all, Mary, I would glide,--I certainly would not jump," replied the æsthetic lady, with a languid smile. Mrs. Carvel looked wearily out of the window. "Besides," continued Chrysophrasia, "the thing is quite impossible. Paul is not at all a match. Hermy will be very rich, some day. John will not leave everything to Macaulay: I have heard him say so." "Why do you discuss the matter, Chrysophrasia?" objected Mrs. Carvel, with a little shade of very mild impatience. "There is no question of Hermy marrying Paul." "Then Paul ought to go away at once." "We cannot send him away. Besides, I think he is a very good fellow. You forget that poor Annie is in the house, and he has a right to see her, at least for a week." "It seems to me that Annie might go and live with him." "He has no home, poor fellow,--he is in the diplomatic service. He is made to fly from Constantinople to Persia, and from Persia to St. Petersburg; how could he take poor Annie with him?" "If poor Annie chose," said Chrysophrasia, sniffing the air with a disagreeable expression, "poor Annie could go. If she has sense enough to dress herself gorgeously and to read dry books all day, she has sense enough to travel." "Oh, Chrysophrasia! How dreadfully unkind you are! You know how--ill she is." Mrs. Carvel did not like to pronounce the word "insane." She always spoke of Madame Patoff's "illness." "I do not believe it," returned Miss Dabstreak. "She is no more crazy than I am. I believe Professor Cutter knows it, too. Only he has been used to saying that she is mad for so long that he will not believe his senses, for fear of contradicting himself." "In any case I would rather trust to him than to my own judgment." "I would not. I am utterly sick of this perpetual disturbance about Annie's state of mind. It destroys the charm of a peaceful existence. If I had the strength, I would go to her and tell her that I know she is perfectly sane, and that she must leave the house. John is so silly about her. He turns the place into an asylum, just because she chooses to hold her tongue." Mrs. Carvel rose with great dignity. "I will leave you, Chrysophrasia," she said. "I cannot bear to hear you talk in this way. You really ought to be more charitable." "You are angry, Mary," replied her sister. "Good-by. I cannot bear the strain of arguing with you. When you are calmer you will remember what I have said." Poor Mrs. Carvel certainly exhibited none of the ordinary symptoms of anger, as she quietly left the room, with an expression of pain upon her gentle face. When Chrysophrasia was very unreasonable her only course was to go away; for she was wholly unable to give a rough answer, or to defend herself against her sister's attacks. Mary went in search of her husband, and was glad to find him in the library, among his books. "John dear, may I come in?" asked Mrs. Carvel, opening the door of her husband's library, and standing on the threshold. "By all means," exclaimed John, looking up. "Anything wrong?" he inquired, observing the expression of his wife's face. "John," said Mrs. Carvel, coming near to him and laying her hand gently on his shoulder, "tell me--do you think there is likely to be anything between Paul and Hermy?" "Gracious goodness! what put that into your head?" asked Carvel. "I have been with Chrysophrasia"--began Mary. "Chrysophrasia! Oh! Is that it?" cried John in discontented tones. "I wish Chrysophrasia would mind her own business, and not talk nonsense!" "It is nonsense, is it not?" "Of course,--absolute rubbish! I would not hear of it, to begin with!" he exclaimed, as though that were sufficient evidence that the thing was impossible. "No, indeed," echoed Mrs. Carvel, but in more doubtful tones. "Of course, Paul is a very good fellow. But yet"---- She hesitated. "After all, they are cousins," she added suddenly, "and that is a great objection." "I hope you will not think seriously of any such marriage, Mary," said John Carvel, with great decision. "They are cousins, and there are twenty other reasons why they should not marry." "Are there? I dare say you are right, and of course there is no probability of either of them thinking of such a thing. But after all, Paul is a very marriageable fellow, John." "I would not consent to his marrying my daughter, though," returned Carvel. "I have no doubt it is all right about his brother, who disappeared on a dark night in Constantinople. But I would not let Hermy marry anybody who had such a story connected with his name." "Surely, John, you are not so unkind as to give any weight to that spiteful accusation. It was very dreadful, but there never was the slightest ground for believing that Paul had a hand in it. Even Professor Cutter, who does not like him, always said so. That was one of the principal proofs of poor Annie's madness." "I know, my dear. But to the end of time people will go on asking where Paul's brother is, and will look suspicious when he is mentioned. Cutter, whom you quote, says the same thing, though he believes Paul perfectly innocent, as I do myself. Do you suppose I would have a man in the house whom I suspected of having murdered his brother?" "What a dreadful idea!" exclaimed Mrs. Carvel. "But if you liked him very much, and wanted him to marry Hermy, would you let that silly bit of gossip stand in the way of the match?" "I don't know what I should do. Perhaps not. But Hermy shall marry whom she pleases, provided she marries a gentleman. She has no more idea of marrying Paul than Chrysophrasia has, or than Paul has of marrying her. Besides, she is far too young to think of such things." "Really, John, Hermy is nineteen. She is nearly twenty." "My dear," retorted Carvel, "you will make me think you want them to marry." "Nonsense, John!" "Well, nonsense, if you like. But Chrysophrasia has been putting this ridiculous notion into your head. I believe she is in love with Paul herself." "Oh, John!" exclaimed Mrs. Carvel, smiling at the idea. But John rose from his chair, and indulged in a hearty laugh at the thought of Chrysophrasia's affection for Patoff. Then he stirred the fire vigorously, till the coals broke into a bright blaze. "Annie is better," he said presently, without looking round. "You know she recognized Paul; and Griggs thought she knew him, too, when he went in with Cutter, the other night." "Would you like me to go and see her to-day?" asked Mrs. Carvel. Her husband had already told her the news and seemed to be repeating it now out of sheer satisfaction. "Perhaps she may know you," he answered. "Have you seen Mrs. North this morning?" "Yes. She says Annie has not slept very well since that day." "The meeting excited her. Better wait a day or two longer, before doing anything else. At any rate, we ought to ask Cutter before making another experiment." "Why did you not go to the meet to-day?" asked Mrs. Carvel suddenly. "I wanted to have a morning at my books," answered John. His wife took the answer as a hint to go away, and presently left the room, feeling that her mind had been unnecessarily troubled by her sister. But in her honest self-examination, when she had returned to her own room and to the perusal of Jeremy Taylor's sermons, she acknowledged to herself that she had a liking for Paul Patoff, and that she could not understand why both her sister and her husband should at the very beginning scout the idea of his marrying Hermione. Of course there was not the slightest reason for supposing that Hermione liked him at all, but there was nothing to show that she would not like him here-after. Late in the afternoon we three came back from our long day with the hounds, hungry and thirsty and tired. When I came down from my room to get some tea, I found that Patoff had been quicker than I; he was already comfortably installed by the fireside, with Fang at his feet, while Hermione sat beside him. Mrs. Carvel was at the tea-table, at some little distance, with her work in her hands, but neither John nor Chrysophrasia was in the room. As I sat down and began to drink my tea, I watched Paul's face, and it seemed to me that he had changed since I had seen him in Teheran, six months ago. I had not liked him much. I am not given to seeking acquaintance, and had certainly not sought his, but in the Persian capital one necessarily knew every one in the little European colony, and I had met him frequently. I had then been struck by the stony coldness which appeared to underlie his courteous manner, and I had thought it was part of the strange temper he was said to possess. Treating his colleagues and all whom he met with the utmost affability, never sullenly silent and often even brilliant in conversation, he nevertheless had struck me as a man who hated and despised his fellow-creatures. There had been then a sort of scornful, defiant look on his large features, which inevitably repelled a stranger until he began to talk. But he understood eminently the science of making himself agreeable, and, when he chose, few could so well lead conversation without imposing themselves upon their hearers. I well remembered the disdainful coldness of his face when he was listening to some one else, and I recollected how oddly it contrasted with his courteous forbearing speech. He would look at a man who made a remark with a cynical stare, and then in the very next moment would agree with him, and produce excellent arguments for doing so. One felt that the man's own nature was at war with itself, and that, while forcing himself to be sociable, he despised society. It was a thing so evident that I used to avoid looking at him, because his expression was so unpleasant. But as I saw him seated by Hermione's side, playing with the great hound at his feet, and talking quietly with his companion, I was forcibly struck by the change. His face could not be said to have softened; but instead of the cold, defiant sneer which had formerly been peculiar to him, his look was now very grave, and from time to time a pleasant light passed quickly over his features. Watching him now, I could not fancy him either violent or eccentric in temper, as he was said to be. It was as though the real nature of the man had got the better of some malady. "This is like home," I heard him say. "How happy you must be!" "Yes, I am very happy," answered Hermione. "I have only one unhappiness in my life." "What is that?" "Poor aunt Annie," said the girl. "I am so dreadfully sorry for her." The words were spoken in a low tone, and Mrs. Carvel said something to me just then, so that I could not hear Patoff's answer. But while talking with my hostess I noticed his earnest manner, and that he seemed to be telling some story which interested Hermione intensely. His voice dropped to a lower key, and I heard no more, though he talked for a long time, as I thought. Then Macaulay Carvel and Professor Cutter entered the room. I saw Cutter look at the pair by the fire, and, after exchanging a few words with Mrs. Carvel, he immediately joined them. Paul's face assumed suddenly the expression of stony indifference, once so familiar to me, and I did not hear his voice again. It struck me that his more gentle look might have been wholly due to the pleasure he took in Hermione's society; but I dismissed the idea as improbable. Macaulay sat down by his mother, and began telling the incidents of the day's hunting in his smooth, unmodulated voice. He was altogether smooth and unmodulated in appearance, in conversation, and in manner, and he reminded me more of a model schoolboy, rather vain of his acquirements and of the favor he enjoyed in the eyes of his masters, than of a grown Englishman. It would be impossible to imagine a greater contrast than that which existed between the two cousins, and, little as I was inclined to like Patoff at first, I was bound to acknowledge that he was more manly, more dignified, and altogether more attractive than Macaulay Carvel. It was strange that the sturdy, active, intelligent John should have such a son, although, on looking at the mother, one recognized the sweet smile and gentle features, the dutiful submission and quiet feminine forbearance, which in her face so well expressed her character. But in spite of the vast difference between them in temperament, appearance, and education, Macaulay was destined to play a small part in Patoff's life. He had from the first taken a fancy to his big Russian cousin, and admired him with all his heart. Paul seemed to be his ideal, probably because he differed so much from himself; and though Macaulay felt it was impossible to imitate him, he was content to give him his earnest admiration. It was to be foreseen that if Paul fell in love with Hermione he would find a powerful ally in her brother, who was prepared to say everything good about him, and to extol his virtues to the skies. Indeed, it was likely that during their short acquaintance Macaulay had only seen the best points in his cousin's character; for the principal sins imputed to Patoff were his violence of temper and his selfishness, and it appeared to me that he had done much to overcome both since I had last seen him. It is probable that in the last analysis, if this reputation could have been traced to its source, it would have been found to have arisen from the gossip concerning his quarrel with his brother in Constantinople, and from his having once or twice boxed the ears of some lazy Persian servant in Teheran. None of the Carvel family knew much of Paul's antecedents. His mother never spoke, and before she was brought home in her present state, by Professor Cutter, there had been hardly any communication between her and her sisters since her marriage. Time had effaced the remembrance of what they had called her folly when she married Patoff, but the breach had never been healed. Mrs. Carvel had made one or two efforts at reconciliation, but they had been coldly received; she was a timid woman, and soon gave up the attempt. It was not till poor Madame Patoff was brought home hopelessly insane, and Macaulay had conceived an unbounded admiration for his cousin, that the old affection was revived, and transferred in some degree to this son of the lost sister. As I sat with Mrs. Carvel listening to Macaulay's nerveless, conscientious description of the day's doings, I thought over all these things, and wondered what would happen next. * * * The days passed much as usual at Carvel Place after the first excitement of Paul's arrival had worn off; but I regretted that I saw less of Hermione than formerly, though I found Cutter's society very interesting. Remembering my promise to see Madame Patoff again, I visited her once more, but, to my great disappointment, she seemed to have forgotten me; and though I again spoke to her in Russian, she gave no answer to my questions, and after a quarter of an hour I retired, much shaken in my theory that she was not really as mad as was supposed. It was reserved for some one else to break the spell, if it could be broken at all, and I felt the hopelessness of making any further attempt. Though I was not aware of it at the time, I afterwards learned that Paul visited her again within a week of his arrival. She behaved very much as on the first occasion, it appears, except that her manner was more violent than before, so that Cutter deemed it imprudent to repeat the experiment. One morning, three weeks after the events last recorded, I was walking with Hermione in the garden. She was as fond of me as ever, though we now saw little of each other. But this morning she had seen me alone among the empty flower-beds, smoking a solitary cigar after breakfast, and, having nothing better to do, she wrapped herself in a fur cloak and came out to join me. For a few minutes we talked of the day, and of the prospect of an early spring, though we were still in January. People always talk of spring before the winter is half over. I said I wondered whether Paul would stay to the end of the hunting season. "I hope so," said Hermione. "By the by," I remarked, "you seem to have overcome your antipathy for your cousin. You are very good friends." "Yes, he is interesting," she answered. "I wonder"---- She paused, and looked at me rather wistfully. "Have you known him long?" she asked, suddenly. "Not very long." "Do you know anything of his past life?" "Nothing," I answered. "Nobody does, I fancy, unless it be Professor Cutter." "He has been very unhappy, I should think," she said, presently. "Has he? Has he told you so?" I resented the idea of Paul's confiding his woes, if he had any, to the lovely girl I had known from a child. It is too common a way of making love. "No--that is--yes. He told me about his childhood; how his brother was the favorite, and he was always second best, and it made him very unhappy." "Indeed!" I ejaculated, indifferently enough. I knew nothing about his brother except that he was dead, or had disappeared and was thought to be dead. The story had never reached my ears, and I did not know anything about the circumstances. "How did his brother die?" I asked. "Oh, he is dead," answered Hermione gravely. "He died in the East eighteen months ago. Aunt Annie worshiped him; it was his death that affected her mind. At least, I believe so. Professor Cutter says it is something else,--something connected with cousin Paul; but papa seems to think it was Alexander's death." "What does the professor say?" I inquired. "He will not tell me. He is a very odd person. He says it is something about Paul, and that it is not nice, and that papa would not like me to know it. And then papa tells me that it was only Alexander's death." "That is very strange," I said. "If I were you, I would believe your father rather than the professor." "Of course; how could I help believing papa?" Hermione turned her beautiful blue eyes full upon my face, as though wondering at the simplicity of my remark. Of course she believed her father. "You would not think Paul capable of doing anything not nice, would you?" I asked. Hermione blushed, and looked away towards the distant woods. "I think he is very nice," she said. I am Hermione's old friend, but I saw that I had no right to press her with questions. No friendship gives a man the right to ask the confidence of a young girl, and, moreover, it was evident from her few words and from the blush which accompanied them that this was a delicate subject. If any one were to speak to her, it must be her father. As far as I knew, there was no reason why she should not love her cousin Paul, if she admired him half as much as her brother was inclined to do. "There is only one thing about him which I cannot understand," she continued, after a short pause. "He seems not to care in the least for his mother; and yet," she added thoughtfully, "I cannot believe that he is heartless. I suppose it is because she did not treat him well when he was a child. I cannot think of any other reason." "No," I echoed mechanically, "I cannot think of any other reason." And indeed I could not. I had known nothing of his unhappy childhood before Hermione had told me of it, and though that did not afford a sufficient explanation of his evident indifference in regard to his mother, it was better than nothing. The whole situation seemed to me to be wrapped in impenetrable mystery, and I was beginning to despair of ever understanding what was going on about me. John Carvel treated me most affectionately, and delighted in entrapping me into the library to talk about books; but he scarcely ever referred to Madame Patoff. Cutter would walk or ride with me for hours, talking over the extraordinary cases of insanity he had met with in his experience; but he never would give me the least information in regard to the events which had preceded the accident at Weissenstein. I was entirely in the dark. A catastrophe was soon to occur, however, which led to my acquaintance with all the details of Alexander's disappearance in Stamboul. I will tell what happened as well as I can from what was afterwards told me by the persons most concerned. A week after my conversation with Hermione, the train was fired which led to a very remarkable concatenation of circumstances. You have foreseen that Paul would fall in love with his beautiful young cousin. Chrysophrasia foresaw it from the first moment of his appearance at Carvel Place, with that keen scent for romance which sometimes characterizes romantic old maids. If I were telling you a love story, I could make a great deal out of Paul's courtship. But this is the history of the extraordinary things which befell Paul Patoff, and for the present it is sufficient to say that he was in love with Hermione, and that he had never before cared seriously for any woman. He was cold by nature, and his wandering life as a diplomatist, together with his fixed determination to excel in his career, had not been favorable to the development of love in his heart. The repose of Carvel Place, the novelty of the life, and the comparative freedom from all responsibility, had relaxed the hard shell of his sensibilities, and the beauty and grace of Hermione had easily fascinated him. She, on her part, had distinguished with a woman's natural instinct the curious duality of his character. The grave, powerful, dominating man attracted her very forcibly; the cold, impenetrable, apparently heartless soul, on the other hand, repelled her, and almost inspired her with horror when it showed itself. One afternoon in the end of January, Paul and Hermione were walking in the park. The weather was raw and gusty, and the ground hard frozen. They had been merely strolling up and down before the house, as they often did, but, being in earnest conversation, had forgotten at last to turn back, and had gone on along the avenue, till they were far from the old mansion and quite out of sight. They had been talking of Paul's approaching departure, and they were both in low spirits at the prospect. "I am like those patches of snow," said Paul. "The clouds drop me in a beautiful place, and I feel very comfortable; and then I have to melt away again, and the clouds pick me up and carry me a thousand miles off, and drop me somewhere else. I wish they would leave me alone for a while." "Yes," said Hermione. "I wish you could stay with us longer." "It is of no use to wish," answered Paul bitterly. "I am always wishing for things I cannot possibly have. I would give anything to stay here. I have grown so fond of you all, and you have all been so kind to me--it is very hard to go, Hermione!" He looked almost tenderly at the beautiful girl beside him, as he spoke. But she looked down, so that he could hardly see her face at all. "I have never before felt as though I were at home," he continued. "I never had much of a home, at the best. Latterly I have had none at all. I had almost forgotten the idea when I came to England. It is hard to think how soon I must forget it again, and all the dear people I have known here." "You must not quite forget us," said Hermione. Her voice trembled a little. "I will never forget you--Hermione--for I love you with all my heart." He took her little gloved hand in his, and held it tightly. They stood still in the midst of the lonely park. Hermione blushed like an Alp-rose in the snow, and turned her head away from him. But her lip quivered slightly, and she left her hand in his. "I love you, my darling," he repeated, drawing her to him, till her head rested for a moment on his shoulder. "I cannot live without you,--I cannot leave you." What could she do? When he spoke in that tone his voice was so very gentle; she loved him, and she was under the fascination of his love. She said nothing, but she looked up into his face, and her blue eyes saw themselves in his. Then she bent her head and hid her face against his coat, and her small hand tightened convulsively upon his fingers. "Do you really love me?" he asked as he bent down and kissed her white forehead. "You know I do," she answered in a low voice. That was all they said, I suppose. But it was quite enough. When a man and a woman have told each other their love, there is little more to say. They probably say it again, and repeat it in different keys and with different modulations. I can imagine that a man in love might find many pretty expressions, but the gist of the thing is the same. Model conversation as follows, in fugue form, for two voices:-- _He._ I love you. Do you love me? (Theme.) _She._ Very much. I love you more than you love me. (Answer.) _He._ No. I love you most. (Sub-theme.) _She._ Not more. That is impossible. (Sub-answer.) _He and She._ Then we love each other very much. (_A due voci._) _She._ Yes. But I am not sure that you _can_ love me as much as I do you. (_Stretto._) Etc., etc., etc. By using these simple themes you may easily write a series of conversations in at least twenty-four keys, on the principle of Bach's Wohltemperirtes Klavier, but your fugues must be composed for two voices only, unless you are very clever. A third voice increases the difficulty, a fourth causes a high degree of complication, five voices are distracting, and six impossible. It is certain that when Paul and Hermione returned from their walk they had arranged matters to their own satisfaction, or had at least settled the preliminaries. I think every one noticed the change in their manner. Hermione was radiant, and talked better than I had ever heard her talk before. Paul was quiet, even taciturn, but his silence was evidently not due to bad temper. His expression was serene and happy, and the cold look seemed to have left his face forever. His peace of mind, however, was destined to be short-lived. Chrysophrasia and Professor Cutter watched the couple with extreme interest when they appeared at tea, and each arrived at the same conclusion. They had probably expected for a long time what had now occurred, and, as they were eagerly looking for some evidence that their convictions were well founded, they did not overlook the sudden change of manner which succeeded the walk in the park. They did not communicate their suspicions to each other, however. Chrysophrasia had protested again and again to Mary Carvel and to John that things were going too far. But Paul was a favorite with the Carvels, and they refused to see anything in his conduct which could be interpreted to mean love for Hermione. Chrysophrasia resolved at once to throw a bomb into the camp, and to enjoy the effect of the explosion. Cutter's position was more delicate. He was very fond of John, and was, moreover, his guest. It was not his business to criticise what occurred in the house. He was profoundly interested in Madame Patoff, but he did not like Paul. Indeed, in his inmost heart he had never settled the question of Alexander's disappearance from the world, and in his opinion Paul Patoff was a man accused of murder, who had not sufficiently established his innocence. In his desire to be wholly unprejudiced in judging mankind and their mental aberrations, he did not allow that the social position of the individual was in itself a guaranty against committing any crime whatever. On the contrary, he had found reason to believe, from his own experience, that people belonging to the higher classes have generally a much keener appreciation of the construction which will be put upon their smallest actions, and are therefore far more ingenious in concealing their evil deeds than the common ruffian could possibly be. John Carvel would have said that it was impossible that a gentleman should murder his brother. Professor Cutter said it was not only possible, but, under certain circumstances, very probable. It must also be remembered that he had got most of his information concerning Paul from Madame Patoff and from Alexander, who both detested him, in the two summers when he had met the mother and son at Wiesbaden. His idea of Paul's character had therefore received a bias from the first, and was to a great extent unjust. Conceiving it possible that Patoff might be responsible for his brother's death, he therefore regarded the prospect of Paul's marriage with Hermione with the strongest aversion, though he could not make up his mind to speak to John Carvel on the subject. He had told the whole story to him eighteen months earlier, when he had brought home Madame Patoff; and he had told it without ornament, leaving John to judge for himself. But at that time there had been no prospect whatever of Paul's coming to Carvel Place. Cutter might easily have turned his story in such a way as to make Paul look guilty, or at least so as to cast a slight upon his character. But he had given the plain facts as they occurred. John had said the thing was absurd, and a great injustice to the young man; and he had, moreover, told his wife and sister, as well as Cutter, that Hermione was never to know anything of the story. It was not right, he said, that the young girl should ever know that any member of the family had even been suspected of such a crime. She should grow up in ignorance of it, and it was not untruthful to say that Madame Patoff's insanity had been caused by Alexander's death. But now Cutter regretted that he had not put the matter in a stronger light from the first, giving John to understand that Paul had never really cleared himself of the imputation. The professor did not know what to do, and would very likely have done nothing at all, had Miss Dabstreak not fired the mine. He had, indeed, endeavored to stop the progress of the attachment, but, in attempting always to intervene as a third person in their conversations, he had roused Paul's obstinacy instead of interrupting his love-making. And Paul was a very obstinate man. As we sat at dinner that evening, the conversation turned upon general topics. Chrysophrasia sat opposite to Paul, as usual, and her green eyes watched him with interest for some time. As luck would have it, our talk approached the subject of crime in general, and John Carvel asked me some question about the average number of murders in India, taking ten years together, as compared with the number committed in Europe. While I was hesitating and trying to recollect some figures I had once known, Chrysophrasia rushed into the conversation in her usual wild way. "I think murders are so extremely interesting," said she to Patoff. "I always wonder what it must be like to commit one, don't you?" "No," said Paul, quietly. "I confess that I do not generally devote much thought to the matter. Murder is not a particularly pleasant subject for contemplation." "Oh, do you think so?" answered Chrysophrasia. "Of course not pleasant, no, but so very interesting. I read such a delightfully thrilling account this morning of a man who killed his own brother,--quite like Cain." Paul made no answer, and continued to eat his dinner in silence. Though at that time I knew nothing of his story, I remember noticing how Professor Cutter slowly turned his face towards Patoff, and the peculiar expression of his gray eyes as I saw them through the gold-rimmed spectacles. Then he looked at John Carvel, who grew very red in the pause which followed. Mrs. Carvel looked down at her plate, and her features showed that her sister's remark had given her some pain; for she was quite incapable of concealing her slightest emotions, like many extremely truthful and sensitive people. But Chrysophrasia had launched herself, and was not to be silenced by an awkward pause. Not understanding the situation in the least, I nevertheless tried to relieve the unpleasantness by answering her. "I think it is a great mistake that the newspapers should publish the horrible details of every crime committed," I said. "It is bad for the public morals, and worse for the public taste." "Really, we must be allowed some emotion," answered Chrysophrasia. "It is so very thrilling to read about such cases. Now I can quite well imagine what it must be like to kill somebody, and then to hear every one saying to me, 'Where is thy brother?' Poor Cain! He must have had the most deliciously complicated feelings!" She fixed her green eyes on Paul so intently as she spoke that I looked at him, too, and was surprised to see that he was very pale. He said nothing, however, but he looked up and returned her gaze. His cold blue eyes glittered disagreeably. At that moment, John Carvel, who was redder than ever, addressed me in loud tones. I thought his voice had an artificial ring in it as he spoke. "Well, Griggs," he cried, "without going into the question of Cain and Abel, can you tell me anything about the figures?" I said something. I gave some approximate account, and, speaking loudly, I ran on readily with a long string of statistics, most of them, I grieve to say, manufactured on the spur of the moment. But I knew that Carvel was not listening, and did not care what I said. Hermione was watching Paul with evident concern; Mrs. Carvel and Macaulay at once affected the greatest interest in what I was saying, while Professor Cutter looked at Chrysophrasia, as though trying to attract her attention. "What a wonderful memory you have, Mr. Griggs!" said Macaulay Carvel, in sincere admiration. "Oh, not at all," I answered, with perfect truth. "Statistics of that kind are very easily got." By this time the awkwardness had disappeared, and by dint of talking very loud and saying a great many things which meant very little, John and I succeeded in making the remainder of the dinner pass off very well. But every one seemed to be afraid of Chrysophrasia, and when, once or twice, she was on the point of making a remark, there was a general attempt made to prevent her from leading the conversation. As soon as dinner was over we scattered in all directions, like a flock of sheep. Chrysophrasia retired to her room. John Carvel went to the library, whither his wife followed him in a few minutes. Macaulay, Patoff, and I went to the smoking-room, contrary to all precedent; but as Macaulay led the way, we followed with delight. The result of this general separation was that Hermione and Professor Cutter were left alone in the drawing-room. "I want to ask you a question," said the young girl, as they stood before the great fireplace. "Yes," answered the scientist, anticipating trouble. "I am at your service." "Why did Paul turn so pale when aunt Chrysophrasia talked about Cain at dinner, and why did everybody feel so uncomfortable?" "It is not surprising. But I cannot tell you the story." "You must," said Hermione, growing pale, and laying her hand upon his arm. "I must know. I insist that you shall tell me." "If I tell you, will you promise not to blame me here-after?" asked Cutter. "Certainly,--of course. Please go on." "Do not be shocked. There is no truth in the story, I fancy. When Alexander Patoff was lost on a dark night in Constantinople, the world said that Paul had made away with him. That is all." Hermione did not scream nor faint, as Cutter had expected. The blood rushed to her face, and then sank again as suddenly. She steadied herself with one hand on the chimney-piece before she answered. "What a horrible, infamous lie!" she exclaimed in low tones. "You insisted upon knowing it, Miss Carvel," said the professor quietly. "You must not blame me for telling you. After all, it was as well that you should know it." "Yes--it was as well." She turned away, and with bent head left the room. So it came about that both Chrysophrasia and Cutter on the same evening struck a blow at the new-found happiness of the cousins, raising between them, as it were, the spectre of the lost man. After what had occurred in the afternoon, Paul had intended to seek a formal interview with John Carvel. He had no intention of keeping his engagement a secret, and indeed he already felt that, according to his European notions, he had done wrong in declaring his love to Hermione before asking her father's consent. It had been an accident, and he regretted it. But after the scene at the dinner-table, he felt that he must see Hermione again before going to her father. Chrysophrasia's remarks had been so evidently directed against him that he had betrayed himself, and he knew that Hermione had noticed his expression, as well as the momentary stupefaction which had chilled the whole party. He had no idea whether Hermione had ever heard his story or not. She had of course never referred to it, and he thought it was now his duty to speak to her, to ascertain the extent of her information, and, if necessary, to tell her all the circumstances; honestly avowing that, although he had never been accused openly of his brother's death except by his mother, he knew that many persons had suspected him of having been voluntarily concerned in it. He would state the case plainly, and she might then decide upon her own course. But the question, "Where is your brother?" had been asked again, and he was deeply wounded,--far more deeply than he would acknowledge to himself. As we three sat together in the smoking-room, keeping up a dry, strained conversation, the old expression returned to his face, and I watched him with a kind of regret as I saw the cold, defiant look harden again, where lately there had been nothing but gentleness. Hermione left the drawing-room, and glided through the hall towards the passage which led to Madame Patoff's rooms. She had formed a desperate resolution,--one of those which must be carried out quickly, or not at all. Mrs. North, the nurse, opened the door at the end of the corridor, and admitted the young girl. "Can I see my aunt?" asked Hermione, trying to control her voice. "Has anything happened, Miss Carvel?" inquired Mrs. North, scrutinizing her features and noticing her paleness. "No--yes, dear Mrs. North, something has happened. I want to see aunt Annie," answered Hermione. "Do let me go in!" The nurse did not suppose that anything Hermione could say would rouse Madame Patoff from her habitual apathy. After a moment's hesitation, she nodded, and opened the door into the sitting-room. Hermione passed her in silence, and entered, closing the door behind her. Her aunt sat as usual in a deep chair near the fire, beneath the brilliant light, the rich folds of her sweeping gown gathered around her, her face pale and calm, holding a book upon her knee. She did not look up as the young girl came in, but an uneasy expression passed over her features. Hermione had never believed that Madame Patoff was mad, in spite of Professor Cutter's assurances to the contrary. On this occasion she resolved to speak as though her aunt were perfectly sane. "Dear aunt Annie," she began, sitting down beside the deep chair, and laying her hand on Madame Patoff's apathetic fingers,--"dear aunt Annie, I have something to tell you, and I am sure you will listen to me." "Yes," answered the lady, in her mechanical voice. "Aunt Annie, Paul is still here. I love him, and we are going to be married." "No," said Madame Patoff, in the same tone as before. Hermione's heart sank, for her aunt did not seem to understand in the least. But before she could speak again, a curious change seemed to come over the invalid's face. The features were drawn into an expression of pain, such as Hermione had never seen there before, the lip trembled hysterically, the blood rushed to her face, and Madame Patoff suddenly broke into a fit of violent weeping. The tears streamed down her cheeks, bursting between her fingers as she covered her eyes. She sobbed as though her heart would break, rocking herself backwards and forwards in her chair. Hermione was frightened, and rose to call Mrs. North; but to her extreme surprise her aunt put out her hand, all wet with tears, and held her back. "No, no," she moaned; "let me cry." For several minutes nothing was heard in the room but her passionate sobs. It seemed as though they would never stop, and again Hermione would have called the nurse, but again Madame Patoff prevented her. "Aunt Annie,--dear aunt Annie!" said the young girl, trying to soothe her, and laying her hand upon the thick gray hair. "What is the matter? Can I do nothing? I cannot bear to see you cry like this!" Gradually the hysteric emotion spent itself, and Madame Patoff grew more calm. Then she spoke, and, to Hermione's amazement, she spoke connectedly. "Hermione, you must not betray my secret,--you will not betray me? Swear that you will not, my child!" She was evidently suffering some great emotion. "Aunt Annie," said Hermione in the greatest excitement, "you are not mad! I always said you were not!" Madame Patoff shook her head sorrowfully. "No, child, I am not mad,--I never was. I am only unhappy. I let them think so, because I am so miserable, and I can live alone, and perhaps die very soon. But you have found me out." Again it seemed as though she would burst into tears. Hermione hastened to reassure her, not knowing what she said, in the anxiety of the moment. "You are safe with me, aunt Annie. I will not tell. But why, why have you deceived them all so long, a year and a half,--why?" "I am the most wretched woman alive," moaned Madame Patoff. Then, looking suddenly into Hermione's eyes, she spoke in low, distinct tones. "You cannot marry Paul, Hermione. You must never think of it again. You must promise me never to think of it." "I will not promise that," answered the young girl, summoning all her courage. "It is not true that he killed his brother. You never believed it,--nobody ever believed it!" "It is true--true--truer than anything else can be!" exclaimed Madame Patoff, lowering her voice to a strong, clear whisper. "No," said Hermione. "You are wrong, aunt Annie; it is an abominable lie." "I tell you I know it is true," retorted her aunt, still whispering, but emphasizing every word with the greatest decision. "If you do not believe it, go to him and say, 'Paul, where is your brother?' and you will see how he will look." "I will. I will ask him, and I will tell you what he says." "He murdered him, Hermione," continued Madame Patoff, not heeding the interruption. "He murdered him in Constantinople,--he and a Turkish soldier whom he hired. And now he has come here to marry you. He thinks I am mad--he is the worst man that ever lived. You must never see him again. There is blood on his hands--blood, do you hear? Rather than that you should love him, I will tell them all that I am a sane woman. I will confess that I have imposed upon them in order to be alone, to die in peace, or, while I live to mourn for my poor murdered boy,--the boy I loved. Oh how I loved him!" This time her tears could not be controlled, and at the thought of Alexander she sobbed again, as she had sobbed before. Hermione was too much astonished and altogether thrown off her mental balance to know what to do. Her amazement at discovering that her aunt had for more than a year imposed upon Professor Cutter and upon the whole household was almost obliterated in the horror inspired by Madame Patoff's words. There was a conviction in her way of speaking which terrified Hermione, and for a moment she was completely unnerved. Meanwhile, Madame Patoff's tears ceased again. In the strange deception she had practiced upon all around her for so long, she had acquired an extraordinary command of her features and voice. It was only Hermione's discovery which had thrown her off her guard, and once feeling that the girl knew her secret, she had perhaps enjoyed the luxury of tears and of expressed emotion. But this stage being past, she regained her self-control. She had meditated so long on the death of her eldest son that the mention of his name had ceased to affect her, and though she had been betrayed into recognizing Paul, she had cleverly resumed her play of apathetic indifference so soon as he had left her. Had Hermione known of the early stages which had led to her present state, she would have asked herself how Madame Patoff could have suddenly begun to act her part so well as to deceive even Professor Cutter from the first. But Hermione knew nothing of all those details. She only realized that her aunt was a perfectly sane woman, and that she had fully confirmed the fearful accusation against Paul. "Go now, my child," said Madame Patoff. "Remember your promise. Remember that I am a wretched old woman, come here to be left alone, to die. Remember what I have told you, and beware of being deceived. You love a murderer--a murderer--remember that." Hermione stood a moment and gazed at her aunt's face, grown calm and almost beautiful again. Her tears had left no trace, her thick gray hair was as smooth as ever, her great dark eyes were deep and full of light. Then, without another word, the young girl turned away and left the room, closing the door behind her, and nodding a good-night to Mrs. North, who sat by her lamp in the outer room, gray and watchful as ever. If her aunt was sane, was she human? The question suggested itself to Hermione's brain as she walked along the passage; but she had not time to frame an answer. As she went out into the hall she saw Paul standing by the huge carved, fireplace, his back turned towards her, his tall figure thrown into high relief by the leaping flames. She went up to him, and as he heard her step he started and faced her. He had finished his cigar with us, and was about to go quietly to his room in search of solitude, when he had paused by the hall fire. His face was very sad as he looked up. "Paul," said the young girl, taking both his hands and looking into his eyes, "I believe in you,--you could not do anything wrong. People would never suspect you if you answered them, if you would only take the trouble to defend yourself." "Defend myself?" repeated Paul. "Against what, Hermione?" "When people say, 'Where is your brother?'--or mean to say it, as aunt Chrysophrasia did this evening,--you ought to answer; you ought not to turn pale and be silent." "You too!" groaned the unhappy man, looking into her eyes. "You too, my darling! Ah, no! It is too much." He dropped her hands, and turned again, leaning on the chimney-piece. "How can you think I believe it? Oh, Paul! how unkind!" exclaimed Hermione, clasping her hands upon his shoulder, and trying to look at his averted face. "I never, never believed it, dear. But no one else must believe it either; you must make them not believe it." "My dearest," said Paul, almost sternly, but not unkindly, "this thing has pursued me for a long time. I thought it was dead. It has come between you and me on the very day of our happiness. You say you believe in me. I say you shall not believe in me without proof. Good-by, love,--good-by!" He drew her to him and kissed her once; then he tried to go. "Paul," she cried, holding him, "where are you going?" She was terrified by his manner. "I am going away," he said slowly. "I will find my brother, or his body, and I will not come back until then." "But you must not go! I cannot bear to let you go!" she cried, in agonized tones. "You must," he answered, and the color left his cheeks. "You cannot marry a man who is suspected. Good-by, my beloved!" Once more he kissed her, and then he turned quickly away and left the hall. Hermione stood still one moment, staring at his retreating figure. Then she sank into the deep chair by the side of the great fire and burst into tears. She had good cause for sorrow, for she had sent Paul Patoff away, she knew not whither. She had not even the satisfaction of feeling that she had been quite right in speaking to him as she had spoken, and above all she feared lest he should believe, in spite of her words, that in her own mind there was some shadow of suspicion left. But he was gone. He would probably leave the house early in the morning, and she might never see him again. What could she do but let her tears flow down as freely as they could? Late at night I sat in my room, reading by the light of the candles, and watching the fire as it gradually died away in the grate. It was very late, and I was beginning to think of going to bed, when some one knocked at the door. It was Paul Patoff. I was very much surprised to see him, and I suppose my face showed it, for he apologized for the intrusion. "Excuse me," he said. "It is very late, but could you spare me half an hour before going to bed?" "Certainly," I answered, noticing his pallor, and fancying that something had happened. "Thank you," said he. "I believe I have heard you say that you know Constantinople very well?" "Tolerably well--yes. I know many of the natives. I have been there very often." "I am going back there," said Patoff. "They sent me to Persia for a year and more, and now I am to return to my old post. I want to ask your advice about a very delicate matter. You know--or perhaps you do not know--that my brother disappeared in Stamboul, a year ago last summer, under very strange circumstances. I did all I could to find him, and the ambassador did more. But we never discovered any trace of him. I have made up my mind that I will not be disappointed this time." "Could you tell me any of the details?" I asked. Paul looked at me once, and hesitated. Then he settled himself in his chair, and told me his story very much as I have told it, from the afternoon of the day on which Alexander disappeared to the moment when Paul left his mother at Teinach in the Black Forest. He told me also how Professor Cutter had written to him his account of the accident at Weissenstein, when Madame Patoff, as he said, had attempted to commit suicide. "Pardon me," I said, when he had reached this stage. "I do not believe she tried to kill herself." "Why not?" asked Patoff, in some surprise. "I was the man with the rope. Cutter has never realized that you did not know it." Paul was very much astonished at the news, and looked at me as though hardly believing his senses. "Yes," I continued. "I happened to be leaning out of the window immediately over the balcony, and I saw your mother fall. I do not believe she threw herself over; if she had done that, she would probably not have been caught on the tree. The parapet was very low, and she is very tall. I heard her say to Professor Cutter, 'I am coming;' then she stood up. Suddenly she grew red in the face, tottered, tried to save herself, but missed the parapet, and fell over with a loud scream of terror." "I am very much surprised," said Paul, "very grateful to you, of course, for saving her life. I do not know how to thank you; but how strange that Cutter should never have told me!" "He saw that we knew each other," I remarked. "He supposed that I had told you." "So it was not an attempt at suicide, after all. It is amazing to think how one may be deceived in this world." For some minutes he sat silent in his chair, evidently in deep thought. I did not disturb him, though I watched the melancholy expression of his face, thinking of the great misfortunes which had overtaken him, and pitying him, perhaps, more than he would have liked. "Griggs," he said at last, "do you know of any one in Constantinople who would help me,--who could help me if he would?" "To find your brother? It is a serious affair. Yes, I do know of one man; if he could be induced to take an interest in the matter, he might do a great deal." "What is his name?" "Balsamides Bey," I answered. "I have seen him, but I do not know him," said Paul. "Could you give me a letter?" "It would not be of the slightest use. You can easily make his acquaintance, but it will be a very different matter to get him to help you. He is one of the strangest men in the world. If he takes a fancy to you, he will do anything imaginable to oblige you." "And if not?" "If not, he will laugh at you. He is a queer fellow." "Eccentric, I should think. I am not prepared to be laughed at, but I will risk it, if there is any chance." "Look here, Patoff," I said. "I have nothing to do this spring, and the devil of unrest is on me again. I will go to Constantinople with you, and we will see what can be done. You are a Russian, and those people will not trust you; your nationality will be against you at every turn. Balsamides himself hates Russians, having fought against them ten years ago, in the last war." Paul started up in his chair, and stretched out his hand. "Will you really go with me?" he cried in great excitement. "That would be too good of you. Shall we start to-morrow?" "Let me see,--we must have an excuse. Could you not telegraph to your chief to recall you at once? You must have something to show to Carvel. He will be startled at our leaving so suddenly." "Will he?" said Paul, absently. "I suppose so. Perhaps I can manage it." It was very late when he left my room. I went to bed, but slept little, thinking over all he had told me, but knowing that he had not told me all. I guessed then what I knew later,--that he had asked Hermione to marry him, and that, in consequence of Chrysophrasia's remark at dinner, she had asked him about his brother. It was easy to understand that the question, coming from her, would produce a revival of his former energy in the search for Alexander. But it was long before I knew all the details of Hermione's visit to Madame Patoff. The matter was arranged without much difficulty. Paul received a despatch the next day from Count Ananoff, requesting him to return as soon as possible, and I announced my determination to accompany him. The news was received by the different members of the household in different ways, according to the views of each. Poor Hermione was pale and silent. Chrysophrasia's disagreeable eyes wore a greenish air of cat-like satisfaction. Mrs. Carvel herself was sincerely distressed, and John opened his eyes in astonishment. Professor Cutter looked about with an inquiring air, and Macaulay expressed a hope that he might be appointed to Constantinople very soon, adding that he should take pains to learn Turkish as quickly as possible. That fellow regards everything in life as a sort of lesson, and takes part in events as a highly moral and studious undergraduate would attend a course of lectures. I think Paul and I both breathed more freely when we had announced our departure. He looked ill, and it was evident that he was sorry to go, but it was also quite clear that nothing could move him from his determination. Even at the last minute he kept himself calm, and though he was obliged to part from Hermione in the presence of all the rest, he did not wince. Every one joined in saying that they hoped he would pay them another visit, and even Chrysophrasia drawled out something to that effect, though I have no doubt she was inwardly rejoicing at his going away; and just as we were starting she ostentatiously kissed poor Hermione, as though to reassert her protectorate, and to show that Hermione's safety was due entirely to her aunt Chrysophrasia's exertions on her behalf. Paul would have been willing to go to his mother once again before parting, but Cutter thought it better not to let him do so, as his presence irritated her beyond measure. Hermione looked as though she would have said something, but seemed to think better of it. At last we drove away from the old place in the chilly February afternoon, and I confess that for a moment I half repented of my sudden resolution to go to the East. But in a few minutes the old longing for some active occupation came back, and though I thought gratefully of John Carvel's friendly ways and pleasant conversation, I found myself looking forward to the sight of the crowded bazaars and the solemn Turks, smelling already the indescribable atmosphere of the Levant, and enjoying the prospect almost as keenly as when I first set my face eastwards, many years ago. These were the circumstances which brought me back to Constantinople last year. If, in telling my story, I have dwelt long upon what happened in England, I must beg you to remember that it is one thing to construct a drama with all possible regard for the unities and no regard whatever for probability, whereas it is quite another to tell the story of a man's life, or even of those years which have been to him the most important part of it. XII. It was not an easy matter to make Balsamides Bey take a fancy to Paul, for he was, and still is, a man full of prejudice, if also full of wit. In his well-shaped head resides an intelligence of no mean order, and the lines graven in his pale face express thought and study, while suggesting also an extreme love of sarcasm and a caustic, incredulous humor. His large and deep-set blue eyes seem to look at things only to criticise them, never to enjoy them, and his arched eyebrows bristle like defenses set up between the world with its interests on the one side and the inner man Balsamides on the other. Though he wears a heavy brown mustache, it is easy to see that underneath it his thin lips curl scornfully, and are drawn down at the extremities of his mouth. He is very scrupulous in his appearance, whether he wears the uniform of a Sultan's adjutant, or the morning dress of an ordinary man of the world, or the official evening coat of the Turks, made like that of an English clergyman, but ornamented by a string of tiny decorations attached to the buttonhole on the left side. Gregorios Balsamides is of middle height, slender and well built, a matchless horseman, and long inured to every kind of hardship, though his pallor and his delicate white hands suggest a constitution anything but hardy. He is the natural outcome of the present state of civilization in Turkey; and as it is not easy for the ordinary mind to understand the state of the Ottoman Empire without long study, so it is not by any means a simple matter to comprehend the characters produced by the modern condition of things in the East. Balsamides Bey is a man who seems to unite in himself as many contradictory qualities and characteristics as are to be found in any one living man. He is a thorough Turk in principle, but also a thorough Western Frank in education. He has read immensely in many languages, and speaks French and English with remarkable fluency. He has made an especial study of modern history, and can give an important date, a short account of a great battle, or a brief notice of a living celebrity, with an ease and accuracy that many a student might envy. He reads French and English novels, and probably possesses a contraband copy of Byron, whose works are proscribed in Turkey and confiscated by the custom-house. He goes into European society as well as among Turks, Greeks, and Armenians. Although a Greek by descent, he loves the Turks and is profoundly attached to the reigning dynasty, under whom his father and grandfather lived and prospered. A Christian by birth and education, he has a profound respect for the Mussulman faith, as being the religion of the government he serves, and a profound hatred of the Armenian, whom he regards as the evil genius of the Osmanli. He is a man whom many trust, but whose chief desire seems to be to avoid all show of power. He is often consulted on important matters, but his discretion is proof against all attacks, and there is not a journalist nor correspondent in Pera who can boast of ever having extracted the smallest item of information from Balsamides Bey. These are his good qualities, and they are solid ones, for he is a thoroughly well-informed man, exceedingly clever, and absolutely trustworthy. On the other hand, he is cold, sarcastic, and possibly cruel, and occasionally he is frank almost to brutality. On the very evening of our arrival in Pera I went to see him, for he is an old friend of mine. I found him alone in his small lodgings in the Grande Rue, reading a yellow-covered French novel by the light of a German student-lamp. The room was simply furnished with a table, a divan, three or four stiff, straight-backed chairs, and a bookcase. But on the matted floor and divan there were two or three fine Siné carpets; a couple of trophies of splendidly ornamented weapons adorned the wall; by his side, upon a small eight-sided table inlaid with tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl, stood a silver salver with an empty coffee-cup of beautiful workmanship,--the stand of beaten gold, and the delicate shell of the most exquisite transparent china. He had evidently been on duty at the palace, for he was in uniform, and had removed only his long riding-boots, throwing himself down in his chair to read the book in which he was interested. On seeing me, he rose suddenly and put out his hand. "Is it you? Where have you come from?" he cried. "From England, to see you," I answered. "You must stay with me," he said at once. "The spare room is ready," he added, leading me to the door. Then he clapped his hands to call the servant, before I could prevent him. "But I have already been to the hotel," I protested. "Go to Missiri's with a hamál, and bring the Effendi's luggage," he said to the servant, who instantly disappeared. "Caught," he exclaimed, laughing, as he opened the door and showed me my little room. I had slept there many a night in former times, and I loved his simple hospitality. "You are the same as ever," I said. "A man cannot put his nose inside your door without being caught, as you call it." "Many a man may," he answered. "But not you, my dear fellow. Now--you will have coffee and a cigarette. We will dine at home. There is pilaff and kebabi and a bottle of champagne. How are you? I forgot to ask." "Very well, thanks," said I, as we came back to the sitting-room. "I am always well, you know. You look pale, but that is nothing new. You have been on duty at the palace?" "Friday," he answered laconically, which meant that he had been at the Selamlek, attending the Sultan to the weekly service at the mosque. "You used to get back early in the day. Have the hours changed?" "Man of Belial," he replied, "with us nothing changes. I was detained at the palace. So you have come all the way from England to see me?" "Yes,--and to ask you a question and a favor." "You shall have the answer and my services." "Do not promise before you have heard. 'Two acrobats cannot always dance on the same rope,' as your proverb says." "And 'Every sheep hangs by its own heels,'" said he. "I will take my chance with you. First, the question, please." "Did you ever hear of Alexander Patoff?" Balsamides looked at me a moment, with the air of a man who is asked an exceedingly foolish question. "Hear of him? I have heard of nothing else for the last eighteen months. I have an indigestion brought on by too much Alexander Patoff. Is that your errand, Griggs? How in the world did you come to take up that question?" "You have been asked about him before?" I inquired. "I tell you there is not a dog in Constantinople that has not been kicked for not knowing where that fellow is. I am sick of him, alive or dead. What do I care about your Patoffs? The fool could not take care of himself when he was alive, and now the universe is turned upside down to find his silly body. Where is he? At the bottom of the Bosphorus. How did he get there? By the kind exertions of his brother, who then played the comedy of tearing his hair so cleverly that his ambassador believed him. Very simple: if you want to find his body, I can tell you how to do it." "How?" I asked eagerly. "Drain the Bosphorus," he answered, with a sneer. "You will find plenty of skulls at the bottom of it. The smallest will be his, to a dead certainty." "My dear fellow," I protested, "his brother did not kill him. The proof is that Paul Patoff has come hack swearing that he will find some trace of Alexander. He came with me, and I believe his story." "He is only renewing the comedy,--tearing his hair on the anniversary of the death, like a well-paid mourner. Of course, somebody has accused him again of the murder. He will have to tear his hair every time he is accused, in order to keep up appearances. He knows, and he alone knows, where the dead man is." "But if he killed him the kaváss must have known it--must have helped him. You remember the story?" "I should think so. What does the kaváss prove? Nothing. He was probably told to go off for a moment, and now will not confess it. Money will do anything." "There remains the driver of the carriage," I objected. "He saw Alexander go into Agia Sophia, but he never saw him come out." "And is anything easier than that? A man might learn those few words in three minutes. That proves nothing." "There is the probability," I argued. "Many persons have disappeared in Stamboul before now." "Nonsense, Griggs," he answered. "You know that when anything of the kind has occurred it has generally turned out that the missing man was bankrupt. He disappeared to reappear somewhere else under another name. I do not believe a word of all those romances. To you Franks we are a nation of robbers, murderers, and thieves; we are the Turkey of Byron, always thirsting for blood, spilling it senselessly, and crying out for more. If that idiot allowed his brother to kill him without attracting a crowd,--in Stamboul, in the last week of Ramazán, when everybody is out of doors,--he deserved his fate, that is all." "I do not believe he is dead," I said, "and I have come here to ask you to make the acquaintance of Paul Patoff. If you still believe him to be a murderer when you have heard him tell his story, I shall be very much surprised." "I should tear him to pieces if I met him," said Balsamides, with a laugh. "The mere sight of anybody called Patoff would bring on an attack of the nerves." "Be serious," said I. "Do you think I would be so foolish as to interest myself in this business unless I believed that it could be cleared of all mystery and explained?" "You have been in England," retorted Gregorios. "That will explain any kind of insanity. Do you want me to pester every office in the government with new inquiries? It will do no good. Everything has been tried. The man is gone without leaving a trace. No amount of money will produce information. Can I say more? Where money fails, a man need not be so foolish as to hope anything from his intelligence." "I am foolish enough to hope something," I replied. "If you will not help me, I must go elsewhere. I will not give up the thing at the start." "Well, if I say I will help you, what do you expect me to do? Can I do anything which has not been done already? If so, I will do it. But I will not harness myself to a rotten cart, as the proverb says. It is quite useless to expect anything more from the police." "I expect nothing from them. I believe that Alexander is alive, and has been hidden by somebody rich enough and strong enough to baffle pursuit." "What put that into your head?" asked my companion, looking at me with sudden curiosity. "Nothing but the reduction of the thing to the last analysis. Either he is dead, or he is alive. As you say, he could hardly have been killed on such a night without attracting attention. Besides, the motives for Paul's killing him were wholly inadequate. No, let me go on. Therefore I say that he was taken alive." "Where?" "In Santa Sophia." "But then," argued Balsamides, "the driver would have seen him carried out." "Yes," I admitted. "That is the difficulty. But he might perhaps have been taken through the porch; at all events, he must have gone down the stairs alone, taking the lantern." "They found the lantern," said Gregorios. "You did not know that? A long time afterwards the man who opens the towers confessed that when he had gone up with the brothers and the kaváss he had found that his taper was burnt out. He picked up the kaváss's lantern and carried it down, meaning to return with the next party of foreigners. No other foreigners came, and when he went up to find the Patoffs they were gone and the carriage was gone. He kept the lantern, until the offers of reward induced him to give it up and tell his story." "That proves nothing, except that Alexander went down-stairs in the dark." "I have an idea, Griggs!" cried Balsamides, suddenly changing his tone. "It proves this,--that Alexander did not necessarily go down the steps at all." "I do not understand." "There is another way out of that gallery. Did you know that? At the other end, in exactly the same position, hidden in the deep arch, there is a second door. There is also a winding staircase, which leads to the street on the opposite side of the mosque. Foreigners are never admitted by that side, but it is barely possible that the door may have been open. Alexander Patoff may have gone down that way, thinking it was the staircase by which he had come up." "You see," I said, delighted at this information, "everything is not exhausted yet." "No, I begin to think we are nearer to an explanation. If that door was open,--which, however, is very improbable,--he could have gone down and have got into the street without passing the carriage, which stood on the other side of the mosque. But, after all, we are no nearer to knowing what ultimately became of him." "Would it be possible to find out whether the door was really open, and, if so, who passed that way?" I inquired. "We shall see," said Gregorios. "I will change my mind. I will make the acquaintance of your Russian friend. I know him by sight, though I never spoke to him. When I have talked the matter over with him I will tell you what I think about it. Let us go to dinner." I felt that I had overcome the first great difficulty in persuading Balsamides to take some interest in my errand. He is one of those men who are very hard to move, but who, when once they are disposed to act at all, are ready to do their best. Moreover, the existence of the second staircase, leading from the gallery to the street, at once explained how Alexander might have left the church unobserved by the coachman. I wondered why no one had thought of this. It had probably not suggested itself to any one, because strangers are never admitted from that side, and because the door is almost always closed. Gregorios did not refer to the subject again that evening, but amused himself by asking me all manner of questions about the state of England. We fell to talking about European politics, and the hours passed very pleasantly until midnight. On the next day I went to see Paul, and told him the result of my first step. He appeared very grateful. "It seems hard that my life should be ruined by this thing," he said wearily. "Any prospect of news is delightful, however small. I am under a sort of curse,--as much as though I had really had something to do with poor Alexander's death. It comes up in all sorts of ways. Unless we can solve the mystery, I shall never be really free." "We will solve it," I said, in order to reassure him. "Nothing shall be left undone, and I hope that in a few weeks you may feel relieved from all this anxiety." "It is more than anxiety; it is pain," he answered. I supposed that he was thinking of Hermione, and was silent. Presently he proposed to go out. It was a fine day in February, though the snow was on the ground and filled the ruts in the pavement of the Grande Rue de Pera. Every one was wrapped in furs and every one wore overshoes, without which it is impossible to go out in winter in Constantinople. The streets were crowded with that strange multitude seen nowhere else in the world; the shops were full of people of all sorts, from the ladies of the embassies to the veiled Turkish ladies, who have small respect for the regulation forbidding them to buy in Frank establishments. At Galata Serai the huge Kurdish hamáls loitered in the sun, waiting for a job, their ropes and the heavy pillows on which they carry their burdens lying at their feet. The lean dogs sat up and glared hungrily at the huge joints of meat which the butchers' lads carried through the crowd, forcing their way past the delicate Western ladies, who drew back in horror at the sight of so much raw beef, and through knots of well-dressed men standing before the cafés in the narrow street. Numberless soldiers moved in the crowd, tall, fair Turks, with broad shoulders and blue eyes, in the shabby uniform of the foot-guards, but looking as though they could fight as well as any smart Prussian grenadier, as indeed they can when they get enough to eat. Now and then a closed sedan-chair moved rapidly along, borne by sturdy Kurds, and occasionally a considerable disturbance was caused by the appearance of a carriage. Paul and I strolled down the steep street, past Galata Tower and down into Galata itself. "Shall we cross?" asked Paul, as we reached the bridge. "Let us go up the Bosphorus," I said. "There will probably be a steamer before long." He assented readily enough. It was about eleven o'clock in the morning,--five by the Turkish clocks,--and the day was magnificent. The sun was high, and illuminated everything in the bright, cold air, so that the domes and minarets of the city were white as snow, with bluish shadows, while the gilded crescents and spires glistened with unnatural brilliancy in the clear winter's daylight. It is hard to say whether Stamboul is more beautiful at any one season of the year than during the other three, for every season brings with it some especial loveliness, some new phase of color. You may reach Serai point on a winter's morning in a driving snow-storm, so that everything is hidden in the gray veil of the falling flakes; suddenly the clouds will part and the sunlight will fall full upon the city, so that it seems as if every mosque and spire were built of diamonds. Or you may cross to Scutari in the early dawn of a morning in June, when the sky is like a vast Eastern flower, dark blue in the midst overhead, the petals shaded with every tint to the faint purple on the horizon; and every hue in turn passes over the fantastic buildings, as the shadows gradually take color from the sky, and the soft velvety water laps up the light in broad pools and delicate streaks of tinted reflection. It is always beautiful, always new; but of all times, I think the hour when the high sun illuminates most distinctly everything on land and sea is the time when Stamboul is most splendid and queenly. The great ferry-boat heaved and thumped the water, and swung slowly off the wooden pier, while we stood on the upper deck watching the scene before us. For two men as familiar with Constantinople in all its aspects as we were, it seemed almost ridiculous to go on board a steamer merely for the sake of being carried to the mouth of the Black Sea and back again. But I have always loved the Bosphorus, and I thought it would amuse Paul to pass the many landings, and to see the crowds of passengers, and to walk about the empty deck. He was tired with the journey and harassed in mind, and for those ills the open air is the best medicine. He appeared to enjoy it, and asked me many questions about the palaces and villas on both shores, for I was better acquainted with the place than he. It seemed to interest him to know that such a villa belonged to such a Pasha, that such another was the property of an old princess of evil fame, while the third had seen strange doings in the days of Mehemet Ali, and was now deserted or inhabited only by ghosts of the past,--the resort of ghouls and jins from the neighboring grave-yards. As we lay a moment at the pier of Yeni Köj,--"New town" sounds less interesting,--we watched the stream of passengers, and I thought Paul started slightly as a tall, smooth-faced, and hideous negro suddenly turned and looked up to where we stood on the deck, as he left the steamer. I might have been mistaken, but it was the only approach to an incident of interest which occurred that day. We reached the upper part of the Bosphorus, and at Yeni Mahallè, within sight of the Black Sea, the ferry-boat described a wide circle and turned once more in the direction of Stamboul. "I feel better," said Paul, as we reached Galata bridge and elbowed our way ashore through the crowd. "We will go again." "By all means," I answered. From that time during several weeks we frequently made excursions into Stamboul and up the Bosphorus, and the constant enjoyment of the open air did Paul good. But I could see that wherever we went he watched the people with intense interest; following some individual with his eyes in silence, or trying to see into dark archways and through latticed windows, staring at the files of passengers who came on board the boats or went ashore at the different landings, and apparently never relaxing his attention. The people grew familiar to me, too, and gradually it appeared that Paul was constructing a method for our peregrinations. It was he, and not I, who suggested the direction of our expeditions, and I noticed that he chose certain places on certain days. On Monday, for instance, he never failed to propose a visit to the bazaars, on Tuesday we generally went up the Bosphorus, on Wednesday into Stamboul. On Friday afternoons, when the weather was fine, we used to ride out to the Sweet Waters of Europe; for Friday is the Mussulman's day of rest, and on that day all who are able love to go out to the Kiat-hané--the "paper-mill,"--where they pass the afternoon in driving and walking, eating sweetmeats, smoking, drinking coffee, watching gypsy girls dance, or listening to the long-winded tales of professional story-tellers. Almost every day had its regular excursion, and it was clear to me that he always chose the place where on that day of the week there was likely to be the greatest crowd. Meanwhile Balsamides, in whose house I continued to live, alternately laughed at me for believing Paul's story, and expressed in the next breath a hope that Alexander might yet be found. He had been to Santa Sophia, and had ascertained that the other staircase was usually opened on the nights when the mosque was illuminated, for the convenience of the men employed in lighting the lamps, and this confirmed his theory about the direction taken by Alexander when he left the gallery. But here all trace ceased again, and Balsamides was almost ready to give up the search, when an incident occurred which renewed our energy and hope, and which had the effect of rousing Paul to the greatest excitement. We were wandering under the gloomy arches of the vast bazaar one day, and had reached the quarter where the Spanish Jews have their shops and collect their wonderful mass of valuables, chiefly antiquities, offering them for sale in their little dens, and ever hungry for a bargain. We strolled along, smoking and chatting as we went, when a Jew named Marchetto, with whom I had had dealings in former days and who knew me very well, came suddenly out into the broad covered way, and invited us into his shop. He said he had an object of rare beauty which he was sure I would buy. We went in, and sat down on a low divan against the wall. The sides of the little shop were piled to the ceiling with neatly folded packages of stuffs, embroideries, and prayer carpets. In one corner stood a shabby old table with a glass case, under which various objects of gold and silver were exposed for sale. The whole place smelled strongly of Greek tobacco, but otherwise it was clean and neat. A little raised dome in the middle of the ceiling admitted light and air. Marchetto disappeared for a moment, and instantly returned with two cups of Turkish coffee on a pewter salver, which he deposited on a stool before us. He evidently meant business, for he began to talk of the weather, and seemed in no hurry to show us the object he had vaguely mentioned. At last I asked for it, which I would certainly not have done had I meant to buy it. It proved to be a magnificent strip of Rhodes tapestry, of the kind formerly made for the Knights of Malta, but not manufactured since the last century. It consists always of Maltese crosses, of various sizes and designs, embroidered in heavy dark red silk upon strips of coarse strong linen about two feet wide, or of the same design worked upon square pieces for cushions. The value of this tapestry is very great, and is principally determined by the fineness of the stitch and the shade of red in the silk used. Marchetto's face fell as we admired his tapestry, for he knew that we would not begin a bargain by conceding the smallest merit to the object offered. But he put a brave face on the matter, and began to show us other things: a Giordès carpet, a magnificent piece of old Broussa gold embroidery on pale blue satin, curious embroideries on towels, known as Persian lace,--indeed, every variety of ancient stuff. Tired of sitting still, I rose and turned over some of the things myself. In doing so I struck my elbow against the old glass case in the corner, and looked to see whether I had broken it. In so doing my eye naturally fell upon the things laid out on white paper beneath the glazed frame. Among them I saw a watch which attracted my attention. It was of silver, but very beautifully engraved and adorned in Russian _niello_. The ribbed knob which served to wind it was of gold. Altogether the workmanship was very fine, and the watch looked new. "Here is a Russian watch, Patoff," I said, tapping the glass pane with my finger. Paul rose languidly and came to the table. When he saw the thing he turned pale, and gripped my arm in sudden excitement. "It is his," he said, in a low voice, trying to raise the lid. "Alexander's?" Paul nodded. "Pretend to be indifferent," I said in Russian, fearing lest Marchetto should understand. The Jew unclosed the case and handed us the watch. Paul took it with trembling fingers and opened it at the back. There in Russian letters were engraved the words ALEXANDER PAULOVITCH, FROM HIS FATHER; the date followed. There was no doubt about it. The watch had belonged to the lost man; he had, therefore, been robbed. "You got this from some bankrupt Pasha, Marchetto?" I inquired. Everything offered for sale in the bazaar at second hand is said to come from the establishment of a Pasha; the statement is supposed to attract foreigners. Marchetto nodded and smiled. "A Russian Pasha," I continued. "Did you ever hear of a Russian Pasha, Marchetto? The fellow who sold it to you lied." "He who lies on the first day of Ramazán repents on the day of Bairam," returned the Jew, quoting a Turkish proverb, and grinning. I was struck by the words. Somehow the mention of Bairam made me think of Alexander's uncertain fate, and suggested the idea that Marchetto knew something about it. "Yes," I answered, looking sharply at him; "and another proverb says that the fox ends his days in the furrier's shop. Where did you buy the watch?" "Allah bilir! I have forgotten." "Allah knows, undoubtedly. But you know too," I said, laughing, and pretending to be amused. Paul had resumed his seat upon the small divan, and was listening with intense interest; but he knew it was best to leave the thing to me. Marchetto was a fat man, with red hair and red-brown eyes. He looked at me doubtfully for a moment. "I will buy it if you will tell me where you got it," I said. "I got it"--He hesitated. "It came out of a harem," he added suddenly, with a sort of chuckle. "Out of a harem!" I exclaimed, in utter incredulity. "What harem?" "I will not tell you," he answered, gravely, the smile fading from his face. "I swore that I would not tell." "Will you swear that it really came from a harem?" I asked. "I give you my word of honor," asseverated Marchetto. "I swear by my head, by your beard"---- "I do not mean that," I said quietly. "Will you swear to me, solemnly, before God, that you are telling the truth?" Marchetto looked at me in surprise, for no people in the world are so averse to making a solemn oath as the Hebrews, as, perhaps, no people are more exact in regard to the truth when so made to bind themselves. The man looked at me for a moment. "You seem very curious about that watch," he said at last, turning away and busying himself with his stuffs. "Then you will not swear?" I asked, putting the watch back in its place. "I cannot swear to what I do not know. But I know the man who sold it to me. He is the Lala of a harem, that is certain. I will not tell you his name, nor the name of the Effendi to whose harem he belongs. Will you buy my watch?--birindjí--first quality--it is a beautiful thing. On my honor, I have never seen a finer one, though it is of silver." "Not unless you will tell me where it came from," I said firmly. "Besides, I must show it to Vartan in Pera before I buy it. Perhaps the works are not good." "It is yours," said Marchetto. "Take it. When you have had it two days you will buy it." "How much?" "Twenty liras,--twenty Turkish pounds," answered the Jew promptly. "You mean five," I said. The watch was worth ten, I thought, about two hundred and thirty francs. "Impossible. I would rather let you take it as a gift. It is birindjí--first quality--upon my honor. I never saw"---- "Rubbish, Marchetto!" I exclaimed. "Let me take it to Vartan to be examined. Then we will bargain." "Take it," he answered. "Keep it as long as you like. I know you very well, and I thank Heaven I have profited a little with you. But the price of the watch is twenty pounds. You will pay it, and all your life you will look at it and say, 'What an honest man Marchetto is!' By my head--it is birindjí--first quality--I never"---- "I have no doubt," I answered, cutting him short. I motioned to Paul that we had better go: he rose without a word. "Good-by, Marchetto," I said. "I will come back in a day or two and bargain with you." "It is birindjí--by my head--first quality"--were the last words we heard as we left the Jew amongst his stuffs. Then we threaded the subterranean passages of the bazaar, and soon afterwards were walking in the direction of Galata bridge, on our way back to Pera. At last Paul spoke. "We are on the scent," he said. "That fellow was speaking the truth when he said the watch came from a harem. I could see it in his face. I begin to think that Alexander did some absurdly rash thing,--followed some veiled Turkish woman, as he would have done before if I had not stopped him,--was seized, imprisoned in some cellar or other, and ultimately murdered." "It looks like it," I answered. "Of course I would not buy the watch outright, because as long as it is not paid for I have a hold upon Marchetto. I will talk to Balsamides to-night. He is very clever about those things, and he will find out the name of the black man who sold it." We separated, and I went to find my friend; but he was on duty and would not return until evening. I spent the rest of the day in making visits, trying to get rid of the time. On returning to the house of Gregorios I found a letter from John Carvel, the first I had received from him since I had left England. It ran as follows:-- * * * MY DEAR GRIGGS: Since you left us something very extraordinary and unexpected has taken place, and considering the part you took in our household affairs, you should not be kept in the dark. I have suffered more annoyance in connection with my unfortunate sister-in-law than I can ever tell you; and the thing has culminated in a sort of transformation scene, such as you certainly never expected any more than I did. What will you say when I tell you that Madame Patoff has suddenly emerged from her rooms in all respects a sane woman? You will not be any less surprised--unless Paul has confided in you--to hear that he asked Hermione to marry him before leaving us, and that Hermione did not refuse him! I am so nervous that I have cut three meets in the last month. Of course you will want to know how all this came out. I do not see how I can manage to write so long a letter as this must be. But the _labor improbus_ knocks the stuffing out of all difficulties, as you put it in your neat American way. I dare say I shall survive. If I do not, the directions for my epitaph are, "Here lies the body of Anne Patoff's brother-in-law." If you could see me, you would appreciate the justice of the inscription. Madame Patoff is perfectly sane; dines with us, drives out, walks, talks, and reads like any other human being,--in which she differs materially from Chrysophrasia, who does all these things as they were never done, before or after the flood. We do not know what to make of the situation, but we try to make the best of it. It came about in this way. Hermione had taken a fancy to pay her aunt a visit, a day or two after you had left. Mrs. North was outside, as usual, reading or working in the next room. It chanced that the door was left open, or not quite closed. Mrs. North had the habit of listening to what went on, professionally, because it was her business to watch the case. As she sat there working, she heard Madame Patoff's voice, talking consecutively. She had never heard her talk before, more than to say "Yes," or "No," or "It is a fine day," or "It rains." She rose and went near the door. Her patient was talking very connectedly about a book she had been reading, and Hermione was answering her as though not at all surprised at the conversation. Then, presently, Hermione began to beg her to come out into the house and to live with the rest of us, since she was now perfectly sane. Mrs. North was thunderstruck, but did not lose her head. She probably did the best thing she could have done, as the event proved. She entered the room very quietly,--she is always so quiet,--and said in the most natural way in the world, "I am so glad you are better, Madame Patoff. Excuse me, Miss Hermione left the door open and I heard you talking." The old lady started and looked at her a moment. Then she turned away, and presently, looking rather white, she answered the nurse: "Thank you, Mrs. North, I am quite well. Will you send for Professor Cutter?" So Cutter was sent for, and when he had seen her he sent for me, and told me that my sister-in-law was in a lucid state, but that it would be just as well not to excite her. If she chose to leave her room she might, he said, but she ought to be watched. "The deuce!" said I, "this is most extraordinary!" "Exactly," said he, "most extraordinary." The lucid moment lasted, and she has been perfectly sane ever since. She goes about the house, touching everything and admiring everything, and enjoys driving with me in the dog-cart. I do not know what to make of it. I asked Hermione how it began. She only said that she thought her aunt had been better when she was with her, and then it had come very suddenly. The other day Madame Patoff asked about Paul, and I told her he had gone to the East with you. But she did not seem to know anything about you, though I told her you had seen her. "Poor Paul," she said, "I should like to see him so much. He is the only one left." She was sad for a moment, but that was all. Cutter said it was very strange; that her insanity must have been caused in some way by the shock she had when she threw herself out of the window in Germany. Perhaps so. At all events she is sane now, and Cutter says she will not be crazy again. I hope he is right. She appeared very grateful for all I had done for her, and I believe she has written to Paul. Queer story, is it not? Now for the sequel. Hermione came to me one morning in the library, and confessed that Paul had asked her to marry him, and that she had not exactly refused. Girls' ideas about those things are apt to be very inexact when they are in love with a man and do not want to own it. Of course I said I was glad she had not accepted him; but when I put it to her in that way she seemed more uncertain than ever. The end of it was that she said she could not marry him, however much she liked him, unless he could put an end to a certain foolish tale which is told against him. I dare say you have heard that he had been half suspected of helping his brother out of the world. Was there ever such nonsense? That was what Chrysophrasia meant with her disgusting personalities about Cain and Abel. I dare say you remember. I do not mind telling you that I like Paul very much more than I expected to when he first came. He has a hard shell, but he is a good fellow, and as innocent of his brother's death as I am. But--they are cousins, and Paul's mother has certainly been insane. Of course insanity brought on by an accident can never be hereditary; but then, there is Chrysophrasia, who is certainly very odd. However, Paul is a fine fellow, and I will think of it. Mrs. Carvel likes him even better than I do. I would have preferred that Hermione should marry an out-and-out Englishman, but I always said she should marry the man she loved, if he were a gentleman, and I will not go back on my word. They will not have much to live on, for I believe Paul has refused to touch a penny of his brother's fortune, believing that he may yet be found. But the plot thickens. What do you suppose Macaulay has been doing? He has written a letter to his old chief, Lord Mavourneen, who always liked him so much, begging to be sent to Constantinople. The ambassador had a secretary out there of the same standing who wanted to go to Paris, so the matter was arranged at the Foreign Office, and Macaulay is going out at once. Naturally the female establishment set up a howl that they must spend the summer on the Bosphorus; that I had taken them everywhere else, and that no one of them could die happy without having seen Constantinople. The howl lasted a week. Then I went the way of all flesh, and gave in. Mrs. Carvel wanted to see Macaulay, Madame Patoff wanted to see the place where poor Alexander disappeared, Hermione wanted to see Paul, and Chrysophrasia wanted to see the Golden Horn and dance upon the glad waters of the joyous Bosphorus in the light caïque of commerce. I am rather glad I have submitted. I think that Hermione's affection is serious,--she looks ill, poor child,--and I want to see more of Paul before deciding. Of course, with Macaulay in one embassy and Paul in another, we shall see everything; and Mary says I am growing crusty over my books. You understand now how all this has occurred. Now I want your advice, for you not only know Constantinople, but you are living there. Do you advise us to come at once and spend the spring, or to come later and stay all summer? Is there anything to eat? Must I bring a cook? Can I get a house, or must we encamp in a hotel? What clothes does one wear? In short, tell me everything you know, on a series of post cards or by telegraph,--for you hate writing letters more than I do. I await your answer with anxiety, as we shall regulate our movements by what you say. All send affectionate messages to you and to Paul, to whom please read this letter. Yours ever, JOHN CARVEL. * * * I had not recovered from my astonishment in reading this long epistle, when Gregorios came in and sat down by the fire. His entrance reminded me of the watch, and for the moment banished John Carvel and his family from my thoughts. I showed him the thing, and told him what Marchetto had said. "We have him now!" he exclaimed, examining the name and date with interest, though he could not read the Russian characters. "It is not so sure," I said. "He will never tell the name of the negro." "No; but we can see the fellow easily enough, I fancy," returned Balsamides. "You do not know how these things are done. It is most probable that Marchetto has not paid him for the watch. Things of that sort are generally not paid for until they have been sold out of the shop. Marchetto would not give him a good price for the watch until he knew what it would fetch, and the man would not take a small sum because he believes it to be valuable. The chances are that the Lala comes from time to time to inquire if it is sold, and Marchetto shows it to him to prove that he has not got any money for it." "That sounds rather far-fetched," I observed. "Marchetto may have had it in his keeping ever since Alexander disappeared. The Lala would not wait as long as that. He would take it to some one else." "No, I do not believe so," said Gregorios thoughtfully. "Besides, it may not have been brought to the Jew more than a week ago. Those fellows do not part with jewelry unless they need money. It is a pretty thing, too, and would attract the attention of any foreigner." "How can you manage to watch Marchetto so closely as to get a sight of the man?" "Bribe the Jew in the next shop; or, still better, pay a hamál to spend his time in the neighborhood. The man probably comes once a week on a certain day. Keep the watch. The next time he comes it will be gone, but Marchetto will not have been paid for it and will refuse to pay the Lala. There will inevitably be a hubbub and a noise over it. The hamál can easily find out the name of the negro, who is probably well known in the bazaar." "But suppose that I am right, and it is already paid for?" I objected. "It is very unlikely. I know these people better than you do. At all events, we will put the hamál there to watch for the row. If it does not come off in a month, I will begin to think you are right." Gregorios is a true Oriental. He possesses the inborn instinct of the bazaar. XIII. That night I went in search of Paul, and found him standing silent and alone in the corner of a drawing-room at one of the embassies. There was a great reception and a dance, and all the diplomats had turned out officially to see that portion of the native Pera society which is invited on such occasions. There is a brilliancy about such affairs in Constantinople which is hardly rivaled elsewhere. The display of jewels is something wonderful, for the great Fanariote families are still rich, in spite of the devastations of the late war, and the light of their hereditary diamonds and pearls is not hidden under a bushel. There is beauty, too, of the Oriental and Western kind, and plenty of it. The black eyes and transparently white complexions of the Greek ladies, their raven hair and heavy brows, their magnificent calm and their languid attitudes, contrast strangely with the fair women of many countries, whose husbands, or fathers, or brothers, or uncles are attached to the different embassies. The uniforms, too, are often superb, and the display of decorations is amazing. The conversation is an enlargement on the ordinary idea of Babel, for almost every known language is spoken within the limits of the ball-room. I found Paul alone, with an abstracted expression on his face, as he stood aside from the crowd, unnoticed in his corner. "My dear fellow," I said, "I believe I may congratulate you." "Upon what?" he asked, in some surprise. "Let us get out of this crowd," I answered. "I have a letter from John Carvel, which you ought to read." We threaded the rooms till we reached a small boudoir, occupied only by one or two couples, exceedingly interested in each other. "Read that," said I. It was the best thing I could do for him, I thought. He might be annoyed to find that I knew his secret, but he could not fail to rejoice at the view John took of the engagement. His face changed many times in expression, as he read the letter carefully. When he had finished he was silent and held it in his hand. "What do you think of all this?" I asked. "She never was mad. Or if she was, this is the strangest recovery I ever heard of. So she is coming here with the rest! And uncle John thinks me a very fine fellow," he added with a laugh, meant to be a little sarcastic, but which ended with the irrepressible ring of genuine happiness. "I congratulate you," I said. "I think the affair is as good as settled. You have only to wait a few weeks, and they will be here. By the by, I hope you do not mind Carvel's frankness in telling me all about it?" "Not in the least," answered Paul, with a smile. "I believe you are the best friend I have in the world, and you are his friend. You will do good rather than harm." "I hope so," said I. "But if any one had foretold a month ago that we should all be together again so soon,--and here, too,--I could have laughed at him." "It is fate," answered Paul. "It would be better if it could be put off until we reach the end of our search, especially as we seem to be nearer the track than ever before. I am afraid that their arrival will hinder us--or, at least, me--from working as hard as I would like." "On the contrary," I replied, "I fancy you will work all the harder. I have been talking to Balsamides about the watch. He feels sure that he can catch the man who took it to Marchetto." I explained to Paul the course Gregorios proposed to follow. He seemed to think the chance was a poor one. "I have been pursued by an idea ever since this morning," he said at last. "I dare say you will think it very foolish, but I cannot get rid of it. Do you remember the adventure in the Valley of Roses? I told you about it at Carvel Place. Very well. I cannot help thinking that the negro who took the watch to Marchetto was the one who accompanied those two Turkish women. The man was exasperated. He probably knew us by sight, for we had constantly met him and the lady with the thick yashmak. They had often seen us come out of the Russian embassy. No complaint was ever made against Alexander. It looks to me like a piece of private vengeance." "Yes," I assented, struck by the idea. "Besides, if the fellow had succeeded in making away with your brother, it is natural that he should have waited a long time before disposing of his jewelry." "I wonder what became of the other things," said Patoff. "Alexander had with him his Moscow cigarette case, he wore a gold chain with the watch, and he had on his finger a ring with a sapphire and two diamonds in a heavy gold band. If all those things have been disposed of, they must have passed through the bazaar, probably through Marchetto's hands." At this moment Balsamides Bey's pale, intelligent face showed itself at the door. He came quickly forward on seeing us, and drew up a chair. I told him in a few words what we had said. He smiled and twirled the end of his brown mustache. "There is something in that," he answered. "I fancy, too, that such a fellow would first part with the chain, then with the cigarette case, thirdly with the watch, and last of all with the ring, which he probably wears." "We must find out if Marchetto has sold the chain and the case for him," I said. "Leave Marchetto to me," said Gregorios, confidently. "I will spend the day with him to-morrow. Have you ever seen the negro since that affair in the Valley of Roses?" "Often," replied Paul, somewhat to my surprise. "He goes to Yeni Köj every Thursday." "You seem to have watched his movements," observed Balsamides, with a smile of admiration. "Did you never tell Griggs?" "No," said I, rather amazed. "What would have been the use? I only watched the man because I fancied he might be in some way connected with the matter, but it seemed so absurd, until the finding of the watch made it look more probable, that I never spoke of it." "I am glad you have spoken of it now," said Gregorios. "It is probably the key to the whole affair." We talked on for a few minutes, and Paul told Balsamides that his mother and the Carvels were coming, explaining his anxiety to hasten the search so as to have something positive to show when they arrived. Then Paul left us, and went to fulfill such social obligations as his position imposed upon him. He was not a man to forget such things, even in times of great excitement; and when he returned to Constantinople, his chief had expressed the hope that Paul would not shut himself up, but would go everywhere, as he had formerly done. "This thing is beginning to interest me, Griggs," said Gregorios, arching his eyebrows, and looking at me with a peculiar expression. "You are doing more than I am, and I will not bear it," he added, with a laugh. "What is my little bit of evidence about the staircase in Santa Sophia compared to your discovery of the watch? I believe that in the end Marchetto will be the _deus ex machina_ who will pull us out of all our difficulties. I believe, too, that the best thing to do is to confide the matter to him. I will go and see him to-morrow." "He will never break his oath to the Lala," I answered. "Perhaps not. But he has only sworn that he will not tell his name. He has not sworn that he will not let me see him. So the fellow goes to Yeni Köj on Thursday. Then he probably lives there, and chooses that day to come to Stamboul. You have seen him going home. If he goes to Stamboul, he most likely visits the bazaar early in the morning. If so, I will catch him to-morrow, and to-morrow night I will tell you whether he is the man or not. I will come upon Marchetto by accident, and he will of course want to show me the Rhodes tapestry; then I will spend the whole morning over the bargain, and I shall not miss the Lala if he comes." Balsamides was evidently fully roused, and as we smoked a last cigarette in his rooms that night he talked enthusiastically of what he hoped to accomplish on the next day. He kept his word, and very early in the morning I heard him go out. From the sound of his walk I could tell that he had no spurs, and was therefore in civilian's dress. He told me afterwards what occurred. At half past eight o'clock he was drinking a cup of coffee in Marchetto's shop in the bazaar, and the Jew was displaying his tapestry, and swearing that it was birindjí, first quality. Balsamides wanted to produce the impression that he intended to make a bargain. "Kaldyr! Take it away!" he exclaimed. "It is rubbish." Marchetto held the stuff up over his customer's head so that the light from the little dome could fall upon it. "There is not a hole in the whole length of it," he cried enthusiastically. "It is perfect; not a thread loose. Examine it; is there a patch? By my head, if you can find such another piece I will give you a present." "Is that a color?" asked Balsamides contemptuously. "Is that red? It is pink. It is magenta. How much did you pay to have it made?" "If I could make Rhodes tapestry, I should be as rich as the Hunkyar," retorted Marchetto, squatting on the matted floor and slowly drawing the magnificent tapestry across his knees, so that Gregorios could see it to advantage. "Do you take me for a madman?" asked the aid-de-camp. "I do not care for Rhodes tapestry. Kaldyr! If it were old, it would have holes in it." "I have Rhodes full of holes, beautiful holes," observed Marchetto, with a grin. "Fox!" retorted Gregorios. "Do you think when I buy tapestry I want to buy holes?" "But this piece has none," argued the Jew. "You want me to buy it. I can see you do. You are laughing at my beard. You think I will give a thousand pounds for your rubbish?" "Not a thousand pounds," said Marchetto. "It is worth a hundred and fifty pounds, neither more nor less. Marchetto is an honest man. He is not a Persian fox." "No," answered Balsamides, "he is an Israelite of Saloniki. What have I to do with such a fellow as you, who have the impudence to ask a hundred and fifty liras for that rag?" "How shall the lion and the lamb lie down together?" inquired Marchetto. "And is it a rag?" "I will tell you, Marchetto," said Gregorios, gravely. "The lion and the lamb shall lie down together, when the lion lies down with the lamb inside of him." "Take, and eat!" exclaimed the ready Jew, holding out the Rhodes tapestry to Balsamides. "A man who has fasted throughout Ramazán shall not break his fast with an onion," retorted Gregorios, laughing. "Who eats little earns much," replied Marchetto. "Is it not the most beautiful piece of Rhodes you ever saw, Effendim? There is not a Pasha in Stamboul, nor in Pera, nor in Scutari, who possesses the like of it. Only a hundred and fifty pounds; it is very cheap." "I will give you ten pounds for it, if you will give me a good backsheesh," said Gregorios at last. In Stamboul it is customary, when a bargain of any importance is completed, for the seller to make the buyer a present of some small object, which is called the backsheesh, or gift. On hearing the offer, Marchetto looked slyly at Gregorios and laughed, without saying anything. Then he slowly began to fold the tapestry together. "Ten pounds," said Balsamides. "Pek chok,--that is quite enough, and too much." "Yes, of course it is," answered the Jew, ironically. "I paid a hundred and nineteen pounds and eighty-five piastres for it. I only ask fifteen piastres profit. Small profits. Get rid of everything quickly. Who sells cheaply sells soon; who sells soon earns much." "I told you from the first that I did not want your Rhodes," said Balsamides. "I came here to see what you had. Have you nothing else that is good?" "Everything Marchetto has is good. His carpets are all of silk, and of the finest colors. His embroideries are the envy of the bazaar. Marchetto has everything." He did not finish folding the Rhodes, but thrust it aside upon the matting, and began to pull down other stuffs and carpets from the shelves. From the obstinacy Gregorios displayed, he really judged that he meant to buy the tapestry, and to make a good bargain he would willingly have turned everything in his little shop upside down. Gregorios admired several pieces very much, whereupon the Jew threw them aside in disgust, well knowing that his customer would not buy them. The latter had now been an hour in the shop, and showed no signs of going away. Marchetto returned to the original question. "If it is worth so much, why do you not take it to one of the embassies?" asked Balsamides at last. He had resolved that he would prolong the discussion until twelve o'clock, judging that by midday the negro would be on his way back to Yeni Köj, and that there would be no further chance of seeing him. He therefore broached the subject of Marchetto's trade with the foreigners, knowing that once upon this tack the Jew would have endless stories and anecdotes to relate. But Gregorios was not destined to stand in need of so much ingenuity. He would never have made the attempt in which he was now engaged unless he had anticipated success, and he was not surprised when a tall, smooth-faced negro, of hideous countenance but exceedingly well dressed, put his head into the shop. He saluted Gregorios and entered. Marchetto touched his mouth and his fez with his right hand, but did not at first rise from his seat upon the floor. Balsamides watched the man. He looked about the shop, and then approached the old glass case in the corner. He had hardly glanced at it when he turned and tried to catch Marchetto's eye. The latter made an almost imperceptible motion of the head. Gregorios was satisfied that the pantomime referred to the watch, which was no longer in its place. He continued to talk with the Jew for a few minutes, and then slowly rose from his seat. "I see you have business with this gentleman," he said. "I have something to do in the bazaar. I will return in half an hour." The Lala seemed delighted, and politely made way for Gregorios to pass, but Marchetto of course protested loudly that the negro's business could wait. He accompanied Gregorios to the door, and with many inclinations stood looking after him for a few moments. At a little distance Gregorios pretended to be attracted by something exposed for sale, and, pausing, looked furtively back. The Jew had gone in again. Then Balsamides returned and entered a shop almost opposite to Marchetto's, kept by another Spanish Hebrew of Saloniki, who made a specialty of selling shawls,--a smart young fellow, with beady black eyes. "Good morning, Abraham," he said. "Have you manufactured any new Kashmir shawls out of old rags of borders and French imitations since I saw you?" Abraham smiled pleasantly, and began to unfold his wares. Before many minutes the sound of angry voices was heard outside. Gregorios had ensconced himself in a corner, whence he could see what went on without being seen. The quarrelers were Marchetto and the Lala. "Dog of a Jew!" screamed the black man in his high, cracked voice. "Will you rob me, and then turn me out of your filthy den? You shall suffer for it, you Saloniki beast!" "Dog yourself, and son of a dog!" bellowed Marchetto, his big face growing fiery red as he blocked the doorway with his bulky shoulders. "Behold the gratitude of this vile wretch!" he cried, as though addressing an audience. "Look at this insatiate jackal, this pork-eater, this defiler of his father's grave! Oh! beware of touching what is black, for the filth will surely rub off!" Exasperated at the Jew's eloquent abuse, the Lala tried to push him back into the shop, flourishing his light cane in his right hand. In a moment a crowd collected, and the epithets of the combatants were drowned amidst the jeers and laughter of the by-standers, delighted at seeing the dandy keeper of a great harem in the clutches of the sturdy Marchetto. Abraham looked out, and then turned back to his customer. "It is Selim," he said with a chuckle. "He has been trying to cheat Marchetto again." "Again?" repeated Gregorios, who had at last attained his end. "And who is Selim, Abraham?" "Selim? Everybody in the bazaar knows Selim, the most insolent, avaricious, money-grabbing Lala in Stamboul. He is more like a Persian than anything else. He is the Lala of Laleli Khanum Effendi, who lives at Yeni Köj. They say she is a witch since her husband died," added Abraham, lowering his voice. "I have heard so," said Gregorios calmly. But in reality he was triumphant. He knew now what had become of Alexander Patoff. The noise outside was rapidly growing to an uproar. Gregorios slipped quickly out of the shop and made his way through the crowd, for he felt that it was time to put a stop to the quarrel. Many of the people knew him, and knew that he was an officer and a man in authority; recognizing him, they stopped yelling and made way for him. "What is this?" he cried, violently separating Marchetto and the negro, who were screaming insults at each other and shaking their fists in each other's faces. "Stop this noise," he continued, "or I will send a score of soldiers down to keep you in order. If the Lala is not satisfied, he can go before the magistrate. So can Marchetto, if he likes.--Go!" he said to the negro, pushing him away and scattering the crowd. "If you have any complaints to make, go to the magistrate." "Who are you?" asked the fellow, insolently. "It is none of your business," answered Gregorios, dragging the man away in the nervous grip of his white hand; then lowering his voice, he spoke quickly in the man's ear: "Do you remember the Bairam, a year ago last summer? If you are not quiet, I will ask you what became of the chain of that watch, of the silver box, and especially of that beautiful ring with the sapphire and two diamonds. Moreover, I may ask you what became of a certain Frank Effendi, to whom they belonged,--do you understand?" The man trembled in every joint, and a greenish livid hue seemed to drive the blackness out of his face. "I know nothing!" he gasped hysterically. But Balsamides let him go. "Be quick," he said. "The watch will be paid for, but do not venture to come to the bazaar again for some time. Fear nothing,--I have an eye to your safety." The last speech was perhaps somewhat ambiguous, but the man, being once released, dived into a narrow passage and disappeared. The crowd of Jews had shrunk into their shops again. Gregorios hastily concluded a bargain with Abraham, and then returned to finish his conversation with Marchetto. He found the latter mopping his forehead, and talking excitedly to a couple of sympathetic Hebrews who had entered his place of business. On seeing Balsamides they immediately left the shop. "I have sent him away," said Gregorios. "He will not trouble you again." "It is not my fault if the dog of a Turk is angry," answered Marchetto. "I hardly know. He says he had left a watch with you to be sold, and that now he can get neither the watch nor the money. You like to keep your customers waiting when they have anything to sell, Marchetto. How long is it since he gave you the watch?" "On my head, it is only three weeks," answered the Jew. "How can I sell a watch in three weeks and get the money for it? An Effendi took the watch yesterday to show it to Vartan, the jeweler. He is a friend of yours, Effendim; you first brought him here a long time ago. His name is a strange name,--Cricks,--a very strange name, like the creaking of an ungreased cart-wheel." "Oh, did he take the watch? I will speak to him about it. He will pay you immediately. How did the Lala come to have a watch to sell?" "Allah bilir. He is always bringing me things to sell." "Other things?" "He showed me a gold chain one day in the winter. But it was not curious, so he took it to a jeweler in the jeweler's tcharshee, who gave him the value of the gold by weight." "Who is he?" asked Gregorios, judging that he ought to show some curiosity about the man. "I cannot tell," answered the Jew. "That means that you will not, of course. Very well. It is your affair. Curiosity is the mother of deception. Will you give me the Rhodes for ten pounds?" They began to bargain again, but nothing was concluded on that day, for Gregorios had got what he wanted, and was anxious to reach home and to see me. Patoff and I, as usual on Thursday, had made a trip up the Bosphorus, and it was on this occasion that he first pointed out to me the hideous negro. He proved to be the same man I had seen once before, on our very first excursion. To-day he looked more ugly than ever, as he went ashore at Yeni Köj. There was a malignity in his face such as I have never seen equaled in the expression of any human being. "I wonder what we shall find out," said Paul thoughtfully. "I have a very strong belief that he is the fellow who sold the watch. If he is, poor Alexander can have had but small chance of escape. Did you ever see such a diabolical face? Of course it may be a mere fancy, but I cannot rid myself of the thought." "Balsamides will find out," I replied. "He can handle those fellows in the bazaar as only an Oriental can." It was not long before I heard the story of the morning's adventure from Gregorios. I found him waiting for me and very impatient. He told his tale triumphantly, dwelling on the fact that Marchetto himself had never suspected that he was interested in the matter. "And who is Laleli Khanum Effendi?" I inquired when he had finished. "And how are we to get into her house?" "You never heard of Laleli? You Franks think you know Constantinople, but you know very little in reality. Laleli means 'a tulip.' A pretty name, Tulip. Why not 'cabbage rose,' or 'artichoke,' or 'asparagus'? Laleli is an extraordinary woman, my friend, and has been in the habit of doing extraordinary things, ever since she poisoned her husband. She is the sister of a very high and mighty personage, who has been dead some time. She was married to an important officer in the government. She was concerned in the conspiracy against Abdul Azis; she is said to have poisoned her husband; she fell in her turn a victim to the conspiracy against Murad, and, though not banished, lost all favor. She managed to keep her fortune, however, which is very large, and she has lived for many years in Yeni Köj. There are all sorts of legends about her. Some say she is old and hideous, others declare that she has preserved her beauty by witchcraft. There is nothing absurd which has not been said of her. She certainly at one time exercised considerable influence in politics. That is all I know of her except this, which I have never believed: it has been said that more than one person has been seen to enter her house, but has never been seen to leave it." "How can one believe that?" I asked skeptically. "If it were really known, her house would have been searched, especially as she is out of favor." "It is curious, however," said Gregorios, without contradicting me, "that we should have traced Alexander Patoff's personal possessions to her house." "What shall we do next?" I asked. "There are only two courses open. In the first place, we can easily catch the Lala who sold the watch, and take him to a quiet place." "Well, do you suppose he will tell us what he knows?" "We will torture him," said Balsamides, coolly. I confess that I was rather startled by the calm way in which he made the proposition. I inwardly determined that we should do nothing of the kind. "What is the other alternative?" I inquired, without showing any surprise. "To break into the house and make a search, I suppose," answered my friend, still quite unmoved, and speaking as though he were proposing a picnic on the Bosphorus. "That is not an easy matter," I remarked, "besides being slightly illegal." "Whatever we do must be illegal," answered Gregorios. "If we begin to use the law, the Khanum will have timely warning. If Alexander is still alive and imprisoned in her house, it would be the work of a moment to drop him into the Bosphorus. If he is dead already, we should have less chance of getting evidence of the fact by using legal means than by extracting a confession by bribery or violence." "In other words, you think it is indispensable that we should undertake a burglary?" "Unless we succeed in persuading the Lala to confess," said Balsamides. "This is a very unpleasant business," I remarked, with a pardonable hesitation. "I do not quite see where it will end. If we break into the house and find nothing, we shall be amenable to the law. I object to that." "Very well. What do you propose?" "I cannot say what would be best. In my opinion, Paul should consult with his ambassador, and take his advice. But before all else it is necessary to find out whether Alexander is dead or alive." "Of course. That is precisely what I want to find out," answered Balsamides, rather impatiently. "The person who can best answer the question is Selim, the Lala." "I object to using violence," I said, boldly. "I fancy he might be bribed. Those fellows will do anything for money." "You do not know them. They will commit any baseness for money, except betraying their masters. It has been tried a hundred times. We may avoid using violence, as you call it, but the man must be frightened with the show of it. The people who can be bribed are the women slaves of the harem. But they are not easily reached." "It is not impossible, though," I answered. "Nevertheless, if I were acting alone, I would put the matter in the hands of the Russian embassy." "Do you think they would hesitate at any means of getting information, any more than I would?" inquired Gregorios, scornfully. "We shall see," I said. "We must discuss the matter thoroughly before doing anything more. I have no experience of affairs of this sort; your knowledge of them is very great. On the other hand, I am more prudent than you are, and I do not like to risk everything on one throw of the dice." "We might set fire to the house and burn them out," said Gregorios, thoughtfully. "The danger would be that we might burn Alexander alive." My friend did not stick at trifles. Under his cold exterior lurked the desperate rashness of the true Oriental, ready to blaze out at any moment. "No," I said, laughing; "that would not do, either. Is it not possible to send a spy into the house? It seems to me that the thing might be done. What sort of women are they who gain access to the harems?" "Women who sell finery and sweetmeats; women who amuse the Khanums by dressing their hair, when they have any, in the Frank style; women who tell stories"---- "A story-teller would do," I said. "They are often admitted, are they not? It is almost the only amusement those poor creatures have. I fancy that one who could interest them might be admitted again and again." Balsamides was silent, and smoked meditatively for some minutes. "That is an idea," he said at last. "I know of such a woman, and I dare say she could get in. But if she did, she might go to the house twenty times, and get no information worth having." "Never mind. It would be a great step to establish a means of communication with the interior of the house. You could easily force the Lala to recommend the story-teller to his Khanum. She could tell us about the internal arrangement of the place, at all events, which would make it easier for us to search the house, if we ever got a chance." "If one could get as far as that, it would be a wise precaution and a benefit to the human race to convey a little strychnine to the Khanum in a sweetmeat," said Gregorios, with a laugh. "How horribly bloodthirsty you are!" I answered, laughing in my turn. "I believe you would massacre half of Stamboul to find a man who may be dead already." "It is our way of looking at things, I suppose," returned Balsamides. "I will see the story-teller, and explain as much as possible of the situation. What I most fear is that we may have to take somebody else into our confidence." "Do none of the ladies in the embassies know this Laleli, as you call her?" I asked. "Yes. Many Frank ladies have been to see her. But their visits are merely the satisfaction of curiosity on the one side, and of formality on the other." "I was wondering whether one of them would not be the best person in whom to confide." "Not yet," said Balsamides. And so our interview ended. When I saw Paul and told him the news, he seemed to think that the search was already at an end. I found it hard to persuade him that a week or two might elapse before anything definite was known. In his enthusiasm he insisted that I should answer John Carvel's letter by begging him to come at once. As he was the person most concerned, I yielded, and wrote. "It is strange," said Paul, "that we should have accomplished more in a single month than has been done by all the official searching in a year and a half." "The reason is very simple," I answered. "The Lala did not chance to be in want of money until lately. Everything we have discovered has been found out by means of that watch." "Griggs," said Paul, "Balsamides is a very clever fellow, but he has not thought of asking one question. Why was the Lala never in want of money before?" "I do not know." "Because, in some way or other, he is out of favor with his Khanum. If that is the case, this is the time to bribe him." "Very true," I said. "In any case, if he is trying to get money, it is a sign that he needs it, in spite of our friend's declaration that he and his kind cannot be bribed." XIV. It often happens, when our hopes are raised to the highest pitch of expectation, and when we think we are on the eve of realizing our well-considered plans, that an unexpected obstacle arises in our path, like the impenetrable wall which so often in our dreams suddenly interposes itself between us and the enemy we are pursuing. At such moments we are apt to despair of ourselves, and it is the inability to rise above this dejection at the important crisis which too often causes failure. After we had discovered the watch, and after Balsamides had traced it to the house of Laleli Khanum Effendi, it seemed to me that the end could not be far. It could not be an operation of superhuman difficulty to bribe some one in the harem to tell us what we wanted to know. In a few days this might be accomplished, and we should learn the fate of Alexander Patoff. It was at this point, however, that failure awaited us. The house of Laleli was impenetrable. The scheme to establish communication by means of the story-teller did not succeed. The old woman was received once, but saw nothing, and never succeeded in gaining admittance again. Selim, the Lala, ceased at that time to pay regular visits to Stamboul on Thursday, and Balsamides realized that he had perhaps not done wisely in letting him go free from the bazaar. We paid several visits to Yeni Köj, and contemplated the dismal exterior of the Khanum's villa. High walls of mud and stone surrounded it on all sides except the front, and there the long, low wooden facade exhibited only its double row of latticed windows, overlooking the water, while two small doors, which were always closed, constituted the entrance from the narrow stone quay. Nothing could penetrate those lattices, nor surmount the blank steepness of those walls. Our only means of reaching the interior of the dwelling and the secrets which perhaps were hidden there lay in our power over Selim; but the Lala had no difficulty in eluding us, and either kept resolutely within doors, or sallied out in company with his mistress. It was remarkable, however, that we had never met him in charge of the ladies of the harem, as Paul had so often met him during the summer when Alexander had made his visit to his brother. We went to every place where Turkish ladies are wont to resort in their carriages during the winter, but we never saw Selim nor the lady with the thick veil. Meanwhile, Paul grew nervous, and his anxiety for the result of our operations began to show itself in his face. I had written to John Carvel, and he had replied that he was making his preparations, and would soon join us. Then Macaulay Carvel arrived, and, having found Paul, came with him to see me. The young man's delight at being at last appointed to Constantinople knew no bounds, and he almost became enthusiastic in his praises of the city and the scenery. He smiled perpetually, and was smoother than ever in speech and manner. Balsamides conceived a strong dislike for him, but condescended to treat him with civility in consideration of the fact that he was Paul's cousin and the son of my old friend. Indeed, Macaulay had every reason to be happy. He had succeeded in getting transferred to the East, where he could see his cousin every day; he was under one of the most agreeable and kind-hearted chiefs in the service; and now his whole family had determined to spend the summer with him. What more could the heart of a good boy desire? It was rather odd that Paul should like him so much, I thought. It seemed as though Patoff, who was inclined to repel all attempts at intimacy, and who at four-and-thirty years of age was comparatively friendless, was touched by the admiration of his younger cousin, and had for him a sort of half-paternal affection, which was quite enough to satisfy the modest expectations of the quiet young man. Yet Macaulay was far from being a match for Paul in any respect. Where Paul exhibited the force of his determination by intelligent hard work, Macaulay showed his desire for excellence by doggedly memorizing in a parrot-like way everything which he wished to know. Where Paul was enthusiastic, Macaulay was conscientious. Where Paul was original, Macaulay was a studious but dull imitator of the originality of others. Instead of Paul's indescribable air of good-breeding, Macaulay possessed what might be called a well-bred respectability. Where Paul was bold, Macaulay exhibited a laudable desire to do his duty. Yet Macaulay Carvel was not to be despised on account of his high-class mediocrity. He did his best, according to his lights. He endeavored to improve the shining hour, and admired the busy little bee, as he had been taught to do in the nursery. If he had not the air of a thoroughbred, he had none of the plebeian clumsiness of the cart-horse. Though he was not the man to lead a forlorn hope, he was no coward; and though he had not invented gunpowder, he had the requisite intelligence to make use of already existing inventions under the direction of others. He had a way of remembering what he had learned laboriously which his brilliant chief found to be very convenient, and he was a useful secretary. His admiration for Paul was the honest admiration which many a young man feels for those qualities which he does not possess, but which he believes he can create in himself by closely imitating the actions of others. It is unnecessary to add that Macaulay was discreet, and that in the course of a few days he was put in possession of the details of what had occurred. I had feared at first that his presence might irritate Paul, in the present state of affairs, but I soon found out that the younger man's uniformly cheerful, if rather colorless, disposition seemed to act like a sort of calming medicine upon his cousin's anxious moods. "That fellow Carvel," Balsamides would say, "is the ultimate expression of your Western civilization, which tends to make all men alike. I cannot understand why you are both so fond of him. To me he is insipid as boiled cucumber. He ought to be a banker's clerk instead of a diplomatist. The idea of his serving his country is about as absurd as hunting bears with toy spaniels." "You do not do him justice," I always answered. "You forget that the days of original and personal diplomacy are over, or very nearly over. Plenipotentiaries now are merely persons who have an unlimited credit at the telegraph office. The clever ones complain that they can do nothing without authority; the painstaking ones, like Macaulay Carvel, congratulate themselves that they need not use their own judgment in any case whatever. They make the best government servants, after all." "When servants begin to think, they are dangerous. That is quite true," was Gregorios' scornful retort; and I knew how useless it was to attempt to convince him. Nevertheless, I believe that as time proceeded he began to respect Macaulay on account of his extreme calmness. The young man had made up his mind that he would not be astonished in life, and had therefore systematically deadened his mental organs of astonishment, or the capacity of his mental organs for being astonished. As no one has the least idea what a mental organ is, one phrase is about as good as another. We had not advanced another step in our investigations, in spite of all our efforts, when we received news that the Carvels, accompanied by Madame Patoff and Chrysophrasia Dabstreak, were on their way to Constantinople. We had looked at several houses which we thought might suit them, but as the season was advancing we supposed that John would prefer to spend the remainder of the spring in a hotel, and then engage a villa on the Bosphorus, at Therapia or Buyukdere. At last the day came for their arrival, and Macaulay took the kaváss of his embassy with him to facilitate the operations of the custom-house. Paul did not go with him, thinking it best not to meet his mother, for the first time since her recovery, in the hubbub of landing. I, however, went with Macaulay Carvel on board the Varna boat. In a few minutes we were exchanging happy greetings on the deck of the steamer, and in the midst of the confusion I was presented to Madame Patoff. She was not changed since I had seen her last, except that she now looked quietly at me and offered her hand. Her fine features were perhaps a little less pale, her dark eyes were a little less cold, and her small traveling-bonnet concealed most of her thick gray hair. She was dressed in a simple costume of some neutral tint which I cannot remember, and she wore those long loose gauntlets commonly known as Biarritz gloves. I thought her less tall and less imposing than when I had seen her in the black velvet which it was her caprice to wear during the period of her insanity; but she looked more natural, too, and at first sight one would have merely said that she was a woman of sixty, who had once been beautiful, and who had not lost the youthful proportions of her figure. As I observed her more closely in the broad daylight, on the deck of the steamer, however, I began to see that her face was marked by innumerable small lines, which followed the shape of her features like the carefully traced shadows of an engraving; they crossed her forehead, they made labyrinths of infinitesimal wrinkles about her eyes, they curved along the high cheek-bones and the somewhat sunken cheeks, and they surrounded the mouth and made shadings on her chin. They were not like ordinary wrinkles. They looked as though they had been drawn with infinite precision and care by the hand of a cunning workman. To me they betrayed an abnormally nervous temperament, such as I had not suspected that Madame Patoff possessed, when in the yellow lamp-light of her apartment her white skin had seemed so smooth and even. But she was evidently in her right mind, and very quiet, as she gave me her hand, with the conventional smile which we use to convey the idea of an equally conventional satisfaction when a stranger is introduced to us. John was delighted to see me, and was more like his old self than when I had last seen him. Mrs. Carvel's gentle temper was not ruffled by the confusion of landing, and she greeted me as ever, with her sweet smile and air of sympathetic inquiry. Chrysophrasia held out her hand, a very forlorn hope of anatomy cased in flabby kid. She also smiled, as one may fancy that a mosquito smiles in the dark when it settles upon the nose of some happy sleeper. I am sure that mosquitoes have green eyes, exactly of the hue of Chrysophrasia's. "So deliciously barbarous, is it not, Mr. Griggs?" she murmured, subduing the creaking of her thin voice. "Dear Mr. Griggs, I am so awfully glad to see you again," said Hermione with genuine pleasure, as she laid her little hand in mine. It seemed to me that Hermione was taller and thinner than she had been in the winter. But there was something womanly in her lovely face, as she looked at me, which I had not seen before. Her soft blue eyes were more shaded,--not more sad, but less carelessly happy than they used to be,--and the delicate color was fainter in her transparent skin. There was an indescribable look of gravity about her, something which made me think that she was very much in earnest with her life. "Paul is at the hotel," I said, rather loudly, when the first meeting was over. "He has made everything comfortable for you up there. The kaváss will see to your things. Let us go ashore at once, out of all this din." We left the steamer, and landed where the carriages were waiting. John talked all the time, recounting the incidents of the journey, the annoyance they had had in crossing the Danube at Rustchuk, the rough night in the Black Sea, the delight of watching the shores of the Bosphorus in the morning. When we landed, Chrysophrasia turned suddenly round and surveyed the scene. "We are not in Constantinople at all," she said, in a tone of bitter disappointment. "No," said Macaulay; "nobody lives in Stamboul. This is Galata, and we are going up to Pera, which is the European town, formerly occupied by the Genoese, who built that remarkable tower you may have observed from the harbor. The place was formerly fortified, and the tower has now been applied to the use of the fire brigade. Much interest is attached"---- How long Macaulay would have continued his lecture on Galata Tower is uncertain. Chrysophrasia interrupted him in disgust. "A fire brigade!" she exclaimed. "We might as well be in America at once. Really, John, this is a terrible disappointment. A fire brigade! Do not tell me that the people here understand the steam-engine,--pray do not! All the delicacy of my illusions is vanishing like a dream!" Chrysophrasia sometimes reminds me of a certain imperial sportsman who once shot an eagle in the Tyrol. "An eagle!" he cried contemptuously, when told what it was. "Gentlemen, do not trifle with me,--an eagle always has two heads. This must be some other bird." In due time we reached the hotel. Paul was standing in the doorway, and came forward to help the ladies as they descended from the carriage, greeting them one by one. When his mother got out, he respectfully kissed her hand. To the surprise of most of us, Madame Patoff threw her arms round his neck, and embraced him with considerable emotion. "Dear, dear Paul,--my dear son!" she cried. "What a happy meeting!" Paul was evidently very much astonished, but I will do him the credit to say that he seemed moved as he kissed his mother on both cheeks, for his face was pale and he appeared to tremble a little. The travelers were conducted to their rooms by Macaulay, and I saw no more of them. But John insisted that I should dine with them in the evening. In the mean while I went home, and found Gregorios reading, as usual when he was not on duty at Yildiz-Kiöshk,--the "Star-Palace," where the Sultan resides. "Have you deposited your friends in a place of safety?" he asked, looking up from his book. "Have they all come,--even the old maid with the green eyes, and the mad lady whom Patoff is so unfortunate as to call his mother?" "All," I answered. "They are real English people, and my old friend John Carvel is the patriarch of the establishment. There are maid-servants and men-servants, and more boxes than any house in Pera will hold. The old lady seems perfectly sane again." "Then she will probably die," said Gregorios, reassuringly. "Crazy people almost always have a lucid interval before death." "You take a cheerful view," I observed. "Fate would confer a great benefit on Patoff by removing his mother from this valley of tears," returned my friend. "Besides, as our proverb says, mad people are the only happy people. Madame Patoff, in passing from insanity to sanity, has therefore fallen from happiness to unhappiness." "If all your proverbs were true, the world would be a strange place." "I will not discuss the inexhaustible subject of the truth of proverbs," answered Balsamides. "I only doubt whether Madame Patoff will be happy now that she is sane, and whether the uncertainty of the issue of our search may not drive her mad again. She will probably spoil everything by chattering at all the embassies. By the by, since we are on the subject of death, lunacy, and other similar annoyances, I may as well tell you that Laleli is very ill, and it is not expected that she can live. I heard it this morning on very good authority." "That is rather startling," I said. "Very. Dying people sometimes make confessions of their crimes, but to hear the confession you must be there when they are about to give up the ghost." "That is impossible in this case, unless you can get into the harem as a doctor." "Who knows? We must make a desperate attempt of some kind. Leave it to me, and do not be surprised if I do not appear for a day or two. I have made up my mind to strike a blow. You are too evidently a Frank to be of any use. I wish you were a Turk, Griggs. You have such an enviably sober appearance. You speak Turkish just well enough to make me wish you would never betray yourself by little slips in the verbs and mistakes in using Arabic words. Only educated Osmanlis can detect those errors: just now they are the very people we want to deceive." "I can pass for anything else here without being found out," I answered. "I can pass for a Persian when there are no Persians about, or for a Panjabí Mussulman, if necessary." "That is an idea. You might be an Indian Hadji. I will think of it." "What in the world do you intend to do?" I asked, suspecting my friend of some rash or violent project. "A very sly trick," he replied, with his usual sarcastic smile. "There need not necessarily be any violence about it, unless we find Alexander alive, in which case you and I must manage to get him out of the house." "Tell me your plan," I said. "Let me hear what it is like." "No; I will tell you to-night, when I know whether it is possible or not. You are going to dine with your friends? Yes; very well, when you have finished, come here, and we will see what can be done. We must only pray that the iniquitous old woman may live till morning." It was clear that Gregorios was not ready, and that nothing would induce him to speak what was in his mind. I showed no further curiosity, and at the appointed time I left the house to go and dine with the Carvels. "Say nothing to Patoff," said Balsamides, as I went out. I found the Carvels assembled in their sitting-room, and we went to dinner. I could not help looking from time to time at Paul's mother, who surprised me by her fluent conversation and perfect self-possession. With the exception that she was present and that Professor Cutter was absent, the dinner was very much like the meals at Carvel Place. I noticed that Paul was placed between Mrs. Carvel and his mother, while Hermione was on the opposite side of the table. But their eyes met constantly, and there was evidently a perfect understanding between them. Paul looked once more as I had seen him when he was talking to Hermione in England, and the coldness I so much disliked had temporarily disappeared from his face. I did not know what had occurred during the afternoon, since I had left the hotel, and it was not until later that I learned some of the details of the meeting. When the members of the party retired to their rooms, on arriving at Missiri's, Macaulay had gone off with his father, and Paul had been left alone for a few minutes in the sitting-room. When all was quiet, Hermione opened her door softly and looked in. Paul was standing by the chimney-piece, contemplating the smouldering logs with the interest of a man who has nothing to do. He raised his head suddenly, and saw that Hermione had entered the room and was standing near him. She had taken off her traveling-hat, and her golden hair was in some disorder, but the tangled coils and waves of it only showed more perfectly how beautiful she was. She came forward, and he, too, left his place. She took his hands rather timidly in hers. "Paul--I never meant that you should go!" she exclaimed, while the tears stood in her eyes. "Why did you take me so literally at my word?" "It was better, darling," said he, drawing her nearer to him. "You were quite right. I could not bear the idea of any one being free to speak to me as your aunt did; but I was very unhappy. How could I know that you were coming here so soon?" "I did not know," she said simply. "But I was very unhappy, too, and the days seemed so long. I could worship my brother for bringing it about." "So could I," answered Paul, rather absently. He was looking down into her eyes that met his so trustfully. "Do you really and truly believe in me, Hermione?" he asked. "Indeed I do; I always did!" she cried passionately. Then he kissed her very tenderly, and held her in his arms. "Thank you,--thank you, my darling," he murmured in her ear. Presently they stood by the chimney-piece, still holding each other's hands. "I must speak to your father," he said. "You know his way. He wrote all about it to Griggs, telling him to show me the letter." "I could not keep the secret to myself any longer," she answered. "And I knew that papa loved me and liked you." "Yes, dear, you were quite right," said Paul. "But I did not mean to tell him, after what happened that evening, until I had found my brother. Do you know? I have almost found him. I hope to reach the end in a day or two." "Oh, Paul! that is splendid!" cried Hermione. "I knew you would. You must tell me all about it." There was a sound of footsteps in one of the rooms. Hermione slipped quickly away, and throwing a kiss towards Paul with her fingers, disappeared through the door by which she had entered, leaving him once more alone. The moments of their meeting had been few and short, but they had more than sufficed to show that these two loved each other as much as ever. Some time afterwards Paul had been alone with his mother for half an hour and had frankly asked her whether she was able to hear him speak of Alexander or not. Her face twitched nervously, but she answered calmly enough that she wished to hear all he had to tell. But when he had finished she shook her head sadly. "You may find out how he died, but you will never find him," she said. Then, with a sudden energy which startled Paul, she gazed straight into his eyes. "You know that you cannot," she added, almost savagely. "I do not know, mother," he answered, calmly. "I still have hope." Madame Patoff looked down, and seemed to regain her self-control almost immediately. The long habit of concealing her feelings, which she had acquired when deceiving Professor Cutter, stood her in good stead, and she had not forgotten what she had studied so carefully. But Paul had seen the angry glance of her eyes, and the excited tone of her voice still rang in his ears. He guessed that, although she had come to Constantinople with the full intention of forgetting the accusations she had once uttered, the mere sight of him was enough to bring back all her virulent hatred. She still believed that he had killed his brother. That was clear from her words, and from the tone in which they were spoken. Whether the thought was a delusion, or whether she sanely believed Paul to be a murderer, made little difference. Her mind was evidently still under the influence of the idea. But Paul determined that he would hold his peace, and it was not until later, when all necessity for concealment was removed, that I learned what had passed. Paul believed that in a few days he should certainly solve the mystery of Alexander's disappearance, and thus effectually root out his mother's suspicions. All this had occurred before dinner, and without my knowledge. Madame Patoff seemed determined to be agreeable and to make everything go smoothly. Even Chrysophrasia relaxed a little, as we talked of the city and of what the party must see. "I am afraid," said I, "that you do not find all this as Oriental as you expected, Miss Dabstreak." "Ah, no!" she sighed. "If by 'this' you mean the hotel, it is European, and unpleasantly so at that." "I think it is a very good hotel; and this rice--what do you call it?--is very good, too," said John Carvel, who was tasting pilaff for the first time. "Your carnal love of food always shocks me, John," murmured Chrysophrasia. "But I dare say there is a good deal that is Oriental on the other side. There, I am sure, we should be sitting on very precious carpets, and eating sweetmeats with golden spoons, while some fair young Circassian slave sang wild melodies and played upon a rare old inlaid lute." "Yes," I answered. "I have dined with Turks in Stamboul." "Oh, do describe it!" exclaimed Miss Dabstreak. "We squatted on the floor around a tiny table, and we devoured ragouts of mutton and onions with our fingers," I said. "How very disgusting!" Miss Dabstreak made an unæsthetic grimace, and looked at me with profound contempt. "But I suppose they eat other things, Griggs?" asked John, laughing. "Yes. But mutton and onions and pilaff are the staple of their consumption. They eat jams of all sorts. Sometimes soup is brought in in a huge bowl, and put down in the middle of the table. Then each one dips in his spoon in the order of precedence, and eats as much as he can. They will give you a dozen courses in half an hour, and they never speak at their meals if they can help it." "Pigs!" exclaimed Chrysophrasia, whose delicacy did not always assert itself in her selection of epithets. "No; I assure you," I objected, "they are nothing of the kind. They consider it cleaner to eat with their fingers, which they can wash themselves, than with forks, which are washed in a common bath of soapsuds by the grimy hands of a scullery maid. It is not so unreasonable." "You have such a terrible way of putting things, Mr. Griggs!" exclaimed Mrs. Carvel in a tone of gentle protest. "But I dare say," she added, as though fearing lest her mild rebuke should have hurt my feelings,--"I dare say you are quite right." "To tell the truth," I answered, "I am rather fond of the Turks." "I have always noticed," remarked Madame Patoff, "that you Americans generally admire people who live under a despotic government. Americans all like Russia and Russians." "Our government is not quite despotic," observed Paul, who felt bound to defend his country. "We have laws, and the laws are respected. The Czar would not think of acting against the established law, even though in theory he might." "The Turks must have laws, too," objected Madame Patoff. "I don't know," said Chrysophrasia. "I already feel a delicious sensation, as though I might be strangled with a bow-string at any moment and dropped into the Bosphorus." John Carvel looked very grave. Perhaps he was offering up a silent prayer to the end that such a consummation might soon be reached; but more probably he considered the topic of sudden death by violence as one to be avoided. Macaulay Carvel came to the rescue. "The Turks have laws," he said, fluently. "All their law is founded upon the Koran, and they are most ingenious in making the Koran answer the purpose of our more learned and therefore more efficacious codes. The Supreme Court really exists in the person of the Sheik ul Islam, who may be called the High Pontiff, a sort of Pontifex Maximus with judicial powers. All important cases are ultimately referred to him, and as most of these important cases are connected with the Vakuf, the real estate held by the mosques, like our glebe lands at home, it follows that the Sheik ul Islam generally decides in favor of his own class, who are the Ulema, or priests. The consequences of this mode of administering the laws are very"---- "Capital!" exclaimed John Carvel. "Where on earth did you learn all that, my boy?" "I began to coach the East when I saw there was a chance of my coming here," answered Macaulay, much pleased at his father's acknowledgment of his learning. It struck me that the young man had got his information out of some rather antiquated book, in which no mention was made of the present division of the civil and criminal courts under the Ministry of Justice, and of the ecclesiastical courts under the Sheik ul Islam. But I held my peace, being grateful to Macaulay for delivering his lecture at the right moment. Mrs. Carvel looked with undisguised admiration at her son, and even Hermione smiled and felt proud of her brother. "Wonderful, this modern education, is it not?" said John Carvel, turning to me. "Amazing," I replied. "I want to see all those delightful creatures, you know," said Chrysophrasia. "The Sultan and the Sheik--what do you call him?" "Sheik ul Islam," said the ready Macaulay. "Sheik Ool is lamb!" repeated Chrysophrasia, thoughtfully. "Lamb,--so symbolical in our own very symbolic religion. It means so much, you know." "Chrysophrasia!" ejaculated Mary Carvel, in a tone of gentle reproach. She thought she detected the far-off shadow of a possible irreverence in her sister's tone. Macaulay again interposed, while Paul and I endeavored to avoid each other's eyes, lest we should be overtaken by an explosion of laughter. "It is '_Is_lam,' not 'is _lamb_,' aunt Chrysophrasia," said Macaulay, mildly. "I don't see much difference," retorted Miss Dabstreak, "except that you say it _is_ lamb, and I say it is _lamb_. Oh! you mean it is one word,--yes; I dare say," she added quickly, in some confusion. "Of course, I don't speak Turkish." "It is Arabic," observed the implacable Macaulay. "John," said Chrysophrasia, ignoring the correction with a fine indifference, "we must see everything at once. When shall we begin?" The question effectually turned the conversation, for all the party were anxious to see what Macaulay was equally anxious to show, having himself only seen each sight once. The remainder of the time while we sat at table was occupied in discussing the various expeditions which the party must undertake in order to see the city and its surroundings systematically. After dinner John and I remained behind for a while. Paul wanted to talk to Hermione, and Macaulay, who was the most domestic of young men, preferred the society of his mother and aunts, whom he had not seen for several months, to the smell of cigars and Turkish coffee. "What do you think of her?" asked John Carvel when we were alone. "She seems perfectly sane, does she not?" "Perfectly. What proves it best is the way she treats Paul. She is very affectionate. I suppose there is no fear of a relapse?" "I hope not, I hope not!" repeated John fervently. "She has behaved admirably during the journey. Now, about Paul," he continued, lowering his voice a little: "how does he strike you since you have known him better? You have seen him every day for some time. What sort of a fellow is he?" "I think he is very much in earnest," I answered. "Yes, yes,--no doubt. But you know what I mean, Griggs: is he the kind of man to whom I can give my daughter? That is what I am thinking of. I know that he works hard and will succeed, and all that." "I can tell you what I think," said I, "but you must form your own judgment as well. I like Paul very much, but you must like him too, before you decide. In my opinion he is a man of fine character, scrupulously honest, and not at all capricious. I cannot say more." "A little wild when he was younger?" suggested John. "Not very, I am sure. He was unhappy in his childhood; he was one of those boys who make up their minds to work, and who grow so fond of it that they go on working when other boys begin to play." "Very odd," observed John. "He is not at all a prig." "No, indeed. He is as manly a fellow as you could meet, and at first sight he does not produce the impression of being so serious as he is. I think that is put on. He once told me that he had made a study of small talk and of the art of appearing well, because he thinks it so important in his career. I dare say he is right. He knows a great deal, and knows it thoroughly." "He does not know any more than Macaulay," said John, as though in praising Paul I had attacked his son. "What a clever fellow he is! I only wish he were a little tougher,--just a little more shell to him, I mean." "He will get that," I answered. "He is younger than Paul, and has not seen so much of the world." "You say you like Paul. Do you think he would make a good husband?" "Yes, I really believe he would," I replied. "But do not take him on my recommendation. You must know him better yourself. You will meet many people here who know him, and some who know him well." "What do you think of that story about his brother?" asked John, looking at me very earnestly. "I believe he is as innocent as you or I. But we are getting near the truth, and have made some valuable discoveries." I explained to Carvel what we had found, and without mentioning the name of Laleli Khanum I told him how far we had traced the mystery, and he listened with profound interest to my account. "I hope you may find him alive," he said, as we rose from the table. "For my part, I do not believe we shall ever see him. Paul was alone with his mother this afternoon, and I dare say he told her what you have told me. She does not seem to object to the subject, though of course we generally avoid it." I stayed an hour longer with the party, during which time Paul talked a great deal to Hermione, occasionally joining in the general conversation, and certainly not trying to prevent what he said to the young girl from being heard. At last I took my leave and went home, for I was anxious to see Gregorios, and to hear from him what plan he proposed to adopt for the solution of our difficulties at this critical moment. I found him waiting for me. "Have you made up your mind?" I asked. Balsamides was sitting beside his table with a book. He looked even paler than usual, and was evidently more excited than he liked to own. He is eminently a man who loves danger, and his nature never warms so genially as when something desperate is to be done. A Christian by race and belief, he has absorbed much of the fatalism of the Oriental races, and his courage is of the fatalist kind, reckless and devoted. "Yes," he answered. "I have made up my mind. One must either be the camel or the camel-driver. One must either submit to the course of events, or do something to violently change their direction. If we submit much longer, we shall lose the game. The old woman will die,--the Turkish women always die when they are ill; and if she is once dead without confessing, we may give up all hope." "We should always have Selim to examine," I remarked. "If Laleli Khanum dies, Selim will disappear the same hour,--laying hands on everything within reach, of course. How could we catch him? He would cross the Bosphorus, put on a disguise of some sort, and make his way to Egypt in no time. Those fellows are very cunning." "Then you mean to try and extort a confession from Laleli herself? How in the world do you mean to do it? It is a case of life or death." "I have got life and death in my pocket," answered Gregorios, his eyes beginning to sparkle. "Can you read Turkish? Of course you can. Read that." I took the folded document and examined it. "This is an Iradè!" I exclaimed, in great surprise; "an imperial order to arrest Laleli Khanum Effendi,--good heavens! Balsamides, I had no idea that you possessed such tools as this!" "To tell you how I got it would be to tell you my own history during the last ten years," he answered, in low tones. "I trust you, Griggs, but there are other reasons why I cannot tell you all that. You see the result, at all events, and a result very dearly paid for," he added gravely. "But I have got the thing, and what is more, I have permission to personate the Sultan's private physician." "What is that for? I should think the Iradè were quite enough." "Laleli might die of fright, if I merely presented myself and threatened to arrest her. But I shall see her in the assumed character of the court physician. Laleli is a Turkish woman, who understands no other language but her own and Greek. She is very superstitious, and believes in all manner of charms and spells; for she has no ideas at all concerning Western science, except that it is all contrary to the Koran. I can talk the jargon of an old Hadji well enough, and besides I know something of medicine; very little, but enough to tell me whether she is absolutely in a dying state. It is a great compliment for the Sultan to send his private physician, and if she is in a conscious state she will be flattered and thrown off her guard. If I can manage to get her slaves out of the way, I may induce her to confess. If I fail in this, I have the means to frighten her. If she dies, I have the means of arresting Selim before he can escape. It is all very well arranged, and there is nothing to be done but to put the plan into execution. When you left me I had not got the Iradè; it came about an hour ago." "How can I help you?" I asked. "You must have a disguise, too. When the court physician is sent to visit a person of consequence, he is always accompanied by an adjutant from the palace. You must play this part. I have borrowed a uniform from a brother officer which will fit you. It is in your room, and I will help you to put it on. You need say nothing, nor answer any questions the slaves may put to you unless you are quite sure of your words. You have a very military figure, and the sight of a uniform acts like magic on fellows like the Lala and his companions. As I am an adjutant myself, I can tell you exactly what to do, so that no one could detect you. Are you willing to try?" "Of course," I said, rising and going towards my room. "How are we to go to Yeni Köj?" "A carriage from the palace will be at the door in half an hour," answered Gregorios, looking at his watch. "Now, then, we must turn you into a Turkish officer," he added, with a laugh. In ten minutes the change was complete, and I do not believe that my best friend would have recognized me in the close-fitting dress, cut like that of a Prussian dragoon's parade uniform, but made of dark cloth with red facings. I buckled on the sabre, and Gregorios set the fez carefully on my head. I looked at myself in the glass. The costume fitted as though it were made for me. "I feel as though I were going to a masked ball," I said, laughing. "I never was so disguised before in my life." "I hope you may feel so when you come home," answered Balsamides, with a smile. "Now you must take some of your own clothes in a bag. We may not get home before morning, and we might meet some one of the adjutants when we come back. They would know that you are not one of us, and there might be trouble. We must take some money, too. We may need to hire a boat or horses; one can never tell." Balsamides stood a moment and looked at me, apparently well satisfied with my appearance. Then he opened the window to see whether the carriage was below, but it had not yet come. "While we are waiting, I will explain our plan of action," he said, as he opened his writing-desk and took a small roll of gold pieces and a handful of silver. "We shall be driven to the door of the house, and when we knock, Selim or some other Lala, if there are others, will open the door. He will see you and recognize your uniform, as well as the livery of the palace carriage. He will salute us, and you must of course return the salutation. I will then explain that I am the court physician, and that his majesty, having just heard of the Khanum Effendi's illness, has sent me down to attend her. Selim will salute us again, and show us into the house. You will be left in the _salamlek_, the lower hall, and I shall be shown into the harem, after a few minutes have elapsed to give time for preparation. Then you will have to wait, but you will probably not be disturbed, unless a slave brings you coffee and cigarettes. Selim will probably remain in the harem all the time I am there. But if you hear anything like a scuffle, you must come when you recognize my voice. This will not occur unless Selim hears something which frightens him, and tries to get away. Of course you are supposed to be present for my protection, and you must affect a certain deference towards me." "I will be humility itself," I answered. "No, not too much humility. A mere show of respect for my position will do. We adjutants about the palace are not much given to self-abasement of any sort. There is one catastrophe which may occur. If the old woman is really dying, as they say she is, she may die while we are there. We must then take possession of the person of Selim and carry him off. There will not be much trouble about that. The house is in a lonely place, and the driver of the carriage knows his orders. He will obey instantly, no matter what I tell him to do." "And if we should, by any chance, find Alexander in the house," I asked, "shall we be able to get him out without trouble?" "Not without trouble," answered Gregorios, with a grim smile. "But we will not stick at trifles so long as we have the imperial Iradè with us. I hear the carriage. Let us be off." So we left the house on our errand without further words. XV. Paul stayed at the hotel until a late hour, and went home, feeling lighter at heart than he had felt for many days. He was in love, and the passion had a very salutary effect upon his nature. His heart had been crushed down when he was a child, until he doubted whether he had any heart at all. His early sufferings had hardened his nature, and his cool strong mind had approved the process, so that he was well satisfied with his solitary condition and his loveless life. He had seen much of the world, and had known many women of all nations, but his immovable indifference was proverbial among his colleagues, and if he had ever entertained a passing fancy for any one, the fact was unknown to gossip. It might be supposed that this very coldness would have rendered him attractive to women, for it is commonly said, and with some truth, that they are sometimes drawn to those men who show them no manner of attention. But I think that the case is not always the same, and admits of very subtle distinctions. It is not a man's coldness that attracts a woman, but the belief that, though he is cold to others, he may soften towards herself; and this belief often rests on mere vanity, and often on the truth of the supposition. There are many men who systematically affect outward indifference in order to make themselves interesting in the eyes of the other sex, allowing a word, a look, a gesture, to betray at stated intervals that they are not indifferent to the one woman whose love they covet. They give these signs with the utmost skill and with a strange, calculating avarice. Women watch such men jealously from a distance, to see if they can detect the slightest softening of manner towards other women; and when they have convinced themselves that they alone have the power to influence the frozen nature they admire, they very easily fall wholly in love. In general a man who is very cold and indifferent is not to be trusted. The chances are ten to one that he is playing the old and time-honored part for a definite purpose. But there are those who play no part, nor need to affect any characteristic not theirs. When women find out that a man is really indifferent to all women, their disgust knows no bounds. So long as he is known to have loved any one in the past, or to love any one in the present, or to be even likely to love any one in the future, he may be pardoned. But if it is firmly believed that he is incapable of love, woman-kind arises in a body and abuses him in unmeasured terms. He is selfish. He is arrogant. He is so conceited that he thinks no one good enough for him. He is a stone, a prig, a hypocrite, a maniac, a monster, a statue, and especially he is a bore. In other words, he is a man's man, and not a woman's man; and unless it can be proved that his madness proceeds from disappointed love, even Dives in hell is not further removed from forgiveness than he. Men may admire his strength, his talents, his perseverance, and some friend will be found foolish enough to sing his praises to some woman of the world. She will answer the panegyrist with a blank stare, and will very likely say coldly, that he is a bore, or that he is very rude. No amount of praise or ingenious argument will extort an admission that the unfortunate man is worthy of human sympathy. And yet, he may be very human, after all. At all events, if we say with the Greek philosopher that a man shall not be called happy until he be dead, we should not allow that he is beyond the reach of love until the life has gone out of him, certainly not until he is sixty years of age at the very least. Now Paul Patoff was not sixty years old when he found himself in the quiet English country house, and looked on his fair English cousin and loved her. He was, as the times go, a young man, just entered upon the prime of his life, just past the age when youth is considered foolish, and just reaching the time when it is considered desirable. The fact that he had not loved before was not likely to make his passion less strong now that it had come at last, and he knew it, as men generally understand themselves better when they are in love with a good woman. He asked himself, indeed, why he had so suddenly given himself up, heart and soul, to the lovely girl he had known only for a month; but such questions are necessarily futile, because the heart does not always go through the formality of asking the mind's consent before acting, and the mind consequently refuses to be called to account in a matter for which it is in no way responsible. It seemed to Paul very strange that after so many years of a busy life, in which no passion but ambition had played any part, he should all at once find his whole existence involved in a new and un-dreamed-of labyrinth of feeling. But though it was indeed a labyrinth, from which he did not even desire to escape, he acknowledged that the paths of it were full of roses, and that life in its winding walks was pleasanter than life outside. The uncertainty of his position, however, disturbed his dreams, and even the pleasant hours he spent with Hermione, listening to her rippling laughter and gentle voice, were somewhat disturbed by the thought of the morrow, and of what the end would be. His own instinct would have led him to speak to Carvel at once and to have the matter settled, but another set of ideas argued that he should wait and see what happened, and if possible put off asking the fatal question until he had unraveled the mystery of his brother's disappearance. That Carvel could have believed him in any way implicated in the tragedy, and yet have asked him to his house, he knew to be impossible; but he knew also that the shadow of Alexander's fate hung over him, and now that there existed a chance of completely and brilliantly establishing his innocence before the world, he was unwilling to take so serious a step as formally proposing for Hermione's hand, until the long desired result should be reached. He had deeply felt the truth of what she had said to him in England,--that he should be able to silence hints like those Chrysophrasia had let fall, that he should place himself in such a position as to defy insults instead of being obliged to bear them quietly; and the conviction brought home to him by Hermione's words had resulted in his immediate departure, with the determination to fathom the mystery, and to clear himself forever, or to sacrifice his love in case of failure. But he had not counted upon the visit of the Carvels to Constantinople. So long as he could not see Hermione, he had felt that it was possible to contemplate with some calmness the prospect of giving her up if he failed in his search. When Carvel had proposed to come out and had asked my advice, we had fancied ourselves on the verge of the final discovery, and with natural and pardonable enthusiasm Paul had joined me in urging John to bring his family at once. He had felt sure that the end was near, and he had wished that Hermione might arrive at the moment of his triumph. It would not be a complete triumph, he thought, unless she were there, and this idea showed how the man had changed under the influence of his love. In former times Paul Patoff would never have thought of anticipating success until he held it securely in his own hands; he would have worked silently, giving no sign, and when the result was obtained he would have presented it to the world with his coldest and most sarcastic stare, content in the thought that he had satisfied himself, and demanding no appreciation from others. To feel that he had succeeded was then the most delicious part of success. Now, he was so changed that he could not imagine success as being at all worth having unless Hermione were there to share it. No one else would do, and something of his exclusiveness might still be found in his desire for her sympathy, and for that of no one else. But the transformation was very great, and as he had realized it, he had understood the extent of his love for his cousin. The sensation was wholly novel, and he again asked himself what it meant, half doubting its reality, but never doubting that it would last forever,--in the highly contradictory spirit of a man who is in love for the first time. Then Hermione arrived, and Paul awoke to find himself between two fires. To contemplate the possibility of not marrying Hermione, when she was in the same city, when he must see her and hear her voice every day of his life, was now out of the question. His love had grown ten times stronger in the separation of the last months, and he knew that it was now useless to think of putting it away. With a modesty not found in men who have loved many women, Paul discarded the idea that Hermione's happiness was as deeply concerned as his own. He did not understand how very much she loved him, and it would have seemed to his softened soul an outrageous piece of arrogance to suppose that she could not be quite as happy with some one else as with himself. But of his own feelings he had no doubt. It was perfectly clear that without Hermione life could never be worth living, and he found himself face to face with a most difficult question,--a true dilemma, from which there could be no issue unless he found his brother, or the evidences of his brother's death. If the search proved fruitless, he was still in the position of a man who is liable to suspicion, and he had firmly resolved that he would not permit the woman he loved to marry a man who could be accused, however unjustly, of the crime of murder. On the other hand, he knew that while she was present in Constantinople he was not master of his feelings, hardly of his words; and he could not go away: first, because to go away would be to leave the search wholly in the hands of others; and secondly, because his presence was required at the embassy and his services were constantly in requisition. To abandon his career was a course he never contemplated for a moment. His personal resources were small, and his pay was now considerable, so that he depended upon it for the necessities of life. He had never been willing to touch his brother's money, either, and this honorable refusal had practically crushed all gossip about Alexander's disappearance; so that at the present time he was dependent upon himself. With the prospect of being a _chargé d'affaires_ in a short time, and of being chancellor of an embassy at forty, he believed that he could fairly propose to marry Hermione. But to do this he must abide by his career, a conclusion which effectually prevented his flying from danger and giving the inquiry entirely into my hands. With a keen sense of honor and a very strong determination on the one side, and all the force of his love for Hermione on the other, Paul's position was not an easy one, and he knew it. Nor was his mind wholly at rest concerning his mother. He had seen her that afternoon, and had recognized that in the ordinary sense of the word, and in the common opinion of people on the subject, she was perfectly sane. She looked, moved, talked, ate, and dressed as though she were wholly in her right mind; but Paul was not satisfied. He had seen the old gleam of unreasoning anger in her eyes, when she had said that he knew Alexander could never be found; meaning, as Paul supposed, that he knew how the unfortunate man had come to his end. That this belief had been the cause and first beginning of her madness, he was convinced; and if the disturbing element was still present in her mind, it might assert itself again at any moment with direful results. He was willing, for the sake of argument, to believe that her idea was a delusion, and indeed he preferred to think so. He did not like the thought that his mother could seriously and sanely believe him to be a murderer, though she had given him reason enough for knowing how she had always disliked him. There was no affection between the mother and the son, there was not even much respect; but beyond respect and affection we recognize in the relations of a mother with her children a sort of universal law of fitness, embracing the few conditions without which there can be no relations at all between them. That a mother should dislike her child offends our feelings and our conceptions of human sympathy; but that a mother should wantonly and without evidence accuse her son of a fearful crime, and be his only accuser, is a sin against humanity itself, and our reason revolts against it as much as our heart. It was hopeless to attempt an explanation of Madame Patoff's state of mind. Paul might have understood her better had he known how she talked and behaved when he was not present. John Carvel and his wife had indeed assured Paul that his mother was entirely sane, and had forgotten her resentment against him, speaking of him affectionately, and showing herself anxious to see him during the long journey. But there was one of the party who could have told a different story; who could have repeated some of her aunt's utterances, and could have described certain phases in her temper in such a way as would have surprised the rest. Madame Patoff had naturally chosen to confide in Hermione, for Hermione had first startled her into a confession of her sanity, and with her rested the secret of the last two years. On the occasion which Carvel had mentioned in his letter to me, when Madame Patoff had been surprised in a sensible conversation by her nurse, the old lady had shown very great presence of mind. She had recognized immediately that she was detected, and that she would find it extremely difficult in future to deceive the practiced eye of the vigilant Mrs. North. She was tired, too, in spite of what she said to Hermione, of the absolute seclusion in which she lived; not that she was wearied of mourning for Alexander, but because she had exhausted one way of expressing her grief. So, at least, it seemed to Hermione. Madame Patoff had therefore accepted the situation and made the best of it, declaring herself sane and entirely recovered. She had always contemplated the possibility of some such termination to her pretended madness, and was perhaps glad that it had come at last. She even found at first a pleasant relaxation in leading the life of an ordinary person, and she tried to join in the life of the family in such a way as to be no longer a burden or a source of anxiety to those she had capriciously sacrificed during a year and a half. But with Hermione she was not the same as with the rest. She was with her what she had been on the first day when Hermione had declared her love for Paul, and it appeared to the young girl that her aunt was in reality leading a double existence, being in one state when with the assembled family, and in quite another when she was alone with Hermione. Madame Patoff was able to force herself upon her niece, for the young girl had given a promise not to betray her secret, and though often in hard straits to elude her father's questions without falling into falsehood, felt herself bound to her aunt, and obliged to submit to long conversations with her. It was a difficult position, and any one less honest than Hermione and less sensitively tactful would have found it hard to maintain the balance. She herself avoided carefully all mention of Paul, but her aunt delighted in talking of him. One of these conversations took place on the evening of their arrival in Constantinople, and may well serve as a specimen of the rest. When all the party had retired for the night, Madame Patoff came into Hermione's room and sat down, evidently with the intention of staying at least an hour. Hermione looked at her with a deprecating expression, being indeed very tired, and wishing that her aunt would put off her visit until the next day. She saw, however, that there was no hope of this, and submitted herself with a good grace. "Are you not tired, aunt Annie?" asked the young girl. "No, no, not very, my dear," said the old lady, smoothing her thick gray hair with her hand, and fixing her dark eyes on her niece's face. "Oh, Hermy, what a meeting!" she suddenly exclaimed. "If you knew how hard I tried to be kind to him, I am sure you would pity me. It is so hard, so hard!" "It is the least you can do,--to treat him kindly," answered Hermione, somewhat coldly. "But I was very glad to see that you kissed him when we arrived." "It was dreadfully hard to do it. The very sight of him freezes my blood. Oh, Hermy dear, how can you love him so much, when I love you as I do? It frightens me"---- "It does not frighten me, aunt Annie," said her niece. "I can say, when you love me as you do, how can you not love him?" "It is not the same, my dear. How could I love him, knowing what I know?" "You do not know it," answered Hermione very firmly, "and you must not suggest it to me. Sometimes I could almost think you were really mad, aunt Annie,--forgive me, I must say it. Not mad as you pretended to be, but mad on this one point. You have always hated poor Paul since he was a child, and you have treated him very unkindly. But you have no right to accuse him now, and I would not listen to you unless I believed that I could help to make you see him as you should." Madame Patoff bent her head and hid her eyes in her hand, as though greatly distressed. "I love you so much, dear Hermy--I cannot bear to think of your marrying him. You cannot understand me--I know--and you think me very unkind. But I hate him!" she cried, with a burst of uncontrollable anger. "Oh, how I hate him!" Her hands had dropped from her face, and her dark eyes flashed wickedly as she stared at the young girl. Hermione was startled for a moment, but she also had learned a lesson of self-possession. "Do you think that I am afraid when you look at me like that, aunt Annie?" she asked, very quietly. Madame Patoff's features relaxed, and she laughed a little foolishly, as though ashamed of herself. "No, child; why should you be afraid? I am only an unhappy old woman. I cannot speak to any one else." "And you must not speak to me in that way," answered Hermione, in a gentle tone. "I love Paul with all my heart, and I cannot hear him abused by you, even though I know you are out of your mind when you say such things. I should be despicable if I listened to you." "If I loved you less, dear," returned the old lady, "I might hate him less. Ah, if you could only have married Alexis,--if it could only have been the other way!" "Hush!" exclaimed Hermione, almost roughly. "You are wishing that Paul were dead, instead of his brother. I will go away, if you talk like that." She suited the action to the word, and rose to go towards the door. She knew her aunt very well. Madame Patoff changed her tone at once. "Oh, don't go away, don't go away!" she cried nervously. "I will never speak of him again, if you will only stay with me." Hermione turned and came back, and saw that her threat had for the present produced its effect, as it usually did. Madame Patoff had indeed a strange affection for her niece, and the latter knew how to manage her by means of it. At the mere idea of Hermione's leaving her in anger, the aunt softened and became docile. "I did not mean it, child," she said, dolefully. "I am always so unhappy, so dreadfully wretched, that I say things I do not altogether mean. I am not quite myself to-night, either. Coming here, to the place where my poor boy was lost, has upset my nerves; and, really, your aunt Chrysophrasia is so very tactless. She always was like that. I remember the way in which she treated my poor husband before we were married. It was she who made all the quarrel, you know. It broke up my life at the very beginning, and we two sisters never saw each other again. I do not know what would have become of me if my husband had not loved me as he did. He was so kind to me, always, and he sympathized in all my feelings and ideas. If he had only lived, how different it might all have been!" Hermione thought so, too; reflecting that if Paul's father had been alive during the time when he was growing up, the unfortunate boy would have been spared a vast deal of suffering, and Madame Patoff would perhaps have been held in check. Her character was not of the kind which could safely be left to its own development, for she called her caprices justice and her obstinacy principle, a mode of viewing life not conducive to much permanent satisfaction when not modified by the salutary restraint of a more sensible companion. But Hermione was glad that her aunt was willing to talk of anything except Paul, and encouraged her to continue, though she had heard again and again Madame Patoff's account of her own life and of the family quarrels. By carefully listening and watching her, it was possible to keep her from reaching the point at which Hermione was always obliged to protest that she would not hear more. It may be judged from this scene that the young girl's position was not an easy one. She was beginning to feel that Madame Patoff's hatred for Paul approached in reality much nearer to insanity than the affected apathy she had assumed before Hermione discovered the imposition; but, nevertheless, the young girl felt that, sane or not sane, she could allow no one to cast a slur on the name of the man she loved. She was glad, indeed, that Madame Patoff did not make her hatred and her suspicion topics for conversation with the rest of the family, and she was willing to suffer much in order that her aunt might confide in her alone, and behave herself with propriety and dignity before the others. But when Madame Patoff overstepped the limits Hermione had set for her, the old lady invariably found herself checked and even frightened by the authoritative manner of her niece. The anxiety, however, and the constant annoyance to which she was subjected, together with the sorrow of the separation from Paul, had told upon the girl's strength, and it was no wonder that she had grown thinner during the last months. Her young character was forming itself under terrible difficulties, and it was well that she inherited more of her father's good sense and courage than of her mother's meekness and gentleness under all circumstances. Hermione looked back and tried to remember what she had been six months ago, but she hardly recognized herself in the picture called up by her memories. She thought of her ignorance about her aunt's state, and of how she had sometimes felt sad and sorry for the old lady, but had on the whole not found that her presence in the house materially changed her own smooth life. She looked further back, and remembered as in a dream her first London season. She had not enjoyed herself; she had been oppressed rather than delighted by the crowds, the lights, the whirl of a life she could not understand, the terrors of presentation, the men suddenly brought up to her, who bowed and immediately whirled her away amongst a crowd of young people, all spinning madly round, and knowing each other probably as little as she knew her partner of the moment. It had all been strange to her, and she realized with pleasure that she should not be obliged to go through it again this year. Her mother was not a worldly woman, and had not inspired her, while still in the schoolroom, with a mad desire for the world. Hermione was an only daughter, and there was no reason for hastening her marriage; nor had she ever been told, as many young girls are, that she must marry well, and if possible in her first season. She saw many men in the round of parties to which she was taken, but she found it hard to remember the names of even a few of them. They had been presented, had danced with her, had perhaps danced with her again somewhere else, and had dropped out of her existence without inspiring in her the smallest interest. Now, after nearly a year, she would not have known their faces. Some had talked to her, but their language was not hers; it was the jargon of society, the petty gossip, the eternal chatter of people and people's doings. Her answers were vague, and when she asked a question about a book, about an idea, about a fact, the faultlessly correct young men smiled sweetly, and answered that they did not understand that sort of thing. Towards the end of the season, when the first surprise of watching the moving crowds, the dancing, the women's gowns, and the men's faces, had worn out, Hermione had regarded the whole thing as an inexpressible bore, and had returned with delight to the quiet life at Carvel Place, glad that her father's position and tastes did not lead him to keep open house, as some of his neighbors did, and that she was allowed to read and to be quiet, and to do everything she liked. Then her real life had begun, and her character, untouched and unchanged by what she had seen in a London season, had suddenly come under the influence of another character, strong, dominant, and apparently good, but in the eyes of the young girl eminently mysterious. She had known Paul Patoff as one knows people in the midst of a small family party in a country house, and he had at first repelled her, as he repelled many people; but soon, very soon, she thought, the feeling of repulsion had grown to be a curiosity to know the man's history, the secret of his coldness towards his mother, and of his hard and cynical expression. From such interest as she felt for him, it was but a step to love, and the step was soon taken. The nearer she came to him, the more she felt the power of his fascination, and the more she wondered that every one else did not see it as she saw it, and yield to it as she yielded to it. Then had come the afternoon in the park; the joy of those few hours; the scene at dinner on the same evening; the revelation she had extracted from Cutter; the discovery that her aunt was sane; her interview with Paul, and his sudden departure, wounded by her speech;--all these events following on each other in less than four-and-twenty hours. From that day she knew that she had changed much, and she realized the strength of her love for Paul. And on that day, also, had begun her annoyances with Madame Patoff, her constant defense of the son against the accusations of the mother, and her own fears lest she should be playing a double part. She had suffered much by the separation from Paul; she suffered more whenever her aunt fell into her passionate way of abusing him, and she felt that her faculties were overstrained when she was in the society of her strange relative. But Madame Patoff loved her, and her affection was so evident to Hermione that she found it hard to cut her speeches short with a sharp word, however painful it might be to her to listen to them. Of late she had adopted the practice of treating her as she did on the first night, assuming that her hatred was very nearly an insanity in itself, and managing her almost like a child, threatening to leave her when she said too much, and bringing her to her senses by seeming to withdraw her affection. Indeed, there was something exaggerated in Madame Patoff's love for the girl, as there appeared to be in everything she really felt. With the other members of the household she behaved with perfect self-possession, but when she was alone with Hermione she laid aside all her assumed calm, and spoke unreasonably about her son, as though it gave her pleasure; always submitting, however, to the rebuke which Hermione invariably administered on such occasions. But the idea that whenever she was alone with her aunt something of the kind was sure to occur made Hermione nervous, so that she avoided an interview whenever she could. XVI. If any of the party could have guessed what Gregorios Balsamides and I were doing on that dark night, they would not have slept as soundly as they did. It was an evil night, a night for a bad deed, I thought, as I looked out of the carriage-window, when we were clear of the houses and streets of Pera. The black clouds drove angrily down before the north wind, seeming to tear themselves in pieces on the stars, as one might tear a black veil upon steel nails. The wind swept the desolate country, and made the panes of the windows rattle even more loudly than did the hoofs and wheels upon the stony road. But the horses were strong, and the driver was not a shivering Greek, but a sturdy Turk, who could laugh at the wind as it whistled past his ears, striking full upon his broad chest. He drove fast along the rising ground, and faster as he reached the high bend which the road follows above the Bosphorus, winding in and out among the hills till it descends at last to Therapia. "The clouds look like the souls of the lost, to-night," said Balsamides, drawing his fur coat closely around him. "One can imagine how Dante conceived the idea of the scene in hell, when the souls stream down the wind." "You seem poetically inclined," I answered. "Why not? We are out upon a romantic errand. Our lives are not often romantic. We may as well make the best of it, as a beggar does when he gets a bowl of rice." "I should fancy you had led a very romantic life," said I, lighting a cigarette in the dark, and leaning back against the cushions. "That is what women always say when they want a man to make confidences," laughed Balsamides. "No, I have not led a romantic life. I pass most of my time sitting on my horse in the hot sun, or the driving snow, preserving, or pretending to preserve, the life of his Majesty from real or imaginary dangers. Or else I sit eight or nine hours a day chatting and smoking with the other adjutants. It is not a healthy life. It is certainly not romantic." "Not as you describe it. But I judged from the ease with which you made the preparations for this expedition that you had done things of the sort before." My friend laughed again, but turned the subject. "I hope that when we meet your friends to-morrow morning, we may have something to show for our night's work," he said. "Fancy what an excitement there would be if we brought Alexander Patoff back with us! Not that it is at all probable. We may bring back nothing but broken bones." "I do not think Selim will hurt us much," I answered. "He is not exactly an athlete. I would risk a fight with him." "I dare say. But there may be plenty of strong fellows about the premises. There are the four caïdjs, the boatmen, to begin with. There is a coachman and probably two grooms. Very likely there are half a dozen big hamáls about." "That makes thirteen," I said. "Six and a half to one, or four and a third to one, if we count upon our own driver." "You may count upon him," replied Gregorios. "He is an old soldier, and as strong as a lion. In case of necessity he will call the watch from Yeni Köj. There is a small detachment of infantry there. But we shall not have to resort to such measures. I believe that I can make the Khanum confess. If so, I can make her order Selim to give up Patoff, if he is alive." "And if he is dead?" "It will be the worse for the Khanum and her people. She is not in good odor at the palace. It would not take much to have her exiled to Arabia, even though she be dying, as they say she is. That is the question. Let me only find her alive, and I will answer for the rest." "She might very well refuse to confess, I fancy," I remarked, surprised at my friend's tone of conviction. "I believe not," he said shortly. Then he remained silent for some time. My nerves are good; but I did not like the business, though I knew it was undertaken for a good purpose, and that if we were successful we should be conferring great and lasting happiness upon more than one of my friends. I had heard many queer stories of wild deeds in the East, and in my own experience had been concerned in at least one strange and unhappy story, which had ended in my losing sight forever of a man who was very dear to me. I do not think that the fact of having been in danger necessarily brings with it a liking for dangerous adventures, though it undoubtedly makes a man more fit to encounter perils of all kinds. Few men are absolutely careless of life, and those who are, do not of necessity court death. It is one thing to say that one would readily die at any moment; it is quite another to seek risks and to incur them voluntarily. The brave man, as a general rule, does not feel a thrill of pleasure until the struggle has actually begun; when he is expecting it he is grave and cautious, lest it should come upon him unawares. This, at least, I believe to be the character of the Northern man, and I think it constitutes one of his elements of superiority. Balsamides is an Oriental, and looks at things very differently. In his belief death will come at its appointed time, whether a man stay at home and nurse his safety, or whether he lead the front in battle. The essence of fatalism is the conviction that death must come at a certain time, no matter what a man is doing, nor how he may try to protect himself. This is the reason why the fanatic Mussulman is absolutely indifferent to danger. He firmly believes that if he is to die, death will overtake him at the plow as surely as in storming an enemy's battery. But he believes also that if he dies fighting against unbelievers his place in Paradise will be far higher than if he dies upon his farm, his ambrosial refreshment more abundant, and the dark-eyed houris who will soothe his eternal repose more beautiful and more numerous. The low-born hamál in the street will march up to the mouth of the guns without so much as a cup of coffee to animate him, with an absolute courage not found in men who have not his unswerving faith. To him Paradise is an almost visible reality, and the attainment of it depends only on his individual exertions. But what is most strange is the fact that this indifference to death is contagious, so that Christians who live among Turks unconsciously acquire much of the Moslem belief in fate. The Albanians, who are chiefly Christians, are among the bravest officers in the Turkish army, as they are amongst the most faithfully devoted to the Sultan and to the interests of the Empire. Balsamides was in a mood which differed widely from mine. As we clattered over the rough road in the face of the north wind, I was thinking of what was before us, anticipating trouble, and determining within myself what I would do. If I were ready to meet danger, it was from an inward conviction of necessity which clearly presented itself to me, and I consequently made the best of it. But Balsamides grew merry as we proceeded. His spirits rose at the mere thought of a fight, until I almost fancied that he would provoke an unnecessary struggle rather than forego the pleasure of dealing a few blows. It was a new phase of his character, and I watched him, or rather listened to him, with interest. "This is positively delightful," he said in a cheerful voice. "What?" I inquired, with pardonable curiosity. "What? In an hour or two we may have strangled the Lala, have forced the old Khanum to confess her iniquities, kicked the retainers into the Bosphorus, and be on our way back, with Alexander Patoff in this very carriage! I cannot imagine a more delightful prospect." "It is certainly a lively entertainment for a cold night," I replied. "But if you expect me to murder anybody in cold blood, I warn you that I will not do it." "No; but they may show fight," he said. "A little scuffle would be such a rest after leading this monotonous life. I should think you would be more enthusiastic." "I shall reserve my enthusiasm until the fight is over." "Then it will be of no use to you. Where is the pleasure in talking about things when they are past? The real pleasure is in action." "Action is not necessarily bloodshed," said I. "Active exercise is undoubtedly good for mind and body, but when you take it by strangling your fellow-creatures"---- "Rubbish!" exclaimed Balsamides. "What is the life of one Lala more or less in this world? Besides, he will not be killed unless he deserves it." "With your ideas about the delight of such amusements, you will be likely to find that he deserves it. I do not think he would be very safe in your keeping." "No, perhaps not," he answered, with a light laugh. "If he objects to letting me in, I shall take great pleasure in making short work of him. I am rather sorry you have put on that uniform. Your appearance will probably inspire so much respect that they will all act like sheep in a thunderstorm,--huddle together, and bleat or squeal. It is some consolation to think that unless I appeared with an adjutant they would not believe that I came from the palace." "It is a consolation to me to think that my presence may render it unnecessary for you to strangle, crucify, burn alive, and drown the whole population of Yeni Köj," I answered. "I dare say you have done most of those things at one time or another." "In insurrections, such as we occasionally have in Albania and Crete, it is imperative sometimes to make an example. But I am not bloodthirsty." "No; from your conversation I should take you for a lamb," said I. "I am not bloodthirsty," continued Gregorios. "I should not care to kill a man who was quite defenseless, or who was innocent. Indeed, I would not do such a thing on any account." "You amaze me," I observed. "No. But I like fighting. I enter into the spirit of the thing. There is really nothing more exhilarating,--I even believe it is healthy." "For the survivors it is good exercise. Those who do not survive are, of course, no longer in a condition to appreciate the fun." "Exactly; the fun consists in surviving." "One does not always survive," I objected. "What is the difference?" exclaimed Balsamides, who probably shrugged his shoulders, in his dark corner of the carriage. "A man can die only once, and then it is all over." "A man can also live only once," said I. "A living dog is better than a dead lion." "Very little," answered Balsamides, with a laugh. "I would rather have been a living lion for ever so short a time, and be dead, than be a Pera dog forever. The Preacher would have been nearer to the truth if he had said that a living man is better than a dead man. But the Preacher was an Oriental, and naturally had to use a simile to express his meaning." Suddenly the carriage stopped in the road. Then, after a moment's pause, we turned to the right, and began to descend a steep hill, slowly and cautiously, for the night was very dark and the road bad. "We are going down to Yeni Köj," said Balsamides. "In twenty minutes we shall be there. I will get out of the carriage first. Remember that, once there, you must not speak a word of any language but Turkish." Slowly we crept down the hill, the wheels grinding in the drag, and jolting heavily from time to time. There were trees by the roadside,--indeed, we were on the outskirts of the Belgrade forest. The bare boughs swayed and creaked in the bitter March wind, and as I peered out through the window the night seemed more hideous than ever. "By the by," said I, suddenly, "we have no names. What am I to call you, if I have to speak to you?" "Anything," said Balsamides. "She does not know the name of the court physician, I suppose. However, you had better call me by his name. She might know, after all. Call me Kalopithaki Bey. You are Mehemet Bey. That is simple enough. Here we are coming to the house; be ready, they will open the door if they recognize the palace carriage through the lattice. Of course every one will be up if the old lady is dying, and it is not much past twelve. The man has driven fast." The wheels rattled over the pavement, and we drew up before the door of Laleli's house. We both descended quickly, and Balsamides went up the broad steps which led to the door and knocked. Some one opened almost immediately, and a harsh voice--not Selim's--called out,-- "Who is there?" "From the palace, by order of his Majesty," answered Balsamides, promptly. I showed myself by his side, and, as he had predicted, the effect produced by the adjutant's uniform was instantaneous. The man made a low salute, which we hastily returned, and held the door wide open for us to pass; closing it and bolting it, however, when we had entered. I noticed that the bolts slid easily and noiselessly in their sockets. The man was a sturdy and military Turk, I observed, with grizzled mustaches and a face deeply marked with small-pox. We entered a lofty vestibule, lighted by two hanging lamps. The floor was matted, but there was no furniture of any description. At the opposite end a high doorway was closed by a heavy curtain. A large Turkish mangál, or brazier, stood in the middle of the wide hall. The man turned to the right and led us into a smaller apartment, of which the walls were ornamented with mirrors in gilt frames. A low divan, covered with satin of the disagreeable color known as magenta, surrounded the room on all sides. Two small tables, inlaid with tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl, stood side by side in the middle of the apartment. "Buyurun, be seated, Effendimlir," said the man, who then left the room. A moment later we heard his harsh voice at some distance:-- "Selim, Selim! There are two Effendilir from Yildiz-Kiöshk in the selamlek!" We sat down to wait. "The porter is a genuine Turk, and not a Circassian. A Circassian would have said 'Effendilir,' without the 'm,' in the vocative when he spoke to us, as he did when he used it in the nominative to Selim." I reflected that Balsamides had good nerves if he could notice grammatical niceties at such a moment. XVII. In a few moments Selim, the hideous Lala, entered the room, making the usual salutation as he advanced. He must have recognized Balsamides at once, for he started and stood still when he saw him, and seemed about to speak. But my appearance probably prevented him from saying what was on his lips, and he stood motionless before us. Balsamides assumed a suave manner, and informed him that he was sent by his Majesty to afford relief, if possible, to Laleli Khanum Effendi. His Majesty, said Gregorios, was deeply grieved at hearing of the Khanum's illness, and desired that every means should be employed to alleviate her sufferings. He begged that Selim would at once inform the Khanum of the physician's presence, as every moment might be of importance at such a juncture. Selim could hardly have guessed the truth. He did not know the court doctor by sight, and Balsamides played his part with consummate coolness. The negro could never have imagined that a Frank and a foreigner would dare to assume the uniform of one of the Sultan's adjutants,--a uniform which he knew very well, and which he knew that he must respect. He was terrified when he recognized in the Sultan's medical adviser the man who had scattered the crowd in the bazaar, and who had so startled him by his references to the ring, the box, and the chain. He was frightened, but he knew he could not attempt to resist the imperial order, and after a moment's hesitation he answered. "The Khanum Effendi," he said, "is indeed very ill. It is past midnight, and no one in the harem thinks of sleep. I will prepare the Khanum for the Effendi's visit." Thereupon he withdrew, and we were once more left alone. I confess that my courage rose as I grew more confident of the excellence of my disguise. If the Lala himself had no doubts concerning me, it was not likely that any one else would venture to question my identity. As for Balsamides, he seemed as calm as though he were making an ordinary visit. "They will make us wait," he said. "It will take half an hour to prepare the harem for my entrance. The old lady may be dying, but she will not sacrifice the formalities. It is no light thing with such as she to receive a visit from a Frank doctor." He spoke in a low voice, lest the porter in the hall should hear us. But he did not speak again. I fancied he was framing his speech to the Khanum. The preparations within did not take so long as he had expected, for scarcely ten minutes had elapsed when Selim returned. "Buyurun," said the negro, shortly. The word is the universal formula in Turkey for "walk in," "sit down," "make yourself comfortable," "help yourself." Balsamides glanced at me, as we both rose from our seats, and I saw that he was perfectly calm and confident. A moment later I was alone. Gregorios followed Selim into the hall; then, passing under the heavy curtain and through a door which the Lala opened on the other side, he found himself within the precincts of the harem, in a wide vestibule not unlike the one he had just quitted, though more brilliantly lighted, and furnished with low divans covered with pale blue satin. There was no one to be seen, however, and Balsamides followed the negro, who entered a door on the right-hand side, at the end of the hall. They passed through a narrow passage, entirely hung with rose-colored silk and matted, but devoid of furniture, and then Selim raised a curtain and admitted Gregorios to the presence of the sick lady. The apartment was vast and brilliantly illuminated with lamps. Huge mirrors in gilt frames of the fashion of the last century filled the panels from the ceiling to the wainscoting. In the corners, and in every available space between the larger ones, small mirrors bearing branches of lights were hung, and groups of lamps were suspended from the ceiling. The whole effect was as though the room had been lighted for a ball. The Khanum had always loved lights, and feeling her sight dimmed by illness she had ordered every lamp in the house to be lighted, producing a fictitious daylight, and perhaps in some measure the exhilaration which daylight brings with it. The floor of the hall was of highly polished wood, and the everlasting divans of disagreeable magenta satin, so dear to the modern Turkish woman, lined the walls on three sides. At the upper end, however, a dais was raised about a foot from the floor. Here rich Siné and Giordès carpets were spread, and a broad divan extended across the whole width of the apartment, covered with silk of a very delicate hue, such as in the last century was called "bloom" in England. The long stiff cushions, of the same material, leaned stiffly against the wall at the back of the low seat, in an even row. Several dwarf tables, of the inlaid sort, stood within arm's-length of the divan, and on one of them lay a golden salver, bearing a crystal jar of strawberry preserves, and a glass half full of water, with a gold spoon in it. In the right-hand corner of the divan was the Khanum herself. The old lady's dress was in striking contrast to her surroundings. She wore a shapeless, snuff-colored gown, very loose and only slightly gathered at the waist. As she sat propped among her cushions, her feet entirely concealed beneath her, she seemed to be inclosed in a brown bag, from which emerged her head and hands. The latter were very small and white, and might well have belonged to a young woman, but her head was that of an aged crone. Balsamides was amazed at her ugliness and the extraordinary expression of her features. She wore no head-dress, and the bit of gauze about her throat, which properly speaking should have concealed her face, did not even cover her chin. Her hair was perfectly black in spite of her age, and being cut so short as only to reach the collar of her gown, hung straight down like that of an American Indian, brushed back from the high yellow forehead, and falling like stiff horse-hair over her ears and cheeks when she bent forward. Her eyes, too, were black, and were set so near together as to give her a very disagreeable expression, while the heavy eyebrows rose slightly from the nose towards the temples. The nose was long, straight, and pointed, but very thin; and the nostrils, which had once been broad and sensitive, were pinched and wrinkled by old age and the play of strong emotions. Her cheeks were hollowed and yellow, as the warped parchment cover of an old manuscript, seamed with furrows in all directions, so that the slightest motion of her face destroyed one set of deep-traced lines only to exhibit another new and unexpected network of wrinkles. The upper lip was long and drawn down, while the thin mouth curved upwards at the corners in a disagreeable smile, something like that which seems to play about the long, slit lips of a dead viper. This unpleasant combination of features was terminated by a short but prominent chin, indicating a determined and undeviating will. The ghastly yellow color of her face made the unnatural brightness of her beady eyes more extraordinary still. To judge from her appearance, she had not long to live, and Balsamides realized the fact as soon as he was in her presence. It was not a fever; it was no sudden illness which had attacked her, depriving her of strength, speech, and consciousness. She was dying of a slow and incurable disease, which fed upon the body without weakening the energies of the brain, and which had now reached its last stage. She might live a month, or she might die that very night, but her end was close at hand. With the iron determination of a tyrannical old woman, she kept up appearances to the last, and had insisted on being carried to the great hall and set in the place of honor upon the divan to receive the visit of the physician. Indeed, for many days she had given the slaves of her harem no rest, causing herself to be carried from one part of the house to another, in the vain hope of finding some relief from the pain which devoured her. All night the great rooms were illuminated. Day and night the slaves exhausted themselves in the attempt to amuse her: the trained and educated Circassian girl translated the newspapers to her, or read aloud whole chapters of Victor Hugo's Misérables, one of the few foreign novels which have been translated into Turkish; the almehs danced and sang to their small lutes; the black slaves succeeded each other in bringing every kind of refreshment which the ingenuity of the Dalmatian cook could devise; the whole establishment was in perpetual motion, and had rarely in the last few days snatched a few minutes of uneasy rest when the Khanum slept her short and broken sleep. It chanced that Laleli had all her life detested opium, and was so quick to detect its presence in a sweetmeat or in a sherbet, that now, when its use might have soothed her agonies, no member of her household had the courage to offer it to her. Her sleepless days and nights passed in the perpetual effort to obtain some diversion from her pain, and with every hour it became more difficult to satisfy her craving for change and amusement. Balsamides came forward, touching his hand to his mouth and forehead; and then approaching nearer, he awaited her invitation to sit down. The old woman made a feeble, almost palsied gesture with her thin white hand, and Gregorios advanced and seated himself upon the divan at some distance from his patient. "His Majesty has sent you?" she inquired presently, slowly turning her head and fixing her beady eyes upon his face. Her voice was weak and hoarse, scarcely rising above a whisper. "It is his Majesty's pleasure that I should use my art to stay the hand of death," replied Balsamides. "His Majesty is deeply grieved to hear of the Khanum Effendi's illness." "My gratitude is profound as the sea," said Laleli Khanum, but as she spoke the viper smile wreathed and curled upon her seamed lips. "I thank his Majesty. My time is come,--it is my kadèr, my fate. Allah alone can save. None else can help me." "Nevertheless, though it be in vain, I must try my arts, Khanum Effendim," said Balsamides. "What are your arts?" asked the sick woman, scornfully. "Can you burn me with fire, and make a new Laleli out of the ashes of my bones?" "No," said Gregorios, "I cannot do that, but I can ease your pain, and perhaps you may recover." "If you can ease my pain, you shall be rich. But you can not. Only Allah is great!" "If the Khanum will permit her servant to approach her and to touch her hand"--suggested Balsamides, humbly. "Gelinis, come," muttered Laleli. But she drew the pale green veil that was round her throat a little higher, so as to cover her mouth. "What is this vile body that it should be any longer withheld from the touch of the unbeliever? What is your medicine, Giaour? Shall the touch of your unbelieving hand, wherewith you daily make signs before images, heal the sickness of her who is a daughter of the prophet of the Most High?" Balsamides rose from his seat and came to her side. She shrank together in her snuff-colored, bag-shaped gown, and hesitated before she would put out her small hand, and her eyes expressed ineffable disgust. But at last she held out her fingers, and Gregorios succeeded in getting at her wrist. The pulse was very quick, and fluttered and sank at every fourth or fifth beat. "The Khanum is in great pain," said Gregorios. He saw indeed that she was in a very weak state, and he fancied she could not last long. "Ay, the pains of Gehennam are upon me," she answered in her hoarse whisper, and at the same time she trembled violently, while the perspiration broke out in a clammy moisture on her yellow forehead. Gregorios produced a small case from his pocket. It is the magical transformer of the modern physician. "The prick of a pin," said he, "and your pain will cease. If the Khanum will consent?" She was in an access of terrible agony, and could not speak. Gregorios took from his case a tiny syringe and a small bottle containing a colorless liquid. It was the work of an instant to puncture the skin of Laleli's hand, and to inject a small dose of morphine,--a very small dose indeed, for the solution was weak. But the effect was almost instantaneous. The Khanum opened her small black eyes, the contortion of her wrinkled face gave way to a more natural expression, and she gradually assumed a look of peace and relief which told Gregorios that the drug had done its work. Even her voice sounded less hoarse and indistinct when she spoke again. "I am cured!" she exclaimed in sudden delight. "The pain is gone,--Allah be praised, the pain is gone, the fire is put out! I shall live! I shall live!" Not one word of thanks to Gregorios escaped her lips. It was characteristic of the woman that she expressed only her own satisfaction at the relief she experienced, feeling not the smallest gratitude towards the physician. She clapped her thin hands, and a black slave girl appeared, one of those called halaïk, or "creatures." The Khanum ordered coffee and chibouques. She had never accepted the modern cigarette. "The relief is instantaneous," remarked Balsamides, carefully putting back the syringe and the bottle in the little case, which he returned to his pocket. "Tell me," said the old woman, lowering her voice, "is it the magic of the Franks?" "It is, and it is not," answered Gregorios, willing to play upon her superstition. "It is, truly, very mysterious, and a man who employs it must have clean hands and a brave heart. And so, indeed, must the person who benefits by the cure. Otherwise it cannot be permanent. The sins which burden the soul have power to consume the body, and if there is no repentance, no device to undo the harm done, the magic properties of the fluid are soon destroyed by the more powerful arts of Satan." The Khanum looked anxiously at Balsamides as he spoke. At that moment the black slave girl returned, bearing two little cups of coffee, while two other girls, exactly like the first, followed with two lighted chibouques, a mangál filled with coals, two small brass dishes upon which the bowls of the pipes were to rest, so as not to burn the carpet, and a little pair of steel firetongs inlaid with gold. At a sign the three slaves silently retired. The Khanum drank the hot coffee eagerly, and, placing the huge amber mouthpiece against her lips, began to inhale the smoke. Gregorios followed her example. "What is this you say of Satan destroying the power of your medicine?" asked Laleli, presently. "It is the truth, Khanum Effendim," answered Balsamides, solemnly. "If, therefore, you would be healed, repent of sin, and if you have done anything that is sinful, command that it be undone, if possible. If not, your pain will return, and I cannot save you." "How do you, a Giaour, talk to me of repentance?" asked Laleli, in scornful tones. "While you try to extract the eyelash from my eye, you do not see the beam which has entered your own." "Nevertheless, unless you repent my medicine will not heal you," returned Gregorios, calmly. "What have I to repent? Shall you find out my sin?" "That I be unable to find it out does not destroy the necessity for your repenting it. The time is short. If your heart is not clean you will soon be writhing in a worse agony than when I charmed away your pain." "We shall see," retorted the Khanum, her features wrinkling in a contemptuous smile. "I tell you I feel perfectly well. I have recovered." But she had hardly spoken, and puffed a great cloud of aromatic smoke into the still air of the illuminated room, when the smile began to fade. Balsamides watched her narrowly, and saw the former expression of pain slowly returning to her face. He had not expected it so soon, but in his fear of producing death he had administered a very small dose of morphine, and the disease was far advanced. Laleli, however, though terrified as she felt that the agony she had so long endured was returning after so brief a respite, endeavored bravely to hide her sufferings, lest she should seem to confess that the Giaour was right, and that it was the presence of the devil in her heart which prevented the medicine from having its full effect. Gradually, as she smoked on in silence, Gregorios saw that the disease had got the mastery over her again, and that she was struggling to control her features. He pretended not to observe the change, and waited philosophically for the inevitable result. At last the unfortunate woman could bear it no longer; the pipe dropped from her trembling hand, and the sweat stood upon her brow. "I wonder whether there is any truth in what you say!" she exclaimed, in a voice broken with the pain she would not confess. "It is useless to deny it," answered Balsamides. "The Khanum Effendim is already suffering." "No, I am not!" she said between her teeth. But the perspiration trickled down her hollow cheeks. Suddenly, unable to hide the horrible agony which was gnawing in her bosom, she uttered a short, harsh cry, and rocked herself backwards and forwards. "It is even so," said Balsamides, eying her coldly, and not moving from his place as he blew the clouds of smoke into the warm air. "My medicine is of no use when the soul is dark and diseased by a black deed." "Where is the medicine?" cried the wretched woman, swaying from side to side in her agony. "Where is it? Give it to me again, or I shall die!" "It cannot help you unless you confess your sin," returned her torturer indifferently. "In the name of Allah! I will confess all, even to you an unbeliever, if you will only give me rest again!" cried Laleli. From the momentary respite the pain seemed far greater than before. "If you will do that, I will try and save you," answered Balsamides, producing the case from his pocket. He had been very far from expecting the advantage he had obtained through the combination of the old woman's credulity and extreme suffering; but in his usual cold fashion he now resolved to use it to the utmost. Laleli saw him take the syringe from the case, and her eyes glittered with the anticipation of immediate relief. "Speak," said Gregorios,--"confess your sin, and you shall have rest." "What am I to confess?" asked the old woman, hungrily watching the tiny instrument in his fingers. "This," answered Balsamides, lowering his voice. "You must tell me what became of a Russian Effendi, whose name was Alexander, whom you caused to be seized one night in the last week of"---- Again Laleli cried out, and rocked her body, apparently suffering more than ever. "The medicine!" she whispered almost inaudibly.--"Quick--I cannot speak---- am dying of the pain." The perspiration streamed down her yellow wrinkled face, and Balsamides feared the end was come. "You must tell me first, or it will be of no use," he said. But he quickly filled the syringe, and prepared to repeat the former operation. "I cannot," groaned Laleli. "I die!--quick! Then I will tell." A physician might have known whether the woman were really dying or not, but Balsamides' science did not go so far as that. Without further hesitation he pricked the skin of her hand and injected a small quantity, a very little more than the first time. The effect was not quite so sudden as before, but it followed after a few seconds. The signs of extreme suffering disappeared from the Khanum's face, and she once more looked up. "Your medicine is good, Giaour," she said, with the ghost of a disdainful laugh. But her voice was still very weak and hoarse. "It will not save you unless you confess what became of the Frank," said Gregorios, again putting his instrument into the case, and the case into his pocket. "It is very easy for me to have you kept here, and to force you to cure me," she answered with a wicked smile. "Do you think you can leave my house without my permission?" "Easily," returned Balsamides, coolly. "I have not come here unprotected. His Majesty's adjutant is outside. You will not find it easy to take him prisoner." "Who knows?" exclaimed Laleli. "The only thing which prevents me from keeping you is, that I see you have very little of your medicine. It is a good medicine. But I do not believe your story about repentance. It may serve for Franks; it is not enough for a daughter of the true Prophet." "You shall see. If you wish to avoid further suffering, I advise you to tell me what became of Alexander Patoff, and to tell me quickly. I was wrong to give you the medicine until you had confessed, but if you refuse I have another medicine ready which may persuade you." "What do I know of your unbelieving dogs of Russians?" retorted the old woman, fiercely. "You know the answer to my question well enough. If you do not tell me within five minutes what I want to know, I will tell you what the other medicine is." Laleli relapsed into a scornful silence. She was better of her pain, but she was angry at the physician's manner. Balsamides took out his watch, and began to count the minutes. There was a dead silence in the spacious hall, where the lights burned as brightly as ever, while the heavy clouds of tobacco smoke slowly wreathed themselves around the chandeliers and mirrors. The two sat watching each other. It seemed an eternity to the old woman, but the dose had been stronger this time, and she was free from pain. At last Balsamides shut his watch and returned it to his pocket. "Will you, or will you not, tell me what became of Alexander Patoff, whom you caused to be seized in or near Agia Sophia, one night in the last week of the month of Ramazán before the last?" Laleli's beady eyes were fixed on his as he spoke, with an air of surprise, not unmingled with curiosity, and strongly tinged with contempt. "I know nothing about him," she answered steadily. "I never caused him to be seized. I never heard of him." "Then here is my medicine," said Gregorios, coldly. "It is a terrible medicine. Listen to the pleasure of his Majesty the Hunkyar." He rose, and pressed the document to his lips and forehead. "What!" cried Laleli, in sudden terror, her voice gathering strength from her fright. "It is an order, dated to-day, to arrest Laleli Khanum Effendi, and to convey her to a place of safety, where she shall await the further commands of his Majesty." "It is false," murmured the Khanum. But her white fingers twisted each other nervously. "It is a forgery." "So false," replied Balsamides, with cold contempt, "that the adjutant is waiting outside, and a troop of horse is stationed within call to conduct you to the place of safety aforesaid. I can force you to lay his Majesty's signature on your forehead and to follow me to my carriage, if I please." "Allah alone is great!" groaned the Khanum, her head sinking on her breast in despair. "Kadèr,--it is my fate." "But if you will deliver me this man alive, I will save you out of the hands even of the Hunkyar. I will say that you are too ill to be removed from your house,--unless I give you my medicine," he added, flattering her hopes to the last. "Give me time. I know nothing--what shall I say?" muttered Laleli incoherently, her thin fingers twitching at the stuff of her snuff-colored gown, while as she bent her head her short, coarse, black hair fell over her yellow cheeks, and concealed her expression from Gregorios. "You have not much time," he answered. "The pain will soon seize you more sharply than before. If I arrest you, your sentence will be banishment to Arabia,--not for this crime, but for that other which you thought was pardoned. If I leave you here without help, my sentence upon you is pain, pain and agony until you die. It is already returning; I can see it in your face." "I must have time to consider," said Laleli, her old firmness returning, as it generally did in moments of great difficulty. She looked up, tossing back her hair. "How long will you give me?" "Till the morning light is first gray in the sky above Beikos," replied Gregorios, without hesitation. "But for your own sake you had better decide sooner." Laleli was silent. She must have had the strongest reasons for refusing to tell the secret of Alexander's fate, for the penalty of silence was a fearful one. She felt herself to be dying, but the morphine had revived in her the hope of life, and she loved life yet. But to live and suffer, to go through the horrors of an exile to Arabia, to drag her gnawing pain through the sands of the desert, was a prospect too awful to be contemplated. As the effects of the last dose administered began to disappear, and her sufferings recommenced, she realized her situation with frightful vividness. Still she strove to be calm and to baffle her tormentor to the very end. If she had not felt the unspeakable relief she had gained from his medicine, she would have wished to die, but she had tasted of life again. The problem was how to preserve this new life while refusing to answer the question Gregorios had asked of her. She was so clever, so thoroughly able to deal with difficulties, that if she could but have relief from her sufferings, so that her mind might be free to work undisturbed, she still hoped to find the solution. But the pain was already returning. In a few minutes she would be writhing in agony again. "I will wait until morning,--it is not many hours now," said Balsamides, after a pause. "But I strongly advise you to decide at once. You are beginning to suffer, and I warn you that unless you confess you shall not have the medicine." "I lived without it until you came," answered Laleli. "I can live without it now, if it is my fate." Her voice trembled convulsively, but she finished her sentence by a great effort. "It is not your fate," returned Gregorios. "You can not live without it." "Then at least I shall die and escape you," she groaned; but even in her groan there was a sort of scorn. On the last occasion she had indeed exaggerated her sufferings, pretending that she was at the point of death in order to get relief without telling her secret. She had always believed that at the last minute Balsamides would relent, out of fear lest she should die, and that she could thus obtain a series of intervals of rest, during which she might think what was to be done. She did not know the relentless character of the man with whom she had to deal. "You cannot escape me," said Balsamides, sternly. "But you can save me trouble by deciding quickly." "I have decided to die!" she cried at last, with a great effort. She groaned again, and began to rock herself in her seat upon the divan. "You will not die yet," observed Gregorios, contemptuously. He had understood that he had been deceived the previous time, and had determined to let her suffer. Indeed, she was suffering, and very terribly. Her groans had a different character now, and it was evident that she was not playing a comedy. A livid hue overspread her face, and she gasped for breath. "If you are really in pain," said Balsamides, "confess, and I will give you relief." But Laleli shook her head, and did not look up. He attributed her constancy to an intention to impose upon him a second time by appearing to suffer in silence rather than to sell her secret for the medicine. He looked on, quite unmoved, for some minutes. At last she raised her head and showed the deathly color of her face. "Medicine!" she gasped. "Not this time, unless you make a full confession," said Balsamides calmly. "I will not be deceived again." The wretched woman cast an imploring glance at him, and seemed trying to speak. But he thought she was acting again, and did not move from his seat. "You understand the price," he said, slowly taking the case from his pocket. "Tell what you know, and you shall have it all, if you like." The old Khanum's eyes glittered as she saw the receptacle of the coveted medicine. Her lips moved, producing only inarticulate sounds. Then, with a convulsive movement, she suddenly began to try and drag herself along the divan to the place where Gregorios sat. He gazed at her scornfully. She was very weak, and painfully moved on her hands and knees, the straight hair falling about her face, while her eyes gleamed and her lips moved. Occasionally she paused as though exhausted, and groaned heavily in her agony. But Balsamides believed it to be but a comedy to frighten him into administering the dose, and he sat still in his place, holding the case in his hand and keeping his eyes upon her. "You cannot deceive me," he said coldly. "All these contortions will not prevail upon me. You must tell your secret, or you will get nothing." Still Laleli dragged herself along, apparently trying to speak, but uttering only inarticulate sounds. As she got nearer to him, still on her hands and knees, Gregorios thought he had never seen so awful a sight. The straight black hair was matted in the moisture upon her clammy face; a deathly, greenish livid hue had overspread her features; her chin was extended forward hungrily and her eyes shone dangerously, while her lips chattered perpetually. She was very near to Balsamides. Had she had the strength to stretch out her hand she could almost have touched the small black case he held. He thought she was too near, at last, and his grip tightened on the little box. "Confess," he said once more, "and you shall have it." For one moment more she tried to struggle on, still not speaking. Balsamides rose and quietly put the case into his pocket, anticipating a struggle. He little knew what the result would be. The miserable creature uttered a short cry, and a wild look of despair was in her eyes. Suddenly, as she crawled upon the divan, she reared herself up on her knees, stretching out her wasted hands towards him. "Give--give"--she cried. "I will tell you all--he is alive--he is--a wan--" Her staring black eyes abruptly seemed to turn white, and instantly her face became ashy pale. One last convulsive effort,--the jaw dropped, the features relaxed, the limbs were unstrung, and Laleli Khanum fell forward to her full length upon her face on the peach-colored satin of the divan. She was dead, and Gregorios Balsamides knew it, as he turned her limp body so that she lay upon her back. She was quite dead, but he was neither startled nor horrified; he was bitterly disappointed, and again and again he ground his heel into the thick Siné carpet under his feet. What was it to him whether this hideous old hag were dead in one way or another? She had died with her secret. There she lay in her shapeless bag-like gown of snuff-colored stuff, under the brilliant lights and the gorgeous mirrors, upon the delicate satin cushions, her white eyes staring wide, her hands clenched still in the death agony, the coarse hair clinging to her wet temples. Presently the body moved, and appeared to draw one--two--three convulsive breaths. Gregorios was startled, and bent down. But it was only the very end. "Bah!" he exclaimed, half aloud, "they often do that." Indeed, he had many times in his life seen men die, on the battlefield, on the hospital pallet, in their beds at home. But he had never seen such a death as this, and for a moment longer he gazed at the dead woman's face. Then the whole sense of disappointment rushed back upon him, and he hastily strode down the long hall, under the lamps, between the mirrors, without once looking behind him. XVIII. Balsamides found Selim outside the door at the other end of the passage, sitting disconsolately upon the divan. The Lala turned up his ugly face as Gregorios entered, and then rose from his seat, reluctantly, as though much exhausted. Balsamides laid his hand upon the fellow's arm and looked into his small red eyes. "The Khanum is dead," said the pretended physician. The negro trembled violently, and throwing up his arms would have clapped his hands together. But Balsamides stopped him. "No noise," he said sternly. "Come with me. All may yet be well with you; but you must be quiet, or it will be the worse for you." He held the Lala's arm and led him without resistance to the outer hall. "Mehemet Bey! Mehemet Bey!" I heard him call, and I hastened from the room where I had waited to join him in the vestibule. He was very pale and grave. On hearing him enter, the porter appeared, and silently opened the outer door. Balsamides addressed him as we prepared to leave the house. "The Khanum Effendi is dead," he said. "Selim will accompany us to the palace, and will return in the morning." The man's face, deeply marked with the small-pox and weather-beaten in many a campaign, did not change color. Perhaps he had long expected the news, for he bowed his head as though submitting to a superior order. "It is the will of Allah," he said in a low voice. In another moment we had descended the steps, Selim walking between us. The coachman was standing at the horses' heads in the light of the bright carriage lamps. Balsamides entered the carriage first, then I made Selim get in, and last of all I took my seat and closed the door. "Yildiz-Kiöshk!" shouted Balsamides out of the window to the driver, and once more we rattled over the pavement and along the rough road. I imagined that the order had been given only to mislead the porter, who had stood upon the steps until we drove away. I knew well enough that Balsamides would not present himself at the palace with me in my present disguise, and that it was very improbable that he would take Selim there. I hesitated to speak to him, because I did not know whether I was to continue to personate the adjutant or to reveal myself in my true character. I had comprehended the situation when I heard my friend tell the porter that the Khanum was dead, and I congratulated myself that we had secured the person of Selim without the smallest struggle or difficulty of any kind. I argued from this, either that the Khanum had died without telling her story, or else that she had told it all, and that Selim was to accompany us to the place where Alexander was buried or hidden. At last we turned to the left. Balsamides again put his head out of the window, and called to the coachman to drive on the Belgrade road instead of turning towards Pera. The negro started violently when he heard the order given, and I thought he put out his hand to take the handle of the door; but my own was in the hanging loop fastened to the inside of the door, and I knew that he could not open it. The road indicated by Gregorios leads through the heart of the Belgrade forest. The fierce north wind had moderated a little, or rather, as we drove up the thickly wooded valley, we were not exposed to it as we had been upon the shore of the Bosphorus and on the heights above. Overhead, the driving clouds took a silvery-gray tinge, as the last quarter of the waning moon rose slowly behind the hills of the Asian shore. The bare trees swayed and moved slowly in the wind with the rhythmical motion of aquatic plants under moving water. I looked through the glass as we drove along, recognizing the well-known turns, the big trees, the occasional low stone cottages by the roadside. Everything was familiar to me, even in the bleak winter weather; only the landscape was inexpressibly wild in its leafless grayness, under the faint light of the waning moon. From time to time the Lala moved uneasily, but said nothing. We were ascending the hill which leads to the huge arch of the lonely aqueduct which pierces the forest, when Balsamides tapped upon the window. The carriage stopped in the road and he opened the door on his side and descended. "Get down," he said to Selim. I pushed the negro forward, and got out after him. Balsamides seized his arm firmly. "Take him on the other side," he said to me in Turkish, dragging the fellow along the road in the direction of a stony bridle-path which from this point ascends into the forest. Then Selim's coolness failed him, and he yelled aloud, struggling in our grip, and turning his head back towards the coachman. "Help! help!" he cried. "In the name of Allah! They will murder me!" From the lonely road the coachman's careless laugh echoed after us, as we hurried up the steep way. "It is a solitary spot," observed Balsamides to the terrified Selim. "You may yell yourself hoarse, if it pleases you." We continued to ascend the path, dragging the Lala between us. He had little chance of escape between two such men as we, and he seemed to know it, for after a few minutes he submitted quietly enough. At last we reached an open space among the rocks and trees, and Balsamides stopped. We were quite out of earshot from the road, and it would be hard to imagine a more desolate place than it appeared, between two and three o'clock on that March night, the bare twigs of the birch-trees wriggling in the bleak wind, the faint light of the decrescent moon, that seemed to be upside down in the sky, falling on the white rocks, and on the whitened branches torn down by the winter's storms, lying like bleached bones upon the ground before us. "Now," said Balsamides to the negro, "no one can hear us. You have one chance of life. Tell us at once where we can find the Russian Effendi whose property you stole and sold to Marchetto in the bazaar." In the dim gloom I almost fancied that the black man changed color as Gregorios put this question, but he answered coolly enough. "You cannot find him," he said. "You need not have brought me here to ask me about him. I would have told you what you wanted to know at Yeni Köj, willingly enough." "Why can he not be found?" "Because he has been dead nearly two years, and his body was thrown into the Bosphorus," answered the Lala defiantly. "You killed him, I suppose?" Balsamides tightened his grip upon the man's arm. But Selim was ready with his reply. "You need not tear me in pieces. He killed himself." The news was so unexpected that Balsamides and I both started and looked at each other. The Lala spoke with the greatest decision. "How did he kill himself?" asked Gregorios sternly. "I will tell you, as far as I know. The Bekjí of Agia Sophia, the same who admitted the Effendi, took me up by the other staircase. Franks are never allowed to pass that way, as you know. When we were halfway up, holding the tapers before us, we stumbled over the body of a man lying at the foot of one of the flights, with his hand against the wall. We stooped down and examined him. He was quite dead. 'Selim,' said the Bekjí, who knows me very well, 'the Effendi has fallen down the stairs in the dark, and has broken his neck.' 'If we give the alarm,' said I, 'we shall be held responsible for his death.' 'Leave it to me,' answered the Bekjí. 'Behold, the man is dead. It is his fate. He has no further use for valuables.' So the Bekjí took a ring, and a tobacco-box, and the watch and chain, and some money which was in the man's pockets. Then he said we should leave the corpse where it was. And when the prayers in the mosque were over, before it was day, he got a vegetable-seller's cart, and put the body in it and covered it with cabbages. Then we took it down to the point below Top Kapu Serai, where the waters are swift and deep. So we threw him in, for he was but a dog of a Giaour, and had broken his neck in stumbling where it was forbidden to go. Is it my fault that he stumbled?" "No," answered Balsamides, "it was not your fault if he stumbled, and the Bekjí was a Persian fox. But you robbed his body, and divided the spoil. What share did the Bekjí take?" "He took the ring and the tobacco-box and the money, for he was the stronger," answered the Lala. "Selim," said Balsamides quietly, "before the Khanum died to-night she said that Alexander Patoff was alive. If so, you are lying. You are a greater liar than Moseylama, the false prophet, as they say in your country. But if not, you are a robber of dead bodies. Therefore, Selim, say a Fatihah, for your hour is come." With that, Balsamides drew a short revolver from his pocket and cocked it before the man's eyes. The negro's limbs relaxed, and with a howl he fell upon his knees. "Mercy! In the name of Allah!" he cried. "I have told all the truth, I swear by the grave of my father"---- "Don't move," said Gregorios, with horrible calmness. "You will do very well in that position. Now--say your Fatihah, and be quick about it. I cannot wait all night." "You are not in earnest, Gregorios?" I asked in English, for my blood ran cold at the sight. "Very much in earnest," he answered in Turkish, presenting the muzzle of the pistol to the Lala's head. "This fellow shall not laugh at our beards a second time. I will count three. If you do not wish to say your prayers, I will fire when I have said three. One--two"---- "He is alive!" screamed the Lala, before the fatal "three" was spoken by Balsamides. "I have lied: he is alive! Mercy! and I will tell you all." "I thought so," said Balsamides, coolly uncocking his pistol and putting it back into his pocket. "Get up, dog, and tell us what you know." Selim was literally almost frightened to death, as he kneeled on the sharp stones at our feet. He could hardly speak, and I dragged him up and made him sit upon the trunk of a fallen tree. I was indeed glad that he was still alive, for though Balsamides had not yet told me the events of the night, I could see that he was in no humor to be trifled with. Even I, who am peaceably disposed towards all men, felt my blood boil when the fellow told how he and the Bekjí had robbed the body of Alexander Patoff, and thrown it into the Bosphorus for fear of being suspected. But the whole story seemed improbable, and I had a strong impression that Selim was lying. Perhaps nothing but the fear of death could have made him confess, after all, and Balsamides had a way of making death seem very real and near. "I will tell you this, Selim," said Gregorios. "If you will give me Alexander Patoff Effendi to-night, alive, well, and uninjured in any way, you shall go free, and I will engage that you shall not be hurt. You evidently wished to keep the Khanum's secret. The Khanum is dead, and her secrets are the Padishah's, like everything else she possessed. You are bound to deliver those secrets to my keeping. Therefore tell us shortly where the Russian is, that we may liberate him and take him home at once." "He is alive and well. That is to say, he has been well treated," answered Selim. "If you can take him, you may take him to-night, for all I care. But you must swear that you will then protect me." "Filthy liquor in a dirty bottle!" exclaimed Balsamides angrily. "Will you make conditions with me, you soul of a dog in a snake's body?" "Very well," returned the Lala cunningly. "But if you should kill me by mistake before I have taken you to him, you will never find him." "I have told you that you shall not be hurt, if you will give him up. That is enough. My word is good, and I will keep it. Speak; you are safe." "In the first place, we must go back to Yeni Köj. You might have saved yourself the trouble of coming up here on such a night as this." "I want no comments on my doings. Tell me where the man is." "I will take you to him," said the Lala. "Well, then, get up and come back to the carriage," said Balsamides, seeing it was useless to bandy words with the fellow. Moreover, it was bitterly cold in the forest, and the idea of being once more in the comfortable carriage was attractive. Again we took Selim between us, and rapidly descended the stony path. In a few moments we were driving swiftly away from the arches of the aqueduct in the direction whence we had come. Before we had reached the door of Laleli's house, Selim asked Balsamides to stop the carriage. We got out, and he took us up a narrow and filthy lane between two high walls. The feeble light of the moon did not penetrate the blackness, and we stumbled along in the mud as best we could. After climbing in this way for nearly ten minutes, Selim stopped before what appeared to be a small door sunk in a niche in the wall. I heard a bunch of keys jingling in his hand, and in a few seconds he admitted us. Balsamides held him firmly by the sleeve, as he turned to lock the door behind us. "You shall not lock it," he said in a low voice. "Are we mice to be caught in a trap?" Having made sure that the door was open, he pushed Selim forward. We seemed to be in a very spacious garden, surrounded by high walls on all sides. The trees were bare, excepting a few tall cypresses, which reared their black spear-like heads against the dim sky. The flower-beds were covered with dark earth, and the gravel in the paths was rough, as though no one had trod upon it for a long time. The walls protected the place from the wind, and a gloomy stillness prevailed, broken only by the distant sighing of trees higher up, which caught the northern gale. Selim followed the wall for some distance, and at last stood still. We had reached one angle of the garden, and as well as I could see the corner made by the walls was filled by a low stone building with latticed windows, from one of which issued a faint light. Going nearer, I saw that the lattices were not of wood, but were strong iron gratings, such as no man's strength could break. The door in the middle of this stone box was also heavily ironed. Selim went forward, and again I heard the keys rattle in his hands. Almost instantly the shadow of a head appeared at the window whence the light came. While the Lala was unfastening the lock I went close to the grating. I was just tall enough to meet a pair of dark eyes gazing at me intently through the lowest bars. "Alexander Patoff, is it you?" I asked in Russian. "Good God!" exclaimed a tremulous voice. "Have the Russians taken Constantinople at last? Who are you?" "I am Paul Griggs. We have come to set you free." The heavy door yielded and moved. I rushed in, and in another moment I clasped the lost man's hand. Gregorios, far more prudent than I, held Selim by the collar as a man would hold a dog, for he feared some treachery. "Is it really you?" I asked, for I could scarcely believe my eyes. Alexander looked at me once, then broke into hysterical tears, laughing and crying and sobbing all at once. He was indeed unrecognizable. I remembered the descriptions I had heard of the young dandy, the gay officer of a crack regiment, irreproachable in every detail of his dress, and delicate as a woman in his tastes. I saw before me a man of good height, wrapped in an old Turkish kaftan of green cloth lined with fur, his feet thrust into a pair of worn-out red slippers. His dark brown hair had grown till it fell upon his shoulders, his beard reached halfway to his waist, his face was ghastly white and thin to emaciation. The hand he had given me was like a parcel of bones in a thin glove. I doubted whether he were the man, after all. "We must be quick," I said. "Have you anything to take away?" He cast a piteous glance at his poor clothing. "This is all I have," he said in a low voice. Then, with a half-feminine touch of vanity, he added, "You must excuse me: I am hardly fit to go with you." He looked wildly at me for a moment, and again laughed and sobbed hysterically. The apartment was indeed empty enough. There was a low round table, a wretched old divan at one end, and a sort of bed spread upon the floor, in the old Turkish fashion. The whole place seemed to consist of a single room, lighted by a small oil lamp which hung in one corner. The stuccoed walls were green with dampness, and the cold was intense. I wondered how the poor man had lived so long in such a place. I put my arm under his, and threw my heavy military cloak over his shoulders. Then I led him away through the open door. The key was still in the lock without, and Balsamides held Selim tightly by the collar. When we had passed, Gregorios, instead of following us, held the Lala at arm's-length before him. Then he administered one tremendous kick, and sent the wretch flying into the empty cell; he locked the door on him with care, and withdrew the keys. "I told you I would protect you," he called out through the keyhole. "You will be quite safe there for the present." Then he turned away, laughing to himself, and we all three hurried down the path under the wall, till we reached the small door by which we had entered the garden. Stumbling down the narrow lane, we soon got to the road, and found the carriage where we had left it. There was no time for words as we almost lifted the wretched Russian into the carriage and got in after him. "To my house in Pera!" cried Balsamides to the patient coachman. "Pek tchabuk! As fast as you can drive!" "Evvét Effendim," replied the old soldier, and in another moment we were tearing along the road at breakneck speed. Hitherto Alexander Patoff had been too much surprised and overcome by his emotions to speak connectedly or to ask us any questions. When once we were in the carriage and on our way to Pera, however, he recovered his senses. "Will you kindly tell me how all this has happened? Are you a Turkish officer?" "No," I answered. "This is a disguise. Let me present you to the man who has really liberated you,--Balsamides Bey." Patoff took the hand Gregorios stretched out towards him in both of his, and would have kissed it had Gregorios allowed him. "God bless you! God bless you!" he repeated fervently. He was evidently still very much shaken, and in order to give him a little strength I handed him a flask of spirits which I had left in the carriage. He drank eagerly, and grasped even more greedily the case of cigarettes which I offered him. "Ah!" he cried, in a sort of ecstasy, as he tasted the tobacco. "I feel that I am free." I began to tell him in a few words what had happened: how we had stumbled upon his watch in the bazaar, had identified Selim, and traced the Lala to Laleli Khanum's house; how the Khanum had died while Balsamides was there, just as she was about to tell the truth; how we had dragged Selim into the forest, and had threatened him with death; and how at last, feeling that since his mistress was dead he was no longer in danger, the fellow had conducted us to Alexander's cell in the garden. I told him that his brother and mother were in Pera, and that he should see them in the morning. I said that Madame Patoff had been very ill in consequence of his disappearance, and that every one had mourned for him as dead. In short, I endeavored to explain the whole situation as clearly as I could. While I was telling our story Balsamides never spoke a word, but sat smoking in his corner, probably thinking of the single kick in which he had tried to concentrate all his vengeance. As we drove along, the dawn began to appear,--the cold dawn of a March morning. I asked Balsamides whether it would be necessary to change my clothes before entering the city. "No," he answered; "we shall be at home at sunrise. The fellow drives well." "I shall have to ask you to take me in for a few hours," said Alexander. "I am in a pitiable state." "You must have suffered horribly in that den," observed Balsamides. "Of course you must come home with me. We will send for your brother at once, and when you are rested you can tell us something of your story. It must be even more interesting than ours." "It would not take so long to tell," answered Patoff, with a melancholy smile. In the gray light of the morning I was horrified to notice how miserably thin and ill he looked; but even in his squalor, and in spite of the long hair and immense beard, I could see traces of the beauty I had so often heard described by Paul, and even by Cutter, who was rarely enthusiastic about the appearance of his fellows. He seemed weak, too, as though he had been half starved in his prison. I asked him how long it was since he had eaten. "Last night," he said, wearily, "they brought me food, but I could not eat. A man in prison has no appetite." Then suddenly he opened the window beside him, and put his head out into the cold blast, as though to drink in more fully the sense of freedom regained. Balsamides looked at him with a sort of pity which I hardly ever saw in his face. "Poor devil!" he said, in a low voice. "We were just in time. He could not have lasted much longer." We reached the outskirts of Pera, and Alexander hastily withdrew his head and sank back in the corner, as though afraid of being seen. He had the startled look of a man who fears pursuit. At last we rattled down the Grande Rue, and stopped before the door of Balsamides' house. It was six o'clock in the morning, and the sun was nearly up. I thought it had been one of the longest nights I ever remembered. While Balsamides dismissed the coachman, I led Alexander quickly into the house and up the narrow stairs. In a few minutes Gregorios joined us, and coffee was brought. "I think you could wear my clothes," he said, looking at Alexander with a scarcely perceptible smile. "We are nearly the same height, and I am almost as thin as you." "If you would be so very kind as to send for a barber," suggested Patoff. "I have never been allowed one, for fear I should get hold of his razor and kill myself or somebody else." "I will go and send one," said I. "And I will rouse your brother and bring him back with me." "Stop!" cried Balsamides. "You cannot go like that!" I had forgotten that I still wore the adjutant's uniform. "Take care of our friend," he added, "and I will go myself." We should probably have felt very tired, after our night's excursion, had we not been sustained by the sense of triumph at having at last succeeded beyond all hope. It was hard to imagine what the effect would be upon Madame Patoff, and I began to fear for her reason as I remembered how improbable it had always seemed to me that we should find her son alive. I was full of curiosity to hear his story, but I knew that he was exhausted with fatigue and emotion, so that I put him in possession of my room and gave him some of my friend's clothes. In a few moments the barber arrived, and while he was performing his operations I myself resumed my ordinary dress. Balsamides found Paul in bed and fast asleep, but, pushing the servant aside, he walked in and opened the windows. "Wake up, Patoff!" he shouted, making a great noise with the fastenings. "Holloa! What is the matter?" cried Paul, opening his sleepy eyes wide with astonishment as he saw Balsamides standing before him, white as death with the excitement of the night. "Has anything happened?" "Everything has happened," said Gregorios. "The sun is risen, the birds are singing, the Jews are wrangling in the bazaar, the dogs are fighting at Galata Serai, and, last of all, your brother, Alexander Patoff, is at this moment drinking his coffee in my rooms." "My brother!" cried Paul, fairly leaping out of bed in his excitement. "Are you in earnest? Come, let us go at once." "Your costume," remarked Balsamides quietly, "smacks too much of the classic for the Grande Rue de Pera. I will wait while you dress." "Does my mother know?" asked Patoff. "No," replied Balsamides. "Your brother had not been five minutes in my house when I came here." Then he told Paul briefly how we had found Alexander. Paul Patoff was not a man to be easily surprised; but in the present case the issue had been so important, that, being taken utterly unawares by the news, he felt stunned and dazed as he tried to realize the whole truth. He sat down in the midst of dressing, and for one moment buried his face in his hands. Balsamides looked on quietly. He knew how much even that simple action meant in a man of Paul's proud and undemonstrative temper. In a few seconds Paul rose from his seat and completed his toilette. "You know how grateful I am to you both," he said. "You must guess it, for nothing I could say could express what I feel." "Do not mention it," answered Balsamides. "No thanks could give me half the pleasure I have in seeing your satisfaction. You must prepare to find your brother much changed, I fancy. He seemed to me to be thin and pale, but I think he is not ill in any way. If you are ready, we will go." Meanwhile, Alexander had had his hair cut short, in the military fashion, and had been divested of the immense beard which hid half his face. A tub and a suit of civilized clothes did the rest, even though the latter did not fit him as well as Gregorios had expected. Gregorios is a deceptive man and is larger than he looks, for his coat was too broad for Alexander, and hung loosely over the latter's shoulders and chest. But in spite of the imperfect fit, the change in the man's appearance was so great that I started in surprise when he entered the sitting-room, taking him for an intruder who had walked in unannounced. He was very beautiful; that is the only word which applies to his appearance. His regular features, in their extreme thinness, were ethereal as the face of an angel, but he had not the painful look of emaciation which one so often sees in the faces of those long kept in confinement. He was very thin indeed, but there was a perfect grace in all his movements, an ease and self-possession in his gestures, a quiet, earnest, trustful look in his dark eyes, which seemed almost unearthly. I watched him with the greatest interest, and with the greatest admiration also. Had I been asked at that moment to state what man or woman in the whole world I considered most perfectly beautiful, I should have answered unhesitatingly, Alexander Patoff. He had that about him which is scarcely ever met with in men, and which does not always please others, though it never fails to attract attention. I mean that he had the delicate beauty of a woman combined with the activity and dash of a man. I saw how the lightness, the alternate indolence and reckless excitement, of such a nature must act upon a man of Paul Patoff's character. Every point and peculiarity of Alexander's temper and bearing would necessarily irritate Paul, who was stern, cold, and manly before all else, and who readily despised every species of weakness except pride, and every demonstration of feeling except physical courage. Alexander was like his mother; so like her, indeed, that as soon as I saw him without his beard I realized the cause of Madame Patoff's singular preference for the older son, and much which had seemed unnatural before was explained by this sudden revelation. Paul probably resembled his father's family more than his mother's. Madame Patoff, who had loved that same cold, determined character in her husband, because she was awed by it, hated it in her child, because she could neither bend it nor influence it, nor make it express any of that exuberant affection which Alexander so easily felt. Both boys had inherited from their father a goodly share of the Slav element, but, finding very different ground upon which to work in the natures of the two brothers, the strong Russian individuality had developed in widely different ways. In Alexander were expressed all the wild extremes of mood of which the true Russian is so eminently capable; all the overflowing and uncultivated talent and love of art and beauty, which in Russia brings forth so much that approaches indefinitely near to genius without ever quite reaching it. In Paul the effect of the Slavonic blood was totally opposite, and showed itself in that strange stolidity, that cold and ruthless exercise of force and pursuance of conviction, which have characterized so many Russian generals, so many Russian monarchs, and which have produced also so many Russian martyrs. There is something fateful in that terrible sternness, something which very well excites horror while imposing respect, and especially when forced to submit to superior force; and when vanquished, there is something grand in the capacity such a character possesses for submitting to destiny, and bearing the extremest suffering. It was clear enough that there could never be any love lost between two such men, and I was curious to see their meeting. I wondered whether each would fall upon the other's neck and shed tears of rejoicing, or whether they would shake hands and express their satisfaction more formally. In looking forward to the scene which was soon to take place, I almost wished that Paul might have accompanied us in the disguise of a second adjutant, and thus have had a hand in the final stroke by which we had effected Alexander's liberation. But I knew that he would only have been in the way, and that, considering the whole situation, we had done wisely. The least mistake on his part might have led to a struggle inside the Khanum's house, and we had good cause to congratulate ourselves upon having freed the prisoner without shedding blood. There was something pleasantly ludicrous in the thought that all our anticipations of a fight had ended in that one solemn kick with which Balsamides had consigned Selim to the prison whence we had taken Alexander. I was giving the latter a few more details of the events of the night, when Paul and Balsamides entered the room together. Paul showed more emotion than I had expected, and clasped his brother in his arms in genuine delight at having found him at last. Then he looked long at his face, as though trying to see how far Alexander was changed in the twenty months which had elapsed since they had met. "You are a little thinner,--you look as though you had been ill," said Paul. "No, I have not been ill, but I have suffered horribly in many ways," answered Alexander, in his smooth, musical voice. For some minutes they exchanged questions, while they overcame their first excitement at being once more together. It was indeed little less than a resurrection, and Alexander's ethereal face was that of a spirit returning to earth rather than of a living man who had never left it. At last Paul grew calmer. "Will you tell us how it happened?" he asked, as he sat down upon the divan beside his brother. Balsamides and I established ourselves in chairs, ready to listen with breathless interest to the tale Alexander was about to tell. "You remember that night at Santa Sophia, Paul?" began the young man, leaning back among the cushions, which showed to strong advantage the extreme beauty of his delicate face. "Yes, of course you remember it, very vividly, for Mr. Griggs has told me how you acted, and all the trouble you took to find me. Very well; you remember, then, that the last time I saw you we were all looking down at those fellows as they went through their prayers and prostrations, and I stood a little apart from you. You were very much absorbed in the sight, and the kaváss, who was a Mussulman, was looking on very devoutly. I thought I should like to see the sight from the other side, and I walked away and turned the corner of the gallery. You did not notice me, I suppose, and the noise of the crowd, rising and falling on their knees, must have drowned my footsteps." "I had not the slightest idea that you had moved from where you stood," said Paul. "No. When I reached the corner, I was very much surprised to see a man standing in the shadow of the pillar. I was still more astonished when I recognized the hideous negro who had knocked off my hat in the afternoon. I expected that he would insult me, and I suppose I made as though I would show fight; but he raised his finger to his lips, and with the other hand held out a letter, composing his face into a sort of horrible leer, intended to be attractive. I took the letter without speaking, for I knew he could not understand a word I said, and that I could not understand him. The envelope contained a sheet of pink paper, on which, in an ill-formed hand, but in tolerably good French, were written a few words. It was a declaration of love." "From Laleli?" asked Balsamides, with a laugh. "Exactly," replied Alexander. "It was a declaration of love from Laleli. I leave you to imagine what I supposed Laleli to be like at that time, and Paul, who knows me, will tell you that I was not likely to hesitate at such a moment. The note ended by saying that the faithful Selim would conduct me to her presence without delay. I was delighted with the adventure, and crept noiselessly after him in the shadow of the gallery, lest you should see me; for I knew you would prevent my going with the man. We descended the stairs, but it was not until we reached the bottom that I saw we had not come down by the way I had ascended. Selim was most obsequious, and seemed ready to do everything for my comfort. As we walked down a narrow street, he presented me with a new fez, and made signs to me to put it on instead of my hat, which he then carefully wrapped in a handkerchief and carried in his hand. At a place near the bridge several caïques were lying side by side. He invited me to enter one, which I observed was very luxuriously fitted, and which I thought I recognized as the one in which I had so often seen the woman with the impenetrable veil. I lay back among the cushions and smoked, while Selim perched himself on the raised seat behind me, and the four boatmen pulled rapidly away. It was heavy work for them, I dare say, tugging upstream, but to me the voyage was enchanting. The shores were all illuminated, and the Bosphorus swarmed with boats. It was the last time I was in a caïque. I do not know whether I could bear the sight of one now." "So they took you to Laleli's house?" said Paul, anxious to hear the rest. "Yes; I was taken to Laleli's house, and I never got out of it till last night," continued Alexander. "How long is it? I have not the least idea of the European date." "This is the 29th of March," said I. "And that was the end of June,--twenty-one months. I have learned Turkish since I was caught, to pass the time, and I always knew the Turkish date after I had learned their way of counting, but I had lost all reckoning by our style. Well, to go on with my story. They brought me to the stone pier before the house. Selim admitted me by a curiously concealed panel at one end of the building, and we found ourselves in a very narrow place, whence half a dozen steps ascended to a small door. A little oil lamp burned in one corner. He led the way, and the door at the top slid back into the wall. We entered, and he closed it again. We were in the corner of a small room, richly furnished in the worst possible taste. I dare say you know the style these natives admire. Selim left me there for a moment. I looked carefully at the wall, and tried to find the panel; but to my surprise, the wainscoting was perfectly smooth and even, and I could not discover the place where it opened, nor detect any spring or sign of a fastening. Laleli, I thought, understood those things. Presently a door opened on one side of the room, and I saw the figure I had often watched, beckoning to me to come. Of course I obeyed, and she retired into the room beyond, which was very high and had no windows, though I noticed that there was a dome at the top, which in the day-time would admit the light." "The Khanum was waiting for you?" I asked. "Yes. I was surprised to see her dressed in the clothes she wore out-of-doors, and as thickly veiled as ever. There were lights in the room. She held out her small hand,--you remember noticing that she had small white hands?" "Like a young woman's," replied Balsamides. "Yes. I took her hand, and spoke in French. I dare say I looked very sentimental and passionate as I gazed into her black eyes. I could see nothing of her face. She answered me in Turkish, which of course I could not understand. All I could say was Pek güzel, very beautiful, which I repeated amidst my French phrases, giving the words as passionate an accent as I could command. At last she seemed to relent, and as she bent towards me I expected that she was about to speak very softly some Turkish love-word. What was my horror when she suddenly screamed into my ear, with a hideous harsh voice, my own words, Pek güzel! In a moment she threw off her black ferigee, and tore the thick veil from her head. I could have yelled with rage, for I saw what a fool I had made of myself, and that the old hag had played a practical joke on me in revenge for the affair in the Valley of Roses. I cursed her in French, I cursed her in Russian, I cursed her in English, and stamped about the room, trying to get out. The horrible old witch screamed herself hoarse with laughter, making hideous grimaces and pointing at me in scorn. What could I do? I tried to force one of the doors, and twisted at the handle, and tugged and pushed with all my might. While I was thus engaged I heard the door at the other end of the room open quickly, and as I turned and sprang towards it I caught sight of her baggy, snuff-colored gown disappearing, as she slammed the door behind her. Before I could reach it the lock was turned, and I was caught in the trap,--caught like a mouse." "What a spiteful old thing she was!" I exclaimed. "She might have been satisfied with keeping you there a day instead of two years." "Nearly two years. I did everything humanly possible to escape. I gave all I possessed to Selim to take a message to Paul, to anybody; but of course that was useless. At first they kept me in the room where I had been caught. My food was brought to me by the Turkish porter, a brawny fellow, who could have brained me with his fist. He was always accompanied by another man, as big as himself, who carried a loaded pistol, in case I attacked the first. I had no chance, and I wished I might go mad. Then, one night, they set upon me suddenly, and tied a handkerchief over my mouth, and bound me hand and foot, in spite of my struggles. I thought I was to be put into a sack and drowned. They carried me like a log out into the garden, and put me into that cell where you found me, which had apparently just been built, for the stones were new and the cement was fresh. There, at least, I could look through the gratings. I even thought at one time that I could make myself heard, having no idea of the desolate position of the place. But I soon gave up the attempt and abandoned myself to despair. There it was that Selim used to come occasionally, and talk to me through the bars. That was better than nothing, and the villain amused his leisure moments by teaching me to speak Turkish. One day he brought me a book, which I hailed with delight. It was an old French method for learning the language. I made great progress, as I studied from morning to night. Selim grew more familiar to me, and I confess with shame that I missed his visits when he did not come. The men who brought my food seemed absolutely mute, and I never succeeded in extracting a word from either of them. Even Selim was a companion, and talking to him saved me from going mad. I asked him all sorts of questions, and at last I guessed from his answers that the Khanum had been terrified by the disturbance my disappearance had created, and was afraid to set me free lest I should take vengeance on her. She was also afraid to kill me, for some reason or other. The result was, that, from having merely wished to revenge upon me the affair in the Valley of Roses by means of a practical joke, she found herself obliged to keep me a prisoner. I used every means of persuasion to move Selim. I told him I was rich, and would make him rich if he would help me to escape. I promised to take no steps against the Khanum. It was in vain, I assure you I have conceived a very high opinion of the fidelity of Lalas in general, and of Selim in particular." "They are very faithful," said Balsamides gravely. I have since fancied that he had some reason for knowing. Alexander afterwards told us many more details of his confinement; but this was his first account of it, and embraced all that is most important to know. The whole affair made a very strong impression on me. The unfortunate man had fallen a victim to a chain of circumstances which it had been entirely impossible to foresee, all resulting directly from his first imprudent action in addressing the veiled lady in the Valley of Roses. A little piece of folly had ruined two years of his life, and subjected him to a punishment such as a court of justice would have inflicted for a very considerable crime. The remainder of the day was occupied by the meeting of Alexander with his mother and his introduction to his English relations, upon which it is needless to dwell long. I never knew what passed between the mother and son, but the interview must have been a very extraordinary one. It was necessary, of course, to prepare Madame Patoff for the news and for the sight of the child she seemed to love better than anything in the world. Hermione performed the task, as being the one who understood her best. She began by hinting vaguely that we had advanced another step in our search, and that we were now confident of finding Alexander before long, perhaps in a few hours. She gradually, in talking, spoke of the moment when he would appear, wondering how he would look, and insensibly accustoming Madame Patoff to the idea. At last she confessed that he had been found during the night, and that he was ready to come to his mother at any moment. It was well done, and the force of the shock was broken. The old lady nearly swooned with joy, but the danger was past when she recovered her consciousness and demanded to see Alexander at once. He was admitted to her room, and the two were left alone to their happiness. The rest of the family were mad with delight. John Carvel grew ten years younger, and Mrs. Carvel fairly cried with joy, while Chrysophrasia declared that it was worth while to be disappointed by the first impression of Constantinople, when one was consoled by such a thrilling tale with so joyous a termination,--or happy end, as I should have said. Hermione's face beamed with happiness, and Macaulay literally melted in smiles, as he retired to write down the story in his diary. "Oh, Paul!" Hermione exclaimed when they were alone, "you never told me he was such a beauty!" "Yes," he answered quietly, "he is far better-looking than I am. You must not fall in love with him, Hermy." "The idea of such a thing!" she cried, with a light laugh. "I should not be surprised if he fell in love with you, dear," said Paul, smiling. "You only say that because you do not like him," she answered. "But you will like him now, won't you? You are so good,--I am sure you will. But think what a splendid thing it is that you should have found him. If aunt Chrysophrasia says, 'Where is your brother?' you can just answer that he is in the next room." "Yes; I am a free man now. No one can ever accuse me again. But apart from that, I am really and sincerely glad that he is alive. I wish him no ill. It is not his fault that I have been under a cloud for nearly two years. He was as anxious to be found as I was to find him. After all, it was not I. It was Balsamides and Griggs who did it at last. I dare say that if I had been with them I should have spoiled it all. I could not have dressed myself like a Turkish officer, to begin with. If I had been caught in the uniform, belonging as I do to the embassy, there would have been a terrible fuss. I should have been obliged to go away, very likely without having found my brother at all. I owe everything to those two men." "If you had not made up your mind that he should be found, they would never have found him; they would not have thought of taking the trouble." Hermione spoke in a reassuring tone, as though to comfort Paul for having had no share in the final stroke which had liberated his brother. In reality Paul needed no consolation. In his heart he was glad that Alexander had been set free by others, and need therefore never feel himself under heavy obligations to Paul. It was not in the strong man's nature to wish to revenge himself upon his brother because the latter had been the favored child and the favorite son. Nor, if he had contemplated any kind of vengeance, would he have chosen the Christian method of heaping coals of fire upon his head. He merely thought of Alexander as he would have thought of any other man not his relation at all, and he did not wish to appear in the light of his liberator. It was enough for Paul that he had been found at last, and that his own reputation was now free from stain. Nothing prevented him any longer from marrying Hermione, and he looked forward to the consummation of all his hopes in the immediate future. The day closed in a great rejoicing. John Carvel insisted that we should all dine with him that night; and our numbers being now swelled by the addition of Alexander Patoff and Gregorios Balsamides, we were a large party,--ten at table. I shall never forget the genuine happiness which was on every face. The conversation flowed brilliantly, and every one felt as though a weight had been lifted from his or her spirits. Alexander Patoff was of course the most prominent person, and as he turned his beautiful eyes from one to the other of us, and told us his story with many episodes and comments, I think we all fell under his fascination, and understood the intense love his mother felt for him. He had indeed a woman's beauty with a man's energy, when his energy was roused at all; and though the feminine element at first seemed out of place in him, it gave him that singular faculty of charming when he pleased, and that brilliancy which no manly beauty can ever have. It was late when we got home, and I went to bed with a profound conviction that Paul Patoff's troubles had come to a happy end, and that he would probably be married to Hermione in the course of the summer. If things had ended thus, my story would end here, and perhaps it would be complete. Unfortunately, events rarely take place as we expect that they will, still more rarely as we hope that they may; and it is generally when our hopes coincide with our expectations, and we feel most sure of ourselves, that fate overtakes us with the most cruel disappointments. Paul Patoff had not yet reached the quiet haven of his hopes, and I have not reached the end of my story. It would indeed be a very easy matter, as I have said before, to collect all the things which happened to him into a neat romance, of which the action should not cover more than four-and-twenty hours of such excitement as no one of the actors could have borne in real life, any more than Salvini could act a tragedy which should begin at noon to-day and end at midday to-morrow. I might have divested Paul of many of his surroundings, have bereaved him of many of his friends, and made him do himself what others did to him; but if he were to read such an account of his life he would laugh scornfully, and say that the real thing was very different indeed, as without doubt it was. This is the reason why I have not hesitated to bring before you a great number of personages, each of whom, in a great or a small way, affected his life. I do not believe that you could understand his actions in the sequel without knowing the details of those situations through which he had passed before. We are largely influenced by little things and little events. The statement is a truism in the eyes of the moralist, but the truth is, unfortunately, too often forgotten in real life. The man who falls down-stairs and breaks his leg has not noticed the tiny spot of candle grease which made the polished step so slippery just where he trod. XIX. There were great rejoicings when it was known in Pera that Alexander Patoff had been found. His disappearance had furnished the gossips with a subject of conversation during many weeks, and his coming back revived the whole story, with the addition of a satisfactory ending. In consideration of the fact that Laleli Khanum was dead, Count Ananoff thought it best to take no official notice of the matter. To treat it diplomatically would be useless, he said. Alexander had fallen a victim to his own folly, and though the penalty had been severe, it was impossible to hold the Ottoman government responsible for what Patoff had suffered, now that the Khanum had departed this life. Alexander received permission to take three months' leave to recruit his health before returning to his regiment, and he resolved to spend a part of the time in Constantinople, after which his mother promised to accompany him to St. Petersburg. The Carvels had very soon made the acquaintance of the small but brilliant society of which the diplomatic corps constituted the chief element; and if anything had been needed to make them thoroughly popular, their near connection with the young man whose story was in every one's mouth would alone have sufficed to surround them with interest. The adventure was told with every conceivable variety of detail, and Alexander was often called upon to settle disputes as to what had happened to him. He was ready enough at all times to play the chief part in a drawing-room, and delighted in being questioned by grave old gentlemen, as well as by inquisitive young women. The women admired him for his beauty, his grace and brilliancy, and especially for the expression of his eyes, which they declared in a variety of languages to be absolutely fascinating. The men were interested in his story, and envied him the additional social success which he obtained as the hero of so strange an adventure. Some people admired and praised his devotion to his mother, which they said was most touching, whatever that may mean. Others said that he had an angelic disposition, flavored by a dash of the devil, which saved him from being goody; and this criticism of his character conveyed some meaning to the minds of those who uttered it. People have a strange way of talking about their favorites, and when the praise they mean to bestow is not faint, the expression of it is apt to be feeble and involved. Pera is a gay place, for when a set of men and women are temporarily exiled from their homes to a strange country, where they do not find the society of a great capital, they naturally seek amusement and pursue it; creating among themselves those pastimes which in the great European cities others so often provide for them. Politically, also, Constantinople is a very important place to most of the powers, who choose their representatives for the post from among the cleverest men they can find; and I will venture to say that there is scarcely a court in the world where so many first-rate diplomatists are gathered together as are to be met with among the missions to the Sublime Porte. Diplomacy in Constantinople has preserved something of the character it had all over the world fifty years ago. Personal influence is of far greater importance when negotiations are to be undertaken with a half-civilized form of administration, which is carried on chiefly by persons of imperfect education, but of immense natural talent for intrigue. The absence of an hereditary nobility in Turkey, and the extremely democratic nature of the army and the civil service, make it possible for men of the lowest birth to attain to the highest power. The immense and complicated bureaucracy is not in the hands of any one class of the people; its prizes are won by men of all sorts and conditions, who continue to pursue their own interests and fortunes with undiminished energy, when they ought to be devoting their whole powers to the service of the country. Their power is indeed checked by the centralization of all the executive faculties in the person of the sovereign. Without the Sultan's signature the minister of war cannot order a gun to be cast in the arsenal of Tophanè, the minister of marine cannot buy a ton of coal for the ironclads which lie behind Galata bridge in the Golden Horn, the minister of foreign affairs cannot give a reply to an ambassador, nor can the minister of justice avail himself of the machinery of the law. Every smallest act must be justified by the Sultan's own signature, and the chief object of all diplomacy from without, and of all personal intrigue from within, is to obtain this imperial consent to measures suggested by considerations of private advantage or public necessity. The Ottoman Empire may be described as an irregular democracy, whose acts are all subject to the veto of an absolute autocrat. The officials pass their lives in proposing, and his Majesty very generally spends his time in opposing, all manner of schemes, good, bad, and indifferent. The contradictory nature of the system produces the anomalous position occupied by the Ottoman Empire in Europe. The fact that there is no aristocracy and the seclusion of women among the Mussulmans are the chief reasons why there is no native society, in our sense of the word. A few of the great Greek families still survive, descendants of those Fanariotes whose ancestors had played an important part in the decadence of the Eastern Empire. A certain number of Armenians who have gained wealth and influence follow more or less closely the customs of the West. But beyond these few there cannot be said to be many houses of the social kind. Two or three pashas, of European origin, and Christians by religion, mix with their families in the gayety of Pera and the Bosphorus. A few Turkish officers, and Prussian officers in Turkish service, show their brilliant uniforms in the ball-rooms, and occasionally some high official of the Porte appears at formal receptions; but on the whole the society is diplomatic, and depends almost entirely upon the diplomatists for its existence and for its diversions. The lead once given, the old Greek aristocrats have not been behindhand in following it; but their numbers are small, and the movement and interest in Pera, or on the Bosphorus, centre in the great embassies, as they do nowhere else in the world. Small as the society is, it is, nevertheless exceedingly brilliant and very amusing. Intimacies grow up quickly, and often become lasting friendships when fostered by such influences. Every one knows every one else, and every one meets everybody else at least once a week. The arrival of a new secretary is expected with unbounded interest. The departure of one who has been long in Constantinople is mourned as a public loss. Occasionally society is convulsed to its foundations by the departure of an ambassador to whom every one has been so long accustomed that he has come to be regarded as one of the fathers of the community, whose hospitality every one has enjoyed, whose tact and knowledge of the world have been a source of satisfaction to his colleagues in many a diplomatic difficulty, and whose palace in Pera is associated in the minds of all with many hours of pleasure and with much delightful intercourse. He goes, and society turns out in a body to see him off. The occasion is like a funeral. People send hundreds of baskets of flowers. There is an address, there are many leave-takings. Once, at least, I remember seeing two thirds of the people shedding tears,--genuine wet tears of sorrow. And there was good reason for their grief. In such communities as the diplomatic colony in Pera, people understand the value of those who not only do more than their share in contributing to the pleasantness of life, but who possess in an abundant degree those talents which delight us in individuals, and those qualities which are dear to us in friends. It would be easy to write a book about society in Pera, and it would be a pleasant book. But these are not the days of Samuel Pepys; we have hardly passed the age of Mr. George Ticknor. In a short time after their arrival, and after the reappearance of Alexander Patoff, the Carvels knew everybody, and everybody knew them. Each member of the party found something to praise and some one to like. John Carvel was soon lost in admiration of Lord Mavourneen, while Mrs. Carvel talked much with the English missionary bishop of Western Kamtchatka, who happened to be spending a few days at the embassy. She asked him many questions concerning the differences between Armenian orthodox, Armenian catholic, Greek orthodox, and Russian orthodox; and though his lordship found a great deal to say on the subject, I am bound to allow that he was almost as much puzzled as herself when brought face to face in the reality with such a variety of sects. Chrysophrasia had not come to the East for nothing, either. She meant to indulge what John called her fancy for pots and pans and old rags; in other words, she intended to try her luck in the bazaar, and with the bloodhound's scent of the true collector she detected by instinct the bricabrac hunters of society. There is always a goodly number of them wherever antiquities are to be found, and Chrysophrasia was hailed by those of her persuasion with the mingled delight and jealousy which scientific bodies feel when a new scientist appears upon the horizon. As for Hermione, she created a great sensation, and the hearts of many secretaries palpitated in the most lively manner when she first entered the ball-room of one of the embassies, two days after her arrival. The astonishment was great when it was known that she was Paul Patoff's own cousin; and when it was observed that Paul was very often with her the cry went up that he had fallen in love at last. Thereupon all the women who had said that he was a bore, a monster, a statue, and a piece of ice, immediately declared that there must be something in him, after all, and began to talk to him whenever they got a chance. Some disappointment was felt, too, when it was observed that Alexander Patoff also showed a manifest preference for the society of his beautiful cousin, and wise old ladies said there would be trouble. Everybody, however, received the addition to society with open arms, and hoped that the Carvels' visit might be prolonged for at least a whole year. Many of these comments reached my ears, and the remarks concerning Alexander's growing attachment for Hermione startled me, and chilled me with a sense of evil to come. I opened my eyes and watched, as every one else was doing, and in a short time I came to the conclusion that public opinion was right. It was very disagreeable to me to admit it, but I soon saw that there was no doubt that Alexander was falling in love with his cousin. I saw, too, what others who knew them less well did not see: Madame Patoff exercised all her ingenuity in giving her favorite son opportunities of seeing Hermione alone. It was very easy to do this, and she did it in the most natural way; she affected to repent bitterly of her injustice to Paul, and took delight in calling him to her side, and keeping him with her as long as possible. Sometimes she would make him stay an hour by her side at a party, going over and over the strange story of Alexander's imprisonment, and asking him questions again and again, until he grew weary and absent, and answered her with rather incoherent phrases, or in short monosyllables not always to the point. Then at last, when she saw that she could keep him no longer, she would let him go, asking him to forgive her for being so importunate, and explaining as an excuse that she could never hear enough of a story that had ended so happily. Meanwhile Alexander had found ample opportunity for talking with Hermione, and had made the most of his time. I have said that I had always been very fond of the young girl, and I thought that I understood her character well enough; but I find it hard to understand the phases through which she passed after she first met Alexander. I believe she loved Paul very sincerely from the first, and I know that she contemplated the prospect of marrying him at no distant time. But I am equally sure that she did not escape the influence of that wonderful fascination which Alexander exercised over everybody. If it is possible to explain it at all, which is more than doubtful, I should think that it might be accounted for on some such theory as this. Hermione was negative as compared with Paul, but in comparison with Alexander she was positive. It is clear that if this were so she must have experienced two totally different sets of impressions, according as she was with the one or the other of the brothers. To define more clearly what I mean, I will state this theory in other words. Paul Patoff was a very masculine and dominating man. Hermione Carvel was a young girl, who resembled her strong, sensible, and manly father far more than her meek and delicate mother. Though she was still very young, there was much in her which showed the determined will and energetic purpose which a man needs to possess more than a woman. Alexander Patoff, on the other hand, without being effeminate, was intensely feminine. He had fine sensibilities, he had quick intuitions, he was capricious and womanly in his ideas. It follows that, in the scale of characters, Hermione held the mean between the two brothers. Compared with Paul's powerful nature, her qualities were those of a woman; in comparison with Alexander's delicate organization of mind, Hermione's character was more like that of a man. The effect of this singular scale of personalities was, that when she found herself alternately in the society of the two brothers she felt as though she were alternately two different women. To a man entering a house on a bitter winter's night the hall seems comfortably warm; but it seems cold to a man who has been sitting over a fire in a hermetically sealed study. Now Hermione had loved Paul when he was practically the only man of those she had ever known intimately whom she believed it possible to love at all. But she had seen very little of the world, and had known very few men. Her first recollections of society were indistinct, and no one individual had made any more impression upon her than another, perhaps because she was in reality not very impressionable. But Paul was preëminently a man able to impress himself upon others when he chose. He had come to Carvel Place, had loved his cousin, and she had returned his love with a readiness which had surprised herself. It was genuine in its way, and she knew that it was; nor could she doubt that Paul was in earnest, since a word from her had sufficed to make him curtail his visit, and go to the ends of the earth to find his brother. Hermione more than once wished that she had never spoken that word. She now entered upon a new phase of her life, she saw a new sort of society, and she met a man who upset in a moment all her convictions about men in general. The result of all this novelty was that she began to look at life from a different point of view. Alexander amused her, and at the same time he made her feel of more importance in her own eyes. He talked well, but he made her fancy that she herself talked better. His thoughts were subtle, though not always logical, and his quick instincts gave him an immense advantage over people of slower intelligence. He knew all this himself, perhaps; at all events, he used his gifts in the cleverest possible way. He possessed the power to attract Hermione without dominating her; in other words, he made her like him of her own free will. She liked him very much, and she felt that there was no harm in it. He was the brother of her future husband, so that she easily felt it a duty to like him, as well as a pleasure. Alexander himself affected to treat her with a sort of cousinly-brotherly affection, and spoke always of Paul with the greatest respect, when he spoke of him at all; but he manifestly sought opportunities of expressing his affection, and avoided all mention of Paul when not absolutely necessary. The position was certainly a difficult one, but he managed it with the tact of a woman and the daring of a man. I have always believed that he was really fond of Hermione; for I cannot imagine him so vile as to attempt to take her from Paul, when Paul had done so much towards liberating him from his prison. But whatever were his motives or his feelings, it was evident to me that he was making love to her in good earnest, that the girl was more interested in him than she supposed, and that Madame Patoff was cunningly scheming to break off the match with Paul in order to marry Hermione to Alexander. Balsamides had of course become a friend of the family, after the part he had played in effecting Alexander's escape, and in his own way I think he watched the situation when he got a chance with as much interest as I myself. One evening we were sitting in his rooms, about midnight, talking, as we talked eternally, upon all manner of subjects. "Griggs," said he, suddenly changing the topic of our conversation, "it is a great pity we ever took the trouble to find Alexander. I often wish he were still lying in that pleasant den in Laleli's garden." "It would be better for every one concerned, except himself, if he were," I answered. "I detest the fellow's face. If it were not for his mustache, he might pass for a woman anywhere." "He is as beautiful as an angel," I said, wishing to give him his due. "What business have men with such beauty as that?" asked Gregorios, scornfully. "I would rather look like a Kurd hamál than like Alexander Patoff. He is spoiling Paul's life. Not that I care!" he added, shrugging his shoulders. "No," I said, "it is none of our business. I liked him at first, I confess, and I thought that Alexander and Miss Carvel would make a very pretty couple. But I like him less the more I see of him. However, he will soon be going back to his regiment, and we shall hear no more of him." "His leave is not over yet," answered my friend. "A fellow like that can do a deal of harm in a few weeks." Gregorios is a man of violent sympathies and antipathies, though no one would suppose it from his cold manner and general indifference. But I know him better than I have known most men, and he is less reticent with me than with the generality of his friends. It was impossible to say whether he took enough interest in the Carvels or in Paul to attempt to influence their destiny, but I was sure that if he crossed Alexander's path the latter would get the worst of it, and I mentally noted the fact in summing up Paul's chances. At that time nothing had openly occurred which suggested the possibility of a rupture of the unacknowledged engagement between Paul and Hermione. Paul several times told her that he wished to speak formally to John Carvel, and obtain his consent to the marriage; but Hermione advised him to wait a little longer, arguing that she herself had spoken, and that there was therefore no concealment about the matter. The longer they waited, she said, the more her father would become accustomed to the idea, and the more he would learn to like Paul, so that in another month there would be no doubt but that he would gladly give his consent. But Paul himself was not satisfied. His mother's conduct irritated him beyond measure, and he began seriously to suspect her of wishing to make trouble. He was no longer deceived by her constant show of affection for himself, for she continued always to make it most manifest just when it prevented him from talking with Hermione. Alexander, too, treated him as he had not done before, with a deference and a sort of feline softness which inspired distrust. Two years ago Paul would have been the first to expect foul play from his brother, and would have been upon his guard from the beginning; but Paul himself was changed, and had grown more merciful in his judgment of others. He found it hard to persuade himself that Alexander really meant to steal Hermione's love; and even when he began to suspect the possibility of such a thing, he believed that he could treat the matter lightly enough. Nevertheless, Hermione continued to dissuade him from going to her father, and he yielded to her advice, though much against his will. He found himself in a situation which to his conscience seemed equivocal. He knew from what John Carvel had written to me that his suit was not likely to meet with any serious opposition; he understood that John expected him to speak, and he began to fancy that his future father-in-law looked at him inquiringly from time to time, as though anticipating a question, and wondering why it was not asked. One day he came to see me, and found me alone. Gregorios had gone to the palace, and I have no doubt that Paul, who knew his habits, had chosen a morning for his visit when he was certain that Balsamides would not be at home. He looked annoyed and almost nervous, as he sat down in silence and began to smoke. "Anything wrong?" I asked. "I hardly know," he replied. "I am very uncomfortable. I am in a very disagreeable situation." I was silent. I did not want to invite his confidence, and if he had come to tell me anything about himself, it was better to let him tell it in his own way. "I am in a very disagreeable position," he repeated slowly. "I want to ask your advice." "That is always a rash thing to do," I replied. "I do not care. I must confide in you, as I did once before, but this time I only want your advice. My position is intolerable. I feel every day that I ought to ask Mr. Carvel to give me his daughter, and yet I cannot do it." "Why not? It is certainly your duty," said I. "Because Miss Carvel objects," he answered, with sudden energy. His voice sounded almost fierce as he spoke. "Do you mean that she has not accepted"---- "I do not know what I mean, nor what she means, either!" exclaimed Paul, rising, and beginning to pace the floor. "My dear Patoff," I said, "you made a grave mistake in making me find your brother. Excuse my abruptness, but that is my opinion." He turned suddenly upon me, and his face was very pale, while his eyes gleamed disagreeably and his lip trembled. "So you have noticed that, too," he said in a low voice. "Well--go on! What do you advise me to do? How am I to get him out of the way?" "There can be no doubt that Balsamides would advise you to cut his throat," I replied. "As for me, I advise you to wait, and see what comes of it. He must soon go home and rejoin his regiment." "Wait!" exclaimed Paul impatiently. "Wait! Yes,--and while I am waiting he will be working, and he will succeed! With that angel's face of his, he will certainly succeed! Besides, my mother will help him, as you know." "Look here," said I. "Either Miss Carvel loves you, or she does not. If she does, she will not love your brother. If she does not love you, you had better not marry her. That is the reasonable view." "No doubt,--no doubt. But I do not mean to be reasonable in that way. You forget that I love her. The argument might have some weight." "Not much. After all, why do you love her? You do not know her well." Paul stared at me as though he thought I were going mad. I dare say that I must have appeared to him to be perfectly insane. But I was disconcerted by the gravity of the situation, and I believed that he had a bad chance against Alexander. It was wiser to accustom his mind to the idea of failure than to flatter him with imaginary hopes of success. A man in love is either a hero or a fool; heroes who fail are generally called fools for their pains, and fools who succeed are sometimes called heroes. Paul stared, and turned away in silence. "You do not seem to have any answer ready," I observed. "You say you love a certain lady. Is there any reason, in the nature of things, why some one else should not love her at the same time? Then it follows that the most important point is this,--she must love you. If she does not, your affection is wasted. I am not an old man, but I am far from being a young one, and I have seen much in my time. You may analyze your feelings and those of others, when in love, as much as you please, but you will not get at any other result. Unless a woman loves you, it is of very little use that you love her." "What in the world are you talking about, Griggs?" asked Paul, whose ideas, perhaps, did not coincide with mine. "What can you know about love? You are nothing but a hardened old bachelor; you never loved a woman in your life, I am sure." I was much struck by the truth of this observation, and I held my peace. A cannibal cannot be expected to understand French cooking. "I tell you," continued Paul, "that Miss Carvel has promised to marry me, and I constantly speak to her of our marriage." "But does she speak to you of it?" I asked. "I fancy that she never alludes to it except to tell you not to go to her father." In his turn Paul was silent, and bent his brows. He must have been half distracted, or he would not have talked to me as he did. I never knew a less communicative man. "This is a very delicate matter," I said presently. "You ask my advice; I will give you the best I can. Do one of two things. Either go to Mr. Carvel without his daughter's permission, or else fight it out as you can until your brother goes. Then you will have the field to yourself." "The difficulty lies in the choice," said Paul. "The choice depends upon your own state of mind, and upon your strength, or rather upon the strength of your position. If Miss Carvel has promised to marry you, I think you have a right to push matters as fast as you can." "I will," said Paul. "Good-by." He left me at once, and I began to reflect upon what had passed. It seemed to me that he was foolish and irrational, altogether unlike himself. He had asked my advice upon a point in which his own judgment would serve him better than mine, and it was contrary to his nature to ask advice at all in such matters. He was evidently hard pressed and unhappy, and I wished I could help him, but it was impossible. He was in a dilemma from which he could issue only by his own efforts; and although I was curious to see what he would do, I felt that I was not in a position to suggest any very definite line of action. I looked idly out of the window at the people who passed, and I began to wonder whether even my curiosity to see the end could keep me much longer in Pera. The crowd jostled and elbowed itself in the narrow way, as usual. The fez, in every shade of red, and in every condition of newness, shabbiness, and mediocrity, with tassel and without, rocked, swayed, wagged, turned, and moved beneath my window till I grew sick of the sight of it, and longed to see a turban, or a tall hat, or no hat at all,--anything for a change of head-dress. I left the window rather wearily, and took up one of the many novels which lay on the table, pondering on the probable fate of Paul Patoff's love for his cousin. XX. Hermione found herself placed in quite as embarrassing a position as Paul, and before long she began to feel that she had lost herself in a sort of labyrinth of new sensations. She hardly trusted herself to think or to reflect, so confusing were the questions which constantly presented themselves to her mind. It seems an easy matter for a woman to say, I love this man, or, I love that man, and to know that she speaks truly in so saying. With some natures first love is a fact, a certainty against which there is no appeal, and beside which there is no alternative. To see, with them, is practically to love, and to love once is to love forever. We may laugh over "love at first sight," as we call it, but history and every-day life afford so many instances of its reality that we cannot deny its existence. But the conditions in which it is found are rare. To love each other at first sight, both the persons must be impulsive; each must find in the other exactly what each has long sought and most earnestly desired, and each must recognize the discovery instantaneously. I suppose, also, that unless such love lasts it does not deserve the name; but in order that it may be durable it is necessary that the persons should realize that they have not been deceived in their estimate of each other, that they should possess in themselves the capacity for endurance, that their tastes should change little and their hearts not at all. People who are at once very impulsive and very enduring are few in the world and very hard to mate; wherefore love at first sight, but of a lasting nature, is a rare phenomenon. Hermione did not belong to this class, and she had certainly not loved Paul during the first few days of their acquaintance. Her nature was relatively slow and hard to rouse. A season in society had produced no impression upon her; and if Paul had stayed only a week, or even a fortnight, at Carvel Place he might have fared no better than all the other men who had been presented to her, had talked and danced with her, and had gone away, leaving her life serenely calm as before. But Paul had been very assiduous, and had lost no time. Moreover, he loved her, and was in earnest about it; so that when, on that memorable day in the park, he had spoken at last, she had accepted his speech and had sealed her answer. She believed that she loved him with all her heart, but she was new to love, and the waking sentiment was not yet a passion. It was only a sensation, and though its strength was great enough to influence Hermione's life, it had not yet acquired any great stability. A more impulsive nature would have been more suddenly moved, but Hermione's love needed time for its development, and the time had been very short. Since she had admitted that she loved Paul, she had not seen him until the eve of his brother's reappearance; and now, owing to Madame Patoff's skillful management, she talked with Alexander more frequently than with Paul. Alexander was apparently doing his best to make her love him, and the world said that he was succeeding. Hermione herself was startled when she tried to understand her own feelings, for she saw that a great change had taken place in her, and she could neither account for it nor assure herself where it would end. It would be unjust to blame her, or to say that she was unfaithful. She did not waver in her determination to marry Paul, but she tried to put it off as long as possible, struggling to clear away her doubts, and trying hard to feel that she was acting rightly. After all, it is easy to comprehend the confusion which arises in a young girl's mind when placed in such a position. We say too readily that a woman who wavers and hesitates is treating a man badly. Men are so quick to jump at the conclusion that women love them that they resent violently the smallest signs of hesitation in the other sex. They do not see that a woman needs time to decide, just as a man does; and they think it quite enough that they themselves have made up their minds, as if women existed only to submit themselves to the choice of men, and had no manner of right to question that choice when once made. Paul could not imagine why Hermione hesitated, and she herself would certainly have refused to account for the delay she caused, by admitting that Alexander had made an impression upon her heart. But she felt the charm the man exercised, and her life was really influenced by it. The strange adventure which had so long kept him a prisoner in Laleli's house lent him an atmosphere of romantic interest, and his own nature increased the illusion. The brilliant young officer, with his almost supernatural beauty, his ready tongue, his sweet voice, and his dashing grace, was well calculated to make an impression upon any woman; to a young girl who had grown up in very quiet surroundings, who had hitherto regarded Paul Patoff as the ideal of all that a man should be, the soldier brother seemed like a being from another world. At the same time Hermione was reaching the age when she could enjoy society, because she began to feel at home in it, because the first dazzling impression of it had given way to a quieter appreciation of what it offered, and lastly because she herself was surrounded by many admirers, and had become a personage of more importance than she had ever thought possible before. Under such circumstances a young girl's impressions change very rapidly. She feels the disturbing influence and enjoys the moment, but while it lasts she feels also that she is unfit to decide upon the greatest question of her life. She needs time, because she can employ very little of the time she has in serious thought, and because she doubts whether all her previous convictions are not shaken to their foundations. She dreads a mistake, and is afraid that in speaking too quickly she may speak untruly. It is the desire to be honest which forbids her to continue in the course she had chosen before this new phase of her life began, or to come to any new decision involving immediate action, especially immediate marriage. Herein lies the great danger to a young girl who has promised to marry a man before she has seen anything of the world, and who suddenly begins to see a great deal of the world before the marriage actually takes place. She is just enough attached to the man to feel that she loves him, but the bonds are not yet so close as to make her know that his love is altogether the dominating influence of her life. Unless this same man whom she has chosen stands out as conspicuously in the new world she has entered as in the quiet home she has left, there is great danger that he may fall in her estimation; and in those early stages of love, estimation is a terribly important element. By estimation I do not mean esteem. There is a subtle difference between the two; for though our estimation may be high or low, our esteem is generally high. When a young girl is old enough to be at home in society, she sets a value on every man, and perhaps on every woman, whom she meets. They take their places in the scale she forms, and their places are not easily changed. Among them the man she has previously promised to marry almost inevitably finds his rank, and she is fortunate if he is among the highest; for if he is not, she will not fail to regret that he does not possess some quality or qualities which she supposes to exist in those men whom she ranks first among her acquaintance. Where criticism begins, sympathy very often ends, and with it love. Then, if she is honest, a woman owns that she has made a mistake, and refuses to abide by her engagement, because she feels that she cannot make the man happy. Or if her ideas of faith forbid her from doing this, she marries him in spite of her convictions, and generally makes him miserable for the rest of his days. When a girl throws a man over, as the phrase goes, the world sets up a howl, and vows that she has treated him very badly; but it always seems to me that by a single act of courage she has freed herself and the man who loves her from the fearful consequences of a marriage where all the love would have been on one side, and all the criticism on the other. It is not always a girl's own fault when she does not know her own mind, and when she has discovered her mistake she is wise if she refuses to persist in it. There is more to be said in favor of breaking off engagements than is generally allowed, and there is usually far too much said against the woman who has the courage to pursue such a course. In comparing the two brothers, as she undoubtedly did, Hermione was not aware that she was making any real comparison between them. What she felt and understood was that when she was with Paul she was one person, and when she was with Alexander she was quite another; and the knowledge of this fact confused her, and made her uncertain of herself. With Paul she was, in her own feelings, the Hermione he had known in England; with Alexander she was some one else,--some one she did not recognize, and who should have been called by another name. Until she could unravel this mystery, and explain to herself what she felt, she was resolved not to take any further steps in regard to her marriage. Pera, at this time, was indulging itself in its last gayeties before the beginning of the summer season, when every one who is able to leave the town goes up the Bosphorus, or to the islands. The weather was growing warm, but still the dancing continued with undiminished vigor. Among other festivities there was to be a masked ball, a species of amusement which is very rare in Constantinople; but somebody had suggested the idea, one of the great embassies had taken it up, and at last the day was fixed and the invitations were issued. It was to be a great affair, and everybody went secretly about the business of composing costumes and disguises. There was much whispering and plotting and agreeing together in schemes of mystification. The evening came, everybody went, and the ball was a great success. Hermione had entirely hidden her costume with a black domino, which is certainly the surest disguise which anyone can wear. Its wide folds reached to the ground, and completely hid her figure, while even her hands were rendered unrecognizable by loose black gloves. Paul had been told what she was to wear; but he probably knew her by some sign, agreed upon beforehand, from all the other black dominos; for a number of other ladies had chosen the same over-garment to hide the brilliant costumes until the time came for unmasking. He came up to her immediately, and offered his arm, proposing to walk through the rooms before dancing; but Hermione would not hear of it, saying that if she were seen with him at first she would be found out at once. "Do not be unreasonable," said she, as she saw the disappointed look on his face. "I want to mystify ever so many people first. Then I will dance with you as much as you like." "Very well," said Paul, rather coldly. "When you want me, come to me." Hermione nodded, and moved away, mixing with the crowd under the hundreds of lights in the great ball-room. Paul sighed, and stood by the door, caring little for what went on. He was not a man who really took pleasure in society, though he had cultivated his social faculties to the utmost, as being necessary to his career. The fact that all the ladies were masked dispensed him for the time from the duty of making the round of the room and speaking to all his acquaintances, and he was glad of it. But Hermione was bent upon enjoying her first masked ball, and all the freedom of moving about alone. She spoke to many men whom she knew, using a high, squeaking voice which in no way recalled her natural tones. In the course of half an hour she found Alexander Patoff talking earnestly with a lady in a white domino, whom she recognized, to her surprise, as her aunt Chrysophrasia. Alexander evidently had no idea of her identity, for he was speaking in low and passionate tones, while Miss Dabstreak, who seemed to enter into the spirit of the mystification with amazing readiness, replied in the conventional squeak. She had concealed her hands in the loose sleeves of her domino, and as she was of about the same height as Hermione, it was absolutely impossible to prove that she was not Hermione herself. "Hermione," exclaimed Alexander, just as the real Hermione came up to him, "I cannot bear to hear you talk in that voice! What is the use of keeping up this ridiculous disguise? Do you not see that I am in earnest?" "Perfectly," squeaked Chrysophrasia. "So am I. But somebody might hear my natural voice, you know." Hermione started, and drew back a little. It was a strange position, for Alexander was evidently under the impression that he was making love to herself, and her aunt was amused by drawing him on. She hesitated, not knowing what she ought to do. It was clear that, unless she made herself known to him, he might remain under the impression that she had accepted his love-making. She waited to see what would happen. But Chrysophrasia had probably detected her, for presently the white domino moved quickly away towards the crowd. Alexander sprang forward, and would have followed, but Hermione crossed his path, and laid her hand on his sleeve. "Will you give me your arm, Alexander?" she said, quietly, in her natural way. He stopped short, stared at her, and then broke into a short, half-angry laugh. But he gave her his arm, and walked by her side, with an expression of bewilderment and annoyance on his beautiful face. Hermione was too wise to say that she had overheard the conversation, and Alexander was ashamed to own that he had made a mistake, and taken some one else for her. But by making herself known Hermione had effectually annulled whatever false impression Chrysophrasia had made upon him. "Do you know who that lady in the white domino is, with whom I was talking a moment ago? Did you see her?" he asked, rather nervously. "It is our beloved aunt Chrysophrasia," said Hermione, calmly. "Good heavens! Aunt Chrysophrasia!" exclaimed Alexander, in some horror. "Why 'good heavens'?" inquired Hermione. "Have you been doing anything foolish? I am sure you have been making love to her. Tell me about it." "There is nothing to tell. But what a wonderful disguise! How many dances will you give me? May I have the cotillon?" "You may have a quadrille," answered Hermione. "A quadrille, two waltzes, and the cotillon. That will do very well. As nobody knows you in that domino, we can dance as often as we please, and you will only be seen with me in the cotillon. What is your costume? I am sure it is something wonderful." "How you run on!" exclaimed the young girl. "You do not give one the time to refuse one thing before you take another!" "That is the best way, and you know it," answered Alexander, laughing. "A man should never give a woman time to refuse. It is the greatest mistake that can be imagined." "Did aunt Chrysophrasia refuse to dance with you?" inquired Hermione. Alexander bit his lip, and a faint color rose in his transparent skin. "Aunt Chrysophrasia is a hard-hearted old person," he replied, evasively; but he almost shuddered at the thought that under the white domino there had lurked the green eyes and the faded, sour face of his æsthetic relative. "To think that even she should have resisted you!" exclaimed Hermione, wickedly. "Better she than you," said Alexander, lowering his tone as they passed near a group of persons who chattered loudly in feigned voices. "Better she than you, dear cousin," he repeated, gently. "To be refused anything by you"---- "They do things very well here," interrupted Hermione, pretending not to hear. "They have such magnificent rooms, and the floor is so good." "Hermione, why do you"---- "Because," said Hermione quickly, before he could finish his sentence, "because you say too much, cousin Alexander. I interrupt you because you go too far, and because the only possible way of checking you is to cut you short." "And why must you check me? Am I rude or rough with you? Do I say anything that you should not hear? You know that I love you; why may I not tell you so? I know. You will say that Paul has spoken before me. But do you love Paul? Hermione, can you own to yourself that you love him,--not as a brother, but as the man you would choose to marry? He does not love you as I love you." "Hush!" exclaimed the young girl. "You must not. I will go away and leave you." "I will follow you." "Why will you torment me so?" Perhaps her tone of voice did not express all the annoyance she meant to show, for Alexander did not desist. He only changed his manner, growing suddenly as soft and yielding as a girl. "I did not mean to annoy you," he said. "You know that I never mean to. You must forgive me, you must be kind to me, Hermione. You have the stronger position, and you should be merciful. How can I help saying something of what I feel?" "You should not feel it, to begin with," answered his cousin. "Will you teach me how I may not love you?" His voice dropped almost to a whisper, as he bent down to her and asked the question. But Hermione was silent for a moment, not having any very satisfactory plan to propose. Half reluctant, she sat down by him upon a sofa in the corner of an almost empty room. There were tall plants in the windows, and the light was softened by rose-colored shades. "It must be a hard lesson to learn," said Alexander, speaking again. "But if you will teach me, I will try and learn it; for I will do anything you ask me. You say I must not love you, but I love you already. When I am with you I am carried away, like a boat spinning down the Neva in the springtime. Can the river stop itself in order that what lives in it may not move any more? Can it say to the skiff, 'Go no further,' when the skiff is already far from the shore, at the mercy of the water?" "The boatman must pull hard at his oars," laughed Hermione. "Have you never seen a caïque pull through the Devil's Stream on the Bosphorus, at Bala Hissar? It is hard work, but it generally succeeds." "A man may fight against the devil, but he cannot struggle against what he worships. Or, if he can, you must teach me how to do it, and give me some weapon to fight with." "You must rely on yourself for that. You must say, 'I will not,' and it will be very easy. Besides," she added, with another laugh, in which there was a rather nervous ring,--"besides, you know all this is only a comedy, or a pastime. You are not in earnest." "I wish I were not," answered Alexander, softly. "You tell me to rely upon myself. I rely on you. I love you, and that makes you stronger than me." Hermione believed him, and perhaps she was right. She felt, and he made her feel, that she dominated him, and could turn him whither she would. Her pride was flattered, and though she promised herself that she would make him give up his love for her by the mere exertion of a superior common sense, she was conscious that the task was not wholly distasteful. She enjoyed the sensation of being the stronger, of realizing that Alexander was wholly at her feet and subject to her commands. That he should have gradually grown so intimate as to speak so freely to her is not altogether surprising. They were own cousins, and called each other by their Christian names. They met daily, and were often together for many consecutive hours, and Madame Patoff did her best to promote this state of things. Hermione had become accustomed to his devotion, for he had advanced by imperceptible stages. When he first said that he loved her, she took it as she might have taken such an expression from her brother,--as the exuberant expression of an affection purely platonic, not to say brotherly. When he had repeated it more earnestly, she had laughed at him, and he had laughed with her in a way which disarmed all her suspicions. But each time that he said it he laughed less, until she realized that he was not jesting. Then she reproached herself a little for having let the intimacy grow, and determined to persuade him by gentle means that he had made a mistake. She felt that she was responsible for his conduct, because she had not been wise enough to stop him at the outset, and she therefore felt also that it would be unjust to make a violent scene, and that it was altogether out of the question to speak to Paul about the matter. To tell the truth, she was not sorry that it was out of the question, and this was the most dangerous element in her intimacy with Alexander. When a young woman who has not a profound experience of the world undertakes to convince a man by sheer argument that he ought not to love her, the result is likely to be unsatisfactory, and she stands less chance of persuading than of being persuaded. A man who persuades a woman that she is able to influence him, and that he is wholly at her mercy, has already succeeded in making himself interesting to her; and she will not readily abandon the exercise of her power, since she is provided with the too plausible excuse that she is doing him good, and consequently is herself doing right. "I wish you would really listen to me, and take my advice," said Hermione, after a pause. "There is so much that is good in you,--so much that is far better than this foolish love-making." Alexander Patoff smiled softly, and his brown eyes gazed dreamily at hers, that just showed through the openings in the black domino. "If there is anything good in me, you have put it there," he answered. "Do not take it away; do not give me the physic of good advice." "I think you need it more than usual to-night," said his cousin. "You are more than usually foolish, you know." "You are more than usually wise. But if you tell me to do anything to-night, I will do it." "Then go away and dance with some one else," laughed Hermione. To her surprise, Alexander rose quietly, and with one gentle glance turned away. Then she repented. "Alexander!" she exclaimed, almost involuntarily. "Yes," he answered, coming back, and seating himself again by her side. "I did not tell you to come back," she said, amused at his docility. "No--but I came," he replied. "You called me. I thought you had forgotten something. Shall I go away again?" "No. You may stay, if you will be good," said she, leaning back and looking away from him. "I promise. Besides, you admitted a moment ago that I was very good. Perhaps I am too good, and that is the reason why you sent me away." "I did not say you were good. I said there was some good in you. You always take everything for granted." "I will take all you grant," said he. "I grant nothing. It is you who fancy that I do. You have altogether too much imagination." "I never need it with you, even if I have it," answered Alexander. "You are infinitely beyond anything I ever imagined in my wildest dreams." "So are you," laughed Hermione. "Only--it is in a different way." "Why do you think I like you so much?" asked her cousin, suddenly changing his tone. "Because you ought not to," she answered without hesitation. "Then you think that as soon as any one tells me that I should not like a thing, I make up my mind to like it and to have it? No, that is not the reason I love you." "It was 'liking,' not 'loving,' a moment ago," observed Hermione. "Please always say 'liking.' It is a much better word." "Perhaps. It leaves more to the imagination, of which you say I have so much. The reason I like you so much, Hermione, is because you are so honest. You always say just what you mean." "Yes. The difficulty lies in making you understand what I mean." "As the Frenchman said when a man misunderstood him. You furnish me with an argument; you are not bound to furnish me with an understanding. No, I am afraid that would be asking the impossible. It is easier for a woman to talk than for a man to know what she thinks." "I thought you said I was honest. Please explain," returned Hermione. "Honesty does not always carry conviction. I mean that you are evidently most wonderfully honest, from your own point of view. If I could make my opinion yours, everything would be settled very soon." "In what way?" "Why should I tell you? I have told you so often, and you will not believe me. If I say it, you will send me away again. I do not say it,--another proof of my goodness to-night." "I am deeply sensible," answered Hermione, with a laugh. "Come, I will give you one dance, and then you must go." So they left their seat, and went into the ball-room just as the musicians began to play Nur für Natur; and the enchanting strains of the waltz carried them away in the swaying movement, and did them no manner of good. Just such conversations had taken place before, and would take place again so long as Hermione maintained the possibility of converting Alexander to the platonic view of cousinly affection. But each time some chance expression, some softer tone of voice, some warmer gleam of light in the Russian's brown eyes, betrayed that he was gaining ground rather than losing anything of the advantage he had already obtained. Half an hour later Hermione laid her hand on Paul's arm, and looked up rather timidly into his eyes through the holes in her domino. His expression was very cold and hard, but it changed as he recognized her. "At last," he said happily, as he led her away. "At last," she echoed, with a little sigh. "Do you want to dance?" she asked. "It is so hot; let us go and sit down somewhere." Almost by accident they came to the place where Hermione had sat with Alexander. There was no one there, and they installed themselves upon the same sofa. "I thought you were never coming," said Paul. "After all, what does it matter whether people see us together or not? I never can understand what amusement there is, after the first five minutes, in rushing about in a domino and trying to mystify people." "No," answered Hermione, "it is not very amusing. I would much rather sit quietly and talk with some one I know and who knows me." "I want to tell you something to-night, dear," said Paul, after a short silence. "Do you mind if I tell you now?" "No bad news?" asked Hermione, rather nervously. "No. It is simply this: I have made up my mind that I must speak to your father to-morrow. Do not be startled, darling. This position cannot last. I am not acting an honorable part, and he expects me to ask him the question. I know you have objected to my going to him for a long time, but I feel that the thing must be done. There can be no good objection to our marriage,--Mr. Carvel made Griggs understand that. Tell me, is there any real reason why I should not speak?" Hermione turned her head away. Under the long sleeves of her domino her small hands were tightly clasped together. "Is there any reason, dear?" repeated Paul, very gently. But as her silence continued his lips set themselves firmly, and his face grew slowly pale. "Will you please speak, darling?" he said, in changed tones. "I am very nervous," he added, with a short, harsh laugh. "Oh--Paul! Don't!" cried Hermione. Her voice seemed to choke her as she spoke. Then she took courage, and continued more calmly: "Please, please wait a little longer,--it is such a risk!" Paul laughed again, almost roughly. "A risk! What risk? Your father has done all but give his formal consent. What possible danger can there be?" "No. Not from him,--it is not that!" "Well, what is it? Hermione, what in the name of Heaven is the matter? Speak, darling! Tell me what it is. I cannot bear this much longer." Indeed, the man's suppressed passion was on the very point of breaking out, and the blue light quivered in his eyes, while his face grew unnaturally pale. "Oh, Paul--I cannot tell you--you frighten me so," murmured Hermione in broken tones. "Oh, Paul! Forgive me--forgive me!" At that moment Gregorios Balsamides passed before their corner, a lady in a red hood and a red mask leaning on his arm. "Hush!" exclaimed Paul, under his breath, as the couple came near them. But Gregorios only nodded familiarly to Paul, stared a moment at his pale face, glanced at the black domino, and went on with his partner. "I do not want to frighten you, dearest," continued Paul, when no one could hear them. "And what have I to forgive? Do not be afraid, and tell me what all this means." "I must," answered Hermione, her strength returning suddenly. "I must, or I should despise myself. You must not go to my father, Paul--because I--I am not sure of myself." She trembled visibly under her domino, as she spoke the last words almost in a whisper, hesitating and yet forcing herself to tell the truth. Paul glanced uneasily at the black drapery which veiled all her head and figure, and with one hand he grasped the carved end of the sofa, so that it cracked under the pressure. For some seconds there was an awful silence, broken only by low sounds which told that Hermione was crying. "You mean--that you do not love me," said Paul at last, very slowly, steadying his voice on every syllable. The young girl shook her head, and tried to speak. But the words would not come. Meanwhile the strong man's anger was slowly rising, very slowly but very surely, so that Hermione felt it coming, as a belated traveler on the sands sees the tide creeping nearer to the black cliff. "Hermione," he said, very sternly, "if you mean that you are no longer willing to marry me, say so plainly. I will forgive you if I can, because I love you. But please do not trifle with me. I can bear the worst, but I cannot bear waiting." "Do not talk like that, Paul!" cried his cousin in an agonized voice, but recovering her power of speech before the pent-up anger he seemed to be controlling. "Let us wait, Paul; let us wait and be sure. I cannot marry you unless I am sure that I love you as I ought to love you. I do love you, but I feel that I could love you so much more--as--as I should like to love my--the man I marry. Have patience,--please have patience for a little while." Paul's white lips opened and shut mechanically as he answered her. "I am very patient. I have been patient for long. But it cannot last forever. I believed you loved me and had promised to marry me. If you have made a mistake, it is much to be regretted. But I must really beg you to make up your mind as soon as possible." "Oh, pray do not talk like that. You are so cold. I am so very unhappy!" "What would you have me say?" asked Paul, his voice growing clearer and harder with every word. "Will you answer me one question? Will you tell me whether you have learned to care so much for another man that your liking for him makes you doubt?" "I am afraid"--She stopped, then suddenly exclaimed, "How can you ask me such a question?" "What are you afraid of?" inquired Paul, in the same hard tone. "You always tell the truth. You will tell it now. Has any other man come between you and me?" It was of no use for her to hesitate. She could command Alexander and give him any answer she chose, but Paul's strong nature completely dominated her. She bent her head in assent, and the Yes she spoke was almost inaudible. "And you ask time to choose between us?" asked Paul, icily. "Yes, I understand. You shall have the time,--as long as you please to remain in Constantinople. I am much obliged to you for being so frank. May I give you my arm to go into the next room?" "How unkind you are!" said Hermione, making an effort to rise. But her strength failed her, and she fell back into her seat. "Excuse me," she faltered. "Please wait one moment,--I am not well." Paul looked at her, and hesitated. But her weakness touched him, and he spoke more gently as he turned to her. "May I get you a glass of water, or anything?" "Thanks, nothing. It will be over in a moment,--only a little dizziness." For a few seconds they remained seated in silence. Then Hermione turned her head, and looked at her cousin's white face. Her small gloved hand stole out from under her domino and rested on his arm. He took no notice of the action; he did not even look at her. "Paul," she said, very gently, "you will thank me some day for having waited." A contemptuous answer rose to his lips, but he was ashamed of it before it was spoken, and merely raised his eyebrows as he answered in perfectly monotonous tones: "I believe you have done what you think best." "Indeed I have," replied Hermione, rising to her feet. He offered her his arm, and they went out together. But when supper-time came, and with it the hour for unmasking, Hermione was not to be seen; and Alexander, who had counted upon her half-given assent to dance the cotillon with him, leaned disconsolately against a door, wondering whether it could be worth while to sacrifice himself by engaging any one in her place. But Paul did not go home. He was too angry to be alone, and above all too deeply wounded. Besides, his position required that he should stay at least until supper was over, and it was almost a relief to move about among the gorgeous costumes of all kinds which now issued from the black, white, and red dominos, as a moth from the chrysalis. He spoke to many people, saying the same thing to each, with the same mechanical smile, as men do when they are obliged day after day to accomplish a certain social task. But the effort was agreeable, and took off the first keen edge of his wrath. He had no need to ask the name of the man who had come between him and the woman he loved. For weeks he had watched his brother and Hermione, asking himself if their intimacy meant anything, and then driving away the tormenting question, as though it contained something of disloyalty to her. Now he remembered that for weeks this thing she had spoken must have been in her mind, since she had always entreated him to wait a little longer before speaking with her father. It had appeared such an easy matter to her to wait; it was such a hard matter for him,--harder than death it seemed now. For it was all over. He believed that she had spoken her last word that night, and that in speaking of waiting still longer she had only intended to make it less troublesome to break it off. She had admitted that another man had come between them. Was anything further needed? It followed, of course, that she loved this other man--Alexander--better than himself. For the present he could see only one side of the question, and he repeated to himself that all was over, saying it again and again in his heart, as he went the rounds of the room, asking each acquaintance he met concerning his or her plans for the summer, commenting on the weather, and praising the successful arrangement of the masked ball. But Paul was ignorant of two things, in his present frame of mind. He did not know that Hermione had been perfectly sincere in what she had said, and he did not calculate upon his own nature. It was a simple matter, in the impulse of the first moment, to say that all was at an end, that he gave her up, even as she had rejected him, with a sort of savage pleasure in the coldness of the words he spoke. He could not imagine, after this interview, that he could ever think of her again as his possible wife, and if the idea had presented itself he would have cast it behind him as a piece of unpardonable weakness. All his former cynical determination to trust only in what he could do himself, for the satisfaction of his ambition, returned with renewed strength; and as he shook hands with the people he met, he felt that he would never again ask man or woman for anything which he could not take by force. He did not know that in at least one respect his nature had changed, and that the love he had lavished on Hermione was a deep-rooted passion, which had grown and strengthened and spread in his hard character, as the sculptor adapts the heavy iron framework in the body and limbs of a great clay statue. In the first sudden revulsion of his feeling, he thought he could pluck away his love and leave it behind him like an old garment, and the general contempt with which he regarded his surroundings after he left Hermione reminded him almost reassuringly of his old self. If his old self still lived, he could live his old life as before, without Hermione, and above all, without love. There was a bitter comfort in the thought that once more he was to look at all things, at success in everything, at his career, his aims both great and small, surrounded by obstacles which could be overcome only by main force, as prizes to be wrested from his fellows by his own unaided exertions. He had forgotten that Hermione had been the chiefest aim of his existence for several months, and at the same time he did not realize that he loved her in such a way as to make it almost impossible for him to live without her. It was not in accordance with his character to relinquish without a struggle, and a very desperate struggle, that for which he had labored so long, and an outsider would have prophesied that whosoever would take from Paul Patoff the woman he loved would find that he had attempted a dangerous thing. Mere senseless anger does not often last long, and before an hour had passed Paul began to feel those suspicious little thrusts of pain in the breast and midriff which warn us that we miss some one we love. For a long time he tried to persuade himself that he was deceived, because he did not believe himself capable of such weakness. But the feeling was unmistakable. The dancing was at its height, for all those who did not mean to stay until the end of the cotillon had gone home, so that the more distant rooms were already deserted. Almost unconsciously Paul strayed to the spot where he had sat with Hermione. He looked towards the sofa where they had been seated, and he saw a strange sight. Alexander Patoff was there, half sitting, half lying, on the small sofa, unaware of his brother's presence. His face was turned away, and he was passionately kissing the cushions,--the very spot against which Hermione's head had rested. Paul stared stupidly at him for a moment, as though not comprehending the action, which indeed was wild and incomprehensible enough; then he seemed to understand, and strode forward in bitter anger. His brother, he thought, had seen them there together, had been told what had passed, and had chosen this passionate way of expressing his joy and his gratitude to Hermione. Alexander heard his brother's footsteps, and, starting, looked wildly round; then recognizing Paul, he sprang to his feet, and a faint color mounted to his pale cheeks. "Fool!" cried Paul, bitterly, as he came forward. But Alexander had already recovered himself, and faced him coolly enough. "What is the matter? What do you mean?" he asked, contemptuously. "You know very well what I mean," retorted his brother, fiercely. "You know very well why you are making a fool of yourself,--kissing a heap of cushions, like a silly schoolboy in love." "My dear fellow, you are certainly quite mad. I waltzed too long just now, and was dizzy. I was trying to get over it, that was all. My nerves are not so sound in dancing as they were before I was caught in that trap. Really, you have the most extraordinary ideas." Paul was confused by the smooth lie. He did not believe his brother, but he could not find a ready answer. "You do not know who sat there a little while ago?" he asked, sternly. "Not the remotest idea," replied Alexander. "Was it that adorable red mask, who would not leave Balsamides even for a moment? Bah! You must think me very foolish. Come along and have some supper before we go home. I have no partner, and have had nothing to eat and very little to drink." Paul was obliged to be content with the answer; but he understood his brother well enough to know that if there had been nothing to conceal, Alexander would have been furious at the way in which he was addressed. His conviction remained unchanged that his brother had known what passed, and was so overcome with joy that he had kissed the sofa whereon Hermione had sat. The two men left the room together, but Paul presently slipped away, and went home. Strange to say, what he had seen did not have the effect of renewing his resentment against Hermione so much as of exciting his anger against his brother. He now felt for the first time that though he might give her up to another, he could not give her up to Alexander. The feeling was perhaps only an excuse suggested by the real love for her which filled him, but it was strongly mixed with pride, and with the old hostility which during so many years had divided the two brothers. To give her up, and to his own brother,--the thing was impossible, not to be thought of for a moment. As he walked quickly home over the rough stones of the Grande Rue, he realized all that it meant, and stopped short, staring at the dusky houses. He was not a man of dramatic instincts. He did not strike his forehead, nor stamp his foot, nor formulate in words the resolution he made out there in the dark street. He merely thrust his hands deeper into the pockets of his overcoat, and walked on; but he knew from that moment that he would fight for Hermione, and that his mood of an hour ago had been but the passing effect of a sudden anger. He regretted his hard speech and bitter looks, and he wished that he had merely assented to her proposal to wait, and had said no more about it until the next day. Hermione might talk of not marrying him, but he would marry her in spite of all objections, and especially in spite of Alexander. Had she spoken thoughtlessly? In the light of his stronger emotion it seemed so to him, and it was long before he realized that she had suffered almost as much in making this sacrifice to her honesty as he had suffered himself. But she had indeed been in earnest, and had done courageously a very hard thing. She was conscious that she had made a great mistake, and she wanted to avert the consequences of it, if there were to be any consequences, before it was too late. She had allowed Alexander to become too fond of her, as their interview that evening had shown; and though she knew that she did not love him, she knew also that she felt a growing sympathy for him, which was in some measure a wrong to Paul. This sympathy had increased until it began to frighten her, and she asked herself where it would end, while she yet felt that she had no right to inflict pain on Alexander by suddenly forcing him to change his tone. Her mind was very much confused, and as she could not imagine that a real and undivided love admitted of any confusion, she had simply asked Paul to wait, in perfect good faith, meaning that she needed time to decide and to settle the matter in her own conscience. He had pressed her with questions, and had finally extorted the confession that another man had come between them. She had not meant to say that, but she was too honest to deny the charge. Paul had instantly taken it for granted that she already loved this other man better than himself, and had treated her as though everything were over between them. The poor girl was in great trouble when she went home that night. Although nothing had been openly discussed, she knew that her engagement to Paul was tacitly acknowledged. She asked herself how he would treat her when they met; whether they should meet at all, indeed, for she feared that he would refuse to come to the house altogether. She wondered what questions her father would put to her, and how Madame Patoff would take the matter. More than all, she hesitated in deciding whether she had done well in speaking as she had spoken, seeing what the first results had been. She shut herself in her room, and just as she was, in the beautiful Eastern dress which she was to have shown at the ball when the masking was over, she sat down upon a chair in the corner, and leaned her tired head against the wall. But for the disastrous ending of the evening, she would doubtless have sat before her glass, and looked with innocent satisfaction at her own beautiful face. But the dark corner suited her better, in her present mood. Her cheek rested against the wall, and very soon the silent tears welled over and trickled down, staining the green wall paper of the hotel bedroom, as they slowly reached the floor and soaked into the dusty carpet. She was very miserable and very tired, poor child, and perhaps she would have fallen asleep at last, just as she sat, had she not been roused by sounds which reached her from the next room, and which finally attracted her attention. Madame Patoff slept there, or should have been sleeping at that hour, for she was evidently awake. She seemed to be walking up and down, up and down eternally, between the window and the door. As she walked, she spoke aloud from time to time. At first she always spoke just as she was moving away from the door, and consequently, when her back was turned towards the place where Hermione sat on the other side of the wall, her words were lost, and only incoherent sounds reached the young girl's ears. Presently, however, she stopped just behind the door, and her voice came clear and distinct through the thin wooden panel:-- "I wish he were dead. I wish he were dead. Oh, I wish I could kill him myself!" Then the voice ceased, and the sound of the footsteps began again, pacing up and down. Hermione started, and sat upright in her chair, while the tears dried slowly on her cheeks. The habit of considering her aunt to be insane was not wholly lost, and it was natural that she should listen to such unwonted sounds. For some time she could hear the voice at intervals, but the words were indistinct and confused. Her aunt was probably very ill, or under the influence of some hallucination which kept her awake. Hermione crept stealthily near the door, and listened intently. Madame Patoff continued to walk regularly up and down. At last she heard clear words again:-- "I wish I could kill him; then Alexis could marry her. Alexis ought to marry her, but he never will. Cannot Paul die!" Hermione shrank from the door in horror. She was frightened and shaken, and after the events of the evening her aunt's soliloquies produced a much greater effect upon her than would have been possible six hours earlier. Her first impulse was not to listen more, and she hastily began to undress, making a noise with the chairs, and walking as heavily as she could. Then she listened a moment, and all was still in the next room. Her aunt had probably heard her, and had feared lest she herself should be overheard. Hermione crept into bed, and closed her eyes. At the end of a few minutes the steps began again, and after some time the indistinct sounds of Madame Patoffs voice reached the young girl's ears. She seemed to speak in lower tones than before, however, for the words she spoke could not be distinguished. But Hermione strained her attention to the utmost, while telling herself that it was better she should not hear. The nervous anxiety to know whether Madame Patoff were still repeating the same phrases made her heart beat fast, and she lay there in the dark, her eyes wide open, her little hands tightening on the sheet, praying that the sounds might cease altogether, or that she might understand their import. Her pulse beat audibly for a few seconds, then seemed to stop altogether in sudden fear, while her forehead grew damp with terror. She thought that any supernatural visitation would have been less fearful than this reality, and she strove to collect her senses and to compose herself to rest. At last she could bear it no longer. She got up and groped her way to the door of her aunt's room, not meaning to enter, but unable to withstand the desire to hear the words of which the incoherent murmur alone came to her in her bed. She reached the door, but in feeling for it her outstretched hand tapped sharply upon the panel. Instantly the footsteps ceased. She knew that Madame Patoff had heard her, and that the best thing she could do was to ask admittance. "May I come in, aunt Annie?" she inquired, in trembling tones. "Come in," was the answer; but the voice was almost as uncertain as her own. She opened the door. By the light of the single candle--an English reading-light with a reflecting hood--she saw her aunt's figure standing out in strong relief against the dark background of shadow. Madame Patoff's thick gray hair was streaming down her back and over her shoulders, and she held a hairbrush in her hand, as though the fit of walking had come upon her while she was at her toilet. Her white dressing-gown hung in straight folds to the floor, and her dark eyes stared curiously at the young girl. Hermione was more startled than before, for there was something unearthly about the apparition. "Are you ill, aunt Annie?" she asked timidly, but she was awed by the glare in the old lady's eyes. She glanced round the room. The bed was in the shadow, and the bed-clothes were rolled together, so that they took the shape of a human figure. Hermione shuddered, and for a moment thought her aunt must be dead, and that she was looking at her ghost. The girl's nerves were already so overstrained that the horrible idea terrified her; the more, as several seconds elapsed before Madame Patoff answered the question. "No, I am not ill," she said slowly. "What made you ask?" "I heard you walking up and down," explained Hermione. "It is very late; you generally go to sleep so early"---- "I? I never sleep," answered the old lady, in a tone of profound conviction, keeping her eyes fixed upon her niece's face. "I cannot sleep, either, to-night," said Hermione, uneasily. She sat down upon a chair, and shivered slightly. Madame Patoff remained standing, the hairbrush still in her hand. "Why should you not sleep? Why should you? What difference does it make? One is just as well without it, and one can think all night,--one can think of things one would like to do." "Yes," answered the young girl, growing more and more nervous. "You must have been thinking aloud, aunt Annie. I thought I heard your voice." Madame Patoff moved suddenly and bent forward, bringing her face close to her niece's, so that the latter was startled and drew back in her chair. "Did you hear what I said?" asked the old lady, almost fiercely, in low tones. Sometimes a very slight thing is enough to turn the balance of our beliefs, especially when all our feelings are wrought to the highest pitch of excitement. In a moment the conviction seized Hermione that her aunt was mad,--not mad as she had once pretended to be, but really and dangerously insane. "I did not understand what you said," answered the young girl, too frightened to own the truth, as she saw the angry eyes glaring into her face. It seemed impossible that this should be the quiet, sweet-tempered woman whom she was accustomed to talk with every day. She certainly did the wisest thing, for her aunt's face instantly relaxed, and she drew herself up again and turned away. "Go to bed, child," she said, presently. "I dare say I frightened you. I sometimes frighten myself. Go to bed and sleep. I will not make any more noise to-night." There was something in the quick change, from apparent anger to apparent gentleness, which confirmed the idea that Madame Patoff's brain was seriously disturbed. Hermione rose and quietly left the room. She locked her door, and went to bed, hoping that she might sleep and find some rest; for she was worn out with excitement, and shaken by a sort of nervous fear. Sleep came at last, troubled by dreams and restless, but it was sleep, nevertheless. Several times she started up awake, thinking that she again heard her aunt's low voice and the regular fall of her footsteps in the next room. But all was still, and her weary head sank back on the pillow in the dark, her eyelids closed again in sheer weariness, and once more her dreams wove fantastic scenes of happiness, ending always in despair, with the suddenness of revulsion which makes the visions of the night ten times more agonizing while they last than the worst of our real troubles. But the morning brought a calmer reflection; and when Hermione was awake she began to think of what had passed. The horror inspired by her aunt's words and looks faded before the greater anxiety of the girl's position with regard to Paul. She tried to go over the interview in her mind. Her conscience told her that she had done right, but her heart said that she had done wrong, and its beating hurt her. Then came the difficult task of reconciling those two opposing voices, which are never so contradictory as when the heart and the conscience fall out, and argue their cause before the bewildered court of justice we call our intelligence. First she remembered all the many reasons she had found for speaking plainly to Paul on the previous night. She had said to herself that she did not feel sure of her love, allowing tacitly that she expected to feel sure of it before long. But until the matter was settled she could not let him hurry the marriage nor take any decisive step. If he had only been willing to wait another month, he might have been spared all the suffering she had seen in his face; she herself could have escaped it, too. But he had insisted, and she had tried to do right in telling him that she was not ready. Then he had been angry and hurt, and had coldly told her that she might wait forever, or something very like it, and she had felt that the deed was done. It was dreadful; yet how could she tell him that she was ready? Half an hour earlier, on that very spot, she had suffered Alexander to speak as he had spoken, only laughing kindly at his expressions of love; not rebuking him and leaving him, as she should have done, and would have done, had she loved Paul with her whole heart. And yet this morning, as she lay awake and thought it all over, something within her spoke very differently, like an incoherent cry, telling her that she loved him in spite of all. She tried to listen to what it said, and then the answer came quickly enough, and told her that she had been unkind, that she had given needless pain, that she had broken a man's life for an over-conscientious scruple which had no real foundation. But then her conscience returned to the charge, refuting the slighting accusation, so that the confusion was renewed, and became worse than before. For the sake of discovering something in support of her action, she began to think about Alexander; and finding that she remembered very accurately what they had said to each other, her thoughts dwelt upon him. It was pleasant to think of his beautiful face, his soft voice, and his marvelous dancing. It was a fascination from which she could not easily escape, even when he was absent; and there was a charm in the memory of him, in thinking of how she would turn him from being a lover to being a friend, which drew her mind away from the main question that occupied it, and gave her a momentary sensation of peace. Suddenly the two men came vividly before her in profile, side by side. The bold, manly features and cold glance of the strong man contrasted very strangely with the exquisitely chiseled lines of his brother's face, with the soft brown eyes veiled under long lashes, and the indescribable delicacy of the feminine mouth. Paul wore the stern expression of a man superior to events and very careless of them. Alexander smiled, as though he loved his life, and would let no moment of it pass without enjoying it to the full. It was but the vision of an instant, as she closed her eyes, and opened them again to the faint light which came in through the blinds. But Hermione felt that she must choose between the two men, and it was perhaps the first time she had quite realized the fact. Hitherto Alexander had appeared to her only as a man who disturbed her previous determinations. If she had hesitated to marry Paul while the disturbance lasted, it was not because she had ever thought of taking his brother instead. Now it seemed clear that she must accept either the one or the other, for the comparison of the two had asserted itself in her mind. In that moment she felt that she was worse than she had ever been before; for the fact that she compared the two men as possible husbands showed her that she set no value on the promises she had made to Paul. To choose,--but how to choose? Had she a right to choose at all? If she refused to marry Paul, was she not bound to refuse any one else,--morally bound in honor? The questions came fast, and would not be answered. Just then her aunt moved in the next room, and the thought of her possible insanity returned instantly to Hermione's mind. She determined that it was best to speak to her father about it. He was the person who ought to know immediately, and he should decide whether anything should be done. She made up her mind to go to him at once, and she rang for her maid. But before she was dressed she had half decided to act differently, to wait at least a day or two, and see whether Madame Patoff would talk to herself again during the night. To tell her father would certainly be to give an alarm, and would perhaps involve the necessity of putting her aunt once more under the care of a nurse. John Carvel could not know, as Hermione knew, that the old lady's resentment against Paul was caused by her niece's preference for him, and it would not be easy for the young girl to explain this. But Hermione wished that she might speak to Paul himself, and warn him of what his mother had said. She sighed as she thought how impossible that would be. Nevertheless, in the morning light and in the presence of her maid, while her gold-brown hair was being smoothed and twisted, and the noises from the street told her that all the world was awake, the horror of the night disappeared, and Hermione almost doubted whether her aunt had really spoken those words at all. If she had, it had been but the angry out-break of a moment, and should not be taken too seriously. XXI. It was probably curiosity that induced Professor Cutter to pay a visit to Constantinople in the spring. He is a scientist, and curiosity is the basis of all science, past, present, and future. His mind was not at rest in regard to Madame Patoff, and he found it very hard to persuade himself that she should suddenly have become perfectly sane, after having made him believe during eighteen months that she was quite mad. After her recovery he had had long interviews with Mrs. North, and had done his best to extract all the information she was able to give about the case. He had studied the matter very carefully, and had almost arrived at a satisfactory conclusion; but he felt that in order to remove all doubt he must see her again. He was deeply interested, and such a trifle as a journey to Constantinople could not stand in the way of his observations. Accordingly he wrote a post-card to John Carvel to say that he was coming, and on the following day he left England. But he likes to travel comfortably, and especially he is very fond of finding out old acquaintances when he is abroad, and of having an hour's chat with scientific men like himself. He therefore did not arrive until a week after John had news of his intended journey. For some reason unknown to me, Carvel did not speak beforehand of the professor's coming. It may be that, in the hurry of preparation for moving up the Bosphorus, he forgot the matter; or perhaps he thought it would be an agreeable surprise to most of us. I myself was certainly very much astonished when he came, but the person who showed the greatest delight at his arrival was Hermione. It is not hard to imagine why she was pleased, and when I knew all that I have already told I understood her satisfaction well enough. The professor appeared on the day before the Carvels were to transfer themselves to Buyukdere. His gold-rimmed spectacles were on his nose, his thick and short gray hair stood up perpendicularly on his head as of old, his beard was as bushy and his great hands were as huge and as spotless as ever. But after not having seen him for some months, I was more struck than ever by his massive build and the imposing strength of his manner. Several days had elapsed since the events recorded in the last chapter. To Hermione's surprise, Paul had come to the hotel as usual, on the day after the ball, and behaved as though nothing had happened, except that he had at first avoided finding himself alone with his cousin. She on her part was very silent, and even Alexander could not rouse her to talk as she used to do. When questioned, she said that the heat gave her a headache; and as Chrysophrasia spent much time in languidly complaining of the weather, the excuse had a show of probability. But after a day or two she was reassured by Paul's manner, and no longer tried to keep out of his way. Then it was that they found themselves together for the first time since the ball. It was only for a moment, but it was long enough. Hermione took his passive hand in hers, very timidly, and looked into his face. "You are not angry with me any more?" she said. "No, not in the least," he answered. "I believe you did what you believed to be best, the other night. No one can do more than that." "Yes, but you thought I was not in earnest." "I thought you were more in earnest than you admitted. I thought you meant to break it off altogether. I have changed my mind." "Have you? I am so glad. I meant just what I said, Paul. You should not have doubted that I meant it." "I was angry. Forgive me if I was rude. I will not give you up. I will marry you in spite of everybody." Hermione looked at him, curiously at first, then with a sort of admiration which she could not explain,--the admiration we all feel for a strong man who is very much in earnest. "In spite of myself?" she asked, after a pause. "Yes, almost," he began hotly, but his tone softened as he finished the sentence,--"almost in spite of yourself, Hermione." "Indeed, I begin to think that you will," she answered, turning away her head to hide a smile that had in it more of happiness than of unbelief. Some one entered the room where they were standing, and nothing more was said; nor did Paul repeat his words at the next opportunity, for he was not much given to repetition. When he had said a thing, he meant it, and he was in no hurry to say it again. Meanwhile, also, the young girl had more than once listened, during the night, for any sounds which might proceed from Madame Patoff's bedroom; but she had heard nothing more, and the impression gradually faded from her mind, or was stored away there as a fact to be remembered at some future time. When Professor Cutter arrived, she determined to tell him in strictest confidence what had occurred. This, however, was not what gave her so much satisfaction in meeting him. She had long looked forward to the day when she could enjoy the triumph of seeing him meet Alexander Patoff, alive and well; for she knew how strongly his suspicions had fastened upon Paul, and it was he who had first told her what the common story was. The professor arrived in the early morning by the Brindisi boat, and Hermione proposed that Chrysophrasia, Paul, Cutter, and herself should make a party to go over to Stamboul on the same afternoon. It was warm indeed, but she represented that as the whole family were to move up the Bosphorus on the following day, it would be long before they would have a chance of going to Stamboul again. Chrysophrasia moaned a little, but at last accepted the proposition, and Paul and the professor expressed themselves delighted with the idea. The four set off together, descended by the Galata tunnel, and crossed the bridge on foot. Then they took a carriage and drove to Santa Sophia. There was little chance for conversation, as they rattled over the stones towards the mosque. Chrysophrasia leaned wearily back in her corner. Paul and Hermione tried to talk, and failed, and Professor Cutter promenaded his regards, to borrow an appropriate French expression, upon the buildings, the people, and the view. Perhaps he was wondering whether more cases of insanity presented themselves amongst the vegetable sellers as a class than amongst the public scribes, whose booths swarm before the Turkish post-office. He had seen the city before, but only during a very short visit, as a mere tourist, and he was glad to see it again. They reached the mosque, and after skating about in the felt overshoes provided for the use of unbelievers, Cutter suggested going up to the galleries. "It is so very, very far!" murmured Chrysophrasia, who was watching a solitary young Sufí, who sat reciting his lesson aloud to himself in a corner, swaying his body backwards and forwards with the measure of his chant. "I will go," said Hermione, with alacrity. "Paul can stay with my aunt." "I would rather stay," answered Paul, whose reminiscences of the gallery were not of the most pleasant sort. So Professor Cutter and the young girl left the mosque, and with the guide ascended the dim staircase. "Papa wrote you the story, did he not?" asked Hermione. "Yes. This is the way they went up." The professor looked about him curiously, as they followed the guide. Emerging amidst the broad arches of the gallery, they walked forward, and Hermione explained, as Paul had explained to her, what had taken place on that memorable night two years ago. It was a simple matter, and the position of the columns made the story very clear. "Professor Cutter, I want to speak to you about my aunt," said Hermione, at last. The professor stopped and looked sharply at her, but said nothing. "Do you remember that morning in the conservatory?" she continued. "You told me that she was very mad indeed,--those were your own words. I did not believe it, and I was triumphant when she came out--in--well, quite in her senses, you know. I thought she had recovered,--I hope she has. But she has very queer ways." "What do you mean by queer ways, Miss Carvel? I have come to Constantinople on purpose to see her. I hope there is nothing wrong?" "I do not know. But I have told nobody what I am going to tell you. I think you ought to be told. My room is next to hers, at the hotel, and I hear through the door what goes on, without meaning to. The other night I came home late from a ball, and she was walking up and down, talking to herself so loud that I heard several sentences." "What did she say?" asked Cutter, whose interest was already aroused. The symptom was only too familiar to him. "She said"--Hermione hesitated before she continued, and the color rose faintly in her cheeks--"she said she wished she could kill Paul--and then"---- "And then what?" inquired the professor, looking at her steadily. "Please tell me all." "It was very foolish.--she said that then Alexander could marry me. It was so silly of her. Just think!" After all, Professor Cutter was her father's old friend. She need not have been so long about telling the thing. "She thinks that you are going to marry Paul?" observed the professor, with an interrogative intonation. "Well, if I did?" replied the young girl, after a short pause. "If she were in her right mind, would that be any reason for her wishing to murder him?" "No. But I never believed she was out of danger," said Cutter. "Did she say anything more?" Hermione told how Madame Patoff had behaved when she had entered the room. Her companion looked very grave, and said little during the few moments they remained in the gallery. He only promised that he would tell no one about it, unless it appeared absolutely necessary for the safety of every one concerned. Then they descended the steps again and joined Chrysophrasia and Paul, who were waiting below. "Aunt Chrysophrasia says she must go to the bazaar," said the latter. "Yes," remarked Miss Dabstreak, "I really must. That Jew! Oh, that Jew! He haunts my dreams. I see him at night, dressed like Moses, with a linen ephod, you know, holding up that Persian embroidery. It is more than my soul can bear!" "But we were going to take Professor Cutter to the other mosques," objected Hermione. "I am sure he will not mind if we go to the bazaar instead, will you?" she asked, with an engaging squint of her green eyes, as she turned to the professor. "Not at all,--not at all, Miss Dabstreak. Anything you propose--I am sure"--ejaculated Cutter, apparently waking from an absorbing meditation upon his thumb-nail, and perhaps upon thumb-nails in general. "You see how kind he is!" murmured Chrysophrasia, as she got into the carriage. "To the bazaar, Paul. Could you tell the driver?" Paul could and did. Ten minutes later the carriage stopped at the gate of the bazaar. A dozen Mohammedans, Greeks, and Jews sprang out to conduct the visitors whither they would,--or, more probably, whither they would not. But Paul, who knew his way about very well, fought them off. One only would not be repulsed, and Chrysophrasia took his part. "Let him come,--pray let him come, Paul. He has such beautiful eyes, such soft, languishing eyes,--so sweetly like those of a gazelle." "His name is Abraham," said Paul. "I know him very well. The gazelle is of Jewish extraction, and sells shawls. He is a liar." "Haïr, Effendim--sir," cried Abraham, who knew a little English. "Him Israeleet--hones' Jew--Abraham's name, Effendim." "I know it is," said Paul. "Git!"--an expression which is good Californian, and equally good Turkish. They threaded the narrow vaulted passages, which were cool in the warm spring afternoon, taking the direction of the Jews' quarter, but pausing from time to time to survey the thousand articles, of every description, exposed for sale by the squatting shopkeepers. Cutter looked at the weapons especially, and remarked that they were not so good as those which used to be found ten years earlier. Everything, indeed, seemed to have changed since that time, and for the worse. There is less wealth in the bazaar, and yet the desire to purchase has increased tenfold, so that a bit of Rhodes tapestry, which at that earlier time would not have fetched forty piastres, is now sold for a pound Turkish, and is hard to get at that. It may be supposed that the Jews have made large fortunes in the interval, but the fact is not apparent in any way; the uncertainty of property in Turkey forcing them to conceal their riches, if they have any. Their shops are very fairly clean, but otherwise they are humble, and the best and most valuable objects are generally packed carefully away in dark corners, and are produced only when asked for. You see nothing but a small divan, a table, a matted floor, and shelves reaching to the ceiling, piled with packages wrapped in shabby gray linen. It is chiefly in the Mohammedan and Greek "tscharshis" of the bazaar that jewelry, weapons, and pipes are openly exhibited, and laid out upon benches for the selection of the buyer. But the Jews have almost a monopoly of everything which comes under the head of antiquities, and it is with them that foreigners generally deal. They are as intelligent as elsewhere, and perhaps more so, for the traveler of to-day is a great cheapener of valuables. Moreover, the Stamboul Jews are most of them linguists. They speak a bastard Spanish among themselves; they are obliged to know Turkish, Greek, and a little Armenian, and many of them speak French and Italian intelligibly. Chrysophrasia delighted in the bazaar. The flavor of antiquity which hangs about it, and makes it the only thoroughly Oriental place in Constantinople, ascended gratefully to the old maid's nostrils, while her nerves were continually thrilled by strange contrasts of color. It was very pleasant, she thought, to be really in the East, and to have such a palpable proof of the fact as was afforded by the jargon of loud but incomprehensible tongues which filled her ears. She had often been in the place, and the Jews were beginning to know her, scenting a bargain whenever her yellow face and yellow hair became visible on the horizon. She generally patronized Marchetto, however, and on the present occasion she had come expressly to see him. He was standing in the door of his little shop as usual, and his red face and red-brown eyes lighted up when he caught sight of Miss Dabstreak. With many expressions of joy he backed into the interior, and immediately went in search of the famous piece of Persian embroidery which Chrysophrasia had admired during her last visit to the bazaar. "Upon my honor"--began Marchetto, launching into praises of the stuff. Patoff and Hermione stood at the door, but Cutter immediately became interested in the bargain, and handled the embroideries with curiosity, asking all manner of questions of the Jew and of Miss Dabstreak. Somehow or other, the two younger members of the party soon found themselves outside the shop, walking slowly up and down and talking, until the bargain should be concluded. "I could not go up to the gallery in Santa Sophia," said Paul. "I am not a nervous person, but it brings the story back too vividly." "What does it matter, since he is found?" asked Hermione. Patoff was struck by the question, for it was too much at variance with his own feelings to seem reasonable. It was not because he preferred to avoid all reminiscence of the adventure that he had stayed below, but rather because he hated to think what the consequences of Alexander's return had been. "What does it matter?" he repeated slowly. "It matters a great deal. What happened on that night, two years ago, was the beginning of a whole series of misfortunes. I have had bad luck ever since." "Why do you say that?" asked Hermione, somewhat reproachfully. "It is true,--that is one reason why I say it. But for that night, my mother would never have been mad. I should never have been sent to Persia, and should not have gone to England during my leave. I should not have met you"---- "You consider that a terrible misfortune," observed Hermione. "It is always a man's misfortune when he determines to have what is denied him," answered Paul quietly. "Somebody must suffer in the encounter, or somebody must yield." "Somebody,--yes. Why do you talk about it, Paul?" "Because I think of nothing else. I cannot help it. It is easy to say, 'Let this or that alone;' it is another matter to talk to you about the bazaar, and the Turks, and the weather, when we are together." Hermione was silent, for there was nothing to be said. She knew how well he loved her, and when she was with him she submitted in a measure to his influence; so that often she was on the point of yielding, and telling him that she no longer hesitated. It was when she was away from him that she doubted herself, and refused to be persuaded. Paul needed only a very little to complete his conquest, but that little he could not command. He had reached the point at which a man talks of the woman he loves or of himself, and of nothing else, and the depth of his passion seemed to dull his speech. A little more eloquence, a little more gentleness, a little more of that charm which Alexander possessed in such abundance, might have been enough to turn the scale. But they were lacking. The very intensity of what he felt made him for the time a man of one idea only, and even the freedom with which he could speak to Hermione about his love for her was a disadvantage to him. It had grown to be too plain a fact, and there was too little left to the imagination. He felt that he wearied her, or he fancied that he did, which amounted to the same; and he either remained tongue-tied, or repeated in one form or another his half-savage 'I will.' He began to long for a change in their relations, or for some opportunity of practically showing her how much he would sacrifice for her sake. But in these days there are no lists for the silent knights; there are no jousts where a man may express his declaration of love by tying a lady's colors to his arm, and breaking the bones of half a dozen gentlemen before her eyes. And yet the instinct to do something of the kind is sometimes felt even now,--the longing to win by physical prowess what it is at present the fashion to get by persuasion. Paul felt it strongly enough, and was disgusted with his own stupidity. Of what use was it that during so many years he had cultivated the art of conversation as a necessary accomplishment, if at his utmost need his wits were to abandon him, and leave him uncouth and taciturn as he had been in his childhood? He looked at Hermione's downcast face; at the perfect figure displayed by her tightly fitting costume of gray; at her small hands, as she stood still and tried to thrust the point of her dainty parasol into the crevice between two stones of the pavement. He gazed at her, and was seized with a very foolish desire to take her up in his arms and walk away with her, whether she liked it or not. But just at that moment Hermione glanced at him with a smile, not at all as he had expected that she would look. "I think we had better go back to the shop," said she. So they turned, and walked slowly towards the narrow door. "These Orientals are so full of wonderful imagery!" Chrysophrasia was saying to Professor Cutter as the pair came in. "It is delightful to hear them talk,--so different from an English shopkeeper." "Very," assented the learned man. "Their imagery is certainly remarkable. Their scale of prices seems to be founded upon it, as logarithms depend for their existence on the square root of minus one, an impossible quantity." "Dear me! Could you explain that to Marchetto? It might make a difference, you know." "I am afraid not," answered the professor gravely. "Marchetto is not a mathematician; are you, Marchetto?" "No surr, Effendim. Marchetto very honest man. Twenty-five pounds, lady--ah! but it is birindjí--there is not a Pacha in Stamboul"---- "You have said that before," observed the scientist, "Try and say something new." "New!" cried Marchetto. "It is not new. Any one say it new, he lie! Old--eski, eski! Very old! Twenty-five-six pounds, lady! Hein! Pacha give more." "I fear that the traditions of his race are very strong," remarked Chrysophrasia, languidly examining the embroidery, a magnificent piece of work, about a yard and a half square, wrought in gold and silver threads upon a dark-red velvet ground; evidently of considerable antiquity, but in excellent preservation. "Paul, dear," continued Miss Dabstreak, seeing Patoff enter with Hermione, "what would you give for this lovely thing? How hard it is to bargain! How low! How infinitely fatiguing! Do help me!" "Begin by offering him a quarter of what he asks,--that is a safe rule," answered Paul. "How much is a quarter of twenty-five--let me see--three times eight are--do tell me, somebody! Figures drive me quite mad." "I have known of such cases," assented the professor. "Eight and a quarter, Miss Dabstreak. Say eight,--I dare say it will do as well." "Marchetto," said Chrysophrasia sadly, "I am afraid your embroidery is only worth eight pounds." The Jew was kneeling on the floor, squatting upon his heels. He put on an injured expression, and looked up at Miss Dabstreak's face. "Eight pounds!" he exclaimed, in holy horror. "You know where this come from, lady? Ha! Laleli Khanum house--dead--no more like it." Marchetto of course knew the story of Alexander's confinement, and by a ready lie turned it to his advantage. Every one looked surprised, and began to examine the embroidery more closely. "Really!" ejaculated Chrysophrasia. "How strange this little world is! To think of all this bit of broidered velvet has seen,--what joyous sights! It may have been in the very room where she died. But she was a wicked old woman, Marchetto. I could not give more than eight pounds for anything which belonged to so depraved a creature." "Hein?" ejaculated the Jew, with a soft smile. "I know what you want. Here!" he exclaimed, springing up, and rummaging among his shelves. Presently he brought out a shabby old green cloth caftán, trimmed with a little tarnished silver lace, and held it up triumphantly to Chrysophrasia's sight. "Twenty-five-six pounds!" he cried, exultingly. "Cheap. Him coat of very big saint-man--die going to Mecca last year. Cheap, lady--twenty-five-six pounds!" "I think you are fairly caught, aunt Chrysophrasia," observed Paul, with a laugh. "Who would have guessed that there was so much humor in an Israelite?" asked Chrysophrasia, with a sad intonation. "I cannot wear the saint's tea-gown, Marchetto," she continued; "otherwise I would gladly give you twenty-five pounds for it. Eight pounds for the embroidery,--no more. It is not worth so much. I even think I see a nauseous tint of magenta in the velvet." "Twenty-four-five pounds, lady. I lose pound--your backsheesh." How long the process of bargaining might have been protracted is uncertain. At that moment Balsamides Bey entered the shop. It appeared that he had called at the Carvels', and, being told that the party were in Stamboul, had gone straight to the Jew's shop, in the hope of finding them there. He was introduced to the professor by Paul, with a word of explanation. Marchetto's face fell as he saw the adjutant, who had a terribly acute knowledge of the value of things. Balsamides was asked to give his opinion. He examined the piece carefully. "Where did you get it?" he asked, in Turkish. "From the Validé Khan," answered the Jew, in the same language. "It is a genuine piece,--a hundred years old at least." "You probably ask a pound for every year, and a backsheesh for the odd months," said the other. "Twenty pounds," answered Marchetto, imperturbably. "It is worth ten pounds," remarked Balsamides, in English, to Miss Dabstreak. "If you care to give that, you may buy it with a clear conscience. But he will take three weeks to think about it." "To bargain for three weeks!" exclaimed Chrysophrasia. "Oh, no! It takes my whole energy to bargain for half an hour. The lovely thing,--those faint, mysterious shades intertwined with the dull gold and silver,--it breaks my heart!" Marchetto was obdurate, on that day at least, and with an unusually grave face he began to fold the embroidery, wrapping it at last in the inevitable piece of shabby gray linen. The party left the shop, and threaded the labyrinth of vaulted passages towards the gate. Cutter was interested in Gregorios, and asked him a great many questions, so that Chrysophrasia felt she was being neglected, and wore her most mournful expression. Paul and Hermione came behind, talking a little as they walked. They reached the bridge on foot, and, paying the toll to the big men in white who guard the entrance, began to cross the long stretch of planks which unites Stamboul with Pera. The sun was already low. Indeed, Marchetto had kept his shop open beyond the ordinary hour of closing, which is ten o'clock by Turkish time, two hours before sunset, and the bazaar was nearly deserted when they left it. Paul and Hermione stopped when they were halfway across the bridge, and looked up the Golden Horn. Great clouds were piled up in the west, behind which the sun was hidden, and the air was very sultry. A dull light, that seemed to cast no shadows, was on all the mosques and minarets, and down upon the water the air was thick, and the boats looked indistinct as they glided by. The great useless men-of-war lay as though water-logged in the heavy, smooth stream, and the flags hung motionless from the mastheads. The two stood side by side for a few moments and said nothing. At last Paul spoke. "It is going to rain," he said, in an odd voice. "Yes, it is going to rain," answered his companion. "On parà! Ten paras, for the love of God!" screamed a filthy beggar close behind them. Paul threw the wretched creature the tiny coin he asked, and they turned away. But his face was very white, and Hermione's eyes were filled with tears. XXII. A few days later the Carvels were installed for the summer in one of the many large houses on the Buyukdere quay, which are usually let to any one who will hire them. These dwellings are mostly the property of Armenians and Greeks who lost heavily during the war, and whose diminished fortunes no longer allow them to live in their former state. They are vast wooden buildings for the most part, having a huge hall on each floor, from which smaller rooms open on two sides; large windows in front afford a view of the Bosphorus, and at the back the balconies are connected with the gardens by flights of wooden steps. In one of these, not far from the Russian embassy, the Carvels took up their abode, and John expressed himself extremely well satisfied with his choice and with his bargain. In the course of their stay in Pera, the family had contrived to collect a considerable quantity of Oriental carpets and other objects, some good, some utterly worthless in themselves, but useful in filling up the immense rooms of the house. Chrysophrasia seemed to find the East sympathetic to her nerves, and was certainly more in her element in Constantinople than in Brompton or Carvel Place. Strange to say, she was the one of the family who best understood the Turks and their ways. In contact with a semi-barbarous people, she developed an amount of common sense and keen intelligence which I had never suspected her of possessing. As for me, I had gone up to Buyukdere one day, and had then and there changed my mind in regard to my departure. The roses were in full bloom, and everything looked so unusually attractive, that I could not resist the temptation of spending the summer in the place. A few years ago, when I thought of traveling, I set out without hesitation, and went to the ends of the earth. I suppose I am growing old, for I begin to dislike perpetual motion. The little kiosk on the hill, at the top of a beautiful garden, was very tempting, too, and after a few hours' consideration I hired it for the season, with that fine disregard for consequences which one learns in the East. The only furniture in the place was an iron bedstead and an old divan. There was not a chair, not a bit of matting; not so much as an earthen pot in the kitchen, nor a deal table in the sitting-room. But in Turkey such conveniences are a secondary consideration. The rooms were freshly whitewashed, the board floors were scrubbed, and the view from the windows was one of the most beautiful in the world. A day spent in the bazaar did the rest. I picked up a queer, wizened old Dalmatian cook, and with the help of my servant was installed in the little place eight-and-forty hours after I had made up my mind. The life on the Bosphorus is totally different from that in Pera. Everybody either keeps a horse or keeps a sail-boat, and many people do both; for the Belgrade forest stretches five-and-twenty miles inland from Buyukdere and Therapia, and the broad Bosphorus lies before, widening into a deep bay between the two. The fresh northerly breeze blows down from the Black Sea all day, and often all night; and there is something invigorating in the air, which revives one after the long, gay season in Pera, and makes one feel that anything and everything is possible in such a place. The forest was different in May from what it had been on that bitter March night when Gregorios and I drove down to Laleli's house. The maidám--the broad stretch of grass at the opening of the valley before you reach the woods--was green and fresh and smooth. The trees were full of leaves, and gypsies were already camping out for the season. The woodland roads were not as full of riders as they are in July and August, and the summer dancing had not yet begun, nor the garden parties, nor any kind of gayety. There was peace everywhere,--the peace of quiet spring weather before one learns to fear the sun and to long for rain, when the crocus pushes its tender head timidly through the grass, and the bold daisies gayly dance by millions in the light breeze as though knowing that their numbers save them from being plucked up and tied into nose-gays, and otherwise barbarously dealt with, according to the luck of rarer flowers. So we rode in the forest, and sailed on the Bosphorus, and enjoyed the freedom of the life and the freshness of the cool air, and things went on very pleasantly for every one, as far as outward appearances were concerned. But it was soon clear to me that the matter which more or less interested the whole party was no nearer to its termination than it had been before. Paul came and went, and his face betrayed no emotion when he met Hermione or parted from her. They were sometimes alone together, but not often, and it did not seem to me that they showed any very great anxiety to procure themselves such interviews. A keen observer might have noticed, indeed, that Hermione was a shade less cordial in her relations with Alexander, but he himself did not relax his attentions, and was as devoted to her as ever. He followed her about, always tried to ride by her side in the forest, and to sit by her in the boat; but under no circumstances did I see Paul's face change either in color or expression. He did not look scornful and cynical, as he formerly did, nor was there anything hostile in his manner towards his brother. He merely seemed very calm and very sure of himself,--too sure, I thought. But he had made up his mind to win, and meant to do it in his own fashion, and he appeared to be indifferent to the fact that while his duties often kept him at the embassy the whole day, Alexander had nothing to do but to talk to Hermione from morning till night. I fancied that he was playing a waiting game, but I feared that he would wait too long, and lose in the end. I knew, indeed, that under his calm exterior his whole nature was wrought up to its highest point of excitement; but if he persisted in exercising such perfect self-control he ran the risk of being thought too cold, as he appeared to be. I was called upon to give an opinion on the matter before we had been many days in Buyukdere, and I was embarrassed to explain what I meant. John Carvel and Hermione, Alexander and I, rode together in the woods, one afternoon. Paul was busy that day, and could not come. It fell out naturally enough that the young girl and her cousin should pair off together, leaving us two elderly men to our conversation. Hermione was mounted on a beautiful Arab, nearly black, which her father had bought for her in Pera, and Alexander rode a strong white horse that he had hired for the short time which remained to him before he should be obliged to return to St. Petersburg. They looked well together, as they rode before us, and John watched them with interest, if not altogether with satisfaction. "Griggs," he observed at last, "it is very odd. I don't know what to make of it at all. You remember the conversation we had in Pera, the first night after our arrival? I certainly believed that Hermy wanted to marry Paul. She seems to get on amazingly well with his brother; don't you think so?" "It is natural," I answered. "They are cousins. Why should they not like each other? Alexander is a most agreeable fellow, and makes the time pass very pleasantly when Paul is not there." "What surprises me most," said John Carvel, "is that Paul does not seem to mind in the least. And he has never spoken to me about it, either. I am beginning to think he never will. Well, well, there is no reason why Hermy should marry just yet, and Paul is no great match, though he is a very good fellow." "A very good fellow," I assented. "A much better fellow than his brother, I fancy,--though Alexander has what women call charm. But Paul will not change his mind; you need not be afraid of that." "I should be sorry if Hermy did," said Carvel, gravely. "I should not like my daughter to begin life by jilting an honest man for the sake of a pretty toy soldier like Alexander." It was very clear that John Carvel had a fixed opinion in the case, and that his judgment did not incline to favor Alexander. On the other hand, he could not but be astonished at Paul's silence. Of course I defended the latter as well as I could, but as we rode slowly on, talking the matter over, I could see that John was not altogether pleased. Alexander and Hermione had passed a bend in the road before us, and had been hidden from our view for some time, for they were nearly half a mile in front when we had last seen them. They rode side by side, and Alexander seemed to have plenty to say, for he talked incessantly in his pleasant, easy voice, and Hermione listened to him. They came to a place where the road forked to the right and left. Neither of them were very familiar with the forest, and, without stopping to think, they followed the lane which looked the straighter and broader of the two, but which in reality led by winding ways to a distant part of the woods. When John Carvel and I came to the place, I naturally turned to the left, to cross the little bridge and ascend the hill towards the Khedive's farm. In this way the two young people were separated from us, and we were soon very far apart, for we were in reality riding in opposite directions. The lane taken by Hermione and her cousin led at first through a hollowed way, above which the branches of the trees met and twined closely together, as beautiful a place as can be found in the whole forest. Alexander grew less talkative, and presently relapsed altogether into silence. They walked their horses, and he looked at his cousin's face, half shaded by a thin gray veil, which set off admirably the beauty of her mouth and chin. "Hermione," he said after a time, in his softest voice. The girl blushed a little, without knowing why, but did not answer. He hesitated, as though he could get no further than her name. As the blush faded from her cheek, his cousin glanced timidly at him, not at all as she generally looked. Perhaps she felt the magic of the place. She was not used to be timid with him, and she experienced a new sensation. There was generally something light and gay in his way of speaking to her which admitted of a laughing answer; but just now he had spoken her name so seriously, so gently, that she felt for the first time that he was in earnest. Instinctively she put her horse to a brisker pace, before he had said anything more. He kept close at her side. "Hermione," he said again, and his voice sounded in her ear like the voice of an unknown spell, weaving charms about her under the shade of the enchanted forest. "Hermione, my beloved,--do not laugh at me any more. It is earnest, dear,--it is my whole life." Still she said nothing, but the blush rose again to her face and died away, leaving her very pale. She shortened the reins in her hands, keeping the Arab at a regular, even trot. "It is earnest, darling," continued her cousin, in low, clear tones. "I never knew how much I loved you until to-day. No, do not laugh again. Tell me you know it is so, as I know it." The lane grew narrower and the branches lower, but she would not slacken speed, though now and then she had to bend her head to avoid the leafy twigs as she passed. But this time she answered, not laughing, but very gravely. "You must not talk like that any more," she said. "I do not like to hear it." "Is it so bitter to be told that you are loved--as I love? Is it so hard to hear? But you have heard once--twice, twenty times; you will not always think it bad to hear; your ears will grow used to it. All, Hermione, if you could guess how sweet it is to love as I love, you would understand!" "I do not know--- I cannot guess--I would not if I could," answered the young girl desperately. "Hush, Alexander! Do not talk in that way. You must not. It is not right." "Not right?" echoed the young man, with a soft laugh. "I will make it right; you shall guess what it is to love, dear,--to love me as I love you." He bent in his saddle as he rode beside her, and laid his left hand on hers, but she shook his fingers off impatiently. "Why are you angry, love?" he asked. "You have let me say it lightly so often; will you not let me say it earnestly for once?" "No," she answered firmly. "I do not want to hear it. I have been very wrong, Alexander. I like you very much--because you are my cousin--but I do not love you--I will not--I mean, I cannot. No, I am in earnest, too--far more than you are. I can never love you--no, no, no--never!" But she had let fall the words "I will not," and Alexander knew that there was a struggle in her mind. "You will not?" he said tenderly. "No--but you will, darling. I know you will. You must; I will make you!" Again he leaned far out of his saddle, and in an instant his left arm went round her slender waist, as they rode quickly along, and his lips touched her soft cheek just below the little gray veil. But he had gone too far. Hermione's spurred heel just touched the Arab's flank, and he sprang forward in a gallop up the narrow lane. Alexander kept close at her side. His blood was up, and burning in his delicate cheek. He still tried to keep his hand upon her waist, and bent towards her, moving in his saddle with the ease of a born horseman as he galloped along. But Hermione spurred her horse, and angrily tried to elude her cousin's embrace, till in a moment they were tearing through the woods at a racing pace. Suddenly there came a crash, followed by a dull, heavy sound, and Hermione saw that she was alone. She tried to look behind her, but several seconds elapsed before her Arab could be quieted; at last she succeeded in making him turn, and rode quickly back along the path. Alexander's horse was standing across the way, and Hermione was obliged to dismount and turn him before she could see beyond. Her cousin lay in the lane, motionless as he had fallen, his face pale and turned upwards, one arm twisted under his body, the other stretched out upon the soft mould of the woodland path. Hermione stood holding the two horses, one with each hand, and looking intently at the insensible man. She did not lose her presence of mind, though she was frightened by his pallor; but she could not let the horses run loose in such a place, when they might be lost in a moment. She paused a moment, and listened for the sound of hoofs, thinking that her father and I could not be far behind. But the woods were very still, and she remembered that she and her cousin had ridden fast over the last two miles. Drawing the bridles over the horses' heads, she proceeded to fasten them to a couple of trees, not without some trouble, for her own horse was excited and nervous from the sharp gallop; but at last she succeeded, and, gathering her habit in one hand, she ran quickly to Alexander's side. There he lay, quite unconscious, and so pale that she thought he might be dead. His head was bare, and his hat, crumpled and broken, lay in the path, some distance behind him. There was a dark mark on the right side of his forehead, high up and half covered by his silky brown hair. Hermione knelt down and tried to lift his head upon her knee. But his body was heavy, and she was not very strong. She dragged him with difficulty to the side of the path, and raised his shoulders a little against the bank. She felt for his pulse, but there was no motion in the lifeless veins, nor could she decide whether he breathed or not. Utterly without means of reviving him, for she had not so much as a bottle of salts in the pocket of her saddle, she kneeled over him, and wiped his pale forehead with her handkerchief, and blew gently on his face. She was pale herself, and was beginning to be frightened, though she had good nerves. Nevertheless she took courage, feeling sure that we should appear in five minutes at the latest. It was clear that in galloping by her side at full speed Alexander's head had struck violently against a heavy branch, which grew lower than the rest. His eyes had been turned on her, and he had not seen the danger. The branch was so placed that Hermione, lowering her head to avoid the leaves, as she looked straight before, had passed under it in safety; whereas her cousin must have struck full upon the thickest part, three or four feet nearer to the tree. At the pace they were riding, the blow might well have been fatal; and as the moments passed and the injured man showed no signs of life, Hermione's heart beat faster and her face grew whiter. Her first thought was of his mother, and a keen, sharp fear shot through her as she thought of the dreadful moment when Madame Patoff must be told; but the next instant brought her a feeling of far deeper horror. He had been hurt almost while speaking words of love to her; he had struck his head because he was looking at her instead of before him, and it was in some measure her fault, for she had urged the speed of that foolish race. She bent down over him, and the tears started to her eyes. She tried to listen for the beating of his heart, and, opening his coat, she laid her ear to his breast. Something cold touched her cheek, and she quickly raised her head again and looked down. It was a small flat silver flask which he carried in the pocket of his waistcoat, and which in the fall had slipped up from its place. Hermione withdrew it eagerly and unscrewed the cap. It contained some kind of spirits, and she poured a little between his parted lips. The deathly features contracted a little, and the eyelids quivered. She poured the brandy into the palm of her hand, and chafed his temples and forehead. Alexander drew a long breath and slowly opened his eyes; then shut them again; then, after a few moments, opened them wide, stared, and uttered an exclamation of surprise in Russian. "Are you better?" asked Hermione, breathlessly. "I thought you were dead." "No, I am all right," he said, faintly, trying to raise himself. But his head swam, and he fell back, once more insensible. This time, however, the fainting fit did not last long, and he soon opened his eyes again and looked at Hermione without speaking. She continued to rub the spirits upon his forehead. Then he put out his hand and grasped the flask she held, and drank a long draught from it. "It is nothing," he said. "I can get up now, thank you." He struggled to his feet, leaning on the young girl's arm. "How did it happen?" he asked. "I cannot remember anything." "You must have struck your head against that branch," answered Hermione, pointing to the thick bough which projected over the lane. "Do you feel better?" "Yes. I can mount in a minute," he replied, steadying himself. "I have had a bad shaking, and my head hurts me. It is nothing serious." "Better sit down for a few minutes, until the others come up," suggested the young girl, who was surprised to see him recover himself so quickly. He seemed glad enough to follow her advice, and they sat down together on the mossy bank. "It was my fault," said Hermione, penitently. "It was so foolish of me to ride fast in such a place." "Women care for nothing but galloping when they are on horseback," said Alexander. It was not a very civil speech, and though Hermione forgave him because he was half stunned with pain, the words rang unpleasantly in her ear. He might have been satisfied, she thought, when she owned that it was her fault. It was not generous to agree with her so unhesitatingly. She wondered whether Paul would have spoken like that. "Do you really think you can ride back?" she asked, in a colder tone. "Certainly," he said; "provided we ride slowly. What can have become of uncle John and Griggs?" Uncle John and Griggs were at that moment wondering what had become of the two young people. We had ridden on to the top of the hill, and had stopped on reaching the open space near the Khedive's farm, where there is a beautiful view, and where we expected to find our companions waiting for us. But we were surprised to see no one there. After a great deal of hesitation we agreed that John Carvel, who did not know the forest, should follow the main road down the hill on the other side, while I rode back over the way we had come. I suspected that Alexander and Hermione had taken the wrong turn, and I was more anxious about them than I would show. The forest is indeed said to be safe, but hardly a year passes without some solitary rider being molested by gypsies or wandering thieves, if he has ventured too far from the beaten tracks. I rode as fast as I could, but it was nearly twenty minutes before I struck into the hollow lane. I found the pair seated on the bank, a mile further on, and Hermione hailed me with delight. Everything was explained in a few words. Alexander seemed sufficiently recovered from his accident to get into the saddle, and we were soon walking our horses back towards the maidám of Buyukdere. Neither Alexander nor Hermione talked much by the way, and we were all glad when we reached the tiny bazaar, and were picking out way over the uneven street, amongst the coppersmiths, the lounging soldiers, the solemn narghylè smokers, the kaffejis, the beggars, and the half-naked children. On that evening, two things occurred which precipitated the course of events. John Carvel had an interview with Hermione, and I had a most unlucky idea. John Carvel's mind was disturbed concerning the future of his only daughter, and though he was not a man who hastily took fright, his character was such that when once persuaded that things were not as they should be, he never hesitated as to the course he should pursue. Accordingly, that night he called Hermione into his study, and determined to ask her for an explanation. The poor girl was nervous, for she suspected trouble, and did not see very clearly how it could be avoided. "Sit down, Hermy," said John, establishing himself in a deep chair with a cigar. "I want to talk with you, my dear." "Yes, papa," answered Hermione, meekly. "Hermy, do you mean to marry Paul, or not? Don't be nervous, my child, but think the matter over before you answer. If you mean to have him, I have no objection to the match; but if you do not mean to, I would like to know. That is all. You know you spoke to me about it in England before we left home. Things have been going on a long time now, and yet Paul has said nothing to me about it." It was impossible to put the matter more clearly than this, and Hermione knew it. She said nothing for some minutes, but sat staring out of the window at the dark water, where the boats moved slowly about, each bearing a little light at the bow. Far down the quay a band was playing the eternal _Stella Confidente_, which has become a sort of national air in Turkey. The strains floated in through the window, and the young girl struggled hard to concentrate her thoughts, which somehow wound themselves in and out of the music in a very irrelevant manner. "Must I answer now, papa?" she asked at last, almost desperately. "My dear," replied the inexorable John, in kind tones, "I cannot see why you should not. You are probably in very much the same state of mind to-night as you were in yesterday, or as you will be in to-morrow. It is better to settle the matter and be done with it. I do not believe that a fortnight, a month, or even a longer time will make any perceptible difference in your ideas about this matter." He puffed at his cigar, and again looked at his daughter. "Hermy," he continued, after another interval of silence, "if you do not mean to marry Paul, you are treating him very badly. You are letting that idiot of a brother of his make love to you from morning till night." "Oh, papa! How can you!" exclaimed Hermione, who was not accustomed to hearing any kind of strong language from her father. "Idiot,--yes, my dear, that expresses it very well. He is my nephew, and I have a right to call him an idiot if I please. I believe the fellow wears stays, and curls his hair with tongs. He has a face like a girl, and he talks unmitigated rubbish." "I thought you liked him, papa," objected Hermione. "I do not think he is at all as silly as you say he is. He is very agreeable." "I have no objection to him," retorted John Carvel. "I tolerate him. Toleration is not liking. He fascinated us all for a day or two, but it did not last long; that sort of fascination never does." There was another long pause. The band had finished the _Stella Confidente_, and ran on without stopping to the performance of the drinking chorus in the _Traviata_. Hermione twisted her fingers together, and bit her lips. Her father's opinion of Alexander was a revelation to her, but it carried weight with it, and it aroused a whole train of recollections in her mind, culminating in the accident of the afternoon. She remembered vividly what she had felt during those long minutes before Alexander had recovered consciousness, and she knew that her feelings bore not the slightest relation to love. She had been terrified, and had blamed herself, and had thought of his mother; but the idea that he might be dead had not hurt her as it would have done had she loved him. She had felt no wild grief, no awful sense of blankness; the tears which had risen to her eyes had been tears of pity, of genuine sorrow, but not of despair. She tried to think what she would have felt had she seen Paul lying dead before her, and the mere idea sent a sharp thrust through her heart that almost frightened her. "Well, my dear," said John, at last, "can you give me an answer? Do you mean to marry Paul or Alexander, or neither?" "Not Alexander,--oh, never!" exclaimed Hermione. "I never thought of such a thing." "Paul, then?" "Papa, dear," said the young girl, after a moment's hesitation, "I will tell you all about it. When Paul came, I firmly intended to marry him. Then I began to know Alexander--and--well, I was very wrong, but he began to make pretty phrases, and to talk of loving me. Of course I told him he was very foolish, and I laughed at him. But he only went on, and said a great deal more, in spite of me. Then I thought that because I could not stop him I was interested in him. Paul wanted to speak to you, but I would not let him. I did not feel that my conscience was quite clear. I was not sure that I should always love him. Do you see? I think I love him, really, but Alexander interests me." "But you never for a moment thought of marrying Alexander? You said so just now." "Oh, never! I laughed at him, and he amused me,--nothing more than that." "Then I don't quite see"--began John Carvel, who was rather puzzled by the explanation. "Of course not. You are a man,--how can you understand? I will promise you this, papa: if I cannot make up my mind in a week, I will tell Paul so." "How will a week help you, my dear? Ever so many weeks have passed, and you are still uncertain." "I am sure that a week will make all the difference. I think I shall have decided then. I am in earnest, dear papa," she added, gravely. "Do you think I would willingly do anything to hurt Paul?" "No, my dear, I don't," answered John Carvel. "Only--you might do it unwillingly, you know, and as far as he is concerned it would come to very much the same thing." And with this word of warning the interview ended. When I went home to dinner, I found Gregorios Balsamides seated on the wooden bench under the honeysuckle outside my door. He had escaped from the dust and heat of Pera, and had come to spend the night, sure of finding a hearty welcome at my kiosk on the hill. I sat down beside him, and he began asking me questions about the people who had arrived, giving me in return the news and gossip of Pera. "You have a very pretty place here," he said. "A man I knew took it last summer, and used to give tea-parties and little fêtes in the evening. It is easy to string lanterns from one tree to another, and it makes a very pretty effect. It is a mild form of idiocy, it is true,--much milder than the prevailing practice of dancing in-doors, with the thermometer at the boiling point." "It is not a bad idea," I answered. "We will experiment upon our friends the Carvels in a small way. I will ask them and the Patoffs to come here next Saturday. Can you come, too?" The thing was settled, and Gregorios promised to be of the party. We dined, and sat late together, talking long before we went to bed. Gregorios is a soldier, and does not mind roughing it a little; so he slept on the divan, and declared the next day that he had slept very well. XXIII. Madame Patoff had not received the news of Alexander's accident with indifference, and it had been necessary that he should assure her himself that he was not seriously hurt before she could be quieted. He had been badly stunned, however, and his head gave him much pain during several days, as was natural enough. He spent most of his time on the sofa in his mother's sitting-room, and she would sit for hours talking to him and trying to soothe his pain. The sympathy between the two seemed strengthened, and it was strange to see how, when together, their manner changed. The relation between the mother and the spoiled child is a very peculiar one, and occupies an entirely separate division in the scale of human affections; for while the mother's love in such a case is sincere, though generally founded on a mere capricious preference, the over-indulged affection of the child breeds nothing but caprice and a ruthless desire to see that caprice satisfied. Madame Patoff loved Alexander so much that the belief in his death had driven her mad; he on his side loved his mother because he knew that in all cases, just and unjust, she would defend him, take his part, and help him to get what he wanted. But he never missed her when they were separated, and he never took any pains to see her unless in so doing he could satisfy some other wish at the same time. He was selfish, willful, and obstinate at two-and-thirty as he had been at ten years of age. His mother was willful, obstinate, and capricious, but as far as he was concerned she was incapable of selfishness. What was most remarkable in her manner was her ease in talking with Professor Cutter, and her indifference in referring to her past insanity. She did not appear to realize it; she hardly seemed to care whether any one knew it or not, and regarded it as an unfortunate accident, but one which there was little object in concealing. As the scientist talked with her and observed her, he opened his eyes wider and wider behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, and grew more and more silent when any one spoke to him of her. I knew later that he detected in her conduct certain symptoms which alarmed him, but felt obliged to hold his peace on account of the extreme difficulty of his position. He felt that to watch her again, or to put her under any kind of restraint, might now lead to far more serious results than before, and he determined to bide his time. An incident occurred very soon, however, which helped him to make up his mind. One afternoon we arranged an excursion to the ruined castle of Anadoli Kavák, on the Asian shore, near the mouth of the Black Sea. Mrs. Carvel, who was not a good sailor, stayed at home, but Miss Dabstreak, Madame Patoff, and Hermione were of the party, with Paul, Macaulay Carvel, Professor Cutter, and myself. Macaulay had borrowed a good-sized cutter from one of his many colleagues who kept yachts on the Bosphorus, and at three o'clock in the afternoon we started from the Buyukdere quay. There was a smart northerly breeze as we hoisted the jib, and it was evident that we should have to make several tacks before we could beat up to our destination. The boat was of about ten tons burden, with a full deck, broken only by a well leading to the cabin; a low rail ran round the bulwarks, for the yacht was intended for pleasure excursions and the accommodation of ladies. The members of the party sat in a group on the edge of the well, and I took the helm. Chrysophrasia was in a particularly Oriental frame of mind. The deep blue sky, the emerald green of the hills, and the cool clear water rippling under the breeze, no doubt acted soothingly upon her nerves. "I feel quite like Sindbad the Sailor," she said. "Mr. Griggs, you ought really to tell us a tale from the Arabian Nights. I am sure it would seem so very real, you know." "If I were to spin yarns while steering, Miss Dabstreak," I said, "your fate would probably resemble Sindbad's. You would be wrecked six or seven times between here and Kavák." "So delightfully exciting," murmured Chrysophrasia. "Annie," she continued, addressing her sister, "shall we not ask Mr. Griggs to wreck us? I have always longed to be on a wreck." "No," said Madame Patoff, glancing at her foolish sister with her great dark eyes. "I should not like to be drowned." "Of course not; how very dreadful!" exclaimed Miss Dabstreak. "But Sindbad was never drowned, you remember. It was always somebody else." "Oh--somebody else," repeated Madame Patoff, looking down at the deep water. "Yes, to drown somebody else,--that would be very different." I think we were all a little startled, and Hermione looked at Paul and turned pale. As for Cutter, he very slowly and solemnly drew a cigar from his case, lit it carefully, crossed one knee over the other, and gazed fixedly at Madame Patoff during several minutes, before he spoke. "Would you really like to see anybody drowned?" he asked at last. "Why do you ask?" inquired Madame Patoff, rather sharply. "Because I thought you said so, and I wanted to know if you were in earnest." "I suppose we should all like to see our enemies die," said the old lady. "Not painfully, of course, but so that we should be quite sure of it." She laid a strong emphasis on the last words, and as she looked up I thought she glanced at Paul. "If you had seen many people die, you would not care for the sight," said the professor quietly. "Besides, you have no enemies." "What is death?" asked Madame Patoff, looking at him with a curiously calm smile as she asked the question. "The only thing we know about it, is that it appears to be in every way the opposite of life," was the scientist's answer. "Life separates us for a time from the state of what we call inanimate matter. When life ceases, we return to that state." "Why do you say 'what we call inanimate matter'?" inquired Paul. "Because it has been very well said that names are labels, not definitions. As a definition, inanimate matter means generally the earth, the water, the air; but the name would be a very poor definition,--as poor as the word 'man' used to define the human animal." "You do not think that inanimate matter is really lifeless?" I asked. "Unless it is so hot that it melts," laughed the professor. "Even then it may not be true,--indeed, it may be quite false. We call the moon dead, because we have reason to believe that she has cooled to the centre. We call Jupiter and Saturn live planets, though we believe them still too hot to support life." "All that does not explain death," objected Madame Patoff. "If I could explain death, I could explain life," answered Cutter. "And if I could explain life, I should have made a great step towards producing it artificially." "If one could only produce artificial death!" exclaimed Madame Patoff. "It would be very amusing," answered Cutter, with a smile, folding his huge white hands upon his knee. "We could try it on ourselves, and then we should know what to expect. I have often thought about it, I assure you. I once had the curiosity to put myself into a trance by the Munich method of shining disks,--they use it in the hospitals instead of ether, you know,--and I remained in the state half an hour." "And then, what happened when you woke up?" "I had a bad headache and my eyes hurt me," replied the professor dryly. "I dare say that if a dead man came to life he would feel much the same thing." "I dare say," assented Madame Patoff; but there was a vague look in her eyes, which showed that her thoughts were somewhere else. We were close upon the Asian shore, and I put the helm down to go about. The ladies changed their places, and there was a little confusion, in which Cutter found himself close to me. "Keep an eye on her," he said quickly, in a low voice. "She is very queer." I thought so, too, and I watched Madame Patoff to see whether she would return to the subject which seemed to attract her. Cutter kept up the conversation, however, and did not again show any apprehension about his former patient's state of mind, though I could see that he watched her as closely as I did. The fresh breeze filled the sails, and the next tack took us clear up to Yeni Mahallè on the European side; for the little yacht was quick in stays, and, moreover, had a good hold on the water, enabling her to beat quickly up against wind and current. Once again I went about, and, running briskly across, made the little pier below Anadoli Kavák, little more than three quarters of an hour after we had started. We landed, and went up the green slope to the place where the little coffee-shop stands under the trees. We intended to climb the hill to the ruined castle. To my surprise, Professor Cutter suggested to Madame Patoff that they should stay below, while the rest made the ascent. He said he feared she would tire herself too much. But she would not listen to him. "I insist upon going," she said. "I am as strong as any of you. It is quite absurd." Cutter temporized by suggesting that we should have coffee before the walk, and Chrysophrasia sank languidly down upon a straw chair. "If the man has any loukoum, I could bear a cup of coffee," she murmured. The man had loukoum, it appeared, and Chrysophrasia was satisfied. We all sat down in a circle under the huge oak-tree, and enjoyed the freshness and greenness of the place. The kaffeji, in loose white garments and a fez, presently brought out a polished brass tray, bearing the requisite number of tiny cups and two little white saucers filled with pieces of loukoum-rahat, the Turkish national sweetmeat, commonly called by schoolboys fig-paste. "Why was I not born a Turk!" exclaimed Chrysophrasia. "This joyous life in the open air is so intensely real, so profoundly true!" "Life is real anywhere," remarked Cutter, with a smile. "The important question is whether it is agreeable to the liver." "Death is real, too," said Madame Patoff, in such a curious tone that we all started slightly, as we had done in the boat. My nerves are good, but I felt a weird horror of the woman stealing over me. The imperturbable scientist only glanced at me, as though to remind me of what he had said before. Then he took up the question. "No, madam," he said, coldly. "Death is a negation, almost a universal negation. It is not real; it only devours reality, and then denies it. You can see that life is to breathe, to think, to eat, to drink, to love, to fear,--any of these. Death is only the negation of all these things, because we can only say that in death we do none of them. Reality is motion, in the broad sense, as far as man is concerned; death is only the cessation of the ability to move. You cannot predicate anything else of it." "Oh, your dry, dry science!" exclaimed Chrysophrasia, casting up her green eyes. "You would turn our fair fields and limpid--ahem--skies--into the joyless waste of a London pavement, or one of your horrid dissecting-rooms!" "I don't see the point of your simile, Miss Dabstreak," answered Cutter, with pardonable bluntness. "Besides, that is philosophy, and not science." "What is the difference. Mr. Griggs?" asked Hermione, turning to me. "My dear young lady," said I, "science, I think, means the state of being wise, and hence, the thing known, which gives a man the title of wise. Philosophy means the love of wisdom." "Rather involved definition," observed the professor, with a laugh. "There is not much difference between the state of being wise and the state of loving wisdom." "The one asserts the possession of that which the other aspires to possess, but considers to be very difficult of attainment," I tried to explain. "The scientist says to the world, 'I have found the origin of life: it is protoplasm, it is your God, and all your religious beliefs are merely the result of your ignorance of protoplasm.' The philosopher answers, 'I allow that this protoplasm is the origin of life, but how did this origin itself originate? And if you can show how it originated from inanimate matter, how did the inanimate matter begin to exist? And how was space found in which it could exist? And why does anything exist, animate or inanimate? And is the existence of matter a proof of a supreme design, or is it not?' Thereupon science gets very red in the face, and says that these questions are absurd, after previously stating that everything ought to be questioned." "Science," answered the professor, "says that man has enough to do in questioning his immediate surroundings, without going into the matter of transcendental inquiry." "Then she ought to keep to her own proper sphere," said I, waxing hot. "The fact is that science, armed with miserably imperfect tools, but unbounded assumption, has discovered a jelly-fish in a basin of water, and has deduced from that premise the tremendous conclusion that there is no God." "That is strong language, Mr. Griggs,--very strong language," repeated the professor. "You exaggerate the position too much, I think. But it is useless to argue with transcendentalists. You always fall back upon the question of faith, and you refuse to listen to reason." "When you can disprove our position, we will listen to your proof. But since the whole human race, as far as we can ascertain, without any exception whatsoever, has believed always in the survival of the soul after death, allow me to say that when you deny the existence of the soul the _onus probandi_ lies with you, and not with us." Therewith I drank my coffee in silence, and looked at the half-naked Turkish children playing upon the little pier over the bright water. It struck me that if the learned scientist had told them that they had no souls, they would have laughed at him very heartily. I think that in the opinion of the company I had the best of the argument, and Cutter knew it, for he did not answer. "I have always believed that I have a soul," said Macaulay Carvel, in his smooth, monotonous tone. But there was as much conviction in his tone as though he had expressed his belief in the fact that he had a nose. "Of course you have," said Hermione. "Let us go up to the castle and see the view before it is too late. Aunt Annie, do wait for us here; it is very tiring, really." "You seem to think I am a decrepit old woman," answered Madame Patoff, impatiently, as she rose from her chair. Paul felt that it was his duty to offer his mother his arm for the ascent, though the professor came forward at the same moment. "Dear Paul, you are so good," said she, accepting his assistance as we began to climb the hill. I saw her face in that moment. It was as calm and beautiful as ever, but I thought she glanced sideways to see whether every one had heard her speech and appreciated it. Little was said as we breasted the steep ascent, for the path was rough, and there was barely room for two people to walk side by side. At last we emerged upon a broad slope of grass outside the walls of the old fortress. A goatherd lives inside it, and has turned the old half-open vaults into a stable for his flocks. We paused under the high walls, which on one side are built above the precipitous cliff, with a sheer fall of a hundred feet or more. Towards the land they are not more than forty feet high, where the grass grows up to their base. There is a curious gate on that side, with the carved arms of the Genoese republic imbedded in the brick masonry. Some one suggested that we should go inside, and after a short interview with the goatherd he consented to chain up his enormous dog, and let us pass the small wooden gate which leads to the interior. Inside the fortress the falling in of the roof and walls has filled the old court so that it is nearly on a level with the walls. It is easy to scramble up to the top, and the thickness is so great that it is safe to walk along for a little distance, provided one does not go too near the edge. We wandered about below, and some of us climbed up to see the beautiful view, which extends far down the Bosphorus on the one side, and looks over the broad Black Sea on the other. Madame Patoff still leaned on Paul's arm, while the professor gallantly helped the languid Chrysophrasia to reach the most accessible places. Macaulay was engaged in an attempt to measure the circumference of the castle, and rambled about in quest of facts, as usual, noting down the figures in his pocket-book very conscientiously. I was left alone with Hermione for a few minutes. We sat down on a heap of broken masonry to rest, talking of the place and its history. Hermione was so placed that she could not see the top of the wall which overhung the precipice on the outer side, but from where I sat I could watch Paul slowly helping his mother to reach the top. "It belonged to the Genoese, and was built by them," I said. "The arms over the gate are theirs. Perhaps you noticed them." Paul and his mother had reached the summit of the wall, and were standing there, looking out at the view. "How did the Genoese come to be here?" asked Hermione, digging her parasol into the loose earth. "They were once very powerful in Constantinople," I answered. "They held Pera for many years, and"---- I broke off with an exclamation of horror, starting to my feet at the same instant. I had idly watched the mother and son as they stood together, and I could hear their voices as they spoke. Suddenly, and without a moment's warning, Madame Patoff put out her hand, and seemed to push Paul with all her might. He stumbled, and fell upon the edge, but from my position I could not tell whether he had saved himself or had fallen into the abyss. I suppose Hermione followed my look, and saw that Madame Patoff was standing alone upon the top, but I did not stop to speak or explain. I sprang upon the wall, and in a second more I saw that Paul had fallen his full length along the brink, but had saved himself, and was scrambling to his feet. Madame Patoff stood quite still, her face rigid and drawn, and an expression of horror in her eyes that was bad to see. But I was not alone in coming to Paul's assistance. As I put out my arm to help him to his feet, I saw Hermione's small hands lay hold of him with desperate strength, dragging him from the fatal brink. But Paul was unhurt, and was on his legs in another moment. He was ghastly white, and his lips worked curiously as his eyes settled on his mother's face. "How did it happen?" asked Hermione, as soon as she could speak, but still clinging to his arm, while she glanced inquiringly at her aunt. "I do not know," said Paul, in a thick voice, between his teeth. "I was dizzy," gasped Madame Patoff. "I put out my hand to save myself"---- "Do me the favor to come down from this place at once," I said, grasping her firmly by the arm, and leading her away. "Paul, Paul, how did it happen?" I heard Hermione saying, as we descended. But Paul's lips were resolutely shut, and he would say nothing more about it. Indeed, he was badly startled, but I knew his paleness was not caused by fear. In my own mind the conviction was strong that his mother had deliberately attempted to murder him by pushing him over the edge. I remembered Cutter's warning, and I wondered that he should have allowed her to go out of his sight since he recognized the condition of her brain, but a moment's reflection made me recollect that I had understood him differently. He had meant that she might try to kill herself, not her son; and that had been my own impression, for it was not till later that I learned how she had spoken of Paul to herself, that night in Pera, after the ball. At that time the professor knew more about the matter than I did, for Hermione had confided in him when they were alone in Santa Sophia. I think Madame Patoff tried to explain the accident to me as I got her down into the ruined court, but I do not remember what she said. My only wish was to get the party back to Buyukdere, and to be alone with Cutter for five minutes. "Patoff has met with an accident," I said, as the others came up. "He stumbled near the edge of the wall, and is badly shaken. We had better go home." There was very little explanation needed, and Paul protested that he had incurred no danger, though he acquiesced readily enough to the suggestion. I did not let Madame Patoff leave my arm until we were once more on board the little yacht, for I was convinced that the woman was dangerously mad. The drawn expression of her pale face did not change, and she soon ceased speaking altogether. I noted the fact that in all the excitement of the moment she expressed no satisfaction at Paul's escape. It was not until we reached the water that she said something about "dear Paul," in a tone that made me shudder. We were a silent party as we ran down the wind to Buyukdere. Cutter sat beside Madame Patoff, and watched her curiously; for the expression of her face had not escaped him, though he had no idea of what had happened. Sitting on the deck, at the edge of the wall, she looked down at the water as we rushed along. "What do you see in the water?" asked the professor, quietly. The answer came in a very low voice, but I heard it as I stood by the helm:-- "I see a man's face under the water, looking up at me." "And whose face is it?" inquired Cutter, in the same matter-of-fact tone. "I will not tell you, nor any one," she answered. Cutter looked up at me to see whether I had heard, and I nodded to him. In a few minutes we were alongside of the pier. I refused Chrysophrasia's not very pressing invitation to tea, and, bidding good-by to the rest, I put my arm through the professor's. He seemed ready enough to go with me, so we walked along the smooth quay in the sunset, arm in arm. "I wanted to speak to you," I said. "You ought to know what happened up there this afternoon. Madame Patoff tried to push Paul over the edge. It was a deliberate attempt to murder him." Cutter stopped in his walk and looked earnestly into my face. "Did you see it yourself? Did you positively see it, or is that only your impression?" "I saw it," I answered, shortly. "She is quite mad still, then. No one but a mad woman would attempt such a thing. What is worse, it is a fixed idea that she has." He told me what Hermione had confided to him. "Then Paul's life is not safe for a moment," I said, after a moment's pause. "Unless his brother marries Miss Carvel, I would advise him to be on his guard when he is alone with his mother. He is safe enough when other people are present. I know those cases. They are sly, cautious, timid. She will try and push him over the edge of a precipice when nobody is looking. Before you she will call him 'dear Paul,' and all the rest of it." "That looks to me more like the cunning of a murderess than the slyness of a maniac," I said. "Most murderers are only maniacs, mad people," answered the professor. "Men and women are born with a certain tendency of mind which makes them easily brood over an idea. Their life and circumstances foster one particular notion, till it gets a predominant weight in their weak reasoning. The occasion presents itself, and they carry out the plan they have been forming for years in secret, or even unconsciously. If in carrying out their ideas they kill anybody, it is called murder. It makes very little difference what you call it. The law distinguishes between crimes premeditated and crimes unpremeditated. Murder, willful and premeditated, involves in my opinion a process of mind so similar to that found in lunatics that it is impossible to distinguish the one from the other, and I am quite ready to believe that all premeditated murders are brought about by mental aberration in the murderer. On the other hand, manslaughter, quick, sudden, and unplanned, is the result of more or less inhuman instincts, and those who commit the crime are people who approach more or less nearly to wild beasts. For the advancement of science, murderers should not be hanged, but should be kept as interesting cases of insanity. Much might be learned by carefully observing the action of their minds upon ordinary occasions. As for homicides, or manslaughterers,--I wish we could use the English word,--they are less attractive as a study, and I do not care what becomes of them. The brain of a freshly killed tiger would be far more interesting." "What do you propose to do with Madame Patoff?" I asked. "You do not suppose that Miss Carvel will marry Alexander Patoff in order to prevent his mother from murdering Paul?" "She ought to," answered Cutter, quietly. "It would be most curious to see whether there would be any change in her fixed dislike of the younger son." "And do you mean that that young girl should sacrifice her life to your experiments?" I asked, rather hotly. I hated the coldness of the man, and his ruthless determination to make scientific capital out of other people's troubles. "I can neither propose nor dispose," he answered. "I only wish that it might be so. After all, she could be quite as happy with Alexander as with Paul. I doubt whether she has a strong preference for either." "You are mistaken," said I. "She loves Paul much more than she herself imagines. I saw her face to-day when Paul was lying on the edge of the precipice. You did not. I have watched them ever since they have been together in Constantinople, and I am convinced that she loves Paul, and not Alexander. What do you intend to do with Madame Patoff? You know I have a little party at my cottage on Saturday,--you promised to come. Is it safe to let her come, too?" "Perfectly," answered my companion. "The only thing to be done at present is to prevent her remaining alone with Paul." "Suppose that Paul tells what happened this afternoon. What then?" "He will not tell it. I have a great admiration for the fellow, he is so manly. If she had done worse than that, he would not tell any one, because she is his mother. But he will be on his guard, never fear. She will not get such a chance again. Good-night." The professor left me at the door of the garden through which I had to pass to reach the little kiosk. I walked slowly up through the roses and the flowers, meditating as I went. Paul had a new enemy in the professor, who would certainly try and help Alexander, in order to continue his experiments upon Madame Patoff's mind. Poor Paul! He seemed to be persecuted by an evil fate, and I pitied him sincerely. XXIV. It was Saturday afternoon, and my preparations for my little tea-party were complete. Gregorios Balsamides had arrived from Pera, and we were waiting for the Carvels, seated on the long bench before the house, where the view overlooks the Bosphorus. The sun had almost set, and the hills of Asia were already tinged with golden light, which caught the walls of the white mosque on the Giant's Mountain,--the Yusha-Dagh, where the Mussulmans believe that Joshua's body lies buried; Anadoli Kavák was bathed in a soft radiance, in which every line of the old fortress stood out clear and distinct, so that I could see the very spot where Paul had fallen a few days before; the far mouth of the Black Sea looked cold and gray in the shadows below the hills, but down below, the big steamers, the little yachts, the outlandish Turkish schooners, and the tiny caïques moved quickly about in the evening sunshine. My garden was become a wilderness of roses in the soft spring weather, too, and each flower took a warmer hue as the sun sank in the west, and slowly neared the point where it would drop behind the European foreland. The kiosk was a wooden building, narrow and tall, so that the rooms within were high, and the second story was twenty feet above the ground. I had caused hundreds of lamps to be hung within and without, to be lighted so soon as the darkness set in, and my man, who has an especial talent for all sorts of illuminations, and in general for everything which in Southern Italy comes under the head of 'festa,' had borrowed long strings of little signal-flags and streamers, which he had hung fantastically from the house to the surrounding trees. When once the lamps should be lighted the effect would be very pretty, and to the eyes of English people utterly new. Gregorios sat beside me on the garden seat, and we talked of Madame Patoff and her latest doings. My mind was not at rest about her, and I inwardly wished that some accident might prevent her from coming that day. I had more than once almost determined to speak to my old friend John Carvel, and to tell him what had occurred at Anadoli Kavák. Nothing but my respect for Professor Cutter's opinion as a specialist had prevented me from doing so; but now, at the last moment, I wished I had not been overruled, for I had an unpleasant conviction that his prudence had been forgotten in his desire to study the case. For men of his profession there seems to be an absorbing interest in deciding the question of where crime ends and madness begins, and to put Madame Patoff under restraint would have been to cut short one of the most valuable experiences of Cutter's life. He probably knew that in the present stage of her malady such a proceeding would very likely have driven her into hopeless and evident insanity. I could have forgiven him if I had thought that he regarded the question from a moralist's point of view, and balanced the danger of leaving the unfortunate woman at large against the possible advantage she herself might gain from enjoying unrestricted liberty. But I was sure that the scientist was not thinking of that. He had expressed interest rather than horror at her attempt to push Paul over the edge of the wall. He had answered my anxious questions concerning the treatment of Madame Patoff by a short dissertation on insanity in general, and had left me to continue his studies, regardless of any danger to his patient's relations. The moral point of view shrank into insignificance as he became more and more absorbed in the result of the case, and I believe that he would have let us all perish, if necessary, rather than consent to relinquish his study. He might have regretted his indifference afterwards, especially if he had arrived at no satisfactory conclusion in regard to the unhappy woman; but in the fervor of scientific speculation, minor considerations of safety were forgotten. Cutter is not a bad man, though he is ruthless. He would be incapable of doing any one an injury from a personal motive, but in comparison with the importance of one of his theories the life of a man is no more to him than the life of a dog. I said something of that kind to Balsamides. "My dear fellow," he answered, "do you expect common sense from people who waste their lives in such a senseless fashion? Can anything be more absurd than to attempt to explain the vagaries of a diseased mind? They call that science in the professor's country. They may as well give it up. They will never ultimately discover any better treatment for dangerous lunatics than solid bolts and barred windows." "I believe you are right," I said. "If we could put medicine into the head as we can into the stomach, something might be accomplished. It is very unpleasant to think that I am to entertain a lady at my tea-party who only the other day tried to murder her son in my sight." "Very," assented Gregorios. "Here they come." We heard the sound of voices in the garden, and rose to meet the party as they came up towards the house. None of them had been to see me before, except Paul, and they at once launched into extravagant praises of the view and of the kiosk. Chrysophrasia raved about the sunset effects, and Hermione was delighted with the way the flags were arranged. Macaulay consulted his pocket barometer to see how many feet above the sea the house was built, and declared that the air must be far more healthy in such a place than on the quay. Madame Patoff looked silently out at the view, leaning on Alexander's arm, while John Carvel and his wife stood close together, smiling and appreciative, the ideal of a well-assorted and perfectly happy middle-aged couple. Cutter talked to Balsamides, and Paul followed Hermione as she slowly moved from point to point. I stood alone for a few moments, and looked at them, going over in my mind all that had happened during the last seven months, and wondering how it would all end. These ten people had lived much together, and had found themselves lately united in some very strange occurrences. With the exception of Balsamides and the professor, they were all nearly related, and yet they were as unlike each other as people of one family could be. The gentle, saintly Mary Carvel had little in common with her æsthetic sister Chrysophrasia Dabstreak, and neither of them was very like Madame Patoff. Sturdy John Carvel was not like his sleek son Macaulay, except in honesty and good-nature. Alexander Patoff was indeed like his mother, but Paul's stern, cold nature was that of his father, long dead and forgotten. As for Hermione, she presented a combination of character derived from the best points in her father and mother, marred only, I thought, by a little of that vacillation which was the chief characteristic of her aunt Chrysophrasia. Cutter and Balsamides were men of widely different nationalities and temperaments: the one a ruthless scientist, the other an equally ruthless fatalist; the one ready to sacrifice the lives of others to a fanatic worship of his profession, the other willing to sacrifice himself to the inevitable with heroic courage, but holding other men's lives as of no more value than his own. A strange company, I thought, and yet in many respects a most interesting company, too. "Shall we go in-doors and have tea?" I said after a few moments, collecting my guests together. "The view is even better from the windows above." I led them into the stone-paved vestibule of the wooden house, and up the wooden stairs to the upper story. Presently they were all installed in the large room where the preparations for the small festivity had been made, and I began to do the honors of my bachelor establishment. In a Turkish family, the room where we sat, and the three others upon the same floor, would have been set apart for the harem, for one door separated them from the staircase and from all the rest of the house,--a large strong door, painted white, and provided with an excellent lock and key. I had selected one room for my bedroom, and the rest were furnished with Oriental simplicity, not to say economy. But Balsamides had sent down a bale of beautiful carpets, which he lent me for the occasion, and which I had hung upon the walls and spread upon the floors and divans. Tea, coffee, sherbet, a beautiful view, and a little illumination of the gardens, constituted the whole entertainment, but the enthusiasm of my guests knew no bounds, probably because they had never seen anything of the kind before. "Griggs is growing to be a true Oriental," said Balsamides, approvingly; "he understands how the Turks live." "Yes," I answered, "I present you the thing in all its bareness. You may take this as a specimen of an Eastern house. People are apt to fancy that those long, latticed houses on the Bosphorus conceal unheard-of luxuries, and that the people live like Sybarites. It is quite untrue. They either try to imitate the French style, and do it horribly, or else they live in great bare rooms like these." "What do the women do all day long?" asked Chrysophrasia. "I am sure they do not pass their time upon a straw matting, staring at each other,--so very dreary!" "Nevertheless they do," said Gregorios. "They smoke and eat sweetmeats from morning till night, and occasionally an old woman comes and tells them stories. Some of them can read French. They learn it in order to read novels, but cannot speak a word of the language." "Dreary, dreary!" sighed Chrysophrasia. "And then, the division of the affections, you know,--so sad." "Many of them die of consumption," said Gregorios. "It would be curious to watch the phases of their intelligence," said the professor, slowly sipping his coffee, and staring out of the window through his great gold-rimmed spectacles. The sun had gone down, and the darkness gathered quickly over the beautiful scene. At one of the windows Hermione sat silently enjoying the evening breeze; Alexander was seated beside her, while Paul stood looking out over her head. Neither of the two men spoke, but from time to time they exchanged glances which were anything but friendly. Outside, my man and the gardener were lighting the little lamps, and gradually, as each glass cup received its tiny light, the festoons of white and red grew, and seemed to creep stealthily from tree to tree. The conversation languished, and the deepening twilight brought with it that pleasant silence which is the very embodiment of rest descending at evening on the tired earth. "It is like an evening hymn," said Mrs. Carvel, whose gentle features were barely visible in the gloom. No one spoke, but I fancied I saw John Carvel lay his hand affectionately on his wife's arm, as they sat together. There was a light above the eastern hills, brightening quickly as we looked, and presently the full moon rose and shed her rays through the low open windows, making our faces look white and deathly in the dark room. It shone on Madame Patoff's marble features, and cast strange shadows around her mouth. "Shall we have lights?" I asked. There was a general refusal; everybody preferred the moonlight, which now flooded the apartment. "It seems to me," said Chrysophrasia, half sadly,--"it seems to me--ah, no! I must be mistaken,--and yet--it seems to me that I smell something burning." "I think it is the lamps outside," I answered. No one else took any notice of the speech, which jarred upon the pleasant stillness. I myself thought she was mistaken. "What a wonderful contrast!" said Hermione. "I mean the lamps and the moonlight." Then she added, suddenly, "Do you know, Mr. Griggs, there is really something burning. I can smell it quite well." A fire in a Turkish house is a serious matter. The old beams and boarded walls are like so much tinder, and burn up immediately, as though soaked with some inflammable liquid. I rose, and went out to see if there were anything wrong. As I opened the door which shut off the whole apartment from the stairs, I heard a strange crackling sound, and outside the window of the staircase, which was in the back of the house, I saw a red glare, which brightened in the moment while I watched it. I did not go further, for I knew the danger was imminent. "Will you be good enough to come down-stairs?" I said, quietly, as I re-entered the room where my guests were assembled. "I am afraid something is wrong, but there is plenty of time." A considerable confusion ensued, and everybody rushed to the door. Protestations were vain, for all the women were frightened, and all the men were anxious to help them. The sight of the flames outside the window redoubled their fears, and they rushed out, stumbling on the dusky landing. In the confusion of the moment I did not realize how it all happened. Chrysophrasia, who was mad with fright, caught her foot against something, and fell close beside me. The other ladies were already down-stairs, I thought. I picked her up and carried her down as fast as I could, and out into the garden. "Come away from the house!" I cried. "Away from the trees!" Chrysophrasia was senseless with fear, and I bore her hastily on till I reached the fountain, some twenty yards down the hill. There I put her down upon a bench. There were two buckets and a couple of watering-pots there, and I shouted to the other men to come to me, as I filled two of the vessels and ran round to the back of the house. I passed Madame Patoff, standing alone under a festoon of little lamps, by a tree, and I remember the strange expression of gladness which was on her face. But I had no time to speak to her, and rushed on with my water-cans. Meanwhile the flames rose higher and higher, crackling and licking the brown face of the old timber. There was small chance of saving the building now. My men had been busy lighting the lamps in the garden, but I found them already on the spot, dipping water out of a small cistern with buckets, and dashing it into the fire with all their might, their dark faces grim and set in the light of the flames. I worked as hard as I could, supposing that all the party were safe. I had no idea of what was going on upon the opposite side of the house. In truth, it was horrible enough. Paul and Cutter were very self-possessed, and their first care was to see that all the four ladies were safe. They had Hermione and her mother with them, and, taking the direction of the fountain, they found Chrysophrasia upon the bench where I had left her, in a violent fit of hysterics. Madame Patoff was not there. "I was going back for aunt Annie," said Macaulay Carvel, "for I counted them as they came out, and missed her. She ran right into my arms as I stood in the door. She is somewhere in the garden; I am quite sure of it." Cutter hurried off, and began to search among the trees. Already the bright flames could be seen in the lower story, and in a moment more the glass of one of the windows cracked loudly, and the fire leapt through. Then from the high windows above a voice was heard calling, loud and clear, to those below. "The door is locked! Can any one help me?" The voice belonged to Gregorios, and the party looked into each other's faces in sudden horror, and then glanced at the burning house. "Save him! Save him!" cried Hermione. But Paul had already left her side, and had reached the open door of the porch. Alexander stood still, staring at the flames. "He saved you," said Hermione, grasping his arm fiercely. "Will you do nothing to help him?" "Paul is gone already," answered Alexander, impatiently. "There is nothing the matter. Paul will let him out." But the other men were less apathetic, and had followed the brave man to the door. He had disappeared already, and as they came up a tremendous puff of smoke and ashes was blown into their faces, stifling and burning them, so that they drew back. "Jump for your life!" shouted John Carvel, looking up at the window from which the voice had proceeded. "Yes, jump!" cried Alexander, who had reluctantly followed. "We will catch you in our arms!" But no one answered them. Nothing was heard but the crackling of the burning timber and the roaring of the flames, during the awful moments which followed. Stupefied with horror, the three men stood staring stupidly at the hideous sight. Then suddenly another huge puff of smoke and fiery sparks burst from the door, and with it a dark mass flew forward, as though shot from a cannon's mouth, and fell in a heap upon the ground outside. All three ran forward, but some one else was there before them, dragging away a thick carpet, of which the wool was all singed and burning. There lay Gregorios Balsamides as he had fallen, stumbling on the doorstep, with the heavy body of Paul Patoff in his arms. Hermione fell on her knees and shrieked aloud. It was plain enough. Paul, without the least protection from the flames, had struggled up the burning staircase, and had unlocked the door, losing consciousness as he opened it. Gregorios, who was not to be outdone in bravery, and whom no danger could frighten from his senses, had wrapped a carpet round the injured man, and, throwing another over his own head, had borne him back through the fire, the steps of the wooden staircase, already in flames, almost breaking under his tread. But he had done the deed, and had lived through it. He looked up faintly at Hermione as she bent over them both. "I think he is alive," he gasped, and fainted upon the ground. They bore the two senseless bodies to the fountain, and laid them down, and sprinkled water on their faces. Behind them they could hear the crash of the first timbers falling in, as the fire reached the upper story of the kiosk; at their feet they saw only the still, pale faces of the men who had been ready to give their lives for each other. But Cutter had gone in search of Madame Patoff, during the five minutes which had sufficed for the enacting of this scene. He had found her where I had passed her, looking up with a strange smile at the doomed house. "Paul is looking for you," said the professor, taking her arm under his. She started, and trembled violently. "Paul!" she cried in surprise. Then, with a wild laugh, she stared into Cutter's eyes. He had heard that laugh many a time in his experience, and he silently tightened his grip upon her arm. "Paul!" she repeated wildly. "There is no more Paul," she added, suddenly lowering her voice, and speaking confidentially. "Hermione can marry my dear Alexander now. There is no more Paul. You do not know? It was so quickly done. He stayed behind in the room, and I locked the door, so tight, so fast. He can never get out. Ah!" she screamed all at once, "I am so glad! Let me go--let me go"---- At that moment I came upon them. Relinquishing all hopes of saving the house, and wondering vaguely, in my confusion of mind, why nobody had come to help me, I called my two men off, and was going to see what had become of the party. I found Madame Patoff a raving maniac, struggling in the gigantic hands of the sturdy scientist. I will not dwell upon the hideous scene which followed. It was the last time I ever saw her, and I pray that I may never again see man or woman in such a condition. Meanwhile, the two men who lay by the fountain in the moonlight showed signs of life. Gregorios first came to himself, for he had only fainted. He was in great pain, but was as eager as the rest to restore Paul to consciousness. Patoff was almost asphyxiated by the smoke, his hair and eyebrows and mustache were almost burnt off, and his right hand was injured. But he was alive, and at last he opened his eyes. In a quarter of an hour he could be helped upon his feet. Balsamides was already standing, and Paul caught at his hand. "Not that arm," said Gregorios calmly, holding out the other. In his fall he had broken his wrist. In answer to my cries, the two Carvels left the injured men and came to our assistance, while we struggled with the mad woman, who seemed possessed of the strength of a dozen athletes. Hermione was left by the fountain. "I was quite sure it would be all right," said Alexander to her, presently. It was more than the young girl could bear. She turned upon him fiercely, and her beautiful face was very white. "I despise you!" she exclaimed. That was all she said, but in the next moment she turned and threw her arms about Paul's neck, and kissed his burnt and wounded face before them all. * * * * * There is little more to be said, for my story is told to the end. When I found them all together, Gregorios took me aside and drew a crumpled mass of papers from his pocket with his uninjured hand. "I stayed behind to save your papers and your money," he said quietly. "I have seen houses burn before, and there is generally no time to be lost." I wonder what there is at the bottom of that man's strange nature. Cold, indifferent, and fatalistic, apparently one of the most selfish of men, he nevertheless seems to possess somewhere a kind of devoted heroism, an untainted quality of friendship only too rare in our day. Hermione Carvel is to be married to Paul in the autumn, but there is reason to believe that Alexander, who has rejoined his regiment in St. Petersburg, will not find it convenient to be at the wedding. When Balsamides was crying for help from the upper window, and when Alexander stood quietly by Hermione's side while his brother faced the danger, the die was cast, and she saw what a wide gulf separated the two men, and she knew that she loved the one and hated the other with a fierce hatred. Poor Madame Patoff is dead, but before he left Constantinople Professor Cutter spent half an hour in trying to demonstrate to me that she might have been cured if Hermione had married Alexander. I am glad he is gone, for I always detested his theories. So the story is ended, my dear friend; and if it is told badly, it is my fault, for I assure you that I never in my life spent so exciting a year. It has been a long tale, too, but you have told me that from time to time you were interested in it; and, after all, a tale is but a tale, and is a very different affair from an artistically constructed drama, in which facts have to be softened, so as not to look too startling in print. I have given you facts, and if you ever meet Gregorios Balsamides he will tell you that I have exaggerated nothing. Moreover, if you will take the trouble to visit Santa Sophia during the last nights of Ramazán, you will understand how Alexander Patoff disappeared; and if you will go over the house of Laleli Khanum Effendi, which is now to be sold, you will see how impossible it was for him to escape from such a place. In the garden above Mesar Burnu you will see the heap of ashes, which is all that remains of the kiosk where I gave my unlucky tea-party; and if you will turn up the bridle-path at the left of the Belgrade road, a hundred yards before you reach the aqueduct, you will come upon the spot where Gregorios threatened to kill Selim, the wicked Lala, on that bitter March night. I dare say, also, that if you visit any of these places by chance you will remember the strange scenes they have witnessed, and I hope that you will also remember Paul Griggs, your friend, who spun you this yarn because you asked him for a story, when he was riding with you on that rainy afternoon last month. I only wish you knew the Carvels, for I am sure you would like them, and you would find Chrysophrasia very amusing. * * * * * WRITINGS OF F. MARION CRAWFORD 12mo. Cloth Corleone $1.50 Casa Braccio. 2 vols. 2.00 Taquisara 1.50 Saracinesca 1.50 Sant' Ilario 1.50 Don Orsino 1.50 Mr. Isaacs 1.50 A Cigarette-Maker's Romance, and Khaled 1.50 Marzio's Crucifix 1.50 An American Politician 1.50 Paul Patoff 1.50 To Leeward 1.50 Dr. Claudius 1.50 Zoroaster 1.50 A Tale of a Lonely Parish 1.50 With the Immortals 1.50 The Witch of Prague 1.50 A Roman Singer 1.50 Greifenstein 1.50 Pietro Ghisleri 1.50 Katherine Lauderdale 1.50 The Ralstons 1.50 Children of the King 1.50 The Three Fates 1.50 Adam Johnstone's Son, and A Rose of Yesterday 1.50 Marion Darche 1.50 Love in Idleness 2.00 Via Crucis 1.50 In the Palace of the King 1.50 Ave Roma Immortalis $3.00 net Rulers of the South: Sicily, Calabria, Malta. 2 vols. $6.00 net. CORLEONE A TALE OF SICILY The last of the famous Saracinesca Series "It is by far the most stirring and dramatic of all the author's Italian stories.... 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His insight into a phase of politics with which he could hardly be expected to be familiar is remarkable."--_Buffalo Express._ TAQUISARA "A charming story this is, and one which will certainly be liked by all admirers of Mr. Crawford's work."--_New York Herald._ ADAM JOHNSTONE'S SON and A ROSE OF YESTERDAY "It is not only one of the most enjoyable novels that Mr. Crawford has ever written, but is a novel that will make people think."--_Boston Beacon._ "Don't miss reading Marion Crawford's new novel, 'A Rose of Yesterday.' It is brief, but beautiful and strong. It is as charming a piece of pure idealism as ever came from Mr. Crawford's pen."--_Chicago Tribune._ SARACINESCA "The work has two distinct merits, either of which would serve to make it great: that of telling a perfect story in a perfect way, and of giving a graphic picture of Roman society.... The story is exquisitely told, and is the author's highest achievement, as yet, in the realm of fiction."--_The Boston Traveler._ SANT' ILARIO A SEQUEL TO SARACINESCA "A singularly powerful and beautiful story.... It fulfils every requirement of artistic fiction. It brings out what is most impressive in human action, without owing any of its effectiveness to sensationalism or artifice. It is natural, fluent in evolution, accordant with experience, graphic in description, penetrating in analysis, and absorbing in interest."--_The New York Tribune._ DON ORSINO A SEQUEL TO SARACINESCA AND SANT' ILARIO "Offers exceptional enjoyment in many ways, in the fascinating absorption of good fiction, in the interest of faithful historic accuracy, and in charm of style. The 'New Italy' is strikingly revealed in 'Don Orsino.'"--_Boston Budget._ WITH THE IMMORTALS "The strange central idea of the story could have occurred only to a writer whose mind was very sensitive to the current of modern thought and progress, while its execution, the setting it forth in proper literary clothing, could be successfully attempted only by one whose active literary ability should be fully equalled by his power of assimilative knowledge both literary and scientific, and no less by his courage, and so have a fascination entirely new for the habitual reader of novels. Indeed, Mr. Crawford has succeeded in taking his readers quite above the ordinary plane of novel interest."--_The Boston Advertiser._ GREIFENSTEIN "...Another notable contribution to the literature of the day. Like all Mr. Crawford's work, this novel is crisp, clear, and vigorous, and will be read with a great deal of interest."--_New York Evening Telegram._ A CIGARETTE-MAKER'S ROMANCE and KHALED "It is a touching romance, filled with scenes of great dramatic power."--_Boston Commercial Bulletin._ "It abounds in stirring incidents and barbaric picturesqueness; and the love struggle of the unloved Khaled is manly in its simplicity and noble in its ending."--_The Mail and Express._ THE WITCH OF PRAGUE "The artistic skill with which this extraordinary story is constructed and carried out is admirable and delightful.... Mr. Crawford has scored a decided triumph, for the interest of the tale is sustained throughout.... A very remarkable, powerful, and interesting story."--_New York Tribune._ TO LEEWARD "It is an admirable tale of Italian life told in a spirited way and far better than most of the fiction current."--_San Francisco Chronicle._ ZOROASTER "As a matter of literary art solely, we doubt if Mr. Crawford has ever before given us better work than the description of Belshazzar's feast with which the story begins, or the death-scene with which it closes."--_The Christian Union_ (now _The Outlook_). A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH "It is a pleasure to have anything so perfect of its kind as this brief and vivid story. It is doubly a success, being full of human sympathy, as well as thoroughly artistic."--_The Critic._ MARZIO'S CRUCIFIX "We take the liberty of saying that this work belongs to the highest department of character-painting in words."--_The Churchman._ PAUL PATOFF "It need scarcely be said that the story is skilfully and picturesquely written, portraying sharply individual characters in well-defined surroundings."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ PIETRO GHISLERI "The strength of the story lies not only in the artistic and highly dramatic working out of the plot, but also in the penetrating analysis and understanding of the impulsive and passionate Italian character."--_Public Opinion._ THE CHILDREN OF THE KING "One of the most artistic and exquisitely finished pieces of work that Crawford has produced. The picturesque setting, Calabria and its surroundings, the beautiful Sorrento and the Gulf of Salerno, with the bewitching accessories that climate, sea, and sky afford, give Mr. Crawford rich opportunities to show his rare descriptive powers. As a whole the book is strong and beautiful through its simplicity."--_Public Opinion._ MARION DARCHE "We are disposed to rank 'Marion Darche' as the best of Mr. Crawford's American stories."--_The Literary World._ KATHERINE LAUDERDALE "It need scarcely be said that the story is skilfully and picturesquely written, portraying sharply individual characters in well-defined surroundings."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ THE RALSTONS "The whole group of character studies is strong and vivid."--_The Literary World._ LOVE IN IDLENESS "The story is told in the author's lightest vein; it is bright and entertaining."--_The Literary World._ CASA BRACCIO "We are grateful when Mr. Crawford keeps to his Italy. The poetry and enchantment of the land are all his own, and 'Casa Braccio' gives promise of being his masterpiece.... He has the life, the beauty, the heart, and the soul of Italy at the tips of his fingers."--_Los Angeles Express._ THE THREE FATES "The strength of the story lies in portrayal of the aspirations, disciplinary efforts, trials, and triumphs of the man who is a born writer, and who by long and painful experiences learns the good that is in him and the way in which to give it effectual expression. Taken for all in all it is one of the most pleasing of all his productions in fiction, and it affords a view of certain phases of American, or perhaps we should say of New York, life that have not hitherto been treated with anything like the same adequacy and felicity."--_Boston Beacon._ AVE ROMA IMMORTALIS STUDIES FROM THE CHRONICLES OF ROME In two Volumes. Fully Illustrated with Photogravures and Drawings in the Text. Cloth. Crown 8vo. $6.00 net "I have not for a long while read a book which pleased me more than Mr. Crawford's 'Roma.' It is cast in a form so original and so available that it must surely take the place of all other books about Rome which are needed to help one to understand its story and its archæology.... The book has for me a rare interest."--DR. S. WEIR MITCHELL THE RULERS OF THE SOUTH SICILY, CALABRIA, AND MALTA In two Volumes. Fully Illustrated with Photogravures and Drawings in the Text. Cloth. Crown 8vo. $6.00 net The author has gathered the threads of history and legend which have wound themselves around the three kingdoms of Sicily, Calabria, and Malta. Their history is of a long line of illustrious deeds, full of stirring interest. The illustrations are of unusual beauty, and have been reproduced in both photogravure and half-tone. VIA CRUCIS A ROMANCE OF THE SECOND CRUSADE "Throughout 'Via Crucis' the author shows not only the artist's selective power and a sense of proportion and comparative values, but the Christian's instinct for those things that it is well to think upon.... Blessed is the book that exalts, and 'Via Crucis' merits that beatitude."--_New York Times._ IN THE PALACE OF THE KING A LOVE STORY OF OLD MADRID "Marion Crawford's latest story, 'In the Palace of the King,' is quite up to the level of his best works for cleverness, grace of style, and sustained interest. It is, besides, to some extent a historical story, the scene being the royal palace at Madrid, the author drawing the characters of Philip II. and Don John of Austria, with an attempt, in a broad impressionist way, at historic faithfulness. His reproduction of the life at the Spanish court is as brilliant and picturesque as any of his Italian scenes, and in minute study of detail is, in a real and valuable sense, true history."--_The Advance._ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
31723	----	CECILIA A Story of Modern Rome BY F. MARION CRAWFORD AUTHOR OF "SARACINESCA," "MARIETTA," "AVE ROMA IMMORTALIS," ETC. New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1902 All rights reserved Copyright, 1902, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped October, 1902. Sixteenth Thousand * NORWOOD PRESS * J. S. CUSHING & CO. - BERWICK & SMITH * NORWOOD MASS. U.S.A. * CECILIA A STORY OF MODERN ROME CHAPTER I Two men were sitting side by side on a stone bench in the forgotten garden of the Arcadian Society, in Rome; and it was in early spring, not long ago. Few people, Romans or strangers, ever find their way to that lonely and beautiful spot beyond the Tiber, niched in a hollow of the Janiculum below San Pietro in Montorio, where Beatrice Cenci sleeps. The Arcadians were men and women who loved poetry in an artificial time, took names of shepherds and shepherdesses, rhymed as best they could, met in pleasant places to recite their verses, and played that the world was young, and gentle, and sweet, and unpoisoned, just when it had declined to one of its recurring periods of vicious old age. The Society did not die with its times, and it still exists, less sprightly, less ready to mask in pastorals, but rhyming, meeting, and reciting verses now and then, in the old manner, though rarely in the old haunts. Even now fresh inscriptions in honour of the Arcadians are set into the stuccoed walls of the little terraced garden under the hill. It is very peaceful there. Above, the concave wall of the small house of meeting looks down upon circular tiers of brick seats, and beyond these there are bushes and a little fountain. To the right and left, symmetrical walks lead down in two wide curves to the lower levels, where the water falls again into a basin in a shaded grotto, and rises the third time in another fountain. An ancient stone-pine tree springs straight upwards, spreading out lovely branches. There are bushes again and a magnolia, and a Japanese medlar, and there is moss. The stone mouldings of the fountains are rich with the green tints of time. The air is softly damp, smelling of leaves and flowers; there are corners into which the sunlight never shines, little mysteries of perpetual shade that are full of sadness in winter, but in summer repeat the fanciful confidences of a delicious and imaginary past. The Sister who had let in the two visitors had left them to themselves, and had gone back to the little convent door; for she was the portress, and therefore a small judge of character in her way, and she understood that the two gentlemen were not like the other half-dozen strangers who came every year to see the garden, and went away after ten minutes, dropping half a franc into her hand for the Sisters, and not even lifting their hats to her as she let them out. These two evidently knew the place; they spoke to each other as intimate friends do; they had come to enjoy the peace and silence for an hour, and they would neither carry off the flowers from the magnolia tree, as some did, nor scrawl their names in pencil on the stucco. Therefore they might safely be left to their own leisure and will. The men were friends, as the portress had guessed; they were very unlike, and their unlikeness was in part the reason of their friendship. The one was squarely built, of average height, a man of action at every point, with bold blue eyes that could be piercing, a rugged Roman head, prominent at the brows, short reddish hair and pointed beard, great jaw and cheek-bones, a tanned and freckled skin. He sat leaning back, one leg crossed over the other, the knee that was upper-most pressing against the stout stick he held across it, and the big veins swelled on his hands and wrists. He was a sailor, and a born fighting man; and in ten years of service he had managed to find himself in every affair that had concerned Italy in the remotest degree, in Africa, in China, and elsewhere. He was now at home on leave, expecting immediate promotion. He bore a historical name; he was called Lamberto Lamberti. His companion sat with folded arms and bent head, a rather dark young man with deep-set grey eyes that often looked black, a thoughtful face, a grave mouth that could smile suddenly and almost strangely, with a child's sweet frankness, and yet with a look that was tender and human--the smile of a man who understands the meaning of life and yet does not despise it. Most people would have taken him for a man of leisure, probably given to reading or the cultivation of some artistic taste. Guido d'Este was one of those Italians who are content to survive from a very beautiful past without joining the frantic rush for a very problematic future. But there was more in him than a love of books and a knowledge of pictures; for he was a dreamer, and there are dreams better worth dreaming than many deeds are worth the doing. "I sometimes wonder what would have happened to you and me," he said, after there had been a long pause, "if we had been obliged to live each other's lives." "We should both have been bored to extinction," answered Lamberti, without hesitating. "I suppose so," assented Guido, and relapsed into silence. He was very glad that he was not condemned to the life of a naval officer, to the perpetual motion of active service, to the narrow quarters of a lieutenant on a modern man-of-war, to the daily companionship of a dozen or eighteen other officers with whom he could certainly not have an idea in common. It would be a detestable thing to be sent at a moment's notice from one end of the world to the other, from heat to cold, from cold to heat, through all sorts of weather, only to be a part of an organisation, a wheel in a machine, a pawn in some one's game of chess. He had been on board a line-of-battle ship once to see his friend off, and had mentally noted the discomfort. There was nothing in the cabin but a bunk built over a chest of drawers, a narrow transom, a wash-stand that disappeared into a recess when pushed back, an exiguous table fastened to a bulkhead, and one camp-stool. There was no particular means of ventilation, and the place smelt of cold iron, paint, and soft soap. Yet his friend had been about to live at least six months in this cell, which would have been condemned as too narrow in an ordinarily well-managed prison. Nevertheless, it would be pleasant in itself, no doubt, to be a living part of what most men only read about, to really know what fighting meant, to be one of the few who are invariably chosen first for missions of danger and difficulty. Besides, Guido d'Este was just now in a very difficult situation, which might become dangerous, and from which he saw no immediate means of escape; and, for once in his life, he almost envied his friend his simple career, in which nothing seemed to be required of a man but courage and obedience. "I suppose I should be bored," he said again, after a short and thoughtful pause, "but I would rather be bored than live the life I am living." The sailor looked at him sharply a moment, and instantly understood that Guido had brought him to the little garden in order to tell him something of importance without risk of interruption. "Have you had more trouble with that horrible old woman?" he asked roughly. "Yes. She is draining the life out of me. She will ruin me in the end." Guido did not look up as he spoke, and he slowly tapped the hard earth with the toe of his shoe. He felt very helpless, and he shook his head over his misfortunes, which seemed great. "That comes of being connected with royalty," said Lamberti, in the same rough tone. "Is it my fault?" asked Guido, with a melancholy smile. The sailor snorted discontentedly, and changed his position. "What can I do?" he asked presently. "Tell me." "Nothing." "If I were only rich!" "My dear friend," said Guido, "she demands a million of francs!" "There are men who have fifty. Would a hundred thousand francs be of any use?" "Not the least. Besides, that is all you have." "What would that matter?" asked Lamberti. Guido looked up at last, for he knew that the words were true and earnest. "Thank you," he answered. "I know you would do that for me. But it would not be of any use. Things have gone too far." "Shall I go to her and talk the matter over? I believe I could frighten her into justice. After all, she has no legal claim upon you." Guido shook his head. "That is not the question," he answered. "She never pretends that her right is legal, for it is not. On the contrary, she says it is a question of honour, that I have lost her money for her in speculations, and that I am bound to restore it to her. It is true that I only did with it exactly what she wished, and what she insisted that I should do, against my own judgment. She knows that." "But then, I do not see----" "She also knows that I cannot prove it," interrupted Guido, "and as she is perfectly unscrupulous, she will use everything against me to make out that I have deliberately cheated her out of the money." "But it cannot make so much difference to her, after all," objected Lamberti. "She must have an immense fortune somewhere." "She is a miser, in spite of that sudden attack of the gaming fever. Money is the only passion of her life." "Possibly, though I doubt it. There is Monsieur Leroy, you know." Lamberti spoke the name with contempt, but Guido said nothing, for, after all, the high and mighty lady about whom they were talking was his father's sister, and he preferred not to talk scandal about her, even with his intimate friend. "If matters grow worse," said Lamberti, "there are at least the worthless securities in her name, to prove that you acted for her." "You are mistaken. That is the worst of it. Everything was done in my name, for she would not let her own appear. She used to give me the money in cash, telling me exactly what to do with it, and I brought her the broker's accounts." "I daresay she made you sign receipts for the sums she gave you," laughed Lamberti. "Yes, she did." Lamberti sat up suddenly and stared at his friend. Such folly was hardly to be believed. "She is capable of saying that she lent you the money on your promise!" he cried. "That is exactly what she threatens to do," answered Guido d'Este, dejectedly. "As I cannot possibly pay it, she can force me to do one of two things." "What things?" "Either to disappear from honourable society and begin life somewhere else, or else to make an end of myself. And she will do it. I have felt for more than a year that she means to ruin me." Lamberti set his teeth, and stared at the stone-pine. If Guido had not been just the man he was, sensitive to morbidness where his honour was concerned, the situation might have seemed less desperate. If his aunt, her Serene Highness the Princess Anatolie, had not been a monster of avarice, selfishness, and vindictiveness, there would perhaps have been some hope of moving her. As it was, matters looked ill, and to make them worse there was the well-known fact that Guido had formerly played high and had lost considerable sums at cards. It would be easy to make society believe that he had paid his debts, which had always been promptly settled, with money which the Princess had intrusted to him for investment. "What possible object can she have in ruining you?" asked Lamberti, presently. "I cannot guess," Guido answered after another short pause. "I have little enough left as it is, except the bare chance of inheriting something, some day, from my brother, who likes me about as much as my aunt does, and is not bound to leave me a penny." "But, after all," argued Lamberti, "you are the only heir left to either of them." "I suppose so," assented Guido in an uncertain tone. "What do you mean?" "Nothing--it does not matter. Of course," he continued quietly, "this may go on for some time, but it can only end in one way, sooner or later. I shall be lucky if I am only reduced to starvation." "You might marry an heiress," suggested Lamberti, as a last resource. "And pay my aunt out of my wife's fortune? No. I will not do that." "Of course not. But I should think that if ever an honest man could be tempted to do such a thing, it would be in some such case as yours." "Perhaps to save his father from ruin, or his mother from starvation," said Guido. "I could understand it then; but not to save himself. Besides, no heiress in our world would marry me, for I have nothing to offer." Lamberti smiled incredulously. He was not a cynic, because he believed in action; but his faith in the disinterested simplicity of mankind was not strong. He had also some experience of the world, and was quite ready to admit that a marriageable heiress might fairly expect an equivalent for the fortune she was to bring her husband. Yet he wholly rejected the statement that Guido d'Este had nothing of social value to offer, merely because he was now a poor man and had never been a very rich one. Guido had neither lands nor money, and bore no title, it was true; and could but just live like a gentleman on the small allowance that was paid him yearly according to his father's will. But there was no secret about his birth, and he was closely related to several of the reigning houses of Europe. His father had been one of the minor sovereigns dethroned in the revolutions of the nineteenth century; late in life, a widower, the ex-king had married a beautiful young girl of no great family, who had died in giving birth to Guido. The marriage had of course been morganatic, though perfectly legal, and Guido neither bore the name of his father's royal race, nor could he ever lay claim to the succession, in the utterly improbable event of a restoration. But he was half brother to the childless man, nearly forty years older than himself, whose faithful friends still called him "your Majesty" in private; he was nephew to the extremely authentic Princess Anatolie, and he was first cousin to at least one king who had held his own. In the eyes of an heiress in search of social position as an equivalent for her millions, all this would more than compensate for the fact that his visiting card bore the somewhat romantic and unlikely name, "Guido d'Este," without any title or explanation whatever. But apart from the sordid consideration of values to be given and received, Guido was young, good-looking if not handsome, and rather better gifted than most men; he had reached the age of twenty-seven without having what society is pleased to call a past--in other words without ever having been the chief actor in a social tragedy, comedy, or farce; and finally, though he had once been fond of cards, he had now entirely given up play. If he had been a little richer, he could almost have passed for a model young man in the eyes of the exacting and prudent parent of marriageable daughters. Judging from the Princess Anatolie, it was probable that he resembled his mother's family more than his father's. For all these reasons his friend thought that, if he chose, he might easily find an heiress who would marry him with enthusiasm; but, being his friend, Lamberti was very glad that he rejected the idea. The two were not men who ever talked together of their principles, though they sometimes spoke of their beliefs and differed about them. Belief is usually absolute, but principle is always a matter of conscience, and the conscience is a part of the mixed self in which soul and mind and matter are all involved together. Men born in the same surroundings and brought up in the same way generally hold to the same principles as guides in life, and show the same abhorrence for the sins that are accounted dishonourable, and the same indulgence for those not condemned by the code of honour, not even admitting discussion upon such points. But the same men may have very different opinions about spiritual matters. Eliminating the vulgar average of society, there remain always a certain number who, while possibly holding even more divergent beliefs than most people, agree more precisely, or disagree more essentially, about matters of conscience, either stretching or contracting the code of honour according to their own temper, and especially according to the traditions of their own most immediate surroundings. Other conditions being favourable, it seems as if men whose consciences are most alike should be the best fitted for each other's friendship, no matter what they may think or believe about religion. This was certainly the case with Guido d'Este and Lamberto Lamberti, and they simultaneously dismissed, as detestable, dishonourable, and unworthy, the mere thought that Guido should try to marry an heiress, with a view to satisfying the outrageous claims of his ex-royal aunt, the Princess Anatolie. "In simpler times," observed Lamberti, who liked to recall the middle ages, "we should have poisoned the old woman." Guido did not smile. "Without meaning to do her an injustice," he answered, "I think it much more probable that she would have poisoned me." "With the help of Monsieur Leroy, she might have succeeded." At the thought of the man whom he so cordially detested, Lamberti's blue eyes grew hard, and his upper lip tightened a little, just showing his teeth under his red moustache. Guido looked at him and smiled in his turn. "There are your ferocious instincts again," he said; "you wish you could kill him." "I do," answered Lamberti, simply. He rose from his seat and stretched himself a little, as some big dogs always do after the preliminary growl at an approaching enemy. "I think Monsieur Leroy is the most repulsive human being I ever saw," he said. "I am not exactly a sensitive person, but it makes me very uncomfortable to be near him. He once gave me his hand, and I had to take it. It felt like a live toad. How old is that man?" "He must be forty," said Guido, "but he is wonderfully well preserved. Any one would take him for five-and-thirty." "It is disgusting!" Lamberti kicked a pebble away, as he stood. "He looked just as he does now, when I was seventeen," observed Guido. "The creature paints his face. I am sure of it." "No. I have seen him drenched in a shower, when he had no umbrella. The rain ran down his cheeks, but the colour did not change." "It is all the more disgusting," retorted Lamberti, illogically, but with strong emphasis. Guido rose from his seat rather wearily. As he stood up, he was much taller than his friend, who had seemed the larger man while both were seated. "I am glad that we have talked this over," he said. "Not that talking can help matters, of course. It never does. But I wanted you to know just how things stand, in case anything should happen to me." Lamberti turned rather sharply. "In case what should happen to you?" he asked, his eyes hardening. "I am very tired of it all," Guido answered, "I have nothing to live for, and I am being driven straight to disgrace and ruin without any fault of my own. I daresay that some day I may--well, you know what I mean." "What?" "I should not care to exile myself to South America. I am not fit for that sort of life." "Well?" "There is the other alternative," said Guido, with a tuneless little laugh. "When life is intolerable, what can be simpler than to part with it?" Lamberti's strong hand was already on his friend's arm, and tightened energetically. "Do you believe in God?" he asked abruptly. "No. At least, I think not." "I do," said Lamberti, with conviction, "and I shall not let you make away with yourself if I can help it." He loosed his hold, thrust his hands into his pockets, and looked as if he wished he could fight somebody or something. "A man who kills himself to escape his troubles is a coward," he said. Guido made a gesture of indifference. "You know very well that I am not a coward," he said. "You will be, the day you are afraid to go on living," returned his friend. "If you kill yourself, I shall think you are an arrant coward, and I shall be sorry I ever knew you." Guido looked at him incredulously. "Are you in earnest?" he asked. "Yes." There was no mistaking the look in Lamberti's hard blue eyes. Guido faced him. "Do you think that every man who commits suicide is a coward?" "If it is to escape his own troubles, yes. A man who gives his life for his country, his mother, or his wife, is not a coward, though he may kill himself with his own hand." "The Church would call him a suicide." "I do not know, in all cases," said Lamberti. "I am not a theologian, and as the Church means nothing to you, it would be of no use if I were." "Why do you say that the Church means nothing to me?" Guido asked. "Since you are an atheist, what meaning can it possibly have?" "It means the whole tradition of morality by which we live, and our fathers lived. Even the code of honour, which is a little out of shape nowadays, is based on Christianity, and was once the rule of a good life, the best rule in the days when it grew up." "I daresay. Even the code of honour, degenerate as it is, and twist it how you will, cannot give you an excuse for killing yourself when you have always behaved honourably, or for running away from the enemy simply because you are tired of fighting and will not take the trouble to go on." "Perhaps you are right," Guido answered. "But the whole question is not worth arguing. What is life, after all, that we should attach any importance to it?" "It is all you have, and you only have it once." "Who knows? Perhaps we may come back to it again, hundreds and hundreds of times. There are more people in the world who believe that than there are Christians." "If that is what you believe," retorted Lamberti, "you must believe that the sooner you leave life, the sooner you will come back to it." "Possibly. But there is a chance that it may not be true, and that everything may end here. That one chance may be worth taking." "There is a chance that a man who deserts from his ship may not be caught. That is not an argument in favour of desertion." Guido laughed carelessly. "You have a most unpleasant way of naming things," he said. "Shall we go? It is growing late, and I have promised to see my aunt before dinner." "Will there be any one else there?" asked Lamberti. "Why? Did you think of going with me?" "I might. It is a long time since I have called. I think I shall be a little more assiduous in future." "It is not gay, at my aunt's," observed Guido. "Monsieur Leroy will be there. You may have to shake hands with him!" "You do not seem anxious that I should go with you," laughed Lamberti. Guido said nothing for a moment, and seemed to be weighing the question, as if it might be of some importance. Lamberti afterwards remembered the slight hesitation. "By all means come," Guido said, when he had made up his mind. He glanced once more at the place, for he liked it, and it was pleasant to carry away pictures of what one liked, even of a bit of neglected old garden with a stone-pine in the middle, clearly cut out against the sky. He wondered idly whether he should ever come again--whether, after all, it would be cowardly to go to sleep with the certainty of not waking, and whether he should find anything beyond, or not. The world looked too familiar to him to be interesting, as if he had known it too long, and he vaguely wished that he could change it, and desire to stay in it for its own sake; and just then it occurred to him that every man carries with him the world in which he must live, the stage and the scenery for his own play. It would be absurd to pretend, he thought, that his own material world was the same as Lamberti's, even when the latter was at home. They knew the same people, heard the same talk, ate the same things, looked on the same sights, breathed the same air. There was perhaps no sacrifice worthy of honourable men which either of them would not make for the other. Yet, to Guido d'Este, life seemed miserably indifferent where it did not seem a real calamity, while to Lamberti every second of it was worth fighting for, because it was worth enjoying. Guido looked at his friend's tanned neck and sturdy shoulders, following him to the door, and he realised more clearly than ever before that he was not of the same race. He felt the satiety bred in many generations of destiny's spoilt and flattered sons; the absence of anything like a grasping will, caused by the too easy fulfilment of every careless wish; the over-critical sense that guesses at hidden imperfection, the cruelly unerring instinct of a taste too tired to enjoy and yet too fine to be deceived. Lamberti turned at the door and saw his face. "What are you thinking about?" "I was envying you," Guido murmured. "You are glad to be alive." Lamberti made rather an impatient gesture, but said nothing. The Sister who had admitted the two opened the little iron door for them to go out. She was a small woman, with a worn face and kind brown eyes, one of the half-dozen who live in the little convent and work among the children of the very poor in that quarter. Both men had taken out money. "For the poor children, if you please," said Guido, placing his offering in the nun's hand. "And tell them to pray for a man who is in trouble," added Lamberti, giving her money. She looked at him curiously, thinking, perhaps, that he meant himself. Then she gravely bent her head. "I thank you very much," she said. The small iron door closed with a rusty clang, and the friends began to descend the steep way that leads down from the Porta San Pancrazio to the Via Garibaldi. "Why did you say that to the nun?" asked Guido. "Are you past praying for?" enquired Lamberti, with a careless and good-natured laugh. "It is not like you," said Guido. "I do not pretend to be more consistent than other people, you know. Are you going directly to the Princess's?" "No. I must go home first. The old lady would never forgive me if I went to see her without a silk hat in my hand." "Then I suppose I must dress, too," said Lamberti. "I will leave you at your door, and drive home, and we can meet at your aunt's." "Very well." They walked down the street and found a cab, scarcely speaking again until they parted at Guido's door. He lived alone in a quiet apartment of the Palazzo Farnese, overlooking the Via Giulia and the river beyond. The afternoon sun was still streaming through the open windows of his sitting room, and the warm breeze came with it. "There are two notes, sir," said his servant, who had followed him. "The one from the Princess is urgent. The man wished to wait for you, but I sent him away." "That was right," said Guido, taking the letters from the salver. "Get my things ready. I have visits to make." The man went out and shut the door. He was a Venetian, and had been in the navy, where he had served Lamberti during the affair in China. Lamberti had recommended him to his friend. Guido remained standing while he opened the note. The first was an engraved invitation to a garden party from a lady he scarcely knew. It was the first he had ever received from her, and he was not aware that she ever asked people to her house. The second was from his aunt, begging him to come to tea that afternoon as he had promised, for a very particular reason, and asking him to let her know beforehand if anything made it impossible. It began with "Dearest Guido" and was signed "Your devoted aunt, Anatolie." She was evidently very anxious that he should come, for he was generally her "dear nephew," and she was his "affectionate aunt." The handwriting was fine and hard to read, though it was regular. Some of the letters were quite unlike those of most people, and many of them were what experts call "blind." Guido d'Este read the note through twice, with an expression of dislike, and then tore it up. He threw the invitation upon some others that lay in a chiselled copper dish on his writing table, lit a cigarette, and looked out of the window. His aunt's note was too affectionate and too anxious to bode well, and he was tempted to write that he could not go. It would be pleasant to end the afternoon with a book and a cup of tea, and then to dine alone and dream away the evening in soothing silence. But he had promised to go; and, moreover, nothing was of any real importance at all, nothing whatsoever, from the moment of beginning life to the instant of leaving it. He therefore dressed and went out again. CHAPTER II Lamberto Lamberti never wasted time, whether he was at sea, doing his daily duty as an officer, or ashore in Africa, fighting savages, or on leave, amusing himself in Rome, or Paris, or London. Time was life, and life was far too good to be squandered in dawdling. In ten minutes after he had reached his room he was ready to go out again. As he took his hat and gloves, his eye fell on a note which he had not seen when he had come in. He opened it carelessly and found the same formal invitation which Guido had received at the same time. The Countess Fortiguerra requested the pleasure of his company at the Villa Palladio between four and six, and the date was just a fortnight ahead. Lamberti was a Roman, and though he had only seen the Countess three or four times in his life, he remembered very well that she had been twice married, and that her first husband had been a certain Count Palladio, whose name was vaguely connected in Lamberti's mind with South American railways, the Suez Canal, and a machine gun that had been tried in the Italian navy; but it was not a Roman name, and he could not remember any villa that was called by it. Palladio--it recalled something else, besides a great architect--something connected with Pallas--but Lamberti was no great scholar. Guido would know. Guido knew everything about literature, ancient and modern--or at least Lamberti thought so. He had kept his cab while he dressed, and in a few minutes the little horse had toiled up the long hill that leads to Porta Pinciana, and Lamberti got out at the gate of one of those beautiful villas of which there are still a few within the walls of Rome. It belonged to a foreigner of infinite taste, whose love of roses was proverbial. A legend says that some of them were watered with the most carefully prepared beef tea from the princely kitchen. The rich man had gone back to his own country, and the Princess Anatolie had taken the villa and meant to spend the rest of her life there. She was only seventy years old, and had made up her mind to live to be a hundred, so that it was worth while to make permanent arrangements for her comfort. Lamberti might have driven through the gate and up to the house, but he was not sure whether the Princess liked to see such plebeian vehicles as cabs in her grounds. He had a strong suspicion that, in spite of her royal blood, she had the soul of a snob, and thought much more about appearances than he did; and as for Monsieur Leroy, he was one of the most complete specimens of the snob species in the world. Therefore Lamberti, who now had reasons for wishing to propitiate the dwellers in the villa, left his cab outside and walked up the steep drive to the house. He did not look particularly well in a frock coat and high hat. He was too muscular, his hair was too red, his neck was too sunburnt, and he was more accustomed to wearing a uniform or the rough clothes in which fighting is usually done. The footman looked at him and did not recognise him. "Her Highness is not at home," said the man, coolly. A private carriage was waiting at a little distance from the porch, and the footman who belonged to it was lounging in the vestibule within. "Be good enough to ask whether her Highness will see me," said Lamberti. The fellow looked at him again, and evidently made up his mind that it would be safer to obey a red-haired gentleman who had such a very unusual look in his eyes and spoke so quietly, for he disappeared without making any further objection. When Lamberti entered the drawing-room, he was aware that the Princess was established in a high arm-chair near a tea-table, that Monsieur Leroy was coming towards him, and that an elderly lady in a hat was seated near the Princess in an attitude which may be described as one of respectful importance. He was aware of the presence of these three persons in the room, but he only saw the fourth, a young girl, standing beside the table with a cup in her hand, and just turning her face towards him with a look that was like a surprised recognition after not having seen him for a very long time. He started perceptibly as his eyes met hers, and he almost uttered an exclamation of astonishment. He was checked by feeling Monsieur Leroy's toad-like hand in his. "Her Highness is very glad to see you," said an oily voice in French, but with a thick and rolling pronunciation that was South American unless it was Roumanian. For once Lamberti did not notice the sensual, pink and white face, the hanging lips, the colourless brown hair, the insolent eyes, the effeminate figure and dress of the little man he detested, and whose mere touch was disgusting to him. By a strong effort he went directly up to the Princess without looking again at the young girl whose presence had affected him so oddly. Princess Anatolie was gracious enough to give him her hand to kiss; he bent over it, and his lips touched a few of the cold precious stones in the rings that loaded her fingers. She had not changed in the year that had passed since he had seen her, except that her eyes looked smaller than ever and nearer together. Her hair might or might not be her own, for it was carefully crimped and arranged upon her forehead; it was not certain that her excellent teeth were false; there was about her an air of youth and vitality that was really surprising, and yet it was impossible not to feel that she might be altogether a marvellous sham, on the verge of dissolution. "This is most charming!" she said, in a voice that was not cracked, but rang false. "I expect my nephew, Guido, at any moment. He is your great friend, is he not? Yes, I never forget anything. This is my nephew Guido's great friend," she continued volubly, and turning to the elderly lady on her right, "Prince Lamberti." "Don Lamberto Lamberti," said Monsieur Leroy in a low voice, correcting her. But even this was not quite right. "I have the good fortune to know the Countess Fortiguerra," said Lamberti, bowing, as he suddenly recognised her, but very much surprised that she should be there. "I have just received a very kind invitation from you," he added, as she gave him her hand. "I hope you will come," she said quietly. "I knew your mother very well. We were at the school of the Sacred Heart together." Lamberti bent his head a little, in acknowledgment of the claim upon him possessed by one of his mother's school friends. "I shall do my best to come," he answered. He felt that the young girl was watching him, and he ventured to look at her, with a little movement, as if he wished to be introduced. Again he felt the absolute certainty of having met her before, somewhere, very long ago--so long ago that she could not have been born then, and he must have been a small boy. Therefore what he felt was absurd. "Cecilia," said the Countess, speaking to the girl, "this is Signor Lamberto Lamberti." "My daughter," she explained, as he bowed, "Cecilia Palladio." "Most charming!" cried the Princess, "the son and the daughter of two old friends." "Touching," echoed Monsieur Leroy. "Such a picture! There is true sentiment in it." Lamberti did not hear, but Cecilia Palladio did, and a straight shadow, fine as a hair line, appeared for an instant, perpendicular between her brows, while she looked directly at the man before her. A moment later Lamberti was seated between her and her mother, and Monsieur Leroy had resumed the position he had left to welcome the newcomer, sitting on a very low cushioned stool almost at the Princess's feet. In formal circumstances, a man who has been long in the army or navy can usually trust himself not to show astonishment or emotion, and after the first slight start of surprise, which only Monsieur Leroy had seen, Lamberti had behaved as if nothing out of the common way had happened to him. But he had felt as if he were in a dream, while healthily sure that he was awake; and now that he was more at ease, he began to examine the cause of his inward disturbance. It was not only out of the question to suppose that he had ever before now met Cecilia Palladio, but he was quite certain that he had never seen any one who was at all like her. If extinct types of men could be revived now and then, of those which the world once thought admirable and tried to copy, it would be interesting to see how many persons of taste would acknowledge any beauty in them. Cecilia Palladio had been eighteen years old early in the winter, and in the usual course of things would have made her appearance in society during the carnival season. The garden party for which her mother had now sent out invitations was to take the place of the dance which should have been given in January. Afterwards, when it was over, and everybody had seen her, some people said that she was perfectly beautiful, others declared that she was a freak of nature and would soon be hideous, but, meanwhile, was an interesting study; one young gentleman, addicted to art, said that her face belonged to the type seen in the Elgin marbles; a Sicilian lady said that her head was even more archaic than that, and resembled a fragment from the temples of Selinunte, preserved in the museum at Palermo; and the Russian ambassador, who was of unknown age, said that she was the perfect Psyche of Naples, brought to life, and that he wished he were Eros. In southern Europe what is called the Greek type of beauty is often seen, and does not surprise any one. Many people think it cold and uninteresting. It was a small something in the arch of the brows, it was a very slight upward turn of the point of the nose, it was the small irregularity of the broader and less curving upper lip that gave to Cecilia Palladio's face the force and character that are so utterly wanting in the faces of the best Greek statues. The Greeks, by the time they had gained the perfect knowledge of the human body that produced the Hermes of Olympia, had made a conventional mask of the human face, and rarely ever tried to give it a little of the daring originality that stands out in the features of many a crudely archaic statue. The artist who made the Psyche attempted something of the kind, for the right side of the face differs from the left, as it generally does in living people. The right eyebrow is higher and more curved than the left one, which lends some archness to the expression, but its effect is destroyed by the tiresome perfection of the simpering mouth. Cecilia Palladio was not like a Greek statue, but she looked as if she had come alive from an age in which the individual ranked above the many as a model, and in which nothing accidentally unfit for life could survive and nothing degenerate had begun to be. With the same general proportion, there was less symmetry in her face than in those of modern beauties, and there was more light, more feeling, more understanding. She was very fair, but her eyes were not blue; it would have been hard to define their colour, and sometimes there seemed to be golden lights in them. While she was standing, Lamberti had seen that she was almost as tall as himself, and therefore taller than most women; and she was slender, and moved like a very perfectly proportioned young wild animal, continuously, but without haste, till each motion was completed in rest. Most men and women really move in a succession of very short movements, entirely interrupted at more or less perceptible intervals. If our sight were perfect we should see that people walk, for instance, by a series of jerks so rapid as to be like the vibrations of a humming-bird's wings. Perhaps this is due to the unconscious exercise of the human will in every voluntary motion, for a man who moves in his sleep seems to move continuously like an animal, till he has changed his position and rests again. Lamberti made none of these reflections, and did not analyse the face he could not help watching whenever the chance of conversation allowed him to look at Cecilia without seeming to stare at her. He only tried to discover why her face was so familiar to him. "We have been in Paris all winter," said her mother, in answer to some question of his. "They have been in Paris all winter!" cried the Princess. "Think what that means! The cold, the rain, the solitude! What in the world did you do with yourselves?" "Cecilia wished to continue her studies," answered the Countess Fortiguerra. "What sort of things have you been learning, Mademoiselle?" asked Lamberti. "I followed a course of lectures on philosophy at the Sorbonne, and I read Nietzsche with a man who had known him," answered the young lady, as naturally as if she had said that she had been taking lessons on the piano. A momentary silence followed, and everybody stared at the girl, except her mother, who smiled pleasantly and looked from one to the other with the expression which mothers of prodigies often assume, and which clearly says: "I did it. Is it not perfectly wonderful?" Then Monsieur Leroy laughed, in spite of himself. "Hush, Doudou!" cried the Princess. "You are very rude!" No one present chanced to know that she always called him Doudou when she was in a good humour. Cecilia Palladio turned her head quietly, fixed her eyes on him and laughed, deliberately, long, and very sweetly. Monsieur Leroy met her gaze for a moment, then looked away and moved uneasily on his low seat. "What are you laughing at?" he asked, in a tone of annoyance. "It seems so funny that you should be called Doudou--at your age," answered Cecilia. "Really--" Monsieur Leroy looked at the Princess as if asking for protection. She laughed good-humouredly, somewhat to Lamberti's surprise. "You are very direct with my friends, my dear," she said to Cecilia, still smiling. The Countess Fortiguerra, not knowing exactly what to do, also smiled, but rather foolishly. "I am very sorry," said Cecilia, with contrition, and looking down. "I really beg Monsieur Leroy's pardon. I could not help it." But she had been revenged, for she had made him ridiculous. "Not at all, not at all," he answered, in a tone that did not promise forgiveness. Lamberti wondered what sort of man Palladio had been, since the girl did not at all resemble her mother, who had clearly been pretty and foolish in her youth, and had only lost her looks as she grew older. The obliteration of middle age had set in. There might have been some awkwardness, but it was dispelled by the appearance of Guido, who came in unannounced at that moment, glancing quickly at each of the group as he came forward, to see who was there. "At last!" exclaimed the Princess, with evident satisfaction. "How late you are, my dear," she said as Guido ceremoniously kissed her hand. "I am very sorry," he said. "I was out when your note came. But I should have come in any case." "You know the Countess Fortiguerra, of course," said the Princess. "Certainly," answered Guido, who had not recognised the lady at all, and was glad to be told who she was, and that he knew her. Lamberti watched him closely, for he understood every shade of his friend's expression and manner. Guido shook hands with a pleasant smile, and then glanced at Cecilia. "My nephew, Guido d'Este," said the Princess, introducing him. Cecilia looked at him quietly, and bent her head in acknowledgment of the introduction. "My daughter," murmured the Countess Fortiguerra, with satisfaction. "Mademoiselle Palladio and her mother have just come back from Paris," explained Monsieur Leroy officiously, as Guido nodded to him. Guido caught the name, and was glad of the information it conveyed, and he sat down between the young girl and her mother. Lamberti was now almost sure that his friend was not especially struck by Cecilia's face; but she looked at him with some interest, which was not at all to be wondered at, considering his looks, his romantic name, and his half-royal birth. For the first time Lamberti envied him a little, and was ashamed of it. Barely an hour earlier he had wished that he could make Guido more like himself, and now he wished that he were more like Guido. "The Countess has been kind enough to ask me to her garden party," Guido said, looking at his aunt, for he instinctively connected the latter's anxiety to see him with the invitation. So did Lamberti, and it flashed upon him that this meeting was the first step in an attempt to marry his friend to Cecilia Palladio. The girl was probably an heiress, and Guido's aunt saw a possibility of recovering through her the money she had lost in speculations. This explanation did not occur to Guido, simply because he was bored and was already thinking of an excuse for getting away after staying as short a time as possible. "I hope you will come," said Cecilia, rather unexpectedly. "Of course he will," the Princess answered for him, in an encouraging tone. "The villa is really very pretty," continued the young girl. "Let me see," said Guido, who liked her voice as soon as she spoke, "the Villa Palladio--I do not quite remember where it is." "It used to be the Villa Madama," explained Monsieur Leroy. "I have always wondered who the 'Madama' was, after whom it was called. It seems such a foolish name." The Princess looked displeased, and bit her lip a little. "I think," said Guido, as if suggesting a possibility, rather than stating a fact, "that she was a daughter of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, who was Duchess of Parma." "Of course, of course!" cried Monsieur Leroy, eagerly assenting, "I had forgotten!" "My daughter's guardians bought it for her not long ago," explained the Countess Fortiguerra, "with my approval, and we have of course changed the name." "Naturally," said Guido, gravely, but looking at Lamberti, who almost smiled under his red beard. "And you approved of the change, Mademoiselle," Guido added, turning to Cecilia, and with an interrogation in his voice. "Not at all," she answered, with sudden coldness. "It was Goldbirn--" "Yes," said the Countess, weakly, "it was Baron Goldbirn who insisted upon it, in spite of us." "Goldbirn--Goldbirn," repeated the Princess vaguely. "The name has a familiar sound." "Your Highness has a current account with them in Vienna," observed Monsieur Leroy. "Yes, yes, certainly. Doudou acts as my secretary sometimes, you know." The information seemed necessary, as Monsieur Leroy's position had been far from clear. "Baron Goldbirn was associated with Cecilia's father in some railways in South America," said the Countess, "and is her principal guardian. He will always continue to manage her fortune for her, I hope." Clearly, Cecilia was an heiress, and was to marry Guido d'Este as soon as the matter could be arranged. That was the Princess's plan. Lamberti thought that it remained to be seen whether Guido would agree to the match. "Has Baron Goldbirn made many--improvements--in the Villa Madama?" enquired Guido, hesitating a little, perhaps intentionally. "Oh no!" Cecilia answered. "He lets me do as I please about such things." "And what has been your pleasure?" asked Guido, with a beginning of interest, as well as for the sake of hearing her young voice, which contrasted pleasantly with her mother's satisfied purring and the Princess's disagreeable tone. "I got the best artist I could find to restore the whole place as nearly as possible to what it was meant to be. I am satisfied with the result. So is my mother," she added, with an evident afterthought. "My daughter is very artistic," the Countess explained. Cecilia looked at Guido, and a faint smile illuminated her face for a moment. Guido bent his head almost imperceptibly, as if to say that he knew what she meant, and it seemed to Lamberti that the two already understood each other. He rose to go, moved by an impulse he could not resist. Guido looked at him in surprise, for he had expected his friend to wait for him. "Must you go already?" asked the Princess, in a colourless tone that did not invite Lamberti to stay. "But I suppose you are very busy when you are in Rome. Good-bye." As he took his leave, his eyes met Cecilia's. It might have been only his imagination, after all, but he felt sure that her whole expression changed instantly to a look of deep and sincere understanding, even of profound sympathy. "I hope you will come to the villa," she said gravely, and she seemed to wait for his answer. "Thank you. I shall be there." There was a short silence, as Monsieur Leroy went with him to the door at the other end of the long room, but Cecilia did not watch him; she seemed to be interested in a large portrait that hung opposite the nearest window, and which was suddenly lighted up by the glow of the sunset. It represented a young king, standing on a step, in coronation robes, with a vast ermine mantle spreading behind him and to one side, and an uncomfortable-looking crown on his head; a sceptre lay on a highly polished table at his elbow, beside an open arch, through which the domes and spires of a city were visible. There was no particular reason why he should be standing there, apparently alone, and in a distinctly theatrical attitude, and the portrait was not a good picture; but Cecilia looked at it steadily till she heard the door shut, after Lamberti had gone out. "Your friend is not a very gay person," observed the Princess. "Is he always so silent?" "Yes," Guido answered. "He is not very talkative." "Do you like silent people?" enquired Cecilia. "I like a woman who can talk, and a man who can hold his tongue," replied Guido readily. Cecilia looked at him and smiled carelessly. The Princess rose slowly, but she was so short, and her arm-chair was so high, that she seemed to walk away from it without being any taller than when she had been sitting, rather than really to get up. "Shall we go into the garden?" she suggested. "It is not too cold. Doudou, my cloak!" Monsieur Leroy brought a pretty confusion of mouse-coloured silk and lace, disentangled it skilfully, and held it up behind the Princess's shoulders. It looked like a big butterfly as he spread it in the air, and it had ribands that hung down to the floor. When she had put it on, the Princess led the way to a long window, which Leroy opened, and leaning lightly on the Countess Fortiguerra's arm, she went out into the evening light. She evidently meant to give the young people a chance of talking together by themselves, for as soon as they were outside she sent Monsieur Leroy away. "My dear Doudou!" she cried, as if suddenly remembering something, "we have quite forgotten those invitations for to-morrow! Should you mind writing them now, so that they can be sent before dinner?" Monsieur Leroy disappeared with an alacrity which suggested that the plan had been arranged beforehand. "Take Mademoiselle Palladio round the garden, Guido," said the Princess. "We will walk a little before the house till you come back. It is drier here." Guido must have been dull indeed if he had not at last understood why he had been made to come, and what was expected of him. He was annoyed, and raised his eyebrows a little. "Will you come, Mademoiselle?" he asked coldly. "Yes," answered Cecilia in a constrained tone, for she understood as well as Guido himself. Her mother was often afraid of her, and had not dared to tell her that the whole object of their visit was that she should see Guido and be seen by him. She thought that the Princess was really pushing matters too hastily, considering the time-honoured traditions of Latin etiquette, which forbid that young people should be left alone together for a moment, even when engaged to be married. But the Countess had great faith in the correctness of anything which such a very high-born person as the Princess Anatolie chose to suggest, and as the latter held her by the arm with affectionate condescension, she could not possibly run after her daughter. The two moved away in silence towards the flower garden, and soon disappeared round the corner of the house. "The roses are pretty," said Guido, apologetically. "My aunt likes people to see them." "They are magnificent," answered Cecilia, without enthusiasm, and after a suitable interval. They went on, along a narrow gravel path, and though there was really room enough for Guido to walk by her side, he pretended that there was not, and followed her. She was very graceful, and he would not have thought of denying it. He even looked at her as she went before him, and he noticed the fact; but after he had taken cognisance of it, he was quite as indifferent as before. He no longer thought her voice pleasant, in his resentment at finding that a trap had been laid for him. "You see, there are a good many kinds of roses," he observed, because it would have been rude to say nothing at all. "They are not all in flower yet." "It is only the beginning of May," the young girl answered, without interest. They came to the broader walk on the other side of the plot of roses, and Guido had to walk by her side again. "I like your friend," she said suddenly. "I am very glad," Guido replied, unbending at once and quietly looking at her now. "People do not always like him at first sight." "No, I understand that. He has the look in his eyes that men get who have killed." "Has he?" Guido seemed surprised. "Yes, he killed several men in Africa, when he was alone against many, and they meant to murder him. He is brave. Make him tell you about it, if you can induce him to talk." "Is that so very hard?" Cecilia laughed. "Is he really more silent than you?" "Nobody ever called me silent," answered Guido, smiling. "I suppose you thought so--stopped. "Because I did not know how to begin, and because you would not. Is that what you were going to say?" "It is very near the truth," Guido admitted, very much amused. "I do not blame you," said Cecilia. "How could you suppose that a mere girl like me could possibly have anything to say--a child that has not even been to her first party?" "Perhaps I was afraid that the mere child might talk about philosophy and Nietzsche," suggested Guido. "And that would be dreadful, of course! Why? Is there any reason why a girl should not study such things? If there is, tell me. No one ever tells me what I ought to do." "It is quite unnecessary, I have no doubt," Guido answered promptly, and smiling again. "You mean quite useless, because I should not do it?" "Why should I be supposed to know that you are spoiled--if you are? Besides, you must not take up a man every time he makes you a silly compliment." "Ah, now you are telling me what I ought to do! I like that better. Thank you!" Guido was amused. "Are you really grateful?" he asked, laughing a little. "Do you always speak the truth?" "Yes! Do you?" She asked the question sharply, as if she meant to surprise him. "I never lied to a man in my life," Guido answered. "But you have to women?" "I suppose so," said Guido, considerably diverted. "Most of us do, in moments of enthusiasm." "Really! And--are you often--enthusiastic?" "No. Very rarely. Besides, I do not know whether it is worse in a man to tell fibs to please a woman, than it is in a woman to disbelieve what an honest man tells her on his word. Which is the least wrong, do you think?" "But since you admit that most men do not tell the truth to women----" "I said, on one's word of honour. There is a difference." "In theory," said Cecilia. "Are there theories about lying?" asked Guido. "Oh yes," answered the young girl, without hesitation. "There is Puffendorf's, for instance, in his book on the Law of Nature and Nations----" "Good heavens!" exclaimed Guido. "Certainly. He makes out that there is a sort of unwritten agreement amongst all men that words shall be used in a definite sense which others can understand. That sounds sensible. And then, Saint Augustin, and La Placette, and Noodt----" "My dear young lady, you have led me quite out of my depth! What do those good people say?" "That all lying is absolutely wrong in itself, whether it harms anybody or not." "And what do you think about it? That would be much more interesting to know." "I told you, I always tell the truth," Cecilia answered demurely. "Oh yes, of course! I had forgotten." "And you do not believe it," laughed the young girl. "It is time to go back to the house." "If you will stay a little longer, I will believe everything you tell me." "No, it is late," answered Cecilia, her manner suddenly changing as the laugh died out of her voice. She walked on quickly, and he kept behind her. "I shall certainly go to your garden party," said Guido. "Shall you?" She spoke in a tone of such utter indifference that Guido stared at her in surprise. A moment later they had rejoined her mother and the Princess. CHAPTER III At the beginning of the twentieth century Rome has become even more cosmopolitan than it used to be, for the Romans themselves are turning into cosmopolitans, and the old traditional, serious, gloomy, and sometimes dramatic life of the patriarchal system has almost died out. One meets Romans of historical names everywhere, nowadays, in London, in Paris, and in Vienna, speaking English and French, and sometimes German, with extraordinary correctness, as much at home, to all appearance, in other capitals as they are in their own, and intimately familiar with the ways of many societies in many places. Cecilia Palladio, at eighteen years of age, had probably not spent a third of her life in Rome, and had been educated in different parts of the world and in a variety of ways. Her father, Count Palladio, as has been explained, had been engaged in promoting a number of undertakings, of which several had succeeded, and at his death, which had happened when Cecilia had been eight years old, he had left her part of his considerable fortune in safe guardianship, leaving his wife a life interest in the remainder. His old ally, the banker Solomon Goldbirn of Vienna, had administered the whole inheritance with wisdom and integrity, and at her marriage Cecilia would dispose of several millions of francs, and would ultimately inherit as much more from her mother's share. From a European point of view, she was therefore a notable heiress, and even in the new world of millionnaires she would at least have been considered tolerably well off, though by no means what is there called rich. Two years after Palladio's death her mother had married Count Fortiguerra, who had begun life in the army, then passed to diplomacy, had risen rapidly to the post of ambassador, and had died suddenly at Madrid when barely fifty years old, and when Cecilia was sixteen. The girl had a clear recollection of her own father, though she had never been with him very much, as his occupations constantly took him to distant parts of the world. He had seemed an old man to her, and had indeed been much older than her mother, for he had been a patriot in the later days of the Italian revolutions, and when still young he had been with Garibaldi in 1860. Cecilia remembered him a tall, active, grey-haired man with a pointed beard and big moustaches, and eyes which she now knew had been like her own. She remembered his unbounded energy, his patriotic and sometimes rather boastful talk, his black cigars, the vast heap of papers that always seemed to be in hopeless confusion on his writing table when he was at home, and the numerous eccentric-looking people who used to come and see him. She had been told that he was never to be disturbed, and never to be questioned, and that he was a great man. She had loved him with all her heart when he told her stories, and at other times she had been distinctly afraid of him. These stories had been fairy tales to the child, but she had now discovered that they had been history, or what passes for it. He had told her about King Amulius of Alba Longa, and of the twin founders of Rome, and of all the far-off times and doings, and he had described to her six wonderful maidens who lived in a palace in the Forum and kept a little fire burning day and night, which he compared to the great Roman race over whose destiny the mystic ladies were always watching. It was only quite lately that she had heard any learned men say in earnest some of the things which he had told her with a smile as if he were inventing a tale to amuse her child's fancy. But what he had said had made a deep and abiding impression, and had become a part of her thought. She sometimes dreamed very vividly that she was again a little girl, sitting on his knee and listening to his wonderful stories. In other ways she had not missed him much after his death. Possibly her mother had not missed him either; for though she spoke of him occasionally with a sort of awe, it was never with anything like emotion. Count Fortiguerra had been kind to the child, or it might be truer to say that he had spoilt her by encouraging her without much judgment in her insatiable thirst for knowledge, and in her unnecessary ambition to excel in everything her fancy led her to attempt. Her mother, with a good deal of social foolishness and a very pliable character, possessed nevertheless a fair share of womanly intelligence, and knew by instinct that a young girl who is very different from other girls, no matter how clever she may be, rarely makes what people call a good marriage. There is probably nothing which leads a young woman to think a man a desirable husband so much as some exceptional gift, or even some brilliant eccentricity, which distinguishes him from other people; but there is nothing which frightens away the average desirable husband so much as anything of that sort in the young lady of his affections, and every married woman knows it very well. The excellent Countess used to wish that her daughter would grow up more like other girls, and in the sincere belief that a little womanly vanity must certainly counteract a desire for super-feminine mental cultivation, she honestly tried to interest Cecilia in such frivolities as dress, dancing, and romantic fiction. The result was only very partially successful. Cecilia was dressed to perfection, without seeming to take any trouble about it, and she danced marvellously before she had ever been to a ball; but she cared nothing for the novels she was allowed to read, and she devoured serious books with increasing intellectual voracity. Her stepfather laughed, and said that the girl was a genius and ought not to be hampered by ordinary rules; and his wife, who had at first feared lest he should dislike the child of her first husband, was only too glad that he should, on the contrary, show something like paternal infatuation for Cecilia, since no children of his own were born to him. He was a man, too, of wide reading and experience, and having considerable political insight into his times. Before Cecilia was eleven years old he talked to her about serious matters, as if she had been grown up, and often wished that the child should be at table and in the drawing-room when men who were making history came informally to the embassy. Cecilia had listened to their talk, and had remembered a very large part of what she had heard, understanding more and more as she grew up; and by far the greatest sorrow of her life had been the death of her stepfather. She was a modern Italian girl, and her mother was a Roman who had been brought up in something of the old strictness and narrowness, first in a convent, and afterwards in a rather gloomy home under the shadow of the most rigid parental authority. Exceptional gifts, exceptional surroundings, and exceptional opportunities had made Cecilia Palladio an exception to all types, and as unlike the average modern Italian young girl as could be imagined. The sun had already set as the mother and daughter drove away, but it was still broad day, and a canopy of golden clouds, floating high over the city, reflected rosy lights through the blue shadows in the crowded streets. The Countess Fortiguerra was pleasantly aware that every man under seventy turned to look after her daughter, from the smart old colonel of cavalry in his perfect uniform to the ragged and haggard waifs who sold wax matches at the corners of the streets. She was not in the least jealous of her, as mothers have been before now, and perhaps she was able to enjoy vicariously what she herself had never had, but had often wished for, the gift of nature which instantly fixes the attention of the other sex. "Why did you not tell me?" asked Cecilia, after a silence that had lasted five minutes. The Countess pretended not to understand, coloured a little, and tried to look surprised. "Why did you not tell me that you and the Princess wish me to marry her nephew?" This was direct, and an answer was necessary. The Countess laughed soothingly. "Dear child!" she cried, "it is impossible to deceive you! We only wished that you two might meet, and perhaps like each other." "Well," answered Cecilia, "we have met." The answer was not encouraging, and she did not seem inclined to say more of her own accord, but her mother could not restrain a natural curiosity. "Yes," she said, in a conciliatory tone, "but how do you like him?" Cecilia seemed to be hesitating for a moment. "Very much," she answered, unexpectedly, after the pause. The Countess was so much pleased that she coloured again. She had never been able to hide what she felt, and she secretly envied people who never blushed. "I am so glad!" she said. "I was sure you would like each other." "It does not follow that because I like him, he likes me," answered Cecilia, quietly. "And even if he does, that is not a reason why we should marry. I may never marry at all." "How can you say such things!" cried the Countess, not at all satisfied. Cecilia shrank a little in her corner of the deep phaeton and instinctively drew the edges of her little silk mantle together over her chest, as if to protect herself from something. "You know," she said, almost sharply. "I shall never understand you," her mother sighed. "Give me time to understand myself, mother," answered the young girl, suddenly unbending. "I am only eighteen; I have never been into the world, and the mere idea of marrying----" She stopped short, and her firm lips closed tightly. "No, I do not understand," said the Countess. "The thought of marriage was never disagreeable to me, even when I was quite young. It is the natural object of a woman's life." "There are exceptions, surely! There are nuns, for instance." "Oh, if you wish to go into a convent----" "I have no religious vocation," Cecilia answered gravely. "Or if I have, it is not of that sort." "I am glad to hear it!" The Countess was beginning to lose her temper. "If you thought you had, you would be quite capable of taking the veil." "Yes," the young girl replied. "If I wished to be a nun, and if I were sure that I should be a good nun, I would enter a convent at once. But I am not naturally devout, I suppose." "In my time," said the Countess, with emphasis, "when young girls did not take the veil, they married." As an argument, this was weak and lacked logic, and Cecilia felt rather pitiless just then. "There are only two possible ways of living," she said; "either by religion, if you have any, and that is the easier, or by rule." "And pray what sort of rule can there be to take the place of religion?" "Act so that the reason for your actions may be considered a universal law." "That is nonsense!" cried the Countess. "No," replied Cecilia, unmoved, "it is Kant's Categorical Imperative." "It makes no difference," retorted her mother. "It is nonsense." Cecilia said nothing, and her expression did not change, for she knew that her mother could not understand her, and she was not at all sure that she understood herself, as she had almost confessed. Seeing that she did not answer, the excellent Countess took the opportunity of telling her that her head had been turned by too much reading, though it was all her poor, dear stepfather's fault, since he had filled her head with ideas. What she meant by "ideas" was not clear, except that they were of course dangerous in themselves and utterly subversive of social order, and that the main purpose of all education should be to discourage them in the young. "They should be left to old people," she concluded; "they have nothing else to think of." Cecilia had heard very little, being absorbed in her own reflections, but as her mother often spoke in the same way, the general drift of what she had said was unmistakable. The two were very unlike, but they were not unloving. In her heart the Countess took the most unbounded pride in her only child's beauty and cleverness, except when the latter opposed itself to her social inclinations and ambitions; and the young girl really loved her mother when not irritated by some speech or action that offended her taste. That her mother should not always understand her seemed quite natural. They had almost reached their door, the great pillared porch of the mysterious Palazzo Massimo, in which they had an apartment, for they did not live in the villa where the garden party was to be given. Cecilia's gloved hand went out quietly to the Countess's and gently pressed it. "Let me think my own thoughts, mother," she said; "they shall never hurt you." "Yes, dear, of course," answered the elder woman meekly, her little burst of temper having already subsided. Cecilia left her early that evening and went to her own room to be alone. It was not that she was tired, nor painfully affected by a strange sensation she had felt during the afternoon; but she realised that she had reached the end of the first stage in life, and that another was going to begin, and it was part of her nature to seek for a complete understanding of everything in her existence. It seemed to her unworthy of a thinking being to act or to feel, without clearly defining the cause of every feeling and action. Youth dreams of an impossible completeness in carrying out its self-set rules of perfection, and is swayed and stunned, and often paralysed, when they are broken to pieces by rebellious human nature. The room was very large and dim, for Cecilia had put out the electric light, and had lit two big wax candles, of the sort that are burned in churches. The blinds and shutters of the windows were open, and the moonlight fell in two broad floods upon the pale carpet, half across the floor. The white bed with its high canopy of lace looked ghostly against the furthest wall, like a marble sepulchre under a mist. The light blue damask on the walls was dark in the gloom, and there was not much furniture to break the long surfaces. The dusky air was cool and pure, for Cecilia detested perfumes of all sorts. She sat motionless in a high carved seat, just in the moonlight, one hand upon an arm of the chair, the other on her breast. She had gathered her hair into a knot, low at the back of her head, and the folds of a soft white robe just followed the outlines of her figure. The table on which the candles stood was a little behind her, and away from the window, and the still yellow light only touched her hair in one or two places, sending back dull golden reflections. The strange young face was very quiet, and even the lids rarely moved as she steadily stared into the shadow. There was no look of thought, nor any visible effort of concentration in her features; there was rather an air of patient waiting, of perfect readiness to receive whatever should come to her out of the depths. So, a beautiful marble face on a tomb gazes into the shadows of a dim church, and gazes on, and waits, neither growing nor changing, neither satisfied nor disappointed, but calm and enduring, as if expecting the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. But for the rare drooping of the lids, that rested her sight, the girl would have seemed to be in a trance; she was in a state of almost perfect contemplation that approached to perfect happiness, since she was hardly conscious that her strongest wishes were still unsatisfied. She had been in the same state before now--last week, last month, last year, and again and again, as it seemed to her, very long ago; so long, that the time seemed like ages, and the intervals like centuries, until it all disappeared altogether in the immeasurable, and the past, the present, and the future were around her at once, unbroken, always ending, yet always beginning again. In the midst floated the soul, the self, the undying individuality, a light that shot out long rays, like a star, towards the ever present moments in an ever recurring life of which she had been, and was, and was to be, most keenly conscious. So far, the truth, perhaps; the truth, guessed by the mystics of all ages, sometimes hidden in secret writings, sometimes proclaimed to the light in symbols too plain to be understood, now veiled in the reasoned propositions of philosophers, now sung in sublime verse by inspired seers; present, as truth always is, to the few, misunderstood, as all truths are, by the many. But beside the truth, and outshining it, came the illusion, clear and bright, and appealing to the heart with the music of all the changes that are illusion's life. Sitting very still in the moonlight, Cecilia saw pictures in the shadow, and herself walking in the mazes of many dreams; and she watched them, till even her eyelids no longer drooped from time to time, and her breathing ceased to stir the folds of white upon her bosom. Even then, she knew that she herself was not dreaming, but was calling up dreams which she saw, which could be nothing but visions after all, and would end in a darkness beyond which she could see nothing, and in which she would feel real physical pain, that would be almost unbearable, though she knew that she would gladly bear it again and again, for the sake of again seeing the phantasms of herself drawn in mystic light upon the shadow. They came and followed one upon another, like days of life. There was the beautiful marble court with its deep portico, its pillars, and its overhanging upper story, all gleaming in the low morning sun; she could hear the water softly laughing its way through the square marble-edged basins, level with the ground, she could smell the spring violets that grew in the neatly trimmed borders, she knew the faces of the statues that stood between the columns, and smiled at her. She knew herself, young, golden-haired, all in white, a little pale from the night's vigil before the eternal fire, just entering the court as she came back from the temple, and then standing quite still for a moment, facing the morning sun and drinking in long draughts of the sweet spring air. From far above, the matin song of birds came down out of the gardens of Cæsar's palace, and high over the court the sounds of the Forum began to ring and echo, as they did all day and half the night. It was herself, her very self, that was there, resting one hand upon a fluted column and looking upwards, her eyes, her face, her figure, real and unchanged after ages, as they were hers now; and in her look there was the infinite longing, the readiness to receive, which she felt still and must feel always, to the end of time. Now, the dream would move on, slowly and full of details. The lithe dream figure would rest in the small white room at the upper end of the court, and resting, would dream dreams within that dream; and, looking on, she herself would know what they were. They would be full of a deep desire to be free for ever from earth and body and life, joined for all eternity with something pure and high that could not be seen, but of which her soul was a part, mingled with the changing things for a time, but to be withdrawn from them again, maiden and spotless as it had come amongst them, a true and perfect Vestal. The precious treasures in the secret places of the little temple would pass away, the rudely carved wooden image of Pallas would crumble to dust, the shields that had come down from heaven would fall to pieces in green corrosion, the sacred vessels would be broken or come to a base use, the fire would go out and Vesta's hearth would be cold for ever. At the mere thought, the sleeping face in the vision would tremble and grow pale for a moment, but soon would smile again, for the fire had been faithfully tended all the night long. But it would all pass away, even the place, even Rome herself, and in the sphere of divine joy the sleeper would forget even to dream, and would be quite at rest, until the mid-hour of day, when a companion would come softly to the door and wake her with gentle words and kindly touch, to join the other Vestals at the thrice-purified table in the cool hall. So the warm hours would pass, and later, if she chose, the holy maiden might go out into the city, whithersoever she would, borne in a high, open litter by many slaves, with a stern lictor walking before her, and the people would fall back on either side. If she chanced to meet one of the Prætors, or even the Consul himself, their guards would salute her as no sovereign would be saluted in Rome; and should she see some wretched thieving slave being led to death on the cross upon the Esquiline, her slightest word could reverse all his condemnation, and blot out all his crimes. For she was sacred to the Goddess, and above Consuls and Prætors and judges. But none of those things would touch her heart nor please her vanity, for all her pure young soul was bent on freedom from this earth, divine and eternal, as the end of a sinless life. The eyes in the dream, the eyes of the girl who stood by the column, drinking the morning air, had never met the eyes of a man with the wish that a glance might linger to a look. But she who watched the dream knew that the time was at hand, and that the dark cloud of fear was already gathering which was to darken her sun and break by and by in an unknown fear. She knew it, she, the waking Cecilia Palladio; but the other Cecilia, the Vestal of long ago, guessed nothing of the future, and stood there breathing softly, already refreshed after the night's watching. It would all happen, as it always happened, little by little, detail after detail, till the dreaded moment. But it did not. The dream changed. Instead of crossing the marble court, and lingering a moment by the water, the Vestal stood by the column, against the background of shade cast by the portico. She was listening now, she was expecting some one, she was glancing anxiously about as if to see whether any one were there; but she was alone. Then it came, in the shadow behind her, the face of a man, moving nearer--a rugged Roman head, with deep-set, bold blue eye, big brows, a great jaw, reddish hair. It came nearer, and the girl knew it was coming. In an instant more, she would spring forward across the court, crying out for protection. No, she did not move till the man was close to her, looking over her shoulder, whispering in her ear. Cecilia saw it all, and it was so real that she tried to call out, to shriek, to make any sound that could save her image from destruction, for the kiss that was coming would be death to both, and death with unutterable shame and pain. But her voice was gone, and her lips were frozen. She sat paralysed with a horror she had never known before, while the face of the phantom girl blushed softly, and turned to the strong man, and the two gazed into each other's eyes a moment, knowing that they loved. She felt that it was her other self, and that she had the will to resist, even then, and that the will must still be supreme over the illusion. Never, it seemed to her, had she made such a supreme effort, never had she felt such power concentrated in her strong determination, never in all her life had she been so sure of the result when she had willed anything with all her might. Every fibre of her being, every nerve in her body, every throbbing cell of her brain was strained to breaking. The two faces were quite close, the longing lips had almost met--nothing could hinder, nothing could save; the phantasms did not know that she was watching them. Suddenly something changed. She no longer saw herself in a vision, she was herself there, somewhere, in the dark, in the light--she did not know--and there was no will, nor thought, nor straining resistance any more, for Lamberto Lamberti held her in his arms, her, Cecilia Palladio, her very living self, and his lips were upon hers, and she loved him beyond death, or life, or fear, or torment. Surely she was dying then, for the darkness was whirling with her, spinning itself into myriads of circles of fiery stars, tearing her over the brink of the world to eternity beyond. One second more and it must have ended so. Instead, she was leaning back in her chair, between the moonlight and the steadily burning candles, in her own room, alone. From head to foot she trembled, and now and then drew a short and gasping breath. Her parted lips were moist and very cold. She touched them, and they felt like flowers at night, wet with dew. She pushed the hair from her forehead, and her brow was strangely damp. She sprang to her feet with a cry of terror, and stared at the door, for she was quite sure that she had heard it close softly. It was a heavy door, that turned noiselessly on its hinges and fitted perfectly, and she knew the soft click of the well-made French lock when the spring quietly pushed the bevelled latch-bolt into the socket. In an instant she had crossed the room and had turned the handle to draw it in. But the door was locked, beyond all doubt--she had turned the key before she had sat down in the chair. She felt intensely cold, and an icy wave seemed to lift her hair from her forehead. Her hand instinctively found the white button, close beside the door-frame, which controlled all the electric lamps, and pushed it in, and the room was flooded with light. She must have imagined that she had heard the sound that had frightened her. Half dazed, she moved slowly to the windows, and closed the inner shutters, one by one, shutting out the cold moonlight, then stood by the chair a moment, looked at it, and glanced in the direction whence the vision had come to her out of the shadow. She did not know how it happened, but presently she was lying on her bed, her face buried in the pillows, and she was tearing her heart out in a tearless storm of shame and self-contempt. What right had that man whom she had so often seen in her dreams to be alive in the real world, walking among other men, recognising her, as she had felt that he did that very afternoon? What right had he to come to her again in the vision and to change it all, to take her in his violent arms and kiss her on the mouth, and burn the mark of shame into her soul, and fill her with a pleasure more horrible than any pain? Was this the end of all her girlish meditation, of the Vestal's longing for higher things, of the mystic's perfect way? A man's brutal kiss not even resisted? Was that all? It could not have been worse if on that same day she had been alone with him in the garden, instead of with Guido d'Este, and if he had suddenly put his arms round her, and if she had not even turned her face from his. It was only a dream. Yes, to-morrow she would awake, if she slept at all, and the sunshine would be streaming in where the moonlight had shone, and it would only be a dream, past and to be forgotten. Perhaps. But what were dreams, then? She had not been asleep, she was quite sure. There was not even that poor excuse. The man's phantasm had come to her awake. And Lamberto Lamberti was nothing to her. Beyond the startling recognition of a face long familiar, but never seen among the living, he was to her a man she had met but once, and did not wish to meet again. She had been aware of his presence near her at the Princess's, and when he had gone away she had looked at him once more with a sort of wonder; but she had felt nothing else, she had not touched his hand, the thought that he would ever dare to seize her roughly in his arms brought burning blushes to her cheek and outraged all her maiden senses. She had never seen any man whom she could suffer to touch her; her whole nature revolted at the thought. Yet, just now, there had been neither revolt nor resistance; she felt that she had been herself, awake, alive, and consenting to an unknown but frightfully real contamination, from which her soul could never again be wholly clean. The storm subsided, and sullen waves of self-contempt swelled and sank, as if to overwhelm her drowning soul. She understood at last the ascetic's wrath against the mortal body and his irresistible craving for bodily pain. CHAPTER IV Very early in the morning Cecilia fell into a dreamless sleep at last, and awoke, unrefreshed, after nine o'clock. She felt very tired and listless as she opened the window a little and let in the light and air, with the sounds of the busy thoroughfare below. The weather was suddenly much warmer, and her head was heavy. It had all been a dream, no doubt, and was gone where dreams go; but it had been like a fight, out of which she had come alive by a miracle, bruised and wounded, and offended in her whole being. Never again would she sit alone at night and look for her image in the shadow, since such things could come of playing with visions; and she trusted that she might never again set eyes upon Lamberto Lamberti. She was alone, but at the thought of meeting him she blushed and bit her lip angrily. How was it possible that he should know what she had dreamt? For years, in that dream of the Vestal, a being had played a part, a being too like him in face to be another man, but who had loved her as a goddess, and whom she had loved for his matchless bravery and his glorious strength over himself. It was a long story, that had gradually grown clear in every detail, that had gone far beyond death to a spiritual life in a place of light, though it had always ended in something vaguely fearful that brought her back to the world, and to her present living self, to begin again. She could not go over it now, but she was conscious, and to her shame, that the spell of perfect happiness had always been broken at last by the taint of earthly longing and regret that crept up stealthily from the world below, an evil mist, laden with poison and fever and mortality. That change had been undefined, though it had been horrible and irresistible; it had been evil, but it had not been brutal, and it had thrilled her with the certainty of passion and pain to come, realising neither while dreading and loving both. She had read the writings of men who believe that by long meditation and practised intention the real self of man or woman can be separated from all that darkens it, though not easily, because it is bound up with fragments, as it were, of the selves of others, with all the inheritances of a hundred generations of good and bad, with sleeping instincts and passions any of which may suddenly spring up and overwhelm the rest. She had also read that the real self, when found at last, might be far better and purer than the mixed self of every day, which each of us knows and counts upon; but that it might also be much worse, much coarser, much more violent, when freed from every other influence, and that coming upon it unawares and unprepared, men had lost their reason altogether beyond recovery. She asked herself now whether this was what had happened to her, and no answer came; there was only the very weary blank of a great uncertainty, in which anything might be, or in which there might be nothing; and then, there was the vivid burning fear of meeting Lamberto Lamberti face to face. That was by far the strongest and most clearly defined of her sensations. If the Princess Anatolie could have known what Cecilia felt that morning, she would have been exceedingly well pleased, and Cecilia's own mother would have considered that this was a case in which the powers of evil had been permitted to work for the accomplishment of a good end. Nothing could have distressed the excellent Countess more than that her daughter should accidentally fall in love with Lamberti, who was a younger son in a numerous family, with no prospects beyond those offered by his profession. Nothing could have interfered more directly with the Princess's sensible intentions for her nephew. Perhaps nothing could have caused greater surprise to Lamberti himself. On the other hand, Guido d'Este would have been glad, but not surprised. He rarely was. In the course of the day he left a card at the Palazzo Massimo for the Countess Fortiguerra, and as he turned away he regretted that he could not ask for her, and see her, and possibly see her daughter also. That was evidently out of the question as yet, according to his social laws, but his regret was real. It was long since any woman's face had left him more than a vague impression of good looks, or dulness, but he had thought a good deal about Cecilia Palladio since he had met her, and he knew that he wished to talk with her again, however much he might resent the idea that he was meant to marry her. She was the first young girl he had ever known who had not bored him with platitudes or made conversation impossible by obstinate silence. It was true that he had not talked with her much, and at first it had seemed hard to talk at all, but the ice had been broken suddenly, and for a few minutes he had found it easy. As for the chilling coldness of her last words, he could account for that easily enough. Like himself, she had seen that a marriage had been planned for her without her knowledge, and, like him, she had resented the trap. For a while she had forgotten, as he had done, but had remembered suddenly when they were about to part. She had meant to show him plainly that she had not had any voice in the matter, and he liked her the better for it, now that he understood her meaning. She was like the Psyche, he thought, and it occurred to him that he could buy a cast of the statue. He had always thought it beautiful. He strolled through narrow streets in the late afternoon till he came to the shop of a dealer in casts, of whom he had once bought something, and he went in. The man had what he wanted, and he examined it carefully. She was not like the Psyche after all, and the crude white plaster shocked his taste for the first time. If the marble original had been in Rome, instead of in Naples, he could have gone to see it. He left the shop disappointed, and walked slowly towards the Farnese palace. The day seemed endless, and there was no particular reason why all days should not seem as long. There was nothing to do; nothing amused him, and nobody asked anything of him. It would be very strange and pleasant to be of use in the world. He went home and sat down by the open window that looked across the Tiber. The wide room was flooded with the evening light, and warm with much colour that lingered and floated about beautiful objects here and there. It was not a very luxuriously furnished room, but it was not the habitation of an ascetic or puritanical man either. Guido cared more for rare engravings and etchings than for pictures, and a few very fine framed prints stood on the big writing table; there was Dürer's Melancholia, and the Saint Jerome, and the Little White Horse, and the small Saint Anthony, and Rembrandt's Three Trees, all by itself, as the most wonderful etching in the world deserved to be; and here and there, about the room, were a few good engravings by Martin Schöngauer, and by Mantegna, and by Marcantonio Raimondi. The bold, careless, effective drawing of the Italian engravers contrasted strongly with the profoundly conscientious work of Schöngauer and Lucas van Leyden, and revealed at a glance the incomparable mastery of Dürer's dry point and Rembrandt's etching needle, the deep conviction of the German, and the inexhaustible richness of the Dutchman's imagination. A picture hung over the fireplace, the picture of a woman, at half length and a little smaller than life, holding in exquisite hands a small covered vessel of silver encrusted with gold, and gazing out into the warm light with the gentlest hazel eyes. A veil of olive green covered her head, but the fair hair found its way out, tresses and ringlets, on each side of the face. The woman was perhaps a Magdalen, not like any other Magdalen in all the paintings of the world, and more the great lady of the castle of Magdalon, she of the Golden Legend. When Andrea del Sarto painted that face, he meant something that he never told, and it pleased Guido d'Este to try and guess the secret. As he glanced at the canvas, glowing in the rich light, it struck him that perhaps Cecilia Palladio was more like the woman in the picture than she was like the Psyche. Then he almost laughed, and turned away, for he realised that he was thinking of the girl continually, and saw her face everywhere. He turned away impatiently, in spite of the smile. He was annoyed by the attraction he felt towards Cecilia, because the thought of marrying an heiress, in order that his aunt might recover money she had literally thrown away, was grossly repulsive; and also, no doubt, because he was not docile, though he was good-natured, and he hated to have anything in his life planned for him by others. He was still less pleased now that he found himself searching for reasons which should justify him in marrying Cecilia in spite of all this. Nothing irritates a man more than his own inborn inconsistency, whereas he enjoys diabolical satisfaction in convicting any woman of the same fault. After all, said his Inclination, as if coolly arguing the case, if poor men were only to marry poor girls, and rich men rich ones, something unnatural would happen to the distribution of wealth, which was undesirable for the future of society. Of course, a rich man might marry a poor girl if he chose. That was done, and the men who did it got an extraordinary amount of credit for being disinterested, unless they were laughed at for falling in love with a pretty face. If anything could prove the hopeless inequality of woman with man, it would be that! No one thought much the worse of a penniless girl who married for money, whereas a starving dandy who did the same thing immediately became an object of derision. But then, added the Inclination, with subtlety, the opinions of society were entirely manufactured by women for their own advantage, and that was an excellent reason for not caring what society thought. The all-powerful, impersonal "they," of whom we only know what "they say," what "they wear," and what "they pretend," are feminine and plural; they rule all that region of the world within which women do not work with their hands, and are therefore at full liberty to exercise those gifts of intelligence which it has pleased Providence to bestow upon them so plentifully. They do so to some purpose. Surely, argued Inclination, it was not very dignified of Guido to care much, and to care beforehand, for the opinions of a pack of women, supposing that he should come to like Cecilia enough to wish to marry her for her own sake. And besides, though he was poor, he was not uncomfortably so. Poverty meant not having horses and carriages, nor a yacht, and living in bachelor's rooms, and not giving dinner parties, and not playing cards, and not giving every woman whatever she fancied, if it happened to be a pearl or a pigeon's blood ruby. That was poverty, of course, but it was relative. If his aunt did not drive him to blow out his brains in a fit of impatience, there was no reason why Guido should not go on living, as he lived now, to the far end of a long and sufficiently well-fed life. And if he married Cecilia and her fortune, it would certainly not be because he wished to give other women rubies and pearls, nor for the sake of keeping a couple of hunters, two or three carriages, and a coach; still less, because he could ever wish to lose money again at baccara, or poker, or bridge. He had done all those things, and they had not amused him long. If he ever married Cecilia, it would be because he fell in love with her, which, thank goodness, had not happened yet. Inclination was quite sure of that, but was willing to admit the possibility in the future, merely for the sake of argument. Before it was time to dress for dinner that evening, Guido received a long letter from his aunt, written with her own hand, which probably meant that Monsieur Leroy knew little or nothing of its contents. Guido glanced at the pages, one after another, and saw that the whole letter was in the writer's most affectionate manner. Then he read it carefully. It had been so kind of him to be civil to her friends on the previous day, said the Princess. He reminded her of his poor father, her dear brother, who, in all his many misfortunes, had never once lost his beautiful affability of temper and unfailing courtesy to every one about him. This was very pretty, but Guido had heard that his father's beautiful affability had sometimes been ruffled so far as to allow a certain harmless violence, such as hurling a light chair at the head of a faithful courtier and friend who gave him advice that was too good to be taken, or summarily boxing the ears of his son and heir when the latter was already over thirty years old. Guido sometimes wondered why he had not inherited some of that very unroyal temper, which must have been such a thoroughly satisfactory relief to the ex-king's feelings. He never felt the least desire to dance with rage and throw the furniture about the room. His aunt's letter was evidently meant to please him and flatter his vanity, and she did not once refer to matters of business. She asked his opinion about a new novel he had not read yet, and had he thought of leaving a card on the Countess Fortiguerra? She lived in the Palazzo Massimo. What a strange girl the daughter was, to be sure! so very unlike other girls that it was almost disquieting to talk with her. Of course there was nothing real behind all that superficial talk about lectures at the Sorbonne, and Nietzsche, and all that. Everybody pretended to have read Nietzsche nowadays, and after all the girl might be quite sensible. One could not help wondering what she would make of her life, with her handsome fortune, and her odd ideas, and no one to look after her except that dear, gentle, sweet-tempered, foolish mother, who was in perpetual adoration before her! It would be a brave man who would marry such a girl, the Princess wrote, in spite of her money; but there was this to be said, he would not have any trouble with his mother-in-law. Subtle, very subtle of the Princess, who left the subject there and ended her letter by asking a favour of Guido. It was indeed only for the sake of asking it, she explained, that she was writing to him at all. Would he allow a great friend of hers to see his Andrea del Sarto? It was the celebrated art critic, Doctor Baumgarten, of whom he had heard. Leroy would bring him the next morning about ten o'clock, if Guido had no objection. He need not answer; he must not take any trouble about the matter. If he had an engagement at ten, perhaps he would leave orders that the Doctor should be allowed to see the picture. Guido did not think at once of any good reason for refusing such a request. He was very fond of his Andrea del Sarto; indeed, he liked it much better than a small Raphael of undoubted authenticity which was hung in another part of the room. The German critic was quite welcome to see both, and perhaps knew something about prints which might be worth learning. He was probably writing a book. Germans were always writing books. Guido wrote a line to thank his aunt for her letter, and to say that her friend would be welcome at the appointed hour. He was sealing the note when the door opened and Lamberto Lamberti came in. "Will you come and dine with me?" he asked, standing still before the writing table. "Let us dine here," answered Guido, without looking up, and examining the little seal he had made on the envelope. "I daresay there is something to eat." He held out the note to his servant, who stood in the open doorway. "Send this at once," he said. "Yes," said Lamberti, answering the invitation. "I do not care whether there is anything to eat or not, and it is always quiet here." "What is the matter?" asked Guido, looking at him attentively for the first time since he had entered. "Yes," he added to his man, "Signor Lamberti will dine with me." The servant disappeared and shut the door. Guido repeated his question, but Lamberti only shook his head carelessly and relit his half-smoked cigar. Guido watched him. He was less red than usual, and his eyes glittered in the light of the wax match. His voice had sounded sharp and metallic, as Guido had never heard it before. When two men are intimate friends and really trust each other they do not overwhelm one another with questions. Each knows that each will speak when he is ready, or needs help or sympathy. "I have just been answering a very balmy letter from my aunt," Guido said, rising from the table. "Sweeter than honey in the honeycomb! Read it. It has a distinctly literary and biographical turn. The allusion to my father's gentle disposition is touching." Lamberti looked through the letter carelessly, dropped it on the table, and sucked hard at his cigar. "What did you expect?" he asked, between two puffs. "For the present you are the apple of her eye. She will handle you as tenderly as a new-laid egg, until she gets what she wants!" Lamberti's similes lacked sequence, but not character. "The Romans," observed Guido, "began with the egg and ended with the apple. I have an idea that we are going to do the same thing at dinner, and that there will be nothing between. But we can smoke between the courses." "Yes," answered Lamberti, who had not heard a word. "I daresay." Guido looked at him again, rather furtively. Lamberti never drank and had iron nerves, but he was visibly disturbed. He was what people vaguely call "not quite himself." Guido went to the door of his bedroom. "Where are you going?" asked Lamberti, sharply. "I am going to wash my hands before dinner," Guido answered with a smile. "Do you want to wash yours?" "No, thank you. I have just dressed." He turned his back and went to the open window as Guido left the room. In a few seconds his cigar had gone out again, and he was leaning on the sill with both hands, staring at the twilight sky in the west. The colours had all faded away to the almost neutral tint of straw-tempered steel. The outline of the Janiculum stood out sharp and black in an uneven line. Below, there were the scattered lights of Trastevere, the flowing river, and the silence of the deserted Via Giulia. Lamberti looked steadily out, biting his extinguished cigar, and his features contracted as if he were in pain. He had come to his friend instinctively, as his friend would have come to him, meaning to tell him what had happened. But he hesitated. Besides, it might all have been only his imagination; in part it could have been nothing else, and the rest was a mere coincidence. But he had never been an imaginative man, and it was strange that he should be so much affected by a mere illusion. He started and turned suddenly, sure that some one was close behind him. But there was no one, and a moment later Guido came back. Anxious not to annoy his friend by anything like curiosity, he made a pretence of setting his writing table in order, turned one of the lamps down a little--he hated electric light--and then looked at the picture over the fireplace. "Did you ever hear of that Baumgarten, the German art critic?" he asked, without turning round. "Baumgarten--let me see! I fancy I have seen the name to-day." Lamberti tried to concentrate his attention. "You just read it in my aunt's letter," Guido answered. "You remember--she asks if he may come to-morrow. I wonder why." "To value your property, of course," replied Lamberti, roughly. "Do you think so?" Guido did not seem at all surprised. "I daresay. She is quite capable of it. She is welcome to everything I possess if she will only leave me in peace. But just now, when she has evidently made up her mind to marry me to this new heiress, it does not seem likely that she would take trouble to find out what my pictures are worth, does it?" "It all depends on what she thinks of the chances that you will marry or not." "What do you think of them, yourself?" asked Guido, idly. He was glad of anything to talk about while Lamberti was in his present mood. "What a question!" exclaimed the latter. "How should I know whether you are going to fall in love with the girl or not?" "I am half afraid I am," said Guido, thoughtfully. His man announced dinner, and the two friends crossed the hall to the little dining room, and sat down under the soft light of the old-fashioned olive-oil lamp that hung from the ceiling. Everything on the table was old, worn, and spotless. The silver was all of the style of the first Empire, with an interlaced monogram surmounted by a royal crown. The same device was painted in gold in the middle of the plain white plates, which were more or less chipped at the edges. The glasses and decanters were of that heavy cut glass, ornamented with gold lines, which used to be made in Venice in the eighteenth century. Some of them were chipped, too, like the plates. It had never occurred to Guido to put the whole service away as a somewhat valuable collection, though he sometimes thought that it was growing shabby. But he liked the old things which had come to him from the ex-king, part of the furniture of a small shooting box that had been left to him, and which he had sold to an Austrian Archduke. Lamberti took a little soup and swallowed half a glass of white wine. "I had an odd dream last night," he said, "and I have had a little adventure to-day. I will tell you by-and-by." "Just as you like," Guido answered. "I hope the adventure was not an accident--you look as if you had been badly shaken." "Yes. I did not know that I could be so nervous. You see, I do not often dream. I generally go to sleep when I lay my head upon the pillow and wake when I have slept seven hours. At sea, I always have to be called when it is my watch. Yes, I have solid nerves. But last night----" He stopped, as the man entered, bringing a dish. "Well?" enquired Guido, who did not suppose that Lamberti could have any reason for not telling his dream in the presence of the servant. Lamberti hesitated a moment, and helped himself before he answered. "Do you believe in dreams?" he asked. "What do you mean? Do I believe that dreams come true? No. When they do, it is a coincidence." "Yes. I suppose so. But this is rather more than a coincidence. I do not understand it at all. After all, I am a perfectly healthy man. It never occurred to you that my mind might be unbalanced, did it?" Guido looked at the rugged Roman head, the muscular throat, the broad shoulders. "No," he answered. "It certainly never occurred to me." "Nor to me either," said Lamberti, and he ate slowly and thoughtfully. "My friend," observed Guido, "you are just a little enigmatical this evening." "Not at all, not at all! I tell you that my nerves are good. You know something about archæology, do you not?" The apparently irrelevant question came after a short pause. "Not much," Guido answered, supposing that Lamberti wished to change the subject on account of the servant. "What do you want to know?" "Nothing," said Lamberti. "The question is, whether what I dreamt last night was all imagination or whether it was a memory of something I once knew and had forgotten." "What did you dream?" Guido sipped his wine and leaned back to listen, hoping that his friend was going to speak out at last. "Was the temple of Vesta in the Forum?" enquired Lamberti. "Certainly." "But why did they always say that it was the round one in front of Santa Maria in Cosmedin? I have an old bronze inkstand that is a model of it. My mother used to tell me it was the temple of Vesta." "People thought it was--thirty years ago. There is nothing left of the temple but the round mass of masonry on which it stood. It is between the Fountain of Juturna and the house of the Vestals. I have Signor Boni's plans of it. Should you like to see them?" "Yes--presently," answered Lamberti, with more eagerness than Guido had expected. "Is there anything like a reconstruction of the temple or of the house--a picture of one, I mean?" "I think so," said Guido. "I am sure there is Baldassare Peruzzi's sketch of the temple, as it was in his day." "I dreamt that I saw it last night, the temple and the house, and all the Forum besides, and not in ruins either, but just as everything was in old times. Could the Vestals' house have had an upper story? Is that possible?" "The archæologists are sure that it had," answered Guido, becoming more interested. "Do you mean to say that you dreamt you saw it with an upper story?" "Yes. And the temple was something like the one they used to call Vesta's, only it was more ornamented, and the columns seemed very near together. The round wall, just within the columns, was decorated with curious designs in low relief--something like a wheel, and scallops, and curved lines. It is hard to describe, but I can see it all now." Guido rose from his seat quickly. "I will get the number that has the drawing in it," he said, explaining. During the few moments that passed while he was out of the room Lamberti sat staring at his empty place as fixedly as he had stared at the dark line of the Janiculum a few minutes earlier. The man-servant, who had been with him at sea, watched him with a sort of grave sympathy that is peculiarly Italian. Then, as if an idea of great value had struck him, he changed Lamberti's plate, poured some red wine into the tumbler, and filled it up with water. Then he retired and watched to see whether his old master would drink. But Lamberti did not move. "Here it is," said Guido, entering the room with a large yellow-covered pamphlet open in his hands. "Was it like this?" As he asked the question he laid the pamphlet on the clean plate before his friend. The pages were opened at Baldassare Peruzzi's rough pen-and-ink sketch of the temple of Vesta; and as Lamberti looked at it, his lids slowly contracted, and his features took an expression of mingled curiosity and interest. "The man who drew that had seen what I saw," he said at last. "Did he draw it from some description?" "He drew it on the spot," answered Guido. "The temple was standing then. But as for your dream, it is quite possible that you may have seen this same drawing in a shop window at Spithoever's or Loescher's, for instance, without noticing it, and that the picture seemed quite new to you when you dreamt it. That is a simple explanation." "Very," said Lamberti. "But I saw the whole Forum." "There are big engravings of imaginary reconstructions of the Forum, in the booksellers' windows." "With the people walking about? The two young priests standing in the morning sun on the steps of the temple of Castor and Pollux? The dirty market woman trudging past the corner of the Vestals' house with a basket of vegetables on her head? The door slave sweeping the threshold of the Regia with a green broom?" "I thought you knew nothing about the Forum," said Guido, curiously. "How do you come to know of the Regia?" "Did I say Regia? I daresay--the name came to my lips." "Somebody has hypnotised you," said Guido. "You are repeating things you have heard in your sleep." "No. I am describing things I saw in my sleep. Am I the sort of man who is easily hypnotised? I have let men try it once or twice. We were all interested in hypnotism on my last ship, and the surgeon made some curious experiments with a lad who went to sleep easily. But last night I was at home, alone, in my own room, in bed, and I dreamt." Guido shrugged his shoulders a little indifferently. "There must be some explanation," he said. "What else did you dream?" Lamberti's lids drooped as if he were concentrating his attention on the remembered vision. "I dreamt," he said, "that I saw a veiled woman in white come out of the temple door straight into the sunlight, and though I could not see the face, I knew who she was. She went down the steps and then up the others to the house of the Vestals, and entered in without looking back. I followed her. The door was open, and there was no one to stop me." "That is very improbable," observed Guido. "There must have always been a slave at the door." "I went in," continued Lamberti without heeding the interruption, "and she was standing beside one of the pillars, a little way from the door. She had one hand on the column, and she was facing the sun; her veil was thrown back and the light shone through her hair. I came nearer, very softly. She knew that I was there and was not afraid. When I was close to her she turned her face to mine. Then I took her in my arms and kissed her, and she did not resist." Guido smiled gravely. "And she turned out to be some one you know in real life, I suppose," he said. "Yes," answered Lamberti. "Some one I know--slightly." "Beautiful, of course. Fair or dark?" "You need not try to guess," Lamberti said. "I shall not tell you. My head went round, and I woke." "Very well. But is it this absurd dream that has made you so nervous?" "No. Something happened to me to-day." Lamberti ate a few mouthfuls in silence, before he went on. "I daresay I might have invented some explanation of the dream," he said at last. "But it only made me want to see the place. I never cared for those things, you know. I had never gone down into the Forum in my life--why should I? I went there this morning." "And you could not find anything of what you had seen, of course." "I took one of those guides who hang about the entrance waiting for foreigners. He showed me where the temple had been, and the house, and the temple of Castor and Pollux. I did not believe him implicitly, but the ruins were in the right places. Then I walked up a bridge of boards to the house of the Vestals, and went in." "But there was no lady." "On the contrary," said Lamberti, and his eyes glittered oddly, "the lady was there." "The same one whom you had seen in your dream?" "The same. She was standing facing the sun, for it was still early, and one of her hands was resting against the brick pillar, just as it had rested against the column." "That is certainly very extraordinary," said Guido, his tone changing. Then he seemed about to speak again, but checked himself. Lamberti rested his elbows on the table and his chin on his folded hands, and looked into his friend's eyes in silence. His own face had grown perceptibly paler in the last few minutes. "Guido," he said, after what seemed a long pause, "you were going to ask what happened next. I do not know what you thought, nor what stopped you, for between you and me there is no such thing as indiscretion, and, besides, you will never know who the lady was." "I do not wish to guess. Do not say anything that could help me." "Of course not. Any woman you know might have taken it into her head to go to the Forum this morning." "Certainly." "This is what happened. I stood perfectly still in surprise. She may have heard my footstep or not; she knew some one was behind her. Then she slowly turned her head till we could see each other's faces." He paused again, and passed one hand lightly over his eyes. "Yes," said Guido, "I suppose I can guess what is coming." "No!" Lamberti cried, in such a tone that the other started. "You cannot guess. We looked at each other. It seemed a very long time--two or three minutes at least--as if we were both paralysed. Though we recognised each other perfectly well, we could neither of us speak. Then it seemed to me that something I could not resist was drawing me towards her, but I am sure I did not really move the hundredth part of a step. I shall never forget the look in her face." Another pause, not long, but strangely breathless. "I have seen men badly frightened in battle," Lamberti went on. "The cheeks get hollow all at once, the eyes are wide open, with black rings round them, the face turns a greenish grey, and the sweat runs down the forehead into the eyebrows. Men totter with fear, too, as if their joints were unstrung. But I never saw a woman really terrified before. There was a sort of awful tension of all her features, as though they were suddenly made brittle, like beautiful glass, and were going to shiver into fragments. And her eyes had no visible pupils--her lips turned violet. I remember every detail. Then, without warning, she shrieked and staggered backwards; and she turned as I moved to catch her, and she ran like a deer, straight up the court, past those basins they have excavated, and up two or three steps, to the dark rooms at the other end." "And what did you do?" asked Guido, wondering. "My dear fellow, I turned and went back as fast as I could, without exactly running, and I found the guide looking for me below the temple, for he had not seen me go into the Vestals' house. What else was there to be done?" "Nothing, I suppose. You could not pursue a lady who shrieked with fear and ran away from you. What a strange story! You say you only know her slightly." "Literally, very slightly," answered Lamberti. He had become fluent, telling his story almost excitedly. He now relapsed into his former mood, and stared at the pamphlet before him a moment, before shutting it and putting it away from him. "It is like all those things--perfectly unaccountable, except on a theory of coincidence," said Guido, at last. "Will you have any cheese?" Lamberti roused himself and saw the servant at his elbow. "No, thank you. I forgot one thing. Just as I awoke from that dream last night, I heard the door of my room softly closed." "What has that to do with the matter?" enquired Guido, carelessly. "Nothing, except that the door was locked. I always lock my door. I first fell into the habit when I was travelling, for I sleep so soundly that in a hotel any one might come in and steal my things. I should never wake. So I turn the key before going to bed." "You may have forgotten to do it last night," suggested Guido. "No. I got up at once, and the key was turned. No one could have come in." "A mouse, then," said Guido, rather contemptuously. CHAPTER V Cecilia Palladio was very much ashamed of having uttered a cry of terror at the sight of Lamberti, and still more of having run away from him like a frightened child. To him it seemed as if she had really shrieked with fear, whereas she fancied that she had scarcely found voice enough to utter an incoherent exclamation. The truth lay somewhere between the two impressions, but Cecilia now felt that she could easily have accounted for being startled into crying out, but that it would always be impossible to explain her flight. She had run the whole length of the Court, which must be fifty yards long, before realising what she was doing, and had not paused for breath till she was out of his sight and within the second of the three rooms on the left. There were no gates to the rooms then, as there are now, and she could not have given any reason for her entering the second instead of the first, which was the nearest. The choice was instinctive. She certainly had not gone there to join the elderly woman servant who had come to the Forum with her. That excellent and obedient person was waiting where Cecilia had made her sit down, not far from the entrance to the Forum, and would not move till her mistress returned. The young girl hated to be followed about and protected at every step, especially by a servant, who could have no real understanding of what she saw. "I shall only be seen by foreigners and Cook's Tourists," she had said, "and they do not count as human beings at all!" Therefore the middle-aged Petersen, who was a German, and therefore a species of foreigner herself, had meekly sat down upon the comparatively comfortable stone which Cecilia had selected for her, and which was one of the steps of the Julian Basilica. She was called Frau Petersen, Mrs. Petersen, or Madame Petersen, according to circumstances, by the servants of different nationalities who were successively in the employment of the Countess Fortiguerra, for she was a superior woman and the widow of a paymaster in the Bavarian army, and so eminently respectable and well educated that she had more than once been taken for Cecilia's governess. Petersen was excessively near-sighted, but her nose was not adapted by its nature and position for wearing eyeglasses; for it was not only a flat nose without anything like a prominent bridge to it, but it was placed uncommonly low in her face, so that a pair of eyeglasses pinched upon it would have found themselves in the region of Petersen's cheek-bones. Even when she wore spectacles, they were always slipping down, which was a great nuisance; so she resigned herself to seeing less than other people, except when something interested her enough to make the discomfort of glasses worth enduring. This sufficiently explains why she noticed nothing unusual in Cecilia's looks when the latter came back to her, pale and disturbed; and she had not heard her mistress's faint cry, the distance being too great for that, not to mention the fact that the huge ruins intercepted the sound. Cecilia was glad of that, as she drove home with Petersen. "Signor Lamberti has called," said the Countess Fortiguerra the next day at luncheon. "I see by his card that he is in the Navy. You know he is one of the Marchese Lamberti's sons. Shall we ask him to dinner?" "Did you like him?" enquired Cecilia, evasively. "He is not very good-looking," observed the Countess, whose judgment of unknown people always began with their appearance, and often penetrated no farther. "But he may be intelligent, for all that," she added, as a concession. "Yes," said Cecilia, thoughtfully, "perhaps." "I think we might ask him to dinner, then," answered the Countess, as if she had given an excellent reason for doing so. "Is it not rather early, considering that we have only met him once?" Cecilia ventured to ask. "I used to know his mother very well, though she was older than I. It is pleasant to find that he is so intimate with Signor d'Este. We might ask them together." "After the garden party," suggested Cecilia. "Of course, as you and the Marchesa were great friends, that is a reason for asking the other, but Signor d'Este--really! It would positively be throwing me at his head, mother!" "He expects it, my dear," answered the Countess, with more precision than tact. "I mean," she added hastily, "I mean, that is, I did not mean----" Cecilia laughed. "Oh yes, you did, mother! You meant exactly that, you know. You and that dreadful old Princess have made up your minds that I am to marry him, and nothing else matters, does it?" "Well," said the Countess, without any perceptible hesitation, "I cannot help hoping that you will consent, for I should like the match very much." She knew that it was always better to be quite frank with her daughter; and even if she had thought otherwise, she could never have succeeded in being diplomatic with her. While her second husband had been alive, her position as an ambassadress had obliged her to be tactful in the world, and even occasionally to say things which she had some difficulty in believing, being a very simple soul; but with Cecilia she was quite unable to conceal her thoughts for five minutes. If the girl loved her mother, and she really did, it was largely because her mother was so perfectly truthful. Cynical people called her helplessly honest, and said that her veracity would have amounted to a disease of the mind if she had possessed any; but that since she did not, it was probably a form of degeneration, because all perfectly healthy human beings lied naturally. David had said in his heart that all men were liars, and his experience of men, and of women, too, was worth considering. "Yes," Cecilia said, after a thoughtful pause, "I know that you wish me to marry Signor d'Este, and I have not refused to think of it. But I have not promised anything, either, and I do not like to feel that he expects me to be thrust upon him at every turn, till he is obliged to offer himself as the only way of escaping the persecution." "I wish you would not express it in that way!" The Countess sighed and looked at her daughter with a sort of half-comical and loving hopelessness in her eyes--as a faithful dog might look at his master who, seeming to be hungry, would refuse to steal food that was within reach. The dog would try to lead the man to the bread, the man would gently resist; each would be obeying the dictation of his own conscience--the man would know that he could never explain his moral position to the dog, and the dog would feel that he could never understand the man. Yet the affection between the two would not be in the least diminished. On the next evening Cecilia found herself next to Guido d'Este at dinner. Though she was not supposed to make her formal appearance in society before the garden party, the Countess's many old friends, some of whom had more or less impecunious sons, were anxious to welcome her to Rome, and asked her to small dinners with her mother. Guido had arrived late, and had not been able to speak to her till he was told by their host that he was to take her in. It was quite natural that he should, for, in spite of his birth, he was only plain Signor d'Este, and was not entitled to any sort of precedence in a society which is, if anything, overcareful in such matters. Neither spoke as they walked through the rooms, near the end of the small procession. Guido glanced at the young girl, who knew that he did, but paid no attention. He thought her rather pale, and there was no light in her eyes. Her hand lay like gossamer on his arm, so lightly that he could not feel it; but he was aware of her perfectly graceful motion as she walked. "I suppose this was predestined," he said, as soon as the rest of the guests were talking. She glanced at him quickly now, her head bent rather low, her eyebrows arching higher than usual. He was not sure whether the little irregularity of her upper lip was accentuated by amusement, or by a touch of scorn. "Is it?" she asked. "Do you happen to know that it was arranged?" It was amusement, then, and not scorn. They understood each other, and the ice was in no need of being broken again. "No," Guido answered with a smile. Then his voice grew suddenly low and earnest. "Will you please believe that if I had been told beforehand that I was asked in order to sit next to you, I would not have come?" Cecilia laughed lightly. "I believe you, and I understand," she answered. "But how it sounds! If you had known that you were to sit next to me, nothing would have induced you to come!" From her place next the master of the house, the Countess Fortiguerra looked at them, and was pleased to see that they were already on good terms. "Thank you," Cecilia added in a quiet voice, and gravely. "Besides," she continued, "there is no reason, in the world why we should not be good friends, is there?" She looked full at him now, without a smile, and he realised for the first time how very young she was. A married woman with an instinct for flirtation might have made the speech, but a girl older than Cecilia would have known that it might be misunderstood. Guido answered her look with one in which doubt did not keep the upper hand more than a single second. "There is no reason whatever why we should not be the best of friends," he answered, in a tone as low as her own. "Perhaps I may be of service to you. I hope so. Besides, I am made for friendship!" He laughed rather carelessly as he spoke the last words, and glanced round the table to see whether anybody was watching him. He met the Countess Fortiguerra's approving glance. "Why do you laugh at friendship?" asked Cecilia, not quite pleased. "I do not laugh at friendship at all," Guido answered. "I laugh in order that people may see me and hear me. This is the first service I can render you, to be natural and unconcerned, as I generally am. If I behaved in any unusual way--if I were too grave, or too much interested--you understand!" "Yes. You are thoughtful. Thank you." There was a little pause, during which a luxuriant lady in green, who sat on Guido's other side, determined to attract his attention, and spoke to him; but before he could answer, some one opposite asked her a question about dress, which was intensely interesting to her, because she dressed abominably. She promptly fell into the snare which had been set for her with the evil intention of leading her on to talk foolishly. She followed at once, and Guido was free again. "Now that we are friends," he said to Cecilia, "may I ask you a friendly question?" "Ask me anything you like," she answered, and her innocent eyes promised him the truth. "Were you told anything, before we met at my aunt's the other day?" "Not a word! And you?" "Nothing," he replied. "I remember that on that very afternoon----" he stopped short. "What?" "You may not like what I was going to say." "I shall, if it is true, and if you have a good reason for saying it." "Lamberti and I were together, talking, and I said that nothing would ever induce me to marry an heiress, unless it were to save my father or mother from ruin. As that can never happen, all heiresses are perfectly safe from me! Do you mind my having said that?" "No. I am sure you were in earnest." A shadow had crossed her face at the mention of Lamberti's name. "You do not like my friend," he said, and as he spoke, the shadow came again and deepened. "How can I like him or dislike him? I hardly know him." She felt very uncomfortable, for it would have been quite natural that Lamberti should have spoken to Guido of her strange behaviour in the Forum. Guido answered that one often liked or disliked people at first sight. "I think that you and I liked each other as soon as we met," he concluded. "Yes," Cecilia answered, after a little thought. "I am sure we did. Tell me, what makes you think that I dislike your friend? I should be very sorry if he thought I did." "When I first spoke of him a few moments ago, your expression changed, and when I referred to him again, you frowned." "Is that all? Are you sure that is the only reason for your opinion?" Guido laughed a little. "What other reason could I have?" he asked. "Do not take it so seriously!" "He might have told you that he himself had the impression----" "He has hardly mentioned your name since we both met you," Guido answered. It was a relief to know that Lamberti had not spoken of having met her unexpectedly, and of her cry, and of her flight. Yet somehow she had already been sure that he had kept the matter to himself. As a matter of fact, Guido had never thought of her, even in the most passing way, as the possible heroine of the adventure in the Forum. The story had interested him, but the personality of the lady did not; and, moreover, from the way in which Lamberti had spoken, Guido had very naturally supposed her to be a married woman, for it would not have occurred to him that a young girl could be strolling among the ruins quite alone. Cecilia felt relieved, and yet, at the same time, she felt a little girlish disappointment at the thought that Lamberti had hardly ever spoken of her to his most intimate friend, for she was quite sure that Guido told her the exact truth. She was angry with herself for being disappointed, too. The man's face had haunted her so long in half-waking dreams; or at least, a face exactly like his, which, the last time, had turned into his without doubt. Yet she had evidently made no impression upon him, until she had made a very bad one, the other day. She wondered whether he thought she was a little mad. She was afraid of meeting him wherever she went, and yet she now wished he were at the table, in order that she might prove to him that she was not only sane, but very clever. She knew that she wished it, and for a few moments she did not hear what Guido was saying, but gazed absently at the flowers on the table, unconsciously hoping that she might see them turn into the face she feared; but that did not happen. Guido talked on, till he saw that she was not listening, and then he was silent, and only glanced at her from time to time while he heard in his ears the cackling of the vivid lady in green. There was going to be a change in the destinies of womankind, and everybody was to be perfectly frightful for ever afterwards. To be plain, the sleeves "they" were wearing now were to be altogether given up. "They" had begun to wear the new ones already in Paris. Réjane had worn them in her new piece, and of course that meant an imminent and universal change. And as for the way the skirts were to be made, it was positively indecent. Réjane was far too much of a lady to wear one, of course, but one could see what was coming. Here some one observed that coming events cast their shadows before. "Not at all, not at all!" cried the lady in green. "I mean behind." "How long shall you stay in Rome?" Guido asked, to see whether Cecilia would hear him now. "Always," she answered. "For the rest of my life." "I am glad of that. But I meant to ask how late you intended to stay this year?" "I should like to spend the summer here." "It is the pleasantest time," Guido said. "Is it? Or are you only saying that in order to agree with me? You need not, you know. I like people who have their own opinions, and are full of prejudices, and try to force them upon everybody, whether they are good for every one or not!" "I am afraid I shall not please you, then. I have no prejudices to speak of, and my opinions are worth so little that I never hesitate to change them." "But you do not look at all feeble-minded," said Cecilia, innocently studying his face. "Thank you!" Guido laughed. "You are adorable!" he added rather flippantly. "Is that your opinion?" asked the young girl, smiling, too, as if she were pleased. "Yes. That is my firm opinion. Do you object to it?" "Oh no!" Cecilia answered, still smiling sweetly. "You have just told me that your opinions are worth so little that you never hesitate to change them. So why in the world should I object to any of them?" "Exactly," said Guido, unmoved. "Why should you? Especially as this particular one gives me so much pleasure while it lasts." "It will not last long, I daresay. Do you know that you are not at all dull?" "No one could be in your company." "That is the first dull thing you have said this evening," Cecilia answered, to see what he would say. "Shall it be the last?" he asked. "Yes, please." There was a little wilful command in the tone that Guido liked. He felt her presence in a way he did not remember to have felt that of any woman, and in the atmosphere of her own in which she seemed to live he breathed as one does in some very high places, less easily, perhaps, but with conscious pleasure in drawing breath. He could not have described his sensations in those first meetings with her, and he could have analysed them less. One might as well seek the form and perfume of the flower in the first tender shoot that thrusts up its joy of living out of the mystery of the dull brown earth. Yet he knew well enough that something was beginning to grow in him which had not begun, and grown, and perished before. Many times he had talked with women famous for their beauty, or for their charm, or for their wit, and he himself had said clever things which he had remembered with a little vanity or had forgotten with regret, and had turned compliments in many manners, guessing at the taste of her who sat beside him, wishing to please her, and wishing even more to find some general key to women's thought, some universal explanation of their ways, some logical solution of their seemingly inconsequent actions. His mind was of the sort that is satisfied by suspended judgment, that dreads the chillingly triumphant phrase of reason, "which was to be proved," as much as the despairing tone of a reduction to the impossible. He loved problems that could not be solved easily, if at all, because he could think of them continually in a hundred new and different ways. He hated equally a final affirmation past appeal, and an ultimate negation which might make his thoughts ridiculous in his own eyes. A quiet suspense was his natural state of equilibrium. Anything might be, or might not be, and decision was hateful; it was delicious to float on the calm waters of meditative indifference, between the giant rocks, hope and despair, in the straits that lead the sea of life to the ocean of eternity. He knew that he was the end of a race that had reigned and could never reign again. It was better that the end should be a question than a hope deceived, or a cry of impotent hatred uttered against Something which might not exist after all. If he had a philosophy it was that, and nothing more; and though it was not much, it had helped him to live without much pain and almost always with a certain dreamy, intellectual, wondering pleasure in his own thoughts. Sometimes he was irritated out of that state by the demands and doings of the Princess Anatolie, as on the day when he and his friend had talked in the garden beyond the river; and then he spoke of ending all at a stroke, and almost believed that he might do it; and he envied Lamberti his love of life and action. But such moods soon passed and left him himself again, so that he marvelled how he could ever have been so much moved. It was always the same, in the end, but such as it was the world was not a bad world for him. Here was something different from all the past, and it had begun without warning, and was growing against his will, because it fed on that with which his will had nothing to do. There is no fatalism like that of the indifferent man who believes in nothing, not even in himself, and who admits nothing to be positive except crime and dishonour. Why should he not fall in love with Cecilia Palladio, since he had previously stated to himself, to her, and to his trusted friend, that nothing could induce him to marry her? It was quite clear from the first that she, on her side, would never fall in love with him. He looked upon that as altogether out of the question, and perhaps with reason. On the other hand, he had not the slightest faith in the lasting nature of anything he might feel, and therefore he was not afraid of consequences, which rarely indeed frighten a man who is doing what he likes. It is more generally the woman that thinks of them, and points them out because "there is still time!" She also heaps her scorn upon the man if he is wise enough to agree with her; but that is a detail, and perhaps it ought not to be mentioned. As for the fact that he was beginning to be in love, Guido no longer doubted it. The pleasure he felt in saying to Cecilia things of even less than average conversational merit was proof enough that it was not only what he said that interested him. When a man of ordinary assurance wishes to shine in the eyes of a woman, he generally succeeds at least in shining in his own. Guido was not any more self-conscious than most people, and he was certainly not more diffident of his own gifts, which he could judge impartially because he attached little importance to what they might bring him. But the categorical command to say nothing dull made it quite impossible to say anything witty, and the conversation languished a little and then broke off. It was past ten o'clock when Guido again found a chance of speaking to Cecilia. He had looked at her more often than he knew, after dinner, and had given rather vague answers to one or two people who had spoken to him. He had moved about the great room idly, looking at the familiar old portraits, and at objects he had known in the same places for years. He had smoked a cigarette, standing with his host, while the latter talked to him about the Etruscan tomb he had just discovered on his place, and he had nodded pleasantly to the sound of the old gentleman's voice without hearing a word. Then he had smoked another cigarette at the opposite end of the room with a group of younger men, who talked of nothing but motor cars; and when they asked his opinion about something, he had said that he had none, and preferred walking, which speech caused such a perceptible chill that he turned away and left the young men to their discussion. All the while his eyes followed Cecilia's movements, and lingered upon her when she stood still or sat down. In the course of the evening each of the young men who talked about motor cars managed to try his luck at a conversation with her, and all, by way of being original, talked to her about the same thing. As she had just come from Paris, and was rich, it was to be supposed that she, of course, owned a motor car, had passed her examination as an engineer, and spent most of her time in a mask and broad-visored cap scouring Europe at the rate of fifty miles an hour. "But why do you not get an automobile?" asked each of the young men, as soon as her answer had disappointed him. "Do you play the violin?" she enquired sweetly of each. "No," each answered. "Then why do you not get a violin?" In this way she confounded the young men, and their heads moved uneasily on the tops of their high collars, until they were able to get away from her. Guido saw how they left her, with a discomfited expression, and as if they had suddenly acquired the conviction that their clothes did not fit them, for that is generally the first sensation experienced by a very well-dressed young man when he has been made to feel that he is foolish. Guido saw, and understood, and he was worldly wise enough to know that unless Cecilia would show a little more willingness to seem pleased, she would presently be sitting alone on a sofa, waiting for her mother to go home. As soon as this inevitable result followed, he sat down beside her. She turned her face slowly, when he had settled himself, and she looked at him with slightly bent head, a little upwards, from under her lids. The light that fell from a shaded lamp above her marked the sharp curve of arching brows sharply against the warm shadow over the deep-set and widely opened eyes. For a few seconds Guido returned the steady gaze, before he spoke. "Are you the Sphinx?" he asked suddenly. "Have you come to life again to ask men your riddle?" "I ask it of myself," she answered softly, and then looked away. "I cannot answer it." "Are you good or evil?" Guido asked, speaking again. The questions came to his lips as if some one else were asking them with his voice. "Good--I think," answered the young girl, motionless beside him. "But I might be very bad." "What is the riddle?" Guido enquired, and now he felt that he was speaking out of his own curiosity, and not as the mouthpiece of some one in a dream. "Do you ask yourself what it all means? I suppose so. We all ask that, and we never get any answer." "It is too vague a question. It cannot have a definite answer. No. I ask three questions which I found in a German book of philosophy when I was a little girl. I tried hard to understand what all the rest of the book was about, but I found on one page three questions, printed by themselves. I can see the page now, and the questions were numbered one, two, and three. I have asked them ever since." "What were they?" "They were these: 'What can I know? What ought I to do? What may I hope?'" "There would be everything in the answers," Guido said, "for they are big questions. I think I have answered them all in the negative in my own life. I know nothing, I do nothing, and I hope nothing." Cecilia looked at him again. "I would not be you," she said gravely. "I can do nothing, perhaps, and I am sure I know nothing worth knowing, but I hope. I have that at least. I hope everything, with all my heart and soul--everything, even things you could not dream of." "Help me to dream of them. Perhaps I might." "Then dream that faith is knowledge, that charity is action, and that hope is heaven itself," answered Cecilia. Her voice was sweet and low, and far away as spirit land, and Guido wondered at the words. "Where did you hear that?" he asked. "Ah, where?" she asked, almost sadly, and very longingly. "If I could tell you that, I should know the great secret, the only secret ever yet worth knowing. Where have we heard the voices that come back to us, not in sleeping dreams only, but when we are waking, too, voices that come back softly like evening bells across the sea, with the touch of hands that lay in ours long ago, and faces that we know better than our own! Where was it all, before the memory of it all was here?" "I have often wondered whether those impressions are memories," said Guido. "What else could they be?" Cecilia asked, her tone growing colder at once. Guido had been happy in listening to her talk, with its suggestion of fantastical extravagance, but he had not known how to answer her, nor how to lead her on. He felt that the spell was broken, because something was lacking in himself. To be a magician one must believe in magic, unless one would be a mere conjurer. Guido at least knew enough not to answer the girl's last question with a string of so-called scientific theories about atavism and transmitted recollections. If he had taken that ground he would have been surprised to find that Cecilia Palladio was quite as familiar with it as himself. "I am afraid," he said, "that I am not fit to talk with you about such things. You start from a point which I can never hope to reach, and instead of coming down to me, you rise higher and higher, almost out of my sight. I am afraid that if our friendship is to be real, it will be a one-sided bond." "How do you mean?" asked the young girl, who had listened. "It will mean much more to me than it ever can to you." "No," Cecilia answered. "I think I shall like you very much." "I like you very much already," said Guido, smiling. "I have an amusing idea." "Have you? What is it? Neither of us has been very amusing this evening." "Suppose that we take advantage of the Princess's conspiracy. Shall we?" "My mother is the other conspirator!" Cecilia laughed. "Is there any harm in letting people see that we like each other?" Guido asked. "None in the least. Every one hopes that we may. Besides----" she stopped short. "What is the other consideration?" Guido enquired. "If I am perfectly frank--brutally frank--shall you be less my friend?" "No. Much more." "I do not wish to marry at all," said Cecilia, and again she reminded him of the Sphinx. "But if I ever should change my mind, since you and I have been picked out to make a match, I suppose I might as well marry you as any one else." "Oh, quite as well!" Then Guido laughed, as he rarely did, not loudly, but with all his heart, and Cecilia did not try to check her amusement either. "I suppose it really is very funny," she said. "The only thing necessary is that no one should ever guess that we have made a compact. That would be fatal." "No one!" cried the young girl, eagerly. "No one! Not even your friend!" "Lamberti? No, least of all, Lamberti!" "Why do you say, least of all?" "Because you do not like him," Guido answered, with perfect sincerity. "Oh! I see. I am not sure, of course, but I am glad you do not mean to tell him. It would make me nervous to think that he might know. I--I am not quite certain why it makes me nervous, but it does." "Have no fear. When shall I see you?" He had noticed that Cecilia's mother was beginning that little comedy of movements, and glances, and uneasy turnings of the head, by which mothers of marriageable daughters signify their intention of going home. The works of a clock probably act in the same way before striking. "I will make my mother ask you to dinner. Are you free to-morrow night?" "Any night." "No--I mean really. Are you?" "Yes, really. Lamberti does not count, for we generally dine together when we have no other engagement." The shadow again flitted across Cecilia's brow, and she said nothing, only nodding quickly. Then she looked across the room at her mother. Young girls are always instantly aware that their mothers are making signs. When Nelson's commander-in-chief signalled to him at the battle of Copenhagen the order to retire, Nelson put his spy-glass to his blind eye and assured his officers that he could see nothing, went on, and won the fight. Every young girl is totally blind of one eye during periods that vary between ten minutes and three hours. Cecilia having recovered her sight, and seen her mother, rose with obedient alacrity. "Good night," she said to Guido. "I am glad we are friends." Their glances met for a moment, and Guido made an imperceptible gesture to put out his hand, but she did not answer it. He thought her refusal a little old-fashioned, since young girls now shake hands in Italy more often than not; but he liked her ways, chiefly because they were hers, and, moreover, he remembered just then that at her age she was supposed to be barely out of the schoolroom or the convent. CHAPTER VI "Spiritualism, your Highness, is the devil, without doubt," said the learned ecclesiastical archæologist, Don Nicola Francesetti, in an apologetic tone, and looking at his knees. "If there is anything more heretical, it is a belief in a possible migration of souls from one body to another, in a series of lives." The Princess Anatolie smiled at the excellent man and exchanged a glance of compassionate intelligence with Monsieur Leroy. She did not care a straw what the Church thought about anything except Protestants and Jews, and she did not believe that Don Nicola cared either. He chanced to be a priest, instead of a professor, and it was of course his duty to protest against heresy when it was thrust under his cogitative observation. Spiritualism was not exactly heresy, therefore he said it was the devil, and no mistake; but as she was sure that he did not believe in the devil, that only proved that he did not believe in spiritualism. In this she was mistaken, however, as people often are in their judgment of priests. Nicola Francesetti had long ago placed his conscience in safety, so to speak, by telling himself that he was not a theologian, but an archæologist, and that as he could not afford to divide his time and his intelligence between two subjects, where one was too vast, it was therefore his plain duty to think about all questions of religion as the Church taught him to think. He admitted that if his life could begin again he would perhaps not again enter the priesthood, but he would never have conceded that he could have been anything but a believing Catholic. He had no vocation whatever for saving souls, whereas he possessed the archæological gift in a high degree; and yet, as a clergyman and a good Christian, he was convinced at heart that a man in holy orders had no right to give his whole life and strength to another profession. He had asked the advice of a wise and good man on this point, however, and the theologian had thought that he should continue to live as he was living. Had he a cure? No, he had none. Had he ever evaded a priest's work? That is, had work been offered to him where a priest was needed, and where he could have done active good, and had he refused because it was distasteful to him? No, never. Was he receiving any stipend for performing a priest's duties, with the tacit understanding that he was at liberty to pay an impecunious substitute a part of the money for taking his place, so that he himself profited by the transaction? No, certainly not. Don Nicola had a sufficient income of his own to live on. Had he ever made a solemn promise to devote his life to missionary labours among the heathen? No. "In that case, my dear friend," concluded the theologian, "you are tormenting yourself with perfectly useless scruples. You are making a mountain of your molehill, and when you have made your mountain you will not be satisfied until you have made another beside it. In the course of time you will, in fact, oppress your innocent conscience with a whole range of mountains; you will be immobilised under the weight, and then you will become hateful to yourself, useless to others, and an object of pity to wise men. Stick to your archæology." "Is pure study a good in itself?" asked Don Nicola. "What is good?" retorted the theologian viciously. "I wish you would define it!" Don Nicola was silent, for though he could think of a number of synonyms for the conception, he remembered no definition corresponding to any of them. He waited. "Good and goodness are not the same thing," observed the theologian; "you might as well say that study and knowledge are the same thing." "But study should lead to knowledge." "And goodness should lead to good; and, compared with ignorance, knowledge is a form of good. Therefore study is a form of goodness. Consequently, as you have a turn for erudition, the best thing you can do is to go on with your studies." "I see," said Don Nicola. "I wish I did," sighed the theologian, when the priest was gone. "How very pleasant it must be, to be an archæologist!" After that, whenever Don Nicola was troubled with uneasiness about his profession, he soothed himself with his friend's little syllogism, which was as full of holes as a sieve, as flimsy as a tissue-paper balloon, and as unstable as a pyramid upside down, but nevertheless perfectly satisfactory. "Of course," says humanity, "I know nothing about it. But I am perfectly sure." And so forth. And moreover, if humanity were not frequently quite sure of things concerning which it knows nothing, the world would soon come to a standstill, and never move again; like the ass in the fable, that died of hunger in its stall between two bundles of hay, unable to decide which to eat first. That also was an instance of stable equilibrium. Don Nicola avoided all questions of religion in general conversation, and tried to make other people avoid them when he was the only clergyman present, because he did not like to be asked his opinion about them. But when the Princess Anatolie and Monsieur Leroy gravely declared their belief in the communications of departed persons by means of rappings, not to say by touch, and by strains of music, and perfumes, and even, on rare occasions, by actual apparition, then Don Nicola felt that it was his duty to protest, and he accordingly protested with considerable energy. He said that spiritualism was the devil. "The chief object of the devil's existence," observed Monsieur Leroy, "is to bear responsibility." The Princess laughed and nodded her approval, as she always did when Monsieur Leroy said anything which she thought clever. Don Nicola was too wise to discuss the matter, if, indeed, it admitted of discussion; for the devil was certainly responsible for a good deal. "Your definition of spiritualism is so very liberal," Monsieur Leroy added, with a fine supercilious smile on his red lips. "It is not mine," answered Don Nicola, modestly. "No. I suppose it is the opinion of the Church. At all events, you do not doubt the possibility of communicating with the spirits of dead persons, do you?" "I have never examined the matter, my dear sir." "It seems to me," said Monsieur Leroy, with airy superiority, "that it is rather rash to attribute to Satan everything which you will not take the trouble to examine." "Hush, Doudou!" cried the Princess. "You are very rude!" "Not at all, not at all, your Highness!" protested Don Nicola, rising. "I should be very much surprised if Monsieur Leroy expressed himself differently." Monsieur Leroy had no retort ready, and tried to smile. "It will give me the greatest pleasure to be your guide to the new excavations in the Forum," added the priest, as he took his leave. The Princess and Monsieur Leroy were left alone. "Shall we?" he asked after a moment's silence, and waited anxiously for the answer. "I am afraid They will not come to-night, Doudou," said the Princess. "You have excited yourself in argument. You know that always has a bad effect." "That man irritates me," answered Monsieur Leroy, peevishly. "Why do you receive him?" He spoke in the tone of a spoilt child--a spoilt child of forty, or thereabouts. "I thought you liked him," replied the Princess, very meekly. "I will give orders that he is not to be received. We will not go to the Forum with him." "No, no! How you exaggerate! You always think that I mean a great deal more than I say. I only said that he irritated me." "Why should you be irritated for nothing? You know it is bad for you." She looked at him with an air of concern, and there was a gentleness in her eyes which few had ever seen in them. "It does not matter," answered Monsieur Leroy, crossly. He had risen, and he brought a very small and light mahogany table from a corner. It was one of those which used to be made during the second Empire in sets of six and of successive sizes, so that each fitted each under the next larger one. He moved awkwardly and yet without noise; there was something very womanish in his figure and gait. He set the little table before the Princess, very close to her, lit a single candle, which he placed on the floor behind an arm-chair, and turned out the electric light. Then he sat down on the opposite side of the table and spread out his hands upon it, side by side, the right thumb resting on the left. The Princess did the same. They glanced at each other once or twice, hardly distinguishing each other's features in the gloom. Then they looked steadily down upon the table, and neither stirred for a long time. "I am sure They will not come," said the Princess at last, in a very low voice. "Hush!" Silence again, for a quarter of an hour. Somewhere in the room a small clock, or a watch, ticked quickly, with a little rhythmical, insisting accent on the fourth beat. "It moved, then!" whispered the Princess, excitedly. "Yes. Hush!" The little table certainly moved, with a queerly soft rocking motion, as if its feet only just touched the carpet and supported no weight. The Princess's hands felt as if they were floating over tiny rippling waves, and between her shoulders came the almost stinging thrill she loved. She wished that the room were quite dark now, in order that she might feel more. There were tiny beads of perspiration on Monsieur Leroy's forehead, and his hands were moist. The candle behind the arm-chair flickered. "Are You there?" asked Monsieur Leroy, in a voice unlike his own. There was no answer. The table moved more uneasily. "Rap once for 'yes,' twice for 'no,'" said Monsieur Leroy. "Is this the first time you have come to us?" One rap answered the question, sharp and clear, as if the butt of a pencil had struck the table underneath it and near the middle. "Are you the spirit of a man?" Two raps very distinct. "Then you are a woman. Tell us----" Several raps came in quick succession, in pairs, as if to repeat the negative energetically. Monsieur Leroy seemed to hesitate what question to ask. "Perhaps it is a child," suggested the Princess, in a tremulous tone. A sharp rap. Yes, it was a child. Was it a little girl? Yes. Had it been dead long? Yes. More than ten years? Yes. More than twenty? Yes. Fifty? No. Forty? Yes. Monsieur Leroy began to count, pausing after each number. "Forty-one--forty-two--forty-three--forty-four----" The sharp rap again. The Princess drew a quick breath. "How old was it when it died?" she managed to ask. Monsieur Leroy began to count again, beginning with one. At the word seven, the rap came. The Princess started violently, almost upsetting the table against her companion. "Adelaide!" She cried in a broken voice. One rap. "Oh, my darling, my darling!" The old woman bent down over the table, and her outspread hands tried frantically to take up the flat surface, and she kissed the polished wood passionately, again and again, not knowing what she did, nor hearing her own incoherent words of mixed joy and agony. "My child! My little thing--my sweet--speak to me----" Her whole being was convulsed. Little storms of rappings seemed to answer her. The perspiration trickled down Monsieur Leroy's temples. He seemed to be making an effort altogether beyond his natural strength. "Speak to me--call me by the little name!" sobbed the Princess, and her tears wet her hands and the table. Monsieur Leroy began to repeat the alphabet. From time to time a rap stopped him at a letter, and then he began over again. In this way the rapping spelt out the word "Mamette." "She says 'Mamette,'" said Monsieur Leroy, in a puzzled tone. "Does that mean anything?" But the Princess burst into passionate weeping. It was the name she had asked for, the child's own pet name for her, its mother; it was the last word the poor little dying lips had tried to form. Never since that moment had the heart-broken woman spoken it, never since the fourth year before Monsieur Leroy had been born. He looked at her, for he seemed to have preserved his self-control, and he saw that if matters went much further the poor sobbing woman would reach a state which might be dangerous. He withdrew his hands from the table and waited. "She is gone, but she will come again now, whenever you call her," he said gently. "No, do not go!" cried the Princess, clutching at the smooth wood frantically. "Come back, come back and speak to me once more!" "She is gone, for to-night," said Monsieur Leroy, in the same gentle tone. "I am very much exhausted." He pressed his handkerchief to his forehead and to his temples, again and again, while the Princess moaned, her cheek upon the table, as she had once let it rest upon the breast of her dead child. Monsieur Leroy rose cautiously, fearing to disturb her. He was trembling now, as men sometimes do who have escaped alive from a great danger. He steadied himself by the back of the arm-chair, behind which the candle was burning steadily. With an effort, he stooped and took up the candlestick and set it on the table. Then he looked at his watch and saw that it was past eleven o'clock. CHAPTER VII It was some time since Guido had seen Lamberti, but the latter had written him a line to say that he was going with a party of men to stop in an old country house near the seashore, not far from Cività Vecchia. The quail were very abundant in May that year, and Lamberti was a good shot. He had left home suddenly on the morning after telling Guido the story of his adventure in the Forum. Guido had at first been mildly surprised that his friend should not have spoken of his intention on that evening; but some one had told him that the party had been made up at the club, late at night, which accounted for everything. Guido was soon too much occupied to miss the daily companionship, and was glad to be alone, when he could not be with Cecilia. He no longer concealed from himself that he was very much in love with her, and that, compared with this fact, nothing in his previous life had been of any importance whatever. Even the circumstances of his position with regard to his aunt sank into insignificance. She might do what she pleased, she might try to ruin him, she might persecute him to the extreme limit of her ingenuity, she might invent calumnies intended to disgrace him; he was confident of victory and sure of himself. One of the first unmistakable signs of genuine love is the certainty of doing the impossible. An hour before meeting Cecilia, Guido had been reduced to the deepest despondency, and had talked gravely of ending a life that was not worth living. A fortnight had passed, and he defied his aunt, Monsieur Leroy, the whole world, an adverse fate, and the powers of evil. They might do their worst, now, for he was full of strength, and ten times more alive than he had ever been before. It was true that he could not see the smallest change in Cecilia's manner towards him since the memorable evening on which she had laughingly agreed to take advantage of what was thrust upon them both. Her colour did not change by the least shade of a blush when she met him; there was not the slightest quivering of the delicate eyelids, there was nothing but the most friendly frankness in the steady look of welcome. But she liked him very much, and was at no pains to conceal it. She liked him better than any one she had ever met in her short life, except her stepfather, and she told Guido so with charming unconcern. As he could not be jealous of the dead ambassador, he was not at all discouraged by the comparison. Sometimes he was rather flattered by it, and he could not but feel that he had already acquired a position from which any future suitor would find it hard to dislodge him. The Countess Fortiguerra looked on with wondering satisfaction. Her daughter had not led her to believe that she would readily accept what must soon be looked upon by society as an engagement, and what would certainly be one before long. When Guido went to see his aunt, she received him with expansive expressions of affection. He noticed a change in the Princess, which he could only explain by the satisfaction he supposed she felt in his conduct. There were times when her artificial face softened with a look of genuine feeling, especially when she was silent and inattentive. Guido knew her well enough, he thought, to impute these signs to her inward contentment at the prospect of his marriage, from which she was sure of extracting notable financial advantage. But in this he was not just, though he judged from long experience. Monsieur Leroy alone knew the secret, and he kept his own counsel. An inquisitive friend asked the Countess Fortiguerra boldly whether she intended to announce the engagement of her daughter at the garden party. "No," she answered, without hesitation, "that would be premature." She was careful, in a way, to do nothing irrevocable--never to take Guido into her carriage, not to ask him to dinner when there were other guests, not to leave him alone with Cecilia when there was a possibility of such a thing being noticed by the servants, except by the discreet Petersen, who could be trusted, and who strongly approved of Guido from the first. But when it was quite safe, the Countess used to go and sit in a little boudoir adjoining the drawing-room, leaving the doors open, of course, and occupying herself with her correspondence; and Guido and Cecilia talked without restraint. The Countess had enough womanly and instinctive wisdom not to ask questions of her daughter at this stage, but on the day before the long-expected garden party she spoke to Guido alone, in a little set speech which she had prepared with more conscientiousness than diplomatic skill. "You have seen," she said, "that I am always glad to receive you here, and that I often leave you and Cecilia together in the drawing-room. Dear Signor d'Este, I am sure you will understand me if I ask you to--to--to tell me something." She had meant to end the sentence differently, rounding it off with "your intentions with regard to my daughter"; but that sounded like something in a letter, so she tried to make it more vague. But Guido understood, which is not surprising. "You have been very kind to me," he said simply. "I love your daughter sincerely, and if she will consent to marry me I shall do my best to make her happy. But, so far, I have no reason to think that she will accept me. Besides, whether you know it already or not, I must tell you that I am a poor man. I have no fortune whatever, though I receive an allowance by my father's will, which is enough for a bachelor. It will cease at my death. Your daughter could make a very much more brilliant marriage." The good Countess had listened in silence. The Princess, for reasons of her own, had explained Guido's position with considerable minuteness, if not with scrupulous accuracy. "Cecilia is rich enough to marry whom she pleases," the Countess answered. "Even without considering her inclinations, your social position would make up for your want of fortune." "My social position is not very exalted," Guido answered, smiling at her frankness. "I am plain 'Signor d'Este,' without any title whatsoever, or without the least prospect of one." "But your royal blood----" protested the Countess. "I am more proud of the fact that my mother was an honest woman," replied Guido, quietly. "Yes--oh--of course!" The Countess was a little abashed. "But you know what I mean," she added, by way of making matters clear. "And as for your fortune--I would say, your allowance, and all that--it really does not matter. It is natural that you should have made debts, too. All young men do, I believe." "No," said Guido. "I have not a debt in the world." "Really?" The single word sounded more like an exclamation of extreme surprise than like an interrogation, and the Countess, who was incapable of concealment, stared at Guido for a moment in undisguised astonishment. "Why are you so much surprised?" he asked, with evident amusement. "My allowance is fifty thousand francs a year. That is not wealth, but it is quite enough for me." "Yes. I should think so. That is--of course, it is not much--is it? I never know anything about money, you know! Baron Goldbirn manages everything for us." "I suppose," Guido said, looking at her curiously, "that some one must have told you that I had made debts." "Yes--yes! Some one did tell me so." "Whoever said it was quite mistaken. I can easily satisfy you on that point, for I am a very orderly person. I used to play high when I was twenty-one, but I got tired of it, and I do not care for cards any longer." "It is very strange, all the same!" The Countess was still wondering, though she believed him. "How people lie!" she exclaimed. "Oh, admirably, and most of the time," Guido answered, with a little laugh. There was a short pause. He also was wondering who could have maligned him. No doubt it must have been some designing mother who had a son to marry. "Forgive me," he said at last. "I have told you exactly what my position is. Have you, on your side, any reason to think that your daughter will consent?" "Oh, I am sure she will!" answered the Countess, promptly. Guido repressed a movement, and for an instant the colour rose faintly in his face, then sank away. "Quite sure?" he asked, controlling his voice. "I mean, in the end, you know. She will marry you in the end. I am convinced of it. But I think I had better not ask her just yet." There were matters in regard to which she was distinctly afraid of her daughter. "May I?" Guido enquired. "Will you let me ask her to marry me, when I think that the time has come?" "Certainly! That is----" The Countess believed that she ought to hesitate. "After all, we have only known you a fortnight. That is not long. Is it?" "No. But, on the other hand, you had never seen me when you and my aunt agreed that your daughter and I should be married." "How did you know that we had talked about it?" "It was rather evident," Guido answered, with a smile. The artlessness which is often a charm in a young girl looks terribly like foolishness if it lasts till a woman is forty. Yet in old age it may seem charming again, as if second childhood brought with it a second innocence. Guido was an Italian only by his mother, and from his father he inherited the profoundly complicated character of races that had ruled the world for a thousand years or more, and not always either wisely or justly. Under his indifference and quiet dislike of all action, as well as of most emotions, he had always felt the conflicting instincts towards good and evil, and the contempt of consequences bordering on folly, if not upon real insanity, which had brought about the decline and fall of his father's kingdom. The perfect simplicity of the real Italian character when in a state of equilibrium always amused him, and often pleased him, and he had a genuine admiration for the splendidly violent contrasts which it develops when roused by passion. He could read it like an open book, and predict what it would do in almost any circumstances. For the first time in his life, he felt something of its directness in himself, moving to a definite aim through the maze of useless complications, hesitations, and turns and returns of thought with which he was familiar in his own character. He smiled at the idea that he might end by resembling Lamberti, with whom to think was to feel, and to feel was to act. Were there two selves in him, of which the one was in love, and the other was not? That was an amusing theory, and a fortnight ago it would have been pleasant to sit in his room at night, among his Dürers, his Rembrandts, and his pictures, with an old book on his knee, dreaming about his two conflicting individualities. But somehow dreaming had lost its charm of late. He thought only of one question, and asked only one of the future. Was Cecilia Palladio's friendship about to turn into anything that could be called love, or not? His intention warned him that if the change had come she herself was not conscious of it. He was authorised to ask her, now that the Countess had spoken--formally authorised, but he was quite sure that if he had believed that she already loved him, he would not have waited for any such permission. His father's blood resented the restraint of all ordinary conventions, and in the most profound inaction he had always morally and inwardly reserved the right to do what he pleased, if he should ever care to do anything at all. He was just going to dress for dinner that evening when Lamberti came in, a little more sunburned than usual, but thinner, and very restless in his manner. Guido explained that he was going to dine with the Countess Fortiguerra. He offered to telephone for permission to bring Lamberti with him. "Do you know them well enough for that already?" Lamberti asked. "Yes. I have seen them a great deal since you left. Shall I ask?" "No, thank you. I shall dine at home with my people." "Shall you go to the garden party to-morrow?" "No." Guido looked at him curiously, and he immediately turned away, unlike himself. "Have you had any more strange dreams since I saw you?" Guido asked. "Yes." Lamberti did not turn round again, but looked attentively at an etching on the table, so that Guido could not see his face. His monosyllabic answers were nervous and sharp. It was clear that he was under some kind of strain that was becoming intolerable, but of which he did not care to speak. "How is it going?" he asked suddenly. "I think everything is going well," answered Guido, who knew what he meant, though neither of them had spoken to the other of Cecilia, except in the most casual way, since they had both met her. "So you are going to marry an heiress after all," said Lamberti, with something like a laugh. "I love her," Guido replied. "I cannot help the fact that she is rich." "It does no harm." "Perhaps not, but I wish she had no more than I. If she had nothing at all, I should be just as anxious to marry her." "You do not suppose that I doubt that, do you?" Lamberti asked quickly. "No. But you spoke at first as if you were reproaching me for changing my mind." "Did I? I am sorry. I did not mean it in that way. I was only thinking that fate generally makes us do just what we do not intend. There is something diabolically ingenious about destiny. It lies in wait for you, it seems to leave everything to your own choice, it makes you think that you are a perfectly free agent, and then, without the least warning, it springs at you from behind a tree, knocks you down, tramples the breath out of you, and drags you off by the heels straight to the very thing you have sworn to avoid. Man a free agent? Nonsense! There is no such thing as free will." "What in the world has happened to you?" Guido asked, by way of answer. "Is anything wrong?" "Everything is wrong. Good night. You ought to be dressing for dinner." "Come with me." "To dine with people whom I hardly know, and who have not asked me? Besides, I told you that I meant to dine at home." "At least, promise me that you will go with me to-morrow to the Villa Madama." "No." "Look here, Lamberti," said Guido, changing his tone, "you and I have known each other since we were boys, and I do not believe there exist two men who are better friends. I am not sure that the Contessina Palladio will marry me, but her mother wishes it, and heaven knows that I do. They are both perfectly well aware that you are my most intimate friend. If you absolutely refuse to go near them they can only suppose that you have something against them. They have already asked me if they are never to see you. Now, what will it cost you to be decently civil to a lady who may be my wife next year, and to her mother, who was your mother's friend long ago? You need not stay half an hour at the villa unless you please. But go with me. Let them see you with me. If I really marry, do you suppose I am going to have any one but you for my best man?" Lamberti listened to this long speech without attempting to interrupt Guido. Then he was silent for a few moments. "If you put it in that light," he said, rising to go, "I cannot refuse. What time shall you start? I will come here for you." "Thank you," said Guido. "I should like to get there early. At four o'clock, I should say. I suppose we ought not to leave here later than half-past three." "Very well. I shall be here in plenty of time. Good night." When Guido pressed his hand, it was icy cold. CHAPTER VIII On the following morning Lamberti went out early, and before nine o'clock he was in the private study of a famous physician, who was a specialist for diseases of the nerves. Lamberti had never seen him and had not asked for an appointment, for the simple reason that his visit was spontaneous and unpremeditated. He had spent a wretched night, and it suddenly struck him that he might be ill. As he had never been ill in his life except from two or three wounds got in fight, he had been slow to admit that anything could be wrong with his physical condition. But it was possible. The strongest men sometimes fell ill unaccountably. A good doctor would see the truth at a glance. The specialist was a young man, squarely built, with a fresh complexion, smooth brown hair, and a well-trimmed chestnut beard. At first sight, no one would have noticed anything remarkable in his appearance, except, perhaps, that he had unusually bright blue eyes, which had a fixed look when he spoke earnestly. "I am a naval officer," said Lamberti, as he took the seat the doctor offered him. "Can you tell me whether I am ill or not? I mean, whether I have any bodily illness. Then I will explain what brings me." The doctor looked at him keenly a few seconds, felt his pulse, pressed one ear on his waistcoat to listen to his heart, and then against his back, made him face the light and gently drew down the lower lids of his eyes, and finally stood off and made a sort of general survey of his appearance. Then he made him stretch out one hand, with the fingers spread out. There was not the least tremor. Last of all, he asked him to shut his eyes tightly and walk slowly across the room, turn round, and walk back. Lamberti did so, steadily and quietly. "There is nothing wrong with your body," said the doctor, sitting down. "Before you tell me why you come here, I should like to know one thing more. Do you come of sound and healthy people?" "Yes. My father is the Marchese Lamberti. My brothers and sisters are all alive and well. So far as I know, there was never any insanity in my family." "Were your father and mother cousins?" enquired the doctor. "No." "Very good. That is all I need to know. I am at your service. What is the matter?" "If we lived in the Middle Ages," said Lamberti, "I should say that I was possessed by the devil, or haunted." He stopped and laughed oddly. "Why not say so now?" asked the doctor. "The names of things do not matter in the least. Let us say that you are haunted, if that describes what troubles you. Very good. What haunts you?" "A young girl," Lamberti answered, after a moment's pause. "Do you mean that you see, or think you see, the apparition of a young girl who is dead?" "She is alive, but I have only met her once. That is the strange thing about it, or, at least, the beginning of the strange thing. Of course it is perfectly absurd, but when I first saw her, the only time we met, I had the sensation of recognising some one I had not seen for many years. As she is only just eighteen, that is impossible." "Excuse me, my dear sir, nothing is impossible. Every one is absent-minded sometimes. You may have seen the young lady in the street, or at the theatre. You may have stared at her quite unconsciously while you were thinking of something else, and her features may have so impressed themselves upon your memory, without your knowing it, that you actually recognised her when you met her in a drawing-room." "I daresay," admitted Lamberti, indifferently. "But that is no reason why I should dream of her every night." "I am not sure. It might be a reason. Such things happen." "And every night when I wake from the dream, I hear some one close the door of my room softly, as if she were just going out. I always lock my door at night." "Perhaps it sometimes shakes a little in the frame." "It began at home. But I have been stopping in the country nearly a fortnight, and the same thing has happened every night." "You dream it. One may get the habit of dreaming the same dream every time one sleeps." "It is not always the same dream, though the door is always closed softly when she goes away. But there is something else. I was wrong in saying that I only met the lady once. I should have said that I have spoken with her only once. This is how it happened." Lamberti told the doctor the story of his meeting Cecilia at the house of the Vestals. The specialist listened attentively, for he was already convinced that Lamberti was a man of solid reason and practical good sense, probably the victim of a series of coincidences that had made a strong impression on his mind. When Lamberti paused, there was a moment's silence. "What do you yourself think was the cause of the lady's fright?" asked the doctor at last. "I believe that she had dreamed the same dream," Lamberti answered without hesitation. "What makes you believe anything so improbable?" "Well--I hardly know. It is an impression. It was all so amazingly real, you see, and when our eyes met, she looked as if she knew exactly what would happen if she did not run away--exactly what had happened in the dream." "That was on the morning after you had first dreamt it, you say. Of course it helped very much to strengthen the impression the dream had made, and it is not at all surprising that the dream should have come again. You know as well as I, that a dream which seems to last hours really passes in a second, perhaps in no time at all. The slightest sound in your room which suggested the closing of a door would be enough to bring it all back before you were awake, and the sound might still be audible to you." "Possibly. Whatever it is, I wish to get rid of it." "It may be merely coincidence," the doctor said. "I think it is. But I do not exclude the theory that two people who have made a very strong impression one on another, may be the subjects of some sort of mutual thought transference. We know very little about those things. Some queer cases come under my observation, but my patients are never sound and sane men like you. What I should like to know is, why did the lady run away?" "That is probably the one thing I can never find out," Lamberti answered. "There is a very simple way. Ask her." The doctor smiled. "Is it so very hard?" he enquired, as Lamberti looked at him in surprise. "I take it for granted that you can find some opportunity of seeing her in a drawing-room, where she cannot fly from you, and will not do anything to attract attention. What could be more natural than that you should ask her quite frankly why she was so frightened the other day? I do not see how she could possibly be offended. Do you? When you ask her, you need not seem too serious, as if you attached a great deal of importance to what she had done." "I certainly could try it," said Lamberti thoughtfully. "I shall see her to-day." "She may try to avoid you, because she is ashamed of what she did. But if I were you, I would not let the chance slip. If you succeed in talking to her for a few minutes, and break the ice, I can almost promise that you will also break the habit of this dream that annoys you. Will you make the attempt? It seems to me by far the wisest and most sensible remedy, for I am nearly sure that it will turn out to be one." "I daresay you are right. Is there any other way of curing such habits of the mind?" "I could hypnotise you and stop your dreaming by suggestion." "Nobody could make me sleep against my will." Lamberti laughed at the mere idea. "No," answered the doctor, "but it would not be against your will, if you submitted to it as a cure. However, try the simpler plan first, and come and see me in a day or two. You seem to hesitate. Perhaps you have some reason for not wishing to make the nearer acquaintance of the lady. That is your affair, but one more interview of a few minutes will not make much difference, as your health is at stake. You are under a mental strain altogether out of proportion with the cause that produces it, and the longer you allow it to last the stronger the reaction will be, when it comes." "I have no good reason for not knowing her better," Lamberti said after a moment's thought, for he was convinced against his previous determination. "I will take your advice, and then I will come and see you again." He took his leave and went out into the bright morning air. It was a relief to feel that he had been brought to a determination at last, and he knew that it was a sensible one, from any ordinary point of view, and that his one great objection to acting upon it had no logical value. But the objection subsisted, though he had made up his mind to override it. It was out of the question that he could really be in love with Cecilia Palladio, who was probably quite unlike what she seemed to be in his dreams. He had fallen in love with a fancy, a shadow, an unreal image that haunted him as soon as he closed his eyes; but when he was wide awake and busy with life the girl was nothing to him but a mere acquaintance. His pulse would not beat as fast when he met her that very afternoon as it had done just now, in the doctor's study, when he had been thinking of the vision. Besides, what Guido had said was quite true. He could not possibly continue not to know Guido's future wife; and as there was no danger of his falling in love with her when his eyes were open, he really could not see why he should be so anxious to avoid her. So the matter was settled. He took a long walk, far out of Porta San Giovanni, and turned to the right by the road that leads through the fields to the tomb of Cecilia Metella. As he passed the great round monument, swinging along steadily, its name naturally came to his mind, and it occurred to him for the first time that Cecilia had been a noble name among the old Romans, that it had come down unchanged, and that there had doubtless been more than one Vestal Virgin who had borne it. The Vestal in his dream was certainly called Cecilia. He was in the humour, now, to smile at what he called his own folly, and as he strode along he almost laughed aloud. Before the sun should set, the whole matter would be definitely at rest, and he would be wondering how he could ever have been foolish enough to attach any importance to it. He followed the Appian Way back to the city, with a light heart. CHAPTER IX The Villa Madama was probably never inhabited, for it was certainly never quite finished, and the grand staircase was not rebuilt after Cardinal Pompeo Colonna set fire to the house. That was in the wild days when Rome was sacked by the Constable of Bourbon's Spaniards and Franzperg's Germans, and Pope Clement the Seventh was shut up in the stronghold of Sant' Angelo; and at nightfall he looked from the windows of the fortress and saw the flames shoot up on the slope of Monte Mario, from the beautiful place which Raphael of Urbino had designed for him, and which Giovanni of Udine had decorated, and he told those who were with him that Cardinal Colonna was revenging himself for his castles sacked and burned by the Pope's orders. That was nearly four hundred years ago, and the great exterior staircase was never rebuilt; but in order to save that part of the little palace from ruin unsightly arches were reared up against the once beautiful wing, and because of Giulio Romano's frescoes and Giovanni of Udine's marvellous stucco work, the roof has been always kept in good repair. Moreover, a good deal has been written about the building, some of which is inaccurate, to say the least; as, for instance, that one may see the dome of Saint Peter's from the windows, whereas the villa stands halfway down the slope of the hill on the side which is away from the church, and looks towards the Sabines and towards Tivoli and Frascati. Those who have taken the trouble to visit the villa in its half-ruinous condition, and who have lingered on the grass-grown terraces and at the noble windows, on spring afternoons, when the sun is behind the hill, can easily guess what it became when it passed into the ownership of the Contessina Cecilia Palladio. Her guardian, the excellent Baron Goldbirn, had bought it for her because it was offered for sale at a low price, and was an excellent investment as well as a treasure of art; and he had purposed to coat the brown stone walls with fresh stucco, to erect a "belvedere" with nice green blinds on the roof, to hang the rooms with rich magenta damask, to carpet them with Brussels carpets, to furnish them with gilt furniture, to warm the house with steam heat, and to light it with electricity. To his surprise, his ward rejected each of these proposals in detail and all of them generally, and declared that since the villa was hers she could deal with it according to her own taste, which, she maintained, was better than Goldbirn's. The latter answered that as he was sixty-five years old and Cecilia was only eighteen, this was impossible; but that under the circumstances he washed his hands of the matter, only warning her that the Italian law would not allow her to cut down the trees more than once in nine years. "As if anything could induce me to cut them down at all!" Cecilia answered indignantly. "There are few enough as it is!" "My dear," the Countess had answered with admirable relevancy, "I hope you are not ungrateful to your guardian." Cecilia was not ungrateful, but she had her own way, for it was preordained that she generally should, and it was well for the Villa Madama that it was so. She only asked her guardian how much he would allow her to spend on the place, and then, to his amazement and satisfaction, she only spent half the sum he named. She easily persuaded a good artist, whom her stepfather had helped at the beginning of his career, to take charge of the work, and it was carried out with loving and reverent taste. The wilderness of sloping land became a garden, the beautiful "court of honour" was so skilfully restored with old stone and brick that the restoration could hardly be detected, the great exterior staircase was rebuilt, the close garden on the other side was made a carpet of flowers; the water that gushed abundantly from a deep spring in the hillside poured into an old fountain bought from the remains of a villa in the Campagna, and then, below, filled the vast square basin that already existed, and thence it was distributed through the lower grounds. There were roses everywhere, already beginning to climb, and the scent of a few young orange trees in blossom mingled delicately with the odour of the flowers. Within the house the floor of the great hall was paved with plain white tiles, and up to the cornice and between the marvellous pilasters the bare walls were hung with coarse linen woven in simple and tasteful patterns and in subdued colours. The little gods and goddesses and the emblematic figures of the seasons in the glorious vaults overhead, smiled down upon such a scene as had not rejoiced the great hall for centuries. The Countess had asked all Rome to come, with an admirable indifference to political parties and social discords; and all Rome came, as it sometimes does, in the best of tempers with itself and with its hostess. Roman society is good to look at, when it is gathered together in such ways; for mere looks, there is perhaps nothing better in all Europe, except in England. The French are more brilliant, no doubt, for their women, and, alas, their men also, affect a greater variety of dress and ornament than any other people. German society is magnificent with military uniforms, Austrians generally have very perfect taste; and so on, to each its own advantage. But the Romans have something of their own, a beauty most distinctly theirs, a sort of distinction that is genuine and unaffected, but which nevertheless seems to belong to more splendid times than ours. When the women are beautiful, and they often are, they are like the pictures in their own galleries; among the men there are heads and faces that remind one of Lionardo da Vinci, of Cæsar Borgia, of Lorenzo de' Medici, of Guidarello Guidarelli, even of Michelangelo. Romans, at their best, have about them a grave suavity, or a suave gravity, that is a charm in itself, with a perfect self-possession which is the very opposite of arrogance; when they laugh, their mirth is real, though a little subdued; when they are grave, they do not look dull; when they are in deep earnest, they are not theatrical. Those who went to the Fortiguerra garden party never quite forgot the impression they received. It was one of those events that are remembered as memorable social successes, and spoken of after many years. It was unlike anything that had ever been done in Rome before, unlike the solemn receptions of the chief of the clericals, when the cardinals come in state and are escorted by torch-bearers from their carriages to the entrance of the great drawing-room, and back again when they go away; unlike the supremely magnificent balls in honour of the foreign sovereigns who occasionally spend a week in Rome, and are amusingly ready to accept the hospitality of Roman princes; most of all, it was unlike an ordinary garden party, because the Villa Madama is quite unlike ordinary villas. Moreover, every one was pleased that such very rich people should not attempt to surprise society by vulgar display. There were no state liveries, there were no ostentatious armorial bearings, there was no overpowering show of silver and gold, there was no Hungarian band brought expressly from Vienna, nor any fashionable pianist paid to play about five thousand notes at about a franc apiece, to the great annoyance of all the people who preferred conversation to music. Everything was simple, everything was good, everything was beautiful, from the entrancing view of Rome beyond the yellow river, and of the undulating Campagna beyond, with the soft hills in the far distance, to the lovely flowers in the garden; from the flowers without, to the stately halls within; from their charming frescoes and exquisite white traceries, to the lovely girl who was the centre, and the reason, and the soul of it all. Her mother received the guests out of doors, in the close garden, and thirty or forty people were already there when Guido d'Este and Lamberti arrived; for every one came early, fearing lest the air might be chilly towards sunset. The Countess introduced the men and the young girls to her daughter, and presented her to the married women. Presently, when the garden became too full, the people would go back through the house and wander away about the grounds, lighting up the shadowed hillside with colour, and filling the air with the sound of their voices. They would stray far out, as far as the little grove on the knoll, planted in old times for the old-fashioned sport of netting birds. Guido had told Cecilia on the previous evening that his friend had returned from the country and was coming to the villa, and he had again seen the very slight contraction of her brows at the mere mention of Lamberti's name. He wondered whether there were not some connection between what he took for her dislike of Lamberti, and the latter's strong disinclination to meet her. Perhaps Lamberti had guessed at a glance that she would not like him. He would of course keep such an opinion to himself. Guido watched Cecilia narrowly from the moment she caught sight of him with Lamberti--so attentively indeed that he did not even glance at the latter's face. It was set like a mask, and under the tanned colour any one could see that the man turned pale. "You know Cecilia already," said the Countess Fortiguerra, pleasantly. "I hope the rest of your family are coming?" "I think they are all coming," Lamberti answered very mechanically. He had resolutely looked at the Countess until now, but he felt the daughter's eyes upon him, and he was obliged to meet them, if only for a single instant. The last time he had met their gaze she had cried aloud and had fled from him in terror. He would have given much to turn from her now, without a glance, and mingle with the other guests. He was perfectly cool and self-possessed, as he afterwards remembered, but he felt that it was the sort of coolness which always came upon him in moments of supreme danger. It was familiar to him, for he had been in many hand-to-hand engagements in wild countries, and he knew that it would not forsake him; but he missed the thrill of rare delight that made him love fighting as he loved no sport he had ever tried. This was more like walking bravely to certain death. Cecilia was all in white, but her face was whiter than the silk she wore, and as motionless as marble; and her fixed eyes shone with an almost dazzling light. Guido saw and wondered. Then he heard Lamberti's voice, steady, precise, and metallic as the notes of a bell striking the hour. "I hope to see something of you by-and-by, Signorina." Cecilia's lips moved, but no sound came from them. Then Guido was sure that they smiled perceptibly, and she bent her head in assent, but so slightly that her eyes were still fixed on Lamberti's. Other guests came up at that moment, and the two friends made way for them. "Come back through the house," said Guido, in a low voice. Lamberti followed him into the great hall, and to the left through the next, where there was no one, and out to a small balcony beyond. Then both stood still and faced each other, and the silence lasted a few seconds. Guido spoke first. "What has there been between you two?" he asked, with something like sternness in his tone. "This is the second time in my life that I have spoken to the Contessina," Lamberti answered. "The first time I ever saw her was at your aunt's house." Guido had never doubted the word of Lamberto Lamberti, but he could not doubt the evidence of his own senses either, and he had watched Cecilia's face. It seemed utterly impossible that she should look as she had looked just now, unless there were some very grave matter between her and Lamberti. All sorts of horrible suspicions clouded Guido's brain, all sorts of reasons why Lamberti should lie to him, this once, this only time. Yet he spoke quietly enough. "It is very strange that two people should behave as you and she do, when you meet, if you have only met twice. It is past my comprehension." "It is very strange," Lamberti repeated. "So strange," said Guido, "that it is very hard to believe. You are asking a great deal of me." "I have asked nothing, my friend. You put a question to me,--a reasonable question, I admit,--and I have answered you with the truth. I have never touched that young lady's hand, I have only spoken with her twice in my life, and not alone on either occasion. I did not wish to come here to-day, but you practically forced me to." "You did not wish to come, because you knew what would happen," Guido answered coldly. "How could I know?" "That is the question. But you did know, and until you are willing to explain to me how you knew it----" He stopped short and looked hard at Lamberti, as if the latter must understand the rest. His usually gentle and thoughtful face was as hard and stern as stone. Until lately his friendship for Lamberti had been by far the strongest and most lasting affection of his life. The thought that it was to be suddenly broken and ended by an atrocious deception was hard to bear. "You mean that if I cannot explain, as you call it, you and I are to be like strangers. Is that what you mean, Guido? Speak out, man! Let us be plain." Guido was silent for a while, leaning over the balcony and looking down, while Lamberti stood upright and waited for his answer. "How can I act otherwise?" asked Guido, at last, without looking up. "You would do the same in my place. So would any man of honour." "I should try to believe you, whatever you said." "And if you could not?" Guido enquired almost fiercely. It was very nearly an insult, but Lamberti answered quietly and firmly. "Before refusing to believe me, merely on apparent evidence, you can ask the Contessina herself." "As if a woman could tell the truth when a man will not!" Guido laughed harshly. "You forget that you love her, and that she probably loves you. That should make a difference." "What do you wish me to do? Ask her the question you will not answer?" "The question I have answered," said Lamberti, correcting him. "Yes. Ask her." "Your mother was an old friend of her mother's," Guido said, with a new thought. "Yes." "Why is it impossible that you two should have met before now?" "Because I tell you that we have not. If we had, I should not have any reason for hiding the fact. It would be much easier to explain, if we had. But I am not going to argue about the matter, for it is quite useless. Before you quarrel with me, go and ask the Contessina to explain, if she will, or can. If she cannot, or if she can and will not, I shall try to make you understand as much as I do, though that is very little." Guido listened without attempting to interrupt. He was not a rash or violent man, and he valued Lamberti's friendship far too highly to forfeit it without the most convincing reasons. Unfortunately, what he had seen would have convinced an even less suspicious man that there was a secret which his friend shared with Cecilia, and which both had an object in concealing from him. Lamberti ceased speaking and a long silence followed, for he had nothing more to say. At last Guido straightened himself with an evident effort, as if he had forced himself to decide the matter, but he did not look at Lamberti. "Very well," he said. "I will speak to her." Lamberti bent his head, silently acknowledging Guido's sensible conclusion. Then Guido turned and went away alone. It was long before Lamberti left the balcony, for he was glad of the solitude and the chance of quietly thinking over his extraordinary situation. Meanwhile Guido found it no easy matter to approach Cecilia at all, and it looked as if it would be quite impossible to speak with her alone. He went back through the great hall where people were beginning to gather about the tea-table, and he stood in the vast door that opens upon the close garden. Cecilia was still standing beside her mother, but they were surrounded by a group of people who all seemed to be trying to talk to them at once. The garden was crowded, and it would be impossible for Guido to get near them without talking his way, so to say, through countless acquaintances. By this time, however, most of the guests had arrived, and those who were in the inner garden would soon begin to go out to the grounds. Cecilia was no longer pale; on the contrary, she had more colour than usual, and delicate though the slight flush in her cheeks was, it looked a little feverish to Guido. As he began to make his way forward he tried to catch her eye, but he thought she purposely avoided an exchange of glances. At last he was beside her, and to his surprise she looked at him quite naturally, and answered him without embarrassment. "You must be tired," he said. "Will you not sit down for a little while?" "I should like to," she answered, smiling. Then she looked at her mother, and seemed to hesitate. "May I go and sit down?" she asked, in a low voice. "I am so tired!" "Of course, child!" answered the Countess, cheerfully. "Signor d'Este will take you to the seat over there by the fountain. I hardly think that any one else will come now." Guido and Cecilia moved away, and the Countess smiled affectionately at their backs. Some one said that they were a very well-matched pair, and another asked if it were true that Signor d'Este would inherit the Princess Anatolie's fortune at her death. A third observed that she would never die; and a fourth, who was going to dine with her that evening, said that she was a very charming woman; whereupon everybody laughed a little, and the Countess changed the subject. Cecilia was really tired, and gave a little sigh of satisfaction as she sat down and leaned back. Guido looked at her and hesitated. "I must have shaken hands with at least two hundred people," she said, "and I am sure I have spoken to as many more!" "Do you like it?" Guido asked, by way of gaining time. "What an idle question!" laughed Cecilia. "I had another to ask you," he answered gravely. "Not an idle one." She looked at him quickly, wondering whether he was going to ask her to be his wife, and wondering, too, what she should answer if he did. For some days past she had understood that what they called their compact of friendship was becoming a mere comedy on his side, if not on hers, and that he loved her with all his heart, though he had not told her so. "It is rather an odd question," he continued, as she said nothing. "You have not formally given me any right to ask it, and yet I feel that I have the right, all the same." "Friendship gives rights, and takes them," Cecilia answered thoughtfully. "Exactly. That is what I feel about it. That is why I think I may ask you something that may seem strange. At all events, I cannot go on living in doubt about the answer." "Is it as important as that?" asked the young girl. "Yes." "What is it?" "Wait a moment. Let these people pass. How in the world did you succeed in getting so many roses to grow in such a short time?" "You must ask the gardener," Cecilia answered, in order to say something while a young couple passed before the bench, evidently very much absorbed in each other's conversation. Guido bent forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and not looking at her, but turning his face a little, so that he could speak in a very low tone with an outward appearance of carelessness. It was very hard to put the question, after all, now that he was so near her, and felt her thrilling presence. "Our agreement is a failure," he began. "At all events, it is one on my side. I really did not think it would turn out as it has." She said nothing, and he knew that she did not move, and was looking at the people in the distance. He knew, also, that she understood him and had expected something of the sort. That made it a little easier to go on. "That is the reason why I am going to ask you this question. What has there ever been between you and Lamberti? Why do you turn deathly pale when you meet him, and why does he try to avoid you?" He heard her move now, and he slowly turned his face till he could see hers. The colour in her cheeks had deepened a little, and there was an angry light in her eyes which he had never seen there. But she said not a word in answer. "Do you love him?" Guido asked in a very low tone, and his voice trembled slightly. "No!" The word came with sharp energy. "How long have you known him?" Guido enquired. "Since I have known you. I met him first on the same day. I have not spoken with him since. I tried to-day, I could not." "Why not?" "Do not ask me. I cannot tell you." "Are you speaking the truth?" Guido asked, suddenly meeting her eyes. She drew back with a quick movement, deeply offended and angry at the brutal question. "How dare you doubt what I tell you!" She seemed about to rise. "I beg your pardon," he said humbly. "I really beg your pardon. It is all so strange. I hardly knew what I was saying. Please forgive me!" "I will try," Cecilia answered. "But I think I would rather go back now. We cannot talk here." She rose to her feet, but Guido tried to detain her, remaining seated and looking up. "Please, please stay a little longer!" he pleaded. "No." "You are still angry with me?" "No. But I cannot talk to you yet. If you do not come with me, I shall go back alone." There was nothing to be done. He rose and walked by her side in silence. The garden was almost empty now, and the Countess herself had gone in to get a cup of tea. "The roses are really marvellous," Guido remarked in a set tone, as they came to the door. Suddenly they were face to face with Lamberti, who was coming out, hat in hand. He had waited for his opportunity, watching them from a distance, and Guido knew it instinctively. He was quite cool and collected, and smiled pleasantly as he spoke to Cecilia. "May I not have the pleasure of talking with you a little, Signorina?" he asked. Guido could not help looking anxiously at the young girl. "Certainly," she answered, without hesitation. "You will find my mother near the tea table, Signor d'Este," she added, to Guido. "It is really time that I should make your friend's acquaintance!" He was as much amazed at her self-possession now as he had been at her evident disturbance before. He drew back as Cecilia turned away from him after speaking, and he stood looking after the pair a few seconds before he went in. At that moment he would have gladly strangled the man who had so long been his best friend. He had never guessed that he could wish to kill any one. Lamberti did not make vague remarks about the roses as Guido had done, on the mere chance that some one might hear him, and indeed there was now hardly anybody to hear. As for Cecilia, her anger against Guido had sustained her at first, but she could not have talked unconcernedly now, as she walked beside Lamberti, waiting for him to speak. She felt just then that she would have walked on and on, whithersoever he chose to lead her, and until it pleased him to stop. "D'Este asked me this afternoon how long I had known you," he said, at last. "I said that I had spoken with you twice, once at the Princess's, and once to-day. Was that right?" "Yes. Did he believe you?" "No." "He did not believe me either." "And of course he asked you what there was between us," said Lamberti. "Yes. I said that I could not tell him. What did you say?" "The same thing." There was a pause, and both realised that they were talking as if they had known each other for years, and that they understood each other almost without words. At the end of the walk they turned towards one another, and their eyes met. "Why did you run away from me?" Lamberti asked. "I was frightened. I was frightened to-day when you spoke to me. Why did you go to the Forum that morning?" "I had dreamt something strange about you. It happened just where I found you." "I dreamt the same dream, the same night. That is, I think it must have been the same." She turned her face away, blushing red. He saw, and understood. "Yes," he said. "What am I to tell d'Este?" he asked, after a short pause. "Nothing!" said Cecilia quickly, and the subsiding blush rose again. "Besides," she continued, speaking rapidly in her embarrassment, "he would not believe us, whatever we told him, and it is of no use to let him know----" she stopped suddenly. "Has he no right to know?" "No. At least--no--I think not. I do not mean----" They were standing still, facing each other. In another moment she would be telling Lamberti what she had never told Guido about her feelings towards him. On a sudden she turned away with a sort of desperate movement, clasping her hands and looking over the low wall. "Oh, what is it all?" she cried, in great distress. "I am in the dream again, talking as if I had known you all my life! What must you think of me?" Lamberti stood beside her, resting his hands upon the wall. "It is exactly what I feel," he said quietly. "Then you dream, too?" she asked. "Every night--of you." "We are both dreaming now! I am sure of it. I shall wake up in the dark and hear the door shut softly, though I always lock it now." "The door? Do you hear that, too?" asked Lamberti. "But I am wide awake when I hear it." "So am I! Sometimes I can manage to turn up the electric light before the sound has quite stopped. Are we both mad? What is it? In the name of Heaven, what is it all?" "I wish I knew. Whatever it is, if you and I meet often, it is quite impossible that we should talk like ordinary acquaintances. Yes, I thought I was going mad, and this morning I went to a great doctor and told him everything. He seemed to think it was all a set of coincidences. He advised me to see you and ask you why you ran away that day, and he thought that if we talked about it, I might perhaps not dream again." "You are not mad, you are not mad!" Cecilia repeated the words in a low voice, almost mechanically. Then there was silence, and presently she turned from the wall and began to walk back along the wide path that passed by the central fountain. The sun, long out of sight behind the hill, was sinking now, the thin violet mist had begun to rise from the Campagna far to south and east, and the mountains had taken the first tinge of evening purple. From the ilex woods above the house, the voice of a nightingale rang out in a long and delicious trill. The garden was deserted, and now and then the sound of women's laughter rippled out through the high, open door. "We must meet soon," Lamberti said, as they reached the fountain. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should say it. She stopped and looked at him, and recognised every feature of the face she had seen in her dreams almost ever since she could remember dreaming. Her fear was all gone now, and she was sure that it would never come back. Had she not heard him say those very words, "We must meet soon," hundreds and hundreds of times, just as he had said them long ago--ever so long ago--in a language that she could not remember when she was awake? And had they not always met soon? "I shall see you to-night," she answered, almost unconsciously. "Tell me," he said, looking into the clear water in the fountain, "does your dreaming make you restless and nervous? Does it wear on you?" "Oh no! I have always dreamt a great deal all my life. I rest just as well." "Yes--but those were ordinary dreams. I mean----" "No, they were always the same. They were always about you. I almost screamed when I recognised you at the Princess's that afternoon." "I had never dreamt of your face," said Lamberti, "but I was sure I had seen you before." They looked down into the moving water, and the music of its fall made it harmonious with the distant song of the nightingale. Lamberti tried to think connectedly, and could not. It was as if he were under a spell. Questions rose to his lips, but he could not speak the words, he could not put them together in the right way. Once, at sea, on the training ship, he had fallen from the foreyard, and though the fall was broken by the gear and he had not been injured, he had been badly stunned, and for more than an hour he had lost all sense of direction, of what was forward and what was aft, so that at one moment the vessel seemed to be sailing backwards, and then forwards, and then sideways. He felt something like that now, and he knew intuitively that Cecilia felt it also. Amazingly absurd thoughts passed through his mind. Was to-morrow going to be yesterday? Would what was coming be just what was long past? Or was there no past, no future, nothing but all time present at once? He was not moved by Cecilia's presence in the same way that Guido was. Guido was merely in love with her; very much in love, no doubt, but that was all. She was to him, first, the being of all others with whom he was most in sympathy, the only being whom he understood, and who, he was sure, understood him, the only being without whom life would be unendurable. And, secondly, she was the one and only creature in the world created to be his natural mate, and when he was near her he was aware of nature's mysterious forces, and felt the thrill of them continually. Lamberti experienced nothing of that sort at present. He was overwhelmed and carried away out of the region of normal thought and volition towards something which he somehow knew was at hand, which he was sure he had reached before, but which he could not distinctly remember. Between it and him in the past there was a wall of darkness; between him and it in the future there was a veil not yet lifted, but on which his dreams already cast strange and beautiful shadows. "I used to see things in the water," Cecilia said softly, "things that were going to happen. That was long, long ago." "I remember," said Lamberti, quite naturally. "You told me once----" He stopped. It was gone back behind the wall of darkness. When he had begun to speak, quite unconsciously, he had known what it was that Cecilia had told him, but he had forgotten it all now. He passed his hand over his forehead, and suddenly everything changed, and he came back out of an immeasurable distance to real life. "I shall be going away in a few days," he said. "May I see you before I go?" "Certainly. Come and see us about three o'clock. We are always at home then." "Thank you." They turned from the fountain while they spoke, and walked slowly towards the house. "Does your mother know about your dreaming?" Lamberti asked. "No. No one knows. And you?" "I have told that doctor. No one else. I wonder whether it will go on when I am far away." "I wonder, too. Where are you going?" "I do not know yet. Perhaps to China again. I shall get my orders in a few days." They reached the threshold of the door. Lamberti had been looking for Guido's face amongst the people he could see as he came up, but Guido was gone. "Good-bye," said Cecilia, softly. "Good night," Lamberti answered, almost in a whisper. "God bless you." He afterwards thought it strange that he should have said that, but at the time it seemed quite natural, and Cecilia was not at all surprised. She smiled and bent her graceful head. Then she joined her mother, and Lamberti disappeared. "My dear," said the Countess, "you remember Monsieur Leroy? You met him at Princess Anatolie's," she added, in a stage whisper. Monsieur Leroy bowed, and Cecilia nodded. She had forgotten his existence, and now remembered that she had not liked him, and that she had said something sharp to him. He spoke first. "The Princess wished me to tell you how very sorry she is that she cannot be here this afternoon. She has one of her attacks." "I am very sorry," Cecilia answered. "Pray tell her how sorry I am." "Thank you. But I daresay Guido brought you the same message." "Who is Guido?" asked Cecilia, raising her eyebrows a little. "Guido d'Este. I thought you knew. You are surprised that I should call him by his Christian name? You see, I have known him ever since he was quite a boy. To all intents and purposes, he was brought up by the Princess." "And you are often at the house, I suppose." "I live there," explained Monsieur Leroy. "To change the subject, my dear young lady, I have an apology to make, which I hope you will accept." Cecilia did not like to be called any one's "dear young lady," and her manner froze instantly. "I cannot imagine why you should apologise to me," she said coldly. "I was rude to you the other day, about your courses of philosophy, or something of that sort. Was not that it?" "Indeed, I had quite forgotten," Cecilia answered, with truth. "It did not matter in the least what you thought of my reading Nietzsche, I assure you." Monsieur Leroy reddened and laughed awkwardly, for he was particularly anxious to win her good grace. "I am not very clever, you know," he said humbly. "You must forgive me." "Oh certainly," replied Cecilia. "Your explanation is more than adequate. In my mind, the matter had already explained itself. Will you have some tea?" "No, thank you. My nerves are rather troublesome. If I take tea in the afternoon I cannot sleep at night. I met Guido going away as I came. He was enthusiastic!" "In what way?" "About the villa, and the house, and the flowers, and about you." He lowered his voice to a confidential tone as he spoke the last words. "About me?" Cecilia was somewhat surprised. "Oh yes! He was overcome by your perfection--like every one else. How could it be otherwise? It is true that Guido has always been very impressionable." "I should not have thought it," Cecilia said, wishing that the man would go away. But he would not, and, to make matters worse, nobody would come and oblige him to move. It was plain to the meanest mind that since Cecilia was to marry Princess Anatolie's nephew, the extraordinary person whom the Princess called her secretary must not be disturbed when he was talking to Cecilia, since he might be the bearer of some important message. Besides, a good many people were afraid of him, in a vague way, as a rather spiteful gossip who had more influence than he should have had. "Yes," he continued, in an apologetic tone, "Guido is always falling in love, poor boy. Of course, it is not to be wondered at. A king's son, and handsome as he is, and so very clever, too--all the pretty ladies fall in love with him at once, and he naturally falls in love with them. You see how simple it is. He has more opportunities than are good for him!" The disagreeable little man giggled, and his loose pink and white cheeks shook unpleasantly. Cecilia thought him horribly vulgar and familiar, and she inwardly wondered how the Princess Anatolie could even tolerate him, not to speak of treating him affectionately and calling him "Doudou." "I supposed that you counted yourself among Signor d'Este's friends," said the young girl, frigidly. "I do, I do! Have I said anything unfriendly? I merely said that all the women fell in love with him." "You said a good deal more than that." "At all events, I wish I were he," said Monsieur Leroy. "And if that is not paying him a compliment I do not know what you would call it. He is handsome, clever, generous, everything!" "And faithless, according to you." "No, no! Not faithless; only fickle, very fickle." "It is the same thing," said the young girl, scornfully. She did not believe Monsieur Leroy in the least, but she wondered what his object could be in speaking against Guido, and whether he were really silly, as he often seemed, or malicious, as she suspected, or possibly both at the same time, since the combination is not uncommon. What he was telling her, if she believed it, was certainly not of a nature to hasten her marriage with Guido; and yet it was the Princess who had first suggested the match, and it could hardly be supposed that Monsieur Leroy would attempt to oppose his protectress. Just then there was a general move to go away, and the conversation was interrupted, much to Cecilia's satisfaction. There was a great stir in the wide hall, for though many people had slipped away without disturbing the Countess by taking leave, there were many of her nearer friends who wished to say a word to her before going, just to tell her that they had enjoyed themselves vastly, that Cecilia was a model of beauty and good behaviour, and of everything charming, and that the villa was the most delightful place they had ever seen. By these means they conveyed the impression that they would all accept any future invitation which the Countess might send them, and they audibly congratulated one another upon her having at last established herself in Rome, adding that Cecilia was a great acquisition to society. More than that it was manifestly impossible to say in a few well-chosen words. Even in a language as rich as Italian, the number of approving adjectives is limited, and each can only have one superlative. The Countess Fortiguerra's guests distributed these useful words amongst them and exhausted the supply. "It has been a great success, my dear," said the Countess, when she and her daughter were left alone in the hall. "Did you see the Duchess of Pallacorda's hat?" "No, mother. At least, I did not notice it." Cecilia was nibbling a cake, thoughtfully. "My dear!" cried the Countess. "It was the most wonderful thing you ever saw. She was in terror lest it should come too late. Monsieur Leroy knew all about it." "I cannot bear that man," Cecilia said, still nibbling, for she was hungry. "I cannot say that I like him, either. But the Duchess's new hat----" Cecilia heard her voice, but was too much occupied with her own thoughts to listen attentively, while the good Countess criticised the hat in question, admired its beauties, corrected its defects, put it a little further back on the Duchess's pretty head, and, indeed, did everything with it which every woman can do, in imagination, with every imaginary hat. Finally, she asked Cecilia if she should not like to have one exactly like it. "No, thank you. Not now, at all events. Mother dear," and she looked affectionately at the Countess, "what a deal of trouble you have taken to make it all beautiful for me to-day. I am so grateful!" She kissed her mother on both cheeks just as she had always done when she was pleased, ever since she had been a child, and suddenly the elder woman's eyes glistened. "It is a pleasure to do anything for you, darling," she said. "I have only you in the world," she added quietly, after a little pause, "but I sometimes think I have more than all the other women." Then Cecilia laid her head on her mother's shoulder for a moment, and gently patted her cheek, and they both felt very happy. They drove home in the warm dusk, and when they reached the high road down by the Tiber they looked up and saw moving lights through the great open windows of the villa, and on the terrace, and in the gardens, like fireflies. For the servants were bringing in the chairs and putting things in order. The nightingale was singing again, far up in the woods, but Cecilia could hear the song distinctly as the carriage swept along. Now the Countess was kind and true, and loved her daughter devotedly, but she would not have been a woman if she had not wished to know what Guido had said to Cecilia that afternoon; and before they had entered Porta Angelica she asked what she considered a leading question, in her own peculiar contradictory way. "Of course, I am not going to ask you anything, my dear," she began, "but did Signor d'Este say anything especial to you when you went off together?" Cecilia remembered how they had driven home from the Princess's a fortnight earlier, almost at the same hour, and how her mother had then first spoken of Guido d'Este. The young girl asked herself in the moment she took before answering, whether she were any nearer to the thought of marrying him than she had been after that first short meeting. "He loves me, mother," she answered softly. "He has made me understand that he does, without quite saying so. I like him very much. That is our position now. I would rather not talk about it much, but you have a right to know." "Yes, dear. But what I mean is--I mean, what I meant was--he has not asked you to marry him, has he?" "No. I am not sure that he will, now." "Yes, he will. He asked me yesterday evening if he might, and of course I gave him my permission." It was a relief to have told Cecilia this, for concealment was intolerable to the Countess. "I see," Cecilia answered. "Yes, of course you do. But when he does ask you, what shall you say, dear? He is sure to ask you to-morrow, and I really want to know what I am to expect. Surely, by this time you must have made up your mind." "I have only known him a fortnight, mother. That is not a long time when one is to decide about one's whole life, is it?" "No. Well--it seems to me that a fortnight--you see, it is so important!" "Precisely," Cecilia answered. "It is very important. That is why I do not mean to do anything in a hurry. Either you must tell Signor d'Este to wait a little while before he asks me, or else, when he does, I must beg him to wait some time for his answer." "But it seems to me, if you like him so much, that is quite enough." "Why are you in such a hurry, mother?" asked Cecilia, with a smile. "Because I am sure you will be perfectly happy if you marry him," answered the Countess, with much conviction. CHAPTER X Guido d'Este walked home from the Villa Madama in a very bad temper with everything. He was not of a dramatic disposition, nor easily inclined to sudden resolutions, and when placed in new and unexpected circumstances his instinct was rather to let them develop as they would than to direct them or oppose them actively. For the first time in his life he now felt that he must do one or the other. To treat Lamberti as if nothing had happened was impossible, and it was equally out of the question to behave towards Cecilia as though she had not done or said anything to check the growth of intimacy and friendship on her side and of genuine love on his. He took the facts as he knew them and tried to state them justly, but he could make nothing of them that did not plainly accuse both Cecilia and Lamberti of deceiving him. Again and again, he recalled the words and behaviour of both, and he could reach no other conclusion. They had a joint secret which they had agreed to keep from him, and rather than reveal it his best friend was ready to break with him, and the woman he loved preferred never to see him again. He reflected that he was not the first man who had been checked by a girl and forsaken by a friend, but that did not make it any easier to bear. It was quite clear that he could not submit to be so treated by them. Lamberti had asked him to speak to Cecilia before quarrelling definitely. He had done so, and he was more fully convinced than before that both were deceiving him. There was no way out of that conviction, there was not the smallest argument on the other side, and nothing that either could ever say could shake his belief. It was plainly his duty to tell them so, and it would be wisest to write to them, for he felt that he might lose his temper if he tried to say what he meant, instead of writing it. He wrote to Lamberti first, because it was easier, though it was quite the hardest thing he had ever done. He began by proving to himself, and therefore to his friend, that he was writing after mature reflection and without the least hastiness, or temper, or unwillingness to be convinced, if Lamberti had anything to say in self-defence. He expressed no suspicion as to the probable nature of the secret that was withheld from him; he even wrote that he no longer wished to know what it was. His argument was that by refusing to reveal it, Lamberti had convicted himself of some unknown deed which he was ashamed to acknowledge, and Guido did not hesitate to add that such unjustifiable reticence might easily be construed in such a way as to cast a slur upon the character of an innocent young girl. Having got so far, Guido immediately tore the whole letter to shreds and rose from his writing table, convinced that it was impossible to write what he meant without saying things which he did not mean. After all, he could simply avoid his old friend in future. The idea of quarrelling with him aggressively had never entered his mind, and it was therefore of no use to write anything at all. Lamberti must have guessed already that all friendship was at an end, and it would consequently be quite useless to tell him so. He must write to Cecilia, however. He could not allow her to think, because he had apologised for rudely doubting her word, that he therefore believed what she had told him. He would write. Here he was confronted by much greater difficulties than he had found in composing his unsuccessful letter to Lamberti. In the first place, he was in love with her, and it seemed to him that he should love her just as much, whatever she did. He wondered what it was that he felt, for at first he hardly thought it was jealousy, and it was assuredly not a mere passing fit of ill-tempered resentment. It must be jealousy, after all. He fancied that she had known Lamberti before, and that she had been girlishly in love with him, and that when she had met him again she had been startled and annoyed. It was not so hard to imagine that this might be possible, though he could not see why they should both make such a secret of having known each other. But perhaps, by some accident, they had become intimate without the knowledge of the Countess, so that Cecilia was now very much afraid lest her mother should find it out. Guido's reflections stopped there. At any other time he would have laughed at their absurdity, and now he resented it. The plain fact stared him in the face, the fact he had known all along and had forgotten--Lamberti could not possibly have met Cecilia since she had been a mere child, because Guido could account for all his friend's movements during the last five years. Five years ago, Cecilia had been thirteen. He was glad that he had torn up his letter to Lamberti, and that he had not even begun the one to Cecilia, after sitting half an hour with his pen in his hand. Yes, he went over those five years, and then took from a drawer the last five of the little pocket diaries he always carried. There was a small space for each day of the year, and he never failed to note at least the name of the place in which he was, while travelling. He also recorded Lamberti's coming and going, the names of the ships to which he was ordered, and the dates of any notable facts in his life. It is tolerably easy to record the exact movements of a sailor in active service who is only at home on very short leave once in a year or two. Guido turned over the pages carefully and set down on a slip of paper what he found. In five years Lamberti's leave had not amounted to eight months in all, and Guido could account for every day of it, for they had spent all of it either in Rome or in travelling together. He laid the little diaries in the drawer again, and leaned back in his chair with a deep sigh of satisfaction. He was too generous not to wish to find his friend at once and acknowledge frankly that he had been wrong. He telephoned to ask whether Lamberti had come back from the Villa Madama. Yes, he had come back, but he had gone out again. No one knew where he was. He had said that he should not dine at home. That was all. If he returned before half-past ten o'clock d'Este should be informed. Guido dined alone and waited, but no message came during the evening. At half-past ten he wrote a few words on a correspondence card, told his man to send the note to Lamberti early in the morning, and went to bed, convinced that everything would explain itself satisfactorily before long. As soon as he was positively sure that Lamberti and Cecilia could not possibly have known each other more than a fortnight, his natural indolence returned. Of course it was very extraordinary that Cecilia should have felt such a strong dislike for Lamberti at first sight, for it could be nothing else, since she seemed displeased whenever his name was mentioned; and it was equally strange that Lamberti should feel the same antipathy for her. But since it was so, she would naturally draw back from telling Guido that his best friend was repulsive to her, and Lamberti would not like to acknowledge that the young girl Guido wished to marry produced a disagreeable impression on him. It was quite natural, too, that after what Guido had said to each of them, each should have been anxious to show him that he was mistaken, and that they should have taken the first opportunity of talking together just when he should most notice it. Everything was accounted for by this ingenious theory. Guido knew a man who turned pale when a cat came near him, though he was a manly man, good at sports and undeniably courageous. Those things could not be explained, but it was much easier to understand that a sensitive young girl might be violently affected by an instinctive antipathy for a man, than that a strong man's teeth should chatter if a cat got under his chair at dinner. That was undoubtedly what happened. How could either of them tell him so, since he was so fond of both? Lamberti had said that as a last resource, he would try to explain what the trouble was. Guido would spare him that. He knew what he had felt almost daily in the presence of Monsieur Leroy, ever since he had been a boy. Lamberti and Cecilia probably acted on each other in the same way. It was a misfortune, of course, that his best friend and his future wife should hate the sight and presence of one another, but it was not their fault, and they would probably get over it. It was wonderful to see how everything that had happened exactly fitted into Guido's simple explanation, the passing shadow on Cecilia's face, the evident embarrassment of both when Guido asked each the same question, the agreement of their answers, the readiness both had shown to try and overcome their mutual dislike--it was simply wonderful! By the time Guido laid his head on his pillow, he was serenely calm and certain of the future. With the words of sincere regret he had written to Lamberti, and with the decision to say much the same thing to Cecilia on the following day, his conscience was at rest; and he went to sleep in the pleasant assurance that after having done something very hasty he had just avoided doing something quite irreparable. Lamberti had spent a less pleasant evening, and was not prepared for the agreeable surprise that awaited him on the following morning in Guido's note. He was neither indolent nor at all given to self-examination, and he had generally found it a good plan to act upon impulse, and do what he wished to do before it occurred to any one else to do the same thing; and when he could not see what he ought to do, and was nevertheless sure that he ought to act at once, he lost his temper with himself and sometimes with other people. He was afraid to go to bed that night, and he went to the club and watched some of his friends playing cards until he could not keep his eyes open; for gambling bored him to extinction. Then he walked the whole length of the Corso and back, in the hope that the exercise might prevent him from dreaming. But it only roused him again; and when he was in his own room he stood nearly two hours at the open window, smoking one cigar after another. At last he lay down without putting out the light and read a French novel till it dropped from his hand, and he fell asleep at four o'clock in the morning. He was not visited by the dream that had disturbed his rest nightly for a full fortnight. Possibly the doctor had been right after all, and the habit was broken. At all events, what he remembered having felt when he awoke was something quite new and not altogether unpleasant after the first beginning, yet so strangely undefined that he would have found it hard to describe it in any words. He had no consciousness of any sort of shape or body belonging to him, nor of motion, nor of sight, after the darkness had closed in upon him. That moment, indeed, was terrible. It reminded him of the approach of a cyclone in the West Indies, which he remembered well--the dreadful stillness in the air; the long, sullen, greenish brown swell of the oily sea; the appalling bank of solid darkness that moved upon the ship over the noiseless waves; the shreds of black cloud torn forwards by an unseen and unheard force, and the vast flashes of lightning that shot upwards like columns of flame. He remembered the awful waiting. Not a storm, then, but an instant change from something to nothing, with consciousness preserved; complete, far-reaching consciousness, that was more perfect than sight, yet was not sight, but a being everywhere at once, a universal understanding, a part of something all pervading, a unification with all things past, present, and to come, with no desire for them, nor vision of them, but perfect knowledge of them all. At the same time, there was the presence of another immeasurable identity in the same space, so that his own being and that other were coexistent and alike, each in the other, everywhere at once, and inseparable from the other, and also, in some unaccountable way, each dear to the other beyond and above all description. And there was perfect peace and a state very far beyond any possible waking happiness, without any conception of time or of motion, but only of infinite space with infinite understanding. Another phase began. There was time again, there were minutes, hours, months, years, ages; and there was a longing for something that could change, a stirring of human memories in the boundless immaterial consciousness, a desire for sight and hearing, a gradual, growing wish to see a face remembered before the wall of darkness had closed in, to hear a voice that had once sounded in ears that had once understood, to touch a hand that had felt his long ago. And the longing became intolerable, for lack of these things, like a burning thirst where there is no water; and the perfect peace was all consumed in that raging wish, and the quiet was disquiet, and the two consciousnesses felt that each was learning to suffer again for want of the other, till what had been heaven was hell, and earth would be better, or total destruction and the extinguishing of all identity, or anything that was not, rather than the least prolonging of what was. The last change now; back to the world, and to a human body. Lamberti was waked by a vigorous knocking at his door, which was locked as usual. It was nine o'clock, and a servant had brought him Guido's note. "My dear friend," it said, "I was altogether in the wrong yesterday. Please forgive me. I quite understand your position with regard to the Contessina, and hers towards you, but I sincerely hope that in the end you may be good friends. I appreciate very much the effort you both made this afternoon to overcome your mutual antipathy. Thank you. G. d'E." Lamberti read the note three times before the truth dawned upon him, and he at last understood what Guido meant. At first the note seemed to have been written in irony, if not in anger, but that would have been very unlike Guido; the second reading convinced Lamberti that his friend was in earnest, whatever his meaning might be, and at the third perusal, Lamberti saw the true state of the case. Guido supposed that he and Cecilia were violently repelled by each other. He did not smile at the absurdity of the idea, for he felt at once that the results of such a misunderstanding must before long place Cecilia and himself in a false position, from which it would be hard to escape. Yet he was well aware that Guido would not believe the truth--that the coincidences were too extraordinary to be readily admitted, while no other rational theory could be found to explain what had happened. If Lamberti saw Cecilia often, Guido would soon perceive that instead of mutual dislike and repulsion the strongest sympathy existed between them, and that they would always understand each other without words. It would be impossible to conceal that very long. Besides, they would love each other, if they met frequently; about that Lamberti had not the smallest doubt. His instincts were direct and unhesitating, and he knew that he had never felt for any living woman what he felt for the fair young girl whose unreal presence visited his dreams, and who, in those long visions, loved him dearly in return, with a spiritual passion that rose far above perishable things and yet was not wholly immaterial. There was that one moment when they stood near together in the early morning, and their lips met as if body, heart, and soul were all meeting at once, and only for once. After that, in his dreams, there was much that Lamberti could not understand in himself, and which seemed very unlike the self he knew, very much higher, very much purer, very much more inclined to sacrifice, constantly in a sort of spiritual tension and always striving towards a perfect life, which was as far as anything could be, he supposed, from his own personality, as he thought he knew it. The story he dreamed was simple enough. He was a Christian, the girl a Vestal Virgin, the youngest of those last six who still guarded the sacred hearth when the Christian Emperor dissolved all that was left of the worship of the old gods. He bade the noble maidens close the doors of the temple and depart in peace to their parents' homes, freed from their vows and service, and from all obligations to the state, but deprived also of all their old honours and lands and privileges. And sadly they buried the things that had been holy, where no man knew, and watched the fire together, one last night, till it burned out to white ashes in the spring dawn; and they embraced one another with tears and went away. Some became Christians, and some afterwards married; but there was one who would not, though she loved as none of them loved, and she withdrew from the world and lived a pure life for the sake of the old faith and of her solemn vows. So, at last, the Christian believed what she told him, that it was better to love in that way, because when he and she were freed at last from all earthly longings, they would be united for ever and ever; and she became a Christian, too, and after the other five Vestals were dead, she also passed away; and the man who had loved her so long, in her own way, died peacefully on the next day, loving her and hoping to join her, and having led a good life. After that there was peace, and they seemed to be together. That was their story as it gradually took shape out of fragments and broken visions, and though the man who dreamt these things could not conceive, when he remembered them, that he could ever become at all a saintly character, yet in the vision he knew that he was always himself, and all that he thought and did seemed natural, though it often seemed hard, and he suffered much in some ways, but in others he found great happiness. It was a simple story and a most improbable one. He was quite sure that no matter in what age he might have lived, instead of in the twentieth century, he would have felt and acted as he now did when he was wide awake. But that did not matter. The important point was that his imagination was making for him a sort of secondary existence in sleep, in which he was desperately in love with some one who exactly resembled Cecilia Palladio and who bore her first name; and this dreaming created such a strong and lasting impression in his mind that, in real life, he could not separate Cecilia Palladio from Cecilia the Vestal, and found himself on the point of saying to her in reality the very things which he had said to her in imagination while sleeping. The worst of it was this identity of the real and the unreal, for he was persuaded that with very small opportunity the two would turn into one. He hated thinking, under all circumstances, as compared with action. It was easier to follow his impulses, and fortunately for him they were brave and honourable. He never analysed his feelings, never troubled himself about his motives, never examined his conscience. It told him well enough whether he was doing right or wrong, and on general principles he always meant to do right. It was not his fault if his imagination made him fall in love in a dream with the young girl who was probably to be his friend's wife. But it would be distinctly his fault if he gave himself the chance of falling in love with her in reality. Moreover, though he did not know how much further Cecilia's dream coincided with his own, and believed it impossible that the coincidence should be nearly as complete as it seemed, he felt that she would love him if he chose that she should. The intuitions of very masculine men about women are far keener and more trustworthy than women guess; and when such a man is not devoured by fatuous vanity he is rarely mistaken if he feels sure that a woman he meets will love him, provided that circumstances favour him ever so little. There is not necessarily the least particle of conceit in that certainty, which depends on the direct attraction between any two beings who are natural complements to each other. Lamberti was a man who had the most profound respect for every woman who deserved to be respected ever so little, and a good-natured contempt for all the rest, together with a careless willingness to be amused by them. And of all the women in the world, next to his own mother, the one whom he would treat with something approaching to veneration would be Guido's wife, if Guido married. Without any reasoning, it was plain that he must see as little as possible of Cecilia Palladio. But as this would not please Guido, the best plan was to go away while there was time. In all probability, when he next returned, say in two years, he would no longer feel the dangerous attraction that was almost driving him out of his senses at present. He had been in Rome some time, expecting his promotion to the rank of lieutenant-commander, which would certainly be accompanied by orders to join another ship, possibly very far away. If he showed himself very anxious to go at once, before his leave expired, the Admiralty would probably oblige him, especially as he just now cared much less for the promised step in the service than for getting away at short notice. The best thing to be done was to go and see the Minister, who had of late been very friendly to him; everything might be settled in half an hour, and next week he would be on his way to China, or South America, or East Africa, which would be perfectly satisfactory to everybody concerned. It was a wise and honourable resolution, and he determined to act on it at once. His hand was on the door to go out, when he stopped suddenly and stood quite still for a few seconds. It was as if something unseen surrounded him on all sides, in the air, invisible but solid as lead, making it impossible for him to move. It did not last long, and he went out, wondering at his nervousness. In half an hour he was in the presence of the Minister, who was speaking to him. "You are promoted to the rank of lieutenant-commander. You are temporarily attached to the ministerial commission which is to study the Somali question, which you understand so well from experience on the spot. His Majesty specially desires it." "How long may this last, sir?" enquired Lamberti, with a look of blank disappointment. "Oh, a year or two, I should say," laughed the Minister. "They do not hurry themselves. You can enjoy a long holiday at home." CHAPTER XI Though it was late in the season, everybody wished to do something to welcome the appearance of Cecilia Palladio in society. It was too warm to give balls, but it did not follow that it was at all too hot to dance informally, with the windows open. We do not know why a ball is hotter than a dance; but it is so. There are things that men do not understand. So dinners were given, to which young people were asked, and afterwards an artistic-looking man appeared from somewhere and played waltzes, and twenty or thirty couples amused themselves to their hearts' delight till one o'clock in the morning. Moreover, people who had villas gave afternoon teas, without any pretence of giving garden parties, and there also the young ones danced, sometimes on marble pavements in great old rooms that smelt slightly of musty furniture, but were cool and pleasant. Besides these things, there were picnic dinners at Frascati and Castel Gandolfo, and everybody drove home across the Campagna by moonlight. Altogether, and chiefly in Cecilia Palladio's honour, there was a very pretty little revival of winter gaiety, which is not always very gay in Rome, nowadays. The young girl accepted it all much more graciously than her mother had expected, and was ready to enjoy everything that people offered her, which is a great secret of social success. The Countess had always feared that Cecilia was too fond of books and of serious talk to care much for what amuses most people. But, instead, she suddenly seemed to have been made for society; she delighted in dancing, she liked to be well dressed, she smiled at well-meaning young men who made compliments to her, and she chatted with young girls about the myriad important nothings that grow like wild flowers just outside life's gate. Every one liked her, and she let almost every one think that she liked them. She never said disagreeable things about them, and she never attracted to herself the young gentleman who was looked upon as the property of another. Every one said that she was going to marry d'Este in the autumn, though the engagement was not yet announced. Wherever she was, he was there also, generally accompanied by his inseparable friend, Lamberto Lamberti. The latter had grown thinner during the last few weeks. When any one spoke of it, he explained that life ashore did not suit him, and that he was obliged to work a good deal over papers and maps for the ministerial commission. But he was evidently not much inclined to talk of himself, and he changed the subject immediately. His life was not easy, for he was not only in serious trouble himself, but he was also becoming anxious about Guido. The one matter about which a man is instinctively reticent with his most intimate man friend is his love affair, if he has one. He would rather tell a woman all about it, though he does not know her nearly so well, than talk about it, even vaguely, with the one man in the world whom he trusts. Where women are concerned, all men are more or less one another's natural enemies, in spite of civilisation and civilised morals; and each knows this of the other, and respects the other's silence as both inevitable and decent. Guido had told Lamberti that he should be the first to know of the engagement as soon as there was any, and Lamberti waited. He did not know whether Guido had spoken yet, nor whether there was any sort of agreement between him and Cecilia by which the latter was to give her answer after a certain time. He could not guess what they talked of during the hour they spent together nearly every day. People made inquiries of him, some openly and some by roundabout means, and he always answered that if his friend were engaged to be married he would assuredly announce the fact at once. Those who received this answer were obliged to be satisfied with it, because Lamberti was not the kind of man to submit to cross-questioning. He wondered whether Cecilia knew that he loved her, since what he had foreseen had happened, and he did not even try to deny the fact to himself. He would not let his thoughts dwell on what she might feel for him, for that would have seemed like the beginning of a betrayal. She never asked him questions nor did anything to make him spend more time near her than was inevitable, and neither had ever gone back to the subject of their dreams. She had asked Lamberti to come to the house at an hour when there would not be other visitors, but he had not come, and neither had ever referred to the matter since. He sometimes felt that she was watching him earnestly, but at those times he would not meet her eyes lest his own should say too much. It was hard, it was quite the hardest thing he had ever done in his life, and he was never quite sure that he could go on with it to the end. But it was the only honourable course he could follow, and it would surely grow easier when he knew definitely that Cecilia meant to marry Guido. It was bitter to feel that if the man had been any one but his friend, there would have been no reason for making any such sacrifice. He inwardly prayed that Cecilia would come to a decision soon, and he was deeply grateful to her for not making his position harder by referring to their first conversation at the Villa Madama. Guido had not the slightest suspicion of the true state of things, but he himself was growing impatient, and daily resolved to put the final question. Every day, however, he put it off again, not from lack of courage, nor even because he was naturally so very indolent, but because he felt sure that the answer would not be the one hoped for. Though Cecilia's manner with him had never changed from the first, it was perfectly clear that, however much she might enjoy his conversation, she was calmly indifferent to his personality. She never blushed with pleasure when he came, nor did her eyes grow sad when he left her; and when she talked with him she spoke exactly as when she was speaking with her mother. He listened in vain for an added earnestness of tone, meant for him only; it never came. She liked him, beyond doubt, from the first, and liking had changed to friendship very fast, but Guido knew how very rarely the friendship a woman feels for a man can ever turn to love. Starting from the same point, it grows steadily in another direction, and its calm intellectual sympathy makes the mere suggestion of any unreasoning impulse of the heart seem almost absurd. But where the man and woman do not feel alike, this state of things cannot last for ever, and when it comes to an end there is generally trouble and often bitterness. Guido knew that very well and hesitated in consequence. Princess Anatolie could not understand the reason for this delay, and was not at all pleased. She said it would be positively not decent if the girl refused to marry Guido after acting in public as if she were engaged to him, and Monsieur Leroy agreed with her. She asked him if he could not do anything to hasten matters, and he said he would try. The old lady had felt quite sure of the marriage, and in imagination she had already extracted from Guido's wife all the money she had made Guido lose for her. It is now hardly necessary to say that she had received spirit messages through Monsieur Leroy, bidding her to invest money in the most improbable schemes, and that she had followed his advice in making her nephew act as her agent in the matter. Monsieur Leroy had pleaded his total ignorance of business as a reason for keeping out of the transaction, by which, however, it may be supposed that he profited indirectly for a time. He never hesitated to say that the unfortunate result was due to Guido's negligence and failure to carry out the instructions given him. But the Princess knew that at least a part of the fault belonged to Monsieur Leroy, though she never had the courage to tell him so; and though it looked as if nothing could sever the mysterious tie that linked their lives together, he had forfeited some of his influence over her with the loss of the money, and had only recently regained it by convincing her that she was in communication with her dead child. So long as he could keep her in this belief he was in no danger of losing his power again. On the contrary, it increased from day to day. "Guido is so very quixotic," he said. "He hesitates because the girl is so rich. But we may be able to bring a little pressure to bear on him. After all, you have his receipts for all the money that passed through his hands." "Unless he marries this girl, they are not worth the paper they are written on." "I am not sure. He is very sensitive about matters of honour. Now a receipt for money given to a lady looks to me very much like a debt of honour. What happened in the eyes of the world? You lent him money which he lost in speculation." "No doubt," answered the Princess, willing to be convinced of any absurdity that could help her to get back her money. "But when a man has no means of paying a debt of honour----" "He shoots himself," said Monsieur Leroy, completing the sentence. "That would not help us. Besides, I should be very sorry if anything happened to Guido." "Of course!" cried Monsieur Leroy. "Not for worlds! But nothing need happen to him. You have only to persuade him that the sole way to save his honour is to marry an heiress, and he will marry at once, as a matter of conscience. Unless something is done to move him, he will not." "But he is in love with the girl!" "Enough to occupy him and amuse him. That is all. By-the-bye, where are those receipts?" "In the small strong-box, in the lower drawer of the writing table." Monsieur Leroy found the papers, and transferred them to his pocket-book, not yet sure how he could best turn them to account, but quite certain that their proper use would reveal itself to him before long. "And besides," he concluded, "we can always make him sell the Andrea del Sarto and the Raphael. Baumgarten thinks they are worth a good sum. You know that he buys for the Berlin gallery, and the British Museum people think everything of his opinion." In this way the Princess and her favourite disposed of Guido and his property; but he would not have been much surprised if he could have heard their conversation. They were only saying what he had expected of them as far back as the day when he had talked with Lamberti in the garden of the Arcadians. CHAPTER XII It is not strange that Cecilia should have been much less disturbed than Lamberti by what he had described to the doctor as a possession of the devil, or a haunting. Men who have never been ailing in their lives sometimes behave like frightened children if they fall ill, though the ailment may not be very serious, whereas a hardened old invalid, determined to make the best of life in spite of his ills, often laughs himself into the belief that he can recover from the two or three mortal diseases that have hold of him. Bearing bodily pain is a mere matter of habit, as every one knows who has had to bear much, or who has tried it as an experiment. In barbarous countries conspirators have practised suffering the tortures likely to be inflicted on them to extract confession. Lamberti had never before been troubled by anything at all resembling what people call the supernatural, nor even by anything unaccountable. It was natural that he should be made nervous and almost ill by the persistence of the dreams that had visited him since he had met Cecilia, and by what he believed to be the closing of a door each time he awoke from them. Cecilia, on the contrary, had practised dreaming all her life and was not permanently disturbed by any vision that presented itself, nor by anything like a "phenomenon" which might accompany it. She felt that her dreams brought her nearer to a truth of some sort, hidden from most of the world, but of vital value, and after which she was groping continually without much sense of direction. The specialist whom Lamberti had consulted would have told her plainly that she had learned to hypnotise herself, and a Japanese Buddhist monk would have told her the same thing, adding that she was doing one of the most dangerous things possible. The western man of science would have assured her that a certain resemblance of the face in the dream to Lamberti was a mere coincidence, and that since she had met him the likeness had perfected itself, so that she now really dreamed of Lamberti; and the doctor would have gone on to say that the rest of her vision was the result of auto-suggestion, because the story of the Vestal Virgins had always had a very great attraction for her. She had read a great deal about them, she had followed Giacomo Boni's astonishing discoveries with breathless interest, she knew more of Roman history than most girls, and probably more than most men, and it was not at all astonishing that she should be able to construct a whole imaginary past life with all its details and even its end, and to dream it all at will, as if she were reading a novel. She would have admitted that the pictured history of Cecilia, the last Vestal, had been at first fragmentary, and had gradually completed itself in her visions, and that even now it was constantly growing, and that it might continue to grow, and even to change, for a long time. Further, if the specialist had known positively that similar fragments of dreams were little by little putting themselves together in Lamberti's imagination, though the latter had only once spoken with Cecilia of one or two coincidences, he would have said, provided that he chose to be frank with a mere girl, that no one knows much about telepathy, and that modern science does not deny what it cannot explain, as the science of the nineteenth century did, but collects and examines facts, only requiring to be persuaded that they are really facts and not fictions. No one, he would have said, would build a theory on one instance; he would write down the best account of the case which he could find, and would then proceed to look for another. Since wireless telegraphy was possible, the specialist would not care to seek a reason why telepathy should not be a possibility, too. If it were, it explained thoroughly what was going on between Cecilia and Lamberti; if it were not, there must be some other equally satisfactory explanation, still to be found. The attitude of science used to be extremely aggressive, but she has advanced to a higher stage; in these days she is serene. Men of science still occasionally come into conflict with the official representatives of different beliefs, but science herself no longer assails religion. Lamberti's specialist professed no form of faith, wherefore he would rather not have been called upon to answer all three of Kant's questions: What can I know? What is it my duty to do? What may I hope? But it by no means followed that his answers, if he gave any, would have been shocking to people who knew less and hoped more than he did. Cecilia thought much, but she followed no such form of reasoning to convince herself that her experiences were all scientifically possible; on the contrary, the illusion she loved best was the one which science and religion alike would have altogether condemned as contrary to faith and revolting to reason, namely, her cherished belief that she had really once lived as a Vestal in old days, and had died, and had come back to earth after a long time, irresistibly drawn towards life after having almost attained to perfect detachment from material things. Her meeting with Lamberti, and, most of all, her one short conversation with him, had greatly strengthened her illusion. He had come back, too, and they understood each other. But that should be all. Then she took up Nietzsche again, not because every one read _Thus spake Zarathushthra_, or was supposed to read the book, and talked about it in a manner that discredited the supposition, but because she wanted to decide once for all whether his theory of the endless return to life at all suited her own case. She turned over the pages, but she knew the main thought by heart. Time is infinite. In space there is matter consisting of elements which, however numerous, are limited in number, and can therefore only combine in a finite number of ways. When those possible combinations are exhausted, they must repeat themselves. And because time is infinite, they must repeat themselves an infinite number of times. Therefore precisely the same combinations have returned always and will return again and again for ever. Therefore in the past, every one of us has lived precisely the same life, in a precisely similar world, an infinite number of times, and will live the same life over again, to the minutest detail, an infinite number of times in the future. In the fewest words, this is Nietzsche's argument to prove what he calls the "Eternal Return." No. That was not at all what she wished to believe, nor could believe, though it was very plausible as a theory. If men lived over again, they did not live the same lives but other lives, worse or better than the first. Nietzsche in this was speaking only of matter which combined and combined again. If it did, each combination might have a new soul of its own. It was conceivable that different souls should be made to suffer and enjoy in precisely the same way. And as for the rest, as for a good deal of _Thus spake Zarathushthra_, including the Over-Man, and the overcoming of Pity, and the Man who had killed God, she thought it merely fantastic, though much of it was very beautiful and some of it was terrible, and she thought she had understood what Nietzsche meant. Tired of reading, she lay back in her deep chair and let the open book fall upon her knees. She was in her own room, late in the morning, and the blinds were drawn together to keep out the glare of the wide street, for it was June and the summer was at hand. Outside, the air was all alive with the coming heat, as it is in Italy at the end of spring, and perhaps nowhere else. The sunshine seems to grow in it, like a living thing, that also fills everything with life. It gets into the people, too, and into their voices, and even the grave Romans unbend a little, and laugh more gaily, and their step is more elastic. By-and-by, when the full warmth of summer fills the city, the white streets will be almost deserted in the middle of the day, and men who have to be abroad will drag themselves along where the walls cast a narrow shade, and everything will grow lazy and sleepy and silently hot. But the first good sunshine in June is to the southern people the elixir of life, the magic gold-mist that floats before the coming gods, the breath of the gods themselves breathed into mortals. Within the girl's room the light was very soft on the pale blue damask hangings, and a gentle air blew now and then from window to window, as if a sweet spirit passed by, bringing a message and taking one away. It stirred Cecilia's golden hair, and fanned her forehead, and somehow, just then, it brought intuitions of beautiful unknown things with it, and inspiration with peace, and clear sight. Maidenhood is blessed with such moments, beyond all other states. In all times and in all countries it has been half divine, and ever mysteriously linked with divine things. The maid was ever the priestess, the prophetess, and the seer, whose eyes looked beyond the veil and whose ears heard the voices of the immortals; and she of Orleans was not the only maiden, though she was the last, that lifted her fallen country up out of despair and led men to fight and victory who would follow no man-leader where all had failed. Maidenhood meets evil, and passes by on the other side, not seeing; maidenhood is whole and perfect in itself and sweetly careless of what it need not know; maidenhood dreams of a world that is not, nor was, nor shall be, hitherwards of heaven; maidenhood is angelhood. In its unconsciousness of evil lies its strength, in its ignorance of itself lies its danger. Cecilia was not trying to call up visions now; she was thinking of her life, and wondering what was to happen, and now and then she was asking herself what she ought to do. Should she marry Guido d'Este, or not? That was the sum of her thoughts and her wonderings and her questions. She knew she was perfectly free, and that her mother would never try to make her marry against her will. But if she married Guido, would she be acting against her will? In her own mind she was well aware that he would speak whenever she chose to let him do so. The most maidenly girl of eighteen knows when a man is waiting for an opportunity to ask her to be his wife, whereas most young men who are much in love do not know exactly when they are going to put the question, and are often surprised when it rises to their lips. Cecilia considered that issue a foregone conclusion. The vital matter was to find out her own answer. She had never known any man, since her stepfather died, whom she liked nearly as much as Guido, and she had met more interesting and gifted men before she was really in society than most women ever know in a lifetime. She liked him so much that if he had any faults she could not see them, and she did not believe that he had any which deserved the name. But that was not the question. No woman likes a man because he has no faults; on the contrary, if he has a few, she thinks it will be her mission to eradicate them, and reform him according to her ideal. She believes that it will be easy, and she knows that it will be delightful to succeed, because no other woman has succeeded before. That is one reason why the wildest rakes are often loved by the best of women. Cecilia liked Guido for his own sake, and felt an intellectual sympathy for him which took the place of what she had sorely missed since her stepfather died; she liked him also, because he was always ready to do whatever she wished; and because, with the exception of that one day at the Villa Madama, his moral attitude before her was one of respectful and chivalrous devotion; and also because he and she were fond of the same things, and because he took her seriously and never told her that she was wasting time in trying to understand Kant and Fichte and Hegel, though he possibly thought so; and she liked the little ways he had, and his modesty, though he knew so much, and his simple manner of dressing, and the colour of his hair, and a sort of very faint atmosphere of Russian leather, good cigarettes, and Cologne water that was always about him. There were a great many reasons why she was fond of him. For instance, she had found that he never repeated to any one, not even to Lamberti, a word of any conversation they had together; and if any one at a dinner party or at a picnic attacked any favourite idea or theory of hers, he defended it, using all her arguments as well as his own; and when he knew she could say something clever in the general talk, he always said something else which made it possible for her to bring out her own speech, and he was always apparently just as much pleased with it as if he had not heard it already, when they had been alone. It would be impossible to enumerate all the reasons why she was sure that there was nobody like him. She knew that what she felt for him was affection, and she was quite willing to believe that it was love. He certainly had no rival with her at that time, and if she hesitated, it was because the thought of marriage itself was repugnant to her. In the secondary life of her imagination she was bound by the most solemn vows, and under the most terrible penalties, to preserve herself intact from the touch of man. In the dream, it was sacrilege for a man to love her, and meant death to love him in return. She knew that it was a dream, but she loved to believe that all the dream was true, and she was too much accustomed to the thought not to be influenced by it. There are great actors who become so used to a favourite part that they go on acting it in real life, and have sometimes gone mad in the end, it is said, believing themselves really to be the heroes or tyrants they have represented. Only great second-rate actors "learn" their parts and attain to a sort of perfection in them by mechanical means. The really great first-rate artists make themselves a secondary existence by self-suggestion, and really have two selves, one that thinks and acts like Othello, or Hamlet, or Louis the Eleventh, the other that goes through life with the opinions, convictions, and principles of Sir Henry Irving, of Tommaso Salvini, or of Madame Sarah Bernhardt. In a higher degree, because she had never learned but one part, and that one proceeded in some way out of her own intelligence, Cecilia was in the same state of dual consciousness, and if her waking life was influenced by her imaginary existence in dreams, her dreams were probably affected also by her waking life. "Thou shalt so act, as to be worthy of happiness," said her favourite philosopher. She could undoubtedly marry Guido, in spite of her imaginary vows, if she chose to shake off the shadowy bond by an act of everyday will. Would that be acting so as to deserve to be happy? What is happiness? The belief that one is happy; nothing else. As Guido's wife, should she believe that she was happy? Yes, if there were happiness to be found in marriage. But she was happy already without it, and would always be so, she was sure. Therefore she would be risking a certainty for a possibility. "Who leaves the old and takes new, knows what he leaves, not what he may find"; so says the old Italian proverb. And again, she had heard a friend of her stepfather's say with a laugh that hope seems cheap food, but is always paid for by those who live on it. To act so as to be worthy of happiness, meant to act in such a way that the reason for each action might be a law for the happiness of all. That was the Categorical Imperative, and Cecilia believed in it. Then, if she married Guido, she ought to be sure that all young girls in her position would marry under the circumstances, and that the majority of them would be happy. With a return of practical sense from the regions of philosophy, she asked herself how she should feel if Guido married some one else, one of the many young girls who were among her friends. Should she be jealous? At the mere thought she felt a little dull sinking that was anticipated disappointment. Yes, she liked him enough, she was fond enough of him to miss him terribly if he were taken away from her. This was undoubtedly love, she thought. She could not be happy without that companionship, though she wished that it might continue all her life, without the necessity of being married to him. Of all the other men she had met during the last month, the only one whom she instinctively understood was Lamberti, but that was different. It was the understanding of a fear that was sometimes almost abject; it was the certainty that if he only would, he could lead her anywhere, make her do anything, direct her as he directed his own hand. When she had met him in the house of the Vestals, she had been sure that if she stood a moment longer where he had come upon her, he would take her in his arms and kiss her, and she would not resist. It was of no use to argue about it, to tell herself that she would have been safe on a desert island with Guido's trusted friend; the conviction was strong. At the Villa Madama, he had made her say what he pleased, go with him where he chose, tell him her secret. It was too horrible for words. She had asked him to come to see her at an hour when there would be no visitors, and she knew that she had meant to see him alone, in spite of her mother, and even by stealth if need were. When he was out of her sight, his influence was gone with him, and she thanked heaven that he had not come, and that he apparently took care never to be alone with her for a moment now. He had only to look at her in a certain way, and she must obey him; if he ever touched her hand she would be his slave, powerless to resist him. Sometimes she could not help looking at him, but then he never turned his eyes towards her, and she was thankful when she could turn hers away. When he was not present, she hoped that she might never see his face again, except in dreams, for there he was not the same. There, but for that one passionate kiss that told all, he was tender, and gentle, and true, and he listened to her, and in the end he lived as she wished him to live. But he had come back to life with the same face, another man--one whom she feared as she feared nothing in the world, and few things beyond it, for he was born her master, and was strong, and had ruthless eyes. Even Guido could not save her from him, she was sure. Yet in spite of all this, she could meet him with outward indifference in the world, before other people. She felt that there was no danger so long as she was not alone with him, because he would not dare to use his power, and the world protected her by its cheerful, careless presence. She did not hate him, she only feared him, with every part of her, body and soul. She was sure that he knew it, but she was not grateful to him for avoiding her. She could not be grateful to any one of whom she was in terror. It was merely his will to avoid her, or perhaps, as Guido seemed to think, he did not like her; or possibly it was for Guido's sake, because Guido trusted him, and he was a man of honour. He was that beyond doubt, for every one said so, and she knew that he was brave; but though he might possess every quality and virtue under the sun, she could never be less afraid of him. Her fear had nothing to do with his character; it was bodily and spiritual, not reasonable. She had found out that he was perfectly truthful, for nothing he said escaped her, and Guido told her that he was kind, but that was hard to believe of any one with those eyes. Yet the man in the dream was gentleness itself, and his eyes never glittered when they looked at her. To think that she could ever love Lamberti was utterly absurd. When she was married to Guido she would tell him that she feared his friend. Now, it was impossible. He would smile quietly and tell her there was nothing to be afraid of; he would smile, too, if she told him that she had a dual existence, and dreamed herself into the other every day. And now she was smiling, too, as she thought of him, for she had thought too long about Lamberti, and it was soothing to go back to Guido's companionship and to all that her real affection for him meant to her. It was like coming home after a dangerous journey. There he was, always the same, his hands stretched out to welcome her back. She would have just that sensation presently when he came to luncheon, and he would have just that look. She and he were made to spend endless days together, sometimes talking, sometimes thoughtful and silent, always happy, and calm, and utterly peaceful. After all, she thought, what more could a woman ask? With each other's society and her fortune, they would have all the world held that was pleasant and beautiful around them, and they would enjoy it together, as long as it lasted, and it would never make the least difference to them that they should grow old, and older, until the end came; and at eighteen it was of no use to think of that. Surely this was love, at its best, and of the kind that must last; and if, after all, in order to get such happiness as that seemed, there was no way except to marry, why then, she must do as others did and be Guido d'Este's wife. What could she know? That she loved him, in a way not at all like what she had supposed to be the way of love, but sincerely and truly. What should she do? She should marry him, since that was necessary. What might she hope? She could hope for a lifetime of happiness. Should she then have acted so as to deserve it? Yes. Why not? Might the reason for her marriage be a rule for others? Yes, for others in exactly the same case. So she smilingly answered the mightiest questions of transcendental philosophy as if they all referred to the pleasant world in which she lived, instead of to the lofty regions of Pure Reason. In that, indeed, she knew that she was playing with them, or applying them empirically, if any one chose to define in those terms what she was doing. After all, why should she not? Of the three questions, the first only was "speculative," and the other two were "practical." The philosopher himself said so. Besides, it did not matter, for Guido d'Este was coming to luncheon, and afterwards her mother would go and write notes, unless she dozed a little in her boudoir, as she sometimes did while the two talked; and then Cecilia would say something quite natural, but quite new, and she would let her look linger in Guido's a little longer than ever before, and then he would ask her to marry him. It was all decided beforehand in her small head. She was glad that it was, and she felt much happier at the prospect of what was coming than she had expected. That must be a sign that she really loved Guido in the right way, and the pleasant little thrill of excitement she felt now and again could only be due to that; it would be outrageous to suppose that it was caused merely by the certainty that for the first time in her life she was going to receive an offer of marriage. Why should any young girl care for such a thing, unless she meant to marry the man, and why in the world should it give her any pleasure to hear a man stammer something that would be unintelligible if it were not expected, and then see him wait with painful anxiety for the answer which every woman likes to hesitate a little in giving, in order that it may have its full value? Such doings are manifestly wicked, unless they are sheer nonsense! Cecilia rose and rang for her maid; for it was twelve o'clock, and Romans lunch at half-past twelve, because they do not begin the day between eight and nine in the morning with ham and eggs, omelets and bacon, beefsteak and onions, fried liver, cold joints, tongue, cold ham and pickles, hot cakes, cold cakes, hot bread, cold bread, butter, jam, honey, fruit of all kinds in season, tea, coffee, chocolate, and a tendency to complain that they have not had enough, which is the unchangeable custom of the conquering races, as everybody knows. It is true that the conquerors do not lunch to any great extent; they go on conquering from breakfast till dinner time without much intermission, because that is their business; but it is believed that their women, who stay at home, have a little something at twelve, luncheon at half-past two, tea between five and six, dinner at eight, and supper about midnight, when they can get it. Cecilia rang for the excellent Petersen, and said that she would wear the new costume which had arrived from Doucet's two days ago. There was certainly no reason why she should not wish to look well on this day of all others, and as she turned and saw herself in the glass, she had not the least thought of making a better impression than usual on Guido. She was far too sure of herself for that. If she chose, he would ask her to marry him though she might be dressed in an old waterproof and overshoes. It was merely because she was happy and was sure that she was going to do the right thing. When a normal woman is very happy, she puts on a perfectly new frock, if she has one, in real life or on the stage, even when she is not going to be seen by any one in particular. In this, therefore, Cecilia only followed the instinct of her kind, and if the pretty new costume had not chanced to have come from Paris, she would not have missed it at all, but would have worn something else. As it happened to be ready, however, it would have been a pity not to put it on, since she expected to remember that particular day all the rest of her life. Petersen said it was perfection, and Cecilia was not far from thinking so, too. CHAPTER XIII Guido d'Este was already in the drawing-room with the Countess when Cecilia entered, but she knew by their faces and voices that they had not been talking of her, and was glad of it; for sometimes, when she was quite sure that they had, she felt a little embarrassment at first, and found Guido a trifle absent-minded for some time afterwards. She took his hand, and perhaps she held it a second longer than usual, and she looked into his eyes as she spoke to her mother. Yesterday she would have very likely looked at her mother while speaking to him. "I hope I am not late," she said, "Have I kept you waiting?" "It was worth while, if you did," Guido said, looking at her with undisguised admiration. "It really is a success, is it not?" Cecilia asked, turning to her mother now, for approval. Then she turned slowly round, raised herself on tiptoe a moment, came back to her original position, and smiled happily. Guido waited for the Countess to speak. "Yes--yes," the latter answered critically, but almost satisfied. "When one has a figure like yours, my dear, one should always have things quite perfect. A woman who has a good figure and is really well dressed, hardly ever needs a pin. Let me see. Does it not draw under the right arm, just the slightest bit? Put your arm down, child, let it hang naturally! So. No, I was mistaken, there is nothing. You really ought to keep your arm in the right position, darling. It makes so much difference! You are not going to play tennis, or ride a bicycle in that costume. No, of course not! Well, then--you understand. Do be careful!" Cecilia looked at Guido and smiled again, and her lips parted just enough to show her two front teeth a little, and then, still parted, grew grave, which gave her an expression Guido had never seen. For a moment there was something between a question and an appeal in her face. "It is very becoming," he said gravely. "It is a pleasure to see anything so faultless." "I am glad you really like it," she answered. "I always want you to like my things." Everything happened exactly as she had expected and wished, and the Countess, when she had sipped her cup of coffee after luncheon, went to the writing table in the boudoir, and though the door was open into the great drawing-room, she was out of sight, and out of hearing too. Cecilia did not sit down again at once, but moved slowly about, went to one of the windows and looked down at the white street through the slats of the closed blinds, turned and met Guido's eyes, for he was watching her, and at last stood still not far from him, but a little further from the open door of the boudoir than he was. At the end of the room a short sofa was placed across the corner; before it stood a low table on which lay a few large books, of the sort that are supposed to amuse people who are waiting for the lady of the house, or who are stranded alone in the evening when every one else is talking. They are always books of the type described as magnificent and not dear; if they were really valuable, they would not be left there. "How you watch me!" Cecilia smiled, as if she did not object to being watched. "Come and sit down," she added, without waiting for an answer. She established herself in one corner of the short sofa behind the table, Guido took his place in the other, and there would not have been room for a third person between them. The two had never sat together in that particular place, and there was a small sensation of novelty about it which was delightful to them both. There was not the least calculation of such a thing in Cecilia's choice of the sofa, but only the unerring instinct of woman which outwits man's deepest schemes at every turn in life. "Yes," Guido said, "I was watching you. I often do, for it is good to look at you. Why should one not get as much aesthetic pleasure as possible out of life?" The speech was far from brilliant, for Guido was beginning to feel the spell, and was not thinking so much of what he was saying as of what he longed to say. Most clever men are dull enough to suppose that they bore women when they suddenly lose their cleverness and say rather foolish things with an air of conviction, instead of very witty things with a studied look of indifference. The hundred and fifty generations of men, more or less, that separate us moderns from the days of Eden, never found out that those are the very moments at which a woman first feels her power, and that it is much less dangerous to bore her just then than before or afterwards. It is a rare delight to her to feel that her mere look can turn careless wit to earnest foolishness. For nothing is ever more in earnest than real folly, except real love. "You always say nice things," Cecilia answered, and Guido was pleasantly surprised, for he had been quite sure that the silly compliment was hardly worth answering. "And you are always kind," he said gratefully. "Always the same," he added after a moment, with a little accent of regret. "Am I? You say it as if you wished I might sometimes change. Is that what you mean?" She looked down at her hands, that lay in her lap motionless and white, one upon the other, on the delicate dove-coloured stuff of her frock; and her voice was rather low. "No," Guido answered. "That is not what I mean." "Then I do not understand," she said, neither moving nor looking up. Guido said nothing. He leaned forwards, his elbows on his knees, and stared down at the Persian rug that lay before the sofa on the smooth matting. It was warm and still in the great room. "Try and make me understand." Still he was silent. Without changing his position he glanced at the open door of the boudoir. The Countess was invisible and inaudible. Guido could hear the young girl's soft and regular breathing, and he felt the pulse in his own throat. He knew that he must say something, and yet the only thing he could think of to say was that he loved her. "Try and make me understand," she repeated. "I think you could." He started and changed his position a little. He had been accustomed so long to the belief that if he spoke out frankly the thread of his intercourse with her would be broken, that he made a strong effort to get back to the ordinary tone of their conversation. "Do you never say absurd things that have no meaning?" he asked, and tried to laugh. "It was not what you said," Cecilia answered quietly. "It was the way you said it, as if you rather regretted saying that I am always the same. I should be sorry if you thought that an absurd speech." "You know that I do not!" cried Guido, with a little indignation. "We understand each other so well, as a rule, but there is something you will never understand, I am afraid." "That is just what I wish you would explain," replied the young girl, unmoved. "Are you in earnest?" Guido asked, suddenly turning his face to her. "Of course. We are such good friends that it is a pity there should ever be the least little bit of misunderstanding between us." "You talk about it very philosophically!" "About what?" She had felt that she must make him lose patience, and she succeeded. "After all, I am a man," he said rather hoarsely. "Do you suppose it is possible for me to see you day after day, to talk with you day after day, to be alone with you day after day, as I am, to hear your voice, to touch your hand--and to be satisfied with friendship?" "How should I know?" Cecilia asked thoughtfully. "I have never known any one as well as I know you. I never liked anyone else well enough," she added after an instant. A very faint colour rose in her cheeks, for she was afraid that she had been too forward. "Yes. I am sure of that," he said. "But you never feel that mere liking is turning into something stronger, and that friendship is changing into love. You never will!" She said nothing, but looked at him steadily while he looked away from her, absorbed in his own thought and expecting no answer. When at last he felt her eyes on him, he turned quickly with a start of surprise, catching his breath, and speaking incoherently. "You do not mean to tell me--you are not----" Again her lips parted and she smiled at his wonder. "Why not?" she asked, at last. "You love me? You?" He could not believe his ears. "Why not?" she asked again, but so low that he could hardly hear the words. He turned half round, as he sat, and covered her crossed hands with his, and for a while neither spoke. He was supremely happy; she was convinced that she ought to be, and that she therefore believed that she was, and that her happiness was consequently real. But when she heard his voice, she knew, in spite of all, that she did not feel what he felt, even in the smallest degree, and there was a doubt which she had not anticipated, and which she at once faced in her heart with every argument she could use. She must have done right, it was absolutely necessary that what she had done should be right, now that it was too late to undo it. The mere suggestion that it might turn out to be a mistake was awful. It would all be her fault if she had deceived him, though ever so unwittingly. His hands shook a little as they lay on hers. Then they took one of hers and held it, drawing it slowly away from the other. "Do you really love me?" Guido asked, still wondering, and not quite convinced. "Yes," she answered faintly, and not trying to withdraw her hand. She had been really happy before she had first answered him. A minute had not passed, and her martyrdom had begun, the martyrdom by the doubt which made that one "yes" possibly a lie. Guido raised her hand to his lips, and she felt that they were cold. Then he began to speak, and she heard his voice far off and as if it came to her through a dense mist. "I have loved you almost since we first met," he said, "but I was sure from the beginning that you would never feel anything but friendship for me." A voice that was neither his nor hers, cried out in her heart: "Nor ever can!" She almost believed that he could hear the words. She would have given all she had to have the strength to speak them, to disappoint him bravely, to tell him that she had meant to do right, but had done wrong. But she could not. He did not pause as he spoke, and his soft, deep voice poured into her ear unceasingly the pent-up thoughts of love that had been gathering in his heart for weeks. She knew that he was looking in her face for some response, and now and then, as her head lay back against the sofa cushion, she turned her eyes to his and smiled, and twice she felt that her fingers pressed his hand a little. It was not out of mere weakness that she did not interrupt him, for she was not weak, nor cowardly. She had been so sure that she loved him, until he had made her say so, that even now, whenever she could think at all, she went back to her reasoning, and could all but persuade herself again. It was when she was obliged to speak that her lips almost refused the word. For she was very fond of him. It would have been pleasant to sit there, and even to press his hand affectionately, and to listen to his words, if only they had been words of friendship and not of love, and spoken in another tone--in his voice of every day. But she had waked in him something she could not understand, and to which nothing in herself responded, nothing thrilled, nothing consented; and the inner voice in her heart cried out perpetually, warning her against something unknown. He was eloquent now, and spoke without doubt or fear, as men do when they have been told at last that they are loved; and her occasional glance and the pressure of her hand were all he wanted in return. He said everything for her, which he wished to hear her say, and it seemed to him that she spoke the words by his lips. They would be happy together always, happy beyond volumes of words to say, beyond thought to think, beyond imagination to imagine. Quick plans for the future, near and far, flashed into words that were pictures, and the pictures showed him a visible earthly paradise, in which they two should live always, in which he should always be speaking as he was speaking now, and she listening, as she now listened. He forgot the time, and forgot to glance at the open door of the boudoir, but at last Cecilia started, and drew back her hand from his, and blushed as she raised her head from the back of the sofa. Her mother was standing in the doorway watching, and hearing, an expression of rapt delight on her face, not daring to move forwards or backwards, lest she should interrupt the scene. Cecilia started, and Guido, following the direction of her eyes, saw the Countess, and felt that small touch of disappointment which a man feels when the woman he is addressing in passionate language is less absent-minded than he is. He rose to his feet instantly, and went forwards, as the Countess came towards him. "My dear lady," he said, "Cecilia has consented to be my wife." Cecilia did not afterwards remember precisely what happened next, for the room swam with her as she left her seat, and she steadied herself against a chair, and saw nothing for a moment; but presently she found herself in her mother's arms, which pressed her very hard, and her mother was kissing her again and again, and was saying incoherent things, and was on the point of crying. Guido stood a few steps away, apparently seeing nothing, but looking the picture of happiness, and very busy with his cigarette case, of which he seemed to think the fastening must be out of order, for he opened it and shut it again several times and tried it in every way. Then Cecilia was quite aware of outward things again, and she kissed her mother once or twice. "Let me go, mother dear," she whispered desperately. "I want to be alone--do let me go!" She slipped away, pale and trembling, and had disappeared almost before Guido was aware that she was going towards the door. She heard her mother's voice just as she reached the threshold. "We will announce it this evening," the Countess said to Guido. Cecilia sped through the long suite of rooms that led to her own. She met no one, not even Petersen, for the servants were all at dinner. She locked the door, stood still a moment, and then went to the tall glass between the windows, and looked at herself as if trying to read the truth in the reflection of her eyes. It seemed to her that her beauty was suddenly gone from her, and that she was utterly changed. She saw a pale, drawn face, eyes that looked weak and frightened, lips that trembled, a figure that had lost all its elasticity and half its grace. She did not throw herself upon her bed and burst into tears. Old Fortiguerra had taught her that it was not really more natural for a woman to cry than it is for a man; and she had overcome even the very slight tendency she had ever had towards such outward weakness. But like other people who train themselves to keep down emotion, she suffered much more than if she had given way to what she felt. She turned from the reflection of herself with a sort of dumb horror, and sat down in the place where she had come to her great decision less than two hours ago. The room looked very differently now; the air was not the same, the June sunshine was still beating on the blinds, but it was cruel now, and pitiless, as all light is that shines on grief. She tried to collect her thoughts, and asked herself whether it was a crime that she had committed against her will, and many other such questions that had no answer. Little by little reason began to assert itself again, as emotion subsided. CHAPTER XIV The news of Cecilia Palladio's engagement to Guido d'Este surprised no one, and was generally received with that satisfaction which society feels when those things happen which are appropriate in themselves and have been long expected. A few mothers of marriageable sons were disappointed, but no mothers of marriageable daughters, because Guido had no fortune and was so much liked as to have been looked upon rather as a danger than a prize. Though it was late in the season, and she was about to leave Rome, the Princess Anatolie gave a dinner party in honour of the betrothed pair, and by way of producing an impression on Cecilia and her mother, invited all the most imposing people who happened to be in Rome at that time; and they were chiefly related to her in some way or other, as all semi-royal personages, and German dukes and grand-dukes and mediatised princes, and princes of the Holy Empire, seemed to be. Now all these great people seemed to know Cecilia's future husband intimately and liked him, and called him "Guido"; and he called some of them by their first names, and was evidently not the least in awe of any of them. They were his relations, as the Princess was, and they acknowledged him; and they were inclined to be affectionate relatives, because he had never asked any of them for anything, and differed from most of them in never having done anything too scandalous to be mentioned. They were his family, for his mother had been an only child; and Princess Anatolie, who was distinctly a snob in soul, in spite of her royal blood, took care that the good Countess Fortiguerra should know exactly how matters stood, and that her daughter ought to be thankful that she was to marry among the exalted ones of the earth--at any price. Now, when she had been an ambassadress, the Countess had met two or three of those people, and had been accustomed to look upon them as personages whom the Embassy entertained in state, one at a time, when they condescended to accept an invitation, but who lived in a region of their own, which was often, and perhaps fortunately so, beyond the experience of ordinary society. She was therefore really pleased and flattered to find herself in their intimacy and to hear what they had to say when they talked without restraint. Her position was certainly very good already, but there was no denying that her daughter's marriage would make it a privileged one. In the first place, Guido and Cecilia were clearly expected to visit some of his relations during their wedding trip and afterwards, and at some future time the Countess would go with them and see wonderful castles and palaces she had heard of from her childhood. That would be delightful, she thought, and the excellent Baron Goldbirn of Vienna would die of envy. Not that she wished him to die of envy, nor of anything else; she merely thought of his feelings. Then--and perhaps that was what gave her the most real satisfaction--Cecilia was to take the place for which her beauty and her talents had destined her, but which her birth had not given her. The mother's heart was filled with affectionate pride when she realised that the marvel she had brought into the world, the most wonderful girl that ever lived, her only child, was to be the mother of kings' and queens' second cousins. It was quite indifferent that she should be called plain Signora d'Este, and not princess, or duchess, or marchioness. The Countess did not care a straw for titles, for she had lived in a world where they are as plentiful as figs in August; but to be the mother of a king's second cousin was something worth living for, and she herself would be the mother-in-law of an ex-King's son, which would have made her the something-in-law of the ex-King himself, if he had been alive. Yet she cared very little for herself in comparison with Cecilia. She was only a vicarious snob, after all, and a very motherly and loving one, with harmless faults and weaknesses which every one forgave. The Princess Anatolie saw that the impression was made, and was satisfied for the present. She meant to have a little serious conversation with the Countess before they parted for the summer, and before the first impression had worn off, but it would have been a great mistake to talk business on such an occasion as the present. The fish was netted, that was the main thing; the next was to hasten the marriage as much as possible, for the Princess saw at once that Cecilia was not really in love with Guido, and as the fortune was hers, the girl had the power to draw back at the last moment; that is to say, that all the mothers of marriageable sons would declare that she was quite right in doing what Italian society never quite pardons in ordinary cases. An Italian girl who has broken off an engagement after it is announced does not easily find a husband at any price. Cecilia noticed that Monsieur Leroy was not present at the dinner, and as she sat next to Guido she asked him the reason in an undertone. "I do not know," he answered. "He is probably dining out. My aunt's relations do not like him much, I believe." The Countess was affectionately intent on everything her daughter said and did, and was possessed of very good hearing; she caught the exchange of question and answer, and it occurred to her that an absent person might always be made a subject of conversation. She was not far from the Princess at table. "By-the-bye," she asked, agreeably, "where is Monsieur Leroy?" Every one heard her speak, and to her amazement and confusion her words produced one of those appalling silences which are remembered through life by those who have accidentally caused them. Cecilia looked at Guido, and he was gravely occupied in digging the little bits of truffle out of some pâté de foie gras on his plate, for he did not like truffles. Not a muscle of his face moved. "I suppose he is at home," the Princess answered after a few seconds, in her most disagreeable and metallic tone. As Monsieur Leroy had told Cecilia that he lived in the house, she opened her eyes. Nobody spoke for several moments, and the Countess got very red, and fanned herself. A stout old gentleman of an apoplectic complexion and a merry turn of mind struggled a moment with an evident desire to laugh, then grasped his glass desperately, tried to drink, choked himself, and coughed and sputtered, just as if he had not been a member of an imperial family, but just a common mortal. "You are a good shot, Guido," said a man who was very much like him, but was older and had iron-grey hair, "you must be sure to come to us for the opening of the season." "I should like to," Guido answered, "but it is always a state function at your place." "The Emperor is not coming this year," explained the first speaker. "Why not?" asked the Princess Anatolie. "I thought he always did." The man with the iron-grey hair proceeded to explain why the Emperor was not coming, and the conversation began again, much to the relief of every one. The Countess listened attentively, for she was not quite sure which Emperor they meant. "Please ask your mother not to talk about Monsieur Leroy," Guido said, almost in a whisper. Cecilia thought that the advice would scarcely be needed after what had just happened, but she promised to convey it, and begged Guido to tell her the reason for what he said when he should have a chance. "I am sorry to say that I cannot," he answered, and at once began to talk about an indifferent subject. Cecilia answered him rather indolently, but not absently. She was at least glad that he did not speak of their future plans, where any one might hear what he said. She was growing used to the idea that she had promised to marry him, and that everybody expected the wedding to take place in a few weeks, though it looked utterly impossible to her. It was as if she had exchanged characters with him. He had become hopeful, enthusiastic, in love with life, actively exerting himself in every way. In a few days she had grown indolent and vacillating, and was willing to let every question decide itself rather than to force her decision upon circumstances. She felt that she was not what she had believed herself to be, and that it therefore mattered little what became of her. If she married Guido she should not live long, but it would be the same if she married any one else, since there was no one whom she liked half as much. On the day after the engagement was announced Lamberti came, with Guido, to offer his congratulations. Cecilia saw that he was thin and looked as if he were living under a strain of some sort, but she did not think that his manner changed in the least when he spoke to her. His words were what she might have expected, few, concise, and well chosen, but his face was expressionless, and his eyes were dull and impenetrable. He stayed twenty minutes, talking most of the time with her mother, and then took his leave. As soon as he had turned to go, Cecilia unconsciously watched him. He went out and shut the door very softly after him, and she started and caught her breath. It was only the shutting of a door, of course, and the door was like any other door, and made the same noise when one shut it--the click of a well-made lock when the spring pushes the bevelled latch-bolt into the socket. But it was exactly the sound she thought she heard each time her dream ended. The impression had passed in a flash, and no one had noticed her nervous movement. Since then, she had not met Lamberti, for after the engagement was made known she went out less, and Guido spent much more of his time at the Palazzo Massimo. Many people were leaving Rome, too, and those who remained were no longer inclined to congregate together, but stayed at home in the evening and only went out in the daytime when it was cool. Some had boys who had to pass their public examinations before the family could go into the country. Others were senators of the Kingdom, obliged to stay in town till the end of the session; some were connected with the ministry and had work to do; and some stayed because they liked it, for though the weather was warm it was not yet what could be called hot. The Countess wished the wedding to take place in July, and Guido agreed to anything that could hasten it. Cecilia said nothing, for she could not believe that she was really to be married. Something must happen to prevent it, even at the last minute, something natural but unexpected, something, above all, by which she should be spared the humiliation of explaining to Guido what she felt, and why she had honestly believed that she loved him. And after all, if she were obliged to marry him, she supposed that she would never be more unhappy than she was already. It was her fate, that was all that could be said, and she must bear it, and perhaps it would not be so hard as it seemed. A character weaker than hers might perhaps have turned against Guido; she might have found her friendly affection suddenly changed into a capricious dislike that would soon lead to positive hatred. But there was no fear of that. She only wished that he would not talk perpetually about the future, with so much absolute confidence, when it seemed to her so terribly problematic. Such conversations were made all the more difficult to sustain by the fact that if they were married, she, as the possessor of the fortune, would be obliged to decide many questions with regard to their manner of life. "For my part," Guido said, "I do not care where we live, so long as you like the place, but you will naturally wish to be near your mother." "Oh yes!" cried Cecilia, with more conviction than she had shown about anything of late. "I could not bear to be separated from her!" Lamberti had once observed to Guido that she was an indulgent daughter; and Guido had smiled and reminded his friend of the younger Dumas, who once said that his father always seemed to him a favourite child that had been born to him before he came into the world. Cecilia was certainly fond of her mother, but it had never occurred to Guido that she could not live without her. He was in a state of mind, however, in which a man in love accepts everything as a matter of course, and he merely answered that in that case they would naturally live in Rome. "We could just live here, for the present," she said. "There is the Palazzo Massimo. I am sure it is big enough. Should you dislike it?" She was thinking that if she could keep her own room, and have Petersen with her, and her mother, the change would not be so great after all. Guido said nothing, and his expression was a blank. "Why not?" Cecilia insisted, and all sorts of practical reasons suggested themselves at once. "It is a very comfortable house, though it is a little ghostly at night. There are dreadful stories about it, you know. But what does that matter? It is big, and in a good part of the city, and we have just furnished it; so of what use in the world is it to go and do the same thing over again, in the next street?" "That is very sensible," Guido was obliged to admit. "But you do not like the idea, I am sure," Cecilia said, in a tone of disappointment. "I had not meant that we should live in the same house with your mother," Guido said, with a smile. "Of course, she is a very charming woman, and I like her very much, but I think that when people marry they had much better go and live by themselves." "Nobody ever used to," objected Cecilia. "It is only of late years that they do it in Rome. Oh, I see!" she cried suddenly. "How dull of me! Yes. I understand. It is quite natural." "What?" asked Guido with some curiosity. "You would feel that you had simply come to live in our house, because you have no house of your own for us to live in. I ought to have thought of that." She seemed distressed, fancying that she had hurt him, but he had no false pride. "Every one knows my position," he answered. "Every one knows that if we live in a palace, in the way you are used to live, it will be with your money." There was a little pause, for Cecilia did not know what to say. Guido continued, following his own thoughts: "If I did not love you as much as I do, I could not possibly live on your fortune," he said. "I used to say that nothing could ever make me marry an heiress, and I meant it. One generally ends by doing what one says one will never do. A cousin of mine detested Germans and had the most extraordinary aversion for people who had any physical defect. She married a German who had lost the use of one leg by a wound in battle, and was extremely lame." "Did she love him?" asked Cecilia. "Devotedly, to his dying day. They were the most perfectly loving couple I ever knew." "Would you rather I were lame than rich?" Cecilia asked, with a little laugh. Guido laughed too. "That is one of those questions that have no answers. How could I wish anything so perfect as you are to have any defect? But I will tell you a story. An Englishman was very much in love with a lady who was lame, and she loved him but would not marry him. She said that he should not be tied to a cripple all his life. He was one of those magnificent Englishmen you see sometimes, bigger and better looking than other men. When he saw that she was in earnest he went away and scoured Europe till he found what he wanted--a starving young surgeon who was willing to cut off one of his legs for a large sum of money. That was before the days of chloroform. When the Englishman had recovered, he went home with his wooden leg, and asked the lady if she would marry him, then. She did, and they were happy." "Is that true?" Cecilia asked. "I have always believed it. That was the real thing." "Yes. That was the real thing." Cecilia's voice trembled a very little, and her eyes glistened. "The truth is," said Guido, "that it is easier to have one's leg cut off than to make a fortune." He was amused at his thought, but Cecilia was wondering what she would be willing to suffer, and able to bear, if any suffering could buy her freedom. At the same time, she knew that she would do a great deal to help him if he were in need or distress. She wondered, too, whether there could be any fixed relation between a sacrifice made for love and one made for friendship's sake. "There must never be any question of money between us," she said, after a pause. "What is mine must be ours, and what is ours must be as much yours as mine." "No," Guido answered gently. "That is not possible. I have quite enough for anything I shall ever need, but you must live in the way you like, and where you like, with your own fortune." "And you will be a sort of perpetual guest in my house!" For the first time there was a little bitterness in her laugh, and he looked at her quickly, for after the way she had spoken he had not thought that what he had said could have offended her. Of the two, he fancied that his own position was the harder to accept, the position of the "perpetual guest" in his wife's palace, just able to pay for his gloves, his cigarettes, and his small luxuries. He did not quite understand why she was hurt, as she seemed to be. On her part she felt as if she had done all she could, and was angry with herself, and not with him, because all her fortune was not worth a tenth of what he was giving her, nor a hundredth part. For an instant she was on the point of speaking out frankly, to tell him that she had made a great mistake. Then she thought of what he would suffer, and once more she resolved to think it all over before finally deciding. So nothing was decided. For when she was alone, all the old reasons came and arrayed themselves before her, with their hopeless little faces, like poor children standing in a row to be inspected, and trying to look their best though their clothes were ragged and their little shoes were out at the toes. But they were the only reasons she had, and she coaxed them into a sort of unreal activity till they brought her back to the listless state in which she had lived of late, and in which it did not matter what became of her, since she must marry Guido in the end. Her mother paid no attention to her moods. Cecilia had always been subject to moods, she said to herself, and it was not at all strange that she should not behave like other girls. Guido seemed satisfied, and that was the main thing, after all. He was not, but he was careful not to say so. The preparations for the wedding went on, and the Countess made up her mind that it should take place at the end of July. It would be so much more convenient to get it over at once, and the sooner Cecilia returned from her honeymoon, the sooner her mother could see her again. The good lady knew that she should be very unhappy when she was separated from the child she had idolised all her life; but she had always looked upon marriage as an absolute necessity, and after being married twice herself, she was inclined to consider it as an absolute good. She would no more have thought of delaying the wedding from selfish considerations than she would have thought of cutting off Cecilia's beautiful hair in order to have it made up into a false braid and wear it herself. So she busied herself with the dressmakers, and only regretted that both Cecilia and Guido flatly refused to go to Paris. It did not matter quite so much, because only three months had elapsed since the last interview with Doucet, and all the new summer things had come; and after all one could write, and some things were very good in Rome, as for instance all the fine needle-work done by the nuns. It would have been easier if Cecilia had shown some little interest in her wedding outfit. The girl tried hard to care about what was being made for her, and was patient in having gowns tried on, and in listening to her mother's advice. The days passed slowly and it grew hotter. After she had become engaged to Guido, she had broken with her dream life by an effort which had cost her more than she cared to remember. She had felt that it was not the part of a faithful woman to go on loving an imaginary man in her dreams, when she was the promised wife of another, even though she loved that other less or not at all. It was a maidenly and an honest conviction, but at the root of it lay also an unacknowledged fear which made it even stronger. The man in the dream might grow more and more like Lamberti, the dream itself might change, the man might have power over her, instead of submitting to her will, and he might begin to lead her whither he would. The mere idea was horrible. It was better to break off, if she could, and to remember the exquisite Vestal, faithful to her vows, living her life of saintly purity to the very end, in a love altogether beyond material things. To let that vision be marred, to suffer that life to be polluted by mortality, to see the Vestal break the old promises and fall to the level of an ordinary woman, would be to lose a part of herself and all that portion of her own existence which had been dearest to her. That would happen if the man's eyes changed ever so little from what they were in the dream to the likeness of those living ones that glittered and were ruthless. For the dream had really changed on the very night after she had met Lamberti; the loving look had been followed by the one fierce kiss she could never forget, and though afterwards the rest of the dream had all come back and had gone on to its end as before, that one kiss came with it again and again, and in that moment the eyes were Lamberti's own. It was no wonder that she dared not look into them when she met him. And worse still, she had begun to long for it in the dream. She blushed at the thought. If by any unheard-of outrage Lamberti should ever touch her lips with his in real life, she knew that she would scream and struggle and escape, unless his eyes forced her to yield. Then she should die. She was sure of it. But she would kill herself rather than be touched by him. She did not understand exactly, that is to say, scientifically, how she put herself into the dream state, for it was not a natural sleep, if it were sleep at all. She did not put out the light and lay her head on the pillow and lose consciousness, as Lamberti did, and then at once see the vision. In real sleep, she rarely dreamed at all, and never of what she always thought of as her other life. To reach that, she had to use her will, being wide awake, with her eyes open, concentrating her thoughts at first, as it seemed to her, to a single point, and then abandoning that point altogether, so that she thought of nothing while she waited. It was in her power not to begin the process, in other words not to hypnotise herself, though she never thought of it by that name; and when she had answered Guido's question, rightly or wrongly, she knew that it must be right to break the old habit. But she did not know what she had resolved to forego till the temptation came, that very night, after she had shut the door, and when she was about to light the candles, by force of habit. She checked herself. There was the high chair she loved to sit in, with the candles behind her, waiting for her in the same place. If she sat in it, the light would cast her shadow before her and the vision would presently rise in it. She had taken the lid off the little Wedgwood match box and the candles were before her. It seemed as if some physical power were going to force her to strike the wax match in spite of herself. If she did, five minutes would not pass before she should see the marble court of the Vestals' house, and then the rest--the kiss, and then the rest. She stiffened her arm, as if to resist the force that tried to move it against her will, and she held her breath and then breathed hard again. She felt her throat growing slowly dry and the blood rising with a strange pressure to the back of her head. If she let her hand move to take the match, she was lost. As the temptation increased she tried to say a prayer. Then, she did not know how, it grew less, as if a sort of crisis were past, and she drew a long breath of relief as her arm relaxed, and she replaced the lid on the box. She turned from the table and took the big chair away from its usual place. It was a heavy thing for a woman to carry, but she did not notice the weight till she had set it against the wall at the further end of the room. She slept little that night, but she slept naturally, and when she awoke there was no sound of the door being softly closed. But she missed something, and felt a dull, inexplicable want all the next day. A habit is not broken by a single interruption. It is hard for a man whose nerves are accustomed to a stimulant or a narcotic to go without it for one day, but that is as nothing compared with giving it up altogether. Specialists can decide whether there is any resemblance between the condition of a person under the influence of morphia or alcohol, and the state of a person hypnotised, whether by himself or by another, when that state is regularly accompanied by the illusion of some strong and agreeable emotion. Probably all means which produce an unnatural condition of the nerves at more or less regular hours may be classed together, and there is not much difference between the kind of craving they produce in those who use them. Moreover it is often said that it is harder for a woman to break a habit of that sort, than for a man. Cecilia was young, fairly strong and very elastic, but she suffered intensely when night came and she had to face the struggle. Bodily pain would have been a relief then, and she knew it, but there was none to bear. The chair looked at her from its distant place against the wall, and seemed to draw her to it, till she had it taken away, pretending that it did not suit the room. But when it was gone, she knew perfectly well that it really made no difference, and that she could dream in any other chair as easily. And then came a wild desire to see the man's face again, and to be sure that it had not changed. She was certain that she only wished to see it; she would have been overwhelmed with shame, all alone in her room, if she had acknowledged that it was the kiss that she craved and the one moment of indescribable intoxication that came with it. Are there not hundreds of men who earn their living by risking their lives every night in feats of danger, and who miss that recurring moment when they cannot have it? They will never admit that what they crave is really the chance of a painful death, yet it is perfectly true. Cecilia could not have been induced to think that she desired no longer the lovely vision of a perfect life; that she could have parted with that easily enough, though with much calm regret; and that, instead, she had a nervous, material, most earthly longing for the single moment in that life which was the contrary of perfect, which she despised, or tried to despise, and which she believed she feared. She struggled hard, and succeeded, and at last she could go to bed quietly, without even glancing at the place where the chair had stood, or at the candles on the table. Then, when it all seemed over, a terrible thing happened. She dreamed of the real Lamberti in her natural sleep, in a dream about real life. CHAPTER XV Cecilia knelt in the church of Santa Croce, near one of the ancient pillars. At a little distance behind her, Petersen sat in a chair reading a queer little German book that told her the stories of the principal Roman churches with the legends of the saints to which they are dedicated. A thin, smooth-shaven lay brother in black and white frock was slowly sweeping the choir behind the high altar. There was no one else in the church. Cecilia was kneeling on the marble floor, resting her folded hands upon the back of a rough chair, and there was no sound in the dim building, but the regular, soft brushing of the monk's broom. The girl's face was still and pale, her eyes were half closed, and her lips did not move; she did not hear the broom. That was the first time she had ever tried to spend an hour in meditation in a church, for her religion had never seemed very real to her. It was compounded of habit and the natural respect of a girl for what her mother practises and has taught her to practise, and it had continued to hold a place in her life because she had quietly exempted it from her own criticism; perhaps, too, because her reading had not really tended to disturb it, since by nature she was strongly inclined to believe in something much higher than the visible world. The Countess Fortiguerra believed with the simplicity of a child. Her first husband, freethinker, Garibaldian, Mazzinian, had at first tried to laugh her out of all belief, and had said that he would baptize her in the name of reason, as Garibaldi is said to have once baptized a new-born infant. But to his surprise his jests had not the slightest effect on the rather foolish, very pretty, perfectly frank young woman with whom he had fallen in love in his older years, and who, in all other matters, thought him a great man. She laughed at his atheism much more good-naturedly than he at her beliefs, and she went to church regularly in spite of anything he could say; so that at last he shrugged his shoulders and said in his heart that all women were half-witted creatures, where priests were concerned, but that fortunately the weakness did not detract from their charm. On her side, she prayed for his conversion every day, with clock-like regularity, but without the slightest result. Fortiguerra had been a man of remarkable gifts, extremely tolerant of other people's opinions. He never laughed at any sort of belief, though his wife never succeeded in finding out what he really thought about spiritual matters. He evidently believed in something, so she did not pray for his conversion, but interceded steadily for his enlightenment. Before he died he made no objection to seeing a priest, but his wife never knew whether he consented because it would have given her pain if he had refused, or whether he really desired spiritual comfort in his last moments. He was always most considerate of others and especially of her; but he was very reticent. So she mourned him and prayed that everything might be well with both her departed husbands, though she doubted whether they were in the same place. She supposed that Fortiguerra had sometimes discussed religion with his step-daughter, but he always seemed to take it for granted that the latter should do what her mother desired of her. It could hardly be expected that the girl should be what is called very devout, and as Petersen turned over the pages of her little book she wondered what had happened that Cecilia should kneel motionless on the marble pavement for more than half an hour in a church to which they had never come before, and on a week-day which was not a saint's day either. It was something like despair that had brought her to Santa Croce, and she had chosen the place because she could think of no other in which she could be quite sure of being alone, and out of the way of all acquaintances. She wanted something which her books could not give her, and which she could not find in herself; she wanted peace and good advice, and she felt that she was dealt with unjustly. Indeed, it was of little profit that she should have forced herself to give up what was dearest to her, unreal though it might be, since she was to be haunted by Lamberti's face and voice whenever she fell asleep. It was more like a possession of the evil one now than anything else. She would have used his own words to describe it, if she had dared to speak of it to any one, but that seemed impossible. She had thought of going to some confessor who did not know her by sight, to tell him the whole story, but her common sense assured her that she had done no wrong. It was advice she needed, and perhaps it was protection too, but it was certainly not forgiveness, so far as she knew. Lamberti pursued her, in her imagination, and she lived in terror of him. If she had been already married to Guido, she would have told her husband everything, and he would have helped her. By a revulsion that was not unnatural, it began to seem much easier to marry him now, and she turned to him in her thoughts, asking him to shield her from a man she feared. Guido loved her, and she was at least a devoted friend to him; there was no one but him to help her. As she knelt by the pillar she went over the past weeks of her life in a concentrated self-examination of which she would never have believed herself capable. "I am a grown woman," she said to herself, "and I have a right to think what grown women think. I know perfectly well which thoughts are good and which are bad, just as I know right from wrong in other ways. It was wrong to put myself into that dream state, because I wanted him to come to me. Yes, I confess it, I wanted him to come and kiss me that once, in the vision every night. It would not have been wrong if I had not said that I would marry Guido, but that made the difference. Therefore I gave it up. I will not do anything wrong with my eyes open. I will not. I would not, if I did not believe in God, because the thing would be wrong just the same. Religion makes it more wrong, that is all. If I were not engaged to Guido, and if I loved the other instead, then I should have a right to wish and dream that the other kissed me." She thought some time about this point, and there was something that disturbed her, in spite of her reasoning. "It would have been unmaidenly," she decided, at last. "I should be ashamed to tell my mother that I had done it. But it would not have been wrong, distinctly not. It would be wrong and abominable to think of two men in that way. "That is what is happening now, against my will. I go to sleep saying my prayers, and yet he comes to me in my dreams, and looks at me, and I cannot help letting him kiss me, and it is only afterwards that I feel how revolting it was. And in the daytime I am engaged to Guido, and I cannot help knowing that when we are married he will want to kiss me like that. It was different before, since I was able to give up seeing the marble court and being the Vestal, and did give it up. This is another thing, and it is bad, but it is not a wrong thing I am doing. Therefore it is something outside of my soul that is trying to do me harm, and may succeed in the end. It is a power of evil. How can I fight against it, since it comes when I am asleep and have no will? What ought I to do? "I am afraid to meet Signor Lamberti now, much more afraid than I was a week ago, before this other trouble began. But when I am dreaming, I am not afraid of him. I do what he makes me do without any resistance, and I am glad to do it. I want to be his slave, then. He makes me sit down and listen to him, and I believe all he says. We always sit on that bench near the fountain in my villa. He tells me that he loves me much better than Guido does, and that he is much better able to protect me than Guido. He says that his heart is breaking because he loves me and is Guido's friend, and he looks thin and worn, just as he does in real life. When I dream of him, I do not mind the glittering in his eyes, but when I meet him it frightens me. Of course, it is quite impossible that he should know how I dream of him now. Yet, I am sure he knew all about the other vision. He said very little, but I am sure of it, though I cannot explain it. This is much worse than the other. But if I go back to the other, I shall be doing wrong, because I shall be consenting; and now I am not doing wrong, because it happens against my will, and I go to sleep praying that it may never happen again, and I am in earnest. God help me! I know that when I sit beside him on the bench I love him! And yet he is the only man in all the world whom I wish never to meet again. God help me!" Her head sank upon her folded hands at last, and her eyes were closely shut. She threw her whole soul into the appeal to heaven for help and strength, till she believed that it must come to her at once in some real shape, with inspired wisdom and the comfort of the Holy Spirit. She had never before in her life prayed as she was praying now, with heart and soul and mind, though not with any form of words. Then came a moment in which she thought of nothing and waited. She knew it well, that blank between one state and the other, that total suspension of all her faculties just before she began to see an unreal world, that breathless stillness of anticipation before the supreme moment of change. She was quite powerless now, for her waking will was already asleep. The instant was over, and the vision had come, but it was not what she had always seen before. It was something strangely familiar, yet beautiful and high and clear. Her consciousness was in the midst of a world of light, at peace; and then, all round her, a brightness stole upwards as out of a clear and soft horizon, more radiant than the light itself that was already in the air. And as when evening creeps up to the sky the stars begin to shine faintly, more guessed at than really seen, so she began to see heavenly beings, growing more and more distinct, and she was lifted up among them, and all her heart cried out in joy and praise. And suddenly the cross shone out in a rosy radiance brighter than all, and from head to foot and from arm to arm of it the light flowed and flashed, and joined and passed and parted, in the holy sign. From itself came forth a melody, in which she was rapt and swept upwards as though she were herself a wave of the glorious sound. But of the words, three only came to her, and they were these: Arise and conquer![1] [1: A free translation of some passages in the fourteenth canto of Dante's _Paradiso_.] Then all was still and calm again, and she was kneeling at her chair, the sight still in her inward eyes, the words still ringing in her heart, but herself awake again. She knew the vision now that it was past; for often, reading the matchless verses of the "Paradise," she had intensely longed to see as the dead poet must have seen before he could write as he wrote. It did not seem strange that her hope should have been fulfilled at last in the church of the Holy Cross. Her lips formed the words, and she spoke them, consciously in her own voice, sweet and low: "Arise and conquer!" It was what she had prayed for--the peace, the strength, the knowledge; it was all in that little sentence. She rose to her feet, and stood still a moment, and her face was calm and radiant, like the faces of the heavenly beings she had looked upon. There was a world before her of which she had not dreamt before, better than that ancient one that had vanished and in which she had been a Vestal Virgin, more real than that mysterious one in which she had floated between two existences, and whence the miserable longing for an earthly body had brought her back to be Cecilia Palladio, and to fight again her battle for freedom and immortality. It mattered little that her prayer should have been answered by the imagined sight of something described by another, and long familiar to her in his lofty verse. The prayer was answered, and she had strength to go on, and she should find wisdom and light to choose the right path. Henceforth, when she was weak and weary, and filled with loathing of what she dreaded most, she could shut her eyes as she had done just now, and pray, and wait, and the transcendent glory of paradise would rise within her, and give her strength to live, and drive away that power of evil that hurt her, and made night frightful, and day but a long waiting for the night. She came out into the summer glare with the patient Petersen, and breathed the summer heat as if she were drawing in new life with every breath; and they drove home, down the long and lonely road that leads to the new quarter, between dust-whitened trees, and then down into the city and through the cooler streets, till at last the cab stopped before the columns of the Palazzo Massimo. Celia ran up the stairs, as if her light feet did not need to touch them to carry her upwards, while Petersen solemnly panted after her, and she went to her own room. She had a vague desire to change everything in it, to get rid of all the objects that reminded her of the miserable nights, and the sad hours of day, which she had spent there; she wanted to move the bed to the other end of the room, the writing table to the other window, the long glass to a different place, to hang the walls with another colour, and to banish the two tall candlesticks for ever. It would be like beginning her life over again. CHAPTER XVI After this Cecilia no longer avoided Lamberti; on the contrary, she sought opportunities of seeing him and of talking with him, for she was sure that she had gained some sort of new strength which could protect her against her imagination, till all her old illusions should vanish in the clear light of daily familiarity. For some time she did not dream of Lamberti, she believed that the spell was broken, and her fear of meeting him diminished quickly. She made her mother ask him to dinner, but he wrote an excuse and did not come. Then she complained to Guido, and Guido reproached his friend. "They really wish to know you better," he said. "If the Contessina ever felt for you quite the same antipathy which you felt for her, she has got over it. I think you ought to try to do as much. Will you?" The invitation was renewed for another day, and Lamberti accepted it. In the evening, in order to give his friend a chance of talking with Cecilia, Guido sat down by the Countess, and began to discuss matters connected with the wedding. It would have been contrary to all established custom that the marriage should take place without a contract, and that alone was a subject about which much could be said. Guido insisted that Cecilia should remain sole mistress of her fortune, and the Countess would naturally have made no objection, but the Princess had told her, and had repeated more than once, that she expected Cecilia to bring her husband a dowry of at least a million of francs. Baron Goldbirn thought this too much, but the Countess was willing to consent, because she feared that the Princess would make trouble at the last minute if she did not. Cecilia had of course never discussed the matter with the Princess, but she was altogether of the latter's opinion, and told her mother so. The obstacle lay in Guido's refusal to accept a penny of his future wife's fortune, and on this point the whole obstinacy of his father's race was roused. The Countess could manifestly not threaten to break off the engagement because Guido would not accept the dowry, but on the other hand she greatly feared Guido's aunt. So there was ample matter for discussion whenever the subject was broached. It was a hot evening, and all the curtains were drawn back before the open windows, only the blinds being closed. Cecilia and Lamberti gravitated, as it were, to the farther end of the room. A piano stood near the window there. "Do you play?" Lamberti asked, looking at the instrument. He thought that she did. All young girls are supposed to have talent for music. "No," Cecilia answered. "I have no accomplishments. Do you play the piano?" "Only by ear. I do not know a note of music." "Play me something. Will you? But I suppose the piano is out of tune, for nobody ever uses it since we stopped dancing." Lamberti touched the keys, standing, and struck a few soft chords. "No," he said. "It is not badly out of tune. But if I play, it will be the end of our acquaintance." "Perhaps it may be the beginning," Cecilia answered, and their eyes met for a moment. "If it amuses you, I will try," said Lamberti, looking away, and sitting down before the keys. "You must be easily pleased if you can listen to me," he added, laughing, as he struck a few chords again. Cecilia sat down in a low chair between him and the window, at the left of the key-board. Her mother glanced at Lamberti with a little surprise, and then went on talking with Guido. Lamberti began to play a favourite waltz, not loud, but with a good deal of spirit and a perfect sense of time. Cecilia had often danced to the tune in the spring, and liked it. He broke off suddenly, and made slow chords again. "Have you forgotten the rest?" Cecilia asked. "No. I was thinking of something else. Did you ever hear this?" He played an old Sicilian melody with one hand, and then took it up in a second part, and then a third, that made strange minor harmonies. "I never heard that," Cecilia said, as he looked at her. "I like it. It must be very ancient. Play it again." By way of answer, he began to sing the old song, accompanying himself with the same old harmonies. He had no particular voice, and it was more like humming than singing, so far as the tone was concerned, but he pronounced every word distinctly, and imitated the peculiar intonation of the southern people to perfection. "Do you understand?" he asked, when he came to the end. "Not a word." Cecilia asked, "Is it Arabic? It sounds like it." "No. It is our own beloved Italian," laughed Lamberti, "only it is the Sicilian dialect. If that sort of thing amuses you, I can go on for hours." Many Italians have the facility he possessed, and the good memory for both words and music, and he had unconsciously developed what talent he had, in places where time was long and there was nothing to do. He changed the key and hummed a little Arab melody from the desert. Cecilia sat quite still and watched the outline of his head against the light. It was an energetic head, but the face was not a cruel one, and this evening she had not seen what she called the ruthless look in his eyes. She was not at all afraid of him now, nor would she have been even if they had been quite alone in the room. She almost wished to tell him so, and then smiled at the thought. So this was the reality of the vision that had haunted her dreams and had caused her such unutterable suffering until she had found strength to break the habit of her imagination. The reality was not at all terrible. She could imagine the man roused to action, fighting for his life, single-handed against many, as she had been told that he had fought. He looked both brave and strong. But she could not imagine that she should ever have cause to be afraid of him again. There he sat, beside her, humming snatches of songs he remembered from his many voyages, his hands moving not at all gracefully over the keys; he was evidently a very simple and good-natured man, willing to do anything that could amuse her, without the slightest affectation. He was just the kind of friend for Guido, and it was her duty to like Guido's friend. It would not be hard, now that she had got out of the labyrinth of absurd illusions that had made it impossible. She resolutely put aside the recollection of that afternoon at the Villa Madama. It belonged to the class of things about which she was determined never to think again. "Arise and conquer!" She had come back to her real self, and had overcome. He stopped singing, but his hands still lay on the keys and he struck occasional chords; and he turned his face half towards her, and spoke in an undertone. "I am very sorry if I offended you by not coming more often to your house," he said. "Guido told me. I thought perhaps you would understand why I did not come." Cecilia looked at him and was silent for a moment, but she felt very strong and sure of herself. "Signor Lamberti," she said presently, "I want to ask you to do something--for me." There was a little emphasis on the last word. He turned quite towards her now, but he still made chords on the instrument, for he knew that the Countess had extraordinary ears. His impulse was to tell her that he would do anything she asked of him, no matter how hard it might be; but he controlled it. "Certainly," he answered. "What is it?" "Forget that we met in the Forum, and forget what we said to each other at the garden party. Will you? It was all a coincidence, of course, but I behaved very foolishly, and I do not like to think that you remember it. Will you try and forget it all?" "I will try," Lamberti answered, looking down at the keys. "At all events, I can promise never to remind you of it, as I did just now." "That is what I meant," Cecilia said. "Let us never remind each other of it. Of course we cannot really forget, in our own selves, but we can begin again from the beginning, this evening, as if it had never happened. We can be real friends, as we ought to be." "Can we?" Lamberti asked the question in a doubtful tone, and glanced uneasily at her. "I can, if you can," she answered courageously, "and I mean to be." "Then I can, too," Lamberti said, but his lips shut tightly as if he regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. "It will be easy, now," Cecilia went on. "It will be much easier because----" She stopped. "Why will it be so much easier?" Lamberti asked, looking down again. "We were not going to speak of those things again," Cecilia said. "We had better not begin." "I only ask that one question. Tell me why it will be easier now. It may help me to forget." "It will be easier--because I do not dream of you any more--I mean of the man who is like you." She was blushing faintly, but she knew that he would not look at her, and she was sitting in the shadow. "On what day did you stop dreaming?" he asked, between two chords. "It was last week. Let me see. It was a Wednesday. On Wednesday night I did not dream." He nodded gravely over the keys, as if he had expected the answer. "Did you ever read anything about telepathy?" he asked. "I did not dream of you on Wednesday night either. It seemed to me that I tried to find you and could not." "Were you trying to find me before?" Cecilia asked, as if it were the most natural question in the world. "Yes. In my dreams I almost always found you. There was a break--I forget when. The old dream about the house of the Vestals stopped suddenly. Then I missed you and tried to find you. You were always sitting on that bench by the fountain in the villa. Last Wednesday I dreamt I was there, but you did not come." Cecilia shuddered, as if the night air from the open window chilled her. "Are you cold?" he asked. "Shall I shut the window?" "No, I was frightened," she answered. "We must never talk about all that again. Do you know, I think it is wrong to talk about them. There is some power of evil----" "I do not deny the existence of the devil at all," Lamberti answered, with a faint smile. "But I think this is only a strange case of telepathy. I will do as you wish; though my own belief is, after this evening, that it is better to talk about it all quite fearlessly, and grow used to it. We shall be much less afraid of it if we look upon it as something not at all supernatural, which could easily be explained if we knew enough about those things." "Perhaps," Cecilia answered doubtfully. "You may be right. I do not know." "You are going to marry my most intimate friend," Lamberti continued, "and I am unfortunately condemned to stay in Rome for some time, for a year, I fancy, and perhaps even longer." "Why do you say that you are 'unfortunately condemned' to stay?" "Because I did my best to get away. You look surprised. I begged the Minister to shorten my leave and send me to sea at once, with or without promotion. Instead, I was named a member of a commission which will sit a long time. Since we are talking frankly, I wanted to get away from you, and not to see you again for years. But now that I must stay here, or leave the service, we cannot help meeting; so I think it is more sensible not to take any solemn oaths never to allude to these strange coincidences, or whatever they are, but to talk them out of existence; all the more so, as they seem to have suddenly come to an end. I only tell you what would be easier for me; but I will do whatever makes it most easy for you." "I prayed that they might stop," said Cecilia, in a very low voice. "I want you to be my friend, and as long as I dreamt of you--in that way--I felt that it was impossible." "Of course," Lamberti answered, without hesitation. Then, with an attempt at a laugh, he corrected himself. "I apologise for all the things I said to you in my dreams." "Please do not laugh about it." Her voice was a little unsteady, and she was looking down, so that he could not see her face. "It is better not to take it too seriously," he replied gravely. "Could anything be more absurd than that two people who were mere acquaintances then should fall in love with each other in their dreams? It is utterly ridiculous. Any sane person would laugh at the idea." "Yes; no doubt. But there is more than that. Call it telepathy, or whatever you please, it cannot be a mere coincidence. Do you know that, until last Wednesday, I met you in my dream, just where you dreamed of meeting me, at the bench in the villa?" He did not seem surprised, but listened attentively while she continued. "I am sure that we really met," she went on gravely. "It may be in some natural way or not. It does not matter. We must never meet again like that--never. Do you understand? We must promise never to try and find each other in our dreams. Will you promise?" "Yes; I promise." Lamberti spoke gravely. "I promise, too," Cecilia said. Then they were both silent for a time. It was like a real parting, and they felt it, and for a few moments each was thinking of the bench by the fountain in the Villa Madama. "We owe it to Guido," Lamberti said at last, almost unconsciously. "Yes," the girl answered; "and to ourselves. Thank you." With an impulse she did not suspect, she held out her hand to him, and waited for him to take it. Neither her mother nor Guido could see the gesture, for Lamberti's seated figure screened her from them; but he could not have taken her hand in his right without changing his position, since she was seated low on his other side; so he took it quietly in his left, and the two met and pressed each the other for a second. In that touch Cecilia felt that all her fear of him ended for ever, and that of all men she could trust him the most, and that he would protect her, if ever he might, even more effectually than Guido. His hand was cool, and steady, and strong, and enfolding--the hand of a brave man. But if she had looked she would have seen that his face was paler than usual, and that his eyes seemed veiled. She rose, and he followed her as she moved slowly forward. "What a charming talent you have!" cried the Countess in an encouraging tone, when Lamberti was near her. "Have you made acquaintance at last?" Guido was asking of Cecilia, in an undertone. "Yes," she answered gravely. "I think we shall be good friends." CHAPTER XVII People said that Guido had ceased to be interesting since he had been engaged to be married. Until that time, there had been an element of romance about him, which many women thought attractive; and most men had been willing to look upon him as a being slightly superior to themselves, who cared only for books and engravings, though he never thrust his tastes upon other people, nor made any show of knowing more than others, and whose opinion on points of honour was the very best that could be had. It was so good, indeed, that he was not often asked to give it. Now, however, they said that he was changed; that he was complacent and pleased with himself; that this was no wonder, because he was marrying a handsome fortune with a pretty and charming wife; that he had done uncommonly well for himself; and much more to the same purpose. Also, the mothers of impecunious marriageable sons of noble lineage said in their maternal hearts that if they had only guessed that Countess Fortiguerra would give her daughter to the first man who asked for her, they would not have let Guido be the one. The judgments of society are rarely quite at fault, but they are almost always relative and liable to change. They are, indeed, appreciations of an existing state of things, rather than verdicts from which there is no appeal. The verdict comes after the state of things has ceased to exist. Guido was happy, and nothing looks duller than the happiness of quiet people. Nobody will go far to look at the sea when it is calm, if he is used to seeing it at all; but those who live near it will walk a mile or two to watch the breakers in a storm. In the first place, Guido was in love, and more in love with Cecilia's face and figure than he guessed. In the early days of their acquaintance he had enjoyed talking with her about the subjects in which she was interested. Such conversation generally brought him to that condition of intellectual suspense which was peculiarly delightful to him, for though she did not persuade him to accept her own points of view, she made him feel more doubtful about his own, so far as any of them were fixed, and doubt meant revery, musing, imaginative argument about questions that might never be answered. But he and she had now advanced to another stage. Unconsciously, all that side of his nature had fallen into abeyance, and he thought only of positive things in the immediate future. When he was with Cecilia, no matter how the conversation began, it soon turned upon their plans for their married life; and he found it so infinitely pleasant to talk of such matters that it did not occur to him to ask whether she regarded them as equally interesting. She did not; she saw the change in him, and regretted it. A woman who is not really in love, generally likes a man less after he has fallen hopelessly in love with her. It is true that she sometimes likes herself the better for her new conquest, and there may be some compensation in that; but there is something tiresome, if not repugnant to her, in the placid, possessive complacency of a future husband, who seems to forget that a woman has any intelligence except in matters concerning furniture and the decoration of a house. Cecilia was not capricious; she really liked Guido as much as ever, and she would not even admit that he bored her when he came back again and again to the same topics. She tried hard to look forward to the time when all the former charm of their intercourse should return, and when, besides being the best of friends, he would again be the most agreeable of companions. It seemed very far off; and yet, in her heart, she hoped that something might happen to hinder her marriage, or at least to put it off another year. Her life seemed very blank after the great struggle was ended, and in the long summer mornings before Guido came to luncheon, she was conscious of longing for something that should take the place of the old dreams, something she could not understand, that awoke under the listlessness which had come upon her. It was a sort of sadness, like a regret for a loss that had not really been suffered, and yet was present; it was a craving for sympathy where she had deserved none, and it made her inclined to pity herself without reason. She sometimes felt it after Guido had come, and it stayed with her, a strange yearning after an unknown happiness that was never to be hers, a half-comforting and infinitely sad conviction that she was to die young and that people would mourn for her, but not those, or not that one, who ought to be most sorry that she was gone. All her books were empty of what she wanted, and for hours she sat still, doing nothing, or stood leaning on the window-sill, gazing down through the slats of the blinds at the glaring street, unconscious of the heat and the strong light, and of the moving figures that passed. Occasionally she drove out to the Villa Madama in the afternoon with her mother, and Guido joined them. Lamberti did not come there, though he often came to the house in the evening, sometimes with his friend, and sometimes later. The two always went away together. At the villa, Cecilia never sat down on the bench by the fountain, but from a distance she looked at it, and it was like looking at a grave. In dreams she had sat there too often with another to go there alone now; she had heard words there that touched her heart too deeply to be so easily forgotten, and there had been silences too happy to forget. She had buried all that by the garden seat, but it was better not to go near the place again. What she had laid out of sight there might not be quite dead yet, and if she sat in the old place she might hear some piteous cry from beneath her feet; or its ghost might rise and stare at her, the ghost of a dream. Then, the yearning and the longing grew stronger and hurt her sharply, and she turned under the great door, into the hall, and was very glad when her mother began to chatter about dress and people. But one day the very thing happened which she had always tried to avert. Guido insisted on walking up and down the path with her, and they passed and repassed the bench, till she was sure that he would make her sit down upon it. She tried to linger at the opposite end, but he was interested in what he was saying and did not notice her reluctance to turn back. Then it came. He stood still by the fountain, and then he sat down quite naturally, and evidently expecting her readiness to do the same. She started slightly and looked about, as if to find some means of escape, but a moment later she had gathered her courage and was sitting beside him. The scene came back with excessive vividness. There was the evening light, the first tinge of violet on the Samnite mountains, the base of Monte Cavo already purple, the glow on Frascati, and nearer, on Marino; Rome was at her feet, in a rising mist beyond the flowing river. Guido talked on, but she did not hear him. She heard another voice and other words, less gentle and less calm. She felt other eyes upon her, waiting for hers to answer them, she felt a hand stealing near to hers as her own lay on the bench at her side. Still Guido talked, needing no reply, perfectly confident and happy. She did not hear what he said, but when he paused she mechanically nodded her head, as if agreeing with him, and instantly lost herself again. She could not help it. She expected the touch, and the look, and then the blinding rush that used to come after it, lifting her from her feet and carrying her whole nature away as the south wind whirls dry leaves up with it and far away. That did not come, and presently she was covering her face with both hands, shaking a little, and Guido was anxiously asking what had happened. "Nothing," she answered rather faintly. "It is nothing. It will be over in a moment." He thought that she had felt the sudden chill of the evening which is sometimes dangerous in Rome in midsummer, and he rose at once. "We had better go in before you catch cold," he said. "Yes. Let us go in." For the first time, his words really jarred on her. For the rest of her life, he would tell her when to go indoors before catching cold. He was possessive, complacent; he already looked upon her as a person in his charge, if not as a part of his property. Unreasoningly, she said to herself it was no concern of his whether she caught cold or not, and besides, there was no question of such a thing. She had covered her eyes with her hands for a very different reason, and was ashamed of having done it, which made matters worse. In anger she told herself boldly that she wished that he were not himself, only that once, but that he were Lamberti, who at least took the trouble to amuse her and never put on paternal airs to enquire about her health. It was the beginning of revolt. Guido dined with them that evening, and she was silent and absent-minded. Before the hour at which he usually went away, she rose and bade him good night, saying that she was a little tired. "I am sure you caught cold to-day," he said, with real anxiety. "We will not go to the villa again," she answered. "Good night." It was late before she really went to bed, for when she was at last rid of the conscientious Petersen, she sat long in her chair at the writing table with a blank sheet of letter paper before her and a pen in her hand. She dipped it into the ink often, and her fingers moved as if she were going to write, but the point never touched the paper. At last the pen lay on the table, and she was resting her chin upon her folded hands, her eyes half closed, her breath drawn in short sighs that came and went between her parted lips. Then, though she was all alone, the blood rose suddenly in her face and she sprang to her feet, angry with herself and frowning, and ashamed of her thoughts. She felt hot, and then cold, and then almost sick with disgust. The vision that had delighted her was far away now; she had forced herself not to see it, but the man in it had come back to her in dreams; she had driven him out of them, and for a time she had found peace, but now he came to her in her waking thoughts and she longed to see his living face and to hear his real voice. With utter self-contempt and scorn of her own heart, she guessed that this was love, or love's beginning, and that nothing could save her now. Her first impulse was to write to him, to beg him to go away at any price, never to see her again as long as she lived. As that was out of the question, she next thought of writing to Guido, to tell him that she could not marry him, and that she had made up her mind to retire from the world and spend her life in a convent. But that was impossible, too. There was no time to be lost. Either she must make one supreme effort to drive Lamberti from her thoughts and to get back to the state in which she had felt that she could marry Guido and be a good wife to him, or else she must tell him frankly that the engagement must end. He would ask why, and she would refuse to tell him, and after that she did not dare to think of what would happen. It might ruin his life, for she knew that he loved her very much. She was honestly and truly much more concerned for him than for herself. It did not matter what became of her, if only she could speak the truth to him without bringing harm to him in the future. The world might say what it pleased. It was right to break off her engagement, beyond question, and she had done very wrong in ever agreeing to it; it was the greatest sin she had ever committed, and with a despairing impulse she sank upon her knees and poured out her heart in full confession of her fault. Never in her life had she confessed as she did now, with such a whole-hearted hatred of her own weakness, such willingness to bear all blame, such earnest desire for forgiveness, such hope for divine guidance in making reparation. She would not plead ignorance, nor even any omission to examine herself, as an excuse for what she had done. It was all her fault, and her eyes had been open from the first, and she was about to see the whole life of a good friend ruined through her miserable weakness. As she went over it all, burying her face in her hands, the conviction that she loved Lamberti grew with amazing quickness to the certainty of a fact long known. This was her crime, that she had been too proud to own that she had loved him at first sight; her punishment should be never to see him again. She would abase herself before Guido and confess everything to him in the very words she was whispering now, and she would implore his forgiveness. Then, since Lamberti could not leave Rome, she and her mother would go away on a long journey, to Russia, perhaps, or to America, or China, and they would never come back. It must be easy enough to avoid one particular person in the whole world. This she would do, but she would not deny that she loved him. All her fault had lain in trying to deny it in spite of what she felt when he was near her, and it must be still more wrong to force the fact out of sight now that it had brought her into such great trouble. There was nothing to be done but to acknowledge it, though it was shame and humiliation to do so. It stared her in the face, now that she had courage to own the truth, and a voice called out that she had lied to herself, to her mother, and to Guido for many weeks, and persistently, rather than admit that she could fall so low. But even then, in the midst of her self-abasement, another voice answered that it was no shame to love a good and true man, and that Lamberto Lamberti was both. CHAPTER XVIII That night seemed the longest in all Cecilia's young life. She was worn out with fatigue, and could have slept ten hours, yet she dreaded to fall asleep lest she should dream of Lamberti, and speak to him in her dream as she meant never to speak to any man now. Just when she was losing consciousness, she roused herself as one does who fears a horrible nightmare that comes back again and again. She was afraid to be alone in the dark with her fear, and she had left one light burning where it could not shine into her eyes. If she did not sleep before daylight, she might not dream after that. When she shut her eyes she saw Lamberti looking at her. She rose and bathed her face and temples. The water was not very cold in July, after standing in the room half the night, but it cooled her brows a little and she lay down again, and tried to repeat things she knew by heart. She knew all the fourteenth canto of the "Paradise," for instance, and said it over, and tried to see what it described as she had seen it all in the church of Santa Croce. While she whispered the words she looked forward to those she loved best, the ones that bade her rise and get the victory, and she went on with intense anticipation. Before she reached them she lost herself, and they formed themselves on her lips unnoticed as she saw Lamberti's face again. It was unbearable. She sat up on the edge of the bed and stared into the shadow, and presently she grasped her left arm above the elbow and tried to force her nails into the flesh, with the instinctive idea that pain must bring peace after it. But she could hardly hurt herself at all in that way. Again she rose, and she went and looked at her reflection in the tall glass. There was not much light in the room, but she could see that she was very pale, and that her eyes had a strange look in them, more like Lamberti's than her own. It was a possession; she found him everywhere. Behind her image in the glass she saw the door of the room, the only one there was, which she had so often heard closed softly just as her dream ended. She shivered, for the Palazzo Massimo is a ghostly place at night, and her nerves were unstrung by what she had suffered. She knew that she was dizzy for a moment, and the glass grew misty and then clear, and reflected nothing to her sight, nothing but the whole door, as if she herself were not standing there, all in white, between it and the mirror. It was going to open, she felt sure. It was going to open softly, though she knew it was locked, and then some one would enter. She shivered again, and felt her loose hair rising on her head, as if lifted by a cool breeze. It was a moment of agony, and her teeth chattered. He was coming, and she was paralysed, helpless to move, rooted to the spot. In one second more she must hear the slipping of the latch bolt, and he would be behind her. No, nothing came. Gradually she began to see herself in the glass again, a faint ashy outline, then a transparent image, like the wraith of her dead self, with staring eyes and dishevelled colourless hair. Her terror was gone; she vaguely wondered where she had been, and looked curiously at her reflected face. "I think I am going mad," she said aloud, but quite quietly, as she turned away from the mirror. She lay down again on her back, her arms straightened by her sides, and she looked at the ceiling. Since she must think of something, she would try to think out what she was to say and do on the morrow. She would telephone to Guido in the morning to come and see her, of course, and in twenty minutes he would be sitting beside her on the little sofa in the drawing-room. Then she would tell him everything, just as she had confessed it all to herself that evening. She would throw herself upon his mercy, she would say that she was irresistibly drawn to his friend; but she would promise never to see Lamberti again, since that was to be the punishment of her fault. There was clearly nothing else to do, if she had any self-respect left, any modesty, any sense of decency. It would be hard in the beginning, but afterwards it would grow easier. Poor Guido! he would not understand at first, and he would look at her as if he were dazed. She would give anything to save him the pain of it all, but he must bear it, and in the end it would be much better. Of course, the cowardly way would be to make her mother tell him. She had not thought of her mother till then, but she had grown used to directing her, and to feeling that she herself was the ruling spirit of the two. Her mother would accept the decision, though she would protest a good deal, and cry a little. That was to be regretted, but it did not really matter since this was a question of absolute right or absolute wrong, in which there was no choice. She would not see Lamberti again, not even to say good-bye. It would be wicked to see him, now that she knew the truth. But it was right to own bravely that she loved him. If she hesitated in that, there would be no sense in what she meant to do. She loved him with all her heart, with everything in her, with every thought and every instinct, as she had loved long ago in her vision. And as she had overcome then, for the sake of a vow from which she was really freed, so she would conquer again for the sake of the promise she had given to Guido d'Este, and was going to revoke to-morrow. A far cry echoed through the silent street, and there was a faint grey light between the slats of the blinds. The darkness was ended at last, and perhaps she might allow herself to sleep now. She tried, but she could not, and she watched the dawn growing to cold daylight in the room, till the single lamp hardly glimmered in the corner. She closed her lids and rested as well as she could till it was time to get up. She was very pale, and there were deep violet shadows under her eyes and below the sharp arches of her brows, but Petersen was very near-sighted, and noticed nothing unusual. Cecilia told her to telephone to Guido, asking him to come at ten o'clock. When the maid returned, Cecilia bade her arrange her hair very low at the back and to make it as smooth as possible. There was not the slightest conscious desire for effect in the order; when a woman has made up her mind to humiliate herself she always makes her hair look as unobtrusive as possible, just as a conscience-stricken dog drops his tail between his legs and hangs down his ears to avert wrath. We men are often very unjust to women about such things, which depend on instincts as old as humanity. Eastern mourners do not strew ashes on their heads because it is becoming to their appearance, and a woman's equivalents for ashes and sackcloth are to do her hair low and wear grey, if she chances to dislike that colour. "Are you going to confession, my dear?" asked the Countess in some surprise when they met. "No," Cecilia answered. "I could not sleep last night. I have telephoned to Guido to come at ten." The Countess looked at her and instantly understood that there was trouble. "You are as white as a sheet," she said, with caution. "You had better let him come after luncheon to-day." "No. I must see him at once." "Something has happened," the Countess said nervously. "I know something has happened." "I will tell you by-and-by. Please do not ask me now." Her mother's look of anxiety turned slowly to an expression of real fear, her eyes opened wide, she grew pale, and her jaw fell as her lips parted. She looked suddenly old and grey. "You are not going to marry him after all," she said, after a breathless little silence. Some seconds passed before Cecilia answered, and then her voice was sad and low. "How can I? I do not love him." The Countess was horror-struck now, for she knew her daughter well. She began to speak rather incoherently, but with real earnestness, imploring Cecilia to think of what she was doing before it was too late, to consider Guido's feelings, her own, everybody's, to reflect upon the view the world would take of such bad faith, and, finally, to give some reason for her sudden decision. It was in vain that she pleaded. Cecilia, grave and suffering, answered that she had taken everything into consideration and knew that she was doing right. The world might call it bad faith to break an engagement, but it would be nothing short of a betrayal to marry Guido since she had become sure that she could never love him. That was reason enough, and she would give no other. It was better that Guido should suffer for a few days than be made to suffer for a lifetime. She had not consulted any one, she said, when her mother questioned her; she would have done so if this had been a matter needing judgment and wisdom, but it was merely one of right and wrong, and she knew what was right, and meant to do it. The Countess began to cry, and when Cecilia tried to soothe her, she pushed the girl aside and left the room in tears. A few minutes later Petersen telephoned for the carriage, and in less than half an hour the Countess was on her way to see Princess Anatolie, entirely forgetful of the fact that Cecilia would be quite alone when Guido came at ten o'clock. Cecilia sat quite still in the drawing-room waiting for him. She was very tired and pale, and her eyes smarted for want of sleep, but her courage was not likely to fail her. She only wished that all might be over soon, as condemned men do when they are waiting for execution. She sat still a long time and she heard the little French clock on her mother's writing table in the boudoir strike its soft chimes at the third quarter, and then ring ten strokes at the full hour. She listened anxiously for the servant's step beyond the door, and now and then she caught her breath a little when she thought she heard a sound. It was twenty minutes past ten when the door opened. She expected the man to stand still, and announce Guido, and she looked away; but the footsteps came nearer and nearer and stopped beside her. The man held out a small salver on which lay a note addressed in Guido's hand. It was like a reprieve after the long tension, for something must have happened to prevent him from coming, something unexpected, but welcome, though she would not own it. In answer to her question, the man said that the messenger had gone away, and he left the room. She tore the envelope with trembling fingers. Guido was ill. That was the substance of the note. He had felt ill when he awoke early in the morning, but had thought it nothing serious, though he was very uncomfortable. Unknown to him, his man had sent for a doctor, who had come half an hour ago, after Cecilia's message had been received and answered. The doctor had found him with high fever, and thought it was a sharp attack of influenza; at all events he had ordered Guido to stay in bed, and gave him little hope of going out for several days. The note dropped on Cecilia's knees before she had read the words of loving regret with which it closed, and she found herself wondering whether Lamberti would have been hindered from coming by a mere touch of fever, under the same circumstances. But she would not allow herself to dwell on that long, for it gave her pleasure to think of Lamberti, and all such pleasure she intended to deny herself. It was quite bad enough to know that she loved him with all her heart. She went back to her own room. There was nothing to be done but to write to Guido at once, for she would not allow the day to pass without telling him what she meant to do. She sat down and wrote as well as she could, weighing each sentence, not out of caution, but in fear lest she should not make it clear that she was altogether to blame for the mistake she had made, and meant to bear all the consequences in the eyes of the world. She was truly and sincerely penitent, and asked his forgiveness with touching humility. She did not mention Lamberti, but she confessed frankly that since she had been in Rome she had begun to love another man, as she ought to have loved Guido, a man whom she rarely saw, and who had never shown the least inclination to make love to her. That was the substance of what she wrote. She read the words over, to be sure that they said what she meant, and she told Petersen to send a man at once with the letter. There was no answer, he was not to wait. She gave the order rather hurriedly, for she wished her decision to become irrevocable as soon as possible. It was a physical relief, but not a mental one, to feel that it was done and that she could never recall the fatal words. After reading such a letter there could be nothing for Guido to do but to accept the situation and tell his friends that she had broken the engagement. As for the immediate effect it might have on him, she did not even take his slight illness into consideration. The fact that he could not come and see her might even make it easier for him to bear the blow. Of course, if he came, she should be obliged to receive him, but she hoped that he would not. It would hurt her to see how much he was hurt, and she was suffering enough already. In time she trusted that he and she might be good friends, as young girls have an unreasonable inclination to hope in such cases. When the Countess came back from her visit to the Princess Anatolie she was a little flushed, and there was a hard look in her face which Cecilia had never seen before, and which made her expect trouble. To her surprise, her mother kissed her affectionately on both cheeks. "That old woman is a harpy," she said, as she left the room. CHAPTER XIX Guido took Cecilia's letter with a smile of pleasure when his man brought it to him, and, as he felt its thickness between his fingers, the delightful anticipation of reading it alone was already a real happiness. She was distressed and anxious for him, he was sure, and perhaps in saying so she had found some expression less formal than those she generally used when she talked with him and assured him that she really liked him very much. "You may go," he said to his servant. "I need nothing more, thank you." He was in bed, propped up by three or four pillows, and his face was unnaturally flushed and already looked thin. A new book of memoirs, half cut, and with the paper-knife between the leaves, lay on the arras counterpane, in the middle of which royal armorial bearings with crown and sceptre were represented in the fat arms of smiling cherubs. The head of the carved bed was towards the windows of the wide room, so that the light fell from behind; for Guido was an indolent man, and often lay reading for an hour before he got up. On the small table beside him stood a heavy Venetian tumbler of the eighteenth century, ornamented with gold designs. A cigarette-case lay beside it. The carpet of the room had been taken up for the summer, and the floor was of dark red tiles, waxed and immaculate. In a modest way, and though he was comparatively a poor man, Guido had always managed to have what he wanted in the way of surroundings. He looked at the address on the note, prolonging his anticipation as much as possible. He recognised the neat French envelope as one of those the Countess always had on her table in a stamped leather paper-rack. He felt it again, and was sure that it contained at least four sheets. It was good of her to write so much, and he had not really expected anything. He forgot that his head was aching, that he had a tiresome pain in his bones, and could feel the fever pulse beating in his temples. He glanced at the door, and then raised the letter to his dry lips, with a look of boyish pleasure. Five minutes later the crumpled pages were crushed in his straining fingers, and he lay twisted to one side, his face to the wall and half buried in the pillow. The grief of his life had come upon him unawares, and he was not able to bear it. Even if he had not been alone, he could not have hidden what he felt then. After a long time he got up and softly locked the door. He felt very dizzy as he came and lay down again. One of the crumpled sheets of Cecilia's letter had fallen to the floor, the rest lay on the bed beside him and under him. He lay still, and when he shut his eyes he saw red waves coming and going, for the fever was high, and the blood beat up under his ears as if the arteries must burst. In an hour his man knocked at the door, and almost at the same instant turned the handle, for he was accustomed to be admitted at once. "Go away!" cried Guido, in a hoarse voice that stuck in his throat. The servant's footsteps echoed in the corridor, and there was silence again, and time passed. Then the knock was repeated, very discreetly and with no attempt to turn the handle. Guido answered with an oath. But his man was not satisfied this time, and he stood still outside, with a puzzled expression. He had never heard Guido swear at any one, in all the years of his service, much less at himself. His master was either in a delirium, or something very grave had happened which he had learned by the letter. The doctor had said that he was not dangerously ill, so it was not likely that he should be already raving with the fever. The man went softly away to his pantry, where the telephone was, shutting each door carefully behind him. There was nothing to be done but to inform Lamberti at once, if he could be found. It was late in the afternoon before he got the message, on coming home from a long day's work at the Ministry of War. He had not breakfasted that day, for he had been unexpectedly sent for in the morning and had been kept at the Ministry without a moment's respite. Without going to his room he ran down the stairs again and hailed the first cab he met as he hurried towards the Palazzo Farnese. The bedroom door was still locked, but he spoke to Guido through it, in answer to the rough order to go away which followed his first knock. There was no reply. "Please let me in," Lamberti said quietly. "I want very much to see you." Something like a growl came from the room, and presently there was a sound of slippers on the smooth tiles, coming nearer. The key turned and the door was opened a little. "What is it?" Guido asked, in a voice unlike his own. "I heard you were ill, and I have come to see you." Lamberti spoke gently and steadily, but he was shocked by Guido's appearance, as the latter stood before him in his loose silk garments, looking gaunt and wild. There were great rings round his eyes, his face was haggard and drawn, and his cheek-bones were flushed with the fever. He looked much more ill than he really was, so far as his body was concerned. "Well, come in," he said, after a moment's hesitation. As soon as Lamberti had entered Guido locked the door again to keep his servant out. "I suppose you had better be the first to know," he said hoarsely, as he recrossed the room with unsteady steps. He sat down upon the edge of his bed, supporting himself with his hands on each side, his head a little bent. "What has happened?" Lamberti asked, sitting on the nearest chair and watching him. "Has your aunt been troubling you again?" "No. It is worse than that." Guido paused, and his head sank lower. "The Contessina has changed her mind," he managed to say clearly enough to be understood. Lamberti started and leaned forward. "Do you mean to say that she has thrown you over?" "Yes." A dead silence followed. Then Guido threw himself on the bed again and turned his face away. "Say something, man," he cried, almost angrily. The afternoon light streamed through the closed blinds and fell on the crumpled sheet of the letter that lay at Lamberti's feet. He did not know what he saw as he stared down at it, and he would have cut off his hand rather than pry into any one's letters, but four words had photographed themselves upon his brain before he had realised their meaning, or even that he had seen them. "I love another man." Those were the words, and he had never seen the handwriting, but he knew that Cecilia had written them. Guido's cry for some sort of consolation was still ringing in his ears. "It is impossible," he said, in a dull voice. "She cannot break off such an engagement." "She has," Guido answered, still looking away. "It is done. She has written to say that she will never marry me." "Why?" Lamberti asked mechanically. "Because----" Guido stopped short. "That is her secret. Unless she chooses to tell you herself." Lamberti knew the secret already, but he would not pain Guido by saying so. The four words he had read had explained enough, though he had not the slightest clew to the name of the man concerned, and his anger was rising quietly, as it did when he was going to be dangerous. He loved Cecilia much and unreasoningly, yet so long as his friend had stood between her and himself he had been strong enough not to be jealous of him; but he was under no obligation to that other man, and now he wished that he had him in his hands. Moreover, his anger was against the girl, too. "It is outrageous," he said, at last, with a conviction that comforted Guido a little. "It is perfectly abominable! What shall you do?" "I can do nothing, of course." Guido tossed on his pillows, turned his head, and stared at Lamberti, hoping to be contradicted. "It is of no use to go to bed because a woman is faithless," answered Lamberti rather savagely. Guido almost laughed. "I am ill," he said. "I can hardly stand. She telephoned to me to go and see her, but I could not, and so she wrote what she had to say. It is just as well. I am glad she cannot see me just now." "I wish she could," answered Lamberti, closing his teeth on the words sharply. "But you will see her, will you not?" he asked, after a pause. "You will not accept such a dismissal without telling her what you think of her?" "Why should I tell her anything? If I have not succeeded in making her love me yet, I shall never succeed at all! It is better to bear it as if I had never expected anything else." "Is there any reason why a woman should be allowed to do with impunity what one man would shoot another for doing?" asked Lamberti, roughly. "She has changed her mind once, she can be made to change it again." The more he thought of what had happened the angrier he grew, and his jealousy against the unknown man who had caused the trouble was boiling up. Guido caught at the straw like a drowning man, and raised himself on his elbow. "Do you really think that she may change her mind? That this is only a caprice?" "I should not wonder. All women have caprices now and then. It is a fit of conscience. She is not quite sure that she likes you enough to marry you, and you have said something that jarred on her, perhaps. If you had been able to go and see her this morning, she would have begun by being very brave, but in five minutes she would have been as ready to marry you as ever. I will wager anything that when she had written that letter she sent it off as soon as possible for fear that she should not send it at all!" "What do you advise me to do?" asked Guido, his hopes rising. "I believe you understand women better than I do, after all!" "They are only human animals, like ourselves," Lamberti answered carelessly. "The chief difference is that they do all the things that we are sometimes inclined to do, but should be ashamed of doing." "I daresay. But I want your advice." "Go and tell her that she has made a mistake, that she cannot possibly be in earnest, but that if she does not feel that she can marry you in a fortnight, she can put off the wedding till the autumn. It is quite simple. It has all been rather sudden, from the first, and it is much better that the engagement should go on a little longer." "That is reasonable," Guido answered, growing calmer every moment. "I wish I could go to her at once." "I suppose you cannot," said Lamberti, looking at him rather curiously. He remembered that he had once dragged himself five miles with a bad spear-wound in his leg, to take news to a handful of men in danger, but he supposed that Guido was differently organised. He did not like him the less. "No!" Guido answered. "The fever makes me so giddy that I can hardly stand." He put out his hand for the tumbler on the table, but it was empty. "Lamberti!" he said. "Yes, I will get you some water at once," the other answered, rising to his feet. "No," Guido said. "Never mind that, I will ring presently. Will you do something for me?" "Of course." "Will you speak to her for me?" Lamberti was standing by the bedside, and he saw the serious and almost timid look in his friend's eyes. But he had not expected the request, and he hesitated a moment. "You would rather not," said Guido, disappointed. "I suppose I must wait till I am well. Only it may be too late then. She will tell every one that she has broken off the engagement." "You misunderstood me," Lamberti said calmly, for he had found time to think while Guido was speaking. "I will see her at once." It had not been easy to say, for he knew what it meant. "Thank you," Guido murmured. "Thank you, thank you!" he repeated with a profound sense of relief, as his head sank back on the pillow. "Will it do you any harm if I smoke?" asked Lamberti, looking at a cigar he had taken from his pocket. "No. I wish you would. I cannot even smoke a cigarette to-day. It tastes like bad hay." There is a hideous triviality about the things people say at important moments in their lives. But Lamberti was not listening, and he lit his cigar thoughtfully, without answering. Then he went to the window and looked down through the blinds in silence, pondering on what was before him. It was certainly the place of a friend in such a case to accept the position Guido was thrusting upon him, and from the first Lamberti had not meant to refuse. He had a strong sense of man's individual right to get what he wanted for himself without great regard for the feelings of others, and he was quite sure that he would not have done for his own brother what he was about to do for Guido. It is even possible that he would not have been so ready to do it for Guido himself if he had not accidentally seen those four words of Cecilia's letter. The knowledge of her secret had at once determined the direction of his impulses. For himself he hoped nothing, but he had made up his mind that if Cecilia would not marry Guido she should by no means marry any other man living, and he was fully determined to make her confess her passing fancy for the unknown one, in order that he might have the right to reproach her with it. He even hoped that he could find out the man's name, and, as he was of a violent disposition, he at once planned vengeance to be wreaked upon him. He turned from the window at last, and blew a cloud of grey smoke into the quiet room. "I will send a message now," he said, "and I will go myself this evening. They can hardly be dining out." "No. They are at home. I was to have dined with them." Guido's voice was faint, but he was calm now. Lamberti unlocked the door and opened it. The man servant was just coming towards it followed by the doctor. The latter found Guido worse than when he had seen him in the morning. He said it was what he had expected, a sharp attack of influenza, and that Guido must not think of leaving his bed till the fever had disappeared. He dilated a little upon the probable consequences of any exposure to the outer air, even in summer. No one could ever tell what the influenza might leave behind it, and it was much safer to be patient. "You see," said Guido to Lamberti, when the physician was gone. "It will be quite impossible for me to go out to-morrow, or for several days." "Quite," Lamberti answered, looking for his straw hat. CHAPTER XX Lamberti dined at home that evening, and soon after nine o'clock he was on his way to the Palazzo Massimo. Though the evening was hot and close he walked there, for it was easier to think on his feet than leaning back in a cab. His normal condition was one of action and not of reflection. His thoughts also took an active dramatic shape. He did not try to bind future events together in a connected sequence leading to a result; on the contrary, he seemed to hear the very words he would soon be speaking, and Cecilia Palladio's answers to them; he saw her face and noted her expression, and the interview grew violent by degrees till he felt the inward coolness stealing through him which he had often known in fight. He had written a note to Countess Fortiguerra which he had left at her door on his way home. He had explained that Guido, being too ill to move, had begged him to speak to the Contessina, and he expressed the hope that he might be allowed to see the young lady for a few minutes alone that evening, in the capacity of the sick man's representative and trusted friend. Such a request could hardly be refused, and the Countess had always felt that Lamberti was one of those exceptional men in whom one may safely believe, even without knowing them well. She said that Cecilia had better see him when he came. She herself had letters to write and would sit in the boudoir. It was the last thing Cecilia had expected, and the mere thought was like breaking the promise she had made to herself, never to see Lamberti again; yet she realised that it was impossible to avoid the meeting. The course she had taken was so extraordinary that she felt bound to give Guido a chance to answer her letter in any way he could. In the afternoon her mother had exhausted every argument in trying to make her revoke her decision. She did not love Guido; that was her only reply; but she felt that it ought to be sufficient, and she bowed her head meekly when the Countess grew angry and told her that she should have found that out long ago. Yes, she answered, it was all her fault, she ought to have known, she would bear all the blame, she would tell her friends that she had broken off the engagement, she would do everything that could be required of her. But she would not marry Guido d'Este. The Countess could say nothing more. On her side she was reticent for once in her life, and told nothing of her own interview with Princess Anatolie. Whether something had been said which the mother thought unfit for her daughter's ears, or whether the Princess's words had been of a nature to hurt Cecilia's pride, the young girl could not guess; and though her maidenly instinct told her to accept her mother's silence without question, if it proceeded from the first cause, she could not help fearing that the Countess had done or said something hopelessly tactless which might produce disagreeable consequences, or might even do some harm to Guido. Her heart was beating so fast when Lamberti entered the drawing-room that she wondered how she should find breath to speak to him, and she did not raise her eyes again after she had seen his face at the door, till he was close to her, and had bowed without holding out his hand. "I hope you got my note," he said to her mother. "D'Este is ill, and has given me a verbal message for your daughter." "Yes," said the Countess. "I will go into the next room and write my letters." She was gone and the two stood opposite each other in momentary silence. Lamberti's voice had been formal, and his face was almost expressionless. "Where will you sit?" he asked. "It will take some time to tell you all that he wishes me to say." Cecilia led the way to the little sofa in the corner farthest from the boudoir. It was there that Guido had asked her to be his wife, and it was there that she had waited for him a few hours ago to tell him that she could not marry him. She took her accustomed place, but Lamberti drew forward a light chair and sat down facing her. He felt that he got an advantage by the position, and that to a small extent it placed him outside of her personal atmosphere. At such a moment he could not afford to neglect the least circumstance which might help him. As for what he should say, he had thought of many speeches while he was in the street, but he did not remember any of them now, nor even that he had seemed to hear himself speaking them. "Why did you write that letter?" he asked, after a moment's pause. Cecilia looked up quickly, surprised by the direct question, and then gazed into his face in silence. She had confessed to herself that she loved him, but she had not known how much, nor what it would mean to sit so near him and hear him asking the question that had only one answer. His eyes were steady and brave, when she looked at them, but not so hard as she had expected. In earlier days she had always felt that they could command her and even send her to sleep if he chose, but she did not feel that now. The question had been asked suddenly and directly, but not harshly. She did not answer it. "Did Guido show you my letter?" she asked in a low voice. But she was sure of the reply before it came. "No. He told me that you broke off your engagement with him very suddenly. I suppose you have done so because you think you do not care for him enough to marry him, but he did not tell me so. Is that it?" Cecilia nodded quickly, folded her hands nervously upon her knees, and looked across the room. "Yes," she said. "That is it. I do not love him." "Yet you like him very much," Lamberti answered. "I have often seen you together, and I am sure you do." "I am very fond of him. If I had not been foolish, he might always have been my best friend." "I do not think you were foolish. You could hardly do better than marry your best friend, I think. He is mine, and I know what his friendship is worth. You will find out, as I have, that if he is sometimes indolent and slow to make up his mind, he never changes afterwards. You may be separated from him for a year or two, but you will find him always the same when you meet him again, always gentle, always true, always the most honourable of men." "He is that, and more," Cecilia said softly. "I like everything about him." "And he loves you," Lamberti continued. "He loves you as men do not often love the women they marry, and as you, with your fortune, may never be loved again." "I know it. I feel it. It makes it all the harder." "But you thought you loved him, I am sure. You would not have accepted him otherwise." "Yes. Thank you for believing that much of me," Cecilia answered humbly. "I thought I loved him." "You sent for him this morning, because you had suddenly persuaded yourself that you had made a great mistake. When you heard that he could not come, you wrote the letter, and when it was written you sent it off as fast as you could, for fear that you would not send it at all. Is that true?" "Yes. That is just what happened. How did you know?" "Listen to me, please, for d'Este's sake. If you had not felt that you were perhaps making another mistake, should you have been in such a hurry to send the letter?" Cecilia hesitated an instant. "It was a hard thing to do. That is why I made haste to get it over. I knew it would hurt him, but I thought it was wrong to deceive him for even a few hours, after I had understood myself." "It would have been kinder to wait until you could see him, and break it gently to him. He was ill when he got your letter, and it made him worse." "How is he?" Cecilia asked quietly, a little ashamed of not having enquired already. "It is nothing very serious, is it? Only a little influenza, he said." "He is not dangerously ill, but he had a good deal of fever this afternoon. You will not see him for a week, I fancy. That is the reason why I am here. I want you to postpone your decision, at least until he is well and you have talked with him." "But I have decided already. I shall take all the blame. I will tell my friends that it is all my fault." "Is that the only answer you can give me for him?" "Yes. What can I say? I do not love him. I never shall." "What if something happens?" "What?" "Suppose that I go to him to-morrow morning, and tell him what you say, and that when I have left him there alone with his servant, as I must in the course of the day, he locks the door, and in a fit of despair puts a bullet through his head? What then?" Cecilia leaned forward, wide-eyed and frightened. "You do not really believe that he would kill himself?" she cried in a low voice. "I think it is more than likely," Lamberti answered quietly enough. "D'Este is the most good-hearted, charitable, honourable fellow in the world, but he believes in nothing beyond death. We differ about those questions, and never talk about them; but he has often spoken of killing himself when he has been depressed. I remember that we had an argument about it on the very afternoon when we both first met you." "Was he so unhappy then?" Cecilia asked with nervous interest. "Perhaps. At all events I know that he has a bad habit of keeping a loaded revolver in the drawer of the table by his bed, in case he should have a fancy to go out of the world, and it is very well known that people who talk of suicide, and think of it a great deal, often end in that way. When I left him this afternoon I gave him some hope that you might at least prolong the engagement for a few months, and give yourself a chance to grow more fond of him. If I have to tell him that you flatly refuse, I am really afraid that it may be the end of him." Cecilia leaned back in the sofa and closed her eyes, confronted by the awful doubt that Lamberti might be right. He was certainly in earnest, for he was not the man to say such a thing merely for the sake of frightening her. She could not reason any more. "Please, please do not say that!" she said piteously, but scarcely above her breath. "What else can I say? It is quite true. You must have some very strong reason for refusing to reconsider your decision, since your refusal may cost as much as that." "But men do not kill themselves for love in real life!" "I am sorry to say they do," Lamberti answered. "A fellow-officer of mine shot himself on board the ship I was last with for exactly the same reason. He left a letter so that there should be no suspicion that he had done it to escape from any dishonour." "How awful!" "I repeat that you must have a very strong reason indeed for not waiting a couple of months. In that time you may learn to like Guido better--or he may learn to love you less." "He may change," Cecilia said, not resenting the rather rough speech; "I never shall." Lamberti fixed his eyes on her. "There is only one reason that could make you so sure about yourself," he said. "If I thought you were like most women, I would tell you that you were heartless, faithless, and cruel, as well as capricious, and that you were risking a man's life and soul for a scruple of conscience, or, worse than that, for a passing fancy." "Oh, please do not say such things of me!" She spoke in great distress. "I do not. I know that you are honest and true, and are trying to do right, but that you have made a mistake which you can mend if you will. Take my advice. There is only one possible reason to account for what you have done. You think that you love some other man better than d'Este." Cecilia started and stared at him. "You said that Guido did not show you my letter!" She was offended as well as distressed now. "No; he did not. But I will not pretend that I have guessed your secret. As Guido lay on his bed talking to me, I was staring at a crumpled sheet of a letter that lay on the floor. Before I knew what I was looking at I had read four words: 'I love another man.' When I realised that I ought not to have seen even that much, I knew, of course, that it was your writing. You see how much I know. All the same, if you were not what I know you are, I would call you a heartless flirt to your face." Again he looked at her steadily, but she said nothing. "If you are not that," he continued, "you never loved Guido at all, but really believed you did, because you did not know what love was, and you are sure that you love this other man with all your heart." Cecilia was still silent, but a delicate colour was rising in her pale face. "Has the other ever made love to you?" Lamberti asked. "No, no--never!" She could not help answering him and forgetting that she might have been offended. She loved him beyond words, he did not know it, and he was unconsciously asking her questions about himself. "Is he younger than Guido? Handsomer? Has he a great name? A great fortune?" "Are those reasons for loving a man?" Cecilia asked the question reproachfully, and as she looked at him and thought of what he was, and how little she cared for the things he had spoken of, but how wholly for the man himself, her love for him rose in her face, against her will. "There must be something about him which makes you prefer him to Guido," he said obstinately. "Yes. But I do not know what it is. Do not ask me about him." "Considering that you are endangering the life of my dearest friend for him, I think I have some right to speak of him." She was silent, and they faced each other for several seconds with very different expressions. She was pale again, now, but her eyes were full of light and softness, and there was a very faint shadow of a smile flickering about her slightly parted lips, as if she saw a wonderful and absorbing sight. Lamberti's gaze, on the contrary, was cold and hard, for he was jealous of the unknown man and angry at not being able to find out who he was. She did not guess his jealousy, indeed, for she did not suspect what he felt; but she knew that his righteous anger on Guido's behalf was unconsciously directed against himself. "You will never know who he is," she said at last, very gently. "We shall all know, when you marry him," Lamberti answered with unnecessary roughness. "No, I shall never marry him," she said. "I mean never to see him again. I would not marry him, even if he should ever love me." "Why not?" "For Guido's sake. I have treated Guido very badly, though I did not mean to do it. If I cannot marry Guido, I will never marry at all." "That is like you," Lamberti answered, and his voice softened. "I believe you are in earnest." "With all my heart. But promise me one thing, please, on your word." "Not till I know whether I may." "For his sake, not for mine. Stay with him. Do not leave him alone for a moment till you are sure that he is safe and will not try to kill himself. Will you promise?" "Not unless you will promise something, too." "Do not ask me to pretend that I love him. I cannot do it." "Very well. You need not pretend anything. Let me tell him that you will let your engagement continue to all appearance, and that you will see him, but that you put off the wedding for the reasons you gave in your letter. Let me tell him that you hope you may yet care for him enough to marry him. You do, do you not?" "No!" "At least let me say that you are willing to wait a few months, in order to be sure of yourself. It is the only thing you can do for him. Perhaps you can accustom him by slow degrees to the idea that you will never marry him." "Perhaps." "In any case, you ought to do your best, and that is the best you can do. See him a few times when he is well enough, and then leave Rome. Tell him that it will be a good thing to be parted for a month or two, and that you will write to him. Do not destroy what hope he may have, but let it die out by degrees, if it will." Cecilia hesitated. After what had passed between them she could hardly refuse to follow such good advice, though it was hard to go back to anything approaching the state of things with which she had broken by her letter. But that was only obstinacy and pride. "Let it be distinctly understood that I do not take back my letter at all," she said. "If I consent to what you ask, it is only for Guido's sake, and I will only admit that I may be more sure of myself in a few months than I am now, though I cannot see how that is possible." "It shall be understood most distinctly," Lamberti answered. "You say, too, that you mean never to see this other man again." "I cannot help seeing him if I stay longer in Rome," Cecilia said. Lamberti wondered who he might be, with growing hatred of him. "If he is an honourable man, and if he had the slightest idea that he had unconsciously come between you and Guido, he would go away at once." "Perhaps he could not," Cecilia suggested. "That is absurd." "No. Take your own case. You told me not long ago that you were unfortunately condemned to stay in Rome, unless you gave up your career. He might be in a very similar position. In fact, he is." There was something so unexpected in the bitter little laugh that followed the last words that Lamberti started. She had kept her secret well, so far, but she had now given him the beginning of a clew. He wished, for once, that he possessed the detective instinct, and could follow the scent. There could not be many men in society who were in a position very similar to his own. "I wish I knew his name," he said, only half aloud. But she heard him, and again she laughed a little harshly. "If I told you who he is, what would you do to him? Go and quarrel with him? Call him out and kill him in a duel? I suppose that is what you would do if you could, for Guido's sake." "I should like to know his name," Lamberti answered. "You never shall. You can never find it out, no matter how ingenious you are." "If I ever see you together, I shall." "How can you be so sure of that?" "You forget something," Lamberti said. "You forget the odd coincidences of our dreams, and that I have seen you in them when you were in earnest--not as you have been with Guido, but as you seem to be about this other man. I know every look in your eyes, every movement of your lips, every tone of your voice. Do you think I should not recognise anything of all that in real life?" "These were only dreams," Cecilia tried to say, avoiding his look. "I asked you not to speak of them." "Do you dream of him now?" Lamberti asked the question suddenly. "Not now--no--that is--please do not ask me such questions. You have no right to." "I beg your pardon. Perhaps I have not." He was not in the least sorry for having spoken, but his anger increased against the unknown man. She had evidently dreamt of him at one time or another, as she used to dream of himself. "You have such an extraordinary talent for dreaming," he said, "that the question seemed quite natural. I daresay you have seen Guido in your visions, too, when you believed that you cared for him!" "Never!" Cecilia could hardly speak just then. "Poor Guido! that was a natural question too. Since you used to see a mere acquaintance, like myself, and fancy that you were----" "Stop!" "----that you were talking familiarly with him," continued Lamberti unmoved, "it would hardly be strange that you should often have seen Guido d'Este in the same way, while you thought you loved him, and it is stranger that you should not now dream about a man you really love--if you do!" "I say that you have no right to talk in this way," said Cecilia. "I have the right to say a great many things," Lamberti answered. "I have the right to reproach you----" "You said that you believed me honest and true." The words checked his angry mood suddenly. He passed his hand over his eyes and changed his position. "I do," he said. "There is no woman alive of whom I believe more good than I do of you." "Then trust me a little, and believe, too, that I am suffering quite as much as Guido. I have agreed to take your advice, to obey you, since it is that and nothing else----" "I have no power to give you orders. I wish I had!" "You have right on your side. That is power, and I obey you. You have told me what to do, and I shall do it, and be glad to do it. But even after what I have done, I have some privileges left. I have a secret, and I am ashamed of it, and it can do no good to Guido to know it, much less to you. Please let me keep it in my own way." "Yes. But if you are afraid that I should hurt the man, if I knew his name, you are mistaken." "I am not in the least afraid of that," Cecilia answered, and the light filled her eyes again as she looked at him. "You are too just to hate an innocent man. It is not his fault that I love him, and he will never know it. He will never guess that I think him the best, and truest, and bravest man alive, and that he is all this world to me, now and for ever!" She spoke quietly enough, but there was a radiant joy in her face which Lamberti never forgot. While keeping her secret, she was telling him at last to his face that she loved him, and it was the first time she had ever spoken such words out of her dreams. In them indeed they had been familiar to her lips, as words like them had been to his. He leaned forward, resting one elbow on his knee, and his chin upon his closed hand, and he looked at her long in silence. He envied her for having been able to say aloud what she felt, under cover of her secret, and he longed to answer her, to tell her that he loved her even better than she loved that unknown man, to hear himself say it to her only once, come what might. But for Guido he would have spoken, for as he gazed at her the instinctive masculine conviction returned stronger than ever, that if he chose he could make her love him. For a moment he was absolutely sure of it, but he only sat still, looking at her. "You believe me now," she said at last, leaning back and turning her eyes away. "Poor Guido!" he exclaimed. He knew indeed that there was no longer any hope for his friend. "Yes," he added thoughtfully. "It was in your eyes just then, when you were speaking, just as if that man had been there before you. I shall know who he is if I ever see you together. It is understood, then," he went on, changing his tone, "I am to tell him that you wish to put off the marriage till you are more sure of yourself--that you wrote that letter under an impulse." "Yes, that is true. And you wish me to try to make him understand by degrees that it is all over, and to go away from Rome in a few days, asking him not to follow me at once." "I think that is the kindest thing you can do. On my part I will give him what hope I can that you may change your mind again." "You know that I never shall." "I may hope what I please. There is always a possibility. We are human, after all. One may hope against conviction. May I see you again to-morrow to tell you how he takes your message?" To his surprise Cecilia hesitated several seconds before she answered. "Of course," she said at last. "Or you can write to me or to my mother, which will save you the trouble of coming here." "It is no trouble," Lamberti answered mechanically. "But of course it is painful for you to talk about it all, so unless something unexpected happens I will write a line to your mother to say that Guido accepts your decision, and to let you know how he is. If there is anything wrong, I will come in the evening." "Thank you. That is the best way." "Good night." He rose as he spoke. "Good night. Thank you." She held out her hand rather timidly. He took it, and she withdrew it precipitately, after the merest touch. She rose quickly and went towards the door of the boudoir, calling to her mother as she walked. "Signor Lamberti is going," she said. There was a little rustle of thin silk in the distance, and the Countess appeared at the door and came forward. "Well?" she asked, as she met Lamberti in the middle of the room. "Your daughter has decided to do what seems best for everybody," Lamberti said. "She will tell you all about it. Let me thank you for having allowed me to talk it over with her. Good night." "Do stay and have some tea!" urged the Countess, and she wondered why Cecilia, standing behind Lamberti, frowned and shook her head. "Of course, if you will not stay," she added hastily, "I will not try to keep you. Pray give my best messages to Signor d'Este, and tell him how distressed I am, and say--but you will know just what to say, I am sure. Good night." Lamberti bowed and shook hands. As he turned, he met Cecilia face to face and bade her good night again. She nodded rather coldly, and then went quickly to ring the bell for the footman. CHAPTER XXI Princess Anatolie was very angry when she learned that Cecilia was breaking her engagement, and she said things to the poor Countess which she did not regret, and which hurt very much, because they were said with such perfect skill and knowledge of the world that it was impossible to answer them and it did not even seem proper to show any outward resentment, considering that Cecilia's conduct was apparently indefensible. As it is needless to say, the Princess appeared to regret the circumstance much more for Cecilia's sake than for Guido's. She said that Guido, of course, would soon get over it, for all men were perfectly heartless in reality, and could turn from one woman to another as carelessly as if women were pictures in a gallery. She really did not think that Guido had much more heart than the rest of his kind, and he would soon be consoled. After all, he could marry whom he pleased, and Cecilia's fortune had never been any object to him. She, his thoughtful and affectionate aunt, would naturally leave him her property, or a large part of it. Guido was not at all to be pitied. But Cecilia, poor Cecilia! What a life she had before her, sighed the Princess, after treating a man in such a way! Of course, she could never live in Rome after this, and as for Paris, she would be no better off there. Guido's friends and relations were everywhere, and none of them would ever forgive her for having jilted him. Perhaps England was the only place for her now. The English were a sordid people, consisting chiefly of shopkeepers, jockeys, tyrants, and professional beauties, and as they thought of nothing but money and their own advantage, Cecilia's fortune would insure her a good reception among them, even though it was not a very large one. Not that the girl was lacking in the most charming qualities and the most exceptional gifts, which would have made her a desirable wife for any man, if only she had not made this fatal mistake. Such things stuck to a woman through life, like a disgrace, though that was a great injustice, because Cecilia was acting under conviction, poor girl, and believed she was doing right! It was most unfortunate. The Princess pitied her very much and would always treat her just as if nothing had happened, if they ever met. Guido would certainly behave in the same way and would always be kind, though he would naturally not seek her society. The Princess was very angry, and it was not strange that the Countess should have come home a little flushed after the interview and very unexpectedly inclined to be glad, after all, that the engagement was at an end. The Princess had not said one rude word to her, but it was quite clear that she was furious at seeing Cecilia's fortune slip from the grasp of her nephew. It almost looked as if she had expected to get a part of it herself, though the Countess supposed that should be out of the question. Nevertheless the past question of the million which was to have constituted Cecilia's dowry began to rankle, and the Countess's instinct told her that the old lady had probably had some interest in the matter. Indeed, the Princess had told her that Guido had considerable debts, and had vaguely hinted that she had herself sometimes helped him in his difficulties. Of the two, Guido was more to be believed than his aunt, but there was a mysterious element in the whole matter. The Princess and Monsieur Leroy consulted the spirits now, and she found some consolation when she was told that she should yet get back most of the money she had lost, if she would only trust herself to her truest friend, who was none other than Monsieur Leroy himself. The forlorn little ghost of the only being she had ever really loved in the world was made to assume the character of a financial adviser, and she herself was led like a lamb by the thread of affection that bound her to her dead child. Monsieur Leroy had not foreseen what was to happen, but he was not altogether at a loss, and the first step was to insure the Princess's obedience to his will. He did not understand the nature of the phenomena he caused, but he knew that in some way certain things that passed in her mind were instantly present in his, and that he could generally produce by rappings the answers he desired her to receive. He at least knew beforehand, in almost every case, what those answers would be, if he did not consciously make the sounds that signified them. If he had ever examined his conscience, supposing that he had any left, he would have found that he himself did not know just where deception ended, and where something else began which he could not explain, which frightened him when he was alone, and which, when he had submitted wholly to it, left him in a state of real physical exhaustion. He was inclined to believe that the mysterious powers were really the spirits of dead persons which possessed him for a short time, and spoke through him. Yet when one of these spirits represented itself as being that of some one whom neither he nor the Princess had ever met in life, he was dimly conscious that it never said anything which had not been already known to her or to him at some time, or which, if unknown, was the spontaneous creation of his own clouded brain. To her, he always gravely asserted his sure belief in the authenticity of the spirits that came, and since he had unexpectedly succeeded in producing messages from her little girl, any doubt she had ever entertained had completely disappeared. She was wholly at his mercy so long as this state of things could be made to last, and he was correspondingly careful in the use he made of his new power. The Princess was therefore told that she must trust him altogether, and that he could get back the most of her money for her. She was consoled, indeed, but she was naturally curious as to the means he meant to use, and she questioned him when the rappings ceased and the lights were turned up. He seemed less tired than usual. "I shall trust to the inspiration of the spirits," he said evasively. "In any case we have the law on our side. Guido cannot deny his signature to those receipts for your money, and he will find it hard to show what became of such large sums. They are a gentleman's promise to pay a lady, but they are also legal documents." "But they are not stamped," objected the Princess, who knew more about such things than she sometimes admitted. "You are mistaken. They are all stamped for their respective values, and the stamps are cancelled by Guido's signature." "That is very strange! I could almost have sworn that there was not a stamp on any of them! How could that be? He used to write them on half sheets of very thick note paper, and I never gave him any stamps." "He probably had some in his pocket-book," said Monsieur Leroy. "At all events, they are there." "So much the better. But it is very strange that I should never have noticed them." Like many of those singular beings whom we commonly call "mediums," Monsieur Leroy was a degenerate in mind and body, and his character was a compound of malign astuteness, blundering vanity, and hysterical sensitiveness, all directed by impulses which he did not try to understand. Without the Princess's protection through life, he must have come to unutterable grief more than once. But she had always excused his mistakes, made apologies for him, and taken infinite pains to make him appear in the best light to her friends. He naturally attributed her solicitude to the value she set upon his devotion to herself, since there could be no other reason for it. Doubtless a charitable impulse had at first impelled her to take in the starving baby that had been found on the doorstep of an inn in the south of France. That was all he knew of his origin. But he knew enough of her character to be sure that if he had not shown some exceptional gifts at an early age, he would soon have been handed over to servants or peasants to be taken care of, and would have been altogether forgotten before long. Instead, he had been spoiled, sent to the best schools, educated as a gentleman, treated as an equal, and protected like a son. The Princess had given him money to spend though she was miserly, and had not checked his fancies in his early youth. She had even tried to marry him to the daughter of a rich manufacturer, but had discovered that it is not easy to marry a young gentleman who has no certificate of birth at all, and whose certificate of baptism describes him as of unknown parents. On one point only she had been inexorable. When she did not wish him to dine with her or to appear in the evening, she insisted that he should stay away. Once or twice he had attempted to disobey these formal orders, but he had regretted it, for he had found himself face to face with one of the most merciless human beings in existence, and his own character was far from strong. He had therefore submitted altogether to the rule, well satisfied with the power he had over her in most other respects, but he felt that he must not lose it. The Princess was old and was growing daily more capricious. She had left him a handsome competence in her will, as much, indeed, as most bachelors would consider a fortune, but she was not dead yet, and she might change her mind at the last moment. He trembled to think what his end must be if she should die and leave him penniless to face the world alone at his age, without a profession and without real friends. For no one liked him, though some people feared his tongue, and he knew it. Perhaps Guido would take pity on him and give him shelter, for Guido was charitable, but the thought was not pleasant. Never having been hungry since he could remember, Monsieur Leroy thought starvation would be preferable to eating Guido d'Este's bread. There was certainly no one else who would throw him a crust, and though he had received a good deal of money from the Princess, and had managed to take a good deal more from her, he had never succeeded in keeping any of it. It was necessary to form some plan at once for extracting money by means of Guido's receipts, since the marriage was not to take place, and as Monsieur Leroy altogether failed to hit upon any satisfactory scheme he consulted a lawyer in confidence, and asked what could be done to recover the value. The lawyer was a man of doubtful reputation but of incontestable skill, and after considering the matter in all its bearings he gave his client some slight hope of success, proportionate to the amount of money Guido could raise by the sale of his effects and by borrowing from his many friends. He was glad to learn that Guido had never borrowed, except, as Monsieur Leroy explained, from his aunt. A man in such a position could raise a round sum if suddenly driven to extremities to save his honour. The lawyer also asked Monsieur Leroy for details concerning Guido's life during the last four or five years, inquiring very particularly about his social relations and as to his having ever been in love with a woman of his own rank, or with one of inferior station. Monsieur Leroy answered all these questions with a conscientious desire to speak the truth, which was new to him, for he realised that only the truth could be of use in such a case, and that the slightest unfounded invention of his own against Guido's character must mislead the man he was consulting. In this he showed himself wiser than he often was. "Above all," the lawyer concluded, "never mention my name to any one, and try to appear surprised at anything unexpected which you may hear about Signor d'Este." Monsieur Leroy promised readily enough, though reticence was not his strong point, and he went away well pleased with himself, after signing a little paper by which it was agreed that the lawyer should receive twenty per cent of any sums obtained from Guido through him. He had not omitted to inform his adviser of the celebrated Doctor Baumgarten's favourable opinion on the Andrea del Sarto and the small Raphael. The lawyer told him not to be impatient, as affairs of this sort required the utmost discretion. But the man saw that he had a good chance of being engaged in one of those cases that make an unnecessary amount of noise and are therefore excellent advertisements for a comparatively unknown practitioner who has more wit than scruples. He did not believe that all of Guido's many high and mighty relations would take the side of Princess Anatolie, and if any of them took the trouble to defend her nephew against her, the newspapers would be full of the case and his own name would be famous in a day. CHAPTER XXII Cecilia told her mother what Lamberti had advised her to do for Guido's sake, and that she had sent her message by him. The Countess was surprised and did not quite like the plan. "Either you love him, or you do not, my dear," she said. "You were sure that you did not, and you told him so. That was sensible, at least, though I think you might have found out earlier what you felt. It is much better to let him understand at once that you will not marry him. Men would always rather know the truth at once and get over it than be kept dangling at a capricious woman's beck and call." Cecilia did not explain that Lamberti feared for his friend's life. In broad daylight that looked dramatic, and her mother would not believe it. She only said that she was sure she was acting for the best and that the engagement was to stand a little longer, adding that she wished to leave Rome, as it was very hot. In her heart she was hurt at being called capricious, but was too penitent to deny the charge. The Countess at once wrote a formal note to Princess Anatolie in which she said that she had been hasty and spoken too soon, that her daughter seemed undecided, and that nothing was to be said at present about breaking the engagement. The marriage, she added, would be put off until the autumn. The Princess showed this communication to Monsieur Leroy when he came in. He did not mean to tell her about his visit to the lawyer, for he had made up his mind to play on her credulity as much as he could and to attribute any advantage she might gain by his manoeuvres to supernatural intervention. The Countess's letter surprised him very much, and as he did not know what to do, it seemed easy to do nothing. He expressed his disgust at Cecilia's vacillation. "She is a flirt and her mother is a fool," he said, and the speech seemed to him pithy and concise. The old Princess raised her aristocratic eyebrows a little. She would have expressed the same idea more delicately. There was a vulgar streak in his character that often jarred on her, but she said nothing, for she was inexplicably fond of him. For her own part, she was glad that Cecilia had apparently changed her mind again. Later in the day she received a few words from Guido, written in an unsteady hand, to say that he was sorry he could not come and see her as he had a bad attack of influenza. At the word she dropped the note as if it burnt her fingers, and called Monsieur Leroy, for she believed that influenza could be communicated in almost any way, and it was the only disease she really feared: she had a presentiment that she was to die of it. "Take that thing away, Doudou!" she cried nervously. "Pick it up with the tongs and burn it. He has the influenza! I am sure I have caught it!" Monsieur Leroy obeyed, while she retired to her own room to spend half an hour in those various measures of disinfection which prophylactic medicine has recently taught timid people. She had caused her maid to telephone to Guido not to send any more notes until he was quite well. "You must not go near him for a week, Doudou," she said when she came back at last, feeling herself comparatively safe. "But you may ask how he is by telephone every morning. I do not believe there can be any danger in that." Electricity was a mysterious power after all, and seemed infinitely harder to understand than the ways of the supernatural beings with whom Monsieur Leroy placed her in daily communication. She had heard a celebrated man of science say that he himself was not quite sure what electricity might or might not do since the discovery of the X-rays. Her precautions had the effect of cutting off communication between her and her nephew until her departure from Rome, which took place in the course of a few days, considerably to the relief of the Countess, who did not wish to meet her after what had passed. Monsieur Leroy could not make up his mind to go and see the lawyer again in order to stop any proceedings which the latter might be already taking. Below his wish to serve the Princess and his hope of profiting by his success, there lay his deep-rooted and unreasoning jealousy of Guido d'Este, which he had never before seen any safe chance of gratifying. It would be a profound satisfaction to see this man, who was the mirror of honour, driven to extremities to escape disgrace. Another element in his decision, if it could be called that, was the hopeless disorder of his degenerate intelligence, which made it far easier for him to allow anything he had done to bear fruit, to the last consequence, than to make a second effort in order to arrest the growth of evil. The lawyer was at work, silently and skilfully, and in a few days Princess Anatolie and Monsieur Leroy were comfortably established in her place in Styria, where the air was delightfully cool. What was left of society in Rome learned with a little surprise, but without much regret, that the wedding was put off, and those who had country places not far from the city, and had already gone out to them for the summer, were delighted to know that they would not be expected to come into town for the marriage during the great heat. No date had ever been really fixed for it, and there was therefore no matter for gossip or discussion. The only persons who knew that Cecilia had made an attempt to break it off altogether were those most nearly concerned. The Countess and Cecilia made preparations for going away, and the dressmakers and other tradespeople breathed more freely when they were told that they need not hurry themselves any longer. But Cecilia had no intention of leaving without having seen Guido more than once again, hard as it might be for her to face him. Lamberti had written to her mother that he accepted Cecilia's decision gladly, and hoped to be out of his room in a few days, but that he did not appear to be recovering fast. He did not seem to be so strong as his friend had thought, and the short illness, together with the mental shock of Cecilia's letter, had made him very weak. The news of him was much the same for three days, and the young girl grew anxious. She knew that Lamberti spent most of his time with Guido, but he had not been to the Palazzo Massimo since his interview with her. She wished she could see him and ask questions, if only he could temporarily be turned into some one else; but since that was impossible, she was glad that he did not come to the house. She spent long hours in reading, while Petersen and the servants made preparations for the journey, and she wrote a line to Guido every day, to tell him how sorry she was for him. She received grateful notes from him, so badly written that she could hardly read them. On the fourth day, no answer came, but Lamberti sent her mother a line an hour later to say that Guido had more fever than usual and could not write that morning, but was in no danger, as far as the doctor could say. "I should like to go and see him," Cecilia said. "He is very ill, and it is my fault." The Countess was horrified at the suggestion. "My dear child," she cried, "you are quite mad! Why, the poor man is in bed, of course!" "I hope so," Cecilia answered unmoved. "But Signor Lamberti could carry him to his sitting room." "Who ever heard of such a thing!" "We could go in a cab, with thick veils," Cecilia continued. "No one would ever know." "Think of Petersen, my dear! Women of our class do not wear thick veils in the street. For heaven's sake put this absurd idea out of your head." "It does not seem absurd to me." "Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself," retorted the Countess, losing her temper. "You do not even mean to marry him, and yet you talk of going to see him when he is ill, as if he were already your husband!" "What if he dies?" Cecilia asked suddenly. "There will be time enough to think about it then," answered the Countess, with insufficient reflection. "Besides he is not going to die of a touch of influenza." "Signor Lamberti says he is very ill. Several people died of it last winter, you know. I suppose you mean that I need not think of trying to see him until we hear that there is no hope for him." "Well?" "That might be too late. He might not know me. It seems to me that it would be better to try and save his life, or if he is not in real danger, to help him to get well." "If you insist upon it," said the Countess, "I will go and see him myself and take a message from you. I suppose that nobody could find anything serious to say against me for it, though, really--I am not so old as that, am I?" "I think every one would think it was very kind of you to go and see him." "Do you? Well--perhaps--I am not sure. I never did such a thing in my life. I am sure I should feel most uncomfortable when I found myself in a young man's rooms. We had better send him some jelly and beef-tea. A bachelor can never get those things." "It would not be the same as if I could see him," said Cecilia, mildly. Her mother did not like to admit this proposition, and disappeared soon afterward. Without telling her daughter, she wrote an urgent note to Lamberti begging him to come and dine and tell them all about Guido's illness, as she and Cecilia were very anxious about him. Cecilia went out alone with Petersen late in the hot afternoon. She wished she could have walked the length of Rome and back, but her companion was not equal to any such effort in the heat, so the two got into a cab. She did not like to drive with her maid in her own carriage, simply because she had never done it. For the first time in her life she wished she were a man, free to go alone where she pleased, and when she pleased. She could be alone in the house, but nowhere out of doors, unless she went to the villa, and she was determined not to go there again before leaving Rome. It had disagreeable associations, since she had been obliged to sit on the bench by the fountain with Guido a few days ago. She remembered, too, that at the very moment when his paternal warning not to catch cold had annoyed her, he had probably caught cold himself, and she did not know why this lowered him a little in her estimation, but it did. She was ashamed to think that such a trifle might have helped to make her write the letter which had hurt him so much. She went to the Forum, for there she could make Petersen sit down, and could walk about a little, and nobody would care, because she should meet no one she knew. As they went down the broad way inside the wicket at which the tickets are sold, she saw a party of tourists on their way to the House of the Vestals. Of late years both Germans and Americans have discovered that Rome is not so hot in summer as the English all say it is, and that fever does not lurk behind every wall to spring upon the defenceless foreigner. The tourists were of the usual class, and Cecilia was annoyed to find them where she had hoped to be alone; but they would soon go away, and she sat down with Petersen to wait for their going, under the shadow of the temple of Castor and Pollux. Petersen began to read her guide-book, and the young girl fell to thinking while she pushed a little stone from side to side with the point of her parasol, trying to bring it each time to the exact spot on which it had lain before. She was thinking of all that had happened to her since she left Petersen in that same place on the May morning that seemed left behind in another existence, and she was wondering whether she would go back to that point, if she could, and live the months over again; or whether, if the return were possible, she would have made the rest different from what it had been. It would have been so much easier to go on loving the man in the dream to the end of her life, meeting him again and again in the old surroundings that were more familiar to her than those in which she lived. It would have been so much better to be always her fancied self, to be the faithful Vestal, leading the man she loved by sure degrees to heights of immaterial blessedness in that cool outer firmament where sight and hearing and feeling, and thinking and loving, were all merged in a universal consciousness. It would have been so much easier not to love a real man, above all not to love one who never could love her, come what might. And besides, if all that had gone on, she would never have brought disappointment and suffering upon Guido d'Este. She decided that it would have been preferable, by far, to have gone on with her life of dreams, and when awake to have been as she had always known herself, in love with everything that made her think and with nothing that made her feel. But in the very moment when the matter seemed decided, she remembered how she had looked into Lamberti's eyes three nights ago, and had felt something more delicious than all thinking while she told him how she loved that other man, who was himself. That one moment had seemed worth an age of dreams and a lifetime of visions, and for it she knew that she would give them all, again and again. The point of the parasol did not move now, but lay against the little stone, just where she was looking, for she was no longer weighing anything in her mind nor answering reasons with reasons. With the realisation of fact, came quickly the infinite regret and longing she knew so well, yet which always consoled her a little. She had a right to love as she did, since she was to suffer by it all her life. If she had thrown over Guido d'Este to marry Lamberti, there would have been something guilty in loving him. But there was not. She was perfectly disinterested, absolutely without one thought for her own happiness, and if she had done wrong she had done it unconsciously and was going to pay the penalty with the fullest consciousness of its keenness. The tourists trooped back, grinding the path with their heavy shoes, hot, dusty, tired, and persevering, as all good tourists are. They stared at her when they thought she was not watching them, for they were simple and discreet souls, bent on improving themselves, and though they despised her a little for not toiling like themselves, they saw that she was beautiful and cool and quiet, sitting there in the shade, in her light summer frock, and her white gloves, and her Paris hat, and the men admired her as a superior being, who might be an angel or a demon, while all the women envied her to the verge of hatred; and because she was accompanied by such an evidently respectable person as Peterson was, they could not even say that she was probably an actress. This distressed them very much. Kant says somewhere that when a man turns from argument and appeals to mankind's common sense, it is a sure sign that his reasoning is worthless. Similarly, when women can find nothing reasonable to say against a fellow-woman who is pretty and well dressed, they generally say that she looks like an actress; and this means according to the customs of a hundred years ago, which women seem to remember though most men have forgotten them, that she is an excommunicated person not fit to be buried like a Christian. Really, they could hardly say more in a single word. When the tourists were at a safe distance Cecilia rose, bidding Petersen sit still, and she went slowly on towards the House of the Vestals, and up the little inclined wooden bridge which at that time led up to it, till she stood within the court, her hand resting almost on the very spot where it had been when Lamberti had come upon her in the spring morning. Her memories rose and her thoughts flashed back with them through ages, giving the ruined house its early beauty again, out of her own youth. She was not dreaming now, but she knew instinctively how it had been in those last days of the Vestals' existence, and wished every pillar, and angle, and cornice, and ornament back, each into its own place and unchanged, and herself, where she was, in full consciousness of life and thought, at the very moment when she had first seen the man's face and had understood that one may vow away the dying body but not the deathless soul. That had been the beginning of her being alive. Before that, she had been as a flower, growing by the universal will, one of those things that are created pure and beautiful and fragrant from the first without thought or merit of their own; and then, as a young bird in the nest, high in air, in a deep forest, in early summer, looking out and wondering, but not knowing yet, its little heart beating fast with only one instinct, to be out and alone on the wing. But afterwards all had changed instantly and knowledge had come without learning, because what was to make it was already present in subtle elements that needed only the first breath of understanding to unite themselves in an ordered and perfect meaning; as the electric spark, striking through invisible mingled gases, makes perfect union of them in crystal drops of water. That had been the beginning, since conscious life begins in the very instant when the soul is first knowingly answerable for the whole being's actions, in the light of good and evil, and first asks the only three questions which human reason has never wholly answered, which are as to knowledge, and duty, and hope. Who shall say that life, in that sense, may not begin in a dream, as well as in what we call reality? What is a dream? Sometimes a wandering through a maze of absurdities, in which we feel as madmen must, believing ourselves to be other beings than ourselves, conceiving the laws of nature to be reversed for our advantage or our ruin, seeing right as wrong and wrong as right, in the pathetic innocence of the idiot or the senseless rage of the maniac, convinced beyond all argument that the absolutely impossible is happening before our eyes, yet never in the least astonished by any wonders, though subject to terrors we never feel when we are awake. Has no one ever understood that confused dreaming must be exactly like the mental state of the insane, and that if we dreamed such dreams with open eyes, we should be raving mad, or hopelessly idiotic? It is true, whether any one has ever said so or not. Inanimate things turn into living creatures, the chair we sit on becomes a horse, the arm-chair is turned into a wild beast; and we ride a-hunting through endless drawing-rooms which are full of trees and undergrowth, till the trees are suddenly people and are all dancing and laughing at us, because we have come to the ball in attire so exceedingly scanty that we wonder how the servants could have let us in. And in the midst of all this, when we are frantically searching for our clothes, and for a railway ticket, which we are sure is in the right-hand pocket of the waistcoat, if only we could find it, and if some one would tell us from which side of the station the train starts, and we wish we had not forgotten to eat something, and had not unpacked all our luggage and scattered everything about the railway refreshment room, and that some kind person would tell us where our money is, and that another would take a few of the fifty things we are trying to hold in our hands without dropping any of them; in the midst of all this, I say, a dead man we knew comes from his grave and stares at us, and asks why we cruelly let him die, long ago, without saying that one word which would have meant joy or despair to him at the last moment. Then our hair stands up and our teeth chatter, because the secret of the soul has risen against us where we least expected it; and we wake alone in the dark with the memory of the dead. Is not that madness? What else can madness be but that disjointing of ordered facts into dim and disorderly fiction, pierced here and there by lingering lights of memory and reason? All of us sometimes go mad in our sleep. But it does not follow that in dreaming we are not sometimes sane, rational, responsible, our own selves, good or bad, doing and saying things which we might say and do in real life, but which we have never said nor done, incurring the consequences of our words and deeds as if they were actual, keeping good faith or breaking it, according to our own natures, accomplishing by effort, or failing through indolence, as the case may be, blushing with genuine shame, laughing with genuine mirth, and burning with genuine anger; and all this may go on from the beginning to the end of the dream, without a single moment of impossibility, without one incident which would surprise us in the waking state. With most people dreams of this kind are rare, but every one who dreams at all must have had them once or twice in life. If we are therefore sometimes sane in dreams we can remember, and act in them as we really should, according to our individual consciences and possessed of our usual intelligence and knowledge, it cannot be denied that a series of such imaginary actions constitutes a real experience, during which we have risen or fallen, according as we have thought or acted. Some dreams of this kind leave impressions as lasting as that made by any reality. The merit or fault is wholly fictitious, no doubt, because although we have fancied that we could exercise our free will, we were powerless to use it; but the experience gained is not imaginary, where the dream has been strictly sane, any more than thought, in the abstract, is fictitious because it is not action. People of some imagination can easily, while wide awake, imagine a series of actions and decide rationally what course they would pursue in each, and such decisions constitute undoubted experience, which may materially affect the conduct of the individual if cases similar to the fancied ones present themselves in life. When there is no time to be lost, the instantaneous recollection of a train of reasoning may often mean instant decision, followed by immediate action, upon which the most important consequences may follow. Will any one venture to maintain that the vivid impressions left by rational dreams do not act in the same way upon the mind, and through the mind upon the will, and by the will upon our actions? And if we could direct our dreams as we pleased, so that they should be always rational, as some persons believe that we can, should we not be continually gaining experience of ourselves while sleeping, as well as when awake? Moreover, it is certain that there are men and women who are particularly endowed with the faculty of dreaming, and who can very often dream of any subject they please. Since this digression is already so long, let one more thing be said, which has not been said before, so far as the writer can find out. Our waking memory is defective; with most men it is so to a lamentable degree. It often happens that people forget that they have read a story, for instance, and begin to read it again, and do not discover that they have already done so till they have turned over many pages. It happens constantly that the taste of something we eat, or the odour of something we smell, recalls a scene we cannot remember at first, but which sometimes comes back after a little while. Almost every one has felt now and then that a fragment of present conversation is not new to him, and that he has performed certain actions already, though he cannot remember when. With some people these broken recollections are so frequent and vivid as to lead to all sorts of theories to explain them, such as the possibility of former existences on earth, or the more materialistic probability that memories are transmitted from parents and ancestors from the direct ascending lines. One theory has been neglected. At such times we may be remembering vaguely, or even with some distinctness, parts of dreams of which we had no recollection on waking, but which, nevertheless, made their impressions on the brain that produced them, while we were asleep. Unconscious ratiocination is certainly not a myth; and if, by it, we can produce our own forgotten actions, and even find objects we have lost, by doing over again exactly what we were doing when the thing we seek was last in our hands, sure that the rest of the action will repeat itself spontaneously, we should not be going much farther if we repeated both actions and words unconsciously remembered out of dreams. Much that seems very mysterious in our sensations may be explained in that way, and the explanation has the advantage of being simpler than that afforded by the theory of atavism, and more orthodox than that offered by the believers in the transmigration of souls. Cecilia Palladio had no need of it, for she did not forget the one dream that pleased her best, and she was never puzzled by uncertain recollections of any other. Her life had begun in it, and had turned upon it always, and after she had parted with it by an act of will, she had retained the fullest remembrance of its details. She left the place where she had paused near the entrance, and slowly walked up the long court, by the dry excavated basins; she ascended the low steps to the raised floor beyond, and stood still before the door of her own room, the second on the left. She had meant to go in and look at it quietly, but since she had taken refuge there when she ran away from Lamberti, iron gates had been placed at the entrances of all the six rooms, and they were locked. In hers a quantity of fragments of sculptured marble and broken earthen vessels were laid side by side on the floor, or were standing against the walls and in the corners. She felt as if she had been shut out by an act of tyranny, just as when she and her five companions had sadly left the House, obedient to the Christian Emperor's decree, long ago. It had always been her room ever since she had first dreamt. The beautiful narrow bronze bedstead used to stand on the left, the carved oak wardrobe inlaid with ivory was on the right, the marble table was just under the window, covered with objects she needed for her toilet, exquisite things of chiselled silver and of polished ivory. The chair, rounded at the back and with cushioned seat, like Agrippina's, was near it. In winter, the large bronze brazier of coals, changed twice daily, was always placed in the middle of the room. The walls were wainscoted with Asian marble, and painted above that with portraits in fresco of great and ancient Vestals who had been holier than the rest, each in her snowy robes, with the white veil drawn up and backwards over her head, and brought forward again over the shoulder, and each holding some sacred vessel or instrument in her one uncovered hand. There were stories about each which the Virgo Maxima used to read to the younger ones from a great rolled manuscript, that was kept in an ancient bronze box, or which she sometimes told in the moonlight on summer nights when the maidens sat together in the court. She closed her eyes, her forehead resting against the iron bars, and she saw it all as it had been; she looked again and the desolation hurt her and shocked her as when in a wilderness an explorer comes suddenly upon the bleached bones of one who had gone before him and had been his friend. She sighed and turned away. The dream was better than the reality, in that and in many other ways. She was overcome by the sense of utter failure, as she sat down on the steps below the raised floor, lonely and forlorn. It was all a comedy now, a miserable petty play to hide a great truth from herself and others. She had begun her part already, writing her wretched little notes to poor Guido. She knew that, ill as he was, the words that seemed lies to her were ten times true to him, and that he exaggerated every enquiry after his condition and each expression of hope for his recovery into signs of loving solicitude, that he had already forgiven what he thought her caprice, and was looking forward to his marriage as more certain than ever, in spite of her message. It was all a vile trick meant to save his feelings and help him to get well, and she hated and despised it. She was playing a part with Lamberti, too, and that was no better. She had fallen low enough to love a man who did not care a straw for her, and it needed all the energy of character she had left to keep him from finding it out. Nothing could be more contemptible. If any one but he had told her that she ought to go back to the appearance of an engagement with Guido, she would have refused to do it. But Lamberti dominated her; he had only to say, "Do this," and she did it, "Say this," and she said it, whether it were true or not. She complained bitterly in her heart that if he had bidden her lie to her mother, she would have lied, because she had no will of her own when she was with him. And this was the end of her inspired visions, of her lofty ideals, of her magnificent rules of life, of her studies of philosophy, her meditations upon religion, and her dream of the last Vestal. She was nothing but a weak girl, under the orders of a man she loved against her will, and ready to do things she despised whenever he chose to give his orders. He cared for no human being except his one friend. He was not to be blamed for that, of course, but he was utterly indifferent to every one else where his friend was concerned; every one must lie, or steal, or do murder, if that could help Guido to get well. She was only one of his instruments, and he probably had others. She was sure that half the women in Rome loved Lamberto Lamberti without daring to say so. It was a satisfaction to have heard from every one that he cared for none of them. People spoke of him as a woman-hater, and one woman had said that he had married a negress in Africa, and was the father of black savages with red hair. That accounted for his going to Somali Land, she said, and for his knowing so much about the habits of the people there. Cecilia would have gladly killed the lady with a hat pin. She was very unhappy, sitting alone on the steps after the sun had sunk out of sight. The comedy was all to begin over again in an hour, for she must go home and defend her conduct when her mother reproached her with not acting fairly, and laughed at the idea that Guido was in danger of his life. To-morrow she would have to write the daily note to him, she would be obliged to compose affectionate phrases which would have come quite naturally if she could have treated him merely as her best friend; and he would translate affection to mean love, and another lie would have been told. There was this, at least, about Guido, that he could not order her about as Lamberti could. There was no authority in his eyes, not even when he told her not to catch cold. Perhaps in all the time she had known him, she had liked him best when he had been angry, at the garden party, and had demanded to know her secret. But she would not acknowledge that. If the situation had been reversed and Lamberti, instead of Guido, had insisted on knowing what she meant to hide, she could not have helped telling him. It was an abominable state of things, but there was nothing to be done, and that was the worst part of it. Lamberti knew Guido much better than she did, and if Lamberti told her gravely that Guido might do something desperate if she broke with him, she was obliged to believe it and to act accordingly. There might not be one chance in a thousand, but the one-thousandth chance was just the one that might have its turn. One might disregard it for oneself, but one had no right to overlook it where another's life was concerned. At all events she must wait till Guido was quite well again, for a man in a fever really might do anything rash. Why did Lamberti not take away the revolver that always lay ready in the drawer? It would be much safer, though Guido probably had plenty of other weapons that would serve the purpose. Guido was just the kind of pacific man who would have a whole armoury of guns and pistols, as if he were always expecting to kill something or somebody. She was sure that Lamberti, who had killed men with his own hand, did not keep any sort of weapon in his room. If he had a revolver of his own, it was probably carefully cleaned, greased, wrapped up and put away with the things he used when he was sent on expeditions. It was a thousand pities that Guido was not exactly like Lamberti! Cecilia rose at last, weary of thinking about it all, disgusted with her own weakness, and decidedly ill-disposed towards her fellow-creatures. The slightly flattened upper lip was compressed rather tightly against the fuller lower one as she went back to find Petersen, and as she held her head very high, her lids drooped somewhat scornfully over her eyes. No one can ever be as supercilious as some people look when they are angry with themselves and are thinking what miserable creatures they really are. It was late when Cecilia reached the Palazzo Massimo and went in on foot under the dark carriageway after Petersen had paid the cab under the watchful gaze of the big liveried porter. The Countess was already dressing for dinner, and Cecilia went to her own room at once. The consequence was that she did not know of her mother's invitation to Lamberti, until she came into the drawing-room and saw the two together, waiting for her. "Did I forget to tell you that Signor Lamberti was coming to dinner?" asked her mother. "There was no particular reason why you should have told me," she answered indifferently, as she held out her hand to Lamberti. "It is not exactly a dinner party! How is he?" she asked, speaking to him. "He is better this evening, thank you." Why should he say "thank you," as if Guido were his brother or his father? She resented it. Surely there was no need for continually accentuating the fact that Guido was the only person living for whom he had the slightest natural affection! This was perhaps exaggerated, but she was glad of it, just then. She, who would have given all for him, wished savagely that some woman would make him fall in love and treat him with merciless barbarity. CHAPTER XXIII Cecilia felt that evening as if she could resist Lamberti's influence at last, for she was out of humour with herself and with every one else. When they had dined, and had said a multitude of uninteresting things about Guido, for they were all under a certain constraint while the meal lasted, they came back to the drawing-room. Lamberti had the inscrutable look Cecilia had lately seen in his face, and which she took for the outward sign of his indifference to anything that did not concern his friend. When he spoke to her, he looked at her as if she were a chair or a table, and when he was not speaking to her he did not look at her at all. In the drawing-room, she waited her opportunity until her mother had sat down. The butler had set the little tray with the coffee and three cups on a small three-legged table. On pretence that the latter was unsteady, Cecilia carried the tray to another place at some distance from her mother. Lamberti followed her to take the Countess's cup, and then came back for his own. Cecilia spoke to him in a low voice while she was putting in the sugar and pouring out the coffee, a duty which in many parts of Italy and France is still assigned to the daughter of the house, and recalls a time when servants did not know how to prepare the beverage. "Come and talk to me presently," she said. "I am sure you have more to tell me about him." "No," said Lamberti, not taking the trouble to lower his voice much, "there is nothing more to tell. I do not think I have forgotten anything." He stirred his coffee slowly, but with evident reluctance to stay near her. She would not have been a human woman if she had not been annoyed by his cool manner, and a shade of displeasure passed over her face. "I have something to say to you," she answered. "I thought you would understand." "That is different." In his turn he showed a little annoyance. They went back together to the Countess's side, carrying their cups. In due time the good lady went to write letters, feeling that it was quite safe to leave her daughter with Lamberti, who seemed to be as cold as ice, and not at all bent on making himself agreeable. Besides, the Countess was tired of the situation, and could hardly conceal the fact that she reproached Guido for not getting well sooner, in order that she might speak to him herself. There was silence for a time after she had gone into the next room, while Cecilia and Lamberti sat side by side on the sofa she had left. Neither seemed inclined to speak first, for both felt that some danger was at hand, which could not be avoided, but which must be approached with caution. She wished that he would say something, for she was not at all sure what she meant to tell him; but he was silent, which was natural enough, as she had asked for the interview. She would have given anything to have seen him somewhere else, in new surroundings, anywhere except in her own drawing-room, where every familiar object oppressed her and reminded her of her mistakes and illusions. She felt that she must say something, but the blood rose in her brain and confused her. He saw her embarrassment, or guessed it. "So far things have gone better than I expected," he said at last, "but that only makes the end more doubtful." She turned to him slowly and with an involuntary look of gratitude for having broken the silence. "I mean," he went on, "that since Guido is so ready to grasp at any straw you throw him, it will be hard to make him understand you, when things have gone a little further." "Is that all you mean?" She asked the question almost sharply. "Yes." "You do not mean that you still wish I would marry him after--after what I told you the other evening?" The interrogation was in her voice, and that was hard, and demanded an answer. Lamberti looked away, and did not reply at once, for he meant to tell the exact truth, and was not quite sure where it lay. He felt, too, that her manner had changed notably since they had last talked, and though he had no intention of taking the upper hand, it was not in his nature to submit to any dictation, even from the woman he loved. "Answer me, please," said Cecilia, rather imperiously. "Yes, I will. I wish it were possible for you to marry him, that is all." "And you know that it is not." "I am almost sure that it is not." "How cautious you are!" "The matter is serious. But you said that you had something to say to me. What is it?" "I wanted to tell you that I am sick of all this deception, of writing notes that are meant to deceive a man for whom I have the most sincere friendship, of letting the whole world think that I will do what I would not do, if I were to die for it." He looked at her, then clasped his hands upon his knees and shook his head. "I must see him," she said, after a pause, "I must see him at once, and you must help me. If I could only speak to him I could make him understand, and he would be glad I had spoken, and we should always be good friends. But I must see him alone, and talk to him. Make it possible, for I know you can. I am not afraid of the consequences. Take me to him. It is the only true and honest thing to do!" Lamberti believed that this was true; he was a man of action and had no respect for society's prejudices, when society was not present to enforce its laws. It would have seemed incredible to Romans that an Italian girl could think of doing what Cecilia proposed, and if it were ever known, her reputation would be gravely damaged. But Cecilia was not like other young girls; society should never know what she had done, and she was quite right in saying that her plan was really the best and most honourable. "I can take you to him," Lamberti said. "I suppose you know what you are risking." "Nothing, if I go with you. You would not let me run any risk." She did not raise her voice, she hardly changed her tone, but nothing she had ever said had given him such a thrilling sensation of pleasure. "Do you trust me as much as that?" he asked. "Yes, as much as that." She smiled, and looked down at her hand, and then glanced at him quickly, and almost happily. If she had studied men for ten years she could not have found word or look more certain to touch him and win him to her way. "Thank you," he said, rather curtly, for he was thinking of another answer. "If I take you to Guido, what shall you say to him?" She drew herself up against the back of the sofa, but the smile still lingered on her lips. "You must trust me, too," she answered. "Do you think I can compose set speeches beforehand? When shall we go? How is it to be managed?" "You often go out with your maid, do you not? What sort of woman is she? A dragon?" "No!" Cecilia laughed. "She is very respectable and nice, and thinks I am perfection. But then, she is terribly near-sighted, and cannot wear spectacles because they fall off her nose." "Then she loses her way easily, I suppose?" said Lamberti, too much intent on his plans to be amused at trifles. "Yes. She is always losing her way." "That might easily happen to her in the Palazzo Farnese. It is a huge place, and you could manage to go up one way while she went up the other. Besides, there is a lift at the back, not to mention the servants' staircases, in which she might be hopelessly lost. Can you trust her not to lose her head and make the porters search the palace for you, if you are separated from her?" "I am not sure. But she will stay wherever I tell her to wait for me. That might be better. You see, my only excuse for going to the Palazzo Farnese would be to see the ambassador's daughter, and she is in the country." "I think she must have come to town for a day or two, for I met her this afternoon. That is a good reason for going to see her. At the door of the embassy send your maid on an errand that will take an hour, and tell her to wait for you in the cab at the gate. If the girl is at home you need not stay ten minutes. Then you can see Guido during the rest of the time. It will be long enough, and besides, the maid will wait." "For ever, if I tell her to! But you, where shall you be?" "You will meet me on the stairs as you come down from the embassy. Wear something simple and dark that people have not seen you wear before, and carry a black parasol and a guide-book. Have one of those brown veils that tourists wear against the sun. Fold it up neatly and put it into the pocket of the guide-book instead of the map, or pin it to the inside of your parasol. You can put it on as soon as you have turned the corner of the stairs, out of sight of the embassy door, for the footman will not go in till you are as far as that. If you cannot put it on yourself, I will do it for you." "Do you know how to put on a woman's veil?" Cecilia asked, with a little laugh. "Of course! It is easy enough. I have often fastened my sister's for her at picnics." "What time shall I come?" "A little before eleven. Guido cannot be ready before that." "But he has a servant," said Cecilia, suddenly remembering the detail. "What will he think?" "He has two, but they shall both be out, and I shall have the key to his door in my pocket. We will manage that." "Shall you be sure to know just when I come?" "I shall see you, but you will not see me till we meet on the landing." "I knew you could manage it, if you only would." "It is simple enough. There is not the slightest risk, if you will do exactly what I have told you." It seemed easy indeed, and Cecilia was almost happy at the thought that she was soon to be freed from the intolerable situation into which she allowed herself to be forced. She was very grateful, too, and beyond her gratitude was the unspeakable satisfaction in the man she loved. Instead of making difficulties, he smoothed them; instead of prating of what society might think, he would help her to defy it, because he knew that she was right. "I should like to thank you," she said simply. "I do not know how." He seemed to say something in answer, in a rather discontented way, but so low that she could not catch the words. "What did you say?" she asked unwisely. "Nothing. I am glad to be of service to you. Say the right things to Guido; for you are going to do rather an eccentric thing in order to say them, and a mistake would be fatal." He spoke almost roughly, but she was not offended. He had a right to be rough, since he was ready to do whatever she asked of him; yet not understanding him, while loving him, her instinct made her wish him really to know how pleased she was. She put out her hand a little timidly and touched his, as a much older woman might have done. To her surprise, he grasped it instantly, and held it so tightly that he hurt her for a moment. He dropped it then, pushing it from him as his hold relaxed, almost throwing it off. "What is the matter?" Cecilia asked, surprised. But at that moment her mother entered the room from the boudoir. CHAPTER XXIV In agreeing to the dangerous scheme, Lamberti had yielded to an impulse founded upon his intuitive knowledge of women, and not at all upon his inborn love of anything in which there was risk. The danger was for Cecilia, not for himself, in any case; and it was real, for, if it should ever be known that she had gone to Guido's rooms, nothing but her marriage with him would silence the gossips. Society cannot be blamed for drawing a line somewhere, considering how very far back it sets the limit. Lamberti, without reasoning about it, knew that no woman ever does well what she does not like doing. If he persisted in making Cecilia attempt to break gradually with Guido, she would soon make mistakes and spoil everything. That was his conviction. She felt, at present, that if she could see Guido face to face, she could persuade him to give her up; and the probability was that she would succeed, or else that she would be moved by real pity for him and thus become genuinely ready to follow Lamberti's original advice. The sensible course to follow was, therefore, to help her in the direction she had chosen. Early in the morning Lamberti was at his friend's bedside. Guido was much better now, and there was no risk in taking him to his sitting room. Lamberti suggested this before saying anything else, and the doctor came soon afterwards and approved of it. By ten o'clock Guido was comfortably installed in a long cane chair, amongst his engravings and pictures, very pale and thin, but cheerful and expectant. As he had no fever, and was quite calm, Lamberti told him frankly that Cecilia had something to say to him which no one could say for her, and was coming herself. He was amazed and delighted at first, and then was angry with Lamberti for allowing her to come; but, as the latter explained in detail how her visit was to be managed, his fears subsided, and he looked at his watch with growing impatience. His man had been sitting up with him at night since his illness had begun, and was easily persuaded to go to bed for the day. The other servant, who cooked what Guido needed, had prepared everything for the day, and had gone out. He always came back a little after twelve o'clock. At twenty minutes to eleven Lamberti took the key of the door and went to watch for Cecilia's coming, and half an hour later he admitted her to the sitting room, shut the door after her, and left the two together. He went and sat down in the outer hall, in case any one should ring the bell, which had been muffled with a bit of soft leather while Guido was ill. Cecilia stood still a moment, after the door was closed; behind her, and she lifted her veil to see her way, for there was not much light in the room. As she caught sight of Guido, a frank smile lighted up her face for an instant, and then died away in a look of genuine concern and anxiety. She had not realised how much he could change in so short a time, in not more than four or five days. She came forward quickly, took his hand, and bent over him, looking into his face. His eyes widened with pleasure and his thin fingers lifted hers to his lips. "You have been very ill," she said, "very, very ill! I had no idea that it was so bad as this!" "I am better," he answered gently. "How good of you! How endlessly good of you to come!" "Nobody saw me," she said, by way of answer. She smoothed the old pink damask cushion under his head, and instinctively looked to see if he had all he needed within reach, before she thought of sitting down in the chair Lamberti had placed ready for her. "Tell me," he said, in a low and somewhat anxious voice, "you did not mean it? You were out of temper, or you were annoyed by something, or--I do not know! Something happened that made you write, and you had sent the letter before you knew what you were doing----" He broke off, quite sure of her answer. He thought she turned pale, though the light was not strong and brought the green colour of the closed blinds into the room. "Hush!" she exclaimed soothingly, and she sat down beside him, still holding his hand. "I have come expressly to talk to you about it all, because letters only make misunderstandings, and there must not be any more misunderstandings between us two." "No, never again!" He looked up with love in his hollow eyes, not suspecting what she meant. "I have forgotten all that was in that letter, and I wish to forget it. You never wrote that you did not love me, nor that you loved another man. It is all gone, quite gone, and I shall never remember it again." Cecilia sighed and gazed into his face sadly. He looked so ill and weak that she wondered how she could be cruel enough to tell him the truth, though she had risked her good name to get a chance of speaking plainly. It seemed like bringing a cup of cold water to the lips of a man dying of thirst, only to take it away again untasted and leave him to his fate. She pitied him with all her heart, but there was nothing in her compassion that at all resembled love. It was the purest and most friendly affection, of the sort that lasts a lifetime and can devote itself in almost any sacrifice; but it was all quite clear and comprehensible, without the smallest element of the inexplicable attraction that is deaf, and dumb, and, above all, blind, and which proceeds from the deep prime cause and mover of nature, and mates lions in the wilderness and birds in the air, and men and women among their fellows, two and two, from generation to generation. "Guido," said Cecilia, after a long silence, "do you not think that two people can be very, very fond of each other all their lives, and trust each other, and like to be together as much as possible, without being married?" She spoke quietly and steadily, trying to make her voice sound more gentle than ever before; but there was no possibility of mistaking her meaning. His thin hand started and shook under her soothing touch, and then drew itself away. The light went out of his eyes and the rings of shadow round them grew visibly darker as he turned his head painfully on the damask cushion. "Is that what you have come to say?" he asked, in a groan. Cecilia leaned back in her chair and folded her hands. She felt as if she had killed an unresisting, loving creature, as a sacrifice for her fault. "God forgive me if I have done wrong," she said, speaking to herself. "I only mean to do right." Guido moved his head on his cushion again, as if suffering unbearable pain, and a sort of harsh laugh answered her words. "Your God will forgive you," he said bitterly, after a moment. "Man made God in his own image, and God must needs obey his creator. When you cannot forgive yourself, you set up an image and ask it to pardon you. I do not wonder." The cruel words hurt her in more ways than one, and she drew her breath between her teeth as if she had struck unawares against something sharp and was repressing a cry of pain. Then there was silence for a long time. "Why do you stay here?" Guido asked, in a low tone, not looking at her. "You cannot have anything more to say. You have done what you came to do. Let me be alone." "Guido!" She touched his shoulder gently as he lay turned from her, but he moved and pushed her away. "It cannot give you pleasure to see me suffer," he said. "Please go away." "How can I leave you like this?" There was despair in her voice, and the sound of tears that would never come to her eyes. He did not answer. She would not go away without trying to appease him, and she made a strong effort to collect her thoughts. "You are angry with me, of course," she began. "You despise me for not having known my own mind, but you cannot say anything that I have not said to myself. I ought to have known long ago. All I can say in self-defence now is that it is better to have told you the truth before we were married than to have been obliged to confess it afterwards, or else to have lied to you all my life if I could not find courage to speak. It is better, is it not? Oh, say that it is better!" "It would have been much better if neither of us had ever been born," Guido answered. "I only ask you to say that you would rather be suffering now than have had me tell you in a year that I was an unfaithful wife at heart. That is all. Will you not say it? It is all I ask." "Why should you ask anything of me, even that? The only kindness you can show me now is to go away." He would not look at her. His throat was parched, and he put out his hand to take the tumbler from the little table on the other side of his long chair. Instantly she rose and tried to help him, but he would not let her. "I am not so weak as that," he said coldly. "My hand is steady enough, thank you." She sighed and drew back. Perhaps it would be better to leave him, as he wished that she should, but his words recalled Lamberti's warning; his hand was steady, he said, and that meant that it was steady enough to take the pistol from the drawer in the little table and use it. He believed in nothing, in no future, in no retribution, in no God, and he was ill, lonely, and in despair through her fault. His friend knew him, and the danger was real. The conviction flashed through her brain that if she left him alone he would probably kill himself, and she fancied him lying there dead, on the red tiles. She fancied, too, Lamberti's face, when he should come to tell her what had happened, for he would surely come, and to the end of her life and his he would never forgive her. She stood still, wavering and unstrung by her thoughts, looking steadily down at Guido's head. "Since you will not go away," he said at last, "answer me one question. Tell me the name of the man who has come between us." Cecilia bit her lip and turned her face from the light. "Then it is true," Guido said, after a silence. "There is a man whom you really love, a man whom you would really marry and to whom you could really be faithful." "Yes. It is true. Everything I wrote you is true." "Who is he?" She was silent again. "Do you hope that I shall ever forgive you for what you have done to me?" "Yes. I pray heaven that you may!" "Leave heaven out of the question. You have turned my life into something like what you call hell. Do I know the man you love?" "Yes," Cecilia answered, after a moment's hesitation. "Do I often meet him? Have I met him often since you have loved him?" She said nothing, but stood still with bent head and clasped hands. "Why do you not answer me?" he asked sternly. "You must never know his name," she said, in a low voice. "Have I no right to know who has ruined my life?" "I have. Blame me. Visit it on me." He laughed, not harshly now, but gently and sarcastically. "You women are fond of offering yourselves as expiatory victims for your own sins, for you know very well that we shall not hurt you! After all, you cannot help yourself if you have fallen in love with some one else. I suppose I ought to be sorry for you. I probably shall be, when I know who he is!" He laughed again, already despising the man she had preferred in his stead. His words had cut her, but she said nothing, for she was in dread lest the slightest word should betray the truth. "You say that I know him," Guido continued, his cheeks beginning to flush feverishly, "and you would not answer me when I asked you if I had often met him since you have loved him. That means that I have, of course. You were too honest to lie, and too much frightened to tell the truth. I meet him often. Then he is one of a score of men whom I know better than all the others. There are not many men whom I meet often. It cannot be very hard to find out which of them it is." Cecilia turned her face away, resting one hand on the back of the chair, and a deep blush rose in her cheeks. But she spoke steadily. "You can never find out," she said. "He does not love me. He does not guess that I love him. But I will not answer any more questions, for you must not know who he is." "Why not? Do you think I shall quarrel with him and make him fight a duel with me?" "Perhaps." "That is absurd," Guido answered quietly. "I do not value my life much, I believe, but I have not the least inclination to risk it in such a ridiculous way. The man has injured me without knowing it. You have taken from me the one thing I treasured and you are keeping it for him; but he does not want it, he does not even know that it is his, he is not responsible for your caprices." "Not caprice, Guido! Do not call it that!" "I do. Forgive me for being frank. Say that I am ill, if you please, as an excuse for me. I call such things by their right name, caprices. If you are going to be subject to them all your life, you had better go into a convent before you throw away your good name." "I have not deserved that!" She turned upon him now, with flashing eyes. He had raised himself upon one elbow and was looking at her with cool contempt. "You have deserved that and more," he answered, "and if you insist upon staying here you must hear what I choose to say. I advised you to go away, but you would not. I have no apology to make for telling you the truth, but you are free to go. Lamberti is in the hall and will see you to your carriage." There was something royal in his anger and in his look now, which she could not help respecting, in spite of his words. She had thought that he would behave very differently; she had looked for some passionate outburst, perhaps for some unmanly weakness, excusable since he was so ill, and more in accordance with his outwardly gentle character. She had thought that because he had made his friend speak to her for him he lacked energy to speak for himself. But now that the moment had come, he showed himself as manly and determined as ever Lamberti could be, and she could not help respecting him for it. Doubtless Lamberti had always known what was in his friend's nature, below the indolent surface. Perhaps he was like his father, the old king. But Cecilia was proud, too. "If I have stayed too long," she said, facing him, "it was because I came here at some risk to confess my fault, and hoped for your forgiveness. I shall always hope for it, as long as we both live, but I shall not ask for it again. I had thought that you would accept my devoted friendship instead of what I cannot give you and never gave you, though I believed that I did. But you will not take what I offer. We had better part on that rather than risk being enemies. You have already said one thing which you will regret and which I shall always remember. Good-bye." She held out her hand frankly, and he took it and kept it a moment, while their eyes met, and he spoke more gently. "I said too much. I am sorry. I shall forgive you when I do not love you any more. Good-bye." He let her hand fall and looked away. "Thank you," she said. She left his side and went towards the door, her head a little bent. As she laid her hand upon the handle, and looked back at Guido once again, it turned in her fingers and was drawn quickly away from them. She started and turned her head to see who was there. Lamberti stood before her, and immediately pushed her back into the room and shut the door, visibly disturbed. "This way!" he said quickly, in an undertone. He led her swiftly to another door, which he opened for her and closed as soon as she had passed. "Wait for me there!" he said, as she went in. "What is the matter?" asked Guido rather faintly, when he realised what his friend had done. "Her mother is in the hall," Lamberti said. "Do not be startled, she knows nothing. She insists on seeing for herself how you are. She says her daughter begged her to come." "Tell her I am too ill to see her, please, and thank her very much. It is all over, Lamberti, we have parted." A dark flush rose in Lamberti's face. "You must see the Countess," he said hurriedly. "I am sorry, but unless she comes here, her daughter cannot get out without being seen. We cannot leave her in your room. I will not do it, for your man may wake up and go there. There is no time to be lost either!" "Bring the Countess in," said Guido, with an effort, and moving uneasily on his couch. He felt that nothing was spared him. In the few seconds that elapsed, he tried to decide what he should say to the Countess, and how he could account for knowing that Cecilia had now definitely broken off the engagement. Before he had come to any conclusion the Countess was ushered in, rosy and smiling, but a little timid at finding herself in a young bachelor's quarters. Meanwhile, Cecilia was in Guido's bedroom. An older woman might have suspected some ignoble treachery, but her perfect innocence protected her from all fear. Lamberti would not have brought her there in such a hurry unless there had been some absolute necessity for getting her out of sight at once. Undoubtedly some visitor had come who could not be turned away. Perhaps it was the doctor. Moreover, she was too much disturbed by what had taken place to pay much attention to what was, after all, a detail. She looked about her and saw that there was another door by which Lamberti would presently enter to let her out. There was the great bed with the coverlet of old arras displaying the royal arms, and beside it stood a small table of mahogany inlaid with brass. It had tall and slender legs that ended below in little brass lions' paws, and it had a single drawer. Without hesitation she went and opened it. Lamberti had been right. There was the revolver, a silver-mounted weapon with an ivory handle, much more for ornament than use, but quite effective enough for the purpose to which Guido might put it. Beside it lay a little pile of notes in their envelopes, and she involuntarily recognised her own handwriting. He had kept all she had written to him within his reach while he had been ill, and the thought pained her. The revolver was a very light one, made with only five chambers. She took it and examined it when she had shut the drawer again, and she saw that it was fully loaded. Old Fortiguerra had taught her to use firearms a little, and she knew how to load and unload them. She slipped the cartridges out quickly and tied them together in her handkerchief, and then dropped them into her parasol and the revolver after them. She went to the tall mirror in the door of the wardrobe and began to arrange her veil, expecting Lamberti every moment. She had hardly finished when he entered and beckoned to her. She caught up her parasol by the middle so as to hold its contents safely, and in a few seconds she was outside the front door of the apartment. Lamberti drew a breath of relief. "Take those!" she said quickly, producing the pistol and the cartridges. "He must not have them." Lamberti took the weapon and put it into his pocket, and held the parasol, while she untied the handkerchief and gave him the contents. Both began to go downstairs. "I had better tell you who came," Lamberti said, as they went. "You will be surprised. It was your mother." "My mother!" Cecilia stopped short on the step she had reached. "I did not think she meant to come!" She went on, and Lamberti kept by her side. "You can seem surprised when she tells you," he said. "You have definitely broken your engagement, then? Guido had time to tell me so." "Yes, I could not lie to him. It was very hard, but I am glad it is all over, though he is very angry now." They reached the last landing before the court without meeting any one, and she paused again. He wondered what expression was on her face while she spoke, for he could scarcely see the outline of her features through the veil. "Thank you again," she said. "We may not meet for a long time, for my mother and I shall go away at once, and I suppose we shall not come back next winter." She spoke rather bitterly now. "My reputation is damaged, I fancy, because I have refused to marry a man I do not love!" "I will take care of your reputation," Lamberti answered, as if he were saying the most natural thing in the world. "It is hardly your place to do that," Cecilia answered, much surprised. "It may not be my right," Lamberti said, "as people consider those things. But it is my place, as Guido's friend and yours, as the only man alive who is devoted to you both." "I am more grateful than I can tell you. But please let people say what they like of me, and do not take my defence. You, of all the men I know, must not." "Why not I, of all men? I, of all men, will." She was standing with her back to the wall on the landing, and he was facing her now. His face looked a little more set and determined than usual, and he was rather pale, and he stood sturdily still before her. She could see his face through her veil, though he could hardly distinguish hers. He felt for a moment as if he were talking to a sort of lay figure that represented her and could not answer him. "I, of all men, will take care that no one says a word against you," he said, as she was silent. "But why? Why you?" "You have definitely given up all idea of marrying Guido? Absolutely? For ever? You are sure, in your own conscience, that he has no sort of claim on you left, and that he knows it?" "Yes, yes! But----" "Then," he said, not heeding her, "as you and I may not meet again for a long time, and as it cannot do you the least harm to know it, and as you will have no right to feel that I shall be lacking in respect to you, if I say it, I am going to give myself the satisfaction of telling you something I have taken great pains to hide since we first met." "What is it?" asked Cecilia, nervously. "It is a very simple matter, and one that will not interest you much." He paused one moment, and fixed his eyes on the brown veil, where he knew that hers were. "I love you." Cecilia started violently, and put out one hand against the wall behind her. "Do not be frightened, Contessina," he said gently. "Many men will say that to you before you are old. But none of them will mean it more truly than I. Shall we go? Your mother may not stay long with Guido." He moved, expecting her to go on, but she leaned against the wall where she stood, and she stared at his face through her veil. For an instant she thought she was going to faint, for her heart stopped beating and the blood left her head. She did not know whether it was happiness, or surprise, or fear that paralysed her, when his simple words revealed the vastness of the mistake in which she had lived, and the immensity of joy she had missed by so little. She pressed her hand flat against the wall beside her, sure that if she moved it she must fall. "Have I offended you, Signorina?" Lamberti asked, and the low tones shook a little. She could not speak yet, but his voice seemed to steady her, and her heart beat again. As if she were making a great effort her hand slowly left the wall, and she stretched it out towards him, silently asking for his. He did not understand, but he took it and held it quietly, coming a little nearer to her. "You have forgiven me," he said. "Thank you. You are kind. Good-bye." But then her fingers closed on his with almost frantic pressure. "No, no!" she cried. "Not yet! One moment more!" Still he did not understand, but he felt the blood rising and singing in his heart like the tide when it is almost high. A strange expectation filled him, as of a great change in his whole being that must come in the most fearful pain, or else in a happiness almost unbearable, something swelling, bursting, overwhelming, and enormous beyond imagination. She did not know that she was drawing him nearer to her, she would have blushed scarlet at the thought; he did not know that his feet moved, that he was quite close to her, that she was clutching his hand and pressing it upon her own heart. They did not see what they were doing. They were standing together by a marble pillar in the Vestals' House. They were out in the firmament beyond worlds, not seeing, not hearing, not touching, but knowing and one in knowledge. The veil touched his cheek and lightly pressed against it. It was the Vestal's veil. He had felt it in dreams, between his face and hers. Then the world broke into visible light, and he heard her whisper in his ear. "That was my secret. You know it now." A distant footfall echoed from far up the stone staircase. Once more as she heard it she pressed his hand to her heart with all her might, and he, with his left round her neck, drew her veiled face against his and held it there an instant in simple pressure, not trying to kiss her. Then those two separated and went down the remaining steps in silence, side by side, and very demurely, as if nothing had happened. The Countess's brougham was in the courtyard, and the porter, just going into his lodge under the archway, touched his big-visored cap to Lamberti and glanced at Cecilia carelessly as they went out. Petersen was sitting in an open cab in the blazing sun, under a large white parasol lined with green cotton, and her mistress was seated beside her before she had time to rise. Cecilia had quickly turned up her veil over the brim of her hat as soon as she had passed the porter's lodge, for he knew her face and she did not wish him to see her go out with Lamberti. "Thank you," she said in a matter-of-fact tone as Lamberti stood hat in hand in the sun by the step of the cab. "Palazzo Massimo," she called out to the coach-man. She nodded to Lamberti indifferently, and the cab drove quickly away to the right, rattling over the white paving-stones of the Piazza Farnese in the direction of San Carlo a Catinari. "Did you see your mother?" Petersen asked. "She stopped the carriage and called me when she saw me, and she said she was going to ask after Signor d'Este. I said you had gone up to the embassy." "No," Cecilia answered, "I did not see her. We shall be at home before she is." She did not speak again on the way. Petersen was too near-sighted and unsuspicious to see that she surreptitiously loosened the brown veil from her hat, got it down beside her on the other side, and rolled it up into a ball with one hand. Somehow, when she reached her own door, it was inside the parasol, just where the revolver had been half an hour earlier. Lamberti put on his straw hat and glanced indifferently at the departing cab as he turned away, quite sure that Cecilia would not look round. He went back into the palace, feeling for a cigar in his outer breast pocket. His hands felt numb with cold under the scorching sun, and he knew that he was taking pains to look indifferent and to move as if nothing extraordinary had happened to him; for in a few minutes he would be face to face with Guido d'Este and the Countess Fortiguerra. He lit his cigar under the archway, and blew a cloud of smoke before him as he turned into the staircase; but on the first landing he stopped, just where he had stood with Cecilia. He paused, his cigar between his teeth, his legs a little apart as if he were on deck in a sea-way, and his hands behind him. He looked curiously at the wall where she had leaned against it, and he smoked vigorously. At last he took out a small pocket knife and with the point of the blade scratched a little cross on the hard surface, looked at it, touched it again and was satisfied, returned the knife to his pocket, and went quietly upstairs. Most seafaring men do absurdly sentimental things sometimes. Lamberti's expression had neither softened nor changed while he was scratching the mark, and when he went on his way he looked precisely as he did when he was going up the steps of the Ministry to attend a meeting of the Commission. He had good nerves, as he had told the specialist whom he had consulted in the spring. But he would have given much not to meet Guido for a day or two, though he did not in the least mind meeting the Countess. Cecilia could keep a secret as well as he himself, almost too well, and there was not the slightest danger that her mother should guess the truth from the behaviour of either of them, even when together. Nor would Guido guess it for that matter; that was not what Lamberti was thinking of just then. He felt that chance, or fate, had made him the instrument of a sort of betrayal for which he was not responsible, and as he had never been in such a position in his life, even by accident, it was almost as bad at first as if he had intentionally taken Cecilia from his friend. He had always been instinctively sure that she would love him some day, but when he had at last spoken he had really not had the least idea that she already loved him. He had acted on an impulse as soon as he was quite sure that she would never marry Guido; perhaps, if he could have analysed his feelings, as Guido could have done, he would have found that he really meant to shock her a little, or frighten her by the point-blank statement that he loved her, in the hope of widening the distance which he supposed to exist between them, and thereby making it much more improbable that she should ever care for him. Even now he did not see how he could ever marry her and remain Guido's friend. He was far too sensible to tell Guido the truth and appeal to his generosity, for the best man living is not inclined to be generous when he has just been jilted, least of all to the man to whom he owes his discomfiture. In the course of time Guido might grow more indifferent. That was the most that could be hoped. Nevertheless, from the instant in which Lamberti had realised the truth, coming back to his senses out of a whirlwind of delight, he had known that he meant to have the woman he loved for himself, since she loved him already, and that he would count nothing that chanced to stand in his way, neither his friend, nor his career, nor his own family, nor neck nor life, either, if any such improbable risk should present itself. He was very glad that he had waited till he was quite sure that she was free, for he knew very well that if the moment had come too soon he should have felt the same reckless desire to win her, though he would have exiled himself to a desert island in the Pacific Ocean rather than yield to it. And more than that. He, who had a rough and strong belief in God, in an ever living soul within him, and in everlasting happiness and suffering hereafter, he, who called suicide the most dastardly and execrable crime against self that it lies in the power of a believing man to commit, would have shot himself without hesitation rather than steal the love of his only friend's wedded wife, content to give his body to instant destruction, and his soul to eternal hell--if that were the only way not to be a traitor. God might forgive him or not; salvation or damnation would matter little compared with escaping such a monstrous evil. He did not think these things. They were instinctive with him and sure as fate, like all the impulses of violent temperaments; just as certain as that if a man should give him the lie he would have struck him in the face before he had realised that he had even raised his hand. Guido d'Este, as brave in a different way, but hating any violent action, would never strike a man at all if he could possibly help it, though he would probably not miss him at the first shot the next morning. A quarter of an hour had not elapsed since Lamberti had left the Countess and Guido together when he let himself in again with his latch-key. He went at once to the bedroom, walking slowly and scrutinising the floor as he went along. He had heard of tragedies brought about by a hairpin, a glove, or a pocket handkerchief, dropped or forgotten in places where they ought not to be. He looked everywhere in the passage and in Guido's room, but Cecilia had not dropped anything. Then he examined his beard in the glass, with an absurd exaggeration of caution. Her loose brown veil had touched his cheek, a single silk thread of it clinging to his beard might tell a tale. He was a man who had more than once lived among savages and knew how slight a trace might lead to a broad trail. Then he got a chair and set it against the side of the tall wardrobe. Standing on it he got hold of the cornice with his hands, drew himself up till he could see over it, remained suspended by one hand and, with the other, laid the revolver and the cartridges on the top. Guido would never find them there. The Countess's unnecessary shyness had disappeared as soon as she saw how ill Guido looked. His head was aching terribly now, and he had a little fever again, but he raised himself as well as he could to greet her, and smiled courteously as she held out her hand. "This is very kind of you, my dear lady," he managed to say, but his own voice sounded far off. "I was really so anxious about you!" the Countess said, with a little laugh. "And--and about it all, you know. Now tell me how you really are!" Guido said that he had felt better in the morning, but now had a bad headache. She sympathised with him and suggested bathing his temples with Eau de Cologne, which seemed simple. She always did it herself when she had a headache, she said. The best was the Forty-Seven Eleven kind. But of course he knew that. He felt that he should probably go mad if she stayed five minutes longer, but his courteous manner did not change, though her face seemed to be jumping up and down at every throb he felt in his head. She was very kind, he repeated. He had some Eau de Cologne of that very sort. He never used any other. This sounded in his own ears so absurdly like the advertisements of patent soap that he smiled in his pain. Yes, she repeated, it was quite the best; and she seemed a little embarrassed, as if she wanted to say something else but could not make up her mind to speak. Could she do anything to make him more comfortable? She could go away, but he could not tell her so. He thanked her. Lamberti and his man had taken most excellent care of him. Why did he not have a nurse? There were the Sisters of Charity, and the French sisters who wore dark blue and were very good; she could not remember the name of the order, but she knew where they lived. Should she send him one? He thanked her again, and the room turned itself upside down before his eyes and then whirled back again at the next throb. Still he tried to smile. She coughed a little and looked at her perfectly fitting gloves, wishing that he would ask after Cecilia. If he had been suffering less he would have known that he was expected to do so, but it was all he could do just then to keep his face from twitching. Then she suddenly said that she had something on her mind to say to him, but that, of course, as he was so very ill, she would not say it now, but as soon as he was quite well they would have a long talk together. Guido was a man more nervous than sanguine, and probably more phlegmatic than either, and his nervous strength asserted itself now, just when he began to believe that he was on the verge of delirium. He felt suddenly much quieter and the pain in his head diminished, or he noticed it less. He said that he was quite able to talk now, and wished to know at once what she had to say to him. She needed no second invitation to pour out her heart about Cecilia, and in a long string of involved and often disjointed sentences she told him just what she felt. Cecilia had done her best to love him, after having really believed that she did love him, but it was of no use, and it was much better that Guido should know the truth now, than find it out by degrees. Cecilia was dreadfully sorry to have made such a mistake, and both Cecilia and she herself would always be the best friends he had in the world; but the engagement had better be broken off at once, and of course, as it would injure Cecilia if everything were known, it would be very generous of him to let it be thought that it had been broken by mutual agreement, and without any quarrel. She stopped at last, rather frightened at having said so much, but quite sure that she had done right, and believing that she knew the whole truth and had told it all. She waited for his answer in some trepidation. "My dear lady," he said at last, "I am very glad you have been so frank. Ever since your daughter wrote me that letter I have felt that it must end in this way. As she does not wish to marry me, I quite agree that our engagement should end at once, so that the agreement is really mutual and friendly, and I shall say so." "How good you are!" cried the Countess, delighted. "There is only one thing I ask of you," Guido said, after pressing his right hand upon his forehead in an attempt to stop the throbbing that now began again. "I do not think I am asking too much, considering what has happened, and I promise not to make any use of what you tell me." "You have a right to ask us anything," the Countess answered, contritely. "Who is the man that has taken my place?" The Countess stared at him blankly a moment, and her mouth opened a little. "What man?" she asked, evidently not understanding him. "I naturally supposed that your daughter felt a strong inclination for some one else," Guido said. "Oh dear, no!" cried the Countess. "You are quite mistaken!" "I beg your pardon, then. Pray forget what I said." He saw that she was speaking the truth, as far as she knew it, and he had long ago discovered that she was quite unable to conceal anything not of the most vital importance. She repeated her assurance several times, and then began to review the whole situation, till Guido was in torment again. At last the door opened and Lamberti entered. He saw at a glance how Guido was suffering, and came to his side. "I am afraid he is not so well to-day," he said. "He looks very tired. If he could sleep more, he would get well sooner." The Countess rose at once, and became repentant for having stayed too long. "I could not help telling him everything," she explained, looking at Lamberti. "And as for Cecilia being in love with some one else," she added, looking down into Guido's face and taking his hand, "you must put that out of your head at once! As if I should not know it! It is perfectly absurd!" Lamberti stared fixedly at the top of her hat while she bent down. "Of course," Guido said, summoning his strength to bid her good-bye courteously, and to show some gratitude for her visit. "I am sorry I spoke of it. Thank you very much for coming to see me, and for being so frank." In a sense he was glad she had come, for her coming had solved the difficulty in which he had been placed. He sank back exhausted and suffering as she left the room, and was hardly aware that Lamberti came back soon afterwards and sat down beside him. Before long his friend carried him back to his bed, for he seemed unable to walk. Lamberti stayed with him till he fell asleep under the influence of a soporific medicine, and then called the man-servant. He told him he had taken the revolver from the drawer, because his master was not to be married after all, and might do something foolish, and ought to be watched continually, and he said that he would come back and stay through the night. The man had been in his own service, and could be trusted now that he had slept. Lamberti left the Palazzo Farnese and walked slowly homeward in the white glare, smoking steadily all the way, and looking straight before him. CHAPTER XXV The Countess wrote that afternoon to Baron Goldbirn, of Vienna, and to the Princess Anatolie, now in Styria, that the engagement between her daughter and Signor Guido d'Este was broken off by mutual agreement. She had told Cecilia that she had been to see Guido and had confessed the plain truth, and that there need be no more comedies, because men never died of that sort of thing after all, and it was much better for them to be told everything outright. Cecilia seemed perfectly satisfied and thanked her. Then the Countess said she would like to go to Brittany, or perhaps to Norway, where she had never been, but that if Cecilia preferred Scotland, she would make no objection. She would go anywhere, provided the place were cool, and on the top of a mountain, or by the sea, but she wished to leave at once. Everything had been ready for their departure several days ago. "You do not really mean to leave Rome till Guido--I mean, till Signor d'Este is out of all danger, do you?" asked the young girl. "My dear, since you are not going to marry him, what difference can it make?" asked the Countess, unconsciously heartless. "The sooner we go, the better. You are as pale as a sheet and as thin as a skeleton. You will lose all your looks if you stay here!" Cecilia was in a loose white silk garment with open sleeves. She looked at the perfect curve of her arm, from the slender wrist to the delicately rounded elbow, and smiled. "I am not a skeleton yet," she said. "You will be in a few days," her mother answered cheerfully. "There is a telegraph to everywhere nowadays, and Signor Lamberti will be here and can send us news all the time. You cannot possibly go and see the poor man, you know. If you could only guess how I felt, my dear, when I found myself there this morning alone with him! I confess, I half expected that the walls would be covered with the most dreadful pictures, those things I do not like you to look at in the Paris Salon, you know. Women apparently waiting for tea on the lawn--before dressing--that sort of thing." The good Countess blushed at the thought. "They are only women!" said Cecilia. "Why should I not look at them?" "Because they are horrid," answered the Countess. "But I must say I saw nothing of the sort in Guido's rooms. Nevertheless, I felt like the wicked ladies in the French novels, who always go out in thick veils and have little gold keys hidden somewhere inside their clothes. It must be very uncomfortable." She prattled on and her daughter scarcely heard her. All sorts of hard questions were presenting themselves to Cecilia's mind together. Had she done wrong, or right? And then, though it might have been quite right to let Lamberti know that she loved him, had her behaviour been modest and maidenly, or over bold? After all, could she have helped putting out her hand to find his just then? And when she had found it, could she possibly have checked herself from drawing him nearer to her? Had she any will of her own left at that moment, or had she been taken unawares and made to do something which she would never have done, if she had been quite calm? Calm! She almost laughed at the word as it came into her thought. Her mother was reading the _Figaro_ now, having given up talking when she saw that Cecilia did not listen. Ever since Cecilia could remember her mother had read the _Figaro_. When it did not come by the usual post she read the number of the preceding day over again. Cecilia was trying to decide where to spend the rest of the summer, tolerably sure that she could make her mother accept any reasonable plan she offered. By a reasonable plan she meant one that should not take her too far from Rome. For her own part she would have been glad not to go away at all. There was Vallombrosa, which was high up and very cool, and there was Viareggio, which was by the sea, but much warmer, and there was Sorrento, which had become fashionable in the summer, and was never very hot and was the prettiest place of all. Something must be decided at once, for she knew her mother well. When the Countess grew restless to leave town, it was impossible to live with her. A startled exclamation interrupted Cecilia's reflections. "My dear! How awful!" "What is it?" asked Cecilia, placidly, expecting her mother to read out some blood-curdling tale of runaway motor cars and mangled nursery maids. "This is too dreadful!" cried the Countess, still buried in the article she had found, and reading on to herself, too much interested to stop a moment. "Is anybody amusing dead?" enquired Cecilia, with calm. "What did you say?" asked the Countess, reaching the end. "This is the most frightful thing I ever heard of! A million of francs--in small sums--extracted on all sorts of pretexts--probably as blackmail--it is perfectly horrible." "Who has extracted a million of francs from whom?" asked Cecilia, quite indifferent. "Guido d'Este, of course! I told you--from the Princess Anatolie----" "Guido?" Cecilia started from her seat. "It is a lie!" she cried, leaning over her mother's shoulder and reading quickly. "It is an infamous lie!" "My dear?" protested the Countess. "They would not dare to print such a thing if it were not true! Poor Guido! Of course, I suppose they take an exaggerated view, but the Princess always gave me to understand that he had large debts. It was a million, you see, just that million they wished us to give for your dowry! Yes, that would have set him straight. But they did not get it! My child, what an escape you have made! Just fancy if you had been already married!" "I do not believe a word of it," said Cecilia, indignantly throwing down the paper she had taken from her mother's hand. "Besides, there is only an initial. It only speaks of a certain Monsieur d'E." "Oh, there is no doubt about it, I am afraid. His aunt, 'a certain Princess,' his father 'one of the great of the earth.' It could not be any one else." "I should like to kill the people who write such things!" Cecilia was righteously angry. The seed sown by Monsieur Leroy was bearing fruit already, and in a much more public place than he had expected, or even wished. The young lawyer cared much less for the money he might make out of the affair than for the advantage of having his name connected with a famous scandal, and he had not found it hard to make the story public. The article appeared in the shape of a letter from an occasional correspondent, and said it was rumoured that since her nephew was to make a rich marriage the Princess would bring suit to recover the sums she had been induced to lend him on divers pretences. Her legal representative in Rome, it was stated, had been interviewed, but had positively refused to give any information, and his name was given in full, whereas all the others were indicated by initials followed by dots. The lawyer flattered himself that this was a remarkably neat way of letting the world know who he was and with what great discretion he was endowed. As Cecilia thought of Guido's face as she had seen it that morning, her heart beat with anger and she clenched her hand and turned away. Her mother believed the story, or a part of it, and others would believe as much. The _Figaro_ had come in the morning, and the article would certainly appear in the Roman papers that very evening. Guido would not hear of it at present, because Lamberti would keep it from him, but he must know it in the end. The girl was powerless, and realised it. If she had been mistress of her own fortune she would readily have satisfied the Princess's demands on Guido, for she suspected that in some way the abominable article had been authorised by his aunt. But she was still Baron Goldbirn's ward, and the sensible financier would have laughed to scorn the idea of ransoming Guido d'Este's reputation. So would her mother, though she was generous; and besides, the Countess could not touch her capital, which was held in trust for Cecilia. "What a mercy that you are not married to him!" she said, reading the article again, while her daughter walked up and down the small boudoir. "You should not say such things!" Cecilia answered hotly. "Why do you read that disgusting paper? You know the story is a vile falsehood, from beginning to end. You know that as well as I do! Signor Lamberti will go to Paris to-night and kill the man who wrote it." Her eyes flashed, and she had visions of the man she loved shaking a miserable creature to death, as a terrier kills a rat. Oddly enough the miserable creature took the shape of Monsieur Leroy in her vivid imagination. "Monsieur Leroy is at the bottom of this," she said with instant conviction. "He hates Guido." "I daresay," answered the Countess. "I never liked Monsieur Leroy. Do you remember, when I asked about him at the Princess's dinner, what an awful silence there was? That was one of the most dreadful moments of my life! I am sure her relations never mention him." "He does what he likes with her. He is a spiritualist." "Who told you that, child?" "That dear old Don Nicola Francesetti, the archæologist who showed us the discoveries in Saint Cecilia's church." "I remember. I had quite forgotten him." "Yes. He told me that Monsieur Leroy makes tables turn and rap, and all that, and persuades the Princess that he is in communication with spirits. Don Nicola said quite gravely that the devil was in all spiritualism." "Of course he is," assented the Countess. "I have heard of dreadful things happening to people who made tables turn. They go mad, and all sorts of things." "All sorts of things," in the Countess's mind represented everything she could not remember or would not take the trouble to say. The expression did not always stand grammatically in the sentence, but that was of no importance whatever compared with the convenience of using it in any language she chanced to be speaking. She belonged to a generation in which a woman was considered to have finished her education when she had learned to play the piano and had forgotten arithmetic, and she had now forgotten both, which did not prevent her from being generally liked, while some people thought her amusing. Just at that moment she seemed hopelessly frivolous to Cecilia, who was in the greatest distress for Guido, and left her to take refuge in solitude. She could remember no day in her life on which so much had happened to change it, and she felt that she must be alone at last. In her old way she sat down to let herself dream with open eyes in the darkened room. There could be no harm in it now, and the old longing came upon her as if she had never tried to resist it. She sat facing the shadows and concentrated all her thoughts on one point with a steady effort, sure that presently she should be thinking of nothing and waiting for the vision to appear, and for the dream-man she had loved so long. He might take her into his arms now, and she would not resist him; she would let his lips meet hers, and for one endless instant she would be lifted up in strong and strange delight, as when to-day her veiled cheek had pressed against his for a second--or an hour--she did not know. He might kiss her in dreams now, for in real life he loved her as she loved him, and some day, far off no doubt, when poor Guido was well and strong again, and Lamberti had silenced all the calumnies invented against him, then it would all surely come true indeed. But now she waited long, patiently, in the certainty that she could go back to the marble court and stand by the pillar in the morning light till she felt him coming up behind her. Yet she saw nothing, and her eyes grew weary of watching the shadows, and closed themselves, for it was afternoon, and very hot, and she was tired. She fell into a sweet sleep in her chair, and presently the refreshing breeze that springs up in Rome towards five o'clock in summer blew through the drawn blinds to fan her delicate cheek, and stir the little golden ringlets at her temples. While she slept her face grew sad by slow degrees, and on her lap her hands moved and lay with their palms turned upwards as if she were appealing piteously to some higher power for mercy and help. Shadows darkened softly under her eyes, as she lay thus, and the young lids swelled and trembled; and she, who never shed tears waking, wept silently in her sleep. The bright drops hung by the lashes and broke, trickling down her cheeks, one by one, till they fell sideways upon her bare white neck. Many they were and long they fell, and when they ceased at last, her face was very white and still, as if she were quite dead, and dead of a sorrow that could be consoled only in heaven. She had dreamed that the Vestal's vow was broken at last, and that she was sitting alone at night on the steps of the closed Temple, leaning back against the base of a pillar, watching the stars that slowly ascended out of the east; and she was thinking of what she had been, and that she should never again stand within the holy place to feed the sacred fire with the consecrated wood, and sweep the precious ashes into the mysterious pit beneath the altar. Never again was she to write down the records of the lordly Roman unions that had kept the stock great and pure and the free blood clean from that of slaves for a thousand years. Never might she sit at the feet of the Chief Virgin in the moonlit court, listening to tales of holy Vestals in old time, while the slow water murmured in the channels between one fountain and another. It was all over, all ended, all behind her in the past for ever. Her vow was broken, because her veiled cheek had touched the cheek of a living, breathing man who had laid a strong hand upon her neck and had pressed her close to him, she consenting, and always to consent. She was not to die for it, since it was no mortal sin, but she was no longer a Vestal now, and the Temple and the house of the pure in heart were shut against her henceforth and would not be opened again. She knew that she had passed the threshold for the last time, and that the man she loved would soon come and take her away to another life. After that there would be no fear in the world, since she would always be with him, and he would make her forget all. But he had not come yet, and while she waited her tears flowed quietly and sadly for all that was no more to be hers, but most of all because she had broken a high and solemn promise which had been the foundation of her life. In the old dream, when the Vestals were dismissed from their office each to her own home, she was the most faithful of them all, to the very end. But now she had been the very first to yield, and they had put her out of their midst, sadly and silently, to wait alone in the night for him she loved. So she waited and wept, and the night wind seemed to freeze the salt tears on her face and neck; yet he did not come. Then she heard his step; but she was wakened by the soft sound of the latch bolt of her door in its socket, and she sprang to her feet, straight and white, with a little sharp cry, for the fancied sound had always frightened her as nothing else could. This time she had not turned the key, and the door opened. "Did I startle you, child?" asked her mother's voice, kindly. "I am sorry. Signor Lamberti is in the drawing-room. I think you had better come. He has heard of the article in the _Figaro_, and is reading it now." "I will come in a minute, mother," Cecilia answered, turning her face away. "Let me slip on my frock." "It is only Signor Lamberti," the Countess observed, rather thoughtlessly. "But I will send you Petersen." The door was shut again, and Cecilia heard her mother's tripping footsteps on the glazed tiles in the corridor. She knew that she had blushed quickly, for she had been taken unawares, but the room was darkened and her mother had noticed nothing. She was suddenly aware that her cheeks and her neck were wet, and she remembered what she had dreamt and wondered that her tears should have been real. She had let in more light now and she looked at herself in the glass with curiosity, for she did not remember to have cried since she had been a little girl. The dried tears gave her face a stained and spotted look she did not like, and she made haste to bathe it in cold water. Even the near-sighted Petersen might see something unusual, and she would not let Lamberti guess that she had been crying on that day of all days. It was all very strange, and while she dressed she wondered still why the real tears had come, and why she had dreamt she had broken her vow. She had never dreamt that before, not even when she used to meet Lamberti in her dreams by the fountain in the Villa Madama. It was stranger still that she should not have been able to call up the waking vision in the old way. It was as if some power she had once possessed had left her very suddenly, a power, or a faculty, or a gift; she could not tell what it was, but it was gone and something told her that it would not return. She made haste, and almost ran along the broad passage. When she went into the drawing-room Lamberti was standing with the _Figaro_ in his hand, before her mother who was sitting down. He bowed rather stiffly, though he smiled a little, and she saw that his blue eyes glittered and his face had the ruthless look she used to dread. She knew what it meant now, and was pleased. She wished she could see him shake the wretch who had written the article; she was glad that he was just what he was, not too tall, strong, active, red-haired and angry, a fighting man from head to foot, roused and ready for a violent deed. She had waited for him so long, outside the closed Temple of Vesta in the cold night wind! "It is not the article that matters," he said, taking it for granted that she knew the contents. "It is what Guido would feel if he read it." "Especially just now," observed the Countess, looking at Cecilia. "What are you going to do?" Cecilia asked as quietly as she could. "Shall you go to Paris?" "No! this was written in Rome. I will wager my life that the lawyer who is mentioned here wrote it all and got some clever Frenchman to translate it for him. I know the fellow by name." "I thought Monsieur Leroy was at the bottom of it," said Cecilia. Lamberti looked at her a moment. "I daresay," he said. "I am sure that the Princess never meant that anything of this sort should be printed. Did Guido ever tell you about her money dealings with him?" Guido had never mentioned them, of course, and Lamberti explained in a few words exactly what had happened, and the nature of the receipts Guido had given to his aunt. "I daresay you are right about Monsieur Leroy," he concluded, "for the old lady is far too clever to have done such an absurd thing as this, and it is just like his blundering hatred of Guido." "I wish he were here," said Cecilia, looking at Lamberti's hands. "I wonder what you would do to him." "The lawyer is here, which is more to the purpose," Lamberti answered. "You cannot fight a lawyer, can you?" asked the young girl. "You cannot shoot him." "One can without doubt," returned Lamberti, smiling. "But it will not be necessary." "My dear child," cried the Countess in a reproachful tone, "I had no idea you could be so bloodthirsty! Your father fought with Garibaldi, but I am sure he never talked like that." "Men have no need of talking, mother. They can fight themselves." "May I take the _Figaro_ with me?" asked Lamberti. "I may not be able to buy a copy. By the bye, Baron Goldbirn is your guardian, is he not? He must have important relations with the financiers in Paris." Cecilia looked at her mother, meaning her to answer the question. "He is always in Paris himself," said the Countess. "I mean when he is not in Vienna." "Can you telegraph to him to use his influence in Paris, so that the _Figaro_ shall correct the article? Newspapers never take back what they say, but it will be enough if a paragraph appears in a prominent part of the paper stating that some ill-disposed people having supposed that the person referred to in a recent letter from a Roman correspondent was Guido d'Este, the editors take the opportunity of stating positively that no reference to him was intended. Will you telegraph that?" "But will it be of any use?" asked the Countess, who was slightly in awe of Baron Goldbirn. "Please write the telegram yourself," Cecilia said. "Then there cannot be any mistake. The address is Kärnthner Ring, Vienna." "You will find writing paper in my boudoir," said the Countess. "Cecilia will show you." The young girl led the way to her mother's table in the next room, and Lamberti sat down before it, while she pulled out a sheet of paper and gave him a pen. Neither looked at the other, and Lamberti wrote slowly in a laboured round hand unlike his own, intended for the telegraph clerk to read easily. "How shall I sign it?" he asked when he had finished. "'Countess Fortiguerra.'" He wrote, blotted the page, and rose. For one moment he stood close beside her. "Shall I tell your mother?" he asked, in a low voice. "Not yet." He bent his head and looked at her, and his face softened wonderfully in that instant. But there was not a touch of their hands, though they were alone in the room, nor a tender word spoken in a whisper to have told any one that they loved each other so well. They were alike, and they understood without speech or touch. Lamberti read the telegram to the Countess, who seemed satisfied, but not very hopeful about the result. "I never could understand what financiers and newspapers have to do with each other," she observed. "They seem to me so different." "There is not often any resemblance between a horse and his rider," said Lamberti, enigmatically. "Will you come this evening and tell us what the lawyer says?" Cecilia asked. "Yes, if I may." "Pray do," said the Countess. "We should so much like to know. Poor Guido! Good-bye!" Lamberti left the room. CHAPTER XXVI When Lamberti reached the Palazzo Farnese at eight o'clock he had all Guido's receipts for the Princess's money in his pocket. He had difficulty in getting the lawyer to see him on business so late in the afternoon, and when he succeeded at last he did not find it easy to carry matters with a high hand; but he had come prepared to go to any length, for he was in no gentle humour, and if he could not get the papers by persuasion, he fully intended to take them by force, though that might be the end of his career as an officer, and might even bring him into court for something very like robbery. The lawyer was obdurate at first. He of course denied all knowledge of the article in the _Figaro_, but he said that he was the Princess's legal representative, that the case had been formally placed in his hands, and that he should use all his professional energy in her interests. "After all," said Lamberti at last, "you have nothing but a few informal bits of writing to base your case upon. They have no legal value." "They are stamped receipts," answered the lawyer. "They are not stamped," Lamberti replied. "They are!" "They are not!" "You are giving me the lie, sir," said the lawyer, angrily. "I say that they are not stamped," retorted Lamberti. "You dare not show them to me." The lawyer was human, after all. He opened his safe, in a rage, found the receipts, and showed one of them to Lamberti triumphantly. "There!" he cried. "Are they stamped or not? Is the signature written across the stamp or not?" Lamberti had the advantage of knowing positively that when Guido had given the acknowledgments to his aunt, there had been no stamps on them. He did not know how they had got them now, but he was sure that some fraud had been committed. It was broad daylight still, and he examined the signature carefully while the lawyer held the half sheet of note paper before his eyes. The paper was certainly the Princess's, and the writing was Guido's beyond doubt. The Princess always used violet ink, and Guido had written with it. It struck Lamberti suddenly that it had turned black where the signature crossed the stamp, but had remained violet everywhere else. Now violet ink sometimes turns black altogether, but it does not change colour in parts. As he looked nearer, he saw that the letters formed on the stamp were a little tremulous. Though he had never heard of such a thing, it now occurred to him that the stamp had been simply stuck upon the middle of the signature, and that the part of the latter that had been covered by it had been cleverly forged over it. "The stamp makes very much less difference in law than you seem to suppose," said the lawyer, enjoying his triumph. "It will make a considerable difference in law," answered Lamberti, "if I prove to you that the stamp was put on over the first writing, and part of the signature forged upon it. It has not even been done with the same ink! The one is black and the other is violet. Do you know that this is forgery, and that you may lose your reputation if you try to found an action at law upon a forged document?" The lawyer was now scrutinising the signatures of the notes one by one in the strong evening light. His anger had disappeared and there were drops of perspiration on his forehead. "There is only one way of proving it to you," Lamberti said quietly. "Moisten one of the stamps and raise it. If the signature runs underneath it in violet ink, I am right, and the wisest thing you can do is to hand me those pieces of paper and say nothing more about them. You can write to Monsieur Leroy that you have done so. I even believe that he would pay a considerable sum for them." It was as he said, and the lawyer was soon convinced that he had been imposed upon, and had narrowly escaped being laughed at as a dupe, or prosecuted as a party accessory to a fraud. He was glad to be out of the whole affair so easily. Therefore, when Lamberti reached his friend's door, he had the receipts in his pocket and he now meant to tell Guido what had happened, after first giving them back to him. Guido would laugh at Monsieur Leroy's stupid attempt to hurt him. But some one had been before Lamberti. "He is very ill," said the servant, gravely, as he admitted him. "The doctor is there and has sent for a nurse. I telephoned for him." Lamberti asked him what had happened, fearing the truth. Guido had felt a little better in the afternoon and had asked for his letters and papers. Half an hour later his servant had gone in with his tea and had found him raving in delirium. That was all, but Lamberti knew what it meant. Guido did not take the _Figaro_, but some one had sent the article to him and he had read it. He had brain fever, and Lamberti was not surprised, for he had suffered as much on that day as would have killed some men, and might have driven some men mad. Lamberti did not wish to frighten Cecilia or her mother, but he sent them word that he would not leave Guido that night, nor till he was better, and that he had seen the lawyer and had recovered a number of forged papers. After that there was nothing to be done but to watch and wait, and hear the broken phrases that fell from the sick man's lips, now high, now low, now laughing, now despairing, as if a host of mad spirits were sporting with his helpless brain and body and mocking each other with his voice. So it went on, hour after hour, and all the next day, till his strength seemed almost spent. Lamberti listened, because he could not help it when he was in the room, and again and again Cecilia's name rang out, and the first passionate words of speeches that ran into incoherent sounds and were drowned in a groan. Lamberti had nursed men who were ill and had seen them die in several ways, but he had never taken care of one who was very near to him. It was bad enough, but it was worse to know that he had an unwilling share in causing his friend's suffering, and to feel that if Guido lived he must some day be told that Lamberti had taken his place. It was strangest of all to hear the name of the woman he loved so constantly on another's lips. When the two men talked of her she had always been "the Contessina," while she had been "Cecilia" in the hearts of both. There was something in the thought of not having told Guido all before the delirium seized him, that still offended Lamberti's scrupulous loyalty. It would be almost horrible if Guido should die without knowing the truth. Somehow, his consent still seemed needful to Lamberti's love, and it seemed so to Cecilia, too, and there was no denying that he was now in danger of his life. If he was to die, there would probably be a lucid hour before death, but what right would his best friend have to embitter those final moments for one who would certainly go out of this world with no hope of the next? Yet, when he was gone at last, would it be no slur on the memory of such true friendship to do what would have hurt him, if he could have known of it? Lamberti was not sure. Like some strong men of rough temperament, he had hidden delicacies of feeling that many a girl would have thought foolish and exaggerated, and they were the more sensitive because they were so secret, and he never suffered outward things to come in contact with them, nor spoke of them, even to Guido. Some people said that Guido was Quixotic, and he was certainly the personification of honour. If the papers Lamberti had safe in his pocket had come into Guido's possession as they had come into Lamberti's own, Guido would have sent them back to Princess Anatolie, quite sure that she had a right to them, whether they were partly forged or not, because he had originally given them to her and nothing could induce him to take them back. The reason why Guido's illness had turned into brain fever was simply that he believed his honourable reputation among men to have been gravely damaged by an article in a newspaper. Honour was his god, his religion, and his rule of life; it was all he had beyond the material world, and it was sacred. He had not that something else, simple but undefinable, and as sensitive as an uncovered nerve, that lay under his friend's rougher character and sturdier heart. Nature would never have chosen him to be one instrument in that mysterious harmony of two sleeping beings which had linked Cecilia and Lamberti in their dreams. It was not the melancholy and intellectual Cassius who trembled before Cæsar's ghost at Philippi; it was rough Brutus, the believer in himself and the man of action. The illness ran its course. While it continued Lamberti went every other day to the Palazzo Massimo and told the two ladies of Guido's state. He and Cecilia looked at each other silently, but she never showed that she wished to be alone with him, and he made no attempt to see her except in her mother's presence. Both felt that Guido was dying, and knew that they had some share in his sufferings. As soon as the Countess learned that the danger was real she gave up all thought of leaving Rome, and there was no discussion about it between her and her daughter. She was worldly and often foolish, but she was not unkind, and she had grown really fond of Guido since the spring. So they waited for the turn of the illness, or for its sudden end, and the days dragged on painfully. Lamberti was as lean as a man trained for a race, and the cords stood out on his throat when he spoke, but nothing seemed to tire him. The good Countess lost her fresh colour and grew listless, but she complained only of the heat and the solitude of Rome in summer, and if she felt any impatience she never showed it. Cecilia was as slender and pale as one of the lilies of the Annunciation, but her eyes were full of light. In the early morning she often used to go with her maid to the distant church of Santa Croce, and late in the afternoons she went for long drives with her mother in the Campagna. Twice Lamberti came to luncheon, and the three were silent and subdued when they were together. Then the news came that Princess Anatolie had died suddenly at her place in Styria, and one of the secretaries of the Austrian embassy, who was obliged to stay in town, came to the Palazzo Massimo the same afternoon and told the Countess some details of the old lady's death. There was certainly something mysterious about it, but no one regretted her translation to a better world, though it put a number of high and mighty persons into mourning for a little while. She died in the drawing-room after dinner, almost with her coffee cup in her hand. It was the heart, of course, said the young secretary. Two or three of her relations were staying in the house, and one of them was the man who had been at her dinner-party given for the engaged couple, and who resembled Guido but was older. The Countess remembered his name very well. It had leaked out that he was exceedingly angry at the article in the _Figaro_ and had said one or two sharp things to the Princess, when Monsieur Leroy had come in unexpectedly, though the Princess had sent him away for a few days. No one knew exactly what followed, but Monsieur Leroy was an insolent person and the Princess's cousin was not patient of impertinence nor of anything like an attack on Guido d'Este. It was said that Monsieur Leroy had left the room hastily and that the other had followed him at once, in a very bad temper, and that the Princess, who thought Monsieur Leroy was going to be badly hurt, if not killed, had died of fright, without uttering a word or a cry. She had always been unaccountably attached to Monsieur Leroy. The secretary glanced at Cecilia, asked for another cup of tea, and discreetly changed the subject, fearing that he had already said a little too much. "I believe Guido may recover, now that she is dead," Lamberti said, when he heard the story. The change in Guido's state came one night about eleven o'clock, when Lamberti and the French nun were standing beside the bed, looking into his face and wondering whether he would open his eyes before he died. He had been lying motionless for many hours, turned a little on one side, and his breathing was very faint. There seemed to be hardly any life left in the wasted body. "I think he will die about midnight," Lamberti whispered to the nurse. The good nun, who thought so too, bent down and spoke gently close to the sick man's ear. She could not bear to let him go out of life without a Christian word, though Lamberti had told her again and again that his friend believed in nothing beyond death. "You are dying," she said, softly and clearly. "Think of God! Try to think of God, Signor d'Este!" That was all she could find to say, for she was a simple soul and not eloquent; but perhaps it might do some good. She knelt down then, by the bedside. "Look!" cried Lamberti in a low voice, bending forwards. Guido had opened his eyes, and they were wide and grave. "Thank you," he said, after a few seconds, faintly but distinctly. "You are very kind. But I am not going to die." The quiet eyes closed, and the mystery of life went on in silence. That was all he had to say. The nun knelt down again and folded her hands, but in less than a minute she rose and busied herself noiselessly, preparing something in a glass. It would be the last time that anything would pass his lips, she thought, and it might be quite useless to give it to him, but it must be ready. Many and many a time she had heard the dying declare quietly that they were out of danger. Lamberti stood motionless by the bedside, thinking much the same things and feeling as if his own heart were slowly turning into lead. He stood there a long time, convinced that it was useless to send for the doctor, who always came about midnight, for Guido would probably be dead before he came. He would stop breathing presently, and that would be the end. The lids would open a little, but the eyes would not see, there would be a little white froth on the parted lips, and that would be the end. Guido would know the great secret then. But the breathing did not cease, and the eyes did not open again; on the contrary, at the end of half an hour Lamberti was almost sure that the lids were more tightly closed than before, and that the breath came and went with a fuller sound. In ten minutes more he was sure that the sick man was peacefully sleeping, and not likely to die that night. He turned away with a deep sigh of relief. The doctor came soon after midnight. He would not disturb Guido; he looked at him a long time and listened to his breathing, and nodded with evident satisfaction. "You may begin to hope now," he said quietly to Lamberti, not even whispering, for he knew how deep such sleep was sure to be. "He may not wake before to-morrow afternoon. Do not be anxious. I will come early in the morning." "Very well," answered Lamberti. "By the bye, a near relation of his has died suddenly while he has been delirious. Shall I tell him if he wakes quite conscious?" "If it will give him great satisfaction to know of his relative's death, tell him of it by all means," answered the doctor, his quiet eye twinkling a little, for he had often heard of the Princess Anatolie, and knew that she was dead. "I do not think the news will cause him pain," said Lamberti, with perfect gravity. The doctor gave the nurse a few directions and went away, evidently convinced that Guido was out of all immediate danger. Then Lamberti rested at last, for the nun slept in the daytime and was fresh for the night's watching. He stretched himself upon Guido's long chair in the drawing-room, leaving the door open, and one light burning, so that the nurse could call him at once. He had earned his rest, and as he shut his eyes his only wish was that he could have let Cecilia know of the change before he went to sleep. A moment later he was sitting beside her on the bench in the Villa Madama, by the fountain, telling her that Guido was safe at last. When he awoke the sun had risen an hour. CHAPTER XXVII "I am like Dante," said Guido to Lamberti, when he was recovering. "I have been in Hell, and now I am in Purgatory. But I shall not reach the earthly Paradise at the top, much less the Heaven beyond." He smiled sadly and looked at his friend. "Who knows?" Lamberti asked, by way of answer. "Beatrice will not lead me further." Guido closed his eyes, and wondered why he had come back to life, out of so much suffering, only to be tormented again in the same way, perhaps when the end really came. His memories of his serious illness were vague and indistinct, but they were all horrible. He only recalled the beginning very clearly, how he had glanced through the newspaper article and had dropped it in sudden and overwhelming despair; and then, how he had roused himself and had felt in the drawer for his revolver; not finding it, he had lost consciousness just as he realised that even that means of escape from life had been taken from him. He remembered having felt as if something broke in his brain, though he knew that he was not dying. After that, fragments of his ravings came back to him with the still vivid recollection of awful pain, of monstrous darkness, of lurid lights, of hideous beings glaring and gnashing their jagged teeth at him, and of a continual discordant noise of voices that had run all through his delirium like the crying out and moaning of many creatures in agony. It was no wonder that he compared what he remembered of his sufferings to hell itself. And now that he was alive, of what use was life to him? His honour was cleared, indeed, for Lamberti had taken care of that. Lamberti had burned the papers before his eyes after telling him how Princess Anatolie had died, and had read him the paragraph which Baron Goldbirn had caused to be inserted in the _Figaro_. The Princess was dead, and Monsieur Leroy would probably never trouble any one again. When he had squandered what she had left him, he would probably get a living as a medium in Vienna. Guido knew the secret of the tie that bound him to the Princess, but was quite sure that the proud old woman had never let him guess it himself, in spite of her doting affection for him. Those of her family who knew it would not tell him, of all people, and if Monsieur Leroy ever begged money of Guido he would not present himself as an unfortunate cousin. Guido foresaw no difficulties in the future, but he anticipated no happiness, and his life stretched before him, colourless, blank, and idle. Since his delirium had ceased, he had not once spoken of Cecilia, and Lamberti began to fear that he would not allude to her for a long time. That did not make it easier to tell him the story he must hear, and the time had come when he must hear it, come what might, lest he should ever think that he had been intentionally kept in ignorance of the truth. Lamberti was glad when he spoke of Cecilia as a Beatrice who would never appear to lead him further, and knew at once that the opportunity must not be lost. It was the hardest moment in Lamberti's life. It had been far easier to hide what he felt, so long as he had not guessed that Cecilia loved him, than it was to speak out now; it had cost him much less to be steadfast in his silence with her while Guido's illness lasted. To make Guido understand all, it would be necessary to tell all from the beginning, even to explaining that what he had taken for mutual aversion at first, had been an attraction so irresistible that it had frightened Cecilia and had made Lamberti compare it with a possession of the devil and a haunting spirit. The two men were sitting on the brick steps of the miniature Roman theatre close to the oak which is still called Tasso's, a few yards from the new road that leads over the Janiculum through what was once the Villa Corsini. It was shady there, and Rome lay at their feet in the still afternoon. The waiting carriage was out of sight, and there was no sound but the rustling of leaves stirred by the summer breeze. It was nearly the middle of August. "They are still in Rome," Lamberti said, after a moment's pause, during which he had decided to speak at last. "Are they?" asked Guido, coldly. "Yes. Neither the Countess nor her daughter would go away till you were well." "I am well now." He was painfully thin and his eyes were hollow. The doctor had ordered mountain air and he was going to stay with one of his relatives in the Austrian Tyrol as soon as he could bear the journey without too much fatigue. "They wish to see you," Lamberti said, glancing sideways at his face. "I cannot refuse, but I would rather not see them. They ought to understand that, I think." He was offended by what seemed very like an intrusion on the privacy of a suffering that was still keen. Why could they not leave him alone? "They would not have gone away in any case till you recovered," Lamberti answered, "but the Contessina would not have the bad taste to wish for a meeting just now, unless there were a reason which you do not know, and which I must explain to you, cost what it may." Guido looked at Lamberti in surprise and then laughed a little scornfully. "Is she going to be married?" he asked. "Perhaps." "Already!" His tone was sad, and pitying, and slightly contemptuous. His lips closed after the single word and he drew his eyelids together, as he looked steadily out over the deep city towards the hills to eastward. "Then it was true that she cared for another man," he said, in a low voice. "Yes. It was quite true." "She wrote me in that letter that he did not know it." "That was true also." "And that he was not in the least in love with her." "She thought so." "But she was mistaken, you mean to say. He loved her, but did not show it." "Precisely. He loved her, but he was careful not to show it because he understood that her mother and the Princess wished to marry her to you, and because he happened to know that you were in earnest." "That was decent of him, at all events," Guido said wearily. "Some men would have behaved differently." "I daresay," Lamberti answered. "Is he a man I know?" "Yes. You know him very well." "And now she has asked you to tell me his name. I suppose that is why you begin this conversation. You are trying to break it gently to me." He smiled contemptuously. "Yes!" The word was spoken as if it cost an effort. Lamberti held his stout stick with both hands over his crossed knee and leaned back, so that it bent a little with the strain. "My dear fellow," said Guido, with a little impatience, "it seems to me that you need not take so much trouble to spare my feelings! If you do not tell me who the man is, some one else will." "No one else can," Lamberti answered, with emphasis. "Why not? I would rather speak of her with you, if I must speak of her at all, of course. But some obliging person is sure to tell me, or write to me about it, as soon as the engagement is announced. 'My dear d'Este, do you remember that girl you were engaged to last spring?' And so on. Remember her!" "There is no engagement," Lamberti said. "No one will write to you about it, and no one knows who the man is, except the Contessina and the man himself." "And you," corrected Guido. "You may as well keep the secret, so far as I am concerned. I have no curiosity about it. There will be time enough to tell me when the engagement is announced." "I do not think that there can be any engagement until you know." "Oh, this is absurd! The Contessina was frank. She did not love me, she told me so, and we agreed that our engagement should end. What possible claim have I to know whom she wishes to marry now?" "You have the strongest claim that any man can have, though not on her. The man is your friend." "Nonsense!" exclaimed Guido, becoming impatient. "A dozen men I like might be called friends of mine, I suppose, but you know very well that you are the only intimate friend I have." "Yes, I know." "Well? I can hardly fancy that you mean yourself, can I?" Lamberti did not move, but as Guido looked at him for an answer, he saw that he could not speak just then, and that he was clenching his teeth. Guido stared at him a moment and then started. "Lamberti!" he cried sharply. Lamberti slowly turned his head and gazed into Guido's eyes without speaking. Then they both looked out at the distant hills in silence for a long time. "The Contessina was very loyal to you, Guido," Lamberti said at last, in a low tone. "She could not tell you that it was I, and I did not know it." Again there was a silence for a time. "When did you know it?" Guido asked slowly. "After she had been to see you. It was my fault, then." "What was your fault?" "When we went downstairs, I thought I should never see her again, and I never meant to. How could I know what she felt? She never betrayed herself by a glance or a tone of her voice. I loved her with all my heart, and when you had both told me that everything was quite over between you, I wanted her to know that I did. Was that disloyal to you, since you had definitely given up the hope of marrying her, and since I did not expect to see her again for years and thought she was quite indifferent?" "No," Guido answered, after a moment's thought. "But you should have told me at once." "When I came upstairs the Countess was still there, and you were quite worn out. I put you to bed, meaning to tell you that same evening, after you had rested. When I came back you had brain fever, and did not know me. So I have had to wait until to-day." "And you have seen each other constantly while I have been ill, of course," said Guido, with some bitterness. "It was natural, I suppose." "Since that day when we spoke on the staircase we have only been alone together once, for a moment. I asked her then if I should tell her mother, and she said 'Not yet.' Excepting that, we have never exchanged a word that you and her mother might not have heard, nor a glance that you might not have seen. We both knew that we were waiting for you to get well, and we have waited." Guido looked at him with a sort of wonder. "That was like you," he said quietly. "You understand, now," Lamberti continued. "You and I met her on the same day at your aunt's, and when I saw her, I felt as if I had always known her and loved her. No one can explain such things. Then by a strange coincidence we dreamt the same dream, on the same night." "Was it she whom you met in the Forum, and who ran away from you?" asked Guido, in astonishment. "Yes. That is the reason why we always avoided each other, and why I would not go to their house till you almost forced me to. We had never spoken alone together till the garden party. It was then that we found out that our dreams were alike, and after that I kept away from her more than ever, but I dreamt of her every night." "So that was your secret, that afternoon!" "Yes. We had dreamt of each other and we had met in the Forum in the place we had dreamt of, and she ran away without speaking to me. That was the whole secret. She was afraid of me, and I loved her, and was beginning to know it. I thought there was something wrong with my head and went to see a doctor. He talked to me about telepathy, but seemed inclined to consider that it might possibly be a mere train of coincidences. I think I have told you everything." For a long time they sat side by side in silence, each thinking his own thoughts. "Is there anything you do not understand?" Lamberti asked at last. "No," Guido answered thoughtfully. "I understand it all. It was rather a shock at first, but I am glad you have told me. Perhaps I do not quite understand why she wishes to see me." "We both wish to be sure that you bear us no ill-will. I am sure she does, and I know that I do." There was a pause again. "Do you think I am that kind of friend?" Guido asked, with a little sadness. "After what you have done, too?" "I am afraid my mere existence has broken up your life, after all," Lamberti answered. "You must not think that. Please do not, my friend. There is only one thing that could hurt me now that it is all over." "What is that?" "I am not afraid that it will happen. You are not the kind of man to break her heart." "No," Lamberti answered very quietly. "I am not." "It was only a dream for me, after all," Guido said, after a little while. "You have the reality. She used to talk of three great questions, and I remember them now as if I heard her asking them: 'What can I know? What is it my duty to do? What may I hope?' Those were the three." "And the answers?" "Nothing, nothing, nothing. Those are my answers. Unless----" He stopped. "Unless--what?" Lamberti asked. Guido smiled a little. "Unless there is really something beyond it all, something essentially true, something absolute by nature." Lamberti had never known his friend to admit such a possibility even under a condition. "At all events," Guido added, "our friendship is true and absolute. Shall we go home? I feel a little tired." Lamberti helped him to the carriage and drew the light cover over his knees before getting in himself. Then they drove down towards the city, by the long and beautiful drive, past the Acqua Paola and San Pietro in Montorio. "You must go and see her this evening," Guido said gently, as they came near the Palazzo Farnese. "Will you tell her something from me? Tell her, please, that it would be a little hard for me to talk with her now, but that she must not think I am not glad that she is going to marry my best friend." "Thank you. I will say that." Lamberti's voice was less steady than Guido's. "And tell her that I will write to her from the Tyrol." "Yes." It was over. The two men knew that their faithful friendship was unshaken still, and that they should meet on the morrow and trust each other more than ever. But on this evening it was better that each should go his own way, the one to his solitude and his thoughts, the other to the happiest hour of his life. CHAPTER XXVIII On the following afternoon Lamberti waited for Cecilia at the Villa Madama, and she came not long after him, with Petersen. He had been to the Palazzo Massimo in the evening, and a glance and a sign had explained to her that all was well. Then they had sat together awhile, talking in a low tone, while the Countess read the newspaper. When Lamberti had given Guido's brave message, they had looked earnestly at each other, and had agreed to tell her mother the truth at once, and to meet on the morrow at the villa, which was Cecilia's own house, after all. For they felt that they must be really alone together, to say the only words that really mattered. The head gardener had admitted Lamberti to the close garden, by the outer steps, but had not let him into the house, as he had received no orders. When Cecilia came, he accompanied her with the keys and opened wide the doors of the great hall. Cecilia and Lamberti did not look at each other while they waited, and when the man was gone away Cecilia told Petersen to sit down in the court of honour on the other side of the little palace. Petersen went meekly away and left the two to themselves. They walked very slowly along the path towards the fountain, and past it, to the parapet at the other end, where they had talked long ago. But as they passed the bench, they glanced at it quietly, and saw that it was still in its place. Cecilia had not been at the villa since the afternoon before Guido fell ill, and Lamberti had never come there since the garden party in May. They stood still before the low wall and looked across the shoulder of the hill. Saving commonplace words at meeting, they had not spoken yet. Cecilia broke the silence at last, looking straight before her, her lids low, her face quiet, almost as if she were in a dream. "Have we done all that we could do, all that we ought to do for him?" she asked. "Are you sure?" "We can do nothing more," Lamberti answered gravely. "Tell me again what he said. I want the very words." "He said, 'Tell her that it would be a little hard for me to talk with her now, but that she must not think I am not glad that she is going to marry my best friend.' He said those words, and he said he would write to you from the Tyrol. He leaves to-morrow night." "He has been very generous," Cecilia said softly. "Yes. He will be your best friend, as he is mine." She knew that it was true. "We have done what we can," Lamberti continued presently. "He has given all he has, and we have given him what we could. The rest is ours." He took her hand and drew her gently, turning back towards the fountain. "It was like this in the dream," she said, scarcely breathing the words as she walked beside him. They stood still before the falling water, quite alone and out of sight of every one, in the softening light, and suddenly the girl's heart beat hard, and the man's face grew pale, and they were facing each other, hands in hands, look in look, thought in thought, soul in soul; and they remembered that day when each had learned the other's secret in the shadowy staircase of the palace, and each dreamt again of a meeting long ago in the House of the Vestals; but only the girl knew what she had felt of mingled joy and regret when she had sat alone at night weeping on the steps of the Temple. There was no veil between them now, as their eyes drew them closer together by slow and delicious degrees. It was the first time, though every instant was full of memories, all ending where this was to begin. Their lips had never met, yet the thrill of life meeting life and the blinding delight of each in the other were long familiar, as from ages, while fresh and untasted still as the bloom on a flower at dawn. Then, when they had kissed once, they sat down in the old place, wondering what words would come, and whether they should ever need words at all after that. And somehow, Cecilia thought of her three questions, and they all were answered as youth answers them, in one way and with one word; and the answer seemed so full of meaning, and of faith and hope and charity, that the questions need never be asked again, nor any others like them, to the end of her life; nor did she believe that she could ever trouble her brain again about _Thus spake Zarathushthra_, and the Man who had killed God, and the overcoming of Pity, and the Eternal Return, and all those terrible and wonderful things that live in Nietzsche's mazy web, waiting to torment and devour the poor human moth that tries to fly upward. But as for Kant's Categorical Imperative, in order to act in such a manner that the reasons for her actions might be considered a universal law, it was only necessary to realise how very much she loved the man she had chosen, and how very much he loved her; for how indeed could it then be possible not to live so as to deserve to be happy? She had thought of these things during the night and had fallen asleep very happy in realising the perfect simplicity of all science, philosophy, and transcendental reasoning, and vaguely wondering why every one could not solve the problems of the universe as she had. "Is it all quite true?" she asked now, with a little fluttering wonder. "Shall I wake and hear the door shutting, and be alone, and frightened as I used to be?" Lamberti smiled. "I should have waked already," he said, "when we were standing there by the fountain. I always did when I dreamt of you." "So did I. Do you think we really met in our dreams?" She blushed faintly. "Do you know that you have not told me once to-day that you care for me, ever so little?" he asked. "I have told you much more than that, a thousand times over, in a thousand ways." "I wonder whether we really met!" MARIETTA A MAID OF VENICE By F. MARION CRAWFORD _Author of "Saracinesca," etc._ Cloth. 12 mo. $1.50 "There are two important departments of the novelist's art in which Marion Crawford is entirely at home. He can tell a love story better than any one now living save the unapproachable George Meredith. And he can describe the artistic temperament and the artistic environment with a security born of infallible instinct."--_The New York Herald._ "This is not the first time that Mr. Crawford's pen has drawn the conscious love of a pure girl for a man whose own heart she believed to be untouched, yet, in the love of Marietta for the Dalmatian, we have something that, while so utterly human, is so delicately revealed that the reader must be a stoic indeed who does not take a delightful interest in the fate of that love."--_New York Times._ "It suggests the bright shimmer of the moon on still waters, the soft gliding of brilliant-hued gondolas, the tuneful voices of the gondoliers keeping rhythmic time to the oar stroke and the faint murmuring of lovers' vows lightly made and lightly broken."--_Richmond Dispatch._ "Furnishes another illustration of the author's remarkable facility in assimilating different atmospheres, and in mastering, in a minute way, as well as sympathetically, very diverse conditions of life.... The plot is intricate, and is handled with the ease and skill of a past-master in the art of story-telling."--_Outlook._ "The workshop, its processes, the ways and thought of the time,--all this is handled in so masterly a manner, not for its own sake, but for that of the story.... It has charm, and the romance which is eternally human, as well as that which was of the Venice of that day. And over it all there is an atmosphere of worldly wisdom, of understanding, sympathy, and tolerance, of intuition and recognition, that makes Marion Crawford the excellent companion he is in his books for mature men and women."--_New York Mail and Express._ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK WRITINGS OF F. MARION CRAWFORD 12 mo. Cloth Corleone $1.00 Casa Braccio. 2 vols 2.00 Taquisara 1.50 Saracinesca 1.00 Sant' Ilario 1.00 Don Orsino 1.50 Mr. Isaacs 1.00 A Cigarette-Maker's Romance, and Khaled 1.50 Marzio's Crucifix 1.00 An American Politician 1.00 Paul Patoff 1.00 To Leeward 1.00 Dr. Claudius 1.50 Zoroaster 1.50 A Tale of a Lonely Parish 1.00 With the Immortals 1.00 The Witch of Prague 1.00 A Roman Singer 1.50 Greifenstein 1.00 Pietro Ghisleri 1.00 Katherine Lauderdale 1.00 The Ralstons 1.00 Children of the King 1.00 The Three Fates 1.00 Adam Johnstone's Son, and A Rose of Yesterday 1.50 Marion Darche 1.50 Love in Idleness 2.00 Via Crucis 1.50 In the Palace of the King 1.50 Ave Roma Immortalis. 2 v. $6.00 net Rulers of the South: Sicily, Calabria, Malta. 2 vols $6.00 net CORLEONE A TALE OF SICILY The last of the famous Saracinesca Series "It is by far the most stirring and dramatic of all the author's Italian stories.... The plot is a masterly one, bringing at almost every page a fresh surprise, keeping the reader in suspense to the very end."--_The Times_, New York. MR. ISAACS "It is lofty and uplifting. It is strongly, sweetly, tenderly written. It is in all respects an uncommon novel."--_The Literary World._ DR. CLAUDIUS "The characters are strongly marked without any suspicion of caricature, and the author's ideas on social and political subjects are often brilliant and always striking. It is no exaggeration to say that there is not a dull page in the book, which is peculiarly adapted for the recreation of the student or thinker."--_Living Church._ A ROMAN SINGER "A powerful story of art and love in Rome."--_The New York Observer._ AN AMERICAN POLITICIAN "One of the characters is a visiting Englishman. Possibly Mr. Crawford's long residence abroad has made him select such a hero as a safeguard against slips, which does not seem to have been needed. His insight into a phase of politics with which he could hardly be expected to be familiar is remarkable."--_Buffalo Express._ TO LEEWARD "It is an admirable tale of Italian life told in a spirited way and far better than most of the fiction current."--_San Francisco Chronicle._ ZOROASTER "As a matter of literary art solely, we doubt if Mr. Crawford has ever before given us better work than the description of Belshazzar's feast with which the story begins, or the death-scene with which it closes."--_The Christian Union_ (now _The Outlook_). A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH "It is a pleasure to have anything so perfect of its kind as this brief and vivid story. It is doubly a success, being full of human sympathy, as well as thoroughly artistic."--_The Critic._ MARZIO'S CRUCIFIX "We take the liberty of saying that this work belongs to the highest department of character-painting in words."--_The Churchman._ PAUL PATOFF "It need scarcely be said that the story is skilfully and picturesquely written, portraying sharply individual characters in well-defined surroundings."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ PIETRO GHISLERI "The strength of the story lies not only in the artistic and highly dramatic working out of the plot, but also in the penetrating analysis and understanding of the impulsive and passionate Italian character."--_Public Opinion._ THE CHILDREN OF THE KING "One of the most artistic and exquisitely finished pieces of work that Crawford has produced. The picturesque setting, Calabria and its surroundings, the beautiful Sorrento and the Gulf of Salerno, with the bewitching accessories that climate, sea, and sky afford, give Mr. Crawford rich opportunities to show his rare descriptive powers. As a whole the book is strong and beautiful through its simplicity."--_Public Opinion._ MARION DARCHE "We are disposed to rank 'Marion Darche' as the best of Mr. Crawford's American stories."--_The Literary World._ KATHERINE LAUDERDALE "It need scarcely be said that the story is skilfully and picturesquely written, portraying sharply individual characters in well-defined surroundings."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ THE RALSTONS "The whole group of character studies is strong and vivid."--_The Literary World._ LOVE IN IDLENESS "The story is told in the author's lightest vein; it is bright and entertaining."--_The Literary World._ CASA BRACCIO "We are grateful when Mr. Crawford keeps to his Italy. The poetry and enchantment of the land are all his own, and 'Casa Braccio' gives promise of being his masterpiece.... He has the life, the beauty, the heart, and the soul of Italy at the tips of his fingers."--_Los Angeles Express._ TAQUISARA "A charming story this is, and one which will certainly be liked by all admirers of Mr. Crawford's work."--_New York Herald._ ADAM JOHNSTONE'S SON and A ROSE OF YESTERDAY "It is not only one of the most enjoyable novels that Mr. Crawford has ever written, but is a novel that will make people think."--_Boston Beacon._ "Don't miss reading Marion Crawford's new novel, 'A Rose of Yesterday.' It is brief, but beautiful and strong. It is as charming a piece of pure idealism as ever came from Mr. Crawford's pen."--_Chicago Tribune._ SARACINESCA "The work has two distinct merits, either of which would serve to make it great: that of telling a perfect story in a perfect way, and of giving a graphic picture of Roman society.... The story is exquisitely told, and is the author's highest achievement, as yet, in the realm of fiction."--_The Boston Traveler._ SANT' ILARIO A SEQUEL TO SARACINESCA "A singularly powerful and beautiful story.... It fulfils every requirement of artistic fiction. It brings out what is most impressive in human action, without owing any of its effectiveness to sensationalism or artifice. It is natural, fluent in evolution, accordant with experience, graphic in description, penetrating in analysis, and absorbing in interest."--_The New York Tribune._ DON ORSINO A SEQUEL TO SARACINESCA AND SANT' ILARIO "Offers exceptional enjoyment in many ways, in the fascinating absorption of good fiction, in the interest of faithful historic accuracy, and in charm of style. The 'New Italy' is strikingly revealed in 'Don Orsino.'"--_Boston Budget._ WITH THE IMMORTALS "The strange central idea of the story could have occurred only to a writer whose mind was very sensitive to the current of modern thought and progress, while its execution, the setting it forth in proper literary clothing, could be successfully attempted only by one whose active literary ability should be fully equalled by his power of assimilative knowledge both literary and scientific, and no less by his courage, and so have a fascination entirely new for the habitual reader of novels. Indeed, Mr. Crawford has succeeded in taking his readers quite above the ordinary plane of novel interest."--_The Boston Advertiser._ GREIFENSTEIN "... Another notable contribution to the literature of the day. Like all Mr. Crawford's work, this novel is crisp, clear, and vigorous, and will be read with a great deal of interest."--_New York Evening Telegram._ A CIGARETTE-MAKER'S ROMANCE and KHALED "It is a touching romance, filled with scenes of great dramatic power."--_Boston Commercial Bulletin._ "It abounds in stirring incidents and barbaric picturesqueness; and the love struggle of the unloved Khaled is manly in its simplicity and noble in its ending."--_The Mail and Express._ THE WITCH OF PRAGUE "The artistic skill with which this extraordinary story is constructed and carried out is admirable and delightful.... Mr. Crawford has scored a decided triumph, for the interest of the tale is sustained throughout.... A very remarkable, powerful, and interesting story."--_New York Tribune._ 
6350	----	[Illustration: "SO GILBERT FIRST MET THE QUEEN"] VIA CRUCIS A Romance of the Second Crusade BY F. MARION CRAWFORD LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "So Gilbert first met the Queen" "Perhaps that is one reason why I like you" "Crosses! Give us Crosses!" Beatrix and Gilbert "He ... held, while earth and sky whirled with him" The Knighting of Gilbert "For a space Gilbert answered nothing" The Way of the Cross CHAPTER I The sun was setting on the fifth day of May, in the year of our Lord's grace eleven hundred and forty-five. In the little garden between the outer wall of the manor and the moat of Stoke Regis Manor, a lady slowly walked along the narrow path between high rose bushes trained upon the masonry, and a low flower-bed, divided into many little squares, planted alternately with flowers and sweet herbs on one side, and bordered with budding violets on the other. From the line where the flowers ended, spiked rushes grew in sharp disorder to the edge of the deep green water in the moat. Beyond the water stretched the close-cropped sward; then came great oak trees, shadowy still in their spring foliage; and then, corn-land and meadow-land, in long, green waves of rising tilth and pasture, as far as a man could see. The sun was setting, and the level rays reddened the lady's golden hair, and fired the softness of her clear blue eyes. She walked with a certain easy undulation, in which there were both strength and grace; and though she could barely have been called young, none would have dared to say that she was past maturity. Features which had been coldly perfect and hard in early youth, and which might grow sharp in old age, were smoothed and rounded in the full fruit-time of life's summer. As the gold deepened in the mellow air, and tinged the lady's hair and eyes, it wrought in her face changes of which she knew nothing. The beauty of a white marble statue suddenly changed to burnished gold might be beauty still, but of different expression and meaning. There is always something devilish in the too great profusion of precious metal--something that suggests greed, spoil, gain, and all that he lives for who strives for wealth; and sometimes, by the mere absence of gold or silver, there is dignity, simplicity, even solemnity. Above the setting sun, tens of thousands of little clouds, as light and fleecy as swan's-down, some dazzling bright, some rosy-coloured, some, far to eastward, already purple, streamed across the pale sky in the mystic figure of a vast wing, as if some great archangel hovered below the horizon, pointing one jewelled pinion to the firmament, the other down and unseen in his low flight. Just above the feathery oak trees, behind which the sun had dipped, long streamers of red and yellow and more imperial purple shot out to right and left. Above the moat's broad water, the quick dark May-flies chased one another, in dashes of straight lines, through the rosy haze, and as the sinking sun shot a last farewell glance between the oak trees on the knoll, the lady stood still and turned her smooth features to the light. There was curiosity in her look, expectation, and some anxiety, but there was no longing. A month, had passed since Raymond Warde had ridden away with his half-dozen squires and servants to do homage to the Empress Maud. Her court was, indeed, little more than a show, and Stephen ruled in wrongful possession of the land; but here and there a sturdy and honest knight was still to be found, who might, perhaps, be brought to do homage for his lands to King Stephen, but who would have felt that he was a traitor, and no true man, had he not rendered the homage of fealty to the unhappy lady who was his rightful sovereign. And one of these was Raymond Warde, whose great-grandfather had ridden with Robert the Devil to Jerusalem, and had been with him when he died in Nicaea; and his grandsire had been in the thick of the press at Hastings, with William of Normandy, wherefore he had received the lands and lordship of Stoke Regis in Hertfordshire; and his name is on Battle Abbey Roll to this day. During ten years Stephen of Blois had reigned over England with varying fortune, alternately victor and vanquished, now holding his great enemy, Robert of Gloucester, a prisoner and hostage, now himself in the Empress's power, loaded with chains and languishing in the keep of Bristol Castle. Yet of late the tide had turned in his favour; and though Gloucester still kept up the show of warfare for his half-sister's sake,--as indeed he fought for her so long as he had breath,--the worst of the civil war was over; the partisans of the Empress had lost faith in her sovereignty, and her cause was but lingering in the shadow of death. The nobles of England had judged Stephen's character from the hour in which King Henry died, and they knew him to be a brave soldier, a desperate fighter, an indulgent man, and a weak ruler. Finding themselves confronted by a usurper who had no great talent to recommend him, nor much political strength behind his brilliant personal courage, their first instinct was to refuse submission to his authority, and to drive him out as an impostor. It was not until they had been chilled and disappointed by the scornful coldness of the Empress Queen's imperious bearing that they saw how much pleasanter it would be to rule Stephen than to serve Maud. Yet Gloucester was powerful, and with his feudal retainers and devoted followers and a handful of loyal independent knights, he was still able to hold Oxford, Gloucester, and the northernmost part of Berkshire for his sister. Now, in the early spring of this present year, the great earl had gone forth, with his followers and a host of masons and labouring men, to build a new castle on the height by Faringdon, where good King Alfred had carved the great white horse by tearing the turf from the gravel hill, for an everlasting record of victory. Broadly and boldly Gloucester had traced the outer wall and bastions, the second wall within that, and the vast fortress which was to be thus trebly protected. The building was to be the work of weeks, not months, and, if it were possible, of days rather than of weeks. The whole was to be a strong outpost for a fresh advance, and neither gold nor labour was to be spared in the execution of the plan. Gloucester pitched his sister's camp and his own tent upon the grassy eminence that faced the castle. Thence he himself directed and commanded, and thence the Empress Maud, sitting beneath the lifted awning of her imperial tent, could see the grey stones rising, course upon course, string upon string, block upon block, at a rate that reminded her of that Eastern trick which she had seen at the Emperor's court, performed by a turbaned juggler from the East, who made a tree grow from the seed to the leafy branch and full ripe fruit while the dazed courtiers who looked on could count fivescore. Thither, as to a general trysting-place, the few loyal knights and barons went up to do homage to their sovereign lady, and to grasp the hand of the bravest and gentlest man who trod English ground; and thither, with the rest, Raymond Warde was gone, with his only son, Gilbert, then but eighteen years of age, whom this chronicle chiefly concerns; and Raymond's wife, the Lady Goda, was left in the manor house of Stoke Regis under the guard of a dozen men-at-arms, mostly stiff-jointed veterans of King Henry's wars, and under the more effectual protection of several hundred sturdy bondsmen and yeomen, devoted, body and soul, to their master and ready to die for his blood or kin. For throughout Hertfordshire and Essex and Kent there dwelt no Norman baron nor any earl who was beloved of his Saxon people as was the Lord of Stoke; wherefore his lady felt herself safe in his absence, though she knew well enough that only a small part of that devotion was for herself. There are people who seem able to go through life, with profit to themselves, if not to others, by a sort of vicarious grace arising out of the devotion wasted on them by their nearest and dearest, and dependent upon the success, the honour, and the reputation of those who cherish them. The Lady Goda set down to her own full credit the faithful attachment which her husband's Saxon swains not only felt for him, but owed him in return for his unchanging kindness and impartial justice; and she took the desert to herself, as such people will, with a whole-souled determination to believe that it was all her due though she knew that she deserved none of it. She had married Raymond Warde without loving him, being ambitious of his name and honours, when his future had seemed brilliant in the days of good King Henry. She had borne him an only son, who worshipped her with a chivalric devotion that was almost childlike in its blindness; but the most that she could feel, in return, was a sort of motherly vanity in his outward being; and this he accepted as love, though it was as far from that as devotion to self is from devotion to another--as greed is far from generosity. She had not been more than sixteen years of age when she had married, being the youngest of many sisters, left almost dowerless when their father had departed on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, from which he had never returned. Raymond Warde had loved her for her beauty, which was real, and for her character, which was entirely the creation of his own imagination; and with the calm, unconscious fatuity which so often underlies the characters of honest and simple men, he had continued throughout his married life to believe that his wife's affection, if neither very deep nor very high, was centred upon himself and upon Gilbert. Any man a whit less true and straightforward would have found out the utter emptiness of such belief within a year. Goda had been bitterly disappointed by the result of her marriage, so far as her real tastes and ambitions were concerned. She had dreamt of a court; she was condemned to the country. She loved gayety; she was relegated to dulness. Moreover the Lord of Stoke was strong rather than attractive, imposing rather than seductive, and he had never dreamed of that small coin of flattery which greedy and dissatisfied natures require at all costs when their real longings are unfed. It is their nature to give little; it is their nature and their delight to ask much, and to take all that is within their reach. So it came to pass that Goda took her husband's loving generosity and her son's devotion as matters foregone and of course, which were her due, and which might stay hunger, though they could not satisfy her vanity's large appetite; and she took, besides, such other things, both good and bad, as she found in her path, especially and notably the heart of Arnold de Curboil, a widowed knight, cousin to that Archbishop of Canterbury who had crowned Stephen king, after swearing allegiance to Maud. This Arnold, who had followed his great cousin in supporting King Stephen's cause, had received for his service broad lands, both farm and forest, in Hertfordshire, bordering upon the hereditary estates of the Wardes; and in the turmoil and chaos of the long civil war, his word, at first without Raymond's knowledge, had more than once saved the latter's little castle from siege and probable destruction. Warde, in his loyalty to the rightful sovereign, had, indeed, rather drawn back from the newcomer's friendship than made advances to win it; but Raymond had yielded in the end to his wife's sarcasms and to his own sense of obligation, as he began to find out how, again and again, in the turning tides of civil strife, his neighbour, though of opposite conviction, served him by protecting his bondsmen, his neat cattle, and his growing crops from pillage and destruction. Raymond did not trace such acts of neighbourly kindness to the day when, hawking with his lady and little Gilbert, then hardly big enough to sit upon a horse, they had been overtaken by a winter storm not far from Arnold's lands, and when Arnold himself, returning from a journey, had bidden them take shelter in a small outlying manor house, where he was to spend the night, and whither his servants had brought his little daughter Beatrix to meet her father. Raymond had accepted the offer for his wife's sake, and the two families had made acquaintance on that evening, by the blazing fire in the little hall. Before supper, the men had talked together with that sort of cheery confidence which exists almost before the first meeting between men who are neighbours and of the same rank, and the Lady Goda had put in a word now and then, as she sat in the high-backed chair, drying the bright blue cloth skirt of her gown before the crackling logs; and meanwhile, too, young Gilbert, who had his mother's hair and his father's deep-set eyes, walked round and round the solemn little dark-faced girl, who sat upon a settle by herself, clad in a green cloth dress which was cut in the fashion for grown-up women, and having two short stiff plaits of black hair hanging down behind the small coverchief that was tied under her fat chin. And as the boy in his scarlet doublet and green cloth hose walked backward and forward, stopping, moving away, then standing still to show off his small hunting-knife, drawing it half out of its sheath, and driving it home again with a smart push of the palm of his hand, the little girl's round black eyes followed all his movements with silent and grave curiosity. She was brotherless, he had no sisters, and both had been brought up without companions, so that each was an absolute novelty to the other; and when Gilbert threw his round cap, spinning on itself, up to the brown rafters of the dim fire-lit chamber and caught it upon one finger as it came down again, the little Beatrix laughed aloud. This seemed to him nothing less than an invitation, and he immediately sat down beside her on the settle, holding his cap in his hand, and began to ask her how she was called, and whether she lived in that place all the year round; and before long they were good friends, and were talking of plovers' eggs and kingfishers' nests, and of the time when they should each have a hawk of their own, and a horse, and each a hound and a footman. When supper was over and a serving-woman had taken the little Beatrix away to sleep in the women's upper chamber, and when the steward of the manor farm, and his wife and the retainers and servants, who had eaten and drunk their fill at the lower end of the hall, were all gone to their quarters in the outbuildings,--and when a bed had been made for Gilbert, in a corner near the great chimney-piece, by filling with fresh straw a large linen sack which was laid upon the chest in which the bag was kept during the daytime, and was then covered with a fine Holland sheet and two thick woollen blankets, under which the boy was asleep in five minutes,--then the two knights and the lady were left to themselves in their great carved chairs before the fire. But the Lord of Stoke, who was a strong man and heavy, and had eaten well and had drunk both ale and Gascony wine at supper, stretched out his feet to the fire-dogs, and rested his elbows upon the arms of his chair, and matched his hands together by the thumbs and by the forefingers, and by the other fingers, one by one; and little by little the musical, false voice of his lady, and the singularly gentle and unctuous tones of his host, Arnold de Curboil, blended together and lost themselves, just as the gates of dreamland softly closed behind him. The Lady Goda, who had been far too tired to think of riding home that night, was not in the least sleepy, and, moreover, she was profoundly interested in what Sir Arnold had to say, while he was much too witty to say anything which should not interest her. He talked of the court, and of the fashions, and of great people whom he knew intimately and whom the Lady Goda longed to know; and from time to time he managed to convey to her the idea that the beauties of King Stephen's court would stand in a poor comparison with her, if her husband could be induced to give up his old-fashioned prejudices and his allegiance to the Empress Maud. Lady Goda had once been presented to the Empress, who had paid very little attention to her, compared with the interest she showed in Sir Raymond himself. At the feast which had followed the formal audience, she had been placed between a stout German widow lady and an Italian abbot from Normandy, who had talked to each other across her, in dog-Latin, in a way which had seemed to her very unmannerly; and the German lady had eaten pieces of game-pie with her knife, instead of using her fingers, as a lady should, before forks were invented. On the following morning the Lady Goda had been taken away again by her husband, and her experiences of court life had been brought to an abrupt close. If the great Earl Robert of Gloucester had deigned to bestow a word upon her, instead of looking through her with his beautiful calm blue eyes at an imaginary landscape beyond, her impressions of life at the Empress's court might have been very different, and she might ever afterwards have approved her husband's loyalty. But although she had bestowed unusual pains upon the arrangement of her splendid golden hair, and had boxed the ears of a clumsy tirewoman with so much vivacity that her own hand ached perceptibly three hours afterwards, yet the great earl paid no more attention to her than if she had been a Saxon dairy-maid. These things, combined with the fact that she unexpectedly found the ladies of the Empress's court wearing pocket sleeves, shaped like overgrown mandolins, and almost dragging on the rushes as they walked, whereas her own were of the old-fashioned open cut, had filled her soul with bitterness against the legitimate heir to King Henry's throne and had made the one-sided barrier between herself and her husband--which she could see so plainly, but which was quite invisible to him--finally and utterly impassable. He not only bored her himself, but he had given her over to be bored by others, and from that day no such thing as even the mildest affection for him was to be thought of on her side. It was no wonder that she listened with breathless interest to all Sir Arnold told her, and watched with delight the changing expression of his smooth face, contrasted at every point with the bold, grave features of the Lord of Stoke, solemnly asleep beside her. And Curboil, on his side, was not only flattered, as every man is when a beautiful woman listens to him long and intently, but he saw also that her beauty was of an unusual and very striking kind. Too straight, too cold, too much like marble, yet with hair almost too golden and a mouth like a small red wound; too much of every quality to be natural, and yet without fault or flaw, and too vivid not to delight the tired taste of the man of pleasure of that day, who had seen the world from London to Rome and from Rome to the imperial court of Henry the Fifth. And she, on her side, saw in him the type to which she would naturally have been attracted had she been perfectly free to make her choice of a husband. Contrasted with the man of action, of few words, of few feelings and strong ones, she saw the many-sided man of the world, whose mere versatility was a charm, and the thought of whose manifold experiences had in it a sort of mysterious fascination. Arnold de Curboil was above all a man of tact and light touch, accustomed to the society of women and skilled in the art of appealing to that unsatisfied vanity which is the basis of most imperfect feminine characters. There was nothing weak about him, and he was at least as brave as most men, besides being more skilful than the majority in the use of weapons. His small, well-shaped, olive-tinted hand could drive a sword with a quicker thrust than Raymond Warde's, and with as sure an aim, though there might not be the same massive strength behind it. In the saddle he had not the terrible grip of the knee which could make a strong horse shrink and quiver and groan aloud; but few riders of his day were more profoundly skilled in the art of showing a poor mount to good advantage, and of teaching a good one to use his own powers to the utmost. When Warde had ridden a horse six months, the beast was generally gone in the fore quarters, and broken-winded, if not dead outright; but in the same time Curboil would have ridden the same horse twice as far, and would have doubled his value. And so in many other ways, with equal chances, the one seemed to squander where the other turned everything to his own advantage. Standing Sir Arnold was scarcely of medium height, but seated, he was not noticeably small; and, like many men of short stature, he bestowed a constant and thoughtful care upon his person and appearance, which resulted in a sort of permanent compensation. His dark beard was cut to a point, and so carefully trimmed as to remind one of those smoothly clipped trees representing peacocks and dragons, which have been the delight of the Italian gardener ever since the days of Pliny. He wore his hair neither long nor short, but the silky locks were carefully parted in the middle and smoothed back in rich dark waves. There was something almost irritating in their unnatural smoothness, in the perfect transparency of the man's healthy olive complexion, in the mouselike sleekness of his long arching eyebrows, and in the perfect self-satisfaction and confidence of his rather insolent reddish-brown eyes. His straight round throat, well proportioned, well set upon his shoulders, and transparently smooth as his own forehead, was thrown into relief by the exquisite gold embroidery that edged the shirt of finest Flemish linen. He wore a close-fitting tunic of fine scarlet cloth, with tight sleeves slightly turned back to display his shapely wrists; it was gathered to his waist by a splendid sword-belt, made of linked and enamelled plates of silver, the work of a skilled Byzantine artist, each plate representing in rich colours a little scene from the life and passion of Christ. The straight cross-hilted sword stood leaning against the wall near the great chimney-piece, but the dagger was still at the belt, a marvel of workmanship, a wonder of temper, a triumph of Eastern art, when almost all art was Eastern. The hilt of solid gold, eight-sided and notched, was cross-chiselled in a delicate but deep design, picked out with rough gems, set with cunning irregularity; the guard, a hollowed disk of steel, graven and inlaid in gold with Kufic characters; the blade, as long as a man's arm from the elbow to the wrist-joint, forged of steel and silver by a smith of Damascus, well balanced, slender, with deep blood-channels scored on each side to within four fingers of the thrice-hardened point, that could prick as delicately as a needle or pierce fine mail like a spike driven by a sledge-hammer. The tunic fell in folds to the knee, and the close-fitted cloth hose were of a rich dark brown. Sir Arnold wore short riding-boots of dark purple leather, having the tops worked round with a fine scarlet lacing; but the spur-leathers were of the same colour as the boot and the spurs themselves of steel, small, sharp, unornamented, and workmanlike. Six years had passed since that evening, and still, when the Lady Goda closed her eyes and thought of Sir Arnold, she saw him as she had seen him then, with every line of his expression, every detail of his dress, sitting beside her in the warm firelight, leaning forward a little in his chair, and talking to her in a tone of voice that was meant to be monotonous to the sleeper's ear, but not by any means to her own. Between Warde and Curboil the acquaintance had matured--had been in a measure forced in its growth by circumstances and mutual obligations; but it had never ripened into the confidence of friendship on Warde's side, while on Sir Arnold's it had been but a well-played comedy to hide his rising hatred for the Lady Goda's husband. And she, on her side, played her part as well. An alliance in which ambition had held the place of heart could not remain an alliance at all when ambition had been altogether disappointed. She hated her husband for having disappointed her; she despised him for having made nothing of his many gifts and chances, for clinging to an old cause, for being old-fashioned, for having seen much and taken nothing--which makes 'rich eyes and poor hands'--for being slow, good-natured, kind-hearted, and a prey to all who wished to get anything from him. She reflected with bitterness that for a matter of seven or eight years of waiting, and a turn of chance which would have meant happiness instead of misery, she might have had the widowed Sir Arnold for a husband and have been the Archbishop of Canterbury's cousin, high in favour with the winning side in the civil war and united to a man who would have known how to flatter her cold nature into a fiction of feeling, instead of wasting on her the almost exaggerated respect with which a noble passion envelops its object, but which, to most women, becomes in the end unspeakably wearisome. Many a time during those six years had she and Sir Arnold met and talked as on the first night. Once, when the Empress Maud had taken King Stephen prisoner, and things looked ill for his followers, Warde had insisted that his neighbour should come over to Stoke Regis, as being a safer place than his own castle; and once again, when Stephen had the upper hand, and Sir Raymond was fighting desperately under Gloucester, his wife had taken her son, and the priest, and some of her women, and had ridden over to ask protection of Sir Arnold, leaving the manor to take care of itself. At first Curboil had constantly professed admiration for Warde's mental and physical gifts; but little by little, tactfully feeling his distance, he had made the lady meet his real intention half way by confiding to him all that she suffered, or fancied that she suffered--which with some women is the same thing--in being bound for life to a man who had failed to give her what her ambition craved. Then, one day, the key-word had been spoken. After that, they never ceased to hope that Raymond Warde might come to an untimely end. During these years Gilbert had grown from a boy to a man, unsuspicious, worshipping his mother as a kind of superior being, but loving his father with all that profound instinct of mutual understanding which makes both love and hatred terrible within the closer degrees of consanguinity. As time went by and the little Beatrix grew tall and straight and pale, Gilbert loved her quite naturally, as she loved him--two young people of one class, without other companions, and very often brought together for days at a time in the isolated existence of mediaeval castles. Perhaps Gilbert never realized just how much of his affection for his mother was the result of her willingness to let him fall in love with Beatrix. But the possibility of discussing the marriage was another excuse for those long conversations with Sir Arnold, which had now become a necessary part of Goda's life, and it made the frequent visits and meetings in the hawking season seem quite natural to the unsuspecting Sir Raymond. In hunting with Sir Arnold, he had more than one narrow escape. Once, when almost at close quarters with an old boar, he was stooping down to meet the tusker with a low thrust. His wife and Sir Arnold were some twenty paces behind him, and all three had become separated from the huntsmen. Seeing the position and the solitude, the Lady Goda turned her meaning eyes to her companion. An instant later Sir Arnold's boar-spear flew like a cloth-yard arrow, straight at Sir Raymond's back. But in that very instant, too, as the boar rushed upon him, Warde sprang to one side, and, almost dropping to his knee, ran the wild beast through with his hunting sword. The spear flew harmless over his head, unseen and unheard, and lost itself in the dead leaves twenty yards beyond him. On another day, Raymond, riding along, hawk on wrist, ten lengths before the others, as was his wont, did not notice that they gradually fell behind, until he halted in a narrow path of the forest, looked round, and found himself alone. He turned his horse's head and rode back a few yards, when suddenly three masked men, whom he took for robbers, sprang up in his path and fell upon him with long knives. But they had misreckoned their distance by a single yard, and their time by one second, and when they were near enough to strike, his sword was already in his hand. The first man fell dead; the second turned and fled, with a deep flesh wound in his shoulder; the third followed without striking a blow; and Sir Raymond rode on unhurt, meditating upon the uncertainty of the times. When he rejoined his wife and friend, he found them dismounted and sitting side by side on a fallen tree, talking low and earnestly, while the footmen and falconers were gathered together in a little knot at some distance. As they heard his voice, Goda started with a little cry, and Arnold's dark face turned white; but by the time he was beside them, they were calm again, and smiled, and they asked him whether he had lost his way. Raymond said nothing of what had happened to him, fearing to startle the delicate nerves of his lady; but late on the following night, when Sir Arnold was alone in his bedchamber, a man ghastly white from loss of blood lifted the heavy curtain and told his story in a low voice. CHAPTER II Now Raymond and his son had gone over into Berkshire, to the building of the great castle at Faringdon, as has been said; and for a while Sir Arnold remained in his hold, and very often he rode over alone to Stoke, and spent many hours with the Lady Goda, both in the hall and in the small garden by the moat. The priest, and the steward, and the men-at-arms, and the porter, were all used to see him there often enough, when Sir Raymond was at home, and they thought no evil because he came now to bear the lonely lady company; for the manners of those days were simple. But on a morning at the end of April, there came a messenger from King Stephen, bidding all earls, barons, bannerets, and knights, upon their oath of fealty, join him with their fighting men in Oxford. For form's sake, the messenger came to Stoke Regis, as not admitting that any Norman knight should not be on the king's side; and the drawbridge being down, he rode under the gateway, and when the trumpeter who was with him had blown three blasts, he delivered his message. Then the steward, bowing deeply, answered that his lord was absent on a journey; and the messenger turned and rode away, without bite or sup. But, riding on to Stortford Castle, he found Sir Arnold, and delivered the king's bidding with more effect, and was hospitably treated with meat and drink. Sir Arnold armed himself slowly in full mail, saving his head, for the weather was strangely warm, and he would ride in his hat rather than wear the heavy steel cap with the broad nose-guard. Before an hour had passed he was mounted, with his men, and his footmen were marching before and behind him on the broad Hertford road. But he had sent a messenger secretly to the Lady Goda, to tell her that he was gone; and after that she heard nothing for many days. In the morning, and after dinner, and before sunset, she came every day to the little garden under the west wall of the manor, and looked long toward the road--not that she wished Sir Raymond back, nor that she cared when Gilbert came, but she well knew that the return of either would mean that the fighting was over, and that Sir Arnold, too, would be at leisure to go home. On that fifth of May, as the sun was going down, she stood still and looked out toward the road for the tenth time since Curboil had gone to join the king. The sun sank lower, and still she saw nothing; and she felt the chill of the damp evening air, and would have turned to go in, but something held her. Far up the road, on the brow of the rising ground, she saw a tiny spark, a little dancing flame like the corpse-candles that run along the graves on a summer's night--first one, then all at once three, then, as it seemed to her, a score at least, swaying a little above a compact dark mass against the red sky. The lights were like little stars rising and falling on the horizon, and always just above a low, black cloud. A moment more, and the evening breeze out of the west brought a long-drawn harmony of chanting to the Lady Goda's ear, the high sweet notes of youthful voices sustained by the rich counterpoint of many grown men's tones. She started, and held her breath, shivered a little, and snatched at the rose bush beside her, so that the thorns struck through the soft green gauntlet and pricked her, though she felt nothing. There was death in the air; there was death in the moving lights; there was death in the minor wail of the monks' voices. In the first moment of imperfect understanding, it was Arnold whom they were bringing home to her, slain in battle by her lawful husband, or by Gilbert, her son; it was Arnold whom they were bringing back to her who loved him, that she might wash his wounds with her tears, and dry his damp brow with her glorious hair. Wide-eyed and silent, as the train came near, she moved along by the moat to meet the procession at the drawbridge, not understanding yet, but not letting one movement of the men, one flicker of the lights, one quaver of the deep chant, escape her reeling senses. Then all at once she was aware that Gilbert walked bareheaded before the bier, half wrapped in a long black cloak that swept the greensward behind him. As she turned the last bastion before reaching the drawbridge, the funeral was moving along by the outer edge of the moat, and between the procession and her there was only the broad water, reflecting the lights of the moving tapers, the dark cowls of the monks, the white surplices of the song-boys. They moved slowly, and she, as in a dream, followed them on the other side with little steps, wondering, fearing, starting now with a wild thrill of liberty at last, now struggling with a half conventional, half hysterical sob that rose in her throat at the thought of death so near. She had lived with him, she had played the long comedy of love with him, she had loathed him in her heart, she had smiled at him with well-trained eyes; and now she was free to choose, free to love, free to be Arnold's wife. And yet she had lived with the dead man; and in the far-off past there were little tender lights of happiness, half real, half played, but never forgotten, upon which she had once taught her thoughts to dwell tenderly and sadly. She had loved the dead man in the first days of marriage, as well as her cold and unawakened nature could love at all--if not for himself, at least for the hopes of vanity built on his name. She had hated him in secret, but she could not have hated him so heartily had there not once been a little love to turn so fiercely sour. She could not have trained her eyes to smile at him so gently had she not once smiled for his own sake. And so, when they brought him dead to the gate of his own house, his wife had still some shreds of memories for weeds to eke out a show of sorrow. She passed through the postern in the small round tower beside the gateway, knowing that when she came out under the portcullis, the funeral train would be just reaching the other end of the bridge. The little vaulted room in the lower story of the tower was not four steps in width across, from door to door; but it was almost dark, and there the Lady Goda stopped one moment before she went out to meet the mourners. Standing still in the dimness, she pressed her gloved hands to her eyes with all her might, as though to concentrate her thoughts and her strength. Then she threw back her arms, and looked up through the gloom, and almost laughed; and she felt something just below her heart that stifled her like a great joy. Then all at once she was calm, and touched her eyes again with her gloved hands, but gently now, as though smoothing them and preparing them to look upon what they must see presently. She opened the little door, and was suddenly standing in the midst of the frightened herd of retainers and servants, while the last strains of the dirge came echoing under the deep archway. At that instant another sound startled the air--the deep bell-note of the great bloodhounds, chained in the courtyard from sunrise to sunset; and it sank to a wail, and the wail broke to a howl, dismal, ear-rending, wild. Before it had died away, one of the Saxon bondwomen shrieked aloud, and the next took up the cry, and then another, as a likewake dirge, till every stone in the shadowy manor seemed to have a voice, and every voice was weeping for the dead lord. And many of the women fell upon their knees, and some of the men, too, while others drew up their hoods, and stood with bent heads and folded hands against the rough walls. Slowly and solemnly they bore him in and set the bier down under the mid-arch. Then Gilbert Warde looked up and faced his mother; but he stood aside, that she might see her husband; and the monks and song-boys stood back also, with their wax torches, which cast a dancing glare through the dim twilight. Gilbert's face was white and stern; but the Lady Goda was pale, too, and her heart fluttered, for she had to play the last act of her married life before many who would watch her narrowly. For one moment she hesitated whether to scream or to faint in honour of her dead husband. Then, with the instinct of the born and perfect actress, she looked wildly from her son's face to the straight, still length that lay beneath the pall. She raised one hand to her forehead, pressing back her golden hair with a gesture half mad, half dazed, then seemed to stagger forward two steps, and fell upon the body, in a storm of tears. Gilbert went to the bier, and lifted one of his mother's gloved hands from the covered face, and it dropped from his fingers as if lifeless. He lifted the black cloth pall, and turned it back as far as he could without disturbing the woman's prostrate figure; and there lay the Lord of Stoke, in his mail, as he had fallen in fight, in his peaked steel helmet, the straight, fine, ring-mail close-drawn round his face and chin, the silky brown hair looking terribly alive against the dead face. But across the eyes and the forehead below the helmet there was laid a straight black band, and upon his breast the great mailed hands clasped the cross-hilted sword that lay lengthwise with his body. Gilbert, bareheaded and unarmed, gazed down into his father's face for a while, then suddenly looked up and spoke to all the people who thronged the gateway. "Men of Stoke," he said, "here lies the body of Sir Raymond Warde, your liege lord, my father. He fell in the fight before Faringdon Castle, and this is the third day since he was slain; for the way was long, and we were not suffered to pass unmolested. The castle was but half built, and we were encamped about it with the Earl of Gloucester, when the king came suddenly from Oxford with a great host; and they fell upon us unawares at early morning, when we had but just heard the mass and most of us were but half armed, or not at all. So we fought as we could, and many fell, and not a few we killed with our hands. And I, with a helmet on my head and a gambison but half buckled upon my body, and my hands bare, was fighting with a full-armed Frenchman and was hard pressed. But I smote him in the neck, so that he fell upon one knee and reeled. And even in that moment I saw this sight. A score of paces from me, my father and Sir Arnold de Curboil met face to face, suddenly and without warning, their swords lifted in the act to strike; but when my father saw his friend before him, he dropped his sword-arm and smiled, and would have turned away to fight another; but Sir Arnold smiled also, and lowered not his hand, but smote my father by the point, unguarded, and thrust his sword through head and hood of mail at one stroke, treacherously. And so my father, your liege lord, fell dead unshriven, by his friend's hand; and may the curse of man and the damnation of Almighty God be upon his murderer's head, now and after I shall have killed him. For, as I would have sprung forward, the Frenchman, who was but stunned, sprang to his feet and grappled with me; and by the time he had no breath left, and the light broke in his eyes, Sir Arnold was gone, and our fight was lost. So we made a truce to bury our dead, and brought them away, each his own." When he had spoken there was silence for many moments, broken only by the Lady Goda's unceasing sobs. In the court within, and on the bridge without, the air grew purple, and dark, and misty; for the sun had long gone down, and the light from the wax torches, leaping, flaming and flickering in the evening breeze, grew stronger and yellower under the gateway than the twilight without. The dark-robed monks looked gravely on, waiting till they should be told to pass into the chapel--men of all ages and looks, red and pale, thin and stout, dark and fair, but all having that something in their faces that marks the churchman from century to century. Between them and the dead knight, Gilbert stood still with bent head and downcast eyes, with pale face and set lips, looking at his mother's bright hair, and at her clutching hands, and listening to the painfully drawn breath, broken continually by her agonized weeping. Suddenly the bloodhounds' bay broke out again, fierce and deep; and on the instant a high young voice rang from the court through the deep arch. "Burn the murderer! To Stortford, and burn him out!" Gilbert looked up quickly, peering into the gloom whence the voice had spoken. He did not see how, at the words, his mother started back from the corpse, steadied herself with one hand, and fixed her eyes in the same direction; but before he could answer, the cry was taken up by a hundred throats. "Burn the traitor! burn the murderer! To Stortford! Fagots! Fagots and pitch!" High, low, hoarse, clear, the words followed one another in savage yells; and here and there among the rough men there were eyes that gleamed in the dark like a dog's. Then through the din came a rattling of bolts and a creaking of hinges, as the grooms tore open the stable doors to bring out the horses and saddle them for the raid; and one called for a light and another warned men from his horse's heels. The Lady Goda was on her feet, her hands stretched out imploringly to her son, turning to him instinctively and for the first time, as to the head of the house. She spoke to him, too; but he neither heard nor saw, for in his own heart a new horror had possession, beside which what had gone before was as nothing. He thought of Beatrix. "Hold!" he cried. "Let no man stir, for no man shall pass out who would burn Stortford. Sir Arnold de Curboil is the king's man, and the king has the power in England; so that if we should burn down Stortford Castle to-night, he would burn Stoke Manor to-morrow over my mother's head. Between Arnold de Curboil and me there is death. To-morrow I shall ride out to find him, and kill him in fair fight. But let there be no raiding, no harrying, and no burning, as if we were Stephen's French robbers, or King David's red-haired Scots. Take up the bier; and you," he said, turning to the monks and song-men, "take up your chant, that we may lay him in the chapel and say prayers for his unshriven soul." The Lady Goda's left hand had been pressed to her heart as though she were in fear and pain; but as her son spoke, it fell by her side, and her face grew calm before she remembered that it should grow sad. Until to-day her son had been in her eyes but a child, subject to his father, subject to herself, subject to the old manor-priest who had taught him the little he knew. Now, on a sudden, he was full-grown and strong; more than that, he was master in his father's place, and at a word from him, men-at-arms and bondsmen would have gone forth on the instant to slay the man she loved, and to burn and to harry all that was his. She was grateful to him for not having spoken that word; and since Gilbert meant to meet Curboil in a single combat, she felt no fear for her lover, the most skilled man at fence in all Essex and Hertfordshire, and she felt sure, likewise, that for his reputation as a knight he would not kill a youth but half his age. While she was thinking of these things, the monks had begun to chant again; the confusion was ended in the courtyard; the squires took up the bier, and the procession moved slowly across the broad paved space to the chapel opposite the main gate. An hour later Sir Raymond's dead body lay before the altar, whereon burned many waxen tapers. Alone, upon the lowest step, Gilbert was kneeling, with joined hands and uplifted eyes, motionless as a statue. He had taken the long sword from the dead man's breast, and had set it up against the altar, straight and bare. It was hacked at the edges, and there were dark stains upon it from its master's last day's work. In the simple faith of a bloody age, Gilbert Warde was vowing, by all that he and his held sacred, before God's altar, upon God's Sacred Body, upon his father's unburied corpse, that before the blade should be polished again, it should be black with the blood of his father's murderer. And as he knelt there, his lady mother, now clad all in black, entered the chapel and moved slowly towards the altar-steps. She meant to kneel beside her son; but when she was yet three paces from him, a great terror at her own falseness descended into her heart, and she sank upon her knees in the aisle. CHAPTER III Very early in the morning, Gilbert Warde was riding along the straight road between Sheering Abbey and Stortford Castle. He rode in his tunic and hose and russet boots, with his father's sword by his side; for he meant not to do murder, but to fight his enemy to death, in all the honour of even chance. He judged that Sir Arnold must have returned from Faringdon; and if Gilbert met him now, riding over his own lands in the May morning, he would be unmailed and unsuspecting of attack. And should they not meet, Gilbert meant to ride up to the castle gate, and ask for the baron, and courteously propose to him that they should ride together into the wood. And, indeed, Gilbert hoped that it might turn out so; for, once under the gateway, he might hope to see Beatrix for a moment; and two weeks had passed, and terrible things had happened, since he had last set eyes upon her face. He met no one in the road; but in the meadow before the castle half a dozen Saxon grooms, in loose hose and short homespun tunics, were exercising some of Curboil's great Normandy horses. The baron himself was not in sight, and the grooms told Gilbert that he was within. The drawbridge was down, and Gilbert halted just before entering the gate, calling loudly for the porter. But instead of the latter, Sir Arnold himself appeared at that moment within the courtyard, feeding a brace of huge mastiffs with gobbets of red raw meat from a wooden bowl, carried by a bare-legged stable-boy with a shock of almost colourless flaxen hair, and a round, red face, pierced by two little round blue eyes. Gilbert called again, and the knight instantly turned and came towards him, beating down with his hands the huge dogs that sprang up at him in play and seemed trying to drive him back. Sir Arnold was smooth, spotless and carefully dressed as ever, and came forward with a well-composed smile in which hospitality was skilfully blended with sympathy and concern. Gilbert, who was as thorough a Norman in every instinct and thought as any whose fathers had held lands from the Conqueror, did his best to be suave and courteous on his side. Dismounting, he said quietly that he desired to speak with Sir Arnold alone upon a matter of weight, and as the day was fair, he proposed that they should ride together for a little way into the greenwood. Sir Arnold barely showed a slight surprise, and readily assented. Gilbert, intent upon his purpose, noticed that the knight had no weapon. "It were as well that you took your sword with you, Sir Arnold," he said, somewhat emphatically. "No one is safe from highwaymen in these times." The knight met Gilbert's eyes, and the two looked at each other steadily for a moment; then Curboil sent the stable-boy to fetch his sword from the hall, and himself went out upon the drawbridge and called to one of the grooms to bring in a horse. In less than half an hour from the time when Gilbert had reached the castle, he and his enemy were riding quietly side by side in a little glade in Stortford wood. Gilbert drew rein and walked his horse, and Sir Arnold instantly did the same. Then Gilbert spoke. "Sir Arnold de Curboil, it is now full three days since I saw you treacherously kill my father." Sir Arnold started and turned half round in the saddle, his olive skin suddenly white with anger; but the soft fresh colour in Gilbert's cheek never changed. "Treacherously!" cried the knight, with indignation and with a questioning tone. "Foully," answered Gilbert, with perfect calm. "I was not twenty paces from you when you met, and had I not been hampered by a Frenchman of your side, who was unreasonably slow in dying, I should have either saved my father's life or ended yours, as I mean to now." Thereupon Gilbert brought his horse to a stand and prepared to dismount, for the sward was smooth and hard and there was room enough to fight. Sir Arnold laughed aloud as he sat still in the saddle, watching the younger man. "So you have brought me here to kill me!" he said as his mirth subsided. Gilbert's foot was already on the ground, but he paused in the act of dismounting. "If you do not like the spot," he answered coolly, "we can ride farther." "No, I am satisfied," answered the knight; but before he had spoken the last word he broke into a laugh again. They tied up their horses to trees at a little distance, out of reach of one another, and Gilbert was the first to return to the ring of open ground. As he walked, he drew his father's sword from its sheath, slipped the scabbard from the belt, and threw it to the edge of the grass. Sir Arnold was before him a moment later; but his left hand only rested on the pommel of his sheathed weapon, and he was still smiling as he stopped before his young adversary. "I should by no means object to fighting you," he said, "if I had killed your father in treachery. But I did not. I saw you as well as you saw me. Your Frenchman, as you call him, hindered your sight. Your father was either beside himself with rage, or did not know me in my mail. He dropped his point one instant, and then flew at me like a bloodhound, so that I barely saved myself by slaying him against my will. I will not fight you unless you force me to it; and you had better not, for if you do, I shall lay you by the heels in two passes." "Bragging and lying are well coupled," answered Gilbert, falling into guard. "Draw before I shall have counted three, or I will skewer you like a trussed fowl. One--two--" Before the next word could pass his lips, Sir Arnold's sword was out, keen and bright as if it had just left the armourer's hands, clashing upon Gilbert's hacked and blood-rusted blade. Sir Arnold was a brave man, but he was also cautious. He expected to find in Gilbert a beginner of small skill and reckless bravery, who would expose himself for the sake of bringing in a sweeping blow in carte, or attempting a desperate thrust. Consequently he did not attempt to put his bragging threat into practice, for Gilbert was taller than he, stronger, and more than twenty years younger. Unmailed, as he stood in his tunic and hose, one vigorous sword-stroke of the furious boy might break down his guard and cut him half in two. But in one respect Curboil was mistaken. Gilbert, though young, was one of those naturally gifted fencers in whom the movements of wrist and arm are absolutely simultaneous with the perception of the eye, and not divided by any act of reasoning or thought. In less than half a minute Sir Arnold knew that he was fighting for his life; the full minute had not passed before he felt Gilbert's jagged blade deep in the big muscles of his sword arm, and his own weapon, running past his adversary, fell from his powerless hand. In those days it was no shame to strike a disarmed foe, in a duel to the death. As Sir Arnold felt the rough steel wrenched from the flesh-wound, he knew that the next stroke would kill him. Quick as light, his left hand snatched the long dagger from its sheath at his left side, and Gilbert, raising his blade to strike, felt as if an icicle had pierced his breast; his arm trembled in the air, and lost its hold upon the hilt; a scarlet veil descended before his eyes, and the bright blood gushed from his mouth as he fell straight backward upon the green turf. Sir Arnold stepped back and stood looking at the fallen figure curiously, drawing his lids down, as some short-sighted men do. Then, as the sobbing breast ceased to heave and the white hands lay quite still upon the sward, he shrugged his shoulders, and began to take care of his own wound by twisting a leathern thong from Gilbert's saddle very tight upon his upper arm, using a stout oak twig for a lever. Then he plucked a handful of grass with his left hand and tried to hold his dagger in his right in order to clean the reddened steel. But his right hand was useless; so he knelt on one knee beside the body, and ran the poniard two or three times through the skirt of Gilbert's dark tunic, and returned it to its sheath. He picked up his sword, too, and succeeded in sheathing it. He mounted his horse, leaving Gilbert's tethered to the tree, cast one more glance at the motionless figure on the grass, and rode away towards Stortford Castle. CHAPTER IV Two months after Sir Arnold de Curboil had left Gilbert Warde in the forest, believing him to be dead, the ghostly figure of a tall, wafer-thin youth, leaning on the shoulders of two grey brothers, was led out into the warm shadows of the cloister in Sheering Abbey. One of the friars carried a brown leathern cushion, the other a piece of stiff parchment for a fan, and when they reached the first stone seat, they installed the sick man as comfortably as they could. Three travelling monks, tramping homeward by the short forest path from Harlow to Sheering, had found Gilbert lying in his blood, not ten minutes after the knight had ridden away. Not knowing who he was, they had brought him to the abbey, where he was at once recognized by the monks who had formed the funeral procession on the previous evening, and by others who had seen him. The brother whose duty it was to tend the sick, an old soldier with the scars of a dozen deep wounds in him, and by no means a despicable surgeon, pronounced Gilbert's condition almost hopeless, and assured the abbot that it would be certain death to the young Lord of Stoke to send him back to his home. He was therefore laid upon a new bed in an upper chamber that had fair arched windows to the west, and there the brothers expected that Gilbert Warde would before long breathe his last and end his race and name. The abbot sent a messenger to Stoke Regis to inform the Lady Goda of her son's condition, and on the following day she came to see him, but he did not know her, for he was in a fever; and three days passed, and she came again, but he was asleep, and the nursing brother would not disturb him. After that she sent messengers to inquire about his state, but she herself did not come again, whereat the abbot and many of the monks marvelled for a while, but afterwards they understood. Gilbert lived, and the desperate wound slowly healed, for he was strong and young, and his blood was untainted; but when at last he was allowed to stand upon his feet, he seemed to be little more than a fine-drawn shadow. They dressed him first in a novice's frock, because it was easier for him to wear, and at last he was well enough to be carried down from his room, and to sit for an hour upon the stone bench in the cloister. One of the brothers sat down beside him and slowly fanned his face with a stiff sheet of yellow parchment, such as the monks used for binding their books; the other went away to his work. Gilbert leaned back and closed his eyes, drinking in the sun-sweetened air and the scent of the flowers that grew in the cloister garden; and the indescribable sense of peace descended upon his body and soul which comes to men wrested from death, when danger is passed and their strength is slowly growing again within them. It is impossible for any young man of sensitive and believing mind to spend two months in a great religious institution of his own faith without feeling himself drawn to the religious life. Lying in his room, alone for many hours of the day, alone in waking watches of the night, though a brother was always within call, Gilbert had followed with a sick man's second sight the lives of the two hundred monks who dwelt in Sheering Abbey. By asking questions, he knew how they rose at dawn, and trooped into the dim abbey church to early mass, and went to their daily work, the lay-brethren and novices in the field, the learned fathers in the library and the writing-room. He could follow their daily round of prayer and work, and his heart was with them in both. Bloodless and emaciated as he lay there, the life of love and war which had once seemed to him the only one worth living, faded away into the dimness of an undesired impossibility. He had failed, too, in his first great deed of arms; his father's murderer was alive, and he himself had most narrowly escaped death. It seemed to him that his thin white hands, which could hardly pull the blanket to his chin when he felt cold, could never again have strength to grasp sword-hilt or hold bridle, and in the blank collapse of his physical existence the image of himself as a monk, young, ascetic and holy in his life, presented itself with a marvellous and luring attraction. He made the nursing brother teach him prayers from the offices of the night and day, and he repeated them at the right hours, feeling that he was taking a real part in the monastic existence. Gradually, too, as he caught the spirit of the place, the gospel of forgiveness, ever the stumbling-block of fighting men, appeared to him as something that could be practised without dishonour, and the determination to kill Sir Arnold gave way to a sort of attempt at repentance for having even wished to be revenged upon him. One thing troubled him constantly and was altogether beyond his comprehension. His mother seemed to have forgotten his very existence, and he had not consciously seen her since he had been wounded. He asked questions every day, and begged the abbot himself to send word to the Lady Goda asking her to ride over to the abbey. The abbot smiled, nodded, and seemed to promise; but if the message was ever sent, it elicited no answer, and after a time, as Gilbert grew steadily better, not even a messenger came from Stoke Regis to ask about him. Now Gilbert had worshipped his mother as a sort of superior being, and, like his father, had deceived himself with the belief that she was devoted to him; so that, as time went on, and he was utterly neglected by her, the conviction was forced upon him that something terrible and unforeseen had happened. Yet the abbot would tell him nothing, nor the brothers who tended him; to the best of their knowledge, they said, the Lady of Stoke was well. "Before long," Gilbert would answer, "I shall be able to go home and see for myself." And at this the abbot smiled and nodded, and began to talk of the weather, which was hot. But to-day, since he had been allowed to leave his room, Gilbert was determined to force an explanation. It lacked yet an hour of midday and dinner-time when the abbot came sauntering along the cloister, followed at a respectful distance by a couple of monks, who walked side by side with downcast eyes and hands hidden in their sleeves, their cord girdles bobbing and swinging rhythmically as they walked. As he came up to Gilbert, the nursing brother rose and hid his hands in his grey woollen sleeves. Gilbert opened his eyes at the sound of the abbot's footsteps, and made a movement as though he would have risen to greet the lordly churchman, who had so often visited him in his room, and for whom he felt a natural sympathy, as for a man of his own race and breeding; for Lambert, Abbot of Sheering, came of the great Norman house of Clare, which had taken Stephen's side in the Civil War, a fact which did not prevent the aristocratic abbot from talking with gentle satire and occasional bitter sarcasm about the emptiness of Stephen's claims. He laid his hand on Gilbert's sleeve to make him keep his seat, and sat down beside him on the bench. He waved the monks away, and they retired to the other end of the cloister, where they all three sat down together in silence. The abbot, a delicately made man, with high Norman features, a colourless beard, once fair, and very bright blue eyes, laid one of his beautiful hands kindly upon Gilbert's. "You are saved," he said cheerfully. "We have done our part; youth and sunshine will do the rest; you will grow strong very quickly, now, and in a week you will be asking for your horse. They found him beside you, and he has been well cared for." "Next week, then," said Gilbert, "I will ride over to Stoke and see my mother. But I think I shall come back and stay with you again--if you will have me." Gilbert smiled as he spoke the last words; but the abbot's face was grave and his brows were drawn together, as though he were in some trouble. "Better stay with us altogether," he said, shaking his head and looking away. Gilbert sat motionless for a few seconds, as if the remark had made no impression upon him; then, realizing that the words contained some special meaning, he started slightly and turned his hollow eyes to the speaker's face. "And not go to see my mother?" His voice expressed the utmost surprise. "Not--not at present," answered the abbot, taken off his guard by the directness of the question. Weak as he was, Gilbert half rose from his seat, and his thin fingers nervously grasped his companion's arm. He would have spoken, but a sort of confusion came over him, as if he could not decide which of many questions to ask first, and before words could form themselves, the abbot was speaking to him with gentle authority. "Listen to me," he said; "sit quietly beside me and hear what I have to say, for you are a man, now, and it is better that you should know it all at once, and from me, than get it distorted, in miserable morsels, from the gossip of the brothers within the next day or two." He paused a moment, holding the young man's hand soothingly while keeping him in his seat and making him feel that he must stay there. "What is it?" asked Gilbert, nervously, with half closed eyes. "Tell me quickly." "An evil thing," answered the churchman, "--a sad thing, and one of those that change men's lives." Again Gilbert started in his seat, more violently this time than before, and there was the broken ring of genuine fear in his voice. "My mother is dead!" he cried. "No, not that. She is in no danger. She is well. She is more than well; she is happy." Gilbert was staring almost stupidly at his companion, not in the least understanding that there could be any evil news about his mother if all these things were true. And yet it seemed strange that the abbot should lay stress upon the Lady Goda's happiness, when Gilbert had been at death's door for many weeks, and when, as he well knew, she was without news of him. "Happy!" he echoed, half dazed. "Too happy," answered the prelate. "Your mother was married when you had been scarcely a month here with us." Gilbert stared into the older man's face for one moment after he had ceased speaking, and then sank back against the wall behind him with something between a groan and a sigh. One word had struck the ground from under his feet; the next was to pierce his soul. "Who is her husband?" he asked under his breath. Before the abbot answered, his grasp tightened upon Gilbert's hands with a friendly grip that was meant to inspire courage. "Your mother has married Sir Arnold de Curboil." Gilbert sprang to his feet, as though he had been struck in the face by an enemy. A moment earlier he could not have risen without help; a moment later he fell backward into the abbot's arms. Nothing that he had felt in his whole short life--not all the joys and fears of childhood, which, after all, contains the greatest joys and fears in life, compounded with the clash of his first fighting day and the shock of seeing his father killed before his eyes--not all these together could be compared with what he felt at that plain statement of the dishonour done upon his house and upon his father's memory. Yet he was not unconscious. "Now, by the Sacred Blood--" Before he could pronounce the solemn vow of revenge that was on his lips, the abbot's delicate hand was almost crushing his mouth with open palm to stop the words. "Arnold de Curboil, perjured to God, false to his king, the murderer of his friend, the seducer of his friend's wife, is fit for my prayers," said the abbot, "not for your steel. Swear no great oaths that you will kill him; still less swear that you will be avenged upon your mother; but if you must needs swear something, vow rather that you will leave them to their fate and never willingly cross their path again. And indeed, whether you promise that or not, you must needs keep away from them until you can claim your own with the chance of getting it back." "My own!" exclaimed Gilbert. "Is Stoke not mine? Am I not my father's son?" "Curboil has got Stoke Regis by treachery, as he got your mother. As soon as he had married her he took her with him to London, and they two did homage to King Stephen, and the Lady Goda made apology before the king's court because her former husband had been faithful to the Empress Maud; and she besought the king to bestow the lordship of Stoke Regis, with the manor house and all things thereto appertaining, upon their present lord, Sir Arnold de Curboil, disinheriting you, her son, both because you are true to the Empress, and because, as she did swear, you tried to slay Sir Arnold by stealth in Stortford woods. So you have neither kith nor kin, nor lands nor goods, beyond your horse and your sword; wherefore I say, it were as well for you to stay with us altogether." Gilbert was silent for some time after the abbot had ceased speaking. He seemed to be utterly overcome by the news that he was disinherited, and his hands lay upon his knees, loosely weak and expressive of utter hopelessness. Very slowly he raised his face at last and turned his eyes upon the only friend that seemed left to him in his destitution. "So I am an outcast," he said, "an exile, a beggar--" "Or a monk," suggested the churchman, with a smile. "Or an adventurer," said Gilbert, smiling also, but more bitterly. "Most of our ancestors were that," retorted the abbot, "and they have picked up a fair living by it," he added. "Let me see: Normandy, Maine, Aquitaine, Gascony--and England. Not a bad inheritance for a handful of pirates matched against the world." "Yes, but the handful of pirates were Normans," said Gilbert, as if that statement alone should have explained the conquest of the universe. "But the world is half won," he concluded, with a rather hopeless sigh. "There is enough to fight for yet," answered the abbot, gravely. "The Holy Land is not half conquered, and until all Palestine and Syria shall be one Christian kingdom under one Christian king, there is earth for Norman feet to tread, and flesh for Norman swords to hack." Gilbert's expression changed a little, and a light came into his eyes. "The Holy Land--Jerusalem!" The words came slowly, each with its dream. "But the times are too old. Who should preach another crusade in our day?" "The man whose word is a lash, a sword, and a crown--the man who rules the world to-day." "And who is that?" asked Gilbert. "A Frenchman," answered the abbot--"Bernard of Clairvaux, the greatest man, the greatest thinker, the greatest preacher, and the greatest saint of these late days." "I have heard of him," Gilbert answered, with a sick man's disappointment at not learning anything new. Then he smiled faintly. "If he is a miracle-worker, he might find me a good subject." "You have a home here, Gilbert Warde, and friends," said the abbot, gravely. "Stay while you will, and when you are ready for the world again you shall not lack for a coat of mail, a spare mount, and a purse of gold with which to begin your life." "I thank you," said Gilbert, feebly, but very gratefully. "I feel as if my life were not beginning, but ending. I have lost my inheritance, my home, and my mother in one hour. It is enough, for it is all, and with it is taken love also." "Love?" The abbot seemed surprised. "Can a man marry his mother's husband's child?" asked Gilbert bitterly, almost contemptuously. "No," answered the abbot; "that would be within the forbidden degrees of affinity." For a long time Gilbert sat still in mournful silence. Then, seeing that he was very tired, the abbot beckoned to the brothers, who came and led him back to the stairs, and carried him up to his room. But, when he was gone, the Abbot of Sheering walked thoughtfully up and down the cloister for a long time, even until the refectory bell began to ring for dinner, and he could hear the shuffling steps of the two hundred hungry monks hurrying to their food, through the distant staircases and corridors. CHAPTER V An autumn morning at dawn, the beach at Dover, the tide at flood, and a hundred half naked sailors launching a long, black Norman sea-boat bows on, over chocks through the low surf to the grey swell beyond. The little vessel had been beached by the stern, with a slack chain hooked to her sides at the water-line, and a long hawser rove through a rough fiddle-block of enormous size, and leading to a capstan set far above high-water mark and made fast by the bight of a chain to an anchor buried in the sand up to the heavy wooden stock. And now a big old man with streaming grey beard, and a skin like a salted ox-hide, was slacking the turns of the hawser from the capstan-drum as the boat moved slowly down over the well-greased chocks, stopping short now and then of her own accord, and refusing to move on till twenty stout sailors on each side, their legs half buried in the sand, their broad shoulders flattened under the planking, their thick brown hands planted upon their thighs, like so many Atlases, each bearing a world, had succeeded, by alternately straining and yielding, in making the little vessel rock on her keel, and start again toward the water's edge. On board, the master stood at the stern, ready to ship the long rudder as soon as she had taken the water. Two men in the bows took in the slack of the cable, by which the anchor had been dropped some fifty yards out, so as to keep her head straight when she should leave the temporary ways. By the mast, for the vessel had but one, stood Gilbert Warde, watching all that was done, with the profoundly ignorant interest which landsmen always show in nautical matters. It seemed very slow to him, and he wondered why the man with the long beard, far up the beach, did not let go, so that the boat might launch herself. And while he was trying to solve the problem, something happened which he could not understand: a chorus of wild yells went up from the sailors under the sides, the master in the stern threw up one hand and shouted, the old man let go and yelled back an answer, Gilbert heard a rattling of chains, and then all at once the boat gathered way, and shot like an arrow through the low curling surf, far out upon the heaving grey water beyond, while the two men in the bows got in the slack of the cable, hand over hand, like madmen, panting audibly, till at last the vessel swung off by her head and rode quietly at her anchor. An hour later, with twenty sweeps swinging rhythmically in the tholes, and a fair southwesterly breeze, the sharp-cut boat was far out in the English Channel, and before night, the wind holding fair and freshening, the master dropped anchor almost under the shadow of the Count of Flanders' castle at Calais. So Gilbert Warde left England, a wanderer, disinherited of all that should have been his, owing all that he had to Lambert de Clare, Abbot of Sheering, in the shape of mail and other armour, with such fine clothes as a young nobleman should have with him on a journey, two horses, and a purse of which the contents should last him several months on his travels. For attendants he had with him a fair-haired Saxon lad who had run away from Stoke to Sheering, and had refused to leave Gilbert, whom he looked upon as his lawful master; and there was with him, too, a dark-skinned youth of his own age, a foundling, christened Dunstan by the monks after a saint of their order, brought up and taught at the abbey, who seemed to know neither whose child he was nor whence he came, but could by no means be induced to enter the novitiate so long as the world had room for wanderers and adventurers. He was a gifted fellow, quick to learn and tenacious to remember, speaking Latin and Norman French and English Saxon as well as any monk in the abbey, quick of hand and light of foot, with daring black eyes in which the pupils could hardly be found, while the whites were of a cold, blue grey and often bloodshot; and he had short, straight black hair, and a face that made one think of a young falcon. He had begged so hard to be allowed to go with Gilbert, and it was so evident that he was not born to wear out a church pavement with his knees, that the abbot had given his consent. During the last weeks before Gilbert's departure, when he was hourly gaining strength and could no longer bear to be shut up within the walls of the convent, he had made a companion of Dunstan, walking and riding with him, for the fellow could ride, and sometimes entering into long arguments with him about matters of belief and conscience and honour, and the two had become attached to each other by their unlikeness; not precisely as friends and equals, yet by no means as master and man; it was rather the sort of relation which often existed between knight and squire, though the two were of the same age, and though Gilbert had no immediate prospect of winning knightly spurs. It would have been hard, however, to admit that Dunstan could ever develop into a knight himself. There were strange little blanks in his ideas of chivalry, curious, unfeeling spots in his moral organization, which indicated another race, another inheritance of thought, the traditions of a world older and less simple than the one in which Gilbert had been brought up. For Gilbert was the type of noble youth in the days when the light of chivalry had dawned upon an age of violence, but was not yet fully risen. God, honour, woman--these made up the simple trinity of a knight's belief and reverence, from the moment when the Church began to make an order of fighting men, with ceremonies and obligations of their own, thereby forever binding together the great conceptions of true Christianity and true nobility. In the absence of anything like real learning among the laymen of those days, education in its simplest and most original sense played a very large part in life, and Gilbert had acquired that sort of culture in its highest and best form. The object of mere instruction is to impart learning for some distinct purpose, but most chiefly, perhaps, in order that it may be a means of earning a livelihood. The object of education is to make men, to produce the character of the man of honour, to give men the inward grace of the gentleman, which cannot manifest itself outwardly save in good manners, modesty of bearing, and fearlessness; and such things in earlier days were profoundly associated in the minds of men with the inward principles and the outward rites of Christianity. It was the perfect simplicity, and in a measure the ample harmony, of beliefs, principles, and rules of action that made life possible at all at a time when the modern art of government was in its earliest infancy, when the idea of a constitution had been lost in the chaos of the dark ages, and when the direction of kingdoms, principalities, and societies was a purely personal matter, wholly dependent upon individual talent or caprice, virtue or vice, charity or greed. Without some such foundation in the character of the times, society, the world, and the Church must have fallen a prey to the devouring ambitions of that most horrible of human monsters, the princely unbeliever of the middle ages, who flourished again and again, sporadically, from England to Constantinople, from Paris to Rome, but who almost invariably ended in disastrous failure, overcome and trodden down by the steadily advancing morality of mankind. Such men were John the Twelfth, of the evil race of Theodora in Rome, and the Jewish Pierleone who lived a hundred years later, and King John of England, and last and greatest of all, perhaps, as he was most certainly the worst, Caesar Borgia. To be a gentleman when Henry Plantagenet was a boy of twelve, and Gilbert Warde was going to the Duke of Normandy's court, implied not many gifts, few principles, and two or three accomplishments at most; but it meant the possession of those simple requirements in their very best accepted form, and that species of thoroughness in a few matters which has been at the root of social superiority in all ages. We have heard of amateur artists, amateur soldiers, amateur statesmen; but no one has ever heard of an amateur gentleman. Gilbert Warde knew little Latin beyond the few prayers taught him by the manor priest at Stoke; but in the efficacy of those prayers he believed with all his heart and soul. The Norman French language of the nobles in England was no longer that of their more refined cousins over the water; but though his tongue betrayed him for an Englishman, Gilbert had the something which was of more worth among his equals than a French accent--the grace, the unaffected ease, the straightforward courtesy, which are bred in bone and blood, like talent or genius, but which reach perfection only in the atmosphere to which they belong, and among men and women who have them in the same degree. Possessing belief and good manners, the third essential was skill in arms, and, as has been seen, Gilbert was a match for a swordsman of considerable reputation. The only absolutely necessary accomplishment for a gentleman in his day was a thorough knowledge of the chase as a fine art in all its branches, from falconry to boar-hunting, and in this respect Gilbert was at least the equal of the average young noble. In spite of his youth, he was therefore thoroughly equipped for the world; and besides the advantages here set forth, he had the very great one of feeling that, although he might be going among strangers, he was going to meet men all brought up to act and think like himself, in the belief that their ways of acting and thinking were very much better than those of other people. But as he rode along the dunes, he was not reflecting upon his own gifts or prospects. His life was strange to him by its sudden and complete change, from an existence of more or less peaceful enjoyment, in which the certainty of fortune, local dignity, and unthwarted love made the idea of ambition look empty and foolish, to the state of possessing only a pair of good horses, good weapons, and a little ready money, with which to lay siege to the universe. Yet even that wide difference of conditions was insignificant beside the deeper and sadder misfortunes upon which the young man brooded as he rode, and which had already embittered his young existence by the destruction of his highest and most beautiful illusion and of his dearest and happiest hope. In the fall of his mother's image from the altar upon which he had set it, there was the absolute destruction of his own past childhood as it had always appeared to him. In the fearful illumination of her true nature, in the broad glare of evil, the little good there might have been had faded to nothing. It was not possible that she who had married her husband's murderer within the month could ever have felt one sincere impulse of love for Raymond Warde, nor that she could ever have known the slightest real affection for the son whom she had first left to his fate, and then treacherously cheated of his birthright. The temple where she had been was still in his heart and mourned her in emptiness. For nothing else had taken the place of her there; she was not transformed, she was gone, and had taken with her a lifetime of tender and gentle memories. When his inward eyes sought her they found nothing, and their light was quenched in her darkness. She was not as his father was, dead in fact, but dead in honour. There he lay, as Gilbert had last looked upon his white face and stiff, mailed form, himself still, himself as he had been in life and as he was thereafter, in that place of peace and refreshment where brave men rest. In the quiet features was reflected forever the truth whereby his life had been lived; in the crossed hands upon the breast was the last outward symbol and sign of the simple faith that had been life's guide; in the strong, straight outlines of a strength splendid in death was the record of strong deeds well done. Alive, he had been to his son the man of all others; dead, he was still the man of men, without peer and without like. It mattered not that he was silent, for he had spoken the truth; that he was as motionless as a stone, for the cold hand had been swift to thrust and smite, and had dealt unforgotten blows in a good cause; that he was deaf, for he had heard the cry of the weak, and had forborne; that he was blind, for his eyes had seen the light of victory and had looked unflinching upon an honourable death. Loyal, true, brave, strong, he lay in his son's heart, still at all points himself. And Gilbert turned his mind's eyes to the darkness on the other side, and many a time, as the unwept tears burned in his brain, he wished that his mother were lying there too, beside his father, dead in the body but alive forever to him in that which is undying in woman; to be cherished still, still honoured; to be loved, and still obeyed in the memory of precept and teaching; to be his mother always, and he to be in thought her child, even until the grey years should be upon him, and the Bridge of Fear in sight. Instead, as his thoughts went back to his home, the woman herself faced him, not as he had always seen her, but as she had been sometimes seen by others. The deed she had done--the greatest, the worst, the most irrevocable--was in her face, and Gilbert's unconscious memory brought back the details his love of her had once rejected. The cold face was as hard as flint, the deep blue eyes were untrue and unbelieving, the small red lips were scornfully parted to show the cruel little teeth, and there were dashes of flame in the russet hair. Better she had been dead, better a thousand times that she had come to the sharp end before her time, than that such a face should be her son's only memory of his mother. The lines of the image had been etched in the weak places of his heart with the keen point of his first grief, and the biting acid of a new and unnatural hate was eating them deeper day by day. And when, in spite of himself, his mind dwelt upon her and understood that he was cursing her who had borne him, he turned back in sheer despair to the thought of a religious life. But though it drew him and appealed to all in his nature which had been uppermost when death had almost tripped him into his grave, it spoke but half a language now, and was less than half convincing. He could understand well enough that the monastery might hold the only life for men who had fought through many failures, from light to darkness, from happiness to sorrow--men who loved nothing, hoped nothing, hated nothing any longer, in the great democracy of despair. They sought peace as the only earthly good they might enjoy, and there was peace in the cloister. Hope being dead in life, they tasted refreshment in the hope of a life to come. The convent was good enough for the bankrupt of love and war. But there must be another rule for those in whom youth was wounded but not dead, whose hearts were offended but not slain, whose blood was still strong and hot for good and evil, for men whose battles were before them still. There must be a remedy against fate which should not be an offence to God, a struggle against God's will which should not be a revolt, a life in which virtue should not mean a prison for soul and body, nor the hope of salvation a friar's cell. Like many enthusiasts, knowing nothing of the world save by guesswork, and full of an inborn belief in the existence of perfection, Gilbert dreamed of realizing the harmony of two opposites--the religious life and the life of the world. Such dreams seemed not so wild in those days, when the very idea of knighthood was based upon them, and when many brave and true men came near to making them seem anything but fanciful, and practised virtue in a rough-and-ready fashion which would not pass muster in modern society, though it might in heaven. The religious idea had taken hold of Gilbert strongly, and before he had left the abbey he had fallen into the habit of attending most of the offices in the choir, still wearing the novice's frock which had been at first but an invalid's robe. And now that he was out in the world to seek his fortunes, tunic and hose, spur and glove, seemed strange to him, and he would have felt more at home in a friar's hood. So he felt that in his life he should never again quite lose the monastic instinct, and that it was well for him that he could not. He stood on that perilous thin ridge between past and future to which almost every man of heart is sooner or later led by fate, where every step may mean a fall, and where to fall is almost to be lost. The things he had lived for, the things he had hoped, the things he had loved, had been taken from him violently, and all at once. There was neither clue, nor guide, nor hope, and on each side of him yawned the hideous attraction of despair. Even the recollections of a first love were veiled by what he understood to be the irrevocable interdiction of the Church, and, in his strongly spiritual mood, to think of Beatrix appeared to him like a temptation to mortal sin. In leaving England, without any definite aim, but with a vague intention of making his way to Jerusalem, he had obeyed the Abbot of Sheering rather than followed friendly advice, and his obedience had savoured strongly of the monastic rule. Lambert de Clare, a man of the world before he had become a churchman, and a man of heart before he was a ruler of monks, had understood Gilbert's state well enough, and had forced the best remedy upon him. The cure for a broken heart, if there be any, is not in solitude and prayer, but in facing the wounds and stings of the world's life; and the abbot had almost forcibly thrust his young friend out to live like other men of his order, while suggesting a pilgrimage to the Holy Land as a means of satisfying his religious cravings. As for the material help which Gilbert had received, it was no shame, in an age not sordid, for a penniless gentleman to accept both gifts and money from a rich and powerful person like the Abbot of Sheering, in the certainty of carving out such fortune with his own hands as should enable him amply to repay the loan. So far as his immediate destination was concerned, the abbot, who considered his house to be vastly superior to political dissension, and secretly laughed at his cousins for supporting King Stephen's upstart cause, had advised Gilbert to make his way directly to the court of Geoffrey Plantagenet, Duke of Normandy, and Grand Seneschal of France, the husband of the Empress Maud, rightful Queen of England. Thither he was riding, therefore, with Dunstan on his left hand, mounted upon his second horse, while Alric, the sturdy little Saxon groom and archer, rode behind them on a stout mule laden with Gilbert's possessions. CHAPTER VI Those were the early days of Geoffrey's lordship in Normandy. Twice and three times he came up from Anjou with his men-at-arms and his footmen to take possession of his wife's lawful inheritance. Again and again he was repulsed and driven back to his own dominions, but at the last he prevailed, and the iron will of the man whose royal race was to give England fourteen kings, forced Normandy to submission, and thereafter he ruled in peace. Yet he was not so strongly established but that he desired sound friendships and strong alliances to support him, and at the same time he was anxious to obtain help for his wife in her prolonged struggle for the English crown. In his office of Grand Seneschal of France he generally caused himself to be represented by a deputy; but he had lately determined to make a journey to Paris, in the hope of winning over the young King Louis, and perhaps the beautiful Queen Eleanor, who was feudal sovereign, in her own right, of Guienne, Poitou and Aquitaine, and in reality a more powerful personage than the King himself. So it fell out that before Gilbert reached his destination he met a great and splendid train riding toward him on the highroad, two hundred horse, at the very least, and as many footmen, followed by a long line of sumpter mules. The road was narrow at that place, so that Gilbert, with his two men, saw that it would be impossible to pass, and though it was not natural to him to cede the right of way to any one, he understood that, in the face of what was a little army, it would be the part of wisdom to draw aside. A thick growth of thorn bushes made a natural hedge at that part of the road, and Gilbert and his companions were obliged almost to back into the briers, as four handsomely dressed outriders trotted past abreast, not without a glance of rather supercilious inquiry, for they did not fail to see that Gilbert was a stranger in their country; and, for a traveller, his retinue was anything but imposing. He, however, barely glanced at them as they passed him, for his eyes were fixed upon the advancing cavalcade, a river of rich and splendid colour flowing toward him between soft green banks. They were men who rode in peace; for though a standard rose in the middle rank, it was furled and cased in leather, and the horsemen who surrounded it were dressed in tunic and hose--crimson, green, rich dark brown, with the glint of gold, the sheen of silver, the lightning of steel, relieving the deep hues of dark cloth and velvet here and there. A length behind the furled flag rode a man and a boy, side by side, and the next riders followed two or three lengths behind them. The man, mounted on a huge white Norman weight-carrier, kept the off side of the road, his great beast trotting leisurely with a long pounding step, and an occasional lazy shake of the big white head with the iron-grey forelock and the well-combed mane. The rider sat square and upright in the saddle, the plain leathern bridle neither too short nor too long in the light strong hand, that just moved perceptibly with the horse's step. He was a man evidently of good height, but not over tall, of surpassing beauty of form, young in figure, but past middle age if one judged by his hard features and already furrowed brow; his deep grey eyes looked steadily ahead from beneath black eyebrows which contrasted oddly with hair that was already iron-grey. There was something immovable and fateful about the clean-shaven jaw, the broad flat chin, the wide strong mouth--something strangely durable that contrasted with the rich softness of his splendid dress, as though the man, and what the man meant, were to outlive the fashions of the world. The boy who rode by his near side, a lad of little more than twelve years, was both like him and unlike. Sturdy, broad, short-legged, square beyond his age, any one could see that he was never to inherit his father's beauty of proportion and grace of bearing; but there was something in his face that promised all his father's strength and an even greater independence. The grey eyes were the same, but nearer together, and almost sinister in their gaze, even at that age; the nose was already long and rather flat than sharp, and the large straight lips, even and close set, would have seemed strong even in a grown man's face. The boy sat upon his small grey Andalusian horse as if he had lived a lifetime in the saddle, but his twelve-year-old hand was heavier on the bridle than ever his father's had been. There was something in the bearing of the two, father and son, so kingly and high that Gilbert, who had been brought up in Norman courtesy, involuntarily rose in the saddle as much as his long stirrups would allow, and lifted his cap from his head, supposing, as was natural, that he was saluting the lord of the lands through which he was travelling. The other returned the salutation with a wave of the hand, looked sharply at Gilbert, and then, to the latter's surprise, drew rein, the lad beside him ranging back half a length so as not to be in the way between the other two. For a few seconds neither said a word. Then the elder man, as though expecting something of which the younger was not aware, smiled kindly and spoke. His voice was strong and manly, but clear and sweet. "You are strange here, sir," he said, with something more like an assertion than a question in his turn. "From England, sir," answered Gilbert, bowing slightly in the saddle. The elder man looked hard at him and knit his brows. Few English gentlemen had refused allegiance to King Stephen. "From England? And what may you be doing in Normandy, young sir? Stephen's friends find little friendship here." "I am not of them, sir," answered Gilbert, drawing himself up somewhat haughtily. "I am rather of those who would shorten Stephen's reign by the length of his life, and his body by a head." The broad, handsome face of the man with whom he was speaking relaxed into a smile, and his son, who had at first eyed Gilbert with distrust, threw back his head and laughed. "Then I suppose that you are for the Empress," said the man. "But if you are, why are you not in Gloucester?" "Sir," answered Gilbert, "being made homeless and landless by Stephen, I chose rather to cut a fortune out of the world than to beg one of the Queen, who has none left to give." "You could fight for her," suggested the other. "Ay, sir; and I have, and will again, if such gentlemen of Normandy as you will cross the water and fight also. But as the matter stands to-day, whosoever shall break the truce shall break his own neck, without serving the Empress. And meanwhile I ride to the Duke of Normandy's court, and if I may serve him, I will, but if not, I shall go farther." "And who are you, sir, that seek the Duke?" "I am Gilbert Warde, and my fathers held Stoke Regis in Hertfordshire from Duke William. But Stephen took it when I was lying ill of a wound in Sheering Abbey and bestowed it upon another. And you, sir? I crave your name." "Geoffrey Plantagenet," answered the Duke, quietly. "And this is my son Henry, who by the grace of God shall yet be King of England." Gilbert started at the name, and then noticed for the first time that both father and son wore in their velvet caps a short dry sprig of the broom-plant. He sprang to the ground and came forward on foot, bareheaded, and stood beside the Duke's near stirrup. "Your pardon, my lord," he said; "I should have known you." "That might have been hard," answered Geoffrey, "since you had never seen me. But as you were on your way to find me and wished to serve me, mount again and ride with us to Paris, whither we go." So Gilbert mounted, and would have fallen back in the train among the young squires, behind the five ranks of knights who rode after the Duke. But Geoffrey would not let him take his place at once, for he was glad to have news of the long struggle in England, the end of which was to set a Plantagenet upon the throne; and he asked many questions which the young man answered as well as he could, though some of them were not easy; and the boy Henry listened with grave face and unwinking eyes to all that was said. "If I had been in my mother's place," he said at last, in a pause, "I would have cut off Stephen's head in Bristol Castle." "And let your uncle Gloucester be put to death by Stephen's wife?" Geoffrey looked at his son curiously. "She would not have done it," answered Henry. "There could have been no more war, with Stephen dead. But if she had killed my uncle, well, what of that? The crown of England is worth one life, at least!" Gilbert heard and wondered at the boy's hardness, but held his peace. He was surprised also that the Duke should say nothing, and the speech of the one and the silence of the other clearly foreshadowed the kingdom for one or both. But the boy's words seemed heartless and not altogether knightly to Warde, who was himself before all things a man of heart; and the first impression made on him by the precocious lad was more or less a wrong one, since Henry afterwards turned out a just and kind man, though often stern and unforgetful of offence. And Gilbert was very far from guessing that the young prince was suddenly attracted to him in the strongest possible way, and that in the first meeting he had unconsciously laid the foundations of a real friendship. After a time, as the Duke asked no more questions, Gilbert took it for granted that he was no longer wanted, and fell back to his proper place among the riders. The young squires received him with cordiality and not without a certain respect for one who, though not even a knight, had been so much honoured by their sovereign. And Gilbert himself, though he felt at home amongst them at first, as a man feels with his own kind, yet felt that he was divided from them by the depth of his own misfortunes. One of them spoke of his home at Bayeux, and of his father, and Gilbert's face grew grave; another told how his mother had herself embroidered in gold the fine linen collar that showed above his low-cut tunic. Gilbert bit his lips, and looked away at the rolling green country. And one, again, asked Gilbert where his home might be. "Here," answered Warde, striking the pommel of his saddle with his right hand and laughing rather harshly. He was older than most of them, for they ranged from fourteen to eighteen years, and were chiefly beardless boys who had never seen fight, whose fathers had fought Geoffrey Plantagenet until they had recognized that he was the master, as the great Duke William had been in his day, and then, being beaten, had submitted whole-heartedly and all at once, as brave men do, and had forthwith sent their sons to learn arms and manners at Geoffrey's court. So none of these youths had slain a man with his own hand, as Gilbert had at Faringdon, nor had any of them faced an enemy with plain steel in a quarrel, as Gilbert had faced Sir Arnold de Curboil. Though Gilbert told little of his story and less of his deeds, they saw that he was older than they, they felt that he had seen more than they had, and they guessed that his hand was harder and heavier than theirs. As the day wore, and they rode, and halted, and dined together in the vast outer hall of a monastery which they reached soon after midday, the young men who sat beside Gilbert noticed that he could repeat the Latin words of the long grace as well as any monk, and one laughed and asked where he had got so much scholarship. "I lay two months in an abbey," answered Gilbert, "healing of a wound, and the nursing brother taught me the monks' ways." "And how came you by such a wound?" asked the young squire. "By steel," answered Gilbert, and smiled, but he would say no more. And after that, two or three asked questions of Gilbert's man Dunstan, and he, being proud of his master, told all he knew, so that his hearers marvelled that such a fighter had not yet obtained knighthood, and they foretold that if Long Gilbert, as they named him for his height, would stay in the Duke's service, he should not be a squire many weeks. And on the next day and the days following it was clear to them all that Gilbert was in the way of fortune by the hand of favour; for as the company rode along in the early morning by dewy lanes, where Michaelmas daisies were blooming, a groom came riding back to say that the young Henry--the Count, as they began to call him about that time--wished the company of Master Warde, to tell him more of England. So Gilbert cantered forward and took his place beside the young prince, and for more than an hour answered questions of all sorts about English men, English trees, English cattle, and English dogs. "It will all be mine before long," said the boy, laughing, "but as I have never seen it, I want your eyes." And every day thereafter, in the morning and afternoon, Gilbert was sent for to tell the lad stories about England; and he talked as if he were speaking to a grown man and said many things about his own country which had long been in his heart, in the strong, good language of a man in earnest. Henry listened, and asked questions, and listened again, and remembered what he heard, not for a day only, nor a week, but for a lifetime, and in the boy the king was growing hour by hour. Sometimes, while they talked, the Duke listened and said a few words himself, but more often he rode on out of the train alone, in deep thought, or called one of the older knights to his side; and when Gilbert's quick ear caught fragments of their conversation, they were generally talking of country matters--crops, horse-breeding, or the price of grain. So they rode, and in due time they came to fields of mud left by a subsiding river, and here and there green hillocks rose out of the dreary expanse, and on them were built castles of grey stone. But in the flats there were mud hovels of brickmakers and of people living miserably by the river; and then all at once the ground rose a little to the bank, with a street, and houses of brick and stone; and between these, upon an island, Gilbert, rising in his stirrups to see over the heads of his companions, descried the castle of the King of France, with its towers and battlements, its great drawbridge, and its solid grey walls, in those days one of the strongest holds in all the world. Then they all halted, and the Duke's herald rode forward to the gate, and the King's herald was seen within, and there was a great blowing of horns and a sound of loud, high voices reciting formal speeches in a monotone. After that there was a silence, and horns again, and more recitation, and a final blast, after which the Duke's herald came back, and the King's herald came out upon the drawbridge, followed by men in rich clothes of white cloth, embroidered with gold lilies that shone in the autumn sun, like little tongues of flame; and the Duke's standard was unfurled to the river breeze, and the goodly train rode slowly over the drawbridge at the end of the solid wooden causeway which spanned the main width of the stream, and so, by the main gate, into the great court of honour. And Gilbert rode close behind young Henry, who called him his chancellor in jest, and would not let him ride out of his sight. Within the court were great buildings reared against the outer walls; but in the midst was the King's hall and dwelling, and in the porch at the head of the steps which led to the main door, the King and Queen were waiting in state, in their robes of ceremony, with all their household about them, to receive their Grand Seneschal and brother sovereign, Geoffrey Plantagenet. But Gilbert, looking boldly before him, saw that the King of France was a fair, pale man with a yellow beard, strong and knightly, but with dull and lifeless blue eyes; and Gilbert looked at the lady who sat beside him, and he saw that the Queen of France was the most beautiful woman in the world; and when his eyes had seen her it was long before he looked away. He saw a being so unlike all he had known before, that his idea of woman changed from that hour for his whole life--a most perfect triplicity of beauty, grace and elastic strength. Some have doubtless possessed each separate perfection, but the names of those who had all three are as unforgotten as those of conquerors and supreme poets. Gilbert's eyes fixed themselves, and for a moment he was in a sort of waking trance, during which he could not for his life have described one feature of the Queen's face; but when she spoke to him, his heart leapt and his eyelids quivered, and her image was fixed upon his memory forever. Young though he was, it would have been contrary to his grave and rather melancholy disposition to lose his heart at first sight to any woman, and it was neither love, nor love's forerunner, that overcame him as he gazed at the Queen. It was a purely visual impression, like that of being dazzled by a bright light, or made giddy by sudden motion. She was as tall as the King, but whereas he was heavily and awkwardly built, her faultless proportion made an ungraceful movement an impossibility, and the rhythmic ease of her slightest gesture expressed an unfaltering bodily energy which no sudden fatigue nor stress of long weariness could bring down. When she moved, Gilbert wished that he might never see her in repose, yet as soon as the motion ceased, it seemed a crime upon beauty to disturb her rest. Her face and her throat, uncovered to the strong morning light, were of a texture as richly clear as the tinted leaves of young orange-blossoms in May; and like the flowers themselves, it seemed to rejoice in air and sun, in dew and rain, perfected, not marred, by the touch of heat and cold. The straight white throat rose like a column from the neck to the delicate lobe of the faultless ear, and a generously modelled line sprang in a clean curve of beauty to the sudden rounding of the ivory chin, cleft in the midst by nature's supreme touch. Low on her forehead the heavy waves of her hair were drawn back to each side under the apple-green silk coverchief that was kept in place by the crown of state. But she wore no wimple, and the broad waves flowed down upon her shoulders and hung behind her like a heavy mantle. And they were of that marvellous living hue, that the westering sun casts through oak leaves upon an ancient wall in autumn. All in her face was of light, from her hair to her white forehead; from her forehead to her radiant eyes, deeper than sapphires, brighter than mountain springs; from the peach-blossom bloom of her cheeks to the living coral of her lips. She wore a close-fitting upper garment of fine green cloth, embroidered with a small design in silver thread, in which the heraldic cross of Aquitaine alternated with a conventional flower. The girdle of fine green leather, richly embroidered in gold, followed exactly the lower line of this close garment round the hips, and the long end fell straight from the knot almost to the ground. The silken skirt in many folds was of the same colour as the rest, but without embroidery. The mantle of state, of a figured cloth of gold lined with straw-coloured silk, hung in wide folds from her shoulders, her hair falling over it, and it was loosely held in place by a twisted cord of gold thread across her breast. Contrary to the fashion of the day, her sleeves were tight and closed at the wrists, and green gloves encased her hands, and were embroidered on the back with the cross of Aquitaine. Gilbert was standing two steps behind young Henry, who was on his father's left, and was consequently directly opposite to the Queen, as the boy bent one knee, and taking her gloved hand, touched the embroidery with his lips. Gilbert was hardly aware that she was looking into his eyes, while his own were riveted on her face, and when she spoke, he started in surprise. "And who is this?" she asked, smiling, as she saw what an effect her beauty produced upon the young man. Henry turned half round, with a step backward, and took Gilbert's hand. "This is my friend," he said, dragging him forward; "and if you like me, you shall please to like him, too, and tell the King to knight him at once." "You have a strong recommendation to grace, sir," said the Queen. She looked down at the imperious boy's square face and laughed; but looking up and meeting Gilbert's eyes again, the ring of her laugh changed oddly and died away in a short silence. It was long since she had looked upon so goodly a man; she was weary of her monkish husband, and she was the grand-daughter of William of Aquitaine, giant, troubadour, and lover. It was no wonder that there was light in her eyes, and life in every fibre of her beautiful body. "I think I shall like your friend," she said, speaking to Henry, but still looking at the man. And so Gilbert first met the Queen; and as she held out her hand to him and he took it, kneeling on one knee, she unconsciously drew young Henry close to her, and her arm was round his neck, and her hand pressed his shoulder in a very gentle way, so that he looked up into her face. But if any one had told her then that she should love the man in vain, that she should be divided from the fair-haired King beside her and become the wife of the broad-faced, rough-fisted little boy whose curly head barely reached her shoulder, the prophet might have fared ill, as readers of the future often do. But meanwhile the King stood talking quietly with Duke Geoffrey, who presently crossed to salute the Queen, not dreaming what strange spirits had taken possession of the hearts of three persons in one moment. For the third was Henry himself. When the Queen gave her right hand to his father her other was still on the boy's shoulder, and when she would have withdrawn it he caught it with both his own and held it there; and suddenly the blood sprang up in his cheeks even to the roots of his hair, and for the first and last time in his life Henry Plantagenet was almost ridiculous, and wished that he might hide his head. Yet he would not loose his hold on the Queen's hand. CHAPTER VII While Duke Geoffrey tarried in Paris, receiving much honour at the King's court, but obtaining very little encouragement in his hope of help against Stephen, the time was heavy on the hands of some of his followers; but others of them, seeing that they had little service and much leisure, made up their minds to do not only what was good in their own eyes, but sometimes also that which was evil, as a certain chronicler once said of the English knights. For the wine of Gascony was good, but some said that the vintage of Burgundy was better, and a matter of such weight was evidently not to be left undecided; yet the more often it came to judgment, the more evidence and testimony were required in the case, so that the court sat night and day without agreeing upon a verdict. But Gilbert had never learned to sit for hours over a cup, slowly addling his wits and marking the hour when the room should begin to swing upon the pivot of his head; and Henry kept him constantly by his side, saying that he was the only sober man in his father's court, knight or squire; nor would the boy let him go, excepting when he himself could pass his time with the Queen, and then he was more than anxious that Gilbert should disappear. At first Eleanor was amused by the lad's childish passion, but as she herself greatly preferred Gilbert's society to that of Henry, she soon grew weary of the rather tame sport which consisted in making a boy of twelve years fall desperately in love with her. Moreover, Henry was precocious and keen-sighted beyond his years, and was not long in discovering his idol's predilection for his friend. His chief consolation was that Gilbert himself seemed indifferent, and came and went at the Queen's bidding as though he were obeying an order rather than an impulse. One lazy autumn afternoon, when the air was as hot as summer, and the flies were swarming about the open doors of the great stables, and before the deep archway that led into the main kitchen, and about the open windows of the knights' and squires' quarters,--when the air was still and lazy, and not a sound was heard in the vast enclosure of the castle-yard,--Henry and Gilbert came out to play at tennis in a shady corner behind the church, where there was a penthouse that would serve. In half a dozen strokes Henry had scored high to Gilbert's nothing, and the boy dropped the ball at his feet to tighten the network he had made on his hand by winding a bowstring in and out between his fingers and across the palm, as men did before rackets were thought of. Suddenly he turned half round and faced Gilbert, planting himself with his sturdy legs apart and crossing his arms, which were bare to the elbow; for he had taken off his cloth tunic, and his embroidered shirt, girdled at the waist by a leathern belt, hung over his scarlet hose, and was wide at the neck and turned back above his elbows. He was hatless, ruddy, and hot. "Will you answer a fair question fairly, Master Gilbert?" he asked, looking his friend in the eyes. Gilbert had fallen into the habit of treating him like a man, as most people did, excepting the Queen, and gravely nodded an answer. "Do you not think that the Queen of France is the most beautiful woman in the world?" "Yes," answered Gilbert, without a smile, and without the slightest hesitation. The boy's eyes, that were so near together, gleamed and fixed themselves in rising anger, while a dark red flush mounted from his bare throat to his cheeks, and from his cheeks to his forehead. "Then you love her?" he asked fiercely, and the words were thick on his lips. Gilbert was not easily surprised, but the conclusion was so sudden and unexpected that he stared for a moment in blank amazement before he smiled. "I?" he exclaimed. "I love the Queen? I should as soon think of coveting the King's crown!" Henry looked into Gilbert's face a moment longer, and the blood slowly subsided from his own. "I can see that you are in earnest," he said, picking up the ball at his feet, "though I cannot see why a man should not covet a king's crown as well as a king's wife." He struck the ball. "You are young," said Gilbert, "to ride atilt through all the Ten Commandments at once." "Young!" exclaimed the boy, keeping the ball up. "So was David when he killed the giant! So was Hercules when he strangled the serpents, as you told me the other day. Young!" he cried a second time, with forcibly concentrated contempt. "You should know, Master Gilbert, that a Plantagenet of thirteen years is the match of any other man of twenty. As I can beat you at tennis, though you are six years older than I, so I can beat you in other matters, and with the Queen herself, even though she is half in love with you already, as all the court is saying; and she shall belong to me some day, though I have to slay that dish-faced prayer-master of a king to get her." Gilbert was no more morally timid than he was physically a coward, but he looked round with some anxiety as the boy uttered his outrageous boast. The place they had chosen for their game was the deep and shady corner where the church made a right angle with the royal palace. The grass was cropped during several hours every morning by a dozen sheep and lambs kept in a stable at the other end of the castle-yard during the rest of the day. The springing turf was kept fresh even in summer's drought by the deep shadows. The church wall, built of well-hewn blocks of stone, was flat and smooth, and was strengthened at regular intervals by buttresses springing straight up from the sloping penthouse of masonry, some two yards high. The interval between the last buttress and the wall of the palace made an admirable court, and, indeed, the tennis-courts of later days all seem to have been modelled upon just such corners of old church architecture. The wall of the palace was also smooth and almost without windows on that side. There was one on the lower floor, at a considerable distance from the corner, but the other was at least four or five yards from the ground, just above the point where Gilbert and Henry were playing, and was made in Norman fashion of two round arches springing from the rough-hewn capital of a small stone column between them. Gilbert had often noticed this window, though it was above an ordinary side glance, as he played the ball at the other wall; and even as he turned now, he looked instinctively behind him and towards the distant lower window. A sweet low laugh rang out into the summer air just above his head. He looked up to meet the sound, and young Henry missed the ball and turned his eyes in the same direction. His bluff, boyish face blushed scarlet, but Gilbert turned slowly pale, stepped back, and took his round pointed cap from his fair hair in acknowledgment of the Queen's presence. "You were listening, Madam," cried the boy, red in his anger. "But I am glad you did, since you have heard the truth." The Queen laughed again, and drew back her head as if to see whether there were any one in the room behind her, her white hand lying over the stone sill, meanwhile, as if to show that she was not going away. Gilbert even thought that the slender fingers tapped the stone ledge in a reassuring way. Then she looked out again. A few late flowers and sweet herbs grew in an earthenware trough in one division of the window. There was sweet basil and rosemary, and a bit of ivy that tried to find a hold upon the slender column, and, partly missing it, hung down over the window-ledge. A single monthly rose made a point of colour among the sweet green things. The Queen was still smiling as she rested her elbows upon the sill and her chin on her folded hands. She was near enough to the tennis-players to be heard by them if she spoke in a low tone. "Are you angry because Master Gilbert is frightened?" she asked, looking at Henry. "Or are you frightened because his lordship, the Count of Anjou, is angry?" she inquired, turning her eyes to Gilbert. He smiled at her way of opening the conversation, but Henry thought that she was laughing at him and grew redder than ever. Not deigning to answer, he picked up the ball and served it over the penthouse to himself, striking it back cleverly enough. The Queen laughed again as he kept his face resolutely turned from her. "Will you teach me to play, if I come down to you?" she asked, looking at the back of his head. "It is no game for women," answered the boy, rudely, and still keeping the ball up. "Will you give me a lesson, Master Gilbert?" The laughing eyes were suddenly grave as they turned to the young Englishman, the smiling lips grew tender, and the voice was gentle. Without turning round, Henry felt the change and knew that she was looking at his friend; he served the ball with a vicious stroke that brought it back too high for him. Without turning his head to see where it had rolled, the angry boy walked off, picked up his tunic, which lay on the turf at a little distance, threw it over his arm, jammed his pointed cap upon his head with his other hand, and departed in offended dignity. The Queen smiled as she looked after him, but did not laugh again. "Will you teach me to play tennis?" she asked of Gilbert, who was hesitating as to what he should do. "You have not answered me yet." "I shall at all times do your Grace's bidding," answered Gilbert, inclining his head a little and making a gesture with the hand that held his cap as if to put himself at her disposal. "At all times?" she asked quietly. Gilbert looked up quickly, fearing lest he might be tricked into a promise he did not understand, and he did not answer at once. But she would not repeat the question. "Wait," she said, before he spoke. "I am coming down." With an almost imperceptible gesture, like a greeting, she disappeared. Gilbert began to walk up and down, his hands behind him, his eyes on the ground, and he did not see the tennis-ball which Henry had lost until he almost stumbled over it. The boy's words had roused an entirely new train of ideas in his mind. Perhaps no man could be so free from vanity as not to be pleased, even against his will, with the thought that the most beautiful living woman, and she a queen, was in love with him. But whatever satisfaction of that sort Gilbert may have felt was traversed in an opposite direction by the cool sense of his own indifference. And besides, that was a simple age in which sins were called by their own names and were regarded with a sort of semi-religious, respectful abhorrence by most honest gentlemen; and what was only the general expression of a narrow but high morality had been branded upon Gilbert's soul during the past months in letters that were wounds by the ever-present memory of his own mother's shame. The confusion of his reflections was simplified by the appearance of Queen Eleanor. At the window of the lower story, which opened to the ground, she stepped out, looked up and down the deserted yard, and then came towards him. Gilbert had been long enough in Paris to understand that Queen Eleanor had not the slightest regard for the set rules, formal prejudices, and staid traditions of her husband's court; and when King Louis gravely protested against her dressing herself in man's mail, bestriding his own favourite charger, and tilting at the Saracen quintain in the yard, she hinted with more or less good or ill nature, according to her mood, that her possessions were considerably more extensive than the kingdom of France, and that what she had been taught to do by William of Aquitaine was necessarily right, and beyond the criticism of Louis Capet, who was descended from a Paris butcher. Nevertheless, the Englishman had some reasonable doubts and misgivings at finding himself, a humble squire, alone in that quiet corner with the most beautiful and most powerful of reigning queens. But she, whose quick intuition was a gift almost beyond nature, knew what he felt before she had reached his side. She spoke quite naturally and as if such a meeting were an everyday occurrence. [Illustration: "PERHAPS THAT IS ONE REASON WHY I LIKE YOU"] "You did not know that the window was mine?" she said quietly. "I saw how surprised you were when I looked out. It is a window of a little hall behind my room. There is a staircase leading down. I often come that way, but I hardly ever look out. To-day as I was passing I heard that silly child's angry voice, and when I saw his face and heard what he said, I could not help laughing." "The young Count is in earnest," said Gilbert, quietly, for it would have seemed disloyal to him to join in the Queen's laughter. "In earnest! Children are always in earnest!" "They deserve the more respect," retorted the Englishman. "I never heard of respecting children," laughed the Queen. "You never read Juvenal," answered Gilbert. "You often say things which I never heard before," answered the Queen. "Perhaps that is one reason why I like you." She stopped and leaned against the penthouse, for they had reached the corner of the court, and she thoughtfully bit a sprig of rosemary which she had picked from her window in passing. Gilbert could not help watching the small white teeth that severed the little curling grey leaves like ivory knives, but the Queen's eyes were turned from him and were very thoughtful. Gilbert deemed it necessary to say something. "Your Grace is very kind." He bowed respectfully. "What makes you so sad?" she asked suddenly, after a short pause, and turning her eyes full upon him. "Is Paris so dull? Is our court so grave? Is my Gascony wine sour, that you will not be merry like the rest, or"--she laughed a little--"or are you not treated with the respect and consideration due to your rank?" Gilbert drew himself up a little as if not pleased by the jest. "You know well that I have no rank, Madam," he said; "and though it should please you to command of me some worthy deed, and I should, by the grace of God, deserve knighthood, yet I would not have it save of my lawful sovereign." "Such as teaching me to play tennis?" she asked, seeming not to hear the end of his speech. "You should as well be knighted for that as for any other thing hard to do." "Your Grace is never in earnest." "Sometimes I am." Her eyelids drooped a little as she looked at him. "Not often enough, you think? And you--too often. Always, indeed." "If I were Queen of France, I could be light-hearted, too," said Gilbert. "But if your Grace were Gilbert Warde, you should be perhaps a sadder man than I." And he also laughed a little, but bitterly. Eleanor raised her smooth brows and spoke with a touch of irony. "Are you so young, and have you already such desperate sorrows?" But as she looked, his face changed, with that look of real and cruel suffering which none can counterfeit. He leaned back against the penthouse, looking straight before him. Then she, seeing that she had touched the nerve in an unhealed wound, glanced sidelong at him, bit upon her sprig of rosemary again, turned, and with half-bent head walked slowly along to the next buttress; she turned again there, and coming back stood close before him, laying one hand upon his folded arm and looking up to his eyes, that gazed persistently over her head. "I would not hurt you for the world," she said very gravely. "I mean to be your friend, your best friend--do you understand?" Gilbert looked down and saw her upturned face. It should have moved him even then, he thought, and perhaps he did not himself know that between her and him there was the freezing shadow of a faint likeness to his mother. "You are kind, Madam," he said, somewhat formally. "A poor squire without home or fortune can hardly be the friend of the Queen of France." She drew back from him half a step, but her outstretched hand still rested on his arm. "What have lands and fortune to do with friendship--or with love?" she asked. "Friendship's home is in the hearts of men and women; friendship's fortune is friendship's faith." "Ay, Madam, so it should be," answered Gilbert, his voice warming in a fuller tone. "Then be my friend," she said, and her hand turned itself palm upward, asking for his. He took it and raised it to his lips in the act of bending one knee. But she hindered him; her fingers closed on his with a strength greater than he had supposed that any woman could possess, and she held him and made him stand upright again, so that he would have had to use force to kneel before her. "Leave that for the court," she said; "when we are alone let us enjoy our freedom and be simply human beings, man and woman, friend and friend." Gilbert still held her hand, and saw nothing but truth in the mask of open-hearted friendship in which she disguised her growing love. He was young and thought himself almost friendless; a generous warmth was suddenly at his heart, with something compounded of real present gratitude and of the most chivalrous and unselfish devotion for the future. She felt that she had gained a point, and she forthwith claimed the privilege of friendship. "And being friends," she said, still holding his hand as he stood beside her, "will you not trust me and tell me what it is that seems to break your heart? It may be that I can help you." Gilbert hesitated, and she saw the uncertainty in his face, and pressed his hand softly as if persuading him to speak. "Tell me!" she said. "Tell me about yourself!" Gilbert looked at her doubtfully, looked away, and then turned to her again. Her voice had a persuasion of its own that appealed to him as her beauty could not. Almost before he knew what he was doing he was walking slowly by her left side, in the shade of the church, telling her his story; and she listened, silently interested, always turning her face a little toward his, and sometimes meeting his eyes with eyes of sympathy. He could not have told his tale to a man; he would not have told it to a woman he loved; but Eleanor represented to him a new and untried relation, and the sweet, impersonal light of friendship waked the dark places of his heart to undreamt confidence. He told her what had befallen him, from first to last, but the sound of his own words was strange to him; for he found himself telling her what he had seen two and three years ago, in the light of what he had known but a few months, yet almost as if he had known it from the first. More than once he hesitated in his speech, being suddenly struck by the horror of what he was telling, and almost doubting the witness of his own soul to the truth. One thing only he did not tell--he never spoke of Beatrix, nor hinted that there had been any love in his life. They turned, and turned again many times, and he was hardly aware that at the end the Queen had linked one hand in his right arm and gently pressed it from time to time in sign of sympathy. And when he had finished, with a quaver in his deep voice as he told how he had come out into the world to seek his fortune, she stopped him, and they both stood still. "Poor boy!" she exclaimed softly. "Poor Gilbert!"--and her tone lingered on the name,--"the world owes you a desperate debt--but the world shall pay it!" She smiled as she spoke the last words, pressing his arm more suddenly and quickly than before; and he smiled, too, but incredulously. Then she looked down at her own hand upon his sleeve. "But that is not all," she continued thoughtfully; "was there no woman--no love--no one that was dearer than all you lost?" A faint and almost boyish blush rose in Gilbert's cheek, and disappeared again instantly. "They took her from me, too," he said in a low, hard voice. "She was Arnold de Curboil's daughter--when he married my mother he made his child my sister. You know the Church's law!" Eleanor was on the point of saying something impulsively, but her eyelids suddenly drooped and she checked herself. If Gilbert Warde did not know that the Church granted dispensations in such cases, she saw no good reason for telling him. "Besides," he added, "I could not have her now, unless I could take her from her father by force." "No," said the Queen, thoughtfully. "Is she fair?" "Very dark," said Gilbert. "I meant, is she beautiful?" "To me, yes: the most beautiful in the world. But how should I know? I have never heard others speak of her; she is not beautiful as your Grace is,--not radiantly, supremely, magnificently perfect,--yet to my eyes she is very lovely." "I should like to see her," said the Queen. In the silence that followed they began to walk up and down again side by side, but Eleanor's hand no longer rested on Gilbert's arm. She could see that his eyes were fixed upon a face that was far away, and that his hand longed for a touch not hers; and a painful little thrill of disappointment ran through her, for she was not used to any sort of opposition, in great things or small. The handsome Englishman attracted her strangely, and not by his outward personality only. From the first a sort of mystery had hung over him, and she had felt, when she was with him, the inexplicable fascination of a curiosity which she should be sure to satisfy sooner or later. And now, having learned something of his life, and liking him the more for what she knew, she was suddenly filled with an irresistible longing to see the girl who had made the first mark on Gilbert's life. She tried to conjure up the young face, and the dark hue he had spoken of brought the vision of a fateful shadow. Her mind dwelt upon the girl, and she started visibly when Gilbert spoke to her. "And has your Grace no deed for me to do?" he asked. "Is there nothing whereby I may prove my thanks?" "Nothing, save that you be indeed my friend--a friend I can trust, a friend to whom I may speak safely as to my own soul, a friend whom I may tell how heartily I hate this life I lead!" She uttered the last words with a sudden rising accent of unruly discontent, as genuine as every other outward showing of her vital nature. "How can your life be hateful?" asked Gilbert, in profound astonishment, for he did not know her half as well as she already knew him. "How can it be anything else?" she asked, "How should life not be hateful, when every natural thing that makes life worth living is choked as soon as it is awake? Oh, I often wish I were a man!" "Men do not wish you were," answered Gilbert, with a smile. Suddenly, while they were speaking, a sound of voices filled the air with loud chanting of Latin words. Instinctively the Queen laid her hand on Gilbert's sleeve and drew him into the shadow of a buttress, and he yielded, scarcely knowing what he did. The chanting swelled on the air, and a moment later the procession began to appear beyond the corner of the church. Two and two, led by one who bore a cross, the song-boys in scarlet and white came first, then Benedictine monks in black, then priests of the cathedral in violet cloth with fine white linen surplices and bearing wax candles. And they all chanted as they walked, loudly, fervently, as if a life and a soul depended on every note. Then, as the Queen and Gilbert looked on from the shade where they stood, they saw the canopy of cloth of gold borne on its six gilded staves by slim young men in white, and beneath it walked the venerable bishop, half hidden under the vast embroidered cope from which the golden monstrance emerged, grasped by his closely wrapped hands; and his colourless eyes were fixed devoutly upon the Sacred Host, while his lips moved in silent prayer. Just as the canopy was in sight the procession halted for some time. In the shadow of the buttress Eleanor knelt upon the turf, looking towards the Sacred Host, and Gilbert dropped upon one knee at her side, very reverently bending his head. Eleanor looked straight before her with more curiosity than religious fervour, but in her ear she heard Gilbert's deep voice softly chanting with the monks the psalms he had so often sung at Sheering Abbey. The Queen turned her head at the sound, in surprise, and watched the young man's grave face for a moment without attracting his attention. Apparently she was not pleased, for her brows were very slightly drawn together, the corners of her eyes drooped, and the deep bright blue was darkened. At that moment the canopy swayed a little, the ancient bishop moved his shoulders under the heavy cope in the effort of starting again, and the procession began to move onward. Next after the bishop, from behind the end of the church, the King came into sight, walking, monk-like, with folded hands, moving lips and downcast eyes, the long embroidered bliaut reaching almost to his feet, while the scarlet mantle, lined with blue and bordered with ermine, fell straight from his shoulders and touched the turf as he walked. He was bareheaded, and as Eleanor noticed what was evidently intended for another act of humility, the serene curve of her closed lips was sharpened in scorn. And suddenly, as she gazed at her husband's cold, white features in contempt, she heard Gilbert's voice at her elbow again, chanting the Latin words musically and distinctly, and she turned almost with a movement of anger to see the bold young face saddened and softened by the essence of a profound belief. "Was I born to love monks!" she sighed half audibly; but as she looked back at the procession she started and uttered a low exclamation. Beside her husband, but a little after him as the pageant turned, a straight, thin figure came into sight, clad in a monk's frock scarcely less dazzling white than the marvellous upturned face. At Eleanor's exclamation Gilbert also had raised his eyes from the ground, and they fixed themselves on the wonderful features of the greatest man of the age, while his voice forgot to chant and his lips remained parted in wonder. Upon the bright green grass against the background of hewn stone walls, in the glorious autumn sunshine, Bernard of Clairvaux moved like the supernal vision of a heavenly dream. His head thrown back, the delicate silver-fair beard scarcely shadowing the spiritual outlines of an almost divine face, his soft blue eyes looked upward, filled with a light not earthly. The transparent brow and the almost emaciated cheeks were luminously pale, and seemed to shed a radiance of their own. But it would have been impossible to say what it was in the man's form or face that made him so utterly different and distinct from other men. It was not alone the Christlike brow, nor the noble features inherited from a line of heroes; it was not the ascetic air, the look of bodily suffering, nor the fine-drawn lines of pain which, as it were, etched a shadowy background of sorrow upon which the spiritual supremacy blazed like a rising star: it was something beyond all these, above name and out of definition, the halo of saintship, the glory of genius, the crown of heroism. Of such a man, one's eyes might be filled, and one might say, 'Let him not speak, lest some harsh tone or imperfect speech should pierce the vision with sharp discord, as a rude and sudden sound ends a soft dream.' Yet he was a man who, when he raised his hand to lead, led millions like children; who, when he opened his lips to speak, spoke with the tongue of men and of angels such words as none had spoken before him--words which were the truth made light; one who, when he took pen in hand to write to the world's masters, wrote without fear or fault, as being the scribe of God, but who could pen messages of tenderest love and gentlest counsel to the broken-hearted and the heavy-laden. Gilbert's eyes followed the still, white glory of the monk's face, till the procession turned in a wide sweep behind the wing of the palace, and even then the tension of his look did not relax. He was still kneeling with fixed gaze when the Queen was standing beside him. The scorn was gone from her lips and had given place to a sort of tender pity. She touched the young man's shoulder twice before he started, looked up, and then sprang to his feet. "Who is that man?" he asked earnestly. "Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux," answered the Queen, looking far away. "I almost worshipped him once, when I was a child,--it is the will of Heaven that I should lose my heart to monks!" She laughed, as she had laughed from the window. "Monks?" Gilbert repeated the word with curiosity. "Are you one of those persons for whom it is necessary to explain everything?" asked Eleanor, still smiling and looking at him intently. "I think you must be half a monk yourself, for I heard you singing the psalms as sweetly as any convent scholar." "Even if I were not half a monk, but one altogether, I should not wholly understand your Grace's speech;" Gilbert smiled, too, for he was immeasurably far from guessing what was in her mind. "So I have thought, in all these weeks and days while we have been together." Her eyes darkened as she looked at him, but his were clear and calm. "Do you understand this?" she asked, and she laid her two hands upon his shoulders. "What?" he asked in surprise. "This," she said, very softly, drawing herself near to him by her hands. Then he knew, and he would have straightened himself, but her hands sprang to meet each other round his neck, and her face was close to his. But the vision of his own sinful mother rose in her eyes to meet him. She held him fast, and three times she kissed him before she would let him go. CHAPTER VIII Gilbert had reached Paris in the train of Duke Geoffrey in September; the Christmas bells were ringing when he first caught sight of the walls and towers of Rome. As he drew rein on the crest of a low hill, the desolate brown waste of the Campagna stretched behind him mile upon mile to northward, toward the impenetrable forests of Viterbo, and Rome was at last before him. Before him rose the huge half-ruined walls of Aurelian, battered by Goth and Saracen and imperial Greek; before him towered the fortress of Hadrian's tomb, vast, impregnable, ferocious. Here and there above the broken crenellation of the city's battlements rose dark and slender towers, square and round, marking the places where strong robbers had fortified themselves within the city. But from the point where Gilbert halted, Rome seemed but a long brown ruin, with portions standing whole, as brown as the rest under the bright depths of vaulted blue, unflecked by the least fleece of cloud, in the matchless clearness of the winter's morning. Profound disappointment came upon him as he looked. With little knowledge and hardly any information from others who had journeyed by the same road, he had built himself an imaginary city of unspeakable beauty, wherein graceful churches rose out of sunlit streets and fair open places planted with lordly avenues of trees. There, in his thoughts, walked companies of men with faces like the face of the great Bernard, splendid with innocence, radiant with the hope of life. Thither, in his fancy, came the true knights of the earth, purified of sin by vigils in the holy places of the East, to renew unbroken vows of chastity and charity and faith. There, in his dream, dwelt the venerable Father of Bishops, the Vicar of Christ, the successor of Peter, the Servant of the servants of God, the spotless head of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church. There, in his heart, he had made the dwelling of whatsoever things are upright and just and perfect in heaven, and pure and beautiful on earth. That was the city of God, of which his soul was the architect, and in which he was to be a dweller, in peace that should pass understanding. He had left behind him in Paris another vision and one that might well have dazzled him--such favour as falls to few; such hopes as few can plant in their lives and still fewer can rear to maturity; such love as few indeed could hope for--the love of supreme and royal beauty. When he had ridden out of the castle on the island, older by some months, richer by such gifts as it was no shame for him to take of Duke Geoffrey and young Henry Plantagenet, he had believed himself wiser, too, by half a lifetime. He was confident in his own strength, in his own wisdom, in his own endurance; he fancied that he had fought against a great temptation, where he had in truth been chilled and terrified by the haunting vision of another's evil; he imagined that the little sharp regret, which stung his heart with longing for the sweetness of a sin that might have been, was the evil remnant of a passion not wholly quenched, whereas it was but the craving of a natural vanity that had not been strong enough to overcome a repugnance which he himself only half understood. He seemed in his own eyes to have made the sacrifice of his worldly future for the sake of his knightly ideal; but in truth, to a man without ambition, the renunciation had been easy and had been made in acquiescence with his real desires, rather than in opposition to them. And now he looked upon the city of his hope, and it crumbled to a dusty ruin under his very hand; he stood on ground made reverent by the march of history and sanctified by the blood of Christians, and it was but one great wilderness, of which he himself was the centre. His heart sank suddenly within him, and his fingers clutched at the breast of his tunic under his surcoat, as though the pain were bodily and real. Long he sat in silence, bending a little in the saddle, as if worn out with fatigue, though he had ridden only three hours since daybreak. "Sir," said his man Dunstan, interrupting his master's meditations, "here is an inn, and we may find water for our horses." Gilbert looked up indifferently, and then, as there was no near building in sight, he turned inquiringly to his man. A sardonic smile played on Dunstan's lean dark face as he pointed to what Gilbert had taken for three haystacks. They were, indeed, nothing but conical straw huts standing a few steps aside from the road, thirty yards down the hill. The entrance to each was low and dark, and from the one issued wreaths of blue smoke, slowly rising in the still, cold air. At the same entrance a withered bough proclaimed that wine was to be had. A ditch beyond the furthest hut was full of water, and at some distance from it a rude shed of boughs had been set up to afford the horses of travellers some shelter from winter rain or summer sun. As Gilbert looked, a man came out, bowing himself almost double to pass under the low aperture. He wore long goatskin breeches and a brown homespun tunic, like a monk's frock, cut short above the knees, and girdled with a twisted thong. Shaggy black hair thatched his square head, and a thin black beard framed the yellow face, which had the fever-stricken look of the dwellers in the Campagna. Though this was the first halting-place of the kind to which Gilbert had come in the Roman plain, he was no longer easily surprised by anything, and he did not even smile as he rode forward and dismounted. Besides his own men he had with him the muleteer who acted as guide and interpreter, and without whom it was impossible for a foreigner to travel in Italy. The peasant bowed to the ground, and led Gilbert to the entrance of the hut where he usually served his customers with food and drink, and in the gloom within Gilbert saw a rough-hewn table and two benches standing upon the well-swept floor of beaten earth. But the Englishman made signs that he would sit outside, and the scanty furniture was brought out into the open air. The third hut was a refuge and a sleeping-place for travellers overtaken at nightfall on their way to the city. "The monk is asleep," said the peasant host, lifting his finger to his lips because Gilbert's men were talking loud near the entrance. Gilbert understood as much as that without his interpreter; for in those days the Provencal tongue was an accomplishment of all well-born persons, and it was not unlike certain dialects of Italy. "A monk?" repeated Gilbert, indifferently. "He calls himself one, and he wears a grey frock," answered the other. "But we are glad when he comes, for he brings us good fortune. And you may see that I speak the truth, since he came late in the night, and your lordship is the first guest at the huts this morning." "Then you know him well?" "Every one knows him," answered the man. He turned, and Gilbert saw him lift up a hurdle of branches and disappear underground. His cellar was deep and cool, one of the many caverns which communicate with the catacombs and riddle the Campagna from Rome to the hills. Gilbert seated himself upon the smaller of the two benches at the end of the table; his three men took the other, and laid aside their caps out of respect for their master. The horses were tethered under the shed of boughs till they should be cool enough to be watered. The southern side of the hut was sunny and warm, and the place smelled of dry grass, of clean straw, and, faintly, of smouldering fire. Gilbert was hardly conscious that he was thinking of anything as he stared out at the rolling waste, folding his hands together upon the hilt of his long sword. Just then a man emerged from the third hut, drew himself up facing the sun, and rubbed his eyes before he looked toward the party at the other table. When he saw them, he hesitated for a moment, and then came up to Gilbert with the apparent intention of addressing him. Above the height of average men, the figure looked unnaturally tall by its gauntness, and the heavy folds of the grey woollen frock fell together below the breast as if they covered a shadow. Long, bony hands, that seemed woven of sinews and leather, but which were not without a certain nervous refinement, hung from loose-jointed brown wrists left bare by sleeves that were too short. The head was so roughly angular that even the thick masses of dark brown hair which fell to the shoulders could not make the angles seem like curves, and the face displayed the fervent features of a fanatic--dark, hollow cheeks, deep-sunk, blazing eyes, the vast lines of an ascetic mouth, a great jaw scarcely fringed by the scant black beard. Gilbert saw before him a face and figure that might have belonged to a hermit of Egypt, an ascetic of the Syrian desert, a John the Baptist, an Anthony of Thebes. The man wore a broad leathern girdle; a blackened rosary, with beads as large as walnuts, hung from his side and ended in a rough cross of wrought iron. Gilbert half rose from his seat, moved to one end of the short bench, and invited the stranger to sit beside him. The monk bent his head slightly, but not a feature moved as he took the proffered place in silence. He folded his great hands on the edge of the rough-hewn board and stared at the ruinous brown city to southward. "You are a stranger," he said in Provencal, after a long pause and in a singularly musical voice, but without turning his eyes to Gilbert. "I have never seen Rome before," answered Gilbert. "Rome!" There was a sort of almost heartbroken pity in the tone of the single syllable that fell from the lips of the wandering monk. "You have never seen Rome before? There it lies, all that is left of it--the naked bones of the most splendid, the most beautiful, the most powerful city in the world, murdered by power, done to death by popes and emperors, by prefects and barons, sapped of life by the evil canker of empire, and left there like a dead dog in the Campagna, to be a prey to carrion beasts and a horror to living men." The gaunt stranger set his elbows upon the table and bit his nails savagely, while his burning eyes fixed themselves on the distant towers of Rome. Then Gilbert saw that this man was no common wandering friar, begging a meal for his frock's sake, but one who had thoughts of his own, and with whom to think was to suffer. "It is true," said Gilbert, "that Rome is less fair to see than I had supposed." "And you are deceived of your hopes before you have entered her gate," returned the other. "Are you the first? Are you the last? Has Rome made an end of deceiving, and found the termination of disappointment? Rome has deceived and disappointed the world. Rome has robbed the world of its wealth, and devoured it, and grown gaunt to the bone. Rome has robbed men of their bodies and of their lives, and has torn them limb from limb wantonly, as a spoiled hawk tears a pheasant and scatters the bright feathers on the ground. Rome has robbed men of their souls and has fed hell with them to its surfeit. And now, in her turn, her grasping hands have withered at the wrists, her insatiable lips are cracking upon her loosening teeth, and the mistress of the world is the sport of Jews and usurers." "You speak bitterly," said Gilbert, looking curiously at his new acquaintance. The monk sighed, and his eyes softened wonderfully as he turned to the young man. He had been speaking in a tone that slowly rose to shrillness, like a cry of bodily pain. When he spoke again his voice was low and sweet. "Bitterly, but for her sake, not for mine," he said. "If I have given my life for her, she will not give me hers. Though I have laid at her feet all that I had, she shall put nothing into my hand nor give me anything but a ditch and a handful of earth for my bones, unless some emperor or pope shall leave them upon a gallows. But I have asked of her, for herself and her own sake, that she should do by herself honourably, and draw her neck from the yoke and shake off the burdens under which she has stumbled and fallen. I have asked of her to stand upright again, to refuse to eat from the hand that has wounded her, and not to hearken to the voice of violence and cursing. I have asked that Rome should cast out the Stranger Emperor, and cast down the churchman from the king's throne, and take from him the king's mask. I have asked Rome to face her high robbers whom she calls barons, her corruption, her secret weakness, as a brave man faces his sins and confesses them and steadfastly purposes to offend God no more, All this I have asked, and in part she has heard; and I have paid the price of my asking, for I am an outcast of many kingdoms and a man excommunicated under the Major Interdiction." A gentle smile, that might have been half indifference, half pity, wreathed the ascetic lips as he spoke the last words. They were not empty words in those days, and unawares Gilbert shrank a little from his companion. "I see that you are a devout person," said the friar, quietly. "Let my presence not offend you at your meal. I go my way." But as he began to rise, Gilbert's hand went out, and his fingers met round the skeleton arm in the loose grey sleeve. "Stay, sir," he said, "and break your fast with us. I am not such a one as you think." "You shrank from me," said the stranger, hesitating to resume his seat. "I meant no discourtesy," answered Gilbert. "Be seated, sir. You call yourself an outcast. I am but little better than a wanderer, disinherited of his own." "And come you hither for the Pope's justice?" asked the friar, scornfully. "There is no Pope in Rome. Our last was killed at the head of a band of fighting men, on the slope of the Capitol, last year, and he who is Pope now is as much a wanderer as you and I. And in Rome we have a Republic and a Senate, and justice of a kind, but only for Romans, and claiming no dominion over mankind; for to be free means to set free, to live means to let live." "I shall see what this freedom of yours is like," said Gilbert, thoughtfully. "For my part I am not used to such thoughts, and though I have read some history of Rome, I could never understand the Roman Republic. With us the strongest is master by natural law. Why should the strong man share with the weak what he may keep for himself? Or if he must, in your ideal, then why should not the strong nation share her strength and wealth with her weak neighbour? Is it not enough that the strong should not wantonly bruise the weak nor deal unfairly by him? The Normans can see no more harm or injustice in holding than we see in taking what we can; and so we shall never understand your republics and your senates." "Are you a Norman, sir?" asked the friar. "Are you a kinsman of Guiscard and of them that last burnt Rome? I do not wonder that the civilization of a republic should seem strange to you!" Gilbert was listening, but his eyes had wandered from the friar's face in the direction of the dusty road that led to Rome, and between his companion's words his quick ear had caught the sound of hoofs, although no horses were yet in sight but his own. Just as the friar ceased speaking, however, a troop of seven riders appeared at the turn of the road. They were rough-looking men in long brown cloaks that were in tatters at the edge; they wore round caps of mail on their heads, with a broad leathern strap under the chin; their faces were dark, their beards black and unkempt, and they rode small, ragged horses, as ill cared for as themselves. Gilbert sprang up almost as soon as he saw them, for he knew that, not being travellers, they could hardly be anything but highwaymen. His own men were on their feet as soon as he, while the muleteer guide disappeared round the hut quietly and swiftly, like a mouse when a cat is in sight. Gilbert made straight for his horses, followed by Dunstan and the groom; but before he could reach them, two of the riders had jumped the ditch from the road and intercepted him, while the others rode on toward the shed to carry off his horses. His sword was out in a flash, his men were beside him, their weapons in their hands, and the grimy riders drew theirs also; it was like a little storm of steel in the bright air. The Englishman's long blade whirled half a circle above his head; the blow would beat down the horseman's guard and draw blood, too. But in mid-air his wrist was seized in the sudden grasp of sinewy fingers, and the friar was already between him and his adversary, warning the other off with his outstretched hand. The loose sleeve had slipped back from his wrist, baring a brown, emaciated arm and elbow upon which the swollen veins seemed to twist and climb like leafless vines upon a withered tree. His lips were white, his eyes blazed, and his voice was suddenly harsh and commanding. "Back!" he cried, almost savagely. To Gilbert's very great astonishment, the single word produced an instantaneous and wonderful effect. The riders lowered their weapons, looked at one another, and then sheathed them; the others, who were loosing Gilbert's horses and mules, suddenly desisted at the sound of the friar's voice. Then the one nearest to Gilbert, who was a shade less grimy than the rest, and who wore in his cap a feather from a pheasant's tail, slipped to the ground, and bending low under his tattered brown cloak, took the hem of the monk's frock in his right hand and kissed it fervently. Gilbert stood aside, leaning upon his unsheathed sword, and his wonder grew as he looked on. "We ask your pardon, Fra Arnoldo," cried the chief, still kneeling. "How could we guess that you were breakfasting out here this morning? We thought you far in the north." "And therefore thought yourselves free to rob strangers and steal cattle, and cut one anothers' throats?" "This is probably a part of the civilization of a republic," observed Gilbert, with a smile. But the highwaymen, all dismounted now, came crowding to the feet of Arnold of Brescia in profound, if not lasting, contrition, and they begged a blessing of the excommunicated monk. CHAPTER IX Gilbert lodged at the sign of the Lion, over against the tower of Nona, by the bridge of Sant' Angelo. The inn was as old as the times of Charlemagne, when it had been named in honour of Pope Leo, who had crowned him emperor. But the quarter was at that time in the hands of the great Jewish race of Pierleoni, whose first antipope, Anacletus, had not been dead many years, and who, though they still held the castle and many towers and fortresses in Rome, had not succeeded in imposing the antipope Victor upon the Roman people, against the will of Bernard of Clairvaux. Rome lay along the river, in those days, like wreckage and scum thrown up on the shore of a wintry sea. Some twenty thousand human beings were huddled together in smoky huts, most of which were built against the outer walls and towers of the nobles' strongholds--a miserable population, living squalidly in terrible times, starving while the nobles fought with one another, rising now and then like a vision of famine and sword to take back by force the right of life which force had almost taken from them. Gilbert wandered through the crooked, unpaved streets, in and out of gloomy courts and over desolate wastes and open places, the haunts of ravenous dogs and homeless cats that kept themselves alive on the choice pickings of the city's garbage. He went armed and followed by his men, as he saw that other gentlemen of his condition did, and when he knelt in a church to hear mass or to say a prayer, he was careful to kneel with his back to the wall or to a pillar, lest some light-handed worshipper should set a razor to his wallet strings or his sword-belt. At his inn, too, he lived in a state of armed defence against every one, including the host and the other guests; and the weekly settlement was a weekly battle between Dunstan, who paid his master's scores, the little Tuscan interpreter, and Ser Clemente, the innkeeper, in which the Tuscan had the most uncomfortable position, finding himself placed buffer-like between the honest man and the thief, and exposed to equally hard hitting from both. Rome was poor and dirty and a den of thieves, murderers, and all malefactors, dominated alternately by a family of half-converted Jews, who terrorized the city from strong points of vantage, and then, on other days, by the mob that followed Arnold of Brescia when he appeared in the city, and who would have torn down stone walls with their bare hands at his merest words, as they would have faced the barons' steel with naked breast. At such times men left their tasks--the shoemaker his last, the smith his anvil, the crooked tailor his bench--to follow the northern monk to the Capitol, or to some church where he was to speak to them; and after the men came the women, and after the women the children, all drawn along by the mysterious attraction which they could neither understand nor resist. The tramping of many feet made a dull bass to the sound of many human voices, high and low, crying out lustily for 'Arnold, a Senate, and the Roman Republic'; and then taking up the song of the day, which was a ballad of liberty, in a long minor chant that broke into a jubilant major in the burden--the sort of song the Romans have always made in time of change, the kind of ballad that goes before the end of a kingdom, like a warning voice of fate. On such days, when the mob went howling and singing after its idol, southwards to the Capitol or even to the far Lateran where Marcus Aurelius sat upon his bronze horse watching the ages go by, then Gilbert loved to wander in the opposite direction, across the castle bridge and under the haunted battlements of Sant' Angelo, where evil Theodora's ghost walked on autumn nights when the south wind blew, and through the long wreck of the fair portico that had once extended from the bridge to the basilica, till he came to the broad flight of steps leading to the walled garden-court of old Saint Peter's. There he loved to sit musing among the cypresses, wondering at the vast bronze pine-cone and the great brass peacocks which Symmachus had brought thither from the ruins of Agrippa's baths, wherein the terrible Crescenzi had fortified themselves during more than a hundred years. Sitting there alone, while Dunstan puzzled his uncertain learning over deep-cut inscriptions of long ago, and Alric, the groom, threw his dagger at a mark on one of the cypress trees, hundreds of times in succession, and rarely missing his aim, Gilbert felt, in the silence he loved, that the soul of Rome had taken hold of his soul, and that in Rome it was good to live for the sake of dreaming, and that dreaming itself was life. The past, with his mother's sins, his own sorrows, the friendship of the boy Henry, the love of Queen Eleanor, were all infinitely far removed and dim. The future, once the magic mirror in which he had seen displayed the glory of knightly deeds which he was to do, was taken up like a departing vision into the blue Roman sky. Only the present remained, the idle, thoughtful, half-narcotic present, with a mazy charm no man could explain, since so far as any bodily good was concerned there was less comfort to be got for money, more fever to be taken for nothing, and a larger element of danger in everyday life in Rome than in any city Gilbert had traversed in his wanderings. Yet he lingered and loved it rather for what it denied him than for what it gave him, for the thoughts it called up rather than for the sights it offered, for that in it which was unknown, and therefore dear to dwell upon, rather than for the sadness and the darkness and the evil that all men might feel. But through all he felt, and in all he saw, welding and joining the whole together, there was the still fervour of that something which he had at first known in Sheering Abbey--something to which every fibre of his nature responded, and which, indeed, was the mainspring of the world in that age. For devotion was then more needful than bread, and it profited a man more to fight against unbelievers for his soul's sake than to wear hollows in altar-steps with his knees, or to forget his own name and put off his own proper character and being, as a nameless unit in a great religious order. At first the enormous disappointment of Rome had saddened and hurt him. He had fancied that where there was no head there could be no house, that where the leader was gone the army must scatter and be hewn in pieces. But as he stayed on, from week to week and from month to month, he learned to understand that the Church had never been more alive, more growing, and more militant than at that very time when the true and rightful pontiffs were made outcasts one after the other, while their places, earthly and spiritual, were given to instruments of feud and party. For the Church was the world, while Rome meant seven or eight thousand half-starved and turbulent ruffians, with their wives and children, eager always for change, because it seemed that no change could be for the worse. But in the ancient basilica of Saint Peter there was peace; there the white-haired priests solemnly officiated in the morning and at noon, and toward evening more than a hundred rich voices of boys and men sang the vesper psalms in the Gregorian tones; there slim youths in violet and white swung silver censers before the high altar, and the incense floated in rich clouds upon the sunbeams that fell slanting to the ancient floor; there, as in many a minster and cloister of the world, the Church was still herself, as she was, and is, and always will be; there words were spoken and solemn prayers intoned which had been familiar to the lips of the Apostles, which are familiar to our lips and ears to-day, and of which we are sure that lips unborn will repeat them to centuries of generations. Gilbert, type of Christian layman, kneeled in the old cathedral, and chanted softly after the choir, and breathed the incense-laden air that seemed as natural to him as ever the hay-scented breeze of summer had been, and he was infinitely refreshed in soul and body. But then again, alone in his room at the Lion Inn, late in the night, when he had been poring over the beautifully written copy of Boethius, given him by the Abbot of Sheering, he often opened wide the wooden shutters of his window and looked out at the castle and at the flowing river that eddied and gleamed in the moonlight. Then life rose before him in a mystery for him to solve by deeds, and he knew that he was not to dream out his years in the shadowy city, and the strong old instinct of his race bade him go forth and cut his fortune out of the world's flank alive. Then his blood rose in his throat, and his hands hardened one upon the other, as he leaned over the stone sill and drew the night air sharply between his closed teeth; and he resolved then to leave Rome and to go on in search of strange lands and masterful deeds. On such nights, when the wind blew down the river in the spring, it brought to him all the hosts of fancy, spirit armies, ghostly knights, and fairy maidens, and the forecast shadows of things to come. There was a tragic note, also; for on his right, as he looked, there rose the dark tower of Nona, and from the highest turret he could clearly see in the moonlight how the long rain-bleached rope hung down and swayed in the breeze, and the noose at the end of it softly knocked upon the tower wall; more than once, also, when he had looked out in the morning, he had seen a corpse hanging there by the neck, stiff and staring and wet with dew. But when the spring day dawned and the birds sang at his window, and when, looking out, he felt the breath of the sweet south and saw that Rome smiled again, then his resolutions failed, and instead of bidding Dunstan pack his armour and his fine clothes for a journey, he made his men mount and ride with him to the far regions of the city. Often he loitered away the afternoon in the desolate regions of the Aventine, riding slowly from one lonely church to another, and sometimes spending an hour in conversation with a solitary priest who, by living much alone and among inscriptions and old carvings, had gathered a little more learning than was common among the unlettered Romans. He met with no adventures; for though the highways in the country swarmed with robbers always on the watch for a merchant's train or for a rich traveller, yet within the city's limits, small as was the authority of the Senate and of the Prefect, thieves dared not band together in numbers, and no two or three of them would have cared to come to blows with Gilbert and his men. Nor did he make friends in Rome. His first intention had been to present himself to the principal baron in the city, as a traveller of good birth, and to request the advantages of friendship and protection; and so he would have done in any other European city. But he had soon learned that Rome was far behind the rest of the world in the social practices of chivalry, and that in placing himself under a Roman baron's protection he would, to all intents and purposes, be taking service instead of accepting hospitality. Even so, he might have been willing to take such a position for the sake of adventure; yet he could by no means make up his mind to a choice between the half-Jewish Pierleoni and the rough-mannered Frangipani. To the red-handed Crescenzi he would not go; the Colonna of that time were established on the heights of Tusculum, and the Orsini, friends to the Pope, had withdrawn to distant Galera, in the fever-haunted marsh northwest of Rome. But here and there he made the acquaintance of a priest or a monk whose learned conversation harmonized with his thoughts and helped the grave illusion in which--perhaps out of sheer idleness--he loved to think himself back in the abbey in England. And so he led a life unlike the lives around him, and many of the people in the quarter learned to know him by sight, and called him and his men 'the English'; and as most of the people of Rome were very much occupied with their own affairs, chiefly evil, Gilbert was allowed to live as he pleased. But for the fact that even his well-filled purse must in the course of time be exhausted, he might have spent the remainder of his life in the Lion Inn, by the bridge, carelessly meditative and simply happy. But other forces were at work to guide his life into other channels, and he had reckoned ill when he had fancied, being himself unmoved, that the love of such a woman as Queen Eleanor was a mere incident without consequence, forgotten like a flower of last year's blossoming. Several times during the winter and in the spring that followed, the friar Arnold came to see him in his lodgings and talked of the great things that were coming, of the redemption of man from man by the tearing down of all sovereign power, whether of pope or emperor, or king or prince, to make way for the millennium of a universal republic. Then the fanatic's burning eyes flashed like beacons, his long arms made sudden and wild gestures, his soft brown hair stood from his head as though lifted by a passing breeze, and his whole being was transfigured in the flash of his own eloquence. When he spoke to the Romans with that voice and with that look, they rose quickly to a tumult, as the sea under a gale, and he could guide them in their storming to ends of destruction and terror. But there was no drop of southern blood in Gilbert's veins nor anything to which the passionate Italian's eloquence appealed. Instead of catching fire, he argued; instead of joining Arnold in his attempt to turn the world into a republic, he was more and more persuaded of the excellence of all he had left behind him in the north. He incarnated that aristocratic temper which has in all times, since Duke William crossed the water, leavened the strong mass of the Anglo-Saxon character, balancing its rude democratic strength with the keenness of a higher physical organization and the nobility of a more disinterested daring, and again and again rousing the English-speaking races to life and conquest, when they were sunk deep in the sordid interests of trade and money-making. So when Arnold talked of laws and institutions which should again make Rome the mistress of the world, Gilbert answered him by talking of men who had the strength to take the world and to be its masters and make it obey whatsoever laws they saw fit to impose. Between the two there was the everlasting difference between theory and action; and though it chanced that just then Arnold, the dreamer, was in the lead of change and revolution, while Gilbert, the fighter, was idling away weeks and months in a dream, yet the fact was the same, and in manly strength and inward simplicity of thought Gilbert Warde, the Norman, was far nearer to the man who made Rome imperial than was the eloquent Italian who built the mistress city of his thoughts out of ideas and theories, carved and hewn into shapes of beauty by the tremendous tools of his wit and his words. At the root of the great difference between the two there was on the one side the Norman's centralization of the world in himself, as being for himself, and on the other the Latin's power and readiness to forget himself in the imaginations of an ideal state. "Men are talking of a second Crusade," said Arnold, one day, when he and Gilbert had chanced to meet in the garden court of Saint Peter's. Gilbert was standing with his back against one of the cypress trees, watching the fiery monk with thoughtful eyes. "They talk of Crusades," said Arnold, stopping to face the young man. "They talk of sending hundreds of thousands of Christian men to die every death under God's sun in Palestine--for what? To save men? To lift up a race? To plant good, that good may grow? They go for none of those things. The sign on their breasts is the cross; the word on their lips is Christ; the thought in their hearts is the thought of all your ruthless race--to take from others and add to your own stores; to take land, wealth, humanity, life, everything that can be taken from conquered man before he is left naked to die." Gilbert did not smile, for he was wondering whether there were not some truth in the monk's accusation. "Do you say this because Norman men hold half of your Italy?" he asked gravely. "Have they held it well or ill?" "Ill," answered Arnold, fixing his eyes sharply on Gilbert's face. "But that is not the matter; some of them have helped me, too. There are good men and bad among Normans, as among Saracens." "I thank you," said Gilbert, smiling now, in spite of himself. "The devils also believe and tremble," retorted Arnold, grimly quoting. "The taking of the South proves my words; it is not half my meaning. Men take the cross and give their lives for a name, a tradition, the sacred memories of a holy place. They will not give a week of their lives, a drop of their blood, for their fellow-men, nor for the beliefs that alone can save the world." "And what are those beliefs?" asked Gilbert. Arnold paused before he replied, and then as he lifted his face, it was full of light. "Faith, Hope, Charity," he answered, and then, as his head drooped with a sudden look of hopelessness, he turned away with slow steps toward the great gate. Gilbert did not change his position as he looked after him rather sadly. The man's perfect simplicity, his eagerness for the most lofty ideals, the spotless purity of his life, commanded Gilbert's most true admiration. And yet to the Norman, Arnold of Brescia was but a dreamer, a visionary, and a madman. Gilbert could listen to him for a while, but then the terrible tension of the friar's thought and speech wearied him. Just now he was almost glad that his companion should depart so suddenly; but as he watched him he saw him stop, as if he had forgotten something, and then turn back, searching for some object in the bosom of his frock. "I had forgotten what brought me here," said the friar, producing a small roll of parchment tied and bound together with thin leathern laces, and tied again with a string of scarlet silk to which was fastened a heavy leaden seal. "I have here a letter for you." "A letter!" Gilbert showed a not unnatural surprise. He had never received a letter in his life, and in those days persons of ordinary importance rarely sent or received messages except by word of mouth. "I went to your lodging," replied the monk, handing Gilbert the parchment. "I guessed that I might find you here, where we have met before." "I thank you," said Gilbert, turning the roll over in his hands as if hardly knowing what to do. "How came you by this?" "Last night there arrived messengers from France," answered Arnold, "bringing letters for the Senate and for me, and with them was this, which the messenger said had been delivered into his hand by the Queen of France, who had commanded him to find out the person to whom it was addressed, and had promised him a reward if he should succeed. I therefore told him that I would give it to you." Gilbert was looking at the seal. The heavy disk of lead through which the silken strings had been drawn was as large as the bottom of a drinking-cup and was stamped with the device of Aquitaine; doubtless the very one used by Duke William, for it bore the figures of Saint George and the Dragon, which Eleanor was afterwards to hand down to English kings to this day. Gilbert tried to pull the silk cord through the lead, but the blow that had struck the die had crushed and jammed them firmly. "Cut it," suggested the friar, and his ascetic face relaxed in a smile. Gilbert drew his dagger, which was a serviceable blade, half an ell long, and as broad as a man's three fingers under the straight cross-hilt, and as sharp as a razor on both edges, for Dunstan was a master at whetting. Gilbert cut the string and then the laces, and slipped the seal into his wallet, unrolling the stiff sheet till he found a short writing, some six or eight lines, not covering half the page, and signed, 'Eleanora R.' But when he had opened the letter he saw that it was not to be read easily. Nevertheless, his eye lighted almost at once upon the name which of all others he should not hare expected to find there, 'Beatrix.' There was no mistaking the letters, and presently he found them once again, and soon after that the sense was clear to him. 'If this reach you,' it said, in moderately fair Latin, 'greeting. I will that you make haste and come again to our castle in Paris, both because you shall at all times be welcome, and more especially now, and quickly, because the noble maiden Beatrix de Curboil is now at this court among my ladies, and is in great hope of seeing you, since she has left her father to be under my protection. Moreover, Bernard, the abbot, is preaching the Cross in Chartres and other places, and is coming here before long, and to Vezelay. Beatrix greets you.' "Can you tell me where I can find the messenger who brought you this?" asked Gilbert, looking up when he had at last deciphered every word. But Arnold was gone. The idea that an acquaintance whom he had been endeavouring to convert to republican doctrines should be in correspondence with one of those sovereigns against whom he so bitterly inveighed had finally disgusted him, and he had gone his way, if not in wrath, at least in displeasure. Seeing himself alone, Gilbert shrugged his shoulders indifferently, and began to walk up and down, reading the letter over and over. It was very short, but yet it contained so much information that he found some difficulty in adjusting his thoughts to what was an entirely new situation, and one which no amount of thinking could fully explain. He was far too simple to suppose that Eleanor had called Beatrix to her court solely for the sake of bringing him back to Paris. He therefore imagined the most complicated and absurd reasons for Queen Eleanor's letter. He told himself that he must have been mistaken from beginning to end; that the Queen had never felt anything except friendship for him, but a friendship far deeper and more sincere than he had realized; and he was suddenly immensely grateful to her for her wish to build up happiness in his life. But then, again, she knew as well as he--or as well as he thought he knew--that the Church would not easily consent to his union with Beatrix, and as he closed his eyes and recalled scenes of which the memories were still vivid and clear, the shadow that had chilled his heart in Paris rose again between him and Eleanor's face, and he distrusted her, and her kiss and her letter, and her motives. Then, too, it seemed very strange to him that Beatrix should have left her father's house; for Arnold de Curboil had always loved her, and it did not occur to Gilbert that his own mother had made the girl's life intolerable. He was to learn that later, and when he knew it, he tasted the last and bitterest dregs of all. Nevertheless, he could not reasonably doubt the Queen's word; he was positively certain that he should find Beatrix at the French court, and from the first he had not really hesitated about leaving at once. It seemed to be the only possible course, though it was diametrically opposed to all the good resolutions which had of late flitted through his dreams like summer moths. On the next day but one, early in the spring morning, Gilbert and his men rode slowly down the desolate Via Lata, and under Aurelian's arch, past the gloomy tomb of Augustus on the left, held by the Count of Tusculum, and out at last upon the rolling Campagna, northward, by the old Flaminian Way. CHAPTER X June was upon Italy, as a gossamer veil and a garland on the brow of a girl bride. The first sweet hay was drying in Tuscan valleys; the fig leaves were spreading, and shadowing the watery fruit that begins to grow upon the crooked twigs before the leaves themselves, and which the people call "fig-blossoms," because the real figs come later; the fresh and silvery olive shoots had shed a snow-flurry of small white stars; the yellow holy thorn still blossomed in the rough places of the hills, and the blending of many wild flowers was like a maiden blush on the earth's soft bosom. At early morning Gilbert rode along the crest of a low and grassy hill that was still sheltered from the sun by the high mountains to eastward, and he drank in the cool and scented air as if it had been water of paradise, and he a man saved out of death to life by the draught. There was much peace in his heart, and a still security that he had not felt yet since he had seen his father lying dead before him. He knew not how it was, but he was suddenly sure that Beatrix loved him and had escaped to the court of France in the hope of finding him, and was waiting for him day by day. And he was also sure that the Church would not cut him off from her in the end, let the churchmen say what they would. Was not the Queen of France his friend? She would plead his case, and the Pope would understand and take away the bar. He thought of these things, and he felt his hopes rising bright, like the steady sun. He reached the end of the crest and drew rein before descending, and he looked down into the broad valley and the river winding in and out among trees, gleaming like silver out there in the sun beyond the narrowing shadow, then dark blue, and then, in places, as black as ink. The white road, broad and dusty, winding on to Florence, followed the changing river. Gilbert took his cap from his head and felt the coolness of the morning on his forehead and the gentle breath of the early summer in his fair hair; and then, sitting there in the deep silence, bareheaded, it seemed to him that he was in the very holy place of God's cathedral. "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding," he repeated softly and almost involuntarily. "Now the God of peace be with you all, amen," answered Dunstan. But there was a tone in his voice that made Gilbert look at him, and he saw in the man's face a quiet smile, as if something amused him, while the black eyes were fixed on a sight far away. Dunstan was pointing to what he saw; so Gilbert looked, too, and he perceived a gleaming, very far off, that moved slowly on the white road beside the shining river. "They are expecting a fight to-day," said Gilbert, "for they are in mail and their mule-train is behind them." "Shall we turn aside and ride up the mountain, to let them pass?" asked Dunstan, who could fight like a wildcat, but had also the cat's instinctive caution. "It would be a pity not to see the fight," answered Gilbert, and he began to ride forward down the descent. The track was worn down to the depth of a man's height by the hoofs of the beasts that had trodden it for ages; and in places it was very narrow, so that two laden mules could hardly pass each other. Young chestnut shoots of three or four years' growth sprang up in thick green masses from the top of the bank on each side, and now and then the branches of nut trees almost joined their broad leaves across the way, making a deep shade that was cool and smelt of fresh mould and green things. A little way down the hill a spring of water trickled into a little pool hollowed out by travellers, and the water overflowed and made thick black mud of the earth churned up with last year's dead leaves. Gilbert let his horse stop to drink, and his men waited in single file to take their turn. "Psst!" The peculiar hiss which Italians make to attract attention came sharp and distinct from the low growth of the chestnut shoots. Gilbert turned his head quickly in the direction of the sound. A swarthy face appeared, framed in a close leathern cap on which small rings of rusty iron were sewn strongly, but not very regularly. Then a long left arm, clad in the same sort of mail, pushed the lower boughs aside and made a gesture in the direction whence Gilbert had come, which was meant to warn him back--a gesture of the flat hand, held across the breast with thumb hidden, just moving a little up and down. "Why should I go back?" asked Gilbert, in his natural voice. "Because yes," answered the dark man, in the common Italian idiom, and in a low tone. "Because we are waiting for the Florentines, certain of us of Pistoja, and we want no travellers in the way. And then--because, if you will not--" The right arm suddenly appeared, and in the hand was a spear, and the act was a threat to run Gilbert through, unmailed as he was, and just below his adversary. But as Gilbert laid his hand upon his sword, looking straight at the man's eye, he very suddenly saw a strange sight; for there was a long arrow sticking through the head, the point out on one side and the feather on the other; and for a moment the man still looked at him with eyes wide open. Then, standing as he was, his body slowly bent forward upon itself as if curling up, and with a crash of steel it rolled down the bank into the pool of water, where the lance snapped under it. For little Alric, the Saxon groom, had quietly slipped to the ground and had strung his bow, suspecting trouble, and had laid an arrow to the string, waiting; and little Alric's aim was very sure; it was also the first time that he had shot a man, and he came of men who had been bowmen since Alfred's day, and before that, and had killed many, for generations, so that it was an instinct with them to slay with the bow. "Well done, boy!" cried Gilbert. But his horse reared back, as the dead body fell splashing into the pool, and Alric quietly unstrung his bow again and remounted to be ready. Then Gilbert would have ridden on, but Dunstan hindered him. "This fellow was but a sentinel," he said. "A little further on you will find these woods filled with armed men waiting to surprise the riders we saw from above. Surely, I will die with you, sir; but we need not die like rats in a corn-bin. Let us ride up a little way again, and then skirt the woods and take the road where it joins the river, down in the valley." "And warn those men of Florence that they are riding into an ambush," added Gilbert, turning his horse. So they rode up the hill; and scarcely were they out of sight of the spring when a very old woman and a ragged little boy crept out of the bushes, with knives, and began to rob the dead man of his rusty mail and his poor clothes. Gilbert reached the road a long stone's-throw beyond the last chestnut shoots, and galloped forward to meet the advancing knights and men-at-arms. He drew rein suddenly, a dozen lengths before them, and threw up his open right hand. They were riding leisurely, but all in mail, some having surcoats with devices embroidered thereon, and most of them with their heads uncovered, their steel caps and hoods of mail hanging at their saddle-bows. "Sirs," cried Gilbert, in a loud, clear voice, "you ride to an ambush! The chestnut woods are full of the men of Pistoja." A knight who rode in front, and was the leader, came close to Gilbert. He was a man not young, with a dark, smooth face, as finely cut as a relief carved upon a shell, and his hair was short and iron-grey. Gilbert told him what had happened in the woods, and the elderly knight listened quietly and thoughtfully, while examining Gilbert's face with half-unconscious keenness. "If you please," said the young man, "I will lead you by the way I have ridden, and you may enter the bushes from above, and fight at better advantage." But the Florentine smiled at such simple tactics. To feel the breeze, he held up his right hand, which issued from a slit in the wrist of his mail, so that the iron mitten hung loose; and the wind was blowing toward the woods. He called to his squire. "Take ten men, light torches, and set fire to those young trees." The men got a cook's earthenware pot of coals, fed all day long with charcoal on the march, lest there should be no fire for the camp at night; and they lit torches of pitched hemp-rope, and presently there was a great smoke and a crackling of green branches. But the leader of the Florentines put on his steel cap and drew the mail hood down over his shoulders, while all the others who were bareheaded did the same. "Sir," said the knight to Gilbert, "you should withdraw behind us, now that you have done us this great service. For presently there will be fighting here, and you are unmailed." "The weather is overwarm for an iron coat," answered Gilbert, with a laugh. "But if I shall not trespass upon the courtesies of your country by thrusting my company upon you, I will ride at your left hand, that you may the more safely slay with your right." "Sir," answered the other, "you are a very courteous man. Of what country may you be?" "An Englishman, sir, and of Norman blood." He also told his name. "Gino Buondelmonte, at your service," replied the knight, naming himself. "Nay, sir," laughed Gilbert, "a knight cannot serve a simple squire!" "It is never shame for gentle-born to serve gentle-born," answered the other. But now the smoke was driving the men of Pistoja out of the wood, and the hillside down which Gilbert had ridden was covered with men in mail, on horseback, and with footmen in leather and such poor armour as had been worn by the dead sentinel. Buondelmonte thrust his feet home in his wide stirrups, settled himself in the saddle, shortened his reins, and drew his sword, while watching all the time the movements of the enemy. Gilbert sat quietly watching them, too. As yet he had never ridden at a foe, though he had fought on foot, and he unconsciously smiled with pleasure at the prospect, trying to pick out the man likely to fall by his sword. In England, or in France, he would certainly have put on the good mail which was packed on the sumpter mule's back; but here in the sweet Italian spring, in the morning breeze full of the scent of wild flowers, and the humming of bees and the twittering of little birds, even fighting had a look of harmless play, and he felt as secure in his cloth tunic as if it had been of woven steel. The position of the Florentines was the better, for they had the broad homeward road behind them, in case of defeat; but the men of Pistoja, driven from the woods by the thick smoke and the burning of the undergrowth, were obliged to scramble down a descent so steep that many of them were forced to dismount, and they then found themselves huddled together in a narrow strip of irregular meadow between the road and the foot of the stony hill. Buondelmonte saw his advantage. His sword shot up at arm's length over his head, and his high, clear voice rang out in a single word of command. In a moment the peace of nature was rent by the scream of war. Hoofs thundered, swords flashed, men yelled, and arrows shot through the great cloud of dust that rose suddenly as from an explosion. In the front of the charge the Italian and the Norman rode side by side, the inscrutable black eyes and the calm olive features beside the Norman's terrible young figure, with its white glowing face and fair hair streaming on the wind, and wide, deep eyes like blue steel, and the quivering nostrils of the man born for fight. Short was the strife and sharp, as the Florentines spread to right and left of their leader and pressed the foe back against the steep hill in the narrow meadow. Then Buondelmonte thrust out straight and sure, in the Italian fashion, and once the mortal wound was in the face, and once in the throat, and many times men felt it in their breasts through mail and gambison and bone. But Gilbert's great strokes flashed like lightnings from his pliant wrist, and behind the wrist was the Norman arm, and behind the arm the relentless pale face and the even lips, that just tightened upon each other as the deathblows went out, one by one, each to its place in a life. The Italian destroyed men skilfully and quickly, yet as if it were distasteful to him. The Norman slew like a bright destroying angel, breathing the swift and silent wrath of God upon mankind. Blow upon blow, with clash of steel, thrust after thrust as the darting of serpents, till the dead lay in heaps, and the horses' hoofs churned blood and grass to a green-red foam, till the sword-arm waited high and then sank slowly, because there was none for the sword to strike, and the point rested among the close-sewn rings of mail on Buondelmonte's foot, and the thin streams of blood trickled quietly down the dimmed blade. "Sir," said Buondelmonte, courteously, "you are a marvellous fine swordsman, though you fence not in our manner, with the point. I am your debtor for the safety of my left side. Are you hurt, sir?" "Not I!" laughed Gilbert, wiping his broad blade slowly on his horse's mane for lack of anything better. Then Buondelmonte looked at him again and smiled. "You have won yourself a fair crest," he laughed, as he glanced at Gilbert's cap. "A crest?" Gilbert put up his hand, and uttered an exclamation as it struck against a sharp steel point. A half-spent arrow had pierced the top of his red cloth cap and was sticking there, like a woman's long hairpin. He thought that if it had struck two inches lower, with a little more force, he should have looked as the man in the woods did, whom Alric had killed. He plucked the shaft from the stiff cloth with some difficulty, and, barely glancing at it, tossed it away. But little Alric, who had left the guide to take care of the mules and had followed the charge on foot, picked up the arrow, marked it with his knife and put it carefully into his leathern quiver, which he filled with arrows he picked up on the grass till it would hold no more. Dunstan, who had ridden in the press with the rest, was looking among the dead for a good sword to take, his own being broken. "Florence owes you a debt, sir," said Buondelmonte, an hour later, when they were riding back from the pursuit. "But for your warning, many of us would be lying dead in that wood. I pray you, take from the spoil, such as it is, whatsoever you desire. And if it please you to stay with us, the archbishop shall make a knight of you, for you have won knighthood to-day." But Gilbert shook his head, smiling gravely. "Praised be God, I need nothing, sir," he answered. "I thank you for your courteous hospitality, but I cannot stay, seeing that I ride upon a lady's bidding. And as for a debt, sir, Florence has paid hers largely in giving me your acquaintance." "My friendship, sir," replied Buondelmonte, not yielding in compliment to the knightly youth. So they broke bread together and drank a draught, and parted. But Buondelmonte gave Dunstan a small purse of gold and a handful of silver to little Alric and the muleteer, and Gilbert rode away with his men, and all were well pleased. Yet when he was alone in the evening, a sadness and a horror of what he had done came over him; for he had taken life that day as a man mows down grass, in swaths, and he could not tell why he had slain, for he knew not the men who fought on the two sides, nor their difference. He had charged because he saw men charging, he had struck for the love of strife, and had killed because it was of his nature to kill. But now that the blood was shed, and the sun which had risen on life was going down on death, Gilbert Warde was sorry for what he had done, and his brave charge seemed but a senseless deed of slaughter, for which he should rather have done penance than received knighthood. "I am no better than a wild beast," he said, when he had told Dunstan what he felt. "Go and find out a priest to pray for those I have killed to-day." He covered his brow with his hand as he sat at the supper table. "I go," answered the young man. "Yet it is a pleasant sight to see the lion weeping for pity over the calf he has killed." "The lion kills that he may eat and himself live," answered Gilbert. "And the men who fought to-day fought for a cause. But I smote for the wanton love of smiting that is in all our blood, and I am ashamed. Bid the priest pray for me also." CHAPTER XI The court of France was at Vezelay--the King, the Queen, the great vassals of the kingdom at the King's command, and those of Aquitaine and Guienne and Poitou in the train of Eleanor, whose state outshone and dwarfed her husband's. And there was Bernard, the holy man of Clairvaux, to preach the Cross, where old men remembered the voice of Peter the Hermit and the shout of men now long dead in far Palestine, crying, "God's will! God's will!" Because the church of Saint Mary Magdalen was too small to hold the multitude, they were gathered together in a wide grassy hollow without the little town, and there a raised floor of wood had been built for the King and Queen and the great nobles; but the rest of the knights and Eleanor's three hundred ladies stood upon the grass-grown slope, and were crowded together by the vast concourse of the people. The sun was already behind the hill, and the hot July air had cooled a little; but it was still hot, and the breathing of the multitude could be heard in the silence. Gilbert had come but just in time; he had left his men to find him a lodging if they could, and now he pressed forward as well as he might, to see and hear, but most of all to find out, if he could, the face of Beatrix among the three hundred. There sat the Queen, in scarlet and gold, wearing the crown upon her russet hair, and the King in gold and blue beside her, square, grave, and pale as ever; and when Gilbert had searched the three hundred fair young faces in vain, his eyes came back to the most beautiful woman in the world. He saw that she was fairer than even his memory of her, and he felt pride that she should call herself his friend. Then suddenly there was a stir among the knights behind the throne, and though they were standing closely, shoulder to shoulder, and pressed one against another, yet they divided to let the preacher go through. He came alone, with quiet eyes, thanking the knights to right and left because they made way for him, and he passed between them quickly like a white shadow. So thought pierces matter and the spiritual being penetrates the terrestrial being and is unchanged. But when Bernard had ascended the white wooden stage and stood near the King and Queen, then the hushed stillness became a dead silence, and the eyes of all that multitude were fastened upon his face and form, as each could see him. For a moment every man held his breath as if an angel had come down from heaven, bringing on his lips the word of God and in his look the evidence of eternal light. He was the holy man of the world even while he lived, and neither before him nor after him, since the days of the Apostles, has any one person so stood in the eyes of all mankind. The gentle voice began to speak, without effort to be heard, yet as distinct and clear as if it spoke to each several ear, pleading for the cause of the Cross of Christ, and for the suffering men who held the holy places in the East with ever-weakening hands, but still with undaunted, desperate courage. "Is there any man among you who has loved his mother, and has received her dying breath with her last blessing, and has laid her to rest in peace, in a place holy to him for her sake, and who would suffer that her grave should be defiled and defaced by her enemies, so long as he, her son, has in his body blood of hers to shed? Is there any among you who would not fight, while he had breath, to save his father's dead bones from dishonour? Do you not daily boast that you will lay down your lives in a quarrel for the good name of your ladies, as you would for your own daughters' fair fame and your own wives' faithfulness? "And now, I say, is not the Church of God your mother, and are not her temples your most holy places? You boast that you are ready to die for an honourable cause: yet Christ gave His life for us, not because of our honour, but because of our dishonour, and our sins which are many and grievous; and having atoned for us in His Holy Passion, He was laid at rest after the manner of men. And the place where He rested is sacred, for the Lord from Heaven lay therein when He had washed away our iniquity with His holy blood, when He had healed us by His stripes, when He had given His life that we might live, when He had endured the bondage of this dying flesh that we might be raised undying in the spirit, by Him, and through Him, and in Him. "Shall the earth that drank that blood be as other earth? Shall the place that echoed the seven words of agony be as other places? Is the tomb where God rested Him of His crucified manhood to be given up to forgetfulness and defilement? Or are we sinless, that we need not even the memory of the sacrifice, and so pure that we need no purification? I would that we were. The world is evil, the hour is late, the Judge is at hand, and we are lacking of good and eaten of evil, so that there is no whole part in us. "And yet we move not to save ourselves, though Christ gave His life to save us if we would stir ever so little, if we would but stretch out our hands to the hand that waits for ours. He bids us not be crucified, as He was for us. He bids us only take up our cross and follow Him, as He took it up Himself, and bore it to the place of death." Thus Bernard began to speak, gently at first, as one who rouses a friend from sleep to warn him of danger, and fears to be rough, yet cannot be silent; but by and by, in the breathing stillness, the sweet voice was strengthened and rang like the first clarion at dawn on the day of battle, far off and clear, heart-stirring and true. And with the rising tone came also the stronger word, and at last the spirit that moves more than word or voice. "Lay the Cross to your hearts as you wear it on your breasts. Bear it with you on the long day marches, and in the watches of night bow before it inwardly, and pray that you may have grace to bear it to the end. So shall your footsteps profit you, and your way shall be the way of the Cross, till you stand in the holy place. But if so be that God ask blood of you, blessed shall they be among you who shall give life freely, to die for the Cross of our Lord Christ; and they shall stand in the place that is holy indeed, before the Throne of God. "Yet beware of one thing. I would not that you should go out to fight for the Sepulchre as some of our fathers did, boasting in the Cross, yet in heart each for his own soul and none for the glory of Christ, counting the weariness, and the hurts, and the drops of blood as a sure reckoning to be repaid to you in heaven, as if you had lent God a piece of money which He must pay again. The Lord Jesus gave not His life at an account, nor His blood at usury; He counted not the pain, nor was His suffering set down in a book; but He gave all freely, of His love for men. Shall men therefore ask of God a return, saying: 'We have given Thee so much, as it were a wound, or it may be a life, or else a prayer, and a day of fasting, see that Thou pay us what is just'? That were not giving to God what is a man's own; it were rather lending or selling to God what is His. See that you do not thus, but if you have anything to give, let it be given freely; or else give not at all, for it is written that from him that hath not faith shall be taken even such things as he hath. "But if you take the Cross, and arm yourselves to fight for it, and go your way to Palestine to help your brethren in their sore need, go not for yourselves, suffer not for yourselves, fight not for yourselves. For as God is greater than man, so is the glory of God greater than the glory of self and more worthy that you should die for it. Think not therefore of earning a reward, but of honouring the Lord Christ in the holy place where He died for you. "March not as it were to do penance for your old sins, hoping for forgiveness, as a trader that brings merchandise looks for a profit! Strike not as slaves, who fight lest they be beaten with rods, neither as men in fear of everlasting fire and the torments of hell! Neither go out as thieves, seeking to steal the earth for yourselves, and striving not with the unbeliever, but with the rich man for his riches, and with the great man for his possessions! I say, go forth and do battle for God's sake and His glory! March ye for Christ and to bring the people to Him out of darkness! Take with you the Cross to set it in the hearts of men, and the seed of the tree of life to plant among desolate nations! "Ye kings, that are anointed leaders, lead ye the armies of Heaven! Ye knights, that are sworn to honour, draw your unsullied swords for the honour of God! Men and youths, that bear arms by allegiance, be ye soldiers of Christ and allegiant to the Cross! Be ye all first for honour, first for France, first for God Most High!" [Illustration: "CROSSES! GIVE US CROSSES!"] With those words the white-sleeved arm was high above his head, holding up the plain white wooden cross, and there was silence for a moment. But when the people saw that he had finished speaking, they drew deep breath, and the air thundered with the great cry that came. "Crosses! Give us crosses!" And they pressed upon one another to get nearer. The King had risen, and the Queen with him, and he came forward and knelt at Bernard's feet, with bent head and folded hands. The great abbot took pieces of scarlet cloth from a page who held them ready in a basket, and he fastened them upon the King's left shoulder and then raised his right hand in blessing. The people were silent again and looked on, and many thought that the King, in his great mantle and high crown, was like a bishop wearing a cope, for he had a churchman's face. He rose to his feet and stepped back but he was scarcely risen when the Queen stood in his place, radiant, the evening light in her hair. "I also will go," she said in a clear, imperious voice. "Give me the Cross!" She knelt and placed her hands together, as in prayer, and there was a fair light in her eyes as she looked up to Bernard's face. He hesitated a moment, then took a cross and laid it upon her mantle, and she smiled. A great cry went up from all the knights, and then from the people, strong and triumphant, echoing, falling, and rising again. "God save the Queen!--the Queen that wears the Cross!" And suddenly every man held up his sword by the sheath, and the great cross-hilts made forests of crosses in the glowing air. But the Queen's three hundred ladies pressed upon her. "We will not leave you!" they cried. "We will take the Cross with you!" And they thronged upon Bernard like a flight of doves, holding out white hands for crosses, and more crosses, while he gave as best he could. Also the people and the knights began to tear pieces from their own garments to make the sign, and one great lord took his white mantle and made strips of the fine cloth for his liege vassals and his squires and men; but another took Bernard's white cape from his shoulders and with a sharp dagger made many little crosses of it for the people, who kissed them as holy things when they received them. In the throng, Gilbert pressed forward to the edge of the platform where the Queen was standing, for he was strong and tall. He touched her mantle softly, and she looked down, and he saw how her face turned white and gentle when she knew him. Being too far below her to take her hand, he took the rich border of her cloak and kissed it, whereat she smiled; but she made a sign to him that he should not try to talk with her in the confusion. Then looking down again, she saw that he had yet no cross. She took one from one of her ladies, and, bending low, tried to fasten it upon his shoulder. "I thank your Grace," said Gilbert, very gratefully. "Is Beatrix here?" he asked in a low tone. But, to his wonder, the Queen's brow darkened, and her eyes were suddenly hard; she almost dropped the cross in her hurry to stand upright, nor would she again turn her eyes to look at him. CHAPTER XII In the late dusk of summer Bernard went his way from the place where he had preached, to the presbytery of Saint Mary Magdalen, where he was to lodge that night. The King and Queen walked beside him, their horses led after them by grooms in the royal liveries of white and gold; and all the long procession of knights and nobles, priests and laymen, gentlefolk and churls, men, women, and children, streamed in a motley procession up the road to the village. As they went, the King talked gravely with the holy man, interlarding and lining his sententious speeches with copious though not always correct quotations from the Vulgate. On Bernard's other side Eleanor walked with head erect, one hand upon her belt, one hanging down, her brows slightly drawn together, her face clear white, her burning eyes fixed angrily upon the bright vision cast by her thoughts into the empty air before her. She had used the only means, and the strongest means, of bringing Gilbert back to France; she had foredreamt his coming, she had foreknown that from the first he would ask for Beatrix; but she had neither known nor dreamt of what she should feel when he, standing at her feet below the platform, looked up to her offering eyes with a hunger in his face which she could not satisfy, and a desire which she could not fulfil. His very asking for the other had been a refusal of herself, and to be refused is a shame which no loving woman will accept while love is living, and an insult which no strong woman forgives when love is dead. But neither the King nor the abbot heeded her as they walked along, talking in Latin mixed with Norman French. The monk, not tall, slender, spiritualized even in the remnant of his flesh, the incarnation of believing thought and word, the exposition of matter's servitude to mind, was the master; the King, heavy, strong, pale, obedient, was the pupil, proving the existence of the greater force by his blind submission to its laws. Beside them the Queen imaged the independence of youthful life, believing without realizing, strong with blood, rich with colour, fearing regret more than remorse, thoughtlessly cruel and cruelly thoughtless, yet able to be very generous and brave. The bell of Saint Mary's tolled three strokes, then four, then five, then one, thirteen in all, and then rang backward for the ending day. The sun had set a full half-hour and the dusk had almost drunk the dregs of the red west. Bernard stood still, bareheaded in the way, with folded hands, and began the Angelus Domini; the King from habit raised his hand to take his cap from his head, and touched the golden crown instead. Instantly a little colour of embarrassment rose in his pale cheeks, and he stumbled over the familiar response as he clasped his hands with downcast eyes, for in some ways he was a timid man. The Queen stood still and spoke the words also, but neither the attitude of her head nor the look in her eyes was changed, nor did she take her hand from her belt to clasp it upon the other. The air was very soft and warm, there was the musical, low sound of many voices speaking in the monotone of prayer, and now and then, on whirring wings, a droning beetle hummed his way from one field to another, just above the heads of the great multitude. The prayer said, they all moved onward, past the first houses of the village and past the open smithy with its shelter of twisted chestnut boughs, beneath which the horses were protected from the sun while they were being shod. But the smith had not been to the preaching, because Alric, the Saxon groom, had brought him Gilbert's horse to shoe just when he was going, and had forced him to stay and do the work with the threat of an evil spell learned in Italy. And now, peering through the twilight, he stood watching the long procession as it came up to his door. He was a dark man, with red eyes and hairy hands, and his shirt was open on his chest almost to his belt. He stood quite still at first, gazing on Bernard's face, that was luminous in the dusk; but as he looked, something moved him that he could not understand, and he came forward in his leathern apron and his blackened hose, and knelt at the abbot's feet. "Give me also the Cross," he cried. "I give thee the sign, my son," answered Bernard, raising his hand to bless the hairy man. "The crosses we had are all given. But thou shalt have one to-morrow." But as the smith looked up to the inspired face the light came into his own eyes, and something he could not see took hold of him suddenly and hard. "Nay, my lord," he answered, "I will have it to-day and of my own." Then he sprang up and ran to his smithy, and came back holding in his hand a bar of iron that had been heating in the coals to make a shoe. The end of it was glowing red. "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost!" he cried in a loud voice. And as he spoke the words, he had laid the red-hot point to his breast and had drawn it down and crosswise; and a little line of thin, white smoke followed the hissing iron along the seared flesh. He threw the bar down upon the threshold of his door and came to join the throng, the strange smile on his rough face and the light of another world in his fire-reddened eyes. But though the multitude sent up a great cry of praise and wonder, yet Bernard shook his head gravely and walked on, for he loved not any madness, not even a madness for good deeds, and the light by which he saw was as steady and clear and true as a life-long day. Moreover, even while he had been speaking he had felt that fanatic deeds were not far off, and a deep sadness had fallen upon him, because he knew that true belief is the fulness of true wisdom and by no means akin to any folly. Therefore, when he was alone that night, he was very heavy-hearted, and sat a long time by his square oak table in the light of the three-cornered brazen lamp which, stood at his elbow. The principal chamber of the presbytery was cross-vaulted and divided into two by a low round arch supported on slender double columns with capitals fantastically carved. The smaller portion of the room beyond the arch made an alcove for sleeping, which could be completely shut off by a heavy curtain; the larger part was paved with stone, and in one corner a low wooden platform, on which stood a heavy table before a carved bench fastened to the wall, was set apart for writing and study. On the table, besides the lamp, there stood a reading-desk, and above the bench a strong shelf carried a number of objects, including several large bottles of ink, a pot of glue for fastening leaves of parchment, and two or three jars of blue and white earthenware. On nails there hung a brush of half dried broom, a broad-brimmed rush hat, and a blackened rosary. On the other side of the table, and by the window, there was a small holy-water basin with a little besom. On the walls were hung pieces of coarse linen roughly embroidered with small crosses flory, worked in dark red silk. The vault was blank and white, and rushes were strewn on the stone pavement. In the deep embrasures of the windows there were dark window-seats worn black with age. The abbot had begun a letter, but the pen lay beside the unfinished writing, his elbow rested on the parchment, and he shaded his eyes from the light. The brilliancy was gone from his face and was succeeded by an almost earthy pallor, while his attitude expressed both lassitude and dejection. He had done what had been required of him, he had fired the passion of the hour, and one hour had shown him how completely it was to be beyond his control. He remembered how Peter the Hermit had led the vast advance-guard of the First Crusade to sudden and miserable destruction before the main force could be organized; he had seen enough on that afternoon to prove to him that the air was laden with such disaster, of which the responsibility would surely be heaped upon himself. He regretted not the thoughts he had preached, but the fact of having yielded to preach at all to such men and at such a time. He had begun to set forth all this and much more in a letter to Pope Eugenius, but before he had written a dozen lines the pen had fallen from his hand, and he had begun to reflect upon the impossibility of stemming the tide since it had turned to flood. A soft step sounded in the outer hall beyond the curtained doorway, but Bernard, absorbed in his meditations, heard nothing. A jewelled hand pushed aside the thick folds of the hanging, and the most beautiful eyes in the world gazed curiously upon the unheeding abbot. "Are you alone?" asked the Queen's voice. Without waiting for an answer she came forward into the room and paused beside the low platform, laying one hand upon the table in a gesture half friendly, half deprecating, as if she still feared that she had disturbed the holy man. His transparent fingers fell from his eyes, and he looked up to her, hardly realizing who she was, and quite unable to guess why she had come. A dark brown mantle completely covered her gown, and only a little of her scarlet sleeve showed as her hand lay on the table. Her russet-golden hair hung in broad waves and lightened in the rays of the oil lamp. Her eyes, that looked at Bernard intently and inquiringly, were the eyes of old Duke William, whom the Abbot of Clairvaux had brought to confession and penance long ago, and who had gone from the altar of his grand-daughter's marriage straight to solitary hermitage and lonely death in the Spanish hills; they were eyes in which all thoughts were fearless and in which tenderness was beautiful, but in which kindness was often out of sight behind the blaze of vitality and the burning love of life that proceeded from her and surrounded her as an atmosphere of her own. "You do not welcome me," she said, looking into his face. "Are you too deeply occupied to talk with me awhile? It is long since we have met." Bernard passed his hand over his eyes as if to brush away some material veil. "I am at your Grace's service," he said gently, and he rose from his seat as he spoke. "I ask no service for myself," she answered, setting her foot upon the platform and coming to his side. "Yet I ask something which you may do for others." Bernard hesitated, and then looked down. "Silver and gold have I none," he said, quoting, "but such as I have I give unto thee." "I have both gold and silver, and lands, and a crown," answered the Queen, smiling carelessly, and yet in earnest. "I lack faith. And so, though my people have swords and armour, and have taken upon them the Cross to succour their brethren in the Holy Land, yet they have no leader." "They have the King, your husband," answered Bernard, gravely. Eleanor laughed, not very cruelly, nor altogether scornfully, but as a man might laugh who was misunderstood, and to whom, asking for his sword, a servant should bring his pen. "The King!" she cried, still smiling. "The King! Are you so great in mind and so poor in sense as to think that he could lead men and win? The King is no leader. He is your acolyte--I like to see him swinging a censer in time to your prayers and flattening his flat face upon the altar-steps beatified by your footsteps!" The Queen laughed, for she had moods in which she feared neither God, nor saint, nor man. But Bernard looked grave at first, then hurt, and then there was pity in his eyes. He pointed to the window-seat beside the table, and he himself sat down upon his carved bench. Eleanor, being seated, rested her elbows on the table, clasped her beautiful hands together, and slowly rubbed her cheek against them, meditating what she should say next. She had had no fixed purpose in coming to the abbot's lodging, but she had always liked to talk with him when he was at leisure and to see the look of puzzled and pained surprise that came into his face when she said anything more than usually shocking to his delicate sensibilities. With impulses of tremendous force, there was at the root of her character a youthful and almost childlike indifference to consequences. "You misjudge your husband," said the abbot, at last, drumming on the table nervously and absently with the tips of his white fingers. "They who do their own will only are quick to condemn those who hope to accomplish the will of Heaven." "If you regard the King as the instrument of Divine Providence," answered Eleanor, with curling lip, "there is nothing to be said. Providence, for instance, was angered with the people of Vitry. Providence selected the King of France to be the representative of its wrath. The King, obedient as ever, set fire to the church, and burned several priests and two thousand more or less innocent persons at their prayers. Nothing could be better. Providence was appeased--" "Hush, Madam!" exclaimed Bernard, lifting a thin hand in deprecation. "That was the devil's work." "You told me that I was condemning one who is accomplishing the will of Heaven." "In leading the Crusade, yes--" "Then my husband works for both parties. Today he serves God; to-morrow he serves Mammon." Eleanor raised her finely pencilled eyebrows. "I believe there is a parable that teaches us what is to become of those that serve two masters." "It applies to those who try to serve them at the same time," answered the abbot, meeting her contemptuous look with the quiet boldness of a man sure of power. "You know as well as I that the King took oath to lead a Crusade out of repentance for what he did at Vitry." "A bargain, then, of the very kind against which you preached to-day." The Queen still smiled, but less scornfully, for she fancied herself as good as Bernard in an argument. "It is a very easy thing to fence with words," Bernard said. "It is one thing to argue, it is quite another to convince your hearers." "I do not desire to convince you of anything," answered Eleanor, with a little laugh. "I would rather be convinced." She looked at him a moment and then turned away with a weary little sigh of discontent. "Was it without conviction that you took the Cross from my hands to-day?" asked Bernard, sadly. "It was in the hope of conviction." Bernard understood. Before him, within reach of his hand, that great problem was present which, of all others, Paganism most easily and clearly solved, but with which Christianity grapples at a disadvantage, finding its foothold narrow, and its danger constant and great. It is the problem of the conversion of great and vital natures, brave, gifted and sure of self, to the condition of the humble and poor in spirit. It is easy to convince the cripple that peace is among the virtues; the sick man and the weak are soon persuaded that the world is a sensuous illusion of Satan, in which the pure and perfect have no part nor share; it is another, a greater and a harder matter, to prove the strong man a sinner by his strength, and to make woman's passion ridiculous in comparison of heaven. The clear flame of the spirit burns ill under the breath of this dying body, and for the fleeting touch of a loving hand the majesty of God is darkened in a man's heart. Bernard saw before him the incarnate strength and youth and beauty of her from whom a line of kings was to descend, and in whom were all the greatest and least qualities, virtues and failings of her unborn children--the Lion Heart of Richard, the heartless selfishness of John, the second Edward's grasping hold, Henry the Third's broad justice and wisdom; the doubt of one, the decision of another, the passions of them all in one, coursing in the blood of a young and kingly race. "You wish not to convince others, but to be convinced," Bernard said, "and yet it is not in your nature to yield yourself to any conviction. What would you of me? I can preach to them that will hear me, not to those that come to watch me and to smile at my sayings as if I were a player in a booth at a fair. Why do you come here to-night? Can I give you faith as a salve, wherewith to anoint your blind eyes? Can I furnish you the girdle of honesty for the virtue you have not? Shall I promise repentance for you to God, while you smile on your next lover? Why have you sought me out?" "If I had known that you had no leisure, and the Church no room for any but the altogether perfect, I would not have come." She leaned back in the window-seat and folded her arms, drawing the thin dark stuff of her cloak into severe straight lines and shadows, in vivid contrast with the radiant beauty of her face. Her straight and clear-cut brows lowered over her deep eyes, and her lips were as hard as polished coral. Bernard looked at her again long and earnestly, understanding in part, and in part guessing, that she had suffered a secret disappointment on that day and had come to him rather in the hope of some kind of mental excitement than with any idea of obtaining consolation. To him, filled as he was with the lofty thoughts inspired by the mission thrust upon him, there was something horrible in the woman's frivolity--or cynicism. To him the Cross meant the Passion of Christ, the shedding of God's blood, the Redemption of mankind. To her it was a badge, an ornament, the excuse for a luxurious pilgrimage of fair women living delicately in silken tents, and clothed in fine garments of a fanciful fashion. The contrast was too strong, too painful. Eleanor and her girl knights would be too wholly out of place, with their fancies and their whims, in an army of devoted men fighting for a faith, for a faith's high principle as between race and race, and for all which that faith had made sacred in its most holy places. It was too much. In profoundest disappointment and sadness Bernard's head sank upon his breast, and he raised his hands a little, to let them fall again upon his knees, as if he were almost ready to give up the struggle. Eleanor felt the wicked little thrill of triumph in his apparent despair which compensates schoolboys for unimaginable labour in mischief, when they at last succeed in hurting the feelings of a long-suffering teacher. There had been nothing but an almost childish desire to tease at the root of all that she had said; for before all things she was young and gay, and her surroundings tended in every way to repress both gayety and youth. "You must not take everything I say in earnest," she said suddenly, with a laugh that jarred on the delicate nerves of the overwrought man. He turned his head from her as if the sight of her face would have been disagreeable just then. "Jest with life if you can," he said. "Jest with death if you are brave enough; yet at least be earnest in this great matter. If you are fixed in purpose to go with the King, you and your ladies, then go with the purpose to do good, to bind up men's wounds, to tend the sick, to cheer the weak, and by your presence to make the coward ashamed." "And why not to fight?" asked the Queen, the light of an untried emotion brightening in her eyes. "Do you think I cannot bear the weight of mail, or sit a horse, or handle a sword as well as many a boy of twenty who will be there in the thick of battle? And if I and my court ladies can bear the weariness as well as even the weakest man in the King's army, and risk a life as bravely, and perhaps strike a clean blow or drive a straight thrust for the Holy Sepulchre, shall our souls have no good of it, because we are women?" As she spoke, her arm lay across the table, and her small strong hand moved energetically with her speech, touching the monk's sleeve. The fighting blood of the old Duke was in her veins, and there was battle in her voice. Bernard looked up. "If you were always what you are at this moment," he said, "and if you had a thousand such women as yourself to ride with you, the King would need no other army, for you could face the Seljuks alone. "But you think that by the time I have to face them my courage will have cooled to woman's tears, like hot vapour on a glass." She smiled, but gently now, for she was pleased by what he had said. "You need not fear," she continued, before he had time to answer her. "We shall not bear ourselves worse than men, and there will be grown men there who shall be afraid before we are. But if there were with us a leader of men, I should have no fear. Men will fight for the King, they will shed their blood for Eleanor of Guienne, but they would die ten deaths at the bidding of--" She paused, and fixed her eyes on Bernard's face. "Of whom?" he asked, unsuspecting. "Of Bernard of Clairvaux." There was a short silence. Then in a clear far-off voice, as if in a dream, the abbot repeated his own name. "Bernard of Clairvaux--a leader of men? A soldier? A general?" He paused as if consulting himself. "Madam," he said at last, "I am neither general, nor leader, nor soldier. I am a monk, and a churchman as the Hermit was, but not like him in this--I know the limitation of my strength. I can urge men to fight for a good cause, but I will not lead them to death and ruin, as Peter did, while there are men living who have been trained to the sword as I to the pen." "I do not ask that you should plan battles, lead forlorn charges, nor sit down in your tent to study the destruction of walled towns. You can be our leader without all that, for he who leads men's souls commands men's bodies and lives in men's hearts. Therefore, I bid you to come with us and help us, for although a sword is better at need than a hundred words, yet there are men at whose single word a thousand swords are drawn like one." "No, Madam," said the abbot, his even lips closing after the words, with a look of final decision, "I will not go with you. First, because I am unfit to be a leader of armies, and secondly, because such life as there is left in me can be better used at home than in following a camp. Lastly, I would that this good fight might be fought soberly and in earnest, neither in the fever of a fanatical fury nor, on the other hand, lightly, as an amusement and a play, nor selfishly and meanly in the hope of gain. My words are neither deep, nor learned, nor well chosen, for I speak as my thoughts rise and overflow. But thanks be to Heaven, what I say rouses men to act rather than moves them to think. Yet it is not well that they be over-roused or stirred when a long war is before them, lest their heat be consumed in a flash of fire, and their strength in a single blow. You need not a preacher, but a captain; not words but deeds. You go to make history, not to hear a prophecy." "Nevertheless," said the Queen, "you must go with us, for if the spirit you have called up sinks from men's memories, our actions will be worse than spiritless. You must go." "I cannot." "Cannot? But I say you must." "No, Madam--I say no." For a long time the two sat in silence facing each other, the Queen confident, vital, fully roused to the expression of her will; Bernard, on the other hand, as fully determined to oppose her with all the fervent conviction which he brought to every question of judgment or policy. "If we fall out among ourselves," said Eleanor, at last, "who shall unite us? If men lose faith in the cause before them and grow greedy of the things that lie in their way, who shall set them right?" The abbot shook his head sorrowfully and would not meet her eyes, for in this he knew that she was right. "When an army has lost faith," he said, "it is already beaten. When Atalanta stooped to pick up the golden apples, her race was lost." "As when love dies, contempt and hatred take its place," said Eleanor, as if in comment. "Suck love is of hell," said Bernard, looking suddenly into her face, so that she faintly blushed. "Yes," she retorted scornfully, "for it is the love of man and wife." The holy man watched her sadly and yet keenly, for he knew what she meant, and he foresaw the end. "Lucifer rebelled against law," he said. "I do not wonder," said the Queen, with a sharp laugh. "He would have rebelled against marriage. Love is the true faith--marriage is the dogma." She laughed again. Bernard shrank a little as if he felt actual pain. He had known her since she had been a little child, yet he had never become used to her cruelties of expression. He was a man more easily disgusted in his aesthetic sensibilities than shocked by the wickedness of a world he knew. To him, God was not only great, but beautiful; Nature, as some theologians maintain, was cruel, evil, hurtful, but she was never coarse, nor foul in his conception, and her beauty appealed to him against his will. So also in his eyes a woman could be sinful, and her sins might seem terrible to him, and yet she herself was to him a woman still, a being delicate, refined, tender even in her wickedness; but a woman who could speak at once keenly and brutally of her marriage reacted upon him as a very ugly or painful sight, or as a very harsh and discordant sound that jars every nerve in the body. "Madam," he said in a low voice, but very quietly and coldly, "I think not that you are in such state of grace as to bear the Cross to your good." Eleanor raised her head and looked at him haughtily, with lids half drooped as her eyes grew hard and keen. "You are not my confessor, sir," she retorted. "For all you know, he may have enjoined upon me a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. It is a common penance." For the third time she laughed. "A common penance!" cried the abbot, in a tone of despair. "That is what it has come to in these days. A man kills his neighbour in a quarrel and goes to Jerusalem to purge him of blood, as he would take a physician's draught to cure him of the least of little aches. A pilgrimage is a remedy, as a prayer is a medicine. To repeat the act of contrition so and so often, or to run through a dozen rosaries of an afternoon, is a potion for the sick soul." "Well, what then?" asked the Queen. "What then?" repeated the abbot. "Then there is no faith left in the true meaning of the Crusade--" "That is what I fear," answered Eleanor. "That is why I am begging you to come with us. That is why the King will be unable to command men without you. And yet you will not go." "No," he replied, "I will not." "You have always disappointed me," said the Queen, rising, and employing a weapon to which women usually resort last. "You stand in the front and will not lead, you rouse men to deeds you will not do, you give men ideals in which you do not believe, and then you go back to the peace of your abbey of Clairvaux, and leave men to shift for themselves in danger and need. And if, perhaps, some trusting woman comes to you with overladen heart, you tell her that she is not in a state of grace. It must be easy to be a great man in that way." She turned as she spoke the last words and stepped from the platform to the stone pavement. At the enormous injustice of her judgment, Bernard's face grew cold and stern; but he would not answer what she said, for he knew how useless it would be. In her, and perhaps in her only, of all men and women he had known, there was the something to which he could not speak, the element that was out of harmony with his own being, and when he had talked with her it was as if he had eaten sand. He could understand that she, too, was in contradiction with her natural feelings in her marriage with such a man as the King; he could be sorry for her, he could pity her, he could forgive her, he could pray for her--but he could not speak to her as he could to others. A dozen times before she reached the door he wished to call her back, and he sought in the archive of his brain and in the treasury of his heart the words that might touch her. But he sought in vain. So long as she was before his eyes, a chilled air, dull and unresonant, divided his soul from hers. Her hand was on the curtain to go out when she turned and looked at him again. "You will not go with us," she said. "If we fail, we shall count the fault yours; if we quarrel and turn our swords upon one another, the sin is yours; if our armies lose heart, and are scattered and hewn in pieces, their blood will be on your head. But if we win," she said at the last, drawing herself to her height, "the honour of our deeds shall be ours alone, not yours." She had raised the curtain, and it fell behind her as she spoke the last word, leaving the abbot no possibility of a retort. But she had missed her intention, for he was not a man to be threatened from the right he had planned. When she was gone, his face grew sad, and calm, and weary again, and presently, musing, he took up the pen that lay beside the half-written page. But she went on through the outer hall to the vestibule, drawing her thin dark mantle about her, her lips set and her eyes cruel, for she had been disappointed. Beneath the idle wish to hear Bernard speak, behind the strong conviction that he must follow the army to the East if it was to be victorious, there had been the unconscious longing for a return of that brave emotion under which, in the afternoon, she had taken the Cross with her ladies. And a woman disappointed of strong feeling, hoped for and desired, is less kind than a strong man defeated of expectation. She was alone. Of all women, she hated most to be followed by attendants and watched by inferiors when she chose solitude. Reliant on herself and unaffectedly courageous, she often wondered whether it were not a more pleasant thing to be a man than to be even the fairest of womankind, as she was. She stood still a moment in the vestibule, drawing the hood of her cloak over her head and half across her face. The outer door was half open; the single lamp, filled with olive-oil and hanging from the middle of the vault, cast its ray out into the night. As Eleanor stood arranging her headdress and almost unconsciously looking toward the darkness, a gleam of colour and steel flashed softly in the gloom. It disappeared and flashed again, for a man was waiting without and slowly walking up and down before the door. The Queen had chosen to come alone, but had no reason for concealing herself; she made two steps to the threshold and looked out, opening wide one half of the door. The man stood still and turned his head without haste as the fuller light fell upon him. It was Gilbert, and as his eyes turned to the Queen's face, dark against the brightness within, she started a little, as if she would have drawn back, and she spoke nervously, in a low voice, hardly knowing what she said. "What is it?" she asked. "Why did you come here?" "Because I knew your Grace was here," he answered quietly. "You knew that I was here? How?" "I saw you--I followed." Under her hood, the Queen felt the warm blood in her cheeks. Gilbert was very good to see as he stood just outside the door, in the bright lamplight. He was pale, but not wan like Bernard; he was thin with the leanness of vigorous youth, not with fasting and vigils; he was grave, not sad; energetic, not inspired; and his face was handsome rather than beautiful. Eleanor looked at him for a few moments before she spoke again. "You followed me. Why?" "To beg a word of your Grace's favour." "The question you asked today?" "Yes." "Is it so urgent?" The Queen laughed a little, and Gilbert started in surprise. "Your Grace wrote urgently," he said. "Then you are zealous only to obey me? I like that. You shall be rewarded! But I have changed my mind. If the letter were to be written again, I would not write it." "It was the letter of a friend. Would you take it back?" Gilbert's face showed the coming disappointment. In his anxiety he pressed nearer to her, resting his hand on the doorpost. The Queen drew back and smiled. "Was it so very friendly?" she asked. "I do not remember--but I did not mean it so." "Madam, what did you mean?" His voice was steady and rather cold. "Oh--I have quite forgotten!" She almost laughed again, shaking her hooded head. "If your Grace had need of me, I might understand. Beatrix is not here. I looked at each of your ladies to-day, through all their ranks--she was not among them. I asked where she was, but you would not answer and were angry--" "I? Angry? You are dreaming!" "I thought you were angry, because you changed colour and would not speak again--" "You were wrong. Only a fool can be angry with ignorance." "Why do you call me ignorant? These are all riddles." "And you are not good at guessing. Come! To show you that I was not angry, I will have you walk with me down through the village. It is growing late." "Your Grace is alone?" "Since you followed me, you know it. Come." She almost pushed him aside to pass out, and a moment later they were crossing the dark open space before the church. Gilbert was not easily surprised, but when he reflected that he was walking late at night through a small French village with one of the most powerful sovereigns in Europe, who was at the same time the most beautiful of living women, he realized that his destiny was not leading him by common paths. He remembered his own surprise when, an hour earlier, he had seen the Queen's unmistakable figure pass the open window of his lodging. And yet should any one see her now, abroad at such an hour, in the company of a young Englishman, there would be much more matter for astonishment. Half boyishly he wished that he were not himself, or else that the Queen were Beatrix. As for his actual position in the Queen's good graces, he had not the slightest understanding of it, a fact which just then amused Eleanor almost as much as it irritated her. The road was uneven and steep beyond the little square. For some moments they walked side by side in silence. From far away came the sound of many rough voices singing a drinking-chorus. "Give me your arm," said Eleanor, suddenly. As she spoke, she put out her hand, as if she feared to stumble. Doing as she begged him, Gilbert suited his steps to hers, and they were very close together as they went on. He had never walked arm in arm in that way before, nor perhaps had he ever been so close to any other woman. An indescribable sensation took possession of him; he felt that his step was less steady, and that his head was growing hot and his hands cold; and somehow he knew that whereas the idea of love was altogether beyond and out of the question, yet he was spellbound in the charm of a new and mysterious attraction. With it there was the instantaneous certainty that it was evil, with the equally sure knowledge that if it grew upon him but a few moments longer he should not be able to resist it. Eleanor would not have been a woman had she not understood. "What is the matter?" she asked gently, and under her hood she was smiling. "The matter?" Gilbert spoke nervously. "There is nothing the matter; why do you ask?" "Your arm trembled," answered the Queen. "I suppose I was afraid that you were going to fall." At this the Queen laughed aloud. "Are you so anxious for my safety as that?" she inquired. Gilbert did not answer at once. "It seems so strange," he said at last, "that your Grace should choose to be abroad alone so late at night." "I am not alone," she answered. At that moment her foot seemed to slip, and her hand tightened suddenly upon Gilbert's arm. But as he thought her in danger of falling, he caught her round the waist and held her up; and, as he almost clasped her to him, the mysterious influence strengthened his hold in a most unnecessary manner. "I never slip," said Eleanor, by way of explaining the fact that she had just stumbled. "No," answered Gilbert. "Of course not." And he continued to hold her fast. She made a little movement vaguely indicating that she wished him to let her go, and her free right hand pretended to loosen his from her waist. He felt infinitesimal lines of fire running from his head to his feet, and he saw lights where there were none. "Let me go," she said, almost under her breath; and accentuating her words with little efforts of hand and body, it accidentally happened that her head was against his breast for a moment. The fire grew hotter, the lights brighter, and, with the consciousness of doing something at once terrible yet surpassingly sweet to do, he allowed his lips to touch the dark stuff that hid her russet hair. But she was quite unaware of this desperate deed. A moment later she seemed to hear something, for she turned her head quickly, as if listening, and spoke in an anxious half-whisper. "Take care! There is somebody--" Instantly Gilbert's hand dropped to his side and he assumed the attitude of a respectful protector. The Queen continued to stare into the darkness a moment longer, and then began to walk on. "It was nothing," she said carelessly. "I hear men singing," said Gilbert. "I dare say," answered Eleanor, with perfect indifference. "I have heard them for some time." One voice rose higher and louder than the rest as the singers approached, and the other voices joined in the rough chorus of a Burgundy drinking-song. Near the outskirts of the village, lights were flashing and moving unsteadily in the road as those who carried them staggered along. To reach the monastery which was the headquarters of the court, the Queen and Gilbert would have to walk a hundred yards down the street before turning to the right. Gilbert saw at a glance that it would be impossible for them to reach the turning before meeting the drunken crowd. "It would be better to go back by another way," he said, slackening his pace. But the Queen walked quietly on without answering him. It was clear that she intended to make the people stand aside to let her pass, for she continued to walk in the middle of the street. But Gilbert gently drew her aside, and she suffered him to lead her to a doorway, raised two steps above the street, and darkened by an overhanging balcony. There they stood and waited. A dense throng of grooms, archers and men-at-arms came roaring up the steep way toward them. A huge man in a dirty scarlet tunic and dusty russet hose, with soft boots that were slipping down in folds about his ankles, staggered along in front of the rest. His face was on fire with wine, his little red eyes glared dully from under swollen lids, and as he bawled his song with mouth wide open, one might have tossed an apple between his wolfish teeth. In his right hand he held an earthen jug in which there was still a little wine; with his left he brandished a banner that had been made by sewing a broad red cross upon a towel tied to one of those long wands with which farmers' boys drive geese to feed. Half dancing, half marching, and reeling at every step, he came along, followed closely by a dozen companions one degree less burly than himself, but at least quite as drunk; and each had upon his breast or shoulder the cross he had received that day. Behind them more and more, closer and closer, the others came stumbling, rolling, jostling each other, howling the chorus of the song. And every now and then the leader, swinging his banner and his wine jug, sent a shower of red drops into the faces of his followers, some of whom laughed, and some swore loudly in curses that made themselves felt through the roaring din. But loudest, highest, clearest of all, from within the heart of the drunken crowd, came one of those voices that are made to be heard in storm and battle. In a tune of its own, regardless of the singing of all the rest, it was chanting the Magnificat anima mea Dominum. Long-drawn, sustained, and of brazen quality, it calmly defied all other din, and as the crowd drew nearer Gilbert saw through the torchlight the thin white face of a very tall man in the midst, with half-closed eyes and lips that wore a look of pain as he sang--the face, the look, the voice of a man who in the madness of liquor was still a fanatic. The hot close breath of the ribald crew went before it in the warm summer night, the torches threw a moving yellow glare upon faces red as flame, or ghastly white, and here and there the small crosses of scarlet cloth fastened to the men's tunics caught the light like splashes of fresh blood. Eleanor drew back as far as she could under the doorway, offended in her sovereign pride and disgusted as gentlewomen are at the sight of drunkenness. By her side, Gilbert drew himself up as if protesting against a sacrilege and against the desecration of his holiest thoughts. He knew that such men would often be as riotous again before they reached Jerusalem, and that it would be absurd to expect anything else. But meanwhile he realized what a little more of disgust would be enough to make him hate what was before him. For a moment he forgot the Queen's presence at his side, and he closed his eyes so as not to see what was passing before them. A little angry sound, that was neither of pain nor of fear, roused him to the present. A man with a bad face and a shock head of red hair had fallen out of the march and stood unsteadily before the Queen, plucking at her mantle in the hope of seeing all her face. He seemed not to see Gilbert, and there was a wicked light in his winy eyes. The Queen drew back, and used her hands to keep her mantle and hood close about her; but the riot pressed onward and forced the man from his feet, so that he almost fell against her. Gilbert caught him by the neck with his hand; and when he had torn the cross from his shoulder, he struck him one blow that flattened his face for life. Then he threw him down into the drunken crowd, a bruised and senseless thing, as island men throw a dead horse from the cliff into the sea. In a moment the confusion and din were ten times greater than before. While some marched on, still yelling the tipsy chorus, others stumbled across the body of their unconscious fellow as it lay in the way; two had been struck by it as it fell, and were half stunned; others turned back to see the cause of the trouble; many were forced to the ground, impotently furious with drink, and not a few were trampled upon, and hurt, and burnt by their own torches. Eleanor looked down upon a writhing mass of miserable human beings who were blind with wine and stupid with rage against the unknown thing that had made them fall. She shrank to Gilbert's side, almost clinging to him. "We cannot stay here," she said. "You must not let me be recognized by these brutes." "Keep between me and the wall, then," he answered authoritatively. His sword was in his hand as he descended the two steps to the level of the street and began to force his way along between the houses and the crowd. It was not easy at first. One sprang at him blindly to stop him, but he thrust him aside; another drew his dagger, but Gilbert struck him on temple and jaw with his flat blade so that he fell in a heap; and presently the man who was sober was feared by the drunken men, and they made little resistance. But many saw by the torchlight that the hooded figure of a woman was gliding along beside him, and foul jests were screamed out, with howls and catcalls, so that the clean Norman blood longed to turn and face the whole throng together with edge and thrust, to be avenged of insult. Yet Gilbert remembered that if he did that, he might be slain, leaving Eleanor to the mercy of ruffians who would not believe that she was the Queen. So he resigned himself and went steadily on along the wall, forcing his opponents out of his way, striking them, stunning them, knocking them down mercilessly, but killing none. The time had been short from the beginning of the trouble till Gilbert reached the turning for which he was making. And all the while the high, brazen voice was chanting the words of the Canticle, above the roaring confusion. When Eleanor, safe at last, slipped into the shadows beyond the corner, the voice was singing, "He hath visited and redeemed his people," and far up the street the red-cross banner was waving furiously in the glare of the torchlight. As Gilbert sheathed his sword, Eleanor laid her hand on his. "You please me," she said; and though there was no light, he knew by her tone that she was smiling. "Thank you," she added softly. "Ask what you will, it is yours." In the dark he bent down and kissed the hand that held him. "Madam," he said, "I thank Heaven that I have been allowed to serve a woman in need." "And you ask nothing of me?" There was an odd little chill in her voice as she spoke. Gilbert did not answer at once, for he was uncertain whether to press her with a question about Beatrix, or to ask nothing. "If I asked anything," he said at last, "I should ask that I might understand your Grace, and why you bade me come in haste to one who is not even with you." They were within a few steps of the abbey, and the Queen separated a little from him and walked nearer to the wall. Then she stopped short. "Good-night," she said abruptly. Gilbert came close to her and stood still in silence. "Well?" She uttered the single word with a somewhat cold interrogation. "Madam," said Gilbert, suddenly determined to know the truth, "is Beatrix here with you or not? I have a right to know." "A right?" There was no mistaking the tone now, but Gilbert was not awed by it. "Yes," he answered; "you know I have." Without a word Eleanor left him and walked along the wall in the deep shadow. A moment later Gilbert saw two forms of women beside the taller figure of the Queen. He made a step forward, but instantly stopped again, realizing that he could not press the question in the presence of her ladies. She had doubtless placed them there when she had come out, to wait until she should return. When he could no longer see her in the gloom, he turned and retraced his steps. The drunken soldiers were gone on their way to join others in some tavern beyond the church, and the street was deserted. The moon, long past the full, was just rising above the hills to eastward, and shed a melancholy light upon the straggling village. Resentful of the Queen's mysterious silence, and profoundly sad from the impression made upon him by the drunken throng through which he had forced his way, Gilbert slowly climbed the hill and went back to his lodging near the church. He spent a restless night, and the early summer dawn brought him to his open window with that desire which every man feels, after a troubled day and broken rest, to see the world fresh and clean again, as if nothing had happened--as the writing is smoothed from the wax of the tablet before a new message can be written. Gilbert listened to the morning sounds,--the crowing of the cocks, the barking of the dogs, the calls of peasants greeting one another,--and he breathed the cool dawn air gratefully, without trying to understand what the Queen wanted of him. CHAPTER XIII The Crusade became a fact on that day when the sovereigns of France and Guienne together took the scarlet cross from Bernard's hand. But all was not ready yet. Men were roused, and the times were ripe, but not until the Abbot of Clairvaux had given Europe the final impulse could the armies of the King and of the Queen, and of Conrad, who was never to be crowned Emperor in Rome, begin the march of desperate toil and weariness that lay between their homes and their death. From Vezelay the master preacher and inspirer of mankind went straight to Conrad's court, doing the will of others in faith and without misgiving of conscience, to the greater glory of God, yet haunted in sleep and waking by the dim ghosts of ruin and defeat. He prophesied not, and he saw no visions, but he who was almost the world's physician in his day felt fever in its pulse and heard distraction in the piercing note of its rallying-cry. There were multitudes without order, there were kings without authority, there were leaders more fit to follow than to head the van. And always, when he had preached and breathed fire through the dry stubble of men's parched hopes, till the flame was broad and high and resistless, there came to him, in the solitude wherein he found no rest, the deadly memory of the Hermit's blasted host, overtaken, overcome, crushed to a heap of bones in one wild battle with the Seljuk horde. Many a time he told himself that Peter had been no soldier, that stronger and wiser men had won what he had failed even to see, and that the memories of Godfrey's fearful wrath, of Raymond's brave wisdom, and of Tancred's knightly deeds were more than half another victory gained. Yet always, too, in his deep intuition of men's limits, he felt that the soldiers of his day were not those great knights who had humbled the Emperor of the East and taught a lesson of fear to Kilidj Arslan, and who had grasped the flowers of Syria and Palestine with iron hands. It was indeed God's will that a great host should go forth again, but neither Bernard nor any other man could surely tell that in the will of Heaven there was victory too. The first to win or die must always and ever be the first alone; those who come after them imitate them, profit by them, or find ruin sown in the ravaged track of conquest; do what they may, believe as they can, be their faith ever so high and pure, they can never feel the splendid exultation of the soul that has found out some godlike and untried deed to do. The times had changed in forty years. The modern world is turned by the interests of the many, but the world of old revolved about the ambitions of the few, and the transition began in Bernard's day after the furnace of the eleventh century had poured its molten material out upon the world to settle and cool again in the castings of nations, separate and individual. There was less impulse, more rigidity; here and there, there was more strength, but everywhere there was less fire; and as interests grew in opposite directions and solidified apart, the chances of any universal rising or joint battle for belief grew less. Mankind moves westward with the sun; men's thoughts turn back to the bright East, the source of every faith that moves humanity; at first, for faith's sake, men may retrace their migration to its source and give their own blood for their holy places; and after them a generation will give its money for the honour of its God; but at the last, and surely, comes the time of memory's fading, the winter of belief, the night of faith's day, wherein a delicately nurtured and greedy race will give neither gold nor blood, but only a prayer or a smile for the hope of a life to come. Gilbert Warde began the great march, as some others did, in earnest trust and belief. He had struck blows in self-defence, and for vengeance; he had fought once in Italy for sheer love of fighting and the animal joy of the strong northerner in cut and thrust, and lately, at Vezelay, he had fought a herd of drunken brutes for a woman's safety; but he had not known the false and fierce delight of killing men to please God. That was still before him, and he looked forward to it with that half-deadly, half-voluptuous longing for bloodshed sanctioned and sanctified by justice or religion, which is at the main root of every soldier's nature, let men say what they will. When the Crusade began its pilgrimage of arms, Gilbert had not yet seen Beatrix, nor had he any distinct proof, even by the Queen's word, that she was really in France. Eleanor herself had kept him at a distance during the months that elapsed between Bernard's preaching at Vezelay and the departure of the host; and he had been much alone, being more knight than squire, and yet not having knighthood, because he would not ask it of the Queen, since that would have seemed like begging for a reward, and she did not offer it freely, while the King, of course, knew nothing of what had taken place. One night, as he sat alone in his chamber, a man entered, cloaked and hooded, and laid before him something heavy wrapped in a silk kerchief that might have been a woman's; and the man went out quickly before Gilbert had thought of asking a question. In the kerchief there was a purse of gold, which indeed he sorely needed, and yet after the man was gone he sat stupidly staring at the contents for a long time. At first it seemed to him almost certain that the money came from the Queen; but as he remembered her coldness ever since the riot at Vezelay, and recollected how many times he had of late tried to attract her attention without success, the conviction lost ground, and he began to believe it possible, if not certain, that the gift had proceeded from another source. As men did in those days, and as many would do now, he might have taken thankfully such fortune as he found in his path, not inquiring too closely whether he had deserved it or not. But yet he hesitated, and then, turning the thing over, he saw on the seal the device of the Abbot of Sheering, and he thanked Heaven for such a friend. And again, as living much alone made him more prone to self-questioning, he asked himself whether he had ever loved Beatrix at all. He heard men talk of love, he heard men sing the love-songs of a passionate and earnest age, and it seemed to him that he could nowhere find in his heart or soul the chords that should answer directly to that music. In him the memory was a treasure rather than a power; and while he loved to dream himself again through the pleasant passages of youth, calling up the kind and girlish face that was always near him in shadow-land, and although the image came, and he heard the voice and could almost fancy that he touched the little hand, yet it was all soft rather than vivid, it was full of tenderness rather than of a cruel and insatiate longing, it was a satisfaction rather than a desire. And therefore, though the mere name of Beatrix had been enough to bring him back from Rome, and though he had asked many questions in the hope of seeing her, he attempted nothing daring in order to be assured of the truth. Then came the final preparations, the testing of armour, the providing of small things necessary on the march, the renewal of saddle and bridle, and all the hundred details which every knight and soldier in those days understood and cared for himself. Then the first march eastward through a changing country which Gilbert had not yet seen, the encampment upon the heights about Metz, the days spent in roaming over the old city, long ago a fortress of the Romans--and during all that time Gilbert scarcely caught a glimpse of the Queen, though he saw the King often at religious functions in the lately built church of Saint Vincent; for as yet the great cathedral was not even begun. Last of all, on the morning of the final departure the royal armies assembled before dawn at the church, the court and the greater knights within, the vast concourse of men-at-arms and footmen and followers in the open air outside. But Gilbert passed boldly in among the high nobles of France and Guienne, and knelt with them in the dim nave, where little oil-lamps hung under the high vaults, and many candles burned upon the altars in the side-chapels, shedding a soft light on dark faces and mailed breasts and rich mantles. Out of the dusky choir rang the high plain-chant of monks and singing-boys, from the altar the bishop's voice alone intoned the Preface of the Holy Cross, and presently, in the deep silence, the Sacred Host was lifted high, and then the golden chalice. The King and Queen knelt side by side to receive the holy bread, and after them the nobles and the knights in turn went up to communicate, in long procession, while the day dawned through the clerestory windows high overhead, and the King and Queen knelt all the time with folded hands till the mass was over. Then at last the standard of the cross was brought forth, with the great standards of France and of Guienne--the banner of Saint George and the Dragon, which Eleanor was to hand down to her sons and sons' sons, kings of England, for generations; and the choir began to sing "Vexilla regis prodeunt" ("The standards of the king go forth"). So all that great and noble host went out in state, chanting the lofty hymn that rang with tones of victory, while among cypress groves on far Asian hillsides the ravens waited for the coming feast of Christian flesh, and the circling kite scanned the broad earth and dancing water for the living things that were to feed him full of death. At last the worst of the fearful march was over, and the Crusaders lay before Constantinople, travel-stained, half-starved and wan, but at rest. The great open space of undulating ground before the wall that joined the Golden Horn with the Sea of Marmara was their camping-ground, and countless tents were pitched in uneven lines as far as one could see. The King, and Queen Eleanor, and a few of the greater nobles had entered the city and were lodged in its palaces about the Emperor's gardens, but all the rest remained without. For the German hosts had been first to reach the Bosphorus, and where they had passed they had left a broad track of dust and ashes and a great terror upon all living things. Even in Constantinople itself, where the Emperor had received them as guests, they had robbed and ravaged and burned as if they had been in an enemy's country; and when at last he had persuaded them to cross over to Asia, they had left the great city half sacked behind them, so that the Emperor's heart was resentfully hardened against every man who bore the cross. And indeed he had been long-suffering, for many in his place would have borne less; and if he persuaded the Crusaders on false pretences to leave his capital and push on into Asia, he did so as the only means of saving his own people from robbery and violence. Though the King and the court only were lodged within the walls, while the main force of fighting men was encamped without, yet the guard at the gates was not over-strictly kept, and many knights went in with their squires to see the great sights and, if possible, to get a glimpse of the Emperor himself. Gilbert did like the rest and gave the captain of the Second Military Gate a piece of silver to go in. At the first glance he saw that there was little safety for any stranger who should chance to wander from the chief streets. Safe-conduct and security had been proclaimed for every soldier who wore a cross, and the fear of a cruel death was enough to enforce the imperial edict wherever watchmen or soldiers were present to remind men of it; but there was no rigorous counter-rule on the Crusaders' side, and if the rough Burgundian men-at-arms and the wild riders of Gascony who were in Eleanor's train had been admitted in numbers, they would hardly have withheld their hands from such desirable things as they chanced to find in their way. The Greeks stood watching in their doorways and their women sat huddled together in the small low balconies above, or at narrow windows whence they could see the street. Whenever a party of knights appeared, the men withdrew within their houses, the women were out of sight in a moment, and within the windows the curtains were closely drawn. Looking to right and left for the sign of a friendly tavern or the more desirable attraction of henna-dyed hair and painted cheeks and darkened eyes, the strangers saw nothing on each side of the street but blank houses and closed doors. But when they had passed, the curtains were parted, the doors were ajar again, and curious eyes looked after the big mailed figures, the gaudy cloaks, and the enormous cross-hilted swords of the Frenchmen. Of the poorer people in the streets and those whose business kept them abroad on that day, the men scowled resentfully at the intruders and the women drew their veils closely across their faces. For although the French were gentler and less uncouth to see than the rough Germans who had wrecked the city a few weeks earlier, the Greeks were past trusting any one, and looked upon all strangers with like fear and ever-increasing distrust. When he was within the gate, Gilbert saw three broad roads before him, stretching downward from the higher land on which the city wall was built. Vast and magnificent, Constantinople lay at his feet, a rich disorder of palaces and churches and towers. On the left, the quiet waters of the Golden Horn made a broad, blue path to meet the Bosphorus in the hazy distance before him; on the right, the Sea of Marmara was dazzling white under the morning sun, where its mirror-like reflections could be seen between the towers of the sea-wall. The air was full of light and colour, and the smell of late roses and autumn fruits and the enchantment of sights altogether new took hold of the young man's senses. Far before him and, as it seemed, near the end of the central street, a dome rose above the level of the surrounding city, raising its golden cross to the deep sky. Without hesitation Gilbert chose that road and followed it nearly a full hour before he stood at the gate of Saint Sophia's church. He stood still and looked up, he had heard much of the great cathedral and had wished to see it and the treasures it contained; but now, by an impulse which he followed without attempting to understand it, instead of going in he turned on his heel and went away. He said to himself that there would be plenty of time for visiting the church, and possibly the idea of leaving the beautiful daylight for the dark aisles and chapels of an ancient cathedral was distasteful. In his change of intention there seemed not to be that little element of chance that makes a man turn to the right rather than to the left when there is no choice of ways. He went on skirting the buttresses and outbuildings and following the steep descent by the northwest side of the cathedral. Here, to his surprise, he found the life of the city going on as usual, and as yet none of the Crusaders had found their way thither. The tide of business at that hour set toward the great markets and warehouses, to the north of which one of the Emperor's smaller palaces was built amid shady gardens that ran down to the water's edge. Gilbert was carried along by the stream of hurrying men, who, seeing that he was a stranger and alone, jostled him with little ceremony. He had too much wit and perhaps too much self-respect, to rouse a street brawl on his own behalf, and when any one ran against him with unnecessary roughness he contented himself with stiffening his back and holding his own in passive resistance. He had reached his full strength and was a match for many little Greeks, yet the annoyance was distasteful to him, and he was glad to find himself pushed into a narrow lane between high walls and crossed by a low covered bridge; and at the end, under overhanging branches, he saw the blue light of the sea. He followed the byway down to the water, supposing that there must be some beach or open space there, where he might be alone. But, to his surprise, both walls were built out on little piers into the sea, shutting off the view on each side. Looking straight before him, he saw the trees and white houses of distant Chalcedon, within the Sea of Marmara, but Chrysopolis was hidden on the left. The lane ended in a little beach, some six feet wide, and a skiff lay there with a pair of oars, half out of water, and made fast by a chain to a ring in the masonry. A cool breeze drew in through the narrow entrance, and the clear salt water lapped the clean sand softly, and splashed under the stern and along the wales of the half-beached boat. Gilbert rested one hand against the wall and looked out, breathing the bright sea air with a sort of voluptuous enjoyment, and letting his thoughts wander as they would. The march had been long and full of hardships, mingled often with real bodily suffering, and those who had escaped without disease were reckoned fortunate. The war was still before them, but no imaginable combat with men could be compared with the long struggle for existence through which the Crusaders had won their way to Constantinople. It seemed as if the worst were altogether past and as if rest-time had come already. In the cool and shady retreat from the crowd to which Gilbert's footsteps had led him, an Italian might have lain dreaming half the day, and an Oriental would have sat down to withdraw himself from the material tedium of life in the superior atmosphere of kef. But Gilbert was chilled to a different temper by the colder and harder life of the North, and the springs of his nature could not be so easily and wholly relaxed. In a few moments he grew restless, stood upright and began to look about him, letting his hand fall by his side from its hold on the wall. The walls were solid from end to end of the narrow lane, and not less than three times a man's height. The stones of the masonry were damp for six or seven feet above the ground, showing that the earth was at a higher level behind them than in the lane, and the trees of which the branches overhung the way were of the sort found in Eastern gardens, a cedar of Lebanon on the one side, a sycamore on the other; and with the light breeze there came to Gilbert's nostrils the aromatic scent of young oranges still green on the trees. It flashed upon him that the lane divided the imperial gardens and that the walls were built out into the water in order to prevent intrusion. One end of the boat's chain was shackled to a ring-bolt in the bows, and the other was made fast to the ring in the wall by one of those rude iron padlocks which had been used in Asia since the times of Alexander. Gilbert had heard wonderful tales of the gardens at Constantinople, and he resented the idea of being so near them and yet so effectually excluded. He tried to wrench the boat's chain from the bows, and, failing, he tried to force the lock, but the iron was solid and the lock was good; moreover, the chain was too short to allow the skiff to float to the end of the wall, if he had launched it. The idea of seeing into the garden became a determination as soon as he found that there were serious obstacles in the way, and by the time he had persuaded himself that the boat could not help him he would have readily risked life and limb for his fancy. A few moments' reflection showed him, however, that there need be no great danger in the undertaking, for the defence had a weak point. The foundations on which the walls stood were above water by several inches and were wide enough to give him a foothold if he could only keep himself upright against the flat surface. The latter difficulty could easily be overcome by using one of the oars from the boat, and he began to attempt the passage at once, cautiously putting one foot before the other and steadying himself with the oar against the opposite wall. It did not occur to him that to get into the Emperor's gardens by stealth might be looked upon as a serious matter. In a few moments he had reached the end and was getting back to the land on the other side. From the water's edge three little terraces led up like steps to the level of the garden, where the trees grew thick and dark; and, although it was early autumn, each terrace was covered with flowers of a different hue--pink and soft yellow and pale blue. Gilbert had never seen anything made to grow in such orderly profusion, and when he reached the top by narrow steps built against the wall, he found himself treading on a fine white gravel surface on which not even a single dead leaf had been allowed to lie, and which extended some thirty yards inwards under the trees to a straight bank of moss that had a sheen like green velvet where the sun fell upon it through the parted leaves overhead. Very far away between the trunks of the trees there was the gleam of white marble walls. Gilbert hesitated a little, and then walked slowly forward toward the bank. As yet he had seen no trace of any living thing in the garden, but as he advanced and changed his position, he noticed a small dash of colour, like the corner of a dark blue cloak, beside the trunk of one of the larger trees. Some one was sitting on the other side, and he moved cautiously and almost noiselessly till he saw that the person was a lady, seated on the ground and absorbed in a book. He did not remember to have seen more than two or three women reading in all his life, and one of them was Queen Eleanor; another was Beatrix, who, as a lonely child in the solitude of her father's castle, had acquired some learning from the chaplain, and delighted in spelling out the few manuscripts in her father's possession. Gilbert Warde was as much a born sportsman as he was a fighter, and he had stalked the fallow-deer in Stortford woods since he had been old enough to draw an arrow's head to his finger. Step by step, from tree to tree, with cat-like tread, he came nearer, amused by an almost boyish pleasure in his own skill. Once the lady moved, but she looked in the opposite direction, and then at last, when he was within a dozen yards of her, half-sheltered by a slender stem, she looked straight across toward him, and the light fell upon her face. He knew that she saw him, but he could not have moved from the spot if it had been to save his life, for the lady was Beatrix herself. In spite of a separation that had lasted two years, in spite of her final growth out of early girlhood, he knew that he was not mistaken, and her dark eyes were looking straight into his, telling him that she knew him, too. There was no fear in them, and she showed no surprise, but as she looked, a very lovely smile came into her sad face. He was so glad to see her that he thought little or not at all of her looks. But she was not beautiful in any common sense, and, saving the expression in her face, she could hardly have passed for pretty in the presence of Queen Eleanor and of most of her three hundred ladies. Her forehead was round and full rather than classic, and the thick dark eyebrows were somewhat rough and irregular, turning slightly upwards as they approached each other, a peculiarity which gave an almost pathetic expression to the eyes themselves; the small and by no means perfectly shaped nose was sensitively drawn at the nostrils, but had also an odd look of independence and inquiry; and the wide and shapely lips were more apt to smile with a half-humorous sadness than to part with laughter. Small and well-modelled ears were half covered by dark brown hair that had been almost black in childhood, and which fell to her shoulders in broad waves, in the fashion used by the Queen. While Gilbert looked and remained motionless, the girl rose lightly to her feet, and he saw that she was shorter than he had expected, but slight and delicately made. With one hand he could have lifted her from the ground, with two he could have held her in the air like a child. She was not the Beatrix he remembered, though he had known her instantly; she was not the solemn, black-eyed maiden of whom he sometimes dreamed; she was a being full of individual life and thought, quick, sensitive, perhaps capricious, and charming, if she could charm at all, by a spell that was quite her own. Half-frightened at last by his motionless attitude and his silence, she called him by name. "Gilbert! What is the matter?" He shook his broad shoulders as if waking to consciousness, and the smile in her face was reflected in his own. The voice, at least, had not changed, and the first tones called up the long-cherished record of childish years; for scent and sound can span the wastes of years and the deserts of separation, when sight is dull and even touch is unresponsive. Gilbert came forward, holding out both hands; and Beatrix took them when he was close to her, and held them in hers. The little tears had started in her eyes, that were glad as flowers at dewfall, and in her very clear, pale cheeks the colour lightened like the dawn. The man's face was quiet, and his heart was in no haste, though he was so glad. He drew her toward him, as he had often done, and she seemed light and little in his hands. But when he would have kissed her cheek as in other times, she turned in his hold like a bow that is bent but not strung, and straightened herself again quickly; and something tingled in him suddenly, and he tried hard to kiss her; yet when he saw that he must hurt her, he let her go, and laughed oddly. Her blush deepened to red and then faded all at once, and she turned her face away. "How is it that I have never found you before now?" Gilbert asked softly. "Were you with the Queen at Vezelay? Have you been with her on all the march?" "Yes." "And did you not know that I was with the army?" "Yes; but I could not send you any word. She would not let me." The girl looked round quickly in sudden apprehension. "If she should find you here, it would be ill for you," she added, with a gesture of pushing him away. But he showed that he would not go away. "The Queen has always been kind to me," he said. "I am not afraid." Beatrix would not turn to him, and was silent. He was not timid, but words did not come easily just then; therefore, manlike, he tried to draw her to him again. But she put away his hand somewhat impatiently and shook her head, whereat he felt the tingling warmth in his blood again. Then he remembered how he had felt the same thing on that night in Vezelay, when the Queen had pressed his arm unexpectedly, and once before, when she had kissed him in the tennis-court, and he was angry with himself. "Come," she said, "let us sit down and talk. There are two years between us." She led the way back in the direction whence he had come, and when they had reached the bank of moss she seated herself and looked out under the trees, at the blue water. He stood still a moment as though hesitating, and then sat down beside her, but not quite close to her, as he would have done in earlier years. "Yes," he said thoughtfully, "there are two years between us. We must bridge them." "And between what we were and what we are there is something more than time," she answered, still looking far away. "Yes." He was silent, and he thought of his mother, and he knew that Beatrix was thinking of her too, and of her own father. It had not occurred to him that Beatrix could resent the marriage as bitterly as he, nor that she could in any way be as great a loser by it as he was. "Tell me why you left England," he said at last. "And you? Why did you leave your home?" She turned to him, and the little melancholy smile that was characteristic of her was in her face. "I had no home left," he answered gravely. "And had I? How could I live with them? No--how could I have lived with them, knowing what I did, even had they been ever so kind?" "Were they unkind to you?" Gilbert's deep eyes grew suddenly pale as they turned to hers, and his words came slowly and distinctly, like the first drops of a thunder shower. "Not at first. They came to the castle where I had been left all alone after they were married, and my father told me that I must call the Lady Goda my mother. She kissed me as if she were fond of me for his sake." Gilbert started a little, and his teeth set together, while he clasped his hands over one knee and waited to hear more. Beatrix understood his look, and knew that she had unintentionally hurt him. She laid her hand softly upon his arm. "Forgive me," she said. "I should not talk about it." "No," he said harshly, "go on! I feel nothing; I am past feeling there. They were kind to you at first, you said." "Yes," she continued, looking at him sideways. "They were kind when they remembered to be, but they often forgot. And then, it was hard to treat her with respect when I came to know how she had got your inheritance for my father, and how she had let you leave England to wander about the world. And then, last year, it seemed to me all at once that I was a woman and could not bear it any longer, for I saw that she hated me. And when a son was born to them, my father turned against me and threatened that he would send me to a nunnery. So I fled, one day when my father had ridden to Stoke and the Lady Goda was sleeping in her chamber. A groom and my handmaid helped me and went with me, for my father would have hanged them if they had stayed behind; so I took refuge with the Empress Maud at Oxford, and soon there came a letter from the Queen of France to the Empress, asking that I might be sent to the French court if I would. And something of the reason for the Queen's wish I can guess. But not all." She ceased, and for some moments Gilbert sat silent beside her, but not as if he had nothing to say. He seemed rather to be checking himself lest he should say too much. "So you were at Vezelay," he said at last; "yet I sought your face everywhere, and I could not see you." "How did you know?" asked Beatrix. "The Queen had written to me," he answered; "so I came back from Rome." "I understand," said the young girl, quietly. "What is it that you understand?" "I understand why she has prevented me from seeing you, when you have been near me for almost a year." She checked a little sigh, and then looked out at the water again. "I wish I did," Gilbert answered, with a short laugh. Beatrix laughed too, but in a different tone. "How dull you are!" she cried. Gilbert looked at her quickly, for no man likes to be told that he is dull, by any woman, old or young. "Am I? It seems to me that you do not put things very clearly." Beatrix was evidently not persuaded that he was in earnest, for she looked at him long and gravely. "We have not met for so long," she said, "that I am not quite sure of you." She threw her head back and scrutinized his face with half-closed lids; and about her lips there was an attempt to smile, that came and went fitfully. "Besides," she added, as she turned away at last, "you could not possibly be so simple as that." "By 'simple,' do you mean foolish, or do you mean plain?" "Neither," she answered without looking at him. "I mean innocent." "Oh!" Gilbert uttered the ejaculation in a tone expressive rather of bewilderment than of surprise. He did not in the least understand what she meant. Seeing that she did not enlighten him, and feeling uncomfortable, it was quite natural that he should attack her on different ground. "You have changed," he said coldly. "I suppose you have grown up, as you call it." For a moment Beatrix said nothing, but her lips trembled as if she were trying not to smile at what he said; and suddenly she could resist no longer, and laughed at him outright. "I cannot say the same for you," she retorted presently; "you are certainly not grown up yet!" This pleased Gilbert even less than what she had said before, for he was still young enough to wish himself older. He therefore answered her laughter with a look of grave contempt. She was woman enough to see that the time had come to take him by surprise, with a view of ascertaining the truth. "How long has the Queen loved you?" she asked suddenly; and while she seemed not to be looking at him, she was watching every line in his face, and would have noticed the movement of an eyelash if there had been nothing else to note. But Gilbert was really surprised. "The Queen! The Queen love me! Are you beside yourself?" "Not at all," answered the young girl, quietly; "it is the talk of the court. They say that the King is jealous of you." She laughed--gayly, this time, for she saw that he really had had no idea of the truth. Then she grew grave all at once, for it occurred to her that she had perhaps made a mistake in putting the idea into his head. "At least," she said, as if correcting herself, "that is what they used to say last year." "You are quite mad," he said, without a smile. "I cannot imagine how such an absurd idea could have suggested itself to you. In the first place, the Queen would never look at a poor Englishman like me--" "I defy any woman not to look at you," said Beatrix. "Why?" he asked, with, curiosity. "Is this more simplicity, or is it more dulness?" "Both, I suppose," answered Gilbert, in a hurt tone. "You are very witty." "Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "Wit is quite another thing." Then her tone changed and her face softened wonderfully as she took his hand. "I am glad that you do not believe it," she said; "and I am glad that you do not care to be thought handsome. But I think it is true that the Queen loves you, and if she sent to England for me, that was merely in order to bring you back to France. Of course she could not know--" She checked herself, and he, of course, asked what she had meant to say, and insisted upon knowing. "The Queen could not know," she said at last, "that we should seem so strange to each other when we met." "Do I seem so strange to you?" he asked, in a sorrowful tone. "No," she answered, "it is the other way. I can see that you expected me to be very different." "Indeed, I did not," answered Gilbert, with some indignation. "At least," he added hastily, "if I thought anything about it, I did not expect that you would be half so pretty, or half--" "If you thought anything about it," laughed Beatrix, interrupting him. "You know what I mean," he said, justly annoyed by his own lack of tact. "Oh, yes; of course I do--that is the trouble." "If we are going to do nothing but quarrel," he said, "I am almost sorry that I came here." Again her tone changed, but this time she did not touch his hand. Hearing her voice, he expected that she would, and he was oddly disappointed that she did not. "Nothing could make me sorry that you found me," she answered. "You do not know how hard I have tried to see you all through this last year!" Her tone was tender and earnest, and though they had been long parted, she was nearer to him than he knew. His hand closed upon hers, and in the little thrill that he felt he forgot his disappointment. "Could you not send me any word?" he asked. "I am a prisoner," she answered, more than half in earnest. "It would be ill for you if the Queen found you here; but there is no danger, for they are all gone to the high mass in the cathedral." "And why are you left behind?" he asked. "They always say that I am not strong," she replied, "especially when there might be a possibility of your seeing me. She has never allowed me to be with all the others when the court is together, since I was brought over from England." "That is why I did not see you at Vezelay," he said, suddenly understanding. And with him to understand was to act. He might have had some difficulty in persuading himself at leisure that he was seriously in love with Beatrix, but being taken suddenly and unawares, he had not the slightest doubt as to what he ought to do. Before she could answer his last words, he had risen to his feet and was drawing her by the hand. "Come," he cried. "I can easily take you by the way I came. It is only a step, and in five minutes you shall be as free as I am!" But, to his great surprise, Beatrix seemed inclined to laugh at him. "Where should we go?" she asked, refusing to leave her seat. "We should be caught before we reached the city gates, and it would be the worse for us." "And who should dare touch us?" asked Gilbert, indignantly. "Who should dare to lay a hand on you?" "You are strong and brave," answered Beatrix, "but you are not an army, and the Queen--but you will not believe what I say." "If the Queen even cared to see my face, she could send for me. It is three weeks since I caught a glimpse of her, five hundred yards away." "She is angry with you," answered the young girl, "and she thinks that you will wish to be with her, and will find some way of seeing her." "But," argued Gilbert, "if she only meant to use your name in order to bring me from Rome, it would have been quite enough to have written that letter without having brought you at all." "And how could she tell that I did not know where you were, or that I could not send you a message which might contradict hers?" "That is true," Gilbert admitted. "But what does it matter, after all, since we have met at last?" "Yes; what does it matter?" They asked the answerless question of each other almost unconsciously, for they were finding each other again. There are plants which may be plucked up half-grown, before their roots have spread in the earth or their buds ripened to blossoming, and they may lie long in dry places till they seem withered and dead; but there is life in their fibres still, and the power to grow is in the shrivelled stem and in the dusty leaf, so that if they be planted again and tended they come at last to their due maturity. Gilbert and Beatrix might have lived out their lives apart, and in the course of years they would have been the merest memories to each other; but having met in the slow weaving of fate's threads, they became destined to win or lose together. Their conversation needed but the slightest direction to take them back to the recollections of other times, and one of the first elements of lasting love is a common past, though that past may have covered but a few days. To that memory lovers go back as to the starting-point of life's journey, and though they may not speak of it often, yet its existence is the narrow ledge on which they have reared their stronghold in the perilous pass. And the English boy and girl had really lived a joint life, in their sympathies and surroundings, for years before a joint misfortune had overtaken them. In their meeting after a long separation they felt at the same time the rare delight of friendship renewed, and the still rarer charm of finding new acquaintances in old friends; but besides the well-remembered bond of habit, and the strong attraction of newly awakened interest, there was the masterful, nameless something upon which man's world has spun for all ages, as the material earth turns on its poles toward the sun--always to hope beyond failure, always to life beyond death, always and forever to love beyond life. It is the spark from heaven, the stolen fire, the mask of divinity with which the poorest of mankind may play himself a god. It has all powers, and it brings all gifts--the gift of tongues, for it is above words; the gift of prophecy, for it has foreknowledge of its own sadness; the gift of life, for it is itself that elixir in which mankind boasts of eternal youth. The two sat side by side and talked, and were silent, and talked again, understanding each other and happy in finding more to understand. The sun rose high and fell through the rustling leaves in fanciful warm tracery of light; down from the Bosphorus the sweet northerly breeze came over the rippling water, laden with the scent of orange-blossoms from the Asian shore and with the perfume of late roses from far Therapia. Between the trees they could see the white sails of little vessels beating to windward up the narrow channel, and now and then the dyed canvas of a fisherman's craft set a strangely disquieting note of colour upon the sea. There seemed to be no time, for all life was theirs, and it was all before them; an hour had passed, and they had not told each other half; another came and went, and what there was to tell still gained upon them. [Illustration: BEATRIX AND GILBERT] They talked of the Crusade, and of how the Queen had given her ladies no choice, commanding them to follow her, as a noble would order his vassals to rise with him to the king's war. Three hundred ladies were to wear mail and lead the van of battle, the fairest ladies of France and Aquitaine, of Gascony, of Burgundy, and of Provence. So far, a few had ridden, and many had been carried in closed litters slung between mules or borne on the broad shoulders of Swiss porters; and each lady had her serving-maid, and her servants and mules heavy laden with the furniture of beauty, with laces and silks and velvets, jewellery and scented waters, and salves for the face, of great virtue against cold and heat. It was a little army in itself, recruited of the women, and in which beauty was rank, and rank was power; and in order that the three hundred might ride with Queen Eleanor in the most marvellous masquerade of all time, a host of some two thousand servants and porters crossed Europe on foot and on horseback from the Rhine to the Bosphorus. The mere idea was so vastly absurd that Gilbert had laughed at it many a time by himself; and yet there was at the root of it an impulse which was rather sublime than ridiculous. Between its conception and its execution the time was too long, and the hot blood of daring romance already felt the fatal chill of coming failure. Gilbert looked at the delicate features and the slight figure beside him, and he resented the mere thought that Beatrix should ever be exposed to weariness and hardship. But she laughed. "I am always left behind on great occasions," she said. "You need not fear for me, for I shall certainly not be seen on the Queen's left hand when she overcomes the Seljuks without your help. I shall be told to wait quietly in my tent until it is all over. What can I do?" "You can at least let me know where you are," answered Gilbert. "What satisfaction shall you get from that? You cannot see me; you cannot come to me in the ladies' camp." "Indeed I can, and will," answered Gilbert, without the least hesitation. "At the risk of the Queen's displeasure?" "At any risk." "How strange it is!" exclaimed Beatrix, raising her eyebrows a little, but smiling happily. "This morning you would not have risked anything especial for the sake of finding me, but now that we have met by chance you are ready to do anything and everything to see me again." "Of some things," answered her companion, "one does not know how much one wants them till they are within reach." "And there are others which one longs for till one has them, and which one despises as soon as they are one's own." "What things may those be?" asked Gilbert. "I have heard Queen Eleanor say that a husband is one of them," answered Beatrix, demurely, "but I dare say that she is not always right." Side by side the two sat in the autumn noonday, each forgetful of all but the other, in the perfect unconsciousness of the difference their meeting was to make in their lives from that day onward. Yet after the first few words they did not speak again of Beatrix's father nor of Gilbert's mother. By a common instinct they tried to lose both, in the happiness of again finding one another. Then, at last, a cloud passed over the sun, and Beatrix felt a little chill that was like the breath of a coming evil while Gilbert became suddenly very grave and thoughtful. Beatrix looked round, more in fear than in suspicion, as a child does at night, when it has been frightened by a tale of goblins; and, turning, she caught sight of something and turned farther, and then started with a scared cry and half rose, with her hand on Gilbert's arm. Anxious for her, he sprang up to his height at the sound of her voice, and at the same moment he saw what she saw, and uttered an exclamation of surprise. It was not a cloud that had passed between them and the sun. The Queen stood there, as she had come from the Office in the church, a veil embroidered with gold pinned upon her head in a fashion altogether her own. Her clear eyes were very bright and hard, and her beautiful lips had a frozen look. "It is very long since I have seen you," she said to Gilbert, "and I had not thought to see you here--of all places--unbidden." "Nor I to be here, Madam," answered the Englishman. "Did you come here in your sleep?" asked the Queen, coldly. "For aught that I can tell how I got here, it may be as your Grace says. I came by such a way as I may not find again." "I care not how soon you find another, sir, so that it be a way out." Gilbert had never seen the Queen gravely displeased, and as yet she had been very kind to him when he had been in her presence. Against her anger he drew himself up, for he neither loved her nor feared her, and as he looked at her now he saw in her eyes that haunting memory of his own mother which had disturbed him more than once. "I ask your Grace's pardon," he said slowly, "for having entered uninvited. Yet I am glad that I did, since I have found what was kept from me so long." "I fancied your idol so changed that you might not care to find it after all!" Beatrix hardly understood what the words meant, but she knew that they were intended to hurt both her and Gilbert, and she saw by his face what he felt. Knowing as she did that the Queen was very strongly attracted by him, she would not have been human if she had not felt in her throat the pulse of triumph, as she stood beside the most beautiful woman in the world, pale, slight, sad-eyed, but preferred before the other's supreme beauty by the one man whose preference meant anything at all. But a moment later she forgot herself and feared for him. "Madam," he said very slowly and distinctly, "I trust that I may not fail in courtesy, either toward your Grace, or toward any other woman, high or low; and none but the blind man would deny that, of all women, you are fairest, wherefore you may cast it in the face of other ladies of your court that you are fairer than they. But since your Grace would wear a man's armour and draw a knight's sword, and ride for the Cross, shoulder to shoulder with the gentlemen of Normandy and Gascony and France, I shall tell you without fear of discourtesy, as one man would tell another, that your words and your deeds are less gentle than your royal blood." He finished speaking and looked her quietly in the face, his arms folded, his brow calm, his eyes still and clear. Beatrix fell back a step and drew anxious breath, for it was no small thing to cross words boldly with the sovereign next in power to the Emperor himself. And at the first, the seething blood hissed in the Queen's ears, and her lovely face grew ashy pale, and her wrath rose in her eyes with the red shadow of coming revenge. But no manlike impulse moved her hand nor her foot, and she stood motionless, with half her mantle gathered round her. In the fierce silence, the two faced each other, while Beatrix looked on, half sick with fear. Neither moved an eyelash, nor did the glance of either flinch, till it seemed as if a spell had bound them there forever, motionless, under the changing shadows of the leaves, only their hair stirring in the cool wind. Eleanor knew that no man had ever thus faced her before. For a few moments she felt the absolute confidence in herself which had never failed her yet; the certainty of strength which drove the King to take refuge from her behind a barrier of devotion and prayer; the insolence of wit and force against which the holy man of Clairvaux had never found a weapon of thought or speech. And still the hard Norman eyes were colder and angrier than her own, and still the man's head was high, and his face like a mask. At last she felt her lids tremble, and her lips quiver; his face moved strangely in her sight, his cold resistance hurt her as if she were thrusting herself uselessly against a rock; she knew that he was stronger than she, and that she loved him. The struggle was over; her face softened, and her eyes looked down. Beatrix could not understand, for she had expected that the Queen would command Gilbert to leave them, and that before long her vengeance would most certainly overtake him. But instead, it was the young soldier without fame or fortune, the boy with whom she had many a time played children's games, before whom Eleanor, Duchess of Guienne and Queen of France, lost courage and confidence. A moment later she looked up again, and not a trace of her anger was left to see. Simply and quietly she came to Gilbert's side and laid her hand upon his sleeve. "You make me say things I do not mean," she said. If she had actually asked his forgiveness in words, she could not have expressed a real regret more plainly, nor perhaps could she have done anything so sure to produce a strong impression upon the two who heard her. Gilbert's face relaxed instantly, and Beatrix forgot to be afraid. "I crave your Grace's pardon," said the young man. "If I spoke rudely let my excuse be that it was not for myself. We were children together," he added, looking at Beatrix, "we grew up together, and after long parting we have met by chance. There is much left of what there was. I pray that without concealment I may see the Lady Beatrix again." The Queen turned slowly from them and stood for a few moments looking toward the sea. Then she turned again and smiled at Gilbert, not unkindly; but she said no word, and presently, as they stood there, she left them, and walked slowly away with bent head, toward the palace. CHAPTER XIV Three weeks the French armies lay encamped without the walls of Constantinople, while the Emperor of the Greeks used every art and every means to rid himself of the unwelcome host, without giving overmuch offence to his royal guests. The army of Conrad, he said, had gained a great victory in Asia Minor. Travel-stained messengers arrived in Chrysopolis, and were brought across the Bosphorus to appear before the King and Queen of France, with tales of great and marvellous deeds of arms against the infidels. Fifty thousand Seljuks had been drowned in their own blood; three times that number had fled from the field, and were scattered fainting and wounded in the Eastern hills; vast spoils of gold and silver had fallen to the Christians, and if the Frenchmen craved a share in the victories of the Cross, or hoped for some part or parcel of the splendid booty, it was high time that they should be marching to join the Germans in the field. Yet Louis would have tarried longer to complete the full month of devotions and thanksgiving for the march accomplished, and many of his followers would cheerfully have spent the remainder of their days on the pleasant shores of the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn; but the Queen was weary of the long preface to her unwritten history of arms, and grew impatient, and took the Greek Emperor's side, believing all the messages which he provided for her imagination. And so at last the great multitude was brought over to Asia by boat, and marched by quick stages to the plain of Nicaea. There they pitched their camp by the Lake of Ascanius, and waited for news of the Germans; for the messengers had brought information that the German Emperor desired to make Nicaea the trysting-place. But the messengers had all been Greeks, and the French waited many days in vain, spoiling the country of all they could take, though it was in the dominion of Christians, and no man dared raise a hand to defend his own against the Crusaders. Among the French, there were many, both of the great lords and of the simple knights, and of poor men-at-arms, who would have counted it mortal sin to take anything from a stranger without payment, who had come for faith's sake, to fight for faith, and who looked for faith's reward. Yet as there can be in logic nothing good excepting by its own comparison with things evil, so in that great pilgrimage of arms the worst followed the best in a greedy throng, as the jackal and the raven cross the desert in the lion's track. And the roads by which they had marched, and the lands wherein they had camped, lay waste as lie the wheat-fields of Palestine in June, when the plague of locusts has eaten its way from east to west. When they came to a resting-place after many days' march, mud-stained or white with dust, weary and footsore, their horses lame, their mules overladen with the burdens of those that had died by the way, beards half grown, hair unkempt, faces grimy, clothes worn shapeless, they were more like a multitude of barbarians wandering upon the plains of Asia than like nobles of France and high-born Crusaders. At first, when they reached the halting-place by stream or river or lake, there was a struggle for drinking and a strife for the watering of horses and beasts of burden, so that sometimes men and mules were trampled down and hurt, and some were killed; but it mattered little in so great a host, and a spade's depth of earth was ample burial for a man, and if a priest could be found to bless his body on the spot where he lay it was enough, since he had died on the road to Jerusalem; but the jackals and wild dogs followed the march and lay in wait for dead beasts. Then when the first confusion was over, when hunger and thirst were satisfied, the tents were unpacked with their poles, and the sound of the great wooden mallets striking upon the tent-pegs was like the irregular pounding stroke of the fullers' hammers as the water-wheel makes them rise and fall; and though the army had crossed Europe and had encamped in many places, the colours of the tents were bright still, and the pennants floated in streaks of vivid colour against the sky. Soon, when the first work was over and the little villages of red and green and purple and white canvas were built up in their long irregular lines, the smoke of camp-fires rose in curling wreaths, and bag and baggage, pack and parcel, were opened and the contents spread out. As if for some great festival, men and women chose their gayest clothes and richest ornaments, so that when they met again before the open tents which were set up for chapels, one for each little band of fellow-townsmen and neighbours at home, and afterwards when they ate and drank together according to their rank, under wide awnings at noontide, or beneath the clear sky in the cool of the evening, it was a goodly sight, and every man's heart was lightened and his courage returned as he felt that he himself had his share and part of the glorious whole. For it was as it always is and always must be, where power and wealth are masters of the scene, and there is no acting room for misery or sorrow or such poor strolling players as sickness and death. The things which please not the eye are quick to offend souls nursed in a faultless taste, and the charnel-house of failure receives whatsoever things have not the power of pleasing. Now when they came to Nicaea, hope was high, and the light of victory to come seemed to be shining in every man's eyes. There for the first time Queen Eleanor led out her three hundred ladies in battle array, clad in bright mail, with skirts of silk and cloth of gold, and long white mantles, each with the scarlet cross upon the shoulder; and on their heads they wore light caps of steel ornamented with chiselled gold and silver, and here and there with a metal crest or a bird's wing, beaten out of thin silver plate. It was at noonday under the fair autumn sun. A broad meadow, green still in patches, where the grass had not been burned brown by the early summer heat, stretched toward the Lake of Ascanius, where the ground rose in hillocks, to end abruptly in a sheer fall of thirty or forty feet to the water's edge. There were places where there was no grass at all, and where the dry gravel lay bare and dusty, yet on the whole it was a fair field for a great assembly of men on horseback and on foot. To southward the meadow rose, rolling away to the distant hills, whither the German host was already gone. The great lords, with their men-at-arms and squires, riding each in the midst of his vassal knights, went out thither to see such a sight as none had seen before, and ranged themselves by ranks around the field, so that there was room for all. And thither Gilbert went also with his man Dunstan, in the King's train, for he owed no service nor allegiance to any man there. But they waited long for the Queen. She came at last, leading her company and mounted on a beautiful white Arab mare, the gift of the Greek Emperor, as gentle a creature as ever obeyed voice and hand, and as swift as the swiftest of the breed of Nejd. She rode alone, ten lengths before the rest, tall and straight in the saddle as any man, a lance in her right hand, while her left held the bridle low and lightly; and at the very first glance every soldier in that great field knew that there was none like her in the troop. Yet her fair ladies made a good showing and rode not badly as they cantered by, brilliant and changing as a shower of blossoms, with black eyes, and blue, and brown, fair cheeks and dark, and laughing lips not made to talk of rough deeds save to praise them in husband or lover. Next to the Queen and before the following ranks rode one who bore the standard of Eleanor's ancient house, Saint George and the Dragon, displayed on a white ground and now for the first time quartered in a cross. The Lady Anne of Auch was very dark, and her black hair streamed like a shadow in the air behind her, while her dark eyes looked upward and onward. Splendidly handsome she was, and doubtless Eleanor had chosen her for her beauty to be standard bearer of the troop, well knowing that no living face could be compared with her own, and willing to outshine a rival whose features and form were the honour and boast of the South. They rode in a sort of order, in squadrons of fifty each, but not in serried ranks, for they had not the skill to keep in line, though they rode well and boldly. And before each squadron rode a lady who for her beauty or her rank, or for both, was captain, and wore upon her steel cap a gilded crest. Each squadron had a colour of its own, scarlet and green and violet, and the tender shade of anemones in spring, and their mantles had been dyed with each hue in the dyeing-vats of Venice, and were lined with delicately tinted silks from the East, brought to the harbours of France by Italian traders. For the merchants of Amalfi filled the Mediterranean with their busy commerce and had quarters of their own in every Eastern city, and had then but lately founded the saintly order of the Knights Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem, whence grew the noble community of the Knights of Malta, which was to live through many centuries even to our day. Nor could the Queen's ladies have worn mail and steel and wielded sword and lance, so that at a long stone's throw they might almost have passed for men, but that cunning jewellers and artificers of Italy, and Moorish smiths from Spain, had been brought at great pains and cost to France to make such armour and weapons as had never been wrought before. The mail was of finest rings of steel sewn upon soft doeskin, fitted so closely that there was no room for gambison or jerkin; and though it might have stopped a broad arrow or turned the edge of a blade, a sharp dagger could have made a wound beneath it, and against a blow it afforded less protection than a woollen cloak. Many had little rings of gold sewn regularly in the rows of steel ones, that caught the light with a warmer sparkle, and the clasps of their mantles were of chiselled gold and silver. The trappings of each horse were matched in colour with the ladies' mantles, and the captains of the squadrons wore golden spurs. They dropped the points of their lances as they passed the King where he sat on his horse, a stone's throw from the high shore of the lake, in the midst of his chief barons, his pale face expressing neither interest nor pleasure in what he saw, and his eyes distrustful, as always, of his Queen and her many caprices. She, when she had saluted him with a smile that was almost a laugh, rode on a little way, and then, with a sharply uttered word of command, she wheeled by the left, crossed half the broad field, and led her ladies back straight toward the King. Within five lengths of him she halted suddenly, almost bringing her horse's haunches to the ground, and keeping her seat in a way that would have done credit to a man brought up in the saddle. To tell the truth, very few of her ladies were able to perform such a feat with any ease or assurance, and in the sudden halt there was more than a little disorder, accompanied by all sorts of exclamations of annoyance and ejaculations of surprise; yet, in spite of difficulty, the whole troop came to a standstill; moreover, a hundred thousand or more of knights and soldiers on horseback and on foot were so much more interested in the looks of the riders than in their horsemanship, and the whole effect of the gay confusion, with its many colours, its gleams of gold and glint of silver, was so pretty and altogether novel, that a great cry of enthusiasm and delight rang in the sunny air. A faint flush of pleasure rose in the Queen's cheeks, and her eyes sparkled with triumph at the long applause which was on her side against the King's disapproval. She dropped the point of her lance until it almost touched the ground, and spoke to her husband in a high clear voice that was heard by many. "I present to your Grace this troop of brave knights," she said. "In strength the advantage is yours, in numbers, you far outdo us, in age you are older, in experience there are those with you who have lived a lifetime in arms. Yet we have some skill also, and those who are old in battles know that the victory belongs to the spirit and the heart, before it is the work of the hand; and in these my knights are not behind yours." The men who heard her words and saw the lovely light in her wondrous face threw up their right hands and shouted great cheers for her and her three hundred riders, but the King spoke no word of praise, and his face was still and sour. Again the Queen's cheek flushed. "Your Grace leads the army of France," she said, "an army of brave men. My knights are many, and brave too, the troops of Guienne and of Poitou and of Gascony and of more than half of all the duchies that speak our tongue and owe me allegiance. But of them all, and before them all, to ride in van of this Holy War, I choose these three hundred ladies. My Lord King, and you, lords, barons, knights, and men, who have taken upon you the sign of the Cross, you, the flower of French chivalry and manhood, your comrades in arms are these, the flowers of France! Long live the King!" She threw up her lance and caught it easily in her right hand as she uttered the cry, laughing in the King's face, and well knowing her power compared with his; and as the high young voices behind her took up the shout, the great multitude that bordered the meadow took it up also; but one word was changed, and a hundred thousand throats shouted, "Long live the Queen!" When there was silence at last, the King looked awkwardly to his right and left as if seeking advice; but the nobles about him were watching the fair ladies, and had perhaps no counsel to offer. In the great stillness the Queen waited, still smiling triumphantly, and still he could find nothing to say, so that a soft titter ran through the ladies' ranks, whereat the King looked more sour than ever. "Madam," he began at last. And after that he seemed to be speaking, but no one heard what he said. Apparently with the intention of showing that he had nothing more to say,--and indeed it was of very little importance whether he had or not,--he waved his hand with a rather awkward gesture and slightly bowed his head. "Long live the monk!" said Eleanor, audibly, as she wheeled to the right to lead her troop away. Gilbert Warde sat on his horse in the front line of the spectators, some fifty yards from the King, and near the edge of the lake. As the Queen cantered along the line, gathering her harvest of admiration in men's faces, her eyes met the young Englishman's and recognized him. On his great Norman horse he sat half a head taller than the men on each side of him, motionless as a statue. Yet his look expressed something which she had never seen in his face till then; for, being freed from her immediate influence and at liberty to look on her merely as the loveliest sight in the world, more strangely beautiful than ever in her gleaming armour, he had not thought of concealing the pleasure he felt in watching her. Not all the cheering of the great army, not all the light in the thousands of eyes that followed her, could have done more than bring a faint colour to her face, nor could any man in all that host have found a word to make her heart beat faster. But when she saw Gilbert the blood sank suddenly and her eyes grew darker. They lingered on him as she rode by, and turned back to him a little with drooping lids, and a slight bend of the head that had in it a grace beyond her own knowledge or intention. He, like those beside him, threw up his hand and cheered again, arid she did not see that almost before she had passed him he was looking along the ranks for another face. The three hundred cantered slowly round half the meadow, and the cheer followed them as they went, like the moving cry of birds on the wing; and first they rode along the line of the King's men, but presently they came to the knights and soldiers of Eleanor's great vassalage, and all at once there were flowers in the air, wild flowers from the fields and autumn roses from the gardens of Nicaea, plucked early by young squires and boys, and tied into nosegays and carefully shielded from the sun, that they might be still fresh when the time came to throw them. The light blossoms scattered in the air, and the leaves were blown into the faces of the fair women as they passed. Moreover, some of the knights had silken scarfs of red and white, and waved them above their heads while they cheered and shouted. And so the troop rode round three sides of the great meadow. But at the last side there was a change that fell like a chill upon the whole multitude of men and women, and a cry came ringing down the air that struck a discord through the triumphant notes, long, harsh, bad to hear as the howl of wild beasts when the fire licks up the grass of the wilderness behind them. At the sound, men turned their heads and looked in the direction whence it came, and many, by old instinct, slipped their left hands to the hilts of sword and dagger, and felt that each blade was loose in its sheath. As she galloped along, Queen Eleanor's white mare threw up her head sideways with a snort and swerved, almost wrenching the bridle from the Queen's hold, and at the same moment the lusty cheering broke high in the air and died fitfully away. The instinct of fear and the foreknowledge of great evil were present, unseen and terrible, and of the three hundred ladies who reined in their horses as the Queen halted, nine out of ten felt that they changed colour, scarcely knowing why. With one common impulse all turned their eyes towards the rising ground to southward. There were strange figures upon the low hillocks, riding out of the woods at furious speed towards the meadow, and already the deep lines began to open and part to make way for the rush. There were men bareheaded, with rags of mantles streaming on the wind, spurring lame and jaded horses to the speed of a charge, and crying out strange words in tones of terror. But only one word was understood by some of those who heard. "The Seljuks! The Seljuks!" Down the gentle slope they came spurring like madmen. As they drew nearer, one could see that there was blood on their armour, blood on the rags of their cloaks, blood on their faces and on their hands; some were wounded in the head, and the clotted gore made streaks upon their necks; some had bandages upon them made of strips of torn-up clothes--and one man who rode in the front, when his horse sprang a ditch at the foot of the hill, threw up an arm that was without a hand. No man of all the throng who had ever seen war doubted the truth for one moment after the first of the wild riders was in sight, and the older and more experienced men instinctively looked into each other's faces and came forward together. But even had they been warned in time, they could have done nothing against the fright that seized the younger men and the women at the throat like a bodily enemy, choking out hope and strength and youth in the dreadful premonition of untimely death. The squires pressed upon the knights, the boys and young men-at-arms and the followers of the camp forced their weight inward next, and the inner circle yielded and allowed itself to be crushed in upon the troop of ladies, whose horses began to plunge and rear with their riders' fright; and still, on one side, the crowd tried to part before the coming fugitives. The first came tearing down, his horse's nostrils streaming with blood, himself wild-eyed, with foam-flecked lips that howled the words of terror. "The Seljuks! The Seljuks!" A dozen lengths before the terror-stricken wall of human beings that could not make way to let him in, without warning, without a death-gasp, the horse doubled his head under himself as he galloped his last stride, and falling in a round heap rolled over and over forwards with frightful violence, till he suddenly lay stiff and stark with twisted neck and outstretched heels, within a yard of the shrinking crowd, his rider crushed to death on the grass behind him. And still the others came tearing down the hill, more and more, faster and faster, as if no earthly power could stop their rush. First a score and then a hundred, and then the torn remnants of a vanquished host, blown, as it were like fallen leaves by the whirlwind of the death they had but just escaped. Many of them, not knowing and not caring what they did, and remembering only the wrath from which they fled, did not even try to rein in their horses, and the beasts themselves, mad with fright and pain, charged right at the ranks of people on foot and reared their full height at the last bound rather than override a living man; and many were crushed in the press, and many fell from their jaded mounts, too weary to rise and too much exhausted to utter any words save a cry for water. Nevertheless, two or three who had more life in them than the rest were able to stand, and were presently led round the close-packed crowd to the edge of the lake, where the King was quietly waiting with his courtiers until the confusion should end itself, saying a prayer or two for the welfare of every one concerned, but making not the slightest attempt to restrain the panic nor to restore order. But the Queen and her ladies were in danger of being crushed to death in the very midst of the seething, bruising, stifling mass of humanity. Gilbert was near the King, and sitting high on his great horse he saw farther than most men above the wild confusion. It was as if some frightful, unseen monster were gathering a hundred thousand men in iron coils, always inward, as great snakes crush their prey, thousands upon thousands, the bodies of horses and men upon men and horses, with resistless force, till the human beings could struggle no longer, and the beasts themselves could neither kick nor plunge, but only trample all that was near them, while they moved slowly towards the centre. In thousands and thousands again, on an almost even level, the small round caps of many colours were pressed together, till it seemed impossible that there could be room for the bodies that belonged to them. As when, in vintage time, the gathered fruit is brought home to the vats in the sweating panniers of wood, pressed down and level to the brim, and the red and white and blue and green grapes lie closely touching each other almost floating in the juice, rocking and bobbing all at once with every step of the laden mule--so, as Gilbert looked out before him, the bright-hued, close-fitting caps moved restlessly and without ceasing all round a central turmoil of splendid colour, shaded by tender tones of violet and olive, and shot by the glare of sunlit gold, and the sheen of silver, and the cold light of polished steel. But there in the heart of the press there was danger, and from far away Gilbert saw clearly enough, through the cloud of light and colour, the lifeless tones that are like nothing else of nature, the deadly unreflecting paleness of frightened faces, and the cries of women hurt and in terror came rising over the heads of the multitude. He sat still and looked before him as if his sight could distinguish the features of one or another at that distance, and he felt icy cold when he thought of what might happen, and that all those fair young girls and women, in their beauty and in their youth, in their fanciful dresses, might be crushed and trampled and kicked to death before thousands who would have died to save them. His first instinct was to charge the crowd before him, to force the way, even by the sword, and to bring the Queen and her ladies safely back; but a moment's thought showed him how utterly futile any such attempt must be, and that even if the whole throng had felt as he felt himself, and had wished to make way for any one, it would have had no power to do so. There was but one chance of saving the women, and that evidently lay in leading off the crowd by some excitement counter to its present fear. The instant the difficulty and the danger flashed upon him Gilbert began to look about him for some means of safety for those in peril, and in his distress of mind every lost minute was monstrously lengthened as it passed. Beside him, his man Dunstan stood in silence, apparently indifferent to all that was taking place, his quiet dark face a trifle more drawn and keen than usual; and though a very slight contraction of the curved nostrils expressed some inward excitement, it was scarcely perceptible. Gilbert knew that his own face showed his extreme anxiety, and as he in vain attempted to find some expedient, the man's excessive coolness began to irritate him. "You stand there," said Gilbert, rather coldly, "as if you did not care that three hundred ladies of France are being crushed to death and that we Englishmen can do nothing to help them." Dunstan raised his lids and looked up at his master without lifting his head. "I am not so indifferent as the King, sir," he answered, barely raising a finger in the direction of the knot of courtiers, in the midst of whom, some fifty yards away, the cold, pale face of the King was just then distinctly visible. "France might be burned before his eyes, yet he would pray for his own soul rather than lift a hand for the lives of others." "We are as bad as he," retorted Gilbert, almost angrily, and moving uneasily in his saddle as he felt himself powerless. Dunstan did not answer at once, and he bit one side of his lower lip nervously with his pointed teeth. Suddenly he stooped down and picked up something against which his foot had struck as he moved. Gilbert paid no attention to what he did. "Do you wish to draw away the crowd so as to make room for the Queen?" he asked. "Of course I do!" Gilbert looked at his man inquiringly, though his tone was harsh and almost angry. "We cannot cut a way for them through the crowd," he added, looking before him again. Dunstan laughed quietly. "I will lay my life against a new tunic that I can make this multitude spin on itself like a whipped top," he said. "But I admit that you could not, sir." "Why not?" asked Gilbert, instantly bending down in order to hear better. "What can you do that I cannot?" "What gentle blood could never do," replied the man, with a shade of bitterness. "Shall I have the new tunic if I save the Lady Beatrix--and the Queen of France?" "Twenty! Anything you ask for! But be quick--" Dunstan stooped again, and again picked up something from under his foot. "I am only a churl," he said as he stood upright again, "but I can risk my life like you for a lady, and if I win, I would rather win a sword than a bit of finery." "You shall win more than that," Gilbert answered, his tone changing. "But if you know of anything to do, in the name of God do it quickly, for it is time." "Good-by, sir." Gilbert heard the two words, and while they were still in his ears, half understood, Dunstan had slipped away among the squires and knights around them, and was lost to sight. One minute had not passed when a wild yell rent the air, with fierce words, high and clear, which thousands must have heard at the very first, even had they not been repeated again and again. "The King has betrayed us! The King is a traitor to the Cross!" At the very instant a stone flew straight from Dunstan's unerring hand, and struck the King's horse fairly between the eyes, upon the rich frontlet, heavy with gold embroidery. The charger reared up violently to his height, and before he had got his head down to plunge, Dunstan's furious scream split the air again, and the second stone struck the King himself full on the breast, and rolled to the saddle and then to the ground. "The King has betrayed us all! Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!" There never yet was a feverish, terror-struck throng of men, suddenly disheartened by the unanswerable evidence of a great defeat by which they themselves might be lost, that would not take up the cry of "Traitor!" against their leaders. Before he raised his voice, Dunstan had got among men who knew him neither by sight nor by name, and the second stone had not sped home before he was gone again in a new direction, silent now, with compressed lips, his inscrutable dark eyes looking sharply about him. He had done his work, and he knew what might happen to him if he were afterwards recognized. But none heeded him. The uproar went surging towards the King with a rising fury, like the turn of the tide in a winter storm, roaring up to the breaking pitch, and many would have stoned him and torn him to pieces; but there were many also, older and cooler men, who pressed round him, shoulder to shoulder, with swords drawn and flashing in the sunlight, and faces set to defend their liege lord and sovereign. In an instant the flying Germans were forgotten; and the Emperor and his army, and the meaning of the Holy War and of the Cross itself, were gone from men's minds in the fury of riot on the one side, in the stern determination of defence on the other. The vast weight of men rolled forward, pushed by those behind, forcing the King and those who stood by him to higher ground. In dire distress, and almost hopeless of extricating her gentle troop from destruction, the Queen heard the new tumult far away, and felt the close press yielding on one side. The word 'traitor' ran along like a quick echo from mouth to mouth, repeated again and again, sometimes angrily, sometimes in tones of unbelief, but always repeated, until there was scarcely one man in a hundred thousand whose lips had not formed the syllables. Eleanor saw her husband and his companions with their drawn swords moving in the air, on the knoll; she heard the stinging word, and a hard and scornful look lingered in her face a moment. She knew that the accusation was false, that it was too utterly empty to have meaning for honest men; yet she despised her husband merely because a madman could cast such a word at him; and in the security of power and dominions far greater than his, as well as of a popularity to which he could never attain, she looked upon him in her heart as a contemptible kinglet, to marry whom had been her most foolish mistake. And it had become the object of her life to put him away if she could. For a few moments she looked on across the sea of heads that had already begun to move away. Her mare was quieter now in the larger space, being a docile creature, but many of the other ladies' horses were still plunging and kicking, though so crowded that they could do each other little hurt. She saw how the knights were forcing their way to the King's side, and how the great herd of footmen resisted them, while the word of shame rose louder in their yells; and though she despised the King, the fierce instinct of the great noble against the rabble ran through her like a painful shock, and her face turned pale as she felt her anger in her throat. There was room now, for the great throng was rushing from her, spreading like a river, and dividing at the hillock where it met the knights' swords, and flowing to right and left along the edge of the lake. The Queen looked behind her, to see what ladies were nearest to her, and she saw her standard bearer, Anne of Auch, fighting her rearing charger; and next to her, quiet and pale, on a vicious Hungarian gelding a great deal too big for her, but which she seemed to manage with extraordinary ease, sat Beatrix de Curboil, a small, slim figure in a delicate mail that looked no stronger than a silver fishing-net, her shape half hidden by her flowing mantle of soft olive-green with its scarlet cross on the shoulder, and wearing a silver dove's wing on her light steel cap. Her eyes met Eleanor's and lightened in sympathy of thought, so that the other understood in a flash. The Queen's right hand went up, lifting the lance high in air; half wheeling to the left, and turning her head still farther, she called out to those behind her:-- "Ladies of France! The rabble is at the King--Forward!" An instant later, the fleet Arab mare was galloping straight for the crowd, and Eleanor did not look behind her again, but held her lance before her and a little raised, so that it was just ready to fall into rest. Directly behind her rode the Lady Anne, the shaft of the standard in the socket of her stirrup, her arm run through the thong, so that she had both hands free; she sat erect in the saddle, her horse already at a racing gallop, neck out, eyes up, red nostrils wide, delighting in being free from restraint; and Beatrix was there, too, like a feather on her big brown Hungarian, that thundered along like a storm, his wicked ears laid straight back, and his yellowish young teeth showing under his quivering lip. But of all the three hundred ladies none followed them. The others had not understood the Queen's command, or had not heard, or could not manage their horses, or were afraid. And the three women rode at the mob, that was now four hundred yards away. Straight they rode, heedless and unaware that they were alone, nor counting how little three women could do against thousands. But the people heard the hammering hoofs of the two big horses, and the Arab's light footfall resounded quickly and steadily, as the fingers of a dancer striking the tambourine. Hundreds glanced back to see who rode so fast, and thousands turned their heads to know why the others looked; and all, seeing the Queen, pressed back to right and left, making way, partly in respect for her and much in fear for themselves. Far up the rising ground, the riot ceased as suddenly as it had begun; the men-at-arms drew back in shame, and many tried to hide their faces, lest they should be known again. The tide of human beings divided before the swiftly riding women, as the cloud-bank splits before the northwest wind in winter, and the white mare sped like a ray of light between long wavering lines of rough faces and gleaming arms. The Queen glanced scornfully to each side as she passed in a gale, and the dear sense of power soothed her stirred pride. Still the line opened, and still she rode on, scarcely rising and sinking with the mare's wonderful stride. But the way that was made for her was not straight to the King now; the throng was more dense there, and the people parted as they could, so that the three ladies had to follow the only open passage. Suddenly, before them, there was an end, where the rolling ground broke away sharply in a fall of forty feet to the edge of the lake below. The heads of the last of the crowd who stood at the brink were clear and distinct against the pale sky. The Queen could not see the water, but she felt that there was death in the leap. Her two companions looked beyond her and saw also. Eleanor dropped her lance quietly to the right, so that it should not make her followers fall, and with hands low and weight thrown back in the deep saddle she pulled with all her might. Her favourite black horse, broken to her own hand, would have obeyed her; she might have been able to stop Beatrix's great Hungarian, for her white hands were as strong as a man's; but the Arab mare was trained only to the touch of an Arab halter and the deep caress of an Arab voice, and at the first strain of the cruel French bit she threw up her head, swerved, caught the steel in her teeth, and shot forward again at twice her speed. Eleanor tried in vain to wrench the mare's head to one side, into the shrinking crowd. The Queen's face turned grey, but her lips were set and her eyes steady, as she looked death in the face. Behind her, Beatrix's little gloved hands were like white moths on her steadily jerking bridle, the Hungarian's terrific stride threw up the sods behind her, and there was a hopeless, far-away look in her face, almost like a death-smile. Only the strong dark woman of the South seemed still to have control over her horse, and he slowly slackened his speed, and fell a little behind the other two. In the fearful danger the crowd was silent and breathless, and many men turned pale as they saw. But none moved. One second, two seconds, three seconds, and to every second two strides; the end of three women's lives was counted by the wild hoof-strokes. The race might last while one could count ten more. Gilbert Warde had at first tried to press nearer to the King, but he saw that it was useless, because the latter was already shoulder to shoulder with the nobles and knights. So he had turned back to face the crowd with those about him, and with the flat of his blade he had beaten down some few swords which men had dared to draw; but he had wounded no one, for he knew that it was a madness which must pass and must be forgiven. Then he found himself with his horse on the very edge of the open track made by the dividing people, and he looked and saw the Queen, and Beatrix three or four lengths behind her, as the matchless Arab gained ground in the race. He had been above the deep fall and understood. Instantly he was on his feet on the turf, a step out in the perilous way; and he wished that he had the strength of Lancelot in his hands, with the leap of a wild beast in his feet, but his heart did not fail him. In one second he lived an hour. His life was nothing, but he could only give it once, to save one woman, and she must be Beatrix, let such chance befall Eleanor as might. Yet Eleanor was the Queen, and she had been kind to him, and in the fateful instant of doom his eyes were on her face; he would try to save the other, but unconsciously he made one step forward again and stood waiting in midway. One second for a lifetime's thought, one for the step he made, and the next was the last. He could hear the rush of the wind, and Eleanor was looking at him. In that supreme moment her face changed, and the desperate calm in her eyes became desperate fear for him she loved even better than she knew. "Back!" she cried, and the cry was a woman's agonized scream, not for herself. With all her might, but utterly in vain, she wrenched sideways at the mare's mouth and she closed her eyes lest she should see the man die. He had meant to let her pass to her death, for the girl was dearer to him, and he had gathered his strength like a bent spring to serve him. But he saw her eyes and heard her cry, and in the flash of instinct he knew she loved him, and that she wished him to save himself rather than her; and thereby is real love proved on the touchstone of fear. [Illustration: "HE... HELD, WHILE EARTH AND SKY WHIRLED WITH HIM."] As he sprang, he knew that he had no choice, though he did not love her. The fall of her mare, if his grip held, might stop the rest. He sprang; he saw only the Arab's bony head and the gold on the bridle, as both his hands grasped it. Then he saw nothing, but yet he held, and, dead, he would have held still, as the steel jaws of the hunter's trap hold upon the wolf's leg-bone. He knew that he was thrown down, dragged, pounded, bruised, twisted like a rope till his joints cracked. But he held, and felt no pain, while earth and sky whirled with him. It was not a second; it was an hour, a year, a lifetime; yet he could not have loosed his hands, had he wished to let go, for there were in him the blood and the soul of the race that never yielded its grip on whatsoever it held. It lasted a breathing-space, while the mare plunged wildly and staggered, and her head almost touched the ground and dragged the man's hands on the turf; then as his weight wrenched her neck back, her violent speed threw her hind quarters round, as a vane is blown from the gale. At the same instant the great Hungarian horse was upon her, tried to leap her in his stride, struck her empty saddle with his brown chest, and fell against her and upon her with all his enormous weight, and the two rolled over each other, frantically kicking. The standard bearer's horse, less mad than the others and some lengths behind, checked himself cleverly, and after two or three short, violent strides, that almost unseated his rider, planted his fore feet in the turf and stood stock-still, heaving and trembling. The race was over. With the strength and instinct of the born rider, Eleanor had slipped her feet from the stirrups and had let herself be thrown, lifting herself with her hands on the high pommel and vaulting clear away. She fell, but was on her feet before any man of the dazed throng could help her. She saw Gilbert lying his full length on his side, his body passive, but his arms stretched beyond his head, while his gloved hands still clenched upon the bridle and were pulled from side to side by the mare's faintly struggling head. His eyes were half open toward the Queen, but they were pale and saw nothing. The Hungarian had rolled half upon his back, little hurt, and the pommels of the saddle under him kept him from turning completely over. Beatrix lay like one dead. She had been thrown over the Arab's back, striking her head on the turf, and the mare in her final struggle had rolled upon her feet. The light steel cap had been forced down over her forehead in spite of its cushioned lining, and the chiselled rim had cut into the flesh so that a little line of dark blood was slowly running across the white skin; and her white gloved hands were lying palm upward, half open and motionless. The Queen scarcely glanced at her. Many men sprang forward when the danger was past, and they dragged Beatrix out and began to get her horse upon his feet. Eleanor knelt by Gilbert and tried to take his fingers from the bridle, but could not, so that she had to loose the buckle from the long bars of the bit. Her hands chafed his temples softly, and she bent lower and blew upon his face, that her cool breath might wake him. There were drops of blood on his forehead and on his chin, his cloth tunic was torn in many places, and the white linen showed at the rents; but Eleanor saw only the look in his face, serene and strong even in his unconsciousness, while in the dream of his swoon he saved her life again. In that moment, knowing that he could not see her, she thought not of her own face as she gazed upon his, nor of hiding what she felt; and the thing she felt was evil, and it was sweet. But suddenly there was life in his look, with a gentle smile, and the strained fingers were loosed with a sigh, and a long-unused word came from his lips. "Mother!" Eleanor shook her beautiful head slowly. Then Gilbert's face darkened with understanding and the old pain clutched at his heart sharply, even before the keen bodily hurt awoke in his wrung limbs. All at once thought came, and he knew how, in a quick fall of his heart, he had forgotten Beatrix and had almost given his life to save the Queen. As if he had been stung, he started and raised himself on one hand, though it was as if he forced his body among hot knives. "She is dead!" he cried, with twisting lips. "No--you saved us both." The words came soft and clear, as Eleanor laid her hand upon his shoulder to quiet him, and watched the change as the agony in his eyes faded to relief and brightened to peace. "Thank God!" He sank upon her arm, for he was much bruised. But her face changed, too, and she suffered new things, because in her there was good as well as evil; for as she loved him more than before he had saved her, so she would give him more, if she might, even to forgetting herself. And so, for a few moments, she knelt and watched him, heedless of the people about her, and scarcely seeing a dark man whom she had never noticed before, and who bent so low that she could not see his face, quietly loosening his master's collar and then feeling along his arms and legs for any bone hurt there might be. "Who are you?" asked the Queen, at last, gently, as to one who was helping him she loved. "His man," answered Dunstan, laconically, without looking up. "Take care of him and bring me word of him," she answered, and from a wallet she gave him gold, which he took, silently bending his head still lower in thanks. He, too, had saved her that day, and knew it, though she did not. She stood up at last, gathering her mantle round her. Less than ten minutes had passed since she had thrown up her hand and called to her ladies to follow her. Since then the world had been in herself and on fire, leaving no room for other thoughts; but now the crowd had parted wide, and the King was coming towards her, slow and late, to know whether she were hurt, for he had seen her ride. "Madam," he said, when he had dismounted, "I thank the mercy of Heaven, which deigned to hear the prayers I was continually offering up for your safety while your life was threatened by that dangerous animal. We will render thanks in divine services during ten days before proceeding farther, or during a fortnight if you prefer it." "Your Grace," said Eleanor, coldly, "is at liberty to praise Heaven by the month if it seems good to you. But for that poor Englishman, who lies there in a swoon, and who caught my horse's bridle at the risk of his life, you might have been ordering masses for my soul instead of for my bodily preservation. They would have been much needed had I been killed just then." The King crossed himself devoutly, half closed his eyes, bent himself a little, and whispered a short prayer. "It would be better," observed the Queen, "to move on at once and support the Emperor." "It has pleased God that the army of the Emperor should be totally destroyed," answered the King, calmly. "The Emperor himself will be here in a few hours, unless he has perished with the rest of his knights, slain by the Seljuk horsemen who are pursuing the fugitives." "The more reason why we should save those who are still alive. My army shall march to-morrow at daybreak--your Grace may stay behind and pray for us." She turned from him scornfully. Dunstan and some foot-soldiers had made stretchers with lances and pikes and were just beginning to carry Beatrix and Gilbert away, northward, in the direction of the camp. CHAPTER XV When Gilbert learned from his man that Beatrix was badly hurt and suffering great pain, he turned his face away and bit hard on the saddle-bag that served him for a pillow. It was late in the afternoon, and Dunstan had just come back from making inquiries in the ladies' lines, half a mile away. Nothing could have been simpler than his round tent, which had a single pole and covered a circle four or five paces in diameter. The dry ground had been sprinkled with water and beaten with mallets so as to harden it as much as possible. Gilbert and his two men slept on smoke-cured hides over which heavy woollen blankets were spread, almost as thick as carpets, hand-woven in rough designs of vivid blue and red, the coarse work of shepherds of Auvergne, but highly valued. Against the pole the saddles were piled one upon another, Gilbert's own on top, with its curved pommels; Dunstan's, covered with plaited lines for binding on rolled blankets and all sorts of light packages and saddle-bags before and behind the rider's seat; and the mule's pack-saddle, on which little Alric rode, perched upon the close-bound bundles, when the road was fair. During most of the journey the sturdy Saxon had trudged along on foot, as Dunstan did also, but it was not seemly that a man of gentle blood should be seen walking on the march, except of great necessity. Above the saddles Gilbert's mail hung by the neck, with a stout staff run through both arms to stretch it out, lest dampness should rust it; also his other armour and his sword were fastened up like an ancient trophy, with bridles and leathern bottles and other gear. Beside the saddles, on the ground, the shining copper kettle held three bright brass bowls, well-scoured wooden trenchers, a long wooden ladle, an iron skewer, and three brass spoons, the simple necessities for cooking and eating. Forks had not been thought of in those days. Gilbert lay on his back and turned his face away from his man. He was bruised and scratched, and his head ached from being struck on the ground when the mare had dragged him; but he was whole and sound in limb, and Dunstan had stretched his joints and pressed his bruises with a wise touch that had in it something of Oriental skill. He lay wrapped in a long robe of coarse white linen, as thick as wool--a sensible Greek garment which he had got in Constantinople. The afternoon was warm, and though the flap of the tent was raised and stretched out like an awning, there was little air, and the place smelt of the leathern trappings and of hot canvas; and through the side to which he turned his face Gilbert could see little dazzling sparks of rays where the sun was beating full upon the outside. He wished that in the mad rush of the Arab the life might have been pounded out of him, and that he might never have waked to know what he had done; for although in his sober senses he did not love the Queen, it seemed to him that he had loved her in the moment when he sprang to save her life, and that he could never again forget the look of fear for him in her eyes and her cry of terror for his sake. All that Beatrix had said to him in the garden at Constantinople came back to him now; until now, he had disbelieved it all, as a wild and foolish impossibility, for he was over-modest and diffident of himself in such matters. Beatrix would certainly have been killed but for the chance which had thrown the mare across the narrow way, and he had risked his life to save another woman. It mattered not that the other was the Queen; that was not the reason why he had leapt upon the bridle. He had done it for a glance of her eyes, for the tone of her voice, as it were in an instant of temptation, when he had stepped out of the rank to face destruction for a dearer sake. It seemed like a crime, and it proved against his own belief that he loved what he loved not. Had he let the Queen pass, and had he stopped Beatrix's horse instead, she might have been unhurt, and one other brave man might have saved Eleanor at the brink. Indeed, he thought of the sad face with its pathetic little smile, drawn with pain and hot upon the pillow, by his fault; and he thought with greater fear of the danger that some deep hurt might leave the slender frame bent and crippled for life. But meanwhile the news had spread quickly that it was the silent Englishman, neither knight nor squire, who had saved the Queen, and outside the tent men stopped and talked of the deed, and asked questions of Alric, who had picked up enough Norman-French to give tolerably intelligible answers. At first came soldiers, passing as they went to fetch water from the lake, and again as they came back with copper vessels filled to the brim and dripping upon their shoulders, they set down their burdens and talked together. Presently came a great knight, the Count of Montferrat, brother to the Count of Savoy, who had been at Vezelay, where Gilbert had talked with him. He walked with slow strides, his bright eyes seeming to cut a way for him, his long mantle trailing, his soft red leather boots pushed down in close creases about his ankles, his gloved hand pressing down the cross-hilt of his sword, so that the sheath lifted his mantle behind him. On each side of him walked his favourite knights, and their squires with them, all on their way to the King's quarters, where a council of war was to be held, since it was known how the great German host had been routed, and that the Emperor himself might follow Duke Frederick of Suabia. This Duke had already reached the camp, after beating off the Seljuk skirmishers who had harassed his retreat and driven in the first fright-struck Germans. The soldiers and grooms made way for the noble, but he asked which might be the tent of Gilbert Warde, the Englishman; so they pointed to the raised flap, where Alric stood with his sturdy legs apart, under the shadow of Gilbert's long shield, which was hanging from a lance stuck in the ground. The shield was blank, though many gentlemen already painted devices on theirs, and sovereign lords displayed the heraldic emblems of their houses long before their vassals began to use their coats-of-arms on their shields in war. But Gilbert would bear neither emblem nor device till some great deed should make him famous. The Count of Montferrat glanced at the blank shield thoughtfully, and asked little Alric of what family his master was; and when he heard that his forefathers had been with Robert the Devil when he died, and with William at Hastings, and with Godfrey at Jerusalem, and that his father had died fighting for Maud against the usurper, but that Gilbert had not knighthood for all that, he wondered gravely. Yet knowing that he was hurt and ill at ease, the Count would not go in, but gave Alric a piece of gold and bade him greet the young Lord of Stoke and tell him that the Count of Montferrat craved better acquaintance with him when he should be recovered. He went on his way, and was not gone far when the Count of Savoy and the lord of fated Coucy came strolling side by side, with their trains of knights and squires, on their way to the council. And having seen Montferrat stop at the tent, they did likewise, and asked the same questions, giving Alric money out of respect for his master's brave deed and good name, according to custom. Many others came after them, great and small, and the great gave the groom money, and the poor men-at-arms asked him to drink with them after supper; so that his flat leathern wallet, which was cracking in its creases from having been long empty, was puffed out and hard, and weighed heavily at his belt, and as for the wine promised him, he might have floated a boat in it. There was one of the Greek guides who stood near the tent, playing with a string of thick beads, and keeping behind Alric; and when there was a crowd around him this Greek slipped nearer, with his razor in the palm of his hand, and stealthily tried to cut the thongs by which the wallet was fastened. So the Saxon turned quickly and smote him between the eyes with his fist, and it was an hour before the Greek came to himself and crawled away, for nobody would lift him. But Alric laughed often as he sucked the trickling blood from his knuckles, and though he was a little man and young, the soldiers looked at him with respect, and many more of them asked him to drink. So on that afternoon Gilbert's reputation grew suddenly, as a bright lily that has been long in bud under a wet sky breaks out like a flame in the first sunshine; and the days were over when he must trudge along unnoticed in the vast throng of nobles, with his two men and his modest baggage. Meanwhile the council was held in the King's tent of state, within which three hundred nobles sat at ease after the King himself had taken his place on the throne, with the Queen on his right hand. There the red-bearded Frederick of Suabia, nephew to Conrad and famous afterward as the Emperor Barbarossa, stood up and told his tale: how the wild German knights had truly forced their leaders to take the mountain road and fight the Seljuks at a disadvantage; how the Seljuks appeared and disappeared again from hour to hour, falling upon their prey at every turn, reddening every pass with blood, and leaving half-killed men among the slain to wonder whence the swift smiters had come and whither they were gone. He himself had wounds not healed, and he told how, day by day, the mad bravery of the Germans, and the fury of his Black Forest men-at-arms, had risen again and again to very desperation, to sink before evening in a new defeat; until, at last, as the Seljuk swords still killed and killed, a terror had fallen upon the host in the passes, and men had thrown away their armour and fled like rats from a burning granary, so that their leaders could not hold them. He, with a few strong helpers, had covered his flying troops, and the brave Emperor Conrad, giant in strength, the greatest swordsman of the world, was even now fighting at the hindmost rear of the army to save whom he could. It had been madness, he told them all, to try the mountain ways. To Palestine there were two roads, and they might choose between them, either following the long coast round Asia Minor to the Gulf of Cyprus, or else, going down to the Propontis, they might get ships from Constantinople and sail to the ports of Syria. The short way was death, and though death were nothing, it meant failure and destruction to the Christian power in Jerusalem and Antioch. Thus he spoke, and the King and Queen and all the great nobles heard him in silence. There were the great Counts of Flanders and Toulouse, of Savoy, of Montferrat and Dreux and Blois, and the lords of Lusignan, of Coucy, of Courtenay, and of Bourbon, and the Bishops of Toul and Metz, and all the great knights of Gascony and Poitou, with many others of high name and good blood, who heard the red-bearded Duke speak. But when he had finished, none answered him, and the French King sat on his throne, repeating the prayers for the dead in a low voice. But Eleanor's eyes flashed fire and her gloved hand strained impatiently upon the carved arm of the chair of state. "Requiem eternam dona eis," muttered the King. "Amen!" responded Eleanor, in a clear, contemptuous voice. "And now that prayers are over, let us do deeds. Let us mount and ride forth at dawn to meet the Emperor, and help him in his need at the last. Let us ride in even order, sending out scouts and skirmishers before us, and keeping good watch, armed and ready at all moments. Then, when all are safe who are alive, we will return here, that the Germans may rest themselves by this good lake; and afterward we will set forth again by the safest road, cautiously, not wasting upon skirmishes the strength we shall need hereafter for a great victory." "The Emperor will surely be here to-morrow, without our help," said the King, in manifest discontent. "It is of no use to go and meet him." "If he is so near, let us mount to-night, this very hour, rather than have on us the shame of lying idly here while men who wear the cross are in need of us." The King said nothing, but at Eleanor's words a low murmur of assent ran through the assembly of brave men, from those at her feet to those farthest from her; and the impatient touch of each hand on sword or dagger, at the thought of fight, made a sound of softly moving steel and leather and buckle, which one may only hear among soldiers. Eleanor stood up, untired by her terrible ride, unshaken by her fall, her eyes full of the brightness of pride. It was her daily food and her perpetual necessity to have the better of the King in the eyes of men, whether the matter were great or small. She stood up to her height, as if to show all her beauty and strength to the world, and the low sun streamed through the wide entrance to the tent and fell full upon her face and her unblinking eyes. "My lords and barons, gentlemen of Guienne and France, our journey is over to-day, our battles begin to-morrow! Our brothers are in danger, the enemy is in sight! Men of the Cross, to arms!" "To arms!" rang the reply in many voices, both high and deep, like a major chord sounding from the heart. As she rose, the nobles had risen, too, and only the King kept his seat, his pale face bent, his hands folded upon the hilt of the sword that stood between his knees. The Queen said no more, and, without glancing at her husband, as if she alone were sovereign, she descended the two steps from the throne to the floor of the tent. Three knights, one of Gascony, one of Poitou, and one of her own Guienne, who were her guard of honour, followed her as she passed out, smiling to the great nobles on her right and left. And many showed that they desired to speak with her--first among them the Count of Montferrat. "Madam," he said, when he had bowed low before her, "I praise God and the Holy Trinity that your Grace is alive to-day. I pray that you will deign to accept the homage and felicitations of Montferrat!" "Of Bourbon, Madam!" cried a voice beside her. "Of Savoy, your Grace!" said another. "Of Coucy, of Courtenay, of Metz--" the voices all rang at once, as the lords pressed round her, for she had not been seen since she had left the field after her fall. "I thank you," she answered, with a careless smile. "But you should thank also the man who saved my life, if you love me." "Madam, we have," replied Montferrat. "And if your Grace will but let me have the man, I will do him much honour for your Highness's sake." "He is no vassal of mine," Eleanor said. "He is a poor English gentleman, cheated of his lands, a friend of young Henry Plantagenet." "The friend of a boy!" The Count laughed lightly. But Eleanor grew thoughtful on a sudden, for beyond her rare beauty and her splendid youth, and within her world of impatient passion, there were wisdom and knowledge of men. "A boy? Yes, he may be fourteen years old, not more. But there are boys who are not children, even in their cradles, and there are men who are nothing else--their swaddling-clothes outgrown, and their milk teeth cast, but not their whimpering and fretting." The nobles were silent, for she spoke over-boldly and meant the King, as they knew. "As for this Englishman," she continued after an instant's pause, "he is not mine to give you, my lord Count. And as for doing him honour for his brave deed, though I would gladly please you, I should be loth to let you do my duty for your pleasure." She smiled again very graciously, for she was glad that men should praise Gilbert Warde to her; and it was strangely pleasant to think that no one guessed half of what she would give him if he would take it. For among the nobles there were great lords, goodly men and young, who dreamed of her fair face, but would not have dared to lift up their eyes to her. So she passed out, with her knights behind her, and most of the lords and barons followed her at a distance, leaving the King within. When she was gone he rose slowly, and giving his sword to the chamberlain who stood waiting, he went to his chapel tent, with downcast eyes and clasped hands, as if walking in a solemn procession. A little bell rang, the sun was low, and it was the hour of the Benediction. The King knelt down before the rich altar, and when he had prayed earnestly for strength and courage, and for wisdom to win the war of the Cross, he prayed from the bottom of his unhappy heart that, if it were the will of Heaven, he might by some means be delivered from the woman of Belial who marred his life and burdened his soul. CHAPTER XVI To the south side of the camp the Germans came by thousands, all that day and far into the night, weary, half starved, on jaded beasts that could hardly set one foot before the other, or on foot themselves, reeling like men drunk, and almost blind with exhaustion. But the panic had not lasted long, for the few score of Seljuk riders who had fallen upon the van of the retreating column for the last time had been finally scattered by the Duke of Suabia, so that the remainder of the army came in with a show of order, bringing the greater part of the baggage. The Seljuks had not attempted to carry away plunder, which would have hampered them in their dashing charges and instant retreats. Last of all, before daybreak, came the Emperor himself, covering the rear of his army with chosen men, untired, though his great horse was staggering under him, alert and strong as if he had not been in the saddle the better part of four days and nights. He seemed a man of iron; and few could ride with him, or watch with him, or fight with him. When the sun rose, the great standard of the Holy Roman Empire waved before the imperial tent, and though he had not rested, Conrad knelt beside King Louis at early mass. Far to southward the German tents rose in long lines by the shore of the lake, where Eleanor had displayed her troop on the previous day, and countless little squads of men with mules came and went between the camp and the distant walled city of Nicaea. In the French lines, where the first preparations had been made for marching, men were again unpacking their belongings; for word had gone round at midnight that the Emperor was safe, and needed no help, and would be in the camp in the morning. Then there was secret rejoicing among the ladies, and those who had no bruise nor scratch from yesterday's accidents called their tirewomen and spent happy hours, holding up their little silver mirrors to their hair, and holding them down to see the clasp at the throat, and trying some of the silks and embroideries which they had received as gifts from the Greek Emperor. It was almost a miracle that none but Beatrix should have been gravely hurt, but many were a little bruised and much tired, and altogether inclined to ask sympathy of the rest, receiving visits in their tents and discussing the chances of the war and the beauty of Constantinople, until they began to discuss one another, after which the war was not spoken of again on that day. Then came the Queen with her attendants, from her tent in the midst of the ladies' lines, pitched as far as possible from the King's; and leaving outside those who were with her, she went in and sat down by Beatrix's bedside. The girl was very pale and lay propped up by pillows, her eyelids half shut against the light, though there was little enough under the thick double canvas and a brazier of glowing woodcoals made the tent almost too warm. A great Norman woman with yellow hair crouched beside her, slowly fanning her face with a Greek fan of feathers. The Queen stood still a moment, for she had entered softly, and Beatrix had not opened her eyes, nor had the woman known her in the dimness. But when she recognized the Queen, the maid's jaw dropped and her hand ceased to move. Eleanor took the fan from her, and with a gesture bade her make way, and then sat down in her place to do her duty. Hearing the rustle of skirts and feeling that another hand fanned her, the sick girl moved a little, but did not open her eyes, for her head hurt her, so that she feared the light. "Who is it?" she asked in the voice of pain. "Eleanor," answered the Queen, softly. Still fanning, she took the beautiful little white hand that lay nearest to her on the edge of the bed. Beatrix opened her eyes in wonder, for though the Queen was kind, she was not familiar with her ladies. The girl started, as if she would have tried to rise. "No," said Eleanor, quieting her like a child, "no, no! You must not move, my dear. I have come to see how you are--there, there! I did not mean to startle you!" She smoothed the soft brown hair, and then, with a sudden impulse, kissed the pale forehead, and fanned it, and kissed it again, as if Beatrix had been one of her own little daughters instead of being a grown woman not very far from her own age. "I thank your Grace," said Beatrix, faintly. "We are nearer than thanks since yesterday. Or if there were to be thanking, it should be from me to you who followed me with one other, when three hundred stayed behind. And we are closer than that, for one man saved us both." She stopped and looked round. The Norman woman was standing respectfully near the door of the tent, with eyes cast down and hands hidden under the folds of her skirt, which were drawn through her girdle in the servants' fashion. "Go," said Eleanor, quietly. "I will take care of your mistress for a while. And do not stay at the door of the tent, but go away." The woman bent her head low and disappeared. "Yes," Beatrix said, when they were alone, "I saw Gilbert Warde stop your horse, and yours stopped mine. He saved us both." There was silence, and the fan moved softly in the Queen's hand. "You have loved him long," she said presently, in a tone that questioned. Beatrix did not answer at once, and on her smooth young forehead two straight lines made straight shadows that ended between her half-closed eyes. At last she spoke, with an effort. "Madam, as you have a soul, do not take him from me!" She sighed and withdrew her hand from Eleanor's, as if by instinct. The Queen did not start, but for an instant her eyes gathered light into themselves and her mouth hardened. She glanced at the weak girl, broken and suffering, and looking so small beside her, and she was angry that Gilbert should have chosen anything so pitiful against her own lofty beauty. But presently her anger ceased, not because it was unopposed, but because she was too large-hearted for any meanness. "Forget that I am the Queen," she said at last. "Only remember that I am a woman and that we two love one man." Beatrix shivered and moved uneasily on her pillow, pressing her hand to her throat as if something choked her. "You are cruel!" Her voice would not serve her for more just then, and she stared at the roof of the tent. "Love is cruel," answered Eleanor, in a low voice, and suddenly the hand that held the fan dropped upon her knee, and her eyes looked at it thoughtfully. But Beatrix roused herself. There was more courage and latent energy in the slight girl than any one dreamed. Her words came clearly. "Yours is--not mine! For his sake you call yourself a woman like me, but for his sake only. Is your face nothing, is your power nothing, is it nothing that you can hide me from him at your pleasure, or let me see him as you will? What is any one to you, who can toss a king aside like a broken toy when he thwarts you, who can make war upon empires with no man's help, if you choose? Is Gilbert a god that he should not yield to you? Is he above men that he should not forget me, and go to you, the most beautiful woman in the world, and the most daring, and the most powerful--to you, Eleanor of Guienne, Queen of France? You have all; you want that one thing more which is all I have! You are right--love is cruel!" The Queen listened in silence, too generous still to smile at the girl, too much in earnest to be hurt. "A man has a right to choose for himself," she answered when Beatrix paused at last. "Yes, but you take that right from him. You thrust a choice upon him--that is your cruelty." "How?" "Look at me and look at yourself. Would any man think twice in choosing? And yet--" a faint smile flickered in the mask of pain--"in Constantinople--in the garden--" She stopped, happy for a moment in the memory of his defence of her. The Queen was silent and faintly blushed for her cruel speech on that day. She could have done worse deeds and been less ashamed before herself. But Beatrix went on. "Besides," she said, turning her suffering eyes to Eleanor's face, "your love is sinful, mine is not." The Queen's look darkened suddenly. This was different ground. "Leave priests' talk to priests," she answered curtly. "It will soon be the talk of other men besides priests," reproved Beatrix. "For that matter, are you better?" retorted the Queen. "Have you not told me that your father has married his mother? You are far within the forbidden degrees of affinity. You cannot marry Gilbert Warde any more than I can. Where is the difference?" "You know it as well as I." The young girl turned her face away. "You know as well as I that the Church can pass over what is a mere legal regulation to hinder marriages made only for fortune's sake. I am not so ignorant as you think. And you know what your love for Gilbert Warde is, before God and man!" The blood rose in her white face as she spoke. After that there was silence for some time; but presently the Queen began to fan Beatrix again, and mechanically smoothed the coverlet. There are certain things which a womanly woman would do for her worst enemy almost unconsciously, and Eleanor was far from hating her rival. Strong and unthwarted from her childhood, and disappointed in her marriage, she had grown to look upon herself as a being above laws of heaven or earth, and answerable to no one for her deeds. Feminine in heart and passion, she was manlike in mind and in her indifference to opinion. Save for Gilbert, she liked Beatrix; yet, as matters stood, she both looked upon her as an obstacle and was sorry for her at the same time. Not being in any way confident of Gilbert's love herself, the girl she pitied and half liked was as much her rival as the most beautiful woman in Europe could have been. She was made up of strong contrasts--generous yet often unforgiving; strong as a man yet capricious as a child; tender as a woman, and then in turn sudden, fierce, and dangerous as a tigress. Beatrix made a feeble gesture as if she would not be fanned by the hand that was against her, but the Queen paid no attention to the refusal. The silence lasted long, and then she spoke quietly and thoughtfully. "You have a right to say what you will," she began, "for I sat down beside you, as one woman by another, and you have taken me at my word. Love is the very blood of equality. You blame me, and I do not blame you, though I brought up the Church's rule against your love. You are right in all you say, and I am sinful. I grant you that freely, and I will grant also that if I had my due I should be doing penance on my knees instead of defending my sins to you if indeed I am defending them. But do you think that our bad deeds are weighed only against the unattainable perfection of saints' and martyrs' lives, and never at all against the splendid temptations that are the royal garments of sin? God is just, and justice weaves a fair judgment. It is not an unchangeable standard. A learned Greek in Constantinople was telling me he other day a story of one Procrustes, a terrible highway robber. He had a bed which he offered to those he took captive, on condition that they should exactly fit its length; and if a man was too long, the robber hewed off his feet by so much, but if he was too short, he stretched him on a rack until he was tall enough. If God were to judge me as He judges you, by a ruled length of virtue, alike for all and without allowance for our moral height, God would not be God, but Procrustes, a robber of souls and a murderer of them." "You speak very blasphemously," said Beatrix, in a low voice. "No; I speak justly. You and I both love one man. In you, love is virtue, in me it is sin. You blame me with right, but you blame me too much. You tell me that I am beautiful, powerful, the Queen of France, and it is true. But even you do not tell me that I am happy, for you know that I am not." "And therefore you would rob me of all I have, to make your happiness, when you have so much that I have not! Is that your justice?" "No," answered Eleanor, almost sadly, "it is not justice. It is my excuse to God and man, before whom you say I am condemned." The girl roused herself again, and though it was sharp pain to move, she raised her weight upon her elbow and looked straight into the Queen's eyes. "You argue and you make excuses," she said boldly. "I ask for none. I ask only that you should not take the one happiness I have out of my life. You say that we are speaking as woman to woman. What right have you to the man I love? No, do not answer me with another dissertation on the soul. Woman to woman, tell me what right you have?" "If he loves me, is that no right?" "If he loves you? Oh, no! He does not love you yet!" "He saved me yesterday--not you," answered the Queen, cruelly, and she remembered his eyes. "Does a man risk his life desperately, as he did, for the woman he loves, or for another, when both are in like danger?" "It was not you, it was the Queen he saved. It is right that a loyal man should save his sovereign first. I do not blame him. I should not have blamed him had I been more hurt than I am." "I am not his sovereign, and he is no vassal of mine." Eleanor smiled coldly. "He is an Englishman." "You play with words," answered Beatrix, as she would have spoken to an equal. "Take care!" They faced each other, and on the instant the fierce pride of royalty sprang up, as at an insult. But Beatrix was brave--a sick girl against the Queen of France. "If you are not his sovereign, you are not mine," she said. "And were you ten times my Queen, there can be no fence of royalty between you and me from this hour, or if there is, you are doubly playing with the meaning of what your lips say. Are you to be a woman to me, a woman, at one moment, and a sovereign to me, a subject, at the next? Which is it to be?" "A woman, then, if nothing more. And as a woman, I tell you that I will have Gilbert Warde for myself, body and soul." The girl's eyes lightened suddenly. Men said that in her mother's veins there had run some of the Conqueror's blood, and his great oath sprang to her lips as she answered:-- "And by the splendour of God, I tell you that you shall not!" "Then it is a duel between us," the Queen said, and she turned to go. "To death," answered the girl, as her head sank back upon the pillows, pitifully weak and tired in her aching body, but dauntless in spirit. Eleanor crossed the carpeted floor of the tent slowly toward the door. She had not made four steps when she stood still, looking before her. A great shame of herself came upon her for what she had said--the loyal, generous shame of the strong who in anger has been overbearing with the weak. She stood still, and she felt as an honest man does who has struck a fallen enemy in unreasoning rage. It was the second time that she had fallen so low in her own eyes, and her own scorn of herself was more than she could bear. Quickly she came back to Beatrix's side. The girl lay quite still, with parted lips and closed eyes that had great black shadows under them. Her small white hands twitched now and then spasmodically, but she seemed hardly to breathe. Eleanor knelt beside her and propped her up higher, thrusting one arm under the pillow while she fanned her with the other hand. "Beatrix!" she called softly. She thought that the girl's eyelids quivered, and she called her again; but there was no answer, nor any movement of the hand this time, and the face was so white and deathly that any one might have believed life gone, but for the faintly perceptible breath that stirred the feathers of the Greek fan when the Queen held it close to the lips. She grew anxious and thought of calling the Norman serving-woman and of sending for her own physician. But, in the first place, she thought that Beatrix might have only fainted, to revive at any moment, in which case she had things to say which were not for other ears; and as for her physician, it suddenly occurred to her that, although he had been in her train five years, she had never under any circumstances had occasion to consult him, and that he was probably what he looked, a solemn fool and an ignorant drencher, whereas there were younger men with wise heads who had followed the army and made a fat living by concocting draughts for those who overcloyed themselves with Greek sweetmeats, physicians who could make salves for bruises, who knew the cunning Italian trick of opening a vein in the instep instead of in the arm, and who, on occasion, could cast a judicial figure of the heavens and interpret the horoscope of the day and hour. But while she hesitated, Eleanor brought water from a bright brass ewer and dashed drops upon the girl's face; she found also a cup with Greek wine in it, that smelt of fine resin, and she set it to the pale lips and held it there. Presently Beatrix opened her eyes a little, and suddenly she shuddered when she saw Eleanor and heard her voice in the deep stillness. "As one woman to another--I ask your forgiveness." CHAPTER XVII Gilbert sat in the door of his tent at noon, the sun shining down upon him and warming him pleasantly, for the day was chilly, and he was still aching. As he idly watched the soldiers going and coming, and cooking their midday meal at the camp-fires, while Dunstan and Alric were preparing his own, he was thinking that this was the third day since he had saved the Queen's life, and that although many courtiers had asked of his condition, and had talked with him as if he had done a great deed, yet he had received not so much as a message of thanks from Eleanor nor from the King, and it seemed as if he had been forgotten altogether. But of Beatrix, Dunstan told him that she was in a fever and wandering, and the Norman woman had said that she talked of her home. Gilbert hated himself because he could do nothing for her, but most bitterly because he had yielded to the Queen's eyes and to her voice in the instant of balanced life and death. The great nobles passed on their way to their tents from the King's quarters, where the council met daily to trace the march. And still Gilbert's shield hung blank and white on his lance, and he sat alone, without so much as a new mantle upon him, nor a sword-belt, nor any gift to show that the royal favour had descended upon him as had been expected. So some of the nobles only saluted him with a grave gesture in which there was neither friendship nor familiarity, and some took no notice of him, turning their faces away, for they thought that they had made a mistake, and that the Englishman had given some grave offence for which even his brave action was not a sufficient atonement. But he cared little, for his nature was not a courtier's, and even then the English Normans were colder and graver men than those of France, and more overbearing in arms, but less self-seeking, one against another, in court. Dunstan came from behind the tent, where the fire was, bringing food in two polished brass bowls, and Gilbert went in to eat his dinner. Coarse fare enough it was, a soup of vegetables and bread, with pieces of meat in it, and little crumbs of cheese, scraped off with a sharp knife, and floating on the thick liquid; and then, in the other bowl, small gobbets of roasted beef run by sixes on wooden skewers that were blackened at the ends by the fire. And it all tasted of smoke, for the wood was yet green on the hillsides. But Gilbert ate and said nothing, neither praising nor blaming, for very often on the long march he had eaten the dried bread of the German peasants and the unleavened wheat-cakes of the wild Hungarians, with a draught of water, and had been glad even of that. Also on Fridays and Saturdays, and on the vigils of feast days, and on most days in Lent, he had eaten only bread and boiled vegetables, such as could be found, and the fasting reminded him of the old days in Sheering Abbey. For in his nature there was the belief of that age in something far above common desires and passions, dwelling in a temple of the soul that must be reached by steps of pain; there was the spirit of men who starved and scourged their bodies almost to death that their souls might live unspotted; and the terribly primitive conception of every passional sin as equal in importance to murder, and only less deadly than an infamous crime in the semi-worldly view of knightly honour, which admitted private vengeance as a sort of necessity of human nature. The mere thought that he could love the Queen, or could have believed that he loved her for one instant, seemed ten thousand times worse than his boyish love of Beatrix had once seemed, when he had supposed that there was no means of setting aside the bar of affinity; and it was right that he should think so. But though temptation is not sin, he made it that, and accused himself; for it was manifest that the merest passing thrill of the blood, such as he had felt on that night in Vezelay, and now again, must be an evil thing, since it had brought about such a great result in a dangerous moment. These were small things, and nice distinctions, that a strong man should dwell on them and bruise his heart for its wickedness. But they were not small if to neglect them meant the eternity of torture that awaited him who looked upon his neighbour's wife to covet her. There were among the nobles who had taken the Cross not a few to whom the law seemed less rigid and perdition less sure, and Eleanor herself gave her sins gentle names; but the Englishman was old-fashioned, and even the good Abbot of Sheering had been struck by his literal way of accepting all beliefs, in the manner of a past time when the world had trembled at the near certainty of the Last Judgment, expiating its misdeeds by barefooted pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and its venial faults by cruel macerations of the flesh. Gilbert, therefore, looked upon all bodily weariness and suffering and privation which he chanced to encounter on the march as so much penance to be borne cheerfully because it should profit his soul; and while the young blood coursed in his veins, and youth's bright lights danced in his eyes, the cold spirit of the ascetic fought against the warm life toward an end which the man felt rather than saw, and of which the profound melancholy would have appalled him, could he have realized it. As month followed month, though his strength increased upon him under much labour, and though his cheeks were tanned by sunshine and weather, the broad forehead grew whiter under his cap, and more thoughtful, and his eyes were saddened and his features more spiritual; also, while he longed daily to draw his sword and strike great blows at unbelievers for faith's sake and to the honouring of the Holy Cross, the rough fighting instinct of his people, that craved to see blood for its redness and to take the world for love of holding it, no longer awoke suddenly in him, like hunger or thirst, at the wayward call of opportunity. He could not now have plucked out steel to hew down men, as he had done on that spring morning among the flowers of the Tuscan valley, only because it was good to see the dazzling red line follow the long quick sword-stroke, and to ride weight at weight to overthrow it, swinging the death-scythe through the field of life. He wanted the cause and the end now, where once he had desired only the deed, and he had risen another step above the self that had been. He knew it, and nevertheless, as he sat still after he had eaten his midday meal, he saw that his years had been very sad since his first great sorrow; and each time when he thought he had gone forward some strong thing had driven him back, or some great grief had fallen upon him, and he himself had almost been forced down. He had been proud of his arms and his boyish skill at Faringdon, and before his eyes his father had been foully slain; he had faced the murderer in the cause of right, and he himself had been half killed; he had believed in his mother as in heaven, and she had defiled his father's memory and robbed her son of his inheritance; he had sought peace in Rome, and had found madness and strife; he had desired to do knightly deeds and had killed men for nothing; he loved a maiden with a maiden heart, and at the touch of a faithless woman his blood rose in his throat, and for a look of hers and a tone of her voice he had put forth his hands to grapple with sudden death, forgetting the other, the better, the dearer. So he was thinking, and the door of his tent was darkened for a moment, so that he looked up. There stood one of Queen Eleanor's attendant knights, in tunic and hose, one hand on his sword-hilt, the other holding his round cap in the act of salutation. He was a Gascon, of middle height, spare and elastic as a steel blade, dark as a Moor, with fiery eyes and thin black mustaches that stuck up like a cat's whiskers. His manner was exaggerated, and he made great gestures, but he was a true man and brave. Gilbert rose to meet him, and saw behind him a soldier carrying something small and heavy on one shoulder, steadying it with his hand. "The Lord of Stoke?" the knight began in a tone of inquiry. "If I had my own, sir," answered the Englishman, "but I have not. My name is Gilbert Warde." "Sir Gilbert--" began the Gascon, bowing again and waving the hand that held his cap in a tremendous gesture, which ended on his heart as if to express thanks for the information. "No, sir," interrupted the other. "Of those who would have given me knighthood I would not have it, and they of whom I would take it have not offered it." "Sir," answered the knight, courteously, "those of whom you speak cannot have known you. I come from her Grace the Duchess of Gascony." "The Duchess of, Gascony?" asked Gilbert, unaccustomed to the title. The knight drew himself up till he seemed to be standing on his toes, and his hand left his sword-hilt to give his mustache a fierce upward twist. "The Duchess of Gascony, sir," he repeated. "There are a few persons who call her Highness the Queen of France, doubtless without meaning to give offence." Gilbert smiled in spite of himself, but the knight's eyes took fire instantly. "Do you laugh at me, sir?" he asked, his hand going back to his sword, and his right foot advancing a little as if he meant to draw. "No, sir. I crave your pardon if I smiled, admiring your Gascon loyalty." The other was instantly pacified, smiled too, and waved his long arm several times. "I come, then, from her Grace the Duchess," he said, insisting on the title, "to express to you her sovereign thanks for the service you did her the other day. Her Grace has been much busied by the councils, else she would have sent me sooner." "I am most respectfully grateful for the message," answered Gilbert, rather coldly, "and I beg you, sir, to accept my appreciation of the pains you have taken to bring it to me." "Sir, I am most wholly at your service," replied the knight, again laying his hand upon his heart. "But besides words the Duchess sends you, by my hand, a more substantial evidence of her gratitude." He turned and took the heavy leather bag from his attendant soldier, and offered it to Gilbert, holding it out in his two hands, and coming nearer. Gilbert stepped back when he saw what it was. The money was for a deed which might have cost Beatrix her life. He felt sick at the sight of it, as if it had been as the price of blood which Judas took. His face turned very pale under his tan, and he clasped his hands together nervously. "No," he said quickly, "no, I pray you! Not money--thanks are enough!" The knight looked at him in surprise at first, and then incredulously, supposing that it was only a first refusal, for the sake of ceremony. "Indeed," he answered, "it is the Duchess's command that I should present you with this gift in most grateful acknowledgment of your service." "And I beg you, by your knighthood, to thank her Grace with all possible respect for what I cannot receive." Gilbert's voice grew hard. "She is not my sovereign, sir, that I should look to her for my support in this war. It pleased God that I should save a lady's life, but I shall not take a lady's gold. I mean no discourtesy to her Grace, nor to you, sir." Seeing that he was in earnest, the Gascon's expression changed, and a bright smile came into his sallow face, for he had found a man after his own heart. He threw the heavy bag toward the soldier, and it fell chinking to the floor before the man could reach it; and turning to Gilbert again, he held out his hand with less ceremony and more cordiality than he had hitherto shown. "With a little accent," he said, "you might pass for a Gascon." Gilbert smiled as he shook hands, for it was clear that the knight meant to bestow upon him the highest compliment he could put into words. "Sir," answered the Englishman, "I see that we think alike in this matter. I pray you, let not the Queen be offended by the answer you shall give her from me; but I shall leave it to your courtesy and skill to choose such words as you think best, for I am a poor speaker of compliments." "The Duchess of Gascony shall think only the better of you when she has heard me, sir." Thereupon, with a great gesture and a bow to which Gilbert gravely responded, the knight took his leave and went to the door; but then, suddenly forgetting all his manner, and with a genuine impulse, he turned, came back and seized Gilbert's hand once more. "A little accent, my friend! If you only had a little accent!" His wiry figure disappeared through the door a moment later, and Gilbert was alone. He asked himself whether the Queen had meant to insult him, and he could not believe it. But presently, as he remembered all that had happened, it occurred to him that she might be ashamed of having shown him her heart in a moment of great danger, and now, as if to cover herself, she meant him to understand that he was nothing to her but a brave man who ought to be substantially and richly rewarded for having risked his life on her behalf. Strangely enough, the thought pleased him now, as much as the brutal offer of the gold had outraged his honourable feeling. It was far better, he reflected, that the Queen should act thus and help him to look upon her as a being altogether beyond his sphere, as she really was. After this, he thought, it would be impossible and out of the question that any look or touch of hers could send a thrill through him, like little rivers of fire, from his head to his heels. The hand that had been held out to pay him money for its own life, must be as cold as a stone and as unfeeling. She was helping him to be true. He shook himself and stretched his long arms as if awaking from sleep and dreaming. The motion hurt him, and he felt all his bruises at once, but there was a sort of pleasure in the pain, that accorded with his strange state of heart, and he did it a second time in order to feel the pain once more. CHAPTER XVIII The knight, whose name was Gaston de Castignac, faithfully fulfilled Gilbert's wishes, using certain ornate flourishes of language which the Englishman could certainly not have invented, and altogether expressing an absolute refusal in the most complimentary manner imaginable. The Queen bade him return the gold to her seneschal without breaking the leaden seal that pinched the ends of the knotted strings together. When she was alone, her women being together in the outer part of the tent, she hid her face in her white hands, as she sat, and bending forward, she remained in that attitude a long time, without moving. It was as Gilbert had thought. In the generous impulse that had prompted her to ask Beatrix's forgiveness she had done what was hardest for her to do, in a sort of wild hope that, by insulting the man who had such strong attraction for her, she might send him away out of her sight forever. Had he accepted the money, she would assuredly have despised him, and contempt must kill all thoughts of love; but since he refused it, he must be angry with her, and he would either leave her army, and join himself to the Germans during the rest of the campaign, or, at the very least, he would avoid her. But now that it was done and he had sent back the money in scorn, as she clearly understood in spite of her knight's flowery speeches, she felt the shame of having treated a poor gentleman like a poor servant, and then the certainty that he must believe her ungrateful began to torment her, so that she thought of his face, and longed to see him with all her heart. For Beatrix's sake and her own honour she would not send for him; but she called one of her women and sent for the Lady Anne of Auch, who bore the standard of the ladies' troop, the same who had stopped her horse without a fall. In her the Queen had great faith for her wisdom, for she had a man's thoughts with a woman's heart. She came presently, tall and grave as a stately cypress among silver birches and shimmering white poplar trees. "I have sent for you to ask you a question," the Queen began, "or, perhaps, to ask your advice." The Lady Anne bowed her head, and when Eleanor pointed to a folding-stool beside her, she sat down and waited, fixing her black eyes on a distant part of the tent. "You saw that young Englishman who stopped my horse," the Queen began. "I wish to reward him. I have sent him five hundred pieces of gold, and he has refused to receive the gift." The black eyes turned steadily to the Queen's face, gazed at her for a moment, and then looked away again, while not a feature moved. There was silence, for Anne of Auch said nothing while Eleanor waited. "What shall I do now?" Eleanor asked after a long pause. "Madam," answered the dark lady, smiling thoughtfully, "I think that, since you have offered him gold first, he would refuse a kingdom if you should press it upon him now, for he is a brave man." "Do you know him?" asked Eleanor, almost sharply, and her eyes hardened. "I have seen him many times, but I have never spoken with him. We talk of him now and then, because he is unlike the other knights, mixing little with them in the camp and riding often alone on the march. They say he is very poor, and he is surely brave." "What does Beatrix de Curboil say of him?" The Queen's voice was still sharp. "Beatrix? She is my friend, poor girl. I never heard her speak of this gentleman." "She is very silent, is she not?" "Oh, no! She is sometimes sad, and she has told me how her father took a second wife who was unkind to her, and she speaks of her own childhood as if she were the daughter of a great house. But that is all." "And she never told you her stepmother's name, and never mentioned this Englishman?" "Never, Madam, I am quite sure. But she is often very gay and quick of wit, and makes us laugh, even when we are tired and hot after a day's march and are waiting for our women; and sometimes she sings strange old Norman songs of Duke William's day, very sweetly, and little Saxon slave songs which we cannot understand." "I have never heard her laugh nor sing, I think," said Eleanor, thoughtfully. "She is very grave before your Grace. I have noticed it. That may be the English manner." "I think it is." The Queen thought of Gilbert, and wondered whether he were ever gay. "But the question," she continued, "is what am I to do for the man?" She spoke coldly and indifferently, but her eyes were watching the Lady Anne's face. "What should you do yourself?" she asked, as the noble woman made no answer. "I should not have sent him gold first," replied Anne of Auch. "But since that cannot be undone, your Grace can only offer him some high honour, which may be an honour only, and not wealth." "He is not even a knight!" "Then give him knighthood and honour too. Your Grace has made knights,--there is Gaston de Castignac,--and the fashion of receiving knighthood from the Church only, is past." "I have heard him say that he would have it from his own liege sovereign, or not at all. He will not even set a device in his shield, as many are beginning to do, to show in the field that they are of good stock." "Give him one, then--a device that shall be a perpetual honour to his house and a memory of a brave deed well done for a Queen's sake." "And then? Shall that be all?" "And then, if he be the man he seems, single him out for some great thing, and bid him risk his life again in doing it for the Holy Cross, and for your Grace's sake." "That is good. Your counsel was always good. What thing shall I give him to attempt?" "Madam, the Germans have been betrayed by the Greek Emperor's Greek guides, and we ourselves have no others, so that we in turn shall be led to slaughter if we follow them. If it please your Grace, let this Englishman choose such men as he trusts, and go ever before our march, till we reach Syria, sending tidings back to us, and receiving them, and bearing the brunt of danger for us." "That would be indeed an honourable part," said the Queen, thoughtfully, and she turned slowly pale, careless of her lady's straight gaze. "He can never live to the end of it," she added, in a low voice. "It is better to die for the Cross than to die or live for any woman's love," said Anne of Auch, and there was the music of faith in her soft tones. The Queen glanced at her, wondering how much she guessed, and suddenly conscious that she herself had changed colour. "And what device shall I set in this man's shield?" she asked, going back to the beginning, in order to avoid what touched her too closely. "A cross," answered Anne. "Let me see--why not your Grace's own? The Cross of Aquitaine?" But the Queen did not hear, for she was dreaming, and she saw Gilbert, in her thoughts, riding to sure death with a handful of brave men, riding into an ambush of the terrible Seljuks, pierced by their arrows--one in his white throat as he reeled back in the saddle, his eyes breaking in death. She shuddered, and then started as if waking. "What did you say?" she asked. "I was thinking of something else." "I said that your Grace might give him the Cross of Aquitaine for a device," answered the Lady of Auch. Her quiet black eyes watched the Queen, not in suspicion, but with a sort of deep and womanly sympathy; for she herself had loved well, and on the eighth day after she had wedded her husband, he had gone out with others against the Moors in the southern mountains; and they had brought him home on his shield, wrapped in salted hides, and she had seen his face. Therefore she had taken the Cross, not as many ladies had taken it, in lightness of heart, but earnestly, seeking a fair death on the field of honour for the hope of the life to come. "Yes," said the Queen, "he shall have the Cross of Aquitaine. Fetch me some gentleman or squire skilled with colours, and send for the Englishman's shield." "Madam," said Anne of Auch, "I myself can use a brush, and by your leave I will paint the device under your eyes." It was no uncommon thing in that day for a lady of France to understand such arts better than men, and Eleanor was glad, and ordered that the shield should be brought quickly, by two of the elder pages who were soon to be squires. But Alric, the groom, who lay in the shade outside Gilbert's tent, chewing blades of grass and wishing himself in England, would not let the messengers take the shield from the lance without authority, and he called Dunstan, who went and asked Gilbert what he should do. So Gilbert came and stood in the door of his tent, and spoke to the young men. "We know nothing, sir, save that we are bidden to bring your shield to the Queen." "Take it. And you shall tell her Grace from me that I crave excuse if the shield be of an old fashion, with rounded shoulders, for it was my father's; and you shall say also that she has power to take it, but that I will not sell it, nor take anything in return for it." The two young men looked at him strangely, as if doubting whether he were in his right mind. But as they went away together, the one who bore the shield said to the other that they should not give the message, for it was discourteous and might do harm to themselves. But the other was for telling the truth, since they could call Gilbert's men to witness of the words. "And if we are caught in a lie," he said, "we shall be well beaten." For they were young and were pages, not yet squires, and still under education. "Also we shall be beaten if we say things un-courtly to the Queen," retorted the first. "This air smells of sticks," said the other, as he sniffed, and laughed at his jest, but somewhat nervously. "You shall speak for us," concluded his companion, "for you are the truth-teller." So they came to the Queen, and laid the blank shield at her feet, and neither would say anything. "Saw you the gentleman to whom it belongs?" she asked. "Yes, Madam!" they answered in one breath. "And said he anything? Have you no message?" "He said, Madam--" said one, and stopped short. "Yes, Madam, he said that we should tell your Grace--" But the page's courage failed him, and he stopped. "What said he?" asked Eleanor, bending her brows. "Speak out!" "May it please your Grace, the gentleman said that it was his father's shield." "And that he craved excuse if it were of an old fashion," added the other. "And that he would not sell it," concluded the one who was the bolder of the two. Then he shrank back, and his companion too, and they seemed trying to get behind each other; for the Queen's eyes flashed wrath, and her beautiful lips parted a little over her gleaming teeth, that were tightly closed. But in an instant she was calm again, and she took money from her wallet and gave each page a piece of gold, and spoke quietly. "You are brave boys to give me such a message," she said. "But if I chance to find out that you have changed it on the way, you shall each have as many blows as there are French deniers in a Greek bezant--and I doubt whether any one knows how many there may be." "We speak truth, Madam," said the two, in a breath, "and we humbly thank your Grace." She sent them away, and sat looking at the shield at her feet, while Anne of Auch waited in silence. Eleanor's eyes burned in her head, and her hands were cold, and would have shaken a little if she had not held them tightly clasped together. "It was unknightly of him to say that," she cried at last, as if it hurt her. But her lady was still silent, and the Queen turned her hot eyes to her. "You say nothing. Was it not unknightly of him?" "Madam," answered Anne of Auch, "since you wished to pay him for your life, it is little wonder if he thinks you may offer to buy his arms." They said no more for a long time, and from the outer tent the sweet subdued voices of many women, talking and laughing softly together, floated into the silence like the song of birds at dawn. At last the Queen spoke, but it was to herself. "He had the right," she said bitterly, and bent her head a little, and sighed. "Paint me the shield, Lady Anne," she added, a moment later, looking up calmly once more. "On a field azure, for the faith he keeps, gild him the cross flory of Aquitaine--for me!" She rose and began to walk slowly up and down the tent, glancing at Anne from time to time. The lady had sent for her colours, ground on a piece of white marble, and a small chafing-dish with burning coals, in which a little copper pot of melted wax mixed with resin stood on an iron tripod. She warmed her brush in the wax, and took up the costly blue on it, and spread it very dexterously over all the long shield. When it was cool, the resin made it very hard, and with rule and dividers she measured out the cross with its equal arms, all flowered, and drew it skilfully, while the Queen watched her deft fingers. And last of all she moistened the cross with Arabian gum, a little at a time, and laid strong gold-leaf upon it with a sharp steel instrument, blowing hard upon each leaf as soon as it was laid, to press it down, and smoothing it with a hare's-foot. When it was all covered and dry, she took a piece of soft leather wrapped about her forefinger, and carefully went round the outline, taking off the superfluous leaf that spread beyond the gummed part. She had learned these things from an Italian who had come to Auch to adorn the chapel of her father's house. The Queen had sat down long before it was finished, but her eyes followed the Lady Anne's brush and her fingers, while neither of the women spoke. "It is a fair shield," said Eleanor, when it was done. "Lady Anne, shall I send it to him, or shall he come here? Were you in my place, which should you do?" "Madam, I would send for the Englishman. From your Grace's hands he cannot refuse honour." Eleanor did not answer, but after a moment she rose and turned away. "Nor death," she said in a low voice, as to herself, and stood still, and pressed her hand to her forehead. "Send for him, and leave me alone till he comes, but stay when he is here," she added, in clear tones; and still not looking at the Lady Anne, she bent her head and went out. The tall, old-fashioned shield stood on its point, leaning against the table. Eleanor looked at it, and her features were moved, now that she was alone, and her eyes were veiled. She lifted it in both her hands, wondering at its weight, and she pushed aside an inner curtain and set the shield upon an altar that was there, hidden from the rest of the tent for a little oratory, as in many royal chambers. Then she knelt down at the kneeling-stool and folded her hands. She was not ungenerous, she was not at heart unjust; she deserved some gentleness of judgment, for she was doing her best to fight her love, for her royal honour's sake and for the sick girl who seemed so poor a rival, but who loved Gilbert Warde as well as she and less selfishly. As she knelt there, she believed that she was in the great struggle of her life, and that at once and forever she could make the sacrifice, though it had grown to be a great one. She meant to send him before the army, and the wager for his death was as a hundred to one. Let him die--that was the consecration of the sacrifice. Dead in glory, dead for Christ's sake, dead in the spotless purity of his young knighthood, she could love him fearlessly thereafter, and speak very gentle words upon his grave. It was not cruel to send him to die thus, if his days were numbered, and he himself would gratefully thank her for preferring him before others to lead the van of peril; for the way of the Cross leads heavenwards. But if he should come alive through the storm of swords, he must win great honour for all his life. Thereupon she prayed for him alone, and she dedicated his great shield on her own altar, in her own words, with all her passionate heart, wherein beat the blood of her grandsire, dead in a hermit's cell after much love and war, and the blood of the son she was to bear long after, whom men were to call the Lion-Hearted. And she prayed thus, with a pale face:-- "Almighty God, most just, who art the truth, and who orderest good against evil, with pain, that men may be saved by overcoming, help me to give up what is most dear in my life. Hear me, O God, a sinful woman, and have mercy upon me! Hear me, O God, and though I perish, let this man's soul be saved! "Lord Jesus Christ, most pitiful and kind, to Thee I bring my sin, and I steadfastly purpose to be faithful, and to renounce and abhor my evil desires and thoughts. Hear me, O Christ, a sinful woman! To Thy service and to the honour of Thy most sacred Cross, I dedicate this true man. Bless Thou this shield of his, that it may be between him and his enemies, and his arms, also, that he may go before our host, and save many, and lead us to Thy holy place in Jerusalem! Endue him with grace, fill him with strength, enlighten his heart. Hear me and help me, O Christ, a sinful, loving woman! "Holy Spirit of God, Most High, Creator, Comforter, let Thy pure gifts descend upon this clean-hearted man, that his courage fail not in life, nor in the hour of death. Hear me, a sinful woman, Thou who, with the Father and the Son, livest and reignest in glory forever!" When she had prayed, she knelt a little while longer, with bowed head pressing against her clasped hands on the praying-stool till they hurt her. And that was the hardest, for it had been her meaning to make a solemn promise, and she saw between her and her love the barrier of her faith to be kept to God, and of her respect of her own plighted honour. Rising at last, she took the shield again, and kissed it once between the arms of the cross; and her lips made a small mark on the fresh gold-leaf. "He will never know what it is," she said to herself, as she looked at the place, "but I think that no arrow shall strike through it there, nor any lance." Suddenly she longed to kiss the shield again, and many times, to thousands, as if her lips could give it tenfold virtue to defend. But she thought of her prayer and would not, and she brought the shield back into the tent, out of the oratory, and set it upright against the table. Then, after a time, Anne of Auch lifted the curtain to let Gilbert in, standing by the entrance when he had passed her. He bent his head courteously but not humbly, and then stood upright, pale from what he had suffered, his eyes fixed as if he were making an inward effort. The Queen spoke, coldly and clearly. "Gilbert Warde, you saved my life, and you have sent back a gift from me. I have called you to give you two things. You may scorn the one, but the other you cannot refuse." [Illustration: THE KNIGHTING OF GILBERT.] He looked at her, and within her outward coldness he saw something he had never seen before--something divinely womanly, unguessed in his life, which touched him more than her own touch had ever done. He felt that she drew him to her, though it were now against her better will. Therefore he was afraid, and angry with himself. "Madam," he said, with a sort of fierce coldness, "I need no gifts to poison your good thanks." "Sir," answered Eleanor, "there is no venom in the honour I mean for you. I borrowed your shield,--your father's honourable shield,--and I give it back to you with a device that was never shamed, that you and yours may bear my cross of Aquitaine in memory of what you did." She took the shield and held it out to him with a look almost stern, and as her eyes fell upon it they dwelt on the spot she had kissed. Gilbert's face changed, for he was moved. He knelt on one knee to receive the shield, and his voice shook. "Madam, I will bear this device ever for your Grace's sake and memory, and I pray that I may bear it honourably, and my sons' sons after me." Eleanor waited a breathing-space before she spoke again. "You may not bear it long, sir," she said, and her voice was less hard and clear, "for I desire of you a great service, which is also an honour before other men." "What I may do, I will do." "Take, then, at your choice two or three score lances, gentlemen and men-at-arms who are well mounted, and ride ever a day's march before the army, spying out the enemy and sending messengers constantly to us, as we shall send to you; for I trust not the Greek guides we have. So you shall save us all from the destruction that overtook the German Emperor in the mountains. Will you do this?" Again Gilbert's face lightened, for he knew the danger and the honour. "I will do it faithfully, so help me God." Then he would have risen, but the Queen spoke again. "Lady Anne," she said, "give me the sword of Aquitaine." Anne of Auch brought the great blade, in its velvet scabbard, with its cross-hilt bound with twisted wire of gold for the old Duke's grip. The Queen drew it slowly and gave back the sheath. "Sir," she said, "I will give you knighthood, that you may have authority among men." Gilbert was taken unawares. He bowed his head in silence, and knelt upon both knees instead of on one only, placing his open hands together. The Queen stood with her left hand on the hilt of the great sword, and she made the sign of the cross with her right. Gilbert also crossed himself, and so did the Lady Anne, and she knelt at the Queen's left, for it was a very solemn rite. Then Eleanor spoke. "Gilbert Warde, inasmuch as you are about to receive the holy order of knighthood at my hands without preparation, consider first whether you are in any mortal sin, lest that be an impediment." "On the honour of my word, I have no mortal sin upon my soul," answered Gilbert. "Make, then, the promises of knighthood. Promise before Almighty God that you will lead an honest and a clean life." "I will so live, God helping me." "Promise that to the best of your strength you will defend the Christian faith against unbelievers, and that you will suffer death, and a cruel death, but not deny the Lord Jesus Christ." "I will be faithful to death, so God help me." "Promise that you will honour women, and protect them, and shield the weak, and at all times be merciful to the poor, preferring before yourself all those who are in trouble and need." "I will, by God's grace." "Promise that you will be true and allegiant to your liege sovereign." "I promise that I will be true and allegiant to my liege Queen and Lady, Maud of England, and to her son and Prince, Henry Plantagenet, and thereof your Grace is witness." "And between my hands, as your liege sovereign's proxy, lay your hands." Gilbert held out his joined hands to the Queen, and she took them between her palms, while Anne of Auch held the great sword, still kneeling. "I put my hands between the hands of my Lady, Queen Maud of England, and I am her man," said Gilbert Warde. But Eleanor's touch was like ice, and she trembled a little. Then she took the sword of Aquitaine and held it up in her right hand, though it was heavy, and she spoke holy words. "Gilbert Warde, be a true knight in life and death! 'Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things'--and do them, and for them live and die." When she had spoken, she laid the sword flat upon his left shoulder, and let it linger a moment, and then lifted it and touched him twice again, and sheathed the long blade. "Sir Gilbert, rise!" He stood before her, and he knew what remained to be done, according to the rite, and it was not fire that ran through him, but a chill of fear. The Queen's face was marble pale and as beautiful as death. One step toward him she made with outstretched arms, her right above his left, her left under his right as he met her. Then she coldly kissed the man she loved on the cheek, once only, in the royal fashion, and he kissed her. She drew back, and their eyes met. Remembering many things, he thought that he should see in her face the evil shadow of his mother, as he had seen it before; but he saw a face he did not know, for it was that of a suffering woman, coldly brave to the best of her strength. "Go, Sir Gilbert!" she said. "Go out and fight, and die if need be, that others may live to win battles for the Cross of Christ." He was gone, and Anne of Auch stood beside her. "Lady Anne," said the Queen, "I thank you. I would be alone." She turned and went into the little oratory, and knelt down before the altar, looking at the place where the shield had stood. CHAPTER XIX So Gilbert Warde was made a knight, and to this day the Wards bear the cross flory in their shield, which was given to their forefathers by Eleanor of Aquitaine before she was English Queen. And so, also, Sir Gilbert promised to ride a day's march before the rest, with a handful of men whom he chose among his acquaintance; and many envied him his honour, but there were more who warmed themselves by the camp-fire at night most comfortably, and were glad that they had not been chosen to live hardly, half starving on their half-starved horses, with a cloak and a blanket on the ground for a bed, watching in turns by night, and waking each morning to wonder whether they should live till sunset. In truth there was less of danger than of hardship at first, and more trouble than either; for though Gilbert was sent on with the best of the Greek guides to choose the way, and had full power of life and death over them, so that they feared him more than Satan and dared not hide the truth from him, yet when he had chosen the line of the march and had sent word by a messenger to the army, the answer often came back that the King and the Emperor were of another mind, because they had listened to some lying Greek; and since the Emperor and the King and Queen had agreed that any one of them must always yield to the opinion of the other two, Eleanor's advice, which was Gilbert's and founded on real knowledge, was often overridden by the others, and she was forced to give way or make an open breach. Then Gilbert ground his teeth silently and did the best he could, retracing his steps over many miles, exploring a new road, and choking down the humiliation bravely, because he had given his word. But little by little that humiliation turned to honour, even among the men who were with him; for most of them were taken from the Queen's army, and besides, they saw every day that Gilbert was right, so that they trusted him and would have followed him through storm and fire. Also in the Queen's army it began to be known, and it spread to the other French, and to the Germans, and to the Poles and the Bohemians, that when the troops followed the march chosen by Gilbert, all went well, and they found water and forage for their horses, and food and a good camping-ground; but often, when the King and the Emperor had their way, there was hunger and cold and lack of water. The men began to say to each other, when they knew, "This is Sir Gilbert's road, and to-day is a feast-day;" and then, "This is the King's road, and to-day is Friday." And on Gilbert's days they sang as they marched, and trudged along cheerfully, and his name ran like a sound of gladness along the endless lines. He grew, therefore, to be beloved by many who had never seen him in the great host, and at last even by the most of the soldiers. So they came to Ephesus at last, very weary, and with some sick persons among them. Conrad the Emperor was in ill case, though he was of the strongest, and at Ephesus messengers met him who had come by sea from the Emperor of the Greeks, begging that he and all his men would sail back to Constantinople and spend the rest of the winter there, and afterwards go by sea again to Syria. And they did so, for the brave Germans were much broken and worn because of their marches and defeats before they had gone back to Nicaea, and the armies of the King and Queen went on without them, to a great meadow by the Maeander, where they encamped to keep the Christmas feast with great thanksgiving for their preservation thus far. On Christmas eve Gilbert came into camp with his companions, and when they were seen, a great cry arose throughout the army, and men left their fires and their mending of arms and clothes, and ran out to meet him, a gaunt man in rusty armour, on a gaunt horse, followed by others in no better plight. His mantle was all stained with rain and mud, and was rent in many places, and his mail was brown, save where it had been chafed bright by his moving; his great Norman horse was rough with his winter coat and seemed all joints and bones, and Dunstan and Alric rode in rags with the men-at-arms. His face was haggard with weariness and lack of food, but stern and high, and the first who saw him ceased shouting and looked up at him with awe; but then he smiled so gently and kindly that the cheer broke out again and rang across the camp, far and wide. Presently those who cheered began to follow the little train of horsemen, first by twos and tens and twenties, till thousands were drawn into the stream and pressed round him, so that he was obliged to move slowly. For many weeks they had heard his name, knowing that it meant safety for them, and wonderful tales had been told over the camp-fires of his endurance and courage. So his coming back was his first triumph, and the day was memorable in his life. While the army rested there was no work for him, and he had returned in order to rest himself; but he had nothing of immediate importance to report to the leaders, and he bade his men find out his baggage among the heaps of packs that had been unloaded from the general train of mules, and to pitch his tent near those of his old comrades on the march. While Dunstan and Alric were obeying his orders, he sat on his saddle on the ground, with his weary horse standing beside him, his nose plunged into a canvas bag half full of oats. Gilbert looked on in a sort of mournfully indifferent silence. Everything he saw was familiar, and yet it all seemed very far away and divided from him by weeks of danger and hard riding. The vast crowd that had followed him had begun to disperse as soon as it was known that he was not going before the King, and only three or four hundred of the more curious stood and moved in groups around the open space where the tent was being pitched. Many of his acquaintance came and spoke to him, and he rose and shook their hands and spoke a few words to each; but none of the greater nobles who had sought him out after he had saved the Queen took any pains to find him now, though they and their followers owed him much. The praise of the multitude and their ringing cheers had been pleasant enough to hear, but he had expected something else, and a cold disappointment took possession of his heart as he sat in his tent some hours later, considering, with Dunstan, the miserable condition and poor appearance of his arms and the impossibility of procuring anything better. He was as lonely and unnoticed as if he had not been devoting every energy he possessed to the safe guidance of a great army during the past two months. "There is nothing to complain of, sir," said Dunstan, in answer to a disconsolate ejaculation of Gilbert's. "Your body is whole, you have received back your belongings with nothing stolen, which is more than I expected of the Greek muleteers, you have a new tunic and hose to wear, and bean soup for supper. The world is not so bad as it looks." "On the other hand," answered Gilbert, with a sour smile, "my bones ache, my armour is rusty, and my purse is empty. Make what good cheer you can of that." He rose, and leaving Dunstan to set to work upon the injured coat of mail, he took his cap and strolled out alone to breathe the afternoon air. It was Christmas-time, and the day had been bright and clear; but he wore no mantle, for the overwhelmingly good reason that he possessed only one, which was in rags; and, indeed, he had been so much exposed to bad weather of late that he was hardened to every sort of discomfort--a little more or less was not worth counting. Dunstan was quite right of course, and Gilbert had no reasonable cause for complaint. The Queen would doubtless send for him on the morrow, and had he chosen to present himself before her at once he would have been received with honour. But he was in an ill humour with himself and the world, and being still very young, it seemed quite natural to yield to it rather than to reason himself into a better temper. He got out of the camp as soon as he could, and walked by the green banks of the still Maeander. It was winter, but the grass was as fresh as it might have been in spring, and a salt breeze floated up from the not distant sea. He knew the country, for he himself had chosen the spot as a camping-place for the army, and had advanced still farther when messengers had brought him word to come back. To northward rolled away the gentle hills beyond Ephesus, while to the south and east the mountains of the Cadmus and Taurns rose rugged and sharp against the pale sky--the range through which the army must next make its way to Attalia. The time lacked an hour of sunset, and the clear air had taken the first tinge of evening. Here and there in the plain the evergreen ilex trees grew in little clumps, black against the sunlight, but dark green, with glistening points among their shadows, where the afternoon sun struck full upon them. Gilbert had hoped to be alone, but there were parties of idlers along the river-bank as far as he could see, and among them were many who bore evergreen boughs and young cypress shoots of three and four years' growth, which they were carrying back to the camp for the Christmas festival. For there were many Normans in the army, and Franks from Lorraine, and Northern men from Poland and Bohemia, and all the men of the North would have their Yule trees before their tents, as their heathen forefathers had done before them in the days of the old faith. There were ladies of Eleanor's troop also, riding for pleasure, in rich gowns and flowing mantles, and knights with them, all unarmed save for a sword or dagger; and there were many dark-eyed Greeks, too, both men and women, who had come out from Ephesus in holiday clothes to see the great camp. It was all calm, and bright, and good to see, but out of harmony with Gilbert's gloomy thoughts. At the bend of the stream the ground rose a little, somewhat away from the bank, and the rocks stuck up rough and jagged out of the green grass, a sort of little wilderness in the midst of the fertile plain. Almost instinctively, Gilbert turned aside and climbed in and out among the stones until he reached the highest ledge, on which he seated himself in profound satisfaction at having got away from his fellow-creatures. The place where he had perched was about sixty feet above the river-bank, and though he could not distinctly hear the conversation of the passing groups he could see the expression of every face clearly, and he found himself wondering how often the look of each matched the words and the unspoken thoughts. The sun sank lower, and he had no idea how long he had sat still, when he became conscious that he was intently watching a party of riders who were coming toward him. They were still half a mile away, but he saw a white horse in the front rank, and even at that distance something in the easy pace of the creature made him feel sure that it was the Queen's Arab mare. They came on at a canter, and in two or three minutes he could make out the figures of those best known to him--Eleanor herself, Anne of Auch, Castignac, and the other two attendant knights who were always in the Queen's train, and a score of others riding behind by twos and threes. Gilbert sat motionless and watched them, nor did it occur to him that he himself, sitting on the highest boulder and dressed in a tunic of dark red, was a striking object in the glow of the setting sun. But before she was near enough to recognize him, Eleanor had seen him, and her curiosity was roused; a few minutes more, and she knew his face. Then their eyes met. She drew rein and walked her horse, still looking up, and wondering why he gazed at her so fixedly, without so much as lifting his cap from his head; and then, to her infinite surprise, she saw him spring to his feet and disappear from view among the rocks. She was so much astonished that she stopped her horse altogether and sat several seconds staring at the ledge on which he had sat, while all her attendants looked in the same direction, expecting Gilbert to appear again; for several of them had recognized him, and supposed that he would hasten down to salute the Queen. But when he did not come, she moved on, and though her face did not change, she did not speak again till the camp was reached, nor did any of her party dare to break the silence. Had she looked back, she might have caught sight of Gilbert's figure walking steadily with bent head across the plain, away from the river and from the camp, out to the broad solitude beyond. He had acted under an impulse, foolishly, almost unconsciously, being guided by something he did not attempt to understand. Two months had passed, and more, since he had seen her, and in his life of excitement and anxiety her face had disappeared from his dreams. While he had been away from her, she had not existed for him, save as the only leader of the three to whom he looked for approbation and support; the woman had been lost in the person of the sovereign, and had ceased to torment him by the perpetual opposition of that which all men coveted to that which he truly loved. But now, at the very first sight of her face, it seemed as if the Queen were gone again, leaving only the woman to his sight, and at the instant in which he realized it he had turned and fled, hardly knowing what he did. He walked steadily on, more than two miles, and all at once he cast no shadow, for the sun had gone down, and the pale east before him turned to a cool purple in the reflection. The air was very chilly, for the night wind came down suddenly from the mountains as the sea breeze died away, and the solitary man felt cold; for he had no cloak, and exposure and fighting had used his blood, while within him there was nothing to cheer his heart. It had seemed to him for two years that he was always just about to do the high deed, to make the great decision of life, to find out his destiny, and he had done bravely and well all that he had found in his way. The chance came, he seized it, he did his best, and the cheers of the soldiers had told him a few hours ago that he was no longer the obscure English wanderer who had met Geoffrey Plantagenet on the road to Paris. Thousands repeated his name in honour and looked to him for their safety on the march, cursing those who led them astray against his warning. In his place on that day, most men would have gone to the Queen, expecting a great reward, if not claiming it outright. But he was wandering alone at nightfall in the great plain, discontented with all things, and most of all with himself. Everything he had done rose up against him and accused him, instead of praising him and flattering his vanity; every good deed had a base motive in his eyes, or was poisoned by the thought that it had not been done for itself, but for an uncertain something which came over him when the Queen spoke to him or touched his hand. It is not only inactive men who grow morbid and fault-finding with themselves; for the wide breach between the ideal good and the poor accomplishment holds as much that can disappoint the heart as the mean little ditch between thought and deed, wherein so many weak good men lie stuck in the mud of self-examination. He who stands at the edge of the limit, with a lifetime of good struggles behind him, may be as sad and hopeless as he who sits down and weeps before the mountain of untried beginnings. The joy of the earthly future is for the very great and the very little. For as charity leads mankind by faith to the hope of the life to come, so, on the mind's side, by faith in its own strength, the work of genius in the past is its own surety for like work to come. Gilbert Warde was not of that great mould, but more human and less sure of himself; and suddenly, as the sun went down, a strong desire of death came upon him, and he wished that he were dead and buried under the grass whereon he stood, for very discontent with himself. It would be so simple, and none would mourn him much, except his men, perhaps, and they would part his few possessions and serve another. He was a burden to the earth, since he could do nothing well; he was a coward, because he was afraid of a woman's eyes and had fled from their gaze like a boy; he was a sinner deserving eternal fire since a touch of a fair woman's hand could make him unfaithful for an instant to the one woman he loved best. He had meant to tread the way of the Cross in true faith, with unswerving feet, and his heart was the toy of women; he had sworn the promises of knighthood, and he was already breaking them in his thoughts; he was his evil mother's son, and he had not the strength to be unlike her. It was folly and madness, and Castignac, the Gascon knight, would have laughed at him, or else would have believed that he was demented. But to the Englishman it was real, for he was under that strange melancholy which only Northmen know, and which is the most real suffering in all the world. It is a dim sadness that gathers like a cloud about strong men's souls, and they fear it, and sometimes kill themselves to escape from it into the outer darkness beyond; but sometimes it drives them to bad deeds and the shedding of innocent blood, and now and then the better sort of such men turn from the world and hide themselves in the abodes of sorrow and pain and prayer. The signs of it are that when it has no cause it seizes upon trifles to make them its reasons, and more often it torments young men than the old; and no woman nor southern person has ever known it, nor can even understand it. But it follows the northern blood from generation to generation, like retribution for an evil without a name done long ago by the northern race. It was dark night when Gilbert found his way back to his tent, more by the instinct of one used to living in camps among soldiers than by any precise recollection of the way, and he sat down to warm himself before the brazier of red coals which Alric shovelled out of the camp-fire that burned outside. His men gave him a pottage of beans, with bread and wine, as it was Christmas Eve and a fast-day, and there was nothing else, for all the fish brought up from the sea had been bought early in the day for the great nobles, long before Gilbert had come into the lines. But he neither knew nor cared, and he ate mechanically what they gave him, being in a black humour. Then he sat a long time by the light of the earthenware lamp which Dunstan occasionally tended with an iron pin, lest the charring wick should slip into the half-melted fat and go out altogether. When he was not watching the wick, the man's eyes fixed themselves upon his master's grave face. "Sir," he said at last, "you are sad. This is the Holy Eve, and all the army will watch till midnight, when the first masses begin. If it please you, let us walk through the camp and see what we may. The tents of the great lords are all lighted up by this time and the soldiers are singing the Christmas hymns." Gilbert shook his head indifferently, but said nothing. "Sir," insisted the man, "I pray you, let us go, for you shall be cheered, and there are good sights. Before midnight the King and Queen and all the court go in procession to the great chapel tent, and it is meet that you should be there with them." Dunstan brought a garment and gently urged him to rise. Gilbert stood up, not looking. "Why should I go?" he asked. "I am better alone, for I am in a sad humour. And, besides, it is very cold." "Your cloak shall keep you warm, sir." "I cannot walk among the court people in rags," answered Gilbert, "and I have nothing that is whole but this one thin tunic." But even as he spoke, Dunstan held up the surcoat for him to put on over his head, the skirts caught up in his hands, which also held the collar open. "What is this?" asked Gilbert, in surprise. "It is a knight's surcoat, sir," answered the man. "It is of very good stuff, and is wadded with down. I pray you, put it on." "This is a gift," said Gilbert, suspiciously, and drawing back. "Who sends me such presents?" "The King of France, sir." "You mean the Queen." He frowned and would not touch the coat. "The things were brought by the King's men, and one of the King's knights came also with them, and delivered a very courteous message, and a purse of Greek bezants, very heavy." Gilbert began to walk up and down, in hesitation. He was very poor, but if the gifts were from the Queen, he was resolved not to keep them. "Sir," said Dunstan, "the knight said most expressly that the King sent you these poor presents as a token that he desires to see you to-morrow and to thank you for all you have done. I thought to please you by bringing them out suddenly." Then Gilbert smiled kindly, for the man loved him, and he put his head and arms into the knightly garment with its wide sleeves, and Dunstan laced it up the back, so that it fitted closely to the body, while the skirt hung down below the knees. It was of a rich dark silk, woven in the East, and much like the velvet of later days. Then Dunstan girded his master with a new sword-belt made of heavy silver plates, finely chased and sewn on leather, and he thrust the great old sword with its sheath through the flattened ring that hung to the belt by short silver chains. Lastly he put upon Gilbert's shoulders a mantle of very dark red cloth, lined with fine fur and clasped at the neck with silver; for it was not seemly to wear a surcoat without a cloak. "It is very noble," said Dunstan, moving back a step or two to see the effect. Indeed, the young English knight looked well in the dress of his station, which he wore for the first time; for he was very tall and broad of shoulder, and a lean man, well-bred; his face was clear and pale, and his fair hair fell thick and long behind his cap. "But you, Dunstan, you cannot be seen--" Gilbert stopped, for he noticed suddenly that both his men were clad in new clothes of good cloth and leather. "The servants are honoured with their lord," said Dunstan. "The King sent gifts for us, too." "That was a man's thought, not a woman's," said Gilbert, almost to himself. He went out, and Dunstan walked by his left, but half a step behind his stride, as was proper. The camp was lit up with fires and torches as far as one could see, and all men were out of doors, either walking up and down, arm in arm, or sitting before their tents on folding-stools, or on their saddles, or on packs of baggage. The hundreds and thousands of little Christmas trees, stuck into the earth amid circles of torches before the newly whitened tents, made a great garden of boughs and evergreens, and the yellow glare shone everywhere through lacing branches, and fell on rich colours and gleaming arms, well polished for the holiday, and lost itself suddenly in the cold starlight overhead. The air smelt of evergreen and the aromatic smoke of burning resin. The night rang with song also, and in some places as many as a hundred had gathered in company to sing the long Christmas hymns they had learned as little children far away at home--endless canticles with endless repetitions, telling the story of the Christ-Child's birth at Bethlehem, of the adoration of the shepherds, and of the coming of the Eastern kings. In one part of the camp the rough Burgundians were drinking the strong Asian wine in deep draughts, roaring their great choruses between, with more energy than unction. But for the most part the northern men were sober and in earnest, praying as they sang and looking upward as if the Star of the East were presently to shed its soft light in the sky; and they tended the torches and lights around the trees devoutly, not guessing that their fathers had done the same long ago, in bleak Denmark and snowy Norway, in worship of Odin and in honour of Yggdrasil, the tree of life. The Gascons and all the men of the South, on their side, had made little altars between two trees, decked with white cloths and adorned with tinsel ornaments and little crosses and small carved images carefully brought, like household gods, from the far home, and treasured only next to their arms. The thin, dark faces of the men were fervent with southern faith, and their wild black eyes were deep and still. There were also Alsatians and Lorrainers in lines by themselves, quiet, fair-haired men. They had little German dolls of wood, and toys brightly painted, and by their trees they set out the scene of Bethlehem, with the manger and the Christ-Child, and the oxen crouching down, and the Blessed Mary and Saint Joseph, and also the shepherds and the wise kings; and the men sat down before these things with happy faces and sang their songs. So it was through the whole camp, the soldiers doing everywhere according to their customs. As for the nobles and knights, Gilbert saw some of them walking about like himself, and some were sitting before their tents. Here and there, as he passed, when a tent was open, he saw knights kneeling in prayer, and could hear them reciting the litanies. But it was not always so, for some were spending the night in feasting, their tents being closed, though one could hear plainly the revelry. There was more than one great tent in the French lines, of which the curtain was raised a little, and there Gilbert saw men and women drinking together, under bright lights, and he saw that the women were Greeks and that their cheeks were painted and their eyelids blackened; and he turned away from the sight, in disgust that such things should be done on the Holy Eve of Christmas. Further on, some very poor soldiers, in sheepskin doublets and leathern hose, were kneeling together before a sort of rough screen, on which were hung images painted in the manner of Greek eikons. These men had long and silky beards, and their smooth brown hair hung out over their shoulders in well-combed waves, and some of them had beautiful faces. One, who was a priest of their own, stood upright and recited prayers in a low chant, and from time to time, at the refrain, the soldiers all bowed themselves till their foreheads touched the ground. "The Lord Jesus Christ be praised," sang the priest. "To all ages. Amen," responded the soldiers. Though they sang in the Bohemian language, and Gilbert could not understand, he saw that they believed and were of an earnest mind. So he walked about for more than an hour, looking and listening, and his own sad humour was lightened a little as he forgot to think of himself only. For it seemed a great thing to have been chosen to lead so many through a wilderness full of danger, and to know that more than a hundred thousand lives had been in his keeping, as it were, for two months, and were to be in his hand again, till he should lead them safely into Syria, or perish himself and leave his task to another. It was a task worth accomplishing and a trust worth his life. Then, at midnight, he was walking in a great procession after the King and Queen. Modestly he joined the ranks, and his man walked beside him carrying a torch, so that the light fell full upon his face. Some one knew him, and spoke to his neighbour. "That is Sir Gilbert Warde, who is our guide," he said. In an instant word ran along the line that he was there; and in a few minutes a messenger came breathless, asking for him, and then the herald of France, Montjoye Saint Denis, came after, bidding him to a foremost place, in the name of the King and Queen. So he followed the herald, whose runner walked before him, as had been bidden by Eleanor herself. "Make way for the Guide of Aquitaine!" cried the squire, in a loud voice. Knights and men-at-arms stood aside to let him pass, and the tall Englishman went between them, courteously bending his head to thank those who moved out of his way, and deprecating the high honour that was done him. He heard his name repeated, both by men whose faces he could see in the light around him, when the torches blazed and flamed, and also from the darkness beyond. "Well done, Sir Gilbert!" cried some. "God bless the Guide of Aquitaine!" cried many others. And all the voices praised him, so that his heart warmed. Following the herald, he came to his place in the procession, in the front rank of the great vassals of the two kingdoms, and just after the sovereign lords; and as he was somewhat taller than other men, he could look over their heads, and he saw the King and Queen in their furs, walking together, and before them the bishops and priests. At the stir made by his coming Eleanor turned and looked back, and her eyes met Gilbert's through the smoky glare, gazing at him sadly, as if she would have made him understand something she could not say. But he would not have spoken if he could, for his thoughts were on other things. The procession went on toward the royal altar, set up under an open tent in a wide space, so that the multitude could kneel on the grass and both see and hear the celebration. So they all knelt down, the great barons and chief vassals having small hassocks for their knees, while the King and Queen and the sovereign lords of Savoy and Alsatia and Lorraine, and of Bohemia and of Poland, had rich praying-stools set out for them in a row, next to the King and Queen. The torches were stuck into the ground to burn down as they might, and the great wax candles shone quietly on the white altar, for the night was now very still and clear. There all the great nobles and many thousands of other men heard the Christmas mass, just after midnight, knowing that many of them should never hear it again on earth. There they all sang together, in a mighty melody of older times, the 'Glory to God in the highest,' which was first sung on the Holy Eve; and there, when the Bishop of Metz was about to lift up the consecrated bread, the royal trumpets rang out a great call to the multitude, so that all men might bow themselves together. Then the silence was very deep, while the Lord passed by; nor ever again in his life did Sir Gilbert Warde know such a stillness as that was, save once, and it seemed to him that in the Way of the Cross he had reached a place of refreshment and rest. CHAPTER XX Gilbert rose from his knees with the rest, and then he saw that the King and Queen placed themselves side by side and standing, and the nobles began to go up to them according to their rank, to kiss their hands. As Gilbert stood still, not knowing what to do, he watched the procession of the barons from a distance. Suddenly he felt that his eyes were wide open, and that he was gazing at a face which he knew, hardly believing that he saw it in the flesh; and his back stiffened, and his teeth ground on one another. Ten paces from him, waiting and looking on, like himself, stood a graceful man of middle height, of a clear olive complexion, with a well-clipped beard of somewhat pointed cut, grey at the sides, as was also the smooth, dark hair. Years had passed, and the last time he had seen that face had been in the changing light of the greenwood, where the sunshine played among the leaves; and as he had seen it last, he had felt steel in his side and had fallen asleep, and after that his life had changed. For Arnold de Curboil was before him, looking at him, but not recognizing him. Still Gilbert stood rooted to the spot, trying not to believe his senses, for he could not understand how his stepfather could suddenly be among the Crusaders; but the divine peace that had descended upon him that night was shivered as a mirror by a stone, and his heart grew cold and hard. The man also was changed since Gilbert had seen him. The face was handsome still, but it was thin and sharp, and the eyes were haggard and weary, as if they had seen a great evil long and had sickened of it at last, and were haunted by it. Gilbert looked at him who had murdered his father and had brought shame to his mother, and who had robbed him of his fair birthright, and he saw that something of the score had been paid. Gradually, too, as Sir Arnold gazed, a look of something like despair settled in his face, a sort of horror that was not fear,--for he was no coward,--but was rather a dread of himself. He made a step forward, and Gilbert waited, and heard how Dunstan, who stood behind him, loosened his dagger in its brass sheath. At that moment came the King's herald again as before, bidding him go up to the presence of the King and Queen. "Room for the Guide of Aquitaine!" The cry rang loud and clear, and Gilbert saw Sir Arnold start in surprise at the high-sounding title. Then he followed the herald; but in his heart there was already a triumph that the man who had left him for dead in the English woods should find him again thus preferred before other men. The Queen's face grew paler as he came toward her and knelt down on one knee, and through her embroidered glove of state his own hand, that was cold, felt that hers was colder. But it did not tremble, and her voice was steady and clear, so that all could hear it. "Sir Gilbert Warde," she said, "you have done well. Guienne thanks you, and France also--" She paused and looked toward the King, who was watching her closely. Louis bent his great pale face solemnly toward the Englishman. "We thank you, Sir Gilbert," he said, with cold condescension. "A hundred thousand men thank you," added Eleanor, in a ringing voice that was to make up for her husband's ungrateful indifference. There was a moment's silence, and then the voice of Gaston de Castignac, high and full, sent up a cheer that was heard far out in the clear night. "God bless the Guide of Aquitaine!" The cheer was taken up in the deep shout of strong men in earnest; for it was known how Gilbert cared not for himself, nor for rewards, but only for honour; and the thirty men who had been with him had told far and wide how often he had watched that they might sleep, and how he would always give the best to others, and how gently and courteously he treated those he commanded. But in the loud cheering, Eleanor took his hand in both hers and bent down to speak to him, unheard by the rest; and her voice was low and trembled a little. "God bless you!" she said fervently. "God bless you and keep you, for as I am a living woman, you are dearer to me than the whole world." Gilbert understood how she loved him, as he had not understood before. And yet her touch had no evil power to move him now, and the shadow of his mother no longer haunted him in her eyes as he looked up. There, beside the Christmas altar, in the Holy Night, she was trying to complete the sacrifice of herself and her love. Gilbert answered her earnestly. "Madam," he said, "I shall try to do your will with all my heart, even to death." Thereafter he kept his word. But now he rose to his feet, and after bending his knee again, he looked into the Queen's sad eyes, and passed on to make way for the others, while the cheers that were for him still rang in the air. Then he began to walk to his tent. Dunstan had lighted a fresh torch and was waiting for him. But the great barons, who had gone up to the King and Queen before him, pressed round him and shook his hand, one after another, and bade him to their feasting on the morrow; nor was there jealousy of him, as there had been when he had saved the Queen's life at Nicaea, for now that they saw him they felt that he was no courtier, and desired only the safety of the army, with his own honour. As they thronged about him, there came Sir Arnold de Curboil, pressing his way among them, and when he was before Gilbert he also held out his hand. "Gilbert Warde," he asked, "do you not know me?" "I know you, sir," answered the young knight, in a clear voice that all could hear, "but I will not take your hand." There was silence, and the great nobles looked on, not understanding, while Dunstan held his torch so that the light fell full upon Sir Arnold's pale features. "Then take my glove!" He plucked off his loose leathern gauntlet and tossed it lightly at Gilbert's face. But Dunstan's quick left hand caught it in the air, while the torch scarcely wavered in his right. Gilbert was paler than his enemy, but he would not let his hand go to his sword, and he folded his arms under his mantle, lest they should move against his will. "Sir," he said, "I will not fight you again at this time, though you killed my father treacherously. Though you have stolen my birthright, I will not fight you now, for I have taken the Cross, and I will keep the vow of the Cross, come what may." "Coward!" cried Sir Arnold, contemptuously, and he would have turned on his heel. But Gilbert stepped forward and caught him by his arms and held him quietly, without hurting him, but so that he could not easily move and must hear. "You have called me a coward, Sir Arnold de Curboil. How should I fear you, since I can wring you to death in my hands if I will? But I will let you go, and these good lords here shall judge whether I am a coward or not because I will not fight you until I have fulfilled my vows." "Well said," cried the old Count of Bourbon. "Well said, well done," cried many others. Moreover, the Count of Savoy, of whose race none was ever born that knew fear, even to this day, spoke to his younger brother of Montferrat. "I have not seen a braver man than this English knight, nor a better man of his hands, nor one more gentle, and he has the face of a leader." Then Gilbert loosed his hold and Sir Arnold looked angrily to the right and left, and passed out of the crowd, all men making way for him as if they would not touch him. Some of them turned to Gilbert again, and asked him questions about the strange knight. "My lords," he answered, "he is Sir Arnold de Curboil, my stepfather; for when he had killed my father, he married my mother and stole my lands. I fought him when I was but a boy, and he left me for dead in the forest; and now I think that he is come from England to seek occasion against me; but if I live I shall get back my inheritance. And now, if I seem to you to have dealt justly by him, I crave my leave of you, and thank your lordships for your good will and courtesy." So they bade him good-night, and he went away, leaving many who felt that he had done well, but that, in his place, they could not have done as much. They did not know how dear it cost him, but dimly they guessed that he was braver than they, though they were of the bravest. He was very tired, and had not slept in a good bed under his own tent for two months; yet he was sleepless, and awoke after two hours, and could not sleep again till within an hour of the winter dawn; for he feared some evil for Beatrix if her father should claim her of the Queen and take her back from Ephesus by sea, as he must have come. At daylight, warming themselves at a fire, Dunstan told Alric all that happened in the night. The Saxon's stolid face did not change, but he was thoughtful and silent for some time, remembering how the Lady Goda had once had him beaten, long ago, because he had not held Sir Arnold's horse in the right way when the knight was mounting. Presently Beatrix's Norman tirewoman came to the two men, wrapped in a brown cloak with a hood that covered half her face. She told them that her lady knew of Sir Arnold's coming, and begged of Sir Gilbert that for her sake he would walk by the river at noon, when every one would be at dinner in the camp, and she would try and meet him there. CHAPTER XXI Gilbert waited long, for he went down early to the river, and he sat on a big stone sunning himself, for the air was keen, and there was a north wind. At last he saw two veiled women coming along the bank. The shorter one was a little lame and leaned upon the other's arm, and the wind blew their cloaks before them as they came. When he saw that Beatrix limped, knowing that she had not quite recovered from her fall, and remembering that she might have been killed, his heart sank with a sickening faintness. He took her by the hand very gently, for she looked so slight and ill that he almost feared to touch her, and yet he did not wish to let her fingers go, nor she to take them away. The tirewoman went down to the river-bank, at some distance, and they sat upon the big stone, hand in hand like two children, and looked at each other. Suddenly the girl's face lightened, as if she had just found out that she was glad; her eyes laughed, and her voice was as happy as a bird's at sunrise. Gilbert had not seen her for a long time. To such a man, all women, and even one chosen woman, might easily become an ideal, too far from the material to have a real hold upon his manhood, and so high above earth as to have no spiritual realization. Even in that age many a knight made a divinity of his lady and a religion of his devotion to her, so that the very meaning of love was forgotten in the ascetic impulse to seek the soul's salvation in all things, even in the contempt of all earthly longings; and those men demanded as much in return, expecting it even after their own death. There were also women, like Anne of Auch, who gave such devotion freely. Nevertheless, it was not altogether in this way between Beatrix and Gilbert, and if it might have been, so far as he was concerned, she would not have had it so, and her words proved it. "I am so proud of you!" she cried. "And I am so very glad to see you." "Proud of me?" he asked, smiling sadly. "I am not proud of myself. For all I have done, you might be dead at Nicaea." "But I am alive," she answered happily, "and by your doing, though I cannot yet walk quite well." "I ought to have let the Queen pass on. I ought to have thought only of you." He found a satisfaction in saying aloud at last what had been so long in his heart against himself, and in saying it to Beatrix herself. But she would not hear it. "That would have been very unknightly and disloyal," she said. "I would not have had you do it, for you would have been blamed by men. And then I should never have heard what I heard yesterday and last night, the very best words I ever heard in all my life--the cry of a great army blessing one man for a good work well done." "I have done nothing," answered Gilbert, stolidly determined to depreciate himself in her eyes. But she smiled and laid her gloved hand quickly upon his lips. "I would not have another laugh at you, as I do!" she cried. He looked at her, and the mask of grave melancholy which was fast becoming his natural expression began to soften, as if it could not last forever. "I have often thought of you and wondered whether you would think well of my deeds," he said. "You see!" she laughed. "And now because I am proud of you, you pretend that you have done nothing! That is poor praise of my good sight and judgment." He laughed, too. Since the dawn of time, women have retorted thus upon brave men too modest of their doings; and since the first woman found the trick, it has never failed to please man. But love needs not novelty, for he himself is always young; the stars of night are not less fair in our eyes because men knew the 'sweet influence of the Pleiades' in Job's day, nor is the scent of new-mown hay less delicate because all men love it. The old is the best, even in love, which is young. "Say what you will," answered Gilbert, presently, "we are together to-day." "And nothing else matters," said Beatrix. "Not even that it is two months since I have seen you, and that I have been ill, or, at least, half crippled, by that fall. It is all forgotten." He looked at her, not quite understanding, for as she spoke her eyebrows were raised a little, with her own expression, half sad, half laughing at herself. "I wish I could see you more often," answered Gilbert. Her little birdlike laugh disconcerted him. "Indeed, I am in earnest," he said. "And yet when you are in earnest, you do much harder things," answered Beatrix, and at once the sadness had the better of the laughter in her face. "Oh, Gilbert, I wish we were back in England in the old days." "So do I!" "Oh, no! You do not. You say so to please me, but you cannot make it sound true. You are a great man now. You are Sir Gilbert Warde, the Guide of Aquitaine. It is you, and you only, who are leading the army, and you will have all the honour of it. Would you go back to the old times when we were boy and girl? Would you, if you could?" "I would if I could." He spoke so gravely that she understood where his thoughts were, and that they were not all for her. For a few moments she looked down in silence, pulling at the fingers of her glove, and once she sighed; then, without looking up, she spoke, in her sweet, low voice. "Gilbert, what are we to each other? Brother and sister?" He started, again not understanding, and fancying that she was setting up the Church's canon between them, which he now knew to be no unremovable impediment. "You are no more my sister than your tirewoman there can be," he answered, more warmly than he had spoken yet. "I did not mean that," she said sadly. "I do not understand, then." "If you do not, how can I tell you what I mean?" She glanced at him and then looked away quickly, for she was blushing, and was ashamed of her boldness. "Do you mean that I love you as I might a sister?" asked Gilbert, with the grave tactlessness of a thoroughly honest man. The blush deepened in her cheek, and she nodded slowly, still looking away. "Beatrix!" "Well?" She would not turn to him. "What have I done that you should say such a thing?" "That is it!" she answered regretfully. "You have done great things, but they were not for me." "Have I not told you how I have thought of you day after day, hoping that you might think well of my deeds?" "Yes. But you might have done one thing more. That would have made all the difference." "What?" He bent anxiously towards her for the answer. "You might have tried to see me." "But I was never in the camp. I was always a day's march in the lead of the army." "But not always fighting. There were days, or nights, when you could have ridden back. I would have met you anywhere--I would have ridden hours to see you. But you never tried. And at last it is I who send for you and beg you to come and talk with me here. And you do not even seem glad to be with me." "I did not think that I had a right to leave my post and come back, even for you." "You could not have helped it--if you had cared." She spoke very low. Gilbert looked at her long, and the lines deepened in his face, for he was hurt. "Do you really believe that I do not love you?" he asked, but his voice was cold because he tried to control it, and succeeded too well. "You have never told me so," Beatrix answered. "You have done little to make me think so, since we were children together. You have never tried to see me when it would have cost you anything. You are not glad to see me now." Her voice could be cold, too; but there was a tremor in some of the syllables. He was utterly surprised and taken unawares, and he slowly repeated the substance of what she said. "I never told you so? Never made you think so? Oh, Beatrix!" He remembered the sleepless nights he had passed, accusing himself of letting even one thought of the Queen come between him and the girl who was denying his love--the restless, melancholy hours of self-accusation, the cruel self-torment--how could she know? She was in earnest, now, though she had begun half playfully; for if the man's heart had not changed, he had gone away from her in his active life, and in the habit of hiding all real feeling which comes from living long alone or with strangers. It was true that outwardly he had hardly seemed glad to see her, and all the ring of happiness had died away out of her voice before they had exchanged many words. He felt her mood, and it grew clear to him that he had made some great mistake which it would be very hard to set right. And she was thinking how boldly she had striven with the Queen for his love, and that now it seemed to be no love at all. But he, whose impulse was ever to act when there was danger, however much he might weary his soul with inward examination at other times, grew desperate, and gave up thinking of a way out of the difficulty. What he loved was slipping from him, and though he loved it in his own way, it was indeed all he loved, and he would not let it go. Thoughtless at last, and sudden, he took her into his arms, and his face was close to hers, and his eyes were in hers, and their lips breathed the same breath. She was not frightened, but her lids drooped, and she turned quite white. Then he kissed her, not once, but many times, and as if he would never let her go, on her pale mouth, on her dark eyelids, on her waving hair. "If I kill you, you shall know that I love you," he said, and he kissed her again, so that it hurt her, but it was good to be hurt. After that she lay in his arms, very still, and she looked up slowly, and their eyes met; and it was as if the veil had fallen from between them. When he kissed her again, his kisses were gentle and altogether tender. "I had almost lost you," he said, breathing the words to her ear. The Norman tirewoman sat motionless by the river's edge, waiting till she should be called. After a time they began to talk again, and their voices were in tune, like their hearts. Then Gilbert spoke of what had happened in the night, but Beatrix already knew that her father had come. "He has come to take me away," she said, "and we have talked together. Gilbert--a dreadful thing has happened; did he tell you?" "He told me nothing--excepting that I was a coward!" He laughed scornfully. "I think he is half mad with sorrow." She paused and laid her hand on Gilbert's. "His wife is dead,--your mother is dead,--with the child she bore him." Gilbert's eyes alone changed, but under her palm Beatrix felt the sinews of his hand leap and the veins swell. "Tell me quickly," he said. "She was burned," continued Beatrix, in a tone of awe. "She made my father grind his people till they turned, and she made him hang the leader who spoke for them. Then all the yeomen and the bondmen rose, and they burned the castle, and your mother died with the child. But my father escaped alive. Now I am again his only child, and he wants me again." Gilbert's head fell forward, as if he had received a blow, but he said nothing for a time, for he saw his mother's face; and he saw her not as when they had parted, but as he remembered her before that, when he had loved her above all things, not knowing what she was. In spite of all that had gone between, she came back to him as she had been, and the pain and the pity were real and great. But then he felt Beatrix's hand pressing his in sympathy, and it brought him again to the evil truth. He raised his head. "She is better dead," he said bitterly. "Let us not speak of her any more. She was my mother." He stared long at the river, and the sadness of his homeless and lonely state in the world began to come upon him, as it came often. Then a soft voice broke the spell, and the words answered his thoughts. "We are not alone, you and I," it said, and the two small hands crept up shyly and clasped his neck, and the loving, pathetic face looked up to his. "Do not let him take me away!" she begged. His hand pressed her head to his breast, and once more he kissed her hair. "He shall not take you," he said. "No one shall take you from me; no one shall come between you and me." Beatrix's eyes seemed to drink out of his the meaning of the words he spoke. "Promise me that," she said, knowing that he would promise her the world. "I promise it with all my heart." "On your knightly faith?" She smiled as she insisted. "On my honour and faith." "And on the faith of love, too?" She almost laughed, out of sheer happiness. "On the very truth of true love," he answered. "Then I am quite safe," she said, and she hid her face against his surcoat. "I am glad I came to you, I am glad that I was so bold as to send for you this day, for it is the best day of my whole life. And, Gilbert, you will not wait till I send for you another time? You will try and see me--of your own accord?" She was altogether in anxiety again, and there was a look of fear and sadness in her eyes. "I will try--indeed I will," he said earnestly. "Whenever you do, you shall succeed," she answered, nestling to him. "I wish I might shut my eyes and rest here--now that I know." "Rest, sweet, rest!" A moment, and then, from far away, a clarion call rang on the still air. With the instinct of the soldier, Gilbert started, and listened, holding his breath, but still pressing the girl close to him. "What is it?" she asked, half frightened. It came again, joyous and clear. "It is nothing," he said. "It is the Christmas banquet, and perhaps the King drinks the Queen's health--and she his." "And perhaps, though no one knows it, she--" But Beatrix stopped and laughed. "I will not say it! Why should I care?" She was thinking that if the Queen drank a health it might be meant, in her heart, for the Guide of Aquitaine, and she nestled closer to him in the sunshine. CHAPTER XXII A week the army stayed in camp by the pleasant waters of the Maeander, and daily at noon Gilbert and Beatrix met at the same place. She told him that she had not seen her father again, and believed that he had left the camp. The Queen knew that the lovers met, but she would not hinder them, though it was cruel pain to think of their happiness. Many have spoken and written evil things of Eleanor, for she was a haughty woman and overbearing, and she feared neither God nor man, nor Satan either; but she had a strong and generous heart, and, having promised, she kept her word as well as she could. She would not send for Gilbert, nor see him alone, lest she should fail of resolution when her eyes looked on him too closely. Beatrix knew this and took heart, and the veil of estrangement was lifted between her and Gilbert. On the last day but one of the year he went before the King, who bade him mount again with his men and ride before the army through the passes of the Cadmus towards Attalia, seeking out the safest way and giving timely warning of the enemy. Also, because it was known that the danger must be greater now than before, the King gave him leave to choose knights and men-at-arms to the number of a hundred, to be under him, and made him rich presents of fine armour, and caused his shield to be painted afresh by a skilled Greek. While he talked with Gilbert he watched the Queen, who sat apart somewhat pale, reading in a Book of Hours, for he was suspicious of her; but she never looked at the Englishman until he was taking his leave. Then she beckoned him to her, before he went out, and gave him her ungloved hand, which he kissed, and she looked into his face a moment, very sadly, not knowing whether she should see him again. So he went out, to bid Beatrix farewell. She met him at the accustomed place by the river, and for a while they were together; but they could not talk much, being both very sad. She took a golden ring from her hand, and would have put it upon his finger, but it was too small. "I had hoped that you could wear it," she said, disappointed, "for it was my mother's." Gilbert took it in his hand. It was of very pure gold and thin, so he cut it open with the point of his dagger and bent it back and clasped it round his fourth finger, tightly. "It is our troth," he said. It was hard to let him go, for she also knew the peril, as the Queen knew it. "I shall pray for you," she said, clinging to him. "God is good--you may come back to me." They sat a long time together, saying nothing. When it was time for him to lead his men out, as he judged by the sun, he kissed her, lifting her up to him. "Good-by," he said. "Not yet!" she pleaded, between his kisses. "Oh, Gilbert, not so very soon!" But she knew that he must go, and he set her gently upon her feet, for it was the last moment. When he was gone, she sat down upon the stone, and the Norman woman came and put one arm round her, holding her, for she seemed fainting. Still her eyes followed him as he strode along the river, till he reached the turning. There he stopped and looked back, and kissed the ring she had given him, and waved his hand to her; and she pressed both her hands to her lips and threw them out to him, as if she would have thrown him her heart and her soul with it. When he was gone, the sky turned black before her eyes and time stood still, and she knew what death meant. But she did not faint, and she had no tears. Only, when she went back after some time, she walked unsteadily and her woman helped her. So Gilbert rode out to seek the way, taking well-mounted messengers with him as before, and on the first day of the New Year the whole army began the march again, crossing the river the first time at a ford. The Queen would perforce be in the van, with her ladies, so that the speed of their riding became the speed of the whole army, whereby the whole host was kept together. The first messenger who came back told that Sir Gilbert had reached the hills, and led the Queen by the way he had followed, saying that so far he had met no enemies. But on the morrow, as they drew near to the mountains and rode up the rising ground, they saw afar off a man standing by one who lay stark on the ground, and driving off a vulture and a score of ravens with a long staff. The Queen's heart stood still when she saw this sight, and she spurred her Arab mare forward before all the army till she stopped beside the dead body and saw that the face was not Gilbert's. The squire who was guarding the dead told her how, very early in the morning, some fifty Seljuk horsemen had come down from the hills and had shot arrows at Gilbert and his men from a distance, wheeling quickly and galloping away out of sight before the Christians could mount; and this one knight had been killed, and his squire had stayed by him till the army should come up, while the rest rode on, and took both the horses with them in case they should lose any of their own. There they buried the body deep, when the Queen's chaplain had blessed it, and they marched on till noon, and encamped. From that time the Queen made her ladies ride in the centre of the great host, protected on all sides; but she herself, with the Lady Anne of Auch, still kept the van, for in this way she was nearer to Gilbert. She also sent out parties of scouts to the right and left, to give warning of the Seljuks; and the King guarded the rear, where there was also great danger. Meanwhile Gilbert went farther up into the mountains, searching out the best way to the pass, distrusting the Greek guides, who nevertheless feared him and told him the truth, though it was the secret wish of the Greek Emperor that the army should all be destroyed, because he desired no increase of the western power in Asia. But Gilbert told the guides severally and all together that he would cut off the head of the first one who should even seem to be false; and he kept them under his own eye, and his long sword was always loose in the sheath. He went very cautiously now, setting sentinels at night and sleeping little himself, so that he might often go alone from post to post and see that all was well. But the Seljuks never came in the darkness, for as yet there were not many of them, and they trusted to their bows by day, when they could see; but they feared to come to close quarters with the picked swordsmen of the French army. Since they had first shown themselves, the Christians all rode fully armed in mail and hood, knights and men-at-arms and young squires alike, with the half-dozen pack-horses and a few spare mounts in the midst; and good mail was proof against arrows, but Gilbert wished that he had brought fifty archers with him, such marksmen as little Alric, his groom. There was some fighting every day, when he was able to overtake the swift Seljuks in some narrow place. They fled when they could, but when they were brought to bay they turned savagely and fought like panthers, yelling their war-cry: "Hurr! Hurr!" which in the Tartar tongue signifies: "Kill! Kill!" But more often the Christians killed them, being stronger men and better armed, and Gilbert was ever the first to strike; and one day, as the fiercest of a band of Seljuks rode at him, whirling a crooked sword and shouting the cry, Gilbert cut off his arm at one stroke and it fell to the ground with the fist still grasping the scimitar; whereat Gilbert laughed fiercely and mocked the unbeliever's cry. "Hurrah! Hurrah!" he shouted, as he rode on. Then his followers took the cry from him, jeering at their enemies, and on that morning they let not one escape, but slew them all, saving one man only, and took the horses that were alive. But from that time, the Christians began to cry, "Hurrah!" And when men shout to-day, "Hurrah for the king," they know not that they are crying, "Kill for the king." But Gilbert saw that the place where this happened was a very dangerous one, though the entrance to it was broad and pleasant, through a high valley where there were certain huts in which shepherds dwelt, and grass and water. Therefore he turned back quickly when the killing was over, and he took the chief of the guides by the throat, holding his head down upon the pommel of his saddle, and bade him show a better way if he would keep his head on his shoulders. "My lord, there is no other way," cried the man, fright-struck. "Very well," answered Gilbert, drawing his red sword again. "If there is no other way, I shall not need you any more, my man." When the fellow heard the sheath sucking the wet steel, he screamed for terror, crying out that there was another way. So they rode back to the entrance of the valley, and the man began to lead them up a steep track among trees; and above the trees they came to a desolate, stony ridge; but still they could ride, though it was a very toilsome way. When they had reached the top, after three hours, Gilbert saw that he was at the true pass, broad and straight, opening down to grassy slopes beyond, between crags that would not give a foothold to a goat. He rode on a little way farther, and there was a very steep path, turning back, round the highest peak, and presently he looked down into a small, high valley, below which the narrow way led down to the pleasant place through which he had first ridden, and he saw that a great army could easily be destroyed there by a small one lying in ambush. He could see quite plainly the dead Seljuks lying as they had fallen, and from far and near the great vultures and the kites were sailing down from the crags, while the ravens and crows that followed his killing day by day were flying, and settling, and hopping along the ground, and flying again to the places of death. He rode back to his men, driving the guide before him; and the man feared for his life continually, and reeled in the saddle as if he were drunk. But Gilbert knew that a man well frightened was a man gained for what he wanted, so when he had threatened to cut off his hands and put out his eyes and leave him to die among the rocks if he tried to misguide the army again, he let him live. Then he sent ten men back to lead the host on the following day, and he remained in the pass to keep it until the vanguard should be in sight. He bade his messengers tell the King that for his life he must not go into the broad valley, though it looked so fair and open. Now the Seljuks whom he had met were all dead but one young man; but there were many of them, some five thousand, encamped in a great hiding-place surrounded by rocks, on the other side of the pass. And the one who had escaped went to them, and told them what had happened, and that the whole French army would surely come up that way on the next day or the day after that. Therefore the Seljuks mounted, and came and lay in ambush, and two hundred of them rode down into the valley and hid themselves among the trees where the steep way began which was the right way. For they knew the mountains, and feared lest at the last moment the White Fiend, as they called Gilbert, might find out his mistake and choose that path to the pass, and save all; whereas on the steep ridge, under cover of trees, two hundred chosen bowmen, each with a great sheaf of arrows, might turn back a host. So the night passed, and Gilbert was undisturbed; but great evil was prepared for the army, though his messengers reached the camp and repeated his words to the King before nightfall. It lacked two hours of noon when Sir Gaston de Castignac and a dozen other knights, and Gilbert's ten men, turned the spur of the mountain where the broad green valley opened, having on their right the wooded ridge where the two hundred Seljuks were hidden. A moment later the Queen herself came up, with Anne of Auch and a hundred knights, and she supposed that they should have ridden through the valley; but Castignac stopped her and told her what the men said, and that they must all begin the ascent from that point. The valley was inviting, with its pleasant water and its broad meadow, and some of the knights murmured; but when Eleanor heard that Gilbert had chosen the steeper way, she had no doubt, and bade them all be silent; yet as there was much space on the grass, and as the men said that the ascent was long, it seemed better to halt awhile before beginning to climb. Meanwhile the whole van of the army came up, many thousands of men-at-arms and knights, and footmen, and after them the gorgeous train of ladies, careless and gay, feeling themselves safe among so many armed men, and desiring a sight of the enemy rather than fearing it. There was little order in the march, and hitherto there had been little danger; for the Seljuks meant to destroy them in the mountains, and would never have tried battle in the open with such a great host. Still the troop came on, filling the valley from side to side, and pressing up by sheer numbers toward the pass; and the King came at last, and with him certain Greek guides to whom he listened, and who began to make a great outcry, saying that Sir Gilbert was a madman and that no horses could climb the ridge. Thereat Gilbert's men swore that they had climbed it on the preceding day, and that even a woman could ride up it. And one of the Greeks began to laugh at them, saying that they lied; so Sir Gaston de Castignac smote him on the mouth with his mailed hand, breaking all his teeth, and there was a turmoil, and the people began to take opposite sides, for many of the King's men had come up, and he himself was for the easy way up the valley. Then Eleanor was very angry, and she mounted again, calling Gilbert's men to her side, and her own knights who rode in the van, and she told the King to his face that the Guide of Aquitaine had ever led them safely, but that whenever the army had followed the King's guides, evil had befallen. But the King would not be browbeaten before the great lords and barons, and he swore a great oath that he would go by the valley, come what might. Thereupon Eleanor turned her back on him, wheeling her horse short round; and she bade her knights ride up the hill to the trees with her, and gave orders that her army should follow her, and leave the King to take his men by any way he chose. On this the confusion became greater than ever, for in the host there were thousands of men, half pilgrims, half soldiers, who had come of their own accord, as free men, bound neither to the King nor the Queen; there were also the Poles and Bohemians, who were independent. All these began to discuss and quarrel among themselves. Meanwhile the Queen and Anne of Auch rode slowly up the hill, straight toward the trees, with Castignac and Gilbert's men before them, and the knights of Guienne following closely after; but none of them expected evil, for the place looked peaceful in the high sunshine. Eleanor and the Lady Anne rode fearlessly in their skirts and mantles, but the men were fully armed in their mail and steel caps. The foremost were half a dozen spears' lengths from the brushwood when the sharp twang of a bowstring broke the stillness, and an arrow that was meant for the Queen's face flew just between her and the Lady Anne. The fair woman flushed suddenly at the danger; on the dark one's forehead a vein stood out, straight from the parting of the hair, downward between the eyes. The men spurred their horses instantly, and dashed into the wood before the Queen could stop them, Castignac first by a length, with his sword out. The flight of arrows that followed the first shot struck horses and men together, and three or four horses went down with their riders; but the mail was proof, and the men were on their feet in an instant and running among the trees, whence came the sound of great blows, and the sharp twanging of many bowstrings, and the yell of the Seljuks. Now and again an arrow flew from among the trees at random, and while Eleanor sat on her horse, looking down the hill and crying to her knights to come on quickly and join in the fight, she did not know that Anne of Auch covered her with her body from the danger of a stray shaft, facing the danger with a light heart, in the hope of the blessed death for which she looked. Of those who went in under the trees, none came back, while the din of the fight rose louder and wilder, by which Eleanor guessed that the enemy were very few and were being driven up the hill, overpowered by numbers; and lest her own men should hamper each other, she stopped them and would not allow any more to go up. Meanwhile the King looked on from below, saying prayers; for he was in mortal dread of wishing that the Queen might be killed, since that would have been as great a sin as if he had slain her with his own hand; so that whereas when there was no present danger he constantly prayed that by some means he might be delivered from the woman of Belial, he now prayed as fervently that she might be preserved. As soon as he saw her forbidding a further advance, he took it for granted that she intended to come back and go up the valley, and he gave the signal to his own knights and men to advance in that direction, away from the place where the Seljuks were fighting. Indeed, there were always many who were ready to turn their backs on danger, especially of the poorer sort, who were ill-armed; and immediately, with great confusion and much shouting and pressing, the main body began to move on quickly, spreading out as they went, and completely filling up the valley; but then they were crowded again, as they went higher, where the valley narrowed to the pass, and at last they were so squeezed and jammed together that the horses could hardly move at all. The Queen's ladies, with their great throng of attendants and servants, had drawn aside at the beginning of the valley, protected by two or three thousand men-at-arms, to wait the end of the fighting, but she herself was still on the spur of the hill before the woods. Before long came Sir Gaston de Castignac, on foot and covered with blood, his mail hacked in many places by the crooked Seljuk swords, and his three-cornered shield dinted and battered. He came to the Queen's side and made a grand bow, waving his right hand towards the trees, and he spoke in a loud voice. "The Duchess's highway is clear," he said. "The way is open and the road is swept. But the broom--" He turned livid and reeled. "The broom is broken!" he cried, as he fell at full length almost under the Arab mare's feet. He had been shot through the middle with an arrow, but had lived to tell of victory. In an instant the Queen knelt beside him, trying to raise his head; and he smiled when he knew her, and died. But there were gentle tears in her eyes as she rose to her feet and bade them bury the Gascon deep, while she herself laid his shield upon his knees, and crossed his hands upon his breast. Many others died there, and were buried quickly; but the bodies of the Seljuks were dragged aside, out of the line of the march; and it was high noon, for all that had happened had taken place in about two hours. Yet as the way was long to the summit of the pass, those of Gilbert's men who had not been killed urged the Queen to march on at once, in order that the camp might be pitched by daylight where Gilbert was waiting. So Eleanor commanded that all her people should follow her in the best order they could keep, and she began to ride up the steep way. But in the valley the King's army was pressing on and up toward the place where Gilbert had fought yesterday, where the bones of the slain Seljuks were already white, and the gorged vultures perched sleeping in the noonday sun. Two hours passed, and because the guides knew the way well, it being now the third time of their passing there, and because the Queen and her vanguard were on sure-footed horses, they reached the top in that time, and saw Gilbert and the eighty men he still had with him sitting on the rocks in their armour, waiting, and their horses tethered near by, but saddled and bridled. Then Gilbert stood out before the rest and waited for the Queen, who cantered forward and halted beside him. She began to speak somewhat hurriedly, and she constantly looked about her, rather than into his face, telling him how they had fought in the wood, and how the King and many of the host had gone round by the valley. Thereat Gilbert became very anxious. "The ladies are following me," said Eleanor, gently, for she knew why he was pale. As she spoke, a cry came on the air, wild, distinct as the scream of the hungry falcon, but it was the cry of thousands. "Hurr! Hurr! Hurr!" "The Seljuks are upon them," said Gilbert, "for that cry is from the pass above the valley. God have mercy on the souls of Christian men!" Dunstan, who knew him well, brought his horse at the first alarm. "By your Grace's leave," said Gilbert, taking the bridle to mount, "I will take my men and do what I can to help them. I have explored the way round this mountain, and every man who follows me may kill ten Seljuks at an advantage, from above, just as the Seljuks are now slaying the King's men, below them." "Hurr! Hurr! Kill! Kill!" Ear-piercing, wild, the cry of slaughter came up from the valley again and again, and worse sounds came now on the clear air, the howls of men pressed together and powerless, slain in hundreds with arrows and stones, and the unearthly shrieks of horses wounded to death. "They are in thousands," said Gilbert, listening. "I must have more men." "I give you my army," said Eleanor. "Command all, and do your best." For one moment Gilbert looked hard at her, scarcely believing that she meant the words. But she raised herself in her saddle, and called out in a loud voice to the hundreds of nobles and knights who had already come up. "Sir Gilbert Warde commands the army!" she cried. "Follow the Guide of Aquitaine!" There was light in his face as he silently bowed his head and mounted. "Sirs," he said, when he was in the saddle, "the way by which I shall lead you to rescue the King is narrow; therefore follow me in good order, two and two, all those who have sure-footed horses. But beyond the defile as many as a thousand may fight without hindering each other. The rest encamp here and protect the Queen and her ladies. Forward!" He saluted Eleanor and rode away, leaving her there. She hesitated and looked longingly after him, but Anne of Auch laid a hand upon her bridle. "Madam," she said, "your place is here, where there is no one to command. And here also there may be danger before long." All the time, the dreadful din of fight came up from below, louder and louder. The Seljuks had waited until not less than five thousand men, with the King himself, had passed through the narrow channel from the lower valley and choked the upper gorge, pushed on by those behind; and then, from their hiding-places among the rocks and trees, they had sprung up in their thousands to kill those taken in the trap like mice. First came the thick flight of their arrows, straight and deadly, going down with flashes into the sea of men; and then great stones rolled from the heights, boulders that crushed the life out of horse and man and rolled straight through the mass of human bodies, leaving a track of blood behind; and then more arrows, darting hither and thither in the sunlight like rock-swallows; and again stones and boulders, till the confusion and the panic were at their height, and the wild Seljuks sprang down the sides of the gorge, yelling for death, swinging their scimitars, to kill more surely by hand, lest they should waste arrows on dead men. The blood was ankle-deep in the pass, through which more and more of the Christians were driven up to the slaughter by those who followed them. The King was forcing his way through his own men, and with them, toward the side where there were most enemies. His sluggish blood was roused at last, and his sword was out. Nor was it long before he was able to fight hand to hand; but many of those around him were slain, because their arms were hampered in the close press. The Seljuks made room by killing, and climbed upon the slain towards the living. In the vast and screaming din, no one could have heard a voice of command, and the air was darkening with the steam and reek of battle. A full hour the Seljuks slew and slew, almost unharmed, and the Christians were dead in thousands under their feet. The King, with a hundred followers, was at bay by the roots of a huge oak tree, fighting as best he might, and killing a man now and then, though wounded in the face and shoulder, and sorely spent. But he saw that it was a desperate case and that all was lost, and no more of his army were coming up to the rescue, because the narrow pass was choked with dead. So he began to sing the penitential psalms in time with the swinging of his sword. It was towards evening, for the days were short, and the westering sun suddenly poured its light straight into the gorge and upon the rising ground above. Some of the Christians looked up out of the carnage, and the King turned his eyes that way when he could spare a glance, and suddenly the sun flashed back from the height, as from golden and silver mirrors quickly moving, and foremost was an azure shield with a golden cross flory, and the Christians knew it well. Then a feeble shout went up from the few who lived. "The Guide of Aquitaine!" they cried. But they were not heard, for suddenly there was a louder cry from the Seljuks, and it was not their war-yell, but something like a howl of fear. "The Wrath of God! The White Fiend!" For they were caught in their own trap, and death rose in their eyes. On the low heights above the gorge a thousand Christians had formed in ranks quickly, with lance lowered and sword loose in sheath. A moment later, and a steel cap went whirling through the air, glancing and gleaming in the sun, till it fell among the enemy below, and then came the sharp command, the leader's single word: "Charge!" The Seljuks heard the terrible, quick clanking of armour as the great troop began to move, and the Guide of Aquitaine swept down in a storm of steel, bareheaded, his fair hair streaming on the wind, his eyes on fire in the setting sun, his great sword high in air, the smile of destruction on his even lips. "The White Fiend! The Wrath of God!" screamed the Seljuks. They tried to fly, but there was no way out, for the pass was choked with dead below, and they must win or die, every living soul of their host. So they turned at bay, joining their strength, and standing as they could on heaps of dead bodies. There, where they had slain, Gilbert slew them, and a thousand blades flashed red in the red sunlight, in time with his; and there was a low, sure sound of killing as steel went through flesh and bone and was wrenched back to strike again. The Seljuks fought like madmen and like wild beasts while they could; but in Gilbert's eyes there was the awful light of victory, and his arm tired not, while rank upon rank the enemy went down, and the Christians who still lived began to smite them from behind. Then the pass was filled fuller than before, and a small red river leaped down from stone to stone, following the channel to the broad valley beyond, where nearly fifty thousand powerless men watched it flowing among them. But they listened, too, and the Seljuk yell grew fainter, because few were left, and there were few to cry out. The shout of triumphant Christian men came ringing down the evening air instead, and fear gave way to rejoicing and gladness; for though there were many dead in the upper valley, and many strong knights and men-at-arms, young and old, great and small, lay under the dead Seljuks who had killed them, yet the great body of the army was alive, the strength of the enemy was broken, and Gilbert had saved the King. In truth, he had found him in an evil case, with his back against the oak tree, and his knights dead around him; three of the last Seljuks who lived were still hacking at him with their crooked swords, while he sang his "De profundis," for his soul's good, and used his best fence for his body's safety, hewing away like a strong man and brave, as he was, notwithstanding his faults; and he was sore spent. "Sir," he said, taking Gilbert's hand, "ask what you will of me, and if it be no sin, you shall have it, for you have saved the army of the Cross." But the Englishman smiled and would ask nothing, for he had honour enough that day. Yet he knew not that on the cliff whence he had descended to the valley, there sat two women who dearly loved him, watching him from first to last,--the Queen and Beatrix. There they sat, unconsciously clasping hand in hand, and their eyes were wide with fear for him, and yet bright with pride of him as they saw the splendour of his deeds, how his fair streaming hair went ever forward through the Seljuk ranks, and how his track was deep and red for others to follow, till it seemed not possible that one man could slay so many and be unhurt, and a sort of awe came over them, as if he were a being beyond nature. Neither spoke, nor did either hand loosen on the other; but when it was done, and they saw him dismount, and stand a little apart from other men, resting on his sword, with the glory of the sunset in his face as he looked down the valley, then Beatrix turned to the Queen, and the tears of joy sprang to her eyes as she buried her girl's face in Eleanor's bosom, and she was glad of the kind arms that held her, seeming to understand all her joy. But the Queen's eyes were dry, her face was white, and her beautiful coral lips were parched as in a fever. CHAPTER XXIII In this way it came about that Gilbert, of whom the historians say that nothing else is known, was placed in command of the whole army of Crusaders, to lead them through the enemy's country down into Syria; and so he did, well and bravely. After the great battle in the valley there was much fighting still to be done, day by day; for the Seljuks retreated foot by foot, filling the mountains and sweeping down like storm-clouds, to disappear as quickly, leaving blood behind them. But Gilbert led the van, and held the whole pilgrimage together, commanding where the camp should be each night, and ordering the march. Men wondered at his wisdom, and at his strength to endure hardship; for all were very tired, and provision was scarce, and the Greek hill people sold at a tenfold value the little they had to sell, so that the soldiers dined not every day, and a dish of boiled goat's flesh was a feast. So the pilgrimage went on in fighting and suffering, and as time passed the people were the more in earnest with themselves and with one another, looking forward to the promised forgiveness of sins when they should have accomplished their vows in the holy places. They came down at last from the mountains to the sea, to a place called Attalia. Thence Gilbert would have led them still by land into Syria; but the King was weary, and the Queen also had seen the great mistake she had made in bringing her ladies into the pilgrimage; for few had the strength of the hardy Anne of Auch, or the spirit of Beatrix, to endure without murmuring, like men, and like very brave men. The ladies' train had become a company of complainers, murmuring against everything, longing for the good things of France, and often crying out bitterly, even with tears, that they had been brought out to waste their youth and freshness, or even their lives, in a wilderness. Therefore Eleanor consented at last to the King's desire, which was to take ship from Attalia to Saint Simeon's Harbour, which is close to Antioch. In Antioch also reigned her uncle, Count Raymond, a man of her own blood, and thinking as she thought; him she now desired to see and consult with, because he knew the world, and was an honourable man, and of good counsel. Yet there was danger there, too, for the King had once believed that this Count Raymond loved her, when he had been at the court, and the King was ever very jealous and sour. He would have brought the whole army to Antioch with him, but a great outcry arose; for, whereas all the great barons and knights were for the safer journey, the poorer sort of pilgrims feared the sea more than they feared the Seljuks, and they would not take ship. So at last the King let them go, and they, not knowing whither they went, boasted that they should reach Antioch first. He gave them money and certain guides whom he trusted. Then Gilbert, seeing that there was a choice of two ways, sat down at night and debated what he should do. He desired to follow Beatrix with the ships, for he had not seen Sir Arnold de Curboil since Christmas Eve, and he believed that he had gone back to Ephesus to sail for Syria, so that at the present time he could not suddenly surprise his daughter and carry her away, to force her to a marriage of which heirs might be born to his great possessions in England. Gilbert knew also that his command over the whole army was ended, that the enemy's country was now passed, and that all were to join forces with Count Raymond to win back Edessa in the spring. He should therefore have more time and leisure to protect Beatrix if needful; and this was a strong thing to move him, for he had seen her many times of late, and he loved her with all his heart. But on the other hand, when he saw how many thousands of the poorer people, who had taken the Cross in simple faith that God would provide for the journey, were about to go up into the passes again, to fight their own way through, without King or Queen or army, his charity bade him stay with them and lead them, as he only could, to live or die with them, rather than to go safely by water. So it was hard to decide which he should do, and he would not see Beatrix, lest she should persuade him; nor would he let himself think too much of the people, nor mix with them, for they knew him, and honoured him greatly, and would have carried him on their shoulders to make him their leader if he would. Therefore his debating with himself came to nothing, and he slept ill. In the early morning, as he was walking by the seashore, he met the Lady Anne of Auch, with two women behind her, coming back from the mass, and they stood and talked together. As he looked into her face he saw friendship there, and suddenly, though he was often slow of impulse, he began to tell her his trouble, walking beside her. "Sir Gilbert," she said quietly, "I loved a good man, who was my husband, and he loved me; but he was killed, and they brought him home to me dead. I tell you, Sir Gilbert, that the true love of man and woman is the greatest and best thing in all the world; but when two love one another, if their love be not the greatest thing save honour, then it is not true, nor worthy to be reckoned in account. Think well whether you love this lady truly, as I mean, or not, and if you do, there can be no more doubt." "Lady Anne," said Gilbert, when he had thought a little while, "you are a very honourable woman, and your counsel is good." After they had talked, they parted, and Gilbert went back to his lodging, being determined to go to Antioch by sea with the King and Queen; but still he was sorry for the poor pilgrims who were to be left behind to fight a way through for themselves. The great ships that had been hired for the voyage were heavy and unwieldy vessels to see, but yet swift through the water, whether the vast lateen sails drew full with a fair wind or were close-reefed in a gale, till they seemed mere jibs bent to the long yards, or even when in a flat calm the vessels were sent along by a hundred sweeps, fifty on each side; and they were partly Greek galleys and partly they were of Amalfi, whose citizens had all the commerce of the East, and their own quarter in every town and harbour, from the Piraeus round by Constantinople and all Asia Minor and Egypt, as far as Tunis itself. A clear northwest wind began to blow on the very day fixed for departure, and the big galleys swept out one by one, close upon each other, till they were outside and hoisted their sails, the sea being very smooth under the land; and when they had run out two or three miles, with the wind aft, they wore ship, one after another, coming to a little, to get their sheets in, and then holding off to jibe the great sails for the port tack, with much creaking of yards and flapping of canvas. Then, as they ran free along the coast to the eastward, the wind quartering, they got out great booms to windward, guyed fore and aft, and down to the forward beaching-hooks at the water's edge, at the first streak under the wales; and they set light sails, hauling the tacks well out and making the sheet fast after the southern fashion, and then swaying away at the halyards, till the white canvas was up to the mast-head, bellying full, and as steady as the upper half of a half-moon. Before many days they came to Saint Simeon's Harbour, which was the port of Antioch, and saw the mighty walls and towers on the heights a dozen miles inshore; and when Gilbert looked from the deck of his ship, he was glad that the army was not to besiege that great and strong fortress, since it belonged to Count Raymond, the Queen's uncle. But if he had known what things were to happen to him there, rather than have ridden up to the walled city he would have gone barefoot to Jerusalem, to fulfil his vow as he might. Count Raymond, with his broad shoulders and bronzed face and dark hair just turning gray at the temples, came down to meet the army at the shore; and first he embraced the King, according to custom, and then he kissed the Queen, his niece, not once, but four or five times, and she kissed him, for they were very glad to see each other; but it is not true, as some have said in their chronicles, that there were thoughts of love between them. Queen Eleanor had many bitter enemies, and her sins were almost as many as her good deeds, but love for Count Raymond was not among them. Nevertheless, King Louis was very jealous as soon as he saw the two embracing, for he had always believed that there was more than he knew. But he said nothing, for he feared his Queen. So there were great rejoicings in Antioch, when all the ladies and the barons and other nobles were installed there to keep Easter together; and though they had still some days of fasting during Holy Week, they were so glad to be in the great city, and so much lightened of trouble by having left the poorer pilgrims to shift for themselves, that it would have been easy for them to live on bread and water, instead of eating the dainty dishes of good fish, and the imitations of eggs made with flour and saffron and blanched almonds, and the delicate sweetmeats, and all the many good things which Count Raymond's fifty cooks knew how to prepare for Lent. For the Count lived luxuriously, though he was a good fighter at need. Most of all, he was a keen man, with few scruples, and the Queen began to ask him to help her in getting her marriage annulled, because she could no longer bear to be the wife of a spoon-faced monk, as she called the King; whereat Count Raymond laughed. Then he thought awhile and bent his broad brows; but soon his face cleared, for he had found a remedy. The King, he said, was surely Eleanor's cousin and within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity, so that the marriage was null and void; and the Pope would be obliged against his will to adhere to the rule of the Church and pronounce it so. They were cousins in the seventh degree, he said, because the King was descended from Eleanor's great-great-great-great-grandfather, William Towhead, Duke of Guienne, whose daughter, Adelaide of Poitiers, married Hugh Capet, King of France; and the seventh degree of consanguinity was still prohibited, and no dispensation had been given, nor even asked for. At first the Queen laughed, but presently she sent for the Bishop of Metz, and asked him; and he said that Count Raymond spoke truly, but that he would have nothing to do with the matter, since it had never been the intention of the Church that her rules should be misused. Yet it is said that he was afterwards of the Council which declared that there had been no marriage. So, being sure, the Queen went to the King and told him to his face that she had meant to marry a king, and not a monk as he was, and that she had now found out that her marriage was no marriage, wherefore he was living in mortal sin; and if he would save his soul he must repudiate her as soon as they should have returned to France. At this the King was overcome with grief and wept bitterly, not because he was to be delivered from the woman of Belial, as he had prayed, but because he had unwittingly lived in such great sin so many years. She laughed and went away, leaving him weeping. From that time she spent her days and her evenings in consultation with Count Raymond, and they were continually closeted together in her apartment, which was in one of the western towers of the palace and looked out over the city walls towards the sea. It was early spring, and the air smelt of Syrian flowers and was tender to breathe. Although the King was now sure that Eleanor was not his wife, he continued to be very jealous of her, because he had once loved her in his dull fashion, and she was very beautiful. Therefore, when he was not praying, he was watching and spying, to see whether she were alone with Count Raymond. Certain writers have spoken of the great Saladin at this time, saying that she met him secretly, for the deliverance of her kinsman Sandebeuil de Sanzay, who had been taken prisoner, and that she loved Saladin for his generosity, and that the King was jealous of him; which things are lies, because Saladin was at that time but seven years old. Daily, as he watched, the King grew very sure that Raymond loved Eleanor, and he swore by his hope of salvation that such things should not be. In this way the feast of Easter passed, and there were great rejoicings, and feastings, and all manner of delight. Also during this time Gilbert saw Beatrix freely, so that their love grew more and more; but he seldom spoke with the Queen, and then briefly. Now Eleanor lived in the western tower, and only one staircase led up to the vestibule of her apartments, by which way Count Raymond came, and the great nobles when she summoned them, and the guards also. But beyond her inner chamber there was a door opening into the long wing of the palace where all her ladies were lodged, and by that door she went to them and they came to her. Often the Lady Anne came in, and Beatrix, and some of the others who were more especially her familiars, and they found the Queen and Count Raymond sitting in chairs, and talking without constraint, and sometimes playing at chess by the open window which looked out on the west balcony. They thought no evil, for they knew that he had become her counsellor in the matter of the repudiation; and Beatrix cared not, for she knew well that the Queen loved Gilbert, and she never saw him there. On an evening in the week after Easter the King determined that he would see the Queen himself and tell her his mind. He therefore took two nobles for an escort, with torchbearers and a few guards; and when he had descended into the main court, he walked across to the west side and went up into Eleanor's tower; for he would not go through the ladies' wing, lest his eyes should see some fair and noble maiden, or some young dame of great beauty, whereby his pious thoughts might be disturbed ever so little. Having come to the vestibule, he demanded admittance to the Queen's chamber; and the young Lord of Sanzay, who was in waiting, begged him to wait while he himself inquired if the Queen were at leisure. Then the King was angry, and said that he waited for no one, and he went forward to go in. But Sanzay stood before the door and bade the Gascon guards form in rank and keep it till he should come back. The King saw that he had small chance of forcing a way, and he stood still, repeating some prayers the while, lest he should draw his sword and fight, out of sheer anger. Then Sanzay came back. "My lord King," he said in a clear voice, "her Grace bids me say that she has no leisure now, and that when she has need of a monk she will send for him." At the great insult, swords were out as soon as the words, and the broken reflections of steel flashed red under the high lamps and in the torchlight; for the King drew to strike down Sanzay where he stood, and his nobles and guards drew with him, while the Gascons were as quick as they. But Sanzay would not draw his sword, for he had once saved the King's life in battle, and he thought it not knightly. Then some blows were exchanged and blood was shed; but presently, being at a disadvantage, the King stepped back and lowered his point. "Sirs," he said, "it is not seemly that we of the Cross should kill one another. Let us go." When Sanzay heard this, he called his guards back, and the King went away discomfited. In the courtyard he turned aside and sat down upon a great stone seat. "Fetch me Sir Gilbert Warde," he said, "and let him come quickly." He waited silently till the knight came and stood before him in his surcoat and mantle, with only his dagger in his belt; and the King bade all his attendants go away to a distance, leaving a torch stuck in the ring in the wall. He desired of Gilbert that he should take a force of trusted men who would obey him, and go up the west tower to bring the Queen out a prisoner; for he would not stay in Antioch another night, nor leave her behind, and he meant to ride down to the harbour and take ship for Ptolemais, leaving the army to follow him on the morrow. But for a space Gilbert answered nothing. At first it seemed to him impossible to do such a deed, and but for courtesy he would have turned on his heel and left the King sitting there. But as he stood thinking, it seemed to him that he had better seem to obey, and go and warn the Queen of her danger. [Illustration: "FOR A SPACE GILBERT ANSWERED NOTHING"] "My lord," he answered at last, "I will go." Though he said not what he would do, the King was satisfied, and rose and went toward his own apartments, to order his departure. Then Gilbert went and sought out ten knights whom he knew, and each of them called ten of their men-at-arms, and they took their swords with them, and torches; but Gilbert had only his dagger, for those he had chosen were all of them Queen's men and would have died for her. So they went together up the broad steps of the tower, and the Gascons heard the hundred footfalls in fear and much trembling, supposing that the King had come back with a great force to slay them and go in. Then Sanzay drew his sword and stood at the head of the stairs, bidding his men keep the narrow way till they should all be dead for the Queen's sake. They were Gascons, and were ready to die, but they held their breath as they listened to the steady tramping on the stone steps below. In the torchlight they saw Gilbert's face, and the faces of Queen's men, and that there were no swords out; nevertheless, they kept theirs drawn and stood in the doorway, and on the landing Gilbert stood still, for they did not make way for him. "Sir Gilbert," said Sanzay, "I am here to keep the Queen's door, and though we be friends, I shall not let you pass while I live, if you mean her any violence." "Sir," answered Gilbert, "I come unarmed, as you see, and by no means to fight with you. I pray you, sir, go in and tell the Queen that I am without, and have her men with me, and would speak with her for her safety." Then Sanzay bade his men stand back, and the knights and men-at-arms crowded the vestibule, while he went in; and immediately he came out again, with a clear face. "The Queen is alone, and bids the Guide of Aquitaine pass," he said. All stood aside, and he, taller than they, and grave and keen of face, went in; and the door was closed behind him, and within that there was a heavy Eastern curtain, so that no voices could be heard from one side to the other. Eleanor sat under the warm lamplight, near the open window, for the night was warm. Her head was uncovered, her russet-golden hair fell in great waves upon her shoulders and to the ground behind her chair, and she wore no mantle, but only a close-fitting gown of cream-white silk with deep embroideries of silver and pearls. She was very beautiful, but very pale, and her eyes were veiled. Gilbert came and stood before her, but she did not hold out her hand, as he had expected. "Why have you come to me?" she asked after a time, looking out at the balcony, and not at him. "The King, Madam, has bidden me take you a prisoner to him, in order that he may carry you away by sea to Ptolemais and to Jerusalem." While he was speaking, she slowly turned her face to him, and stared at his coldly. "And you are come to do as you are bidden, getting admittance to me stealthily, with men of my own who have betrayed me?" Gilbert turned white, and then he smiled as he answered her. "No. I am come to warn your Grace and to defend you against all violence, with my life." Eleanor's face changed and softened, and again she looked out at the balcony. "Why should you defend me?" she asked sadly, after a pause. "What am I to you, that you should fight for me? I sent you out to die--why should you wish me to be safe?" "You have been the best friend to me, and the kindest, that ever woman was to man." "A friend? No. I was never your friend. I sent you out to death, because I loved you, and trusted that I might see you never again, and that you might die honourably for the Cross and your vows. Instead, you won glory, and saved us all--all but me! You owe me no thanks for such friendship." She looked at him long, and he was silent. "Oh, what a man you are!" she cried suddenly. "What a man!" He blushed like a girl at the praise, for her soul was in the words, and her great love for him, the only thing in all her life that had ever been above herself. "What a man you are!" she said again, more softly. "Eleanor of Aquitaine, the Queen, the fairest woman in the world, would give you her soul and her body and the hope of her life to come--and you are faithful to a poor girl whom you loved when you were a boy! A hundred thousand brave men stand by to see me die, and you alone take death by the throat and strangle him off, as you would strangle a bloodhound, with those hands of yours! I send you out--oh, how selfishly!--that you may at least die bravely for your vow and leave me at sad peace with your memory, and you fight through a hell of foes and save the King and me and all, and come back to me in glory--my Guide of Aquitaine!" She had risen and stood before him, her face dead white with passion, and her eyes deep-fired by a love that was beyond any telling. And though she would not move, her arms went out toward him. "How can any woman help loving you!" she cried passionately. She sank into her chair again, and covered her face with her hands. He stood still a moment, and then came and knelt on one knee beside her, resting his hand upon the carved arm of her chair. "I cannot love you, but in so far as I may be faithful to another I give you my whole life," he said very gently. As he spoke the last words, the curtain of the inner apartments was softly raised, and Beatrix stood there; for she had thought that the Queen was alone. But she heard not the beginning of the speech, and she grew quite cold, and could not speak nor go away. Eleanor's hands left her face and fell together upon Gilbert's right. "I have not mine to give," she answered in a low voice. "It is yours already--and I would that you were not English, that I might be your sovereign and make you great among men--or that I were England's Queen--and that may come to pass, and you shall see what I will do for love of you--I would marry that boy of the Plantagenets, if it could serve you!" "Madam," said Gilbert, "think of your own present safety--the King is very angry--" "Did I think of your safety when I sent you out to lead us? Now if you are here, am I not safe? Gilbert--" She let her voice caress his name, and her lips lingered with it, and she laid her hands upon his shoulders. As he knelt beside her--she bent to his face. "Best and bravest living man"--it was a whisper now--"love of my life--heart of my heart--this last time--this only once--and then good-by." She kissed him on the forehead, and leapt from her seat in horror, for there was another voice in the room, with a hurt cry. "Oh, Gilbert! Gilbert!" Beatrix was reeling on her feet, and caught the curtain, lest she fall, and her face of agony was still turned toward the two, as they stood together. Gilbert sprang forward, when he understood, and caught the girl in his arms and brought her to the light, trembling like a falling leaf. Then she started in his arms and struggled wildly to be free, and twisted her neck lest he should kiss her; but he held her fast. "Beatrix! You do not understand--you did not hear!" He tried to make her listen to him. "I heard!" she cried, still struggling. "I saw! I know! Let me go--oh, for God's sake, let me go!" Gilbert's arms relaxed, and she sprang back from him two paces, and faced the Queen. "You have won!" she cried, in a breaking voice. "You have him body and soul, as you swore you would! But do not say that I have not understood!" "I have given him to you, soul and body," answered Eleanor, sadly. "Might I not even bid him good-by, as a friend might?" "You are false--falser each than the other," answered Beatrix, in white anger. "You have played with me, tricked me, made me your toy--" "Did you hear this man say that he did not love me, before I bade him good-by?" asked Eleanor, gravely, almost sternly. "He has said it to me, but not to you, never to you--never to the woman he loves!" "I never loved the Queen," said Gilbert. "On my soul--on the Holy Cross--" "Never loved her? And you saved her life before mine--" "And you said that I did well--" "It was all a lie--a cruel lie--" The girl's voice almost broke, but she choked down the terrible tears, and got words again. "It would have been braver to have told me long ago--I should not have died then, for I loved you less." Eleanor came a step nearer and spoke very quietly and kindly. "You are wrong," she said. "Sir Gilbert is sent by the King to take me as a prisoner, that I may be carried away to Jerusalem this very night. Come, you shall hear the voices of the soldiers who are waiting for me." She led Beatrix to the door and lifted the curtain, so that through the wooden panels the girl could hear the talking of many voices, and the clank of steel. Then Eleanor brought her back. "But he would not take me," she said, "and he warned me of my danger." "No wonder--he loves you!" "He does not love me, though I love him, and he has said so to-night. And I know that he loves you and is faithful to you--" Beatrix laughed wildly. "Faithful! He? There is no faith in his greatest oath, nor in his smallest word!" "You are mad, child; he never lied in all his life to me or you--he could not lie." "Then he has deceived you, too--Queen, Duchess; you are only a woman, after all, and he has made sport of you, as he has of me!" Again she laughed, half furiously. "If he has deceived me he has indeed deceived you," answered Eleanor, "for he has told me very plainly that he loves you. And now I will not stand between you and him, even in the mistake you made. I love him, yes. I have loved him enough to give him up, because he loves you. I love him so well that I will not take his warning and save myself from the King's anger, and I know not what he and his monks will do to me. Good-by, Sir Gilbert Warde--Beatrix, good-by." "This is some comedy," answered the girl, exasperated. "No--by the living truth, it is no comedy," answered the Queen. She looked once more into Gilbert's face, and then turned away, stately and sad. With one movement she drew aside the great curtain, and with the next she opened wide the door, and the loud clamour of the knights and men-at-arms came in like a wave. Then it ceased suddenly, as Eleanor spoke to them in clear tones. "I am the King's prisoner. Take me to him!" There was silence for a moment, and then the Gascons who had fought with the King and his men cried out fiercely. "We will not let you go! We will not let our Duchess go!" They feared some evil for her, and were loyal men to her, hating the King. But Eleanor raised her hand to motion them back, for their faces were fierce, and their hands were on their swords. "Make way for me, if you will not take me to him," she said proudly. Then Sanzay, her kinsman, stepped before the rest, and spoke. "Madam," he said, "the Duchess of Gascony cannot be prisoner to the King of France, while there are Gascons. If your Grace will go to the King, we will go also, and we shall see who is to be a prisoner." At this there was a great shout that rang up to the vault of the lofty vestibule, and down the stone steps and out into the courtyard. Eleanor smiled serenely, for she knew her men. "Go with me, then," she said, "and see that no bodily harm comes to me. But in this matter I shall do the King's will." In the room behind, the words echoed clearly, and Beatrix turned to Gilbert. "You see," she said, "it is but a play that you have thought of between you, and nothing more." "Can you not believe us?" he asked reproachfully. "I shall believe you when I know that you love me," she answered, and turned away, towards the door of the inner apartments. Gilbert followed her. "Beatrix!" he cried. "Beatrix! Hear me!" She turned once more, with a face like stone. "I have heard you, I have heard her, and I do not believe you," she answered. Without another word she left him and went out. He stood looking after her for a moment, while his calm face darkened slowly; and his anger was slow and lasting, as the heating of a furnace for the smelting. He stooped and picked up his cap, which had fallen to the floor, and then he, too, followed the Queen, through the vestibule and stairs and courtyard, to the King's presence. CHAPTER XXIV That night they left hastily and went down to the sea with torches; but it was dawn when they were on board one of the great ships, and the hawsers were cast off, and the crew began to heave up the anchor. In his anger, Gilbert had called his men, and had gone on board also, and many hours passed before he realized what he had done. Then he began to torment himself. His angry manhood told him that he was just and that he should not bear a girl's unbelief when he was manifestly in the right; and his love answered that he had left Beatrix without protection and perhaps at the mercy of her father, since he might come by sea at any moment and claim her from Count Raymond, who would give her up without opposition. He wondered also why Sir Arnold had not appeared, and whether, having sailed from Ephesus, he had been shipwrecked. But his thoughts soon turned back to his work, and he sat on the low rail by the main-rigging, looking down at the blue water as the ship ran smoothly along. What was there in Beatrix to hold him, after all? It was nothing but a boyish memory, revived by a mistaken idea of faith. But suddenly he felt within him the aching hollow and the grinding hunger of heart that the loved woman leaves behind her, and he knew well that his anger was playing a comedy with him, as Beatrix had accused him and the Queen of playing a play in the past night. It was hard that she should not have believed him; and yet when one has seen and heard, it is harder still to believe against sight and hearing. If she had loved him, he said to himself, she could not have doubted him. He would never have doubted her, no matter what he might have seen her do. But at this he began to realize and understand; for in order to persuade himself, he pictured her sitting as the Queen had sat, and a man bending over her and kissing her and calling her the love of his life and heart, and he felt another sort of anger rising fiercely in him, because the imagined sight was vivid and bad to see. Thereupon he grew calmer, seeing that she was not wholly wrong, and he began to curse his evil fate and to wish that he had not followed the Queen, but had stayed behind at Antioch. But it was too late now, for Antioch was gone in the purple distance, and it was towards evening. The day dawned again, and darkened, and days after that, while he perpetually blamed himself more and more and began to find a fault in every doing of his life, and the gloom of the northern temper settled upon him and oppressed him heavily, so that his companions wondered what had happened to him. During all that time the Queen never showed herself, but remained in her cabin with the Lady Anne, who had come with her and would not be denied. For Eleanor hated to see the King, and she was afraid to see Gilbert, whom she knew to be in the ship's company, and she was very sad, also, and cared not for the daylight nor for men's voices. It made it worse that she had tried to sacrifice herself for the woman Gilbert loved, since it had been in vain, and she had not been believed, and since he had after all come with her, she knew not why. As for the King, he sat all day long on the quarter-deck under an awning, telling beads, and praying fervently that the presence of the woman of Belial might not distract his thoughts when he should at last come to the holy places; for before anything else he considered his own soul as of great importance. So they came to Ptolemais, which some called Acre, and they rode a weary way to Jerusalem, till the young King Baldwin of Jerusalem, the third of that name, came out to meet them with a very rich train. Then Gilbert lagged behind, for he had no heart in any rejoicing or feasting, seeing that he should not have been there at all, and had left Beatrix in anger. But Eleanor had come out of the ship to the shore, more beautiful than ever, and serenely scornful of the King, since he had not even dared to use the power she had put into his hands, in order to tell her his mind, and speak out his reproaches; and he was more ridiculous than ever in her eyes. From that time she paid no more attention to him than if he had not existed, for she despised a man who would not use the power he had. As for Gilbert, though he was in such melancholy mood, when he saw the walls and towers of Jerusalem at last, a hope of peace sprang up in him, and a certainty of satisfaction not like anything which he had known before; and it seemed to him that if he could but be alone in the holy places he should find rest for his soul. Therefore he rode in the rear of the train, though he was a man of consequence, and many young knights and squires looked up to him and kept him company, so that he could not escape altogether to an outward solitude. His eyes looked up before him, and he saw the holiest city in the world, like a vision against the pale sky, as the day sank; and his whole being went out to be there, floating before him in a prayer learnt long ago. Therein, as when he had been a child in his English home, he heard the voice of a guardian angel praying with him--praying for the good against the evil, for the light against the darkness, for the clean against the unclean, for the good self against the bad; and his heart made echoes in heaven. He heard not the sounds that came back from the royal train, the high talking and glad laughter; for that would have jarred on him and set his teeth on edge, and he had shut the doors of the body upon himself to be alone within. It mattered not that young Baldwin was riding by the Queen, already half in love, and making soft speeches within sight of the hill whereon Christ died, nor that he took a boy's mischievous pleasure in interrupting the King's droning litany, recited in verse and response with the priest at his side; nor that some of the knights were chattering of what lodging they should find, and the young squires, in undertones, of black-eyed Jewish girls, and the grooms of Syrian wine. They were as nothing, all these, as nothing but the shadows of the world cast by its own ancient evil at the foot of the Cross, and he only was real and alive, and the Cross only was true and high in the pure light. And in this he was not quite dreaming, for the train that rode up from Acre was not all of those true Crusaders of whom many had been with the army, both rich and poor, but of whom the rich had stayed behind in Antioch and the poor had perished miserably by the swords of the Seljuks or by the wiles of the Greeks, when they had tried to come on by land; and many of them had been sold into slavery, and not one reached Jerusalem alive, out of so many thousands. Of the forty or fifty who were first in sight of the City, scarcely three were in heartfelt earnest, and they were the Lady Anne of Auch, and Gilbert Warde, and the King himself. But with the King all faith took a material shape, which was his own, and the buying of his own salvation had turned his soul into a place of spiritual usury. The Lady Anne was calm and silent, and when young Baldwin spoke to her she hardly heard him, and answered in few words, little to the point. She had trusted that she might never see Jerusalem, for she had hoped to die of wound or sickness by the way, and so end in heaven, with him she had lost, the pilgrimage begun on earth. For she was a most faithful woman, and of the most faithful there is often least to tell, because they have but one thought, one hope, one prayer. And seeing that she had come through alive, she neither rejoiced nor complained, knowing that there was more to bear before the end, and trusting to bear it all bravely for the dear sake of her dead love. It may be, also, that she was the most earnest of all those who had taken the Cross, because all earthly things that had made her life happy had been taken from her. Yet of all men, Gilbert Warde had fought best and most, and in so far as bodily peril was counted, none had lived through so much as he; for many of his companions had been killed beside him, and others had taken their place, and even his man Dunstan had been wounded twice, and little Alric once, and many horses had been killed under him, but he himself was untouched, even after the great battle in the valley; and there were honours for him whenever he was seen. In this, too, he was high-hearted and thoughtless of himself, that when he saw the Holy City before him, he forgot the many risks of life and limb, and the hunger and cold and weariness through which he had passed, and forgot that he had won reward well and fairly, thinking only that the peace he felt came as a gift from Heaven. That evening, when there was a feast in Baldwin's palace, the Lady Anne was not there; and when the King of France called for the Guide of Aquitaine to present him to the King of Jerusalem, he was not in the hall nor within the walls; and by and by the Queen herself rose and went out, leaving the two Kings at table. For Gilbert had gone fasting to the Holy Sepulchre, with Dunstan bearing his shield, and with a man to lead them. Then he went into the vast church which the crusaders had built to enclose all the sacred ground, and little lights broke the darkness here and there, without dispelling it, but the poor Christian who led Gilbert had a taper in his hand. The knight came first to the deep-red stone whereon Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea anointed the body of the Lord for burial, and there kneeling down, he set his shield and sword before him and prayed that he might yet use them well. Then the man took him to the Golgotha, and he laid down his arms before him and stood trembling, as if he were afraid, and the drops of sweat stood out upon his forehead, and his low voice shook like a little child's when he prayed in the place where God died for man. Afterwards he knelt and touched the stones with his face, and spread out his arms crosswise, not knowing what he did. But when he had lain thus some time he rose and took up his shield and sword, and the man led him farther through the darkness to other places. So at last they brought him to the Tomb, and he sent away the man who had guided him, and bade Dunstan go back also; but he would not. "I also have fought for the Cross, though I be but a churl," said the dark-faced man. "You are no churl," answered Gilbert, gravely. "Kneel beside me and watch." "I will watch with you," said Dunstan, and he took his own sword and laid it next to Gilbert's. But he knelt one step behind his master, on his left side. More than forty burning lamps hung above the stone of the Tomb, and around the stone itself stood a grating of well-wrought iron having a wicket with a lock of pure gold. Then Gilbert raised his eyes, and looking through the iron fence, he saw that on the other side some one was kneeling also, and it was the Lady Anne of Auch, robed all in black, with a black hood half thrown back; but her face was white, with dark shadows, and her two white hands clasped two of the iron stanchions, while her sad eyes looked upwards fixedly, seeing a vision, and not seeing men. Gilbert was glad that she was there. So they knelt an hour, and another hour, and no sound broke the stillness, nor did they feel any weariness at all, for their hearts were lifted up, and for a time the world fell away from them. Then a soft sound of footsteps was in the church, ceasing at some distance from the Tomb, which was not then shut off within walls of its own. But none of the three turned to see who was there, and there was silence again. Eleanor had come alone to the Sepulchre, and stood gazing at the three, not willing to come nearer. As she looked, her sins rose in her eyes and passed before her, many and great, and where her good deeds were hidden in her soul there was darkness, and she despaired of forgiveness, for she knew her own pride, that it could never be broken in her. She looked on that most faithful woman, and on that maiden knight whom she so dearly loved, sinning daily in her heart for him, and yet for his sake fighting her loving thoughts; and she would not have dared to go forward and kneel beside the pure in heart, in the holy light. All alone she drew back, and when she was so far that they could not have seen her, had they looked, she knelt down by a pillar, and drew her dark veil over her face, folding her hands in the hope of forgiveness and peace, and in great loneliness. Some comfort she found in this, that for the great love of her life, the like of which she had not known nor was to know again, though she had wished evil and dreamed of sweetest sins, she had done a little good at the last, and that the man who knelt there praying had grown stronger and greater and of higher honour by her means. Yet the comfort was not of much worth in her loneliness, since she had given him to another, and none could take his place. Then she said prayers she knew, but they had no meaning, and she gazed from beneath her veil at the place where the Lord had lain; but she felt nothing, and her heart was as stone, believing what she saw, but finding no light of faith for her in the divine beyond. At last she rose softly, as she had knelt, and leaning against the pillar, she looked long at the man she loved, and at the shield with the cross of Aquitaine, and, in it, at the spot she had once so fervently kissed. Her hand went to her heart, where it hurt her, and with the hurt came the great pure longing that, come what might to herself, all might be well with him; and her lips moved silently, while her eyes would have given him the world and its glory. "God, let me perish, but keep him what he is!" Shall any one say that such true prayers are not heard, because they are spoken by lips that have sinned? If not, God is not good, nor did Christ die to save men. The daughter of princes, the wife of two kings, as she was to be, and the mother of two kings, and of many more in line after them, she drew down her veil that none might see her face under the dim lights, and she went out thence, very lonely and sad, into the streets of Jerusalem. At midnight came a priest of the church to trim the lights at the tomb; yet the three did not move, and he prayed awhile and went away. But when the watchmen cried the dawning, and their voices came faintly in by the doorway, floating through the dark church, Gilbert rose to his feet, and Dunstan with him, and they took their arms with them, and went away, leaving the Lady Anne the last of them all, her white hands still clasping the iron bars, her sad black eyes still turned to heaven. Faint streaks were in the eastern sky, but it was still almost dark as the two men turned to the left to follow the way by which they had come. Three steps from the door, Dunstan stumbled against something neither hard nor soft, and in many fights he had learned what that thing was. "There is a dead man here," he said, and Gilbert had stopped also. They stooped down, trying to see, and Dunstan felt along the body, touching the mantle, till he found something sharp, which was the point of a dagger out of its sheath. "He is a knight," said Dunstan, "for he wears his surcoat and sword-belt under his mantle." But Gilbert was gazing into the face, trying to see, while the dust under the head grew slowly grey in the dawn, and the waxen features seemed to rise up out of the earth before him. But then he started, for, as he looked down, his own eyes were but a hand-breadth from an arrow-head that stuck straight up out of the dead forehead, and the broken shaft with its feathers darkly soiled lay half under the body. Dunstan also looked, and a low sound of gladness came from his fierce lips. "It is Arnold de Curboil!" exclaimed Gilbert, in measureless surprise. "And this is Alric's arrow," answered Dunstan, looking at the point, and then handling the piece of the broken shaft. "This is the arrow that was sticking in your cap on that day when we fought for sport in Tuscany, and Alric picked it up and kept it. And often in battle he had but that one left, and would not shoot, saying that it was only to be shot to save his master's life. So now it has done its work, for though the knight was shot from behind, he has his dagger in his dead hand under his cloak, and he must have followed you to the door of the church to kill you in the dark within. Well done, little Alric!" Then Dunstan spat in the face of the dead man and cursed him; but Gilbert took his man by the collar and pulled him aside roughly. "It is unmanly to insult the dead," he said, in disgust. But Dunstan laughed savagely. "Why?" he asked. "He was only my father!" Gilbert's hand relaxed and fell to his side, then he lifted it again and laid it gently on Dunstan's shoulder. "Poor Dunstan!" he said. But Dunstan smiled bitterly and said nothing, for he thought himself poor indeed, since if the dead man had given him a tenth of his due, he should have had land enough for a knight. "We cannot leave him here," said Gilbert, at last. "Why not? There are dogs." Dunstan took up his master's shield and without more waiting turned his back on his father's body. But Gilbert stood where he was, and gazed down into the face of the man who had done him so much harm; and he remembered Faringdon and the swift stroke that had killed his father, and Stortford woods, where he himself had lain for dead. He still saw in dreams how Curboil snatched his dagger left-handed from its sheath, and now, by strong association, he wished to see whether it were still the same one, a masterpiece of Eastern art, and he stooped down in the dawn to pull back the cloak and take the weapon. It was the same, fair and keen, with the chiselled hilt. He stuck it into his own belt, for a memory, for it had once been sheathed in his own side; then he drew the cloak over the dead face and went his way, just as the hushed city began to stir, following Dunstan to his lodging, musing on the strange chances of his life, and glad that, since his enemy was to die, it had not been his ill chance to soil the blade consecrated to the Cross with blood so vile, and to slay with his own hand the father of the woman he loved. Now also, as he thought calmly, he guessed that Beatrix must be in Jerusalem, and that Curboil, having taken her from Antioch, and meaning to kill his enemy before he sailed back to England, had brought his daughter with him, fearing lest she should escape him again and find refuge against him. He found little Alric sitting on the low doorstep of the house where he lodged, his stolid Saxon face pink and white in the fresh dawn, and his thick hands hanging idly over his knees, while the round blue eyes stared at the street. He got up when Gilbert came near, and pulled off his woollen cap. "Well done, Alric," said Gilbert. "That is the second time you have saved my life." "It was a good arrow," answered Alric, thoughtfully. "I carried it two years and made it very sharp. It is a pity the man broke the shaft with his head when he fell, and I would have cut off the steel point to use it again, but I heard footsteps and ran away, lest I should be taken for a thief." "It was well shot," said Gilbert, and he went in. CHAPTER XXV It had been early dawn when they had found Sir Arnold dead; it was toward evening when Gilbert and Dunstan followed a young Jew to the door of a Syrian house in a garden of the old quarter of the city, toward the Zion gate. All day they had searched Jerusalem, up and down, through the narrow streets of whitened houses, inquiring everywhere for a knight who had lately come with his one daughter, and no one could tell them anything; for Sir Arnold had paid well to find a retired house, where Beatrix might be safely guarded while he went out to seek Gilbert and kill him, and where he himself could hide if there were any pursuit. So they asked in vain, till at last they saw a boy sitting by the wayside on the hill of the Temple, weeping and lamenting in the Eastern fashion. The guide, who was also a Jew, asked him what had chanced, and he said that his father was gone on a journey, leaving him, his young son, in the house with his mother. And there had come a Christian knight with a daughter and her woman and certain servants, desiring to hire the house for a time because it was in a pleasant place; and they had let him have it, he promising by an interpreter to pay a great price; but he had not yet paid it. In the morning the young man had seen Christians carrying away the body of this knight to bury it; and he had been to the house, but the knight's servants would not let him in, and did not understand his speech, and threatened to beat him; and now he was afraid lest his father should come home unawares and take him and his mother to account for letting strangers use the house without even paying for it beforehand. When Gilbert saw that he had found what he sought, he first gave money to the boy, to encourage him, and bade the interpreter tell him to lead them all to the house, saying that Gilbert himself would enter, in spite of the servants. The boy took the money, and when he had measured Gilbert with his eye, he understood, and went before them with no more weeping; and the knight's step was light and quick with hope, for he had begun to doubt whether Beatrix were really in the city after all. The house was low and white, and stood at the end of a small garden in which there were palms, and spring flowers growing in straight lines between small hewn stones, laid so as to leave little trenches of earth between them. There was a hard path, newly swept, leading to the square door of the house, and on the doorpost were clearly written certain characters in Hebrew. Gilbert knocked on the door, not loudly, with the hilt of his dagger, but no one answered; and again louder, but there was no sound from within. Then he shook the door, trying whether it would open of itself by a push; but it was fast, and the two windows of the house that looked out on each side of the door were barred also. "They think that some great force is with us, and are afraid," said the Jewish boy. "Speak to them, sir, for they do not understand my tongue." And the interpreter explained what he said. Then Gilbert spoke in English, for he supposed that Curboil's men must be Englishmen, but the Jewish boy knew that the words should sound otherwise. "In Greek, sir! Speak to them in Greek, for they are all Greeks. That is why they are afraid. All Greeks are afraid." The interpreter began to speak in Greek, clear and loud, but no sound came. Yet when Gilbert put his ear to the door he thought that he heard something like a child's moaning. It had a sound of pain in it, and his blood rose at the thought that some weak creature was being hurt. So he took little Alric's leathern belt, such as grooms wear, and bound it round his hand to guard the flesh, and he struck the door where the leaves joined in the middle, once and twice and three times, and it began to open inward, so that they could see the iron bolt bent half double. Then with his shoulder he forced it in, so that the bolt slipped from the socket, and the leaves flew open. There was a little court within, around which the house was built, with a well for rain-water in the middle, after the fashion that was half Roman and half Eastern. Gilbert went in, and bade all be silent that he might hear whence the moaning came; for it was more distinct now, and it seemed to come from the well, with a little splashing of water; so he went and looked down, and when he saw what was there he cried aloud for fear. For there he saw an upturned face, half dead, with a white thing bound across the mouth, and hands tied together, and struggling to strike the water, but heavily weighted and it was the face of Beatrix, two fathoms below him. There were holes opposite each other, in the two sides of the well, for a man's hands and feet, for climbing down into the cistern; and Gilbert lost no moment, but began to descend at once yet long before he had got the bound hands together in his own, stooping and himself in peril of falling, the face had sunk below the bubbling water. With his feet firmly planted in the holes, and standing as it might be astride of the well, he lifted the girl up and though she was so slight, it was one of the hardest things he ever had to do, for her clothes were full of water, and he was at a disadvantage; nor could his men help him till he had raised her so high that he could rest her weight on his right knee and against his own body. Then the others climbed down and slipped their belts under her arms, and she was taken out in safety and laid upon the pavement of the little court. And then the Jewish boy went to call his mother from the house of her sister, where they two had gone to live, for Beatrix had need of a woman. Gilbert knelt down and laid her head upon Dunstan's coat folded together, and covered her with his own mantle, gazing into the unconscious face, small and pale and pitiful, and he remembered how he had seen it last in Antioch, full of anger and unbelief, so that he had turned and left what he loved just when evil was at hands and his heart stood still, and then smote him in his breast, and stood still again, as the smith's hammer is poised in the air between the strokes. Beatrix did not move and seemed not to breathe, lying as one dead, and suddenly Gilbert believed that there was no life left in her. He tried to speak to Dunstan, but he could make no sound, for his tongue and his throat were suddenly parched and paralyzed, so that he was dumb in his grief; but he took the small white hands, with the wrists all cut by the cords, and folded them upon the breast, and he took his cross-hilted dagger with its sheath, and laid it between the hands for a cross, and gently tried to close the half-opened eyes. Then, when Dunstan saw what his master meant, he touched him on the shoulder and spoke to him. "She is not dead," he said. Gilbert started and looked up at him, and saw that he was in earnest; but the man's lean face was drawn with anxiety. "Sir," said Dunstan, "will you let me touch the Lady Beatrix?" The knight's brow darkened, for that a churl's hands should touch a high-born lady's face seemed to him something monstrous and against nature; but in the moment he had forgotten something. "She is quite dead," he tried to say. Then Dunstan spoke sadly, kneeling down beside her. "This lady is half my sister," he said. "I have some skill with half-drowned persons. Let me save her, sir, unless we are to let her die before our eyes. A gipsy taught me what to do." The cloud passed from Gilbert's face, but still he did not believe. "In heaven's name, do what you can, try what you know, and quickly!" he said. "Help me, then," said Dunstan. So he did as all skilled persons know how to do with half-drowned people, though only the gipsies knew it then. They turned her body gently so that the clear water ran from her parted lips, and laying her down again, they took her arms and drew them over her head, stretched them out, and brought them down to her sides, again and again, so as to make her breathe, and the breath was drawn in and breathed out again with a delicate foam that clung to her lips. Still Sir Gilbert did not believe, and though he helped his man, in the despair of the instant, and in the horror of losing the least chance of life, it all seemed to him a desecration of the most dear dead, and more than once he would have let the poor little arm rest, rather than make it limply follow the motion Dunstan gave to the other. "She is quite, quite dead," he said again. "She is alive," answered Dunstan; "stop not now one moment, or we shall lose her." His dark face glowed, and his unwinking eyes watched her face for the least sign of life. Ten minutes, a quarter of an hour, passed, and time seemed facing death--the swift against the immovable and eternal. Gilbert, the strong and masterful in fight, humbly and anxiously watched his man's looks for the signs of hope, as if Dunstan had been the wisest physician of all mankind; and indeed in that day there were few physicians who knew how to do what the man was doing. And at last the glow in his face began to fade, and Gilbert's heart sank, and the horror of so disturbing the dead came upon him tenfold, so that he let the slender arm rest on the stones, and sighed. But Dunstan cried out fiercely to him. "For your life, go on! She is alive! See! See!" And even as Gilbert sadly shook his head in the last collapse of belief, the long lashes quivered a little with the lids and were still, and quivered again, and then again, and the eyes opened wide and staring, but broad awake; and then the delicate body shook and was half convulsed by the miracle of life restored, and the slight arms quickened with nervous strength, resisting the men's strong hands, and a choking cough brought the bright colour to the pale cheeks. Then Gilbert lifted her from the pavement to the stone rim of the well, that she might breathe better, and presently the choking ceased, so that she lay quite still with her head against his breast, and her weight in his arms. But still she did not speak, and the man's heart beat furiously with joy, and then stood still in fear, lest the worst should come again, whereof there was no danger; but he did not know, and Dunstan and Alric were suddenly gone, seeking wine in the house. Just when the girl seemed to be sinking into a swoon they brought a short draught of Syrian wine in an earthen cup; for little Alric was not wise, but he would have found wine in the sandy desert, and he had gone straight to a corner where a leathern bottle with a wooden plug was hung up in a cool place. Beatrix drank, and revived again, and looked up to Gilbert. "I knew you would come," she said faintly, and she smiled, but Gilbert could not speak. By this time the Jewish boy had brought his mother, and they carried the girl into a room, and the woman took care of her kindly, fearing lest a Christian should die in her husband's house, and also lest she should not be paid the value of the rent, but with womanly gentleness also, wrapping her in dry clothes of her own before she laid her to rest. For Arnold de Curboil's servants had been all Greeks, and when they had learned that their master had been killed in the night, they had bolted and barred the house, and had bound Beatrix and her Norman tirewoman hand and foot and gagged their mouths with cloths, in order that they might carry off the rich plunder, but at first they had not meant to kill the women. Only when they were just about to slip away, one at a time, so as to escape notice, they held a council, and the most of them said that it would be better to throw the women into the well, lest either of them should help the other, and getting loose, escape from the house and cause a pursuit. So they threw the Norman woman down first, and when they saw that she sank the third time, being drowned, they threw Beatrix after her. But the well was not so deep as they had thought, and was narrow, so that Beatrix had kept her head above the water a long time, her feet just touching the body of her drowned servant. And in this way the faithful woman had saved her mistress after she was dead. When this was known, they took her from the well and bore her to burial without the city, while Beatrix was asleep. That night Gilbert and Dunstan lay on their cloaks within the half-broken door of the house, which could not be bolted, for they were tired, having watched by the Sepulchre all the night before that; and little Alric kept watch in the courtyard, walking up and down lest he should sleep, for the Syrian wine might have made him drowsy, and he had the whole bottle to himself. But he drank slowly and thoughtfully, and when he felt that his head was not clear, he let the wine alone, and walked up and down a long time talking to himself and warning himself to keep sober. This being accomplished, he swallowed another draught, wisely sipping it by half mouthfuls, and then walked again; and so all night, and in the dawn he was as fresh and rosy and sober as ever, but the big leathern bottle lay quite flat and disconsolate on the pavement; for he came of the old English archers, who were good men at a bowl, and steady on their legs. In the morning Gilbert awoke and sat up, on the pavement, and as Alric came near he made a sign that he should not wake Dunstan, but let him rest. He looked at the sleeper's face, and thought how much this servant of his had suffered, being quite half as gentle by birth as he himself; and he remembered how the man had fought ever bravely, and had shed his blood, and had never taken gifts of money from his master, save for great necessity, and had asked for a sword rather than for a tunic when he had raised the riot to save Beatrix and the Queen in Nicaea; and Gilbert was ashamed that such a man, who was in truth the eldest born of a great house, should be a starving servant. So when Dunstan opened his eyes and started up at seeing his master awake, Gilbert spoke to him. "You have fought with me," he said, "you have endured with me, we have fasted together on the march, and we have drunk of the same spring in battle while the arrows fell about us, and now, God willing, we are to be brothers, when I wed the Lady Beatrix, and but for you I should be mourning by her grave to-day. It is not meet that we should be any longer master and man, for you have gentle blood in you, of a great house." "Sir Gilbert," murmured Dunstan, flushing darkly, "you are very kind to me, but I will not have gentlehood of a father who was a murderer and a thief." "You prove yourself gentle by that speech," answered Gilbert. "Had he no other blood to give you than his own? Then the Lady Beatrix is also the daughter of a thief and a murderer." "And of a lady of great lineage. That is different. I am no peer of my lady sister. But if so be that I may have a name, and be called gentle, then, sir, I pray you, beg of our sovereign in England that I may be called by a new name of my own, that my ill birth may be forgotten." "And so I will," said Gilbert, "for it is better thus." Afterwards he kept his word, and when she had her own again, Beatrix gave him a third share of her broad lands, to hold in fief to Gilbert Warde, though he had no rightful claim; and because he had saved her life, he was called Dunstan Le Sauveur, because he had saved her and many; and he had favour of King Henry and fought bravely, and was made a knight, and raised up an honourable race. But on that morning in Jerusalem, in the little court, Beatrix came out, still weak and weary, and sat beside Gilbert in the shade of the wall, with her hand between his, and the light in her face. "Gilbert," she said, when she had told him what had happened to her until then, "when I was angry and unbelieving in the Queen's chamber in Antioch, why did you turn and leave me, seeing that I was in the wrong?" "I was angry, too," he answered simply. But womanlike, she answered him again. "That was foolish. You should have taken me roughly in your arms and kissed me, as you did by the river long ago. Then I should have believed you, as I do now." "But you would not believe my words, nor the Queen's," he said, "nor even when she gave herself up to the King, to prove herself true, would you believe her." "If men only knew!" Beatrix laughed softly her little bird laugh that had the music of a spring day. "If men knew--what?" "If men knew--" She paused, and blushed, and laughed again. "If men knew how women love sweet words when they are happy, and sharp deeds when they are angry! That is what I mean. I would have given my blood and the Queen's kingdom for a kiss when you left me standing there." "I wish I had known!" exclaimed Gilbert, happy but half perplexed. "You ought to have known," answered the girl. Her eyebrows were raised a little with the half-pathetic look he loved, while her mouth smiled. "I shall never understand," he said, but he began to laugh too. "I will tell you. In the first place, I shall never be angry with you again--never! Do you believe me, Gilbert?" "Of course I do," he answered, having nothing else to say. "Very well. But if I ever should be--" "But you just said that you never would be!" "I know; but if I should--just once--then take me in your arms, and say nothing, but kiss me as you did that day by the river." "I understand," he said. "Are you angry now?" But he was laughing. "Almost," she answered, glancing sideways in a smile. "Not quite?" "Yes, quite!" And her eyes darkened under the drooping lids. Then he held her so close to him that she was half breathless, and kissed her till it hurt, and she turned pale again, and her eyes were closed. [Illustration: THE WAY OF THE CROSS] "You see," she said very faintly, "I believe you now!" Here ends the story of Gilbert Warde's crusading; for he had reached the end of his Via Crucis in the Holy City, and had at last found peace for his soul, and light and rest for his heart, after many troubles and temptations, and after much brave fighting for the good cause of the Faith against unbelievers. After that he fought again with the army at Damascus, and saw how the princes betrayed one another, when the Emperor Conrad had come again, so that the siege of the strong town came to naught, and the armies were scattered among the rich gardens to gather fruit and drink strong wine, while their leaders wrangled. Also at Ascalon he drew sword again, and again he saw failure hanging over all, like an evil shadow, and chilling the courage in men, so that there was murmuring, and clamouring for the homeward path. There he saw how the great armies went to ruin and fell to pieces, because, as the holy Bernard had known, there was not the faith of other days, and also because there was no great leader, as Eleanor had told the abbot himself at Vezelay; and it was a sad sight, and one to sicken the souls of good men. But though he fought with all his might when swords were out, there was no sadness in him for all these things, for life and hope were bright before him. Little by little, too, he had heard how all the poor pilgrims left at Attalia had perished; but he knew that if he had led them, Beatrix would have died there in the court of the little house in Jerusalem, and he held her life more dear than the lives of many, whom his own could hardly have saved. Moreover, and last of all, he had learned and understood that the cause of God lies not buried among stones in any city, not even in the most holy city of all; for the place of Christ's suffering is in men's sinful hearts, and the glory of his resurrection is the saving of a soul from death to everlasting life, in refreshment and light and peace. 
23299	----	STRADELLA [Illustration: 'But Ortensia did not even hear him, and sat quite still in her chair' (_See p. 271._)] STRADELLA BY F. MARION CRAWFORD AUTHOR OF "SARACINESCA," "FAIR MARGARET," ETC., ETC. _ILLUSTRATED_ New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1909 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY F. MARION CRAWFORD. COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY BUTTERICK PUBLISHING CO. COPYRIGHT, 1909. BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1909. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 'But Ortensia did not even hear him, and sat quite still in her chair' _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE '"This is the celebrated Maestro Alessandro Stradella of Naples"' 11 'The footman came back at last with a white face' 87 'The two Bravi faced the watch side by side' 243 '"The profession has two branches. We take lives, you take purses"' 282 'He began to look about for lodgings' 307 'Trombin advanced upon him slowly, looking more like an avenging demon than a man' 373 'She sat up in his arms and framed his face in her hands' 406 CHAPTER I The Senator Michele Pignaver, being a childless widower of several years' standing and a personage of wealth and worth in Venice, made up his mind one day that he would marry his niece Ortensia, as soon as her education was completed. For he was a man of culture and of refined tastes, fond of music, much given to writing sonnets and to reading the works of the elegant Politian, as well as to composing sentimental airs for the voice and lute. He patronised arts and letters with vast credit and secret economy; for he never gave anything more than a supper and a recommendation to the poets, musicians, and artists who paid their court to him and dedicated to him their choicest productions. The supper was generally a frugal affair, but his reputation in æsthetic matters was so great that a word from him to a leader of fashion, or a letter of introduction to a Venetian Ambassador abroad, often proved to be worth more than the gold he abstained from giving. He spoke Latin, he could read Greek, and his taste in poetry was so highly cultivated that he called Dante's verse rough, uncouth, and vulgar--precisely as Horace Walpole, seventy or eighty years later, could not conceive how any one could prefer Shakespeare's rude lines to the elegant verses of Mr. Pope. For the Senator lived in the age when Louis XIV. was young, and Charles II. had been restored to the throne only a few years before the beginning of this story. Pignaver was about fifty years old. There is no good reason why a widower of that age, robust and temperate, and hardly grey, should not take a wife; perhaps there is really no reason, either, why he should not marry a girl of eighteen, if she will have him, and where neither usage nor ecclesiastical ordinances are opposed to it, the young lady may even be his niece. Besides, in the present case, the Senator would appear to his peers and associates to be conferring a favour on the object of his elderly affections, and to be crowning the series of favours he had already conferred. For Ortensia was the penniless child of his brother-in-law, a scapegrace who had come to a bad end in Crete. The Senator's wife had taken the child to her heart, having none of her own, and had brought her up lovingly and wisely, little dreaming that she was educating her own successor. If she had known it, she might have behaved differently, for her lord had never succeeded in winning her affections, and she regarded him to the end with mingled distrust and dislike, while he looked upon her as an affliction and a thorn in his side. Yet they were both very good people in their way. She died comparatively young, and he deemed it only just that after enduring the thorn so long, he should enjoy the rose for the rest of his life. When Ortensia was seventeen and a half her uncle announced his matrimonial intentions to her, fastened a fine string of pearls round her throat, kissed her on the forehead, and left her alone to meditate on her good fortune. Her reflections were of a mixed character, however, and not all pleasant. The idea that she could disobey or resist did not occur to her, of course, for the Senator had always appeared to her as the absolute lord of his household, against whose will it was useless to make any opposition, and she knew what an important person he was considered to be amongst his equals. But in her inmost heart she knew that he was not really what he made people think he was. She had a ready sense of humour, and she felt that under his ponderous disguise of importance he was quite a ridiculous person. He was miserly to meanness; he was as vain as an ape; he was a man who had flattered himself, and had been flattered by others, into a sort of artificially inflated doll that imposed on many people and deceived almost all. And yet Ortensia was aware of something in him that frightened her a little, though she could not quite tell what it was. Possibly, like many externally artificial people, there was a cruel side to his character. There are men who become ridiculous as soon as they cease to be dangerous, and who are most dangerous when they fear that they are just going to become a laughing-stock. Ortensia reflected on these things after her uncle had given her the pearls and had kissed her on the forehead. The pearls were very beautiful, but the kiss had been distinctly disagreeable. The Senator waxed his moustaches to make them stay up, as many men did then, and she thought that if a cold hard-boiled egg, surrounded with bristles like a hair-brush, had touched her forehead, the sensation would have been very much the same, and she shook her delicate shoulders in disgust at the thought, and slowly rubbed the offended spot with two fingers, while her other hand played with the string of pearls in her lap. It would be a great thing, of course, to be a senator's wife and the mistress of such a house as the Palazzo Pignaver, which she had first entered as a little orphan waif ten years ago. But to be kissed daily, even on the forehead, by her Uncle Michele, would be a high price to pay for greatness. She supposed that he would kiss her every day when she was married, for that was probably a part of marriage, which had always seemed to her a mysterious affair at best. Young girls looked forward to it with delight, and old women seemed to look back on it with disappointment, while those who were neither old nor young never said anything about it, but often seemed to be on bad terms with their husbands. But Ortensia was a fatalist, like most Venetian maidens of her time. Whatever the master of the house and the head of the family decided would be done, and there could be no question of resistance. In due course she would marry her uncle, she would hold her tongue like other married women while he lived, and when he was dead she would be at liberty to tell her friends that her marriage had been a disappointment. Of course Uncle Michele would die long before her--that was one consolation--and the position of a rich widow in Venice was enviable. Happily she had six months before her, during which time her education was to be completed; happily, too, a large part of it now consisted in music lessons, for she had a sweet voice, and the Senator meant that she should astound Venetian society by singing his own compositions to them, accompanying herself. She had great beauty, as well as some real talent, and he judged that the effect of his verses and music, when rendered by her, would be much enhanced by the magic light in her hazel eyes, by the contrasted splendour of her auburn hair and ivory complexion, and by the pretty motion of her taper fingers as they fluttered over the strings. He looked forward to exhibiting the loveliest young woman in Venice, who should sing his own songs divinely to an admiring circle of envious friends. That would be a magnificent and well-deserved triumph, after his long career as a gifted amateur and critic--and it would cost nothing. Why should a wife be more expensive than a niece? His first wife's brocades and velvets could easily be made over for Ortensia; and for that matter the young girl expected nothing better, since she had no family of her own to give her a great carved chest full of beautiful new clothes and laces. Uncle Michele did not condescend to honour her with another kiss, after the formal occasion on which he had announced her betrothal to himself. But he showed a growing interest in her music-lessons as the weeks passed, and he frequently made her sing pieces of his own to him, correcting each shade of expression most fastidiously, and occasionally performing the more difficult passages himself, with many affected gestures and self-approving waggings of his head, though his voice was tuneless and harsh, and his ear anything but perfect. 'Of course,' he would say, 'it is only to give you an idea!' The idea which he conveyed to Ortensia was that of a performing bear eating strawberries; but she managed to keep her countenance, and not to mimic him when she repeated the passage herself, profiting by his instruction. It was the sort of music that rich amateurs used to write by the ream, subject to the unacknowledged 'corrections' of a well-paid professional; but the girl's sweet voice and genuine talent made the airs sound passable, while her dreamy eyes and her caressing pronunciation of the trivial words did the rest. It was mere talent, for she hardly understood what she was saying, or singing, and she felt not the least emotion, but she seemed to kiss the syllables as they passed her lips. The first bloom of young womanhood was already on her cheek, but the frosts of childhood's morning had not melted from her maiden heart. One day she was sitting just at the edge of the sunshine that poured upon the eastern carpet from the high loggia. The room overlooked the garden court of the palace, and the palms and young orange-trees, in vast terra-cotta pots, laden with yellow fruit, had already been brought out and set in their places, for it was the spring-time; the sunshine fell slanting on the headless Ariadne, which was one of the Senator's chief treasures of art, and the rays sparkled in the clear water in the beautiful sarcophagus below. The lilies had already put out young leaves too, that lay rocking on the ripples made by the tiny jet of the fountain. There were long terra-cotta troughs full of white violets, arranged as borders along the small paved paths, and red flower-pots were set symmetrically in squares and rings and curves with roses just blooming, and mignonette, and carnations that still lingered in the bud. It was a formal little garden, but in the midst of its regularity, neither in the centre, nor at any of the artificially planned corners and curves, but out of line with all, one cypress reared up its height. Even as Ortensia saw it, looking out from her loggia, it overtopped the high wall that divided the garden from the canal and the low houses on the other side, showing its dark plume sharp and clear against the sunlit sky; but when the morning and the evening breezes blew in spring and summer, it swayed lazily, and the feathery top waved from side to side, and bent to the caressing air like a live thing. Ortensia loved the tree better than anything else in the garden; even better than the beautiful Greek Ariadne, which her uncle had himself brought from Crete in one of his ships. She was watching it now, and where the sunlight played in the tip, she could see the golden and reddish lights of the cypress twigs through the deep green. On her knees she held a large musical instrument all made of ivory, and inlaid with black, a lute with eleven strings, but of the shorter kind with the head of the keyboard turned back at a right angle. It lay in her lap, in the ample straw-coloured folds of her silk skirt, and its broad white ribband was passed over her shoulder, and pressed on her lace collar on the left side of her neck. At a considerable distance from her, a small, middle-aged woman in grey sat in a high chair, bending forward over the little green pillow on which she was making bobbin lace. There was a good deal of furniture in the large room, and it belonged to different periods; some of it was carved, some inlaid, some gilt in the new French fashion. A great Persian carpet of most exquisite colours softened and blended by age lay on the floor, and the curtains of the doors were of rich old Genoa velvet, with palm leaves woven in gold thread on a faded claret ground. The time lacked about an hour of noon, and in the deep stillness the trickling of the tiny fountain came up distinctly from the garden. Something had just happened which Ortensia did not understand, and she had let her lute sink in her lap, to lean back and think, and wonder, watching the familiar outline of the dark cypress against the open sky. She had been learning a song by a new composer, of whom she had never heard till now, and the manuscript lay open on a cushioned stool beside her. For a time she had followed the notes and words carefully with her voice, picking out the accompaniment on her lute from the figured bass, as musicians did in those days. At first it had not meant much to her; it was difficult, the intervals were unexpected and strange, she could not find the right chords, the words would not quite make sense, and some of them were unfamiliar to her. But she was patient, and she had talent, and she had tried again and again, very soft and low, so that the woman in grey had nearly fallen asleep over her lace, nodding visibly and recovering herself each time with a little grunt. Then, all at once, the breath of spring came in, like the breath of life, with the warm scent of the garden below, and the sunlight had stolen across the Persian carpet to her feet. She turned from the manuscript she had been studying, and without it her fingers suddenly found the chords, and her lips the words, and the melody floated out with them into the stillness, low, trembling, and passionate as the burden of a love-dream, a wonder to hear. But she scarcely heard it herself, for it came unconsciously. The meaning had dawned upon her unawares, and she understood without ears, as if the music were all in her heart, and much nearer to her life than it could come by hearing alone. It stirred delicious depths within her; the spring and the sun and the melody waked that in her which had slept the long sleep of childhood, while her beautiful outward self was maturing to the blossom. She understood, and yet she did not; it was a bewildering joy, but it was a longing; it was an exquisite satisfaction, yet it was also a secret, unspeakable wish; it was the first thrill of a feeling too exquisite for words to describe, but with it there came a mysterious forelightening of something unknown that troubled her maiden peace. Her lips quivered, her voice died away to a whisper, while her body vibrated still, like the last string she touched on the lute; a sudden warmth came to her face then, and sank suddenly away, and all at once it was all past, and she was gazing at the dark top of the cypress, and a strange, listless, half-sweet loneliness had come upon her, wherein nothing mattered any more, nor could anything ever matter again. That was what had just happened. But the woman in grey had not noticed it, though she was wide awake now and busily plying her bobbins. Then the heavy velvet curtain before the door was lifted, and a man's footstep was heard on the marble floor, and there was another step after it. Ortensia turned her head carelessly against the back of the chair to see who was coming, and then rose quickly to her feet. The Senator had entered and was ushering in a man she had never seen, a handsome young man of five-and-twenty or so, with a thoughtful face and deep-set eyes, of a rather dark complexion, as if he came from the south; his manner was grave, and he was soberly dressed in a black velvet coat with purple silk facings, and wore a plain broad collar of linen instead of the fashionable lace; he was a man of middle height and well made, and he moved easily. In his left hand he carried a musical instrument in a purple bag. [Illustration: '"This is the celebrated Maestro Alessandro Stradella of Naples"'] He bowed very low as soon as the Senator stood still before Ortensia. 'This,' said the master of the house, 'is the celebrated Maestro Alessandro Stradella of Naples, by far the greatest musician and composer in Italy, who has very kindly consented to hear you sing, and to give you a few lessons if he finds you sufficiently advanced.' Ortensia was surprised, and anything but displeased, but she showed no emotion. The young man before her was the composer of the song she had been studying, the very one that had so strongly disturbed her a few minutes ago; this of itself would have been interesting, even if he had not been such a singularly handsome young man. The woman in grey, who was her nurse, had risen too, and was looking at the musician with more curiosity than might have been expected in a sober person of her years. Ortensia bent her head a little, in acknowledgment of the introduction, but said nothing. She saw, however, that Stradella had already noticed the manuscript of his own music on the stool beside her. 'You may sing "Amor mi dice" to the Maestro,' said the Senator, taking a seat. 'A little composition of my own,' he added, with a self-satisfied smile, for the musician's information. 'I have taught it to my niece myself.' For one instant Stradella's eyes met the young girl's and she returned their glance. It was enough; they already understood each other. Doubtless the composer had met his patron more than once and knew his weakness and what to expect now. Ortensia resumed her seat, and drew her full skirt into folds on her knee, for her lute to rest on. Stradella sat down at a little distance and looked at the Persian carpet, and she could not help seeing that he had remarkably well-turned legs and ankles, and wore very well-made shoes of soft purple leather with handsome chiselled silver buckles. She felt inclined to raise her eyes to his face again, but resisted the temptation, and turned resolutely towards her uncle as she struck the opening chords of the accompaniment. The musician now looked up and watched her. At first he put on the amiable smile which professionals keep especially for amateurs, and as a matter of politeness he listened attentively, till he had convinced himself that the song, as he had expected, belonged to that large class of which the chief characteristic is a general resemblance to everything of the kind that was ever written before, and will ever be written hereafter. This being settled after hearing a few bars, Stradella quietly gave himself up to the pleasure of looking at the young girl, though he often turned towards the Senator, who expected admiration at every full close, and meant to get it. He thought he did; for the effect of watching Ortensia was to bring to the musician's own face an expression of such genuine delight that Pignaver could not fail to be pleased, since he attributed it to the charm of his composition. He was in the seventh heaven. Here, at last, was a true genius, able to appreciate his talent as it deserved. Here was a master fit to teach such noble music, as it should really be sung. Ortensia should profit by the opportunity, even if Stradella asked a silver ducat for each lesson. For once, money was no object to the Senator. The triumph his young bride would certainly bring him, in singing his songs after being taught by Alessandro Stradella, would be worth much more than gold. She sang the stuff as creditably as it deserved, her voice was fresh and true, and her touch on the lute was at once light and sure. With such a face, what did it matter that the song was exactly like a thousand others? The musician praised it so enthusiastically that the Senator was almost satisfied for once. 'You flatter me,' he said, bowing a little in his chair, spreading out his hands in a gesture of deprecation and grinning like a pleased monkey. 'Not in the least, my lord, I assure you,' answered Stradella with great emphasis. 'If I were capable of flattering you, I should not deserve the confidence you place in me, in desiring me to give this gifted young lady a few lessons.' Ortensia pretended to be busy with her lute, bending over it and softly trying the upper strings, though they were already perfectly in tune. But she was listening to the young master, and she thought she had rarely heard a voice that had more winning tones in speaking, or an accent that pleased her better. And as she bent down she could just see his well-turned ankles and purple leather shoes. 'It would be my wish,' the Senator said, 'that you should give her some hints as to the performance of a number of my songs. Yes, I have devoted much time to your art as well as to poetry. Hitherto I have written ninety-seven songs, both words and music. Yes, I have been industrious. If my niece had my industry she would know them all by this time.' Ortensia bent still lower, till her face almost touched the frets of the instrument, and she was biting her lip; but Stradella was imperturbable. 'I trust you may be spared to contribute many more beautiful compositions to the art treasures of our country,' he said politely. 'I hope so,' answered Pignaver with gravity. And then--Ortensia looked up, and for the second time her eyes met the musician's, and she felt that he and she already understood each other. With many patronising smiles on the Senator's part, and many flattering expressions of admiration and respectful salutations from Stradella, the two parted and Pignaver took himself off, leaving his niece to take her first lesson under the guardianship of the nurse, who moved her chair so that she could watch the pair while she was busy with her lace. For a few seconds neither spoke, and they looked at each other in silence as if making better acquaintance through their eyes alone, by which they had quickly reached a first degree of understanding. Stradella's face was quite grave, while Ortensia's lips were just parted, as if she were ready to smile, if he would. But he would not, and he was the first to speak. 'How shall we begin?' he asked. Ortensia hesitated and touched the strings of her lute idly, as it lay across her knee, just kept from slipping down by the broad ribband. 'When you came,' she said at last, 'I had been trying to learn a song of yours. It is beautiful. Will you show me how to sing it?' She blushed faintly, and he smiled; but he shook his head. 'I saw it lying there as soon as I came in,' he said. 'But I understand it to be the Senator's wish that we should study his music rather than mine.' She was disappointed, and did not try to hide it; but she was not used to asserting her own will, and her uncle's word had always been law in his house, to be obeyed whether he were present or not. As for Stradella, he would have sung his own song for her with delight, but he distrusted the woman in grey, who might be a spy for all he knew. He carefully withdrew his lute from the purple bag and began to tune the strings. It was a fine instrument, made in Cremona, but by no means so handsome in appearance as Ortensia's ivory one. It was differently designed, too, being much longer, with a double fret-board and no less than nineteen strings. 'Let me see,' Stradella said, when he was ready. 'That song of the Senator's you just sang--how was it?' He struck chords, bent low over the lute, softly hummed a few snatches of the melody, and then, to Ortensia's surprise, he began to sing the piece as if he knew it well. He sang softly, without the least effort, and his voice seemed neither high nor deep, but there was a tone in it that the young girl had never heard before, and that sent a thrill to her heart at the very first note. She bent forwards, watching him with parted lips and eyes full of wonder, scarcely breathing till he finished the stanza and spoke to her again. 'Is that it?' he asked quietly, and he smiled as he looked at her. 'But you know it!' she cried. 'If I had ever heard you I should not have dared to try to sing before you!' 'I never heard it before,' Stradella answered, 'but I catch any tune easily. Shall we study it a little?' he went on, before she could speak again. 'I will accompany you at first, and I will stop you now and then, where I think you might do better. Shall we?' Again he smiled, but this time it was by way of encouragement, and he at once began a little prelude on the lute. 'You will sing better if you stand up,' he suggested. She rose, took her own lute from her neck, and stood resting one hand on the high back of her chair, turning her face from him; for she was afraid, now that she had heard him. It was as bad as the worst stage-fright; her tongue was paralysed, her limbs shook under her, she shivered with cold in the sunshine, and her forehead was damp. Yet she had not felt the slightest shyness a quarter of an hour earlier, when she had first sung the piece. 'Sing with me,' he said quietly, and he began the song again. Presently she took courage and the notes came, unsteadily at first, but then true and clear; and Stradella's own voice died to a whisper, and she went on alone, to the accompaniment he played. 'You see,' he said, as she paused, 'it is better to stand. Now I will show you how to make one or two little improvements.' So the lesson went on, and she conscientiously tried to do exactly what he taught her; and their eyes met often, but that could not be helped, for he showed her how to vary the quality of her tone by movements of the mouth, and to do this she had to watch his lips and he was obliged to look at hers, which is sometimes a dangerous exercise for young people, even at a first meeting. For acquaintance grows and ripens precociously when two people are busy together so that they depend on each other at every instant, as teacher and pupil, or as the chief actor and actress in a play, or as a man and a woman who are suddenly thrown together in adventure or danger. When Stradella put his lute back into the purple bag at last, telling Ortensia that she had sung enough for one morning and that she must not tire her voice, she felt as if this could not possibly have been her first meeting with him. His face, his tone, his gestures, the way he held his lute, were all as familiar to her already as if he had given her half-a-dozen lessons; and when he was gone and she sat once more in her chair looking at the top of the cypress tree against the noonday sky, she saw and heard all again, and then again; but she neither saw nor heard her nurse, who had laid aside the lace-pillow and was standing at her elbow telling her that it was time for the mid-day meal and that her uncle did not like to be kept waiting. The nurse spoke three times before Ortensia heard her and looked up. 'They say well that music is a thief,' observed the middle-aged woman in grey, enigmatically, as she stood with her hands folded under her black apron, gazing intently at Ortensia's face. The young girl laughed as she rose. 'Poor old Pina!' she answered, tapping her forehead with one finger as if to say that the nurse was weak-minded. But Pina smiled, and made three gestures, without saying a word: first she pointed to herself, then she shook her forefinger, and lastly she jerked her thumb back in the direction of the door that led to the Senator's apartments. The weak-minded body was not Pina, but her master, since he had brought that handsome singer to teach Ortensia, who had never before exchanged two words with any young man, handsome or plain, except under the nose of the Senator himself; and that had always been at those great festivals to which the Venetian nobles took their wives and daughters, even when the latter were very young, to show off their fine clothes and jewels, though it meant comparing them publicly with quite another class of beauties. For the Venetian maxim was that women and girls were safe in public or under lock and key, but that there was no salvation for them between those two extremes. But, in the eyes of Pignaver, a musician was not a man, any more than a servant or a gondolier could be. Where a Venetian lady was concerned, nothing was a man that had not a seat in the Grand Council; that was the limit, below which the male population consisted of sexless creatures like domestics, shopkeepers, and workmen. Furthermore, the vanity of Pignaver raised him above all other competitors as high as the Campanile stood above Saint Mark's and the Ducal Palace, not to mention the rest of Venice, and the idea that Ortensia, who had been informed that she was to be the wife of his transcendently gifted and desirable self, could stoop to look at a Sicilian music-master, would have struck him as superlatively comic, though his sense of humour was imperfect, to say the least of it. Even if the great man could have set aside all these considerations for a moment, so as to look upon Stradella as a possible rival, he would still have believed that the presence of Pina during the lessons was a trustworthy safeguard against any 'accident to Ortensia's affections,' as he would have expressed the danger. He had unbounded faith in Pina's devotion to him and in her severity as a chaperon. On the rare occasions when the young girl was allowed to leave the palace without her uncle, Pina accompanied her in the gondola, and sometimes on foot as far as the church of the Frari, where she went to confession once a month; but, as a rule, she had her daily airing with the Senator himself, meekly sitting on his left, and pretending to keep her eyes fixed on an imaginary point directly ahead, as he insisted that she must, lest she should look at any of the handsome young nobles who were only too anxious to pass as near as possible on her side of the gondola. For, though she was not eighteen years old, the reputation of her beauty was already abroad; and as it was said that she was to inherit her uncle's vast wealth, there were at least three hundred young gentlemen of high degree who desired her now, since no one knew that the Senator had determined to marry her himself. Their offers were constantly presented to him, sometimes by their fathers or mothers, and sometimes by ingenious elderly friends who undertook such negotiations for a financial consideration. But Pignaver always returned the same answer, politely expressing his thanks for the honour done his niece, but saying that he had 'other views for her.' Pina, however, hated him for reasons of her own, which he had either forgotten, or which he disregarded because, in his opinion, she was under the greatest obligation to the house. Pina's hatred of her master was more sincere, if possible, than her affection for Ortensia, and her contempt for his intelligence was almost as profound as his own belief in its superiority over that of other men. These facts explain why Pina acted as she did, though they could not possibly excuse her evil conduct in the eyes of righteous persons like the Senator and others of his class, who would have thought it a monstrous and unnatural thing that a noble Venetian girl should fall in love with a music-master, though he were the most talented and famous musician of his day. This was what Pina did. In the middle of the fourth lesson she deliberately laid aside her lace-pillow and left the room, well knowing that her master would have her thrown out of the house at once, and ducked in the canal besides, if he ever heard of it. But he was a man of unchanging habits. Each time that Stradella came he led him in, sat down, listened while Ortensia sang one of his own pieces, and then went away, not to return that morning. So when Pina was quite sure that his coming and going had settled to a habit, she boldly ran the risk, if it was one, and left the two together. Alessandro Stradella was a Sicilian on both sides, though he had been born in Naples, and he wasted no time when his chance came. He tried no little trick of word or glance, he did not gaze into Ortensia's eyes and sigh, still less did he boldly try to take her hand and pour out a fervid declaration of his love; for by this time, without the exchange of a word, the girl had taken hold of his heart, and he saw her eyes before him everywhere, in the sunlit streets and canals, and at night, in the dark, and in his dreams. He did none of these things. He was the master singer of his age, and he himself had made divine melodies that still live; he knew his power, and he trusted to that alone. The velvet curtain had scarcely fallen behind Pina as she went out, when he bent over his lute, and with one look at Ortensia began to sing. But it was not one of those ninety-seven compositions on which the Senator prided himself: it was a love-song of Stradella's own that he had made within the week in the secrecy of his own room, and no one had heard it yet; and it was his masterpiece. Ortensia felt that it was hers. That strange voice of his that was not deep, yet never seemed high-pitched, breathed softly through and through her being, as a spring breeze through young leaves, more felt than heard, yet a wonder to hear. The notes vibrated, but did not tremble; they swelled and grew strong and rang out fiercely, but were never loud; and again they died away, but were not quite silent, and lingered musically in the air, though a whisper would have drowned them. The girl's eyes grew dark under their drooping lids, and her face was luminously pale; her delicate young lips moved now and then unconsciously, and they were icy cold; but she felt a wild pulse beating at her throat, as if her heart were there and breaking to be free. She felt his look on her too, but she could not answer it, and when the song ended she turned from him and laid her white cheek against the high back of the chair, looking out at the cypress against the sky. She could not tell whether it was pain or pleasure she felt, but it was almost more than she could bear, and her hands strained upon each other, clasped together just on her two knees. In the silence the velvet curtain was lifted and fell again, and Pina's step was heard on the marble floor. 'I have brought you some water to drink,' said the nurse quietly; and speaking to both, 'Your throats must be dry with so much singing!' Ortensia took one of the tall glasses and drank eagerly before she turned her face from the window. 'Thank you,' she said, recovering herself and smiling at Pina. 'And you, Maestro?' asked the latter, offering Stradella the drink. 'Thank you,' he said, 'but it is too much. With your permission!' And then, with the effrontery of youth in love, he deliberately took the almost empty glass from which Ortensia had drunk, poured a little into it from the other, and drank out of it with a look of undisguised gratitude on his handsome face. Thereupon a little colour came to Ortensia's ivory-pale cheek, and Pina smiled pleasantly. Instead of setting down the salver, however, she took it away, leaving the room again. 'How beautiful that song is!' Ortensia said in a low voice, and glancing at Stradella almost timidly, when they were again alone. 'How more than beautiful!' 'It is yours,' answered the musician. 'I made it for you--it is not even written down yet.' 'For me!' The exquisite colour deepened twice in her face and faded again as her heart fluttered. 'For you,' Stradella answered, so softly that she barely heard. The nurse came back just then, having merely left the salver outside to be taken away. In her judgment things had gone far enough for the present. Then the mid-day bells clanged out, and it was time to end the lesson, and Stradella put his lute into its purple bag and bowed himself out as he always did; but to-day he kept his eyes on Ortensia's, and hers did not turn from him while she could see his face. CHAPTER II Love-dealings and Deceit, says an ancient poet, were born into the world together, daughters of Night; and several dry-hearted old critics, who never were in love and perhaps never deceived anybody in their lives, have had so much trouble in understanding why these divinities should have made their appearance in the world at the same time, that they have suspected the passage and written pages of learned trash about what Hesiod probably wrote instead of 'Love-dealings,' or the pretty word for which I can think of no better translation. Pignaver was not a particularly truthful person himself, but he exacted strict truthfulness from others, which is good business if it is bad morality; and Ortensia had been brought up rigidly in the practice of veracity as a prime virtue. She had not hitherto been tempted to tell fibs, indeed; but she had always looked upon doing so as a great sin, which, if committed, would require penance. Yet no sooner had she fallen in love with Alessandro Stradella than she found herself telling the most glaring untruths every day, with a readiness and self-possession that were nothing short of terrifying. For instance, her uncle often asked her to tell him exactly what she had been studying with the music-master, and he inquired especially whether the latter ever sang any of his own music to her. To these questions she answered that she was too anxious to profit by the lessons she was receiving, through her uncle's kindness, to waste the precious time in which she might be studying his immortal works. She used those very words, without a blink, and Pignaver swallowed the flattery as a dog bolts a gobbet of meat. She added that the Maestro himself was so enthusiastic about the Senator's songs that he now cared for nothing else. Yet the truth was that Stradella had summed up his criticism in a few words. 'They are all so much alike that they almost produce the impression of having been written by the same person.' That was what he had really said, and Ortensia had laughed sweetly and cruelly; and even Pina, busy with her lace-pillow, had smiled with evil satisfaction in her corner, for she was a clever woman, who had been educated above her present station, and she understood. Further, the Senator asked whether Stradella ever attempted to enter into conversation with his pupil, between one piece of music and the next. 'Conversation!' cried the young girl indignantly. 'He would not dare!' If Pignaver noticed the slight blush that came with the words, he set it down to just anger at the mere suggestion that his future wife could stoop to talk with a music-master. Yet, being of a suspicious nature, he also made inquiries of Pina, whom he unwisely trusted even more than Ortensia herself. 'Conversation, Excellency? Your Excellency's niece in conversation with a fiddler, a public singer, a creature little better than a mountebank! My lady Ortensia would as soon talk with a footman! Shame, my lord! The suspicion is unworthy! I would scarcely answer to the young man himself, if he spoke to me, though I am only a poor servant! A fiddler, indeed! A lute-strummer, a catgut-pincher, and a Neapolitan into the bargain!' Thus did Pina express herself, and while her rather hard grey eyes seemed to flash with anger, her mouth, that had once been handsome, curved in lines of scorn that were almost aristocratic. It is as easy to deceive a very vain person in matters where vanity has a part to play as it is to cheat a blind man, and Pignaver was hoodwinked without difficulty by his niece and her nurse, and the love that had sprung up between the two young people almost at first sight grew at an amazing rate while they sang and looked at one another over their lutes. But the first word had not been spoken yet, though it had been sung many times by both, separately and together. It was not that Stradella doubted how it would be received, if he spoke it when Pina was out of the room, nor was Ortensia not eager for it long before it came. Yet she could not be the first, and he would not, for reasons she understood so little that at last she began to resent his silence as if it were a slight. Few Italian girls of her age have ever known that sensation, which is familiar enough to many women of the world. Stradella found himself faced by a most unexpected circumstance. He was not only in love; that had happened to him at regular intervals ever since he had been barely fourteen years old, when a beautiful Neapolitan princess heard him sing and threw her magnificent arms round his neck, kissing him, and laughing when he kissed her in return; and she had made him the spoilt darling of her villa at Posilippo for more than three weeks. Since then he had regarded his love affairs very much as he looked upon the weather, as an irregular succession of fine days, dark days, and stormy days. When he was happily in love, it was a fine day; when unhappily, it was stormy; when not at all, it was dull--very dull. But hitherto it had never occurred to him that any one of the three conditions could last. Like Goethe, he had never begun a love-affair without instinctively foreseeing the end, and hoping that it might be painless. But to his amazement, though he had been prepared to be as cheerfully cynical and as keen after enjoyment as usual, he now felt, almost from the first, that there was no end in sight, or even to be imagined. The beginnings had not been new to him; it was not the first time that beauty had stirred his pulse, or that a face had awakened sympathy in that romantic region of feeling between heart and soul which is as far above the brute animal as it is below the pure spirit. Before now his voice had brought fire to a woman's eyes, and her lips had parted with unspoken promises of delight. That was what had happened on the first day when Pina had left him alone with Ortensia and he had sung to her; that had all been normal and natural, and only not dull because the fountain of youth was full and overflowing; that might have happened to any man between twenty and thirty. He had gone away light-hearted after the first lesson, with music in his heart and ears. Was not every beginning of new love a spring that promised summer, and sometimes a rich autumn too, all in a few weeks, and with only a dull day or two to follow at the end, instead of winter? But the next time he saw Ortensia it was a little different, and after that the difference became greater, and at last very great indeed, till he no longer recognised the familiar turnings in light love's short path, and the pretty flowers he had so often plucked by the way did not grow on each side within easy reach, and the fruit of the garden seemed endlessly far away, though he knew it was hidden somewhere, far sweeter than any he had tasted yet. For it was a maiden's garden in which no man had trod before; and the maiden was of high degree, and could not wander along the path with him, yielding her will to his. His light-heartedness left him then, his face grew grave, and his temper became melancholy, for the first time in his life. He was only to give her a few lessons, after all, and Pina would leave him with her for ten minutes, scarcely more, each time he came. One minute would be enough, it was true; if he spoke she would listen, if he took her hand she would let him hold it. But what would be the end of that? A kiss or two, and nothing more. When the lessons were finished he would be told by the Senator that his teaching was no longer needed, and after that there would be nothing. He might see her once a week in her gondola, at a little distance; but as for ever being alone with her again in his life for five minutes, that would be out of the question. Could he, a musician and an artist, a man sprung from the people, even think of aspiring to the hand of a Venetian senator's niece? In those days the idea was ludicrous. And as for her, though she might be in love with him--and he felt that she was--would she entertain for a moment the idea of escaping from her uncle's house, from Venice, to join her lot with a wandering singer's? That was still greater nonsense, he thought. Then what could come of it all but a cruel parting and a heartache, since this was real love and could not end in a laugh, like the lighter sort he had known so well? She was a mere child yet, she would forget in a few weeks; and he was a grown man, who had seen the world, and could doubtless forget if he chose, provided there were never anything to be forgotten beyond what there was already. But if he should speak to her in one of those short intervals when they were alone, if she stretched out her hand, if he clasped her to him, if their lips met, things would not end so easily nor be so soon forgotten. He had the careless knowledge of himself that many gifted men have even when they are still very young; he knew how far he could answer for his own coolness and sense, and that if he allowed himself to cross the limit he would behave like a madman and perhaps like a criminal. Therefore he set himself to be prudent till the lessons should be over, and he even thought of ending them abruptly and leaving Venice. His acquaintance with Ortensia would always be a beautiful recollection in his life, he thought, and one in which there could be no element of remorse or bitterness. He was not a libertine. Few great artists have ever been that; for in every great painter, or sculptor, or musician there is a poet, and true poetry is the refutation of vulgar materialism. In all the nobler arts the second-rate men have invariably been the sensualists; but the masters, even in their love affairs, have always hankered after an ideal, and have sometimes found it. When the Senator ushered in Stradella one morning and quietly announced that the lesson was to be the last, Ortensia felt faint, and turned her back quite to the open window, against the light, so that the two men could not see how she changed colour. The nurse's hard grey eyes scrutinised Pignaver's face for an instant, and then turned to Stradella; he was paler than usual, but grave and collected, for the Senator had already informed him that his services would be no longer needed after that day. Everything was to take place as usual. As usual, Ortensia was to sing one of her uncle's ninety-seven compositions to him while Stradella accompanied her; as usual, Pignaver would then go away; lastly, at the customary time, Pina would go out for ten minutes and reappear with water and sherbet. Ortensia was shaking with emotion when the ordeal began, and for a moment she felt that it was hopeless to try to sing. Some sharp discordant sound would surely break from her lips, and she would faint outright in her misery. She was on the very point of saying that she felt a sudden hoarseness, or was taken ill, when her pride awoke in a flash with a strength that amazed her, the more because she had never dreamed she had any of that sort. Stradella should not guess that she was hurt; she would rather die than let him know that her heart was breaking; more than that, she would break his, if there was time, and if she could! She stood up by her chair and sang far better than she had ever sung before in Pignaver's hearing; she threw life and fire and passion into his mild composition, and she remembered every effective little trick Stradella had taught her for improving the dull melody and for emphasising the commonplace verses it was meant to adorn. The Senator was surprised and delighted, and Stradella softly clapped his hands. She hated him for applauding her, yet she was pleased with the applause. 'What music, eh?' cried the Senator, with a grin of satisfied vanity. 'It is music indeed!' answered Stradella with a grave emphasis that gave the words great weight. 'It has been my endeavour to do justice to it, in instructing your gifted niece.' 'You have succeeded very well, dear Maestro,' Pignaver answered with immense condescension. 'The world will be much your debtor when it hears my melodies so charmingly sung!' With this elephantine compliment the Senator nodded in a patronising way and took himself off, while Stradella bowed politely at his departing back. When the curtain fell before the door, the singer turned to his pupil and sat down in his accustomed seat, with great apparent self-possession. Ortensia watched him, and her new-born resentment increased quickly. 'What will it please you to study to-day?' he inquired, just as easily as if it were not the very last time. She felt much inclined to answer 'Nothing,' and to turn her back on him, but somehow her pride found a voice for her, as indifferent as his own, though she avoided his eyes and looked out of the window. 'It does not matter which song we take,' she answered. 'They are very much alike, as you have often said!' She even laughed, quite lightly and carelessly. It was his turn to be surprised. Her tone was as natural and unstrained as a child's. At the sound of it, he asked himself whether this slip of a thing of seventeen years had not been acting emotions she had not felt, and laughing at him while he had been singing his heart out to her. Any clever girl could twist herself on her chair, and lay her cheek to the back of it, turning away as if she were really suffering, and twining her hands together till the little joints strained and turned even whiter than the fingers themselves. At the thought that she had perhaps made a fool of him, Stradella nearly laughed, and he came near being cured then and there of his latest and most serious love-sickness. His lute was lying on his knees; he began to strum the opening chords of Pignaver's dullest composition, in the dull mechanical way the music deserved. He thought the effect might be to make Ortensia laugh and to change her mood. But, to his annoyance, she rose, laid one hand on the back of the chair, and proceeded to sing the song with the greatest care for details, though by no means with the dashing spirit that had made him applaud her first performance that morning. She was evidently singing for study, as if she meant to profit by his teaching to the very last moment. He accompanied her mechanically, wondering what was going to happen next, and when she had finished he eyed her with curiosity, but said nothing. She seemed completely changed. 'Why do you look at me in that way?' she asked with great calmness. 'Did I make any bad mistake?' He smiled, but not very gaily. 'No,' he answered, 'you made no mistakes at all. You are admirable to-day! I quite understand that my services are no longer needed, for I can teach you nothing more!' 'I have done my best to improve under your instructions,' answered Ortensia primly. She rested both her elbows on the back of the chair now and looked calmly out of the window at her favourite tree. Stradella pretended that his lute needed tuning, turned a peg or two and then turned each back again, and struck idle chords. 'When you are rested,' he said, 'I am at your service for another song.' 'I am ready,' Ortensia answered with a calmness quite equal to his own. Pina, watching them from a distance and neglecting her lace-pillow, saw that something was the matter, and got up to leave the room at least half-an-hour earlier than usual; but because the Senator might come back unexpectedly during this last lesson, she went out through the other door beyond which a broad corridor led to his own apartments, and she stood where she could not fail to hear his steps in the distance if he should return. Ortensia was still standing by her chair when Stradella left his seat and came towards her, holding his lute in one hand. It did not suit his male dignity to take leave of her without finding out whether she had been playing with him or not, though half-an-hour earlier he would not have believed it possible that vanity could enter into any thought he had of her. He stood quite near her, and she met his eyes; she was rather frightened by his sudden advance, and shrank back behind the chair. 'You will find me in your loggia to-night, outside that window,' he said, pointing as he spoke. 'I shall be there an hour before midnight, and I shall wait till it is almost dawn.' He paused, keeping his eyes on hers. She had started back at the first words, and now a deep colour had risen in her cheeks; he could not tell whether it meant anger or pleasure. 'I shall be there,' he repeated; 'I shall be there to say good-bye, if you will have it so, or to come again if you will. But if you do not open the window, I will come twice again at the same hour, to-morrow and the night after that, and wait for you till dawn.' Ortensia turned from him without speaking and went out into the covered loggia. It was her instinct to look at the place where he was to be, and for the moment she could not answer him, for she did not know what to say; she herself could not have told whether she was angry or pleased, she only felt that something new was happening to her. Her mood had changed again in a few seconds. He followed her to the threshold of the window, and stood behind her in the flood of sunshine, so near that he could whisper in her ear and be heard. 'There is love between us,' he said. 'We have seen it in each other's eyes ever since we first met, we have heard it in one another's voices every day! I will not leave you without saying it for us both, just as much for you as for myself! But I must say it all many times, and I must hear it from you too. Therefore I shall be here an hour before midnight to wait, and you will come, and you will open the window when you see me standing outside, and we shall be together! And if you will, we need never part again, for the world is as wide as heaven itself, for those who love to find a safe resting-place.' She raised one hand as if to stop him, without turning round. While he spoke, she had turned pale again by soft degrees, and she drew her breath sharply once or twice, with an effort. He caught the hand she put out and kissed it slowly three times, as if he would leave the print of his young lips on the smooth white skin for a memory. She let him have his way, though she shook her head, and would not turn to him. He was so near her that he could have bent and kissed her, just above the broad lace collar, behind her little ear, where the strong auburn hair sprang in silken waves from the ivory of her neck. The scent of lavender and violets rose from her dress to his nostrils in the warmth. 'You will come,' he whispered. 'How can I?' she asked, very low. Then they heard Pina's voice behind them, not loud, but sharp and imperative. 'The Senator is coming back!' she called to them, as she dropped the curtain after entering and hastened to her seat. Stradella crossed to the other side of the window in an instant, raising the lute he still carried in one hand. 'Sing!' he commanded, and he was already playing the accompaniment to one of Pignaver's everlasting songs. As pride had helped her before, sheer desperation strengthened her now, and, without moving from her place, she began to sing, not very steadily at first, for her heart was beating terribly fast, but carefully, as if she were studying. A moment later Pignaver noiselessly lifted the velvet curtain and looked in, confident that he had surprised them, and perfectly satisfied with the result. Beyond the fact that they were standing in the sunshine to sing and play, on opposite sides of the great window, everything was precisely as he had expected. When the song was ended, he revealed his presence by a word of approbation, and he installed himself to hear the rest of the lesson. When it was over, he himself accompanied Stradella to the stairs. CHAPTER III Ortensia heard the bells strike midnight. She was lying on her back, her eyes wide open, and staring at the rosette in the middle of the pink canopy over her head. She could see it plainly by the dim light of the tiny oil-lamp that hung above the kneeling-stool at which she said her prayers. She had said them with great fervour to-night, and had gone to bed with the firm intention of repeating the last one over and over to herself till she fell asleep. But in this she had not succeeded. She had heard the bells at eleven o'clock and had been wide awake; at that moment Stradella was stepping over the marble balustrade into the loggia. She tried to say her prayer again, but it was of no use at all; she knew that he was standing there just outside the great closed window, waiting, and that to see him she had only to pass through her dressing-room, where Pina slept on a trestle-bed, which was taken away every morning. There was only one door to Ortensia's bedroom, which was the last on that floor of the house; for it was proper that a noble Venetian girl should be safely guarded, and every night the Senator locked both the outer doors of the sitting-room where she had her lessons, and he kept the key under his pillow. Pina and Ortensia were in prison together from ten o'clock at night till seven every morning, and the girl could not leave her own room without passing Pina. To the Senator's insufficient imagination two things were out of the question; he was convinced that no one could get up into the loggia from below, and he was persuaded that Pina, unswerving in her devotion to his interests and honour, would guard Ortensia as jealously as the dragon guarded the Golden Fleece. Moreover, as to getting in by the window, a man would first have to get access to the walled garden below, which Pignaver regarded as another impossibility, for the wall was high, he himself kept the key of the postern that opened on the canal, and the gardener entered through the house. Nevertheless Stradella was standing in the loggia at eleven o'clock; Ortensia was sure he was there, and at midnight she was still lying on her back, staring up at the canopy, with outstretched hands that clutched the edges of the bed on each side. Her idea of what was possible was quite different from her uncle's; the one thing which seemed to her out of the question was that she should lie where she was much longer, and she only succeeded by giving herself the illusion that her own hands held her down by main force. By and by they would be tired, she supposed, and then she would have to go to him. She held fast and listened, hoping to hear the bells again, as if an hour could slip by as in a moment while she was awake; and suddenly she started, and one hand left its hold, for she heard a noise at her own window, a sharp tap, followed by another and another. Then there came a sharp rattling, and she knew that it was only raining, and tried to laugh at herself. The first big drops of the squall had struck the panes like little pebbles. Her hand went down to the edge of the bed again and clutched the mattress desperately, while she listened. He was in the loggia, and the rain was driving in upon him as it was driving against her window. He would not move; he would wait there in the wet till dawn, for he had said so and she believed him. It was hard to hold herself down now, knowing that he was being wet through. He must have left his cloak behind, too, for he could not have been able to climb if hampered by the folds. It was pouring now, and there was wind with the rain, since otherwise it could not have made such a noise against the glass. She had often stood inside the closed window of the sitting-room when it was raining from the same quarter, and she had seen how the gusts drove the water in sheets against the panes, till it ran down and made a river along the loggia and boiled at the grated gutter-sinks through which it ran off. He was perhaps nearly up to his ankles in the little flood by this time, but he would not go away for that. She knew he would wait. Her hands let go and she was suddenly sitting on the edge of the bed, feeling for her slippers with her bare feet; with bare arms raised, she instinctively put up both hands to her hair at the same time, to be sure that it would not come down, for Pina always did it up at night in a thick coil on the top of her head. She heard the rain even more distinctly now; it was coming down in torrents. She looked up at the little lamp burning quietly before Robbia's blue and white bas-relief of the infant Christ, and she thought of her prayers again; but it was positively wicked to let any one stand outside in the rain for hours, to catch his death of cold. She slipped a silk skirt over her thin night-dress and put on her fur-edged dressing-gown over that, for those were the days of wonderful dressing-gowns, quilted with down, bordered with sable or ermine, and trimmed with lace. She drew the cords tightly round her slim waist, and she was ready. For a moment she hesitated; there was no night-light where Pina slept, nor in the day-room beyond; the stormy night must be so dark that she would not be able to find her way to the windows. That thought decided her, and she stopped to light a small hand-lamp. Then she cautiously opened the door, shaded the flame from Pina's face with one hand, and passed quickly through the dressing-room. The nurse lay in her trestle-bed, well covered up, and did not move, and Ortensia shut the next door noiselessly. She hastened to the window, and when she got there she started; his dripping face was flattened against the pane, so white and ghostly that it was like a vision of him dead, but his eyes were alive and were watching her, and when she was quite near the window he smiled. She set down her lamp on the floor at a little distance and began to undo the fastenings with the greatest caution, fearing to make any noise; but as soon as the bolt was drawn the wind forced the frame open so violently that it almost knocked her down. Stradella sprang in with the driving wet and only succeeded in shutting the window after several efforts, during which the lamp was almost blown out. He stood before her then bare-headed, and the water ran down upon the marble floor from his drenched clothes. He had neither hat nor cloak, and his dark hair was matted with the rain; but his face was radiant. 'You are frozen! you are soaked through and through!' she cried anxiously. 'You will get an illness, and I can do nothing! There is not even a little wine here to warm you.' He smiled and shook his head. 'Never mind me,' he answered. 'Or let me take your hand in mine for a moment and the chill will pass!' He put out his own, and when she felt that it was cold and wet, she took it in both of hers and tried to dry it, and chafed it between her palms, till he drew it away rather suddenly with a low laugh. 'Thank you,' he said. 'That is enough!' 'No, let me warm it better, or give me the other!' 'There is too much fire in your touch,' he answered. 'It burns through cold and wet. It would burn through ice itself!' His tone made her forget her first anxiety for him; but she felt that she must explain why she was there, if only to quiet her own conscience. 'I would not have come if it had not rained,' she said, avoiding his eyes, 'and now I must not stay with you. As soon as it stops you must let yourself out and go away. It was only when I heard the rain----' 'Blessings on the rain!' answered Stradella devoutly. 'I never loved it before!' 'You should not have come on such a night--I mean----' She stopped and he saw her blush in the faint light that came up from the lamp on the floor. 'I had no choice, since I had promised,' he answered. 'And I promise you I will come to-morrow again----' 'Oh, do not promise--please!' She seemed distressed. 'Yes, I will come to-morrow and every night, until you come away with me. I will bring you a disguise in which you can travel safely till we are over the Venetian border and free.' 'But I cannot--I will not!' she protested. 'You speak as if--as if----' 'As if we loved each other, heart and soul, for life or death,' he said, not letting her go on, and taking her hand again. 'I speak as if we had been born into the world only for that, to love and live and die together! As if there were no woman for me but you in all the earth, and no man for you but me! As if our lips had promised and had met!' She was drinking his words, and her eyes were in his as he bent to her face. But then she started, in returning consciousness, and tried to draw back. 'No, no!' she cried, in sudden maiden distress. 'Not yet! It is too soon!' He drew her nearer to him in spite of herself, with both her hands in his, till he could speak close to her ear. 'Tell me you do not love me, love! Tell me you will not feel one little regret if you never see me again! Come, say it in my ear, sweetheart! Say that if I fall and am killed in climbing down when I leave you, it will make no more difference to you than if a dog were drowned in the canal! Is it not true, dear? Then say it quickly! Only whisper it in my ear, and I will go away and never come back. But you must say it----' 'Yes--please go!' she answered faintly. 'Go at once----' 'No, you must say the rest first,' he insisted, and his lips were almost touching her ear. 'Say it after me: "I hate you, I despise you, I loathe you, I do not care whether you live or die." Why do you not begin to repeat the words, heart of my heart?' She turned suddenly in his hold, holding her head far back, wide-eyed and very pale. But she could not speak, or would not, foreknowing what must happen now that had never happened to her before. He smiled faintly, and when he spoke again it was a sweet breath she felt, rather than a sound that reached her ear. 'Will you not say it?' he said, and his face came slowly nearer to hers. 'Would it not be true? No? Then say "I love you, love," or speak no word aloud but let your lips make syllables on mine, and, like the blind, the touch will tell me what you say.' Her eyes closed of themselves, the speaking breath came nearer, and then, as lightning flashes through a summer's night, flame ran from her lips to her feet, and to her heart from her hands that lay in his and felt his life stirring. It was innocent enough, a girl's first love-kiss, and the kiss of a man who loved in earnest for the first time, but it seemed a great and a fearful thing to her, irrevocable as lost innocence itself; and he, whose masculine light-heartedness made not much of mere kisses, and laughed at the thought that love could do much wrong, felt that he had given a pledge he must redeem and a promise he must honourably keep. It was innocent enough. He held her by the hands as he bent and kissed her, for the water was still trickling down his drenched clothes, and her pretty dressing-gown would have been spoiled if he had even put one arm round her waist. There was a dash of the ridiculous in that, which would have made them both laugh if they had not been so simply and utterly in earnest. And then when he let her hands go and she sank upon a chair, he could not even sit down beside her, because the velvet seat would have been ruined. So he stood bolt upright in the midst of the little puddle the water had made round his feet. She covered her face with her hands for a moment, not in any shame, but trying to make herself think. 'You must go now,' she said presently, looking up at him. 'It is enough to make the strongest man fall ill, to be drenched as you are. You will lose your voice----' 'What does that matter, if I have found you?' he asked. 'But I will do as you wish, for it has stopped raining at last, and it is growing late--you will lose half your sleep to-night.' 'Or all of it!' she answered softly, thinking of his kiss. 'How did you get up to the loggia? Have you a ladder?' He had none. He had got over the outer wall by means of a rope with a grappling-hook fastened to it, which he had thrown up from the canal. Thence he had reached the loggia without much difficulty, for in the short intervals during the lessons he had more than once looked down and had seen that it was quite possible, and more a question of steady nerves than of great strength and activity. At the level of the loggia a stone ledge ran round the palace, and along this it was easy to creep on hands and knees. He had drawn himself up to it from the top of the wall, which joined the building at the corner of the garden. 'It is easy enough,' Stradella answered. 'And now good-bye. To-morrow night again, love, an hour before midnight.' She rose and they joined hands again. 'I ought to tell you not to come,' she said in a weak voice, like a child's. 'But how can I say it--now--now that----' If any other word would have followed, it could not. Once more her closed eyes saw sweet summer lightnings, and the thrill of the flame ran from her lips through every vital part. He turned from her at last to unfasten the window, and for a moment she was too dazed to stop him, though she would have kept him still. Then she tried to follow him out into the loggia, but he would not let her. 'No, love,' he said, 'your wet shoes would tell tales.' 'But there is danger!' answered Ortensia, holding him by his drenched sleeve. 'I must know you are safe!' 'When I reach my boat I will whistle softly,' he said. He was gone in the dark, and she was listening by the open window, her heart beating so that it seemed as if it must drown any other sound. But he made no noise as he crept along the ledge to the corner, and then cautiously let himself down upon the top of the wall, dropping astride of it then to pull himself along in that position by his hands till he found the grappling-hook of his rope. The wall rose perpendicularly from the canal, and he had moored his little skiff to the only ring he could find at the base of it, some distance from the corner. Ortensia listened anxiously for the promised signal, and peered into the darkness, her hand on the window, ready to close it as soon as she knew he was safe. But suddenly she heard the sound of oars striking the water, and a yellow glare rose above the wall from the other side. 'Who goes there?' asked a deep voice. No one answered, but instantly there was a heavy splash, as of a body falling into the canal. Half-an-hour later Ortensia was lying on her back again, staring up at the rosette in the canopy. But her face was distorted with horror now, and was whiter than the pillow itself. In the day-room, by the light of Ortensia's little lamp, Pina was on her knees, carefully mopping up the water that had run down from Stradella's clothes, and drying the marble floor. CHAPTER IV Soon after sunrise the Senator came and unlocked the doors of Ortensia's day-room. That had always been his custom, for he kept the key under his pillow, as has been said, and he would as soon have thought of sending a servant to liberate the girl and the woman in the morning as of letting any one but himself lock them in at night. 'The master's eye fattens the horse,' he said to himself, quoting a Spanish proverb without much regard for metaphors. It was his wont to open the door, and to look into the large room before going away, for he was sure that his eye would at once detect the slightest disarrangement of the furniture, or anything else unusual which might warrant suspicion. But this morning he did more: he entered the room, shut the door behind him and looked about. He went to the window and examined the fastenings carefully, opened it wide, went out into the loggia and looked down into the garden. Everything was in order there, not one flower-pot had been upset by the squall, not a branch of the cypress-tree was broken or even bent. Then he came in again and tapped sharply at the door of the dressing-room where Pina slept. She appeared instantly, already dressed; but she laid one finger on her lips, to keep him silent, and came out into the room before she spoke. She said that Ortensia had been kept awake half the night by the storm, and was now sound asleep. 'A thief tried to get into the house after midnight,' said Pignaver. 'Did you hear any noise?' 'I should think I did!' cried Pina promptly. 'I was going to tell your lordship of it. I was up with the young lady, and when the first squall was over and she was more quiet, I thought I would just come in here to see if any water had run in under the window as it sometimes does. Just then I saw a glare of light beyond the garden wall, and I opened the window at once and heard the Signor of the Night challenging a thief, and directly afterwards there was a splash in the canal, and then silence, and the light went away slowly. I hope the man was drowned, my lord!' While she was speaking, Pignaver had nodded repeatedly, for her little story bore the stamp of truth. 'I grieve to say that the villain got away,' he answered. 'At daybreak an officer from the Signors of the Night was waiting downstairs to inform me of the attempt. The Signors' boat searched the canal for the body of the man during more than an hour, but found nothing. He must have been on the garden wall when he was seen, and he threw himself into the water to escape, leaving the rope by which he had climbed up.' 'Mercy!' cried Pina. 'We might have all been murdered in our beds!' 'No one shall get upon that wall again,' answered the master of the house. 'I will have the coping stuck full of broken glass from end to end before night.' 'Would it not be well to set a watch in the garden, too, my lord? We should sleep soundly then!' 'We shall see, we shall see,' answered Pignaver, repeating the words slowly, as he went off. 'We shall see,' he said once more, as he went out. As soon as he was gone, Pina hastened to Ortensia's room. 'He is safe!' she cried as she entered. 'They searched the canal for a whole hour, and could not find him!' Ortensia uttered a little cry and sat up in bed suddenly; but she could scarcely believe the news, till Pina had repeated all that the Senator had said. When she heard that the wall was to be crowned with broken glass, however, her face fell, for she saw in a flash of imagination how Stradella would climb up confidently in the dark and would cut his hand to the bone when he grasped the jagged points on the top. 'You must warn him!' cried Ortensia. 'You must go out and find him, and tell him not to come again!' 'I will find him,' answered Pina. They had never spoken of Stradella before the night that was just past. Day after day, while the lessons were going on, Pina had left the two together, and Ortensia had silently accepted the nurse's conduct without understanding its cause; she was too proud to speak of it when they were together, or too shy, but she was sure from the first that Pina would stand by her, though it was the woman's sole business never to let her be out of her sight for a moment. 'And what shall I tell him?' Pina asked. 'What message shall he have from you? I will faithfully deliver your words.' Ortensia covered her eyes with one hand, leaning on the other behind her, to steady herself as she sat up. 'Tell him that--that we must wait--and hope----' 'For what?' asked Pina bluntly. 'For the end of the world?' Ortensia uncovered her eyes and looked up, surprised at the change of tone. 'Will you wait till you are the Senator's wife?' Pina asked, her grey eyes hardening suddenly. 'Will you hope that by that time the broken glass on the wall will have softened in the rain till it will not cut his hands? Or that you will be more free when you are married? You will not be. That is not the way in Venice. I am a serving-woman, and, besides, I am neither young nor pretty--I was once!--so I may go and come on your business and walk alone from the Piazza to Santa Maria dell' Orto. But you noble ladies, you are born in a cage, you live in bondage, and you die in prison! Will you wait? Will you hope? What for?' 'What do you mean?' asked Ortensia in a frightened voice. 'Am I never to see him again? Is my message to him to be a good-bye?' 'Good-bye is easily said,' Pina answered, shaking her head enigmatically. The young girl let herself sink back on her pillow, and turned her face against her bare arm, so that at least her eyes were hidden from the nurse. 'I cannot!' she whispered to herself, drawing a breath that almost choked her. 'Yes,' Pina repeated harshly, 'it is easy to say farewell; and as for any hope after that, the devil lends it us at usury, and if we cannot pay on the day of reckoning he takes possession!' 'What cruel things you say!' Ortensia cried in a half-broken tone, turning her head slowly from side to side, with her face hidden in the soft hollow of her elbow. 'What hope will there be for you, child, when you are your uncle's wife? The hope of dying young--that is all the hope you will have left!' The woman laughed bitterly, and Ortensia felt that she was going to cry, or wished that she could, she was not quite sure which. 'Therefore I say it is folly to send a man such a message. "Wait and hope," indeed! How long? His lifetime? Yours? You are both young, and you may wait and hope fifty years, till your hair and teeth fall out, and you discover that there is nothing in hope after all! Better say good-bye outright, though it kill you! Better try and forget than make a martyrdom of remembering! Better anything than hope!' The grey-eyed woman's voice shook with an emotion which Ortensia could not have understood if she had noticed it, for she was dreadfully miserable just then. Pina bent down over her, smoothed her hair and patted her bare arm softly. 'Why hope for what you can take, if you have the courage?' she asked, dropping her voice to a whisper, as she glanced behind her towards the door. Ortensia lifted her head and looked up, her lips parting in surprise. 'Why should you waste time in waiting?' Pina asked, still whispering. 'That is the message I would send if I were you,' she added. 'Shall I take it?' 'But how?--I do not understand--he cannot come to me here.' 'We can go to him,' answered the nurse. 'Is it not easy? The next time you confess at the Frari he will meet us. It is simple enough. Two long brown cloaks with hoods, such as old women wear, a few hundred yards to walk from the Frari to the Tolentini, his gondola there, and out by Santa Chiara to the mainland and Padua--who shall catch us then? You are young and strong, and I am tough; we shall not die of the fatigue; and by the next morning we shall all three be out of Venetian territory. What is easier?' Ortensia listened to this bold plan in silence, too much surprised to ask why Pina was so ready to propose it, and a little frightened too, for she was a mere girl, and all the world beyond Venice was a mysterious immensity of Cimmerian gloom in the midst of which little pools of brilliant light marked the great and wonderful places she had heard described, such as Rome, Florence, and Milan, and royal Paris, and imperial Vienna. 'But my uncle would send men after us,' Ortensia objected. 'The Council of Ten will do anything he asks! They will give him soldiers, ships, anything! How can we possibly escape from him? We shall be caught and brought back!' Pina smiled at such fears. 'Beyond the Venetian border they can do nothing,' she said. 'Do we mean to rob the Senator or murder him, that Venice should send an ambassador to claim us for trial under the laws of the Republic? Is it a crime for young people to love, and to run away and marry?' 'You do not know how powerful my uncle is,' Ortensia said. Pina's face changed at once, and her expression became stony and impenetrable. 'You are wrong,' she answered in a hard voice. 'I know he is powerful. But if you fear him, as I do not, then wait and hope! Wait and hope!' She laughed very strangely as she repeated the words, and her voice cracked on the last one, with a discordant note that frightened Ortensia, who was weary and overwrought. 'What is it, Pina?' asked the young girl quickly. 'What has happened?' The nurse was already herself again, and pretended to cough a little. 'It is nothing,' she said presently. 'Something in my throat, just as I was speaking. It often happens. And as for what we were speaking of, there is no hurry. I will find the Maestro Alessandro before noon, and warn him not to come near our garden wall again, and I will tell him from you anything you wish, except that you do not care what becomes of him, for that would not be true!' She laughed again, but quite gently this time, and began to busy herself about the room, making preparations for Ortensia to dress. The girl had laid her head on her pillow again, looking up at the little pink silk rosette in the middle of the canopy, and she was sure that it had a much less sad look now than it had worn in the small hours by the flickering night light. This seemed quite natural to Ortensia, for the familiar little objects in a girl's own room have a different expression for every hour of her life, to sympathise with each joy and sorrow, great or small, and with every hope, and surprise, and disappointment. But Ortensia herself could not have told what she felt just then, for it was a sensation of startled unrest, in which great happiness and great fear were striving with each other to possess her; and she knew that if she yielded to the fear, she would lose the happiness, but that if she opened her heart to the happiness, the fear would at once become a terror so awful that she must certainly die of it. She did not ask why her nurse was so ready to help her to run away. The fact was enough. The plan looked easy, and Stradella was the man to carry it out. She had only to consent, and in a week, or less, all would be done, and she would be joined to him for ever. If she refused, she must inevitably become the wife of Pignaver in a few months. She writhed on her pillow at the mere thought. Two hours later she was standing before the big open window, watching three masons who were working on the top of the garden wall; they spread thick layers of stiff grey mortar over the old coping, and then stuck in sharp bits of broken glass, patting and pressing down the cement against each piece, to make the hold quite firm. The murderous splinters gleamed in the sunshine, and the men set them so near together that one could hardly have laid a finger anywhere between them. Ortensia watched the work, and now and then she looked at the top of the cypress-tree, half-unconsciously wondering how many days would pass before she saw it for the last time. But in the broad daylight she lived over and over again every instant of that short night meeting that was the greatest event in all her life. If she only drooped her lids a little she saw Stradella there before her in his dripping clothes by the rays of the little lamp, his face was close to hers again, her lips touched his, and a delicate thrill ran through all her body and reminded her faintly but very sweetly of what she had felt when he kissed her. Meanwhile, Pina had found the musician's lodging, near Santa Maria dell' Orto, which was a long way from the Senator's palace, for that quarter lies on the extreme outer edge of Venice, looking across the lagoon towards Murano. The door was opened for her by a hunchback, with a large, intellectual face, beardless and strongly modelled, such a face as Giotto would have taken as a model for a Doctor of the Church. The sad blue eyes looked up to Pina's with cold gravity; but when she explained that she came from the Palazzo Pignaver with a message, they brightened a little, and the man at once stood aside for her to enter. She touched his hump lightly for luck in passing, as every Italian woman will to this day if she finds herself close to a hunchback in the street, and this act is rarely resented. Pina thought it a piece of unexampled good-fortune and of the best possible augury that the door should have been opened by a 'bringer-of-fortune,' and the deformed servant smiled gently at her touch, quite understanding. As he led the way in, after shutting the outer door, Pina saw that nature had meant him for a man of large proportions, and that his short stature was chiefly due to the terrible deformity of his back and chest, for his slightly bowed legs looked as sturdy as a street porter's, and his powerful arms were so long that his hands swung well below his knees when he walked. He wore plain brown clothes, and a broad white collar, and Pina, who was observant, noticed the neatness of his dress. Stradella received her with a politeness to which, as a serving-woman, she was little accustomed, and he made her sit down in a comfortable chair before asking for news of Ortensia. He himself was none the worse for his wetting. The hunchback waited a moment as if expecting some order, but Stradella only nodded to him, and he went out. 'My young lady is well, and greets you, sir,' Pina said in answer to the Maestro's question, when the door was shut. 'She bids you be warned and not try to climb the wall again, for it is already being crowned with broken glass, which would cut your hands; and, moreover, the Senator will probably set a watch in the garden, since you were fortunately mistaken for a thief last night.' Stradella listened to this business-like statement attentively, and watched Pina's face while she was speaking. Her hard grey eyes met his with perfect frankness. 'I see that you know everything,' he said. 'Tell me, then, how can I see the lady Ortensia? Surely you are not come to tell me that I am not to see her again.' Pina unfolded her plan with a clearness and precision that first surprised him, and then roused his suspicion. For a few moments after she had ceased speaking he was silent, and examined his left hand with thoughtful interest, gently rubbing with his thumb the callous places made on the tips of his fingers by playing on stringed instruments. The woman puzzled him, for he understood well enough from her tone that she was not moved to help him merely by affection for her mistress, and she could certainly not be supposed to be actuated by any sudden devotion to himself. Besides, she must be aware that he was not a rich man, and could not requite with any large sum of money such a service as she offered. Her motive was a mystery. At last he spoke. 'Listen to me,' he said, watching her eyes. 'Your plan is good, and perfectly feasible. If you are in earnest, it can be carried out to-morrow, or whenever the lady Ortensia is ready. I will reward you as well as I can, but you must remember that I am a poor musician and not a Venetian senator----' Pina's grey eyes were like steel, and her tone was cold, and not without a certain dignity. 'Have I asked money of you, sir?' 'Oh, no!' answered Stradella readily. 'I only wished----' She interrupted him, as if she were his equal. 'Even a servant may love something better than a bribe!' she said. 'I beg your pardon,' Stradella found himself saying, a good deal to his own surprise, for he had not expected to hurt a serving-woman's feelings by speaking of money. 'I misunderstood you.' 'You did indeed, sir!' answered Pina. 'All I ask of you is that you will take me with you in your flight, for the Senator will certainly have me murdered if I am left behind. Afterwards, if my lady does not want me, I will look for another place, or live by lace-making.' Stradella did not like the answer. The Sicilian character has grave defects: it is revengeful, over-proud, violent, and sometimes cruel; but it is generally truthful, and it is, above all, direct. 'You talk lightly of leaving your mistress,' said the musician. 'It is not for love of her that you are ready to help us.' Pina faced him fearlessly. 'You are right,' she answered. 'And yet she is the one living being I love at all. Affection is not the only motive one may have, sir.' 'Nor love of money either,' Stradella said thoughtfully. 'The third is hate. Last of all comes charity!' 'I am not a saint, sir,' said Pina. 'So you are answered. I hate my master, and I have the right to hate him. That is my affair. If I dared kill him, I would, but I should not have the courage to bear being tortured if I were arrested and tried. I am only a woman, and I fear bodily pain more than anything. That is why I did not kill the Senator twenty years ago.' The musician watched the cold, resentful face that had once been so handsome, and though he could not guess her story he partly understood her. 'You are frank,' he said. 'I see that you are in earnest, and that I can trust you.' 'Trust me for anything, sir, except to resist torture,' Pina answered. 'I know what it is,' she added in a low voice, and avoiding his eyes as if she were suddenly ashamed. 'As for my master,' she went on, turning to Stradella again a moment later, 'I believe he would rather die than be made a laughing-stock. I know that he yesterday announced to his friends his betrothal to his niece, which has been a secret for several weeks. I can hear the fine ladies and gentlemen laughing at him when they learn that she has run away with her music-master on the eve of her marriage! I can fancy the jests and the sarcasms the Senator will have to put up with!' She laughed herself, rather savagely, and Stradella smiled. Provided he could carry off Ortensia, he did not even object to becoming the instrument of a serving-woman's vengeance. They agreed upon the details of the flight. On the next day but one, being the feast of one of the many Franciscan saints, Stradella was to sing an air at Vespers in the Church of the Frari. It was therefore arranged that Ortensia and Pina should go to the church at that hour on pretence of confession. At the monument of Pietro Bernardini, near the main entrance, Stradella's hunchback servant would be waiting for them with two brown cloaks and hoods, which they were to put on immediately. They were then to kneel down quietly in the shadow and to wait till Stradella had finished singing, when they were to leave the church without waiting for him; his man would lead them through by-ways to the gondola, which was to wait on the farther side of the Tolentini. Stradella himself would slip away from the loft as soon as the Benediction began, after Vespers, just when all the other musicians would be very busy. He would probably reach the gondola almost as soon as Ortensia and the two servants, and in five minutes they would be well out of the city. 'And pray, sir,' asked Pina, 'what is your man's name?' 'Cucurullo,' Stradella answered. 'What a strange name!' Pina exclaimed. 'It is common enough in Naples.' CHAPTER V The Benediction was over, and the music had died away; the deep colours of the ancient windows already blended into luminous purple stains, like red wine spilt on velvet just before dusk; on the altar of the Sacrament and all about it hundreds of wax candles were burning steadily, arranged in dazzling concentric rings and shining curves. A young Dominican monk had prostrated himself before the shrine, a motionless figure, half kneeling and half lying on the steps. The service was ended and the priests were gone. Some five hundred feet shuffled slowly away from the blaze of light into the gloom and out through the western door, and the brighter part of the church was already deserted; but the young monk remained motionless, prostrate upon the steps. Two men stood by the choir screen, the broad-brimmed black hats they held in their hands hanging so low that the draggled feathers swept the pavement, their eyes directed towards the retiring crowd. They were two shabby gentlemen of thirty years or under; though their clothes were not yet actually torn or patched, most of their garments were already in that premonitory state which warns the wearer of old breeches to sit down with deliberation and grace, rather than with rash haste, and to make no uselessly quick movements whereby an old sewing may rip open, or the silk or cloth itself may split and gape in an unseemly manner, furnishing a cause for mirth in better-clad men. These two poor gentlemen were very unlike in appearance, except as to their well-worn clothes and in respect of their rapiers, which were so exactly similar that they might have been made for a duelling pair. Each had a beautifully chiselled and polished bell-guard, with the Italian cross-bar for the middle finger; each was sheathed in a good brown leather sheath, with a chiselled steel shoe to drag on the pavement, and each weapon hung from the wearer's shoulder-belt by two short chains of well-furbished steel. The weapons looked serviceable, though they made little pretence to beauty, in an age when most things worn by men and women were adorned too much rather than too little. But the men themselves were not alike. The shorter of the two was very fair, with the complexion of a Saxon child, and unnaturally pink cheeks; his nose turned up to a sharp point in the most extraordinary manner, so that the pink openings of the nostrils seemed to stand upright above the flaxen moustache, reminding one of the muzzles of certain wild cats. His blue eyes were large, perfectly round, and often aggressively fixed, and the long yellow lashes that bristled all round them might have passed for rays. He wore a short pointed beard, and his very thick fair hair was parted exactly in the middle and hung down below his dingy collar on each side, perfectly straight and completely hiding his ears. There was something both comic and disturbing in his aspect. His companion was much less extraordinary in appearance, though any one would have noticed him in a crowd as an unusual type. Instead of being fair, he was as dark as a Moor; instead of turning up, his immensely long and melancholy nose curved downwards over his thin lips like a vulture's beak as if trying to peck at his chin. His eyes were shadowy and uncertain under his prominent forehead and bushy eyebrows. His beard was a mere black wisp, and the points of his scant moustaches were waxed and stood up stiffly. He was the taller of the two, but his hat hung lower in his hand than his friend's, for he had unnaturally long arms, with a long body and short legs, whereas the fair man with the turned-up nose was remarkably well-proportioned. 'Who says we have no good music in Venice?' inquired the latter at last, fixing his round eyes on the other's face angrily, and pressing down the hilt of his sword so as to make the point stick up behind. His mouth looked ridiculously small, and his pink cheeks were very large and round. His companion had long ago come to the conclusion that he was very like one of those rosy cherubs that roll about the clouds in the religious pictures painted in those times, blowing their trumpets till they look as if their red cheeks must burst. Accordingly, he had nicknamed his friend 'Trombin,' short for 'trombino,' a 'little trumpeter.' The dark man had always gone by the name of Gambardella, and seemed quite satisfied with the appellation. The two had been companions in their profession for several years, but neither knew much of the other's antecedents, and both were far too proud, or too tactful, or too prudent, to ask questions. They wore the dress and weapons of gentlemen, and were extremely ticklish as to the point of honour; but they did not now sit in the Grand Council of the Venetian Republic, though each perceived that the other had once enjoyed that privilege, and had forfeited it for the good of his native city. They travelled a great deal, always together, and their friends knew that they met with frequent and sudden changes of fortune. Their clothes were shabby now, yet scarcely six months ago they had been seen strolling arm in arm in Florence, in the Piazza della Signoria, arrayed in silks and satins and fine linen. Only their weapons were never replaced in prosperity by handsomer swords with gilded hilts, nor exchanged in adversity for others of less perfect balance and temper. 'This Stradella sings like an angel,' said Gambardella after a moment. 'I hear that he composes good music himself, and that his new oratorio will be performed before the Doge in Saint Mark's next Sunday.' 'If we had any money,' observed Trombin regretfully, 'we would hire a house and ask him to supper.' 'Yes,' answered Gambardella in a melancholy tone. 'Our Venetians do not understand these things. To them a man of genius like Alessandro Stradella is just a music-master, and nothing else, a mountebank or a strolling minstrel, to be hired and paid for his work, and dismissed with a cool nod, like a servant. Trombin, let us leave Venice.' 'After we have heard the oratorio on Sunday----' 'Of course! Do you think I would miss that? But there is nothing for us to do here just now, whereas in Genoa, or Florence, or even Rome, we should not be always idle.' 'Venice is a dull place, compared with what it used to be,' Trombin admitted, and he raised his right forearm, turning it till he could examine the threadbare elbow of his coat in the glare of the candles. 'Another week will do it,' he added, after a careful examination. 'I can already perceive the direction which the split will take.' 'I never sit down, if I can help it,' said Gambardella mournfully. 'It is a strange fact,' answered Trombin thoughtfully, 'that only those nations that wear breeches sit upon chairs; the others squat on their heels, though they have no breeches to save. This is a most contradictory world.' 'I never could see any sense in it myself,' returned the other. 'Shall we go to supper?' 'It pleases you to be humorous,' Trombin observed, and they moved away from the great choir screen. As they passed the blazing chapel of the Sacrament, each bent his knee and crossed himself devoutly. The young monk was still prostrate before the altar. Trombin looked at him sharply, and the two went on towards the open door, through which the fading twilight outside admitted barely enough light to distinguish the great pillars and tombs. The two shabby gentlemen left the church and strolled slowly along the edge of the canal. In the open air it was quite light still, and the warm afterglow of the sunset had not quite paled yet. 'Supper!' said Trombin presently, dwelling on the one word in a musical tone, and with the deepest feeling. 'That is the worst of Venice,' answered Gambardella, gloomily pulling his soft hat over his eyes. 'One cannot even eat here without paying. Now in Florence or Rome the people are more simple, and when you have made your necessary debts, and creditors talk of imprisoning you, why, then, you need only appeal to the Venetian Ambassador for protection, and you are perfectly safe! But here! On the word of a gentleman, it is enough to drive a man to highway robbery!' Trombin laughed softly. 'Supper!' he said again, as musically and feelingly as before. 'You will make me mad with your whining!' cried Gambardella angrily. 'You will drive me to commit a crime!' 'One more will make no difference,' returned Trombin, with great coolness. 'After the first, which sullied the virgin lustre of your spotless soul, my dear friend, it is of no use to count the others, till you come to the last--and may you enjoy many long years of health, activity, and happiness before that is reached!' 'The same to you!' answered the melancholic man morosely, for he was hungry, and in no humour for banter. They stopped where a wooden bridge spanned the narrow canal, for all bridges in Venice were not yet built of stone in the year 1670. They had only one thought, and Trombin had already expressed it twice with longing and regret. So far as mere hunger and thirst went, they could satisfy themselves with bread, salt fish and cheese, and a draught of water. They were not such imprudent gentlemen as to risk absolute starvation in their native city, where they could get no credit, and though they often lived riotously for months together, they invariably set aside a sum which would furnish them with the merest necessities for a considerable time. There was a system in their way of living, and they stuck to it with a laudable determination which would have done honour to better men. Enough was not as good as a feast, and since their income was always uncertain, the only way to get any real enjoyment out of life was to feast recklessly while they could, though only for a few days, and then to pay for extravagance with the strictest asceticism, till a rain of gold once more gladdened the garret to which they had retired to fast. They stood by the end of the bridge in silence a long time while it grew dark, Gambardella gazing sadly at the dark water of the still canal at his feet, while Trombin, who was of a more hopeful disposition, looked at the evening star, just visible in the darkening west, between the long lines of tall houses on each side of the canal. The reason why they stopped just then with one accord was that to cross the bridge meant to go home to their wretched lodging, though it was still so early; and the prospect was not attractive. But they knew their weakness, and long ago had bound themselves together by promises they would not break. If they turned away from the bridge and followed the narrow street, they would come in time to Saint Mark's Square, and they would breathe the intoxicating air of pleasure that hung over it as the scent of flowers over a garden at evening, and temptation would assail them in one of at least twenty delightful shapes; and then and there the little sum that stood between them and starvation would melt away in a night, leaving them in a very bad way indeed. Yet now they lingered just a few moments by the wooden bridge, dreaming of riotous nights and glorious suppers, before going home to bread and cheese and cold water. And just then fate sent to them the young Dominican monk they had left prostrate before the altar in the church when they came out; at all events it seemed natural to suppose that it was he, though they had hardly caught sight of his youthful face before and now could not see it all, for he had pulled his white hood well down over his eyes. He was evidently about to cross the bridge, when he unexpectedly found Trombin in front of him, stopping the way. The street and the canal were deserted, and not a sound broke the stillness. The monk stood still. He was short and slight, and could have slipped through a very narrow space, but Trombin seemed to swell himself out till he filled the bridge from side to side, and kept his hand on the hilt of his rapier. Gambardella looked on indifferently, supposing that his companion meant to indulge in some witticism or practical joke at the expense of the young monk. 'Your reverence must pay toll at this bridge,' said Trombin. 'Toll?' cried a youthful voice from under the cowl. 'The decree has just been passed by the Ten,' answered Trombin. 'My friend and I are stationed here by the Signors of the Night to exact payment.' Gambardella did not clearly understand, but he moved up behind the monk, so that the latter could not get back. 'I understand,' said the Dominican in his sweet voice, after a moment's hesitation. 'But I have no money. I am only a poor monk----' 'The Fathers of the Order of Preachers do not take vows of poverty, your reverence,' said Gambardella in deep tones, behind the youth. 'That is true, but I have no money with me,' protested the latter. 'That emerald ring you wear on your left hand will do quite as well,' answered Trombin. 'We shall not ask you for anything else this evening.' Now the monk's hands were thrust deep into the two slits in the front of his frock, as in a muff; but Trombin's eyes were good, and they had caught sight of the jewel unwarily exposed while the young man was performing his devotions in the church. He seemed disturbed, hesitated, and hung his head. Standing behind him, Gambardella laid a heavy hand on the slight shoulder, while Trombin, in front, grasped his left wrist roughly, to draw it out of his frock. At this the young monk suddenly burst into a flood of tears under his cowl, and began to sob bitterly. 'What fish have we caught here?' asked Gambardella, laughing for the first time that day, and he seized the point of the hood at the back to pull it off the head and face. But instantly the monk's right hand went up and held it down in front desperately. 'No, no! Please--you shall have the ring--anything--only let me go!' There was no mistaking the feminine voice now, broken as it was with sobbing, and Trombin made one step backward on the bridge and bowed to the ground. 'Madam,' he said, with a grand air, 'we are not ruffians, but Venetian gentlemen. We will respect your disguise, and shall be delighted and honoured to see you safely to your own door. For this little service we shall be more than rewarded if you will leave us your ring in recollection of our auspicious meeting!' 'As a further return for your kindness,' added Gambardella, speaking over the disguised lady's shoulder, 'we are at your service, to rid you of any obnoxious friends or relations.' 'I see that you are Bravi,' the lady said, keeping her face closely concealed under the hood. 'I am the less unwilling to part with my ring since I may have need of you. But where can I find you in that case?' 'When we are unoccupied, you will find us at our devotions in the Church of the Frari during the Benediction, any day,' answered Trombin, receiving the ring from the delicate white fingers that held it out to him. He bowed as he took it, and flattened himself against the rail of the wooden bridge, hat in hand, to let the disguised lady go by. 'Shall we follow you, Madam, for your greater safety?' asked Gambardella. 'No, I pray you! I will go alone. I live near here.' 'We wish your ladyship a very happy night,' Trombin answered. 'The same to you,' said the young voice. She was out of sight in a few seconds in spite of her white monk's frock, which might have been seen at a considerable distance even in the gloom of the narrow lane beyond the bridge. Trombin, who tried to follow her with his sharp eyes, was sure that she had turned into a cross alley that led to the large court in which the Palazzo Pignaver then stood. But that was a matter of speculation, whereas the emerald ring was a matter of fact, and could be converted into a number of things which the two adventurous gentlemen very much wanted just then. Their vow of economy now no longer bade them cross the bridge and return to their wretched lodging and frugal supper. The ring would pay for many suppers, and for good clothes too. They did not even exchange a word as they turned in the direction of the Rialto with a light step, and they felt that delightful sensation which fills the being of a man who loves eating at the moment when brutal hunger, that has expected only prison fare, turns into keen appetite at the sudden vision of boundless good things to eat in half an hour. Gambardella's melancholy face relaxed in the dark, and the lines that had before turned down now all turned upwards, except those of his long hooked nose; and the formidable beak seemed to stand sentinel over his thin lips, so that no good thing should enter between them on the way to his stomach without sending up its toll of rich savour to his nostrils. Trombin's small pursed-up mouth also widened to a set smile, and he softly hummed snatches from the beautiful air Alessandro Stradella had sung during the Benediction service. It was a mere thread of a squeak of a falsetto voice, but it had at least the merit of being perfectly in tune, and his musical memory was faultless. 'You are a great man,' said Gambardella thoughtfully, when they had walked some distance and were nearing their destination. 'You flatter me!' laughed Trombin. 'What is easier than to guess that a Dominican monk with a small white hand and an emerald ring may be a lady in disguise? Besides, my dear friend, with your exquisite sense of all that is feminine, you must surely have noticed her walk as she came up to the bridge. I am not a judge of women myself, but as soon as I saw the monk walking, I was sure of the truth.' 'I did not see her coming, but she has a delicious voice,' answered Gambardella thoughtfully. 'I wish I had seen her face.' 'Perhaps you may, some day. Here we are.' They stopped before a low arched door not fifty yards from the Rialto. A large dry bush, sticking out of a narrow grated window beside the forbidding entrance, showed that wine was sold within. The faint yellow light from the lamp of a shrine, built in the wall on the opposite side of the street, just overcame the darkness. Trombin tried the door and found it ajar; both men entered, and Gambardella pushed it back to its original position. It was quite dark within, and the place smelt like a wine-cellar, but the two evidently knew their way and they walked quickly forward, half a dozen paces or so, till a wide space suddenly opened on the right, and a wretched little earthenware oil-lamp appeared, high up, dimly lighting the first landing of a damp stone staircase. The friends began to mount at once. As they went up the air became drier, the smell of the cellar turned into a complex odour of grilled meats, savoury sauces, rich wine, and spring fruits, which the companions snuffed and breathed in with greedy delight; sounds of laughing voices were heard, the stairs were better lighted, and now and then the idle tinkling of a lute or of a deep-voiced, double-stringed guitar made an improvised accompaniment to the cheerful echoes. Gambardella and Trombin entered a brightly lighted vestibule at the head of the stair and were greeted by the host in person, a broad-shouldered, black-haired Samian with brilliant red cheeks; he was showily dressed in blue cloth trimmed with gold braid, wore a tall fez and spotless linen, and had a perfect arsenal of weapons stuck in his belt, all richly ornamented with silver work, in which were set pieces of coral, carbuncles, and turquoises. He had a look of tremendous vitality and health, and the tawny light danced and played in his eyes when he laughed. He spoke the Venetian dialect fluently, but with a strong Greek accent, and an evident difficulty in pronouncing the letter B. 'Welcome, young gentlemen!' he cried in a formidably cheerful voice, as he rose from the little table at which he had been busy with his accounts. 'Here is old Markos, your faithful friend! What can Markos do for your lordships to-day? Do you desire money of Markos? It is yours, all his poor store! Or do you come for supper, to taste a real pilaf and a brace of quails roasted in fig leaves, with a jar of old wine of Samos and a sweetmeat, and some liquor brewed by the monks of Mount Athos? Markos is here to serve you!' He looked as broad as he was long as he stood there bawling out his noisy greetings, his thumbs stuck into his broad red leather belt, his legs apart, and his white teeth gleaming like a young boar's tusks in the midst of his shiny black beard. Trombin nodded gravely at each phrase, keeping his hat on his head, and making his rapier stick up behind him. From the rooms beyond the vestibule the rich steam of good things floated through the half-closed door, and the ring of merry voices, clinking glasses, and tinkling strings was delightful to the ears of men who had supped in a garret on bread and salt fish for three weeks. 'Markos,' said Trombin, 'apply your excellent sight and your money-lender's intelligence to this marvellous ring, with which unfortunate circumstances now oblige me to part. It belonged to my sainted aunt, the Abbess of Acquaviva, who left it to me with her blessing when I was young and innocent. It was once blessed by His Holiness Saint Pius the Fifth, who thereby endowed it with efficacious power to protect the virtue of those who should wear it. My sainted aunt wore it for forty years, and she was indeed virtuous to the end of her life. I remember that she was cross-eyed and had bad teeth and a sallow complexion. For my own part, I must confess that I have not always----' 'How much do you want on it?' interrupted Markos, who had been examining the stone as well as he could by the light of the oil-lamp, while Trombin was talking in his grand style. 'A hundred ducats down, and no wine,' answered Gambardella, without hesitation, in his deep voice. 'We would accept half a dozen jars of Samos, to be drunk here,' suggested Trombin, 'if we sealed them ourselves.' Markos grinned from ear to ear. 'Twenty ducats,' he said quietly, 'and a hogshead of "rezinato," worth ten ducats more! That is all I can give.' 'Rezinato at ten ducats!' sneered Gambardella. 'It costs me that,' retorted the money-lender, 'so it must be worth it. Possibly I might make the cash twenty-five ducats, but that would only be out of old friendship. I shall lose by it if you do not redeem the ring.' 'I wish you might lose something for once!' cried Trombin devoutly. They bargained long. In those days, and long before and afterwards, the money-lenders of Venice were Greek and Eastern eating-house keepers and sellers of wine, and it was impossible to pawn any object with them without accepting at least one-third of the advance in the shape of wine more or less sour, or watered, or both. But the two shabbily-dressed gentlemen who had taken the emerald ring from the disguised lady were not ordinary customers. Trombin inspired present terror, and Gambardella apprehension for the future, and though Markos was as broad as he was long and had a dozen pistols and knives in his belt, his courage was not equal to his ferocious appearance. From a business point of view, the Venetian Bravi were children in his hands; but when they came quite near to him, one on each side, and spoke slowly and clearly in their determined way, the tremendous Markos felt his bravery shrink within him till it seemed to rattle like a dry pea shaken in a steel cuirass, and the amount of money he actually advanced on the ring was considerable; he even consented to let Gambardella seal the six jars of Samos wine, which formed part of the loan, with the heavy brass seal ring the Bravo wore, on which was engraved the Bear of the Ursuline Order of Nuns, with a few words in Gothic characters. One of many things which Trombin did not know about his companion was the story of that ring and how Gambardella had become possessed of it. So the transaction was duly terminated, and when Markos had at last parted with his money and his fine old wine, his jolly face cleared once more; for, after all, he had not lost by the bargain, though he had not made much, and the good-will of the two most famous and dangerous cut-throats in all the Venetian territory was worth something to a man who always lived more or less on the outer edge of the law. Half-an-hour later bliss descended upon the companions as they sat at table in their favourite place, a sort of alcove or niche in the general hall of the eating-house, whence they could see and hear all that went on, without being too much disturbed in their enjoyment of the good things set before them. The place was brightly lighted by several scores of lamps fed with mingled oil, tallow, and camphor, and fastened on large wooden rings that hung from the high ceiling. The smoke floated up to the blackened beams, and found its way out through a small clere-story window at one end, and the light below was clear and soft. Thirty or forty guests were seated at tables of different sizes, and amongst them was a fair scattering of handsome women, mostly dressed in silks and satins of bright colours, and wearing jewels that sparkled when they moved. The men were of all sorts: there were a few good-looking young Venetian nobles, who had laid aside their cloaks and outer coats, and sat in their doublets and lace collars; there were two rich English travellers, in dark velvet, their long fair locks carefully combed and curled in the manner of the cavaliers, their hands conspicuously white, and their fingers adorned with magnificent rings; with them sat two auburn-haired Venetian beauties, radiant and laughing, and sipping Eastern wines from tall goblets of Murano glass. At one long table near the wall a serenading party was installed, their pretty instruments hanging on pegs behind them, together with their hats and cloaks. Beyond, in a corner, a pale young Florentine, with a spiritual profile, was supping with a lady who turned her back to the hall, and whose head and shoulders were almost hidden in a cloud of priceless lace. These two spoke little and ate delicately, and now and then their dark eyes met and flashed upon each other. The air was hot, and heavy with the fumes of Greek wines and savoury dishes. At the farther end of the hall a large door opened now and then, and showed the bright kitchen where the host's wife presided, and whence neatly dressed youths brought dishes to the guests. Considering what the place was, an eating-house kept by a foreign money-lender, there was an air of luxury about it, and an appearance of orderly and temperate behaviour among the guests, that would have surprised a stranger who knew nothing of Venice, if he had been suddenly introduced by the gloomy entrance from the street through which Trombin and Gambardella had made their way. CHAPTER VI The lady who chose to go about Venice at dusk in the disguise of a monk encountered no further adventures after the loss of her ring; but she met with a very grave disappointment, of which the consequences directly concern this tale. After leaving the Bravi who had robbed her, she threaded the narrow ways northwards with a quick step till she came to a point near to the Fondaco dei Turchi on the Grand Canal. There she took the gondola that waited for passengers at the old traghetto, and she was quickly ferried over to the landing by the Palazzo Grimani. A few minutes later she was knocking at the door of Alessandro Stradella's lodgings near Santa Maria dell' Orto. She knocked firmly and confidently, like a person quite sure of admittance. But no one came to open, and she heard no sound from within; so she knocked again, and after a shorter interval a third time. There was no answer, and nothing broke the stillness. With small regard for her disguise, the lady stamped twice in a most feminine way, then tried to shake the solid door with her hands, and finally turned away in disgust. It was almost dark in the staircase, and she descended the two flights slowly, drawing her hand along the wall to steady herself. The exercise of some caution, to avoid a fall, momentarily cooled her anger a little, and when she reached the entrance of the house she reflected that she had perhaps been hasty, and that the Maestro had possibly been detained by the other musicians, and would come home before long. She waited some time under the shadow of the archway, though several persons passed her, some going in, others going out. No one is ever surprised to see a monk waiting at the door of a large house. The disguised lady walked slowly up and down, her hood drawn well over her eyes, and her hands hidden in the slits of the frock. But when the clocks struck the hour, and it had grown quite dark, she gave up all hope, and went away, returning in the direction whence she had come, and revolving plans of vengeance on the ungrateful singer as she walked. She could not call him faithless, even in her mortification, for she had never exchanged a word with him in her life; and if that seems strange to any who read this story, let them learn something, if they can, of what constantly happens nowadays to popular operatic tenors. The disguised lady was of a romantic disposition; she was the respected wife of a rich citizen, by no means noble; her husband was absent in the East, and she had foolishly fallen in love with Alessandro Stradella's voice. She had written him the most silly letters he had ever received, setting forth the searing passion that devoured her, and apparently certain that he already shared it and only wanted an opportunity in order to tell her so. As he never answered her letters, she made up her mind that he feared her husband, though she had repeatedly assured him that the latter was absent and had left no Argus-eyed relation in charge of her and responsible for her acts. She wrote again and again, and even descended to promising that she would make him a rich man if he would only take courage and answer her pressing invitation. Still he did not answer; and at last, despairing of any other means of moving him, she had written that she would come disguised to his dwelling on that evening, after the music in the Frari. For she always knew where he was to sing, and she never missed an opportunity of hearing him. She had accordingly gone to the church, and before leaving it she had prostrated herself and offered up the most sincere prayers for the success of her amorous enterprise, as if Saint Francis and Saint Anthony of Padua had power to suspend the rule of the Ten Commandments for her benefit during the evening. These, in few words, are the facts which had preceded her visit to Stradella's lodging, and which resulted in the maddening disappointment and humiliation she felt when she turned her steps homewards. At the same hour no one at the Palazzo Pignaver had yet noticed the absence of Ortensia and Pina. The gondolier waited by the landing at the Frari till it was dark, and then returned to the palace, supposing that the two had walked home and had forgotten to dismiss him, for this had happened once or twice already. He ran his gondola in between the painted piles by the steps of the palace, without inquiring whether his mistress and the nurse had entered by the postern; for almost every Venetian palace has two entrances, the main one being on the canal and approachable only in a boat, while the other opens upon the street at the back. Ortensia was not missed till supper-time, and that was fully two hours after sunset; for it was the Senator's custom to leave his niece to herself or to Pina's company from the time when he brought her home, if she had been out with him in the gondola, until the evening meal; and if she asked leave to go to confession, as she had to-day, she returned before dark and retired to her own rooms without seeing him until she joined him at supper. He required the most extreme punctuality of her and of all his household. Excessive exactness in regard to time is often the delight and the torment of people who have nothing to do of any importance. The time which some punctual persons waste in waiting for others would be enough to make them notable men if they used it better. The Senator waited for Ortensia at least two minutes with equanimity, but after that his brow darkened, he paced the room impatiently, and he began to compose the scolding he meant to give her as soon as she came. This occupied him satisfactorily for at least five minutes, for he was always very nice in the choosing of his words on such occasions. His scoldings were administered in classical Italian, and not in the Venetian dialect of everyday life; they were constructed like short orations, with an exordium, an exposition of the fault committed, and a peroration, and they were followed by a long silence, during which they were supposed to work and take effect on the mind of the delinquent. Pignaver mentally reached the end of the intended admonition, and yet Ortensia did not come. [Illustration: 'The footman came back at last with a white face'] Then he lost his temper and sent one of the two servants to call her; and at the same time it occurred to him that he was making himself ridiculous in the eyes of the others by waiting for a mere chit of a girl. He therefore sat down rather hastily at the supper-table in the middle of the room and attacked the preliminary appetisers, shrimps, caviare, and thin slices of raw ham, and the chief butler poured a light white wine of Germany into his large glass; for the Senator was fond of good eating and drinking. But to-night he was not to enjoy his supper, though the caviare had arrived that very day from Constantinople, and the shrimps were precisely of the right size, which is very important to a true epicure. The footman came back at last with a white face and said, in a trembling tone, that neither the young lady nor Pina were in the house. The Senator dropped his two-pronged fork, his jaw fell at the same time, and at least four seconds passed before he recovered his breath. Then he sprang up, overturned his heavy chair in his excitement, and rushed from the room, followed by both the servants. He searched the palace himself, he stormed, he raved, he cursed, he threatened, but Ortensia was not to be found. Everything in her rooms was in order, just as usual; she had gone to confession with her nurse as she had gone scores of times before, but she had not come home. That was all there was to be said about it. At first no suspicion of the truth crossed Pignaver's brain. He believed she had been kidnapped either for her beauty, or by miscreants who would hold her for a ransom. Then he remembered the gondola and asked if it had come back. Yes, it was below; the old head gondolier had taken Ortensia to the Frari as usual, but he said she had returned on foot. The Senator sent for him, but no one could find him now, though the porter had been talking with him only ten minutes ago. Nothing remained but to search Venice, and to inform the Signor of the Night that the girl and her nurse were missing from the palace. Pignaver forgot his supper altogether in his anxiety to lose no time. The Signor was in his office, and was a distant cousin of the Senator's; for the Signors of the Night were noblemen who served in turn, superintending the police from sunset to sunrise. Only forty-eight hours had passed since this same gentleman had sent word to Pignaver of the attempt made by a supposed thief to get over the garden wall. 'He was not a burglar, my friend,' the Signor now said with conviction. 'If you will allow me to say so, with the most profound respect for your honour, I am sure that the man was your niece's lover, and that he has now succeeded in carrying her off, with the help of the serving-woman.' Pignaver groaned and turned pale. But the Signor, who knew his business, asked him questions, and elicited enough information about Stradella and the singing lessons to convince him that the famous singer was at the bottom of the mischief. He said so plainly. 'A music-master!' cried Pignaver in a black rage, for he saw that the other was probably right. 'A singer! A catgut-pincher! A villainous low lute-strummer! No, sir, no! A thousand times no! The niece of Michele Pignaver is incapable of demeaning herself with a mountebank, sir! I must assure you----' 'The young lady,' interrupted the Signor, with a faint smile, 'is not your own niece, Senator, but the daughter of your late wife's brother.' 'No matter!' cried the Senator. 'Do you mean to imply, sir, that my late honoured wife would have been capable of demeaning herself with----' 'Heaven forbid!' ejaculated the other, interrupting again. 'You might as well suggest that Eve was herself a murderess because one of her sons killed the other. I suggest nothing, Senator--certainly nothing in the least derogatory to the honour of your house.' 'What do you advise me to do?' asked Pignaver, suddenly appeased. He had changed his tone and spoke almost calmly, for his anger, like most things he did, was a matter of acting. The Signor understood, and again he smiled faintly. Before he answered he carefully snuffed and trimmed the three wicks of the tall brass lamp on the table. It had a big metal shade in the shape of a butterfly, which he turned so that it screened the light from his eyes and reflected it into his visitor's face. 'You will naturally wish to avoid a scandal,' he said, watching the Senator. 'Yes, I thought so. Very well, if Stradella has carried off your niece, as I am almost sure he has, they are beyond pursuit by this time. They have reached the mainland and are riding away as fast as they can towards the frontier. There is not the slightest chance of catching them. You must say that you have sent the young lady to the country for her health.' At this Pignaver made a dramatic gesture. He raised both his hands on each side of his head, clenched his fingers, turned up his eyes, and pretended to be trembling with almost uncontrollable fury. The Signor knew his weakness and looked on with quiet amusement. 'I will have the city thoroughly searched during the next few days for two persons resembling your niece and the woman,' he continued. 'But if they have already fled, and if you insist upon finding them, you will have to employ private agents.' 'Yes, yes,' answered Pignaver thoughtfully. 'That will be best. Can you recommend any person to undertake such a delicate business, sir? I suppose that, in your position, you are acquainted at least with the names of some such men.' The Signor, who was an amiable man, smiled pleasantly now. 'The truth is,' he said, 'we have some of them under supervision, and I chance to know of two who would suit your purpose well, and are unemployed at present, and badly in need of money. I have no doubt but that they will be glad to serve you. They have earned the reputation of being conscientious in carrying out their engagements, and intrepid in danger.' Pignaver had listened attentively, and at once asked for the names and the address of the Bravi. 'They are known as Trombin and Gambardella,' said the Signor; 'they are now in Venice, and are generally to be heard of at the eating-house of Markos, the Samian money-lender and wine-dealer. I dare say you know where his place is? Not far from the Rialto, on this side----' 'In what is left of the old Quirini Palace, where they sell poultry downstairs?' asked Pignaver. 'Precisely. I see you are acquainted with the resort. I have, in fact, been there myself--on a matter of duty, of course.' 'Of course,' echoed the Senator. 'I have only heard of it, but I think I can find it.' 'I am sure you can,' assented the Signor, without a smile. Pignaver had not only heard of the eating-house, but he had been there more than once, and knew the taste of the famous pilaf and the flavour of the old wine of Samos as well as anybody. He had even sat in the recess where the two gentlemen of fortune were at that moment supping. He had worn a mask, it is true, and by some mistake a lady had sat down at the same small table a moment after he had come, and he had fallen into conversation with her. But it was not necessary to tell this to the Signor. The latter promised again to have a thorough search made through the city for Ortensia and Pina, and wrote down the descriptions Pignaver gave him. The nurse was described as 'a serving-woman, with grey eyes, and black hair turning grey at the temples, whose manners were rather above her station, and who had once been handsome. Age: forty-three. Mark: the thumb of the right hand had been broken and was distorted.' 'By the thumb-screw, I suppose,' observed the Signor in a business-like tone. 'It certainly looks like it,' answered the Senator indifferently. He took his departure after a few more words and went out by the back door; he then walked in the direction of the Rialto, muffling himself in his great cloak, of which he threw one corner over his shoulder, so that it almost covered his face. He had left his gondola waiting in the narrow canal, and if he chose to come back and take it again, he could reach it without going through the low building in which the Signors of the Night had their office, and the city watch its headquarters. The Signor had promised to continue the search during three days, and to inform him of any clue he found. Meanwhile, Pignaver thought it would be as well to find the two gentlemen who had been so highly recommended to him, and he hastened to the half-ruined Palazzo Quirini. He went in by a more convenient entrance than the two Bravi had chosen for reasons of their own, but he found Markos where they had found him, still busy with his accounts in the bright little vestibule. When the Senator entered, he had already slipped on the little velvet mask which most Venetians carried about them in the evening, but the Samian either recognised his voice or knew instinctively that his visitor was a person of quality, for he bowed to the ground, rubbed his large hands as if washing them before serving his guest, and answered the Senator's brief salutation in a profoundly obsequious tone. Pignaver now laid one finger on his lips and spoke in a whisper, asking whether Markos was acquainted with two honest gentlemen named respectively Signor Trombin and Signor Gambardella. By an almost miraculous coincidence the two honest gentlemen were at that very moment supping within. Markos offered to call them out. 'Unless,' he added, 'your lordship is in need of supper, and will join them.' The Senator remembered that he had eaten only a few mouthfuls since dinner, and the savoury fumes from the hall further sharpened his appetite. 'The gentlemen are eating together at the little table in the recess,' Markos added, as he detected signs of hesitation. 'You can turn your back to the room, my lord, if you do not wish to be watched.' Pignaver nodded and followed the host, who at once led the way in. Some of the people who had been supping when the Bravi had entered were gone away, but others had taken their places. The young Florentine and his beautiful guest had disappeared, and their table was occupied by a noisily gay party, of whom more than half wore masks. The two fair Englishmen in velvet were still gravely drinking with their laughing companions, but their eyes were growing rather dull. The serenaders had finished their meal, and were making soft music in their corner, trying over the songs they were going to sing. 'Gentlemen,' said Markos to the Bravi, 'allow me to introduce a highly respectable personage who has business with you, and would like to join you at supper.' Trombin and Gambardella rose with a courtesy which showed where they had been bred, in spite of their present profession. Though they had been at supper two hours and had done well by a jar of old Samian, they were as cool and steady as when they had sat down, a fact which predisposed Pignaver in their favour. 'Will you do us the honour to be our guest, sir?' asked Gambardella at once. 'But you have already supped, gentlemen,' answered the Senator. 'That is a trifle, sir,' Trombin said. 'We have not quite finished, and if you will join us we shall be delighted to begin again from the beginning. A clean cloth, Markos,' he went on at once, turning to the host, 'and the same dishes over again!' 'Your hospitality confounds me, sirs,' protested the Senator. 'I can but accept your gracious invitation.' He sat down at the end of the small table, turning his back to the hall. Markos was already making preparations, and in a few minutes the board was set again, and with the very same delicacies which the Senator had just begun to taste at his own supper when Ortensia's flight had been discovered. He ate in silence, with solemn greediness, while his two companions each took one shrimp and a taste of the caviare, and exchanged an occasional glance. When he had consumed everything except the bread, Pignaver spoke. 'I believe I am not mistaken in thinking that you two gentlemen occasionally undertake little matters of private business,' he began. 'If I am wrong, pray correct me.' 'You are rightly informed, sir,' answered Trombin; 'we do, though only on certain conditions, which, again, so far as they are favourable or unfavourable, depend on circumstances; and these circumstances themselves, as your experience of life has made you well aware, sir, are often the result of that element of chance, which, under Providence, plays such an important part in the affairs of men.' This was rather vague, and Pignaver, who read the classics and prided himself on his memory, was reminded of those Lacedæmonians who answered the wordy fugitives from Samos by saying that they had already forgotten the first half of their speech and did not understand the second. When Trombin had finished speaking, he waited for an answer and looked steadily at the Senator, opening his eyes wider and wider till they were perfectly round and the lashes stood out in a circle like yellow rays, and he puckered his lips in the most ridiculous manner, as if he were just going to whistle. Gambardella, on the other hand, took a minute quantity of caviare on the end of his fork and tasted it delicately, looking unconcernedly at the guests in the hall. Pignaver reflected a moment and drank wine before speaking. 'I attribute my presence here,' he said, 'to the direct intervention of Providence.' 'We share your view,' answered Gambardella with gravity. 'In fact,' added Trombin, 'the elements of acquaintance all agree admirably well--the circumstances, the conditions, chance, and Providence itself. For if, as I gather from your own words, sir, you stand in need of a little friendly assistance from us, we, on our side, are weary of wasting our wits in conversation and our strength in luxurious idleness. It is our mission to benefit mankind both here and hereafter, by despatching useless persons to Paradise and thus cheering the lives of the friends they leave on earth. Assured of this, as we are, all inactivity is unbearable to us. At the present moment we are, so to say, unemployed philanthropists; we are but a potential and passive blessing to our fellow-creatures, though we burn to be doing good to all! I appeal to my friend, Count Gambardella, here. Is this not the exact truth?' 'Absolutely,' answered the other, toying with a shrimp. 'What my friend, Count Trombin, says is always strictly true.' 'How could it be otherwise?' asked Pignaver. 'But I must apologise for not having addressed you gentlemen by your proper titles, which are foreign, though I had taken you both for Venetian nobles.' 'We are, sir,' Trombin answered, 'but it pleased his Majesty the King of France to confer titles of French nobility on us, after we had rendered him a trifling service. We should likewise esteem ourselves your debtors, sir, if you would inform us of your own name, since we are fortunate enough to be entertaining you as our guest.' Again the round eyes opened wide, like those of an angry cat, and the mouth was all puckered in the midst of the cherubic face, while Trombin waited for the answer. The Senator saw that he had no choice. 'My name is Pignaver,' he said slowly, and dwelling proudly on each syllable, 'and I am a Senator. You will understand at once why I wear a mask here. I am well known by sight to many, and I have many friends----' 'One too many, I presume,' suggested Gambardella, interrupting softly. 'I shall communicate my business at once,' said Pignaver, 'for the person in question could never have been my friend any more than he could be my enemy.' 'We understand your meaning,' said Gambardella; 'he is of low birth. Shall we say that he is "superfluous"?' 'A weed,' suggested Trombin, 'a parasite, a wart, an overgrowth, a thing to be eradicated before it does greater harm! Do you take me, my lord? Have I fitted the word to the definition and suited the definition to the man?' 'Admirably, Count,' assented Pignaver. 'Your command of language fills me with envy. "Eradicate" is good, very good!' 'Does the weed flourish in Venice, my lord?' asked Gambardella, who was bored and wished to settle the preliminaries of the business at once. 'If I did not detest false metaphors,' said Pignaver, 'I should say that the weed has just flown, or, as I might say, fled, taking with it the finest flower of my garden. But since elegant speech must not be submitted to such outrages, I will speak plainly.' At this point the conversation was interrupted by the appearance of the steaming pilaf, brought on by a neatly clad youth, whose companion set down beside it a dish of quails roasted in young vine leaves, and emitting a deliciously aromatic odour. Trombin and his friend helped the Senator generously, and filled his glass again. He was so hungry by this time that he ate several mouthfuls before he spoke again. 'I have always found the emotions to be great appetisers,' observed Trombin, watching him. 'Men feast at a wedding, and gorge themselves after a funeral. A fit of anger whets the appetite, for I have seen a man fly into a towering passion with the cook and then immediately devour the very dish he has found fault with, to the last scraping. As for the passion of love, a French proverb says well that happiness makes an empty stomach. I can only hope, my lord, that in a week's time you may enjoy your supper as much, with satisfaction for a relish instead of annoyance. As for me, the mere thought of doing some good in the world makes me hungry.' And as he spoke he began to eat another quail which he had already taken on his plate. But Gambardella was more and more bored, and went to the point, as soon as the Senator looked up from his plate. 'We understand,' he said, 'that some low-born fellow has carried off a lady of your lordship's household. Do you know where they are?' 'No. I know nothing, except that they have either left Venice already or will escape before morning.' 'That means a wide search,' said Gambardella. 'But an easy one,' the Senator replied. 'The man is Alessandro Stradella, the singer, and may the devil get him!' 'He will be safer in our hands, my lord. The lady's name, and some description of her, if you please.' 'Ortensia is her name. She is only seventeen years old, but is very beautiful, for she is fair, and her hair is of a true auburn colour, such as the lamented Titian often painted. Indeed, the young lady much resembles that master's "Bella," though younger and thinner. With her is fled also her nurse, a woman called Filippina, of middle age, with grey eyes and greyish hair, once not bad-looking, and whose manners are above her station.' 'I suppose she is commonly called Pina,' observed Gambardella. 'Let us understand each other, my lord. I presume you wish the young lady and the woman to be brought back to you, when the singer is dead.' 'Precisely. I shall say that she has been spending a week with a relation of her mother's who is the Abbess of the Ursuline Nuns in Ravenna.' 'Did you say the Ursulines in Ravenna, my lord?' asked Gambardella slowly. 'Yes,' answered Pignaver, at first a little surprised by the question, for he had spoken clearly, although the whole conversation was carried on in low tones. The Bravo saw his expression, and hastened to explain. 'My left ear is a little deaf,' he said, turning his head so as to present the other. 'Nothing remains but to agree on the price of the service,' he continued in a business-like tone. 'When we are told exactly where we shall find our man, it is simple enough. But in this case we may have to travel far. We shall require two gold ducats daily for our expenses till we find the opportunity we need for such a difficult business, and five hundred gold ducats when we hand over to you the young lady and her nurse. One hundred gold ducats must be advanced before we start, on account of expenses.' Pignaver's sour face twitched at the mention of such sums. 'You set a high price on your services, gentlemen,' he said. '"Service" is not precisely the word, my lord,' said Trombin, desisting from picking the leg of a quail, and staring intently at the masked Senator. 'It is, as I may say, a false metaphor, which is an outrage upon elegant speech--forgive me for borrowing your own expressions!' And suddenly Trombin's eyes glared in such a way that the Senator was cowed. 'I assure you, I had no intention of giving you offence, Count,' he said. 'If you will, choose the word you prefer; I will use it with pleasure.' '"Benefit," my lord, or, if you prefer the longer form, "benefaction." Either will do very well.' Trombin thereupon resumed operations on the leg of the quail, and when his absurd little mouth showed his teeth the Senator observed they were as white and sharp as a cat's. It was clear that he was the talker in the partnership, and left all business arrangements to his companion. 'I have named the sum we require, my lord,' the latter said calmly, 'and we are not accustomed to argue such matters. You would give ten times as much for your own life any day, and Alessandro Stradella would certainly find a thousand or two to save his, if the matter were laid before him.' Pignaver saw that he must agree to the demand, for if he refused and sought help elsewhere the Bravi would warn the musician and offer the latter their protection. The Senator was uncomfortable in their company, as many of his friends would have been; for if a born coward ever comes into contact with such men, he regards them much as a timid woman looks on a loaded gun. Though the two cut-throats behaved with the outward courtesy of gentlemen, there was something terrifying in their looks which it would have been hard to define, and the highly refined Venetian noble, who admired the elegant works of Politian and composed scores of polished inanities, shuddered from time to time as he glanced at Gambardella's sinewy brown hand or Trombin's strong pink fingers and thought of the stains that must often have been on both. A silence followed the Bravo's last speech, during which Trombin consumed more pilaf, and his companion thoughtfully salted a small bit of bread-crust, ate it slowly, and then sipped the old Samian wine from the blue and white glass beaker which he kept constantly quite full. And immediately, though he had only drunk a few drops, he re-filled the glass exactly to the brim. Trombin drank at much longer intervals, but always emptied his tumbler before replenishing it. Nor were these opposite habits of the two men mere matters of preference or taste; for the nose of the one turned up in such a convenient manner that he could drain the smallest glass or cup with ease, but the other's portentous beak turned down and then hooked itself in towards his lips, so that wherever his mouth went, there it was also, always in the way; and if he ever tried to drink like ordinary people, its tip was wetted before he had tasted the wine. The Senator was reflecting before giving an answer which must be final. Was Ortensia worth the six or seven hundred ducats which the whole affair would cost him? That was really the question, for he looked upon the murder of Stradella merely as a necessary and just consequence of his niece's capture, and though the thought of vengeance was agreeable to his nature, he would not have been willing to pay such a price for it. Ortensia herself was certainly not worth so much, in his estimation, for the sake of her beauty, seeing that he could buy a Georgian girl almost or quite as pretty, in the Fondaco dei Turchi, for much less. Besides, though Stradella would be dead and buried, it would always be humiliating to feel that she had belonged to him first, though the truth need never be known in Venice. But there was another consideration, which turned the scale in her favour. Pignaver had heard her sing his own compositions, after having been taught by Stradella, and he had dreamed of electrifying Venetian society at last by her rendering of his immortal works. Hitherto, even his most industrious flatterers had not given him the very first place among living poets and musicians; but he was sure that when they heard Ortensia they would exalt him above all his predecessors and all his contemporaries; at last he would enjoy that absolute supremacy which is the prime birthright of genius in all ages, and to which he firmly believed himself entitled. Ortensia alone could assure to him that final victory, and beside it all objections, all scruples, all petty questions of technical honour sank away to nothing. He must marry her himself, of course, so that he might order her to perform his works whenever he pleased, and she must be a married woman before propriety would allow her to sing to his assembled friends; but marriage was a detail and of no consequence compared with the triumph he expected to gain by it; the girl's flight with the musician was a childish escapade of little importance, since it could be kept quite secret, and she might be supposed to have been spending a few days in a convent in Ravenna to complete her education. As for any resistance on her part, it was absurd to think of such a thing; no doubt she would cry her eyes out for a few weeks, after Stradella was despatched to a better world, but she would soon see the error of her ways and be only too glad to accept the magnificent position the Senator offered her, instead of being murdered herself, or forced to spend her life in a convent. The two Bravi did not hurry their new acquaintance to a decision, though Gambardella had flatly declined to discuss the terms of the bargain; they only made it clear that their offer must be accepted or declined as it was, and they seemed quite indifferent as to Pignaver's decision. Trombin continued to eat pilaf in a leisurely way, as if he could go on for ever, and Gambardella sipped his wine, filled his glass again, and ate several little morsels of salted crust, while the Senator turned the matter over in his mind and plied his knife and fork in silence. 'The truth is,' he said at last, 'I should not wish you to start till the city has been thoroughly searched by the police. As you wisely observed, I think, a man of Stradella's reputation cannot remain long concealed, and will be more easily found next week than to-morrow.' 'I believe,' answered Gambardella politely, 'that the remark was yours, and it is a wise one. Are we then to understand that if the Signors of the Night do not find the pair, you desire our help on the terms I have stated?' 'Exactly so,' said Pignaver. 'That will give you time to make your preparations for the journey at your leisure. Where shall I find you three days hence, gentlemen?' 'At Benediction in the Church of the Frari, my lord, for the day will be a Sunday. If you desire it, we will call for paper and pen and set down the terms of our agreement at once.' 'That will not be necessary, sir,' replied the Senator, who did not care to put his name to such a document. 'I have confidence in you.' Trombin at once raised his head and fastened his eyes on Pignaver. 'As between gentlemen, my lord,' he observed, 'it would be more fitting to say that we have confidence in each other. With your permission I shall complete your statement by saying that we are willing to trust you without any written promise. We will leave such sordid dealings to the lawyers and notaries. You give your word, we give ours, and the matter is safer for accomplishment than if a contract were engrossed on a dozen sheepskins and sealed with the Fisherman's Ring!' 'Certainly, certainly,' assented the Senator, who did not like the Bravo's eyes. 'You have my word, I have yours, and that is enough.' 'My lord,' said Trombin, his manner suddenly becoming extremely affable, 'I have the honour to drink your health!' 'Your health, Count,' responded Pignaver, raising his glass. 'Your health,' said Gambardella, bowing politely, and then sipping his wine with all the caution required to keep his long nose out of it. Having settled matters in this way and, moreover, satisfied his appetite with a good supper, Pignaver took leave of the Bravi with considerable ceremony, for he perceived that they were as exigent and punctilious as to all points of courtesy as any noble in Italy, France, or Spain; and it would not be good to fall out with such touchy gentlemen on a point of manners. Indeed, as he retraced his steps to the office of the Signors of the Night, where his gondola was waiting, he really congratulated himself on having escaped without a quarrel, and hoped that the next interview would pass off as well. The three days went by, and at noon on Sunday he received a note from the Signor of the Night informing him that the runaway pair and the serving-woman had been in Padua early on the morning after they left Venice, and had immediately taken an extra post to Rovigo and Ferrara. They had excited no suspicion, and the spy who had brought the news had not obtained the information without considerable difficulty, for many travellers were going and coming, and in a time of peace like the present more attention was bestowed by the authorities on foreign travellers than on Italians. But Stradella had brought some of his belongings with him, which his man had carefully concealed in the gondola, and amongst other things there was his favourite long lute; the instrument had been noticed by the ostlers at the postern-house in Padua on account of its unusual size, and they remembered the four travellers after hearing the spy's description of three of them, for he knew nothing of Stradella's servant. There was therefore no doubt but that the fugitives were now far beyond the Venetian border in the States of the Church, and Pignaver resolved to keep the appointment at the Frari, taking with him the hundred gold ducats which were to be paid in advance. The Bravi were already there indeed, but he did not see them at once, and as Vespers were over and the Benediction was about to begin, he selected a spot a little apart from the common herd and knelt down to his devotions, for it was of no use to waste time that could be so profitably employed. But while he was thus engaged, it being already sunset and the light in the church failing, the men he sought were earnestly conversing in low tones with a young Dominican monk in a distant corner; and the monk, it is needless to say, was the lady whose ring they had taken, and who had knocked so long in vain at Stradella's door three days earlier. 'Madam,' Gambardella was saying, 'the search may be a long one, but we will do our best. We shall require two gold ducats daily for our expenses in travelling, and the payment of five hundred gold ducats in cash when we deliver to you Master Alessandro Stradella, bound hand and foot, at your villa on the Brenta.' 'But the woman must die!' protested the lady earnestly. 'That goes without saying, madam,' answered Gambardella. 'You may regard her as already dead and buried, for you have our word for it. Nothing remains but that you should place in our hands a hundred gold ducats on account, which we shall require in order to start.' The lady was evidently prepared for such a demand, and produced a small leathern bag from within her monk's frock. But she was evidently a woman of business. 'Since we are now friends,' she said, putting the bag into Gambardella's hand, 'you ought to give me back my ring when the thing is done!' 'Madam,' said Trombin, in his grand manner, 'you have our word for that. In fact, we only meant to borrow it for a day or two, and for your great kindness in allowing us to do so we have the honour to tender you our sincerest thanks.' 'It is impossible to be more polite, sir,' answered the lady. So they parted, for she slipped away into the dusk and soon left the church by a side door. But Trombin and his companion went forward, and finding the Senator on his knees, they knelt down, one on each side of him. He glanced to the right and left, and was surprised at the improvement in their appearance since he had seen them at supper. They had been distinctly shabby then, and he would not have liked to be seen in their company by his friends; but to-day they were dressed with excellent taste and neatness, in perfectly new clothes. Gambardella wore a suit of dark purple cloth slashed with velvet of the same colour; but Trombin wore black velvet and silk, which he considered most becoming to his infantile complexion and yellow hair. Both had new hats, too, and their feathers, purple and black respectively, were nothing short of magnificent. Only their rapiers were unchanged, the same serviceable, business-like weapons that Pignaver had seen before. The three men knelt side by side, putting on an air of devotion; and no one else was very near them. '_Tantum ergo_ ...' began the choir, somewhere out of sight. 'I presume you mean business, my lord,' said Gambardella so that the Senator could just hear him. 'They passed through Padua, and took post to Rovigo and Ferrara,' answered Pignaver. 'You cannot miss them if you go that way.' 'A very convenient place, Ferrara, if they would wait for us there,' observed Trombin. '... _veneremur cernui_,' the choir sang, and many of the people were joining in the ancient hymn. 'When can you start?' inquired Pignaver. 'As soon as we have funds for the journey,' answered Gambardella promptly. 'You said one hundred ducats, did you not? Your expenses are to be counted at two ducats per day, and as much of the first hundred as is left when you have finished is to be deducted from the final payment of five hundred. Is that it?' 'Precisely,' said Gambardella. 'It is impossible to be more accurate,' observed Trombin, without turning his head, and preserving the expression of a devout, fat-cheeked seraph, which he always put on when at his prayers. 'I have the money with me, gentlemen,' continued Pignaver. 'As soon as the Benediction is over I will hand it to you, and I hope you will find it convenient to start at once.' 'We are ready,' Gambardella replied. 'To-morrow night we shall be in Ferrara, and if your friends are still there, we may be here again on the third day.' 'Heaven grant us all its favours and a speedy return!' prayed Trombin. 'Amen,' said the Senator, calculating that if only three days were consumed, the Bravi would have ninety-four ducats in hand, and he would have to pay them only four hundred and six. In his pocket his hand grasped the heavy little bag containing the gold, and he wished that private vengeance and justice were not so dear; but he was not a miser, though he had a real Venetian's understanding of the value of money, and did not like to part with it till he was sure that he was to receive a full equivalent. For the rest, what he was doing was perfectly justifiable in his eyes: if the couple had been caught within the territory of the Republic, Alessandro Stradella would have had to answer to the law for the atrocious crime of carrying off a Senator's niece and affianced bride who was a minor, and the law would not have been tender to the Sicilian; the least penalty he would have suffered would have been to be chained to an oar on a government galley, and it was quite possible that he might have been hanged. Most people would prefer to be run through with a rapier, and it was therefore clear that Stradella ought to be satisfied. As for such weakness as a qualm of conscience, Pignaver was as far above such childishness as the Bravi themselves. He gave them the little bag of ducats and took leave of them by the monument of Pietro Bernardini, almost on the spot where Ortensia and Pina had put on their brown cloaks three or four days earlier. When he was gone, Trombin and Gambardella looked at each other in silence; the dark man's thin lips, visible on each side of the point of his nose, but quite shaded by it in the middle, were smiling faintly, but Trombin's cherubic countenance expressed, or caricatured, the utter beatitude of one of those painted angels to which his friend always compared him. They walked slowly up the church towards the sacristy, and at the door they met the sacristan, a lay brother, coming out with his long extinguisher in his hand. They stopped him politely. 'We desire to offer two candles to Saint Francis,' said Gambardella, 'one for each of us. We also desire to leave a gold ducat for masses to be said for the soul of a departed friend.' 'I will serve you at once, gentlemen,' answered the sacristan. 'What was your friend's baptismal name, if you please, that I may write it on the list?' 'Alessandro,' answered Gambardella. 'Do you wish to mention the date of his death, sir?' 'No. It is of no use.' The lay brother took the money and went into the sacristy to deposit it, and to fetch the candles, which the Bravi then lighted and put up themselves. CHAPTER VII Trombin had rightly guessed that the fugitives would rest themselves in Ferrara, where they would be safe within the Pope's dominions, and beyond the reach of Venetian law. By the old road the city was nearly a hundred miles from Padua, and it was only by a lavish use of money that Stradella succeeded in reaching it at midnight, after leaving Padua soon after sunrise. Ortensia was utterly exhausted, and even Pina, who was very strong, was beginning to be worn out. They had trouble in getting into the inn at that hour, and when they at last succeeded, they found that there was only one room to be had, although, as the sleepy servant who had let them in added, they might have the whole house to themselves the next day, for all the travellers would be gone again long before noon. Pina slept with her mistress, while Stradella and his man rolled themselves in their cloaks and lay down outside the door, with valises for pillows; for they expected to be pursued, and though they had made good time, they knew that mounted men, with frequent relays of horses, might overtake them before morning. It was not Stradella's first adventure, though it was his last, and he fully realised that Pignaver would use every means to wreak his vengeance. It could not have occurred to the runaways that three days would be wasted in searching Venice before the pursuit actually began. Even that knowledge could not have made Alessandro sleep more soundly, since the fear of danger to Ortensia could not keep him awake, and he slept as peacefully on the stone pavement of the corridor as ever he did in the most luxurious bed. But his man was awake and was watching for all the four, though he lay quite still, rolled up in his brown cloak. For Cucurullo was one of those people who sleep little at the best of times, and generally have to content themselves with resting their bodies by lying motionless, while they deaden thought as best they can with those melancholy devices that are familiar to the sleepless. The hunchback rested now, but was glad to lie awake, though he was well aware that he deserved no especial credit for watching while his young master slept soundly by his side. But he did not try to cheat time by fancying that he was counting a flock of sheep that crowded through a narrow gate into a field, or by saying the alphabet backwards, or by repeating all the prayers he knew, which were many, for he was a religiously inclined person, nor did he laboriously reckon how many Apostolic florins there were in seventeen hundred and sixty-three and a half Venetian ducats. On the contrary, he concentrated his mind to the best of his ability on a problem which it seemed to him of the very highest importance to solve at once; for it involved nothing less than the salvation of Alessandro Stradella's soul. Now Cucurullo, as I have said, was religiously inclined. He was not devout in the same sense as the two cut-throats who lighted candles before the image of Saint Francis for the success of their murderous enterprise, and paid beforehand for masses to be said for the soul of the man they were going to kill. He would not have denied that this was a form of piety too, if any one had asked him his opinion. Everything, he would have argued, was relative; and if you were going to stab a man in the back, it was more moral to make an effort to save his soul than to wish to destroy it with his body. He would have admitted this, for he was charitable, even to such people as professional murderers. But his own religion was quite of another sort; he was devotedly attached to his master, he was deeply concerned for the latter's future welfare, and it looked just now as if Stradella's chances of salvation would be slender if any accident carried him off suddenly. Moreover, such an accident might occur at any moment, for, like Stradella himself, he anticipated that Pignaver would seek a speedy revenge. Like the early Christians he was a pessimist about this world and an optimist about the next; for that is usually the state of mind of those who labour under any material or bodily disability, from slavery, which is the worst, to blindness or deformity. As a pessimist, therefore, Cucurullo thought that his master, Ortensia, Pina, and himself had a most excellent chance of having their throats cut within twenty-four hours, and he was rather surprised that it should not have happened already. As an optimist, on the other hand, he trusted that by his own exertions he might so dispose matters as that his master and Ortensia should be murdered while in a state of grace, and not in mortal sin; to be plain, he was determined that they should be duly married before Pignaver's agents despatched them. For he had been constrained to aid and abet his master in more than one romantic adventure before now, and nothing had come of any of them that was at all conducive to the young man's salvation. Poor Cucurullo knew the whole process of those affairs, as the conjurer's assistant knows how the tricks are done. Even when Stradella was at home, in his own room, his man had always been able to tell whether he was in love or not. When he was not, he industriously composed oratorios, or motets, or some other kind of serious music; but when he was, he sang to himself, as a bird does in spring, improvising both the words and the melody; or else he would sit still for an hour at a time, doing nothing, but dreaming with open eyes and slightly parted lips; or he would pace the floor impatiently, and go to the door every five minutes to listen for a light footfall on the stairs. All this Cucurullo had observed frequently; often, too, he had carried letters and tokens, and had brought others back; and not a few times, by night, he had held cloak and lute and rapier, while his master climbed up to a balcony or a window high above. Many such things had Cucurullo done, and had confessed them afterwards as misdeeds. Wretched sinner that he was, he had even paid flattering compliments to a chambermaid to sweeten her humour till she promised to take a message to her lady. This had seemed to him particularly wicked, yet he had done it and would do it again, if Stradella required such service, simply because he could not help it. Now, however, all former adventures sank to nothing in comparison with the present one. So far, the musician had lightly loved and ridden away; but this time he had not ridden away alone, and, moreover, he was not carrying off the buxom wife or daughter of some meek citizen who would appeal in vain to the law and could do nothing without it, and who would probably let the erring lady return to his home at the trifling price of a sound beating when Stradella was tired of her. That would have been bad enough, in all conscience; but this time the hare-brained singer had done much worse, even from a worldly point of view; and looking at it from another, Cucurullo thought that the irreparable nature of the deed made it more wicked, besides the fact that all the persons concerned might lose their lives by it. He was a very simple person in some ways. Under the circumstances it seemed necessary before all things to convert moral wrong into moral right by the simple intervention of a priest and a wedding ring, after which the question of civil right, as the law would regard it, would take care of itself well enough. In the grey dawn Cucurullo's large unshaven face emerged from the ample folds of his cloak, and his mild blue eyes seemed to review the situation by daylight as he looked from his master's half-muffled figure to Ortensia's closed door, and then towards the window at the end of the passage. Then he sat up cautiously and drew his heels under him, and because his body was so short and so completely covered up, he looked as if he had none at all, and as if his big head were lying in a nest of brown cloth on a pair of folded legs. Then, from just below his chin, an immensely long arm stole out quietly, and his hand drew up Stradella's cloak which had slipped from his shoulder; for the morning air was chilly, though the spring was far advanced. Any one, coming on him suddenly as he sat there, would have been startled as at the sight of a supernatural being, consisting of a head, legs, and arms, all joined together without any body. The dawn brightened to day, and all sorts of noises began to come up from below, echoing through the staircase and long passages of the house; a distant door was opened and shut, then some one seemed to be dragging a heavy weight over a rough floor; far off, some one else whistled a tune; and then, all at once, came the clatter of many horses' feet on the cobble-stones in the yard. Cucurullo sprang up and ran on tip-toe to the window, instantly fearing the arrival of mounted pursuers; but he only saw the stablemen leading out the post-horses to be watered and groomed. When he turned to come back he saw that he had waked Stradella, who was sitting up, yawning prodigiously, and rubbing his eyes like a sleepy boy. He raised his hand to stop his man, and then got up without noise and joined him near the window. 'What is it?' he asked in a whisper, not without some anxiety. 'Only the post-horses, sir, but I was afraid of something else.' 'I wish we were already in Florence. This is too near Venice!' 'Better still in Rome,' said Cucurullo, gloomily. 'Still better in Sicily, and altogether much better in Africa; but best of all in heaven, sir, if you can manage to get there!' 'It is not the first time you and I have run a risk together,' observed Stradella, slowly moving the back of his hand up and down against his unshaven cheek. 'It is the first time you have risked the life of a lady,' answered Cucurullo quietly, for he understood his master very well. 'We had better go down and see about getting horses,' Stradella answered, and he led the way to the stairs, his man following in his footsteps. The sun was rising now, and there was much bustling and clattering in the yard, and sousing and splashing of cold water about the fountain; a dozen horses were tied up to rings in the wall on one side, and the stablemen were grooming some of them industriously while others waited their turn, stamping now and then upon the cobble-stones, and turning their heads as far as they could to see what was going on behind them and on each side. Three men were washing the huge coach that ran to Rovigo one day and back the next, and several smaller conveyances stood beyond it in a row, still covered with dust from yesterday, for the weather had been dry. As in many inns of that time, the innkeeper was also the postmaster. Stradella found him under the arched entrance to the yard, giving instructions to the cook, who was just going to the market accompanied by a scullion; the latter carried three empty baskets on his head, one inside of the other. 'You can have no horses to-day,' said the host, in answer to Stradella's demand, and he shook his head emphatically. 'No horses! It is impossible! It is absolutely necessary that we should go on at once.' The innkeeper was a square-shouldered Romagnole with grey hair, red cheeks, and sharp black eyes. He shook his head again. 'I have not a horse to give you,' he said. 'Everything in my stable was engaged beforehand for the Nuncio. I cannot give you the Government's horses from the Rovigo coach, can I? Patience! That is all I can say.' Stradella began to ask questions. The Nuncio, on his way to Verona and Austria, had spent three days in the inn, both to rest himself and also to be sure of having enough horses ahead to go on with, and word had been sent to Mantua to make all the necessary arrangements. He should have gone by Modena, but the road was in a bad state. A bridge had broken down, and he had been forced to pass through Ferrara. 'But surely,' said the musician, 'I can hire a pair of horses of some sort in the town, by paying a good price for them!' No. The Nuncio had hired everything. Did the gentleman suppose that a Papal Nuncio could travel with as few as eight or ten horses? He needed about fifty in all. That was why he proceeded so slowly. There was not another animal to be had in the town, horse or mule, that could be put to a wheeled vehicle--not one! The gentleman might hire a riding-horse or two, but the innkeeper had been told that he had a lady and her tire-woman with him. Patience! A day would soon pass, Ferrara was a fine town, well worth seeing, and he could go on to-morrow morning in the Bologna coach, which would arrive from that city at noon to-day. Clearly there was not the smallest possibility of being able to get on during the next twenty-four hours. Stradella's face was very grave as he turned away, and Cucurullo was paler than before. Upstairs Ortensia had wakened just then and had called Pina, who got up and opened the window wide, letting in the air with the morning sun. Utterly unprovided as the two women were, they had slept half-dressed, and as Ortensia rose the nurse threw one of the two brown cloaks over her bare shoulders and fastened it round her neck. For a few moments after she had opened her eyes the young girl had not quite understood where she was, for she had lain down exhausted, and sleep had come to her as her head touched the pillow. Now, in the broad daylight, when she had plunged her face into cold water, she realised everything, and the colour rose slowly to her throat and cheeks. She went to the window and stood there, turned away from Pina and looked out. Below her lay the chief public square of the city; on the left rose the huge castle, the most gloomy and forbidding she had ever seen. She had never heard of Nicholas Third of Este nor of his wife Parisina, fair, evil, and ill-fated, nor of handsome Ugo, who died an hour before her for his sins and hers, in the dark chamber at the foot of the Lion Tower; but if Pina had known the story and had told it to her in all its horror, Ortensia would have felt that it must be true, and that only such tragedies as that could happen within such walls. They were so stern, so square, so dark; the towers rose so grimly out of the black waters of the moat! It was of bad augury to look at them, she thought, and she drew back from the window and sat down where she could see only the sky. Pina was making such preparations for her mistress's toilet as were possible. Being a prudent woman she had brought in her pocket three objects of the highest usefulness, a piece of white Spanish soap, a comb, and a shabby little old rolling work-case of yellow leather, in which there were needles and thread and pins. The figure of a wild animal, which might have been meant for a bear, was embroidered in black thread on the outer flap of the case. Pina had used it ever since Ortensia could remember, and seemed to value it as much as any of her few possessions. It was a very useful little thing, and she kept it always well filled with sewing materials. As the young girl did not move and showed no inclination to dress herself, Pina came behind her and began to let down and comb her hair, which she had not even taken down on the previous night, being far too much exhausted to think of such a thing. She submitted her head willingly to the skilled hands of her nurse. 'Where is he?' she asked after a time, and she felt that she was blushing again. 'They slept on the floor in the passage,' Pina answered. 'Perhaps they are asleep still. You shut your eyes as soon as you lay down, but I opened the door again and looked out before I went to bed. Signor Alessandro asked me if we needed anything, and then said good-night.' 'Will you go and see if they are still there, please?' Pina crossed the room, drew back the bolt, and put out her head, looking up and down the passage. There was no one to be seen, and she shut the door again without bolting it. She came back and again began to comb out the girl's hair. 'They are not there,' she said. 'Probably Signor Alessandro is ordering the horses. He will come in a few minutes and tell us at what time we are to start.' A short silence followed. 'Have you ever been here before?' Ortensia asked presently. 'Yes,' Pina answered, 'I have been here before. I do not like Ferrara.' 'Why not? Have you any particular reason for not liking it?' 'It was here that my thumb was hurt,' said the nurse. 'That is a fair reason, is it not?' She laughed rather harshly. 'To hate a place because one has had an accident in it! The men would say that is just like a woman!' 'I hope I may never come here again, either,' Ortensia answered. 'How did you hurt your thumb?' 'That is a long story, my lady. But why do you also dislike the place already? You have only looked out of the window once.' 'I saw the castle, and I thought it was of bad augury, for it looks like a great prison.' 'There are prisons in it without any light, very deep down,' said Pina quietly. 'The Pope's Legate lives in the upper part. The Legate is the Papal Governor, you know, my lady.' 'I did not know. But the ugly castle is not the real reason why I do not like Ferrara. I could not tell any one else, but I think I can tell you, Pina.' She turned her head half round under the nurse's hands, looked up sideways, and then hesitated. It was not easy to explain. 'What is it, my lady?' asked the serving-woman. 'You can tell old Pina anything.' 'It is all so different from what I thought it would be,' Ortensia said in a rather low voice, and again a blush rose in her cheek. 'I think I understand,' Pina said, steadily combing out the heavy auburn hair. 'You see,' Ortensia explained, 'we all four got into the gondola together, and there was that long row to the land, and that dreadful night in the cart on the road to Padua--and then the half-hour at daybreak, while he was getting the carriage, and then the journey here--and last night--and now----' She did not finish the sentence, hoping that Pina would really understand. 'Yes,' the woman said quietly. 'You have not been alone together for a moment since we left Venice, and that is not what you expected.' 'No,' Ortensia answered in the hurt tone of a disappointed child, 'I thought it was going to be quite different! And now we shall start again and drive all day and half the night, and then it will be just the same, I suppose!' 'Once in Florence, or even in Bologna, there will be no more hurry,' said Pina in a consoling tone. 'Besides, my lady, you can be properly married then.' 'Of course, of course! We shall be married as soon as we can, but all the same----' 'All the same, it would be pleasant to spend half-an-hour together without old Pina always listening and looking on!' The nurse smiled and shook her head, but Ortensia could not see her, and did not think her tone was very encouraging; it sounded as if 'old Pina' thought it was going to be her duty to play chaperon two or three days longer, which was not at all what Ortensia wished. 'If he had even shown that he was a little disappointed, too----' the girl began, and then she stopped. 'That would not have been good manners, my lady,' Pina said primly. 'When a gentleman has carried off a young lady, with her own consent, the least he can do is to look pleased, I am sure!' 'I thought you would understand better,' Ortensia answered in a tone of disappointment. Some one knocked at the door, not loudly but sharply, and as if in a hurry; Pina went at once to see who it was, and found Stradella himself outside. 'May I come in?' he asked quickly. Beyond Pina, as he looked in, he saw Ortensia in her brown cloak, with her hair down and all combed out over her shoulders, and without waiting for an answer he pushed past the nurse and went to her. Instinctively she drew the cloak more closely round her, but she looked up with a bright smile, which vanished when she saw his expression in the strong light. He spoke anxiously, without even a word of greeting. 'There are no horses to be had,' he said. 'I have done my best, but the Pope's Nuncio is passing through and has engaged everything there was. There is not even a public coach to Bologna till to-morrow morning. I am more distressed than I can tell you! I have sent my man out to see if he can find anything, and he will if there is a beast to be had. If not, we shall have to wait here.' While he was speaking, the door had closed softly and Pina was gone. Ortensia saw her go out and put out one hand timidly between the folds of the cloak, for her arm was bare, and she tried to cover it. At the same time the glorious colour rose in her face, the third time since she had opened her eyes that morning. 'I am glad,' she said simply, as soon as her hand was in his. He glanced behind him and saw that Pina had disappeared. Then without a word he drew the lovely girl up to him, and for a while they stood clasped in each other's arms; and she forgot that hers were bare, and he scarcely knew it; and if their faces drew back one from the other for a few seconds, it was that their eyes might meet in one another's depths; and the broad morning sun shone full upon the two through the open window, making the girl's auburn hair blaze like dark red gold, and a white radiance glowed in her pure forehead and snowy arms. Stradella shivered a little, even in the sunshine, as he let her go, and she sank upon her chair, finding his hand again and holding it fast as if she feared lest he should leave her. It had been a strange wooing, in which song had played a greater part than words; and as for anything else, he had kissed her twice on that night when he had climbed into the loggia, and not again till now. Had he loved her less, he would have laughed at himself for the innocence of such a love-making; but it was all unlike anything that had ever happened to him before, and, moreover, he had no time for such reflections at the present moment, since every hour of delay might mean the nearer approach of danger, not to him only, but to Ortensia herself. 'We are not far enough from Venice,' he said, when he spoke at last. 'I would give the world to have you safe in Florence!' 'My uncle will not even try to catch us,' Ortensia said calmly. 'You do not know him. When he finds out that we are gone together he will fear a scandal, and he fears ridicule still more. He will tell his friends that he has sent me to the country, or to a convent, and by and by he will tell them that I am dead. He dreads nothing in the world so much as being laughed at!' She was so sure that she laughed herself as she thought of him, and almost wished that he might hear her, though he was certainly the very last person she wished to see just then. But Stradella thought otherwise. 'No one would laugh at him if he had you assassinated,' he said. 'I am not afraid of that!' Ortensia smiled at the mere idea of such a thing. 'Why are you standing? Come, bring that chair and sit down beside me, for we are alone at last!' He was well used to women's ways, but the ways of grown women of the world are not those of innocent maidens of seventeen; her perfect simplicity and fearlessness were quite new to him, and had a wonderful charm of their own. He drew a chair to the window and sat down close to her, and afterwards he was glad that he had done as she wished. It was all very strange, he thought even then. As yet, a love-affair had mostly meant for him a round of more or less dangerous adventures by night, such as climbing of balconies, unlocking of forbidden doors with stolen keys, imprisonment in dark closets and wardrobes, and sometimes flight in break-neck haste. That had usually been the material side, whereas now, reckoning up his risks, he had only climbed once to a loggia at night, and once he had been taken for a thief and chased, and that was all, excepting the actual escape from Venice, which had been without danger until now. On the other hand, there had stood to love's credit, as against those insignificant perils, only two kisses and no more, exchanged when he had been so drenched with rain that it had been quite out of the question to put a dripping arm round his lady's waist. And now, for the first time in his life, he was suddenly alone with an innocent girl of seventeen who loved him, and whom he loved even to the point of having carried her off out of her house; he was alone with her, in her own room, when she had but just risen from sleep, and she was sitting beside him in the early sunshine, that wove a blaze of glory round her young beauty, and her soft white hand held his; and he was not satisfied as she was, but wished it were night instead of day, and wished the sun were the moon, and that there were sweet silence without instead of the thousand cries and echoes of a waking Italian city. For all he had ever known of joy on earth, or ever hoped for, he would not have wished that Ortensia's face could change into any that had once been dear to him under the summer moonlight of the south; yet he felt strangely constrained and awkward, like a schoolboy in love, not knowing what to do or say in the overwhelming daylight. 'You are not glad, as I am,' Ortensia said after the long silence. At the sound of her voice he found himself again, and he lifted her hand and pressed it to his lips. 'I am afraid for you,' he answered. 'When a man has taken the most precious thing in the whole world, and carries it with him through an enemy's country, he may well be afraid lest some harm come to it on the way.' 'But this is not the enemy's country!' laughed Ortensia, too happy to be serious. 'Are we not a hundred miles from Venice and my uncle?' 'They say the Republic has long arms, love, and the Senator can count on every one of the Ten to help him. The law cannot touch us merely for having run away together, it is true, but what if he invents a crime? What if he swears that we have robbed him? The Pope's Government will not harbour thieves nor shelter criminals against the justice of Venice! We should be arrested and given up, that is all, and then sent back! This is what I fear much more than that he should have us tracked and murdered by assassins, as many Venetians would do in this civilised age!' 'But we have taken nothing,' Ortensia objected, quite unable to be afraid of anything while her hand was in his. 'How can he accuse us of robbing him? Pina and I have a comb and piece of soap between us! As for money, she may have a little small change, for all I know, but I have nothing.' 'I have a good deal,' Stradella answered; 'quite enough to justify such an accusation as that. But, after all, nothing can hinder such a thing, if it is going to be. I dare say you are right--it is my anxiety for you that makes me think of everything that might happen.' 'Nothing will happen,' Ortensia said softly, 'nothing will happen to part us!' Still holding his hand, she gazed into his eyes with an expression of ecstatic happiness, and she could not have found another word, even if she had needed speech; then suddenly her bare arm circled his neck like a flash of white light, for he was very close to her, and she took him unawares and kissed him first. She laid her head upon his breast a moment later, and he pressed her to him and buried his face in her sweet auburn hair. His heart overflowed in many soft and loving words. The door opened while he was speaking, and both started and sat upright, expecting to see Pina, and ashamed to be surprised even by her. Then Ortensia uttered a sharp cry and Stradella sprang to his feet. Two big men in rusty black and long boots had entered the room, and were advancing. They were broad-shouldered men, of a determined bearing, with sinister faces, and both wore swords and kept their slouch hats on their heads. Stradella was unarmed, and could only stand before Ortensia, awaiting their onset, for he had not a doubt but that they were Bravi sent by Pignaver to murder him. To his surprise they stopped before him, and one of them spoke. 'You had better come quietly with us,' the man said. Stradella understood at once that the two intruders were sbirri, come to arrest him, and he was sure that Pignaver had pursued precisely the course he had explained to Ortensia, and that he was going to be accused of robbery. 'I am a Sicilian and a Spanish subject,' he said. 'By what right do you dare to arrest me?' 'We know very well that you are a Sicilian, Master Bartolo,' answered the man. 'And as for the rest, it is known to you, so come with us and make no trouble, or it will be the worse for you.' 'My name is not Bartolo!' cried the musician indignantly. 'I am Alessandro Stradella, the singer.' 'Any one can say that,' replied the man. 'Come along! No nonsense, now!' 'I tell you, I am Stradella----' But the man glanced at his companion, and the two had him by his arms in an instant, though he struggled desperately. They were very strong fellows, and between them could have thrown a horse, and though Stradella was supple and quick, he was powerless between them. During the short exchange of words Ortensia had leaned back against the window-sill in frightened surprise, but when she saw her lover suddenly pinioned and dragged towards the door, she flew at the sbirri like a tigress, and buried her fingers in the throat of the nearest, springing upon him from behind. The fellow shook her off as a bull-terrier would a rat, and, while keeping his hold on the prisoner with one hand, he tripped her roughly with his foot and the other, by a common professional trick, throwing her heavily upon the brick floor. Before she could rise, the men had got Stradella outside, and as she struggled to her feet she heard the key turned, and knew that she was locked in. In wild despair she beat upon the solid panels with her small fists, but no one answered her. Stradella's man was scouring the town for horses, and Pina was not within hearing. Meanwhile the singer had submitted, as soon as he realised that he had no chance of escape, and that, unless the men were acting a part, he had been taken for a man called Bartolo, and would be able to explain the mistake as soon as he was brought before a responsible officer or magistrate. Indeed, when this view presented itself to him, he was only anxious to facilitate the course of events as much as possible, and spoke civilly to his captors, while walking quietly downstairs between them; but they did not let go of his arms for that reason. Below, in the arched entrance, the innkeeper was waiting, in conversation with three other sbirri, dressed and armed much in the same manner as the two who had made the arrest. 'It is a mistake,' Stradella said to the host. 'I am taken for another man, and as soon as I have explained who I am, I shall return. I shall be obliged if you will attend to the wants of the lady and her serving-woman.' 'Guests who quit the house without paying their score generally leave their luggage as security,' answered the host with an insulting sneer, and pointing towards the entrance. There, to his surprise, Stradella saw two sturdy porters, laden with his valises, his cloak, and his lute, and evidently waiting to accompany him. 'What are you doing, you scoundrels?' he cried. 'Put down my things!' But they only grinned and began to move on, and as he was hurried out of the door into the square, they jogged across the square at a trot with their burdens. A few moments later he followed them across the drawbridge of the castle and in under the great gate where a papal soldier, armed with halberd and broadsword, was pacing up and down on guard. Just as he disappeared, Pina emerged upon the square from a narrow street at its northern end, and hastened to the entrance of the inn. The host was standing there, his legs apart, his arms crossed, and his small black cap on one side of his head. He stopped Pina. 'Your master has changed his lodgings,' he said in a jocular tone, and pointing with his thumb towards the castle. 'His Excellency the Legate has just taken him in free.' Pina understood instantly, and drew back a step in consternation. 'If you mean to stay here, you must pay in advance,' continued the host, 'for your master has taken all the luggage with him. Perhaps he expects to spend some time with the Legate.' 'But we have no money of our own!' Pina cried in great distress. 'What are we to do?' 'That is your affair,' answered the innkeeper. 'You have had your night's lodging from me, and that is all you will get for nothing; so, unless you can pay, take your mistress somewhere else.' Pina bent her head, and went upstairs without more words. A quarter of an hour later she and Ortensia left the inn, with the hoods of their brown cloaks drawn over their heads. The young girl leaned on her nurse's arm, and walked unsteadily. Their worldly possessions, besides the clothes they wore, consisted of a piece of Castile soap, a comb, and Pina's work-case. CHAPTER VIII The Nuncio departed amidst a tremendous clatter of hoofs and rumbling of wheels, after being accompanied to his coach by the Legate of Ferrara himself. The second coach was occupied by his chaplains, and a third by his body-servants; in his own he took only his secretary; each vehicle carried a part of his voluminous luggage. After the coaches rode the footmen, mounted on all sorts of beasts, such as could be had, but wearing good liveries and all well armed. A dozen papal troopers commanded by a sergeant brought up the rear. The wizened little Legate bowed to the ground as the noisy procession started, for though he wore a clerical dress he was only a layman, and the Nuncio was Archbishop of Kerasund, 'in partibus infidelium,' and returned the Governor's salutations with a magnificent benediction from the window of his coach. The papal halberdiers of the castle, all drawn up in line outside the moat, saluted by laying their long halberds to the left at a sharp angle. The Legate put on his three-cornered hat as the escort trotted away after the coaches, and he stood rubbing his hands and watching the fast-disappearing procession of travellers, while the guard formed in double file and awaited his pleasure, ready to follow him in. He had scarcely reached middle age, but he looked like a dried-up little old man, with his wrinkled face, his small red eyes, and his withered hands. No one who did not know him would have taken him to be the tremendous personage he really was in Ferrara, invested with full powers to represent his sovereign master, Pope Clement the Tenth; or rather the Pope's adopted 'nephew,' who was not his nephew at all, Cardinal Paluzzo Altieri, the real and visible power in Rome. The truth was that the aged Pontiff was almost bedridden and was scarcely ever seen, and he was only too glad to be relieved of all care and responsibility. Monsignor Pelagatti, for that was the Legate's name, was a man of no distinguished extraction; indeed, it would be more true to say that he had extracted himself from his original surroundings. For it was by dint of laudable hard work as well as by virtue of certain useful gifts of mind and character that he had raised himself above his family to a really important position. It was commonly said in Rome that his father had been a highway robber and his mother a washerwoman, and that his brother was even now a footman in service; but it is quite possible that the Roman gossips knew more of his people than he did, seeing that he had declined to have anything to do with his family ever since he had got his first place as assistant steward in the Paluzzo household, before that family had been adopted and had received the name of Altieri from the Pope; and this is all that need be said about his beginnings for the present. In due time he went upstairs again, installed himself behind the long oak table in his office, and took up the business of the day. A brown wooden crucifix stood before him, and at the foot of it was placed his large leaden inkstand, well provided with pens, ink, and red sand for blotting. At each end of the table sat a clerk; of these two, one was an untidy old man with a weary face and snuff-stained fingers, the other was a particularly spruce young fellow, with smug pink cheeks and carefully trimmed nails. The room had one high window to the north, from which a cold and dreary light fell upon the table and the three men. The Legate proceeded to transact current business, receiving in turn a number of officials and citizens who came of their own accord, or were summoned, for various reasons, mostly connected with the revenue. When he had dismissed them all, more or less satisfied or dissatisfied, as the papal interests required, he ordered the officer at the door to send for the prisoner who had been taken at the inn that morning. 'Let us see this famous Sicilian coiner,' he said, rubbing his hands and screwing up his little red eyes. 'Bring up his effects, too, and send for a goldsmith with his touchstone and acids.' He leaned back in his high chair to wait, and mentally ran over the questions he meant to ask. The shabby old clerk took snuff, and sprinkled a liberal quantity of it on his spotted black clothes and on the edge of the paper before him. His colleague at the other end occupied himself in improving the point of his quill pen. In the silence, a huge spotted cat sprang upon the table and calmly seated itself upright beside the crucifix, facing the Legate, who paid no attention whatever to it. From time to time it blinked and slowly moved the yellow tip of its tail. Presently Stradella was led in by the gaoler and his assistant. On his wrists there were manacles, joined with each other by a strong chain which was highly polished by constant use. He was bare-headed, of course, and he seemed perfectly cool and self-possessed. Immediately after him, two men entered bringing his luggage, which was set down on the floor before the table. The cat did not even turn to look at the people who had entered. 'What is your name?' asked the Legate, eyeing him sharply. 'Alessandro Stradella.' Instead of writing down the answer the two clerks looked at their superior for instructions. 'His name is Bartolo,' the Legate said, in a decided tone. 'By your worship's leave, my name is Stradella,' protested the musician. 'You may note that this fellow Bartolo persists in calling himself Stradella,' said the Legate, looking first at one clerk and then at the other. 'I am not Bartolo!' cried the musician indignantly. 'I am Alessandro Stradella, the singer, well known to hundreds of people in Rome.' 'You see how he persists,' answered the Legate with an ironical smile. 'Write down what he says as correctly as you can.' Stradella saw that it was useless to protest, and that vehemence might be dangerous. 'By your leave,' he said more quietly, 'if you will loosen my hands and let me have my lute there, I will prove what I say, by singing and playing to you.' 'Anybody can sing,' retorted Monsignor Pelagatti with profound contempt, and without even looking at him. 'Write down that he has insulted this tribunal by offering to sing to the Legate and his clerks--which low jesting is contempt of court, and nothing else. The man is either drunk or insane.' Stradella was speechless with anger and disgust, and his face grew very pale. 'Open his effects,' the Legate said, when the clerks' pens stopped moving. Two of the sbirri at once unstrapped the valises, and laid out the contents on the long table on each side of the Legate, neatly and in order. One of the bags contained clothes and personal effects, but the other was almost entirely filled with manuscript compositions and a supply of paper ruled for writing music. It also contained a leathern pouch stuffed full of gold ducats. 'There we have it!' exclaimed Monsignor Pelagatti. 'Is the goldsmith come?' 'He is waiting, your worship,' answered the officer at the door. The goldsmith was ushered in, a grey-haired man, who still stooped when he had finished his bow to the Legate. The latter ordered him to sit at the table and test the gold coins one by one. 'This fellow,' said Monsignor Pelagatti, by way of explanation, 'is the famous Sicilian coiner of counterfeit money, Bartolo. Push the good ducats towards me, if you find any, and the false coin towards the clerk at your elbow.' The goldsmith glanced curiously at Stradella, and then took his small block of basalt and a stoneware bottle of nitric acid from a leathern bag he carried, slung on his arm. The spotted cat seemed interested in these objects, and after having gazed at them placidly for half a minute, rose with deliberation, walked along the edge of the table, and sniffed at the stone and the goldsmith's fingers. It then crossed to the Legate and sat down on his left, surveying the prisoner with apparent satisfaction. The Legate's eyes followed with keen interest the operations of the expert, who took one coin after another from the pouch, rubbed it on the basalt, poured a drop of acid on the yellow mark made by the gold, and then examined the wet spot closely to see how the colour changed; and he shook his head each time and pushed ducat after ducat towards Monsignor Pelagatti, but not a single one towards the clerk. The Legate's crooked fingers played absently with the coins as they came to his side, arranging them in little piles, and the piles in patterns, almost without glancing at them. The goldsmith worked quickly, but the ducats were many, for Stradella had supplied himself plentifully with money before leaving Venice, and had drawn the whole balance of the letter of credit he had brought with him from the banking-house of Chigi in Rome. The sbirri and the two clerks eyed the gold longingly. Stradella stood motionless between his keepers, wondering what would happen next, and never doubting but that the whole proceeding had been inspired by Pignaver. But what had really happened can be explained in a dozen words, and will show that the sharp little Legate was acting in perfectly good faith. The truth was that a notorious Sicilian counterfeiter who was described as a pale young man with black hair, and who went by the name of Bartolo, was really travelling in the north of Italy, and had been heard of at Vicenza, whence it was reported that he had set out in haste for Padua. The spies who were in pursuit of him learned in the latter city that a dark young man with a pale complexion had hired an extra post for Rovigo, in a very great hurry, and was spending money liberally, and after that it had been easy to trace Stradella to the inn at Ferrara. One of the spies had ridden in before daybreak and had warned the innkeeper not to let the musician have horses at any price, and had then given information at the castle, which the Legate had received before sunrise, for he was an early riser. For the rest, he always followed the time-honoured custom of considering every prisoner guilty till he was proved innocent. In his opinion any criminal could call himself a singer, and could very likely sing, too, if his life depended upon it. Moreover, a hundred gold Apostolic florins had been offered for the capture of Bartolo, and the Legate meant to have a share of the prize money. By the time the goldsmith had tested all the coins and found these good, Monsignor Pelagatti had also counted them over several times. 'Three hundred and ninety-one ducats,' he said, dictating to the clerks, 'were found amongst the criminal's possessions, and were confiscated to the Papal Treasury.' 'But they are all good,' objected Stradella. 'Precisely,' answered the Legate. 'If anything was wanting to prove you guilty, it was this fact. Could any one but an expert counterfeiter have in his possession three hundred and ninety-one ducats without a single false one, in these dishonest days? But a coiner, whose nefarious business it is to exchange counterfeit coin for genuine, is not to be deceived like an ordinary person.' 'But I drew the money from an honest bank in Venice----' 'Silence!' cried the Legate in a squeaky voice. 'Silence!' roared the gaolers and the sbirri with one accord, all looking at the musician together. The spotted cat rose sleepily at the noise, arched its back and clawed the oak table, by way of stretching itself. 'The counterfeiter Bartolo is duly committed for trial and will be sent to Rome in chains with the next convoy of prisoners,' said the Legate, dictating. 'Till then,' he added, speaking to the officer, 'put him into one of the cells at the foot of the Lion Tower. He is a criminal of some note.' It was worse than useless to attempt any further protest; the gaolers seized the singer by his arms again, one on each side, and in ten minutes he was left to his own reflections, locked up in a pitch-dark cell that smelt like a wet grave. They had brought a lantern with them, and had shown him a stone seat, long enough to lie down upon, and at one end of it there was a loose block of sandstone for a pillow, a luxury which had been provided for a political prisoner who had passed some months in the cell under the last of the Este marquises, some eighty years earlier, and which had doubtless been forgotten. After he had been some time in the dark, Stradella saw that a very feeble glimmer was visible through a square grated opening which he had noticed in the door when the gaoler was unlocking it before entering. Even that would be some comfort, but the unlucky musician was too utterly overcome to think of anything but Ortensia's danger, and his own fate sank to insignificance when compared with hers; for he was sure that Pignaver's agents must have seized her as soon as he himself had been taken away, and he dared not think of what would happen when they brought her back to Venice and delivered her up to her uncle. That they would murder the defenceless girl he did not believe, and besides, it was much more likely that Pignaver would prefer to torment her to death at his leisure, after assassinating her lover. Stradella guessed as much as that from what he knew of the Senator's character. As for himself, when he was able to reflect soberly after being several hours alone in the dark, the singer came to the conclusion that he was in no immediate danger of his life, though he owed his present imprisonment to his enemy. It looked as if he stood a good chance of being sent to Rome, as Bartolo the counterfeiter, to be tried; but once there, he would have no difficulty in obtaining his liberation, for he was well known to many distinguished persons, including Cardinal Altieri himself. Pignaver had cleverly cut short his flight in order to take Ortensia from him, but to accomplish this the Senator had been obliged to put off the murder he doubtless contemplated. Stradella's life would probably be attempted in Rome, as soon as he was free, but meanwhile he could not but admit that the Senator had succeeded in making him exceedingly uncomfortable, merely from a material point of view. It was not likely that prisoners were sent to Rome more than once a month, and the last convoy had perhaps left yesterday. He might have to spend thirty days in the cell. As the hours passed he forgot himself again, and thought only of Ortensia. In his imagination he fancied her already far on her way to Rovigo in the jolting coach with her captors; in the very coach, perhaps, in which he had brought her to Ferrara only last night. He called up her face, and saw it as pale as death; her eyes were half closed and her lips sharp-drawn with pain. He could hardly bear to think of her suffering, but not to think of her he could not bear at all. He did not know how long he had been locked up, when he noticed that the faint glimmer at the grated hole was almost gone, and suddenly he felt horribly hungry, in spite of his misery, for it was nearly twenty-four hours since he had tasted food. The gaolers had brought a little bread and a jug of water, and had set them down on the ground at one end of the bench. He felt about till he found them, and he gnawed the tough crust voraciously, though it tasted of the damp earth on which it had lain since morning. After a long time he fell asleep with the stone pillow under his head. CHAPTER IX Cucurullo came back to the inn in less than an hour after Pina and Ortensia had left it. In spite of the asseverations of the innkeeper, he had found that there were horses to be had in plenty in the city, and that it was merely a question of choice and of paying well for the accommodation. He was hastening upstairs to tell this to Stradella when he was stopped by the host himself, who informed him that Stradella was imprisoned in the castle, and that the lady and her serving-woman had just gone away on foot. 'You had better melt away yourself,' the innkeeper concluded in a confidential tone, 'unless you wish to be clapped into prison too.' Cucurullo had betrayed no surprise at what the host told him, and he did not seem inclined to pay any immediate attention to the latter's advice, though it was distinctly friendly. He was used to that, for few Italians would care to incur the hatred of a hunch-backed man, who is supposed to bring good luck to those who treat him well, and to dispose of the mysterious curses of the Evil Eye for wreaking vengeance on those who injure him. Cucurullo stood still on the stairs, in deep thought, after the innkeeper had ceased speaking. 'What is the name of the Legate?' he inquired, looking up at last. 'Pelagatti,' answered the other. 'He is from the South, they say; though, between you and me, he looks more like a rat than a Christian. Monsignor Luigi Pelagatti, that is his name.' Again Cucurullo was silent, apparently more absorbed in his thoughts than ever. 'Come, come!' cried the innkeeper in an encouraging tone. 'You need not be so down-hearted! I will have a good meal cooked for you, and if you need a little ready money for your journey, it is at your disposal. A clever fellow like you will soon find another place.' By way of laying in a stock of luck for the day, he patted the deformed man's hump as he spoke, but he awaited the answer with evident concern, for it was fortunate to have a hunch-backed man eat and drink in one's house; a hunch-backed woman, on the contrary, always brought evil with her, and should be driven from the door. Cucurullo's reply was not only of favourable omen, but announced a piece of unexpected good-fortune. 'You are very obliging,' he said, 'and I shall be glad of a mouthful at noon. As for your kind offer to lend me money, I thank you heartily, but I am well provided, and wish to pay my master's bill here before accepting your friendly offer of a dinner. My master always trusts me with a few ducats to pay his small expenses.' The innkeeper congratulated himself on having patted the man's hump, for it was clear that the good luck which at once befell him could be traced to no other source. He now inwardly cursed his haste in turning Ortensia and Pina out of the house, since Cucurullo was perhaps in a position to have paid their score for some time. Of this, however, the host could not be quite sure, for the serving-man did not show his purse, but only produced some loose silver from the pocket of his wide brown breeches. 'I shall charge nothing for the lady's use of the room,' said the innkeeper magnanimously. 'You came with three horses from Rovigo, I believe; there is their feed, and the supper of the postillion, who left in an hour. That is all. Three pauls will pay for everything.' 'You are very obliging,' Cucurullo said again, as he paid the money. 'Your charges are very moderate. Since you act in such a friendly manner, I will tell you something.' Thereupon Cucurullo laid one of his large hands gently on the innkeeper's sleeve, and looked up earnestly into the latter's face; and when he was very much in earnest, his large blue eyes had a peculiar expression, which lent great weight to what he said. 'A friendly act deserves a friendly return,' he said, 'for, as we say in the South, "one hand washes the other and both wash the face." My master has been arrested by mistake. He is really and truly the famous Maestro Stradella, and is a great favourite with the Roman Court, for he has sung to His Holiness himself and often to His Eminence Cardinal Altieri. Therefore, if any harm comes to him in Ferrara through the ignorance of Monsignor Pelagatti, there will be trouble for you, since the Legate will be severely reprimanded, and will make those persons who gave him wrong information pay for his scolding. As you have shown me kindness, I tell you these things beforehand, because I know them for certain. Do you understand?' The innkeeper not only understood, but began to feel uncomfortable at the thought of being called to account even for his small share in Stradella's arrest. As for the spy who had made the mistake, his lot would not be enviable if he was within the Legate's reach when the error was discovered. 'Pardon the question, my dear friend,' said the host in an extremely gentle tone, 'but are you quite sure of these things?' 'Altogether sure,' was the answer. 'I have been in the Maestro's service since he first began to be famous. He saved my life at the risk of his own, and I have served him five years come the Feast of Saint John. I therefore know that he is not a Sicilian counterfeiter! If you have any means of reaching the Legate, therefore, it would be well to set him right at once in this matter. He will be the more grateful, or, at least, the less angry, if my master is detained in prison for a few hours only.' The innkeeper saw the wisdom of this, on the supposition that Cucurullo was speaking the truth, but of that he was not quite sure. It was a bad world, he reflected, and the counterfeiter might have a clever hunchback for a servant, with a knack of fixing his eyes as Cucurullo did, and of putting great earnestness into his tone. So far, the innkeeper had only done what the law had required of him, except in the matter of turning out two women who could not pay for their lodging, and in doing this the law would support him. Monsignor Pelagatti was a tremendous personage, who ruled the whole Marquisate of Ferrara in the name of the Pope; he knew his business, or believed he did, and it was absurd to think that a humble innkeeper and posting-master could influence him to act upon the mere word of a serving-man. On the other hand, it was unsafe to doubt a hunchback openly, and it would be fatal to quarrel with him, because he could cast the spell of the Evil Eye. 'I shall do my best,' the innkeeper replied, 'and far more readily for your sake, my dear friend, than for my own, I assure you.' Cucurullo smiled quietly, and seemed quite satisfied with this answer. He now went on to ask questions about Ortensia and Pina, but the host knew nothing, except that they had left the house together, immediately after the arrest of Stradella. For obvious reasons he said nothing of his interview with Pina. He declared that they had simply left the inn, and that he had not hindered them. He had not seen them go out, and could not tell whether they had turned to the north or the south. He suggested that since they had gone away at once and without the least hesitation, they probably had friends in Ferrara to whom they could turn for protection and help in their difficulty. He was ready, he said, to help Cucurullo to find them out; he would be only too happy to be of use. What he suggested was not unlikely. During the flight from Venice, Cucurullo had observed Pina closely, and had come to the conclusion that she was a woman of resources, who had travelled much at some time or other, and who could hold her tongue. She would certainly think of some expedient, and would succeed in placing her mistress under some sort of protection. His own mind always instinctively ran in the direction of an ecclesiastical solution of any difficulty in life; if he himself were starving and friendless in a strange city he would knock at the door of a Franciscan monastery and beg for shelter and work. He therefore concluded that Pina would naturally have taken Ortensia directly to a convent, where they would both be cared for; the serving-woman would take care to be informed of what happened to Stradella, and as soon as he was let out she would communicate with him. Moreover, as compared with the fate of the musician, Cucurullo cared little what became of Ortensia; for his devotion to his master filled his whole life, whereas the young girl's only claim to his attachment was that Stradella was in love with her. On the other hand, the pious serving-man saw in the present separation of the two a special intervention of Providence for the purpose of keeping the lovers apart till they could be duly and properly married. From this point of view to putting Ortensia out of his thoughts altogether was only a step, and he devoted every energy to the liberation of his master. Having come to this conclusion in a much shorter time than it has taken to explain his reasons, he again thanked his new friend, promising to come back for dinner at noon, and adding that he would go over to the castle gate and gather such information as he could. He was hindered from doing so at once, however, by the preparations for the Nuncio's departure, which has been already described. He mixed with the crowd that had gathered to see the sight, and waited till some time had elapsed after the Legate and the guard had gone in before he approached the drawbridge. The single sentinel had now returned to his beat, but half-a-dozen of the halberdiers were loitering about the door of the guard-room within the deep archway, at some distance from the gate. The sentry stopped Cucurullo and asked his business. 'I am the servant of the gentleman who has been arrested by mistake at the inn,' the hunchback answered humbly. 'My master had sent me out on an errand, and when I came in I learnt the news. So I have come to wait for him.' 'I am afraid you may wait long,' answered the sentry, with a friendly glance at Cucurullo's hump; 'but you are welcome to sit in the guard-room, if you like.' 'Thank you,' Cucurullo answered, and as he passed he felt the soldier's light touch on his crooked back. The other halberdiers received him with equal kindness, and there was not one of them who did not believe that he would have a stroke of luck before night, if he could by any means touch the magic hump without offending its possessor. Cucurullo took off his hat civilly as he stopped before them. 'Good-morning, gentlemen,' he said. 'The sentinel was kind enough to say that I might wait here for my master, who has been arrested by mistake and will soon come out.' 'And welcome!' cried the sergeant on duty, who had lost money at play on the previous evening. 'At your service! Pray sit down! Bring out a chair!' The men all spoke together, and gathered closely round Cucurullo to touch his hump, so that he almost disappeared amongst them. Then they got a chair from the guard-room and made him sit down at his ease, and some remained standing beside him while others sat on the end of the stone seat that ran along the wall. He thanked them warmly, and at once entered into conversation, asking for news of Stradella, and explaining the strange mistake that had led to his arrest. In a few minutes he had learned that his master was in all likelihood at that very moment before the Legate. 'And what sort of person is his worship, the Governor?' asked Cucurullo, anxious for information, and lowering his voice. The sergeant was a jolly, red-faced, merry-eyed man from the March of Ancona, and he laughed before he answered. 'We used to call him Pontius Pilate, because he does not know what truth is,' he said, 'but we gave that up because he never washes his hands!' Cucurullo smiled at the rough jest, but he looked curiously at the speaker. 'I see that you are familiar with the Scriptures, sir,' observed the hunchback. 'I come by the knowledge honestly,' answered the soldier. 'I did not steal it! My father, bless his soul, was killed in battle, and so my mother tried to make a priest of me. Eh? You see me as I am! This is the kind of priest my mother made! Neither more nor less than a poor sergeant of halberdiers. But a little of the Latin stuck to me, for indeed it is sticky stuff enough, and the priests laid it on with a stick!' The men roared with delight at their superior's elegant wit, and Cucurullo laughed a little too, more out of politeness than because he was amused. 'You may yet die a saint, sir,' he said with a grave smile when the general mirth had subsided. 'Many of the saints were soldiers, you know. There was the blessed Saint Eustace, and there was Saint Martin, and Saint Sebastian, and Saint George----' 'But there never was a Saint Hector, and that is my name, at your service.' At this retort the men again showed their delight, laughing in chorus. 'Do you think you have no chance of being the first Saint Hector in the calendar?' asked Cucurullo pleasantly. 'Why not? You have a good heart, sir. I see it in your face, if you will pardon me for saying so. Gentlemen'--he smilingly appealed to the other men--'has not Sergeant Hector a good heart?' 'A heart of gold!' cried one of the soldiers. 'A heart as big as a pumpkin!' another chimed in. 'A lion's heart!' 'There is not another like him in all the Pope's army!' 'And God bless him!' The sergeant stood back, pretending to put on a terrible frown, and cutting the air in carte and tierce with his handsome tasselled stick. 'You ruffians!' he roared. 'You know well enough that I would beat you all black and blue if you did not praise me seventeen times a day, four times for each watch and once more for good luck! Eh?' He glared ferociously about him, and his stick flew round in his hand like lightning, through a whole series of cuts, feints, and round parries. 'Have I trained my men well or not?' he asked, desisting at last, and turning to Cucurullo. 'You have trained them to tell the truth about you, sir, I have no doubt,' answered the hunchback. 'And we will make a bad day of it for any man who says a word against him,' said the biggest of the halberdiers with a grin. The rest confirmed his statement with a variety of asseverations, according to their several tastes, calling to witness indifferently both heathen deities and Christian saints. 'Very well,' said Cucurullo. 'It is proved that you have a very good heart, sir, and that is the chief thing needed to make a saint. For to say that a man is kind-hearted is only another way of saying that he is charitable, and Charity is the greatest of the three Theological Virtues, as you must have learned at the seminary.' 'Good friend,' answered the sergeant, 'if you are going to open the "Process" concerning my Beatification this morning, the Devil's Advocate must be appointed to argue against you and try to prove me the worst of sinners, for that is the rule in Rome.' 'Very well, sir,' laughed the hunchback. 'Appoint him yourself, sir!' 'He is upstairs just now,' retorted the other, 'sitting in judgment on your master! But I will promise that if you argue with him about me, he will prove that my soul is rotting in original and acquired sin, and that nothing can save me but cutting my pay!' Again the gloomy archway rang with the soldiers' hoarse laughter, which was by no means the expression of obsequious flattery. The sergeant was more than popular with the whole company of halberdiers that garrisoned the castle; he was beloved for his inexhaustible good-nature and respected for his undoubted courage. Cucurullo had guessed this in a few moments, and in view of possible complications he was resolved to make an ally of the sergeant and friends of the men. He felt amongst the loose silver in his pocket and jingled it in a manner agreeable for poor soldiers to hear. 'It is still early,' he said, 'but talking always makes me thirsty. If you would allow some one to fetch some drink, sir, I should be grateful.' The sergeant assented to the proposal with alacrity, and at his nod a young soldier stepped briskly forward to take the piece of silver Cucurullo was holding up. 'How much shall I fetch?' asked the man, grinning. Cucurullo counted the company quickly before he answered. 'We are nine,' he said. 'I think you had better get nine pints in a stoup.' A little murmur of approval and anticipatory satisfaction ran round. 'I do not know whether that is right,' he added, in a tone of hesitating interrogation. 'You speak the wisdom of all ages,' answered the sergeant. 'Solomon never said anything better. "Take a little wine for the good of the stomach," says Saint Paul.' So the time passed pleasantly for the soldiers down there under the great gate, while Monsignor Pelagatti was conducting his singular judicial proceedings upstairs. A couple of horn cups were produced from the guard-room, and the men drank to Cucurullo's health in turn, while he himself swallowed a little; for he was tired, and he was terribly anxious, in spite of his cheerful manner and jesting tone. They were all laughing and talking together when the old goldsmith appeared from within, on his way home. The sergeant hailed him and asked what news of the counterfeiter there was from the Legate's court. 'Three hundred and ninety-one good gold ducats confiscated to the Treasury,' answered the grey-haired crafts-man, 'and the prisoner to be lodged under the Lion Tower till he is sent to Rome for trial.' The sergeant looked at Cucurullo, and saw that he grew paler, and dead white all round the lips; but the hunchback showed no other sign of emotion, and the goldsmith nodded gravely and went out. 'This is bad news, gentlemen,' said Cucurullo. 'Is there any way by which I could send a message to my master?' he asked in a low voice. 'Either of the turnkeys would sell his soul for a dodkin, and blow up the castle for a ducat, Legate and all,' answered the sergeant in the same tone. 'I would willingly give a ducat if I might see my master.' 'I will bargain with him for half that, but it will have to be after dark. We go off duty at Ave Maria this evening, but to-morrow we have the night watch. Come about the first hour of the night, and you will find the little postern ajar in the left half of the gate. Push it open and come in.' With this friendly promise Cucurullo had to be satisfied; and, indeed, he had good reason to congratulate himself, for if he had chanced upon one of the other sergeants he might have had a very different reception, though the whole garrison hated the Legate heartily. The guard for the month at the main gate was divided into three watches that took turns, being on duty there for twelve hours and off for twenty-four; this did not mean, however, that they were at liberty during all that time, for there was other sentry duty to be done about the castle. Having taken leave of his new friends, the hunchback went back to the inn, debating with himself whether he should remain there until the following night, or seek a lodging in a more remote and quiet part of the town. But, on the whole, he resolved to trust the innkeeper--or it would be nearer the truth to say that he trusted to the power his deformity exercised over a man in whom he would not otherwise have placed much confidence. If he took a room elsewhere, he would be forced to make acquaintance with the owners of the house, and he was convinced that such a Governor as Monsignor Pelagatti must have his spies everywhere; it was safer to stay where he was already known, and was looked upon as a bringer of luck, than to go where he might find less superstitious people. He therefore took the cheapest room in the inn, announced his intention of waiting till his master was set free, and by way of inspiring confidence he paid for three days' lodging in advance. His object in seeing Stradella was to get definite instructions in the first place, and, secondly, to take him a dish of meat and a supply of such food as would keep some time without spoiling. Stradella would probably bid him ride post to Rome and bring back an order from Cardinal Altieri which would set everything right; but it would scarcely be possible to cover the distance and return in less than ten days, at the very least, during which time it was only too probable that the musician would fall ill from lack of food and from the possible dampness and closeness of his prison. The hours passed slowly enough in the solitude of the little upper room in which Cucurullo spent most of that day and the next, and the intervening night; for he thought it wiser not to be seen much in the town, being what he was, a mark for men's eyes wherever he went. He would have read if he could have found a book, for he was a good reader and writer, and often copied music for his master, for he could engross handsomely; but there were no books in the inn, not even the works of that 'poor Signor Torquato Tasso,' who had been so long shut up as a lunatic in Ferrara in the days of the Marquis Alfonso Second. The only book Cucurullo had been able to find was a small volume with a very strange name, for its title was _Eikon Basilike_; but Cucurullo did not understand a word of it, and the innkeeper said he thought the book must have been forgotten by two rich English gentlemen who had lately spent some days in his house. At the appointed hour Cucurullo crossed the drawbridge of the castle, pushed the small postern, and went in. A hanging iron lamp, fed with mingled olive-oil and tallow, dimly lighted the great archway, where the sentry was pacing up and down. Sergeant Hector came forward as soon as the hunchback appeared, and closed and bolted the postern after him before speaking. The other men of the watch were presumably dozing in the guard-room, from the open door of which no light appeared. 'This way, my dear friend,' whispered the sergeant. 'The man is waiting.' He hurried Cucurullo along the dark way towards the inner court, laying a hand on his crooked back by way of guiding him; but the truth was that since he had met Cucurullo his luck at play had been surprisingly good, and he would not miss the chance of refreshing it again at the magic source of fortune. They passed the foot of the main staircase, went on a few steps farther, and then turned into a narrow passage. The glare of a lantern flashed in Cucurullo's eyes. 'Here is the gentleman,' the sergeant said in a low voice. 'This is our head gaoler,' he added, turning to Cucurullo. 'I have agreed that you should pay three silver florins in advance for the visit.' 'Cash,' said a voice that was unnaturally hoarse, possibly from the dampness of the underground labyrinth to which the man's business often took him. Cucurullo was wrapped in his wide cloak, under which he had slung on himself the bottles and provisions he was bringing. He had prepared some loose money in his breeches pocket, and immediately produced the three coins. The turnkey was holding the lantern in such a position that it was impossible to see his face, but a grimy hand shot out into the yellow glare to take the money. 'Come,' said the hoarse voice; and as the speaker turned to lead the way, Cucurullo heard the jingling of his keys. The sergeant was already gone, and the hunchback followed his guide along the passage, which descended by a distinctly perceptible grade. It was clear from this that the prisons must be below the level of the water in the moat, and already the moving light showed that the walls were dripping with moisture. Presently the passage emerged into a sort of crypt, in which huge masses of masonry supported low arches that in turn carried the cross vaulting. The floor, if it was anything but beaten earth, was slippery with a thin film of greasy mud. At last the turnkey stopped before one of half-a-dozen doors, all studded alike with rusty iron nails, and each having a lock, a bolt, and a square aperture at the height of a man's head, strongly barred. Cucurullo now saw the gaoler's ugly features for the first time. The door opened, creaking loudly on its hinges; and as the turnkey held up his lantern to see into the cell, Cucurullo, peering past him, caught sight of his master's face. It was ghastly pale, his sunken eyes had dark half-circles under them, and his unshaven chin and cheeks looked grimy in the yellow light. 'Is it morning?' he asked, in a dull voice. Cucurullo slipped past the gaoler and spoke to him, and instantly the light flashed in his eyes and he smiled, for the first time since he had been arrested in Ortensia's room. Cucurullo took his hand and kissed it with devotion, as Italian servants often do in great moments. Neither had yet spoken when the heavy door creaked and was slammed, and they were suddenly in the dark. The key turned noisily in the lock, twice in quick succession, and the additional bolt rattled as it was pushed into its socket. 'Good-night, gentlemen,' said the preternaturally hoarse voice of the turnkey through the square hole in the door. 'I will bring you your dinner at noon!' Cucurullo sprang to the grated aperture, only to see the ruffian stalking off into the gloom with his lantern. 'Hi! Listen!' he cried. 'Come back, Sir Gaoler! You shall have a ducat----' The man stood still, and turned his face towards the door of the cell with a sardonic grin. 'Now that I have you and your ducats under lock and key I shall take them at my leisure, Sir Fool!' he answered. 'I only agreed to let you in; I did not promise to let you out.' Thereupon he turned again and stalked away, much to Cucurullo's consternation; and in this manner the fourth and last of the runaway party that had arrived at the inn from Rovigo disappeared in Ferrara, somewhat to the surprise of the innkeeper, but not to his loss, since Cucurullo had paid for his lodging in advance. CHAPTER X Stradella and Ortensia had fled from Venice on Thursday evening and had reached Ferrara at midnight on Friday. It was therefore on a Saturday morning that the musician was imprisoned, and on Sunday night Cucurullo was caught in the trap and locked up with him. It was late on that same afternoon that the Bravi took leave of Pignaver in the church of the Frari, and they did not leave Venice till the next day; for since they were to be paid for their time they could really not see any reason for being in a hurry. Moreover, they travelled like gentlemen, and though the proceeds of the emerald ring had already amply furnished them with the means of replacing many useful articles which adversity had forced them to sell or pawn, yet some further preparation seemed necessary, if they were to make their journey in a manner becoming to their rank. As for travelling night and day, that was quite out of the question, for they would have thought it very foolish to trust implicitly to the information about the runaways which Pignaver had got from the Venetian police. Where such grave responsibility was laid upon them, it was right that they should rely only on what they themselves could learn with certainty. The consequence was that they did not reach Ferrara till Wednesday afternoon, having spent a night in Padua and another in Rovigo; and they were of course persuaded that Stradella and Ortensia were by that time already in Florence, if they had taken that direction. So far, the Bravi had only spoken of their business when it was necessary to compare notes about the information they gathered. Having undertaken to murder both the lovers on the one hand, but also to deliver both of them safe and unhurt, Ortensia to the Senator and Stradella to the enamoured lady, the subject presented certain complications which were too tiresome to discuss until a final decision became necessary; and for that matter, Trombin and Gambardella fully intended to obtain the full five hundred ducats from each side. 'You and I were certainly meant to be lawyers or bankers,' Trombin had observed at Rovigo over a bottle of very old Burgundy; 'for whichever of two cards turns up, we must win half the stakes.' 'Both must turn up at the end of the deal,' Gambardella had answered with decision, 'and we must win everything.' 'Under Providence,' Trombin had replied, 'we will.' Having said this much they had dismissed the subject, and their conversation during the rest of the evening had been of artistic matters, politics, literature, women's beauty, and whatsoever else two tolerably cultivated gentlemen might discuss with propriety in the presence and hearing of a landlord and his servants. As soon as they had arrived, they had learned without difficulty that the runaway party had passed through the place and had safely reached Ferrara, whence the carriage they had hired in Padua had duly returned. The Bravi preferred to ride post, sending their luggage on with their servant, six or seven hours in advance of them. The serving-man they had hired in Venice had been a highway robber for several years, as they were well aware, and in an ordinary situation he might have made away with his masters' valuables, if entrusted with them; but he knew who Trombin and Gambardella were, and what they had done, and his admiration for such very superior cut-throats was boundless. Anything of theirs was safe in his hands, and therefore safe from robbers on the road, for he had not long retired from the profession, and had the thieves' pass-words by heart from Milan to Naples, and farther. As a servant, he had parted his hair in the middle and resumed his modest and unobtrusive baptismal name of Tommaso; but he had always been known to the gang as Grattacacio, that is, 'Cheese-grater,' because it was told of him that he had once done good execution with that simple kitchen instrument on the nose of a sbirro who had tried to catch him, but was himself caught instead. The worthy courier arrived at the inn in Ferrara on Wednesday before noon and took the best room in the house for his masters, who, he said, would arrive at their convenience during the afternoon; as in fact they did, looking very magnificent in fashionable long-skirted riding-coats buttoned tight across the chest and under the broad linen collar, high-crowned felt hats with magnificent feathers, boots of the new fashion, cut off below the knee, and handsome silver chains instead of shoulder-belts for their rapiers. Grattacacio had announced them as two Venetian gentlemen travelling for their pleasure, and when the innkeeper asked their names, the man answered that they had received titles of nobility from the King of France, and were called respectively Count Tromblon de la Trombine and Count Gambardella. When in Venice, he said, they dropped these appellations and took their seats in the Grand Council as nobles of the Republic. For the rest, Grattacacio continued, they were gentlemen of exquisite taste and most fastidious in their eating and drinking. Burgundy was their favourite wine, and they could not drink French claret if it was more than twelve or less than eight years old. They abhorred the sweet Malmsey which the Tuscans were so fond of, but if there was any old Oporto in the cellar they were connoisseurs and could appreciate it. The landlord received them with all the respect due to such a noble pair of epicures, and long before they arrived preparations were making in the kitchen to cook them a dinner worthy of their refined taste and portentous appetites. So far as their other pretensions went, they had really seen some service in the French Army, but their highest title to distinction was that they had narrowly escaped being hanged for selling information to the Dutch, and as soon as they had fled it was discovered that they had taken with them all the loose gold in the regimental chest, and the two fleetest horses in the Field-Marshal's stable. The landlord, who did not know this, bowed to the ground as they dismounted under the archway, and at once led them to the best rooms, with which they expressed themselves well satisfied. For whatever their real names might be, they had been originally brought up as gentlemen, and they did not abuse everything that was offered them in order to make innkeepers believe that they lived magnificently at home. When they saw that they were given the best there was to be had, no matter how poor that might be, they accepted it quietly and said 'Thank you' without more ado; but if they perceived that the best was being withheld for some one else, they were a particularly troublesome pair of gentlemen to deal with; for nothing abashed them, and nothing seemed to frighten them, and they were always as ready to beat an innkeeper as to skewer a marquis according to the most rigidly honourable rules of duelling. As for the law, it might as well not have existed, so far as they were concerned. They never needed it, and when it wanted them they were never to be found--unless they were under the powerful protection of a prince or an ambassador, of whom the law itself was very much afraid, and who promptly demanded for them a written pardon for their last offence. For those were the only conditions under which Bravi could have exercised their profession as they did throughout Italy in the seventeenth century. Trombin detained the innkeeper a moment when he was about to leave the two to their toilet, after the day's ride. 'Some acquaintances of ours must have spent a night here last week,' Trombin began. 'Do you remember them? They were the celebrated Maestro Alessandro Stradella and his young Venetian wife. They have with them a middle-aged serving-woman. Can you recollect when they left here?' The landlord scratched his head and pretended to be racking his memory; for it would have been quite easy to say that the party had left on Saturday, on their way to Bologna. That was the answer the gentleman expected, and the innkeeper generally found that it served best to tell people what they expected to hear. But, on the other hand, there was the question of truth, if not of truthfulness. Who could tell but that such fine gentlemen might have with them an introduction to the Legate, who might tell them the story. If this happened, the two travellers would be angry at having been deceived, since, if the imprisoned man was really Stradella, they would naturally wish to help him to regain his liberty. This reflection carried the day; the innkeeper therefore decided in favour of truth, and he told the tale of Stradella's arrest, and of the mysterious disappearance of the other three members of the party. The two Bravi listened in silent surprise, glancing at each other from time to time, as if to note some point of importance. 'Something must be done at once!' cried Trombin, when the landlord had told all. 'This is an egregious miscarriage of the law! Something must be done at once!' 'Something must be done at once!' echoed Gambardella very emphatically, though in a much lower tone. 'Are you quite sure that you do not know where the lady went, Master Landlord? Or have you only forgotten?' He had fixed his evil black eyes on the innkeeper's face, and there was something in his look and tone that suddenly scared the stout Romagnole, who was no great hero after all; he backed against the door as if he expected Gambardella to spring at him. 'Indeed, Signor Count,' he cried in a rather shaky voice, 'if it were my last word, I know nothing more of the lady and her woman! They left the house immediately, but I do not know whether they turned to the right or the left from my door, for I did not see them go out.' 'Have you made any inquiries in the town?' asked Gambardella in the same tone as before. 'No? Then you had better set about it at once. Do you understand? That young lady is the niece of a friend of ours, who is a Venetian Senator, and if any harm comes to her through your having allowed her to leave your house unprotected, you may be held responsible. I fancy that the Legate here must be anxious to oblige the Republic in such matters!' This was no doubt arrant nonsense, but nothing seemed laughable when Gambardella assumed that tone. 'Something must be done at once!' cried Trombin, and turning suddenly to the landlord he opened his round blue eyes as wide as possible, and drew his breath sharply in through his pursed lips with a soft sound of whistling. He looked like a colossal angry cat, and was at least as terrifying as Gambardella. The landlord faltered as he replied to both the Bravi at once. 'Certainly, my lords, certainly--I will have inquiries made--I will do my best--it was really not my fault----' 'It may not have been your intention, but it was, in a measure, your fault,' answered Trombin, allowing his expression to relax, 'though it may have been only a fault of omission, and therefore venial, which is to say, pardonable, Master Landlord, in proportion to the gravity of the consequences that may attend it. And now we will make ourselves ready for the succulent dinner which, I have no doubt, your wise care is about to set before us, for your house has an excellent name, but we would have you know that our appetites are at least as good, and our understanding of the noble art of cookery much better. It is not becoming to speak of any actions we may have to our past credit in war, but we can at least boast without reproach that we have eaten some of the best dinners cooked since Lucullus supped with himself!' This tirade, delivered with the utmost rapidity and punctuated with several smiles that showed the speaker's sharp and gleaming teeth, partially reassured the innkeeper, who took himself off at once; and as he had been frightened he proceeded at once to restore his self-respect by frightening the cook, cuffing the scullions, and threatening the drawer with an awful end if he should shake the bottles and disturb the ancient sediment when he brought the Burgundy to the gentlemen's table. When he was gone, the Bravi did not at once talk over the unexpected news, for Grattacacio was with them, coming and going, bringing hot water, shaving them as well as any barber, unpacking their linen and clothes, and waiting on them with such a constant prescience of their needs as only a highly trained body-servant can possess. For the truth was that he had begun life as a bishop's footman, and had risen to be valet to a cardinal, before he had taken to the road after robbing his master of some valuable jewels; but his hair was now growing grey at the temples, and his nerve was not so good as it had been, and as he had escaped hanging till now, he gave up risking it any longer. Accordingly he had parted his hair and called himself Tommaso once more, and he was now looking out for a good place with a not too decrepit prelate; for he had been used to boast that no valet in all the Roman Curia could put on a bishop's sandals at High Mass with such combined skill and unction as he, nor carry a cardinal's scarlet train at a consistory with such mingled devoutness and grace. As for serving Mass, it had been a second nature to him, and even now he could rattle off the responses without a mistake, from the first 'sicut erat in principio' to the last 'Deo gratias' after the Second Gospel. Trombin and Gambardella did not discuss the situation until this highly accomplished servant of theirs had accompanied them to the dining-room, to push their chairs under them as they sat down, and to assure himself that the table-cloth was spotless and the glasses not only clean but polished. Then he left them to their dinner, which, as he well knew, would last at least two hours. The dining-room was spacious and airy, having two large grated windows that overlooked the square, and there were several small tables besides the long one at which the 'ordinary' was served every day at noon. The Bravi were now the only guests, and were installed near one of the windows, for the day was warm. From the middle of the vaulted ceiling a huge bunch of fresh green ferns was hung, not as a substitute for flowers, but to attract and stupefy the stray flies that found their way in from the kitchen, even at that early season of the year. Trombin was the first to speak, after the preliminary appetisers had been placed on the table and the glasses had been filled. 'The situation strikes me as amusing,' he said. 'I have always felt that destiny possesses a sense of humour which makes the wittiest French comedy lugubrious by comparison.' 'You are easily amused, my friend,' answered Gambardella gloomily, and picking out a very thin slice of Bologna sausage for his next mouthful. 'We were looking forward to a pleasant journey to Florence or Rome, our expenses being liberally paid; instead, we find that all the people we wish to meet are here, barely two days from Venice, and as if that were not enough, they must needs melt away like snow in the street and disappear underground, so that we must turn sbirri to find them. I see no sense of humour in the destiny that brings about such silly circumstances.' 'You were always a melancholic soul,' Trombin observed. 'As for me, I cannot but laugh when I think that we shall have to rescue our man from the danger of being hanged as a counterfeiter, in order that we may conveniently cut his throat.' Having expressed his view of the case Trombin swallowed half a glass of wine at a draught, while his companion sipped a few drops from his. 'I do not call it melancholy to like good things and to wish that they may last as long as possible,' Gambardella said, rather sourly. 'What could have been more delightful than to ride all the way to Rome or Naples in this way, travelling only on fine days, and stopping where one can get a bottle of old Burgundy and a slice of a decently cooked capon? Talk of sending people to a better world, my friend--it would give me infinite satisfaction to skewer this fool of a Legate for having interfered with our plans! A pretty job it is going to be, to get a man out of a dungeon under the Lion Tower.' 'Which one is that?' asked Trombin, looking through the grated window at the gloomy castle on the other side of the square. 'It is at the northeast corner at the head of the street they call Giovecca. You cannot see it from here. When we have dined we will stroll over and look at it, if you like, but you might as well try to rescue a prisoner from the Bastille!' Gambardella sniffed his wine discontentedly and then sipped it. He was a grave man and business-like; he could drive as hard a bargain for a life as any Bravo in Italy, and do his work as neatly and expeditiously, when it was plainly laid out before him; but he had no imagination, and his idea of rescuing Stradella was evidently to get him out of the castle by some simple trick such as poor Cucurullo had tried in order to see his master. 'This seems to be a good inn,' observed Trombin thoughtfully, after a pause. 'I had as soon spend a ducat a day here as in a worse house. Now this Burgundy is of the vintage of the year fifty-one.' 'Undoubtedly,' assented Gambardella, sipping again as he did about once a minute. 'It has the "rose" bouquet like that of forty-six, but is a little younger. To think that if we could only get that fellow out of prison we could have him to dinner, and he would sing for us this evening! It is maddening to think that he may lose his voice in a damp hole through the idiocy of that thrice-confounded Legate!' 'It is indeed,' agreed Trombin. 'I wonder what has become of the lady.' 'I thought you were thinking of the girl,' said the other discontentedly. 'It would complete the situation if you should find her and fall in love with her yourself!' 'That is possible. It has pleased Providence to make me susceptible, whereas you are designed by nature for a monastic life. Our friend's description of his niece calls up an enchanting picture! The "Bella" of the late Titian, but younger and slimmer! Heaven send such a sweet creature to cheer my declining years! I do not wonder that the Maestro lost his heart and carried her off. And at this very moment she must be hiding somewhere in Ferrara, perhaps not a quarter of a mile from here! In a convent, no doubt, in some gloomy old house full of yellow-faced Carmelite or Franciscan nuns, with her glorious hair and her matchless complexion! I can see her in my imagination, a gilded rose amongst cabbages, a luscious peach in a heap of turnips.' 'For goodness' sake stop raving!' interrupted Gambardella. 'Why should she be in a convent, I should like to know?' 'Where else could two respectable women without money go? They could not possibly travel, and no one in the town would take them in without baggage or cash. I tell you they went from here to a convent and asked for shelter and protection. It is the most natural thing in the world. It is what the girl's middle-aged serving-woman would certainly think of first.' 'You may be right,' answered the other, his tone changing. 'Drink more wine, for it always stimulates your imagination, and you may imagine a way of getting Stradella out of the Lion Tower. I think you are right about the girl. We will make inquiries at the convents after dinner.' Trombin filled his glass, which was quite empty, drank half the contents and set it down. 'In the first place,' he said, 'we had better try simple persuasion with the Legate. If you agree, I will go and see him late in the afternoon. He may make some little difficulty about receiving me, but that will only be in order to impress me with his greatness. Besides, you will give me a letter of introduction which I shall ask to present in person.' 'I?' Gambardella looked at his friend across his glass with an expression of inquiry. 'Certainly,' answered Trombin. 'I could not ask such a favour of any one who knows me better, could I? If any one can vouch for me, you can.' Gambardella condescended to smile faintly, and suggested an outline of the letter. '"I have the honour to introduce to your lordship's good graces the very noble Count Tromblon de la Trombine, who is here at great personal inconvenience for the express purpose of cutting Alessandro Stradella's throat, and will be much obliged if your worship will at once order the Maestro to be let out for that purpose." Would that do? I could sign Pignaver's name to it!' 'You have no imagination. I will make a rough draft, which you will then write out much better than I could. You shall see. While I am at the castle, you may make inquiries at the different convents.' As their servant Tommaso had foreseen, they sat at table two hours, and on the whole, though they were highly experienced epicures, they were not dissatisfied with the dinner. Gambardella even admitted that one more day in Ferrara would not be intolerable, but that was as much as his second bottle of Burgundy could bring him to say. At dessert, Trombin called for writing materials and quickly drafted the letter of introduction he wished his friend to write out for him. The latter watched him, and from time to time picked out a fat red cherry from a quantity that floated in a large bowl of water, and ate it thoughtfully. An hour and a half later the Legate returned from his daily airing, which he generally took on a handsome brown mule, accompanied by his private secretary or by the captain of the halberdiers of the garrison. He came home early, though the weather was warm, for he was beginning to be a little rheumatic, and he established himself in the sunny room which he used as his study. He had not been seated ten minutes in his high-backed chair, with a red cotton quilt spread over his knees and tucked in round his legs, dictating letters to his secretary, when word was brought him that a Venetian gentleman desired to be received, in order to present a letter of introduction from a high personage. Monsignor Pelagatti had an almost exaggerated respect for high personages, though he was now considered to be one of them himself. Even kings may be snobs, when they are not very big kings, and much more, therefore, the lay governor of a papal province who had climbed to distinction from a steward's office in a Roman patrician's household. The Legate sent his secretary downstairs to bring up the visitor with all the ceremony due to the bearer of an important letter. In a few minutes Trombin entered the sunny room, and the Governor, who had dropped his red cotton quilt and kicked it out of sight under the table, rose to receive him. Trombin's round cheeks were rounder and pinker than ever, his long yellow hair was as smooth as butter, his bow was precisely suited to the dignity of the Legate, and his manner inspired confidence by its quiet self-possession. His right hand held out the letter he brought, which Monsignor Pelagatti received with a gracious smile after returning his visitor's bow, at the same time inviting the latter to be seated on his right, where the secretary had already placed a comfortable chair. 'With your permission,' said the Governor politely, before proceeding to read the letter. Trombin bowed his acquiescence from his chair and smiled again. The succulent dinner and rich Burgundy seemed to have made him sleeker and pinker than ever, and he watched the Legate's face with a pleasantly benevolent expression. But Monsignor Pelagatti's jaw dropped as he read the missive, and his shrivelled lids seemed to shrink back from all round his little red eyes till they looked as if they were starting from his head, while Trombin watched him with quiet satisfaction. The letter purported to be from the acting Chief of the Council of Ten in Venice, and was really a miracle of official style in its way. The writer took the liberty of introducing a gentleman to whom he entrusted a delicate business, the noble Signor Trombin del Todescan. His high regard for the Legate, and his desire to avert all unpleasant consequences from so friendly and distinguished an official, had led him to treat directly and privately of a matter which would otherwise have to go through the hands of the Venetian Ambassador in Rome. The Legate had accidentally imprisoned a distinguished musician who had lately been the guest of the Republic, a matter which, in itself, might not be thought to have great importance. But the Maestro Stradella was on his wedding journey, and his young bride was no less a person than the noble lady Ortensia Grimani, the writer's niece. As for Bartolo, the counterfeiter, he had just been caught at Treviso, and, at the time of writing, was safely lodged in the Pozzi, either to be tried in Venice or sent to Rome, as might hereafter be agreed between the respective governments. Under the circumstances the Legate would see the propriety of setting the Maestro at liberty without delay, and of extending every courtesy to him and his young wife, who must be in despair at his arrest. The letter concluded by saying that if the Legate 'did not feel justified' in complying with these requests, the noble Signor Trombin del Todescan had instructions to proceed to Rome with the utmost haste and to place the matter in the hands of the Venetian Ambassador there, on behalf of the noble lady Ortensia Grimani, unjustly deprived of her husband, a Spanish subject, within the States of the Church. The letter left nothing to be desired in the way of clearness, and the Legate's consternation was considerable. He had actually made a mistake which could not be glossed over by the simple process of condemning an innocent person to fine or imprisonment without appeal. He had never done such a thing in his life, and it was not pleasant to feel the coming humiliation of being forced to revoke an order given in court and to restore property he had summarily confiscated to the Treasury. He felt himself shrinking in his chair, while the noble Signor Trombin del Todescan, the secret envoy of the Venetian Republic, seemed to grow bigger and more imposing every moment. 'I need not say that I am delighted to be set right, after making such a grave mistake,' said Monsignor Pelagatti humbly. 'The circumstances were very suspicious, as I hope your lordship will explain to the most illustrious Chief. Our information seemed very exact, and as I was in correspondence with the police of Venice in regard to the capture of Bartolo, I could not doubt but that the Republic would be pleased with the news that I had taken him, as I believed I had.' 'The Chief is persuaded of your worship's good intentions,' Trombin answered blandly. 'I can promise your worship, in his name, that the matter shall not be mentioned again. Will you be so good as to order Signor Stradella to be set at liberty? I will conduct him to the inn myself and see to his requirements. I am informed, however, that the Lady Ortensia and her serving-woman left the house immediately after the arrest on Saturday morning, and have not been seen since. Your worship doubtless knows where I can find them.' 'Certainly,' answered the Legate, proud to show that nothing escaped his vigilance. 'They went directly to the Ursuline nuns and asked to be taken in. The Mother Superior very properly sent to ask my permission before agreeing to let them stay, and I granted it. The most illustrious Chief will be glad to know that her ladyship, his niece, has enjoyed the protection of a religious order throughout this lamentable misunderstanding.' Monsignor Pelagatti dictated and signed the order for Stradella's liberation, and then bade his secretary accompany the noble Signor and see that there was no delay, and that his property was duly returned. Trombin expressed the thanks of the most illustrious Chief of the Ten in appropriately flowery language, bowed, as before, with precisely the right show of mixed regard and condescension, and left the Legate to meditate on his ill-luck in having chanced to make a mistake in such a foolish manner that he could be forced to set it right. He had no intention of changing his method of dispensing justice, however, for it was a simple one and had hitherto done him credit. It consisted in never admitting that he could be wrong, and in punishing the prisoner whom he had picked out as guilty from the first, regardless of anything that might turn up afterwards. One swallow, he now observed with truth, did not make a spring, nor could one mistake prove a system wrong. The exception proved the rule, he argued to himself, and as he considered that all his mistakes were exceptions, his rule must be practically infallible. Meanwhile Trombin waited under the great archway while the gaoler fetched Stradella and his man, and two porters soon brought their valises and other belongings. The secretary disappeared for a short time and returned with the leathern purse containing the confiscated money, which, as he informed Trombin, must be counted out to the full satisfaction of the Maestro. The Bravo continued to smile blandly, and while waiting he walked up and down the covered way to the admiration of the halberdiers of the watch. They recognised in him the fighting man, the compact and well-proportioned frame, the easy stride, the assured bearing, and the quick eye; and, moreover, they had already understood what was happening, though they were not Sergeant Hector's men, who would only relieve them at nightfall. But all the soldiers hated the Legate alike, and rejoiced that for once he should be driven to acknowledge a mistake and give up a prisoner. Stradella and Cucurullo came up from the dungeon in a miserable state, unwashed, unshaven, their clothes stained with the slimy ooze of their prison; their hair was damp and matted, their eyes blinked painfully in the light, and their grimy cheeks were of a ghastly colour. But they were not otherwise much the worse for having spent several days and nights underground, for the supply of provisions brought by the hunchback had sufficed to keep up their strength, and Stradella's constitution, in spite of his pale and intellectual face, overflowed with vitality, like that of all really great singers. As for Cucurullo, he had been inured to hardship and misery in his childhood. They came forward together, and before Trombin could meet them the turnkey had disappeared again. Trombin took off his hat and bowed to Stradella, and the secretary thought it wise to make an obsequious obeisance. 'Signor Maestro,' the latter said, 'his worship the Legate charges me to offer you his best apologies for the painful mistake which has occurred, and to restore to you your property, confiscated through an error which his worship deplores and trusts that you will condone.' In spite of his wretched plight there was much dignity in Stradella's bearing as he answered this speech. 'Present my compliments to Monsignor Pelagatti, sir,' he said, 'and pray assure him that I accept the excuses which you make with so much politeness.' 'I thank you, illustrious Maestro,' said the secretary, bowing again. 'Allow me to add only that the mistake has been rectified by this gentleman of Venice, the illustrious and noble Signor Trombin del Todescan.' Trombin and Stradella once more bowed to each other with great ceremony. 'It has been my privilege to render the slightest of services to the greatest of musicians,' Trombin said. 'If you will allow me, Maestro, I shall have the further honour of conducting you to the inn, where your property and money can be restored to you with more privacy than in this place.' 'Three hundred and ninety-one gold ducats, Signor Maestro,' said the secretary. 'I have them here, and the porters are already gone on with your luggage.' The halberdiers stood up, and the sentinel on duty saluted as the little party passed through the gate. The porters were halfway across the square, Stradella walked between Trombin and the secretary, who had placed himself deferentially on the left, and Cucurullo brought up the rear, sorrowfully surveying the stains and mud on the back of his master's clothes, only too clearly visible in the bright afternoon light. No more words were exchanged till they all reached the door of the inn, where the host was awaiting them, for he had seen from a side window the porters bringing back Stradella's luggage, which he instantly recognised, and the rest was plain enough. The Count Tromblon de la Trombine was evidently a great personage, and it had been enough that he should demand the instant release of the musician to produce the present result. The innkeeper was proportionately impressed. He accordingly bowed to the ground, presented his condolences to Stradella on the unhappy accident, and led the way to a spacious and well-furnished room on the first floor, to which he had already sent the luggage. It was not till he was gone and Cucurullo was unpacking his master's things that Trombin, who desired an opportunity of exchanging a few words alone with Stradella, led him to his own room. He carefully closed the door before speaking. 'A word of explanation, Maestro,' he said, 'for all this must seem a little incomprehensible to you. First, let me tell you that the Lady Ortensia has spent the time of your imprisonment in the convent of the Ursuline nuns with her serving-woman. That is the first piece of news you wish to hear, I am sure.' The young musician drew a deep breath of relief, for his gnawing anxiety on Ortensia's account had been far harder to bear during his confinement than any bodily hardship, and he had not at first thought it safe to ask any questions of his liberator. The mere fact that the latter had been introduced by the secretary as a Venetian gentleman had filled him with apprehension, and even now he believed that Trombin had probably been sent by Pignaver. As if understanding what passed in Stradella's mind, the Bravo volunteered an explanation. 'A friend of mine and I are travelling southwards on important business,' he said. 'Before we left Venice the town was ringing with your exploit, as it has echoed with your praises these three months past. My friend Count Gambardella and I are amongst your most ardent admirers, Signor Maestro, and I may say in confidence that we have a private grudge against the Senator Pignaver. You may imagine our delight on hearing that you had carried off his niece! Quite naturally we have asked after you at each posting station on the road. You understand the rest. My friend and I venture to hope that you and your bride will honour us with your company at supper.' 'I cannot find words for my thanks, sir,' answered Stradella, wondering whether he were not in a dream, still sleeping on the stone seat in his cell. 'I can only hope to show you some day how grateful I am. You have saved my life!' Trombin smiled pleasantly, but said nothing. CHAPTER XI Gambardella knocked at the door of San Domenico twice in quick succession, and then again once after a short interval. For reasons known to himself he had not hesitated to begin his inquiries for Ortensia at the old Dominican convent then occupied by the nuns of Saint Ursula, and it was at once apparent that his knock inspired confidence. Instead of drawing back the small sliding panel in the weather-beaten door to see who was outside and to ask his errand, the portress opened the postern on one side almost immediately, without showing herself, and Gambardella slipped in unchallenged and shut it after him. He found himself in a high and vaulted vestibule which received light from the cloistered garden round which the convent was built, and he was at once confronted by the portress, who seemed much surprised when she saw that she had admitted a fine gentleman. Gambardella bowed respectfully before he spoke. 'Reverend sister,' said he, 'I have the honour to be a friend of your Order, and if I am not mistaken I am known to your Mother Superior, of whom I come to ask audience, if she will receive me.' The lay sister hesitated. She was an elderly woman with flaccid yellow cheeks, watery eyes, and a more than incipient grey beard. 'I think the Mother Superior is resting,' she said, after a moment. 'So late in the afternoon, sister? I trust that her Reverence is not indisposed?' 'Besides,' continued the portress, without heeding him, 'you only said that you thought you were known to her. Pray can you tell me her Reverence's name?' Gambardella smiled gently. Probably it was not the first time he had been obliged to argue with a convent door-keeper, that is, with the most incredulous and obstinate kind of human being in the world. 'Unless I am mistaken,' Gambardella answered, 'her Reverence's name, in religion, is Mother Agatha, and she was formerly Sub-Prioress of your house in Ravenna.' 'I see that you are well-informed,' the portress answered, somewhat reluctantly. 'I will find out whether she is resting.' She turned from him to go into her dark little lodge, through which she had communication with the interior of the convent; but Gambardella called her back. 'One moment, sister! You need make but one errand of it. Pray let her Reverence know that a Venetian gentleman of the name of Lorenzo Marcello sends her this token and begs the honour of a few words with her.' Therewith Gambardella drew from his finger the brass ring he always wore and placed it in the portress's hand. After repeating the name he had given, she nodded and went within. While he waited, Gambardella looked through the iron gate that separated the vestibule from the pleasant cloistered garden, and his melancholy face was even more sad than usual, and his singular eyes more shadowy. 'The Mother Superior will receive you in the parlour, sir,' said the portress, coming back, and her tone showed that she now accorded the visitor high consideration. He followed her through the lodge, which only received light from its doors when they were open. Across one corner a dark brown curtain was hung, which presumably hid the portress's pallet-bed. She led him through a whitewashed corridor, lighted from above, into a wide hall from which a broad staircase led upwards, and which had several doors, besides two open entrances. The portress opened one of the doors and shut it as soon as Gambardella had entered. He walked up and down the long gloomy room while he waited; the two grated windows were far above reach and opened upon a blank wall opposite. The bare stone pavement was damp, and the furniture consisted of a dark walnut table, once polished, a long straight-backed settle placed at one end, and twelve rush-bottomed chairs arranged round the sides of the room with great regularity. Above the settle hung a painfully realistic crucifix; on the wall at the opposite end a large barocco picture represented Saint Ursula in glory with the Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne. Opposite the windows there was a bad copy of a portrait of Paul III., the Pope who first established the order. Judging from the parlour, it could not be said that the Ursulines of Ferrara were living in reprehensible luxury. In three or four minutes the door opened again and the Mother Superior entered. She was taller than most women, and very lean; her black gown and the black veil that almost reached the ground hung in straight folds, and her wimple and gorget framed a dark face, thin and expressive, with noticeably symmetrical features and ardent black eyes. It was impossible to guess at her age, but she might have been thirty. She bent her head slightly, in acknowledgment of Gambardella's respectful bow, and looked at him during several seconds, as if she were recalling his appearance to her memory. Then she slowly walked away to the settle, seated herself in the middle of it, and pointed to a chair at a little distance. He sat down and waited for her to speak. 'Why have you come?' she asked, in a low tone that sounded resentful. 'Is it a crime to see you after ten years?' asked Gambardella with a good deal of sadness, and watching her face intently. 'Unless you have changed greatly, it is at least a sin,' she answered deliberately, and she met his eyes with eyes suddenly fierce. 'I have changed greatly, and not for the better,' he said simply, but he could not face her look. 'It is neither to confess to you nor to ask your forgiveness again that I am here, for you have no more right to a confession than I have to your pardon.' 'That may be,' answered the nun, her tone relenting, 'but such as my forgiveness can be, while I can still remember, you have it.' Gambardella was visibly moved at this unexpected concession. He was seated too far from her to touch her hand, but he put out his own humbly towards the hem of her black skirt, then brought it back to his lips and kissed it with reverence, as the very poor and wretched sometimes do in Italy to express deep gratitude. She watched him, and there was the faintest suggestion of a smile on her tightly closed lips. After a little pause, during which their eyes met once, he spoke. 'I have come to inquire about a young Venetian lady and her serving-woman, who took refuge with you last Saturday,' he said, with perfect assurance, though he had no proof that the two were in the convent. The Mother Superior's face darkened. 'What are they to you?' she asked sternly. This was a question which Gambardella was not prepared to answer truthfully, and he had not foreseen it. He vaguely wondered what the woman who had once loved him so well would say and do if she knew that he had sunk to the condition of a paid Bravo, and had taken money from one person to cut Ortensia's throat and from another to deliver her up a prisoner, and was just now wondering how he could satisfy both his patrons. Until now he had seen a humorous element in his two abominable bargains; but in the grim presence of his own past things looked differently. The terrible eyes of the high-born woman he had loved and betrayed long ago, when he was still called an honourable gentleman, were upon him now, and he feared her as he had assuredly never feared any man in all his wild life. She understood her power, and waited for him to speak. But his fear only roused his faculties, and if he felt remorse when he thought of what she had once been and of the life she was leading now, by his fault, he knew well enough that as soon as she was out of his sight he would feel nothing but a dim regret that would hardly hurt. 'I take a vicarious interest in the Lady Ortensia,' he said after a little reflection. 'A friend of mine, who is travelling with me, is also a friend of the man with whom she has run away, and who has been locked up by mistake, as I dare say you have heard from her.' 'She has told me something,' the Mother Superior said coldly. 'I will tell you the whole story,' he answered. He narrated the circumstances of Ortensia's flight substantially as they were known to the Senator, and in as few words as possible, and she listened without interrupting him. 'I know this Pignaver,' he said in conclusion, 'and I know positively that he has engaged two Bravi to follow the pair and murder them. At the best, he might be satisfied if Stradella were murdered and the girl brought back to him. Those fellows may be even now in Ferrara, waiting for a chance to do the deed. Our object is to unite the lovers and protect them on their journey till they are beyond the reach of danger. Do you see any great harm in that?' 'They are not married,' objected the nun. 'I am sure they mean to be, as soon as possible,' Gambardella answered. 'You know what the girl's life will be if you send her home, as I suppose you mean to do. You can guess the sort of existence she will lead when her uncle has her safely imprisoned in his house. I have heard it said that he intended to marry her, and if that is true he will deliberately torment her and perhaps starve her till she dies. He is as vain as he is cruel, and she has not a relation in the world to interfere with his doings.' 'Poor girl!' The Mother Superior sighed, and looked down at her folded hands. 'And even if you insist on keeping her here, where I admit that she is safe,' Gambardella continued, 'Stradella's life will not be safe when he is out of prison. For I will answer for it that he will not leave Ferrara without her, and his murder will be the first consequence of your refusal to let her join him.' 'But they are not married,' the nun said again. 'I cannot let her go to him. It would be a great sin! It would be on my conscience!' 'You will have his death on your conscience if you are not careful! But there is a very simple way out of the difficulty, if you will agree to it.' 'I will agree to nothing that is not right,' said the Mother Superior, in a tone that excluded any compromise, 'and I tell you frankly that I do not trust you. It would be strange if I did.' 'I do not ask you to trust me,' Gambardella answered. 'I shall merely show you your duty, and leave you to do it or not, as you please!' 'My duty?' The nun was both surprised and offended. 'Yes,' replied the other, unmoved. 'Your objection is that they are not married. Marry them, then! That is plainly your duty, if anything is!' The Mother Superior looked at him quickly, as if not believing that he was in earnest, for she had been convincing herself that it was he who had carried off Ortensia, pretending to be Stradella. 'It must be a very easy thing for you,' Gambardella continued. 'You have your own church here, and your own priest, who will probably obey you. If you are afraid of committing an irregularity, you need only send a request to the Archbishop, explaining that a runaway couple, for whom you can vouch, wish to have their union blessed. No good bishop would refuse such a slight favour as a dispensation from publishing banns. My friend and I will bring Stradella here early in the morning, and you will send the bride into the church from the convent. They will go away man and wife, and before noon we shall all be many miles on the road to Bologna and Rome. Could anything be simpler than that? or more perfectly right? or more honourable for you under the circumstances?' The nun had listened attentively, and when he had finished she nodded her approval. 'I believe you are right,' she said, though her tone betrayed some surprise that she could approve anything which he suggested. 'I will take it upon myself to promise that our chaplain shall be waiting to-morrow morning after matins, and that the bride shall be ready in the sacristy. Poor child, she is poorly provided for her wedding! But I will find a veil for her.' 'She will be grateful, and Stradella too. I have no doubt but that my friend has already obtained his liberation.' 'What is your friend's name?' asked the Mother Superior, showing some curiosity for the first time since the interview had begun. Gambardella hesitated a moment, for the simple reason that he did not know the answer to the question, and that 'Trombin' alone was evidently not a name, but a nickname. The mere fact that the friends had both once had a right to sit in the Grand Council by no means implied that they had known each other, even by sight. To gain time Gambardella smiled and asked a counter-question. 'Why do you wish to learn his name?' he asked. 'You can never have known him.' 'That is true. It was idle curiosity. I do not care to know.' 'It is no secret,' Gambardella answered, having in the meantime thought of a name that would do. 'My friend is Gaspero Mastropiero, a Venetian gentleman of fortune and a great patron of musicians. And now,' he said, rising as he spoke, 'nothing remains for me but to thank you for seeing me, and to take my leave. Will you give me back my ring, Reverend Mother?' He stood before her, holding out his hand with the palm upward to receive the token, and he laid a little stress on the title as he pronounced it. But there was no irony in his tone, for, young as she still was, it had been conferred upon her quite as much for her holy life as for her high descent, in an age when noble blood had great weight in such matters. He was certainly not speaking ironically; perhaps, amidst the tatters of his honour, some rag still covered a spot that could feel shame, and the monstrous deed, in doing which he had entrapped the nun to help him unawares, seemed foul beside the purity of her intention and the saintliness of her own life. The emphasis he gave to the two words was, therefore, at once respectful and sad, and did not offend her. She had put on the old brass ring herself when the portress had sent it up to her with his message; she took it off now and gave it back to him, careful that not even the tips of her fingers should touch his palm. Then she led the way, and he followed her. 'May you never put it to a worse use than to-day,' she said, stopping and letting her eyes meet his for a moment. 'Good-bye.' 'Pray for me,' he said instinctively when he opened the door for her. She said nothing, but she bent her head a little as she passed out, perhaps meaning that she would do what he asked. He watched her tall retreating figure as she went up the middle of the staircase, till she turned past the dividing wall at the first landing and disappeared without having once looked back. Then he himself went away through the high corridor and the dark lodge, and the portress let him out in silence. He did not go back to the inn at once, for the distance was very short, and he judged that Trombin could hardly have procured Stradella's liberation in so short a time. He wished to be alone a little while, for, in spite of what he had come to be, his interview with the Mother Superior had disturbed him strangely. He had thought himself far beyond that bitterness of remorse and that sickness of shame which she had made him feel, and he wished to forget both before he met his companion to discuss the execution of the deed they had promised to do together, and could not now put off doing much longer. The nun's burning eyes still haunted and reproached him, and her shadowy figure rose before him with the thin white face in which he could still trace the beauty that had once enthralled him. It was the bare woof of beauty that remained, for grief and penance had worn away the warp, leaving only the lines on which the exquisite fabric had been woven; but what was left of the woman was still there, breathing and living, while her soul had grown great in strength and spiritual honour till it towered above his who had once loved her, and made him afraid to meet her look. It could not last long, he knew, but while it did he must be alone. He walked far out on a road that led through the rich damp plain, and it was not till the sun was sinking low that he began to retrace his steps. When he reached the inn he found Trombin and Stradella together, and his friend introduced him with some ceremony as Count Gambardella. The musician, who was fully informed of the latter's errand, pressed his hand warmly, and looked at him, evidently expecting news of Ortensia. 'The lady and her serving-woman are well, sir,' Gambardella said at once, 'and I trust that to-morrow may end your difficulties happily.' 'I hope so indeed,' Stradella answered. He looked pale and careworn, but no one would have guessed from his appearance that he had just spent four nights and the better part of five days in the most noisome dungeon in Ferrara. He wore the same black velvet coat with purple silk facings which he was wearing when Ortensia saw him for the first time. It fitted him well and showed his athletic young figure to advantage, for the fashion was not yet for the 'French' coat which Louis Fourteenth afterwards made universal. Gambardella measured him with his eye, as Trombin must have done already. He wore only the short rapier of a civilian gentleman, but he might be a good fencer and able to give trouble to a single adversary, and he looked strong. Neither of the Bravi knew what physical fear meant, but it was of no use to risk a useless wound, and men of Stradella's type could be more conveniently despatched by stabbing them in the back than by going through the form of a duel. 'I have not been able to see the lady herself,' Gambardella continued, 'but the Mother Superior of the Ursulines was so good as to receive me, and after some demur she agreed to let the Lady Ortensia and her woman leave the convent early to-morrow morning.' 'Not till to-morrow?' Stradella could not hide his disappointment. 'To-morrow, and then only on one condition, which I took it upon me to promise that you shall fulfil.' The musician looked sharply at the speaker. 'I trust that you have not promised for me more than I may honourably do,' he said. At this Trombin instantly pressed down the hilt of his rapier and made the point stick up behind; he pursed his mouth and opened his eyes till they glared like an angry cat's. 'I would have you know, Signor Maestro, that it is not the custom of Venetian gentlemen to promise anything not honourable, either in their own names or for others!' Pignaver would have apologised at once if either of the Bravi had taken that tone, but the Sicilian singer was made of better stuff than the Venetian Senator. 'Sir,' he answered quietly, 'I am not a quarrelsome man, and, moreover, I am deeply indebted to you for my freedom. But there is a lady in this case. Let me first know what Count Gambardella has promised in my name; for if, as I hope, it pledges me to nothing unworthy of the Lady Ortensia or of myself, I shall be doubly in your debt; but if not, which heaven avert, I shall be at your service for a quarrel, without further words.' While he was speaking he met Trombin's ferocious stare steadily, and when he had finished he turned to Gambardella. The Bravo liked his tone and manner as much as he had despised Pignaver for his repeated apologies. It would be shameful to stab such a man in the back, Trombin thought; as shameful and unsportsman-like as an Englishman thinks it to shoot a fox or to angle with worms for fish that will take a fly. 'The Mother Superior,' said Gambardella, paying no attention to what had just passed, 'is a saintly woman. She requires that before taking away the Lady Ortensia, you shall be duly married in the church of San Domenico, early to-morrow morning. This, sir, I ventured to promise in your name, and no more, as one man of honour speaking for another.' 'You could not have done me a greater service!' Stradella cried, surprised and delighted. 'I am sorry that I ever questioned your good judgment, sir!' Trombin's fierce expression relaxed into one better suited to his round pink cheeks, and peace was immediately restored. But the Bravi exchanged glances which meant that they were perplexed by the undeniable fact that they were beginning to like the musician, quite apart from their admiration for his genius. Before supper they consulted together in the privacy of Trombin's room over a thimbleful of Greek mastic, which they drank as an appetiser. They were agreed not to lose sight of the young couple again, and not to hurry matters to a termination. What could be more delightful than to make the journey to Rome together with the greatest singer in the world and his bride, acting at once as an armed escort and as friends ready to save the happy pair all trouble about small details from day to day? Stradella had declared that he meant to reach Rome without delay, while he was sure of a warm welcome and of the protection of Cardinal Altieri, in case Pignaver sent any one in pursuit. 'Rome,' said Trombin thoughtfully, 'is a convenient place for doing business. The streets are narrow, and there are many wells in the courtyards of the old houses.' 'It is true that we have never had any trouble in Rome,' Gambardella answered. 'Commend me to narrow streets for business. I hate your great squares, your promenades, your gardens, and your belvederes! Shall you ever forget that summer's evening on the Chiatamone in Naples?' 'I feel that I am still running away,' Trombin said. 'But Rome is quite different. It is true that we have not yet decided which of the two it is to be. But I have just thought of a way of getting both the fees.' 'For a man of imagination, you have taken a long time to think of it!' 'It is this. We will deliver up both in Venice, Stradella to the lady, and the girl to her uncle. The lady will believe that the girl is dead, for she will never see or hear of her again, and she will pay us in full. The Senator will pay half down when he gets his niece back, and after the lady has enjoyed the Maestro's company for a few days he can be done away with, and Pignaver will pay the balance. What do you think of that as a solution, my friend?' 'There is much to be said for it,' Gambardella admitted. He nodded and sipped his mastic, which was not an easy operation, since he could not go on filling the small glass as he would a tumbler of wine; but he ingeniously set it to one corner of his mouth, well out of the way of his nose, and by turning his head on one side he succeeded in sipping it to the end without spilling a drop. 'It is a monstrous thing to interrupt such a career as Stradella's,' he continued, for his companion had said nothing. 'But five hundred ducats are a great deal of money, and beggars cannot be choosers! Nevertheless, if you can think of some plan which will accomplish the same result by saving the Maestro and putting the girl out of the way instead, I should prefer it. A woman more or less makes no difference, but there is only one Stradella!' 'I will do my best,' Trombin answered, 'but you cannot have everything.' The Bravi and Stradella supped in a room apart for greater privacy, because a large party of noisy Bolognese merchants had arrived on their way to Venice, and were eating in the dining-room. Cucurullo and Grattacacio waited on their masters, the dishes being brought to the door by a scullion. There were wax candles on the table in handsome candlesticks, for a mere brass oil-lamp was not good enough for such fine gentlemen as Trombin and Gambardella when their pockets were full of money; and in the middle of the board a magnificent majolica basket was filled with cherries and green almonds. The two servants eyed each other with a certain mutual distrust, for Grattacacio had at once discovered that his colleague was one of those poor creatures that have not even the spirit to cheat their masters, and Cucurullo's quietly penetrating intelligence detected under Tommaso's accomplished exterior the signs of a still more accomplished scoundrel. For the present, however, the two treated each other with much civility, and their three masters were admirably served at supper. They drank to one another in the old Burgundy, and Trombin proposed the health of the bride, repeating in her honour one of Petrarch's sonnets in praise of Laura. He said that as he had never seen her he could only compare her beauty to that of the angels, and her virtues to those of the blessed saints, whom he had not seen either, and had no expectation of seeing hereafter; similarly he likened the Maestro's voice to that of a seraph, on the ground that its like would never be heard on earth. Stradella laughed a little, for the first time in five days, and emptied his glass to Ortensia. He was no match for his companions at eating and drinking, as he soon found out, and he was satisfied long before they were; but the good old wine had brought back the warmth to his face and hands, though he had drunk but little, and presently he went for his lute. He tuned it and then played softly while Trombin ate candied fruit and Gambardella cut himself shavings of fresh Parmesan cheese, which he nibbled with salt, and both drank wine, listening to his music with delight. It was worth hearing, indeed, for under his masterly touch the instrument sang, laughed and wept, and whispered love-words at his will; now, one high string pleaded its passionate melody to a low and sighing accompaniment that never swelled to reach it; and now, the nineteen strings sounded together as a full orchestra, bursting in triumphant harmonies, and almost deafening to hear; again, the deepest string began a fugue that was taken up by the next above and the next, and traversed all, gathering sonorous strength as the parts increased from two to three, from three to four, all moving at once to the grand climax, and then sinking again and falling away one by one, softer and softer to the solemn close. Stradella was profoundly happy, and he had but one way of expressing his happiness to himself, which was the most beautiful way there is, for he made the art he loved his means of telling the world his joy. Later, when the window was open, and the young moon was shedding a gentle light upon the broad square, he began to sing softly, wondering that he should have any voice left after what he had suffered; but great singers are not like other men, at least as to their throats, and after a few trials the rich notes floated out deliciously, as effortless and as true, as soft and as strong as ever, in those marvellous love-songs of his own that thrilled all Italy while he lived, and long afterwards. The Bravi had turned their chairs to listen, for he had gone to the window. They had finished their Burgundy, and most of his share to boot, and peace had descended on their restless souls; and if, from all the delights the world held, they could have chosen one for that May evening, they would have asked for none but this, to sit and listen to the greatest of living singers and musicians, deeply in love, and singing more for himself than that any one might hear him. 'It is absolutely impossible,' said Trombin gravely to his companion, when Stradella paused at last. 'Absolutely,' assented Gambardella. 'What is impossible?' the singer asked carelessly. 'To sing better than you,' answered Gambardella with a short laugh. CHAPTER XII Quite out of sight in the choir, more than sixty nuns and at least as many of their girl pupils were still chanting matins when Stradella and the two Bravi entered the Church of San Domenico, followed by Cucurullo. The latter's fellow-servant had left Ferrara at dawn with his masters' luggage, to ride ahead and order rooms and dinner at Bologna for the whole party. Stradella had secured a travelling-carriage on which his effects were already packed, and the harnessed horses were standing ready to be put to. Gambardella dipped his fingers into the nearest holy-water basin and held them out dripping for Stradella to touch before he crossed himself, as the others also did; then all followed him up the side aisle to the door of the sacristy, where they waited till the singing ceased. The priest's deep voice spoke a few words alone, the nuns and pupils answered, and so again, through the short Responsory; and after a moment the soft shuffling of many felt-shod feet on the stone pavement was heard as the sisters and girls left the hidden choir in orderly procession. The sacristan opened the padded swinging-door and saw the four men waiting. He was a small man with a round red nose and he took snuff plentifully, as the state of his shabby black cassock showed. 'If the gentlemen will put themselves to the inconvenience of coming in,' he said, 'they will find all ready and the lady waiting.' He spoke with obsequious politeness, but his eyes looked with sharp inquiry from one to the other, trying to make out which of the three gentlemen was the bridegroom; that is to say, which of them would tip him after the ceremony--for in such matters, as he well knew, much may be guessed from the face and apparent humour of the giver. He was relieved to see that Stradella now took the lead, and that every line of his handsome young face betrayed his joyous anxiety to be married as soon as possible. Between the church and the sacristy there was a damp and gloomy vestibule, at the end of which the sacristan opened another swinging-door and Stradella suddenly saw Ortensia standing in a blaze of light, covered from head to foot with a delicate white veil shot with gold threads; for the early sun poured in through two great windows and flooded the sacristy, gleaming on the carved and polished walnut wardrobes, blazing on the rich gold and jewels and enamel of the sacred vessels and utensils in the tall glass-fronted case, and making a cloud of glory in the bride's veil. It covered her face, but in the splendid light it hardly dimmed her radiant loveliness. Beside her, but half a step farther back, stood Pina, in her grey dress, as quiet and self-possessed as ever. Near them stood a tall old priest who had a thin and gentle face. Stradella sprang forward with outstretched hands, forgetting everything except that Ortensia was before him. But he had not yet reached her side when the priest was between them, laying one hand on his shoulder and quietly checking him, though smiling kindly, as if he quite understood. The Bravi had started when they first caught sight of the Venetian girl, for neither of them had expected such rare beauty; and with the added illusion of the gold-shot veil and the all-generous sunshine, it was nothing less than transcendent. Trombin and Gambardella looked at each other quietly, as they always did when the same thought struck them. Meanwhile the tall old priest made the young couple kneel before the little altar on one side of the sacristy, where two praying-stools had been placed in readiness. Pina knelt down a little way behind her mistress, and Cucurullo took his place at the same distance behind his master; but Trombin went and stood on Ortensia's left and Gambardella on Stradella's right, as witnesses for the bride and bridegroom respectively. Thus it was that the runaway couple were duly married and blessed in the sacristy of San Domenico on that May morning, little dreaming why it had all been so cleverly managed for them; but it was clear that Stradella had been prepared for the event, since he produced two wedding rings of different sizes and gave them to the priest to bless. 'I will,' he said, in answer to the latter's question. 'I will,' said Ortensia in a low tone, but by no means doubtfully. 'Ego conjungo vos,' the priest went on; and the rest was soon said, the Bravi dropping on their knees at the benediction. Then the sacristan brought out the register and laid it on the broad polished table on which the vestments were folded, placing pens and ink and the sand-box beside it; and the priest first wrote a few words, to say that he had married the couple by a special dispensation from the Archbishop of Ferrara; and Stradella and Ortensia signed their names, and after them the Bravi, who indeed merely wrote 'Trombin' and 'Gambardella,' but managed to make their signatures almost illegible with magnificent flourishes. The priest bade Pina and Cucurullo sign too, as they said they could write, and the hunchback wrote 'Antonino Cucurullo' in a small neat hand like a seminarist's, and Pina set down her name as 'Filippina Landi.' The priest, who had watched the signing, looked at her in some surprise. 'Are you married or unmarried?' he asked quietly. 'Unmarried,' answered Pina in her hard voice, and she turned away. For Landi was a patrician name; and though Jews, when baptized, usually took the surname of the noble under whose auspices they were converted, it was quite clear that Pina was not of Semitic race. Stradella had taken Ortensia's hand and kissed it when the little ceremony was over, but that was all, and neither could find words to speak. Pina took off the beautiful veil, folded it on the polished table, and rolled it up to carry away, for the Mother Superior wished Ortensia to keep it. Then the serving-woman produced the two brown cloaks in which she and her mistress had fled from Venice, and they put them on, and all left the church together after thanking the priest; and Stradella gave the sacristan two silver Apostolic florins, which was the largest fee the fellow had ever received in his life. When they were all in the street, the Bravi took off their hats and asked to be introduced to the bride, and Stradella presented them with some ceremony, greatly to the surprise and delight of some ragged children who had collected round the church steps; for Ortensia made a court courtesy, and the Bravi bowed to the ground, sweeping the cobble-stones with their plumes and sticking up their rapiers behind them almost perpendicularly in the air. 'Count Trombin, Count Gambardella,' said the musician to his wife, introducing the pair. 'These gentlemen have liberated us from our respective prisons and have been kindly instrumental in bringing about our marriage.' 'We owe you both a debt of undying gratitude, gentlemen,' said Ortensia, blushing a little under her brown hood. 'It is an honour to have served your ladyship,' Trombin replied, with another grand bow. Ortensia slipped her arm through Stradella's and pressed his surreptitiously against her side, as if to say that she would never let him go out of her sight again; and she wished, as she had never wished for anything in her life, that she were alone with him already, to throw her arms round his neck and tell him the very things he was longing to tell her. Behind them the Bravi walked in silence, their hands on the hilts of their rapiers and their eyes fixed on the happy pair, each absorbed in his own reflections. Trombin thought, in the first place, that Ortensia was one of the most beautiful young creatures he had ever seen; and he flattered himself that he had seen many. Gambardella, on the other hand, wore his most sour look, for he was disgusted to find that the impression left by his interview with the Mother Superior was not so ephemeral as he had believed it to be; and being angry with himself he wished that the whole business were finished, that Stradella were dead and Ortensia safe in her uncle's hands, or that Ortensia were already killed and that Stradella had been delivered to his Venetian admirer bound hand and foot and gagged, according to contract, so that Gambardella might apply his mind to other matters. But Trombin was not thinking only of the lady. The humour of the whole affair struck him as delightful in the extreme, and he smiled to himself, showing his sharp white teeth, when he thought of the tricks that had been played on the Legate and the Ursuline nuns in less than twenty-four hours. It was most especially amusing to think how that cut-throat Gambardella, the weight of whose sins would have staggered the Grand Penitentiary himself, had played Old Morality to the Mother Superior, and had actually been the one to suggest a proper marriage as the only virtuous solution of the difficulty. There was not much time for such reflections, however, for the distance to the inn was short, and when they reached it the young couple's travelling-carriage was ready and the horses were saddled for the Bravi, who were already dressed for riding. So there was nothing to hinder them all from starting at once, since the score was already paid. In less than half an hour after they had left the church, the whole party was well outside the city gates and on the road to Rome. CHAPTER XIII A month had passed since Stradella and Ortensia had fled from Venice, and after their adventure in Ferrara no hand had been raised against them on their way to Rome. They had at first lodged in the ancient hostelry at the Sign of the Bear, which still stands, and is not only called the Orso inn as it was hundreds of years ago, but has given its name to the street in which it is situated. It stands at the entrance to that part of the city which was in old times dominated by the Orsini, who undoubtedly got their name from some ancient stone or marble bear that was built into the outer wall of their stronghold; but whether the old inn was called after the image itself, or after the Orsini badge, no one can tell. Stradella and his wife lodged for a few days in that large upper room, of which the beautiful loggia may still be seen from the new embankment; but in those days, and much later, another row of tall houses stood on the opposite side of the street, between the Orso and the river, making an unbroken line as far as the Nona tower at the Bridge of Sant' Angelo, and completely cutting off the view. It was the best of the Roman inns, even when Rome had more hostelries than any city in Europe. Philippe de Commines lodged there, and Montaigne, and many another famous man who visited Rome before and after Stradella's time. It was there, in that upper chamber, that the happy lovers first tasted peace and rest after the trials and fatigues of their long journey; for though they were man and wife it is but right to call them lovers, who loved so truly till they died. It was there that they first learned to know and understand each other, and to see why they had loved at first sight and had fled together, wresting their happiness violently from an adverse fate, when they had been alone scarcely one whole hour in all during their brief acquaintance, and had kissed but twice. For as they lived those first days together they found all they had dreamed of, each in the other, and more too; and every fresh discovery was a sweet new world, till many worlds made up the universe of their new being that circled round love's sun in a firmament of joy. Love had been great from the first, but now he grew to be all-powerful; there had been hours when one or the other might have been persuaded to draw back for some weighty reason, but no reason was strong enough to part them now, not even the great last argument of death himself. Surely, say you, the course of true love should have run smooth for them, if ever. But know you not that the gods envy no small thing, nor are angry at any humdrum happiness of common men? Know you not that the god of war spares the coward and slays the brave? That in the race for fortune Jove often trips the swiftest runners and lets the dull plodder creep past the winning post alone? Know you not that whom the gods love die young? Ortensia and Stradella knew none of these things. He had grown famous almost without an effort when scarcely more than a boy, and fame did not desert him; and now that he had overcome obstacles and passed through danger to be happy, he believed with child-like faith that such happiness, once got, must be safe from outward harm, since it dwelt in the heart, where no one could see it, to envy it as men envied worldly glory. As for Ortensia, she neither thought of the future nor remembered the near past, but lived only in each present dazzling day. For a whole week they scarcely showed themselves, though Stradella's return was known in Rome, and he received many invitations to rich men's houses and requests for new compositions, and pressing offers of money if he would but sing at mass or vespers in this basilica or that. If he had needed gold, he could have had it for an hour's trouble, or for an effort of a few minutes which was no effort at all. But for the moment he had enough, and nothing should disturb the first days of his golden honeymoon. Trombin and Gambardella also lodged in the Orso, but in rooms far from the happy pair, whom they chose to leave in peace for the present, never asking to see them nor inviting them to their well-spread table. Indeed, any such invitation might have come better from the other side now, for never did a young runaway couple incur a heavier debt of gratitude than Stradella and Ortensia owed to the two cut-throats who meant to murder them, and were even then living under the same roof and on the best of everything with money advanced to them for that very purpose. But the time and the conditions were not now suited for the deed, which might have been done easily enough a dozen times between Ferrara and Rome. Moreover, the Bravi had not yet come to a definite agreement as to the plan they should pursue, and Trombin's scheme, which seemed the best, was far less easy to carry out than a common murder, and very much more expensive; for it meant kidnapping both Stradella and his wife, and taking them all the way back to Venice as close prisoners, without exciting suspicion by the way, so that the inns at which they had all stopped on their journey southwards would have to be scrupulously avoided on their return. There was no hurry, however, for they had not spent the two hundred ducats advanced to them; or, to be accurate, they had played at the French Ambassador's gambling-tables with a part of the money and had won a good deal. For in those days every foreign ambassador in Rome claimed the right to keep a public gambling-room in his embassy, for his own profit, which was often large, and was always a regular source of income. But the Bravi had already written to Pignaver as well as to the lady for more funds, on the ground that forty days had passed without affording them the opportunity they sought, and at two ducats a day their account thus came to eighty ducats, already gone for unavoidable expenses. Since they were paid twice over, it was quite natural that their expenses should sometimes be doubled. Meanwhile they watched their prey closely, and without any apparent intention of disturbing the peace of the lovers' paradise they were very often just strolling out or coming in exactly when Stradella and Ortensia were passing through the gate in one direction or the other. In this way Trombin saw Ortensia almost every day, and all four generally exchanged a few friendly words before going on their way. The beautiful Venetian and her husband were in the habit of going out together either early in the morning, when they were sure not to meet any of Stradella's fashionable acquaintances, or late in the June afternoons, when all society congregated in certain fixed gathering places and nowhere else, such as the gardens of the French Embassy, which was established in the Villa Medici, or in the vast grounds of the Villa Riario, which is now called Corsini, where Queen Christina of Sweden had finally taken up her abode, and was giving herself airs right royally as the chief living patroness and critic of all the arts and sciences. To her, too, and to her court, Stradella had sung more than once when he had last been in Rome, at which time she had lived there little more than a year. Again, the precincts of the Vatican were to be avoided, and the news-mongering Banchi Vecchi, where every smart gossip in town resorted twice or thrice in the week to replenish his stock of facts and anecdotes, true and untrue, and where he could buy the sensational account of the latest execution, or elopement, or fraud. The young couple avoided all such places carefully. Stradella knew the city well, and led Ortensia to many lovely spots unknown to fashion, and into many dim old churches, more than one of which had echoed to his own music on great feast-days, from the Lateran and Santa Croce and Santa Maria in Domnica, far away beyond the Colosseum, in the wilderness within the southern wall of the city, to the fashionable Santa Maria in Via, and San Marcello and the Pantheon. Sometimes, if they had turned and looked into the distance behind them, they might have seen Trombin's pink cheeks and well-turned figure not very far away. For he was a susceptible creature, as he often confessed to his companion, and the very first sight of Ortensia on the morning of her marriage had made a deep impression on him. It was not only her face and her hair, which resembled that of the late lamented Titian's Beauty; there was something in her figure and walk that made him half mad when he watched her; hers was not the stately stride of the black-eyed plebeian beauty, balancing her huge copper 'conca' on her classic head, still less was it the swaying, hip-dislocating, self-advertising gait of some of those handsome and fashionable ladies who frequented the Villa Medici on Sunday afternoons, and progressed through a running fire of compliments from pale-faced young gentlemen of wealth and noble lineage. Perhaps, after all, it was not Ortensia's walk in itself, but also every movement of her beautiful body that made the Bravo's pulses throb; it was not her step only, with all the mystery the moving draperies could mean, but the grace in the half-turn of her head too, the undulating motion of her hand and wrist and half-bent arm when she fanned herself, the resistless seduction in her flexible figure when she turned quickly to Stradella, while leaning on his arm and still walking on, to ask some new question, or in pleased surprise at something he had just told her. The end of their first days of peace at the Orso came one afternoon quite suddenly in the queer round church of San Stefano Rotondo, which is not like any other in the world, and is entirely decorated, if the word may be so misused, with representations of the awful tortures undergone by early martyrs. If Stradella himself had ever been there, he would not have taken his wife to see such sights, but the church was not more often open then than now, and the two went in from pure curiosity. As they entered the vast circular aisle and turned to the right, they came suddenly upon a group of fashionable people listening to the explanations of an imposing gentleman with perfectly white hair, who indicated the points of interest in a picture with a heavy stick made of a narwhale's ivory horn. He was describing minutely and realistically the sufferings of a virgin martyr, and his chief hearer followed what he said with absorbed interest. Stradella instantly recognised the ex-Queen of Sweden. There was no mistaking the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, with her square face and red cheeks, her disagreeable eyes and her black wig, her short green skirt and her mannish bearing. She was forty-four years old at that time. The fine-looking old man was Bernini, the sculptor; at her elbow, and not much above it in height, stood a misshapen youth with the face of a sad angel, the poet Guidi; he was evidently pained and disgusted by the lecture. Three other gentlemen stood at a little distance behind the Queen, but there was nothing to distinguish them from ninety-nine out of a hundred other fine gentlemen of fashionable society who wore extremely good coats, cut and curled their hair in the latest style, and proved that they were not absolute fools by holding their tongues when men like Bernini or Guidi were speaking. At the sharp click of Ortensia's little heels on the stone pavement the Queen turned her head and instantly recognised Stradella, who bowed low as she nodded to him, and extended her hand in a gesture that bade him wait. He had no choice, and she looked at the picture again and listened with evident satisfaction to the great sculptor's explanation of the unpleasant subject. Guidi, however, tried not to hear; he also knew Stradella, who had set some of his verses to music, and he exchanged a glance of intelligence with him, wondering who his lady companion might be. Stradella was already bending to whisper in her ear and tell her who the lady was, and that it was impossible to run away. Ortensia had never seen a queen before, and looked at her critically. Queen Christina, she thought, was anything but a fine-looking woman, though she looked intelligent, and Ortensia remembered scores of Venetian ladies who were much more queenly in appearance. When Bernini had brought his poor little martyr to her last gasp, he added that, while he declined to disparage the work of a late fellow-artist, he considered Pomarancio's paintings beneath criticism; he then paused and took snuff. The Queen smiled sarcastically at his last words. 'Without speaking well of you, Cavaliere,' she said, 'I consider you as agreeable as you are famous.' Bernini shut his snuff-box with a sharp snap and bowed low, though he quite understood the rebuke. Meanwhile Stradella led Ortensia forward, and the Queen turned to them as they came up. 'I am overjoyed to see you, Maestro,' she said, graciously giving him her hand to kiss while he touched the ground with one knee, and Ortensia executed a ceremonious courtesy. 'And who is this lady?' the Queen asked almost at once. 'My wife, Madam,' answered Stradella proudly. 'We are lately married.' 'Surely you are not a Roman, my dear child?' the Queen said inquiringly. 'No, Madam,' answered Ortensia, meeting the penetrating gaze of the disagreeable eyes without any nervousness. 'I am a Venetian, and was born a Grimani.' The Queen smiled still more graciously at the ancient name, though she was a little surprised that a Grimani should have married a singer. Bernini and Guidi greeted Stradella while the Queen exchanged these few words with his wife, and the three gentlemen also came forward and pressed his hand, asking him questions about his journey, his marriage, and his present lodgings. 'What?' cried young Paluzzo Altieri. 'Lodging at the Orso? At an inn? My uncle will never allow that, nor her Majesty either!' He glanced at the Queen, who was still talking with Ortensia. 'You are the Pope's guests in Rome, Maestro, and I shall see that you are treated as such! Where will you be pleased to lodge, my dear Stradella? The whole Altieri palace is at your disposal, and you have but to choose your apartments----' 'Surely,' interrupted the Queen, who was listening now, 'I have a prior right to lodge a great artist in my house! Will you come and stay awhile with me, my dear?' she asked, turning to Ortensia again, with a sudden smile. Ortensia was not at all overcome by the invitation, as the Queen perhaps expected that she would be, and she answered with demure caution. 'Your Majesty is too kind,' she said, without committing herself. 'Very well, my dear Altieri,' the Queen went on at once, as if Ortensia had already refused the proffered hospitality, 'I yield, but to His Holiness only, not to you!' She laughed that strangely hard ringing laugh of hers, that reminded northern men of the sound of sharp skates cutting the smooth ice of a frozen river, where leafless birches and frost-bound banks send the notes echoing away between them till they are lost in the distance. 'The Pope owes your Majesty thanks,' the young courtier answered, bending his head a little, though he could hardly take his eyes from Ortensia. Her Majesty Christina was out on one of her sight-seeing expeditions, in which old Bernini felt himself highly honoured to play guide, though she sometimes, as now, insisted on seeing sights which he would not willingly have shown her, and on hearing explanations which he would willingly have omitted. For though she set herself up as a profound critic and a super-refined æsthetic, her real nature was at once coarse and slightly Sadie, and she took pleasure in tales of bloodshed and suffering which would have disgusted a healthy-minded woman of ordinary sensitiveness. Indeed, as her Italian contemporaries knew her during those long years she spent in Rome, she was very far from being the royal Christina of the playwrights and poets. Her knowledge of art was not that of the critic, but of the professional dealer in antiquities, and though her opinion on the beauty of anything, from a picture to an inlaid cabinet, was often mere nonsense, she was never mistaken as to the price of the object. She was not an amateur, but an expert, and though anything that was really fashionable pleased her, she would buy nothing that had not an intrinsic value. In those first years of her permanent residence in Rome she was rich, for in voluntarily abdicating the throne she had reserved to herself a liberal income, which afterwards dwindled to very little, and she kept up a considerable state in the Palazzo Riario, that overlooks the river from the Trastevere side. There was hardly an artist or a literary man in Rome, or a student of science or a musician, who did not regularly pay his court to her, and dedicate to her something of his best work. Not rarely, too, she gave her advice; Bernini should finish his last statue in such and such a way, Guidi should avoid one rhyme and introduce another, on pain of her displeasure. Bernini yielded politely, because of all Italy's artists of genius he was the most thoroughly cynical in following the fashion of his time; Guidi obeyed because a dinner was always a dinner to a starving youth of twenty, and a rhyme was no great price to pay for it; but he quietly enclosed her suggestions in quotation marks, thereby disclaiming any responsibility for them. The young Paluzzo Altieri was nephew to the Cardinal who governed Rome as the 'real' Pope, while the octogenarian Clement X., who was called the 'nominal' Pope, spent most of his days more or less in his bed. The Cardinal and all his relations had been adopted by him as 'nephews,' and as he was the last of his race he had bestowed on them and their heirs all his vast private possessions instead of enriching them out of the treasury, as many popes did by their families. Alberto Paluzzo Altieri was good-for-nothing, and like most really worthless young men he exercised an extraordinary charm on every one who knew him, both women and men. For to be a real good-for-nothing, without being a criminal, implies a native genius for wasting other people's time as agreeably as one's own, and for helping rich men to get rid of their money with infinite pleasure and no profit at all, and for making every woman believe that she can certainly convert and reform the prodigal by the simple process of allowing him to fall in love with her, which, of course, must elevate him to her moral and intellectual level. There was nothing very remarkable about Alberto except that charm of his. He was dark, he had straight black hair, and tolerably regular features, like many young Romans; he was neither tall nor short, nor exceptionally well made, and of the three young gentlemen who accompanied the ex-Queen on her sight-seeing excursion, he was the least ostentatiously dressed. But he had a wonderfully pleasant voice in speaking, with the smile of a happy and phenomenally innocent boy, and his bright brown eyes had the most guileless expression in the world. At the present time it amused him to be Queen Christina's favourite, perhaps because she was a genuine queen, or possibly because her cold-blooded murder of Monaldeschi was still so fresh in every one's memory that there was a spice of danger in the situation; but in any case he was prepared for the first pleasant opportunity of changing his allegiance which might present itself. When he saw Stradella's young wife it occurred to him at once that such a chance was within his reach, and he was not satisfied till he had made the musician promise to move from the inn to the Altieri palace on the next day but one; for Alberto was the eldest son, and neither his father, who was old, nor his mother, who was a slave to her perpetual devotions, ever attempted to oppose his wishes in such matters. Was he not a model son? Could anything surpass his sweet-tempered affection for his parents? Why should he not have what he liked? Good-for-nothings are often their mothers' favourites; but Alberto had long ago won over his father as well, and not him only, but his uncle also, the Cardinal, who ruled Rome and the States of the Church like a despot. The great man was really not sorry that one of his own family should occupy the most important position in Queen Christina's household; for it is the instinct of all ex-sovereigns to meddle in politics, and it was not possible to predict what such a woman might do if she were bored. Ortensia was a mere girl still, but her eyes had been opened of late, and she did not fail to notice the impression she had made on the young man; she was far too much in love with her husband, however, to care for such admiration, or even to be pleased by it, and somehow the present case seemed to be of bad omen. The Queen and her party had already been long in the church, for they had begun their round on the other side of the entrance, and were just ending it when Stradella and his wife appeared; now, therefore, after a few more words, they took themselves off amidst much bowing and scraping on the part of all except the Queen herself. She smiled to Ortensia, and nodded familiarly to Stradella, making a beckoning and inviting gesture to him over her shoulder with her right hand as she turned away. Alberto looked quickly at the musician, not so much taking him for a possible rival as for a convenient successor; but the faintly contemptuous smile that flickered in the musician's face as he saw the careless signal assuredly did not mean that he was either flattered or attracted. Ortensia saw the gesture too, and resented it; but a moment later she smiled to herself at the thought that such a woman as the Queen could ever win so much as a second thought from Alessandro. The two had seen enough of San Stefano, and were glad to escape from the nightmare of horrors depicted on its walls; but before going out they waited a few minutes in the vestibule to allow the party time to get out of sight. 'So that is the famous Queen Christina!' Ortensia said, expressing her surprise and disappointment as soon as they were alone. 'Pina looks more like a lady!' CHAPTER XIV After supper on the next evening Stradella and Ortensia were sitting for the last time in the beautiful loggia, in the soft light of the young moon that would soon set behind the Vatican Hill. The air was wonderfully dry and warm, as it is in Rome sometimes in June when there has been no rain for three or four weeks. On the following morning they were to move to the Palazzo Altieri, where Don Alberto had caused to be prepared for them the apartment that is entered by a small door on the left, halfway up the grand staircase. They had been talking of the change. 'It will seem more natural to you to live in a palace again,' Stradella said in a laughing tone. 'You must have had enough of inns by this time!' 'The happiest days of my life have been spent in them,' Ortensia answered with a little sadness. 'I am wondering whether it will ever be the same again.' 'As long as we are the same there can be no difference, sweetheart. I am glad you are to be more worthily lodged. Don Alberto was always a very good-natured fellow and more or less a friend of mine, and he is taking the greatest pains to make us comfortable in his father's house.' 'I wish he would not take such infinite trouble to stare at me all the time!' 'Why should he look at anything else when you are in sight?' laughed the singer. 'Do I? And just consider what a pleasant change it must be for him after being obliged to gaze at the Queen by the hour together in visible rapture! The vision must pall sometimes, I should think! I really do not blame him for showing that he admires you, and he is not the only one. There is our friend Trombin, for instance, who stands in adoration staring at you and puffing out his round cheeks whenever we meet.' 'Oh, he only makes me laugh,' Ortensia answered; 'he is so funny, with his little pursed-up mouth and his round eyes! I am sure he must be the kindest-hearted creature in the world. But Don Alberto is quite different. I am a little afraid of him. I feel as if some day he might say something to me----' 'What, for instance?' asked Stradella, amused. 'What do you think he may say?' 'That he thinks me--what shall I say?--very pretty, perhaps!' 'He would only be saying to your face what every one says behind your back, love! Should you object very much if he told you that he thought you beautiful?' 'I do not wish to be beautiful for any one but you,' Ortensia answered softly. 'I wish that every one else might think me hideous, and never come near me!' 'And that I might seem to every one but you to sing out of tune!' laughed Stradella. 'At all events they would leave us alone, if they thought so! But I did not mean it in that way. I think you do not care whether men make love to me or not!' She was not quite pleased, and as she leaned her head back against the wall he saw her pouting lips in the moonlight. 'I like to be envied,' said Stradella. As he made this singular answer he bent over a mandoline he had been holding on his knee and made the point of the quill quiver against the upper strings with incredible lightness, so that the tinkling note seemed to come from very far away and could not interrupt the conversation. 'I do not understand,' Ortensia said, after a moment, and she lifted her arms and made her clasped hands a pillow between the back of her head and the wall. 'The beauty of anything is its immortal part,' he said; 'its real value is as much as people will give for it, neither more nor less. Do you not understand me yet?' 'Not quite. Why do you talk in riddles? I am not very clever, you know!' 'You are beautiful, dear. I have often told you so, and other men will if they get a chance. But as one of nature's works of art I doubt whether you are more beautiful than almond-blossoms in spring, or the dawn in the south on a summer's morning. Do you see?' 'No. Is it a parable? What will you compare me to next?' Stradella was making sweet far-off music on the instrument. It came a little nearer and then died away into the distance, when he was ready to speak again. 'You may have almond-blossoms by hundreds in March for nothing,' he said, 'and any one may see the dawn who is awake so early! They have perfect beauty, but no value. No one can really envy a man who brings an armful of flowers home with him, or who sees the dawn of a fine day, yet both are quite as lovely as you are, in their own fashion, though they are common. But you have their beauty, and besides, you are of immense value, not to me only but to the whole race of men, because you are not only beautiful, but also a very rare work of nature, far rarer than pearls and rubies.' 'Then it was all a pretty compliment you were paying me!' Ortensia smiled. 'Of course I could not understand what you meant!' Stradella laughed low, and the mandoline was silent for a while. 'The way to make compliments is to find out what a woman most admires in herself and then to make her believe it is ten times more wonderful than she supposed it could be. No one has ever told that secret yet, but it has opened more doors and balcony windows than any other.' 'That was not your way of opening mine, dear!' laughed Ortensia. 'I am afraid you needed no secret at all to do that.' Again he touched the mandoline, but it was not mere tinkling music now, making believe that it came all the way down the long street from the dismal Tor di Nona by the bridge. It was that love-song he had made for her in Venice, and had sung to her when Pina left them together the first time; a measure of the melody trembled through the upper strings, and then his own voice took up the words in tones breathed out so easily that the highest never seemed to be high, nor to cost him more effort than ordinary speech. Of all instruments the violoncello can yield notes most like such a voice, when the bow is in a master's hand. In Rome, at night, he may sing who will, even now: if he goes bawling out of tune through the silent streets, though it be not from drink but out of sheer lightness of heart, the first policeman he meets will silence him, it is true; but if he sings well and soberly he may go on his way rejoicing, for no watchman will hinder him. It is an ancient right of the Italian people to sing when and where they please, by day or night, in the certainty that tuneful singing can never give offence nor disturb even a dying man. So the great master of song sat in the high balcony on that June night and let his voice float out over moon-lit Rome; and presently Ortensia slipped from her chair and knelt before him, her hands clasped on his knees and looking up to his face, for his magic was more enthralling now than when it had first drawn her to him. When he reached the end he kissed her, the last long-drawn note still vibrating on his lips, and she felt that they were cold and trembling when they touched hers. 'Yes,' she whispered, drawing back just enough to see his eyes in the moonlight, 'that was the key to my window. When I heard that song I knew you loved me already, and that I must love you too, sooner or later, and for all my life. It is not my poor beauty that is rarer than pearls and rubies, love, but your genius and your voice. I know what you mean now! I like to be envied by other women because you are mine, with all you are, you, and your fame, and everything!' 'Do you see?' Stradella laughed softly. 'You should not be angry with people who stare at you, any more than I am with people who listen when I sing! And I am no more jealous because Don Alberto admires you than you should be because Queen Christina likes my singing, as she says she does.' 'Tell me, Alessandro, is that a black wig she wears, or is it her own hair?' asked Ortensia, pretending to be serious. 'In confidence, my love, it is a wig,' Stradella answered with extreme gravity. 'So much the better. I am glad she admires your singing; but if it were not a wig, perhaps I should be less glad. Do you think Don Alberto's fine black hair is his own, dear; and are his legs quite real?' 'Without doubt.' 'Then I think you ought to be just a little less glad that he stares at me, than if his legs were padded and he wore a wig as the Queen does, and were forty, as she is, with bad teeth and a muddy complexion like hers! You know you should be just a very little less pleased, dear!' In the moonlight he could see her smiling, for her face was close to his, and she had laid her hands on his shoulders, while she still knelt at his knees. 'But that would mean that I was jealous, dear heart,' objected Stradella. 'Why am I to be jealous because he admires you, unless you like him too much? Most women say that a man is a brute to be jealous at all till they have run away with some one else! Your uncle, for instance, is really justified in being jealous of me.' 'Really?' Ortensia laughed and kissed again before saying anything more; and just as their lips touched, the silver light began to fail, and the young moon dropped behind the Vatican Hill, and when they separated it seemed quite dark by comparison. Now any one can easily find out how long it takes the moon to set after she has touched the shoulder of a hill; and hence the exact number of seconds during which that particular kiss lasted can easily be ascertained. But time, as Danish people say, was made for shoemakers; and Ortensia and Stradella took no account of it, but behaved in the most foolishly dilatory way, just as if they were not a plain, humdrum, married couple that should have known better than to spend the evening in a balcony, alternately sentimentalising, kissing, and singing love-songs. That was the last evening they spent at the Sign of the Bear, and though they had talked idly enough in the loggia under the light of the young moon about such very grave subjects as jealousy and envy, they afterwards cherished ineffaceable memories of that sweet June night. For there had been an interlude in the comedy of their troubles, wherein love had dwelt with them alone and in peace, making his treasures fully known to them, and guiding their footsteps while they explored his kingdom and his palace; and they both felt instinctively that the interlude was over now, and that real life must begin again with their change of lodgings. Stradella was a musician and a singer, without settled fortune, and he must return to the business of earning bread for them both; moreover, he was famous, and therefore could not possibly get his living obscurely. The Pope's adopted family would vie with the ex-Queen of Sweden, the Spanish Ambassador and the rich nobles, to flatter him and attract him to their respective palaces. Alberto Altieri, who had lost his heart to Ortensia's beauty at first sight, would organise every sort of fashionable entertainment for the young bride's benefit, and would do his best to turn her head by magnificent display. Hereafter, till the summer heat drove the Romans to the country, no evening gathering in a noble house would deserve mention if Stradella and his wife were not there, as no concert would be worth hearing unless some of his music was performed. The young couple would be continually in the very vortex of fashion's whirlpool, and though they would not resent the distinction, and might even enjoy the gaiety for a few weeks, they would have but little time left for each other between morning and midnight. It was apparent on the very first night they spent in the Palazzo Altieri that Don Alberto was not the only young man in Rome who wished to please Ortensia. Soon after the second hour of night, which we should call about ten o'clock in June, Stradella and Ortensia heard music in the narrow street below their new quarters; and as the sounds did not move farther away, it was almost immediately apparent that the singers were serenading Ortensia. It was no ordinary music, either; there were half-a-dozen fine voices and four or five stringed instruments, played with masterly skill--a violin, a 'viola d'amore,' and at least two or three lutes. Stradella put out the light in the room and opened the outer shutters a little, for they had been closed. The moon was shining even more brightly than on the previous night, but the rays did not fall as they fell on the loggia at the inn; the roofs of the low houses opposite were partly illuminated, and the belfry of San Stefano, and of the little church of Santa Marta and the Minerva much farther away; but that side of the irregularly built Altieri palace and the street below were almost in darkness. Looking down between the shutters, Ortensia and Stradella could only see deeper shadows within the shade, where the serenaders were standing, and they were sure that the latter could not see them at all. They listened with delight, their heads close together, and each with one arm round the other's waist. 'They are men from the Pope's choir,' Stradella whispered, 'or from Saint Peter's.' The first piece was finished, and the musicians exchanged a few words in low tones, while one or two of them tuned their instruments a little. A moment later they began to play again, and as Stradella recognised the opening chords of one of his own serenades, a rich-toned voice began the song. Ortensia's arm tightened a little round her husband, and his round her, and their young cheeks touched as they listened and peered down into the gloom of the narrow street. Suddenly there was a stir below, and the sound of other feet coming quickly from the Piazza del Gesù; and though the serenade was not half finished, another choir and other instruments struck up a chorus, loud and high, almost completely drowning the first. Stradella uttered an exclamation of surprise. The newcomers sang and played quite as well as the first party, if not better, and the music was Stradella's too--a triumphal march and chorus which he had composed when last in Rome for the marriage of the Orsini heir. It had been intended to drown all other sounds while the wedding procession was leaving the church, and it now fulfilled a similar purpose most effectually. For a moment Stradella imagined that it was only meant as a surprise, and a reinforcement to the first party, and that the whole company of musicians would play and sing together. That would have been indeed a royal serenade; but half a minute had not passed before things took a very different turn, for the party in possession of the street charged the newcomers after a moment's deliberation; the twanging of strings turned into a noise of stout sticks hitting each other violently and smashing an instrument now and then, and steel was clashing too, while the voices that had lately sung so tunefully now shouted in wild discord. Suddenly a flash of bright light darted through the dim confusion as a dark lantern was opened, and the glare fell full on the face and figure of Don Alberto Altieri, who stood hatless, sword in hand, facing an adversary who was quite invisible to the couple at the window. The instant the light was seen, the others of the two parties ceased fighting and retired in opposite directions. 'Sir,' said a voice which Stradella and Ortensia instantly recognised as Trombin's, 'I see that you are at least as young as you are noble, if not more so, and I shall therefore not press my acquaintance upon you so far as to take your life. But I shall tell you plainly, sir, that I am a fencing-master by my profession, and if you do not immediately dissolve into air, or, to put it better, melt away with all your company, I will lard you, in the space of thirty seconds, with fifteen flesh wounds in fifteen different parts of your body, not one of which shall be dangerous, but which, being taken in what I may call the aggregate, shall keep you in your bed for a month, sir. And moreover, sir, as you do not seem inclined to lower your guard and go away, there is one!' The long rapier flashed in the light of the lantern, and instantly Don Alberto's sword fell from his hand. Trombin had run him neatly through the right forearm, completely disabling him at the first thrust. The Bravo at once stooped, picked up the weapon and politely offered him the hilt, but he could not take it with his right hand, and grasping the blade itself with his left, he just managed to get it into the sheath. 'At least,' he cried, furious with humiliation and pain, 'that gentleman with the lantern there, who employs you, will answer to me for this in broad daylight, when my wound is healed.' 'With pleasure, sir,' answered the voice of Gambardella. 'But as one gentleman to another, I warn you that I am also a fencing-master.' The instant Don Alberto was wounded his musicians had taken to flight, and he had now no choice but to follow them, which he did with as much dignity as he could command, considering that he was hatless, wounded, and altogether very badly worsted, for he had understood that he had fallen in with Bravi, probably employed by a rival. As soon as it was evident that he was going away, the lantern was shut and the street was dark again, Trombin's musicians tuned their instruments, and in two or three minutes the triumphal march rang out again, louder and higher than ever. In the dimness above Stradella and Ortensia looked at each other, though they could hardly see one another's faces. 'Your two admirers mean business!' said the musician with some amusement. 'Trombin will seem less ridiculous the next time you see him staring at you!' 'How can you laugh!' asked Ortensia gravely, for she had never before seen men face each other with drawn swords. She had always been taught that duelling was as wicked as it was dangerous, and her uncle Pignaver had shared that orthodox opinion; nevertheless, though she would not willingly have acknowledged it to her confessor, she was glad that Trombin had driven the lady-killer from the field, and she only wished that Stradella might have done it himself. As for the Bravi's serenade, she did not resent it at all, nor did her husband; it was a friendly entertainment, and nothing more, on the part of the two wealthy Venetian gentlemen to whom the young couple already owed an immense debt of gratitude. When the chorus was ended, Stradella clapped his hands. 'Bravo!' cried Ortensia, and the word sounded clearly in the momentary silence. 'At your ladyship's service!' answered Trombin in a laughing tone, for the jest she unconsciously made in using the single word seemed to him full of humour. Gambardella's dark lantern sent its searching ray up to the window at that moment, and showed the heads of the two young people close together, for the shutters were now wide open; an instant later the light went out and the music began again. It was a madrigal this time, airy and changing, and sung by four men, one of whom had a beautiful male contralto, which is a rarity even in Italy. Stradella recognised it instantly, for he had often sung at the Lateran and knew the man. 'They are of the choir of Saint John's,' he whispered to Ortensia. There was rivalry between the Lateran and the Vatican in the matter of music then, as there has been in our own day, and it was no wonder that the musicians themselves had joined in the fray when Don Alberto drew on Trombin and Gambardella. The serenade continued, and the two Bravi enjoyed it quite as much as Ortensia herself; but it was not likely that Don Alberto would be satisfied to go quietly to bed after being wounded under the very walls of his father's palace by a professional cut-throat who had been doubtless hired to protect a rival serenader. There was a guardhouse of the watch not far away, at the foot of the Capitol Hill, and thither he hastened, after twisting his silk scarf round his forearm as tightly as he could to staunch the blood. In less than a quarter of an hour he came back with a corporal's guard of the night-watchmen, armed with clumsy broadswords, but each carrying a serviceable iron-shod cudgel of cornel-wood which, according to old Roman rhyme, breaks bones so easily that the blows do not even hurt: 'Corniale, rompe le ossa e non fa male.' The corporal himself carried an elaborately wrought lantern of iron and glass, ornamented with the papal tiara and crossed keys. Now the Bravi did not know Alberto Altieri by sight, and they had treated him as if he were of no more account than several hundred other young noblemen, sure that he would have his scratch dressed and go quietly to bed like a sensible fellow who has had the worst of it. Therefore when the watch came in sight suddenly, from behind the corner of the palace that juts out sharply towards San Stefano, the serenaders did not connect the appearance of the patrol with their late adversary, who had disappeared in the opposite direction; on the contrary, they went on singing and playing, well aware that night-watchmen never interfered with such innocent diversions, but would generally stop on their round to enjoy the music. Even now, when they came straight towards the musicians, the latter only made way quietly, supposing that they wished to pass. It was not till Gambardella recognised Don Alberto's face by the light of the corporal's lantern that he understood, and drew his rapier just in time to save himself from being arrested. [Illustration: 'The two Bravi faced the watch side by side'] 'Run, while we hold the street!' he yelled to the musicians, who did not wait for a second invitation, but fled like sheep down the Via del Gesù. Trombin's blade was out almost as soon as his companion's, and the two Bravi faced the watch side by side. Their hats were drawn well over their eyes, and they had clapped on the little black masks most people carried then, so that they were in no fear of being recognised. The corporal, who seemed to be a determined fellow, swung his stick like a sabre, to bring it down on Gambardella's head, but it found only the empty air in its path, and at the same time the officer's left hand was so sharply pricked that he dropped the big lantern, which rolled on its side and went out. Meanwhile Trombin had parried the blow his nearest adversary had struck at him, and in return had instantly disabled him by running him through the right forearm, precisely as he had done by Don Alberto. A moment later Gambardella opened his dark lantern, and held it in his left, so that he and Trombin became almost invisible to their adversaries and had them at a great disadvantage. Furious, the corporal struck another wild blow with his staff, but Gambardella dodged it even more easily than before, being behind the lantern that dazzled the other; and as the iron-shod stick hit the ground after missing its aim, the officer felt the Bravo's blade run through the muscles of his upper arm, like a stream of icy water, followed instantly by burning heat. With a hearty curse he backed out of the way of another thrust and bade his men draw their broadswords and finish the matter. But this was more easily said than done. The half-dozen men obeyed, indeed, so far as drawing and brandishing their clumsy weapons was concerned, but the street was narrow, the lantern dazzled them, and the two long rapiers with their needle points and solid blades pointed out at them in the circle of light, ready to run in under the awkward broadsword guard with deadly effect. The corporal swore till Cucurullo, who was looking out of another upper window, expected to see him struck by lightning, and all the people who were now at the windows of the low houses opposite the palace crossed themselves devoutly; but it was of no use, as long as those two gleaming points kept making little circles slowly in the light. There was not a man in the corporal's guard who would have gone within an arm's length of them. Seeing that they already had the best of it, the Bravi began to advance by regular short steps, moving the right foot forward first and then the left, as if they were on the fencing ground, their rapiers steadily in guard; and the watchmen fell back, fearing to face them. But that was not enough; for though the two might drive the little band in that way from street to street, if they but lowered their points a moment their adversaries would spring in upon them, even at some risk. 'We are mild-tempered men,' said Trombin at last, 'but we are both fencing-masters, and it will not be prudent to irritate us, or, as I may say, to drive us to extremities. You had better go your way quietly and let us go ours.' 'If you do not,' said Gambardella, who was excessively bored, 'we will skewer every mother's son of you in five minutes, by the holy marrow-bones of Beelzebub!' This singular invocation arrested the attention and disturbed the equanimity of the watchmen; they could stand being sworn at by every saint in the calendar, by every article of the Nicene Creed, and, generally, by everything sacred of which their corporal had ever heard, but they did not like men who invoked relics of such horrible import as those which Gambardella had named. Nor were their fears misplaced, for as they hesitated for two or three seconds before turning to run, the Bravo made a spring like a wild cat, struck the corporal violently on the nose with the iron guard of his rapier, jumped back one step, and then, lunging an almost incredible distance as the corporal staggered against the wall, ran the man behind him through the fleshy part of the shoulder. On his side, Trombin advanced too, pretended to lunge and then suddenly struck the man before him such a stinging blow with the flat of his rapier that the fellow howled and fled, whereupon Trombin encouraged his speed by prodding him sharply in the rear. In a moment the confusion was complete, and the watchmen were tumbling over each other in their hurry to escape. Then the lantern was suddenly shut, and the two Bravi faced about and ran like deer in the opposite direction. CHAPTER XV Don Alberto did not care to tell how he had been wounded, and kept the matter between himself, his doctor, and his own man, giving out that he had been thrown from his horse and had broken one of the bones of his forearm, a story which quite accounted for his wearing his arm in a sling when he appeared after keeping his room during five days. It was natural, too, that Stradella and Ortensia, who had recognised him by the light of the lantern, should say nothing about the matter, and the Bravi did not know who the young man was; so there was a possibility that the whole affair might remain a secret. Trombin, however, was anxious to discover the name of the adversary he had wounded, and Gambardella was not unwilling to help him, though he considered him quite mad where Ortensia was concerned. 'You have no imagination,' Trombin objected, in answer to this charge. 'Can you not understand the peculiar charm of being in love with a lady of whom I have agreed to make an angel at the first convenient opportunity, and whom I have further promised to deliver safe, sound, and alive to her uncle in Venice?' 'I wish you joy of your puzzles,' answered Gambardella discontentedly. 'I derive much solace from the pleasures of imagination,' Trombin observed, following his own train of thought. 'In me a great romancer has been lost to our age, another Bandello, perhaps a second Boccaccio! An English gentleman of taste once told me that my features resemble those of a dramatist of his country, whose first name was William--I forget the second, which I could not learn to pronounce--but that my cheeks are even rounder than his were, and my mouth smaller. Under other circumstances, who knows but that I might have been the William Something of Italy? My English friend added that the painted bust of the dramatist on his tomb was quite the most hideous object he had ever seen, so I do not tell you the story out of mere vanity, as you might suppose. My misfortune is that I am generally driven by a sort of familiar spirit to do the things I imagine, instead of writing them down.' 'And pray what do you imagine you are going to do next?' inquired Gambardella. 'It has occurred to me that I might carry off the lady myself,' Trombin answered in a thoughtful tone. 'And leave me to manage the rest?' 'You will have no trouble. I shall take the road to Venice, of course, and after a month or two I will hand the lady over to Pignaver, for I dare say she will soon tire of my company. As for you, you will only have to follow her husband, for he will go after his wife as fast as he can, of his own accord, and when you both reach Venice together, I shall be waiting and we will lead him into a trap and give him up to his pretty adorer! The rest will be as I said. She will not be able to keep him a prisoner very long, and when he leaves her house we can settle the business.' 'And of course you will expect me to help you in carrying the young woman off?' 'Naturally! Should you feel any scruples about it?' 'No,' Gambardella answered, in an indifferent tone, but he changed the subject and went back to the question of the rival serenader's identity. 'It might be as well to think of more practical matters,' he said. 'The excellent Tommaso has not found out anything about the man you wounded last night, though he has already ascertained exactly where the ex-Queen of Sweden keeps her jewels!' 'Intelligent creature! He really has a good store of general information! I dare say he will take them some day and leave us without giving notice.' 'It must be very convenient to be born so low in the world as to be able to steal without disgrace,' observed Gambardella thoughtfully. 'I suppose such fellows have no sense of honour.' 'None whatever,' said Trombin, with equal gravity. 'As you say, it must make many things easy when one has no money.' This conversation had taken place under the great colonnade before Saint Peter's, late in the afternoon, when the air was pleasantly cool. Bernini's colonnade was new then, and some of the poorer Romans, dwelling in the desolate regions between the Lateran and Santa Maria Maggiore, had not even seen it. It might have been expected that it was to become the resort of loungers, gossips, foreigners, dealers in images and rosaries, barbers, fortune-tellers, and money-changers, as the ancient portico had been that used to form a straight covered way from the Basilica to the Bridge of Sant' Angelo; but for some inexplicable reason this never happened, and it was always, as it is now, a deserted place. The Bravi, who were men of taste, according to their times, admired the architecture extremely, and often walked there for half an hour before it was time to hear the Benediction music in the church, which was always good and sometimes magnificent. This afternoon they were strolling not far from the bronze gate that gives access to the Vatican; a dozen paces or more behind them, within call but out of hearing of their conversation, walked the excellent Tommaso, otherwise known as Grattacacio, the ex-highway robber, about whom they had just been talking. The last words had barely passed Trombin's lips when they heard the man's footsteps approaching them rapidly from behind. They stopped to learn what was the matter. 'A young gentleman on a mule is coming, with several servants,' Tommaso said quickly. 'He has his right arm in a sling. Perhaps he is your man.' The two friends nodded carelessly, but drew their hats a little lower over their eyes as they turned and walked back, skirting the inner side of the colonnade so as to watch the party that was coming straight across the Piazza in the sun from the direction of Porta Santo Spirito. As soon as they saw the face of the young man who rode the mule they recognised Trombin's adversary, who wore his broad-brimmed hat far down on the left to screen him from the sun, thus exposing the right side of his face to their view. They went on quietly, as if they had hardly noticed him, and he paid no attention to them. When he and his three servants had almost reached the bronzed gates, the Bravi despatched their man after him to find out his name from the groom who would hold his mule, while they themselves remained where they were, walking slowly up and down, a dozen steps each way. 'I see a golden opportunity rising in the distance,' said Trombin. 'It illuminates my imagination and lights up my understanding.' 'It will probably dazzle mine, so that I shall see nothing at all,' observed Gambardella with his usual sourness. 'Possibly,' Trombin answered pleasantly. 'I shall therefore hide my light under a bushel, as it were, and thus spare your mental eyes a shock that might be fatal to them. For my present inspiration is of such a tremendous nature that an ordinary intelligence might be unsettled by it.' 'Could you not communicate the nature of it in small doses, as it were?' asked Gambardella, mimicking him a little. 'One can get accustomed even to poisons in that way, as Mithridates did.' 'To oblige you, I will attempt it, my friend, but I shall endeavour to lead you to guess the truth yourself by asking questions, instead of presenting it to you in disjointed fragments. Now consider that youth whom I ran through the arm the other night, and answer me. Do you suppose that he was serenading Pina, the serving-woman, or Ortensia her mistress?' 'What a question! It was Ortensia, of course.' 'But was he serenading the Lady Ortensia out of ill-feeling towards her, or out of good-feeling?' 'Out of good-feeling.' 'What is the good-feeling of a handsome young man towards a beautiful young woman usually called, my friend?' 'Love, I suppose. What nonsense is this?' 'It is the Socratic method, as recorded by Plato. I learned something of it when I was a student at Padua. Now, you have told me that the young man feels love for the young woman, and you appear to be right; but what do you think he hopes to get from her in return, love or dislike?' 'Her love, no doubt.' 'You answer well, my friend. Now tell me this also. Will he get her love without the consent of her husband, or with it?' 'Without, if he gets it at all! I am tired of this fooling. It bores me excessively.' 'You will not be bored long,' answered Trombin with confidence. 'Answer me one question more. Do you suppose that the young man will have any success with the Lady Ortensia, unless he can separate her from Stradella by some stratagem?' Gambardella looked sharply at his wordy companion. 'I begin to take your meaning,' he said. 'You have a good mind,' Trombin answered, 'but it works slowly. You are on the verge of guessing what my inspiration is. Let us, for a large consideration, be the means of carrying off the Lady Ortensia for this rich young man, and when we have done so and received his money, let us execute the plan we have already made. For it will be easy for us to persuade her to do anything we suggest, because both she and her husband are under the greatest obligations to us, whereas the young man would have to employ violence and make a great scandal. But here comes that excellent Tommaso.' 'You are certainly a great man,' said Gambardella, looking at Trombin with admiration. It was clear from Tommaso's face that the intelligence he brought was important, and as he stood hat in hand before his masters he looked up and down the colonnade to see if there were any one in sight and near enough to listen. 'The gentleman is Don Alberto Altieri,' he said, almost in a whisper. Trombin at once puffed out his pink cheeks, pursed his lips, and whistled very softly, for he was much surprised; but Gambardella seemed quite unmoved, and merely nodded to Tommaso as if well satisfied with the latter's service. Then the two strolled on again, and their cut-throat servant followed them, just out of hearing of their conversation, as before; for he was much too wise to try any common trick of eavesdropping on a pair of men who would just as soon wring his neck and throw him into a well as look at him. His highest ambition really was to be promoted to help them in one of those outrageous deeds that had made them the most famous Bravi of the whole century, who had received pardons from popes and kings, from the Emperor Leopold, and from the Venetian Republic itself, under which passports they travelled and lived where they pleased, still untouched by the law. 'This is a delicate business,' observed Gambardella, for both had heard the gossip about Don Alberto and Queen Christina. 'It will be the more amusing,' answered Trombin. 'When I reflect upon the primitive simplicity of the business we undertook for Pignaver, and compare it with the plan we have now conceived and shall certainly execute in a few days, I cannot but congratulate myself on the fertility of my imagination, or, as I might say, upon the resemblance between my mind and that of the novelist Boccaccio. But I feel the superiority of my lot over his in the fact that I am generally the chief actor in my own stories.' 'The Queen will be useful,' said Gambardella. 'Bless her for an admirably amusing woman!' cried Trombin fervently. 'She has the mane of the lion and the heart of the hare!' 'The mane happens to be a wig, my friend,' sneered the other. 'In more senses than one,' retorted Trombin, 'but the hare's heart is genuine. She was afraid of poor Monaldeschi. You knew it, I knew it, and Luigi Santinelli knew it. She ordered us to kill him because she believed he was selling her secrets to the Spanish, and was going to poison her in their interests. She is always fancying that some one wants to poison her. Oh, yes, my friend, a most diverting character, for she thinks of nothing but herself, and her Self is a selfish, hysterical, cruel, cowardly woman!'[1] 'I detest her for that business at Fontainebleau,' answered Gambardella. 'Precisely. So do I, though she amuses me. To strangle a superfluous woman is sometimes unavoidable, and there are occasions when it is wisdom to stab an unnecessary male in the back. But to put an unarmed gentleman to the wall, so to say, in broad daylight and deliberately skewer him, being three to one as we were that day, is a thing I shall decline to do again for all the gold in India, Mexico, and Brazil!' 'Unless it be paid in cash,' suggested Gambardella. 'Cash,' answered Trombin enigmatically, 'is one of the forces of nature.' [Footnote 1: For Trombin's view of Christina's character and Monaldeschi's murder, I am indebted to the admirable and trustworthy work of Baron de Bildt, a distinguished Swedish diplomatist, entitled _Christine de Suède et le Cardinal Azzolino_ (Paris, 1899). The writer points out the singular ignorance of the truth about Monaldeschi displayed by Browning and the elder Dumas.] CHAPTER XVI A week later fashionable Rome was gathered together at the Palazzo Riario to a feast of poetry and music. Christina had just founded the Academy which survives to this day in that state of mediocrity above which it has never risen in nearly two hundred and fifty years, for the idea had suggested itself to her when she found how easy it was to attract starving talent to a good dinner. 'Feed the hungry' is a good motto for those who aim at being patrons of the fine arts, like the ex-Queen in Rome, or Pignaver in Venice; the only condition is that the hungry shall be clever or witty starvelings who can pay for their dinners with their brains. However, when men of talent cease to be hungry they generally become snobs, and will take the fly of the season with as much voracity as any trout in May. The literary and musical receptions at the Palazzo Riario took place in the portico that opened upon the gardens in those days; for the whole palace was afterwards rebuilt by the Corsini, and many parts of it were changed. Christina had been in Paris and had seen Louis Fourteenth dance as Alcibiades in Benserade's ballet, a sight to rejoice the gods of Olympus, who must certainly have laughed even louder at the bewigged King's mincing steps than they did at Vulcan's limp; for with many gifts, the Sun-King possessed no more sense of humour than Don Quixote, who stood on his head before Sancho as a proof that love was driving him mad. The ex-Queen was already dreaming of a wonderful pastoral play, in which Don Alberto Altieri was to appear as Endymion, and she herself, the elderly and slightly bedraggled virgin queen, would play Diana. There was Guidi to write the verses, Stradella should compose the music, and Christina herself would get most of the credit for the work. In the meantime, though she had nothing so complete to offer, she invited the Romans to hear such poetry as she could provide, and some excellent music; and Bernini, who could make anything look like anything else by means of whitewashed wooden columns, coarse draperies stiffened and whitened with wet plaster, and caryatides modelled in plaster and pasteboard, had improvised a Temple of Art for the performance. In the midst of this sanctuary, amongst laurels and roses, he had placed the clay model of his bust of Christina herself, in a wig like the French King's. He afterwards cast it in bronze, and considering that he must have done his best to make the portrait pleasing, it is appalling to think what the original must have been. The little temple stood just outside the portico, facing inward like a stage, on which the performers appeared in turn, the audience being gathered under the portico. Beyond it, the beautiful gardens stretched away in terraces and grades to the high distance. Christina herself sat on a sort of throne, facing the clay image of herself, while her courtiers and satellites were grouped behind her. Her intimate friend Cardinal Azzolino sat on her right, because Cardinal Altieri, who should have been there, had not come, and half-a-dozen other cardinals in scarlet occupied the huge gilt arm-chairs on both sides, each having one or two of his especial parasites behind him in readiness to do his bidding or to laugh at his jokes, as the case might be. There were not more than fifty other seats in the portico, and they were all occupied by the ladies of Rome, who came to applaud the performances of their countrymen and to laugh at the hysterical 'Minerva of the North,' who paid the poets and musicians, and went into such convulsions of appreciation when their works pleased her that the stability of her huge black wig was in danger. The ladies' chairs were not close together, but scattered about, as in a drawing-room, and almost every lady had her own little court of admirers or parasites according to her age and looks. Many of the younger ones were standing, or strolling about, in the intervals of the entertainment, each closely attended by one or two fine gentlemen; but as soon as a recitation of verses began, or a piece of music, they all stood still where they were, and the hum of voices instantly gave way to profound silence. Ortensia was there too. She had come with her husband, and had been graciously received by the Queen, who evidently knew nothing of Don Alberto's serenade; but Stradella had then left her to join his musicians, for he was to direct a part of his new oratorio as well as sing an air in it himself, and Ortensia necessarily stayed behind with the audience. Don Alberto Altieri at once came forward to take care of her, and nine-tenths of the Roman ladies present immediately asked of their attendant gentlemen who the handsome young woman in straw-coloured silk might be, whose hair had 'quite the Venetian tinge,' and whom 'dear Don Alberto seemed to know so well.' The result was that the occasion was Ortensia's first real appearance in Roman society; and before her husband was ready to go home, she had made the acquaintance of nearly all the great ladies present. The young man was delighted to show off his power and popularity before her as he led her about, being convinced that it could not fail to make an impression on her; for wherever he turned he was met by smiling faces, and she was followed by eyes that envied the distinction conferred upon her by the nephew of 'both the reigning Popes,' as the Romans called Pope Clement and Cardinal Paluzzo Altieri. At the same time, the gossips were beginning to wonder what Queen Christina-Minerva-Diana would say to her favourite's conduct if she saw anything of it, though Don Alberto kept well behind her as he piloted Ortensia from one great lady to another. Then, all at once, the two had disappeared unnoticed. A dark young girl with sad eyes and a sensitive though slightly irregular mouth had just appeared on the stage, dressed as one of the Muses; that is to say, she wore an ample garment of purple silk, of no particular shape, but cut low at the throat and having wide sleeves which displayed a pair of rather nervous white arms; her black hair was knotted low at the back of her neck, and she wore a wreath of fresh bay laurel that was very becoming to her young face. She was one of those strangely talented creatures, still found in Italy, and most often amongst the people, who have the gift of improvising very creditable verses and music on any subject that is given them, or even upon a set of rhymes, after concentrating their thoughts for a time which rarely exceeds two minutes, and is often only a few seconds. Don Alberto, who knew the programme of the entertainment, had manoeuvred skilfully. The girl appeared on the stage, lute in hand, and began to approach the wet clay bust of Christina with the mournfully inspired air of a Cassandra going up to the altar and image of Apollo; at the same moment Don Alberto found himself with Ortensia before an open door on the left side of the portico, a little farther back than the hindmost of the audience. Every one was watching the stage. 'An "improvisatrice,"' the young man whispered quickly. 'Tiresome rubbish! I will show you the statues while it is going on.' Ortensia obeyed his gesture and passed through the door into a large hall where a quantity of fragments of antique statues were lying on the stone floor, or were propped upright against the walls, while half-a-dozen of the best were already set up on Corinthian capitals, or ancient altars, which served as pedestals. Don Alberto had quietly closed the door behind him when he followed Ortensia into the hall. It was the first time he had succeeded in being alone with her since the night of the serenade. 'I trust you will accept my humblest excuses, dear lady,' he said as they both stood still, 'for having unwillingly broken off my little serenade the other night. I had intended it as a welcome to you and your husband on the first night you spent under my roof, but I had not thought of bringing a brace of cut-throats with me, as my rival did! They were too much for me--I wish I knew his name!' Don Alberto laughed pleasantly and looked at her, waiting for an answer. At the word 'cut-throats' she made a slight movement of surprise, and was on the point of indignantly attacking him for applying such a word to the friends who had brought about her marriage with Stradella; but she checked herself, hardly knowing why. 'I was very tired that night, after moving to the palace,' she said calmly. 'My husband spoke of a noise in the street, but I must have been more than half asleep.' But Altieri had seen her start and did not believe a word of what she said. He was partially satisfied, however, since she chose to take no notice of a scandalous affray which might easily have reflected on her own good name. He laughed again. 'As it was such a miserable failure, I am glad you were not awake to hear it,' he said. 'It was intended as a welcome, as an expression of my profound and devoted admiration, in which I hope you will believe now, though you were asleep that evening!' 'Your admiration is exaggerated, sir,' Ortensia answered with a light laugh, 'but if, by devotion, you mean friendliness to my husband and myself, I accept it for him and for me with all my heart!' 'I am grateful to your ladyship,' said Don Alberto in the same jesting tone, 'but, with your leave, I distinguish, as they taught me to say in the schools when I was nearly entrapped into a fallacy by a clever antagonist!' 'But I am neither your antagonist nor clever,' objected Ortensia, fencing gaily; 'therefore you need not make any fine distinctions!' The young man changed his manner and tone with really dramatic effect; his face grew suddenly grave, his voice was sad, and he gazed into Ortensia's eyes with a wistful lover-like expression that women rarely resisted. 'You are unkind,' he said. 'You know what such words mean to me, and you say them willingly, meaning to hurt me--as you do!' It was so well done that Ortensia was deceived, as well she might be, seeing how young she was, though years counted not then as they do with us, and every girl of fourteen was taught to be on her defence against men of every age and station. 'I did not mean to be unkind,' Ortensia said incautiously. 'Then pity me!' he cried with a sudden burst of real or affected passion. 'Are you blind, or are you cruel? Or are you only heartless? I do not believe that you were not at the window the other night! Your lips say one thing, your eyes another! You were looking down, you saw me wounded by that villain, and you listened to his master's serenade till I came back with the watch, only to be defeated a second time by a brace of hired fencing-masters! No! It was not out of friendship for your husband, I confess it frankly, it was for love of you, it was because you have turned my blood to fire and my heart to flame----' 'Hush!' Ortensia laid one hand warningly upon his arm, and at the same time she drew herself up with great dignity, and her face was proud and cold. 'I give no man the right to speak of love to me----' 'Wait!' interrupted Altieri. 'Wait, forgive, pity if you can, but hear me out! Far be it from me to slight your honour, soul of my soul, heart of my body!--for my own is gone, and you are in its place, and without you I should surely die! No--do not fear me! See, I stand back from you, you cannot even reach me with your hand as you did just now. But I must speak, and you shall hear me. I know your story, for the Venetian Ambassador has told all Rome how you lived in your uncle's house in miserable slavery, and how he meant to force you to be his wife, and that rather than submit to such an outrage you ran away with your music-master--we all know the truth about it, from the Pope, and my uncle the Cardinal, and the Queen, to the little page who carries Princess Colonna's train at a papal audience! There is nothing more romantic and adventurous in all the tales of Boccaccio and Bandello, and whatever the Senator Pignaver may attempt by way of revenge you may be sure that Rome will protect you. But now that you are free, now that the world lies before you and at your feet, will you not choose a man worthy of your birth and name?' 'A lover, sir?' asked Ortensia indignantly. She had slowly moved backwards while he was speaking, till she leaned against the pedestal of a colossal bust of Juno. 'Heaven forbid!' said Don Alberto. 'I mean a husband----' 'You seem to forget that I am married,' Ortensia replied, with rising anger. 'I would quarrel with any man who dared suggest that you do not believe it,' said Don Alberto gravely. 'What do you mean?' She started, and a quick flush rose to her cheeks, but subsided instantly, leaving her pale. 'It takes more than a mere sacristan's trick to make a real marriage,' answered Don Alberto enigmatically. 'Do not be indignant, dearest lady! Let me speak. You were married in the sacristy of San Domenico at Ferrara. Do not be surprised that I know it. The Legate there, Monsignor Pelagetti, is afraid of getting into trouble for having imprisoned Stradella by mistake, and he has sent my uncle a full and precise account of all that happened. The Mother Superior of the Ursulines informed him of what had been done in the sacristy. Her intention was good, no doubt, but it is very uncertain whether the result is valid!' 'And why should it not be?' Ortensia was very angry. 'There were honourable witnesses, too! What can any one say against my marriage?' 'One thing is that the witnesses were not as honourable as you thought them, my lady! The two gentlemen who helped you have turned out to be two of the most famous Bravi in Italy----' 'Bravi?' 'Yes. Their pockets are full of pardons for the atrocious murders they have committed for money, and they are as well known in Rome as Romulus and Remus! As for the woman who signed the register after them, she is a runaway nun, whose mere presence as a witness would discredit any ceremony!' 'A runaway nun? Pina? What folly is this? She has been with me since I was seven years old!' 'And she is forty now! There was time for a great many things to happen to her before you knew her. Has she not one thumb unlike the other? You see, I am well informed, for the Cardinal knows everything; and if he says that your marriage is not valid, you may be sure that he is not speaking carelessly or without full information.' Ortensia was now very pale, and her breath came quickly as she leaned against the pedestal of the Juno. 'It is not possible!' she cried, staring at Altieri in horror. 'It is more than possible that the priest may not have been a priest at all,' he answered, 'and that the whole scene was cleverly prepared to trick you. But the rest I know beyond a doubt and can prove. Your two friends are well-known Bravi and are at present lodging at the Orso inn, where you were, and your serving-woman is Filippina Landi, who escaped from a convent in Lombardy with a young Venetian and was abandoned by him. She was arrested in Ferrara some nineteen or twenty years ago and confessed the truth under torture, but was soon afterwards pardoned by the intervention of your uncle, the Senator Pignaver.' 'My uncle?' Ortensia almost forgot her new anxiety in her surprise. 'Yes, dear lady. Your uncle was, in fact, the young Venetian who had carried her off out of the convent, promising to marry her! It was no doubt in order to be revenged on him that she helped you to run away.' Ortensia's hand strained upon the corner of the pedestal till Altieri could count the small blue veins and purple arteries that showed through the white skin. She was terrified by what he had told her, for it explained Pina's whole manner and conduct too well not to make what Altieri had said about the marriage seem vaguely possible. But if she had been deceived, so had Stradella; of that she was more sure than of anything else, and if it had been possible she would have gone to him instantly to tell him what she had heard. Altieri saw how much disturbed she was and came towards her, for they were now half-a-dozen steps apart. He meant, no doubt, to offer her some consolation in her new trouble, unless he was going to fall on his knees and implore her pardon for having caused her such uneasiness. As a professional love-maker either course was open to him. But Ortensia stopped him with a gesture, keeping down her emotion. 'Listen,' she said, 'for I have something to say. You meant to shake my faith in my husband, but you have made a mistake, and instead you have done us both a great service. If, as you pretend, we are not validly married, nothing can be easier than to obtain a proper marriage in Rome, and we shall do so at once; but as for the rest, you are profoundly mistaken about me. I left my uncle's house because I loved Alessandro Stradella, and for no other reason, and while we both live we shall love each other as dearly as we did from the first, and I pray heaven that our lives may end together, on the same day and in the same hour. Do you understand? As you have seemed a friend to us both, be one in earnest, for you are wasting your time in playing at being in love with me!' She smiled at the last, as cleverly as any skilful woman of thirty could have done, offering him the chance of laughing away the barrier his ill-considered declaration had made, and of taking up pleasant relations again, as if nothing had happened to disturb them; for she had regained her self-possession while she was speaking, and had determined to profit by what he had told her rather than to suffer by the facts he had revealed, if they proved to be true. He was quick to accept the means of reconciliation, whatever his own intentions really were. 'I will indeed be your friend,' he said, with amazing earnestness, 'since you give me no hope of ever being anything more, and are willing to forgive the madness of a moment. Henceforth, command me what you will! In pledge of pardon, may I have your hand?' She let him take it; he dropped on one knee as he touched her fingers with his lips, and then rose lightly to his feet again. 'Now let us go back,' she said, 'for we have been too long away.' He led her out of the hall by another door and she found herself quite in the farthest recess of the portico and behind all the assembled company, just as the dark-haired Muse was finishing her last improvisation in an attitude of inspired wonder before the hideous bust of the Queen. At the last line of her sonnet she took the laurels from her head, and with a graceful movement that showed her nervous but well-shaped white arms to great advantage she placed the wreath upon the damp clay effigy of the great Christina's portentous wig; then, cleverly kicking the train of her long purple silk robe out of the way behind her, she backed towards the side exit, stretching out her hands and bending her body while still keeping her upturned eyes on the bust with an air of rapt adoration, like a Suppliant on an Etruscan vase. Every one applauded enthusiastically, knowing that applause was expected in payment for having been invited to such a feast of the soul; but the wise Muse paid no attention to the sounds. To the last her gaze was on the bust, even when she lifted the dark velvet curtain with one hand and backed out with a sweeping courtesy that looked very well. A good-looking young man of the people, dressed in his best Sunday clothes, was waiting for her at the head of the wooden steps. As she met his glance, she jerked her thumb backwards over her shoulder towards the stage and the Queen. 'May an apoplexy seize her,' whispered the Muse, with a strong Trastevere accent, 'her, and her friends, and all the family! You shall take me to supper on Monte Mario to-night! There we shall breathe! Bring the guitar, too. Old Nena is waiting to help me dress. No--no, I say--not here!' For the handsome young fellow had caught her just as she was beginning to descend the steps, and he planted a very substantial kiss on the nape of her neck before he let her go; which was no great harm after all, since they were to be married in a fortnight or so, before the Feast of Saint John. It was Stradella's turn after the Muse had disappeared, and while the improvisatrice was going down from the stage on one side, four liveried footmen were bringing up chairs on the other, with music-desks for the little orchestra, which immediately made its appearance. There were not more than a dozen musicians in all, and they ranged themselves in an orderly manner on each side of the laurel-crowned bust, in the order of the pitch of their instruments, the violins and flutes being in the middle, while the bass viol was at the extreme left, and the bass cornopean on the right. Next came a small chorus of eight singers, who took their places, standing behind the seated musicians; and last of all, amidst much clapping of hands, Stradella himself appeared in front, and bowed low to the Queen, standing a little on one side so as not to hide the bust from the audience. He looked very handsome as he stood there, dressed in black velvet and black silk, with a low collar of soft linen that showed his strong white throat, and having his lawn wristbands turned back over the cuffs of his coat. As he bowed Queen Christina smiled graciously, and waved her hand to him in greeting, whereupon the applause became still louder. Don Alberto had found a seat for Ortensia, and stood beside her, as the other cavaliers stood each beside the lady of his choice. Altieri thought it good policy to pose himself as Ortensia's official adorer from the first, at such a very select gathering of Roman society; for few would care to try their chances against him after that. Ortensia herself was dimly conscious that if she could keep him in his place, as she had done to-day, his admiration would protect her against other would-be worshippers. While the music lasted she never took her eyes from Stradella, whether he was turned from the audience towards his musicians to direct them, beating time in the air with a thin roll of ruled music-paper, or when he faced the audience and sung himself, to the accompaniment of only four stringed instruments. 'Admirable!' whispered Alberto, bending low to Ortensia's ear. 'It is supreme genius, nothing less!' he whispered again, as she took no notice. But Ortensia did not even hear him, and sat quite still in her chair, gazing with fixed eyes at the man she loved, and listening to his music as in the entrancement of a spell. Don Alberto looked down thoughtfully at her beautiful motionless head, though his ears were open too, for he loved music; but just then he was even more in love with the beautiful Venetian, and though he had been worsted in his first attempt, he was by no means ready to give up the siege. He was wondering what treasure could be found in all Rome that could induce Ortensia to take her eyes from her husband while he was singing or conducting his own music. But when it was finished and the applause had died away, and he had bowed and left the little stage, she could not wait a moment. 'Take me to him,' she said to Don Alberto, rising from her seat. 'He will come here himself in a few minutes,' objected Altieri. 'Take me to him,' she repeated more imperiously. 'If you will not, I shall go alone.' There was nothing for it but to obey, and Don Alberto led her quickly out of the portico to the carriage entrance at the back, then through a vaulted passage, and up a flight of half-a-dozen steps to the room to which the performers retired, and which had another exit towards the garden and the back of the stage. When Don Alberto opened the door Stradella was just within, evidently about to come away, and he started in surprise when he saw his wife enter. The other musicians were standing in groups of three and four, with their instruments in their hands, for the place was completely bare of furniture; there was not so much as a table on which to lay a fiddle or a flute, but across one corner a piece of tattered canvas had been hung to cut off a dressing-room for the improvisatrice, who had already got into her own clothes and was gone away with old Nena and the handsome young man. Stradella met his wife with a happy smile and nodded a greeting to Don Alberto, who remained in the door-way. 'Can you take me home at once?' Ortensia asked. 'Or must you go in?' Stradella saw her look of distress as he took her outstretched hand in both of his. 'I am not wanted, am I?' he asked, looking at young Altieri. 'My wife wishes to go home, you see----' 'I will make your excuses to the Queen,' Don Alberto answered readily. 'My carriage is waiting and shall take you to the palace and come back for me.' 'How kind of you!' Ortensia thought he was already beginning to fulfil his promise of friendship to her. He had, in fact, brought the couple to the Palazzo Riario in his own carriage, for there were no hackney coaches in Rome in that century, and people who owned no equipage were obliged to have themselves carried in sedan-chairs, from one end of the city to the other if necessary, unless they preferred to ride on mules or donkeys, which was not convenient in full dress. In five minutes Stradella and his wife were driving rapidly over the cobble-stones towards Ponte Sisto, and Ortensia was telling the astonished musician what had taken place between her and Don Alberto, with all he had told her about Pina, Trombin, and Gambardella. CHAPTER XVII Two days after the affair at the Palazzo Riario, Don Alberto sauntered out of his palace gate before the sun was high, and as he was merely going for a stroll to breathe the morning air he was alone. As a matter of fact, the air smelt of cabbage, broccoli, and other green things, for a hawker of vegetables had set down his three baskets at the corner of the Via del Gesù, and was bawling his cry to the whole neighbourhood at the top of his lusty voice. There had been a light shower before dawn, and the wet cobble-stones sent up a peculiar odour of their own, which mingled with that of the green stuff. Don Alberto did not like it and turned to his left, towards the Palazzo di Venezia, which was then the Venetian Embassy. Where the street narrows between the Altieri palace and the church, a serving-man in grey overtook him and spoke to him. 'Excellency,' the man said in an obsequious tone, his hat in his hand, 'I pray the favour of a word.' Don Alberto stopped in some surprise, for he had not noticed any one but the vegetable hawker in the deserted square when he had left his own door a moment earlier. 'What do you want?' he asked suspiciously, and stopping to face the man. It was Tommaso, the ex-highwayman who served the Bravi, and the expression of his eyes was not reassuring. 'Your Excellency does not remember me,' he said. 'How should the Most Illustrious remember a poor valet? I served the Bishop of Porto for seven years, and often accompanied him to the palace here when he visited His Eminence Cardinal Altieri, who is now our Most Holy Father, Pope Clement. Your Excellency was only a boy then, and once did me the honour to speak to me.' 'What did I say to you?' asked Don Alberto incredulously. 'I should not dare to repeat such a word,' answered Tommaso in a humble tone, 'but your Excellency kicked me at the same time, and with great strength for one so very young, for I tumbled downstairs.' Don Alberto's lips twitched with amusement. 'I believe I remember you by that, you scoundrel,' he said with a smile. 'And what do you want of me now? Shall I give you another kick?' 'May that never be, Excellency! I can feel the first one still!' Don Alberto laughed at the comically significant gesture that accompanied this speech, and felt in his pocket for his purse. 'I suppose you want a paul to drink my health,' he said. 'That is too much for anything so common as a kick, Excellency, and too little if you will accept my service.' 'I have servants enough,' answered Altieri, slipping his purse into his pocket again. 'But since you think a paul is too much for one kick, I shall give you a florin's worth for nothing at all if you pester me with any more nonsense. So now be off, and waste no time about it!' Tommaso suddenly drew himself up and squared his broad shoulders, which made him look rather formidable, for he was an uncommonly strong and active fellow. 'If you say the word,' he answered, dropping his obsequious manner, 'I will give Maestro Stradella's wife into your hands within a fortnight.' Don Alberto started visibly. His high-born instinct was not quite dead yet, and he slightly moved his right hand as if he would lift the ebony stick he carried; but Tommaso had one of cornel-wood and iron-shod, and he also made a very slight movement, and he was square and strong and had a jaw like a bull-dog. Don Alberto's instinctive desire to knock him down disappeared suddenly. 'And how do you propose to accomplish such an impossible feat?' asked the young noble with some contempt. 'That is my affair,' answered Tommaso quietly. 'What will you give me when I have shut the lady up safely and shall bring you the key of her prison? That is the only question, but please remember that I must risk my neck, while you will only risk your money.' 'If you think I will give you any money in hand for such a silly offer, you take me for a fool,' retorted Don Alberto. 'I ask nothing in advance. How much will you give me in cash for the lady when I hand her over to you? I am in earnest. Name your price.' 'What is yours?' 'A thousand gold florins and the Pope's pardon,' said Tommaso boldly. 'You could not buy her like in Venice, if you had your pick of the latest cargo from Georgia!' 'You shall have the pardon and a thousand in gold,' Don Alberto answered, for he was much too fine a gentleman to bargain with a cut-throat, especially as the money would come out of his uncle's strong-box. 'I do not believe that you can do what you offer; but if you succeed, how shall I hear from you?' 'On the Eve of Saint John you will find me waiting for you with two saddled mules behind the Baptistery of the Lateran, when the bells ring the first hour of the night. Bring your money and I will take you to the house and to the lady and leave you the key.' 'I would rather you should come here,' said Don Alberto, suspecting a trap. 'Bring a guard with you if you think I mean to rob you,' answered Tommaso. 'Bring a squadron of cavalry, if you like! Besides, you know that there will be thousands of people about the Lateran all night on Saint John's Eve, eating and drinking on the grass to keep the witches out of their bodies for the rest of the year!' 'That is true,' Don Alberto answered. 'I will be there.' 'But if your Excellency should accidentally see me in the meantime,' continued Tommaso, 'your Excellency had better not notice me, nor be seen to recognise me.' He had resumed his obsequious tone, and was already bowing to take his leave. 'I have one thing to tell you,' said Altieri. 'If you fail, I will have you locked up in Tor di Nona for prying into my affairs and making an infamous proposal to me, and it may be a long time before you get out.' 'At the pleasure of your Most Illustrious Excellency! I shall not make the least resistance if I fail.' 'You had better not,' returned Altieri, haughtily enough, as he turned away and left Tommaso bowing to the ground. 'Your Most Illustrious Excellency's most humble and dutiful servant!' said the man. Then he went off in the opposite direction, passed the Altieri palace, turned to his right, and in due time reached the Sign of the Bear, where his masters lodged. He found them in Trombin's room, sitting near the open window with their coats off, and eating fruit from a huge blue and yellow majolica basket that stood between them on the end of the table. There were oranges, ripe plums, and very dark red cherries in handsome profusion, and the serving-girl, who cherished a secret but hopeless admiration for Gambardella, had brought a pretty bunch of violets in a coarse Roman tumbler. Both the Bravi were of opinion that a little fruit taken in the morning was cooling to the blood in spring. Trombin had cut a hole in the top of an orange and was solemnly sucking it--a process for which his small round mouth seemed to be expressly formed--and his pink cheeks contracted and expanded like little bellows as he alternately drew in the sweet juice and took breath. Gambardella could not have sucked an orange to save his life, because his long nose was directly in the way; he ate cherries slowly, and looked like a large brown bird of prey pecking at them with his beak. 'Come in,' he said between two pecks, as some one tapped at the entrance. 'I have seen him, sirs,' Tommaso said, after shutting the door behind him. 'It is a thousand gold florins in cash, on the Eve of Saint John. I am to meet him behind the Baptistery of the Lateran at the first hour of the night and take him to the house.' 'Well done!' said Gambardella. Trombin nodded his approval, for he was still at work on his orange, and was well aware that if the contact were broken for purposes of speech before the fruit was dry, the perfection of the satisfaction would be seriously compromised. 'Tommaso,' Gambardella continued, 'I think you know Rome well. Are you aware that in the Via di Santa Sabina there is a small house which is almost always uninhabited, except in the month of October, when the owner goes there himself to see his wine made? Do you happen to remember that house?' 'No, sir,' answered the ex-highwayman, whose admiration for his employers' wide knowledge increased daily. 'But I can easily find it, for I know the road. It is a lonely place.' 'A very lonely place,' said Trombin, at last detaching himself from the shrivelled yellow shell which was all that was left of the orange. 'It is so lonely that I may say there is never any one there, and there is rarely any one within hearing after dark. No thief goes near that road at night, Tommaso, because there is never any one to rob. Most people are fools, Tommaso, and suppose that robbers lurk in lonely and unfrequented spots, where they could not possibly find a purse to cut. Therefore, as we are no fools, Tommaso, but very intelligent persons, we feel quite secure in such places. Do you fully understand my meaning, Tommaso?' 'I have practised a part of what you preach, sir,' answered Tommaso with a grin. 'No doubt. Very good, Tommaso. When you have found the house, go on some distance farther, say a hundred steps or so, and you will see a door in the wall, which evidently gives access to the vineyard. The door was painted red when I last saw it. Perhaps you will find it ajar, but if not, knock two or three times with the head of your stick, not roughly or noisily, but in a sober fashion; and then wait awhile, and if nobody comes, knock again. If you cannot get in to-day, go back to-morrow and the next day. The best time is a little before noon, when the man is not yet at dinner.' 'Or asleep,' suggested Tommaso. 'Precisely. When he lets you in, you will know him because he has a reddish beard that is turning white on the left side. He cultivates the vineyard, and the owner takes half the produce; but for a consideration the man lets the small house in the Via di Santa Sabina to persons who are fond of vineyards and solitude. The only condition is that the shutters of the windows looking on the road must not be opened, lest the owner should pass that way.' 'I understand, sir,' said Tommaso, grinning again. 'I dare say the man is deaf at night.' 'Only at night, Tommaso, but then completely so,' answered Trombin. 'You will say that a gentleman of fortune desires the use of the little house for a week, with the keys, from the twenty-first to the twenty-eighth of June.' 'At one Apostolic florin a day,' put in Gambardella. 'But you must on no account let him know our names,' said Trombin. 'You can give him two florins in hand as earnest money----' 'One is quite enough,' interrupted Gambardella. 'Be guided by your judgment, Tommaso,' said Trombin, beginning to cut a hole in another orange. 'I take you to be a sensible and economical person, but we must not lose the use of the house for the sake of a florin or two. For I dare say you have guessed what we need the house for.' 'Partly, sir, partly. No doubt I am to take the young gentleman there on the Eve of Saint John.' 'Yes, amongst other things, you will do that. But indeed, Tommaso, you yourself will be surprised at the extraordinary number of things you will do on that evening, all to your great advantage. It is not in my power to tell you everything now, my good fellow, because I am going to enjoy this orange in my usual way, by means of suction. But you shall know all in good time, all in good time, Tommaso!' Therewith Trombin opened his round eyes to their fullest extent, clapped his lips to the aperture he had cut in the peel, and grasping the fruit firmly with both hands, he began the long and delicious process of extracting the juice. 'And as you will have to receive the thousand gold ducats from Don Alberto,' said Gambardella, speaking to Tommaso, 'you will have a very substantial guarantee in hand. For though we shall never be far from you on that evening, we shall not be able to hinder you from running away and robbing us if you choose to do so.' 'What have I done to deserve such an insinuation?' asked the ex-highwayman indignantly, for he felt that his honour was assailed. 'Nothing whatever,' answered the Bravo calmly, 'and I insinuated nothing that should shock your sensibilities, my good man. The profession has two branches, to one of which we belong, while you have followed the other. We take lives, you take purses, and you should not feel any more hurt at my suggesting that you might take mine, than I should if you suggested that I might cut your throat.' 'That is true, sir.' Tommaso spoke almost humbly, for he felt that if it should occur to the Bravi to exercise their 'branch of the profession' upon him, he should have no more chance of life than a kitten amongst bloodhounds. He was strong and active, no doubt, and could use most weapons fairly well, but he had neither the endurance of his terrible masters, nor their supreme skill in fencing; as for taking them unawares, they never rested without bolting their doors, and when they walked abroad they never heard footsteps behind them without looking round, nor passed the corner of a narrow street without drawing towards the middle of the road far enough to allow room for sword-play. A poor fellow like Tommaso, who had spent his early years as valet to a churchman, would make but a poor figure against such men in a fight; he was proud enough to be allowed to help them, almost without a thought of profit, and their money would be as safe in his hands as it would be in Chigi's bank. [Illustration: '"The profession has two branches. We take lives, you take purses"'] He was ready to obey them blindly, too, which was what they wanted, for the plan they had at last decided upon was a complicated one, and would certainly miscarry if anything went wrong during the night in which it was to be carried out; on the other hand, they did not trust him enough to tell him what they meant to do, though he had to trust to their promises that Ortensia should be already a prisoner in the little house in Via di Santa Sabina when he should bring Don Alberto to the door; and he knew that, if they failed, his only chance of safety would lie in instant flight, before young Altieri could have him laid by the heels in prison. Neither the money nor the papal safe-conduct would be forthcoming until the young noble had actually seen Ortensia in the little house. After the last words he had spoken, Tommaso quietly prepared to shave Gambardella, while Trombin was finishing the second orange. He had brought hot water with him in a bright copper can, and he now proceeded to tie a large towel round Gambardella's neck, after which he made a rich lather of Spanish soap, which he conscientiously rubbed into the Bravo's hard brown cheeks and sinewy throat; last of all, he stropped his razor with the air and flourish of an accomplished barber and set to work. Trombin finished his orange and looked on. 'Did you ever cut a man's throat while you were shaving him, Tommaso?' he asked idly. 'Only once, sir,' Tommaso answered quietly, and he turned Gambardella's head a little on one side, in order to get below his jaw. 'Why did you do it?' inquired Trombin, dipping the tips of his large pink fingers into a bowl of water and carefully rinsing his lips. 'It was to save my neck, sir. The man was one of the cleverest sbirri I ever had after me, but he did not know me by sight. It was in the March of Ancona, at a small village near Fermo. He had tracked me all the way from Modena, and he came to the inn on the evening of the third day. He sent for the village barber before he had supper; but the barber was a friend of mine and was hiding me, and he let me go in his place. I told the landlord of the inn that I was the barber's new apprentice, and so I was admitted to shave the officer in his own room. You see, sir, both our horses were worn out, but his was still far better than mine, so it was safer that he should go no farther. That is the whole story, sir. I was over the frontier before morning.' Gambardella smiled while Tommaso went on shaving him, and Trombin laughed as if the jest were very good. 'It was not strictly in your branch of the profession, Tommaso,' he said, 'but under the circumstances you acted with great tact. Nevertheless, even in an extreme case, avoid shaving Don Alberto in that manner, for there is no telling what the consequences might be if he were found with his throat cut in the little house in Via di Santa Sabina!' CHAPTER XVIII Cucurullo had his own opinion of what he saw during those days, and he kept it to himself for some time, though he and Pina talked together a good deal in the evenings over their late supper, in the little room next to the kitchen. The woman had interested the hunchback from the first, and when any one roused his interest he pondered much upon that person's character and ways, and asked questions with considerable cunning. On the other hand, Pina, who was not given to exhibiting much liking for any one, seemed to have taken a fancy to her fellow-servant--either out of pity for his deformity or from natural sympathy. They treated each other with a good deal of formality, however; Cucurullo, who was a Neapolitan, addressed her as Donna Pina, as if she were a lady born, and she usually called him 'Sor Antonino,' as though he were at least a clerk or a small shop-keeper. 'Tell me,' he said, one evening when they were eating the salad left over from their masters' supper, 'what is your opinion of this young gentleman who admires our mistress?' 'What opinion can I have?' asked Pina, picking up a small leaf of lettuce on her two-pronged iron fork; for she ate delicately, and her fine manners were Cucurullo's despair. 'This is a wicked world,' he sighed, rather enigmatically. 'If you mean also that Don Alberto is one of those who make it so, I am inclined to agree with you,' Pina answered. 'I have seen other young gentlemen like him.' 'You have had great experience of high life, Donna Pina. That is the reason why I asked your opinion. This young gentleman may be like others you have known, but besides that he is very powerful in Rome, and can do what he likes with impunity. He is so much in love with our mistress that he no longer understands, as we say in the South. He has lost his senses.' 'But he has his wits left,' observed Pina sharply. 'And he owes a grudge for that scratch in the arm,' added Cucurullo thoughtfully. 'He does not know who gave it to him.' 'Therefore he means the Lady Ortensia to pay him for it.' 'Yes,' Pina answered. 'That is just like a man. Because he was hurt in serenading a lady, it must needs be her fault, and she must give satisfaction! First, he would like to carry her off to some lonely castle he must have, somewhere in the mountains, and at the end of a week, or a month, he would turn her out of doors and say it served her right because he had been wounded under her window. Yes, Sor Antonino, you may well say that I have some experience of high life!' Cucurullo heard the bitter note that rang in the last words, and he partly understood, for he had known her long enough to guess that she had a sad story of her own. 'We ought to watch the signs for the masters,' he said. 'They see nothing, hear nothing, and think of nothing but each other. One of these days the young gentleman will lay a snare and they will step into it like a pair of sparrows.' 'What can we do?' asked Pina in a dull voice. 'Whatever is fated will happen.' 'That is heresy, Donna Pina,' said Cucurullo gravely, for he was much shocked to hear a fellow-servant express such a highly unorthodox sentiment. 'It is a heresy condemned by the Fathers of the Church, and especially by Saint Thomas.' 'He never lived my life!' objected Pina with a sharp little laugh; and she poured out two fingers of sour white wine and drank it. 'If the Maestro had thought as you do when I was thrown overboard, I should have drowned,' said Cucurullo quietly. 'When did that happen?' asked Pina, interested at once. 'It was on a small vessel coming from Naples to Cività Vecchia, five years ago, after my mother died,' said Cucurullo. 'I was coming to Rome because I hoped to get some clerk's work, having had some little instruction, and the Maestro was one of the two or three passengers in the cabin. He was hardly known then, being very young, and indeed he was running away from a Neapolitan princess who was too much in love with him. Well, at first the captain was glad to have me on board, and the crew made much of me, believing that the hunchback would bring them luck and a quick passage. But we had not got as far as Gaeta when a storm came up and we were driven out to sea. It grew worse and worse for two days and nights, and our sails were torn, and other accidents happened, which I did not understand. Then the crew and the captain began to look askance at me, and I heard them say among themselves that I was the wrong kind of hunchback and had the Evil Eye; and just when it seemed as if the weather were moderating, and the sun had shone out for half an hour, the clouds in the south-west got as black as ink, and one could see the white foam driving towards us below them. Then, when the captain saw that there was no time to be lost, he ordered the men to throw me overboard, saying that I was Jonah and Judas Iscariot in one, and that nothing else could save the ship. They took me by my arms and feet and swung me twice and then threw me clean over the side; but I had already shut my eyes and was beginning to say the De profundis as well as I could. I had hardly finished the first versicle when I struck the water, and I was indeed crying unto the Lord out of the depths, for I cannot swim, and my end was clearly at hand.' 'How awful!' cried Pina in a low voice. 'I never was in greater danger,' said Cucurullo gravely, 'and my mouth was already full of salt water. But I did not say then "whatever is fated will happen," Donna Pina, for I was anxious to say the second versicle of the Psalm before I was drowned, and I tried what I could to keep my head up long enough for that. Then, just as a big wave was breaking, I saw something flying through the air, and as it was a dark thing I was afraid it was the devil coming for my soul, because my mother, blessed soul, when she was dying, had recommended me to pay three Carlini which she owed for milk, and I had wickedly forgotten it. But I have since paid it. However, it was not the devil, but Maestro Stradella, who had thrown himself into the sea, as he was, to save my life, only because he had spoken two or three times to me on the voyage. The ship was not going on fast, but though one of the sailors threw him a rope he could not catch it, for he was holding up my head and telling me not to be frightened, as well as he could amongst the waves, and not to catch hold of him, for he would save me. Then the passengers and sailors took a great board ten ells long that was on the deck, and served for landing, and they threw it over; and somehow the Maestro got me to it and we climbed upon it, while the ship was getting farther and farther away, and the black squall was coming nearer and nearer.' 'The master swims like a water-rat,' said Pina. 'I remember that night in Venice, when the Signors of the Night were after him!' 'Ah, you should have seen him in the sea, God bless him!' answered Cucurullo. 'He had the strength and the long wind of a dolphin. When the squall came upon us we held each other fast, sitting astride of the plank, for it was a very heavy one, and did not sink with us. Then came the rain. Lord, how it rained, Donna Pina! You have never seen rain like that!' 'I remember how it rained that night when the master climbed into our balcony! That was enough for me!' 'Imagine ten times that, Donna Pina. The wind had blown the plank round, so that we got the rain in our backs, but even then I had to keep my mouth shut to hinder the water from running down my throat! And it must have lasted two hours, but the sea went down like magic in that time, and there was only a long, smooth, swelling motion, and the wind came from another quarter and carried us with it. That was how we were saved.' 'The ship came back and picked you up, I suppose?' 'After the squall we did not see the ship again, though the clouds rolled away and the sun shone brightly. She went to the bottom of the sea, Donna Pina, and was never heard of again, but we drifted for many hours, half dead with cold, and were washed upon the Roman shore.' 'And what was fated, happened,' said Pina with a smile. 'For if you had not been thrown overboard you would have been drowned with the rest, Sor Antonino!' Cucurullo smiled too, very quietly, and helped Pina to the last drumstick left over from a cold chicken. 'Well, well, Donna Pina,' he said, 'that is your way of believing, I dare say, but I have told you what happened to me; and now you will understand better why I should be glad to serve the master with my life, if I might.' 'You are a good man,' said Pina in a thoughtful tone. 'If there were more like you, this would not be such a bad world as it is. What you say about Don Alberto is true, and if I could see any way of being useful in watching him I would do all I could. Are the two Venetian gentlemen who helped us in Ferrara still in Rome? I do not know what they are, and sometimes I was afraid of them, but they would be strong allies if they knew that our lady was in danger and if they were willing to help us.' 'They are still in Rome, for I saw them only to-day, going into the Gesù. They must be very devout gentlemen, for I often see them in churches, and their servant has been valet to a bishop, and understands the ceremonials perfectly. It is a pleasure to talk with him. He can tell the meaning of every vestment and of every change in a pontifical high mass, and I think he knows half the Roman Breviary by heart, and all the Psalms!' Pina was not so sure about the piety of the Bravi and their servant, and as she nibbled her last bit of bread, she looked thoughtfully across the clothless deal table at the hunchback's trusting and spiritual face. In the dramatic vicissitudes of her own youth she had not learned to put her faith in men, nor in women either; and if there had ever been a gentle and affectionate side to her strong nature, it had been trodden and tormented till it had died, leaving scarcely a memory of itself behind. As he sat on the kitchen chair, Cucurullo's head was not much above the edge of the table, and she looked down at him, meeting his sad eyes as they gazed up to hers. She liked him, and was glad that he did not know what was passing through her mind; for she foresaw trouble in the near future, and was afraid for herself. In some way she might yet be made to pay for what she had done in wreaking her vengeance on Pignaver. Cardinal Altieri might protect Stradella and Ortensia if the Senator tried to have them murdered, but if he demanded that Pina, his household servant, should be arrested and sent back to Venice to be punished for helping the runaways, who would protect her? At the mere thought she often turned very pale and bent nearly double, as if she felt bodily pain. For of all things, she feared that most. Sooner than suffer it again she would betray Ortensia into Alberto Altieri's hands, as she had almost forced her into Stradella's arms in order to be revenged on Pignaver himself. 'I have been thinking,' she said after a long pause. 'It would be well for you to go to those Venetian gentlemen and beg them to help us, if they will. You need not say that I suggested it, Sor Antonino.' 'Why should I speak of you at all, Donna Pina?' asked the hunchback, a little surprised. 'Exactly! There is no need of it, and you are very tactful. You will find out if they suspect anything, for after the affair of the serenade I am sure that they must have watched Don Alberto anxiously, to be sure that he had not found out who wounded him.' 'Perhaps I had better talk to Tommaso first. We are on very good terms, you know.' 'By all means, talk with him first.' A distant handbell tinkled, and as Pina heard it through the open door she rose to her feet, for it was Ortensia's means of calling her. Cucurullo thought over the conversation and reasoned about it with himself most of the night, and, so far as Pina was concerned, the more he reflected the farther he got from the truth. For he was grateful because she was kind to him in their daily life, and he could not possibly have believed that she was no more really attached to Ortensia than she was to the Queen of Sweden, and was even now meditating a sudden flight from Rome, which should put her beyond the reach of justice, if the law ever made search for her. In his heart he was sure that she must be as devoted to her mistress as he was to Stradella, though it was true that Ortensia had never saved her life. But Cucurullo saw good in every one, and thought it the most natural thing in the world that a faithful servant should be ready to die for his master. On the following day he lay in wait for Tommaso near the main entrance of the inn, where the Via dell' Orso meets the Via di Monte Brianzo, which then bore the name of Santa Lucia. It was long before the man appeared, and then he seemed to be in a great hurry, and did not see Cucurullo till the latter overtook him and spoke to him, for the hunchback had long legs and could walk quite as fast as any able-bodied young man. 'I have been waiting a long time in the hope of seeing you this morning,' he said. 'And now I am in such haste that I have no time to talk with you,' replied the other, going on. 'We can talk while we are walking,' suggested Cucurullo, keeping pace with him easily. 'How are the masters, Tommaso? Quite well, I hope?' 'Oh, perfectly well, thank you,' answered Tommaso, increasing his speed. 'I am sorry that I am in such a hurry, my friend, but it cannot be helped.' 'Do not mention it,' said Cucurullo, breathing quietly. 'I generally walk briskly myself.' Thereupon he quickened his stride a little. 'You certainly walk surprisingly fast,' said the ex-highwayman, who now had to make an effort himself in order to keep up with his companion. The people in the street stared at the two in surprise, for they seemed to be walking for a match, and it looked as if the hunchback were getting the better of it. 'I trust,' he said in a quiet undertone, 'that Count Trombin is in no apprehension owing to his having wounded the Pope's nephew under our windows the other night?' 'Not at all,' answered the other. 'So you saw it, did you?' 'I saw it with satisfaction, for I was at the window, and I recognised the Count's voice at once. What do you think, my friend? Will that young gentleman come serenading again?' 'How can I tell?' Tommaso was by this time a little short of breath. 'You might have heard your two gentlemen say something about it,' Cucurullo said. 'Am I walking too fast for you? You said you were in a hurry, you know.' 'Yes,' Tommaso said, rather breathlessly. 'I was--that is--I am in--in a moderate hurry!' 'My reason for going with you is that I want your valuable advice,' Cucurullo went on, still keeping up the tremendous pace without the least apparent difficulty. 'About what?' gasped the highwayman, ashamed to be beaten by a hunchback. 'Your gentlemen have already helped my master and mistress so much, that even without the Maestro's knowledge I should like to ask their protection for his wife. That is, if you approve, my friend. I want your advice, you see.' 'You will have to--to walk slower--if you--want to get it!' Tommaso was by this time puffing like a porpoise, for he was not as young as when he had been the terror of the Bologna road, and he had been living on the fat of his masters' plentiful leavings for weeks, with a very liberal allowance of the white wine of Marino. Moreover, knowing what he did of the Bravi's intentions, Cucurullo's suggestion seemed at once highly comic and extremely valuable. But Cucurullo himself, good soul, was pleased at having forced Tommaso to slacken his pace and listen to him. 'I come of my own intention, dear friend,' he said, 'because I am in constant anxiety about the Lady Ortensia. For Don Alberto is nephew to both the Popes, as they say here, and it would be an easy matter for him to carry her off into the country; the more so as she and my master are living in his own palace, and it sometimes happens that the Maestro goes out alone to a rehearsal of music, leaving only me and Pina to protect his lady, and what could we do if Don Alberto came at such a time with a band of men and simply carried the lady downstairs to his own coach and drove away with her?' 'My dear friend,' answered the other, who had now recovered his breath, 'I do not know what you could do. Am I a prophet, that you ask me riddles? The book of wisdom is buried under the statue of Pasquin, as these Romans say! If such a thing happened to me, I should consider the safety of my own skin, which is worth more to me than many other skins, even than the skins of lions for which His Holiness pays a great price, they tell me, when travellers bring them from Africa! For you might as well resist the Tiber in a flood, as try to hinder the Pope's favourite nephew from doing what he likes! Not that the Pope, or even the Cardinal, knows what he does; but he has a golden key to every door in Rome, a papal pass for every gate of the city, and a roll of blank pardons, duly signed and sealed, for any misdeed his servants may commit! What could you or I do against such a man?' Having had his haste fairly run out of his legs, Tommaso was now inclined to be talkative, though what he said led to no particular conclusion, except that it would not be safe to interfere with Don Alberto's plans. The truth was that he saw magnificent possibilities for his masters in Cucurullo's request for protection, and he had not the smallest intention of risking a mistake by answering for them, still less of discouraging Cucurullo's hope that they would protect Ortensia. Cucurullo answered a little despondently. 'I know it,' he said. 'All you say is true. And yet when I remember how your gentlemen wounded him and then drove the watch before them like sheep, and yet never so much as showed their faces, I cannot help hoping that they will do something for us.' 'Hope by all means, my dear friend, for, as you say very well, my masters are no ordinary fine gentlemen, made up of curls and lace collars, and paste buckles and satin, and drawing-room small-swords of about the size and temper of a silver hairpin! Why, most of these young dandies are no better than girls, and are not half such men as some priests I have known! Either of my masters could skewer a round dozen of them while the bells are ringing for noon, and sit down to dinner at the last stroke as cool as if I had just shaved them and smoothed their clean collars over their coats! But after all, dearest Cucurullo, they are only two, and I might bear them a hand with my cudgel, and we should be three--only three men against the whole army of the Pope, horse, foot, and artillery, besides the Swiss Guard and the five or six hundred sbirri in plain clothes whom the Cardinal maintains in the holy city! It would not be a fair fight, my friend!' Cucurullo smiled at Tommaso's voluble statement of the odds, for the hunchback was not without a certain sense of humour. 'No doubt you are right,' he said, 'but if Don Alberto tried to carry off my master's lady, he would avoid the publicity of an escort of three or four thousand men! Indeed, I doubt whether he would take more than two or three of his servants with him, for whom you three would certainly be a match.' 'A match!' cried Tommaso, suddenly indignant. 'We would make sausage meat of them! We would mince them as fine as forcemeat in five minutes! Their bones would be nothing but a cloud of dust before you could count ten! A match, indeed! My dearest friend, you do not know what you are saying!' 'I do, but you have a greater command of language than I,' answered Cucurullo quietly. 'When I said that you would be a match for them, I meant that you could destroy them in an instant.' 'I see,' said Tommaso, pacified. 'But if you think I can talk, you should hear Count Trombin! Now listen, most worthy friend. If you desire it, I will speak with my masters for you; for the truth is, they are two very noble cavaliers, and would ask nothing better than to help a lady in distress, and I will meet you where you please, and tell you what they say. Or, if you prefer to speak with them yourself, go back to the inn now, and you will find them upstairs eating their morning dish of fruit. Do as you please, but perhaps I shall be able to speak to them at a moment when they are particularly well disposed. When they have dined well, for instance, they are always in a pleasant humour. They often give me a Giulio then.' 'You will do me the greatest service, my friend,' Cucurullo said. 'Pray speak for me with your gentlemen, telling them that I came to you entirely on my own responsibility. That is important, for I would not have them think that my master would approach them through his servant, which would be beneath their dignity and unworthy of his good manners.' 'I shall be most careful,' answered Tommaso blandly. 'But listen to me again. If, for instance, my gentlemen should desire to meet your gentleman and his lady in some quiet out-of-the-way place, in order to talk over the circumstances at leisure, do you think there would be any objection?' 'Why should there be?' asked Cucurullo in surprise. 'Are they not the best of friends?' 'Indeed they are!' replied the other with alacrity. 'I wish you could hear how my masters talk of the Maestro Stradella's genius, and of his voice, and then of his noble air and manner, and of the Lady Ortensia's beauty and modest deportment! It would do your heart good, most estimable friend!' 'It is a pleasure even to hear you tell me of it,' Cucurullo answered, much delighted, for he worshipped Stradella, and thought him perfection now that he was at last properly married, and there was an end of his love-scrapes, and of carrying letters to his sweethearts, and of silk ladders and all the rest of it. 'I have not told you half,' said Tommaso readily. 'And now, as I have an important errand, and my gentlemen are waiting to be shaved, I shall say good-bye. Will it suit you to meet me this afternoon about twenty-three o'clock, at the Montefiascone wine-cellar in the Via dei Pastini? It is a quiet place, and there is a light white wine there which is cooling in this warm weather.' 'I will be there,' Cucurullo answered with a friendly nod by way of taking leave. Though they had slackened their pace to an ordinary walk that suited Tommaso's breathing powers, they had covered a good deal of ground in the five or six minutes during which they had been talking, and they were close to the Church of the Minerva, not far from the Altieri palace. As it was quite clear that Tommaso wished to go on his errand alone, Cucurullo turned into a narrow street when he left him, and walked slowly, picking his way over the uneven pavement. It was an unsavoury lane, that ran between tall houses, from the windows of which everything that was objectionable indoors was thrown out; and as His Eminence the Cardinal Vicar's sweepers were only supposed to pass that way once a week, on Thursdays, and sometimes forgot about it, the accumulations of dirt were pestiferous. Rome in those days was what all Naples was twenty years ago, and still is, in parts; it was full of the most astounding extremes of splendour and incredible poverty, of perfect cleanliness and abominable filth, and the contrast between the stringency of the law and the laxity of its execution was often not less surprising. Under the statutes, a man could be punished with torture and the galleys for owning a dark lantern, for carrying a pointed knife in his pocket, or for wearing a sword without leave; but, as a matter of fact, the detailed manuscript accounts of scores of crimes committed in Rome in the seventeenth century, and later, show that almost every one went armed, that any one who could dress like a gentleman wore a rapier when he pleased, and that dark lanterns were commonly used in defiance of the watch, the sbirri in plain clothes, the Bargello who commanded both, and the Governor who was his only superior in matters relating to public order. I have digressed a little, both to explain the affair of the serenade under the Altieri palace, and to prepare my readers for what followed, and especially for the lawless doings of Trombin, Gambardella, and Don Alberto, which came to a climax during the night of Saint John's Eve, in spite of the many admirable regulations about lanterns and weapons which should have made the city a paradise of safety for unprotected females. But, after all, progress has not done much for us since then, for the cities are always growing faster than the police possibly can, so that it is in the very greatest capitals that the most daring crimes are committed with apparent impunity in our own time. Cucurullo picked his way through the dirty side street, and was just emerging into a broader and cleaner one, when some one overtook him and tapped him on his hump, though he had not noticed the sound of footsteps behind him. He stopped, and saw a man in dusty and shabby black clothes, whom he took for a sbirro. 'Good-morning, Master Alessandro,' said the man with some politeness. 'That is my master's name,' answered Cucurullo, 'not mine, and he is not deformed. Therefore, if you are jesting with me, I beg you to pass on in peace.' 'Your pardon, sir,' the man said, lifting his hat, 'have I not the honour of addressing Signor Alessandro Guidi, the poet, for whom I have a message from Her Majesty the Queen of Sweden, whose servant I am?' 'No,' replied the other, pacified at being taken for the misshapen bard. 'I am only a servant like yourself, and my name is Cucurullo.' The man seemed reassured and much amused, for he was a Piedmontese. 'Cuckoo-rulloo-cuckoo what?' he asked, laughing. 'I did not catch the rest!' Cucurullo fixed his unwinking blue eyes on the speaker's face with a displeased expression, and after a moment the man turned pale and began to tremble, for he saw that he had given grave offence, and to rouse the anger of a hunchback, especially in the morning, might bring accident, ruin, and perhaps sudden death before sunset. He shook all over, and the blue eyes never winked, and seemed to grow more and more angry till they positively blazed with wrath, and, at last, the fellow uttered a cry of abject fright and turned and ran up the dirty street at the top of his speed. But Cucurullo went quietly on his way, smiling with a little satisfaction; for, after all, it was something to command kindness and hospitality, or inspire mortal terror, by the deformity that afflicted him. Possibly, too, in his humble heart he was pleased at having been taken for such a social personage as a scholar and a man of letters; for he had always been very careful to keep himself very clean and neat, and if he had any vanity it was that no one could ever detect a spot on his clothes. For instance, he always carried with him a little piece of brown cotton, folded like a handkerchief, which he spread upon the pavement in church before he knelt down, lest the knees of his breeches should be soiled, and he treasured a pair of old goatskin gloves which he had bought at a pawnshop in Venice, and which he put on when he cleaned his master's boots or did any other dirty work. After he had parted from Tommaso, the latter went about his business, though not in breathless haste. His errand, as he had called it, took him amongst the dealers in coaches, new and second-hand, who had their warehouses near the Massimo palace and in the neighbourhood of Saint Mark's, and in other regions near by, from which the public conveyances started and where private carriages could be bought or hired. The Bravi, who were practical men, judged that a former highway robber should be a good judge of such vehicles, and had commissioned Tommaso, who had stopped and plundered hundreds of them on the Bologna road, to find one that would suit their purpose. It was to be perfectly sound, not large, comfortably cushioned and provided with solid shutters to draw up outside the windows. There were to be good locks to the doors, with keyholes inside and out, and a boot for luggage, also provided with a safe fastening. It was no easy matter to find exactly what the Bravi wanted, without paying a high price for a perfectly new carriage, and it was a prime necessity that the one Tommaso was to buy for them should be able to stand a rather unusual journey without once breaking down. They also needed good horses of their own, for there were several reasons why they could not hire a team from the post for the start, and they meant to trust to luck for exchanging or selling theirs at the end of the first stage. Tommaso was a capital judge of horseflesh, as they had found out on the journey from Venice, and they confidently left the whole matter in his hands while they occupied themselves with graver affairs, or sought relaxation in the pleasures which the city afforded. CHAPTER XIX Ortensia had told her husband everything that had passed between her and Don Alberto, and Stradella's first instinct was to seek him out, insult him, and force him into a duel. Ortensia saw the big vein swelling ominously in the middle of the white forehead, the tightening of the lips, and the unconscious movement of the fingers that closed upon an imaginary sword-hilt; she saw all this and was pleased, as every woman is when the man she loves is roused and wants to fight for her. But Ortensia did not mean that there should be any bloodshed, and she soothed her husband and made him promise that he would only watch over her more jealously than ever, and make it impossible for Don Alberto ever to be left alone with her again. If he would promise that, she said, she should feel quite safe. He promised reluctantly, but said that he would not stay under Altieri's roof another day; he would not owe such an obligation to a man who had attacked his honour, he would not tolerate the thought that his wife was actually dwelling in the house of the wretch against whom she asked his protection. But Ortensia besought him to do nothing hurriedly, lest he should cause a scandal which would do more harm to her good name than Don Alberto's foolish declarations, which could be kept a secret. [Illustration: 'He began to look about for lodgings'] Stradella yielded to her entreaties at first, for he saw that there was some sense in what she said; but his pride could not bear such a situation long, and with every day that passed he became more anxious to leave the palace. He began to look about for lodgings when he went out alone in the morning, and he saw more than one that would have suited him; but none of them would be free until the Feast of Saint John, which was then the quarter-day in Rome, on which leases began and expired. He wanted a dwelling with a hall large enough for rehearsing with his orchestra, and having a loggia looking towards the south, like the one at the Orso inn. And now it happened, on that same morning when Cucurullo went to find Tommaso, that Stradella himself had gone out to see another house of which he had heard; and Don Alberto, who was well informed of the movements of the little household, judged the moment favourable for visiting Ortensia, since he had observed that Stradella was usually away at least an hour, and often much longer, when he went out early; and if Cucurullo should return sooner, it would not matter. Ten minutes after the hunchback had left the palace Don Alberto knocked at the door of the small apartment halfway down the grand staircase. Pina opened almost immediately, not suspecting anything, but started in surprise when she saw who the visitor was. 'I desire to speak with the Lady Ortensia,' said Don Alberto suavely. 'The master is gone out,' Pina answered, 'and my mistress would never receive a gentleman's visit alone, sir.' 'The matter is urgent and concerns the Maestro,' Don Alberto explained, and at the same time he made the gold pieces in his pocket jingle, as if quite accidentally. 'The Maestro will be at home in two hours,' said Pina firmly, and making as if she would shut the door. 'I am too busy to wait so long,' objected the young man. 'My dear good woman, do you know who I am?' 'Perfectly, sir. You are Don Alberto Altieri, His Eminence's nephew.' 'Well, then, you need not make so much trouble about letting me in, my dear, for this is my own house, and a lady may surely see her landlord on a matter of business!' Thereupon he took out a gold florin and tried to put it into Pina's palm in a coaxing way and with a smile. But she shut her hand quickly and held it behind her back, shaking her head. Don Alberto was not used to servants who refused gold. He tried flattery. 'Really,' he cried, 'for a girl with such a sweet face, you are very obstinate! If you will not take an Apostolic florin, I will give you the Apostolic kiss, my dear!' He tried to kiss her, trusting that a middle-aged serving-woman could not resist the Pope's nephew when he called her a sweet-faced girl. But she kept him at arm's length with surprising energy. 'You are mistaken,' she said in a low voice, lest Ortensia should hear her within; 'I am neither young, nor pretty, nor quite a fool!' Don Alberto suddenly seized her wrist unawares and held it fast. 'No,' he answered, 'you are not a fool, but you are Filippina Landi, a runaway nun, and though you once got a pardon, you are in Rome now, and I can have it revoked in an hour, and you will be lodged in the Convent of Penitent Women before night, to undergo penance for the rest of your life.' Pina shivered from head to foot and turned very pale. He dropped her wrist, and, as if she were overcome by an invisible power, she stood aside, hanging her head, and let him pass in. For more than a minute after he had disappeared, she stood leaning against the marble door-post, pressing her left hand to her heart and breathing hard. Don Alberto knew the small apartment well, for he had once lived in it with his tutor, before the Cardinal had left the palace to take up his quarters in the Quirinal. He went directly to the large sitting-room, from the windows of which Ortensia and Stradella had listened to the serenade and had seen the fighting; he tapped at the door, and Ortensia's voice bade him enter. She was seated in one of those wooden chairs with arms and a high flat leathern back, which one often sees in Rome even now, chiefly in outer reception-halls and ranged in stiff order against the walls. The shutters were drawn near together to keep out the heat and to darken the room a little. She had a lute on her knees, but her hands held a large sheet of music, from which she had been reading over the words of the song before trying it. She did not look up as the door opened and was shut, for she supposed it must be Cucurullo who had come to ask a question. Don Alberto stood still a few seconds in silent admiration. She had evidently been washing her hair, for it was loose and was combed out over her shoulders in red-auburn waves; and the shorter locks at her temples and round her forehead floated out in little clouds full of rich but transparent colour. The morning was warm, and she was still clad in a loose dressing-gown of thin white silk trimmed with a simple lace. Never, in many misspent days, had Altieri seen a more radiant vision. When she had read all the words of the song, she laid the sheet on the table beside her, and spoke without looking round, for, as her chair was placed, the door was a little behind her, and she was sure that it was Cucurullo who had entered, since she had not heard the slight sound of Pina's cotton skirt. 'What is it?' she asked quietly. 'A thief, dear lady,' answered Don Alberto, smiling; 'one who has forced your door to steal a sight of you----' At the first word she had risen, turning towards him as she rose, and laying the lute on the table at her left, which was between her and the door. 'How dare you come here?' she cried, indignantly interrupting his pretty speech. 'I dare everything and--nothing,' he answered; 'everything for the happiness of seeing you and hearing your voice, but nothing else that can displease you! See, I do not move a step, I stand here your prisoner on parole, for I give you my word that I will not run away! I will stand here like a statue, or kneel if you bid me, or lie prostrate at your feet!' 'I bid you go, sir! I bid you leave me, for you have no right to be here!' 'No right? I have the right to live, sweet lady! The meanest creature has that.' 'I do not bid you die,' Ortensia answered with some contempt. 'I only tell you to go!' 'And so to die most painfully, for I cannot live without seeing you! Therefore I will do anything but go away before my eyes have fed me full of you and I can bear another day's fasting!' 'Then, sir,' said Ortensia proudly, 'it is I that will leave you; and if you mean in earnest not to displease me, you will not stay here.' She made two steps towards the door of her own room, before he moved; then he sprang nimbly forward and placed himself in front of her, at a little distance. 'I ask nothing but a kind word,' he said earnestly, 'or if you will not speak it, give me one thought of pity, and I shall see it in your eyes! You love your husband, and I respect your love--I admire you the more for it, upon my soul and honour I do! Did I not promise to be a true friend to you both? Have I broken my promise because I am here now, only to see your dear face for a few moments and bear away your image to cheer my lonely life?' 'Your lonely life!' Ortensia smiled, though scornfully enough. 'Yes, my lonely life,' he answered, repeating the words with grave emphasis. 'What would yours be, pray, if you were forced to be for ever a central figure amongst men and women who wearied you with adulation and never ceased from flattering except to ask favours for themselves and their relatives? And if, with that, you loved Stradella as you do, and he was another woman's husband and would not even look at you, nor let you hear his voice, would your existence not be lonely, I ask? In the desert of your life, would you not hide yourself in the hermitage of your heart, with the image of the man you loved upon your only altar? Would you not feel alone all day, and lonelier still all night, though the whole world pressed upon you, even at your rising and your lying down, to call you beautiful and gifted beyond compare, and a divine being on earth, and in return to beg a benefice for a graceless younger son, or a curacy for a starving cousin of a priest, or the privilege of providing the oil for the lamps in the Vatican? That is my life, if you call it a life! It is all I have, except my love for you--my honouring, respecting, venerating love!' He spoke his words well, with changing tone and moving accent, but the one great gift he had received from nature was his wonderful and undefinable charm of manner; and surely of all marketable commodities, from gold and silver coin to coloured beads and cowry shells, there is none that can be so readily exchanged for almost anything in the world its possessor wants. Ortensia felt it in spite of herself, and while she was not touched by his attempts at eloquence, she was more inclined to laugh than to be angry at what he said. There was something in him and in his way that disarmed and made it almost impossible not to forgive him anything in reason. 'If my husband were only here,' Ortensia said, 'this would be as amusing as a comedy, but a lady cannot go to the play alone. Will you wait till he comes home? Then we will listen to you together, and you will get twice as much applause, for it is really very good acting, I must admit!' A professional love-maker always knows when to stop being serious during the early stages of the game, and when to leave off laughing later on; for there is nothing so sure to weary and irritate an average woman as perpetual seriousness at first, when she has not yet made up her mind and perhaps never may, nor is there anything more ruinous than to jest about love when she herself feels it and bestows it. The reason of this must be that if you are too grave while she is still undetermined, she will believe that you are taking her love for granted, which is an unpardonable sin, whereas after she has unfolded her heart and given you the most precious part of herself, she trembles at the merest suggestion that you may not be in earnest. Don Alberto was a professional love-maker, and at Ortensia's last speech he laughed so readily and naturally that she could not help joining him. 'The truth is,' he said presently, 'the Queen is going to have a little comedy performed by her friends, and I have been giving you some bits from my part. If you really think I do it well, I will wait for the Maestro, as you say, and he shall hear it too, for his opinion is valuable.' 'If you had told me the other day at the palace that you were only rehearsing, it would have been better,' Ortensia said, still smiling. 'No,' answered the young man, 'for I can only judge of my own acting when it carries so much conviction with it that it is mistaken for truth. Is that not sound reason?' 'Sound reason, but poor compliment, sir! In future, pray choose some one else for your experiments. I have heard a Latin proverb quoted which says that the experiment should be made on a body of small value! You hold me cheap, sir, since you try your experiments on me.' 'I hold you dearer than you guess,' answered Don Alberto gaily. 'But I am no match for you in argument. Giovanni Fiorentino tells the story of a lady who played lawyer to defend her lover against a money-lender to whom he had promised a pound of his flesh if he failed to pay. I think you must be of her family, and a Doctor in Law!' 'If I have won my case against you,' retorted Ortensia, 'there is nothing left for you but to retire from the court, acknowledging that you are beaten.' 'Beaten as a lawyer, but successful as an actor,' laughed Altieri, 'and a good friend at your service, as ever. Will you give me your hand, lady?' 'What for, sir? I was sorry I did, the other day. I should have boxed your ears instead!' 'Do it now!' With a careless laugh he dropped on his knees, just at her feet, folding his hands like a penitent; and laughing too, in spite of herself, she lightly tapped his left ear. He instantly turned the other towards her. 'Remember the gospel,' he said. '"If thine enemy smite thee on one cheek----"' Again she laughed, but she would not touch him a second time, and she turned away. He sprang to his feet, and there was a flash of light in his eyes, and his hands trembled; for he was behind her, and the temptation to catch her in his arms was almost too strong for him. At that moment the door opened without any warning knock. 'The master is coming up the stairs,' said Pina quietly, and instantly she disappeared again. Don Alberto started, but Ortensia was calm. 'Stay here and say you have come to see him,' she said, and before he could answer she was in her own room and the door was shut. Don Alberto was himself again in a moment, for no experienced woman of the world could have done the right thing with more instant decision than Ortensia had shown. He understood, too, that he had so thoroughly frightened the wretched Pina that she was henceforth his slave, on whom he could count as safely as Stradella had depended on her in Venice. With the instinct of an old hand he glanced quickly round the room to see that no object had been displaced in a way to excite suspicion, and he then sat down in a straight chair, folded one knee over the other, and waited for Stradella's coming. The musician entered a few moments later and stared in surprise as Don Alberto rose to meet him with outstretched hand and a friendly smile. 'Your servant told me that you would not be back for some time,' said Altieri, 'but I insisted on coming in. Pray forgive the intrusion, for the matter is very urgent.' Stradella had taken his hand rather coolly, but he did not mean his visitor to see that he was displeased, and he now politely pushed a chair forward, and took another himself. 'I am glad to find you here,' he said, 'for I also wished to see you in order to thank you once more for the use of this apartment.' 'But you are not going away?' cried Don Alberto in astonishment. 'Not from Rome. But I have at last found a dwelling which will just suit us, and we mean to move on Saint John's Day.' 'On Saint John's Day!' repeated Don Alberto, with still more evident surprise. 'Really! Indeed! I assure you that I did not expect this, my dear Maestro, and I am almost inclined to think it a breach of friendship. Are you not well lodged here? Are the rooms too small for you and your lady? Or do you find them hot, or noisy? I do not understand.' 'Pray put it down to an artist's foolish love of independence,' Stradella answered with suavity. 'It is one thing for you rich nobles to accept favours from each other; you can return them; but we poor musicians cannot, and so we set a limit to what we think we may fairly receive.' 'You give what we never can,' objected Don Alberto, 'for you give us your genius and its works, and I suspect you have some reason hidden away of which you do not care to speak. I can only tell you how sorry I am that you should leave this house, where I had hoped you would live whenever you came to Rome, and where you will always be welcome if you wish to return.' 'It is impossible to be more courteous, and I wish I could express my gratitude as well as you have worded your most kind invitation.' The musician bowed rather formally from his chair as he spoke, but Don Alberto was not pleased. 'Come, come, my dear Stradella,' he said familiarly, 'one would take us for a couple of courtiers making compliments at each other. We used to be good friends and comrades a year ago. Have you forgotten that carnival season, and how we supped together on ten consecutive nights in ten different eating-houses, with those two charming ladies from Genoa? Ah, my dear fellow, how you have changed! But you were not married then!' 'And never thought I should be! But I am not as much changed as you think, and I dare say you will soon come to find it out. You spoke of some urgent business that brings you here----' 'Yes. It is an important affair for you. His Holiness wishes you to compose a high mass for Saint Peter's Day, for the united choirs of the Sistine Chapel and Saint Peter's.' 'But the feast is on the twenty-ninth of this month!' cried Stradella in surprise. 'The time is much too short! Less than three weeks for composing such a work! I cannot possibly undertake to turn out anything worthy in that time!' 'I give you the message as my uncle the Cardinal gave it to me,' Don Alberto answered with assurance, though he had invented the commission on the spur of the moment, quite sure that he could easily make it a genuine order, though it would never be executed if his own plans for carrying off Ortensia on Saint John's Eve succeeded. 'May I have a day in which to consider my answer?' asked the musician. 'If you like. But you will only lose twenty-four hours, since you will have to do what the Pope asks! A commission from the Sovereign is a command, you know. Besides, you must have a great many scraps of compositions and odds and ends of masses among your papers, a part of a _Credo_ here, an _Agnus Dei_ there--things you can string together and finish in a few days. The only part that must be new will be the Offertory for the day, unless you happen to have that too.' 'But the whole can never be harmonious if I do it in that way----' 'What has that to do with it, my dear friend?' asked Don Alberto. 'What has conscience to do with art, pray? If you do the work the Pope will be pleased, and you will be several hundred crowns the richer; but if you refuse to do it, His Holiness will be angry with you and the Cardinal, and the Cardinal will make you and me pay for the reproof he will receive! As for the music, nothing you write can be bad, because you have real genius, and the worst that any one may say will be that your mass for Saint Peter's Day is not your very best work. Therefore, in my opinion, you have no choice, and it is quite useless for you to take a whole day to consider the matter.' 'I suppose you are right,' Stradella answered. He was not suspicious enough to guess that it was all an invention of Don Alberto's, and the latter had a very persuasive way with him. 'And now that it is all settled,' Altieri said pleasantly, 'I will take my leave. For during the next three weeks your own time will be more valuable than my company! My duty and homage to the Lady Ortensia, and good-bye; and if you will change your mind and stay here, I shall be much more in your debt than you in mine.' 'Thank you,' answered Stradella, rising to show him out. When Ortensia had hurriedly left the room her intention had been to prevent any immediate trouble, but not to hide what had happened from her husband for more than a day or two. She was even more angry with Pina than with Don Alberto himself, for she could not but believe that the nurse had taken a bribe to admit him, and had then acted as if her mistress were in love with him, or at least willing to receive him alone in a toilet that could only imply great intimacy. The woman's sudden appearance and her face at the door recalled too well how she had come back suddenly, on the day of the last lesson in Venice, to warn the pair that Pignaver was near, and Ortensia could not bear to think that she could ever have been caught with young Altieri in such a situation as to make the warning positively necessary for her own safety. Indeed, she was so much ashamed of it now that she blushed scarlet, though she was alone, and wondered how she could possibly tell Stradella what had happened. He found her sitting before her mirror near the window, and from her chair she could see the reflection of the door through which she had entered. When the handle turned she put up her hands and pretended to be arranging her hair, and in the mirror she saw her husband's face and understood that he was not angry, though he was by no means pleased. He came behind her, kissed her hair and then her forehead, as she bent her head backwards to look up into his face. 'Don Alberto has been here,' he said. 'Yes?' The interrogation in her tone might mean anything, and denied nothing. 'He came to tell me that the Pope wishes me to write a solemn mass for the feast of Saint Peter, on the twenty-ninth, and of course I was obliged to agree to do it. But Pina should not have let him in. Do you think she would take money? After what he told you about her I cannot help trusting her less.' 'Do you believe that what he told me is true?' 'It agrees well enough with what she said when she came to see me in Venice,' Stradella answered. 'Do you remember? Or did I never tell you? She made it a condition of our flight that we should take her with us, because, if she were left behind, your uncle would have her tortured, and she said she could bear anything but that. She said it in a way that made me sure she had already suffered the question, as Don Alberto has now told you is really the case.' 'It all agrees very well together,' Ortensia announced, shaking her head. 'Poor Pina! Perhaps Don Alberto threatened her, for I suppose he has power to do anything he pleases here in Rome.' 'I will go and ask her,' Stradella said. 'That is the simplest way.' 'No! Please----' Ortensia showed such signs of distress that her husband was surprised. 'Why not? Do you think it would be unfair, or would hurt her feelings? Then call her here, and ask her yourself before me. She will probably confess the truth.' 'She would be more likely to conceal it, since you have not the power to use threats!' 'Possibly, but I doubt it. The woman is a coward, and if you speak sharply she will be frightened. I do not like to think that when I am out of the house and my man is out too, anybody may get in. You are not safe in such conditions. Any ruffian who knew her story could force his way to you! No, no, love--we must speak to her at once!' He was already going towards the door, but Ortensia rose quickly and overtook him before he could go out, catching him by the hand and holding him back. 'You must hear me first,' she cried in great anxiety, leading him to a seat beside her. He had followed her without resistance, too much surprised to object. If any reason for her action suggested itself it was that she wished to spare Pina's feelings, probably out of affection for the nurse. But Ortensia took one of his hands and pressed it against her eyes as she began to speak, for she thought she had done something very wicked in concealing from him that she had really seen Don Alberto. 'I do not know why Pina let him in,' she said in a low voice, as if making a confession, 'but he found me there, in the next room, and he had come on purpose to see me, and not you.' She went on and told Stradella everything she could remember, which, indeed, was most of the conversation, including Don Alberto's jesting pretence that he had been acting. 'I did not want to make trouble,' Ortensia concluded tearfully. 'I meant to tell you to-morrow--are you very angry? You can call Pina now, if you like----' Stradella had risen and was pacing the room, evidently in no very gentle temper, though he was far too just to blame his wife for what had happened. After a few moments Ortensia rose and went to him, and as he stopped she laid her hands upon his shoulders, looking up into his eyes. 'You are angry with me,' she said very sorrowfully. 'I did the best I could. He would not go away.' Instantly he took her in his arms, lifted her clear of the floor, and kissed her passionately, again and again; and at the very first touch of his lips she understood, though she could almost feel his anger against Altieri throbbing in the hands that held her. 'I have borne enough from that man,' he said, letting her stand on her feet again, and he slipped his right arm round her waist, and made her walk up and down with him. 'He will take no answer from you, he forces himself upon you when you are alone, he thinks that because he is the Pope's nephew no one dares to face him and say him nay!' He was very angry, and at each phrase his hand unconsciously tightened its hold on Ortensia's waist, as if to emphasise what he was saying; and though he said little enough, she felt that his blood was up, and that it would be ill for Don Alberto to meet him in his present mood. A Tuscan would have dissolved his temper in a torrent of useless blasphemy, as Tuscans generally do, a Roman would have roared out fearful threats, a Neapolitan would have talked of the knife with many gestures; the Sicilian did not raise his voice, though it shook a little, and he only said he had borne enough, but if his enemy had appeared at that moment he would have killed him with his hands, and Ortensia understood him. 'You must think of me too,' she pleaded wisely. 'If you make him fight you, one of two things will happen: either you will kill him, and then no power can save you from the Pope's vengeance, or else he will kill you--for you will not yield till you are dead!--and I shall have to take my own wretched life to save myself from him!' 'God forbid!' cried Stradella in a troubled voice, and pressing her to his side again. 'To think that I imagined we should be safer in Rome than anywhere else! I suppose you are right, sweetheart. If any harm befalls me there is no hope for you. But what am I to do? Can I take you with me each time I am obliged to go out about my business? And if not, where can I find any one whom I can trust to watch over you? As for Don Alberto, it is easy to speak moderately when he is away, but if I meet him and talk with him----' He stopped short, unwilling to let his anger waste itself in words. 'Trust no one, love,' said Ortensia softly. 'Take me with you everywhere. I shall be far happier if you never let me be out of your sight an hour--far more happy, and altogether safe!' 'But I cannot take you up into the organ loft when I sing, or conduct music in church! You cannot go with me behind the lattice of the Sistine choir! On Saint John's Eve, for instance, at the Lateran, I shall have to be at least two hours with the singers and musicians. Who will take care of you?' 'Surely,' objected Ortensia, 'you can trust your own man. Let him stand beside me while I sit on the pedestal of the pillar nearest to the organ, where you can see me. Or ask our two mysterious friends to guard me, for they would overmatch a dozen of Don Alberto's sort!' She laughed, though with a slight effort; but she saw that he was inclining to the side of discretion, at least for the present. 'And if worse comes to the worst,' she added, 'we must leave Rome and live in the South, in your own country. I have always longed to go there.' 'Even to starve with me, love?' Stradella smiled. 'It is not in Naples that I shall be offered three or four hundred crowns for writing a mass! Thirty or forty will be nearer the price! Instead of living in a palace we shall take up our quarters in some poor little house over the sea, at Mergellina or Posilippo, with three rooms, a kitchen, and a pigsty at the back, and we shall eat macaroni and fried cuttle-fish every day, with an orange for dessert, and a drive in a curricolo on Sunday afternoons! How will that suit the delicate tastes of the Lady Ortensia Grimani?' 'It sounds delicious,' Ortensia said, rubbing her cheek against his coat. 'I delight in macaroni and oranges as it is, and I can think of nothing I should like better than to have you to myself in a little house with three rooms looking over the sea! We will give Pina a present and send her away, and Cucurullo shall cook for us. I am sure he can, and very well, and why should I need a maid? Let us go, Alessandro; promise that we shall! When can we start?' 'Not till after Saint Peter's Day, at all events since I have that mass to finish and conduct,' Stradella answered, humouring her. 'But it is impossible,' he added, almost at once. 'You could not live in that way, and I have no right to let you try it.' 'We shall be happier than we ever were before!' 'For a few days, perhaps. But the plain truth is, that I am only a poor artist, and all I have saved is a matter of a thousand crowns in Chigi's bank. I must earn money for us both, and there is no place where I can earn as much as I can here, under the patronage of the Pope----' '--and his nephews,' said Ortensia, completing the sentence as he hesitated; 'and one of those nephews is Don Alberto Altieri, who pays himself for his patronage by forcing himself upon my privacy when you are gone out! That is the short of a very long story!' Stradella stood still, struck by what she said, and he looked into her eyes; they met his a little timidly, for she feared that she had hurt him. 'You are right,' he said. 'I will go at once to the Cardinal himself, and say that I cannot undertake to write the mass for the Pope. Instead of taking a new lodging, we will leave Rome on the feast of Saint John.' CHAPTER XX The following days passed quietly, and Don Alberto did not again attempt to see Ortensia alone. He was, indeed, much occupied with more urgent affairs, for Queen Christina had noticed the signs of his approaching defection and was becoming daily more exigent. On his side, young Altieri only desired to be dismissed, and instead of submitting to her despotic commands in a spirit of contrition, he cleverly managed to obey them with a sort of superior indifference that irritated her to the verge of fury. She wreaked her temper on every one who came near her, and so far forgot her royal dignity as to box the ears of poor Guidi, the deformed poet, for pointing out a grammatical mistake in some Italian verses she had composed. But he would not bear the indignity of a blow, even from her royal hand, and on that same night he packed his manuscripts and his few belongings and left Rome to seek his fortune where he might. The ex-Queen had Rome searched for him the very next day by a score of her servants, and it was one of her grooms who had mistaken Cucurullo for Guidi, because he hardly knew the poet by sight, and thought that hunchbacks were all very much alike. Don Alberto had not neglected to speak to the Cardinal about Stradella's mass, nor was he surprised at the careless way in which His Eminence acquiesced to the proposal and agreed that the composer should receive a handsome fee. The young man did not notice that his uncle's thin lips twitched a little, as if with amusement. The truth was that Stradella had come to him before Don Alberto, and had explained that it was materially impossible to do what His Eminence had so kindly proposed through his nephew. The Cardinal was well aware of the latter's passion for the musician's wife, and was not at all inclined to encourage it, judging that there was more political advantage to be gained by his young kinsman's continued intimacy with the ex-Queen than by a love-affair with Ortensia. For Christina was almost always engaged in some intrigue, if not in actual conspiracy, and though her dealings of this kind were as futile as her whole life had been, it was as well that the Papal Government should know what she was really about. A week before the Feast of Saint John, Ortensia was already packing her own and Stradella's belongings for the journey to Naples. Though she and Pina had left Venice with no baggage but a piece of white Spanish soap, a comb, and a little yellow leather work-case, Ortensia now had enough linen and gowns, and laces and ribbons, to fill two respectable trunks, and Pina was well provided with all that a serving-woman needed in the way of clothes. Nothing had yet been said between the nurse and her mistress about Don Alberto's last visit, but an explanation was inevitable. One day Pina asked if she might have a small box or a valise for her own things. 'We shall not want you in Naples,' said Ortensia quietly. 'You shall have your wages from the day when my uncle last paid you, and a present of ten gold florins for your long service; but I shall not want you any more.' She had been folding some delicate laces while she spoke, and she did not look up till she heard a little choking cry from the nurse. Pina stood grasping the back of a chair to keep herself from falling, and her face was grey. 'Good heavens!' cried Ortensia. 'Are you ill? What is the matter with you?' Pina could hardly speak; she slowly moved her bent head from side to side as if in an agony of pain. 'It is death!' she moaned. 'You are sending me to die!' Ortensia went to her and took her by the arm energetically, as if to rouse her. 'This is absurd!' she cried. 'I know what you said to my husband before we fled from Venice, and it is of no use to pretend that you are going to die of grief if you leave me!' But Pina only shook her head, and would not look up. 'And as for having been so very faithful,' Ortensia went on, in a tone of displeasure, 'it was only the other day that you took money from Don Alberto to let him see me when my husband was out and I was alone! Do not deny it!' Pina looked up now, with something of a born lady's pride in her eyes and tone. 'I never took a bribe in my life!' she cried indignantly. 'Don Alberto threatened to have me arrested and put to the question, and I was afraid, and let him in. Yes, I was afraid. I am a coward, for I have felt pain. That was done to me once, to make me confess, and more too!' She held out her broken thumb, and her hand shook; and Ortensia shuddered as she looked at it. 'He threatened to have my pardon cancelled, and to have me tortured again, and then sent to the Convent of Penitent Women for life! Do not be hard on me, for I was in one of those places of penance for three weeks before your uncle got me a pardon and took me to his house to be your nurse. Don Alberto frightened me--I was weak, cowardly--I let him in!' 'Poor Pina! Then it is all true? He told me your story, but I did not believe him.' 'It is all true. It was to be revenged on the Senator that I wanted you to run away. But even so, I have helped you to be happy, for I know you are. For the happiness you have had through me, forgive me! Do not leave me here at Don Alberto's mercy, for the sake of Heaven! He means to carry you off, I am sure he does; and if you escape him, he will visit it all on me!' Her hands strained on the back of the chair till the knuckles whitened with the effort, while her body quivered as if she had been struck. Ortensia understood that she had told the truth, and that the mere thought of physical pain almost drove her mad. 'I will take you with me to Naples,' Ortensia said. 'You will be safe there. I am sorry for you; but how can I trust a woman who is so easily frightened?' 'Easily!' groaned Pina. 'You do not know what it is!' But she took her mistress's hand and kissed it gratefully, with many tearful blessings. 'I must confess something else,' she said presently, 'though it is Cucurullo's business as well as mine. We have been so much afraid that Don Alberto would try to carry you off by some daring stroke that Cucurullo has secretly asked help of the two Venetian gentlemen, who are still here, and they have promised to watch over you and protect you as far as they can, even at the risk of their lives.' 'Cucurullo should not have gone to them without asking his master's consent,' said Ortensia, not altogether pleased. 'Do you know what Don Alberto told me? He said that Count Trombin and Count Gambardella are Bravi, the most famous in Italy!' 'It is not possible,' replied Pina, shaking her head. 'I do not believe it!' 'Don Alberto told me the truth about you, it seems,' Ortensia said rather coldly. 'Why should he have invented a story about the other two who signed the marriage register as witnesses? And besides, if he meant to carry me off by force, would he not very likely employ just such men to do the deed for him?' Pina did not try to answer this argument, but her face showed her incredulity. 'I have told you what I know,' she said. 'If anything should happen, and if one of those two gentlemen should tell me to do anything for your safety, am I to obey? I must know that, for perhaps there will be no time to be lost.' 'I will ask my husband,' Ortensia said. 'Let us go on with our packing.' Pina knelt down before the open trunk again. She had told her mistress exactly what Cucurullo had reported to her after his second interview with Tommaso, when the two men had met in the wine-shop of the Via dei Pastini. On that occasion the ex-highwayman had told the hunchback that his masters would be only too glad to protect Stradella and his wife against Don Alberto, to the last drop of their blood, and that Cucurullo was free to inform the musician of their promise or not, as he pleased. It would make no difference, they had said; henceforth Don Alberto should be watched continually, as a mouse is watched by a cat, or in fact by two cats; at the very first intimation that he meant mischief, they would send him to the permanent future abode of all mischief-makers; and as for the consequences of their action, if they were ever detected, they would take such a trifle as that upon themselves. Don Alberto might be the nephew of all the popes and anti-popes that had reigned, excepting those who were canonised saints, and who might therefore be offended by the statement that they did not care a cabbage who he was, not a farthing, not a fig! If he attempted anything against the Lady Ortensia or her husband, they would not only make him wish he were dead, but would at once oblige him by satisfying his wish. This, at least, was Tommaso's version of what they had said, and Cucurullo saw no reason to doubt the statement, since he had seen the two gentlemen demolish and put to flight a whole watch in a few moments in the affair of the serenade. What the Bravi thought of their own situation on the morning of the Eve of Saint John is difficult to imagine; for they were in one of those exciting but equivocal situations in which modern financiers not infrequently find themselves. Their feelings might possibly be compared to those of Lord Byron when he had written offers of marriage to two young ladies on the same day, and both accepted him; or to those of an 'operator' who has advised one intimate friend to buy a certain stock at any price, and another to sell all he has, while he himself has not made up his mind as to what he had better do; or to those of a jockey who has taken money to pull a horse when he was sober, and has backed his mount when he was drunk. The Bravi had, indeed, concocted a plan by which they hoped to win their money from three employers for doing three different things, each of which was contrary to the nature of the other two. And Gambardella might be satisfied if the attempt succeeded; but Trombin was not only his friend's partner in the whole scheme and intent on getting an equal share of the profits, he was also very foolishly in love with Ortensia on his own account, and was pondering how he might substitute himself for Don Alberto in the first act of the coming comedy, or drama. The preparations were now completed, and the two cut-throats awaited the Eve of Saint John without the least qualm or the smallest fear for their own safety. Had they not three blank pardons in their pockets, for themselves and Tommaso, to be filled in with their names if necessary, or to be sold at a high price to some gentleman in trouble, if they did not need them? Nothing was wanting. Tommaso had found the very carriage for the purpose and the horses for the first start, and he himself could drive them four-in-hand without a postillion, for he was as good a whip as any man who drove a papal stage-coach. He had seen Don Alberto again, and, besides the blank pardons, he had obtained the necessary order from the Governor of the city to pass out of any gate during the night. Don Alberto had, of course, ascertained without difficulty that Tommaso was only a servant who represented the two famous Bravi, and in the hands of such men young Altieri felt that the enterprise could not fail. The little house in the Via di Santa Sabina was also ready, but he knew nothing of this arrangement, and was willing that the Bravi should keep secret the spot where he was to meet Ortensia, if they preferred to do so. When the evening came he meant that one of his own men, who had served him in a score of adventures, should follow him and Tommaso stealthily to the place of meeting and hold himself ready, within call, after Tommaso had gone away with the money that was to be paid on delivering up Ortensia. Now before I go on to tell what happened on that memorable night, let me say that if any of the events I am about to describe seem improbable to a sceptical reader, he had better learn the Italian language and dive into one of those yellow manuscript accounts of similar affairs which were written out in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and of which whole volumes can still be bought in Italy for a few francs. He will not go far without finding matter quite as surprising as what I shall put down in this tale, though in all likelihood much more unsavoury to his modern taste. Moreover, there is proof that a good many of those accounts are quite as accurate as what a fairly decent newspaper gives us nowadays for truth; and they are not, as a whole, more nasty, though they are differently worded, because in those days Boileau was calling 'a cat a cat, and Rolet a rascal,' and even people who were not poets called a spade a spade. A little rain fell during the night before Saint John's Eve, but the morning of the twenty-third of June was clear and calm, and the air had cooled a little. In Rome, for those who do not fear a little sunshine, June is the most beautiful of all the months, and the loveliest June days are those that follow showery nights. Then all the trees of the great villas are in full leaf and all the flowers are in bloom: the gorgeous, stiff-necked, courtly flowers in the formal beds and borders of the Pope's gardens; the soft, sweet-scented, shapely carnations that grow in broken pots and pitchers outside the humble windows of Trastevere; the stately lilies in the marble fountains behind the princely palace, and the roses that run riot in the poor Jewish burial-ground halfway up the Aventine; the heavy-scented tuberose and the rich blossom of bitter orange in the high Colonna gardens, and the sweet basil growing in a rusty iron pail in the belfry of Santa Maria Maggiore, where the old bell-ringer eats the savoury leaves with his coarse bread and cheese, while he rests after ringing the bells for high mass and waits till it is time to ring them again at noon, and he waters the plant from his drinking pitcher. Then the wild onion is in flower that scares away witches and keeps off the Evil Eye, and from all the broad Campagna the scent of new-mown hay is wafted through the city gates. Then, though the sun does not yet scorch the traveller, the shade is already a heavenly refreshment; and though a man is not parched with thirst, a cold draught from the Fountain of Egeria is more delicious than any wine, and under the ancient trees of the pagan grove the rose-purple cyclamens and the dark wood-violets are still blooming side by side. The air is full of the breath of life, the deep earth is still soft, and all trees and flowers and grasses still feel the tender youth of the spring that is not yet quite gone. Then, too, the gilliflowers are out, and on Saint John's Eve before Vespers the Canons used to bless thousands upon thousands of them, tied up in neat bunches, in small flat baskets, and the poor of Rome came to the door of the sacristy on the south side and received them to take home to their sick and infirm, with the blessing of Saint John and a reviving breath of blossoming nature. But on that day many tents and booths of boughs were also set up on the broad green that stretched away to the hedges of vineyards and vegetable gardens, where modern houses now are built. In each booth there was a little kitchen, a mere earthen fire-pot, such as the alchemists used of old, but larger, and there were tables made of boards laid on trestles with rude benches for seats, and there were little ten-gallon barrels of wine still unbroached, and piles of loaves covered with clean white cloths, and there was much green lettuce for salad, floating in tubs full of water, and there were also fresh onions without end, with their long stalks and big bunches of tiny flowers. For on the Eve of Saint John the Baptist all fairies good and bad, and goblins that are black or grey, and the white hobgoblins too, and the shadowy, unearthly lemures, have deadly power; and ghosts and wraiths go wailing through lonely church-yards, and the fountain sprites float on the water and laugh in the pale moonlight; the misshapen things of evil that haunt murderers' graves move strangely in the gloom; and though the air be still, the chains that dangle from old gibbets all clank together wildly when the blood-spectres hang upon them with wan hands and swing themselves to and fro; then the banshee shrieks amongst the ancient elms, and deep down in the crypt of far San Sisto, by the Latin Gate, the Shining Corpse rises from his grave against the south wall and glares horribly all night at his fellow-dead. No wonder that against such terrors the Roman people thought it wise to eat snails fried in oil, and to carry onions in blossom in their hands, and especially to fortify their quailing spirits with many draughts of strong wine from Genzano, and Frascati, and Marino, till the grey dawn forelightened above the Samnite hills, and a decent man might go home to sleep safely by daylight, and be waked only by the bells that rang out for high mass at ten o'clock. So in the late afternoon all those excellent preparations had been made for resisting ghostly fear, and as soon as the sun went down the firepots in the booths would be filled with charcoal, and presently a marvellous smell of frying oil would pervade the air, while thousands upon thousands of little lights would be lighted, all made of big snail-shells filled with olive oil and tallow and each having a tiny wick in it. But the sun was not low yet, and the great bells were ringing to call the people into the Basilica for Vespers. Fine coaches drove up to the transept entrance, one after the other, bringing cardinals and princes and Roman ladies of high rank by the score; and their gorgeously liveried footmen followed them into the church carrying fald-stools and kneeling-cushions as if for a great ceremony in Saint Peter's; and though it was a cloudless day in June two huge closed umbrellas, of the colours of each family, were strapped upon the top of every coach, but those of the cardinals were scarlet. Amongst the many arrivals came the blue and yellow liveries of Christina of Sweden, and with her was Don Alberto in a wonderful summer suit of pale dove-coloured silk, and he wore the collar of the Order of Saint Gregory; there were several other gentlemen in her train, and not a few ladies, so that she was royally attended. She herself wore a three-cornered blue French hunting-hat on the top of her immense black wig, and a short riding-skirt of green cloth, and boots like a man. The reason why there was such a concourse of society at the Lateran on the eve of the feast was that Alessandro Stradella was going to sing an air himself, and direct a part of the service which he had composed for the occasion; and besides, a vast number of the common people were collected about the Basilica, both from the city and from the Campagna, to enjoy the customary feast of snails as a defence against witches and fairies, and they thronged into the church through the great east door to hear the music too, till there was no standing-room at all in the transepts and little in the nave and aisles for thirty or forty yards below the tabernacle, close beside which the old organ used to stand. For there was no loft then, and the instrument stood out in the church with its wide wooden balcony, draped all in red, which is the colour appropriate to the Apostles, and to Martyrs also, of whom Saint John the Baptist is counted one. The organ was a new one then, and, by the same token, I saw it when I was young, and the keyboard was strangely made; for there were two black keys together everywhere where we have one, the first being for the sharp of the natural below it, and the second for the flat of the natural above; and this meant that the ingenious builder had thought he could get rid of the 'wolf' and produce an instrument with the combined advantages of the even temper and the uneven; and any one who does not know what that means may ask a tuner to explain it for him or not, just as he pleases; but the old organ had double black keys, for I saw and touched them myself, and that was the very instrument to which Stradella sang on the afternoon of Saint John's Eve so long ago. It has probably been destroyed altogether, but Rome is a great place for treasuring rubbish and rombowline, and perhaps the old keyboard still exists, with stacks of wooden and metal pipes and bundles of worm-eaten trackers, all piled up together and forgotten in some corner of the crypt, or in some high belfry room or long-closed attic above the gorgeous ceiling of the Basilica. It is a long distance from the Palazzo Altieri to the Lateran, and the Canons sent one of their coaches to convey Stradella to the church. He brought Ortensia with him, and found Cucurullo already waiting at the transept door. 'It is impossible to get in by this way, sir,' said the hunchback, coming to the window of the carriage. 'All Rome is here, from the Sacred College and the Queen of Sweden to the poorest notary's clerk, and it would take an hour to make your way through the crowd. Below the tabernacle the church is nearly half full of country people.' 'You will have to go in by the main door,' Stradella said to Ortensia. 'Cucurullo will take you as far up the church as possible, and will not leave your side till I come. As for me, I must go round by the sacristy. Get up behind, Cucurullo, and tell the coachman to take us to the other entrance.' Cucurullo obeyed with some difficulty, for a crowd of young idlers of the poorer sort had collected to see the cardinals and nobles go in, and they pressed upon him to touch his hump for luck, which should be at least double on such a day; and most of them blessed him, lest he should look round angrily and cast the Evil Eye upon them. But as he was short he found it hard to reach the footman's hanging strap, till a couple of strong fellows lifted him bodily and set him on the footboard. He submitted kindly to the touches he felt, and thanked his helpers with a smile. Then the coach drove away. Leaning back in its depths, Ortensia wound her arms round her husband's neck, and kissed him tenderly. 'I shall sing for you only, love,' he said. 'Even if you cannot see me, you will know that every note comes from my heart, and is meant only for your ears!' 'One day more, and I shall have you all to myself,' she answered softly. The coach stopped again, and Cucurullo dropped from the footboard behind and came to the door. Stradella had now no time to lose, and he let Ortensia get out alone and go in with his man, and before she had disappeared he was driven away to the door of the sacristy. A few moments later he was in the singers' robing-room, hastily getting into the purple silk cassock and the spotless lace-trimmed cotta which he had to wear when he appeared in the organ-loft of a basilica, or among the singers of the Sistine Chapel. He brought these things, with his own score of his music, in a purple cloth bag which Ortensia had worked for him, and she had embroidered a lyre on it in silver thread, with the word 'Harmonia' in cursive letters for a motto. Half the singers were already in the organ loft, and the Canons were in their places droning the psalms for the day antiphonally, and very much through their portentous noses, even as they do to-day. As the noise they made was neither musical nor edifying, Roman society was conversing without the least restraint, except from the fact of being packed rather close together in a comparatively small space. Here and there little openings in the crowd marked the positions of the Cardinals and their parasites, of Queen Christina with her court, and of two or three of the greatest Roman ladies, such as the Princess Orsini and the Princess Rospigliosi, whose husbands were Princes of the Empire as well as Roman nobles. They all talked pleasantly and jested, and even laughed, as if they were anywhere but in church, only pausing when the Gloria Patri was sung from time to time at the end of a psalm. Far overhead the level beams of the lowering sun poured through the northwest windows. From the ancient mosaic of the tribune vault the still faces of heavenly personages looked down at the doings of a half-believing age with a sad and solemn surprise. While they talked, the ex-Queen and many others glanced occasionally at the balcony of the organ, and when Stradella at last appeared a little murmur of satisfaction ran through the courtly throng, quite different in tone from the hum of conversation that had preceded it; and as he looked down the great singer saw many acquaintances who made signs of greeting to him, and the ex-Queen waved her painted fan high in the air, while a sprightly little Neapolitan duchess, who was in Rome for a visit and had known him a long time, actually blew him a kiss from the tips of her small gloved fingers. He smiled gravely, nodded once or twice, and disappeared behind the other singers. From the other side of the balcony, where it ran round the organ to the rickety wooden steps, his gaze searched the distance, looking for Ortensia; and at last he saw her on the outskirts of the crowd of common people and peasants, leaning against the corner of the third pilaster from the main entrance on his left as he looked down the church. His eyes were good, and, besides, though she wore a large veil exactly like that of many of the other ladies, he was sure it was she because Cucurullo was beside her, unmistakable by his deformity, even at that distance and in the shadow that darkened the nave below. Stradella had a roll of music in his hand and, looking towards his wife, he held it above his head for a signal; he immediately saw her raise her hand and wave it a little, and Cucurullo held up his broad hat too. They had seen him and he was satisfied; and at that moment the Canons reached the end of the last psalm, and Stradella joined in the Gloria that followed it, still standing where he was and looking at Ortensia in the distance. He let his voice ring out to her, as different in tone from all the other voices in the loft as strings are different from wood and brass instruments, and every syllable he sang reached her ear; and now she raised her hand again to show that she had heard him, and he held up his little roll of music to return her signal, and then went to the front of the organ to direct the concerted piece that was to follow. If there had been time, he would have stopped and looked back again, for as he turned he had the impression, without the certainty, that Trombin and Gambardella were standing at the edge of the crowd on the other side of the nave from Ortensia. She had told him of the step Cucurullo had taken, and he had not blamed his man; on the contrary, the thought that the two Bravi were perhaps near her now was comforting, and he wished that he were quite sure of having seen them. As he took his place at the desk to direct, he glanced to his right again, but the singing men close to him hindered him from seeing the body of the church. He had not been mistaken, however, for the Bravi were there and just in sight, at some little distance behind Ortensia, near the pilaster next beyond the one by which she stood. They were both dressed in black, and though it was a warm afternoon in June, each carried a black cloak on his arm. Their long hair was parted and smoothed with even more than customary neatness, and Trombin's yellow locks were so wonderfully arranged that they might easily have been taken for a wig. His pink face wore a more than usually boyish and innocent expression, and as he stood beside his companion listening to what the latter was saying in an undertone, his eyes gazed steadily at Ortensia's graceful figure. Both men were evidently indifferent to the possibility of her turning and seeing them, and in fact they had taken up their present position in the hope of being seen by Stradella himself from the organ, acting the part of protectors to his wife. 'We have trusted each other in much more dangerous affairs than this,' Gambardella said, almost in a whisper, 'but I have never before known you to lose your heart to the subject of our operations.' '"Subject" is good!' answered Trombin. '"Subject" is excellent! You speak like a teacher of anatomy! But, so far, you are right, for I cannot take my eyes from that adorable lady. My friend, do you notice the exquisite curve from the throat to the shoulder and from the shoulder to the elbow? And the marvellously suggestive fall of the skirt? And the reflection of the sunshine from overhead in her wonderful hair where it shows from under her veil? Answer me, have you ever seen anything more perfect in art or nature?' 'No, nor anything more complete than your madness,' answered Gambardella. 'If you speak a little louder she will hear you!' 'And turn her angel's eyes to mine!' whispered Trombin sentimentally. 'There is no poetry in your soul, my friend! You were certainly born without any heart, or, if I may say so, with a heart like a German prune, all dried up and hard, and needing to be boiled for hours in syrup to soften it! On the other hand, I may compare my own to the fresh fruit on the tree in July, delicate, juicy, and almost palpitating in the sunshine with its own sweetness!' Gambardella smiled sourly and shook his head. 'You once had a good intelligence,' he said, 'but it is shattered. Are you capable of listening to me like a sensible being, while that lady is in sight? If not, come with me behind the pilaster, for I have something to say before we separate.' As if admitting that he was helpless so long as he could gaze on Ortensia, Trombin allowed his friend to lead him away into the shadow. 'Now, listen,' said Gambardella. 'We are playing three games, and if you call yours one, it is the fourth, and the stakes are high. The smallest mistake or hesitation will lose us everything, as you know, and before long we shall be living in an attic again and supping on salt fish and olives. But if we win we shall have money enough to enjoy a whole year of luxury, and with a little economy to live comfortably for a much longer time.' 'I know it,' answered Trombin, on whom the stronger will of his companion made an impression. 'I shall keep my head at the right moment, never fear!' 'But in order that we may risk nothing, I had better play the first part of the comedy, since that is the most important to the success of the whole.' The two cut-throats looked at each other steadily for some moments, as if neither meant to give way, and possibly they remembered their first meeting, a good many years earlier; for their acquaintance had begun in a sharp quarrel, in which they had almost instantly fallen to fighting, and it was not till they had fenced for nearly twenty minutes, without a scratch on either side, though each was trying to kill the other, that they had both lowered their rapiers in mutual admiration, and had forthwith made the alliance which had never been shaken since. Yet, though they were so evenly matched in strength and skill, Gambardella was the more determined character, and in important moments like the present his decision generally prevailed; and so it ended now, for Trombin at last turned his round eyes away and nodded his assent. 'Very well,' he said, in a tone of resignation. 'Then I will wait for Stradella at the door of the sacristy. That was the original plan. Hark! He is singing now!' The two came out from behind the pillar and stood still to listen; and Gambardella's eyes gazed steadily at the vast mosaic above the tribune, while his friend's look fixed itself again on Ortensia's graceful figure, and he feasted his sight, while his ears were filled with the most rare music that the world had ever heard in that day. Only those who have listened to a beautiful voice singing in the Lateran towards evening can understand that, in spite of the grievous disfigurements of the barocco age, and the exaggerated modern decorations of the nineteenth century, the 'Mother of all Churches,' as the Basilica is called, can still seem the most deeply and truly hallowed place of worship in Christendom. There is a mystery in it at the sunset hour which is felt by all men, though none can explain it; the light glows and fades there as nowhere else, the shadows have a sweet solemnity of their own, and consummate art, or supreme good-fortune, has made the vast nave and colonnaded aisles responsive to the softest notes the human voice can breathe. First the full organ blares out triumphantly alone, and by and by the chorus, borne up by the master instrument, swells from a hundred throats in such tremendous harmonies that the marble pavement seems alive and thrilling under a man's feet; yet the words are not lost in a clashing din of senseless noise, for every one of them is complete and reaches the astonished ear unbroken and distinct. Then, in an instant, the enormous gale of sound is hushed and leaves no echo, and one voice alone is singing a low melody, divinely spiritual as an angel's prayer. It rises presently, full and strong, but every syllable rings out clear and perfect, even to the outer doors; it sinks to all but a whisper, yet each delicate articulation floats unbroken to the remotest corner of the outer aisle, till he who listens feels the word vibrating in his heart rather than in his outward ears. Ortensia felt more than that, for the music was that of the man she loved so well, and the single voice was his too, and the prayer it sang was for her, and was in her heart while she listened; and, moreover, Alessandro Stradella was not matched in voice or genius by any singer of his age. It would be as hopeless to attempt a description of his singing on that day as to analyse the feelings that thrilled Ortensia. There are delights that must be felt to be believed, and only three are noble, for they have their sources in true love, and in supreme art, and in honourable fight for wife and child and country. Ortensia felt the first two of these together; but he who dies, not having known even one of them, had better not have lived at all. As afternoon turned to evening, the straight golden beams overhead melted to a red glow that spread downwards and illuminated all the great church for a little while; then the light deepened to purple, and that softened to violet, and the candles about the high altar under the tabernacle shone out through thin clouds of incense like many stars. Again Stradella's voice was heard alone, and Ortensia sank upon her knees beside her pillar, though it was not yet quite time for kneeling. It was as if she could bear no more of such intense pleasure without praying to heaven that it might be hers hereafter to love her true love to all ages, and for ever to hear his voice singing to her in a place of peace. The Bravi had now parted company, and Trombin had quietly gone out of the church, leaving Gambardella alone. The dark-faced man in black moved slowly and noiselessly as a shadow; he crossed the nave far down by the door, and walked up the outer aisle on the south side, till he could go no farther up for the crowd; then he turned to his right, making his way quietly through the multitude wherever the people were least closely packed, and he emerged at last not far from where Ortensia was kneeling, and with all the appearance of having come out of the thick of the press, which was exactly what he wished her to believe. She was still kneeling, and Cucurullo was standing beside her, hat in hand. It was now so dark in the body of the Basilica that Stradella could not possibly see any one there, especially as he was dazzled by the many candles that illuminated the upper end of the church. Gambardella bowed gravely and bent down to speak near Ortensia's ear. 'I have a message from the Maestro for you,' he said, almost in a whisper. Ortensia had already looked up with a little surprise, which now increased. 'A message?' she repeated. 'We came here together, and he has not left the organ loft since!' 'Precisely,' answered Gambardella, unmoved. 'I was standing in the crowd just below, and when he had finished directing the motett he made me a sign to go to the steps at the back. I went, and he was already halfway down the ladder. He seemed much agitated. You must have noticed how strangely his voice thrilled in that last piece he sang.' 'Yes. Tell me what he said!' Ortensia was already breathless with anxiety, and as she spoke she got upon her feet. Gambardella helped her. 'He had a note in his hand. It was a warning which some one had brought to him in the loft. Altieri's plan is to conceal a number of men in your apartment this last night that you are to sleep there. When all is quiet they are to gag you and your husband, and carry you downstairs to Don Alberto's carriage. If you attempt to go home to the palace the scheme will inevitably succeed.' Ortensia stood leaning back against the pilaster very white. Gambardella continued. 'The Maestro asked me if I knew of any place of safety to which you could both go to-night before leaving Rome to-morrow. I told him that my friend and I have just hired a small house in a quiet part of the city, which is at your service, especially as we have not yet moved to it. He begged me to take you there at once before Don Alberto can leave the church, and possibly see you driving away with me.' 'But my husband----' interrupted Ortensia. 'My friend Trombin is already at the door of the sacristy, and will bring him to you as soon as he can get away. It will be nearly half an hour before the Benediction is over. But there is no time to be lost. Ah--I forgot! He wished Cucurullo to hasten to the palace and get his manuscripts and his lute, and any small necessaries for you that can be hidden under a cloak. Your man can get there, and be on his way back before Don Alberto can be at home. Even if the men are already concealed in the apartment they will not trouble Cucurullo for fear of betraying their master. As for your woman, Altieri has probably had her arrested and taken away.' Gambardella had purposely told his story so that Cucurullo could hear it, and had glanced at him from time to time to be sure that he understood. 'Are you afraid to go alone?' asked the Bravo, not at all contemptuously. 'No, sir. I am not afraid. Where shall I find my master when I have got the things?' 'Do you know where Santa Prassede is, in that narrow street near Santa Maria Maggiore?' 'Certainly, sir. Shall I wait at the side door of the church? It is a lonely place.' 'Yes. Be there as soon as you can. The house is close by, but I could not easily make you understand which it is.' Gambardella turned to Ortensia. 'Will you come with me?' he asked. 'My friend and I have a carriage, and it is at the main door.' Ortensia laid her hand on the Bravo's arm, not doubting that she was obeying her husband's wishes for her safety and his. It would have taken more than Don Alberto's rude assertion to make her and Stradella distrust the men who had helped them so efficiently in their flight. The two might be Bravi, as he said, but they were friends, and in such a case as this they were the very friends the young couple needed. The three entered the inner aisle to avoid all possibility of being seen by Don Alberto, and hastened towards the main door. Though Ortensia was not timid, her heart beat a little faster when she thought of the danger from which she was escaping. It was already nearly dark in the church, but the twilight was still bright outside, and the carriage was standing quite close to the old porch; for the present portico was not built then, and the steep carriage road ended in a square patch of pavement before the doors. Cucurullo glanced at the coachman and recognised Tommaso, who nodded to him with a friendly smile. Then the hunchback hurried away on his errand, leaving Gambardella to take care of Ortensia, who was already getting in. 'To Santa Prassede,' said the Bravo to the coachman, in a tone meant for Ortensia's ears. Then he got in, shut the door, and seated himself beside her, bolt upright, with his rapier between his knees, and his hands clasped on the hilt. Ortensia glanced at him in the dim light, and noticed his attitude with satisfaction, and not without reflecting on the terror she would feel if Don Alberto were in his place. Nothing could be more reassuring than Gambardella's behaviour. 'I suppose the carriage will go back for my husband?' she said. 'The Canons lent us one of theirs to bring us to the church and take us home, but you will not trust to that, will you?' 'No, indeed! If you do not mind being alone in the house for twenty minutes I will go back with this carriage, or it can go without me and I will stay with you.' 'I shall not be afraid,' Ortensia answered rashly. 'On the contrary, I shall feel much safer if I know that you are going for my husband yourself, for there can be no mistake then.' 'Precisely,' Gambardella said. 'That will be the best way.' 'How kind you are!' Ortensia sighed, and leaned back in the deep seat. She did not know Rome very well yet, and it was the hour when all the little snail-shell lamps were being lighted for the feast, and their glimmer still further confused her; besides, she was not quite sure where Santa Prassede was, nor in what sort of neighbourhood it was situated. In that wide region, then almost without inhabitants, and mostly divided into hedged vineyards and market-gardens, small groups of houses stood here and there, more or less alike, but generally in the neighbourhood of the ancient churches which had been built before the city was unpeopled in the Middle Ages. Ortensia was not in the least surprised when the carriage stopped before a decent-looking little house, after ascending a steep hill. Gambardella opened the carriage and got out to help her down. 'Are you quite sure that you do not mind being left alone here for a while?' he asked, as he unlocked the door of the house, and held it open for her to go in. 'If you can give me a light I shall not mind being alone at all,' Ortensia answered, and she went in. He followed her at once, shut the door behind him to keep out the chilly breeze, and began the process of getting a light with flint and steel and tinder and one of those wooden matches dipped in sulphur, which had then been recently invented. By the sparks he made Ortensia saw that he was standing beside an old marble table on which stood a brass lamp with a three-cornered bowl that slid up and down on a stem. The place had the peculiar odour of small Italian houses that are built of stone, that stand in vineyards or market-gardens, and that are rarely opened; it is a smell compounded of the odour of the worm-eaten furniture, smoke-stained kitchen ceiling and wall, and the dusty plaster within the house, combined with a faint sub-odour of growing things, from vines to broccoli, which finds its way through the cracks of badly fitting doors and windows. When there was light at last, Ortensia saw that she was in a commonplace little whitewashed vestibule, from which a single flight of stone stairs led directly to the door of the living rooms above. Gambardella went up first, holding the brass lamp low down for her to see the steps. The room into which he led her had a Venetian pavement, and was sufficiently well furnished. The walls were painted to represent views which were presumably visible from the windows by day. 'Are you quite sure there is no one in the house?' asked Ortensia, who liked the prospect of solitude less and less as the time for being left alone came nearer. 'There is a bedroom at each end,' answered Gambardella. 'You shall see for yourself. Above this there is a sort of attic which can only be reached from outside by steps that also lead to a terrace on the roof.' He showed her the two bedrooms, which had evidently been just cleaned and put in order, and looked very neat. Ortensia was reassured. 'And what is there downstairs?' she asked. 'A kitchen and a dining-room,' Gambardella answered. 'But I must be off if I am to fetch the Maestro. We shall be here in half an hour at the utmost.' Just then a great bell not very far off tolled three strokes, then four, then five, and then one, and an instant later it rang out in a peal. 'It is Ave Maria,' Gambardella said. 'The Benediction is over by this time. You had better come down with me and hook the chain inside the front door.' Ortensia followed him down the stairs again, and he carried the lamp. As he went she heard him hurriedly repeating the Angelus. '"Angelus Domini nuntiavit,"' he began, quite audibly, but the words that followed were said in a whisper. Ortensia repeated the prayer to herself too, partly by force of habit, no doubt, but partly because it was a comfort to say it with the kind-hearted friend who had once more intervened to help her and her husband in time of danger. Even the Bravo, who could say his prayers uncommonly fast, had not finished when they reached the foot of the stairs, and as Ortensia set the lamp on the corner of the yellow marble table she distinctly heard him say the first words of the third responsory. '"And dwelt with us,"' she answered quietly and clearly. He laid his hand on the lock of the hall door, and when he turned to her his eyes met hers with a look she had never seen. Both repeated the third Ave Maria aloud, while he gazed earnestly at her pure young face, so sweetly framed in the soft folds of the veil. Then without waiting for the final prayer he opened the door, and as he shut it after him she heard him say something aloud, but the words were so strange and unexpected that she repeated them to herself twice while she was hooking the chain before she quite realised what they were, and understood them. '"And Judas went out and hanged himself."' That was what he had said as he went away. CHAPTER XXI When Stradella came down from the organ-loft after the Benediction he was in haste to reach the sacristy before any of the choristers, as he did not mean to keep Ortensia waiting a moment longer than necessary. But to his annoyance a number of his admiring acquaintances had already made their way to that side; and this was the more easy, because the throng of common people who had pressed upon the fashionable company had already retreated down the church to the main entrance in haste to see the beginning of the witches' feast and the snail-shell illumination. At every step the musician had to shake hands and receive civilly the congratulations that were showered upon him; and suddenly Don Alberto was beside him, and was drawing him away. 'The Queen insists on thanking you herself, dear Maestro,' said the courtier, smiling. 'I see that you are in a hurry, but royalty is royalty, and you must sacrifice yourself on the altar of your own fame with a good grace!' Unsuspecting of harm as he was, Stradella yielded, and tried not to look displeased. While speaking Altieri had dragged him through the crowd towards Christina, who was standing up, evidently waiting for them, and looking particularly mannish in her three-cornered hat and short skirt. The only ornament she had put on was the magnificent cross of diamonds which she wore on her bosom at all times. 'One has to come to church to see you, Maestro,' she cried in a heavily playful manner. 'Do you know that you have not darkened my doors for a fortnight, sir? What is the meaning of this? But I forgive you, for your music has ravished my soul, falling like a refreshing shower on my burning anger!' The metaphors were badly mixed, but Stradella bent one knee and made a pretence of kissing the unshapely hand she held out to him, and he muttered a formula expressive of gratitude. 'I am overcome by your Majesty's kindness,' he said, or something to that effect. 'To-morrow,' said the ex-Queen, 'I shall send you the medal and diploma of my Academy as a slight acknowledgment of the pleasure I have had this afternoon. At present Don Alberto is going to introduce me to the quaint Roman custom of eating snails in the open air. Will you join us, Maestro? But I see that you are still in your robes, and I have no doubt you look forward to a more substantial supper than a dish of molluscs fried in oil! Good-night, my dear Maestro. _Vale_, as those delightful ancients used to say!' She waved her hand affectedly as she turned to go. It seemed an age to Stradella before he reached the sacristy, and when he got there he was surprised to find Trombin waiting by the door of the choristers' robing-room. The Bravo went in with him, and began to help him out of his cotta and cassock. 'I came to tell you that your lady is already gone home,' Trombin said in a low voice. 'She felt a sudden dizziness and weakness, as if she were going to faint. Luckily I was not far off, and when I saw Cucurullo supporting her I went to his assistance, and we took her out to her carriage, which was waiting.' Stradella looked at him anxiously, but the Bravo only smiled. 'Nothing serious, I am sure,' the latter said, in a reassuring tone. 'But she will be glad to see you as soon as possible, and if the Canons' carriage has not come back, my friend and I will take you home at once in ours; we have just bought one for our convenience.' 'Thank you,' Stradella answered, letting Trombin help him to pull his arms out of the tight sleeves of the purple silk cassock. 'You are very kind.' He was evidently too anxious about Ortensia to say more, and in a few seconds he had got into his coat, and Trombin was arranging the broad linen collar for him as cleverly as any valet could have done. Trombin was well aware that Tommaso was not coming back to the Lateran with the coach, since the bells were already ringing for Ave Maria, and the man was to meet Don Alberto behind the Baptistery in an hour--'the first hour of the night'; but he pretended angry surprise at not finding the carriage waiting. The one provided by the Canons was there, however, and Stradella recognised it, which Trombin could not have done, amongst the crowd of equipages that were waiting for the numerous ecclesiastics who had taken part in the service. It was now all but quite dark, but the coachman had received orders to be near the door and ready, lest the famous singer should catch cold. Stradella was in far too great a hurry to question him, and jumped in at once, glad that Trombin should go with him. The carriage drove away at a smart pace, long before the owners of the other coaches were ready to go home. Before the gateway of the Palazzo Altieri, Stradella got out, and tossed a florin up to the coachman, who caught it with a grin, and drove away at once. 'A thousand thanks!' the musician said, shaking Trombin's hand. 'I have done nothing,' the Bravo answered. 'I hope to hear to-morrow that your lady----' But Stradella was already gone, and was running up the broad staircase at the top of his speed. A moment more and he knocked at his own door, of which the heavy key had been in Cucurullo's keeping when they had all left the house together to go to the Lateran. Pina opened the door in her usual quiet way, and was a little surprised to see Stradella alone. 'How is she?' he asked, as soon as he saw her face by the light of the hanging lamp in the hall. 'Who, sir?' inquired the woman, not understanding. 'My wife----' He sprang past her to go in. 'The Lady Ortensia has not come home,' he heard Pina say behind him, in a tone of such astonishment that he stopped before he had reached the door of the sitting-room. 'Not come home?' he cried in amazement. 'You are out of your senses!' Pina had shut the front door, and she followed him as he rushed into the sitting-room after speaking. She had lit the lamp, and it was burning quietly on the table. The door of the bedroom was opened wide to let the air circulate, but there was no light there. Nevertheless Stradella ran on to the bed. 'Ortensia!' he cried, feeling for her head on the pillows, for he could not see. Then he uttered a low exclamation of surprise and looked round. Pina was already bringing in the lamp, and he realised at once that she had spoken the truth. Ortensia had not come home; but even now no doubt of the Bravi crossed his mind, and he was anxious only because Trombin had said that she was feeling ill. The carriage must have broken down or some other accident had happened which would explain why Trombin had not found the conveyance waiting as he had expected. The thought of a possible accident was distressing enough, but it was a comfort to think that Gambardella and Cucurullo were with her, and would bring her home in due time. In a few words Stradella repeated to Pina what Trombin had told him, and in his own anxiety he did not see that she was now very pale, and that her hand shook so violently that she had to set down the lamp she held for fear of dropping it. 'She will be at home in a few minutes,' Stradella said in conclusion, trying to reassure himself. 'I will go downstairs again and wait for her. Give me my cloak, Pina, for I am very hot, and it will be cool under the archway.' Trembling in every limb, Pina got his wide black cloak and laid it upon his shoulders. He drew up one corner of it and threw it round his neck, so as to muffle his throat against the outer air. 'Pina,' he said, 'your mistress was feeling ill. She was dizzy, my friend said. We must have something ready for her to take. What will be best?' 'Perhaps a little infusion of camomile,' Pina answered, her teeth chattering with fear. He could not help noticing from her voice that there was something wrong, and he now looked at her for the first time and saw that she was livid. 'I have a chill,' she managed to say. 'I have caught the fever, sir. It does not matter! I have some camomile leaves, and I will make the infusion while you wait downstairs.' 'You ought to be in bed yourself,' Stradella said kindly, but at the same instant it occurred to him that Ortensia had perhaps taken a fever too. 'To-morrow I will try to procure from the Pope's physician some of that wonderful Peruvian bark that cures the fever,' he added. 'They call it quina, I think, and few apothecaries have it.' This was true, though nearly forty years had then already passed since the Spanish Countess of Cinchon had first brought the precious bark to Europe, and had named it after herself, Cinchona. Stradella was not yet by any means desperately anxious about his wife when he went downstairs again, as may be understood from his last words to the serving-woman. He was, in fact, wondering whether Ortensia herself had not a touch of the ague, which was so common then that no one thought it a serious illness. He went downstairs with the conviction that she would appear within a quarter of an hour escorted by Gambardella and Cucurullo, and he began to walk under the great archway, from the entrance to the courtyard and back again. As soon as he was gone Pina went to her own little room, taking the lamp with her. First she dressed herself in her best frock, which was of good brown Florentine cloth; and then she took a large blue cotton kerchief and made a bundle consisting of some linen and a few necessaries. On that very morning Stradella had paid her wages, expecting to leave Rome the next day, and she took the money and tied it up securely in a little scrap of black silk and hid it in her dress. Lastly, she put on the same brown cloak and hood she had worn on the journey from Venice, took her bundle under it, replaced the lamp on the sitting-room table, and left the apartment by the small door which gave access to the servants' staircase; a few moments later she slipped out of the palace, unobserved except by the old door-keeper who kept the back entrance and let her out. 'I am going to the apothecary's for some camomile,' she said quietly, and the old man merely nodded as he opened the street door for her. The Bravi had cared very little whether Pina was at home or not when Cucurullo came to get the objects for which Stradella had sent him at Gambardella's suggestion. One of two things must happen, they thought, for it was clear that Cucurullo would explain everything to her, if he saw her. Either she would come with him to Santa Prassede, and there she might wait with him all night, for all they cared; or else she would run away as soon as he left the house, for they guessed that she would be afraid. But things had turned out differently. When Cucurullo had reached the apartment Pina was not there, for she had just gone down the backstairs to get the evening supply of milk which the milkman left with the keeper of the back door. Cucurullo, not finding her, had picked up the lute, the case of manuscripts, and a small hand valise which was already packed for the journey with necessaries belonging both to Stradella and his wife, and he had gone off again before Pina had returned. She did not miss the things till Stradella came, and she carried the lamp into the bedroom; but then she understood that some one had been in the house during her short absence, and it flashed upon her that Ortensia had already been carried off, though she could not have told why she connected such a possibility with what she took for a theft committed in the apartment. Insane terror took possession of her then, with the vision of being left behind at the mercy of Don Alberto, and she fled without hesitation, taking with her nothing that was not her own, and only what she could easily carry for a journey. As for Cucurullo, he had no time to waste, and thought that in any case she would be safe enough from Don Alberto's men, whose only business would be to seize her mistress. Being fearless himself, it never occurred to him that she would run away out of sheer fright. Stradella paced the flagstones under the archway, waiting for the carriage, and as the time passed his anxiety grew steadily till it became almost unbearable. The tall bearded porter stood motionless by the entrance, resting both his hands on the huge silver pommel of his polished staff. He could stand in that position for hours without moving. At last Stradella spoke to him. 'Has Don Alberto come home yet, Gaetano?' he asked. 'No, sir.' The porter touched his large three-cornered hat respectfully, for the musician had that morning given him a handsome tip preparatory to leaving. 'His Excellency may not come home till very late,' he vouchsafed to add, with a faint smile. Stradella saw that he was inclined to talk, and though he himself had no fancy for entering into conversation with servants, he made a remark in the nature of a question. 'I dare say his Excellency sometimes does not come home before morning.' 'Sometimes, sir,' answered Gaetano, grinning in his big black beard. 'But then he generally gives me notice, so that I need not sit up all night. He is a very good-hearted young gentleman, sir, as I dare say you know, for you are a friend of his. And since you have asked me if he has come home, and you are perhaps waiting for him, I can tell you that he will not be back to-night, nor perhaps to-morrow, for that was the message he sent me by his valet this afternoon.' 'Thank you,' said Stradella. 'But I am not waiting for him. I am expecting my wife and my man.' He nodded and went back to his beat under the archway, and before he had walked twice the distance between the gate and the courtyard, all the bells of Rome rang out the first hour of the night. An hour had passed since Ortensia had let Gambardella out of the little house in the Via di Santa Sabina. The peal was still ringing from the belfry of the Lateran when Don Alberto and Tommaso met on the green behind the church, not far from the closed door of the sacristy. They came from opposite directions, and Tommaso was leading two saddled mules. The young courtier had succeeded in making his escape from Queen Christina and her party, promising to join them at supper at the Palazzo Riario within an hour. In the lonely little house in Via di Santa Sabina, Ortensia was sitting upstairs by the table, pale and upright in her chair, and listening for the slightest sound that might break the profound silence. But she heard nothing. The three wicks of the brass lamp on the table burned with a steady flame, and without any of those very faint crepitations which olive-oil lamps make heard when the weather is about to change. There was not the least sound in the small house: if there were mice anywhere they were asleep; if worms were boring in the old furniture they were working silently; if any house swallows had made their nests under the eaves they were roosting. The stillness was like that of a solid and inert mass, as if all the world had been suddenly petrified and made motionless. It seemed to Ortensia that she had never been quite alone for so long a time in her life; it was certainly true that she had never before been locked up in a lonely house at night without a human being within call. First, her feet grew strangely cold; then she felt a sort of creeping fear stealing up to her out of the floor, as if she had drunk hemlock and death were travelling slowly towards her heart, paralysing every limb and joint on its relentless way. It was not senseless physical fright, like Pina's; it would not drive her to leave the house and run away into the darkness outside; if there were anything to face Ortensia would face it, or try to, but what terrified her now was that there was nothing, not a sound of life, not the breath of a night breeze amongst leaves outside, not the stirring of a mouse indoors. It was like the silence of the tomb. Suddenly she heard bells, but they sounded far off, and all the windows were tightly closed. She crossed herself with difficulty, and whispered a 'Requiem aeternam' for all Christian souls, as good Catholics are enjoined to do at the first hour of night. But it was an effort to raise her hand to her forehead in making the sign; and suddenly, as if in answer to her prayer, she seemed to hear the Bravo's voice close beside her:-- '"And Judas went out and hanged himself."' With the energy of a healthy young nature that revolts against supernatural fears, she rose to her feet and went to one of the windows, of which there were two on each side, looking over the road and towards the vineyard respectively. She tried the fastenings of the first and moved them, but she could not do more, though she used all her strength. The frame seemed to be stuck beyond the possibility of being opened without tools. She went to the next, and the next, till she had tried all four; then her fear came back, for it was all more like a bad dream than a reality, and the certainty flashed upon her that the windows had been purposely fastened with nails or screws to prevent her from looking out. Gambardella had promised to come back with her husband in twenty minutes. Three times that interval had now passed, and more too, and she was still alone. It was not possible that any one should have knocked for admittance without her hearing the sound, for the door of the sitting-room was open to the stairs, and the house was no bigger than a cottage. She went back to her chair by the table, ashamed of feeling that she could hardly stand. It was not strange that her fear of her own situation should be stronger just then than her anxiety for Stradella, believing, as she did, that Don Alberto had made his plans for that very night, and thinking, as was natural, that his great power in Rome might even have sufficed to have her followed from the Lateran, in which case he could well hinder her husband and Gambardella from joining her, and she would be at his mercy just as if she had gone home to sleep in the palace. Tommaso and young Altieri rode quickly away from the illuminated meadow, which was now full of people who either thronged the overflowing booths, or walked about on the grass laughing and talking, and waiting till those who were supping should make room for them. The riding mules of those times were swift and much surer of foot than horses, and it was not long before the two men reached the rickety wooden gate of the old Jewish cemetery. Here Tommaso dismounted, and whispering to Don Alberto to do the same, he tied the mules' bridles to the gate-post, which was still sound. Then he led the way up the hill, and both men trod so cautiously that when they passed the little house Ortensia did not hear a footfall in the road through the closed windows. Tommaso did not stop at the house door, however, but led Altieri on to the next, which was placed in the long wall and gave access to the vineyard. It was not fastened, and both went in, Tommaso putting his arm through Don Alberto's to guide him and help him if he stumbled. The rain on the previous night had softened the earth, and there was a path between the inside of the wall and the trained vines. They followed this, until they were twenty paces from the house, when Tommaso stopped. 'The lady is alone in there,' he said, pointing. 'Show me the money.' Don Alberto was prepared. With his left hand he produced a heavy deerskin purse, and with the other he drew a long knife from under his cloak. It gleamed in the starlight, and Tommaso saw it not far from his throat; but with the utmost coolness he took the purse and tried its weight in his hand, before untying the strings to feel the coins. When he was satisfied, he tied the purse again and gave it back to Don Alberto, who at once returned his knife to its sheath. 'To satisfy you,' said the old highwayman, 'I have set a ladder against the window of the room where she is probably waiting, and I have made a small hole through the outer shutter, through which you can see her. You will then come down the ladder, and I will let you into the house by the back door, which is open. Before you go in, you will hand me the money, and I will leave you, after giving you a light. We had better make no noise, lest she should come downstairs.' 'Very well. Take me to the ladder.' Tommaso now struck through the vines, skirting the angle of the house at some distance, till he came to the straight walk that led to the back door. Don Alberto was used to night adventures, and saw the ladder distinctly before he came to it. When they had reached it, walking on tip-toe, Tommaso planted his foot firmly against the foot of it, so as to hold it steady, and he pointed to a little ray of light that shone out through the hole in the shutter. Don Alberto nodded and went up very cautiously. It was one of those long ladders used by Italian vine-dressers and had heavy rungs very far apart. Tommaso had wound rags round the tops of the side pieces, so that they should make no noise against the wall. Don Alberto stopped when his head was on a level with the ray of light, and applying his eye to the hole he saw the beautiful Venetian sitting motionless by the table. Having satisfied himself that she was within and alone, he lost no time in coming down, and the rest happened as Tommaso had explained that it should, except that it did not prove necessary to strike a light; for the back door opened under the stairs, in the small vestibule, and the door above being open, the lamp in the sitting-room sent down a glimmer from above that was quite enough to show the way. At the first sound of steps below Ortensia started to her feet, understanding instantly that some one had entered the house by stealth, since she herself had put up the chain at the front door. For one fatal moment she hesitated and stood motionless. Then, as the footsteps mounted the little staircase at a run, she sprang to shut the door; but it was too late, for Don Alberto was already on the threshold. He caught her with one arm and almost lifted her back into the room, while with the other hand he slammed the door, turned the key, and thrust it into his pocket. She was struggling wildly in his arms then, but he laughed, as ruthless children do when they have caught a little bird and can torment it at their will. 'Softly, softly!' he cried. 'You will hurt yourself, my sweet! There, there! You have scratched your pretty arm already!' It was true. She had cut her arm against one of the chiselled buttons of his coat, just above the wrist, and the red drops ran down over his lace wristband. But she felt no pain and she fought like a tigress against his hold; so far she had uttered no sound, but now her voice rang out. 'Coward!' she cried suddenly, and with one mad wrench she had her hands at his throat, and her strong little fingers were almost crushing his windpipe. He could not hold her now, for she was strangling him; to free himself he let go of her waist and caught at her wrists to tear her hands away. But her strength was like a strong man's in that moment, and he could not loosen her hold. He felt that in another moment she would have strangled him outright, for his eyes were already starting from his head, and the room swam. With furious violence he twisted himself sideways and tried to hurl her from him. Even then she did not loosen her desperate grip, but as he swung her and himself half round, her head struck the wall of the room. Then her hands relaxed instantly, and as he reeled backwards in regaining his balance, he saw her sink to the floor, stunned and unconscious. [Illustration: 'Trombin advanced upon him slowly, looking more like an avenging demon than a man'] A crash like thunder broke upon the moment's silence that followed. The window opposite the table was wide open and shattered, the frame and shutters split to matchwood, the glass in splinters, and, almost as Don Alberto started and turned round, Trombin sprang into the room hatless, with his long rapier in his hand, his round blue eyes wide open and glaring like a wild cat's, his pink cheeks fiery red, and his long yellow hair streaming out from his head like a mane. At this terrific and most unexpected vision, young Altieri staggered back towards the locked door. Trombin advanced upon him slowly, sword in hand, till he was within three paces, looking more like an avenging demon than a man. Yet when he spoke his voice was calm and steady. 'If it is agreeable to you to draw, sir,' he said, 'I will do you the honour of killing you like a gentleman. If, on the other hand, as I gather from your attitude, you do not think the moment propitious for fighting, I will throw you out of the window as I would a lackey who insulted a lady, sir. Pray choose quickly, sir, before I have counted three, sir, for I am in haste. One--two--three!' The last word was scarcely out of his mouth when Trombin dashed forward, and, dropping his rapier at the same time, threw his arms round the courtier's knees; he flung him over his shoulder like a sack of flour, ran with him to the open window and dropped him out. Whether he meant to kill him, or did not care what became of him, is not certain, but Trombin was a gentleman who generally kept his head, even when he seemed to be most excited; and it is certain that, instead of falling some four or five yards directly to the ground, Don Alberto found himself clinging to the ladder halfway down. It turned sideways with his weight, slowly at first, and fell with a clatter on the drip-stones, when his feet were already touching the ground. He was dizzy, the tumble had bruised his shins, and he had sprained his hands a little, but he was otherwise unhurt, and the blood on his wristbands and collar was from the scratch on Ortensia's arm. For a few seconds he steadied himself against the corner of the house where he had fallen with the ladder. Then he began to make his way towards the door in the vineyard wall, and when he had walked thirty or forty yards he stood still, whistled twice, and waited for an answer. But none came. He had, in fact, sent his own valet and a running footman to the Lateran to follow him and Tommaso, and to note the house they entered. The runner was then to hasten back to the Basilica, where Don Alberto's coach was waiting, and was to come to the house with it, or to the nearest point it could reach. The footman was the most famous runner in Roman lackeydom and boasted that he could always cover a mile in five minutes, up hill and down and over the worst roads, and in a shorter time on a smooth and level path. As for the coach, it could drive to the very door of the little house; for the Via di Santa Sabina had always been practicable for vehicles, because it led to the castle of the Savelli, which was then partly in ruins and partly turned into a Dominican monastery. So all was well planned, and Don Alberto's valet was to hide near the last door his master entered in case the latter needed help. Yet when Altieri whistled softly there was no answer. He went on twenty paces farther and whistled again, with the same result. He reached the door in the wall, and whistled a third time, peering into the gloom amongst the vines. At last he went out into the road, determined to go away on foot and alone, rather than to risk another interview with the quick-tempered man who had thrown him out of the window. He went away on foot, indeed, but neither alone nor unaided; for he had no sooner stepped out of the door than a most unpleasant and unexpected thing happened. To his surprise and mortification, not to mention the pain he felt, an iron hand caught him by the back of his collar and ran him down the hill at the double-quick, encouraging his speed with a hearty kick at every third step or so. He ran by the house in a moment, being positively kicked past the door, and he ran on to the gate of the Jewish cemetery, whence the mules had now disappeared, and the boot of his implacable driver almost lifted him off his feet. The hand that held him was like iron, and the foot felt very like it too. Down the hill he was forced to run, till suddenly, at the turn near the bottom, where the road is wider, he came upon his own coach on its way up. Then the kicking ceased indeed, but the hand did not relax its hold, while the coachman stopped his horses at the sound of quick footsteps just ahead. An instant later Don Alberto's tormentor had opened the coach, flung him up inside, and slammed the door on him. 'Palazzo Altieri!' cried a voice the courtier had heard only once before. 'Be quick! Your master is ill!' The running footman had already dropped to the ground from behind, and was at the open carriage window in an instant, springing upon the step for orders. But Don Alberto was exhausted and had sunk back in the cushioned seat, panting for breath and aching, not only in every joint, but elsewhere. 'Home!' he managed to say, as he saw the footman's head at the window. There was just room in the road to turn, and a few seconds later the carriage was rumbling along over the bad road towards the paved streets of the city, while its only inmate slowly recovered his breath and made attempts in the dark to repair the disorder of his dress before he reached his palace. But that was not easy, for he had dropped his cloak in the struggle with Ortensia and had lost his hat in falling with the ladder; moreover, his collar and wristbands were covered with blood, and his usually smooth hair looked like a wild man's. Last, and perhaps least in his estimation, he had given a thousand crowns, in the shape of two hundred and fifty gold ducats of Naples, for the pleasure of being half-strangled by a young woman, thrown out of the window by her rescuer, and finally kicked downhill for a distance of at least two hundred and fifty yards by an unseen boot. As an equivalent for so much money these mishaps were unsatisfactory; but what the sufferer now most desired was to save some remnant of his dignity before his servants, and then to be avenged on those who had so signally frustrated his plans. He was disappointed in the first of these wishes, at all events, for when he was helped from his carriage by the porter and the running footman at the foot of the grand staircase, he found himself face to face with Alessandro Stradella, who was as pale as his own collar and half mad with anxiety. One glance told the musician that Altieri had been worsted in an adventure, which, he was sure, could only be accounted for by Ortensia's disappearance. 'Where is my wife?' asked Stradella, standing in the way on the step. Don Alberto was surprised and angry, and his shame at being seen in such plight, in his own house, overcame any prudence or self-control he had left. Besides, he felt himself sufficiently defended by his servants. 'Your wife?' he said, trying to push Stradella aside. 'She is in a little house near the Lateran, with her lover!' 'Liar!' With the ringing insult, the Sicilian's open hand struck Don Alberto such a blow across the face that he staggered back against the carriage step, the blood spurting from his nose and lips. But almost at the same instant Gaetano, the big porter, and the athletic footman threw themselves bodily upon Stradella, shouting for help at the same time. Stablemen and grooms came running from the courtyard at the cry, and the singer was overpowered in a few moments, though he struggled fiercely, not so much for his freedom as to strike Don Alberto again. 'Call the watch,' said the latter, staunching his blood with a lace handkerchief as well as he could. 'You are all witnesses. He can be taken to Tor di Nona in my carriage.' Thereupon, with more dignity than might have been expected of a young dandy in such a condition, he turned and went slowly up the broad stone stairs, holding his handkerchief to his mouth. He expected his valet to meet him at his door, but the man was not there: as a matter of fact he was then lying on his back on a tombstone in the Jewish cemetery, bound hand and foot, and securely gagged; and while he contemplated the stars, he felt much too cool for his comfort. For Gambardella had come upon him lurking near the door in the wall, after Tommaso had passed with Altieri, and the Bravo had made short work of his liberty, returning to the door in the wall just in time to catch Don Alberto as he came out. Don Alberto's commands were law at all times in his father's palace, and on the present occasion the wrath of the whole establishment was on his side. Moreover, to strike the nephew of both Popes in the face and call him a liar was an offence which would have sent the noblest patrician in Rome to a dungeon in Sant' Angelo, if not to the galleys of Cività Vecchia. It was therefore not surprising that Stradella should find himself in Tor di Nona within the hour, solidly chained to the wall in a dark cell; and so he was left to reflect upon the consequences of his rashness, though not to regret it, if indeed his gnawing anxiety for Ortensia left him room to think of anything else. CHAPTER XXII When Trombin had dropped Don Alberto upon the ladder, to take the chances of a bad fall, he looked down to see what happened, and being satisfied that the courtier was not much hurt, he turned at once to Ortensia; for if young Altieri had broken his neck, it might have been necessary to hasten what was to take place next. As for anything the courtier might do on the spur of the moment, Trombin knew that Gambardella and Tommaso were in the vineyard, ready to stop any mischief. Ortensia was lying by the wall where she had fallen, but was regaining consciousness, for her limbs stirred now and then, and as the Bravo looked at her she opened her eyes and turned her head. 'Coward!' she said faintly, as what had happened began to dawn upon her and the recollection of the furious struggle came back. 'Coward!' she repeated, closing her eyes as Trombin dropped beside her on one knee. 'I have thrown him out of the window,' he said quietly. She opened her eyes wide now, stared at him and recognised him, though as in a dream. Then she tried to raise herself on her elbow, and instantly he helped her; and feeling the strength of his arm, she got upon her feet, though with more assistance from him than she knew. He led her to a stiff little sofa at the other end of the room, picked up Don Alberto's cloak, rolled it into a pillow for her, and made her lie down. She had almost lost consciousness again with the effort of walking so far. He saw the deep scratch on her arm, from which a few drops of blood were still slowly oozing, and he fetched a basin with cold water and a towel from the bedroom, and bathed the slight wound, binding it up afterwards with his lawn handkerchief, for he was skilled in such matters. Ortensia smiled faintly, without opening her eyes; but he, with the strangest expression in the world, drew in his lips till his mouth almost disappeared; and he fixed his round eyes on the shapely arm he was dressing, and touched it with a sort of wonder. For there was a secret side of his character which even his friend Gambardella did not know, any more than Trombin knew his companion's own love-story. When Trombin said that he was a susceptible creature, full of sentiment, he was telling the truth, though his friend had never believed it. He loved all women in general, and seemed able to love a number of them in particular in close succession. Gambardella saw this, and exercised his wit upon the weakness; but what he never saw and could not guess was that his fellow-cut-throat was as shy and timid as a schoolboy in the presence of his sweetheart for the time being, whether she were of low degree or of the burgher class, above which Trombin had never aspired till he had seen Ortensia. The reckless Bravo, the perpetrator of a score of atrocious crimes, the absolutely intrepid swordsman, would blush like a girl, and stand speechless and confused when he was alone for the first time with a pretty girl or a buxom dame whose mere side-glance made the blood tingle in his neck. Moreover, many women know that there are plenty of such men in the world; and I dare say that more than one man may read these lines who has faced the extremest danger without a quickened pulse, but has collapsed like a scared child before a girl of eighteen or a cool-handed widow of eight-and-twenty. Oddly enough, those are not the men whom women love least, explain it how you will. So Trombin, who had talked of carrying off Ortensia with even more assurance than Don Alberto himself, and had just found her senseless on the floor after he had put her assailant to flight, could no more have had the boldness to kiss the white arm he was dressing so tenderly and skilfully than young Altieri had found courage to fight him when he had suddenly appeared through the window, rapier in hand and glaring like a panther. Meanwhile Ortensia came quite to herself, looked at him quietly, and thanked him. 'Where is he gone?' she asked, for she had not realised what he had said when he had first answered her. As he met her eyes Trombin's white forehead blushed, and he stepped back, taking away the basin and towel he had used in washing her wound. 'Out of the window, gracious lady,' he said, as he disappeared into the next room. 'Out of the window!' cried Ortensia in astonishment. 'Is he dead?' 'No, alive and well,' answered Trombin from the distance. 'But I hear something at this very moment,' he added, coming back empty-handed and trying the front window, as if he did not know that it was fastened with nails. He laid his ear to the crack, and held out one hand to keep Ortensia silent. 'Yes,' he whispered an instant later, loud enough for her to hear. 'Yes--it is the sound of kicking and running--some one is kicking some one else down the hill--it is gone now!' He stood upright again and looked round at Ortensia, whose face betrayed her anxiety, now that she was fully conscious. 'Who can it be?' she asked. 'Most gentle lady,' answered Trombin, 'I do not know, but I suspect, pray, hope, and inwardly believe that the patient, if I may so call him, was Don Alberto, and the kicker was very likely my friend Gambardella.' 'But you were to have brought my husband here! Your friend told me so!' Ortensia's memory came back completely at Gambardella's name, and she slipped her feet from the sofa to the floor and sat up suddenly. Trombin was, of course, prepared for the question with a plausible story, but he could never count on his presence of mind when he was in love and alone for the first time with the object of his affections. 'Madam,' he answered, 'the truth is--or, as I may say, the facts in the case are----' he stammered and stopped, for the lovely Venetian had risen and was beside him already, her frightened eyes very near his, and her hand on his sleeve. His heart beat like a scared bird's and his head was whirling. 'Where is my husband?' cried Ortensia in wild anxiety. 'Something has happened to him, and you are afraid to tell me! For heaven's sake----' It had never been in Trombin's nature to be rough with a woman. In the two or three cases in which he had been concerned in 'removing' a lady, obnoxious to her husband or relations, he had been accused by his companion of being soft-hearted; but while Ortensia was speaking he was in such a state of rapt adoration that he quite forgot to listen to what she said; and instead of answering when she waited for his reply, he took the hand that lay on his sleeve in his, with such a gentle and sympathetic touch that she did not resist, even when he raised it to his ridiculous little mouth and kissed it delicately, with an air of respectful devotion that would not have offended a saint. Nor was Ortensia offended; but she was frightened out of her mind by his manner, for it was as if he were already condoling with her, and offering his faithful service, before telling her the awful truth. 'He is dead!' she cried, breaking from him and pressing both hands to her temples in mad grief. She would have fallen against the table, if Trombin had not caught her and held her up. He understood instantly how she had mistaken his action, and what the question had been which he had not heard. 'No, no!' he cried energetically. 'He is alive and well! He insisted on going back to the palace to wait for Don Alberto when he came home from the Lateran to catch you in your rooms! Instead, the villain tracked you here and got in. It was Tommaso's fault for leaving the back door open to the vineyard, and Altieri fastened it inside, so I broke in through the window to save you! We had nailed all the windows fast for your safety!' Ortensia leaned back against the table and looked straight at him. He could tell the most amazing untruths with perfect coolness, but just now he was so very near the truth that his worst enemy would have believed him. Untruthful people often have a shifty glance, but the truly accomplished liar is he whose clear and limpid eye meets yours trustfully and sadly, while he tells you falsehoods that would make the Father of Lies himself look grave. The immediate result of Trombin's words was that Ortensia could almost have thrown her arms round his neck in her joy. 'Take me to him!' she cried, forgetting everything else. 'Take me to him! Come!' She tried to drag him towards the door in her haste, but he quietly resisted her. 'We must wait for Gambardella,' he said. 'Besides, you will have to trust your husband to settle matters with Don Alberto without you. He is far more likely to be prudent if they meet alone than if you are beside him----' Ortensia's face fell, for she saw that Trombin did not mean to let her leave the house at once. 'But Don Alberto can do anything,' she pleaded, with clear foresight of Stradella's temper and consequent danger. 'My husband will accuse him, and will be furiously angry! He will not hesitate to strike him, or to fight him in his own house! And then Don Alberto will have him imprisoned!' It was, in fact, what was about to happen, and what Trombin himself expected. On the other hand, Don Alberto knew very well where the house was to which he had been taken by Tommaso, for he was a Roman, and every yard of the road was familiar to him. Within less than an hour it was more than likely that he would send a force of sbirri to besiege the house, men who would not hesitate to break down the doors if they were not admitted, and by no means so easy to frighten away as the clumsily armed watchmen whom the Bravi had put to flight. The only possible safety for the Bravi lay in leaving the place with Ortensia before such a thing happened. The post-carriage in which Trombin meant to carry her off that very night was waiting not far away in charge of a well-paid stable hand, and Tommaso and Gambardella had only to bring it to the door. The stableman was then to take back the two mules, and the coach would leave the city at once, by Porta San Lorenzo, while Ortensia would suppose that she was being taken to the Palazzo Altieri or to some new place of safety. The plan was well laid, for it would be easy for Gambardella to make Stradella believe that his wife had been spirited away by Don Alberto's agents, and that Trombin had followed on horseback in hot pursuit. Stradella would lose no time, and would certainly accept Gambardella's assistance in the chase; and in due time husband and wife would reach Venice separately and fall into the respective traps the Bravi had ready for them. All this might succeed easily enough by the liberal use of money, and under the protection of the pardons and passports the two cut-throats had in their possession; but it was clear that no time was to be lost, and while Trombin's gaze lingered on Ortensia's lovely face, he was anxiously listening for his friend's knock below, and he did not even attempt to answer her last speech with reassuring words. 'We cannot move without Gambardella,' he said, speaking in a low tone now, lest any sound from without should escape his hearing. It came a moment later, and Trombin hastened to the door at the head of the stairs; it was locked, however, and the key was in Don Alberto's pocket, as Ortensia quickly explained. But such a trifle as an ordinary door that was fastened was not likely to stop a man who had lately smashed in a strong window-frame with his fists and his shoulder. He drew back one step, raised his heel to the level of the lock, and smashed it as if it had been made of egg-shells. The door flew open and he ran down the steps to undo the chain. Seeing that her shadow kept the light from the stairs and the vestibule, Ortensia drew back on one side of the entrance, expecting that Trombin would come up at once with Gambardella. Instead, the two stood talking in low tones on the threshold of the front door. In a few moments it was clear to Ortensia that some disagreement had arisen between the friends. Their voices grew a little louder, so that Ortensia could hear about half of what they said. It was clear that Gambardella was refusing to do something which Trombin insisted with rising temper, while the other grew colder and more obstinate every moment. 'Altieri's thousand crowns,' she heard Gambardella say distinctly; and then, in broken words, '... more than enough ... morning ... the Neapolitan frontier ... leave her here ...' 'Judas!' cried Trombin very audibly, and clearly in a rage. 'At your service,' answered Gambardella, 'and instead of thirty pieces of silver, I fling a thousand in your face! You shall not have her!' Ortensia heard a sort of chinking thud, as if a heavy purse had fallen on the stones. This was instantly followed by a scuffle, and she knew that the two men had closed and were wrestling. The whole truth had flashed upon her through the few words they had exchanged, or enough of it to prove that young Altieri had not calumniated the men she had thought her friends when he had called them Bravi. Her heart stood still for an instant, while she looked round for some means of escape. No sound of voices now came up from below, but only the shuffling of feet and the hard-drawn breath of men wrestling in the dark. She ran to the window and looked out, thinking that the ladder was still there, and then, seeing that it was gone, she peered into the gloom. Perhaps she could let herself down by her hands and then drop to the ground. At any moment one of the Bravi might come up again and seize her. She listened for a moment before trying it. The sound of the struggle had ceased, and all was still again; very cautiously she crept to the door and listened again, but there was not a breath. She ventured to look down the stairs, keeping her body on one side, and she saw that the vestibule was empty, and now her quick hearing caught the sound of shuffling footsteps in the road outside; the noise was decreasing already, as if the two men were moving down the hill in their furious fight. The house was empty for a moment, Trombin had spoken of a back door opening to the vineyard, and she saw her chance. She ran downstairs, almost falling in her haste, and as she reached the floor she stepped upon something that yielded with a chinking sound. It was the purse containing the thousand crowns in ducats, and she thrust it into her bosom without hesitation. A cool draught of air from under the stairs guided her to the back entrance, which was not closed, as Trombin had said it was, but wide open. She was out of doors in an instant, and in the starlight she could just see a broad path that led straight through the vineyard from the little house. She gathered up her silk skirts with both hands, and ran for her life. Almost at the same moment Gambardella, who was the lighter man, threw Trombin heavily on his back in the dust, and at once proceeded to kneel on his chest. CHAPTER XXIII At sunrise Ortensia wearily climbed the steep ascent that led up to the Quirinal Palace, leaning on Cucurullo's arm, and wearing his short brown cloak to cover her dress as much as possible. A few words will be enough to explain what had happened in the night. After waiting two hours and more at Santa Prassede with the things he had brought, Cucurullo had come back to the Palazzo Altieri, suspecting an accident, or at least a misunderstanding. It was not till he had knocked again and again that the porter had opened the little postern in the great wooden gate, and seeing who was there had hastily explained that Stradella was in prison for having struck Don Alberto on the nose, at the foot of the grand staircase, and that, after this, he, Gaetano the porter, had not the courage to admit any one belonging to the musician's household. He was very sorry, and said so, being much afraid of the Evil Eye if the hunchback should be angry; but he was even more afraid of Don Alberto. Cucurullo, who had been prepared for trouble, bowed his head, and said he would wait outside till morning. Gaetano offered, as a great favour, to take the things he carried and hide them in his lodge, a kindness which Cucurullo readily accepted. As for Ortensia, she did not know where she had been, and it was not till she had wandered for hours in the desolate regions between Santa Maria in Cosmedin, San Gregorio, and the Colosseum, that she at last struck into the Campo Vaccino, which was the open field under which the Roman Forum then lay buried. By the first faint light she recognised the tower of the Capitol, and in less than a quarter of an hour after that she found Cucurullo sitting on one of the stone chain-posts outside the Palazzo Altieri, his two long legs hanging down almost to the pavement, and his humped body looking like a large ball covered with a short brown cloak, and surmounted by a servant's high-crowned black felt hat with a wide brim. He was not asleep, for he hardly ever slept, and he knew his mistress's light step before he saw her at his elbow. In a moment he had explained what had happened, as far as he knew the truth, from the moment when he had left her getting into the carriage with Gambardella. Her mind was made up in a flash; she would go directly to the Pope himself, and if he would not see her, she would insist on seeing Cardinal Paluzzo Altieri. He would not refuse her an audience, if she sent up her name with a message to say that she had found something of great value that belonged to him. As for taking any rest before going to the Quirinal, she literally had not where to lay her head; but she was young and strong, and would not realise how tired she was till the strain of her anxiety was over, and she was borne up by love, which is quite the most wonderful elixir in the world against all weariness of mind or body. Nevertheless she leaned on Cucurullo's arm as they climbed the ascent, for it was very steep, and the last part of it was the long flight of steps which still leads up from the Tre Cannelle and comes out close to the little church of San Silvestro, where the great and good Vittoria Colonna once met Michelangelo. The doors of the Quirinal Palace were opened at sunrise, and two sentries of the Swiss Guard paced up and down before the entrance, their breastplates and halberds gleaming in the morning sun. They did not stop Ortensia, who saw their sergeant standing just within, very magnificent in his full-dress uniform; for it was the Feast of Saint John, and Midsummer Day, and one of the great festivals of the year, though not so solemn a one as that of Saint Peter which comes five days later, on the twenty-ninth. The Swiss sergeant was gravely civil and answered Ortensia as politely as he could, considering how imperfectly he knew the Italian language. His Holiness? No. The Pope was far from well and had not left his room for a week. His Eminence? It might be possible in an hour. The Cardinal was an early riser, and was to pontificate at high mass in the Lateran. The sergeant could send a soldier to the major domo's office by and by, but no one would be stirring upstairs for at least another hour. The gracious lady seemed tired; would she wait in the sergeant's own room? It was at her disposal. Ortensia accepted gratefully, and the big, fair-haired, wooden-faced Swiss opened the door for her, pointed to a sort of settle on which she could rest, and told Cucurullo to wait in the guard-room. The sergeant himself would call her as soon as the major-domo's office was open. He saluted her with stiff politeness and went away. Even then she did not realise that she was tired, and instead of stretching herself on the settee, as she might have done, she sat bolt upright on the edge of it, staring at the door that had just been shut, as if she expected the sergeant to come back at once. Yet she was not conscious of the passage of time, and her intense anxiety centred in her coming interview with the Cardinal rather than in any present longing for the sergeant's quick return. In her mind she went over what she was going to say, and tried to put together the Cardinal's probable replies. She meant to ask for immediate liberty for her husband, or immediate imprisonment for herself with him. Nothing could be simpler; if the great man refused to grant either, leaving her at liberty, she would risk everything and appeal to the Venetian Ambassador. She had not changed her position once in three-quarters of an hour when the door opened again, and the sergeant most respectfully invited her to go with him. His Eminence had been informed that she was below and wished to see her at once. She remembered nothing after that, till she found herself in a small sunny room hung with red damask and furnished in the same colour. The Cardinal sat in a high-backed chair at a magnificent polished writing-table, on which stood a crucifix having the sacred figure carved apparently from a single gigantic amethyst; the inkstand, pen-tray, and sand-boxes were also gilt, and made a glittering show in the bright sunshine that poured through the open window. Cardinal Altieri was a grey-haired man with steely eyes set near together, the strong lean face of a fighter, and the colourless complexion of most high ecclesiastics, who are generally what the physicians of that day called 'saturnians.' He held out a large, hard, white hand, with a ring in which was set an engraved amethyst, Ortensia touch the stone with her lips, and he motioned to her to be seated in a comfortable chair at his left. 'I know everything,' he said quietly. 'I always do.' The comprehensiveness of this sweeping statement might have made Ortensia smile at any other time. But she was staggered by it now, and forgot the speech she had prepared. On the face of it, to tell anything to a man who knew everything was superfluous. She reflected a moment, and he took advantage of her silence to speak again in the same calm tone. 'You sent me word that you had found something of value belonging to me, madam. I shall be glad to receive it, but, in the first place, I have the honour of returning to you some of your own property, which you left last night in a little house in the Via di Santa Sabina.' As he spoke the last words he put down his right hand on the side away from her and brought up a long veil, a silver hairpin, and one white doeskin glove all together. 'That is all, I believe,' he said, with a very faint smile. 'If you left anything else there, I will order a more careful search to be made. I may add that there were stains of blood on the floor and one of the walls, and as you do not appear to be wounded, madam, the inference is----' Before he could explain his inference, Ortensia stretched out her arm from beneath the cloak she wore, and showed him that it was bound up in a blood-stained handkerchief; for the small cut had been deep. With her other hand she took the purse from within her dress and held it out to the Cardinal. 'A thousand crowns in gold ducats,' she said, 'which your Eminence's nephew paid two Bravi for the privilege of giving me this scratch. But they cheated him and drove him away and then quarrelled, and fought about which should have me for his share. I escaped from the house while they were fighting outside, I stepped on this purse and I picked it up, being sure that the money belonged to you, and there it is! In return, I ask for my husband's liberty.' She saw from his face that he was much surprised, and that what she had just told him had produced a decided effect in her favour; for it is almost needless to say that the account of the affair which Don Alberto had dictated to his secretary and had sent to his uncle late on the previous evening gave a very different view of the case. According to the young man, Ortensia had met him of her own accord, deliberately enticing him into an ambush from which he had barely escaped with his life, only to be insulted and struck in the face by her husband, who was, of course, acquainted with the whole plan. The Cardinal examined the purse minutely, then opened it and looked at the contents. He guessed that the value of the gold must be about a thousand crowns, as Ortensia had said it was. During this time she quietly arranged her veil on her head, fastening it with the long silver pin, and then put on the glove he had restored to her. At last he looked up and spoke. 'Where one knows everything,' he observed, 'it is impossible not to be surprised at the lamentable ignorance in which most people live. For instance, if I had not this demonstration of the fact, which agrees well with my own knowledge, I should find it hard to believe that you and your husband could have been foolish enough to make friends with the very men whom your uncle the Senator Pignaver had sent to murder you.' 'We were deceived, Eminence,' answered Ortensia. 'I need not tell you how, since everything is known to you. All I ask is my husband's liberty.' 'Your husband, madam, appears to have broken my nephew's nose,' replied the Cardinal, with the utmost gravity. 'Moreover, Alberto is not only my own nephew by blood, but His Holiness's also, both in fact, as the son of the Pope's niece, Donna Lucia, and also by formal adoption. I doubt whether His Holiness will easily overlook such an offence. To break the nose of a Pope's nephew, madam, is a serious matter. I would have you understand that.' 'Then send me to prison with my husband!' cried Ortensia desperately. The Cardinal slowly rubbed his pale chin with his amethyst ring, and looked at her. 'There may be an alternative to that somewhat extreme course,' he observed. 'Calm yourself, I beg of you, and I will see His Holiness as soon as possible. In the meantime, it would be well for you to take some rest.' 'Rest!' Ortensia exclaimed. 'How can I rest while he is in prison, unless I can be near him?' 'I cannot see the connection of ideas,' the Cardinal answered coldly. He looked at her with some curiosity, for he had never been in love with anything but power since he had first gone to school. He rang a gilt bell that stood beside the gilt inkstand, and a grey-haired priest, still unshaven and shabbily dressed, came at the call. His face was as yellow as common beeswax, and his little eyes were bloodshot. The Cardinal pushed the purse across the polished mahogany. 'Count that money,' he said briefly, and opening the drawer of the table he took out a sheet of paper and began to write, while the shabby secretary counted out the gold in the palm of his hand, as if he were used to doing it. The letter was not long, and the Cardinal read it over to himself with evident care before folding it. He even smiled faintly, as he had done when he had returned Ortensia's things. He turned in the top and bottom of the sheet so that the edges just met, and after creasing the bends with his large pale thumb-nail he doubled the folded paper neatly, and then turned up the ends and slipped one into the other. 'Seal it with a wafer when you have done counting,' he said, tossing the letter to the priest, for he detested the taste of sealing-wafers, and, moreover, thought that the red colouring matter in them was bad for the stomach. 'How much money is there?' he asked, seeing that the secretary had finished his task. 'Two hundred and fifty gold ducats, Eminence,' answered the latter, and his dirty crooked fingers poured the gold back into the leathern purse. When that was done, and the wet wafer had been slipped into its place and pressed, the secretary handed the letter to the Cardinal for him to address it. Instead of doing so at once, however, he turned to Ortensia, who had been watching the proceedings in silent anxiety. 'Madam,' the great man began, in a suave tone, 'knowing everything, as I do, you may well imagine that I am anxious to spare you the grief of seeing your husband condemned to the galleys.' 'The galleys!' cried Ortensia in extreme terror. 'Merciful heavens!' The Cardinal went on speaking with the utmost coolness and without heeding her emotion. 'If what my nephew believed last night could be proved true, madam, your husband's neck would be in great danger, and you yourself would probably spend several years in a place of solitude and penance.' Ortensia's horror increased, and she could no longer speak. 'Yes, madam,' continued the Cardinal inexorably, 'I have no hesitation in saying so. My nephew believed that you and your husband had purposely enticed him to a clandestine meeting with you, in order to have him thrown out of a window, at the imminent risk of his life, and otherwise maltreated by hired ruffians. It was little short of a miracle that he reached his home alive, and he had no sooner stepped from his carriage than your husband put the finishing stroke to the series of atrocities by breaking his nose. I do not say that this was a blow at the Church, madam, but it was a violent blow at the authority of the Pope's government. I take it that a blow which can break a man's nose is a violent blow. That is the argument for the prosecution.' Ortensia stared wildly at the colourless face and the steely eyes that met her own. 'Happily,' the Cardinal went on, after a short but impressive pause, 'my nephew does not know everything. There are some arguments for the defence: that purse is a good one, madam, and the wound you have received is better; my own universal knowledge fills the lacunæ that are left, so far as concerns what happened at the house in Via di Santa Sabina. Two Bravi, who have undertaken to murder you, thought they could earn an additional thousand crowns by selling you to my nephew, whose admiration for you is unhappily a matter of notoriety. Their plan was then to drive him away, after which one of them was to carry you off, while the other remained behind to murder your husband. Fortunately for you they quarrelled, you made your escape, and your excellent good sense made you come directly to me, which, in the case of a lady of your noble birth, is a clear proof of innocence. Moreover, I know it to be true that the two Bravi were found fighting desperately in the street during the night, but when the watch fell upon them to separate them they turned their swords against the officers of the law and sent the cowardly pack flying, though not one of the fellows had anything worse than a pin-prick to show. Your former friends are very accomplished swordsmen, madam! That is the argument for your defence, and it satisfies me.' 'Thank heaven!' exclaimed Ortensia, whose face had relaxed while he had been speaking. 'Then my husband will be let out, after all!' 'That depends on His Holiness, not on me,' answered the churchman. 'It may depend on your husband himself. Your friends'--he emphasised the word with a cool smile--'your friends the Bravi are responsible for everything except my nephew's broken nose, but that is a serious matter enough. Bertini'--he turned to the secretary--'you may go. I wished you to hear what I have just said. Order one of my own chairs to be ready to take this lady to the palace in five minutes.' Bertini bowed and left the room. It was not until the door was shut that the Cardinal spoke again. 'His Holiness expressed to me only last night his august desire to hear your husband sing, and regretted his inability to go to the Lateran for that purpose. His Holiness has now spent a good night and it may be hoped that he will be able to rise this afternoon. Your husband shall have an opportunity of singing to him before supper. That is all I can manage for him. He must do the rest.' 'Thank you, thank you!' cried Ortensia gratefully. 'Only----' 'What, madam?' 'How will he be able to sing, after such a night, if he is kept in prison? He will have a sore throat from the dampness, he will be worn out with anxiety, and weak for want of food! What chance can he possibly have of moving the Pope to pity?' 'I have attended to that, madam,' the Cardinal answered, tapping the letter that lay under his hand. 'The Maestro shall lack nothing which can restore his strength and his voice.' He rang his little bell twice in quick succession, and at the same time he wrote an address on the folded paper. A man in black entered before he had finished. Then he scattered red sand on the writing, and poured it back into the sand-box. 'To Tor di Nona,' he said. 'Tell the messenger to gallop.' The man was gone in an instant. 'You will find a chair downstairs,' the churchman said. 'The men are to take you to your apartment in my palace.' 'But if the porter----' Ortensia began to object. 'He will hardly venture to turn my liveries from my own door, madam. Go to your rooms and rest. You will find that your maid has left you. She fled in terror last night, and left Rome an hour ago in the coach for Naples. I saw no reason for having her stopped, but if she has robbed you I will have her taken. Your husband has a queer hunch-backed man-servant called Cucurullo; he looks like Guidi, I remember, the young poet who ran away from our royal guest the other day.' The Cardinal smiled vaguely, and rubbed his chin with his ring. 'He is downstairs,' Ortensia said. 'He is a good creature,' she added quickly, fearing lest the great man was about to tell her something to Cucurullo's discredit. 'An excellent fellow,' the Cardinal assented readily. 'I was going to say that if your husband wished to part with him, I should be glad to take him into my service. You will not suspect me of entertaining any foolish superstition about the good fortune which hunchbacks are supposed to bring with them, I am sure! That is ridiculous. Besides, I would not for the world displease the poor fellow, if my suggestion were not agreeable to him, as well as to your husband, madam, believe me!' Even in her anxiety Ortensia was inclined to smile, for it was clear that the master of Rome believed in the deformed man's supernatural gift as profoundly as any beggar in the street who tried to touch the hump unnoticed. 'I will speak with my husband about it,' Ortensia said. 'Only let me see him,' she added, in a pleading tone. 'For the present, madam, I have done all I can, except to promise you that if His Holiness is well enough to hear the Maestro sing, you shall be present. Meanwhile, you must go home, and remain in your rooms till I send for you.' He held out his ring for her to kiss, and she saw that she must go. 'I thank your Eminence with all my heart,' she said, and with a deep courtesy she turned and left the room. Her heart was lighter than when she had entered it, for though she did not like the Cardinal, who was liked by few, she could not help believing that he was in earnest in all he had said, and really meant to give Stradella the only chance left to him of escaping some heavy penalty for his hastiness. But she longed to see him more than ever, and to repeat all she had just heard exactly as it had been said. As she retraced her steps from the study to the stairs, accompanied by a servant who showed her the way, she looked about her in surprise, for she had not the slightest recollection of anything she now saw, and was amazed at the distance she had traversed without noticing anything. She could have sworn that she had gone up by an ordinary staircase, but instead, it was a winding one, and everything else she saw surprised her in the same way. Cucurullo was standing beside the large sedan chair with the four porters who wore the Cardinal's livery of scarlet and gold. Two of them were to carry her, while one walked before and the fourth followed behind, both the latter being ready to take their turns as bearers at regular intervals. When they reached the palace a quarter of an hour later, they did not even pause at the lodge, and it was with considerable astonishment that Gaetano saw Ortensia enter in such state, followed by Cucurullo, who smiled pleasantly as he passed. Ortensia stepped from the chair at her own door and thanked the men, for she had nothing to give them; but the hunchback always had money, and when he had unlocked the door he handed them a silver florin with an air as grand as if he had been at least the seneschal of the palace. Ortensia went on to the sitting-room, still almost unconscious of being tired; but she had hardly entered, followed closely by Cucurullo, when her knees suddenly gave way under her, her head swam, and she had barely time to stagger to the long sofa before she fainted away, utterly worn out with fatigue and emotion. She came to herself before long, and Cucurullo was leaning over her and cooling her forehead and temples with a handkerchief soaked with Felsina water. But she only sighed as she recognised him, and then he saw that she fell peacefully asleep, just as she lay. He drew the blinds closer together to darken the room, and went off to shave himself and restore his usually neat and clean appearance, which had suffered somewhat during a whole night spent out of doors. But Ortensia was outwardly in a far worse plight as she lay sleeping on the hard sofa, for her pretty silk skirt was soiled and torn at the edges, her little kid shoes were splashed with mud, covered with dust, and half worn out by her walking in rough places; the blood-stained handkerchief on her arm told its own tale, too, and her glorious hair was all disordered and tangled. Yet, somehow, she was not a whit less beautiful than when she had left the house with her husband on the previous afternoon fresh from Pina's skilful hands. She was dreaming of Stradella now, after she had been asleep more than four hours, and the sun outside was high and hot. It was not a vision of terror, either, or of tormenting anxiety; she thought he had come back to her, and that it had all been a mistake, or a bad dream within the present sweet one; for he was just the same as when she had seen him last, his gaze was clear and loving, his touch was tender, and when his lips met hers---- She awoke with a startled cry of joy, and it was all true; for he was kneeling beside her, and she felt his kiss before her eyes opened to see themselves in his. It had all been a bad dream that had turned to a sweet one and ended in the delicious truth. He had not left her since she had rested there, on that same sofa after dinner, and they had not yet been to the Lateran--it was still yesterday. Then she remembered, and put down her feet to the pavement as she sat up in his arms, and framed his face in her hands, pushing it a little away from her to see it better. No; he was himself, his straight dark hair was neatly combed, his cheek was smooth and fresh and cool, his collar was spotless and lay over his dark coat just as it always did. She was either still asleep and dreaming, or she had dreamed every terror she remembered. To be sure that she was awake, she opened and shut her eyes several times very quickly, and then gazed at him in sweet surprise. [Illustration: 'She sat up in his arms and framed his face in her hands'] 'Beloved, am I awake? I do not understand----' Instead of answering her in words, he kissed her again, and the long thrill that made her quiver from head to foot told her that she was indeed awake. Presently they began to talk, and each told what the other could not know, till there was nothing more to tell; moreover, Ortensia's tale was by far the longer, and Stradella's eyes darkened more than once at what he heard, but whenever she saw that look in his face, she kissed it away, and told him that they were safe now, if only he could sing to the Pope to-day as he had sung yesterday for her in the Lateran. 'But what can I sing?' he asked. '"Lord have mercy on us!"' answered Ortensia, almost laughing. 'That must be the meaning of the song, at all events.' 'A _miserere_?' Stradella was surprised at the suggestion, for old men do not usually like dirges. 'No, sweetheart, I did not mean that! It must not be in Latin, but in Italian, an appeal from you, as a man who has committed a fault, to the Pope, as a sovereign, who has power to forgive it if he will.' 'Do you mean that I am to compose the words and the music between now and sunset?' asked the musician, somewhat startled. 'Why not? Did you not compose the greatest love song you ever wrote in a few hours, and for me? What is the use of being a man of genius, my beloved? Just for that, and nothing else!' 'But I am not a man of genius! And I have spent the night in prison!' 'You look as fresh as a May morning!' laughed Ortensia. 'Whereas I am all bedraggled, and scratched, and dishevelled, and everything I should not be.' 'I dressed while you were sleeping,' answered Stradella. 'There was plenty of time!' 'Do you mean to say that you had the inhuman cruelty not to wake me the instant you came home? And you pretend to love me! I shall never believe you again. But that only proves that you are a man of genius, as I said--you have not half a heart amongst you, you great artists! But I will have my revenge, for I shall go to my own room, and shut myself up and make myself fit to be seen, while you compose your song!' 'And who will dress your beautiful hair now that Pina has run away?' laughed Stradella. 'I will. And if I cannot, a certain man of genius, called Alessandro Stradella, may try his hand at it!' She ran away laughing, but he caught her before she reached her own door, and though she struggled, he kissed her on her neck, just where the red-gold ringlets grew, low down behind her little ear. They behaved like a pair of runaway lovers, as they were. But when he was alone his face grew grave and thoughtful, for he knew there was great danger still. He had been sent home under a guard, a prisoner still, and there were sentinels outside both doors of the apartment, who would be relieved at intervals all day, till the time came for him to be taken to the Quirinal. He might have been somewhat reassured if he had known that Don Alberto himself was also under arrest in his bedroom, by the Cardinal's orders; and he might have felt some satisfaction if he could have seen his enemy's injured nose, swollen to an unnatural size and covered with sticking-plaster, and if he could have also realised that it still hurt quite dreadfully; but, on the other hand, these latter palliative circumstances were likely to make the real trouble even worse, since that same nose was not to be classed with common noses, but as a _nasus nepotis Pontificis_, that is, nepotic, belonging to a Pope's nephew, and therefore quasi-pontifical, and not to be pulled, struck, or otherwise maltreated with impunity. Nevertheless, Stradella forgot all about the injured feature and its possessor in a few minutes, when he had tuned his lute and was sitting by the table with a sheet of music and a pen at his elbow, for he thought aloud in soft sounds that often ceased at first and then began again, but little by little linked themselves together in a melody that has not perished to this day; and with the music the words came, touchingly simple, but heart-felt as an angel's tears. Ortensia heard his voice through the door, and listened, half dressed, with a happy smile; for she knew the moods of his genius better than he knew them himself, and she understood that the song he was weaving with voice and lute would be worthy of him, as it is; for in the growth of music, the fine art, his masterpiece of oratorio are left behind and forgotten, being too thin and primitive for an age that began with Beethoven and ended in Richard Wagner; but his songs have not lost their hold on those simpler natures that are still responsive to a melody and vibrate to a perfect human voice. It was late in the afternoon when Stradella had finished his work, and the last note and rest of 'Pietà Signore' were written down. The two had dined on the supper which Pina and Cucurullo had prepared for them on the previous evening, and in the warm hours Ortensia had fallen asleep again for a little while, still listening to the song and hearing it in her dreams. But when Stradella was sure that nothing more was to be changed, she opened her eyes wide and got up; and she came and knelt at his knees as she had done on that last night in the balcony of the old inn; and then he sang what he had composed, from first to last, in a voice that just filled her ears when it was loudest, and still echoed in her heart when it sank to a mere breath. When he was silent at last there were tears in her eyes, and she kissed his hand as it lay passive on the silent strings of the lute, while he bent down over her and his lips touched her hair. They had not much time left after that, as it seemed to them, when they remembered it all and looked back on one of the happiest days in their young lives. The last time they kissed was when they were ready to go downstairs to the carriage that was waiting to take them to the Quirinal. Strange to say, Stradella felt a little faint then, and his heart was beating almost painfully, whereas Ortensia was quite calm and confident, and smiled at the two sbirri in black who were ready on the landing to escort the prisoners to the Cardinal's presence. They were there at last, in a spacious room where everything was either white, or gilded, or of gold, the walls, the furniture, the big fireplace, the heavy carpet spread on the marble floor, where the Pope sat in his gilded chair, himself all in white, with a small white silk skullcap set far back on his silvery hair. His face was almost white, too, and the short beard on his chin was like snow, for he was over eighty years of age, thin, and in ill-health; but the face was kindly, with soft dark eyes that still had life in them; and the shadow of a smile flickered round the faded lips as Stradella and Ortensia knelt together at his feet. On his left side stood Cardinal Altieri, erect and motionless in his purple cassock with red buttons, and his scarlet silk cloak. His face was grave and inscrutable. 'Holy Father,' he had said, as the pair knelt down, 'these are the prisoners who implore your pardon.' That was all he said, and for some moments the Pope did not speak, though he nodded his snowy head twice, in answer to the Cardinal's words, and his gentle eyes looked from the one young face to the other as if reading the meaning of each. 'You sang to me a year ago, my son,' he said at length to Stradella. 'Go now and stand a little way off and make music, for though I am old I hear well; and do your best, for I will be your judge. If I find you have even greater mastery than last year, your skill shall atone for your rude handling of my nephew; but if you sing less well, you must have an opportunity of practising and perfecting your art in solitude for a few months.' If Stradella had dared to glance at the kindly face just then, he would certainly have noticed how the dark eyes brightened, and almost twinkled. But Ortensia, being a woman, and still full of girlhood's innocent daring, was boldly looking up at the Pope while he spoke; and he smiled at her, and one shadowy hand went out and rested on the black veil she had pinned upon her hair. 'Go and stand near your husband while he sings to me,' he said. 'You will give him courage, I am sure!' The two rose together, and Stradella took up the lute he had laid beside him on the floor when he had knelt down at the Pope's feet. He and Ortensia stepped back half-a-dozen paces, and the musician stood still, but Ortensia moved a little farther away and to one side. The windows were wide open to the west, and the rich evening light flooded the white and gold room, and illumined the figure of the aged Pope, the strong features of the tall grey-haired Cardinal beside him, and the two young faces of the singer and his wife. Stradella's heart beat fast and faintly, and his fingers trembled when they touched the strings and made the first minor chord. As long as he lived he remembered how at that very moment two swallows shot by the open window, uttering their eager little note; the room swam with him, and he thought he was going to reel and fall. For a moment he saw nothing and knew nothing, except that he had reached the end of the short prelude on the lute, and that he must find voice to sing for his liberty and Ortensia's, if not for his life. 'Pietà, Signore----' The first words broke from his chilled lips in a low cry of despair, so strange and moving, and yet so musical, that the Cardinal started visibly, and the Pope raised his white head and looked slowly down the room, as if some suffering creature must be there at the very point of death, and crying low for pity and forgiveness. Even Ortensia, who had heard all, could not believe her ears, though she knew her husband's genius well. 'Signor pietà----' he sang again. Fear was gone now, but art poured out the appeal for pardon with supreme power to move, roused to outdo itself, perhaps, by that first piteous cry that had broken from the master-singer's lips. The plaintive notes floated on the golden air as if a culprit spirit were pleading for forgiveness at the gates of paradise, a wonder to hear. Ortensia held her breath, her eyes fixed on the aged Pontiff's rapt face; for he was gazing at the singer while he listened to a strain such as he had never heard in all his eighty years of life; and his kind old eyes were dewy with compassion. The last note lingered on the air and died away, and there was silence in the great room while one might have counted ten. Then the shadowy white hand was slowly stretched out in a beckoning gesture, and the Pope spoke. 'Come,' he said, 'you are forgiven.' They came and knelt at his feet again, and he, leaning forward in his great chair, bent his head towards them. 'You were pardoned in my heart already, my son,' he said to Stradella, 'for I have been told the truth, and the provocation you suffered was great. Go free, and fear nothing, for while you dwell under our care in Rome you shall be as safe as I who speak to you. Go free, and use the great gift you have received from heaven to raise men's hearts heavenwards, as you have raised mine to-day.' He gave his hand to Stradella and then to Ortensia, and they kissed the great ring with devout gratitude, deeply touched by his words. Then he spoke again, and still more kindly. 'Will you ask anything of me before you go?' 'Your blessing on us, as man and wife, Holy Father,' Stradella answered. 'Most willingly, my children.' With fatherly tenderness he joined their right hands under his left, and then, lifting his right above their bowed heads, and looking up, he blessed them very solemnly. * * * * * I shall tell no more, but leave the singer and his young wife to their happiness. If any one would know the end that followed years afterwards, he will find it in chronicles that are in almost every great library. I shall only say that while those two lived they loved, as few have, and that Stradella's fame was greater when he breathed his last than it had ever been before; and in Italy he is not forgotten yet. But whether Trombin and Gambardella will ever stroll into the story-teller's dreamland again, and act other parts, he himself cannot surely tell, nor does he know whether they will be welcome if they come. Their names are not in the chronicles, as Stradella's and Ortensia's are, as well as Pignaver's. The Venetian nobleman 'sent certain assassins,' and that is all we know; and as for the names and faces and figures I have given to the Bravi, I found them beyond the borders of truth in the delicious Gardens of Irresponsibility, where many strange people dwell together, who might be real, and may be alive some day, but who have not yet made up their minds to exchange the flowery paths of fiction for the stony roads and dusty lanes of this working-day world. Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS THE SARACINESCA SERIES _In the binding of the Uniform Edition, each, $1.50_ Saracinesca "The work has two distinct merits, either of which would serve to make it great,--that of telling a perfect story in a perfect way, and of giving a graphic picture of Roman society in the last days of the Pope's temporal power.... The story is exquisitely told."--_Boston Traveler._ Sant' Ilario. A Sequel to "Saracinesca" "A singularly powerful and beautiful story.... It fulfils every requirement of artistic fiction. It brings out what is most impressive in human action, without owing any of its effectiveness to sensationalism or artifice. It is natural, fluent in evolution, accordant with experience, graphic in description, penetrating in analysis, and absorbing in interest."--_New York Tribune._ Don Orsino. A Sequel to "Sant' Ilario" "Perhaps the cleverest novel of the year.... There is not a dull paragraph in the book, and the reader may be assured that once begun, the story of Don Orsino will fascinate him until its close."--_The Critic._ Taquisara "To Mr. Crawford's Roman novels belongs the supreme quality of uniting subtly drawn characters to a plot of uncommon interest."--_Chicago Tribune._ Corleone "Mr. Crawford is the novelist born ... a natural story-teller, with wit, imagination, and insight added to a varied and profound knowledge of social life."--_The Inter-Ocean_, Chicago. Casa Braccio. _In two volumes, $2.00._ Illustrated by A. Castaigne. "Mr. Crawford's books have life, pathos, and insight; he tells a dramatic story with many exquisite touches."--_New York Sun._ The White Sister THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS NOVELS OF ROMAN SOCIAL LIFE _In decorated cloth covers, each, $1.50_ A Roman Singer "One of the earliest and best works of this famous novelist.... None but a genuine artist could have made so true a picture of human life, crossed by human passions and interwoven with human weakness. It is a perfect specimen of literary art."--_The Newark Advertiser._ Marzio's Crucifix "We have repeatedly had occasion to say that Mr. Crawford possesses in an extraordinary degree the art of constructing a story. It is as if it could not have been written otherwise, so naturally does the story unfold itself, and so logical and consistent is the sequence of incident after incident. As a story, _Marzio's Crucifix_ is perfectly constructed."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ Heart of Rome. A Tale of the Lost Water "Mr. Crawford has written a story of absorbing interest, a story with a genuine thrill in it; he has drawn his characters with a sure and brilliant touch, and he has said many things surpassingly well."--_New York Times Saturday Review._ Cecilia. A Story of Modern Rome "That F. Marion Crawford is a master of mystery needs no new telling.... His latest novel, _Cecilia_, is as weird as anything he has done since the memorable _Mr. Isaacs_.... A strong, interesting, dramatic story, with the picturesque Roman setting beautifully handled as only a master's touch could do it."--_Philadelphia Evening Telegraph._ Whosoever Shall Offend "It is a story sustained from beginning to end by an ever increasing dramatic quality."--_New York Evening Post._ Pietro Ghisleri "The imaginative richness, the marvellous ingenuity of plot, the power and subtlety of the portrayal of character, the charm of the romantic environment,--the entire atmosphere, indeed,--rank this novel at once among the great creations."--_The Boston Budget._ To Leeward "The four characters with whose fortunes this novel dealt are, perhaps, the most brilliantly executed portraits in the whole of Mr. Crawford's long picture gallery, while for subtle insight into the springs of human passion and for swift dramatic action none of the novels surpasses this one."--_The News and Courier._ A Lady of Rome THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS Mr. Crawford has no equal as a writer of brilliant cosmopolitan fiction, in which the characters really belong to the chosen scene and the story interest is strong. His novels possess atmosphere in a high degree. Mr. Isaacs (India) Its scenes are laid in Simla, chiefly. This is the work which first placed its author among the most brilliant novelists of his day. Greifenstein (The Black Forest) "... Another notable contribution to the literature of the day. It possesses originality in its conception and is a work of unusual ability. Its interest is sustained to the close, and it is an advance even on the previous work of this talented author. Like all Mr. Crawford's work, this novel is crisp, clear, and vigorous, and will be read with a great deal of interest."--_New York Evening Telegram._ Zoroaster (Persia) "It is a drama in the force of its situations and in the poetry and dignity of its language; but its men and women are not men and women of a play. By the naturalness of their conversation and behavior they seem to live and lay hold of our human sympathy more than the same characters on a stage could possibly do."--_The New York Times._ The Witch of Prague (Bohemia) _"A fantastic tale," illustrated by W. J. Hennessy._ "The artistic skill with which this extraordinary story is constructed and carried out is admirable and delightful.... Mr. Crawford has scored a decided triumph, for the interest of the tale is sustained throughout.... A very remarkable, powerful, and interesting story."--_New York Tribune._ Paul Patoff (Constantinople) "Mr. Crawford has a marked talent for assimilating local color, not to make mention of a broader historical sense. Even though he may adopt, as it is the romancer's right to do, the extreme romantic view of history, it is always a living and moving picture that he evolves for us, varied and stirring."--_New York Evening Post._ Marietta (Venice) "No living writer can surpass Mr. Crawford in the construction of a complicated plot and the skilful unravelling of the tangled skein."--_Chicago Record-Herald._ "He has gone back to the field of his earlier triumphs, and has, perhaps, scored the greatest triumph of them all."--_New York Herald._ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS _In the binding of the new Uniform Edition, each, $1.50_ Via Crucis. A Romance of the Second Crusade. Illustrated by Louis Loeb "_Via Crucis_ ... A tale of former days, possessing an air of reality and an absorbing interest such as few writers since Scott have been able to accomplish when dealing with historical characters."--_Boston Transcript._ In the Palace of the King (Spain) "_In the Palace of the King_ is a masterpiece; there is a picturesqueness, a sincerity which will catch all readers in an agreeable storm of emotion, and even leave a hardened reviewer impressed and delighted."--_Literature_, London. With the Immortals "The strange central idea of the story could have occurred only to a writer whose mind was very sensitive to the current of modern thought and progress, while its execution, the setting it forth in proper literary clothing, could be successfully attempted only by one whose active literary ability should be fully equalled by his power of assimilative knowledge both literary and scientific, and no less by his courage and capacity for hard work. The book will be found to have a fascination entirely new for the habitual reader of novels. Indeed, Mr. Crawford has succeeded in taking his readers quite above the ordinary plane of novel interest."--_Boston Advertiser._ Children of the King (Calabria) "One of the most artistic and exquisitely finished pieces of work that Crawford has produced. The picturesque setting, Calabria and its surroundings, the beautiful Sorrento and the Gulf of Salerno, with the bewitching accessories that climate, sea, and sky afford, give Mr. Crawford rich opportunities to show his rare descriptive powers. As a whole the book is strong and beautiful through its simplicity, and ranks among the choicest of the author's many fine productions."--_Public Opinion._ A Cigarette Maker's Romance and Khaled, a Tale of Arabia (Munich) "Two gems of subtle analysis of human passion and motive."--_Times._ "The interest is unflagging throughout. Never has Mr. Crawford done more brilliant realistic work than here. But his realism is only the case and cover for those intense feelings which, placed under no matter what humble conditions, produce the most dramatic and the most tragic situations.... This is a secret of genius, to take the most coarse and common material, the meanest surroundings, the most sordid material prospects, and out of the vehement passions which sometimes dominate all human beings to build up with these poor elements, scenes and passages the dramatic and emotional power of which at once enforce attention and awaken the profoundest interest."--_New York Tribune._ Arethusa (Constantinople) Dr. Cooper, in _The Bookman_, once gave to Mr. Crawford the title which best marks his place in modern fiction: "the prince of storytellers." THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS WITH SCENES LAID IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA _In the binding of the Uniform Edition_ A Tale of a Lonely Parish "It is a pleasure to have anything so perfect of its kind as this brief and vivid story.... It is doubly a success, being full of human sympathy, as well as thoroughly artistic in its nice balancing of the unusual with the commonplace, the clever juxtaposition of innocence and guilt, comedy and tragedy, simplicity and intrigue."--_Critic._ Dr. Claudius. A True Story The scene changes from Heidelberg to New York, and much of the story develops during the ocean voyage. "There is a satisfying quality in Mr. Crawford's strong, vital, forceful stories."--_Boston Herald._ An American Politician. The scenes are laid in Boston "It need scarcely be said that the story is skilfully and picturesquely written, portraying sharply individual characters in well-defined surroundings."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ The Three Fates "Mr. Crawford has manifestly brought his best qualities as a student of human nature and his finest resources as a master of an original and picturesque style to bear upon this story. Taken for all in all, it is one of the most pleasing of all his productions in fiction, and it affords a view of certain phases of American, or perhaps we should say of New York, life that have not hitherto been treated with anything like the same adequacy and felicity."--_Boston Beacon._ Marion Darche "Full enough of incident to have furnished material for three or four stories.... A most interesting and engrossing book. Every page unfolds new possibilities, and the incidents multiply rapidly."--_Detroit Free Press._ "We are disposed to rank _Marion Darche_ as the best of Mr. Crawford's American stories."--_The Literary World._ Katharine Lauderdale The Ralstons. A Sequel to "Katharine Lauderdale" "Mr. Crawford at his best is a great novelist, and in Katharine Lauderdale we have him at his best."--_Boston Daily Advertiser._ "A most admirable novel, excellent in style, flashing with humor, and full of the ripest and wisest reflections upon men and women."--_The Westminster Gazette._ "It is the first time, we think, in American fiction that any such breadth of view has shown itself in the study of our social framework."--_Life._ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S LATER NOVELS--THE SINGER TRILOGY _Three novels, each an independent, interesting episode from the life of Margaret Donne, the fascinating English girl who later became the most famous lyric soprano of her day._ _Each, illustrated, $1.50_ Fair Margaret tells of its heroine's student days, of the conflicting claims of lovers and a career; of a retired opera singer in Paris whose portrait alone makes the book one to be treasured by those who know; and, in brief, of a girl's first glimpse of the great unknown world beyond the footlights. The Primadonna "Mr. Crawford is at his best in this romance. He tells an absorbing story, and he places at the centre of it a woman whose character is full of interest.... It is a dramatic beginning, and Mr. Crawford goes on as he begins ... the whole tangled business becomes more and more exciting and we follow the Primadonna through the proceedings with breathless interest."--_New York Tribune._ The Diva's Ruby "F. Marion Crawford is one of the few writers who have mastered the art of writing sequels that are as vital and as absorbing as the original novels ... sequels wherein the finding of a character mentioned in an earlier story gives us the full delight of meeting an old friend.... This delicate paradoxical evolution ... is art, clean, deft, easy, dexterous art. There are not half a dozen men in literature to-day who could do these things consistently."--_New York Times Review._ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Mr. JAMES LANE ALLEN'S NOVELS _Each, cloth, 12mo, $1.50_ The Choir Invisible _This can also be had in a special edition illustrated by Orson Lowell, $2.50_ "One reads the story for the story's sake, and then re-reads the book out of pure delight in its beauty. The story is American to the very core.... Mr. Allen stands to-day in the front rank of American novelists. _The Choir Invisible_ will solidify a reputation already established and bring into clear light his rare gifts as an artist. For this latest story is as genuine a work of art as has come from an American hand."--HAMILTON MABIE in _The Outlook_. The Reign of Law. A Tale of the Kentucky Hempfields "Mr. Allen has a style as original and almost as perfectly finished as Hawthorne's, and he has also Hawthorne's fondness for spiritual suggestion that makes all his stories rich in the qualities that are lacking in so many novels of the period.... If read in the right way, it cannot fail to add to one's spiritual possessions."--_San Francisco Chronicle._ The Mettle of the Pasture "It may be that _The Mettle of the Pasture_ will live and become a part of our literature; it certainly will live far beyond the allotted term of present-day fiction. Our principal concern is that it is a notable novel, that it ranks high in the range of American and English fiction, and that it is worth the reading, the re-reading, and the continuous appreciation of those who care for modern literature at its best."--By E. F. E. in the _Boston Transcript_. Summer in Arcady. A Tale of Nature _Cloth, $1.25_ "This story by James Lane Allen is one of the gems of the season. It is artistic in its setting, realistic and true to nature and life in its descriptions, dramatic, pathetic, tragic, in its incidents; indeed, a veritable masterpiece that must become classic. It is difficult to give an outline of the story; it is one of the stories which do not outline; it must be read."--_Boston Daily Advertiser._ _Shorter Stories_ The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky _$1.50_ Flute and Violin, and Other Kentucky Tales _$1.50_ The Bride of the Mistletoe _$1.25_ A Kentucky Cardinal. _Illustrated_ _$1.00_ Aftermath. A Sequel to "A Kentucky Cardinal" _$1.00_ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK Mr. ROBERT HERRICK'S NOVELS _Cloth, extra, gilt tops, each $1.50_ Mr. W. D. Howells says in _The North American Review_: "What I should finally say of his work is that it is more broadly based than that of any other American novelist of his generation.... Mr. Herrick's fiction is a force for the higher civilization which to be widely felt needs only to be widely known." The Gospel of Freedom "A novel that may truly be called the greatest study of social life, in a broad and very much up-to-date sense, that has ever been contributed to American fiction."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._ The Web of Life "It is strong in that it faithfully depicts many phases of American life, and uses them to strengthen a web of fiction, which is most artistically wrought out."--_Buffalo Express._ Jock o' Dreams, or the Real World "The title of the book has a subtle intention. It indicates, and is true to the verities in doing so, the strange dreamlike quality of life to the man who has not yet fought his own battles, or come into conscious possession of his will--only such battles bite into the consciousness."--_Chicago Tribune._ The Common Lot "It grips the reader tremendously.... It is the drama of a human soul the reader watches ... the finest study of human motive that has appeared for many a day."--_The World To-day._ The Memoirs of an American Citizen. Illustrated with about fifty drawings by F. B. Masters. "Mr. Herrick's book is a book among many, and he comes nearer to reflecting a certain kind of recognizable, contemporaneous American spirit than anybody else has yet done."--_New York Times._ Together "An able book, remarkably so, and one which should find a place in the library of any woman who is not a fool."--Editorial in _The New York American_. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK +------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Typographical errors corrected in text: | | | | Page 30: changed Venetion to Venetian | | | | Page 60: changed businesslike to business-like | | | | Page 153: changed guardroom to guard-room | | | | Page 299: changed made to make | | | | Page 337: changed shodowy to shadowy | | | | Page 358: changed particularlly to particularly | | | +------------------------------------------------------+ 
26327	----	CASA BRACCIO [Illustration: Emblem] [Illustration: "He looked at her long and sadly."--Vol. I., p. 239.] CASA BRACCIO BY F. MARION CRAWFORD AUTHOR OF "SARACINESCA," "PIETRO GHISLERI," ETC. IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. CASTAIGNE_ =New York= MACMILLAN AND CO. AND LONDON 1895 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY F. MARION CRAWFORD. =Norwood Press= J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. THIS STORY, BEING MY TWENTY-FIFTH NOVEL, IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO MY WIFE SORRENTO, 1895 CONTENTS. PART I. SISTER MARIA ADDOLORATA 1 PART II. GLORIA DALRYMPLE 225 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VOL. I. PAGE Nanna and Annetta 15 Maria Addolorata 25 "Sor Tommaso was lying motionless" 78 "She had covered her face with the veil" 126 "An evil death on you!" 218 "He looked at her long and sadly" 239 "Fire and sleet and candle-light; And Christ receive thy soul" 324 PART I. _SISTER MARIA ADDOLORATA._ CASA BRACCIO. PART I. _SISTER MARIA ADDOLORATA._ CHAPTER I. SUBIACO lies beyond Tivoli, southeast from Rome, at the upper end of a wild gorge in the Samnite mountains. It is an archbishopric, and gives a title to a cardinal, which alone would make it a town of importance. It shares with Monte Cassino the honour of having been chosen by Saint Benedict and Saint Scholastica, his sister, as the site of a monastery and a convent; and in a cell in the rock a portrait of the holy man is still well preserved, which is believed, not without reason, to have been painted from life, although Saint Benedict died early in the fifth century. The town itself rises abruptly to a great height upon a mass of rock, almost conical in shape, crowned by the cardinal's palace, and surrounded on three sides by rugged mountains. On the third, it looks down the rapidly widening valley in the direction of Vicovaro, near which the Licenza runs into the Anio, in the neighbourhood of Horace's farm. It is a very ancient town, and in its general appearance it does not differ very much from many similar ones amongst the Italian mountains; but its position is exceptionally good, and its importance has been stamped upon it by the hands of those who have thought it worth holding since the days of ancient Rome. Of late it has, of course, acquired a certain modernness of aspect; it has planted acacia trees in its little piazza, and it has a gorgeously arrayed municipal band. But from a little distance one neither hears the band nor sees the trees, the grim mediæval fortifications frown upon the valley, and the time-stained dwellings, great and small, rise in rugged irregularity against the lighter brown of the rocky background and the green of scattered olive groves and chestnuts. Those features, at least, have not changed, and show no disposition to change during generations to come. In the year 1844, modern civilization had not yet set in, and Subiaco was, within, what it still appears to be from without, a somewhat gloomy stronghold of the Middle Ages, rearing its battlements and towers in a shadowy gorge, above a mountain torrent, inhabited by primitive and passionate people, dominated by ecclesiastical institutions, and, though distinctly Roman, a couple of hundred years behind Rome itself in all matters ethic and æsthetic. It was still the scene of the Santacroce murder, which really decided Beatrice Cenci's fate; it was still the gathering place of highwaymen and outlaws, whose activity found an admirable field through all the region of hill and plain between the Samnite range and the sea, while the almost inaccessible fortresses of the higher mountains, towards Trevi and the Serra di Sant' Antonio, offered a safe refuge from the halfhearted pursuit of Pope Gregory's lazy soldiers. Something of what one may call the life-and-death earnestness of earlier times, when passion was motive and prejudice was law, survived at that time and even much later; the ferocity of practical love and hatred dominated the theory and practice of justice in the public life of the smaller towns, while the patriarchal system subjected the family in almost absolute servitude to its head. There was nothing very surprising in the fact that the head of the house of Braccio should have obliged one of his daughters to take the veil in the Convent of Carmelite nuns, just within the gate of Subiaco, as his sister had taken it many years earlier. Indeed, it was customary in the family of the Princes of Gerano that one of the women should be a Carmelite, and it was a tradition not unattended with worldly advantages to the sisterhood, that the Braccio nun, whenever there was one, should be the abbess of that particular convent. Maria Teresa Braccio had therefore yielded, though very unwillingly, to her father's insistence, and having passed through her novitiate, had finally taken the veil as a Carmelite of Subiaco, in the year 1841, on the distinct understanding that when her aunt died she was to be abbess in the elder lady's stead. The abbess herself was, indeed, in excellent health and not yet fifty years old, so that Maria Teresa--in religion Maria Addolorata--might have a long time to wait before she was promoted to an honour which she regarded as hereditary; but the prospect of such promotion was almost her only compensation for all she had left behind her, and she lived upon it and concentrated her character upon it, and practised the part she was to play, when she was quite sure that she was not observed. Nature had not made her for a recluse, least of all for a nun of such a rigid Order as the Carmelites. The short taste of a brilliant social life which she had been allowed to enjoy, in accordance with an ancient tradition, before finally taking the veil, had shown her clearly enough the value of what she was to abandon, and at the same time had altogether confirmed her father in his decision. Compared with the freedom of the present day, the restrictions imposed upon a young girl in the Roman society of those times were, of course, tyrannical in the extreme, and the average modern young lady would almost as willingly go into a convent as submit to them. But Maria Teresa had received an impression which nothing could efface. Her intuitive nature had divined the possible semi-emancipation of marriage, and her temperament had felt in a certain degree the extremes of joyous exaltation and of that entrancing sadness which is love's premonition, and which tells maidens what love is before they know him, by making them conscious of the breadth and depth of his yet vacant dwelling. She had learned in that brief time that she was beautiful, and she had felt that she could love and that she should be loved in return. She had seen the world as a princess and had felt it as a woman, and she had understood all that she must give up in taking the veil. But she had been offered no choice, and though she had contemplated opposition, she had not dared to revolt. Being absolutely in the power of her parents, so far as she was aware, she had accepted the fatality of their will, and bent her fair head to be shorn of its glory and her broad forehead to be covered forever from the gaze of men. And having submitted, she had gone through it all bravely and proudly, as perhaps she would have gone through other things, even to death itself, being a daughter of an old race, accustomed to deify honour and to make its divinities of tradition. For the rest of her natural life she was to live on the memories of one short, magnificent year, forever to be contented with the grim rigidity of conventual life in an ancient cloister surrounded by gloomy mountains. She was to be a veiled shadow amongst veiled shades, a priestess of sorrow amongst sad virgins; and though, if she lived long enough, she was to be the chief of them and their ruler, her very superiority could only make her desolation more complete, until her own shadow, like the others, should be gathered into eternal darkness. Sister Maria Addolorata had certain privileges for which her companions would have given much, but which were traditionally the right of such ladies of the Braccio family as took the veil. For instance, she had a cell which, though not larger than the other cells, was better situated, for it had a little balcony looking over the convent garden, and high enough to afford a view of the distant valley and of the hills which bounded it, beyond the garden wall. It was entered by the last door in the corridor within, and was near the abbess's apartment, which was entered from the corridor, through a small antechamber which also gave access to the vast linen-presses. The balcony, too, had a little staircase leading down into the garden. It had always been the custom to carry the linen to and from the laundry through Maria Addolorata's cell, and through a postern gate in the garden wall, the washing being done in the town. By this plan, the annoyance was avoided of carrying the huge baskets through the whole length of the convent, to and from the main entrance, which was also much further removed from the house of Sora Nanna, the chief laundress. Moreover, Maria Addolorata had charge of all the convent linen, and the employment thus afforded her was an undoubted privilege in itself, for occupation of any kind not devotional was excessively scarce in such an existence. In the eyes of the other nuns, the constant society of the abbess herself was also a privilege, and one not by any means to be despised. After all, the abbess and her niece were nearly related, they could talk of the affairs of their family, and the abbess doubtless received many letters from Rome containing all the interesting news of the day, and all the social gossip--perfectly innocent, of course--which was the chronicle of Roman life. These were valuable compensations, and the nuns envied them. The abbess, too, saw her brother, the archbishop and titular cardinal of Subiaco, when the princely prelate came out from Rome for the coolness of the mountains in August and September, and his conversation was said to be not only edifying, but fascinating. The cardinal was a very good man, like many of the Braccio family, but he was also a man of the world, who had been sent upon foreign missions of importance, and had acquired some worldly fame as well as much ecclesiastical dignity in the course of his long life. It must be delightful, the nuns thought, to be his own sister, to receive long visits from him, and to hear all he had to say about the busy world of Rome. To most of them, everything beyond Rome was outer darkness. But though the nuns envied the abbess and Maria Addolorata, they did not venture to say so, and they hardly dared to think so, even when they were all alone, each in her cell; for the concentration of conventual life magnifies small spiritual sins in the absence of anything really sinful, and to admit that she even faintly wishes she might be some one else is to tarnish the brightness of the nun's scrupulously polished conscience. It would be as great a misdeed, perhaps, as to allow the attention to wander to worldly matters during times of especial devotion. Nevertheless, the envy showed itself, very perceptibly and much against the will of the sisters themselves, in a certain cold deference of manner towards the young and beautiful nun who was one day to be the superior of them all by force of circumstances for which she deserved no credit. She had the position among them, and something of the isolation, of a young royal princess amongst the ladies of her queen mother's court. There was about her, too, an undefinable something, like the shadow of future fate, a something almost impossible to describe, and yet distinctly appreciable to all who saw her and lived with her. It came upon her especially when she was silent and abstracted, when she was kneeling in her place in the choir, or was alone upon her little balcony over the garden. At such times a luminous pallor gradually took the place of her fresh and healthy complexion, her eyes grew unnaturally dark, with a deep, fixed fire in them, and the regular features took upon them the white, set straightness of a death mask. Sometimes, at such moments, a shiver ran through her, even in summer, and she drew her breath sharply once or twice, as though she were hurt. The expression was not one of suffering or pain, but was rather that of a person conscious of some great danger which must be met without fear or flinching. She would have found it very hard to explain what she felt just then. She might have said that it was a consciousness of something unknown. She could not have said more than that. It brought no vision with it, beatific or horrifying; it was not the consequence of methodical contemplation, as the trance state is; and it was followed by no reaction nor sense of uneasiness. It simply came and went as the dark shadow of a thundercloud passing between her and the sun, and leaving no trace behind. There was nothing to account for it, unless it could be explained by heredity, and no one had ever suggested any such explanation to Maria. It was true that there had been more than one tragedy in the Braccio family since they had first lifted their heads above the level of their contemporaries to become Roman Barons, in the old days before such titles as prince and duke had come into use. But then, most of the old families could tell of deeds as cruel and lives as passionate as any remembered by Maria's race, and Italians, though superstitious in unexpected ways, have little of that belief in hereditary fate which is common enough in the gloomy north. "Was Sister Maria Addolorata a great sinner, before she became a nun?" asked Annetta, Sora Nanna's daughter, of her mother, one day, as they came away from the convent. "What are you saying!" exclaimed the washerwoman, in a tone of rebuke. "She is a great lady, and the niece of the abbess and of the cardinal. Sometimes certain ideas pass through your head, my daughter!" And Sora Nanna gesticulated, unable to express herself. "Then she sins in her throat," observed Annetta, calmly. "But you do not even look at her--so many sheets--so many pillow-cases--and good day! But while you count, I look." "Why should I look at her?" inquired Nanna, shifting the big empty basket she carried on her head, hitching her broad shoulders and wrinkling her leathery forehead, as her small eyes turned upward. "Do you take me for a man, that I should make eyes at a nun?" "And I? Am I a man? And yet I look at her. I see nothing but her face when we are there, and afterwards I think about it. What harm is there? She sins in her throat. I know it." Sora Nanna hitched her shoulders impatiently again, and said nothing. The two women descended through the steep and narrow street, slippery and wet with slimy, coal black mud that glittered on the rough cobble-stones. Nanna walked first, and Annetta followed close behind her, keeping step, and setting her feet exactly where her mother had trod, with the instinctive certainty of the born mountaineer. With heads erect and shoulders square, each with one hand on her hip and the other hanging down, they carried their burdens swiftly and safely, with a swinging, undulating gait as though it were a pleasure to them to move, and would require an effort to stop rather than to walk on forever. They wore shoes because they were well-to-do people, and chose to show that they were when they went up to the convent. But for the rest they were clad in the costume of the neighbourhood,--the coarse white shift, close at the throat, the scarlet bodice, the short, dark, gathered skirt, and the dark blue carpet apron, with flowers woven on a white stripe across the lower end. Both wore heavy gold earrings, and Sora Nanna had eight or ten strings of large coral beads around her throat. Annetta was barely fifteen years old, brown, slim, and active as a lizard. She was one of those utterly unruly and untamable girls of whom there are two or three in every Italian village, in mountain or plain, a creature in whom a living consciousness of living nature took the place of thought, and with whom to be conscious was to speak, without reason or hesitation. The small, keen, black eyes were set under immense and arched black eyebrows which made the eyes themselves seem larger than they were, and the projecting temples cast shadows to the cheek which hid the rudimentary modelling of the coarse lower lids. The ears were flat and ill-developed, but close to the head and not large; the teeth very short, though perfectly regular and exceedingly white; the lips long, mobile, brown rather than red, and generally parted like those of a wild animal. The girl's smoothly sinewy throat moved with every step, showing the quick play of the elastic cords and muscles. Her blue-black hair was plaited, though far from neatly, and the braids were twisted into an irregular flat coil, generally hidden by the flap of the white embroidered cloth cross-folded upon her head and hanging down behind. [Illustration: Nanna and Annetta.--Vol. I., p. 15.] For some minutes the mother and daughter continued to pick their way down the winding lanes between the dark houses of the upper village. Then Sora Nanna put out her right hand as a signal to Annetta that she meant to stop, and she stood still on the steep descent and turned deliberately till she could see the girl. "What are you saying?" she began, as though there had been no pause in the conversation. "That Sister Maria Addolorata sins in her throat! But how can she sin in her throat, since she sees no man but the gardener and the priest? Indeed, you say foolish things!" "And what has that to do with it?" inquired Annetta. "She must have seen enough of men in Rome, every one of them a great lord. And who tells you that she did not love one of them and does not wish that she were married to him? And if that is not a sin in the throat, I do not know what to say. There is my answer." "You say foolish things," repeated Sora Nanna. Then she turned deliberately away and began to descend once more, with an occasional dissatisfied movement of the shoulders. "For the rest," observed Annetta, "it is not my business. I would rather look at the Englishman when he is eating meat than at Sister Maria when she is counting clothes! I do not know whether he is a wolf or a man." "Eh! The Englishman!" exclaimed Sora Nanna. "You will look so much at the Englishman that you will make blood with Gigetto, who wishes you well, and when Gigetto has waited for the Englishman at the corner of the forest, what shall we all have? The galleys. What do you see in the Englishman? He has red hair and long, long teeth. Yes--just like a wolf. You are right. And if he pays for meat, why should he not eat it? If he did not pay, it would be different. It would soon be finished. Heaven send us a little money without any Englishman! Besides, Gigetto said the other day that he would wait for him at the corner of the forest. And Gigetto, when he says a thing, he does it." "And why should we go to the galleys if Gigetto waits for the Englishman?" inquired Annetta. "Silly!" cried the older woman. "Because Gigetto would take your father's gun, since he has none of his own. That would be enough. We should have done it!" Annetta shrugged her shoulders and said nothing. "But take care," continued Sora Nanna. "Your father sleeps with one eye open. He sees you, and he sees also the Englishman every day. He says nothing, because he is good. But he has a fist like a paving-stone. I tell you nothing more." They reached Sora Nanna's house and disappeared under the dark archway. For Sora Nanna and Stefanone, her husband, were rich people for their station, and their house was large and was built with an arch wide enough and high enough for a loaded beast of burden to pass through with a man on its back. And, within, everything was clean and well kept, excepting all that belonged to Annetta. There were airy upper rooms, with well-swept floors of red brick or of beaten cement, furnished with high beds on iron trestles, and wooden stools of well-worn brown oak, and tables painted a vivid green, and primitive lithographs of Saint Benedict and Santa Scholastica and the Addolorata. And there were lofts in which the rich autumn grapes were hung up to dry on strings, and where chestnuts lay in heaps, and figs were spread in symmetrical order on great sheets of the coarse grey paper made in Subiaco. There were apples, too, though poor ones, and there were bins of maize and wheat, waiting to be picked over before being ground in the primeval household mill. And there were hams and sides of bacon, and red peppers, and bundles of dried herbs, and great mountain cheeses on shelves. There was also a guest room, better than the rest, which Stefanone and his wife occasionally let to respectable travellers or to the merchants who came from Rome on business to stay a few days in Subiaco. At the present time the room was rented by the Englishman concerning whom the discussion had arisen between Annetta and her mother. Angus Dalrymple, M.D., was not an Englishman, as he had tried to explain to Sora Nanna, though without the least success. He was, as his name proclaimed, a Scotchman of the Scotch, and a doctor of medicine. It was true that he had red hair, and an abundance of it, and long white teeth, but Sora Nanna's description was otherwise libellously incomplete and wholly omitted all mention of the good points in his appearance. In the first place, he possessed the characteristic national build in a superior degree of development, with all the lean, bony energy which has done so much hard work in the world. He was broad-shouldered, long-armed, long-legged, deep-chested, and straight, with sinewy hands and singularly well-shaped fingers. His healthy skin had that mottled look produced by countless freckles upon an almost childlike complexion. The large, grave mouth generally concealed the long teeth objected to by Sora Nanna, and the lips, though even and narrow, were strong rather than thin, and their rare smile was both genial and gentle. There were lines--as yet very faint--about the corners of the mouth, which told of a nervous and passionate disposition and of the strong Scotch temper, as well as of a certain sensitiveness which belongs especially to northern races. The pale but very bright blue eyes under shaggy auburn brows were fiery with courage and keen with shrewd enterprise. Dalrymple was assuredly not a man to be despised under any circumstances, intellectually or physically. His presence in such a place as Subiaco, at a time when hardly any foreigners except painters visited the place, requires some explanation; for he was not an artist, but a doctor, and had never been even tempted to amuse himself with sketching. In the first place, he was a younger son of a good family, and received a moderate allowance, quite sufficient in those days to allow him considerable latitude of expenditure in old-fashioned Italy. Secondly, he had entirely refused to follow any of the professions known as 'liberal.' He had no taste for the law, and he had not the companionable character which alone can make life in the army pleasant in time of peace. His beliefs, or his lack of belief, together with an honourable conscience, made him naturally opposed to all churches. On the other hand, he had been attracted almost from his childhood by scientific subjects, at a period when the discoveries of the last fifty years appeared as misty but beatific visions to men of science. To the disappointment and, to some extent, to the humiliation of his family, he insisted upon studying medicine, at the University of St. Andrew's, as soon as he had obtained his ordinary degree at Cambridge. And having once insisted, nothing could turn him from his purpose, for he possessed English tenacity grafted upon Scotch originality, with a good deal of the strength of both races. While still a student he had once made a tour in Italy, and like many northerners had fallen under the mysterious spell of the South from the very first. Having a sufficient allowance for all his needs, as has been said, and being attracted by the purely scientific side of his profession rather than by any desire to become a successful practitioner, it was natural enough that on finding himself free to go whither he pleased in pursuit of knowledge, he should have visited Italy again. A third visit had convinced him that he should do well to spend some years in the country; for by that time he had become deeply interested in the study of malarious fevers, which in those days were completely misunderstood. It would be far too much to say that young Dalrymple had at that time formed any complete theory in regard to malaria; but his naturally lonely and concentrated intellect had contemptuously discarded all explanations of malarious phenomena, and, communicating his own ideas to no one, until he should be in possession of proofs for his opinions, he had in reality got hold of the beginning of the truth about germs which has since then revolutionized medicine. The only object of this short digression has been to show that Angus Dalrymple was not a careless idler and tourist in Italy, only half responsible for what he did, and not at all for what he thought. On the contrary, he was a man of very unusual gifts, of superior education, and of rare enterprise; a strong, silent, thoughtful man, about eight-and-twenty years of age, and just beginning to feel his power as something greater than he had suspected, when he came to spend the autumn months in Subiaco, and hired Sora Nanna's guest room, with a little room leading off it, which he kept locked, and in which he had a table, a chair, a microscope, some books, a few chemicals and some simple apparatus. His presence had at first roused certain jealous misgivings in the heart of the town physician, Sor Tommaso Taddei, commonly spoken of simply as 'the Doctor,' because there was no other. But Dalrymple was not without tact and knowledge of human nature. He explained that he came as a foreigner to learn from native physicians how malarious fevers were treated in Italy; and he listened with patient intelligence to Sor Tommaso's antiquated theories, and silently watched his still more antiquated practice. And Sor Tommaso, like all people who think that they know a vast deal, highly approved of Dalrymple's submissive silence, and said that the young man was a marvel of modesty, and that if he could stay about ten years in Subiaco and learn something from Sor Tommaso himself, he might really some day be a fairly good doctor,--which were extraordinarily liberal admissions on the part of the old practitioner, and contributed largely towards reassuring Stefanone concerning his lodger's character. For Stefanone and his wife had their doubts and suspicions. Of course they knew that all foreigners except Frenchmen and Austrians were Protestants, and ate meat on fast days, and were under the most especial protection of the devil, who fattened them in this world that they might burn the better in the next. But Stefanone had never seen the real foreigner at close quarters, and had not conceived it possible that any living human being could devour so much half-cooked flesh in a day as Dalrymple desired for his daily portion, paid for, and consumed. Moreover, there was no man in Subiaco who could and did swallow such portentous draughts of the strong mountain wine, without suffering any apparent effects from his potations. Furthermore, also, Dalrymple did strange things by day and night in the small laboratory he had arranged next to his bedroom, and unholy and evil smells issued at times through the cracks of the door, and penetrated from the bedroom to the stairs outside, and were distinctly perceptible all over the house. Therefore Stefanone maintained for a long time that his lodger was in league with the powers of darkness, and that it was not safe to keep him in the house, though he paid his bill so very regularly, every Saturday, and never quarrelled about the price of his food and drink. On the whole, however, Stefanone abstained from interfering, as he had at first been inclined to do, and entering the laboratory, with the support of the parish priest, a basin of holy water, and a loaded gun--all three of which he considered necessary for an exorcism; and little by little, Sor Tommaso, the doctor, persuaded him that Dalrymple was a worthy young man, deeply engaged in profound studies, and should be respected rather than exorcised. "Of course," admitted the doctor, "he is a Protestant. But then he has a passport. Let us therefore let him alone." The existence of the passport--indispensable in those days--was a strong argument in the eyes of the simple Stefanone. He could not conceive that a magician whose soul was sold to the devil could possibly have a passport and be under the protection of the law. So the matter was settled. CHAPTER II. [Illustration: Maria Addolorata.--Vol. I., p. 25.] SISTER MARIA ADDOLORATA sat by the open door of her cell, looking across the stone parapet of her little balcony, and watching the changing richness of the western sky, as the sun went down far out of sight behind the mountains. Though the month was October, the afternoon was warm; it was very still, and the air had been close in the choir during the Benediction service, which was just over. She leaned back in her chair, and her lips parted as she breathed, with a perceptible desire for refreshment in the breath. She held a piece of needlework in her heavy white hands; the needle had been thrust through the linen, but the stitch had remained unfinished, and one pointed finger pressed the doubled edge against the other, lest the material should slip before she made up her mind to draw the needle through. Deep in the garden under the balcony the late flowers were taking strangely vivid colours out of the bright sky above, and some bits of broken glass, stuck in the mortar on the top of the opposite wall as a protection against thieving boys, glowed like a line of rough rubies against the misty distance. Even the white walls of the bare cell and the coarse grey blanket lying across the foot of the small bed drank in a little of the colour, and looked less grey and less grim. From the eaves, high above the open door, the swallows shot down into the golden light, striking great circles and reflecting the red gold of the sky from their breasts as they wheeled just beyond the wall, with steady wings wide-stretched, up and down; and each one, turning at full speed, struck upwards again and was out of sight in an instant, above the lintel. The nun watched them, her eyes trying to follow each of them in turn and to recognize them separately as they flashed into sight again and again. Her lips were parted, and as she sat there she began to sing very softly and quite unconsciously. She could not have told what the song was. The words were strange and oddly divided, and there was a deadly sadness in a certain interval that came back almost with every stave. But the voice itself was beautiful beyond all comparison with ordinary voices, full of deep and touching vibrations and far harmonics, though she sang so softly, all to herself. Notes like hers haunt the ears--and sometimes the heart--when she who sang them has been long dead, and many would give much to hear but a breath of them again. It was hard for Maria Addolorata not to sing sometimes, when she was all alone in her cell, though it was so strictly forbidden. Singing is a gift of expression, when it is a really natural gift, as much as speech and gesture and the smile on the lips, with the one difference that it is a keener pleasure to him or her that sings than gesture or speech can possibly be. Music, and especially singing, are a physical as well as an intellectual expression, a pleasure of the body as well as a 'delectation' of the soul. To sing naturally and spontaneously is most generally an endowment of natures physically strong and rich by the senses, independently of the mind, though melody may sometimes be the audible translation of a silent thought as well as the unconscious speech of wordless passion. And in Maria's song there was a strain of that something unknown and fatal, which the nuns sometimes saw in her face and which was in her eyes now, as she sang; for they no longer followed the circling of the swallows, but grew fixed and dark, with fiery reflexions from the sunset sky, and the regular features grew white and straight and square against the deepening shadows within the narrow room. The deep voice trembled a little, and the shoulders had a short, shivering movement under the heavy folds of the dark veil, as the sensation of a presence ran through her and made her shudder. But the voice did not break, and she sang on, louder, now, than she realized, the full notes swelling in her throat, and vibrating between the narrow walls, and floating out through the open door to join the flight of the swallows. The door of the cell opened gently, but she did not hear, and sang on, leaning back in her chair and gazing still at the pink clouds above the mountains. "Death is my love, dark-eyed death--" she sang. "Maria!" The abbess was standing in the doorway and speaking to her, but she did not hear. "His hands are sweetly cold and gentle-- Flowers of leek, and firefly-- Holy Saint John!" "Maria!" cried the abbess, impatiently. "What follies are you singing? I could hear you in my room!" Maria Addolorata started and rose from her seat, still holding her needlework, and turning half round towards her superior, with suddenly downcast eyes. The elder lady came forward with slow dignity and walked as far as the door of the balcony, where she stood still for a moment, gazing at the beautiful sky. She was not a stately woman, for she was too short and stout, but she had that calm air of assured superiority which takes the place of stateliness, and which seems to belong especially to those who occupy important positions in the Church. Her large features, though too heavy, were imposing in their excessive pallor, while the broad, dark brown shadows all around and beneath the large black eyes gave the face a depth of expression which did not, perhaps, wholly correspond with the original character. It was a striking face, and considering the wide interval between the ages of the abbess and her niece, and the natural difference of colouring, there was a strong family resemblance in the two women. The abbess sat down upon the only chair, and Maria remained standing before her, her sewing in her hands. "I have often told you that you must not sing in your cell," said the abbess, in a coldly severe tone. Maria's shoulders shook her veil a little, but she still looked at the floor. "I cannot help it," she answered in a constrained voice. "I did not know that I was singing--" "That is ridiculous! How can one sing, and not know it? You are not deaf. At least, you do not sing as though you were. I will not have it. I could hear you as far away as my own room--a love-song, too!" "The love of death," suggested Maria. "It makes no difference," answered the elder lady. "You disturb the peace of the sisters with your singing. You know the rule, and you must obey it, like the rest. If you must sing, then sing in church." "I do." "Very well, that ought to be enough. Must you sing all the time? Suppose that the Cardinal had been visiting me, as was quite possible, what impression would he have had of our discipline?" "Oh, Uncle Cardinal has often heard me sing." "You must not call him 'Uncle Cardinal.' It is like the common people who say 'Uncle Priest.' I have told you that a hundred times at least. And if the Cardinal has heard you singing, so much the worse." "He once told me that I had a good voice," observed Maria, still standing before her aunt. "A good voice is a gift of God and to be used in church, but not in such a way as to attract attention or admiration. The devil is everywhere, my daughter, and makes use of our best gifts as a means of temptation. The Cardinal certainly did not hear you singing that witch's love-song which I heard just now. He would have rebuked you as I do." "It was not a love-song. It is about death--and Saint John's eve." "Well, then it is about witches. Do not argue with me. There is a rule, and you must not break it." Maria Addolorata said nothing, but moved a step and leaned against the door-post, looking out into the evening light. The stout abbess sat motionless in her straight chair, looking past her niece at the distant hills. She had evidently said all she meant to say about the singing, and it did not occur to her to talk of anything else. A long silence followed. Maria was not timid, but she had been accustomed from her childhood to look upon her aunt as an immensely superior person, moving in a higher sphere, and five years spent in the convent as novice and nun had rather increased than diminished the feeling of awe which the abbess inspired in the young girl. There was, indeed, no other sister in the community who would have dared to answer the abbess's rebuke at all, and Maria's very humble protest really represented an extraordinary degree of individuality and courage. Conventual institutions can only exist on a basis of absolute submission. The abbess was neither harsh nor unkind, and was certainly not a very terrifying figure, but she possessed undeniable force of character, strengthened by the inborn sense of hereditary right and power, and her kindness was as imposing as her displeasure was lofty and solemn. She had very little sympathy for any weakness in others, but she was always ready to dispense the mercy of Heaven, vicariously, so to say, and with a certain royally suppressed surprise that Heaven should be merciful. On the whole, considering the circumstances, she admitted that Maria Addolorata had accepted the veil with sufficient outward grace, though without any vocation, and she took it for granted that with such opportunities the girl must slowly develop into an abbess not unlike her predecessors. She prayed regularly, of course, and with especial intention, for her niece, as for the welfare of the order, and assumed as an unquestionable result that her prayers were answered with perfect regularity, since her own conscience did not reproach her with negligence of her young relative's spiritual education. To the abbess, religion, the order and its duties, presented themselves as a vast machine controlled for the glory of God by the Pope. She and her nuns were parts of the great engine which must work with perfect regularity in order that God might be glorified. Her mind was naturally religious, but was at the same time essentially of the material order. There is a material imagination, and there is a spiritual imagination. There are very good and devout men and women who take the world, present and to come, quite literally, as a mere fulfilment of their own limitations; who look upon what they know as being all that need be known, and upon what they believe of God and Heaven as the mechanical consequence of what they know rather than as the cause and goal, respectively, of existence and action; to whom the letter of the law is the arbitrary expression of a despotic power, which, somehow, must be looked upon as merciful; who answer all questions concerning God's logic with the tremendous assertion of God's will; whose God is a magnified man, and whose devil is a malignant animal, second only to God in understanding, while extreme from God in disposition. There are good men and women who, to use a natural but not flippant simile, take it for granted that the soul is cast into the troubled waters of life without the power to swim, or even the possibility of learning to float, dependent upon the bare chance that some one may throw it the life-buoy of ritual religion as its only conceivable means of salvation. And the opponents of each particular form of faith invariably take just such good men and women, with all their limitations, as the only true exponents of that especial creed, which they then proceed to tear in pieces with all the ease such an undue advantage of false premise gives them. None of them have thought of intellectual mercy as being, perhaps, an integral part of Christian charity. Faith they have in abundance, and hope also not a little; but charity, though it be for men's earthly ills and, theoretically, if not always practically, for men's spiritual shortcomings, is rigidly forbidden for the errors of men's minds. Why? No thinking man can help asking the little question which grows great in the unanswering silence that follows it. All this is not intended as an apology for what the young nun, Maria Addolorata, afterwards did, though much of it is necessary in explanation of her deeds, which, however they may be regarded, brought upon her and others their inevitable logical consequences. Still less is it meant, in any sense, as an attack upon the conventual system of the cloistered orders, which system was itself a consequence of spiritual, intellectual and political history, and has a prime right to be judged upon the evidence of its causes, and not by the shortcomings of its results in changed times. What has been said merely makes clear the fact that the characters, minds, and dispositions of Maria Addolorata and of her aunt, the abbess, were wholly unsuited to one another. And this one fact became a source of life and death, of happiness and misery, of comedy and tragedy, to many individuals, even to the present day. The nun remained motionless, pressing her cheek against the door-post and looking out. Her aunt had not quite shut the door by which she had entered, and a cool stream of air blew outward from the corridor and through the cell, bringing with it that peculiar odour which belongs to all large and old buildings inhabited by religious communities. It is made up of the cold exhalations from stone walls and paved floors in which there is always some dampness, of the acrid smell of the heavy, leathern, wadded curtains which shut off the main drafts of air, as the swinging doors do in a mine, of a faint but perceptible suggestion of incense which penetrates the whole building from the church or the chapel, and, not least, of the fumes from the cookery of the great quantities of vegetables which are the staple food of the brethren or the sisters. It is as imperceptible to the monks and nuns themselves as the smell of tobacco to the smoker. It had been very close in the little cell, and Maria was glad of the coolness that came in through the open door. Her eyes were fixed on the sky with a longing look. Again the words of her song rose to her lips, but she checked them, remembering her aunt's presence, and with the effort to be silent came the strong wish to be free, to be over there upon those purple hills at evening, to look beyond and watch the sun sinking into the distant sea, to breathe her fill of the mountain air, to run along the crests of the hills till she should be tired, to sleep under the open sky, to see, in dreams, to-morrow's sun rising through the trees, to be waked by the song of birds and to find that the dream was true. Instead of that, and instead of all it meant to her, there was to be the silent evening meal, the close, lighted chapel, the wearily nasal chant of the sisters, her lonely cell, with its close darkness, the unrefreshing sleep, broken by the bell calling her to another office in the chapel; then, at last, the dawn, and the day that would seem as much a prisoner as herself within the convent walls, and the praying and nasal chanting, and the counting of sheets and pillow-cases, and doing a little sewing, and singing to herself, perhaps, and then the being reproved for it--the whole varied by meals of coarse food, and periodical stations in her seat in the choir. The day! The very sun seemed imprisoned in his corner of the garden wall, dragging slowly at his chain, in a short half-circle, from morning till evening, like a watch-dog tied up in a yard beside his kennel. The night was better. Sometimes she could see the moon-rays through the cracks of the balcony door, as she lay in her bed. She could see them against the darkness, and the ends of them were straight white lines and round white spots on the floor and on the walls. Her thoughts played in them, and her maiden fancies caught them and followed them lightly out into the white night and far away to the third world, which is dreamland. And in her dreams she sang to the midnight stars, and clasped her bare arms round the moon's white throat, kissing the moon-lady's pale and passionate cheek, till she lost herself in the mysterious eyes, and found herself once more, bathed in cool star-showers, the queen of a tender dream. There sat the abbess, in the only chair, stolid, righteous, imposing. The incarnation and representative of the ninety and nine who need no forgiveness, exasperatingly and mathematically virtuous as a dogma, a woman against whom no sort of reproach could be brought, and at the mere sight of whom false witnesses would shrivel up and die, like jelly-fish in the sun. She not only approved of the convent life, but she liked it. She was at liberty to do a thousand things which were not permitted to the nuns, but she had not the slightest inclination to do any of them, any more than she was inclined to admit that any of them could possibly be unhappy if they would only pray, sing, sleep, and eat boiled cabbage at the appointed hours. What had she in common with Maria Addolorata, except that she was born a princess and a Braccio? Of what use was it to be a princess by birth, like a dozen or more of the sisters, or even a noble, like all the others? Of what use or advantage could anything be, where liberty was not? An even plainer and more desperate question rose in the young nun's heart, as she leaned her cheek against the door-post, still warm with the afternoon sun. Of what use was life, if it was to be lived in the tomb with the accompaniment of a lifelong funeral service? Why should not God be as well pleased with suicide as with self-burial? Why should not death all at once, by the sudden dash of cleanly steel, be as noble and acceptable a sacrifice as death by sordid degrees of orderly suffering, systematic starvation, and rigidly regulated misery? Was not life, life--and blood, blood--whether drawn by drops, or shed from a quick wound in the splendid redness of one heroic instant? Surely it would be as grand a thing, if a mere sacrifice were the object, to be laid down stark dead, with the death-thrust in the heart, at the foot of the altar, in all her radiant youth and full young beauty, untempted and unsullied, as to fast and pray through forty querulous years of misery in prison. But then, there was the virtue of patience. Therein, doubtless, lay the difference. It was not the death alone that was to please God, but the long manner of it, the summed-up account of suffering, the interest paid on the capital of life after it was invested in death. God was to be pleased with items, and the sum of them. Item, a sleepless night. Item, a bad cold, caught by kneeling on the damp stones. Item, a dish of sweets refused on a feast-day. Item, the resolution not to laugh when a fly settled on the abbess's nose. Item, the resolution not to wish that her hair had never been cut off. Item, being stifled in summer and frozen in winter, in her cell. Item, appreciating that it was the best cell, and that she was better off than the other sisters. Repeat the items for half a century, sum them up, and offer them to God as a meet and fitting sacrifice--the destruction, by fine degrees of petty suffering, of one woman's whole life, almost from the beginning, and quite to the end, with the total annihilation of all its human possibilities, of love, of motherhood, of reasonable enjoyment and legitimate happiness. That was the formula for salvation which Maria Addolorata had received with the veil. And not only had she received it. It had been thrust upon her, because she chanced to be the only available daughter of the ancient house of Braccio, to fill the hereditary seat beneath the wooden canopy, as abbess of the Subiaco Carmelites. If there had been another sister, less fair, more religiously disposed, that sister would have been chosen in Maria's stead. But there was no other; and there must be a young Braccio nun, to take the place of the elder one, when the latter should have filled her account to overflowing with little items to be paid for with the gold of certain salvation. That a sinful woman, full of sorrows, and weary of the world, might silently bow her head under the nun's veil, and wear out with prayerful austerity the deep-cut letters of her sin's story, that, at least, was a thing Maria could understand. There were faces amongst the sisters that haunted her in her solitude, lips that could have told much, but which said only 'Miserere'; eyes that had looked on love, and that fixed themselves now only on the Cross; cheeks blanched with grief and hollowed as the marble of an ancient fountain by often flowing tears; hearts that had given all, and had been beaten and bruised and rejected. The convent was for them; the life was a life for them; for them there was no freedom beyond these walls, in the living world, nor anywhere on this side of death. They had done right in coming, and they did right in staying; they were reasonable when they prayed that they might have time, before they died, to be sorry for their sins and to touch again the hem of the garment of innocence. But even they, if they were told that it would be right, would they not rather shorten their time to a day, even to one instant, of aggregated pain, and offer up their sacrifice all at once? And why should it not be right? Did God delight in pain and suffering for its own sake? The passionate girl's heart revolted angrily against a Being that could enjoy the sufferings of helpless creatures. But then, there was that virtue of patience again, which was beyond her comprehension. At last she spoke, her face still to the sunset. "What difference can it make to God how we die?" she asked, scarcely conscious that she was speaking. The abbess must have started a little, for the chair creaked suddenly, several seconds before she answered. Her face did not relax, however, nor were her hands unclasped from one another as they lay folded on her knees. "That is a foolish question, my daughter," she said at last. "Do you think that God was not pleased by the sufferings of the holy martyrs, and did not reward them for what they bore?" "No, I did not mean that," answered Maria, quickly. "But why should we not all be martyrs? It would be much quicker." "Heaven preserve us!" exclaimed the abbess. "What are you thinking of, child?" "It would be so much quicker," repeated Maria. "What are we here for? To sacrifice our lives to God. We wish to make this sacrifice, and God promises to accept it. Why would it be less complete if we were led to the altar as soon as we have finished our novitiate and quickly killed? It would be the same, and it would be much quicker. What difference can it make how we die, since we are to die in the end, without accomplishing anything except dying?" By this time the abbess's pale hands were unclasped, and one of them pressed each knee, as she leaned far forward in her seat, with an expression of surprise and horror, her dark lips parted and all the lines of her colourless face drawn down. "Are you mad, Maria?" she asked in a low voice. "Mad? No. Why should you think me mad?" The nun turned and looked down at her aunt. "After all, it is the great question. Our lives are but a preparation for death. Why need the preparation be so long? Why should the death be so slow? Why should it be right to kill ourselves for the glory of God by degrees, and wrong to do it all at once, if one has the courage? I think it is a very reasonable question." "Indeed, you are beside yourself! The devil suggests such things to you and blinds you to the truth, my child. Penance and prayer, prayer and penance--by the grace of Heaven it will pass." "Penance and prayer!" exclaimed Maria, sadly. "That is it--a slow death, but a sure one!" "I am more than sixty years old," replied the abbess. "I have done penance and prayed prayers all my life, and you see--I am well. I am stout." "For charity's sake, do not say so!" cried Maria, making the sign of the horns with her fingers, to ward off the evil eye. "You will certainly fall ill." "Our lives are of God. It is our own eyes that are evil. You must not make horns with your fingers. It is a heathen superstition, as I have often told you. But many of you do it. Maria, I wish to speak to you seriously." "Speak, mother," answered the young nun, the strong habit of submission returning instantly with the other's grave tone. "These thoughts of yours are very wicked. We are placed in the world, and we must continue to live in it, as long as God wills that we should. When God is pleased to deliver us, He will take us in good time. You and I and the sisters should be thankful that during our brief stay on earth this sanctuary has fallen to our lot, and this possibility of a holy life. We must take every advantage of it, thanking Heaven if our stay be long enough for us to repent of our sins and obtain indulgence for our venial shortcomings. It is wicked to desire to shorten our lives. It is wicked to desire anything which is not the will of God. We are here to live, to watch and to pray--not to complain and to rebel." The abbess was stout, as she herself admitted, and between her sudden surprise at her niece's wholly unorthodox, not to say blasphemous, suggestion of suicide as a means of grace, and her own attempt at eloquence, she grew rapidly warm, in spite of the comparatively cool draft which was passing out from the interior of the building. She caught the end of her loose over-sleeve and fanned herself slowly when she had finished speaking. But Maria Addolorata did not consider that she was answered. There in the cell of a Carmelite convent, in the heart of a young girl who had perhaps never heard of Shakespeare and who certainly knew nothing of Hamlet, the question of all questions found itself, and she found for it such speech as she could command. It broke out passionately and impatiently. "What are we? And why are we what we are? Yes, mother--I know that you are good, and that all you say is true. But it is not all. There is all the world beyond it. To live, or not to live--but you know that this is not living! It is not meant to be living, as the people outside understand what living means. What does it all signify but death, when we take the veil, and lie before the altar, and are covered with a funeral pall? It means dying--then why not altogether dying? Has not God angels, in thousands, to praise Him and worship Him, and pray for sinners on earth? And they sing and pray gladly, because they are blessed and do not suffer, as we do. Why should God want us, poor little nuns, to live half dead, and to praise Him with voices that crack with the cold in winter, and to kneel till we faint with the heat in summer, and to wear out our bodies with fasting and prayer and penance, till it is all we can do to crawl to our places in the choir? Not I--I am young and strong still--nor you, perhaps, for you are strong still, though you are not young. But many of the sisters--yes, they are the best ones, I know--they are killing themselves by inches before our eyes. You know it--I know it--they know it themselves. Why should they not find some shorter way of death for God's glory? Or if not, why should they not live happily, since many of them could? Why should God, who made us, wish us to destroy ourselves--or if He does, then why may we not do it in our own way? Ah--it would be so short--a knife-thrust, and then the great peace forever!" The abbess had risen and was standing before Maria, one hand resting on the back of the rush-bottomed chair. "Blasphemy!" she cried, finding breath at last. "It is blasphemy, or madness, or both! It is the evil one's own doing! Forgive her, good God! She does not know what she is saying! Almighty and most merciful God, forgive her!" For a moment Maria Addolorata was silent, realizing how far she had forgotten herself, and startled by the abbess's terrified eyes and excited tone. But she was naturally a far more daring woman than she herself knew. Though her face was pale, her lips smiled at her good aunt's fright. "But that is not an answer--just to cry 'blasphemy!'" she said. "The question is clear--" She did not finish the sentence. The abbess was really beside herself with religious terror. With almost violent hands she dragged and thrust her niece down till Maria fell upon her knees. "Pray, child! Pray, before it is too late!" she cried. "Pray on your knees that this possession may pass, before your soul is lost forever!" She herself knelt beside the girl upon the stones, still clasping her and pressing her down. And she prayed aloud, long, fervently, almost wildly, appealing to God for protection against a bodily tempting devil, who by his will, and with evil strength, was luring and driving a human soul to utter damnation. CHAPTER III. "IT is well," said Stefanone. "The world is come to an end. I will not say anything more." He finished his tumbler of wine, leaned back on the wooden bench against the brown wall, played with the broad silver buttons of his dark blue jacket, and stared hard at Sor Tommaso, the doctor, who sat opposite to him. The doctor returned his glance rather unsteadily and betook himself to his snuffbox. It was of worn black ebony, adorned in the middle of the lid with a small view of Saint Peter's and the colonnades in mosaic, with a very blue sky. From long use, each tiny fragment of the mosaic was surrounded by a minute black line, which indeed lent some tone to the intensely clear atmosphere of the little picture, but gave the architecture represented therein a dirty and neglected appearance. The snuff itself, however, was of the superior quality known as Sicilian in those days, and was of a beautiful light brown colour. "And why?" asked the doctor very slowly, between the operations of pinching, stuffing, snuffing, and dusting. "Why is the world come to an end?" Stefanone's eyes grew sullen, with a sort of dull glare in their unwinking gaze. He looked dangerous just then, but the doctor did not seem to be in the least afraid of him. "You, who have made it end, should know why," answered the peasant, after a short pause. Stefanone was a man of the Roman type, of medium height, thick set and naturally melancholic, with thin, straight lips that were clean shaven, straight black hair, a small but aggressively aquiline nose and heavy hands, hairy on the backs of the fingers, between the knuckles. His wife, Sora Nanna, said that he had a fist like a paving-stone. He also looked as though he might have the constitution of a mule. He was at that time about five-and-thirty years of age, and there were a few strong lines in his face, notably those curved ones drawn from the beginning of the nostrils to the corners of the mouth, which are said to denote an uncertain temper. He wore the dress of the richer peasants of that day, a coarse but spotless white shirt, very open at the throat, a jacket and waistcoat of stout dark blue cloth, with large and smooth silver buttons, knee-breeches, white stockings, and heavy low shoes with steel buckles. He combined the occupations of farmer, wine-seller, and carrier. When he was on the road between Subiaco and Rome, Gigetto, already mentioned, was supposed to represent him. It was understood that Gigetto was to marry Annetta--if he could be prevailed upon to do so, for he was the younger son of a peasant family which held its head even higher than Stefanone, and the young man as well as his people looked upon Annetta's wild ways with disapproval, though her fortune, as the only child of Stefanone and Sora Nanna, was a very strong attraction. In the meantime, Gigetto acted as though he were the older man's partner in the wine-shop, and as he was a particularly honest, but also a particularly idle, young man with a taste for singing and playing on the guitar, the position suited him admirably. As for Sor Tommaso, with whom Stefanone seemed inclined to quarrel on this particular evening, he was a highly respectable personage in a narrow-shouldered, high-collared black coat with broad skirts, and a snuff-coloured waistcoat. He wore a stock which was decidedly shabby, but decent, and the thin cuffs of his shirt were turned back over the tight sleeves of his coat, in the old fashion. He also wore amazingly tight black trousers, strapped closely over his well-blacked boots. To tell the truth, these nether garments, though of great natural resistance, had lived so long at a high tension, so to say, that they were no longer equally tight at all points, and there were, undoubtedly, certain perceptible spots on them; but, on the whole, the general effect of the doctor's appearance was fashionable, in the fashion of several years earlier and judged by the standard of Subiaco. He wore his hair rather long, in a handsome iron-grey confusion, his face was close-shaven, and, though he was thin, his complexion was somewhat apoplectic. Having duly and solemnly finished the operation of taking snuff, the doctor looked at the peasant. "I do not wish to have said anything," he observed, by way of a general retraction. "These are probably follies." "And for not having meant to say anything, you have planted this knife in my heart!" retorted Stefanone, the veins swelling at his temples. "Thank you. I wish to die, if I forget it. You tell me that this daughter of mine is making love with the Englishman. And then you say that you do not wish to have said anything! May he die, the Englishman, he, and whoever made him, with the whole family! An evil death on him and all his house!" "So long as you do not make me die, too!" exclaimed Sor Tommaso, with rather a pitying smile. "Eh! To die--it is soon said! And yet, people do die. You, who are a doctor, should know that. And you do not wish to have said anything! Bravo, doctor! Words are words. And yet they can sting. And after a thousand years, they still sting. You--what can you understand? Are you perhaps a father? You have not even a wife. Oh, blessed be God! You do not even know what you are saying. You know nothing. You think, perhaps, because you are a doctor, that you know more than I do. I will tell you that you are an ignorant!" "Oh, beautiful!" cried the doctor, angrily, stung by what is still almost a mortal insult. "You--to me--ignorant! Oh, beautiful, most beautiful, this! From a peasant to a man of science! Perhaps you too have a diploma from the University of the Sapienza--" "If I had, I should wrap half a pound of sliced ham--fat ham, you know--in it, for the first customer. What should I do with your diplomas! I ask you, what do you know? Do you know at all what a daughter is? Blood of my blood, heart of my heart, hand of this hand. But I am a peasant, and you are a doctor. Therefore, I know nothing." "And meanwhile you give me 'ignorant' in my face!" retorted Sor Tommaso. "Yes--and I repeat it!" cried Stefanone, leaning forwards, his clenched hand on the table. "I say it twice, three times--ignorant, ignorant, ignorant! Have you understood?" "Say it louder! In that way every one can hear you! Beast of a sheep-grazer!" "And you--crow-feeder! Furnisher of grave-diggers. And then--ignorant! Oh--this time I have said it clearly!" "And it seems to me that it is enough!" roared the doctor, across the table. "Ciociaro! Take that!" "Ciociaro? I? Oh, your soul! If I get hold of you with my hands!" A 'ciociaro' is a hill-man who wears 'cioce,' or rags, bound upon his feet with leathern sandals and thongs. He is generally a shepherd, and is held in contempt by the more respectable people of the larger mountain towns. To call a man a 'ciociaro' is a bitter insult. Stefanone in his anger had half risen from his seat. But the wooden bench on which he had been sitting was close to the wall behind him, and the heavy oak table was pushed up within a few inches of his chest, so that his movements were considerably hampered as he stretched out his hands rather wildly towards his adversary. The latter, who possessed more moral than physical courage, moved his chair back and prepared to make his escape, if Stefanone showed signs of coming round the table. At that moment a tall figure darkened the door that opened upon the street, and a quiet, dry voice spoke with a strong foreign accent. It was Angus Dalrymple, returning from a botanizing expedition in the hills, after being absent all day. "That is a very uncomfortable way of fighting," he observed, as he stood still in the doorway. "You cannot hit a man across a table broader than your arm is long, Signor Stefano." The effect of his words was instantaneous. Stefanone fell back into his seat. The doctor's anxious and excited expression resolved itself instantly into a polite smile. "We were only playing," he said suavely. "A little discussion--a mere jest. Our friend Stefanone was explaining something." "If the table had been narrower, he would have explained you away altogether," observed Dalrymple, coming forward. He laid a tin box which he had with him upon the table, and shook hands with Sor Tommaso. Then he slipped behind the table and sat down close to his host, as a precautionary measure in case the play should be resumed. Stefanone would have had a bad chance of being dangerous, if the powerful Scotchman chose to hold him down. But the peasant seemed to have become as suddenly peaceful as the doctor. "It was nothing," said Stefanone, quietly enough, though his eyes were bloodshot and glanced about the room in an unsettled way. At that moment Annetta entered from a door leading to the staircase. Her eyes were fixed on Dalrymple's face as she came forward, carrying a polished brass lamp, with three burning wicks, which she placed upon the table. Dalrymple looked up at her, and seeing her expression of inquiry, slowly nodded. With a laugh which drew her long red-brown lips back from her short white teeth, the girl produced a small flask and a glass, which she had carried behind her and out of sight when she came in. She set them before Dalrymple. "I saw you coming," she said, and laughed again. "And then--it is always the same. Half a 'foglietta' of the old, just for the appetite." Sor Tommaso glanced at Stefanone in a meaning way, but the girl's father affected not to see him. Dalrymple nodded his thanks, poured a few drops of wine into the glass and scattered them upon the brick floor according to the ancient custom, both for rinsing the glass and as a libation, and then offered to fill the glasses of each of the two men, who smiled, shook their heads, and covered their tumblers with their right hands. At last Dalrymple helped himself, nodded politely to his companions, and slowly emptied the glass which held almost all the contents of the little flask. The 'foglietta,' or 'leaflet' of wine, is said to have been so called from the twisted and rolled vine leaf which generally serves it for a stopper. A whole 'foglietta' contained a scant pint. "Will you eat now?" asked Annetta, still smiling. "Presently," answered Dalrymple. "What is there to eat? I am hungry." "It seems that you have to say so!" laughed the girl. "It is a new thing. There is beefsteak or mutton, if you wish to know. And ham--a fresh ham cut to-day. It is one of the Grape-eater's, and it seems good. You remember, Sor Tommaso, the--speaking with respect to your face--the pig we called the Grape-eater last year? Speaking with respect, he was a good pig. It is one of his hams that we have cut. There is also salad, and fresh bread, which you like. And wine, I will not speak of it. Eh, he likes wine, the Englishman! He comes in with a long, long face--and when he goes to bed, his face is wide, wide. That is the wine. But then, it does nothing else to him. It only changes his face. When I look at him, I seem to see the moon waxing." "You talk too much," said Stefanone. "Never mind, papa! Words are not pennies. The more one wastes, the more one has!" Dalrymple said nothing; but he smiled as she turned lightly with a toss of her small dark head and left the room. "Fine blood," observed the doctor, with a conciliatory glance at the girl's father. "You will be wanted before long, Sor Tommaso," said Dalrymple, gravely. "I hear that the abbess is very ill." The doctor looked up with sudden interest, and put on his professional expression. "The abbess, you say? Dear me! She is not young! What has she? Who told you, Sor Angoscia?" Now, 'Sor Angoscia' signifies in English 'Sir Anguish,' but the doctor in spite of really conscientious efforts could not get nearer to the pronunciation of Angus. Nevertheless, with northern persistency, Dalrymple corrected him for the hundredth time. The doctor's first attempt had resulted in his calling the Scotchman 'Sor Langusta,' which means 'Sir Crayfish'--and it must be admitted that 'Anguish' was an improvement. "Angus," said Dalrymple. "My name is Angus. The abbess has caught a severe cold from sitting in a draught when she was overheated. It has immediately settled on her lungs, and you may be sent for at any moment. I passed by the back of the convent on my way down, and the gardener was just coming out of the postern. He told me." "Dear me, dear me!" exclaimed Sor Tommaso, shaking his head. "Cold--bronchitis, pleurisy, pneumonia--it is soon done! One would be enough! Those nuns, what do they eat? A little grass, a little boiled paste, a little broth of meat on Sundays. What strength should they have? And then pray, pray, sing, sing! It needs a chest! Poor lungs! I will go to my home and get ready--blisters--mustard--a lancet--they will not allow a barber in the convent to bleed them. Well--I make myself the barber! What a life, what a life! If you wish to die young, be a doctor at Subiaco, Sor Angoscia. Good night, dear friend. Good night, Stefanone. I wish not to have said anything--you know--that little affair. Let us speak no more about it. I am more beast than you, because I said anything. Good night." Sor Tommaso got his stick from a dark corner, pressed his broad catskin hat upon his head, and took his respectability away on its tightly encased black legs. "And may the devil go with you," said Stefanone, under his breath, as the doctor disappeared. "Why?" inquired Dalrymple, who had caught the words. "I said nothing," answered the peasant, thoughtfully trimming one wick of the lamp with the bent brass wire which, with the snuffers, hung by a chain from the ring by which the lamp was carried. "I thought you spoke," said the Scotchman. "Well--the abbess is very ill, and Sor Tommaso has a job." "May he do it well! So that it need not be begun again." "What do you mean?" Dalrymple slowly sipped the remains of his little measure of wine. "Those nuns!" exclaimed Stefanone, instead of answering the question. "What are they here to do, in this world? Better make saints of them--and good night! There would be one misery less. Do you know what they do? They make wine. Good! But they do not drink it. They sell it for a farthing less by the foglietta than other people. The devil take them and their wine!" Dalrymple glanced at the angry peasant with some amusement, but did not make any answer. "Eh, Signore!" cried Stefanone. "You who are a foreigner and a Protestant, can you not say something, since it would be no sin for you?" "I was thinking of something to say, Signor Stefanone. But as for that, who does the business for the convent? They cannot do it themselves, I suppose. Who determines the price of their wine for them? Or the price of their corn?" "They are not so stupid as you think. Oh, no! They are not stupid, the nuns. They know the price of this, and the cost of that, just as well as you and I do. But Gigetto's father, Sor Agostino, is their steward, if that is what you wish to know. And his father was before him, and Gigetto will be after him, with his pumpkin-head. And the rest is sung by the organ, as we say when mass is over. For you know about Gigetto and Annetta." "Yes. And as you cannot quarrel with Sor Agostino on that account, I do not see but that you will either have to bear it, or sell your wine a farthing cheaper than that of the nuns." "Eh--that is soon said. A farthing cheaper than theirs! That means half a baiocco cheaper than I sell it now. And the best is only five baiocchi the foglietta, and the cheapest is two and a half. Good bye profit--a pleasant journey to Stefanone. But it is those nuns. They are to blame, and the devil will pay them." "In that case you need not," observed Dalrymple, rising. "I am going to wash my hands before supper." "At your pleasure, Signore," answered Stefanone, politely. As Dalrymple went out, Annetta passed him at the door, bringing in plates and napkins, and knives and forks. The girl glanced at his face as he went by. "Be quick, Signore," she said with a laugh. "The beefsteak of mutton is grilling." He nodded, and went up the dark stairs, his heavy shoes sending back echoes as he trod. Stefanone still sat at the table, turning the glass wine measure upside down over his tumbler, to let the last drops run out. He watched them as they fell, one by one, without looking up at his daughter, who began to arrange the plates for Dalrymple's meal. "I will teach you to make love with the Englishman," he said slowly, still watching the dropping wine. "Me!" cried Annetta, with real or feigned astonishment, and she tossed a knife and fork angrily into a plate, with a loud, clattering noise. "I am speaking with you," answered her father, without raising his eyes. "Do you know? You will come to a bad end." "Thank you!" replied the girl, contemptuously. "If you say so, it must be true! Now, who has told you that the Englishman is making love to me? An apoplexy on him, whoever he may be!" "Pretty words for a girl! Sor Tommaso told me. A little more, and I would have torn his tongue out. Just then, the Englishman came in. Sor Tommaso got off easily." The girl's tone changed very much when she spoke again, and there was a dull and angry light in her eyes. Her long lips were still parted, and showed her gleaming teeth, but the smile was altogether gone. "Yes. Too easily," she said, almost in a whisper, and there was a low hiss in the words. "In the meanwhile, it is true--what he said," continued Stefanone. "You make eyes at him. You wait for him and watch for him when he comes back from the mountains--" "Well? Is it not my place to serve him with his supper? If you are not satisfied, hire a servant to wait on him. You are rich. What do I care for the Englishman? Perhaps it is a pleasure to roast my face over the charcoal, cooking his meat for him. As for Sor Tommaso--" She stopped short in her speech. Her father knew what the tone meant, and looked up for the first time. "O-è!" he exclaimed, as one suddenly aware of a danger, and warning some one else. "Nothing," answered Annetta, looking down and arranging the knives and forks symmetrically on the clean cloth she had laid. "I might have killed him just now in hot blood, when the Englishman came in," said Stefanone, reflectively. "But now my blood has grown cold. I shall do nothing to him." "So much the better for him." She still spoke in a low voice, as she turned away from the table. "But I will kill you," said Stefanone, "if I see you making eyes at the Englishman." He rose, and taking up his hat, which lay beside him, he edged his way out along the wooden bench, moving cautiously lest he should shake the table and upset the lamp or the bottles. Annetta had turned again, at the threat he had uttered, and stood still, waiting for him to get out into the room, her hands on her hips, and her eyes on fire. "You will kill me?" she asked, just as he was opposite to her. "Well--kill me, then! Here I am. What are you waiting for? For the Englishman to interfere? He is washing his hands. He always takes a long time." "Then it is true that you have fallen in love with him?" asked Stefanone, his anger returning. "Him, or another. What does it matter to you? You remind me of the old woman who beat her cat, and then cried when it ran away. If you want me to stay at home, you had better find me a husband." "Do you want anything better than Gigetto? Apoplexy! But you have ideas!" "You are making a good business of it with Gigetto, in truth!" cried the girl, scornfully. "He eats, he drinks, and then he sings. But he does not marry. He will not even make love to me--not even with an eye. And then, because I love the Englishman, who is a great lord, though he says he is a doctor, I must die. Well, kill me!" She stared insolently at her father for a moment. "Oh, well," she added scornfully, "if you have not time now, it must be for to-morrow. I am busy." She turned on her heel with a disdainful fling of her short, dark skirt. Stefanone was exasperated, and his anger had returned. Before she was out of reach, he struck her with his open hand. Instead of striking her cheek, the blow fell upon the back of her head and neck, and sent her stumbling forwards. She caught the back of a chair, steadied herself, and turned again instantly, at her full height, not deigning to raise her hand to the place that hurt her. "Coward!" she exclaimed. "But I will pay you--and Sor Tommaso--for that blow." "Whenever you like," answered her father gruffly, but already sorry for what he had done. He turned his back, and went out into the night. It was now almost quite dark, and Annetta stood still by the chair, listening to his retreating footsteps. Then she slowly turned and gazed at the flaring wicks of the lamp. With a gesture that suggested the movement of a young animal, she rubbed the back of her neck with one hand and leisurely turned her head first to one side and then to the other. Her brown skin was unusually pale, but there was no moisture in her eyes as she stared at the lamp. "But I will pay you, Sor Tommaso," she said thoughtfully and softly. Then turning her eyes from the lamp at last, she took up one of the knives from the table, looked at it, felt the edge, and laid it down contemptuously. In those days all the respectable peasants in the Roman villages had solid silver forks and spoons, which have long since gone to the melting-pot to pay taxes. But they used the same blunt, pointless knives with wooden handles, which they use to-day. Annetta started, as she heard Dalrymple's tread upon the stone steps of the staircase, but she recovered herself instantly, gave a finishing touch to the table, rubbed the back of her head quickly once more, and met him with a smile. "Is the beefsteak of mutton ready?" inquired the Scotchman, cheerfully, with his extraordinary accent. Annetta ran past him, and returned almost before he was seated, bringing the food. The girl sat down at the end of the table, opposite the street door, and watched him as he swallowed one mouthful of meat after another, now and then stopping to drink a tumbler of wine at a draught. "You must be very strong, Signore," said Annetta, at last, her chin resting on her doubled hand. "Why?" inquired Dalrymple, carelessly, between two mouthfuls. "Because you eat so much. It must be a fine thing to eat so much meat. We eat very little of it." "Why?" asked the Scotchman, again between his mouthfuls. "Oh, who knows? It costs much. That must be the reason. Besides, it does not go down. I should not care for it." "It is a habit." Dalrymple drank. "In my country most of the people eat oats," he said, as he set down his glass. "Oats!" laughed the girl. "Like horses! But horses will eat meat, too, like you. As for me--good bread, fresh cheese, a little salad, a drink of wine and water--that is enough." "Like the nuns," observed Dalrymple, attacking the ham of the 'Grape-eater.' "Oh, the nuns! They live on boiled cabbage! You can smell it a mile away. But they make good cakes." "You often go to the convent, do you not?" asked the Scotchman, filling his glass, for the first mouthful of ham made him thirsty again. "You take the linen up with your mother, I know." "Sometimes, when I feel like going," answered the girl, willing to show that it was not her duty to carry baskets. "I only go when we have the small baskets that one can carry on one's head. I will tell you. They use the small baskets for the finer things, the abbess's linen, and the altar cloths, and the chaplain's lace, which belongs to the nuns. But the sheets and the table linen are taken up in baskets as long as a man. It takes four women to carry one of them." "That must be very inconvenient," said Dalrymple. "I should think that smaller ones would always be better." "Who knows? It has always been so. And when it has always been so, it will always be so--one knows that." Annetta nodded her head rhythmically to convey an impression of the immutability of all ancient customs and of this one in particular. Dalrymple, however, was not much interested in the question of the baskets. "What do the nuns do all day?" he asked. "I suppose you see them, sometimes. There must be young ones amongst them." Annetta glanced more keenly at the Scotchman's quiet face, and then laughed. "There is one, if you could see her! The abbess's niece. Oh, that one is beautiful. She seems to me a painted angel!" "The abbess's niece? What is she like? Let me see, the abbess is a princess, is she not?" "Yes, a great princess of the Princes of Gerano, of Casa Braccio, you know. They are always abbesses. And the young one will be the next, when this one dies. She is Maria Addolorata, in religion, but I do not know her real name. She has a beautiful face and dark eyes. Once I saw her hair for a moment. It is fair, but not like yours. Yours is red as a tomato." "Thank you," said Dalrymple, with something like a laugh. "Tell me more about the nun." "If I tell you, you will fall in love with her," objected Annetta. "They say that men with red hair fall in love easily. Is it true? If it is, I will not tell you any more about the nun. But I think you are in love with the poor old Grape-eater. It is good ham, is it not? By Bacchus, I fed him on chestnuts with my own hands, and he was always stealing the grapes. Chestnuts fattened him and the grapes made him sweet. Speaking with respect, he was a pig for a pope." "He will do for a Scotch doctor then," answered Dalrymple. "Tell me, what does this beautiful nun do all day long?" "What does she do? What can a nun do? She eats cabbage and prays like the others. But she has charge of all the convent linen, so I see her when I go with my mother. That is because the Princes of Gerano first gave the linen to the convent after it was all stolen by the Turks in 1798. So, as they gave it, their abbesses take care of it." Dalrymple laughed at the extraordinary historical allusion compounded of the very ancient traditions of the Saracens in the south, and of the more recent wars of Napoleon. "So she takes care of the linen," he said. "That cannot be very amusing, I should think." "They are nuns," answered the girl. "Do you suppose they go about seeking to amuse themselves? It is an ugly life. But Sister Maria Addolorata sings to herself, and that makes the abbess angry, because it is against the rules to sing except in church. I would not live in that convent--not if they would fill my apron with gold pieces." "But why did this beautiful girl become a nun, then? Was she unhappy, or crossed in love?" "She? They did not give her time! Before she could shut an eye and say, 'Little youth, you please me, and I wish you well,' they put her in. And that door, when it is shut, who shall open it? The Madonna, perhaps? But she was of the Princes of Gerano, and there must be one of them for an abbess, and the lot fell upon her. There is the whole history. You may hear her singing sometimes, if you stand under the garden wall, on the narrow path after the Benediction hour and before Ave Maria. But I am a fool to tell you, for you will go and listen, and when you have heard her voice you will be like a madman. You will fall in love with her. I was a fool to tell you." "Well? And if I do fall in love with her, who cares?" Dalrymple slowly filled a glass of wine. "If you do?" The young girl's eyes shot a quick, sharp glance at him. Then her face suddenly grew grave as she saw that some one was at the street door, looking in cautiously. "Come in, Sor Tommaso!" she called, down the table. "Papa is out, but we are here. Come in and drink a glass of wine!" The doctor, wrapped in a long broadcloth cloak with a velvet collar, and having a case of instruments and medicines under his arm, glanced round the room and came in. "Just a half-foglietta, my daughter," he said. "They have sent for me. The abbess is very ill, and I may be there a long time. If you think they would remember to offer a Christian a glass up there, you are very much mistaken." "They are nuns," laughed Annetta. "What can they know?" She rose to get the wine for the doctor. There had not been a trace of displeasure in her voice nor in her manner as she spoke. CHAPTER IV. SOR TOMMASO was rarely called to the convent. In fact, he could not remember that he had been wanted more than half a dozen times in the long course of his practice in Subiaco. Either the nuns were hardly ever ill, or else they must have doctored themselves with such simple remedies as had been handed down to them from former ages. Possibly they had been as well off on the whole as though they had systematically submitted to the heroic treatment which passed for medicine in those days. As a matter of fact, they suffered chiefly from bad colds; and when they had bad colds, they either got well, or died, according to their several destinies. Sor Tommaso might have saved some of them; but on the other hand, he might have helped some others rather precipitately from their cells to that deep crypt, closed, in the middle of the little church, by a single square flag of marble, having two brass studs in it, and bearing the simple inscription: 'Here lie the bones of the Reverend Sisters of the order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel.' On the whole, it is doubtful whether the practice of not calling in the doctor on ordinary occasions had much influence upon the convent's statistics of mortality. But though the abbess had more than once had a cold in her life, she had never suffered so seriously as this time, and she had made little objection to her niece's strong representations as to the necessity of medical aid. Therefore Sor Tommaso had been sent for in the evening and in great haste, and had taken with him a supply of appropriate material sufficient to kill, if not to cure, half the nuns in the convent. All the circumstances which he remembered from former occasions were accurately repeated. He rang at the main gate, waited long in the darkness, and heard at last the slapping and shuffling of shoes along the pavement within, as the portress and another nun came to let him in. Then there were faint rays of light from their little lamp, quivering through the cracks of the old weather-beaten door upon the cracked marble steps on which Sor Tommaso was standing. A thin voice asked who was there, and Sor Tommaso answered that he was the doctor. Then he heard a little colloquy in suppressed tones between the two nuns. The one said that the doctor was expected and must be let in without question. The other observed that it might be a thief. The first said that in that case they must look through the loophole. The second said that she did not know the doctor by sight. The first speaker remarked with some truth that one could tell a respectable person from a highwayman, and suddenly a small square porthole in the door was opened inwards, and a stream of light fell upon Sor Tommaso's face, as the nuns held up their little flaring lamp behind the grating. Behind the lamp he could distinguish a pair of shadowy eyes under an overhanging veil, which was also drawn across the lower part of the face. "Are you really the doctor?" asked one of the voices, in a doubtful tone. "He himself," answered the physician. "I am the Doctor Tommaso Taddei of the University of the Sapienza, and I have been called to render assistance to the very reverend the Mother Abbess." The light disappeared, and the porthole was shut, while a second colloquy began. On the whole, the two nuns decided to let him in, and then there was a jingling of keys and a clanking of iron bars and a grinding of locks, and presently a small door, cut and hung in one leaf of the great, iron-studded, wooden gate, was swung back. Sor Tommaso stooped and held his case before him, for the entrance was low and narrow. "God be praised!" he exclaimed, when he was fairly inside. "And praised be His holy name," answered both the sisters, promptly. Both had dropped their veils, and proceeded to bolt and bar the little door again, having set down the lamp upon the pavement. The rays made the unctuous dampness of the stone flags glisten, and Sor Tommaso shivered in his broadcloth cloak. Then, as before, he was conducted in silence through arched ways, and up many steps, and along labyrinthine corridors, his strong shoes rousing sharp, metallic echoes, while the nuns' slippers slapped and shuffled as one walked on each side of him, the one on the left carrying the lamp, according to the ancient rules of politeness. At last they reached the door of the antechamber at the end of the corridor, through which the way led to the abbess's private apartment, consisting of three rooms. The last door on the left, as Sor Tommaso faced that which opened into the antechamber, was that of Maria Addolorata's cell. The linen presses were entered from within the anteroom by a door on the right, so that they were actually in the abbess's apartment, an old-fashioned and somewhat inconvenient arrangement. Maria Addolorata, her veil drawn down, so that she could not see the doctor, but only his feet, and the folds of it drawn across her chin and mouth, received him at the door, which she closed behind him. The other two nuns set down their lamp on the floor of the corridor, slipped their hands up their sleeves, and stood waiting outside. The abbess was very ill, but had insisted upon sitting up in her parlour to receive the doctor, dressed and veiled, being propped up in her great easy-chair with a pillow which was of green silk, but was covered with a white pillow-case finely embroidered with open work at each end, through which the vivid colour was visible--that high green which cannot look blue even by lamplight. Both in the anteroom and in the parlour there were polished silver lamps of precisely the same pattern as the brass ones used by the richer peasants, excepting that each had a fan-like shield of silver to be used as a shade on one side, bearing the arms of the Braccio family in high boss, and attached to the oil vessel by a movable curved arm. The furniture of the room was very simple, but there was nevertheless a certain ecclesiastical solemnity about the high-backed, carved, and gilt chairs, the black and white marble pavement, the great portrait of his Holiness, Gregory the Sixteenth, in its massive gilt frame, the superb silver crucifix which stood on the writing-table, and, altogether, in the solidity of everything which met the eye. It was no easy matter to ascertain the good lady's condition, muffled up and veiled as she was. It was only as an enormous concession to necessity that Sor Tommaso was allowed to feel her pulse, and it needed all Maria Addolorata's eloquent persuasion and sensible argument to induce her to lift her veil a little, and open her mouth. "Your most reverend excellency must be cured by proxy," said Sor Tommaso, at his wit's end. "If this reverend mother," he added, turning to the young nun, "will carry out my directions, something may be done. Your most reverend excellency's life is in danger. Your most reverend excellency ought to be in bed." "It is the will of Heaven," said the abbess, in a very weak and hoarse voice. "Tell me what to do," said Maria Addolorata. "It shall be done as though you yourself did it." Sor Tommaso was encouraged by the tone of assurance in which the words were spoken, and proceeded to give his directions, which were many, and his recommendations, which were almost endless. "But if your most reverend excellency would allow me to assist you in person, the remedies would be more efficacious," he suggested, as he laid out the greater part of the contents of his case upon the huge writing-table. "You seem to forget that this is a religious house," replied the abbess, and she might have said more, but was interrupted by a violent attack of coughing, during which Maria Addolorata supported her and tried to ease her. "It will be better if you go away," said the nun, at last. "I will do all you have ordered, and your presence irritates her. Come back to-morrow morning, and I will tell you how she is progressing." The abbess nodded slowly, confirming her niece's words. Sor Tommaso very reluctantly closed his case, placed it under his arm, gathered up his broadcloth cloak with his hat, and made a low obeisance before the sick lady. "I wish your most reverend excellency a good rest and speedy recovery," he said. "I am your most reverend excellency's most humble servant." Maria Addolorata led him out into the antechamber. There she paused, and they were alone together for a moment, all the doors being closed. The doctor stood still beside her, waiting for her to speak. "What do you think?" she asked. "I do not wish to say anything," he answered. "What do you wish me to say? A stroke of air, a cold, a bronchitis, a pleurisy, a pneumonia. Thanks be to Heaven, there is little fever. What do you wish me to say? For the stroke of air, a little good wine; for the cold, warm covering; for the bronchitis, the tea of marshmallows; for the pleurisy, severe blistering; for the pneumonia, a good mustard plaster; for the general system, the black draught; above all, nothing to eat. Frictions with hot oil will also do good. It is the practice of medicine by proxy, my lady mother. What do you wish me to say? I am disposed. I am her most reverend excellency's very humble servant. But I cannot perform miracles. Pray to the Madonna to perform them. I have not even seen the tip of her most reverend excellency's most wise tongue. What can I do?" "Well, then, come back to-morrow morning, and I will see you here," said Maria Addolorata. Sor Tommaso found the nuns waiting for him with their little lamp in the corridor, and they led him back through the vaulted passages and staircases and let him out into the night without a word. The night was dark and cloudy. It had grown much darker since he had come up, as the last lingering light of evening had faded altogether from the sky. The October wind drew down in gusts from the mountains above Subiaco, and blew the doctor's long cloak about so that it flapped softly now and then like the wings of a night bird. After descending some distance, he carefully set down his case upon the stones and fumbled in his pockets for his snuffbox, which he found with some difficulty. A gust blew up a grain of snuff into his right eye, and he stamped angrily with the pain, hurting his foot against a rolling stone as he did so. But he succeeded in getting his snuff to his nose at last. Then he bent down in the dark to take up his case, which was close to his feet, though he could hardly see it. The gusty south wind blew the long skirts of his cloak over his head and made them flap about his ears. He groped for the box. [Illustration: "Sor Tommaso was lying motionless."--Vol. I., p. 78.] Just then the doctor heard light footsteps coming down the path behind him. He called out, warning that he was in the way. "O-è, gently, you know!" he cried. "An apoplexy on the wind!" he added vehemently, as his head and hands became entangled more and more in the folds of his cloak. "And another on you!" answered a woman's voice, speaking low through clenched teeth. In the darkness a hand rose and fell with something in it, three times in quick succession. A man's low cry of pain was stifled in folds of broadcloth. The same light footsteps were heard for a moment again in the narrow, winding way, and Sor Tommaso was lying motionless on his face across his box, with his cloak over his head. The gusty south wind blew up and down between the dark walls, bearing now and then a few withered vine leaves and wisps of straw with it; and the night grew darker still, and no one passed that way for a long time. CHAPTER V. WHEN Angus Dalrymple had finished his supper, he produced a book and sat reading by the light of the wicks of the three brass lamps. Annetta had taken away the things and had not come back again. Gigetto strolled in and took his guitar from the peg on the wall, and idled about the room, tuning it and humming to himself. He was a tall young fellow with a woman's face and beautiful velvet-like eyes, as handsome and idle a youth as you might meet in Subiaco on a summer's feast-day. He exchanged a word of greeting with Dalrymple, and, seeing that the place was otherwise deserted, he at last slung his guitar over his shoulder, pulled his broad black felt hat over his eyes, and strolled out through the half-open door, presumably in search of amusement. Gigetto's chief virtue was his perfectly childlike and unaffected taste for amusing himself, on the whole very innocently, whenever he got a chance. It was natural that he and the Scotchman should not care for one another's society. Dalrymple looked after him for a moment and then went back to his book. A big glass measure of wine stood beside him not half empty, and his glass was full. He was making a strong effort to concentrate his attention upon the learned treatise, which formed a part of the little library he had brought with him. But Annetta's idle talk about the nuns, and especially about Maria Addolorata and her singing, kept running through his head in spite of his determination to be serious. He had been living the life of a hermit for months, and had almost forgotten the sound of an educated woman's voice. To him Annetta was nothing more than a rather pretty wild animal. It did not enter his head that she might be in love with him. Sora Nanna was simply an older and uglier animal of the same species. To a man of Dalrymple's temperament, and really devoted to the pursuit of a serious object, a woman quite incapable of even understanding what that object is can hardly seem to be a woman at all. But the young Scotchman was not wanting in that passionate and fantastic imagination which so often underlies and even directs the hardy northern nature, and the young girl's carelessly spoken words had roused it to sudden activity. In spite of himself, he was already forming plans for listening under the convent wall, if perchance he might catch the sound of the nun's wonderful voice, and from that to the wildest schemes for catching a momentary glimpse of the singer was only a step. At the same time, he was quite aware that such schemes were dangerous if not impracticable, and his reasonable self laughed down his unreasoning romance, only to be confronted by it again as soon as he tried to turn his attention to his book. He looked up and saw that he had not finished his wine, though at that hour the measure was usually empty, and he wondered why he was less thirsty than usual. By force of habit he emptied the full glass and poured more into it,--by force of that old northern habit of drinking a certain allowance as a sort of duty, more common in those days than it is now. Then he began to read again, never dreaming that his strong head and solid nerves could be in any way affected by his potations. But his imagination this evening worked faster and faster, and his sober reason was recalcitrant and abhorred work. The nun had fair hair and dark eyes and a beautiful face. Those were much more interesting facts than he could find in his work. She had a wonderful voice. He tried to recall all the extraordinary voices he had heard in his life, but none of them had ever affected him very much, though he had a good ear and some taste for music. He wondered what sort of voice this could be, and he longed to hear it. He shut up his book impatiently, drank more wine, rose and went to the open door. The gusty south wind fanned his face pleasantly, and he wished he were to sleep out of doors. The Sora Nanna, who had been spending the evening with a friend in the neighbourhood, came in, her thin black overskirt drawn over her head to keep the embroidered head-cloth in its place. By and by, as Dalrymple still stood by the door, Stefanone appeared, having been to play a game of cards at a friendly wine-shop. He sat down by Sora Nanna at the table. She was mixing some salad in a big earthenware bowl adorned with green and brown stripes. They talked together in low tones. Dalrymple had nodded to each in turn, but the gusty air pleased him, and he remained standing by the door, letting it blow into his face. It was growing late. Italian peasants are not great sleepers, and it is their custom to have supper at a late hour, just before going to bed. By this time it was nearly ten o'clock as we reckon the hours, or about 'four of the night' in October, according to old Italian custom, which reckons from a theoretical moment of darkness, supposed to begin at Ave Maria, half an hour after sunset. Suddenly Dalrymple heard Annetta's voice in the room behind him, speaking to her mother. He had no particular reason for supposing that she had been out of the house since she had cleared the table and left him, but unconsciously he had the impression that she had been away, and was surprised to hear her in the room, after expecting that she should pass him, coming in from the street, as the others had done. He turned and walked slowly towards his place at the table. "I thought you had gone out," he said carelessly, to Annetta. The girl turned her head quickly. "I?" she cried. "And alone? Without even Gigetto? When do I ever go out alone at night? Will you have some supper, Signore?" "I have just eaten, thank you," answered Dalrymple, seating himself. "Three hours ago. It was not yet an hour of the night when you ate. Well--at your pleasure. Do not complain afterwards that we make you die of hunger." "Bread, Annetta!" said Stefanone, gruffly but good-naturedly. "And cheese, and salt--wine, too! A thousand things! Quickly, my daughter." "Quicker than this?" inquired the girl, who had already placed most of the things he asked for upon the table. "I say it to say it," answered her father. "'Hunger makes long jumps,' and I am hungry." "Did you win anything?" asked Sora Nanna, with both her elbows on the table. "Five baiocchi." "It was worth while to pay ten baiocchi for another man's bad wine, for the sake of winning so much!" replied Sora Nanna, who was a careful soul. "Of course you paid for the wine?" "Eh--of course. They pay for wine when they come here. One takes a little and one gives a little. This is life." Annetta busied herself with the simple preparations for supper, while they talked. Dalrymple watched her idly, and he thought she was pale, and that her eyes were very bright. She had set a plate for herself, but had forgotten her glass. "And you? Do you not drink?" asked Stefanone. "You have no glass." "What does it matter?" She sat down between her father and mother. "Drink out of mine, my little daughter," said Stefanone, holding his glass to her lips with a laugh, as though she had been a little child. She looked quietly into his eyes for a moment, before she touched the wine with her lips. "Yes," she answered, with a little emphasis. "I will drink out of your glass now." "Better so," laughed Stefanone, who was glad to be reconciled, for he loved the girl, in spite of his occasional violence of temper. "What does it mean?" asked Sora Nanna, her cunning peasant's eyes looking from one to the other, and seeming to belie her stupid face. "Nothing," answered Stefanone. "We were playing together. Signor Englishman," he said, turning to Dalrymple, "you must sometimes wish that you were married, and had a wife like Nanna, and a daughter like Annetta." "Of course I do," said Dalrymple, with a smile. Before very long, he took his book and went upstairs to bed, being tired and sleepy after a long day spent on the hillside in a fruitless search for certain plants which, according to his books, were to be found in that part of Italy, but which he had not yet seen. He fell asleep, thinking of Maria Addolorata's lovely face and fair hair, on which he had never laid eyes. In his dreams he heard a rare voice ringing true, that touched him strangely. The gusty wind made the panes of his bedroom window rattle, and in the dream he was tapping on Maria Addolorata's casement and calling softly to her, to open it and speak to him, or calling her by name, with his extraordinary foreign accent. And he thought he was tapping louder and louder, upon the glass and upon the wooden frame, louder and louder still. Then he heard his name called out, and his heart jumped as though it would have turned upside down in its place, and then seemed to sink again like a heavy stone falling into deep water; for he was awake, and the voice that was calling him was certainly not that of the beautiful nun, but gruff and manly; also the tapping was not tapping any more upon a casement, but was a vigorous pounding against his own bolted door. Dalrymple sat up suddenly and listened, wide awake at once. The square of his window was faintly visible in the darkness, as though the dawn were breaking. He called out, asking who was outside. "Get up, Signore! Get up! You are wanted quickly!" It was Stefanone. Dalrymple struck a light, for he had a supply of matches with him, a convenience of modern life not at that time known in Subiaco, except as an expensive toy, though already in use in Rome. As he was, he opened the door. Stefanone came in, dressed in his shirt and breeches, pale with excitement. "You must dress yourself, Signore," he said briefly, as he glanced at the Scotchman, and then set down the small tin and glass lantern he carried. "What is the matter?" inquired Dalrymple, yawning, and stretching his great white arms over his head, till his knuckles struck the low ceiling; for he was a tall man. "The matter is that they have killed Sor Tommaso," answered the peasant. Dalrymple uttered an exclamation of surprise and incredulity. "It is as I say," continued Stefanone. "They found him lying across the way, in the street, with knife-wounds in him, as many as you please." "That is horrible!" exclaimed Dalrymple, turning, and calmly trimming his lamp, which burned badly at first. "Then dress yourself, Signore!" said Stefanone, impatiently. "You must come!" "Why? If he is dead, what can I do?" asked the northern man, coolly. "I am sorry. What more can I say?" "But he is not dead yet!" Stefanone was growing excited. "They have taken him--" "Oh! he is alive, is he?" interrupted the Scotchman, dashing at his clothes, as though he were suddenly galvanized into life himself. "Then why did you tell me they had killed him?" he asked, with a curious, dry calmness of voice, as he instantly began to dress himself. "Get some clean linen, Signor Stefano. Tear it up into strips as broad as your hand, for bandages, and set the women to make a little lint of old linen--cotton is not good. Where have they taken Sor Tommaso?" "To his own house," answered the peasant. "So much the better. Go and make the bandages." Dalrymple pushed Stefanone towards the door with one hand, while he continued to fasten his clothes with the other. Stefanone was not without some experience of similar cases, so he picked up his lantern and went off. In less than a quarter of an hour, he and Dalrymple were on their way to Sor Tommaso's house, which was in the piazza of Subiaco, not far from the principal church. Half a dozen peasants, who had met the muleteers bringing the wounded doctor home from the spot where he had been found, followed the two men, talking excitedly in low voices and broken sentences. The dawn was grey above the houses, and the autumn mists had floated up to the parapet on the side where the little piazza looked down to the valley, and hung motionless in the still air, like a stage sea in a theatre. In the distance was heard the clattering of mules' shoes, and occasionally the deep clanking of the goats' bells. Just as the little party reached the small, dark green door of the doctor's house the distant convent bells tolled one, then two quick strokes, then three again, and then five, and then rang out the peal for the morning Angelus. The door of the dirty little coffee shop in the piazza was already open, and a faint light burned within. The air was damp, quiet and strangely resonant, as it often is in mountain towns at early dawn. The gusty October wind had gone down, after blowing almost all night. The case was far from being as serious as Dalrymple had expected, and he soon convinced himself that Sor Tommaso was not in any great danger. He had fainted from fright and some loss of blood, but neither of the two thrusts which had wounded him had penetrated to his lungs, and the third was little more than a scratch. Doubtless he owed his safety in part to the fact that the wind had blown his cloak in folds over his shoulders and head. But it was also clear that his assailant had possessed no experience in the use of the knife as a weapon. When the group of men at the door were told that Sor Tommaso was not mortally wounded, they went away somewhat disappointed at the insignificant ending of the affair, though the doctor was not an unpopular man in the town. "It is some woman," said one of them, contemptuously. "What can a woman do with a knife? Worse than a cat--she scratches, and runs away." "Some little jealousy," observed another. "Eh! Sor Tommaso--who knows where he makes love? But meanwhile he is growing old, to be so gay." "The old are the worst," replied the first speaker. "Since it is nothing, let us have a baiocco's worth of acquavita, and let us go away." So they turned into the dirty little coffee shop to get their pennyworth of spirits. Meanwhile Dalrymple was washing and binding up his friend's wounds. Sor Tommaso groaned and winced under every touch, and the Scotchman, with dry gentleness, did his best to reassure him. Stefanone looked on in silence for some time, helping Dalrymple when he was needed. The doctor's servant-woman, a somewhat grimy peasant, was sitting on the stairs, sobbing loudly. "It is useless," moaned Sor Tommaso. "I am dead." "I may be mistaken," answered Dalrymple, "but I think not." And he continued his operations with a sure hand, greatly to the admiration of Stefanone, who had often seen knife-wounds dressed. Gradually Sor Tommaso became more calm. His face, from having been normally of a bright red, was now very pale, and his watery blue eyes blinked at the light helplessly like a kitten's, as he lay still on his pillow. Stefanone went away to his occupations at last, and Dalrymple, having cleared away the litter of unused bandages and lint, and set things in order, sat down by the bedside to keep his patient company for a while. He was really somewhat anxious lest the wounds should have taken cold. "If I get well, it will be a miracle," said Sor Tommaso, feebly. "I must think of my soul." "By all means," answered the Scotchman. "It can do your soul no harm, and contemplation rests the body." "You Protestants have not human sentiment," observed the Italian, moving his head slowly on the pillow. "But I also think of the abbess. I was to have gone there early this morning. She will also die. We shall both die." Dalrymple crossed one leg over the other, and looked quietly at the doctor. "Sor Tommaso," he said, "there is no other physician in Subiaco. I am a doctor, properly licensed to practise. It is evidently my duty to take care of your patients while you are ill." "Mercy!" cried Sor Tommaso, with sudden energy, and opening his eyes very wide. "Are you afraid that I shall kill them," asked Dalrymple, with a smile. "Who knows? A foreigner! And the people say that you have converse with the devil. But the common people are ignorant." "Very." "And as for the convent--a Protestant--for the abbess! They would rather die. Figure to yourself what sort of a scandal there would be! A Protestant in a convent, and then, in that convent, too! The abbess would much rather die in peace." "At all events, I will go and offer my services. If the abbess prefers to die in peace, she can answer to that effect. I will ask her what she thinks about it." "Ask her!" repeated Sor Tommaso. "Do you imagine that you could see her? But what can you know? I tell you that last night she was muffled up in her chair, and her face covered. It needed the grace of Heaven, that I might feel her pulse! As for her tongue, God knows what it is like! I have not seen it. Not so much as the tip of it! Not even her eyes did I see. And to-day I was not to be admitted at all, because the abbess would be in bed. Imagine to yourself, with blisters and sinapisms, and a hundred things. I was only to speak with Sister Maria Addolorata, who is her niece, you know, in the anteroom of the abbess's apartment. They would not let you in. They would give you a bath of holy water through the loophole of the convent door and say, 'Go away, sinner; this is a religious house!' You know them very little." "You are talking too much," observed Dalrymple, who had listened attentively. "It is not good for you. Besides, since you are able to speak, it would be better if you told me who stabbed you last night, that I may go to the police, and have the person arrested, if possible." "You do not know what you are saying," answered Sor Tommaso, with sudden gravity. "The woman has relations--who could handle a knife better than she." And he turned his face away. CHAPTER VI. THE sun was high when Dalrymple left Sor Tommaso in charge of the old woman-servant and went back to Stefanone's house to dress himself with more care than he had bestowed upon his hasty toilet at dawn. And now that he had plenty of time, he was even more careful of his appearance than usual; for he had fully determined to attempt to take Sor Tommaso's place in attendance upon the abbess. He therefore put on a coat of a sober colour and brushed his straight red hair smoothly back from his forehead, giving himself easily that extremely grave and trust-inspiring air which distinguishes many Scotchmen, and supports their solid qualities, while it seems to deny the possibility of any adventurous and romantic tendency. At that hour nobody was about the house, and Dalrymple, stick in hand, sallied forth upon his expedition, looking for all the world as though he were going to church in Edinburgh instead of meditating an entrance into an Italian convent. He had said nothing more to the doctor on the subject. The people in the streets had most of them seen him often and knew him by name, and it did not occur to any one to wonder why a foreigner should wear one sort of coat rather than another, when he took his walks abroad. He walked leisurely; for the sky had cleared, and the sun was hot. Moreover, he followed the longer road in order to keep his shoes clean, instead of climbing up the narrow and muddy lane in which Sor Tommaso had been attacked. He reached the convent door at last, brushed a few specks of dust from his coat, settled his high collar and the broad black cravat which was then taking the place of the stock, and rang the bell with one steady pull. There was, perhaps, no occasion for nervousness. At all events, Dalrymple was as deliberate in his movements and as calm in all respects as he had ever been in his life. Only, just after he had pulled the weather-beaten bell-chain, a half-humorous smile bent his even lips and was gone again in a moment. There was the usual slapping and shuffling of slippers in the vaulted archway within, but as it was now day, the loophole was opened immediately, and the portress came alone. Dalrymple explained in strangely accented but good Italian that Sor Tommaso had met with an accident in the night; that he, Angus Dalrymple, was a friend of the doctor's and a doctor himself, and had undertaken all of Sor Tommaso's duties, and, finally, that he begged the portress to find Sister Maria Addolorata, to repeat his story, and to offer his humble services in the cause of the abbess's recovery. All of which the veiled nun within heard patiently to the end. "I will speak to Sister Maria Addolorata," she said. "Have the goodness to wait." "Outside?" inquired Dalrymple, as the little shutter of the loophole was almost closed. "Of course," answered the nun, opening it again, and shutting it as soon as she had spoken. Dalrymple waited a long time in the blazing sun. The main entrance of the convent faced to the southeast, and it was not yet midday. He grew hot, after his walk, and softly wiped his forehead, and carefully folded his handkerchief again before returning it to his pocket. At last he heard the sound of steps again, and in a few seconds the loophole was once more opened. "Sister Maria Addolorata will speak with you," said the portress's voice, as he approached his face to the little grating. He felt an odd little thrill of pleasant surprise. But so far as seeing anything was concerned, he was disappointed. Instead of one veiled nun, there were now two veiled nuns. "Madam," he began, "my friend Doctor Tommaso Taddei has met with an accident which prevents him from leaving his bed." And he went on to repeat all that he had told the portress, with such further explanations as he deemed necessary and persuasive. While he spoke, Maria Addolorata drew back a little into the deeper shadow away from the loophole. Her veil hung over her eyes, and the folds were drawn across her mouth, but she gradually raised her head, throwing it back until she could see Dalrymple's face from beneath the edge of the black material. In so doing she unconsciously uncovered her mouth. The Scotchman saw a good part of her features, and gazed intently at what he saw, rightly judging that as the sun was behind him, she could hardly be sure whether he were looking at her or not. As for her, she was doubtless inspired by a natural curiosity, but at the same time she understood the gravity of the case and wished to form an opinion as to the advisability of admitting the stranger. A glance told her that Dalrymple was a gentleman, and she was reassured by the gravity of his voice and by the fact that he was evidently acquainted with the abbess's condition, and must, therefore, be a friend of Sor Tommaso. When he had finished speaking, she immediately looked down again, and seemed to be hesitating. "Open the door, Sister Filomena," she said at last. The portress shook her head almost imperceptibly as she obeyed, but she said nothing. The whole affair was in her eyes exceedingly irregular. Maria Addolorata should have retired to the little room adjoining the convent parlour, and separated from it by a double grating, and Dalrymple should have been admitted to the parlour itself, and they should have said what they had to say to one another through the bars, in the presence of the portress. But Maria Addolorata was the abbess's niece. The abbess was too ill to give orders--too ill even to speak, it was rumoured. In a few days Maria Addolorata might be 'Her most Reverend Excellency.' Meanwhile she was mistress of the situation, and it was safer to obey her. Moreover, the portress was only a lay sister, an old and ignorant creature, accustomed to do what she was told to do by the ladies of the convent. Dalrymple took off his hat and stooped low to enter through the small side-door. As soon as he had passed the threshold, he stood up to his height and then made a low bow to Maria Addolorata, whose veil now quite covered her eyes and prevented her from seeing him,--a fact which he realized immediately. "Give warning to the sisters, Sister Filomena," said Maria Addolorata to the portress, who nodded respectfully and walked away into the gloom under the arches, leaving the nun and Dalrymple together by the door. "It is necessary to give warning," she explained, "lest you should meet any of the sisters unveiled in the corridors, and they should be scandalized." Dalrymple again bowed gravely and stood still, his eyes fixed upon Maria Addolorata's veiled head, but wandering now and then to her heavy but beautifully shaped white hands, which she held carelessly clasped before her and holding the end of the great rosary of brown beads which hung from her side. He thought he had never seen such hands before. They were high-bred, and yet at the same time there was a strongly material attraction about them. He did not know what to say, and as nothing seemed to be expected of him, he kept silence for some time. At last Maria Addolorata, as though impatient at the long absence of the portress, tapped the pavement softly with her sandal slipper, and turned her head in the direction of the arches as though to listen for approaching footsteps. "I hope that the abbess is no worse than when Doctor Taddei saw her last night," observed Dalrymple. "Her most reverend excellency," answered Maria Addolorata, with a little emphasis, as though to teach him the proper mode of addressing the abbess, "is suffering. She has had a bad night." "I shall hope to be allowed to give some advice to her most reverend excellency," said Dalrymple, to show that he had understood the hint. "She will not allow you to see her. But you shall come with me to the antechamber, and I will speak with her and tell you what she says." "I shall be greatly obliged, and will do my best to give good advice without seeing the patient." Another pause followed, during which neither moved. Then Maria Addolorata spoke again, further reassured, perhaps, by Dalrymple's quiet and professional tone. She had too lately left the world to have lost the habit of making conversation to break an awkward silence. Years of seclusion, too, instead of making her shy and silent, had given her something of the ease and coolness of a married woman. This was natural enough, considering that she was born of worldly people and had acquired the manners of the world in her own home, in childhood. "You are an Englishman, I presume, Signor Doctor?" she observed, in a tone of interrogation. "A Scotchman, Madam," answered Dalrymple, correcting her and drawing himself up a little. "My name is Angus Dalrymple." "It is the same--an Englishman or a Scotchman," said the nun. "Pardon me, Madam, we consider that there is a great difference. The Scotch are chiefly Celts. Englishmen are Anglo-Saxons." "But you are all Protestants. It is therefore the same for us." Dalrymple feared a discussion of the question of religion. He did not answer the nun's last remark, but bowed politely. She, of course, could not see the inclination he made. "You say nothing," she said presently. "Are you a Protestant?" "Yes, Madam." "It is a pity!" said Maria Addolorata. "May God send you light." "Thank you, Madam." Maria Addolorata smiled under her veil at the polite simplicity of the reply. She had met Englishmen in Rome. "It is no longer customary to address us as 'Madam,'" she answered, a moment later. "It is more usual to speak to us as 'Sister' or 'Reverend Sister'--or 'Sister Maria.' I am Sister Maria Addolorata. But you know it, for you sent your message to me." "Doctor Taddei told me." At this point the portress appeared in the distance, and Maria Addolorata, hearing footsteps, turned her head from Dalrymple, raising her veil a little, so that she could recognize the lay sister without showing her face to the young man. "Let us go," she said, dropping her veil again, and beginning to walk on. "The sisters are warned." Dalrymple followed her in silence and at a respectful distance, congratulating himself upon his extraordinary good fortune in having got so far on the first attempt, and inwardly praying that Sor Tommaso's wounds might take a considerable time in healing. It had all come about so naturally that he had lost the sensation of doing something adventurous which had at first taken possession of him, and he now regarded everything as possible, even to being invited to a friendly cup of tea in Sister Maria Addolorata's sitting-room; for he imagined her as having a sitting-room and as drinking tea there in a semi-luxurious privacy. The idea would have amused an Italian of those days, when tea was looked upon as medicine. They reached the end of the last corridor. Dalrymple, like Sor Tommaso, was admitted to the antechamber, while the portress waited outside to conduct him back again. But Maria did not take him into the abbess's parlour, into which she went at once, closing the door behind her. Dalrymple sat down upon a carved wooden box-bench, and waited. The nun was gone a long time. "I have kept you waiting," she said, as she entered the little room again. "My time is altogether at your service, Sister Maria Addolorata," he answered, rising quickly. "How is her most reverend excellency?" "Very ill. I do not know what to say. She will not hear of seeing you. I fear she will not live long, for she can hardly breathe." "Does she cough?" "Not much. Not so much as last night. She complains that she cannot draw her breath and that her lungs feel full of something." The case was evidently serious, and Dalrymple, who was a physician by nature, proceeded to extract as much information as he could from the nun, who did her best to answer all his questions clearly. The long conversation, with its little restraints and its many attempts at a mutual understanding, did more to accustom Maria Addolorata to Dalrymple's presence and personality than any number of polite speeches on his part could have done. There is an unavoidable tendency to intimacy between any two people who are together engaged in taking care of a sick person. "I can give you directions and good advice," said Dalrymple, at last. "But it can never be the same as though I could see the patient myself. Is there no possible means of obtaining her consent? She may die for the want of just such advice as I can only give after seeing her. Would not her brother, his Eminence the Cardinal, perhaps recommend her to let me visit her once?" "That is an idea," answered the nun, quickly. "My uncle is a man of broad views. I have heard it said in Rome. I could write to him that Doctor Taddei is unable to come, and that a celebrated foreign physician is here--" "Not celebrated," interrupted Dalrymple, with his literal Scotch veracity. "What difference can it make?" uttered Maria Addolorata, moving her shoulders a little impatiently. "He will be the more ready to use his influence, for he is much attached to my aunt. Then, if he can persuade her, I can send down the gardener to the town for you this afternoon. It may not be too late." "I see that you have some confidence in me," said Dalrymple. "I am of a newer school than Doctor Taddei. If you will follow my directions, I will almost promise that her most reverend excellency shall not die before to-morrow." He smiled now, as he gave the abbess her full title, for he began to feel as though he had known Maria Addolorata for a long time, though he had only had one glimpse of her eyes, just when she had raised her head to get a look at him through the loophole of the gate. But he had not forgotten them, and he felt that he knew them. "I will do all you tell me," she answered quietly. Dalrymple had some English medicines with him on his travels, and not knowing what might be required of him at the convent, he had brought with him a couple of tiny bottles. "This when she coughs--ten drops," he said, handing the bottles to the nun. "And five drops of this once an hour, until her chest feels freer." He gave her minute directions, as far as he could, about the general treatment of the patient, which Maria repeated and got by heart. "I will let you know before twenty-three o'clock what the cardinal says to the plan," she said. "In this way you will be able to come up by daylight." As Dalrymple took his leave, he held out his hand, forgetting that he was in Italy. "It is not our custom," said Maria Addolorata, thrusting each of her own hands into the opposite sleeve. But there was nothing cold in her tone. On the contrary, Dalrymple fancied that she was almost on the point of laughing at that moment, and he blushed at his awkwardness. But she could not see his face. "Your most humble servant," he said, bowing to her. "Good day, Signor Doctor," she answered, through the open door, as the portress jingled her keys and prepared to follow Dalrymple. So he took his departure, not without much satisfaction at the result of his first attempt. CHAPTER VII. SOR TOMMASO recovered but slowly, though his injuries were of themselves not dangerous. His complexion was apoplectic and gouty, he was no longer young, and before forty-eight hours had gone by his wounds were decidedly inflamed and he had a little fever. At the same time he was by no means a courageous man, and he was ready to cry out that he was dead, whenever he felt himself worse. Besides this, he lost his temper several times daily with Dalrymple, who resolutely refused to bleed him, and he insisted upon eating and drinking more than was good for him, at a time when if he had been his own patient he would have enforced starvation as necessary to recovery. Meanwhile the cardinal had exerted his influence with his sister, the abbess, and had so far succeeded that Dalrymple, who went every day to the convent, was now made to stand with his back to the abbess's open door, in order that he might at least ask her questions and hear her own answers. Many an old Italian doctor can tell of even stranger and more absurd precautions observed by the nuns of those days. As soon as the oral examination was over, Maria Addolorata shut the door and came out into the parlour, where Dalrymple finished his visit, prolonging it in conversation with her by every means he could devise. Though encumbered with a little of the northern shyness, Dalrymple was not diffident. There is a great difference between shyness and diffidence. Diffidence distrusts itself; shyness distrusts the mere outward impression made on others. At this time Dalrymple had no object beyond enjoying the pleasure of talking with Maria Addolorata, and no hope beyond that of some day seeing her face without the veil. As for her voice, his present position as doctor to the convent made it foolish for him to run the risk of being caught listening for her songs behind the garden wall. But he had not forgotten what Annetta had told him, and Maria Addolorata's soft intonations and liquid depths of tone in speaking led him to believe that the peasant girl had not exaggerated the nun's gift of singing. One day, after he had seen her and talked with her more than half a dozen times, he approached the subject, merely for the sake of conversation, saying that he had been told of her beautiful voice by people who had heard her across the garden. "It is true," she answered simply. "I have a good voice. But it is forbidden here to sing except in church," she added with a sigh. "And now that my aunt is ill, I would not displease her for anything." "That is natural," said Dalrymple. "But I would give anything in the world to hear you." "In church you can hear me. The church is open on Sundays at the Benediction service. We are behind the altar in the choir, of course. But perhaps you would know my voice from the rest because it is deeper." "I should know it in a hundred thousand," asseverated the Scotchman, with warmth. "That would be a great many--a whole choir of angels!" And the nun laughed softly, as she sometimes did, now that she knew him so much better. There was something warm and caressing in her laughter, short and low as it was, that made Dalrymple look at those full white hands of hers and wonder whether they might not be warm and caressing too. "Will you sing a little louder than the rest next Sunday afternoon, Sister Maria?" he asked. "I will be in the church." "That would be a great sin," she answered, but not very gravely. "Why?" "Because I should have to be thinking about you instead of about the holy service. Do you not know that? But nothing is sinful according to you Protestants, I suppose. At all events, come to the church." "Do you think we are all devils, Sister Maria?" asked Dalrymple, with a smile. "More or less." She laughed again. "They say in the town that you have a compact with the devil." "Do you hear what is said in the town?" "Sometimes. The gardener brings the gossip and tells it to the cook. Or Sora Nanna tells it to me when she brings the linen. There are a thousand ways. The people think we know nothing because they never see us. But we hear all that goes on." Dalrymple said nothing in answer for some time. Then he spoke suddenly and rather hoarsely. "Shall I never see you, Sister Maria?" he asked. "Me? But you see me every day--" "Yes,--but your face, without the veil." Maria Addolorata shook her head. "It is against all rules," she answered. "Is it not against all rules that we should sit here and make conversation every day for half an hour?" "Yes--I suppose it is. But you are here as a doctor to take care of my aunt," she added quickly. "That makes it right. You are not a man. You are a doctor." "Oh,--I understand." Dalrymple laughed a little. "Then I am never to see your beautiful face?" "How do you know it is beautiful, since you have never seen it?" "From your beautiful hands," answered the young man, promptly. "Oh!" Maria Addolorata glanced at her hands and then, with a movement which might have been quicker, concealed them in her sleeves. "It is a sin to hide what God has made beautiful," said Dalrymple. "If I have anything about me that is beautiful, it is for God's glory that I hide it," answered Maria, with real gravity this time. Dalrymple understood that he had gone a little too far, though he did not exactly regret it, for the next words she spoke showed him that she was not really offended. Nevertheless, in order to exhibit a proper amount of contrition he took his leave with a little more formality than usual on this particular occasion. Possibly she was willing to show that she forgave him, for she hesitated a moment just before opening the door, and then, to his great surprise, held out her hand to him. "It is your custom," she said, just touching his eagerly outstretched fingers. "But you must not look at it," she added, drawing it back quickly and hiding it in her sleeve with another low laugh. And she began to shut the door almost before he had quite gone through. Dalrymple walked more slowly on that day, as he descended through the steep and narrow streets, and though he was surefooted by nature and habit, he almost stumbled once or twice on his way down, because, somehow, though his eyes looked towards his feet, he did not see exactly where he was going. There is no necessity for analyzing his sensations. It is enough to say at once that he was beginning to be really in love with Maria Addolorata, and that he denied the fact to himself stoutly, though it forced itself upon him with every step which took him further from the convent. He felt on that day a strong premonitory symptom in the shape of a logical objection, as it were, to his returning again to see the nun. The objection was the evident and total futility of the almost intimate intercourse into which the two were gliding. The day must soon come when the abbess would no longer need his assistance. In all probability she would recover, for the more alarming symptoms had disappeared, and she showed signs of regaining her strength by slow degrees. It was quite clear to Dalrymple that, after her ultimate recovery, his chance of seeing and talking with Maria Addolorata would be gone forever. Sor Tommaso, indeed, recovered but slowly. Of the two his case was the worse, for fever had set in on the third day and had not left him yet, so that he assured Dalrymple almost hourly that his last moment was at hand. But he also was sure to get well, in the Scotchman's opinion, and the latter knew well enough that his own temporary privileges as physician to the convent would be withdrawn from him as soon as the Subiaco doctor should be able to climb the hill. It was all, therefore, but a brief incident in his life, which could not possibly have any continuation hereafter. He tried in vain to form plans and create reasons for seeing Maria Addolorata even once a month for some time to come, but his ingenuity failed him altogether, and he grew angry with himself for desiring what was manifestly impossible. With true masculine inconsequence, so soon as he was displeased with himself he visited his displeasure upon the object that attracted him, and on the earliest possible occasion, on their very next meeting. He assumed an air of coldness and reserve such as he had certainly not thought necessary to put on at his first visit. Almost without any preliminary words of courtesy, and without any attempt to prolong the short conversation which always took place before he was made to stand with his back to the abbess's open door, he coldly inquired about the good lady's condition during the past night, and made one or two observations thereon with a brevity almost amounting to curtness. Maria Addolorata was surprised; but as her face was covered, and her hands were quietly folded before her, Dalrymple could not see that his behaviour had any effect upon her. She did not answer his last remark at all, but quietly bowed her head. Then followed the usual serio-comic scene, during which Dalrymple stood turned away from the open door, asking questions of the sick woman, and listening attentively for her low-spoken answers. To tell the truth, he judged of her condition more from the sound of her voice than from anything else. He had also taught Maria Addolorata how to feel the pulse; and she counted the beats while he looked at his watch. His chief anxiety was now for the action of the heart, which had been weakened by a lifetime of unhealthy living, by food inadequate in quality, even when sufficient in quantity, by confinement within doors, and lack of life-giving sunshine, and by all those many causes which tend to reduce the vitality of a cloistered nun. When the comedy was over, Maria Addolorata shut the door as usual; and she and Dalrymple were alone together in the abbess's parlour, as they were every day. The abbess herself could hear that they were talking, but she naturally supposed that they were discussing the details of her condition; and as she felt that she was really recovering, so far as she could judge, and as almost every day, after Dalrymple had gone, Maria Addolorata had some new direction of his to carry out, the elder lady's suspicions were not aroused. On the contrary, her confidence in the Scotch doctor grew from day to day; and in the long hours during which she lay thinking over her state and its circumstances, she made plans for his conversion, in which her brother, the cardinal, bore a principal part. She was grateful to Dalrymple, and it seemed to her that the most proper way of showing her gratitude would be to save his soul, a point of view unusual in the ordinary relations of life. On this particular day, Maria Addolorata shut the door, and came forward into the parlour as usual. As usual, too, she sat down in the abbess's own big easy-chair, expecting that Dalrymple would seat himself opposite to her. But he remained standing, with the evident intention of going away in a few moments. He said a few words about the patient, gave one or two directions, and then stood still in silence for a moment. Maria Addolorata lifted her head a little, but not enough to show him more than an inch of her face. "Have I displeased you, Signor Doctor?" she asked, in her deep, warm voice. "Have I not carried out your orders?" "On the contrary," answered Dalrymple, with a stiffness which he resented in himself. "It is impossible to be more conscientious than you always are." Seeing that he still remained standing, the nun rose to her feet, and waited for him to go. She believed that she was far too proud to detain him, if he wished to shorten the meeting. But something hurt her, which she could not understand. Dalrymple hesitated a moment, and his lips parted as though he were about to speak. The silence was prolonged only for a moment or two. "Good morning, Sister Maria Addolorata," he said suddenly, and bowed. "Good morning, Signor Doctor," answered the nun. She bent her head very slightly, but a keener observer than Dalrymple was, just then, would have noticed that as she did so, her shoulders moved forward a little, as though her breast were contracted by some sudden little pain. Dalrymple did not see it. He bowed again, let himself out, and closed the door softly behind him. When he was gone, Maria Addolorata sat down in the big easy-chair again, and uncovered her face, doubling her veil back upon her head, and withdrawing the thick folds from her chin and mouth. Her features were very pale, as she sat staring at the sky through the window, and her eyes fixed themselves in that look which was peculiar to her. Her full white hands strained upon each other a little, bringing the colour to the tips of her fingers. During some minutes she did not move. Then she heard her aunt's voice calling to her hoarsely. She rose at once, and went into the bedroom. The abbess's pale face was very thin and yellow now, as it lay upon the white pillow; the coverlet was drawn up to her chin, and a grimly carved black crucifix hung directly above her head. "The doctor did not stay long to-day," she said, in a hollow tone. "No, mother," answered the young nun. "He thinks you are doing very well. He wishes you to eat a wing of roast chicken." "If I could have a little salad," said the abbess. "Maria," she added suddenly, "you are careful to keep your face covered when you are in the next room, are you not?" "Always." "You generally do not raise your veil until you come into this room, after the doctor is gone," said the elder lady. "He went so soon, to-day," answered Maria Addolorata, with perfectly innocent truth. "I stayed a moment in the parlour, thinking over his directions, and I lifted my veil when I was alone. It is close to-day." "Go into the garden, and walk a little," said the abbess. "It will do you good. You are pale." If she had felt even a faint uneasiness about her niece's conduct, it was removed by the latter's manner. CHAPTER VIII. ONCE more Dalrymple was sitting over his supper at the table in the vaulted room on the ground floor which Stefanone used as a wine shop. To tell the truth, it was very superior to the ordinary wine shops of Subiaco and had an exceptional reputation. The common people never came there, because Stefanone did not sell his cheap wine at retail, but sent it all to Rome, or took it thither himself for the sake of getting a higher price for it. He always said that he did not keep an inn, and perhaps as much on account of his relations with Gigetto's family, he assumed as far as possible the position of a wine-dealer rather than that of a wine-seller. The distinction, in Italian mountain towns, is very marked. "They can have a measure of the best, if they care to pay for it," he said. "If they wish a mouthful of food, there is what there is. But I am not the village host, and Nanna is not a wine-shop cook, to fry tripe and peel onions for Titius and Caius." The old Roman expression, denoting generally the average public, survives still in polite society, and Stefanone had caught it from Sor Tommaso. Dalrymple was sitting as usual over his supper, by the light of the triple-beaked brass lamp, his measure of wine beside him, and a beefsteak, which on this occasion was really of beef, before him. Stefanone was absent in Rome, with a load of wine. Sora Nanna sat on Dalrymple's right, industriously knitting in Italian fashion, one of the needles stuck into and supported by a wooden sheath thrust into her waist-band, while she worked off the stitches with the others. Annetta sat opposite the Scotchman, but a little on one side of the lamp, so that she could see his face. "Mother," she said suddenly, without lifting her chin from the hand in which it rested, "you do not know anything! This Signor Englishman is making love with a nun in the convent! Eh--what do you think of it? Only this was wanting. A little more and the lightning will fall upon the convent! These Protestants! Oh, these blessed Protestants! They respect nothing, not even the saints!" "My daughter! what are you saying?" Sora Nanna's fingers did not pause in their work, nor did her eyes look up, but the deep furrow showed itself in her thick peasant's forehead, and her coarse, hard lips twitched clumsily with the beginning of a smile. "What am I saying? The truth. Ask rather of the Signore whether it is not true." "It is silly," said Dalrymple, growing unnaturally red, and looking up sharply at Annetta, before he took his next mouthful. "Look at him, mother!" laughed the girl. "He is red, red--he seems to me a boiled shrimp. Eh, this time I have guessed it! And as for Sister Maria Addolorata, she no longer sees with her eyes! To-day, when you were carrying in the baskets, you and the other women who went with us, I asked her whether the abbess was satisfied with the new doctor, and she answered that he was a very wise man, much wiser than Sor Tommaso. So I told her that it was a pity, because Sor Tommaso was getting well and would not allow the English doctor to come instead of him much longer. Then she looked at me. By Bacchus, I was afraid. Certain eyes! Not even a cat when you take away her kittens! A little more and she would have eaten me. And then her face made itself of marble--like that face of a woman that is built into the fountain in the piazza. Arch-priest! What a face!" The girl stared hard at Dalrymple, and her mouth laughed wickedly at his evident embarrassment, while there was something very different from laughter in her eyes. During the long speech, Sora Nanna had stopped knitting, and she looked from her daughter to the Scotchman with a sort of half-stupid, half-cunning curiosity. "But these are sins!" she exclaimed at last. "And what does it matter?" asked the girl. "Does he go to confession? So what does it matter? He keeps the account himself, of his sins. I should not like to have them on my shoulders. But as for Sister Maria Addolorata--oh, she! I told you that she sinned in her throat. Well, the sin is ready, now. What is she waiting for? For the abbess to die? Or for Sor Tommaso to get well? Then she will not see the Signor Englishman any more. It would be better for her. When she does not see him any more, she will knead her pillow with tears, and make her bread of it, to bite and eat. Good appetite, Sister Maria!" "You talk, you talk, and you conclude nothing," observed Sora Nanna. "You have certain thoughts in your head! And you do not let the Signore say even a word." "What can he say? He will say that it is not true. But then, who will believe him? I should like to see them a little together. I am sure that she shows him her face, and that it is 'Signor Doctor' here, and 'Dear Signor Doctor' there, and a thousand gentlenesses. Tell the truth, Signore. She shows you her face." "No," said Dalrymple, who had regained his self-possession. "She never shows me her face." "What a shame for a Carmelite nun to show her face to a man!" cried the girl. "But I tell you she is always veiled to her chin," insisted Dalrymple, with perfect truth. "Eh! It is you who say so!" retorted Annetta. "But then, what can it matter to me? Make love with a nun, if it goes, Signore. Youth is a flower--when it is withered, it is hay, and the beasts eat it." "This is true," said Sora Nanna, returning to her knitting. "But do not pay attention to her, Signore. She is stupid. She does not know what she says. Eat, drink, and manage your own affairs. It is better. What can a child understand? It is like a little dog that sees and barks, without understanding. But you are a much instructed man and have been round the whole world. Therefore you know many things. It seems natural." Though Dalrymple was not diffident, as has been said, he was far from vain, on the whole, and in particular he had none of that contemptible vanity which makes a man readily believe that every woman he meets is in love with him. He had not the slightest idea at that time that Annetta, the peasant girl, looked upon him with anything more than the curiosity and vague interest usually bestowed on a foreigner in Italy. He was annoyed, however, by what she said this evening, though he was also secretly surprised and delighted. The contradiction is a common one. The miser is half mad with joy on discovering that he has much more than he supposed, and bitterly resents, at the same time, any notice which may be taken of the fact by others. Annetta did not enjoy his discomfiture and evident embarrassment, for she was far more deeply hurt herself than she realized, and every word she had spoken about Maria Addolorata had hurt her, though she had taken a sort of vague delight in teasing Dalrymple. She relapsed into silence now, alternately wishing that he loved her, and then, that she might kill him. If she could not have his heart, she would be satisfied with his blood. There was a passionate animal longing in the instinct to have him for herself, even dead, rather than that any other woman should get his love. Dalrymple was aware only that the girl's words had annoyed him, while inwardly conscious that if what she said were true, the truth would make a difference in his life. He showed no inclination to talk any more, and finished his supper in a rather morose silence, turning to his book as soon as he had done. Then Gigetto came in with his guitar and sang and talked with the two women. But he was restless that night, and did not fall asleep until the moon had set and his window grew dark. And even in his dreams he was restless still, so that when he awoke in the morning he said to himself that he had been foolish in his behaviour towards Maria Addolorata on the previous day. He felt tired, too, and his colour was less brilliant than usual. It was Sunday, and he remembered that if he chose he could go in the afternoon to the Benediction in the convent church and hear Maria's voice perhaps. But at the usual hour, just before noon, he went to make his visit to the abbess. It was his intention to forget his stiff manner, and to behave as he had always behaved until yesterday. Strange to say, however, he felt a constraint coming upon him as soon as he was in the nun's presence. She received him as usual, there was the usual comic scene at the abbess's door, and, as every day, the two were alone together after her door was shut. "Are you ill?" asked Maria Addolorata, after a moment's silence which, short as it was, both felt to be awkward. Dalrymple was taken by surprise. The tone in which she had spoken was cold and distant rather than expressive of any concern for his welfare, but he did not think of that. He only realized that his manner must seem to her very unusual, since she asked such a question. An Italian would have observed that his own face was pale, and would have told her that he was dying of love. "No, I am not ill," answered the Scotchman, simply, and in his most natural tone of voice. "Then what is the matter with you since yesterday?" asked Maria Addolorata, less coldly, and as though she were secretly amused. "There is nothing the matter--at least, nothing that I could explain to you." She sat down in the big easy-chair and, as formerly, he took his seat opposite to her. "There is something," she insisted, speaking thoughtfully. "You cannot deceive a woman, Signor Doctor." Dalrymple smiled and looked at her veiled head. "You said the other day that I was not a man, but a doctor," he answered. "I suppose I might answer that you are not a woman, but a nun." "And is not a nun a woman?" asked Maria Addolorata, and he knew that she was smiling, too. "You would not forgive me if I answered you," he said. "Who knows? I might be obliged to, since I am obliged to meet you every day. It may be a sin, but I am curious." "Shall I tell you?" As though instinctively, Maria was silent for a moment, and turned her veiled face towards the abbess's door. But Dalrymple needed no such warning to lower his voice. "Tell me," she said, and under her veil she could feel that her eyes were growing deep and the pupils wide and dark, and she knew that she had done wrong. "How should I know whether you are a saint or only a woman, since I have never seen your face?" he asked. "I shall never know--for in a few days Doctor Taddei will be well again, and you will not need my services." He saw the quick tightening of one hand upon the other, and the slight start of the head, and in a flash he knew that all Annetta had told him was true. The silence that followed seemed longer than the awkward pause which had preceded the conversation. "It cannot be so soon," she said in a very low tone. "It may be to-morrow," he answered, and to his own astonishment his voice almost broke in his throat, and he felt that his own hands were twisting each other, as though he were in pain. "I shall die without seeing you," he added almost roughly. Again there was a short silence in the still room. Suddenly, with quick movements of both hands at once, Maria Addolorata threw back the veil from her face, and drew away the folds that covered her mouth. "There, see me!" she exclaimed. "Look at me well this once!" Her face was as white as marble, and her dark eyes had a wild and startled look in them, as though she saw the world for the first time. A ringlet of red-gold hair had escaped from the bands of white that crossed her forehead in an even line and were drawn down straight on either side, for in the quick movement she had made she had loosened the pin that held them together under her chin, and had freed the dazzling throat down to the high collar. [Illustration: "She had covered her face with the veil."--Vol. I., p. 126.] Dalrymple's pale, bright blue eyes caught fire, and he looked at her with all his being, at her face, her throat, her eyes, the ringlet of her hair. He breathed audibly, with parted lips, between his clenched teeth. Gradually, as he looked, he saw the red blush rise from the throat to the cheeks, from the cheeks to the forehead, and the marble grew more beautiful with womanly life. Then, all at once, he saw the hot tears welling up in her eyes, and in an instant the vision was gone. With a passionate movement she had covered her face with the veil, and throwing herself sideways against the high back of the chair, she pressed the dark stuff still closer to her eyes and mouth and cheeks. Her whole body shook convulsively, and a moment later she was sobbing, not audibly, but visibly, as though her heart were breaking. Dalrymple was again taken by surprise. He had been so completely lost in the utterly selfish contemplation of her beauty that he had been very far from realizing what she herself must have felt as soon as she appreciated what she had done. He at once accused himself of having looked too rudely at her, but at the same time he was himself too much disturbed to argue the matter. Quite instinctively he rose to his feet and tried to take one of her hands from her veil, touching it comfortingly. But she made a wild gesture, as though to drive him away. "Go!" she cried in a low and broken voice, between her sobs. "Go! Go quickly!" She could not say more for her sobbing, but he did not obey her. He only drew back a little and watched her, all his blood on fire from the touch of her soft white hand. She stifled her sobs in her veil, and gradually grew more calm. She even arranged the veil itself a little better, her face still turned away towards the back of the chair. "Maria! Maria!" The abbess's voice was calling her, hoarsely and almost desperately, from the next room. She started and sat up straight, listening. Then the cry was heard again, more desperate, less loud. With a quick skill which seemed marvellous in Dalrymple's eyes, Maria adjusted her veil almost before she had sprung to her feet. "Wait!" she said. "Something is the matter!" She was at the bedroom door in an instant, and in an instant more she was at her aunt's bedside. "Maria--I am dying," said the abbess's voice faintly, as she felt the nun's arm under her head. Dalrymple heard the words, and did not hesitate as he hastily felt for something in his pocket. "Come!" cried Maria Addolorata. But he was already there, on the other side of the bed, pouring something between the sick lady's lips. It was fortunate that he was there at that moment. He had indeed anticipated the possibility of a sudden failure in the action of the heart, and he never came to the convent without a small supply of a powerful stimulant of his own invention. The liquid, however, was of such a nature that he did not like to leave the use of it to Maria Addolorata's discretion, for he was aware that she might easily be mistaken in the symptoms of the collapse which would really require its use. The abbess swallowed a sufficient quantity of it, and Dalrymple allowed her head to lie again upon the pillow. She looked almost as though she were dead. Her eyes were turned up, and her jaw had dropped. Maria Addolorata believed that all was over. "She is dead," she said. "Let us leave her in peace." It is a very ancient custom among Italians to withdraw as soon as a dying person is unconscious, if not even before the supreme moment. "She will probably live through this," answered Dalrymple, shaking his head. Neither he nor the nun spoke again for a long time. Little by little, the abbess revived under the influence of the stimulant, the heart beat less faintly, and the mouth slowly closed, while the eyelids shut themselves tightly over the upturned eyes. The normal regular breathing began again, and the crisis was over. "It is passed," said Dalrymple. "It will not come again to-day. We can leave her now, for she will sleep." "Yes," said the abbess herself. "Let me sleep." Her voice was faint, but the words were distinctly articulated. Then she opened her eyes and looked about her quite naturally. Her glance rested on Dalrymple's face. Suddenly realizing that she was not veiled, she drew the coverlet up over her face. It is a peculiarity of such cases, that the patient returns almost immediately to ordinary consciousness when the moment of danger is past. "Go!" she said, with more energy than might have been expected. "This is a religious house. You must not be here." Dalrymple retired into the parlour again, shutting the door behind him, and waited for Maria Addolorata, for it was now indispensable that he should give her directions for the night. During the few minutes which passed while he was alone, he stood looking out of the window. The excitement of the last half-hour had cut off from his present state of mind the emotion he had felt before the abbess's cry for help, but had not decreased the impression it had left. While he was helping the sick lady there had not been one instant in which he had not felt that there was more than the life of a half-saintly old woman in the balance, and that her death meant the end of his meetings with Maria Addolorata. Annetta's words came back to him, 'she will knead her pillow with tears and make her bread of it.' Several minutes passed, and the door opened softly and closed again. Maria Addolorata came up to him, where he stood by the window. She did not speak for a moment, but he saw that her hand was pressed to her side. "I have spent a bad half-hour," she said at last, with something like a gasp. "It is the worst half-hour I ever spent in my life," answered Dalrymple. "I thought it was all over," he added. "Yes," she said, "I thought it was all over." He could hear his heart beating in his ears. He could almost hear hers. His hand went out toward her, cold and unsteady, but it fell to his side again almost instantly. But for the heart-beats, it seemed to him that there was an appalling stillness in the air of the quiet room. His manly face grew very pale. He slowly bit his lip and looked out of the window. An enormous temptation was upon him. He knew that if she moved to leave his side he should take her and hold her. There was a tiny drop of blood on his lip now. Something in him made him hope against himself that she would speak, that she would say some insignificant dry words. But every inch of his strong fibre and every ounce of his hot blood hoped that she would move, instead of speaking. She sighed, and the sigh was broken by a quick-drawn breath. Slowly Dalrymple turned his white face and gleaming eyes to her veiled head. Still she neither spoke nor moved. He, in memory, saw her face, her mouth, and her eyes through the thick stuff that hid them. The silence became awful to him. His hands opened and shut convulsively. She heard his breath and she saw the uncertain shadow of his hand, moving on the black and white squares of the pavement. She made a slight, short movement towards him and then stepped suddenly back, overcoming the temptation to go to him. "No!" He uttered the single word with a low, fierce cry. In an instant his arms were around her, pressing her, lifting her, straining her, almost bruising her. In an instant his lips were kissing a face whiter than his own, eyes that flamed like summer lightning between his kisses, lips crushed and hurt by his, but still not kissed enough, hands that were raised to resist, but lingered to be kissed in turn, lest anything should be lost. A little splintering crash, the sound of a glass falling upon a stone floor in the next room, broke the stillness. Dalrymple's arms relaxed, and the two stood for one moment facing one another, pale, with fire in their eyes and hearts beating more loudly than before. Dalrymple raised his hand to his forehead, as though he were dazed, and made an uncertain step in the direction of the door. Maria raised her white hands towards him, and her eyelids drooped, even while she looked into his face. He kissed her once more with a kiss in which all other kisses seemed to meet and live and die a lingering, sweet death. She sank into the deep old easy-chair, and when she looked up, he was gone. CHAPTER IX. IT rained during the afternoon, and Dalrymple sat in his small laboratory, among his books and the simple apparatus he used for his experiments. His little window was closed, and the southwest wind drove the shower against the clouded panes of glass, so that the rain came through the ill-fitted strips of lead which joined them, and ran down in small streams to the channel in the stone sill, whence the water found its way out through a hole running through the wall. He sat in his rush-bottomed chair, sideways by the deal table, one long leg crossed over the other. His hand lay on an open book, and his fingers occasionally tapped the page impatiently, while his eyes were fixed on the window, watching the driving rain. He was not thinking, for he could not think. Over and over again the scene of the morning came back to him and sent the hot blood rushing to his throat. He tried to reflect, indeed, and to see whether what he had done was to have any consequences for him, or was to be left behind in his life, like a lovely view seen from a carriage window on a swift journey, gone before it is half seen, and never to be seen again, except in dreams. But he was utterly unable to look forward and reason about the future. Everything dragged him back, up the steep ascent to the convent, through the arched ways and vaulted corridors, to the room in which he had passed the supreme moments of his life. The only distinct impression of the future was the strong desire to feel again what he had felt that day; to feel it again and again, and always, as long as feeling could last; to stretch out his hands and take, to close them and hold, to make his, indubitably, what had been but questionably his for an instant, to get the one thing worth having, for himself, and only for himself. For the passion of a strong man is loving and taking, and the passion of a good woman is loving and giving. Dalrymple reasoned well enough, later,--too well, perhaps,--but during those hours he spent alone on that day, there was no power of reasoning in him. The world was the woman he loved, and the world's orbit was but the circle of his clasping arms. Beyond them was chaos, without form and void, clouded as the rain-streaked panes of his little window. He looked at his watch more than once. At last he rose, threw a cloak over his shoulders and went out, locking the door of the little laboratory behind him as he always did, and thrusting the unwieldy key into his pocket. He climbed the hill to the convent, taking the short cut through the narrow lanes. The rain had almost ceased, and the wet mist that blew round the corners of the dark houses was pleasant in his face. But he scarcely knew what he saw and felt on his way. He reached the convent church and went in, and stood by one of the pillars near the door. It was a small church, built with a great choir for the nuns behind the high altar; from each side of the latter a high wooden screen extended to the walls, completely cutting off the space. It was dark, too, especially in such weather, and almost deserted, save for a number of old women who knelt on the damp marble pavement, some leaning against the backs of chairs, some resting one arm upon the plastered bases of the yellow marble columns. There were many lights on the high altar. Two acolytes, rough-headed boys of Subiaco, knelt within the altar rail, dressed in black cassocks and clean linen cottas. Two priests and a young deacon sat side by side on the right of the altar, with small black books in their hands. The nuns were chanting, unseen in the choir. No one noticed Dalrymple, wrapped in his cloak, as he leaned against the pillar near the door. His head was a little inclined, involuntarily respectful to ceremonies he neither believed in nor understood, but which had in them the imposing element of devout earnestness. Yet his eyes were raised and looked up from under his brows, steadily and watchfully, for he knew that Maria Addolorata was behind the screen, and from the first moment of entering the church it seemed to him that he could distinguish her voice from the rest. He knew that it was hers, though he had never heard her sing. There was in all those sweet, colourless tones one tone that made ringing harmonies in his strong heart. Amongst all those mingling accents, there was one accent that touched his soul. Amidst the echoes that died softly away under the dim arches, there was one echo that died not, but rang on and on in his ears. There was a voice not like other voices there, nor like any he had ever heard. Many were strong and sweet; this one was not sweet and strong only, but alive with a divine life, winged with divine wings, essential of immortality, touching beyond tears, passionate as the living, breathing, sighing, dying world, grand as a flood of light, sad as the twilight of gods, full as a great water swinging to the tide of the summer's moon, fine-drawn as star-rays--a voice of gold. As Dalrymple stood there in the shadow, he heard it singing to him and telling him all that he had not been told in words, all that he felt, and more also. For there was in it the passion of the woman, and the passionate remorse of the nun, the towering love of Maria Braccio, woman and princess, and the deep despair of Maria Addolorata, nun and sinner, unfaithful spouse of the Lord Christ, accused and self-accusing, self-wronged, self-judged, but condemned of God and foretasting the ultimate tragedy that is eternal--the tragedy of supreme hell. The man who stood there knew that it was his doing, and the burden of his deeds bowed him bodily as he stood. But still he listened, and, as she sung, he watched her lips in the dark, inner mirror of sin's memory, and they drew him on. Little by little, he heard only her voice, and the others chanted but faintly as from an infinite distance. And then, not in his thought, but in deed, she was singing alone, and the words of 'O Salutaris Hostia,' sounded in the dim church as they had never sounded before, nor could ever sound again, the appeal of a lost soul's agony to God, the glory of golden voice, the accent of transcendent genius, the passion, the strength, the despair, of an ancient race. In the dark church the coarse, sad peasant women bowed themselves upon the pavement. One of them sobbed aloud and beat her breast. Angus Dalrymple kneeled upon one knee and pressed his brow against the foot of the pillar, kneeling neither to God, nor to the Sacred Host, nor to man's belief in Heaven or Hell, neither praying nor blaspheming, neither hoping nor dreading, but spell-bound upon a wrack of torture that was heart-breaking delight, his senses torn and strained to the utmost of his strong endurance, to the very scream of passion, his soul crucified upon the exquisite loveliness of his sin. Then all was still for an instant. Again there was a sound of voices, as the nuns sang in chorus the 'Tantum Ergo.' But the voice of voices was silent among them. The solemn Benediction blessed the just and the unjust alike. The short verses and responses of the priests broke the air that still seemed alive and trembling. Dalrymple rose slowly, and wrapped his cloak about him. Above the footsteps of the women going out of the church, he could hear the soft sound of all the nuns moving together as they left the choir. He knew that she was with them, and he stood motionless in his place till silence descended as a curtain between him and what had been. Then, with bent head, he went out into the rain that poured through the dim twilight. CHAPTER X. THEY were together on the following day. The abbess was better, and as yet there had been no return of the syncope which Dalrymple dreaded. Contrary to her habit, Maria Addolorata sat on a high chair by the table, her head veiled and turned away, her chin supported in her hand. Dalrymple was seated not far from her, leaning forward, and trying to see her face, silent, and in a dangerous mood. She had refused to let him come near her, and even to raise her veil. When she spoke, her voice was full of a profound sadness that irritated him instead of touching him, for his nerves were strung to passion and out of tune with regret. "The sin of it; the deadly sin!" she said. "There is no sin in it," he answered; but she shook her veiled head. And there was silence again, as on the day before, but the stillness was of another kind. It was not the awful lull which goes before the bursting of the storm, when the very air seems to start at the fall of a leaf for fear lest it be already the thunder-clap. It was more like the noiseless rising of the hungry flood that creeps up round the doomed house, wherein is desperate, starving life, higher and higher, inch by inch--the flood of rising fate. "You say that there is no sin in it," she said, after a time. "You say it, but you do not think it. You are a man--you have honour to lose--you understand that, at least--" "You are a woman, and you have humanity's right to be free. It is an honourable right. You gave it up when you took that veil, not knowing what it was that you gave up. You have done no wrong. You have done nothing that any loving maiden need be ashamed of. I kissed you, for you could not help yourself. That is the monstrous crime which you say is to be punished with eternal damnation. It is monstrous that you should think so. It is blasphemy to say that God made woman to lead a life of suffering and daily misery, chained to a cross which it is agony to look at, and shame to break from." "Go--leave me. You are tempting me again." She spoke away from him, not changing her position. "If truth is temptation, I am tempting you, for I am showing you the truth. The truth is this. When you were almost a child they began to bend you and break you in the way they meant you to grow. You bent, but you were not broken. Your nature is too strong. There is a life of your own in you. It was against your will, and when you were just grown up, they buried you, your beauty, your youth, your fresh young heart, your voice and your genius--for it is nothing less. It was all done with deliberate intention for the glory of your family, blasphemously asserted to be the glory of God. It was pressed upon you, before you knew what you were doing, and made pleasant to you before you knew what it all meant. Your cross was cushioned for you and your crown of thorns was gilded. They made the seat under the canopy seem a seat in heaven. They even made you believe that the management of two or three score suffering women was government and power. It seemed a great thing to be abbess, did it not?" Maria Addolorata bent her veiled head slowly twice or three times, in a heavy-hearted way. "They made you believe all that," continued Dalrymple, with cold earnestness, "and much more besides--a great deal of which I know little, I suppose--the life to come, and saintship, and the glories of heaven. You have found out what it is all worth. We have found it out together. And they frightened you with hell. Do you know what hell is? A life without love, when one knows what love can mean. I am not eloquent; I wish I were. But I am plain, and I can tell you the truth." "It is not the truth," answered the nun, slowly. "You tell me it is, to tempt me. I cannot drive you away by force. Will you not go? I cannot cry out for help--it would ruin me and you. Will you not leave me? But for God's grace, I am at your mercy, and there is little grace for me, a sinner." "No, I will not go away," said Dalrymple, and it seemed to Maria that his voice was the voice of her fate. "Then God have mercy!" she cried, in a low tone, and as her head sank forward, it was her forehead that rested in her right hand, instead of her chin. "Love is more merciful than God," he answered. There was a sudden softness in his voice which she had never heard, not even yesterday. Rising, he stole near to her, and standing, bent down and leaned upon the table by her side and spoke close to her ear. But he did not touch her. She could feel his breath through her veil when he spoke again. It was vital and fierce, and softly hot, like the breathing of a powerful wild beast. "You are my God," he said. "I worship you, and adore you. But I must have you for mine always. I would rather kill you, and have no God, than lose you alive. Come with me. You are free. You can get through the garden at night--with good horses we can reach the sea to-morrow. There is an English ship of war at anchor in Civita Vecchia. The officers are my friends. Before to-morrow night we can be safe--married--happy. No one will know--no one will follow us. Maria--come--come--come!" His voice sank to a vibrating whisper as he repeated the word again and again, closer and closer to her ear. Her hands had dropped from her forehead and lay upon the table. With bent head she listened. "Come, my darling," he continued, fast and low. "I have a beautiful home, my father's home, my mother's--your laws and vows are nothing to them. You shall be honoured, loved--ah, dear! adored, worshipped--you do not know what we will do for you, to fill your life with sweet things. All your life, Maria, from to-morrow. Instead of pain and penance and everlasting suffering and weariness, you shall have all that the world holds of love and peace and flowers. And you shall sing your whole heart out when you will, and have music to play with from year's beginning to year's end and year's end again. Sweet, let me tell you how I love you--how you are alive in every drop of my blood, beating through me like living fire, through heart and soul and head and hand--" With a quick movement she pressed her palms against her veil upon her ears to shut out the sound of his words. She rocked herself a little, as though the pain were almost greater than she could bear. But his hands moved too, stealthily, strongly, as a tiger's velvet feet, with a vibration all through them, to the very ends of his fingers. For he was in earnest. And the arm went softly round her, and closed gently upon her as her figure swayed in her chair; and the other sought hers, and found it cold as ice and trembling, and not strong to stop her hearing. And again she listened. Wild and incoherent words fell from his lips, hot and low, with no reason in them but the overwhelming reason of love itself. For he was not an eloquent man, and now he took no thought of what he said. He was far too natural to be eloquent, and far too deeply stirred to care for the shape his love took in speech. There was in his words the strong rush of out-bursting truth which even the worst passion has when it is real to the roots. Words terrible and gentle, blasphemous and devout, wove themselves into a new language such as Maria Addolorata had never heard, nor dared to think of hearing. But he dared everything, to tell her, to hold her, against God and devil, heaven and earth, and all mankind. And he promised all he had, and all that was not his to promise nor to give, rending her beliefs to shreds, trampling on the broken fragments of all she had worshipped, tearing her chains link from link and scattering them like straw down the storm of passionate contempt. And then, again, pouring out love, and more love, and love again, as a stream of liquid fire let loose to flood all it meets with dazzling destruction and hot death. It is not every woman that knows what it is to be so loved and to listen to such words, so spoken. Those who have heard and felt can understand, but not the rest. Gradually as he spoke, her veiled face was drawn toward his; gradually her hand raised the thick veil and drew it back; and again a little, and the hand that had struggled long and silently against his, lay still at last, and the face that had appealed in vain to Heaven, hid itself against the heart of the strong man. "The Lord have mercy upon my sinful soul!" she softly prayed. "I love you!" whispered Dalrymple, folding her to him with both his arms, and pressing his lips to her head. "That is all the world holds. That is all the Heaven there is, and we have it for our own." But presently she drew back from him, clinging to him with her hands as though to hold him, and yet separating from him and looking up into his face. "And to-morrow?" she said, with a despairing question in her tone. "We will go away to-night," he answered, "and to-morrow will be ours, too, and all the to-morrows after that." But she shook her head, and her hands loosened their hold upon his arms, still lingering on his sleeves. "And leave her to die?" she asked, with a quick glance at the abbess's door. Then she looked at him, with something of sudden fear as she met his eyes again. And almost instantly she turned from him, and threw herself forward upon the table as she sat. "The sin, the deadly sin!" she moaned. "Oh, the horror of it all--the sin, the shame, the disgrace! That is the worst to bear--the shame! The undying shame of it!" Dalrymple's brows bent themselves in a heavy frown, for he was in no temper to be thwarted, desperate as the risk might be. For himself, he knew that he was setting his life on the chances, if she consented, and that life would not be worth having if she refused. He knew well enough that they must almost certainly be pursued, and that there would be little hesitation about shooting him or cutting his throat if they were caught and if he resisted, as he knew that he should. He had been in love with her for days. The last twenty-four hours had made him desperate. And a desperate man is not to be played with, more especially if he chance to have any Highland blood in his veins. "What do you believe in most?" he asked suddenly and almost brutally. She turned, startled, and looked him in the face. "Because, if you believe in God, as I suppose you do, I take God to witness that I shall be a dead man this night, unless you promise to go with me." She stared, and turned white to the lips, as he had never seen her turn pale before. She leaned forward, gazing into his eyes and breathing hard. "You do not mean that," she said, as though trying hard to convince herself. "I mean it," he answered slowly, pale himself, and knowing what he said. She leaned nearer to him and took his arms with her hands, for she could not speak. The terrible question was in his eyes. "You would kill yourself, if I refused--if I would not go with you?" Still she could not believe him. "Yes," he answered. Once more the room was very still, as the two looked into one another's eyes. But Maria Addolorata said nothing. The frown deepened on Dalrymple's face, and his strong mouth was drawn, as a man draws in his lips at the moment of meeting death. "Good-bye," he said, gently loosening himself from her hold. Her hands dropped and she turned half round, following him as he went towards the door. His hand was almost on the latch. He did not turn. But as he heard her swift feet behind him, he bent his head a little. Her arms went round his throat, reaching up to his great height. "No! No!" she cried, drawing his head down to her. But he took her by the wrists and held her away from him at his arms' length. "Are you in earnest?" he asked fiercely. "If you play with me any more, you shall die, too." "But not to-day!" she answered imploringly. "Not to-night! Give me time--a day--a little while--" "To lose you? No. I have been near losing you. I know what it means. Make up your mind. Yes, or no." "To-night? But how? There is not time--these clothes I wear--" She turned her head distractedly to one side and the other as she spoke, while he held her wrists. Dalrymple saw that there was reason in the objections she made. So dangerous a flight could not be undertaken without some preparation. He loosed her hands and began to pace the room, concentrating his mind upon the details. She watched him in silence, leaning against the back of the easy-chair. Then he stopped just before her. "My cloak would come down to your feet," he said, measuring her height with his eyes. "I have a plaid which would cover your head. Once on horseback, no one would notice anything. Can you ride?" "No. I never learned." "That is unlucky. But we can manage it. The main thing would be to get a long start if possible--that you should not be missed--to get away just at the beginning of the longest time during which the nuns would not expect to see you. Where is your own room? Is it near this?" Maria Addolorata told him, and explained the position of the balcony with the steps leading down into the garden. He asked her who kept the key of the postern. It was in the possession of the gardener, who took it away with him at night, but the lock was on the inside, and uncovered, as old Italian locks are. By raising the curved spring one could push back the bolt. There was a handle on the latter, for that purpose. There would be no difficulty about getting out, nor about letting Dalrymple in, provided that the night were dark. "The moon is almost full," said Dalrymple, thoughtfully, and he began to walk up and down again. "Never mind. It must be to-morrow night. In your dark dress, when the sisters are asleep, if you keep in the shadow along the wall, there is not the slightest risk. I will be waiting for you on the other side of the gate with my cloak and plaid. I will have the horses ready, a little higher up. There is a good mule path which goes down into the valley on that side. You have only to reach the gate and let yourself out. It is very easy. Tell me at what time to be waiting." Maria leaned heavily upon the chair, with bent head. "I cannot do it--oh, I cannot!" she said despairingly. "The shame of it! To be the talk of Rome--the scandal of the day--a disgrace to my father and mother!" Dalrymple frowned, and biting his lip, he struck his clenched fist softly with the palm of his hand, making a few quick steps backward and forward. He stopped suddenly and looked at her with dangerous eyes. "I have told you," he said. "I will not repeat it. You must choose." "Oh, you cannot be in earnest--" "You shall see. It is plain enough," he added, with an accent of scorn. "You are more afraid of a little talk and gossip in Rome, than of being told to-morrow morning that I died in the night. That is Italian courage, I suppose." She hung her head for a moment. Then, as she heard his footsteps, she threw her veil back and saw that he was going towards the door without a word. "You are cruel," she said, half catching her breath. "You know that you make me suffer--that I cannot live without you." "I shall certainly not live without you," he answered. "I mean to have you at any price, or I will die in the attempt to get you." The words have a melodramatic look on paper. But he spoke them not only with his lips, but with his whole self. They were not out of keeping with his nature. There is no more desperate blood in the world's veins than that of the Celt when he is driven to bay or exasperated by passion. In him the reckless fatalism of the Asiatic is blended with the cool daring of the northerner. Maria Addolorata had little experience of the world or of men, but she had the hereditary instincts of her sex, and as she looked at Dalrymple she recognized in him the man who would do what he said, or forfeit his life in trying to do it. There is no mistaking the truth about such men, at such moments. "I believe you would," she said, and she felt pride in saying it. Her own life was in the balance. She bent her head again. Her temples were throbbing, and it was hard to think at all connectedly. "I want your answer," he said, still standing near the door. "Yes or no--for to-morrow night?" "I cannot live without you," she answered slowly, and still looking down. "I must go." But she did not meet his eyes, for she knew that she was wavering still, and almost as uncertain as before. All at once Dalrymple's manner changed. He came quietly to her side and took one of her hands, which hung idly over the back of the chair, in both of his. "You must be in earnest, as I am, my dear," he said, very calmly and gently. "You must not play with a man's life and heart, as though they were worth nothing but play. You called me cruel, dear, a moment ago. But you are more cruel than I, for I do not hesitate." "I must go," she repeated, still avoiding his look. "Yes, I must go. I should die without you." "But to-morrow when I come, you will hesitate again," he said, still speaking very quietly. "I must be sure. You must give me some promise, something more than you have given me yet." She looked up with startled eyes. "You do not believe me?" she asked. "What shall I do? I--I promise! You yourself have never said that you promised." "Does it need that?" He pressed the hand he held, with softly increasing strength, between his palms. "No," she answered, looking at him. "I can see it. You will do what you say. I have promised, too." He gazed incredulously into her face. "Do you doubt me?" she asked. "Have I not reason to doubt? You change your mind easily. I do not blame you. But how am I to believe?" She grew impatient of his unbelief. Yet as he pressed her hand, the power he had over her increased with every second. "But I will, I will!" she cried, in a low voice. "And still you doubt--I see it in your eyes. Have I not promised? What more can I do?" "I do not know," he answered. "But you must make me believe you." The strength of his eyes seemed to be forcing something from her. "I say it--I promise it--I swear it! Do I not love you? Am I not giving my soul for you? Have I not given it already? What more can I do or say?" "I do not know," he answered a second time, holding her with his eyes. "I must believe you before I go." He spoke honestly and earnestly, not meaning to exasperate her, searching in her look for what was unmistakably in his own. His hands shook, not weakly, as they held hers. His piercing eyes seemed to see through and through her. She trembled all over, and the colour rose to her face, more in despair of convincing him than in a blush of shame. "Believe me!" she said, imperiously, and her eyelids contracted with the effort of her will. But he said nothing. She felt that he was immeasurably stronger than she. But just then, he was not more desperate. There was a short, intense silence. Her face grew pale and was set with the fatal look she sometimes had. "I pledge you with my blood!" she said suddenly. Her eyes did not waver from his, but she wrenched her right hand from him, and before he could take it again, her even teeth had met in the flesh. The bright scarlet drops rose high and broke, and trickled in vivid stripes across her hand as she held it before his face. Her own was very white, but without a trace of pain. Something in the fierce action appealed strongly to the fiery Celtic nature of the man. His features relaxed instantly. "I believe you," he said, and she knew it as his arms went round her; and the pain of the wound made his kisses sweeter. CHAPTER XI. WHEN Dalrymple left Maria on that day, he returned as usual to Stefanone's house. Sora Nanna was alone, for Stefanone was still absent in Rome, and Annetta had gone on the previous day with a number of women to the fair at Civitella San Sisto, which took place on Sunday. She was expected to return on Monday afternoon. It is usual enough for a party of women, with two or three men, to go to the fairs in neighbouring towns and to spend the night with the friends of some one of the company. It was more common still, in those days. Sora Nanna gave Dalrymple his dinner and kept him company for a while. But he was gloomy and preoccupied, and before long she retired to the regions of the laundry, which was installed in a long low building that ran out into the vegetable garden at the back of the house. Monday was generally the day for ironing the heavy linen of the convent, which was taken up on Tuesdays in the huge baskets carried by four women, slung to a pole which rested on their shoulders in the old primitive fashion, just as litters are still carried in many parts of Asia. It had occurred more than once to Dalrymple, during the last two days, that he could hide almost anything he chose in one of these baskets, which were always delivered directly to Maria Addolorata and which she was at liberty to unpack in the privacy of the linen room if she chose. He thought of this again as he sat over his dinner, and heard the endless song of the women, far off, at their work. He knew the habits of the house thoroughly and all the customs regarding the carrying up of the baskets, and he remembered that several of them would surely be taken to the convent on the morrow. He thought that if he could procure some more suitable clothes for Maria to wear, this would be a safe means of conveying them to her. She could put them on in her cell, just before the hour at which she was to expect him, so that there would be no time lost and the danger of detection during their flight would be greatly diminished. But there were all sorts of difficulties in the way, and he realized them one by one, until he almost abandoned the scheme in favour of the cloak and plaid which he had first proposed. He pushed back his chair and went upstairs to his own room. The impression made upon him by Maria Addolorata, when she had bitten her hand, had been a strong one, but the man's nature, though not exactly distrustful, was melancholic and pessimistic. Two hours and more had passed since they had been together, and things had a different look. He realized more clearly the strength of the ties which bound Maria to her convent life, and the effort it must be to her to break them. He remembered the arguments he had used, and he saw that they had been those of passion rather than of reason. Their effect could not be lasting, when he himself was not there to lend them his words and the persuasion of his strength. Maria would repent of her promise, and there was nothing to bind her to it. Hitherto there had been no risk, no common danger. By a chain of natural circumstances he had made his way into a most extraordinary position, but it was in her power, in a moment of repentance, to force him from it. While the abbess was ill, Maria was virtually mistress of the convent. At a word from her the doors might be shut in his face. She might promise again, and bite her hand again, but when it came to his waiting outside the garden gate, she might be seized by a fit of repentance, and he might wait till morning. As he sat in his room he realized all this, and more, for he knew that on calm reflexion he meant to do what he had that morning threatened in his haste. He had never been attached to life for its own sake. Melancholic men often are not. He had many times thought over the subject of suicide with a sort of grim interest in it, which indicated the direction his temper would take if he were ever absolutely defeated in a matter which he had at heart. Nothing he had ever felt in his life had taken hold of him as his love for Maria Addolorata, for he had never really been in love before and he had completely abandoned himself to it, as such a man was sure to do in such surroundings. She was beautiful, but that was not all. Since he had heard her sing, he knew that her voice and her rare talent together were genius and nothing less. But that was far from being all. She was of his own class, and he had been seeing her daily, when the peasant women amongst whom he lived were little more than good-natured animals; but even that was not all. He was at that time of life when a man's character is apt to take a violent and sudden turn in its ultimate direction, when the forces that have been growing show themselves all at once, when passion, having appealed as yet but to the man, has climbed and is within reach of his soul, to take hold of it and twist it, or to be finally conquered, perhaps, in a holy life. But Dalrymple was very far from being the kind of man who could have taken refuge against himself in higher things. At a time when materialism was beginning to seem a great thing, he was a strong materialist in scientific questions. He grasped what he could see and held it, but what he could not see had no existence for him. Nothing transcendental attracted him beyond the sphere of mathematics. Yet he had not the materialist's temperament, for the Highland blood in his veins brought strong fancies and sudden passions to his head and heart, such as his chemistry could not explain; and when the brain burned and the heart beat fast, it meant doing or dying with him, as with many a Scotchman before and since. Life had never seemed to be worth much in his eyes, compared with a thing he wanted. He sat still and thought the matter over, and considered the question of death, for a few short minutes. There was not a trace of philosophical speculation in his reflexions, or they would have lasted longer. He merely desired to be sure, with that curious Scotch caution, of his own intentions, in order not to be obliged to think the matter over again at the last minute. He had drunk a measure of strong wine with his dinner, as usual. To-day it increased the gloom of his temper, and the pessimistic view he took. In less than a quarter of an hour he had made up his mind that if Maria Addolorata repented at a late hour and refused to leave the convent, he would make an attempt to carry her away by force. If he failed, and found himself shut off from all possibility of intercourse with her, life would not be worth living, and he would throw it away. When strong men are in that frame of mind, they generally accomplish what they have in view. Moreover, it is a great mistake to think that the people who think and talk of suicide will not take their own lives. On the contrary, statistics show that it is more often those who speak of it the most frequently, who ultimately make away with themselves. The mere fact of contemplating and discussing death familiarizes man with it till he does not even attribute to it its true value, which is little enough, as most of us know. Dalrymple was in earnest, and he knew it. He rose from his chair and unlocked his little laboratory. Among many other things upon the long table there was a plain English oak box, filled with small stoppered bottles, each having a label upon it with the name of the contents written in his own hand. Some were merely medicines, which he carried with him in case his services should ever be required, as had happened at the present time. Others were chemicals which he used in his experiments, such as he could not easily have procured in Italy, outside of the great cities. One even contained the common spirits of camphor, of which he had once given Annetta a teaspoonful when she had complained of a chill and sickness. One, however, was more than half full of a solution of hydrocyanide of potassium, a liquid little less suddenly and surely fatal than the prussic acid which enters into its composition. He took out this bottle and held it up to the light. The liquid was clear and transparent as water. He watched it curiously as he made it run up to the neck and back again. It might have been taken for pure alcohol, being absolutely colourless. "It would not take much of that," he said to himself, with a grim smile. His meditations were interrupted by the voice of Sora Nanna, who had opened his bedroom door without ceremony and stood calling to him. He came forward hastily from the laboratory and went up to her. "You do not know!" she cried, laughing and holding up a letter. "Stefanone has written to me from Rome! To me! Who the devil knows what he says? I do not understand anything of it. Who should teach me to read? He takes me for a priest, that I should know how to read!" Dalrymple laughed a little as he took the letter. He picked up his hat from a chair, for he meant to go out and spend the afternoon alone upon the hillside. "We will read it downstairs," he said. "I am going for a walk." He read it to her in the common room on the ground floor. It was a letter dictated by Stefanone to a public scribe, instructing his wife to tell Gigetto that she must send another load of wine to Rome as soon as possible, as the price was good in the market. Stefanone would remain in the city till it came, and sell it before returning. "These husbands!" exclaimed Sora Nanna, with a grin. "What they will not do! They go, riding, riding, and they come back when it seems good to them. Who tells me what he does in Rome? Rome is great." Dalrymple laughed, put on his hat and went off, leaving Sora Nanna to find Gigetto and give the necessary directions. CHAPTER XII. GIGETTO had refused to accompany Annetta and her party to the fair at Civitella San Sisto. He had been to Rome several times, and was far too fine a young gentleman to divert himself in such a very primitive place. He preferred to spend his leisure hours, which were very many, in elegant idleness, according to his lights, between the tobacconist's, the chemist's shop, which was the resort of all the superior men of the place after four o'clock in the afternoon, and the abundant, though not very refined table which was spread twice daily in his father's house. Civitella wine, Civitella fireworks, and especially Civitella girls, were quite beneath his notice. As for Annetta, he looked upon her with something like contempt, though he had a high respect for the fortune which must one day be hers. She was to be a necessary encumbrance of his future life, and for the present he meant to see as little of her as was conveniently possible without relinquishing his claims to her hand. She had admired him, in a way, until the arrival of Dalrymple, and he felt a little irritation at the Scotchman's presence in the house, so that he occasionally frightened Sora Nanna by talking of waiting for him with a gun at the corner of the forest. It produced a good impression, he thought, to show from time to time that he was not without jealousy. But as for going with her on such an expedition as a visit to a country fair, it was not to be expected of him. Nevertheless, Annetta had enjoyed herself thoroughly with her companions, and was very glad that Gigetto had not been at her elbow with his city notions of propriety, which he applied to her, but made as elastic as he pleased for himself. She had been to high mass in the village church, crowded to suffocation, she had walked up and down the main street half the afternoon, arm in arm with the other girls, giggling and showing off her handsome costume to the poorer natives of the little place, and smiling wickedly at the handsome youths who stood idly in groups at the corners of the streets. She had dined sumptuously, and had made her eyes sparkle like rather vulgar little stars by drinking a glass of strong old white wine to the health and speedy marriage of all the other girls. She had gone out with them at dusk, and had watched the pretty fireworks in the small piazza, and had wandered on with them afterwards in the moonlight to the ruin of the Cyclopean fortress which overlooks the two valleys. Then back to the house of her friends, who kept the principal inn, and more tough chicken and tender salad and red wine for supper. And on the next day they had all gone down to the meagre vineyards, half way to San Vito and just below the thick chestnut woods which belong to the Marchese and feudal lord of that ancient town. And there amongst the showers of reddening vine leaves, she had helped to gather the last grapes of the year, with song and jest and laughter. At noon they climbed the hill again in the October sun, and dined upon the remains of the previous day's feast; then, singing still, they had started on their homeward downward way, happy and not half tired yet when they reached Subiaco in the evening glow. They came trooping through the town to the little piazza in which the doctor's house was situated. They separated here, some to go up to the higher part, while others were to go down in the same direction as Annetta. The girl looked up at the doctor's windows, and her small eyes flashed viciously. It would be a pleasant ending to the two days' holiday to have a look at her work. Now that he was getting well, as Dalrymple told her, she was glad that she had not killed him. It was an even greater satisfaction to have almost frightened the old coward to death. She had been uneasy about the question of confession. "By Bacchus," she laughed, "I will go and see Sor Tommaso. They say he is better." So she took leave of her companions and entered the narrow door, and climbed the short flight of dark steps and knocked. The doctor's sleeping-room opened directly upon the staircase. He used the room on the ground floor as an office and dining-room, his old peasant woman-servant slept in the attic, and the other two rooms were let by the year. It was a very small house. The old woman, whose name was Serafina, opened the bedroom door and thrust out her head, covered with a dark and threadbare shawl. There was a sibylline gloom about her withered face, as though she had lived a lifetime in the face of a horror to come. "What do you want?" she croaked roughly, and not opening the door any wider. "Eh! What do I want? I am the Annetta of Stefanone, and I have come to pay a visit to this dear doctor, because they say that he is better, God bless him." "Oh! I did not recognize you," said the old woman. "I will ask." Still holding the door almost closed, she drew in her head and spoke with Sor Tommaso. Annetta could hear his answer. "Of course!" he said, in a voice still weak, but singularly oily with the politeness of his intention. "Let her favour us!" The door was opened, and Annetta went in. Sor Tommaso was sitting up near the window, in a deep easy-chair covered with ragged green damask. The girl was surprised by his pallor, as compared with his formerly rubicund complexion. Peasant-like, she glanced about the room to judge of its contents before she spoke. "How are you, dear Sor Tommaso?" she asked after the short pause. "Eh, what we have suffered for you, all of us! Who was this barbarian who wished to send you to Paradise?" "Who knows?" returned Sor Tommaso, with amazing blandness. "I trust that he may be forgiven as I forgive him." "What it is to be a wise man!" exclaimed Annetta, with affected admiration. "To have such sentiments! It is a beautiful thing. And how do you feel now, dear Sor Tommaso? Are you getting your strength again? They took your blood, those cowardly murderers! You must make it again." Their eyes met, and each knew that the other knew and understood. Sor Tommaso smiled gently. The savage girl's mouth twitched as though she should have liked to laugh. "Little by little; who goes slowly goes safely," answered the doctor. "I am an old man, you must know." "Old!" Annetta was glad of the opportunity to laugh at last. "Old? Eh, on Sunday, when you have on those new black trousers of yours that are tight, tight--you seem to me a boy as young as Gigetto. For my part, I should prefer you. You are more serious. Gigetto! What must I say? He is handsome, he may be good, but he has not a head. There is nothing in that pumpkin." "Blood of youth," answered Sor Tommaso. "It must boil. It must fling its chains about. Afterwards it begins to know the chains. Little by little it accustoms itself to them. Then it is quiet, quiet, as we old ones are. Sit down, my daughter. Serafina! A chair--the one that is not lame. These chairs remember the blessed soul of mamma," added Sor Tommaso, in explanation of their weakness. "Requiesca'!" exclaimed Annetta, sitting down. "Amen," responded Sor Tommaso. "You are so beautiful to-day," he continued, looking at her flowered bodice and new apron; "where have you been?" "Where should I go? To Civitella. There was the fair. We ate certain chickens--tough! But the air of the mountain consumes. There were also fireworks." "What? Have you walked?" asked Sor Tommaso. "Even with two legs one can walk," laughed the girl. "But of course a beast is better with four. The beasts had all gone to Tivoli with wine for Rome. They had not come back yesterday morning. Therefore with these two feet I walked. I and many others, girls like me. It is true that I am half dead." "You are fresher than lettuce," observed Sor Tommaso. "And then you have climbed up my stairs. This is a true Christian act. God return it to you. I am alone all day." "But the Englishman comes to see you," said Annetta, indifferently. "The Englishman, yes. He comes. More or less, he has almost cured me. But then, for his conversation, I say nothing!" "Meanwhile he is also curing the abbess. He has a fortunate hand. There death, here death--he makes them all alive. Where is death, now? Here, perhaps? Hidden in some corner, or under the bed? He has certain medicines, that Englishman! Medicines that you do not even dream of. Strong! It is I that tell you. Sometimes, the whole house smells of them. Death could not resist them a moment. They drive even the flies out of the windows. The Englishman gave me some once. I had been in the sun and had drunk a gallon of cold water, foolish as I was. I was thirsty, as I am now. Well, he gave me a spoonful of something like water, mixed in water. I do not tell you anything. At first it burned me. Arch-priest, it burned! Then, not even a minute, and I had Paradise in my body. And so it passed." "Who knows? A cordial, perhaps," observed Sor Tommaso, thoughtfully. "I have such cordials, too." "I do not doubt it," answered the girl, suspiciously. "But I would rather not taste them. I feel quite well." It crossed her mind that in return for three knife-thrusts, Sor Tommaso would probably not miss so good a chance of paying her with a glass of poison. She would certainly have done as much herself, had she been in his place. "Who thought of offering you cordials!" replied the doctor, with a polite laugh. "I said it to say it. But if you are thirsty, command me. There is water and good wine. They are the best cordials." "Eh, a little water. I do not refuse. As for the wine, no. I thank you the same. I am fasting and have walked. After supper, at home, I will drink." "Serafina!" cried Sor Tommaso, and the old sibyl immediately appeared from the stairs, whither she had discreetly retired to wait during Annetta's visit. "Bring water, and that bottle of my wine from downstairs. You know, the bottle of old wine of Stefanone's that was opened." "No, no. I want no wine," said Annetta, quickly. "Bring it all the same. Perhaps she will do us the honour to drink it." Serafina nodded, and her bare feet were heard on the stone steps as she descended. "It is bad to drink pure water when one is very thirsty," said Sor Tommaso. "It cramps the stomach. A little wine gives the stomach strength. But it is best to eat. If you will eat, there are fresh jumbles. I also eat them." "I thank you the same," answered Annetta. "I wish only water. It is a long way from Civitella, and there is no good spring. There is the brook that runs out of the pond at the foot of the last hill. But it is heavy water, full of stuff." Serafina came back, bringing two heavy tumblers of pressed glass on a little black japanned tray, with a decanter of cold water. In her other hand she carried two bottles, one half full of wine, the other containing the white and sugary syrup of peach kernels of which Italians are so fond. "I brought this also," she said, holding up the bottle as she set down the tray. "Perhaps it is better." "Yes," said Sor Tommaso, nodding in approbation. "It is better." "You will drink a little orgeat?" asked the old woman, in a tone of persuasion, and mixing it in the glass. "Water, simply water," said Annetta, who was still suspicious. "Give me water in the other glass." "But I have mixed already in both," answered Serafina. "Eh, you will drink it. You will not make an old woman like me go all the way down the stairs again. But then, it is good. It is I that tell you. I made it myself, yesterday morning, for the doctor, to refresh his blood a little." Annetta had risen to her feet and was watching the glasses, as the old woman stirred the white syrup in the water with an old-fashioned, long-handled spoon. She did not wish to seem absurdly suspicious, and yet she distrusted her enemy. She took one of the glasses, went to his side, and held it to his lips as one gives an invalid drink. "After you," he said, with a polite smile, but raising his hand to take the glass. "Sick people first, well people afterwards," answered Annetta, smiling too, but watching him intently. He had satisfied himself that she really suspected foul play, for he knew the peasants well, and was only a degree removed from them himself. He at once dismissed her suspicions by drinking half the tumbler at a draught. She immediately took the other and emptied it eagerly, as she was really very thirsty. "A little more?" suggested Serafina, in her croaking voice. "No," interposed Sor Tommaso. "It might hurt her--so much at once." But Annetta filled the tumbler with pure water, and emptied it again. "At last!" she exclaimed with a sigh of satisfaction. "What thirst! I seemed to have eaten ashes! And now I thank you, Sor Tommaso, and I am going home; for it is Ave Maria, and I do not wish to make a bad meeting in the dark as happened to you. Ugly assassins! I will never forgive them, never! What am I to say at home? That you will come to supper one of these days?" "Eh, if God wills," answered the doctor. "I will be accompanied by Serafina." "I!" exclaimed the old woman. "I am afraid even of a cat! What could I do for you?" "Company is always company," said Sor Tommaso, wisely. "Where one would not go, two go bravely. Good evening, my beautiful daughter," he added, looking up at Annetta. "The Madonna go with you." "Thank you, and good evening," answered the girl, dropping half a courtsey, with a vicious twinkle in her little eyes. She turned, and was out of the room in a moment. On the way home through the narrow streets in the evening glow, she sang snatches of song to herself, and thought of all she had said to Sor Tommaso, and of all he had said to her, and of how much afraid he was of her father's knife. For otherwise, as she knew, he would have had her arrested. Suddenly, at the last turning she stopped and turned very pale, clasping both hands upon her bodice. "Assassin!" she groaned, grinding her short white teeth. "_He_ has poisoned me, after all! An evil death to him and all his house! Assassin!" She forgot that she had experienced precisely the same sensations once before, when she had been overheated and had swallowed too much cold water. CHAPTER XIII. WITH slow steps, and pressing her clasped hands to her bodice, the girl reached the door of her father's house at dusk. She knew that he was away, and that as she had not come home earlier her mother would be in the lower regions preparing Dalrymple's supper for him. The door which gave access to the staircase from the street was still open, and she was almost sure of being able to reach her own room unobserved, unless she chanced to come upon Dalrymple himself on the stairs. Just then she would rather have met him than her mother. She was in great pain, and it would have been hard to explain to Sora Nanna that she believed herself to have been deliberately poisoned. She crept noiselessly up the stairs, which were almost dark, and she came to Dalrymple's door which faced the first landing. She paused and hesitated, leaning against the wall. He was a wise man in her opinion, and would of course understand her symptoms at once. But then, as she was poisoned, he could do nothing for her. If that were true, her next thought told her that Sor Tommaso must have poisoned himself. He would not do that. She had never heard of antidotes; for though poisoning was traditionally familiar to her and the people of her class, it was very uncommon. Yet her sharpened wit told her that if Sor Tommaso had swallowed the stuff, as he had done, with a smile, he had means at his disposal for counteracting it--some medicine which he had doubtless taken as soon as she had left him. But if he had medicine to save from poison, Dalrymple, who was a far wiser man, must have such medicines, too, and even better ones. This reflexion decided her. She was close to his door. It was probable that he would be in his room at that hour. She was in fear of her life, and she knocked. But Dalrymple had not come back. He had gone for a long walk alone in the hills, had climbed higher as the sun sank lower, and was belated in steep paths along which even his mountain-trained feet trod with some caution. He was too familiar with the country to lose his way, but he by no means found the shortest way there was, nor was he especially anxious to do so. The hours would pass sooner in walking than in sitting over his books under the flaring little flames of the three brass beaks. Annetta saw that there was no light in the room, for the hole through which the latch-string hung was worn wide with use. She felt dizzy, too, and the knife-like pain ran through her so that she bent herself. She knew that Dalrymple kept his medicines locked up in the laboratory, and that she could not get at them, though she would have had little hesitation in swallowing anything she found, in the simple certainty that all his medicines must be good in themselves, and therefore life-saving and good for her. But he was out, and she was sure that there could be nothing in the bedroom. She had herself too often looked into every corner when she watered and swept the brick floor each morning, and put things in order according to her primitive ideas. She then and there lost her hold upon life. She was poisoned, and must die. She was as sure of it as the Chinaman who has seen an eagle, and who, recognizing that his hour is come, calmly lies down and breathes his last by the mere suspension of volition. In old countries the lower orders, as a rule, have but a low vitality. It may be truer to say that the vital volition is weak. Let the learned settle the definition. The fact is easily accounted for. During generations upon generations the majority of European agricultural populations live upon vegetable food, like the majority of Eastern Asiatics, and with the same result. Hard labour produces hard muscles, but vegetable food yields a low vital tension, so to say. Soldiers know it well enough. The pale-faced city clerk who eats meat twice a day will out-fight and out-last and out-starve the burly labourer whose big thews and sinews are mostly compounded of potatoes, corn, and water. The girl crept up the stairs stealthily to her lonely little room, and lay down to die upon her bed, as though that were the only thing to be done under the circumstances. It never occurred to her to go to her mother and tell her what had happened and what she suspected, any more than it had suggested itself to Sor Tommaso to lay information against her for having stabbed him. If her father had been at home, she might perhaps have gone to him and told him with her dying breath that the doctor had killed her, and that Stefanone must avenge her. But he was away. She was stronger than her mother and had always dominated her. She knew also that if she complained, Sora Nanna would raise such a scream as would bring half Subiaco running to the house. The girl's animal instinct was to die alone, and quietly. So she made no sound, and lay upon her bed writhing in pain and holding her sides with all her might, but with close-set teeth and silent lips. Looked at from the point of view of fact, it was all ridiculous enough. The girl had been all day in the hot autumn sun, had eaten a quantity of over-ripe figs and grapes, which might have upset the digestion of an ostrich, had tired even her strong limbs with the final walk home, and had then, at Sor Tommaso's house, swallowed nearly a quart of ice-cold water. It was not surprising that she should be very ill. It was not even strange that the theory of poison should suggest itself. To her it was tragedy, and meant nothing less than death, when she lay down upon her bed. Between the spasms all sorts of things passed through her mind, when her head lay still upon the pillow. Chiefly and particularly her thoughts were filled with hatred of Sor Tommaso, and a sort of doglike longing to see Dalrymple's face before she died. She was still fascinated by the vision of his red hair and bright blue eyes which came back to her vividly, with the careless smile his hard face had for her half-childish, half-malicious sayings. And with the thought of him came also jealousy of Maria Addolorata, and another hatred which was deeper and stronger and more vengeful than any she owed Sor Tommaso. She felt, rather than understood, that Dalrymple loved the nun with all his heart. She had spoken of her to him and had watched his face, and had seen the quick, savage glare of his eyes, though his voice had only expressed his annoyance. As the vision of him rose before her, she saw him as he had been when the angry blush had overspread his face to the roots of his hair. The image fixed itself. In the dim shadow behind it, she saw the face of Maria Addolorata like a death-mask, and those strange, deep eyes of the nun's looking scornfully at her over the man's shoulder, though she forgot him in the woman's deadly fascination. She stared, unable to close her lids, as it seemed to her, though she longed to shut out the sight. Then a dull noise seemed to be in her ears, a noise that was not a sound, but the stunning effect on her brain of a sound not heard but imagined. There were great circles of light around the nun's head, which cut through Dalrymple's face and then hid it. They were like glories, like the halos about the heads of saints. Annetta was angry with them, for she was sure that Maria Addolorata was bad, and sinned in her throat. "An evil death on you and all your house!" cried the angry peasant girl, in a low voice. "Death!" She could not tell whence the echo came back to her, in a tone strange to her ears--for it was her own, perhaps. She was startled. The vision vanished, and she sat up on her bed with a quick movement, suddenly wide awake. The pain must have passed. No--it came again, but with far less keenness. She felt her face with her hands, and laughed softly, for she knew that she was alive. It was night, and she must have lain some time there all alone, for there was a silvery, misty something through the darkness, the white dawn of moonrise, which is not like the dawn of day, nor like the departing twilight. As she sat up she saw the outline of the hills, jagged against the crosses of the lead-joined panes in the window. There was the moon-dawn sending up its soft radiance to the sky. A little longer she watched, and a single bright point sent one level ray straight into her face. A moment more and the room was flooded with light so that she could see the smallest objects distinctly. "But I am alive!" she exclaimed in a soft, glad tone. "The brigand only did me a spite. He was afraid to kill me." The pain seized her again, less sharp than before, but keen enough to stir her anger. She still sat up, but bent forward, clasping her bodice. In the moonlight she could see her heavy shoes on her feet sticking up before her. Realizing that it was a disgraceful thing to lie down with them on, she sprang off the bed, and began to dust the coverlet with her hand. The pain passed. After all, she reflected, she had swallowed a quantity of cold water at Sor Tommaso's, whether the first glass had contained any poison or not. She had not forgotten, either, that the same thing had once happened to her before, and that Dalrymple had made it pass with a spoonful of something that had stung her mouth and throat, but which had afterwards warmed her and cured her. She felt chilly now, and she wished that she had some of that same stinging, warming stuff. Something moved, somewhere in the house. The girl listened intently for a moment. Probably Dalrymple had come back and was moving about in his room, washing his hands, as he always did before supper, and taking off his heavy boots. His room was immediately under hers, facing in the same direction. She went towards the door, intending to go down at once and ask him for some of his medicine. By this time she was persuaded that she was not in any danger, and her common-sense told her that she had merely made herself momentarily ill with too many grapes, too much cold water, and too long exposure to the sun. She did not care to let her mother know anything about it, for Sora Nanna would scold her. It would be a simple matter to catch the Scotchman at his door, to get what she wanted from him with an easily given promise of secrecy, and then to come downstairs as though nothing had happened. Annetta only hesitated a moment, and then went out into the dark staircase, and crept down, as she had crept up, feeling her way at the turnings, by the wall. She reached the door, and was surprised to see that there was no light within--none of that yellow light which a lamp makes, but only the grey glimmer of the moonlight through the shadow, creeping out by the hole of the latch-string. Her ears had deceived her, and Dalrymple was not there. Nevertheless she believed that he was. The moonlight would be in his room as it was in hers, just overhead, and he might not have taken the trouble to light his lamp. It was very probable. She tapped softly, but there was no answer. She was afraid that her mother might come up the stairs and hear her speaking through the door, as though by stealth. She put her lips close to the hole of the latch and whistled softly. Her whistle was broken by her own smile as she fancied that Dalrymple might start at the unexpected sound. But there was no response. Growing bolder, she called him gently. "Signor! Are you there?" There was no answer. Just then, as she stooped, the pain ran through her once more. She was so sure that she had heard him that she was convinced he must be within, very probably in his little laboratory beyond the bedroom. The pain hurt her, and he had the medicine. Very naturally she pulled the string and pushed the door open. He was not there. The moonlight flooded everything, and the whitewashed walls reflected it, so that the place was as bright as day. The first object that met her eyes was a small bottle standing near the edge of the table in the middle of the room, where Dalrymple had carelessly set it down in the afternoon when Sora Nanna had called him to read her letter. It was directly in the line of the moon's rays, and the stopper gleamed like a little star. Annetta started with joy as she saw it. It was the very bottle from which he had given her the camphor, less than a month ago--the same in size, in its transparent contents, in its label. It might have deceived a keener eye than hers. The door of the laboratory stood open, as he had left it, being at the time preoccupied and careless. She only stopped a moment to assure herself that the bottle was the right one, reflecting that he had perhaps felt ill and had taken some of it himself. She went on and looked into the little room. "Signore!" she called softly. But there was no answer. It was clear that Dalrymple was either still out, or was downstairs at his supper, with her mother. He might be out, however. It was quite possible, on such a fine evening, for he was irregular in his hours. He would not like it if he came in suddenly and found her meddling with his belongings. She crossed the room again and softly shut the door. At least, if he came, she would not be found with the bottle in her hand. She could give an excuse. It was all so natural. It was the same bottle. She knew the right quantity, for she had the peasant's memory for such detail. There was a glass and a decanter of water on a white plate on the table. She had no spoon, but that did not matter. She took out the stopper with her strong fingers, though it stuck a little. The pain ran through her again as she poured some of the contents into the tumbler, and it made her hand shake so that she poured out a little more than necessary. But it did not matter. She filled it up with water, held the glass up to the moonlight, and drank it at a draught, and set the empty tumbler upon the table again. Instantly her features changed. She felt as though she were struck through head and heart and body with red-hot steel. Maria Addolorata's death-mask rose before her in the moonlight. "An evil death on you and all your house!" she tried to say. But the words were not out of her mouth before she shivered, caught herself by the table, sank down, and lay stone dead upon the brick floor. There was no noise. Dying, she thought she screamed, but only the faintest moan had passed her lips. The door was shut, and the quiet moonlight floated in and silvered her dark, dead face. CHAPTER XIV. AT moonrise on that evening, Maria Addolorata was standing at the open door of her cell, watching the dark clouds in the west, as they caught the light one by one, edge by edge. The black shadow of the convent covered all the garden still, and one passing could hardly have seen her as she stood there. Her veil was raised, and the cold mountain breeze chilled her cheeks. But she did not feel it, for she had been long by the abbess's bedside, and then long, again, in the close choir of the church, and her head was hot and aching. To her, as she looked towards the western mountains and watched the piling clouds, and felt the cool, damp wind, it seemed as though there were something strangely tragic in the air that night. The wind whistled now and then through the cracks of the convent windows and over the crenellations of the old walls, as Death's scythe might whistle if he were mowing down men with a right good will, heaps upon heaps of slain. The old bell struck the hour, sullenly, with a dead thud in the air after each stroke, as a bell tolls for a burial. The very clouds were black and silver in the sky, like a funeral pall. Maria Addolorata leaned against the door-post and looked out, her hand white in the shadow against the dark wood, her face whiter still. But on her hand there were two marks, visible even in the dimness. They would have been red in the day, and the place hurt her from time to time, for she had bitten it savagely. It was her pledge, and the pain of it reminded her of what she had promised to do. She needed the reminder; for now that he was not near her, the enormous crime stood out, black and lofty as death itself. It was different when Dalrymple was at her side. His violent vitality dragged hers into action, dragged, drove it, and goaded it, as unwilling soldiers have been driven into battle in barbarous armies. Then the fatality seemed irresistible, then the dangers seemed small, and the burning red shame was pale and weak. Those bony young hands of his had strength in them for two, his gleaming eyes burnt out the resistance in hers, and lighted them with their own glow. The hearty recklessness of his unbelief drove through and through her composite faith, and riddled it with loopholes for her soul's escape. Then the reality of her passion made her nobler love mad to be free, and to break through the solid walls in which it had been born and had grown too strong. When his love was there, hers matched itself with his, to smite fortune in the face, to dare and out-dare heaven and hell for love's sake, with him, the bursting blood made iron of her hand, tingling to buffet coward fate's pale mouth. Then she was strong above women; then she was brave as brave men; then, having promised, to keep was but the natural hold of will, to die was but to dare one little adversary more. But she was alone now, and thinking, as she looked out into the tragic night, and watched the blackness of the monumental clouds. She did not return to her former self, as some women do when the goad leaves the heart in peace for a moment. She did not say to herself that she would order the convent gate to be shut on Angus Dalrymple forever, and herself go back to the close choir, to sit in her seat amongst the rest, and sing holy songs with the others, restfully unhappy as many of them were. She knew far too well how strongly her heart could beat, and how icy cold her hands could grow when love was near her. Yet she shuddered with horror at what she had promised to do. She would struggle to the last, but she must yield when she heard his voice, and felt his hand, at the very last moment, when they should be at the garden gate, he drawing her on, she looking back. It was perjury and sacrilege, and earthly shame, and eternal damnation. Nothing less. And the words had full and deadly meaning for her. It mattered little that he should think differently, being of another faith, or rather, of no faith at all. It was all true to her. It was not risk; it was certainty. What forgiveness had earth or heaven for a faithless nun? He talked of marriage, and he would marry her according to a rite that had a meaning in his eyes. Heaven would not divorce the sworn and plighted spouse of Christ to be the earthly wife of Angus Dalrymple. Visions of eternal torment rose in her mind, a tangible searing hell alive with flame and devils, a sea of liquid fire, an ocean of boiling pitch, Satan commanding in the midst, and a myriad of fiends working his tormenting will. Her pale lips curled scornfully in the dark. Those were not the terrors that frightened her, nor the horrors from which she shrank. There was a question which was not to be answered by her own soul in damnation or salvation, but by the lips of men hereafter--the question of the honour of her name. The traditions of the good old barons were not dead in that day, nor are they all dead yet. Many a Braccio had done evil deeds in his or her day, and one, at least, had evil deeds to do after Maria Addolorata had been laid in her grave. But sin was one thing, and dishonour was quite another, even in the eyes of the nun of Subiaco. For her sins she could and must answer with the weal or woe of her own soul. But her dishonour would be upon her father and her mother and upon all her race. Nor was there any dishonour deeper, more deadly, or more lasting than that brought upon a stainless name by a faithless nun. Maria Braccio hesitated at disgrace, while Maria Addolorata smiled at perdition. It was not the first time that honour had taken God's part against the devil in the history of her family. That was the great obstacle of all, and she knew it now. She was able to face all consequences but that, terrible as they might be. The barrier was there, the traditional old belief in honour as first, and above every consideration. They had played upon that very belief, when, at the last, she had hesitated to take the veil. She had gone so far, they had told her, that it would be cowardly and dishonourable to turn back at the last minute. The same argument existed now. Then, she would at least have had human right and ecclesiastical law on her side, if she had refused to become a nun. Now, all was against her. Then, she would have had to face but the condemning opinion of a few who spoke of implied obligation. Now, she must stand up and be ashamed before the whole world. There would be a horrible publicity about it. She was too high born not to feel that all the world in which she should ever move was as one great family. Dalrymple might promise her honour and respect, and the affection of his own father and mother for the love of her parents, a home, respected wifehood, and all the rest. With his strength, he might impose her upon his family, and they might treat her as he should dictate, for he was a strong and dominant man. But in their hearts, Protestants, English people, foreigners as they were to her race, even they could not tell themselves honestly that it was not a shameful thing to break such vows as hers, shameful and nothing less. And if, for a moment, he were not there to hold them in his check, she should see it in their faces, and she must hang her head, for she could have nothing to answer. For him, she must not only sacrifice her soul, wrench out her faith, break her promise to God, and her vows to the Church. She must give herself to public, earthly shame, for his sake. It was too much. She could bear anything but that. Rather than endure that, it was better to die. The black clouds rose higher in the west, and the gloomy air blew upon her face. Her head was no longer hot, for a chilly horror had come upon her, like the shadow of something unspeakably awful, close at hand. Suddenly, she was afraid to be alone. A bat, lured by the second twilight of the moon's rising, whirled down from above, with softly flapping wings, and almost brushed her face. She drew back quickly into the doorway. It was a very tragic night, she thought. She shut the door, and groped her way out beyond her cell to the corridor, dimly illuminated by a single light hanging from the vault by a running cord. She entered the abbess's apartment. One of the sisters had taken her place, but Maria Addolorata sent her away by a gesture, and sat down by the bedside. The old lady was either asleep, or did not notice her niece's coming. Her face was grey as ashes, and upturned in the shadow. Upon the stone floor stood the primitive Italian night-light, a wick supported in a triangular bit of tin by three little corks in oil floating on water in a tumbler. The light was very clear and steady, though there was little of it, and to Maria, who had been long in comparative darkness, the room seemed bright enough. There was little furniture besides the plain bed, a little table, a couple of chairs, and a tall, dark wardrobe. A grim crucifix hung above the abbess's head, on the white wall, the work of an age in which horror was familiar to the eye, and needed exaggeration to teach hardened humanity. Maria was too much occupied with her own thoughts to notice the sick woman's condition at once. Besides, during the last two days there had been no return of the syncope, and the abbess had seemed to be improving steadily. She breathed rather heavily and seemed to be asleep. Gradually, however, as the nun sat motionless beside her and as the storm of thought subsided, she became aware that all was not right. Her aunt's face was unnaturally grey, the breathing was unusually slow and heavy. When the breath was drawn in, the thin nostrils flattened themselves strangely on each side, and the features had a peaked look. Maria rose and felt the pulse. It was fluttering, and not always perceptible. At first Maria's attention to these facts was only mechanical. Then, with a sudden sinking at her own heart, she realized what they might mean--another crisis like the one in which the abbess had so narrowly escaped death. It was true that on that occasion she had called for help more than once, showing that she had felt herself to be sinking. At present she seemed to be unconscious, which, if anything, was a worse feature. Maria drew a long breath and held it, biting her lips, as people do in moments of suspense, doubt, and anxiety. It was as though fate had thrust the great decision onward at the last moment. The life that hung in the balance before her eyes meant the possibility of waiting, with the feeble consolation of being yet undecided. She stood as still as a statue, her face like a mask, her hand on the unconscious woman's wrist. The stimulant which Dalrymple had shown her how to use was at hand--the glass with which to administer it. It would prolong life. It might save it. Should she give it? The seconds ran to minutes, and the dreadful question was unanswered. If the abbess died, as die she almost certainly must within half an hour, if the medicine were not given to her--if she died, Maria would call the sisters, the portress would be instructed, and when Dalrymple came on the morrow, he would be told that all was over, and that he was no longer needed. Nothing could be more sure. He might do his utmost. He could not enter the convent again. In a quick vision, as she stood stone-still, Maria saw herself alone in the chapel by night, prostrate, repentant, washing the altar steps with tears, forgiven of God, since God could still forgive her, honoured on earth as before, since none but the silent confessor could ever know what she had done, still less what she had meant to do. Her sorrow would be real, overwhelming, able to move Heaven to mercy, her penance true-hearted and severe as she deserved. Her name would be unspotted and unblemished. It would be so easy, if she had not to see him again. How could she resist him, if he could so much as touch her hand? But if she were defended from him, she could bury his love and pray for him in the memory of the thing dead. All that, if she but let that heavy breathing go on a little longer, if she did not raise her hand and set a glass to those grey, parted lips. They were parted now. The laboured breath was drawn through the teeth. The eyelids were a little raised, and showed but the white of the upturned eyes. Maria stared fixedly into the pinched face, and a new horror came upon her. It was murder she was doing. Nothing less. The power to save was there, and she would not use it. No--it could not be murder--it was not possible that she could do murder. Still with wide eyes she stared. Surely the heavy breath had come more quickly a moment ago. It seemed an age between each rise and fall of the coverlet. There was a ghastly whistling sound of it between the teeth. It was slower still. The eyelids were gradually opening--the blind white was horrible to see. Each breath was a convulsion that shook the frail body. It was murder. Her hand shot out like lightning and seized the small bottle. Let anything come,--love, shame, heaven, damnation; it should not be murder. She forced the unstoppered bottle into the dying woman's mouth with a desperate hand. The next breath was drawn with a choking effort. The whole body stirred. The thin hand appeared, grasped the coverlet with distorting energy, and then lay almost still, twitching convulsively second by second. Still Maria tried wildly to pour more of the stimulant between the set teeth. When they parted, no breath came, and the fingers only moved once more, for the very last time. It was not murder, but it was death. The wasted old woman had outlived by two or three hours the strong, young peasant girl, and fate had laid her hand heavily upon the life of Maria Addolorata. CHAPTER XV. WHEN Dalrymple came home that evening, he found his supper already on the table and half cold. Sora Nanna was busier than her daughter, and less patient of the Scotchman's irregularities. If he could not come home at a reasonable hour, he must not expect her to keep everything waiting for him. He sat down to the table without even going upstairs as usual to wash his hands, simply because the cooked meat would be cold and greasy if he let it stand five minutes longer. Being once seated in his place, he did not move for a long time. Sora Nanna came in more than once. She was very much preoccupied about the load of wine which her husband had ordered to be sent, and which, if possible, she meant to send off before morning, for she did not wish him to be absent in Rome with money in his pocket a day longer than necessary. Gloomy and preoccupied, without even a book before him, Dalrymple sat with his back to the wall, drinking his wine in silence, and staring at the lamp. Sora Nanna asked him whether he had seen Annetta. He shook his head without speaking. The woman observed that the girls were quite capable of spending a second night at Civitella to prolong the festivities. Dalrymple nodded, not caring at all. Annetta being absent, Gigetto had not thought it necessary to put in an appearance. But Sora Nanna wished to see him again about the wine. With a grin, she asked Dalrymple whether he would keep house if she went out for half an hour. Again he nodded in silence. He heard her lock from the inside the door which opened from the staircase upon the street, for it was already late. Then she came through the common room again, with her overskirt over her head, went out, and left the door ajar. Dalrymple was alone in the house, unaware that Annetta was lying dead on the floor of his room upstairs. Sora Nanna had not been gone a quarter of an hour when a boy came in from the street. Dalrymple knew him, for he was the son of the convent gardener. The lad said that Dalrymple was wanted immediately, as the abbess was very ill. That was all he knew. He was rather a dull boy, and he repeated mechanically what he had been told. The Scotchman started and was about to speak, when he checked himself. He asked the boy two or three questions, in the hope of getting more accurate information, but could only elicit a repetition of the message. He was wanted immediately, as the abbess was very ill. He covered his eyes with his hand for a few seconds. In a flash he saw that if he were ever to carry off Maria Addolorata, it must be to-night. The chances were a hundred to one that if there were another crisis, the abbess would be dead before he could reach the convent. Once dead, there was no knowing what might happen in the confusion that would ensue, and during the elaborate funeral ceremonies. The man had that daring temper that rises at obstacles as an eagle at a crag, without the slightest hesitation. When he dropped his hand upon the table he had made up his mind. It was generally easy to get a good mule at any hour of the night in Subiaco. The mules were in their stables then. In the daytime it would have been very doubtful, when most of them were away in the vineyards, or carrying loads to the neighbouring towns. The convent gardener, who was well-to-do in the world, had a very good mule, as Dalrymple knew, and its stable was half-way up the ascent. The boy could saddle it with the pack-saddle without any difficulty, and meet him anywhere he chose. Dalrymple's reputation was excellent as a liberal foreigner who paid well, and the gardener would not blame the boy for saddling the mule without leave. In a few words Dalrymple explained what he wanted, and to help the lad's understanding he gave him some coppers which filled the little fellow with energy and delight. The boy was to be at the top of the mule path leading down from above the convent to the valley in half an hour. Dalrymple told him that he wished to go to Tivoli, and that the boy could come with him if he chose, after the visit to the abbess was over. The boy ran away to saddle the mule. Dalrymple rose quickly, and shut the street door in order to take the lamp with him to his room, and not to leave the house open with no light in it. The case was urgent. He went upstairs, carrying the lamp, and opened the door of his quarters. Instantly he recognized the faint, sickly odour of hydrocyanide of potassium, and remembered that he had left the bottle with the solution on his table that afternoon in his hurry. Then he looked down and saw a white face upon the floor, and the flowered bodice and smart skirt of the peasant girl. He had solid nerves, and possessed that perfect indifference to death as a phenomenon which most medical men acquire in the dissecting-room. But he was shocked when, bending down, and setting the lamp upon the floor, he saw in a few seconds that Annetta had been dead some time. He even shook his head a little, very slowly, which meant a great deal for his hard nature. Glancing at the unstoppered bottle and at the empty glass, side by side on the table, he understood at once that the girl, intentionally or by mistake, had swallowed enough of the poison to kill half-a-dozen strong men. He remembered instantly how he had once given her spirits of camphor when she had felt ill, and he understood all the circumstances in a moment, almost as though he had seen them. Scarcely thinking of what he was doing, though with an effort which any one who has attempted to lift a dead body from the ground will understand, he took up the lifeless girl, stiff and stark as she was, and laid her upon his own bed. It was a mere instinct of humanity. Then he went back and took the lamp and held it near her face, and shook his head again, thoughtfully. A word of pity escaped his lips, spoken very low. He set the lamp down on the floor by the bedside, for there was no small table near. There never is, in peasants' houses. He began to walk up and down the room, thinking over the situation, which was grave enough. Suddenly he smelt the acrid odour of burning cotton. He turned quickly, and saw that he had placed the three-beaked lamp so near to the bed that the overhanging coverlet was directly above one of the flames, and was already smouldering. He smothered it with the stuff itself between his hands, brought the lamp into the laboratory, and set it upon the table. Then, realizing that his own case was urgent, he began to make his preparations. He took a clean bottle and poured thirty-five drops of laudanum into it, put in the stopper, and thrust it into his pocket. Unlocking another box, he took out some papers and a canvas bag of gold, such as bankers used to give travellers in those times when it was necessary to take a large supply of cash for a journey. He threw on his cloak, took his plaid over one arm and went back into his bedroom, carrying the lamp in the other hand. Then he hesitated, sniffing the air and the smell of the burnt cotton. Suddenly an idea seemed to cross his mind, for he put down the lamp and dropped his plaid upon a chair. He stood still a moment longer, looking at the dead girl as she lay on the bed, biting his lip thoughtfully, and nodding his head once or twice. He made a step towards the bed, then hesitated once more, and then made up his mind. He went back to the bedside, and stooping a little lifted the body on his arms as though judging of its weight and of his power to carry it. His first instinct had been to lock the door of the room behind him, and to go up to the convent, leaving the dead girl where she was, whether he were destined to come back that night, or never. A moment's reflection had told him that if he did so he must certainly be accused of having poisoned her. He meant, if it were possible, to take Maria Addolorata on board of the English man-of-war at Civita Vecchia within twenty-four hours. So far as the carrying off of a nun was concerned, he would be safe on the ship; but if he were accused of murder, no matter how falsely, the captain would have a right to refuse his protection, even though he was Dalrymple's friend. A little chain of circumstances had led him to form a plan, in a flash, which, if successfully carried out, would account both for the disappearance of Annetta herself, and of Maria Addolorata as well. His eyelids contracted slightly, and his great jaw set itself with the determination to overcome all obstacles. In a few seconds he had divested the dead girl of her heavy bodice and skirt and carpet apron and heavy shoes. He rolled the things into a bundle, tossed them into the laboratory, locked the door of the latter, and stuck the key into his pocket. He carefully stopped the bottle containing the remainder of the prussiate of potassium, and took that also. Then he rolled the body up carefully in his great plaid, mummy-like, and tied the ends of the shawl with shoe-laces which he had among his things. He drew his soft hat firmly down upon his forehead, and threw his cloak over his left shoulder. He lifted the body off the bed. It was so stark that it stood upright beside him. With his right arm round its waist, he raised it so high that he could walk freely, and he drew his wide cloak over it as well as he could, and freed his left hand. He grasped the lamp as he passed the table, listened at the door, though he knew that the house was locked below, and he cautiously and with difficulty descended the stairs. Just inside the street door of the staircase there was a niche, as there is in almost all old Italian houses. He set the body in it, and went into the common room with the lamp. Taking the bottle with the laudanum in it from his pocket, he filled it more than half full of aniseed cordial, of which a decanter stood with other liquors upon a sideboard, as usual in such places. He returned it to his pocket, and listened again. Then he assured himself that he had all he needed--the bottle, money, his cloak, and a short, broad knife which he always took with him on his walks, more for the sake of cutting a loaf of bread if he stopped for refreshment than for any other purpose. His passport he had taken with his few other valuable papers from the box. He left the lamp on the table, and unlocked the street door, though he did not pull it open. Brave as he was, his heart beat fast, for it was the first decisive moment. If Sora Nanna should come home within the next sixty seconds, there would be trouble. But there was no sound. In the dark he went back to the door of the staircase, unlocked it, and opened it wide, looking out. The heavy clouds had so darkened the moonlight that he could hardly see. But the street was quiet, for it was late, and there were no watchmen in Subiaco at that time. A moment later, the door was closed behind him, and he was disappearing round the dark corner with Annetta's body in his arms, all wrapped with himself in his great cloak. It was a long and terrible climb. A weaker man would have fainted or given it up long before Dalrymple set his foot firmly upon the narrow beaten path which ran along between the garden wall at the back of the convent, and the precipitous descent on his left. The sweat ran down over his hard, pale face in the dark, as he shook off his cloak and laid down his ghastly burden under the deep shadow of the low postern. He shook his big shoulders and wiped his brow, and stretched out his long arms, doubling them and stretching them again, for they were benumbed and asleep with the protracted effort. But so far it was done, and no one had met him. There had been little chance of that, but he was glad, all the same. And if, down at the house, any one went to his room, nothing would be found. He had the key of the little laboratory in his pocket. It would be long before they broke down the door and found Annetta's skirt and bodice and shoes wrapped together in a corner. He went on up the ascent five minutes further, walking as though on air now that he carried no weight in his arms. At the top of the mule path the lad was already waiting for him with the mule. He told the little fellow that he might have to wait half an hour longer, as he must go into the convent to see the abbess before starting for Tivoli. He bid him tie the mule by the halter to the low branch of an overhanging fig-tree, and sit down to wait. "It is a cool night," said Dalrymple, though he was hot enough himself. "Drink this, my boy." He gave him the little bottle of aniseed, opening it as he did so. The boy smelt it and knew that it was good, for it is a common drink in the mountains. He drank half of it, pouring it into his mouth with a gurgling sound. "Drink it all," said Dalrymple. "I brought it for you." The boy did not hesitate, but drained it to the last drop, and handed the bottle back without a word. Dalrymple made him sit down near the mule's head, well aside from the path, in case any one should pass. He knew that between the unaccustomed dose of spirits and the thirty-five drops of opium, the lad would be sound asleep before long. For the rest, there was nothing to be done but to trust to luck. He had done the impossible already, so far as physical effort was concerned, but Fortune must not thwart him at the end. If she did, he had in his other pocket enough left of what had killed Annetta to settle his own affairs forever, and he might need it. At that moment he was absolutely desperate. It would be ill for any one who crossed his path that night. CHAPTER XVI. DALRYMPLE wrapped his cloak about him once more, as he turned away, and retraced his steps by the garden wall. He glanced at the long dark thing that lay in the shadow of the postern, as he went by. It was not probable that it would be noticed, even if any one should pass that way, which was unlikely, between ten o'clock at night and three in the morning. He went on without stopping, and in three or four minutes he had gone round the convent to the main entrance, next to the church. He rang the bell. The portress was expecting him, and he was admitted without a word. He found Maria Addolorata in the antechamber of the abbess's apartment, veiled, and standing with folded hands in the middle of the little hall. She must have heard the distant clang of the bell, for she was evidently waiting for him. "Am I in time?" he asked in a tone of anxiety. She shook her head slowly. "Is she dead?" "She was dead before I sent for you," answered Maria Addolorata, in a low and almost solemn tone. "No one knows it yet." "I feared so," said Dalrymple. He made a step towards the door of the parlour, naturally expecting that Maria would speak with him there, as usual. But she stepped back and placed herself in his way. "No," she said briefly. "Why not?" he asked in quick surprise. She raised her finger to her veiled lips, and then pointed to the other door, to warn him that the portress was there and was almost within hearing. With quick suspicion he understood that she was keeping him in the antechamber to defend herself, that she had not been able to resist the desire to see him once more, and that she intended this to be their last meeting. "Maria," he began, but he only pronounced her name, and stopped short, for a great fear took him by the throat. "Yes," she answered, in her calm, low voice. "I have made up my mind. I will not go. God will perhaps forgive me what I have done. I will pray for forgiveness. But I will not do more evil. I will not bring shame upon my father's house, even for love of you." Her voice trembled a little at the last words. Even veiled as she was, the vital magnetism of the man was creeping upon her already. She had resolved that she would see him once more, that she would tell him the plain truth that was right, that she would bid him farewell, and promise to pray for him, as she must pray for herself. But she had sworn to herself that she would not speak of love. Yet with the first words she spoke, the word and the vibration of love had come too. Her hands disappeared in her sleeves, and her nails pressed the flesh in the determination to be strong. She little guessed the tremendous argument he had in store. "It is hard to speak here," he said. "Let us go into the parlour." She shook her head, and again moved backwards a step, so that her shoulders were almost against the door. "You must say what you have to say here," she answered after a moment's pause, and she felt strong again. "For my part, I have spoken. May God forget me in my utmost need if I go with you." Dalrymple seemed little moved by the solemn invocation. It meant little enough to him. "I must tell you a short story," he replied quietly. "Unless I tell you, you cannot understand. I have set my life upon your love, and I have gone so far that I cannot save my life except by you--my life and my honour. Will you listen to me?" She nodded, and he heard her draw a quick breath. Then he began his story, putting it together clearly, from the facts he knew, in very few words. He told her how Annetta must have mistaken the bottle on his table for camphor, and how he had found her dead. Nothing would save him from the accusation of having murdered the girl but the absolute disappearance of her body. Maria shuddered and turned her head quickly when he told her that the body was lying under the postern arch behind the garden wall. He told her, too, that the boy was by this time asleep beside the mule on the path beyond. Then he told her of his plan, which was short, desperate, and masterly. "You must tell no one that the abbess is dead," he said. "Go out through your cell into the garden, as soon as I am gone, and when I tap at the postern open the door. Leave a lamp in your cell. I will do the rest." "What will you do?" asked Maria, in a low and wondering tone. "You must lock the door of your cell on the inside and leave the lamp there," said Dalrymple. "You will wait for me in the garden by the gate. I will carry the poor girl's body in and lay it in your bed. Then I will set fire to the bed itself. Of course there is an under-mattress of maize leaves--there always is. I will leave the lamp standing on the floor by the bedside. I will shut the door and come out to you, and I can manage to slip the bolt of the garden gate from the outside by propping up the spring from within. You shall see." "It is horrible!" gasped Maria. "And I do not see--" "It is simple, and nothing else can save my life. Your cell is of course a mere stone vault, and the fire cannot spread. The sisters are asleep, except the portress, who will be far away. Long before they break down your door, the body will be charred by the fire beyond all recognition. They will see the lamp standing close by, and will suppose that you lay down to rest, leaving the lamp close to you--too close; that the abbess died while you were asleep, and that you had caught fire before you waked; that you were burned to death, in fact. The body will be buried as yours, and you will be legally dead. Consequently there will not be the slightest suspicion upon your good name. As for me, it will be supposed that I have procured other clothes for Annetta, thrown hers into the laboratory and carried her off. In due time I will send her father a large sum of money without comment. If you refuse, I must either be arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death for the murder of a girl who killed herself without my knowledge, or, as is probable, I shall go out now, sit down in a quiet place, and be found dead in the morning. It is certain death to me in either case. It would be absolutely impossible for me to get rid of the dead body without arousing suspicion. If it is wrong to save oneself by burning a dead body, it is not a great wrong, and I take it upon myself. It is the only wrong in the matter, unless it is wrong to love you and to be willing to die for you. Do you understand me?" Leaning back against the door of the parlour, Maria Addolorata had almost unconsciously lifted her veil and was gazing into his eyes. The plan was horrible, but she could not help admiring the man's strength and daring. In his voice, even when he told her that he loved her, there was that quiet courage which imposes itself upon men and women alike. The whole situation was as clear as day to her in a moment, for all his calculations were absolutely correct,--the fire-proof vault of the cell, the certainty that the body would be taken for hers, above all, the assurance of her own supposed death, with the utter freedom from suspicion which it would mean for her ever afterwards. Was she not to be buried with Christian burial, mourned as dead, and freed in one hour from all the consequences of her life? It was masterly, though there was a horror in it. She loved him more than her own soul. It was the fear of bringing shame upon her father and mother that had held her, far more than any spiritual dread. It was not strange that she should waver again when he had unfolded his scheme. She turned, opened the door, and led him into the parlour, where the silver lamp was burning brightly. "You must tell it all again," she said, still standing. "I must be quite sure that I understand." He knew well enough that she had finally yielded, since she went so far. In his mind he quickly ran over the details of the plan once more, and mentally settled what still remained to be decided. But since she wished it, he went over all he had said already. Being able to speak in his natural voice without fear of being overheard by the portress, and feeling sure of the result, he spoke far more easily and more eloquently. Before he had finished he was holding her hand in his, and she was gazing intently into his eyes. "It is life or death for me," he said, when he had told her everything. "Which shall it be?" She was silent for a moment. Then her strong mouth smiled strangely. "It shall be life for you, if I lose my soul for it," she said. She felt the quick thrill and pressure of his hand, and all the man's tremendous energy was alive again. "Then let us do it quickly," he answered. "I will go out with the portress. Go to your cell before we reach the end of the corridor, and shut the door with some noise. She will remember it afterwards. Wait at the garden gate till I tap softly, and leave the rest to me. There is no danger. Do not be afraid." "Afraid!" she exclaimed proudly. "How little you know me! It never was fear that held me. Besides--with you!" The two last words told him more than all she had ever said before, and for the first time he wholly trusted her. Besides, it was to be only for a few minutes, while he went out by the front gate and walked round to the back of the convent. The plan was so well conceived that it could not fail when put into execution. They shook hands, as two people who have agreed to do a desperate deed, each for the other's sake. Then as their grasp loosened, Dalrymple turned towards the door, but turned again almost instantly and took her in his arms, and kissed her as men kiss women they love when their lives are in the balance. Then he went out, passed through the antechamber, and found the portress waiting for him as usual. She took up her little lamp and led the way in silence. A moment later he heard Maria come out and enter her cell, closing the door loudly behind her. "Her most reverend excellency is in no danger now," he said to the portress, with Scotch veracity. "Sister Maria Addolorata may then rest a little," answered the lay sister, who rarely spoke. "Precisely so," said Dalrymple, drily. Five minutes later he was at the garden gate, tapping softly. Immediately the door yielded to his gentle pressure, for Maria had already unfastened the lock within. "Stand aside a little," said Dalrymple, in a whisper. "You need not see--it is not a pretty sight. Keep the door shut till I come back. Where is your cell?" She pointed to a door that was open above the level of the garden. A little light came out. With womanly caution she had set the lamp in the corner behind the door when she had opened it, so as to show as little as possible from without. She turned her head away as he passed her with his heavy burden, treading softly upon the hard, dry ground. But he was not half across the garden before she looked after him. She could not help it. The dark thing he carried in his arms attracted her, and a shudder ran through her. She closed the gate, and stood with her hand on the lock. It seemed to her that he was gone an interminable time. Though the moon was now high, the clouds were so black that the garden was almost quite dark. Suddenly she heard his step, and he was nearer than she thought. "It is burning well," he said with grim brevity. He stooped and looked closely in the dimness at the old-fashioned lock. It was made as he supposed and could be easily slipped from without. He found a pebble under his foot, raised the spring, and placed the small stone under it, after examining the position of the cracks in the wood, which were many. "There is plenty of time, now," he said, and he gently pushed her out upon the narrow walk, drawing the door after him. With his big knife, working through the widest crack he teazed the bolt into the socket. Then with his shoulder he softly shook the whole door. He heard the spring fall into its place, as the pebble dropped upon the dry ground. "No human being can suspect that the door has been opened," he said. He wrapped her in his long cloak, standing beside her under the wall. Very gently he pushed the veil and bands away from her golden hair. She helped him, and he kissed the soft locks. Then about her head he laid his plaid in folds and drew it forward over her shoulders. She let him do it, not realizing what service the shawl had but lately done. They walked forward. The boy was fast asleep and did not move. The mule stamped a little as they came up. Dalrymple lifted Maria upon the pack-saddle, sideways, and stretched the packing-cords behind her back. "Hold on," he said. "I will lead the mule." [Illustration: "An evil death on you!"--Vol. I., p. 218.] So it was all over, and the deed was done, for good or evil. But it was for evil, for it was a bad deed. To the last, fortune favoured Dalrymple and Maria, and everything took place after their flight just as the strong man had anticipated. Not a trace of the truth was left behind. Early in the morning the abbess was found dead, and in the little cell near by, upon the still smouldering remains of the mattress, lay the charred and burned form of a woman. In Stefanone's house, the little bundle of clothes in the locked laboratory was all that was left of Annetta. All Subiaco said that the Englishman had carried off the peasant girl to his own country. Up at the convent the nuns buried the abbess in great state, with catafalque and canopy, with hundreds of wax candles and endless funeral singing. They buried also another body with less magnificence, but with more pomp than would have been bestowed upon any of the other sisters, and not long afterwards a marble tablet in the wall of the church set forth in short good Latin sentences, how the Sister Maria Addolorata, of many virtues, had been burned to death in her bed on the eve of the feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist, and all good Christians were enjoined to pray for her soul--which indeed was in need of their prayers. Stefanone returned from Rome, but it was a sad home-coming when he found that his daughter was gone, and unconsciously he repeated the very words she had last spoken when she was dying in Dalrymple's room all alone. "An evil death on you and all your house!" he said, shaking his fist at the door of the room. And Stefanone swore within himself solemnly that the Englishman should pay the price. And he and his paid it in full, and more also, after years had passed, even to generations then unborn. This is the first act, as it were, of all the story, and between this one and the beginning of the next a few years must pass quickly, if not altogether in silence. PART II. _GLORIA DALRYMPLE._ CHAPTER XVII. IN the year 1861 Donna Francesca Campodonico was already a widow. Her husband, Don Girolamo Campodonico, had died within two years of their marriage, which had been one of interest and convenience so far as he had been concerned, for Donna Francesca was rich, whereas he had been but a younger son and poor. His elder brother was the Duca di Norba, the father of another Girolamo, who succeeded him many years later, of Gianforte Campodonico, and of the beautiful Bianca, in whose short, sad life Pietro Ghisleri afterwards held so large a part. But of these latter persons, some were then not yet born, and others were in their infancy, so that they play no part in this portion of the present history. Donna Francesca was of the great Braccio family, the last of a collateral branch. She had inherited a very considerable estate, which, if she had no descendants, was to revert to the Princes of Gerano. She had married Don Girolamo in obedience to her guardians' advice, but not at all against her will, and she had become deeply attached to him during the short two years of their married life. He had never been strong, since his childhood, his constitution having been permanently injured by a violent attack of malarious fever when he had been a mere boy. A second fever, even more severe than the first, caught on a shooting expedition near Fiumicino, had killed him, and Donna Francesca was left a childless widow, in full possession of her own fortune and of a little more in the shape of a small jointure. It was thought that she would marry again before very long, but it was too soon to expect this as yet. Among her possessions as the last of her branch of the Braccio family, of which the main line, however, was sufficiently well represented, was the small but beautiful palace in which she now lived alone. It was situated between the Capitoline Hill and the Tiber, surrounded on three sides by dark and narrow streets, but facing a small square in which there was an ancient church. When it is said that the palace was a small one, its dimensions are compared with the great Roman palaces, more than one of which could easily lodge a thousand persons. It was built on the same general plan as most of them, with a ground floor having heavily barred windows; a state apartment in the first story, with three stone balconies on the front; a very low second story above that, but not coextensive with it, because two of the great state rooms were higher than the rest and had clere-story windows; and last of all, a third story consisting of much higher rooms than the second, and having a spacious attic under the sloping roof, which was, of course, covered with red tiles in the old fashion. The palace, at that time known as the Palazzo, or 'Palazzetto,' Borgia, was externally a very good specimen of Renascence architecture of the period when the florid, 'barocco' style had not yet got the upper hand in Rome. The great arched entrance for carriages was well proportioned, the stone carvings were severe rather than graceful, the cornices had great nobility both of proportion and design. The lower story was built of rough-faced blocks of travertine stone, above which the masonry was smooth. The whole palace was of that warm, time-toned colour, which travertine takes with age, and which is, therefore, peculiar to old Roman buildings. Within, though it could not be said that any part had exactly fallen to decay, there were many rooms which had been long disused, in which the old frescoes and architectural designs in grey and white, and bits of bold perspective painted in the vaults and embrasures, were almost obliterated by time, and in which such furniture as there was could not survive much longer. About one-half of the state apartment, comprising, perhaps, fifteen or twenty rooms, large and small, had been occupied by Donna Francesca and her husband, and she now lived in them alone. In that part of the palace there was a sort of quiet and stately luxury, the result of her own taste, which was strongly opposed to the gaudy fashions then introduced from Paris at the height of the Second Empire's importance. Girolamo Campodonico had been aware that his young wife's judgment was far better than his own in artistic matters, and had left all such questions entirely to her. She had taken much pleasure in unearthing from attics and disused rooms all such objects as possessed any intrinsic artistic value, such as old carved furniture, tapestries, and the like. Whatever she found worth keeping she had caused to be restored just so far as to be useful, and she had known how to supply the deficiencies with modern material in such a way as not to destroy the harmony of the whole. It should be sufficiently clear from these facts that Donna Francesca Campodonico was a woman of taste and culture, in the modern sense. Indeed, the satisfaction of her tastes occupied a much more important place in her existence than her social obligations, and had a far greater influence upon her subsequent life. Her favourite scheme was to make her palace at all points as complete within as its architect had made it outside, and she had it in her power to succeed in doing so. She was not, as some might think, a great exception in those days. Within the narrow limits of a certain class, in which the hereditary possession of masterpieces has established artistic intelligence as a stamp of caste, no people, until recently, have had a better taste than the Italians; as no people, beyond these limits, have ever had a worse. There was nothing very unusual in Donna Francesca's views, except her constant and industrious energy in carrying them out. Even this might be attributed to the fact that she had inherited a beautiful but dilapidated palace, which she was desirous of improving until, on a small scale, it should be like the houses of the great old families, such as the Saracinesca, the Savelli, the Frangipani, and her own near relatives, the Princes of Gerano. She had an invaluable ally in her artistic enterprises in the person of an artist, who, in a sort of way, was considered as belonging to Casa Braccio, though his extraordinary talent had raised him far above the position of a dependent of the family, in which he had been born as the son of the steward of the ancient castle and estate of Gerano. As constantly happened in those days, the clever boy had been noticed by the Prince,--or, perhaps, thrust into notice by his father, who was reasonably proud of him. The lad had been taken out of his surroundings and thoroughly educated for the priesthood in Rome, but by the time he had attained to the age necessary for ordination, his artistic gifts had developed to such an extent that in spite of his father's disappointment, even the old Prince--the brother of Sister Maria Addolorata--advised Angelo Reanda to give up the Church, and to devote himself altogether to painting. Young Reanda had been glad enough of the change in his prospects. Many eminent Italians have begun life in a similar way. Cardinal Antonelli was not the only one, for there have been Italian prime ministers as well as dignitaries of the Church, whose origin was as humble and who owed their subsequent distinction to the kindly interest bestowed on them by nobles on whose estates their parents were mere peasants, very far inferior in station to Angelo Reanda's father, a man of a certain education, occupying a position of trust and importance. Nor was Reanda's priestly education anything but an advantage to him, so far as his career was concerned, however much it had raised him above the class in which he had been born. So far as latinity and rhetoric were to be counted he was better educated than his father's master; for with the same advantages he had greater talents, greater originality, and greater industry. As an artist, his mental culture made him the intellectual superior of most of his contemporaries. As a man, ten years of close association with the sons of gentlemen had easily enough made a gentleman of one whose instincts were naturally as refined as his character was sensitive and upright. Donna Francesca, as the last of her branch of the family and an orphan at an early age, had of course been brought up in the house of her relatives of Gerano, and from her childhood had known Reanda's father, and Angelo himself, who was fully ten years older than she. Some of his first paintings had been done in the great Braccio palace, and many a time, as a mere girl, she had watched him at his work, perched upon a scaffolding, as he decorated the vault of the main hall. She could not remember the time when she had not heard him spoken of as a young genius, and she could distinctly recall the discussion which had taken place when his fate had been decided for him, and when he had been at last told that he might become an artist if he chose. At that time she had looked upon him with a sort of wondering admiration in which there was much real friendly feeling, and as she grew up and saw what he could do, and learned to appreciate it, she silently determined that he should one day help her to restore the dilapidated Palazzetto Borgia, where her father and mother had died in her infancy, and which she loved with that sort of tender attachment which children brought up by distant relations often feel for whatever has belonged to their own dimly remembered parents. There was a natural intimacy between the young girl and the artist. Long ago she had played at ball with him in the great courtyard of the Gerano castle, when he had been at home for his holidays, wearing a black cassock and a three-cornered hat, like a young priest. Then, all at once, instead of a priest he had been a painter, dressed like other men and working in the house in which she lived. She had played with his colours, had scrawled with his charcoals upon the white plastered walls, had asked him questions, and had talked with him about the famous pictures in the Braccio gallery. And all this had happened not once, but many times in the course of years. Then she had unfolded to him her schemes about her own little palace, and he had promised to help her, by and bye, half jesting, half in earnest. She would give him rooms in the upper story to live in, she said, disposing of everything beforehand. He should be close to his work, and have it under his hand always until it was finished. And when there was no more to do, he might still live there and have his studio at the top of the old house, with an entrance of his own, leading by a narrow staircase to one of the dark streets at the back. She had noticed all sorts of peculiarities of the building in her occasional visits to it with the governess,--as, for instance, that there was a convenient interior staircase leading from the great hall to the upper story, by a door once painted like the wall, and hard to find, but now hanging on its hinges and hideously apparent. The great hall must all be painted again, and Angelo could live overhead and come down to his work by those steps. With childish pleasure she praised her own ingenuity in so arranging matters beforehand. Angelo was to help her in all she did, until the Palazzetto Borgia should be as beautiful as the Palazzo Braccio itself, though of course it was much smaller. Then she scrawled on the walls again, trying to explain to him, in childishly futile sketches, her ideas of decoration, and he would come down from his scaffold and do his best with a few broad lines to show her what she had really imagined, till she clapped her small, dusty hands with delight and was ultimately carried off by her governess to be made presentable for her daily drive in the Villa Borghese with the Princess of Gerano. As a girl Francesca had the rare gift of seeing clearly in her mind what she wanted, and at last she had found herself possessed of the power to carry out her intentions. As a matter of course she had taken Reanda into her confidence as her chief helper, and the intimacy which dated from her childhood had continued on very much the same footing. His talent had grown and been consolidated by ten years of good work, and she, as a young married woman, had understood what she had meant when she had been a child. Reanda was now admittedly, in his department, the first painter in Rome, and that was fame in those days. His high education and general knowledge of all artistic matters made him an interesting companion in such work as Francesca had undertaken, and he had, moreover, a personal charm of manner and voice which had always attracted her. No one, perhaps, would have called him a handsome man, and at this time he was no longer in his first youth. He was tall, thin, and very dark, though his black beard had touches of a deep gold-brown colour in it, which contrasted a little with his dusky complexion. He had a sad face, with deep, lustreless, thoughtful eyes, which seemed to peer inward rather than outward. In the olive skin there were heavy brown shadows, and the bony prominence of the brow left hollows at the temples, from which the fine black hair grew with a backward turn which gave something unusual to his expression. The aquiline nose which characterizes so many Roman faces, was thin and delicate, with sensitive nostrils that often moved when he was speaking. The eyebrows were irregular and thick, extending in a dark down beyond the lower angles of the forehead, and almost meeting between the eyes; but the somewhat gloomy expression which this gave him was modified by a certain sensitive grace of the mouth, little hidden by the thin black moustache or by the beard, which did not grow up to the lower lip, though it was thick and silky from the chin downwards. It was a thoughtful face, but there was creative power in the high forehead, as there was direct energy in the long arms and lean, nervous hands. Donna Francesca liked to watch him at his work, as she had watched him when she was a little girl. Now and then, but very rarely, the lustreless eyes lighted up, just before he put in some steady, determining stroke which brought out the meaning of the design. There was a quick fire in them then, at the instant when the main idea was outwardly expressed, and if she spoke to him inadvertently at such a moment, he never answered her at once, and sometimes forgot to answer her at all. For his art was always first with him. She knew it, and she liked him the better for it. The intimacy between the great lady and the artist was, indeed, founded upon this devotion of his to his painting, but it was sustained by a sort of community of interests extending far back into darker ages, when his forefathers had been bondsmen to her ancestors in the days of serfdom. He had grown up with the clearly defined sensation of belonging with, if not to, the house of Braccio. His father had been a trusty and trusted dependent of the family, and he had imbibed as a mere child its hereditary likes and dislikes, its traditions wise and foolish, together with an indomitable pride in its high fortunes and position in the world. And Francesca herself was a true Braccio, though she was descended from a collateral branch, and, next to the Prince of Gerano, had been to Reanda by far the most important person bearing the name. She had admired him when she had been a child, had encouraged him as she grew up, and now she provided his genius with employment, and gave him her friendship as a solace and delight both in work and idleness. It is said that only Italians can be admitted to such a position with the certainty that they will not under any circumstances presume upon it. To Angelo Reanda it meant much more than to most men who could have been placed as he was. His genius raised him far above the class in which he had been born, and his education, with his natural and acquired refinement, placed him on a higher level than the majority of other Roman artists, who, in the Rome of that day, inhabited a Bohemia of their own which has completely disappeared. Their ideas and conversation, when they were serious, interested him, but their manners were not his, and their gaiety was frankly distasteful to him. He associated with them as an artist, but not as a companion, and he particularly disliked their wives and daughters, who, in their turn, found him too 'serious' for their society, to use the time-honoured Italian expression. Nevertheless, his natural gentleness of disposition made him treat them all alike with quiet courtesy, and when, as often happened, he was obliged to be in their company, he honestly endeavoured to be one of them as far as he could. On the other hand, he had no footing in the society to which Francesca belonged, but for which she cared so little. There were, indeed, one or two houses where he was received, as he was at Casa Braccio, in a manner which, for the very reason that it was familiar, proved his social inferiority--where he addressed the head of the house as 'Excellency' and was called 'Reanda' by everybody, elders and juniors alike, where he was appreciated as an artist, respected as a man, and welcomed occasionally as a guest when no other outsider was present, but where he was not looked upon as a personage to be invited even with the great throng on state occasions. He was as far from receiving such cold acknowledgments of social existence as those who received them and nothing else were distantly removed from intimacy on an equal footing. He did not complain of such treatment, nor even inwardly resent it. The friendliness shown him was as real as the kindness he had received throughout his early youth from the Prince of Gerano, and he was not the man to undervalue it because he had not a drop of gentle blood in his veins. But his refined nature craved refined intercourse, and preferred solitude to what he could get in any lower sphere. The desire for the atmosphere of the uppermost class, rather than the mere wish to appear as one of its members, often belongs to the artistic temperament, and many artists are unjustly disliked by their fellows and pointed at as snobs because they prefer, as an atmosphere, inane elegance to inelegant intellectuality. It is often forgotten by those who calumniate them that hereditary elegance, no matter how empty-headed, is the result of an hereditary cultivation of what is thought beautiful, and that the vainest, silliest woman who dresses well by instinct is an artist in her way. In Francesca Campodonico there was much more than such superficial taste, and in her Reanda found the only true companion he had ever known. He might have been for twenty years the intimate friend of all Roman society without meeting such another, and he knew it, and appreciated his good fortune. For he was not naturally a dissatisfied man, nor at all given to complain of his lot. Few men are, who have active, creative genius, and whose profession gives them all the scope they need. Of late years, too, Francesca had treated him with a sort of deference which he got from no one else in the world. He realized that she did, without attempting to account for the fact, which, indeed, depended on something past his comprehension. He felt for her something like veneration. The word does not express exactly the attitude of his mind towards her, but no other defines his position so well. He was not in love with her in the Italian sense of the expression, for he did not conceive it possible that she should ever love him, whereas he told himself that he might possibly marry, if he found a wife to his taste, and be in love with his wife without in the least infringing upon his devotion to Donna Francesca. That she was young and lovely, if not beautiful, he saw and knew. He even admitted unconsciously that if she had been an old woman he could not have 'venerated' her as he did, though veneration, as such, is the due of the old rather than of the young. Her spiritual eyes and virginal face were often before him in his dreams and waking thoughts. There was a maidenlike modesty, as it were, even about her graceful bodily self, which belonged, in his imagination, to a saint upon an altar, rather than to a statue upon a pedestal. There was something in the sweep of her soft dark brown hair which suggested that it would be sacrilege and violence for a man's hand to touch it. There was a dewy delicacy on her young lips, as though they could kiss nothing more earthly than a newly opened flower, already above the earth, but not yet touched by the sun. There was a thoughtful turn of modelling in the smooth, white forehead, which it was utterly beyond Reanda's art to reproduce, often as he had tried. He thought a great sculptor might succeed, and it was the one thing which made him sometimes wish that he had taken the chisel for his tool, instead of the brush. She was never considered one of the great beauties of Rome. She had not the magnificent presence and colouring of her kinswoman, Maria Addolorata, whose tragic death in the convent of Subiaco--a fictitious tragedy accepted as real by all Roman society--had given her a special place in the history of the Braccio family. She had not the dark and queenly splendour of Corona d'Astradente, her contemporary and the most beautiful woman of her time. But she had, for those who loved her, something which was quite her own and which placed her beyond them in some ways and, in any case, out of competition for the homage received by the great beauties. No one recognized this more fully than Angelo Reanda, and he would as soon have thought of being in love with her, as men love women, as he would have imagined that his father, for instance, could have loved Maria Addolorata, the Carmelite nun. The one human point in his devoted adoration lay in his terror lest Francesca Campodonico should die young and leave him to grow old without her. He sometimes told her so. "You should marry," she answered one day, when they were together in the great hall which he was decorating. She was still dressed in black, and as she spoke, he turned and saw the outline of her small pure face against the high back of the old chair in which she was sitting. It was so white just then that he fancied he saw in it that fatal look which belonged to some of the Braccio family, and which was always spoken of as having been one of Maria Addolorata's chief characteristics. He looked at her long and sadly, leaning against an upright of his scaffolding as he stood on the floor near her, holding his brushes in his hand. "I do not think I shall ever marry," he answered at last, looking down and idly mixing two colours on his palette. "Why not?" she asked quickly. "I have heard you say that you might, some day." "Some day, some day--and then, all at once, the 'some day' is past, and is not any more in the future. Why should I marry? I am well enough as I am; there would only be unhappiness." "Do you think that every one who marries must be unhappy?" she asked. "You are cynical. I did not know it." "No. I am not cynical. I say it only of myself. There are many reasons. I could not marry such a woman as I should wish to have for my wife. You must surely understand that. It is very easy to understand." He made as though he would go up the ladder to his little platform and continue his work. But she stopped him. "What is the use of hurting your eyes?" she asked. "It is late, and the light is bad. Besides, I am not so sure that I understand what you mean, though you say that it is so easy. We have never talked about it much." He laid his palette and brushes upon a ragged straw chair and sat down upon another, not far from her. There was no other furniture in the great vaulted hall, and the brick pavement was bare, and splashed in many places with white plaster. Fresco-painting can only be done upon stucco just laid on, while it is still moist, and a mason came early every day and prepared as much of the wall as Reanda could cover before night. If he did not paint over the whole surface, the remainder was chipped away and freshly laid over on the following morning. The evening light already reddened the tall western windows, for it was autumn, and the days were shortening quickly. Reanda knew that he could not do much more, and sat down, to answer Francesca's question, if he could. "I am not a gentleman, as you understand the word," he said slowly. "And yet I am certainly not of the class to which my father belonged. My position is not defined. I could not marry a woman of your class, and I should not care to marry one of any other. That is all. Is it not clear?" "Yes," answered Francesca. "It is clear enough. But--" She checked herself, and he looked into her face, expecting her to continue. But she said nothing more. "You were going to find an objection to what I said," he observed. "No; I was not. I will say it, for you will understand me. What you tell me is true enough, and I am sorry that it should be so. Is it not to some extent my fault?" "Your fault?" cried Reanda, leaning forward and looking into her eyes. "How? I do not understand." "I blame myself," answered Francesca, quietly. "I have kept you out of the world, perhaps, and in many ways. Here you live, day after day, as though nothing else existed for you. In the morning, long before I am awake, you come down your staircase through that door, and go up that ladder, and work, and work, and work, all day long, until it is dark, as you have worked to-day, and yesterday, and for months. And when you might and should be out of doors, or associating with other people, as just now, I sit and talk to you and take up all your leisure time. It is wrong. You ought to see more of other men and women. Do men of genius never marry? It seems to me absurd!" "Genius!" exclaimed Reanda, shaking his head sadly. "Do not use the word of me." "I will do as other people do," answered Francesca. "But that is not the question. The truth is that you live pent up in this old house, like a bird in a cage. I want you to spread your wings." "To go away for a time?" asked Reanda, anxiously. "I did not say that. Perhaps I should. Yes, if you could enjoy a journey, go away--for a time." She spoke with some hesitation and rather nervously, for he had said more than she had meant to propose. "Just to make a change," she added, after a moment's pause, as he said nothing. "You ought to see more of other people, as I said. You ought to mix with the world. You ought at least to offer yourself the chance of marrying, even if you think that you might not find a wife to your taste." "If I do not find one here--" He did not complete the sentence, but smiled a little. "Must you marry a Roman princess?" she asked. "What should you say to a foreigner? Is that impossible, too?" "It would matter little where she came from, if I wished to marry her," he answered. "But I like my life as it is. Why should I try to change it? I am happy as I am. I work, and I enjoy working. I work for you, and you are satisfied. It seems to me that there is nothing more to be said. Why are you so anxious that I should marry?" Donna Francesca laughed softly, but without much mirth. "Because I think that in some way it is my fault if you have not married," she said. "And besides, I was thinking of a young girl whom I met, or rather, saw, the other day, and who might please you. She has the most beautiful voice in the world, I think. She could make her fortune as a singer, and I believe she wishes to try it. But her father objects. They are foreigners--English or Scotch--it is the same. She is a mere child, they say, but she seems to be quite grown up. There is something strange about them. He is a man of science, I am told, but I fancy he is one of those English enthusiasts about Italian liberty. His name is Dalrymple." "What a name!" Reanda laughed. "I suppose they have come to spend the winter in Rome," he added. "Not at all. I hear that they have lived here for years. But one never meets the foreigners, unless they wish to be in society. His wife died young, they say, and this girl is his only daughter. I wish you could hear her sing!" "For that matter, I wish I might," said Reanda, who was passionately fond of music. CHAPTER XVIII. SEVENTEEN years had scored their account on Angus Dalrymple's hard face, and one great sorrow had set an even deeper mark upon him--a sorrow so deep and so overwhelming that none had ever dared to speak of it to him. And he was not the man to bear any affliction resignedly, to feed on memory, and find rest in the dreams of what had been. Sullenly and fiercely rebellious against his fate, he went down life, rather than through it, savage and silent, for the most part, Nero-like in his wish that he could end the world at a single blow, himself and all that lived. Yet it was characteristic of the man that he had not chosen suicide as a means of escape, as he would have done in his earlier years, if Maria Addolorata had failed him. It seemed cowardly now, and he had never done anything cowardly in his life. Through his grief the sense of responsibility had remained with him, and had kept him alive. He looked upon his existence not as a state from which he had a right to escape, but as a personal enemy to be fought with, to be despised, to be ill-treated barbarously, perhaps, but still as an enemy to murder whom in cold blood would be an act of cowardice. There was little more than the mere sense of the responsibility, for he did little enough to fulfil his obligations. His wife had borne him a daughter, but it was not in Angus Dalrymple's nature to substitute one being in his heart for another. He could not love the girl simply because her mother was dead. He could only spoil her, with a rough idea that she should be spared all suffering as much as possible, but that if he gave her what she wanted, he had done all that could be expected of him. For the rest, he lived his own life. He had a good intelligence and superior gifts, together with considerable powers of intellectual acquisition. He had believed in his youth that he was destined to make great discoveries, and his papers afterwards showed that he was really on the track of great and new things. But with his bereavement, all ambition as well as all curiosity disappeared in one day from his character. Since then he had never gone back to his studies, which disgusted him and seemed stale and flat. He grew rudely dogmatical when scientific matters were discussed before him, as he had become rough, tyrannical, and almost violent in his ordinary dealings with the world, whenever he found any opposition to his opinions or his will. The only exception he made was in his treatment of his daughter, whom he indulged in every way except in her desire to be a public singer. It seemed to him that to give her everything she wanted was to fulfil all his obligations to her; in the one question of appearing on the stage he was inflexible. He simply refused to hear of it, rarely giving her any reasons beyond the ordinary ones which present themselves in such cases, and which were far from answering the impulse of the girl's genius. They had called her Gloria in the days of their passionate happiness. The sentimental name had meant a great deal to them, for Dalrymple had at that time developed that sort of uncouth sentimentality which is in strong men like a fungus on an oak, and disgusts them afterwards unless they are able to forget it. The two had felt that the glory of life was in the child, and they had named her for it, as it were. Years afterwards Dalrymple brought the little girl to Rome, drawn back irresistibly to the place by that physical association of impressions which moves such men strongly. They had remained, keeping from year to year a lodging Dalrymple had hired, at first hired for a few months. He never went to Subiaco. He gave Gloria teachers, the best that could be found, and there were good instructors in those days when people were willing to take time in learning. In music she had her mother's voice and talent. Her father gave her a musician's opportunities, and it was no wonder that she should dream of conquering Europe from behind the footlights as Grisi had done, and as Patti was just about to do in her turn. She and her father spoke English together, but Gloria was bilingual, as children of mixed marriages often are, speaking English and Italian with equal ease. Dalrymple found a respectable middle-aged German governess who came daily and spent most of the day with Gloria, teaching her and walking with her--worshipping her, too, with that curious faculty for idealizing the very human, which belongs to German governesses when they like their pupils. Dalrymple led his own life. Had he chosen to mix in Roman society, he would have been well received, as a member of a great Scotch family and not very far removed from the head of his house. No one of his relatives had ever known the truth about his wife except his father, who had died with the secret, and it was not likely that any one should ask questions. If any one did, he would certainly not satisfy such curiosity. But he cared little for society, and spent his time either alone with books and wine, or in occasional excursions into the artist world, where his eccentricities excited little remark, and where he met men who secretly sympathized with the Italian revolutionary movement, and dabbled in conspiracies which rather amused than disquieted the papal government. Though Gloria was at that time but little more than sixteen years of age, her father took her with him to little informal parties at the studios or even at the houses of artists, where there was often good music, and clever if not serious conversation. The conventionalities of age were little regarded in such circles. Gloria appeared, too, much older than she really was, and her marvellous voice made her a centre of attraction at an age when most young girls are altogether in the background. Dalrymple never objected to her singing on such occasions, and he invariably listened with closed eyes and folded hands, as though he were assisting at a religious service. Her voice was like her mother's, excepting that it was pitched higher, and had all the compass and power necessary for a great soprano. Dalrymple's almost devout attitude when Gloria was singing was the only allusion, if one may call it so, which he ever made to his dead wife's existence, and no one who watched him knew what it meant. But he was often more silent than usual after she had sung, and he sometimes went off by himself afterwards and sat for hours in one of the old wine cellars near the Capitol, drinking gloomily of the oldest and strongest he could find. For he drank more or less perpetually in the evening, and wine made him melancholic and morose, though it did not seem to affect him otherwise. Little by little, however, it was dulling the early keenness of his intellect, though it hardly touched his constitution at all. He was lean and bony still, as in the old days, but paler in the face, and he had allowed his red beard to grow. It was streaked with grey, and there were small, nervous lines about his eyes, as well as deep furrows on his forehead and face. Dalrymple had found in the artist world a man who was something of a companion to him at times,--a very young man, whom he could not understand, though his own dogmatic temper made him as a rule believe that he understood most things and most men. But this particular individual alternately puzzled, delighted, and irritated the nervous Scotchman. They had made acquaintance at an artists' supper in the previous year, had afterwards met accidentally at the bookseller's in the Piazza di Spagna, where they both went from time to time to look at the English newspapers, and little by little they had fallen into the habit of meeting there of a morning, and of strolling in the direction of Dalrymple's lodging afterwards. At last Dalrymple had asked his companion to come in and look at a book, and so the acquaintance had grown. Gloria watched the young stranger, and at first she disliked him. The aforesaid bookseller dealt, and deals still, in photographs and prints, as well as in foreign and Italian books. At the present time his establishment is distinctively a Roman Catholic one. In those days it was almost the only one of its kind, and was patronized alike by Romans and foreigners. Even Donna Francesca Campodonico went there from time to time for a book on art or an engraving which she and Reanda needed for their work. They occasionally walked all the way from the Palazzetto Borgia to the Piazza di Spagna together in the morning. When they had found what they wanted, Donna Francesca generally drove home in a cab, and Reanda went to his midday meal before returning. For the line of his intimacy with her was drawn at this point. He had never sat down at the same table with her, and he never expected to do so. As the two stood to one another at present, though Francesca would willingly have asked him to breakfast, she would have hesitated to do so, merely because the first invitation would inevitably call attention to the fact that the line had been drawn somewhere, whereas both were willing to believe that it had never existed at all. Under any pressure of necessity she would have driven with him in a cab, but not in her own carriage. They both knew it, and by tacit consent never allowed such unknown possibilities to suggest themselves. But in the mornings, there was nothing to prevent their walking together as far as the Piazza di Spagna, or anywhere else. They went to the bookseller's one day soon after the conversation which had led Francesca to mention the Dalrymples. As they walked along the east side of the great square, they saw two men before them. "There goes the Gladiator," said Reanda to his companion, suddenly. "There is no mistaking his walk, even at this distance." "What do you mean?" asked Francesca. "Unless I am mistaken, the man who is a little the taller, the one in the rough English clothes, is Mr. Dalrymple. I spoke of him the other day, you know." "Oh! Is that he? The other has a still more extraordinary name. He is Paul Griggs. He is the son of an American consul who died in Civita Vecchia twenty years ago, and left him a sort of waif, for he had no money and apparently no relatives. Somehow he has grown up, Heaven knows how, and gets a living by journalism. I believe he was at sea for some years as a boy. He is really as much Italian as American. I have met him with artists and literary people." "Why do you call him the Gladiator?" asked Francesca, with some interest. "It is a nickname he has got. Cotogni, the sculptor, was in despair for a model last year. Griggs and two or three other men were in the studio, and somebody suggested that Griggs was very near the standard of the ancients in his proportions. They persuaded him to let them measure him. You know that in the 'Canons' of proportion, the Borghese Gladiator--the one in the Louvre--is given as the best example of an athlete. They measured Griggs then and there, and found that he was at all points the exact living image of the statue. The name has stuck to him. You see what a fellow he is, and how he walks." "Yes, he looks strong," said Francesca, watching the man with natural curiosity. The young American was a little shorter than Dalrymple, but evidently better proportioned. No one could fail to notice the vast breadth of shoulder, the firm, columnar throat, and the small athlete's head with close-set ears. He moved without any of that swinging motion of the upper part of the body which is natural to many strong men and was noticeable in Dalrymple, but there was something peculiar in his walk, almost undefinable, but conveying the idea of very great strength with very great elasticity. "But he is an ugly man," observed Reanda, almost immediately. "Ugly, but not repulsive. You will see, if he turns his head. His face is like a mask. It is not the face you would expect with such a body." "How curious!" exclaimed Francesca, rather idly, for her interest in Paul Griggs was almost exhausted. They went on along the crowded pavement. When they reached the bookseller's and went in, they saw that the two men were there before them, looking over the foreign papers, which were neatly arranged on a little table apart. Dalrymple looked up and recognized Francesca, to whom he had been introduced at a small concert given for a charity in a private house, on which occasion Gloria had sung. He lifted his hat from his head and laid it down upon the newspapers, when Francesca rather unexpectedly held out her hand to him in English fashion. He had left a card at her house on the day after their meeting, but as she was alone in the world, she had no means of returning the civility. "It would give me great pleasure if you would bring your daughter to see me," she said graciously. "You are very kind," answered Dalrymple, his steely blue eyes scrutinizing her pure young features. She only glanced at him, for she was suddenly conscious that his companion was looking at her. He, too, had laid down his hat, and she instantly understood what Reanda had meant by comparing his face to a mask. The features were certainly very far from handsome. If they were redeemed at all, it was by the very deep-set eyes, which gazed into hers in a strangely steady way, as though the lids never could droop from under the heavy overhanging brow, and then, still unwinking, turned in another direction. The man's complexion was of that perfectly even but almost sallow colour which often belongs to very strong melancholic temperaments. His face was clean-shaven and unnaturally square and expressionless, excepting for such life as there was in the deep eyes. Dark, straight, closely cut hair grew thick and smooth as a priest's skull-cap, low on the forehead and far forward at the temples. The level mouth, firmly closed, divided the lower part of the face like the scar of a straight sabre-cut. The nose was very thick between the eyes, relatively long, with unusually broad nostrils which ran upward from the point to the lean cheeks. The man wore very dark clothes of extreme simplicity, and at a time when pins and chains were much in fashion, he had not anything visible about him of gold or silver. He wore his watch on a short, doubled piece of black silk braid slipped through his buttonhole. He dressed almost as though he were in mourning. Francesca unconsciously looked at him so intently for a moment that Dalrymple thought it natural to introduce him, fancying that she might have heard of him and might wish to know him out of curiosity. "May I introduce Mr. Griggs?" he said, with the stiff inclination which was a part of his manner. Griggs bowed, and Donna Francesca bent her head a little. Reanda came up and shook hands with the American, and Francesca introduced the artist to Dalrymple. "I have long wished to have the pleasure of knowing you, Signor Reanda," said the latter. "We have many mutual acquaintances among the artists here. I may say that I am a great admirer of your work, and my daughter, too, for that matter." Reanda said something civil as his hand parted from the Scotchman's. Francesca saw an opportunity of bringing Reanda and Gloria together. "As you like Signor Reanda's painting so much," she said to Dalrymple, "will you not bring your daughter this afternoon to see the frescoes he is doing in my house? You know the Palazzetto? Of course--you left a card, but I had no one to return it," she added rather sadly. "Will you also come, Mr. Griggs?" she asked, turning to the American. "It will give me much pleasure, and I see you know Signor Reanda. This afternoon, if you like, at any time after four o'clock." Both Dalrymple and Griggs secretly wondered a little at receiving such an invitation from a Roman lady whom the one had met but once before, and to whom the other had but just been introduced. But they bowed their thanks, and promised to come. After a few more words they separated, Francesca and Reanda to pick out the engraving they wanted, and the other two men to return to their newspapers. By and bye Francesca passed them again, on her way out. "I shall expect you after four o'clock," she said, nodding graciously as she went by. Dalrymple looked after her, till she had left the shop. "That woman is not like other women, I think," he said thoughtfully, to his companion. The mask-like face turned itself deliberately towards him, with shadowy, unwinking eyes. "No," answered Griggs, and he slowly took up his paper again. CHAPTER XIX. DONNA FRANCESCA received her three guests in the drawing-room, on the side of the house which she inhabited. Reanda was at his work in the great hall. Gloria entered first, followed closely by her father, and Francesca was dazzled by the young girl's brilliancy of colour and expression, though she had seen her once before. As she came in, the afternoon sun streamed upon her face and turned her auburn hair to red gold, and gleamed upon her small white teeth as her strong lips parted to speak the first words. She was tall and supple, graceful as a panther, and her voice rang and whispered and rang again in quick changes of tone, like a waterfall in the woods in summer. With much of her mother's beauty, she had inherited from her father the violent vitality of his youth. Yet she was not noisy, though her manners were not like Francesca's. Her voice rippled and rang, but she did not speak too loud. She moved swiftly and surely, but not with rude haste. Nevertheless, it seemed to Francesca that there must be some exaggeration somewhere. The elder woman at first set it down as a remnant of schoolgirl shyness, and then at once felt that she was mistaken, because there was not the smallest awkwardness nor lack of self-possession about it. The contrast between the young girl and Paul Griggs was so striking as to be almost violent. He was cold and funereal in his leonine strength, and his face was more like a mask than ever as he bowed and sat down in silence. When he did not remind her of a gladiator, he made her think of a black lion with a strange, human face, and eyes that were not exactly human, though they did not remind her of any animal's eyes which she had ever seen. As for Dalrymple, she thought that he was singularly haggard and worn for a man apparently only in middle age. There was a certain imposing air about him, which she liked. Besides, she rarely met foreigners, and they interested her. She noticed that both men wore black coats and carried their tall hats in their hands. They were therefore not artists, nor to be classed with artists. She was still young enough to judge them to some extent by details, to which people attached a good deal more importance at that time than at present. She made up her mind in the course of the next few minutes that both Dalrymple and Griggs belonged to her own class, though she did not ask herself where the young American had got his manners. But somehow, though Gloria fascinated her eyes and her ears, she set down the girl as being inferior to her father. She wondered whether Gloria's mother had not been an actress; which was a curious reflexion, considering that the dead woman had been of her own house and name. After exchanging a few words with her guests, Francesca suggested that they should cross to the other side and see the frescoes, adding that Reanda was probably still at work. "You know him, Mr. Griggs?" she said, as they all rose to leave the room. "Yes," he answered, "as one man knows another." "What does that mean?" asked Francesca, moving towards the door to lead the way. "It does not mean much," replied the young man, with curious ambiguity. He was very gentle in his manner, and spoke in a low voice and rather diffidently. She looked at him as though mentally determining to renew the question at some other time. Her first impression was that of a sort of duality about the man, as she found the possibility of a double meaning in his answer. His magnificent frame seemed to belong to one person, his voice and manner to another. Both might be good in their way, but her curiosity was excited by the side which was the less apparent. They all went through the house till they came to a door which divided the inhabited part from the hall in which Reanda was working. She knocked gently upon it with her knuckles, and then smiled as she saw Gloria looking at her. "We keep it locked," she said. "The masons come in the morning to lay on the stucco. One never trusts those people. Signor Reanda keeps the key of this door." The artist opened from within, and stood aside to let the party pass. He started perceptibly when he first saw Gloria. As a boy he had seen Maria Braccio more than once before she had entered the convent, and he was struck by the girl's strong resemblance to her. Francesca, following Gloria, saw his movement of surprise, and attributed it merely to admiration or astonishment such as she had felt herself a quarter of an hour earlier. She smiled a little as she went by, and Reanda knew that the smile was for him because he had shown surprise. He understood the misinterpretation, and resented it a little. But she knew Reanda well, and before ten minutes had passed she had convinced herself that he was repelled rather than attracted by the young girl, in spite of the latter's undisguised admiration of his work. It was not mere unintelligent enthusiasm, either, and he might well have been pleased and flattered by her unaffected praise. She was interested, too, in the technical mechanics of fresco-painting, which she had never before been able to see at close quarters. Everything interested Gloria, and especially everything connected with art. As soon as they had all spoken their first words of compliment and appreciation, she entered into conversation with the painter, asking him all sorts of questions, and listening earnestly to what he said, until he realized that she was certainly not assuming an appearance of admiration for the sake of flattering him. Meanwhile Francesca talked with Griggs, and Dalrymple, having gone slowly round the hall alone after all the others, came and stood beside the two and watched Francesca, occasionally offering a rather dry remark in a somewhat absent-minded way. It was all rather commonplace and decidedly quiet, and he was not much amused, though from time to time he seemed to become absorbed in studying Francesca's face, as though he saw something there which was past his comprehension. She noticed that he watched her, and felt a little uncomfortable under his steely blue eyes, so that she turned her head and talked more with Griggs than with him. Remembering what Reanda had told her of the young man's origin, she did not like to ask him the common questions about residence in Rome and his liking for Italy. She was self-possessed and ready enough at conversation, and she chose to talk of general subjects. They talked in Italian, of course. Dalrymple, as of old, spoke fluently, but with a strange accent. Any one would have taken Paul Griggs for a Roman. At last, almost in spite of herself, she made a remark about his speech. "I was born here," answered Griggs. "It is much more remarkable that Miss Dalrymple should speak Italian as she does, having been born in Scotland." "Are you talking about me?" asked the young girl, turning her head quickly, though she was standing with Reanda at some distance from the others. "I was speaking of your accent in Italian," said Griggs. "Is there anything wrong about it?" asked Gloria, with an anxiety that seemed exaggerated. "On the contrary," answered Donna Francesca, "Mr. Griggs was telling me how perfectly you speak. But I had noticed it." "Oh! I thought Mr. Griggs was finding fault," answered Gloria, turning to Reanda again. Dalrymple looked at his daughter as though he were annoyed. The eyes of Francesca and Griggs met for a moment. All three were aware that they resented the young girl's quick question as one which they themselves would not have asked in her place, had they accidentally heard their names mentioned in a distant conversation. But Francesca instantly went on with the subject. "To us Italians," she said, "it seems incredible that any one should speak our language and English equally well. It is as though you were two persons, Mr. Griggs," she added, smiling at the covered expression of her thought about him. "I sometimes think so myself," answered Griggs, with one of his steady looks. "In a way, every one must have a sort of duality--a good and evil principle." "God and the devil," suggested Francesca, simply. "Body and soul would do, I suppose. The one is always in slavery to the other. The result is a sinner or a saint, as the case may be. One never can tell," he added more carelessly. "I am not sure that it matters. But one can see it. The battle is fought in the face." "I do not understand. What battle?" "The battle between body and soul. The face tells which way the fight is going." She looked at his own, and she felt that she could not tell. But to a certain extent she understood him. "Griggs is full of theories," observed Dalrymple. "Gloria, come down!" he cried in English, suddenly. Gloria, intent upon understanding how fresco-painting was done, was boldly mounting the steps of the ladder towards the top of the little scaffolding, which might have been fourteen feet high. For the vault had long been finished, and Reanda was painting the walls. "Nonsense, papa!" answered the young girl, also in English. "There's no danger at all." "Well--don't break your neck," said Dalrymple. "I wish you would come down, though." Francesca was surprised at his indifference, and at his daughter's calm disregard of his authority. Timid, too, as most Italian women of higher rank, she watched the girl nervously. Griggs raised his eyes without lifting his head. "Gloria is rather wild," said Dalrymple, in a sort of apology. "I hope you will forgive her--she is so much interested." "Oh--if she wishes to see, let her go, of course," answered Francesca, concealing a little nervous irritation she felt. A moment later Gloria and Reanda were on the small platform, on one side of which only there was a hand rail. It had been made for him, and his head was steady even at a much greater elevation. He was pointing out to her the way in which the colours slowly changed as the stucco dried from day to day, and explaining how it was impossible to see the effect of what was done until all was completely dry. The others continued to talk below, but Griggs glanced up from time to time, and Francesca's eyes followed his. Dalrymple had become indifferent, allowing his daughter to do what she pleased, as usual. When Gloria had seen all she wished to see, she turned with a quick movement to come down again, and on turning, she found herself much nearer to the edge than she had expected. She was bending forwards a little, and Griggs saw at once that she must lose her balance, unless Reanda caught her from behind. But she made no sound, and turned very white as she swayed a little, trying to throw herself back. With a swift movement that was gentle but irresistible, Griggs pushed Francesca back, keeping his eyes on the girl above. It all happened in an instant. "Jump!" he cried, in a voice of command. She had felt that she must spring or fall, and her body was already overbalanced as she threw herself off, instinctively gathering her skirt with her hands. Dalrymple turned as pale as she. If she struck the bare brick floor, she could scarcely escape serious injury. But she did not reach it, for Paul Griggs caught her in his arms, swayed with her weight, then stood as steady as a rock, and set her gently upon her feet, beside her father. "Maria Santissima!" cried Francesca, terrified, though instantly relieved, and dimly understanding the stupendous feat of bodily strength which had just been done before her eyes. Above, Reanda leaned upon the single rail of the scaffolding with wide-staring eyes. Gloria was faint with the shock of fear, and grasped her father's arm. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" he said roughly, in English, but in a low voice. "You probably owe your life to Mr. Griggs," he added, immediately regaining his self-possession. Griggs alone seemed wholly unmoved by what had happened. Gloria had held one of her gloves loosely in her hand, and it had fallen to the ground as she sprang. He picked it up and handed it to her with a curious gentleness. "It must be yours, Miss Dalrymple," he said. CHAPTER XX. IT was late before Reanda and Donna Francesca were alone together on that afternoon. When the first surprise and shock of Gloria's accident had passed, Francesca would not allow Dalrymple to take her away at once, as he seemed anxious to do. The girl was not in the least hurt, but she was still dazed and frightened. Francesca took them all back to the drawing-room and insisted upon giving them tea, because they were foreigners, and Gloria, she said, must naturally need something to restore her nerves. Roman tea, thirty years ago, was a strange and uncertain beverage, as both Gloria and her father knew, but they drank what Francesca gave them, and at last went away with many apologies for the disturbance they had made. To tell the truth, Francesca was glad when they were gone and she was at liberty to return to the hall where Reanda was still at work. She found him nervous and irritated. He came down from the scaffolding as soon as he heard her open the door. Neither spoke until she had seated herself in her accustomed chair, with a very frank sigh of relief. "I am very grateful to you, Donna Francesca," said Reanda, twisting his beard round his long, thin fingers, as he glanced at her and then surveyed his work. "It was your fault," she answered, tapping the worm-eaten arms of the old chair with both her white hands, for she herself was still annoyed and irritated. "Do not make me responsible for the girl's folly." "Responsibility! May that never be!" exclaimed the artist, in the common Italian phrase, but with a little irony. "But as for the responsibility, I do not know whose it was. It was certainly not I who invited the young lady to go up the ladder." "Well, it was her fault. Besides, the absent are always wrong. But she is handsome, is she not?" Reanda shrugged his thin shoulders, and looked critically at his hands, which were smeared with paint. "Very handsome," he said indifferently. "But it is a beauty that says nothing to me. One must be young to like that kind of beauty. She is a beautiful storm, that young lady. For one who seeks peace--" He shrugged his shoulders again. "And then, her manners! I do not understand English, but I know that her father was telling her to come down, and yet she went up. I do not know what education these foreigners have. Instruction, yes, as much as you please; but education, no. They have no more than barbarians. The father says, 'You must not do that.' And the daughter does it. What education is that? Of course, if they were friends of yours, I should not say it." "Nevertheless that girl is very handsome," insisted Francesca. "She has the Venetian colouring. Titian would have painted her just as she is, without changing anything." "Beauty, beauty!" exclaimed Reanda, impatiently. "Of course, it is beauty! Food for the brush, that says nothing to the heart. The devil can also take the shape of a beautiful woman. That is it. There is something in that young lady's face--how shall I say? It pleases me--little! You must forgive me, princess. My nerves are shaken. Divine goodness! To see a young girl flying through the air like Simon Magus! It was enough!" Francesca laughed gently. Reanda shook his head with slow disapprobation, and frowned. "I say the truth," he said. "There is something--I cannot explain. But I can show you," he added quickly. He took up his palette and brushes from the chair on which they lay, and reached the white plastered wall in two steps. "Paint her," said Francesca, to encourage him. "Yes, I will show her to you--as I think she is," he answered. He closed his eyes for a moment, calling up the image before him, then went back to the chair and took a quantity of colour from a tube which lay, with half-a-dozen others, in the hollow of the rush seat. They were not the colours he used for fresco-painting, but had been left there when he had made a sketch of a head two or three days previously. In a moment he was before the wall again. It was roughly plastered from the floor to the lower line of the frescoes. With a long, coarse brush he began to sketch a gigantic head of a woman. The oil paint lay well on the rough, dry surface. He worked in great strokes at the full length of his arm. "Make her beautiful, at least," said Francesca, watching him. "Oh, yes--very beautiful," he answered. He worked rapidly for a few minutes, smiling, as his hand moved, but not pleasantly. Francesca thought there was an evil look in his face which she had never seen there before, and that his smile was wicked and spiteful. "But you are painting a sunset!" she cried suddenly. "A sunset? That is her hair. It is red, and she has much of it. Wait a little." And he went on. It was certainly something like a sunset, the bright, waving streamers of the clouds flying far to right and left, and blending away to the neutral tint of the dry plaster as though to a grey sky. "Yes, but it is still a sunset," said Francesca. "I have seen it like that from the Campagna in winter." "She is not 'Gloria' for nothing," answered Reanda. "I am making her glorious. You shall see." Suddenly, with another tone, he brought out the main features of the striking face, by throwing in strong shadows from the flaming hair. Francesca became more interested. The head was colossal, extraordinary, almost unearthly; the expression was strange. "What a monster!" exclaimed Francesca at last, as he stood aside, still touching the enormous sketch here and there with his long brush, at arm's length. "It is terrible," she added, in a lower tone. "Truth is always terrible," answered Reanda. "But you cannot say that it is not like her." "Horribly like. It is diabolical!" "And yet it is a beautiful head," said the artist. "Perhaps you are too near." He himself crossed the hall, and then turned round to look at his work. "It is better from here," he said. "Will you come?" She went to his side. The huge face and wildly streaming hair stood out as though in three dimensions from the wall. The great, strong mouth smiled at her with a smile that was at once evil and sad and fatal. The strange eyes looked her through and through from beneath the vast brow. "It is diabolical, satanical!" she responded, under her breath. Reanda still smiled wickedly and watched her. The face seemed to grow and grow till it filled the whole range of vision. The dark eyes flashed; the lips trembled; the flaming hair quivered and waved and curled up like snakes that darted hither and thither. Yet it was horribly like Gloria, and the fresh, rich oil colours gave it her startling and vivid brilliancy. It was the sudden and enormous expression of a man of genius, strung and stung, till irritation had to find its explosion through the one art of which he was absolute master--in a fearful caricature exaggerating beauty itself to the bounds of the devilish. "I cannot bear it!" cried Francesca. She snatched the big brush from his hand, and, running lightly across the room, dashed the colour left in it across the face in all directions, over the eyes and the mouth, and through the long red hair. In ten seconds nothing remained but confused daubs and splashes of brilliant paint. "There!" cried Francesca. "And I wish I had never seen it!" Still holding the brush in her hand, she turned her back to the obliterated sketch and faced Reanda, with a look of girlish defiance and satisfaction. His face was grave now, but he seemed pleased with what he had done. "It makes no difference," he said. "You will never forget it." He felt that he was revenged for the smile she had bestowed upon his apparent surprise at Gloria's beauty, when she had followed the girl into the hall, and had seen him start. He could not conceal his triumph. "That is the young lady whom you thought I might wish to marry," he said. "You know me little after so many years, Donna Francesca. You have bestowed much kindness upon a man whom you do not know." "My dear Reanda, who can understand you? But as for kindness, do not let me hear the word between you and me. It has no meaning. We are always good friends, as we were when I was a little girl and used to play with your paints. You have given me far more than I can ever repay you for, in your works. I do not flatter you, my friend. Cupid and Psyche, there in your frescoes, will outlive me and be famous when I am forgotten--yet they are mine, are they not? And you gave them to me." The sweet young face turned to him with an unaffected, grateful smile. His sad features softened all at once. "Ah, Donna Francesca," he said gently, "you have given me something better than Cupid and Psyche, for your gift will live forever in heaven." She looked thoughtfully into his eyes, but with a sort of question in her own. "Your dear friendship," he added, bending his head a little. Then he laughed suddenly. "Do not give me a wife," he concluded. "And you, Reanda--do not make wicked caricatures of women you have only seen once! Besides, I go back to it again. I saw you start when she passed you at the door. You were surprised at her beauty. You must admit that. And then, because you are irritated with her, you take a brush and daub that monstrous thing upon the wall! It is a shame!" "I started, yes. It was not because she struck me as beautiful. It was something much more strange. Do you know? She is the very portrait of Donna Maria, who was in the Carmelite convent at Subiaco, and who was burned to death. I have often told you that I remembered having seen her when I was a boy, both at Gerano and at the Palazzo Braccio, before she took the veil. There is a little difference in the colouring, I think, and much in the expression. But the rest--it is the image!" Francesca, who could not remember her ill-fated kinswoman, was not much impressed by Reanda's statement. "It makes your caricature all the worse," she answered, "since it was also a caricature of that holy woman. As for the resemblance, after all these years, it is a mere impression. Who knows? It may be. There is no portrait of Sister Maria Addolorata." "Oh, but I remember well!" insisted Reanda. "Well, it concludes nothing, after all," returned Francesca, with much logic. "It does not make a fiend of the poor nun, who is an angel by this time, and it does not make Miss Dalrymple less beautiful. And now, Signor Painter," she added, with another girlish laugh, "if we have quarrelled enough to restore your nerves, I am going out. It is almost dark, and I have to go to the Austrian Embassy before dinner, and the carriage has been waiting for an hour." "You, princess!" exclaimed Reanda, in surprise; for she had not begun to go into the world yet since her husband's death. "It is not a reception. We are to meet there about arranging another of those charity concerts for the deaf and dumb." "I might have known," answered the painter. "As for me, I shall go to the theatre to-night. There is the Trovatore." "That is a new thing for you, too. But I am glad. Amuse yourself, and tell me about the singing to-morrow. Remember to lock the door and take the key. I do not trust the masons in the morning." "Do I ever forget?" asked Reanda. "But I will lock it now, as you go out; for it is late, and I shall go upstairs." "Good night," said Francesca, as she turned to leave the room. "And you forgive the caricature?" asked Reanda, holding the door open for her to pass. "I would forgive you many things," she answered, smiling as she went by. CHAPTER XXI. IN those days the Trovatore was not an old-fashioned opera. It was not 'threshed-out,' to borrow the vigorous German phrase. Wagner had not eclipsed melody with 'tone-poetry,' nor made men feel more than they could hear. Many of the great things of this century-ending had not been done then, nor even dreamed of, and even musicians listened to the Trovatore with pleasure, not dreaming of the untried strength that lay waiting in Verdi's vast reserve. It was then the music of youth. To us it seems but the music of childhood. Many of us cannot listen to Manrico's death-song from the tower without hearing the grind-organ upon which its passion has grown so pathetically poor. But one could understand that music. The mere statement that it was comprehensible raises a smile to-day. It appealed to simple feelings. We are no longer satisfied with such simplicity, and even long for powers that do not appeal, but twist us with something stronger than our hardened selves, until we ourselves appeal to the unknown, in a sort of despairing ecstasy of unsatisfied delight, asking of possibility to stretch itself out to the impossible. We are in a strange phase of development. We see the elaborately artificial world-scape painted by Science on the curtain close before our eyes, but our restless hands are thrust through it and beyond, opening eagerly and shutting on nothing, though we know that something is there. Angelo Reanda was passionately fond of what was called music in Italy more than thirty years ago. He had the true ear and the facile memory for melody common to Italians, who are a singing people, if not a musical race, and which constituted a talent for music when music was considered to be a succession of sounds rather than a series of sensuous impressions. He could listen to an opera, understand it without thought, enjoy it simply, and remember it without difficulty, like thousands of other Romans. Most of us would willingly go back to such childlike amusements if we could. A few possess the power even now, and are looked upon with friendly contempt by their more cultured, and therefore more tortured, musical acquaintances, whose dream it is to be torn to very rags in the delirium of orchestral passion. Reanda went to the Apollo Theatre in search of merely pleasurable sensations, and he got exactly what he wanted. The old house was brilliant even in those days, less with light than with jewels, it is true, but perhaps that illumination was as good as any other. The Roman ladies and the ladies of the great embassies used then to sit through the whole evening in their boxes, and it was the privilege, as it is still in Rome, of the men in the stalls and pit to stand up between the acts and admire them and their diamonds as much as they pleased. The light was dim enough, compared with what we have nowadays; for gas was but just introduced in a few of the principal streets, and the lamps in the huge chandelier at the Apollo, and in the brackets around the house, were filled with the olive oil which to-day dresses the world's salad. But it was a soft warm light, with rich yellow in it, which penetrated the shadows and beautified all it touched. Reanda, like the others, stood up and looked about him after the first act. His eyes were instantly arrested by Gloria's splendid hair, which caught the light from above. She was seated in the front of a box on the third tier, the second row of boxes being almost exclusively reserved in those days. Dalrymple was beside his daughter, and the dark, still face of Paul Griggs was just visible in the shadow. Gloria saw the artist almost immediately, for he could not help looking at her curiously, comparing her face with the mad sketch he had made on the wall. She nodded to him, and then spoke to her father, evidently calling his attention to Reanda, for Dalrymple looked down at once, and also nodded, while Griggs leaned forward a little and stared vacantly into the pit. "It is an obsession to-day," said Reanda to himself, reflecting that though the girl lived in Rome he had never noticed her before, and had now seen her twice on the same day. He mentally added the reflexion that she must have good nerves, and that most young girls would be at home with a headache after such a narrow escape as hers. She was quite as handsome as he had thought, however, and even more so, now that he saw her in her girlish evening gown, which was just a little open at the throat, and without even the simplest of ornaments. The white material and the shadow around and behind her threw her head into strong relief. The curtain went up again, and Reanda sat down and watched the performance and listened to the simple, stirring melodies. But he was uncomfortably conscious that Gloria was looking at the back of his head from her box. Nervous people know the unpleasant sensation which such a delusion can produce. Reanda moved uneasily in his seat, and looked round more than once, just far enough to catch sight of Gloria's hair without looking up into her eyes. His thoughts were disturbed, and he recalled vividly the face of the dead nun, which he had seen long ago. The resemblance was certainly strong. Maria Addolorata had sometimes had a strange expression which was quite her own, and which he had not yet seen in Gloria. But he felt that he should see it some day. He was sure of it, so sure that he had thrown its full force into the sketch on the wall, knowing that it would startle Donna Francesca. It was not possible that two women should be so much alike and yet that one of them should never have that look. Perhaps Gloria had it now and was staring at the back of his head. An unaccountable nervousness took possession of the sensitive man, and he suffered as he sat there. After the curtain dropped he rose and left the theatre without looking up, and crossed the narrow street to a little coffee shop familiar to him for many years. He drank a cup of coffee, broke off the end of a thin black Roman cigar, and smoked for a few minutes before he returned. Gloria had not moved, but Griggs was either gone or had retired further back into the shadow. Dalrymple was leaning back in his chair, bony and haggard, one of his great hands hanging listlessly over the front of the box. Reanda sat down again, and determined that he would not turn round before the end of the act. But it was of no use. He irritated his neighbours on each side by his restlessness, and his forehead was moist as though he were suffering great pain. Again he faced about and stared upwards at the box. Gloria, to his surprise, was not looking at him, but in the shadow he met the inscrutable eyes of Paul Griggs, fixed upon him as though they would never look away. But he cared very little whether Griggs looked at him or not. He faced the stage again and was more quiet. It was a good performance, and he began to be glad that he had come. The singers were young, the audience was inclined to applaud, and everything went smoothly. Reanda thought the soprano rather weak in the great tower scene. "Calpesta il mio cadavere, ma salva il Trovator!" she sang in great ascending intervals. Reanda sighed, for she made no impression on him, and he remembered that he had been deeply impressed, even thrilled, when he had first heard the phrase. He had realized the situation then and had felt with Leonora. Perhaps he had grown too old to feel that sort of young emotion any more. He sighed regretfully as he rose from his seat. Looking up once more, he saw that Gloria was putting on her cloak, her back turned to the theatre. He waited a moment and then moved on with the crowd, to get his coat from the cloak-room. He went out and walked slowly up the Via di Tordinona. It was a dark and narrow street in those days. The great old-fashioned lanterns were swung up with their oil lamps in them, by long levers held in place by chains locked to the wall. Here and there over a low door a red light showed that wine was sold in a basement which was almost a cellar. The crowd from the theatre hurried along close by the walls, in constant danger from the big coaches that dashed past, bringing the Roman ladies home, for all had to pass through that narrow street. Landaus were not yet invented, and the heavy carriages rumbled loudly through the darkness, over the small paving-stones. But the people on foot were used to them, and stood pressed against the walls as they went by, or grouped for a moment on the low doorsteps of the dark houses. Reanda went with the rest. He might have gone the other way, by the Banchi Vecchi, from the bridge of Sant' Angelo, and it would have been nearer, but he had a curious fancy that the Dalrymples might walk home, and that he might see Gloria again. Though it was not yet winter, the night was bright and cold, and it was pleasant to walk. The regular season at the Apollo Theatre did not begin until Christmas, but there were often good companies there at other times of the year. The artist walked on, glancing at the groups he passed in the dim street, but neither pausing nor hurrying. He meant to let fate have her own way with him that night. Fate was not far off. He had gone on some distance, and the crowd had dispersed in various directions, till he was almost alone as he emerged into the open space where the Via del Clementino intersects the Ripetta. At that moment he heard a wild and thrilling burst of song. "Calpesta il mio cadavere, ma salva il Trovator!" The great soprano rang out upon the midnight silence, like the voice of a despairing archangel, and there was nothing more. "Hush!" exclaimed a man's voice energetically. Two or three windows were opened high up, for no one had ever heard such a woman's voice in the streets before. Reanda peered before him through the gloom, saw three people standing at the next corner, and hastened his long steps. An instinct he could not explain told him that Gloria had sung the short strain, which had left him cold and indifferent when he had heard it in the theatre. He was neither now, and he was possessed by the desire to be sure that it had been she. He was not mistaken. Griggs had recognized him first, and they had waited for him at the corner. "It is an unexpected pleasure to meet twice in the same day," said Reanda. "The pleasure is ours," answered Dalrymple, in the correct phrase, but with his peculiar accent. "I suppose you heard my daughter's screams," he added drily. "She was explaining to us how a particular phrase should be sung." "Was I not right?" asked Gloria, quickly appealing to Reanda with the certainty of support. "A thousand times right," he answered. "How could one be wrong with such a voice?" Gloria was pleased, and they all walked on together till they reached the door of Dalrymple's lodging. "Come in and have supper with us," said the Scotchman, who seemed to be less gloomy than usual. "I suppose you live in our neighbourhood?" "No. In the Palazzetto Borgia, where I work." "This is not exactly on your way home, then," observed Gloria. "You may as well rest and refresh yourself." Reanda accepted the invitation, wondering inwardly at the assurance of the foreign girl. With her Italian speech she should have had Italian manners, he thought. The three men all carried tapers, as was then customary, and they all lit them before they ascended the dark staircase. "This is an illumination," said Dalrymple, looking back as he led the way. Gloria stopped suddenly, and looked round. She was following her father, and Reanda came after her, Griggs being the last. "One, two, three," she counted, and her eyes met Reanda's. Without the slightest hesitation, she blew out the taper he held in his hand. But, for one instant, he had seen in her face the expression of the dead nun, distinct in the clear light, and close to his eyes. "Why did you do that?" asked Dalrymple, who had turned his head again, as the taper was extinguished. "Three lights mean death," said Gloria, promptly; and she laughed, as she went quickly up the steps. "It is true," answered Reanda, in a low voice, as he followed her; and it occurred to him that in a flash he had seen death written in the brilliant young face. Ten minutes later, they were seated around the table in the Dalrymples' small dining-room. Reanda noticed that everything he saw there evidently belonged to the hired lodging, from the old-fashioned Italian silver forks, battered and crooked at the prongs, to the heavy cut-glass decanters, stained with age and use, at the neck, and between the diamond-shaped cuttings. There was supper enough for half-a-dozen people, however, and an extraordinary quantity of wine. Dalrymple swallowed a big tumbler of it before he ate anything. Paul Griggs filled his glass to the brim, and looked at it. He had hardly spoken since Reanda had joined the party. The artist made an effort to be agreeable, feeling that the invitation had been a very friendly one, considering the slight acquaintance he had with the Dalrymples, an acquaintance not yet twenty-four hours old. Presently he asked Gloria if she had felt no ill effects from her extraordinary accident in the afternoon. "I had not thought about it again," she answered. "I have thought of nothing but your painting all the evening, until that woman sang that phrase as though she were asking the Conte di Luna for more strawberries and cream." She laughed, but her eyes were fixed on his face. "'Un altro po' di fravole, e dammi crema ancor,'" she sang softly, in the Roman dialect. Then she laughed again, and Reanda smiled at the absurd words--"A few more strawberries, and give me some more cream." But even the few notes, a lazy parody of the prima donna's singing of the phrase, charmed his simple love of melody. "Don't look so grim, papa," she said in English. "Nobody can hear me here, you know." "I should not think anybody would wish to," answered the Scotchman; but he spoke in Italian, in consideration of his guest, who did not understand English. "I do not know why you are always so angry if I sing anything foolish," said the young girl, going back to Italian. "One cannot be always serious. But I was talking about your frescoes, Signor Reanda. I have thought of nothing else." Again her eyes met the artist's, but fell before his. He was too great a painter not to know the value of such flattering speeches in general, and in a way he was inclined to resent the girl's boldness. But at the same time, it was hard to believe that she was not really in earnest, for she had that power of sudden gravity which lends great weight to little speeches. In spite of himself, and perhaps rightly, he believed her. Paul Griggs did not, and he watched her curiously. "Why do you look at me like that?" she asked, turning upon him with a little show of temper. "If your father will allow me to say so, you are the object most worth looking at in the room," answered the young man, calmly. "You will make her vain with your pretty speeches, Griggs," said Dalrymple. "I doubt that," answered Griggs. He relapsed into silence, and drained a big tumbler of wine. Reanda suspected, with a shrewd intuition, that the American admired Gloria, but that she did not like him much. "Miss Dalrymple is doing her best to make me vain with her praise," said Reanda. "I never flattered any one in my life," answered Gloria. "Signor Reanda is the greatest painter in Italy. Everybody says so. It would be foolish of me to even pretend that after seeing him at work I had thought of anything else. We have all said, this evening, that the frescoes were wonderful, and that no one, not even Raphael, who did the same thing, has ever had a more beautiful idea of the history of Cupid and Psyche. Why should we not tell the truth, just because he happens to be here? How illogical you are!" "I believe I excepted Raphael," said Dalrymple, with his national accuracy. "But Signor Reanda will not quarrel with me on that account, I am sure." "But I did not except Raphael, nor any one," persisted Gloria, before Reanda could speak. "Really, Signorina, though I am mortal and susceptible, you go a little too far. Flattery is not appreciation, you know." "It is not flattery," she answered, and the colour rose in her face. "I am quite in earnest. Nobody ever painted anything better than your Cupid and Psyche. Raphael's is dull and uninteresting compared with it." "I blush, but I cannot accept so much," said the Italian, smiling politely, but still trying to discover whether she meant what she said or not. In spite of himself, as before, he continued to believe her, though his judgment told him that hers could not be worth much. But he was pleased to have made such an impression, and by quick degrees his prejudice against her began to disappear. What had seemed like boldness in her no longer shocked him, and he described it to himself as the innocent frankness of a foreign girl. It was not possible that any one so like the dead Maria Braccio could be vulgar or bold. From that moment he began to rank Gloria as belonging to the higher sphere from which his birth excluded him. It was a curious and quick transition, and he would not have admitted that it was due to her exaggerated praise of his work. Strange as it must seem to those not familiar with the almost impassable barriers of old Italian society, Reanda had that evening, for the first time in his life, the sensation of being liked, admired, and talked with by a woman of Francesca Campodonico's class; stranger still, it was one of the most delicious sensations he had ever experienced. Yet the woman in question was but a girl not yet seventeen years old. Before he rose to go home, he unconsciously resented Griggs's silent admiration for Gloria. To the average Italian, such silence is a sign that a man is in love, and Reanda was the more attracted to Gloria because she treated Griggs with such perfect indifference. It was nearly one o'clock when he lighted his taper to descend the stairs. Griggs was also ready to go. It was a relief to know that he was not going to stay behind and talk with Gloria. They went down in silence. "I wanted to ask you a question," said the American, as they came out upon the street, and blew out their tapers. "We live in opposite directions, so I must ask it now. Should you mind, if I wrote an article on your frescoes for a London paper?" "Mind!" exclaimed the artist, with a sudden revulsion of feeling in favour of the journalist. "I should be delighted--flattered." "No," said Griggs, coldly. "I shall not write as Miss Dalrymple talks. But I shall try and do you justice, and that is a good deal, when one is a serious artist, as you are." Reanda was struck by the cool moderation of the words, which expressed his own modest judgment of himself almost too exactly to be agreeable after Gloria's unlimited praise. He thanked Griggs warmly, however, and they shook hands before they parted. CHAPTER XXII. THREE months passed, and Reanda was intimate with the Dalrymples. It was natural enough, considering the circumstances. They lived much alone, and Reanda was like them in this respect, for he rarely went where he was obliged to talk. During the day he saw much of Donna Francesca, but when it grew dark in the early afternoons of midwinter, the artist was thrown upon his own resources. In former years he had now and then done as many of the other artists did, and had sometimes for a month or two spent most of his evenings at the eating-house where he dined, in company with half-a-dozen others who frequented the same establishment. Each dropped in, at any hour that chanced to suit him, ate his supper, pushed back his chair, and joined in the general conversation, smoking, and drinking coffee or a little wine, until it was time to go home. There were grey-headed painters who had hardly been absent more than a few days in five and twenty years from their accustomed tables at such places as the Falcone, the Gabbione, or the Genio. But Reanda had never joined in any of these little circles for longer than a month or two, by which time he had exhausted the stock of his companions' ideas, and returned to solitude and his own thoughts. For he had something which they had not, besides his greater talent, his broader intelligence, and his deeper artistic insight. Donna Francesca's refining influence exerted itself continually upon him, and made much of the common conversation tiresome or disagreeable to him. A man whose existence is penetrated by the presence of a rarely refined woman seldom cares much for the daily society of men. He prefers to be alone, when he cannot be with her. Reanda believed that what he felt for Francesca was a devoted and almost devout friendship. The fact that before many weeks had passed after his first meeting with Gloria he was perceptibly in love with the girl, while he felt not the smallest change in his relations with Donna Francesca, satisfactorily proved to him that he was right. It would not have been like an Italian and a Latin to compare his feelings for the two women by imaginary tests, as, for instance, by asking himself for which of the two he would make the greater sacrifice. He took it for granted that the one sentiment was friendship and the other love, and he acted accordingly. He was distrustful, indeed, and very suspicious, but not of himself. Gloria treated him too well. Her eyes told him more than he felt able to believe. It was not natural that a girl so young and fresh and beautiful, with the world before her, should fall in love with a man of his age. That, at least, was what he thought. But the fact that it was unnatural did not prevent it from taking place. Reanda ignored certain points of great importance. In the first place, Gloria had not really the world before her. Her little sphere was closely limited by her father's morose selfishness, which led him to keep her in Rome because he liked the place himself, and to keep away from his countrymen, whom he detested as heartily as Britons living abroad sometimes do. On the other hand, a vague dread lest the story of his marriage might some day come to the light kept him away from Roman society. He had fallen back upon artistic Bohemia for such company as he wanted, which was little enough, and as his child grew up he had not understood that she was developing early and coming to womanhood while she was still under the care of the governess he had provided. He had not even made any plans for her future, for he did not love her, though he indulged her as a selfish and easy means of fulfilling his paternal obligations. It was to get rid of her importunity that he began to take her to the houses of some of the married artists when she was only sixteen years old, though she looked at least two years older. But in such society as that, Reanda was easily first, apart from the talent which placed him at the head of the whole artistic profession. He had been brought up, taught, and educated among gentlemen, sons of one of the oldest and most fastidious aristocracies in Europe, and he had their manners, their speech, their quiet air of superiority, and especially that exterior gentleness and modesty of demeanour which most touches some women. In Gloria's opinion, he even had much of their appearance, being tall, thin, and dark. Accustomed as she was to living with her father, who was gloomy and morose, and to seeing much of Paul Griggs, whose powers of silence were phenomenal at that time, Reanda's easy grace of conversation charmed and flattered her. He was, by many degrees, the superior in talent, in charm, in learning, to any one she had ever met, and it must not be forgotten that although he was twenty years older than she, he was not yet forty, and that, as he had not a grey hair in his head, he could still pass for a young man, though his grave disposition made him feel older than he was. Of the three melancholic men in whose society she chiefly lived, her father was selfish and morose; Griggs was gentle, but silent and incomprehensible, though he exerted an undoubted influence over her; Reanda alone, though naturally melancholy, was at once gentle, companionable, and talkative with her. Dalrymple accepted the intimacy with indifference and even with a certain satisfaction. In his reflexions, he characterized Reanda as a rare combination of the great artist and the gentleman. Since Gloria had known him she had grown more quiet. She admired him and imitated his manner. It was a good thing. He was glad, too, that Reanda was not married, for it would have been a nuisance, thought Dalrymple, to have the man's wife always about and expecting to be amused. It began to occur to him that Reanda might be falling in love with Gloria, and he did not resent the idea. In fact, though at first sight it should have seemed strange to an Englishman, he looked upon the idea with favour. He wished to live out his life in Italy, for he had got that fierce affection for the country which has overcome and bound many northern men, from Sir John Hawkwood to Landor and Browning. Though he did not love Gloria, he was attached to her in his own way, and did not wish to lose sight of her altogether. But, in consequence of his own irregular marriage, he could not marry her to a man of his own rank in Rome, who would not fail to make inquiries about her mother. It was most natural that he should look upon such a man as Reanda with favour. Reanda had many good qualities. Dalrymple's judgment was generally keen enough about people, and he had understood that such a woman as Donna Francesca Campodonico would certainly not make a personal friend of a painter, and allow him to occupy rooms in her palace, unless his character were altogether above suspicion. Gloria was, of course, too young to be married yet, though she seemed to be so entirely grown up and altogether a woman. In this respect Dalrymple was not prejudiced. His own mother had been married at the age of seventeen, and he had lived long in Italy, where early marriages were common enough. There could certainly be no serious objection to the match on that score, when another year should have passed. Dalrymple's only anxiety about his daughter concerned her strong inclination to be a public singer. The prejudice was by no means extraordinary, and as a Scotchman, it had even more weight with him than it could have had, for instance, with an Italian. Reanda entirely agreed with him on this point, and when Gloria spoke of it, he never failed to draw a lively picture of the drawbacks attending stage life. The artist spoke very strongly, for one of Gloria's earliest and chiefest attractions in his eyes had been the certainty he felt that she belonged to Francesca's class. For that reason her flattering admiration had brought with it a peculiar savour, especially delightful to the taste of a man of humble origin. Dalrymple did not understand that, but he knew that if Gloria married the great painter, the latter would effectually keep her from the stage. As for Griggs, the Scotchman was well aware that the poor young journalist might easily fall in love with the beautiful girl. But this did not deter him at all from having Griggs constantly at the house. Griggs was the only man he had ever met who did not bore him, who could be silent for an hour at a time, who could swallow as much strong wine as he without the slightest apparent effect upon his manner, who understood all he said, though sometimes saying things which he could not understand--in short, Griggs was a necessity to him. The young man was perhaps aware of the fact, and he found Dalrymple congenial to his own temper; but he was as excessively proud as he was extremely poor, at that time, and he managed to refuse the greater part of the hospitality offered to him, simply because he could not return it. It was very rarely that he accepted an invitation to a meal, though he now generally came in the evening, besides meeting Dalrymple almost every morning when they went to the bookseller's together. He puzzled the Scotchman strangely. He was an odd combination of a thinker and an athlete, half literary man, half gladiator. The common phrase 'an old head on young shoulders' described him as well as any phrase could. The shoulders were perhaps the more remarkable, but the head was not to be despised. A man who could break a horseshoe and tear in two a pack of cards, and who spent his spare time in studying Hegel and Kant, when he was not writing political correspondence for newspapers, deserved to be considered an exception. He seemed to have no material wants, and yet he had the animal power of enjoying material things even in excess, which is rare. He had a couple of rooms in the Via della Frezza, between the Corso and the Ripetta, where he lived in a rather mysterious way, though he made no secret about it. Occasionally an acquaintance climbed the steep stairs, but no one ever got him to open the door nor to give any sign that he was at home, if he were within. A one-eyed cobbler acted as porter downstairs, from morning till night, astride upon his bench and ever at work, an ill-savoured old pipe in his mouth. "You may try," he answered, when any one asked for Griggs. "Who knows? Perhaps Sor Paolo will open. Try a little, if you have patience." Patience being exhausted, the visitor came down the five flights again, and remonstrated with the cobbler. "I did not say anything," he would reply, in a cloud of smoke. "Many have tried. I told you to try. Am I to tell you that no one has ever got in? Why? To disoblige you? If you want anything of Sor Paolo, say it to me. Or come again." "But he will not open," objected the visitor. "Oh, that is true," returned the man of one eye. "But if you wish to try, I am not here to hinder you. This is the truth." Now and then, some one more inquisitive suggested that there might be a lady in the question. The one eye then fixed itself in a vacant stare. "Females?" the cobbler would exclaim. "Not even cats. What passes through your head? He is alone always. If you do not believe me, you can try. I do not say Sor Paolo will not open the door. A door is a door, to be opened." "But since I have tried!" "And I, what can I do? You have come, you have seen, you have knocked, and no one has opened. May the Madonna accompany you! I can do nothing." So even the most importunate of visitors departed at last. But Griggs had taken Dalrymple up to his lodgings more than once, and they had sat there for an hour talking over books. Dalrymple observed, indeed, that Griggs was more inclined to talk in his own rooms than anywhere else, and that his manner then changed so much as to make him almost seem to be a different man. There was a look of interest in the stony mask, and there was a light in the deep-set eyes which neither wine nor wit could bring there at other times. The man wore his armour against the world, as it were, a tough shell made up of a poor man's pride, and solid with that sense of absolute physical superiority which is an element in the character of strong men, and which the Scotchman understood. He himself had been of the strong, but not always the strongest. Paul Griggs had never yet been matched by any man since he had first got his growth. He was the equal of many in intellect, but his bodily strength was not equalled by any in his youth and manhood. The secret of his one well-hidden vanity lay in that. His moral power showed itself in his assumed modesty about it, for it was almost impossible to prevail upon him to make exhibition of it. Gloria alone seemed able to induce him, for her especial amusement, to break a silver dollar with his fingers, or tear a pack of cards, and then only in the presence of her father or Reanda, but never before other people. "You are the strongest man in the world, are you not?" she asked him once. "Yes," he answered. "I probably am, if it is I. I am vain of it, but not proud of it. That makes me think sometimes that I am two men in one. That might account for it, you know." "What nonsense!" Gloria laughed. "Is it? I daresay it is." And he relapsed into indifference, so far as she could see. "What is the other man like?" she asked. "Not the strong man of the two, but the other?" "He is a good man. The strong man is bad. They fight, and the result is insignificance. Some day one of the two will get the better of the other." "What will happen then?" she asked lightly, and still inclined to laugh. "One or the other, or both, will die, I suppose," he answered. "How very unpleasant!" She did not at all understand what he meant. At the same time she could not help feeling that he was eminently a man to whom she would turn in danger or trouble. Girl though she was, she could not mistake his great admiration of her, and by degrees, as the winter wore on, she trusted him more, though he still repelled her a little, for his saturnine calm was opposed to her violent vitality, as a black rock to a tawny torrent. Griggs had neither the manner nor the temper which wins women's hearts as a rule. Such men are sometimes loved by women when their sorrow has chained them to the rock of horror, and grief insatiable tears out their broken hearts. But in their strength they are not loved. They cannot give themselves yet, for their strength hinders them, and women think them miserly of words and of love's little coin of change. If they get love at last, it is as the pity which the unhurt weak feel for the ruined strong. Gloria was not above irritating Griggs occasionally, when the fancy took her to seek amusement in that way. She knew how to do it, and he rarely turned upon her, even in the most gentle way. "We are good friends, are we not?" she asked one day, when it was raining and he was alone with her, waiting for her father to come in. "I hope so," he answered, turning his impassive face slowly towards her. "Then you ought to be much nicer to me," she said. "I am as nice as I know how to be," replied Griggs, with fixed eyes. "What shall I do?" "That is it. You ought to know. You could talk and say pleasant things, for instance. Don't you admit that you are very dull to-day?" "I admit it. I regret it, and I wish I were not." "You need not be. I am sure you can talk very well, when you please. You are not exactly funny at any time, but to-day you are funereal. You remind me of those big black horses they use for hearses, you know." "Thank you, thank you," said Griggs, quietly, repeating the words without emphasis. "I don't like you!" she exclaimed petulantly, but with a little laugh. "I know that," he answered. "But I like you very much. We were probably meant to differ." "Then you might amuse me. It's awfully dull when it rains. Pull the house down, or tear up silver scudi, or something." "I am not Samson, and I am not a clown," observed Griggs, coldly. "I shall never like you if you are so disagreeable," said Gloria, taking up a book, and settling herself to read. "I am afraid you never will," answered Griggs, following her example. A few minutes passed in silence. Then Gloria looked up suddenly. "Mr. Griggs?" "Yes?" "I did not mean to be horrid." "No, of course not." "Because, if I were ever in trouble, you know--I should come straight to you." "Thank you," he answered very gently. "But I hope you will never be in trouble. If you ever should be--" He stopped. "Well?" "I do not think you would find anybody who would try harder to help you," he said simply. She wished that his voice would tremble, or that he would put out his hand towards her, or show something a little more like emotion. But she had to be satisfied. "Would it be the good man or the bad man that would help me?" she asked, remembering the former conversation. "Both," answered Griggs, without hesitation. "I am not sure that I might not like the bad man better," said Gloria, almost to herself. "Is Reanda a bad man?" inquired Griggs, slowly, and looking for the blush in her face. "Why?" But she blushed, as he expected. "Because you like him better than me." "You are quite different. It is of no use to talk about it, and I want to read." She turned from him and buried herself in her book, but she moved restlessly two or three times, and it was some minutes before the heightened colour disappeared from her face. She was very girlish still, and when she had irritated Griggs as far as such a man was capable of irritation, she preferred to refuse battle rather than deal with the difficulty she had created. But Griggs understood, and amongst his still small sufferings he often felt the little, dull, hopeless pang which tells a man that he is unlovable. CHAPTER XXIII. VERY late, one night in the Carnival season, Paul Griggs was walking the streets alone. His sufferings were no longer so small as they had been, and the bitterness of solitude was congenial to him. He had been at the house of a Spanish artist, where there had been dancing and music and supper and improvised tableaux. Gloria and her father and Reanda had all been there, too, and something had happened which had stirred the depths of the young man's slow temper. He hated to make an exhibition of himself, and much against his will he had been exhibited, as it were, to help the gaiety of the entertainment. Cotogni, the great sculptor, had suggested that Griggs should appear as Samson, asleep with his head on Delilah's knee, and bound by her with cords which he should seem to break as the Philistines rushed in. He had refused flatly, again and again, till all the noisy party caught the idea and forced him to it. They had dressed him in silk draperies, his mighty arms bare almost to the shoulder, and they had given him a long, dark, theatrical wig. They had bound his arms and chest with cords, and had made him lie down and pretend to be asleep at the feet of the artist's beautiful wife. They had made slipping knots in the cords, so that he could easily wrench them loose. Then the curtain had been drawn aside, and there had been a pause as the tableau was shown. All at once a mob of artists, draped hastily in anything they could lay their hands upon, and with all manner of helmets on their heads from the Spaniard's collection, had rushed in. "The Philistines are upon thee!" cried Delilah in a piercing voice. He sprang to his feet, his legs being free, and he struggled with the cords. The knots would not slip as they were meant to do. The situation lasted several seconds, and was ridiculous enough. People began to laugh. "Cut off his hair!" cried one. "Of what use was the wig?" laughed another, and every one tittered. Griggs could hear Gloria's clear, high laugh above the rest. His blood slowly rose in his throat. But no one pulled the curtain across. The Philistines, young artists, mad with Carnival, improvised a very eccentric dance of triumph, and the laughter increased. Griggs looked at the cords. Then his mask-like face turned slowly to the audience. Only the great veins swelled suddenly at his temples, while every one watched him in the general amusement. Suddenly his eyes flashed, and he drew a deep breath, for he was angry. In an instant there was dead silence in the room. A moment later one of the cords, drawn tight round his chest, over the silk robe, snapped like a thread, then another, and then a third. Then in a sort of frenzy of anger he savagely broke the whole cord into pieces with his hands, tossing the bits contemptuously upon the floor. His face was as white as a dead man's. A roar of applause broke the silence when the guests realized what he had done. The artists seized him and carried him high in procession round the room, the women threw flowers at him, and some one struck up a triumphal march on the piano. It was an ovation. Half an hour later, dressed again in his ordinary clothes, he found himself next to Gloria. "You told me the other day that you were not Samson," she said. "You see you can be when you choose." "No," answered Griggs, coldly; "I am a clown." What she had said was natural enough, but somehow the satisfaction of his bodily vanity had stung his moral pride beyond endurance. It seemed a despicable thing to be as vain as he was of a gift for which he had not paid any price. Deep down, too, he felt bitterly that he had never received the slightest praise for any thought of his which he had written down and sent to that cauldron of the English daily press in which all individual right to distinction disappears, with all claim to praise, from written matter, however good it be. He worked, he read, he studied, he wrote late, and rose early to observe. But his natural gift was to be a mountebank, a clown, a circus Hercules. By stiffening one of his senseless arms he could bring down roars of applause. By years of bitter labour with his pen he earned the barest living. The muscles that a porter might have, offered him opulence, because it was tougher by a few degrees than the flesh of other men. The knowledge he had striven for just kept him above absolute want. He slipped away from the gay party as soon as he could. His last glance round the room showed him Angelo Reanda and Gloria, sitting in a corner apart. The girl's face was grave. There was a gentle and happy light in the artist's eyes which Griggs had never seen. That also was the strong man's portion. Wrathfully he strode away from the house, under the dim oil lamps, an unlighted cigar between his teeth, his soft felt hat drawn over his eyes. He crossed the city towards the Pantheon and the Piazza Navona, his cigar still unlighted. The streets were alive, though it was very late. There was more freedom to be gay and more hope of being simply happy in those days. Many men and women wandered about in bands of ten or a dozen, singing in soft voices, above which now and then rose a few ringing tenor notes. There was laughter everywhere in the air; tambourines drummed and thumped and jingled, guitars twanged, and mandolines tinkled and quavered. From a dark lane somewhere off the broader thoroughfare, a single voice sang out in serenade. The Corso was bright with unusual lights, and strewn with the birdseed and plaster-of-Paris 'confetti,' with yellow sand and sprigs of box leaves, and withering flowers, and there was about all the neighbourhood that peculiar smell of plaster and crushed flower-stalks which belonged then to the street carnival of Rome. Further on, in the dim quarters by the Tiber, the wine shops were all crowded, and men stood and drank outside on the pavement, and paid, and went laughing on, laughing and singing, singing and laughing, through the night. Griggs felt the penetrating loneliness of him who cannot laugh amidst laughter, and it was congenial to him. He had always been alone, and he felt that the world held no companion for him. There was satisfaction in knowing that no one could ever guess what went on between his heart and his head. He wandered on with the same even, untiring stride, for a long time, through the dark and winding ways, from the Pantheon through the old city, through Piazza Paganica and Costaguti to Piazza Montanara, where the carters and carriers congregate from the country. There, in the middle of the three-cornered open space, a flag in the paving marked the spot on which men used to be put to death. To-night even the carriers were making merry. Griggs was thirsty, and paused at the door of a wine shop. Though it was winter, men were sitting outside, for there was no more room within. A flaring torch of pitched rope was stuck in an iron ring, and shed an uncertain, smoky light upon the men's faces. A drawer in an apron brought Griggs a glass, and he drank standing. "It makes no difference," said a rough voice in the little crowd. "They may cut off my head there on the paving-stone. They would do me a favour. If I find him, I kill him. An evil death on him and all his house!" Griggs looked at the speaker without surprise, for he had often heard such things said. He saw an iron-grey man in good peasant's clothes of dark blue with broad silver buttons, a man with a true Roman face, a small aquiline nose, and keen, dark eyes. He turned away, and began to retrace his steps. In half an hour he was at the door of the old Falcone inn, gone now like many relics of that day. It stood in the Piazza of Saint Eustace near the Pantheon, and in its time was the best of the old-fashioned eating-houses. Griggs felt suddenly hungry. He had walked seven or eight miles since he had left the party. He entered, and passed through the crowded rooms below and up the narrow steps to a small upper chamber, where he hoped to be alone. But there, also, every seat was taken. To his surprise Dalrymple and Reanda were at the table furthest from him, in earnest conversation, with a measure of wine between them. Griggs had never seen the Italian there before, but the latter caught sight of him as he stood in the door, and rose to his feet, making a sign which meant that he was going away, and that the chair was vacant. Griggs came forward, and looked into his face as they met. There was the same gentle and happy light in Reanda's eyes which had been there when he was sitting with Gloria in the corner of the Spanish artist's drawing-room. Then Griggs understood and knew the truth, and guessed the meaning of the unaccustomed pressure of the hand as Reanda greeted him without speaking, and hurriedly went out. Dalrymple had seen Griggs coming and was already calling to a man in a spotless white jacket for another glass and more wine. The Scotchman's bony face was haggard, but there was a little colour in his cheeks, and he seemed pleased. "Sit down, Griggs," he said. "There are no more chairs, so we can keep the table to ourselves. I hope you are half as thirsty as I am." "Rather more than half," answered the other, and he drank eagerly. "Give me some more, please," he said, holding out his glass. "I see that you are in the right humour to hear good news," said the Scot. "Reanda is to marry my daughter in the summer." "I congratulate you all three," said Griggs, slowly, for he had known what was coming. "Let us drink the health of the couple." "By all means," answered Dalrymple, filling again. "By all means let us drink. I could not swallow that sweet stuff at Mendoza's. This is better. By all means let us drink as much as we can." "That might mean a good deal," said Griggs, quickly, and he drained a third glass. "Were you ever drunk, Dalrymple?" he inquired gravely. "No. I never was," answered the Scotchman. "Nor I. This seems a fitting occasion for trying an experiment. We might try to get drunk." "By all means, let us try," replied Dalrymple. "I have my doubts about the possibility of the thing, however." "So have I." They sat opposite to one another in silence for some minutes, each satisfied that the other was in earnest. Dalrymple solemnly filled the glasses and then leaned back in his chair. "You did not seem much surprised by what I told you," he observed at last. "I suppose you expected it." "Yes. It seemed natural enough, though it is not always the natural things that happen." "I think they are suited to marry. Of course, Reanda is very much older, but he is comparatively a young man still." "Comparatively. He will make a better husband for having had experience, I daresay." "That depends on what experience he has had. When I first saw him I thought he was in love with Donna Francesca. It would have been like an artist. They are mostly fools. But I was mistaken. He worships at a distance." "And she preserves the distance," Griggs remarked. "You are not drinking fair. My glass is empty." Dalrymple finished his and refilled both. "I have been here some time," he observed, half apologetically. "But as I was saying--or rather, as you were saying--Donna Francesca preserves the distance. These Italians do that admirably. They know the difference between intimacy and familiarity." "That is a nice distinction," said Griggs. "I will use it in my next letter. No. Donna Francesca could never be familiar with any one. They learn it when they are young, I suppose, and it becomes a race-characteristic." "What?" asked Dalrymple, abruptly. "A certain graceful loftiness," answered the younger man. The Scotchman's wrinkled eyelids contracted, and he was silent for a few moments. "A certain graceful loftiness," he repeated slowly. "Yes, perhaps so. A certain graceful loftiness." "You seem struck by the expression," said Griggs. "I am. Drink, man, drink!" added Dalrymple, suddenly, in a different tone. "There's no time to be lost if we mean to drink enough to hurt us before those beggars go to bed." "Never fear. They will be up all night. Not that it is a reason for wasting time, as you say." He drank his glass and watched Dalrymple as the latter did likewise, with that deliberate intention which few but Scotchmen can maintain on such occasions. The wine might have been poured into a quicksand, for any effect it had as yet produced. "Those race-characteristics of families are very curious," continued Griggs, thoughtfully. "Are they?" Dalrymple looked at him suspiciously. "Very. Especially voices. They run in families, like resemblance of features." "So they do," answered the other, thoughtfully. "So they do." He had of late years got into the habit of often repeating such short phrases, in an absent-minded way. "Yes," said Griggs. "I noticed Donna Francesca's voice, the first time I ever heard it. It is one of those voices which must be inherited. I am sure that all her family have spoken as she does. It reminds me of something--of some one--" Dalrymple raised his eyes suddenly again, as though he were irritated. "I say," he began, interrupting his companion. "Do you feel anything? Anything queer in your head?" "No. Why?" "You are talking rather disconnectedly, that is all." "Am I? It did not strike me that I was incoherent. Probably one half of me was asleep while the other was talking." He laughed drily, and drank again. "No," he said thoughtfully, as he set down his glass. "I feel nothing unusual in my head. It would be odd if I did, considering that we have only just begun." "So I thought," answered Dalrymple. He ordered more wine and relapsed into silence. Neither spoke again for a long time. "There goes another bottle," said Dalrymple, at last, as he drained the last drops from the flagon measure. "Drink a little faster. This is slow work. We know the old road well enough." "You are not inclined to give up the attempt, are you?" inquired Griggs, whose still face showed no change. "Is it fair to eat? I am hungry." "Certainly. Eat as much as you like." Griggs ordered something, which was brought after considerable delay, and he began to eat. "We are not loquacious over our cups," remarked Dalrymple. "Should you mind telling me why you are anxious to get drunk to-night for the first time in your life?" "I might ask you the same question," answered Griggs, cautiously. "Merely because you proposed it. It struck me as a perfectly new idea. I have not much to amuse me, you know, and I shall have less when my daughter leaves me. It would be an amusement to lose one's head in some way." "In such a way as to be able to get it back, you mean. I was walking this evening after the party, and I came to the Piazza Montanara. There is a big flagstone there on which people used to leave their heads for good." "Yes. I have seen it. You cannot tell me much about Rome which I do not know." "There were a lot of carriers drinking close by. It was rather grim, I thought. An old fellow there had a spite against somebody. You know how they talk. 'They may cut off my head there on the paving-stone,' the man said. 'If I find him, I kill him. An evil death on him and all his house!' You have heard that sort of thing. But the fellow seemed to be very much in earnest." "He will probably kill his man," said Dalrymple. Suddenly his big, loose shoulders shook a little, and he shivered. He glanced towards the window, suspecting that it might be open. "Are you cold?" asked Griggs, carelessly. "Cold? No. Some one was walking over my grave, as they say. If we varied the entertainment with something stronger, we should get on faster, though." "No," said Griggs. "I refuse to mix things. This may be the longer way, but it is the safer." And he drank again. "He was a man from Tivoli, or Subiaco," he remarked presently. "He spoke with that accent." "I daresay," answered Dalrymple, who looked down into his glass at that moment, so that his face was in shadow. Just then four men who had occupied a table near the door rose and went out. It was late, even for a night in Carnival. "I hope they are not going to leave us all to ourselves," said Dalrymple. "The place will be shut up, and we need at least two hours more." "At least," assented Paul Griggs. "But they expect to be open all night. I think there is time." The men at the other tables showed no signs of moving. They sat quietly in their places, drinking steadily, by sips. Some of them were eating roasted chestnuts, and all were talking more or less in low tones. Occasionally one voice or another rose above the rest in an exclamation, but instantly subsided again. Italians of that class are rarely noisy, for though the Romans drink deep, they generally have strong heads, and would be ashamed of growing excited over their wine. The air was heavy, for several men were smoking strong cigars. The vaulted chamber was lighted by a single large oil lamp with a reflector, hung by a cord from the intersection of the cross-arches. The floor was of glazed white tiles, and the single window had curtains of Turkey red. It was all very clean and respectable and well kept, even at that crowded season, but the air was heavy with wine and tobacco, and the smell of cooked food,--a peculiar atmosphere in which the old-fashioned Roman delighted to sit for hours on holidays. Dalrymple looked about him, moving his pale blue eyes without turning his head. The colour had deepened a little on his prominent cheek bones, and his eyes were less bright than usual. But his red hair, growing sandy with grey, was brushed smoothly back, and his evening dress was unruffled. He and Griggs were so evidently gentlemen, that some of the Italians at the other tables glanced at them occasionally in quiet surprise, not that they should be there, but that they should remain so long, and so constantly renew their order for another bottle of wine. Giulio, the stout, dark drawer in a spotless jacket, moved about silently and quickly. One of the Italians glanced at Griggs and Dalrymple and then at the waiter, who also glanced at them quickly and then shrugged his shoulders almost perceptibly. Dalrymple saw both glances, and his eyes lighted up. "I believe that fellow is laughing at us," he said to Griggs. "There is nothing to laugh at," answered the latter, unmoved. "But of course, if you think so, throw him downstairs." Dalrymple laughed drily. "There is a certain calmness about the suggestion," he said. "It has a good, old-fashioned ring to it. You are not a very civilized young man, considering your intellectual attainments." "I grew up at sea and before the mast. That may account for it." "You seem to have crammed a good deal into a short life," observed Dalrymple. "It must have been a classic ship, where they taught Greek and Latin." "The captain used to call her his Ship of Fools. As a matter of fact, it was rather classic, as you say. The old man taught us navigation and Greek verse by turns for five years. He was a university man with a passion for literature, but I never knew a better sailor. He put me ashore when I was seventeen with pretty nearly the whole of my five years' pay in my pocket, and he made me promise that I would go to college and stay as long as my money held out. I got through somehow, but I am not sure that I bless him. He is afloat still, and I write to him now and then." "An Englishman, I suppose?" "No. An American." "What strange people you Americans are!" exclaimed Dalrymple, and he drank again. "You take up a profession, and you wear it for a bit, like a coat, and then change it for another," he added, setting down his empty glass. "Very much like you Scotch," answered Griggs. "I have heard you say that you were a doctor once." "A doctor--yes--in a way, for the sake of being a man of science, or believing myself to be one. My family was opposed to it," he continued thoughtfully. "My father told me it was his sincere belief that science did not stand in need of any help from me. He said I was more likely to need the help of science, like other lunatics. I will not say that he was not right." He laughed a little and filled his glass. "Poor Dalrymple!" he exclaimed softly, still smiling. Paul Griggs raised his slow eyes to his companion's face. "It never struck me that you were much to be pitied," he observed. "No, no. Perhaps not. But I will venture to say that the point is debatable, and could be argued. 'To be, or not to be' is a question admirably calculated to draw out the resources of the intellect in argument, if you are inclined for that sort of diversion. It is a very good thing, a very good thing for a man to consider and weigh that question while he is young. Before he goes to sleep, you know, Griggs, before he goes to sleep." "'For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come--'" Griggs quoted, and stopped. "'When we have shuffled off this mortal coil.' You do not know your Shakespeare, young man." "'Must give us pause,'" continued Griggs. "I was thinking of the dreams, not of the rest." [Illustration: "Fire and sleet and candle-light; And Christ receive thy soul." --Vol. I., p. 324.] "Dreams? Yes. There will be dreams there. Dreams, and other things--'this ae night of all.' Not that my reason admits that they can be more than dreams, you know, Griggs. Reason says 'to sleep--no more.' And fancy says 'perchance to dream.' Well, well, it will be a long dream, that's all." "Yes. We shall be dead a long time. Better drink now." And Griggs drank. "'Fire and sleet and candle-light, And Christ receive thy soul;'" said Dalrymple, with a far-away look in his pale eyes. "Do you know the Lyke-Wake Dirge, Griggs? It is a grand dirge. Hark to the swing of it. "'This ae night, this ae night, Every night and all, Fire and sleet and candle-light, And Christ receive thy soul.'" He repeated the strange words in a dull, matter-of-fact way, with a Scotch accent rarely perceptible in his conversation. Griggs listened. He had heard the dirge before, with all its many stanzas, and it had always had an odd fascination for him. He said nothing. "It bodes no good to be singing a dirge at a betrothal," said the Scotchman, suddenly. "Drink, man, drink! Drink till the blue devils fly away. Drink-- "'Till a' the seas gang dry, my love, Till a' the seas gang dry.' Not that it is in the disposition of the Italian inn-keeper to give us time for that," he added drily. "As I was saying, I am of a melancholic temper. Not that I take you for a gay man yourself, Griggs. Drink a little more. It is my opinion that a little more will produce an agreeable impression upon you, my young friend. Drink a little more. You are too grave for so very young a man. I should not wish to be indiscreet, but I might almost take you for a man in love, if I did not know you better. Were you ever in love, Griggs?" "Yes," answered Griggs, quietly. "And you, Dalrymple? Were you never in love?" Dalrymple's loosely hung shoulders started suddenly, and his pale blue eyes set themselves steadily to look at Griggs. The red brows were shaggy, and there was a bright red spot on each cheek bone. He did not answer his companion's question, though his lips moved once or twice as though he were about to speak. They seemed unable to form words, and no sound came from them. His anger was near, perhaps, and with another man it might have broken out. But the pale and stony face opposite him, and the deep, still eyes, exercised a quieting influence, and whatever words rose to his lips were never spoken. Griggs understood that he had touched the dead body of a great passion, sacred in its death as it must have been overwhelming in its life. He struck another subject immediately, and pretended not to have noticed Dalrymple's expression. "I like your queer old Scotch ballads," he said, humouring the man's previous tendency to quote poetry. "There's a lot of life in them still," answered Dalrymple, absently twisting his empty glass. Griggs filled it for him, and they both drank. Little by little the Italians had begun to go away. Giulio, the fat, white-jacketed drawer, sat nodding in a corner, and the light from the high lamp gleamed on his smooth black hair as his head fell forward. "There is a sincere vitality in our Scotch poets," said Dalrymple, as though not satisfied with the short answer he had given. "There is a very notable power of active living exhibited in their somewhat irregular versification, and in the concatenation of their ratiocinations regarding the three principal actions of the early Scottish life, which I take to have been birth, stealing, and a violent death." "'But of these three charity is the greatest,'" observed Griggs, with something like a laugh, for he saw that Dalrymple was beginning to make long sentences, which is a bad sign for a Scotchman's sobriety. "No," answered Dalrymple, with much gravity. "There I venture--indeed, I claim the right--to differ with you. For the Scotchman is hospitable, but not charitable. The process of the Scotch mind is unitary, if you will allow me to coin a word for which I will pay with my glass." And he forthwith fulfilled the obligation in a deep draught. Setting down the tumbler, he leaned back in his chair and looked slowly round the room. His lips moved. Griggs could just distinguish the last lines of another old ballad. "'Night and day on me she cries, And I am weary of the skies Since--'" He broke off and shook himself nervously, and looked at Griggs, as though wondering whether the latter had heard. "This wine is good," he said, rousing himself. "Let us have some more. Giulio!" The fat waiter awoke instantly at the call, looked, nodded, went out, and returned immediately with another bottle. "Is this the sixth or the seventh?" asked Dalrymple, slowly. "Eight with Signor Reanda's," answered the man. "But Signor Reanda paid for his as he went out. You have therefore seven. It might be enough." Giulio smiled. "Bring seven more, Giulio," said the Scotchman, gravely. "It will save you six journeys." "Does the Signore speak in earnest?" asked the servant, and he glanced at Griggs, who was impassive as marble. "You flatter yourself," said Dalrymple, impressively, to the man, "if you imagine that I would make even a bad joke to amuse you. Bring seven bottles." Giulio departed. "That is a Homeric order," observed Griggs. "I think--in fact, I am almost sure--that seven bottles more will produce an impression upon one of us. But I have a decidedly melancholic disposition, and I accustomed myself to Italian wine when I was very young. Melancholy people can drink more than others. Besides, what does such a bottle hold? I will show you. A tumbler to you, and one to me. Drink; you shall see." He emptied his glass and poured the remainder of the bottle into it. "Do you see? Half a tumbler. Two and a half are a bottle. Seven bottles are seventeen and a half glasses. What is that for you or me in a long evening? My blue devils are large. It would take an ocean to float them all. I insist upon going to bed in a good humour to-night, for once, in honour of my daughter's engagement. By the bye, Griggs, what do you think of Reanda?" "He is a first-rate artist. I like him very well." "A good man, eh? Well, well--from the point of view of discretion, Griggs, I am doing right. But then, as you may very wisely object, discretion is only a point of view. The important thing is the view, and not the point. Here comes Ganymede with the seven vials of wrath! Put them on the table, Giulio," he said, as the fat waiter came noiselessly up, carrying the bottles by the necks between his fingers, three in one hand and four in the other. "They make a fine show, all together," he observed thoughtfully, with his bony head a little on one side. "And may God bless you!" said Giulio, solemnly. "If you do not die to-night, you will never die again." "I regard it as improbable that we shall die more than once," answered Dalrymple. "I believe," he said, turning to Griggs, "that when men are drunk they make mistakes about money. We will pay now, while we are sober." Griggs insisted on paying his share. They settled, and Giulio went away happy. The two strong men sat opposite to each other, under the high lamp in the small room, drinking on and on. There was something terrifying in the Scotchman's determination to lose his senses--something grimly horrible in the younger man's marble impassiveness, as he swallowed glass for glass in time with his companion. His face grew paler still, and colder, but there was a far-off gleaming in the shadowy eyes, like the glimmer of a light over a lonely plain through the dark. Dalrymple's spirits did not rise, but he talked more and more, and his sentences became long and involved, and sometimes had no conclusion. The wine was telling on him at last. He had never been so strong as Griggs, at his best, and he was no match for him now. The younger man's strangely dual nature seemed to place his head beyond anything which could affect his senses. Dalrymple talked on and on, rambling from one subject to another, and not waiting for any answer when he asked a question. He quoted long ballads and long passages from Shakespeare, and then turned suddenly off upon a scientific subject, until some word of his own suggested another quotation. Griggs sat quietly in his seat, drinking as steadily, but paying little attention now to what the Scotchman said. Something had got hold of his heart, and was grinding it like grain between the millstones, grinding it to dust and ashes. He knew that he could not sleep that night. He might as well drink, for it could not hurt him. Nothing material had power to hurt him, it seemed. He felt the pain of longing for the utterly unattainable, knowing that it was beyond him forever. The widowhood of the unsatisfied is hell, compared with the bereavement of complete possession. He had not so much as told Gloria that he had loved her. How could he, being but one degree above a beggar? The unspoken words burned furrows in his heart, as molten metal scores smoking channels in living flesh. Gloria would laugh, if she knew. The torture made his face white. There was the scorn of himself with it, because a mere child could hurt him almost to death, and that made it worse. A mere child, barely out of the schoolroom, petulant, spoiled, selfish! But she had the glory of heaven in her voice, and in her face the fatal beauty of her dead mother's deadly sin. He need not have despised himself for loving her. Her whole being appealed to that in man to which no woman ever appealed in vain since the first Adam sold heaven to Satan for woman's love. Dalrymple, leaning on his elbow, one hand in his streaked beard, the other grasping his glass, talked on and quoted more and more. "'The flame took fast upon her cheek, Took fast upon her chin, Took fast upon her fair body Because of her deadly sin.'" His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper at the last words, and suddenly, regardless of his companion, his hand covered his eyes, and his long fingers strained desperately on his bony forehead. Griggs watched him, thinking that he was drunk at last. "Because of her deadly sin," he repeated slowly, and the tone changed. "There is no sin in it!" he cried suddenly, in a low voice, that had a distant, ghostly ring in it. He looked up, and his eyes were changed, and Griggs knew that they no longer saw him. "Stiff," he said softly. "Quite stiff. Dead two or three hours, I daresay. It stands up on its feet beside me--certainly dead two or three hours." He nodded wisely to himself twice, and then spoke again in the same far-off tone, gazing past Griggs, at the wall. "The clothes-basket is a silly idea. Besides, I should lose the night. Rather carry it myself--wrap it up in the plaid. She'll never know, when she has it on her head. Who cares?" A long silence followed. One hand grasped the empty glass. The other lay motionless on the table. The blue eyes, with widely dilated pupils, stared at the wall, never blinking nor turning. But in the face there was the drawn expression of a bodily effort. Presently Griggs saw the fine beads of perspiration on the great forehead. Then the voice spoke again, but in Italian this time. "You had better look away while I go by. It is not a pretty sight. No," he continued, changing to English, "not at all a pretty sight. Stiff as a board still." The unwinking eyes dilated. The bright colour was gone from the cheek bones. "It burns very well," he said again in Italian. The whole face quivered and the hard lips softened and kissed the air. "It is golden--I can see it in the dark--but I must cover it, darling. Quick--this way. At last! No--you cannot see the fire, but it is burning well, I am sure. Hold on! Hold the pommel of the saddle with both hands--so!" The voice ceased. Griggs began to understand. He touched Dalrymple's sleeve, leaning across the table. "I say!" he called softly. "Dalrymple!" The Scotchman started violently, and the pupils of his eyes contracted. The empty glass in his right hand rattled on the hard wood. Then he smiled vaguely at Griggs. "By Jove!" he exclaimed in his natural voice. "I think I must have been napping--'Sleep'ry Sim of the Lamb-hill, and snoring Jock of Suport-mill!' By Jove, Griggs, we have got near the point at last. One bottle left, eh? The seventh. "'Then up and gat the seventh o' them, And never a word spake he; But he has striped his bright brown brand--' The rest has no bearing upon the subject," he concluded, filling both glasses. "Griggs," he said, before he drank, "I am afraid this settles the matter." "I am afraid it does," said Griggs. "Yes. I had hopes a little while ago, which appeared well founded. But that unfortunate little nap has sent me back to the starting-point. I should have to begin all over again. It is very late, I fancy. Let us drink this last glass to our own two selves, and then give it up." Something had certainly sobered the Scotchman again, or at least cleared his head, for he had not been drunk in the ordinary sense of the word. "It cannot be said that we have not given the thing a fair trial," said Griggs, gloomily. "I shall certainly not take the trouble to try it again." Nevertheless he looked at his companion curiously, as they both rose to their feet together. Dalrymple doubled his long arms as he stood up and stretched them out. "It is curious," he said. "I feel as though I had been carrying a heavy weight in my arms. I did once, for some distance," he added thoughtfully, "and I remember the sensation." "Very odd," said Griggs, lighting a cigar. Giulio, sitting outside, half asleep, woke up as he heard the steady tread of the two strong men go by. "If you do not die to-night, you will never die again!" he said, half aloud, as he rose to go in and clear the room where the guests had been sitting. END OF VOL. I. CASA BRACCIO [Illustration] [Illustration: "As he stood there repeating the name."--Vol. II., p. 331.] CASA BRACCIO BY F. MARION CRAWFORD AUTHOR OF "SARACINESCA," "PIETRO GHISLERI," ETC. IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II. _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. CASTAIGNE_ =New York= MACMILLAN AND CO. AND LONDON 1895 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY F. MARION CRAWFORD. =Norwood Press= J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. CONTENTS. PART II.--_Continued._ GLORIA DALRYMPLE 1 PART III. DONNA FRANCESCA CAMPODONICO 227 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VOL. II. PAGE "Gloria--forgive me!" 50 Stefanone and Gloria 100 "The horror of poverty smote him" 123 "Let us not speak of the dead" 203 "The last great, true note died away" 219 "As he stood there repeating the name" 331 Part II.--_Continued._ _GLORIA DALRYMPLE._ CASA BRACCIO. PART II.--_Continued._ _GLORIA DALRYMPLE._ CHAPTER XXIV. DURING the first few months of their marriage Reanda and Gloria believed themselves happy, and really were, since there is no true criterion of man's happiness but his own belief in it. They took a small furnished apartment at the corner of the Macel de' Corvi, with an iron balcony overlooking the Forum of Trajan. They would have had no difficulty in obtaining other rooms adjoining the two Reanda had so long occupied in the Palazzetto Borgia, but Gloria was opposed to the arrangement, and Reanda did not insist upon it. The Forum of Trajan was within a convenient distance of the palace, and he went daily to his work. "Besides," said Gloria, "you will not always be painting frescoes for Donna Francesca. I want you to paint a great picture, and send it to Paris and get a medal." She was ambitious for him, and dreamed of his winning world-wide fame. She loved him, and she felt that Francesca had caged him, as Francesca herself had once felt. She wished to remove him altogether from the latter's influence, both because she was frankly jealous of his friendship for the older woman, and wished to have him quite to herself, and also in the belief that he could do greater things if he were altogether freed from the task of decorating the palace, which had kept him far too long in one limited sequence of production. There was, moreover, a selfish consideration of vanity in her view, closely linked with her unbounded admiration for her husband. She knew that she was beautiful, and she wished his greatest work to be a painting of herself. Gloria, however, wished also to take a position in Roman society, and the only person who could help her and her husband to cross the line was Francesca Campodonico. It was therefore impossible for Gloria to break up the intimacy altogether, however much she might wish to do so. Meanwhile, too, Reanda had not finished his frescoes. Soon after the marriage, which took place in the summer, Dalrymple left Rome, intending to be absent but a few months in Scotland, where his presence was necessary on account of certain family affairs and arrangements consequent upon the death of Lord Redin, the head of his branch of the Dalrymples, and of Lord Redin's son only a few weeks later, whereby the title went to an aged great-uncle of Angus Dalrymple's, who was unmarried, so that Dalrymple's only brother became the next heir. Gloria was therefore quite alone with her husband. Paul Griggs had also left Rome for a time on business connected with his journalistic career. He had in reality been unwilling to expose himself to the unnecessary suffering of witnessing Gloria's happiness, and had taken the earliest opportunity of going away. Gloria herself was at first pleased by his departure. Later, however, she wished that he would come back. She had no one to whom she could turn when she was in need of any advice on matters which Reanda could not or would not decide. Reanda himself was at first as absolutely happy as he had expected to be, and Francesca Campodonico congratulated herself on having brought about a perfectly successful match. While he continued to work at the Palazzetto Borgia, the two were often together for hours, as in former times. Gloria had at first come regularly in the course of the morning and sat in the hall while her husband was painting, but she had found it a monotonous affair after a while. Reanda could not talk perpetually. More than once, indeed, he introduced his wife's face amongst the many he painted, and she was pleased, though not satisfied. He could not make her one of the central figures which appeared throughout the series, because the greater part of the work was done already, and it was necessary to preserve the continuity of each resemblance. Gloria wished to be the first everywhere, though she did not say so. Little by little, she came less regularly in the mornings. She either stayed at home and studied seriously the soprano parts of the great operas then fashionable, or invented small errands which kept her out of doors. She sometimes met Reanda when he left the palace, and they walked home together to their midday breakfast. Little by little, also, Francesca fell into the habit of visiting Reanda in the great hall at hours when she was sure that Gloria would not be there. It was not that she disliked to see them together, but rather because she felt that Gloria was secretly antagonistic. There was a small, perpetual, unexpressed hostility in Gloria's manner which could not escape so sensitive a woman as Francesca. Reanda felt it, too, but said nothing. He was almost foolishly in love with his wife, and he was devotedly attached to Francesca herself. For the present he was very simple in his dealings with himself, and he quietly shut his eyes to the possibility of a disagreement between the two women, though he felt that it was in the air. Instead of diminishing with his marriage, the obligations under which he was placed towards Donna Francesca were constantly increasing. She saw and understood his wife's social ambition, and gave herself trouble to satisfy it. Reanda felt this keenly, and while his gratitude increased, he inwardly wished that each kindness might be the last. But Gloria had the ambition and the right to be received in society on a footing of equality, and no one but Francesca Campodonico could then give her what she wanted. She did not obtain what is commonly called social success, though many people received her and her husband during the following winter. She got admiration in plenty, and she herself believed that it was friendship. Of the two, Reanda, who had no social ambition at all, was by far the more popular. He was, as ever, quiet and unassuming, as became a man of his extraordinary talent. He so evidently preferred in society to talk with intelligent people rather than to make himself agreeable to the very great, that the very great tried to attract him to themselves, in order to appear intelligent in the eyes of others. They altogether forgot that he was the son of the steward of Gerano, though he sometimes spoke unaffectedly of his boyhood. But Gloria reminded people too often that she had a right to be where she was, as the daughter of Angus Dalrymple, who might some day be Lord Redin. Fortunately for her, no one knew that Dalrymple had begun life as a doctor, and very far from such prospects as now seemed quite within the bounds of realization. But even as the possible Lord Redin, her father's existence did not interest the Romans at all. They were not accustomed to people who thought it necessary to justify their social position by allusions to their parentage, and since Francesca Campodonico had assured them that Dalrymple was a gentleman, they had no further questions to ask, and raised their eyebrows when Gloria volunteered information on the subject of her ancestors. They listened politely, and turned the subject as soon as they could, because it bored them. But the admiration she got was genuine of its kind, as admiration and as nothing else. Her magnificent voice was useful to ancient and charitable princesses who wished to give concerts for the benefit of the deserving poor, but her face disturbed the hearts of those excellent ladies who had unmarried sons, and of other excellent ladies who had gay husbands. Her beauty and her voice together were a danger, and must be admired from a distance. Gloria and her husband were asked to many houses on important occasions. Gloria went to see the princesses and duchesses, and found them at home. Their cards appeared regularly at the small house in the Macel de' Corvi, but there was always a mystery as to how they got there, for the princesses and the duchesses themselves did not appear, except once or twice when Francesca Campodonico brought one of her friends with her, gently insisting that there should be a proper call. Gloria understood, and said bitter things about society when she was alone, and by degrees she began to say them to her husband. "These Romans!" she exclaimed at last. "They believe that there is nobody like themselves!" Angelo Reanda's face had a pained look, as he laid his long thin hand upon hers. "My dear," he said gently. "You have married an artist. What would you have? I am sure, people have received us very well." "Very well! Of course--as though we had not the right to be received well. But, Angelo--do not say such things--that I have married an artist--" "It is quite true," he answered, with a smile. "I work with my hands. They do not. There is the difference." "But you are the greatest artist in the world!" she cried enthusiastically, throwing her arms round his neck, and kissing him again and again. "It is ridiculous. In any other city, in London, in Paris, people would run after you, people would not be able to do enough for you. But it is not you; it is I. They do not like me, Angelo, I know that they do not like me! They want me at their big parties, and they want me to sing for them--but that is all. Not one of them wants me for a friend. I am so lonely, Angelo." Her eyes filled with tears, and he tried to comfort her. "What does it matter, my heart?" he asked, soothingly. "We have each other, have we not? I, who adore you, and you, who love me--" "Love you? I worship you! That is why I wish you to have everything the world holds, everything at your feet." "But I am quite satisfied," objected Reanda, with unwise truth. "Do not think of me." She loved him, but she wished to put upon him some of her uncontrollable longing for social success, in order to justify herself. To please her, he should have joined in her complaint. Her tears dried suddenly, and her eyes flashed. "I will think of you!" she cried. "I have nothing else to think of. You shall have it all, everything--they shall know what a man you are!" "An artist, my dear, an artist. A little better than some, a little less good than others. What can society do for me?" She sighed, and the colour deepened a little in her cheeks. But she hid her annoyance, for she loved him with a love at once passionate and intentional, compounded of reality and of a strong inborn desire for emotion, a desire closely connected with her longing for the life of the stage, but now suddenly thrown with full force into the channel of her actual life. Reanda began to understand that his wife was not happy, and the certainty reacted strongly upon him. He became more sad and abstracted from day to day, when he was not with her. He longed, as only a man of such a nature can long, for a friend in whom he could confide, and of whom he could ask advice. He had such a friend, indeed, in Francesca Campodonico, but he was too proud to turn to her, and too deeply conscious that she had done all she could to give Gloria the social position the latter coveted. Francesca, on her side, was not slow to notice that something was radically wrong. Reanda's manner had changed by degrees since his marriage. His pride made him more formal with the woman to whom he owed so much, and she felt that she could do nothing to break down the barrier which was slowly rising between them. She suffered, in her way, for she was far more sincerely attached to the man than she recognized, or perhaps would have been willing to recognize, when she allowed herself to look the situation fairly in the face. For months she struggled against anything which could make her regret the marriage she had made. But at last she admitted the fact that she regretted it, for it thrust itself upon her and embittered her own life. Then she became conscious in her heart of a silent and growing enmity for Gloria, and of a profound pity for Angelo Reanda. Being ashamed of the enmity, as something both sinful in her eyes, and beneath the nobility of her nature, she expressed it, if that were expression, by allowing her pity for the man to assert itself as it would. That, she told herself, was a form of charity, and could not be wrong, however she looked at it. All mention of Gloria vanished from her conversation with Reanda when they were alone together. At such times she did her best to amuse him, to interest him, and to take him out of himself. At first she had little success. He answered her, and sometimes even entered into an argument with her, but as soon as the subject dropped, she saw the look of harassed preoccupation returning in his face. So far as his work was concerned, what he did was as good as ever. Francesca thought it was even better. But otherwise he was a changed man. In the course of the winter Paul Griggs returned. One day Francesca was sitting in the hall with Reanda, when a servant announced that Griggs had asked to see her. She glanced at Reanda's face, and instantly decided to receive the American alone in the drawing-room, on the other side of the house. "Why do you not receive him here?" asked Reanda, carelessly. "Because--" she hesitated. "I should rather see him in the drawing-room," she added a moment later, without giving any further explanation. Griggs told her that he had come back to stay through the year and perhaps longer. She took a kindly interest in the young man, and was glad to hear that he had improved his position and prospects during his absence. He rarely found sympathy anywhere, and indeed needed very little of it. But he was capable of impulse, and he had long ago decided that Francesca was good, discreet, and kind. He answered her questions readily enough, and his still face warmed a little while she talked with him. She, on her part, could not help being interested in the lonely, hard-working man who never seemed to need help of any kind, and was climbing through life by the strength of his own hands. There was about him at that time an air of reserved power which interested though it did not attract those who knew him. Suddenly he asked about Gloria and her husband. There was an odd abruptness in the question, and a hard little laugh, quite unnecessary, accompanied it. Francesca noted the change of manner, and remembered how she had at first conceived the impression that Griggs admired Gloria, but that Gloria was repelled by him. "I suppose they are radiantly happy," he said. Francesca hesitated, being truthful by nature, as well as loyal. There was no reason why Griggs should not ask her the question, which was natural enough, but she had many reasons for not wishing to answer it. "Are they not happy?" he asked quickly, as her silence roused his suspicions. "I have never heard anything to the contrary," answered Francesca, dangerously accurate in the statement. "Oh!" Griggs uttered the ejaculation in a thoughtful tone, but said no more. "I hope I have not given you the impression that there is anything wrong," said Francesca, showing her anxiety too much. "I saw Dalrymple in England," answered Griggs, with ready tact. "He seems very well satisfied with the match. By the bye, I daresay you have heard that Dalrymple stands a good chance of dying a peer, if he ever dies at all. With his constitution that is doubtful." And he went on to explain to Francesca the matter of the Redin title, and that as Dalrymple's elder brother, though married, was childless, he himself would probably come into it some day. Then Griggs took his leave without mentioning Reanda or Gloria again. But Francesca was aware that she had betrayed Reanda's unhappiness to a man who had admired Gloria, and had probably loved her before her marriage. She afterwards blamed herself bitterly and very unjustly for what she had done. Griggs went away, and called soon afterwards at the small house in the Macel de' Corvi. He found Gloria alone, and she was glad to see him. She told him that Reanda would also be delighted to hear of his return. Griggs, who wrote about everything which gave him an opportunity of using his very various knowledge, wrote also upon art, and besides the first article he had written about Reanda, more than a year previously, had, since then, frequently made allusion to the artist's great talent in his newspaper correspondence. Reanda was therefore under an obligation to the journalist, and Gloria herself was grateful. Moreover, Englishmen who came to Rome had frequently been to see Reanda's work in consequence of the articles. One old gentleman had tried to induce the artist to paint a picture for him, but had met with a refusal, on the ground that the work at the Palazzetto Borgia would occupy at least another year. The Englishman said he should come back and try again. Between Griggs and Gloria there was the sort of friendly confidence which could not but exist under the circumstances. She had known him long, and he had been her father's only friend in Rome. She remembered him from the time when she had been a mere child, before her sudden transition to womanhood. She trusted him. She understood perfectly well that he loved her, but she believed that she had it in her power to keep his love as completely in the background as he himself had kept it hitherto. Her instinct told her also that Griggs might be a strong ally in a moment of difficulty. His reserved strength impressed her even more than it impressed Francesca Campodonico. She received him gladly, and told him to come again. He came, and she asked him to dinner, feeling sure that Reanda would wish to see him. He accepted the first invitation and another which followed before long. By insensible degrees, during the winter, Griggs became very intimate at the house, as he had been formerly at Dalrymple's lodgings. "That young man loves you, my dear," said Reanda, one day in the following spring, with a smile which showed how little anxiety he felt. Gloria laughed gaily, and patted her husband's hand. "What men like that call love!" she answered. "Besides--a journalist! And hideous as he is!" "He certainly has not a handsome face," laughed Reanda. "I am not jealous," he added, with sudden gravity. "The man has done much for my reputation, too, and I know what I owe him. I have good reason for wishing to treat him well, and I am all the more pleased, if you find him agreeable." He made the rather formal speech in a decidedly formal tone, and with the unconscious intention of justifying himself in some way, though he was far too simple by nature to suspect himself of any complicated motive. She looked at him, but did not quite understand. "You surely do not suppose that I ever cared for him!" she said, readily suspecting that he suspected her. He started perceptibly, and looked into her eyes. She was very truly in earnest, but her exaggerated self-consciousness had given her tone a colour which he did not recognize. Some seconds passed before he answered her. Then the gentle light came into his face as he realized how much he loved her. "How foolish you are, love!" he exclaimed. "But Griggs is younger than I--it would not be so very unnatural if you had cared for him." She broke out passionately. "Younger than you! So am I, much younger than you! But you are young, too. I will not have you suggest that you are not young. Of course you are. You are unkind, besides. As though it could make the slightest difference to me, if you were a hundred years old! But you do not understand what my love for you is. You will never understand it. I wish I loved you less; I should be happier than I am." He drew her to him, reluctant, and the pained look which Francesca knew so well came into his face. "Are you unhappy, my heart?" he asked gently. "What is it, dear? Tell me!" She was nervous, and the confession or complaint had been unintentional and the result of irritation more than of anything else. The fact that he had taken it up made matters much worse. She was in that state in which such a woman will make a mountain of a molehill rather than forego the sympathy which her constitution needs in a larger measure than her small sufferings can possibly claim. "Oh, so unhappy!" she cried softly, hiding her face against his coat, and glad to feel the tears in her eyes. "But what is it?" he asked very kindly, smoothing her auburn hair with one hand, while the other pressed her to him. As he looked over her head at the wall, his face showed both pain and perplexity. He had not the least idea what to do, except to humour her as much as he could. "I am so lonely, sometimes," she moaned. "The days are so long." "And yet you do not come and sit with me in the mornings, as you used to do at first." There was an accent of regret in his voice. "She is always there," said Gloria, pressing her face closer to his coat. "Indeed she is not!" he cried, and she could feel the little breath of indignation he drew. "I am a great deal alone." "Not half as much as I am." "But what can I do?" he asked, in despair. "It is my work. It is her palace. You are free to come and go as you will, and if you will not come--" "I know, I know," she answered, still clinging to him. "You will say it is my fault. It is just like a man. And yet I know that you are there, hour after hour, with her, and she is young and beautiful. And she loves you--oh, I know she loves you!" Reanda began to lose patience. "How absurd!" he exclaimed. "It is ridiculous. It is an insult to Donna Francesca to say that she is in love with me." "It is true." Gloria suddenly raised her head and drew back from him a very little. "I am a woman," she said. "I know and I understand. She meant to sacrifice herself and make you happy, by marrying you to me, and now she regrets it. It is enough to see her. She follows you with her eyes as you move, and there is a look in them--" Reanda laughed, with an effort. "It is altogether too absurd!" he said. "I do not know what to say. I can only laugh." "Because you know it is true," answered Gloria. "It is for your sake that she has done it all, that she makes such a pretence of being friendly to me, that she pushes us into society, and brings her friends here to see me. They never come unless she brings them," she added bitterly. "There is no fear of that. The Duchess of Astrardente would not have her black horses seen standing in the Macel de' Corvi, unless Donna Francesca made her do it and came with her." "Why not?" asked Reanda, simply, for his Italian mind did not grasp the false shame which Gloria felt in living in a rather humble neighbourhood. "She would not have people know that she had friends living in such a place," Gloria answered. Unwittingly she had dealt Reanda a deadly thrust. He had fallen in love with her and had married her on the understanding with himself, so to say, that she was in all respects as much a great lady as Donna Francesca herself, and he had taken it for granted that she must be above such pettiness. The lodging was extremely good and had the advantage of being very conveniently situated for his work. It had never struck him that because it was in an unfashionable position, Gloria could imagine that the people she knew would hesitate to come and see her. Since their marriage she had done and said many little things which had shaken his belief in the thoroughness of her refinement. She had suddenly destroyed that belief now, by a single foolish speech. It would be hard to build it up again. Like many men of genius he could not forgive his own mistake, and Gloria was involved in this one. Moreover, as an Italian, he fancied that she secretly suspected him of meanness, and when Italians are not mean, there is nothing which they resent more than being thought to be so. He had plenty of money, for he had always lived very simply before his marriage, and Dalrymple gave Gloria an allowance. His tone changed, when he answered her, but she was far from suspecting what she had done. "We will get another apartment at once," he said quietly. "No," she answered at once, protesting, "you must not do anything of the kind! What an idea! To change our home merely because it is not on the Corso or the Piazza di Venezia!" "You would prefer the Corso?" inquired Angelo. "That is natural. It is more gay." The reflexion that the view of the deserted Forum of Trajan was dull suggested itself to him as a Roman, knowing the predilection of Roman women of the middle class for looking out of the window. "It is ridiculous!" cried Gloria. "You must not think of it. Besides--the expense--" "The expense does not enter into the question, my dear," he answered, having fully made up his mind. "You shall not live in a place to which you think your friends may hesitate to come." "Friends! They are not my friends, and they never mean to be," she replied more hotly. "Why should I care whether they will take the trouble to come and see me or not? Let them stay away, if I am not good enough for them. Tell Donna Francesca not to bring them--not to come herself any more. I hate to feel that she is thrusting me down the throat of a society that does not want me! She only does it to put me under an obligation to her. I am sure she talks about me behind my back and says horrid things--" "You are very unjust," said Reanda, hurt by the vulgarity of the speech and deeply wounded in his own pride. "You defend her! You see!" And the colour rose in Gloria's cheeks. "She has done nothing that needs defence. She has acted always with the greatest kindness to me and to us. You have no right to suppose that she says unkind things of you when you are not present. I cannot imagine what has come over you to-day. It must be the weather. It is sirocco." Gloria turned away angrily, thinking that he was laughing at her, whereas the suggestion about the weather was a perfectly natural one in Rome, where the southeast wind has an undoubted effect upon the human temper. But the seeds of much discussion were sown on that close spring afternoon. Reanda was singularly tenacious of small purposes, as he was of great ideas where his art was concerned, and his nature though gentle was unforgiving, not out of hardness, but because he was so sensitive that his illusions were easy to destroy. He went out and forthwith began to search for an apartment of which his wife should have no cause to complain. In the course of a week he found what he wanted. It was a part of the second floor of one of the palaces on the Corso, not far from the Piazza di Venezia. It was partially furnished, and without speaking to Gloria he had it made comfortable within a few days. When it was ready, he gave her short warning that they were to move immediately. Strange to say, Gloria was very much displeased, and did not conceal her annoyance. She really liked the small house in the Macel de' Corvi, and resented the way in which her husband had taken her remarks about the situation. To tell the truth, Reanda had deceived himself with the idea that she would be delighted at the change, and had spent money rather lavishly, in the hope of giving her a pleasant surprise. He was proportionately disappointed by her unexpected displeasure. "What was the use of spending so much money?" she asked, with a discontented face. "People will not come to see us because we live in a fine house." "I did not take the house with that intention, my dear," said Reanda, gently, but wounded and repelled by the remark and the tone. "Well then, we might have stayed where we were," she answered. "It was much cheaper, and there was more sun for the winter." "But this is gayer," objected Reanda. "You have the Corso under the window." "As though I looked out of the window!" exclaimed Gloria, scornfully. "It was so nice--our little place there." "You are hard to please, my dear," said the artist, coldly. Then she saw that she had hurt him, which she had not meant to do. Her own nature was self-conscious and greedy of emotion, but not sensitive. She threw her arms round him, and kissed him and thanked him. But Reanda was not satisfied. Day by day when Francesca looked at him, she saw the harassed expression deepening in his face, and she felt that every furrow was scored in her own heart. And she, in her turn, grew very grave and thoughtful. CHAPTER XXV. PAUL GRIGGS was a man compounded of dominant qualities and dormant contradictions of them which threatened at any moment to become dominant in their turn for a time. He himself almost believed that he had two separate individualities, if not two distinct minds. It may be doubted whether it can be good for any man to dwell long upon such an idea in connexion with himself, however distinctly he may see in others the foundation of truth on which it rests. To Griggs, however, it presented itself so clearly that he found it impossible not to take it into consideration in the more important actions of his life. The two men were very sharply distinguished in his thoughts. The one man would do what the other would not. The other could think thoughts above the comprehension of the first. The one was material, keen, strong, passionate, and selfish; pre-eminently adapted for hard work; conscientious in the force of its instinct to carry out everything undertaken by it to the very end, and judging that whatever it undertook was good and worth finishing; having something of the nature of a strong piece of clockwork which being wound up must run to the utmost limit before stopping, whether regulated to move fast or slow, with a fateful certainty independent of will; possessed of such uncommon strength as to make it dangerous if opposed while moving, and at the same time having an extraordinary inertia when not wound up to do a certain piece of work; self-reliant to a fault, as the lion is self-reliant in the superiority of physical endowment; gentle when not opposed, because almost incapable of action without a determinate object and aim; but developing an irresistible momentum when the inertia was overcome; thorough, in the sense in which the tide is thorough, in rising evenly and all at the same time, and as ruthless as the tide because it was that part of the whole man which was a result, and which, therefore, when once set in motion was almost beyond his control; reasonable only because, as a result, it followed its causes logically, and required a real cause to move it at first. The other man in him was very different, almost wholly independent of the first, and very generally in direct conflict with it, at that time. It was an imaginative and meditative personality, easily deceived into assuming a false premise, but logical beyond all liability to deception when reasoning from anything it had accepted. Its processes were intuitively correct and almost instantaneous, while its assumptions were arbitrary in the extreme. It might begin to act at any point whatsoever, and unlike the material man, which required a will to move it at first, it struck spontaneously with the directness of straight lightning from one point to another, never misled in its path, though often fatally mistaken in the value of the points themselves. Most men who have thought much, wisely or foolishly, and who have seen much, good or bad, are more or less conscious of their two individualities. Idle and thoughtless people are not, as a rule. With Griggs, the two were singularly distinct and independent. Sometimes it seemed to him that he sat in judgment, as a third person, between them. At other moments he felt himself wholly identified with the one and painfully aware of the opposition of the other. The imaginative part of him despised the material part for its pride of life and lust of living. The material part laughed to scorn the imaginative one for its false assumptions and unfounded beliefs. When he could abstract himself from both, he looked upon the intuitive personality as being himself in every true sense of the word, and upon the material man as a monstrous overgrowth and encumbrance upon his more spiritual self. When he began to love Gloria Dalrymple, she appealed to both sides of his nature. For once, the spiritual instinct coincided with the direction given to the material man by a very earthly passion. The cause of this was plain enough and altogether simple. The spiritual instinct had taken the lead. He had known Gloria before she had been a woman to be loved. The maiden genius of the girl had spoken to the higher man from a sphere above material things, and had created in him one of those assumed premises for subsequent spiritual intuition from which he derived almost the only happiness he knew. Then, all at once, the woman had sprung into existence, and her young beauty had addressed itself to the young gladiator with overwhelming force. The woman fascinated him, and the angelic being his imagination had assumed in the child still enchanted him. He was not like Reanda; for his sensitiveness was one-sided, and therefore only half vulnerable. Gloria's faults were insignificant accidents of a general perfectness, the result of having arbitrarily assumed a perfect personality. They could not make the path of his spiritual intuitive love waver, and they produced no effect at all against his direct material passion. To destroy the prime beautiful illusion, something must take place which would upset the mistaken assumption from a point beyond it, so to say. As for the earthly part of his love, it was so strong that it might well stand alone, even if the other should disappear altogether. Then came honour, and the semi-religious morality of the man, defending the woman against him, for the sake of the angel he saw through her. Chief of all, in her defence, stood his own conviction that she did not love him, and never would, nor ever could. To all intents and purposes, too, he had been her father's friend, though between the two men there had been little but the similarity of their gloomy characters. It was the will of the material man to be governed, and as no outward influence set it in motion, it remained inert, in unstable equilibrium, as a vast boulder may lie for ages on the very edge of a precipice, ready but not inclined to fall. There was fatality in its stillness, and in the certainty that if moved it must crash through everything it met. Gloria had not the least understanding of the real man. She thought about him often during the months which followed his return, and a week rarely passed in which she did not see him two or three times. Her thoughts of him were too ignorant to be confused. She was conscious, rather than aware, that he loved her, but it seemed quite natural to her, at her age, that he should never express his love by any word or deed. But she compared him with her husband, innocently and unconsciously, in matters where comparison was almost unavoidable. His leonine strength of body impressed her strongly, and she felt his presence in the room, even when she was not looking at him. Reanda was physically a weak and nervous man. When he was painting, the movements of his hand seemed to be independent of his will and guided by a superior unseen power, rather than directed by his judgment and will. Paul Griggs never made the slightest movement which did not strike Gloria as the expression of his will to accomplish something. He was wonderfully skilful with his hands. Whatever he meant to do, his fingers did, forthwith, unhesitatingly. His mental processes were similar, so far as she could see. If she asked him a question, he answered it categorically and clearly, if he were able. If not, he said so, and relapsed into silence, studying the problem, or trying to force his memory to recall a lost item. Reanda, on the other hand, answered most questions with the expression of a vague opinion, often right, but apparently not founded on anything particular. The accuracy of Griggs sometimes irritated the artist perceptibly, in conversation; but he took an interest in what Griggs wrote, and made Gloria translate many of the articles to him, reading aloud in Italian from the English. Strange to say, they pleased him for the very qualities which he disliked in the man's talk. The Italian mind, when it has developed favourably, is inclined to specialism rather than to generalization, and Griggs wrote of many things as though he were a specialist. He had enormous industry and great mechanical power of handling language. "I have no genius," he said one day to Gloria, when she had been admiring something he had written, and using the extravagant terms of praise which rose easily to her lips. "Your husband has genius, but I have none. Some day I shall astonish you all by doing something very remarkable. But it will not be a work of genius." It was in the late autumn days, more than a year and a half after Gloria's marriage. The southeast wind was blowing down the Corso, and the pavements were yellow and sticky with the moistened sand-blast from the African desert. The grains of sand are really found in the air at such times. It is said that the undoubted effect of the sirocco on the temper of Southern Italy is due to the irritation caused by inhaling the fine particles with the breath. Something there is in that especial wind, which changes the tempers of men and women very suddenly and strangely. Gloria and her companion were seated in the drawing-room that afternoon, and the window was open. The wind stirred the white curtains, and now and then blew them inward and twisted them round the inner ones, which were of a dark grey stuff with broad brown velvet bands, in a fashion then new. Gloria had been singing, and sat leaning sideways on the desk of the grand piano. A tall red Bohemian glass stood beside the music on one of the little sliding shelves meant for the candles, and there were a few flowers in it, fresh an hour ago, but now already half withered and drooping under the poisonous breath of the southeast. The warm damp breeze came in gusts, and stirred the fading leaves and Gloria's auburn hair, and the sheet of music upright on the desk. Griggs sat in a low chair not far from her, his still face turned towards her, his shadowy eyes fixed on her features, his sinewy hands clasped round his crossed knees. The nature of the great athlete showed itself even in repose--the broad dark throat set deep in the chest, the square solidity of the shoulders, the great curved lines along the straightened arms, the small, compact head, with its close, dark hair, bent somewhat forward in the general relaxation of the resting muscles. In his complete immobility there was the certainty of instant leaping and flash-like motion which one feels rather than sees in the sleeping lion. Gloria looked at him thoughtfully with half-closed lids. "I shall surprise you all," he repeated slowly, "but it will not be genius." "You will not surprise me," Gloria answered, still meeting his eyes. "As for genius, what is it?" "It is what you have when you sing," said Griggs. "It is what Reanda has when he paints." "Then why not what you do when you write?" "The difference is simple enough. Reanda does things well because he cannot help it. When I do a thing well it is because I work so hard at it that the thing cannot help being done by me. Do you understand?" "I always understand what you tell me. You put things so clearly. Yes, I think I understand you better than you understand yourself." Griggs looked down at his hands and was silent for a moment. Mechanically he moved his thumb from side to side and watched the knot of muscle between it and the forefinger, as it swelled and disappeared with each contraction. "Perhaps you do understand me. Perhaps you do," he said at last. "I have known you a long time. It must be four years, at least--ever since I first came here to work. It has been a long piece of life." "Indeed it has," Gloria answered, and a moment later she sighed. The wind blew the sheet of music against her. She folded it impatiently, threw it aside and resumed her position, resting one elbow on the narrow desk. The silence lasted several seconds, and the white curtains flapped softly against the heavy ones. "I wonder whether you understand my life at all," she said presently. "I am not sure that I do. It is a strange life, in some ways--like yourself." "Am I strange?" "Very." "What makes you think so?" Again he was silent for a time. His face was very still. It would have been impossible to guess from it that he felt any emotion at the moment. "Do you like compliments?" he asked abruptly. "That depends upon whether I consider them compliments or not," she answered, with a little laugh. "You are a very perfect woman in very imperfect surroundings," said Griggs. "That is not a compliment to the surroundings, at all events. I do not know whether to laugh or not. Shall I?" "If you will. I like to hear you laugh." "You should hear me cry!" And she laughed again at herself. "God forbid!" he said gravely. "I do sometimes," she answered, and her face grew suddenly sad, as he watched her. He felt a quick pain for her in his heart. "I am sorry you have told me so," he said. "I do not like to think of it. Why should you cry? What have you to cry for?" "What should you think?" she asked lightly, though no smile came with the words. "I cannot guess. Tell me. Is it because you still wish to be a singer? Is that it?" "No. That is not it." "Then I cannot guess." He looked for the answer in her face. "Will you tell me?" he asked after a pause. "Of what use could it be?" Her eyes met his for a moment, the lids fell, and she turned away. "Will you shut the window?" she said suddenly. "The wind blows the things about. Besides, it is getting late." He rose and went to the window. She watched him as he shut it, turning his back to her, so that his figure stood out distinct and black against the light. She realized what a man he was. With those arms and those shoulders he could do anything, as he had once caught her in the air and saved her life, and then, again, as he had broken the cords that night at Mendoza's house. There was nothing physical which such a man could not do. He was something on which to rely in her limited life, an absolute contrast to her husband, whose vagueness irritated her, while his deadness of sensibility, where she had wrung his sensitiveness too far, humiliated her in her own eyes. She had kept her secret long, she thought, though she had kept it for the simple reason that she had no one in whom to confide. Griggs came back from the window and sat down near her again in the low chair, looking up into her face. "Mr. Griggs," she said, turning from his eyes and looking into the piano, "you asked me a question just now. I should like to answer it, if I were quite sure of you." "Are you not sure of me?" he asked. "I think you might be, by this time. We were just saying that we had known each other so long." "Yes. But--all sorts of things have happened in that time, you know. I am not the same as I was when I first knew you." "No. You are married. That is one great difference." "Too great," said she. "Honestly, do you think me improved since my marriage?" "Improved? No. Why should you improve? You are just what you were meant to be, as you always were." "I know. You called me a perfect woman a little while ago, and you said my surroundings were imperfect. You must have meant that they did not suit me, or that I did not suit them. Which was it?" "They ought to suit you," said Griggs. "If they do not, it is not your fault." "But I might have done something to make them suit me. I sometimes think that I have not treated them properly." "Why should you blame yourself? You did not make them, and they cannot unmake you. You have a right to be yourself. Everybody has. It is the first right. Your surroundings owe you more than you owe to them, because you are what you are, and they are not what they ought to be. Let them bear the blame. As for not treating them properly, no one could accuse you of that." "I do not know--some one might. People are so strange, sometimes." She stopped, and he answered nothing. Looking down into the open piano, she idly watched the hammers move as she pressed the keys softly with one hand. "Some people are just like this," she said, smiling, and repeating the action. "If you touch them in a certain way, they answer. If you press them gently, they do not understand. Do you see? The hammer comes just up to the string, and then falls back again without making any noise. I suppose those are my surroundings. Sometimes they answer me, and sometimes they do not. I like things I can be sure of." "And by things you mean people," suggested Griggs. "Of course." "And by your surroundings you mean--what?" "You know," she answered in a low voice, turning her face still further away from him. "Reanda?" She hesitated for a moment, knowing that her answer must have weight on the man. "I suppose so," she said at last. "I ought not to say so--ought I? Tell me the truth." "The truth is, you are unhappy," he answered slowly. "There is no reason why you should not tell me so. Perhaps I might help you, if you would let me." He almost regretted that he had said so much, little as it was. But she had wished him to say it, and more, also. Still turning from him, she rested her chin in her hand. His face was still, but there was the beginning of an expression in it which she had never seen. Now that the window was shut it was very quiet in the room, and the air was strangely heavy and soft and dim. Now and then the panes rattled a little. Griggs looked at the graceful figure as Gloria sat thinking what she should say. He followed the lines till his eyes rested on what he could see of her averted face. Then he felt something like a sharp, quick blow at his temples, and the blood rose hot to his throat. At the same instant came the bitter little pang he had known long, telling him that she had never loved him and never could. "Are you really my friend?" she asked softly. "Yes." The word almost choked him, for there was not room for it and for the rest. She turned quietly and surveyed the marble mask with curious inquiry. "Why do you say it like that," she asked; "as though you would rather not? Do you grudge it?" "No." He spoke barely above his breath. "How you say it!" she exclaimed, with a little laugh that could not laugh itself out, for there was a strange tension in the air, and on her and on him. "You might say it better," she added, the pupils of her eyes dilating a little so that the room looked suddenly larger and less distinct. She knew the sensation of coming emotion, and she loved it. She had never thought before that she could get it by talking with Paul Griggs. He did not answer her. "Perhaps you meant it," she said presently. "I hardly know. Did you?" "Please be reasonable," said Griggs, indistinctly, and his hands gripped each other on his knee. "How oddly you talk!" she exclaimed. "What have I said that was unreasonable?" She felt that the emotion she had expected was slipping from her, and her nerves unconsciously resented the disappointment. She was out of temper in an instant. "You cannot understand," he answered. "There is no reason why you should. Forgive me. I am nervous to-day." "You? Nervous?" She laughed again, with a little scorn. "You are not capable of being nervous." She was dimly conscious that she was provoking him to something, she knew not what, and that he was resisting her. He did not answer her last words. She went back to the starting-point again, dropping her voice to a sadder key. "Honestly, will you be my friend?" she asked, with a gentle smile. "Heart and soul--and hand, too, if you want it," he said, for he had recovered his speech. "Tell me what the trouble is. If I can, I will take you out of it." It was rather an odd speech, and she was struck by the turn of the phrase, which expressed more strength than doubt of power to do anything he undertook. "I believe you could," she said, looking at him. "You are so strong. You could do anything." "Things are never so hard as they look, if one is willing to risk everything," he answered. "And when one has nothing to lose," he added, as an after-thought. She sighed, and turned away again, half satisfied. "There is nothing to risk," she said. "It is not a case of danger. And you cannot take my trouble and tear it up like a pack of cards with those hands of yours. I wish you could. I am unhappy--yes, I have told you so. But what can you do to help me? You cannot make my surroundings what they are not, you know." "No--I cannot change your husband," said Griggs. She started a little, but still looked away. "No. You cannot make him love me," she said, softly and sadly. The big hands lost their hold on one another, and the deep eyes opened a little wider. But she was not watching him. "Do you mean to say--" He stopped. She slowly bent her head twice, but said nothing. "Reanda does not love you?" he said, in wondering interrogation. "Why--I thought--" He hesitated. "He cares no more for me than--that!" The hand that stretched towards him across the open piano tapped the polished wood once, and sharply. "Are you in serious earnest?" asked Griggs, bending forward, as though to catch her first look when she should turn. "Does any one jest about such things?" He could just see that her lips curled a little as she spoke. "And you--you love him still?" he asked, with pressing voice. "Yes--I love him. The more fool I." The words did not grate on him, as they would have jarred on her husband's ear. The myth he had imagined made perfections of the woman's faults. "It is a pity," he said, resting his forehead in his hand. "It is a deadly pity." Then she turned at last and saw his attitude. "You see," she said. "There is nothing to be done. Is there? You know my story now. I have married a man I worship, and he does not care for me. Take it and twist it as you may, it comes to that and nothing else. You can pity me, but you cannot help me. I must bear it as well as I can, and as long as I must. It will end some day--or I will make it end." "For God's sake do not talk like that!" "How should I talk? What should I say? Is it of any use to speak to him? Do you think I have not begged him, implored him, besought him, almost on my knees, to give up that work and do other things?" Griggs looked straight into her eyes a moment and then almost understood what she meant. "You mean that he--that when he is painting there--" He hesitated. "Of course. All day long. All the bitter live-long day! They sit there together on pretence of talking about it. You know--you can guess at least--it is the old, old story, and I have to suffer for it. She could not marry him--because she is a princess and he an artist--good enough for me--God knows, I love him! Too good for her, ten thousand times too good! But yet not good enough for her to marry! He needed a wife, and she brought us together, and I suppose he told her that I should do very well for the purpose. I was a good subject. I fell in love with him--that was what they wanted. A wife for her favourite! O God! When I think of it--" She stopped suddenly and buried her face in both her hands, as she leaned upon the piano. "It is not to be believed!" The strong man's voice vibrated with the rising storm of anger. She looked up again with flashing eyes and pale cheeks. "No!" she cried. "It is not to be believed! But you see it now. You see what it all is, and how my life is wrecked and ruined before it is half begun. It would be bad enough if I had married him for his fame, for his face, for his money, for anything he has or could have. But I married him because I loved him with all my soul, and worshipped him and everything he did." "I know. We all saw it." "Of course--was it anything to hide? And I thought he loved me, too. Do you know?" She grew more calm. "At first I used to go and sit in the hall when he was at work. Then he grew silent, and I felt that he did not want me. I thought it was because he was such a great artist, and could not talk and work, and wanted to be alone. So I stayed away. Then, once, I went there, and she was there, sitting in that great chair--it shows off the innocence of her white face, you know! The innocence of it!" Gloria laughed bitterly. "They were talking when I came, and they stopped as soon as the door opened. I am sure they were talking about me. Then they seemed dreadfully uncomfortable, and she went away. After that I went several times. Once or twice she came in while I was there. Then she did not come any more. He must have told her, of course. He kept looking at the door, though, as if he expected her at any moment. But she never came again in those days. I could not bear it--his trying to talk to me, and evidently wishing all the time that she would come. I gave up going altogether at last. What could I do? It was unbearable. It was more than flesh and blood could stand." "I do not wonder that you hate her," said Griggs. "I have often thought you did." Gloria smiled sadly. "Yes," she answered. "I hate her with all my heart. She has robbed me of the only thing I ever had worth having--if I ever had it. I sometimes wonder--or rather, no. I do not wonder, for I know the truth well enough. I have been over and over it again and again in the night. He never loved me. He never could love any one but her. He knew her long ago, and has loved her all his life. Why should he put me in her place? He admired me. I was a beautiful plaything--no, not beautiful--" She paused. "You are the most beautiful woman in the world," said Paul Griggs, with deep conviction. He saw the blush of pleasure in her face, saw the fluttering of the lids. But he neither knew that she had meant him to say it, nor did he judge of the vast gulf her mind must have instantaneously bridged, from the outpouring of her fancied injuries and of her hatred for Francesca Campodonico, to the unconcealable satisfaction his words gave her. "I have heard him say that, too," she answered a moment later. "But he did not mean it. He never meant anything he said to me--not one word of it all. You do not know what that means," she went on, working herself back into a sort of despairing anger again. "You do not know. To have built one's whole life on one thing, as I did! To have believed only one thing, as I did! To find that it is all gone, all untrue, all a wretched piece of acting--oh, you do not know! That woman's face haunts me in the dark--she is always there, with him, wherever I look, as they are together now at her house. Do you understand? Do you know what I feel? You pity me--but do you know? Oh, I have longed for some one--I have wished I had a dog to listen to me--sometimes--it is so hard to be alone--so very hard--" She broke off suddenly and hid her face again. "You are not alone. You have me--if you will have me." Before he had finished speaking the few words, the first sob broke, violent, real, uncontrollable. Then came the next, and then the storm of tears. Griggs rose instinctively and came to her side. He leaned heavily on the piano, bending down a little, helpless, as some men are at such moments. She did not notice him, and her sobs filled the still room. As he stood over her he could see the bright tears falling upon the black and white ivory keys. He laid his trembling hand upon her shoulder. He could hardly draw his breath for the sight of her suffering. "Don't--don't," he said, almost pathetic in his lack of eloquence when he thought he most needed it. One of her hot hands, all wet with tears, went suddenly to her shoulder, and grasped his that lay there, with a convulsive pressure, seeming to draw him down as she bowed herself almost to the keyboard in her agony of weeping. Then, without thought, his other hand, cold as ice, was under her throat, bringing her head gently back upon his arm, till the white face was turned up to his. Sob by sob, more distantly, the tempest subsided, but still the great tears swelled the heavy lids and ran down across her face upon his wrist. Then the wet, dark eyes opened and looked up to his, above her head. "Be my friend!" she said softly, and her fingers pressed his very gently. He looked down into her eyes for one moment, and then the passion in him got the mastery of his honourable soul. "How can I?" he cried in a broken, choking voice. "I love you!" In an instant he was standing up, lifting her high from the floor, and the lips that had perhaps never kissed for love before, were pressed upon hers. What chance had she, a woman, in those resistless arms of his? In her face was the still, fateful look of the dead nun, rising from the far grave of a buried tragedy. In his uncontrollable passion he crushed her to him, holding her up like a child. She struggled and freed her hands and pressed them both upon his two eyes. "Please--please!" she cried. There was a pitiful ring in the tone, like the bleating of a frightened lamb. He hurt her too, for he was overstrong when he was thoughtless. She cried out to him to let her go. But as she hung there, it was not all fear that she felt. There came with it an uncertain, half-delirious thrill of delight. To feel herself but a feather to his huge strength, swung, tossed, kissed, crushed, as he would. There was fear already, there was all her innocent maidenlike resistance, beating against him with might and anger, there was the feminine sense of injury by outrageous violence; but with it all there was also the natural woman's delight in the main strength of the natural man, that could kill her in an instant if he chose, but that could lift her to itself as a little child and surround her and protect her against the whole world. "Please--please!" she cried again, covering his fierce eyes and white face with her hands and trying to push him away. The tone was pathetic in its appeal, and it touched him. His arms relaxed, tightened again with a sort of spasm, and then she found herself beside him on her feet. A long silence followed. Gloria sank into a chair, glanced at him and saw that his face was turned away, looked down again and then watched him. His chest heaved once or twice, as though he had run a short sharp race. One hand grasped the back of a chair as he stood up. All at once, without looking at her, he went to the window and stood there, looking out, but seeing nothing. The soft damp wind made the panes of glass rattle. Still neither broke the silence. Then he came to her and stood before her, looking down, and she looked down, too, and would not see him. She was more afraid of him now than when he had lifted her from her feet, and her heart beat fast. She wondered what he would say, for she supposed that he meant to ask her forgiveness, and she was right. [Illustration: "Gloria--forgive me!"--Vol. II., p. 50.] "Gloria--forgive me," he said. She looked up, a little fear of him still in her face. "How can I?" she asked, but in her voice there was forgiveness already. Her womanly instinct, though she was so young, told her that the fault was hers, and that considering the provocation it was not a great one--what were a few kisses, even such kisses as his, in a lifetime? And she had tempted him beyond all bounds and repented of it. Before the storm she had raised in him, her fancied woes sank away and seemed infinitely small. She knew that she had worked herself up to emotion and tears, though not half sure of what she was saying, that she had exaggerated all she knew and suggested all she did not know, that she had almost been acting a part to satisfy something in her which she could not understand. And by her acting she had roused the savage truth in her very face and it had swept down everything before it. She had not guessed such possibilities. Before the tempest of his love all she had ever felt or dreamed of feeling seemed colourless and cold. She dreaded to rouse it again, and yet she could never forget the instant thrill that had quivered through her when he had lifted her from her feet. When she had answered him with her question, he stood still in silence for a moment. She was too perfect in his eyes for him to cast the blame upon her, yet he knew that it had not been all his fault. And in the lower man was the mad triumph of having kissed her and of having told her, once for all, the whole meaning of his being. She looked down, and he could not see her eyes. There was no chair near. To see her face he dropped upon his knee and lightly touched her hands that lay idly in her lap. She started, fearing another outbreak. "Please--please!" he said softly, using the very word she had used to him. "Yes--but--" She hesitated and then raised her eyes. The mask of his face was all softened, and his lips trembled a little. His hands quivered, too, as they touched hers. "Please!" he repeated. "I promise. Indeed, I promise. Forgive me." She smiled, all at once, dreamily. All his emotion, and her desire for it, were gone. "I asked you to be my friend," she said. "I meant it, you know. How could you? It was not kind." "No--but forgive me," he insisted in a pleading tone. "I suppose I must," she said at last. "But I shall never feel sure of you again. How can I?" "I promise. You will believe me, not to-day, perhaps, nor to-morrow, but soon. I will be just what I have always been. I will never do anything to offend you again." "You promise me that? Solemnly?" She still smiled. "Yes. It is a promise. I will keep it. I will be your friend always. Give me something to do for you. It will make it easier." "What can I ask you to do? I shall never dare to speak to you about my life again." "I think you will, when you see that I am just as I used to be. And you forgive me, quite?" "Yes. I must. We must forget to-day. It must be as though it had never happened. Will you forget it?" "I will try." But of that he knew the utter impossibility. "If you try, you can succeed. Now get up. Be reasonable." He took her hand in both of his. She made a movement to withdraw it, and then submitted. He barely touched it with his lips and rose to his feet instantly. "Thank you," she said simply. She had never had such a mastery of charm over him as at that moment. But his mood was changed, and there was no breaking out of the other man in him, though he felt again the quick sharp throb in the temples, and the rising blood at his throat. The higher self was dominant once more, and the features was as still as a statue's. He took leave of her very quickly and went out into the damp street and faced the gusty southeast wind. When he was gone, she rose and went to the window with a listless step, and gazed idly through the glass at the long row of windows in the palace opposite, and then went back and sank down, as though very weary, upon a sofa far from the light. There was a dazed, wondering look in her face and she sat very still for a long time, till it began to grow dark. In the dusk she rose and went to the piano and sang softly to herself. Her voice never swelled to a full note, and the chords which her fingers sought were low and gentle and dreamy. While she was singing, the door opened noiselessly, and Reanda came in and stood beside her. She broke off and looked up, a little startled. The same wondering, half-dazed look was in her face. Her husband bent down and kissed her, and she kissed him silently. CHAPTER XXVI. DONNA FRANCESCA had put off her mourning, and went into the world again during that winter. The world said that she might marry if she so pleased, and was somewhat inclined to wonder that she did not. She could have made a brilliant match if she had chosen. But instead, though she appeared everywhere where society was congregated together, she showed a tendency to religion which surprised her friends. A tendency to religion existed in the Braccio family, together with various other tendencies not at all in harmony with it, nor otherwise edifying. Those other tendencies seemed to be absent in Francesca, and little by little her acquaintances began to speak of her as a devout person. The Prince of Gerano even hinted that she might some day be an abbess in the Carmelite Convent at Subiaco, as many a lady of the great house had been before her. But Francesca was not prepared to withdraw from the world altogether, though at the present time she was very unhappy. She suspected herself of a great sin, besides reproaching herself bitterly with many of her deeds which deserved no blame at all. Yet she was by no means morbid, nor naturally inclined to perpetual self-examination. On the contrary, she had always been willing to accept life as a simple affair which could not offer any difficulties provided that one were what she meant by "good"--that is, honest in word and deed, and scrupulous in doing thoroughly and with right intention those things which her religion required of her, but in which only she herself could judge of her own sincerity. Of late, however, she had felt that there was something very wrong in all her recent life. The certainty of it dawned by degrees, and then burst upon her suddenly one day when she was with Reanda. She had long ago noticed the change in his manner, the harassed look, and the sad ring in his voice, and for a time his suffering was her sorrow, and there was a painful pleasure in being able to feel for him with all her heart. He had gone through a phase which had lasted many months, and the change was great between his former and his present self. He had suffered, but indifference was creeping upon him. It was clear enough. Nothing interested him but his art, and perhaps her own conversation, though even that seemed doubtful to her. They were alone together on a winter's afternoon in the great hall. The work was almost done, and they had been talking of the more mechanical decorations, and of the style of the furniture. "It is a big place," said Francesca, "but I mean to fill it. I like large rooms, and when it is finished, I will take up my quarters here, and call it my boudoir." She smiled at the idea. The hall was at least fifty feet long by thirty wide. "All the women I know have wretched little sitting-rooms in which they can hardly turn round," she said. "I will have all the space I like, and all the air and all the light. Besides, I shall always have the dear Cupid and Psyche, to remind me of you." She spoke the last words with the simplicity of absolute innocence. "And me?" he asked, as innocently and simply as she. "What will you do with me?" "Whatever you like," she said, taking it quite for granted, as he did, that he was to work for her all his life. "You can have a studio in the house, just as it used to be, if you please. And you can paint the great canvas for the ceiling of the dining-room. Or shall I restore the old chapel? Which should you rather do--oil-painting, or fresco?" "You would not want the altar piece which I should paint," he said, with sudden sadness. "Santa Francesca?" she asked. "It would have to be Santa Francesca. The chapel is dedicated to her. You could make a beautiful picture of her--a portrait, perhaps--" she stopped. "Of yourself? Yes, I could do that," he answered quickly. "No," she said, and hesitated. "Of your wife," she added rather abruptly. He started and looked at her, and she was sorry that she had spoken. Gloria's beautiful face had risen in her mind, and it had seemed generous to suggest the idea. Finding a difficulty in telling him, she had thought it her duty to be frank. He laughed harshly before he answered her. "No," he said. "Certainly not a portrait of my wife. Not even to please you. And that is saying much." He spoke very bitterly. In the few words, he poured out the pent-up suffering of many months. Francesca turned pale. "I know, and it is my fault," she said in a low voice. "Your fault? No! But it is not mine." His hands trembled violently as he took up his palette and brushes and began to mix some colours, not knowing what he was doing. "It is my fault," said Francesca, still very white, and staring at the brick floor. "I have seen it. I could not speak of it. You are unhappy--miserable. Your life is ruined, and I have done it. I!" She bit her lip almost before the last word was uttered; for it was stronger and louder than she had expected it to be, and the syllable rang with a despairing echo in the empty hall. Reanda shook his head, and bent over his colours with shaking hands, but said nothing. "I was so happy when you were married," said Francesca, forcing herself to speak calmly. "She seemed such a good wife for you--so young, so beautiful. And she loves you--" "No." He shook his head energetically. "She does not love me. Do not say that, for it is not true. One does not love in that way--to-day a kiss, to-morrow a sting--to-day honey, to-morrow snake-poison. Do not say that it is love, for it is not true. The heart tells the truth, all alone in the breast. A thousand words cannot make it tell one lie. But for me--it is finished. Let us speak no more of love. Let us talk of our good friendship. It is better." "Eh, let us speak of it, of this friendship! It has cost tears of blood!" Francesca, in the sincerity of what she felt, relapsed into the Roman dialect. Almost all Romans do, under any emotion. "Everything passes," answered Reanda, laying his palette aside, and beginning to walk up and down, his hands in his pockets. "This also will pass," he added, as he turned. "We are men. We shall forget." "But not I. For I did it. Your sadness cuts my heart, because I did it. I--I alone. But for me, you would be free." "Would to Heaven!" exclaimed the artist, almost under his breath. "But I will not have you say that it is your fault!" he cried, stopping before her. "I was the fool that believed. A man of my age--oh, a serious man--to marry a child! I should have known. At first, I do not say. I was the first. She thought she had paradise in her arms. A husband! They all want it, the husband. But I, who had lived and seen, I should have known. Fool, fool! Ignorant fool!" The words came out vehemently in the strong dialect, and the nervous, heart-wrung man struck his breast with his clenched fist, and his eyes looked upward. "Reanda, Reanda! What are you saying? When I tell you that I made you marry her! It was here,--I was in this very chair,--and I told you about her. And I asked her here with intention, that you might see how beautiful she was. And then, neither one nor two, she fell in love with you! It would have been a miracle if you had not married her. And her father, he was satisfied. May that day be accursed when I brought them here to torment you!" She spoke excitedly, and her lip quivered. He began to walk again with rapid, uncertain strides. "For that--yes!" he said. "Let the day bear the blame. But I was the madman. Who leaves the old way and follows the new knows what he leaves, but not what he may find. I might have been contented. I was so happy! God knows how happy I was!" "And I!" exclaimed Francesca, involuntarily; but he did not hear her. She felt a curious sense of elation, though she was so truly sorry for him, and it disturbed her strangely. She looked at him and smiled, and then wondered why the smile came. There is a ruthless cruelty in the half-unconscious impulses of the purest innocence, of which vice itself might be ashamed in its heart. It is simple humanity's assertion of its prior right to be happy. She smiled spontaneously because she knew that Reanda no longer loved Gloria, and she felt that he could not love her again; and for a while she was too simply natural to quarrel with herself for it, or to realize what it meant. He was nervous, melancholy, and unstrung, and he began to talk about himself and his married life for the first time, pouring out his sufferings and thoughtless of what Francesca might think and feel. He, too, was natural. Unlike his wife, he detested emotion. To be angry was almost an illness to his over-finely organized temperament. In a way, Griggs had been right in saying that Reanda seemed to paint as an agent in the power of an unseen, directing influence. Beauty made him feel itself, and feel for it in his turn with his brush. The conception was before him, guiding his hand, before a stroke of the work was done. There was the lightning-like co-respondence and mutual reaction between thought and execution, which has been explained by some to be the simultaneous action of two minds in man, the subjective and the objective. In doing certain things he had the patience and the delicacy of one for whom time has no meaning. He could not have told whether his hand followed his eye, or his eye followed his hand. His whole being was of excessively sensitive construction, and emotion of any kind, even pleasure, jarred upon its hair-fine sensibilities. And yet, behind all this, there was the tenacity of the great artist and the phenomenal power of endurance, in certain directions, which is essential to prize-winning in the fight for fame. There was the quality of nerve which can endure great tension in one way, but can bear nothing in other ways. He went on, giving vent to all he felt, talking to himself rather than to Francesca. He could not reproach his wife with any one action of importance. She was fond of Paul Griggs. But it was only Griggs! He smiled. In his eyes, the cold-faced man was no more than a stone. In their excursions into society she had met men whom he considered far more dangerous, men young, handsome, rich, having great names. They admired her and said so to her in the best language they had, which was no doubt often very eloquent. Had she ever looked twice at one of them? No. He could not reproach her with that. The Duchess of Astrardente was not more cold to her admirers than Gloria was. It was not that. There were little things, little nothings, but in thousands. He tried to please her with something, and she laughed in his face, or found fault. She had small hardnesses and little vulgarities of manner that drove him mad. "I had thought her like you," he said suddenly, turning to Francesca. "She is not. She is coarse-grained. She has the soul of a peasant, with the face of a Madonna. What would you have? It is too much. Love is an illusion. I will have no more of it. Besides, love is dead. It would be easier to wake a corpse. I shall live. I may forget. Meanwhile there is our friendship. That is of gold." Francesca listened in silence, thoughtful and with downcast eyes, as the short, disjointed sentences broke vehemently from his lips, each one accusing her in her own heart of having wrought the misery of two lives, one of which was very dear to her. Too dear, as she knew at last. The scarlet shame would have burned her face, if she had owned to herself that she loved this man, whom she had married to another, believing that she was making his happiness. She would not own it. Had she admitted it then, she would have been capable of leaving him within the hour, and of shutting herself up forever in the Convent at Subiaco to expiate the sin of the thought. It was monstrous in her eyes, and she would still refuse to see it. But she owned that there was the suspicion, and that Angelo Reanda was far dearer to her than anything else on earth. Her innocence was so strong and spotless that it had a right to its one and only satisfaction. But what she felt for Reanda was either love, or it was blasphemy against the holy thing in whose place he stood in her temple. It must not be love, and therefore, as anything else, it was too much. And the strange joy she felt because Gloria was nothing to him, still filled her heart, though it began to torment her with the knowledge of evil which she had never understood. There was much else against him, too, in her pride of race, and it helped her just then, for it told her how impossible it was that she, a princess of the house of Braccio, should love a mere artist, the son of a steward, whose forefathers had been bondsmen to her ancestors from time immemorial. It was out of the question, and she would not believe it of herself. Yet, as she looked into his delicate, spiritual face and watched the shades of expression that crossed it, she felt that it made little difference whence he came, since she understood him and he understood her. She became confused by her own thoughts and grasped at the idea of a true and perfect friendship, with a somewhat desperate determination to see it and nothing else in it, for the rest of her life, rather than part with Angelo Reanda. "Friends," she said thoughtfully. "Yes--always friends, you and I. But as a friend, Reanda, what can I do? I cannot help you." "The time for help is past, if it ever came. You are a saint--pray for me. You can do that." "But there is more than that to be done," she said, ready to sacrifice anything or everything just then. "Do not tell me it is hopeless. I will see your wife often and I will talk to her. I am older than she, and I can make her understand many things." "Do not try it," said Reanda, in an altered tone. "I advise you not to try it. You can do no good there, and you might find trouble." "Find trouble?" repeated Francesca, not understanding him. "What do you mean? Does she dislike me?" "Have you not seen it?" he asked, with a bitter smile. Francesca did not answer him at once, but bent her head again. Once or twice she looked up as though she were about to speak. "It is as I tell you," said Reanda, nodding his head slowly. Francesca made up her mind, but the scarlet blood rose in her face. "It is better to be honest and frank," she said. "Is Gloria jealous of me?" She was so much ashamed that she could hardly look at him just then. "Jealous! She would kill you!" he cried, and there was anger in his voice at the thought. "Do not go to her. Something might happen." The blush in Francesca's face deepened and then subsided, and she grew very pale again. "But if she is jealous, she loves you," she said earnestly and anxiously. He shrugged his high thin shoulders, and the bitter smile came back to his face. "It is a stage jealousy," he said cruelly. "How could she pass the time without something to divert her? She is always acting." "But what is she jealous of?" asked Francesca. "How can she be jealous of me? Because you work here? She is free to come if she likes, and to stay all day. I do not understand." "Who can understand her? God, who made her, understands her. I am only a man. I know only one thing, that I loved her and do not love her. And she makes a scene for every day. One day it is you, and another day it is the walls she does not like. You will forgive me, Princess. I speak frankly what comes to my mouth from my heart. The whole story is this. She makes my life intolerable. I am not an idle man, the first you may meet in society, to spend my time from morning to night in studying my wife's caprices. I am an artist. When I have worked I must have peace. I do not ask for intelligent conversation like yours. But I must have peace. One of these days I shall strangle her with my hands. The Lord will forgive me and understand. I am full of nerves. Is it my fault? She twists them as the women wring out clothes at the fountain. It is not a life; it is a hell." "Poor Reanda! Poor Reanda!" repeated Francesca, softly. "I do not pity myself," he said scornfully. "I have deserved it, and much more. But I am human. If it goes on a little longer, you may take me to Santo Spirito, for I am going mad. At least I should be there in holy peace. After her, the madmen would all seem doctors of wisdom. Do you know what will happen this evening? I go home. 'Where have you been?' she will ask. 'At the Palazzetto.' 'What have you been doing?' 'Painting--it is my trade.' 'Was Donna Francesca there?' 'Of course. She is mistress in her own house.' 'And what did you talk of?' 'How should I remember? We talked.' Then it will begin. It will be an inferno, as it always is. 'Leave hope behind, all ye that enter here!' I can say it, if ever man could! You are right to pity me. Before it is finished you will have reason to pity me still more. Let us hope it may finish soon. Either San Lorenzo, or Santo Spirito--with the mad or with the dead." "Poor Reanda!" "Yes--poor Reanda, if you like. People envy me, they say I am a great artist. If they think so, let them say it. It seems to them that I am somebody." He laughed, almost hysterically. "Somebody! Stuff for Santo Spirito! That is all she has left me in two years--not yet two years." "Do not talk of Santo Spirito," said Francesca. "You shall not go mad. When you are unhappy, think of our friendship and of all the hours you have here every day." She hesitated and seemed to make an effort over herself. "But it is impossible that it should be all over, so hopelessly and so soon. She is nervous, perhaps. The climate does not suit her--" Reanda laughed wildly, for he was rapidly losing all control of himself. "Therefore I should take her away and go and live somewhere else!" he cried. "That would be the end! I should tear her to pieces with my hands--" "Hush, hush! You are talking madly--" "I know it. There is reason. It will end badly, one of these days, unless I end first, and that may happen also. Without you it would have happened long ago. You are the good angel in my life, the one friend God has sent me in my tormented existence, the one star in my black sky. Be my friend still, always, for ever and ever, and I shall live forever only to be your friend. As for love--the devil and his demons will know what to do with it--they will find their account in it. They have lent it, and they will take their payment in blood and tears of those who believe them." "But there is love in the world, somewhere," said Francesca, gently. "Yes--and in hell! But not in heaven--where you will be." Francesca sighed unconsciously, and looked long away towards the great windows at the end of the hall. Reanda gathered up his palette and brushes with a steadier hand. His anger had not spent itself, but it made him suddenly strong, and the outburst had relieved him, though it was certain that it would be followed by a reaction of profound despondency. All at once he came close to Francesca. She looked up, half startled by his sudden movement. "At least it is true--this one thing," he said. "I can count upon you." "Yes. You can count upon me," she answered, gazing into his eyes. He did not move. The one hand held his palette, the other hung free by his side. All at once she took it in hers, still looking up into his eyes. "I am very fond of you," she said earnestly. "You can count upon me as long as we two live." "God bless you," he said, more quietly than he had spoken yet, and his hand pressed hers a little. There could be no harm in saying as much as that, she thought, when it was so true and so simply said. It was all she could ever say to him, or to herself, and there was no reason why she should not say it. He would not misunderstand her. No man could have mistaken the innocence that was the life and light of her clear eyes. She was glad she had said it, and she was glad long afterwards that she had said it on that day, quietly, when no one could hear them in the great still hall. CHAPTER XXVII. REANDA went home that evening in a very disturbed state of mind. He had been better so long as he had not given vent to what he felt; for, as with many southern men of excitable temper and weak nerves, his thoughts about himself, as distinguished from his pursuits, did not take positive shape in his mind until he had expressed them in words. Amongst the Latin races the phrase, 'he cannot think without speaking,' has more truth as applied to some individuals than the Anglo-Saxon can easily understand. For many months the artist had been most unhappy. His silence concerning his grief had been almost exemplary, and had been broken only now and then by a hasty exclamation of annoyance when Gloria's behaviour had irritated him beyond measure. He was the gentlest of men; and even when he had lost his temper with her, he had never spoken roughly. "You are hard to please, my dear," he had sometimes said. But that had been almost the strongest expression of his displeasure. It was not, indeed, that he had exercised very great self-control in the matter, for he had little power of that sort over himself. If he was habitually mild and gentle in his manner with Gloria, it was rather because, like many Italians, he dreaded emotion as something like an illness, and could avoid it to some extent merely by not speaking freely of what he felt. Silence was generally easy to him; and he had not broken out more than two or three times in all his life, as he had done on that afternoon alone with Francesca. The inevitable consequence followed immediately,--a consequence as much physical as mental, for when he went away from the Palazzetto, his clear dark eyes were bloodshot and yellow, and his hands had trembled so that he had hardly been able to find the armholes of his great-coat in putting it on. He walked with an uncertain and agitated step, glancing to right and left of him as he went, half-fiercely, half-timidly, as though he expected a new adversary to spring upon him from every corner. The straight line of the houses waned and shivered in the dusk, as he looked at them, and he saw flashes of light in the air. His head was hot and aching, and his hat hurt him. Altogether he was in a dangerous state, not unlike that which, with northern men, sometimes follows hard drinking. He hated to go home that evening. So far as he was conscious, he had neither misrepresented nor in any way exaggerated the miseries of his domestic existence; and he felt that it was before him now, precisely as he had described it. There would be the same questions, to which he would give the same answers, at which Gloria would put on the same expression of injured hopelessness, unless she broke out and lost her temper, which happened often enough. The prospect was intolerable. Reanda thrust his hands deep into the pocket of his overcoat, and glared about him as he turned the corner of the Via degli Astalli, and saw the Corso in the distance. But he did not slacken his pace as he went along under the gloomy walls of the Austrian Embassy--the Palace of Venice--the most grim and fortress-like of all Roman palaces. He felt as a poor man may feel when, hot and feverish from working by a furnace, he knows that he must face the winter storm of freezing sleet and piercing wind in his thin and ragged jacket to go home--a plunge, as it were, from molten iron into ice, with no protection from the cold. Every step of the homeward way was hateful to him. Yet he knew his own weakness well enough not to hesitate. Had he stopped, he might have been capable of turning in some other direction, and of spending the whole evening with some of his fellow-artists, going home late in the night, when Gloria would be asleep. The thought crossed his mind. If he did that, he was sure to be carried away into speaking of his troubles to men with whom he had no intimacy. He was too proud for that. He wished he could go back to Francesca, and pour out his woes again. He had not said half enough. He should like to have it out, to the very end, and then lie down and close his eyes, and hear Francesca's voice soothing him and speaking of their golden friendship. But that was impossible, so he went home to face his misery as best he could. There was exaggeration in all he thought, but there was none in the effect of his thoughts upon himself. He had married a woman unsuited to him in every way, as he was unsuited to her. The whole trouble lay there. Possibly he was not a man to marry at all, and should have led his solitary life to the end, illuminated from the outside, as it were, by Francesca Campodonico's faithful friendship and sweet influence. All causes of disagreement, considered as forces in married life, are relative in their value to the comparative solidity of the characters on which they act--a truism which ought to be the foundation of social charity, but is not. Reanda could not be blamed for his brittle sensitivenesses, nor Gloria for a certain coarse-grained streak of cruelty, which she had inherited from her father, and which had combined strangely with the rare gifts and great faults of her dead mother--the love of emotion for its own sake, and the tendency to do everything which might produce it in herself and those about her. Emotion was poison to Reanda. It was his wife's favourite food. He reached his home, and went up the well-lighted marble staircase, wishing that he were ascending the narrow stone steps at the back of the Palazzetto Borgia, taper in hand, to his old bachelor quarters, to light his lamp, to smoke in peace, and to spend the evening over a sketch, or with a book, or dreaming of work not yet done. He paused on the landing, before he rang the bell of his apartment. The polished door irritated him, with its brass fittings and all that it meant of married life and irksome social obligation. He never carried a key, because the Roman keys of those times were large and heavy; but he had been obliged to use one formerly, when he had lived by himself. The necessity of ringing the bell irritated him again, and he felt a nervous shock of unwillingness as he pulled the brass knob. He set his teeth against the tinkling and jangling that followed, and his eyelids quivered. Everything hurt him. He did not feel sure of his hands when he wanted to use them. He was inclined to strike the silent and respectful man-servant who opened the door, merely because he was silent and respectful. He went straight to his own dressing-room, and shut himself in. It would be a relief to change his clothes. He and Gloria were to go to a reception in the evening, and he would dress at once. In those days few Romans dressed for dinner every day. He dropped a stud, for his hands were shaking so that he could hardly hold anything; and he groped for the thing on his knees. The blood went to his head, and hurt him violently, as though he had received a blow. Gloria's room was next to his, and she heard him moving about. She knocked and tried the door, but it was locked; and she heard him utter an exclamation of annoyance, as he hunted for the stud. She thought it was meant for her, and turned angrily back from the door. On any other day he would have called her, for he had heard her trying to get in. But he shrugged his lean shoulders impatiently, glanced once towards her room, found his stud, and went on dressing. He really made an effort to get control of himself while he was alone. But to all intents and purposes he was actually ill. His face was drawn and sallow; his eyes were yellow and bloodshot; and there were deep, twitching lines about his mouth. His nostrils moved spasmodically when he drew breath, and his long thin hands fumbled helplessly at the studs and buttons of his clothes. At last he was dressed, and went into the drawing-room. Gloria was already there, waiting by the fireside, with an injured and forbidding expression in her beautiful face. Reanda came to the fireside, and stood there, spreading out his trembling hands to the blaze. He dreaded the first word, as a man lying ill of brain fever dreads each cracking explosion in a thunderstorm. Strained as their relations had been for a long time, he had never failed to kiss Gloria when he came home. This evening he barely glanced at her, and stood watching the dancing tongues of the wood fire, not daring to think of the sound of his wife's voice. It came at last cool and displeased. "Are you ill?" she asked, looking steadily at him. "No," he answered with an effort, and his outstretched hands shook before the fire. "Then what is the matter with you?" "Nothing." He did not even turn his eyes to her, as he spoke the single word. A silence followed, during which he suffered. Nevertheless, the first dreaded shock of hearing her voice was over. Though he had barely glanced at her, he had known from her face what the sound of the voice would be. Gloria leaned back in her chair and watched the fire, and sighed. Griggs had been with her in the afternoon, and she had been happy, quite innocently, as she thought. The man's dominating strength and profound earnestness, which would have been intolerably dull to many women, smoothed Gloria, as it were. She said that he ironed the creases out of her life for her. It was not a softening influence, but a calming one, bred of strength pressing heavily on caprice. She resisted it, but took pleasure in finding that it was irresistible. Now and then it was not merely a steady pressure. He had a sledge hammer amongst his intellectual weapons, and once in a while it fell upon one of her illusions. She laughed at the destruction, and had no pity for the fragments. They were not illusions integral with her vanity, for he thought her perfect, and he would not have struck at her faults if he had seen them. Her faults grew, for they had root in her vital nature, and drew nourishment from his enduring strength, which surrounded them and protected them in the blind, whole-heartedness of his love. For the rest, he had kept his word. She had seen him turn white and bite his lip, sometimes, and more than once he had left her abruptly, and had not come back again for several days. But he had never forgotten his promise, in any word or deed since he had given it. It is a dangerous thing to pile up a mountain of massive reality from which to look out upon the fading beauty of a fleeting illusion. In his influence on Gloria's life, the strong man had overtopped the man of genius by head and shoulders. And she loved the strange mixture of attraction and repulsion she felt when she was with Griggs--the something that wounded her vanity because she could not understand it, and the protecting shield that overspread that same vanity, and gave it freedom to be vain beyond all bounds. She would not have admitted that she loved the man. It was her nature to play upon his pity with the wounds her love for her husband had suffered. Yet she knew that if she were free she should marry him, because she could not resist him, and there was pleasure in the idea that she controlled so irresistible a force. The contrast between him and Reanda was ever before her, and since she had learned how weak genius could be, the comparison was enormously in favour of the younger man. As Reanda stood there before the fire that evening, she despised him, and her heart rebelled against his nature. His nervousness, his trembling hands, his almost evident fear of being questioned, were contemptible. He was like a hunted animal, she thought. Two hours earlier her friend had stood there, solid, leonine, gladiatorial, dominating her with his square white face, and still, shadowy eyes, quietly stretching to the flames two hands that could have torn her in pieces,--a man imposing in his stern young sadness, almost solemn in his splendid physical dignity. She looked at Reanda, and her lip curled with scorn of herself for having loved such a thing. It was long since she had seen the gentle light in his face which had won her heart two years ago. She was familiar with his genius, and it no longer surprised her into overlooking his frailty. His fame no longer flattered her. His gentleness was gone, and had left, not hardness nor violence, in its place, but a sort of irritable palsy of discontent. That was what she called it as she watched him. "You used to kiss me when you came home," she said suddenly, leaning far back in her chair. Mechanically he turned his head. The habit was strong, and she had reminded him of it. He did not wish to quarrel, and he did not reason. He moved a step to her side and bent down to kiss her forehead. The automatic conjugality of the daily kiss might have a good effect. That was what he thought, if he thought at all. But she put up her hands suddenly, and thrust him back rudely. "No," she said. "That sort of thing is not worth much, if I have to remind you to do it." Her lip curled again. His high shoulders went up, and he turned away. "You are hard to please," he said, and the words were as mechanical as the action that had preceded them. "It cannot be said that you have taken much pains to please me of late," she answered coldly. The servant announced dinner at that moment, and Reanda made no answer, though he glanced at her nervously. They went into the dining-room and sat down. The storm brewed during the silent meal. Reanda scarcely ate anything, and drank a little weak wine and water. "You hardly seem well enough to go out this evening," said Gloria, at last, but there was no kindness in the tone. "I am perfectly well," he answered impatiently. "I will go with you." "There is not the slightest necessity," replied his wife. "I can go alone, and you can go to bed." "I tell you I am perfectly well!" he said with unconcealed annoyance. "Let me alone." "Certainly. Nothing is easier." The voice was full of that injured dignity which most surely irritated him, as Gloria knew. But the servant was in the room, and he said nothing, though it was a real effort to be silent. His tongue had been free that day, and it was hard to be bound again. They finished dinner almost in silence, and then went back to the drawing-room by force of habit. Gloria was still in her walking-dress, but there was no hurry, and she resumed her favourite seat by the fire for a time, before going to dress for the reception. CHAPTER XXVIII. THERE was something exasperating in the renewal of the position exactly as it had been before dinner. To make up for having eaten nothing, Reanda drank two cups of coffee in silence. "You might at least speak to me," observed Gloria, as he set down the second cup. "One would almost think that we had quarrelled!" The hard laugh that followed the words jarred upon him more painfully than anything that had gone before. He laughed, too, after a moment's silence, half hysterically. "Yes," he said; "one might almost think that we had quarrelled!" And he laughed again. "The idea seems to amuse you," said Gloria, coldly. "As it does you," he answered. "We both laughed. Indeed, it is very amusing." "Donna Francesca has sent you home in a good humour. That is rare. I suppose I ought to be grateful." "Yes. I am in a fine humour. It seems to me that we both are." He bit his cigar, and blew out short puffs. "You need not include me. Please do not smoke into my face." The smoke was not very near her, but she made a movement with her hands as though brushing it away. "I beg your pardon," he said politely, and he moved to the other side of the fireplace. "How nervous you are!" she exclaimed. "Why can you not sit down?" "Because I wish to stand," he answered, with returning impatience. "Because I am nervous, if you choose." "You told me that you were perfectly well." "So I am." "If you were perfectly well, you would not be nervous," she replied. He felt as though she were driving a sharp nail into his brain. "It does not make any difference to you whether I am nervous or not," he said, and his eye began to lighten, as he sat down. "It certainly makes no difference to you whether you are rude or not." He shrugged his shoulders, said nothing, and smoked in silence. One thin leg was crossed over the other and swung restlessly. "Is this sort of thing to last forever?" she inquired coldly, after a silence which had lasted a full minute. "I do not know what you mean," said Reanda. "You know very well what I mean." "This is insufferable!" he exclaimed, rising suddenly, with his cigar between his teeth. "You might take your cigar out of your mouth to say so," retorted Gloria. He turned on her, and an exclamation of anger was on his lips, but he did not utter it. There was a remnant of self-control. Gloria leaned back in her chair, and took up a carved ivory fan from amongst the knick-knacks on the little table beside her. She opened it, shut it, and opened it again, and pretended to fan herself, though the room was cool. "I should really like to know," she said presently, as he walked up and down with uneven steps. "What?" he asked sharply. "Whether this is to last for the rest of our lives." "What?" "This peaceful existence," she said scornfully. "I should really like to know whether it is to last. Could you not tell me?" "It will not last long, if you make it your principal business to torment me," he said, stopping in his walk. "I?" she exclaimed, with an air of the utmost surprise. "When do I ever torment you?" "Whenever I am with you, and you know it." "Really! You must be ill, or out of your mind, or both. That would be some excuse for saying such a thing." "It needs none. It is true." He was becoming exasperated at last. "You seem to spend your time in finding out how to make life intolerable. You are driving me mad. I cannot bear it much longer." "If it comes to bearing, I think I have borne more than you," said Gloria. "It is not little. You leave me to myself. You neglect me. You abuse the friends I am obliged to find rather than be alone. You neglect me in every way--and you say that I am driving you mad. Do you realize at all how you have changed in this last year? You may have really gone mad, for all I know, but it is I who have to suffer and bear the consequences. You neglect me brutally. How do I know how you pass your time?" Reanda stood still in the middle of the room, gazing at her. For a moment he was surprised by the outbreak. She did not give him time to answer. "You leave me in the morning," she went on, working her coldness into anger. "You often go away before I am awake. You come back at midday, and sometimes you do not speak a word over your breakfast. If I speak, you either do not answer, or you find fault with what I say; and if I show the least enthusiasm for anything but your work, you preach me down with proverbs and maxims, as though I were a child. I am foolish, young, impatient, silly, not fit to take care of myself, you say! Have you taken care of me? Have you ever sacrificed one hour out of your long day to give me a little pleasure? Have you ever once, since we were married, stayed at home one morning and asked me what I would do--just to make one holiday for me? Never. Never once! You give me a fine house and enough money, and you think you have given me all that a woman wants." "And what do you want?" asked Reanda, trying to speak calmly. "A little kindness, a little love--the least thing of all you promised me and of all I was so sure of having! Is it so much to ask? Have you lied to me all this time? Did you never love me? Did you marry me for my face, or for my voice? Was it all a mere empty sham from the beginning? Have you deceived me from the first? You said you loved me. Was none of it true?" "Yes. I loved you," he answered, and suddenly there was a dulness in his voice. "You loved me--" She sighed, and in the stillness that followed the little ivory fan rattled as she opened and shut it. To his ear, the tone in which she had spoken had rung false. If only he could have heard her voice speaking as it had once sounded, he must have been touched. "Yes," she continued. "You loved me, or at least you made me think you did. I was young and I believed you. You do not even say it now. Perhaps because you know how hard it would be to make me believe you." "No. That is not the reason." She waited a moment, for it was not the answer she had expected. "Angelo--" she began, and waited, but he said nothing, though he looked at her. "It is not true, it cannot be true!" she said, suddenly turning her face away, for there was a bitter humiliation in it. "It is much better to say it at once," he said, with the supernaturally calm indifference which sometimes comes upon very sensitive people when they are irritated beyond endurance. "I did love you, or I should not have married you. But I do not love you any longer. I am sorry. I wish I did." "And you dare to tell me so!" she cried, turning upon him suddenly. A moment later she was leaning forward, covering her face with her hands, and speaking through them. "You have the heart to tell me so, after all I have been to you--the devotion of years, the tenderness, the love no man ever had of any woman! Oh, God! It is too much!" "It is said now. It is of no use to go back to a lie," observed Reanda, with an indifference that would have seemed diabolical even to himself, had he believed her outbreak to be quite genuine. "Of what use would it be to pretend again?" "You admit that you have only pretended to love me?" She raised her flushed face and gleaming eyes. "Of late--if you call it a pretence--" "Oh, not that--not that! I have seen it--but at first. You did love me. Say that, at least." "Certainly. Why should I have married you?" "Yes--why? In spite of her, too--it is not to be believed." "In spite of her? Of whom? Are you out of your mind?" Gloria laughed in a despairing sort of way. "Do not tell me that Donna Francesca ever wished you to be married!" she said. "She brought us together. You know it. It is the only thing I could ever reproach her with." "She made you marry me?" "Made me? No! You are quite mad." He stamped his foot impatiently, and turned away to walk up and down again. His cigar had gone out, but he gnawed at it angrily. He was amazed at what he could still bear, but he was fast losing his head. The mad desire to strangle her tingled in his hands, and the light of the lamp danced when he looked at it. "She has made you do so many things!" said Gloria. Her tone had changed again, growing hard and scornful, when she spoke of Donna Francesca. "What has she made me do that you should speak of her in that way?" asked Reanda, angrily, re-crossing the room. "She has made you hate me--for one thing," Gloria answered. "That is not true!" Reanda could hardly breathe, and he felt his voice growing thick. "Not true! Then, if not she, who else? You are with her there all day--she talks about me, she finds fault with me, and you come home and see the faults she finds for you--" "There is not a word of truth in what you say--" "Do not be so angry, then! If it were not true, why should you care? I have said it, and I will say it. She has robbed me of you. Oh, I will never forgive her! Never fear! One does not forget such things! She has got you, and she will keep you, I suppose. But you shall regret it! She shall pay me for it!" Her voice shook, for her jealousy was real, as was all her emotion while it lasted. "You shall not speak of her in that way," said Reanda, fiercely. "I owe her and her family all that I am, all that I have in the world--" "Including me!" interrupted Gloria. "Pay her then--pay her with your love and yourself. You can satisfy your conscience in that way, and you can break my heart." "There is not the slightest fear of that," answered Reanda, cruelly. She rose suddenly to her feet and stood before him, blazing with anger. "If I could find yours--if you had any--I would break it," she said. "You dare to say that I have no heart, when you can see that every word you say thrusts it through like a knife, when I have loved you as no woman ever loved man! I said it, and I repeat it--when I have given you everything, and would have given you the world if I had it! Indeed, you are utterly heartless and cruel and unkind--" "At least, I am honest. I do not play a part as you do. I say plainly that I do not love you and that I am sorry for it. Yes--really sorry." His voice softened for an instant. "I would give a great deal to love you as I once did, and to believe that you loved me--" "You will tell me that I do not--" "Indeed, I will tell you so, and that you never did--" "Angelo--take care! You will go too far!" "I could never go far enough in telling you that truth. You never loved me. You may have thought you did. I do not care. You talk of devotion and tenderness and all the like! Of being left alone and neglected! Of going too far! What devotion have you ever shown to me, beyond extravagantly praising everything I painted, for a few months after we were married. Then you grew tired of my work. That is your affair. What is it to me whether you admire my pictures or Mendoza's, or any other man's? Do you think that is devotion? I know far better than you which are good and which are bad. But you call it devotion. And it was devotion that kept you away from me when I was working, when I was obliged to work--for it is my trade, after all--and when you might have been with me day after day! And it was devotion to meet me with your sour, severe look every day when I came home, as though I were a secret enemy, a conspirator, a creature to be guarded against like a thief--as though I had been staying away from you on purpose, and of my will--instead of working for you all day long. That was your way of showing your love. And to torment me with questions, everlastingly believing that I spend my time in talking against you to Donna Francesca--" "You do!" cried Gloria, who had not been able to interrupt his incoherent speech. "You love her as you never loved me--as you hate me--as you both hate me!" She grasped his sleeve in her anger, shaking his arm, and staring into his eyes. "You make me hate you!" he answered, trying to shake her off. "And you succeed, between you--You and your--" In his turn he grasped her arm with his long, thin fingers, with nervous roughness. "You shall not speak of her--" "Shall not? It is the only right I have left--that and the right to hate you--you and that infamous woman you love--yes--you and your mistress--your pretty Francesca!" Her laugh was almost a scream. His fury overflowed. After all, he was the son of a countryman, of the steward of Gerano. He snatched the ivory fan from her hand and struck her across the face with it. The fragile thing broke to shivers, and the fragments fell between them. Gloria turned deadly white, but there was a bright red bar across her cheek. She looked at him a moment, and into her face there came that fateful look that was like her dead mother's. Then without a word she turned and left the room. CHAPTER XXIX. THE daughter of Angus Dalrymple and Maria Braccio was not the woman to bear a blow tamely, or to hesitate long as to the surest way of resenting it. Before she had reached the door she had determined to leave the house at once, and ten minutes had not passed before she found herself walking down the Corso, veiled and muffled in a cloak, and having all the money she could call her own, in her pocket, together with a few jewels of little value, given her by her father. Reanda had sunk into a chair when the door had closed behind her, half stunned by the explosion of his own anger. He looked at the bits of broken ivory on the carpet, and wondered vaguely what they meant. He felt as though he had been in a dream of which he could not remember the distorted incidents at all clearly. His breath came irregularly, his heart fluttered and stood still and fluttered again, and his hands twitched at the fringe on the arms of the chair. By and bye, the butler came in to take away the coffee cups and he saw that his master was ill. Under such circumstances nothing can equal the gentleness of an Italian servant. The man called some one to help him, and got Reanda to his dressing-room, and undressed him and laid him upon the long leathern sofa. Then they knocked at the bedroom door, but there was no answer. "Do not disturb the signora," said Reanda, feebly. "She wishes to be alone. We shall not want the carriage." Those were the only words he spoke that evening, and the servants understood well enough that something had happened between husband and wife, and that it was best to be silent and to obey. No one tried the door of the bedroom. If any one had turned the handle, it would have been found to be locked. The key lay on the table in the hall, amongst the visiting-cards. Dalrymple's daughter had inherited some of his quick instinct and presence of mind. She had felt sure that if she locked the door of her room when she left the house, her husband would naturally suppose that she had shut herself in, not wishing to be disturbed, and would respect her desire to be alone. It would save trouble, and give her time to get away. He could sleep on the sofa in his dressing-room, as he actually did, in the illness of his anger, treated as Italians know how to treat such common cases, of which the consequences are sometimes fatal. Many an Italian has died from a fit of rage. A single blood-vessel, in the brain, a little weaker than the rest, and all is over in an apoplexy. But Reanda was not of an apoplectic constitution. The calming treatment acted very soon, he fell asleep, and did not wake till daylight, quite unaware that Gloria was not in the next room, sleeping off her anger as he had done. She had gone out in her first impulse to leave the house of the man who had so terribly insulted her. Under her veil the hot blood scorched her where the blow had left its red bar, and her rage and wounded pride chased one another from her heart to her head while with every beating of her pulse the longing for revenge grew wilder and stronger. She had left the house with one first idea--to find Paul Griggs and tell him what had happened. No other thought crossed her mind, and her steps turned mechanically down the Corso, for he still lived in his two rooms in the Via della Frezza. It was early still. People dined at six o'clock in those days, and it was not yet eight when Gloria found herself in the street. It was quiet, though there were many people moving about. During the hours between dinner and the theatre there were hardly any carriages out, and the sound of many footsteps and of many low voices filled the air. Gloria kept to the right and walked swiftly along, never turning her head. She had never been out in the streets alone at night in her life, and even in her anger she felt a sort of intoxication of freedom that was quite new to her, a beginning of satisfaction upon him who had injured her. There was Highland blood in her veins, as well as Italian passion. The southeast wind was blowing down the street behind her, that same strange and tragic wind, tragic and passionate, that had blown so gustily down upon Subiaco from the mountains, on that night long ago when Maria Addolorata had stood aside by the garden gate to let Dalrymple pass, bearing something in his arms. Gloria knew it by its sad whisper and by the faint taste of it and smell of it, through her close-drawn veil. On she went, down the Corso, till she came to the Piazza Colonna, and saw far on her left, beyond the huge black shaft of the column, the brilliant lights from the French officers' Club. She hesitated then, and slackened her speed a little. The sight of the Club reminded her of society, of what she was doing, and of what it might mean. As she walked more slowly, the wind gained upon her, as it were, from behind, and tried to drive her on. It seemed to be driving her from her husband's house with all its might, blowing her skirts before her and her thick veil. She passed the square, keeping close to the shutters of the shops under the Palazzo Piombino--gone now, to widen the open space. A gust, stronger than any she had felt yet, swept down the pavement. She paused a moment, leaning against the closed shutters of the clockmaker Ricci, whose shop used to be a sort of landmark in the Corso. Just then a clock within struck eight strokes. She heard them all distinctly through the shutters. She hesitated an instant. It was eight o'clock. She had not realized what time it was. If she found the street door shut in the Via della Frezza, it would be hard to get at Griggs. She had passed the house more than once in her walks, and she knew that Griggs lived high up in the fifth story. It might be already too late. She hesitated and looked up and down the pavement. A young French officer of Zouaves was coming towards her; his high wrinkled and varnished boots gleamed in the gaslight. He had a black beard and bright young eyes, and was smoking a cigarette. He was looking at her and slackened his pace as he came near. She left her place and walked swiftly past him, down the Corso. All at once she felt in the gust that drove her a cool drop of rain just behind her ear, and a moment later, passing a gas-lamp, she saw the dark round spots on the grey pavement. In her haste, she had brought no umbrella. She hurried on, and the wind blew her forward with all its might, so that she felt her steps lightened by its help. The Corso was darker and there were fewer people. The rain fell fast when she reached San Carlo, where the street widens, and she gathered her cloak about her as well as she could and crossed to the other side, hoping to find more shelter. She was nearing the Via della Frezza, and she knew some of the ins and outs of the narrow streets behind the tribune of the great church. It was very dark as she turned the semicircle of the apse, and the rain fell in torrents, but it was shorter to go that way, for Griggs lived nearer to the Ripetta than to the Corso, and she followed a sort of crooked diagonal, in the direction of his house. She thought the streets led by that way to the point she wished to reach, and she walked as fast as she could. The flare of an occasional oil lamp swung out high at the end of its lever showed her the way, and showed her, too, the rush of the yellow water down the middle channel of the street. She looked in vain for the turning she expected on her right. She had not lost her way, but she had not found the short cut she had looked for. Emerging upon the broad Ripetta, she paused an instant at the corner and looked about, though she knew which way to turn. Just then there were heavy splashing footsteps close to her. "Permit me, Signora," said a voice that was rough and had an odd accent, though the tone was polite, and a huge umbrella was held over her head. She shrank back against the wall quickly, in womanly fear of a strange man. "No, thank you!" she exclaimed in answer. "But yes!" said the man. "It rains. You are getting an illness, Signora." The faint light showed her that she would be safe enough in accepting the offer. The man was evidently a peasant from the mountains, and he was certainly not young. His vast black cloak was turned back a little by his arm and showed the lining of green flannel and the blue clothes with broad silver buttons which he wore. "Thank you," she said, for she was glad of the shelter, and she stood still under the enormous blue cotton umbrella, with its battered brass knob and its coloured stripes. "But I will accompany you," said the man. "It is certainly not beginning to finish. Apoplexy! It rains in pieces!" "Thank you. I am not going far," said Gloria. "You are very kind." "It seems to be the act of a Christian," observed the peasant. She began to move, and he walked beside her. He would have thought it bad manners to ask whither she was going. Through the torrents of rain they went on in silence. In less than five minutes she had found the door of Griggs's house. To her intense relief it was still open, and there was the glimmer of a tiny oil lamp from a lantern in the stairway. Gloria felt for the money in her pocket. The man did not wait, nor speak, and was already going away. She called him. [Illustration: Stefanone and Gloria.--Vol. II., p. 100.] "I wish to give you something," said Gloria. "To me?" exclaimed the man, in surprise. "No, Signora. It seems that you make a mistake." "Excuse me," Gloria answered. "In the dark, I did not see. I am very grateful to you. You are from the country?" She wished to repair the mistake she had made, by some little civility. The man stood on the doorstep, with his umbrella hanging backward over his shoulder, and she could see his face distinctly,--a typical Roman face with small aquiline features, keen dark eyes, a square jaw, and iron-grey hair. "Yes, Signora. Stefanone of Subiaco, wine merchant, to serve you. If you wish wine of Subiaco, ask for me at Piazza Montanara. Signora, it rains columns. With permission, I go." "Thank you again," she answered. He disappeared into the torrent, and she was left alone at the foot of the gloomy stairs, under the feeble light of the little oil lamp. She had thrown back her veil, for it was soaked with water and stuck to her face. Little rivulets ran down upon the stones from her wet clothes, which felt intolerably heavy as she stood there, resting one gloved hand against the damp wall and staring at the lantern. Her thoughts had been disturbed by her brief interview with the peasant; the rain chilled her, and her face burned. She touched her cheek with her hand where Reanda had struck her. It felt bruised and sore, for the blow had not been a light one. The sensation of the wet leather disgusted her, and she drew off the glove with difficulty, turning it inside out over her full white hand. Then she touched the place again, and patted it, softly, and felt it. But her eyes did not move from the lantern. There was one of those momentary lulling pauses in the rush of events which seem sent to confuse men's thoughts and unsettle their purposes. Had she reached the house five minutes earlier, she would not have hesitated a moment at the foot of the stairs. Suddenly she turned back to the door, and stood there looking out. It looked very black. She gathered her dripping skirt back as she bent forward a little and peered into the darkness. The rain fell in sheets, now, with the unquavering sound of a steadily rushing torrent. It would be madness to go out into it. A shiver ran through her, and another. She was very cold and miserable. No doubt Griggs had a fire upstairs, and a pleasant light in his study. He would be there, hard at work. She would knock, and he would open, and she would sit down by the fire and dry herself, and pour out her misery. The red bar was still across her face--she had seen it in the looking-glass when she had put on her hat. To go back, to see her husband that night--it was impossible. Later, perhaps, when he should be asleep, Griggs would find a carriage and take her home. No one would ever know where she had been, and she would never tell any more than Griggs would. She felt that she must see him and tell him everything, and feel his strength beside her. After all, he was the only friend she had in the world, and it was natural that she should turn to him for help, in her father's absence. He was her father's friend, too. She shivered again and again from head to foot, and she drew back from the door. For a moment she hesitated. Then with a womanly action she began to shake the rain out of her cloak and her skirts as well as she could, wetting her hands to the wrists. As she bent down, shaking the hem of the skirt, the blood rushed to her face again, and the place he had struck burned and smarted. It was quite a different sensation from what she had felt when she had touched it with her cool wet hand. She straightened herself with a spring and threw back her head, and her eyes flashed fiercely in the dark. The accidents of fate closed round her, and the hands of her destiny had her by the throat, choking her as she breathed. There was no more hesitation. With quick steps she began to ascend the short, steep flights. It was dark, beyond the first turning, but she went on, touching the damp walls with her hands. Then there was a glimmer again, and a second lantern marked the first landing and shone feebly upon a green door with a thin little square of white marble screwed to it for a door-plate and a name in black. She glanced at it and went on, for she knew that Griggs lived on the fifth floor. She was surefooted, like her father, as she went firmly up, panting a little, for her drenched clothes weighed her down. There was one more light, and then there were no more. She counted the landings, feeling the doors with her hands as she went by, dizzy from the constant turning in the darkness. At last she thought she had got to the end, and groping with her hands she found a worsted string and pulled it, and a cracked little bell jangled and beat against the wood inside. She heard a pattering of feet, and a shrill, nasal child's voice called out the customary question, inquiring who was there. She asked for Griggs. "He is not here," answered the child, and she heard the footsteps running away again, though she called loudly. Her heart sank. But she groped her way on. The staircase ended, for it was the top of the house, and she found another door, and felt for a string like the one she had pulled, but there was none. Something told her that she was right, and with the sudden, desperate longing to be inside, with her strong protector, in the light and warmth, she beat upon the door with the palms of her hands, her face almost touching the cold painted wood studded with nails, that smelled of wet iron. Then came the firm, regular footsteps of the strong man, and his clear, stern voice spoke from within, not in a question, but in a curt refusal to open. "Go away," he said, in Italian. "You have mistaken the door." But she beat with her hands upon the heavy wood. "Let me in!" she cried in English. "Let me in!" There was a deep exclamation of surprise, and the oiled bolt clanked back in its socket. The door opened inward, and Paul Griggs held up a lamp with a green shade, throwing the light into Gloria's face. CHAPTER XXX. GLORIA pushed past Griggs and stood beside him in the narrow entry. He shut the door mechanically, and turned slowly towards her, still holding up the lamp so that it shone upon her face. "What has happened to you?" he asked, slowly and steadily, his shadowed eyes fixed upon her. "He has beaten me, and I have come to you. Look at my face." He saw the red bar across her cheek. He did not raise his voice, and there was little change in his features, but his eyes glowed suddenly, like the eyes of a wild beast, and he swore an oath so terrible that Gloria turned a little pale and shrank from him. Then he was silent, and they stood together. She could hear his breath. She could see him trying to swallow, for his throat was suddenly as dry as cinders. Very slowly his frown deepened to a scowl, and two straight furrows clove their way down between his eyes, his dark eyebrows were lifted evilly, upward and outward, and little by little the strong, clean shaven upper lip rose at the corners and showed two gleaming, wolfish teeth. The smooth, close hair bristled from the point where it descended upon his forehead. Gloria shrank a little. She had seen such a look in an angry lion; just the look, without a motion of the limbs. Then it all disappeared, and the still face she knew so well was turned to hers. "Will you come in?" he asked in a constrained tone. "It is my work-room. I will light a fire, and you must dry yourself. How did you get so wet? You did not come on foot?" He opened the door while he was speaking, and led the way with the lamp. Gloria shivered as she followed, for there was a small window open in the entry, and her clothes clung to her in the cold draught. She closed the door behind her, as she went in. It was very little warmer within than without, and the small fireplace was black and cold. Instinctively she glanced at Griggs. He wore a rough pilot coat that had seen much service, buttoned to his throat. He set the little lamp with its green shade down upon the table amidst a mass of papers and books, and drew forward the only easy-chair there was, a dilapidated piece of furniture covered with faded yellow reps and ragged fringes that dragged on the floor. He took a great cloak from a clothes-horse in the corner and threw it over the chair, smoothing it carefully with his hands. "If you will sit down, I will try and make a fire," he said quietly. She sat down as he bade her, wondering a little at his calmness, but remembering the awful words that had escaped his lips when she had spoken, and the look of the wild beast and incarnate devil that had been one moment in his face. She looked about her while he began to make a fire, not hindering him, for she was shivering. The room was large, but very poorly furnished. There were two great tables, covered with books and papers; there was a deal bookcase along one wall and an antiquated cabinet between the two windows, one of its legs propped up with a dingy faded paper. The coarse green carpet was threadbare, but still whole. There were half-a-dozen plain chairs with green and white rush seats in various parts of the room. On the narrow white marble mantel-shelf stood two china candlesticks, in one of which there was a piece of candle that had guttered when last burning. In the middle a cheap American clock of white metal ticked loudly, and the hands pointed to twenty minutes before nine. In one corner was the clothes-horse, with two or three overcoats hanging on it, and two hats, one of which was hanging half over on one side. It looked as though two cloaked skeletons in hats were embracing. In another corner by the door a black stick and an umbrella stood side by side. But for the books the place would have had a desolate look. The air smelt of strong tobacco. Gloria looked about her curiously, though her heart was beating fast. The man was familiar to her, dear to her in many ways, and over much in her life. The place where he lived contained a part of him which she did not know. Her breath came quickly in the anticipation of an emotion greater even than what she had felt already, but her eyes wandered in curiosity from one object to another. Suddenly she heard the loud cracking of breaking wood. There was a blaze of paper from the fireplace, illuminating all the room, and some light pieces he was throwing on kindled quickly. He was breaking them--she looked--it was one of the rush-bottomed chairs. "What are you doing?" she cried, leaning suddenly far forward. "Making a good fire," he answered. "There happened to be only one bit of wood in my box, so I am taking these things." He broke the legs and the rails of the chair in his hands, as a child would break twigs, and heaped them up upon the blaze. "There are five more," he observed. "They will make a good fire." He arranged the burning mass to suit him, looked at it, and then turned. "You ought to be a little nearer," he said, and he lifted the chair with her in it and set her before the fireplace. It had all looked and felt desperately desolate half a minute earlier. It was changed now. He went to a corner and filled a small glass with wine from a straw-covered flask and brought it to her. She thanked him with her eyes and drank half of it eagerly. He knelt down before the fire again, for as the paper burned away underneath, the light sticks fell inward and might go out. When he had arranged it all again, he looked round and met her eyes, still kneeling. "Is that better?" he asked quietly. "You are so good," said Gloria, letting her eyelids droop as she looked from him to the pleasant flame. He put out his hand and gently touched the hem of her cloth skirt. "You are drenched," he said. Then, before she realized what he was doing, he bent down and kissed the wet cloth, and without looking at her rose to his feet, got another chair and sat down near her. A soft blush of pleasure had risen in her cheeks. They were little things that he did, but they were like him, unaffected, strong, direct. Another man would have made apologies for having no wood and would have tried to make a fire of the single stick. Another man would have made excuses for the disorder of his room, or for the poverty of its furniture, perhaps. The other man she thought of was her husband, and possibly she had her father in her mind, too. "When you are rested, tell me your story," he said, and his face hardened all at once. She began to speak in a low and uncertain voice, reciting almost mechanically many things which she had often told him before. He listened without moving a muscle. Her voice was dear to him, whether she repeated the endless history of her woes for the tenth or the hundredth time. Where she was concerned he had no judgment, and he had no criterion, for he had never loved another woman with whom he could compare her. All that was of her was of paramount interest and weighty importance. He could not hear it too often. But to-night her first words had told him of the violent crisis in her life with Reanda, and he listened to all she said, before she reached that point, with an interest he had never felt before. But he would not look at her, for he must have taken her in his arms, as he had done once, months before now. She had come for protection and for help, and her need was the life spring of his honour. As she went on, her voice took colour from her emotion, her hands moved now and then in short swift gestures, and her dark eyes burned. The marvellous dramatic power she possessed blazed out under the lash of her wrongs, and she found words she had only groped for until that moment. She described the miserably nervous feebleness of the man with scathing contempt, her tone made evil deeds of his shortcomings, her scorn made his weakness a black crime; her jealous anger fastened upon Francesca Campodonico and tore her honour to shreds and her virtues to rags of abomination; and her flaming pride blazed out in searing hatred and contempt for the coward who had struck her in the face. "He broke my fan across my face!" she cried with the ascending intonation of a fury rising still, and still more fiercely beautiful. "He slashed my face with it and broke it and threw the bits down at my feet! There, look at it! That is his work--oh, give it back to him, kill him for me, tear him to pieces for me--make him feel what I have felt to-day!" She had pushed her brown hat and veil back from her head, and her wet cloak had long ago fallen from her shoulders. One straight, white hand shot out and fastened upon her companion's arm, as he sat beside her, and she shook it in savage confidence of his iron strength. A dead silence followed, but the fire made of the broken chairs roared and blazed on the low brick hearth. The man kept his eyes upon it fixedly, as though it were his salvation, for he felt that if he looked at her he was lost. She had come to him not for love, but for protection, of her own free will. Yet he felt that his honour was burning in him, with no longer life, if she stayed there, than the short, quick fire itself. His voice was thick when he answered, as though he were speaking through a velvet pall. "I will kill him, if he will fight," he answered, with an effort. "I will not murder him, even for you." She started, for she had not realized how he would take literally what she said. She had no experience of desperate men in her limited life. "Murder him? No!" she said, snatching back her hand from his arm. "No, no! I never meant that." "I am glad you did not. If you did, I should probably break down and do it to please you. But if he will fight like a man, I will kill him to please myself. Now I will go and get a carriage and take you home." He rose to his feet and, turning, turned away from her, going toward the corner to get an overcoat. She followed him with her eyes, in silence. "You are not afraid to be left alone for a quarter of an hour?" he asked, buttoning his coat, and looking toward his umbrella. "Do not go just yet," she answered softly. "I must. It is getting late. I shall not find a carriage if I wait any longer. I must go now." "Do not go." She heard him breathe hard once or twice. Then with quick strides he was beside her, and speaking to her. "Gloria, I cannot stand it--I warn you. I love you in a way you cannot understand. You must not keep me here." "Do not go," she said again, in the deep, soft tone of her golden voice. "I must." He turned from her and went towards the door. Soft and swift she followed him, but he was in the entry before her hand was on his arm. It was almost dusk out there. He stopped. "I cannot go back to him," she said, and he could see the light in her eyes, and very faintly the red bar across the face he loved. "You should--there is nowhere else for you to go," he said, and in the dark his hand was finding the bolt of the door to the stairs. "No--there is nowhere else--I cannot go back to him," she answered, and the voice quavered uncertainly as the night breeze sighing amongst reeds. "You must--you must," he tried to say. Her weight was all upon his arm, but it was nothing to him. He steadily drew back the bolt. He turned up his face so that he could not see her. With sudden strength her white hands went round his sinewy dark throat as he threw back his head. "You are all I have in the world!" she half said, half whispered. "I will not let you go!" "You?" His voice broke out as through a bursting shell. "Yes. Come back!" His arm fell like lead to his side. Gently she drew him back to the door of the study. The blaze of the fire shot into her face. "Come," she said. "See how well it burns." "Yes," he said, mechanically, "it is burning well." He stood aside an instant at the door to let her pass. His eyelids closed and his face became rigid as a death mask of a man dead in passion. One moment only; then he followed her and softly shut the door. CHAPTER XXXI. THE brilliant winter morning had an intoxicating quality in it, after the heavy rain which had fallen in the night, and Paul Griggs felt that it was good to be alive as he threaded the narrow streets between his lodging and the Piazza Colonna. He avoided the Corso; for he did not know whom he might meet, and he had no desire to meet any one, except Angelo Reanda. Naturally enough, his first honourable impulse was to go to the artist, to tell him something of the truth, and to give him an opportunity of demanding the common satisfaction of a hostile meeting. It did not occur to him that Reanda would not wish to exchange shots with him and have the chance of taking his life. Griggs was not the man to refuse such an encounter, and at that moment he felt so absolutely sure of himself that the idea of being killed was very far removed from his thoughts. It was without the slightest emotion that he enquired for Reanda at the latter's house, but he was very much surprised to hear that the painter had gone out as usual at his customary hour. He hesitated a moment and then decided not to leave a card, upon which he could not have written a message intelligible to Reanda which should not have been understood also by the servant who received it. Griggs made up his mind that he would write a formal note later in the day. He took it for granted that Reanda must be searching for his wife. It was necessary to find a better lodging than the one in the Via della Frezza, and to provide as well as he could for Gloria's comfort. He was met by a difficulty upon which he had not reflected as yet, though he had been dimly aware of it more than once during the past twelve hours. He was almost penniless, and he had no means of obtaining money at short notice. The payments he received from the newspapers for which he worked came regularly, but were not due for at least three weeks from that day. Alone in his bachelor existence he could have got through the time very well and without any greater privations than his capriciously ascetic nature had often imposed upon itself. He was not an improvident man, but in his lonely existence he had no sense of future necessities, and the weakest point in his judgment was his undiscriminating generosity. Of the value of money as a store against possible needs, he had no appreciation at all, and he gave away what he earned beyond his most pressing requirements in secret and often ill-judged charities, whenever an occasion of doing so presented itself, though he never sought one. For himself, he was able to subsist on bread and water, and the meagre fare was scarcely a privation to his hardy constitution. If he chanced to have no money to spare for fuel, he bore the cold and buttoned up his old pea-jacket to the throat while he sat at work at his table. His self-respect made him wise and careful in regard to his dress, but in other matters many a handicraftsman was accustomed to more luxury than he. At the present juncture he had been taken unawares, and he found himself in great difficulty. He had left himself barely enough for subsistence until the arrival of the next remittance, and that meant but a very few scudi; and yet he knew that certain expenses must be met immediately, almost within the twenty-four hours. The very first thing was to get a lodging suitable for Gloria. It would be necessary to pay at least one month's rent in advance. Even if he were able to do that, he would be left without a penny for daily expenses. He had no bank account; for he cashed the drafts he received and kept the money in his room. He had never borrowed of an acquaintance, and the idea was repulsive to him and most humiliating. Had he possessed any bit of jewelry, or anything of value, he would have sold the object, but he had nothing of the kind. His books were practically valueless, consisting of such volumes as he absolutely needed for his daily use, chiefly cheap editions, poorly bound and well worn. He needed at least fifty scudi, and he did not possess quite ten. Three weeks earlier he had sent a hundred, anonymously, to free a starving artist from debt. His position was only very partially enviable just then, but the bright north wind seemed to blow his troubles back from him as he faced it, walking home from his ineffectual attempt to meet Reanda. It was very unlike the man to return to his lodging without having accomplished anything, but he was hardly conscious of the fact. The face of the ancient city was suddenly changed, and it seemed as though nothing could go wrong if he would only allow fortune to play her own game without interference. He walked lightly, and there was a little colour in his face. He tried to think of what he should do to meet his present difficulties, but when he thought of them they were whirled away, shapeless and unrecognizable, and he felt a sense of irresistible power with each breath of the crisp dry air. As he went along he glanced at the houses he passed, and on some of the doors were little notices scrawled in queer handwritings and telling that a lodging was to let. Occasionally he paused, looked up and hesitated, and then he went on. The difficulty was suddenly before him, and he knew that even if he looked at the rooms he could not hire them, as he had not enough money to cover the first month's rent. Immediately he attempted to devise some means of raising the sum he needed, but before he had reached the very next corner the clear north wind had blown the trouble away like a cobweb. With all his strength and industry and determination, he was still a very young man, and perplexity had no hold upon him since passion had taken its own way. He reached the corner of his own street and stood still for a few moments. He could almost have smiled at himself as he paused. He had been out more than an hour and had done nothing, thought out nothing, made no definite plan for the future. His present poverty, which was desperate enough, had put on a carnival mask and laughed at him, as it were, and ran away when he tried to grapple with it and look it in the face. Gloria was there, upstairs in that tall house on which the morning sun was shining, and nothing else could possibly matter. But if anything mattered, it would be simple to talk it over together and to decide it in common. Suddenly he felt ashamed of himself and of the confusion of his own intelligence. There was something meek and childish in standing still at the street corner, watching the people as they went by, listening to the regularly recurring yell of the man who was selling country vegetables from a hand-cart, and looking into the faces of people who went by, as though expecting to find there some solution of a difficulty which his disturbed powers of concentration did not clearly grasp. He could not think connectedly, much less could he reason sensibly. He made a few steps forward towards his house, and then stopped again, asking himself what he was going to do. He felt that he had no right to go back to Gloria until he had decided something for the future. He felt like a boy who has been sent on an errand, and who comes back having forgotten what he was to do. All at once he had lost his hold upon the logic of common-sense, and when he groped for a thread that might lead him, he was suddenly dazzled by the blaze of his happiness and deafened by the voice of his own joy. He went on again and came to his own door. The one-eyed cobbler was at work, astride of his little bench with a brown pot of coals beside him. From time to time, when he had drawn the waxed yarn out through the leather on both sides, he blew into his black hands. Griggs stood still and looked at him in idle indetermination, and only struggling against the power that drew him towards the stairs. "A fine north wind," observed Griggs, by way of salutation. "It seems that it must be said," grunted the old man, punching a fresh hole in the sole he was cobbling. "To me, my fingers say it. It has always been a fine trade, this cobbling. It is a gentleman's trade because one is always sitting down." "I am going to change my lodging," said Griggs. The cobbler looked up, resting his dingy fists upon the bench on each side of the shoe, his awl in one hand, the other half encased in a leathern sheath, black with age. "After so many years!" he exclaimed. "The world will also come to an end. I expected that it would. Now where will you take lodging?" "Where I can find one. I want a little apartment--" "It seems that your affairs go better," observed the old man, scrutinizing the other's face with his one eye. "No. No better. That is the trouble. I want a little apartment, and I do not want to pay for it till the end of the first month." "Then wait till the end of the month before you move to it, Signore." "That is impossible." "Then there is a female," said the cobbler, without the slightest hesitation. "I understand. Why did you not say so?" Griggs hesitated. The man's guess had taken him by surprise. He reflected that it could make no difference whether the old cobbler knew of Gloria's coming or not. "There is a signora--a relation of mine--who has come to Rome." "A fair signora? Very beautiful? With a little eye of the devil? I have seen. Thanks be to heaven, one eye is still good. You are dark, and your family is fair. How can it interest me?" "What? Has she gone out?" asked Griggs, in sudden anxiety. "When?" "I had guessed!" exclaimed the cobbler, with a grunting laugh, and he ran the delicate bristles, which pointed the yarn, in opposite directions through the hole he had made, caught one yarn round the knot on the handle of the awl and the other round the leather sheath on his left hand. He drew the yarn tight to his arm's length with a vicious jerk. "When did the signora go out?" enquired Griggs, repeating his question. "It may be half an hour ago. Apoplexy! If your relations are all as beautiful as that!" But Griggs was already moving towards the staircase. The cobbler called him back, and he stood still at the foot of the steps. "There is the little apartment on the left, on the third floor," said the man. "The lodgers went away yesterday. I was going to ask you to write me a notice to put up on the door. As for paying, the padrone will not mind, seeing that you are an old lodger. It is good, do you know? There is sun. There is also a kitchen. There are five rooms with the entry." [Illustration: "The horror of poverty smote him."--Vol. II., p. 123.] "I will take it," said Griggs, instantly, and he ran up the stairs. He was breathless with anxiety as he entered his work-room, and looked about him for something which should tell him where Gloria was gone. Almost instantly his eyes fell upon a sheet of paper lying before his accustomed seat. The writing on it was hers. "I have gone to tell him. I shall be back soon." That was all it said, but it was enough to blacken the sun that streamed through the windows upon the old carpet. Griggs sat down and rested his head in his hand. With the cloud that came between him and happiness, his powers of reason returned, and he saw quickly, in the pre-vision of logic, a scene of violence and anger between husband and wife, a possible reconciliation, and the instant wreck of his storm-driven love. It was impossible to know what Gloria would tell Reanda. At the same instant the difficulties of his position rushed upon him and demanded an instant solution. He looked about him at the poor room, the miserable furniture, and the worn-out carpet, and the horror of poverty smote him in the face. He had allowed Gloria to come to him, and he knew that he could not support her decently. He had never found himself in so desperate a position in the course of his short and adventurous life. He could face anything when he alone was to suffer privation, but it was horrible to force misery upon the woman he loved. Then, too, he asked himself what was to happen to Gloria if Reanda killed him, as was possible enough. And if he were not killed, there was Dalrymple, her father, who might return at any moment. No one could foretell what the Scotchman would do. It would be like him to do nothing except to refuse ever to see his daughter again. But he, also, might choose to fight, though his English traditions would be against it. In any case, Gloria ran the risk of being left alone, ruined and unprotected. But the present problem was a meaner one, though not less desperate in its way. He reproached himself with having wasted even an hour when the case was so urgent. Without longer hesitation, he began to write letters to the editors for whom he worked, requesting them as a favour to advance the next remittance. Even then, he could scarcely expect to have money in less than ten days, and there was no one to whom he would willingly turn for help. Under ordinary circumstances he would have gone without food for days rather than have borrowed of an acquaintance, but he realized that he must overcome any such false pride within a day or two, at the risk of making Gloria suffer. In those first hours he was not conscious of any question of right or wrong in what had taken place. Honour, in a rather worldly sense, had always supplied for him the place of all other moral considerations. The woman he loved had been ill-treated by her husband, and had come to him for protection. He had done his best, in spite of his love, to make her go back, and she had known how to refuse. Men, as men, would not blame him for what he was doing. Gloria, as a woman, could never reproach him with having tempted her. He might suffer for his deeds, but he could never blush for them. CHAPTER XXXII. MEANWHILE, Gloria had gone out alone, intending to find her husband and to tell him that the die was cast, that she had left him in haste and anger, but that she never would return to his house. She felt that she must live through the chain of emotions to the very last link, as it were, until she could feel no more. It was like her to go straight to Reanda and take up the battle where she had interrupted it. Her anger had been sudden, but it was not brief. She had left weakness, and had found strength to add to her own, and she wished the man who had hurt her to feel how strong she was, and how she was able to take her life out of his hands and to keep it for herself, and live it as she pleased in spite of him and every one. The wild blood that ran in her veins was free, now, and she meant that no one but herself should ever again have the right to thwart it, to tell her heart that it should beat so many times in each minute and no more. She was perfectly well aware that she was accepting social ruin with her freedom, but she had long nourished a rancorous hatred for the society which had seemed to accept her under protest, for Francesca's sake, and she was ready enough to turn her back on it before it should finally make up its polite mind to relegate her to the middle distance of indifferent toleration. As for Reanda, on that first morning she hated him with all her soul, for himself, and for what he had done to her. She had words ready for him, and she turned and fitted them in her heart that they might cut him and stab him as long as he could feel. The selfishness with a tendency to cruelty which was a working spring of her father's character was strong in her, and craved the satisfaction of wounding. A part of the sudden joy in life which she felt as she walked towards what had been her home, lay in the certainty of dealing back fourfold hurt for every real and fancied injury she had ever suffered at Reanda's hands. She felt quite sure of finding him. She did not imagine it possible that after what had happened he should go to the Palazzetto Borgia to work as usual. Besides, he must have discovered her absence by this time, and would in all probability be searching for her. She smiled at the idea, and she went swiftly on, keenly ready to give all the pain she could. At her own door the servant seemed surprised to see her. Every one had supposed that she was still in her room, for it was not yet midday, and she sometimes slept very late. She glanced at the hall table and saw her key lying amongst the cards where she had thrown it when she had left the house. The servant did not see her take it, for she made a pretence of turning the cards over to find some particular one. She asked indifferently about her husband. The man said that Reanda had gone out as usual. Gloria started a little in surprise, and inquired whether he had left no message for her. On hearing that he had given none, she sent the servant away, went to her own room, and locked herself in. With a curious Scotch caution very much at variance with her conduct, she reflected that as the servants were evidently not aware of what had taken place, they might as well be kept in the dark. In a few moments she gave the room the appearance which it usually had in the morning. With perfect calmness she dressed for the day, and then rang for her maid. She told the woman that she had slept badly, had got up early, and had gone out for a long walk; that she now intended to leave Rome for a few days, for a change of air, and must have what she needed packed within an hour. She gave a few orders, clearly and concisely, and then went out again, leaving word that if Reanda returned he should be told that she was coming back very soon. Clearly, she thought, he must have supposed that she was still sleeping, and he had gone to his painting without any further thought of her. Again she smiled, and a line of delicate cruelty was faintly shadowed about her lips. She left the house and walked in the direction of the Palazzetto. Reanda always came home to the midday breakfast, and it was nearly time for him to be on his way. Gloria knew every turning which he would take, and she hoped to meet him. Her eyes flashed in anticipation of the contest, and she felt that he would not be able to meet them. They would be too bright for him. There was a small mark on her cheek still, where one of the sharp edges of the ivory slats had scratched her fair skin, and there was a slight redness on that side, but the bright red bar was gone. She was glad of it, as she nodded to a passing acquaintance. She wished to assure herself that her husband was really at the Palazzetto, and she inquired of the porter at the great gate whether Reanda had been seen that morning. The man said that he had come at the usual hour, and stood aside for her to pass, but she turned from him abruptly and went away without a word. The blood rose in her cheeks, and her heart beat angrily. He had attached no more importance than this to what he had done, and had gone to his painting as though nothing had happened. He had not even tried to see her in the morning to beg her pardon for having struck her. Strange to say, in spite of what she herself had done, that was what most roused her anger. She demanded the satisfaction of his asking her forgiveness, as though she had no fault to find with herself. In comparison with his cowardly violence to her, her leaving him for Griggs was as nothing in her eyes. She walked more slowly as she went homewards, and the unspoken bitterness of her heart choked her, and the sharp words she could not speak cut her cruelly. She compared the hand that had dared to hurt though it had not strength to kill, with that other, dearer, gentler, more terrible hand, which could have killed anything, but which would rather be burned to the wrist than let one of its fingers touch her roughly. She compared them, and she loved the one and she loathed the other, with all her heart. And with that same hand Reanda, at that same moment, was painting some goddess's face, and it had forgotten whose divinely lovely cheek it had struck. It was painting unless, perhaps, it lay in Francesca's. But Gloria had not forgotten, and she would repay before the day darkened. Her husband, since he was calm enough to go to his work, would come home for his breakfast when he was hungry. Gloria went back to her room and superintended the packing of what she needed. But she was not so calm as she had been half an hour earlier, and she waited impatiently for her husband's return and for the last scene of the drama. When the things were packed, she had the box taken out to the hall and sent for a cab. As she foresaw the situation, she would leave the house forever as soon as the last word was spoken. Then she went into the drawing-room and waited, watching the clock. There, on the mantelpiece, lay the broken fan, where the fragments had been placed by the servant. Gloria looked at them, handled them curiously, and felt her cheek softly with her hand. He must have struck her with all his might, she thought, to have hurt her as he had with so light a weapon; and the whole quarrel came back to her vividly, in every detail, and with every spoken word. She could not regret what she had done. With an attempt at self-examination, which was only a self-justification, she tried to recall the early days when she had loved her husband, and to conjure up the face with the gentle light in it. She failed, of course, and the picture that came disgusted her and was unutterably contemptible and weak and full of cowardice. The face of Paul Griggs came in its place a moment later, and she heard in her ears the deep, stern voice, quavering with strength rather than with weakness, and she could feel the arms she loved about her, pressing her almost to pain, able to press her to death in their love-clasp. The hands of the clock went on, and Reanda did not come. She was surprised to find how long she had waited, and with a revulsion of feeling she rose to her feet. If he would not come, she would not wait for him. She was hungry, too. It was absurd, perhaps, but she would not eat his bread nor sit at his table, not even alone. She went to her writing-table and wrote a note to him, short, cruel, and decisive. She wrote that if her father had been in Rome she would have gone to him for protection. As he was absent, she had gone to her father's best friend and her own--to Paul Griggs. She said nothing more. He might interpret the statement as he pleased. She sealed the note and addressed it, and before she went out of the house she gave it to the servant, to be given to Reanda as soon as he came home. The man-servant went downstairs with her, and stood looking after the little open cab; he saw Gloria speak to the coachman, who nodded and changed his direction before they were out of sight. At the door in the Via della Frezza the cabman let down Gloria's luggage and drove away. She stood still a moment and looked at the one-eyed cobbler. "You have given the signore a beautiful fright," observed the old man. "I told him you had gone out. With one jump he was upstairs. By this time he cries." Gloria took a silver piece of two pauls from her purse. "Can you carry up these things for me?" she inquired, concealing her annoyance at the man's speech. "I am not a porter," said the cobbler, with his head on one side. "But one must live. With courage and money one makes war. There are three pieces. One at a time. But you must watch the door while I carry up the box. If any one should steal my tools, it would be a beautiful day's work. Without them I should be in the middle of the street. You will understand, Signora. It is not to do you a discourtesy, but my tools are my bread. Without them I cannot eat. There is also the left boot of Sor Ercole. If any one were to steal it, Sor Ercole would go upon one leg. Imagine the disgrace!" "I will stay here," said Gloria. "Do not be afraid." The cobbler, who was a strong old man, got hold of the trunk and shouldered it with ease. When he stood up, Gloria saw that he was bandy-legged and very short. She turned and stood on the threshold of the street door as she had stood on the previous night. No one would have believed that a few hours earlier the rain had fallen in torrents, for the pavement was dry, and even under the arch there seemed to be no dampness. Looking up the street towards the Corso, she saw that there was a wine shop, a few doors higher on the opposite side. Two or three men were standing before it, under the brown bush which served for a sign, and amongst them she saw a peasant in blue cloth clothes with silver buttons and clean white stockings. She recognized him as the man who had held his umbrella over her in the storm. He also saw her, lifted his felt hat and came forwards, crossing the street. His look was fixed on her face with a stare of curiosity as he stood before her. "I hope you have not caught cold, Signora," he said, with steady, unwinking eyes. "We passed a beautiful storm. Signora, I sell wine to that host. If you should need wine, I recommend him to you." He pointed to the shop. "You told me to ask for you at the Piazza Montanara," said Gloria, smiling. "With that water you could not see the shop," answered Stefanone. "Signora, you are very beautiful. With permission, I say that you should not walk alone at night." "It was the first and last time," said Gloria. "Fortunately, I met a person of good manners. I thank you again." "Signora, you are so beautiful that the Madonna and her angels always accompany you. With permission, I go. Good day." To the last, until he turned, he kept his eyes steadily fixed on Gloria's face, as though searching for a resemblance in her features. She noticed his manner and remembered him very distinctly after the second meeting. The cobbler came back again, closely followed by Griggs himself, who said nothing, but took possession of the small valise and bag which Gloria had brought in addition to her box. He led the way, and she followed him swiftly. Inside the door of his lodging he turned and looked at her. "Please do not go away suddenly without telling me," he said in a low voice. "I am easily frightened about you." "Really?" Gloria held out her two hands to meet him. He nodded as he took them. "That is better than anything you have ever said to me." She drew him to her. It was natural, for she was thinking how Reanda had calmly gone back to his work that morning, without so much as asking for her. The contrast was too great and too strong, between love and indifference. They went into the work-room together, and Gloria sat down on one of the rush chairs, and told Griggs what she had done. He walked slowly up and down while she was speaking, his eyes on the pattern of the old carpet. "I might have stayed," she said at last. "The servants did not even know that I had been out of the house." "You should have stayed," said Griggs. "I ought to say it, at least." But as he spoke the mask softened and the rare smile beautified for one instant the still, stern face. CHAPTER XXXIII. REANDA neither wished to see Gloria again, nor to take vengeance upon Paul Griggs. He was not a brave man, morally or physically, and he was glad that his wife had left him. She had put him in the right, and he had every reason for refusing ever to see her again. With a cynicism which would have been revolting if it had not been almost childlike in its simplicity, he discharged his servants, sold his furniture, gave up his apartment in the Corso, and moved back to his old quarters in the Palazzetto Borgia. But he did not acknowledge Gloria's note in any other way. She had left him, and he wished to blot out her existence as though he had never known her, not even remembering the long two years of his married life. She was gone. There was no Gloria, and he wished that there never had been any woman with her name and face. On the third day, he met Paul Griggs in the street. The younger man saw Reanda coming, and stood still on the narrow pavement, in order to show that he had no intention of avoiding him. As the artist came up, Griggs lifted his hat gravely. Reanda mechanically raised his hand to his own hat and passed the man who had injured him, without a word. Griggs saw a slight, nervous twitching in the delicate face, but that was all. He thought that Reanda looked better, less harassed and less thin, than for a long time. He had at once returned to his old peaceful life and enjoyed it, and had evidently not the smallest intention of ever demanding satisfaction of his former friend. Francesca Campodonico had listened in nervous silence to Reanda's story. "She has done me a kindness," he concluded. "It is the first. She has given me back my freedom. I shall not disturb her." The colour was in Francesca's face, and her eyes looked down. Her delicate lips were a little drawn in, as though she were making an effort to restrain her words, for it was one of the hardest moments of her life. Being what she was, it was impossible for her to understand Gloria's conduct. But at the same time she felt that she was liberated from something which had oppressed her, and the colour in her cheeks was a flash of satisfaction and relief mingled with a certain displeasure at her own sensations and the certainty that she should be ashamed of them by and bye. It was not in her nature to accept such a termination for Reanda's married life, however he himself might be disposed to look upon it. "You are to blame almost as much as Gloria," she said, and she was sincerely in earnest. She was too good and devout a woman to believe in duelling, but she was far too womanly to be pleased with Reanda's indifference. It was wicked to fight duels and unchristian to seek revenge. She knew that, and it was a conviction as well as an opinion. But a man who allowed another to take his wife from him and did not resent the injury could not command her respect. Something in her blood revolted against such tameness, though she would not for all the world have had Reanda take Gloria back. Between the two opposites of conviction and instinct, she did not know what to do. Moreover, Reanda had struck his wife. He admitted it, though apologetically and with every extenuating circumstance which he could remember. "Yes," he answered. "I know that I did wrong. Am I infallible? Holy Saint Patience! I could bear no more. But it is clear that she was waiting for a reason for leaving me. I gave it to her, and she should be grateful. She also is free, as I am." "It is horrible!" exclaimed Francesca, with sorrowful emphasis. She blamed herself quite as much as Reanda or Gloria, because she had brought them together and had suggested the marriage. Reanda's thin shoulders went up, and he smiled incredulously. "I do not see what is so horrible," he answered. "Two people think they are in love. They marry. They discover their mistake. They separate. Well? It is finished. Let us make the sign of the cross over it." The common Roman phrase, signifying that a matter is ended and buried, as it were, jarred upon Francesca, for whom the smallest religious allusion had a real meaning. "It is not the sign of the cross which should be made," she said sadly and gravely, and the colour was gone from her face now. "There are two lives wrecked, and a human soul in danger. We cannot say that it is finished, and pass on." "What would you have me do?" asked Reanda, almost impatiently. "Take her back?" "No!" exclaimed Francesca, with a sharp intonation as though she were hurt. "Well, then, what? I do not see that anything is to be done. She herself can think of her soul. It is her property. She has made me suffer enough--let some one else suffer. I have enough of it." "You will forgive her some day," said Francesca. "You are angry still, and you speak cruelly. You will forgive her." "Never," answered Reanda, with emphasis. "I will not forgive her for what she made me bear, any more than I will forgive Griggs for receiving her when she left me. I will not touch them, but I will not forgive them. I am not angry. Why should I be?" Francesca sighed, for she did not understand the man, though hitherto she had always understood him, or thought that she had, ever since she had been a mere child, playing with his colours and brushes in the Palazzo Braccio. She left the hall and went to her own sitting-room on the other side of the house. As soon as she was alone, the tears came to her eyes. She was hardly aware of them, and when she felt them on her cheeks she wondered why she was crying, for she did not often shed tears, and was a woman of singularly well balanced nature, able to control herself on the rare occasions when she felt any strong emotion. In spite of Reanda's conduct, she determined not to leave matters as they were without attempting to improve them. She wrote a note to Paul Griggs, asking him to come and see her during the afternoon. He could not refuse to answer the summons, knowing, as he did, that he must in honour respond to any demand for an explanation coming from Reanda's side. Gloria wished him to reply to the note, giving an excuse and hinting that no good could come of any meeting. "It is a point of honour," he answered briefly, and she yielded, for he dominated her altogether. Francesca received him in her own small sitting-room, which overlooked the square before the Palazzetto. It was very quiet, and there were roses in old Vienna vases. It was a very old-fashioned room, the air was sweet with the fresh flowers, and the afternoon sun streamed in through a single tall window. Francesca sat on a small sofa which stood crosswise between the window and the writing-table. She had a frame before her on which was stretched a broad band of deep red satin, a piece of embroidery in which she was working heraldic beasts and armorial bearings in coloured silks. She did not rise, nor hold out her hand, but pointed to a chair near her, as she spoke. "I asked you to come," she said, "because I wish to speak to you about Gloria." Griggs bent his head, sat down, and waited with a perfectly impassive face. Possibly there was a rather unusual aggressiveness in the straight lines of his jaw and his even lips. There was a short silence before Francesca spoke again. "Do you know what you have done?" she asked, finishing a stitch and looking quietly into the man's deep eyes. He met her glance calmly, but said nothing, merely bending his head again, very slightly. "It is very wicked," said she, and she began to make another stitch, looking down again. "I have no doubt that you think so," answered Paul Griggs, slowly nodding a third time. "It is not a question of opinion. It is a matter of fact. You have ruined the life of an innocent woman." "If social position is the object of existence, you are right," he replied. "I have nothing to say." "I am not speaking of social position," said Donna Francesca, continuing to make stitches. "Then I am afraid that I do not understand you." "Can you conceive of nothing more important to the welfare of men and women than social position?" "It is precisely because I do, that I care so little what society thinks. I do not understand you." "I have known you some time," said Francesca. "I had not supposed that you were a man without a sense of right and wrong. That is the question which is concerned now." "It is a question which may be answered from more than one point of view. You look at it in one way, and I in another. With your permission, we will differ about it, since we can never agree." "There is no such thing as differing about right and wrong," answered Donna Francesca, with a little impatience. "Right is right, and wrong is wrong. You cannot possibly believe that you have done right. Therefore you know that you have done wrong." "That sort of logic assumes God at the expense of man," said Griggs, calmly. Francesca looked up with a startled expression in her eyes, for she was shocked, though she did not understand him. "God is good, and man is sinful," she answered, in the words of her simple faith. "Why?" asked Griggs, gravely. He waited for her answer to the most tremendous question which man can ask, and he knew that she could not answer him, though she might satisfy herself. "I have never talked about religion with an atheist," she said at last, slowly pushing her needle through the heavy satin. "I am not an atheist, Princess." "A Protestant, then--" "I am not a Protestant. I am a Catholic, as you are." She looked up suddenly and faced him with earnest eyes. "Then you are not a good Catholic," she said. "No good Catholic could speak as you do." "Even the Apostles had doubts," answered Griggs. "But I do not pretend to be good. Since I am a man, I have a right to be a man, and to be treated as a man. If the right is not given me freely, I will take it. You cannot expect a body to behave as though it were a spirit. A man cannot imitate an invisible essence, any more than a sculptor can imitate sound with a shape of clay. When we are spirits, we shall act as spirits. Meanwhile we are men and women. As a man, I have not done wrong. You have no right to judge me as an angel. Is that clear?" "Terribly clear!" Francesca slowly shook her head. "And terribly mistaken," she added. "You see," answered the young man. "It is impossible to argue the point. We do not speak the same language. You, by your nature, believe that you can imitate a spirit. You are spiritual by intuition and good by instinct, according to the spiritual standard of good. I am, on the contrary, a normal man, and destined to act as men act. I cannot understand you and you, if you will allow me to say so, cannot possibly understand me. That is why I propose that we should agree to differ." "And do you think you can sweep away all right and wrong, belief and unbelief, salvation and perdition, with such a statement as that?" "Not at all," replied Griggs. "You tell me that I am wicked. That only means that I am not doing what you consider right. You deny my right of judgment, in favour of your own. You make witnesses of spirits against the doings of men. You judge my body and condemn my soul. And there is no possible appeal from your tribunal, because it is an imaginary one. But if you will return to the facts of the case, you will find it hard to prove that I have ruined the life of an innocent woman, as you told me that I had." "You have! There is no denying it." "Socially, and it is the fault of society. But society is nothing to me. I would be an outcast from society for a much less object than the love of a woman, provided that I had not to do anything dishonourable." "Ah, that is it! You forget that a man's honour is his reputation at the club, while the honour of a woman is founded in religion, and maintained upon a single one of God's commandments--as you men demand that it shall be." Griggs was silent for a moment. He had never heard a woman state the case so plainly and forcibly, and he was struck by what she said. He could have answered her quickly enough. But the answer would not have been satisfactory to himself. "You see, you have nothing to say," she said. "But in one way you are right. We cannot argue this question. I did not ask you to come in order to discuss it. I sent for you to beg you to do what is right, as far as you can. And you could do much." "What should you think right?" asked Griggs, curious to know what she thought. "You should take Gloria to her father, as you are his friend. Since she has left her husband, she should live with her father." "That is a very simple idea!" exclaimed the young man, with something almost like a laugh. "Right is always simple," answered Francesca, quietly. "There is never any doubt about it." She looked at him once, and then continued to work at her embroidery. His eyes rested on the pure outline of her maidenlike face, and he was silent for a moment. Somehow, he felt that her simplicity of goodness rebuked the simplicity of his sin. "You forget one thing," said Griggs at last. "You make a spiritual engine of mankind, and you forget the mainspring of the world. You leave love out of the question." "Perhaps--as you understand love. But you will not pretend to tell me that love is necessarily right, whatever it involves." "Yes," answered the young man. "That is what I mean. Unless your God is a malignant and maleficent demon, the overwhelming passions which take hold of men, and against which no man can fight beyond a certain point, are right, because they exist and are irresistible. As for what you propose that I should do, I cannot do it." "You could, if you would," said Francesca. "There is nothing to hinder you, if you will." "There is love, and I cannot." CHAPTER XXXIV. PAUL GRIGGS left Francesca with the certainty in his own mind that she had produced no impression whatever upon him, but he was conscious that his opinion of her had undergone a change. He was suddenly convinced that she was the best woman he had ever known, and that Gloria's accusations were altogether unjust and unfounded. Recalling her face, her manner, and her words, he knew that whatever influence she might have had upon Reanda, there could be no ground for Gloria's jealousy. She certainly disturbed him strangely, for Gloria was perfect in his eyes, and he accepted all she said almost blindly. The fact that Reanda had struck her now stood in his mind as the sole reason for the separation of husband and wife. Gloria was far from realizing what influence she had over the man she loved. It seemed to her, on the contrary, that she was completely dominated by him, and she was glad to feel his strength at every turn. Her enormous vanity was flattered by his care of her, and by his uncompromising admiration of her beauty as well as of her character, and she yielded to him purposely in small things that she might the better feel his strength, as she supposed. The truth, had she known it, was that he hardly asserted himself at all, and was ready to make any and every sacrifice for her comfort and happiness. He had sacrificed his pride to borrow money from a friend to meet the first necessities of their life together. He would have given his life as readily. They led a strangely lonely existence in the little apartment in the Via della Frezza. The world had very soon heard of what had happened, and had behaved according to its lights. Walking alone one morning while Griggs was at work, Gloria had met Donna Tullia Meyer, whom she had known in society, and thoughtlessly enough had bowed as though nothing had happened. Donna Tullia had stared at her coldly, and then turned away. After that, Gloria had realized what she had already understood, and had either not gone out without Griggs, or, when she did, had kept to the more secluded streets, where she would not easily meet acquaintances. Griggs worked perpetually, and she watched him, delighting at first in the difference between his way of working and that of Angelo Reanda; delighted, too, to be alone with him, and to feel that he was writing for her. She could sit almost in silence for hours, half busy with some bit of needlework, and yet busy with him in her thoughts. It seemed to her that she understood him--she told him so, and he believed her, for he felt that he could not be hard to understand. He was as singularly methodical as Reanda was exceptionally intuitive. She felt that his work was second to her in his estimation of it, but that, since they both depended upon it for their livelihood, they had agreed together to put it first. With Reanda, art was above everything and beyond all other interests, and he had made her feel that he worked for art's sake rather than for hers. There was a vast difference in the value placed upon her by the two men, in relation to their two occupations. "I have no genius," said Griggs to her one day. "I have no intuitions of underlying truth. But I have good brains, and few men are able to work as hard as I. By and bye, I shall succeed and make money, and it will be less dull for you." "It is never dull for me when I can be with you," she answered. As he looked, the sunshine caught her red auburn hair, and the love-lights played with the sunshine in her eyes. Griggs knew that life had no more dulness for him while she lived, and as for her, he believed what she said. Without letting him know what she was doing, she wrote to her father. It was not an easy letter to write, and she thought that she knew the savage old Scotchman's temper. She told him everything. At such a distance, it was easy to throw herself upon his mercy, and it was safer to write him all while he was far away, so that there might be nothing left to rouse his anger if he returned. She had no lack of words with which to describe Reanda's treatment of her; but she was also willing to take all the blame of the mistake she had made in marrying him. She had ruined her life before it had begun, she said. She had taken the law into her own hands, to mend it as best she could. Her father knew that Paul Griggs was not like other men--that he was able to protect her against all comers, and that he could make the world fear him if he could not make it respect her. Her father must do as he thought right. He would be justified, from the world's point of view, in casting her off and never remembering her existence again, but she begged him to forgive her, and to think kindly of her. Meanwhile, she and Griggs were wretchedly poor, and she begged her father to continue her allowance. If Paul Griggs had seen this letter, he would have been startled out of some of his belief in Gloria's perfection. There was a total absence of any moral sense of right or wrong in what she wrote, which would have made a more cynical man than Griggs was look grave. The request for the continuation of the allowance would have shocked him and perhaps disgusted him. The whole tone was too calm and business-like. It was too much as though she were fulfilling a duty and seeking to gain an object rather than appealing to Dalrymple to forgive her for yielding to the overwhelming mastery of a great passion. It was cold, it was calculating, and it was, in a measure, unwomanly. When she had sent the letter, she told Griggs what she had done, but her account of its contents satisfied him with one of those brilliant false impressions which she knew so well how to convey. She told him rather what she should have said than what she had really written, and, as usual, he found that she had done right. It was not that she would not have written a better letter if she had been able to compose one. She had done the best that she could. But the truth lay there, or the letter was composed as an expression of what she knew that she ought to feel, and was not the actual outpouring of an overfull heart. She could not be blamed for not feeling more deeply, nor for her inability to express what she did not feel. But when she spoke of it to the man she loved, she roused herself to emotion easily enough, and her words sounded well in her own ears and in his. To the last, he never understood that she loved such emotion for its own sake, and that he helped her to produce it in herself. In the comparatively simple view of human nature which he took in those days, it seemed to him that if a woman were willing to sacrifice everything, including social respectability itself, for any man, she must love him with all her heart. He could not have understood that any woman should give up everything, practically, in the attempt to feel something of which she was not capable. In reply to her letter, Dalrymple sent a draft for a considerable sum of money, through his banker. The fact that it was addressed to her at Via della Frezza was the only indication that he had received her letter. In due time, Gloria wrote to thank him, but he took no notice of the communication. "He never loved me," she said to Griggs as the days went by and brought her nothing from her father. "I used to think so, when I was a mere child, but I am sure of it now. You are the only human being that ever loved me." She was pale that day, and her white hand sought his as she spoke, with a quiver of the lip. "I am glad of it," he answered. "I shall not divide you with any one." So their life went on, somewhat monotonously after the first few weeks. Griggs worked hard and earned more money than formerly, but he discovered very soon that it would be all he could do to support Gloria in bare comfort. He would not allow her to use her own money for anything which was to be in common, or in which he had any share whatever. "You must spend it on yourself," he said. "I will not touch it. I will not accept anything you buy with it--not so much as a box of cigarettes. You must spend it on your clothes or on jewels." "You are unkind," she answered. "You know how much pleasure it would give me to help you." "Yes. I know. You cannot understand, but you must try. Men never do that sort of thing." And, as usual, he dominated her, and she dropped the subject, inwardly pleased with him, and knowing that he was right. His strength fascinated her, and she admired his manliness of heart and feeling as she had never admired any qualities in any one during her life. But he did not amuse her, even as much as she had been amused by Reanda. He was melancholic, earnest, hard working, not inclined to repeat lightly the words of love once spoken in moments of passion. He meant, perhaps, to show her how he loved her by what he would do for her sake, rather than tell her of it over and over again. And he worked as he had never worked before, hour after hour, day after day, sitting at his writing-table almost from morning till night. Besides his correspondence, he was now writing a book, from which he hoped great things--for her. It was a novel, and he read her day by day the pages he wrote. She talked over with him what he had written, and her imagination and dramatic intelligence, forever grasping at situations of emotion for herself and others, suggested many variations upon his plan. "It is my book," she often said, when they had been talking all the evening. It was her book, and it was a failure, because it was hers and not his. Her imagination was disorderly, to borrow a foreign phrase, and she was altogether without any sense of proportion in what she imagined. He did not, indeed, look upon her as intellectually perfect, though for him she was otherwise unapproachably superior to every other woman in the world. But he loved her so wholly and unselfishly that he could not bear to disappoint her by not making use of her suggestions. When she was telling him of some scene she had imagined, her voice and manner, too, were so thoroughly dramatic that he was persuaded of the real value of the matter. Divested of her individuality and transferred in his rather mechanically over-correct language to the black and white of pen and ink, the result was disappointing, even when he read it to her. He knew that it was, and wasted time in trying to improve what was bad from the beginning. She saw that he failed, and she felt that he was not a man of genius. Her vanity suffered because her ideas did not look well on his paper. Before he had finished the manuscript, she had lost her interest in it. Feeling that she had, and seeing it in her face, he exerted his strength of will in the attempt to bring back the expression of surprise and delight which the earlier readings had called up, but he felt that he was working uphill and against heavy odds. Nevertheless he completed the work, and spent much time in fancied improvement of its details. At a later period in his life he wrote three successful books in the time he had bestowed upon his first failure, but he wrote them alone. Gloria's face brightened when he told her that it was done. She took the manuscript and read over parts of it to herself, smiling a little from time to time, for she knew that he was watching her. She did not read it all. "Dedicate it to me," she said, holding out one hand to find his, while she settled the pages on her knees with the other. "Of course," he answered, and he wrote a few words of dedication to her on a sheet of paper. He sent it to a publisher in London whom he knew. It was returned with some wholesome advice, and Gloria's vanity suffered another blow, both in the failure of the book which contained so many of her ideas and in the failure of the man to be successful, for in her previous life she had not been accustomed to failure of any sort. "I am afraid I am only a newspaper man, after all," said Paul Griggs, quietly. "You will have to be satisfied with me as I am. But I will try again." "No," answered Gloria, more coldly than she usually spoke. "When you find that you cannot do a thing naturally, leave it alone. It is of no use to force talent in one direction when it wants to go in another." She sighed softly, and busied herself with some work. Griggs felt that he was a failure, and he felt lonely, too, for a moment, and went to his own room to put away the rejected manuscript in a safe place. It was not his nature to destroy it angrily, as some men might have done at his age. When he came back to the door of the sitting-room he heard her singing, as she often did when she was alone. But to-day she was singing an old song which he had not heard for a long time, and which reminded him painfully of that other house in which she had lived and of that other man whom she never saw, but who was still her husband. He entered the room rather suddenly, after having paused a moment outside, with his hand on the door. "Please do not sing that song!" he said quickly, as he entered. "Why not?" she asked, interrupting herself in the middle of a stave. "It reminds me of unpleasant things." "Does it? I am sorry. I will not sing it again." But she knew what it meant, for it reminded her of Reanda. She was no longer so sure that the reminiscence was all painful. CHAPTER XXXV. IN spite of all that Griggs could do, and he did his utmost, it was hard to live in anything approaching to comfort on the meagre remuneration he received for his correspondence, and his pride altogether forbade him to allow Gloria to contribute anything to the slender resources of the small establishment. At first, it had amused her to practise little economies, even in the matter of their daily meals. Griggs denied himself everything which was not absolutely necessary, and it pleased Gloria to imitate him, for it made her feel that she was helping him. The housekeeping was a simple affair enough, and she undertook it readily. They had one woman servant as cook and maid-of-all-work, a strong young creature, not without common-sense, and plentifully gifted with that warm, superficial devotion which is common enough in Italian servants. Gloria had kept house for her father long enough to understand what she had undertaken, and it seemed easy at first to do the same thing for Griggs, though on a much more restricted scale. But the restriction soon became irksome. In a more active and interesting existence, she would perhaps not have felt the constant pinching of such excessive economy. If there had been more means within her reach for satisfying her hungry vanity, she could have gone through the daily round of little domestic cares with a lighter heart or, at least, with more indifference. But she and Griggs led a very lonely life, and, as in all lonely lives, the smallest details became important. It was not long before Gloria wished herself in her old home in the Corso, not indeed with Reanda, but with Paul Griggs. He had made her promise to use only the money he gave her himself for their housekeeping. She secretly deceived him and drew upon her own store, and listened in silence to his praise of her ingenuity in making the little he was able to give her go so far. He trusted her so completely that he suspected nothing. She expected that at the end of three months her father would send her another draft, but the day passed, and she received nothing, so that she at last wrote to him again, asking for money. It came, as before, without any word of inquiry or greeting. Dalrymple evidently intended to take this means of knowing from time to time that his daughter was alive and well. She would be obliged to write to him whenever she needed assistance. It was a humiliation, and she felt it bitterly, for she had thought that she had freed herself altogether and she found herself still bound by the necessity of asking for help. It seemed very hard to be thus shut off from the world in the prime of her youth, and beauty, and talent. To a woman who craved admiration for all she did and could do, it was almost unbearable. Paul Griggs worked and looked forward to success, and was satisfied in his aspirations, and more than happy in the companionship of the woman he so dearly loved. "I shall succeed," he said quietly, but with perfect assurance. "Before long we shall be able to leave Rome, and begin life somewhere else, where nobody will know our story. It will not be so dull for you there." "It is never dull when I am with you," said Gloria, but there was no conviction in the tone any more. "If you would let me go upon the stage," she added, with a change of voice, "things would be very different. I could earn a great deal of money." But Paul Griggs was as much opposed to the project as Reanda had been, and in this one respect he really asserted his will. He was so confident of ultimately attaining to success and fortune by his pen that he would not hear of Gloria's singing in public. "Besides," he said, after giving her many and excellent reasons, "if you earned millions, I would not touch the money." She sighed for the lost opportunities of brilliant popularity, but she smiled at his words, knowing how she had used her own money for him, and in spite of him. But for her own part she had lost all belief in his talent since the failure of the book he had written. The long summer days were hard to bear. He was not able to leave Rome, for he was altogether dependent upon his regular correspondence for what he earned, and he did not succeed in persuading his editors to employ him anywhere else, for the very reason that he did so well what was required of him where he was. The weather grew excessively hot, and it was terribly dreary and dull in the little apartment in the Via della Frezza. All day long the windows were tightly closed to keep out the fiery air, both the old green blinds and the glass within them. Griggs had moved his writing-table to the feeble light, and worked away as hard as ever. Gloria spent most of the hot hours in reading and dreaming. They went out together early in the morning and in the evening, when there was some coolness, but during the greater part of the day they were practically imprisoned by the heat. Gloria watched the strong man and wondered at his power of working under any circumstances. He was laborious as well as industrious. He often wrote a page over two and three times, in the hope of improving it, and he was capable of spending an hour in finding a quotation from a great writer, not for the sake of quoting it, but in order to satisfy himself that he had authority for using some particular construction of phrase. He kept notebooks in which he made long indexed lists of words which in common language were improperly used, with examples showing how they should be rightly employed. "I am constructing a superiority for myself," he said once. "No one living takes so much pains as I do." But Gloria had no faith in his painstaking ways, though she wondered at his unflagging perseverance. Her own single great talent lay in her singing, and she had never given herself any trouble about it. Reanda, too, though he worked carefully and often slowly, worked without effort. It was true that Griggs never showed fatigue, but that was due to his amazing bodily strength. The intellectual labour was apparent, however, and he always seemed to be painfully overcoming some almost unyielding difficulty by sheer force of steady application, though nothing came of it, so far as she could see. "I cannot understand why you take so much trouble," she said. "They are only newspaper articles, after all, to be read to-day and forgotten to-morrow." "I am learning to write," he answered. "It takes a long time to learn anything unless one has a great gift, as you have for singing. I have failed with one book, but I will not fail with another. The next will not be an extraordinary book, but it will succeed." Nothing could disturb him, and he sat at his table day after day. He was moved by the strongest incentives which can act upon a man, at the time when he himself is strongest; namely, necessity and love. Even Gloria could never discover whether he had what she would have called ambition. He himself said that he had none, and she compared him with Reanda, who believed in the divinity of art, the temple of fame, and the reality of glory. In the young man's nature, Gloria had taken the place of all other divinities, real and imaginary. His enduring nature could no more be wearied in its worship of her than it could be tired in toiling for her. He only resented the necessity of cutting out such a main part of the day for work as left him but little time to be at leisure with her. She complained of his industry, for she was tired of spending her life with novels, and the hours hung like leaden weights upon her, dragging with her as she went through the day. "Give yourself a rest," she said, not because she thought he needed it, but because she wished him to amuse her. "I am never tired of working for you," he answered, and the rare smile came to his face. With any other man in the world she might have told the truth and might have said frankly that her life was growing almost unbearable, buried from the world as she was, and cut off from society. But she was conscious that she should never dare to say as much to Paul Griggs. She was realizing, little by little, that his love for her was greater than she had dreamed of, and immeasurably stronger than what she felt for him. Then she knew the pain of receiving more than she had to give. It was a genuine pain of its kind, and in it, as in many other things, she suffered a constant humiliation. She had taken herself for a heroic character in the great moment when she had resolved to leave her husband, intuitively sure that she loved Paul Griggs with all her heart, and that she should continue to love him to the end in spite of the world. She knew now that there was no endurance in the passion. The very efforts she made to sustain it contributed to its destruction; but she continued to play her part. Her strong dramatic instinct told her when to speak and when to be silent, and how to modulate her voice to a tender appeal, to a touching sadness, to the strength of suppressed emotion. It was for a good object, she told herself, and therefore it must be right. He was giving his life for her, day by day, and he must never know that she no longer loved him. It would kill him, she thought; for with him it was all real. She grew melancholy and thought of death. If she died young, he should never guess that she had not loved him to the very last. In her lonely thoughts she dwelt upon the possibility, for it was a possibility now. There was that before her which, when it came, might turn life into death very suddenly. She had moments of tenderness when she thought of her own dead face lying on the white pillow, and the picture was so real that her eyes filled with tears. She would be very beautiful when she was dead. The idea took root in her mind; for it afforded her an inward emotion which touched her strangely and cost her nothing. It gained in fascination as she allowed it to come back when it would, and the details of death came vividly before her imagination, as she had read of them in books,--her own white face, the darkened room, the candles, Paul Griggs standing motionless beside her body. One day he looked from his work and saw tears on her cheeks. He dropped his pen as though something had struck him unawares; and he was beside her in a moment, looking anxiously into her eyes. "What is it?" he asked, and his hands were on hers and pressed them. "It is nothing," she answered. "It is natural, I suppose--" "No. It is not natural. You are unhappy. Tell me what is the matter." "It is foolish," she said, turning her face from him. "I see you working so hard day after day. I am a burden to you--it would be better if I were out of the way. You are working yourself to death. If you could see your face sometimes!" And more tears trickled down. His strong hands shook suddenly. "I am not working too hard--for me," he answered, but his voice trembled a little. "One of your tears hurts me more than a hundred years of hard work. Even if it were true--I would rather die for you than live to be the greatest man that ever breathed--without you." She threw her arms about his neck, and hid her face upon his shoulder. "Tell me you love me!" she cried. "You are all I have in the world!" "Does it need telling?" he asked, soothing her. Then all at once his arms tightened so that she could hardly draw breath for a moment, and his head was bent down and rested for an instant upon her neck as though he himself sought rest and refuge. "I think you know, dear," he said. She knew far better than he could tell her, for the truth of his passion shook the dramatic and artificial fabric of her own to its foundations; and even as she pressed him to her, she felt that secret repugnance which those who do not love feel for those who love them overmuch. It was mingled with a sense of shame which made her hate herself, and she began to suffer acutely. When she thought of Reanda, as she now often did, she longed for what she had felt for him, rather than for anything she had ever felt for Paul Griggs. In the pitiful reaching after something real, she groped for memories of true tenderness, and now and then they came back to her from beyond the chaos which lay between, as memories of home come to a man cast after many storms upon a desert island. She dwelt upon them and tried to construct an under-life out of the past, made up only of sweet things amongst which all that had not been good should be forgotten. She went for comfort to the days when she had loved Reanda, before their marriage--or when she had loved his genius as though it were himself, believing that it was all for her. Beside her always, with even, untiring strength, Paul Griggs toiled on, his whole life based and founded in hers, every penstroke for her, every dream of her, every aspiration and hope for her alone. He was splendidly unconscious of his own utter loneliness, blankly unaware of the life-comedy--or tragedy--which Gloria was acting for him out of pity for the heart she could break, and out of shame at finding out what her own heart was. Had he known the truth, the end would have come quickly and terribly. But he did not know it. The woman's gifts were great, and her beauty was greater. Greater than all was his whole-souled belief in her. He had never conceived it possible, in his ignorance of women, that a woman should really love him. She, whom he had first loved so hopelessly, had given him all she had to give, which was herself, frankly and freely. And after she had come to him, she loved him for a time, beyond even self-deception. But when she no longer loved him, she hid her secret and kept it long and well; for she feared him. He was not like Reanda. He would not strike only; he would kill and make an end of both. But she might have gone much nearer to the truth without danger. It was not his nature to ask anything nor to expect much, and he had taken all there was to take, and knew it, and was satisfied. CHAPTER XXXVI. THE summer passed, with its monotonous heat. Rain fell in August and poisoned the campagna with fever for six weeks, and the clear October breezes blew from the hills, and the second greenness of the late season was over everything for a brief month of vintage and laughter. Then came November with its pestilent sirocco gales and its dampness, pierced and cut through now and then by the first northerly winds of winter. And then, one day, there was a new life in the little apartment in the Via della Frezza. Fate, relentless, had brought to the light a little child, to be the grandson of that fated Maria Braccio who had died long ago, to have his day of happiness and his night of suffering in his turn and to be a living bond between Gloria and the man who loved her. They called the boy Walter Crowdie for a relative of Angus Dalrymple, who had been the last of the name. It was convenient, and he would never need any other, nor any third name after the two given to him in baptism. For a few days after the child's birth, Griggs left his writing-table. He was almost too happy to work, and he spent many hours by Gloria's side, not talking, for he knew that she must be kept quiet, but often holding her hand and always looking at her face, with the strong, dumb devotion of a faithful bloodhound. Often she pretended to be sleeping when he was there, though she was wide awake and could have talked well enough. But it was easier to seem to be asleep than to play the comedy now, while she was so weak and helpless. With the simplicity of a little child Griggs watched her, and when her eyes were closed believed that she was sleeping. As soon as she opened them he spoke to her. She understood and sometimes smiled in spite of herself, with close-shut lids. He thought she was dreaming of him, or of the child, and was smiling in her sleep. As she lay there and thought over all that had happened, she knew that she hated him as she had never loved him, even in the first days. And she hated the child, for its life was the last bond, linking her to Paul Griggs and barring her from the world forever. Until it had been there she had vaguely felt that if she had the courage and really wished it, she might in some way get back to her old life. She knew that all hope of that was gone from her now. In the deep perspective of her loosened intelligence the endless years to come rolled away, grey and monotonous, to their vanishing point. She had made her choice and had not found heart to give it up, after she had made it, while there was yet time. Time itself took shape before her closed eyes, as many succeeding steps, and she saw herself toiling up them, a bent, veiled figure of great weariness. It was terrible to look forward to such truth, and the present was no better. She grasped at the past and dragged it up to her and looked at its faded prettiness, and would have kissed it, as though it had been a living thing. But she knew that it was dead and that what lived was horrible to her. She wished that she might die, as she had often thought she might during the long summer months. In those days her eyes had filled with tears of pity for herself. They were dry now, for the suffering was real and the pain was in her bodily heart. Yet she was so strong, and she feared Paul Griggs with such an abject fear, that she played the comedy when she could not make him think that she was asleep. "My only thought is for you," she said. "It is another burden on you." He was utterly happy, and he laughed aloud. "It is another reason for working," he said. And even as he said it she saw the writing-table, the poor room, his stern, determined face and busy hand, and herself seated in her own chair, with a half-read novel on her lap, staring at the grey future of mediocrity and mean struggling that loomed like a leaden figure above his bent head. Year after year, perhaps, she was to sit in that chair and watch the same silent battle for bare existence. It was too horrible to be borne. If only he were a man of genius, she could have suffered it all, she thought, and more also. But he himself said that he had no genius. His terrible mechanics of mind killed the little originality he had. His gloomy sobriety over his work made her desperate. But she feared him. The belief grew on her that if he ever found out that she did not love him, he would end life then, for them both--perhaps for them all three. Surely, hell had no tortures worse than hers, she thought. Yet she bore them, in terror of him. And he was perfectly happy and suspected nothing. She could not understand how with his melancholy nature and his constant assertion that he had but a little talent and much industry for all his stock in trade, he could believe in his own future as he did. It was an anomaly, a contradiction of terms, a weak point in the low level of his unimaginative, dogged strength. She thought often of the poor book he had written. She had heard that talent was stirred to music by a great passion that strung it and struck it, till its heartstrings rang wild changes and breathed deep chords, and burst into rushing harmonies of eloquence. But his love was dumb and dull, though it might be deadly. There had been neither eloquence nor music in his book. It had been an old story, badly told. He had said that he was only fit to be a newspaper man, and it was true, so far as she could see. His letters to the paper were excellent in their way, but that was all he could do. And she had given him, in the child, another reason for being what he was, hard-working, silent--dull. She looked at him and wondered; for there was a mystery in his shadowy eyes and still face, which had promised much more than she had ever found in him. There was something mysterious and dreadful, too, in his unnatural strength. The fear of him grew upon her, and sometimes when he kissed her she burst into tears out of sheer terror at his touch. "They are tears of happiness," she said, trembling and drying her eyes quickly. She smiled, and he believed her, happier every day in her and in the child. Then came the realization of the grey dream of misery. Again she was seated by the window in her accustomed chair, and he was in his place, pen in hand, eyes on paper, thoughts fixed like steel in that obstinate effort to do better, while she had the certainty of his failure before her. And between them, in a straw cradle with a hood, all gauze and lace and blue ribbons, lay the thing that bound her to him and cut her off forever from the world,--little Walter Crowdie, the child without a name, as she called him in her thoughts. And above the child, between her and Paul Griggs, floated the little imaginary stage on which she was to go on acting her play over and over again till all was done. She had not even the right to shed tears for herself without telling him that they were for the happiness he expected of her. He would not leave her. He had scarcely been out of the house for weeks, though the only perceptible effect of remaining indoors so long was that he had grown a little paler. She implored him to go out. In a few days she would be able to go with him, and meanwhile there was no reason why he should be perpetually at her side. He yielded to her importunity at last, and she was left alone with the child. It was a relief even greater than she had anticipated. She could cry, she could laugh, she could sing, and he was not there to ask questions. For one moment after she had heard the outer door close behind him she almost hesitated as to which she should do, for she was half hysterical with the long outward restraint of herself while, inwardly, she had allowed her thoughts to run wild as they would. She stood for a moment, and there was a vague, uncertain look in her face. Then her breast heaved, and she burst into tears, weeping as never before in her short life, passionately, angrily, violently, without thought of control, or indeed of anything definite. Before an hour had passed Griggs came back. She was seated quietly in her chair, as when he had left her. The light was all behind her, and he could not see the slight redness of her eyes. Pale as she was, he thought she had never been more beautiful. There was a gentleness in her manner, too, beyond what he was accustomed to. He believed that perhaps she might be the better for being left to herself for an hour or two every day, until she should be quite strong again. On the following day she again suggested that he should go out for a walk, and he made no objection. Again, as soon as he was gone, she burst into tears, almost in spite of herself, though she unconsciously longed for the relief they had brought her the first time. But to-day the fit of weeping did not pass so soon. The spasms of sobbing lasted long after her eyes were dry, and she had less time to compose herself before Griggs returned. Still, he noticed nothing. The tears had refreshed her, and he found that same gentleness which had touched him on the previous day. Several times, after that, he went out and left her alone in the afternoon. Then, one day, while he was walking, a heavy shower came on, and he made his way home as fast as he could. He opened the door quickly and came upon her to find her sobbing as though her heart would break. He turned very pale and stood still for a moment. There was terror in her face when she saw him, but in an instant he was holding her in his arms and kissing her hair, asking her what was the matter. "I am a millstone around your neck!" she sobbed. "It is breaking my heart--I shall die, if I see you working so!" He tried to comfort her, soothing her and laughing at her fears for him, but believing her, as he always did. Little by little, her sobs subsided, and she was herself again, as far as he could see. He tried to argue the case fairly on its merits. She listened to him, and listening was a new torture, knowing as she did what her tears were shed for. But she had to play the comedy again, at short notice, not having had the time to compose herself and enjoy the relief she found in crying alone. It was a relief which she sought again and again. When she thought of it afterwards, it was as an indescribable, half-painful, half-pleasant emotion through which she passed every day. When she felt that it was before her, as soon as Griggs was out of the house, she made a slight effort to resist it, for she was sensible enough to understand that it was becoming a habit which she could not easily break. Even after she was quite strong again, Griggs often left her to herself for an hour, and he did not again come in accidentally and find her in tears. He thought it natural that she should sometimes wish to be alone. One day, when she had dried her eyes, she took a sheet of paper from his table and began to write. She had no distinct intention, but she knew that she was going to write about herself and her sufferings. It gave her a strange and unhealthy pleasure to set down in black and white all that she suffered. She could look at it, turn it, change it, and look at it again. Constantly, as the pen ran on, the tears came to her eyes afresh, and she brushed them away with a smile. Then, all at once, she looked at the clock--the same cheap little American clock which had ticked so long on the mantelpiece in Griggs's old lodging upstairs. She knew that he would be back before long, and she tore the sheets she had covered into tiny strips and threw them into the waste-paper basket. When Griggs returned, she was singing softly to herself over her needlework. But she had enjoyed a rare delight in writing down the story of her troubles. The utter loneliness of her existence, when Griggs was not with her, made it natural enough. Then a strange thought crossed her mind. She would write to Reanda and tell him that she had forgiven him, and had expiated the wrong she had done him. She craved the excitement of confession, and it could do no harm. He might, perhaps, answer her. Griggs would never know, for she always received the letters and sorted them for him, merely to save him trouble. The correspondence of a newspaper man is necessarily large, covering many sources of his information. It was rather a wild idea, she thought, but it attracted her, or rather it distracted her thoughts by taking her out of the daily comedy she was obliged to keep up. There was in it, too, a very slight suggestion of danger; for it was conceivable, though almost impossible, that some letter of hers or her husband's might fall into Griggs's hands. There was a perverseness about it which was seductive to her tortuous mind. At the first opportunity she wrote a very long letter. It was the letter of a penitent. She told him all that she had told herself a hundred times, and it was a very different production from the one she had sent to her father nearly a year earlier. There were tears in the phrases, there were sobs in the broken sentences. And there were tears in her own eyes when she sealed it. She was going to ring for the woman servant to take it, and her hand was on the bell. She paused, looked at the addressed envelope, glanced furtively round the room, and then kissed it passionately. Then she rang. Griggs came home later than usual, but he thought she was preoccupied and absent-minded. "Has anything gone wrong?" he asked anxiously. "Wrong?" she repeated. "Oh no!" She sighed. "It is the same thing. I am always anxious about you. You were a little pale before you went out and you had hardly eaten anything at breakfast." "There is nothing the matter with me," laughed Griggs. "I am indestructible. I defy fate." She started perceptibly, for she was too much of an Italian not to be a little superstitious. CHAPTER XXXVII. STEPHANONE was often seen in the Via della Frezza, for the host of the little wine shop was one of his good customers. The neighbourhood was very quiet and respectable, and the existence of the wine shop was a matter of convenience and almost of necessity to the respectable citizens who dwelt there. They sent their women servants or came themselves at regular hours, bringing their own bottles and vessels of all shapes and of many materials for the daily allowance of wine; they invariably paid in cash, and they never went away in the summer. The business was a very good one; for the Romans, though they rarely drink too much and are on the whole a sober people, consume an amount of strong wine which would produce a curious effect upon any other race, in any other climate. Stefanone, though his wife had formerly thought him extravagant, had ultimately turned out to be a very prudent person, and in the course of a thirty years' acquaintance with Rome had selected his customers with care, judgment, and foresight. Whenever he was in Rome and had time to spare he came to the little shop in the Via della Frezza. He had stood godfather for one of the host's children, which in those days constituted a real tie between parents and god-parents. But he had another reason for his frequent visits since that night on which he had accompanied Gloria and had shielded her from the rain with his gigantic brass-tipped umbrella. He took an interest in her, and would wait a long time in the hope of seeing her, sitting on a rush-bottomed stool outside the wine shop, and generally chewing the end of a wisp of broom. He had the faculty of sitting motionless for an hour at a time, his sturdy white-stockinged legs crossed one over the other, his square peasant's hands crossed upon his knee,--the sharp angles of the thumb-bones marked the labouring race,--his soft black hat tilted a little forward over his eyes, his jacket buttoned up when the weather was cool, thrown back and showing the loosened shirt open far below the throat when the day was warm. Gloria reminded him of Dalrymple. The process of mind was a very simple one and needs no analysis. He had sought Dalrymple for years, but in vain, and Gloria had something in her face which recalled her father, though the latter's features were rough and harshly accentuated. Stefanone had made the acquaintance of the one-eyed cobbler without difficulty and had ascertained that there was a mystery about Gloria, whom the cobbler had first seen on the morning after Stefanone had met her in the storm. It was of course very improbable that she should be the daughter of Dalrymple and Annetta, but even the faint possibility of being on the track of his enemy had a strong effect upon the unforgiving peasant. If he ever found Dalrymple, he intended to kill him. In the meanwhile he had found a simple plan for finding out whether Gloria was the Scotchman's daughter or not. He waited patiently for the spring, and he came to Rome now every month for a week at a time. More than once during the past year he had brought small presents of fruit and wine and country cakes for Gloria, and both she and Griggs knew all about him, and got their wine from the little shop which he supplied. Gloria was pleased by the decent, elderly peasant's admiration of her beauty, which he never failed to express when he got a chance of speaking to her. When little Walter Crowdie was first carried out into the sun, Stefanone was in the street, and he looked long and earnestly into the baby's face. "There is the same thing in the eyes," he muttered, as he turned away, after presenting the nurse with a beautiful jumble, which looked as though it had been varnished, and was adorned with small drops of hard pink sugar. "If it is he--an evil death on him and all his house." And he strolled slowly back to the wine shop, his hand fumbling with the big, curved, brass-handled knife which he carried in the pocket of his blue cloth breeches. He was certainly mistaken about the baby's eyes, which were remarkably beautiful and of a very soft brown; whereas Dalrymple's were hard, blue, and steely, and it was not possible that anything like an hereditary expression should be recognizable in the face of a child three weeks old. But his growing conviction made his imagination complete every link which chanced to be missing in the chain. One day, in the spring, he met Griggs when the latter was going out alone. "A word, Signore, if you permit," he said politely. "Twenty," replied Griggs, giving the common Roman answer. "Signore, Subiaco is a beautiful place," said the peasant. "In spring it is an enchantment. In summer, I tell you nothing. It is as fresh as Paradise. There is water, water, as much as you please. Wine is not wanting, and it seems that you know that. The butcher kills calves twice a week, and sometimes an ox when there is an old one, or one lame. Eh, in Subiaco, one is well." "I do not doubt it when I look at you," answered Griggs, without a smile. "Thanks be to Heaven, my health still assists me. But I am thinking of you and of your beautiful lady and of that little angel, whom God preserve. In truth, you appear to me as the Holy Family. I should not say it to every one, but the air of Subiaco is thin, the water is light, and, for a house, mine is of the better ones. One knows that we are country people, but we are clean people; there are neither chickens nor children. If you find a flea, I will have him set in gold. You shall say, 'This is the flea that was found in Stefanone's house.' In that way every one will know. I do not speak of the beds. The pope could sleep in the one in the large room at the head of the staircase, the pope with all his cardinals. They would say, 'Now we know that this is indeed a bed.' Do you wish better than this? I do not know. But if you will bring your lady and the baby, you will see. Eyes tell no lies." "And the price?" inquired Griggs, struck by the good sense of the suggestion. "Whatever you choose to give. If you give nothing, we shall have had your company. In general, we take three pauls a day, and we give the wine. You shall make the price as you like it. Who thinks of these things? We are Christians." When Griggs spoke of the project to Gloria, she embraced it eagerly. He said that he should be obliged to come to Rome every week on account of his correspondence. But Subiaco was no longer as inaccessible as formerly, and there was now a good carriage road all the way and a daily public conveyance. He should be absent three days, and would spend the other four with her. It was a sacrifice on his part, as she guessed from the way in which he spoke, but it was clearly necessary that Gloria and the child should have country air during the coming summer. He had often reproached himself with not having made some such arrangement for the preceding hot season, but he had seen that she did not suffer from the heat, and his presence in the capital had been very necessary for his work. Now, however, it looked possible enough, and before Stefanone went back to the country for his next trip a preliminary agreement had been made. Gloria looked forward with impatience to the liberty she was to gain by his regular absences, for her life was becoming unbearable. She felt that she could not much longer sustain the perpetual comedy she was acting, unless she could get an interval of rest from time to time. At first, the hour he gave her daily when he went out alone had been a relief and had sufficed. The tears she shed, the letters she wrote to Reanda, rested her and refreshed her. For she had written others since that first one, though he had never answered any of them. But the small daily interruption of her acting was no longer enough. The taste of liberty had bred an intense craving for more of it, and she dreamed of being alone for days together. She wrote to Reanda now without the slightest hope of receiving any reply, as madmen sometimes write endless letters to women they love, though they have never exchanged a word with them. It was a vent for her pent-up suffering. It could make no difference, and Griggs could never know. Her strange position put the point of faithfulness out of the question. She was in love with her husband, and the man who loved her held her to her play of love by the terror she felt of what lay behind his gentleness. She dreamed once that he had found out the truth, and was tearing her head from her body with those hands of his, slowly, almost gently, with mysterious eyes and still face. She woke, and found that the heavy tress of her hair was twisted round her throat and was choking her; but the impression remained, and her dread of Griggs increased, and it became harder and harder to act her part. At the same time the attraction of secretly writing to her husband grew stronger, day by day. She did not send him all she wrote, nor a tenth part of all, and the greater portion of her outpourings went into the fire, or they were torn to infinitesimal bits and thrown into the waste-paper basket. She was critical, in a strangely morbid way, of what she wrote. The fact that she was acting for Griggs, and knew it, made her dread to write anything to Reanda which could possibly seem insincere. No aspiring young author ever took greater pains over his work than she sometimes bestowed upon the composition of these letters, or judged his work more conscientiously and severely than she. And the result was that she told of her life with wonderful sincerity and truth. Truth was her only luxury in the midst of the great lie she had to sustain. She revelled in it, and yet, fearing to lose it, she used it with a conscientiousness which she had never exhibited in anything she had done before. It was her single delight, and she treasured it with scrupulous and miserly care. In her letters, at least, she could be really herself. But the strain was telling upon her visibly, and Griggs was very anxious about her, and hastened their departure for Subiaco as soon as the weather began to grow warm, hoping that the mountain air would bring the colour back to her pale cheeks. For her beauty's sake, he could almost have deprecated the prospect, strange to say, for she had never seemed more perfectly beautiful than now. She was thinner than she had formerly been, and her pallor had refined her by softening the look of hard and brilliant vitality which had characterized her before she had left Reanda. There is perhaps no beauty which is not beautified by a touch of sadness. Griggs saw it, and while his eyes rejoiced, his heart sank. He knew what an utterly lonely life she was leading, even as he judged her existence, and the tender string was touched in his deep nature. She had sacrificed everything for him, as he told himself many a time in his solitary walks. All the love he had given and had to give could never repay her for what she had given him. Marriage, he reflected, was often a bargain, but such devotion as hers was a gift for which there could be no return. She had ruined herself in the eyes of the world for him, but the world would never accuse him, nor shut its doors upon him because he had accepted what she had so freely given. He was not an emotional man, but even he longed for some turn of life in which for her sake he might do something above the dead level of that commonplace heroism which begins in hard work and ends in the attainment of ordinary necessities. He felt his strength in him and about him, and he wished that he could let it loose upon some adversary in the physical satisfaction of fighting for what he loved. It was not a high aspiration, but it was a manly one. He drew upon his resources to the utmost, in order to make her comfortable in Subiaco when they should get there. He was not a dreamer, though he dreamed when he had time. It was his nature to take all the things which came to him to be done and to do them one after another with untiring energy. He worked at his correspondence, and got additional articles to write for periodicals, though it was no easy matter in that day when the modern periodical was in its infancy. Gloria, acting her part, complained sadly that he worked too hard. Work as he might, he had no such stress to fear as was wearing out her life. She hated him, she feared him, and she envied him. Sometimes she pitied him, and then it was easier for her to act the play. As for Griggs, he laughed and told her for the hundredth time that he was indestructible and defied fate. So far as he could see what he had to deal with, he could defy anything. But there was that beyond of which he could not dream, and destiny, with leaden hands, was already upon him, on the day when a great, old-fashioned carriage, loaded with boxes and belongings, brought him and his to the door of Stefanone's house in Subiaco. Sora Nanna, grey-haired, and withered as a brown apple, but tough as leather still, stood on the threshold to receive them. She no longer wore the embroidered napkin on her hair, for civilization had advanced a generation in Subiaco, and a coloured handkerchief flapped about her head, and she had caught one corner of it in her teeth to keep it out of her eyes, as the afternoon breeze blew it across her leathery face. First at the door of the carriage she saw the baby, held up by its nurse, and the old woman threw up her hands and clapped them, and crowed to the child till it laughed. Then Griggs got out. And then, out of the dark shadow of the coach, a face looked at Sora Nanna, and it was a face she had known long ago, with dark eyes, beautiful and deadly pale, and very fateful. She turned white herself, and her teeth chattered. "Madonna Santissima!" she cried, shrinking back. She crossed herself, and did not dare to meet Gloria's eyes again for some time. CHAPTER XXXVIII. SORA NANNA showed her new lodgers their rooms. They were the ones Dalrymple had occupied long ago, together with a third, opening separately from the same landing. In what had been the Scotchman's laboratory, and which was now turned into a small bedroom, a large chest stood in a corner, of the sort used by the peasant women to this day for their wedding outfits. "If it is not in your way, I will leave it here," said Sora Nanna. "There are certain things in it." "What things?" asked Gloria, idly, and for the sake of making acquaintance with the woman, rather than out of curiosity. "Things, things," answered Nanna. "Things of that poor girl's. We had a daughter, Signora." "Did she die long ago?" inquired Gloria, in a tone of sympathy. "We lost her, Signora," said Nanna, simply. "Look at these beds! They are new, new! No one has ever slept in them. And linen there is, as much as you can ask for. We are country people, Signora, but we are good people. I do not say that we are rich. One knows--in Rome everything is beautiful. Even the chestnuts are of gold. Here, we are in the country, Signora. You will excuse, if anything is wanting." But Gloria was by no means inclined to find fault. She breathed more freely in the mountain air, she was tired with the long drive from Tivoli, where they had spent the previous night, and she was more hungry than she had been for a long time. It was not dark when they sat down to supper in the old guest chamber which opened upon the street. Nanna was anxious and willing to bring them their supper upstairs, but Gloria preferred the common room. She said it would amuse her, and in reality it was easier for her not to be alone with Griggs, and by going downstairs on the first evening she meant to establish a precedent for the whole summer. He had told her that he must go back to Rome for his work on the next day but one, and she counted the hours before her up to the minute when she should be free and alone. They sat down at the old table at which Dalrymple had eaten his solitary meals so often, more than twenty years earlier. There was no change. There were the same solid, old-fashioned silver forks and spoons, there were plates of the same coarse china, tumblers of the same heavy pressed glass. Had Dalrymple been there, he would have recognized the old brass lamp with its three beaks which poor Annetta had so often brought in lighted when he sat there at dusk. On the shelf in the corner were the selfsame decanters full of transparent aniseed and pink alchermes and coarse brown brandy. Stefanone came in, laid his hat upon the bench, and put his stick in the corner just as he had always done. There was no change, except that Annetta was not there, and the husband and wife had grown almost old since those days. "How often does the post go to Rome?" Gloria asked of Sora Nanna, while they were at supper. "Every evening, at one of the night, Signora. There are also many occasions of sending by the carters." "I can write to you every day when you are away," said Gloria in English to Griggs. She was thinking of those letters which she wrote to Reanda almost in spite of herself, but the loving smile did not play her false, and Griggs believed her. In her, the duality of her being had created two distinct lives. For him, the two elements of consciousness and perception were merged in one by his love. All that he felt he saw in her, and all that he saw in her he felt. The perfection of love, while it lasts, is in that double certainty from within and from without, which, if once disturbed, can never be restored again. Singly, the one part or the other may remain as of old, but the wholeness of the two has but one chance of life. On that first night Gloria had an evil dream. She had fallen asleep, tired from the journey and worn out with the endless weariness of her secret suffering. She awoke in the small hours, and moonlight was streaming into the room. She was startled to find herself in a strange place, at first, and then she realized where she was, and gazed at the clouded panes of common glass as her head lay on the pillow, and she marked the moonlight on the brick floor by the joints of the bricks, and watched how it crept silently away. For the moon was waning, and had not long risen above the black line of the hills. Her eyelids drooped, but she saw it all distinctly still--more distinctly than before, she thought. The level light rose slowly from the floor; very, very slowly, stiff and straight as a stark, shrouded corpse, and stood upright between her and the window. She felt the heavy hair rising on her scalp, and an intense horror took possession of her body, and thrilled through her from head to foot and from her feet to her head. But she could not move. She felt that something held her and pressed on her, as though the air were moulded about her like cast iron. The thing stood between her and the window, stiff and white. It showed its face, and the face was white, too. It was Angelo Reanda. She knew it, though there seemed to be no eyes in the white thing. She felt its dead voice speaking to her. "An evil death on you and all your house," it said. The face was gone again, but the thing was still there. Very, very slowly, stiff and white, it lay back, straight from the heel upwards, unbending as it sank, till it laid itself upon the floor, and she was staring at the joints of the bricks in the moonlight. Then she shrieked aloud and awoke. The moonlight had moved a foot or more, and she knew that she had been asleep. "It was only a dream," she said to Griggs in the morning. "I thought I saw you dead, dear. It frightened me." "I am not dead yet," he laughed. "It was that salad--there were potatoes in it." She turned away; for the contrast between the triviality of what he said and the horror of what she had felt brought an expression to her face which even her consummate art could not have concealed. The impression lasted all day, and when she went to bed she carefully closed the shutters so that the moonlight should not fall upon the floor. The dream did not return. "It must have been the salad," said Griggs, when she told him that she had not been disturbed again. But Gloria was thinking of death, and his words jarred upon her horribly, as a trivial jest would jar on a condemned man walking from his cell to the scaffold. In the evening Griggs went by the diligence to Rome, and Gloria was left alone with her child and the nurse. Then she sat down and wrote to Reanda with a full heart and a trembling hand. She told him of her dream, and how the fear of his death had broken her nerves. She implored him to come out and see her when Griggs was in Rome. She could let him know when to start, if he would write one word. It was but a little journey, she said, and the cool mountain air would do him good. But if he would not come, she besought him to write to her, if it were only a line, to say that he was alive. She could not forget the dream until she should know that he was safe. She was not critical of her writing any more, for she was no longer in fear of being misunderstood, and she wrote desperately. It seemed to her that she was writing with her blood. She had sent him many letters without hope of answer, but something told her that she could not appeal in vain forever, and that he would at last reply to her. Two days passed, and she spent much of her time with the child. She felt that in time she might love it, if Griggs were not beside her. Then he came back, and in the great joy of seeing her again after that first short separation, the stern voice grew as soft as a woman's, and the still face was moved. She had looked forward with dread to his return, and she shivered when he touched her; she would have given all she had if only he would not kiss her. Then, when she felt that he might have found her cold to him at the first moment, that he might guess, that he might find out her secret, she shivered again from head to heel, in fear of him, and she forced the smile upon her face with all her will. "I am so glad, that I am almost frightened!" she cried, and lest the smile should be imperfect, she hid it against his shoulder. She could have bitten the cloth and the tough arm under it, as she felt him kiss the back of her neck just at the roots of the hair; as it was, she grasped his arm convulsively. "How strong you are!" he laughed, as he felt the pressure of her fingers. "Yes," she answered. "It is the mountain air--and you," she added. And, as ever, it seemed to him true. The days he spent with her were heavenly to him as they were days of living earthly hell to her. He did not even leave her alone for an hour or two, as he had done in the city, for when he was in Rome without her he did double work and shortened his sleep by half, that he might lengthen the time he was to have with her. The heat of the capital and the late hours brought out dark shadows under his eyes, and gave her another excuse for saying that he was overworking for her sake, and that she was a burden upon him--she and the child. On the morning before he next went to Rome, she received a letter from Reanda. The blood rushed scarlet to her face, but Griggs was busy with his own letters and did not see it. She went to the baby's room. The child had been taken out by the nurse, and she sat down in the nurse's chair by the empty cradle and broke the seal of the note. There was a big sheet of paper inside, on which were written these lines in the artist's small, nervous handwriting:-- "I am perfectly well, but I understand your anxiety about my health. I do not wish to see you, but as human life is uncertain I have given instructions that you may be at once informed of the good news of my death, if you outlive me." Gloria's hand closed upon the sheet of paper, and she reeled forward and sideways in the chair, as though she had received a stunning blow. She heard heavy footsteps on the brick floor in the next room and with a desperate effort at consciousness she hid the crumpled letter in her bosom before the door opened. But the room swam with her as she grasped the straw cradle and tried to steady herself. In an agony of terror she heard the footsteps coming nearer and nearer, then retreating again, then turning back towards her. She prayed to God at that moment that Griggs might not open the door. To gain strength, she forced herself to rise to her feet and stand upright, but with the first step she took, she stumbled against the chest that contained Annetta's belongings. The physical pain roused her. She drew breath more freely, and listened. Griggs was moving about in the other room, probably putting together some few things which he meant to take to Rome with him that evening. It seemed an hour before she heard him go away, and the echo of his footsteps came more and more faintly as he went down the stairs. He evidently had not guessed that she was in the little room which served as a nursery--the room which had once been Dalrymple's laboratory. She did not read the letter again, but she found a match and set fire to it, and watched it as it burned to black, gossamer-like ashes on the brick floor. It was long before she had the courage to go down and face Griggs and say that she was ready for the daily walk together before the midday meal. And all that day she went about dreamily, scarcely knowing what she did or said, though she was sure that she did not fail in acting her part, for the habit was so strong that the acting was natural to her, except when something waked her to herself too suddenly. He went away at last in the evening, and she was free to do what she pleased with herself, to close the deadly wound she had received, if that were possible, to forget it even for an hour, if she could. But she could not. She felt that it was her death-wound, for it had killed a hope which she had tended and fostered into an inner life for herself. She felt that her husband hated her, as she hated Paul Griggs. She was impelled to fall upon her knees and pray to Something, somewhere, though she knew not what, but she was ashamed to do it when she thought of her life. That Something would turn upon her and curse her, as Reanda had cursed her in her dream--and in the cruel words he had written. She hardly slept that night, and she rose in the morning heavy-eyed and weary. Going out into the old garden behind the house she met Sora Nanna with a basket of clothes on her head, just starting to go up to the convent, followed by two of her women. "Signora," said the old woman, with her leathern smile, "you are consuming yourself because the husband is in Rome. You are doing wrong." Gloria started, stared at her, and then understood, and nodded. "Come up to the convent with us," said Nanna. "You will divert yourself, and while they take in the clothes, I will show you the church. It is beautiful. I think that even in Rome it would be a beautiful church. I will show you where the sisters are buried and I will tell you how Sister Maria Addolorata was burned in her cell. But she was not buried with the rest. When you come back, you will eat with a double appetite, and I will make gnocchi of polenta for dinner. Do you like gnocchi, Signora? There is much resistance in them." Gloria went with the washerwomen. She was strong and kept pace with them, burdened as they were with their baskets. It was good to be with them, common creatures with common, human hearts, knowing nothing of her strange trouble. Sora Nanna took her into the church and showed her the sights, explaining them in her strident, nasal voice without the slightest respect for the place so long as no religious service was going on. The woman showed her the little tablet erected in memory of Maria Addolorata, and she told the story as she had heard it, and dwelt upon the funeral services and the masses which had been said. "At least, she is in peace," said Gloria, in a low voice, staring at the tablet. [Illustration: "Let us not speak of the dead."--Vol. II., p. 203.] "Poor Annetta used to say that Sister Maria Addolorata sinned in her throat," said Nanna. "But you see. God can do everything. She went straight from her cell to heaven. Eh, she is in peace, Signora, as you say. Requiesca'. Come, Signora, it takes at least three-quarters of an hour to make gnocchi." And they did not know. She was standing on her daughter's grave, and the tablet was a memorial of the mother of the woman beside her. "You make me think of her, Signora," said the peasant. "You have her face. If you had her voice, to sing, I should think that you were she, returned from the dead." "Could she sing?" asked Gloria, dreamily, as they left the church. "Like the angels in Paradise," answered Nanna. "I think that now, when she sings, they are ashamed and stand silent to listen to her. If God wills that I make a good death, I shall hear her again." She glanced at her companion's dreamy, fateful face. "Let us not speak of the dead!" she concluded. "To-day we will make gnocchi of polenta." CHAPTER XXXIX. IN the afternoon Gloria called Sora Nanna to move the chest against which she had stumbled in the morning. It would be more convenient, she said, to put it under the bed, if it could not be taken away altogether. It was a big, old-fashioned chest of unpainted, unvarnished wood, brown with age, and fastened by a hasp, through which a splinter of white chestnut wood had been stuck instead of a padlock. Gloria saw that it was heavy, as Sora Nanna dragged it and pushed it across the room. She remarked that, if it held only clothes, it must be packed very full. Sora Nanna, glad to rest from her efforts, stood upright with her hand on her hip and took breath. "Signora," she said, "who knows what is in it? Things, certain things! There are the clothes of that poor girl. This I know. And then, certain other things. Who knows what is in it? It may be a thousand years since I looked. Signora, shall we open it? But I think there are certain things that belonged to the Englishman." "The Englishman?" asked Gloria, with some curiosity. She was glad of anything which could interest her a little. For the moment she had not yet the courage to begin to write again after Reanda's message. Anything which had power to turn the current of her thoughts was a relief. She was sitting in the same chair beside the cradle in which she had sat in the morning, for she had called Nanna to move the box at a time when the child had been taken out for its second airing. She leaned back, resting her auburn hair against the bare wall, the waxen whiteness of her face contrasting with the bluish whitewash. "What Englishman?" she asked again, wearily, but with a show of interest in her half-closed eyes. "Who knows? An Englishman. They called him Sor Angoscia." Nanna sat down on the heavy box, and dropped her skinny hands far apart upon her knees. "We have cursed him much. He took our daughter. It was a night of evil. In that night the abbess died, and Sister Maria Addolorata was burned in her cell, and the Englishman took our daughter. He took our one daughter, Signora. We have not seen her more, not even her little finger. It will be twenty-two years on the eve of the feast of St. Luke. That is in October, Signora. He took our daughter. Poor little one! She was young, young--perhaps she did not know what she did." Gloria leaned forward, resting her chin in her hand and her elbow on her knee, gazing at the old woman. "She was a flower," said Nanna, simply. "He tore her from us with the roots. Who knows what he did with her? She will be dead by this time. May the Madonna obtain grace for her! Signora, she seemed one of those flowers that grow on the hillside, just as God wills. Rain, sun, she was always fresh. Then came the storm. Who could find her any more? Poor little one!" "Poor child!" exclaimed Gloria. And she made Nanna tell all she knew, and how they had found the girl's peasant dress in a corner of that very room. "Signora, if you wish to see, I will content you," said Nanna, rising at last. She opened the box. It exhaled the peculiar odour of heavy cloth which has been worn and has then been kept closely shut up for years. On the top lay Annetta's carpet apron. Nanna held it up, and there were tears in her eyes, glistening on her dry skin like water in a crevice of brown rock. "Signora, there are moths in it, see! Who cares for these things? They are a memory. And this is her skirt, and this is her bodice. Eh, it was beautiful once. The shoes, Signora, I wore them, for we had the same feet. What would you? It seemed a sin to let them mould, because they were hers. The apron, too, I might have worn it. Who knows why I did not wear it? It was the affection. We are all so, we women. And now there are moths in it. I might have worn it. At least it would not have been lost." Gloria peered into the box, and saw under the clothes a number of books packed neatly with a box made of English oak. She stretched down her hand and took one of the volumes. It was an English medical treatise. She looked at the fly-leaf. A loud cry from Gloria startled the old woman. "Angus Dalrymple--but--" Gloria read the name and stared at Nanna. "Eh, eh!" assented Nanna, nodding violently and smiling a little as she at last recognized the Scotchman's name which she had never been able to pronounce. "Yes--that is it. That was the name of the Englishman. An evil death on him and all his house! Stefanone says it always. I also may say it once. It was he. He took our daughter. Stefanone went after them, but they had the beast of the convent gardener. It was a good beast, and they made it run. Stefanone heard of them all the way to the sea, but the twenty-four hours had passed, and the war-ship was far out. He could see it. Could he go to the war-ship? It had cannons. They would have killed him. Then I should have had neither daughter nor husband. So he came back." The long habit of acting had made Gloria strong, but her hands shook on the closed volume. She had known that her mother had been an Italian, that they had left Italy suddenly and had been married on board an English man-of-war by the captain, that same Walter Crowdie, a relative of Dalrymple's, after whom Gloria and Griggs had named the child. More than that Dalrymple had never been willing to tell her. She remembered, too, that though she had once or twice begged him to take her to Tivoli and Subiaco, he had refused rather abruptly. It was clear enough now. Her mother had been this Annetta whom Dalrymple had stolen away in the night. And the wrinkled, leathery old hag, with her damp, coarse mouth, her skinny hands, and her cunning, ignorant eyes, was her grandmother--Stefanone was her grandfather--her mother had been a peasant, like them, beautified by one of nature's mad miracles. There could be no doubt about it. That was the truth, and it fell upon her with its cruel, massive weight, striking her where many other truths had struck her before this one, in her vanity. She grasped the book tightly with both hands and set her teeth. After that, she did not know what Nanna said, and the old woman, thinking Gloria was not paying a proper attention to her remarks, pushed and heaved the box across the room rather discontentedly. It would not go under the bed, being too high, so she wedged it in between the foot of the bedstead and the wall. There was just room for it there. "Signora, if ever your one child leaves you without a word, you will understand," said Nanna, a little offended at finding no sympathy. "I understand too well," answered Gloria. Then she suddenly realized what the woman wanted, and with great self-control she held out her hand kindly. Nanna took it and smiled, and pressed it in her horny fingers. "You are young, Signora. When you are old, you will understand many things, when evils have pounded your heart in a mortar. Oil is sweet, vinegar is sour; with both one makes salad. This is our life. Rest yourself, Signora, for you walked well this morning. I go." Gloria felt the pressure of the rough fingers on hers, after Nanna had left her. The acrid odour of peeled vegetables clung to her own hand, and she rose and washed it carefully, though she was scarcely conscious of what she was doing. Suddenly she dropped the towel and went back to the box. It had crossed her mind that the single book she had opened might have been borrowed from her father and that she might find another name in the others--that Nanna might have been mistaken in thinking that she recognized the English name--that it might all be a mistake, after all. With violent hands she dragged out the moth-eaten clothes and threw them behind her upon the floor, and seized the books, opening them desperately one after the other. In each there was the name, 'Angus Dalrymple,' in her father's firm young handwriting of twenty years ago. She threw them down and lifted out the oak box. A little brass plate was let into the lid, and bore the initials, 'A. D.' There was no doubt left. The books all bore dates prior to 1844, the year in which, as she knew, her father had been married. It was impossible to hesitate, for the case was terribly clear. She rose to her feet and carried the box to the window and set it upon a chair, sitting down upon another before it. It was not locked. She raised the lid, and saw that it was a medicine chest. There was a drawer, or little tray, on the top, full of small boxes and very minute vials, lying on their sides. Lifting this out, she saw a number of little stoppered bottles set in holes made in a thin piece of board for a frame. One was missing, and there were eleven left. She counted them mechanically, not knowing why she did so. Then she took them out and looked at the labels. The first she touched contained spirits of camphor. It chanced to be the only one of which the contents were harmless. The others were strong tinctures and acids, vegetable poisons, belladonna, aconite, and the like, sulphuric acid, nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, and others. Gloria looked at them curiously and set them back, one by one, put in the little tray and closed the lid. Then she sat still a long time and gazed out of the window at the rugged line of the hills. Between her and the pale sky she saw her own life, and the hideous failure of it all, culminating in the certainty that she was of the blood of the old peasant couple to whose house a seeming chance had brought her to die. She felt that she could not live, and would not live if she could. It was all too wildly horrible, too utterly desolate. The only human being that clung to her was the one of all others whom she most feared and hated, whose very touch sent a cold shiver through her. She and fate together had pounded her heart in a mortar, as the old woman had said. With a bitterness that sickened her she thought of her brief married life, of her poor social ambition, of her hopeless efforts to be some one amongst the great. What could she be, the daughter of peasants, what could she have ever been? Probably some one knew the truth about her, in all that great society. Such things might be known. Francesca Campodonico's delicate noble face rose faintly between her and the sky, and she realized with excruciating suddenness the distance that separated her from the woman she hated, the woman who perhaps knew that Gloria Dalrymple was the daughter of a peasant and a fit wife by her birth for Angelo Reanda, the steward's son. The ruin of her life spread behind her and before her. She could not face it. The confusion of it all seemed to blind her, and the confusion was pierced by the terrible thought that on the next day but one Griggs would return again, the one being who would not leave her, who believed in her, who worshipped her, and whom she hated for himself and for the destruction of her existence which had come by him. In the box before her was death, painful perhaps, but sure as the grave itself. She was not a coward, except when she was afraid of Paul Griggs, and the fear lest he, too, should find out the truth was worse than the fear of mortal pain. She sat still in her place, staring out of the window. After a long time, the nurse came in, carrying the child asleep in her arms, covered with a thin gauze veil. Gloria started, and then smiled mechanically as she had trained herself to smile whenever the child was brought to her. The nurse laid the small thing in its cradle, and Gloria, as in a dream, put the books and the clothes back into the box, and was glad that the nurse asked no questions. When she had shut down the lid, she rose to her feet and saw that she had left the medicine chest on the chair. She took it into the bedroom and set it upon the table. Then she sat down and wrote to Reanda. There was no haste in the writing, and her head was clear and cool, for she was not afraid. Griggs could not return for two days, and she had plenty of time. She went over her story, as she had gone over it many times before in her letters. She told him all, but not the discovery she had just made. That should die with her, if it could. It would be easy enough, on the next day, when the nurse was out, to open the box again, and to tear out the fly-leaf from each book and so destroy the name. As for the medicine chest, Griggs might see that it had belonged to her father, but he would suppose that she had brought it amongst her belongings. He would never guess that it had lain hidden in the old box for more than twenty years. That was her plan, and it was simple enough. But she should have to wait until the next day. It was better so. She could think of what she was going to do, and nobody would disturb her. She finished her letter. "You have killed me," she wrote at the end. "If I had not loved you to the very end, I would tell you that my death is on your soul. But it is not all your fault, if I have loved you to death. I would not die if I could be free in any other way, but I cannot live to be touched and caressed again by this man whom I loathe with all my soul. I tell you that when he kisses me it is as though I were stung by a serpent of ice. It is for your sake that I hate him as I do. For your sake I have suffered hell on earth for more than a whole year. For your sake I die. I cannot live without you. I have told you so again and a hundred times again, and you have not believed me. You write to-day and you tell me that I shall be free, when you die, to marry Paul Griggs. I would rather marry Satan in hell. But I shall be free to-morrow, for I shall be dead. God will forgive me, for God knows what I suffer. Good-bye. I love you, Angelo. I shall love you to-morrow, when the hour comes, and after that I shall love you always. This is the end. Good-bye. I love you; I kiss your soul with my soul. Good-bye, good-bye. "GLORIA." She cut a lock from her auburn hair and twisted it round and round her wedding ring, and thrust it into the envelope. CHAPTER XL. TWO days later, Paul Griggs stood beside Gloria. She was not dead yet, but no earthly power could save her. She lay white and motionless on the high trestle bed, unconscious of his presence. They had sent a messenger for him, and he had come. The door was locked. Stefanone and his wife whispered together on the landing. In the third room, beyond, the nurse was shedding hysterical tears over the sleeping child. The strong man stood stone still with shadowy, unblinking eyes, gazing into the dying face. Not a muscle moved, not a feature was distorted, his breath was regular and slow, for his grief had taken hold upon his soul, and his body was unconscious of time, as though it were already dead. She had suffered horrible agonies for two nights and one day, and now the end was very near, for the wracked nerves could no longer feel. She lay on her back, lightly covered, one white arm and hand above the coverlet, the other hidden beneath it. The room was very hot, and the sun streamed through the narrow aperture of the nearly closed shutters, and made a bright streak on the red bricks, for it was morning still. The purple lids opened, and Gloria looked up. There was no shiver now, as she recognized the man she feared, for the nerves were almost dead. Perhaps there was less fear, for she knew that it was almost over. The dark eyes were fixed on his with a mysterious, wondering look. He tried to speak, and his lips moved, but he could make no sound, and his chest heaved convulsively, once. He knew what she had done, for they had told him. He knew, now that he tried to speak and could not, that he was half killed by grief. She saw the effort and understood, and faintly smiled. "Why?" He wrenched the single broken word out of himself by an enormous effort, and his throat swelled and was dry. Suddenly a single great drop of sweat rolled down his pale forehead. "I could not live," she answered, in a cool, far voice beyond suffering, and still she smiled. "Why? Why?" The repeated word broke out twice like two sobs, but not a feature moved. The dying woman's eyelids quivered. "I was a burden to you," she said faintly and distinctly. "You are free now, you have--only the child." His calm broke. "Gloria, Gloria! In the name of God Almighty, do not leave me so!" He clasped her in his arms and lifted her a little, pressing his lips to her face. She was inert as a statue. She feared him still, and she felt the shiver of horror at his touch, but it could not move her limbs any more. Her eyes opened and looked into his, very close, but his were shut. The mask was gone. The man's whole soul was in his agonized face, and his arm shook with her. Her mind was clear and she understood. She was still herself, acting her play out in the teeth of death. "I could not live," she said. "I could not be a millstone, dragging you down, watching you as you killed yourself in working for me. It was to be one of us. It was better so." In his agony he laid his head beside hers on the pillow. "Gloria--for Christ's sake--don't leave me--" The deep moan came from his tortured heart. "Bring--the child--Walter--" she said very faintly. Even in death she could not bear to be alone with him. He straightened himself, stood up, and saw the light fading in her eyes. Then, indeed, a shiver ran through her and shook her. Then the lids opened wide, and she cried out loudly. "Quick--I am going--" Rather than that she should not have what she wished, he tore himself away and wrenched the door open, forgetting that it was locked. "Bring the child!" he cried, into the face of old Nanna, who was standing there, and he pushed her towards the door of the other room with one hand, while he already turned back to Gloria. He started, for she was sitting up, with wide eyes and outstretched hands, gazing at the patch of sunlight on the floor. Dying, she saw the awful vision of her dream again, rising stiff and stark from the bricks to its upright horror between her and the light. Her hands pointed at it and shook, and her jaw dropped, but she was motionless as she sat. Nanna, sobbing, came in suddenly, holding up the little child straight before her, that it might see its mother before she was gone forever. The baby hands feebly beat its little sides, and it gasped for breath. Words came from Gloria's open mouth, articulate, clear, but very far in sound. "An evil death on you and all your house!" the words said, as though spoken by another. The outstretched hands sank slowly, as the vision laid itself down before her, straight and corpse-like. The beautiful head fell back upon Griggs's arm, and the eyes met his. [Illustration: "The last great, true note died away."--Vol. II., p. 219.] Nanna prayed aloud, holding up the child mechanically, and the small eyes were fixed, horrorstruck, upon the bed. A low cry trembled in the air. Stefanone, his hat in his hand, stood against the door, bowed a little, as though he were in church. The cry came again. Then there was a sort of struggle. In an instant Gloria was standing up on the bed to her full height. And the hot, still room rang with a burst of desperate, ear-breaking song, in majestic, passionate, ascending intervals. "Calpesta il mio cadavere, ma salva il Trovator!" The last great, true note died away. For one instant she stood up still, with outstretched hands, white, motionless. Then the flame in the dark eyes broke and went out, and Gloria fell down dead. "Maria Addolorata! Maria Addolorata!" Nanna screamed in deadly terror, as she heard the transcendent voice that one time, like a voice from the grave. She sank down, fainting upon the floor, and the little child rolled from her slackened arms upon the coarse bricks and lay on its face, moaning tremulously. No one heeded it. Stefanone, with instinctive horror of death, turned and went blindly down the steps, not knowing what he had seen, the death notes still ringing in his ears. On the bed, the man lay dumb upon the dead woman. Only the poor little child seemed to be alive, and clutched feebly at the coarse red bricks, and moaned and bruised its small face. It bore the slender inheritance of fatal life, the inheritance of vows broken and of faith outraged, and with it, perhaps, the implanted seed of a lifelong terror, not remembered, but felt throughout life, as real and as deadly as an inheritance of mortal disease. Better, perhaps, if death had taken it, too, to the lonely grave of the outcast and suicide woman, among the rocks, out of earshot of humanity. Death makes strange oversights and leaves strange gleanings for life, when he has reaped his field and housed his harvest. They would not give Gloria Christian burial, for it was known throughout Subiaco that she had poisoned herself, and those were still the old days, when the Church's rules were the law of the people. Paul Griggs took the body of the woman he had loved, and loved beyond death, and he laid her in a deep grave in a hollow of the hillside. Such words as he had to speak to those who helped him, he spoke quietly, and none could say that they had seen the still face moved by sorrow. But as they watched him, a human sort of fear took hold of them, at his great quiet, and they knew that his grief was beyond anything which could be shown or understood. It was night, and they filled the grave after he had thrown earth into it with his hands. He sent them away, and they left him alone with the dead, leaving also one of their lanterns upon a stone near by. All that night he lay on the grave, dumb. Then, when the dawn came upon him, he kissed the loose earth and stones, and got upon his feet and went slowly down the hillside to the town beyond the torrent. He went into the house noiselessly, and lay down upon the bed on which she had died. And so he did for two nights and two days. On the third, a great carriage came from Rome, bringing twelve men, singers of the Sistine Chapel and of the choir of Saint Peter's and of Saint John Lateran, twelve men having very beautiful voices, as sweet as any in the world. He had sent for them when he had been told that she could not have Christian burial. They were talking and laughing together when they came, but when they saw his face they grew very quiet, and followed him in silence where he led them. Two little boys followed them, too, wondering what was to happen, and what the thirteen men were going to do, all dressed in black, walking so steadily together. When they all came to the hollow in the hillside, they saw a mound, as of a grave, amidst the stones, and on it there lay a cross of black wood. The singers looked at one another in silence, and they understood that whoever lay in the grave had been refused a place in the churchyard, for some great sin. But they said nothing. The man who led them stood still at the head of the cross and took off his hat, and looked at his twelve companions, who uncovered their heads. They had sheets of written music with them, and they passed them quietly about from one to another and looked towards one who was their leader. Overhead, the summer sky was pale, and there were twin mountains of great clouds in the northwest, hiding the sun, and in the southeast, whence the parching wind was blowing in fierce gusts. It blew the dry dust from the clods of earth on the grave, and the dust settled on the black clothes of the men as they stood near. The voices struck the first chord softly together, and the music for the dead went up to heaven, and was borne far across the torrent to the distance in the arms of the hot wind. And one voice climbed above the others, sweet and clear, as though to reach heaven itself; and another sank deep and true and soft in the full close of the stave, as though it would touch and comfort the heart that was quite still at last in the deep earth. Then one who was young stood a little before the rest, a strong, pale singer, with an angel's voice. And he sang alone to the sky and the dusty rocks and the solemn grave. He sang the 'Cujus animam gementem pertransivit gladius' of the Stabat Mater, as none had sung it before him, nor perhaps has ever sung it since that day--he alone, without other music. They came also to the words 'Fac ut animæ donetur Paradisi gloria,' and the word was a name to him who listened silently in their midst. Besides these they sang also a 'Miserere,' and last of all, 'Requiem eternam dona eis.' Then there was silence, and they looked at the still face, as though asking what they should do. The mysterious eyes met theirs with shadows. The pale head bent itself in thanks, twice or thrice, but there were no words. So they turned and left him there on the hillside, and went back to the town, awestruck by the vastness of the man's sorrow. And afterwards, for many years, when any of them heard of a great grief, he shook his head and said that he and those who had sung with him over a lonely grave in the mountains, alone knew what a man could feel and yet live. And Paul Griggs lived through those days, and is still alive. His grief could not spend itself, but his stern strength took hold of life again, and he took the child with him and went back to Rome, to work for it from that time forward, and to shield it from evil if he could, and to bring it up to be a man, ignorant of what had happened in Subiaco in those summer days, ignorant of the tie that made it his, to be a man free from the burden of past fates and sins and broken vows and trampled faith, and of the death his dead mother had died, having a clean name of his own, with which there could be no memories of misery and fear and horror. He wrote a few short words to Angus Dalrymple, now Lord Redin at last, to tell him the truth as far as he knew it. The hand that had laboured so bravely for Gloria could hardly trace the words that told of her death. Then, when the summer heat was passed, he took little Walter Crowdie with him, hiring an Englishwoman to tend the child, and he crossed the ocean and gave it to certain kinsfolk of his in America, telling them that it was the child of one who had been very dear to him, that he had taken it as his own, and would provide for it and take it back when it should be older. And so he did, and little Walter Crowdie grew up with an angel's voice, and other gifts which made him famous in his day. But many things happened before that time came. He could do no better than that. For a time he strove to earn money with his pen in his own country. But the land was still trembling from the convulsion of a great war, and there were many before him, and he was little known. After a year had passed, he saw that he could not then succeed, and very heavy at heart he set his face eastward again, to toil at his old calling as a correspondent for a great London paper, to earn bread for himself and for the one living being that he loved. PART III. _DONNA FRANCESCA CAMPODONICO._ CHAPTER XLI. NOT long after this Dalrymple returned to Rome, after an absence of several years. Family affairs had kept him in England and Scotland during his daughter's married life with Reanda; and after she had left the latter, it was natural that he should not wish to be in the same city with her, considering the view he took of her actions. Then, after he had learned from Griggs's brief note that she was dead, he felt that he could not return at once, hard and unforgiving as he was. But at last the power that attracted him was too strong to be resisted any longer, and he yielded to it and came back. He took up his abode in a hotel in the Piazza di Spagna, not far from his old lodgings. Long as he had lived in Rome, he was a foreigner there and liked the foreigners' quarter of the city. He intended once more to get a lodging and a servant, and to live in his morose solitude as of old, but on his first arrival he naturally went to the hotel. He did not know whether Griggs were in Rome. Reanda was alive, and living at the Palazzetto Borgia; for the two had exchanged letters twice a year, written in the constrained tone of mutual civility which suited the circumstances in which they were placed towards each other. In Dalrymple's opinion, Reanda had been to blame to a certain extent, in having maintained his intimacy with Francesca when he was aware that it displeased his wife. At the same time, the burden of the fault was undoubtedly the woman's, and her father felt in a measure responsible for it. Whether he felt much more than that it would be hard to say. His gloomy nature had spent itself in secret sorrow for his wife, with a faithfulness of grief which might well atone for many shortcomings. It is certain that he was not in any way outwardly affected by the news of Gloria's death. He had never loved her, she had disgraced him, and now she was dead. There was nothing more to be said about it. He was not altogether indifferent to the inheritance of title and fortune which had fallen to him in his advanced middle age. But if either influenced his character, the result was rather an increased tendency to live his own life in scorn and defiance of society, for it made him conscious that he should find even less opposition to his eccentricities than in former days, when he had been relatively a poor man without any especial claim to consideration. Two or three days after he had arrived in Rome, he went to the Palazzetto Borgia and sent in his card, asking to see Francesca Campodonico. In order that she might know who he was, he wrote his name in pencil, as she would probably not have recognized him as Lord Redin. In this he was mistaken, for Reanda, who had heard the news, had told her of it. She received him in the drawing-room. She looked very ill, he thought, and was much thinner than in former times, but her manner was not changed. They talked upon indifferent subjects, and there was a constraint between them. Dalrymple broke through it roughly at last. "Did you ever see my daughter after she left her husband?" he asked, as though he were inquiring about a mere acquaintance. Francesca started a little. "No," she answered. "It would not have been easy." She remembered her interview with Griggs, but resolved not to speak of it. She would have changed the subject abruptly if he had given her time. "It certainly was not to be expected that you should," said Lord Redin, thoughtfully. "When a woman chooses to break with society, she knows perfectly well what she is doing, and one may as well leave her to herself." Francesca was shocked by the cynicism of the speech. The colour rose faintly in her cheeks. "She was your daughter," she said, reproachfully. "Since she is dead, you should speak less cruelly of her." "I did not speak cruelly. I merely stated a fact. She disgraced herself and me, and her husband. The circumstance that she is dead does not change the case, so far as I can see." "Do you know how she died?" asked Francesca, moved to righteous anger, and willing to pain him if she could. He looked up suddenly, and bent his shaggy brows. "No," he answered. "That man Griggs wrote me that she had died suddenly. That was all I heard." "She did not die a natural death." "Indeed?" "She poisoned herself. She could not bear the life. It was very dreadful." Francesca's voice sank to a low tone. Lord Redin was silent for a few moments, and his bony face had a grim look. Perhaps something in the dead woman's last act appealed to him, as nothing in her life had done. "Tell me, please. I should like to know. After all, she was my daughter." "Yes," said Francesca, gravely. "She was your daughter. She was very unhappy with Paul Griggs, and she found out very soon that she had made a dreadful mistake. She loved her husband, after all." "Like a woman!" interjected Lord Redin, half unconsciously. Francesca paid no attention to the remark, except, perhaps, that she raised her eyebrows a little. "They went out to spend the summer at Subiaco--" "At Subiaco?" Dalrymple's steely blue eyes fixed themselves in a look of extreme attention. "Yes, during the heat. They lodged in the house of a man called Stefanone--a wine-seller--a very respectable place." Lord Redin had started nervously at the name, but he recovered himself. "Very respectable," he said, in an odd tone. "You know the house?" asked Francesca, in surprise. "Very well indeed. I was there nearly five and twenty years ago. I supposed that Stefanone was dead by this time." "No. He and his wife are alive, and take lodgers." "Excuse me, but how do you know all this?" asked Lord Redin, with sudden curiosity. "I have been there," answered Francesca. "I have often been to the convent. You know that one of our family is generally abbess. A Cardinal Braccio was archbishop, too, a good many years ago. Casa Braccio owns a good deal of property there." "Yes. I know that you are of the family." "My name was Francesca Braccio," said Francesca, quietly. "Of course I have always known Subiaco, and every one there knows Stefanone, and the story of his daughter who ran away with an Englishman many years ago, and never was heard of again." Lord Redin grew a trifle paler. "Oh!" he exclaimed. "Does every one know that story?" There was something so constrained in his tone that Francesca looked at him curiously. "Yes--in Subiaco," she answered. "But Gloria--" she lingered a little sadly on the name--"Gloria wrote letters to her husband from there and begged him to go and see her." "He could hardly be expected to do that," said Lord Redin, his hard tone returning. "Did you advise him to go?" "He consulted me," answered Francesca, rather coldly. "I told him to follow his own impulse. He did not go. He did not believe that she was sincere." "I do not blame him. When a woman has done that sort of thing, there is no reason for believing her." "He should have gone. I should have influenced him, I think, and I did wrong. She wrote him one more letter and then killed herself. She suffered horribly and only died two days afterwards. Shall I tell you more?" "If there is more to tell," said Lord Redin, less hardly. "There is not much. I went out there last year. They had refused her Christian burial. Paul Griggs bought a piece of land amongst the rock, on the other side of the torrent, and buried her there. It is surrounded by a wall, and there is a plain slab without a name. There are flowers. He pays Stefanone to have it cared for. They told me all they knew--it is too terrible. She died singing--she was out of her mind. It must have been dreadful. Old Nanna, Stefanone's wife, was in the room, and fainted with terror. It seems that poor Gloria, oddly enough, had an extraordinary resemblance to that unfortunate nun of our family who was burned to death in the convent, and whom Nanna had often seen. She sang like her, too--at the last minute Nanna thought she saw poor sister Maria Addolorata standing up dead and singing. It was rather strange." Lord Redin said nothing. He had bowed his head so that Francesca could not see his face, but she saw that his hands were trembling violently. She thought that she had misjudged the man, and that he was really very deeply moved by the story of his daughter's death. Doubtless, his emotion had made him wish to control himself, and he had overshot the mark and spoken cruelly only in order to seem calm. No one had ever spoken to him of his wife, and even now he could hardly bear to hear her name. It was long before he looked up. Then he rose almost immediately. "Will you allow me to come and see you occasionally?" he asked, with a gentleness not at all like his usual manner. Francesca was touched at last, misunderstanding the cause of the change. She told him to come as often as he pleased. As he was going, he remembered that he had not asked after his son-in-law. Reanda had always seemed to belong to Francesca, and it was natural enough that he should inquire of her. "Where is Reanda to be found?" he asked. "He is very ill," said Francesca, in a low voice. "I am afraid you cannot see him." "Where does he live? I will at least inquire. I am sorry to hear that he is ill." "He lives here," she answered with a little hesitation. "He is in his old rooms upstairs." "Oh! Yes--thank you." Their eyes met for a moment. Lord Redin's glittered, but Francesca's were clear and true. "I am sure you take good care of him," he added. "Good-bye." He left her alone, and when he was gone, she sat down wearily and laid her head back against a cushion, with half-closed eyes. Her lips were almost colourless, and her mouth had grown ten years older. Reanda was dying, and she knew it, and with him the light was going out of her life, as it had gone out long ago from Dalrymple's, as it had gone out of the life of Paul Griggs. The idea crossed her mind that these two men, with herself, were linked and bound together by some strange fatality which she could not understand, but from which there was no escape, and which was bringing them slowly and surely to the blank horror of lonely old age. The same thought occurred to Lord Redin as he slowly threaded the streets, going back to his hotel, to his lonely dinner, his lonely evening, his lonely, sleepless night. He alone of the three now knew all that there was to know, and in the chronicle of his far memories all led back to that day at Subiaco, long ago, when he had first knocked at the convent gate--beyond that, to the evening when poor Annetta had told him of the beautiful nun with the angel's voice. Many lives had been wrecked since that first day, and every one of them owed its ruin to him. He felt strangely drawn to Francesca Campodonico. There was something in her face that very faintly reminded him of his dead wife, her kinswoman, and of his dead daughter, another of her race. His gloomy northern nature felt the fatality of it all. He never could repent of what he had done. The golden light of his one short happiness shone through the shrouding veil of fatal time. In his own eyes, with his beliefs, he had not even sinned in taking what he had loved so well. But all the sorrow he saw, came from that deed. Francesca Campodonico's eyes were as clear and true as her heart. But he knew that Reanda's life was everything on earth to her, and he guessed that she was to lose that, too, before long. He would willingly have parted with his own, but through all his being there was a rough, manly courage that forbade the last act of fear, and there was a stern old Scottish belief that it was wrong--plainly wrong. He did not wish to see Paul Griggs any more than he had wished to see his daughter after she had left her husband. But no thought of vengeance crossed his mind. It seemed to him fruitless to think of avenging himself upon fate; for, after all, it was fate that had done the dire mischief. Possibly, he thought, as he walked slowly towards his hotel, fate had brought him back to Rome now, to deal with him as she had dealt with his. He should be glad of it, for he found little in life that was not gloomy and lonely beyond any words. He did not know why he had come. He had acted upon an impulse in going to see Francesca that day. When he reached the Corso, instead of going to his hotel he walked down the street in the direction of the Piazza del Popolo. He wished to see the house in which Gloria had lived with Griggs, and he remembered the street and the number from her having written to him when she wanted money. He reached the corner of the Via della Frezza, and turned down, looking up at the numbers as he went along. He glanced at the little wine shop on the left, with its bush, its red glass lantern, and its rush-bottomed stools set out by the door. In the shadow within he saw the gleam of silver buttons on a dark blue jacket. There was nothing uncommon in the sight. He found the house, paused, looked up at the windows, and looked twice at the number. "Do you seek some one?" inquired the one-eyed cobbler, resting his black hands on his knees. "Did Mr. Paul Griggs ever live here?" asked Lord Redin. "Many years," answered the cobbler, laconically. "Where does he live now?" "Always here, except when he is not here. Third floor, on the left. You can ring the bell. Who knows? Perhaps he will open. I do not wish to tell lies." The old man grunted, bent down over the shoe, and ran his awl through the sole. He was profoundly attached to Paul Griggs, who had always been kind to him, and since Gloria's death he defended him from visitors with more determination than ever. Lord Redin stood still and said nothing. In ten seconds the cobbler looked up with a surly frown. "If you wish to go up, go up," he growled. "If not, favour me by getting out of my light." The Scotchman looked at him. "You do not remember me," he observed. "I used to come here with the Signore." "Well? I have told you. If you want him, there is the staircase." "No. I do not want him," said Lord Redin, and he turned away abruptly. "As you please," growled the cobbler without looking up again. CHAPTER XLII. PAUL GRIGGS had gone back to the house in the Via della Frezza after his return from America, and lived alone in the little apartment in which the happy days of his life had been spent. He was a man able to live two lives,--the one in the past, the other in the active present. It was his instinct to be alone in his sorrow, and alone in the struggle which lay before him, for himself and his child. But he would have with him all that could make the memory of Gloria real. The reality of such things softened with their contrast the hardness of life. He had taken the same rooms again. Out of boxes and trunks stored in a garret of the house, he had taken many things which had belonged to Gloria. Alone, he had arranged the rooms as they used to be. His writing-table stood in the same place, and near it was Gloria's chair; beside it, the little stand with her needlework, her silks, her scissors, and her thimble, all as it used to be. A novel she had once read when sitting there lay upon the chair. Many little objects which had belonged to her were all in their accustomed places. On the mantelpiece the cheap American clock ticked loudly as in old days. Day after day, as of old, he sat in his place at work. He had made the room so alive with her that sometimes, looking up from a long spell of writing, he forgot, and stared an instant at the bedroom door, and listened for her footstep. Those were his happiest moments, though each was killed in turn by the vision of a lonely grave among rocks. With intensest longing he called her back to him. In his sleep, the last words he had spoken to her were spoken again by his unconscious lips in the still, dark night. Everything in him called her, his living soul and his strong bodily self. There were times when he knew that if he opened his eyes, shut to see her, he should see her really, there in her chair. He looked, trembling, and there was nothing. In dreams he sought her and could not find her, though he wandered in dark places, across endless wastes of broken clods of earth and broken stone. It was as though her grave covered the whole world round, and his path lay on the shadowed arms of an infinite great cross. And again the grey dawn awoke him from the search, to feel that, for pity's sake, she must be alive and near him. But he was always alone. Silent, iron-browed, iron-handed, he faced the world alone, doing all that was required of him, and more also. As he had said to Gloria in that very room, he was building up a superiority for himself, since genius was not his. He had in the rough ore of his strength the metal which some few men receive as a birth-gift from nature, ready smelted and refined, ready for them to coin at a single stroke, and throw broadcast to the applauding world. He had not much, perhaps, but he had something of the true ore, and in the furnace of his untiring energy he would burn out the dross and find the precious gold at last. It could not be for her, now. It was not for himself, but it was to be for the little child, growing up in a far country with a clean name--to be his father's friend, and nothing more, but to be happy, for the dead woman's sake who bore him. As in all that made a part of Paul Griggs, there was in his memory of Gloria and in his sorrow for her that element of endurance which was the foundation of his nature. That portion of his life was finished, and there could never be anything like it again; but it was to be always present with him, so long as he lived. He was sure of that. It would always be in his power to close his eyes and believe that she was near him. If it were possible, he loved her more dead than he had loved her living. And she had loved him to the last, and had given her life in the mad thought of lightening his burden. Her last words to him had told him so. Her last wish had been to see the child. And the greatest sacrifice he could now make to her was to separate himself from the child, and let him grow up to look upon the man who provided for him as his friend, but as nothing more. It was an exaggerated idea, perhaps, though it was by far the wisest course. Yet in doing what he did, Griggs deprived himself for months at a time of something that was of her, and he did it for her sake. He knew that in her heart there had been the unspoken shame of her ruined life. Shame should never come near little Walter Crowdie. The secret could be kept, and Paul Griggs meant to keep it, as he kept many things from the world. All his lonely life grew in the perfect memory, cut short though it was by fate's cruel scythe-stroke. Even that one fearful day held no shadow of unfaithfulness. She had been mad, but she had loved him. She had done a deed of horror upon herself, but she had loved him, and madly had done it for his sake. She had laid down her life for him. All that he could do would be nothing compared with that. All that he could tear from the world and lay tenderly as an offering at her feet would be but a handful of dust in comparison with what she had done in the madness of love. His heart strings wound themselves about their treasure, closer and closer, stronger and stronger. The two natures that strove together in him, the natures of body and soul, were at one with her, and drew life from her though she was gone. It seemed impossible that they could ever again part and smite one another for the mastery, as of old, for one sorrow had overwhelmed them both, and together they knew the depths of one grief. Again, as of old, he defied fate. Death could take the child from him, but could not separate the three in death or life. So long as the child lived, to do or die for him was the question, while life should last. But Paul Griggs defied fate, for fate's grim hand could not uproot his heart from the strong place of his great dead love, to buffet it and tear it again. He was alone, bodily, but he was safe forever. Out of the dimness of twilight shadows the pale face came to him, and the sweet lips kissed his; in a light not earthly the dark eyes lightened, and the red auburn hair gleamed and fell about him. In the darkness, a tender hand stole softly upon his, and words yet more tender stirred the stillness. He knew that she was near him, close to him, with him. The truth of what had been made the half dream all true. Only in his sleep he could not find her, and was wandering ever over a dreary grave that covered the whole world. So his life went on with little change, inwardly or outwardly, from day to day, in the absolute security from danger which the dead give us of themselves. The faith that had gone beyond her death could go beyond his own life, too. He defied fate. Then fate, silent, relentless, awful, knocked at his door. He was at work as usual. It was a bright winter's day, and the high sun of the late morning streamed across one corner of his writing-table. He was thinking of nothing but his writing, and upon that his thoughts were closely intent in that everlasting struggle to do better which had nearly driven poor Gloria mad. The little jingling bell rang and thumped against the outer door to which it was fastened. He paid no attention to it, till it rang again, an instant later. Then he looked up and waited, listening. Again, again, and again he heard it, at equal intervals, five times in all. That was the old cobbler's signal, and the only one to which Griggs ever responded. He laid down his pen and went to the door. The one-eyed man, his shoemaker's apron twisted round his waist, stood on the landing, and gave him a small, thick package, tied with a black string, under which was thrust a note. Griggs took it without a word, and the bandy-legged old cobbler swung away from the door with a satisfied grunt. Griggs took the parcel back to his work-room, and stood by the window looking at the address on the note. He recognized Francesca Campodonico's handwriting, though he had rarely seen it, and he broke the seal with considerable curiosity, for he could not imagine why Donna Francesca should write to him. He even wondered at her knowing that he was in Rome. He had never spoken with her since that day long ago, when she had sent for him and begged him to take Gloria back to her father. He read the note slowly. It was in Italian, and the language was rather formal. "SIGNORE:--My old and dear friend, Signor Angelo Reanda, died the day before yesterday after a long illness. During the last hours of his life he asked me to do him a service, and I gave him the solemn promise which I fulfil in sending you the accompanying package. You will see that it was sealed by him and addressed to you by himself, probably before he was taken ill, and he saw it before he died and said that it was the one he meant me to send. That was all he told me regarding it, and I am wholly ignorant of the contents. I have ascertained that you are in Rome, and are living, as formerly, in the Via della Frezza, and to that address I send the parcel. Pray inform me that you have received it. "Believe me, Signore, with perfect esteem, "FRANCESCA CAMPODONICO." Griggs read the note twice through to the end, and laid it upon the table. Then he thrust his hands into his pockets, and turned thoughtfully to the window without touching the parcel, of which he had not even untied the black string. So Reanda was dead at last. It was nothing to him, now, though it might have meant much if the man had died two years earlier. Living people were very little to Paul Griggs. They might as well be dead, he thought. Nevertheless, the bald fact that Reanda was gone, made him thoughtful. Another figure had disappeared out of his life, though it had not meant very much. He believed, and had always believed, that Reanda had loved Francesca in secret, though she had treated him as a mere friend, as a protectress should treat one who needs her protection. Griggs turned and took up the note to look at it keenly, for he believed himself a judge of handwriting, and he thought that he might detect in hers the indications of any great suffering. The lines ran down a little at the end, but otherwise the large, careful hand was the same as ever, learned in a convent and little changed since, even as the woman herself had changed little. She was the same always, simple, honest, strangely maidenlike, thoroughly good. He turned to the window again. So Reanda was dead. He would not find Gloria, to whatsoever place he was gone. The shadow of a smile wreathed itself about the mouth of the lonely man--the last that was there for a long time after that day. Gloria was dead, but Gloria was his, and he hers, for ever and ever. Neither heaven nor hell could tear up his heart nor loosen the strong hold of all of him that clung to her and had grown about her and through her, till he and she were quite one. Then, all at once, he wondered what it could be that Reanda had wished to send him from beyond the grave. He turned, took the parcel, and snapped the black string with his fingers, and took off the paper. Within was the parcel, wrapped in a second paper and firmly tied with broad tape. A few words were written on the outside. "To be given to Paul Griggs when I am dead. A. R." The superscription told nothing, but he looked at it curiously as one does at such things, when the sender is beyond answer. He cut the white tape, for it was tied so tightly that he could not slip a finger under it to break it. There was something of hard determination in the way it was tied. It contained letters in their envelopes, as they had reached Reanda through the post, all of the same size, laid neatly one upon the other--a score or more of them. Griggs felt his hand shake, for he recognized Gloria's writing. His first impulse was to burn the whole package, as it was, reverently, as something which had belonged to Gloria, in which he had no part, or share, or right. He laid his hand upon the pile of letters, and looked at the small fire to see whether it were burning well. Under his hand he felt something hard inside the uppermost envelope. His fate was upon him--the fate he had so often defied to do its worst, since all that he had was dead and was his forever. Without another thought, he took from the envelope the letter it contained, and the hard thing which was inside the letter. He held it a moment in his hand, and it flamed in the beam of sunlight that fell across the end of the table, and dazzled him. Then he realized what it was. It was Gloria's wedding ring, and twisted round and round it and in and out of it was a lock of her red auburn hair, serpent-like, flaming in the sunshine, with a hundred little tongues that waved and moved softly under his breath. An icy chill smote him in the neck, and his strong limbs shook to his feet as he laid the thing down upon the corner of the table. There was a fearful fascination in it. The red gold hairs stirred and moved in the sunlight still, even when he no longer breathed upon them. It was her hair, and it seemed alive. In his other hand he still held the letter. Fate had him now, and would not let him go while he could feel. Again and again the cruel chill smote him in the back. He opened the doubled sheet, and saw the date and the name of the place,--Subiaco,--and the first words--'Heart of my heart, this is my last cry to you'--and it was to Angelo Reanda. Rigid and feeling as though great icy hands were drawing him up by the neck from the ground, he stood still and read every word, with all the message of loathing and abject fear and horror of his touch, which every word brought him, from the dead, through the other dead. Slowly, regularly, without wavering, moved by a power not his own, his hands took the other letters and opened them, and his eyes read all the words, from the last to the first. One by one the sheets fell upon the table, and all alone in the midst the lock of red auburn hair sent up its little lambent flame in the sunshine. Paul Griggs stood upright, stark with the stress of rending soul and breaking heart. As he stood there, he was aware of a man in black beside him, like himself, ghastly to see, with shadows and fires for eyes, and thin, parted lips that showed wolfish teeth, strong, stern, with iron hands. "You are dead," said his own voice out of the other's mouth. "You are dead, and I am Gorlias." Then the strong teeth were set and the lips closed, and the gladiator's unmatched arms wound themselves upon the other's strength, with grip and clutch and strain not of earthly men. Silent and terrible, they wrestled in fight, arm to arm, bone to bone, breath to breath. Hour after hour they strove in the still room. The sun went westering away, the shadows deepened. The night came stealing black and lonely through the window. Foot to foot, breast to breast, in the dark, they bowed themselves one upon the other, dumb in the agony of their reeling strife. Late in the night, in the cold room, Paul Griggs felt the carpet under his hands as he lay upon his back. His heart was broken. CHAPTER XLIII. LORD REDIN had barely glanced at the man in the blue jacket with silver buttons, whom he had seen in the deep shadow of the little wine shop as he strolled down the Via della Frezza. But Stefanone had seen him and had gone to the door as he passed, watching him when he stood talking to the one-eyed cobbler, and keeping his keen eyes on him as he passed again on his homeward way. And all the way to the hotel in the Piazza di Spagna Stefanone had followed him at a distance, watching the great loose-jointed frame and the slightly stooping head, till the Scotchman disappeared under the archway, past the porter, who stood aside, his gold-laced cap in his hand, bowing low to the 'English lord.' Stefanone waited a few moments and then accosted the porter civilly. "Do you know if the proprietor wishes to buy some good wine of last year, at a cheap rate?" he asked. "You understand. I am of the country. I cannot go in and look for the proprietor. But you are doubtless the director and you manage these things for him. That is why I ask you." The porter smiled at the flattery, but said that he believed wine had been bought for the whole year. "The hotel is doubtless full of rich foreigners," observed Stefanone. "It is indeed beautiful. I should prefer it to the Palazzo Borghese. Is it not full?" "Quite full," answered the porter, proud of the establishment. "For instance," said Stefanone, "I saw a great signore going in, just before I took the liberty of speaking with you. I am sure that he is a great English signore. Not perhaps a mylord. But a great signore, having much money." "What makes you think that?" inquired the porter, with a superior smile. "Eh, the reasons are two. First, you bowed to him, as though he were some personage, and you of course know who he is. Secondly, he lifted his hat to you. He is therefore a real signore, as good perhaps as a Roman prince. We say a proverb in the country--'to salute is courtesy, to answer is duty.' Therefore when any one salutes a real signore, he answers and lifts his hat. These are the reasons why I say this one must be a great one." "For that matter, you are right," laughed the porter. "That signore is an English lord. What a combination! You have guessed it. His name is Lord Redin." Stefanone's sharp eyes fixed themselves vacantly, for he did not wish to betray his surprise at not hearing the name he had expected. "Eh!" he exclaimed. "Names? What are they, when one is a prince. Prince of this. Duke of that. Our Romans are full of names. I daresay this signore has four or five." But the porter knew of no other, and presently Stefanone departed, wondering whether he had made a mistake, after all, and recalling the features of the man he had followed to compare them with those younger ones he remembered so distinctly. He went back to the Via della Frezza and drank a glass of wine. Then he filled the glass again and carried it carefully across the street to his friend the cobbler. "Drink," he said. "It will do you good. A drop of wine at sunset gives force to the stomach." The one-eyed man looked up, and smiled at his friend, a phenomenon rarely observed on his wrinkled and bearded face. He shrugged one round shoulder, by way of assent, held his head a little on one side and stretched out his black hand with the glass in it, to the light. He tasted it, smelt it, and looked up at Stefanone before he drank in earnest. "Black soul!" he exclaimed by way of an approving asseveration. "This is indeed wine!" "He took it for vinegar!" observed Stefanone, speaking to the air. "It is wine," answered the cobbler when he had drained the glass. "It is a consolation." Then they began to talk together, and Stefanone questioned him about his interview with the tall gentleman an hour earlier. The cobbler really knew nothing about him, though he remembered having seen him several times, years ago, before Gloria had come. "You know nothing," said Stefanone. "That signore is the father of Sor Paolo's signora, who died in my house." "You are joking," returned the cobbler, gravely. "He would have come to see his daughter while she lived--requiescat!" "And I say that I am not joking. Do you wish to hear the truth? Well. You have much confidence with Sor Paolo. Tell him that the father of the poor Signora Gloria came to the door and asked questions. You shall hear what he will say. He will say that it is possible. Then he will ask you about him. You will tell him, so and so--a very tall signore, all made of pieces that swing loosely when he walks, with a beard like the Moses of the fountain, and hard blue eyes that strike you like two balls from a gun, and hair that is neither red nor white, and a bony face like an old horse." "It is true," said the cobbler, reflectively. "It is he. It is his picture." "You will also say that he is now an English lord, but that formerly they called him Sor Angoscia. You, who are friends with Sor Paolo, you should tell him this. It may be that Sor Angoscia wishes him evil. Who knows? In this world the combinations are so many!" It was long before the cobbler got an opportunity of speaking with Griggs, and when he had the chance, he forgot all about it, though Stefanone reminded him of it from time to time. But when he at last spoke of the matter he was surprised to find that Stefanone had been quite right, as Griggs admitted without the least hesitation. He told Stefanone so, and the peasant was satisfied, though he had long been positive that he had found his man at last, and recognized him in spite of his beard and his age. After that Stefanone haunted the Piazza di Spagna in the morning, talking a little with the models who used to stand there in their mountain costumes to be hired by painters in the days when pictures of them were the fashion. Many of them came from the neighbourhood of Subiaco, and knew Stefanone by sight. When Lord Redin came out of the hotel, as he generally did between eleven and twelve if the day were fine, Stefanone put his pipe out, stuck it into his breeches' pocket with his brass-handled clasp-knife, and strolled away a hundred yards behind his enemy. If Lord Redin noticed him once or twice, it was merely to observe that men still came to Rome wearing the old-fashioned dress of the respectable peasants. Being naturally fearless, and at present wholly unsuspicious, it never struck him that any one could be dogging his footsteps whenever he went out of his hotel. In the evening he went out very little and then generally in a carriage. Two or three times, on a Sunday, he walked over to Saint Peter's and listened to the music at Vespers, as many foreigners used to do. Stefanone followed him into the church and watched him from a distance. Once the peasant saw Donna Francesca, whom he knew by sight as a member of the Braccio family, sitting within the great gate of the Chapel of the Choir, where the service was held. Lord Redin always followed the frequented streets, which led in an almost direct line from the Piazza di Spagna by the Via Condotti to the bridge of Saint Angelo. It was the nearest way. He never went back to the Via della Frezza, for he had no desire to see Paul Griggs, and his curiosity had been satisfied by once looking at the house in which his daughter had lived. He spent his evenings alone in his rooms with a bottle of wine and a book. Luxury had become a habit with him, and he now preferred a draught of Château Lafitte to the rough Roman wine barely a year old, while three or four glasses of a certain brandy, twenty years in bottle, which he had discovered in the hotel, were a necessary condition of his comfort. He had the intention of going out one evening, in cloak and soft hat, as of old, to dine in his old corner at the Falcone, but he put it off from day to day, feeling no taste for the coarser fare and the rougher drink when the hour came. He often went to see Francesca Campodonico in the middle of the day, at which hour the Roman ladies used to be visible to their more intimate friends. An odd sort of sympathy had grown up between the two, though they scarcely ever alluded to past events, and then only by an accident which both regretted. Francesca exercised a refining influence upon the gloomy Scotchman, and as he knew her better, he even took the trouble to be less rough and cynical when he was with her. In character she was utterly different from his dead wife, but there was something of family resemblance between the two which called up memories very dear to him. Her influence softened him. In his wandering life he had more than once formed acquaintances with men of tastes more or less similar to his own, which might have ripened into friendships for a man of less morose character. But in that, he and Paul Griggs were very much alike. They found an element in every acquaintance which roused their distrust, and as men to men they were both equally incapable of making a confidence. Dalrymple's life had not brought him into close relations with any woman except his wife. For her sake he had kept all others at a distance in a strange jealousy of his own heart which had made her for him the only woman in the world. Then, too, he had hated, for her, the curiosity of those who had evidently wished to know her story. That had been always a secret. He had told it to his father, and his father had died with it. No one else had ever known whence Maria had come, nor what her name had been. If Captain Crowdie had ever guessed the truth, which was doubtful, he had held his tongue. But Angus Dalrymple was no longer the man he had been in those days. He had changed very much in the past two or three years; for though he had almost outlived the excesses into which he had fallen in his first sorrow, his hardy constitution had been shaken, if not weakened, by them. Physically his nerves were almost as good as ever, but morally he was not the same man. He felt the need of sympathy and confidence, which with such natures is the first sign of breaking down, and of the degeneration of pride. That was probably the secret of what he felt when he was with Francesca. She had that rarest quality in women, too, which commands men without inspiring love. It is very hard to explain what that quality is, but most men who have lived much and seen much have met with it at least once in their lives. There is a sort of manifested goodness for which the average man of the world has a profound and unreasonable contempt. And there is another sort which most wholly commands the respect of that man who has lived hardest. From a religious point of view, both may be equally real and conducive to salvation. The cynic, the worn out man of the world, the man whose heart is broken, all look upon the one as a weakness and the other as a strength. Perhaps there is more humanity in the one than in the other. A hundred women may rebuke a man for something he has done, and he will smile at the reproach, though he may smile sadly. The one will say to him the same words, and he will be gravely silent and will feel that she is right and will like her the better for it ever afterwards. And she is not, as a rule, the woman whom such men would love. "I have never before met a woman whom I should wish to have for my friend," said Lord Redin, one day when he was alone with Francesca. "I daresay I am not at all the kind of man you would select for purposes of friendship," he added, with a short laugh. Francesca smiled a little at the frankness of the words, and shook her head. "Perhaps not," she said. "Who knows? Life brings strange changes when one thinks that one knows it best." "It has brought strange things to me," answered Lord Redin. Then he was silent for a time. He felt the strong desire to speak out, for no good reason or purpose, and to tell her the story of his life. She would be horrorstruck at first. He fancied he could see the expression which would come to her face. But he held his peace, for she had not met him half-way, and he was ashamed of the weakness that was upon him. "Yes," she said thoughtfully, after a little pause. "You must have had a strange life, and a very unhappy one. You speak of friendship as men speak who are in earnest, because there is no other hope for them. I know something of that." She ceased, and her clear eyes turned sadly away from him. "I know you do," he answered softly. She looked at him again, and she liked him better than ever before, and pitied him sincerely. She had discovered that with all his faults he was not a bad man, as men go, for she did not know of that one deed of his youth which to her would have seemed a monstrous crime of sacrilege, beyond all forgiveness on earth or in heaven. Then she began to speak of other things, for her own words, and his, had gone too near her heart, and presently he left her and strolled homeward through the sunny streets. He walked slowly and thoughtfully, unconscious of the man in a blue jacket with silver buttons, who followed him and watched him with keen, unwinking eyes set under heavy brows. But Stefanone was growing impatient, and his knife was every day a little sharper as he whetted it thoughtfully upon a bit of smooth oilstone which he carried in his pocket. Would the Englishman ever turn down into some quiet street or lane where no one would be looking? And Stefanone's square face grew thinner and his aquiline features more and more eagle-like, till the one-eyed cobbler noticed the change, and spoke of it. "You are consuming yourself for some female," he said. "You have white hair. This is a shameful thing." But Stefanone laughed, instead of resenting the speech--a curiously nervous laugh. "What would you have?" he replied. "We are men, and the devil is everywhere." As he sat on the doorstep by the cobbler's bench, which was pushed far forward to get the afternoon light, he took up the short sharp shoemaker's knife, looked at it, held it in his hands and pared his coarse nails with it, whistling a little tune. "That is a good knife," he observed carelessly. The cobbler looked up and saw what he was doing. "Black soul!" he cried out angrily. "That is my welt-knife, like a razor, and he pares his hoofs with it!" But Stefanone dropped it into the little box of tools on the front of the bench, and whistled softly. "You seem to me a silly boy!" said the cobbler, still wrathful. "Apoplexy, how you talk!" answered Stefanone. "But I seem so to myself, sometimes." CHAPTER XLIV. THE life of Paul Griggs was not less lonely than it had been before the day on which he had received and read Gloria's letters to Reanda, but it was changed. Everything which had belonged to the dead woman was gone from the room in which he sat and worked as usual. Even the position of the furniture was changed. But he worked on as steadily as before. Outwardly he was very much the same man as ever. Any one who knew him well--if such a person had existed--would have seen that there was a little difference in the expression of his impassive face. The jaw was, if possible, more firmly set than ever, but there was a line in the forehead which had not been there formerly, and which softened the iron front, as it were, with something more human. It had come suddenly, and had remained. That was all. But within, the difference was great and deep. He felt that the man who sat all day long at the writing-table doing his work was not himself any longer, but another being, his double and shadow, and in all respects his slave, except in one. That other man sometimes paused in his work, fingering the pen unconsciously, as men do who hold it all day long, and thinking of Gloria with an expression of horror and suffering in his eyes. But he, the real Paul Griggs, never thought of her. The link was broken, the thread that had carried the message of dead love between him and the lonely grave beyond Subiaco was definitely broken. Stefanone came to receive the small sum which Griggs paid him monthly for his care of the place, and Griggs paid him as he would have paid his tailor, mechanically, and made a note of the payment in his pocket-book. When the man was gone, Griggs felt that his double was staring at the wall as a man stares at the dark surface of the pool in which the thing he loves has sunk for the last time. It was always the other self that felt at such moments. He could abstract himself from it, and feel that he was watching it; he could direct it and make it do what he pleased; but he could neither control its thoughts nor feel any sympathy for them. Until the fatal day, the world had all been black to him; only by closing his eyes could he bring into it the light that hovered about a dead woman's face. But now the black was changed to a flat and toneless white in which there was never the least variation. Life was to him a vast blank, in which, without interest or sensation, he moved in any direction he pleased, and he pleased that it should be always the same direction, from the remembrance of a previous intention and abiding principle. But it might as well have been any other, backwards, or to right or left. It was all precisely the same, and it was perfectly inconceivable to him that he should ever care whether in the endless journey he ever came upon a spot or point in the blank waste which should prove to him that he had moved at all. Nothing could make any difference. He was beyond that state in which any difference was apprehensible between one thing and another. His double had material wants, and was ruled by material circumstances. His double was a broken-hearted creature, toiling to make money for a little child to which it felt itself bound by every responsibility which can bind father to son; acknowledging the indebtedness in every act of its laborious life, denying itself every luxury, and almost every comfort, that there might be a little more for the child, now and in time to come; weary beyond earthly weariness, but untiring in the mechanical performance of its set task; fatally strong and destined, perhaps, to live on through sixty or seventy years of the same unceasing toil; fatally weak in its one deep wound, and horribly sensitive within itself, but outwardly expressionless, strong, merely a little more pale and haggard than Paul Griggs had been. This was the being whom Paul Griggs employed, as it were, to work for him, which he thoroughly understood and could control in every part except in its thoughts, and they were its own. But he himself existed in another sphere, in which there were neither interests nor responsibilities, nor landmarks, nor touches of human feeling, neither memories for the dead nor hopes for the living; in which everything was the same, because there was nothing but a sort of universal impersonal consciousness, no more attached to himself than to the beings he saw about him, or to that particular being which was his former self,--in which he chose to reside, merely because he required a bodily evidence of some sort in order to be alive--and there was no particular reason why he should not be alive. He therefore did not cease to live, but a straw might have turned the balance to the side of death. It was certainly true that, so far as it could be said that there was any link between him and humanity, it lay in the existence of the little boy beyond the water. But it would have been precisely the same if little Walter Crowdie had died. He did not wish to see the child, for he had no wishes at all. Life being what it was, it would be very much better if the child were to die at once. Since it happened to be alive, he forced his double to work for it. It was no longer any particular child so far as he himself was concerned. It belonged to his double, which seemed to be attached to it in an unaccountable way and did not complain at being driven to labour for it. At certain moments, when he seemed to have got rid of his double altogether for a time, a question presented itself to his real self. The question was the great and old one--What was it for? And to what was it tending? Then the people he saw in the streets appeared to him to be very small, like ants, running hither and thither upon the ant-hill and about it, moved by something which they could not understand, but which made them do certain things with an appearance of logical sequence, just as he forced his double to work for little Walter Crowdie from morning till night. So the people ran about anxiously, or strolled lazily through the hours, careful or careless, as the case might be, but quite unconscious that they were of no consequence and of no use, and that it was quite immaterial whether they were alive or dead. Most of them thought that they cared a good deal for life on the whole, and that it held a multitude of pleasant and interesting things to be liked and sought, and an equal number of unpleasant and dangerous things to be avoided; all of which things had no real existence whatever, as the impersonal consciousness of Paul Griggs was well aware. He watched the people curiously, as though they merely existed to perform tricks for his benefit. But they did not amuse him, for nothing could amuse him, nor interest him when he had momentarily got rid of his double, as sometimes happened when he was out of doors. One day, the month having passed again, Stefanone came for his money. It was very little, and the old peasant would willingly have undertaken that the work should be done for nothing. But he was interested in Paul Griggs, and he was growing very impatient because he could not get an opportunity of falling upon Lord Redin in a quiet place. He had formed a new plan of almost childlike simplicity. When Griggs had paid him the money, he lingered a moment and looked about the room. "Signore, you have changed the furniture," he observed. "That chair was formerly here. This table used to be there. There are a thousand changes." "Yes," said Griggs, taking up his pen to go on with his work. "You have good eyes," he added good-naturedly. "Two," assented Stefanone; "each better than the other. For instance, I will tell you. When that chair was by the window, there was a little table beside it. On the table was the work-basket of your poor Signora, whom may the Lord preserve in glory! Is it truth?" "Yes," answered Griggs, with perfect indifference. "It is quite true." The allusion did not pain him, the man who was talking with Stefanone. It would perhaps hurt the other man when he thought of it later. "Signore," said Stefanone, who evidently had something in his mind, "I was thinking in the night, and this thought came to me. The dead are dead. Requiescant! It is better for the living to live in holy peace. You never see the father of the Signora. There is bad blood between you. This was my thought--let them be reconciled, and spend an evening together. They will speak of the dead one. They will shed tears. They will embrace. Let the enmity be finished. In this way they will enjoy life more." "You are crazy, Stefanone," answered Griggs, impatiently. "But how do you know who is the father of the Signora?" "Every one knows it, Signore!" replied the peasant, with well-feigned sincerity. "Every one knows that it is the great English lord who lives at the hotel in the Piazza di Spagna this year. Signore, I have said a word. You must not take it ill. Enmity is bad. Friendship is a good thing. And then it is simple. With maccaroni one makes acquaintance again. There is the Falcone, but it would be better here. We will cook the maccaroni in the kitchen; you will eat on this table. What are all these papers for? Study, study! A dish of good paste is better, with cheese. I will bring a certain wine--two flasks. Then you will be friends, for you will drink together. And if the English lord drinks too much, I will go home with him to the hotel in the Piazza di Spagna. But you will only have to go to bed. Once in a year, what is it to be a little gay with good wine? At least you will be good friends. Then things will end well." Griggs looked at Stefanone curiously, while the old peasant was speaking, for he knew the people well, and he suspected something though he did not know what to think. "Perhaps some day we may take your advice," he said coldly. "Good morning, Stefanone; I have much to write." "I remove the inconvenience," answered Stefanone, in the stock Italian phrase for taking leave. "No inconvenience," replied Griggs, civilly, as is the custom. "But I have to work." "Study, study!" grumbled Stefanone, going towards the door. "What does it all conclude, this great study? Headache. For a flask of wine you have the same thing, and the pleasure besides. It is enough. Signore," he added, reluctantly turning the handle, "I go. Think of what I have said to you. Sometimes an old man says a wise word." He went away very much discontented with the result of the conversation. His mind was a medley of cunning and simplicity backed by an absolutely unforgiving temper and great caution. His plan had seemed exceedingly good. Lord Redin and Griggs would have supped together, and the former would very naturally have gone home alone. Stefanone was oddly surprised that Griggs should not have acceded to the proposition at once, though in reality there was not the slightest of small reasons for his doing so. It was long since anything had happened to rouse Griggs into thinking about any individual human being as anything more than a bit of the world's furniture, to be worn out and thrown away in the course of time, out of sight. But something in the absolutely gratuitous nature of Stefanone's advice moved his suspicions. He saw, with his intimate knowledge of the Roman peasant's character, the whole process of the old wine-seller's mind, if only, in the first place, the fellow had the desire to harass Dalrymple. That being granted, the rest was plain enough. Dalrymple, if he really came to supper with Griggs, would stay late into the night and finish all the wine there might be. On his way home through the deserted streets, Stefanone could kill him at his leisure and convenience, and nobody would be the wiser. The only difficulty lay in establishing some sufficient reason why Stefanone should wish to kill him at all, and in this Griggs signally failed, which was not surprising. All at once, as generally happened now, he lost all interest in the matter and returned to his work; or rather, to speak as he might have spoken, he set his mechanical self to work for him, while his own being disappeared in blank indifference and unconsciousness. But on the following day, which chanced to be a Sunday, he went out in the morning for a walk. He rarely worked on Sundays, having long ago convinced himself that a day of rest was necessary in the long run. As he was coming home, he saw Lord Redin walking far in front of him down the Corso, easily recognizable by his height and his loose, swinging gait. Griggs had not proceeded many steps further when Stefanone passed him, walking at a swinging stride. The peasant had probably seen him, but chose to take no notice of him. Griggs allowed him to get a fair start and then quickened his own pace, so as to keep him in view. Lord Redin swung along steadily and turned up the Via Condotti. Stefanone almost ran, till he, too, had turned the corner of the street. Griggs, without running, nearly overtook him as he took the same turn a moment later. It was perfectly clear that Stefanone was dogging the Scotchman's steps. The latter crossed the Piazza di Spagna, and entered the deep archway of his hotel. The peasant slackened his speed at once and lounged across the square towards the foot of the great stairway which leads up to the Trinità de' Monti. Griggs followed him, and came up with him just as he sat down upon a step beside one of the big stone posts, to take breath and light his pipe. The man looked up, touched his hat, smiled, and struck a sulphur match, which he applied to the tobacco in the red clay bowl before the sulphur was half burned out, after the manner of his kind. "You have taken a walk, Signore," he observed, puffing away at the willow stem and watching the match. "You walk fast, Stefanone," answered Griggs. "You can walk as fast as Lord Redin." Stefanone did not show the least surprise. He pressed down the burning tobacco with one horny finger, and carefully laid the last glowing bit of the burnt-out wooden match upon it. "For this, we are people of the mountains," he answered slowly. "We can walk." "Why do you wish to kill that signore?" inquired Griggs, calmly. Stefanone looked up, and the pale lids of his keen eyes were contracted as he stared hard and long at the other's face. "What are you saying?" he asked, with a short, harsh laugh. "What is passing through your head? What have I to do with the Englishman? Nothing. These are follies!" And still he gazed keenly at Griggs, awaiting the latter's reply. Griggs answered him contemptuously in the dialect. "You take me for a foreigner! You might know better." "I do not know what you mean," answered Stefanone, doggedly. "It is Sunday. I am at leisure. I walk to take a little air. It is my affair. Besides, at this hour, who would follow a man to kill him? It is about to ring midday. There are a thousand people in the street. Those who kill wait at the corners of streets when it is night. You say that I take you for a foreigner. You have taken me for an assassin. At your pleasure. So much the worse for me. An assassin! Only this was wanting. It is better that I go back to Subiaco. At least they know me there. Here in Rome--not even dogs would stay here. Beautiful town! Where one is called assassin for breakfast, without counting one, nor two." By this time Griggs was convinced that he was right. He knew the man well, and all his kind. The long speech of complaint, with its peculiar tone, half insolent, half of injured innocence, was to cover the fellow's embarrassment. Griggs answered him in his own strain. "A man is not an assassin who kills his enemy for a good reason, Stefanone," he observed. "How do I know what he may have done to you?" "To me? Nothing." The peasant shrugged his sturdy shoulders. "Then I have made a mistake," said Griggs. "You have made a mistake," assented Stefanone. "Let us not talk about it any more." "Very well." Griggs turned away and walked slowly towards the hotel, well aware that Stefanone was watching him and would think that he was going to warn Lord Redin of his danger. That, indeed, was Griggs's first impulse, and it was probably his wisest course, whatever might come of the meeting. But the Scotchman had made up his mind that he would not see Griggs under any circumstances, and though the latter had seen him enter the hotel less than ten minutes earlier, the servant returned almost immediately and said that Lord Redin was not at home. Griggs understood and turned away, thoughtfully. Before he went down the Via Condotti again, he looked over his shoulder towards the steps, and he saw that Stefanone was gone. As he walked along the street, the whole incident began to fade away in his mind, as all real matters so often did, nowadays. All at once he stopped short, and roused himself by an effort--directing his double, as he would have said, perhaps. There was no denying the fact that a man's life was hanging in the balance of a chance, and to the man, if not to Griggs, that life was worth something. If it had been any other man in the world, even that fact would have left him indifferent enough. Why should he care who lived or died? But Dalrymple was a man he had injured, and he was under an obligation of honour to save him, if he could. There was only one person in Rome who could help him--Francesca Campodonico. She knew much of what had happened; she might perhaps understand the present case. At all events, even if she had not seen Lord Redin of late, she could not be supposed to have broken relations with him; she could send for him and warn him. The case was urgent, as Griggs knew. After what he had said to Stefanone, the latter, if he meant to kill his man, would not lose a day. CHAPTER XLV. IT was past midday when Paul Griggs reached the Palazzetto Borgia and inquired for Donna Francesca. He was told that she was out. It was her custom, the porter said, always to breakfast on Sundays with her relatives, the Prince and Princess of Gerano. Griggs asked at what time she might be expected to return. The porter put on a vague look and said that it was impossible to tell. Sometimes she went to Saint Peter's on Sunday afternoon, to hear Vespers. Vespers began at twenty-two o'clock, or half-past twenty-two--between half-past three and four by French time, at that season of the year. Griggs turned away, and wandered about for half an hour in the vicinity of the palace, uncertain as to what he should do, and yet determined not to lose sight of the necessity for immediate action of some sort. At last he went back to the Piazza di Spagna, intending to write a word of warning to Lord Redin, though he knew that the latter would pay very little attention to anything of such a nature. Like most foreigners, he would laugh at the idea of being attacked in the streets. Even in an interview it would not be easy to persuade him of the truth which Griggs had discovered more by intuition and through his profound knowledge of the Roman character than by any chain of evidence. Lord Redin had gone out, he was told. It was impossible to say with any certainty whether this were true or not, and Griggs wrote a few words on his card, sealed the latter in an envelope, and left it to be delivered to the Scotchman. Then he went back to the Via della Frezza, determined to renew his attempt to see Francesca Campodonico, at a later hour. At the door of the little wine shop Stefanone was seated on one of the rush stools, his hat tilted over his eyes, and his white-stockinged legs crossed. He was smoking and looking down, but he recognized Griggs's step at some distance, and raised his eyes. Griggs nodded to him familiarly, passing along on the other side of the narrow street, and he saw Stefanone's expression. There was a look of cunning and amusement in the contraction of the pale lids, which the younger man did not like. Stefanone spoke to him across the street. "You are well returned, Signore," he said, in the common phrase of greeting after an absence. The words were civil enough, but there was something of mockery in the tone. Griggs might not have noticed it at any other time, but his thoughts had been occupied with Stefanone during the last two hours, and he resented what sounded like insolence. The tone implied that he had been on a fool's errand, and that Stefanone knew it. He said nothing, but stood still and scrutinized the man's face. There was an unwonted colour about the cheek bones, and the keen eyes sparkled under the brim of the soft hat. Stefanone had a solid head, and was not given to drinking, especially in the morning; but Griggs guessed that to-day he had drunk more than usual. The man's next words convinced him of the fact. "Signore," he said, slowly rising, "will you favour us by tasting the wine I brought last week? There is no one in the shop yet, for it is early. If you will, we can drink a glass." "Thank you," answered Griggs. "I have not eaten yet." "Then Sor Angoscia did not ask you to breakfast!" laughed Stefanone, insolently. "At midday, too! It was just the hour! But perhaps he invited you to his supper, for it is ordered." And he laughed again. Griggs glanced at him once more, and then went quietly on towards his own door. He saw that the man had drunk too much, and the idea of bandying words in the attempt to rebuke him was distasteful. Griggs had very rarely lost his temper, so far as to strike a man, even in former days, and it had seemed to him of late that he could never be really angry again. Nothing could ever again be of enough importance to make it worth while. If a man of his own class had insulted him, he would have directed his double, as it were, to resent the offence, but he himself would have remained utterly indifferent. The one-eyed cobbler was not in his place, as it was Sunday. If he had been there, Griggs would very possibly have told him to watch Stefanone and to try and keep him in the wine shop until he should grow heavy over his wine and fall asleep. In that state he would at least be harmless. But the cobbler was not there. Griggs went up to his rooms to wait until a later hour, when he might hope to find Francesca. Stefanone, being left alone, sat down again, pulled his hat over his eyes once more and felt in his pocket for his clasp-knife. His mind was by no means clear, for he had eaten nothing, he had swallowed a good deal of strong wine, and he had made up his mind that he must kill his enemy on that day or never. The intention was well-defined, but that was all. He had put off his vengeance too long. It was true that he had not yet caught Dalrymple alone in a quiet street at night, that is to say, under the most favourable circumstances imaginable; but more than once he might have fallen upon him suddenly from a doorway in a narrow lane, in which there had been but a few women and children to see the deed, if they saw it at all. He knew well enough that in Rome the fear of being in any way implicated in a murder, even as a witness, would have made women, and probably men, too, run indoors or out of the way, rather than interfere or pursue him. He told himself therefore that he had been unreasonably cautious, and that unless he acted quickly Lord Redin, being warned by Griggs, would take measures of self-defence which might put him beyond the reach of the clasp-knife forever. Stefanone's ideas about the power of an 'English lord' were vague in the extreme. He had not been exactly frightened by Griggs's sudden accusation that morning, but he had been made nervous and vicious by the certainty that his intentions had been discovered. Peasant-like, not being able to hit on a plan for immediate success, he had excited himself and stimulated his courage with drink. His eyes were already a little bloodshot, and the flush on his high cheek bones showed that he was in the first stage of drunkenness, which under present circumstances was the most dangerous and might last all day with a man of his age and constitution, provided that he did not drink too fast. And there was little fear of that, for the Roman is cautious in his cups, and drinks slowly, never wishing to lose his head, and indeed very much ashamed of ever being seen in a helpless condition. By this time he was well acquainted with Lord Redin's habits; and though Griggs had been told that the Scotchman was out, Stefanone knew very well that he was at home and would not leave the hotel for another hour or more. Leaning back against the wall and tipping the stool, he swung his white-stockinged legs thoughtfully. "One must eat," he remarked aloud, to himself. He held his head a little on one side, thoughtfully considering the question of food. Then he turned his face slowly towards the low door of the shop and sniffed the air. Something was cooking in the back regions within. Stefanone nodded to himself, rose, pulled out a blue and red cotton handkerchief, and proceeded to dust his well-blacked low shoes and steel buckles with considerable care, setting first one foot and then the other upon the stool. "Let us eat," he said aloud, folding his handkerchief again and returning it to his pocket. He went in and sat down at one of the trestle tables,--a heavy board, black with age. The host was nodding on a chair in the corner, a fat man in a clean white apron, with a round red face and fat red prominences over his eyes, with thin eyebrows that were scarcely perceptible. Stefanone rapped on the board with his knuckles; the host awoke, looked at him with a pleased smile, made an interrogatory gesture, and having received an affirmative nod for an answer retired into the dark kitchen. In a moment he returned with a huge earthenware plate of soup in which a couple of large pieces of fat meat bobbed lazily as he set the dish on the table. Then he brought bread, a measure of wine, an iron spoon, and a two-pronged fork. Stefanone eat the soup without a word, breaking great pieces of bread into it. Then he pulled out his clasp-knife and opened it; the long blade, keen as a razor and slightly curved, but dark and dull in colour, snapped to its place, as the ring at the back fell into the corresponding sharp notch. With affected delicacy, Stefanone held it between his thumb and one finger and drew the edge across the fat boiled meat, which fell into pieces almost at a touch, though it was tough and stringy. The host watched the operation approvingly. At that time it was forbidden to carry such knives in Rome, unless the point were round and blunt. The Roman always stabs; he never cuts his man's throat in a fight or in a murder. "It is a prohibited weapon," observed the fat man, smiling, "but it is very beautiful. Poor Christian, if he finds it between his ribs! He would soon be cold. It is a consolation at night to have such a toy." "Truly, it is the consolation of my soul," answered Stefanone. "Say a little, dear friend," said the fat man, sitting down and resting his bare elbows upon the table, "that arm, has it ever sent any one to Paradise?" "And then I should tell you!" exclaimed Stefanone, laughing, and he sipped some wine and smacked his lips. "But no," he added presently. "I am a pacific man. If they touch me--woe! But I, to touch any one? Not even a fly." "Thus I like men," said the host, "serious, full of scruples, people who drink well, quiet, quiet, and pay better." "So we are at Subiaco," answered Stefanone. He cleaned his knife on a piece of bread very carefully, laid it open beside him, and threw the crust to a lean dog that appeared suddenly from beneath the table, as though it had come up through a trap-door; the half-famished creature bolted the bread with a snap and a gulp and disappeared again as suddenly and silently, just in time to avoid the fat man's slow, heavy hand. When he had finished eating, Stefanone produced his little piece of oilstone, which he carried wrapped in dingy paper, and having greased it proceeded to draw the blade over it slowly and smoothly. "Apoplexy!" ejaculated the host. "Are you not contented? Or perhaps you wish to shave with it?" "Thus I keep it," answered the peasant, smiling. "A minute here, a minute there. The time costs nothing. What am I doing? Nothing. I digest. To pass the time I sharpen the knife. I am like this. I say it is a sin to waste time." Every now and then he sipped his wine, but there was no perceptible change in his manner, for he was careful to keep himself just at the same level of excitement, neither more nor less. Half an hour later he was smoking his pipe in the Piazza di Spagna, lounging near the great fountain in the sunshine, his eyes generally turned towards the door of the hotel. He waited a long time, and replenished his pipe more than once. "This would be the only thing wanting," he said impatiently and half aloud. "That just to-day he should not go out." But Lord Redin appeared at last, dressed as though he were going to make a visit. He looked about the square, standing still on the threshold for a moment, and a couple of small open cabs drove up. But he shook his head, consulted his watch, and strode away in the direction of the Propaganda. Stefanone guessed that he was going to the Palazzetto Borgia, and followed him as usual at a safe distance, threading the winding ways towards the Piazza di Venezia. There used to be a small café then under the corner of that part of the Palazzo Torlonia which has now been pulled down. Lord Redin entered it, and Stefanone lingered on the other side of the street. A man passed him who sold melon seeds and aquavitæ, and Stefanone drank a glass of the one and bought a measure of the other. The Romans are fond of the taste of the tiny dry kernel which is found inside the broad white shell of the seed. Presently Lord Redin came out, wiping his mouth with his handkerchief, and went on. Stefanone followed him again, walking fast when his enemy had turned a corner and slackening his speed as soon as he caught sight of him again. Francesca was out. He saw Lord Redin's look of annoyance as the latter turned away after speaking with the porter, and he fell back into the shadow of a doorway, expecting that the Scotchman would take the street by which he had come. But Dalrymple turned down the narrow lane beside the palace, in the direction of the Tiber. Stefanone's bloodshot eyes opened suddenly as he sprang after him; with a quick movement he got his knife out, opened it, and thrust his hand with it open into the wide pocket of his jacket. Lord Redin had never gone down that lane before, to Stefanone's knowledge, and it was a hundred to one that at that hour no one would be about. Stefanone himself did not know the place. Dalrymple must have heard the quick and heavy footsteps of the peasant behind him, but it would not have been at all like him to turn his head. With loose, swinging gait he strode along, and his heavy stick made high little echoes as it struck the dry cobble-stones. Stefanone was very near him. His eyes glared redly, and his hand with the knife in it was half out of his pocket. In ten steps more he would spring and strike upwards, as Romans do. He chose the spot on the dark overcoat where his knife should go through, below the shoulder-blade, at the height of the small ribs on the left side. His lips were parted and dry. There was a loud scream of anger, a tremendous clattering noise, and a sound of feet. Stefanone turned suddenly pale, and his hand went to the bottom of his pocket again. On an open doorstep lay a copper 'conca'--the Roman water jar--a wretched dog was rushing down the street with something in its mouth, in front of Lord Redin, a woman was pursuing it with yells, swinging a small wooden stool in her right hand, to throw it at the dog, and the neighbours were on their doorsteps in a moment. Stefanone slunk under the shadow of the wall, grinding his teeth. The chance was gone. The streets beyond were broader and more populous. Lord Redin went steadily onward, evidently familiar with every turn of the way, down to the Tiber, across the Bridge of Quattro Capi, and over the island of Saint Bartholomew to Trastevere, turning then to the right through the straight Lungaretta, past Santa Maria and under the heights of San Pietro in Montorio, and so to the Lungara and by Santo Spirito to the Piazza of Saint Peter's. He walked fast, and Stefanone twice wiped the perspiration from his forehead on the way, for he was nervous from the tension and the disappointment, and felt suddenly weak. The Scotchman never paused, but crossed the vast square and went up the steps of the basilica. He was evidently going to hear the Vespers. Then Stefanone, instead of following him into the church, sat down outside the wine shop on the right, just opposite the end of the Colonnade. He ordered a measure of wine and prepared to wait, for he guessed that Lord Redin would remain in the church at least an hour. CHAPTER XLVI. LORD REDIN lifted the heavy leathern curtain of the door on the right of the main entrance to the basilica, and went into the church. For some reason or other, the majority of people go in by that door rather than the other. It may be that the reason is a very simple one, after all. Most people are right handed, and of any two doors side by side leading into the same place, will instinctively take the one on the right. The practice of passing to the left in the street, in almost all old countries, was for the sake of safety, in order that a man might have his sword hand towards any one he met. The air of the church was warm, and had a faint odour of incense in it. The temperature of the vast building varies but little with the seasons; going into it in winter, it seems warm, in summer it is very cold. On that day there were not many people in the nave, though a soft sound of unceasing footsteps broke the stillness. Very far away an occasional strain of music floated on the air from the Chapel of the Choir, the last on the left before the transept is reached. Lord Redin walked leisurely in the direction of the sound. The chapel was full, and the canons were intoning the psalms of the office. At the conclusion of each one the choir sang the 'Gloria' from the great organ loft on the right. It chanced that there were a number of foreigners on that day, and they had filled all the available space within the gate, and there was a small crowd outside, pressing as close as possible in order to hear the voices more distinctly. Lord Redin was taller than most men, and looking over the heads of the others he saw Francesca Campodonico's pale profile in the thick of the press. She evidently wished to extricate herself, and she seemed to be suffering from the closeness, for she pressed her handkerchief nervously to her lips, and her eyes were half closed. Lord Redin forced his way to her without much consideration for the people who hindered him. A few minutes later he brought her out on the side towards the transept. "Thank you," said Francesca. "I should like to sit down. I had almost fainted--there was a woman next to me who had musk about her." They went round the pillar of the dome to the south transept where there are almost always a number of benches set along the edges of a huge green baize carpet. They sat down together on the end of one of the seats. "We can go back, by and bye, and hear the music, if you like," said Francesca. "The psalms will last some time longer." "I would rather sit here and talk, since I have had the good luck to meet you," answered Lord Redin, resting his elbows on his knees, and idly poking the green carpet with the end of his stick. "I went to your house, and they told me that you would very probably be here." "Yes. I often come. But you know that, for we have met here before. I only stay at home on Sundays when it rains." "Oh! Is that the rule?" "Yes, if you call it a rule," answered Francesca. "I like to know about the things you do, and how you spend your life," said the Scotchman, thoughtfully. "Do you? Why? There is nothing very interesting about my existence, it seems to me." "It interests me. It makes me feel less lonely to know about some one else--some one I like very much." Francesca looked at her companion with an expression of pity. She was lonely, too, but in a different way. The little drama of her life had run sadly and smoothly. She was willing to give the man her friendship if it could help him, rather because he seemed to ask for it in a mute fashion than because she desired his. "Lord Redin," she said, after a little pause, "do you always mean to live in this way?" "Alone? Yes. It is the only way I can live, at my age." "At your age--would it make any difference if you were younger?" asked Francesca. She dropped her voice to a low key. "You would never marry again, even if you were much younger." "Marry!" His shoulders moved with a sort of little start. "You do not know what you are saying!" he added, almost under his breath, though she heard the words distinctly. She looked at him again, in silence, during several seconds, and she saw how the colour sank away from his face, till the skin was like old parchment. The hand that held the heavy stick tightened round it and grew yellow at the knuckles. "Forgive me," she said gently. "I am very thoughtless--it is the second time." He did not speak for some moments, but she understood his silence and waited. The air was very quiet, and the enormous pillar of the dome almost completely shut off the echo of the distant music. The low afternoon sun streamed levelly through the great windows of the apse, for the basilica is built towards the west. There were very few people in the church that day. The sun made visible beams across the high shadows overhead. Suddenly Lord Redin spoke again. There was something weak and tremulous in the tone of his rough voice. "I am very much attached to you, for two reasons," he said. "We have known each other long, but not intimately." "That is true. Not very intimately." Francesca did not know exactly what to say. But for his manner and for his behaviour a few moments earlier, she might have fancied that he was about to offer himself to her, but such an idea was very far from her thoughts. Her woman's instinct told her that he was going to tell her something in the nature of a confidence. "Precisely," he continued. "We have never been intimate. The reason why we have not been intimate is one of the reasons why I am more attached to you than you have ever guessed." "That is complicated," said Francesca, with a smile. "Perhaps the other reason may be simpler." "It is very simple, very simple indeed, though it will not seem natural to you. You are the only very good woman I ever knew, who made me feel that she was good instead of making me see it. Perhaps you think it unnatural that I should be attracted by goodness at all. But I am not very bad, as men go." "No. I do not believe you are. And I am not so good as you think." She sighed softly. "You are much better than I once thought," answered Lord Redin. "Once upon a time--well, I should only offend you, and I know better now. Forgive me for thinking of it. I wish to tell you something else." "If it is something which has been your secret, it is better not told," said Francesca, quietly. "One rarely makes a confidence that one does not regret it." "You are a wise woman." He looked at her thoughtfully. "And yet you must be very young." "No. But though I have had my own life apart, I have lived outwardly very much in the world, although I am still young. Most of the secrets which have been told me have been repeated to me by the people in whom others had confided." "All that is true," he answered. "Nevertheless--" He paused. "I am desperate!" he exclaimed, with sudden energy. "I cannot bear this any longer--I am alone, always, always. Sometimes I think I shall go mad! You do not know what a life I lead. I have not even a vice to comfort me!" He laughed low and savagely. "I tried to drink, but I am sick of it--it does no good! A man who has not even a vice is a very lonely man." Francesca's clear eyes opened wide with a startled look, and gazed towards his averted face, trying to catch his glance. She felt that she was close to something very strong and dreadful which she could not understand. "Do not speak like that!" she said. "No one is lonely who believes in God." "God!" he exclaimed bitterly. "God has forgotten me, and the devil will not have me!" He looked at her at last, and saw her face. "Do not be shocked," he said, with a sorrowful smile. "If I were as bad as I seem to you just now, I should have cut my throat twenty years ago." "Hush! Hush!" Francesca did not know what to say. His manner changed a little, and he spoke more calmly. "I am not eloquent," he said, looking into her eyes. "You may not understand. But I have suffered a great deal." "Yes. I know that. I am very sorry for you." "I think you are," he answered. "That is why I want to be honest and tell you the truth about myself. For that reason, and because I cannot bear it any longer. I cannot, I cannot!" he repeated in a low, despairing tone. "If it will help you to tell me, then tell me," said Francesca, kindly. "But I do not ask you to. I do not see why we should not be the best of friends without my knowing this thing which weighs on your mind." "You will understand when I have told you," answered Lord Redin. "Then you can judge whether you will have me for a friend or not. It will seem very bad to you. Perhaps it is. I never thought so. But you are a Roman Catholic, and that makes a difference." "Not in a question of right and wrong." "It makes the question what it is. You shall hear." He paused a moment, and the lines and furrows deepened in his face. The sun was sinking fast, and the long beams had faded away out of the shadows. There was no one in sight now, but the music of the benediction service echoed faintly in the distance. Francesca felt her heart beating with a sort of excitement she could not understand, and though she did not look at her companion, her ears were strained to catch the first word he spoke. "I married a nun," he said simply. Francesca started. "A Sister of Charity?" she asked, after a moment's dead silence. "They do not take vows--" "No. A nun from the Carmelite Convent of Subiaco." His words were very distinct. There was no mistaking what he said. Francesca shrank from him instinctively, and uttered a low exclamation of repugnance and horror. "That is not all," continued Lord Redin, with a calm that seemed supernatural. "She was your kinswoman. She was Maria Braccio, whom every one believed was burned to death in her cell." "But her body--they found it! It is impossible!" She thought he must be mad. "No. They found another body. I put it into the bed and set fire to the mattress. It was burned beyond recognition, and they thought it was Maria. But it was the body of old Stefanone's daughter. I lived in his house. The girl poisoned herself with some of my chemicals--I was a young doctor in those days. Maria and I were married on board an English man-of-war, and we lived in Scotland after that. Gloria was the daughter of Maria Braccio, the Carmelite nun--your kinswoman." Francesca pressed her handkerchief to her lips. She felt as though she were losing her senses. Minute after minute passed, and she could say nothing. From time to time, Lord Redin glanced sideways at her. He breathed hard once or twice, and his hands strained upon his stick as though they would break it in two. "Then she died," he said. When he had spoken the three words, he shivered from head to foot, and was silent. Still Francesca could not speak. The sacrilege of the deed was horrible in itself. To her, who had grown up to look upon Maria Braccio as a holy woman, cut off in her youth by a frightful death, the truth was overwhelmingly awful. She strove within herself to find something upon which she could throw the merest shadow of an extenuation, but she could find nothing. "You understand now why, as an honourable man, I wished to tell you the truth about myself," he said, speaking almost coldly in the effort he was making at self-control. "I could not ask for your friendship until I had told you." Francesca turned her white face slowly towards him in the dusk, and her lips moved, but she did not speak. She could not in that first moment find the words she wanted. She felt that she shrank from him, that she never wished to touch his hand again. Doubtless, in time, she might get over the first impression. She wished that he would leave her to think about it. "Can you ever be my friend now?" he asked gravely. "Your friend--" she stopped, and shook her head sadly. "I--I am afraid--" she could not go on. Lord Redin rose slowly to his feet. "No. I am afraid not," he said. He waited a moment, but there was no reply. "May I take you to your carriage?" he asked gently. "No, thank you. No--that is--I am going home in a cab. I would rather be alone--please." "Then good-bye." The lonely man went away and left her there. His head was bent, and she thought that he walked unsteadily, as she watched him. Suddenly a great wave of pity filled her heart. He looked so very lonely. What right had she to judge him? Was she perfect, because he called her good? She called him before he turned the great pillar of the dome. "Lord Redin! Lord Redin!" But her voice was weak, and in the vast, dim place it did not reach him. He went on alone, past the high altar, round the pillar, down the nave. The benediction service was not quite over yet, but every one who was not listening to the music had left the church. He went towards the door by which he had entered. Before going out he paused, and looked towards the little chapel on the right of the entrance. He hesitated, and then went to it and stood leaning with his hands upon the heavy marble balustrade, that was low for his great height as he stood on the step. A single silver lamp sent a faint light upwards that lingered upon the Pietà above the altar, upon the marble limbs of the dead Christ, upon the features of the Blessed Virgin, the Addolorata--the sorrowing mother. Bending a little, as though very weary, the friendless, wifeless, childless man raised his furrowed face and looked up. There was no hope any more, and his despair was heavy upon him whose young love had blasted the lives of many. His teeth were set--he could have bitten through iron. He trembled a little, and as he looked upward, two dreadful tears--the tears of the strong that are as blood--welled from his eyes and trickled down upon his cheeks. "Maria Addolorata!" he whispered. CHAPTER XLVII. FRANCESCA had half risen from her seat when she had seen that Lord Redin did not hear her voice, calling to him. Then she realized that she could not overtake him without running, since he had got so far, and she kept her place, leaning back once more, and trying to collect her thoughts before going home. The music was still going on in the Chapel of the Choir, and though it was dusk in the vast church, it would not be dark for some time. The vergers did not make their rounds to give warning of the hour of closing until sunset. Francesca sat still and tried to understand what she had heard. She was nervous and shaken, and she wished that she were already at home. The great dimness of the lonely transept was strangely mysterious--and the tale of the dead girl, burned to take the place of the living, was grewsome, and made her shiver with disgust and horror. She started nervously at the sound of a distant footstep. But the strongest impression she had, was that of abhorrence for the unholy deeds of the man who had just left her. To a woman for whom religion in its forms as well as in its meaning was the mainstay of life on earth and the hope of life to come, the sacrilege of the crime seemed supernatural. She felt as though it must be in some way her duty to help in expiating it, lest the punishment of it should fall upon all her race. And as she thought it over, trying to look at it as simply as she could, she surveyed at a glance the whole chain of the fatal story, and saw how many terrible things had followed upon that one great sin, and how very nearly she herself had been touched by its consequences. She had been involved in it and had become a part of it. She had felt it about her for years, in her friendship for Reanda. It had contributed to the causes of his death, if it had not actually caused it. She, in helping to bring about his marriage with the daughter of her sinning kinswoman, had unconsciously made a link in the chain. Her friendship for the artist no longer looked as innocent as formerly. Gloria had accused him of loving her, Francesca. Had she not loved him? Whether she had or not, she had done things which had wounded his innocent young wife. In a sudden and painful illumination of the past, she saw that she herself had not been sinless; that she had been selfish, if nothing worse; that she had craved Reanda's presence and devoted friendship, if nothing more; that death had taken from her more than a friend. She saw all at once the vanity of her own belief in her own innocence, and she accused herself very bitterly of many things which had been quite hidden from her until then. She was roused by a footstep behind her, and she started at the sound of a voice she knew, but which had changed oddly since she had last heard it. It was stern, deep, and clear still, but the life was gone out of it. It had an automatic sound. "I beg your pardon, Princess," said Paul Griggs, stopping close to her behind the bench. "May I speak to you for a moment?" She turned her head. As the sun went down, the church grew lighter for a little while, as it often does. Yet she could hardly see the man's eyes at all, as she looked into his face. They were all in the shadow and had no light in them. "Sit down," she said mechanically. She could not refuse to speak to him, and, indeed, she would not have refused to receive him had she been at home when he had called that day. Socially speaking, according to the standards of those around her, he had done nothing which she could very severely blame. A woman he had dearly loved had come to him for protection, and he had not driven her away. That was the social value of what he had done. The moral view of it all was individual with herself. Society gave her no right to treat him rudely because she disapproved of his past life. For the rest, she had liked him in former times, and she believed that there was much more good in him than at first appeared. She was almost glad that he had disturbed her solitude just then, for a nervous sense of loneliness was creeping upon her; and though there had been nothing to prevent her from rising and going away, she had felt that something was holding her in her seat, a shadowy something that was oppressive and not natural, that descended upon her out of the gloomy heights, and that rose around her from the secret depths below, where the great dead lay side by side in their leaden coffins. "Sit down," she repeated, as Griggs came round the bench. He sat down beside her. There was a little distance between them, and he sat rather stiffly, holding his hat on his knees. "I should apologize for disturbing you," he began. "I have been twice to your house to-day, but you were out. What I wish to speak of is rather urgent. I heard that you might be here, and so I came." "Yes," she said, and waited for him to say more. "What is it?" she asked presently, as he did not speak at once. "It is about Dalrymple--about Lord Redin," he said at last. "You used to know him. Do you ever see him now?" Francesca looked at him with a little surprise, but she answered quietly, as though the question were quite a natural one. "He was here five minutes ago. Yes, I often see him." "Would you do him a service?" asked Griggs, in his calm and indifferent tone. He was forcing himself to do what was plainly his duty, but he was utterly incapable of taking any interest in the matter. Francesca hesitated before she answered. An hour earlier she would have assented readily enough, but now the idea of doing anything which could tend to bring her into closer relations with Lord Redin was disagreeable. "I do not think you will refuse," said Griggs, as she did not speak. "His life is in danger." She turned quickly and scrutinized the expressionless features. In the glow of the sunset the church was quite light. The total unconcern of the man's manner contrasted strangely with the importance of what he said. Francesca felt that something must be wrong. "You say that very coolly," she observed, and her tone showed that she was incredulous. "And you do not believe me," answered Griggs, quite unmoved. "It is natural, I suppose. I will try to explain." "Please do. I do not understand at all." Nevertheless, she was startled, though she concealed her nervousness. She had not spoken with Griggs for a long time; and as he talked, she saw what a great change had taken place. He was very quiet, as he had always been, but he was almost too quiet. She could not make out his eyes. She knew of his superhuman strength, and his stillness seemed unnatural. What he said did not sound rational. An impression got hold of her that he had gone mad, and she was physically afraid of him. He began to explain. She felt a singing in her ears, and she could not follow what he said. It was like an evil dream, and it grew upon her second by second. He talked on in the same even, monotonous tone. The words meant nothing to her. She crossed her feet nervously and tried to get a soothing sensation by stroking her sable muff. She made a great effort at concentration and failed to understand anything. All at once it grew dark, as the sunset light faded out of the sky. Again she felt the desire to rise and the certainty that she could not, if she tried. He ceased speaking and seemed to expect her to say something, but she had not understood a word of his long explanation. He sat patiently waiting. She could hardly distinguish his face in the gloom. The sound of irregular, shuffling footsteps and low voices moved the stillness. The vergers were making their last round in a hurried, perfunctory way. They passed across the transept to the high altar. It was so dark that Francesca could only just see their shadows moving in the blackness. She did not realize what they were doing, and her imagination made ghosts of them, rushing through the silence of the deserted place, from one tomb to another, waking the dead for the night. They did not even glance across, as they skirted the wall of the church. Even if they had looked, they might not have seen two persons in black, against the blackness, sitting silently side by side on the dark bench. They saw nothing and passed on, out of sight and out of hearing. "May I ask whether you will give him the message?" inquired Griggs at last, moving in his seat, for he knew that it was time to be going. Francesca started, at the sound of his voice. "I--I am afraid--I have not understood," she said. "I beg your pardon--I was not paying attention. I am nervous." "It is growing late," said Griggs. "We had better be going--I will tell you again as we walk to the door." "Yes--no--just a moment!" She made a strong effort over herself. "Tell me in three words," she said. "Who is it that threatens Lord Redin's life?" "A peasant of Subiaco called Stefanone. Really, Princess, we must be going; it is quite dark--" "Stefanone!" exclaimed Francesca, while he was speaking the last words, which she did not hear. "Stefanone of Subiaco--of course!" "We must really be going," said Griggs, rising to his feet, and wondering indifferently why it was so hard to make her understand. She rose to her feet slowly. Lord Redin's story was intricately confused in her mind with the few words which she had retained of what Griggs had said. "Yes--yes--Stefanone," she said in a low voice, as though to herself, and she stood still, comprehending the whole situation in a flash, and imagining that Griggs knew the whole truth and had been telling it to her as though she had not known it. "But how did you know that Lord Redin took the girl's body and burnt it?" she asked, quite certain that he had mentioned the fact. "What girl?" asked Griggs in wonder. "Why, the body of Stefanone's daughter, which he managed to burn in the convent when he carried off my cousin! How did you know about it?" "I did not know about it," said Griggs. "Your cousin? I do not understand." "My cousin--yes--Maria Braccio--Gloria's mother! You have just been talking about her--" "I?" asked Griggs, bewildered. Francesca stepped back from him, suddenly guessing that she had revealed Lord Redin's secret. "Is it possible?" she asked in a low voice. "Oh, it is all a mistake!" she cried suddenly. "I have told you his story--oh, I am losing my head!" "Come," said Griggs, authoritatively. "We must get out of the church, at all events, or we shall be locked in." "Oh no!" answered Francesca. "There is always somebody here--" "There is not. You must really come." "Yes--but there is no danger of being locked in. Yes--let us walk down the nave. There is more light." They walked slowly, for she was too much confused to hasten her steps. Her inexplicable mistake troubled her terribly. She remembered how she had warned Lord Redin not to tell her any secrets, and how seriously she, the most discreet of women, had resolved never to reveal what he had said. But the impression of his story had been so much more direct and strong than even the first words Griggs had spoken, that so soon as she had realized that the latter was speaking approximately of the same subject, she had lost the thread of what he was saying and had seemed to hear Lord Redin's dreadful tale all over again. She thought that she was losing her head. It was almost quite dark when they reached the other side of the high altar. Griggs walked beside her in silence, trying to understand the meaning of what she had said. The gloom was terrible. The enormous statues loomed faintly like vast ghosts, high up, between the floor and the roof, their whiteness glimmering where there seemed to be nothing else but darkness below them and above them. A low, far sound that was a voice but not a word, trembled in the air. Francesca shuddered. "They have not gone yet," said Griggs. "They are still talking. But we must hurry." "No," said Francesca, "that was not any one talking." And her teeth chattered. "Give me your arm, please--I am frightened." He held out his arm till she could feel it in the dark, and she took it. He pressed her hand to his side and drew her along, for he feared that the doors might be already shut. "Not so fast! Oh, not so fast, please!" she cried. "I shall fall. They do not shut the doors--" "Yes, they do! Let me carry you. I can run with you in the dark--there is no time to be lost!" "No, no! I can walk faster--but there is really no danger--" It is a very long way from the high altar to the main entrance of the church. Francesca was breathless when they reached the door and Griggs lifted the heavy leathern curtain. If the door had been still open, he would have seen the twilight from the porch at once. Instead, all was black and close and smelled of leather. Francesca was holding his sleeve, afraid of losing him. "It is too late," he said quietly. "We are probably locked in. We will try the door of the Sacristy." He seized her arm and hurried her along into the south aisle. He struck his shoulder violently against the base of the pillar he passed in the darkness, but he did not stop. Almost instinctively he found the door, for he could not see it. Even the hideous skeleton which supports a black marble drapery above it was not visible in the gloom. He found the bevelled edge of the smoothly polished panel and pushed. But it would not yield. "We are locked in," he said, in the same quiet tone as before. Francesca uttered a low cry of terror and then was silent. "Cannot you break the door?" she asked suddenly. "No," he answered. "Nothing short of a battering-ram could move it." "Try," she said. "You are so strong--the lock might give way." To satisfy her he braced himself and heaved against the panel with all his gigantic strength. In the dark she could hear his breath drawn through his nostrils. "It will not move," he said, desisting. "We shall have to spend the night here. I am very sorry." For some moments Francesca said nothing, overcome by her terror of the situation. Griggs stood still, with his back to the polished door, trying to see her in the gloom. Then he felt her closer to him and heard her small feet moving on the pavement. "We must make the best of it," he said at last. "It is never quite dark near the high altar. I daresay, too, that there is still a little twilight where we were sitting. At least, there is a carpet there and there are benches. We can sit there until it is later. Then you can lie down upon the bench. I will make a pillow for you with my overcoat. It is warm, and I shall not need it." He made a step forwards, and she heard him moving. "Do not leave me!" she cried, in sudden terror. He felt her grasp his arm convulsively in the dark, and he felt her hands shaking. "Do not be frightened," he said, in his quiet voice. "Dead people do no harm, you know. It is only imagination." She shuddered as he groped his way with her toward the nave. They passed the pillar and saw the soft light of the ninety little flames of the huge golden lamps around the central shrine below the high altar. Far beyond, the great windows showed faintly in the height of the blackness. They walked more freely, keeping in the middle of the church. In the distant chapels on each side a few little lamps glimmered like fireflies. Before the last chapel on the right, the Chapel of the Sacrament, Francesca paused, instinctively holding fast to Griggs's arm, and they both bent one knee, as all Catholics do, who pass before it. But when they reached the shrine, Francesca loosed her hold and sank upon her knees, resting her arms upon the broad marble of the balustrade. Griggs knelt a moment beside her, by force of habit, then rose and waited, looking about him into the depths of blackness, and reflecting upon the best spot in which to pass the night. She remained kneeling a long time, praying more or less consciously, but aware that it was a relief to be near a little light after passing through the darkness. Her mind was as terribly confused as her companion's was utterly calm and indifferent. If he had been alone he would have sat down upon a step until he was sleepy and then he would have stretched himself upon one of the benches in the transept. But to Francesca it was unspeakably dreadful. The strangeness of the whole situation forced itself upon her more and more, when she thought of rising from her knees and going back to the bench. She felt a womanly shyness about keeping close to her companion, her hand on his arm, for hours together, but she knew that the terror she should feel of being left alone, even for an instant, or of merely thinking that she was to be left alone, would more than overcome that if she went away from the lights. She would grasp his arm and hold it tightly. Then she felt ashamed of herself. She had always been told that she came of a brave race. She had never been in danger, and there was really no danger now. It was absurd to remain on her knees for the sake of the lamps. She rose to her feet and turned. Griggs was not looking at her, but at the ornaments on the altar. The soft glimmer lighted up his dark face. A moment after she had risen he came forward. She meant to propose that they should go back to the transept, but just then she shuddered again. "Let us sit down here, on the step," she said, suddenly. "If you like," he answered. "Wait a minute," he added, and he pulled off his overcoat. He spread a part of it on the step, and rolled the rest into a pillow against which she could lean, and he held it in place while she sat down. She thanked him, and he sat down beside her. At first, as she turned from the lamps, the nave was like a fathomless black wall. Neither spoke for some time. Griggs broke the silence when he supposed that she was sufficiently recovered to talk quietly, for he had been thinking of what she had said, and it was almost clear to him at last. "I should like to speak to you quite frankly, if you will allow me," he said gravely. "May I?" "Certainly." "The few words you said about Lord Redin's story have explained a great many things which I never understood," said Griggs. "Is it too much to ask that you should tell me everything you know?" "I would rather not say anything more," answered Francesca. "I am very much ashamed of having betrayed his secret. Besides, what is to be gained by your knowing a few more details? It is bad enough as it is." "It is more or less the story of my life," he said, almost indifferently. She turned her head slowly and tried to see his face. She could just distinguish the features, cold and impassive. "I came to you to ask you to warn Dalrymple of a danger," he continued, as she did not speak. "I knew that fact, but not the reason why his life was and is threatened. Unless I have mistaken what you said, I understand it now. It is a much stronger one than I should ever have guessed. Lord Redin ran away with your cousin, and made it appear that he had carried off Stefanone's daughter. Stefanone has waited patiently for nearly a quarter of a century. He has found Dalrymple at last and means to kill him. He will succeed, unless you can make Dalrymple understand that the danger is real. I have no evidence on which I could have the man arrested, and I have no personal influence in Rome. You have. You would find no difficulty in having Stefanone kept out of the city. And you can make Dalrymple see the truth, since he has confided in you. Will you do that? He will not believe me, and you can save him. Besides, he will not see me. I have tried twice to-day. He has made up his mind that he will not see me." "I will do my best," said Francesca, leaning her head back against the marble rail, and half closing her eyes. "How terrible it all is!" "Yes. I suppose that is the word," said Griggs, indifferently. "Sacrilege, suicide, and probably murder to come." She was shocked by the perfectly emotionless way in which he spoke of Gloria's death, so much shocked that she drew a short, quick breath between her teeth as though she had hurt herself. Griggs heard it. "What is the matter?" he asked. "Nothing," she said. "I thought something hurt you." "No--nothing." She was silent again. "Yes," he continued, in a tone of cold speculation, "I suppose that any one would call it terrible. At all events, it is curious, as a sequence of cause and effect, from one tragedy to another." "Please--please do not speak of it all like that--" Francesca felt herself growing angry with him. "How should I speak of it?" he asked. "It is an extraordinary concatenation of events. I look upon the whole thing as very curious, especially since you have given me the key to it all." Francesca was moved to anger, taking the defence of the dead Gloria, as almost any woman would have done. At the moment Paul Griggs repelled her even more than Lord Redin. It seemed to her that there was something dastardly in his indifference. "Have you no heart?" she asked suddenly. "No, I am dead," he answered, in his clear, lifeless voice, that might have been a ghost's. The words made her shiver, and she felt as though her hair were moving. From his face, as she had last seen it, and from his voice, he might almost have been dead, as he said he was, like the thousands of silent ones in the labyrinths under her feet, and she alone alive in the midst of so much death. "What do you mean?" she asked, and her own voice trembled in spite of herself. "It is very like being dead," he answered thoughtfully. "I cannot feel anything. I cannot understand why any one else should. Everything is the same to me. The world is a white blank to me, and one place is exactly like any other place." "But why? What has happened to you?" asked Francesca. "You know. You sent me those letters." "What letters?" "The package Reanda gave you before he died." "Yes. What was in it? I told you that I did not know, when I wrote to you. I remember every word I wrote." "I know. But I thought that you at least guessed. They were Gloria's letters to her husband." "Her old letters, before--" Francesca stopped short. "No," he answered, with the same unnatural quiet. "All the letters she wrote him afterwards--when we were together." "All those letters?" cried Francesca, suddenly understanding. "Oh no--no! It is not possible! He could not, he would not, have done anything so horrible." "He did," said Griggs, calmly. "I had supposed that she loved me. He had his vengeance. He proved to me that she did not. I hope he is satisfied with the result. Yes," he continued, after a moment's pause, "it was the cruelest thing that ever one man did to another. I spent a bad night, I remember. On the top of the package was the last letter she wrote him, just before she killed herself. She loathed me, she said, she hated me, she shivered at my touch. She feared me so that she acted a comedy of love, in terror of her life, after she had discovered that she hated me. She need not have been afraid. Why should I have hurt her? In that last letter, she put her wedding ring with a lock of her hair wound in and out of it. Reanda knew what he was doing when he sent it to me. Do you wonder that it has deadened me to everything?" "Oh, how could he do it? How could he!" Francesca repeated, for the worst of it all to her was the unutterable cruelty of the man she had believed so gentle. "I suppose it was natural," said Griggs. "I loved the woman, and he knew it. I fancy few men have loved much more sincerely than I loved her, even after she was dead. I was not always saying so. I am not that kind of man. Besides, men who live by stringing words together for money do not value them much in their own lives. But I worked for her. I did the best I could. Even she must have known that I loved her." "I know you did. I cannot understand how you can speak of her at all." Francesca wondered at the man. "She? She is no more to me than Queen Christina, over there in her tomb in the dark! For that matter, nothing else has any meaning, either." For a long time Francesca said nothing. She sat quite still, resting the back of her head against the marble, in the awful silence under the faint lights that glimmered above the great tomb. "You have told me the most dreadful thing I ever heard," she said at last, in a low tone. "Is she nothing to you? Really nothing? Can you never think kindly of her again?" "No. Why should I? That is--" he hesitated. "I could not explain it," he said, and was silent. "It does not seem human," said Francesca. "You would have a memory of her--something--some touch of sadness--I wonder whether you really loved her as much as you thought you did?" Griggs turned upon Francesca slowly, his hands clasped upon one knee. "You do not know what such love means," he said slowly. "It is God--faith--goodness--everything. It is heaven on earth, and earth in heaven, in one heart. When it is gone there is nothing left. It went hard. It will not come back now. The heart itself is gone. There is nothing for it to come to. You think me cold, you are shocked because I speak indifferently of her. She lied to me. She lied and acted in every word and deed of her life with me. She deceived herself a little at first, and she deceived me mortally afterwards. It was all an immense, loathsome, deadly lie. I lived through the truth. Why should I wish to go back to the lie again? She died, telling me that she died for me. She died, having written to Reanda that she died for him. I do not judge her. God will. But God Himself could not make me love the smallest shadow of her memory. It is impossible. I am beyond life. I am outside it. My eternity has begun." "Is it not a little for her sake that you wish to save her father?" asked Francesca. "No. It is a matter of honour, and nothing else, since I injured him, as the world would say, by taking his daughter from her husband. Do you understand? Can you put yourself a little in my position? It is not because I care whether he lives or dies, or dies a natural death or is stabbed in the back by a peasant. It is because I ought to care. I do many things because I ought to care to do them, though the things and their consequences are all one to me, now." "It cannot last," said Francesca, sadly. "You will change as you grow older." "No. That is a thing you can never understand," he answered. "I am two individuals. The one is what you see, a man more or less like other men, growing older--a man who has a certain mortal, earthly memory of that dead woman, when the real man is unconscious. But the real man is beyond growing old, because he is beyond feeling anything. He is stationary, outside of life. The world is a blank to him and always will be." His voice grew more and more expressionless as he spoke. Francesca felt that she could not pity him as she had pitied poor Lord Redin when she had seen him going away alone. The man beside her was in earnest, and was as far beyond woman's pity as he was beyond woman's love. Yet she no longer felt repelled by him since she had understood what he had suffered. Perhaps she herself, suffering still in her heart, wished that she might be even as he was, beyond the possibility of pain, even though beyond the hope of happiness. He wanted nothing, he asked for nothing, and he was not afraid to be alone with his own soul, as she was sometimes. The other man had asked for her friendship. It could mean nothing to Paul Griggs. If love were nothing, what could friendship be? Yet there was something lofty and grand about such loneliness as his. She could not but feel that, now that she knew all. She thought of him as she sat beside him in the monumental silence of the enormous sepulchre, and she guessed of depths in his soul like the deepness of the shadows above her and before her and around her. "My suffering seems very small, compared with yours," she said softly, almost to herself. Somehow she knew that he would understand her, though perhaps her knowledge was only hope. "Why should you suffer at all?" he asked. "You have never done anything wrong. Nothing, of all this, is your fault. It was all fatal, from the first, and you cannot blame yourself for anything that has happened." "I do," she answered, in a low voice. "Indeed I do." "You are wrong. You are not to blame. Dalrymple was--Maria Braccio--I--Gloria--we four. But you! What have you done? Compared with us you are a saint on earth!" She hesitated a moment before she spoke. Then her voice came in a broken way. "I loved Angelo Reanda. I know it, now that I have lost him." Griggs barely heard the last words, but he bent his head gravely, and said nothing in answer. CHAPTER XLVIII. THE stillness was all around them and seemed to fold them together as they sat side by side. A deep sigh quivered and paused and was drawn again almost with a gasp that stirred the air. Suddenly Francesca's face was hidden in her hands, and her head was bowed almost to her knees. A moment more, and she sobbed aloud, wordless, as though her soul were breaking from her heart. In the great gloom there was something unearthly in the sound of her weeping. The man who could neither suffer any more himself nor feel human pity for another's suffering, turned and looked at her with shadowy eyes. He understood, though he could not feel, and he knew that she had borne more than any one had guessed. She shed many tears, and it was long before her sobbing ceased to call down pitiful, heart-breaking echoes from the unseen heights of darkness. Her head was bent down upon her knees as she sat there, striving with herself. He could do nothing, and there was nothing that he could say. He could not comfort her, he could not deny her grief. He only knew that there was one more being still alive and bearing the pain of sins done long ago. Truly the judgment upon that man by whom the offence had come, should be heavy and relentless and enduring. At last all was still again. Francesca did not move, but sat bowed together, her hands pressing her face. Very softly, Griggs rose to his feet, and she did not see that he was no longer seated beside her. He stood up and leaned upon the broad marble of the balustrade. When she at last raised her head, she thought that he was gone. "Where are you?" she asked, in a startled voice. Then, looking round, she saw him standing by the rail. She understood why he had moved--that she might not feel that he was watching her and seeing her tears. "I am not ashamed," she said. "At least you know me, now." "Yes. I know." She also rose and stood up, and leaned upon the balustrade and looked into his face. "I am glad you know," she said, and he saw how pale she was, and that her cheeks were wet. "Now that it is over, I am glad that you know," she said again. "You are beyond sympathy, and beyond pitying any one, though you are not unkind. I am glad, that if any one was to know my secret, it should be you. I could not bear pity. It would hurt me. But you are not unkind." "Nor kind--nor anything," he said. "No. It is as though I had spoken to the grave--or to eternity. It is safe with you." "Yes. Quite safe. Safer than with the dead." "He never knew it. Thank God! He never knew it! To me he was always the same faithful friend. To you he was an enemy, and cruel. I thought him above cruelty, but he was human, after all. Was it not human, that he should be cruel to you?" "Yes," answered Griggs, wondering a little at her speech and tone. "It was very human." "And you forgive him for it?" "I?" There was surprise in his tone. "Yes," she answered. "I want your forgiveness for him. He died without your forgiveness. It is the only thing I ask of you--I have not the right to ask anything, I know, but is it so very much?" "It is nothing," said Griggs. "There is no such thing as forgiveness in my world. How could there be? I resent nothing." "But then, if you do not resent what he did, you have forgiven him. Have you not?" "I suppose so." He was puzzled. "Will you not say it?" she pleaded. "Willingly," he answered. "I forgive him. I remember nothing against him." "Thank you. You are a good man." He shook his head gravely, but he took her outstretched hand and pressed it gently. "Thank you," she repeated, withdrawing hers. "Do not think it strange that I should ask such a thing. It means a great deal to me. I could not bear to think that he had left an enemy in the world and was gone where he could not ask forgiveness for what he had done. So I asked it of you, for him. I know that he would have wished me to. Do you understand?" "Yes," said Griggs, thoughtfully. "I understand." Again there was silence for a long time as they stood there. The tears dried upon the woman's sweet pale face, and a soft light came where the tears had been. "Will you come with me?" she asked at last, looking up. He did not guess what she meant to do, but he left the step on which he was standing and stood ready. "It must be late," he said. "Should you like to try and rest? I will arrange a place for you as well as I can." "Not yet," she answered. "If you will come with me--" she hesitated. "Yes?" "I will say a prayer for the dead," she said, in a low voice. "I always do, every night, since he died." Griggs bent his head, and she came down from the step. He walked beside her, down the silent nave into the darkness. Before the Chapel of the Sacrament they both paused and bent the knee. Then she hesitated. "I should like to go to the Pietà," she said timidly. "It seems so far. Do you mind?" He held out his arm silently. She felt it and laid her hand upon it, and they went on. It was very dark. They knew that they were passing the pillars when they could not see the little lights from the chapels in the distance on their left. Then by the echo of their own footsteps they knew that they were near the great door, and at last they saw the single tiny flame in the silver lamp hanging above the altar they sought. Guided by it, they went forward, and the solitary ray showed them the marble rail. They knelt down side by side. "Let us pray for them all," said Francesca, very softly. She looked up to the marble face of Christ's mother, the Addolorata, the mother of sorrows, and she thought of that sinning nun, dead long ago, who had been called Addolorata. "Let us pray for them all," she repeated. "For Maria Braccio, for Gloria--for Angelo Reanda." She lowered her head upon her hands. Then, presently, she looked up again, and Griggs heard her sweet voice in the darkness repeating the ancient Commemoration for the Dead, from the Canon of the Mass. "Remember also, O Lord, thy servants who are gone before us with the sign of faith, and sleep the sleep of peace. Give them, O Lord, and to all who rest in Christ, a place of refreshment, light, and peace, for that Christ's sake, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit. Amen." Once more she bent her head and was silent for a time. Then as she knelt, her hands moved silently along the marble and pressed the two folded hands of the man beside her, and she looked at him. "Let us be friends," she said simply. "Such as I am, I am yours." Then their hands clasped. They both started and looked down, for the fingers were cold and wet and dark. It was the blood of Angus Dalrymple that had sealed their friendship. The swift sure blade had struck him as he stood there, repeating the name of his dead wife. There had been no one near the door and none to see the quick, black deed. Strong hands had thrown his falling body within the marble balustrade, that was still wet with his heart's blood. There Paul Griggs found him, lying on his back, stretched to his length in the dim shadow between the rail and the altar. He had paid the price at last, a loving, sinning, suffering, faithful, faultful man. But the friendship that was so grimly consecrated on that night, was the truest that ever was between man and woman. END OF VOL. II. THE RALSTONS. BY F. MARION CRAWFORD. 2 vols. 16mo. Cloth. $2.00. PRESS COMMENTS. "The interest is unflagging throughout. Never has the author done more brilliant, artistic work than here."--_Ohio State Journal._ "It is immensely entertaining; once in the full swing of the narrative, one is carried on quite irresistibly to the end. The style throughout is easy and graceful, and the text abounds in wise and witty reflections on the realities of existence."--_Boston Beacon._ "As a picture of a certain kind of New York life, it is correct and literal; as a study of human nature it is realistic enough to be modern, and romantic enough to be of the age of Trollope."--_Chicago Herald._ "The whole group of character studies is strong and vivid."--_The Literary World._ "There is a long succession of exceedingly strong dramatic situations which hold the reader's attention enchained to the end. This is one of the strong books of the year, and will have a large circle of readers."--_New Orleans Picayune._ * * * * * MACMILLAN & CO., 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. UNIFORM EDITION OF THE WORKS OF F. MARION CRAWFORD. =12mo. Cloth. Price $1.00 per volume.= KATHARINE LAUDERDALE. =The first of a series of novels dealing with New York life.= "Mr. Crawford at his best is a great novelist, and in 'Katharine Lauderdale' we have him at his best."--_Boston Daily Advertiser._ "A most admirable novel, excellent in style, flashing with humor, and full of the ripest and wisest reflections upon men and women."--_The Westminster Gazette._ "It is the first time, we think, in American fiction that any such breadth of view has shown itself in the study of our social framework."--_Life._ "It need scarcely be said that the story is skilfully and picturesquely written, portraying sharply individual characters in well-defined surroundings."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ "'Katharine Lauderdale' is a tale of New York, and is up to the highest level of his work. In some respects it will probably be regarded as his best. None of his works, with the exception of 'Mr. Isaacs,' shows so clearly his skill as a literary artist."--_San Francisco Evening Bulletin._ PIETRO GHISLERI. "The imaginative richness, the marvellous ingenuity of plot, the power and subtlety of the portrayal of character, the charm of the romantic environment,--the entire atmosphere, indeed,--rank this novel at once among the great creations."--_The Boston Budget._ * * * * * MACMILLAN & CO., 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. WITH THE IMMORTALS. "Altogether an admirable piece of art worked in the spirit of a thorough artist. Every reader of cultivated tastes will find it a book prolific in entertainment of the most refined description, and to all such we commend it heartily."--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._ "The strange central idea of the story could have occurred only to a writer whose mind was very sensitive to the current modern thought and progress, while its execution, the setting it forth in proper literary clothing, could be successfully attempted only by one whose active literary ability should be fully equalled by his power of assimilative knowledge both literary and scientific, and no less by his courage and capacity for hard work. The book will be found to have a fascination entirely new for the habitual reader of novels. Indeed, Mr. Crawford has succeeded in taking his readers quite above the ordinary plane of novel interest."--_Boston Advertiser._ MARZIO'S CRUCIFIX. "We take the liberty of saying that this work belongs to the highest department of character-painting in words."--_Churchman._ "We have repeatedly had occasion to say that Mr. Crawford possesses in an extraordinary degree the art of constructing a story. His sense of proportion is just, and his narrative flows along with ease and perspicuity. It is as if it could not have been written otherwise, so naturally does the story unfold itself, and so logical and consistent is the sequence of incident after incident. As a story 'Marzio's Crucifix' is perfectly constructed."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ KHALED. A Story of Arabia. "Throughout the fascinating story runs the subtlest analysis, suggested rather than elaborately worked out, of human passion and motive, the building out and development of the character of the woman who becomes the hero's wife and whose love he finally wins, being an especially acute and highly finished example of the story-teller's art. . . . That it is beautifully written and holds the interest of the reader, fanciful as it all is, to the very end, none who know the depth and artistic finish of Mr. Crawford's work need be told."--_The Chicago Times._ PAUL PATOFF. * * * * * MACMILLAN & CO., 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. ZOROASTER. "The field of Mr. Crawford's imagination appears to be unbounded. . . . In 'Zoroaster' Mr. Crawford's winged fancy ventures a daring flight. . . . Yet 'Zoroaster' is a novel rather than a drama. It is a drama in the force of its situations and in the poetry and dignity of its language; but its men and women are not men and women of a play. By the naturalness of their conversation and behavior they seem to live and lay hold of our human sympathy more than the same characters on a stage could possibly do."--_The Times._ A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. "It is a pleasure to have anything so perfect of its kind as this brief and vivid story. . . . It is doubly a success, being full of human sympathy, as well as thoroughly artistic in its nice balancing of the unusual with the commonplace, the clever juxtaposition of innocence and guilt, comedy and tragedy, simplicity and intrigue."--_Critic._ "Of all the stories Mr. Crawford has written, it is the most dramatic, the most finished, the most compact. . . . The taste which is left in one's mind after the story is finished is exactly what the fine reader desires and the novelist intends. . . . It has no defects. It is neither trifling nor trivial. It is a work of art. It is perfect."--_Boston Beacon._ AN AMERICAN POLITICIAN. * * * * * MACMILLAN & CO., 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. A CIGARETTE-MAKER'S ROMANCE. "It is a touching romance, filled with scenes of great dramatic power."--_Boston Commercial Bulletin._ "It is full of life and movement, and is one of the best of Mr. Crawford's books."--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._ "The interest is unflagging throughout. Never has Mr. Crawford done more brilliant realistic work than here. But his realism is only the case and cover for those intense feelings which, placed under no matter what humble conditions, produce the most dramatic and the most tragic situations. . . . This is a secret of genius, to take the most coarse and common material, the meanest surroundings, the most sordid material prospects, and out of the vehement passions which sometimes dominate all human beings to build up with these poor elements scenes and passages, the dramatic and emotional power of which at once enforce attention and awaken the profoundest interest."--_New York Tribune._ GREIFENSTEIN. "'Greifenstein' is a remarkable novel, and while it illustrates once more the author's unusual versatility, it also shows that he has not been tempted into careless writing by the vogue of his earlier books. . . . There is nothing weak or small or frivolous in the story. The author deals with tremendous passions working at the height of their energy. His characters are stern, rugged, determined men and women, governed by powerful prejudices and iron conventions, types of a military people, in whom the sense of duty has been cultivated until it dominates all other motives, and in whom the principle of 'noblesse oblige' is, so far as the aristocratic class is concerned, the fundamental rule of conduct. What such people may be capable of is startlingly shown."--_New York Tribune._ A ROMAN SINGER. "One of Mr. Crawford's most charming stories--a love romance pure and simple."--_Boston Home Journal._ "'A Roman Singer' is one of his most finished, compact, and successful stories, and contains a splendid picture of Italian life."--_Toronto Mail._ * * * * * MACMILLAN & CO., 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. MR. ISAACS. A Tale of Modern India. "The writer first shows the hero in relation with the people of the East and then skilfully brings into connection the Anglo-Saxon race. It is in this showing of the different effects which the two classes of minds have upon the central figure of the story that one of its chief merits lies. The characters are original, and one does not recognize any of the hackneyed personages who are so apt to be considered indispensable to novelists, and which, dressed in one guise or another, are but the marionettes, which are all dominated by the same mind, moved by the same motive force. The men are all endowed with individualism and independent life and thought. . . . There is a strong tinge of mysticism about the book which is one of its greatest charms."--_Boston Transcript._ "No story of human experience that we have met with since 'John Inglesant' has such an effect of transporting the reader into regions differing from his own. 'Mr. Isaacs' is the best novel that has ever laid its scenes in our Indian dominions."--_The Daily News, London._ DR. CLAUDIUS. A True Story. "There is a suggestion of strength, of a mastery of facts, of a fund of knowledge, that speaks well for future production. . . . To be thoroughly enjoyed, however, this book must be read, as no mere cursory notice can give an adequate idea of its many interesting points and excellences, for without a doubt 'Dr. Claudius' is the most interesting book that has been published for many months, and richly deserves a high place in the public favor."--_St. Louis Spectator._ "To our mind it by no means belies the promises of its predecessor. The story, an exceedingly improbable and romantic one, is told with much skill; the characters are strongly marked without any suspicion of caricature, and the author's ideas on social and political subjects are often brilliant and always striking. It is no exaggeration to say that there is not a dull page in the book, which is peculiarly adapted for the recreation of student or thinker."--_Living Church._ TO LEEWARD. "A story of remarkable power."--_Review of Reviews._ "Mr. Crawford has written many strange and powerful stories of Italian life, but none can be any stranger or more powerful than 'To Leeward,' with its mixture of comedy and tragedy, innocence and guilt."--_Cottage Hearth._ * * * * * MACMILLAN & CO., 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. SARACINESCA. "His highest achievement, as yet, in the realms of fiction. The work has two distinct merits, either of which would serve to make it great,--that of telling a perfect story in a perfect way, and of giving a graphic picture of Roman society in the last days of the pope's temporal power. . . . The story is exquisitely told."--_Boston Traveler._ "One of the most engrossing novels we have ever read."--_Boston Times._ SANT' ILARIO. A sequel to "Saracinesca." "The author shows steady and constant improvement in his art. 'Sant' Ilario' is a continuation of the chronicles of the Saracinesca family. . . . A singularly powerful and beautiful story. . . . Admirably developed, with a naturalness beyond praise. . . . It must rank with 'Greifenstein' as the best work the author has produced. It fulfils every requirement of artistic fiction. It brings out what is most impressive in human action, without owing any of its effectiveness to sensationalism or artifice. It is natural, fluent in evolution, accordant with experience, graphic in description, penetrating in analysis, and absorbing in interest."--_New York Tribune._ DON ORSINO. A continuation of "Saracinesca" and "Sant' Ilario." "The third in a rather remarkable series of novels dealing with three generations of the Saracinesca family, entitled respectively 'Saracinesca,' 'Sant' Ilario,' and 'Don Orsino,' and these novels present an important study of Italian life, customs, and conditions during the present century. Each one of these novels is worthy of very careful reading, and offers exceptional enjoyment in many ways, in the fascinating absorption of good fiction, in interest of faithful historic accuracy, and in charm of style. The 'new Italy' is strikingly revealed in 'Don Orsino.'"--_Boston Budget._ "We are inclined to regard the book as the most ingenious of all Mr. Crawford's fictions. Certainly it is the best novel of the season."--_Evening Bulletin._ * * * * * MACMILLAN & CO., 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. THE THREE FATES. "The strength of the story lies in its portrayal of the aspirations, disciplinary efforts, trials, and triumphs of the man who is a born writer, and who, by long and painful experiences, learns the good that is in him and the way in which to give it effectual expression. The analytical quality of the book is excellent, and the individuality of each one of the very dissimilar three fates is set forth in an entirely satisfactory manner. . . . Mr. Crawford has manifestly brought his best qualities as a student of human nature and his finest resources as a master of an original and picturesque style to bear upon this story. Taken for all in all it is one of the most pleasing of all his productions in fiction, and it affords a view of certain phases of American, or perhaps we should say of New York, life that have not hitherto been treated with anything like the same adequacy and felicity."--_Boston Beacon._ CHILDREN OF THE KING. A Tale of Southern Italy. "A sympathetic reader cannot fail to be impressed with the dramatic power of this story. The simplicity of nature, the uncorrupted truth of a soul, have been portrayed by a master-hand. The suddenness of the unforeseen tragedy at the last renders the incident of the story powerful beyond description. One can only feel such sensations as the last scene of the story incites. It may be added that if Mr. Crawford has written some stories unevenly, he has made no mistakes in the stories of Italian life. A reader of them cannot fail to gain a clearer, fuller acquaintance with the Italians and the artistic spirit that pervades the country."--M. L. B. in _Syracuse Journal_. THE WITCH OF PRAGUE. A Fantastic Tale. ILLUSTRATED BY W. J. HENNESSY. "'The Witch of Prague' is so remarkable a book as to be certain of as wide a popularity as any of its predecessors. The keenest interest for most readers will lie in its demonstration of the latest revelations of hypnotic science. . . . It is a romance of singular daring and power."--_London Academy._ "Mr. Crawford has written in many keys, but never in so strange a one as that which dominates 'The Witch of Prague.' . . . The artistic skill with which this extraordinary story is constructed and carried out is admirable and delightful. . . . Mr. Crawford has scored a decided triumph, for the interest of the tale is sustained throughout. . . . A very remarkable, powerful, and interesting story."--_New York Tribune._ * * * * * MACMILLAN & CO., 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Vol. 1 Page 50, "retractation" changed to "retraction" (of a general retraction) Page 83, "baiscchi" changed to "baiocchi" (ten baiocchi for) Vol. 2 Page 27, "premiss" changed to "premise" (a false premise) Page 29, "premisses" changed to "premises" (assumed premises) Page 118, "np" changed to "up" (paused, looked up) Page 152, "orf" changed to "or" (or the letter was) Page 219, "Calpasta" changed to "Calpesta" (Calpesta il mio) Page xvi, letter "i" missing in "generations" replaced (generations of the Saracinesca) 
40181	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 40181-h.htm or 40181-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40181/40181-h/40181-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40181/40181-h.zip) The Complete Works of F. Marion Crawford TO LEEWARD by F. MARION CRAWFORD With Frontispiece P. F. Collier & Son New York Copyright 1883 And 1892 By F. Marion Crawford All Rights Reserved TO My Uncle SAMUEL WARD OF NEW YORK THIS NOVEL IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED [Illustration: THE LAST RAYS OF THE SUN SHONE HORIZONTALLY ACROSS THE TERRACE.] TO LEEWARD. CHAPTER I. There are two Romes. There is the Rome of the intelligent foreigner, consisting of excavations, monuments, tramways, hotels, typhoid fever, incense, and wax candles; and there is the Rome within, a city of antique customs, good and bad, a town full of aristocratic prejudices, of intrigues, of religion, of old-fashioned honour and new-fashioned scandal, of happiness and unhappiness, of just people and unjust. Besides all this, there is a very modern court and a government of the future, which may almost be said to make up together a third city. Moreover, these several coexistent cities, and their corresponding inhabitants, are subdivided to an infinity of gradations, in order to contain all and make room for all. The foreigner who hunts excavations does not cross the path of the foreigner who sniffs after incense, any more than the primeval aristocrat sits down to dinner with the representative of fashionable scandal; any more than the just man would ever allow the unjust to be introduced to him. They all enjoy so thoroughly the freedom to ignore each other that they would not for worlds endanger the safety of the barrier that separates them. Of course, as they all say, this state of things cannot last. There must ultimately be an amalgamation, a deluge, a unity, fraternity and equality; a state of things in which we shall say, "Sois mon frère, ou je te tue,"--a future glorious, disgusting, or dull, according as you look at it. But, meanwhile, it is all very charming, and there is plenty for every one to enjoy, and an abundance for every one to abuse. When Marcantonio Carantoni saw his sister married to a Frenchman, he was exceedingly glad that she had not married an Englishman, a Turk, a Jew, or an infidel. The Vicomte de Charleroi was, and is, a gentleman; rather easy-going, perhaps, and inclined to look upon republics in general, and the French republic in particular, with the lenient eye of the man who owns land and desires peace first--and a monarchy afterwards, whenever convenient. But in these days it is not altogether worthy of blame that a man should look after his worldly interests and goods; for how else can the aristocracy expect to make any headway against the stream of grimy bourgeois, who sell everything at a profit, while the nobles buy everything at a loss? So Marcantonio is satisfied with his brother-in-law, and just now is particularly delighted because Charleroi has got himself appointed to a post in Rome; and he goes to see his sister every day, for he is very fond of her. In truth, it is not surprising that Marcantonio should like his sister, for she is a very charming woman. She is beautiful, too, in a grand way, with her auburn hair, and grey eyes, and fair skin; but no one can help feeling that she might be quite as beautiful, and yet be anything but charming; so many beautiful people are vain, or shy, or utterly idiotic. Madame de Charleroi is something of a paragon, and has as many enemies as most paragons have, but they can find nothing to feed their envy. She was very unhappy years ago, but time has closed the wounds, or has hidden them from sight, and her dearest friends can only say that she was cold and showed very little heart. When the world says that a woman is a piece of ice, you may generally be sure that she is both beautiful and good, so that it can find nothing worse to say. Marcantonio Carantoni's sister is a paragon, and there are only two things to be said against her,--she did not marry Charleroi for love, and she has not done half the things in the world that she might have done. On the January afternoon which marks the opening of this story, the brother and sister sat together in a small boudoir in the Carantoni palace; there was room for all in the great house, and as Marcantonio was not married, it was natural that his sister and her husband, with their children, governesses, servants, and horses should occupy the untenanted part of the ancestral mansion. Up in the second story there is a room such as you would not expect to find within those grey and ancient walls, where the lower windows are heavily grated, and huge stone coats of arms frown forbiddingly from above. It is a room all sun and flowers and modern furniture, though not of the more hideous type of newness,--modern in the sense of comfortable, well padded and well aired. The afternoon sun was pouring in through the closed windows, and there was a small wood fire in the narrow fireplace. The Vicomtesse de Charleroi sat warming her toes, and her brother was rolling a cigarette as he looked at her. A short silence had succeeded a somewhat animated discussion. She looked at the fire, and he looked at her. "My dear Diana," said Marcantonio at last, rising to get himself a match, "what in the world can you have against her? We are not Hindoos, you know, to talk about caste in these days; and even if that were the objection, she comes of very proper people, I am sure, though they are foreigners." Madame moved her feet impatiently. "Oh, you know it is not that!" she said petulantly. "As if I had not married a foreigner myself! But then, if you had felt about it as I feel about this, I would have thought twice"-- "Have I not thought twice--and three times?" "Of course, yes--while your head is hot with this fancy. Yes, you have probably thought a hundred times, at least, this very day. Listen to me, my dear boy, and do what I tell you. Go away to Paris, or London, or Vienna, for a fortnight, and then come back and tell me what you think about it. Will you not do that--to please me?" "But why?" objected Marcantonio, looking very uncomfortable, for he hated to refuse his sister anything. "Seriously, why should I not marry her? Is there anything against her? If there is, tell me." Donna Diana rose rather wearily and went to the window. "I wish you would abandon the whole idea," she said. "I am quite sure you will repent when it is too late. I do not believe in these young girls who occupy themselves with philosophy and the good of the human race. Politics--well, we all have a finger in politics; but this dreadful progressive thought--it is turning the world upside down." "Oh--it is the philosophy that you do not like about her? Well, my dear sister, that is exactly what I think so interesting. This young English Hypatia"-- "Hypatia, indeed!" cried Donna Diana rather scornfully. "Yes. Is she not learned?" "Perhaps." "And beautiful?" "No,--certainly not. She is simply a little pretty." Marcantonio shrugged his shoulders. "Of course," he said, "you will not allow it." His sister looked round quickly. "That is rude," she said. In a moment her brother was by her side. "Forgive me, Diana mia; you know I did not mean it. But you see I think she is beautiful, and that is everything, after all." "Yes," answered she, "I suppose it is everything, now. But philosophy is not everything. Put her out of your head, dear boy, and do not say any more rude things." Marcantonio had the power to avoid being rude, but he was not able to follow the other piece of advice. He could not put her out of his head. On the contrary, he went out and shut himself up in his own rooms and thought of her for a whole hour. He was not at all like his sister in appearance, though he resembled her somewhat in character. He was of middle height, sparely built, dark of skin, and aquiline of feature; neither handsome nor ugly, but very decidedly refined,--gentle of speech and kind of face. Without any more vanity than most people, he was yet always a little more carefully dressed than other men, and consequently passed for a dandy. Altogether, he was a pleasant person to look at, but not especially remarkable at first sight. As regards his position, he bore an ancient name, dignified with the title of marquis; he was an only son, and his parents were dead; he owned the fine old palace in Rome and a good deal of land elsewhere; he never gambled, and was generally considered to be rich, as fortunes go in modern Italy. Of course, he was a good match, and many were the hints he received, from time to time, to the effect that he would be very acceptable as a son-in-law. Nevertheless he was not married, and he did not particularly care for the society of women. In truth, women did not find him very amenable, for he would not marry, and could not play adoration well enough to please them. So they left him alone. Grave old gentlemen nodded approvingly when they spoke of him, and his uncle the cardinal regarded him as one of the mainstays of the clerical party. As a matter of fact, he did not aspire to anything of the kind, and was merely a very honest young nobleman of good education, who had not made for himself any interest in life, but who nevertheless found life very agreeable. Possessing many good qualities, he yet knew very well that he had never been put to the test, nor required to show much strength of character; and he did not wish to be put into any such position. His sister was very fond of him, but she sometimes caught herself wishing he would do something a little out of the everlasting common round of social respectability. He was twenty-nine years old, and she was a year younger. Of late, however, it had become apparent that Marcantonio, Marchese Carantoni, had not only found an interest in life, but had also discovered in himself the strength of will necessary to its prosecution. The dull regularity of his existence was shaken to its foundations, and out of the vast social sea a figure had risen which was destined to destroy the old order of things with him, and to create a new one. There was no doubt about it; not so much because he himself said so, as because his whole manner and being proclaimed the fact. He was seriously in love. Worse than that, he was in love with a lady of whom his sister did not approve, and he evidently meant to marry, whether she liked it or not. He was seriously in love; and, indeed, love ought always to be a serious thing, or else it should be called by another name. There is a great deal of very poor nonsense talked and written about love by persons only vicariously acquainted with it; and it is a great pity, because there is absolutely no subject so permanently interesting to humanity as love, whether in life or in fiction. And there is no subject which deserves more tenderness and delicacy, or which requires more strength in the handling. The relation of brother and sister is unlike any other. It represents the only possible absolutely permanent and platonic affection between young men and young women. Its foundation is in identity of blood instead of in the spontaneous sympathy of the heart, and even when brother and sister quarrel they understand each other. Lovers frequently do not understand each other when they are on the best of terms, and the small difference of opinion grows by that misunderstanding until it makes an impassable gulf. Brothers and sisters may be estranged, separated, divided by family quarrels or by the bloody exigencies of civil war, but if once they are thrown together again the mysterious attraction of consanguinity shows itself, and their life begins again where it had been broken off by untoward fate. Madame de Charleroi was inclined to be angry with Marcantonio, and when he was gone she sat by the fire, wondering what he would be like when he should be married. Somehow she had never thought of him as married, certainly not as married to a pernicious young English girl, with all sorts of queer ideas in her brain, and a tendency to sympathise with the dynamite party. He might surely have chosen better than that. Donna Diana was not a woman of narrow prejudices, but she really could not be expected to be pleased at seeing her brother, a Catholic gentleman, bent on uniting himself to a foreign girl with no fortune, no beauty--well, not much--and a taste for explosives. He might surely have chosen better. Donna Diana thought of her father, and fancied what he would have said to such a match, the strict old nobleman. And so, between her thoughts and her memories the afternoon wore on, and she bethought herself that it was time to go out. The horses spun along the streets through the crisp golden air, and now and then a ray of the lowering sun caught them as they dashed through some open place on the way, making them look like burnished metal. And the light touched Madame de Charleroi's beautiful face and auburn hair, so that the people stood still to look at her as she passed,--for every Roman knew Donna Diana Carantoni by sight, just as every Roman knows every other Roman, man, woman and child, distinguishing lovingly between the Romans of Rome and the Romans of the north. By and by the carriage rolled through the iron gates of the Pincio, and along the drive to the open terrace where the band plays, till it stood still behind the row of stone posts, within hearing of the music. The place has been absolutely described to death, and everybody knows exactly how it looks. There are flowers, and a band-stand, and babies, and a view of St. Peter's. The first person Donna Diana saw was her brother, standing disconsolately by one of the short pillars and looking at each carriage as it drove up. He was evidently waiting for some one who did not come. His black moustache drooped sadly, and his face was so melancholy that his sister smiled as she watched him. Marcantonio was soon aware of her presence, but he had no intention of showing it, and studiously kept his head turned towards the drive, watching the line of carriages. Madame de Charleroi was quickly surrounded by a crowd of men, all dressed precisely alike, and all anxious to say something that might attract the attention of the famous beauty. Presently they bored her, and her carriage moved on; whereupon they pulled their hats off and began to chatter scandal amongst themselves, after the manner of their kind. They nodded to Marcantonio as they passed him in a body, and he was left alone. The sun was setting, and there was a purple light over the flats behind the Vatican, recently flooded by a rise in the Tiber. There was no longer any object in waiting, and the young man sauntered slowly down the steps and the steep drive to the Piazza del Popolo, and entered the Corso. To tell the truth, he was disappointed, bored, annoyed, and angry, all at once. He had fully expected to see her, and to find consolation in some sweet words for the hard things his sister had said to him. Perhaps also he had enjoyed the prospect of exhibiting himself to his sister in the society of the lady in question,--for Marcantonio was obstinate, and had just discovered the fact, so that he was anxious to show it. Men who are new in fighting are sure to press every advantage, not having yet learned their strength; but in the course of time they become more generous. Marcantonio was therefore grievously chagrined at being cheated of his small demonstration of independence, besides being a little wounded in his pride, and honestly disappointed at not meeting the young lady he meant to marry. In this state of mind he strolled down the Corso, looked up at her windows, passed and repassed before the house, and ultimately inquired of the confidential porter, who knew him, whether she were at home. The porter said he had not seen the signorina, but that one of the servants had told him she was indisposed. The marchese bit his black moustache and went away in a sad mood. CHAPTER II. Miss Leonora Carnethy was suffering from an acute attack of philosophical despair, which accounted for her not appearing with her mother on the Pincio. The immediate cause of the fit was the young lady's inability to comprehend Hegel's statement that "Nothing is the same as Being;" and as it was not only necessary to understand it, but also, in Miss Carnethy's view, to reconcile it with some dozens of other philosophical propositions all diametrically opposed to it and to each other, the consequence of the attempt was the most chaotic and hopeless failure on record in the annals of thought. Under these circumstances, Miss Carnethy shut herself up in a dark room, went to bed, and agreed with Hegel that Nothing was precisely the same as Being. She thus scattered all the other philosophies to the angry airts of heaven at one fell sweep, and she felt sure she was going to be a Hindoo. This sounds a little vague, but nothing could be vaguer than Miss Carnethy's state of mind. Having agreed with Mr. Herbert Spencer that the grand main-spring of life is the pursuit of happiness, and that no other motive has any real influence in human affairs, it was a little hard to find that there was nothing in anything, after all. But then, since her own being was also nothing, why should she trouble herself? Evidently it was impossible for nothing to trouble itself, and so the only possible peace must lie in realising her own nothingness, which could be best accomplished by going to bed in a dark room. It was very dreary, of course, but she felt it was good logic, and must tell in the long run. It had happened before. There had been days when she had reached the same point by a different road, and had been satisfactorily roused by a flash of intelligence shedding enough light in her darkened course to give her a new direction. To-day, however, it was quite different. She had certainly now reached the absolute end of all speculation, for she was convinced of the general nothingness of all created strength and life. "For," said she, "I am quite sure that if I saw a train coming down upon me now, I would not get out of the way,--unless, the train being nothing, and I also nothing, two nothings should make something. But Hegel does not say that, and of course he knew, or he would not have understood that Nothing is the same as Being." This kind of argument is irreproachable. It is like the old lady who said she was so glad that she did not like spinach, because if she did she would eat it, and, as she detested it, that would be very unpleasant. There is no answer possible to a properly grounded philosophical argument of this kind. On the whole, Miss Carnethy did the right thing when she tried to realise the physical being of nothing. This Leonora was no ordinary girl. She belonged to a small class of young women who take a certain delight in being different from "the rest"--higher, of course. She had the misfortune to be of a mixed race, so far as blood was concerned, for her father was English and her mother was a Russian. It would probably be hard to find people more utterly unlike than these two, for the beef-eating conqueror is one, and the fire-eating Tartar is quite another, while this unlucky child of an international parentage had something of each. Her history--she was twenty-two years of age, then--might be summed up in a very few words. An English child, an Italian girl, a Russian woman. Her father had many prejudices, and did not believe in much; her mother had no prejudices at all, and believed in everything under the sun, and in a few things besides, so that certain evilly disposed persons had even said of her that she was superstitious. There is something infinitely pathetic about such a growing to maturity as had made Leonora Carnethy what she was. Imagine such an anomaly as a poor little seed, of which no one can say whether it is a rose or a nightshade, alternately treated as a fair blossom and as a poisonous weed. Imagine a young girl, full of a certain fierce courage and impatience of restraint, chafing under the moral flat iron of a hopelessly proper father, whose mind is of the great levelling type and his prejudices as mountains of stone in the midst, reared to heaven like pyramids to impose a personal moral geography on the human landscape; and imagine the same girl further possessed of certain truly British instincts of continuity and unreasonable perseverance, eternally offending by her persistence a mother whose strong point is a kind of gymnastic superstition, a strange perversity of exuberant belief, forcing itself into the place of principle where there is none,--imagine a young girl in such a situation, in such a childhood, and it will not seem strange that she should grow up to be a very odd woman. The father and mother understood each other after a fashion, but neither of them ever understood Leonora, and so Leonora tried to understand herself. To this laudable end she devoured books and ideas of all sorts and kinds, not always perceiving whether she took the poison first and the antidote afterwards, or the contrary, or even whether she fed entirely on poisons or entirely on antidotes. Poor child! she found truth very hard to define, and the criticism exercised by pure reason a very insufficient weapon. Moreover, like Job of old, she had friends and comforters to help in making life hideous. She wondered to-day, as she lay in her darkened room, whether any of them would come, and the thought was unpleasant. She had just made up her mind to ring the bell and tell her maid that no one should be admitted, when the door opened after the least possible apology for a knock, and she realised that she had thought of the contingency too late. "Dear Leonora!" "Dearest Leonora!" The room was so dark that the young ladies stood still at the door, as they fired off the first shots of their brimming affection. Leonora moved so as to see their dark figures against the light. "Oh," she said, "is it you?" She was not glad to see her dear friends, for her fits of philosophical despair were real while they lasted, and she hated to be disturbed in them. But as these two young women were her companions in the study of universal hollowness, she felt that she must bear with them. So, after a little hesitation she allowed them to let some light into the room, and they sat down and held her hands. "We want to talk to you about Infinite Time!" "And Infinite Space!" "I am persuaded," said the first young lady, "that our ideas of Time are quite mistaken. This system of hours and minutes is not adapted to the larger view." "No," said Leonora, "for Time is evidently a portion of universal pure Being, and is therefore Nothing. I am sure of it." "No. Time is not Nothing,--it is Colour." "How do you mean, dear?" asked Leonora in some surprise. "I do not quite know, dearest, but I am sure it must be. It is quite certain that Colour is a fundamental conception." "Of course." There was a pause. Apparently the identity of Infinite Time with Colour did not interest Miss Carnethy, who stared at the light through the blinds between her two friends. "It seems to me that we girls have no field nowadays," said she, rather irrelevantly. "An infinite field, dear." "And infinite time, dearest." "I would give anything I possess to be able to do anything for anybody," began Leonora. "We know so much about life in theory, and we know nothing about it in practice. I wish mamma would even let me order the dinner sometimes; it would be something. But of course it is all an illusion, and nothing, and very infinite." Poor Miss Carnethy turned on her pillow with a dreary look in her eyes. "It will be different when you are married, dear," suggested one. "Of course," acquiesced the other. "But can you not see," objected Miss Carnethy, "that we shall never marry men whose ideas are so high and beautiful as ours? And then, to be tied forever to some miserable creature! Fancy not being understood! What do these wretched society men care about the really great questions of life?" "About Time--" "And Infinite Space--" "Nothing, nothing, nothing!" cried Miss Carnethy in real distress. "And yet it would be dreadful to be an old maid"-- "Perfectly dreadful, of course!" exclaimed all three, in a breath. Then there was a short silence, during which Leonora moved uneasily, and finally sat up, her heavy red hair falling all about her. "By the bye," she said at last, "have you been out to-day, dears? What have you been doing? Tell me all about it." "We have been to Lady Smyth-Tompkins's tea. It was very empty." "You mean very hollow, for there were many people there." "Yes," said the other, "it was very hollow--empty--everything of that sort. Then we went to drive on the Pincio." "So very void." "Yes. We saw Carantoni leaning against a post. I am sure he was thinking of nothing. He looks just like a stuffed glove,--such an inane dandy!" Miss Carnethy's blue eyes suddenly looked as though they were conscious of something more than mere emptiness in the world. Her strong, well-shaped red lips set themselves like a bent bow, and the shaft was not long in flying. "He is very pleasant to talk to," said she, "and besides--he really dances beautifully." It was probably a standing grievance with her two friends that Marcantonio did not dance with them, or Leonora could scarcely have produced such an impression in so few words. "What does he talk about?" asked one, with an affectation of indifference. "Oh, all sorts of things," answered Leonora. "He does not believe at all in the greatest good of the greatest number. He says he has discovered the Spencerian fallacy, as he calls it." "Alas, then that also is nothing!" "Absolutely nothing, dear," continued Leonora. "He says that, if there is no morality beyond happiness"-- "Of course!" --"then every individual has as much right to be happy as the whole human race put together, since he is under no moral obligation to anybody or anything, there being no abstract morality. Do you see? It is very pretty. And then he says it follows that there is no absolute good unless from a divine standard, which of course is pure nonsense, or ought to be, if Hegel is right." "Dear me! Of course it is!" "And so, dears," concluded Leonora triumphantly, "we are all going to the Devil do you see?" The association of ideas seemed exhilarating to Miss Carnethy, and in truth the conclusion was probably suggested more by her feelings than by her logic, if she really possessed any. She felt better, and would put off the further consideration of Nothing and Being to some more convenient season. She therefore gave her friends some tea in her bedroom, and the conversation became more and more earthly, and the subjects more and more minute, until they seemed to be thoroughly within the grasp of the three young ladies. At last they went, these two charming damsels, very much impressed with Leonora's cleverness, and very much interested in her future,--which she would only refer to in the vaguest terms possible. They were both extremely fashionable young persons, possessed of dowries, good looks, and various other charms, such as good birth, good manners, and the like; and it would be futile to deny that they took a lively interest in the doings of their world, however hollow and vain the cake appeared to them between two bites. "Are you going to-night, Leonora dear?" they inquired as they left her. "Of course," answered Miss Carnethy. "I must hear the rest of the 'Spencerian fallacy' you know!" When Leonora was alone she had a great many things to think of. The atmosphere had cleared during the last hour, so far as philosophy was concerned, and as she looked at herself in the glass, she was wondering how she should look in the evening. Not vainly,--at least, not so vainly as most girls with her advantages might have thought,--but reflectively, the English side of her twofold nature having gained the upper hand. For as she gazed into her own blue eyes, trying to search and fathom her own soul, she was conscious of something that gave her pleasure and hope,--something which she had treated scornfully enough in her thoughts that very afternoon. She knew, for her mother had told her, that Marcantonio Carantoni had written to her parents, had called, had an interview, and had been told that he should be an acceptable son-in-law, provided that he could obtain Leonora's consent. She knew also that in the natural course of things he would this very evening ask her to be his wife; and, lastly, she knew very well that she would accept him. She wondered vaguely how all those strange unsettled ideas of hers would harmonise in a married life. How far should she and her husband ever agree? She had a photograph of him in her desk, which he had given to her mother, and which she had naturally stolen and hidden away. Now she took it out and brought it to the window, and looked at it minutely, wonderingly, as she had looked at herself in the mirror a moment earlier. Yes, he was a proper husband enough, with his bright honest eyes and his brave aristocratic nose and black moustache. Not very intelligent, perhaps, by the higher standard,--that everlasting "higher standard" again,--but withal goodly and noble as a lover should be. A lover? What weal and woe of heart-stirring romance that word used to suggest! And so this was her lover, the one man of all others dreamed of as a future divinity throughout her passionate girlhood. A creature of sighs and stolen glances--ay, perhaps of stolen kisses--a lover should be; breathing soft things and glancing hot glances. Was Marcantonio really her lover? He was so honest--and so rich! He could hardly want her for her dower's sake,--no, she knew that was impossible. For her beauty's sake, then? No, she was not so beautiful as that, and never could be, though the fashion had changed and red hair was in vogue. A pretty conceit, that mankind should make one half of creation fashionable at the expense of the other! But it is so all the same, and always will be. However, even with red hair, and an immense quantity of it, she was not a great beauty. Perhaps Marcantonio would have married a great beauty if he could have met one who would accept him. It would not be nice, she thought, to marry a man who could not have the best if he chose. To think that he might ever look back and wish she were as beautiful as some one else! But after much earnest consideration of the matter no image of "some one else" rose to her mind, and she confessed with some triumph that she was not jealous of any one; that he had chosen her for herself, and that she was without rival so far as he was concerned. Not even her friends, the one dark and classic, the other fair and dreamy, could boast of having roused his interest. That was a great advantage. But did she care for him--did she love him? Of course; how else should it be possible for her, with her high ideas of man's goodness, to think of ever consenting to marry him? Of course she loved him. It was not exactly the kind of thing she expected, when she used to think of love a year ago; when love was a detached ideal with wings and arrows, and all manner of romantic and mythical attributes. But considering how very hollow and barren she had demonstrated the world to be, this thing had a certain life about it. It was a real sensation, beyond a doubt, and not an unhappy one either. The room grew dark and she sat a few moments, the photograph lying idly in her hand. Out of the dusk, coming from the fairyland of her girl's fancy, rose a figure, the figure of the ideal lover she used to evoke before she knew Marcantonio Carantoni. He was a different sort of person altogether, much taller and broader and fiercer; a very impossibility of a man, coming towards her, and upsetting everything in his course; trampling rough-shod over the mangled fragments of her former idols, over society, over Marcantonio, over everything till he was close and near her, touching her hand, touching her lips, clasping her to him in fierce triumph, and bearing her away in a whirlwind of strength. A quick sigh, and she let the photograph fall to the ground, sinking back in her chair with a light in her eyes that overcame the darkness. Dreamland, dreamland, what fools you make of us all! What strange characters there are among the slides of your theatre, only awaiting the nod of Sleep, the manager, to issue forth, and rant and rave, make love and mischief, do battle and murder, play the scoundrel and the hero, till our poor brains reel and the daylight is turned on again, and all the players vanish into the thinnest of thin air! Miss Carnethy rang for her maid, who brought lights and closed the shutters and let down the curtains preparatory to dressing her mistress for dinner. Leonora looked down and saw Marcantonio's photograph lying where it had fallen. She picked it up and looked at it once more by the candle light. "Perhaps I shall refuse him after all," she thought, coldly enough, and she put it back into the drawer of her desk. Perhaps you are right, Miss Carnethy, and the world is stuffed with sawdust. CHAPTER III. The soft thick air of the ball-room swayed rhythmically to the swell and fall of the violins; the perfume of roses and lilies was whirled into waves of sweetness, and the beating of many young hearts seemed to tremble musically through the nameless harmony of instrument and voice, and rustling silk, and gliding feet. In the passionately moving symphony of sound and sight and touch, the whole weal and woe and longing of life throbbed in a threefold pace. The dwellers in an older world did well to call the dance divine, and to make it the gift of a nimble goddess; truly, without a waltz the world would have lacked a very divine element. Few people can really doubt what the step was that David danced before the ark. The ball was at a house where members of various parties met by common consent as on neutral ground. There are few such houses in Rome, or, indeed, anywhere else, as there are very few people clever enough, or stupid enough, to manage such an establishment. Men of entirely inimical convictions and associations will occasionally go to the house of a great genius or a great fool, out of sheer curiosity, and are content to enjoy themselves and even to talk to each other a little, when no one is looking. It is neutral ground, and the white flag of the ball-dress keeps the peace as it sweeps past the black cloth legs of clericals and the grey cloth legs of the military contingent, past the legs of all sorts and conditions of men elbowing each other for a front place with the ladies. Conspicuous by her height and rare magnificence of queenly beauty was Madame de Charleroi, moving stately along as she rested her fingers on the arm of a minister less than half her size. But there was a look of weariness and preoccupation on her features that did not escape her dear friends. "Diana is certainly going to be thin and scraggy," remarked a black-browed dame of Rome, fat and solid, a perfect triumph of the flesh. She said it behind her fan to her neighbour. "It is sad," said the other, "she is growing old." "Ah yes," remarked her husband, who chanced to be standing by and was in a bad humour, "she was born in 1844, the year you left school, my dear." The black-browed lady smiled sweetly at her discomfited friend, who looked unutterable scorn at her consort. Donna Diana glanced uneasily about the room, expecting every moment to see her brother appear with Miss Carnethy. She was very unhappy about the whole affair, though she could not exactly explain to herself the reason of what she felt. Miss Carnethy was rich, had a certain kind of distinguished beauty about her, was young, well-born,--but all that did not compensate in Madame de Charleroi's mind for the fact that she was a heretic, a freethinker, a dabbler in progressist ideas, and--and--what? She could not tell. It must be prejudice of the most absurd kind! She would not submit to it a moment longer, and if the opportunity offered she would go to Miss Carnethy and say something pleasant to her. Donna Diana had a very kind and gentle Italian heart hidden away in her proud bosom, and she had also a determination to be just and honest in all situations,--most of all when she feared that her personal sympathies were leading her away. The diplomat at her side chatted pleasantly, perceiving that she was wholly preoccupied; he talked quite as much to himself as to her, after he had discovered that she was not listening. And Donna Diana determined to do a kind action, and the swinging rhythm of the straining, surging waltz was in her ears. She was just wondering idly enough what the little diplomat had been saying to her during the last ten minutes, when she saw her brother enter the room with Miss Carnethy on his arm. They had met in one of the outer drawing-rooms and had come in to dance. Donna Diana watched them as they caught the measure and whirled away. "She is terribly interesting," remarked the little man beside her as he noticed where she was looking. "She is also decidedly a beauty," answered Madame de Charleroi, with the calm authority of a woman whose looks have never been questioned. People who are in love are proverbially amusing objects to the general public. There is an air of shyness about them, or else a ridiculous incapacity for perceiving the details of life, or at least an absurd infatuation for each other, most refreshing to witness. There is no mistaking the manner of them, if the thing is genuine. The sadness that had been on Donna Diana's face, and which the resolution to be civil to Miss Carnethy had momentarily dispelled, returned now, as she watched the young couple. She remembered her own courtship, and she fancied she saw similar conditions in the wooing now going on under her eyes. Marcantonio was furiously in love, after his manner, but she thought Leonora's face looked hard. How could she let her brother marry a woman who did not love him? Her resolution to be civil wavered. But just then, as luck would have it, the waltz brought the pair near to her. Marcantonio was talking pleasantly, with a quick smile that came and went at every minute. Leonora stood looking down and toying with her fan. One instant she looked up at him, and Donna Diana saw the look and the quick-caught heave of the snowy neck. "I do not know what it is," she said to herself, "but it is certainly love of some kind." She moved towards them, steering her little diplomat through the sea of silk and satin, jewels and lace. "How do you do, Mademoiselle Carnethy?" she said, in a voice that was meant to be kind, and was at least very civil. Leonora stood somewhat in awe of the Vicomtesse de Charleroi, who was so stately and beautiful and cold. But she was very much pleased at the mark of attention. It was an approval, and an approval of the most public kind. The few words they exchanged were therefore all that could be desired. The vicomtesse nodded, smiled, nodded again, and sailed away in the easy swinging cadence of the waltz. Marcantonio looked gratefully after her. The air was warm and soft, and the light fluff from the linen carpet hung like a summer haze over the people, and the hundreds of candles, and the masses of flowers. Marcantonio was silent. Something in the air told him that the time had come for him to speak,--something in Miss Carnethy's look told him plainly enough, he thought, that he was not to speak in vain. The last notes of the waltz chased each other away and died, and the people fell to walking about and talking. Marcantonio gave Leonora his arm, and the pair moved off with the stream, and on through the great rooms till they reached an apartment less crowded than the rest, and sat down near a doorway. The young man did not lack courage, and he was honestly in love with Leonora. He felt little hesitation about speaking, and only wished to put the question as frankly and as courteously as might be. As for her, she was obliged to acknowledge that she was agitated, although she had said to herself a hundred times that she would be as calm as though she were talking about the weather. But now that the supreme moment had come, a strange beating rose in her breast, and her face was as white as her throat. She looked obstinately before her, seeing nothing, and striving to appear to the world as though nothing were happening. Marcantonio sat by her side, and glanced quickly at her two or three times, with a very slight feeling of uncertainty as to the result of his wooing,--very slight, but enough to make waiting impossible, where the stake was so high. "Mademoiselle," he said, in low and earnest tones, "I have the permission of monsieur your father, and of madame your mother, to address you upon a subject which very closely concerns my happiness. Mademoiselle, will you be my wife?" He sat leaning a little towards her, his hands folded together, and his face illuminated for a moment with intense love and anxiety. But Miss Carnethy did not see the look, and only heard the formal proposition his words conveyed. She saw a man standing in the door near them; she knew him--a Mr. Batiscombe, an English man of letters--and she wondered a little whether he would have used the same phrases in asking a woman to marry him,--whether all men would speak alike in such a case. She had looked forward to this scene--more than once. Again the figure of the ideal lover of her dreams came to her, and seemed to pour out strong speech of love. Again she involuntarily drew a comparison in her mind between Marcantonio and some one, something she could not define. On a sudden all the honesty of her conscience sprang up and showed her what she really felt. A thousand times she had said to herself that she would never marry a man she did not love; and for once that she had said it to herself, she had said it ten times over to her friends, feeling that she was inculcating a good and serviceable lesson. And now her conscience told her that she did not love Marcantonio,--at least not truly, certainly not as much as she would have liked to love. Then she remembered what she had thought that afternoon. How was it possible that she could have thought of him for a moment as her husband, if she did not love him,--especially with her high standard about such things? Oh, that high standard! With a quick transition of thought she made up her mind; but there was a strange little feeling of pain in her, such as the prince might have felt in the fairy tale when the ring pricked him. Nevertheless, her mind was made up. "Yes," she said very suddenly, turning so that she could almost see his eyes, but not quite, for she instinctively dreaded to look him in the face; "yes, I will be your wife." "Merci, mademoiselle," he said. The room was nearly empty at the moment, and Marcantonio took her passive hand and touched her fingers with his lips, being quite sure that no one was looking. But the man who stood at the door saw it. "Such a good match, you know!" said some people, who had no prejudices. "Such a special grace!" said the resident Anglo-American Catholics; "he is quite sure to convert her!" "Such a special grace!" exclaimed the resident Anglo-American Protestants; "she is quite sure to lead him back!" "Il faut toujours se méfier des saints," remarked Marcantonio's uncle, concerning his nephew. "Never trust red-haired women," said the man who had stood at the door. The engagement made a sensation in Rome, a consummation very easily attained, and very little to be desired. In places where the intercourse between young marriageable men and young marriageable women is so constrained as it is in modern Europe, a man's inclinations do not escape comment, and a very small seed of truth grows, beneath the magic incantations of society tea parties, to a very large bush of gossip. Nevertheless these good people are always astonished when their prophecies are fulfilled, and the bush bears fruit instead of vanishing into emptiness; which shows that there is some capacity left in them for distinguishing truth and untruth. Marcantonio's marriage had long been a subject in every way to the taste of the chatterers, and though Madame de Charleroi had accused her brother of hastiness, for lack of a better reproach, it was nearly a year since his admiration for Miss Carnethy had been first noticed. During that time every particular of her parentage and fortune had been carefully sought after, especially by those who had the least interest in the matter; and the universal verdict had been that the Marchese Carantoni might, could, should, and probably would, marry Miss Leonora Carnethy. And now that the engagement was out, society grunted as a pig may when among the crab-oaks of Périgord he has discovered a particularly fat and unctuous truffle. Probably the happiest person was Marcantonio himself. He was an honest, whole-souled man, and in his eyes Leonora was altogether the most beautiful, the most accomplished, and the most charming woman in the world. That he expressed himself with so much self-control and propriety when he asked her to marry him was wholly due to the manner of his education and training in the social proprieties. That a man should use any language warmer or less guarded than that of absolutely respectful and distant courtesy toward the lady he intended to make his wife was not conceivable to him. In the privacy of his own rooms he worshipped and adored her with all his might and main, but when he addressed her in person it was as a subject addresses his sovereign; a tone of respectful and submissive reverence and obedience pervaded his actions and his words. He would have pleased a woman who loved sovereignty, better than a woman who dreamed of a sovereign love. But she was never out of his thoughts, and if he wooed her humbly, he anticipated some submission on her part after marriage. He had no idea of always allowing her mind to wander in the strange channels it seemed to prefer. He thought such an intelligence capable of better things, and he determined, half unconsciously at first, and as a matter of course, that Miss Carnethy, the philosopher, should be known before long as the Marchesa Carantoni, the Catholic. Gradually the idea grew upon him, until he saw it as the grand object of his life, the great good deed he was to do. His love consented to it, and was purified and beautified to him in the thought that by it he should lead a great soul like hers to truth and light. He was perfectly in earnest, as he always was in matters of importance; for of all nations and peoples Italians have been most accused of frivolity, heartlessness, and inconstancy, and of all races they perhaps deserve the accusation least. They are the least imaginative people on earth, apart from the creative arts, and the most simple and earnest men in the matter of love. Northern races hate Italians, and they fasten triumphantly on that unlucky Latin sinner who falls first in their way as the prototype of his nation, and as the butt of their own prejudice. In the eyes of most northern people all Italians are liars; just as a typical Frenchman calls England "perfide Albion," and all Englishmen traitors and thieves. Who shall decide when such doctors disagree? And is it not a proverb that there is honour among thieves? Marcantonio never spoke of these ideas of his to his friends when they congratulated him on his engagement. He only looked supremely happy, and told every one that he was, which was quite true. But his sister was to him a great difficulty, for she evidently was disappointed and displeased. He debated within himself how he should appease her, and he determined to lay before her his views about Leonora's future. To that intent he visited her in the boudoir, where they had so often talked before the engagement. Madame de Charleroi received him as usual, but there was a look in her eyes that he was not accustomed to see there,--an expression of protest, just inclining to coldness, which had the effect of rousing his instinct of opposition. With his other friends he had found no occasion for being combative, and his old manner had sufficed; but with his sister he found himself involuntarily preparing for war, though his intentions were in reality pacific enough. Marcantonio was very young, in spite of his nine and twenty years. His manner now, as he met his sister, was a trifle more formal than usual, and he bent his brows and pulled his black moustache as he sat down. "Carissima Diana," he began, "I must speak with you about my marriage, and many things." "Yes,--what is it?" asked his sister, calmly, as she turned a piece of tapestry on her knee to finish the end of a needleful of silk. Marcantonio had somehow expected her to say something that he could take hold of and oppose. Her bland question confused him. "You are not pleased," he began awkwardly. "What would you have?" she asked, still busy with her work. "I am sure I told you what I thought about it long ago." "I want you to change your mind," said Marcantonio, delighted at the first show of opposition. Madame de Charleroi raised her eyebrows, gave a little sigh of annoyance, and turned towards him. "I will always treat your wife with the highest consideration," she said, as though that settled the matter and she wished to drop the subject. But her brother was not satisfied. "I wish you to love her, Diana; I wish you to treat her as your sister." Donna Diana was silent, and Marcantonio shifted his position uneasily, for he did not know exactly what to do, and he saw that he was failing in his mission. But in a moment his heart guided him. He went and sat beside her, and laid his hand on hers. "We cannot quarrel, dear," he said. "But will you love her if I make her like you--if I make her thoughts as beautiful as yours?" Donna Diana's face softened as she turned to him and affectionately pressed his hand. "I will try to love her for your sake, dear boy," she answered gently; and he kissed her fingers in thanks. "Dear Diana," he said, "you are so good! But you know she is really not at all like what you fancy her. She is full of heart, and so wonderfully delicate and lovely,--and so marvellously intelligent. There is nothing she does not know. She has read all the philosophies"-- "Yes, I know she has," interrupted his sister, as though deprecating the discussion of Miss Carnethy's wisdom. "But not as you think," he protested, catching the meaning of her tone. "She has read them all, but she will take what is best from each, and I am quite sure she will be a good Catholic before long." "I really hope so," said Donna Diana seriously. "Not that I should love her any the less if she were not," continued Marcantonio, who was loth to feel that there could be any condition to his love. "I should love her just as much if she were a Chinese,--just as much, I am sure. But of course it would be much better." "Of course," assented Diana, smiling a little at his enthusiasm. Somehow the peace was made,--it is so easy to make peace when each can trust the other, and knows it! Just as Madame de Charleroi had determined to say something pleasant on the evening when her brother offered himself to Leonora, so now she made up her mind to stand by Marcantonio, and to help him in his married life by being as sympathetic and as kind as possible. In due time Marcantonio obtained the permission of the Church to unite himself with his Protestant wife, and after a great many formalities the wedding took place in the late spring, after Easter. Weddings are tiresome things to talk about, and even the principal persons concerned in them always wish them over as soon as possible. What can be more trying for a young girl than to be set up to be stared at by the hour, be-feathered and be-rigged in a multiplicity of ornaments, made flimsy with tulle and lace, and ghastly with the accumulation of white things, when she is pale enough already with the acute fever of an exceedingly complicated state of mind? Or how can a man possibly enjoy being envied, hated, loved, despised, and considered a fool, by his rivals, his bride, the woman he has not married, and his bachelor friends,--all in a breath? It is absurd to suppose that any one with an intelligence above that of the average peacock can enjoy playing a leading part in a matrimonial parade. Marcantonio Carantoni and Leonora Carnethy were married, and one of her intimate friends shed a tear as she observed how extremely empty a form it was. But the other looked a little pale, and said she was quite sure she could have chosen someone "better than that." CHAPTER IV. "Needles and pins, needles and pins,"--the rhyme is obvious, and very old,--"When a man marries his trouble begins." Marcantonio is an Italian, and his native language contains no precise equivalent of this piece of wisdom, with which every English baby is made acquainted as soon as it can know anything. The real difficulty seems to be that there are as many different ways of looking at marriage as there are people in the world. Marriage is described as being either a holy bond or a social contract. Obviously a holy bond implies at least a certain modicum of holiness on the part of the bound; and it is not likely that a single and very simple form of contract can ever cover the multifarious requirements and exigencies of a thousand million human beings. A contract, in order to be satisfactory, must be thoroughly understood and appreciated by the parties who undertake it, and this seems to be a very unusual case in the world. When Marcantonio Carantoni married, he was possessed of very noble and exalted ideas, totally unformulated, but, as he supposed, only requiring the seal of experience to define, cement, and consolidate them. He believed that his wife was to be the stately queen of his household, the gentle partner of his deeds and thoughts, a loving listener to his words. He pictured to himself a magnificence of goodness unattainable for a man alone, but within easy reach of a man and a woman together; he imagined a broad perfection of human relations which should be a paradise on earth and an example of beatific possibility to the world. He dreamed of that kind of happiness, which, as it undoubtedly passes the bounds of experience, is aptly termed by poets transcendent, and is regarded by men of the world as a nonsensical fiction. He saw visions in his sleep, and waking believed them real, for he had a great capacity for believing in all that was good; and as he was human he found ceaseless delight in believing in these good things, more especially as in store for himself. He had always been fond of the pleasant side of life, and found no difficulty in conceiving of an infinite series of pleasant situations, culminating in his union with Miss Leonora Carnethy. He never analysed. Only pessimists analyse, and the best they can accomplish thereby is to make other men even as themselves, critical to see the darns in other people's clothes, and learned to spy out infinitesimal mud-specks upon the garments of saints. Marcantonio was young. There is a faculty which men acquire from mixing with the world, which is not pessimism, nor analysis, nor indifference; it is rather a knowledge of good and evil with a fair appreciation of their proportion in human affairs. Nothing is more necessary to thought than the generalising of laws; nothing is more pernicious than the generalising of humanity into types, the torturing application of the nineteenth century boot to the feet of all,--men, women, and children alike. If men are only interesting for what they are, regardless of what they may be, a day of any one's actual experience must be a thousand times more interesting than all the fictions that ever were written. If art consists in the accurate presentation of detail, then the highest art is the petrifaction of nature, and the wax-works of an anatomical museum are more artistically beautiful than all the marbles of Phidias and Praxiteles. True art depends upon an a priori capacity for distinguishing the beautiful from the ugly, and the grand from the grotesque; and true knowledge of the world lies in the knowledge of good and evil, not confounding the noble with the ignoble under one smearing of mud, nor yet whitewashing the devil into an ill-gotten reputation for cleanliness. The temptation of Saint Anthony may convey a righteous moral lesson, but the temptation of Saint Anthony as described by his namesake's pig would risk being too unsavoury to be wholesome. But Marcantonio was young, and he troubled himself about none of these things, supposing everything to be good, beautiful, and enduring, excepting such things as were evidently bad, inasmuch as they were ugly and disagreeable. Now Miss Leonora Carnethy had long been given over to a sort of sleek, cynic philosophy,--the kind of cynicism that uses lavender water in its tub. Her dissatisfaction with the world was genuine, but she found means to alleviate it in the small luxuries and amenities of her daily life. She and her friends had talked the kernel out of life, or thought that they had, but the shell was still fresh and well favoured. Leonora herself was indeed subject to moods and fits of real unhappiness, for she was far too intelligent a person not to long for something beautiful, even when she was most convinced that life was ugly. There were times when she dreamed of an ideal man who should win her, and love her, and give her all the happiness she had missed. And again she would dream of the freedom of the earth-bound soul from ills, and cares, and thorns, and she would enter some silent Roman church and kneel for hours before a dimly lighted altar, praying for rest, and peace, and inspiration of holiness. But there was too much poetic feeling in her religious outpourings. If religion is to be poetic, a very little thing will destroy its harmony; some careless sacristan chatting with a crony in the corner of the church, or a couple of thoughtless children wrangling over a half-penny by the door, or any such little thing, destroyed instantly the fair illusion that lay as balm upon her unrestful soul. Religion must be real to every man if it is to stand the test of reality. Leonora's views of marriage were therefore more or less subject to her moods. There were days, indeed, few and far between, when her better intelligence got the upper hand of the fictitious fabric of so-called philosophy which she had erected for herself. Then for a brief space she thought of life very much as Marcantonio did, and she contemplated her marriage as a noble and worthy career,--for marriage is a career to most women of the world. But then, again, all her uncertainty returned twofold upon her, and the only real thing was the dream of love, the vision of a lover, and the hope of a realised passion. She was so strong and radiantly human, that from the moment when her mind fell into abeyance the material beauty of life sprang up in her heart, until, being disappointed and cast down through not attaining the end of her passionate dreams, she once more sank into a half-religious, half-poetic melancholy. Nevertheless, the strongest element in her character was the desire to be loved, not by every one, but by some one manly man, and loved with all the strength he had, overwhelmingly. Her studies were a refuge when she saw how improbable such a piece of sweet fortune was, and, as might have been expected, they were far from regular and systematic. She read a great deal, especially of such authors as had a reputation for being profound rather than clear, and, as her mind had received no kind of preliminary training, the result was eminently unsatisfactory to herself. To Marcantonio, who knew more about the opera than about philosophy, she seemed a miracle of learning, and she loved to talk with him about theories, generally finding that, in spite of his ignorance, he made extremely sensible remarks upon them. But he always tried to lead her to different subjects, for, in spite of his immense admiration for what he supposed to be her wisdom, he was aware that it seemed very vague, and that it even occasionally bored him. Leonora had acquired the unfortunate faculty of deceiving herself, and when the fit was upon her she saw things obliquely. In spite of the little prick of conscience that hurt her when she accepted Marcantonio's offer, she had soon persuaded herself that she loved him, on the principle that, since her "standard" was so very "high," she could not possibly have demeaned herself to accepting a man she did not love. It is a very fine thing to believe that we are so far removed from evil that we cannot do wrong, and therefore that whatever we do is infallibly right, no matter how our instincts may cry out against it. It is a most comforting and comfortable vicious circle which we convert into a crown of glory for ourselves on the smallest provocation. So when Leonora was finally married to Marcantonio, she made herself believe that she loved him, and all her vague theories were temporarily cast aside and trampled upon in her determination to realise in him all the happiness she had dreamed of in her ideal. She had got a husband who did most truly love her, and whose one and absorbing thought would be her happiness, but he was not exactly what she had longed for. She mistook his courtesy for coldness, and his deference for indifference, and since she had persuaded herself that she loved him she wanted to find him a perfect fiery volcano of love and jealousy. Marcantonio was nothing of the kind; he was calm, courteous, and affectionate; he had not the slightest cause for jealousy, and, not in the least understanding his wife, he was perfectly happy. Of all tests of true love a honeymoon is the severest, and by every right of sensible sequence ought to come last of all in the history of married couples. It is the great destroyer of illusions, and the more illusions there are the greater the destruction. Two people have seen each other occasionally, perhaps for an hour every day,--and that is a great deal in Europe,--during which meetings they have become more or less deeply enamoured, each of the qualities of the other. People notoriously behave very differently to the people they love and to the world at large; but their behaviour to the world at large is the outcome of their character, whereas their conduct to each other is the result, or the concomitant, of a passion which may or may not be real, profound, and good. But each has a great number of characteristics which practically never appear during those hours of courtship. Suddenly the two are married, and the lid of Pandora's box is hoisted high with a vicious jerk that scares the little imps inside to the verge of distraction, and they fly out incontinent, with an ill savour. If the lid had been gently raised, the evil spirits would probably have issued forth stealthily, and one at a time, without any great fuss, and might not have been noticed. The two condemned ones travel together, eat together, talk together, until in a single month they have exhausted a list of bad qualities that should have lasted at least half a dozen years under ordinary circumstances. Marcantonio and Leonora travelled for a time, and at last agreed to spend the remainder of the summer in some quiet seaside place in Southern Italy. They soon discovered the fallacy of wandering about Europe with a maid and a quantity of luggage, and they both hoped that under the clear sky of the south they might find exactly what they wanted. So they gravitated to Sorrento and hired a villa overhanging the sea, and Marcantonio suggested vaguely that they might have some one to stay with them if they found it dull. At this Leonora felt injured. The idea of his finding life dull in her company! "How can you possibly suggest such a thing?" she asked, in a hurt tone. "Not for myself, my dear," said Marcantonio, with an affectionate smile. "It struck me that you might not find it very amusing. I could never find it dull where you are, ma bien aimée." And indeed he never did. Leonora was pacified, as she almost always was when he was particularly affectionate. "But, of course," he continued, "you will enjoy the being able to read and study your favourite books." "I never want to read them now," said Leonora, who chanced that day to be not very philosophically disposed. She had been perusing the latest French impossibility,--she found it rather amusing to be allowed to have what she liked now that she was married. "I should be glad if you never read any more philosophy," said Marcantonio, unwisely saying what was uppermost in his thoughts. "Really, though," answered Leonora, "I know it all so very superficially that I feel I must go back and be much more thorough. I think I shall take a sound course of Voltaire and Hegel, and that sort of thing, this summer." Her husband was silent. He began to suspect his wife of being capable of an occasional contradiction for the mere love of it. Besides, he saw no particular connection between the two authors she named. But then he knew very little about them. He looked at Leonora. There was not a trace of unpleasant expression in her face, and she seemed to have merely made the remark in the air, without the least intention of being contradictory or captious. He liked to look at her, she was so fresh and fair. Neither heat nor cold seemed to touch her delicate white skin,--her hair was so thick and strong, and her blue eyes so bright. She was the very incarnation of life. What if her features were not quite classic in their proportion? "I am not so beautiful as Diana," she said laughingly one day to Marcantonio, "but I am sure I am much more alive than she is." He laughed too, well pleased at the distinction drawn. He was glad that his sister should be thought cold, and he believed that his wife loved him. He kissed her hand tenderly. They had been married two months when they came to stay in Sorrento. It is a beautiful place. Perhaps in all the orange-scented south there is none more perfect, more sweet with gardens and soft sea-breath, more rich in ancient olive-groves, or more tenderly nestled in the breast of a bountiful nature. A little place it is, backed and flanked by the volcanic hills, but having before it the glory of the fairest water in the world. Straight down from the orange gardens the cliffs fall to the sea, and every villa and village has a descent, winding through caves and by stairways to its own small sandy cove, where the boats lie in the sun through the summer's noontide heat, to shoot out at morning and evening into the coolness of the breezy bay. Among the warm, green fruit trees the song-birds have their nests, and about the eaves of the scattered houses the swallows wheel and race in quick, smooth circles. Far along through the groves echoes the ancient song of the southern peasant, older than the trees, older than the soil, older than poor old Pompeii lying off there in the eternal ashes of her gorgeous sins. And ever the sapphire sea kisses the feet of the cliffs as though wooing the rocks to come down, and plunge in, and taste how good a thing it is to be cool and wet all over. To this place Marcantonio and his wife came at the beginning of July, having picked up numerous possessions and a few servants in Rome. They both had a taste for comfort, though they enjoyed the small privations of travelling for a time. To luxurious people it is pleasant to be uncomfortable when the fancy takes them, in order that they may the better enjoy the tint of their purple and the softness of their fine linen by the contrast. For contrast is the magnifying glass of the senses. At sunset they walked side by side in their terraced garden overlooking the sea. They had travelled all night and had rested all day in consequence, and now they were refreshed and alive to the magic things about them. "How green it is!" said Leonora, stopping to look at the thick trees. "Yes," answered Marcantonio, "it is very green." He was thinking of something else, and Leonora's very natural and simple remark did not divert his thoughts. The cook had arrived with a touch of the fever, and he was debating whether to send for the doctor at once or to wait till the next day. For he was very good to his servants, and took care of them. But Leonora wanted something more enthusiastic. "But it is so very fresh and green!" she repeated. "Do you not see how lovely it all is?" She laid her hand on his arm. "Oui, chérie," said he, getting rid of the cook by an effort, "and green is the colour of hope." Then it struck him that the saying was rather commonplace, and he began to realise what she wanted. "It is a perfect fairyland," he went on, "and we will enjoy it as long as we please. Are you fond of sailing, my dear?" "Oh, of all things!" exclaimed Leonora, enthusiastically. "I love the sea and the beautiful colours, and everything"-- She stopped short and put her arm through his and made him walk again. She was conscious, perhaps, that she was making an effort,--why, she could not tell,--and that she had not much to say. "Marcantoine"--she began. They spoke French together, though she knew Italian better. She thought his name long, but had not yet decided how to abbreviate it. "Yes, what would you say, my dear?" he asked pleasantly. "I think I could--no--Marcantoine, now that we are married, are you quite sure that you love me--quite, quite?" Marcantonio's face turned strangely earnest and quiet. He looked into her eyes as he answered. "Yes, my very dear wife, I am quite sure. And you, are you sure, Leonora?" "How serious you are!" she exclaimed, laughingly. "Well, perhaps I am not so sure as you are,--but I think I could." Somehow he did not smile; he took some things so seriously. Honeymoon conversations are insignificant enough, but it would be well if they were still more so. They should be limited by an international law to the phrases contained in the works of M. Ollendorff. "Is it a fine day, sir?" "Yes, madam, it is a very fine day, but the baker has the green hat of the officer." "Has the baker also the red cow of the general's wife?" "No, madam, the baker has not the red cow of the general's wife, but the undertaker has the penknife of the aunt of the good butcher." It would be hard for the most ill-disposed couple to quarrel if confined to this simple elegance of dialectics, where truths of the broadest kind are clothed in the purest and most energetic words. Young married people are allowed too much latitude when they are turned loose upon a whole language with a sort of standing order to make conversation. When they have exhausted a certain fund of stock poetry and enthusiasm, they have very little to fall back upon, except their personal relation to each other; and unless they are equally serious or equally frivolous, the discussion of such matters is apt to get them into trouble. Like most Italians Marcantonio had difficulty in understanding English humour. When Leonora said she was not quite sure she loved him, she had meant it for a jest, and if the jest had a deeper meaning and a possibility of truth for herself, that was no reason, she thought, why Marcantonio should consider it no jest at all. She was somewhat annoyed, and she made up her mind that there must be an element of Philistinism in his character. She hated and feared Philistines, partly because they were bores, and partly because she had met one or two of them who had known vastly more than she did, and who had not scrupled to show it. But, after all, how could Marcantonio be really like them? He did not know very much, nor did he pretend to, and he had very good taste and was altogether very nice,--no, he was not a Philistine; he loved her, and that was the reason he was serious. All this she thought, springing from one idea to another, and ending by drawing her arm closer through his and moving along the terrace by his side. The sun had set over there in front of them, and the air was cool and purple with the afterglow. They stood by the wall and looked out silently, without any further effort at conversation. Talking had been a failure, probably because they were tired, and for a brief space they were content to watch the clouds, and to listen to the swift rush of the swallows and the faint, soft fall of the small waves on the sand far below them. There they were, linked together, for better for worse, to meet the joys and the sorrows of life hand in hand; to stand before the world as representatives of their class, to play a part in public, and in their homes to be all in all to each other, man and wife. Man and wife! Ah me! for the greatness and the littleness of the bonds those names stand for! Is there a man so poor and thin-souled in the world that he has not dreamed of calling some woman "wife"? Is there any wretch so mean and miserable in spirit that he has not looked on some maiden and said, "I would marry her, if I could"? Or has any woman, beautiful or ugly, fair or dark, straight or crooked, not thought once, and more than once, that a man would come, and love her, and take her, and marry her? But have all the woes and ills of humanity, massed together and piled up in their dismal weight, ever called forth one half the sorrow that has ensued from this wedding and being wedded? Alas and alack for the tears that have fallen thick and fast from women's eyes,--and for the tears that have stood and burned in the eyes of strong men, good and bad! Who shall count them, or who shall measure them? Who shall ever tell the griefs that are beyond words, the sorrows that all earthly language, wielded by all earthly genius, cannot tell? Will any man make bold to say that he can describe what pain his neighbour feels? He may tell us what he does, for he can see it; he may tell us what he thinks, for perhaps he can guess it; but he cannot tell us what he suffers. The most he can do is to strike the sad minor chord that in every man's heart leads to a dirge and a death-song of his own. A man who tries to tell of great suffering is rebuked. "No human creature," says the critic, "could suffer as this man describes, and live. There can therefore be no such suffering in the world." But does any critic or reader or other intelligent person say, when he reads about great happiness, "This joy is too much for humanity; there is no such joy in the world"? We shrink from suffering, in others as in ourselves, and we turn to happiness and cannot get enough of it, so that however the tale ends, we would have made it end yet more joyfully; for so would we do with our own lives if we could. The strength of half mankind is spent in trying to remedy mistakes made at the outset, and I suppose that there is not one man in ten millions who is not striving to make himself happier, in his own fashion. A man is only happy when he believes himself to be so, in whatever way the proposition be turned, and no man believes himself so happy but what he might be happier. Marcantonio Carantoni was in just such a position. He was more than contented, for he looked forward to much in the future that he had not yet attained, and he looked forward to it with certainty. His wife Leonora was trying hard to be as happy as he, but there had been a doubt--a cruel, hot little doubt--in her soul from the first. She had deceived herself--with the best intention--until she could hardly ever be sure that what she felt was genuine. She had asked questions of her heart until it was weary of answering them, and would as soon speak false to her as true. And here ends the prologue of this story. CHAPTER V. A few days after the arrival of the Carantoni establishment in Sorrento, Leonora was sitting alone on a terrace of the villa with a book and a great variety of small possessions in the way of needle-work, shawls, cushions, flowers, parasols, fans, and a white cat. Marcantonio was gone to the town alone, intending to buy more possessions; for Sorrento is famous for its silk-weaving and its exquisite carved work of olive wood, and Leonora loved knickknacks. "I would give anything in the world for a sensation," she thought, as she looked out over the sea. It was towards evening, and the water was as smooth as glass and tinged with red. Marcantonio was right after all. It was very dull in Sorrento, with no one but one's husband to speak to,--and he had made such a fuss about the cook's illness. Of course, it was very beautiful and all that; but life with the beauties of nature is so very tiresome after a time. She longed for some of her friends,--even her mother, she thought, would be a relief. But no one had called, excepting some very proper people of the Roman set, who all had gout and rheumatism and a dictionary-ful of diseases, and were taking sulphur baths at Castellamare. She was wishing with all her might that some amusing person would call, when, as though in answer to her thoughts, a servant brought her a card. Then she yawned slightly, supposing it to be some toothless old princess of Rome or some other wearisome bore. But as she looked at the name,--"Mr. Julius Batiscombe,"--she gave a little start and her light fingers touched her lace and ribbons, and her thick hair, and she said she would receive. Mr. Julius Batiscombe was a man of five and thirty years of age, and a person sure to attract attention anywhere. He was tall and looked strong, but he trod as lightly as a woman; none of his movements were clumsy or awkward. Not that he stepped daintily or affected any feminine grace of movement; there was something in his build and proportion that made it always seem easy for him to move, as though his strength were perfectly under control. People were divided in opinion concerning his appearance. Some said he was handsome and some said he was coarse. Some said he was refined and some said he looked ill-tempered. As a matter of fact he had a rather small head, set upon a strong neck. His nose was large and broad, and decidedly aquiline, and he had a remarkably clean-cut and determined jaw. His mouth was comparatively too small for his face, but well shaped and well closed, shaded by a black moustache of very moderate dimensions. His blue eyes were set deep in his head and far apart. Of hair he had an unusual quantity, of a blue black colour, and he brushed it carefully. A single deep line scored its mark across, just above his brows. He had an odd way of looking at things, hiding the half of the iris under the upper lid, showing the white of the eye a little beneath the coloured portion. His complexion was of that brilliant kind which sometimes goes with black hair and blue eyes, and is known as an especial characteristic of the Irish race. Moreover he was noticeably well dressed, in a broad, neat fashion of quiet colour, and he wore no jewelry nor ornament except an old seal ring. Opinions varied almost as much about Mr. Julius Batiscombe's character and reputation as about his claims to be thought good-looking. He had no intimate friends, or was supposed to have none; and he never answered many questions, because he asked none. It was known that he was an Englishman or an Irishman by birth, but that he had never lived long in his own country, whereas he seemed to have lived everywhere else under the sun. "I am so glad you came to-day, Mr. Batiscombe," said Leonora after he was seated, and looking at him rather curiously. He was the man who had stood in the doorway at the ball when Marcantonio offered himself to her. She knew him as well as she knew most of the stray foreigners who from time to time frequented Roman society. He had been in Rome all that winter, and she had met him two years earlier, when she first went out. He interested her, however, by a certain reserve of manner and by an air of "having a story about him"--as young ladies put it--which was unusual. "I am very fortunate," he answered, with a slight inclination and a polite smile. "I called entirely at random. Somebody said you were coming here, and so I came to see if you had arrived." "Yes," said Leonora, "we have been here several days, with all sorts of troubles on our hands. It is such very hard work to settle down, you know." "What has been the trouble?" inquired Mr. Batiscombe, glancing at the evidences of comfort that were scattered about. "Oh--it is the cook," said Leonora with a little laugh; she was just beginning to feel the novelty of housekeeping, and she laughed at the mention of the cook, as though the idea amused her. "He has had a little fever, and my husband was dreadfully anxious about him. But he is quite recovered." "I am very glad," said Mr. Batiscombe. "It must be a terrible bore to have one's cook ill. Did you get anything to eat in the meanwhile?" And so forth, and so on, through a few dozen inanities. He would not make an original remark, being quite sure that Leonora would ultimately turn the conversation to some congenial subject. "Shall you be in Rome next winter, Mr. Batiscombe?" she asked at length rather suddenly. "It is rather doubtful," he answered slowly. "I am a great wanderer, you know, Marchesa. I can never say with any certainty where I shall be next." He was looking at her and thinking what a splendid living thing she was, with the evening sun on her red hair. That was all he thought, but it gave him pleasure, and his glance lingered contentedly upon her, as upon a picture or a statue. He supposed from her remark that she wanted him to talk about himself, and he was willing to please her; but he was in no hurry, for he feared she would move and show herself in a less favourable light. She was so good to look at, that it was worth a visit to see her; and yet she was not a great beauty. "I was thinking a little of going to the East," he added presently. "But you have been there, have you not?" "Not for a long time; and it will bear revisiting often,--very often. I mean to go there and study again as I did years ago. You have no idea how interesting those things are." Mr. Batiscombe looked thoughtfully out towards the sea. "What are those things, as you call them?" asked Leonora. "What many people call the 'wisdom of the East.' They make us the compliment of implying that there is a 'wisdom of the West' also, which seems unlikely." "Dear me, what a sweeping remark!" exclaimed Leonora, rather startled. "I will prove it," said Mr. Batiscombe. "It seems to me that in the West no two wise men think alike; whereas in the East no two wise men think differently. Is not that a kind of proof?" "Not a very valuable proof," said the marchesa. "But I do not know much about it." "You have the reputation of knowing more about it than most people, Marchesa," answered Batiscombe. "I have been told that you know everything." Leonora blushed very slightly. "What nonsense!" said she; "I might say the same of you." "I observe that you do not, however," said he, laughing. "I never flatter any one," she answered calmly. "Obviously, there is but one thing for me to say," said Batiscombe still smiling. "What is that?" "That no one could possibly flatter you, Marchesa,--since the truth is no flattery." "No, but imitation is," retorted Leonora, well pleased at having got a small advantage of him. "Very good," said Batiscombe; "but do you know who said so?" "Shakespeare"--began Leonora, but she stopped. "No--I cannot tell." "A man called Colton said it. He wrote a book called 'Lacon,' containing innumerable reflections on things in general. He was a wandering sea-parson and wrote books of travels. He died of a complication of nautical and religious disorders--he confused the spirituous with the spiritual--but he was a wise man for all that." "I suppose you remembered all that for the sake of showing that you really know everything," said Leonora, looking up from behind the fan that shaded her eyes. The last rays of the sun shone horizontally across the terrace. The book she had been reading slipped from her lap. With a quick movement Batiscombe caught it before it fell and laid it on the little table. Leonora noticed the action and admired the ease of it. She was altogether disposed to admire the man, though she would have confessed that his conversation hitherto had not been at all remarkable. But there was something in his manner that attracted her. He was quick and gentle, and yet he looked so big and strong. "Thanks," she said. "By the bye, are you going to spend the summer here, or are you only passing?" "I am only passing--literally passing, for I have come from the north, and am going southward. I believe I am doing rather an original thing." "You are generally supposed to be always doing original things," said Leonora. "At all events I am never bored," he answered, "which cannot be said of most people. At present I am going round Italy in an open boat. It is great fun. I started from Nice six weeks ago." "How delightful! I should like it immensely!" "Are you fond of sailing?" "I enjoy it of all things," she answered. In spite of her remark to the same effect made to Marcantonio on the day of their arrival, she had not yet been on the water. He had been so anxious about the cook. "There is a man-of-war to be launched at Castellamare the day after to-morrow," said Batiscombe. "May I have the pleasure of taking you over in my boat?" At this moment Marcantonio appeared at the extremity of the terrace and came towards them. "Should you like to go?" asked Batiscombe quickly, in a lower voice. "If so I will propose it at once." Leonora nodded, and her husband approached. "Marcantonio," she said, "you know Monsieur Batiscombe?" "Mais certainement," cried Marcantonio cordially, and the two men shook hands. Batiscombe was at least as much at home in French as his host, and immediately attacked the subject. "I came to propose to Madame la Marquise," he said, "that you should come over to Castellamare in my boat the day after to-morrow to see the launch. I trust the plan meets your approval?" Marcantonio turned to his wife to inquire. She nodded to him; he nodded to her. "We should be charmed," said he. And so the matter was arranged; they agreed about the hour, and Leonora said she would bring the luncheon. "Yes," said Marcantonio, "I am glad to say the cook"-- At this point Mr. Batiscombe rose to go, and the remark about the cook's health was lost in the stir. Batiscombe bowed, smiled, bowed again, and moved smoothly away across the terrace, disappearing with a final inclination, and a sweep of his straw hat. "He walks like a cat, that gentleman," said Marcantonio as he sat himself down beside his wife. "He is charming," said Leonora. "He has been so amusing." She looked at her husband furtively to see how he took the remark. "Perhaps," thought she, "he is one of those men who have to be managed by being made jealous. I have read about them in novels." But Marcantonio was very glad that she had been amused, and he merely smiled pleasantly and said so. It never entered his head to suppose that Leonora was not satisfied with his show of affection, because he knew in himself that his love was perfectly real. There is a little vanity in such men as Marcantonio, together with a great deal of honesty. Their vanity makes them quite sure that the woman they love is satisfied, and their honesty makes them think the woman would speak out if she were not, just as they themselves would do. Leonora had vanity enough of a certain kind, but it was not personal. She doubted her own powers and gifts more than she need have done, and there was enough uncertainty about her own affection to make her uncertain of her husband's love. In the meanwhile she was bored since Mr. Batiscombe had gone, and she wished Marcantonio would talk and amuse her. But when he did begin to say something it was about local Roman politics, and she understood nothing about that sort of thing. She longed more and more for "a sensation." It would probably be different to-morrow, for her moods seldom lasted long. But this evening it was intolerable. She made the most absent-minded answers to her husband's remarks, and seemed so impatient that he suggested she must be tired and had better go to bed. "But I am not tired at all--on the contrary," she objected. "There is nothing to tire me here,--a little driving, a great deal of sitting on the terrace, a great deal of reading, and very little conversation"-- "Very little conversation!" exclaimed Marcantonio. "Mais, ma chère, here it is two hours we have been talking, without counting the visit of the gentleman who walks like a cat--Bat--Botis--I cannot say his name, but I know him." "Ah, yes--Mr. Batiscombe. Yes," said Leonora languidly, "he was very amusing. He talked about all sorts of things." "Shall we ask him to pass a few days with us? I should be very glad, if you like him." Marcantonio was really delighted to do anything his wife might wish. Leonora was touched. He was sitting beside her, and she put her arms round his neck and laid her head on his shoulder. "You are so good," she said in a low voice. "Oh, I do not want anybody else here at all. I only want you--but all of you--and I feel as though I had not all yet." For the moment she really loved him. He gently smoothed her hair with his delicate, olive-tinted hand. Meanwhile Mr. Julius Batiscombe had gone to his hotel, and, having eaten his dinner, was sitting on the tiled terrace over the sea, with a cup of coffee at his elbow, and a cigarette in his mouth. There were lamps on the terrace, and there was starlight on the water, and Mr. Batiscombe was alone at his small table. "I wish I had not gone there. I wish I had not asked them to go to Castellamare. I wish I were at sea in my boat." He said these things over and over to himself, and now and again he smiled a little scornfully, and sipped his coffee. Julius Batiscombe was generally in trouble. He was a strong man in all respects save one. He had conquered many difficulties in his life, and by sheer determination had turned evil fortune into good, winning himself a name and a position, and such a proportion of wealth as he needed. Of good family, and brought up in luxury and refinement, he had been left at twenty years of age without parents, without much money, and without a profession. He knew some half dozen languages, ancient and modern, and he had a certain premature knowledge of the world. But that was his whole stock-in-trade excepting an indomitable will and perseverance, combined with exceedingly good health, and a great desire for the luxuries of life. He had lived in all sorts of ways and places, getting his pen under control by endless literary hack-work. By and by he tried his hand at journalism, and was successively addicted to three or four papers, published in three or four languages in three or four countries. Last of all he wrote a book which unexpectedly succeeded. Since then the aspect of life had changed for him, and though he still wandered, from force of habit, so to say, he no longer wandered in search of a fortune. A pen and a few sheets of paper can be got anywhere, and Julius Batiscombe set up his itinerary literary forge wherever it best pleased him to work. He had fought with ill-luck, and had conquered it, and now he felt the confidence of a man who has swum through rough water and feels at last the smooth, clean sand beneath his feet. His success had not turned his head in the least; he was too much of an artist for that, striving always in his work to attain something that ever seemed to escape him. But he now felt that he might some day get nearer to what he aimed at, and there were moments, brief moments, of genuine happiness, when he believed that there was wrought by his pen some stroke of worth that should not perish. Ten minutes later he was dissatisfied with it all, and collected his strength for a new effort, still hoping, and striving, and labouring on, with his whole soul in his work. Strong in body and strong in determination, he was yet very weak in one respect. He was eternally falling in love, everlastingly throwing himself at the feet of some woman and making mischief which he afterwards bitterly regretted. It seemed as though it were impossible for him to live six months without some affair of a more or less serious character. It made no difference whether he wandered off into the recesses of the Italian mountains, or went into hermitage in the Black Forest, or steamed and sweltered under a tropical sun; there was always a feminine element at hand to make trouble for him. It was not only the universal woman calling to him to follow, it was the universal woman seizing him and carrying him away by main force. For it was no matter of inclination. He struggled hard enough to deserve victory, but without any perceptible result. What gave him most pain was the dreary consciousness of his own insincerity in his love-making, the consciousness that came to him after the affair was over. While it lasted he was carried away and blinded by a sort of madness that took possession of him and allowed him no time for thought. But when it was over he remembered, bitterly enough, how untrue it had all been, to himself and to the one woman whom he had loved, and whom, down in the depths of his turbulent heart, he loved still. His other loves were like horrible creations of black magic, bodies with no soul, when he looked back on them. And yet while they lasted they seemed to him real, and high, and noble. At first he fought against every new inclination, and cursed his folly in advance; and sometimes he conquered, but not always. If once the fatal point were passed there was no salvation, for then he deceived himself and the deception was complete. It was no wonder people thought so differently about him. He had been known to do brave and generous things, and things that showed the utmost delicacy of feeling and courtesy of temper; and he had been known to act with a sheer, massive, selfish disregard of other people, that made cynics look grave and mild-eyed society idiots stare with horror. The fact was that Julius Batiscombe in love was one person, and Julius Batiscombe out of love, repentant and trying to make up to the world for the mischief he had done, was quite another; and he knew it himself. He was perfectly conscious of his own duality, and liked the one state,--the state of no love,--and he loathed and detested the other both before and after. And now he sat over his coffee, and the prophetic warning of his soul told him that he was in danger, so that he was angry at himself and feared the future. He had known Miss Carnethy, as has been said, for some time, and had danced with her and sat beside her at dinner more than once, without giving her a thought; he therefore had found it perfectly natural to call when he discovered that she was at Sorrento. But his impression after his visit was very different. The Marchesa Carantoni was not Miss Carnethy at all. She had looked so magnificent as she sat in the evening sunshine, and he had gazed contentedly at her with a sense of artistic satisfaction, thinking no evil. But now he could think of nothing else. The sun seemed to rise again out of the dark sea, turning back on its course till it was just above the horizon, with a warm golden light; by his side sat the figure of a woman with glorious red hair, and he was speaking to her; the whole scene was present to him as he sat there, and he knew very well what it was that he felt. Why had he not known it at first? He would surely have had the sense not to propose such a thing as a day together. "A day together" had so often entailed so much misery. Nevertheless he would not invent an excuse, nor go away suddenly. It would be quite possible, he knew, and perhaps also he knew in his heart that it would be altogether right. But it seemed so uncourteous, he was really anxious to see the launch of the great ship and--and--he would not be such a fool as to fancy he could not look at a woman without falling in love with her on the spot. At his age! Five and thirty--he seemed so old when he thought of all he had done in that time. No. He would not only go with them, but he would be as agreeable as he could, if only to show himself that he was at last above that kind of thing. Some human hearts are like a great ship that has no anchor, nor any means of making fast to moorings. The brave vessel sails through the stormy ocean, straining and struggling fiercely, till she lies at last within a fair harbour. But she has no anchor, and by and by the soft, smooth tide washes her out to sea, so gently and cruelly, out among the crests and the squalls and the rushing currents, and she must fain beat to windward again or perish on the grim lee shore. Julius Batiscombe went to bed that night knowing that he was adrift, and yet denying it to himself; knowing that in a month, a week perhaps, he should be in trouble--in love--pah! how he hated the idea! CHAPTER VI. During the time that elapsed between Mr. Batiscombe's visit and the expedition to see the launch, Leonora had an access of the religious humour. The little scene with her husband had made a deep impression on her mind, and as was usual when she received impressions, she tried to explain it and understand it and reason about it, until there was little of it left. That is generally the way with those people who make a study of themselves; when they have a good thought or a good impulse, they dissect the life out of it and crow over the empty shell. It was clear, thought Leonora, that the sudden outburst of affection which made her tell her husband that she wanted "all of him" was the result of some sensation of dissatisfaction, of some unfulfilled necessity for a greater sympathy. But, if at the very beginning she had not the key to his heart, if he did not wholly love her now, it was clear that he never would at all. Why was it clear? Oh! never mind the "why,"--it was quite clear. Moreover, if he could never love her wholly as she wished and desired, she was manifestly a misunderstood woman, a most unhappy wife, a condemned existence,--loving and not being loved in return. And he, the heartless wretch, was anxious about the cook! Good heavens! the cook--when his wife's happiness was in danger! In this frame of mind there was evidently nothing more appropriate for her to do than to take a prayer-book and to hide her face in a veil, and slip away to the little church on the road, a hundred yards from the house. For a wrecked existence, thought Leonora, there is no refuge like the Church. She was not a Catholic, but that made no difference; in great distress like this, she could very well be comforted by any kind of religion short of her father's, which latter, to her exalted view, consisted of four walls and a bucket of whitewash, seasoned with pious discourses and an occasional psalm-tune. What she could not see, what was really at the bottom of the small tempest she rashly whirled up in her over-sensitive soul, was her own disillusionment. She had deceived herself into believing that she loved her husband, and the deception had cost her an effort. She was beginning to realise that the time was at hand when she might strive in vain to believe in her own sincerity, when her heart would not submit to any further equivocation, and when she should know in earnest what hollowness and weariness meant. As yet this was half unconscious, for it seemed so easy to make herself the injured party. Poor Marcantonio was not to blame. He was the happiest of mortals, and went calmly on his way, doubting nothing and thinking that he was of all mortal men the most supremely fortunate. Meanwhile Leonora kneeled in the rough little church, solacing herself with the catalogue of those ills she thought she was suffering. The stones were hard; there was a wretched little knot of country people, squalid and ill-savoured, who stared at the great lady for a moment, and then went on with their rosaries. A dirty little boy with a cane twenty feet long was poking a taper about and lighting lamps, and he dropped some of the wax on Leonora's gown. But she never shrank nor looked annoyed. "All these things are very delightful," she said to herself, "if you only consider them as mortifications of the flesh." She remembered how often just such little annoyances had sent her out of other churches disgusted and declaring that religion was a vain and hollow thing; and now, because she could bear with them and was not angry, she felt quite sure it was genuine. "Yes," said she piously, as, an hour later, she picked her way home through the dusty road, "yes, the Church is a great refuge. I will go there every day." Indeed, she was so resigned and subdued that evening at dinner, that Marcantonio asked whether she had a headache. "Oh no," she answered, "I am perfectly well, thank you." "Because if you are indisposed, ma bien-aimée," continued her husband with some anxiety, "we will not go to Castellamare to-morrow." "I will certainly go," she said. "I would go if I had twenty headaches," she might have added, for it would have been true. "The occasion will be so much the more brilliant, ma très chère," remarked Marcantonio gallantly, as they went out into the garden under the stars. "It is a hollow sham," said Leonora to herself. "He does not mean it." But whether it was the effect of the morning, or the magic influence of Mr. Batiscombe's personality, is not certain; at all events when that gentleman appeared at the appointed hour to announce that his boat was in readiness, Leonora looked as though she had never known what care meant. She doubtless still remembered all she had thought on the previous afternoon, and she was still quite sure that her existence was a wreck and a misery,--but then, she argued, why should we poor misunderstood women not take such innocent pleasures as come in our way? It would be very wrong not to accept humbly the little crumbs of happiness,--and so on. So they went to Castellamare. It is not far, but the wind seldom serves in the morning, and it was an hour and a half before the six stout men in white clothes and straw hats pulled the boat round the breakwater of the arsenal. Everything was ready for the ceremony. Half a dozen Italian ironclads lay in the harbour, decked from stem to stern with flags; the royal personages had arrived, and were boring each other to death in a great temporary balcony, gaudily decorated with red and gold, which had been reared on the shore within reach of the nose of the new ship. The ship herself, a huge, ungainly thing, painted red and bearing three enormous national flags, lay like a stranded monster in the cradle, looking for all the world like a prehistoric boiled lobster with its claws taken off. The small water room opposite the arsenal was crowded with every kind of craft, and little steamers arrived every few minutes from Naples to swell the throng. The July sun beat fiercely down and there was not a breath of air. The boatmen were all wrangling in a dozen southern dialects, and no one seemed to know why the ceremony was delayed any longer. Nevertheless, as is usual in such cases, there was half an hour to wait before the thing could be done. "I am afraid you will find this a dreadful bore," said Batiscombe to Leonora in English, while Marcantonio was busy trying to make out some of his friends on shore through a field-glass. Batiscombe had sat in the stern-sheets to steer during the trip, and having Leonora on one side of him and her husband on the other, had gone through an endless series of polite platitudes. If it had not been that Leonora attracted him so much he must himself have been bored to extinction. But then in that case he would probably not have put himself in such a position at all. "Oh, nothing of this kind bores me," said Leonora cheerfully. "You say that as though there were many kinds of things that did, though," observed Batiscombe, looking at her. It was a natural remark, without any intention. "Dear me, yes!" exclaimed Leonora. "Life is not all roses, you know." She therewith assumed a thoughtful expression and looked away. "I should not have supposed there were many thorns in your path, Marchesa. Would it be indiscreet to inquire of what nature they may be?" Leonora was silent, and put up her glass to examine the proceedings on shore. Batiscombe, who had come out that day with the sworn determination not to say or do anything to increase the interest he felt in the Marchesa, found himself wondering whether she were unhappy. The first and most natural conclusion was that she had been married to Marcantonio by designing parents, and that she did not care for him. Society said it had been a love-match, but what will society not say? "Poor thing," he thought, "I suppose she is miserable!" "Forgive me," he said, in a low voice. "I did not know you were in earnest." Leonora blushed faintly and glanced quickly at him. He had the faculty of saying little things to women that attracted their attention. "What lots of poetry one might make about a launch," he said laughing,--for it was necessary to change the subject,--"ship--dip; ocean--motion; keel--feel; the rhymes are perfectly endless." "Yes," said Leonora; "you might make a sonnet on the spot. Besides, there is a great deal of sentiment about the launching of a great man-of-war. The voyage of life--and that sort of thing--don't you know? How hot it is!" "I will have another awning up in a minute," and he directed the sailors, helping to do the work himself. He stood upon the gunwale to do it. "I am sure you will fall," said Leonora, nervously. "Do sit down!" "If I had a millstone round my neck there would be some object in falling," said Batiscombe. "As it is, I should not even have the satisfaction of drowning." "What an idea! Should you like to be drowned?" she said, looking up to him. "Sometimes," he answered, still busy with the awning. Then he sat down again. "You should not say that sort of thing," said Leonora. "Besides, it is rude to say you should like to be drowned when I am your guest." "Great truths are not always pretty. But how could any man die better than at your feet?" He laughed a little, and yet his voice had an earnest ring to it. He had judged rightly when he foresaw that he must fall in love with Leonora. Marcantonio, who did not understand English, was watching the proceedings on shore. "Ah! it is magnificent!" he cried, with great enthusiasm. The royal personage who was to christen the ship had just broken the bottle of wine, and the little crowd of courtiers, officers, and maids of honour clapped their hands and grinned. They all looked hot and miserable and exhausted, but they grinned right nobly, like so many Cheshire cats. There was a sound of knocking and hammering, a final shout of warning from the dock officers, a slight trembling of the great hull, and then the ship began to move, slowly at first, and ever more quickly, till with a mighty rush and a plunge and a swirl she was out in the water. The people yelled till they were hoarse, the boatmen cursed each other by all the maledictions ever invented to meet the exigencies of a lost humanity, the royal personages stood together on their platform looking like a troupe of marionettes in a toy theatre, and congratulating each other furiously as though they had done it all themselves; everything was noise and sunshine and tepid water; Marcantonio was flourishing his hat, and Leonora waved a little lace handkerchief, while Batiscombe sat looking at her and wondering why he had never thought her beautiful before. Indeed, she was superb in her simple, raw silk gown, with fresh-cut roses at her waist. "It seems to me, Marchese, that you are very enthusiastic," said Batiscombe to Marcantonio. "Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the other, shrugging his shoulders, "one cheers these things as one would cheer fireworks, or a race. It signifies nothing." "Oh, of course," said Leonora; "and besides, it is so pretty." "I think it is horrible," said Batiscombe, suddenly. "Why--what?" "To see a nation squandering money in this way, when the taxes on land are at sixty per cent. and more, and the people emigrating by the shipload because they cannot live in their own homes." "Oh, for that matter, you are right," said Marcantonio, turning grave in a moment. "I could tell you a story about taxes." "What is it?" asked Leonora. "Those things are so interesting." "Last autumn I was in the Sabines; I have a place up there, altogether ancient and dilapidated--a mere ruin. I own some of the land, and the peasants own little vineyards. One day I saw by the roadside a poor old man, a sort of village crétin, whom every one knew quite well. We used to call him Cupido; he was half idiotic and quite old. He was weeping bitterly, poor wretch, and I asked him what was the matter. He pointed to a little plot of land by the road, inclosed by a stone wall, and said the tax-gatherer had taken it from him. And then he cried again, and I could not get anything more out of him." "Poor creature!" exclaimed Leonora, sympathetically. "Well," continued Marcantonio, "I made inquiries, and I found that he had owned the little plot, and that the tax-gatherer had first seized the wretched crop of maize--perhaps a bushel basket full--to pay the tax; and then, as that did not cover his demands, he seized the land itself and sold it or offered it for sale." "Infamous!" cried Leonora, and the tears were in her eyes. "A cheerful state of things," remarked Batiscombe, "when the whole crop does not suffice to pay the taxes on the soil!" "N'est-ce pas?" said Marcantonio. "Well, I provided for the poor old man, but he died in the winter. It broke his heart."[1] [Footnote 1: The author witnessed the facts here described in 1880.] "I love the Italians," said Batiscombe; "but their ideas of economy are peculiar. I suppose that without much metaphor or exaggeration one might say that the poor crétin's bushel of corn is gone into that ridiculous ironclad over there." "But of course it is," said Marcantonio. "The whole thing probably paid for one rivet. You, who write books, Monsieur Batiscombe, put that into a book and render it very pathetic." "It needs little rendering to make it that," said Batiscombe, and he looked at Leonora's eyes that were not yet dry. By this time the royal marionettes had been bundled off to their boats, and the crowd of small craft on the water began to disperse. Batiscombe's six men fell to their oars and the boat shot out from the breakwater. Presently they hoisted the bright lateen sails to the breeze. Batiscombe perched himself on the weather rail, and took the tiller, as the brave little craft heeled over and began to cut the water. The wind fanned Leonora's cheek, and she said it was delightful. Batiscombe suggested that they should run into one of the great green caves that honeycomb the cliffs near Sorrento, and make it their dining-room. So away they went, rejoicing to be out of the heat and the noise. It was twelve o'clock, and far up among the orange groves the little church bells rang out their midday chime, laughing together in the white belfries for joy of the sunshine and the fair summer's day. "I should like to be always sailing," said Leonora, who had now quite forgotten her woes and enjoyed the change. "Ma chère," said her husband, "there is nothing simpler." "You always say that," she answered rather reproachfully; "but this is the very first time I have been on the water since we came." "My boat and my men are always at your disposal, Marchesa," said Batiscombe, looking down at her, "and myself, too, if you will condescend to employ me as your skipper." "Thanks, you are very good," said she. "But I thought you were only passing, and were to be off in a few days?" She glanced up at him, as though she meant to be answered. "Oh, it is very uncertain," said Batiscombe. "It depends," he added in a lower voice and in English, "upon whether you will use the boat." It was rather a bold stroke, but it told, and he was rewarded. "I should like very much to go out again some day," she said. Those little words and sentences, what danger signals they ought to be to people about to fall in love! Batiscombe knew it; he knew well that every such speech, in her native language and in a half voice, was one step nearer to the inevitable end. But he was fast getting to the point when, as far as he himself was concerned, the die would be cast. His manner changed perceptibly during the day, as the influence gained strength. His voice grew lower and he laughed less, while his eyes shone curiously, even in the midday sun. The boat ran into the cave, which was the largest on the shore, and would admit the mast and the long yards without difficulty. Within the light was green, and the water now and again plashed on the rocks. The men steadied the craft with their oars and the party proceeded to lunch. Most of "society" has a most excellent appetite, and when one reflects how very hard society works to amuse itself, it is not surprising that it should need generous nourishment. The unlucky cook had done his best, and the result was satisfactory. There were all manner of things, and some bottles of strong Falerno wine. Batiscombe drank water and very little of it. "Somebody has said," remarked Marcantonio with a laugh, "that one must distrust the man who drinks water when other people drink wine. We shall have to beware of you, Monsieur Batiscombe." He had learned the name very well by this time. "Perhaps there is truth in it," said Batiscombe, "but it is not my habit I can assure you. The origin of the saying lies in the good old custom of doctoring other people's draughts. The man who drank water at a feast two hundred years ago was either afraid of being poisoned himself, or was engaged in poisoning his neighbours." "Oh, the dear, good old time!" exclaimed Leonora, eating her salad daintily. "Do you wish it were back again?" asked Batiscombe. "Are there many people you would like to poison?" "Oh, not that exactly," and she laughed. "But life must have been very exciting and interesting then." "Enfin," remarked Marcantonio, "I am very well pleased with it as it is. There was no opera, no election, no launching of war-ships; and when you went out you had to wear a patent safe on your head, in case anybody wanted to break it for you. And then, there was generally some one who did. Yes, indeed, it must have been charming, altogether ravishing. Allez! give me the nineteenth century." "I assure you, Marchesa," said Batiscombe, "life can be exceedingly exciting and interesting now." "I dare say," retorted Leonora, "for people who go round the world in boats in search of adventures, and write books abusing their enemies. But we--what do we ever do that is interesting or exciting? We stay at home and pour tea." "And in those days," answered Batiscombe, "the ladies stayed at home and knit stockings, or if they were very clever they worked miles and miles of embroidery and acres of tapestry. About once a month they were allowed to look out of the window and see their relations beating each other's brains out with iron clubs, and running each other through the body with pointed sticks. As the Marchese says, it was absolutely delightful, that kind of life." "You are dreadfully prejudiced," said Leonora. "But I am sure it was very nice." And so they talked, and the men smoked a little, till they decided that they had had enough of it, and the oars plashed in the water together, sending the boat out again into the bright sun. In five minutes they were at the landing belonging to the Carantoni villa. There was a deep cleft in the cliffs just there, and the descent wound curiously in and out of the rock, so that in many places you could only trace it from below by the windows hewn in the solid stone to give light and air to the passage. The rocks ran out a little at the base, and there were steps carved for landing. There are few places so strikingly odd as this landing to the Carantoni villa. Leonora said it was "eerie." When it came to parting, the young couple were profuse in their thanks to Mr. Batiscombe for the enchanting trip. "I hope," said Marcantonio, "that you will come and dine with us very soon, and change your mind about the water-drinking, and give us another opportunity of thanking you." "I have enjoyed it very, very much," said Leonora, giving Batiscombe her hand. Their eyes met, and for the first time she noticed the curious light in his glance. But he bowed very low and very elaborately, so to say. "You will keep your promise," he said, "and use the boat again?" "Thanks so very much. But of course we will have a boat of our own now, and so I should not think of asking you." She smiled a little at him. Somehow he understood perfectly that he could nevertheless induce her to accept his offer. He stood hat in hand on the rocks as they disappeared into the dark stairway. Then he sprang into the boat, and the men pulled lustily away. He leaned back in the stern with his hand on the tiller and his eyes half closed. In the bottom of the boat were the luncheon baskets, and one of Leonora's roses had fallen from the stem and lay withering in the hot July sun. Batiscombe picked it up, looked at it, pulled a leaf or two, and threw it overboard, with a half sneer of dissatisfaction. "They have forgotten the baskets, though," he thought to himself. "If they had asked me to go up with them, as they should have done, I would have had them carried up. As it is I will--I will wait till they write for them. I could hardly take them myself." And he lighted a cigarette. As Leonora mounted the stairway, leaning on her husband's arm, she turned to get a glimpse of the boat gliding away in the distance. She could just see it through one of the windows in the rock. "Why did you not ask him to come up?" she inquired. "Why did you not ask him, my angel?" returned Marcantonio. "I thought you might not like it," she answered. "Comment donc! He is very amiable, I am sure. But I thought you were tired and had had enough of him,--in short, that you did not want him." "Ah!" ejaculated Leonora. She felt a little curious sense of pleasure, that was quite new to her, at the idea that her husband could have seriously thought she did not want Mr. Batiscombe. "Naturally," added Marcantonio, "we ought to have asked him." "I suppose so," said she, indifferently enough. "I will call on him to-morrow, and we will have him to dinner, if it is agreeable to you, my dear." "Oh yes--I do not mind at all," said Leonora. She was thinking about something, and did not speak again till they reached the house. It was very frivolous, but she was really thinking about the curious expression of Mr. Batiscombe's eyes. She did not remember to have ever seen anything exactly like it. Besides, she had known him, more or less, for some time, and had never noticed it before. Perhaps it was the reflection from the water. But she dreamed that night that she saw those eyes very close to her, and the expression of them frightened her a little, but was not altogether disagreeable. CHAPTER VII. Julius Batiscombe was a restless man by day and night, after the trip to Castellamare. Marcantonio called upon him, but he was out, and then he received an invitation to dinner from Leonora, with a postscript about the unlucky baskets. He accepted the invitation. What else could he do? But when the day came he regretted it. He wished he had refused and had gone away. Then he made a fine resolution. "I will not go to this dinner," he said to himself, savagely, as he walked quickly up and down his room. "I will not go near her again. It is not right, and I will not do it. I will sail over to Naples at once, and send back a telegram of excuse, saying that a matter of the most urgent importance keeps me there. So it is--I should think so--a matter of very urgent importance. Oh! Julius Batiscombe, what an ass you are, to be sure!" With that he crammed some things into a bag, sent for his man, and descended in hot haste to the shore. There was no time to be lost, for it was already four o'clock in the afternoon and the invitation was for eight. He could just reach Naples and send his telegram in time to prevent the Carantoni from waiting for him. The lazy breeze was dying away, and he wished he had had the sense to make up his mind sooner. But his men rowed lustily, and kept time, so that the boat spun along fairly enough. "I shall do it," said Julius Batiscombe to himself. He was happy enough in the sensation that he was cheating his fate and was about to escape a serious affection. Then he laughed at the comic side of the case, and lit a cigar and blew great clouds of smoke over his shoulder. But fate and Batiscombe were old enemies, and fate generally got the better of it. It chanced that on this very day Leonora and Marcantonio had determined to go out in the new boat. For Marcantonio had wanted to give his wife a surprise, and had got from Naples a beautiful clean-built launch. He had said nothing about it, and had patiently borne her reproaches at his indifference to sailing, until on the previous evening he had taken her down the descent to the rocks and had shown her his purchase, which had just arrived by the steamer. Of course she was enchanted, and determined to make the most of it, for she was really fond of the water. Accordingly, on this very day, she and her husband sallied forth with six men,--for he had not dared to give her a smaller crew than Mr. Batiscombe's. She was in such a hurry to go that she said she did not mind the sun in the least,--oh dear, no! she rather liked it. And so it came to pass that a few minutes after Julius had given his men the word to fall to their oars at the little beach of the town of Sorrento, a long low craft, painted in dark green and gold, and looking exceedingly trim and "fit" with its long lateen yards and raking masts, shot out from the cleft beneath Leonora's villa. Batiscombe looked straight before him, steering by the Naples shore, and intent on wasting neither time nor distance. He might have been out half an hour or more when a remark from one of his crew made him look round, and he was aware of a dark green boat two or three hundred yards astern, but rapidly pulling up to him. He started, for though he could not see the faces of the occupants, he recognised a parasol that Leonora had taken to Castellamare. "It is the new boat of the Marchese Carantoni," said the sailor who had first spoken to Batiscombe. The man had seen it arrive by the steamer on the previous evening, and had helped to put it into the water to be rowed down to the villa. Batiscombe gave one more look and groaned inwardly. He would make a fight for it, though, he thought. He encouraged his men not to allow themselves to be overtaken by a parcel of Neapolitans, as he derisively called the crew of Carantoni's boat. His own men were tough fellows from the north of Italy, bearded, and broad, and bronzed; but his boat, built for rougher weather and rougher work than pleasure-rowing in the bay of Naples, was twice as heavy as the slight green craft astern. His sturdy men set their teeth and tugged hard, but the others gained on them. Leonora and Marcantonio had recognised the cut of Batiscombe's boat and crew from a distance; and, in profound ignorance of his amiable intentions of flight, they imagined nothing more amusing than to race him. "If we cannot beat him," said Leonora, breathless with excitement, "I will never come out in your boat again!" She strained her eyes to make out if they were gaining way. Marcantonio spoke to the men:-- "Corraggio, Corraggio! Maccaroni con formaggio!" The men repeated the rhyme to each other with a grin, and bent hard to their work. They were not Neapolitans as Batiscombe called them, but strong-backed, slim fishermen from the southern coast, as dark as Arabs and as merry as thieves, enjoying a race of all things best in the world, and well able to row it. Swiftly the dark green boat crept up to her rival, and soon Batiscombe could hear the remarks of the men. His own crew did their best, but it was a hopeless case. "Monsieur Batiscombe, Monsieur Batiscombe," shouted Marcantonio, almost as much excited as his wife, "we shall conquer you immediately!" Julius turned and waved his hat, and made a gesture of submission. A few lengths more and they were beside him. He raised his hand, and his men hung on their oars. "Kismet! it is my portion," he said to himself as he gave up the fight. "But where are you going in such a hurry, Mr. Batiscombe?" asked Leonora, who was delighted at having won the race. "You see it is no use running away; we can catch you so easily." "Yes," said Batiscombe, laughing recklessly at the hidden truth of her words, "I see it is of no use, but I tried hard. It was a good race." He turned in his seat and leaned over, looking at his friends. The boats drifted together, and the men held them side by side, unshipping their oars. Batiscombe admired the whole turnout, and complimented Leonora upon it. Marcantonio was pleased with everything and everybody; he was delighted that his wife should have had the small satisfaction of victory, and he was proud that his boat had fulfilled his expectations. So they floated along side by side, saying the pleasantest manner of things possible to each other. Time flew by, and presently they turned homewards. "I wonder how long it will be," thought Batiscombe as he held the tiller hard over and his boat swung about, "before I tell her where I was going 'in such a hurry'?" And he smiled in a grim sort of irony at himself, for he knew that he was lost. "Eight o'clock--don't forget!" cried Leonora. She had a pleasant voice that carried far over the water. Batiscombe waved his hat, and smiled and bowed. They were soon separated, and their courses became more and more divergent as they neared the land. Batiscombe swore a little over his dressing, quite quietly and to himself, but he bestowed much care upon his appearance. He knew just how much always depends on appearance at the outset, and how little it is to be relied on at a later stage. So he gave an unusual amount of thought to his tie, and was extremely fastidious about the flower in his coat. As for Leonora, she was on the point of a change of mood. She had been very gay and happy all day long, and the adventure with the boat had still further raised her spirits. But that was all the more reason why they should sink again before long, for her humours were mostly of short duration, though of strong impulse. This evening she felt as though there were something the matter, or as though something were going to happen, and her gayety seemed to be the least bit fictitious to herself. She and her husband stood on the terrace in the sunset, awaiting their guest. "My dear," said Marcantonio, "I am in despair. I shall be obliged to go to Rome to-morrow or the next day. My uncle, the cardinal, writes me that it is very important." Leonora's face fell; she had a sharp little sense of pain. "Oh, Marcantoine," she said, "do not go away now!" "It is only for a day or two, my angel," he said, drawing her arm through his. "Must you really go?" she asked, not looking at him. "Hélas, yes." "Then I will go with you," said she, in a determined tone. "Ah, I thank you for the wish, chérie," he answered. "But you will tire yourself, and be so hot and uncomfortable. See, I will only be away a day and a half." "But I do not want to be alone here without you," she pleaded. She could not for her life have told why she was so distressed at the idea, but it gave her pain, and she insisted. "As you wish," said Marcantonio, kissing her hand. "I will make every arrangement for your comfort, and do what I can to make the journey pleasant." He was a little surprised, but, manlike, he was flattered at his wife's show of affection. There are moments in a woman's life when, whether she loves her husband or not, she turns to him and holds to him with an instinctive sense of reliance. A moment later Julius Batiscombe was announced, and the three went in to dinner. It was a strange position, though it is by no means an uncommon one. A man, his wife, and another man, an outsider; the outsider loving the woman, the husband supremely happy and unconscious, and the woman feeling the evil influence, not altogether opposing it, and yet clinging desperately to her husband's love. Three lives, all trembling in the balance of weal and woe. But no one could have suspected it from their appearance, for they were apparently the gayest and most thoughtless of mortals. The adventure in the afternoon, the expedition to Castellamare, the baskets and even the cook,--then, the events of the past winter, their many mutual acquaintances, and the whole unfathomable cyclopædia of society facts and fictions,--everything was reviewed in turn, and talked of with witty comments, good-natured or ill-natured as the case might be. Batiscombe was full of strange stories, generally about people they all knew, but he was not a gossip by nature, and he avoided saying disagreeable things. Leonora, on the other hand, would be gay and brilliant for a few moments, and then would let fall some bitter saying that sounded oddly to Batiscombe, though it made her husband laugh. "You would have us believe you terribly disillusioned, Marchesa," said Batiscombe, after one of these sallies. Leonora laughed, and her eyes flashed again as she looked at him across the table. "You, who are so fond of Eastern magic," she said, "should give back to this age all the illusions we have lost." "Were I to do so," answered Batiscombe, looking into her eyes as he spoke, "I fear that you, who are so fond of Western philosophy, would tear them all to pieces." "My poor philosophy," exclaimed Leonora, "you will not let it alone. You seem to think it is to blame for everything,--as if one could not try, ever so humbly, to learn a little something for one's self, without being always held up for it as an exception to the whole human race. It is as if I were to attribute everything you say and do to the fact of your having written a book--how many--two? three?" She laughed gayly. "I do not know," she continued, "and I will never read anything more that you write, because you laugh at my philosophy." "It is better to laugh at it than to cry at it," said Marcantonio, without meaning anything. "Why should I cry at it?" asked Leonora quickly. Her husband did not know how honestly she had shed tears and made herself miserable over it all. "You laugh now," he answered, "but imagine a little. All philosophers are old and hideous, and wear"-- "For goodness' sake, Marchese," broke in Batiscombe, "do not paint the devil on the wall, as the Germans say." "The Germans need not paint the devil," retorted Marcantonio, irrelevantly. "They need only look into the glass." He hated the whole race. "You might as well say that Italians need not go to the theatre," put in Leonora, "because they are all actors." Her husband laughed good-humouredly. "You might as well say," said Batiscombe, "that Englishmen need not keep horses because they are all donkeys. But please do not say it." "No," said Leonora, "we will spare you. But you might say anything in the world of that kind. It has no bearing on my philosophy." "That is true," answered Marcantonio. "I said that philosophers were old and hideous, but not that they were devils, actors, or donkeys. You suggest the idea. I think they are probably all three." "Provided you do not think so after I have become a philosopher," said Leonora, "you may think what you please at present, mon ami." "I think that you are altogether the most charming woman in the world," replied her husband, looking at her affectionately. "Is it permitted to remark that the Marchese is not alone in that opinion?" inquired Batiscombe, politely. "No," said Leonora, demurely, "it is not permitted. And observe that an English husband would not say that kind of thing in public, mon cher." "Perhaps because they do not believe it in private," objected Marcantonio. "More likely for the reason I suggested," observed Batiscombe, "that we are all donkeys." "All?" asked Leonora. "But some of you are authors"-- "It is the same thing," said Batiscombe. "Mon Dieu! there are times"--began Marcantonio. "When you believe it?" inquired Batiscombe, laughing. "Ah, no! you are unkind; but times when I should like to be an Englishman." "I have heard of such people," said Batiscombe, gravely, "but I have never met one. You interest me, Marchese." "You must not be so terribly disloyal," said Leonora. "You know I am English, too,--at least, I was," she added, looking at Marcantonio. "Precisely," said he. "The wife takes the nationality of the husband." "I am not disloyal," answered Batiscombe. "I am very glad to be an Englishman, but I cannot fancy any one else wishing to be one. I should think every one would be perfectly contented with his own country. I cannot imagine wanting to change my nationality any more than my person." "Evidently, you are well satisfied," said Leonora. "Perfectly, thank you, for the present. When I am tired of myself I will retire gracefully--or perhaps gracelessly; but I will retire. I am sure I should never find another personality half as much in sympathy with my ideas." As they followed Leonora from the dining-room out upon the terrace, Batiscombe watched her intently. There was a strength and ease about her carriage that pleased his strong love of life and beauty. He noticed what he had hardly noticed before, that her figure was a marvel of proportion,--no wasp-waisted impossibility of lacing and high shoulders, but strong and lithe, and instinct with elastic motion. He had seen her lately always in some wrap, or lace, or mazy summer garment, whereas this evening she was clad in close silk of a deep-red colour, with the least possible trimming or marring line. The masses of her hair, too, rich in red lights and deep shadows, were coiled close to her noble head, and her dazzling throat just showed at the square cutting of her dress. "People must be wonderfully mistaken," thought Batiscombe. "She is certainly, undeniably a great beauty, in her very peculiar way. Gad! I should think so indeed!" which was the strongest expression of affirmation in Julius Batiscombe's vocabulary. It was no wonder she attracted him. For nearly two months he had been wandering, chiefly in his boat on the salt water, and in that time he had not so much as spoken to a woman. His conversation had been with himself during all that time; and if he had enjoyed intensely the freedom of heart and thought in the intellectual point of view, his strong nature, always drawn to women when not plunged deep in work or adventure, could not withstand the sudden magnetism now thrown upon it. He knew and felt the evil of it, and he struggled as best he could, but each fresh meeting made the chances of escape fewer and the danger more desperate. "Marry," said his best friend to him, when, now and then, in the course of years, they met. "How can I marry?" he would ask. "How can I ever hope to love one woman again as a woman deserves to be loved?" "Then go into a monastery and do no more mischief," returned the friend. She was a woman. "I am no saint," Julius would say, "but I will try to be." And ever he tried and failed again. They sat upon the terrace in the cool of the early night, with their coffee and their cigarettes. There was a lull in their conversation, the result of having talked so much at table. "A propos of contentment," said Marcantonio, "we are very discontented people. We are going to Rome to-morrow, or the next day." Batiscombe was surprised. He paused with his coffee cup in one hand and his cigarette in the other, as though expecting more. "Of course it is only for a day or two," continued Marcantonio. "We shall return immediately." "Seriously, Marcantoine," said Leonora, "how long shall we have to stay?" "Oh--not very long," he said. "I will get the letter. Monsieur Batiscombe will pardon me?" Batiscombe murmured something polite and Marcantonio rose quickly and entered the house. "Are you really going so soon?" Julius asked in English, when they were alone, and Leonora could see the light in his eyes as he spoke. She looked away, over the starlit sea. "I am not quite sure," she said. "I think I ought to go." "I hope you will not," said Batiscombe boldly. She turned and looked at him again, with a little surprise in her face. Marcantonio came back,--it was only a step to his study. "Here it is," said Marcantonio, sitting down. "He says he thinks that a day should do, if I could be with him all the time. You see, he is old and wishes to put his affairs in order." "I cannot see"--began Leonora, but stopped. "Enfin," said Marcantonio, "it might happen to any one, I should think." "Let us hope it may happen to all of us," remarked Batiscombe, for the sake of saying something. When it came to parting, Batiscombe made some polite remark about the pleasure he had enjoyed. "When do you go?" he asked, as he shook hands with Marcantonio. "I think we will go to-morrow night,--n'est-ce-pas, Léonore?" He turned to his wife, as though inquiring. She looked up from her seat in her deep, cane arm-chair. "To-morrow night? Oh yes--one day is like another--let us go then to-morrow night." She spoke indifferently enough, as was natural. Batiscombe supposed she meant to go. He took his leave with many wishes to his hosts for a pleasant journey. Marcantonio lighted a cigarette and stood looking out over the water, by his wife's side. She was quite silent, and fanned herself indolently with a little straw fan decked with ribbons. "Will you really go to-morrow night?" asked Marcantonio at last. He had a way of dwelling on things that wearied Leonora. What possible difference could it make whether they went to-morrow, or the day after? "Because," he continued, "if you will be ready, I will make arrangements." "What arrangements?" asked Leonora languidly. "I will write to the cardinal to say I am coming,--one must do that." "You can telegraph." "What is the use, when there is time for writing? Why should one waste a franc in a telegram?" He had curious little economies of his own. "A franc!" she exclaimed with a little laugh. "And besides," he continued, not heeding her remark, "old gentlemen do not like to receive telegrams. It gives on their nerves." "Enfin," said she, weary of the question, "you can write that you will go to-morrow night, if you like." "And you--will you go then?" he asked. "It depends," she answered. "I may be too tired." Marcantonio knew very well that his wife was not easily fatigued; but he said nothing, and by his silence closed the discussion. She was very changeable, he thought; but then, he loved her very much, and she had a right to be as changeable as she pleased. It was very good of her to have wanted to go at all, and he would not think of pressing her to it. He was a very sensible and unimaginative man, not at all given to thinking about things he could not see, nor troubling himself about them in the least. So he did not press Leonora now, and did not make himself unhappy because she was a little changeable. The one thing he really objected to was her pursuance of what he considered fruitless objects of study; she had not opened a book of philosophy since their marriage, and he was perfectly satisfied. Before he went to bed he wrote a line to his uncle, Cardinal Carantoni, to say that he should arrive on the next day but one. Batiscombe strolled back to the town through the narrow lanes, fenced into right and left by high walls. His thoughts were agreeable enough, and he now and then hummed snatches of tunes with evident satisfaction. What a magnificent creature she was! And clever too,--at least she looked intelligent, and said very cutting things, as though she could say many more if she liked; and she knew about most things that were discussed, and was altogether exactly what her husband called her,--the most charming woman in the world. Besides, he thought he could make a friend of her. How foolish of him, he reflected, to suppose that very afternoon that he must needs fall in love with her! Where was the necessity? He had evidently been mistaken, too, about her relations with her husband. It was clear that they adored each other, could not be separated for a moment, since when he went to Rome on business she must needs accompany him,--in July, too! Would she go? Probably. At all events, he would not call for a week, when they would certainly have come back. This he thought as he walked home. But when he sat in his room at the hotel he remembered what he had thought as he followed her out of the dining-room. He had not thought then as he had an hour later. The magnetism of her glorious vitality had been upon him, and he had envied Marcantonio with all his heart, right sinfully. "Some people call women changeable," he reflected as he blew out his candles; "they are not half so changeable as we are, and some day I will write a book to prove it." CHAPTER VIII. Leonora would not go to Rome when the moment came to decide. She was so sorry, she said, but the weather had grown suddenly hotter and she really did not feel as though it were possible. She tried to make up for it to Marcantonio by being all that day a very model of devotion and tenderness. She affected a practical mood, and listened with attention while he explained to her the reasons for his going. She insisted on seeing herself that he had a small package of sandwiches, and a bottle of wine, and plenty of cigarettes to last him through the night; and when he finally drove away, she would have driven with him to Castellamare, but that she must have come back over the lonely road alone. To tell the truth, she was a little ashamed of herself; she had been so anxious to accompany him, and now she feared he might be disappointed. Marcantonio saw it all, and was grateful and affectionate, though he begged her not to take so much trouble. "En vérité, mon ange," he said more than once, "I might be sailing for Peru, you give yourself so much thought." But she busied herself none the less, going about with a queer little air of resignation that sat strangely on her face. He took an affectionate leave of her. "I will not receive any one, if any one calls," she said, as he was going. He looked at her in some surprise. "But why in the world?" he asked. "Who should call particularly? Not even Monsieur Batiscombe,--he thinks you will go with me." Leonora felt the least faint blush mount to her cheeks, but it was dark in the hall of the villa, though it was only just dusk, and Marcantonio could not see. "Oh, not him," said Leonora. "Only I want to be alone when you are not here." For a moment again she wished she were going. "Enfin, my dear," he answered; "do as you prefer; it is very amiable--very gentil--of you. Adieu, chérie!" and he got into the carriage and rolled away. But her words lay in his memory and would not be forgotten. Why should she not want to see any one? Was there any one? Why had she been so very anxious to accompany him, begging so hard that he would not leave her? After all, the only person she could be afraid of was Batiscombe. He wondered for one moment whether there had ever been anything between them; he could remember to have seen them together more than once in the winter, at balls. But then, they always met with such perfect frankness. He had not watched them, to be sure, but he must have noticed anything out of the way,--bah! it was ridiculous. Not that he wanted Batiscombe as an intimate, for the man was certainly called dangerous. He had known him for years, and had of course heard some of the stories about him,--but then, there are stories about every one, and Batiscombe had evidently become very serious since he had got himself a reputation. Besides, to see him a little, as they did in Sorrento, it could do no harm; it meant nothing, and he would think no more about it. He was not going to begin life with the ridiculous whims of a jealous husband, when he had married such an angel as Leonora--not he! Besides, Batiscombe--of all people! If it had been his sister Diana, it would have been different. Everybody knew that poor Batiscombe had loved her ten years ago, when he was as poor as Job, and had nothing but a fair position in society. But Marcantonio had been away then on his travels, being just nineteen, and having been sent out into the world to learn French and spend a little money on his own account. Strange that he should almost have forgotten it! Not that it mattered in the least. The man had loved his sister to distraction, but had soon recognised the impossibility of such a match, and had gone away to make his fortune. He had come to see Madame de Charleroi now and then of late; Marcantonio knew that, but it was perfectly natural that they should be the best of friends after so many years. How they had first met, or what had passed between them, Marcantonio did not know, and never troubled himself to ask; perhaps he feared lest it should pain his sister to speak of it. But the whole story invested Batiscombe with a sort of air of safety as regarded Leonora. He had certainly behaved well about Diana, and nobody denied it. Nevertheless, it was best that he should not see Diana too often, especially if he intended to live in Rome, now that he had made his fortune. But Leonora--he might call if he pleased, and amuse her in the dull summer days. Carantoni would not begin life by playing the jealous husband. It was certainly odd, though, that he should have thought so little about that old story. The fact was, he had never seen so much of Batiscombe in his life as during the last week or ten days. Meanwhile, he rolled along the road to Castellamare, and, after a great deal of shifting, found himself in the night train from Naples for Rome. He ate his sandwiches and thought affectionately of his wife as he did so; and then he lay down and slept the sleep of the just until morning. When he reached the Palazzo Carantoni, the first piece of news he received was that Madame de Charleroi was in the house, having arrived the previous day alone,--that is to say, with her courier and her maid. The old servant volunteered the information that the vicomtesse was going to stay a week, or thereabouts, and had sent a note to the house of his Eminence, Cardinal Carantoni, the night before. Marcantonio gave instructions that she should be informed of his arrival, and that he would come and see her later in the morning, and he retired to dress and refresh himself. He hated family councils, and he saw himself condemned to one, for there was no doubt of the cardinal's intention, since Madame de Charleroi had come, and had communicated with him. The cardinal was old, and felt the need of settling his affairs and of talking them over with his only near relations,--his nephew and his niece. For he was rich, and had money to leave. Marcantonio and his sister greeted each other affectionately, for they were always glad to be together, and their meeting seemed to have been unexpected. His Eminence had sent for each separately, and they had arrived within twenty-four hours of each other,--Diana from Pegli and Marcantonio from Sorrento. Of course, they talked of trivial matters, for now that Diana had accepted the marriage there was nothing more to be said about it. At twelve o'clock they drove to the cardinal's house, through the hot, glaring streets of Rome, fringed with the red and white awnings of the shops. The carriage rolled under the dark porch of the palace, and the pair mounted the cool stairway and were soon ushered through a succession of dusky halls and swinging red baize doors to their uncle's study,--a curious, old-fashioned room in an inner angle of the building. The blinds were drawn, and the occasional chirp of the lazy little birds came up from the acacia trees in the courtyard. The room was carpetless, with bright, smooth, red tiles; in the middle was a huge writing table, covered with papers and books; on one end of it stood a large black crucifix with a bronze Christ, and there was an enormous inkstand of glass and brown wood. Around the walls were mahogany bookcases, ornamented with light brass-work in the style of the first empire, and filled with books and pamphlets. The room was cool and dark and high, and as the brother and sister entered, their steps clicked sharply on the clean, hard tiles. His Eminence sat in an arm-chair at the writing table, clad in a loose, purple gown, and wearing a minute scarlet skull cap. He looked, indeed, as though his life were nearly spent; for, though his dark eyes shone bright and penetrating from under the heavy brows, his cheeks were thin and sunken, of the hue of wax, and his white hands were transparent and discoloured between the knuckles. Marcantonio and Diana touched the great sapphire on his finger with their lips, and then the old man laid his hand on the head of each. They were his brother's children, and he loved them dearly, after his crabbed old fashion; for all the Carantoni are people of heart and kindness. "My dear children," he began, when they were seated by his side on straight-backed chairs that Marcantonio brought up to the table,--"my dear children, I am growing very old and infirm, and I wanted to see you here together before I leave you all." A kind smile played fitfully over the waxen features, like the memory of life that haunts a plaster mask. Diana laid her fingers gently on his arm, and Marcantonio broke out into solicitous protestations. His uncle was not yet sixty,--he had many years of life,--this was a passing indisposition, a black humour, a melancholy. One should never expect to live less than seventy years at the very least, he said, and that would not be reached for a long time. "Ah! no, dear uncle," he concluded, "you will surely live to see my sons growing up to be men, and to marry Diana's little girls!" The cardinal shook his head. That was not the way of it, he said. He might die any day now, he said, in his meek voice; and it really sounded as though he might, so that Donna Diana felt her eyes growing dim and her heart big. She took one of the old man's thin hands in both of hers, and he with the other pushed back the rich, heavy hair and smoothed it tenderly. A marvellous picture in sooth they made,--the dying prelate in his purple and scarlet, and the great unspeakable freshness and life of the fair woman. Marcantonio passed his hand over his eyes and sighed as he sat watching them. Then his Eminence explained to the two what his chief plan was in calling them to him now. He had made a deed, he said, which he wished them both to understand. There were certain estates which he had inherited from his mother,--their grandmother,--as being the second son. These he earnestly desired to see incorporated in the property of the Carantoni family. To that end he had made an act of gift, transferring the lands to Marcantonio at once, on the condition that the cardinal should continue to receive a certain income from them during his life. This he insisted upon doing, as he feared lest after his death the lands should be sold by the executors in order to divide the proceeds between the two heirs. In order to make the present arrangement a fair one, however, he at the same time gave to his niece Diana de Charleroi a sum of money from his personal estate which was equal to the value of the lands given to Marcantonio. Whatever they found after his death could then be divided and distributed,--the lands being safe in the male line; they might find something left after all. Diana protested; she was very glad that the lands should be settled, but she did not wish to accept a large sum of money in that way. In fact, she begged her uncle to reconsider the matter. As for Marcantonio, he looked grave and wished himself well out of it. He was practically to be administrator of his uncle's property during the remainder of the latter's lifetime, and he did not like it. However, as the arrangement was for the ultimate good of his children, and as he had not Diana's excuse for refusing on the ground of not wishing to take a gift,--since it hardly was one,--there was nothing for him to do but to accept the situation with a good grace. "You do not deserve anything at all, my boy," said the cardinal, half kindly, half in earnest, "because you married a heretic. But as I helped you to obtain the permission, I must do something for you." "But I," said Diana,--"I cannot take all this. It is not fair to Marcantonio, for I ought to pay you the income of it, just as he is to do." "Nonsense, figlia mia," said the old man. "You need money more than he does or ever will, with that husband of yours, who is always going from one court to another on his nonsensical diplomatic errands. Ah! my children, diplomacy is not what it used to be! Altri tempi--altri tempi!" The end of it was that the two young people agreed to their uncle's provisions, and he insisted on their hearing and understanding all the papers, to which end he sent for his secretary, a wizened little Roman with grey hair and bright eyes and a fondness for snuff; and the secretary read on for two good hours. The old man from time to time nodded his head to Marcantonio or to Diana, as the one or the other was referred to in the documents, and waved his pale thin hand in appreciation of the completeness and simplicity of his arrangements. At last the various deeds were signed, and a notary, whom the secretary had provided, was called in from the antechamber where he had waited, and attested the signatures and the general legality of the proceedings. The cardinal was satisfied, and leaned back in his chair. He was one of those old-fashioned noblemen who still believe in the divine right of primogeniture and in the respectability of land as a possession. With the modern laws concerning the division of estates,--the keen Napoleonic knives that cut the strings of succession at every knot,--these conservative aristocrats have infinite trouble; but they generally manage to evade the spirit of the law, and to conform as little to the letter of it as they can. "Cara mia, one must submit," said Marcantonio to his sister, when they were alone together. "Old men have strange fancies, and he has always been good to us. What he said about my marriage was quite true. If he had not helped me, I should have made a fiasco of it,--or done something rash." "I suppose so," said Diana, thoughtfully. "By the bye, are you comfortable at Sorrento? How is Leonora?" She was rather ashamed of not having asked the question before, but Marcantonio was good-natured, and was glad that she had not said anything hard. And, of course, the moment she mentioned his wife, he was delighted at the chance to speak of what was nearest to his heart. "Leonora is well and more than well," he answered. "Ah, she is an angel! She has not read any philosophy since we married,--imagine! And she was crazy to come with me to Rome--in this heat!--because she did not wish to stay in Sorrento alone without me." "Why did you not let her come, then?" asked Donna Diana. "She was tired," he said, "and as I told her how fatiguing it was, she made up her mind to stay. I shall go back to-morrow, I suppose. I wish I could go to-night." "So soon?" asked Diana. "But I have seen nothing of you, dear boy!" "Why not come with me to Sorrento? Do come,--there is room for us all, and for all your servants into the bargain, if you like to bring them." Marcantonio was charmed with his idea; it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Besides, he had longed for an opportunity of bringing Diana and Leonora together. He was quite sure they would become bosom friends. Diana hung back, however, and was less enthusiastic. "I do not see how I could manage it," she said. "I have so many things to do, and I must go back to Pegli, before long." Marcantonio sat down beside her and took her hand affectionately. "Cara Diana," he said coaxingly, "will you not come and make friends with Leonora? It would be so kind of you, and she would feel it so much!" Madame de Charleroi hesitated; not so much on account of her reluctance to stay with Leonora as because she knew that Julius Batiscombe was somewhere in the neighbourhood of Naples. She avoided him always, though she was his best and most faithful friend; for though she had loved him once, there was not a trace of that left in her heart, and yet she knew well enough that he loved her still. Her high and noble nature could not understand so earthly a man as he; she could not conceive how it was that through all his many affairs he still looked on her as the one woman in the world; but nevertheless she knew that it was so, and she therefore avoided him, not wishing to fan a hopeless passion. He came to see her sometimes, and she was very kind to him, giving him the best of advice, but she never encouraged him to come. So she was not anxious to meet him. But the question of her relations with her brother in the future seemed to make it now desirable that she should go with him and "make friends" with his wife, as he expressed it. "Well," she said at last, "I will go with you, and do what you wish." Marcantonio was very grateful. He felt that his young wife must have friends--young wives have so few--and he could desire no better friend for her than his sister, the model of all goodness, gentleness, and honour. "Dearest sister," he said, "you are so good! And if you have much to do here, I can put off going for a day, you know. You can do your little errands in a day, can you not?" "I might, perhaps," said she; "but must you not take some steps about all this land of yours--or of our uncle's? Do you realise what a position you have assumed, my dear boy? From this day you are absolutely master of the estate, if you like,--but you are also absolutely responsible for the payment of the income. You positively must see the lawyers about it, and you may as well see them at once." "It is not the whole income of the place that he takes," remarked Marcantonio. "That makes no difference," said Diana. "If you were to have it all, it would be the same. You are bound to take care of it. Your own lawyer knows nothing about this transaction. You may not be in Rome again for three months. Make some provision for your absence. Who is to collect your rents, in the first place?" "I suppose somebody would," said Marcantonio laughing. "But you have a much better head for business than I, Diana mia. Perhaps you are right." "You manage things very well, caro mio, so long as they are under your hand. But you hate to go and look after business when you want to be doing something else." "After all," he argued, "when a man is just married"-- "He ought to be specially careful of his affairs, for his children's sake," interrupted Donna Diana with remarkable good sense. She wanted a day or two in Rome, and she thought he was really remiss in his management. She had rather a contempt for a man who cast everything to the winds in order to be one more day with his wife. She did not believe that his wife would have done as much for him. The end of it was that he agreed to stay a little longer, at least one day more than he had at first proposed; and he wrote an affectionate letter to Leonora, half loving, half playful, explaining his position, and telling her of his sister's coming, that she might be ready to receive her. He added that he hoped to see them very affectionate and intimate, for that Diana was the best friend his wife could have. If Batiscombe had wanted to make a friendship between two women he would not have gone about it in that way. Marcantonio was very young and inexperienced, though he was also very good and honest. His sister saw both sides of his character and understood them. Leonora saw, but only understood the honesty of him. His inexperience she supposed to be a sort of paternal, philistine, prosaic, humdrum capacity for harping on unimportant things, and she already felt the most distinct aversion for that phase of his nature. Diana and Marcantonio went down by the night train, having stayed the better half of a week in Rome. Marcantonio sent a telegram to Leonora in the afternoon, to say that they would come. They had a compartment to themselves, and as they sat with the windows all open, rushing along through the quiet night, they fell into conversation about Sorrento. Madame de Charleroi had taken off her hat, and the breeze fanned the smooth masses of her hair into rough gold under the light of the lamp, like the ripple on the sea at sunset. She was a little tired with the many doings that had occupied her in Rome, and her face was pale as she leaned back in the corner. Her brother looked at her as he spoke. 'Of course,' he thought, 'there was never any one so beautiful as Diana.' What he said was different. "You should see Leonora; she is a perfect miracle,--more beautiful every day. And though she has been on the water several times, she is not the least sunburnt." "Have you sailed much?" inquired Diana. "A good deal. I bought Leonora a very good boat in Naples, and had it fitted. It is so pretty. And before it came Monsieur Batiscombe took us to Castellamare." "Ah!" ejaculated Diana half interrogatively. "Yes," answered Marcantonio. "He was very amiable, and then we had him to dinner. You know him, Diana?" he asked, as one often asks questions of which one knows the answer. He did not remember having ever mentioned Batiscombe to her, but his solitary journey to Rome a week earlier had set him thinking, in a lazy fashion, and he wondered whether his sister ever thought of the man after all these years. "Oh yes," answered Madame de Charleroi. "I have known Batiscombe a long time,--long before he was famous." "Yes," said her brother, "I remember to have heard that he was once so bold as to want you to marry him. Imagine to yourself a little! The wife of an author." There was nothing ill-natured in what Marcantonio said. In the prejudice of his ancient name he was simply unable to imagine such a match. Diana turned her grey eyes full upon him. "My dear boy, do not say such absurd things. We are not in the age of Colonna and Orsini any more. I came very near to marrying Julius Batiscombe, in spite of your fifty titles, my dear brother." Diana was a loyal woman, from the outer surface that the world saw, down to the very core and holy of holies of her noble soul. She would not let her brother believe that, if she had chosen it, she would have feared to marry a poor literary hack. "Do you mean to say, Diana, that you loved him?" asked Marcantonio in great surprise. "Even you must not ask me questions like that," said Diana, a little coldly. "But this I will tell you,--it was not for any consideration of birth, nor out of any regard of our dear father's anger, that I did not marry Batiscombe. Once I was very near it. We are very good friends now." She turned a little in her seat and drew the blue woollen curtain across the window to shield her from the draught. "You do not mind meeting him?" asked Marcantonio, rather doubtfully. To tell the truth he feared he had committed a mortal error, and was taking his sister into the jaws of danger and unhappiness. He had never suspected that she had entertained any idea of marrying Batiscombe. Julius was a very agreeable man, very amiable, as Marcantonio would have said. What a fearful thing if Diana were to take a fancy to him! Loyal as she was to Charleroi, she did not care a straw for him,--her brother knew it very well. Italian brothers are very watchful and Argus-eyed about their sisters. "Why should I mind?" asked Diana, looking at him again. "We are very good friends. He comes to see me in Rome, every now and then. I do not object in the least, and he is really very agreeable." 'Worse and worse!' thought Marcantonio. 'She wants to meet him and is glad of the chance. But then, she is so good--what harm can it do?' Between his idea that he ought to keep them apart, and his knowledge of his sister's upright character, Marcantonio was in a sad quandary. It always took him some time to grasp new situations,--and the idea that Diana had ever loved Batiscombe was utterly new to him. True, she had not said it; she had only said that she had been near to marrying him. CHAPTER IX. When Leonora was alone, she resolved to have a good fit of thinking. Accordingly, the next morning after Marcantonio's departure she sat by herself in a cool room, surrounded with books and dainty writing materials,--thinking. The little white cat that her husband had procured, because she liked animals, climbed to the back of her chair and made passes at her head with its small, soft paws, seeming to delight in touching her. She put up her hand and pulled the little creature down to her lap. "Pussy," said she, talking English to it, "were you ever in love?" She kissed it softly and held it up to her fair cheek. "I wonder what it is like," she said to herself. "I wonder whether being in love is always like this! People who love always say they would die for each other. I am not sure whether I would die for Marcantonio. He is very good. Yes--of course--one's husband! Any woman would die for her husband. And yet--if the knife were very sharp and cold,--or the poison very dreadful to take,--I am not sure. Perhaps there might be some other way out of it, and one would not have to die after all." Poor Leonora, she made herself think she loved him, and then she applied all kinds of tests to her love which it would not bear, being but a very thin and pitiful little ghost of a love. "I really believe," she said at last, kissing the cat and half closing her eyes, "that there is not anything much in anything after all. Things are not much more real than the shadows in the cave that Plato talks about. Oh dear me! And then to have people think that one is clever! They have such an absurd idea about it,--Marcantonio, I mean. Of course it is the nicest thing in the world to be loved more than one deserves,--but, on the other hand, it is just as terrible a bore to have other people forever thinking you really worth more than you are. And then, to have him think that my little bit of knowledge is dangerous! As if so very little could help or hurt any one! I must know a great deal more before it can do me any good. I think I will read something hard to-day,--how pleasant it is to be alone!" The last reflection came quite naturally, and she did not even pause and think about it, the sudden interest she anticipated in reading having chased away the dutifully affectionate ideas she made it her business to build up concerning her husband. With characteristic quickness of determination she rose, got herself a volume of Hegel's "Æsthetics," and buried her whole mind in the question of subjective and objective art. To a woman--or a man either--who has not what is called an interest in life, all manner of things temporarily take the place which should be occupied by the leading, absorbing thought. The things that are but relaxations, amusements, or even unimportant bits of usefulness to the thoroughly busy woman, to a woman like Leonora become in turn objects of intense study and care, only to be cast aside and forgotten when the next day brings in a new era of speculation, weariness, or excitement. It is good to read many kinds of books, it is good to do many pleasant and agreeable things, but it is emphatically not good to think many kinds of thoughts. If a woman must change her opinions, it is well that the change should be gradual and the result of careful study and examination, instead of taking place according to the weather, the cut of a gown, or the conversation of a stray caller. Men change their minds as completely as women, but not so often, and above all not so quickly. To be unchangeable is the quality of the idiot; to change too easily belongs to children and lunatics; and the happy faculty of a sensible judgment permitting a change for the better and forbidding a change for the worse is the high privilege of the comparatively small class of humanity who are neither fools nor madmen. With Leonora to live was to change, and to change often. Brimming over and exulting in strength of physical life, neither her mind nor her nerves could keep pace with her vitality, and the result was the inevitable one. After great excitement there was morbid reaction, and in the state of rest there was a restless, insatiable craving for motion. A strong man, ruthlessly ruling her by sheer superiority of massive power, would have brought out all that was best in her, and would have driven her to her very best weapons for defence. But her husband was quite another sort of person. His love for her was by far the best thing about him; save for that, he was not an interesting man. He was young and very tactless, though full of good impulses and gentle courtesy to her and to every one. But he wearied her with useless details, and made her doubt whether his affectionate manner meant love or mere good breeding. He had an entire incapacity for making any one believe that he was capable of great things. His sister knew how real was his goodness of heart and how generous he could be, and she knew also how much he loved his wife. But she had no power to put into him the passionate, burning romance which was precisely what Leonora most longed for; and Diana did not believe that such a woman as Leonora would long be satisfied with such a husband as Marcantonio. Meanwhile the day wore on, and she read seriously, and had her midday breakfast in solitude and tried to read again. But by and by she nodded over her book and fell asleep in the humming heat of the summer's afternoon. As she slept she dreamed of a strong, black-browed man who kneeled there beside her in her own house, and who presently took her in his arms and bore her fast down the dark stairs and passages through the rocks to the sea, where a boat lay; and as he carried her his eyes gleamed like burning stars, and she felt that her own grew big and bright. And suddenly he would have leapt into the boat with her, but he stumbled and fell, and she heard the deep roar of the waters in her ears as they sank together. She woke with a start. The white cat had climbed up and lay on her shoulder, purring with all its might. That was evidently where the sound of the sea came from. She laughed, a little startled at the dream and amused at its cause. It had been so strange--so--so wicked. She was shocked. How could her thoughts, of themselves unaided, have gone to such a subject! Besides, it was not the first time. She had dreamed of Julius Batiscombe before, and always of that strange look in his eyes, gleaming wildly with something she could not understand. "It is dreadful!" she exclaimed, rising and going to the window. She had slept long, for the sun was low, and when she looked at her watch it was six o'clock. She reflected that she had not been out all day, and that she wanted a walk. She wrapped something thin and dark over her white summer dress and left the house. The white kitten followed her to the door, mewing sorrowfully, and wistfully waving its little tail. She walked slowly down the road musing on the odd thing she had dreamed, and seeking in her mind for the reason and cause of it, finding fault with herself for being able to dream such things. It is one thing to be able to call up images of ideal men, and to tell the truth she strove even against that; but it is quite another matter to find one particular man so much in your thoughts that you dream of his running away with you. She looked up, and a little church was before her, the door being open. She hesitated a moment; she had come out to walk, but it would be so pleasant to kneel in the cool, quiet place, in the half lights and deep shadows; to think, and think, and to pray sweet wordless heart-prayers, half mystic, half religious; to pour out the confessions of her soul's suffering, and to find, even for a brief space, that trust in something unseen, which her troubled spirit could not give to earthly wisdom or earthly love. She raised the curtain and entered. It was a simple little church, with a floor of green and white tiles, whereon stood rows of green benches and a few straw chairs. The light was high, and the sun did not penetrate into the building. Everything was very clean and cool. Over the altar was a great picture, neither bad nor good, of a monk saint, dark in colour and inoffensive in composition; there were two or three small chapels at the sides, and the plain white arch of the roof was supported by two rows of square masonry pillars. When Leonora entered she saw that she was alone, and the anticipated pleasure of religious exaltation was heightened by the sensation of solitude. She stood one moment, and then, being sure that no one saw her, she touched with her fingers the holy water in the basin by the door and made the sign of the cross, bending her knee slightly towards the altar. Had there been any one in the church she would perhaps not have done so; but being alone she loved to experience the forms of a religion in which she did not seriously believe, but in which she trusted far more than she knew. She went forward, took a straw chair, turned it round and kneeled on the tiles, burying her face in her hands. At first, as she knelt there, she trembled with a strange emotion that she loved,--a sort of wave of contrition, of faith, of penitence, and of uncertainty, half painful and yet wholly delicious, that seemed to her the sweetest and most salutary sensation in the world. It was just painful enough to make the pleasure of it keener and rarer. She could not have described it, but she loved it and sought it, when she was in the humour. Gradually her troubles, real and fancied, would answer to her command, and array themselves in rank and file for her inspection; the domestic difficulties, small and snappish little knots of mosquito-like annoyance, biting tiny bites to right and left, and with little stings stinging their way to notice in the foreground; then the troubles of the heart, the temptations of a wild, unspoken and ideal love, streaming by her in the sweep of tempest and storm, stretching out sweet faces and fierce hands to take her with them, and to bear her away from hope of salvation or thought of heaven to the strange unknown space beyond; then again the shapeless and awful host of her fancied philosophies, now towering in fearful strength and menace to the sky, and rending and tearing each other to empty nothing and howling hollowness, now falling down to earth in miserable shapes and slinking insignificantly away; but last and worst of all, there was a deep dark shadow, the trouble of her heart, the certainty that she had made the great mistake and done the irretrievable sin against truth, that she had married a man she could never love, but whom--God forbid the thought!--whom she might hate for the very lack he had of anything that could deserve hating. And then all the pleasure of her exultation was gone; and the dull, uncertain pain, that would not take shape because it had no remedy, filled all her soul and mind and body; she had never felt it as she felt it to-day, but she knew that each time she came to the church to let her heart talk to her in the silence, this same pain had come, sooner or later, and that each time it was stronger and more real. She bent low under its weight, and the tears gathered and fell upon her hands and on the rough straw chair. * * * * * Julius Batiscombe had passed the day after the dinner in his boat, sailing far out to sea in the early morning, among the crested waves and the dancing sunbeams, smelling the salt smell gladly, and enjoying the sharp, cool spray that flew up over the bows. And at noon, when the west wind sprang up, he went about and ran homewards over the rolling water. All that day he was thinking of Leonora, but he was persuading himself that he could and would make her his friend, and that the sudden attraction he had felt for her was nothing but a little natural sympathy of minds, striving to assert itself. He found these thoughts so agreeable and edifying that he determined to repeat the experience on the following day, and test their reality by their durability. But somehow the hours seemed longer, and before the wind turned, as it does every day in summer on the southern coast, he put the helm down, furled sail, and bade his men pull home. He was discontented, and, having no one but himself to consult, he thought he would try something else. Once in his room at the hotel he tried to sleep, but he could not; he tried to read, but everything disgusted him; he tried to write, and wrote nonsense. At six o'clock he went out for a walk. It was not unnatural, perhaps, that he should take the road toward Leonora's villa, between the high walls of the narrow lanes, for it was still hot, and the dust lay thick in the road. Besides, he knew that Leonora was away, and that consequently there would not be the temptation to call upon her. For in spite of his visions of friendship he felt an instinctive conviction that he ought not to see her. Consequently, as he strolled along the road, smoking a cigarette and studying the extremely varied types of the Sorrento beggar, he was conscious of a comforting assurance that he was not in mischief. At the end of half an hour he was passing the gate of the Carantoni villa. He stopped a moment to look at the little vision of flowers and orange-trees that gleamed so pleasantly through the iron rails, in contrast to the dead monotony of stone walls in the lane. A servant was coming toward the gate, and seeing Batiscombe standing there, opened it wide and took off his hat. Batiscombe carelessly asked if the Signora Marchesa were at home, expecting to be told that she was gone to Rome. "No, Signore," returned the man; "the Signora Marchesa is this minute gone out, it may be a quarter of an hour. Your excellency"--everybody is an excellency in the south--"will probably find her in the little church along the road, where she often goes." The man bowed, and Batiscombe turned on his heel, not wishing to talk with him. But he turned toward the church. He walked very slowly, as though in hopes that Leonora would meet him as she came home; and when he came to the door he stopped, as she had done, hesitated, and went in. He trod softly, as Marcantonio had more than once observed, and he did not disturb the silence of the place. He stood still, holding his breath, and knowing that he ought not to stay, but unable for his very life to move. His overhanging brow bent as he watched her, and a curious look crossed his bronzed face, as though he were pained, but felt both sympathy and pity for the kneeling woman. The dead silence, the cold light from above, the half-prostrate figure of Leonora clad in white with the dark lace thing just falling from her splendid hair,--it all seemed like a strange scene in a play, and Julius looked for the sake of looking, while his heart felt something deeper than the artistic impression. Leonora was bending low upon the seat of the straw chair, the bitter tears trickling down through her white fingers, and her whole life within her convulsed in the consciousness of sorrow. It had so long been vague--this sad knowledge of an evil ever present, and yet ever eluding her attempts to see it and understand it. But now it had come upon her suddenly. After two months of wedded life she knew that she had made a mistake beyond all repairing. She had tried hard to love Marcantonio, she had tried hard to believe that she loved him, but the deception could not last in her, and yet it seemed death to lose it. Sometimes she could think almost indifferently of her marriage, talking to herself, and asking questions of which she knew the answer, but to which she hoped to find another. Did she love him? she would ask at such moments; and she would answer that she thought so, well knowing that whatever real love might be, it was not what she felt for him. But to-day it seemed as though the veil were torn and she saw the dreadful truth. He had left her for a day or two, and she had said it was so pleasant to be alone. That was not love--ah, no! And that dreadful dream, too, that haunted her still; it kept returning, with its sinful face, the face of Julius Batiscombe. The whole unfaithfulness of herself to herself rushed upon her overwhelmingly, relentlessly, till she could not bear it, but bowed herself and sobbed aloud before the altar. There was a slight noise behind her, and with an effort she controlled herself, rose till she kneeled upright and merely bent her head upon her hands, drawing the back of the chair towards her in the act. She had been disturbed, and the sense of annoyance overmastered the expression of her trouble for a moment. Gradually the consciousness of a presence took possession of her, and she knew that some one was watching her; she grew uneasy, tried to repeat a prayer mechanically for the sake of thinking of something definite, failed, touched her hair half surreptitiously with one hand, and finally rose from her knees. As she turned to leave the church she met Julius Batiscombe's eyes, and she started perceptibly. It was so precisely the expression she had seen in her dream, little more than an hour since, that she was fairly frightened, and would have turned and fled had there been any other way out. But when she looked again she saw something that reassured her. There was that which attracted, as well as that which frightened her. She had the length of the church to walk, and she made up her mind that she would not show that she was surprised, and would behave as though nothing had happened. For she was a strong woman in such ways, and could rely upon herself if not taken too much off her guard. Meanwhile Batiscombe looked on the ground; for he was often conscious of the too great boldness of his sight, and knew that it must be disagreeable to her. So he moved a step or two, hat in hand, waiting for Leonora to pass him, and prepared to follow if she showed any sign of wishing it. He feared, however, that he had offended her by his inopportune appearance, and he was prepared for a repulse. Nevertheless, after the first start was over, she came boldly towards him, smiling rather sadly and looking wonderfully beautiful; for the tears only made her eyes softer and deeper, leaving a gentle shadow in them, just as the sea is bluer and pleasanter in its blueness beneath the shade of an overhanging cliff. She smiled, and passing out half looked at him again as he lifted the green curtain for her. He smiled again, gravely, and followed her. When they were on the steps, he bowed low again. "How do you do, Mr. Batiscombe?" she said, quite naturally, holding out her hand to him. But in the open air, his hand touching hers, she could not help blushing a little when she thought of that dream an hour ago. "You did not go to Rome, after all?" he said, as they began to walk along the lane. "No," she answered, "it was too hot. Do you often go to the little church, Mr. Batiscombe? It is so nice and quiet there, is it not?" She was determined to put a bold face on the matter. Besides, he perhaps had not heard those sobs,--he had only seen her kneeling, perhaps, and had not understood that she was crying. But Julius had seen all and heard all, and was pondering deep in his heart the causes which could make her unhappy, seeing she was young and, in his opinion, beautiful,--married, as society said, to the man she loved, and not lacking the goods of this world, while praying ardently for those of the next. "I have sometimes looked in," answered Batiscombe. "It was a chance that took me there to-day." "Yes?" "Yes "--he glanced down sidelong at her face--"that is to say--not altogether." She was silent, walking serenely by his side. "No, not altogether," he continued, determining suddenly on his course. "The fact is, I was walking by your place, and a servant who was just coming out told me you were in church, and then I went in. I suppose I ought not to have done it," he added with a little laugh; "I am very sorry I disturbed you. Pray forgive me." "Not at all,--churches are free for every one. But why do you laugh?" "At my own stupidity," he answered. "I might have known that when you go to church at odd times you go to be alone, and not to have wandering callers sent there after you." "What makes you think that?" she asked, curious to know how much he had noticed. She argued that if he had heard her crying he would think the question natural, whereas, if he had not, he would not suspect anything from it. "Because you acted as though you thought you were alone," he said seriously. "I did think so," she said, blushing faintly. "Do you know? I was quite startled when I saw you there." "I saw you were," he answered, still very gravely, "and I am very sorry." "Do you remember what I said to you at Castellamare, Mr. Batiscombe?" "Yes; you said that life was not all roses, and you said it in earnest." "Yes," said Leonora. "You see I did. I am not always in earnest." "Is it rude to ask how one distinguishes between your excellency in earnest and your excellency in fun?" inquired Batiscombe, glad enough to turn the conversation to a jest, for he judged Leonora to be rather imprudent. Indeed, he wondered how she could have said what she had, unless it were from a wish to face out the situation. "You ought to be able to see," she answered, laughing lightly, "but when you cannot, perhaps I will tell you." "Pray do," said he. "I am very stupid about such things,--but then, I am always in earnest, even when I want to be funny. Perhaps you might think me most diverting when I am most in earnest." "No," said Leonora, "I should not think that. I should think you might be very unpleasant when you are in earnest--at least, from the things you write." "That is a doubtful compliment," remarked Julius, smiling. "Is it? I cannot imagine anything more delightful than having the power to be as unpleasant as you want to be." "Is there anything I can do for you, Marchesa? I should be most happy, I am sure,--short of poisoning your enemies, as you suggested the other day." "You ought not to draw the line," she said with a laugh. "Oh, very well. I will do the poisoning too, if you wish it." "Of course. What is the use of having friends if you cannot rely on them to do anything you want?" "If I could be one of your friends," he said gravely, "I am sure I would not 'draw any line,' as you call it." "With what seriousness you say that!" she exclaimed, very much amused. She was nervous from the knowledge that he had found her out in the church, and she laughed at anything rather recklessly. But Batiscombe had turned grave again. "Would you rather that one should ask such a privilege in jest?" he asked. "No indeed," said she, a little frightened at the point to which she had brought him. "Then I ask it very much in earnest," he answered. "To be my friend?" she asked, looking straight before her. "Yes, to be your friend," said he, watching her closely. "Really? In earnest?" "Really--in earnest," he answered. She stopped suddenly in the road. "I accept," she said, frankly holding out her hand. "I am very proud," he said quietly. He took off his hat and touched her fingers with his lips. Then they walked on without a word for some minutes. "What a strange thing life is!" exclaimed Leonora, at last. "Yes, it is very strange," he answered. "Here are we two, on the smallest provocation, swearing eternal friendship on the high road, as though we were going to storm a citadel, or head an Arctic expedition. But I am really very glad, and very grateful." Somehow the reflection did not sound light or flippant; and to tell the truth, Leonora was thinking precisely the same thing, wondering inwardly how she could possibly have gone to such a length with a mere acquaintance. But the land of friendship was an untried territory for Leonora, and she seemed to find in the idea a sudden rest from a sense of danger. A friend could never be a lover,--she knew that! This was the meaning of the dream. But she answered quietly enough. "If things are real at all," she said, "they are as real at one time as at another." "Yes," answered Batiscombe. "Malakoff or Sorrento, it is all the same." CHAPTER X. "You will come in?" said Leonora when they reached the gate. "Thanks; I should like to very much," answered Batiscombe, and he followed her through the gate into the garden. They passed into the house, and Leonora received from the servant a telegram which had come when she was out. It was the one Marcantonio had dispatched when he had decided to stay a few days in Rome and to bring his sister to Sorrento. Leonora opened it quickly and glanced over the message. It was very evident from her expression that she was annoyed and somewhat surprised. Batiscombe looked away. "It is too bad!" she exclaimed; her companion examined the handle of his stick, as though there were something wrong with it. He was not curious, and he had very good manners. Leonora folded the dispatch and put it away. "Let us go out again," she said, "it is so close indoors." Batiscombe followed her in silence, obediently. They sat down among the orange-trees on an old stone bench. The air was still and very warm, and the lizards were taking their last peep at the sun wherever they could, climbing up the trunks of the trees and the wall of the house to catch a glimpse of him before he set. "My husband telegraphs that he will be away some time," said Leonora after a minute. "He has business that keeps him, and his sister is in Rome." "You must be very lonely here," remarked Batiscombe in answer. "Do you know Madame de Charleroi?" asked Leonora, taking no notice of the observation. "Yes," said Batiscombe, "I know her. Somebody told me she was in Pegli." "So she was. But she had to come to Rome on business, and now my husband is going to bring her here." "Indeed?" exclaimed Batiscombe. "To pass the summer?" "Oh no; only for a week, I suppose. Do you know? I am rather glad; I hardly know her at all, and she seems so hard to know." "Hard to know?" repeated Julius. "Perhaps she is. It is always hard to know very charming women." "Is it?" asked Leonora, smiling at the frankness of the remark; it seemed to her that he had found it easy enough to swear friendship with her half an hour ago. "Is it? Is she such a very charming woman?" "Yes, indeed," he answered. "Yes to which question?" "Both," said Julius. "Madame de Charleroi is charming, and it is very hard to know women of her sort well. Think how long it is since I first met you, Marchesa, and we are just beginning to know each other." "Do you think we are?" asked Leonora. She was full of questions. "I think so--yes. At least, I hope so," he said with a pleasant smile. "If you were writing a book about us, Mr. Batiscombe, would you say that we were beginning to know each other? no one would believe that we stopped in the road and shook hands and swore to be friends. It would be very amusing, would it not? I do not know why we did it; I wish you would explain." She laughed a little, and stuck the point of her parasol into the earth. Batiscombe laughed too. "When people have known each other in society for a long time," he said, "and then begin to be friends, there is always some ice to break, and it always seems odd for a little while after it is broken." "I suppose that is the reason that such things always seem improbable in books, until you know about them yourself." "Amusing books, and interesting ones, are made up of improbabilities," answered Julius. "And the people who write them are even more improbable. It is always improbable that a man who has lived a great deal should have the talent, or the patience if you like, to make stories out of his own experience,--or that a man who has not seen a great deal of the world should be able to evolve a good novel out of his inner consciousness. The probabilities for most men are that they will eat and drink and wear out their clothes and be buried. All those things are a great bore to do, a greater bore to describe, and an intolerable bore to read about. The most amusing books are either true stories of a very exceptional kind, or else they are rank, glaring, stupendous improbabilities, invented to illustrate a great theory, or a great play of passions,--like Bulwer's 'Coming Race,' or Goethe's 'Faust.' I am sure I am boring you dreadfully." "Oh no!" cried Leonora, who was interested and taken out of herself by his talk. "But I think I prefer the 'exceptional true stories,' as you call them, like Shakespeare,--the historical part, I mean." "The worst of it is," said Batiscombe, "that the true stories are generally the ones that no one believes. Critics always say that such things are a tissue of utter impossibilities." "Oh, the critics," exclaimed Leonora; "they must be the most horrid people. I wonder you authors let them live!" "Thanks," said Batiscombe, laughing, "I was a critic myself before I was an author, and I do not think I was a very horrid person." "That is different," said Leonora. "Of course a man may do ever so many things before he finds his real vocation." "Authors owe a great deal to critics," continued Julius. "More men have come to grief at their hands by over-praise than by too much discouragement. A very little praise is often enough to ruin a man, and a man who has much talent will always survive a great deal of abuse and disappointment. If any one asked my advice about adopting literature as a career, I would certainly tell him to have nothing to do with it; I should be quite sure that if he were born to it nothing would keep him from it for long." "That is the way with other things," said Leonora, looking rather wistfully away at the setting sun, just below the green leaves of the orange grove. "It is the way with everything, good and bad. Some people are born to be saints, and some people are quite sure to turn out the most dreadful sinners, whatever they do." "What a depressing theory!" exclaimed Batiscombe, who had much more cause to think so than Leonora. "Depressing is no name for it," she answered. "One makes such mistakes in life, and then there is no way out of it but to make others." "And the worst of it is, that one knows one is making them, and cannot help it." "Yes," said she, "one always knows,--if one only knew." Then she laughed suddenly. "What a ridiculous speech!" "No," said Batiscombe, "I understand exactly what you mean. Just when one is doing the wrong thing, there is always a little instinct against it. But it is often so very little, that one does not quite know it from ever so many other instincts. And then, before one is quite sure that one knows what is right,--before one's mind has time to think it over logically,--one has done the wrong thing. At least, it seems afterwards as if that were what happened; but I suppose it is because we are weak." Leonora looked at Julius, who seemed deep in his thoughts. He had exactly put her idea into words, but she could not tell whether he believed what he said, or was merely amusing himself with his faculty for explanation. He interested her extremely. It was just this kind of introspection that most delighted her,--this cutting up and skinning of conscience and soul. Nevertheless she did not think that Batiscombe was the man to analyse his own actions. It was more likely, she thought, that he was very clever, and could talk to please his listener. But he interested her greatly, and she was curious to know how he had got his knowledge of human nature. "You must have had a wonderful life," she said, presently, saying aloud what she was thinking, rather than hoping to draw him on to talk about himself. "Oh no--very commonplace, I assure you," said he, with a laugh that sounded natural enough. "Only, you see, I have had to make capital of what I know. But it spoils one's own enjoyment to analyse anything, and I shall have to give it up, or resign myself to a miserable existence." "I wonder whether you are right," said Leonora, reflectively. "Of course I am," he answered gayly. "The man who carves the pheasant does not enjoy it, but the man who eats it does." "Then let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. Is that the end of your experience?" asked Leonora, gloomily. "Oh--well--if you put it so. Only if you do not eat and drink too much, you may possibly not die until the day after to-morrow." "Or you may spend your life in cooking the dinner, and die before it is served?" suggested Leonora. "Or anything--what carnal similes!" laughed Batiscombe. "But they are very apt for any one who cares for eating. If that is really an important enjoyment, it may as well stand as the type." "Exactly--'if.' I am sure you do not think it is, nor that any material satisfaction can possibly stand as a type, nor that we should enjoy to-day without thought of to-morrow, nor a great many other things you have said." She watched him as she spoke, and he liked to feel her eyes on him. "No," he answered, "you are quite right. I do not think those things at all. But I am sure I generally do them," he added, smiling. "But what do you think--really? Is there anything really high and noble in the world? It all seems so little and so hollow, sometimes." She sighed, thinking how, formerly, she had said such things speculatively, and for the sake of raising an argument with her friends. Batiscombe turned on the stone seat, so that he faced her. "Of course there are high and noble things in the world," he answered. "It is when you look into the small workings of the mind and soul, as you have been making me do, that you lose sight of the great ones. Material nature is most interesting under a microscope, and generally most beautiful in great masses at a distance. But if you walk close to the grandest cliff in nature, and flatten your face against it, and hold your eye half an inch from the rock, the grandeur and the beauty are all gone, and without a microscope wherewith to examine your particular point, you will find the close inspection tiresome after a time. There is no microscope for the soul, any more than for the heart, or the mind. You gain nothing by looking too closely at it. It is ten to one that you hit upon a diseased spot for your examination. It may amuse you for a time to study other people's souls, because you can hardly get so near to them as to lose all impression of the whole, as you can with yourself. What does it matter what you know about your soul, so long as you do what is right?" "That sounds true," said Leonora, "but I suppose there is something wrong about it." "All good similes sound true," said Batiscombe, laughing. "That is the reason why popular orators and preachers are so fond of them. The real use of a simile is for an explanation; the moment you make an argument upon it, you are revelling in words without logic, calling illustrations facts and generally making game of your audience." "What a discouraging person you are," said Leonora. "You make one almost believe a thing, and then you turn round and tell one there is nothing to believe after all." "Not so bad as that," said Batiscombe, leaning back and clasping his brown hands over his knee. "I have not said there was nothing to believe in. Only take care you do not believe in anything because it bears a tempting resemblance to something you like." "That is ingenious, but I wish you would be positive about something. I wish you would tell me, for instance, what you yourself believe in." Her eyes turned towards him in the twilight. For the sun had gone down, and the orange-trees brought the shadows early where the two were sitting. "What I believe in?" he repeated. "I suppose that, apart from religious matters, I believe most in sympathy and antipathy." "That is not exactly a course of action or a rule of life," remarked Leonora, smiling and looking away. "No. But in nine cases out of ten they are what determine both. At all events I believe in them. They always carry the day over logic, philosophy, and all manner of calculation and forethought. You may determine that it is your duty to like a person, you may induce yourself to think that you do, and you may make every one believe you do; but if you really do not--there is an end of it. And the reverse is just as true." "I should think every one knew that," said Leonora in an indifferent way. But she was wondering why he had said it, whether he had any suspicion of her own state of mind. "It is very safe to say you believe in things of that sort--everybody does. You are a very indefinite person, Mr. Batiscombe." "What is the use of defining everything? Lots of people have been burned alive, and have had their heads cut off for defining things they knew nothing about. Of course they were quite sure they knew better; but then, is it worth while to die for your personal opinion of an abstract question?" "It is very fine and noble, though," said Leonora. "There is a tradition that it is fine and noble to 'die for' anything. It sounds well. Every one admires it. But reflect that the common murderer 'dies for' his individual views of the social state. The woman who maintained that scissors were better than a knife for cutting an apple suffered her husband to drown her rather than give up the point, and as she sank her fingers still opened and closed, to imitate the instrument she preferred. She 'died for' her opinion, just as much as Savonarola or Giordano Bruno, whom my countrymen are so fond of raving about." "You know that is not what I mean," said Leonora. "I mean it is noble to die for what is right." "The question is, what is right? There are cases when it is eminently heroic to sacrifice one's life." "For instance?" "For instance, to die for the liberty of one's own country,--for the defence and safety of one's king, who represents the embodiment of the social principle,--or for the honour of an innocent woman." "But about liberty and one's king, and that sort of thing," said Leonora, "where can you draw the line? There is no successful treason, you know, because when it succeeds it is called by other names. There must be a standard of absolute good--or something." "I should think you must be a very unhappy person, Marchesa, if you are always trying to draw a line and to define absolute good. What is the use? Every one knows that it cannot be done." Leonora was silent. It had interested her to hear the brilliant, successful man, apparently so happy and contented with his lot, talk seriously about the things she was always puzzling over. But what did it come to? What was the use? Those were his last words. The warm gloom of the night settled softly round them, laden with the sweetness of the oranges and the aromatic scent of the late carnations. Batiscombe could just see Leonora by his side, her head bent forward as she rested her chin upon her hand. The indescribable atmosphere and faint perfume that surrounds women of high beauty and degree intoxicated him. She was so English in her beauty and so Russian in her delicate exuberance of vitality; above all, she was so intensely feminine, that Batiscombe felt his senses giving way to the magnetic influence. He leaned forward in the dark till he was nearer to her, looking at the faint outline of her face. Leonora sighed, and the gentle sound seemed like the softened echo of past weeping. "Marchesa," said Julius in a low voice, "can I really be your friend? Will you let me help to make your life happier, if I can?" Leonora felt the blood rise blushing to her face in the dark, and her heart trembled in its beating. A friend! Oh, if she really could find a strong, true friend to help her! "How can you?" she asked faintly. "I do not know," he answered. "Let me try. I will try very hard. I am sure I can succeed." She let him take her hand for one moment. It was a consent, not spoken, but given and understood. Leonora rose to her feet, and they walked silently toward the house. "When may I come?" he asked, as he bade her good night. He spoke quite naturally, as though it were already a matter of course that he should see her every day. She hesitated a moment, standing in the doorway with the warm light of the lamp upon her. "Come at eleven," she said at last, and with a pleasant smile she left him and went in. The aspect of life seemed changed for her when he was gone. That afternoon she had suffered intensely. Now there was a strange, calm sense in her heart that soothed all her thoughts, and made the lonely evening sweet and restful. She asked no questions, she made no self-examination, she desired of herself no reasons for her conduct. It was enough that the storm had passed and that the calm was come, she knew not how. A man had spoken to her as no man ever spoke to her before, and the earnestness of his words still rang in her ear. He was loyal, strong, and true. He would be her friend,--he had asked it, she had granted it. She dined alone and read a little afterwards, closing her eyes now and again to enjoy the peace that had descended upon her. For the first time in many months she was happy, supremely, quietly happy, and she asked no questions. As for Batiscombe, he wandered homewards through the dark lanes, not heeding or caring where he went. He was wholly absorbed in recalling the events of the afternoon, revelling in the memory of Leonora's face and looks and words. He, too, was wholly disinclined to reflect on the possible consequences of his action; he took it as a matter of course that he should keep his word and be indeed a friend to her; at all events he thought neither of the future nor the past, but only ever and ever of herself, clinging tenderly to the images he called up, and asking nothing better than to call them up again, dreaming and waking. He might be in love, or he might not,--the question no longer entered his head. He was fascinated, charmed, and beside himself with enjoyment of his thoughts. It was the state he had dreaded a day or two ago. To avoid it he had tried to escape, by a stratagem, beyond the possibility of seeing Leonora again. He had cursed his folly in going to see her. He had promised himself that he would not go again; he had reviewed his past troubles, and had remembered how plausibly they had begun. And at last he had fallen into the ancient trap, the snare of fair friendship set out to catch men and women and to destroy them. But the mouth of the pit was garnished with roses and lilies, sweet and innocent enough. At eleven o'clock of the next day Julius was again with Leonora, and on the day following and the day after that. They walked together, read together, sailed together, and lunched together. A few stray callers came in now and then, but as they never came twice, not one of them thought it at all worthy of remark that Mr. Batiscombe should happen to be calling at the same time. Leonora found an extraordinary pleasure in his conversation. He had a fund of varied study and experience from which to draw, that amused her and made her think in new grooves; and when he talked about her ideas and interests he always succeeded in showing them to her in a new light. His comments were by turns light and sarcastic, and then again very serious; and his general readiness to make things seem amusing made his graver sayings doubly strong by contrast. He had a bold way of asserting that accumulated knowledge was of very little importance as compared with action, which would have sounded foolish enough from an ignorant man; but Julius was far from ignorant. He had studied a great many questions, and he possessed the faculty of speaking sensibly in a general way about subjects of which he did not profess to know anything. Most of all she found in him a ready sympathy and a love of human nature and of life for life's sake, that were utterly different from the artificial views she had cultivated. She found in him the strong love of enjoyment and the activity of mind and body, that best harmonised with her own real character; and in their long days together the hollowness and emptiness of life never once recalled themselves to her memory, except as things for her to wonder at and for Batiscombe to turn into jest and laugh to scorn. The whole situation was utterly new and unexpected to her. After the first few days at Sorrento with her husband she had made up her mind that the beauties of nature were very tedious, and that she would be glad to go back to Rome and begin the duties of society,--anything, rather than go on from day to day longing for a sensation, and finding only a great deal of weariness. But now, in the discovery of a new friend, a man of talent and tact, who made all gloomy musings seem ridiculous by the side of his sanguine activity, the place was transformed into a paradise for her. Not a day but brought some new thought, some witty saying, some bit of novelty with it, so that she found herself happy when she was alone in going over what they had said and done together. As for Marcantonio, she should be very glad when he came back. It seemed to her that he must be much more amusing now, and that she could say things to rouse him and make him talk. She wrote affectionate notes every day, telling him how beautiful everything was, and how he was to enjoy it, now that the first difficulties of settling were over. She even said she had sent for the cook, and had ascertained that he was very well, having had no return of the fever; she thought it must please her husband to know that she was taking care of the household and looking after the people. In the meanwhile Batiscombe fell in love, studiously consoling his conscience with the reflection that he was doing a good deed, and was acting the part of a friend in making the time pass pleasantly for Leonora in her solitude. But his conscience did not trouble him greatly, though it would be sure to, by and by. At present everything was swamped in a sea of glorious enjoyment, and he was no less really happy than Leonora. Day after day began and ended alike, but yet ever different. They never referred to the singularity of the arrangement by which Julius came every day in the morning and stayed till dark. There seemed no reason why they should not leave well alone, and enjoy each other's society to the very utmost. And they did, most fully, each wholly engrossed in the other. At the end of a week Marcantonio telegraphed that he and his sister would leave Rome by the night train and arrive in the morning. Leonora in the innocence of her heart was glad, anticipating all manner of new pleasure in her husband's society, the result of her own cure from morbid ennui. But Batiscombe felt his heart sink within him. CHAPTER XI. The sun beat down fiercely as Marcantonio and Madame de Charleroi drove up to the house at half-past ten o'clock. They had travelled all night, but the beautiful Diana was not the less fair for being a little tired, and as she descended from the carriage and went up the short steps to the door, Leonora could not help admiring the perfect smoothness and completeness of her appearance. Donna Diana did things in a stately fashion, and it would have been a hard journey indeed that could ruffle her lace or disturb the smooth coiling of her hair. Leonora herself was apt to arrive a little dusty from a night in a train, and not altogether serene, and she knew it; so that the absolutely finished completeness of Madame de Charleroi struck her as enviable and much to be admired. The two women kissed each other affectionately on either cheek, and then Marcantonio came running up and bent over his wife's hand, and, when Donna Diana was not looking, he just brushed Leonora's cheek in a rather guilty fashion. Presently Leonora led Diana away to show her the rooms destined for her, and to fuss a little over all the arrangements, as women love to do when another woman is come to stay with them. Marcantonio was busy for a few minutes, asking questions of the coachman and the men-servants concerning the health of every individual in the establishment, and then he also retired to his room, and the perspiring grooms and servants raged furiously together with the luggage and bundles for a while; and then the front door was closed again, and all was cool and quiet. Leonora left her husband and her sister-in-law to their toilet, and came down stairs through the darkened halls to the drawing-room. She was wondering whether Batiscombe would appear at his usual hour. Strange to say they had not spoken of it on the previous evening,--probably because they feared lest the mention of the subject should lead to some discussion about the singular intimacy into which they had fallen, and which neither wished to endanger. It would be just like Batiscombe to come, she thought; it would be just like him to show himself at once as her friend, and to establish the custom of coming every day. She was not mistaken; at eleven o'clock the bell rang, and he was shown in. "I was quite sure you would come," she said, holding out her hand. "Of course," said he. "I hope they have arrived safely?" "Quite, thanks. They are making themselves beautiful at this moment, though I think they must have done it on the way,--they arrived looking as fresh as possible, all smiles and lavender and sunshine. I am so glad they are come, you cannot think!" "Yes, I should think you must be," assented Julius with less enthusiasm. At that moment Marcantonio was shaving himself in the cool seclusion of his dressing-room. He was going over in his mind the past and the future, reflecting upon the absurd things he had said to Diana about Batiscombe in the train, and wondering what he could do to make her stay pleasant. Batiscombe must certainly be asked to the house, he thought, if only to show his sister that he, Marcantonio, had no objection to her meeting the man. It had been so thoroughly absurd to take up her speech about the possibility of her having married him, and to build on it the supposition that she had ever loved him. Bah! the fancy of a girl for the romantic! Batiscombe was now a perfectly serious man--decidedly so. Besides, Marcantonio began to dread very much the eternal trio between his wife, his sister, and himself, from morning till night. If only he had thought in time to ask some other man, it would have been such a charming square party. His wife was always more brilliant and good-tempered when there were outsiders present,--probably a peculiarity of all women, he thought, excepting Diana. Supposing that Leonora took it into her head to be dull or bored while Diana was there, how dreadful it would be! It was clearly necessary that Diana should have a favourable idea of the Carantoni household; that had been the whole object in bringing her down. And if Leonora did not seem in good spirits, Diana was sure to think he was not making his wife happy. The idea grew in his mind; he was terribly afraid of what his sister might think, seeing how she had opposed the match from the first. Really it was absolutely necessary to ask some one to the house while she stayed. But whom could he ask at such short notice? There was nobody but Batiscombe within reach. Marcantonio had finished shaving one side of his face, and took a fresh razor for the other. There was a pause in his thoughts while he tested the edge and applied more soap to his cheek. As he went to work again, the original train of ideas continued. Well! Batiscombe. Why not? He was a very amiable man, and Leonora liked him. She would certainly not object. As for Diana, it was probable that he would keep away from her most of the time. He would scarcely press his company on her. Monsieur Batiscombe had tact, although he was a crazy foreigner who went round the world in boats and wrote books. Bah! it was so convenient! Just the very person--he knew everything, had seen most things, and could talk like a mill-wheel. All those ridiculous prejudices about Diana were absurd, and were an insult to her. Batiscombe should be asked to stay a week. Having successfully finished his shaving operations, Marcantonio sat down to write a note to Julius while the thing was in his mind. Otherwise, he reflected, he might forget to do it, and Batiscombe could not be obtained until to-morrow. He wrote an invitation and signed it. Then he reflected that it would be as well to speak to Leonora before sending it. She did not know anything about that old story that had happened when she was a little girl, and perhaps not even in Rome. It was a mere formality, but it would be more courteous to ask her, before sending the invitation. He would not ask Diana, however. She had herself said, the night before, that she had no objection to meeting the man. Very well, she should meet him very soon. He hurriedly finished dressing and went down-stairs to find Leonora. Entering the drawing-room he found her talking quietly with the very man he was thinking about. "Mon Dieu! what a chance!" he exclaimed, cordially shaking Julius by the hand. "Imagine! I was just writing you a note, when you were in the house yourself!" "Really?" ejaculated Batiscombe, in some astonishment. "How can I serve you--since I am here in the flesh?" "By remaining!" answered Marcantonio cheerfully. "I was in the act of writing a very pressing invitation to you to stay a week with us, and thus to make up the most agreeable party of four in the world. Madame unites herself with me in the request, I am sure," added Carantoni, turning to his wife, who looked rather pale. "Mais certainement--we shall be charmed," said Leonora, utterly astonished and confused by the suddenness of the situation. She had herself thought how delightful such an arrangement would be--more than once. But coming so suddenly, from her husband, without her suggestion, it frightened her and did not seem quite natural. Her voice did not sound very cordial as she spoke, but it was sufficient, and her husband, being full of his idea, noticed nothing. "You are very kind. It will really give me very great pleasure," said Julius, controlling his voice wonderfully. For he, too, was taken off his guard. Marcantonio was delighted. It was such a wonderful piece of luck, he said, that Monsieur Batiscombe should have called at that hour. "But come with me, if madame permits," said he, "and I will show you your room. You can send for your things in the afternoon." Leonora was only too glad to be left alone for a moment, and the two men went away, Marcantonio rubbing his hands at the success of his arrangements for a pleasant week. With Batiscombe in the house the time could not fail to pass pleasantly, he thought. There are some men who seem to be pursued by an evil destiny that continually forces them to do the wrong thing out of pure goodness of heart. From an innocent desire to make his household pleasant for his sister, and to amuse the wife of his heart, he had asked the man of all others whom the one desired to avoid, and the other ought to have been kept from, simply because he wanted somebody and the man happened to be on the spot. And the whole thing had originated in a laudable desire to see pleasant relations established between his wife and his sister, the two persons in the whole world whom he most loved. Poor Marcantonio! He was under an unlucky star. Presently Batiscombe returned alone to the drawing-room, his host remaining to give some orders about the luncheon. He looked curiously at Leonora as he sat down opposite to her. "This is very charming," he said, smiling. "It is so kind of you." "I had nothing to do with it," said Leonora, avoiding his glance. "But of course I am very glad. I was dreadfully afraid of being left alone with my sister-in-law, and of course you will help me to make it pleasant for her. Really, it is just like my husband,--he is so good." "It would have been very miserable to have our good time cut short," said Julius reflectively, "and I suppose they would have thought it odd if I went on calling every day at the same hour." Leonora blushed very slightly. "Yes," she said, "I suppose so. People have such ideas about the appearances. You know I should not mind in the least if it were only my husband; you might stay from morning till night, and we should all enjoy it. But I am so afraid of Madame de Charleroi,--she is so tremendously correct, you know." From which piece of conversation it will be seen that Julius and Leonora had grown intimate of late, and regarded things from a practical point of view. All this time Madame de Charleroi was in ignorance of the amiable arrangement concluded by her brother, and was looking forward with almost as much dislike as he had done to the family trio in which she was to play a part during the week. She understood Leonora to a certain extent. She had at least a very strong presentiment that there would be trouble between her brother and his wife; not an open disagreement nor anything dramatic, but the sort of small worry and discord that begins slowly and surely, and finally embitters the whole lives of people who are not suited to each other. She had agreed to come down to Sorrento in order to "make friends" with Leonora, as her brother had expressed it, and in her wisdom and knowledge of the world she knew very well what a difficult task she had undertaken, and how small was her chance of success. She foresaw that she must be continually left alone with Leonora, for she understood her brother well enough to suppose he would adopt that method of fostering the friendship he desired. Poor dear Marcantonio had so very little tact! Consequently Diana wished very much that some other person had been asked to stay at the same time. Meanwhile she lay down for an hour upon a sofa in her sitting-room, and thought the matter over. Marcantonio, however, bethought him that in spite of Diana's expressed willingness to meet Batiscombe, it might surprise her to find herself suddenly living under the same roof with him. He therefore determined to inform her of the fact before they all met at the midday breakfast. He supposed she was busy with her toilet, and so he would not go himself; he would send his wife. That was a good idea--it would be at once a chance of throwing the two together. To this end he returned to the drawing-room, where Leonora and Batiscombe were still talking, and with an apology to the latter, he drew his wife aside for a moment. "I think, my angel," he whispered, "that it would be better to tell Diana that monsieur is here for a week. She is dressing at this moment. Would you be so amiable as to go to her and say in the course of the conversation that I have invited Monsieur Batiscombe? It would be very good of you, my dear." Leonora was not in the humour to refuse her husband anything. Everything was bright and happy to her, now that she saw a means of defence provided for her against the stately Diana, whom she feared. She had recovered from her astonishment at the sudden invitation to Julius, and she saw in it a kind intention on her husband's part, for which she was grateful. "Of course, mon ami," she answered, "I will do everything you like. Only amuse Monsieur Batiscombe for a moment, and I will run to Diana, and tell her what you wish." "A thousand thanks!" exclaimed Marcantonio, and he turned to the task of amusing Mr. Batiscombe, more delighted than ever. Leonora knocked rather timidly at the door of Diana's sitting-room. "It is I," she said, through the door; "may I come in?" "Oh, I am so glad to see you!" exclaimed Diana, rising swiftly from her couch, with a bright smile. She took Leonora's hand and led her to a chair, and arranged the curtains a little, so as to make more light, and then sat down by her side. "You must be dreadfully tired," said Leonora, "and I ought not to disturb you. I just wanted to see if you had everything you wanted." "But everything--everything, I assure you," answered Diana. "I am so very comfortable, and the view over the sea is exquisite, really de toute beauté." They made a wonderful contrast, as they sat side by side. Donna Diana's perfect features were more mature than Leonora's, her bearing was more noble, and her look more quiet and self-possessed. She wore a loose peignoir of white, with lace and white silk ribbons, such as none but perfect blondes can wear. But nothing could dim the dazzling whiteness of her skin, or detract from her marvellous beauty. She was calm, and statue-like, and it was only now and then that a glance from her deep grey eyes betrayed the warm and sympathising heart within. A grand, regal woman, fit to wear a crown or to have been the priestess of an ancient people. She had it all from her mother, who had been like her, though in a smaller mould, and had died, still young and beautiful, when Diana and her brother were little children. It was impossible to imagine her for a moment deprived of her perfect grace, and ease, and quiet. Leonora was altogether more earthly. She moved well, but often impetuously. Her extraordinary vitality, when not reduced by reaction to a state of unnatural apathy, was forever seeking an outlet. She loved the light and the stir of society life, while she amused herself with reflecting on its emptiness. She was instinct with strength, and motion, and elasticity. Her skin was always fresh, whether in heat or cold, but from the enthusiasm with which she did things, she sometimes lost the smoothness and correctness--as she would have called it--of her appearance. And yet even at such times she had a strange charm and fascination of her own. As she often said, she was far less beautiful than Diana, but much more alive,--though with a life that might perhaps be less strong and enduring than Diana's. Diana was a queen--Leonora a brilliant and irresponsible princess. They talked a little together, and Leonora found it easy to lead the conversation to the plans she was making for the amusement of her sister-in-law. "By the bye," said she, "I ought to tell you. Mr. Julius Batiscombe is staying here this week. I suppose you know him?" Leonora had no idea of anything having existed in former times in the way of sentiment between Diana and Julius. She was sent to convey a piece of information, and she did it as well as she could, not even looking at Diana as she spoke. Had she suspected anything she would have watched her, and she could have seen the least possible trembling of the eyelids, and the lightest imaginable shade of annoyance on her guest's fair face. "Oh yes," she said calmly, "I know him. I have known him a long time. So he is staying with you?" "Yes. He is so very agreeable, and Marcantonio wished it. He has been in Sorrento some time, and he took us to Castellamare to see that ironclad launched. He is so very clever." "Because he took you in his boat?" laughed Diana. "Yes, my dear, a man is clever indeed who can get such charming company." Leonora was pleased with the little speech,--it sounded kindly, and as Diana spoke she laid her hand softly on Leonora's. "How cold your hands are," said Diana. And indeed they were chilled through, though it was a very hot day in July. "'Cold hands, warm heart,' you know, as the proverb says." Leonora blushed a little. It seemed so odd to be talking about Julius Batiscombe to a stranger that it frightened her a little, and she was conscious that her heart beat faster. Nevertheless she wondered vaguely why she felt the blood rise to her cheek. He was only her friend, and the remark about the heart could have nothing to do with him. But Diana supposed she changed colour because she was thinking of Marcantonio. It was natural for a young bride to blush at the mention of her heart, of course, and altogether charming. She patted the cold little hand sympathetically and talked of something else. It is so easy to misunderstand a blush. But Leonora felt as though she were being patronised, which is the thing people of her stamp most bitterly resent of all others; and accordingly there sprang up in her breast a little breeze of opposition, which might by and by blow a gale. When the party met in the drawing-room before the midday breakfast, everything seemed arranged for the best, and Marcantonio rubbed his hands with delight, and made numerous hospitable gestures as he walked round the three lambs of his fold. Batiscombe rose and bowed low to Madame de Charleroi. She nodded pleasantly as to an old acquaintance, and gave him her hand. He turned a little pale under the sunburnt bronze of his face. "I am glad to see you," said she. "I thought you had probably been shipwrecked in that boat of yours. It was in all the papers, you know." "The sea would not be so ill-bred as to swallow me up before I had had the honour of making my homage to you, madame," said Batiscombe with a bow and a smile. It is so easy to say pretty things in French, and as every one does it no one ever knows the genuine from the spurious. Diana was well used to Batiscombe's ways, and she laughed a little. But somehow Leonora did not like the speech. The English part of her revolted against a generality of gallant language, though her Russian blood made it quite possible for her to accept such things as genuine when addressed to herself. Breakfast was announced. "Mon Dieu," exclaimed Marcantonio, smiling at everybody, "it is the most charming quartette imaginable. But there arises a terrible question of precedence. I must evidently give my arm to my wife or to my sister. It is very grave. Mesdames, I pray you, select." "Of course," said Leonora, "Diana is the guest. It is to her that you must give your arm; and Monsieur Batiscombe must console himself as he can." Everybody smiled politely, as people do over the inanities of a very cheerful and hospitable host. "Thank you," said Batiscombe in English, as he and Leonora followed the other couple into the breakfast-room at a little distance. It became the duty of Batiscombe and the two ladies to make Marcantonio believe that they were all enjoying themselves and each other immensely; their duty it was--the sacred and unavoidable duty of society towards its entertainers. Batiscombe found the situation very unpleasant. Diana wished the week well over, and bore her part with the unfaltering serenity and cheerfulness that well-bred sovereigns exhibit when they are obliged to do some of the thousand disagreeable things that make up most of their lives. Leonora was beginning to be quite sure she could never like Diana. How could she like a woman who assumed airs of superiority? Diana was not in the least like the young ladies whom she knew in Rome, and whom, she promised herself, she would rule with a rod of iron now that she was married. And Marcantonio smiled and said all the pleasantest things he could imagine; and they were many, for pleasantness was his strong point. Batiscombe seconded him to the best of his ability, and every now and then reflected for an instant on the extraordinary position in which he found himself. Indeed, he had cause to wonder at the strangeness of fate. There he sat, eating his breakfast between the woman who had dominated him all his life, and the woman who fascinated him in the present, with ample opportunity to compare them with each other, and a determination not to do it. It seemed as though Diana's coming had roused his instincts of contrariety, as it had in Leonora, though for quite different reasons. Diana knew well enough, he thought, that she ruled him and could bring him to her feet in a moment. Why, then, if she did not want him herself, did she come and disturb his peace and happiness? She need not have prevented him from enjoying the society of a charming woman, but she undoubtedly would. He knew well enough that her presence must be a check on the daily and hourly intercourse with Leonora which he just now most desired. She would not believe in the friendship which had seemed so real to Leonora and so possible to himself. She would watch him with those grey eyes of hers that knew him so well, and when she had an opportunity, she would give him a wholesome lecture on the error of his ways. He knew Diana well, and she knew him better. He was forced to confess that she was more beautiful, more stately, and more perfect now, at eight and twenty, than she had been ten years ago at eighteen; that, if she lifted her finger to him now, he would be more entirely her servant and slave than ever before; and that in the bottom of his heart he wished she would do so, as he wished no other thing in the world. At the same time he knew perfectly well that she would not, and he thought it was not fair of her to disturb an innocent friendship which had, by force of circumstances, assumed a peculiar aspect. She excited in him all the obstinacy which attends weakness--and Julius was a weak man where women were concerned. And whether he would or not, he made up his mind not to relinquish his daily enjoyment of talking to Leonora for all the Dianas in the world,--if it were only to please his own vanity. The repast was somehow or other a success so far as Marcantonio was concerned. He felt that everything was proceeding as it should, that all his little plans had turned out well, and that he was a happy husband and a happy brother. He was in complete ignorance of Julius Batiscombe's daily visits to his wife during his absence. She had meant to tell him, honestly, how pleasant it had all been, and how much she had enjoyed it; but, somehow, the invitation to Batiscombe to stay in the house had made her put it off. Marcantonio was so odd about some things, and he was sure to want so many explanations; she could tell him just as well after Diana and Batiscombe were gone; and then, of course, it could not matter so much. She knew that Julius would never refer to all those days unless she herself did. If only that terrible Diana did not see or find out! How dreadful it would be to have her say anything to Marcantonio! CHAPTER XII. A country-house is a glass house. The more people there are staying in it, the more fragile and delicate are the walls, and the more probability there is that some one will be inspired by the Evil One to throw stones. Sometimes it happens that two or three of a party fight a pitched battle, and then some lucky lovers who have nothing to do with the hostilities are forgotten and overlooked in the din of war. But if there is one thing in the world more certain to get out than murder it is love, righteous or unrighteous. Lovers who desire secrecy should never go to country-houses together. It seems to them as though each and every member of the household had especially adopted a set of vile and pernicious habits; a determination to be where they ought not, at all sorts of unexpected hours; to come skulking round corners under the empty pretext of seeking shade, and to be found lurking in wooded dells on pretence of studying natural history. There is the matutinal fiend, who shaves at the window in the grey dawn and sees people who have got up for an early walk; and, verily, they feel like worms when they glance up and see his beak and talons at the casement. There is also the demon that walketh in darkness, smoking a midnight cigar on the lawn before going to bed. There is the midday dragon, green-eyed and loathly to behold, who steals out in old gloves and a parasol immediately after luncheon, because she has left her glasses on the mossy seat under the trees, just out of sight of the house, and must needs find them. There is the vile and sickening bookworm, with his bland smile and unhealthy complexion, who dives into the library in the middle of the summer's afternoon, and ruthlessly opens the blinds to find a quotation, the eighteenth volume of an uncut rarity in vellum; and who wrinkles disagreeably all over when he observes the couple in the corner, staring like blushing owls in the sudden glare. And, besides all these, there are the low earth-spirits,--a swarm of maids, butlers, grooms, stable-boys, and nurses,--who are supposed to dwell somewhere, underground, and are everlastingly appearing, like phantoms, noiseless and awful, with ears like vast trumpets of endless capacity and eyes of incalculable magnifying power. A country-house is a terrible test of all the great virtues of mankind and a fearful reflector of all the vices. It is well to begin life in the country with an adequate certainty that, whatever you do, you will be found out, and that you will often be found out when you have done nothing. And a villa hired in the orange gardens of Sorrento, overhanging the murmuring sea and sweet with the breath of the rich south, is not different in this respect from a Yorkshire manor-house, a château in the south of France, or a "romantic retreat" on the Hudson River. For two or three days after the events just chronicled, Leonora and Batiscombe managed successfully to spend several hours out of the twenty-four in each other's society. Marcantonio was busy during a great part of the time with correspondence concerning the politics of his party, and once he went over to Naples to see an eminent person on business. The four inmates of the house met at meals, and in the late afternoon, when they generally went out in the boat. Donna Diana occasionally sat with Leonora for an hour, and they talked to each other studiously, Leonora trying her best to make the time pleasant for Diana, and Diana doing what she could to cultivate her acquaintance with Leonora. At the end of two days it was perfectly clear that the two women would never be intimate. But they both concealed the fact from Marcantonio; and he rubbed his hands, and wrote his letters, and bought cartloads of things for his wife, in the comforting assurance that she was very happy and inclined to follow his wishes in regard to his sister. But Diana was not given to looking after Leonora when she was out of her sight, and she spent a great part of the day in writing letters, in reading, and now and then in calling on a few acquaintances who lived along the shore in the villas towards Castellamare. She was glad that Batiscombe kept out of her way, but she did not exactly understand why he did so. He was generally extremely anxious to see as much as possible of her when he was in her neighbourhood. Could it be that he did not love her any longer? That after all these years he had at last put her out of his mind? Perhaps so. She was glad if it were so, most truly. She had many times prayed with her whole soul that he might forget her. It might be that the prayer was answered. At all events, he kept out of her way, and she did not regret it, nor ever give him a sign to come to her. She supposed that he spent his hours with Leonora or Marcantonio or both, and there was no reason why he should not be intimate in the house, so far as she herself was concerned. One day it chanced that the wind was in the south-east, blowing a hot blast and making everything very hazy and sultry that was out of its reach, and covering everything it touched with a disagreeable mixture of dust and hot dampness. Every one who has lived in Italy knows what the sirocco is like, and the dismal stickiness it brings. It seems as though the universe were under a press and some one were screwing it down. It was three o'clock in the afternoon, and Madame de Charleroi was sitting in her small boudoir, trying to write a letter to her husband. Unlike most Italians, she had not the habit of sleeping in the day, and used the time when other people were taking a nap during the great heat to keep up an extensive correspondence. She was a woman who had made this one interest for herself, and thoroughly enjoyed being in constant communication with a dozen intelligent people in all parts of the world. It was excessively hot. Even she, who was southern born and did not mind it, felt her brain grow dizzy and her fingers tired and clammy. Leonora's white kitten had strayed into the room after lunch, and was walking about near the door, squeaking now and then as though it did not like the quarters and wanted to get out. For the mere sake of changing her position, Diana laid down her pen and rose to open the door. As she did so the cat jumped nimbly through, and a little breath of cooler air blew in from the passage. Diana stood one moment as though enjoying it, and then went out. She took a parasol in the hall, and walked slowly down the garden. The sky was overcast with a dull leaden grey, and the south-east wind blew under the trees, bad enough in itself, but infinitely better than the close heat indoors. There was no one to be seen, and Diana paced slowly along the gravel path. At the end of it were the steps which led through the rocks to the sea. She had gone down and come up again more than once with the rest of the party in the evening, when they had been out in the boat, and she had thought each time that it would be pleasant to come and sit in some of the cool archways and look out over the sea in the heat of the day. She felt sure, too, of being alone there; it was not a likely place for any one to frequent at three o'clock in the afternoon. Diana closed her parasol, and, just lifting the skirt of her white dress off the ground, began to descend the broad stone steps, hewn out of the solid rock, through a steep vaulted tunnel in the inside of the cliff. Here and there a great arched window looked out, in which were cut wide seats. She had passed through the darkest part of the descent, carefully picking her way, when she suddenly found herself opposite to one of these windows. She was startled to see two persons there, for she had been certain that she would be alone. They were Leonora and Batiscombe, sitting side by side under the arched opening. Hearing her tread they both looked round, and Julius seemed to pick up from the floor something which had probably fallen while they were talking. Then he remained standing, and Diana, seeing she was discovered, advanced boldly toward the pair. There was nothing so extraordinary in the situation after all, but she had always supposed that Leonora slept in the afternoon while Batiscombe and Marcantonio smoked and talked politics up-stairs. They had certainly been sitting very near together, she thought, but the sudden glare of the light and the distance which separated her from them had prevented her from noticing their faces. As she came near, Leonora rose also and spoke first. She held her back to the light, for she was blushing deeply; but Batiscombe, who never blushed and rarely turned pale, stood calmly pulling his moustache, as though it were all the most natural thing in the world. "I had always meant to tell you how delightful it is here," said Leonora. "I am so glad you have found it out for yourself." "En effet," answered Madame de Charleroi calmly smiling, "it is ideal." She came under the arch and looked out, enjoying the sight of the sea after the dark passages. "And then," said Leonora, "it is strictly true that one is 'not at home' when one is here,--if people call, it is very convenient. Nobody can find one." "Excepting Madame de Charleroi," said Batiscombe, who was very angry at the interruption. But he said it so pleasantly and with such an air of paying a compliment, that Diana could not be offended; she only smiled a little bitterly in her lofty way, remembering other times when he would have given his right hand for a meeting of any kind with her. In that moment a suspicion crossed Diana's mind. She understood the meaning of his remark perfectly, in spite of the bow and the smile, knowing, as she did, every intonation of his voice and every expression of his face. She saw that he was angry, and she argued that Julius preferred being with Leonora to being with herself. That was clearly the reason why he kept out of her way; he spent his time with Leonora. If Leonora attracted him, he was certainly at liberty to talk to her if he pleased, but Diana thought it must be a strong attraction indeed that kept him away from herself. It was long since he had missed an opportunity of spending an hour with his old love. Diana sat down beside Leonora, and Batiscombe leaned against the rock and looked out over the sea, the fire dancing in his blue eyes, but his face as calm as ever. Diana began to talk to Leonora. "You are very fortunate in getting such a place," she said. "It is by far the most beautiful on the whole shore." "I wish it belonged to us," said Leonora. "I am sure I could come here every year and never grow tired of it." "Ah!" exclaimed Diana, "do you like it so very much then?" "J'en raffole!" answered Leonora enthusiastically, "I am crazy about it. And then, it is always so charming to have absolutely the best. As you say, there is nothing like this place on the whole bay. I should like always to have the best." "But, madame," remarked Batiscombe, "it appears to me that you always do. You have the talent of supremacy." "What an idea! The talent of supremacy!" "But that is precisely it," continued Julius. "It is a talent. Some people are born with it--generally women." "That is Monsieur Batiscombe's favourite theory," remarked Madame de Charleroi, just glancing at him, "but he does not believe it the least in the world." "Is it true?" asked Leonora, innocently, looking up with an expression that did not escape Diana. It was a sort of frightened look, as though it really mattered to her what Batiscombe thought about women in general. "It pleases madame to be witty," answered Julius, glancing in his turn at Diana. "I have not many theories, but I believe in them as a man who is about to be guillotined believes in death." "One cannot say more than that," laughed Leonora. "But how about the supremacy of men? There have been more men in the world who have ruled it than there have ever been women." "Mon Dieu! Men give themselves much more trouble," he replied. "Women, having the divine right given to them straight from Heaven, exercise it without difficulty. A word, a cup of tea, a glance,--and the supremacy of a woman is established. What could a man do with a cup of tea? Or, if he looked at people by the hour together, could he rule them with a glance? When a woman has the gift she finds little difficulty in using it,--whereas the more of it a man has, the more trouble it is to him. Men are so stupid!" And with this sweeping condemnation of his own sex, Julius lit a cigarette, having obtained permission of the two ladies. "You ought not to have many friends, with such ideas about men," said Leonora. "En effet," said Diana, "he has none." "Not among men, at all events," said Julius. "I do not remember ever having any. I do not sleep any the worse on that account, I assure you. It is much more agreeable to have a number of pleasant acquaintances, who expect nothing from you and from whom you expect nothing. Friendship implies mutual obligations; I detest that." Leonora laughed a little. He had such a vicious way of saying such things, as though he thoroughly meant them. But then he was courteous and gentle to every one, though she suspected he might be different if he were angry. Diana knew very well that what he said was true, and that he had led an isolated life among other men, fighting his way through with his own hand and owing no man anything. She herself had for years been his best friend and his only confidant, though he saw her rarely enough. And now she felt as though even that one bond of his were to be broken,--and whether she would or not, the thought gave her pain, and she wished it could be otherwise. "It is always far more amusing to detest things," said Leonora, "unless you happen to want them." She was forgetting some of her indifferentism. "It is certainly more blessed to abuse than to be abused," returned Julius, "and, if one has the choice, it is as well to be the hammer and not the anvil. I am an excessively good-natured person, and if I had friends, they would make an anvil of me and beat my brains out,--and then I should starve." "Good-natured people are always made to suffer," said Leonora thoughtfully. "I am not in the least good-natured." "I remember," said Diana, "that Mr. Batiscombe used to say good-nature was a mixture of laziness and vulgarity." "Yes," answered Julius. "You have a good memory, madame. Good-nature is a compound of the laziness that cannot say 'no,' and of the vulgarity which desires to please every one indiscriminately. I suppose I possess both those faults very finely developed." "Fortunately," remarked Leonora, "goodness and good-nature are not the same." "Fortunately for you, Marchesa,--unfortunately for me," said Julius. "It is too complicated--please explain," she answered. "As you are so fortunate as to possess goodness without good-nature," said he, "you should be glad that the two are not one and the same, since good-nature is not a desirable quality. I am good-natured, but not good--I wish I were!" "Ah, I see!" exclaimed Diana. "It was a compliment." "Of course," said Julius. "Of course; but your compliments are often complicated, as the Marchesa says." Diana smiled as she spoke. Batiscombe knew that she was repaying him for the remark he had made when she had unexpectedly appeared twenty minutes earlier. "I can only repeat," he retorted, "that Madame de Charleroi has a good memory." Leonora was puzzled. She saw well enough that Diana and Julius were, or had been, much more intimate than she had supposed. They understood each other at a glance, by a word, and they seemed on the verge of quarrelling politely over nothing. She devoutly wished that Diana would go away, instead of spoiling her afternoon. But Diana leaned back against the rock and crossed her feet and prepared to be comfortable. She was evidently not going. Batiscombe stood motionless, with the easy stolidity of a very strong man who does not wish to move, and Leonora could see his bold profile against the grey haze of the sky. There was a short silence after his last remark, during which Leonora felt uneasy: something was in the atmosphere that made her anxious, and she did not like the way Diana looked at Batiscombe, with an air of absolute superiority, as though she could do anything she pleased with him. "How dreadfully solemn we are," said Leonora, rather awkwardly. Julius turned quickly with a laugh. "Let us be gay," he said. "I hate solemnity, unless there is enough of it to make me laugh. I remember being at a ball once that produced that effect." "Allons!" said Diana, "give us some of your reminiscences, Monsieur Batiscombe. They ought to be interesting." "Not so much as you think. But the ball was very funny. It was in Guatemala, three years ago. I was invited to a huge thing by the president--an entirely new president, too, who had just cut the throats of the old president and of all his relations. I believe there was some sort of revolution at the time, and when it was over the victorious individual gave a ball. The refreshments were simple--brandy for the men and rosolio for the ladies; there was no compromise in the shape of a biscuit or a glass of water." Leonora laughed, being willing to laugh at anything so as to encourage Julius to talk. "En vérité, that was very amusing," remarked Diana coldly. Batiscombe took no notice. "The women sat round the room in a double row," he continued, "like a court ball, excepting that they all smoked large cigars, and industriously passed the liqueur. The men stood behind and gave their undivided attention to the brandy. Not a soul spoke, and they all scowled fiercely at the brandy, the rosolio, and each other. A ghastly and tuneless quartette of instruments doled out a melancholy dirge, slower than anything you ever heard at a funeral; and now and then some enterprising and funereal man led out a less enterprising but equally melancholy female in a strange step, like the tormented ghost of a waltz in chains. It was so hideous that I went out and laughed till I almost had a fit. I have never thought anything seemed very solemn since then--it destroyed the proportion in my brain. A pauper's burial on a rainy day in London is a wildly gay entertainment compared with that ball." Leonora laughed, and even Diana smiled; whereupon Julius was satisfied, and relapsed into silence. But Leonora wanted conversation. "What in the world took you to Guatemala, Mr. Batiscombe?" she asked. "That is a question which I cannot answer, Marchesa," he replied. "I believe I went there for some reason or other--chiefly because I could go for nothing, and wanted to see something new." "Can you always go to Guatemala for nothing?" asked Leonora. "It must be very amusing." "A steamer company offered me a free passage to any port in their service," said Batiscombe; "and as the next ship went to Guatemala, I sailed with her. It happened to be first on the list." "What a queer idea!" exclaimed Leonora. "You are too modest, Mr. Batiscombe," said Diana. "You ought to tell the whole story--it is very interesting." Her voice was less cold than when she had spoken last. "Oh, do tell the story!" cried Leonora. "I adore autobiographies!" "Mon Dieu!" said Julius, "there is very little to tell. I did a service to a ship belonging to the company, and in acknowledgment they presented me with a piece of plate and the free passage in question. Voilà tout! madame is too good when she says it was interesting." "If Monsieur Batiscombe will not be so obliging as to relate the experience, I will," said Diana. "He shall correct me if I make a mistake." Batiscombe looked annoyed. He was not fond of telling his own adventures, and he hated to hear them told by other people. He could not imagine why Diana wanted to hear the story. He was irritated already, and her conduct seemed more and more inexplicable. Leonora looked at him expectantly. Who can understand a woman? It may be that Diana, who was really fond of him in a strange fashion, was sorry for the position she had taken that afternoon, and was willing to atone by giving him the credit before Leonora of some fine action he had done. "It was three years ago or more, in the winter," began Diana. "Monsieur Batiscombe was travelling in a ship on the coast of America. There were a hundred passengers on board, or more, and a crew of thirty-five. Is that exact?" Julius bent his head and turned away. "Eh bien, there was a great storm--such as there are in the ocean. It is horrible, you may imagine. The ship was driven on the rocks, a long distance from the shore. A reef, you call it, n'est-ce-pas?" "Yes," said Batiscombe. "Fifty or sixty yards from the shore." "Good. What do they do? Six brave sailors volunteer to throw themselves into the sea in a chaloupe--a miserable boat"-- "And monsieur was one of the volunteers"--exclaimed Leonora, enthusiastically. "Not at all, my dear friend. The boat overturns; the sailors are immediately drowned; every one is in consternation. Then Monsieur Batiscombe arrives; he says he will save everybody; he ties a thin line--a mere string--to his waist; he throws himself to the sea. The passengers scream as they cling to the ropes and the side, while the vessel is beaten horribly on the reef. He struggles in the waves, swimming; he is thrown down again and again in the breakers; he rises and rushes on to the shore. Then he pulls the string, and after the string a rope. A sailor ventures down and he also reaches the land. They fasten the rope, and every one is saved--passengers, crew, captain, tout le monde. Ah, Batiscombe, why are you not always doing such things,--you, who can do them so well?" Madame de Charleroi's grey eyes were wide and bright, and a very faint colour rose to her cheeks as she told the story. The calm, regal woman took a genuine delight in great actions, and as she turned to Julius at the end there was a ring of real sympathy and friendship and regret in her voice that it gave Leonora a strange sensation to hear. "It was magnificently brave!" exclaimed Leonora in English, and she looked at Julius as though she admired him with all her heart and soul. She had always had a feeling that he had probably made himself remarkable in such ways, but he always had told her that his life had been uneventful. To think that this calm, smooth, well-dressed, fine gentleman should have saved a whole shipload of lives by sheer strength and courage! Ah, he was a man, indeed! But Batiscombe never moved. He stood looking seaward, his eyelids half closed, and a thoughtful look on his brown face. Indeed, he was thinking deeply, but not so much of the old story Diana had been telling as of herself. The strange appeal in her last words had touched the good chord in his wayward heart, and he was thinking how fair his life might have been with her,--and how dark it had been without her. And the old true love rose up for one moment, hiding Leonora and the rest, and all the intervening years, and sending hot words to his ready lips. He turned in the act to speak, forgetting where he was,--then checked himself. Both Leonora and Diana had seen that he was going to say something, for they were watching him. He hesitated. "I ought to thank you, madame," he said to Diana, "for gilding my adventure so richly. But as for the thing itself, and the doing of such things, the opportunity seldom offers, and the faculty for doing them is the result of an excellent digestion and quiet nerves. Meanwhile it is grown cooler, and the boats are below. Shall we go down, and sail a little before dinner?" The two ladies consented readily enough, and they all descended to the landing and got into one of the boats and pushed away. "I shall have quite a new sensation in future when I sail with you, Mr. Batiscombe," said Leonora. "It would be impossible to be drowned with you on board." But Diana was pale again, and settled herself among the cushions in silence. Far up above, Marcantonio was interviewing the coachman on the terrace. He looked down and saw the boat shoot out with the three members of his household. He rubbed his hands smoothly together. "Ha," he said to himself, "it is superb! What good friends they are all growing to be! En vérité, Batiscombe is a most amiable man, full of tact." CHAPTER XIII. Late that evening Julius was sitting in a corner of the broad terrace over the sea. The clouds had cleared away before the light easterly breeze that springs up at night, and the stars shone brightly. Down in the west the young moon had set, and the air was fresh and cool after the long, hot day. Julius had drawn an arm-chair away from the house and was smoking solemnly, in enjoyment of the night. He found that he had much to think of. The rest of the household had gone to bed, or at all events had retired to their rooms. It had been a day of emotions with him, and that was unusual, to begin with. His feeling for Leonora was growing to great proportions. He knew that very well; and in spite of the momentary burst of passion, which, if he had been alone with Madame de Charleroi, would have found expression in words which he would have regretted and she would have resented, he now felt that he was irritated against her and could not forgive her inopportune interruption. All his opposition was roused; and as if in despite of his old love he dwelt on the thoughts of the present, and delighted in recalling the details of the fair Marchesa's conversation, the quickly changing expression of her face, the tones of her voice, the grace of her movements. She was so strong and living that he felt his whole being permeated with the atmosphere and essence of her life. As he leaned back in his chair, he experienced a sensation by no means new to him, of intense delight in existence, and he breathed in the soft fresh air, and tasted that it was the breath of love. A small, short step sounded on the tiles of the terrace, coming toward his corner. He looked round quickly, and was aware of the tall and graceful figure of Diana de Charleroi, muffled in something dark, but unmistakable in its outline and stately presence. In a moment she was beside him; he rose and threw away his cigarette, somewhat astonished. "Get another chair," said she, in a low voice. "It is pleasant here." He obeyed quickly and noiselessly, as he did everything. She had taken his chair, and he sat down beside her, waiting for her to speak. "I thought I should find you here, Julius," she said, calling him by his Christian name without the smallest hesitation. "I wanted to speak to you alone." "You have the faculty of finding me," said Julius with a short, low laugh. "Since when is it so disagreeable to you?" asked Diana. Julius was silent, for there was nothing he could say. He wished he had said nothing at first,--it would have been much better. Diana continued. "You and I know each other well enough to talk freely," she said. "We need not beat about the bush and say pretty things to each other, and I forgive you for being rude, because I know you very well, and am willing to sacrifice something. But I will not forgive you again if you are rude in public. There are certain things one does not permit one's self, when one is a gentleman." "You are very good, Diana," said Batiscombe, humbly. "I am very sorry. I lost my temper." "Naturally," she answered coolly. "You always lose your temper,--you always did,--and yet you fancy continually that you hide it. Let that go. I have forgiven you for this time, because I am the best friend you have." "The only one," said Julius. "Perhaps. You are well hated, I can tell you. Then treat me as a friend in future, if you please, and not as an inquisitive acquaintance who makes a point of annoying you for her own ends." She spoke calmly, in a quiet, determined voice, without the slightest hesitation or affectation. Julius bent his head. "I always mean to," he said. "Now listen to me," she continued. "I came upon you this afternoon by pure accident. I do not owe you any apology for that, and you know very well that I am the last person in the world to do things in that way, by stealth. That is the reason I come to you here, at night, to tell you my mind frankly." "Yes," said Batiscombe, in a muffled voice, "I know." "I came upon you by accident," said she, "and I made a discovery. You pass your afternoons in the society of my sister-in-law, and you lose your temper with me when I find you together,--though you always wish me to understand that you prefer my society to that of any woman in the world." "Ah--how you express it!" exclaimed Julius. "I express it as plainly as I can. I cannot help it if you do not like it. It is all true. And the inference is perfectly clear. Do you see?" "No," said Batiscombe. "You do not? Very well, I will draw it for you." She leaned back in the chair and looked at him; her eyes were accustomed by this time to the gloom, and she could see him quite clearly in the starlight. He moved uneasily. "Pray go on," he said. "The inference is this. You are making love to Leonora Carantoni." "You shall not say that," said Batiscombe, between his teeth, still looking fiercely at her. "You might forbid a man to say it," answered Diana, in low, calm tones. "And for anything I care you may forbid any other woman in the world to say it. But you cannot forbid me. I have the right." "In that case," said Julius, rising, and struggling to speak quietly, "there is nothing I can do but to leave you, since I will certainly not listen." But Diana rose also, and laid her white hand on his arm, as though she could have bowed the strong man to the earth if she chose. She seemed taller than he in the power and determination of her gesture. "Sit down instantly," she said, under her breath. Julius obeyed silently and sullenly. Then Diana resumed her seat. "I have the right, Julius," she continued, "not because you pretend to have loved me for ten years,--nor because I once thought I might accept your love,--nor yet because I am sometimes weak enough to like you still, in a sisterly way. But I have the right because you are making love to my brother's wife, because she is young and innocent, and because there is not another human being in the world to stand by her, or to give her any protection in her danger." "If you think that, why do you not tell your brother so?" "Do you call yourself intelligent? Do you call yourself a gentleman?" exclaimed Diana in bitter scorn. "Would you have me destroy the peace of my brother and of his wife, because you are doing a bad action, that has not yet borne fruit? Do you think I am afraid of you? Of you?" She repeated the word almost between her teeth. "No," said Batiscombe, under his breath, "I do not. But I would like to ask you a question." "I will answer," said Diana. "Why did you tell that absurd story about me this afternoon? Did you not see it was just the very worst thing you could possibly do, from your own point? That nothing rouses a woman's interest like such tales?" "I promised to answer your question," said Diana, coldly, "and I will. I told the story thoughtlessly, because I am a woman, and admire such things quite independently of the person who has done them. Do not flatter yourself that a woman like Leonora Carantoni will fall in love with you because you are brave. But I dare say I did wrong, and I am sorry for it. You have qualities which any one may admire, but you have others which I despise." "I despise them myself, sometimes," said Julius, almost to himself. "Despise them always,--at least, and be consistent," answered Diana. "But you will not. You like them, those bad qualities, and when you like them, they make a miserable wretch of you, as they do now. You know well enough, however cleverly you may deceive yourself, that you ought not to be here. You stay,--you are a coward, besides being a great many worse things which I leave you to understand." Batiscombe's eyes flashed angrily in the starlight. "You are cruel, Diana, and unkind," he said. Diana was silent a moment, and she drew her dark lace shawl about her, as though she were cold. When she spoke her voice was infinitely soft and gentle. "Do not say that, Julius. Do not say I am ever cruel to you,--for to you, of all people in the world, I would be most kind." Julius bent down and pressed his hands to his temples, and sighed heavily. "Oh, Diana," he groaned, "I know it, I know it." "Then I will not say any more. Do this thing because it is right,--not because I ask you to. Have I ever reproached you before, when you have come to me of your own accord and told me your troubles? What right have I to reproach you?" Julius was silent. He knew in his heart that she had the right, because he still loved her best. He sat immovable, his head buried in his hands. Diana rose and stood beside him; she lightly laid her hand upon his shoulder, allowing it to linger kindly for a moment, and then she turned and moved away. The spell was broken, and Batiscombe rose swiftly and followed her. There was a light in the drawing-room that opened upon the terrace, which Batiscombe had not noticed before. As they entered they found Marcantonio with a candle, overturning books and papers as if in search of something. He looked up with a curious expression of surprise in his face, holding the candle before him. "Ah!" he cried, "good-evening, my friends. You have been taking a little air. Eh? I imagined that you were all asleep." Madame de Charleroi smiled serenely at her brother. She knew it was an accident, and that he had a habit of forgetting things and coming to look for them. She said it had been hot all day, and she and Monsieur Batiscombe had been enjoying the coolness of the terrace. Julius bowed blandly and said good-night. But he suspected Marcantonio of having come to watch his sister. They passed on, and Marcantonio stood for a moment looking after them as they went out into the hall, where lights were still burning. He shrugged his shoulders. "Eh!" he exclaimed aloud to himself, in Italian, "I do not understand anything about it--ma proprio niente." And he continued his search for the missing letter, pondering deeply. Batiscombe spent a sleepless night, which was very unusual with him. The interview with Diana had made a deep impression on him at the time. He knew that whenever she was at hand to exert her influence he should succumb to it. But as the night wore on, the strength of the impression diminished, and the old feeling of obstinate defiance gradually returned. At all events, he thought, he would show her that her suspicions were empty, and that nothing--no harm, at least--could come of his intimacy with Leonora. He would also be sure that if Diana interrupted another interview it could hardly be by accident. Such accidents did not occur every day. In the early dawn he rose and went down in his slippers to the sea, and bathed in the cool salt water, and smoked a cigarette on the rocks, and another in the archway where the scene of the previous afternoon had occurred. Then he went up to the house and walked round it, and surveyed the various angles, and terraces, and balconies, and eccentricities of patchwork architecture that made up the dwelling. Suddenly he stopped as though an idea had struck him. Houses in the south have often as many as five or six broad terraces, of various sizes and at various elevations, built from time to time to suit the taste and convenience of the owners. The strong brown vines grow up leafless from the ground till they reach the trellis, and then spread out into luxuriant foliage and a multiplicity of rich fruit-bearing branches, making a thick shade, into which even the noonday sun finds it hard to penetrate. Julius had just observed that there was a large terrace of this kind which he had not yet noticed, having been but a very few days at liberty to wander alone about the place. It was as high as the first floor, and on the side toward Castellamare, facing the sea. He had been in Marcantonio's room, and knew that it did not open upon this terrace, and Leonora's apartment was on the other side of the house. Obviously this balcony belonged to Madame de Charleroi's rooms, or was attached to some vacant part of the building. It struck him that if it were vacant, it would be a very agreeable spot in which to pass the afternoon. He thought he might mention it to Leonora that morning, and find out if it were available, since their retreat in the rocks had been invaded. It had the advantage of being large, so that people seated upon it could not be seen from below, and the thick vines would prevent their being seen from above. He spoke to the Marchesa about it as soon as they were alone for a moment after breakfast. She went quietly and surveyed the place, ascertained that it corresponded with a set of rooms which were not in use, the house being very large and irregular, and agreed that she should spend the afternoon there with Julius, since the sun would then be on the other side. There were long window-doors opening to the ground, of which the blinds were fastened, and only the middle one was left open to give access to the terrace. It was delightful, because it was in the house, so to say, and open to every one, and yet no one knew of it. Why should they not sit there? It was much better than going and hiding in the rocks with an air of secrecy, in order to be annoyed by that terrible Diana! Much better! Though, after all, they need not have troubled themselves, for Diana went out at three o'clock in the carriage to pay a visit. Accordingly, Leonora and Julius passed a very pleasant afternoon together, and when it was late they found Marcantonio, and made him go out in the boat for an hour or two, and everything was very agreeable. Marcantonio was greatly relieved at finding that his sister was away from Batiscombe, and he talked his best, and really made Leonora take an interest in his conversation. She could always find him better company when she had been with Julius for some time and had said all the things she wanted to say, and which Marcantonio would not have understood. The next day Marcantonio was obliged to go to Naples on very urgent business. An ex-royalty who sympathised with Carantoni's party, and was now in exile, had come to Naples for a day or two incognito--quite as though he had never been a royalty at all, and Marcantonio felt it his duty to go and salute the august personage according to ancient custom. He therefore left the house at an early hour, to return at dusk. He thought his sister and his wife could chaperone each other for a day without danger. But he said to himself that if he had found Diana alone with Batiscombe again he would not have gone. The morning passed away as usual. Batiscombe, relying on the afternoon for his hours with Leonora, only stayed down-stairs till she was joined by Diana, and then retired to his room, where he wrote or read in solitude, as the fancy took him. The three breakfasted together at one o'clock; then Madame de Charleroi retired to her rooms, and in the course of a quarter of an hour Leonora and Julius were installed for the afternoon in their newly-found situation on the disused terrace. Diana's boudoir was a corner room in the front of the house, facing the sea, and opening, by one window, on a narrow stone balcony running the whole length of the building; the other window was on the right side, and if she could have undone the blinds she would have seen that it opened upon the large terrace already mentioned. But the aforesaid blinds had resisted her efforts, and, as she supposed that they were closed for some purpose, she said nothing about it, merely opening the glass to admit the air. Leonora, who did not know the house thoroughly, and had a habit of leaving everything to the servants, was not aware of this, and did not realise the exact position of Diana's sitting-room. Batiscombe, of course, had taken her assurance that this side of the house was uninhabited. Accordingly, it came to pass that when he and Leonora installed themselves, they took up their position immediately outside Diana's window, under the shadow of the wall. Madame de Charleroi, on this particular day, did not go into her boudoir at once, but spent some time in her bedroom. When she was ready to begin writing, she passed through the door and sat at her desk. She at once heard the sound of voices outside, but she did not listen, nor stop to think who the talkers might be. Presently, however, the continued sound annoyed her, forced its way through the blinds, and prevented her from writing. They were speaking English. She understood the language, being a cultivated woman of the world, and the wife of a diplomatist, though she avoided speaking it. The strong, earnest voice of Julius Batiscombe,--the pleading, protesting, yet yielding tones of Leonora, always dominated by the passionate eloquence of the man, and ever answering more weakly,--all this she heard, and she sat stony and wild-eyed with horror, realising in a moment the whole hideous proportions of the phrases. Diana de Charleroi was the noblest and most honourable of women. Under other circumstances, if the voices had been those of strangers or indifferent people, she would not have hesitated an instant, but would have given some unmistakable sign of her presence. But this thing was too near her, it was a too horrible realisation of what she had dimly foreseen as possible, when she had spoken such strong words two nights earlier. It was too utterly and unspeakably awful. Her brother's wife,--not three months married,--and Julius Batiscombe, the man who had for ten years loved herself,--or had made her believe it,--whom she herself had once loved, and had never forgotten! But Diana was no weak woman, to give way to trouble or danger in the face of it. For a few minutes she bowed her head in her hands, trembling from head to foot, and no longer hearing the quickly spoken words outside. Then she rose to her feet, and made one step toward the closed blinds. No, she would not put them to open shame. Yet something must be done at once. With one movement of her strong white fingers she overturned the heavy olive-wood writing table upon the smooth tile floor with a crash that sounded through the house. In the silence that followed, she heard a moving of chairs outside, and the quick tread of departing feet. Then she went swiftly to her room, heedless of the streaming ink upon the floor, staining her long white gown, and trampling the litter of pens and paper under foot. She threw herself upon her bed and lay quite still, white as death, and staring at the ceiling. All the disgrace to her brother's name,--to her own,--came suddenly upon her, like a nightmare, a thing that no waking could cast off. All the utter baseness and unfaithfulness of her old lover was before her, making her scorn and loathe herself for ever having loved such a man, even in the foolish haste of a romantic girlhood. Her eyes strained wildly, striving to shed tears, and could not, and the whole possible pain of human agony, passing the very pains of hell, got hold upon her soul. That night, at dinner, Leonora looked desperately ill. Her face was white, save for a small red flush upon each cheek, and her eyes had a strange, furtive look about them, avoiding all meeting with the look of the other three persons at table. She said she had been in the sun, had got a bad headache, and would go to bed immediately. She had only insisted on being at dinner in order to greet her husband on his return from Naples,--but when he touched her she shrank away, and said she was nervous. Batiscombe was pale, too, beneath his tan, and though he looked every one in the face, his eyes were disagreeable to see, having an angry glare in them, like those of a wild beast at bay. He spoke little and drank more wine than usual, after the manner of Englishmen when they are unhappy. Diana was magnificent. Being often pale in the summer, no one saw any especial change in her appearance, and she threw herself nobly into the breach, asking all manner of questions of her brother concerning his trip, and showing a reasonable amount of sympathy for Leonora. The consequence was that Marcantonio was nearly satisfied, in spite of the strong impression he at first received that something unpleasant had occurred in his absence. But when he had an idea he dwelt upon it, and he promised himself that he would ask many questions of his sister when Leonora had gone to bed. He accompanied his wife to her apartment when dinner was over, with a solicitude which was perfectly genuine, but which made her tremble at every turn. His careful anxiety lest she should over-tire herself upon the stairs, lest there should be a draught in her room, or, in short, lest anything should be omitted which could conduce to her immediate recovery from the exposure to the sun--so dangerous in the south, he kept repeating--made her almost certain that she was already suspected, and that so much kindness was only preparatory to some dreadful outbreak of reproach. While Marcantonio was gone, Diana led Batiscombe out through the drawing-room to the terrace. Neither spoke till they had reached the end away from the house, where they had sat together two nights before. "Julius Batiscombe," said Diana, her voice trembling with strongly-mastered anger, "you will leave this house immediately." "Why, if you please?" he asked, defiantly. "You know very well why," she answered, turning full upon him. "Do not ask questions, but go." "I will do nothing of the kind," said he, folding his arms and facing her. "You have no earthly reason to give, save your own caprice." "I heard your conversation this afternoon outside my window. It was I who made the noise you heard, to warn you to be silent." She made the statement deliberately, choking down her anger, and looking him in the eyes. "I heard no noise--I was not outside your window," answered Julius, telling the boldest lie of his life, and, to say the truth, one of very few, for he never lied to save himself, with all his faults. "I was not outside your window," he repeated, "and I am glad I was not. For, by your own account, you heard the conversation first, and gave your signal afterwards." "Very well," said she. "I will not shame you by repeating the words I involuntarily heard before I frightened you away. But you will leave this house to-morrow all the same. You will also consider that in future you have no title to cross my threshold, nor to bow to me in the street." She turned swiftly, in utter scorn and disdain. Batiscombe followed her to the door and into the drawing-room, where Marcantonio met them, precisely as he had done before. It was too much for his newly roused suspicions. Something had gone wrong, he was sure,--and why should his sister and Batiscombe be everlastingly alone together on that terrace at night? "Ah!" he exclaimed, a little sarcastically, "you have again been taking a little air? Well, well, the evenings are very agreeable. If you will, we can sit outside, and monsieur and I will smoke a cigarette." It was dreary enough, sitting together for an hour and more in the dark. Madame de Charleroi would not speak to Batiscombe, and he confined himself to asking questions of Marcantonio and to general remarks. Marcantonio saw this, and decided that she was playing indifference in public, because she saw enough of Batiscombe in private. The latter did not force the position, but as soon as Donna Diana moved to go in, he bade them both good-night, and went to his room and to his reflections. There was a long silence after he was gone. Both the brother and sister wanted to be sure that he was out of hearing. Diana spoke first, very gently and kindly. "Marcantonio," she said, "I have something very important to say to you." She threw a light paper shade over the bright lamp, and sat herself down beside him on the sofa. CHAPTER XIV. During the four hours which had elapsed between Madame de Charleroi's involuntary discovery in the afternoon and the dinner hour, she had found time to collect her thoughts and to form a plan of action. It was absolutely necessary to do something at once, and, if possible, to understand afterwards how Leonora could have allowed herself in so short a time to fall a victim to the eloquence and personal charms of Julius Batiscombe. She wondered vaguely how it were all possible, but in the meantime she knew that the mischief existed, and that she must do her utmost to avert its growth and frightful consequences, since she alone could be of use. Her first impulse had been to go to the window and disclose herself, whereby she thought she could have put Batiscombe to flight instantly. He could hardly have stayed in the house with her after such a scene as must have followed. But a proud instinct forbade her; she would not have it appear that she could possibly stand to Julius in the position of Leonora's rival. Nor could she have found it in her heart to inflict on her sister-in-law the indelible disgrace of an exposure. All this passed through her mind in a moment, and checked her first step towards the window. She frightened the lovers away by upsetting her table, instead of coming upon them herself, and she knew an hour later that she had thereby lost the power of managing them by anything she could say to Batiscombe. She would not--she could not--go to Leonora and force a confession. Besides, what good would be gained? Leonora was a person to be protected, not attacked. As for Julius, she knew perfectly well, when she led him out to the terrace while Marcantonio was up-stairs, that he would deny everything. He could do nothing else, and he did it boldly, though it was of no use. But Diana thought it possible that he would leave the house without a struggle, and abandon the position for a time. If Julius had been a less passionate man, and a more accomplished villain, if he had loved Leonora less ardently and more designingly, or if he had been less furiously angry against Diana, he would have acted differently. He would have lied just as he had done, but blandly and with a great show of astonishment; he would have made a low bow, answering Diana that he was at all times ready to obey her, and he would have left the house in the morning, with an elaborate excuse to his hosts. But Batiscombe was quite another sort of person. One of the calmest and most diplomatic of men under ordinary circumstances, his passion when roused was wholly uncontrollable. He was madly in love, and madly angry, and he would have cheerfully fought the whole world single-handed for the sake of his love, or of his anger, separately, let alone in the present case, when both were roused to the fiercest pitch. Diana knew him well, and, after the few words she had exchanged with him on the terrace, she knew what to expect. And she had foreseen the possibility of his refusal to leave the villa, and was prepared for it. The only question of difficulty was to direct Marcantonio's whole anger against Batiscombe, and to shield Leonora as far as possible; but Marcantonio must be told of the danger, since Diana alone was unable to avert it. She sat beside him on the deep sofa in the drawing-room, and she laid her hand affectionately on his, as though to give him some strength to bear what was in store. "It is very important," she said, "and you must be very patient. You must give me your word that you will do nothing violent for at least a day, for you will be very angry." She knew that, with all his good nature, she could rely on his courage. He was not easily frightened, after all. He looked earnestly at her, and his face was drawn into a look of determination that sat oddly on his delicate and rather weak features. "Speak, Diana mia," he said simply. "I will do what I can for you." He supposed, of course, that something had occurred between herself and Batiscombe. "It is not I," she said, "it is you who are concerned." "I?" repeated her brother, in some astonishment. "Yes. You are the person who must act in the matter. You must write a little note to Batiscombe, and tell him that your wife's sudden illness"-- "What? But it is only a little sun--a mere headache," interrupted Marcantonio. "No matter;--that your wife's sudden illness is so severe that you must beg him to postpone the remainder of his visit to some future time." Marcantonio looked more and more astonished. "But I only asked him for a week. He will go of his own accord to-morrow or the day after. I am sorry, Diana, but you said you did not mind meeting him." He spoke seriously, with a puzzled expression on his face. "It makes no difference," said Diana. "He must go to-morrow morning. He has not behaved honourably to you since he has been in the house." Her brother looked suddenly very grave, and his voice dropped as he spoke. "Has he insulted you, Diana?" he asked. "Yes," said she, in low tones, "he has insulted me. But he has done worse, he has insulted your wife in my hearing." Marcantonio turned suddenly on the sofa, and grasped his sister's arm as in a vise. His face turned a ghastly colour, and his voice trembled violently. "Diana--are you telling me the truth?" Her grey eyes turned honestly and bravely to him. "You and I never learned to tell lies, Marcantonio. It is true." She knew well enough that he would never suspect his wife, nor ask a question which could lead to such a conclusion. When she said that Batiscombe had insulted Leonora, she spoke the absolute truth. What greater insult can man offer an honest woman than by wittingly forcing upon her an unlawful love? Marcantonio looked at her one moment, and then sprang to his feet. At that instant he could have killed Julius Batiscombe with his hands, as perhaps Diana herself would have done. She seized his hand as he stood, and drew him toward her. "No," she said, understanding his thought, "remember your promise. You must do nothing now--except write the note." But Carantoni was in no condition to write notes. He broke away, and walked wildly up and down the room, wringing his hands together, and muttering furious ejaculations. He was too angry, too much surprised, too much horrified at his own stupidity throughout the affair to be able to think clearly. Diana sat motionless on the sofa, as angry, perhaps, as he, in her own way, but full of pity and sympathy for him, and trying to devise some means of helping him. She leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand, and her eyes followed him anxiously in his quick, irregular walk. And as she looked he seemed gradually to fall under her influence, and went and sat in a deep chair away from her, and buried his face. Then Diana rose, and went to the table in the corner and arranged the light, and wrote, herself, the note to Batiscombe, leaving a blank at the foot for a signature. She looked round, and saw her brother watching her. "Come, dear boy," she said kindly, "I have written the note for you; sign it, and I will see that he gets it in the morning." Marcantonio rose and came to her with uncertain steps. He put his hand on her shoulder a moment. Then he fell on his knees beside her, and pressed her close to him, silently. Presently he rose, she put the pen between his fingers, still trembling with his anger, and he signed the note as best he could. She put it into an envelope, sealed it, and directed it to Julius Batiscombe. "He will be out of the house before we are up," she said in a tone of certainty. "Go to bed, dear boy, and never let him trouble your peace again." "But I will trouble his peace," answered Marcantonio, bending his smooth brows. "We will see about that afterwards," said Diana. "If you think best to fight him, I will not oppose you; but we will talk about it. We cannot talk now. Good-night my dear, dear brother." She kissed him on the forehead and held both his hands for a moment, and then led him away. He obeyed mechanically, and they parted for the night. Diana often wished her brother were a stronger man in the ordinary things of life, but she knew that he was honest, and no coward in danger, and that he always spoke the truth and kept his word. It was his fault that he always imagined every one to be as honest as himself until the contrary was proved,--after which he never trusted the man again. Diana went slowly to her room and locked the door behind her. With a candle in her hand she entered the boudoir and looked round upon the scene of the catastrophe. The glass of the long window was still open, and the refractory blinds still closed, the bolts rusted in, beyond her strength to draw them. The servants had raised the desk upright and washed away the ink from the tiles; there was no trace of disorder visible. She could hardly realise that in this neat room, that very day, only a few hours ago, she had passed through one of the most terrible experiences of her life. She sat down in the chair before the desk and bent her queenly head. She had done her best for the right through that day, but it had all gone by so very quickly that she doubted whether she had done wisely. It seemed as though the burden of it all rested upon her--of the right and of the wrong; and the burden was very heavy. May God in his mercy give strength and courage to all brave women doing the right! I think that ordinary women have more moral vanity than ordinary men; but that very good men have more of it than very good women. A good man always seems to have a conviction of goodness, to be quite sure when he has done right, and to enjoy the sense of having done it. A woman's sympathies are wider and reach further than a man's. When she has done her best, there always is something more that she would do if she could, and until that is done also she can never feel the comfortable delight in godliness experienced by man, the grosser creature, who hedges his possibilities more closely, and gets rid of his superfluous aspirations by the logical demonstration of the unattainable. But the sphere of ordinary women is narrower, and their sympathies are dispersed in a greater multiplicity and divergence of small channels, so that a little goodness, a little easy charity with a pretty name, is a luscious titbit to the tongue that speaketh vanity. It was a dreary night to every one of the four,--least of all perhaps to Julius Batiscombe, whose fierce temper was thoroughly roused and would not be calmed again for days, giving him a kind of wicked satisfaction while it lasted. He spent most of the night at his window, smoking and going over the scenes of the day, and the scenes of the future. His mind ran in the direction of fighting,--to fight any one or anything would be a rare satisfaction; and ever as he fancied some struggle possible the hot blood rushed to his temples and longed for action, so that he bit his cigar through and through, and clasped his hands together till the veins stood out like ropes. He slept a little at last, and dreamed savage dreams of hand-to-hand combat, and woke with the roar of cannon in his ears. For he was a man of exaggerated fancies when his brain worked unconsciously, like many men who have ended in celebrity or in insane asylums. The roar of the guns was only a servant knocking at his door, with hot water and a note. He saw Diana's handwriting, and suspected a new move, so that he was not altogether astonished by the contents. He understood that she had made Marcantonio sign her writing--by what means he could not tell--in order to force the position. There was evidently nothing to be done but to go. He would not have left the villa for anything Diana could have said, in his present humour, but it was impossible to bid defiance to the master of the house. Besides, he supposed that since Carantoni had invited him to leave, Diana had said something which would lead to a challenge from her brother, which could naturally not be delivered under his own roof. He read the note through twice, and he went about his toilet with his usual care, looking angrily at himself in the glass as he shaved, but gradually composing his features to an appearance of calmness. Then he put his things together, rang the bell, told the servant he was going to Sorrento on business, and gave him a very handsome fee, requesting him to bring the things to the hotel in the course of the day. Julius took his hat and stick, and strolled out of the house toward the town. Donna Diana and Marcantonio met in the morning. They saluted each other with the quiet, mournful understanding of people who have a common trouble, which they know must be spoken of, though they desire to put off the evil moment. They were both pale, and Diana's eyes were shaded by great dark rings that spoke of a sleepless night. "Have you seen Leonora? How is she?" was her first question. "Dio mio! She is very poorly. Poverina! It has made a terrible impression on her. Of course I did not speak of the subject." "Of course." Diana sighed and looked drearily at the window, as though she wished she were outside, away, and beyond this trouble. She could not know what Leonora would say or do if Marcantonio ever broached the subject. "I do not think," said she, "that it will ever be necessary to say anything about it. She will understand that you sent him out of the house,--she will never see him again." "Is he gone?" asked Marcantonio. "Yes--early this morning. I sent to find out." "Then there need be no time lost," said her brother. "I have just written a note to De Lancray, at Castellamare. It is much better to have a Frenchman in dealing with foreigners. He will be here by one o'clock, and will arrange everything." Diana had expected that Marcantonio would send for a friend to arrange matters with Batiscombe. She did not look surprised. "Have you sent the man yet?" she asked. "He is getting a horse, I suppose. I have not heard him go." "Tell him to wait five minutes. This is a serious affair, and we had better act deliberately." Diana intended to prevent the duel if possible. Marcantonio was willing to humour her, and went out to stop the man. When he came back, she made him sit down beside her. She explained to him the situation very clearly. Batiscombe had insulted Leonora, had done her a mortal offence. But Batiscombe was not the important person in the case. Leonora was the important person. If matters had been different, if, for instance, a man had run away with another man's wife, then, of course, they must necessarily fight,--and the woman made no difference, since her reputation would be already destroyed. But it would be a terrible injury to a young wife to have her husband fighting a duel about her before they had been married three months. People always say there is not much smoke without a little fire; society, being generally averse to standing up to be shot at, says that a man in Marcantonio's position would not go out unless he had very serious cause. Of course it would say in this case that the cause lay with Leonora, that she should never have allowed a man enough intimacy to give him a chance of insulting her, and so forth, and so on. Diana would not use the argument of the Church's prohibition of duelling. She knew that Leonora's welfare was the chiefest thing present in her brother's mind, and that if she could show him that, for Leonora's sake, he ought to leave Batiscombe alone, he would assuredly conquer his anger and his pride. He had no sanguine and combative instincts, like Julius; he did not like fighting for the enjoyment of it, and if he could be convinced that his anger was unwise, he would ultimately get the better of it, now that the first sharp moment of wrath was over. To preserve Leonora's spotless fame was a much more important thing than to punish an insolent foreigner for vainly attempting to damage it, and thereby calling the attention of the world to the fact that her reputation was capable of damage. It was a hard fight, and Diana's patience never wearied through the hours they talked together. More than once she thought it was lost, and that Marcantonio would order the note to be dispatched. Nothing but the real affection and trust that existed between her and her brother made it possible for her to succeed. But at last he was convinced, and silently went out and got the note he had written, and tore it up before his sister. The die was cast, and he did not mention the subject again, but went to see his wife. At her door he was told by her maid that Leonora was asleep, which was not true. But he asked no questions, and retired to his own room to solace himself as he might. He was too deeply distressed to wonder why Diana did not go to Leonora and sit with her. Leonora had hardly spoken to any one since she and Batiscombe had parted on the previous evening before dinner. At table, as has been seen, she had said little, and no one had seen her since except her husband, who had gone to her in the morning. After his visit she rang for her maid and told her to see that no one disturbed her, as she was going to sleep again and would ring when she wanted anything. At the moment when her husband was told she was not visible, she was sitting in her dressing-room, just behind the closed blinds of the window, listening to the monotonous, dry hum of the locusts in the garden, and wondering whether anything would ever happen again in the world. She was utterly dishevelled, her rich hair falling to her shoulders and halfway to the ground in wildest disorder; the gay coloured ribbons of her peignoir all untied and ruffled, her bare feet half thrust into her gold-embroidered slippers, her hands lying idly in her lap, as though there were nothing more for them to do. A strange, wild figure, sitting there surrounded by all the gorgeous little properties and knickknacks of a great lady's toilet. Batiscombe was gone! Her husband had told her that he had been requested to postpone the remainder of his visit indefinitely. Of course he had gone, then. Marcantonio had supposed she would understand and be well satisfied. But she had only turned and hidden her face in the pillow,--as was perhaps natural to a very young woman when her husband mentioned anything that gave her a sense of shame. She must have been very much hurt by the insult, whatever it was, and she could not bear to hear it mentioned. Marcantonio had not told his sister of this, thinking it would be indelicate, and was nobody's business but his own and his wife's. Batiscombe was gone--when should she see him again? How could he reach her, or she him? What was life to be like without him? And then the dazed, disappointed, terrified look came again to her face, and she stared at nothing, vacantly, and like a woman beside herself. And oh, that other thought! How much did Marcantonio know? It was Diana, of course, who had made that frightful noise--she could hear the crash still sounding in her ears. She had remembered too late that corner room, cut off from all the others opening on the terrace, and communicating from within with Diana's bedroom--oh, the folly of it! If only Diana were to come to her--she could kill her, she thought! She was not so tall, perhaps, but she was much stronger--she was sure she could kill her! But how much did Marcantonio know? Diana was so truthful, she must have told him all. Those hateful people who always speak the truth! Ah, if only Batiscombe could come back--or see her one moment before he went. But he was gone already. If he could have seen her this morning, she might have arranged--it was impossible yesterday afternoon, he was so wild, so furiously, gloriously angry. It did her good to think of his blazing eyes, and strong, set teeth just showing between his parted lips. He was such a man among men! Never again--never--never, perhaps! She might be shut up--made a prisoner--Heaven only knew what was in store for her! Dreary, hopeless, no light, no life--no anything. Hollow? She laughed dismally to herself. Yes, life was hollow indeed, now--empty of all joy, or peace, or rest, forever and ever. Pray? How could she pray? Prayer was an innocent amusement for idle young women, with imaginary sins and plenty of time. But now--bah! nothing was further from her thoughts. What could Heaven do for her? Heaven would certainly not give her Batiscombe again. It would be wrong--ha! ha! of course it was wrong; but what was life without him? What had all her life been as compared with the happiness of the last fortnight, culminating in the happiness of yesterday? It might be wrong, but it was life; and all before had been mere existence--a miserable, vegetable, hopeless existence. The day dragged on; she took no thought of the hours, though she had taken neither food nor drink since the night before. And always the maid outside the door said she was asleep. At five o'clock she could bear it no longer, but rang the bell and said she would dress, as she felt much better. The maid told her that one of the men had returned from Sorrento and wished to see her excellency, as he had executed a commission for her. Leonora stared a moment, guessed there was something behind the message, and ordered the man to go into her sitting-room, whither she presently went, wrapped in a voluminous dressing-gown, that completely hid her disarranged peignoir. The man handed her a small parcel and waited. She turned her back, and, opening it, found a little olive-wood box, and inside that there was a small note with neither address nor name on it. She hastily closed the box again, and, turning carelessly, so that the man could see her, she examined it by the window, as though criticising the workmanship. She nodded to the man to go, but he stood looking at her with a queer expression that frightened her. She understood that he had examined the parcel on the way, probably; at all events, that he must be bribed. She quickly opened a drawer of her secretary, found a purse, and gave the fellow a gold piece. He grinned, bowed his thanks, and retired. He was the man who had taken Batiscombe's things to town that afternoon. Leonora had no experience. In novels, people always bribed the servants; it was most likely the proper thing--the safe thing--to do. The man would not have gone away unless she had given him something, she thought. The note was brief to terseness. It conveyed in the fewest possible words the information that the writer--name not mentioned--intended to spend the day, in future, in a small boat with green oars--underlined with a very black stroke--in the vicinity of a certain landing known to both the writer and the receiver of the note--name of latter also not mentioned. And the writer added, laconically, "No fee to bearer." She ought to have read the note through before paying the man. But what could she have done? He had stood staring at her, until he was paid. Her heart gave a great leap. It was so like him, so daring, to send her word at once. At least she should feel, now, that he was always there, waiting for her--ready to help her at a moment's notice. If only she could be with him on the soft, blue water, out in the sun! She could fight now--she could face them all--for he was out there; at least, he would be there to-morrow. She went back to her bedroom, and gave herself up to her maid, and had strong tea and bread-and-butter brought to her, while she dressed; and an hour later she sallied out, with all her usual elasticity of step and motion, and all the marvellous freshness of face that distinguished her from other women. She found her husband and Diana together on the terrace. Marcantonio's face softened and flushed with pleasure as he saw how well and beautiful she looked. She, at least, he thought, had not suffered long by all this trouble. It was so brave of her to forget it, now that the man was gone; he was so glad to think that he could have borne the brunt of it, and had saved her the pain of any discussion. But he said little, just kissing her hand, and affectionately leading her to a comfortable chair. Diana, who had really carried the heat of the battle alone, and bore the burden of the secret, was very quiet. She saw a little look of hardness in Leonora's face which she had seen long before, but rarely. She said kindly that she was very glad to see her up again, and hoped she was entirely recovered. Marcantonio, said Diana, had been very anxious. For an instant the two women faced each other, and Leonora thought she was beginning to understand her sister-in-law. CHAPTER XV. From morning till night, under the broiling sun of August, a wretched-looking boat plied slowly along the rocks in the neighbourhood of the Carantoni landing. It was a miserable old tub, big enough to hold three or four people at the most, and the solitary individual to whom it seemed to belong propelled it slowly about with a pair of old green oars. Now and then he would paddle under the shadow of the cliffs and put down a line, angling for a stray mackerel or mullet, and sometimes catching even one of those sharp-finned red fellows that the Neapolitan fishermen called "cardinals." He did not seem to care much whether he caught anything or not, but he apparently loved that particular part of the coast, for he was never seen anywhere else. A big, shabby man, in rough clothes, with bright blue eyes, and a half-grown, blue-black beard,--Julius Batiscombe as a fisherman,--brown as a berry, and growing rough-fisted from constant handling of oars and lines and nets. No one took any notice of him as he pottered about in his tub. The watermen, who passed and repassed, knew him as the crazy Englishman who found it amusing to bake himself all day in the sun for the sake of catching some wretched fish that he could buy in the market for half the trouble. What did they care? They never fished there themselves, because there were no fish,--a very good and simple reason,--and if a foolish foreigner chose to register an old boat at the little fishing harbour close by, and pay ten francs for the privilege, it was not their business. Neapolitans and their congeners do not care much for anything foreigners do, unless it happens to bring them money. And in the evening when it was dark, Julius paddled away to Sorrento, and, meeting his own boat on the way, pulled off his rough clothes, jumped into the water for a swim, and dressed himself like a Christian before going ashore. Save that he was growing a beard, and was almost black with the sun, he was as much Julius Batiscombe as ever when he was on land. He had no acquaintances in the hotel, and no one cared or asked what he did with himself all day long. It was said amongst the fishermen that he had been seen once or twice rowing a foreign lady about, and they laughed at the idea of a "signore" earning a franc by ferrying a passenger, just like one of themselves--for, of course he was paid for it; it amused him, because he was crazy, poveretto! And sometimes he was heard singing outlandish songs to himself in the heat of the day as he paddled about under the cliffs. The time had sped quickly since Batiscombe had left the Carantoni villa, and it was now the first week in August. Madame de Charleroi had stayed nearly a week longer than she had intended, but at last had gone back to Pegli, to Marcantonio's great regret, and to Leonora's unspeakable relief. So long as Diana was in the house Leonora had been obliged to steal occasions, few and far between, when she could safely go down to the rocks and signal to the shabby man with the green oars to come and take her off. Many and long and hot were the days when he pulled his poor crazy craft about from dawn to dark, without catching a sight of the strong lithe figure that he loved. But come when she would, at morning, noon, or night, he was always there, ready to take her and to slip off at a quick stroke to one of the many green caves that line the shore; and there, for an hour or two, or as long as she might safely stay, they spent happy moments together, the happier for being few, forbidden, and somewhat dangerous. As for the danger, though, there was not much of it. It would have been hard, indeed, to recognise in the ill-clad boatman, with his stubbly beard, and seedy cap of brown knitted wool, the fine gentleman whom the natives stopped to look at in the street. Leonora, if any one had met her on the landing, would have said she had taken the first passing fisherman to row her about among the caves, and no one would have suspected anything; and she used to laugh as she watched the progress of his beard, knowing that each day made the disguise more complete. Her own boat had given her some anxiety at first, but she had made Marcantonio lend the whole equipage to a friend further down the bay, telling him it was too hot to be on the water at present. And when Diana was at last gone, she had most of the day to herself; for Marcantonio was perpetually busy with letters, or trying horses, or going to Naples. He always found his wife extremely charming when he had been away all day, or shut up in his rooms, and preternaturally contradictory and capricious when he was with her for long together, and he concluded that she preferred a certain amount of solitude, and humoured her accordingly. Never hearing of Batiscombe, he supposed he had left the neighbourhood for parts unknown, and though he regretted not having had an opportunity of shooting him, he knew in his heart that Diana's advice had been good, and that it was best so. Now and then, when he thought of Julius too long, he grew angry and paced quickly up and down his room; but on the whole life was easy and pleasant enough, and his beloved Leonora was the most charming of women, not half so capricious as some of the wives of his friends. How long this state of things might have continued it is impossible to say, if a disturbing element had not been introduced. But the disturbing element is seldom far to seek in such cases, and in due time it came. There was a man in the service of the Marchesa Carantoni,--the same whom Batiscombe had employed to take his things to Sorrento, and then to convey the note to Leonora,--and the man's name was Temistocle, as arrant a knave as ever opened palm for bribe. Carantoni had taken him in Rome when he married, because he needed another man, and the fellow's face was familiar to him. He had seen him in good houses, and had noticed his extraordinary adroitness in waiting. The man's character was not altogether satisfactory. He had received no recommendation from his last place, but Marcantonio took him on trial and brought him to Sorrento. Temistocle had exceedingly sharp eyes, and Temistocle had an exceedingly smooth tongue; he was understood among the servants to have made economies, and his tastes were somewhat luxurious. He found Sorrento hot and dull, and he cast about for something refreshing and amusing. To take sea-baths had always been his chiefest ambition. It sounded well to be able to say he had taken a course of sea-bathing. But the thing was by no means easy at Sorrento. He could not bathe from his master's landing, and it was a long distance to go round by the lanes to reach another descent. At last, however, he discovered that he could climb over the little point of rocks at the foot of the Carantoni villa, and reach a small cove, where, in complete seclusion, he might enjoy himself as he pleased. Accordingly, when he had finished serving the midday breakfast he used to make a practice of going down to bathe. In his little cove he hid his clothes carefully among the rocks and crept into the water under the deep shadow of the overhanging cliff. He could not swim a stroke, but he could sit just so that the water came up to his chin, and his round black bullet head lay on the surface like a floating football, scarcely visible to any one passing outside in the sun. From this position it amused Temistocle to watch the boats and the fishermen for an hour or two, enjoying the idea that they never dreamed of his presence. It chanced often, as he sat in the water, that Julius, in his outlandish costume, paddled his old boat past Temistocle's retreat; and the sharp eyes of the Roman servant were not long in discovering that the fisherman was no fisherman at all. It was the easier to recognise Batiscombe, as the man saw him when his beard was only a few days old. From that day Temistocle watched his opportunity to descend when the boat with the green oars had just passed, and would be out of the way for some time. There was never the smallest doubt in his mind of Batiscombe's intention in thus disguising himself. The incident of the parcel, which he had carefully opened and examined, Batiscombe's sudden departure, and Leonora's simultaneous indisposition, all combined in his mind into one harmonious whole, from which he proposed to himself to extract at least a reasonable amount of money. One day he was rewarded for his pains. The boat passed very near to the mouth of his water-den, skirting the rocks at a great pace. He just saw that Leonora was seated in the stern, and he incontinently ducked his black head, and kept under water till he thought he must have drowned. When at last he was obliged from sheer suffocation to bring his mouth to the air, they were gone, and Temistocle sprang out of the water like some dark evil genius of a low order, awaiting evolution into the advanced condition of complete devildom. He was not long in dressing, and in a few minutes he had got back to the landing, clambering quickly over the rocks, and hurting himself, in his haste, at every step. After that, he became more irregular in his habits, lurking in secret places till he saw Leonora going toward the descent at the end of the garden, and presently following her at a safe distance. He ascertained, as he had expected, that Batiscombe spent his whole time within hail of the landing, in the boat with the green oars, and that Leonora went down and signalled to him, whenever she had a chance. Temistocle was so delighted with the skill of the arrangement that for a long time he could not prevail upon himself to interrupt it, even for the sake of the bribe that must inevitably follow. But, one day, he needed money, and he did not want to encroach upon his purse of savings, for he was a miserly wretch as well as a knave. He had seen something pretty in the way of a silk cap, which a stray pedlar had brought with other things, and he thought he should enjoy bargaining for it the next time the pedlar came with his wares. He knew that he should probably bargain for an hour and then not buy it after all,--but nevertheless he might be weak, and then he should like to feel that he had got the thing out of his betters by his own skill, instead of squandering money from his hoard. He seldom indulged in the luxury of buying what he fancied, but when he did he generally made some one else pay for it. There was a certain refinement of miserliness about him. At first he imagined that it might be best to drop some hint to his mistress, just enough to frighten her into paying for his silence. But his calmer reflection told him that he would be thereby killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. Batiscombe's ingenuity would make some change in the arrangements and he would have to begin all over again. Evidently the best thing was to make his master pay, and let the lovers go quietly on their course, so that he could at any time produce evidence of his veracity. He watched his opportunity. Marcantonio often inquired whether the signora were in the house, or were gone out. If she was out he supposed she had gone into the garden or to pay visits; he never disturbed her arrangements, knowing how much she enjoyed being perfectly free, and feeling sure she would not get into mischief. She made a point of calling on everybody, telling him afterwards where she had been, and the two or three hours she spent with Julius escaped notice in her clever account of the spending of the day. Now and then she would say she had been down to the rocks, in case her husband should ever take it into his head to go and find her there, and she was quite sure that by this time Julius was changed beyond recognition. Temistocle had not long to wait. One day in August, Marcantonio chanced to inquire of him where the marchesa might be. Temistocle was prepared; with the utmost gravity and respect he dealt his blow, speaking as though he were saying the most natural thing in the world. "I suppose," he said, "that her excellency is gone out in the boat with the Signor Batiscombe." He pronounced all the letters of the name, as though it had been Italian; but it was unmistakable. Marcantonio turned upon him in amazement. "Animal!" he exclaimed, "are you drunk?" "I, eccellenza?" cried Temistocle in hurt tones. "I drunk? Heaven forbid." "Then you are crazy," remarked Marcantonio, more and more astonished. "The Signor Batiscombe is no longer here." "Pardon me, eccellenza," retorted the servant respectfully. "I imagined that your excellency knew. The Signor Batiscombe comes every day, and takes the Signora Marchesa out in a boat. He is become a very strange signore, for he dresses like a fisherman, and has let his beard grow as long as this--so," the man explained, holding his hand a few inches from his face. "Mi maraviglio, io!" he exclaimed, casting his eyes to the ground. Marcantonio was speechless with amazement and horror, and turned his back upon the servant. A man less thoroughly a gentleman in every sense would have fallen upon Temistocle and beaten him, then and there. By a great effort, Marcantonio collected himself, and turned again. "You have not to make any remarks upon the appearance of the Signor Batiscombe," he said briefly. "Basta!" Temistocle had nothing left but to bow and leave the room. He did not understand his master in the least; he was just like a foreigner, he thought. But Marcantonio dropped into an arm-chair, the moment he was alone, as though all the strength and life were suddenly gone from him. He could not in the least realise the extent of the revelation contained in Temistocle's words. He did not know what to do, and for the moment it did not even strike him that there was anything to be done. In the course of half an hour he grew calmer and began to review the situation. He remembered distinctly every word of Diana's concerning the trouble when Batiscombe was in the house. Diana had said very distinctly that Julius had insulted Leonora--and Diana always spoke the truth. Marcantonio had not asked her what the insult had been. He could not bring himself to do it, and he did not want to know anything more. He would have cheerfully fought with Batiscombe on the strength of his sister's assertion, but she had dissuaded him, and now he was sorry for it. The servant had spoken with an air of conviction, as though he thought it quite natural, and only wondered at Batiscombe's strange appearance. There could not be any doubt about it, at all. A new sensation took possession of Marcantonio--an utterly new passion, which he did not recognise as part of himself. He was jealous. He did not, he would not, understand the truth, but he would prevent his wife from ever seeing Julius Batiscombe again, and then he would go in search of him and wreak his vengeance without stint. At the same time he hoped he might avoid a scene with Leonora. He was brave enough to fight the man, but he shrank from telling his wife what he knew. It seemed so brutal and uncourteous, and altogether contrary to his principles. But, after all, he ought to ascertain whether Temistocle were right--whether Julius really disguised himself. He would go and see. No, he could not do that! He could not play the spy upon his wife--it was low, ignoble, unworthy. He would find some other way. His brain swam and it seemed too much for him. He grasped the arm of the chair and rose to his feet in pure desperation, feeling that he must get out of the way into his own rooms for a while, lest any one should see him in his present state. In the hall Marcantonio paused a moment, holding his hand to his head, as though it hurt him, and as he waited the door opened, and Leonora faced him, beaming with light, and life, and happiness. Marcantonio looked at her one instant, and tried to speak; he would have said something courteous, from force of habit. But the words choked him, and losing all control of himself he turned and fled up the stairs, leaving his wife staring in blank amazement. Poor fellow! she thought, he had probably got a touch of the sun. She hastened to her room and sent to inquire if the signore were ill, and if she might come to him. They brought back word that he was dressing, and that nothing was the matter. Then Leonora felt a cold chill descend to her heart, the dreadful presentiment of a real terror, not far distant. But when she met her husband in the evening at dinner, she did not dare to refer to his strange behaviour in the hall. During dinner he talked much as usual, except that he did not laugh at all, and seemed very grave. There was a preternatural calm about him that increased Leonora's fears. She knew him so little that she could not be sure what he would do, whether anything had really occurred, or whether he were subject to fits of insanity. He had looked like a madman in the afternoon. When they were alone, he offered her his arm, and led her out into the air, and they sat down side by side in deep chairs. Marcantonio leisurely lighted a cigarette, and puffed a few minutes in silence. "Leonora," he said at last, "I have heard a curious thing, and I must tell you immediately." His voice was even and cold; his whole manner was different from anything she remembered in her experience of him; he was more imposing, altogether more of a man and stronger. Leonora trembled violently, knowing instinctively that he had discovered something. She did not speak, but let him continue. "I chanced to inquire if you were at home this afternoon, and the man said he supposed you were gone out in the boat with Mr. Batiscombe, as you did every day. Is it true? The man who told me said it as though it were quite natural, as though every one in the house knew it except myself." Leonora was dumb for a moment. The accusation came so suddenly that she was taken off her guard, besides being thoroughly frightened at her husband's terrible calmness, so unlike his manner under ordinary circumstances. She lay back in her low chair and tried to collect her thoughts. "The man had also observed," continued Marcantonio, turning his keen dark eyes upon her, "that Monsieur Batiscombe had a beard, and was dressed like a fisherman. Altogether, it was extremely curious." Marcantonio and his sister always spoke the truth. Batiscombe never lied in his life to save himself, but could do it boldly when it was absolutely necessary to save some one else. He had no principle about it, except that cowards told lies, and men did not,--that was the way he put it. He was not afraid of anything himself, but for a woman he would perjure himself by all the oaths in Christendom. It was his idea of chivalry to women, and could not altogether be blamed. But Leonora by a long apprenticeship to a very worldly mother, and owing to the singular confusion of her ideas, had acquired a moral obliquity which she defended to herself on the ground that the ultimate results she obtained were intended to be good. The telling of untruths, she argued, was in itself neither good nor bad; the consequences alone deserved to be considered. But as the consequences of lies are not easily cast up into totals of good and bad from the starting point, it sometimes occurred that she got herself into trouble. However, she was not hampered by prejudice, and she was a very clever woman, much cleverer than the great majority, and she was just now in a very hard position. In a few minutes she had made up her mind, and she answered Marcantonio fluently enough. "Why," said she calmly, "should I not go out with Mr. Batiscombe when I please? If he chooses to dress like a fisherman, I suppose he has the right." Marcantonio was rather staggered at her sudden confession. He had expected a denial; but there she sat as calmly as possible, telling him to his face that it was all true. However, he was not likely to lose his nerve again now that he was face to face with the difficulty. "It appears to me, Leonora," he said, "that when I have turned a man out of my house for insulting you, it is sufficient reason"-- "For insulting me?" exclaimed Leonora in well-feigned astonishment. "Mr. Batiscombe never insulted me! You must be dreaming." She laughed a small dry laugh. But Marcantonio was not so easily put off. "My sister," said he, "told me that Batiscombe insulted you in her hearing. I have always known my sister to speak the truth. Perhaps you will explain." "What explanation do you want? You sent Mr. Batiscombe out of the house on the pretence that I was ill. Of course Diana made you do it,--I do not know how, nor what she said. You must talk it over with her. She was probably sick of him, and wanted him out of the way." Leonora spoke scornfully, and almost brutally, and Marcantonio's blood began to grow hot. "That is absurd," he said instantly. "Perhaps Monsieur Batiscombe would not object to being confronted with me for five minutes?" "I am sure he would not object," said Leonora, without hesitation. She was quite certain of her lover's courage, at all events. She knew he would face anybody. "Meanwhile," said Marcantonio, "you will oblige me by giving up your harmless habit of going out with him every day. I should have supposed that you would at least have had the pride to deny it, after what occurred when he was here." Marcantonio was angry, but he reasoned rightly. "You would have preferred that I should lie to you, my dear," said his wife disdainfully, in the full virtue of having told half the truth--the first half. "I would not permit myself to apply such a word to anything you say," answered Marcantonio, with cold courtesy. "But I would have you observe that you are mistaken with regard to my sister, and that if she told me she heard the man insult you, he did. Perhaps you did not understand what he said. It is the same. You will not meet him again at the rocks--nor anywhere else." "Why not? Why shall I not meet him?" she inquired, raising her eyebrows in disdain. "Because I forbid you." He spoke shortly, as if that ended the matter. Leonora shrugged her shoulders a little, with an expression of pity, and shifted her position, so as to face him. "You forbid me, do you?" she asked, lowering her voice. "Mais oui! I forbid you to see him anywhere." "Do you know what you are saying?" she asked, and there was a tone of menace in her words. "Oh, perfectly," answered her husband calmly; "and I will also take care that you obey me--bien entendu!" "Then it is war?" asked Leonora, as though she hoped it might be, and to the knife. "If you disobey, it is war," said Marcantonio, "but you will not." "Why not?" "Because I will prevent you. It is useless to prolong this discussion." "Mon Dieu, I ask nothing better than to finish it as soon as possible," said Leonora. "In that case, good-night," replied Marcantonio, rising. "Good-night," answered Leonora, still seated. "I am not sleepy yet. You are not afraid that Monsieur Batiscombe will be announced after you are gone to bed?" She spoke scornfully, as though trying to drive a wound with every word. She thought she knew her husband, and she felt triumphant. Marcantonio did not answer, and withdrew in silence. In a few hours his whole character had developed, and he was a very different man from the Marcantonio of that morning. He had passed through a few hours of a desperate crisis, and had come out of it with an immovable determination to clear up the whole affair, and to force his wife to break off her intimacy with Batiscombe. Even now he could believe no evil,--only the foolish infatuation of a young woman for a man who had the romantic faculty strongly developed. It would cost an effort to break it off,--and Leonora would be very much annoyed, of course,--but it must be done. And so Marcantonio had gone about it in the boldest and simplest way, by attacking her directly. He congratulated himself, for at one stroke he had ascertained the truth of the servant's statement, and had gone through the much dreaded scene with his wife. Henceforth she knew what to expect; he had declared himself as a jealous husband, and had said he would be obeyed. He went to bed in the consciousness that he had done the best thing possible under the circumstances, and promising himself an early explanation with Batiscombe. But for all the success of this first move, he was wretchedly unhappy. He still loved Leonora, as he would always love her, whatever she did, with all his might and main, though he saw well enough that she did not love him. But he was furiously jealous, and he swore by all the saints in the calendar that she should never love any one else. His jealousy had made a man of him. CHAPTER XVI. It was clear that after what had passed between Leonora and her husband, the relations must assume the aspect described in diplomatic language as "strained," to say the least of it. The two met many times in the course of the day, and never referred to the subject of their difference; but Leonora was well aware that she was watched. If ever she sallied out into the garden, hoping to escape observation, her husband was at hand, offering to accompany her. She once even went so far as to go down some distance with him towards the rocks, she could not tell why,--perhaps because it would have been a comfort to her to catch a glimpse of Julius in the boat. But he was probably lurking behind the rocks, just out of sight, and she could not see him. She knew that he still kept his watch during half the day, not having yet invented a better plan,--for she was in correspondence with him,--and in the meanwhile, until new arrangements could be made, there was a bare chance that she might escape for a moment in the morning and be able to see him. Her husband never left her side in the afternoon. Temistocle, the knave, had failed in his attempt to gain Marcantonio's favour, as has been seen, but he now reaped a golden harvest from the lovers, who paid him handsomely for carrying letters, with a reckless feeling that if he betrayed them the deluge might come,--but that without him they were utterly cut off from each other. He had at first carefully opened one or two letters and skilfully closed them again, but had desisted on finding that they were written in English, a language he unfortunately did not understand. It was now his business to encourage the correspondence to the best of his ability, in order that whenever it should be convenient to spring the mine, he might have some letter passing through his hands, which he could show to Marcantonio. He made a bargain with an old man who had a little donkey cart, to hang about the lane leading to the villa in the afternoon hours, when Temistocle, being free from the cares of the pantry, found it convenient to play postman. As the distance was considerable, and as Batiscombe always gave him a gold piece for a letter, and Leonora another, he thought he could afford himself ten sous a day for the hire of his primitive cab, without any reckless extravagance. The first letter he had carried was to Batiscombe. Leonora informed him briefly of the scene with her husband, and begged that he would wait as usual for a few days, or until something better could be devised. But he waited in vain. Then he wrote and proposed that she should drive somewhere and meet him. But she answered that her husband always drove with her when she went out. He proposed to get into the garden at night, to scale her window,--anything. But Marcantonio had bought a brace of abominable English terriers that howled as though they had swallowed a banshee. Marcantonio also kept pistols, and slept with his windows open. Meanwhile Marcantonio would have given anything to catch Batiscombe and call upon him for an explanation,--but he was afraid to leave his wife for an hour, lest she should have an opportunity of going down to the sea. He could never be quite certain whether Batiscombe were there or not, for the latter had grown cautious and lay very quietly in his boat just out of sight, knowing that Leonora would call if she wanted him, according to the agreement, and he only came in the morning now and waited till twelve o'clock, in order to be at home to receive her letters in the afternoon. Yet Marcantonio would not employ a spy to watch whether Batiscombe were on the water. He could not do that--it was too utterly mean. Leonora grew pale and thin. She was as thoroughly in love with Julius as a woman of strong temper and impulse can be with the first man she has ever cared for. She dreamed of him, thought of him, longed for him, during every hour of the day and night. He was to her the realisation of the strongest fancy of her life, the passionate, ruthless, all-daring lover; and the consciousness of utter wrong that underlay her feelings only lent the strength of moral desperation to her passion. Having lost all right to other things, she had that left, and only that, on which to rely for all the happiness the world owed her. She would go to the end of it, and enjoy it all, now that she had found it; and then--then she would die, she said to herself, and no one should suffer by her fault. But she was long past the elementary stage, when love can be put upon a block and modelled and shaped with tools, or pulled to pieces, at will, being as yet but a fragile clay sketch and very yielding. The clay had been done into marble, and the marble set up in the inmost sanctuary of the temple,--and if the idol were broken the pieces could not be joined, and the temple must be empty and bare forever. It had come about very quickly--but what of that? Who shall say that passion born in a moment, ready armed, is not so strong and enduring as that which is evolved like man from a pitiful thing with a tail--a mere flirtation, to the semblance of humanity, to the godlike presence of true love? Or who shall tell us that love is less a real thing, because it is evil instead of being good? Devils are quite as real as angels, as I have no doubt many of us will find in due time. Do not underrate the strength of a thing because it is bad, nor doubt its reality because you do not like its looks. Leonora was in love with all her might, and it makes no difference in the effect upon the individual whether love is lawful or not, so long as it is thwarted and opposed at every turn. Her character, from being vague and indistinct, reaching out after many things, and never wholly grasping any, had suddenly become definite and full of a mature purpose--the purpose to love Julius recklessly, without consideration or question. The one real thing which remained possible for her had come, dominating and crushing down the army of her most favourite unrealities. The man she loved stood out from the chaotic darkness of the past and from the dreary shadows of the present as a glorious figure of light, magnificent in all that could be noblest; and she gave to him her soul, her life, and her strength, without hesitation and without fear. She had no remorse, no pity for her husband, no present consciousness of sin, for she was too near the wrong, and too new to it, not to enjoy it. The traditional hardened sinner, the very monstrosity and arch-deformity of complicated vice, held up by preachers as a bugbear and a moral scarecrow to the young, the creature without heart, conscience, or capacity of good, does not enjoy his wickedness in the least. It has lost its novelty for him and its sharp, peppery savour. The people who really enjoy it are young; they are those who have tasted little of life, and have yet all the sensibility and refinement of palate that can distinguish between one sauce and another--between green, red, and black pepper. They have dreamed of the pepper, have never been allowed to have it, and have been fed on a kind of moral pap that disagreed with them from childhood. Suddenly the spice is within their reach, and they make to themselves a glorious feast of hot things, vaguely hoping that they will recover from the indigestion before they are found out. And sometimes they do, though the recovery is very painful--and sometimes they do not. Leonora had subsisted on what she could get in the way of enjoyment, but her capacity far exceeded the supply that presented itself. She was not one of those people who can live for days in happiness from one sight of something beautiful, from a glimpse at a great picture, or from the memory of one strain of music. She liked all that was artistic, and especially that which was admirable for novelty, fineness of execution, or boldness of conception. She was not impressed with the beauty of small and unpretending things,--the art that amused her was necessarily of the most brilliant kind. The people she liked were the stirring, active, original people who either make history or make public fools of themselves, or both. The philosophies she had dabbled in were such as could produce in her a sensation of odd possibility rather than such as could satisfy a logical intellect, and they resolved themselves into a vast sea of aspirations, emotions, and potential passions, in which she loved to disport herself, diving and splashing and floating, like a magnificent sea-nymph in fullest enjoyment of her wild vitality,--sitting, an hour afterwards, on some lonely rock, and wringing her white hands to heaven in despair, because, being but half divine, she was less goddess-like than the great goddesses of Olympus. She could not help it if she grew pale and thin,--she was so wretched without him; and, without his letters and the sense that he was not so very far from her after all, she would have gone mad. She would sit for hours in her room staring at nothing; or she would go through elaborate processes of toilet before the glass, looking at herself and wondering if he would find her changed,--perhaps that very day some chance would offer, and she might see him. Everything was possible. That was the colour he liked best, and that bit of jewelry,--put it on, in case he should come. And again, she would change it all, because she would not wear for her husband the things she wore for her sweet lover; and then she would change once more, perhaps, and put back the colours and the ornaments he loved, so that she might the better think of him while she was with Marcantonio; she had a thousand idle thoughts and fancies which she strove hard to train into the semblance of a little happiness, the hollowest image of a little joy. The days came and went miserably for nearly a fortnight. In all that time Marcantonio watched her closely, never relaxing in his vigilance. She might have escaped, perhaps, but she would have been missed in half an hour, and she had not the courage to do anything so desperate,--the time must come, she thought, when things should change. But meanwhile she grew haggard and worn. Marcantonio had abandoned the idea of sending for a friend to deal with Batiscombe. What he had to say could, he thought, best be said directly, and there could then be no difficulty in establishing a pretext for fighting. But first of all he must keep his wife out of danger. Feeling that he held her entirely at his mercy, he was willing to take some time for deliberation. She could not see Julius, and it would be the best possible test to ascertain how she bore the trial. Marcantonio had grown hard and calculating in his jealousy, but he ground his teeth as he watched her and saw that she was falling ill,--and it was not so much for sympathy with her, as for anger that she should so love another. At last he determined upon a new course. "Leonora," he said briefly, one day, "we will leave this place immediately, since it does not suit you. Will you be so amiable as to give orders to have your things packed?" Leonora started a little, and looked at him. It was not often that she cared to look at him now. "Why do you wish to go?" she asked at last. "Because, as I said, this place does not suit you. You are ill--miserable. Ma foi! do you think I will allow you to stay in a place where you are always pale and eat nothing?" "I am not ill," said she, "and I have a very good appetite. I do not wish to go away. Besides, you have taken the villa for the whole summer. It would be such a useless waste of money to move again." "Ah! You become economical. It is very well; but economy does not enter into this case at all. We will go to Cadenabbia, or to any place in the lakes, where it is far cooler." "I do not mind the heat," said Leonora, "as you know. Why not say at once that you are tired of Sorrento, and wish to go away to please yourself? It would be much simpler and more honest." "Pardon me, my dear, I am perfectly well here. I could spend the rest of my life at Sorrento. But you are not well--whatever the cause may be--and there is a possibility that you may be better elsewhere. Donc"-- "Oh, of course," interrupted Leonora, "if you have made up your mind I must submit. If you think you can make me more miserable anywhere else than you can here, I must let you try. I hardly think you can. You might be satisfied. Nevertheless, let us go." "I do not wish to make you miserable, you know perfectly. I wish to make you happy and free." "Free?" repeated Leonora. "Indeed, you have a singular fashion of making me free, to watch me day and night, as though I intended to run away with your silver. Free, indeed! Free from what?" She laughed, scornfully enough, in his face. It was the first time they had approached any subject of this kind since the memorable night after Marcantonio's discovery. But since he had made up his mind to take her away he was willing to undergo another scene if it were absolutely necessary. "To make you free from the society of Monsieur Batiscombe," answered Marcantonio boldly. "You can never be well until you are absolutely out of his reach, and if I must go to the end of the world I will accomplish that." "You need not insult me in words," said Leonora, disdainfully. "You have done it quite enough already by your deeds." Marcantonio was silent for a moment. The speech hurt him, for he knew how he believed in her innocence, and how it was his jealousy that now prompted most of his actions. His voice changed a little as he answered, and he was more like his old self than he had been for days. "Leonora," he said, "I would not insult you for anything. But, would you rather I were not a little jealous, since I really love you?" Perhaps he spoke foolishly--perhaps he hoped to soften her heart: at all events he spoke seriously enough, and laid his hand on hers. But she did not like his touch and drew her fingers away. "A little jealous!" she cried. "So little that I am kept like a prisoner and watched like a political suspect! Be jealous--yes--since you say you love me; but behave like a sensible creature. Moreover, you might make sure that you had some cause for jealousy before coupling the name of the first man you chance to dislike with mine. Is not that an insult?" "Certainly it is--and if I did that you would be quite right," said he; "but things are a little different. You do not understand Batiscombe--I do. You have taken a fancy for him--so did I. But you push your fancy too far. I now understand him, and I do not think him a proper friend for you. You make difficulties, you insist upon seeing him. I forbid you, and prevent you. You turn pale and ill, and I am angry that you should be so foolish. Mon Dieu! I am angry--voilà." "One must certainly allow," said Leonora, with a sneer, "that you have a singularly delicate way of stating your own case." It was the best thing she could find to say, though she knew the sarcasm was not merited. He wished once for all to put the matter clearly before her, and he did it honestly and delicately, since he described her passion as a "fancy," her strategy and secret meetings as "insisting upon seeing" Mr. Batiscombe. It would be impossible to state such a case more delicately if it had to be stated at all. A cleverer man, or a less jealous man than Marcantonio, might have gone about it less directly; and that is all that can be said. But he was a half-formed character, as yet, with some good possibilities and hardly any bad ones. He was naturally good, but good as yet without much experience, and his teaching in the troubles of life had come upon him very suddenly. It had never struck him that it could be difficult to manage a woman, and he did not like the idea now that it was thrust upon him. The woman he had made his wife would, he had supposed, be like his sister, of the kind that manage themselves, and do it well; and if he had anticipated exercising any influence over Leonora, it was influence of a very different sort from that which he was now driven to exert. He had made up his mind, however, that she must obey him now, or that he should perish in the struggle, and a certain family obstinacy of purpose, inherited from his father and all his race, suddenly made its appearance and changed him from an easy-going, pleasant-spoken young fellow into a very determined man, so far as his wife was concerned. He had said that she should go at once, and go she should, without any delay whatsoever. Instead of answering her sarcastic remark about his indelicacy, he went obstinately back to his proposition. "Let us not talk any more about it," he said, to cut the difficulty short. "You will doubtless be so amiable as to give the necessary orders about your things?" Leonora shrugged her shoulders very slightly, as much as it is possible for a great lady to do, and as much as would horrify a very strict duenna. "If you wish it," she said, "I must." "Then we will start in two days, if it is agreeable to you." "It is not agreeable to me," said Leonora, wearied to death by his civility, "but we will start when you please,--in two days if you say it." She was casting about in her mind for some desperate means of seeing Julius and assuring herself that he would follow her. Of course he would do that, but she could not go without seeing him once more in Sorrento; there was so much to be said that she could not write,--so very much! The conversation with Marcantonio had taken place little more than an hour before dinner. As he left the room Leonora glanced at the clock. There was time yet,--if she could only get some conveyance. She might see Julius and be back before dinner. She could make some excuse for not dressing--if her husband noticed it, which was unlikely. He had gone to his room, contrary to his custom, for he generally did not leave her until she went to dress. His windows were towards the sea, and she could slip out through the garden. It had rained a little, but that was no matter. There would be the less dust. A garden hat she sometimes wore hung in the hall, among her husband's hats and whips and sticks; she snatched it quickly and went out, walking leisurely for a few yards, till she was hidden by the orange-trees. Then she gathered up her skirt a little and ran like a deer over the moist path, through the gate that stood ajar, and down the narrow lane between the high damp walls towards Sorrento, never looking behind her nor pausing to take breath, for she feared that if she stopped to breathe she might stop to think, and not do what she most wished to. There are always little open carriages hanging about the lanes during the height of the season, in the hope of picking up stray fares, and before she had gone two hundred yards she overtook one of these, moving lazily along. The man was all grins and alacrity at the mere sight of her and pulled up, gesticulating wildly and leaning backward over his box to arrange the cushions with one hand while he held the reins with the other. The whole conveyance is so small that the driver can touch every part of the inside with his hands from his seat. She sprang in and told the man the name of Batiscombe's hotel, promising him anything if he would drive fast. In six or seven minutes he brought her to the door, and she told him to wait. She would have dismissed him at once and taken another to return, but she found herself without money. She could borrow something from Batiscombe. He had chanced to tell her the number of his rooms one day, when she was asking about the hotel, and now she luckily remembered it. Stopping the first servant she met, she bade him show her the way. One of Batiscombe's sailors, resplendent in dark-blue serge and a scarlet silk handkerchief, was seated on a bench outside the door. He was a quick fellow, and Julius employed him as his body servant. Sailors, he said, were always cleaner than servants, and much neater. The man sprang to his feet, saw the anxious expression in Leonora's face and the general appearance of haste about her, and guessing that he could not do wrong, opened the door and almost pushed her in, closing it behind her and confronting the astonished hotel servant with a perfectly grave face. Sailors have good memories, especially for people who own boats, and the man remembered Leonora perfectly well, having helped to row her to Castellamare, and having raced her crew on the occasion when Batiscombe had attempted a precipitous flight. In his opinion the Marchesa Carantoni would not wish to be seen waiting outside his master's door, whatever might be the errand which brought her in such hot hurry. The hotel servant grumbled something about the franc he had expected for bringing the lady up, and the stalwart seaman laughed at him so that he cursed the whole race of sea-folk, and went away in anger of the serio-comic, hotel kind. Leonora found herself in Batiscombe's sitting-room. For Batiscombe was a luxurious man, excepting when he was roughing it in earnest, and he had made up his mind of late years that a human being could not exist in less than two rooms, if he lived in rooms at all. Leonora had not thought at all, from the moment when she had taken her resolution in her own drawing-room until she found herself standing before Julius Batiscombe in the hotel. At such times, women act first and think afterwards, lest perchance the thinking should interfere with the doing. But now that the thing was done, she realised at once the whole importance of the step, and at the same time she understood with what ease it had been accomplished. She saw how, with one bound, she was out of her prison, and with the man she loved, and though she was frightened at the magnitude of the deed, she knew that with him she should find strength and comfort and happiness. What mattered the past? She had not seen Julius for a fortnight, and though in that time she knew that her love had increased tenfold, yet the outline of him had lost distinctness, and she found him more than ever the man she had dreamed of, and discovered, and loved. He was one of those men whose magnificent vitality casts a sort of magnetic influence on their surroundings, just as Leonora herself sometimes did. When Batiscombe was away, his faults might be detected and criticised,--his selfishness, his combativeness, his vanities. But when he was talking to people, and chose to be agreeable, it was hard not to fall under the spell. He was so eminently a man of action as well as of thought, that even those who disliked him most were obliged to confess that he had certain large qualities,--comforting themselves by describing them as "dangerous," as perhaps they were, to himself and others. And now Leonora looked upon him and knew how wholly and truly she loved him, and how ready she was to sacrifice anything and anybody to her love, even to herself and her own reputation and honour. With heroic people that consideration of self might first be thrown to the winds; but Leonora was not heroic. She was very passionate and sometimes very foolish, but with all her "higher standard" she believed in the social regulations and distinctions of life. It was the English part of her nature, fighting for a show of Philistinism amidst so much that was the very reverse. It was a strong passion indeed that could make her throw it all away, or even think such a step possible. It was not that she had yielded weakly to a first impression of weariness after her marriage, and had at once begun to amuse herself with the first man who crossed her path. Weariness alone, the mere commonplace sensation of being bored, could never have led her to such a length. A great variety of circumstances had combined to bring about her destruction. The wild ideas of her girlhood, investing Marcantonio with just enough romance to make him barely come within the line of her "standard," but nerved and encouraged by the faculty she possessed for deceiving herself, had led her into a rash marriage, in which she had been helped and applauded by all those sensible people who think that when money and position are combined on both sides, marriage must necessarily be a good thing. Then followed the bitter disappointment and collapse of all her theories and hopes, leaving a desperate void and a certainty of misery, which gathered strength even from the command of language she had acquired in the study of the imaginary nothingness of everything. And at the very moment when there seemed nothing before her but a dreary waste of years, an individual had appeared who realised the dream she had lost. And it is indeed a noble quality so long as it is locked close within the treasury of the soul, and so long as one good woman, and one only, holds the key. But of all the unutterable baseness in this world, there is none more despicable than that of the man who makes one woman after another believe that he loves her to distraction, as he never loved any one else, well knowing, the while, that if the furies spare him to an unhonoured old age, it is out of sheer contempt for the blear-eyed Adonis, shambling weak-kneed to his grave with a flower in his button-hole and a ghastly leer at the last woman he meets before death overtakes him. Leonora was a woman who was probably incapable of a second passion, and the wholeness of the first might lend it some dignity, some simple loftiness of disregard for lesser things, making it seem nobler for being a single sin, sinned bravely for true love's sake. There were such loves in the world long before Launcelot loved Guinevere, or Héloise was laid in the grave with Abelard. But the world has no lack of men like Julius Batiscombe, men in no way worthy of the women who love them, nor ever able to be worthy. Leonora had chosen, and she would not have given him up for all the joys of paradise, any more than she would have believed a word against his faithfulness and loyalty to herself. He had sworn--how could he deceive her? CHAPTER XVII. When Leonora met her husband at dinner an hour later, her face was set, for her mind was made up, and every moment hardened her determination. Julius had said to her "come," and she would go to the very end of the world if need be. He had stated the case with a show of fairness. She must fully understand the step, he said, and that there was no return possible from such an exile as they undertook together. She must abandon everything, and not only her husband, but her mother, her father, her position before the world, her whole luxurious, aristocratic existence. She must rely on his arm alone to support her, and on his love to be her only comfort and compensation. They must live an isolated life, whether wandering, or resting in some quiet place where society never came. She must also take the chance of his being killed by Marcantonio, who would certainly make an effort to destroy him, and the chance was not small, considering the provocation. If it happened that he fell, she would certainly be left alone in the world. This was probably the strongest argument with her against flight, but it had not weight enough to hold her back, for she had the pride of a woman who had found a man ready to fight for her, in these latter days when fighting is so terribly out of fashion; and she felt in her heart that she should always be able to prevent an encounter. The resolution she had made had killed any doubt that might still have remained as to the ultimate result of her love for Julius. Henceforth it was her duty to kill doubts in order to be happy; and, indeed, there were few left, for her love was very sincere and real. But if any should arise she meant to smother them instantly. And now she remembered every word her lover had spoken in that brief stolen interview, and she felt no fear. Her face was set, and she looked defiantly at her husband. A few hours more, she thought, and she should be free from him, from the world, from everything--forever. They would have gone at once, that very minute, but Batiscombe pointed out that the time was ill chosen. She had been seen to come to the hotel,--the servant who had shown her up-stairs had noticed her, perhaps recognised her; in half an hour after the dinner hour she would be missed at the villa, and they would surely be overtaken on land, especially as there was no train at that time. Julius said his boat was moored at the foot of the cliff below the hotel, but it would be impossible to reach it without being observed by many people, some of whom might recognise her. There was also no wind, the sea was oily with a deadly calm, and the full moon, just rising, would make pursuit easy, for though his boat could beat anything on the coast under canvas, she was over heavy in the water for his six men to row at any speed. But at midnight, when the easterly breeze was blowing from the land, he would be down at the landing of her villa, ready. Marcantonio was always asleep at that hour, for he rose betimes in the morning and went to bed early. The dogs? Julius had thought of that, and sending his sailor servant to the kitchen of the hotel, he obtained in a few minutes a couple of solid lumps of meat, which he caused to be wrapped in paper and then tied up in a silk handkerchief for her to carry. She might find it hard, he said, to get anything of the kind in her own house. She was fond of animals, and was sure she could manage to quiet the terriers in a moment if she had something to give them. Besides, they knew her, and would only bark a very little at first. The moon was full, to be sure, but that could not be helped. Once on the water, nothing short of steam could catch them, and that was not available at such short notice. She should not hamper her flight with unnecessary things, he said, for if any one were roused she might have to run for her life as far as the beginning of the descent where he would be in waiting for her. These and a hundred other little directions he had given her, with the quiet forethought for details that was part of his remarkable intellect. And now she sat opposite her husband at their small dinner-table, looking hard and determined, but listening with more than usual complacency to his talk, and striving to eat something, as Julius had instructed her. She made such a good pretence that Marcantonio noticed it approvingly. "I am glad to see, my angel," he said, "that you are finding your appetite again. It is most encouraging." It was just like his want of tact, thought Leonora. It was just like him to suppose that she would eat the more because he wanted her to do so, and watched her! Dieu! What a nuisance to be always watched. It would soon be over now, however, and she could afford to be indifferent. "Oddly enough," said she, "I am hungry--I do not know why." "Does any one know why they are hungry?" said Marcantonio, with a little laugh. "It happens to me to take much exercise. I rise with the sun, I walk, I ride, I dispatch my correspondence, I work like a dog--et puis, at breakfast I eat nothing. No appetite. Good! Another day, I lie in bed till ten o'clock, rise with a cigarette, read a novel, and--voyez donc, how droll--I eat, perhaps, for four people. But I have often observed that, if I eat a mayonnaise at dinner, I have no appetite the next day at breakfast. It is extremely singular, for the cook makes the mayonnaise of great delicacy." What could it possibly matter whether Marcantonio were hungry or not, or what he ate for dinner? But Leonora was glad to have him say anything, so that she might be spared the effort of talking. "It is true," she said, absently, "his mayonnaise is not bad." She hoped he would go on; it was an easy, neutral subject--of many ingredients, concerning each of which it would be possible to differ and to raise a fresh discussion. "Apropos," said Marcantonio, "the gardener's boy cut his finger very badly this afternoon"-- "Apropos of mayonnaise?" Leonora could not help asking the question. His conversation was so absurd. "Ma foi! mayonnaise--vegetables--gardens--gardeners and the gardener's boy--all that holds together. As I was saying, he cut his finger, and I sent your maid to get something to bind it with." "I hope she did not take one of my lace handkerchiefs," remarked Leonora. "It would be just like her." "It was not lace, I am sure," said Marcantonio, with an air of conviction, as he helped himself to the salad which Temistocle handed him. "But it looked very new. I hope she made no mistake." The comic side of the situation suddenly forced itself on Leonora, as it often will happen with people on the eve of great danger. A lackey in Paris once danced a jig on the scaffold before he was broken on the wheel. Leonora laughed aloud. "Would it amuse you, for instance," inquired Marcantonio with a puzzled look, "to have a good handkerchief destroyed to tie up the boy's finger?" It seemed so funny to Leonora to think that on the morrow her entire stock of handkerchiefs would be at the disposal of all the gardeners in Sorrento if they chanced to cut their fingers. "No--not that," she said. "It is so odd that you should take so much trouble about it--or care." "Poor people," said Marcantonio, "one must do what one can for them." And so their last conversation tottered to its end in a round of domestic triviality, so that Leonora wondered how she could have borne it so long. But, in truth, Marcantonio was so much afraid of rousing her opposition that evening, after the scene that had taken place, that he purposely avoided every intelligent subject, and did violence to his own preference for the sake of keeping the peace. He liked to talk politics, he liked to talk of Rome, of society, of a hundred things, but of late he had found it very hard to talk peaceably about anything. After dinner Marcantonio smoked, and Leonora sat beside him, with a little worsted work which she did with a huge ivory needle. Her heart beat fast as the hour approached when she must part from her husband. She glanced at him from time to time, sitting there so unsuspecting of any surprise, with his cigarette and his "Fanfulla," the witty Roman paper that amused him so much. His delicate, dark features, a little weak perhaps, looked handsome enough in the lamplight, and Leonora thought for a moment that she had never seen him look so well. She was already so far from him in her thoughts that she regarded him as from a distance, with a certain abstracted consideration of his merits that was new to her. Poor Marcantonio! A certain curiosity, which would have been pity if she had allowed it, came over her. She wondered how he would look when she was gone. Ten o'clock--two hours to midnight, and he never saw her before nine in the morning now. Nine and two were eleven. In eleven hours he must know--unless something happened. Would he rage and storm, like a wild beast? Or would he break down and shed tears? Neither, she thought. He did not love her--he was only jealous. Heavens! thought she, if Julius had been in his position, and he in Julius's, could things have ever got to this pass without some fearful outbreak? Ah no! Julius was so hot-tempered and strong. Her thoughts went away with her, and she heaved a quick short breath, suddenly interrupted in the recollection of where she was. Marcantonio looked round. "What is it, my dear?" he asked. "Nothing--I was going to sneeze," said Leonora with a ready excuse. "There is too much air," said he, rising and going toward the window. He looked out for a moment. The first breath of the easterly wind was coming over the mountains and just stirring a ripple on the moonlit bay. It had rained early in the afternoon, and they had sat indoors on account of the dampness. Marcantonio sniffed the breeze, said it was damp, and closed the window. "It must be late," said he. "En vérité, it is twenty minutes to eleven! I should not have thought it." Leonora's heart beat fast. "I suppose it is time to go to bed," she said, with enough indifference to escape notice. Marcantonio had not enjoyed the evening much, and was sleepy. Leonora moved slowly about the room, touching a book here and a photograph there as though to make the room comfortable for the night. Some women always do it. Her blood was throbbing wildly--the last strong effort of conscience was upon her. A great pity sprang up in her--a terrible regret--a horror of great evil. Her resolutions, her love, her determination to fly, her better self, all struggled and reeled furiously together. She felt an irresistible impulse to throw herself at her husband's feet, to confess everything, to implore his protection, and forgiveness, and help. She turned towards him suddenly. He was in the act of ringing the bell. The sharp tinkle, sounding from far away through the open doors of the house, checked her when she was on the very point of speaking. Almost instantly, the quick tread of the servant was heard. He came, and the supreme moment was over. The reality of her situation returned, and with it the hardness it needed. The man had the candles ready in his hands, and stood waiting to accompany Leonora to her door. "Good-night, Marcantoine," said she, holding out her hand. It was cold and clammy with intense excitement, and her face was pale to the lips. "Good-night, my angel," said he, touching his lips to her fingers, and she passed from him. Just beyond the door she turned and looked back, with a touch of sadness. "Good-night," she said once more, faintly--for the last, the very last time. When Marcantonio was alone, he took his newspapers, and one or two letters which had come by the late post, he looked carefully round the room, to see that he had forgotten nothing, as he had a bad habit of doing, and he marched gloomily off to his room, which was beyond Leonora's, and separated from hers by her sitting-room. Her dressing-room was on the other side of her bedroom, and had a separate door, opening upon the head of the stairs. As soon as Leonora had dismissed her maid for the night, she began to make her preparations. She had a large silk bag, of many colours, made like an old-fashioned purse, with heavy silver rings. She used it for carrying her work, her books, or anything she needed when she went into the garden to spend the morning. It seemed the best thing to take with her now, for it would hold a good deal and was convenient. She filled it with handkerchiefs, bottles of eau-de-cologne, and hairpins, and she put in a tiny looking-glass in a silver case, which she had used all her life. It was of no use to think of taking anything else, she thought, since she must carry it all in her hand. Then she went over her jewels and took her own, carefully setting aside all that her husband had given her. She tied them up in a handkerchief with two hard knots,--the best she knew how to make,--and she put them into the bag with the rest of the things. Then she found her purse, and put into it all the money she had, for it was her own, and she thought she might as well have it,--and there was her cheque-book in the drawer of the writing-table. Of course she could draw her own money just as well when--she did not finish the sentence to herself. Presently she went into the sitting-room, and listened at the small side door which opened into Marcantonio's bedroom. She had taken an hour over her preparations; it was half past eleven, and he was asleep,--she heard his regular breathing distinctly. The full moon shone outside upon the gravel walks, and the orange-trees, and the soft wind was blowing steadily through the open windows. She paused one moment before she went back, and she looked out at the scene, so sweet and peaceful in the ivory moonlight. Far off in the town the clocks struck the half hour. Julius must be already on the water, perhaps near the landing. She hastened to her room, treading on tiptoe; her maid had left her in her loose white peignoir; she must dress again, and dress quickly, or she would be late. It did not take long,--though she put the candle before her glass, and dallied a little with a ribbon and a pin. The dress was soft and dark, fitting closely to her figure. In reality she had selected it because it had a pocket,--that would be such a convenient thing on a journey. A hat--yes, she must have a hat, for of course they must land somewhere, though a veil would be more convenient in the wind. There was a great vase of carnations, gathered that day, that stood on a little table by the window. At the last minute, Leonora stopped and took one. She went back to the glass with the candle in her hand, and pinned the flower in her dress, eying the effect critically. They were the flowers he loved best,--it was an afterthought, and would please him. She was ready, the bag hung over her arm, the package of meat for the dogs in one hand, and a candle in the other. She blew out the remaining lights as the clocks struck midnight, put the one she carried upon a chair by the door, while she softly turned the latch, looked out cautiously, and left the room. Once out of the passage and on the stairs, she had no fear of being heard, and she descended rapidly. One moment more and she was in the open air. The front door closed behind her. Something touched her feet, and, looking down, she saw that the white kitten had followed her out; she had not noticed it, poor thing, and she could not risk opening the door again to put it back. She glanced out into the moonlight from beneath the porch, and she was frightened. It was only a step--a minute's run, if she ran fast, to the beginning of the passage--but she hesitated and hung back. Oh, if the last step were not so hard! If Julius had only met her at the door instead of being down there--but he was even now at the head of the steps. She realised his presence, and the garden was no longer a solitude--she was not alone any more. The kitten mewed discontentedly. She bethought herself of the dogs, picked up the little beast, and moved quickly down the walk, running faster as she neared the end. Her running on the path roused the terriers, prowling about among the shrubbery in the warm night, and they sprang upon her not ten yards from the mouth of the descent, barking furiously and snapping at her dress. She dropped the parcel of meat instantly, but they did not see it at once, and pursued her. In one moment more she was lifted from the ground and held firmly in the mighty grasp of the strong man who stood ready, and had run forward to meet her when the dogs sprang out. But, in the quick act, the kitten fell to the ground almost between the enraged terriers. It was over in a minute. One frantic, piteous death-scream and the poor little white cat lay dead on the gravel path, and the terriers sniffed her little body disdainfully, as though congratulating each other on their brave deed. "Oh, Julius, they have killed my kitten!" cried Leonora in real distress. They were already under the archway, and Batiscombe was urging her to descend, but she clung to him, and stared back into the moonlight at the dogs and her dead pet. Julius himself was enraged at the thing--it was so wantonly cruel. "Run on," said he, in a whisper; "I will settle them." He had reflected quickly that they had only barked for a moment, and that any one who heard them must have heard the cat also and would have taken no notice of the noise. At that very moment Marcantonio turned on his pillow, and, half waking, swore to himself, as he had done every night of his life for weeks, that he would send the dogs away in the morning. But all was still, and he fell asleep again instantly. Julius went back upon the path, and the terriers growled, still scenting their vanquished prey. But he moved quickly and softly, speaking gently to them in a low voice, and holding out his hand to them. He had a sort of influence over animals, and they let him come close, pricking their ears and sniffing about his legs. Suddenly, as they smelled at his boots, he caught them by their necks in an iron grip, one in each hand, and held them up at arm's length, struggling frantically, but utterly incapable of making a sound. "You killed her cat, did you, you brutes?" he muttered, savagely. "I will kill you." He broke their necks, one after the other, and threw their quivering bodies far out under the orange-trees. Leonora had watched him from the archway. She shuddered. "They will not bark any more," said Julius, as he came to her. "What strong hands you have!" she said. A window opened, up in the house, a hundred yards away. Batiscombe's quick ear caught the sound. "Come, sweetheart," he whispered; "some one is stirring." His arm was round her as he guided her down the first steps, tenderly and strongly. She stumbled a little. "Oh, Julius, I am so frightened!" she said piteously. He stopped and took her off the ground as though she had been a child, and bore her swiftly and surely through the dark way. She could see his fiery blue eyes in the gloom, and in the flashes of white light as they passed the windows and arches where the moon streamed in, and as she looked she could feel her own grow big and dark; and she was frightened and very happy. But she thought of that strange thing she had dreamed--this very flight of hers exactly as it was to happen, so that she hid her face against his coat and clung to him nervously. "Put me down," she cried earnestly, as they emerged upon the flat rock of the landing, "put me down, Julius,--I dreamed you fell here." He obeyed her, and set her on her feet, still supporting her with his arm about her waist. One passionate kiss--only one--and then they came out from the shadow of the high cliff, and saw the boat riding lightly in the moonlight, two sailors holding her off the rocks, and the rest busy on board with the sails. The water plashed musically in the little hollows, and from near by there came a deep, mysterious murmur out of the many dark caves that lined the shore. Leonora stepped lightly in, and Julius arranged the cushions about her carefully. Neither of them spoke. With a few strong strokes of the oars the boat shot out into the breeze from the lee of the gorge. The foresail was already set, and jib and mainsail went up in a moment, wing and wing, the tapering, lateen-yards pointing to right and left, like the horns of a great, soft, white moth; the water rippled at the stern, and curled up and lapped the rudder as the sails filled, and ever swiftly and more swiftly the craft rushed down the bay in the glorious moonlight, before the steady east wind. Julius held the tiller with one hand, and the other lovingly supported Leonora's head against his breast, as she lay along the cushions in the stern. "Darling," he said presently, "what was the dream about my falling at the landing? You never told me." She did not answer, but lay quite still. "Dear one," he murmured, bending down, "are you so tired? Leonora--sweetheart--speak to me!" But the strain had been too strong, and Leonora lay in his arms, whiter than death under the white moon, unconscious of Julius or of the sea. Julius saw that she had fainted. CHAPTER XVIII. At half past eight on the following morning Temistocle found Leonora's maid at the door of her mistress's room with an expression of blank astonishment on her face that made him laugh. He often laughed, quietly, without the least noise. "You look exactly like a lay figure in a milliner's shop," he remarked. "Except, indeed, that you look much more stupid." The maid glared at him. "The signora"--she began, and then trembled and looked round timidly. "What about her?" inquired Temistocle, pricking up his ears. The maid let her voice drop to a low whisper. "She is not there," said she. "Ebbene," said Temistocle with a grin, "what has happened to you? She is probably gone out--gone to church. A good place for heretics, too." "Macchè," whispered the woman, "she has not slept in her bed, and everything is upside down in the room." "May the devil carry you off!" said Temistocle, suddenly changing his voice, and whispering hoarsely. "Let me see--let me pass." He put down the can of hot water he was taking to his master, and pushed past the maid, into Leonora's bedroom. "Bada," said the woman, going after him cautiously, "take care! The signore might come in and find you." "What harm is there?" asked the servant. And then he made a careful survey of the premises, locking all the doors except the one by which they had entered. "It is true, what you said," he remarked, pushing the maid out of the room. "An apoplexy on these foreigners who go away without telling one. Fuori! Go along with you, my child. Ci penso io--I will look after all this." And he locked the door behind him, put the key in his pocket, and took up his water-can. "What are you doing?" asked the maid. Temistocle had seen a chance, and took it. "Look here," said he, rubbing the thumb and forefinger of his hand together before the girl's eyes,--which means "money" in gesture language--"look here. The signore accompanied the signora to the early train from Castellamare this morning at half past four. They had a hired carriage. She went away and forgot her jewels on the table. She is gone to Rome on business,--they were talking about it last night. Do you understand?" "No," answered the woman looking puzzled, "you said she had gone out"-- "I said so to you," he answered with a sly grin, "but I will not say so to any one else, nor you either. Remember that she went to Rome this morning. It will be worth your while to remember that." The woman smiled a cunning smile. She had hated her mistress, and would have liked to make a scandal before all the other servants, but Temistocle's advice would be more profitable. So they arranged the matter between them and parted. Marcantonio was seated at his writing-table when Temistocle entered. He always got up very early, and did a great many things before he dressed. Temistocle busied himself a moment about the room, and when he was ready to go he came to the table and laid the key he had taken from Leonora's door at his master's elbow. "What is that?" asked Marcantonio, looking up. "It is the key of the Signora Marchesa's bedroom, eccellenza," answered Temistocle, edging away toward the door. "Her excellency must have gone away very early, and she left her room open and all her jewelry strewed about. So I locked the doors and brought you the key." He was very near the door and could escape in a moment. But Marcantonio did not move; his jaw dropped, and his colour changed to a yellow waxen hue, which terrified the servant. But he did not move. Temistocle continued. "I told the servants not to be astonished, as you had accompanied the Signora Marchesa to the early train for Rome before daybreak," he said, putting his hand on the latch. Marcantonio made as though he would rise. Temistocle slipped nimbly through the door and closed it behind him, running away as though the police were after him. But he knew that when Carantoni had recovered, he would be amply rewarded for his wisdom. It often chances that villains play a good and sensible part in life, which is quite as profitable as villainy, and is always safer. Marcantonio struggled to rise, and at last got upon his feet, staggering like a man stunned by a physical blow. The door to Leonora's sitting-room was open, but, beyond, the one to her bedroom was locked. He had to go round by the passage, feeling his way as though he were blind. At last he found the lock,--the key turned, and he entered. It was just as she had left it. The white peignoir she had taken off when she dressed for her flight lay in a heap upon the floor where she had thrown it in her haste. The dismal, half-burned candles stood on the dressing-table. The drawer from which she had taken the handkerchiefs was half open. The windows were thrown back, and the blinds had not been closed, so that the strong glare of the morning poured rudely in on the confusion, and the flies buzzed about the scented soap and the bottle of lavender and the pot of carnations in the corner. Marcantonio dragged himself from one part of the room to another till he stumbled against the table on which Leonora had left her scattered jewelry,--all the things he had given her. He stood staring down at the glittering gold and precious stones, unconsciously realising that they were all his presents that she had left behind her. There was a strange old Maltese cross of diamonds and sapphires among them, mounted in silver. It had belonged to his mother, and he had given it to Leonora with other things when he married her. His eyes fastened upon it, and his hand crept across the table and took it. He raised it to his white lips and kissed it once--twice; he would have kissed it again, but the bow of his strength was bent too far and snapped asunder. With a short, fierce cry he threw up his hands, and fell prostrate on the smooth tiled floor, as a dead man might have fallen. He lay entirely unconscious for hours, so that when he at last came to himself and struggled to move till he could sit up and stare about him, the midday sun was pouring in, and the flies angrily tormented his ghastly face, as though in derision of anything so miserable. For some minutes he sat upon the floor, dazed and stupid with the oppression of returning grief, as well as stunned from the physical pain resulting from his fall. He was not hurt seriously, but he was bruised and weak. At last he got to his feet, steadying himself by the table. He would not see what was about him any more, for he knew it all, and the full consciousness of his misfortune was on him. He regained his own room, carefully locking Leonora's door behind him, and taking with him his mother's diamond cross. But the mere sense of grief could not long hold the mastery with a man like Marcantonio. He had loved his wife too well not to resent the injury and scorn, as well as weep over it. As he pondered, lying on his bed, there arose in his breast a desperate and concentrated anger against the man who had deprived him of what he best loved in the world, the anger of a mind that has never reasoned much about anything, and will carry unreason to any length when it comes. He must find his enemy; that was the principal thought in his mind. That he would kill him when he found him was a conclusion that seemed a matter of course. But, in order to find him, it was necessary to move, to search, and turn everything over. He turned on his pillow, feeling the first restless stirrings of the demon that would by and by give him no peace by day or night till the man was found and the blow struck. He turned over and rang a bell by his bedside. "Give me some coffee, and order the carriage," he said to the servant. At the end of an hour, he found himself in the town, and inquired for Batiscombe. It seemed as though fate favoured Carantoni at the outset, for he found his name at once on the register of the hotel, and found also the man who had waited on Julius. This servant had been told that a lady had come in great haste soon after seven on the previous evening, and had stayed more than half an hour. As soon as she was gone, Mr. Batiscombe had sent for his bill and had ordered his boat to be ready at eleven,--the servant had heard the order. The man guessed there was something wrong from Marcantonio's face, but Batiscombe's sudden departure had excited no remark. He had arrived late at night in his boat, as many people had done, and as the moon was full it was natural enough that he should sail away as he had come. People arrive continually at Sorrento in yachts, and no one takes any notice of them. His luggage? Yes, he had taken most of his things with him, except one large box, which he had ordered to be sent to Turin. It had gone to Castellamare at once. Mr. Batiscombe had been in the hotel before. He was a very good signore. At this hint Marcantonio gave the man a heavy fee. Did he happen to know the address on the box? There was no address, except his name. The box was to be left at Turin until called for. It was to go by fast train, and Mr. Batiscombe had left money to pay for its carriage in advance. Mr. Batiscombe paid his bills by cheques on a banker in Rome. Marcantonio might have the name if he pleased. Before leaving he had paid his bill and given a cheque for five or six hundred francs more. The proprietor knew him very well, and was always glad to oblige him, so he had procured a little cash. Before going he had sent for a silk merchant--there are hundreds in Sorrento--and had bought a quantity of things of him. He had left the hotel at eleven by the steps to the sea, and the servant had seen him into his boat,--for which parting civility, Batiscombe had given him ten francs. The man had watched the boat for a few minutes. She did not make sail, but pulled away towards Castellamare. That was all, absolutely all, that the man could tell Marcantonio. But it was sufficient for the present. It was clear that Julius had taken Leonora from the landing of the villa. She must have slipped out soon after midnight. The barking of the dogs suddenly came back to Marcantonio's memory, and the scream of the poor cat. He sprang into his carriage, and drove furiously homeward. "Where are the dogs?" he asked, as soon as he alighted. The groom did not like to answer. He thought Marcantonio would be angry and visit their death on him. But, as his master insisted, he went away without saying a word, and brought a large basket. In it lay the two dead terriers and the dead kitten, all three side by side. "The dogs killed the cat," said the man, apologetically. "There are the marks of their teeth, eccellenza." "But the dogs? How were they killed?" asked Marcantonio savagely. "Eccellenza, their necks are broken. I cannot understand how it could have been done. We found them all dead near the descent, the cat on the path, and the dogs under the trees a few paces away." Carantoni took up one of the terriers in his hands, and looked at it. "So you killed my dogs, did you, you brute?" he muttered. "I will kill you." He unconsciously used Batiscombe's own words. His face was yellow, and his eyes bloodshot. He dropped the dead beast into the basket. "Bury them," he said aloud, and turned on his heel, going into the house. He had accomplished a great deal in a few hours. He had ascertained that they had fled by sea; that Julius had a bank account in Rome with a banker whose address he had got; that Julius had sent his box to Turin, where he would most likely be ultimately heard of. More than that he could not know for the present. It was four o'clock in the afternoon. He could still catch the train to Rome. He could do nothing more in Sorrento, and he could no more remain inactive for one moment than he could give up the whole pursuit. While his things were being hastily packed he thought of Diana. It was the first time, since the morning, that he had realised that he was not absolutely alone in the world. He sat down and wrote a telegram, intending to send it from the station. It was brief and to the point. "She has left me. Can you meet me anywhere? Answer to Rome." There are doubtless people in the world who take a morbid and unwholesome delight in the contemplation of sorrow. They can amuse themselves for many hours in studying the effect of grief upon their friends,--and they can even find a curious diversion in their own troubles, so long as they can keep them far enough away to secure their bodily comfort. They have neither the strength to sin, the honesty to be good, nor the common sense to be happy. And so they feebly paddle in their shallow puddles of woe, neither dry nor wet, and very muddy, when they might just as well sit on the clean, hard ground and enjoy the cleanliness and solidity of it, if they can enjoy nothing else. But they will not. They will lie in the mud, and kick and scream and swear that they are shipwrecked, when they are a hundred miles from the sea, and would take to their heels on the first sight of it. One of the favourite hobbies of these individuals is a mysterious thing they call a "sweet sadness." Their ideas about sorrow are not even artistic. They might at least understand that even the intensest grief, apart from its causes, has no grandeur. The contemplation of sorrow is not elevating unless it breeds a strong desire to alleviate it; nor is the study of vice and crime in the least edifying unless it exhibits the nobility and power of purity in a highly practical light. No vicious criminal was ever reformed by realistic pictures of wickedness, any more than he can be improved by daily association with other vicious criminals. And a very little realism will throw a great ideal into the shade, as far as most people are concerned. Marcantonio may therefore be allowed to go to Rome without being watched on the journey. His bitter suffering had settled about him and taken a shape and a complexion of its own, thinking its own thoughts and acting its own acts, without reference to the real Marcantonio, the easy, cheerful, happy man of a few short weeks ago. It was no change of character now, but rather the entire disappearance of the character beneath the flood of strong passions that had come from without, sweeping away the landmarks and beacons of all moral responsibility. One idea had taken possession of him, and destroyed his consciousness of good and evil, and his comprehension of the common things of life; his body and intelligence had become the mere tools of this idea, and would strain their strength to carry it out until one or the other gave way. Man is said to be a free agent, and so long as he remembers the fact, he is; but when he forgets it, the freedom is gone. That morning, when the blow first struck him, he had still some vague thought that there was a course to follow which should be right as well as brave and honourable; it was the fast vanishing outline of his former self, used always to the ways of honour; it was vague and uncertain, and he had no time nor inclination to think about it, but it was present. The day wore on, bringing a fuller realisation of his desperate case, and the possibility of good in so much evil disappeared. When he was at last in the express train on his way to Rome he was only conscious of one thing--the determination to find Julius Batiscombe, and to kill him ruthlessly, be the consequences what they might. Rome looked much as usual when he at last came out of the great ugly station upon the Piazza dei Termini. It was morning, and not yet eight o'clock, but the pitiless August sun drove its fire through everything--through flesh and bone and marrow of living things, through the glaring stones and dusty trees, and even the great jet of water looked like bright melting metal that would burn if it touched one. But Marcantonio Carantoni was past feeling heat or cold or bodily hurt. He did not even remember that he had a servant with him, and he mechanically hailed a cab and was driven to his own house. They put a telegram into his hand; it was from Diana, in answer to his of the day before. It was briefer than his and breathed authority. "Have left Pegli. Wait for me in Rome." That was all. He read it stupidly over two or three times. He would not have telegraphed to her if he had waited till to-day. Some instinct told him that she would prevent and hinder his vengeance. Yesterday he wanted help; to-day he wanted nothing but freedom from restraint and an opportunity of meeting Julius Batiscombe. She would not aid him in that, he was sure. But she could not arrive to-day,--it was a long journey from Pegli to Rome; he did not know exactly how long it took,--his memory would not serve him with any details. He should have time in Rome to do the things he meant to do, and he would go to Turin that very night and watch that box of Batiscombe's. He would send for it, of course, wherever he was, and the box would betray him at last, if all other means failed. But meanwhile there were the police--there were detectives to be had, and plenty of them; money could do much, and his high position could do more. He would set a whole pack of sharp-scented human hounds at Batiscombe's heels--they should find him, and bring word, never fear. He laughed at the idea of employing the law to hunt his prey, in order that he might bid the law defiance and destroy his man alone. He threw down the telegram and went to his room, followed closely by his servant, who had arrived in mad haste in a second cab, believing that his master was going to be insane, unless he had a stroke of apoplexy, which seemed not unlikely. The man was a skilled valet, and Marcantonio suffered himself to be dressed and combed and smoothed, in perfect silence; and when it was over he ate something that they brought him, without the slightest idea of what he was doing. He knew it was yet early, and that his business could not be done until the officials he needed were in their offices. No sooner had the clock struck ten, however, than he took his hat and left the house. He found a cab, and had himself driven from one office to another all through the heat of the day, seeing confidential detectives and stating his business with a strange lucidity, never telling any single agent that he was employing another, but giving to each one a sum of money to begin his search and to each the same precise statement of all that he knew. The consequence was that before the sun was low he had dispatched half a dozen of the best men that could be found, and had got rid of about fifty thousand francs. Each one separately might have to go to the end of the world--to America perhaps, but most probably to England--before he could give the required information. It was necessary that his men should be perfectly free to move in any direction. He himself would go to Turin, and there receive their telegrams, himself watching that box of Batiscombe's, which he was sure must some day be claimed by its owner. He was perfectly calm and self-possessed throughout all these arrangements. Only the strange ghastly colour that had overspread his face seemed to settle and become permanent, and his eyes were bloodshot and yellow, while his hand trembled violently when he held a pen or lit a match for his cigarette. But he felt no bodily ill, nor any capacity for fatigue. He had not closed his eyes for thirty-six hours, and had eaten little enough, but there was not an ache nor a sensation of pain in him, and he dreaded to pause or sit down, hating the idea of rest. When he had done all that he could think of as being at all useful in his plan, he went home and told his servant to prepare for the journey to Turin that night. The train left at half past ten--there were some hours yet to wait. He moved restlessly about the house, and ordered all the windows to be opened. The great rooms were in their summer dress. The furniture, the huge pier glasses and the chandeliers were all clothed in brown linen. The carpets had all been taken up, and the floors--some of marble, some of red brick, and some of tiles--were bare and smooth. There was the coolness and absence of all colour that seems to belong to great palaces when the owners are out of town, and the cold monotony of everything soothed him a little. After wandering aimlessly for half an hour, he settled into a regular walk, up and down the great ball-room, with its clere-story windows and vaulted ceiling. Up and down, up and down, with an even, untiring tread he paced, his eyes bent always on the floor and his hands behind him. His walk was like clockwork, absolutely even and unchanging, with its rhythmic echo and unvarying accuracy. The broad daylight softened into shadow, and the shadow deepened into gloom, but still he kept on his beat as though counting his steps and measuring the time. There was a certain relief in it, though not from his mastering thought, which held him in a vise and never relaxed for a second, but from his terrible restlessness. It was an outlet to his overwrought activity, and he did it monotonously, without any consideration, because there was nothing else to do, and it would have driven him mad to sit still for five minutes. As the night came on, strange faces seemed to look upon him from the gathering darkness. The thick, warm air took shape and substance, and he could distinguish forms moving quickly before him that he could not overtake. But there was no sensation of horror or fear with the sight--he gazed curiously at the fleeting shadows and looked into their faces as they came close to him and retreated, but he could not recognise them, and did not ask himself whence they came nor whither they were going, nor why he saw them. It seemed very natural somehow. But at last, as he turned, there was one coming toward him that had more substance than the rest, so that they all vanished but that one. It was a woman, and she seemed moving towards him; but it was almost quite dark. He came nearer; his waking senses caught the sound of her footstep; she was no shadow--it was his wife coming back to him--it had all been a fearful dream, and she was there again. He sprang forward with a quick cry. "Leonora! Oh, thank God!" and he fell forward into her arms. "No, dearest brother--it is not Leonora--would God it were!" Diana had come already--he could not tell how--and they stood together in the dark, empty ball-room, clasped in each other's arms. CHAPTER XIX. Diana had found ample time to think over the situation during the journey, and she was prepared for difficulties. Her brother could hardly be in his right mind, she thought, and would certainly be on the verge of doing something desperate, which she must prevent. As was usual with her in sudden emergencies, she had been wonderfully quiet. She was shocked and horrified at the news, but neither the shock nor the horror were uppermost in her mind. What she most felt was an unutterable and loving pity for her brother; and as she sat in the express train and looked out of the window at the interminable miles of vineyard and cornland, the kind, womanly tears gathered and fell softly. She could not help it, and she would not. Poor fellow! he deserved all her heart, and her soul's sympathy, and the tears thereof. Marcantonio was in no state to reason or to be reasoned with. He had a strange illusion for a moment, when he thought his wife had returned to him, but he at once realised his folly and understood that Diana had come to meet him--had come, doubtless, to prevent him from accomplishing his vengeance. He had been so sure that she could not arrive until the next morning that he had anticipated no interruption in his plans, and he was angry with her for being in his way. She would watch him day and night, and hinder all his movements. So long as she was with him it would be impossible to do anything. He answered her very coldly. "You have come already? I did not expect you so soon." They moved towards the door, groping in the deep gloom, and presently reached a room where there were lights. Then Diana saw her brother's face and understood that he was mad or desperately ill, or both. The ghastly colour, the bloodshot eyes, the trembling hand, she saw it all. She had not known what change his trouble would make in him, but she knew it would be great. But she was startled now that she was face to face with him. It seemed too terribly real. She could not help it, she bent her beautiful fair head on his shoulder and threw her arms about him and sobbed aloud. But Marcantonio only understood that she was there to keep him from his ends, from the one thing in the world which he wished to do, and meant to do, and surely would accomplish. As she leaned on him and shed those bitter tears for him, he stood passive and dry-eyed, staring vacantly above her at the wall, and his hands hung by his side, not offering to support her or to comfort her. He only wished she were gone again and had never come to trouble him. It was only for a moment. Such outbursts of feeling were rare with Diana; people said she was a piece of ice, heartless, and without sympathy for any human being. They judged her by her face and by the dignity of her manner, not knowing of the things she had done in her life that were neither heartless nor cold. But now she recovered herself quickly and dried her eyes, and made Marcantonio sit down. She looked at him intently as though trying to understand him. He had never met her so coldly before in his life; there must be a reason for it,--he was evidently beside himself with suffering, but his temporary madness could hardly take the form of a sudden dislike for herself unless there were some cause. "You did not expect me so soon," she said, speaking very gently. "It was by a mere chance that I managed it." "I am very sorry," said Marcantonio in a monotonous voice that had no life in it, and seemed not his own. "If you had waited a little while I could have saved you the journey." "The journey is nothing," said she. "I am not tired at all, and I would come across the world to be with you." "Yes," said Marcantonio, "I know you would. It would have been better if we had met further on." "Further on?" she repeated, hoping he would give her some clue to his intentions. The old habit of confidence was too strong for him; he wished her away, but he could not help speaking and telling her something. He had never concealed anything from her. "In Turin," he answered briefly. "Ah,--is he there?" asked Diana in a low voice. "He sent his box there,--he will go and get it." "And then?" "And then," said Marcantonio, the sullen fire burning in his reddened eyes, "we shall meet." Diana was silent for a moment, determining what to do. All this she had expected, but she had not thought to find her brother so changed. "Tell me, Marcantonio," she said earnestly, "did you think I would prevent your meeting with him?" He hesitated. She took his hand and looked into his face as though urging him to answer. "Yes," he said hoarsely. Diana understood. This was the reason of his evident annoyance at her coming. He thought she meant to prevent him from fighting Batiscombe. "You know better than that," she said gravely. Marcantonio turned upon her quickly with an angry look. "You prevented me before," he said. "If I had shot him then, this trouble would not have come. You know it,--why do you look at me like that?" "If you had shot him before," said she, "this could not have happened. But if he had shot you,--that was possible, was it not?--you gained nothing. If neither of you had killed the other, there would have been a useless scandal. The case is different." If she had found her brother overcome with his sorrow and abandoned to the suffering it brought, sensitive and shrinking from all allusion to his shame, she would have acted very differently. But she found him possessed of but one idea, how to kill Julius Batiscombe; he was hard and unyielding; he seemed to have forgotten the wife he had loved so well, in the longing to destroy the man who had stolen her away. She felt no hesitation in speaking plainly of the matter in hand, since his feelings needed no sparing. But her sympathy was so large and honest that she did not feel hurt herself because he was cold to her; she understood that he was scarcely in his right mind, and she could make all allowance for him. Marcantonio did not answer at once. But her influence on him, as she sat there, was soothing, and he was gradually yielding under it--not in the least abandoning his one idea, but feeling that she might not hinder its execution after all. "Do you mean to say," he asked suddenly, "that you will not try to prevent my meeting with him?" He turned and looked into her eyes, that met his honestly and fearlessly. "Assuredly I will not prevent you," said she. "Really and truly?" "So truly that if I thought you had meant to leave him alone, I would have tried to make you fight him." Marcantonio laughed scornfully, in a way that was bad to hear. It had never struck him that he could possibly have not wanted to fight. But in a moment he was grave again. "What a woman you are, Diana!" he exclaimed. It sounded more like himself than anything he had said yet, and Diana was encouraged. But she said nothing. In her simple code, fighting was a necessary thing in the world. She had been brought up among people who fought duels under provocation, and it never entered her head that under certain circumstances there was anything else to be done. Women often scream with terror at the mention of such a thing, but very few of them will have anything to do with men who will not fight when they are insulted. In preventing a challenge after the affair at Sorrento she had done violence to her feelings for the sake of Leonora's reputation. In the present instance that was no longer at stake. It was perfectly clear that her brother must have satisfaction from his enemy, as soon as might be. She had never hesitated, therefore, in her view of Marcantonio's situation, and when he put the question to her she answered it boldly and naturally. But, somehow, he had not understood his sister before, though he had yielded to her, and he was astonished at her readiness to agree with him. He looked at her with a sort of admiration, and his feeling towards her changed. "Then you will help me to find him?" he asked. "I will stay with you until you do," she answered. "It is the same thing," said he. "Will you come to Turin with me at once?" "I will not leave you," she said. "We can go to Turin to-morrow, if you like." "No--to-night," he said, quickly. The idea of wasting twelve hours seemed intolerable. But Diana had made up her mind that he must rest a while before doing anything more. She shuddered when she looked at his face and saw the change wrought there in six and thirty hours. "If we start now," she said, "we shall arrive in the evening. You could do nothing at night. Rest until the morning, and then we will go. You will need all the strength you have." "I cannot rest," he said gloomily. "You must try," answered Diana. "I will read to you till you are asleep." He rose and began to pace the room. The doubt that she intended to keep him back sprang up again in his unsettled mind. He stopped before her. "No," he said, "I will go to-night, and you need not come if you are too tired. You want to prevent me from going at all--I see it in your face." Diana looked up at him as she sat. No one but a madman could have doubted the faith of those grey eyes of hers, and as Marcantonio gazed on them the old influence of the stronger character began to act. He turned away impatiently. "You always make me do what you like," he said, and began to walk again. Diana forced herself to laugh a little. "Do not be so foolish, dear boy," she said. "I want you to sleep to-night, and to-morrow we will go to the world's end together. You will lose twelve hours somewhere, because there are certain things that cannot be done at night. Better make use of them now, and sleep, before you are altogether exhausted. I promise to go with you to-morrow. Do you mean to have an illness, or to go out of your mind? You will accomplish one or the other in this way, and there will be an end of the whole matter." "Very well," said Marcantonio, unable to resist her will, "since you promise it to me I will do as you please. But to-morrow morning I will start, whatever happens." "Very well," said Diana. "And now, dear brother, will you kindly give me some dinner? I have scarcely had anything to-day." "Dio mio!" cried Marcantonio, "what a brute I am!" It was like him, she thought, to be angry at himself for having forgotten to be hospitable. The words reassured her, for they sounded natural. There had been moments during the conversation when she had thought he was insane. Perhaps it was more his looks than his words, however. At all events, as he rang the bell and ordered what was necessary, she felt as though he were already better. One of her reasons for wishing him to stay a night in Rome was that he might immediately have a chance of growing calmer. Nothing distances grief like sleep. Until the first impression had become less vivid in his mind, she could not ask him questions about the circumstances of the flight. She guessed that, although he was willing, and even anxious, to talk of his future meeting with Batiscombe, it would be quite another thing to make him speak of the past fact. And yet she knew nothing of the details--not even exactly the time when it had all happened. She half fancied that they must have got away by the sea, because it would have been so simple; but she had no idea of how much Marcantonio knew, nor whether the matter had yet in any way become public property. It was necessary, she judged, that she should know something, at least, of the circumstances. No one but Marcantonio could tell her, and before he could be brought to speak he must be saved from the danger of a physical illness which seemed to threaten him. Before long dinner was ready. It was ten o'clock, and the meal had been prepared for Marcantonio at eight; but he had behaved so strangely that no one liked to go near him, and the servants supposed that if he wanted anything he would ring the bell. The two sat down opposite to each other. Diana was tired and hungry; she had taken off her bonnet on arriving, and had gone straight to Marcantonio, and now she would not leave him until she had seen him safe in his room for the night. But in spite of the long journey, the fatigue, and the great anxiety, she was the same, as queenly and unruffled as ever, as smoothly and perfectly dressed, as quiet and stately in her ways. No wonder she was the envy of half the women in Europe. The half who did not envy her were those who had never seen her. She watched Marcantonio as she sat opposite to him. It surprised her to see that he ate well,--more than usual, in fact, and she attributed it to a sudden improvement which had perhaps been brought about by her arrival. She had expected that he would refuse to eat anything, and would support his strength on strong coffee and tobacco. She thought that at all events he would not be ill,--but, again, as she looked at his face, its death-like yellowness frightened her, and the injected veins of his eyeballs made his eyes look absolutely red. They hardly spoke during the meal, for the servants came and went often, and they could not speak any language together that would not be understood. After a time they were left alone, and they prepared to part for the night. Diana laid her hand affectionately on her brother's forehead, as though to feel whether it were hot. He looked so ill that it hurt her to see him. "You are worn out, dear boy," said she. "Go to bed and sleep." "I will try," he said, rather submissively than otherwise. "But we will go to-morrow, of course," he added quickly, turning to her with a half-startled look. "Of course," said she, reassuring him. "Because," he said, "I told the detectives to telegraph to me there, and I gave them my address at the hotel." "Detectives?" repeated Diana, starting a little and looking surprised. "What do you want them for?" "Diavolo!" ejaculated Marcantonio savagely, "to find him, to be sure." "Batiscombe is not the man to run away, or to need much finding," said Diana, gravely, with an air of conviction. She did not like the idea. "When men mean to be found they leave an address," said her brother, between his teeth. There was truth in what he said. Batiscombe ought to have let Marcantonio know his whereabouts, it was the least a brave man could do, and Batiscombe was undeniably brave. Diana felt a sharp sense of pain; the idea that her brother was hunting down with detectives, like a common malefactor, the man who had once loved her so well--the idea that she was helping to find him in order that Marcantonio might kill him if he could--it was frightful to her. She was bitterly atoning for one innocent girlish fancy of long ago. "Marcantonio," she said, almost entreatingly, "do not do it. Give up the police. I am sure he will meet you without that"-- "Ah yes!" he interrupted, "you know him. Of course you will not help me! I forgot that you were come to shield him,--you--I know you will not help me!" He spoke fiercely and brutally, as he had never spoken to her before. But mad or not mad, Diana would not submit to such words from any one. She turned white, and faced him in the light of the two great lamps that burned on the table. The whole power and splendid force of her nature gleamed in her eyes, and thrilled in the low, distinct tones of her voice. "What you say is utterly base, and ignoble, and untrue," she said slowly. He hung his head, for he knew he was wrong. He did not know what he said; indeed he had hardly known what he was doing all that day. "I am sorry, Diana," he said, at last, quite humbly. "I am not myself to-day." Her anger melted away instantly. Himself! No indeed, poor fellow, he was not himself, and perhaps never would be his old self again. He was so utterly wretched as he stood there before her with his head bent and his hands clasped together, so forlorn and forsaken and pitiful, the moment the sustaining force of his anger left him, that no human creature could have seen him without giving him all sympathy and comfort. Diana went close to him and put her arms about him, and kissed him, and her tears wet his cheek. He suffered her to lead him quietly away to his rooms, and she left him in the care of his faithful old servant. "The signore is ill," she said. "Some one must watch in the outer room all night, in case he wants anything." Diana herself was exhausted, in spite of her strength and extraordinary nerve. There were times when she broke down, as she had done at Sorrento when she heard Julius and Leonora outside her window, but it was always after the struggle was over, when she was alone. Moreover she had the advantage of a perfectly serene past life, during which no serious trouble had come near her, and her strength had increased with her maturity. It all stood her in good stead now, and helped her to bear what she had to suffer. She went to bed and slept a dreamless sleep which completely restored her. It is the privilege of very calm and evenly balanced natures to take rest when it can be had, and to bear wakefulness and fatigue better in the long run than extremely active and physically energetic people. As for Marcantonio, he tossed upon his bed and dreamed broken dreams that woke him again and again with a sudden start; he dreamed he had found his man, and the excitement of the moment waked him. Then he dreamed he was quarrelling with his sister, and was suddenly wide awake at the sound of her reproachful voice. He was talking to Leonora, pleading with her, and using all his eloquence to win her back, and she laughed scornfully at him--and that waked him too. But at last he slept soundly for an hour or two, just before daybreak, and awoke feeling tired, but more restful. The dawn came stealing through the windows, and he got up and moved about a little, with a sensation of enjoyment in the cool, fresh air. He looked into the glass, and started at his own face that he saw reflected there. It seemed like a hideous mask of himself, all drawn and distorted and pale. But had he looked at himself on the previous day he might have seen an improvement now. He was deadly pale, but no longer yellow, and his eyes had lost the redness which had frightened his sister. He looked ill, but not crazy, and he felt that he could trust himself to-day not to say the things he had said yesterday. He would go to Turin of course--that was settled--unless Diana were too tired; but he would not have admitted such a condition when he went to bed the night before. He rang the bell and ordered his things to be got ready. The old servant, who had slept on a sofa outside, looked haggard and unshaved, and stared suspiciously as he heard the order. But he did not dare to make any remarks, as he would have done if his master had been well. Marcantonio had been ill once before, when he was a boy of fifteen, and had on that occasion, when he was delirious, shown a remarkable tendency to throw everything within reach at the people about him when he did not instantly get what he wanted. The old man remembered the fact, and was silently obedient, for the Signor Marchese looked as though he were ill again. The mildest people are often the most furious in the delirium of a fever. CHAPTER XX. After all, Julius was not quite certain whether Leonora had fainted, or was asleep. She had been comfortably settled in the boat at the first, and a quarter of an hour had passed in hoisting and trimming the sails, and bringing the craft before the wind. She might have fallen asleep from sheer fatigue and weariness,--Julius could not tell. He bent far down over the stern, and fetched up a few drops of water from the sea with one hand, while the other supported Leonora's drooping head,--the tiller could take care of itself for a moment,--and he sprinkled her face softly and watched her; once more--and she opened her eyes as from a pleasant dream, and looking up to his she smiled, and closed them again. He bent down and spoke almost in a whisper. "Darling, are you quite comfortable?" She moved her head in assent, the quiet smile still playing on her lips. Then she lay quite still for a while, and listened to the rush of the water, and the occasional dull, wooden sound as the rudder moved a little on its hinges. The boat rolled softly from side to side, in a long, easy motion and glided swiftly down the bay. Presently Leonora moved, sat up, and looked about her, at the sea, and the land, and the fiery-crested mountain. "Where are we going, Julius?" she asked, with a smile at the question. "I am sure I don't know," said he, laughing. "There are lots of places we can go to. Ischia, Capri,--Naples if you like. Select, dearest, there is a good boat between us and the water, and we have the world before us." "But we must go somewhere where we can get some breakfast," said she gravely. "And where I can buy things," she added, laughing again. "Do you know that this is all I have got in the world to wear?" "That is serious indeed," said Julius. "There are provisions and things to drink in the boat, but there is no millinery. We had better go to Naples." "I think I could manage for one day," said Leonora, doubtfully. "I have brought heaps of handkerchiefs, and hairpins, and cologne water,--they are all in the bag." "Handkerchiefs and hairpins!" repeated Julius, and laughed at the idea. A woman leaves her husband, who worships her, scatters trouble and tears and madness broadcast, and she thinks of handkerchiefs and hairpins, and remembers where she has put them. "Yes," said Leonora, "they will be very useful. We could go to Ischia first, and to Naples to-morrow night,--or rather to-night, I should say. That is,--if you think"-- "What, dear?" asked Julius. "If you think it is quite--far enough." "We cannot go very far. It is six or seven hours from here to Ischia, if the wind holds. We should be there between six and seven o'clock." "I think that would be best," said Leonora in a tone of decision. She was silent for a moment. Presently she looked up into Batiscombe's face, and her own was white and beautiful in the moonlight. "I wonder," she said, "whether any one heard that noise the dogs made? Oh, the poor, poor kitten,--it makes me quite cry to think of her!" "Poor thing!" said Julius sympathetically. "But its ghost will not haunt the gardens, for it was amply avenged." "Yes indeed!" said Leonora. "Oh, Julius, you are so strong,--I like you." "Thanks," said Julius, "you are awfully good to like me." He laughed, but his hand caressed her hair tenderly, and Leonora was happy. "It was just like us," said she, "to stop there at the top of the steps where we might have been seen in a moment--but I am glad. I hated those dogs." "It was just as well," said he. "They would very likely have made more noise, and followed us." "Oh yes--and just fancy the wrath when they are found to-morrow morning. But they might have bitten you dreadfully--I was terribly frightened." "I fancy there will be more wrath about you, my dear, than about the dogs," said Julius, rather gravely. "About me? Oh--I hardly know--perhaps. I do not think any one will mind very much." "What does it matter who minds, as you call it?" asked Julius, pushing her thick hair from her forehead tenderly, and looking at her with loving eyes. "What does it matter to us now? What can anything ever matter again?" "Nothing, nothing, nothing, dear," she answered softly, and her head drooped happily upon his shoulder. They were as though alone in the boat, for the broad sail was stretched right across to catch the wind, and hid the men, who sat together forward, chattering in a low voice in the incomprehensible dialect known as the lingua franca, the free tongue in which all Mediterranean sailors understand one another, from Gibraltar to Constantinople, and from Smyrna to Marseilles. They did not care a rush what their master did, nor where he went; they had some confidence in his knowledge of the sea and of the coast, and they had entire confidence in themselves, whatever wind might blow. It was nothing to them, who came from the north coast, whether their broad-shouldered "signore" took a "bella signora" from Naples or Sorrento for a midnight sail in his boat. He paid well, to every man his wages, and he often gave them a few francs to drink his health. They had never had so good a "padrone" before, and they asked no questions, wisely distinguishing the side of the bread upon which a bountiful providence had spread the most butter for their benefit. They also said that nothing ever mattered much so long as they got their pay. Leonora had found at last the desire of her heart,--the reckless, stormy passion, careless of everything but itself and its object, of which she had so often dreamed. She had found the man for her to love, and she did love him to distraction. As for the rest of the world, she was more persuaded than ever that there was nothing very much in anything after all. What she had was wholly sufficient in the present, the future was a future full of joy and love, and divested of everything that could possibly be wearisome, and the past was cut off, murdered, dead and buried out of sight. But though she had killed it and thrown it away, as Julius had done with the dogs, it had a ghost and a living memory that would haunt her for many days and weeks, and months and years. A life is not a dream to be forgotten, nor an old garment to be thrown aside at will. Life is an ever present thing, and all our past is as much a part and parcel of to-day as the marks we bear in our bodies are portions of ourselves, no matter how we came by them, nor when. Out of nothing, nothing can come. Out of confusion and vanity and pure selfishness, out of confused and incoherent fragments of half-expressed wisdom, out of the very vanity of vanities, which is the vanity of wise words wrought into foolish phrases; out of the shell of an imaginary self wrought fine and gilded to please the worst part of the real self,--out of all these things, I say, what can come that is good? Or can anything come of them which is truly evil, seeing that, one with another, they are all but so many empty nothings, melted together and lost in the great void that receives the failures of the soul-world? If anything results from such a life, it must be the realisation of nothing, which is the extinction and annihilation of that which is,--and woe be to the destroyer. We may destroy all hold and anchorage of mind and soul, we may reason ourselves into a disbelief in reality, in matter, in daily life, in good and evil. But always when we think that everything is done, and that our fabric of philosophy is faultless, there arises the strong tide of human passion and creeps across the sands to our tower. At first we may watch the waves from a long way off, and laugh to see them break and overwhelm the very foolish people who have no tower on the shore and must swim for their lives or perish. But the tide rolls on toward us, and runs cruelly up, crashing and thundering in its rising might, till it rends and tears our flimsy castle out of the sands beneath our very feet, and we fall headlong into the rushing waters. And then we too must struggle like the rest, if we can; and if we cannot, we must sink to the bottom, while those who learned when the tide was low and the water smooth, and have tried their strength in many a brave buffet with the waves, swim strongly over our drowned bodies. It is easy to moralise, it is hard to live. That is the reason that great moralists are generally either old men who have done with living and would like to teach other people, or else young men and young women who have not enough vitality to animate the most lymphatic oyster, but who manage to float about by their own inflation. These latter never save any one from drowning, and the former save very few. The people who can help others are the strong ones who can catch them just below the shoulder, by the arm, and support them and push them to land, themselves doing all the work. That is a watery simile, but most similes are but water, and can be poured into a tea-cup or into a bucket--they will take the shape of either. The night wore on, the full moon sinking slowly to the west, so that after a time she was hidden from the lovers by the sails, and there was a broad shadow behind them. Still the breeze blew fresh from the land and carried them straight towards Ischia, and the boat rocked smoothly over the rolling water. Leonora rested on the thick cushions, and her head lay nestled in Batiscombe's arm while he held the tiller carelessly with his other hand, steering by the wind, in the certainty of making the right course. He did not speak, for he wanted her to rest, and so it came about that before long she fell peacefully asleep, and Julius drew a light shawl tenderly about her, and kissed her ruddy hair, and looked out over the moonlit water, calmly as though he were sailing for his pleasure. He was thinking what strange things happened in his life, and wondering within himself whether he could ever grow old and be like other people. But he could never be like other people now, for he must live a life apart from the world, and create an existence of a new kind, utterly free from the ties and bonds and weariness of society. It would also be without the amusements, the gayety, the glitter, and the flattery of society. Batiscombe liked all that, too; but he thought he could do without it very well. Just now the fascination of the hour was upon him. The sweet sea-breeze, the moonlight on the water, the swirl of the boat's wake--and, above all, the beautiful woman by his side sleeping so gently and nestled so lovingly close to him,--it was all perfect. But with a curious duality that belonged to him, he enjoyed the moment and thought intensely of the future at the same time; not with any fear or regret or even with the anticipation of remorse for what he had done, but with a far-seeing love of combination, striving to know exactly what would happen and to provide for it. He went over in his mind the many places to which he might take Leonora, and tried to select the most beautiful and the most retired--some ideal spot, not yet invaded by society. Society, in the long run, gets the best of everything; artists and poets and adventurous tourists may seek out an inaccessible region and keep it to themselves for a while, revelling in the solitude and driving off intruders by discouraging civilisation and affecting a barbaric display of shirt-sleeves, paint, and beards. But if the place is really beautiful, really healthy or really convenient for flirting in the open air, there will surely come at last a stray princess of eccentric disposition and fond of a little discomfort. She will say it is simply too delightful, and so very natural, you know; and in the course of a summer or two the society battalion will encamp there, the houses will be newly painted, and there will be a band and a casino, and a royal personage. It is very hard to find the kind of place Julius wanted, and he thought for a long time before he hit upon it. But at last he had a happy idea and was pleased with himself for having it, as he always was. Very cautiously he got a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it with one hand, steadying the helm with his elbow. He did it so smoothly and quietly that Leonora did not wake, and he puffed in silent enjoyment of the tobacco, taking care that the smoke should not blow into her face. It was very like Julius Batiscombe to risk waking her in order that he might smoke, for he was a selfish man and knew it, and delighted in it. But it came upon him in gusts, and was not always a part of him; only, when it did come, it covered completely the better features of his nature. In carrying away Leonora, he had done one of the most absolutely selfish actions of his life, and for the time being there was nothing he would not do so long as he could keep her with him and make her sure that he loved her. He knew well enough that she loved him. He did not want to know anything about his own motives. He was in love--that was motive enough for anything. As a matter of fact, deep down in his soul there were other incentives at play; but he would not acknowledge that to himself. It was true that since he had loved Diana he had never loved another woman as he loved Leonora. There was a charm about her which he could not explain, which overcame him and filled his whole life. His lingering feeling for Diana was always real when no other passion was in the way, and it had never happened before that any one of his affairs had crossed her path. But now it had chanced at last, and the strong position she had taken against him from the first had roused a bitter opposition in him. It secretly delighted him to think of her anger, and sorrow, and humiliation at the success of his enterprise. But, nevertheless, he loved Leonora with all the strength of passion that remained to him, and that was saying much. Again, he had the vanity, in some directions, of half a dozen ordinary men, a common peculiarity of that unusual physical courage and strength which he possessed in an eminent degree. But it did not go into his work, for he was an artist at heart, besides being a man of the world, and was never long satisfied with anything he wrote. It was the sort of vanity that hankers after the admiration of women, and would not take the admiration of men as a gift,--an intensely virile characteristic of immense power. He would like to rule men, to lead them to do great things or to crush them under his heel, according to his mood; and he sometimes ground his teeth because he could do neither. But he did not want their admiration, much less their sympathy. They might flatter him, or abuse him--he was utterly indifferent. But he would sacrifice a great deal for the approbation of a woman, and he often got it; for women, generally speaking, like best the men who hang upon their words and will do anything under heaven for a smile and a word of praise--as is natural. Consequently, Leonora's evident interest in himself had pleased Julius from the very first, and he had often done things for the sake of hearing her say something flattering, which had meant more than he had realised. There was no doubt whatever that his vanity had played an important part in bringing him into his present position. Nor was he a very exceptional man in this respect, save in the degree of his qualities. Hundreds of men fall in love every day with women who flatter them, and the passion is not less strong because it is of a low order. It was over now, however, and the plunge was taken. The falling in love was accomplished, and the being in love had begun. Henceforth the two main considerations in his mind were to make life convenient and easy for Leonora, in order that she might not cease to love him out of discontent, and then to get over his inevitable meeting with Marcantonio as soon as possible and as well as possible. He easily saw that these two things were inseparable. If all question of future complication were not removed at once by a decisive meeting with Carantoni, Leonora might live in a state of fear and trembling for months to come. In order to meet him it was necessary to have some place of abode for the time, where Leonora might be happy--of course she should not know of the encounter until it was over--and at the same time the spot must be so chosen as to be tolerably accessible. He had intended to go to France when it was over, and had therefore sent his box to Turin, meaning to take it as soon as he felt free to move; Turin suggested Piedmont, and Piedmont suggested a place where he had once spent a month in the summer,--scenery, trout-fishing, considerable comfort, and not a soul there excepting some of the local society of Turin, who found it convenient and cheap. He at once determined to go thither, and to send Marcantonio information of the fact, in order that he might find him as soon as he pleased. He no more expected, or wished, to avoid a duel than Marcantonio himself. The one virtue which never deserted him was his courage. He would let his adversary have a shot at him if he liked, but he himself would fire in the air, of course. He did not think much about it, to tell the truth, for he accepted the fact as the consequence of his action, and occupied himself in providing for it without any judgment of himself, for good or evil. He had once said to Leonora that the enjoyment belonged to the man who ate, and not to the man who carved, and she had guessed rightly that however well he might analyse the lives of others, he never analysed his own. He had got the forbidden fruit and he was glad of it, and meant to keep it all for himself, inwardly rejoicing at the anger of those who would have prevented him, if they could. And with all this, the fruit gave him an intense delight, independently of the triumph of having obtained it. He was not a man who tired of anything he liked so long as the thing itself did not change and remained as sweet as ever. There he sat at the helm all through the hours from midnight to dawn, and Leonora slept peacefully in the cool sea air, at rest after all her excitement and fatigue. Gradually the moonlight seemed to lose distinctness, while gaining more strength and permeating the shadows of the boat which had before been dark and well defined. The breeze blew cooler and fresher than ever, bearing a faint chill in its breath, and the water, from being like black velvet strewn with diamonds, turned gradually grey and misty, so that the waves could all be seen with their small crests and sharp rough edges. In front the rocky height of Ischia seemed to tower to the sky, and soon it caught the first soft tinge of the dawn. Quickly the rosy light crept downwards, falling gently from tree to tree and from rock to rock, till it reached the water, and the sea rippled and laughed in the sweetness of the summer morning. Leonora moved in her sleep, and Julius, who was watching her, saw her lips tremble a little as though she were talking in her dreams. Then she started slightly, put out her hand, and opened her eyes. The blood mounted to her cheeks as she met her lover's glance, and he looked from the colour on the water to the colour on her face, and he saw that the blush of the woman was fairer than the blush of the summer sea. She sat up and turned from him a moment, and her hands were busy with her hair. "Have you slept well, my dear one?" asked Julius. "I am afraid you were terribly uncomfortable." "Oh, so well," said she, still looking away and deftly putting a hairpin in its place. "But I dreamed just as I woke up." "What did you dream, sweetheart?" asked Julius, stretching his stiffened limbs. He had scarcely moved for four hours; he could have borne it for four hours longer if he had not wanted anything,--but he had risked waking her in order to get a cigarette. "I dreamed about you," said she. "You behaved so badly, I am not sure I shall forgive you,--ever." She gave him a hesitating look as she bent her head to arrange her hair. "Tell me, darling," said he, laughing. "It is nothing to laugh at," she answered. "And besides,--I don't know whether I ought to tell you." She stopped and watched him with a little shy laugh. "Please do." "Well,--of course this is in the strictest confidence,--you will never tell any one. Do give me the bag, dear. I want the cologne water." "And the hairpins and the handkerchiefs," added Julius, laughing, as he stooped to get the bag out of the stern-sheets. "Please tell me the dream." Leonora took a handkerchief and wet it from the bottle of cologne water. Then she began to dab it on her face. "I dreamed that you"--dab--"picked me up in your arms and"--dab, dab--"carried me down the stairs,"--dab, dab, dab,--"and just as you were putting me into the"--dab--"into the boat, you dropped me into the sea." A furious succession of dabs, then more cologne water and another handkerchief. "But you said something about that last night. You made me put you down on the rocks, because you said you had dreamed I dropped you. Was that another dream?" Julius was watching her operations with a half-amused interest. "Yes," said she, drying her face, "I dreamed it all over again, just now." "But when did you dream it first, dear? Yesterday?" "Oh no! Ever so long ago,--ages ago." She looked down at the flower she had put in her dress at the last minute. It was still fresh, and she arranged it a little. "Before you knew me?" asked Julius. "Oh yes,--that is--before"--she blushed again. "When was it?" he asked, amused and delighted. "It was before that evening," she said at last, "when you met me in the church. How long ago is that?" "About ten years, I should think," said Julius gravely. It seemed an endless time. "Is it not strange?--and then, that I should dream it all again--it is so funny. Why should you have dropped me? It would have been so easy to carry me into the boat, and yet you seemed to stumble on purpose, and we both fell in and were drowned. Is it not very odd?" She seemed to have settled herself now, for the remainder of the journey; the sun had risen quickly over the land while they were talking, and she put up a parasol which lay on the opposite seat. She did it unconsciously, not realising that she had not brought one with her, but when she held it up, she looked at the handle and saw that it was not one of her own. Then she remembered. "Did you get it for me?" she asked, smiling. "Yes," said Julius; "I knew you would want it, so I sent out for it last night." "A puggia!" shouted one of the men from behind the sail. Julius put the helm up accordingly, and, as the boat fell off a little, a big fishing smack ran across her bows. A dozen rough fellows were lounging about in their woollen caps and dirty shirts. They laughed gayly at the crazy foreigners as they went by, and some of them waved their caps. "Buon viaggio, eccellenza!" they shouted. Julius waved his hand in answer to the greeting. Leonora was pleased. "At all events," said she, "some one has wished us a pleasant journey. It was sweet of you to get the parasol, dear." So they chattered together awhile, and presently the boat went round the point of the island to the north side, and they took in the sails, and the six men pulled her lustily along under the shore, until they reached the little harbour of Casamicciola. "We can stay here and rest all day," said Julius, as they entered the hotel on the hill, half an hour later. "We shall not be disturbed, and this afternoon we will sail over to Naples, and you can do your shopping when it is cool." At half past eight they sat down to a breakfast of figs and bread-and-butter and coffee. At the same moment over there in Sorrento, Temistocle laid the key of Leonora's room on Marcantonio's writing-table, and edged away to make sure of an easy escape through the door. "How perfectly lovely!" exclaimed Leonora, stopping in the consumption of a very ripe black fig, to look out at the sea and the exquisite islands that lie like jewels between Ischia and the mainland. A waiter had brought a shabby book of ruled paper, with a pen and some ink. He asked if his excellency would be good enough to write his name. Julius took the pen and wrote something, glancing up with a smile at Leonora, who finished her fig in silence. "Let me see," said she, when he had done. He handed her the book, while the servant waited respectfully. Julius had written simply, "MR. AND MRS. BATISCOMBE, ENGLAND." "Give me the pen," said Leonora. "Oh, dip it in the ink, please--thanks!" She wrote something and gave him back the book. Underneath his writing she had put in another name. "I wanted to write it," said she with a little laugh. Julius looked, and laughed too. "LEONORA BATISCOMBE," that was all. But as she wrote it, Marcantonio, over there in Sorrento, fell upon the hard tiles with his mother's diamond cross in his hand. CHAPTER XXI. Leonora did all her errands--or as many as she said could be done in so short a time. There were a great many things, she explained, which she could order when they were settled, but which would be in the way at present. Julius bought her a box, and wrote a label for it, and pasted it on the cover. She began to find out that, besides his other qualities, he was a very practical man, and understood travelling better than any courier she had ever had. They had spent a few hours in Ischia as they had intended, and had then come over to Naples in a small steamer which plied daily between the island and the city. Julius paid something to have his boat towed across, and when he was in Naples he paid the men a month's wages in advance, and told them to go back to Genoa and wait for him there. They might steal the boat--or they might not, he did not care. The thing had to be sent somewhere, and if it ever reached Genoa so much the better. He drove with Leonora up and down the Toledo for hours, stopping at all manner of shops, and buying all manner of things. Now and then he would succeed in paying for something, but she generally insisted on using her own money. It was fortunate that she had taken it, she thought, as it would have been so awkward to let him pay for everything. He remonstrated. "All that I have is yours, darling," he said. "You must not begin with such ideas." "I do not mean to be a burden to you, Julius," answered Leonora. "I am sure I must be much richer than you. Nobody ever made himself rich by writing books." She laughed, and he laughed with her. It was so very amusing to talk to each other about what they possessed. "Ideas about being rich are comparative," said Julius. "If I sent Worth two or three hundred pounds for a dress every other week, I should certainly not be very well off. But"-- "Oh, Julius--what an idea! There is no one so cheap as Worth in the long run." "I was going to say something very pretty," remarked Julius. "Oh, I would not have interrupted you if I had known. What was it?" "I was going to say that I must be richer than you--since I have got you, and you have only got me." "You always say things like that," said Leonora, laughing lightly. "Be sure that you always do--I like them very much." "Ah," said Julius, gravely, "I will sit up all night and make them for you." "They ought to be spontaneous," said Leonora. "Everything that is pretty in the world is spontaneous to you, my dear. But I have to work hard to make pretty things, because I am only a man." "That is really not bad," said she, laughing again. She wondered vaguely whether he would always be the same. Her husband used to talk much like that at first. But he grew so dull, and when he said things he never looked as if he quite meant them. Julius said sometimes a few words--just what any one might have said; but there was a tone in his voice, and his eyes were so fiery. She loved the fire; it used to frighten her at first. "We cannot stay here," said Julius, when they sat over their dinner at the hotel on the Chiaja. "It is altogether too ridiculously hot; it is a perfect caricature of a summer, with all its worst points exaggerated." "Yes; but where shall we go?" asked Leonora. "I had thought of a charming place," said Julius. "It is away in the Piedmontese Alps--all mountains and chestnut woods and waterfalls. An old convent built over a torrent. Only the people from Turin go there." "That sounds cool," said Leonora, fanning herself, though whatever she might suffer from the heat she never looked hot. "Let us go. When were you there?" "Years and years ago," said Julius. "I used to catch trout with caddis-worms, and write articles about Italian politics. You may imagine how much I knew of what was going on, shut up in an old convent in the mountains. But it made no difference. Writing about Italian politics is very like fishing with worms." "Why?" "You sit on a bank with a red, white, and green float to your line. You have not the least idea what is going on under the water. Now and then the float dips a little, and then you write that the national sentiment of honour is disturbed. That is a bite. By and by the float disappears and your line is pulled tight, and you think you have got a fine fish. Then you write that a revolution is imminent, and you haul up the line cautiously, and find that a wretched little roach or a stickleback has swallowed your hook. The red, white, and green float waves over your head like a flag while you get the hook out and bait it again. You make another cast, and you write home that order has been restored. On the other side of the bank sits another fellow, with a float painted red, white, and blue. He is the French correspondent. Sometimes you get his fish, and sometimes he gets yours. It is very lively." "You used to say that a simile was an explanation and not an argument," said Leonora, rather amused at his description. She always remembered what he said, and enjoyed quoting him against himself. "So it is. What I told you was an illustration of a correspondent's life, not an argument against the existence of very fine fish in the stream." "You are too quick," said Leonora, laughing. "One has to be quick in order not to appear too awfully slow in comparison with you, dear," answered Julius at once. "Again,--there is no stopping you!" It amused her to talk to him, he was so ready; and always with something well turned, that pleased her. There was something, too, that was refreshing in hearing the small talk of a celebrity, often a little doubtful in grammar, and interspersed now and then with a little generous exaggeration that she liked. She had read his books, and knew what he could do with the language when he pleased. And most of all she liked to speak and to be spoken to in English,--it seemed so much more natural. It was no trouble to Julius to talk to her. With some people he was as silent as the grave, which produced the impression that he was very profound. With others he was ready for a laugh and a jest at any moment, and they thought him brilliant; but there were very few with whom he talked seriously. Leonora saw all his phases in turn, for she felt that if she did not know his character, she was in sympathy with his mind and understood him. But Julius was anxious to reach the spot he had chosen, in order to let Carantoni know of his whereabouts. He suggested to Leonora that if it was quite convenient to her they might go the next day, when she had had a good night's rest. She assented readily enough. To tell the truth, with all her gayety and enjoyment of the novel situation, she disliked Naples, and she hated to feel that in the morning she should look out of her window across the bay and see Sorrento, and think of her husband as being there. She did not know that when she laid her head on her pillow that night Marcantonio would be in the station in Naples, on his way to Rome, and not half a mile away from her. "Are you ever seasick?" asked Julius suddenly. "Oh, Julius! You know I am not," she said reproachfully. He laughed. "No? I mean in a steamer. Boats are quite different." "I don't know," said Leonora. "I have often crossed the Channel, and I was never ill at all." "Oh, then of course it's all right!" he said. "You would not mind in the least. We had better go to Genoa in the steamer; it is very decent and much cooler than all those miles of rail and dust." "Oh yes, far pleasanter," said Leonora. And so they made their arrangements, and the next day--the day when Marcantonio was engaging the detectives in Rome--they went on board the "Florio" steamer and left Naples, and Sorrento, and Ischia, and all the countless reminiscences that attached to the glorious bay, and were carried up the coast. "The dear place," said Leonora, looking astern as she sat in her arm-chair under the awning on deck, "I shall always love it." "But you are glad to leave it, darling, are you not?" asked Batiscombe, who stood beside her, and was looking more at her than at the coast, though he held a glass in his hand. It was a curious question to ask, one might have thought, and yet it was natural enough, and did not jar on Leonora's thoughts. She was not sensitive in that way in the least. She did not mind his referring to the past in any way he chose. "Glad? Of course I am glad," she answered, looking up into his face. "How could I not be glad?" She seemed almost vexed at the simplicity of the question. "Then I am happy," said Julius, sitting down beside her. And he spoke the truth; for the time he was utterly and supremely happy. He felt indeed the grave and serious mood, which the bravest man must feel when he knows that in a very few days his life will be at stake. But his vanity told him he was going to fight for her, and that gave him a happiness apart; so he concealed the serious tendency of his thoughts, talking easily and gayly. It was his vanity that helped him most, telling him it was for her; and, as always in his life, the prospect of a woman's praise was a supreme incentive. He did not reflect that he was not to fight for Leonora's honour, but for the greatest dishonour the world held for her. The broad sun poured down on the water, but the west wind fanned their faces and the awning kept the heat from them. Leonora lay back with half-closed eyes, now and then carefully opening and shutting a fan she held. She was wonderful to look at, her marvellous skin, and the masses of her red hair--the true red of the Venetian women--contrasting strongly with her soft dark dress, and a Sorrento handkerchief of crimson silk, just knotted about her dazzling throat. She was a marvellous specimen of vital nature, of pure living litheness and elasticity, gloriously human and alive. And the man beside her was almost as singular in a different way: he was so quiet, and moved so easily, and his bright blue eyes were so fiery and clear, his skin so bronzed and even in colour; there was strength about him too; and the passengers as they came and went would steal a glance at the couple, and make remarks, quite audible to Julius and Leonora, about the beauty of those Inglesi. "Which do you like best, dear," asked Julius presently, "the day or the night?" "Oh--that night was so beautiful," said Leonora; "I love the moon, and the freshness, and the white sails, and all." "Does 'all' include anything especial?" asked Julius smiling. "What do you think?" asked she, instead of answering. Her red lips remained just parted with a loving smile. "I don't think," said Julius. "I leave the thinking to you, my dear. You can do it much better. But I like the sunlight, the broad, good sunlight, far more than the moon. It is so hot and splendid." "Yes; I suppose it is like you to prefer it. All men like the sun--and I suppose all women like the moon. At least I do. But you must always like what I like now, you know." "Including myself, I suppose?" "Bah, my dear," laughed Leonora, "you will find that very easy!" How very unhappy she must have been, thought Julius. She had not a regret in the world, it seemed; and the only fear she had shown had been when she stumbled on the descent, so that he took her up and carried her. "Tell me," said he, "what did you do in all those dreadful days when we could not meet?" "I did nothing but write letters to you--very nice letters too. You have never shown yourself properly grateful." "No," said Julius, "I have not had time." "What do you mean?" asked Leonora with a little frown. "Why--it must take a long time to show you how grateful I am. A long time," he added, his voice sinking to a deeper tone, that Leonora loved to hear. "It will take my whole lifetime, darling." "Thanks, dear one," said she quietly, laying her hand on his. She did not mind the passengers,--why should she? She would never mind the world again, as long as she lived, for the world would never care what she did any more. Her experience of the world--or of what she understood by the term--had not been very happy, though it had not been the reverse. She remembered chiefly the mere technicalities of society, so to speak. She had enjoyed them after a fashion, inveighing all the while against their emptiness and vanity, and now when she looked back she saw only a confused perspective of brilliantly lighted, noisy parties, of more or less solemn dinners, of endless visits to people who bored her, and of an occasional cotillion with a man she liked, in return for numberless dances with individuals who seemed to be trying to get dancing lessons gratis, or who tore furiously up and down the room till she was out of breath, or who caught their spurs in her skirts, and scratched her arms with their decorations. She did not remember how she had enjoyed motion for motion's sake, and had rarely refused to go out, in spite of the aforesaid annoyances. She did not remember the little thrills of pleasure she had felt, as Marcantonio was gradually attracted to her, till he was always the first to greet her and to put his name on her card for a turn, and was always the last to bid her good-night, devoting himself to her mother when she was engaged with some one else. She did not remember the delight she had often experienced in discussing society with her philosophical friends, bowling over institutions with a phrase and destroying characters with an adjective. There were many things which Leonora did not remember but which had given her great pleasure a few months ago; but most of them reminded her of her husband, and she did not wish to be reminded of him in the least. There was continually a sort of unconscious comparison going on between him and Julius Batiscombe; she could not help it, and it had been perhaps the earliest phase of her love. Even at the moment when Marcantonio offered himself to her, Julius was standing in the doorway, and she had wondered what he would have said if he had been making the same proposal. She knew, now. She thought she knew the difference between the intonation of the man who loved, and of the man who merely wanted to marry. Ah--if she had only known in time, things would have been different. She would have refused Marcantonio, after all his devotion, and she would have married Julius. She did not understand that Julius would never have fallen in love with her then; that the mere possibility of being led into marriage reared an impassable barrier between him and the whole of youngladydom. He had made up his mind that he would not marry, and young ladies said he was the most obstinate bore they knew; which was very unkind, for he kept out of their way, and only bored them when he was obliged to talk to them, doing it systematically and successfully in self-defence. But Leonora innocently supposed that if Julius had met her more intimately, in time, he would have fallen in love with her just as he had done now, and would have proposed after six weeks' acquaintance, and they would have been happy forever after. She chanced to think of this now, and she sighed. "What is the matter, sweetheart?" asked Julius. "Nothing," said she, "I was thinking of something,--that is all." "Tell me, dear," said he, bending towards her. She hesitated a moment, looking into his eyes. "I was thinking," she said at last, "of something that happened once. Do you remember, at that ball, when you stood in the doorway and looked so dreadfully bored, and I was sitting not far off with--with the marchese?" "Of course," said Julius, calmly, "I imagined he was just proposing to you." "Yes," said Leonora, in a low voice, "he was." "I wish he had been at the bottom of the sea," said Julius, fiercely. Indeed, the idea disgusted him, being as much in love as he was. Nevertheless, he thought she was a singular woman to refer to the thing,--so very soon. He had at first expected that she would never wish to mention her husband to him; at least, not for very long; but she seemed rather to seek the subject than to avoid it. He mused for a moment, looking out under his half-closed lids, as was his habit when he was thinking. Suddenly a smile came into his face. "Do you remember, dear, when you and he raced me in the boat on the bay, one afternoon, ever so long ago?" It was not much more than six weeks. "Yes--perfectly," said she. "Why?" "Have you any idea where I was going?" asked Julius, laughing a little. "Not the least. You were not going anywhere; you were out for a row, I suppose, because you wanted the air." She looked a little puzzled. "If you had not overtaken me, I should never have seen you again," he said, looking at her affectionately. "What do you mean?" she asked, rather startled. "Simply this, I was running away. I was engaged to dine with you that evening, and I was going to Naples to get out of it. I would have sent a telegram about urgent business--or anything." "What an idea!" she exclaimed, laughing. "Why did you do that?" "Because I knew what would happen if I stayed," said he, softly. "But you did not care for me then?" she asked, quickly. "Oh, yes, I did," he answered; "and I knew I should care a great deal more." His eyes burned in the bright light of the afternoon. "But I did not love you in the least then," said Leonora, demurely. "No, of course not--and I did not flatter myself that you would. But I knew I was going to love you with all my heart." Again their hands met for a moment, and a couple of sailors, who watched them from a distance, nudged each other and grinned. "When did you first begin to care, dear?" he said presently. "Seriously? What a silly question, Julius. How can I tell?" "It was after I found you in the church, was it not?" "Yes, indeed. Ever so long after that!" "About two days?" he suggested gravely. "How absurd, Julius," she said with a little air of offended dignity that was charming. "You know it was ever so long." "I wonder what you thought of me, when you turned round and saw me looking at you in the church," said he. He really had not an idea, and was curious to know. "I thought you were very rude," said she. "And afterwards I thought you were very nice." "I did not mean to be rude," said Julius, "but I could not help going in. I was in love with you, and I knew you were there." "In love--already?" asked Leonora. "Why--yes--it was at least a week after I tried to run away," said Julius innocently. "It was exactly two days," said Leonora. They both laughed, for it was quite true. It was very pleasant to recall the beginnings of their love, for it had all been sweet, and easy; it seemed so to them, at least, as the foreshore hid Sorrento from their sight, and with it the scene of all they were discussing. It was a beautiful voyage, along the coast in the summer sea. There was always enough breeze in the daytime, and there was the moon at night, and they always felt that if they were quite alone, on land, it would be even more charming, if possible. It is a great thing in happiness to know that there is to be more of it, and more and more, till at last the heart has its fill of joy. They reached Genoa, and rested themselves for a day and a night in the glorious rooms of an old palace, turned into an hotel by the profane requirements of modern travellers. But it is very agreeable for travellers to sleep in palaces, by whatever names they are called, and it is foolish to say that moderns should build new buildings instead of making use of old ones when they have them ready to hand. There is a set of people in the world who deal in cheap sentiments, and get themselves a reputation for taste by abusing everything modern and kneeling in rows before everything that is old. They grind out little mediæval tunes with an expression of ravished delight, and tell you there is no modern music half so good,--in fact, that there is no modern music at all! Or they garnish themselves in queer white robes and toddle through a vile travesty of some ancient drama; or they build houses of strange appearance and hideous complication of style, having neither beauty without nor comfort within: and last of all, they say to themselves, Verily, we are the most artistic people in the world! One of these persons could not have passed an hour in the old palace which the Genoese have turned into an hotel. The bare idea of such profanity would have produced artistic convulsions at once, and untold suffering in the future by the mere memory of it. But neither Batiscombe nor Leonora were people of that sort. Julius took a very different view of life, believing to some extent in the simple theory that useful things are good and useless things are bad, and that everything that really fulfils its purpose must have some beauty of its own. Moreover, Julius had very little reverence, but a profound intelligence of the comfortable; he would have slept as well in a king's tomb as in an American hotel, provided the furniture were to his taste in respect of length and breadth and upholstery. As for Leonora, she had been brought up chiefly in Italy, and never troubled herself with the intricacies of the art question in that country, taking everything to be natural so long as she always had the very best of it. And at present, being wholly in love, and having her heart's desire, she would even have been willing to put up with less luxury than usual. Her talent for supremacy, as Julius used to call it, had taken a person for its object, and found the dominion of a heart more interesting than the dominion of fashionable luxury, the finest horses, or even Mr. Worth. "I used to hate hotels," said she to Julius, late in the evening, "but they seem very pleasant after all. There is never any fuss about anything; and I always seem to get just what I want." "Oh--hotels are very well, if one understands them," he answered. He did not explain to her that her comfort was chiefly due to his forethought. "You would soon find it a great bore, though," he added. "I am sure I should not," said she. "You are so clever that you make everything seem easy for me." Julius laughed, out of sheer satisfaction. These were just the little speeches he loved most from women, and, most of all, from Leonora. It would seem a harmless vanity of itself, but it leads to doing acts of forethought and courtesy for the sake of the praise instead of for the sake of the woman. "It is very good of you to say so, my dear," he answered, modestly. "But we will change all that, by and by. When the heat is over we will go away, and live in the Greek islands. There are places worth going to, there." "Oh, of all things how delightful!" cried Leonora, carried away by the new idea. "And have a house by the sea, and a boat, and Greek servants,--how lovely!" "Meanwhile, dear," said Julius, "we will go and be cool in the old Carthusian monastery. It does not take long from here." And so they left Genoa and reached Turin, where Batiscombe found his box--the one that Marcantonio intended to watch so carefully--and took it away; thence they went to a place called Cuneo, a little southwards by the railway, in the Maritime Alps, which Leonora said were beautiful; and then they drove in an ancient diligence to the Certosa di Pesio, an old Carthusian monastery, as Julius had said, built over a wonderful mountain torrent, and surrounded with ancient chestnut-trees. Through the valley that opens away to northward you can catch a glimpse of Monte Rosa, when the setting sun gilds the snow, and the breeze brings down with it the freshness of the Alps. Leonora was enchanted with the place, with Batiscombe's choice, with him, with everything. "And to-morrow you will show me where you used to catch fish, and write your articles on Italian politics?" said she, as they came in from a short walk late in the evening. That night Batiscombe dispatched a letter to Rome. CERTOSA DI PESIO, CUNEO, MARITIME ALPS, _August 31_. The Marchese Carantoni will find Mr. Julius Batiscombe at the above address, with a friend. That was all, but it gave Julius infinite satisfaction to send it. He had grudged the days that had passed before he could send Carantoni the information. As for the "friend," he had seen two or three cavalry officers about the place as soon as he arrived, and he knew that he could rely on the assistance of some of them. Duels are easily arranged in Italy. CHAPTER XXII. When Marcantonio met Diana in the morning, she noticed at once the change in his appearance. He was still very pale, and his face was drawn in a peculiar expression; but he did not look so wild, and his eyes had regained their clearness. Diana greeted him affectionately, but made no remark about his health, thinking it would annoy him. She herself had slept soundly and began the day with a new supply of strength. "You are still determined to go to Turin?" she said, with half a question in her voice, but as though it were quite certain that he would answer in the affirmative. "Yes," he said, "I am quite determined. It is the best thing I can do." "I was wondering this morning," said Diana, "whether we ought not to let our uncle know. It seems to me that he ought not to hear it from strangers." Marcantonio eyed her suspiciously. "You cannot expect me to go and tell him now," said he. "The train leaves in an hour--there is not time." "Of course not," said Diana, seeing how quickly he suspected her of wishing to interfere with his plan. "But, if you like, I will write and tell him." "We can write from Turin," said he moodily. "No one knows yet." He hurried her to the station, and got there long before the hour of departure. He was determined not to miss the train, and until he was seated in the carriage and the train rolled out of the city he could not feel sure that Diana would not stop him. He was somewhat relieved when they passed the first station on the way to Florence, and he saw that he was fairly off. Donna Diana sat opposite to him and watched him, thinking sadly of the last journey they had made together, when he had taken her to Sorrento by the night train. He looked quiet, though, and she thanked Heaven things were no worse; he might so easily have done himself a mischief in the first outbreak of his solitary grief. She still hoped for a chance of learning how it had all happened, for she was very much in the dark, and had no means of learning anything except what he might choose to tell her. Perhaps the intense inquiry in her mind reacted on his, as often happens between brothers and sisters. At all events, he began to speak before half an hour had gone by. "I have not told you anything about it yet, Diana mia," he said. "I have been so busy, so many things to do." He passed his hand over his forehead as he spoke, as though trying to collect himself. "Of course," said Diana gently. "Do not tire yourself now, dear boy. Another time will do just as well. I know all that is absolutely necessary." Marcantonio laughed very slightly and a little foolishly, and again put his hand to his head. "Oh, no," he answered, "I shall not tire myself. You do not know anything about the--the--occurrence." "No," said she, "that is true." "They went away at night," said Marcantonio quickly, and then stopped. "Pray do not tell me about it, dear brother," said Diana, rising and seating herself near to him on the opposite side of the carriage. She laid her hand on his arm, trying to soothe him, for she feared a return of his old state. "But I must tell you," he said impatiently, and she saw it was useless to protest. "They went away at night," he continued, "in a boat. I heard the dogs barking, just for a moment, and then they stopped, and I went to sleep. I went to sleep, Diana," he cried savagely, "when she was running away with him, and I could have killed him as easily as possible. I could have killed them both--oh, so easily!" He groaned aloud and clenched his thin hands. "Hush!" said Diana, softly. "I could have killed them as easily as he killed the dogs and stopped their barking," he went on; "he killed them both, wrung their necks--poverini--as though they were not right to call me. And I never guessed anything, though I heard them!" He was working himself into a frenzy, and Diana was afraid he might go mad then and there. She tried to draw his mind to another part of the story. She was a woman of infinite tact and resource. "Yes," said she, "I am sure you could. But how long was it before you telegraphed to me?" "How long? I do not know," he said; and he seemed trying to recollect himself. "Was it in the afternoon?" asked Diana, glad to fix his attention on a detail. "Let me see--yes. I meant to send it from Castellamare--the dispatch, I mean; and instead I stopped the carriage at a little town on the way--I forget the name, but there was a telegraph office there--and so I sent it sooner." "Yes," said Diana. "I got it at about seven o'clock. My husband was very quick and got a carriage, and brought me as far as Genoa." "How good of him!" exclaimed Marcantonio. "How is he? And the children, dear little things; are they all well?" His face changed again, and a pleasant smile showed that he had forgotten his troubles for a moment. Diana was surprised at the ease with which she could distract his attention, and she determined to make use of her power to the utmost. It would be something gained if she could keep him quiet during the journey. She began immediately to speak of her children, a boy and girl of four and three years old. She told him about their games, their appearance, their nursery maids, and their French governess. She branched off into a dissertation on the beauties of the Riviera, and still he listened and made intelligent answers, and talked as though nothing had happened to him and they were travelling for their amusement. Seeing that she was accomplishing her object, she went on from one subject to another, telling him all manner of details about her life in France, in Austria, and other places where her husband's official duties had called him, during the five years since her marriage. Only about Rome she would not speak, fearing lest the smallest reference to the scenes he had recently passed through might take his mind back to his great grief. And all the while she marvelled at his calmness, and at the ease with which she could amuse him. For he was really amused, there could be no doubt. He laughed, talked in his natural way, and seemed enjoying himself very well, smoking a cigarette now and then, and commenting on the weather, which was abominably hot. "Of course," said he, "we shall find it much cooler in Pegli." Diana started quickly, and then looked away to hide her astonishment. "Of course," she answered, "it is very much cooler there." Did he really fancy he was going to Pegli? Had he forgotten Turin and his errand? Was he gone stark mad? She could not tell, and was frightened. It might have been a slip of the tongue,--but he said it very quietly, as though he were anticipating the delights of the climate. Nevertheless, she did not dare to pause, and she talked bravely on in the heat and the dust. At one of the stations the train stopped ten minutes for refreshments. Marcantonio said he would get out and buy a sandwich and a bottle of wine. He sprang nimbly from the step, and Diana watched him as she sat by the open door of the carriage. He looked more like his old self than she had seen him since the catastrophe, and she watched him with loving eyes, wondering how he would bear what was to come, and for the first time wishing that he might be kept always in this state, without the necessity of a meeting with Batiscombe. Presently he returned with the provisions,--a brace of rough-looking sandwiches, and a bottle of wine. "It is the best I could do," he remarked. "It is the last place in the world." He still looked cheerful and entirely himself. Diana watched him closely, hoping and praying with all her might that he might remain so--forever, even if he were out of his mind. Anything would be better than to see him suffer as he had been suffering that morning. She began to talk again, eating a little of the sandwich, for she was tired, and needed all her strength. He ate, too, and drank some of the wine, but he no longer listened as he had done before, and he did not answer nor make a remark of any kind. Diana had taken up what he said about the station, and was talking about travelling in France. Suddenly Marcantonio's colour changed; he grew pale again, his eyes stared, and he dropped the bread he was eating. Diana was terrified, brave as she was, for she knew that his mind had gone back to his trouble,--how, she could not tell; but it was clear that for a space he had wholly forgotten it. He seemed to take up the thread of his terrible narration at the point at which he had been led away from it. "Temistocle brought me the key," he said, and his voice sounded hollow again and far away. "He had told the servants she had gone to Rome before daybreak, and that I had gone with her,--ha! ha!--he is a cunning fellow. I gave him something for himself,--I think I did,--I am not quite certain." Again his ideas seemed to wander, and he tried to remember the detail that had escaped his grasp. Quick as thought Diana seized the opportunity. "Did you give it to him in the evening?" she asked. "I am not sure. I am not quite sure that I did give it to him after all. Oh, I cannot remember anything any more." He clasped his hands to his head as though striving to compress his brain and to compel it to action. The train moved away from the station. "You can send it to him, in any case," suggested Diana, in an agony of sympathy and suspense. She would have added "from Pegli," if she had dared; but she was not sure he would remember his stray remark, or whether he had meant it. In a moment it was too late. "Of course," cried Marcantonio, delighted with the idea. "I can send it from Turin. He deserves it well. There will be time,"--he hesitated and spoke slowly,--"there will be time,--yes, there will be time, before I find him." His voice fell almost to a whisper, barely audible to Diana in the noise of the train as it gained speed in starting. He seemed unconscious of her at the moment when he said the last words, and she sat with clasped hands and set lips, not knowing what to expect next. In a little while he began again. She had been too much struck by his quick change of manner to find the thing to say, in time to lead him off. "I went into her room," he said. He stopped and fumbled in his pockets, producing at last the cross of sapphires and diamonds. "I found this," he added, showing it to Diana. She would have taken it, but he held it nervously in his hand, more than half concealed. "Do you know it?" "Yes," said she as quietly as she could. "It belonged to our mother." "It is beautifully made," he said suddenly, looking closely at it. "It is most beautifully made, and the stones are very valuable. Should you not think that they are worth a great deal?" "They must be--the sapphires are of a very good colour and the brilliants are large," said Diana, humouring him. "I wonder where it was made?" "I do not care where it was made," said Marcantonio roughly. "I have got it again. I will give it back to her--she must have missed it." He looked at Diana with a strange pathetic inquiry in his weary eyes. "Leonora?" asked Diana, in surprise. Marcantonio started as though he had been stung. He had thought of his dead mother. "Leonora? Ah!" he cried with a sort of muffled scream. "It belonged to Leonora--Ugh!" With a quick movement he flung the jewel at the window. It chanced that the pane was raised to keep out the smoke on that side. The heavy cross cracked the plate glass and knocked a small piece out of the middle, but fell to the floor. Marcantonio remained in the very act, as he had thrown it, for one instant. Then his head sank on his breast and his hands fell to his sides helplessly. "Oh, Diana, Diana," he moaned piteously, "I am mad." Then he began to rock himself backward and forward as though in pain. It was no time to break down in horror or grief, and Diana was not the woman to waste idle tears. The cross had fallen at her feet. She had instantly stooped and picked it up and hid it away, lest he should see it again. Then she heard him say that he was mad, and she made a desperate effort. She took him strongly in her arms, almost lifting him from the ground, and laid his head upon her breast and supported it, and took his hand. He was quite passive; she could do anything with him for the moment--he might have been a child. Diana bent down as she held him in her arms and kissed him tenderly on the forehead and breathed soft words. It was a prayer. Poor woman! what could she do? Driven to the last extremity of agony and horror, sitting by and seeing her brother going mad--raving mad--before her very eyes, unable to soothe his grief or to strengthen his soul by any words of her own, not knowing but that at any moment he might turn upon herself--poor woman, what could she do? She breathed into his ear an ancient Latin prayer. What a very foolish thing to do! She was only a woman, poor thing, and knew no better. O woman, God-given helpmate of man, and noblest of God's gifts and of all created things--is there any man bold enough to say that he can make praises for you out of ink and paper that shall be worthy to rank as praise at all by the side of your good deeds? You, who bow your gentle heads to the burden, and think it sweet, out of the fulness of your own sweet sympathy--you, whose soft fingers have the strength to bind up broken limbs and rough, torn wounds--you, who feel for each living thing as you feel for your own bodily flesh, and more--you, who in love are more tender and faithful and long-suffering than we, and who, even erring, err for the sake of the over-great heart that God has given you--is it not enough that I say of you, "You are only women, and you know no better"? What greater, or higher, or nobler thing can I say of you, in all humbleness and truth, than that you are what you are, and that you know no better? What better things can any know, than to bear pain bravely, to heal the wounded, to feel for all, even for those who cannot feel for themselves, and to be tender and faithful and kind in love? And even, being given of Heaven and loved of it, that you should turn in time of need and trouble and say a prayer for strength and knowledge, even that is a part of you, and not the least divine part. So that when the man who cannot suffer what you can suffer, nor do the good that you can do, sneers and scoffs at your prayers and your religion, I could wring his cowardly neck to death. Even poor Leonora, praying philosophical prayers to a power in which she did not in the least believe, was not ridiculous. She was pathetic, mistaken, miserable, perhaps, but not ridiculous. Perhaps Diana had done the best thing, out of pure despair. The long familiar words, spoken in her soothing voice, at the very moment when he was conscious that he was on the verge of insanity, chained his faculties and gradually brought him to a calmer state. Perhaps, also, the strong magnetic power of his sister acted more forcibly on him from the moment when he suddenly abandoned himself to her influence. Like many people who possess that strange gift, she was wholly unconscious of it, and she sometimes wondered why it was that those about her yielded so easily to her will. Be that as it may, Marcantonio lay quite still in her arms, and at last his eyelids drooped, his limbs relaxed, and he fell into a deep sleep. The hot hours wore on, and the train rolled by the towns and hamlets and castle-crested hills towards Florence, and still he slept, and Diana tenderly supported him, though her arm ached as though it must break, and her eyes were dimmed from time to time with the sight and consciousness of so much misery. At length, as they entered the station, she waked him. He was quite calm again, and collected, but very sad, as she had seen him that morning. "Have I slept like this so long?" he asked. "Yes, dear boy," said Diana. "Dear, dear Diana, how good you are," he exclaimed, and he kissed her hand gratefully. "We have an hour here, to dine, before the train starts." "Will you go on at once?" she asked. She had vainly hoped that he might be induced to stay in Florence. But he had recovered himself enough to know perfectly well what he was doing. "Yes--certainly," said he. "We shall arrive in the morning." She dared not object nor make a suggestion, not knowing how soon he might break out again, in some fresh burst of madness. "Very well," she answered, as a station porter took their handbags and smaller properties, "let us dine at once." She watched him and saw that he ate with a good appetite. She had heard that lunatics always eat well, and she would almost rather have seen him too sad to care for his food; nevertheless she thought it would do him good. There is probably nothing more wearing, more racking to the nerves, than the care of an insane person. To be ever on the watch, expecting always an outbreak or a painful incoherence, to attempt to follow the sensible nonsense that madmen talk, always endeavouring to distract the attention from the forbidden subject, are efforts requiring the highest tact and the greatest coolness. Diana could accomplish much by sheer common sense and endurance, and more, perhaps, by the strong affection which had always existed between her brother and herself. But she felt instinctively that she was not equal to the task, even while she hoped that Marcantonio was not really mad. She was mistaken, however, as any indifferent person would have seen in a moment. He was insane, and on the verge of becoming violent. Nothing but her wonderful courage and strong will had kept him within any bounds, and he might at any moment become wholly uncontrollable. She would have stopped in Florence if it had been possible, but it seemed dangerous to thwart him at present, and she felt sure that in Turin she could get the help of some first-rate physician. So she submitted once more, and in an hour they were off again, in a reserved carriage, as before, flying northwards towards the mountains, where the road winds so wonderfully through a hundred tunnels, in its rapid ascent. It was a very long night for Diana. In all her many journeys she had never felt fatigue such as this. Marcantonio would sleep for an hour, and then start up suddenly and begin to talk, sometimes asking questions and sometimes volunteering remarks that showed how his mind was wandering. Once or twice he showed signs of returning to the account of his doings after Leonora had left him, but Diana was able to check him in time, for he was growing tired and yielded more easily to her will than in the daytime. At last they were safe in the hotel, and Marcantonio was in his room, intending to dress, he said, before going out. Diana was no sooner assured that she was free from the responsibility of watching him for a few minutes than she sent for the proprietor of the hotel, inquired for the address of the best physician in Turin, and dispatched a messenger with a very urgent request for his attendance. The apartment she had taken with her brother consisted of a large sitting-room, with a bedroom on each side of it. Marcantonio's room had but that one door, which she could watch as she lay on the sofa, awaiting the arrival of the doctor. When he came at last, breathless in his haste to put himself at the service of the great lady who sent for him, he talked very learnedly for half an hour, after listening to all Diana told him with grave attention. He could not see the patient of course, and the interview took place in a small antechamber, from which he could escape if Marcantonio were heard moving within. He was of opinion that it was not a case of insanity, but of temporary derangement of the faculties from the severe strain they had received. The sudden manifestations of violence were natural enough to an Italian,--if it had been the case of an Englishman, it would have been different, because, as the doctor said, half in earnest and half in jest, Inglesi were generally mad to begin with, and anything beyond that made them furious maniacs. He had a man, he said, long accustomed to dealing with lunatics. He would send him disguised as a servant, and he could be in constant attendance, thus relieving Diana of the care of watching the marchese. He himself would call every day and inquire, and would be ready at a moment's notice to remove him to a place of safety. In his present state, he said, to shut him up, and treat him as though he were insane, might very likely make a permanent madman of him. The doctor retired, leaving Diana somewhat reassured. All that he had said seemed reasonable, and she would strictly follow his advice. Meanwhile, she went to her own room, feeling sure that she could hear Marcantonio's door open, if he finished dressing and came out. But Marcantonio rang his bell at the end of an hour, and sent word to his sister that he felt tired and had gone to bed, and would not rise till midday. Poor fellow--she was pleased at the intelligence, but the fact was that his mind had strayed again; he had forgotten the object of his journey, and being worn out had gone to bed like a tired child. The new place, the strange room, and the necessity of unpacking his clothes himself had confused him, and driven everything else out of his head. Before he awoke, the confidential man had arrived, arrayed in the ordinary dress of an hotel servant. He was a quiet individual, with strong hands and iron-grey hair, neat in his appearance, and a little hesitating in his speech; but his eyes were keen and searching, and he moved quickly. Diana was pleased with him, and understood that the doctor had given her good advice, and that Marcantonio would be safely watched. The man said he would serve them in their own sitting-room, and perform the offices of valet for Marcantonio, and be altogether in the position of a private servant, which, however, was not his profession, as he took care to add. When at last Diana and Marcantonio met, each rested and refreshed, he looked the less weary of the two. Diana had suffered too much to be entirely herself, and for the first time in her life felt as though she had taxed her strength too severely. Moreover, the strain was not removed, but increased hourly. Her woman's instinct told her that, in spite of the doctor's opinion, her brother was actually out of his mind, perhaps past all recovery. His sudden cheerfulness was horrible to her, and made her shudder when she thought of the magnitude of what he was forgetting. "Let us take a carriage and see Turin, Diana," he suggested gayly, as they finished their lunch and he lit a cigarette. "I have never been in Turin with you. There are some very pretty things to see." "By all means," said she readily. "Let us go at once." The confidential servant was dispatched for a carriage. The idea of seeing sights with his sister pleased Marcantonio, and he never relapsed into his sadder self during the afternoon. Diana did not know whether to be glad or sorry; his forgetfulness was terrible, but his memory was worse. She remembered the scene with the cross on the previous day, in the railway-carriage, and she thought that if insanity brought peace it was better to be insane. They drove about and saw what was to be seen,--the great squares, the memorial statues, the armory, where the mail-clad wooden knights sit silently on their mail-clad wooden horses, and they drove out at last to Moncalieri, in the cool of the evening. The confidential servant sat on the box and directed the driver, pointing out to Diana and Marcantonio the various objects of interest, so that Carantoni suspected nothing. The man acted his part perfectly. "How charming it is here!" exclaimed Marcantonio, admiring the trees, and the life, and the gay colours at Moncalieri. "Why did we not think of coming here before, my dear?" He spoke in French, which he rarely did with his sister, though he had always done so with his wife. Diana hardly noticed it at the moment,--she was obliged to answer something. "It was hardly the right season for it before this, I suppose," said she. "But now we can stay as long as we please." "Oh yes," said he, in his old way, "if it is agreeable to you, I ask nothing better. It is infinitely more pleasant than Sorrento. I never liked Sorrento, I cannot tell why. It never wholly agreed with you, mon ange--n'est-ce-pas?" "I was always well there,--well enough, at least," answered Diana, puzzled at this new phase of his humour. "Ah no, you were never well after Diana left us. She is so good, she makes every one well!" He spoke pleasantly and naturally. It was horrible, and Diana started with a new realisation of his state. He no longer recognised persons,--he took her for Leonora! But some new object attracted his attention, and he chattered on, almost to himself, almost childishly, but with a sweet smile on his pale, delicate face. Diana could scarcely restrain her tears,--she who had not wept for years until lately! Poor Diana! Batiscombe and Leonora were sinfully, wholly, happy with each other,--Batiscombe selfishly so, perhaps, but none the less for that, and Leonora with a wild delight in her new life, that swallowed up the past and gilded the present. Even poor, crazy Marcantonio, chattering and making small French jokes about the people's dresses at Moncalieri, was happy for the moment. Only Diana, the brave woman who had fought for the right so well, seemed cut off from it all, bearing the whole burden on her shoulders, and silently bowing her queenly head to the storm of woe and grief and destruction. CHAPTER XXIII. Diana would have taken her brother away from Turin if she could, but there was a danger that the mere suggestion might revive the fixed idea that had driven him mad. His illusions had not the absolutely permanent character which is the most hopeless. For instance, on the evening of the very day when he had called his sister by his wife's name, he had known Diana perfectly well, and had sat for an hour talking about old times with her. Whether, at such moments, he had any recollection of recent occurrences, would be hard to say; and the doctor advised for the present that he should have perfect quiet and should be allowed to amuse himself and to be amused in any way which seemed best. In the course of a day or two the doctor saw him, coming on pretence of seeing Madame de Charleroi. He felt now, he said, from Marcantonio's manner, that he would recover before long, though his memory concerning the circumstances of the time when he was insane would probably be very uncertain. But Diana felt relieved at this and devoted her time to her brother from morning till night, reading to him, driving with him, or talking to him as the case might be. She could do nothing more for the present. Turin is a pleasant city enough, the weather was not excessively hot, and the hotel was large and comfortable. In the course of time it would be possible to move Carantoni and take him to Paris, but at present any sudden change of place or surroundings was to be deprecated. A week passed in this way, and Diana grew pale with the constant strain of anxiety, and the great dark rings circled her grey eyes. But she bore bravely up, and rose each day with strength to do what lay before her. She wrote to her husband, and he offered at once to come and help her to take care of Marcantonio, but she would not let him come, fearing the effect of a new face,--even that of an old friend like Charleroi. She received all the letters that came to her brother, and was surprised that there were no communications from the detectives he had employed. The fact was that Marcantonio had given a separate address to them, and as they discovered nothing, after the manner of most detectives, they only systematically telegraphed that they had confidence of being on the track. The telegrams were addressed to another hotel, and were dropped into the box for unclaimed letters and were never heard of again. Diana knew that business communications would be harmless in Marcantonio's present state, and when any came she let him have them. He would read them over and often discuss with her the information they contained, and at last he would let her answer them, saying it was very good of her to save him so much trouble. All these letters came from Rome, being forwarded by the steward who lived at the Palazzo Carantoni and managed the business of the household. Others came, re-directed over the original address, from friends in different parts of the country, and these Diana carefully put aside unopened, fearing always that some passing reference or message to Leonora might disturb him and bring on a fresh outbreak. She could always distinguish the business letters, because they were either directed in the handwriting of the steward, or they bore the outward and visible printed address of the lawyer, farmer, or merchant, from whom they came. In the week they had spent in Turin there had been already twenty or thirty communications of various kinds. Poor Marcantonio never knew that his sister sorted the mail for him. It was brought to him by the confidential servant, and he always took it and went to his room with an air of great importance to "get through his business," as he expressed it. He was evidently proud of doing it, showing that unaccountable vanity in small things which characterises so many lunatics. Indeed, he had always been proud of his attention to details, and now it became a sort of passion, though he was never able to carry out his intentions, and always left the unfinished work to Diana. On the fourth of September Julius Batiscombe's letter, directed to Marcantonio in Rome, had come back to Turin. Julius had marked it "very urgent," and the steward had looked at it, had thought Batiscombe's handwriting indistinct, and to secure greater certainty had put it into another envelope and directed it in his own business-like way. The consequence was that it was mistaken for a common business letter, and handed to Marcantonio with the rest. It seemed to be the last blow that an evil fate could strike at the unhappy man, and it was a terrible one in itself and in its consequences. He sat at his table by the window, opening one letter after another, and looking over the contents with a pleased expression, a little vacant perhaps, but not altogether without intelligence. There was a lacuna in his mind, and sometimes he was conscious of being confused by faces and things about him, but he was still capable of understanding the questions about his estates, and farms, and buildings, though he always seemed to lack the energy to write the directions with his own hand. He turned over the sheets and folded each one neatly and put it back into its particular envelope. Then he opened the one from the steward, and found in it a letter directed to Rome in a strange hand. He held it in his fingers with a puzzled look for a moment; it seemed as though one letter had suddenly become two. Then he understood and smiled a little sadly at his own weakness of comprehension, and broke the seal. The effect was not instantaneous. He read it over again, and a third time, his face still vacant, and he put his hand to his head trying and striving with all his might to remember. The week of insanity had done its work and Diana need not have feared that he could be easily recalled to an understanding of the past. But it was not wholly gone yet; he would try to remember. He rose to his feet, and perhaps the slight physical effort helped to stir his dull mind. Suddenly he trembled violently from head to foot, and his colour changed from the natural complexion it had taken of late to a deadly pallor. For an instant his whole nature seemed to be convulsed, he reeled to and fro and caught himself by the heavy frame of his bedstead, staring wildly about, and fell backwards across the pillows, clutching the counterpane to right and left of him with his two hands, his face distorted and horrible to see. It only lasted for a moment, and he regained his feet, stood still for a few seconds, and passed his hands across his eyes and seemed at once to recover his faculties. He took Batiscombe's letter again and read it over, as though fixing the few words and the address in his mind. The vacant expression of ten minutes ago had changed to a look of supernatural intelligence and cunning. He put the letter in his pocket and sat down at the table. He opened some of the envelopes again and scattered the papers about, eying the effect rather critically. He then took his dressing-case, opened it, and removed one small tray, and then a second. In the bottom of the box was a revolver, bright and ready, with all its appurtenances, a few cartridges lying loose in their little compartment. The weapon was loaded, but he carefully opened it and examined each chamber, turning it round slowly by the light. It was not a large pistol, and when he was sure that it was in order, he put it carefully into the inside pocket of his coat, and surveyed the effect in the glass. No one would have suspected that he was armed. He saw that his hat was ready in its place, and he rang the bell and sat down at his table once more, holding a letter in his hand, as though reading. The confidential servant appeared. "Will you please to bring me a lemonade?" said Marcantonio, with perfectly natural intonation. The man bowed and retired to execute the order. His master seemed better than usual, he thought; the appearance of the papers and Carantoni's bland smile had completely deceived him. As soon as he was alone he took his hat, felt that he had his purse in his pocket, and opened the door to the sitting-room. Diana was not there, for she generally wrote her own letters until Marcantonio appeared with his correspondence, asking her to answer it for him. The servant was gone to get the lemonade and Marcantonio slipped quietly out on tiptoe. Once upon the main staircase of the hotel he ran nimbly down, humming a little tune in a jaunty fashion, to show everybody that he was at his ease. Of course the people in the house had no idea that he was insane. It had been Diana's chiefest care to conceal the fact from every one; and Marcantonio walked calmly past the porter's lodge into the street, and took a cab. It was nearly midday and the thoroughfares were less crowded than in the morning and evening; the cab flew rapidly over the smooth pavement to the station. There are many trains to Cuneo in the summer season, and before very long Carantoni found himself in a smoking-carriage with three or four men, all reading the papers and smoking long, black cigars with straws in them. He lit a cigarette, bought a paper just as the guard was closing the doors, and he rolled out of the station, looking just like anybody else. He pretended to read, and no one noticed him. When the servant returned with the lemonade and found that Marcantonio was gone, he did not suspect what was the matter, but put the glass on the table and went back to the antechamber and waited at his post. He waited a few minutes and then knocked at Diana's door, and asked if the signore were with her. "No," said Diana quickly, and came out into the sitting-room in her loose morning gown. "Where is he? Is he not in his room? He never comes into mine." "He is not there," said the man, who by this time was thoroughly frightened. "He sent me for a lemonade. He looked better than usual, and was sitting just there, at his table, reading his letters. When I came back he was gone. He seemed entirely himself, better than I have ever seen him." Diana was frightened and puzzled. After all it was quite possible that Marcantonio had taken it into his head to go out by himself. He had never suggested such a thing yet, and always seemed unwilling to cross the threshold alone; but since he was so much better that day, he might have gone out. It was possible. She would not have believed that without some immediate cause he could have fallen back into a remembrance of his troubles; for she had studied his moods very carefully, and was convinced that, as the doctor said, there would always be a blank in his mind now, destroying the memory of those three or four days. She glanced hastily over the papers on the table. They were all of the usual sort, for Marcantonio had taken Batiscombe's letter with him. Nevertheless, she was very much frightened, and was angry with the confidential servant for not having sent some one else to get the lemonade. She lost no time in dispatching him to make inquiries. He was really an active man, and understood his business thoroughly, but Marcantonio's manner had completely deceived him, and he had conscientiously thought his charge perfectly safe. Maniacs have more than once deceived their keepers, and their doctors, and Marcantonio seemed to have fallen into a very different sort of madness--rather foolish and gentle than cunning and dangerous. The servant soon discovered that Marcantonio had passed the porter's lodge and had taken a cab, not many minutes earlier; but no one had heard the order he gave to the driver. There were no more carriages on the stand. The man lost no time but ran down the street till he found one, and was driven to the station, as he was, bareheaded and clothed in a dress-coat and a white tie, after the manner of hotel servants in the morning. His experience told him that crazy people generally made for the railway when they escaped. But he was too late. A train had just left--he made anxious inquiries of every one, describing Marcantonio's clothes and jewelry, which he knew by heart. No one had noticed him. He might not have come to the station after all. But a dirty little boy elbowed his way through the crowd of railway porters and guards that soon surrounded the man, and the boy listened. "Had that signore a great ring on his finger, with a black stone in it, and a red one on each side?" he asked. "Yes," cried the confidential servant. "You have seen him?" He seized the small boy by the arm and held him fast. "Yes," said the little fellow; "but you have no need to pinch me like that. I sold him a paper, and he gave me a silver half-franc, and I noticed his fingers and his ring." The servant released him. Some one else had noticed the ring, which was very large and brilliant,--a great sapphire with a ruby on each side of it. The individual remembered hearing the gentleman ask for the train to Cuneo. The confidential servant rushed back to the hotel, after ascertaining that there would not be another train for two hours. He told Diana what he had learned, and she listened attentively. She was pale and quiet, and she did not reproach the man again. It was of no use now. She had dressed herself, and she sent for a cab; and then she also was driven to the station, the man accompanying her. She did not speak except to give her orders. She went at once to the station-master, an extremely civil individual with a great deal of silver lace. "Can you give me a special train to Cuneo at once?" she asked. The station-master was in despair, he said. There was only a single track, and it would be impossible to arrange the line at such short notice. He bowed, and looked grave, and put everything in the station at the disposal of the magnificent lady who ordered special trains as other people order cabs. But he could do nothing. Diana hesitated. Something must be done at once. "My brother," she said, "took the last train to Cuneo, and I desire to stop him. He--he is insane." It was a hard thing to have to tell a stranger, a railway official, and Diana was whiter than death as she said it. She would rather have put a knife into her heart. The station-master was graver and more polite than ever. He could telegraph to all the stations to have the passengers watched as they descended. Would she give him a description,--the name, perhaps? It had to be done. She gave the details, and the telegram was sent. Meanwhile she sat in the station-master's private office, to wait for more than an hour until the next train should be ready. The consequence of all this was that when Marcantonio finally reached his destination, he was politely asked, in company with the other passengers, whether he had seen or heard of an insane gentleman called the Marchese Carantoni. But his newly-found cunning did not desert him. He shrugged his shoulders, and said he did not know the gentleman. He himself looked so quiet and dignified, that no one could have suspected him of being the person, and the short description telegraphed would have answered to hundreds of Italians all over the country. He had, of course, expected to be pursued, as lunatics often do, and he was prepared to baffle every attempt. His quiet look and frank smile were a perfect passport. He even inquired of a porter at the station how he could best reach the Certosa di Pesio; and the man told him it was an hour's drive or more, and got him a little carriage for the journey, and received a few sous for his pains. Marcantonio leaned back against the moth-eaten cushions and smoked a cigarette and looked at the scenery. He hummed a little tune occasionally, and, when the dirty driver was not looking, he put his hand into his breast pocket, and felt that his pistol was in its place, and then the cunning smile passed over his features. He had managed it all so well,--there could be no mistake about it. He chuckled as he thought how Batiscombe would expect to receive the visit of a third party, and would thus be suddenly brought face to face with the principal. He thought he could anticipate just how Batiscombe would look, and he revelled for a while in the contemplation of his hatred. He had forgotten nothing now, except that he had ever forgotten his vengeance for a moment. On and on he rolled in his rattling little cab. Through a long and gradually-ascending valley, thickly clothed with chestnut-trees of mighty growth. By the roadside ran a stream, that gradually became a torrent as the inclination of its course grew steeper, and the road wound up towards the source. Here and there the water fell over a natural weir of dark-brown rock, forming a deep pool below, where the trout lurked in the shadow. Again the thick woods receded a little on each side, and the bed of the stream, now shallow from the summer heat, grew broad and stony; and further on there was a bit of grassy bank overhung with many trees, and the small river swept smoothly round. Suddenly the carriage drew up before an old stone gateway that seemed to start out of the foliage, and there was a noise as of a deep fall of water, at once wild and smooth. Marcantonio had reached the Carthusian monastery at last. His purpose was almost accomplished. It is a strange building in a marvellous situation. Those old monks knew where to live, as they have always known in all ages and countries,--from the priests of Egypt to the monks of Buddha, from the Benedictines of Subiaco to the holy men of ancient Mexico, they have all reared spacious dwellings in chosen sites, where the body might live in peace and the soul be raised, by contemplating the beauties of the earth, to the imagination of the beauties of heaven. They were wise old men; some of them were good, and some bad, as happens in all communities in the world; but they were men who did the earth good in their day, and found out the places that have often become cities in our times, whereby hundreds of thousands of souls have profited by their choice. The Certosa di Pesio, where Julius and Leonora had taken up their abode for a time, is turned into an establishment for cold-water cures. There are generally some fifty or sixty people there from Turin and the neighbourhood who take the baths, or not, as they please, and lead a pleasant life for a few months in the great cloistered courts, and the bright gardens, and out in the endless chestnut woods. A cool breath of the Alps blows down the valley, and the rush of the water, dammed up by a strong weir of ancient masonry, and continually pouring down with a steady, musical roar, pervades all the cool rooms and the sounding halls and passages. It is an ideal place for the summer, almost unknown to foreigners. It is no wonder that Julius had thought it the very spot for Leonora to rest in until the heat was over. A little way from the buildings, up the valley, a dilapidated summer-house overhangs the stream. Sitting there you can see the whole wonderful outline of the convent buildings, crowned with chimneys which the old monk-architects seem to have delighted in greatly, giving them a variety of strange and grotesque shapes such as I never saw anywhere else. Julius and Leonora used often to come to the old summer-house in the afternoon, with their books, which were seldom called into requisition, and they would sit side by side for hours, till the evening sun warmed the colours of the pine-trees on the heights to a green-gold, and reddened the far-off snows of Monte Rosa with the last, loving touch of his departing light. An obsequious individual came forward from the archway as Marcantonio drove up to the gate. Marcantonio eyed him, and perceived that he was a functionary of the pension. "Is there an English gentleman here?" he asked,--"a certain Signor Giulio Batiscombe?" His voice was very calm, and had a certain suavity in its tones; he smiled, too, as he asked the question. "Si, signore," answered the man, bowing and gesticulating toward the building. "Certainly. A handsome signore, with his wife--both Inglesi. They arrived on the thirty-first of last month--five days. Will the signore do the favour to come in? I will inquire whether the English gentleman is at home." The slightest shade passed over Marcantonio's face at the mention of the wife in the case. But the man would not have noticed it. Marcantonio felt sure he had not betrayed himself. "I will wait here," said he, "while you inquire." The man disappeared, and Marcantonio was alone. He looked up at the windows in the grey walls, and saw no one. Nevertheless, at any moment Batiscombe might appear--from the house or from the woods--he might be taking a walk. It seemed a very long time to wait. He put his hand into his breast pocket. The stock of the revolver just curved over the edge of the cloth inside his coat; he could get at it without trouble. He longed to take it out and examine it; to see whether it were still in perfect order; and he peeped in when the driver was not looking, just to catch a sight of the lock and the bright barrel. Then he smiled to himself, and hummed a tune, assuming an air of quiet indifference--acting all the time, as only madmen can act, as though he were on the stage before a great audience. It was only for the benefit of the driver of his little carriage, a rough fellow, who had not shaved for a week, and wore a dirty linen jacket, his hands black and his eyes red with the wine of the night before--that was the audience; but Marcantonio acted his part with as much care as though he were in the presence of Batiscombe himself. There must not be the smallest chance of an interruption to his plan. At last the man returned, bowing with renewed zeal. He came forward with one hand extended, as though to help Marcantonio to alight. "The English signore is in the garden," he said. Marcantonio smiled more sweetly than ever and got out of his conveyance. "You can wait," he said to the driver, and the latter touched his battered straw hat. Marcantonio followed the man through a great court, where there were trees, into a long, tiled passage that seemed to run through the house, and, on the other side, he emerged into a garden, thick with laurel-trees and geraniums. The man led the way. Marcantonio's hand crept stealthily into his breast pocket underneath his coat, and raised the lock of the revolver very slowly. The man in front did not hear the small, sharp click. "Where is he?" asked Marcantonio, very gently, still smiling an unnaturally sweet smile. The servant had stopped and was looking about. "I was told they were here," said he; "but they must be in the summer-house outside." Again he led the way to a small door in the garden wall. It was open. "There they are, signore," said he, pointing with his finger and standing aside to let Marcantonio pass. He looked, and saw two people sitting in the dilapidated old bower above the water, not twenty yards from where he stood. It was five o'clock in the afternoon. Diana had taken the train at two, and could not reach Cuneo till six. CHAPTER XXIV. Leonora's utter recklessness of delight could not last very long. It was a strange mood, as unnatural and uncontrollable at first as her husband's madness. She could not help enjoying to the utmost the new life that had so suddenly begun for her. She knew in her heart that she had bought it at a great price, and she knew that she must make the most of it, or she would have to reproach herself with the bargain. It was easy enough at first. The quick change had thrown all her thoughts into a new channel. From the midnight departure she had no more time to think, until the long, quiet days at Pesio. There were moments when she was on the verge of thinking, of remembering the past, and wondering how her husband had acted. But she felt that it would be very unpleasant to reflect on these things. It might take her a long time to get out of the train of thought, as it used to do long ago whenever she had one of her fits of philosophical despair; she was able to put it off, and she seemed to be saying to herself, 'I shall have time to think about it, and to satisfy my conscience by feeling the proper amount of regret by and by.' Of course she did not say as much in so many words, but the unconscious excuse for what she knew an unprejudiced outsider would call her heartlessness went on presenting itself whenever she felt the beginning of a regret. Deeper even than that, and almost hidden in the sea of self-deception, and passion, and riotous love of life, lay the reef on which the ship of her happiness would some day go to pieces--the ultimate knowledge of the wrong she had done, and of her own cruelty to Marcantonio and weakness to herself. But in Pesio the time came; terribly soon, she thought, though her suffering was only at its beginning. Each morning brought a dull sense of pain, that came in her dreams and became the terror of her waking. She knew before she opened her eyes that it was there, and the first returning consciousness was the certainty of sorrow. It soon wore away, it is true, but she grew to dread it as she had never dreaded anything in her short, luxurious life. It needed all her strength and energy to shake off the impression, and it required all Batiscombe's love and thoughtful care to make it seem possible to live the hours until the evening. That was in the morning, in the brief moments when Leonora, like most of us, had not yet silenced her soul, and trodden it under for the day; and it spoke bitter truth and scorn to her, so that she could hardly bear it. Then, at last, she was honest. There was no more self-deception then, no more possibility of believing that she had done well in leaving all for Julius: she could no longer say that for so much love's sake it was right and noble to spurn away the world,--for the world came to mean her husband, her father and her mother, and she saw and knew too clearly what each and all of them must suffer. Their pale faces came to her in her dreams, and their sad voices spoke to her the reproach of all reproaches that can be uttered against a woman. Her husband she had never loved; but in spite of all her reasoning she knew that he had loved her, and she understood enough of his pride and single-hearted nobility to guess what he must suffer while she dragged his ancient name in the dust of dishonour. Her father was never to her mind, for he was a Philistine of the kind that have hard shells and very little that is soft or warm within them, but she knew that he had treasured her as the apple of his eye, and that his old heart would break for his daughter's shame. Her mother was a worldly woman, loving Leonora because she had obtained a success in society, and upbraiding her with never making the most of it; but Leonora knew how her mother's vanity must be bowed and trampled down by the deep disgrace, and that her vanity was almost all she had of happiness. And so it came to pass that after a little time the old tax-gatherer, Remorse, began to put Leonora in distress for his dues, and she was forced to pay them or have no peace. He came in the grey of the morning, when she was not yet prepared, and he sat by her head and oppressed it with heaviness and the leaden cowl of sorrow; and each day she counted the minutes until he was gone, and each day they were more. Julius saw and pondered, for he guessed what she suffered, and understood now her terrible recklessness at the first. All that a lover could do he did, and more also, employing every resource of his great mind to fight the enemy, and always with success. He could always bring the smile and the brightness of glad life to her face at last, and when once his dominion was established there was no return of sorrow possible for that day; his stupendous vitality and brilliant, overflowing strength fought down the shadows and chased them out. On the morning of the fourth of September, Leonora and Julius were walking together in the chestnut woods near the monastery. She had been less sad than usual at her first waking, and Julius hoped that the time was coming when she could at last feel accustomed to her new position and would cease to be troubled with the ghosts of the past. He was over-confident, and thought he understood her better than he really did. He was laughing and talking gayly enough, enjoying her happy mood and the freshness and beauty of the bountiful nature around him. Julius stopped from time to time and picked a few wild flowers that grew amongst the moss and the grass of the wood. Leonora loved flowers, and loved best those that grew wild. It was one of the few simple tastes she possessed. "It is not much of a nosegay," said Julius, as he put the sweet blossoms together, and tied them with a blade of grass. "It is too late for the best wild flowers here." He gave her the little bouquet with one hand, and the other stole about her waist and drew her to him. She smelled the flowers, and looked up at him over them, a little sadly. "The time will come, I suppose," said she, "when there will be no more flowers at all." "Never for you, darling," he answered lovingly. "There will always be flowers for you--everywhere, till the end of time." "What is the end of time, Julius?" she asked softly. "Time has no end for us, dear," he said. "For time is measured by love, and nothing can measure ours." They were near an old tree whose roots ran out and then struck down into the ground. The moss and the grass had grown closely about the great trunk's foot, and made a broad seat. They sat down, by common accord. "Can there be no end to our love--ever?" she said. "Should we be where we are, if either of us thought it possible?" he asked. "It must be whole--it must be endless--indeed it must," she answered--clinging to the thought which gave her most comfort. "Do you doubt that it is?" asked Julius, the strong earnestness of his passion vibrating in his deep tones. "No, darling," she answered; "I do not doubt it--only you must never let me." "Indeed, indeed, I never will!" said he. He meant what he said. Men are not all intentional deceivers, but they forget. They are less faithful than women, though they are often more earnest. Is it not the very highest power of love not to allow a doubt? And how many men can say that their lives have been so ordered toward the woman they love best, that no doubting should be reasonably possible in her mind? Few enough, I suppose. "I have been thinking a great deal lately, Julius," said Leonora presently. "Tell me your thoughts, dear one," said he, drawing her to him, so that her head rested on his shoulder, and his lips touched her hair. "You know, dear," said she, "what we have done is not right--at least"--She stopped suddenly. "Who says it is not right?" asked Julius, with a touch of scorn in his voice. "Oh, everybody says so, of course; but that makes no difference. Nobody would understand. It is not what people say. It is the thing." She stared out into the woods as she leaned against him. "How do you mean, sweetheart?" he asked. "It is not right, you know. I am sure of it." She shook her head gently, without lifting it. "It is all my fault," she added. "You shall not say that, my own one," said Julius, passionately. He was really grieved and troubled beyond measure. "Ah--but I know it so well," said she. "You must help me to make it right--quite right." "It is right--it shall be right! I will make it so," he answered. "Only trust me, darling, and you shall be the happiest woman the world holds, as you are the best. God bless you, dear one." He kissed her tenderly, but she tried to turn away from him. "Oh, no, Julius--God will not bless me. I have only you left now. You must be everything to me. Will you, dear? Say you will!" "I do say it, my own darling," he answered fervently. "I will be everything to you, now and forever and ever." He was astonished and puzzled by the sudden outbreak. She had never spoken like this to him before, though he had expected it at first, and had wondered at her indifference. But now it seemed to have come upon her suddenly with a great force, and she would not be comforted. "And I say it, too," she said, passionately. "I will be everything to you, now and forever and ever. We will give our lives to each other, and make it right." She wound her arms about him, and hid her face against his coat. "How can true love, like ours, not be right?" asked Julius, clasping her to him. "God has put it into the world, dear, and into our hearts." Oh, the blasphemy and the hollowness and the cruelty of those words! Even as Leonora lay in his arms and felt his kisses on her hair, loving her sinful love for him out to the last breath, she knew that it was not true, what he said so fervently,--and she knew that he did not believe it, that no man can believe a lie so great and wide and deep and awful. But the sun does not stand still in the heavens for a man's lie; he hears too many untrue speeches, and sees too many false faces in his daily task of shining alike upon the just and the unjust--he is used to it and goes on his way; and time follows him, striving to keep pace and to swell the puny minutes of its pulse into an eternity. Such moments--when the rising sorrow and sense of shame that a woman feels are choked down and crushed by the overwhelming energy of falseness in the man she loves--are passionate, even terrible; and they may come often, but they never last long. Half an hour later, Julius and Leonora were wandering on through the woods, and their talk had taken again its ordinary course. The morning was passing, and as Batiscombe talked and amused and interested Leonora, her doubts and fears disappeared, for the time at least, and her old sense of enjoyment returned again, sweeter to her now than ever before, in proportion as it was more difficult for her to attain it. She was happy again, and the clouds were riven away and rent to shreds by the strong breath of her stirring passion. They walked for a while, and then returned to their midday breakfast and spent an hour over it in the cool, darkened hall, which had once been the refectory of the monastery, and was now the dining-room of the people who came to the water-cure. Julius had suggested to Leonora that they should have their breakfast and dinner in their own rooms, but she said she liked to see the people. It amused her to watch their faces and to wonder about them and criticise them. They were so unlike the people she had known hitherto, that there was a freshness of amusement to her in learning their ways. And by and by they had their coffee in a little sitting-room of their own that overlooked the torrent, and Julius smoked a cigarette and read the papers a little, amusing her with his daring comments on the conduct of nations and individuals. He was a man who was never afraid to say what he meant--not only to Leonora, over a cup of coffee in the summer, but to the world at large, in his books and articles. That was one reason why the world at large always said he was an uncommonly fine fellow, with a great deal of pluck and judgment. For the world at large likes rough strength and keen wit, always understanding that the strong language is not applied to itself, but to its neighbour next door. At four o'clock Julius and Leonora went out again. Julius carried a pair of shawls and a book and Leonora's silk bag with the silver rings--the same she had used to bring her handkerchiefs when she fled from Sorrento. They went into the garden and out among the laurels and the geraniums for a few minutes, but Julius was sure there would be more breeze outside, in the old summer-house over the water; for the garden was sheltered by high walls all around, and the sun was still hot, almost at its hottest at four o'clock on the fourth of September. Accordingly Julius took the things in his hands, and the two went out of the garden by the door in the wall and left it open. They walked down the short open path to the old summer-house, and Julius made Leonora very comfortable with the shawls for cushions upon the old, wooden bench, which many generations of people had hacked with their knives and adorned with the insignificance of their unknown names. Side by side they sat in the glory of the summer's afternoon, and the birds perched on the grey old ribs of the summer-house and hopped upon the untrimmed creepers that grew thickly about it, making their small comments to each other about the two people who sat below them, and great green and pink grasshoppers skipped into the open space and out again, a perpetual astonishment in their round, red eyes; all nature was warm and peaceful and happy. The lovers talked together a little, enjoying the sense that speech was not always necessary nor even desirable. "How do you like the 'Principe'?" Julius asked at last, glancing at the book that lay open on Leonora's knee. He had given it to her to read, because she said she knew so little of Italian thought. "I hardly know," she said. "It is very wonderful, of course. But I cannot quite believe that Machiavelli believed in it himself, nor that any one ever acted on the advice he gives. It is too complicated and unhuman." "It always seems to me," said Julius, taking up the question, "that he wrote like a man who inferred a great deal from his own experience--a great deal more than it is safe to infer. He knew men and women very well. He might have been a despotic lover." "Why?" asked Leonora. "Do you notice that he always reckons, everywhere and without exception, on the heart of the people and on their personal affection for their sovereign? But he never takes into consideration the possible affection of the sovereign for his subjects." "That is true," said Leonora. "He was a very heartless individual." "Perhaps--though I hardly think it," answered Julius. "But he might have written a guide for despotic lovers much better than a book of instruction for tyrannical princes." "What an idea!" said Leonora, laughing. "But I think he was heartless all the same. He only believed in the people's hearts as a means for getting power." "He never says so," said Julius. "I rather think he loved the people, but knew them well--and he loved the ingenuities of his wit much better." "If the heart does not come first, it never comes at all," said Leonora thoughtfully. "If it does not rule it is ruled, and might as well never exist at all. Are you tyrannical, dear?" She smiled at him, knowing how he loved her. "Oh, yes, indeed," said Julius, laughing; "but only about love." "But that is just the question," said Leonora. "You ought not to be. Your heart ought to come first." "Yes, darling," he answered. "The heart comes first, and the heart is a tyrant. Supposing my heart says to yours, 'You shall love me; I will have it at any cost;' is not that tyranny?" "Perhaps," said Leonora, smiling and touching his hand. "But then it is quite a mutual tyranny, you know, because I say it to you, too,--and you do it." "I always do everything you say, darling," he answered lovingly. "Always?" "Always;--and I always will, Leonora." "Do you think, Julius--it is a foolish question--do you think you would die for me, if it were necessary?" "You know I would, dear," he said quietly. "Yes; I am sure you would," she answered. "Do you know? I used to think that one ought to be willing to die for those one loves; and I like to think that you would give your life for me. Of course it could never happen--but then--Don't laugh at me, Julius." "Why should I laugh?" he said. "What you say is serious enough, I am sure." "No--but I thought you might. You laugh at so many things--I am always afraid you will laugh at my love"-- It was five o'clock. Marcantonio, issuing from the door in the garden wall, saw Julius and Leonora some twenty yards away, in the summer-house. He gave the servant a franc for showing him the way, and the man retired. He stood alone, watching the pair, for he could see them very distinctly. They were so placed that they would see him if they turned and looked upward, but they did not move, nor hear him. Leonora was nearest to him, and was leaning back a little, so that she could not see him; Batiscombe held her hand, and was looking at it, and gently caressing the fair, white fingers as he talked. Marcantonio turned away for a moment, and got out his revolver. It was clean and bright, and he had examined it,--but he would look once more, just to be sure there was a cartridge in each chamber, especially in that one beneath the barrels. One could not be too certain of one's weapon. There was no mistake,--everything was in order. The hour was come. The hideous maniac smile played over his delicate features, and he stepped cautiously forward, holding the pistol behind him. Every step he gained before they observed him was an advantage. And besides, Leonora was between him and Batiscombe. It was not a fair shot, and it was too far. He did not want to kill her; he would take her home with him, when he had killed Julius Batiscombe. He had ordered the little carriage to wait for them. How happy she would be! Cautiously he moved on, ready for action if they saw him. He trod so softly, so softly, it was like velvet on the grass. Then, as he came nearer,--not ten paces off,--he brought his pistol before him and held it ready. So softly he had crept to them that they had not yet heard him, as the summer wind blew gently through the long grasses and the vines about the old bower, and made a sweet murmur of its own. --"I am always afraid you will laugh at my love"--Leonora was saying, but the words that were to follow were never spoken. Some slight sound caught her quick woman's ear, and she looked up in the direction whence it came. There stood her husband, not ten paces from her, with an expression in his face which would have frozen the marrow in the bones of a wild beast. The clean polished barrel of the pistol was pointed full at Batiscombe. Leonora saw that, and saw that Marcantonio's eyes were fixed on her lover and not on herself. Batiscombe saw it all as well as she, one second later. But that one second was enough. With a spring and a clutching turn, as a tigress will cover her young with herself and turn glaring on her pursuers, Leonora threw her strong, lithe body upon Julius, forcing him back to his seat, and she turned and looked Marcantonio in the face. Their eyes met for one moment. But it was too late: the finger had pulled the trigger and the ball sped true. Without a sound, without a cry, she fell upon her lover's breast. There she fell, there she died. From the death wound the heart's blood fell in great drops; it fell down to the ground. She died for his sake whom she loved; she died, she gave for him her life, the joy and the woe and the love of it for his sake. * * * * * Do you ask what is the moral of this? Ask it of yourselves. Ask it of that quiet man, with delicate features and snow-white hair, who drives in the Villa Borghese. He is well-known in Rome for his honesty, his honour, and his unaffected good sense. He is the Marchese Carantoni, he is Marcantonio, and he is not yet forty years of age. Ask it of Diana de Charleroi,--Duchesse de Charleroi now, for her husband has succeeded to the elder title. Ask it of her, the mother of brave boys and noble maidens. She has her beauty still, she is as stately as of yore, and grander in the crown of mature womanhood. But there is a streak of grey even in her fair hair, and a line of sorrow on her forehead, the masterly handwriting of a mastering grief; and her grey eyes are softer and sadder than they were ten years ago. Ask it of Julius Batiscombe,--but of him you will ask in vain. He has the mark of a bullet in his throat, Marcantonio's second shot, that was so nearly fatal to him. He stood aside from the world for a while, and lived a year or two among the monks of Subiaco; he manifested some devotion for her sake who had died for him. And now he is writing novels again, and smoking cigarettes between the phrases, to help his ideas and to stimulate his imagination. 
40844	----	THE DIVA'S RUBY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=. [Illustration: "Apparently looking down at his loosely hanging hands."--Page 92.] THE DIVA'S RUBY A SEQUEL TO "PRIMADONNA" AND "FAIR MARGARET" BY F. MARION CRAWFORD AUTHOR OF "SARACINESCA," "ARETHUSA," ETC., ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. MONTGOMERY FLAGG New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1908 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY F. MARION CRAWFORD. Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1908. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "Apparently looking down at his loosely hanging hands" _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE "'Funny idea of honour,' observed the American" 62 "'You want my blessing, do you, Miss Barrack?'" 116 "Margaret gazed at him in surprise while she might have counted ten" 154 "She was aware of his slight change of position without turning her eyes" 170 "She grasped Lady Maud's arm" 198 "She watched him intently while he read the printed report" 226 "The two dined on deck" 284 "'What has happened?' she cried. 'Are you ill, dear?'" 294 "She buried her handsome face in the splendid flowers" 340 "Their eyes met" 348 "The man was not Boris Leven" 422 THE DIVA'S RUBY CHAPTER I There is a ruby mine hidden in the heart of the mountains near a remote little city of Central Asia, unknown to European travellers; and the secret of the treasure belongs to the two chief families of the place, and has been carefully guarded for many generations, handed down through the men from father to son; and often the children of these two families have married, yet none of the women ever learned the way to the mine from their fathers, or their brothers, or their husbands, none excepting one only, and her name was Baraka, which may perhaps mean 'Blessed'; but no blessing came to her when she was born. She was much whiter and much more beautiful than the other girls of the little Tartar city; her face was oval like an ostrich egg, her skin was as the cream that rises on sheep's milk at evening, and her eyes were like the Pools of Peace in the Valley of Dark Moons; her waist also was a slender pillar of ivory, and round her ankle she could make her thumb meet her second finger; as for her feet, they were small and quick and silent as young mice. But she was not blessed. When she was in her seventeenth year a traveller came to the little city, who was not like her own people; he was goodly to see, and her eyes were troubled by the sight of him, as the Pools of Peace are darkened when the clouds lie on the mountain-tops and sleep all day; for the stranger was tall and very fair, and his beard was like spun gold, and he feared neither man nor evil spirit, going about alone by day and night. Furthermore, he was a great physician, and possessed a small book, about the size of a man's hand, in which was contained all the knowledge of the world. By means of this book, and three small buttons that tasted of mingled salt and sugar, he cured Baraka's father of a mighty pain in the midriff which had tormented him a whole week. He brought with him also a written letter from a holy man to the chiefs of the town; therefore they did not kill him, though he had a good Mauser revolver with ammunition, worth much money, and other things useful to believers. Satan entered the heart of Baraka, and she loved the traveller who dwelt in her father's house, for she was not blessed; and she stood before him in the way when he went out, and when he returned she was sitting at the door watching, and she took care to show her cream-white arm, and her slender ankle, and even her beautiful face when neither her father nor her mother was near. But he saw little and cared less, and was as grave as her father and the other greybeards of the town. When she perceived that he was not moved by the sight of her, she watched him more closely; for she said in her girl's heart that the eyes that are blind to a beautiful woman see one of three things: gold, or power, or heaven; but her sight was fixed only on him. Then her throat was dry, her heart fluttered in her maiden breast like a frightened bird, and sometimes, when she would have tried to speak, she felt as if her tongue were broken and useless; the fire ran lightly along her delicate body, her eyes saw nothing clearly, and a strange rushing sound filled her ears; and then, all at once, a fine dew wet her forehead and cooled it, and she trembled all over and was as pale as death--like Sappho, when a certain god-like man was near. Yet the stranger saw nothing, and his look was bright and cold as a winter's morning in the mountains. Almost every day he went out and climbed the foot-hills alone, and when the sun was lowering he came back bringing herbs and flowers, which he dried carefully and spread between leaves of grey paper in a large book; and he wrote spells beside them in an unknown tongue, so that no one dared to touch the book when he went out, lest the genii should wake and come out from between the pages, to blind the curious and strike the gossips dumb, and cast a leprosy on the thief. At night he lay on the roof of the fore-house beside the gate of the court, because it was cool there. Baraka came to him, before midnight, when her mother was in a deep sleep; she knelt at his side while he slept in the starlight, and she laid her head beside his, on the sack that was his pillow, and for a little while she was happy, being near him, though he did not know she was there. But presently she remembered that her mother might wake and call her, and she spoke very softly, close to his ear, fearing greatly lest he should start from his sleep and cry out. 'The ruby mine is not far off,' she said. 'I know the secret place. Rubies! Rubies! Rubies! You shall have as many as you can carry of the blood-red rubies!' He opened his eyes, and even in the starlight they were bright and cold. She stroked his hand softly and then pressed it a little. 'Come with me and you shall know the great secret,' she whispered. 'You shall fill this sack that is under your head, and then you shall take me with you to Egypt, and we will live in a marble palace and have many slaves, and be always together. For you will always remember that it was Baraka who showed you where the rubies were, and even when you are tired of her you will treat her kindly and feed her with fig paste and fat quails, such as I hear they have in the south all winter, and Frank rice, and coffee that has been picked over, bean by bean, for the great men.' She said all this in a whisper, stroking his hand; and while she whispered he smiled in his great golden beard that seemed as silvery in the starlight as her father's. 'That is women's talk,' he answered. 'Who has seen mines of rubies? and if you know where they are, why should you show them to me? You are betrothed. If you had knowledge of hidden treasures you would keep it for your husband. This is some trick to destroy me.' 'May these hands wither to the wrists if a hair of your head be harmed through me,' she answered; and as she knelt beside him, the two little hands held his face towards her very tenderly, and then one of them smoothed the thick hair back from his forehead. 'You are betrothed,' he repeated, 'and I am your father's guest. Shall I betray him?' 'I care nothing, neither for father, nor mother, nor brothers, nor betrothed,' Baraka answered. 'I will give you the riches of Solomon if you will take me, for I will have no other man.' 'There are no rubies,' said the stranger. 'Show them to me and I will believe.' The girl laughed very low. 'Did I not know you for a man of little faith?' she asked. 'I have shown you my arm from the wrist to the shoulder. Is it not like the tusk of a young elephant? Yet you have not believed. I have shown you my ankles, and you have seen me span them with my fingers as I sat at the door, yet you believed not. I have unveiled my face, which it is a shame to do, but you could not believe. I have come to you in the starlight when you were asleep, and still you have no faith that I love you, though I shall be cast out to perish if I am found here. But I will give you a little handful of rubies, and you will believe, and take me, when I have shown you where you may get thousands like them.' She took from her neck a bag of antelope skin, no larger than her closed hand, and gave it to him with the thin thong by which it had hung. 'When you have seen them in the sun you will want others,' she said. 'I will take you to the place, and when you have filled your sack with them you will love me enough to take me away. It is not far to the place. In two hours we can go and come. To-morrow night, about this time, I will wake you again. It will not be safe to unbar the door, so you must let me down from this roof by a camel rope, and then follow me.' When Baraka was gone the stranger sat up on his carpet and opened the small bag to feel the stones, for he knew that he could hardly see them in the starlight; but even the touch and the weight told him something, and he guessed that the girl had not tried to deceive him childishly with bits of glass. Though the bag had been in her bosom, and the weather was hot, the stones were as cold as jade; and moreover he felt their shape and knew at once that they might really be rough rubies, for he was well versed in the knowledge of precious stones. When the day began to dawn he went down from the roof to the common room of the fore-house, where guests were quartered, yet although there was no other stranger there he would not take the bag from his neck to examine the stones, lest some one should be watching him from a place of hiding; but afterwards, when he was alone in the foot-hills and out of sight of the town, searching as usual for new plants and herbs, he crept into a low cave at noon, and sat down just inside the entrance, so that he could see any one coming while still a long way off, and there he emptied the contents of the little leathern wallet into his hand, and saw that Baraka had not deceived him; and as he looked closely at the stones in the strong light at the entrance of the cave, the red of the rubies was reflected in the blue of his bright eyes, and made a little purple glare in them that would have frightened Baraka; and he smiled behind his great yellow beard. He took from an inner pocket a folded sheet on which a map was traced in black and green ink, much corrected and extended in pencil; and he studied the map thoughtfully in the cave while the great heat of the day lasted; but the lines that his eye followed did not lead towards Persia, Palestine, and Egypt, where Baraka wished to live with him in a marble palace and eat fat quails and fig paste. She came to him again that night on the roof, bringing with her a small bundle, tightly rolled and well tied up. He wrapped his blanket round her body, and brought it up under her arms so that the rope should not hurt her when her weight came upon it, and so he let her down over the edge of the roof to the ground, and threw the rope after her; and he let himself over, holding by his hands, so that when he was hanging at the full length of his long arms he had only a few feet to drop, for he was very tall and the fore-house was not high, and he wished to take the rope with him. Baraka's house was at the head of the town, towards the foot-hills; every one was sleeping, and there was no moon. She followed the stony sheep-track that struck into the hills only a few hundred paces from the last houses, and the stranger followed her closely. He had his sack on his shoulder, his book of plants and herbs was slung behind him by a strap, and in his pockets he had all the money he carried for his travels and his letters to the chiefs, and a weapon; but he had left all his other belongings, judging them to be of no value compared with a camel-bag full of rubies, and only a hindrance, since he would have to travel far on foot before daylight, by dangerous paths. The girl trod lightly and walked fast, and as the man followed in her footsteps he marked the way, turn by turn, and often looked up at the stars overhead as men do who are accustomed to journeying alone in desert places. For some time Baraka led him through little valleys he had often traversed, and along hillsides familiar to him, and at last she entered a narrow ravine which he had once followed to its head, where he had found that it ended abruptly in a high wall of rock, at the foot of which there was a clear pool that did not overflow. It was darker in the gorge, but the rocks were almost white, so that it was quite possible to see the way by the faint light. The man and the girl stood before the pool; the still water reflected the stars. 'This is the place,' Baraka said. 'Do you see anything?' 'I see water and a wall of rock,' the man answered. 'I have been here alone by day. I know this place. There is nothing here, and there is no way up the wall.' Baraka laughed softly. 'The secret could not have been kept by my fathers for fourteen generations if it were so easy to find out,' she said. 'The way is not easy, but I know it.' 'Lead,' replied the traveller. 'I will follow.' 'No,' returned the girl. 'I will go a little way down the gorge and watch, while you go in.' The man did not trust her. How could he tell but that she had brought him to an ambush where he was to be murdered for the sake of his money and his good weapon? The rubies were real, so far as he could tell, but they might be only a bait. He shook his head. 'Listen,' said Baraka. 'At the other side of the pool there is a place where the water from this spring flows away under the rock. That is the passage.' 'I have seen the entrance,' answered the traveller. 'It is so small that a dog could not swim through it.' 'It looks so. But it is so deep that one can walk through it easily, with one's head above water. It is not more than fifty steps long. That is how I found it, for one day I wandered here alone in the morning for shade, when the air was like fire; and being alone I bathed in the clear pool to cool myself, and I found the way and brought back the stones, which I have hidden ever since. For if my father and brothers know that I have seen the treasure they will surely kill me, because the women must never learn the secret. You see,' she laughed a little, 'I am the first of us who has known it, since many generations, and I have already betrayed it to you! They are quite right to kill us when we find it out!' 'This is an idle tale,' said the traveller. 'Go into the pool before me and I will believe and follow you under the rock. I will not go and leave you here.' 'You are not very brave, though you are so handsome! If they come and find me here, they will kill me first.' 'You say it, but I do not believe it. I think there is a deep hole in the passage and that I shall slip into it and be drowned, for no man could swim in such a place. I have but one life, and I do not care to lose it in a water-rat's trap. You must go in and lead the way if you wish me to trust you.' Baraka hesitated and looked at him. 'How can I do this before you?' she asked. 'I will not go alone,' the man answered, for he suspected foul play. 'Do as you will.' The girl took from her head the large cotton cloth with which she veiled herself, and folded it and laid it down on the rock by the pool; then she let her outer tunic of thin white woollen fall to the ground round her feet and stepped out of it, and folded it also, and laid it beside her veil, and she stood up tall and straight as a young Egyptian goddess in the starlight, clothed only in the plain shirt without sleeves which the women of her country wear night and day; and the traveller saw her cream-white arms near him in the soft gloom, and heard her slip off her light shoes. 'I will go before you,' she said; and she stepped into the pool and walked slowly through the water. The traveller followed her as he was, for he was unwilling to leave behind him anything he valued, and what he had was mostly in the pockets of his coat, and could not be much hurt by water. Even his pressed herbs and flowers would dry again, his cartridges were quite waterproof, his letters were in an impervious case, and his money was in coin. When he entered the pool he took his revolver from its place and he held it above the water in front of him as he went on. With his other hand he carried the sack he had brought, which was one of those that are made of Bokhara carpet and are meant to sling on a camel. Baraka was almost up to her neck in the water when she reached the other side of the pool; a moment later she disappeared under the rock, and the traveller bent his knees to shorten himself, for there was only room for his head above the surface, and he held up his revolver before his face to keep the weapon dry, and also to feel his way, lest he should strike against any jutting projection of the stone and hurt himself. He counted the steps he took, and made them as nearly as possible of equal length. He felt that he was walking on perfectly smooth sand, into which his heavily shod feet sank a very little. There was plenty of air, for the gentle draught followed him from the entrance and chilled the back of his neck, which had got wet; yet it seemed hard to breathe, and as he made his way forward his imagination pictured the death he must die if the rock should fall in behind him. He was glad that the faint odour of Baraka's wet hair came to his nostrils in the thick darkness, and it was very pleasant to hear her voice when she spoke at last. 'It is not far,' she said quietly. 'I begin to see the starlight on the water.' The passage did not widen or grow higher as it went on. If it had been dry, it would have been a commodious cave, open at each end, wide at the bottom and narrowing to a sharp angle above. But the pool was fed by a spring that never failed nor even ebbed, though it must sometimes have overflowed down the ravine through which the two had reached the pool. They came out from under the rock at last, and were in the refreshing outer air. The still water widened almost to a circle, a tiny lake at the bottom of a sort of crater of white stone that collected and concentrated the dim light. On two sides there were little crescent beaches of snow-white sand, that gleamed like silver. The traveller looked about him and upward to see if there were any way of climbing up; but as far as he could make out in the half-darkness the steep rock was as smooth as if it had been cut with tools, and it sloped away at a sharp angle like the sides of a funnel. Baraka went up towards the right, and the bottom shelved, so that presently the water was down to her waist, and then she stood still and pointed to a dark hollow just above the little beach. Her wet garment clung to her, and with her left hand she began to wring the water from her hair behind her head. 'The rubies are there,' she said, 'thousands upon thousands of them. Fill the sack quickly, but do not take more than you can carry, for they are very heavy.' The traveller waded out upon the beach, and the water from his clothes ran down in small rivulets and made little round holes in the white sand. He put down his revolver in a dry place, and both his hands felt for the precious stones in the shadowy hollow, loosening small fragments of a sort of brittle crust in which they seemed to be clustered. 'You cannot choose,' Baraka said, 'for you cannot see, but I have been here by daylight and have seen. The largest are on the left side of the hollow, near the top.' By the stars the traveller could see the pieces a little, as he brought them out, for the white rocks collected the light; he could see many dark crystals, but as to what they were he had to trust the girl. 'Do not take more than you can carry,' she repeated, 'for you must not throw them away to lighten the burden.' 'You can carry some of them,' answered the traveller. He broke up the crust of crystals with a small geologist's hammer and tore them out like a madman, and his hands were bleeding, for though he was a philosopher the thirst for wealth had come upon him when he felt the riches of empires in his grasp, and the time was short; and although he knew that he might some day come back with armed men to protect him, and workmen to help him, he knew also that to do this he must share the secret with the over-lord of that wild country, and that his portion might be the loss of his head. So he tore at the ruby crust with all his might, and as he was very strong, he broke out great pieces at once. 'We cannot carry more than that, both of us together,' said Baraka, though she judged more by the sound of his work than by what she could see. He lifted the sack with both his hands, and he knew by its weight that she was right. Under the water it would be easy enough to carry, but it would be a heavy load for a man to shoulder. 'Come,' Baraka said, 'I will go back first.' She moved down into the deeper water again, till it was up to her neck; and feeling the way with her hands she went in once more under the rock. The traveller followed her cautiously, carrying the heavy sack under water with one hand and holding up his revolver with the other, to keep it dry. 'I begin to see the starlight on the water,' Baraka said, just as before, when they had been going in. When she had spoken, she heard a heavy splash not far off, and the water in the subterranean channel rose suddenly and ran past her in short waves, three of which covered her mouth in quick succession and reached to her eyes, and almost to the top of her head, but sank again instantly; and they passed her companion in the same way, wetting his weapon. 'Go back,' Baraka said, when she could speak; 'the rock is falling.' The traveller turned as quickly as he could, and she came after him, gaining on him because he carried the heavy sack and could not move as fast as she. He felt his damp hair rising with fear, for he believed that, after all, she had brought him into a trap. They reached the opening and came out into the pool again. 'You have brought me here to die,' he said. 'Your father and your brothers have shut up the entrance with great stones, and they will go up the mountain and let themselves down from above with ropes and shoot me like a wolf in a pit-fall. But you shall die first, because you have betrayed me.' So he cocked his revolver and set the muzzle against her head, to kill her, holding her by her slender throat with his other hand; for they were in shallow water and he had dropped the sack in the pool. Baraka did not struggle or cry out. 'I would rather die by your hand than be alive in another man's arms,' she said, quite quietly. He let her go, merely because she was so very brave; for he did not love her at all. She knew it, but that made no difference to her, since no other woman was near; if they could get out alive with the rubies she was sure that he would love her for the sake of the great wealth she had brought him. If they were to starve to death at the bottom of the great rock wall in the mountains, she would probably die first, because he was so strong; and then nothing would matter. It was all very simple. The traveller fished up the sack and waded out upon the tiny beach, and again the water ran down from his clothes in rivulets and made round holes in the white sand. He looked up rather anxiously, though he could not have seen a head looking down from above if there had been any one there. There was not light enough. He understood also that if the men were going to shoot at him from the height they would wait till it was daylight. Baraka stood still in the water, which was up to her waist, and he paid no attention to her, but sat down to think what he should do. The night was warm, and his clothes would dry on him by degrees. He would have taken them off and spread them out, for he thought no more of Baraka's presence than if she had been a harmless young animal, standing there in the pool, but he could not tell what might happen at any moment, and so long as he was dressed and had all his few belongings about him, he felt ready to meet fate. Baraka saw that he did not heed her, and was thinking. She came up out of the water very slowly, and she modestly loosened her wet garment from her, so that it hung straight when she stood at the end of the beach, as far from the traveller as possible. She, also, sat down to dry herself: and there was silence for a long time. After half-an-hour the traveller rose and began to examine the rock, feeling it with his hands wherever there was the least shadow, as high as he could reach, to find if there was any foothold, though he was already sure that there was not. 'There is no way out,' Baraka said at last. 'I have been here by day. I have seen.' 'They will let themselves down from above with ropes, till they are near enough to shoot,' the traveller answered. 'No,' replied Baraka. 'They know that you have a good weapon, and they will not risk their lives. They will leave us here to starve. That is what they will do. It is our portion, and we shall die. It will be easy, for there is water, and when we are hungry we can drink our fill.' The traveller knew the people amongst whom he had wandered, and he did not marvel at the girl's quiet tone; but it chilled his blood, for he understood that she was in earnest; and, moreover, she knew the place, and that there was no way out. 'You said well that I had brought you here to die,' she said presently, 'but I did not know it, therefore I must lose my life also. It is my portion. God be praised.' He was shamed by her courage, for he loved life well, and he held his head down and said nothing as he thought of what was to come. He knew that with plenty of good water a man may live for two or three weeks without food. He looked at the black pool in which he could not even see the reflections of the stars as he sat, because the opening above was not very wide, and he was low down, a good way from the water's edge. It seemed a good way, but perhaps it was not more than three yards. 'You will die first,' Baraka said dreamily. 'You are not as we are, you cannot live so long without food.' The traveller wondered if she were right, but he said nothing. 'If we had got out with the treasure,' continued Baraka, 'you would have loved me for it, because you would have been the greatest man in the world through me. But now, because we must die, you hate me. I understand. If you do not kill me you will die first; and when you are dead I shall kiss you many times, till I die also. It will be very easy. I am not afraid.' The man sat quite still and looked at the dark streak by the edge of the pool where the water had wet it when the falling boulder outside had sent in little waves. He could see it distinctly. Again there was silence for a long time. Now and then Baraka loosened her only garment about her as she sat, so that it might dry more quickly; and she quietly wrung out her thick black hair and shook it over her shoulders to dry it too, and stuck her two silver pins into the sand beside her. Still the traveller sat with bent head, gazing at the edge of the pool. His hands were quite dry now, and he slowly rubbed the clinging moisture from his revolver. Some men would have been thinking, in such a plight, that if starving were too hard to bear, a bullet would shorten their sufferings in the end; but this man was very full of life, and the love of life, and while he lived he would hope. He still watched the same dark streak where the sand was wet; he had not realised that he had been so far from it till then, but by looking at it a long time in the starlight his sight had probably grown tired, so that he no longer saw it distinctly. He raised himself a little on his hands and pushed himself down till it was quite clearly visible again, and he looked at the rock opposite and up to the stars again, to rest his eyes. He was not more than a yard from the water now. The place was very quiet. From far above a slight draught of air descended, warm from the rocks that had been heated all day in the sun. But there was no sound except when Baraka moved a little. Presently she did not move any more, and when the traveller looked he saw that she was curled up on the sand, as Eastern women lie when they sleep, and her head rested on her hand; for her garment was dry now, and she was drowsy after the walk and the effort she had made. Besides, since there was no escape from death, and as the man did not love her, she might as well sleep if she could. He knew those people and understood; and he did not care, or perhaps he also was glad. He was a man who could only have one thought at a time. When he had left the house of Baraka's father he had been thinking only of the rubies, but now that he was in danger of his life he could think only of saving it, if there were any way. A woman could never be anything but a toy to him, and he could not play with toys while death was looking over his shoulder. He was either too big for that, or too little; every man will decide which it was according to his own measure. But Baraka, who had not been taught to think of her soul nor to fear death, went quietly to sleep now that she was quite sure that the traveller would not love her. He had been certain of the distance between his feet and the water's edge as he sat; it had been a yard at the most. But now it was more; he was sure that it was a yard and a half at the least. He rubbed his eyes and looked hard at the dark belt of wet sand, and it was twice as wide as it had been. The water was still running out somewhere, but it was no longer running in, and in an hour or two the pool would be dry. The traveller was something of an engineer, and understood sooner than an ordinary man could have done, that his enemies had intentionally stopped up the narrow entrance through which he had to come, both to make his escape impossible, and to hasten his end by depriving him of water. The fallen boulder alone could not have kept out the overflow of the spring effectually. They must have shovelled down masses of earth, with the plants that grew in it abundantly and filled it with twining threadlike roots, and they must have skilfully forced quantities of the stuff into the openings all round the big stone, making a regular dam against the spring, which would soon run down in the opposite direction. They knew, of course, that Baraka had led him to the place and had gone in with him, for she had left all her outer garments outside, and they meant that she should die also, with her secret. In a week, or a fortnight, or a month, they would come and dig away the dam and pry the boulder aside, and would get in and find the white bones of the two on the sand, after the vultures had picked them clean; and they would take the traveller's good revolver, and his money. He thought of all these things as he sat there in the dim light, and watched the slow receding of the water-line, and listened to the girl's soft and regular breathing. There was no death in her dream, as she slept away the last hours of the night, though there might not be many more nights for her. He heard her breath, but he did not heed her, for the water was sinking before him, sinking away into the sand, now that it was no longer fed from the opening. He sat motionless, and his thoughts ran madly from hope to despair and back again to hope. The water was going down, beyond question; if it was merely draining itself through the sand to some subterranean channel, he was lost, but if it was flowing away through any passage like the one by which he had entered, there was still a chance of escape,--a very small chance. When death is at the gate the tiniest loophole looks wide enough to crawl through. The surface of the pool subsided, but there was no loophole; and as the traveller watched, hope sank in his heart, like the water in the hollow of the sand; but Baraka slept on peacefully, curled up on her side like a little wild animal. When the pool was almost dry the traveller crept down to the edge and drank his fill, that he might not begin to thirst sooner than need be; and just then day dawned suddenly and the warm darkness gave way to a cold light in a few moments. Immediately, because it was day, Baraka stretched herself on the sand and then sat up; and when she saw what the traveller was doing she also went and drank as much as she could swallow, for she had understood why he was drinking as soon as she saw that the pool was nearly dry. When she could drink no more she looked up at the rocks high overhead, and they were already white and red and yellow in the light of the risen sun; for in that country there is no very long time between dark night and broad day. Baraka sat down again, on the spot where she had slept, but she said nothing. The man was trying to dig a little hole in the wet sand with his hands, beyond the water that was still left, for perhaps he thought that if he could make a pit on one side, some water would stay in it; but the sand ran together as soon as he moved it; and presently, as he bent over, he felt that he was sinking into it himself, and understood that it was a sort of quicksand that would suck him down. He therefore threw himself flat on his back, stretching out his arms and legs, and, making movements as if he were swimming, he worked his way from the dangerous place till he was safe on the firm white beach again. He sat up then, and bent his head till his forehead pressed on his hands, and he shut his eyes to keep out the light of day. He had not slept, as Baraka had, but he was not sleepy; perhaps he would not be able to sleep again before the end came. Baraka watched him quietly, for she understood that he despaired of life, and she wondered what he would do; and, besides, he seemed to her the most beautiful man in the world, and she loved him, and she was going to die with him. It comforted her to think that no other woman could get him now. It was almost worth while to die for that alone; for she could not have borne that another woman should have him since he despised her, and if it had come to pass she would have tried to kill that other. But there was no danger of such a thing now; and he would die first, and she would kiss him many times when he was dead, and then she would die also. The pool was all gone by this time, leaving a funnel-shaped hollow in the sand where it had been. If any water still leaked through from without it lost itself under the sand, and the man and the girl were at the bottom of a great natural well that was quite dry. Baraka looked up, and she saw a vulture sitting in the sun on a pinnacle, three hundred feet above her head. He would sit there till she was dead, for he knew what was coming; then he would spread his wings a little and let himself down awkwardly, half-flying and half-scrambling. When he had finished, he would sit and look at her bones and doze, till he was able to fly away. Baraka thought of all this, but her face did not change, and when she had once seen the vulture she did not look at him again, but kept her eyes fixed, without blinking, on her companion's bent head. To her he seemed the most handsome man that had ever lived. There, beside him, lay his camel bag, and in it there were rubies worth a kingdom; and Baraka was very young and was considered beautiful too, among the wild people to whom she belonged. But her father had chosen her name in an evil hour, for she was indeed not blessed, since she was to die so young; and the man with the beard of spun gold and the very white skin did not love her, and would not even make pretence of loving, though for what was left of life she would have been almost satisfied with that. The hours passed, and the sun rose higher in the sky and struck deeper into the shady well, till he was almost overhead, and there was scarcely any shadow left. It became very hot and stifling, because the passage through which the air had entered with the water was shut up. Then the traveller took off his loose jacket, and opened his flannel shirt at the neck, and turned up his sleeves for coolness, and he crept backwards into the hollow where the ruby mine was, to shelter himself from the sun. But Baraka edged away to the very foot of the cliff, where there remained a belt of shade, even at noon; and as she sat there she took the hem of her one garment in her hands and slowly fanned her little feet. Neither he nor she had spoken for many hours, and she could see that in the recess of the rock he was sitting as before, with his forehead against his hands that were clasped on his knees, in the attitude and bearing of despair. He began to be athirst now, in the heat. If he had not known that there was no water he could easily have done without it through a long day, but the knowledge that there was none, and that he was never to drink again, parched his life and his throat and his tongue till it felt like a dried fig in his mouth. He did not feel hunger, and indeed he had a little food in a wallet he carried; but he could not have eaten without water, and it did not occur to him that Baraka might be hungry. Perhaps, even if he had known that she was, he would not have given her of what he had; he would have kept it for himself. What was the life of a wild hill-girl compared with his? But the vulture was watching him, as well as Baraka, and would not move from its pinnacle till the end, though days might pass. The fever began to burn the traveller, the fever of thirst which surely ends in raving madness, as he knew, for he had wandered much in deserts, and had seen men go mad for lack of water. His hands felt red hot, the pulses were hammering at his temples, and his tongue became as hot as baked clay; he would have borne great pain for a time if it could have brought sleep, for this was much worse than pain, and it made sleep impossible. He tried to take account of what he felt, for he was strong, and he was conscious that the heat of the fever, and the throbbing in his arteries, and the choking dryness in his mouth and throat, were not really his main sensations, but only accessories to it or consequences of it. The real suffering was the craving for the sight, the touch, and the taste of water; to see it alone would be a relief, even if he were not allowed to drink, and to dip his hands into a stream would be heaven though he were not permitted to taste a drop. He understood, in a strangely clear way, that what suffered now was not, in the ordinary sense, his own self, that is, his nerves, but the physical composition of his body, which was being by degrees deprived of the one prime ingredient more necessary than all others. He knew that his body was eight-tenths water, or thereabouts, but that this proportion was fast decreasing by the process of thirst, and that what tormented him was the unsettling of the hydrostatic balance which nature requires and maintains where there is any sort of life in animals, plants, or stones; for stones live and are not even temporarily dead till they are calcined to the state of quicklime, or hydraulic cement, or plaster of Paris; and they come to life again with furious violence and boiling heat if they are brought into contact with water suddenly; or they regain the living state by slow degrees if they are merely exposed to dampness. The man knew that what hurt him was the battle between forces of nature which was being fought in his flesh, and it was as much more terrible than the mere pain his fleshly nerves actually suffered from it, as real death is more awful than the most tremendous representation of it that ever was shown in a play. Yet a stage tragedy may draw real burning tears of sorrow and sympathy from them that look on. The traveller was a modern man of science, and understood these things, but the knowledge of them did not make it easier to bear thirst or to die of hunger. Baraka was not thirsty yet, because she had drunk her fill in the morning, and was not used to drink often; it was enough that she could look at the man she loved, for the end would come soon enough without thinking about it. All day long the traveller crouched in the hollow of the ruby cave, and Baraka watched him from her place; when it grew dark the vulture on the pinnacle of rock thrust its ugly head under its wing. As soon as Baraka could not see any more she curled herself up on the white sand like a little wild animal and went to sleep, though she was thirsty. It was dawn when she awoke, and her linen garment was damp with the dew, so that the touch of it refreshed her. The traveller had come out and was lying prone on the sand, his face buried against his arm, as soldiers sleep in a bivouac. She could not tell whether he was asleep or not, but she knew that he could not see her, and she cautiously sucked the dew from her garment, drawing it up to her mouth and squeezing it between her lips. It was little enough refreshment, but it was something, and she was not afraid, which made a difference. Just as she had drawn the edge of her shift down and round her ankles again, the man turned on his side suddenly, and then rose to his feet. For an instant he glared at her, and she saw that his blue eyes were bloodshot and burning; then he picked up the heavy camel bag, and began to make his way round what had been the beach of the pool, towards the passage through which they had entered, and which was now a dry cave, wide below, narrow at the top, and between six or seven feet high. He trod carefully and tried his way, for he feared the quicksand, but he knew that there was none in the passage, since he had walked through the water and had felt the way hard under his feet. In a few moments he disappeared under the rock. Baraka knew what he meant to do; he was going to try to dig through the dam at the entrance to let the water in, even if he could not get out. But she was sure that this would be impossible, for by this time her father and brothers had, no doubt, completely filled the spring with earth and stones, and had turned the water in the other direction. The traveller must have been almost sure of this too, else he would have made the attempt much sooner. It was the despotism of thirst that was driving him to it now, and he had no tool with which to dig--it would be hopeless work with his hands. The girl did not move, for in that narrow place and in the dark she could not have helped him. She sat and waited. By and by he would come out, drenched with sweat and yet parching with thirst, and he would glare at her horribly again; perhaps he would be mad when he came out and would kill her because she had brought him there. After some time she heard a very faint sound overhead, and when she looked up the vulture was gone from his pinnacle. She wondered at this, and her eyes searched every point and crevice of the rock as far as she could see, for she knew that the evil bird could only have been frightened away; and though it fears neither bird nor beast, but only man, she could not believe that any human being could find a foothold near to where it had perched. But now she started, and held her breath and steadied herself with one hand on the sand beside her as she leaned back to look up. Something white had flashed in the high sun, far up the precipice, and the sensation the sight left was that of having seen sunshine on a moving white garment. For some seconds, perhaps for a whole minute, she saw nothing more, though she gazed up steadily, then there was another flash and a small patch of snowy white was moving slowly on the face of the cliff, at some distance above the place where the vulture had been. She bent her brows in the effort to see more by straining her sight, and meanwhile the patch descended faster than it seemed possible that a man could climb down that perilous steep. Yet it was a man, she knew from the first, and soon she saw him plainly, in his loose shirt and white turban. Baraka thought of a big white moth crawling on a flat wall. She was light of foot and sure of hold herself, and could step securely where few living things could move at all without instant danger, but she held her breath as she watched the climber's descent towards her. She saw him plainly now, a brown-legged, brown-armed man in a white shirt and a fur cap, and he had a long gun slung across his back. Nearer still, and he was down to the jutting pinnacle where the vulture had sat, and she saw his black beard; still nearer by a few feet and she knew him, and then her glance darted to the mouth of the cave, at the other end of which the man she loved was toiling desperately alone in the dark to pierce the dam of earth and stones. It was only a glance, in a second of time, but when she looked up the black-bearded man had already made another step downwards. Baraka measured the distance. If he spoke loud now she could understand him, and he could hear her answer. He paused and looked down, and he saw her as plainly as she saw him. She knew him well, and she knew why he had come, with his long gun. He was her father's brother's son, to whom she was betrothed; he was Saäd, and he was risking his life to come down and kill her and the man whom she had led to the ruby mines for love's sake. He would come down till he was within easy range, and then he would wait till he had a fair chance at them, when they were standing still, and she knew that he was a dead shot. The traveller's revolver could never carry as far as the long gun, Baraka was sure, and Saäd could come quite near with safety, since he seemed able to climb down the face of a flat rock where there was not foothold for a cat. He was still descending, he was getting very near; if the traveller were not warned he might come out of the cave unsuspiciously and Saäd would shoot him. Saäd would wish to shoot him first, because of his revolver, and then he would kill Baraka at his leisure. If he fired at her first the traveller would have a chance at him while he was reloading his old gun. She understood why he had not killed her yet, if indeed he wanted to, for it was barely possible that he loved her enough to take her alive. After hesitating for a few moments, not from fear but in doubt, she gathered herself to spring, and made a dash like an antelope along the sand for the mouth of the cave, for she knew that Saäd would not risk wasting his shot on her while she was running. She stopped just under the shelter of the rock and called inward. 'Saäd is coming down the rock with his gun!' she cried. 'Load your weapon!' When she had given this warning she went out again and stood before the mouth of the cave with her back to it. Saäd was on the rock, not fifty feet above the ground, at the other side of the natural wall, but looked as if even he could get no farther down. He was standing with both his heels on a ledge so narrow that more than half the length of his brown feet stood over it; he was leaning back, flat against the sloping cliff, and he had his gun before him, for he was just able to use both his hands without falling. He pointed the gun at her and spoke. 'Where is the man?' 'He is dead,' Baraka answered without hesitation. 'Dead? Already?' 'I killed him in his sleep,' she said, 'and I dragged his body into the cave for fear of the vulture, and buried it in the sand. Be not angry, Saäd, though he was my father's guest. Come down hither and I will tell all. Then you shall shoot me or take me home to be your wife, as you will, for I am quite innocent.' She meant to entice him within range of the stranger's weapon. 'There is no foothold whereby to get lower,' he answered, but he rested the stock of his gun on the narrow ledge behind him. 'Drag out the man's body, that I may see it.' 'I tell you I buried it. I killed him the night before last; I cannot dig him up now.' 'Why did you run to the mouth of the cave when you saw me, if the man is dead?' 'Because at first I was afraid you would shoot me from above, therefore I took shelter.' 'Why did you come out again, if you were in fear?' 'After I had run in I was ashamed, for I felt sure that you would not kill me without hearing the truth. So I came out to speak with you. Get down, and I will show you the man's grave.' 'Have I wings? I cannot come down. It is impossible.' Baraka felt a puff of hot air pass her, just above her right ankle, and at the same instant she heard a sharp report, not very loud, and more like the snapping of a strong but very dry stick than the explosion of firearms. She instinctively sprang to the left, keeping her eyes on Saäd. For a moment he did not move. But he was already dead as he slowly bent forward from the rock, making a deep obeisance with both arms hanging down before him, so that his body shot down perpendicularly to the sand, where it struck head first, rolled over and lay motionless in a heap. The traveller's was a Mauser pistol that would have killed as surely at five hundred yards as fifty; and the bullet had gone through the Tartar's brain. Baraka sprang up the sandy slope and ran along the narrow beach to the body. In an instant she had detached the large brown water-gourd from the thong by which it had hung over Saäd's shoulder, and she felt that it was full. Without a thought for herself she hastened back to the mouth of the cave where the traveller was now standing. His face was dripping with perspiration that ran down into his matted golden beard, his eyes were wild, his hands were bleeding. 'Drink!' cried Baraka joyfully, and she gave him the gourd. He gripped it as a greedy dog snaps at a bit of meat, and pulling out the wooden plug he set the gourd to his lips, with an expression of beatitude. But he was an old traveller and only drank a little, knowing that his life might depend on making the small supply last. A gourd of water was worth more than many rubies just then. 'Are you very thirsty yet?' he asked in a harsh voice. 'No,' answered Baraka bravely; 'keep it for yourself.' His hand closed round the neck of the gourd and he looked up towards the rocks above. The vulture had come back and was circling slowly down. 'You had better bury the body, while I go on working,' said the traveller, turning back into the cave and taking the gourd with him. Baraka had marked the place where he had tried to dig for water and had almost disappeared in the quicksand. She took from the body the wallet, in which were dates and some half-dry bread, and then dragged and pushed, and rolled the dead man from the place where he had fallen. The vulture sat on the lowest ledge where his claws could find a hold, and though he watched her with horrible red eyes while she robbed him of his prey, he did not dare go nearer. The body sank into the moving sand, and Baraka had to roll herself back to firmer ground in haste to escape being swallowed up with the dead man. The last she saw of him was one brown foot sticking up. It sank slowly out of sight, and then she went to the hollow where the ruby mine was and took up a piece of the broken crust, full of precious stones, and threw it at the vulture as hard as she could. It did not hit him, but he at once tumbled off the ledge into the air, opened his queer, bedraggled wings and struck upwards. Then Baraka sat down in the shade and slowly brushed away the dry sand that had got into the folds of her linen garment, and looked steadily at the mouth of the cave and tried not to realise that her throat was parched and her lips almost cracking with thirst, and that the traveller had a gourd almost full of water with him. For she loved him, and was willing to die that he might live a little longer; besides, if he succeeded in digging his way out, there would be plenty to drink, and when he was free she was sure that he would love her because she had made him so rich. The sun rose higher and at last shone down to the bottom of the chasm, and she sat in the narrow strip of shade, where she had passed most of the previous day. She was very thirsty and feverish, and felt tired, and wished she could sleep, but could not. Still the traveller toiled in the darkness, and from time to time she heard sounds from far away as of stones and loose earth falling. He was still working hard, for he was very strong and he was desperate. Baraka thought that if he was able to dig through the dam the water would run in again, and she watched the sand for hours, but it was drier than ever. The shadow broadened again, and crept up the rock quickly as the afternoon passed. It was a long time since she had heard any sound from the cave; she went to the entrance and listened, but all was quite still. Perhaps the traveller had fallen asleep from exhaustion, too tired even to drag himself out into the air when he could work no longer. She sat down in the entrance and waited. An hour passed. Perhaps he was dead. At the mere inward suggestion Baraka sprang to her feet, and her heart beat frantically, and stood still an instant, and then beat again as if it would burst, and she could hardly breathe. She steadied herself against the rock, and then went in to know the truth, feeling her way, and instinctively shading her eyes as many people do in the dark. A breath of cool air made her open them, and to her amazement there was light before her. She thought she must have turned quite round while she was walking, and that she was going back to the entrance, so she turned again. But in a few seconds there was light before her once more, and soon she saw the dry sand, full of her footprints and the traveller's, and then the hollow where the mine was came in sight. She retraced her steps a second time, saw the light as before, ran forward on the smooth sand and stumbled upon a heap of earth and stones, just as she saw the sky through an irregular opening on the level of her face. Scarcely believing her senses she thrust out her hand towards the hole. It was real, and she was not dreaming; the traveller had got out and was gone, recking little of what might happen to her, since he was free with his treasure. Baraka crept up the slope of earth as quickly as she could and got out; if she had hoped to find him waiting for her she was disappointed, for he was nowhere to be seen. He had got clear away, with his camel-bag full of rubies. A moment later she was lying on the ground, with her face in the little stream, drinking her fill, and forgetful even of the man she loved. In order to deprive them of water the men had dug a channel by which it ran down directly from the spring to the ravine on that side; then they had blocked up the entrance with stones and earth, believing that one man's strength could never suffice to break through, and they had gone away. They had probably buried or burnt Baraka's clothes, for she did not see them anywhere. She ate some of the dates from the dead man's wallet, and a bit of the dry black bread, and felt revived, since her greatest need had been for water, and that was satisfied. But when she had eaten and drunk, and had washed herself in the stream and twisted up her hair, she sat down upon a rock; and she felt so tired that she would have fallen asleep if the pain in her heart had not kept her awake. She clasped her hands together on her knees and bent over them, rocking herself. When nearly an hour had passed she looked up and saw that the sun was sinking, for the shadows were turning purple in the deep gorge, and there was a golden light on the peaks above. She listened then, holding her breath; but there was no sound except the tinkling of the tiny stream as it fell over a ledge at some distance below her, following its new way down into the valley. She rose at last, looked upward, and seemed about to go away when a thought occurred to her, which afterwards led to very singular consequences. Instead of going down the valley or climbing up out of it, she went back to the entrance of the cave, taking the wallet with her, dragged herself in once more over the loose stones and earth, reached the secret hollow where the pool had been, and made straight for the little mine of precious stones. The traveller had broken out many more than he had been able to carry, but she did not try to collect them all. She was not altogether ignorant of the trade carried on by the men of her family for generations, and though she had not the least idea of the real value of the finest of the rubies, she knew very well that it would be wise to take many small ones which she could exchange for clothing and necessaries with the first women she met in the hills, while hiding the rest of the supply she would be able to carry in the wallet. When she had made her wise selection, she looked once more towards the quicksand, and left the place for ever. Once outside she began to climb the rocks as fast as she could, for very soon it would be night and she would have to lie down and wait many hours for the day, since there was no moon, and the way was very dangerous, even for a Tartar girl who could almost tread on air. High up on the mountain, over the dry well where Baraka and the stranger had been imprisoned, the vulture perched alone with empty craw and drooping wings. But it was of no use for him to wait; the living, who might have died of hunger and thirst, were gone, and the body of dead Saäd lay fathoms deep in the quicksand, in the very maw of the mountain. CHAPTER II There was good copy for the newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic in the news that the famous lyric soprano, Margarita da Cordova, whose real name was Miss Margaret Donne, was engaged to Monsieur Konstantin Logotheti, a Greek financier of large fortune established in Paris, and almost as well known to art-collectors as to needy governments, would-be promoters, and mothers of marriageable daughters. The mothers experienced a momentary depression such as Logotheti himself felt when an historical Van Dyck which he wanted was secretly sold out of a palace in Genoa to a rival collector and millionaire for a price which he would willingly have given; the people he knew shrugged their shoulders at the news that he was to marry a singer, or shook their heads wisely, or smiled politely, according to the scale of the manners they had inherited or acquired; the shopkeepers sent him thousands of insinuating invitations to inspect and buy all the things which a rich man is supposed to give to his bride, from diamonds and lace and eighty horse-power motor-cars to dressing-cases, stationery and silver saucepans; and the newspapers were generously jubilant, and rioted for a few days in a perfect carnival of adjectives. The people who made the least fuss about the marriage were Cordova and Logotheti themselves. They were both so well used to perpetual publicity that they did not resent being written and talked about for a time as if they were a treaty, a revolution, a divorce, or a fraudulent trust. But they did not encourage the noise, nor go about side by side in an offensively happy way, nor accept all the two hundred and eighty-seven invitations to dine out together which they received from their friends during three weeks. It was as much as their overworked secretaries could do to answer all these within a reasonable and decent time. The engagement was made known during the height of the London season, not long after they had both been at a week-end party at Craythew, Lord Creedmore's place in Derbyshire, where they had apparently come to a final understanding after knowing each other more than two years. Margaret was engaged to sing at Covent Garden that summer, and the first mention of the match was coupled with the information that she intended to cancel all her engagements and never appear in public again. The result was that the next time she came down the stage to sing the Waltz Song in _Romeo and Juliet_ she received a tremendous ovation before she opened her handsome lips, and another when she had finished the air; and she spent one of the happiest evenings she remembered. Though she was at heart a nice English girl, not much over twenty-four years of age, the orphan daughter of an Oxford don who had married an American, she had developed, or fallen, to the point at which very popular and successful artists cannot live at all without applause, and are not happy unless they receive a certain amount of adulation. Even the envy they excite in their rivals is delicious, if not almost necessary to them. Margaret's real nature had not been changed by a success that had been altogether phenomenal and had probably not been approached by any soprano since Madame Bonanni; but a second nature had grown upon it and threatened to hide it from all but those who knew her very well indeed. The inward Margaret was honest and brave, rather sensitive, and still generous; the outward woman, the primadonna whom most people saw, was self-possessed to a fault, imperious when contradicted, and coolly ruthless when her artistic fame was at stake. The two natures did not agree well together, and made her wretched when they quarrelled, but Logotheti, who was going to take her for better, for worse, professed to like them both, and was the only man she had ever known who did. That was one reason why she was going to marry him, after having refused him about a dozen times. She had loved another man as much as she was capable of loving, and at one time he had loved her, but a misunderstanding and her devotion to her art had temporarily separated them; and later, when she had almost told him that she would have him if he asked her, he had answered her quite frankly that she was no longer the girl he had cared for, and he had suddenly disappeared from her life altogether. So Logotheti, brilliant, very rich, gifted, gay, and rather exotic in appearance and manner, but tenacious as a bloodhound, had won the prize after a struggle that had lasted two years. She had accepted him without much enthusiasm at the last, and without any great show of feeling. 'Let's try it,' she had said, and he had been more than satisfied. After a time, therefore, they told their friends that they were going to 'try it.' The only woman with whom the great singer was at all intimate was the Countess Leven, Lord Creedmore's daughter, generally called 'Lady Maud,' whose husband had been in the diplomacy, and, after vainly trying to divorce her, had been killed in St. Petersburg by a bomb meant for a Minister. The explosion had been so terrific that the dead man's identity had only been established by means of his pocket-book, which somehow escaped destruction. So Lady Maud was a childless widow of eight-and-twenty. Her father, when he had no prospect of ever succeeding to the title, had been a successful barrister, and then a hard-working Member of Parliament, and he had been from boyhood the close friend of Margaret's father. Hence the intimacy that grew up quickly between the two women when they at last met, though they had not known each other as children, because the lawyer had lived in town and his friend in Oxford. 'So you're going to try it, my dear!' said Lady Maud, when she heard the news. She had a sweet low voice, and when she spoke now it was a little sad; for she had 'tried it,' and it had failed miserably. But she knew that the trial had not been a fair one; the only man she had ever cared for had been killed in South Africa, and as she had not even the excuse of having been engaged to him, she had married with indifference the first handsome man with a good name and a fair fortune who offered himself. He chanced to be a Russian diplomatist, and he turned out a spendthrift and an unfaithful husband. She was too kind-hearted to be glad that he had been blown to atoms by dynamite, but she was much too natural not to enjoy the liberty restored to her by his destruction; and she had not the least intention of ever 'trying it' again. 'You don't sound very enthusiastic,' laughed Margaret, who had no misgivings to speak of, and was generally a cheerful person. 'If you don't encourage me I may not go on.' 'There are two kinds of ruined gamblers,' answered Lady Maud; 'there are those that still like to watch other people play, and those who cannot bear the sight of a roulette table. I'm one of the second kind, but I'll come to the wedding all the same, and cheer like mad, if you ask me.' 'That's nice of you. I really think I mean to marry him, and I wish you would help me with my wedding-gown, dear. It would be dreadful if I looked like Juliet, or Elsa, or Lucia! Everybody would laugh, especially as Konstantin is rather of the Romeo type, with his almond-shaped eyes and his little black moustache! I suppose he really is, isn't he?' 'Perhaps--just a little. But he is a very handsome fellow.' Lady Maud's lips quivered, but Margaret did not see. 'Oh, I know!' she cried, laughing and shaking her head. 'You once called him "exotic," and he is--but I'm awfully fond of him all the same. Isn't that enough to marry on when there's everything else? You really will help me with my gown, won't you? You're such an angel!' 'Oh, yes, I'll do anything you like. Are you going to have a regular knock-down-and-drag-out smash at St. George's? The usual thing?' Lady Maud did not despise slang, but she made it sound like music. 'No,' answered Margaret, rather regretfully. 'We cannot possibly be married till the season's quite over, or perhaps in the autumn, and then there will be nobody here. I'm not sure when I shall feel like it! Besides, Konstantin hates that sort of thing.' 'Do you mean to say that you would like a show wedding in Hanover Square?' inquired Lady Maud. 'I've never done anything in a church,' said the Primadonna, rather enigmatically, but as if she would like to. '"Anything in a church,"' repeated her friend, vaguely thoughtful, and with the slightest possible interrogation. 'That's a funny way of looking at it!' Margaret was a little ashamed of what she had said so naturally. 'I think Konstantin would like to have it in a chapel-of-ease in the Old Kent Road!' she said, laughing. 'He sometimes talks of being married in tweeds and driving off in a hansom! Then he suggests going to Constantinople and getting it done by the Patriarch, who is his uncle. Really, that would be rather smart, wouldn't it?' 'Distinctly,' assented Lady Maud. 'But if you do that, I'm afraid I cannot help you with the wedding-gown. I don't know anything about the dress of a Fanariote bride.' 'Konstantin says they dress very well,' Margaret said. 'But of course it is out of the question to do anything so ridiculous. It will end in the chapel-of-ease, I'm sure. He always has his own way. That's probably why I'm going to marry him, just because he insists on it. I don't see any other very convincing reason.' Lady Maud could not think of anything to say in answer to this; but as she really liked the singer she thought it was a pity. Paul Griggs, the veteran man of letters, smiled rather sadly when she met him shopping in New Bond Street, and told him of Margaret's engagement. He said that most great singers married because the only way to the divorce court led up the steps of the altar. Though he knew the world he was not a cynic, and Lady Maud herself wondered how long it would be before Logotheti and his wife separated. 'But they are not married yet,' Griggs added, looking at her with the quietly ready expression of a man who is willing that his indifferent words should be taken to have a special meaning if the person to whom he has spoken chooses, or is able, to understand them as they may be understood, but who is quite safe from being suspected of suggesting anything if there is no answering word or glance. Lady Maud returned his look, but her handsome face grew rather cold. 'Do you know of any reason why the marriage should not take place?' she inquired after a moment. 'If I don't give any reason, am I ever afterwards to hold my peace?' asked Griggs, with a faint smile on his weather-beaten face. 'Are you publishing the bans? or are we thinking of the same thing?' 'I suppose we are. Good-morning.' She nodded gravely and passed on, gathering up her black skirt a little, for there had been a shower. He stood still a moment before the shop window and looked after her, gravely admiring her figure and her walk, as he might have admired a very valuable thoroughbred. She was wearing mourning for her husband, not because any one would have blamed her if she had not done so, considering how he had treated her, but out of natural self-respect. Griggs also looked after her as she went away because he felt that she was not quite pleased with him for having suggested that he and she had both been thinking of the same thing. The thought concerned a third person, and one who rarely allowed himself to be overlooked; no less a man, in fact, than Mr. Rufus Van Torp, the American potentate of the great Nickel Trust, who was Lady Maud's most intimate friend, and who had long desired to make the Primadonna his wife. He had bought a place adjoining Lord Creedmore's, and there had lately been a good deal of quite groundless gossip about him and Lady Maud, which had very nearly become a scandal. The truth was that they were the best friends in the world, and nothing more; the millionaire had for some time been interested in an unusual sort of charity which almost filled the lonely woman's life, and he had given considerable sums of money to help it. During the months preceding the beginning of this tale, he had also been the object of one of those dastardly attacks to which very rich and important financiers are more exposed than other men, and he had actually been accused of having done away with his partner's daughter, who had come to her end mysteriously during a panic in a New York theatre. But, as I have told elsewhere, his innocence had been proved in the clearest possible manner, and he had returned to the United States to look after the interests of the Trust. When Griggs heard the news of Margaret's engagement to Logotheti, he immediately began to wonder how Mr. Van Torp would receive the intelligence; and if it had not already occurred to Lady Maud that the millionaire might make a final effort to rout his rival and marry the Primadonna himself, the old author's observation suggested such a possibility. Van Torp was a man who had fought up to success and fortune with little regard for the obstacles he found in his way; he had worked as a cowboy in his early youth, and was apt to look on his adversaries and rivals in life either as refractory cattle or as dangerous wild beasts; and though he had some of the old-fashioned ranchero's sense of fair-play in a fight, he had much of the reckless daring and ruthless savagery that characterise the fast-disappearing Western desperado. Logotheti, on the other hand, was in many respects a true Oriental, supremely astute and superlatively calm, but imbued, at heart, with a truly Eastern contempt for any law that chanced to oppose his wish. Both men had practically inexhaustible resources at their command, and both were determined to marry the Primadonna. It occurred to Paul Griggs that a real struggle between such a pair of adversaries would be worth watching. There was unlimited money on both sides, and equal courage and determination. The Greek was the more cunning of the two, by great odds, and had now the considerable advantage of having been accepted by the lady; but the American was far more regardless of consequences to himself or to others in the pursuit of what he wanted, and, short of committing a crime, would put at least as broad an interpretation on the law. Logotheti had always lived in a highly civilised society, even in Constantinople, for it is the greatest mistake to imagine that the upper classes of Greeks, in Greece or Turkey, are at all deficient in cultivation. Van Torp, on the contrary, had run away from civilisation when a half-educated boy, he had grown to manhood in a community of men who had little respect for anything and feared nothing at all, and he had won success in a field where those who compete for it buy it at any price, from a lie to a life. Lady Maud was thinking of these things as she disappeared from Griggs's sight, and not at all of him. It might have surprised her to know that his eyes had followed her with sincere admiration, and perhaps she would have been pleased. There is a sort of admiration which acknowledged beauties take for granted, and to which they attach no value unless it is refused them; but there is another kind that brings them rare delight when they receive it, for it is always given spontaneously, whether it be the wondering exclamation of a street boy who has never seen anything so beautiful in his life, or a quiet look and a short phrase from an elderly man who has seen what is worth seeing for thirty or forty years, and who has given up making compliments. The young widow was quite unconscious of Griggs's look and was very busy with her thoughts, for she was a little afraid that she had made trouble. Ten days had passed since she had last written to Rufus Van Torp, and she had told him, amongst other things, that Madame da Cordova and Logotheti were engaged to be married, adding that it seemed to her one of the most ill-assorted matches of the season, and that her friend the singer was sure to be miserable herself and to make her husband perfectly wretched, though he was a very good sort in his way and she liked him. There had been no reason why she should not write the news to Mr. Van Torp, even though it was not public property yet, for he was her intimate friend, and she knew him to be as reticent as all doctors ought to be and as some solicitors' clerks are. She had asked him not to tell any one till he heard of the engagement from some one else. He had not spoken of it, but something else had happened. He had cabled to Lady Maud that he was coming back to England by the next steamer. He often came out and went back suddenly two or three times at short intervals, and then stayed away for many months, but Lady Maud thought there could not be much doubt as to his reason for coming now. She knew well enough that he had tried to persuade the Primadonna to marry him during the previous winter, and that if his passion for her had not shown itself much of late, this was due to other causes, chiefly to the persecution of which he had rid himself just before he went to America, but to some extent also to the fact that Margaret had not seemed inclined to accept any one else. Lady Maud, who knew the man better than he knew himself, inwardly compared him to a volcano, quiescent just now, so far as Margaret was concerned, but ready to break out at any moment with unexpected and destructive energy. Margaret herself, who had known Logotheti for years, and had seen him in his most dangerous moods as well as in his very best moments, would have thought a similar comparison with an elemental force quite as truly descriptive of him, if it had occurred to her. The enterprising Greek had really attempted to carry her off by force on the night of the final rehearsal before her first appearance on the stage, and had only been thwarted because a royal rival had caused him to be locked up, as if by mistake, in order to carry her off himself; in which he also had failed most ridiculously, thanks to the young singer's friend, the celebrated Madame Bonanni. That was a very amusing story. But on another occasion Margaret had found herself shut up with her Oriental adorer in a room from which she could not escape, and he had quite lost his head; and if she had not been the woman she was, she would have fared ill. After that he had behaved more like an ordinary human being, and she had allowed the natural attraction he had for her to draw her gradually to a promise of marriage; and now she talked to Lady Maud about her gown, but she still put off naming a day for the wedding, in spite of Logotheti's growing impatience. This was the situation when the London season broke up and Mr. Van Torp landed at Southampton from an ocean greyhound that had covered the distance from New York in five days twelve hours and thirty-seven minutes, which will doubtless seem very slow travelling if any one takes the trouble to read this tale twenty years hence, though the passengers were pleased because it was not much under the record time for steamers coming east. Five hours after he landed Van Torp entered Lady Maud's drawing-room in the little house in Charles Street, Berkeley Square, where she had lived with the departed Leven from the time when he had been attached to the Russian Embassy till he had last gone away. She was giving it up now, and it was already half dismantled. It was to see Van Torp that she was in town in the middle of August, instead of with her father at Craythew or with friends in Scotland. London was as hot as it could be, which means that a New Yorker would have found it chilly and an Italian delightfully cool; but the Londoners were sweltering when Van Torp arrived, and were talking of the oppressive atmosphere and the smell of the pavement, not at all realising how blessed they were. The American entered and stood still a moment to have a good look at Lady Maud. He was a middle-sized, rather thick-set man, with rude hands, sandy hair, an over-developed jaw, and sharp blue eyes, that sometimes fixed themselves in a disagreeable way when he was speaking--eyes that had looked into the barrel of another man's revolver once or twice without wavering, hands that had caught and saddled and bridled many an unridden colt in the plains, a mouth like a carpet-bag when it opened, like a closed vice when it was shut. He was not a handsome man, Mr. Rufus Van Torp, nor one with whom any one short of a prize-fighter would meddle, nor one to haunt the dreams of sweet sixteen. It was not for his face that Lady Maud, good and beautiful, liked him better than any one in the world, except her own father, and believed in him and trusted him, and it was assuredly not for his money. The beggar did not live who would dare to ask him for a penny after one look at his face, and there were not many men on either side of the Atlantic who would have looked forward to any sort of contest with him without grave misgivings. 'Well,' he said, advancing the last step after that momentary pause, and taking the white hand in both his own, 'how have you been? Fair to middling? About that? Well--I'm glad to see you, gladder than a sitting hen at sunrise!' Lady Maud laid her left hand affectionately on the man's right, which was uppermost on hers, and her voice rippled with happiness. 'If you had only said a lark instead of a hen, Rufus!' she laughed. 'We could get along a great sight better without larks than without hens,' answered her friend philosophically. 'But I'll make it a nightingale next time, if I can remember, or a bald eagle, or any bird that strikes you as cheerful.' The terrible mouth had relaxed almost to gentleness, and the fierce blue eyes were suddenly kind as they looked into the woman's face. She led him to an old-fashioned sofa, their hands parted, and they sat down side by side. 'Cheerful,' he said, in a tone of reflection. 'Yes, I'm feeling pretty cheerful, and it's all over and settled.' 'Do you mean the trouble you were in last spring?' 'N--no--not that, though it wasn't as funny as a Sunday School treat while it lasted, and I was thankful when it was through. It's another matter altogether that I'm cheerful about--besides seeing you, my dear. I've done it, Maud. I've done it at last.' 'What?' 'I've sold my interest in the Trust. It won't be made known for some time, so don't talk about it, please. But it's settled and done, and I've got the money.' 'You have sold the Nickel Trust?' Lady Maud's lips remained parted in surprise. 'And I've bought you a little present with the proceeds,' he answered, putting his large thumb and finger into the pocket of his white waistcoat. 'It's only a funny little bit of glass I picked up,' he continued, producing a small twist of stiff writing-paper. 'You needn't think it's so very fine! But it's a pretty colour, and when you're out of mourning I daresay you'll make a hat-pin of it. I like handsome hat-pins myself, you know.' He had untwisted the paper while speaking, it lay open in the palm of his hand, and Lady Maud saw a stone of the size of an ordinary hazel-nut, very perfectly cut, and of that wonderful transparent red colour which is known as 'pigeon's blood,' and which it is almost impossible to describe. Sunlight shining through Persian rose-leaf sherbet upon white silk makes a little patch of colour that is perhaps more like it than any other shade of red, but not many Europeans have ever seen that, and it is a good deal easier to go and look at a pigeon's blood ruby in a jeweller's window. 'What a beautiful colour!' exclaimed Lady Maud innocently, after a moment. 'I didn't know they imitated rubies so well, though, of course, I know nothing about it. If it were not an impossibility, I should take it for a real one.' 'So should I,' assented Mr. Van Torp quietly. 'It'll make a pretty hat-pin anyway. Shall I have it mounted for you?' 'Thanks, awfully, but I think I should like to keep it as it is for a little while. It's such a lovely colour, just as it is. Thank you so much! Do tell me where you got it.' 'Oh, well, there was a sort of a traveller came to New York the other day selling them what they call privately. I guess he must be a Russian or something, for he has a kind of an off-look of your husband, only he wears a beard and an eyeglass. It must be about the eyes. Maybe the forehead too. He'll most likely turn up in London one of these days to sell this invention, or whatever it is.' Lady Maud said nothing to this, but she took the stone from his hand, looked at it some time with evident admiration, and then set it down on its bit of paper, upon a little table by the end of the sofa. 'If I were you, I wouldn't leave it around much,' observed Mr. Van Torp carelessly. 'Somebody might take a fancy to it. The colour's attractive, you see, and it looks like real.' 'Oh, I'll be very careful of it, never fear! I can't tell you how much I like it!' She twisted it up tightly in its bit of paper, rose to her feet, and put it away in her writing-table. 'It'll be a sort of souvenir of the old Nickel Trust,' said her friend, watching her with satisfaction. 'Have you really sold out all your interest in it?' she asked, sitting down again; and now that she returned to the question her tone showed that she had not yet recovered from her astonishment. 'That's what I've done. I always told you I would, when I was ready. Why do you look so surprised? Would you rather I hadn't?' Lady Maud shook her head and her voice rippled deliciously as she answered. 'I can hardly imagine you without the Nickel Trust, that's all! What in the world shall you do with yourself?' 'Oh, various kinds of things. I think I'll get married, for one. Then I'll take a rest and sort of look around. Maybe something will turn up. I've concluded to win the Derby next year--that's something anyway.' 'Rather! Have you thought of anything else?' She laughed a little, but was grave the next moment, for she knew him much too well to believe that he had taken such a step out of caprice, or a mere fancy for change; his announcement that he meant to marry agreed too well with what she herself had suddenly foreseen when she had parted with Griggs in Bond Street a few days earlier. If Margaret had not at last made up her mind to accept Logotheti--supposing that her decision was really final--Rufus Van Torp would not suddenly have felt sure that he himself must marry her if she married at all. His English friend could not have put into words what she felt had taken place in his heart, but she understood him as no one else could, and was certain that he had reached one of the great cross-roads of his life. A woman who has been married for years to such a man as Leven, and who tries to do good to those fallen and cast-out ones who laugh and cry and suffer out their lives, and are found dead behind the Virtue-Curtain, is not ignorant of the human animal's instincts and ways, and Lady Maud was not at all inclined to believe her friend a Galahad. In the clean kingdom of her dreams men could be chaste, and grown women could be as sweetly ignorant of harm as little children; but when she opened her eyes and looked about her she saw, and she understood, and did not shiver with delicate disgust, nor turn away with prim disapproval, nor fancy that she would like to be a mediæval nun and induce the beatific state by merciless mortification of the body. She knew very well what the Virtue-Curtain was trying to hide; she lifted it quietly, went behind it without fear, and did all she could to help the unhappy ones she found there. She did not believe in other people's theories at all, and had none herself; she did not even put much faith in all the modern scientific talk about vicious inheritance and degeneration; much more than half of the dwellers behind the scenes had been lured there in ignorance, a good many had been dragged there by force, a very considerable number had been deliberately sold into slavery, and nine out of ten of them stayed there because no one really tried to get them out. Perhaps no one who did try was rich enough; for it is not to be expected that every human sinner should learn in a day to prefer starving virtue to well-fed vice, or, as Van Torp facetiously expressed it, a large capital locked up in heavenly stocks to a handsome income accruing from the bonds of sin. If Lady Maud succeeded, as she sometimes did, the good done was partly due to the means he gave her for doing it. 'Come and be bad and you shall have a good time while you are young,' the devil had said, assuming the appearance, dress, and manner of fashion, without any particular regard for age. 'Give it up and I'll make you so comfortable that you'll really like not being bad,' said Lady Maud, and the invitation was sometimes accepted. Evidently, a woman who occupied herself with this form of charity could not help knowing and hearing a good deal about men which would have surprised and even shocked her social sisters, and she was not in danger of taking Rufus Van Torp for an ascetic in disguise. On the contrary, she was quite able to understand that the tremendous attraction the handsome singer had for him might be of the most earthly kind, such as she herself would not care to call love, and that, if she was right, it would not be partially dignified by any of that true artistic appreciation which brought Logotheti such rare delight, and disguised a passion not at all more ethereal than Van Torp's might be. In refinement of taste, no comparison was possible between the Western-bred millionaire and the cultivated Greek, who knew every unfamiliar by-way and little hidden treasure of his country's literature and art, besides very much of what other nations had done and written. Yet Lady Maud, influenced, no doubt, by the honest friendship of her American friend, believed that Van Torp would be a better and more faithful husband, even to a primadonna, than his Oriental rival. Notwithstanding her opinion of him, however, she was not prepared for his next move. He had noticed the grave look that had followed her laughter, and he turned away and was silent for a few moments. 'The Derby's a side show,' he said at last. 'I've come over to get married, and I want you to help me. Will you?' 'Can I?' asked Lady Maud, evasively. 'Yes, you can, and I believe there'll be trouble unless you do.' 'Who is she? Do I know her?' She was trying to put off the evil moment. 'Oh, yes, you know her quite well. It's Madame Cordova.' 'But she's engaged to Monsieur Logotheti----' 'I don't care. I mean to marry her if she marries any one. He shan't have her anyway.' 'But I cannot deliberately help you to break off her engagement! It's impossible!' 'See here,' answered Mr. Van Torp. 'You know that Greek, and you know me. Which of us will make the best husband for an English girl? That's what Madame Cordova is, after all. I put it to you. If you were forced to choose one of us yourself, which would you take? That's the way to look at it.' 'But Miss Donne is not "forced" to take one of you----' 'She's going to be. It's the same. Besides, I said "if." Won't you answer me?' 'She's in love with Monsieur Logotheti,' said Lady Maud, rather desperately. 'Is she, now? I wonder. I don't much think so myself. He's clever and he's obstinate, and he's just made her think she's in love, that's all. Anyhow, that's not an answer to my question. Other things being alike, if she had to choose, which of us would be the best husband for her?--the better, I mean. You taught me to say "better," didn't you?' Lady Maud tried to smile. 'Of two, yes,' she answered. 'You are forcing my hand, my dear friend,' she went on very gravely. 'You know very well that I trust you with all my heart. If it were possible to imagine a case in which the safety of the world could depend on my choosing one of you for my husband, you know very well that I should take you, though I never was the least little bit in love with you, any more than you ever were with me.' 'Well, but if you would, she ought,' argued Mr. Van Torp. 'It's for her own good, and as you're a friend of hers, you ought to help her to do what's good for her. That's only fair. If she doesn't marry me, she's certain to marry that Greek, so it's a forced choice, it appears to me.' 'But I can't----' 'She's a nice girl, isn't she?' 'Yes, very.' 'And you like her, don't you?' 'Very much. Her father was my father's best friend.' 'I don't believe in atavism,' observed the American, 'but that's neither here nor there. You know what you wrote me. Do you believe she'll be miserable with Logotheti or not?' 'I think she will,' Lady Maud answered truthfully. 'But I may be wrong.' 'No; you're right. I know it. But marriage is a gamble anyway, as you know better than any one. Are you equally sure that she would be miserable with me? Dead sure, I mean.' 'No, I'm not sure. But that's not a reason----' 'It's a first-rate reason. I care for that lady, and I want her to be happy, and as you admit that she will have a better chance of happiness with me than with Logotheti, I'm going to marry her myself, not only because I want to, but because it will be a long sight better for her. See? No fault in that line of reasoning, is there?' 'So far as reasoning goes----' Lady Maud's tone was half an admission. 'That's all I wanted you to say,' interrupted the American. 'So that's settled, and you're going to help me.' 'No,' answered Lady Maud quietly; 'I won't help you to break off that engagement. But if it should come to nothing, without your interfering--that is, by the girl's own free will and choice and change of mind, I'd help you to marry her if I could.' 'But you admit that she's going to be miserable,' said Van Torp stubbornly. 'I'm sorry for her, but it's none of my business. It's not honourable to try and make trouble between engaged people, no matter how ill-matched they may be.' 'Funny idea of honour,' observed the American, 'that you're bound to let a friend of yours break her neck at the very gravel pit where you were nearly smashed yourself! In the hunting field you'd grab her bridle if she wouldn't listen to you, but in a matter of marriage--oh, no! "It's dishonourable to interfere," "She's made her choice and she must abide by it," and all that kind of stuff!' Lady Maud's clear eyes met his angry blue ones calmly. 'I don't like you when you say such things,' she said, lowering her voice a little. 'I didn't mean to be rude,' answered the millionaire, almost humbly. 'You see I don't always know. I learnt things differently from what you did. I suppose you'd think it an insult if I said I'd give a large sum of money to your charity the day I married Madame Cordova, if you'd help me through.' [Illustration: "'Funny idea of honour,' observed the American."] 'Please stop.' Lady Maud's face darkened visibly. 'That's not like you.' 'I'll give a million pounds sterling,' said Mr. Van Torp slowly. Lady Maud leaned back in her corner of the sofa, clasping her hands rather tightly together in her lap. Her white throat flushed as when the light of dawn kisses Parian marble, and the fresh tint in her cheeks deepened softly; her lips were tightly shut, her eyelids quivered a little, and she looked straight before her across the room. 'You can do a pretty good deal with a million pounds,' said Mr. Van Torp, after the silence had lasted nearly half a minute. 'Don't!' cried Lady Maud, in an odd voice. 'Forty thousand pounds a year,' observed the millionaire thoughtfully. 'You could do quite a great deal of good with that, couldn't you?' 'Don't! Please don't!' She pressed her hands to her ears and rose at the same instant. Perhaps it was she, after all, and not her friend who had been brought suddenly to a great cross-road in life. She stood still one moment by the sofa without looking down at her companion; then she left the room abruptly, and shut the door behind her. Van Torp got up from his seat slowly when she was gone, and went to the window, softly blowing a queer tune between his closed teeth and his open lips, without quite whistling. 'Well----' he said aloud, in a tone of doubt, after a minute or two. But he said no more, for he was much too reticent and sensible a person to talk to himself audibly even when he was alone, and much too cautious to be sure that a servant might not be within hearing, though the door was shut. He stood before the window nearly a quarter of an hour, thinking that Lady Maud might come back, but as no sound of any step broke the silence he understood that he was not to see her again that day, and he quietly let himself out of the house and went off, not altogether discontented with the extraordinary impression he had made. Lady Maud sat alone upstairs, so absorbed in her thoughts that she did not hear the click of the lock as he opened and shut the front door. She was much more amazed at herself than surprised by the offer he had made. Temptation, in any reasonable sense of the word, had passed by her in life, and she had never before understood what it could mean to her. Indeed, she had thought of herself very little of late, and had never had the least taste for self-examination or the analysis of her conscience. She had done much good, because she wanted to do it, and not at all as a duty, or with that idea of surprising the Deity by the amount of her good works, which actuates many excellent persons. As for doing anything seriously wrong, she had never wanted to, and it had not even occurred to her that the opportunity for a wicked deed could ever present itself to her together with the slightest desire to do it. Her labours had taken her to strange places, and she knew what real sin was, and even crime, and the most hideous vice, and its still more awful consequences; but one reason why she had wrought fearlessly was that she felt herself naturally invulnerable. She knew a good many people in her own set whom she thought quite as bad as the worst she had ever picked up on the dark side of the Virtue-Curtain; they were people who seemed to have no moral sense, men who betrayed their wives wantonly, young women who took money for themselves and old ones who cheated at bridge, men who would deliberately ruin a rival in politics, in finance, or in love, and ambitious women who had driven their competitors to despair and destruction by a scientific use of calumny. But she had never felt any inclination towards any of those things, which all seemed to her disgusting, or cowardly, or otherwise abominable. Her husband had gone astray after strange gods--and goddesses--but she had never wished to be revenged on them, or him, nor to say what was not true about any one, nor even what was true and could hurt, nor to win a few sovereigns at cards otherwise than fairly, nor to wish anybody dead who had a right to live. She was eight-and-twenty years of age and a widow, when temptation came to her suddenly in a shape of tremendous strength, through her trusted friend, who had helped her for years to help others. It was real temptation. The man who offered her a million pounds to save miserable wretches from a life of unspeakable horror, could offer her twice as much, four, five, or ten millions perhaps. No one knew the vast extent of his wealth, and in an age of colossal fortunes she had often heard his spoken of with the half-dozen greatest. The worst of it was that she felt able to do what he asked; for she was inwardly convinced that the great singer did not know her own mind and was not profoundly attached to the man she had accepted. Of the two women, Margaret was by far the weaker character; or, to be just, the whole strength of her nature had long been concentrated in the struggle for artistic supremacy, and could not easily be brought to exert itself in other directions. Lady Maud's influence over her was great, and Logotheti's had never been very strong. She was taken by his vitality, his daring, his constancy, or obstinacy, and a little by his good looks, as a mere girl might be, because the theatre had made looks seem so important to her. But apart from his handsome face, Logotheti was no match for Van Torp. Of that Lady Maud was sure. Besides, the Primadonna's antipathy for the American had greatly diminished of late, and had perhaps altogether given place to a friendly feeling. She had said openly that she had misjudged him, because he had pestered her with his attentions in New York, and that she even liked him since he had shown more tact. Uncouth as he was in some ways, Lady Maud knew that she herself might care for him more than as a friend, if her heart were not buried for ever in a soldier's grave on the Veldt. That was the worst of it. She felt that it was probably not beyond her power to bring about what Van Torp desired, at least so far as to induce Margaret to break off the engagement which now blocked his way. Under cover of roughness, too, he had argued with a subtlety that frightened her now that she was alone; and with a consummate knowledge of her nature he had offered her the only sort of bribe that could possibly tempt her, the means to make permanent the good work she had already carried so far. He had placed her in such a dilemma as she had never dreamed of. To accept such an offer as he made, would mean that she must do something which she felt was dishonourable, if she gave 'honour' the meaning an honest gentleman attaches to it, and that was the one she had learned from her father, and which a good many women seem unable to understand. To refuse, was to deprive hundreds of wretched and suffering creatures of the only means of obtaining a hold on a decent existence which Lady Maud had ever found to be at all efficacious. She knew that she had not done much, compared with what was undone; it looked almost nothing. But where law-making had failed altogether, where religion was struggling bravely but almost in vain, where enlightened philanthropy found itself paralysed and bankrupt, she had accomplished something by merely using a little money in the right way. 'You can do quite a great deal of good with forty thousand pounds a year.' Van Torp's rough-hewn speech rang through her head, and somehow its reckless grammar gave it strength and made it stick in her memory, word for word. In the drawer of the writing-table before which she was sitting there was a little file of letters that meant more to her than anything else in the world, except one dear memory. They were all from women, they all told much the same little story, and it was good to read. She had made many failures, and some terrible ones, which she could never forget; but there were real successes, too, there were over a dozen of them now, and she had only been at work for three years. If she had more money, she could do more; if she had much, she could do much; and she knew of one or two women who could help her. What might she not accomplish in a lifetime with the vast sum her friend offered her!--the price of hindering a marriage that was almost sure to turn out badly, perhaps as badly as her own!--the money value of a compromise with her conscience on a point of honour which many women would have thought very vague indeed, if not quite absurd in such a case. She knew what temptation meant, now, and she was to know even better before long. The Primadonna had said that she was going to marry Logotheti chiefly because he insisted on it. The duel for Margaret's hand had begun; Van Torp had aimed a blow that might well give him the advantage if it went home; and Logotheti himself was quite unaware of the skilful attack that threatened his happiness. CHAPTER III A few days after she had talked with Lady Maud, and before Mr. Van Torp's arrival, Margaret had gone abroad, without waiting for the promised advice in the matter of the wedding-gown. With admirable regard for the proprieties she had quite declined to let Logotheti cross the Channel with her, but had promised to see him at Versailles, where she was going to stop a few days with her mother's old American friend, the excellent Mrs. Rushmore, with whom she meant to go to Bayreuth to hear _Parsifal_ for the first time. Mrs. Rushmore had disapproved profoundly of Margaret's career, from the first. After Mrs. Donne's death, she had taken the forlorn girl under her protection, and had encouraged her to go on with what she vaguely called her 'music lessons.' The good lady was one of those dear, old-fashioned, kind, delicate-minded and golden-hearted American women we may never see again, now that 'progress' has got civilisation by the throat and is squeezing the life out of it. She called Margaret her 'chickabiddy' and spread a motherly wing over her, without the least idea that she was rearing a valuable lyric nightingale that would not long be content to trill and quaver unheard. Immense and deserved success had half reconciled the old lady to what had happened, and after all Margaret had not married an Italian tenor, a Russian prince, or a Parisian composer, the three shapes of man which seemed the most dreadfully immoral to Mrs. Rushmore. She would find it easier to put up with Logotheti than with one of those, though it was bad enough to think of her old friend's daughter marrying a Greek instead of a nice, clean Anglo-Saxon, like the learned Mr. Donne, the girl's father, or the good Mr. Rushmore, her lamented husband, who had been an upright pillar of the church in New York, and the president of a Trust Company that could be trusted. After all, though she thought all Greeks must be what she called 'designing,' the name of Konstantin Logotheti was associated with everything that was most honourable in the financial world, and this impressed Mrs. Rushmore very much. Her harmless weakness had always been for lions, and none but the most genuine ones were allowed to roar at her garden-parties or at her dinner table. When the Greek financier had first got himself introduced to her more than two years earlier, she had made the most careful inquiries about him and had diligently searched the newspapers for every mention of him during a whole month. The very first paragraph she had found was about a new railway which he had taken under his protection, and the writer said that his name was a guarantee of good faith. This impressed her favourably, though the journalist might have had reasons for making precisely the same statement if he had known Logotheti to be a fraudulent promoter. One of the maxims she had learned in her youth, which had been passed in the Golden Age of old New York, was that 'business was a test of character.' Mr. Rushmore used to say that, so it must be true, she thought; and indeed the excellent man might have said with equal wisdom that long-continued rain generally produces dampness. He would have turned in his well-kept grave if he could have heard a Wall Street cynic say that nowadays an honest man may get a bare living, and a drunkard has been known to get rich, but that integrity and whisky together will inevitably land anybody in the workhouse. Logotheti was undoubtedly considered honest, however, and Mrs. Rushmore made quite sure of it, as well as of the fact that he had an immense fortune. So far as the cynic's observation goes, it may not be equally applicable everywhere, any more than it is true that all Greeks are blacklegs, as the Parisians are fond of saying, or that all Parisians are much worse, as their own novelists try to make out. If anything is more worthless than most men's opinion of themselves, it is their opinion of others, and it is unfortunately certain that the people who understand human nature best, and lead it whither they will, are not those that labour to save souls or to cure sickness, but demagogues, quacks, fashionable dressmakers, and money-lenders. Mrs. Rushmore was a judge of lions, but she knew nothing about humanity. At Versailles, with its memories of her earlier youth, the Primadonna wished to be Margaret Donne again, and to forget for the time that she was the Cordova, whose name was always first on the opera posters in New York, London, and Vienna; who covered her face with grease-paint two or three times a week; who loved the indescribable mixed smell of boards, glue, scenery, Manila ropes and cotton-velvet-clad chorus, behind the scenes; who lived on applause, was made miserable now and then by a criticism which any other singer would have thought flattery, and who was, in fact, an extraordinary compound of genius and simplicity, generosity and tetchiness, tremendous energy in one direction and intellectual torpidity and total indifference in all others. If she could have gone directly from Covent Garden to another engagement, the other self would not have waked up just then; but she meant to take a long holiday, and in order not to miss the stage too much, it was indispensable to forget it for a while. She travelled incognito. That is to say, she had sent her first maid and theatrical dresser Alphonsine to see her relations in Nancy for a month, and only brought the other with her; she had, moreover, caused the stateroom on the Channel boat to be taken in the name of Miss Donne, and she brought no more luggage to Versailles than could be piled on an ordinary cart, whereas when she had last come from New York her servants had seen eighty-seven pieces put on board the steamer, and a hat-box had been missing after all. Mrs. Rushmore came out to meet her on the steps in the hot sunshine, portly and kind as ever, and she applied an embrace which was affectionate, yet imposing. 'My dearest child!' she cried. 'I was sure I had not quite lost you yet!' 'I hope you will never think you have,' Margaret answered, almost quite in her girlish voice of old. She was very glad to come back. As soon as they were alone in the cool drawing-room, Mrs. Rushmore asked her about her engagement in a tone of profound concern, as though it were a grave bodily ailment which might turn out to be fatal. 'Don't take it so seriously,' Margaret answered with a little laugh; 'I'm not married yet!' The elderly face brightened. 'Do you mean to say that--that there is any hope?' she asked eagerly. Margaret laughed now, but in a gentle and affectionate sort of way. 'Perhaps, just a little! But don't ask me, please. I've come home--this is always home for me, isn't it?--I've come home to forget everything for a few weeks.' 'Thank heaven!' ejaculated Mrs. Rushmore in a tone of deep relief. 'Then if--if he should call this afternoon, or even to-morrow--may I tell them to say that you are out?' She was losing no time; and Margaret laughed again, though she put her head a little on one side with an expression of doubt. 'I can't refuse to see him,' she said, 'though really I would much rather be alone with you for a day or two.' 'My darling child!' cried Mrs. Rushmore, applying another embrace, 'you shall! Leave it to me!' Mrs. Rushmore's delight was touching, for she could almost feel that Margaret had come to see her quite for her own sake, whereas she had pictured the 'child,' as she still called the great artist, spending most of her time in carrying on inaudible conversations with Logotheti under the trees in the lawn, or in the most remote corners of the drawing-room; for that had been the accepted method of courtship in Mrs. Rushmore's young days, and she was quite ignorant of the changes that had taken place since then. Half-an-hour later, Margaret was in her old room upstairs writing a letter, and Mrs. Rushmore had given strict orders that until further notice Miss Donne was 'not at home' for any one at all, no matter who might call. When the letter already covered ten pages, Margaret laid down her pen and without the least pause or hesitation tore the sheets to tiny bits, inking her fingers in the process because the last one was not yet dry. 'What a wicked woman I am!' she exclaimed aloud, to the very great surprise of Potts, her English maid, who was still unpacking in the next room, the door being open. 'Beg pardon, ma'am?' the woman asked, putting in her head. 'I said I was a wicked woman,' Margaret answered, rising; 'and what's more, I believe I am. But I quite forgot you were there, Potts, or I probably should not have said it aloud.' 'Yes, ma'am,' answered Potts meekly, and she went back to her unpacking. Margaret had two maids, who were oddly suited to her two natures. She had inherited Alphonsine from her friend the famous retired soprano, Madame Bonanni, and the cadaverous, clever, ill-tempered, garrulous dresser was as necessary to Cordova's theatrical existence as paint, limelight, wigs, and an orchestra. The English Potts, the meek, silent, busy, and intensely respectable maid, continually made it clear that her mistress was Miss Donne, an English lady, and that Madame Cordova, the celebrated singer, was what Mr. Van Torp would have called 'only a side-show.' Potts was quite as much surprised when she heard Miss Donne calling herself a wicked woman as Alphonsine would have been if she had heard Madame Cordova say that she sang completely out of tune, a statement which would not have disturbed the English maid's equanimity in the very least. It might have pleased her, for she always secretly hoped that Margaret would give up the stage, marry an English gentleman with a nice name, and live in Hans Crescent or Cadogan Gardens, or some equally smart place, and send Alphonsine about her business for ever. For the English maid and the French maid hated each other as whole-heartedly as if Cressy or Agincourt had been fought yesterday. Potts alluded to Alphonsine as 'that Frenchwoman,' and Alphonsine spoke of Potts as 'l'Anglaise,' with a tone and look of withering scorn, as if all English were nothing better than animals. Also she disdained to understand a word of their 'abominable jargon'; and Potts quietly called the French language 'frog-talk,' but spoke it quite intelligibly, though without the least attempt at an accent. Nevertheless, each of the two was devoted to Margaret, and they were both such excellent servants that they never quarrelled or even exchanged a rude word--to Margaret's knowledge. They treated each other with almost exaggerated politeness, calling each other respectively 'Meess' and 'Mamzell'; and if Alphonsine's black eyes glared at Potts now and then, the English maid put on such an air of sweetly serene unconsciousness as a woman of the world might have envied. The letter that had been torn up before it was finished was to have gone to Lady Maud, but Margaret herself had been almost sure that she would not send it, even while she was writing. She had poured out her heart, now that she could do so with the consoling possibility of destroying the confession before any one read it. She had made an honest effort to get at the truth about herself by writing down all she knew to be quite true, as if it were to go to her best friend; but as soon as she realised that she had got to the end of her positive knowledge and was writing fiction--which is what might be true, but is not known to be--she had the weakness to tear up her letter, and to call herself names for not knowing her own mind, as if every woman did, or every man either. She had written that she had done very wrong in engaging herself to Logotheti; that was the 'wickedness' she accused herself of, repeating the self-accusation to her astonished maid, because it was a sort of relief to say the words to somebody. She had written that she did not really care for him in that way; that when he was near she could not resist a sort of natural attraction he had for her, but that as soon as he was gone she felt it no longer and she wished he would not come back; that his presence disturbed her and made her uncomfortable, and, moreover, interfered with her art; but that she had not the courage to tell him so, and wished that some one else would do it for her; that he was not really the sort of man she could ever be happy with; that her ideal of a husband was so and so, and this and that--and here fiction had begun, and she had put a stop to it by destroying the whole letter instead of crossing out a few lines,--which was a pity; for if Lady Maud had received it, she would have told Mr. Van Torp that he needed no help from her since Margaret herself asked no better than to be freed from the engagement. Logotheti did not come out to Versailles that afternoon, because he was plentifully endowed with tact where women were concerned, and he applied all the knowledge and skill he had to the single purpose of pleasing Margaret. But before dinner he telephoned and asked to speak with her, and this she could not possibly refuse. Besides, the day had seemed long, and though she did not wish for his presence she wanted something--that indescribable, mysterious something which disturbed her and made her feel uncomfortable when she felt it, but which she missed when she did not see him for a day or two. 'How are you?' asked his voice, and he ran on without waiting for an answer. 'I hope you are not very tired after crossing yesterday. I came by Boulogne--decent of me, wasn't it? You must be sick of seeing me all the time, so I shall give you a rest for a day or two. Telephone whenever you think you can bear the sight of me again, and I'll be with you in thirty-five minutes. I shall not stir from home in this baking weather. If you think I'm in mischief you're quite mistaken, dear lady, for I'm up to my chin in work!' 'I envy you,' Margaret said, when he paused at last. 'I've nothing on earth to do, and the piano here is out of tune. But you're quite right, I don't want to see you a little bit, and I'm not jealous, nor suspicious, nor anything disagreeable. So there!' 'How nice of you!' 'I'm very nice,' Margaret answered with laughing emphasis. 'I know it. What sort of work are you doing? It's only idle curiosity, so don't tell me if you would rather not! Have you got a new railway in Brazil, or an overland route to the other side of beyond?' 'Nothing so easy! I'm brushing up my Tartar.' 'Brushing up what? I didn't hear.' 'Tartar--the Tartar language--T-a-r--'he began to spell the word. 'Yes, I hear now,' interrupted Margaret. 'But what in the world is the use of knowing it? You must be awfully hard up for something to do!' 'You can be understood from Constantinople to the Pacific Ocean if you can speak Tartar,' Logotheti answered in a matter-of-fact tone. 'I daresay! But you're not going to travel from Constantinople to the Pacific Ocean----' 'I might. One never can tell what one may like to do.' 'Oh, if it's because Tartar is useful "against the bites of sharks,"' answered Margaret, quoting Alice, 'learn it by all means!' 'Besides, there are all sorts of people in Paris. I'm sure there must be some Tartars. I might meet one, and it would be amusing to be able to talk to him.' 'Nonsense! Why should you ever meet a Tartar? How absurd you are!' 'There's one with me now--close beside me, at my elbow.' 'Don't be silly, or I'll ring off.' 'If you don't believe me, listen!' He said something in a language Margaret did not understand, and another voice answered him at once in the same tongue. Margaret started slightly and bent her brows with a puzzled and displeased look. 'Is that your teacher?' she asked with more interest in her tone than she had yet betrayed. 'Yes.' 'I begin to understand. Do you mind telling me how old she is?' 'It's not "she," it's a young man. I don't know how old he is. I'll ask him if you like.' Again she heard him speak a few incomprehensible words, which were answered very briefly in the same tongue. 'He tells me he is twenty,' Logotheti said. 'He's a good-looking young fellow. How is Mrs. Rushmore? I forgot to ask.' 'She's quite well, thank you. But I should like to know----' 'Will you be so very kind as to remember me to her, and to say that I hope to find her at home the day after to-morrow?' 'Certainly. Come to-morrow if you like. But please tell me how you happened to pick up that young Tartar. It sounds so interesting! He has such a sweet voice.' There was no reply to this question, and Margaret could not get another word from Logotheti. The communication was apparently cut off. She rang up the Central Office and asked for his number again, but the young woman soon said that she could get no answer to the call, and that something was probably wrong with the instrument of Number One-hundred-and-six-thirty-seven. Margaret was not pleased, and she was silent and absent-minded at dinner and in the evening. 'It's the reaction after London,' she said with a smile, when Mrs. Rushmore asked if anything was the matter. 'I find I am more tired than I knew, now that it's all over.' Mrs. Rushmore was quite of the same opinion, and it was still early when she declared that she herself was sleepy and that Margaret had much better go to bed and get a good night's rest. But when the Primadonna was sitting before the glass and her maid was brushing out her soft brown hair, she was not at all drowsy, and though her eyes looked steadily at their own reflection in the mirror, she was not aware that she saw anything. 'Potts,' she said suddenly, and stopped. 'Yes, ma'am?' answered the maid with meek interrogation, and without checking the regular movement of the big brush. But Margaret said no more for several moments. She enjoyed the sensation of having her hair brushed; it made her understand exactly how a cat feels when some one strokes its back steadily, and she could almost have purred with pleasure as she held her handsome head back and moved it a little in real enjoyment under each soft stroke. 'Potts,' she began again at last, 'you are not very imaginative, are you?' 'No, ma'am,' the maid answered, because it seemed to be expected of her, though she had never thought of the matter. 'Do you think you could possibly be mistaken about a voice, if you didn't see the person who was speaking?' 'In what way, ma'am?' 'I mean, do you think you could take a man's voice for a woman's at a distance?' 'Oh, I see!' Potts exclaimed. 'As it might be, at the telephone?' 'Well--at the telephone, if you like, or anywhere else. Do you think you might?' 'It would depend on the voice, ma'am,' observed Potts, with caution. 'Of course it would,' assented Margaret rather impatiently. 'Well, ma'am, I'll say this, since you ask me. When I was last at home I was mistaken in that way about my own brother, for I heard him calling to me from downstairs, and I took him for my sister Milly.' 'Oh! That's interesting!' Margaret smiled. 'What sort of voice has your brother? How old is he?' 'He's eight-and-twenty, ma'am; and as for his voice, he has a sweet counter-tenor, and sings nicely. He's a song-man at the cathedral, ma'am.' 'Really! How nice! Have you a voice too? Do you sing at all?' 'Oh, no, ma'am!' answered Potts in a deprecating tone. 'One in the family is quite enough!' Margaret vaguely wondered why, but did not inquire. 'You were quite sure that it was your brother who was speaking, I suppose,' she said. 'Oh, yes, ma'am! I looked down over the banisters, and there he was!' Margaret had the solid health of a great singer, and it would have been a serious trouble indeed that could have interfered with her unbroken and dreamless sleep during at least eight hours; but when she closed her eyes that night she was quite sure that she could not have slept at all but for Potts's comforting little story about the brother with the 'counter-tenor' voice. Yet even so, at the moment before waking in the morning, she dreamt that she was at the telephone again, and that words in a strange language came to her along the wire in a soft and caressing tone that could only be a woman's, and that for the first time in all her life she knew what it was to be jealous. The sensation was not an agreeable one. The dream-voice was silent as soon as she opened her eyes, but she had not been awake long without realising that she wished very much to see Logotheti at once, and was profoundly thankful that she had torn up her letter to Lady Maud. She was not prepared to admit, even now, that Konstantin was the ideal she should have chosen for a husband, and whom she had been describing from imagination when she had suddenly stopped writing. But, on the other hand, the mere thought that he had perhaps been amusing himself in the society of another woman all yesterday afternoon made her so angry that she took refuge in trying to believe that he had spoken the truth and that she had really been mistaken about the voice. It was all very well to talk about learning Tartar! How could she be sure that it was not modern Greek, or Turkish? She could not have known the difference. Was it so very unlikely that some charming compatriot of his should have come from Constantinople to spend a few weeks in Paris? She remembered the mysterious house in the Boulevard Péreire where he lived, the beautiful upper hall where the statue of Aphrodite stood, the doors that would not open like other doors, the strangely-disturbing encaustic painting of Cleopatra in the drawing-room--many things which she distrusted. Besides, supposing that the language was really Tartar--were there not Russians who spoke it? She thought there must be, because she had a vague idea that all Russians were more or less Tartars. There was a proverb about it. Moreover, to the English as well as to the French, Russians represent romance and wickedness. She would not go to the telephone herself, but she sent a message to Logotheti, and he came out in the cool time of the afternoon. She thought he had never looked so handsome and so little exotic since she had known him. To please her he had altogether given up the terrific ties, the lightning-struck waistcoats, the sunrise socks, and the overpowering jewellery he had formerly affected, and had resigned himself to the dictation of a London tailor, who told him what he might, could, should, and must wear for each circumstance and hour of daily life, in fine gradations, from deer-stalking to a royal garden-party. The tailor, who dressed kings and made a specialty of emperors, was a man of taste, and when he had worked on the Greek financier for a few weeks the result was satisfactory; excepting for his almond-shaped eyes no one could have told Logotheti from an Englishman by his appearance, a fact which even Potts, who disapproved of Margaret's choice, was obliged to admit. Mrs. Rushmore was amazed and pleased. 'My dear,' she said afterwards to Margaret, 'what a perfectly wonderful change! Think how he used to look! And now you might almost take him for an American gentleman!' He was received by Mrs. Rushmore and Margaret together, and he took noticeable pains to make himself agreeable to the mistress of the house. At first Margaret was pleased at this; but when she saw that he was doing his best to keep Mrs. Rushmore from leaving the room, as she probably would have done, Margaret did not like it. She was dying to ask him questions about his lessons in Tartar, and especially about his teacher, and she probably meant to cast her inquiries in such a form as would make it preferable to examine him alone rather than before Mrs. Rushmore; but he talked on and on, only pausing an instant for the good lady's expressions of interest or approval. With diabolical knowledge of her weakness he led the conversation to the subject of political and diplomatic lions, and of lions of other varieties, and made plans for bringing some noble specimens to tea with her. She was not a snob; she distrusted foreign princes, marquises, and counts, and could keep her head well in the presence of an English peer; but lions were irresistible, and Logotheti offered her a whole menagerie of them, and described their habits with minuteness, if not with veracity. He was telling her what a Prime Minister had told an Ambassador about the Pope, when Margaret rose rather abruptly. 'I'm awfully sorry,' she said to Mrs. Rushmore, by way of apology, 'but I really must have a little air. I've not been out of the house all day.' Mrs. Rushmore understood, and was not hurt, though she was sorry not to hear more. The 'dear child' should go out, by all means. Would Monsieur Logotheti stay to dinner? No? She was sorry. She had forgotten that she had a letter to write in time for the afternoon post. So she went off and left the two together. Margaret led the way out upon the lawn, and they sat down on garden chairs under a big elm-tree. She said nothing while she settled herself very deliberately, avoiding her companion's eyes till she was quite ready, and then she suddenly looked at him with a sort of blank stare that would have disconcerted any one less superlatively self-possessed than he was. It was most distinctly Madame de Cordova, the offended Primadonna, that spoke at last, and not Miss Margaret Donne, the 'nice English girl.' 'What in the world has got into you?' she inquired in a chilly tone. He opened his almond-shaped eyes a little wider, with an excellent affectation of astonishment at her words and manner. 'Have I done anything you don't like?' he asked in a tone of anxiety and concern. 'Was I rude to Mrs. Rushmore?' Margaret looked at him a moment longer, and then turned her head away in silence, as if scorning to answer such a silly question. The look of surprise disappeared from his face, and he became very gloomy and thoughtful but said nothing more. Possibly he had brought about exactly what he wished, and was satisfied to await the inevitable result. It came before long. 'I don't understand you at all,' Margaret said less icily, but with the sad little air of a woman who believes herself misunderstood. 'It was very odd yesterday, at the telephone, you know--very odd indeed. I suppose you didn't realise it. And now, this afternoon, you have evidently been doing your best to keep Mrs. Rushmore from leaving us together. You would still be telling her stories about people if I hadn't obliged you to come out!' 'Yes,' Logotheti asserted with exasperating calm and meekness, 'we should still be there.' 'You did not want to be alone with me, I suppose. There's no other explanation, and it's not a very flattering one, is it?' 'I never flatter you, dear lady,' said Logotheti gravely. 'But you do! How can you deny it? You often tell me that I make you think of the Victory in the Louvre----' 'It's quite true. If the statue had a head it would be a portrait of you.' 'Nonsense! And in your moments of enthusiasm you say that I sing better than Madame Bonanni in her best days----' 'Yes. You know quite as much as she ever did, you are a much better musician, and you began with a better voice. Therefore you sing better. I maintain it.' 'You often maintain things you don't believe,' Margaret retorted, though her manner momentarily relaxed a little. 'Only in matters of business,' answered the Greek with imperturbable calm. 'Pray, is "learning Tartar" a matter of business?' Her eyes sparkled angrily as she asked the question. Logotheti smiled; she had reached the point to which he knew she must come before long. 'Oh, yes!' he replied with alacrity. 'Of course it is.' 'That accounts for everything, since you are admitting that I need not even try to believe it was a man whom I heard speaking.' 'To tell the truth, I have some suspicions about that myself,' answered Logotheti. 'I have a great many.' Margaret laughed rather harshly. 'And you behave as if you wanted me to have more. Who is this Eastern woman? Come, be frank. She is some one from Constantinople, isn't she? A Fanariote like yourself, I daresay--an old friend who is in Paris for a few days, and would not pass through without seeing you. Say so, for heaven's sake, and don't make such a mystery about it!' 'How very ingenious women are!' observed the Greek. 'If I had thought of it I might have told you that story through the telephone yesterday. But I didn't.' Margaret was rapidly becoming exasperated, her eyes flashed, her firm young cheeks reddened handsomely, and her generous lips made scornful curves. 'Are you trying to quarrel with me?' The words had a fierce ring; he glanced at her quickly and saw how well her look agreed with her tone. She was very angry. 'If I were not afraid of boring you,' he said with quiet gravity, 'I would tell you the whole story, but----' he pretended to hesitate. He heard her harsh little laugh at once. 'Your worst enemy could not accuse you of being a bore!' she retorted. 'Oh, no! It's something quite different from boredom that I feel, I assure you!' 'I wish I thought that you cared for me enough to be jealous,' Logotheti said earnestly. 'Jealous!' No one can describe the tone of indignant contempt in which a thoroughly jealous woman disclaims the least thought of jealousy with a single word; a man must have heard it to remember what it is like, and most men have. Logotheti knew it well, and at the sound he put on an expression of meek innocence which would have done credit to a cat that had just eaten a canary. 'I'm so sorry,' he cried in a voice like a child's. 'I didn't mean to make you angry, I was only wishing aloud. Please forgive me!' 'If your idea of caring for a woman is to make her jealous----' This was such an obvious misinterpretation of his words that she stopped short and bit her lip. He sighed audibly, as if he were very sorry that he could do nothing to appease her, but this only made her feel more injured. She made an effort to speak coldly. 'You seem to forget that so long as we are supposed to be engaged I have some little claim to know how you spend your time!' 'I make no secret of what I do. That is why you were angry just now. Nothing could have been easier than for me to say that I was busy with one of the matters you suggested.' 'Oh, of course! Nothing could be easier than to tell me an untruth!' This certainly looked like the feminine retort-triumphant, and Margaret delivered it in a cutting tone. 'That is precisely what you seem to imply that I did,' Logotheti objected. 'But if what I told you was untrue your argument goes to pieces. There was no Tartar lesson, there was no Tartar teacher, and it was all a fabrication of my own!' 'Just what I think!' returned Margaret. 'It was not Tartar you spoke, and there was no teacher!' 'You have me there,' answered the Greek mildly, 'unless you would like me to produce my young friend and talk to him before you in the presence of witnesses who know his language.' 'I wish you would! I should like to see "him"! I should like to see the colour of "his" eyes and hair!' 'Black as ink,' said Logotheti. 'And you'll tell me that "his" complexion is black too, no doubt!' 'Not at all; a sort of creamy complexion, I think, though I did not pay much attention to his skin. He is a smallish chap, good-looking, with hands and feet like a woman's. I noticed that. As I told you, a doubt occurred to me at once, and I will not positively swear that it is not a girl after all. He, or she, is really a Tartar from Central Asia, and I know enough of the language to say what was necessary.' 'Necessary!' 'Yes. He--or she--came on a matter of business. What I said about a teacher was mere nonsense. Now you know the whole thing.' 'Excepting what the business was,' Margaret said incredulously. 'The business was an uncut stone,' answered Logotheti with indifference. 'He had one to sell, and I bought it. He was recommended to me by a man in Constantinople. He came to Marseilles on a French steamer with two Greek merchants who were coming to Paris, and they brought him to my door. That is the whole story. And here is the ruby. I bought it for you, because you like those things. Will you take it?' He held out what looked like a little ball of white tissue-paper, but Margaret turned her face from him. 'You treat me like a child!' she said. To her own great surprise and indignation, her voice was unsteady and she felt something burning in her eyes. She was almost frightened at the thought that she might be going to cry, out of sheer mortification. Logotheti said nothing for a moment. He began to unroll the paper from the precious stone, but changed his mind, wrapped it up again, and put it back into his watch-pocket before he spoke. 'I did not mean it as you think,' he said softly. She turned her eyes without moving her head, till she could just see that he was leaning forward, resting his wrists on his knees, bending his head, and apparently looking down at his loosely hanging hands. His attitude expressed dejection and disappointment. She was glad of it. He had no right to think that he could make her as angry as she still was, angry even to tears, and then bribe her to smile again when he was tired of teasing her. Her eyes turned away again, and she did not answer him. 'I make mistakes sometimes,' he said, speaking still lower, 'I know I do. When I am with you I cannot be always thinking of what I say. It's too much to ask, when a man is as far gone as I am!' 'I should like to believe that,' Margaret said, without looking at him. 'Is it so hard to believe?' he asked so gently that she only just heard the words. 'You don't make it easy, you know,' said she with a little defiance, for she felt that she was going to yield before long. 'I don't quite know how to. You're not in the least capricious--and yet----' 'You're mistaken,' Margaret answered, turning to him suddenly. 'I'm the most capricious woman in the world! Yesterday I wrote a long letter to a friend, and then I suddenly tore it up--there were ever so many pages! I daresay that if I had written just the same letter this morning, I should have sent it. If that is not caprice, what is it?' 'It may have been wisdom to tear it up,' Logotheti suggested. 'I'm not sure. I never ask myself questions about what I do. I hate people who are always measuring their wretched little souls and then tinkering their consciences to make them fit! I don't believe I wish to do anything really wrong, and so I do exactly what I like, always!' Possibly she had forgotten that she had called herself a wicked woman only yesterday; but that had been before the conversation at the telephone. 'If you will only go on doing what you like,' Logotheti answered, 'it will give me the greatest pleasure in the world to help you. I only ask one kindness.' 'You have no right to ask me anything to-day. You've been quite the most disagreeable person this afternoon that I ever met in my life.' 'I know I have,' Logotheti answered with admirable contrition. 'I'll wait a day or two before I ask anything; perhaps you will have forgiven me by that time.' 'I'm not sure. What was the thing you were going to ask?' He was silent now that she wished to know his thought. 'Have you forgotten it already?' she inquired with a little laugh that was encouraging rather than contemptuous, for her curiosity was roused. They looked at each other at last, and all at once she felt the deeply disturbing sense of his near presence which she had missed for three days, though she was secretly a little afraid and ashamed of it; and to-day it had not come while her anger had lasted. But now it was stronger than ever before, perhaps because it came so unexpectedly, and it drew her to him, under the deep shadow of the elm-tree that made strange reflections in their eyes--moving reflections of fire when the lowering sun struck in between the leaves, and sudden, still depths when the foliage stirred in the breeze and screened the glancing ray. He had played upon her moods for an hour, as a musician touches a delicate and responsive instrument, and she had taken all for earnest and had been angry and hurt, and was reconciled again at his will. Yet he had not done it all to try his power over her, and surely not in any careless contempt of her weaknesses. He cared for her in his way, as he was able, and his love was great, if not of the most noble sort. He was strong, and she waked his strength with fire; he worshipped life, and her vital beauty thrilled the inner stronghold of his being; when she moved, his passionate intuition felt and followed the lines of her moving grace; if she rested, motionless and near him, his waking dream enfolded her in a deep caress. He felt no high and mystic emotion when he thought of her; he had never read of St. Clement's celestial kingdom, where man and woman are to be one for ever, and together neither woman nor man, for such a world could never seem heavenly to him, whose love was altogether earthly. Yet it was Greek love, not Roman; its deity was beauty, not lust; the tutelary goddess of its temple was not Venus the deadly, the heavy-limbed, with a mouth like a red wound and slumbrous, sombre eyes, but Cyprian Aphrodite, immortal and golden, the very life of the sparkling sky itself sown in the foam of the sea. Between the two lies all the distance that separates gross idolatry from the veneration of the symbol; the gulf that divides the animal materialism of a twentieth-century rake from the half-divine dreams of genius; the revolting coarseness of Catullus at his worst from himself at his best, or from an epigram of Meleager or Antipater of Sidon; a witty Greek comedy adapted by Plautus to the brutal humour of Rome from Swinburne's immortal _Atalanta in Calydon_. Twenty-five centuries of history, Hellenic, Byzantine and modern, have gone to make the small band of cultivated Greeks of to-day what they are, two thousand and five hundred years of astounding vicissitudes, of aristocracy, democracy and despotism, of domination and subjection, mastery, slavery and revolution, ending in freedom more than half regained. We need not wonder why they are not like us, whose forefathers of a few centuries ago were still fighting the elements for their existence, and living and thinking like barbarians. The eyes of the Greek and the great artist met, and they looked long at one another in the shade of the elm-tree on the lawn, as the sun was going down. Only a few minutes had passed since Margaret had been very angry, and had almost believed that she was going to quarrel finally, and break her engagement, and be free; and now she could not even turn her face away, and when her hand felt his upon it, she let him draw it slowly to him; and half unconsciously she followed her hand, bending towards him sideways from her seat, nearer and nearer, and very near. And as she put up her lips to his, he would that she might drink his soul from him at one deep draught--even as one of his people's poets wished, in the world's spring-time, long ago. It had been a strange love-making. They had been engaged during more than two months, they were young, vital, passionate; yet they had never kissed before that evening hour under the elm-tree at Versailles. Perhaps it was for this that Konstantin had played, or at least, for the certainty it meant to him, if he had doubted that she was sincere. CHAPTER IV Without offending Mr. Van Torp, Lady Maud managed not to see him again for some time, and when he understood, as he soon did, that this was her wish, he made no attempt to force himself upon her. She was probably thinking over what he had said, and in the end she would exert her influence as he had begged her to do. He was thoroughly persuaded that there was nothing unfair in his proposal and that, when she was convinced that he was right, she would help him. In a chequered career that had led to vast success, he had known people who called themselves honest and respectable but who had done unpardonable things for a hundredth part of what he offered. Like all real financiers, he knew money as a force, not as a want, very much as any strong working man knows approximately how much he can lift or carry, and reckons with approximate certainty on his average strength. To speak in his own language, Mr. Van Torp knew about how many horse-power could be got out of any sum of money, from ten cents to more millions than he chose to speak of in his own case. And once more, before I go on with this tale, let me say that his friendship for Lady Maud was so honest that he would never have asked her to do anything he thought 'low down.' To paraphrase a wise saying of Abraham Lincoln's, some millionaires mean to be bad all the time, but are not, and some are bad all the time but do not mean to be, but no millionaires mean to be bad all the time and really are. Rufus Van Torp certainly did not mean to be, according to his lights, though in his life he had done several things which he did not care to remember; and the righteous had judged him with the ferocious integrity of men who never take a penny unjustly nor give one away under any circumstances. But when he had taken the first step towards accomplishing his purpose, he was very much at a loss as to the next, and he saw that he had never undertaken anything so difficult since he had reorganised the Nickel Trust, trebled the stock, cleared a profit of thirty millions and ruined nobody but the small-fry, who of course deserved it on the principle that people who cannot keep money ought not to have any. Some unkind newspaper man had then nicknamed it the Brass Trust, and had called him Brassy Van Torp; but it is of no use to throw mud at the Golden Calf, for the dirt soon dries to dust and falls off, leaving the animal as beautifully shiny as ever. Mr. Van Torp did not quite see how he could immediately apply the force of money to further his plans with effect. He knew his adversary's financial position in Europe much too well to think of trying to attack him on that ground; and besides, in his rough code it would not be fair play to do that. It was 'all right' to ruin a hostile millionaire in order to get his money. That was 'business.' But to ruin him for the sake of a woman was 'low down.' It would be much more 'all right' to shoot him, after fair and due warning, and to carry off the lady. That was impossible in a civilised country, of course; but as it occurred to him, while he was thinking, that he might find it convenient to go somewhere in a hurry by sea, he bought a perfectly new yacht that was for sale because the owner had died of heart disease the week after she was quite ready to take him to the Mediterranean. The vessel was at least as big as one of the ocean liners of fifty years ago, and had done twenty-two and one-tenth knots on her trial. Mr. Van Torp took her over as she was, with her officers, crew, cook and stores, and rechristened her. She had been launched as the _Alwayn_; he called her the _Lancashire Lass_--a bit of sentiment on his part, for that was the name of a mare belonging to Lady Maud's father, which he had once ridden bareback when he was in an amazing hurry. He had one interview with the Captain. 'See here, Captain,' he said, 'I may not want to take a trip this season. I'm that sort of a man. I may or I may not. But if I do want you, I'll want you quick. See?' With the last word, he looked up suddenly, and the Captain 'saw,' for he met a pair of eyes that astonished him. 'Yes, I see,' he answered mechanically. 'And if you're in one place with your boat, and I wire that I want you in another, I'd like you to get there right away,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'Yes, sir.' 'They say she'll do twenty-two and a tenth,' continued the owner, 'but when I wire I want you I'd like her to do as much more as she can without bursting a lung. If you don't think you've got the kind of engineer who'll keep her red-hot, tell me right off and we'll get another. And don't you fuss about burning coal, Captain. And see that the crew get all they can eat and not a drop of drink but tea and coffee, and if you let 'em go on shore once in a way, see that they come home right side up with care, Captain, and make each of 'em say "truly rural" and "British Constitution" before he goes to bed, and if he can't, you just unship him, or whatever you call it on a boat. Understand, Captain?' The Captain understood and kept his countenance. 'Now, I want to know one thing,' continued the new owner. 'What's the nearest sea-port to Bayreuth, Bavaria?' 'Venice,' answered the Captain without the least hesitation, and so quickly that Mr. Van Torp was immediately suspicious. 'If that's so, you're pretty smart,' he observed. 'You can telephone to Cook's office, sir, and ask them,' said the Captain quietly. The instrument was on the table at Mr. Van Torp's elbow. He looked sharply at the Captain, as he unhooked the receiver and set it to his ear. In a few seconds communication was given. 'Cook's office? Yes. Yes. This is Mr. Van Torp, Rufus Van Torp of New York. Yes. I want to know what's the nearest sea-port to Bayreuth, Bavaria. Yes. Yes. That's just what I want to know. Yes. I'll hold the wire while you look it up.' He was not kept waiting long. 'Venice, you say? You're sure you're right, I suppose? Yes. Yes. I was only asking. No thank you. If I want a ticket I'll look in myself. Much obliged. Good-bye.' He hung the receiver in its place again, and turned to his Captain with a different expression, in which admiration and satisfaction were quite apparent. 'Well,' he said, 'you're right. It's Venice. I must say that, for an Englishman, you're quite smart.' The Captain smiled quietly, but did not think it worth while to explain that the last owner with whom he had sailed had been Wagner-mad and had gone to Bayreuth regularly. Moreover, he had judged his man already. 'Am I to proceed to Venice at once, sir?' he asked. 'As quick as you can, Captain.' The Englishman looked at his watch deliberately, and made a short mental calculation before he said anything. It was eleven in the morning. 'I can get to sea by five o'clock this afternoon, sir. Will that do?' Mr. Van Torp was careful not to betray the least surprise. 'Yes,' he said, as if he were not more than fairly satisfied, 'that'll do nicely.' 'Very well, sir, then I'll be off. It's about three thousand miles, and she's supposed to do that at eighteen knots with her own coal. Say eight days. But as this is her maiden trip we must make allowance for having to stop the engines once or twice. Good-morning, sir.' 'Good-day, Captain. Get in some coal and provisions as soon as you arrive in Venice. I may want to go to Timbuctoo, or to Andaman Islands or something. I'm that sort of a man. I'm not sure where I'll go. Good-bye.' The Captain stopped at the first telegraph office on his way to the Waterloo Station and telegraphed both to his chief engineer, Mr. M'Cosh, and his chief mate, Mr. Johnson, for he thought it barely possible that one or the other might be ashore. 'Must have steam by 4 P.M. to-day to sail at once long voyage. Coming next train. Owner in hurry. Send ashore for my wash. Brown, Captain.' When the clocks struck five on shore that afternoon, and the man at the wheel struck two bells from the wheel-house, and the look-out forward repeated them on the ship's bell, all according to the most approved modern fashion on large steamers, the beautiful _Lancashire Lass_ was steaming out upon Southampton Water. Out of the merest curiosity Mr. Van Torp telegraphed to Cowes to be informed of the exact moment at which his yacht was under way, and before six o'clock he had a message. 'Yacht sailed at four thirty-nine.' The new owner was so much pleased that he actually smiled, for Captain Brown had been twenty-one minutes better than his word. 'I guess he'll do,' thought Mr. Van Torp. 'I only hope I may need him.' He was not at all sure that he should need the _Lancashire Lass_ and Captain Brown; but it has often been noticed that in the lives of born financiers even their caprices often turn out to their advantage, and that their least logical impulses in business matters are worth more than the sober judgment of ordinary men. As for Captain Brown, he was a quiet little person with a rather pink face and sparkling blue eyes, and he knew his business. In fact he had passed as Extra Master. He knew that he was in the service of one of the richest men in the world, and that he commanded a vessel likely to turn out one of the finest yachts afloat, and he did not mean to lose such a berth either by piling up his ship, or by being slow to do whatever his owner wished done, within the boundaries of the possible; but it had not occurred to him that his owner might order him to exceed the limits of anything but mere possibility, such, for instance, as those of the law, civil, criminal, national, or international. Mr. Van Torp had solid nerves, but when he had sent his yacht to the only place where he thought he might possibly make use of it, he realised that he was wasting valuable time while Logotheti was making all the running, and his uncommon natural energy, finding nothing to work upon as yet, made him furiously impatient. It seemed to hum and sing in his head, like the steam in an express engine when it is waiting to start. He had come over to England on an impulse, as soon as he had heard of Cordova's engagement. Until then he had not believed that she would ever accept the Greek, and when he learned from Lady Maud's letter that the fact was announced, he 'saw red,' and his resolution to prevent the marriage was made then and there. He had no idea how he should carry it out, but he knew that he must either succeed or come to grief in the attempt, for as long as he had any money left, or any strength, he would spend both lavishly for that one purpose. Yet he did not know how to begin, and his lack of imagination exasperated him beyond measure. He was sleepless and lost his appetite, which had never happened to him before; he stayed on in London instead of going down to his place in Derbyshire, because he was always sure that he meant to start for the Continent in a few hours, with an infallible plan for success; but he did not go. The most absurd schemes suggested themselves. He was disgusted with what he took for his own stupidity, and he tried to laugh at the sentimental vein that ran through all his thoughts as the thread through a string of beads. He grew hot and cold as he recalled the time when he had asked Margaret to marry him, and he had frightened her and she had fled and locked herself into her own room; his heart beat faster when he thought of certain kindly words she had said to him since then, and on which he built up a great hope now, though they had meant nothing more to her than a general forgiveness, where she really had very little to forgive. A genuine offer of marriage from a millionaire is not usually considered an insult, but since she had chosen to look at it in that light, he was humble enough to be grateful for her pardon. If he had not been so miserably in love he would have been even more amazed and alarmed at his own humility, for he had not shown signs of such weakness before. In a life which had been full of experience, though it was not yet long, he had convinced himself that the 'softening' which comes with years, and of which kind people often speak with so much feeling, generally begins in the brain; and the thought that he himself was growing less hard than he had been, already filled him with apprehension. He asked himself why he had withdrawn from the Nickel Trust, unless it was because his faculties were failing prematurely. At the mere thought, he craved the long-familiar excitement of making money, and risking it, and he wished he had a railway or a line of steamers to play with; since he could not hit upon the scheme for which he was racking his brains. For once in his life, too, he felt lonely, and to make it worse he had not received a line from his friend Lady Maud since she had abruptly left him in her own drawing-room. He wondered whether she had yet made up her mind to help him. He was living in a hotel in London, though he did not like it. Americans, as a rule, would a little rather live in hotels than in houses of their own, perhaps because it is less trouble and no dearer, at least not in American cities. Housekeeping in New York can be done with less risk by a company than by an individual, for companies do not succumb to nervous prostration, whatever may happen to their employees. But Mr. Van Torp was an exception to the rule, for he liked privacy, and even solitude, and though few men were better able to face a newspaper reporter in fair fight, he very much preferred not to be perpetually on the look-out lest he should be obliged to escape by back stairs and side doors, like a hunted thief. He felt safer from such visits in London than in New York or Paris, but only relatively so. He was meditating on the future one morning, over an almost untouched breakfast, between nine and ten o'clock, when his man Stemp brought a visiting card. 'Reporter?' he inquired, without looking up, as he leaned far back in his chair, his gaze riveted on the cold buttered toast. 'No, sir. It's some sort of a foreigner, and he talks a heathen language.' 'Oh, he does, does he?' The question was asked in a tone of far-away indifference. 'Yes, sir.' A long silence followed. Mr. Van Torp still stared at the buttered toast and appeared to have forgotten all about the card. Stemp endeavoured very tactfully to rouse him from his reverie. 'Shall I get you some more hot toast, sir?' he inquired very gently. 'Toast? No. No toast.' He did not move; his steady gaze did not waver. Stemp waited a long time, motionless, with his little salver in his hand. At last Van Torp changed his position, threw his head so far back that it rested on the top of the chair, thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his trousers and stared at the ceiling as intently as he had gazed at the plate. Then he spoke to his man again. 'Stemp.' 'Yes, sir.' 'What do you suppose that fellow wants, now, Stemp? Do you suppose he thinks I speak his heathen language? What does he come bothering me for? What's the good?' 'Well, sir,' answered Stemp, 'I can't quite say, but I believe there's something written on the card if you care to look at it, sir, and he has a person with him that speaks a little English. Shall I throw him out, sir?' Stemp asked the question with such perfect gravity that, being an Englishman, he might very well have been thought to mean the words literally. But he did not. He merely adopted Mr. Van Torp's usual way of expressing that the master was not at home. 'I'll look at the card, anyway.' He stretched out one hand without turning his eyes towards it; the careful Stemp promptly brought the little salver into contact with the large fingers, which picked up the card and raised it deliberately to the line of vision. By this means Mr. Van Torp saved himself the trouble of turning his head. It was a rather large card, bearing in the middle two or three odd-looking signs which meant nothing to him, but underneath them he read in plain characters the single work 'Barak.' 'Barrack!' grumbled the American. 'Rubbish! Why not "teapot," or "rocking-horse," or anything else that's appropriate?' As he paused for an answer, Stemp ventured to speak. 'Can't say, sir. P'rhaps it's the only word he knows, sir, so he's had it printed.' Van Torp turned his head at last, and his eyes glared unpleasantly as he examined his valet's face. But the Englishman's features were utterly impassive; if they expressed anything it was contempt for the heathen person outside, who only knew one word of English. Mr. Van Torp seemed satisfied and glanced at the card again. 'I guess you didn't mean to be funny,' he said, as if acknowledging that he had made a mistake. 'Certainly not, sir,' answered Stemp, drawing himself up with an air of injured pride, for he felt that his professional manners were suspected, if not actually criticised. 'That's all right,' observed Mr. Van Torp, turning the card over. 'Oh, the writing's on the back, I see. Yes. Now, that's very curious, I must say,' he said, after reading the words. 'That's very curious,' he repeated, laying strong and equal emphasis on the last two words. 'Ask him to walk in, Stemp.' 'Yes, sir. With the man who speaks English for him, I suppose, sir?' 'No. He can wait outside till I want him, and you can go away too. I'll see the man alone.' 'Very good, sir.' As the valet went out Mr. Van Torp turned his chair half round without getting up, so that he sat facing the door. A moment later Stemp had ushered in the visitor, and was gone. A slim youth came forward without boldness, but without the least timidity, as if he were approaching an equal. He had an oval face, no moustache, a complexion like cream, short and thick black hair and very clear dark eyes that met the American's fearlessly. He was under the average height, and he wore rather thin, loose grey clothes that had been made by a good tailor. His hands and feet were smaller than a European's. 'So you're Mr. Barrack,' Mr. Van Torp said, nodding pleasantly. The young face smiled, and the parted lips showed quite perfect teeth. 'Barak,' answered the young man, giving the name the right sound. 'Yes, I understand, but I can't pronounce it like you. Take a chair, Mr. Barrack, and draw up to the table.' The young man understood the gesture that explained the speech and sat down. 'So you're a friend of Mr. Logotheti's, and he advised you to come to me? Understand? Logotheti of Paris.' Barak smiled again, and nodded quickly as he recognised the name. The American watched his face attentively. 'All right,' he continued. 'You can trot out your things now, right on the table-cloth here.' He had seen enough of Indians and Mexicans in his youth to learn the simple art of using signs, and he easily made his meaning clear to his visitor. Barak produced a little leathern bag, not much bigger than an ordinary purse, and fastened with thin thongs, which he slowly untied. Mr. Van Torp watched the movements of the delicate fingers with great interest, for he was an observant man. 'With those hands,' he silently reflected, 'it's either a lady or a thief, or both.' Barak took several little twists of tissue paper from the bag, laid them in a row on the table-cloth, and then began to open them one by one. Each tiny parcel contained a ruby, and when the young man counted them there were five in all, and they were fine stones if they were genuine; but Mr. Van Torp was neither credulous nor easily surprised. When Barak looked to see what impression he had produced on such a desirable buyer, he was disappointed. 'Nice,' said the American carelessly; 'nice rubies, but I've seen better. I wonder if they're real, anyway. They've found out how to make them by chemistry now, you know.' But Barak understood nothing, of course, beyond the fact that Mr. Van Torp seemed indifferent, which was a common trick of wily customers; but there was something about this one's manner that was not assumed. Barak took the finest of the stones with the tips of his slender young fingers, laid it in the palm of his other hand, and held it under Mr. Van Torp's eyes, looking at him with an inquiring expression. But the American shook his head. 'No rubies to-day, thank you,' he said. Barak nodded quietly, and at once began to wrap up the stones, each in its own bit of paper, putting the twists back into the bag one by one. Then he drew the thongs together and tied them in a neat sort of knot which Mr. Van Torp had never seen. The young man then rose to go, but the millionaire stopped him. 'Say, don't go just yet. I'll show you a ruby that'll make you sit up.' He rose as he spoke, and Barak understood his smile and question, and waited. Mr. Van Torp went into the next room, and came back almost immediately, bringing a small black morocco case, which he set on the table and unlocked with a little key that hung on his watch-chain. He was not fond of wearing jewellery, and the box held all his possessions of that sort, and was not full. There were three or four sets of plain studs and links; there were half a dozen very big gold collar-studs; there was a bit of an old gold chain, apparently cut off at each end, and having one cheap little diamond set in each link; and there was a thin old wedding-ring that must have been a woman's; besides a few other valueless trinkets, all lying loose and in confusion. Mr. Van Torp shook the box a little, poked the contents about with one large finger, and soon found an uncut red stone about the size of a hazel-nut, which he took out and placed on the white cloth before his visitor. 'Now that's what I call a ruby,' he said, with a smile of satisfaction. 'Got any like that, young man? Because if you have I'll talk to you, maybe. Yes,' he continued, watching the Oriental's face, 'I told you I'd make you sit up. But I didn't mean to scare you bald-headed. What's the matter with you, anyway? Your eyes are popping out of your head. Do you feel as if you were going to have a fit? I say! Stemp!' Barak was indeed violently affected by the sight of the uncut ruby, and his face had changed in a startling way; a great vein like a whipcord suddenly showed itself on his smooth forehead straight up and down; his lids had opened so wide that they uncovered the white of the eye almost all round the iris; he was biting his lower lip so that it was swollen and blood-red against the little white teeth; and a moment before Mr. Van Torp had called out to his servant, the young man had reeled visibly, and would perhaps have collapsed if the American had not caught the slender waist and supported the small head against his shoulder with his other hand. Stemp was not within hearing. He had been told to go away, and he had gone, and meant to be rung for when he was wanted, for he had suffered a distinct slight in being suspected of a joke. Therefore Mr. Van Torp called to him in vain, and meanwhile stood where he was with his arm round Barak, and Barak's head on his shoulder; but as no one came at his call, he lifted the slim figure gently and carried it towards the sofa, and while he was crossing the large room with his burden the palpable truth was forced upon him that his visitor's slimness was more apparent than real, and an affair of shape rather than of pounds. Before he had quite reached the lounge, however, Barak stirred, wriggled in his arms, and sprang to the floor and stood upright, blinking a little, like a person waking from a dream, but quite steady, and trying to smile in an apologetic sort of way, though evidently still deeply disturbed. Mr. Van Torp smiled, too, as if to offer his congratulations on the quick recovery. 'Feel better now?' he inquired in a kindly tone, and nodded. 'I wonder what on earth you're up to, young lady?' he soliloquised, watching Barak's movements. He was much too cautious and wise to like being left alone for many minutes with a girl, and a good-looking one, who went about London dressed in men's clothes and passed herself for a ruby merchant. Mr. Van Torp was well aware that he was not a safe judge of precious stones, that the rubies he had seen might very well be imitation, and that the girl's emotion at the sight of the rough stone might be only a piece of clever acting, the whole scene having been planned by a gang of thieves for the purpose of robbing him of that very ruby, which was worth a large sum, even in his estimation; for it was nearly the counterpart of the one he had given Lady Maud, though still uncut. Therefore he returned to the table and slipped the gem into his pocket before going to the door to see whether Stemp was within hail. But Barak now understood what he was going to do, and ran before him, and stood before the door in an attitude which expressed entreaty so clearly that Mr. Van Torp was puzzled. 'Well,' he said, standing still and looking into the beautiful imploring eyes, 'what on earth do you want now, Miss Barrack? Try and explain yourself.' A very singular conversation by signs now began. Barak pointed to the waistcoat-pocket into which he had put the stone. The matter concerned that, of course, and Van Torp nodded. Next, though after considerable difficulty, she made him understand that she was asking how he had got it, and when this was clear, he answered by pretending to count out coins with his right hand on the palm of his left to explain that he had bought it. There was no mistaking this, and Barak nodded quickly and went on to her next question. She wanted to know what kind of man had sold him the ruby. She improvised a pretty little dumb show in which she represented the seller and Mr. Van Torp the buyer of the ruby, and then by gestures she asked if the man who sold it was tall. Van Torp raised his hand several inches higher than his own head. He had bought the ruby from a very tall man. Putting both hands to her chin and then drawing them down as if stroking a long beard, she inquired if the man had one, and again the answer was affirmative. She nodded excitedly and pointed first to Van Torp's sandy hair and then to her own short black locks. The American pointed to his own, and then touched his watch-chain and smiled. The man's hair was fair, and even golden. By a similar process she ascertained that his eyes were blue and not black, and her excitement grew. Last of all she tried to ask where the man was, but it was some time before she could make Mr. Van Torp understand what she meant. As if to help her out of her difficulty, the sun shone through the clouds at that moment and streamed into the room; she pointed to it at once, turned her back to it, and then held out her right hand to indicate the east, and her left to the west. 'Oh, yes,' said Van Torp, who had seen Indians do the same thing, 'it was west of here that I bought it of him, a good way west.' He pointed in that direction, and thrust out his arm as if he would make it reach much further if he could. At this Barak looked deeply disappointed. Several times, to show that she meant London, or at least England, she pointed to the floor at her feet and looked inquiringly at Van Torp, but he shook his head and pointed to the west again, and made a gesture that meant crossing something. He spoke to her as if she could understand. 'I've got your meaning,' he said. 'You're after the big man with the yellow beard, who is selling rubies from the same place, and has very likely gone off with yours. He looked like a bad egg in spite of his handsome face.' He turned his eyes thoughtfully to the window. Barak plucked gently at his sleeve and pretended to write in the palm of her left hand, and then went through all the descriptive gestures again, and then once more pretended to write, and coaxingly pushed him towards a little table on which she saw writing materials. 'You'd like to have his address, would you, Miss Barrack? I wonder why you don't call in your interpreter and tell me so. It would be much simpler than all this dumb crambo.' Once more he made a step towards the door, but she caught at his sleeve, and entreated him in her own language not to call any one; and her voice was so deliciously soft and beseeching that he yielded, and sat down at the small table and wrote out an address from memory. He handed her the half-sheet of paper when he had dried the writing and had looked over it carefully. 'Poor little thing!' he said in a tone of pity. 'If you ever find him he'll eat you.' [Illustration: "'You want my blessing, do you, Miss Barrack?'"] Barak again showed signs of great emotion when she put the address into an inside pocket of her man's coat, but it was not of the same kind as before. She took Van Torp's big hand in both her own, and, bending down, she laid it on her head, meaning that he might dispose of her life ever afterwards. But he did not understand. 'You want my blessing, do you, Miss Barrack? Some people don't think Brassy Van Torp's blessing worth much, young lady, but you're welcome to it, such as it is.' He patted her thick hair and smiled as she looked up, and her eyes were dewy with tears. 'That's all right, my dear,' he said. 'Don't cry!' She smiled too, because his tone was kind, and, standing up, she took out her little leathern bag again quickly, emptied the twists of paper into her hand, selected one by touch, and slipped the rest back. She unwrapped a large stone and held it up to the light, turning it a little as she did so. Van Torp watched her with curiosity, and with an amused suspicion that she had perhaps played the whole scene in order to mollify him and induce him to buy something. So many people had played much more elaborate tricks in the hope of getting money from him, and the stones might be imitations after all, in spite of Logotheti's pencilled line of recommendation. But Barak's next action took Van Torp by surprise. To his amazement, she pressed the ruby lightly to her heart, then to her lips, and last of all to her forehead, and before he knew what she was doing she had placed it in his right hand and closed his fingers upon it. It was a thank-offering. 'Nonsense!' objected the millionaire, smiling, but holding out the stone to her. 'It's very sweet of you, but you don't mean it, and I don't take presents like that. Why, it's worth a thousand pounds in Bond Street any day!' But she put her hands behind her back and shook her head, to show that she would not take it back. Then with her empty hand she again touched her heart, her lips, and forehead, and turned towards the door. 'Here, stop!' said Mr. Van Torp, going after her. 'I can't take this thing! See here, I say! Put it back into your pocket!' She turned and met him, and made a gesture of protest and entreaty, as if earnestly begging him to keep the gem. He looked at her keenly, and he was a judge of humanity, and saw that she was hurt by his refusal. As a last resource, he took out his pocket-book and showed her a quantity of folded bank-notes. 'Well,' he said, 'since you insist, Miss Barrack, I'll buy the stone of you, but I'll be everlastingly jiggered if I'll take it for nothing.' Barak's eyes suddenly flashed in a most surprising way, her lower lip pouted, and her cheek faintly changed colour, as a drop of scarlet pomegranate juice will tinge a bowl of cream. She made one step forwards, plucked the stone from his fingers, rather than took it, and with a quick, but girlishly awkward movement, threw it towards the window as hard as she could, stamping angrily with her little foot at the same moment. Mr. Van Torp was extremely disconcerted, as he sometimes was by the sudden actions of the sex he did not understand. Fortunately the stone hit the wall instead of going out of the window. 'I'm really very sorry, Miss Barrack,' he said in a tone of humble apology, and he went quickly and picked up the gem. 'I hadn't quite understood, you see.' She watched him, and drew back instinctively towards the door, as if expecting that he would again try to give it back to her. But he shook his head now, bowed with all the grace he could affect, which was little, and by way of making her feel that he accepted the gift, he pressed it to his heart, as she had done, and to his lips, but not to his forehead, because he was afraid that might cause some new mistake, as he did not know what the gesture meant. Barak's face changed instantly; she smiled, nodded, and waved her hand to him, to say that it was all right, and that she was quite satisfied. Then she made a sort of salute that he thought very graceful indeed, as if she were taking something from near the floor and laying it on her forehead, and she laughed softly and was out of the room and had shut the door before he could call her back again. He stood still in the middle of the room, looking at the gem in his hand with an expression of grave doubt. 'Well,' he said to himself, and his lips formed the words, though no sound articulated them, 'that's a queer sort of a morning's work, anyway.' He reflected that the very last thing he had ever expected was a present of a fine ruby from a pretty heathen girl in man's clothes, recommended to him by Logotheti. Though he almost laughed at the thought when it occurred to him, he did not like the idea of keeping the stone; yet he did not know what to do with it, for it was more than probable that he was never to see Barak again, and if he ever did, it was at least likely that she would refuse to take back her gift, and as energetically as on the first occasion. At that moment it occurred to him that he might sell it to a dealer and give the proceeds to Lady Maud for her good work. His recollections of Sunday School were very misty, poor man, but a story came back to him about some one who had observed that something valuable might have been sold and the money given to the poor. If he had remembered the rest, and especially that the person who made the suggestion had been Judas Iscariot, he would certainly have hesitated, for he would have been sure that there was something wrong with any advice that came from that quarter. But, happily for the poor, the name of Judas had dropped out of his memory in connexion with the incident. 'At least it will do some good to somebody, and I shall not be keeping what I've no right to.' A mere acquaintance, judging him by his hard face and his extraordinary financial past, would not have believed that such a simple and highly moral reflexion could occur to him. But Lady Maud, who knew him, would have given him credit for this and much more, even though she felt that he had lately tempted her to do something which her father would call dishonourable, and that the temptation had not yet quite taken itself off to the bottomless pit, where temptations are kept in pickle by the devil's housekeeper. Mr. Van Torp took his hat and gloves, but as he was really a good American, he had no stick to take; and he went out without even telling Stemp that he was going. In spite of what Londoners were calling the heat, he walked, and did not even feel warm; for in the first place he had lately come from Washington and New York, where a Hottentot would be very uncomfortable in July, and, moreover, he had never been at all sensitive to heat or cold, and lived as soberly as an Arab in the desert. Therefore London seemed as pleasantly cool to him with the thermometer at eighty as it seems to a newly landed Anglo-Indian who has lately seen the mercury at a hundred and thirty-five on the shady side of the verandah. He walked up at a leisurely pace from his hotel by the river to Piccadilly and Bond Street, and he entered a jeweller's shop of modest appearance but ancient reputation, which had been in the same place for nearly a century, and had previously been on the other side of the street. Outside, two well-dressed men were looking at the things in the window; within, a broad-shouldered, smart-looking man with black hair and dressed in perfectly new blue serge was sitting by the counter with his back to the door, talking with the old jeweller himself. He turned on the chair when he heard the newcomer's step, and Mr. Van Torp found himself face to face with Konstantin Logotheti, whom he had supposed to be in Paris. 'Well,' he said, without betraying the surprise he felt, 'this is what I call a very pleasant accident, Mr. Logotheti.' The Greek rose and shook hands, and the American did not fail to observe on the counter a small piece of tissue paper on which lay an uncut stone, much larger than the one he had in his pocket. 'If you are in any hurry,' said Logotheti politely, 'I don't mind waiting in the least. Mr. Pinney and I are in the midst of a discussion that may never end, and I believe neither of us has anything in the world to do.' Mr. Pinney smiled benignly and put in a word in the mercantile plural, which differs from that of royalty in being used every day. 'The truth is, we are not very busy just at this time of the year,' he said. 'That's very kind of you, Mr. Logotheti,' said Van Torp, answering the latter, 'but I'm not really in a hurry, thank you.' The stress he laid on the word 'really' might have led one to the conclusion that he was pretending to be, but was not. He sat down deliberately at a little distance, took off his hat, and looked at the gem on the counter. 'I don't know anything about such things, of course,' he said in a tone of reflexion, 'but I should think that was quite a nice ruby.' Again Mr. Pinney smiled benignly, for Mr. Van Torp had dealt with him for years. 'It's a very fine stone indeed, sir,' he said, and then turned to Logotheti again. 'I think we can undertake to cut it for you in London,' he said. 'I will weigh it and give you a careful estimate.' As a matter of fact, before Van Torp entered, Logotheti had got so far as the question of setting the gem for a lady's ring, but Mr. Pinney, like all the great jewellers, was as discreet and tactful as a professional diplomatist. How could he be sure that one customer might like another to know about a ring ordered for a lady? If Logotheti preferred secrecy, he would only have to assent and go away, as if leaving the ruby to be cut, and he could look in again when it was convenient; and this was what he at once decided to do. 'I think you're right, Mr. Pinney,' he said. 'I shall leave it in your hands. That's really all,' he added, turning to Mr. Van Torp. 'Really? My business won't take long either, and we'll go together, if you like, and have a little chat. I only came to get another of those extra large collar-studs you make for me, Mr. Pinney. Have you got another?' 'We always keep them in stock for your convenience, sir,' answered the famous jeweller, opening a special little drawer behind the counter and producing a very small morocco case. Mr. Van Torp did not even open it, and had already laid down the money, for he knew precisely what it cost. 'Thanks,' he said. 'You're always so obliging about little things, Mr. Pinney.' 'Thank you, sir. We do our best. Good-morning, sir, good morning.' The two millionaires went out together. Two well-dressed men stood aside to let them pass and then entered the shop. 'Which way?' asked Logotheti. 'Your way,' answered the American. 'I've nothing to do.' 'Nor have I,' laughed the Greek. 'Nothing in the world! What can anybody find to do in London at this time of year?' I'm sure I don't know,' echoed Van Torp, pleasantly. 'I supposed you were on the Continent somewhere.' 'And I thought you were in America, and so, of course, we meet at old Pinney's in London!' 'Really! Did you think I was in America? Your friend, the heathen girl in boy's clothes, brought me your card this morning. I supposed you knew I was here.' 'No, but I thought you might be, within six months, and I gave her several cards for people I know. So she found you out! She's a born ferret--she would find anything. Did you buy anything of her?' 'No. I'm not buying rubies to-day. Much obliged for sending her, all the same. You take an interest in her, I suppose, Mr. Logotheti? Is that so?' 'I?' Logotheti laughed a little. 'No, indeed! Those days were over long ago. I'm engaged to be married.' 'By the bye, yes. I'd heard that, and I meant to congratulate you. I do now, anyway. When is it to be? Settled that yet?' 'Some time in October, I think. So you guessed that Barak is a girl.' 'Yes, that's right. I guessed she was. Do you know anything about her?' 'What she told me. But it may not be true.' 'Told you? Do you mean to say you understand her language?' 'Oh, yes. Tartar is spoken all over the East, you know. It's only a sort of simplified Turkish, and I picked it up in the Crimea and the Caucasus when I was travelling there some years ago. She comes from some place in Central Asia within a possible distance of Samarkand and the Transcaucasian railway, for that was the way she ultimately got to the Caspian and to Tiflis, and then to Constantinople and Paris. How a mere girl, brought up in a Tartar village, could have made such a journey safely, carrying a small fortune with her in precious stones, is something nobody can understand who has not lived in the East, where anything is possible. A woman is practically sacred in a Mohammedan country. Any man who molests her stands a good chance of being torn to ribands by the other men.' 'It used to be something like that in the West, when I punched cattle,' observed Mr. Van Torp, quietly. 'A man who interfered with a lady there was liable to get into trouble. Progress works both ways, up and down, doesn't it? Bears at one end and rots at the other. Isn't that so?' 'It's just as true of civilisation,' answered the Greek. 'They're the same thing, I should say,' objected Mr. Van Torp. 'Oh, not quite, I think!' Logotheti smiled at his own thoughts. To his thinking, civilisation meant an epigram of Meleager, or Simonides' epitaph on the Spartans who fell at Thermopylæ, or a Tragedy of Sophocles, or the Aphrodite of Syracuse, or the Victory of the Louvre. Progress meant railways, the Paris Bourse, the Nickel Trust, and Mr. Van Torp. 'Well,' said the latter, 'you were telling me about Miss Barrack.' 'Is that what you call her?' Logotheti laughed lightly. He seemed to be in very good humour. Men often are, just before marriage; and sometimes, it is said, when they are on the eve of great misfortunes which they cannot possibly foresee. Fate loves unexpected contrasts. Logotheti told his companion the story of the ruby mine, substantially as it was narrated at the beginning of this tale, not dreaming that Van Torp had perhaps met and talked with the man who had played so large a part in it, and to find whom Baraka had traversed many dangers and overcome many difficulties. 'It sounds like the _Arabian Nights_,' said Mr. Van Torp, as if he found it hard to believe. 'Exactly,' assented Logotheti. 'And, oddly enough, the first of these stories is about Samarkand, which is not so very far from Baraka's native village. It seems to have taken the girl about a year to find her way to Constantinople, and when she got there she naturally supposed that it was the capital of the world, and that her man, being very great and very rich, thanks to her, must of course live there. So she searched Stamboul and Pera for him, during seven or eight months. She lived in the house of a good old Persian merchant, under the protection of his wife, and learned that there was a world called Europe where her man might be living, and cities called Paris and London, where people pay fabulous prices for precious stones. Persian merchants are generally well-educated men, you know. At last she made up her mind to dress like a man, she picked up an honest Turkish man-servant who had been all over Europe with a diplomatist and could speak some French and English as well as Tartar, she got a letter of recommendation to me from a Greek banker, through the Persian who did business with him, joined some Greeks who were coming to Marseilles by sea, and here she is. Now you know as much as I do. She is perfectly fearless, and as much more sure of herself than any man ever was, as some young women can be in this queer world. Of course, she'll never find the brute who thought he was leaving her to be murdered by her relations, but if she ever did, she would either marry him or cut his throat.' 'Nice, amiable kind of girl,' remarked Mr. Van Torp, who remembered her behaviour when he had refused her proffered gift. 'That's very interesting, Mr. Logotheti. How long do you count on being in London this time? Three or four days, maybe?' 'I daresay. No longer, I fancy.' 'Why don't you come and take dinner with me some night?' asked the American. 'Day after to-morrow, perhaps. I'd be pleased to have you.' 'Thank you very much,' Logotheti answered. 'Since you ask me, I see no reason why I should not dine with you, if you want me.' They agreed upon the place and hour, and each suddenly remembered an engagement. 'By the way,' said Mr. Van Torp without apparent interest, 'I hope Madame Cordova is quite well? Where's she hiding from you?' 'Just now the hiding-place is Bayreuth. She's gone there with Mrs. Rushmore to hear _Parsifal_. I believe I'm not musical enough for that, so I'm roving till it's over. That's my personal history at this moment! And Miss Donne is quite well, I believe, thank you.' 'I notice you call her "Miss Donne" when you speak of her,' said Van Torp. 'Excuse me if I made a mistake just now. I've always called her Madame Cordova.' 'It doesn't matter at all,' answered Logotheti carelessly, 'but I believe she prefers to be called by her own name amongst friends. Good-bye till day after to-morrow, then.' 'At half after eight.' 'All right--half-past--I shall remember.' But at two o'clock, on the next day but one, Logotheti received a note, brought by hand, in which Mr. Van Torp said that to his very great regret he had been called away suddenly, and hoped that Logotheti would forgive him, as the matter was of such urgent importance that he would have already left London when the note was received. This was more than true, if possible, for the writer had left town two days earlier, very soon after he had parted from Logotheti in Pall Mall, although the note had not been delivered till forty-eight hours later. CHAPTER V Mr. Van Torp knew no more about Bayreuth than about Samarkand, beyond the fact that at certain stated times performances of Wagner's operas were given there with as much solemnity as great religious festivals, and that musical people spoke of the Bayreuth season in a curiously reverent manner. He would have been much surprised if any one had told him that he often whistled fragments of _Parsifal_ to himself and liked the sound of them; for he had a natural ear and a good memory, and had whistled remarkably well when he was a boy. The truth about this seemingly impossible circumstance was really very simple. In what he called his cow-punching days, he had been for six months in company with two young men who used to whistle softly together by the hour beside the camp fire, and none of the other 'boys' had ever heard the strange tunes they seemed to like best, but Van Torp had caught and remembered many fragments, almost unconsciously, and he whistled them to himself because they gave him a sensation which no 'real music' ever did. Extraordinary natures, like his, are often endowed with unnoticed gifts and tastes quite unlike those of most people. No one knew anything about the young men who whistled Wagner; the 'Lost Legion' hides many secrets, and the two were not popular with the rest, though they knew their business and did their work fairly well. One of them was afterwards said to have been killed in a shooting affray and the other had disappeared about the same time, no one knew how, or cared, though Mr. Van Torp thought he had recognised him once many years later. They were neither Americans nor Englishmen, though they both spoke English well, and never were heard to use any other language. But that is common enough with emigrants to the United States and elsewhere. Every one who has been to sea in an American vessel knows how the Scandinavian sailors insist on speaking English amongst themselves, instead of their own language. Mr. Van Torp was fond of music, quite apart from his admiration for the greatest living lyric soprano, and since it was his fancy to go to Bayreuth in the hope of seeing her, he meant to hear Wagner's masterpiece, and supposed that there would not be any difficulty about such a simple matter, nor about obtaining the sort of rooms he was accustomed to, in the sort of hotel he expected to find where so many rich people went every other year. Any one who has been to the holy place of the Wagnerians can imagine his surprise when, after infinite difficulty, he found himself, his belongings and his man deposited in one small attic room of a Bavarian tanner's house, with one feather-bed, one basin and one towel for furniture. 'Stemp,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'this is a heathen town.' 'Yes, sir.' 'I suppose I'm thought close about money,' continued the millionaire, thinking aloud, 'but I call five dollars a day dear, for this room, don't you?' 'Yes, sir, I do indeed! I call it downright robbery. That's what I call it, sir.' 'Well, I suppose they call it business here, and quite a good business too. But I'd like to buy the whole thing and show 'em how to run it. They'd make more in the end.' 'Yes, sir. I hope you will, sir. Beg pardon, sir, but do you think it would cost a great deal?' 'They'd ask a great deal, anyway,' answered the millionaire thoughtfully. 'Stemp, suppose you get me out some things and then take a look around, while I try to get a wash in that--that tea-service there.' Mr. Van Torp eyed the exiguous basin and jug with some curiosity and much contempt. Stemp, impassive and correct under all circumstances, unstrapped a valise, laid out on the bed what his master might need, and inquired if he wished anything else. 'There isn't anything else,' answered Mr. Van Torp, gloomily. 'When shall I come back, sir?' 'In twenty-five minutes. There isn't half an hour's wash in that soup-plate, anyway.' He eyed the wretched basin with a glance that might almost have cracked it. When his man had gone, he proceeded to his toilet, such as it was, and solaced himself by softly whistling as much of the 'Good Friday' music as he remembered, little dreaming what it was, or that his performance was followed with nervous and almost feverish interest by the occupant of the next room in the attic, a poor musician who had saved and scraped for years to sit at the musical feast during three days. 'E sharp!' cried an agonised voice on the other side of the closed door, in a strong German accent. 'I know it is E sharp! I know it!' Mr. Van Torp stopped whistling at once, lowered his razor, and turned a mask of soapsuds in the direction whence the sound came. 'Do you mean me?' he inquired in a displeased tone. 'I mean who whistles the "Good Friday" music,' answered the voice. 'I tell you, I know it is E sharp in that place. I have the score. I shall show you if you believe not.' 'He's mad,' observed Mr. Van Torp, beginning to shave again. 'Are you a lunatic?' he asked, pausing after a moment. 'What's the matter with you anyhow?' 'I am a musician, I tell you! I am a pianist!' 'It's the same thing,' said Mr. Van Torp, working carefully on his upper lip, under his right nostril. 'I shall tell you that you are a barbarian!' retorted the voice. 'Well, that doesn't hurt,' answered Mr. Van Torp. He heard a sort of snort of scorn on the other side and there was silence again. But before long, as he got away from his upper lip with the razor, he unconsciously began to whistle again, and he must have made the same mistake as before, for he was interrupted by a deep groan of pain from the next room. 'Not feeling very well?' he inquired in a tone of dry jocularity. 'Stomach upset?' 'E sharp!' screamed the wretched pianist. Van Torp could hear him dancing with rage, or pain. 'See here, whoever you are, don't call names! I don't like it. See? I've paid for this room and I'm going on whistling if I like, and just as long as I like.' 'You say you make noises you like?' cried the infuriated musician. 'Oh, no! You shall not! There are rules! We are not in London, sir, we are in Bayreuth! If you make noises, you shall be thrown out of the house.' 'Shall I? Well, now, that's a funny sort of a rule for a hotel, isn't it?' 'I go complain of you,' retorted the other, and Mr. Van Torp heard a door opened and shut again. In a few minutes he had done all that the conditions would permit in the way of making himself presentable, and just as he left the room he was met by Stemp, the twenty-five minutes being just over. 'Very good, sir. I'll do what I can, sir,' said the excellent man, as Mr. Van Torp pointed to the things that lay about. As he went out, he recognised the voice of his neighbour, who was talking excitedly in voluble German, somewhere at the back of the house. 'He's complaining now,' thought Mr. Van Torp, with something like a smile. He had already been to the best hotel, in the hope of obtaining rooms, and he had no difficulty in finding it again. He asked for Madame da Cordova. She was at home, for it was an off-day; he sent in his card, and was presently led to her sitting-room. Times had changed. Six months earlier he would have been told that there had been a mistake and that she had gone out. She was alone; a letter she had been writing lay unfinished on the queer little desk near the shaded window, and her pen had fallen across the paper. On the round table in the middle of the small bare room there stood a plain white vase full of corn-flowers and poppies, and Margaret was standing there, rearranging them, or pretending to do so. She was looking her very best, and as she raised her eyes and greeted him with a friendly smile, Mr. Van Torp thought she had never been so handsome before. It had not yet occurred to him to compare her with Lady Maud, because for some mysterious natural cause the beautiful Englishwoman who was his best friend had never exerted even the slightest feminine influence on his being; he would have carried her in his arms, if need had been, as he had carried the Tartar girl, and not a thrill of his nerves nor one faster beat of his heart would have disturbed his placidity; she knew it, as women know such things, and the knowledge made her quite sure that he was not really the coarse-grained and rather animal son of nature that many people said he was, the sort of man to whom any one good-looking woman is much the same as another, a little more amusing than good food, a little less satisfactory than good wine. But the handsome singer stirred his blood, the touch of her hand electrified him, and the mere thought that any other man should ever make her his own was unbearable. After he had first met her he had pursued her with such pertinacity and such utter ignorance of women's ways that he had frightened her, and she had frankly detested him for a time; but he had learned a lesson and he profited by it with that astounding adaptability which makes American men and women just what they are. Margaret held out her hand and he took it; and though its touch and her friendly smile were like a taste of heaven just then, he pressed her fingers neither too much nor too little, and his face betrayed no emotion. 'It's very kind of you to receive me, Miss Donne,' he said quietly. 'I think it's very kind of you to come and see me,' Margaret answered. 'Come and sit down and tell me how you got here--and why!' 'Well,' he answered slowly, as they seated themselves side by side on the hard green sofa, 'I don't suppose I can explain, so that you'll understand, but I'll try. Different kinds of things brought me. I heard you were here from Lady Maud, and I thought perhaps I might have an opportunity for a little talk. And then--oh, I don't know. I've seen everything worth seeing except a battle and _Parsifal_, and as it seemed so easy, and you were here, I thought I'd have a look at the opera, since I can't see the fight.' Margaret laughed a little. 'I hope you will like it,' she said. 'Have you a good seat?' 'I haven't got a ticket yet,' answered Mr. Van Torp, in blissful ignorance. 'No seat!' The Primadonna's surprise was almost dramatic. 'But how in the world do you expect to get one now? Don't you know that the seats for _Parsifal_ are all taken months beforehand?' 'Are they really?' He was very calm about it. 'Then I suppose I shall have to get a ticket from a speculator. I don't see anything hard about that.' 'My dear friend, there are no speculators here, and there are no tickets to be had. You might as well ask for the moon!' 'I can stand, then. I'm not afraid of getting tired.' 'There are no standing places at all! No one is allowed to go in who has not a seat. A week ago you might possibly have picked up one in Munich, given up by some one at the last moment, but such chances are jumped at! I wonder that you even got a place to sleep!' 'Well, it's not much of a place,' said Mr. Van Torp, thoughtfully. 'There's one room the size of a horsebox, one bed, one basin, one pitcher and one towel, and I've brought my valet with me. I've concluded to let him sleep while I'm at the opera, and he'll sit up when I want to go to bed. Box and Cox. I don't know what he'll sit on, for there's no chair, but he's got to sit.' Margaret laughed, for he amused her. 'I suppose you're exaggerating a little bit,' she said. 'It's not really quite so bad as that, is it?' 'It's worse. There's a lunatic in the next room who calls me E. Sharp through the door, and has lodged a complaint already because I whistled while I was shaving. It's not a very good hotel. Who is E. Sharp, anyway? Maybe that was the name of the last man who occupied that room. I don't know, but I don't like the idea of having a mad German pianist for a neighbour. He may get in while I'm asleep and think I'm the piano, and hammer the life out of me, the way they do. I've seen a perfectly new piano wrecked in a single concert by a fellow who didn't look as if he had the strength to kick a mosquito. They're so deceptive, pianists! Nervous men are often like that, and most pianists are nothing but nerves and hair.' He amused her, for she had never seen him in his present mood. 'E sharp is a note,' she said. 'On the piano it's the same as F natural. You must have been whistling something your neighbour knew, and you made a mistake, and nervous musicians really suffer if one does that. But it must have been something rather complicated, to have an E sharp in it! It wasn't "Suwanee River," nor the "Washington Post" either! Indeed I should rather like to know what it was.' 'Old tunes I picked up when I was cow-punching, years ago,' answered Mr. Van Torp. 'I don't know where they came from, for I never asked, but they're not like other tunes, that's certain, and I like them. They remind me of the old days out West, when I had no money and nothing to worry about.' 'I'm very fond of whistling, too,' Margaret said. 'I study all my parts by whistling them, so as to save my voice.' 'Really! I had no idea that was possible.' 'Quite. Perhaps you whistle very well. Won't you let me hear the tune that irritated your neighbour the pianist? Perhaps I know it, too.' 'Well,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'I suppose I could. I should be a little shy before you,' he added, quite naturally. 'If you'll excuse me, I'll just go and stand before the window so that I can't see you. Perhaps I can manage it that way.' Margaret, who was bored to the verge of collapse on the off-days, thought him much nicer than he had formerly been, and she liked his perfect simplicity. 'Stand anywhere you like,' she said, 'but let me hear the tune.' Van Torp rose and went to the window and she looked quietly at his square figure and his massive, sandy head and his strong neck. Presently he began to whistle, very softly and perfectly in tune. Many a street-boy could do as well, no doubt, and Mrs. Rushmore would have called it a vulgar accomplishment, but the magnificent Primadonna was too true a musician, as well as a singer, not to take pleasure in a sweet sound, even if it were produced by a street-boy. But as Mr. Van Torp went on, she opened her eyes very wide and held her breath. There was no mistake about it; he was whistling long pieces from _Parsifal_, as far as it was possible to convey an idea of such music by such means. Margaret had studied it before coming to Bayreuth, in order to understand it better; she had now already heard it once, and had felt the greatest musical emotion of her life--one that had stirred other emotions, too, strange ones quite new to her. She held her breath and listened, and her eyes that had been wide open in astonishment, slowly closed again in pleasure, and presently, when he reached the 'Good Friday' music, her own matchless voice floated out with her unconscious breath, in such perfect octaves with his high whistling that at first he did not understand; but when he did, the rough hard man shivered suddenly and steadied himself against the window-sill, and Margaret's voice went on alone, with faintly breathed words and then without them, following the instrumentation to the end of the scene, beyond what he had ever heard. Then there was silence in the room, and neither of the two moved for some moments, but at last Van Torp turned, and came back. 'Thank you,' he said, in a low voice. Margaret smiled and passed her hand over her eyes quickly, as if to dispel a vision she had seen. Then she spoke. 'Do you really not know what that music is?' she asked. 'Really, really?' 'Oh, quite honestly I don't!' 'You're not joking? You're not laughing at me?' 'I?' He could not understand. 'I shouldn't dare!' he said. 'You've been whistling some of _Parsifal_, some of the most beautiful music that ever was written--and you whistle marvellously, for it's anything but easy! Where in the world did you learn it? Don't tell me that those are "old tunes" you picked up on a Californian ranch!' 'It's true, all the same,' Van Torp answered. He told her of the two foreigners who used to whistle together in the evenings, and how one was supposed to have been shot and the other had disappeared, no one had known whither, nor had cared. 'All sorts of young fellows used to drift out there,' he said, 'and one couldn't tell where they came from, though I can give a guess at where some of them must have been, since I've seen the world. There were younger sons of English gentlemen, fellows whose fathers were genuine lords, maybe, who had not brains enough to get into the army or the Church. There were cashiered Prussian officers, and Frenchmen who had most likely killed women out of jealousy, and Sicilian bandits, and broken Society men from New York. There were all sorts. And there was me. And we all spoke different kinds of English and had different kinds of tastes, good and bad--mostly bad. There was only one thing we could all do alike, and that was to ride.' 'I never thought of you as riding,' Margaret said. 'Well, why should you? But I can, because I was just a common cow-boy and had to, for a living.' 'It's intensely interesting--what a strange life you have had! Tell me more about yourself, won't you?' 'There's not much to tell, it seems to me,' said Van Torp. 'From being a cow-boy I turned into a miner, and struck a little silver, and I sold that and got into nickel, and I made the Nickel Trust what it is, more by financing it than anything else, and I got almost all of it. And now I've sold the whole thing.' 'Sold the Nickel Trust?' Margaret was quite as much surprised as Lady Maud had been. 'Yes. I wasn't made to do one thing long, I suppose. If I were, I should still be a cow-boy. Just now, I'm here to go to _Parsifal_, and since you say those tunes are out of that opera, I daresay I'm going to like it very much.' 'It's all very uncanny,' Margaret said thoughtfully. 'I wonder who those two men were, and what became of the one who disappeared.' 'I've a strong impression that I saw him in New York the other day,' Van Torp answered. 'If I'm right, he's made money--doing quite well, I should think. It wouldn't surprise me to hear he'd got together a million or so.' 'Really? What is he doing? Your stories grow more and more interesting!' 'If he's the fellow we used to call Levi Longlegs on the ranch, he's a Russian now. I'm not perfectly sure, for he had no hair on his face then, and now he has a beard like a French sapper. But the eyes and the nose and the voice and the accent are the same, and the age would about correspond. Handsome man, I suppose you'd call him. His name is Kralinsky just at present, and he's found a whole mine of rubies somewhere.' 'Really? I love rubies. They are my favourite stones.' 'Are they? That's funny. I've got an uncut one in my pocket now, if you'd like to see it. I believe it comes from Kralinsky's mine, too, though I got it through a friend of yours, two or three days ago.' 'A friend of mine?' He was poking his large fingers into one of the pockets of his waistcoat in search of the stone. 'Mr. Logotheti,' he said, just as he found it. 'He's discovered a handsome young woman from Tartary or somewhere, who has a few rubies to sell that look very much like Kralinsky's. This is one of them.' He had unwrapped the stone now and he offered it to her, holding it out in the palm of his hand. She took it delicately and laid it in her own, which was so white that the gem shed a delicate pomegranate-coloured light on the skin all round it. She admired it, turned it over with one finger, held it up towards the window, and laid it in her palm again. But Van Torp had set her thinking about Logotheti and the Tartar girl. She put out her hand to give back the ruby. 'I should like you to keep it, if you will,' he said. 'I shan't forget the pleasure I've had in seeing you like this, but you'll forget all about our meeting here--the stone may just make you remember it sometimes.' He spoke so quietly, so gently, that she was taken off her guard, and was touched, and very much surprised to feel that she was. She looked into his eyes rather cautiously, remembering well how she had formerly seen something terrifying in them if she looked an instant too long; but now they made her think of the eyes of a large affectionate bulldog. 'You're very kind to want to give it to me,' she answered after a moment's hesitation, 'but I don't like to accept anything so valuable, now that I'm engaged to be married. Konstantin might not like it. But you're so kind; give me any little thing of no value that you have in your pocket, for I mean to remember this day, indeed I do!' 'I gave nothing for the ruby,' said Van Torp, still not taking it from her, 'so it has no value for me. I wouldn't offer you anything that cost me money, now, unless it was a theatre for your own. Perhaps the thing's glass, after all; I've not shown it to any jeweller. The girl made me take it, because I helped her in a sort of way. When I wanted to pay for it she tried to throw it out of the window. So I had to accept it to calm her down, and she went off and left no address, and I thought I'd like you to have it, if you would.' 'Are you quite, quite sure you did not pay for it?' Margaret asked. 'If we are going to be friends, you must please always be very accurate.' 'I've told you exactly what happened,' said Van Torp. 'Won't you take it now?' 'Yes, I will, and thank you very much indeed. I love rubies, and this is a beauty, and not preposterously big. I think I shall have it set as it is, uncut, and only polished, so that it will always be itself, just as you gave it to me. I shall think of the "Good Friday" music and the Chimes, and this hideous little room, and your clever whistling, whenever I look at it.' 'You're kind to-day,' said Mr. Van Torp, after a moment's debate as to whether he should say anything at all. 'Am I? You mean that I used to be very disagreeable, don't you?' She smiled as she glanced at him. 'I must have been, I'm sure, for you used to frighten me ever so much. But I'm not in the least afraid of you now!' 'Why should any one be afraid of me?' asked Van Torp, whose mere smile had been known to terrify Wall Street when a 'drop' was expected. Margaret laughed a little, without looking at him. 'Tell me all about the Tartar girl,' she said, instead of answering his question. She would not have been the thoroughly feminine woman she was--far more feminine, in the simple human sense, than Lady Maud--if she had not felt satisfaction in having tamed the formidable money-wolf so that he fawned at her feet; but perhaps she was even more pleased, or amused, than she thought she could be by any such success. The man was so very much stronger and rougher than any other man with whom she had ever been acquainted, and she had once believed him to be such a thorough brute, that this final conquest flattered her vanity. The more dangerous the character of the wild beast, the greater the merit of the lion-tamer who subdues him. 'Tell me about this handsome Tartar girl,' she said again. Van Torp told her Baraka's history, as far as he knew it from Logotheti. 'I never heard such an amusing set of stories as you are telling me to-day,' she said. 'That particular one is Logotheti's,' he answered, 'and he can probably tell you much more about the girl.' 'Is she really very pretty?' Margaret asked. 'Well,' said Van Torp, quoting a saying of his favourite great man, 'for people who like that kind of thing, I should think that would be the kind of thing they'd like.' The Primadonna smiled. 'Can you describe her?' she asked. 'Did you ever read a fairy story about a mouse that could turn into a tiger when it liked?' inquired the American in a tone of profound meditation, as if he were contemplating a vision which Margaret could not see. 'No,' said she, 'I never did.' 'I don't think I ever did, either. But there might be a fairy story about that, mightn't there?' Margaret nodded, with an expression of displeased interest, and he went on: 'Well, it describes Miss Barrack to a T. Yes, that's what I call her. She's put "Barak" on her business card, whatever that means in a Christian language; but when I found out it was a girl, I christened her Miss Barrack. People have to have names of some kind if you're going to talk about them. But that's a digression. Pardon me. You'd like a description of the young person. I'm just thinking.' 'How did you find out she was a girl?' Margaret asked, and her tone was suddenly hard. Mr. Van Torp was not prepared for the question, and felt very uncomfortable for a moment. In his conversation with women he was almost morbidly prudish about everything which had the remotest connexion with sex. He wondered how he could convey to Margaret the information that when he had been obliged to carry the pretended boy across the room, he had been instantly and palpably convinced that he was carrying a girl. 'It was a question of form, you see,' he said awkwardly. 'Form? Formality? I don't understand.' Margaret was really puzzled. 'No, no!' Mr. Van Torp was actually blushing. 'I mean his form--or her form----' 'Oh, her figure? You merely guessed it was a girl in boy's clothes?' 'Certainly. Yes. Only, you see, he had a kind of fit--the boy did--and I thought he was going to faint, so I picked him up and carried him to a sofa, and--well, you understand, Miss Donne. I knew I hadn't got a boy in my arms, that's all.' 'I should think so!' assented the Englishwoman--'I'm sure I should! When you found out she was a girl, how did she strike you?' 'Very attractive, I should say; very attractive,' he repeated with more emphasis. 'People who admire brunettes might think her quite fascinating. She has really extraordinary eyes, to begin with, those long fruity Eastern eyes, you know, that can look so far to the right and left through their eyelashes. Do you know what I mean?' 'Perfectly. You make it very clear. Go on, please.' 'Her eyes--yes.' Mr. Van Torp appeared to be thinking again. 'Well, there was her complexion, too. It's first-rate for a dark girl. Ever been in a first-class dairy? Do you know the colour of Alderney cream when it's ready to be skimmed? Her complexion's just like that, and when she's angry, it's as if you squeezed the juice of about one red currant into the whole pan of cream. Not more than one, I should think. See what I mean?' 'Yes. She must be awfully pretty. Tell me more. Has she nice hair? Even teeth?' 'I should think she had!' answered Mr. Van Torp, with even more enthusiasm than he had shown yet. 'They're as small and even and white as if somebody had gone to work and carved them all around half a new billiard ball, not separate, you understand, but all in one piece. Very pretty mouth they make, with those rather broiled-salmon-coloured lips she has, and a little chin that points up, as if she could hold her own. She can, too. Her hair? Well, you see, she's cut it short, to be a boy, but it's as thick as a beaver's fur, I should say, and pretty black. It's a silky kind of hair, that looks alive. You know what I mean, I daresay. Some brunettes' hair looks coarse and dusky, like horsehair, but hers isn't that kind, and it makes a sort of reflection in the sun, the way a young raven's wing-feathers do, if you understand.' 'You're describing a raving beauty, it seems to me.' 'Oh, no,' said the American innocently. 'Now if our friend Griggs, the novelist, were here, he'd find all the right words and things, but I can only tell you just what I saw.' 'You tell it uncommonly well!' Margaret's face expressed anything but pleasure. 'Is she tall?' 'It's hard to tell, in men's clothes. Three inches shorter than I am, maybe. I'm a middle-sized man, I suppose. I used to be five feet ten in my shoes. She may be five feet seven, not more.' 'But that's tall for a woman!' 'Is it?' Mr. Van Torp's tone expressed an innocent indifference. 'Yes. Has she nice hands?' 'I didn't notice her hands. Oh, yes, I remember!' he exclaimed, suddenly correcting himself. 'I did notice them. She held up that ruby to the light and I happened to look at her fingers. Small, well-shaped fingers, tapering nicely, but with a sort of firm look about them that you don't often see in a woman's hands. You've got it, too.' 'Have I?' Margaret looked down at her right hand. 'But, of course, hers are smaller than mine,' she said. 'Well, you see, Orientals almost all have very small hands and feet--too small, I call them--little tiny feet like mice.' Margaret's own were well-shaped, but by no means small. 'The girl is in London, you say?' Her tone made a question of the statement. 'She was there two days ago, when I left. At least, she had been to see me that very morning. Almost as soon as she was gone I went out, and in the first shop I looked into I met Logotheti. It was Pinney's, the jeweller's, I remember, for I bought a collar stud. We came away together and walked some time, and he told me the Tartar girl's story. I asked him to dine to-day, but I was obliged to leave town suddenly, and so I had to put him off with a note. I daresay he's still in London.' 'I daresay he is,' Margaret repeated, and rising suddenly she went to the window. Mr. Van Torp rose too, and thought of what he should say in taking his leave of her, for he felt that he had stayed long enough. Strange to say, too, he was examining his not very sensitive conscience to ascertain whether he had said anything not strictly true, but he easily satisfied himself that he had not. If all was fair in love and war, as the proverb said, it was certainly permissible to make use of the plain truth. The Primadonna was still looking out of the window when the door opened and her English maid appeared on the threshold. Margaret turned at the sound. 'What is it?' she asked quietly. 'There's Mr. Van Torp's man, ma'am,' answered Potts. 'He wants to speak to his master at once.' 'You had better tell him to come up,' Margaret answered. 'You may just as well see him here without going all the way downstairs,' she said, speaking to Van Torp. 'You're very kind, I'm sure,' he replied; 'but I think I'd better be going anyway.' 'No, don't go yet, please! There's something else I want to say. See your man here while I go and speak to Mrs. Rushmore. Send Mr. Van Torp's man up, Potts,' she added, and left the room. The American walked up and down alone for a few moments. Then the impassive Stemp was ushered in by the maid, and the door was shut again. 'Well?' inquired Mr. Van Torp. 'Has anything happened?' 'Yes, sir,' Stemp answered. 'They have turned us out of the house, sir, and your luggage is in the street. Where shall I have it taken, sir?' 'Oh, they've turned us out, have they? Why?' 'Well, sir, I'm afraid it's partly my fault, but there must be some misunderstanding, for I'm quite sure I didn't whistle in your room, sir.' 'So am I, Stemp. Quite sure. Go on. What happened?' 'Well, sir, you hadn't been gone more than ten minutes when somebody knocked, and there was the landlord, if that's what he calls himself, and a strange German gentleman with him, who spoke English. Rather shabby-looking, sir, I thought him. He spoke most uncivilly, and said I was driving him half crazy with my whistling. I said I hadn't whistled, and he said I had, and the landlord talked German at me, as it were, sir. I said again I hadn't whistled, and he said I had, the shabby gentleman, I mean, speaking most uncivilly, sir, I assure you. So when I saw that they doubted my word, I put them out and fastened the door, thinking this was what you would have ordered, sir, if you'd been there yourself, but I'm afraid I did wrong.' 'No, Stemp. You didn't do wrong.' 'Thank you, sir.' 'I suppose, though, that when you put them out they didn't exactly want to go, did they?' 'No, sir, but I had no trouble with them.' 'Any heads broken?' 'No, sir, I was careful of that. I sent the landlord downstairs first, as he was a fat man and not likely to hurt himself, and the shabby gentleman went down on top of him quite comfortably, so he did not hurt himself either. I was very careful, sir, being in a foreign country.' 'What happened next? They didn't come upstairs again and throw you out, I suppose.' 'No, sir. They went and got two of these German policemen with swords, and broke into the room, and told me we must move at once. I didn't like to resist the police, sir. It's sometimes serious. The German gentleman wanted them to arrest me, so I offered to pay any fine there was for having been hasty, and we settled for two sovereigns, which I thought dear, sir, and I'd have gone to the police station rather than pay it, only I knew you'd need my services in this heathen town, sir. I'm highly relieved to know that you approve of that, sir. But they said we must turn out directly, just the same, so I re-packed your things and got a porter, and he's standing over the luggage in the street, waiting for orders.' 'Stemp,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'I'd been whistling myself, before you came in, and the lunatic in the next room had already been fussing about it. It's my fault.' 'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.' 'And it will be my fault if we have to sleep in a cab to-night.' The door opened while he was speaking, and Margaret heard the last words as she entered the room. 'I'm sorry,' she said, 'I thought you had finished. I could not help hearing what you said about sleeping in a cab. That's nonsense, you know.' 'Well,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'they've just turned us out of the one room we had because I whistled _Parsifal_ out of tune.' 'You didn't whistle it out of tune,' Margaret answered, to Stemp's great but well-concealed astonishment. 'I know better. Please have your things brought here at once.' 'Here?' repeated Mr. Van Torp, surprised in his turn. 'Yes,' she answered, in a tone that forestalled contradiction. 'If nothing else can be had you shall have this room. I can do without it.' 'You're kindness itself, but I couldn't do that,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'Bring our things to this hotel, anyway, Stemp, and we'll see what happens.' 'Yes, sir.' Stemp disappeared at once, and his master turned to Margaret again. 'Nothing will induce me to put you to such inconvenience,' he said, and his tone was quite as decided as hers had been. She smiled. 'Nothing will induce me to let a friend of mine be driven from pillar to post for a lodging while I have plenty of room to spare!' 'You're very, very kind, but----' 'But the mouse may turn into a tiger if you contradict it,' she said with a light laugh that thrilled him with delight. 'I remember your description of the Tartar girl!' 'Well, then, I suppose the hyæna will have to turn into a small woolly lamb if you tell him to,' answered Mr. Van Torp. 'Yes,' laughed Margaret. 'Be a small, woolly lamb at once, please, a very small one!' 'Knee-high to a kitten; certainly,' replied the millionaire submissively. 'Very well. I'll take you with me to hear _Parsifal_ to-morrow, if you obey. I've just asked Mrs. Rushmore if it makes any difference to her, and she has confessed that she would rather not go again, for it tires her dreadfully and gives her a headache. You shall have her seat. What is it? Don't you want to go with me?' [Illustration: "Margaret gazed at him in surprise while she might have counted ten."] Mr. Van Torp's face had hardened till it looked like a mask, he stared firmly at the wall, and his lips were set tightly together. Margaret gazed at him in surprise while she might have counted ten. Then he spoke slowly, with evident effort, and in an odd voice. 'Excuse me, Miss Donne,' he said, snapping his words out. 'I'm so grateful that I can't speak, that's all. It'll be all right in a second.' A huge emotion had got hold of him. She saw the red flush rise suddenly above his collar, and then sink back before it reached his cheeks, and all at once he was very pale. But not a muscle of his face moved, not a line was drawn; only his sandy eyelashes quivered a little. His hands were thrust deep into the pockets of his jacket, but the fingers were motionless. Margaret remembered how he had told her more than once that she was the only woman the world held for him, and she had thought it was nonsense, rather vulgarly and clumsily expressed by a man who was not much better than an animal where women were concerned. It flashed upon her at last that what he had said was literally true, that she had misjudged an extraordinary man altogether, as many people did, and that she was indeed the only woman in the whole world who could master and dominate one whom many feared and hated, and whom she had herself once detested beyond words. He was unchanging, too, whatever else he might be, and, as she admitted the fact, she saw clearly how fickle she had been in her own likes and dislikes, except where her art was concerned. But even as to that, she had passed through phases in which she had been foolish enough to think of giving up the stage in the first flush of her vast success. While these thoughts were disturbing her a little, Mr. Van Torp recovered himself; his features relaxed, his hands came out of his pockets, and he slowly turned towards her. 'I hope you don't think me rude,' he said awkwardly. 'I feel things a good deal sometimes, though people mightn't believe it.' They were still standing near together, and not far from the door through which Margaret had entered. 'It's never rude to be grateful, even for small things,' she answered gently. She left his side, and went again to the window, where she stood and turned from him, looking out. He waited where he was, glad of the moments of silence. As for her, she was struggling against a generous impulse, because she was afraid that he might misunderstand her if she gave way to it. But, to do her justice, she had never had much strength to resist her own instinctive generosity when it moved her. 'Lady Maud told me long ago that I was mistaken about you,' she said at last, without looking at him. 'She was right and I was quite wrong. I'm sorry. Don't bear me any grudge. You won't, will you?' She turned now, rather suddenly, and found him looking at her with a sort of hunger in his eyes that disappeared almost as soon as hers met them. 'No,' he answered, 'I don't bear you any grudge, I never did, and I don't see how I ever could. I could tell you why, but I won't, because you probably know, and it's no use to repeat what once displeased you.' 'Thank you,' said Margaret, she scarcely knew why. Her handsome head was a little bent, and her eyes were turned to the floor as she passed him going to the door. 'I'm going to see the manager of the hotel,' she said. I'll be back directly.' 'No, no! Please let me----' But she was gone, the door was shut again, and Mr. Van Torp was left to his own very happy reflections for a while. Not for long, however. He was still standing before the table staring at the corn-flowers and poppies without consciously seeing them when he was aware of the imposing presence of Mrs. Rushmore, who had entered softly during his reverie and was almost at his elbow. 'This is Mr. Van Torp, I presume,' she said gravely, inclining her head. 'I am Mrs. Rushmore. You have perhaps heard Miss Donne speak of me.' 'I'm very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Rushmore,' said the American, bowing low. 'I've often heard Miss Donne speak of you with the greatest gratitude and affection.' 'Certainly,' Mrs. Rushmore answered with gravity, and as she established herself on the sofa she indicated a chair not far from her. It was only proper that Margaret should always speak of her with affection and gratitude. Mr. Van Torp sat down on the chair to which she had directed rather than invited him; and he prepared to be bored to the full extent of the bearable. He had known the late Mr. Rushmore in business; Mr. Rushmore had been a 'pillar' of various things, including honesty, society, and the church he went to, and he had always bored Mr. Van Torp extremely. The least that could be expected was that the widow of such an estimable man should carry on the traditions of her deeply lamented husband. In order to help her politely to what seemed the inevitable, Mr. Van Torp mentioned him. 'I had the pleasure of knowing Mr. Rushmore,' he said in the proper tone of mournfully retrospective admiration. 'He was sincerely lamented by all our business men.' 'He was,' assented the widow, as she would have said Amen in church, in the right place, and with much the same solemn intonation. There was a moment's pause, during which the millionaire was trying to think of something else she might like to hear, for she was Margaret's friend, and he wished to make a good impression. He was therefore not prepared to hear her speak again before he did, much less for the subject of conversation she introduced at once. 'You know our friend Monsieur Logotheti, I believe?' she inquired suddenly. 'Why, certainly,' answered Van Torp, brightening at once at the mention of his rival, and at once also putting on his moral armour of caution. 'I know him quite well.' 'Indeed? Have you known many Greeks, may I ask?' 'I've met one or two in business, Mrs. Rushmore, but I can't say I've known any as well as Mr. Logotheti.' 'You may think it strange that I should ask you about him at our first meeting,' said the good lady, 'but I'm an American, and I cannot help feeling that a fellow-countryman's opinion of a foreigner is very valuable. You are, I understand, an old friend of Miss Donne's, though I have not had the pleasure of meeting you before, and you have probably heard that she has made up her mind to marry Monsieur Logotheti. I am bound to confess, as her dear mother's oldest friend, that I am very apprehensive of the consequences. I have the gravest apprehensions, Mr. Van Torp.' 'Have you really?' asked the millionaire with caution, but sympathetically. 'I wonder why!' 'A Greek!' said Mrs. Rushmore sadly. 'Think of a Greek!' Mr. Van Torp, who was not without a sense of humour, was inclined to answer that, in fact, he was thinking of a Greek at that very moment. But he abstained. 'There are Greeks and Greeks, Mrs. Rushmore,' he answered wisely. 'That is true,' answered the lady, 'but I should like your opinion, as one of our most prominent men of business--as one who, if I may say so, has of late triumphantly established his claim to respect.' Mr. Van Torp bowed and waved his hand in acknowledgment of this high praise. 'I should like your opinion about this--er--this Greek gentleman whom my young friend insists upon marrying.' 'Really, Mrs. Rushmore----' 'Because if I thought there was unhappiness in store for her I would save her, if I had to marry the man myself!' Mr. Van Torp wondered how she would accomplish such a feat. 'Indeed?' he said very gravely. 'I mean it,' answered Mrs. Rushmore. There was a moment's silence, during which Mr. Van Torp revolved something in his always active brain, while Mrs. Rushmore looked at him as if she expected that he would doubt her determination to drag Logotheti to the matrimonial altar and marry him by sheer strength, rather than let Margaret be his unhappy bride. But Mr. Van Torp said something quite different. 'May I speak quite frankly, though we hardly know each other?' he asked. 'We are both Americans,' answered the good lady, with a grand national air. 'I should not expect anything but perfect frankness of you.' 'The truth is, Mrs. Rushmore, that ever since I had the pleasure of knowing Miss Donne, I have wanted to marry her myself.' 'You!' cried the lady, surprised beyond measure, but greatly pleased. 'Yes,' said Mr. Van Torp quietly, 'and therefore, in my position, I can't give you an unbiassed opinion about Mr. Logotheti. I really can't.' 'Well,' said Mrs. Rushmore, 'I am surprised!' While she was still surprised Mr. Van Torp tried to make some running, and asked an important question. 'May I ask whether, as Miss Donne's oldest friend, you would look favourably on my proposal, supposing she were free?' Before Mrs. Rushmore could answer, the door opened suddenly, and she could only answer by an energetic nod and a look which meant that she wished Mr. Van Torp success with all her excellent heart. 'It's quite settled!' Margaret cried as she entered. 'I've brought the director to his senses, and you are to have the rooms they were keeping for a Russian prince who has not turned up!' CHAPTER VI In the sanctuary of Wagnerians the famous lyric Diva was a somewhat less important personage than in any of those other places which are called 'musical centres.' Before the glories of the great Brunhilde, or the supreme Kundry of the day, the fame of the 'nightingale soprano' paled a little, at least in the eyes of more than half the people who filled the Bayreuth theatre. But she did not pass unnoticed by any means. There were distinguished conductors of Wagner's music who led the orchestra for other operas too; there were Kundrys and Brunhildes who condescended to be Toscas sometimes, as a pure matter of business and livelihood, and there were numberless people in the audience who preferred _Cavalleria Rusticana_ to the _Meistersinger_ or the _Götterdämmerung_, but would not dare to say so till they were at a safe distance; and all these admired the celebrated Cordova, except the few that were envious of her, and who were not many. Indeed, for once it was the other way. When Margaret had come back to her own room after hearing _Parsifal_ the first time, she had sat down and hidden her face in her hands for a few moments, asking herself what all her parts were worth in the end compared with Kundry, and what comparison was possible between the most beautiful of Italian or French operas and that one immortal masterpiece; for she thought, and rightly perhaps, that all the rest of Wagner's work had been but a preparation for that, and that _Parsifal_, and _Parsifal_ alone, had set the genius of music beside the genius of poetry, an equal, at last, upon a throne as high. On that night the sound of her own voice would have given her no pleasure, for she longed for another tone in it; if by some impossible circumstance she had been engaged to sing as Juliet that night, she would have broken down and burst into tears. She knew it, and the knowledge made her angry with herself, yet for nothing she could think of would she have foregone the second hearing of _Parsifal_, and the third after that; for she was a musician first, and then a great singer, and, like all true musicians, she was swayed by music that touched her, and never merely pleased by it. For her no intermediate condition of the musical sense was possible between criticism and delight; but beyond that she had found rapture now, and ever afterwards she would long to feel it again. Whether, if her voice had made it possible to sing the part of Kundry, she could have lifted herself to that seventh heaven by her own singing, only the great Kundrys and Parsifals can tell. In lyric opera she knew the keen joy of being both the instrument and the enthralled listener; perhaps a still higher state beyond that was out of any one's reach, but she could at least dream of it. She took Van Torp with her to the performance the next day, after impressing upon him that he was not to speak, not to whisper, not to applaud, not to make any sound, from the moment he entered the theatre till he left it for the dinner interval. He was far too happy with her to question anything she said, and he obeyed her most scrupulously. Twenty-four hours earlier she would have laughed at the idea that his presence beside her at such a time could be not only bearable, but sympathetic, yet that seemed natural now. The Diva and the ex-cowboy, the accomplished musician and the Californian miner, the sensitive, gifted, capricious woman and the iron-jawed money-wolf had found that they had something in common. Wagner's last music affected them in the same way. Such things are not to be explained, and could not be believed if they did not happen again and again before the eyes of those who know how to see, which is quite a different thing from merely seeing. Margaret's sudden liking for the man she had once so thoroughly disliked had begun when he had whistled to her. It grew while he sat beside her in the darkened theatre. She was absorbed by the music, the action, and the scene, and at this second hearing she could follow the noble poem itself; but she was subconscious of what her neighbour felt. He was not so motionless merely because she had told him that he must sit very still; he was not so intent on what he heard and saw, merely to please her; it was not mere interest that held him, still less was it curiosity. The spell was upon him; he was entranced, and Margaret knew it. Even when they left the theatre and drove back to the hotel, he was silent, and she was the first to speak. Margaret hated the noise and confusion of the restaurant near the Festival Theatre. 'You have enjoyed it,' she said. 'I'm glad I brought you.' 'I've felt something I don't understand,' Van Torp answered gravely. She liked the reply for its simplicity. She had perhaps expected that he would summon up his most picturesque language to tell her how much pleasure the music had given him, or that he would perhaps laugh at himself for having been moved; but instead, he only told her that he did not understand what he had felt; and they walked on without another word. 'Go and get something to eat,' she said when they reached the hotel, 'and I'll meet you here in half an hour. I don't care to talk either.' He only nodded, and lifted his hat as she went up the steps; but instead of going to eat, he sat down on a bench outside, and waited for her there, reflecting on the nature of his new experience. Like most successful men, he looked on all theories as trash, good enough to amuse clever idlers, but never to be taken into consideration in real life. He never asked about the principle on which any invention was founded; his first and only question was, 'Will it work?' Considering himself as the raw material, and the theatre he had just left as the mill, he was forced to admit that _Parsifal_ 'worked.' 'It works all right,' he inwardly soliloquised. 'If that's what it claims to do, it does it.' When he had reached this business-like conclusion, his large lips parted a little, and as his breath passed between his closed teeth, it made soft little hissing sounds that had a suggestion of music in them, though they were not really whistled notes; his sandy lashes half veiled his eyes and he saw again what he had lately seen: the King borne down to the bath that would never heal his wound, and the dead swan, and the wondering Maiden-Man brought to answer for his bow-shot, the wild Witch-Girl crouching by the giant trees, and the long way that led upward through the forest, and upward ever, to the Hall of the Knights, and last of all, the mysterious Sangreal itself, glowing divinely in the midst. He did not really understand what he had seen and saw again as he half closed his eyes. That was the reason why he accepted it passively, as he accepted elemental things. If he could by any means have told himself what illusion it was all intended to produce upon his sight and hearing, he would have pulled the trick to pieces, mentally, in a moment, and what remained would have been the merely pleasant recollection of something very well done, but not in itself different from other operas or plays he had heard and seen elsewhere, nothing more than an 'improvement on _Lohengrin_,' as he would probably have called it. But this was something not 'more,' but quite of another kind, and it affected him as the play of nature's forces sometimes did; it was like the brooding of the sea, the rising gale, the fury of the storm, like the leaden stillness before the earthquake, the awful heave of the earth, the stupendous crash of the doomed city, the long rolling rumble of falling walls and tumbling houses, big with sudden death; or again, it was like sad gleams of autumn sunshine, and the cold cathedral light of primeval forests in winter, and then it was the spring stirring in all things, the rising pulse of mating nature, the burst of May-bloom, the huge glow of the earth basking in the full summer sun. He did not know, and no one knew, what nature meant by those things. How could nature's meaning be put into words? And so he did not understand what he had felt, nor could he see that it might have significance. What was the 'interpretation' of a storm, of an earthquake, or of winter and summer? God, perhaps; perhaps just 'nature.' He did not know. Margaret had told him the story of the opera in the evening; he had followed it easily enough and could not forget it. It was a sort of religious fairy-tale, he thought, and he was ready to believe that Wagner had made a good poem of it, even a great poem. But it was not the story that could be told, which had moved him; it was nothing so easily defined as a poem, or a drama, or a piece of music. A far more cultivated man than he could ever become might sit through the performance and feel little or nothing, of that he was sure; just as he could have carried beautiful Lady Maud in his arms without feeling that she was a woman for him, whereas the slightest touch of Margaret Donne, the mere fact of being near her, made the blood beat in his throat. That was only a way of putting it, for there was no sex in the music he had just heard. He had sat so close to Margaret that their arms constantly touched, yet he had forgotten that she was there. If the music had been _Tristan and Isolde_ he could not have been unaware of her, for a moment, for that is the supreme sex-music of Wagner's art. But this was different, altogether different, though it was even stronger than that. He forgot to look at his watch. Margaret came out of the hotel, expecting to find him waiting for her within the hall, and prepared to be annoyed with him for taking so long over a meal. She stood on the step and looked about, and saw him sitting on the bench at a little distance. He raised his eyes as she came towards him and then rose quickly. 'Is it time?' he asked. 'Yes,' she said. 'Did you get anything decent to eat?' 'Yes,' he answered vaguely. 'That is, now I think of it, I forgot about dinner. It doesn't matter.' She looked at his hard face curiously and saw a dead blank, the blank that had sometimes frightened her by its possibilities, when the eyes alone came suddenly to life. 'Won't you go in and get a biscuit, or a sandwich?' she asked after a moment. 'Oh, no, thanks. I'm used to skipping meals when I'm interested in things. Let's go, if you're ready.' 'I believe you are one of nature's Wagnerites,' Margaret said, as they drove up the hill again, and she smiled at the idea. 'Well,' he answered slowly, 'there's one thing, if you don't mind my telling you. It's rather personal. Perhaps I'd better not.' The Primadonna was silent for a few moments, and did not look at him. 'Tell me,' she said suddenly. 'It's this. I don't know how long the performance lasted, but while it was going on I forgot you were close beside me. You might just as well not have been there. It's the first time since I ever knew you that I've been near you without thinking about you all the time, and I hadn't realised it till I was sitting here by myself. I hope you don't mind my telling you?' 'It only makes me more glad that I brought you,' Margaret said quietly. 'Thank you,' he answered; but he was quite sure that the same thing could not happen again during the Second Part. Nevertheless, it happened. For a little while, they were man and woman, sitting side by side and very near, two in a silent multitude of other men and women; but before long he was quite motionless, his eyes were fixed again and he had forgotten her. She saw it and wondered, for she knew how her presence moved him, and as his hands lay folded on his knee, a mischievous girlish impulse almost made her, the great artist, forget that she was listening to the greatest music in the world and nearly made her lay her hand on his, just to see what he would do. She was ashamed of it, and a little disgusted with herself. The part of her that was Margaret Donne felt the disgust; the part that was Cordova felt the shame, and each side of her nature was restrained at a critical moment. Yet when the 'Good Friday' music began, she was thinking of Van Torp and he was unconscious of her presence. It could not last, and soon she, too, was taken up into the artificial paradise of the master-musician and borne along in the gale of golden wings, and there was no passing of time till the very end; and the people rose in silence and went out under the summer stars; and all those whom nature had gifted to hear rightly, took with them memories that years would scarcely dim. The two walked slowly back to the town as the crowd scattered on foot and in carriages. It was warm, and there was no moon, and one could smell the dust, for many people were moving in the same direction, though some stopped at almost every house and went in, and most of them were beginning to talk in quiet tones. Margaret stepped aside from the road and entered a narrow lane, and Van Torp followed her in silence. 'This leads out to the fields,' she said. 'I must breathe the fresh air. Do you mind?' 'On the contrary.' [Illustration: "She was aware of his slight change of position without turning her eyes."] He said nothing more, and she did not speak, but walked on without haste, dilating her nostrils to the sweet smell of grass that reached her already. In a little while they had left the houses behind them, and they came to a gate that led into a field. Van Torp was going to undo the fastening, for there was no lock. 'No,' she said, 'we won't go through. I love to lean on a gate.' She rested her crossed arms on the upper rail and Van Torp did the same, careful that his elbow should not touch hers, and they both stared into the dim, sweet-scented meadow. He felt her presence now and it almost hurt him; he could hear his slow pulse in his ears, hard and regular. She did not speak, but the night was so still that he could hear her breathing, and at last he could not bear the warm silence any longer. 'What are you thinking about?' he asked, trying to speak lightly. She waited, or hesitated, before she answered him. 'You,' she said, after a time. He moved involuntarily, and then drew a little further away from her, as he might have withdrawn a foot from the edge of a precipice, out of common caution. She was aware of his slight change of position without turning her eyes. 'What made you say what you did to Mrs. Rushmore yesterday afternoon?' she asked. 'About you?' 'Yes.' 'She asked me, point-blank, what I thought of Logotheti,' Van Torp answered. 'I told her that I couldn't give her an unbiassed opinion of the man you meant to marry, because I had always hoped to marry you myself.' 'Oh--was that the way it happened?' 'Mrs. Rushmore could hardly have misunderstood me,' said Van Torp, gathering the reins of himself, so to say, for anything that might happen. 'No. But it sounds differently when you say it yourself.' 'That was just what I said, anyhow,' answered Van Torp. 'I didn't think she'd go and tell you right away, but since she has, I don't regret having said that much.' 'It was straightforward, at all events--if it was all true!' There was the faintest laugh in her tone as she spoke the last words. 'It's true, right enough, though I didn't expect that I should be talking to you about this sort of thing to-night.' 'The effect on Mrs. Rushmore was extraordinary, positively fulminating,' Margaret said more lightly. 'She says I ought to break off my engagement at once, and marry you! Fancy!' 'That's very kind of her, I'm sure,' observed Mr. Van Torp. 'I don't think so. I like it less and less, the more I think of it.' 'Well, I'm sorry, but I suppose it's natural, since you've concluded to marry him, and it can't be helped. I wasn't going to say anything against him, and I wouldn't say anything for him, so there was nothing to do but to explain, which I did. I'm sorry you think I did wrong, but I should give the same answer again.' 'Mrs. Rushmore thinks that Konstantin is a designing foreigner because he's a Greek man of business, and that you are perfection because you are an American business man.' 'If I'm perfection, that's not the real reason,' said Van Torp, snatching at his first chance to steer out of the serious current; but Margaret did not laugh. 'You are not perfection, nor I either,' she answered gravely. 'You are famous in your way, and people call me celebrated in mine; but so far as the rest is concerned we are just two ordinary human beings, and if we are going to be friends we must understand each other from the first, as far as we can.' 'I'll try to do my share,' said Van Torp, taking her tone. 'Very well. I'll do mine. I began by thinking you were amusing, when I first met you. Then you frightened me last winter, and I hated you. Not only that, I loathed you--there's no word strong enough for what I felt. When I saw you in the audience, you almost paralysed my voice.' 'I didn't know it had been as bad as that,' said Mr. Van Torp quietly. 'Yes. It was worse than I can make you understand. And last spring, when you were in so much trouble, I believed every word that was said against you, even that you had murdered your partner's daughter in cold blood to get rid of her, though that looked as incredible to sensible people as it really was. It was only when I saw how Lady Maud believed in you that I began to waver, and then I understood.' 'I'm glad you did.' 'So am I. But she is such a good woman herself that nobody can be really bad in whom she believes. And now I'm changed still more. I like you, and I'm sure that we shall be friends, if you will make me one promise and keep it.' 'What is it?' 'That you will give up all idea of ever marrying me, no matter what happens, even if I broke----' 'It's no use to go on,' interrupted Van Torp, 'for I can't promise anything like that. Maybe you don't realise what you're asking, but it's the impossible. That's all.' 'Oh, nonsense!' Margaret tried to laugh lightly, but it was a failure. 'No, it's very far from nonsense,' he replied, almost sternly. 'Since you've spoken first, I'm going to tell you several things. One is, that I accepted the syndicate's offer for the Nickel Trust so as to be free to take any chance that might turn up. It had been open some time, but I accepted it on the day I heard of your engagement. That's a big thing. Another is, that I played a regular trick on Logotheti so as to come and see you here. I deliberately asked him to dine with me last night in London. I went right home, wrote a note to him, antedated for yesterday afternoon, to put him off, and I left it to be sent at the right hour. Then I drove to the station, and here I am. You may call that pretty sharp practice, but I believe all's fair in love and war, and I want you to understand that I think so. There's one thing more. I won't give up the hope of making you marry me while you're alive and I am, not if you're an old woman, and I'll put up all I have in the game, including my own life and other people's, if it comes to that. Amen.' Margaret bent her head a little and was silent. 'Now you know why I won't promise what you asked,' said Van Torp in conclusion. He had not raised his voice; he had not laid a heavy stress on half his words, as he often did in common conversation; there had been nothing dramatic in his tone; but Margaret had understood well enough that it was the plain statement of a man who meant to succeed, and whose strength and resources were far beyond those of ordinary suitors. She was not exactly frightened; indeed, since her dislike for him had melted away, it was impossible not to feel a womanly satisfaction in the magnitude of her conquest; but she also felt instinctively that serious trouble and danger were not far off. 'You have no right to speak like that,' she said rather weakly, after a moment. 'Perhaps not. I don't know. But I consider that you have a right to know the truth, and that's enough for me. It's not as if I'd made up my mind to steal your ewe-lamb from you and put myself in its place. Logotheti is not any sort of a ewe-lamb. He's a man, he's got plenty of strength and determination, he's got plenty of money--even what I choose to call plenty. He says he cares for you. All right. So do I. He says he'll marry you. I say that I will. All right again. You're the prize put up for the best of two fighting men. You're not the first woman in history who's been fought for, but, by all that's holy, there never was one better worth it, not Helen of Troy herself!' The last few words came with a sort of stormy rush, and he turned round suddenly, and stood with his back against the gate, thrusting his hands deep into his coat-pockets, perhaps with the idea of keeping them quiet; but he did not come any nearer to her, and she felt she was perfectly safe, and that a much deeper and more lasting power had hold of him than any mere passionate longing to take her in his arms and press his iron lips on hers against her will. She began to understand why he was what he was, at an age when many successful men are still fighting for final success. He was a crown-grasper, like John the Smith. Beside him Logotheti was but a gifted favourite of fortune. He spoke of Helen, but if he was comparing his rival with Paris he himself was more like an Ajax than like good King Menelaus. Margaret was not angry; she was hardly displeased, but she was really at a loss what to say, and she said the first sensible thing that suggested itself and that was approximately true. 'I'm sorry you have told me all this. We might have spent these next two days very pleasantly together. Oh, I'm not pretending what I don't feel! It's impossible for a woman like me, who can still be free, not to be flattered when such a man as you cares for her in earnest, and says the things you have. But, on the other hand, I'm engaged to be married to another man, and it would not be loyal of me to let you make love to me.' 'I don't mean to,' said Van Torp stoutly. 'It won't be necessary. If I never spoke again you wouldn't forget what I've told you--ever! Why should I say it again? I don't want to, until you can say as much to me. If it's time to go, hitch the lead to my collar and take me home! I'll follow you as quietly as a spaniel, anywhere!' 'And what would happen if I told you not to follow me, but to go home and lie down in your kennel?' She laughed low as she moved away from the gate. 'I'm not sure,' answered Van Torp. 'Don't.' The last word was not spoken at all with an accent of warning, but it was not said in a begging tone either. Margaret's short laugh followed it instantly. He took the cue she offered, and went on speaking in his ordinary manner. 'I'm not a bad dog if you don't bully me, and if you feed me at regular hours and take me for a walk now and then. I don't pretend I'm cut out for a French pet, because I'm not. I'm too big for a lap-dog, and too fond of sport for the drawing-room, I suppose. A good useful dog generally is, isn't he? Maybe I'm a little quarrelsome with other dogs, but then, they needn't come bothering around!' Margaret was amused, or pretended to be, but she was also thinking very seriously of the future, and asking herself whether she ought to send for Logotheti at once, or not. Van Torp would certainly not leave Bayreuth at a moment's notice, at her bidding, and if he stayed she could not now refuse to see him, with any show of justice. She thought of a compromise, and suddenly stood still in the lane. 'You said just now that you would not say over again any of those things you have told me to-night. Do you mean that?' 'Yes, I mean it.' 'Then please promise that you won't. That's all I ask if you are going to spend the next two days here, and if I am to let you see me.' 'I promise,' Van Torp answered, without hesitation. She allowed herself the illusion that she had both done the right thing and also taken the position of command; and he, standing beside her, allowed himself to smile at the futility of what she was requiring of him with so much earnestness, for little as he knew of women's ways he was more than sure that the words he had spoken that night would come back to her again and again; and more than that he could not hope at present. But she could not see his face clearly. 'Thank you,' she said. 'That shall be our compact.' To his surprise, she held out her hand. He took it with wonderful calmness, considering what the touch meant to him, and he returned discreetly what was meant for a friendly pressure. She was so well satisfied now that she did not think it necessary to telegraph to Logotheti that he might start at once, though even if she had done so immediately he could hardly have reached Bayreuth till the afternoon of the next day but one, when the last performance of _Parsifal_ would be already going on; and she herself intended to leave on the morning after that. She walked forward in silence for a few moments, and the lights of the town grew quickly brighter. 'You will come in and have some supper with us, of course,' she said presently. 'Why, certainly, since you're so kind,' answered Van Torp. 'I feel responsible for your having forgotten to dine,' she laughed. 'I must make it up to you. By this time Mrs. Rushmore is probably wondering where I am.' 'Well,' said the American, 'if she thinks I'm perfection, she knows that you're safe with me, I suppose, even if you do come home a little late.' 'I shall say that we walked home very slowly, in order to breathe the air.' 'Yes. We've walked home very slowly.' 'I mean,' said Margaret quickly, 'that I shall not say we have been out towards the fields, as far as the gate.' 'I don't see any harm if we have,' observed Mr Van Torp indifferently. 'Harm? No! Don't you understand? Mrs. Rushmore is quite capable of thinking that I have already--how shall I say?----' she stopped. 'Taken note of her good advice,' he said, completing the sentence for her. 'Exactly! Whereas nothing could be further from my intention, as you know. I'm very fond of Mrs. Rushmore,' Margaret continued quickly, in order to get away from the dangerous subject she had felt obliged to approach; 'she has been a mother to me, and heaven knows I needed one, and she has the best and kindest heart in the world. But she is so anxious for my happiness that, whenever she thinks it is at stake, she rushes at conclusions without the slightest reason, and then it's very hard to get them out of her dear old head!' 'I see. If that's why she thinks me perfection, I'll try not to disappoint her.' They reached the hotel, went upstairs, and separated on the landing to get ready for supper. Margaret went to her own room, and before joining Mrs. Rushmore she wrote a message to Alphonsine, her theatre maid, who was visiting her family in Alsatia. Margaret generally telegraphed her instructions, because it was much less trouble than to write. She inquired whether Alphonsine would be ready to join her in Paris on a certain day, and she asked for the address of a wig-maker which she had forgotten. On his side of the landing, Mr. Van Torp found Stemp waiting to dress him, and the valet handed him a telegram. It was from Captain Brown, and had been re-telegraphed from London. 'Anchored off Saint Mark's Square to-day, 3.30 P.M. Quick passage. No stop. Coaling to-morrow. Ready for sea next morning.' Mr. Van Torp laid the message open on the table in order to save Stemp the trouble of looking for it afterwards. 'Stemp,' he asked, as he threw off his coat and kicked off his dusty shoes, 'were you ever sea-sick?' 'Yes, sir,' answered the admirable valet, but he offered no more information on the subject. During the silence that followed, neither wasted a second. It is no joke to wash and get into evening dress in six minutes, even with the help of a body-servant trained to do his work at high speed. 'I mean,' said Van Torp, when he was already fastening his collar, 'are you sea-sick nowadays?' 'No, sir,' replied Stemp, in precisely the same tone as before. 'I don't mean on a twenty-thousand-ton liner. Black cravat. Yes. I mean on a yacht. Fix it behind. Right. Would you be sea-sick on a steam yacht?' 'No, sir.' 'Sure?' 'Yes, sir.' 'Then I'll take you. Tuxedo.' 'Thank you, sir.' Stemp held up the dinner-jacket; Mr. Van Torp's solid arms slipped into the sleeves, he shook his sturdy shoulders, and pulled the jacket down in front while the valet 'settled' the back. Then he faced round suddenly, like a soldier at drill. 'All right?' he inquired. Stemp looked him over carefully from head to foot in the glare of the electric light. 'Yes, sir.' Van Torp left the room at once. He found Mrs. Rushmore slowly moving about the supper-table, more imposing than ever in a perfectly new black tea-gown and an extremely smart widow's cap. Mr. Van Torp thought she was a very fine old lady indeed. Margaret had not entered yet; a waiter with smooth yellow hair stood by a portable sideboard on which there were covered dishes. There were poppies and corn-flowers in a plain white jar on the table. Mrs. Rushmore smiled at the financier; it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that she beamed upon him. They had not met alone since his first visit on the previous afternoon. 'Miss Donne is a little late,' she said, as if the fact were very pleasing. 'You brought her back, of course.' 'Why, certainly,' said Mr. Van Torp with an amiable smile. 'You can hardly have come straight from the theatre,' continued the lady, 'for I heard the other people in the hotel coming in fully twenty minutes before you did.' 'We walked home very slowly,' said Mr. Van Torp, still smiling amiably. 'Ah, I see! You went for a little walk to get some air!' She seemed delighted. 'We walked home very slowly in order to breathe the air,' said Mr. Van Torp--'to breathe the air, as you say. I have to thank you very much for giving me your seat, Mrs. Rushmore.' 'To tell the truth,' replied the good lady, 'I was very glad to let you take my place. I cannot say I enjoy that sort of music myself. It gives me a headache.' Margaret entered at this point in a marvellous 'creation' of Chinese crape, of the most delicate shade of heliotrope. Her dressmaker called it also a tea-gown, but Mr. Van Torp would have thought it 'quite appropriate' for a 'dinner-dance' at Bar Harbor. 'My dear child,' said Mrs. Rushmore, 'how long you were in getting back from the theatre! I began to fear that something had happened!' 'We walked home very slowly,' said Margaret, with a pleasant smile. 'Ah? You went for a little walk to get some air?' 'We just walked home very slowly, in order to breathe the air,' Margaret answered innocently. It dawned on Mr. Van Torp that the dignified Mrs. Rushmore was not quite devoid of a sense of humour. It also occurred to him that her repetition of the question to Margaret, and the latter's answer, must have revealed to her the fact that the two had agreed upon what they should say, since they used identically the same words, and that they therefore had an understanding about something they preferred to conceal from her. Nothing could have given Mrs. Rushmore such profound satisfaction as this, and it revealed itself in her bright smiles and her anxiety that both Margaret and Van Torp should, if possible, over-eat themselves with the excellent things she had been at pains to provide for them and for herself. For she was something of an epicure and her dinners in Versailles were of good fame, even in Paris. Great appetites are generally silent, like the sincerest affections. Margaret was very hungry, and Mr. Van Torp was both hungry and very much in love. Mrs. Rushmore was neither, and she talked pleasantly while tasting each delicacy with critical satisfaction. 'By the bye,' she said at last, when she saw that the millionaire was backing his foretopsail to come to anchor, as Captain Brown might have expressed it, 'I hope you have not had any further trouble about your rooms, Mr. Van Torp.' 'None at all, that I know of,' answered the latter. 'My man told me nothing.' 'The Russian prince arrived this evening while you were at the theatre, and threatened the director with all sorts of legal consequences because the rooms he had ordered were occupied. He turns out to be only a count after all.' 'You don't say so,' observed Mr. Van Torp, in an encouraging tone. 'What became of him?' Margaret asked, without much interest. 'Did Potts not tell you, my dear? Why, Justine assisted at the whole interview and came and told me at once.' Justine was Mrs. Rushmore's Parisian maid, who always knew everything. 'What happened?' inquired Margaret, still not much interested. 'He arrived in an automobile,' answered Mrs. Rushmore, and she paused. 'What old Griggs calls a sudden-death-cart,' Mr. Van Torp put in. 'What a shocking name for it!' cried Mrs. Rushmore. 'And you are always in them, my dear child!' She looked at Margaret. 'A sudden-death-cart! It quite makes me shiver.' 'Griggs says that all his friends either kill or get killed in them,' explained the American. 'My throat-doctor says motoring is very bad for the voice, so I've given it up,' Margaret said. 'Really? Thank goodness your profession has been of some use to you at last, my dear!' Margaret laughed. 'Tell us about the Russian count,' she said. 'Has he found lodgings, or is he going to sleep in his motor?' 'My dear, he's the most original man you ever heard of! First he wanted to buy the hotel and turn us all out, and offered any price for it, but the director said it was owned by a company in Munich. Then he sent his secretary about trying to buy a house, while he dined, but that didn't succeed either. He must be very wealthy, or else quite mad.' 'Mad, I should say,' observed Mr. Van Torp, slowly peeling a peach. 'Did you happen to catch his name, Mrs. Rushmore?' 'Oh, yes! We heard nothing else all the afternoon. His name is Kralinsky--Count Kralinsky.' Mr. Van Torp continued to peel his peach scientifically and economically, though he was aware that Margaret was looking at him with sudden curiosity. 'Kralinsky,' he said slowly, keeping his eyes on the silver blade of the knife as he finished what he was doing. 'It's not an uncommon name, I believe. I've heard it before. Sounds Polish, doesn't it?' He looked up suddenly and showed Margaret the peeled peach on his fork. He smiled as he met her eyes, and she nodded so slightly that Mrs. Rushmore did not notice the movement. 'Did you ever see that done better?' he asked with an air of triumph. 'Ripping!' Margaret answered. 'You're a dandy dab at it!' 'My dear child, what terrible slang!' 'I'm sorry,' said Margaret. 'I'm catching all sorts of American expressions from Mr. Van Torp, and when they get mixed up with my English ones the result is Babel, I suppose!' 'I've not heard Mr. Van Torp use any slang expressions yet, my dear,' said Mrs. Rushmore, almost severely. 'You will,' Margaret retorted with a laugh. 'What became of Count Kralinsky? I didn't mean to spoil your story.' 'My dear, he's got the Pastor to give up his house, by offering him a hundred pounds for the poor here.' 'It's cheap,' observed Mr. Van Torp. 'The poor always are.' 'You two are saying the most dreadful things to-night!' cried Mrs. Rushmore. 'Nothing dreadful in that, Mrs. Rushmore,' objected the millionaire. 'There's no investment on earth like charity.' 'We are taught that by charity we lay up treasures in heaven,' said the good lady. 'Provided it's not mentioned in the newspapers,' retorted Mr. Van Torp. 'When it is, we lay up treasures on earth. I don't like to mention other men in that connexion, especially as I've done the same thing myself now and then, just to quiet things down; but I suppose some names will occur to you right away, don't they? Where is the Pastor going to sleep, now that the philanthropist has bought him out?' 'I really don't know,' answered Mrs. Rushmore. 'Then he's the real philanthropist,' said Van Torp. 'If he understood the power of advertisement, and wanted it, he'd let it be known that he was going to sleep on the church steps without enough blankets, for the good of the poor who are to have the money, and he'd get everybody to come and look at him in his sleep, and notice how good he was. Instead of that, he's probably turned in under the back stairs, in the coal-hole, without saying anything about it. I don't know how it strikes you, Mrs. Rushmore, but it does seem to me that the clergyman's the real philanthropist after all!' 'Indeed he is, poor man,' said Margaret, a good deal surprised at Van Torp's sermon on charity, and wondering vaguely whether he was talking for effect or merely saying what he really thought. An effect certainly followed. 'You put it very sensibly, I'm sure,' said Mrs. Rushmore, 'though of course I should not have looked for anything else from a fellow-countryman I respect. You startled me a little at first, when you said that the poor are always cheap! Only that, I assure you.' 'Well,' answered the American, 'I never was very good at expressing myself, but I'm glad we think alike, for I must say I value your opinion very highly, Mrs. Rushmore, as I had learned to value the opinion of your late husband.' 'You're very kind,' she said, in a grateful tone. Margaret was not sure that she was pleased as she realised how easily Van Torp played upon her old friend's feelings and convictions, and she wondered whether he had not already played on her own that night, in much the same way. But with the mere thought his words and his voice came back to her, with his talk about the uselessness of ever repeating what he had said that once, because he knew she could never forget it. And her young instinct told her that he dealt with the elderly woman precisely as if she were a man, with all the ease that proceeded from his great knowledge of men and their weaknesses; but that with herself, in his ignorance of feminine ways, he could only be quite natural. He left them soon after supper, and gave himself up to Stemp, pondering over what he had accomplished in two days, and also about another question which had lately presented itself. When he was ready to send his valet to bed he sat down at his table and wrote a telegram: 'If you can find Barak, please explain that I was mistaken. Kralinsky is not in New York, but here in Bayreuth for some days, lodging at the Pastor's house.' This message was addressed to Logotheti at his lodgings in London, and Van Torp signed it and gave it to Stemp to be sent at once. Logotheti never went to bed before two o'clock, as he knew, and might very possibly get the telegram the same night. When his man was gone, Van Torp drew his chair to the open window and sat up a long time thinking about what he had just done; for though he held that all was fair in such a contest, he did not mean to do anything which he himself thought 'low-down.' One proof of this odd sort of integrity was that the telegram itself was a fair warning of his presence in Bayreuth, where Logotheti knew that Margaret was still stopping. As for the rest, he was quite convinced that it was Kralinsky himself, the ruby merchant, who had suddenly appeared at Bayreuth, and that this man was no other than the youth he had met long ago as a cow-boy in the West, who used to whistle _Parsifal_ with his companion in exile, and who, having grown rich, had lost no time in coming to Europe for the very purpose of hearing the music he had always loved so well. And that this man had robbed the poor Tartar girl, Mr. Van Torp had no manner of doubt; and he believed that he had probably promised her marriage and abandoned her; and if this were true, to help her to find Kralinsky was in itself a good action. CHAPTER VII When Van Torp and Logotheti left Mr. Pinney's shop, the old jeweller meant to have a good look at the ruby the Greek had brought him, and was going to weigh it, not merely as a matter of business, for he weighed every stone that passed through his hands from crown diamonds to sparks, but with genuine curiosity, because in a long experience he had not seen very many rubies of such a size, which were also of such fine quality, and he wondered where this one had been found. Just then, however, two well-dressed young men entered the shop and came up to him. He had never seen either of them before, but their looks inspired him with confidence; and when they spoke, their tone was that of English gentlemen, which all other Englishmen find it practically impossible to imitate, and which had been extremely familiar to Mr. Pinney from his youth. Though he was the great jeweller himself, the wealthy descendant of five of his name in succession, and much better off than half his customers, he was alone in his shop that morning. The truth was that his only son, the sixth Pinney and the apple of his eye, had just been married and was gone abroad for a honeymoon trip, and the head shopman, who was Scotch, was having his month's holiday in Ayrshire, and the second man had been sent for, to clean and restring the Duchess of Barchester's pearls at her Grace's house in Cadogan Gardens, as was always done after the season, and a couple of skilled workmen for whom Mr. Pinney found occupation all the year round were in the workshop at their tables; wherefore, out of four responsible and worthy men who usually were about, only the great Mr. Pinney himself was at his post. One of the two well-dressed customers asked to see some pins, and the other gave his advice. The first bought a pin with a small sapphire set in sparks for ten guineas, and gave only ten pounds for it because he paid cash. Mr. Pinney put the pin into its little morocco case, wrapped it up neatly and handed it to the purchaser. The latter and his friend said good-morning in a civil and leisurely manner, sauntered out, took a hansom a few steps farther down the street, and drove away. The little paper twist containing Logotheti's ruby was still exactly where Mr. Pinney had placed it on the counter, and he was going to examine the stone and weigh it at last, when two more customers entered the shop, evidently foreigners, and moreover of a sort unfamiliar to the good jeweller, and especially suspicious. The two were Baraka and her interpreter and servant, whom Logotheti had called a Turk, and who was really a Turkish subject and a Mohammedan, though as to race, he was a half-bred Greek and Dalmatian. Now Dalmatians are generally honest, truthful, and trustworthy, and the low-class Greek of Constantinople is usually extremely sharp, if he is nothing more definitely reprehensible; and Baraka's man was a cross between the two, as I have said, and had been brought up as a Musulman in a rich Turkish family, and recommended to Baraka by the Persian merchant in whose house she had lived. He had been originally baptized a Christian under the name of Spiro, and had been subsequently renamed Selim when he was made a real Moslem at twelve years old; so he used whichever name suited the circumstances in which he was placed. At present he was Spiro. He was neatly dressed in grey clothes made by a French tailor, and he wore a French hat, which always made a bad impression on Mr. Pinney. He had brown hair, brown eyes, a brown moustache, and a brown face; he looked as active as a cat, and Mr. Pinney at once put him down in his mind as a 'Froggy.' But the jeweller was less sure about Baraka, who was dressed like any young Englishman, but looked like no European he had ever seen. On the whole, he took the newcomer for the son of an Indian rajah sent to England to be educated. The interpreter spoke broken but intelligible English. He called Baraka his master, and explained that the latter wished to see some rubies, if Mr. Pinney had any, cut or uncut. The young gentleman, he said, did not speak English, but was a good judge of stones. For one moment the jeweller forgot the little paper twist as he turned towards his safe, pulling out his keys at the same time. To reach the safe he had to walk the whole length of the shop, behind the counter, and before he had gone half way he remembered the stone, turned, came back, and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket. Then he went and got the little japanned strong-box with a patent lock, in which he kept loose stones, some wrapped up in little pieces of paper, and some in pill-boxes. He brought it to his customers, and opened it before them. They stayed a long time, and Spiro asked many questions for Baraka, chiefly relating to the sliding-scale of prices which is regulated by the weight of the stones where their quality is equally good, and Baraka made notes of some sort in a little English memorandum-book, as if she had done it all her life; but Mr. Pinney could not see what she wrote. He was very careful, and watched the stones, when she took them in her fingers and held them up against the light, or laid them on a sheet of white paper to look at them critically. She bought nothing; and when she had seen all he had to show her, she thanked him very much through Spiro, said she would come back another day, and went out with a leisurely, Oriental gait, as if nothing in the world could hurry her. Mr. Pinney counted the stones again, and was going to lock the box, when his second man came in, having finished stringing the Duchess's pearls. At the same moment, it occurred to Mr. Pinney that he might as well go to luncheon, and that he had better put Logotheti's ruby into the little strong-box and lock it up in the safe until he at last had a chance to weigh it. He accordingly took the screw of paper from his waistcoat pocket, and as a matter of formality he undid it once more. 'Merciful Providence!' cried Mr. Pinney, for he was a religious man. The screw of paper contained a bit of broken green glass. He threw his keys to his shopman without another word, and rushed out into the street without his hat, his keen old face deadly pale, and his beautiful frock-coat flying in his wake. He almost hurled himself upon a quiet policeman. 'Thief!' he cried. 'Two foreigners in grey clothes--ruby worth ten thousand pounds just gone--I'm Pinney the jeweller!' You cannot astonish a London policeman. The one Pinney had caught looked quietly up and down the street, and then glanced at his interlocutor to be sure that it was he, for he knew him by sight. 'All right,' he said quickly, but very quietly. 'I'll have them in a minute, sir, for they're in sight still. Better go in while I take them, sir.' He caught them in less than a minute without the slightest difficulty, and by some odd coincidence two other policemen suddenly appeared quite close to him. There was a little stir in the street, but Baraka and Spiro were too sensible and too sure of themselves to offer any useless resistance, and supposing there was some misunderstanding they walked back quietly to Mr. Pinney's shop between two of the policemen, while the third went for a four-wheeler at the nearest stand, which happened to be the corner of Brook Street and New Bond Street. Mr. Pinney recognised his late customers without hesitation, and went with them to the police station, where he told his story and showed the piece of green glass. Spiro tried to speak, but was ordered to hold his tongue, and as no rubies were found in their pockets he and Baraka were led away to be more thoroughly searched. But now, at last, Baraka resisted, and with such tremendous energy that there would have been serious trouble if Spiro had not called out something which at once changed the aspect of matters. 'Master is lady!' he yelled. 'Lady, man clothes!' 'That makes a pretty bad case,' observed the sergeant who was superintending. 'Send for Mrs. Mowle.' Baraka did not resist when she saw the matron, and went quietly with her to a cell at the back of the station. In less than ten minutes Mrs. Mowle came out and locked the door after her. She was a cheery little person, very neatly dressed, and she had restless bright eyes like a ferret. She brought a little bag of soft deerskin in her hand, and a steel bodkin with a wrought silver handle, such as southern Italian women used to wear in their hair before such weapons were prohibited. Mrs. Mowle gave both objects to the officer without comment. 'Any scars or tattoo-marks, Mrs. Mowle?' he inquired in his business-like way. 'Not a one,' answered Mrs. Mowle, who had formerly taken in washing at home and was the widow of a brave policeman, killed in doing his duty. In the bag there were several screws of paper, which were found to contain uncut rubies of different sizes to a large value. But there was one, much larger than the others, which Mr. Van Torp had not seen that morning. Mr. Pinney looked at it very carefully, held it to the light, laid it on a sheet of paper, and examined it long in every aspect. He was a conscientious man. 'To the best of my belief,' he deposed, 'this is the stone that was on my counter half an hour ago, and for which this piece of green glass was substituted. It is the property of a customer of mine, Monsieur Konstantin Logotheti of Paris, who brought it to me this morning to be cut. I think it may be worth between nine and ten thousand pounds. I can say nothing as to the identity of the paper, for tissue paper is very much alike everywhere.' 'The woman,' observed the officer in charge of the station, 'appears to steal nothing but rubies. It looks like a queer case. We'll lock up the two, Mr. Pinney, and if you will be kind enough to look in to-morrow morning, I'm sure the Magistrate won't keep you waiting for the case.' Vastly relieved and comforted, Mr. Pinney returned to his shop. Formality required that the ruby itself, with the others in the bag, should remain in the keeping of the police till the Magistrate ordered it to be returned to its rightful owner, the next morning; but Mr. Pinney felt quite as sure of its safety as if it were in the japanned strong-box in his own safe, and possibly even a little more sure, for nobody could steal it from the police station. But after he was gone, Spiro was heard calling loudly, though not rudely or violently, from his place of confinement. 'Mr. Policeman! Mr. Policeman! Please come speak!' The man on duty went to the door and asked what he wanted. In his broken English he explained very clearly that Baraka had a friend in London who was one of the great of the earth, and who would certainly prove her innocence, vouch for her character, and cause her to be set at large without delay, if he knew of her trouble. 'What is the gentleman's name?' inquired the policeman. The name of Baraka's friend was Konstantin Logotheti, and Spiro knew the address of the lodgings he always kept in St. James's Place. 'Very well,' said the policeman. 'I'll speak to the officer at once.' 'I thank very much, sir,' Spiro answered, and he made no more noise. The sergeant looked surprised when the message was given to him. 'Queer case this,' he observed. 'Here's the thief appealing to the owner of the stolen property for help; and the owner is one of those millionaire financiers; and the thief is a lovely girl in man's clothes. By the bye, Sampson, tell Mrs. Mowle to get out some women's slops and dress her decently, while I see if I can find Mr. Logotheti by telephone. They'll be likely to know something about him at the Bank if he's not at home, and he may come to find out what's the matter. If Mrs. Foxwell should look in and want to see the girl, let her in, of course, without asking me. If she's in town, she'll be here before long, for I've telephoned to her house, as usual when there's a girl in trouble.' There was a sort of standing, unofficial order that in any case of a girl or a young woman being locked up, Mrs. Foxwell was to know of it, and she had a way of remembering a great many sergeants' names, and doing kind things for their wives at Christmas-time, which further disposed them to help her in her work. But the London police are by nature the kindliest set of men who keep order anywhere in the world, and they will readily help a man or woman who tries to do good in a sensible, practical way; and if they are sometimes a little prejudiced in favour of their own perspicuity in getting up a case, let that policeman, of any other country, who is quite without fault, throw the first stone at their brave, good natured heads. Logotheti was not at his lodgings in St. James's Place, and from each of two clubs to which the officer telephoned rather at random, the only answer was that he was a member but not in the house. The officer wrote a line to his rooms and sent it by a messenger, to be given to him as soon as he came in. [Illustration: "She grasped Lady Maud's hand."] It was late in the hot afternoon when Mrs. Foxwell answered the message by coming to the police station herself. She was at once admitted to Baraka's cell and the door was closed after her. The girl was lying on the pallet bed, dressed in a poor calico skirt and a loose white cotton jacket, which Mrs. Mowle had brought and had insisted that she must put on; and her man's clothes had been taken from her with all her other belongings. She sat up, forlorn, pale and lovely, as the kind visitor entered and stood beside her. 'Poor child!' exclaimed the lady, touched by her sad eyes. 'What can I do to help you?' Baraka shook her head, for she did not understand. Then she looked up into eyes almost as beautiful as her own, and pronounced a name, slowly and so distinctly that it was impossible not to hear each syllable. 'Konstantin Logotheti.' The lady started, as well she might; for she was no other than Lady Maud, who called herself by her own family name, 'Mrs. Foxwell,' in her work amongst the poor women of London. Baraka saw the quick movement and understood that Logotheti was well known to her visitor. She grasped Lady Maud's arm with both her small hands, and looked up to her face with a beseeching look that could not be misunderstood. She wished Logotheti to be informed of her captivity, and was absolutely confident that he would help her out of her trouble. Lady Maud was less sure of that, however, and said so, but it was soon clear that Baraka did not speak a word of any language known to Lady Maud, who was no great linguist at best. Under these circumstances it looked as if there were nothing to be done for the poor girl, who made all sorts of signs of distress, when she saw that the English woman was about to leave her, in sheer despair of being of any use. Just then, however, the sergeant came to the door, and informed the visitor that the girl had an accomplice who spoke her language and knew some English, and that by stretching a point he would bring the man, if Mrs. Foxwell wished to talk with him. The result was that in less than half an hour, Lady Maud heard from Spiro a most extraordinary tale, of which she did not believe a single word. To her plain English mind, it all seemed perfectly mad at first, and on reflection she thought it an outrageous attempt to play upon her credulity; whereas she was thoroughly convinced that the girl had come to grief in some way through Logotheti and had followed him from Constantinople, probably supporting herself and her companion by stealing on the way. Lady Maud's husband had been a brute, but he knew the East tolerably well, having done some military duty in the Caucasus before he entered the diplomatic service; his stories had chiefly illustrated the profound duplicity of all Asiatics, and she had not seen any reason to disbelieve them. When Spiro had nothing more to say, therefore, she rose from the only seat there was and shook her head with an air of utter incredulity, mingled with the sort of pitying contempt she felt for all lying in general. She could easily follow the case, by the help of the sergeant and the Police Court reports, and she might be able to help Baraka hereafter when the girl had served the sentence she would certainly get for such an important and cleverly managed theft. The poor girl implored and wept in vain; Lady Maud could do nothing, and would not stay to be told any more inane stories about ruby mines in Tartary. She called the sergeant, freed herself from Baraka's despairing hold on her hand and went out. Spiro was then marched back to his cell on the men's side. Though it was hot, Lady Maud walked home, as Mr. Van Torp had done that same morning when he had left Mr. Pinney's shop. She always walked when she was in any distress or difficulty, for the motion helped her to think, since she was strong and healthy, and only in her twenty-ninth year. Just now, too, she was a good deal disturbed by what had happened, besides being annoyed by the attempt that had been made to play on her credulity in such a gross way. She was really fond of Margaret Donne, quite apart from any admiration she felt for the Primadonna's genius, by which she might have been influenced. In her opinion, the Tartar girl's appeal for help to reach Logotheti could only mean one thing, and that was very far from being to his credit. If the girl had not been positively proved to be a thief and if she had not attempted to impose upon her by what seemed the most absurd falsehoods, Lady Maud would very probably have taken her under her own protection, as far as the law would allow. But her especial charity was not for criminals or cheats, though she had sometimes helped and comforted women accused of far worse crimes than stealing. In this instance she could do nothing, and she did not even wish to do anything. It was a flagrant case, and the law would deal with it in the right way. The girl had come to grief, no doubt, by trusting Logotheti blindly, and he had thrown her off; if she had sunk into the dismal depths of woe behind the Virtue-Curtain, as most of her kind did, Lady Maud would have gone in and tried to drag her out, as she had saved others. But Logotheti's victim had taken a different turn, had turned thief and had got into the hands of justice. Her sin would be on his head, no doubt, but no power could avert from her the just consequences of a misdeed that had no necessary connexion with her fall. Thus argued Lady Maud, while Baraka lay on her pallet bed in her calico skirt and white cotton jacket, neither weeping, nor despairing by any means, nor otherwise yielding to girlish weakness, but already devising means for carrying on her pursuit of the man she would still seek, even throughout the whole world, though she was just now a penniless girl locked up as a thief in a London police station. It was not one of the down-hearted, crying sort that could have got so far already, against such portentous odds. She guessed well enough that she would be tried the next morning in the Police Court; for Spiro, who knew much about Europe, and England in particular, had told her a great deal during their travels. She had learned that England was a land of justice, and she would probably get it in the end; for the rest, she was a good Musulman girl and looked on whatsoever befell her as being her portion, for good or evil, to be accepted without murmuring. Lady Maud could not know anything of this and took Baraka for a common delinquent, so far as her present situation was concerned. But when the Englishwoman thought of what must have gone before, and of the part Logotheti had almost certainly played in the girl's life, her anger was roused, and she sat down and wrote to Margaret on the impulse of the moment. She gave a detailed account of her experience at the police station, including especially a description of the way Baraka had behaved in trying to send a message to Logotheti. 'I tell you quite frankly,' Lady Maud wrote in conclusion, 'that my friend Mr. Van Torp has begged me very urgently to use any friendly influence I may possess, to induce you to reconsider your engagement, because he hopes that you will accept him instead. You will not think any less well of him for that. A man may ask his best friend to help him to marry the girl he is in love with, I am sure! I told him that I would not do anything to make trouble between you and Logo. If I am making trouble now, by writing all this, it is therefore not to help Mr. Van Torp, but because the impression I have had about Logo has really frightened me, for you. I made such a wretched failure of my own married life that I have some right to warn a friend who seems to be on the point of doing just the same thing. I don't forget that in spite of all your celebrity--and its glories--you are nothing but a young girl still, under twenty-five; but you are not a schoolgirl, my dear, and you do not expect to find that a man like Logo, who is well on towards forty now, is a perfect Galahad. Even I didn't flatter myself that Leven had never cared for any one else, when I married him, and I had not half your knowledge of the world, I fancy. But you have a right to be sure that the man you marry is quite free, and that you won't suddenly meet a lovely Eastern girl of twenty who claims him after you think he is yours; and your friend has a right to warn you, if she feels sure that he is mixed up in some affair that isn't over yet. I'm not sure that I should be a good friend to you if I held my tongue. Our fathers were very close friends before us, Margaret, and there is really a sort of inheritance in their friendship, between you and me, isn't there? Besides, if you think I'm doing wrong, or that I'm making trouble out of nothing, just to help Mr. Van Torp, you can tell me so and we shall part I suppose, and that will be the end of it! Except that I shall be very, very sorry to lose you. 'I don't know where Logo is, but if he were near enough I should go to him and tell him what I think. Of course he is not in town now--nobody is, and I've only stayed on to clear everything out of my house, now that I'm giving it up. I suppose he is with you, though you said you did not want him at Bayreuth! Show him this letter if you like, for I'm quite ready to face him if he's angry at my interference. I would even join you in Paris, if you wanted me, for I have nothing to do and strange to say I have a little money! I've sold almost all my furniture, you know, so I'm not such a total pauper as usual. But in any case answer this, please, and tell me that I have done right, or wrong, just as you feel about it--and then we will go on being friends, or say good-bye, whichever you decide.' Lady Maud signed this long letter and addressed it to Miss Margaret Donne, at Bayreuth, feeling sure that it would be delivered, even without the name of the hotel, which she did not know. But the Bayreuth post-office was overworked during the limited time of the performances, and it happened that the extra assistant through whose hands the letter passed for distribution either did not know that Miss Donne was the famous Cordova, or did not happen to remember the hotel at which she was stopping, or both, and it got pigeonholed under D, to be called for. The consequence was that Margaret did not receive it until the morning after the performance of _Parsifal_ to which she had taken Van Torp, though it had left London only six hours after him; for such things will happen even in extremely well-managed countries when people send letters insufficiently addressed. Furthermore, it also happened that Logotheti was cooling himself on the deck of his yacht in the neighbourhood of Penzance, while poor Baraka was half-stifled in the Police Station. For the yacht, which was a very comfortable one, though no longer new, and not very fast according to modern ideas, was at Cowes, waiting to be wanted, and when her owner parted from Van Torp after promising to dine on the next day but one, it occurred to him that the smell of the wood pavements was particularly nasty, that it would make no real difference whether he returned to Pinney's at once or in two days, or two weeks, since the ruby he had left must be cut before it was mounted, and that he might just as well take the fast train to Southampton and get out to sea for thirty-six hours. This he did, after telegraphing to his sailing-master to have steam as soon as possible; and as he had only just time to reach the Waterloo Station he did not even take the trouble to stop at his lodgings. He needed no luggage, for he had everything he wanted on board, and his man was far too well used to his ways to be surprised at his absence. The consequence of this was that when Baraka's case came up the next morning there was no one to say a word for her and Spiro. Mr. Pinney identified the ruby 'to the best of his belief' as the one stolen from his counter, the fact that Baraka had been disguised in man's clothes was treated as additional evidence, and she and Spiro were sent to Brixton Gaol accordingly, Spiro protesting their innocence all the while in eloquent but disjointed English, until he was told to hold his tongue. Further, Lady Maud read the Police Court report in an evening paper, cut it out and sent it to Margaret as a document confirming the letter she had posted on the previous evening; and owing to the same insufficiency in the address, the two missives were delivered together. Lastly, Mr. Pinney took the big ruby back to his shop and locked it up in his safe with a satisfaction and a sense of profound relief such as he had rarely felt in a long and honourable life; and he would have been horrified and distressed beyond words if he could have even guessed that he had been the means of sending an innocent and helpless girl to prison. The mere possibility of such a mistake would have sent him at the greatest attainable speed to Scotland Yard, and if necessary in pursuit of the Home Secretary himself. The latter was in the north of Scotland, on a friend's moor, particularly preoccupied about his bag and deeply interested in the education of a young retriever that behaved like an idiot during each drive instead of lying quiet behind the butts, though it promised to turn out a treasure in respect of having the nose and eye of a vulture and the mouth of a sucking-dove. The comparisons are those of the dog's owner, including the 'nose' of the bird of prey, and no novelist can be held responsible for a Cabinet Minister's English. One thing more which concerns this tale happened on that same day. Two well-dressed young men drove up to the door of a quiet and very respectable hotel in the West End; and they asked for their bill, and packed their belongings, which were sufficient though not numerous; and when they had paid what they owed and given the usual tips, they told the porter to call two hansoms, and each had his things put on one of them; and they nodded to each other and parted; and one hansom drove to Euston and the other to Charing Cross; and whether they ever met again, I do not know, and it does not matter; but in order to clear Baraka's character at once and to avoid a useless and perfectly transparent mystery, it is as well to say directly that it was the young man who drove to Euston, on his way to Liverpool and New York, who had Logotheti's ruby sewn up in his waistcoat pocket; and that the ruby really belonged to Margaret, since Logotheti had already given it to her, before he had brought it to Mr. Pinney to be cut and set. But the knowledge of what is here imparted to the reader, who has already guessed this much of the truth, would not help Baraka out of Brixton Gaol, where the poor girl found herself in very bad company indeed; even worse, perhaps, than that in which Spiro was obliged to spend his time. CHAPTER VIII Margaret received her friend's letter and the account of Baraka's trial by the same post on the morning after she and Mr. Van Torp had been to hear _Parsifal_ together, and she opened the two envelopes before reading her other letters, though after assuring herself that there was nothing from Logotheti. He did not write every day, by any means, for he was a man of the world and he knew that although most women demand worship at fixed hours, few can receive it so regularly without being bored to the verge of exasperation. It was far better, Logotheti knew, to let Margaret find fault with him for writing too little than to spoil her into indifference by writing too much. Women are often like doctors, who order their patients to do ten things and are uncommonly glad if the patient does one. So Margaret had no letter from Logotheti that morning, and she read Lady Maud's and the enclosure before going on to the unpaid bills, religious tracts, appeals for alms, advertisements of patent medicines, 'confidential' communications from manufacturers of motor cars, requests to sing for nothing at charity concerts, anonymous letters of abuse, real business letters from real business men, and occasional attempts at blackmail, which are the usual contents of a celebrity's post-bag, and are generally but thinly salted with anything like news from friends. The Primadonna, in her professional travels, had grown cautious of reading her letters in a room where there were other people; she had once surprised a colleague who was toying with an opera-glass quite absently, ten paces away, as if trying its range and focus, but who frequently directed it towards a letter she was perusing; and short-sighted people had dropped a glove or a handkerchief at her very feet in order to stoop down and bring their noses almost against a note she held in her hand. The world is full of curious people; curiosity is said, indeed, to be the prime cause of study and therefore of knowledge itself. Margaret assuredly did not distrust Mrs. Rushmore, and she did not fear Potts, but her experience had given her the habit of reading her important letters alone in her own room, and sometimes with the door locked. Similarly, if any one came near her when she was writing, even about the most indifferent matters, she instinctively covered the page with her hand, or with a piece of blotting-paper, sometimes so hastily as to lead a person to believe that she was ashamed of what she had written. Natural habits of behaviour remind us how we were brought up; acquired ones recall to us the people with whom we have lived. Margaret read the newspaper cutting first, supposing that it contained something flattering about herself, for she had been a little short of public admiration for nearly a fortnight. Baraka's case was reported with the rather brutal simplicity which characterises such accounts in the English papers, and Logotheti's name appeared in Mr. Pinney's evidence. There had been the usual 'laughter,' duly noted by the stenographer, when the poor girl's smart man's clothes were produced before the magistrate by the policeman who had arrested her. The magistrate had made a few stern remarks when ordering the delinquents to prison, and had called Baraka 'hardened' because she did not burst into tears. That was all, and there were barely five-and-twenty lines of small print. But the Primadonna bit her handsome lip and her eyes sparkled with anger, as she put the cutting back into the first envelope, and took the folded letter out of the other. The girl had not only stolen a ruby, but it was Margaret's ruby, her very own, the one Logotheti had given her for her engagement, and which she had insisted upon having set as a ring though it would cover more than half the space between her knuckle and the joint of her third finger. Further, it had been stolen by the very girl from whom Logotheti had pretended that he had bought it, a fact which cast the high light of absurdity on his unlikely story! It was natural enough that she should have seen it, and should have known that he was taking it to Pinney's, and that she should have been able to prepare a little screw of paper with a bit of glass inside, to substitute for it. The improbabilities of such an explanation did not occur to Lady Maud, who saw only the glaring fact that the handsome Tartar girl had accompanied Logotheti, between London and Paris, disguised as a man, and had ultimately robbed him, as he richly deserved. She had imposed upon Van Torp too, and had probably tried to sell him the very stone she had stolen from Logotheti, and the one she had made him take as a gift was nothing but a bit of glass, as he said it might be, for all he knew. She devoured Lady Maud's letter in a few moments, and then read it twice again, which took so long that Mrs. Rushmore sent Justine to tell Potts to ask if Miss Donne did not mean to go out that morning, though the weather was so fine. Great singers generally develop a capacity for flying into rages, even if they have not been born with hot tempers. It is very bad for the voice, but it seems to be a part of the life. Margaret was very angry, and Potts became as meek and mild as a little lamb when she saw the storm signals in her mistress's face. She delivered her message in a pathetic and oppressed tone, like a child reciting the collect for the day at a Sunday school. The Primadonna, imposing as a young lioness, walked slowly backwards and forwards between her window and the foot of the iron bedstead. There was an angry light in her eyes and instead of flushing, as her cheeks did for any ordinary fit of temper, they were as white as wax. Potts, who was a small woman, seemed to shrink and become visibly smaller as she stood waiting for an answer. Suddenly the lioness stood still and surveyed the poor little jackal that served her. 'Ask Mrs. Rushmore if she can wait half an hour,' she said. 'I'm very angry, Potts, and it's not your fault, so keep out of the way.' She was generous at all events, but she looked dangerous, and Potts seemed positively to shrivel through the crack of the door as she disappeared. She was so extremely glad to keep out of the way! There were legends already about the great singer's temper, as there are about all her fellow-artists. It was said, without the slightest foundation, that she had once tossed a maid out of the window like a feather, that on another occasion she had severely beaten a coachman, and that she had thrown two wretched lap-dogs into a raging fire in a stove and fastened the door, because they had barked while she was studying a new part. As a matter of fact, she loved animals to weakness, and was kindness itself to her servants, and she was generally justified in her anger, though it sometimes made her say things she regretted. Oedipus found the right answer to the Sphinx's riddle in a moment, but the ingenious one about truth propounded by Pontius Pilate has puzzled more than sixty generations of Christians. If the Sphinx had thought of it, Oedipus would never have got to Thebes and some disgustingly unpleasant family complications would have been prevented by his premature demise. Margaret's wrath did not subside quickly, and as it could not spend itself on any immediate object, it made her feel as if she were in a raging fever. She had never been ill in her life, it was true, and therefore did not know what the sensation was. Her only experience of medical treatment had been at the hands of a very famous specialist for the throat, in New York, to whom she went because all her fellow-artists did, and whose mere existence is said by grateful singers to effectually counteract the effects of the bad climate during the opera season. He photographed her vocal chords, and the diagrams produced by her best notes, made her breathe pleasant-smelling sprays and told her to keep her feet dry in rainy weather. That was the sum of her experience with doctors, and it was not at all disagreeable. Now, her temples throbbed, her hands trembled and were as hot as fire, her lips were drawn and parched, and when she caught sight of herself in the looking-glass she saw that she was quite white and that her eyes were bloodshot. But she was really a sensible English girl, although she was so very angry. 'This is ridiculous!' she said aloud, with emphasis. 'I won't be so silly!' And she sat down to try and think quietly. It was not so easy. A Tartar girl indeed! More probably a handsome Greek. How could they know the difference in a London Police Court? She was not aware that in London and other great cities the police disposes of interpreters for every known language, from the Malay dialects to Icelandic. Besides, it did not matter! She would have been angry if Logotheti had made love to the Duchess of Barchester, or to Lady Dick Savory, the smartest woman in London, or to Mrs. Smythe-Hockaday, the handsomest woman in England; she would have been angry of course, but not so furious as she was now, not in a white rage that made her teeth chatter, and her eyes burn as if they were red-hot in her head. An ignorant Eastern girl! A creature that followed him about in man's clothes! A thief! Pah! Disgusting! Each detail that occurred to her made it more unbearable. She remembered her conversation with him through the telephone when she was at Versailles, his explanation the next day, which she had so foolishly accepted, his kiss! Her blood raged in her eyes, and her hands shook together. On that evening he had refused to stay to dinner; no doubt he had gone back to his house in Paris, and had dined with the girl--in the hall of the Aphrodite! It was not to be believed, and after that memorable moment under the elm-tree, too, when the sun was going down--after an honest girl's first kiss, the first she had given any man since she had been a child and her lips had timidly touched her dead father's forehead! People would not believe it, perhaps, because she was an artist and an opera-singer; but it was true. It was no wonder that they had succeeded in deceiving her for a while, the two Orientals together! They had actually made Rufus Van Torp believe their story, which must have been a very different matter from lying to a credulous young woman who had let herself fall in love! But for her friend Lady Maud she would still be their victim. Her heart went out to the woman who had saved her from her fate, and with the thought came the impulse to send a message of gratitude; and the first fury of her anger subsided with the impulse to do so. By and by it would cool and harden to a lasting resentment that would not soften again. Her hand still shook so that she could hardly hold the pen steady while she wrote the telegram. 'Unspeakably grateful. If can join me here will gladly wait for you. Must see you at once. Do come.' She felt better as she rose from the table, and when she looked at herself in the mirror she saw that her face had changed again and that her natural colour was returning. She rang for Potts, remembering that the half-hour must be almost up. The maid appeared at once, still looking very small and mild; but one glance told her that the worst was past. She raised her head, threw back her shoulders and stood up straight, apparently growing visibly till she regained her ordinary size. 'Potts,' Margaret said, facing round upon her, 'I've been in a rage, but I'm only angry now. Do I look like a human being again?' 'Yes, ma'am,' answered the maid, inspecting her gravely. 'You are still a bit pale, ma'am, and your eye is a trifle wild, I may say. A motor veil, perhaps, if you are thinking of going out, ma'am.' 'I haven't got such a thing, have I? I never motor now.' Potts smiled the smile of the very superior maid, and moved towards a perfectly new leather hat-box that stood in the corner. 'I always put in two for sea, ma'am,' she said. 'You wore one when we crossed the Channel the last time, if you remember.' 'Potts, you're a treasure!' 'Yes, ma'am,' Potts answered vaguely in her meek voice, as she dived into one of the curious secret pockets of the hat-box. 'That is, ma'am,' she said, correcting herself, 'I mean, it's very kind of you to say so.' Without further consulting Margaret, who had seated herself before the dressing-table, Potts proceeded to fasten a broad-brimmed black straw hat on the thick brown hair; she then spread an immense white veil over it, drew it under her mistress's chin and knotted in a way that would have amazed a seaman. When Margaret was putting on her gloves, Mrs. Rushmore herself came to the door, knocked and opened discreetly before there was any answer. 'My dear child,' she asked, 'what in the world is the matter? Nothing serious, I trust?' 'Oh, nothing,' Margaret answered, going forward to meet her, and finding her natural voice. 'I'm sorry if I've kept you waiting.' 'It's so unlike you, my dear,' Mrs. Rushmore said, with emphasis; 'and Potts looked quite grave when she brought me your message half an hour ago.' 'You would have been more surprised if she had burst out laughing,' Margaret said viciously. 'My dear,' Mrs. Rushmore answered, 'I'm astonished at you! I know something has happened. I know it. You are not yourself this morning.' This was a statement so evidently absurd that it could not be answered except by a flat contradiction; so Margaret said nothing, and went on working her hand into a perfectly new glove. 'I see that you have not even opened your letters,' Mrs. Rushmore continued severely. 'Except that,' she added, noticing the loose sheets of Lady Maud's letter on the toilet-table. Margaret gathered them up hastily, folded them into a crumpled package and thrust them into the empty envelope. For once, she had forgotten her caution, but she retrieved herself by pushing the thick letter into her long glove, much to Potts' distress, for it made an ugly lump. She made it worse by forcing in the second envelope, which contained the newspaper cutting. 'I'm ready now,' she said. Mrs. Rushmore turned and led the way with stately steps; she was always imposing, but when she was offended she was monumental. The two went out in silence, opened their parasols, the one black, the other scarlet, and walked slowly down the straight, dull street side by side. Mrs. Rushmore spoke first, after they had gone some distance. 'I know,' she said, 'that something has happened. It was in that letter. You cannot deny it, Margaret. It was in the letter you folded in that hurried manner.' 'The news was,' answered the Primadonna, still vicious. 'I told you so. My dear child, it's not of the slightest use to try to deceive me. I've known you since you were a child.' 'I'm not trying to deceive you.' 'When I asked what had happened, you answered, "Nothing." I do not call that very frank, do you?' 'Potts was there, to begin with,' explained Margaret rather crossly. But Mrs. Rushmore no longer heard. Her head was up, her parasol lay back upon her shoulder, her faded eyes were brighter than before, and the beginning of a social smile wreathed her hitherto grave lips. There was game about, and she was pointing; there were lions to windward. 'There's Mr. Van Torp, my dear,' she said in quite another tone, and very low, 'and unless I'm much mistaken--yes, I knew it! He's with Count Kralinsky. I saw the Count from the window yesterday when he arrived. I hope our friend will present him.' 'I daresay,' Margaret answered indifferently, but surveying the two men through the white mist of her thick veil. 'Yes,' said Mrs. Rushmore with delight, and almost whispering in her excitement. 'He has seen us, and now he's telling the Count who we are.' Margaret was used to her excellent old friend's ways on such occasions, and gave no more heed to them than she would have given to a kitten scampering after a ball of string. The kitten would certainly catch the ball in the end, and Mrs. Rushmore would as surely capture the lion. Mr. Van Torp raised his hat when he was within four or five paces of the ladies, and his companion, who was a head and shoulders taller than he, slackened his pace and stopped a little way behind him as Mrs. Rushmore shook hands and Margaret nodded pleasantly. 'May I present Count Kralinsky?' asked the American. 'I've met him before, and we've just renewed our acquaintance.' Mr. Van Torp looked from Mrs. Rushmore to Margaret, and tried to see her expression through her veil. She answered his look by a very slight inclination of the head. 'We shall be delighted,' said the elder lady, speaking for both. Mr. Van Torp introduced the Count to Mrs. Rushmore and then to Margaret, calling her 'Miss Donne,' and she saw that the man was handsome as well as tall and strong. He had a magnificent golden beard, a clear complexion, and rather uncertain blue eyes, in one of which he wore a single eyeglass without a string. He was quietly dressed and wore no jewellery, excepting one ring, in which blazed a large 'tallow-topped' ruby. He had the unmistakable air of a man of the world, and was perfectly at his ease. When he raised his straw hat he disclosed a very white forehead, and short, thick fair hair. There was no sign of approaching middle age in his face or figure, but Margaret felt, or guessed, that he was older than he looked. In her stiffly correct French, Mrs. Rushmore said that she was enchanted to make his acquaintance, and Margaret murmured sweetly but unintelligibly. 'The Count speaks English perfectly,' observed Mr. Van Torp. He ranged himself beside Margaret, leaving the foreigner to Mrs. Rushmore, much to her gratification. 'We were going to walk,' she said. 'Will you join us?' And she moved on. 'It is a great pleasure to meet you,' Kralinsky said by way of opening the conversation. 'I have often heard of you from friends in Paris. Your little dinners at Versailles are famous all over Europe. I am sure we have many mutual friends, though you may never have heard my name.' Mrs. Rushmore was visibly pleased, and as the way was not very wide, Margaret and Van Torp dropped behind. They soon heard the other two enumerating their acquaintances. Kralinsky was surprised at the number of Mrs. Rushmore's friends, but the Count seemed to know everybody, from all the Grand Dukes and Archdukes in Russia, Germany, and Austria, to the author of the latest successful play in Paris, and the man of science who had discovered how to cure gout by radium. Kralinsky had done the cure, seen the play, and dined with the royalties within the last few weeks. Mrs. Rushmore thought him one of the most charming men she had ever met. In the rear Mr. Van Torp and the Primadonna were not talking; but he looked at her, she looked at him, they both looked at Kralinsky's back, and then they once more looked at each other and nodded; which meant that Van Torp had recognised the man he had met selling rubies in New York, and that Margaret understood this. 'I'll tell you something else that's quite funny, if you don't mind dropping a little further behind,' he said. Margaret walked still more slowly till a dozen paces separated them from the other two. 'What is it?' she asked in a low tone. 'I believe he's my old friend from whom I learned to whistle _Parsifal_,' answered the American. 'I'm pretty sure of it, in spite of a good many years and a beard--two things that change a man. See his walk? See how he turns his toes in? Most cow-boys walk like that.' 'How very odd that you should meet again!' Margaret was surprised, but not deeply interested by this new development. 'Well,' said Van Torp thoughtfully, 'if I'd known I was going to meet him somewhere, I'd have said this was as likely a place as any to find him in, now that I know what it was he whistled. But I admit that the other matter has more in it. I wonder what would happen if I asked him about Miss Barrack?' 'Nothing,' Margaret answered confidently. 'Nothing would happen. He has never heard of her.' Van Torp's sharp eyes tried in vain to penetrate the veil. 'That's not quite clear,' he observed. 'Or else this isn't my good day.' 'The girl fooled you,' said Margaret in a low voice. 'Did she mention his name to you?' 'Well, no----' 'She never saw him in her life, or if she ever did, it was she who robbed him of rubies; and it was not the other way, as you supposed. Men are generally inclined to believe what a nice-looking girl tells them!' 'That's true,' Van Torp admitted. 'But all the same, I don't quite understand you. There's a meaning in your voice that's not in the words. Excuse me if I'm not quick enough this morning, please. I'm doing my best.' 'Your friend Baraka has been arrested and sent to prison in London for stealing a very valuable ruby from the counter in Pinney's,' Margaret explained. 'The stone had just been taken there by Monsieur Logotheti to be cut. The girl must have followed him without his knowing it, and watched her chance, though how old Pinney can have left such a thing lying on the counter where any one could take it is simply incomprehensible. That's what you heard in my voice when I said that men are credulous.' Mr. Van Torp thought he had heard even more in her accent when she had pronounced Logotheti's name. Besides, she generally called him 'Logo,' as all his friends did. The American said nothing for a moment, but he glanced repeatedly at the white veil, through which he saw her handsome features without their expression. 'Well,' he said at last, almost to himself, for he hardly expected her to understand the language of his surprise, 'that beats the band!' 'It really is rather odd, you know,' responded Margaret, who understood perfectly. 'If you think I've adorned the truth I'll give you the Police Court report. I have it in my glove. Lady Maud sent it to me with a letter.' She added, after an instant's hesitation, 'I'm not sure that I shall not give you that to read too, for there's something about you in it, and she is your best friend, isn't she?' 'Out and out. I daresay you'd smile if I told you that I asked her to help me to get you to change your mind.' 'No,' Margaret answered, turning slowly to look at him. 'She tells me so in this letter.' 'Does she really?' Van Torp had guessed as much, and had wished to undermine the surprise he supposed that Margaret had in store for him. 'That's just like her straightforward way of doing things. She told me frankly that she wouldn't lift a finger to influence you. However, it can't be helped, I suppose.' The conclusion of the speech seemed to be out of the logical sequence. 'She has done more than lift a finger now,' Margaret said. 'Has she offended you?' Van Torp ventured to ask, for he did not understand the constant subtone of anger he heard in her voice. 'I know she would not mean to do that.' 'No. You don't understand. I've telegraphed to ask her to join us here.' Van Torp was really surprised now, and his face showed it. 'I wish we were somewhere alone,' Margaret continued. 'I mean, out of the way of Mrs. Rushmore. She knows nothing about all this, but she saw me cramming the letters into my glove, and I cannot possibly let her see me giving them to you.' 'Oh, well, let me think,' said the millionaire. 'I guess I want to buy some photographs of Bayreuth and the _Parsifal_ characters in that shop, there on the right. Suppose you wait outside the door, so that Mrs. Rushmore can see you if she turns around. She'll understand that I'm inside. If you drop your parasol towards her you can get the letters out, can't you? Then as I come out you can just pass them to me behind the parasol, and we'll go on. How's that? It won't take one second, anyhow. You can make-believe your glove's uncomfortable, and you're fixing it, if anybody you know comes out of the shop. Will that do? Here we are. Shall I go in?' 'Yes. Don't be long! I'll cough when I'm ready.' The operation succeeded, and the more easily as Mrs. Rushmore went quietly on without turning her head, being absorbed and charmed by Kralinsky's conversation. 'You may as well read the newspaper cutting now,' Margaret said when they had begun to walk again. 'That cannot attract attention, even if she does look round, and it explains a good many things. It's in the thinner envelope, of course.' Van Torp fumbled in the pocket of his jacket, and brought out the slip of newspaper without the envelope, a precaution which Margaret noticed and approved. If she had been able to forget for a moment her anger against Logotheti she would have been amazed at the strides her intimacy with Van Torp was making. He himself was astounded, and did not yet understand, but he had played the great game for fortune against adversaries of vast strength and skill, and had won by his qualities rather than his luck, and they did not desert him at the most important crisis of his life. The main difference between his present state of mind and his mental view, when he had been fighting men for money, was that he now felt scruples wholly new to him. Things that had looked square enough when millions were at stake appeared to him 'low down' where Margaret was the prize. She watched him intently while he read the printed report, but his face did not change in the least. At that short distance she could see every shade of his expression through the white veiling, though he could not see hers at all. He finished reading, folded the slip carefully, and put it into his pocket-book instead of returning it to the envelope. [Illustration: "She watched him intently while he read the printed report."] 'It does look queer,' he said slowly. 'Now let me ask you one thing, but don't answer me unless you like. It's not mere inquisitiveness on my part.' As Margaret said nothing, though he waited a moment for her answer, he went on. 'That ruby, now--I suppose it's to be cut for you, isn't it?' 'Yes. He gave it to me in Versailles, and I kept it some days. Then he asked me to let him have it to take to London when I came here.' 'Just so. Thank you. One more question, if I may. That stone I gave you, I swear I don't know that it's not glass--anyhow, that stone, does it look at all like the one that was stolen?' 'Oh, no! It's quite another shape and size. Why do you ask? I don't quite see.' 'What I mean is, if these people are around selling rubies, there may be two very much alike, that's all.' 'Well, if there were? What of it?' 'Suppose--I'm only supposing, mind, that the girl really had another stone about her a good deal like the one that was stolen, and that somebody else was the thief. Queer things like that have happened before.' 'Yes. But old Pinney is one of the first experts in the world, and he swore to the ruby.' 'That's so,' said Van Torp thoughtfully. 'I forgot that.' 'And if she had the other stone, she had stolen it from Monsieur Logotheti, I have not the least doubt.' 'I daresay,' replied the millionaire. 'I'm not her attorney. I'm not trying to defend her. I was only thinking.' 'She was at his house in Paris,' Margaret said, quite unable to keep her own counsel now. 'It was when I was at Versailles.' 'You don't say so! Are you sure of that?' 'He admitted it when I was talking to him through the telephone, and I heard her speaking to him in a language I did not understand.' 'Did you really? Well, well!' Mr. Van Torp was beginning to be puzzled again. 'Nice voice, hasn't she?' 'Yes. He tried to make me think he wasn't sure whether the creature was a boy or a girl.' 'Maybe he wasn't sure himself,' suggested the American, but the tone in which she had spoken the word 'creature' had not escaped him. He was really trying to put the case in a fair light, and was not at all manoeuvring to ascertain her state of mind. That was clear enough now. How far she might go he could not tell, but what she had just said, coupled with the way in which she spoke of the man to whom she was engaged as 'Monsieur Logotheti,' made it quite evident that she was profoundly incensed against him, and Van Torp became more than ever anxious not to do anything underhand. 'Look here,' he said, 'I'm going to tell you something. I took a sort of interest in that Tartar girl the only time I saw her. I don't know why. I daresay I was taken in by her--just ordinary "taken in," like a tenderfoot. I gave her that fellow's address in New York.' He nodded towards Kralinsky. 'When I found he was here, I wired Logotheti to tell her, since she's after him. I suppose I thought Logotheti would go right away and find her, and get more mixed up with her than ever. It was mean of me, wasn't it? That's why I've told you. You see, I didn't know anything about all this, and that makes it meaner still, doesn't it?' Possibly if he had told her these facts forty-eight hours earlier she might have been annoyed, but at present they seemed to be rather in his favour. At all events he was frank, she thought. He declared war on his rival, and meant fight according to the law of nations. Lady Maud would not be his friend if he were playing any double game, but she had stuck to him throughout his trouble in the spring, he had emerged victorious and reinstated in public opinion, and she had been right. Lady Maud knew him better than any one else, and she was a good woman, if there ever was one. Yet he had accused himself of having acted 'meanly.' Margaret did not like the word, and threw up her head as a horse does when a beginner holds on by the curb. 'You need not make yourself out worse than you are,' she answered. 'I want to start fair,' said the millionaire, 'and I'd rather your impression should improve than get worse. The only real trouble with Lucifer was he started too high up.' This singular statement was made with perfect gravity, and without the slightest humorous intention, but Margaret laughed for the first time that day, in spite of the storm that was still raging in the near distance of her thoughts. 'Why do you laugh?' asked Van Torp. 'It's quite true. I don't want to start too high up in your estimation and then be turned down as unfit for the position at the end of the first week. Put me where I belong and I won't disappoint you. Say I was doing something that wasn't exactly low-down, considering the object, but that mightn't pass muster at an honour-parade, anyhow. And then say that I've admitted the fact, if you like, and that the better I know you the less I want to do anything mean. It won't be hard for you to look at it in that light, will it? And it'll give me the position of starting from the line. Is that right?' 'Yes,' Margaret answered, smiling. 'Slang "right" and English "right"! You ask for a fair field and no favour, and you shall have it.' 'I'll go straight,' Van Torp answered. He was conscious that he was hourly improving his knowledge of women's little ways, and that what he had said, and had purposely expressed in his most colloquial manner, had touched a chord which would not have responded to a fine speech. For though he often spoke a sort of picturesque dialect, and though he was very far from being highly educated, he could speak English well enough when he chose. It probably seemed to him that good grammar and well-selected words belonged to formal occasions and not to everyday life, and that it was priggish to be particular in avoiding slang and cowardly to sacrifice an hereditary freedom from the bonds of the subjunctive mood. 'I suppose Lady Maud will come, won't she?' he asked suddenly, after a short silence. 'I hope so,' Margaret said. 'If not, she will meet me in Paris, for she offers to do that in her letter.' 'I'm staying on in this place because you said you didn't mind,' observed Van Torp. 'Do you want me to go away if she arrives?' 'Why should I? Why shouldn't you stay?' 'Oh, I don't know. I was only thinking. Much obliged anyway, and I'll certainly stay if you don't object. We shall be quite a party, shan't we? What with us three, and Lady Maud and Kralinsky there----' 'Surely you don't call him one of our "party"!' objected Margaret. 'He's only just been introduced to us. I daresay Mrs. Rushmore will ask him to dinner or luncheon, but that will be all.' 'Oh, yes! I suppose that will be all.' But his tone roused her curiosity by its vagueness. 'You knew him long ago,' she said. 'If he's not a decent sort of person to have about, you ought to tell us--indeed you should not have introduced him at all if he's a bad lot.' Mr. Van Torp did not answer at once, and seemed to be consulting his recollections. 'I don't know anything against him,' he said at last. 'All foreigners who drift over to the States and go West haven't left their country for the same reasons. I suppose most of them come because they've got no money at home and want some. I haven't any right to take it for granted that a foreign gentleman who turns cow-boy for a year or two has cheated at cards, or anything of that sort, have I? There were all kinds of men on that ranch, as there are on every other and in every mining camp in the West, and most of 'em have no particular names. They get called something when they turn up, and they're known as that while they stay, and if they die with their boots on, they get buried as that, and if not, they clear out when they've had enough of it; and some of 'em strike something and get rich, as I did, and some of 'em settle down to occupations, as I've known many do. But they all turn into themselves again, or turn themselves into somebody else after they go back. While they're punching cattle they're generally just "Dandy Jim" or "Levi Longlegs," as that fellow was, or something of that sort.' 'What were you called?' asked Margaret. 'I?' Van Torp smiled faintly at the recollection of his nickname. 'I was always Fanny Cook.' Margaret laughed. 'Of all the inappropriate names!' 'Well,' said the millionaire, still smiling, 'I guess it must have been because I was always sort of gentle and confiding and sweet, you know. So they concluded to give me a girl's name as soon as they saw me, and I turned out a better cook than the others, so they tacked that on, too. I didn't mind.' Margaret smiled too, as she glanced at his jaw and his flat, hard cheeks, and thought of his having been called 'Fanny.' 'Did you ever kill anybody, Miss Fanny?' she asked, with a little laugh. A great change came over his face at once. 'Yes,' he answered very gravely. 'Twice, in fair self-defence. If I had hesitated, I should not be here.' 'I beg your pardon,' Margaret said quietly. 'I should not have asked you. I ought to have known.' 'Why?' he asked. 'One gets that kind of question asked one now and then by people one doesn't care to answer. But I'd rather have you know something about my life than not. Not that it's much to be proud of,' he added, rather sadly. 'Some day you shall tell me all you will,' Margaret answered. 'I daresay you did much better than you think, when you look back.' 'Lady Maud knows all about me now,' he said, 'and no one else alive does. Perhaps you'll be the second that will, and that'll be all for the present. They want us to come up with them, do you see?' Mrs. Rushmore and Kralinsky had stopped in their walk and were waiting for them. They quickened their pace. 'I thought perhaps this was far enough,' said Mrs. Rushmore. 'Of course I could go on further, and it's not your usual walk, my dear, but unless you mind--' Margaret did not mind, and said so readily; whereupon Mrs. Rushmore deliberately took Van Torp for her companion on the way back. 'I'm sure you won't object to walking slowly,' she said to him, 'and Miss Donne and the Count can go as fast as they like, for they are both good walkers. I am sure you must be a great walker,' she added, turning to the Russian. He smiled blandly and bent his head a little, as if he were acknowledging a compliment. Van Torp looked at him quietly. 'I should have thought you were more used to riding,' said the American. 'Ah, yes!' The indifferent answer came in a peculiarly oily tone, though the pronunciation was perfect. 'I was in the cavalry before I began to travel. But I walked over two thousand miles in Central Asia, and was none the worst for it.' Margaret was sure that she was not going to like him, as she moved on with him by her side; and Van Torp, walking with Mrs. Rushmore, was quite certain that he was Levi Longlegs, who had herded cattle with him for six months very long ago. CHAPTER IX Logotheti reached his lodgings in St. James's Place at six o'clock in the evening of the day on which he had promised to dine with Van Torp, and the latter's note of excuse was given to him at once. He read it, looked out of the window, glanced at it again, and threw it into the waste-paper basket without another thought. He did not care in the least about dining with the American millionaire. In fact, he had looked forward to it rather as a bore than a pleasure. He saw on his table, with his letters, a flat and almost square parcel, which the addressed label told him contained the Archæological Report of the Egyptian Exploration Fund, and he had heard that the new number would contain an account of a papyrus recently discovered at Oxyrrhynchus, on which some new fragments of Pindar had been found. No dinner that could be devised, and no company that could be asked to meet him at it, could be half as delightful as that to the man who so deeply loved the ancient literature of his country, and he made up his mind at once that he would not even take the trouble to go to a club, but would have a bird and a salad in his rooms. Unhappily for his peace and his anticipated feast of poetry, he looked through his letters to see if there were one from Margaret, and there was only a coloured postcard from Bayreuth, with the word 'greetings' scrawled beside the address in her large hand. Next to the card, however, there was a thick letter addressed in a commercial writing he remembered but could not at once identify; and though it was apparently a business communication, and could therefore have waited till the next morning, when his secretary would come as usual, he opened it out of mere curiosity to know whence it came. It was from Mr. Pinney the jeweller, and it contained a full and conscientious account of the whole affair of the theft, from the moment when Logotheti and Van Torp had gone out together until Mr. Pinney had locked up the stone in his safe again, and Baraka and Spiro had been lodged in Brixton Gaol. The envelope contained also a cutting from the newspaper similar to the one Margaret had received from Lady Maud. Logotheti laid the letter on the table and looked at his watch. It was now a quarter-past six, and old-fashioned shops like Pinney's close rather early in the dull season, when few customers are to be expected and the days are not so long as they have been. In the latter part of August, in London, the sun sets soon after seven o'clock, and Logotheti realised that he had no time to lose. As he drove quickly up towards Bond Street, he ran over the circumstances in his mind, and came to the conclusion that Baraka had probably been the victim of a trick, though he did not exclude the bare possibility that she might be guilty. With all her cleverness and native sense, she might be little more than a savage who had picked up European manners in Constantinople, where you can pick up any manners you like, Eastern or Western. The merchant who had given her a letter for Logotheti only knew what she had chosen to tell him, and connived in her deception by speaking of her as a man; and she might have told him anything to account for having some valuable precious stones to dispose of. But, on the other hand, she might not be a Tartar at all. Any one, from the Bosphorus to the Amur, may speak Tartar, and pretend not to understand anything else. She might be nothing but a clever half-bred Levantine from Smyrna, who had fooled them all, and really knew French and even English. The merchant had not vouched for the bearer's character beyond saying that 'he' had some good rubies to sell, called himself a Tartar, and was apparently an honest young fellow. All the rest was Baraka's own story, and Logotheti really knew of nothing in her favour beyond his intimate conviction that she was innocent. Against that stood the fact that the stolen ruby had been found secreted on her person within little more than half an hour of her having had a chance to take it from Pinney's shop. From quite another point of view, Logotheti himself argued as Margaret had done. Baraka knew that he possessed the ruby, since she had sold it to him. She knew that he meant to have it cut in London. She might easily have been watching him and following him for several days in the hope of getting it back, carrying the bit of bottle glass of the same size about with her, carefully prepared and wrapped in tissue-paper, ready to be substituted for the gem at any moment. She had watched him go into Pinney's, knowing very well what he was going for; she had waited till he came out, and had then entered and asked to see any rubies Mr. Pinney had, trusting to the chance that he might choose to show her Logotheti's, as a curiosity. Chance had favoured her, that was all. She had doubtless recognised the twist on the counter, and the rest had been easy enough. Was not the affair of the Ascot Cup, a much more difficult and dangerous theft, still fresh in every one's memory? Logotheti found Mr. Pinney himself in the act of turning the discs of the safe before going home and leaving his shopman to shut up the place. He smiled with grave satisfaction when Logotheti entered. 'I was hoping to see you, sir,' he said. 'I presume that you had my letter? I wrote out the account with great care, as you may imagine, but I shall be happy to go over the story with you if there is any point that is not clear.' Logotheti did not care to hear it; he wished to see the ruby. Mr. Pinney turned the discs again to their places, stuck the little key into the secret keyhole which then revealed itself, turned it three times to the left and five times to the right, and opened the heavy iron door. The safe was an old-fashioned one that had belonged to his father before him. He got out the japanned tin box, opened that, and produced the stone, still in its paper, for it was too thick to be put into one of Mr. Pinney's favourite pill-boxes. Logotheti undid the paper, took out the big uncut ruby, laid it in the palm of his hand, and looked at it critically, turning it over with one finger from time to time. He took it to the door of the shop, where the evening light was stronger, and examined it with the greatest care. Still he did not seem satisfied. 'Let me have your lens, Mr. Pinney,' he said, 'and some electric light and a sheet of white paper.' Mr. Pinney turned up a strong drop light that stood on the counter, and produced the paper and a magnifier. 'It's a grand ruby,' he said. 'I see it is,' Logotheti answered rather curtly. 'Do you mean to say,' asked the surprised jeweller, 'that you had bought it without thoroughly examining it, sir--you who are an expert?' 'No, that's not what I mean,' answered the Greek, bending over the ruby and scrutinising it through the strong magnifier. Mr. Pinney felt himself snubbed, which had not happened to him for a long time, and he drew himself up with dignity. A minute passed, and Logotheti did not look up; another, and Mr. Pinney grew nervous; a few seconds more, and he received a shock that took away his breath. 'This is not my ruby,' said Logotheti, looking up, and speaking with perfect confidence. 'Not--your--ruby!' Mr. Pinney's jaw dropped. 'But----' He could get no further. 'I'm sorry,' Logotheti said calmly. 'I'm very sorry, for several reasons. But it's not the stone I brought you, though it's just as large, and most extraordinarily like it.' 'But how do you know, sir?' gasped the jeweller. 'Because I'm an expert, as you were good enough to say just now.' 'Yes, sir. But I am an expert too, and to the best of my expert belief this is the stone you left with me to be cut, the day before yesterday. I've examined it most thoroughly.' 'No doubt,' answered the Greek. 'But you hadn't examined mine thoroughly before it was stolen, had you? You had only looked at it with me, on the counter here.' 'That is correct, sir,' said Mr. Pinney nervously. 'That is quite true.' 'Very well. But I did more than merely look at it through a lens or weigh it. I did not care so much about the weight, but I cared very much for the water, and I tried the ruby point on it in the usual way, but it was too hard, and then I scratched it in two places with the diamond, more out of curiosity than for any other reason.' 'You marked it, sir? There's not a single scratch on this one! Merciful Providence! Merciful Providence!' 'Yes,' Logotheti said gravely. 'The girl spoke the truth. She had two stones much larger than the rest when she first came to me in Paris, this one and another. They were almost exactly alike, and she wanted me to buy both, but I did not want them, and I took the one I thought a little better in colour. This is the other, for she still had it; and, so far as I know, it is her legal property, and mine is gone. The thief was one of those two young fellows who came in just when Mr. Van Torp and I went out. I remember thinking what nice-looking boys they were!' He laughed rather harshly, for he was more annoyed than his consideration for Mr. Pinney made him care to show. He had looked forward to giving Margaret the ruby, mounted just as she wished it; and the ruby was gone, and he did not know where he was to find another, except the one that was now in Pinney's hands, but really belonged to poor Baraka, who could certainly not sell it at present. A much larger sum of money was gone, too, than any financier could lose with equanimity by such a peculiarly disagreeable mishap as being robbed. There were several reasons why Logotheti was not pleased. So far as the money went, he was not sure about the law in such a case, and he did not know whether he could claim it of Pinney, who had really been guilty of gross carelessness after a lifetime of scrupulous caution. Pinney was certainly very well off, and would not suffer nearly as much by the loss of a few thousand pounds as from the shame of having been robbed in such an impudent fashion of a gem that was not even his, but had been entrusted to his keeping. 'I am deeply humiliated,' said the worthy old jeweller. 'I have not only been tricked and plundered, but I have been the means of sending innocent people to prison.' 'You had better be the means of getting them out again as soon as possible,' said Logotheti. 'You know what to do here in England far better than I. In my country a stroke of the pen would free Baraka, and perhaps another would exile you to Bagdad, Mr. Pinney!' He spoke lightly, to cheer the old man, but Mr. Pinney shook his head. 'This is no jesting matter, sir,' he said. 'I feel deeply humiliated.' He really did, and it was evidently a sort of relief to him to repeat the words. 'I suppose,' said Logotheti, 'that we shall have to make some kind of sworn deposition, or whatever you call it, together, and we will go and do it at once, if you please. Lock up the ruby in the safe again, Mr. Pinney, and we will start directly. I shall not go back to my lodgings till we have done everything we can possibly do to-night.' 'But you will dine, sir?' Mr. Pinney put that point as only a well-regulated Englishman of his class can. 'I shall not dine, and you will not dine,' answered Logotheti calmly, 'if our dinner is at all likely to keep those people in prison an hour longer than is inevitable.' Mr. Pinney looked graver than ever. He was in the habit of dining early, and it is said that an Englishman does not fight on an empty stomach, and will eat an excellent breakfast before being hanged. 'You can eat sandwiches in the hansom,' said the Greek coldly. 'I was thinking of you, sir,' Mr. Pinney answered gloomily, as he finished the operation of shutting the safe; he did not like sandwiches, for his teeth were not strong. 'You must also make an effort to trace those two young men who stole the ruby,' said Logotheti. 'I most certainly shall,' replied the jeweller, 'and if it is not found we will make it good to you, sir, whatever price you set upon it. I am deeply humiliated, but nobody shall say that Pinney and Son do not make good any loss their customers sustain through them.' 'Don't worry about that, Mr. Pinney,' said Logotheti, who saw how much distressed the old jeweller really was. So they went out and hailed a hansom, and drove away. It would be tiresome to give a detailed account of what they did. Mr. Pinney had not been one of the principal jewellers in London for forty years without having been sometimes in need of the law; and occasionally, also, the law had been in need of him as an expert in very grave cases, some of which required the utmost secrecy as well as the greatest possible tact. He knew his way about in places where Logotheti had never been; and having once abandoned the idea of dinner, he lost no time; for the vision of dinner after all was over rose softly, as the full moon rises on a belated traveller, very pleasant and companionable by the way. Moreover, as the fact that Baraka and Spiro were really innocent has been kept in view, the manner in which they were proved so is of little importance, nor the circumstances of their being let out of Brixton Gaol, with a vague expression of regret on the part of the law for having placed faith in what Mr. Pinney had testified 'to the best of his belief,' instead of accepting a fairy story which a Tartar girl, caught going about in man's clothes, told through the broken English of a Stamboul interpreter. The law, being good English law, did not make a fuss about owning that it had been mistaken; though it reprimanded Mr. Pinney openly for his haste, and he continued to feel deeply humiliated. It was also quite ready to help him to find the real thieves, though that looked rather difficult. For law and order, in their private study, with no one looking on, had felt that there was something very odd about the case. It was strange, for instance, that the committed person should have a large bank account in Paris in his, or her, own name, and should have made no attempt to conceal the latter when arrested. It was queer that 'Barak' should be known to a number of honourable Paris jewellers as having sold them rubies of excellent quality, but that there should never have been the least suspicion that he, or she, took any that belonged to other people. It was still more extraordinary that 'Barak' should have offered an enormous ruby, of which the description corresponded remarkably well with the one that had appeared in evidence at the Police Court, to two French dealers in precious stones, who had not bought it, but were bearing it in mind for possible customers, and were informed of Barak's London address, in case they could find a buyer. In the short time since Baraka had been in prison, yards of ciphered telegrams had been exchanged between the London and Paris police; for the Frenchmen maintained that if the Englishmen had not made a mistake, there must have been a big robbery of precious stones somewhere, to account for those that Baraka was selling; but that, as no such robbery, or robberies, had been heard of anywhere in Europe, America, India, or Australia, the Englishmen were probably wrong and had locked up the wrong person. For the French jewellers who had bought the stones all went to the Paris Chief of Police and laid the matter before him, being much afraid that they had purchased stolen goods which had certainly not been offered for sale in 'market overt.' The result was that the English police had begun to feel rather nervous about it all, and were extremely glad to have matters cleared up, and to say so, and to see about the requisite order to set the prisoners at large. Also, Mr. Pinney restored the ruby to her, and all her other belongings were given back to her, even including the smart grey suit of men's clothes in which she had been arrested; and her luggage and other things which the manager of the hotel where she had been stopping had handed over to the police were all returned; and when Spiro appeared at the hotel to pay the small bill that had been left owing, he held his head as high as an Oriental can when he has got the better of any one, and that is pretty high indeed. Furthermore, Mr. Pinney insisted on giving Logotheti a formal document by which Messrs. Pinney and Son bound themselves to make good to him, his heirs, or assigns, the loss of a ruby, approximately of a certain weight and quality, which he had lost through their carelessness. All these things were arranged with as little fuss and noise as might be; but it was not possible to keep the singular circumstances out of the newspapers; nor was it desirable, except from Mr. Pinney's point of view, for Baraka had a right to be cleared from all suspicion in the most public manner, and Logotheti insisted that this should be done. It was done, and generously too; and the girl's story was so wonderfully romantic that the reporters went into paroxysms of adjectivitis in every edition of their papers, and scurried about town like mad between the attacks to find out where she was and to interview her. But in this they failed; and the only person they could lay hands on was Logotheti's private secretary, who was a middle-aged Swiss with a vast face that was as perfectly expressionless as a portrait of George the Fourth on the signboard of an English country inn, or a wooden Indian before the door of an American tobacconist's shop. He had been everywhere and spoke most known languages, for he had once set up a little business in Constantinople that had failed; and his power of knowing nothing, when he had a secret to keep for his employer, was as the combined stupidity of ten born idiots. He knew nothing. No, he did not know where Baraka was; he did not know what had become of her servant Spiro; he did not know where Logotheti was; he did not know anything; if the reporters had asked him his own name, he would very likely have answered that he did not know that either. The number of things he did not know was perfectly overwhelming. The reporters came to the conclusion that Logotheti had spirited away the beautiful Tartar; and they made some deductions, but abstained from printing them yet, though they worked them out on paper, because they were well aware that Logotheti was engaged to marry the celebrated Cordova, and was too important a personage to be trifled with, unless he had a fall, which sometimes happens to financiers. On the day following Baraka's liberation, Lady Maud received Margaret's pressing telegram begging her to go to Bayreuth. The message reached her before noon, about the time when Margaret and her companions had come back from their morning walk, and after hesitating for half-an-hour, she telegraphed that she would come with pleasure, and would start at once, which meant that evening. She had just read the official account of the ruby case in its new aspect, and she did not believe a word of the story. To her mind it was quite clear that Logotheti was still infatuated with the girl, that he had come to London as fast as he could, and that he had deliberately sworn that the ruby was not his, but another one, in order to get her out of trouble. If it was not his it had not been stolen from Pinney's, and the whole case fell through at once. If she was declared innocent the stone must be given back to her; he would take it from her as soon as they were alone and return it to his own pocket; and being an Oriental, he would probably beat her for robbing him, but would not let her out of his sight again till he was tired of her. Lady Maud had heard from her late husband how all Turks believed that women had no souls and should be kept under lock and key, and well fed, and soundly beaten now and then for the good of their tempers. This view was exaggerated, but Lady Maud was in a humour to recall it and accept it without criticism, and she made up her mind that before leaving town to join Margaret she would make sure of the facts. No friend of hers should marry a man capable of such outrageous deeds. If she had not been an impulsive woman she could never have done so much good in the world; and she had really done so much that she believed in her impulses, and acted on them without taking into consideration the possibility that she might be doing harm. But the damage which very actively good people sometimes do quite unintentionally is often greater and more lasting than that done by bad people, because the good ones carry with them the whole resistless weight of real goodness and of real good works already accomplished. Perhaps that is why honestly convinced reformers sometimes bring about more ruin in a few months than ten years of bribery and corruption have wrought before them. Lady Maud was a reformer, in a sense, and she was afraid of nothing when she thought she was doing right. She went to Logotheti's lodgings and asked to see him, as regardless of what any one should think of her, if she were recognised, as she had been in the old days when she used to go to Van Torp's chambers in the Temple in the evening. She was told that Logotheti was out of town. Where? The servant did not know that. The lady could see the secretary, who might, perhaps, tell her. He received every one who had business with Monsieur Logotheti. She went up one flight and was admitted to a very airy sitting-room, simply furnished. There were several large easy-chairs of different shapes, all covered with dark wine-coloured leather, and each furnished with a different appliance for holding a book or writing materials. There was a long bookcase full of books behind glass. There was a writing-table, on which were half-a-dozen monstrously big implements of an expensive kind, but handsome in their way: a paper-cutter hewn from at least a third of an elephant's tusk, and heavy enough to fell a man at a blow; an enormous inkstand, apparently made of a solid brick of silver, without ornament, brightly polished, and having a plain round hole in the middle for ink; a blotting-case of the larger folio size, with a Greek inscription on it in raised letters of gold; a trough of imperial jade, two feet long, in which lay a couple of gold penholders fitted with new pens, and the thickest piece of scarlet sealing-wax Lady Maud had ever seen. They were objects of the sort that many rich men receive as presents, or order without looking at them when they are furnishing a place that is to be a mere convenience for a few days in the year. There was nothing personal in what Lady Maud saw, except the books, and she could not have examined them if she had wished to. The one thing that struck her was a delicate suggestion of sweetness in the fresh air of the room, something that was certainly not a scent, and yet was not that of the perfumes or gums which some Orientals like to burn where they live. She liked it, and wondered what it was, as she glanced about for some one of the unmistakable signs of a woman's presence. The Swiss secretary had risen ponderously to receive her, and as she did not sit down he remained standing. His vast face was fringed with a beard of no particular colour, and his eyes were fixed and blue in his head, like turquoises set in pale sole leather. 'I am Countess Leven,' she said, 'and I have known Monsieur Logotheti some time. Will you kindly tell me where he is?' 'I do not know, madam,' was the answer. 'He is not in London?' 'At present I do not know, madam.' 'Has he left no address? Do you not forward his letters to him?' 'No, madam. I do not forward his letters to him.' 'Then I suppose he is on his yacht,' suggested Lady Maud. 'Madam, I do not know whether he is on his yacht.' 'You don't seem to know anything!' 'Pardon me, madam, I think I know my business. That is all I know.' Lady Maud held her beautiful head a little higher and her lids drooped slightly as she looked down at him, for he was shorter than she. But the huge leathern face was perfectly impassive, and the still, turquoise eyes surveyed her without winking. She had never seen such stolidity in a human being. It reminded her of those big Chinese pottery dogs with vacant blue eyes that some people keep beside a fireplace or a hall door, for no explicable reason. There was clearly nothing to be done, and she thought the secretary distinctly rude; but as that was no reason why she should be, she bade him good-morning civilly and turned to go. Somewhat to her surprise, he followed her quickly across the room, opened the door for her and went on into the little hall to let her out. There was a small table there, on which lay some of Logotheti's hats, and several pairs of gloves were laid out neatly before them. There was one pair, of a light grey, very much smaller than all the rest, so small indeed that they might have fitted a boy of seven, except that they looked too narrow for any boy. They were men's gloves as to length and buttons, but only a child could have worn them. Lady Maud saw them instantly, and remembered Baraka's disguise; and as she passed the big umbrella jar to go out, she saw that with two of Logotheti's sticks there was a third, fully four inches shorter; just a plain crook-handled stick with a silver ring. That was enough. Baraka had certainly been in the lodgings and had probably left in them everything that belonged to her disguise. The fact that the gloves and the stick were in the hall, looked very much as if she had come in dressed as a man and had left them there when she had gone away in woman's attire. That she was with Logotheti, most probably on his yacht, Lady Maud had not the least doubt, as she went down the stairs. The Swiss secretary stood at the open door on the landing till she was out of sight below, and then went in again, and returned to work over a heap of business papers and letters. When he had worked half an hour, he leaned back in his leathern chair to rest, and stared fixedly at the bookcase. Presently he spoke aloud in English, as if Lady Maud were still in the room, in the same dull, matter-of-fact tone, but more forcibly as to expression. 'It is perfectly true, though you do not believe me, madam. I do not know anything. How the dickens should I know where they are, madam? But I know my business. That is all.' CHAPTER X The _Erinna_ was steaming quietly down the Channel in a flat calm, at the lazy rate of twelve knots an hour, presumably in order to save her coal, for she could run sixteen when her owner liked, and he was not usually fond of going slow. Though September was at hand, and Guernsey was already on the port quarter, the sea was motionless and not so much as a cat's-paw stirred the still blue water; but the steamer's own way made a pleasant draught that fanned the faces of Logotheti and Baraka as they lay in their long chairs under the double awning outside the deck-house. The Tartar girl wore a skirt and jacket of dark blue yachting serge, which did not fit badly considering that they had been bought ready-made by Logotheti's man. She had little white tennis shoes on her feet, which were crossed one over the other on the deck-chair, but instead of wearing a hat she had bound a dove-coloured motor-veil on her head by a single thick gold cord, in the Asiatic way, and the thin folds hung down on each side, and lay on her shoulders, shading her face, and the breeze stirred them. Logotheti's valet had been sent out in a taximeter, provided with a few measurements and plenty of cash, and commissioned to buy everything that a girl who had nothing at all to wear, visible or invisible, could possibly need. He was also instructed to find a maid who could speak Tartar, or at least a little Turkish. After five hours he had come back with a heavy load of boxes of all shapes and sizes and the required maid. You can find anything in a great city, if you know how to look for it, and he had discovered through an agency a girl from Trebizonde who had been caught at twelve years old by missionaries, brought to England and educated to go into service; she spoke English very prettily, and had not altogether forgotten the _lingua franca_ of Asia. It was her first place, outside of the retired missionary's house, where she had been brought up and taught by a good old lady who had much to say about the heathen, and gave her to understand that all her deceased forefathers and relatives were frying. As she could not quite believe this, and had not a grateful disposition, and was of an exceedingly inquiring turn of mind, she was very glad to get away, and when she learned from the valet that her mistress was a Tartar lady and a Musulman, and could not speak English, her delight was quite boundless; she even said a few unintelligible words, in a thoughtful tone, which did not sound at all like any Christian prayer or thanksgiving she had learned from the missionaries. Moreover, while Logotheti and Baraka were lying in their chairs by the deck-house, she was telling the story of her life and explaining things generally to the good-looking young second mate on the other side of the ship. The consequence of her presence, however, was that Baraka was dressed with great neatness and care, and looked very presentable, though her clothes were only ready-made things, bought by a man-servant, who had only her height and the size of her waist to guide him. Logotheti watched her delicate, energetic profile, admiring the curves of her closed lips, and the wilful turning up of her little chin. She was more than very pretty now, he thought, and he was quietly amused at his own audacity in taking her to sea alone with him, almost on the eve of his marriage. It was especially diverting to think of what the proper people would say if they knew it, and to contrast the intentions they would certainly attribute to him with the perfectly honourable ones he entertained. As for Baraka, it never occurred to her that she was not as safe with him as she had been in her father's house in the little white town far away, nearly three years ago; and besides, her steel bodkin with the silver handle had been given back to her, and she could feel it in its place when she pressed her left hand to her side. But the little maid who had been brought up by the missionaries took quite another point of view, though this was not among the things she was explaining so fluently in her pretty English to the second mate. Logotheti had been first of all preoccupied about getting Baraka out of England without attracting attention, and then for her comfort and recovery from the strain and suffering of the last few days. As for that, she was like a healthy young animal, and as soon as she had a chance she had fallen so sound asleep that she had not waked for twelve hours. Logotheti's intention was to take her to Paris by a roundabout way, and establish her under some proper sort of protection. Margaret was still in Germany, but would soon return to France, and he had almost made up his mind to ask her advice, not dreaming that in such a case she could really deem anything he did an unpardonable offence. He had always laughed at the conventionalities of European life, and had paid very little heed to them when they stood in his way. He had been on deck a long time that day, but Baraka had only been established in her chair a few minutes. As yet he had hardly talked with her of anything but the necessary preparations for the journey, and she had trusted him entirely, being so worn out with fatigue and bodily discomfort, that she was already half asleep when he had at last brought her on board, late on the previous night. Before the yacht had sailed he had received Van Torp's telegram informing him that Kralinsky was at Bayreuth; for his secretary had sat up till two in the morning to telegraph him the latest news and forward any message that came, and Van Torp's had been amongst the number. Baraka turned her head a little towards him and smiled. 'Kafar the Persian said well that you are a great man,' she said in her own language. 'Perhaps you are one of the greatest in the world. I think so. He told me you were very rich, and so did the Greek merchants who came with me to France. When you would not buy the other ruby I thought they were mistaken, but now I see they were right. Where you are, there is gold, and men bow before you. You say: "Set Baraka free," and I am free. Also, you say: "Give her the ruby that is hers," and they give it, and her belongings, too, all clean and in good order and nothing stolen. You are a king. Like a king, you have a new fire-ship of your own and an army of young men to do your bidding. They are cleaner and better dressed than the sailors on the Sultan's fire-ships that lie in the Golden Horn, for I have seen them. They are as clean as the young effendis in London, in Paris! It is wonderful! You have not many on your ship, but you could have ten ships, all with sailors like these, and they would be all well washed. I like clean people. Yes, you are a great man.' She turned her eyes away from him and gazed lazily at the still blue sea, having apparently said all she had to say. Logotheti was well used to Asiatics and understood that her speech was partly conventional and intended to convey that sort of flattery which is dear to the Oriental soul. Baraka knew perfectly well what a real king was, and the difference between a yacht and a man-of-war, and many other things which she had learned in Constantinople. Primitive people, when they come from Asia, are not at all simple people, though they are often very direct in pursuing what they want. 'I have something of importance to tell you,' Logotheti said after a pause. Baraka prepared herself against betraying surprise by letting her lids droop a little, but that was all. 'Speak,' she answered. 'I desire knowledge more than gold.' 'You are wise,' said the Greek gravely. 'No doubt you remember the rich man Van Torp, for whom I gave you a letter, and whom you had seen on the day you were arrested.' 'Van Torp.' Baraka pronounced the name distinctly, and nodded. 'Yes, I remember him well. He knows where the man is whom I seek, and he wrote the address for me. I have it. You will take me there in your ship, and I shall find him.' 'If you find him, what shall you say to him?' Logotheti asked. 'Few words. These perhaps: "You left me to die, but I am not dead, I am here. Through me you are a rich, great man. The rubies are my marriage portion, which you have taken. Now you must be my husband." That is all. Few words.' 'It is your right,' Logotheti answered. 'But he will not marry you.' 'Then he shall die,' replied Baraka, as quietly as if she were saying that he should go for a walk. 'If you kill him, the laws of that country may take your life,' objected the Greek. 'That will be my portion,' the girl answered, with profound indifference. 'You only have one life,' Logotheti observed. 'It is yours to throw away. But the man you seek is not in that country. Van Torp has telegraphed me that he is much nearer. Nevertheless, if you mean to kill him, I will not take you to him, as I intended to do.' Baraka's face had changed, though she had been determined not to betray surprise at anything he said; she turned to him, and fixed her eyes on his, and he saw her lashes quiver. 'You will tell me where he is,' she said anxiously. 'If you will not take me I will go alone with Spiro. I have been in many countries with no other help. I can go there also, where he is. You will tell me.' 'Not if you mean to murder him,' said Logotheti, and she saw that he was in earnest. 'But if he will not be my husband, what can I do, if I do not kill him?' She asked the question in evident good faith. 'If I were you, I should make him share the rubies and the money with you, and then I would leave him to himself.' 'But you do not understand,' Baraka protested. 'He is young, he is beautiful, he is rich. He will take some other woman for his wife, if I leave him. You see, he must die, there is no other way. If he will not marry me, it is his portion. Why do you talk? Have I not come across the world from the Altai, by Samarkand and Tiflis, as far as England, to find him and marry him? Is it nothing that I have done, a Tartar girl alone, with no friend but a bag of precious stones that any strong thief might have taken from me? Is the danger nothing? The travel nothing? Is it nothing that I have gone about like a shameless one, with my face uncovered, dressed in a man's clothes? That I have cut my hair, my beautiful black hair, is that as nothing too? That I have been in an English prison? That I have been called a thief? I have suffered all these things to find him, and if I come to him at last, and he will not be my husband, shall he live and take another woman? You are a great man, it is true. But you do not understand. You are only a Frank, after all! That little maid you have brought for me would understand me better, though she has been taught for six years by Christians. She is a good girl. She says that in all that time she has never once forgotten to say the Fatiheh three times a day, and to say "el hamdu illah" to herself after she has eaten! She would understand. I know she would. But you, never!' The exquisite little aquiline features wore a look of unutterable contempt. 'If I were you,' said Logotheti, smiling, 'I would not tell her what you are going to do.' 'You see!' cried Baraka, almost angrily. 'You do not understand. A servant! Shall I tell my heart to my handmaid, and my secret thoughts to a hired man? I tell you, because you are a friend, though you have no understanding of us. My father feeds many flocks, and has many bondmen and bondwomen, whom he beats when it pleases him, and can put to death if he likes. He also knows the mine of rubies, as his father did before him, and when he desires gold he takes one to Tashkent, or even to Samarkand, a long journey, and sells it to the Russians. He is a great man. If he would bring a camel bag full of precious stones to Europe he could be one of the greatest men in the world. And you think that my father's daughter would open her heart's treasure to one of her servants? I said well that you do not understand!' Logotheti looked quietly at the slim young thing in a ready-made blue serge frock, who said such things as a Lady Clara Vere de Vere would scarcely dare to say above her breath in these democratic days; and he watched the noble little features, and the small white hands, that had come down to her through generations of chieftains, since the days when the primeval shepherds of the world counted the stars in the plains of Káf. He himself, with his long Greek descent, was an aristocrat to the marrow, and smiled at the claims of men who traced their families back to Crusaders. With the help of a legend or two and half a myth, he could almost make himself a far descendant of the Tyndaridæ. But what was that compared with the pedigree of the little thing in a blue serge frock? Her race went back to a time before Hesiod, before Homer, to a date that might be found in the annals of Egypt, but nowhere else in all the dim traditions of human history. 'No,' he said, after a long pause. 'I begin to understand. You had not told me that your father was a great man, and that his sires before him had joined hand to hand, from the hand of Adam himself.' This polite speech, delivered in his best Tartar, though with sundry Turkish terminations and accents, somewhat mollified Baraka, and she pushed her little head backwards and upwards against the top of the deck chair, as if she were drawing herself up with pride. Also, not being used to European skirts, she stuck out one tiny foot a little further across the other, as she stretched herself, and she indiscreetly showed a pale-yellow silk ankle, round which she could have easily made her thumb meet her second finger. Logotheti glanced at it. 'You will never understand,' she said, but her tone had relented, and she made a concession. 'If you will take me to him, and if he will not be my husband, I will let Spiro kill him.' 'That might be better,' Logotheti answered with extreme gravity, for he was quite sure that Spiro would never kill anybody. 'If you will take an oath which I shall dictate, and swear to let Spiro do it, I will take you to the man you seek.' 'What must be, must be,' Baraka said in a tone of resignation. 'When he is dead, Spiro can also kill me and take the rubies and the money.' 'That would be a pity,' observed the Greek, thoughtfully. 'Why a pity? It will be my portion. I will not kill myself because then I should go to hell-fire, but Spiro can do it very well. Why should I still live, then?' 'Because you are young and beautiful and rich enough to be very happy. Do you never look at your face in the mirror? The eyes of Baraka are like the pools of paradise, when the moon rose upon them the first time, her waist is as slender as a young willow sapling that bends to the breath of a spring breeze, her mouth is a dark rose from Gulistán----' But Baraka interrupted him with a faint smile. 'You speak emptiness,' she said quietly. 'What is the oath, that I may swear it? Shall I take Allah, and the Prophet, and the Angel Israfil to witness that I will keep my word? Shall I prick my hand and let the drops fall into your two hands that you may drink them? What shall I do and say? I am ready.' 'You must swear an oath that my fathers swore before there were Christians or Musulmans in the world, when the old gods were still great.' 'Speak. I will repeat any words you like. Is it a very solemn oath?' 'It is the most solemn that ever was sworn, for it is the oath of the gods themselves. I shall give it to you slowly, and you must try to pronounce it right, word by word, holding out your hands, like this, with the palms downwards.' 'I am ready,' said Baraka, doing as he bade her. He quoted in Greek the oath that Hypnos dictates to Hera in the _Iliad_, and Baraka repeated each word, pronouncing as well as she could. 'I swear by the inviolable water of the Styx, and I lay one hand upon the all-nourishing earth, the other on the sparkling sea, that all the gods below may be our witnesses, even they that stand round about Kronos. Thus I swear!' As he had anticipated, Baraka was much more impressed by the importance of the words she did not understand than if she had bound herself by any oath familiar to her. 'I am sorry,' she said, 'but what is done is done, and you would have it so.' She pressed her hand gently to her left side and felt the long steel bodkin, and sighed regretfully. 'You have sworn an oath that no man would dare to break,' said Logotheti solemnly. 'A man would rather kill pigs on the graves of his father and his mother than break it.' 'I shall keep my word. Only take me quickly where I would be.' Logotheti produced a whistle from his pocket and blew on it, and a quartermaster answered the call, and was sent for the captain, who came in a few moments. 'Head her about for Jersey and Carterets, Captain,' said the owner. 'The sea is as flat as a board, and we will land there. You can go on to the Mediterranean without coaling, can you not?' The captain said he could coal at Gibraltar, if necessary. 'Then take her to Naples, please, and wait for instructions.' Baraka understood nothing, but within two minutes she saw that the yacht was changing her course, for the afternoon sun was all at once pouring in on the deck, just beyond the end of her chair. She was satisfied, and nodded her approval. But she did not speak for a long time, paying no more attention to Logotheti's gaze than if he had not existed. No people in the world can remain perfectly motionless so long as Asiatics, perfectly absorbed in their own thoughts. To the Greek's art-loving nature it was pure delight to watch her. Never, since he had first met Margaret Donne, had he seen any woman or young girl who appealed to his sense of beauty as Baraka did, though the impression she made on him was wholly different from that he received when Margaret was near. The Primadonna was on a large scale, robust, magnificently vital, a Niké, even a young Hera; and sometimes, especially on the stage, she was almost insolently handsome, rather than beautiful like Lady Maud. Baraka was an Artemis, virginal, high-bred; delicately modelled for grace and speed rather than for reposeful beauty, for motion rather than for rest. It was true that the singer's walk was something to dream of and write verses about, but Baraka's swift-gliding step was that of the Maiden Huntress in the chase, her attitude in rest was the pose of a watchful Diana, ready to spring up at a sound or a breath, a figure almost boyish in its elastic vigour, and yet deeply feminine in meaning. Baraka once more turned her head without lifting it from the back of the deck-chair. 'I am hungry and thirsty again,' she said gravely. 'I do not understand.' 'What will you eat, and what will you drink?' Logotheti asked. She smiled and shook her head. 'Anything that is good,' she said; 'but what I desire you have not in your ship. I long for fat quails with Italian rice, and for fig-paste, and I desire a sherbet made with rose leaves, such as the merchant's wife and I used to drink at the Kaffedji's by the Galata Bridge, and sometimes when we went up the Sweet Waters in a caïque on Friday. But you have not such things on your ship.' Logotheti smiled. 'You forget that I am myself from Constantinople,' he said. 'It is now the season for fat quails in Italy, and they are sent alive to London and Paris, and there are many in my ship, waiting to be eaten. There is also fig-paste from the Stamboul confectioner near the end of the Galata Bridge, and preserved rose leaves with which to make a sherbet, and much ice; and you shall eat and drink the things you like best. Moreover, if there is anything else you long for, speak.' 'You are scoffing at Baraka!' answered the slim thing in blue serge, with the air of a displeased fairy princess. 'Not I. You shall see. We will have a table set here between us, with all the things you desire.' 'Truly? And coffee too? Real coffee? Not the thin mud-broth of the Franks?' 'Real coffee, in a real fildjan.' Baraka clapped her small white hands for pleasure. 'You are indeed a very great man!' she cried. 'You are one of the kings!' At the sound of the clapping she had made, Logotheti's Greek steward appeared in a silver-laced blue jacket and a fez. 'He comes because you clapped your hands,' Logotheti said, with a smile. Baraka laughed softly. 'We are not in your ship,' she said. 'We are in Constantinople! I am happy.' The smile faded quickly and her dark lashes drooped. 'It is a pity,' she added, very low, and her left hand felt the long steel bodkin through her dress. The steward knew Turkish, but did not understand all she said in her own tongue; and besides, his master was already ordering an unusual luncheon, in Greek, which disturbed even his Eastern faculty of hearing separately with each ear things said in different languages. Baraka was busy with her own thoughts again, and paid no more attention to her companion, until the steward came back after a few minutes bringing a low round table which he placed between the two chairs. He disappeared again and returned immediately with a salver on which there were two small cups of steaming Turkish coffee, each in its silver filigree stand, and two tall glasses of sherbet, of a beautiful pale rose colour. Baraka turned on her chair with a look of pleasure, tasted the light hot foam of the coffee, and then began to drink slowly with enjoyment that increased visibly with every sip. 'It is real coffee,' she said, looking up at Logotheti. 'It is made with the beans of Arabia that are picked out one by one for the Sheikhs themselves before the coffee is sold to the Indian princes. The unripe and broken beans that are left are sold to the great Pashas in Constantinople! And that is all there is of it, for the Persian merchant explained all to me, and I know. But how you have got the coffee of the Sheikhs, I know not. You are a very great man.' 'The gates of the pleasant places of this world are all locked, and the keys are of gold,' observed Logotheti, who could quote Asiatic proverbs by the dozen, when he liked. 'But the doors of Hades stand always open,' he added, suddenly following a Greek thought, 'and from wheresoever men are, the way that leads to them is but one.' Baraka had tasted the sherbet, which interested her more than his philosophical reflexions. 'This also is delicious,' she said, 'but in Stamboul even a poor man may have it for a few paras.' 'And good water from the fountain for nothing,' returned Logotheti. There was silence again as she leaned back, sufficiently satisfied to wait another hour for the fat quails, the Italian rice, and the fig-paste, to which she was looking forward. And the yacht moved on at her leisurely twelve-knot speed, through the flat calm of the late summer sea, while an atmosphere of bodily peace and comfort gathered round Baraka like a delicate mist that hid the future and softened the past. By and by, when she had eaten the fat quail and the Italian rice, and then the fig-paste, and had drunk more sherbet of rose leaves, and more coffee, but none of these things in any excess, that perfect peace came upon her which none but Asiatics can feel, and which we cannot understand; and they call it Kêf, and desire it more than any other condition of their inner and outer selves; but there is no translating of that word. It is the inexplicable state of the cat when it folds its fore-paw in, and is so quiet and happy that it can hardly purr, but only blinks mildly once in two or three minutes. Logotheti knew the signs of it, though he had never really felt it himself, and he knew very well that its presence has the power to deaden all purpose and active will in those who enjoy it. The sole object of taking opium is to produce it artificially, which is never quite possible, for with most opium-smokers or opium-eaters the state of peace turns into stupor at the very moment when it is about to become consciously beatific. He understood that this wonderful barbarian girl, who had shown such courage, such irresistible energy, such unchanging determination in the search that had lasted more than two years, was temporarily paralysed for any purpose of action by the atmosphere with which he was surrounding her. She would come to herself again, and be as much awake, as determined, and as brave as ever, but she was quiescent now, and the mere thought of effort would be really painful. Perhaps no one who has not lived in Asia can quite understand that. Logotheti took out his notebook, which had a small calendar with a few lines for each day in the year, and he began to count days and calculate dates; for when he had expected to go to Bayreuth with the Primadonna he had found out all about the performances, and he knew how long she meant to stay. His calendar told him that this was the off-day, between the second and third representations of _Parsifal_, and that Margaret had her rooms at the hotel for another week. He would allow two days more for her to reach Versailles and rest from the journey before she would wish to see him; and as he thought she had treated him rather badly in not letting him go with her, because he was not enough of a Wagnerian, he intended to keep her waiting even a day or two longer, on the sometimes mistaken theory that it is better to make a woman impatient than to forestall her wishes before she has had time to change her mind. Besides, Van Torp's telegram showed that he was in Bayreuth, and Logotheti flattered himself that the more Margaret saw of the American, the more anxious she would be to see her accepted adorer. It was her own fault, since Logotheti might have been with her instead. The result of his calculations was that he had at least ten days before him, and that as he was not at all bored by the little Tartar lady in blue serge, it was quite useless to put her ashore at Carterets and take her to Paris by that way. The idea of spending eight or nine hours alone in a hot and dirty railway carriage, while she and her maid passed the night in another compartment, was extremely dreary; and besides, he had not at all made up his mind what to do with her, and it would probably end in his taking her to his own house. Margaret would have some right to resent that; but as for the trip in the yacht, she need never know anything about it. The girl was really as safe with him as any girl could be with her own brother, and so long as no one knew that she was with him, nothing else mattered. Furthermore, he was good enough to be convinced that if she were let loose in Europe by herself, with plenty of money, boundless courage, and such a clever courier as Spiro seemed to be, she would certainly find Kralinsky at last and murder him, regardless of having sworn by the inviolable water of the Styx. Lastly, he saw that she was at present in that state of Asiatic peace in which it was perfectly indifferent to her what happened, provided that she were not disturbed. He rose quietly and went aft. Though she was awake she scarcely noticed that he had left her, and merely opened and shut her eyes twice, like the happy cat already spoken of. She was not aware that the yacht changed her course again, though it was pleasant not to have the reflexion from the sea in her eyes any longer; if Logotheti had told her that he was heading to seaward of Ushant instead of for Jersey and Carterets, she would not have understood, nor cared if she had, and would have been annoyed at being disturbed by the sound of his voice. It was pure bliss to lie there without a want, a thought, or a memory. An imaginative European might fancy that she had waking dreams and visions in the summer air; that she saw again the small white town, the foot-hills, the broad pastures below, the vastness of Altai above, the uncounted flocks, the distant moving herds, the evening sunlight on the walls of her father's house; or that she lived over again those mortal hours of imprisonment in the rocky hollow, and looked into the steel-bright eyes of the man who would not love her and saw the tall figure of Saäd already dead, bending forward from the ledge and pitching headlong to the sand. Not at all. She saw none of these things. She was quiescently blissful; the mysterious Kêf was on her, and the world stood still in the lazy enchantment--the yacht was not moving, the sun was not sinking westwards, her pulse was not beating, she was scarcely breathing, in her own self she was the very self of peace, motionless in an immeasurable stillness. When the sky reddened at evening Logotheti was again in his chair, reading. She heard six bells struck softly, the first sound she had noticed in four hours, and she did not know what they meant; perhaps it was six o'clock _alla Franca_, as she would have called it; no one could understand European time, which was one in Constantinople, another in Paris, and another in England. Besides, it made no difference what time it was; but Kêf was departing from her--was gone already, and the world was moving again--not at all in an unpleasant or disturbing way, but moving nevertheless. 'When shall we reach that place?' she asked lazily, and she turned her face to Logotheti. 'Allah knows,' he answered gravely, and he laid his book on his knees. She had been so well used to hearing that answer to all sorts of questions since she had been a child that she thought nothing of it, and waited awhile before speaking again. Her eyes studied the man's face almost unconsciously. He now wore a fez instead of a yachting cap, and it changed his expression. He no longer looked in the least like a European. The handsome red felt glowed like blood in the evening light, and the long black silk tassel hung backwards with a dashing air. There was something about him that reminded Baraka of Saäd, and Saäd had been a handsome man, even in her eyes, until the traveller had come to her father's house with his blue eyes and golden beard. But Saäd had only seen her unveiled face once, and that was the last thing he saw when the ball from the Mauser went through his forehead. 'I mean,' she asked after some time, 'shall we be there to-morrow? or the next day? I see no land on this side; is there any on the other?' 'No,' Logotheti answered, 'there is no land near. Perhaps, far off, we might see a small island.' 'Is that the place?' Baraka began to be interested at last. 'The place is far away. You must have patience. All hurry comes from Satan.' 'I am not impatient,' the girl answered mildly. 'I am glad to rest in your ship, for I was very tired, more tired than I ever was when I was a child, and used to climb up the foot-hills to see Altai better. It is good to be in your ship for a while, and after that, what shall be, will be. It is Allah that knows.' 'That is the truth,' responded the Greek. 'Allah knows. I said so just now. But I will tell you what I have decided, if you will listen.' 'I listen.' 'It is better that you should rest several days after all your weariness, and the man you seek will not run away, for he does not know you are so near.' 'But he may take another woman,' Baraka objected, growing earnest at once. 'Perhaps he has already! Then there will be two instead of one.' 'Spiro,' said Logotheti, with perfect truth, 'would as soon kill two as one, I am sure, for he is a good servant. It will be the same to him. You call me a great man and a king; I am not a king, for I have no kingdom, though some kingdoms would like to have as much ready-money as I. But here, on the ship, I am the master, not only because it is mine, and because I choose to command, but because the men are bound by English law to obey me; and if they should refuse and overpower me, and take my ship where I did not wish to go, the laws of all nations would give me the right to put them all into prison at once, for a long time. Therefore when I say, "Go to a certain place," they take the ship there, according to their knowledge, for they are trained to that business and can guide the vessel towards any place in the world, though they cannot see land till they reach it. Do you understand all these things?' 'I understand,' Baraka answered, smiling. 'But I am not bound to obey you, and at least I can beg you to do what I ask, and I think you will do it.' Her voice grew suddenly soft, and almost tender, for though she was only a Tartar girl, and very young and slim, she was a woman. Eve had not had long experience of talking when she explained to Adam the properties of apples. Logotheti answered her smile and her tone. 'I shall do what you ask of me, but I shall do it slowly rather than quickly, because that will be better for you in the end. If we had gone on as we were going, we should have got to land to-night, but to a wretched little town from which we should have had to take a night train, hot and dirty and dusty, all the way to Paris. That would not help you to rest, would it?' 'Oh, no! I wish to sleep again in your ship, once, twice, till I cannot sleep any more. Then you will take me to the place.' 'That is what you shall do. To that end I gave orders this afternoon.' 'You are wise, as well as great,' Baraka said. She let her feet slip down to the deck, and she sat on the side of the chair towards Logotheti, looking at her small white tennis-shoes, which had turned a golden pink in the evening reflexions, and she thoughtfully settled her serge skirt over her slim yellow silk ankles, almost as a good many European girls would always do if they did not so often forget it. She rose at last, and went and looked over the rail at the violet sea. It is not often that the Atlantic Ocean is in such a heavenly temper so near the Bay of Biscay. Logotheti got out of his chair and came and stood beside her. 'Is this sea always so still?' she asked. She was gazing at the melting colours, from the dark blue, spattered with white foam, under the yacht's side, to the deep violet beyond, and further to the wine-purple and the heliotrope and the horizon melting up to the eastern sky. Logotheti told her that such days came very rarely, even in summer, and that Allah had doubtless sent this one for her especial benefit. But she only laughed. 'Allah is great, but he does nothing where there are English people,' she observed, and Logotheti laughed in his turn. They left the rail and walked slowly forward, side by side, without speaking; and Logotheti told himself how utterly happy he should be if Baraka could turn into Margaret and be walking with him there; yet something answered him that since she was not by his side he was not to be pitied for the company of a lovely Tartar girl whose language he could understand and even speak tolerably; and when the first voice observed rather drily that Margaret would surely think that he ought to feel very miserable, the second voice told him to take the goods the gods sent him and be grateful; and this little antiphone of Ormuzd and Ahriman went on for some time, till it occurred to him to stop the duo by explaining to Baraka how a European girl would probably slip her arm, or at least her hand, through the arm of the man with whom she was walking on the deck of a yacht, because there was generally a little motion at sea, and she would like to steady herself; and when there was none, there ought to be, and she would do the same thing by force of habit. But Baraka looked at such behaviour quite differently. 'That would be a sort of dance,' she said. 'I am not a dancing girl! I have seen men and women dancing together, both Russians in Samarkand and other people in France. It is disgusting. I would rather go unveiled among my own people!' 'Which may Allah forbid!' answered Logotheti devoutly. 'But, as you say, where there are Englishmen, Allah does nothing; the women go without veils, and the boys and girls dance together.' 'I have done worse,' said Baraka, 'for I have dressed as a man, and if a woman did that among my people she would be stoned to death and not buried. My people will never know what I have done since I got away from them alive. But he thought he was leaving me there to die!' 'Surely. I cannot see why you wish to marry a man who robbed you and tried to compass your death! I can understand that you should dream of killing him, and he deserves to be burnt alive, but why you should wish to marry him is known to the wisdom of the blessed ones!' 'You never saw him,' Baraka answered with perfect simplicity. 'He is a beautiful man; his beard is like the rays of the morning sun on a ripe cornfield. His eyes are bright as an eagle's, but blue as sapphires. He is much taller and bigger and stronger than you are. Do you not see why I want him for a husband? Why did he not desire me for his wife? Am I crooked, am I blinded by the smallpox, or have I six fingers on both hands and a hump on my shoulder like the Witch of Altai? Was my portion a cotton shift, one brass bangle and a horn comb for my hair? I gave him the riches of the world to take me, and he would not! I do not understand. Am I an evil sight in a man's eyes? Tell me the truth, for you are a friend!' 'You are good to see,' Logotheti answered, stopping and pretending to examine her face critically as she stood still and faced him. 'I was telling you what I thought of you before luncheon, I think, but you said I spoke "emptiness," so I stopped.' 'I do not desire you to speak for yourself,' returned Baraka. 'I wish you to speak for any man, since I go about unveiled and any man may see me. What would they say in the street if they saw me now, as a woman? That is what I must know, for he is a Frank, and he will judge me as the Franks judge when he sees me! What will he say?' 'Shall I speak as a Frank? Or as they speak in Constantinople?' 'Speak as he would speak, I pray. But speak the truth.' 'I take Allah to witness that I speak the truth,' Logotheti answered. 'If I had never seen you, and if I were walking in the Great Garden in London and I met you by the bank of the river, I should say that you were the prettiest dark girl in England, but that I should like to see you in a beautiful Feringhi hat and the best frock that could be made in Paris.' Baraka's face was troubled, and she looked into his eyes anxiously. 'I understand,' she said. 'Before I meet him I must have more clothes, many beautiful new dresses. It was shameless, but it was easy to dress as a man, after I had learned, for it was always the same--the difference was three buttons--or four buttons, or a high hat or a little hat; not much. Also the Feringhi men button their garments as the Musulmans do, the left over the right, but I often see their women's coats buttoned like a Hindu's. Why is this? Have the women another religion than the men? It is very strange!' Logotheti laughed, for he had really never noticed the rather singular fact which had struck the born Asiatic at once. 'But this woman's dressing is very difficult to learn,' Baraka went on, leaning back upon the rail with both elbows, and sticking out her little white shoes close together. 'Without the girl Maggy whom you have found for me--but her real name is Gula, and she is a good Musulman--without her, Allah knows what I should do! I could not put on these things for myself; alone, I cannot take them off. When I was like a man, buttons! Two, three, four, twenty--what did it matter? All the same way and soon done! But now, I cannot tell what I am made of. Allah knows and sees what I am made of. Hooks, eyes, strings, little bits one way, little bits the other way, like the rigging of ships--those Turkish ships with many small sails that go up the Bosphorus, you remember? And it is all behind, as if one had no front! Gula knows how it is done. But if I were alone, without her help, Allah is my witness, I would tie the things all round me decently and sit very still for fear they should come off! That is what I should do! The Greek thought her extremely amusing. She punctuated her explanations with small gestures indicative of her ignorance and helplessness. 'You will soon grow used to it,' he said. 'But you must get some pretty things in Paris before you go to meet the man. It would also be better to let your hair grow long before meeting him, for it is hard to wear the hats of the Feringhi ladies without hair.' 'I cannot wait so long as that. Only to get pretty dresses, only so long! I will spend a thousand pounds or two--is that enough? I have much money in Paris; I can give more.' 'You can get a good many things for a thousand pounds, even in Paris,' Logotheti answered. Baraka laughed. 'It will not be what I paid for the first clothes after I ran away,' she said. 'I did not know then what the stones were worth! A little ruby to one woman for a shift and an over-tunic, a little ruby to another for a pair of shoes, a little ruby for a veil and a head-blanket, all little rubies! For each thing one! I did not know; the women did not know. But at Samarkand I sold one for money to a good Persian merchant, and what he gave me was enough for the journey, for me and the old woman servant I hired there, till we got to Tiflis; for the Persian merchants everywhere gave me letters from one to another, and their wives took me in, or I should have been robbed. That is how I reached Stamboul after many, many months, more than a year. The Persian merchants are good men. All fear them, because they are wise in their dealings, but they are honest men. They do not lie, but they are silent and shake their heads, and you must guess what they mean; and if you do not guess right, that is your fault, not theirs. Why should they speak when they can hold their peace? But this is all emptiness! We must talk of the fine dresses I must buy in Paris, and of what I must put on my head. The barbers in Paris sell wigs. I have seen them in the windows, very well made, of all colours, even of the Khenna colour. I shall wear a wig, so that the beautiful Feringhi hat will stay on. I shall perhaps wear a Khenna-coloured wig.' 'I should not advise a wig,' said Logotheti gravely, 'certainly not one of that dye.' 'You know, and you are a friend. When I feel rested we will go to Paris, and you shall take me to all the richest shops and tell them in French what I want. Will you?' 'I shall do all I can to help you,' answered the Greek, wondering what would happen if his friends met him piloting a lovely barbarian about between the smartest linendraper's and the most fashionable dressmaker's establishment in the Rue de la Paix. They had watched the sun set, and the clear twilight glow was in the cloudless sky and on the violet sea. Not a sound disturbed the stillness, except the smooth wash of the water along the yacht's side. At her leisurely three-quarters speed the engines ran noiselessly and the twin screws turned well below the water-line in the flat calm. The watch below was at supper, and the captain was just then working a sunset amplitude in the chart-room to make quite sure of his deviation on the new course; for he was a careful navigator, and had a proper contempt for any master who trusted another man's adjustment of his compasses. Baraka drew one end of her veil round her throat and across her mouth and over to the other side of her face, so that her features were covered almost as by a real yashmak. The action was well-nigh unconscious, for until she had left Constantinople she had never gone with her face uncovered, except for a short time, of necessity, after she had begun her long journey, almost without clothes to cover her, not to speak of a veil. But the sensation of being screened from men's sight came back pleasantly as she stood there; for the Greek was much more like her own people than the French or English, and he spoke her language, and to be with him was not like being with Mr. Van Torp, or walking in the streets of London and Paris. The veil brought back suddenly the sense of real power that the Eastern woman has, and of real security in her perpetual disguise, which every man must respect on pain of being torn to pieces by his fellows. Reams of trash have been written about the inferior position of women in the East; but there, more than anywhere else in the world, they rule and have their will. Their domination there never had a parallel in Europe but once, and that was in the heyday of the Second French Empire, when a great nation was almost destroyed to please a score of smart women. Veiled as she was, Baraka turned to Logotheti, who started slightly and then laughed; for he had not been watching her, and the effect of the improvised yashmak was sudden and striking. He made the Oriental salutation in three movements, touching his heart, his lips, and his forehead with his right hand. 'Peace be with you, Hanum Effendim!' he said, as if he were greeting a Turkish lady who had just appeared beside him. 'Peace, Effendim,' answered Baraka, with a light little laugh; but after a moment she went on, and her voice had changed. 'It is like Constantinople,' she said, 'and I am happy here--and it is a pity.' Logotheti thought he heard her sigh softly behind her veil, and she drew it still more closely to her face with her little ungloved hand, and rested one elbow on the rail, gazing out at the twilight glow. In all his recollections of many seas, Logotheti did not remember such a clear and peaceful evening; there was a spell on the ocean, and it was not the sullen, disquieting calm that often comes before a West Indian cyclone or an ocean storm, but rather that fair sleep that sometimes falls upon the sea and lasts many days, making men wonder idly whether the weather will ever break again. The two dined on deck, with shaded lights, but screened from the draught of the ship's way. The evening was cool, and the little maid had dressed Baraka in a way that much disturbed her, for her taper arms were bare to the elbows, and the pretty little ready-made French dress was open at her ivory neck, and the skirt fitted so closely that she almost fancied herself in man's clothes again. But on her head she would only wear the large veil, confined by a bit of gold cord, and she drew one fold under her chin, and threw it over the opposite shoulder, to be quite covered; and she was glad when she felt cold, and could wrap herself in the wide travelling cloak they had bought for her, and yet not seem to do anything contrary to the customs of a real Feringhi lady. [Illustration: "The two dined on deck."] CHAPTER XI Lady Maud found Mr. Van Torp waiting for her at the Bayreuth station. 'You don't mean to say you've come right through?' he inquired, looking at her with admiration as he grasped her hand. 'You're as fresh as paint!' 'That's rather a dangerous thing to say to a woman nowadays,' she answered in her rippling voice. 'But mine won't come off. How is Margaret?' Her tone changed as she asked the question. 'She showed me your letter about Logo,' answered her friend without heeding the question, and watching her face to see if she were surprised. She got into the carriage he had brought, and he stood by the door waiting for the porter, who was getting her luggage. She had no maid with her. 'I'm glad you have told me,' she answered, 'though I wish she had not. You probably think that when I wrote that letter I remembered what you said to me in London about giving me money for my poor women.' 'No,' said Van Torp thoughtfully, 'I don't believe I do think so. It was like me to make the offer, Maud. It was like the sort of man I've been, and you've known me. But it wouldn't have been like you to accept it. It wasn't exactly low-down of me to say what I did, but it's so precious like low-down that I wouldn't say it again, and I suppose I'm sorry. That's all.' His rough hand was on the side of the little open carriage. She touched it lightly with her gloved fingers and withdrew them instantly, for the porter was coming with her not very voluminous luggage. 'Thank you,' she said quickly. 'I understood, and I understand now.' They drove slowly up the Bahnhofstrasse, through the dull little town, that looks so thoroughly conscious of its ancient respectability as having once been the 'Residenz' of a Duke of Würtemburg, and of its vast importance as the headquarters of Richard Wagner's representatives on earth. 'See here,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'I've almost persuaded them all to run down to Venice, and I want to know why you won't come too?' 'Venice?' Lady Maud was surprised. 'It's as hot as Tophet now, and full of mosquitoes. Why in the world do you want to take them there?' 'Well,' answered the American, taking plenty of time over the monosyllable, 'I didn't exactly mean to stay there more than a few minutes. I've bought a pretty nice yacht since I saw you, and she's there, eating her head off, and I thought you might all come along with me on her and go home that way, or somewhere.' 'I had no idea you had a yacht!' Lady Maud smiled. 'What it is to have the Bank of England in your pocket! Where did you get her, and what is her name? I love yachts!' Van Torp explained. 'I forget what she was called,' he said in conclusion, 'but I changed her name. It's _Lancashire Lass_ now.' 'The dear old mare you rode that night! How nice of you! It's a horse's name, of course, but that doesn't matter. I'm so glad you chose it. I shall never forget how you looked when you galloped off bareback in your evening clothes with no hat!' 'I don't know how I looked,' said Van Torp gravely. 'But I know quite well how I felt. I felt in a hurry. Now, what I want you to decide right away is whether you'll come, provided they will--for I don't suppose you and I could go mooning around in the yacht by ourselves.' 'And I don't suppose,' returned Lady Maud, mimicking him ever so little, 'that if "they" decide not to come, you will have time for a long cruise.' 'Now that's not fair,' objected the American. 'I didn't intend to put it in that way. Anyhow, will you come if they do? That's the point.' 'Really, it depends a little on who "they" are. Do you mean only Margaret and that nice old friend of hers--Mrs. Patmore, isn't she? I never met her.' 'Rushmore,' said Van Torp, correcting her. 'It's the same thing,' said Lady Maud vaguely, for she was trying to make up her mind quickly. 'You don't know her,' replied her friend. 'That's the reason why you say it's the same thing. Nothing's the same as Mrs. Rushmore.' 'Is she very dreadful?' asked Lady Maud, in some apprehension. 'Dreadful? No! She's very sweet, I think. One of those real, old-fashioned, well-educated New York ladies, and refined right down to the ground. There's only one thing----' He stopped, trying to find words to express the one thing. 'What is it? All you say about her sounds very nice----' 'She's got the celebrity habit.' 'Lions?' suggested Lady Maud, who understood him. 'Yes,' he assented, 'she's a dandy after lions. She likes them for breakfast, dinner, and tea, with a sandwich thrown in between times. She likes them to talk to, and to look at, and to tell about. That's just a habit, I suppose, like chewing gum, but she'll never get over it at her age. She's got to have a party of some kind every other minute, even here, or she's uneasy at night. But I'm bound to say, with all truth, she does it well. She's a perfect lady, and she always says the right thing and does the right thing. Besides, we're great friends, she and I. We get on beautifully.' 'You're a celebrity,' observed Lady Maud. 'So's Miss Donne, and a much bigger one. So's Logo, for that matter, but she doesn't think a great deal of Greeks. You're a sort of celebrity, too, and she's perfectly delighted you're coming, because you're "Lady" Maud, and a Russian countess into the bargain. Then there's that other Russian--not that you're one, but you understand--Kralinsky is his name, Count Kralinsky. Ever hear that name?' 'Never. It sounds Polish.' 'He might be anything. Sometimes I'm absolutely sure he's a man I used to know out West when I was on the ranch, and then again there's something quite different about him. Something about his legs or his eyes, I can't tell which. I don't quite make him out. There's one thing, though. He's the Kralinsky I bought your ruby from in New York a month ago, and he doesn't deny it, though I don't remember that he was a Count then. He seemed glad to see me again, but he doesn't seem to talk much about selling rubies now. Perhaps he's got through that, as the camel said to the eye of the needle.' 'Eh? What?' Lady Maud laughed. 'Oh, nothing. I guess it's out of the Bible, or something. I'll tell you all about him by and by. He's going away this afternoon, but he's promised to join us in Venice for a trip, because Mrs. Rushmore finds him so attractive. He seems to know everybody intimately, all over the world. I'd like you to see him. Here we are, and there's Miss Donne waiting for you on the steps. I wish we'd had a longer ride together.' They reached the hotel, and Van Torp went off promptly, leaving Margaret to take Lady Maud upstairs and introduce her to Mrs. Rushmore. An hour later the two young women were together in Margaret's room, while Potts was unpacking for Lady Maud in the one that had been secured for her in spite of all sorts of difficulties. The Primadonna was sitting at her toilet-table, turned away from the glass, and Lady Maud occupied the only possible chair there was, a small, low easy-chair, apparently much too small for such a tall woman, but less uncomfortable than it looked. They exchanged the usual banalities. It was awfully good of Margaret to ask Maud, it was awfully good of Maud to come. The journey had been tolerable, thank you, by taking the Orient Express as far as Stuttgart. Margaret did not compare Maud's complexion to fresh paint, as Van Torp had done, but to milk and roses; and Maud said with truth that she had never seen Margaret looking better. It was the rest, Margaret said, for she had worked hard. 'Are you going on Mr. Van Torp's yacht?' asked Lady Maud suddenly. 'He spoke to me about it on the way from the station, and asked me to come, in case you accept.' 'I don't know. Will you go if I do? That might make a difference.' Lady Maud did not answer at once. She wished that she knew how matters had gone between Margaret and Van Torp during the last few days, for she sincerely wished to help him, now that she had made up her mind as to Logotheti's real character. Nevertheless, her love of fair-play made her feel that the Greek ought to be allowed a chance of retrieving himself. 'Yes,' she said at last, 'I'll go, on one condition. At least, it's not a condition, my dear, it's only a suggestion, though I hate to make one. Don't think me too awfully cheeky, will you?' Margaret shook her head, but looked very grave. 'I feel as if I were getting into a bad scrape,' she said, 'and I shall be only too glad of any good advice. Tell me what I had better do.' 'I must tell you something else first as a continuation of my letter, for all sorts of things happened after I wrote it.' She told Margaret all that has been already narrated, concerning the news that Baraka had been set at large on Logotheti's sworn statement that the ruby was not his, and that he had seen it in her possession in Paris; and she told how she had tried to find him at his lodgings, and had failed, and how strangely the leather-faced secretary's answers had struck her, and how she had seen Baraka's gloves and stick in Logotheti's hall; and finally she said she had taken it into her head that Logotheti had spirited away the Tartar girl on his yacht, which, as every one in town had known through the papers, was at Cowes and in commission. For Logotheti, in his evidence, had explained his absence from the Police Court by the fact that he had been off in the _Erinna_ for two days, out of reach of news. Margaret's face grew darker as she listened, for she knew Lady Maud too well to doubt but that every word was more than scrupulously true; and the deduction was at least a probable one. She bit her lip as she felt her anger rising again. 'What do you advise me to do?' she asked, in a sullen tone. 'Telegraph to Logo and prepay an answer of twenty words. Telegraph to his rooms in St. James's Place and at the same time to his house in Paris. Telegraph anything you like that really needs an immediate reply. That's the important thing. If he does not answer within twenty-four hours--say thirty-six at the most--he is either on his yacht or hiding. Excuse the ugly word, dear--I don't think of any other. If you are afraid of the servants, I'll take the message to the telegraph office and send it for you. I suppose you have some way of signing which the clerks don't recognise--if you sign at all.' Margaret leaned back in her chair in silence. After a few seconds she turned towards the glass, rested her chin on her folded knuckles, and seemed to be consulting her own reflexion. It is a way some women have. Lady Maud glanced at her from time to time, but said nothing. At last the Primadonna rose with a sweep that upset the light chair behind her, one of those magnificent sweeps that look so well on the stage and are a little too large for a room. She got her blotter and pen from a shelf, brought it back to the toilet-table, picked up the chair in a very quiet and sensible way, as if she had never been on the stage in her life, and sat down to write. 'I shall take your advice, dear,' she said, opening the blotter and placing a large sheet of paper in the right position. Lady Maud rose and went to the window, where she stood looking out while Margaret wrote her message. 'You needn't write it out twice,' she said, without turning round. 'Just put "duplicate message" and both addresses.' 'Yes. Thank you.' Margaret was already writing. Her message said it was absolutely necessary that she should see Logotheti directly, and bade him answer at once, if he could come to Bayreuth; if important financial affairs hindered him, she herself would return immediately to Paris to see him. She was careful to write 'financial' affairs, for she would not admit that any other consideration could delay his obedience. While she was busy she heard, but scarcely noticed, an unearthly hoot from a big motor car that was passing before the hotel. There must have been something in the way, for the thing hooted again almost at once, and then several times in quick succession, as if a gigantic brazen ass were beginning to bray just under the window. The noises ended in a sort of wild, triumphant howl, with a furious puffing, and the motor took itself off, just as Margaret finished. She looked up and saw Lady Maud half bent, as if she had been struck; she was clinging with one hand to the flimsy chintz curtain, and her face was as white as a sheet. Margaret started in surprise, and rose to her feet so suddenly that she upset the chair again. 'What has happened?' she cried. 'Are you ill, dear?' The delicate colour came slowly back to the smooth cheeks, the thoroughbred figure in black drew itself up with elastic dignity, and the hand let go of the curtain. 'I felt a little faint,' Lady Maud answered. 'Did I frighten you? It was nothing, and it's quite gone, I assure you.' 'You looked dreadfully ill for a moment,' Margaret said in a tone of concern. 'Won't you let me send for something? Tea? Or something iced? I'm sure you have had nothing to eat or drink for hours! How disgracefully thoughtless of me!' She was just going to ring, but her friend stopped her. 'No--please!' she cried. 'I'm all right, indeed I am. The room is a little warm, I think, and I've been shut up in that stuffy train for thirty hours. Have you written your telegram? I'll put on my hat at once, and take it for you. The little walk will do me good. Where is the telegraph? But they can tell me downstairs. Don't bother! Walking always brings me round, no matter what has happened!' [Illustration: "'What has happened?' she cried. 'Are you ill, dear?'"] She spoke nervously, in disjointed phrases, in a way not like herself, for there was generally an air of easy calm in all she did, as if nothing really mattered in the least, save when she was deeply interested; and hardly anything interested her now except what she had made her work. In all that belonged to that, she was energetic, direct, and quick. Margaret was sure that something was wrong, but let her go, since she insisted, and Lady Maud folded the written message and went to the door. Just as she was going to turn the handle Margaret spoke to her. 'If I have no answer to that by to-morrow afternoon I shall accept Mr. Van Torp's invitation.' 'I hope you will go,' Lady Maud said with sudden decision, 'for if you do, I can go with you, and I'm dying to see the new yacht!' Margaret looked at her in surprise, for it was only a little while since she had seemed much less ready to join the party, and only willing to do so, if at all, in order to please her friend. She saw Margaret's expression. 'Yes,' she said, as if in explanation, 'I've been thinking it over in the last few minutes, and I want very much to go with you all. I shall be back in less than an hour.' 'An hour?' 'Say half an hour. I want a good walk.' She opened the door quickly and passed out, shutting it almost noiselessly after her; she was a very graceful woman and moved easily, whether in small spaces or large. In all her life she had probably never overturned a chair with her skirt, as Margaret had done twice within ten minutes. She had not Baraka's gliding movement, the virginal step of the girl of primeval race; hers was rather the careless, swaying walk of a thoroughbred in good training, long-limbed and deep-breathed, and swift at need, but indolently easy when no call was made upon her strength. She and Baraka and the young Primadonna represented well three of the possible types of beauty, very different from each other; so widely different that perhaps no two of them would be likely to appeal to one man, as mere feminine beauty, at the same period of his life. Straight and tall in her mourning, Lady Maud went down the stairs of the hotel. As she was going out the hall porter raised his cap, and she stopped a moment and asked him which was the nearest way to the telegraph office. He stood on the doorstep and pointed in the direction she was to follow as he answered her question. 'Can you tell me,' she asked, 'whose motor car it was that passed about ten minutes ago, and made so much noise?' 'Count Kralinsky's, my lady,' the porter answered; for he spoke good English, and had the true hotel porter's respect for the British aristocracy abroad. 'He was the gentleman with the big fair beard, I suppose? Yes, thank you.' She went out into the dull street, with its monotonous houses, all two stories high, and she soon found the telegraph office and sent Margaret's duplicate message. She had not glanced at it, but the clerk asked her questions about words that were not quite clearly written, and she was obliged to read it through. It occurred to her that it was couched in extremely peremptory terms, even for an offended bride-elect; but that was none of her business. When the clerk had understood, she walked up the hill to the Festival Theatre. It all looked very dull and heavy, being an off-day, and as she was not a Wagnerian it meant absolutely nothing to her. She was disappointed in the whole town, so far as she had expected anything of it, for she had pictured it as being either grand in its way, or picturesque, or at least charming; and it was not. Her British soul stuck up its nose in the general atmosphere of beer and sausage, which she instantly perceived rather than saw; and the Teutonism of everything, from the appearance of the Festival Theatre itself to the wooden faces of the policemen, and the round pink cheeks of the few children she met, roused antagonism in her from the first. She went on a little farther, and then turned back and descended the hill, always at the same even, easy pace, for she was rarely aware of any change of grade when she walked alone. But by degrees her expression had altered since she had left the telegraph office, and she looked profoundly preoccupied, as if she were revolving a very complicated question in her mind, which disliked complications; and there was now and then a flash of displeased wonder in her face, when she opened her eyes quite wide and shut them, and opened them again, as if to make sure that she was quite awake. She went on, not knowing whither and not caring, always at the same even pace, and hardly noticing the people who passed her, of whom a good many were in two-horse cabs, some in queer little German motors, and a few on foot; and still she thought, and wondered, and tried to understand, but could not. At all events, she was glad to be alone; she was glad not to have even Van Torp with her, who was by far the most congenial person she knew; for he had the rare good gift of silence, and used it very often, and when he talked she liked his odd speech, his unusual expressions, even his Western accent; she liked him for his simple, unswerving friendship, and for his kind heart--though the world would have screamed with laughter at the idea; and more than all, she liked him for himself, and because she knew certainly that neither he nor she could possibly, under any circumstances, grow to like each other in any other way. But she did not wish that he were walking beside her now, and she was quite indifferent to the fact that time was passing, and that Margaret was beginning to wonder where in the world she was. 'My dear child,' Mrs. Rushmore said, when the Primadonna expressed her surprise, 'those English people are all alike, when they are once out on a road by themselves. They must take a long walk. I am quite sure that at this moment Countess Leven is miles from here--miles, Margaret. Do you understand me? I tell you she is walking mile upon mile. All English people do. You are only half English after all, my dear, but I have known you to walk a long distance alone, for no good reason that I could see.' 'It's good for the voice if you don't overdo it,' Margaret observed. 'Yes. But Countess Leven does not sing, my dear. You forget that. Why should she walk mile upon mile like that? And I know Mr. Van Torp is not with her, for Justine told me a quarter of an hour ago that she heard him tell his man to bring him some hot water. So he is at home, you see. Margaret, what do you suppose Mr. Van Torp wants hot water for at this extraordinary hour?' 'I really don't know,' Margaret answered, sipping her tea rather gloomily, for she was thinking of the telegram she had given Lady Maud to send. 'You don't think Mr. Van Torp drinks, do you, my dear?' inquired Mrs. Rushmore. 'Hot water? Some people do. It's good for the digestion.' 'No, you purposely misunderstand me. I mean that he makes use of it for--for the purpose of mixing alcoholic beverages alone in his room.' Margaret laughed. 'Never! If there's a perfectly sober man living, it is he!' 'I am glad to hear you say so, my dear. Because, if I thought he had habits, nothing would induce me to go on board his yacht. Nothing, Margaret! Not all his millions! Do you understand me? Margaret, dear, if you do not mind very much, I think we had better not accept his invitation after all, though I am sure it is well meant.' 'You're very much mistaken if you think he drinks,' Margaret said, still inclined to laugh. 'Well, my dear,' returned Mrs. Rushmore, 'I don't know. Justine certainly heard him tell his man to bring him some hot water a quarter of an hour ago. Perhaps it may have been twenty minutes. It is a very extraordinary hour to ask for such a thing, I am sure.' Margaret suggested that Mr. Van Torp might possibly have a fancy to wash his hands in hot water at that unusual time of day, and Mrs. Rushmore seemed temporarily satisfied, for apparently she had not thought of this explanation. 'Margaret,' she said solemnly, 'if you feel that you can put your hand into the fire for Mr. Van Torp's habits, I will go with you on his yacht. Not otherwise, my dear.' The Primadonna laughed, and at last Mrs. Rushmore herself smiled, for she was not without a sense of humour. 'I cannot help it, my dear,' she said. 'You must not laugh at me if I am nervous about such things; nervous, you understand, not unreasonable. But since you are prepared to take all the responsibility I will go with you, my child. I cannot even say it is a sacrifice on my part, for I am an excellent sailor, as you know, and very fond of the sea. In my young days my dear husband used to have a nice cat-boat at Newport, and he always took me with him. He used to say that I steered quite nicely.' The vision of Mrs. Rushmore steering a Newport cat-boat was quite new to Margaret, and her lips parted in surprise. 'Oh, yes, my child, we were very fond of sailing in those days,' continued the elderly lady, pleased with her recollections. 'I often got quite wet, I assure you, but I remember catching cold only once. I think it rained that day. My dear husband, I recollect, asked me to name the boat when he bought it, and so I called it the _Sea-Mew_.' 'The _Sea-Mew_?' Margaret was mystified. 'Yes. It was a cat-boat, my dear. Cats often mew. You understand, of course. It was not very funny, perhaps, but I remember that my dear husband laughed, and liked the name.' Margaret was laughing softly too. 'I think it's awfully good, you know,' she said. 'You needn't say it's not funny, for it's a very creditable little joke. Do you think you could steer a boat now? I'm sure I could never learn! Everything about sailing and ships is an utter mystery to me.' 'I daresay I could steer a cat-boat,' said Mrs. Rushmore calmly. 'I am sure I could keep a row-boat straight. Let me see--there's a thing you move----' 'The rudder?' suggested Margaret. 'No, my dear. It's not the rudder, nor the boom, nor the centre-board--how all the names come back to me! Yes, it is the tiller. That is the name. When you know which way to move the tiller, it is quite easy to steer.' 'I fancy so,' said Margaret gravely. 'Most people move it the wrong way when they begin,' continued the good lady. 'You see "port" means "left" and "starboard" means "right." But when you turn the tiller to the left the boat goes to the right. Do you understand?' 'It seems all wrong,' observed Margaret, 'but I suppose you know.' 'Yes. In the same way, when you turn the tiller to the right the boat goes to the left. The great thing is to remember that. It is the same way with "weather" and "lee." I could show you if we were in a boat. 'I haven't a doubt of it,' Margaret said. 'You're perfectly amazing! I believe you are a regular sailor.' 'Oh, no,' protested Mrs. Rushmore modestly; 'but indeed I often took the cat-boat out alone, now that I think of it. I used to raise the sail alone--I mean, I hoisted it. "Hoist"--that is the proper word, I remember. I was quite strong in those days.' 'Really, you are most extraordinary!' Margaret was genuinely surprised. 'You'll astonish Mr. Van Torp when he hears your nautical language on the yacht! Fancy your knowing all about sailing! I knew you could swim, for we've often been in together at Biarritz--but sailing! Why did you never tell me?' 'Shall we keep some tea for Countess Leven?' asked Mrs. Rushmore, changing the subject. 'I fear it will get quite cold. Those English people never know when to stop walking. I cannot understand what they can see in it. Perhaps you will kindly touch the bell, my dear, and I will send the tea away. It can be brought fresh for her when she comes. Thank you, Margaret. But she will not come in till it is just time to dress for dinner. Mark my words, my child, the Countess will be late for dinner. All English people are. Have you heard from Monsieur Logotheti to-day?' 'Not to-day,' Margaret answered, repressing a little start, for she was as near to being nervous as she ever was, and she was thinking of him just then, and the question had come suddenly. 'I think it is time you heard from him,' said Mrs. Rushmore, her natural severity asserting itself. 'I should think that after those very strange stories in the papers he would write to you and explain, or come himself. By the bye, perhaps you will kindly pass me the _Herald_, my dear. What did you once tell me was the name of his yacht?' 'The _Erinna_,' Margaret answered, handing Mrs. Rushmore the sheet. 'Exactly! I think that means the "Fury."' 'He told me it was the name of a Greek poetess,' Margaret observed. 'On account of her temper, I suppose,' answered the good lady absently, for she was looking up and down the columns in search of something she had already seen. 'Here it is!' she said. 'It is under the yachting news. "Cape Finisterre. Passed at 4 P.M., going south, steam yacht _Erinna_, with owner and party on board. All well." My dear child, it is quite clear that if this is Monsieur Logotheti's yacht, he is going to Gibraltar.' 'I don't know anything about geography,' Margaret said, and her wrath, which had been smouldering sullenly for days, began to glow again. 'Margaret,' said Mrs. Rushmore, 'you surprise me! You were very well taught----' But the Primadonna did not hear the long tirade of mild reproof that followed. She knew well enough where Gibraltar was, and that Logotheti was going all the way round to the Mediterranean on his yacht with some one for company, and that the voyage was a long one. After what Lady Maud had said, there was not the least doubt in her mind as to his companion, who could be no one but Baraka. He had been told that he was not wanted at Bayreuth, and he was celebrating the sunset of his bachelor life in his own way. That was clear. If he received the telegram that had just been sent to him, he would get it at Gibraltar, should he stop there, and as for answering it before Margaret left Bayreuth, she was inclined to make such a thing impossible by going away the next morning, if not that very night. Her angry reflexions and Mrs. Rushmore's lecture on the importance of geography in education were interrupted by the discreet entrance of Mr. Van Torp, who was announced and ushered to the door by Justine in a grand French manner. On the threshold, however, he stood still and asked if he might come in; being pressed to do so, he yielded, advanced, and sat down between the two ladies. 'Mr. Van Torp,' said Mrs. Rushmore, 'I insist upon knowing what has become of Countess Leven.' 'I don't know, Mrs. Rushmore,' answered the millionaire, slowly rubbing his hands. 'I haven't spoken to her since I brought her from the station. I daresay she's all right. She's most probably gone to take a walk. She often does in the country, I know--her father's country seat is next to mine, Mrs. Rushmore. I hope you'll pay me a visit some day. Why, yes, Lady Maud sometimes goes off alone and walks miles and miles.' 'There, Margaret,' said Mrs. Rushmore triumphantly, 'what did I tell you? Mr. Van Torp says the Countess often walks for miles and miles.' 'Why, certainly,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'though I'm bound to say she's just as fond of horseback. Her friends generally call her Lady Maud, Mrs. Rushmore. Perhaps you won't mind my telling you, as she prefers it a good deal herself. You see, I've had the pleasure of knowing her several years, so I daresay you'll forgive me for mentioning it.' 'I think it is quite kind of you, on the contrary,' answered Mrs. Rushmore. 'Margaret, why did you never tell me of this? Had you any reason for not telling me?' 'I don't think I noticed what you called her,' Margaret answered patiently. 'Because if you had any reason,' said Mrs. Rushmore, following her own thoughts, 'I insist upon knowing what it was.' 'Well, now, I'll tell you,' rejoined Mr. Van Torp, to save Margaret the trouble of answering the futile little speech, 'her husband didn't treat her very well. There's not a purer woman in the six continents, Mrs. Rushmore, but he tried to divorce her, because he'd lost his money, if he ever had any, and she has none, and he wanted to marry an heiress. However, they automobilised him, or something, in St. Petersburg last June.' 'Auto--what did you say?' inquired Mrs. Rushmore. 'Killed by an automobile,' explained Mr. Van Torp gravely. 'But now I come to think, it wasn't that. He got blown up by a bomb meant for a better man. It was quite instantaneous, I recollect. His head disappeared suddenly, and the greater part of him was scattered around, but they found his pocket-book with his cards and things, so they knew who it was. It was driven through somebody else's hat on the other side of the street, wasn't it, Miss Donne? Things must have been quite lively just then, where it happened. I supposed you knew.' Mrs. Rushmore explained that she had never heard any details. 'Besides,' said Mr. Van Torp, in answer, though not quite relevantly, 'everybody always calls her "Lady Maud" instead of "Countess Leven," which she has on her cards.' 'She would naturally use the higher title,' observed Mrs. Rushmore reverently. 'Well, now, about that,' objected Mr. Van Torp, 'I'm bound to say I think the daughter of an English earl as good as a Russian count, anywhere west of Siberia. I don't know how they figure those things out at courts when they have to balance 'em up for seats at a dinner-party, of course. It's just my impression, that's all, as a business man. He's dead anyway, and one needn't make personal remarks about dead men. All the same, it was a happy release for Lady Maud, and I doubt if she sits up all night mourning for him. Have you been out this afternoon, Miss Donne?' He changed the subject with extreme directness, and Mrs. Rushmore, who was used to the dictatorial ways of lions, took the hint submissively enough, though she would have been glad to discuss the relative and intrinsic values of the designations 'Lady Maud' and 'Countess Leven.' But it was much more important that the lion should be left alone with Margaret as much as possible, and the excellent lady therefore remembered that she had something to do and left them. 'I had a little talk with Kralinsky before he left,' said Van Torp, when she was gone. 'He says he'll meet us in Venice any time in the next few days. He's just going to run over to Vienna in his sudden-death-cart for twenty-four hours; then he'll go south, he says. He ran me up to the hotel and dropped me. I daresay you heard the toots. I thought I saw Lady Maud looking out of the window of your room as I got out.' 'Yes,' Margaret said. 'But how do you know that is my window?' 'In the first place, I've counted the windows. I felt a sort of interest in knowing which was yours. And then, I often see your maid opening the shutters in the morning.' 'Oh!' Margaret smiled. 'Did you notice anything unusual about Lady Maud when you saw her?' she asked, for she knew that he had good eyes. 'Since you mention it, I thought she looked as if she didn't feel quite up to the mark--pale, I thought she was.' 'Yes,' Margaret said. 'She felt ill for a moment, and I thought she was going to faint. But it passed almost directly, and she insisted on going for a walk.' 'Oh,' mused Mr. Van Torp, 'is that so? Well, I daresay it was the best thing she could do. I was telling you about Kralinsky. He's not Levi Longlegs after all, and I'm not sure he was ever in the West.' 'I thought it sounded unlikely,' Margaret said. 'I asked him, just like that, in a friendly way, and he thought a moment and made an effort to recollect, and then he seemed quite pleased to remember that I'd been "Fanny" and he'd been Levi Longlegs, and that he used to whistle things out of _Parsifal_ by the fire of an evening.' 'Well--but in that case---' Margaret stopped with an inquiring look. 'Just so,' continued Van Torp, nodding. 'Did you ever attend a trial and hear a witness being cross-examined by a lawyer who wants him to remember something, and he wants to remember it himself, but can't, because he never heard of it before in his life? It's quite funny. The lawyer makes steps for him and puts his feet into them so that he gets along nicely, unless the judge happens to wake up and kick, and then the little game stops right there, and somebody laughs. Well, my talk with Kralinsky was like that, only there was no judge, so he went away happy; and we're old friends now, and punched cows on the same ranch, and he's coming on my yacht. I only wonder why he was so anxious to remember all that, and why he thought it would be kind of friendly if I called him Levi Longlegs again, and he called me Fanny Cook. I wonder! He says he's still very fond of _Parsifal_, and came on purpose to hear it, but that he's completely forgotten how to whistle. That's funny too. I just thought I'd tell you, because if you come on my yacht and he comes too, you're liable to see quite a good deal of one another.' 'Did you tell him that Mrs. Rushmore and I would come?' Margaret asked. 'And Lady Maud?' 'Why, no. You've not promised yet, any more than you did last night when he was there and we talked about it, so how could I? I forgot to mention Lady Maud to him, or else I thought I wouldn't--I forget which. It doesn't matter.' 'No.' Margaret smiled. 'Not a little bit!' 'You seem amused,' observed Mr. Van Torp. 'By your way of putting it, and your pretending to forget such a thing.' 'It wasn't quite true that I forgot, but I wanted to, so I didn't say anything about her. That's why I put it in that way. I don't choose to leave you any doubt about what I say, or mean, even in the smallest things. The moment you feel the least doubt about the perfect accuracy of anything I tell you, even if it's not at all a downright lie or anything resembling one, you won't trust me at all, in anything. Because, if you trust me, you'll end by liking me, and if you don't trust me you'll go back to thinking that I'm the Beast out of Revelations, or something, as you used to. I've forgotten the Beast's number.' Margaret smiled again, though she was continually conscious of her own sullenly smouldering anger against Logotheti. Van Torp was gaining influence over her in his own uncouth way. Logotheti had been able to play upon her moods, as on that day under the elm-tree at Versailles, and she blushed when she remembered that single kiss he had won from her. But the American had no idea of such tactics in love, for he had never learned them. He was making war on the modern scientific system of never losing a hair's-breadth of ground once gained, keeping his communications constantly open with the base from which he had started, bringing up fresh forces to the front without intermission, and playing his heavy artillery with judgment and tenacity. 'The number doesn't matter,' Margaret said, 'for I've forgotten all about the Beast.' 'Thank you,' answered Mr. Van Torp. 'To change the subject--I've got a little scheme to propose. Maybe you'll think well of it. Anyhow, as it's a mere matter of business connected with your career, you won't mind my explaining it to you, will you?' 'No, indeed!' Margaret was interested at once. 'Do tell me!' she said, leaning forward a little. 'Well,' he began, 'I've looked around this place a good deal since I've been here, and I've come to the conclusion that it's not very well done, anyhow, except _Parsifal_. That's what most of the people really come for. I'm informed that they give all the other operas better in Munich, with the advantage of being in what you may call a Christian town, compared with this. Is that correct, do you think?' 'Yes, I believe so.' 'It is, you can depend upon it. Now, what I want to know is, why you and I shouldn't go into a little business partnership, and do this kind of thing brown, as it ought to be done.' Margaret opened her handsome eyes wide. 'Because,' continued Mr. Van Torp, as coolly as if he were explaining a new plan to a board of directors, 'we've got the capital and the ability between us, and there's a demand in New York for what I propose to do. It'll fill a want, I know, and that means success and money. Why don't we build a theatre together? When I say a theatre, I mean a first-class opera-house and not a barn. We'll employ the best architects to build it, and, of course, I'd leave everything about it to you. I've got a block in New York just about in the right place, and it won't take long to build. I'll give the land and put up the money for the building, if you'll undertake the management. You'll put in any money you like, of course, and we'll share the profits. Maybe they'll be quite handsome, for we'll lease the theatre to other people outside of the season. We'll have the best talent in Europe, and pay for it, and the public will pay us back. We'll call it the Cordova Opera, if you like, and you'll run it according to your own ideas, and sing or not, whenever you please.' 'Are you in earnest?' Margaret had some difficulty in pronouncing the words clearly. He had brought up some very heavy artillery indeed, and at the right moment. Was there ever a great soprano who did not dream of having the most perfect theatre of her very own, and who could receive unmoved the offer to build one from a man who could build twenty if he chose? Very rarely in her life had she been aware of her bodily heart, but she could feel it now, beating like a hammer on the anvil. 'I'm in earnest,' Van Torp answered with perfect calm. 'I've thought the whole thing over in all its aspects, just as I would a railroad, or a canal, or a mine, and I've concluded to try it, if you'll help me, because it's going to be a safe investment. You see, Miss Donne,' he went on slowly, 'there's no artist on the Grand Opera stage now who's so well equipped for the business as you are. I'm not flattering you, either. In your own kind of parts you've simply got no rival. Everybody says so, and I suppose you won't play kitty and deny it. Let's start fair, now.' 'It would be silly to deny that I'm one of the first,' Margaret admitted. 'That'll do, thank you. One of the first, and the first is one of them, and you're it. Besides, you've got before you what's behind most of them. You're young. I'm not talking about your personal appearance, but that's just one more item in the assets. Another big one is that you're a first-class musician, whereas half these singers can only bang the box like great, thundering, overgrown schoolgirls. Allow that?' 'I suppose I must "allow" anything!' laughed the Primadonna. 'Well, now, I've told you. You've got the name I need, and you've got the voice, and the talent, and you've got the science and culture. I suppose you'll let me say that I've got the business ability, won't you?' The iron mouth smiled a little grimly. 'Rather! I fancy some people have wished you had less!' 'And the money's here, for I always have a blank cheque in my pocket. If you like, I'll fill it in, and we'll deposit it wherever you say, in the name of the "Cordova Opera Company," or "Madame da Cordova, Rufus Van Torp and Co." We can make out our little agreement in duplicate right here, on the corner of the table, and sign it; and before we leave here you might go around and speak to the best singers about an engagement in New York for a Wagner festival, a year from next Christmas. That's business, and this is a purely business proposition. If you'd like to think it over, I'll go and take a little walk before dinner.' 'It sounds like a dream!' Margaret answered, in a wondering tone. 'Money's an awful reality,' Van Torp remarked. 'I'm talking business, and as I'm the one who's going to put up most of the capital, you'll do me the credit to believe that I'm quite wide awake.' 'Do you really, really, really mean it?' She spoke almost like a child. It was not the first time in his life that the financier had seen the stunning effect of a big sum, projected with precision, like a shell, at exactly the right moment. He was playing the great game again, but for a prize he thought worth more than any he had yet won, and the very magnitude of the risk steadied his naturally steady brain. 'Yes,' he said quietly, 'I do. Perhaps I've startled you a little, and I shouldn't like you to make a decision till you feel quite ready to. I'll just say again that I've thought the whole thing out as a genuine venture, and that I believe in it, or I wouldn't propose it. Maybe you've got some sensible lawyer you have confidence in, and would like to consult him first. If you feel that way, I'd rather you should. A business partnership's not a thing to go into with your eyes shut, and if we had any reason for distrusting one another, it would be better to make inquiries. But so far as that goes, it appears to me that we've got facts to go on, which would make any partnership succeed. You've certainly got the musical brains, besides a little money of your own, and I've certainly got the rest of the funds. I'd like you to put some money in, though, if you can spare it, because that's a guarantee that you're going to be in earnest, too, and do your share in the musical side. You see I'm talking to you just as I would to a man in the same position. Not because I doubt that if you put your name to a piece of paper you really will do your share as a partner, but because I'm used to working in that sort of way in business. How does that strike you? I hope you're not offended?' 'Offended!' There was no mistaking the suppressed excitement and delight in her voice. If he had possessed the intelligence of Mephistopheles and the charm of Faust he could not have said anything more subtly pleasing to her dignity and her vanity. 'Of course,' he said, 'it needn't be a very large sum. Still it ought to be something that would make a difference to you.' She hesitated a moment, and then spoke rather timidly. 'I think perhaps--if we did it--I could manage a hundred thousand pounds,' she said. 'Would that be too little, do you think?' The large mouth twitched and then smiled pleasantly. 'That's too much,' he said, shaking his head. 'You mustn't put all your eggs in one basket. A hundred thousand dollars would be quite enough as your share of the capital, with option to buy stock of me at par, up to a million, or so, if it's a success.' 'Really? Would that be enough? And, please, what is "stock" in such a case?' 'Stock,' said the financier, 'is a little plant which, when well watered, will grow like the mustard seed, till all the birds of Wall Street make their nests in its branches. And if you don't water it too much, it'll be all right. In our case, the stock is going to be that share of the business which most people sell to raise money, and which we mean to keep for ourselves. I always do it that way, when circumstances allow. I once bought all the stock of a railroad for nothing, for instance, and sold all the bonds, and let it go bankrupt. Then I bought the road one day, and found all the stock was in my own pocket. That's only a little illustration. But I guess you can leave the financial side in my hands. You won't lose by it, I'm pretty sure.' 'I fancy not!' Margaret's eyes were wide open, her hands were clasped tightly on her knee, and she was leaning forward a little. 'Besides,' she went on, 'it would not be the money that I should care about! I can earn more money than I want, and I have a little fortune of my own--the hundred thousand I offered you. Oh, no! It would be the splendid power to have the most beautiful music in the world given as it could be given nowhere else! The joy of singing myself--the parts I can sing--in the most perfect surroundings! An orchestra picked from the whole world of orchestras, the greatest living leaders, the most faultless chorus! And the scenery, and the costumes--everything as everything could be, if it were really, really the best that can be had! Do you believe it is possible to have all that?' 'Oh, yes, and with your name to it, too. We'll have everything on earth that money can buy to make a perfect opera, and I'll guarantee it'll pay after the first two seasons. That is, if you'll work at it as hard as I will. But you've got to work, Miss Donne, you've got to work, or it's no use thinking of it. That's my opinion.' 'I'll work like a Trojan!' cried Margaret enthusiastically. 'Trojans,' mused Van Torp, who wanted to bring her back to her ordinary self before Mrs. Rushmore or Lady Maud came in. 'Let me see. They say that because the Trojans had to work so hard to get over the Alps coming down into Italy, don't they?' Whether Mr. Van Torp made this monstrous assertion in ignorance, or for effect, no one will ever know. An effect certainly followed at once, for Margaret broke into an echoing laugh. 'I believe it was the Carthaginians,' she said presently. 'It's the same thing, as Lady Maud is so fond of saying!' 'All in the family, as Cain said when he killed Abel,' observed Van Torp without a smile. Margaret looked at him and laughed again. She would have laughed at anything in the remotest degree amusing just then, for she found it hard to realise exactly what she was doing or saying. The possibility he had suddenly placed within her reach appealed to almost everything in her nature at once, to her talent, her vanity, her real knowledge of her art, her love of power, even to her good sense, which was unusually practical in certain ways. She had enough experience in herself, and enough knowledge of the conditions to believe that her own hard work, combined with Van Torp's unlimited capital, could and certainly would produce such an opera-house, and bring to it such artists as had never been seen and heard, except perhaps in Bayreuth, during its first great days, now long past. Then, too, he had put the matter before her so skilfully that she could look upon it honestly as a business partnership, in which her voice, her judgment, and her experience would bear no contemptible proportion to his money, and in which she herself was to invest money of her own, thereby sharing the risk according to her fortune as well as giving the greater part of the labour. She felt for some weak place in the scheme, groping as if she were dazzled, but she could find none. 'I don't think I shall need time to think this over,' she said, controlling her voice better, now that she had made up her mind. 'As I understand it, I am to put in what I can in the way of ready-money, and I am to give my time in all ways, as you need it, and my voice, when it is wanted. Is that it?' 'Except that, when you choose to sing, the Company will allow you your usual price for each appearance,' answered Van Torp in a business-like manner. 'You will pay yourself, or we both shall pay you, just as much as we should pay any other first-class soprano, or as much more as you would get in London or New York if you signed an engagement.' 'Is that fair?' Margaret asked. 'Why, certainly. But the Company, which is you and I, will probably rule that you mustn't sing in Grand Opera anywhere in the States east of the Rockies. They've got to come to New York to hear you. Naturally, you'll be free to do anything you like in Europe outside of our season, when you can spare the time.' 'Of course.' 'Well, now, I suppose we might as well note that down right away, as a preliminary agreement. What do you say?' 'I say that I simply cannot refuse such an offer!' Margaret answered. 'Your consent is all that's necessary,' he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. He produced from an inner pocket a folded sheet of foolscap, which he spread on the corner of the table beside him. He took out a fountain pen and began to write quickly. The terms and forms were as familiar to him as the alphabet and he lost no time; besides, as he had told the Primadonna, he had thought out the whole matter beforehand. 'What if Mrs. Rushmore comes in just as we are signing it?' asked Margaret. 'We'll tell her, and ask her to witness our signatures,' replied Van Torp without looking up. 'I judge Mrs. Rushmore to have quite a knowledge of business.' 'You seem able to write and talk at the same time,' Margaret said, smiling. 'Business talk, yes.' The pen ran on swiftly. 'There. That's about all, I should say. Do you think you can read my writing? I don't suppose you've ever seen it.' He turned the page round, and handed it to her. The writing was large and perfectly legible, but very different from the 'commercial' hand of most American business men. Any one word, taken at random, might have seemed unformed, at first sight, but the appearance of the whole was oddly strong and symmetrical. Margaret read the clauses carefully. She herself had already signed a good many legal papers in connexion with her engagements and her own small fortune, and the language was not so unfamiliar to her as it would have been to most women. 'Shall I sign first?' she asked, when she had finished. 'My own name? Or my stage name?' 'Your own name, please,' said Van Torp without hesitation. 'The others only binding in your profession, because you appear under it, and it's your "business style."' She wrote 'Margaret Donne' at the foot of the page in her large and rather irregular hand, and passed the paper back to Van Torp, who signed it. He waved the sheet slowly to and fro, to dry the ink. 'It's only a preliminary agreement,' he said, 'but it's binding as far as it goes and I'll attend to the rest. You'll have to give me a power of attorney for my lawyer in New York. By the bye, if you decide to come, you can do that in Venice, where there's a real live consul. That's necessary. But for all matters of business herein set forth, we are now already "The Madame da Cordova and Rufus Van Torp Company, organised for the purpose of building an Opera-house in the City of New York and for giving public performances of musical works in the same, with a nominal capital hereafter to be agreed upon." That's what we are now.' He folded the sheet, returned it to his inner pocket and held out his hand in a cheerful, business-like manner. 'Shall we shake hands on it?' he asked. 'By all means,' Margaret answered readily, and their eyes met; but she drew back her hand again before taking his. 'This is purely a matter of business between us,' she said, 'you understand that? It means nothing else?' 'Purely a matter of business,' answered Rufus Van Torp, slowly and gravely. CHAPTER XII 'Stemp,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'we must have something to eat on that yacht.' 'Yes, sir. Quite so, sir.' Stemp, who could do anything, was clipping the millionaire's thatch of sandy hair, on the morning after the transaction last described. Mr. Van Torp abhorred barbers and shaved himself, and in his less 'prominent' days he had been in the habit of cutting his own hair by using two looking-glasses. The result had rarely been artistic, and even Stemp was not what is described on some American signs as a tonsorial artist, but he managed to clip his master's rough mane with neatness and precision, if not in the 'Bond Street style.' 'I mean,' said Mr. Van Torp, explaining himself, 'we must have something good to eat.' 'Oh, I see, sir,' answered Stemp, as if this were quite a new idea. 'Well, now, do you suppose you can get anything to eat in Italy?' 'Salmon-trout is very good there, sir, and quails are in season at the end of August. They are just going back to Egypt at this time of the year, sir, and are very fat. There's Gorgonzola cheese, too, and figs and muscatel grapes are coming on. I think that's all, sir.' 'It's not bad. How about chickens?' 'Well, sir, the poultry in those parts is not much to boast of. An Italian fowl is mostly either a hawk or a butterfly. That's my experience, sir, when I travelled there with the late Duke of Barchester, a few years ago. His Grace was most particular, sir, having a poor stomach, and nothing to occupy his mind after the Duchess died in a fit of rage, having thrown her wig at him, sir, they do say, and then fallen down in a fit which was quite awful to see, and ended as we all know.' 'As far as I can see, you'd better go on to Venice, Stemp,' said Mr. Van Torp, not interested in his man's reminiscences. 'You'd better go off to-night and tell Captain Brown to hurry up and get ready, because I'm bringing a party of friends down the day after to-morrow. And then you just scratch round and find something to eat.' 'Yes, sir. I'll telegraph to the caterers, and I think you'll be satisfied, sir.' 'There's an American lady coming, who knows what's good to eat, and likes it, and wants it, and means to get it, and you've got to find it for her somehow. I can live on hog and hominy myself. And I shan't want you in the least. You'd better take most of my baggage with you anyway. Just leave my Tuxedo and a couple of suits, and some new flannel pants and a shirt-case, and take the rest. But don't waste time over that either if you've got to catch the train, for the main thing's to get there right away. You can go first-class, Stemp--you won't be so done up.' 'Thank you, sir.' A silence followed, during which the valet's scissors made a succession of little chinking noises; from time to time he turned Mr. Van Torp's head very gingerly to a slightly different position. 'Stemp.' 'Yes, sir.' 'You take a good look around that yacht, and decide about the state-rooms, before I come. This way. You give the best room to Miss Donne, and have a large bouquet of carnations on the table. See?' 'Beg pardon, sir, but carnations are out of season.' 'You get them just the same.' 'Yes, sir.' 'And give the second-best room to her ladyship, Stemp, if there are not two alike, but be extra careful to see that everything's comfortable. Lady Maud likes wood violets, Stemp. You get a handsome bouquet of them, and don't tell me they're out of season too, because you've got to get them, anyway, so it's no use to talk.' 'Yes, sir. I see, sir.' 'And then you get the third-best room ready for Mrs. Rushmore, and you get some flowers for her too, out of your own head. Maybe she likes those roses with stems three feet long. Use your own judgment, anyway.' 'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.' Another silence followed, and the hair-cutting was finished. Mr. Van Torp glanced at himself in the glass and then turned to his valet. 'Say, Stemp, I was thinking. Maybe that third bedroom's not quite so good as the others, and the lady might feel herself sort of overlooked.' 'Yes, sir.' 'Well, I was thinking. If that's the case, and it looks sort of second-class, you go out and get a man and have him gild it all around nicely so as to brighten it up. I guess she'll think it's all right if it's gilt and the others aren't. Some people are like that.' 'I see, sir. Yes, sir. I'll attend to it, sir. Will there be any more ladies and gentlemen, sir?' 'There's that Russian gentleman, Count Kralinsky. Put him at the other end of the ship, somewhere out of the way of the ladies. I suppose he'll bring his valet, and there'll be two or three maids. That's all. Now don't mind me any more, but just fly around, and don't forget anything. Understand? We aren't going to be in England or the States, where you can sit still and telephone for anything you've forgotten, from peanuts to a funeral. You'll have to go full speed ahead in all directions if you're going to wake things up.' Thereupon Mr. Van Torp sat down by the window to read the paper. His attention was arrested by a sensational 'scare-head' about a thief and a ruby worth fifty thousand dollars. Some disaffected colleague in London had known, or cleverly guessed, where the stone was that had been stolen from Mr. Pinney's, and had informed the police; the nice-looking young fellow who spoke like an English gentleman had walked directly into the arms of the plain-clothes man waiting for him on the pier in New York, the stone had been found sewn up in his waistcoat, and his pleasant career of liberty had ended abruptly in a cell. Mr. Van Torp whistled softly as he read the account a second time. Then he neatly cut the column out of the paper, folded it with great precision, smoothed it with care and placed it in his pocket-book next to a cheap little photograph of Madame da Cordova as 'Juliet,' which he had bought in a music-shop in New York the day after he had heard her for the first time, and had carried in his pocket ever since. He looked up to see what Stemp was doing, and as the man was kneeling before a box on the floor, with his back turned, he took out the rather shabby photograph and gazed at it quietly for fully thirty seconds before he put it back again. He took up the mutilated newspaper and looked up and down the columns, and among other information which he gathered in a few moments was the fact that Logotheti's yacht had 'passed Cape Saint Vincent, going east, owner and party on board.' The previous telegram had not escaped him, and if he had entertained any doubts as to the destination of the _Erinna_, they vanished now. She was certainly bound for the Mediterranean. He remembered having heard that many steam yachts coming from England put into Gibraltar for coal and fresh provisions, coal being cheaper there than in French and Italian ports, and he thought it very probable that the _Erinna_ would do the same; he also made some deductions which need not be explained yet. The only one worth mentioning here was that Logotheti would be likely to hear in Gibraltar that the ruby had been found and was on its way back to England, and that as he would know that Margaret would be anxious about it, since he had already given it to her, he would hardly let the occasion of communicating with her go by. As for writing from Gibraltar to any place whatsoever in the hope that a letter will arrive in less than a week, it is sheer folly. Mr. Van Torp had never tried it, and supposed it possible, as it looks, but he was tolerably sure that Logotheti would telegraph first, and had perhaps done so already, for the news of his passing Cape Saint Vincent was already twenty-four hours old. This was precisely what had happened. When Mr. Van Torp opened his door, he came upon Margaret and Mrs. Rushmore on the landing, on the point of going out for a walk, and a servant had just brought the Primadonna a telegram which she was reading aloud, so that the American could not help hearing her. '"Cruising till wanted,"' she read quickly. '"Ruby found. Address, yacht _Erinna_, Naples."' She heard Van Torp close his door, though she had not heard him open it, and turning round she found herself face to face with him. Her eyes were sparkling with anger. 'Very sorry,' he said. 'I couldn't help hearing.' 'It's of no consequence, for I should have told you,' Margaret answered briefly. He argued well for himself from her tone and manner, but he chose to show that he would not force his company upon her just then, when she was in a visible rage, and instead of stopping to exchange more words he passed the two ladies hat in hand, and bowing rather low, after his manner, he went quietly downstairs. Margaret watched him till he disappeared. 'I like that man,' she said, as if to herself, but audibly. 'I cannot help it.' Mrs. Rushmore was more than delighted, but had tact enough not to make any answer to a speech which had probably not been meant for her ears. 'Perhaps,' she said, 'you would rather not go out just yet, my dear?' Margaret was grateful for the suggestion, and they turned back into their rooms. Meanwhile Van Torp had reached the door of the hotel, and found Lady Maud standing there with her parasol up, for the sun was streaming in. 'I was waiting for you,' she said simply, as soon as he reached her side, and she stepped out into the street. 'I thought you would come down, and I wanted to speak to you, for I did not get a chance last night. They were both watching me, probably because they thought I was ill, and I had to chatter like a magpie to keep up appearances.' 'You did it very well,' Van Torp said. 'If I had not seen your face at the window when I got out of the automobile yesterday, I shouldn't have guessed there was anything wrong.' 'But there is--something very wrong--something I can hardly bear to think of, though I must, until I know the truth.' They turned into the first deserted street they came to. 'I daresay I can give a guess at what it is,' Van Torp answered gravely. 'I went to see him alone yesterday on purpose, before he started, and I must say, if it wasn't for the beard I'd feel pretty sure.' 'He had a beard when I married him, and it was like that--just like that!' Lady Maud's voice shook audibly, for she felt cold, even in the sunshine. 'I didn't know,' Van Torp answered. 'That alters the case. If we're not mistaken, what can I do to help you? Let's see. You only had that one look at him, through the window, is that so?' 'Yes. But the window was open, and it's not high above the ground, and my eyes are good. He took off his hat when he said good-bye to you, and I saw his face as distinctly as I see yours. When you've been married to a man'--she laughed harshly--'you cannot be easily mistaken about him, when you're as near as that! That is the man I married. I'm intimately convinced of it, but I must be quite sure. Do you understand?' 'Of course. If he's really Leven, he's even a better actor than I used to think he was. If he's not, the resemblance is just about the most extraordinary thing! It's true I only saw Leven three or four times in my life, but I saw him to look at him then, and the last time I did, when he made the row in Hare Court, he was doing most of the talking, so I remember his voice.' 'There's only one difficulty,' Lady Maud said. 'Some one else may have been killed last June. It may even have been the pickpocket who had stolen his pocket-book. Such things have happened, or do in books! But this is certainly the man you met in New York and who sold you the stone you gave me, is he not?' 'Oh, certainly. And that was at the end of July, and Leven was killed late in June.' 'Yes. That only leaves a month for him to have been to Asia--that's absurd.' 'Utterly, totally, and entirely impossible,' asseverated Mr. Van Torp. 'One of two things. Either this man is your husband, and if he is, he's not the man who found the rubies in Asia. Or else, if he is that man, he's not Leven. I wish that heathen girl had been here yesterday! She could have told in a minute. She'd better have been here anyway than cutting around the Mediterranean with that fellow Logotheti!' 'Yes,' Lady Maud answered gravely. 'But about myself--if Leven is alive, what is my position--I mean--I don't really quite know where I am, do I?' 'Anybody but you would have thought of marrying again already,' observed Mr. Van Torp, looking up sideways to her eyes, for she was taller than he. 'Then you'd really be in a bad fix, wouldn't you? The Enoch Arden thing, I suppose it would be. But as it is, I don't see that it makes much difference. The man's going under a false name, so he doesn't mean to claim you as his wife, nor to try and get a divorce again, as he did before. He's just going to be somebody else for his own good, and he'll get married that way, maybe. That's his business, not yours. I don't suppose you're going to get up in church and forbid the banns, are you?' 'I would, like a shot!' said Lady Maud. 'So would you, I'm sure! Think of the other woman!' 'That's so,' answered Van Torp without enthusiasm. 'However, we've got to think about you and the present, and decide what we'll do. I suppose the best thing is for me to put him off with some excuse, so that you can come on the yacht.' 'Please do nothing of the sort!' cried Lady Maud. 'But I want you to come,' objected her friend. 'I mean to come. Do you think I am afraid to meet him?' Van Torp looked at her in some surprise, and not without admiration. 'There isn't anybody like you, anyway,' he said quietly. 'But there's going to be a circus on that ship if he's Leven,' he added. 'If he makes a fuss, I'll read the Riot Act and lock him up.' 'Oh, no,' answered Lady Maud, who was used to Mr. Van Torp's familiar vocabulary, 'why need there be any trouble? You've not told him I am coming, you say. Very well. If he sees me suddenly after he has been on board a little while, he'll certainly betray himself, and then I shall be sure. Leven is a man of the world --"was" or "is"--God knows which! But if it is he, and he doesn't want to be recognised, he'll behave as if nothing had happened, after the first moment of surprise. At least I shall be certain! You may wonder--I don't know myself, Rufus--I wish you could help me!' 'I will, as far as I can.' 'No, you don't know what I mean! There's something in my life that I never quite told you, I can't tell why not. There must be people who know it besides my mother--I don't think my father ever did. Margaret has an idea of it--I let fall a few words one day. In one way, you and I have been so intimate for years --and yet----' She stopped short, and the soft colour rose in her cheeks like a dawn. Van Torp looked down at the pavement as he walked. 'See here,' he said in a low voice, 'you'd better not tell me. Maybe you'll be sorry some day if you do.' 'It would be the first time,' she answered softly, 'and I've often wished you knew everything. I mean to tell you now--just wait a moment.' They walked on; they were already in the outskirts of the dull little town. Van Torp did not again raise his eyes to her face, for he knew she would speak when she was ready. When she did, her voice was a little muffled, and she looked straight before her as he was doing. They were quite alone in the road now. 'When I was very young--nearly eleven years ago, in my first season--I met a man I liked very much, and he liked me. We grew very, very fond of each other. He was not much older than I, and had just joined the army. We couldn't marry, because we had no money--my father had not come into the title then, you know--but we promised each other that we would wait. We waited, and no one knew, except, perhaps, my mother, and she kept us from seeing each other as much as she could. Then came the Boer war, and he was killed--killed in a wretched skirmish--not even in a battle--buried somewhere on the Veldt--if I only knew where! I read it in a despatch--just "killed"--nothing more. One doesn't die of things, I suppose, and years passed, and I went out just the same, and they wanted me to marry. You know how it is with a girl! I married to get rid of myself--I married Leven because he was good-looking and had money, and--I don't quite know why, but it seemed easier to marry a foreigner than an Englishman. I suppose you cannot understand that! It made all comparison impossible--perhaps that was it. When mine was dead, I could never have taken another who could possibly have known him, or who could be in the remotest degree like him.' 'I understand that quite well,' said Van Torp, as she paused. 'I'm glad, then, for it makes it easier to explain the rest. I don't think I always did my best to be nice to Leven. You see, he soon grew tired of me, and went astray after strange goddesses. Still, I might have tried harder to keep him if I had cared what he did, but I was faithful to him, in my own way, and it was much harder than you can guess, or any one. Oh, it was not any living man that made it hard--not that! It was the other. He came back--dead men do sometimes--and he told me I was his, and not Leven's wife; and I fought against that, just as if a man had made love to me in society. It didn't seem honest and true to my real husband, in my thoughts, you know, and in some things thoughts are everything. I fought with all my might against that one, that dear one. I think that was the beginning of my work--being sorry for other women who perhaps had tried to fight too, and wondering whether I should do much better if my dead man came back alive. Do you see? I'm telling you things I've hardly ever told myself, let alone any one else.' 'Yes, I see. I didn't know any one could be as good as that.' 'You can guess the rest,' Lady Maud went on, not heeding what he said. 'When I believed that Leven was dead the fight was over, and I took my dead man back, because I was really free. But now, if Leven is alive after all, it must begin again. I ought to be brave and fight against it; I must--but I can't, I can't! It's too hard, now! These two months have been the happiest in my life since the day he was killed! How can I go back again! And yet, if I cannot be an honest woman in my thoughts I'm not an honest woman at all--I'm no better than if I deserved to be divorced. I never believed in technical virtue.' Van Torp had seen many sides of human nature, good and bad, but he had never dreamed of anything like this, even in the clear depths of this good woman's heart, and what he heard moved him. Men born with great natures often have a tender side which the world does not dream of; call it nervousness, call it degeneracy, call it hysterical who will; it is there. While Lady Maud was finishing her poor little story in broken phrases, with her heart quivering in her voice, Mr. Rufus Van Torp's eyes became suddenly so very moist that he had to pass his hand over them hastily lest a drop or two should run down upon his flat cheeks. He hoped she would not notice it. But she did, for at that moment she turned and looked at his face, and her own eyes were dry, though they burned. She saw that his glistened, and she looked at him in surprise. 'I'm sorry,' he said, apologising as if he had done something rude. 'I can't help it.' Their hands were hanging near together as they walked, and hers touched his affectionately and gratefully, but she said nothing, and they went on in silence for some time before she spoke again. 'You know everything now. I must be positively sure whether Leven is alive or dead, for what I have got back in these last two months is my whole life. A mere recognition at first sight and at ten yards is not enough. It may be only a marvellous resemblance, for they say every one has a "double" somewhere in the world.' 'They used to say, too, that if you met your "double" one of you would die,' observed Van Torp. 'Those things are all stuff and nonsense, of course. I was just thinking. Well,' he continued, dwelling on his favourite monosyllable, 'if you decide to come on the yacht, and if the man doesn't blow away, we shall know the truth in three or four days from now, and that's a comfort. And even if he turns out to be Leven, maybe we can manage something.' Lady Maud chose not to ask what her friend thought he could 'manage'; for she had glanced at his face when he had spoken, and though it was half turned away from her, she saw his expression, and it would have scared a nervous person. She did not like him to be in that mood, and was sorry that she had brought him to it. But Mr. Van Torp, who was a strong man, and had seen more than one affray in his ranching days, could not help thinking how uncommonly easy it would be to pick up Count Kralinsky and drop him overboard on a dark night next week, when the _Lancashire Lass_ would be doing twenty-two knots, and there might be a little weather about to drown the splash. CHAPTER XIII The millionaire did things handsomely. He offered to motor his party to Venice, and as Margaret declined, because motoring was bad for her voice, he telegraphed for a comfortable special carriage, and took his friends down by railway, managing everything alone, in some unaccountable way, since the invaluable Stemp was already gone in search of something for Mrs. Rushmore to eat; and they were all very luxuriously comfortable. Kralinsky was not on board the yacht when they came alongside at sunset in two gondolas, following the steam-launch, which carried a load of luggage and the two maids. The Primadonna's trunks and hat-boxes towered above Mrs. Rushmore's, and Mrs. Rushmore's above Lady Maud's modest belongings, as the Alps lift their heads above the lower mountains, and the mountains look down upon the Italian foot-hills; and Potts sat in one corner of the stern-sheets with Margaret's jewel-case on her knee, and Justine, with Mrs. Rushmore's, glared at her viciously from the other corner. For the fierce Justine knew that she was going to be sea-sick on the yacht, and the meek Potts never was, though she had crossed the ocean with the Diva in rough weather. Stemp led the way, and Mr. Van Torp took the three ladies to their cabins: first, Mrs. Rushmore, who was surprised and delighted by the rich and gay appearance of hers, for it was entirely decorated in pink and gold, that combination being Stemp's favourite one. The brass bedstead had pink silk curtains held back by broad gold ribbands; there was a pink silk coverlet with a gold fringe; everything that could be gold was gilt, and everything that could be pink was rosy, including the carpet. Mr. Van Torp looked at Stemp with approval, and Stemp acknowledged unspoken praise with silent modesty. 'Beg pardon, madam,' he said, addressing Mrs. Rushmore, 'this is not exactly the largest cabin on the yacht, but it is the one in which you will find the least motion.' 'It's very sweet,' said the American lady. 'Very dainty, I'm sure.' On the writing-table stood a tall gilt vase full of immense pink roses, with stems nearer four feet long than three. Mrs. Rushmore admired them very much. 'How did you know that I love roses above all other flowers?' she asked. 'My dear Mr. Van Torp, you are a wizard, I'm sure!' Lady Maud and Margaret had entered, and kept up a polite little chorus of admiration; but they both felt uneasy as to what they might find in their respective cabins, for Margaret hated pink, and Lady Maud detested gilding, and neither of them was especially fond of roses. They left Mrs. Rushmore very happy in her quarters and went on. Lady Maud's turn came next, and she began to understand, when she saw a quantity of sweet wood violets on her table, just loosened, in an old Murano glass beaker. 'Thank you,' she said, bending to smell them. 'How kind of you!' There was not a trace of gilding or pink silk. The cabin was panelled and fitted in a rare natural wood of a creamy-white tint. 'Beg pardon, my lady,' said Stemp. 'This and Miss Donne's cabin communicate by this door, and the door aft goes to the dressing-room. Each cabin has one quite independent, and this bell rings the pantry, my lady, and this one rings Miss Donne's maid's cabin, as I understand that your ladyship has not brought her own maid with her.' 'Very nice,' said Lady Maud, smelling the violets again. Mr. Van Torp looked at Stemp as he would have looked at a horse that had turned out even better than he had expected. Stemp threw open the door of communication to the cabin he had prepared for the Primadonna. The two cabins occupied the whole beam of the vessel, excepting the six-foot gangway on each side, and as she was one of the largest yachts afloat at the time, there was no lack of room. 'Carnations, at this time of year!' cried Margaret, seeing half an armful of her favourite dark red ones, in a silver wine-cooler before the mirror. 'You really seem to know everything! Thank you so much!' She buried her handsome face in the splendid flowers and drew in a deep, warm breath, full of their sensuous perfume, the spicy scent of a laden clove-tree under a tropical sun. 'Thank you again!' she said enthusiastically. 'Thank you for everything, the delightful journey, and this lovely room, and the carnations!' She stood up suddenly to her height, in sheer pleasure, and held out her hand to him. He pressed it quietly, and smiled. 'Do as you would be done by,' he said. 'That's the Company's rule.' She laughed at the allusion to their agreement, of which Lady Maud knew nothing, for they had determined to keep it secret for the present. Mr. Van Torp had not found an opportunity of speaking to Lady Maud alone, but he wished her to know when Kralinsky might be expected. 'Stemp,' he said, before leaving the cabin, 'have you heard from the Count?' 'Yes, sir. He got here this morning from Vienna in his motor, sir, and sent his things with his man, and his compliments to you and the ladies, and he will come on board in time for dinner. That was all, I think, sir.' [Illustration: "She buried her handsome face in the splendid flowers."] Lady Maud heard, and made a scarcely perceptible movement of the head by way of thanks to her friend, while listening to Margaret's enthusiastic praise of everything she saw. Mr. Van Torp and his man departed, just as Potts appeared, accompanied by a very neat-looking English stewardess in a smart white cap. Lady Maud was unusually silent, but she smiled pleasantly at what Margaret said, and the latter made up her mind to drown her anger against Logotheti, and at the same time to be avenged on him, in an orgy of luxurious comfort, sea-air, and sunshine. The capacity of a perfectly healthy and successful singer for enjoying everything, from a halfpenny bun and a drive in a hansom to a millionaire's yacht and the most expensive fat of the land, or sea, has never been measured. And if they do have terrible fits of temper now and then, who shall blame them? They are always sorry for it, because it is bad for the voice. Mr. Van Torp reached his quarters, and prepared to scrub and dress comfortably after a week at Bayreuth and a railway journey. 'Stemp.' 'Yes, sir.' 'That was quite nicely done. You must have had a lively time.' 'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Hope everything is tolerably satisfactory to you, sir.' 'Yes. Find anything good to eat? Chickens don't take gilding well, you know--doesn't taste together. But I suppose you found something. Seen the cook?' 'Yes, sir. I think things will be tolerable, sir, though this is not London, I must say.' Mr. Van Torp showed no surprise at the statement, and disappeared into his bath-room, well pleased with himself and his man. But a moment later he opened the door again and thrust out his square sandy head. 'Stemp, where have you put the Count? Far from here? I don't want him near me.' 'Last cabin forward on the port side, sir, next to the smoking-room. Very good cabin, sir.' 'Whereabouts is port, right or left?' 'Left-hand side of the vessel, sir,' answered Stemp, who had been on many yachts. 'There are ten more cabins empty, sir, between large and small, if you should think of asking any ladies and gentlemen to join at another point, sir.' 'May pick up a couple somewhere. Can't tell yet.' And Mr. Van Torp disappeared definitely. Lady Maud did not begin to dress at once, as there was plenty of time before dinner; she left the stewardess to unpack her things, and came out upon the six-foot gangway outside her cabin door to breathe the air, for it was warm. The city lay half a mile away in the after-glow of the sunset. The water was very green that evening, as it sometimes is in the Lagoons, though not always, and it was shaded off through many opalescent tints to heliotrope; then it was suddenly black below the steps of the Piazzetta and the Ducal Palace. Within the mysterious canal to the right she could make out the Bridge of Sighs, and there was the Ponte della Paglia, and the long line of irregular buildings to the eastward of the Prisons, as far as the Public Gardens. To the left there was the wide mouth of the Grand Canal, the Salute and the Custom-House, and the broad opening of the Giudecca. It was familiar to her, for she had seen it several times. She missed the Campanile, which she had been made to climb by an energetic governess when she was twelve years old, but all the rest was there and unchanged, a dream of evening colour, an Eastern city rising out of an enchanted water, under an Italian sky. At any other time she would have enjoyed the sight almost without a thought, as she enjoyed everything that seemed to her beautiful or even pretty, though she had no pretensions to cultivated artistic taste or knowledge. But now she felt none of that healthy pleasure which a lovely sight naturally gave her. She was at a crisis of her life, and the exquisite evening scene was the battlefield of a coming struggle, with herself, or with another, she hardly knew. In half an hour, or in an hour, at most, she was to sit at table with a man she fully believed to be the husband for whom she had been wearing mourning, out of mere decency, but with the profound inward satisfaction of being free. She was brave, and could try to think of what was before her if it turned out that she was not mistaken, and she could attempt to understand what had happened. She had already come to the conclusion that if Kralinsky was really Leven, the latter had seized the opportunity offered him by his own supposed death to disappear from St. Petersburg, and had taken another name. Leven had been a ruined man when he had tried to divorce her; when he died, or disappeared, he left nothing but debts, which were extinguished with him, for no one attempted to make his widow responsible for them, since there was no estate and she had no fortune beyond the allowance her father made her. Lord Creedmore was far from being a rich peer, too, and what he gave her was not much, although it would more than suffice for her simple wants, now that she intended to live with him again. But if Leven had not been killed and had turned into Kralinsky, he now had plenty of ready money, though it was not easy to guess how he had obtained possession of a quantity of valuable Asiatic rubies within the few weeks that had elapsed between his supposed destruction by the bomb and the date of Van Torp's transaction with him in New York. That was a mystery. So was his possible acquaintance, or connexion, with the Eastern girl who was looking for him, if there was a shadow of truth in Logotheti's story. Lady Maud did not believe there was, and she felt morally sure that the tale had evolved itself out of the Greek's fertile brain, as a fantastic explanation of his atrocious conduct. While she was thinking over these matters and rehearsing in her thoughts the scene that was before her, she saw a gondola making straight for the yacht across the fast fading green of the lagoon that lay between the vessel and the Piazzetta. It came nearer, and she drew back from the rail against her cabin door, under the shadow of the promenade deck, which extended over the gangway and was supported by stanchions, as on an ocean liner. The _Lancashire Lass_, with her single huge yellow funnel, her one short signal mast, her turret-shaped wheel-house, and her generally business-like appearance, looked more like a cross between a fast modern cruiser and an ocean 'greyhound' than like a private yacht. She even had a couple of quick-firing guns mounted just above her rail. Lady Maud looked at the gondola, and as it came still nearer, she saw that it brought only one passenger, and that he had a fair beard. She quietly opened her cabin door, and went in to dress for dinner. Meanwhile Mr. Van Torp had completed his toilet, and was rather surprised to find himself magnificently arrayed in a dark-blue dinner-jacket, with perfectly new gilt buttons, and an unfamiliar feeling about the pockets. He had belonged to a yacht club for years, because it seemed to be expected of him, and Stemp and the tailor had thought fit that he should possess the proper things for a yachtsman. 'Stemp,' he said, 'is this the correct thing? I suppose you know.' 'Yes, sir. Very smart indeed, sir. White caps are usually worn by yachting gentlemen in the Mediterranean, sir.' Stemp offered him the cap in question, resplendent with a new enamelled badge. 'Beg pardon, sir, but as to caps, most gentlemen lift them to ladies, just like hats, sir, but the captain and the officers touch theirs. His Grace always lifted his cap, sir.' 'I guess that'll be all right,' answered Mr. Van Torp, trying on the cap. 'Send the captain to my study, Stemp, and find out about when the ladies will be ready for dinner.' Stemp disappeared, and in a few moments pink-faced Captain Brown appeared, quiet, round, and smart. 'I suppose you're ready at any moment, Captain?' inquired the millionaire. 'Yes, sir. The pilot is on board, and the gentleman you expected is just coming alongside.' 'Oh, he is, is he?' Mr. Van Torp evidently expected no answer to his favourite form of question when he was thinking over what had just been said; and the captain was silent. 'Then you can start now,' said the owner, after a moment's thought. 'Where are we bound, sir?' 'Oh, well, I don't know. I wanted to say a few words about that, Captain. Do you happen to know anything about a yacht called the _Erinna_, belonging to a Mr. Logotheti, a Greek gentleman who lives in Paris?' 'Yes, sir,' answered Captain Brown, for it was a part of his business to read the yachting news. 'She was at Cowes when we sailed. She was reported the other day from Gibraltar as having entered the Mediterranean after taking fresh provisions, owner and party on board. There is no further word of her.' 'Well,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'I have an idea she's gone to Naples, but I want you to find her right away wherever she is, owner and party on board. That's all, Captain. If you happen to see her anywhere, you just come and tell me if I'm alone, and if I'm not, why send one of your young men to say you want to know something,--anything you happen to think of, and I'll come to your room and tell you what to do. See? That's all, and now let's start, please.' 'All right, sir.' So Captain Brown went off with his instructions, and in a few moments his owner heard the distant sound of the chain coming in over the most noiseless of modern patent steam capstans; and the side-lights and masthead and stern lights shone out as the anchor light went down, and the twin screws began to turn over slowly, well below the water; and the _Lancashire Lass_ was under weigh, with the captain, the pilot, and the two junior officers all in a row on the bridge, while the chief mate was seeing the anchor got inboard and stowed. But while the captain was silently looking ahead into the warm dusk and listening to the orders the pilot gave for the wheel in good English, but with a marvellous Venetian accent, he was also considering how he might most quickly find the _Erinna_, and he reflected that it would be an easier task if he knew a little more definitely where she was. He was not at all disturbed by the orders he had received, however, and was only anxious to get all the speed he could out of his vessel as far as the Straits of Messina, through which the yacht he was to find would almost certainly pass, in preference to the Malta Channel, if she were going to Greece and the East. If she kept to the waters west of Italy, it would not be so very hard to hear of her, as the coast is dotted with excellent marine signal stations, and official information as to the movements of yachts is easily obtained. When the party assembled in the deck saloon for dinner, Lady Maud was missing. Stemp, who did not intend that his master should dine without his personal attention, no matter how much the chief steward might object to his presence, approached Mr. Van Torp and whispered something. Lady Maud begged that the party would sit down without her, and she would join them in a moment. So they took their places, and the vacant one was on the owner's right, between him and the Primadonna. 'You see,' said Mr. Van Torp, explaining to Mrs. Rushmore, which was wholly unnecessary, 'we are Americans, and this ship is America, so the English guest goes first.' But Mrs. Rushmore knew these things, for she was used to handling lions in numbers; and the little lions and the middle-sized ones are very particular about their places at table, but the great big ones do not care 'one dingle Sam,' as Mr. Van Torp would have elegantly expressed their indifference. For he was a great big lion himself. 'Did you ever meet Lady Maud?' he inquired, speaking to Kralinsky. 'Which Lady Maud?' asked the foreigner in his rather oily voice. 'There are several.' 'Countess Leven, who was Lady Maud Foxwell,' explained Mrs. Rushmore. Kralinsky turned quietly to her, his single eyeglass fixed and glittering. 'No,' he answered. 'I knew poor Leven well, but I was never introduced to his wife. I have heard that she is very beautiful.' 'You say you knew the late Count Leven?' observed Mrs. Rushmore, with an encouraging and interrogatory smile. 'Intimately,' answered Kralinsky with perfect self-possession. 'We were in the same regiment in the Caucasus. I daresay you remember that he began life as a cavalry officer and then entered the diplomacy. Gifted man, very,' the Russian added in a thoughtful tone, 'but no balance! It seems to me that I have heard he did not treat his wife very well.' [Illustration: "Their eyes met."] Mr. Van Torp had met several very cool characters in his interesting and profitable career, but he thought that if the man before him was Leven himself, as he seemed to be, he beat them all for calm effrontery. 'Were you ever told that you looked like him?' asked Mr. Van Torp carelessly. Even at this question Kralinsky showed no embarrassment. 'To tell the truth,' he replied, 'I remember that one or two in the regiment saw a slight resemblance, and we were of nearly the same height, I should say. But when I last saw Leven he did not wear a beard.' At this point Lady Maud came in quietly and made directly for the vacant place. The two men rose as soon as she appeared, and she found herself face to face with Kralinsky, with the table between them. Their eyes met, but Lady Maud could not detect the slightest look of recognition in his. Van Torp introduced him, and also watched his face narrowly, but there was not the least change of expression, nor any quick glance of surprise. Yet Kralinsky possibly did not know that Lady Maud was on the yacht, for he had not been told previously that she was to be of the party, and in the short conversation which had preceded her appearance, no one had actually mentioned the fact. She herself had come to dinner late with the express purpose of presenting herself before him suddenly, but she had to admit that the intended surprise did not take place. She was not astonished, however, for she had more than once seen her husband placed in very difficult situations, from which he had generally extricated himself by his amazing power of concealing the truth. Being seated nearly opposite to him, it was not easy to study his features without seeming either to stare at him rudely or to be bestowing more attention on him than on any of the others. Her eyes were very good, and her memory for details was fair, and if she did not look often at his face, she watched his hands and listened to the intonations of his voice, and her conviction that he was Leven grew during dinner. Yet there was still a shadow of doubt, though she could not have told exactly where it lay. She longed to lead him into a trap by asking some question to which, if he were Leven, he would know the answer, though not if he were any one else, a question to which he would not hesitate to reply unsuspectingly if the answer were known to him. But Lady Maud was not ingenious in such conversational tricks, and could not think of anything that would do. The outward difference of appearance between him and the man she had married was so small that she could assuredly not have sworn in evidence that Kralinsky was not her husband. There was the beard, and she had not seen Leven with a beard since the first months of her marriage four years ago, when he had cut it off for some reason known only to himself. Of course a recollection, already four years old, could not be trusted like one that dated only as far back as three months; for he had left her not long before his supposed death. There were the hands, and there was the left hand especially. That might be the seat of the doubt. Possibly she had never noticed that Leven had a way of keeping his left little finger almost constantly crooked and turned inward as if it were lame. But she was not sure even of that, for she was not one of those people who study the hands of every one they know, and can recognise them at a glance. She had certainly never watched her husband's as closely as she was watching Kralinsky's now. Margaret was in the best of spirits, and talked more than usual, not stopping to think how Van Torp's mere presence would have chilled and silenced her three or four months earlier. If Lady Maud had time to spare from her own affairs, it probably occurred to her that the Primadonna's head was slightly turned by the devotion of a financier considerably bigger and more serious than Logotheti; but if she had known of the 'business agreement' between the two, she would have smiled at Van Torp's wisdom in offering a woman who seemed to have everything just the one thing in the world which she desired and had not. Yet for all that, he might be far from his goal. It was possible that Margaret might look upon him as Lady Maud herself did, and wish to make him her best friend. Lady Maud would not be jealous if she succeeded. On the whole it was a gay dinner, and Mrs. Rushmore and Kralinsky knew that it was a very good one, and told each other so afterwards as they walked slowly up and down the great promenade deck in the starlight. For people who are very fond of good eating can chatter pleasantly about their food for hours, recalling the recent delights of a perfect chaud-froid or a faultless sauce; and it was soon evident that there was nothing connected with such subjects which Kralinsky did not understand and appreciate, from a Chinese bird's-nest soup to the rules of the great Marie-Antoine Carême and Brillat-Savarin's Physiology of Taste. Kralinsky also knew everybody. Between gastronomy and society, he appeared to Mrs. Rushmore to know everything there was to be known. Lady Maud caught snatches of the conversation as the two came near her, and then turned back; and she remembered that Leven used to talk on the same subjects with elderly women on whom he wished to make a pleasant impression. The voice was his to the very least intonation, and the walk was his, too, and yet she knew she had a doubt somewhere, a very small doubt, which it was a sort of slow torture to feel was still unsatisfied. Mr. Van Torp sat between her and Lady Margaret, while the two others walked. The deep-cushioned straw chairs stood round a low fixed table on which there had been coffee, and at Margaret's request the light had been put out, though it was only a small opalescent one, placed under the awning abaft the wheel-house and bridge. 'We must be going very fast,' said Lady Maud, 'for the sea is flat as a millpond, and yet there's a gale as soon as one gets out of the lee of things.' 'She's doing twenty-two, I believe,' replied Van Torp, 'and she can do twenty-three if pressed. She will, by and by, when she gets warmed up.' 'Where are we going?' Margaret asked. 'At this rate we are sure to get somewhere!' 'I don't know where we're going, I'm sure.' The millionaire smiled in the gloom. 'But as you say, it doesn't take more than five minutes to get somewhere in a ship like this.' 'You must have told the captain what you wanted him to do! You must have given some orders!' 'Why, certainly. I told him to look around and see if he could find another yacht anything like this, anywhere in the Mediterranean. So he's just looking around, like that, I suppose. And if he finds another yacht anything like this, we'll see which of us can go fastest. You see I don't know anything about ships, or where to go, so I just thought of that way of passing the time, and when you're tired of rushing about and want to go anywhere in particular, why, I'll take you there. If the weather cuts up we'll go in somewhere and wait, and see things on shore. Will that do?' Margaret laughed at the vagueness of such a roving commission, but Lady Maud looked towards her friend in the starlight and tried to see his expression, for she was sure that he had a settled plan in his mind, which he would probably put into execution. 'I've figured it out,' he continued presently. 'This thing will go over five hundred and twenty miles a day for eight days without stopping for coal, and that makes more than four thousand miles, and I call that a pretty nice trip, don't you? Time to cool off before going to Paris. Of course if I chose to take you to New York you couldn't get out and walk. You'd have to go.' 'I've no idea of offering any resistance, I assure you!' said Margaret. 'I'm too perfectly, completely, and unutterably comfortable on your yacht; and I don't suppose it will be any rougher than it was last March when we crossed in the _Leofric_ together.' 'Seems a long time, doesn't it?' Van Torp's tone was thoughtful, but expressed anything rather than regret. 'I prefer this trip, myself.' 'Oh, so do I, infinitely! You're so much nicer than you used to be, or than I thought you were. Isn't he, Maud?' 'Far!' answered Lady Maud. 'I always told you so. Do you mind very much if I go to bed? I'm rather sleepy after the journey.' She rose. 'Oh, I mustn't forget to tell you,' she added, speaking to Margaret, 'I always lock my door at night, so don't be surprised! If you want to come in and talk when you come down just call, or knock, and I'll let you in directly.' 'All right,' Margaret answered. Lady Maud disappeared below, leaving the two together, for Mrs. Rushmore and Kralinsky had found a pleasant sheltered place to sit, further aft, and the Count was explaining to the good American lady the delicious Russian mysteries of 'Borshtsh,' 'Shtshi,' 'Kasha,' and 'Smyetany,' after extolling the unapproachable flavour of fresh sturgeon's roe, and explaining that 'caviare' is not at all the Russian name for it and is not even a Russian word; and Mrs. Rushmore listened with intense interest and stood up for her country, on a basis of Blue Point oysters, planked shad, canvas-backs, and terrapin done in the Philadelphian manner, which she maintained to be vastly superior to the Baltimorian; and each listened to the other with real interest. Van Torp and Margaret had not been alone together for five minutes since they had left Bayreuth on the previous day, but instead of talking, after Lady Maud was gone, the Primadonna began to sing very softly and beautifully, and not quite for herself only, for she well knew what pleasure her voice gave her companion, and she was the more ready to sing because he had never asked her to do so. Moreover, it cost her nothing, in the warm evening air under the awning, and like all great singers she loved the sound of her own voice. To be able to do almost anything supremely well, one must do it with real delight, and without the smallest effort which it is not a real pleasure to make. So Margaret leaned back comfortably in her cushioned chair, with her head inclined a little forward, and the magic notes floated from her lips through the soft moving night; for as the yacht ran on through the calm sea at her great speed, it was as if she lay still and the night itself were flying over her with muffled wings. Margaret sang nothing grand nor very difficult; not the waltz-song that had made her famous, nor the 'Good Friday' music which she could never sing to the world, but sweet old melodious songs she had learned when a girl; Schubert's 'Serenade' and 'Ave Maria,' and Tosti's 'Malia,' and then Beethoven's 'Adelaide'; and Van Torp was silent and perfectly happy, as well he might be. Moreover, Margaret was happy too, which was really more surprising, considering how very angry she had been with Logotheti for a whole week, and that she was quite aware of the manner in which he was passing his time in spite of her urgent message. But before the magnificent possibilities which the 'business agreement' had suddenly opened to her, the probability of her again sending him any word, within a reasonable time, had diminished greatly, and the prospect of flying into a rage and telling him her mind when she saw him was not attractive. She had always felt his influence over her more strongly when they had been together; and it had always lost its power when he was away, till she asked herself why she should even think of marrying him. She would not be the first woman who had thought better of an engagement and had broken it for the greater good of herself and her betrothed. In all probability she had never been really and truly in love, though she had been very sincerely fond of Edmund Lushington the English writer, who had discovered rather late that the magnificent and successful Margarita da Cordova was not at all the same person as the 'nice English girl,' Margaret Donne, whom he had worshipped before she had gone upon the stage. So far as he was concerned, she had received his change of mind as a slight; as for Logotheti, she would never forgive him for not having remained faithful even during the few weeks since they had called themselves engaged; but Van Torp's position as a suitor was different. At all events, she said to herself, he was a man; and he did not offer her romantic affection, but power, and a future which should soon give her the first position in the musical world, if she knew how to use it. She was accustomed to the idea of great wealth and of the ordinary things it could give; mere money impressed her no more than it does most very successful artists, unless they are miserly and fond of it for its own sake, which is comparatively unusual. She wasted most of what she earned, in a sort of half-secret luxury and extravagance which made little show but cost a great deal and gave her infinite satisfaction. Even Lady Maud did not dream of the waste that was a pleasure to the Primadonna, and the meek Potts was as reticent as the fierce Justine was garrulous. It was a secret joy to Potts, besides being a large source of revenue, to live with a mistress who flatly refused ever to wear a pair of silk stockings more than once, much less a pair of gloves. Mrs. Rushmore would have held up her elderly hands at such reckless doings. Margaret herself, trusting to her private fortune for her old age in case she never married, did as she pleased with her money, and never thought of investing it; but now and then, in moments of depression, it had occurred to her that when she left the stage, as she must some day, she would not be able to live as she did now, and the thought vaguely disturbed her for a few minutes, but that was all, and she had always within reach the easy remedy of marrying a millionaire, to whom such a sum as five hundred pounds a year for silk stockings would be an insignificant trifle; and while her voice lasted she could make more than that by giving one concert in Chicago, for instance, or by singing two nights in opera. This is not a digression. The Diva cared nothing for money in itself, but she could use a vast amount of it with great satisfaction and quite without show or noise. Mr. Van Torp's income was probably twenty or thirty times as large as the most she could possibly use, and that was a considerable asset in his favour. He was not a cultivated man, like Logotheti; he had never known a word of Latin or Greek in his life, his acquaintance with history was lacunous--to borrow a convenient Latin word--and he knew very little about the lives of interesting people long dead. He had once read part of a translation of the _Iliad_ and had declared it to be nonsense. There never were such people, he had said, and if there had been, there was no reason for writing about them, which was a practical view of the case, if not an æsthetic one. On the other hand, he was oddly gifted in many ways and without realising it in the least. For instance, he possessed a remarkable musical ear and musical memory, which surprised and pleased even the Diva, whenever they showed themselves. He could whistle her parts almost without a fault, and much more difficult music, too. For everyday life he spoke like a Western farmer, and at first this had been intensely disagreeable to the daughter of the scholarly Oxford classic; but she had grown used to it quickly since she had begun to like him, till his way of putting things even amused her; and moreover, on that night by the gate of the field outside Bayreuth, she had found out that he could speak well enough, when he chose, in grave, strong words that few women could hear quite indifferently. Never, in all her acquaintance with Logotheti, had she heard from the Greek one phrase that carried such conviction of his purpose with it, as Van Torp's few simple words had done then. Big natures are usually most drawn to those that are even bigger than themselves, either to love them, or to strive with them. It is the Second-Rates who take kindly to the little people, and are happy in the adulation of the small-fry. So Margaret was drawn away from Logotheti, the clever spoilt child of fortune, the loving, unproductive worshipper of his own Greek Muses, by the Crown-Grasper, the ruthless, uncultured hard-hitter, who had cared first for power, and had got it unhelped, but who now desired one woman, to the exclusion of all others, for his mate. Vaguely, the Diva remembered how, when Van Torp had asked her to walk with him on the deck of the _Leofric_ and she had at first refused and then consented, Paul Griggs, looking on with a smile, had quoted an old French proverb: 'A fortress that parleys, and a woman who listens, will soon surrender.' When she was silent after singing 'Adelaide,' association brought back the saying of the veteran man of letters, for Van Torp asked her if she cared to walk a little on the quiet deck, where there was a lee; and the sea air and even the chairs recalled the rest, with a little wonder, but no displeasure, nor self-contempt. Was she not her own mistress? What had any one to say, if she chose to change her mind and take the stronger man, supposing that she took either? Had Logotheti established any claim on her but that of constancy? Since that was gone, here was a man who seemed to be as much more enduring than his rival, as he was stronger in every other way. What were small refinements of speech and culture, compared with wide-reaching power? What availed it to possess in memory the passionate love-roses of Sappho's heart, if you would not follow her to the Leucadian cliff? Or to quote torrents of Pindar's deep-mouthed song, if you had not the constancy to run one little race to the end without swerving aside? Logotheti's own words and epithets came back to Margaret, from many a pleasant talk in the past, and she cared for them no longer. Full of life himself, he lived half among the dead, and his waking was only a dream of pleasure; but this rough-hewn American was more alive than he, and his dreams were of the living and came true. When Margaret bid Van Torp good-night she pressed his hand, frankly, as she had never done before, but he took no sudden advantage of what he felt in her touch, and he returned the pressure so discreetly that she was almost disappointed, though not quite, for there was just a little something more than usual there. She did not disturb Lady Maud, either, when she went to her cabin, though if she had known that her beautiful neighbour was wide awake and restless, she would at least have said good-night, and asked her if she was still so very tired. But Lady Maud slept, too, at last, though not very long, and was the only one who appeared at breakfast to keep Van Torp company, for Margaret slept the sleep of a singer, which is deep and long as that of the healthy dormouse, and Mrs. Rushmore had her first tea and toast happily in her cheerful surroundings of pink and gilding. As for Kralinsky, his man informed Stemp and the chief steward that the Count never thought of getting up till between nine and ten o'clock, when he took a cup of chocolate and a slice or two of sponge cake in his own room before dressing. So Lady Maud and Van Torp had the yacht to themselves for some time that morning. 'I fancy from what you said last night that your plan is to catch Logotheti and the Tartar girl at sea,' said Lady Maud, when they were alone. 'I supposed you'd understand,' answered Van Torp. 'Do you see any harm in that? It occurred to me that it might be quite a drastic form of demonstration. How does it strike you? At all low-down?' 'No, frankly not!' Lady Maud was still incensed at Logotheti's conduct. 'A man who does such things deserves anything that his rival can do to him. I hope you may overhaul the yacht, run alongside of her and show Margaret the two, making love to each other in Tartar on deck! That's the least that ought to happen to him!' 'Thank you. I like to hear you talk like that. Captain Brown will do his level best, I think. And now, tell me,' he lowered his voice a little more, 'is that man Leven, or not?' 'I am sure he is,' Lady Maud answered, 'and yet I feel as if there ought to be a little doubt still. I don't know how to express it, for it's rather an odd sensation.' 'I should think it might be! Is there anything I can say or do? I'll ask the man any question you suggest. I'm certain he's not old Levi Longlegs, and if he's not Leven, who on earth is he? That's what I should like to know.' 'I shall find out, never fear! I know I shall, because I must, if I am ever to have any peace again. I'm not a very nervous person, you know, am I? But it's more than I can bear long, to sit opposite a man at table, again and again, as I shall have to, and not be sure whether he's my husband, come back from the dead, or some one else!' She paused, and her nostrils dilated a little, but Van Torp only nodded slowly and sympathetically. 'I mean to know before I go to bed to-night,' she said, with a little desperation in her voice. 'I shall talk to him till I am sure of one thing or the other. At table, I cannot tell, but if we are alone together I know I can settle the question. If you see that we are talking at the other end of the deck, try to keep Mrs. Rushmore and Margaret from coming near us. Will you?' To Mrs. Rushmore's amazement and Margaret's surprise, Lady Maud made a dead set at Kralinsky all that day, an attention which he seemed to appreciate as it deserved. Before breakfast was over, Van Torp had repeated to her what Kralinsky had said about having formerly been intimate with Leven, and Lady Maud took this statement as a basis of operations for finding out just how much he knew of her own life; she judged that if he were not Leven himself, he must soon betray the fact by his ignorance. That was the strangest day she had ever passed. She found it very easy to talk with Kralinsky, as it always is when there has been long familiarity, even if it has been only the familiar intercourse of domestic discord. He knew many details of her life in London. That was clear after half an hour's conversation. She alluded to the idle talk there had been about her and Van Torp; Kralinsky knew all about that and had heard, as he said, some silly story about Leven having found her with the American in certain rooms in the Temple, and about an envelope which was said to have contained over four thousand and one hundred pounds in bank-notes. He politely scouted the story as nonsense, but he had heard it, and Lady Maud knew that every word of it was true. He knew of Leven's unsuccessful attempt to divorce her on that ground, too, and he knew the number of her house in Charles Street, Berkeley Square. On the other hand, there were many things of which he knew nothing, or pretended to be ignorant, such as the names of her brothers and sisters, her father's favourite pursuits and the like. But she understood very well that if he thought she suspected his identity under the disguise of his beard, and if he wished to avoid recognition, he was just the man to pretend blank ignorance of some vital matters, after admitting his acquaintance with many others. He had been very intimate with Leven, to the last, he said; Leven had always written to him very fully about his life, very wittily sometimes, but always without balance! That was it; he had no 'balance.' Yes, he himself had been in Petersburg when Leven was killed and had seen him on the previous day. Within a week he had made a rapid trip to New York, whence he had now just returned. He had crossed on five-day boats both going and coming, and he named them. 'I am naturally interested in meeting any one who knew my husband so well,' Lady Maud said, making a bold dash at a possibility. 'We had many differences, as you seem to know, but I daresay that if he could come back to life and know the real truth, we should forgive each other.' She looked up to him with a gentle smile as she said this, for she had often felt it; and in that instant a flash of light came into his usually rather uncertain eyes. Her heart stood still; she looked at the sea again directly, for she was leaning against the rail; then she drew breath, as if from an effort. She had seen a look that could only mean recognition. Leven was alive and was standing beside her. But she had the courage to go on talking, after a moment, and she tried to change the subject, though not very adroitly. During the afternoon Mr. Van Torp had a revelation, sudden and clear, for he had watched Lady Maud and Kralinsky all day and had thought about them a good deal, considering how his mind was occupied with other matters even nearer to his heart than his best friend's welfare. As soon as the revelation came upon him he rang for his own man. Stemp, see here!' he began. 'You've valeted around with all sorts of different-looking men. How long does it take to grow a beard like Count Kralinsky's?' 'A year, sir. Not a day less, and longer with most gentlemen. If you were thinking of it, sir----' 'You don't believe it could be managed in three months, by taking an expert around with you to work on your face?' 'That's out of the question, sir. Gentlemen's beards that have shaved all their lives, as I suppose you have, sir, do grow faster, but I should consider a year a short time for such a fine one as the Count's. Indeed I should, sir.' 'Do you suppose you could stick it on fresh every day, the way they do for the stage?' 'Not so that it wouldn't show in broad daylight, sir.' 'Well, that's all. I wasn't exactly thinking of trying a beard. I was only thinking--just like that. What I rang for was a cap. Got any more like this? You see I've managed to get a spot of ink on this one. Had it on the table when I was writing, I suppose. That's the worst of white caps, they spot so.' A little later, Mr. Van Torp was looking out for a chance to speak alone with Lady Maud, and as soon as he found his opportunity, he told her what Stemp had said. Strangely enough, it had never occurred to him that such a remarkable beard as Kralinsky's must have taken a long time to grow, and that Leven, who had none, had not left London more than three months ago. He watched the effect of this statement on his friend's face, but to his surprise she remained grave and sad. 'I cannot help it,' she said in a tone of conviction. 'He must be Leven, whatever Stemp tells you about his beard.' 'Well, then it's a false beard, and will come off,' observed Mr. Van Torp, with at least equal gravity. 'Stemp says that's impossible, but he must be wrong, unless you are.' 'It's real,' Lady Maud said, 'and he is my husband. I've talked to him all day, and he knows things about my life that no one else could, and if there are others about which he is vague, that must be because he is pretending, and does not want to show that he knows everything.' Van Torp shook his head, but remained unconvinced; Lady Maud did not change her mind either, and was already debating with herself as to whether it would not be really wiser to speak out and tell Kralinsky that she had recognised him under his transparent disguise. She felt that she must know the worst, if she was ever to rest again. Neither Margaret nor Mrs. Rushmore had ever seen Leven, and they had not the least idea of what was really going on under their eyes. They only saw that Lady Maud was making a dead set at the Count, and if Margaret wondered whether she had misjudged her friend's character, the elder lady had no doubt as to what was happening. 'My dear child,' she said to Margaret, 'your friend is going to console herself. Widows of that age generally do, my dear. I myself could never understand how one could marry again. I should always feel that dear Mr. Rushmore was in the room. It quite makes me blush to think of it! Yet it is an undeniable fact that many young widows marry again. Mark my words, Margaret, your friend is going to console herself before long. If it is not this one, it will be another. My dear, I am quite positive about it.' When the sun went down that evening the yacht had passed Otranto and the Cape, and her course had been changed, to head her for Cape Spartivento and the Straits of Messina, having done in twenty-four hours as much as the little Italian mail-steamers do in forty-eight, and nearly half as much again as the _Erinna_ could have done at her highest speed. As Mr. Van Torp had predicted, his engines had 'warmed up,' and were beating their own record. The gale made by the vessel's way was stronger than a woman could stand in with any regard to her appearance, but as the weather continued to be calm it was from dead-ahead, and there was plenty of shelter on the promenade deck abaft the wheel-house, on condition of not going too near the rail. After dinner Kralinsky and Mrs. Rushmore walked a little, as on the previous evening, and Lady Maud sat with Margaret and Van Torp. But before the two walkers went off to sit down in the quiet corner they had found yesterday, Lady Maud rose, went half-way aft, and deliberately placed herself where they were obliged to pass close to her at each turn, standing and leaning against the bright white side of the engine skylight, which was as high as the wheel-house itself, and broke in aft, where the big ventilating fans were situated, making a square corner inward. She stood there, and as it was not very dark in the clear starlight, Kralinsky saw in passing that she followed his face with her eyes, turning her head to look at him when he was coming towards her, and turning it very slowly back again as he came near and went by. It was impossible to convey more clearly an invitation to get rid of his companion and join her, and he was the last man in the world to misunderstand it. But Mrs. Rushmore saw it too, and as she considered him a lion, and therefore entitled to have his own way, she made it easy for him. 'My dear Count,' she said blandly, after passing Lady Maud twice, 'I have really had enough now, and if you will promise to finish your walk alone, I think I will go and sit with the others.' He left her with Margaret and Van Torp and went back to Lady Maud, who moved as he came up to her, made two steps beside him, and then suddenly slipped into the recess where the fan-house joined the engine skylight. She stood still, and he instantly ranged himself beside her. They were quite out of sight of the others, and of the bridge, and even if it had been daylight they could not have been seen except by some one coming from aft. 'I want to speak to you,' she said, in a low, steady voice. 'Please listen quite quietly, for some of them may begin to walk again.' Kralinsky bent his head twice, and then inclined it towards her, to hear better what she was going to say. 'It has pleased you to keep up this comedy for twenty-four hours,' she began. He made a slight movement, which was natural under the circumstances. 'I do not understand,' he said, in his oily voice. 'What comedy? I really have no----' 'Don't go on,' she answered, interrupting him sharply. 'Listen to what I am going to tell you, and then decide what you will do. I don't think your decision will make very much difference to me, but it will make a difference to the world and to yourself. I saw you from a window when you brought Mr. Van Torp to the hotel in Bayreuth, and I recognised you at once. Since this afternoon I have no doubt left.' 'I never saw you till last night,' said Kralinsky, with some little surprise in his tone, and with perfect assurance. 'Do you really think you can deceive me any longer?' she asked. 'I told you this afternoon that if you could come back from the dead, and know the whole truth, we should probably forgive each other, though we had many differences. Shall we?' She paused a moment, and by his quick change of position she saw that he was much moved. 'I don't mean that we should ever go back to the old life, for we were not suited to each other from the first, you and I. You wanted to marry me because I was pretty and smart, and I married you because I wanted to be married, and you were better-looking than most men, and seemed to have what I thought was necessary--fortune and a decent position. No, don't interrupt me. We soon found out that we did not care for each other. You went your way, and I went mine. I don't mean to reproach you, for when I saw you were beginning to be tired of me I did nothing to keep you. I myself was tired of it already. But whatever you may have thought, I was a faithful wife. Mr. Van Torp had given me a great deal of money for my charity, and does still. I can account for it. I never used a penny of it for myself, and never shall; and he never was, and never will be, any more than a trusted friend. I don't know why you chose to disappear when the man who had your pocket-book was killed and you were said to be dead. It's not my business, and if you choose to go on living under another name, now that you are rich again, I shall not betray you, and few people will recognise you, at least in England, so long as you wear that beard. But you had it when we were married, and I knew you at once, and when I heard you were to be of the party here, I made up my mind at once that I would accept the invitation and come too, and speak to you as I'm speaking now. When I believed you were dead I forgave you everything, though I was glad you were gone; frankly, I did not wish you alive again, but since you are, God forbid that I should wish you dead. You owe me two things in exchange for my forgiveness: first, yours, if I treated you ungenerously or unkindly; and, secondly, you ought to take back every word you ever said to me about Mr. Van Torp, for there was not a shadow of truth in what you thought. Will you do that? I ask nothing else.' 'Indeed I will, my dear Maud,' said Count Kralinsky, in a voice full of emotion. Lady Maud drew a long breath, that trembled a little as it left her heated lips again. She had done what she believed most firmly to be right, and it had not been easy. She had not been surprised by his patient silence while she had been talking; for she had felt that it was hers to speak and his to listen. 'Thank you,' she said now. 'I shall never go back to what I have said, and neither of us need ever allude to old times again during this trip. It will not last long, for I shall probably go home by land from the first port we touch, and it is not likely that we shall ever meet again. If we do, I shall behave as if you were Count Kralinsky whom I have met abroad, neither more nor less. I suppose you will have conscience enough not to marry. Perhaps, if I thought another woman's happiness depended on it, I would consent to divorce you, but you shall never divorce me.' 'No power could make me wish to,' Kralinsky answered, still deeply moved. 'I was mad in those days, Maud; I was beside myself, between my debts and my entanglements with women not fit to touch your shoes. I've seen it all since. That is the chief reason why I chose to disappear from society when I had the chance, and become some one else! I swear to you, on my mother's soul in heaven, that I thought of nothing but that--to set you free and begin life over again as another man. No thought of marrying has ever crossed my mind! Do you think I could be as bad as that? But I'm not defending myself--how could I? All the right is on your side, and all the wrong on mine. And now--I would give heaven and earth to undo it all and to come back to you!' Lady Maud drew as far as she could into the corner where the fan-house joined the engine skylight. She had not expected this; it was too much repentance; it was too like a real attempt to win her again. He had not seen her for more than three months; she knew she was very beautiful; his fleeting passion had come to life again, as he had. But her old repulsion for him was ten times stronger than when they had parted, and she shrank back as far as she could, without speaking. From far below the noiseless engines sent a quick vibration up to the ironwork of the skylight. She felt it, but could hardly tell it from the beatings of her own heart. He saw her shrinking from him and was wise. 'Don't be afraid of me!' he cried, in a low and pleading tone. 'Not that! Oh, please not that! I will not come nearer; I will not put out my hand to touch yours, I swear it to you! But I love you as I never loved you before; I never knew how beautiful you were till I had lost you, and now that I have found you again you are a thousand times more beautiful than in my dreams! No, I ask nothing! I have no right to ask for what I have thrown away! You do not even pity me, I think! Why should you? You were free when you thought me dead, and I have come back to be a burden and a weight on your life. Forgive me, forgive me, my lost darling, for the sake of all that might have been, but don't fear me! Pity me, if you can, but don't be afraid of me! Say that you pity me a little, and I shall be satisfied, and grateful too!' Lady Maud was silent for a few seconds, while he stood turned towards her, his hands clasped in a dramatic gesture, as if still imploring her commiseration. 'I do pity you,' she said at last, quite steadily, for just then she did not fear that he would try to touch even her hand. 'I pity you, if you are really in love with me again. I pity you still more if this is a passing thing that has taken hold of you merely because you still think me handsome. But I will never take you back to be my husband again. Never. That is finished, for good and all.' 'Ah, Maud, listen to me----' But she had already slipped out of the corner and was walking slowly away from him, not towards the others, but aft, so that he might join her quietly before going back to them. He was a man of the world and understood her, and did what was expected of him. Almost as soon as he was beside her, she turned to go forward with her leisurely, careless grace. 'We've been standing a long time,' said she, as if the conversation had been about the weather. 'I want to sit down.' 'I am in earnest,' he said, very low. 'So am I,' answered Lady Maud. They went on towards the wheel-house side by side, without haste, and not very near together, like two ordinary acquaintances. CHAPTER XIV While the _Lancashire Lass_ was racing down to the Straits of Messina the _Erinna_ was heading for the same point from the opposite direction, no longer dawdling along at half-speed, but going her full sixteen knots, after coaling in Naples, and any navigator who knew the positions and respective speeds of the two yachts could have calculated with approximate precision the point at which they would probably sight each other. Logotheti had given up the idea of taking Baraka to Paris, if he had ever really entertained it at all. He assured her that Naples was a great city, too, and that there was a first-rate French dressmaking establishment there, and that the Ville de Lyon would turn her out almost as smartly as the Rue de la Paix itself. He took Baraka ashore and placed her for half a day in the hands of Madame Anna, who undertook to do all that money could do in about a fortnight. He had the effrontery to say that Baraka was a niece of his from Constantinople, whose mother was on board the yacht, but had unfortunately sprained her ankle in falling down the companion during a gale, and could therefore not accompany her daughter on shore. The young lady, he said, spoke only Turkish. Madame Anna, grave and magnificently calm under all circumstances, had a vague recollection of having seen the handsome Oriental gentleman already with another niece, who spoke only French; but that was none of her business. When would the young lady try on the things? On any day Madame Anna chose to name; but in the meantime her uncle would take her down to Sicily, as the weather was so wonderfully fine and it was still so hot. Madame Anna therefore named a day, and promised, moreover, to see the best linen-drapers and sempstresses herself, and to provide the young lady with as complete an outfit as if she were going to be married. She should have all things visible and invisible in the shortest possible time. Logotheti, who considered himself a stranger, insisted on putting down a thousand-franc note merely as a guarantee of good faith. The dressmaker protested almost furiously and took the money, still protesting. So that was settled, and Baraka was to be outwardly changed into a beautiful Feringhi lady without delay. To tell the truth, the establishment is really a smart one, and she was favourably impressed by the many pretty frocks and gowns that were tried on several pretty young women in order that she might make her choice. Baraka would have liked a blue satin skirt with a yellow train and a bright-green silk body, but in her travels she had noticed that the taste of Feringhi ladies was for very sober or gentle colours, compared with the fashionable standards of Samarkand, Tiflis, and Constantinople, and she meekly acquiesced to everything that Logotheti and Madame Anna proposed, after putting their heads together. Logotheti seemed to know a great deal about it. He took Baraka for a long drive in the afternoon, out by Pozzuoli to Baia and back. The girl loved the sea; it was the only thing in the western world that looked big to her, and she laughed at wretched little mountains only four or five thousand feet high, for she had dwelt at the feet of the lofty Altai and had sojourned in Tiflis under the mighty peak of Kasbek. But the sea was always the sea, and to her mountain sight it was always a new wonder beyond measure, vast, moving, alive. She gazed out with wide eyes at the purpled bay, streaked by winding currents of silver, and crisped here and there by the failing summer breeze. Logotheti saw her delight, and musical lines came back to him out of his reading, how the ocean is ever the ocean, and the things of the sea are the sea's; but he knew that he could not turn Greek verse into Turkish, try as he might, much less into that primeval, rough-hewn form of it which was Baraka's native tongue. It was nearly dark when the naphtha launch took them out to the yacht, which lay under the mole where the big English and German passenger steamers and the men-of-war are moored. Logotheti had at last received Margaret's telegram asking him to meet her at once. It had failed to reach him in Gibraltar, and had been telegraphed on thence to Naples, and when he read it he was considerably disturbed. He wrote a long message of explanations and excuses, and sent it to the Primadonna at Bayreuth, tripling the number of words she had prepaid for his answer. But no reply came, for Margaret was herself at sea and nothing could reach her. He sent one of his own men from the yacht to spend the day at the telegraph office, with instructions for finding him if any message came. The man found him three times, and brought three telegrams; and each time as he tore open the little folded brown paper he felt more uncomfortable, but he was relieved to find each time that the message was only a business one from London or Paris, giving him the latest confidential news about a Government loan in which he was largely interested. When he reached the yacht he sent another man to wait till midnight at the office. The Diva was angry, he thought; that was clear, and perhaps she had some right to be. The tone of her telegram had been peremptory in the extreme, and now that he had answered it after a delay of several days, she refused to take any notice of him. It was not possible that such a personage as she was should have left Bayreuth without leaving clear instructions for sending on any telegrams that might come after she left. At this time of year, as he knew, she was beset with offers of engagements to sing, and they had to be answered. From eight o'clock in the morning to midnight there were sixteen hours, ample time for a retransmitted message to reach her anywhere in Europe and to be answered. Logotheti felt a sensation of deep relief when the man came aboard at a quarter-past midnight and reported himself empty-handed; but he resolved to wait till the following evening before definitely leaving Naples for the ten days which must elapse before Baraka could try on her beautiful Feringhi clothes. He told her anything he liked, and she believed him, or was indifferent; for the idea that she must be as well dressed as any European woman when she met the man she was seeking had appealed strongly to her, and the sight of the pretty things at Madame Anna's had made her ashamed of her simple little ready-made serges and blouses. Logotheti assured her that Kralinsky was within easy reach, and showed no inclination to travel far. There was news of him in the telegrams received that day, the Greek said. Spies were about him and were watching him for her, and so far he had shown no inclination to admire any Feringhi beauty. Baraka accepted all these inventions without doubting their veracity. In her eyes Logotheti was a great man, something like a king, and vastly more than a Tartar chieftain. He could send men to the ends of the earth if he chose. Now that he was sure of where Kralinsky was, he could no doubt have him seized secretly and brought to her, if she desired it earnestly of him. But she did not wish to see the man, free or a prisoner, till she had her beautiful new clothes. Then he should look upon her, and judge whether he had done well to despise her love, and to leave her to be done to death by her own people and her body left to the vulture that had waited so long on a jutting point of rock over her head three years ago. Meanwhile, also, there were good things in life; there were very fat quails and marvellous muscatel grapes, and such fish as she had never eaten in Europe during her travels, and there was the real coffee of the Sheikhs, and an unlimited supply of rose-leaf preserve. Her friend was a king, and she was treated like a queen on the yacht. Every day, when Gula had rubbed her small feet quite dry after the luxurious bath, Gula kissed them and said they were like little tame white mice. Saving her one preoccupation, Baraka was in an Eastern paradise, where all things were perfect, and Kêf descended upon her every day after luncheon. Even the thought of the future was brighter now, for though she never left her cabin without her long bodkin, she was quite sure that she should never need it. In imagination she saw herself even more beautifully arrayed in Feringhi clothes than the pretty ladies with champagne hair whom she had seen driving in the Bois de Boulogne not long ago when she walked there with Spiro. She wondered why Logotheti and Gula were both so much opposed to her dyeing her hair or wearing a wig. They told her that ladies with champagne hair were not always good ladies; but what did that matter? She thought them pretty. But she wondered gravely how Gula knew that they were not good. Gula knew a great many things. Besides, Baraka was 'good' herself, and was extremely well aware of the fact, and of its intrinsic value, if not of its moral importance. If she had crossed a quarter of the world in spite of dangers and obstacles which no European girl could pass unharmed, if alive at all, it was not to offer a stained flower to the man she sought when she found him at last. As for Logotheti, though he was not a Musulman, and not even an Asiatic, she felt herself safe with him, and trusted him as she would certainly not have trusted Van Torp, or any other European she had chanced to meet in the course of selling precious stones. He was more like one of her own people than the Greeks and Armenians of Constantinople or even the Georgians of the Caucasus. She was not wrong in that, either. Logotheti was beginning to wonder what he should do with her, and was vaguely surprised to find that he did not like the idea of parting with her at all; but beyond that he had no more thought of harming her than if she had been confided to his care and keeping by his own mother. Few Latins, whether Italians, French, or Spanish, could comprehend that, and most of them would think Logotheti a milksop and a sentimental fool. Many northern men, on the other hand, will think he did right, but would prefer not to be placed in such a trying position, for their own part, because beauty is beauty and human nature is weak, and the most exasperating difficulty in which an honest northern man can find himself where a woman is concerned is that dilemma of which honour and temptation are the two horns. But the best sort of Orientals look on these things differently, even when they are young, and their own women are safer with them than European women generally are among European men. I think that most men who have really known the East will agree with me in this opinion. And besides, this is fiction, even though it be founded on facts; and fiction is an art; and the end and aim of art is always to discover and present some relation between the true and the beautiful--as perhaps the aim of all religions has been to show men the possible connexion between earth and heaven. Nothing is so easily misunderstood and misapplied as bare truth without comment, most especially when it is an ugly truth about the worst side of humanity. We know that all men are not mere animals; for heaven's sake let us believe that very few, if any, must be! Even Demopithekos, the mob-monkey, may have a conscience, when he is not haranguing the people. Logotheti certainly had one, of its kind, though he seemed to Margaret Donne and Lady Maud to be behaving in such an outrageous manner as to have forfeited all claim to the Diva's hand; and Baraka, who was a natural young woman, though a remarkably gifted and courageous one, felt instinctively that she was safe with him, and that she would not need to draw out her sharp bodkin in order to make her position clear, as she had been obliged to do at least twice already during her travels. Yet it was a dreamy and sense-compelling life that she led on the yacht, surrounded with every luxury she had ever heard of, and constantly waited on by the only clever man she had ever really talked with, excepting the old Persian merchant in Stamboul. The vision of the golden-bearded giant who had left her to her fate after treating her with stony indifference was still before her, but the reality was nearer in the shape of a visible 'great man,' who could do anything he chose, who caused her to be treated like a queen, and who was undeniably handsome. She wondered whether he had a wife. Judging marriage from her point of view, there probably had been one put away in that beautiful house in Paris. He was an Oriental, she told herself, and he would not parade his wife as the Feringhis did. But she was one, too, and she considered that it would be an insult to ask him about such things. Spiro knew, no doubt, but she could not demean herself to inquire of a servant. Perhaps Gula had found out already, for the girl had a way of finding out whatever she wanted to know, apparently by explaining things to the second mate. Possibly Gula could be made to tell what she had learned, without being directly questioned. But after all, Baraka decided that it did not matter, since she meant to marry the fair-beard as soon as she had her pretty clothes. Yet she became conscious that if he had not existed, she would think it very satisfactory to marry the great man who could do anything he liked, though if he had a wife already, as he probably had, she would refuse to be the second in his house. The Koran allowed a man four, it was said, but the idea was hateful to her, and moreover the Persian merchant's wife had told her that it was old-fashioned to have more than one, mainly because living had grown so expensive. Logotheti sat beside her for hours under the awnings, talking or not, as she chose, and always reading when she was silent, though he often looked up to see if she wanted anything. He told her when they left Naples that he would show her beautiful islands and other sights, and the great fire-mountains of the South, Ætna and Stromboli, which she had heard of on her voyage to Marseilles but had not seen because the steamer had passed them at night. The fire-mountain at Naples had been quiet, only sending out thin wreaths of smoke, which Baraka insisted came from fires made by shepherds. 'Moreover,' she said, as they watched Vesuvius receding when they left Naples, 'your mountains are not mountains, but ant-hills, and I do not care for them. But your sea has the colours of many sherbets, rose-leaf and violet, and lemon and orange, and sometimes even of pale yellow peach-sherbet, which is good. Let me always see the sea till the fine dresses are ready to be tried on.' 'This sea,' answered Logotheti, 'is always most beautiful near land and amongst islands, and the big fire-mountain of Sicily looks as tall as Kasbek, because it rises from the water's edge to the sky.' 'Then take me to it, and I will tell you, for my eyes have looked on the Altai, and I wish to see a real mountain again. After that we will go back and get the fine dresses. Will Gula know how to fasten the fine dresses at the back, do you think?' 'You shall have a woman who does, and who can talk with Gula, and the two will fasten the fine dresses for you.' Logotheti spoke with becoming gravity. 'Yes,' Baraka answered. 'Spend money for me, that I may be good to see. Also, I wish to have many servants. My father has a hundred, perhaps a thousand, but now I have only two, Gula and Spiro. The man I seek will think I am poor, and that will be a shame. While I was searching for him, it was different; and besides, you are teaching me how the rich Franks live in their world. It is not like ours. You know, for you are more like us, though you are a king here.' She spoke slowly and lazily, pausing between her phrases, and turning her eyes to him now and then without moving her head; and her talk amused him much more than that of European women, though it was so very simple, like that of a gifted child brought suddenly to a new country, or to see a fairy pantomime. 'Tell me,' he said after a time, 'if it were the portion of Kralinsky to be gathered to his fathers before you saw him, what would you do?' Baraka now turned not only her eyes to him but her face. 'Why do you ask me this? Is it because he is dead, and you are afraid to tell me?' 'He was alive this morning,' Logotheti answered, 'and he is a strong man. But the strong die sometimes suddenly, by accident if not of a fever.' 'It is emptiness,' said Baraka, still looking at him. 'He will not die before I see him.' 'Allah forbid! But if such a thing happened, should you wish to go back to your own people? Or would you learn to speak the Frank and live in Europe?' 'If he were dead, which may Allah avert,' Baraka answered calmly, 'I think I would ask you to find me a husband.' 'Ah!' Logotheti could not repress the little exclamation of surprise. 'Yes. It is a shame for a woman not to be married. Am I an evil sight, or poor, that I should go down to the grave childless? Or is there any reproach upon me? Therefore I would ask you for a husband, because I have no other friend but only you among the Feringhis. But if you would not, I would go to Constantinople again, and to the Persian merchant's house, and I would say to his wife: "Get me a husband, for I am not a cripple, nor a monster, nor is there any reproach upon me, and why should I go childless?" Moreover, I would say to the merchant's wife: "Behold, I have great wealth, and I will have a rich husband, and one who is young and pleasing to me, and who will not take another wife; and if you bring me such a man, for whatsoever his riches may be, I will pay you five per cent."' Having made this remarkable statement of her intentions, Baraka was silent, expecting Logotheti to say something. What struck him was not the concluding sentence, for Asiatic match-makers and peace-makers are generally paid on some such basis, and the slim Tartar girl had proved long ago that she was a woman of business. What impressed Logotheti much more was what seemed the cool cynicism of her point of view. It was evidently not a romantic passion for Kralinsky that had brought her from beyond Turkestan to London and Paris; her view had been simpler and more practical; she had seen the man who suited her, she had told him so, and had given him the secret of great wealth, and in return she expected him to marry her, if she found him alive. But if not, she would immediately take steps to obtain another to fill his place and be her husband, and she was willing to pay a high price to any one who could find one for her. Logotheti had half expected some such thing, but was not prepared for her extreme directness; still less had he thought of becoming the matrimonial agent who was to find a match worthy of her hand and fortune. She was sitting beside him in a little ready-made French dress, open at the throat, and only a bit of veil twisted round her hair, as any European woman might wear it; possibly it was her dress that made what she said sound strangely in his ears, though it would have struck him as natural enough if she had been muffled in a yashmak and ferajeh, on the deck of a Bosphorus ferry-boat. He said nothing in answer, and sat thinking the matter over. 'I could not offer to pay you five per cent,' she said after a time, 'because you are a king, but I could give you one of the fine rubies I have left, and you would look at it sometimes and rejoice because you had found Baraka a good husband.' Logotheti laughed low. She amused him exceedingly, and there were moments when he felt a new charm he had never known before. 'Why do you laugh?' Baraka asked, a little disturbed. 'I would give you a good ruby. A king may receive a good ruby as a gift, and not despise it. Why do you laugh at me? There came two German merchants to me in Paris to see my rubies, and when they had looked, they bought a good one, but not better than the one I would give you, and Spiro heard them say to each other in their own language that it was for their King, for Spiro understands all tongues. Then do you think that their King would not have been glad if I had given him the ruby as a gift? You cannot mock Baraka. Baraka knows what rubies are worth, and has some still.' 'I do not mock you,' Logotheti answered with perfect gravity. 'I laughed at my own thoughts. I said in my heart, "If Baraka asks me for a husband, what will she say if I answer, Behold, I am the man, if you are satisfied!" This was my thought.' She was appeased at once, for she saw nothing extraordinary in his suggestion. She looked at him quietly and smiled, for she saw her chance. 'It is emptiness,' she said. 'I will have a man who has no other wife.' 'Precisely,' Logotheti answered, smiling. 'I never had one.' 'Now you are indeed mocking me!' she said, bending her sharp-drawn eyebrows. 'No. Every one knows it who knows me. In Europe, men do not always marry very young. It is not a fixed custom.' 'I have heard so,' Baraka answered, her anger subsiding, 'but it is very strange. If it be so, and if all things should happen as we said, which Allah avert, and if you desired me for your wife, I would marry you without doubt. You are a great man, and rich, and you are good to look at, as Saäd was. Also you are kind, but Saäd would probably have beaten me, for he beat every one, every day, and I should have gone back to my father's house. Truly,' she added, in a thoughtful tone, 'you would make a desirable husband for Baraka. But the man I seek must marry me if I find him alive, for I gave him the riches of the earth and he gave me nothing and departed, leaving me to die. I have told you, and you understand. Therefore let us not jest about these things any more. What will be, will be, and if he must die, it is his portion, and mine also, though it is a pity.' Thereupon the noble little features became very grave, and she leaned back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap, looking out at the violet light on the distant volcano. After that, at dinner and in the evening, they talked pleasantly. She told him tales of her own land, and of her childhood, with legends of the Altai, of genii and enchanted princesses; and he, in return, told her about the great world in which he lived; but of the two, she talked the more, no doubt because he was not speaking his own language. Yet there was a bond of sympathy between them more natural and instinctive than any that had ever drawn him and Margaret together. When the sun was up the next morning and Logotheti came on deck to drink his coffee alone, he saw the magic Straits not many miles ahead, in an opalescent haze that sent up a vapour of pure gold to the pale blue enamel of the sky. He had been just where he was now more than once before, and few sights of nature had ever given him keener delight. On the left, the beautiful outline of the Calabrian hills descended softly into the still sea, on the right the mountains of Sicily reared their lofty crests; and far above them all, twice as high as the highest, and nobler in form than the greatest, Ætna towered to the very sky, and a vast cloud of smoke rose from the summit, and unfolded itself like a standard, in flowing draperies that streamed westward as far as the eye could reach. 'Let her go half-speed, Captain,' said Logotheti, as his sailing-master came up to bid him good-morning. 'I should like my guest to see the Straits.' 'Very good, sir. We shall not go through very fast in any case, for the tide is just turning against us.' 'Never mind,' Logotheti answered. 'The slower the better to-day, till we have Ætna well astern.' Now the tide in the Straits of Messina is as regular and easy to calculate as the tide in the Ocean, and at full and change of the moon the current runs six knots an hour, flowing or ebbing; it turns so suddenly that small freight steamers sometimes get into difficulties, and no sailing vessel I have ever seen has a chance of getting through against it unless the wind is both fresh and free. Furthermore, for the benefit of landsmen, it is well to explain here that when a steamer has the current ahead, her speed is the difference between her speed in slack water and that of the current or tide, whereas, if the latter is with her, its speed increases her own. Consequently, though the _Erinna_ could run sixteen knots, she would only be able to make ten against the tide; for it chanced that it was a spring tide, the moon being new on that very day. Similarly the _Lancashire Lass_, running her twenty-three knots like a torpedo boat, would only do seventeen under the same conditions. CHAPTER XV At two o'clock in the morning Captain Brown was called by the officer of the watch, who told him that he was overhauling a good-sized steam yacht. The latter was heading up for the Straits from the southward, and the officer judged her to be not more than three or four miles on the port bow. Captain Brown, who meant business, was sleeping in his clothes in the chart-room, and was on the bridge in ten seconds, peering over the search-light with his big binocular. At two in the morning even the largest yachts do not show such a blaze of lights as passenger steamers generally do all night, and the one Captain Brown was watching had only two or three, besides the regulation ones. She might be white, too, though she might be a light grey, but he thought on the whole that she was painted white. She was rigged as a two-masted fore-and-aft schooner. So was the _Erinna_ now, though she had once carried square topsails at the fore. She was also of about the same size, as far as it was possible to judge under the search-light. Captain Brown did not feel sure that he recognised her, but considering what his orders were he knew it was his duty to settle the question of her identity, which would be an easy matter in a quarter of an hour or less, as the course of the two vessels converged. He had been told to find the _Erinna_, but for what purpose he knew not, and he naturally supposed it to be a friendly one. As a first step, he ordered the Coston signal of his owner's yacht club to be burned, turned off the search-light, and waited for an answer. None came, however. Foreign yachts do not always burn signals to please vessels of other nations. A couple of minutes later, however, the white beam of a search-light shot out and enveloped Captain Brown and his ship. The other man was evidently having a good look at him, for the light was kept full on for some time. But no signal was burned after it went out. Then Captain Brown turned on his own light again, and looked once more; and he had almost made up his mind that the other yacht was not quite as long as the _Erinna_, when she suddenly starboarded her helm, made a wide sweep away from him, and headed down the Sicilian coast in the direction of Catania. Captain Brown was so much surprised that he lowered his glasses and looked at his chief mate, whose watch it was, and who was standing beside him. It really looked very much as if the other vessel had recognised him and were running away. The chief mate also looked at him, but as they were more or less dazzled by the search-light that had been played on them, they could hardly see one another's faces at all. The captain wished his owner were on deck, instead of being sound asleep below. Owners who are not at all nautical characters do not like to be waked up at two o'clock in the morning by inquiries for instructions. Captain Brown considered the situation for two or three minutes before he made up his mind. He might be mistaken about the length and the bows of the _Erinna_, and if by any possibility it were she, he would not lose much by making sure of her. No other steamer could now pass out of the Straits without being seen by him. 'Hard-a-starboard,' he said to the mate. 'Hard-a-starboard,' said the mate to wheel. The big _Lancashire Lass_ described a vast curve at her racing speed, while the captain kept his eye on the steamer he was going to chase. Before she was dead ahead the mate ordered the wheel amidships, and the _Lancashire Lass_ did the rest herself. 'That will do for a course,' the captain said, when he had the vessel one point on the starboard bow. 'Keep her so,' said the mate to the wheel. 'Keep her so, sir,' answered the quartermaster. It soon became clear to Captain Brown that he was chasing an uncommonly fast vessel, though he was willing to admit that he might have been a little out in judging the distance that separated him from her. Allowing that she might do sixteen knots, and even that is a high speed for yachts, he ought to have overtaken her in half an hour at the outside. But he did not, and he was much puzzled to find that he had gained very little on her when six bells were struck. Twice already he had given a little more starboard helm, and the pursued vessel was now right ahead, showing only her stern-light and the glare of her after-masthead light. 'Didn't I hear four bells go just after you called me?' he asked of the mate. 'Or was it five?' 'Four bells, sir. I logged it. At two-twenty we gave chase.' 'Mr. Johnson,' said the captain solemnly, 'he's doing at least twenty.' 'At least that.' The quartermaster who came to relieve the wheel at the hour, touched his cap, and reported eighty-five and eighty-six revolutions of the port and starboard engines respectively, which meant that the _Lancashire Lass_ was doing her best. Then he took the other quartermaster's place. 'Chase,' said the man relieved. 'Keep her so.' 'Keep her so,' answered the other, taking over the wheel. Captain Brown spoke to his officer. 'Tell them to try and work the port engine up to eighty-six, Mr. Johnson.' The chief mate went to the engine telephone, delivered the message, and reported that the engineer of the watch in the port engine said he would do his best, but that the port engine had not given quite such a good diagram as the starboard one that morning. Then something happened which surprised and annoyed Captain Brown; and if he had not been a religious man, and, moreover, in charge of a vessel which was so very high-class that she ranked as third in the world amongst steam yachts, and perhaps second, a fact which gave him a position requiring great dignity of bearing with his officers, he would certainly have said things. The chased vessel had put out her lights and disappeared into complete darkness under the Sicilian coast. Again he and his officer looked at one another, but neither spoke. They were outside the wheel-house on the bridge on the starboard side, behind a heavy plate-glass screen. The captain made one step to the right, the mate made one to the left, and both put up their glasses in the teeth of the gale made by the yacht's tremendous way. In less than a minute they stepped back into their places, and glanced at each other again. Now it occurred to Captain Brown that such a financier as his owner might be looking out for such another financier as the owner of the _Erinna_ for some reason which would not please the latter, whose sailing-master had without doubts recognised the _Lancashire Lass_ at once, because she was very differently built from most yachts. 'Search-light again, Mr. Johnson,' said the captain. The great beacon ran out instantly like a comet's tail, and he stood behind it with his glasses. Instead of a steamer, he saw a rocky islet sticking up sharp and clear, half a point on the starboard bow, about three miles off. It was the largest of the Isles of the Cyclops, as he very well knew, off Aci Reale, and it was perfectly evident that the chased vessel had first put out her lights and had then at once run behind the islands, close inshore. Captain Brown reflected that the captain he was after must know the waters well to do such a thing, and that the deep draught of his own ship made it the height of folly to think of imitating such a trick at night. Yet so long as the other stayed where she was, she could not come out without showing herself under his search-light. 'Half-speed both engines,' he said quickly. The mate worked the engine telegraph almost as soon as the captain began to speak. 'Starboard five degrees more,' said Captain Brown. The order was repeated to the wheel, and the quartermaster gave it back, and repeated it a second time when the vessel's head had gone off to port exactly to the required degree. 'Slow,' said Captain Brown. 'Stop her,' he said a moment later. Twin-screw steamers cannot be stopped as quickly by reversing as those with a single screw can, and the _Lancashire Lass_ would keep way on for three miles or more, by which time she would be abreast of the islands, and at a safe distance from them. Besides, the spring tide was now running fresh down the Straits, making a current along the coast, as Captain Brown knew. The instant the engines stopped, the third mate came round from the chart-room, where he had been sent to work a sight for longitude by Aldebaran for the good of his young nautical soul. A moment later Mr. Van Torp himself appeared on the bridge in pyjamas. 'Got her?' he asked eagerly. Captain Brown explained that he thought he had cornered the _Erinna_ behind the islet, but was not quite sure of her. Mr. Van Torp waited and said nothing, and the chief mate kept the search-light steadily on the rocks. The yacht lost way rapidly, and lay quite still with the islet exactly abeam, half a mile off, as the captain had calculated. He then gave the order to go slow ahead. A minute had not passed when the vessel that had lain concealed behind the island ran out suddenly with all her regulation lights up, apparently making directly across the bows of the _Lancashire Lass_. Now the rule of the road at sea requires every steamer under weigh to keep out of the way of any steamer that appears on her starboard side forward of the beam. At such a short distance Captain Brown had hardly any choice but to stop his ship again and order 'half-speed astern' till she had no way, and he did so. She was barely moving when the order was given, and a few turns of the engines stopped her altogether. 'Is that the _Erinna_, Captain?' asked Mr. Van Torp. Captain Brown had his glasses up and did not answer at once. After nearly a minute he laid them down on the lid of the small box fastened to the bridge-rail. 'No, sir,' he answered in a tone of considerable disappointment. 'At four miles' distance she looked so much like her that I didn't dare to let her slip through my fingers, but we have not lost more than a couple of hours.' 'What is this thing, anyway? She's coming towards us pretty quick.' 'She's one of those new fast twin-screw revenue cutters the Italians have lately built, sir. They look very like yachts at night. There's a deal of smuggling on this coast, over from Malta. She's coming alongside to ask what we mean by giving chase to a government vessel.' Captain Brown was right, and when the big cutter had crossed his bows, she ran all round him while she slowed down, and she stopped within speaking distance on his starboard side. The usual questions were asked and answered. 'English yacht _Lancashire Lass_, from Venice for Messina, expecting to meet a friend's yacht at sea. Thought the revenue cutter was she. Regretted mistake. Had the captain of the cutter seen or heard of English yacht _Erinna_?' He had not. There was no harm done. It was his duty to watch all vessels. He wished Captain Brown a pleasant trip and good-night. The Italian officer spoke English well, and there was no trouble. Revenue cutters are very civil to all respectable yachts. 'Hard-a-starboard. Port engine slow astern, starboard engine half-speed ahead.' That was all Captain Brown said, but no one could guess what he was thinking as his big vessel turned quickly to port on her heel, and he headed her up for the Straits again. Mr. Van Torp said nothing at all, but his lips moved as he left the bridge and went off to his own quarters. It was now nearly four o'clock and the eastern sky was grey. The current was dead against the yacht through the Straits, which were, moreover, crowded with all sorts of large and small craft under sail, taking advantage of the tide to get through; many of them steered very badly under the circumstances, of course, and it was out of the question to run between them at full speed. The consequence was that it was eight o'clock when the _Lancashire Lass_ steamed slowly into Messina and dropped anchor out in the middle of the harbour, to wait while Captain Brown got information about the _Erinna_, if there were any to be had at the harbourmaster's office. It would have been folly to run out of the Straits without at least looking in to see if she were there, lying quietly moored behind the fortress of San Salvatore and the very high mole. She was not there, and had not been heard of, but a Paris _Herald_ was procured in which it was stated that the _Erinna_ had arrived in Naples, 'owner and party on board.' 'Well,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'let's get to Naples, quick. How long will it take, Captain?' 'About eight hours, sir, counting our getting under weigh and out of this crowded water, which won't take long, for the tide will soon turn.' 'Go ahead,' said Mr. Van Torp. Captain Brown prepared to get under weigh again as quickly as possible. The entrance to Messina harbour is narrow, and it was natural that, as he was in a hurry, a huge Italian man-of-war should enter the harbour at that very moment, with the solemn and safe deliberation which the movements of line-of-battle ships require when going in and out of port. There was nothing to be done but to wait patiently till the fairway was clear. It was not more than a quarter of an hour, but Captain Brown was in a hurry, and as there was a fresh morning breeze blowing across the harbour he could not even get his anchor up with safety before he was ready to start. The result of all these delays was that at about nine o'clock he saw the _Erinna_ right ahead, bows on and only half a mile away, just between Scylla and Faro, where the whirlpool is still a danger to sailing vessels and slow steamers, and just as the tide was turning against her and in his own favour. He did not like to leave the bridge, even for a moment, and sent the second mate with an urgent message requesting Mr. Van Torp to come up as soon as he could. Five minutes earlier the owner had sat down to breakfast opposite Lady Maud, who was very pale and had dark shadows under her eyes for the first time since he had known her. As soon as the steward left them alone, she spoke. 'It is Leven,' she said, 'and he wants me to take him back.' Mr. Van Torp set down his tea untasted and stared at her. He was not often completely taken by surprise, but for once he was almost speechless. His lips did not even move silently. 'I was sure it was he,' Lady Maud said, 'but I did not expect that.' 'Well,' said Mr. Van Torp, finding his voice, 'he shan't. That's all.' 'No. I told him so. If I had been dressed I would have asked you to put me ashore at Messina. I thought you were going to stop there--the stewardess told me where we were, but she knew nothing else; and now we're off again.' 'I can't help it, Maud,' said Van Torp, almost in a whisper, 'I don't believe it. I don't believe in impossibilities like that beard of his. It may sound ridiculous in the face of your recognising your own husband, but it's a solid fact, and you can't get over it. I wish I could catch the _Erinna_ and show him to that Tartar girl. She'd know in a minute. He can't be her man and Leven too. There's only one thing to be done that I can see.' 'What?' asked Lady Maud sadly and incredulously. 'Tell him you'll take him back on condition that he'll shave.' Mr. Van Torp, who was in dead earnest, had just given his best friend this piece of sound practical advice when the door opened, though he had not rung, and the steward announced that the second mate had a message for Mr. Van Torp. He was admitted, and he delivered it. The owner sprang to his feet. 'By thunder, we've caught 'em!' he cried, as he rushed out of the deck saloon. Lady Maud leaned back and stared at his empty chair, wondering what was going to happen next. This was what happened. The _Lancashire Lass_ reversed her starboard engine with full speed astern, put her helm hard over to port, and turned back towards the Straits in the smallest space possible for her, passing less than a cable's length from the Scylla rock, and nearly running down half a dozen fishing-boats that pulled like mad to get out of her way; for they supposed that her steering-gear had broken down, unless her captain had gone raving mad. While this was going on, Captain Brown himself, with the International Signal Code in his hand, was calling out letters of the alphabet to a quartermaster, and before his ship had made half a circle the flags ran up the single stick the yacht carried. 'My owner has urgent business with your owner,' was what the flags meant in plain English. The _Erinna_ was going slow, for Baraka was only just ready to come on deck, haste being, in her opinion, an invention of Shaitan's. Logotheti, who wished her to see the Straits, was just inside the door of the deck saloon, waiting for her to come out of her cabin. The officer of the watch read off the signals of the other yacht, ran up the answering pennant, and sent for the sailing-master, but could of course do nothing else without orders. So the _Erinna_ continued to go slow. All this took some minutes, for the officer had naturally been obliged to look up the signal in the Code before answering that he understood it; and in that time Van Torp's yacht had completed her turn and was nearly alongside. The _Lancashire Lass_ slowed down to the _Erinna's_ speed, and the two captains aimed their megaphones accurately at each other from their respective bridges for a little pleasant conversation. Captain Brown, instructed by Mr. Van Torp at his elbow, repeated what his signals had meant. The other sailing-master answered that he had already informed his owner, who was coming to the bridge directly. At that moment Logotheti appeared. There was not much more than a cable's length between the two yachts, which in land-talk means two hundred yards. Van Torp also saw a slim young lady in blue serge, with a veil tied over her hair, leaning on the rail of the promenade deck and looking towards him. With his glasses he recognised the features of Baraka. 'Got 'em!' he ejaculated in a low but audible tone of intense satisfaction. Logotheti had also seen Van Torp, and waved his hand in a friendly manner. 'Ask the gentleman if he'll come aboard, Captain,' said the American. 'I can't talk through your cornopean anyway. I suppose we can send the naphtha launch for him if we stop, can't we?' 'Can't stop here,' answered Captain Brown. 'The currents might jam us into each other, and we should most likely get aground in any case. This is not even a safe place for going slow, when the tide is running.' 'Well, you know your business, and I don't. Tell him we don't want to interfere with any arrangements he's made, and that if he'll kindly set the pace he likes we'll trot along behind him till we get to a nice place, somewhere where we can stop. I suppose he can't run away from us now, can he?' Captain Brown smiled the smile of a man who commands a twenty-three-knot boat, and proceeded to deliver the message in a more concise form. Logotheti heard every word, and the answer was that he was in no hurry and was quite at Mr. Van Torp's disposal. He would be glad to know whom the latter had on board with him. 'Lady Maud Leven, Miss Margaret Donne, Mrs. Rushmore, and Count Kralinsky,' answered Captain Brown, prompted by Van Torp. The latter was watching the Greek through a pair of deer-stalking glasses, and saw distinctly the expression of surprise that came into his face when he heard the last of the names. 'Tell the gentleman,' said Van Torp, 'that if he'll bring his party with him when we stop, I'll be very glad to have them all take lunch with me.' Captain Brown delivered the message. At such a short distance he did not even have to raise his voice to be heard through the six-foot megaphone. To Van Torp's surprise, Logotheti nodded with alacrity, and the answer came that he would bring his party with pleasure, but thought that his visit would be over long before luncheon time. 'All right, good-bye,' said Van Torp, as if he were at the telephone. 'Ring off, Captain. That's all. Just let him give us a lead now and we'll follow him through this creek again, since you say you can't stop here.' As he went off the bridge to return to his breakfast he passed close to the chief mate, who had turned again, though it was his watch below. 'I say, Mr. Johnson,' he asked, 'have we got a barber-shop on board this ship?' 'No, sir,' answered the mate, who knew better than to be surprised at anything. 'It's no matter,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'I was only asking.' He went back to his breakfast with an improved appetite. When he re-entered the saloon Lady Maud was still leaning back in her chair, staring at his empty place. 'Well,' he said, 'they're both coming on board as soon as we get to a place where we can stop.' 'Have you really seen the girl?' Lady Maud sat up, as if she were waking from sleep. 'Oh, yes! There she was, looking over the rail, as neat as a pin, in a blue serge dress, with a white veil tied over her hair, watching me. We've got 'em right enough, and that's going to be the end of this mystery!' 'Did you see any one else on the yacht?' 'Logo. That's all. He and I talked. At least, our captains talked for us. They do know how to yell, those men! If the girl's the party, Logo beats the band for brass, that's all I can say!' 'It is rather cool,' said Lady Maud thoughtfully. 'If he's alone with her, it will be all up with his engagement.' 'Well, if that's the way he's going on, it's about time.' His tone was all at once serious. 'Now, see here, have I done anything you consider unfair to make this happen? I want your opinion right away, for if you think I have, I'll stand up for Logo to Miss Donne as hard as I can. Just think it over, please, and tell me your honest opinion. If I've done anything low-down, I want to go right back and begin over again.' He was thoroughly in earnest, and awaited her answer with evident anxiety. Knowing the man as she did, she would not give it hastily, though it was hard to concentrate her thoughts just then on anything but her own trouble; for she was quite convinced that Baraka would not recognise Kralinsky as the man she was looking for, and that this final proof would settle his identity as Leven, which she already did not doubt. She asked one or two questions. 'Before I answer you,' she said, 'tell me something, as you tell me things, when you do. Have you any entanglement with another woman from which you feel that you're not perfectly free? I don't like to ask such a question, and I wouldn't if you had not put me on my honour for my opinion.' 'No,' answered Van Torp very gravely, 'I have not. No living woman has any claim on me, and no dead woman could have, if she came to life again.' 'Then I think you had a right to do what you've done, and what you are going to do. When a man behaves in that way he deserves no pity, and now that the crisis is coming I may as well tell you that I've done everything in my power to make Margaret give him up, ever since I have been sure that he had taken the girl with him on his yacht. So far as catching them under Margaret's very eyes is concerned, I'm glad you have succeeded--very glad!' On certain points Lady Maud was inflexible as to the conduct of men and women, but especially of men. 'Mrs. Foxwell' spent much time behind the Virtue-Curtain, seeking for poor souls who were willing to be helped, and her experiences had led her to believe a modified version of the story of Adam and Eve and the Apple-tree which was quite her own. In her opinion Adam had been in the habit of talking to his wife about the tree for some time, and when the serpent presented itself to explain things he discreetly withdrew till the interview was over. Therefore 'Mrs. Foxwell' was, on the whole, more charitably inclined to her own sex than the other, and when she was 'Lady Maud' she held very strong views indeed about the obligations of men who meant to marry, and she expressed them when the intended bride was a friend of hers. 'Thank you,' said Mr. Van Torp, after she had finished her speech. 'I'm glad you don't disapprove, for if you did I'd try to begin all over again, as I told you. Any other question? You said "one or two," and I'd like to have them all now.' 'Only one more, though perhaps I've no business to ask it. If Margaret marries you, shall you want her to leave the stage?' 'Why, no!' answered Mr. Van Torp with alacrity. 'That wouldn't suit my plans at all. Besides, we're a Company, she and I.' 'What do you mean?' Lady Maud thought he was joking. 'Well, I wasn't going to tell you till we'd organised, but you're as good as a deaf and dumb asylum about business things. Yes. We're organising as "The Madame da Cordova and Rufus Van Torp Company." I'm going to build an opera-house in New York on some land I've got on Fifth Avenue, and Miss Donne is going to run it, and we mean to have Wagner festivals and things, besides regular grand opera, in which she's engaged to sing as often as she likes. There's never been an opera-house on Fifth Avenue, but there's going to be, and people will go to it. Miss Donne caught on to the scheme right away, so you see she's not going to leave the stage anyhow. As for her accepting me, I can't tell you, because I don't know. Maybe she will, maybe she won't. That isn't going to interfere with the Company either way. Good scheme, isn't it?' 'You're a wonderful man,' said Lady Maud, with genuine admiration. 'Do you mean to say that you have settled all that between you already?' 'She signed the preliminary agreement in Bayreuth, and the papers are being made out by my lawyer in New York. You don't think it was unfair to offer to build a theatre and call it after her, do you? That isn't "exercising undue influence," I suppose?' 'No, and I think you're going to win. The other man hasn't had a chance since you got into your stride.' 'When a man chucks his chances, I'm not going to pick them up for him. Charity begins at home.' 'Even if "home" is a bachelor establishment?' Lady Maud smiled for the first time that day. They talked a few minutes longer, agreeing that she should tell Margaret what was going to happen; but that Mrs. Rushmore and Kralinsky should be kept in ignorance of the plan, the American lady because she might possibly yield to temptation and tell the Count, and the latter for obvious reasons. It was not likely that any of them would be on deck much before Logotheti came on board. There is good anchorage out of the tidal current at Scaletta, some few miles below Messina, on the Sicilian side, and towards this well-known water the _Erinna_ led the way, followed at a short distance by the _Lancashire Lass_. Logotheti and Baraka watched her, and the girl recognised Van Torp on the bridge of his yacht, without even using glasses, for she had eyes like an eagle's, and the American millionaire stood alone at one end of the bridge looking towards her. Logotheti had told her that Kralinsky was on board, and that she should see him as soon as both yachts could anchor. He explained that it was an unforeseen coincidence, and that Mr. Van Torp must have taken him on board somewhere on the previous day. To the Greek's surprise, Baraka showed no outward sign of emotion. He had promised to take her to the man, and had said that he was near at hand; that the meeting should take place sooner than had been intended hardly surprised her, because she had been so perfectly sure that it was near. Her only preoccupation now was about her appearance in her ready-made serge and blouse, when she had meant to show herself to Kralinsky in the glory of a beautiful and expensive Feringhi dress. But Logotheti explained that even the richest Feringhi ladies often wore little blue serge frocks on yachts, and told her to watch the _Lancashire Lass_ with her glasses, as there were three very great Feringhi ladies on board, and she might see one, and be reassured; and presently she saw Lady Maud walking alone on the promenade deck, in clothes very like her own, excepting that they were black instead of dark blue. So Baraka was satisfied, but she never took her eyes from the following yacht, for she hoped that Kralinsky would come out and show himself. All at once he was there, taking off his white cap to Lady Maud, and they stood still facing each other, and talking. 'I see him,' Baraka said in a low voice, without lowering her glasses. 'It is he.' Logotheti, who had been much absorbed in thinking about his coming interview with Margaret, raised his glasses too, for he was curious to see the man at last. He had known Leven for years, though never intimately, as he knew a vast number of people in London, and he was struck at once by the resemblance in size, build, and complexion. 'He is fatter than he was, and paler,' Baraka said quietly, 'but it is he. He is speaking earnestly with the beautiful woman in black. I can see well. He likes her, but she does not like him. I think she is telling him so. I am glad. But she is more beautiful than Baraka, even in those poor clothes. When he sees me, he will deny me, because he likes the beautiful woman in black. I will tell Spiro to be ready. It is a pity, but I see there will be no other way. It is his portion and mine. It is a great pity, for I have been happy with you.' Instead of any look of anger, Logotheti now saw an expression of profound resignation in her lovely young features. If he had been less anxious about his own affairs, he would have smiled at her simplicity. 'When we are on that ship you will let me talk with him a little apart from the rest, and Spiro shall go behind him and wait, looking at me. If he denies me, I will make a sign, and Spiro shall shoot him, and then kill me. It will be very easy and quick.' 'And what will become of Spiro?' inquired Logotheti gravely. 'I do not know,' Baraka said quietly. 'Perhaps he will lose his head. How can I tell? But he is a good servant, and will obey me. Afterwards it will not matter, for he is really a Musulman, and will go at once to paradise if he dies, because he has killed a Christian.' 'But you are a Musulman, and he is to kill you also. What about that?' 'I am only a woman,' answered Baraka with supreme indifference. 'Now I will call Spiro and tell him what he is to do. He has a good revolver.' Logotheti let her clap her hands and send the steward for her man, and she rose when he appeared and made him follow her a little way along the deck. The interview did not last long. She handed him her glasses and made him look carefully at the intended victim; then she apparently repeated her brief instructions again, pointing here and there to the deck at her feet, to show him how they were to stand; after which she turned quietly, came back to Logotheti's side, and sat down again. 'He understands,' she said. 'It will be quite easy.' But Logotheti, looking past her as she came forward, had met Spiro's eyes; and he felt not even the slightest anxiety for Kralinsky's safety, nor for Baraka's. He was still wondering what he should say to Margaret, but while he tried to think it over, his eyes dwelt on the noble little profile of the slender Asiatic girl at his side; and it occurred to him that, although she had worn man's clothes and done things that few women would dare to do, for the one purpose of her life, she would much rather die than show herself on the stage in a very low dress before thousands of people and sing to them, and take money for doing it; and he remembered a time, not much more than two years past, when the mere thought had driven the idea of marrying the Primadonna quite out of his head for a while, and that, after all, it had been her physical attraction that had overcome the prejudice, making him say that he was as much in love with the Cordova as he had been with Margaret Donne, that 'very nice English girl.' For men are changeable creatures after they think they have changed themselves to suit their tastes or their ideals, and the original man in them, good or bad, fine or coarse, generally comes back in the great moments. At a distance, Logotheti had supposed that he could somehow account to the Diva for the position in which he had foolishly placed himself, because he had done nothing and said nothing that he would have been ashamed of before her, if she knew the whole truth; and he fancied that even if they quarrelled she would make up with him before long, and marry him in the end. He had a good opinion of himself as a desirable husband; and with reason, since he had been persecuted for years with offers of excellent marriages from mothers of high degree who had daughters to dispose of. And beneath that conviction there lurked, in spite of him, the less worthy thought, that singers and actresses were generally less squeamish than women of the world about the little entanglements of their intended husbands. But now, at the very moment of meeting Margaret, he knew that if he found her very angry with him, he would simply listen to what she had to say, make a humble apology, state the truth coldly, and return to his own yacht with Baraka, under her very eyes, and in full sight of Lady Maud and Mrs. Rushmore. Besides, he felt tolerably sure that when Spiro failed to carry out the young Tartar girl's murderous instructions, she would forget all about the oath she had sworn by the 'inviolable water of the Styx' and try to kill him with her own hands, so that it would be necessary to take her away abruptly, and even forcibly. Matters did not turn out as he expected, however, after the two yachts stopped their engines in the quiet waters off Scaletta, under the Sicilian mountains. Before the _Erinna_ had quite lost her way, Logotheti had his naphtha launch puffing alongside, and he got into it with Baraka and Spiro, and the _Lancashire Lass_ had barely time to lower her ladder, while still moving slowly, before the visitors were there. Baraka bade Logotheti go up first, and trod daintily on the grated steps as she followed him. The chief mate and chief steward were waiting at the gangway. The mate saluted; the steward led the visitors to the main saloon, ushered them in, and shut the door. Spiro was left outside, of course. Lady Maud was there, sitting in an easy-chair in the farthest corner. She nodded to Logotheti, but did not rise, and paid no more attention to Baraka than if she had not existed. Mr. Van Torp shook hands coldly with Logotheti; Baraka walked directly to Kralinsky, and then stood stone-still before him, gazing up steadily into his eyes. Neither Margaret nor Mrs. Rushmore was to be seen. Van Torp and Logotheti both watched the other two, looking from one face to the other. Kralinsky, with his eye-glass in his eye, surveyed the lovely young barbarian unmoved, and the silence lasted half a minute. Then she spoke in her own language and Kralinsky answered her, and only Logotheti understood what they said to each other. Probably it did not occur to Kralinsky that the Greek knew Tartar. 'You are not Ivan. You are fatter, and you have not his eyes.' Logotheti drew a long breath. 'No,' answered Kralinsky. 'I am Yuryi, his brother. I never saw you, but he told me of you.' 'Where is Ivan?' 'Dead.' The proud little head was bowed down for a moment and Baraka did not speak till several seconds had passed. Then she looked up again suddenly. Her dark eyes were quite dry. 'How long?' 'More than four months.' 'You know it?' 'I was with him and buried him.' 'It is enough.' She turned, her head high, and went to the door, and no one hindered her from going out. 'Monsieur Logotheti!' Lady Maud called him, and the Greek crossed the saloon and stood by her. 'He is not the man, I see,' she said, with a vague doubt in her voice. 'No.' Van Torp was speaking with Kralinsky in low tones. Lady Maud spoke to Logotheti again, after an instant, in which she drew a painful breath and grew paler. 'Miss Donne knows that you are on board,' she said, 'but she wishes me to say that she will not see you, and that she considers her engagement at an end, after what you have done.' Logotheti did not hesitate. 'Will you kindly give a message to Miss Donne from me?' he asked. 'That quite depends on what it is,' Lady Maud answered coldly. She felt that she herself had got something near a death-wound, but she would not break down. 'I beg you to tell Miss Donne that I yield to her decision,' said Logotheti with dignity. 'We are not suited to each other, and it is better that we should part. But I cannot accept as the cause of our parting the fact that I have given my protection to a young girl whom I have extricated from great trouble and have treated, and still treat, precisely as I should have treated Miss Donne if she had been my guest. Will you tell her that?' 'I will tell her that.' 'Thank you. Good-morning.' 'Good-morning,' said Lady Maud icily. He turned and went towards the door, but stopped to speak to Van Torp. 'This gentleman,' he said, 'is not the man my guest was anxious to find, though he is strikingly like him. I have to thank you for giving her an opportunity of satisfying herself. Good-morning.' Mr. Van Torp was extremely grateful to Logotheti for having ruined himself in Margaret's eyes, and would in any case have seen him to the gangway, but he was also very anxious to know what Kralinsky and Baraka had said to each other in Tartar. He therefore opened the door for the Greek, followed him out and shut it behind him. Baraka and Spiro had disappeared; they were already in the launch, waiting. 'Now what did they say, if it isn't a rude question?' asked the American. Logotheti repeated the short conversation almost word for word. 'He said that his name was Yuryi,' he concluded. 'That is George in English.' 'Oh, he's George, is he? And what's his dead brother's name again, please?' 'Ivan. That is John. Before we part, Van Torp, I may as well tell you that my engagement with Miss Donne is at an end. She was good enough to inform me of her decision through Lady Maud. One thing more, please. I wish you to know, as between man and man, that I have treated Baraka as I would my own sister since I got her out of prison, and I beg that you won't encourage any disagreeable talk about her.' 'Well, now,' said the American slowly, 'I'm glad to hear you say that, just in that way. I guess it'll be all right about any remarks on board my ship, now you've spoken.' 'Thank you,' said Logotheti, moving towards the gangway. They shook hands with some cordiality, and Logotheti ran down the steps like a sailor, without laying his hand on the man-rope, stepped on board his launch, and was off in a moment. 'Good-bye! good-bye, Miss Barrack, and good luck to you!' cried Van Torp, waving his cap. Logotheti translated his words to Baraka, who looked back with a grateful smile, as if she had not just heard that the man she had risked her life to find in two continents had been dead four months. 'It was his portion,' she said gravely, when she was alone with Logotheti on the _Erinna_, and the chain was coming in fast. Van Torp went back to the main saloon and found Lady Maud and Kralinsky there. She was apparently about to leave the Count, for she was coming towards the door, and her eyes were dark and angry. 'Rufus,' she said, 'this man is my husband, and insists that I should take him back. I will not. Will you kindly have me put ashore before you start again? My things are ready now.' 'Excuse me,' answered Mr. Van Torp, digging his large thumbs into his waistcoat pockets, 'there's a mistake. He's not your husband.' 'He is, indeed!' cried Lady Maud, in a tone her friend never forgot. 'I am Boris Leven,' said Kralinsky in an authoritative tone, and coming forward almost defiantly. 'Then why did you tell the Tartar girl that your name was George?' asked Mr. Van Torp, unmoved. 'I did not.' 'You've evidently forgotten. That Greek gentleman speaks Tartar better than you. I wonder where you learned it! He's just told me you said your name was George.' 'My name is George Boris,' answered Kralinsky, less confidently. He was not a coward, but he had never been face to face with Van Torp when he meant business, and the terrible American cowed him. 'My husband's name is only Boris--nothing else,' said Lady Maud. 'Well, this isn't your husband; this is George, whoever he is, and if you don't believe it, I'm going to give you an object-lesson.' Thereupon Mr. Van Torp pressed the button of a bell in the bulk-head near the door, which he opened, and he stood looking out. A steward came at once. 'Send me Stemp,' said Van Torp in a low voice, as he stepped outside. 'Yes, sir.' 'And, see here, send six sailors with him.' 'Six, sir?' 'Yes. Big fellows who can handle a man.' 'Very good, sir.' Mr. Van Torp went in again and shut the door. Kralinsky disdained flight, and was looking out of a window. Lady Maud had sat down again. For the first time in her life she felt weak. In less than one minute the door opened and Stemp appeared, impassive and respectful. Behind him was the boatswain, a huge Northumbrian, and five young seamen in perfectly new guernseys, with fair quiet faces. 'Stemp.' 'Yes, sir.' 'Take that man somewhere and shave him. Leave his moustache on.' Van Torp pointed to Kralinsky. For once in his life Stemp gasped for breath. Kralinsky turned a greenish white, and seemed paralysed with rage. 'Take his beard off, sir, you mean?' 'Yes. Leave his moustache. Here, men,' added Van Torp, 'take that fellow outside and hold him down in a chair while Stemp shaves him. See?' The boatswain looked doubtful. 'He's pretending to be somebody he's not,' said Van Torp, 'on my ship, and I want to see his face. It's mutiny if you don't obey orders!' 'Aye, aye, sir,' responded the boatswain cheerfully, for he rather liked the job since there was a good reason for it. But instead of going about his business gently, the Northumbrian giant suddenly dashed past Van Torp in a flash, and jumped and hurled himself head foremost at Kralinsky's legs, exactly as if he were diving. In the Count's violent fall the revolver he had drawn was thrown from his hand and went off in the air. The boatswain had seen it in time. The big man struggled a little, but the five seamen held him fast and carried him out kicking. 'Stemp.' The valet was preparing to follow the prisoner, and was quite calm again. 'Yes, sir.' 'If he won't sit still to be shaved, cut his head off.' 'Yes, sir.' Van Torp's eyes were awful to see. He had never been so angry in his life. He turned and saw Lady Maud pressing her handkerchief to her right temple. The ball had grazed it, though it had certainly not been meant for her. 'Rufus!' she cried in great distress, 'what have you done?' 'The question is what he's done to you,' answered Van Torp. 'I believe the blackguard has shot you!' 'It's nothing. Thank God it hit me! It was meant for you.' Van Torp's rage instantly turned into tender care, and he insisted on examining the wound, which was slight but would leave a scar. By a miracle the ball had grazed the angle of the temple without going near the temporal artery, and scarcely singeing the thick brown hair. Van Torp rang and sent for water and absorbent cotton, and made a very neat dressing, over which Lady Maud tied her big veil. Just as this was done, Stemp appeared at the door. 'It's ready, sir, if you would like to come and see. I've not scratched him once, sir.' 'All right.' Van Torp turned to Lady Maud. 'Do you feel faint? Lean on my arm.' But she would not, and she walked bravely, holding herself so straight that she looked much taller than he, though she felt as if she were going to execution. A moment later she uttered a loud cry and clung to Van Torp's shoulder with both hands. But as for him, he said only two words. 'You hellhound!' The man was not Boris Leven. [Illustration: "The man was not Boris Leven."] The eyes, the upper part of the face, the hair, even the flowing moustaches were his, but not the small retreating chin crossed by the sharp, thin scar of a sword-cut long healed. 'I know who you are,' said Van Torp, surveying him gravely. 'You're Long-legged Levi's brother, that disappeared before he did. I remember that scar.' The sham Kralinsky was securely tied down in a chair and the boatswain and the five seamen stood round him, an admiring public. Captain Brown had been informed of what had happened and was going on, and the discipline he maintained on board was so perfect that every man on the watch was at his post, and the steamer was already under weigh again. The boatswain and his contingent belonged to the watch below, which had not been called for the start. 'Let me off easy,' said Long-legged Levi's brother. 'I've not done you any harm.' 'Beyond wounding Lady Maud, after trying to pass yourself off as her dead husband. No. I won't let you off. Boatswain, I want this man arrested, and we'll take him and all his belongings before the British Consul in Messina in less than an hour. You just attend to that, will you? Somebody go and tell the Captain.' 'Aye, aye, sir.' For the boatswain and the men had seen and heard, and they knew that Mr. Van Torp was right, and they respected him, and the foreign impostor had wounded an English woman; and having given his orders, the owner and Lady Maud turned and left Long-legged Levi's brother tied to the chair, in a very dejected state, and his uncertain eyes did not even follow them. * * * * * The rest is soon told. A long inquiry followed, which led to the solution of the mystery and sent Count Yuryi Leven to Siberia; for he was Boris Leven's twin brother. The truth turned out to be that there had been three brothers, the youngest being Ivan, and they had all entered the same Cossack regiment, and had served in the Caucasus, where most officers learn the Tartar language, which is spoken by all the different tribes. It will be simpler to designate them by the English equivalents for their names. Boris behaved himself tolerably well in the army, but both his brothers, John and George, who was his twin, were broken for cheating at cards, and emigrated to America. So long as they all wore their beards, as officers of Cossack regiments usually do, they were very much alike. They were all educated men of refined tastes, and particularly fond of music. When his two brothers were cashiered, Boris resigned, entered the diplomatic service, married Lady Maud Foxwell, and was killed by a bomb in St. Petersburg. John and George separated in America when they were tired of punching cattle. John was something of a naturalist and was by far the most gifted of the three as well as the most daring. He gravitated to China and at last to Mongolia, wandering alone in search of plants and minerals, and it was to him that Baraka showed the ruby mine. He got back to civilisation with his treasure and took it to Petersburg unmolested. There he found George earning a poor living in an obscure position in the public service, his conduct in the army having been condoned or overlooked. John, who was the incarnation of selfishness, would do nothing for him. George, exasperated by him, and half starved, murdered him in such a way that he was supposed to have died by an accident, took possession of his hoard of unsold rubies, and wrote to his twin brother to come and share the fortune John had left them. George and Boris had been in constant correspondence, and had even helped each other with money from time to time. Some weeks elapsed after Boris's return to St. Petersburg before his death, and during that time, he told George, who knew London well and had moreover helped him in his attempt to get a divorce, a vast number of details about his married life and his wife's behaviour, her character and tastes. Then Boris was killed in the street, and George left the country and changed his name, with the vague idea that his own was not a very creditable one and that if he kept it he might be troubled by his brother Boris's numerous creditors. He began life over again as Kralinsky. He had not entertained the least intention of passing himself for Boris and claiming Lady Maud as his wife, till he met her, and her beauty made him lose his head completely when he saw that she took him for her husband. He would have been found out inevitably sooner or later, but Van Torp's vigorous action shortened Lady Maud's torments. George was tried, and Russian justice awoke, possibly under pressure from England. The family history of the Levens was exhumed and dissected before the courts. The creditors of Boris Leven appeared in legions and claimed that in proper course he should have inherited the rubies from his murdered brother, who would then have been able to pay his debts. The court thought so too, and ordered the confiscated treasure to be sold. But since it had been Boris's, the law was obliged to declare that the residue of the money, after paying the debts, was the property of Countess Leven, Boris's widow. Lady Maud thus found herself in possession of a considerable fortune, for she accepted the inheritance when she was assured that it would go to the Russian Crown if she refused it. But there was a fall in the price of rubies, and the Russian government at once sent an expensive expedition to find the mine, an attempt which altogether failed, because Ivan Leven had never told any one where it was, nor anything about it, and the court only knew from certain jewellers who had dealt both with Kralinsky and Baraka, that it was 'somewhere in Central Asia,' which is an insufficient direction, even for a ruby mine. The wealth Lady Maud thus commands enables her to carry much further than formerly the peculiar form of charity which she believes to be her own invention, if it may be properly called charity at all, and which consists in making it worth while and agreeable to certain unfortunate people to live decent lives in quiet corners without starving, instead of calling to them to come out from behind the Virtue-Curtain and be reformed in public. It is a very expensive charity, however, and very hard to exercise, and will never be popular; for the popular charities are those that cost least and are no trouble. Madame Konstantinos Logotheti is learning French and English, on the Bosphorus, with her husband, and will make a sensation when he brings her to London and Paris. On the day of his marriage, in Constantinople, Logotheti received a letter from Lady Maud, telling him how sorry she was that she had not believed him, that day on the yacht at Scaletta, and saying that she hoped to meet his wife soon. It was an honest apology from an honest woman. He received a letter a few days later from Margaret, and on the same day a magnificently printed and recklessly illustrated booklet reached him, forwarded from Paris. The letter was from Margaret to tell him that she also took back what she had thought about Baraka and hoped to see him and her before long. She said she was glad, on the whole, that he had acted like a lunatic, because it was likely that they would both be happier. She herself, she said, was going to be married to Mr. Van Torp, at St. George's, Hanover Square, before sailing for New York, where she was going to sing at the Opera after Christmas. If he should be in town then, she hoped he would come, and bring his wife. The booklet was an announcement, interleaved with fine etchings, to the effect that 'The Madame da Cordova and Rufus Van Torp Company' would open their new Opera House in Fifth Avenue less than two years hence, with a grand Wagner Festival, to last two months, and to include the performance of _Parsifal_ with entirely new scenery, and the greatest living artistes, whose names were given. There was a plan of the house at the end of the booklet for the benefit of those who wished to make arrangements for being at the festival, and such persons were admonished that they must apply early if they expected to get seats. * * * * * Mr. Van Torp had told the Diva that he would like her to choose a wedding present which she really wanted, adding that he had a few little things for her already. He produced some of them, but some were on paper. Among the latter was a house in New York, overlooking the Park and copied exactly from her own in London, the English architect having been sent to New York himself to build it. Two small items were two luxurious private cars of entirely different patterns, one for America and one for Europe, which she was always to use when she travelled, professionally or otherwise. He said he did not give her the _Lancashire Lass_ because 'it wasn't quite new'--having been about ten months in the water--but he had his own reasons, one of which was that the yacht represented a sentiment to him, and was what he would have called a 'souvenir.' But if she could think of anything else she fancied, 'now was the time.' She said that there was only one thing she should really like, but that she could not have it, because it was not in the market. He asked what it was, and it turned out to be the ruby which Logotheti had given her, and had taken to Pinney's to be cut, and which had been the cause of so many unexpected events, including her marriage. Logotheti had it in his possession, she supposed, but he had shown good taste in not trying to press it on her as a wedding present, for she could not have accepted it. Nevertheless, she wanted it very much, more as a remembrance than for its beauty. Mr. Van Torp said he 'thought he could fix that,' and he did. He went directly to Mr. Pinney and asked what had become of the stone. Mr. Pinney answered that it was now cut, and was in his safe, for sale. The good man had felt that it would not be tactful to offer it to Mr. Van Torp. Logotheti, who was a fine gentleman in his way, had ordered it to be sold, when a good opportunity offered, and directed that the money should be given to the poor Greeks in London, under the supervision of Lady Maud Leven, the Turkish Ambassador, and the Greek Minister, as a committee. Mr. Pinney, after consultation with the best experts, valued it at fourteen thousand pounds sterling. Mr. Van Torp wrote a cheque for the money, put the stone into an inner pocket, and took it to the Diva. 'Well,' he said, smiling, 'here's your ruby, anyway. Anything else to-day?' Margaret looked at him wonderingly, and then opened the small morocco case. 'Oh--oh--oh!' she cried, in rising intimations of delight. 'I never saw anything so beautiful in my life! It's ever so much more glorious than when I last saw it!' 'It's been cut since then,' observed Mr. Van Torp. 'It ought to have a name of its own! I'm sure it's more beautiful than many of the named crown jewels!' She felt half hypnotised as she gazed into the glorious depths of the great stone. 'Thank you,' she cried, 'thank you so very much. I'm gladder to have it than all the other things.' And thereupon she threw her magnificent arms round Rufus Van Torp's solid neck, and kissed his cool flat cheek several times; and it seemed quite natural to her to do so; and she wished to forget how she had once kissed one other man, who had kissed her. 'It wants a name, doesn't it?' assented Mr. Van Torp. 'Yes. You must find one for it.' 'Well,' he said, 'after what's happened, I suppose we'd better call it "The Diva's Ruby."' MR. CRAWFORD'S LATEST NOVELS _Each, cloth, 12mo, $1.50_ =The Primadonna= "Mr. Crawford is a born story-teller. His imagination and inventiveness show as fresh and unwearied in his latest book as they did in 'Mr. Isaacs.'"--_Evening Telegraph_, Philadelphia. =Fair Margaret= A Portrait. "An exhilarating romance, ... alluring in its naturalness and grace."--_Boston Herald._ =Arethusa= Dr. Frederick Taber Cooper, in _The Bookman_, says of Mr. Crawford: "In theory Mr. Crawford is a romanticist; in practice he is in turn realist, psychologue, mystic, whatever for the moment suits his needs or appeals to his instinct of born story-teller." He calls him, in fact, as others have done, "the prince of story-tellers." _By the author of "Saracinesca," etc._ FRANK DANBY'S NEW NOVEL =The Heart of a Child= _Cloth, $1.50_ "A book of such strength, such fineness, such sympathetic insight ... stands out conspicuously above the general level of contemporary fiction."--_The Bookman_. "BARBARA'S" NEW BOOK =The Open Window= Tales of the Months told by "Barbara," author of "The Garden of a Commuter's Wife," "People of the Whirlpool," etc. _Frontispiece. Cloth, $1.50_ Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS THE SARACINESCA SERIES _In the binding of the Uniform Edition, each, $1.50_ =Saracinesca= "The work has two distinct merits, either of which would serve to make it great,--that of telling a perfect story in a perfect way, and of giving a graphic picture of Roman society in the last days of the Pope's temporal power.... The story is exquisitely told."--_Boston Traveler_ =Sant' Ilario.= A Sequel to "Saracinesca" "A singularly powerful and beautiful story.... It fulfils every requirement of artistic fiction. It brings out what is most impressive in human action, without owing any of its effectiveness to sensationalism or artifice. It is natural, fluent in evolution, accordant with experience, graphic in description, penetrating in analysis, and absorbing in interest."--_New York Tribune._ =Don Orsino.= A Sequel to "Sant' Ilario" "Perhaps the cleverest novel of the year.... There is not a dull paragraph in the book, and the reader may be assured that once begun, the story of _Don Orsino_ will fascinate him until its close."--_The Critic._ =Taquisara= "To Mr. Crawford's Roman novels belongs the supreme quality of uniting subtly drawn characters to a plot of uncommon interest."--_Chicago Tribune._ =Corleone= "Mr. Crawford is the novelist born ... a natural story-teller, with wit, imagination, and insight added to a varied and profound knowledge of social life."--_The Inter-Ocean_, Chicago. =Casa Braccio.= _In two volumes, $2.00_. Illustrated by A. Castaigne. Like _Taquisara_ and _Corleone_, it is closely related in plot to the fortunes of the Saracinesca family. "Mr. Crawford's books have life, pathos, and insight; he tells a dramatic story with many exquisite touches."--_New York Sun._ Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S NOVELS _Each, cloth, gilt tops and titles, $1.50_ =Mr. Crewe's Career= Illustrated "Another chapter in his broad, epical delineation of the American spirit.... It is an honest and fair story.... It is very interesting; and the heroine is a type of woman as fresh, original, and captivating as any that has appeared in American novels for a long time past."--_The Outlook_, New York. "Shows Mr. Churchill at his best. The flavor of his humor is of that stimulating kind which asserts itself just the moment, as it were, after it has passed the palate.... As for Victoria, she has that quality of vivid freshness, tenderness, and independence which makes so many modern American heroines delightful."--_The Times_, London. =The Celebrity= An Episode "No such piece of inimitable comedy in a literary way has appeared for years.... It is the purest, keenest fun."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._ =Richard Carvel= Illustrated "... In breadth of canvas, massing of dramatic effect, depth of feeling, and rare wholesomeness of spirit, it has seldom, if ever, been surpassed by an American romance."--_Chicago Tribune._ =The Crossing= Illustrated "'The Crossing' is a thoroughly interesting book, packed with exciting adventure and sentimental incident, yet faithful to historical fact both in detail and in spirit."--_The Dial._ =The Crisis= Illustrated "It is a charming love story, and never loses its interest.... The intense political bitterness, the intense patriotism of both parties, are shown understandingly."--_Evening Telegraph_, Philadelphia. =Coniston= Illustrated "'Coniston' has a lighter, gayer spirit and a deeper, tenderer touch than Mr. Churchill has ever achieved before.... It is one of the truest and finest transcripts of modern American life thus far achieved in our fiction."--_Chicago Record-Herald._ Mr. ROBERT HERRICK'S NOVELS _Cloth, extra, gilt tops, each, $1.50_ =The Gospel of Freedom= "A novel that may truly be called the greatest study of social life, in a broad and very much up-to-date sense, that has ever been contributed to American fiction."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._ =The Web of Life= "It is strong in that it faithfully depicts many phases of American life, and uses them to strengthen a web of fiction, which is most artistically wrought out."--_Buffalo Express._ =The Real World= "The title of the book has a subtle intention. It indicates, and is true to the verities in doing so, the strange dreamlike quality of life to the man who has not yet fought his own battles, or come into conscious possession of his will--only such battles bite into the consciousness."--_Chicago Tribune._ =The Common Lot= "It grips the reader tremendously.... It is the drama of a human soul the reader watches ... the finest study of human motive that has appeared for many a day."--_The World To-day._ =The Memoirs of an American Citizen.= Illustrated with about fifty drawings by F. B. Masters. "Mr. Herrick's book is a book among many, and he comes nearer to reflecting a certain kind of recognizable, contemporaneous American spirit than anybody has yet done."--_New York Times._ "Intensely absorbing as a story, it is also a crisp, vigorous document of startling significance. More than any other writer to-day he is giving us _the_ American novel."--_New York Globe._ =Together= "Journeys end in lovers meeting," says the old saw; so all novels used to end--in marriage. Yet Mr. Herrick's interesting new novel only begins there; the best brief description of it is, indeed,--a novel about married people for all who are married. Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS Mr. Crawford has no equal as a writer of brilliant cosmopolitan fiction, in which the characters really belong to the chosen scene and the story interest is strong. His novels possess atmosphere in a high degree. Mr. Isaacs (India) Its scenes are laid in Simla, chiefly. This is the work which first placed its author among the most brilliant novelists of his day. Greifenstein (The Black Forest) "... Another notable contribution to the literature of the day. It possesses originality in its conception and is a work of unusual ability. Its interest is sustained to the close, and it is an advance even on the previous work of this talented author. Like all Mr. Crawford's work, this novel is crisp, clear, and vigorous, and will be read with a great deal of interest."--_New York Evening Telegram._ Zoroaster (Persia) "It is a drama in the force of its situations and in the poetry and dignity of its language; but its men and women are not men and women of a play. By the naturalness of their conversation and behavior they seem to live and lay hold of our human sympathy more than the same characters on a stage could possibly do."--_The New York Times._ The Witch of Prague (Bohemia) _"A fantastic tale," illustrated by W. J. Hennessy._ "The artistic skill with which this extraordinary story is constructed and carried out is admirable and delightful.... Mr. Crawford has scored a decided triumph, for the interest of the tale is sustained throughout.... A very remarkable, powerful, and interesting story."--_New York Tribune._ Paul Patoff (Constantinople) "Mr. Crawford has a marked talent for assimilating local color, not to make mention of a broader historical sense. Even though he may adopt, as it is the romancer's right to do, the extreme romantic view of history, it is always a living and moving picture that he evolves for us, varied and stirring."--_New York Evening Post._ Marietta (Venice) "No living writer can surpass Mr. Crawford in the construction of a complicated plot and the skilful unravelling of the tangled skein."--_Chicago Record-Herald._ "He has gone back to the field of his earlier triumphs, and has, perhaps, scored the greatest triumph of them all."--_New York Herald._ Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS NOVELS OF ROMAN SOCIAL LIFE _In decorated cloth covers, each, $1.50_ =A Roman Singer= "One of the earliest and best works of this famous novelist.... None but a genuine artist could have made so true a picture of human life, crossed by human passions and interwoven with human weakness. It is a perfect specimen of literary art."--_The Newark Advertiser._ =Marzio's Crucifix= "We have repeatedly had occasion to say that Mr. Crawford possesses in an extraordinary degree the art of constructing a story. It is as if it could not have been written otherwise, so naturally does the story unfold itself, and so logical and consistent is the sequence of incident after incident. As a story, _Marzio's Crucifix_ is perfectly constructed."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ =Heart of Rome.= A Tale of the Lost Water "Mr. Crawford has written a story of absorbing interest, a story with a genuine thrill in it; he has drawn his characters with a sure and brilliant touch, and he has said many things surpassingly well."--_New York Times Saturday Review._ =Cecilia.= A Story of Modern Rome "That F. Marion Crawford is a master of mystery needs no new telling.... His latest novel, _Cecilia_, is as weird as anything he has done since the memorable _Mr. Isaacs_.... A strong, interesting, dramatic story, with the picturesque Roman setting beautifully handled as only a master's touch could do it."--_Philadelphia Evening Telegraph._ =Whosoever Shall Offend= "It is a story sustained from beginning to end by an ever increasing dramatic quality."--_New York Evening Post._ =Pietro Ghisleri= "The imaginative richness, the marvellous ingenuity of plot, the power and subtlety of the portrayal of character, the charm of the romantic environment,--the entire atmosphere, indeed,--rank this novel at once among the great creations."--_The Boston Budget._ =To Leeward= "The four characters with whose fortunes this novel deals are, perhaps, the most brilliantly executed portraits in the whole of Mr. Crawford's long picture gallery, while for subtle insight into the springs of human passion and for swift dramatic action none of the novels surpasses this one."--_The News and Courier._ =A Lady of Rome= Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS WITH SCENES LAID IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA _In the binding of the Uniform Edition_ =A Tale of a Lonely Parish= "It is a pleasure to have anything so perfect of its kind as this brief and vivid story.... It is doubly a success, being full of human sympathy, as well as thoroughly artistic in its nice balancing of the unusual with the commonplace, the clever juxtaposition of innocence and guilt, comedy and tragedy, simplicity and intrigue."--_Critic._ =Dr. Claudius.= A True Story The scene changes from Heidelberg to New York, and much of the story develops during the ocean voyage. "There is a satisfying quality in Mr. Crawford's strong, vital, forceful stories."--_Boston Herald._ =An American Politician.= The scenes are laid in Boston "It need scarcely be said that the story is skilfully and picturesquely written, portraying sharply individual characters in well-defined surroundings."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ =The Three Fates= "Mr. Crawford has manifestly brought his best qualities as a student of human nature and his finest resources as a master of an original and picturesque style to bear upon this story. Taken for all in all, it is one of the most pleasing of all his productions in fiction, and it affords a view of certain phases of American, or perhaps we should say of New York, life that have not hitherto been treated with anything like the same adequacy and felicity."--_Boston Beacon._ =Marion Darche= "Full enough of incident to have furnished material for three or four stories.... A most interesting and engrossing book. Every page unfolds new possibilities, and the incidents multiply rapidly."--_Detroit Free Press._ "We are disposed to rank _Marion Darche_ as the best of Mr. Crawford's American stories."--_The Literary World._ =Katharine Lauderdale= =The Ralstons.= A Sequel to "Katharine Lauderdale" "Mr. Crawford at his best is a great novelist, and in _Katharine Lauderdale_ we have him at his best."--_Boston Daily Advertiser._ "A most admirable novel, excellent in style, flashing with humor, and full of the ripest and wisest reflections upon men and women."--_The Westminster Gazette._ "It is the first time, we think, in American fiction that any such breadth of view has shown itself in the study of our social framework."--_Life._ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
40922	----	PIETRO GHISLERI [Illustration: Publisher's logo] PIETRO GHISLERI BY F. MARION CRAWFORD AUTHOR OF "SARACINESCA," "THE THREE FATES," ETC. New York MACMILLAN & CO. AND LONDON 1893 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY MACMILLAN & CO. Norwood Press: J.S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith. Boston, Mass., U.S.A. PIETRO GHISLERI. CHAPTER I. The relation of two step-sisters is unusual. When the Honourable Mrs. Carlyon came to Rome twenty years ago, a young widow and the mother of a little girl named Laura, she did not foresee the complications which her second marriage was to produce. She was a good woman in her way, and if she had guessed what it would mean to be the step-mother of Adele Braccio she might have hesitated before marrying Camillo of that name, commonly known as the Prince of Gerano. For the Prince had also been married before, and his first wife had left him this one child, Adele, who was only a year and a half older than little Laura Carlyon. No children were born to the Gerano couple, and the two girls were brought up together as though they were sisters. The Prince and Princess were deeply attached to each other and to them both, so that for many years Casa Gerano was justly looked upon as a model household. Mrs. Carlyon was very poor when she came to Rome. Her husband had been a careless, good-humoured, and rather reckless younger son, and when he broke his neck in coming down the Gross Glockner he left his widow about as much as men of his stamp generally leave to their families; to wit, a fearful and wonderful confusion of unpaid debts and a considerable number of promises to pay money, signed by persons whose promises were not of much consequence, even when clearly set down on paper. It seems to be a peculiarity of poor and good-natured men that they will lend whatever money they have to impecunious friends in distress rather than use it for the paying of the just debts they owe their tailors. Gerano was rich. It does not by any means follow that Mrs. Carlyon married him for his money, though she could not have married him without it. She fell in love with him. He, on his part, having made a marriage of interest when he took his first wife, and having led by no means a very peaceful existence with the deceased Princess, considered that he had earned the right to please himself, and accordingly did so. Moreover, Mrs. Carlyon was a Catholic, which singularly facilitated matters in the eyes of Gerano's numerous relations. Jack Carlyon had been of the Church of England; and though anything but a practising believer, if he believed in anything at all, he had nevertheless absolutely insisted that his daughter should be brought up in his own creed. On this one point he had displayed all the tenacity he possessed, and the supply then seemed to be exhausted so far as other matters were concerned. His wife was a very conscientious woman, altogether superior to him in character, and she continued to respect his wishes, even after his death. Laura, she said, should choose for herself when she was old enough. In the meantime she should go to the English Church. The consequence was that the little girl had an English nurse and afterwards an English governess, while Adele was taken care of and taught by Catholics. Under these circumstances, and as the step-sisters were not related by blood or even by race, it is not strange that they should have grown up to be as different as possible, while living under the same roof and calling the same persons father and mother. The question of religion alone could certainly not have brought about the events here to be chronicled, and it may be as well to say at once that this history is not in the least concerned with matters of faith, creed, or dogma, which are better left to those good men whose business it is to understand them. The main and striking points of contrast were these. Adele was barely more than pretty. Laura was all but beautiful. Adele was a great heiress, and Laura had nothing or next to nothing to expect at her mother's death. Adele was quick-witted, lively, given to exaggeration in her talk, and not very scrupulous as to questions of fact. Laura was slow to decide, but tenacious of her decisions, and, on the whole, very truthful. In appearance, so far as generalities were concerned, the contrast between the two girls was less marked. Both were of the dark type, but Laura's complexion was paler than Adele's and her hair was blacker, as well as thicker and more glossy. Laura's eyes were large, very deep set, and dark. There was something strange in their look, something quite unusual, and which might almost be called holy, if that were not too strong a word to use in connexion with a woman of the world. Spicca, the melancholy duellist, who was still alive at that time, used to say that no one could possibly be as good as Laura Carlyon looked; a remark which showed that he was acquainted with the sayings of a great English wit, and was not above making use of them. Probably some part of the effect produced by Laura's eyes was due to the evenly perfect whiteness of her skin and the straight black brows which divided them from the broad low forehead. For her hair grew low, and she wore it in a simple fashion without that abundance of little curls which even then were considered almost essential to woman's beauty. Her pallor, too, was quite natural, for she had a good constitution and had rarely even had a headache. In figure she was well proportioned, of average height and rather strongly made, with large, firm, well-shaped hands. On the whole, a graceful girl, but not in that way remarkable among others of her own age. In her face, and altogether in her presence, the chief attraction lay in the look of her eyes, which made one forget to notice the well-chiselled nose,--a little short perhaps,--the really beautiful mouth, and the perfect teeth. The chin, too, was broad and firm--too firm, some might have said, for one so young. Considering all these facts together, most people agreed that Laura was not far from being a great beauty. Adele was somewhat shorter than her step-sister, and more inclined to be stout. Her black eyes were set nearer together, and her eyebrows almost met, while her lustreless hair curled naturally in a profusion of tiny ringlets upon her forehead. The small fine nose reminded one of a ferret, and the white teeth looked sharp and pointed when the somewhat thin lips parted and showed them; but she was undoubtedly pretty, and something more than pretty. Her face had colour and animation, she carried her small head well, and her gestures were graceful and easy. She was fluent, too, in conversation and ready at all times with a quick answer. Any one could see, in spite of her plump figure, that she was of a very nervous constitution, restless, unsettled, and easily moved, capable of considerable determination when really affected. She never understood Laura, nor did Laura really understand her. In the natural course of events, social and domestic, it became necessary to choose a husband for Adele so soon as she made her first appearance in society. At that time Laura was not yet seventeen. Gerano had already looked about him and had made up his mind. He was a little dark-eyed man, grey, thin and nervous, but gifted with an unusually agreeable manner, a pleasant tone of voice, a frank glance, and an extremely upright character--a man much liked in the world and a good deal respected. He had determined that if possible his daughter should marry Don Francesco Savelli, a worthy young person, his father's eldest son, heir to a good estate and a still better name, and altogether a most desirable husband from all points of view. Gerano met with no serious difficulty in bringing about what he wished, and in due time Don Francesco was affianced to Donna Adele, and was privileged to visit at the Palazzo Braccio almost as often as he pleased. He thus saw Laura Carlyon often, and he very naturally fell in love with her. He had no particular inclination to marry Donna Adele, but obeyed his father blindly, as a matter of course, just as Adele obeyed Gerano. That was a part of the old Roman system. Laura, however, did not fall in love with Francesco. She was perhaps too young yet, or it is quite possible that Francesco was too dull and uninteresting a personage in her eyes. But Adele saw these things, and was very angry when she was quite sure that her future husband would have greatly preferred to marry her step-sister. She may be pardoned for having been jealous, for the situation was hardly bearable. Francesco did not, indeed, make love to Laura. Even had he been rash enough for that, he was in reality too much a gentleman at heart to have done such a thing. He knew very well that he was to marry Adele, whether he cared for her or not, and he behaved with great propriety and with not a little philosophy. The virtue of resignation had been carefully developed in him from his childhood, and Francesco's parents now reaped their reward: he would not have thought of opposing them by word or deed. But he could not hide what he felt. Like many good young men, he was sensitive, and if he alternately blushed and turned pale when Laura spoke to him, it was not his fault. His father and mother could assuredly not expect him to control the circulation of his blood when it chose to rise above the line of his collar, or seemed to sink to the level of his boots. Adele was, however, at first very angry, and then very jealous, and at last hated her step-sister with all her heart, as young women can hate under circumstances of great provocation. Meanwhile, Laura remained calmly unconscious of all that was happening. Francesco Savelli's outward and worldly advantages did not appeal to her in the least. The fact that he was fair had no interest for her any more than the fact that the old Prince of Gerano was dark. She talked to the young man a little, when the conversation was general, just as she talked to every one else, when she had anything to say, because she was not naturally shy. But she never attempted to manufacture remarks when nothing came to her lips, because she was not yet called upon to do so. Nor was her silence by any means golden, so far as Savelli was concerned. When she was not speaking to him, she took no notice of him. His hair might be as yellow as mustard and his eyes as blue as periwinkles, as his admirers said; she did not care. If possible, Adele hated her even more for caring so little. In due time Francesco Savelli married Adele Braccio and took her to live under his father's roof. After the great event peace descended once more upon the household for a time, and Laura Carlyon saw much less of her adorer. Not, indeed, that there had been any open conflict between the step-sisters, nor even a declaration of war. Laura had attributed Adele's coldness to her excitement about the marriage, natural enough under the circumstances, and had not been hurt by it, while Adele had carefully kept her jealousy to herself; but when the two met afterwards, Laura felt that she was immeasurably far removed from anything like intimacy or real friendship with the bride, and she was surprised that Francesco should pay so much attention to herself. The young couple came to the Palazzo Braccio at regular intervals, and at all these family gatherings Savelli spent his time in making conversation for Laura. He was a very worthy young man, as has been said, and his talents were not of the highest order, but he did his best, and succeeded at least in making Laura think him passably agreeable. She was willing to hear him talk, and Adele noted the fact. When she drove home from her father's house with her husband, he was generally abstracted and gave random answers to her questions or observations. At the end of a year it was clear that he still loved Laura in a hopeless, helpless, sentimental fashion of his own, and Adele hated her more than ever. A second year and a third went by, and Laura had been some time in society; still the situation remained unchanged. The world said that the young Savelli were a very happy couple, but it always looked at Laura Carlyon with an odd expression, as though it knew something strange about her; something not quite right, which it was willing to tolerate for the sake of the amusement to be got by watching her. The world is the generic appellation of all those who go down to the sea of society in long gowns or white ties, and live and move and have their being therein. Other people do not count, even when they are quite bad, although they may have very big names and a great deal of money. The world, therefore, wagged its head and said that Laura Carlyon was in love with her brother-in-law, or, to be quite accurate, with her step-brother-in-law, because she was dark and his hair was so exceedingly yellow. The world also went on to say that Donna Adele behaved very kindly about it, and that it was so good of Francesco Savelli to talk to Laura just as if there were nothing wrong; for, it added, if he were to avoid her, there would certainly be gossip before long. No one who does not live in society need attempt to follow this sequence of ideas. As usual, too, nobody took the least trouble to find out the origin of the story, but everybody was quite sure of having heard it at first hand from the one person who knew. The Princess of Gerano took her daughter everywhere. She had conscientiously done her duty towards Adele, and was sincerely fond of her besides; but she loved Laura almost as much as the good mother in the story-book loves her only child when the latter has done something particularly disgraceful. She was at first annoyed and then made seriously anxious by the young girl's total failure in society, from the social point of view. Laura was beautiful, good, and accomplished. Ugly, spiteful, and stupid girls succeeded better than she, though some of them had no better prospect of a dowry. The good lady sought in vain the cause of the trouble, but failed to find it out. Had she been born in Rome, she would doubtless have had many kind friends to help her in the solution of the difficulty. But though she bore a Roman name, and had adopted Roman customs and had led a Roman life for nearly twenty years, she was tacitly looked upon as a foreigner, and her daughter was treated in the same way, though she, at least, spoke the language as her own. Moreover, the girl was not a Catholic, and that was an additional disadvantage where matrimony was concerned. It became evident to the Princess that she was not likely to find a husband for her daughter--certainly not such a husband as she had dreamed that Laura might love, and who was to love her and make her happy. It must not be supposed that Gerano himself would have been indifferent if he had known the real facts of the case. But he did not. Like many elderly Romans, he hardly ever went into society and took very little interest in its doings. He was very much concerned with the administration of his fortune, and for his own daughter's welfare in her new surroundings. He spent a good deal of time at his club, and was often in the country, even in the height of the season. He supposed that no one asked for Laura's hand because she was dowerless, and he was sincerely sorry for it; but it did not enter his mind to provide her with a suitable portion out of his abundance. He was too conscientious for that. What he had inherited from his father must go down intact to his child and to her children,--a son had already been born to the young Savelli,--and to divide the property, or to take from it anything like a fortune for Laura, would be little short of actual robbery in the eyes of a Braccio. Laura herself was perhaps less disturbed by the coldness she encountered than her mother was for her sake. She had a certain contempt for young girls of her age and younger, whose sole idea was to be married as soon as possible and with the greatest advantage to themselves. She was not very vain and did not expect great admiration on the one hand, nor any particular dislike on the other. Her character, too, was one that must develop slowly, if it were ever to attain its mature growth. She doubtless had moments of annoyance and even of depression; for few young girls, and certainly no women, are wholly unconscious of neglect in society. But although she was naturally inclined to melancholy, as her eyes clearly showed, she was not by nature morbid, and assuredly not more than usually imaginative. The result of all this was, that she bore herself with considerable dignity in the world, was generally believed to be older than she was, and was to be seen more often dancing or talking with the foreigners at parties than with the Romans. "Who is that, Ghisleri?" asked Lord Herbert Arden of his old friend, one evening early in the season, as he caught sight of Laura for the first time. "An English Roman girl," answered the Italian. "The daughter of the Princess of Gerano by her first marriage--Miss Carlyon." Lord Herbert had not been in Rome for three or four years, and was, moreover, by no means acquainted with all Roman society. "Will you introduce me?" he asked, looking up at Ghisleri. Ghisleri led him across the room, introduced him and left the two together, he being at that time very particularly engaged in another quarter. The contrast between the two men was very strong. Lord Herbert Arden was almost, if not quite, a cripple, the victim in his infancy of a serving-woman's carelessness. The nurse had let him fall, had concealed the accident as long as she could, and the boy had grown up misshapen and feeble. In despite of this, however, he was eminently a man at whom every one looked twice. No one who had seen him could ever forget the extreme nobility and delicacy of his pale face. Each feature completed and gave dignity to the next--the broad, highly modelled forehead, the prominent brow, the hollows at the temples, the clear, steady brown eyes, the aquiline nose and sensitive nostrils, the calm, straight mouth, and the firm, clearly cut chin--all were in harmony. And yet in all the crowd that thronged the great drawing-rooms there was hardly a man with whom the young Englishman would not have exchanged face and figure, if only he might stand at the height of other men, straight and square, and be free forever from the halting gait which made life in the world so hard for him. He was very human, and made no great pretence of resignation, nor indeed of any other virtue. Pietro Ghisleri was a very different personage except, perhaps, in point of humanity. He had seen and enjoyed much, if he had suffered much also, and his face bore the traces of past pleasure and of past pain, though he was not more than two-and-thirty years of age. It was a strong face, too, and not without signs of superior intelligence and resolution. The keen blue eyes had that trick of fixing themselves in conversation, which belongs to combative temperaments. At other times they were sad in expression, and often wore a weary look. Ghisleri's complexion might almost have been called weather-beaten; for frequent and long exposure to sun and weather had permanently changed its original colouring, which had been decidedly fair. To adopt the simple style of his passport, he might be described as six feet high, eyes blue, hair and moustache brown, nose large, mouth normal, chin prominent, face somewhat bony,--particular sign, a scar on the left temple. Like his old friend Lord Herbert, he was one of the dozen men who always attract attention in a crowded room. But of all those who looked at him, having known him long, very few understood his character in the least, and all would have been very much surprised if they could have guessed his thoughts, especially on that particular evening when he introduced Arden to Miss Carlyon. As for the rest, he was alone in the world, his own master, the last of a Tuscan family that had refused to bear a title when titles meant something and had not seen any reason for changing its mind in the course of three or four centuries. He had a small fortune, sufficient for his wants, and a castle somewhere, considerably the worse for war and wear. "I cannot dance, you see," said Arden, seating himself beside Laura, "and I am afraid that I am not very brilliant in conversation. Are you a very good-natured person?" Laura turned her sad eyes upon her new acquaintance, and immediately felt a thrill of sympathy for him, and of interest in his remarkable face. "No one ever told me," she answered. "Do you think you could find out? I should like to know." "What form of sin do you most affect?" asked Arden, with a smile. "Do you more often do the things you ought not to do, or do you leave undone the things which you ought to do?" "Oh, I leave the good things undone, of course!" answered Laura. "I suppose everybody does, as a rule." "You are decidedly good-natured, particularly so in making that last remark. I am less afraid of you than I was when I sat down." The young girl looked at him again. His conversation was so far not like that of the Englishmen she had known hitherto. "Were you afraid of me?" she asked, beginning to smile. "A little, I confess." "Why? And if you were, why did you make Signor Ghisleri introduce you to me?" "Because nobody likes to own to being afraid. Besides, Ghisleri is a very old friend of mine, and I can trust him not to lead me into danger." "Have you known him long?" asked Laura. "I have often wondered what he is really like. I mean his character, you know, and what he thinks about." "He thinks a great deal. He is one of the most complicated characters I ever knew, and I am not at all sure that I understand him yet, though we have known each other ten years. He is a good friend and a rather indifferent enemy, I should say. His chief apparent peculiarity is that he hates gossip. You will not find it easy to get from him a disagreeable remark about any one. Yet he is not good-natured." "Perhaps he is afraid to say what he thinks," suggested the young girl. "I doubt that," answered Arden, with a smile. "He has not a particularly angelic reputation, I believe, but I never heard any one say that he was timid." "As you pretend to be," added Laura. "Do you know? You have not answered my question. Why were you afraid of me, if you really were?" Lord Herbert answered one question by another, and the conversation continued pleasantly enough. It was a relief to him to find a young and beautiful girl of his own nationality in surroundings with which neither he nor she were really in sympathy. In the course of half an hour they both felt as though they had known one another a long time. The admiration Arden had felt for Laura at first sight had considerably increased, and she on her side had half forgotten that he was a cripple. Indeed, when he was seated, his deformities were far less noticeable than when he stood or painfully moved about from place to place. The two talked of a variety of subjects, but, with the exception of the few words spoken about Ghisleri, there was no more reference to personalities for a long time. "I am keeping you away from the dancing," Arden said at last, as he realised that the room was almost empty and that he had been absorbing the beautiful Miss Carlyon's attention longer than might be pleasant to her. "Not at all," answered Laura. "I do not dance much." "Why not? Do you not like dancing?" He asked the question in a tone of surprise. "On the contrary. But I am not taken out very often--perhaps because they think me a foreigner. It is natural enough." "Very unnatural, it seems to me. Besides, I believe you are exaggerating, so as not to make me feel uncomfortable. It is of no use, you know; I am not at all sensitive. Shall we go into the ball-room?" "No; I would rather not, just yet." "Shall I go and get Ghisleri to take you back?" inquired Arden, with a little smile. "Why?" "Because I might make you look ridiculous," answered the cripple, quietly. He watched her, and saw a quick, pained look pass over her face. It was at that particular moment that he began to love her, as he afterwards remembered. She turned her eyes upon him as she answered after a moment's hesitation. "Lord Herbert, will you please never say anything like that to me again?" "Certainly not, if it offends you." "It does not offend me. I do not mean that." "What, then? Please tell me. I am not at all sensitive." "It pains me. I do not like to fancy that any one can think such things of me, much less...." she stopped short and looked down, slowly opening and shutting her fan. "Much less?" Laura hesitated for some seconds, as though choosing her words with more than ordinary care. "Much less one whom it might pain to think them," she said at last. The smile that had been on Arden's face faded away in the silence that followed, and his lips moved a little as though he felt some kind of emotion, while his large thin hands closed tightly upon his withered knee. "Have I said too much?" she asked, suddenly breaking the long pause. "Or not quite enough, perhaps," he answered in a low voice. Again they were both silent, and they both wondered inwardly that in less than an hour's acquaintance they should have reached something like a crisis. At last Laura rose slowly and deliberately, intending to give her companion time to get to his feet. "Will you give me your arm?" she said when he stood beside her. "I want to introduce you to my mother." Arden bent his head and held up his right arm for her hand. He was considerably shorter than she. Then they walked away together, she erect and easy in her girlish gait, he weak-kneed and awkward, seeming to unjoint half his body at every painful step, helping himself along at her side with the stick he held in his free hand--a strangely assorted couple, the world said, as they went by. "My mother's name is Gerano, Princess of Gerano," said Laura, by way of explanation, as they came within sight of her. "And is your father--I mean, is Prince Gerano--living?" asked Arden. He had almost forgotten her name and her nationality in the interest he felt in herself. "Yes; but he rarely goes into society. I am very fond of him," she added, scarcely knowing why. "Mother," she said, as they came up to the Princess, "Lord Herbert Arden." The Princess smiled and held out her hand. At that moment Pietro Ghisleri came up. He had not been seen since he had left Laura and Arden together. By a coincidence, doubtless, the Contessa dell' Armi had disappeared at about the same time: she had probably gone home, as she was not seen again in the ball-room that evening. But the world in its omniscience knew that there was a certain boudoir beyond the supper-room, where couples who did not care to dance were left in comparative peace for a long time. The world could have told with precision the position of the small sofa on which Ghisleri and the lovely Contessa invariably spent an hour when they met in that particular house. "Will you give me a turn, Miss Carlyon?" asked Ghisleri, as Arden began to talk with the Princess. "Yes." Laura was really fond of a certain amount of dancing when a good partner presented himself. "What do you think of my friend?" inquired Pietro, as they moved away together. "I like him very much. He interests me." "Then you ought to be grateful to me for bringing him to you." "Do you expect gratitude in a ball-room?" Laura laughed a little, more in pleasant anticipation of the waltz than at what she said. "A little more than in the average asylum for the aged and infirm, which most people call home," returned Ghisleri, carelessly. "You have no home. How can you talk about it in that way?" "For the sake of talking; shall we dance instead?" A moment later they were in the thick of the crowd. "There are too many people; please take me back," said Laura, after one turn. "Will you come and talk in the conservatory?" asked Ghisleri as they reached the door. "No; I would rather not." "You were talking a long time with Arden. I saw you come out of the drawing-room together. Why will you not sit five minutes with me?" "Lord Herbert is different," said Laura, quietly. "He is an Englishman, and I am English." "Oh! is that the reason?" He led her back and left her with her mother. Arden was still there. CHAPTER II. In spite of his own declarations to the contrary, Lord Herbert Arden was a very sensitive man. When he said he was not, he was perhaps trying to deceive himself, but the attempt was at best only partially successful. Few men in his circumstances can escape the daily sting that lies in comparing their unfortunate outward personality with the average symmetry of the human race. Women seem to feel deformity less than men, or perhaps one only thinks so because they bear it more bravely; it is hard to say. If Darwin is right, men are far more vain of their appearance than women; and there are many who believe that a woman's passive courage is greater than a man's. Be that as it may, the particular sufferer who made Laura Carlyon's acquaintance at the ball was in reality as sensitive a man in almost all respects as could be met with anywhere in ordinary life. When he discovered that he was seriously in love with Laura Carlyon, his existence changed suddenly, and for the worse, so far as his comfort was concerned. He reviewed the situation as calmly as he could, when a fortnight or more had passed and he had seen her a dozen times at her step-father's house and in the world. One main fact was now quite clear to him. She was not what is called popular in society; she had not even any intimate friends. As for his own chances, he did not like to think of them. Though only the younger brother of a peer of high rank, he was entitled to expect a large fortune from an uncle on his mother's side, who had never made any secret of his intentions in regard to his property, and who, being over eighty years of age, could not be expected to live much longer in the ordinary course of nature. At present his modest portion was quite sufficient for himself, but he doubted whether it would suffice for his needs if he married. That, however, was of minor importance. The great fortune was safe and he was an exceedingly good match from a financial point of view. Miss Carlyon was poor, as he knew from Ghisleri, and Ghisleri had very probably told her that Arden was rich, or would be before long. He refused to believe that Laura, of her own free will, might marry him for his money; but it was intolerable to think that her mother and step-father might try to force her into the match from considerations of interest. He was not just to the Princess of Gerano, but he knew her very slightly as yet and had no means of forming a positive opinion. In the meantime he had been introduced to Donna Adele Savelli, who had received him with the greatest warmth, protesting her love for the English people and everything English, and especially for her step-mother and step-sister. He had also renewed his acquaintance with young Savelli, whom he had known slightly during a former visit to Rome, and who now, he thought, met him rather coldly. He attributed Adele's gushing manner to a desire to bring about a marriage, and he did not attempt to account for Don Francesco's stiffness; but he liked neither the one manifestation nor the other, for both wounded him in different degrees. Above all other difficulties, the one which was most natural to his delicately organised nature was of a purely disinterested kind. He feared lest Laura, who evidently felt both pity and sympathy for him, should take the two together for genuine love and sacrifice herself in a life which would by and by become unbearable to her. He could not but see that at every meeting she grew more interested in his conversation, until when he was present, she scarcely paid any attention to any one else. Such a friendship, if it could have been a real friendship, might have made Arden happy so long as it lasted; but on his side, at least, nothing of the kind was possible. He knew that he was hopelessly in love, and to pretend the contrary to himself was real pain. He guessed with wonderful keenness the direction Laura's heart was taking, and he was appalled by the vision of the misery which must spread over her young life if, after she had married him, she should be roused to the great truth that pity and love are not the same, though they be so near akin as to be sometimes mistaken one for the other. His weak health suffered and he grew more and more restless. It would have been a satisfaction to speak out a hundredth part of what he felt to Ghisleri. But he was little given to making confidences, and Ghisleri was, or seemed to be, the last man to invite them. They met constantly, however, and talked upon all sorts of topics. One day Ghisleri came to breakfast with Arden in his rooms at the hotel, looking more weather-beaten than usual, for he was losing the tan from his last expedition in the south, and there were deep black shadows under his eyes. Moreover, he was in an abominably bad humour with everything and with everybody except his friend. Arden knew that he never gambled, and he also knew the man well enough to guess at the true cause of the disturbance. There was something serious the matter. They sat down to breakfast and began to talk of politics and the weather, as old friends do when they are aware that there is something wrong. Ghisleri spoke English perfectly, with an almost imperceptible accent, as many Italians do nowadays. "Come along with me, Arden," he said at last, as though losing patience with everything all at once. "Let us go to Paris or Timbuctoo. This place is not fit to live in." "What is the matter with it?" asked Arden, in a tone of amusement. "The matter with it? It is dull, to begin with. Secondly, it is a perfect witches' caldron of scandal. Thirdly, we are all as bad as we can be. There are three points at least." "My dear fellow, I do not see them in the same light. Take some more hock." "Oh, you--you are amusing yourself! Thank you--I will--half a glass. Of course you like Rome--you always did--you foreigners always will. You amuse yourselves--that is it." "I see you dancing every night as though you liked it," observed Arden. "No doubt!" Ghisleri suddenly grew thoughtful and a distant look came into his eyes, while the shadows seemed to deepen under them, till they were almost black. He had eaten hardly anything, and now, regardless of the fact that the meal was not half over, he lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair as though he had finished. "You are not looking well, Arden," he said at last. "You must take care of yourself. Take my advice. We will go somewhere together for a couple of months." "There is nothing I should like better, but not just at present. I will stay in Rome until the weather is a little warmer." Arden was not in the least conscious that his expression changed as he thought of the reason which kept him in the city and which might keep him long. But Ghisleri, who had been watching for that particular hesitation of manner and for that almost imperceptible darkening of the eyes, knew exactly what both meant. "Oh, very well," he answered indifferently. "We can go later. People always invent absurd stories if one goes away in the middle of the season without any apparent object." The remark was a little less than general, and Arden was at once confirmed in his suspicion that something unpleasant had happened in Ghisleri's life, most probably in connection with the Contessa dell' Armi. His friend was in such a savage humour that he might almost become communicative. Arden was a very keen-sighted man, and not without tact, and he thought the opportunity a good one for approaching a subject which had long been in his mind. But he had been in earnest when he had told Laura that he knew Ghisleri's character to be what he called complicated, and he was aware that Pietro's intelligence was even more penetrating than his own. He was therefore very cautious. "You say that Rome is such a great place for gossip," he began, in answer to Ghisleri's last observation. "I suppose you know it by experience, but I cannot say that we strangers hear much of it." "Perhaps not," admitted Ghisleri, rather absently. "No, we do not hear much scandal. For instance, I go rather often to the Gerano's. I do not remember to have heard there a single spiteful story, except, perhaps,"--Arden stopped cautiously. "Precisely," said Pietro, "the exceptions are rare in that house. But then, the Prince is generally away, and both the Princess and her daughter are English, and especially nice people." Arden helped himself to something that chanced to be near him, and glanced at his companion's rather impenetrable face. He knew that at the present moment the latter was perfectly sincere in what he said, but he knew also that Ghisleri spoke of most people in very much the same tone. It was something which Arden could never quite understand. "Do you think," he began presently, "that the fact of their being English has anything to do with Miss Carlyon's unpopularity here?" "My dear fellow, how should I know?" asked Ghisleri, with something almost like a laugh. "You do know, of course. I wish you would tell me. As an Englishman, the mother interests me." "From the point of view of our international relations, I see, collecting information for an article in the Nineteenth Century, or else your brother is going to speak on the subject in the Lords. What do you think about the matter yourself? If I can put you right, I will." "What an extraordinary man you are!" exclaimed Arden. "You always insist upon answering one question by another." "It gives one time to think," retorted Ghisleri. "These cigarettes are distinctly bad; give me one of yours, please. I never can understand why the government monopoly here should exist, and if it does why they should not give us Russian--" "My dear Ghisleri," said Arden, interrupting him, "we were talking about the Princess Gerano." "Were we? Oh, yes, and Miss Carlyon, too, I remember. Do you like them?" "Very much; and I think every one should. That is the reason why I am surprised that Miss Carlyon should not receive much more attention than she does. I fancy it is because she is English. Do you think I am right?" "No," said Ghisleri, slowly, at last answering the direct question, "I do not think you are." "Then what in the world is the reason? The fact is clear enough. She knows it herself." "Probably some absurd bit of gossip. Who cares? I am sorry for her, though." "How can there be any scandal about a young girl of her age?" asked Arden, incredulously. "In this place you can start a story about a baby a year old," answered Ghisleri. "It will be remembered, repeated, and properly adorned, and will ultimately ruin the innocent woman when she is grown up. Nobody seems to care for chronology here--anachronism is so much more convenient." "Why are you so absurdly reticent with me, Ghisleri?" asked Arden, with some impatience. "You talk as though we had not known each other ten years." "On the contrary," answered Pietro, "if we were acquaintances of yesterday, I would not talk at all. That is just the difference. As it is, and because we are rather good friends, I tell you what I believe to be the truth. I believe--well, I will allow that I know, that there is a story about Miss Carlyon, which is commonly credited, and which is a down-right lie. I will not tell you what it is. It does not, strictly speaking, affect her reputation, but it has made her unpopular--since you have used that word. Ask any of the gossips, if you care enough--I am not going to repeat such nonsense. It never does any good to repeat other peoples' lies." Arden was silent, and his long white fingers played uneasily upon the edge of the table. It had been a hard matter to extract the information, but such as it was he knew that it was absolutely reliable. When Ghisleri spoke at all about such things, he spoke the truth, and when he said that he would positively say no more, his decision was always final. Arden had discovered that in the early days of their acquaintance. Perhaps Pietro went to absurd lengths in this direction, and there were people who called it affectation and made him out to be an even worse man than he was, but his friend knew that it was genuine in its way. He was all the more disturbed by what he had heard, and it was a long time before he spoke again. Ghisleri smoked in silence and drank three cups of coffee while Arden was drinking one. He looked at that time like a man who was living upon his nerves, so to say, instead of upon proper nourishment. An hour later the two men went out together, Arden taking Pietro with him in his carriage. The air was bright and keen and the afternoon sunlight was already turning yellow with the gold of the coming evening. The carriage was momentarily blocked at the corner of the Pincio near the entrance, by one that was turning out of the enclosure opposite the band stand. It chanced to be the Princess of Gerano's landau, and she and her daughter were seated in it, closely wrapped in their furs. It was Arden's victoria that had to pull up to let the Princess drive across, and by a coincidence the Savelli couple were in the one which hers would have to follow in the descending line after crossing the road. Francesco Savelli bowed, smiled, and waved his hat, evidently to Laura rather than to her mother. With a rather forced smile Adele slowly bent her head. Arden bowed at the same moment, and looked from one carriage to the other. Ghisleri followed his example, and there was the very faintest expression of amusement on his face, which Arden of course could not see. A number of men on foot lined the side of the road close to the carriage. "People always come back to their first loves!" said a low voice at Arden's elbow. He turned quickly and saw several men watching the Savelli across his victoria. He knew none of them, and it was impossible to guess which had spoken. Ghisleri, being on the right side, as Arden's guest, could not have heard the words. Having just noticed the rather striking contrast between Francesco Savelli's demonstrative greeting and his wife's almost indifferent nod, it naturally struck the Englishman that the remark he had overheard might refer to the person he was himself watching at that moment. Donna Adele Savelli's expression might very well be taken for one of jealousy, but her husband's behaviour was assuredly too marked for anything more than friendship. Arden coupled the words with the facts and concluded that he had discovered the story of which Ghisleri had spoken. Francesco Savelli was said to be in love with Laura Carlyon. That was evidently the gossip; but he had seen Laura's face, too, and it was quite plain that she was wholly indifferent. On the whole, though the tale reflected little credit on Savelli, it was not at all clear why it should make Laura unpopular, unless people said that she encouraged the man, which they probably did, thought Lord Herbert Arden, who was a man of the world. The more he considered the matter the more convinced he became that he was right, and the conviction was on the whole a relief. He had been uneasy for some time, and Ghisleri's guarded words had not satisfied him; chance, however, had done what Ghisleri would not do, and the mystery was solved. The Princess of Gerano was at home that evening, and Arden of course went to the palace early, and was the last to leave. Three times between half-past ten and half-past two o'clock Laura and he installed themselves side by side at some distance from the drawing-room, and each time their conversation lasted over half an hour. It was not a set ball, but one of the regular weekly informal dances of which there are so many in Rome during the season. The first interruption of Arden's talk appeared in the shape of Don Francesco Savelli, who asked Laura for a turn. Oddly enough she glanced at Lord Herbert's face before accepting, and the action sent a strange thrill to his heart. He struggled to his feet as she rose to go away with Savelli, and then sank back again and remained some time where he was, absently watching the people who passed. His face was very pale and weary now that the excitement of conversation had subsided, and he felt that if he was not positively ill, he was losing the little strength he had with every day that passed. Late hours, heated rooms, and strong emotions were not the best tonics for his feeble physical organisation, and he knew it. At last he made an effort, got up, and moved about in the crowd, exchanging a few words now and then with a passing acquaintance, but too preoccupied and perhaps too tired to talk long with indifferent people. He nodded as Ghisleri passed him with the Contessa dell' Armi on his arm, and he thought there was a bad light in his friend's eyes, though Pietro was looking better than in the afternoon. The two had evidently been dancing together, for the Contessa's white neck heaved a little, as though she were still out of breath. She was a short, slight woman of exquisite figure, very fair, with deep violet eyes and small classic features, almost hard in their regularity; evidently wilful and dominant in character. Arden watched the pair as they went on in search of a vacant sofa just big enough for two. They had scarcely sat down and he could see that Ghisleri was beginning to talk, when Anastase Gouache appeared and stood still before them. To Arden's surprise the Contessa welcomed him with a bright smile and pointed to a chair at her side of the sofa. Anastase Gouache was a celebrated painter who had married a Roman lady of high birth, and was a very agreeable man, but Arden had not expected that he would be invited so readily to interrupt so promising a conversation. Ghisleri's face expressed nothing. He appeared to join in the talk for a few minutes and then rose and left the Contessa with Gouache. She looked after him, and Arden thought she grew a shade paler and frowned. A faint smile appeared on the Englishman's face and was gone again in an instant as Ghisleri came near him, returning again to the ball-room. Ghisleri had glanced at him as he passed and had seen that he was not talking to a lady. "May I have the next dance, Miss Carlyon?" asked Pietro, when he found Laura in a corner with Francesco Savelli. "Thanks," he said, as she nodded graciously, and he passed on. "Will you give me the dance after the next?" he inquired a few minutes later, coming up with Donna Adele, who was moving away on young Frangipani's arm. "Certainly, caro Ghisleri," she answered, with alacrity, "as many as you please." "You are very good," he said, with a slight bow, and withdrew to a window near Laura to wait until the waltz began. He could see Arden through the open door from the place where he stood. When the dance was over he led Laura out and took one turn through the rooms, making a few commonplace remarks on the way. Coming back, he stopped as though by accident close to Lord Herbert. "I am afraid you will think me very rude if I ask you to let me leave you," he said. "I am engaged for the next dance--it is a quadrille--and I must find a vis-à-vis." Arden of course heard and presented himself immediately in Ghisleri's place. Laura was quite ready to go back with him to the sofa in the corner, and they resumed their conversation almost at the point at which it had been interrupted by Francesco Savelli. Neither of them ever knew that Ghisleri had brought them together again by a little social skill, just beyond what most people possess. Arden looked after him, half believing that he had only given Laura an excuse for leaving her in order to return to the Contessa dell' Armi, who was now surrounded by half a dozen men, beginning with old Spicca, who, as has been said, was still alive in those days, and ending with the little Vicomte de Bompierre, a young French attaché with a pleasant voice, a bright smile, and an incipient black moustache. But to Arden's surprise Ghisleri took quite a different direction, and began to speak to one man after another, evidently trying to secure a vis-à-vis for the square dance. "You must not let me bore you, or rather you must not bore yourself with me," said Arden to Laura, after a short pause in the conversation. "You are altogether much too good to me." "You never bore me," answered the young girl. "You are one of the few people who do not." Arden smiled a little sadly. "I am glad to be one of the 'few people,'" he said, "even if I am the last." "You are too modest." She tried to laugh, but the effort was not very successful. "No, I am not. I have much more vanity than you would suppose, or think possible, considering how little I have to be vain of." "Opinions may differ about that," answered Laura, looking into his eyes. "You have much that many men might envy, and probably do." "What, for instance?" Laura hesitated, and then smiled, without effort this time. "You are very good looking," she said after a moment. "No one has ever told me that before," he answered. A very slight flush rose in his pale face. "It is not of much importance, either. Would you like me to enumerate your good qualities?" "Of all things!" "You are honest and kind, and you are very clever, I think, though I am not clever enough to be sure. You have no right to be unhappy, and you would not be if you were not so sensitive about--about not being so strong and big as some men are. What difference does it make?" "You will almost tempt me to think that it makes none, if you talk in that way," said Arden. "Do you mean to say that you would really and truly change places with any one? With Signor Ghisleri, for instance?" "Indeed I would, with him, and very gladly. I would rather be Ghisleri than any man I know." "I cannot understand that," answered Laura, thoughtfully. "If I were a man, I would much rather be like you. Besides, they say Signor Ghisleri has been dreadfully wild, and is anything but angelic now. You used that very word about him the first evening we met; do you remember?" "Of course I do; but what has that to do with it? Must I necessarily choose a saint for my friend, and pick out one to exchange places with me if it were possible? A woman saint may be lovable, too lovable perhaps, but a man saint about town is like a fish out of water. But you are right about Ghisleri, up to a certain point, only you do not understand him. He is an exceedingly righteous sinner, but a sinner he is." "What do you mean by a righteous sinner?" asked Laura, gravely. "Do not bring me down to definitions. I have not at all a logical mind. I mean Ghisleri--that is all I can say. I would much rather talk about you." "No, I object to that. Tell me, since you wish so much to be Signor Ghisleri, what do you think you would feel if you were?" "What he feels--everything that a man can feel!" answered Arden, with a sudden change of tone. "To be straight and strong and a match for other men. Half the happiness of life lies there." His voice shook a little, and Laura felt that the tears were almost in her eyes as she looked earnestly into his. "You see what I am," he continued, more and more bitterly, "I am a cripple. There is no denying it--why should I even try to hide it a little? Nature, or Heaven, or what you please to call it, has been good enough to make concealment impossible. If I am not quite a hunchback, I am very near it, and I can hardly walk even with a stick. And look at yourself, straight and graceful and beautiful--well, you pity me, at least. Why should I make a fool of myself? It is the first time I ever spoke like this to any one." "You are quite wrong," answered Laura, in a tone of conviction. "I do not pity you--indeed I do not think you are the least to be pitied. I see it quite differently. It hardly ever strikes me that you are not just the same as other people, and when it does--I do not know--I mean to say that when it does, it makes no painful impression upon me. You see I am quite frank." While she was speaking the colour rose in two bright spots on Arden's pale cheeks, and his bright eyes softened with a look of wonderful happiness. "Are you quite in earnest, Miss Carlyon?" he asked, in a low voice. "Quite, quite in earnest. Please believe me when I say that it would hurt me dreadfully if I thought you doubted it." "Hurt you? Why?" She turned her deep, sad eyes to him, and looked at him without speaking. He was on the point of telling her that he loved her--then he saw how beautiful she was, and he felt his withered knee under his hand, and he was ashamed to speak. It was a cruel moment, and his nerves were already overstrained by perpetual emotion, as well as tired from late hours and lack of sleep. He hesitated a moment. Then bent his head and covered his eyes with his hand. Laura said nothing for several moments, but seeing that he did not move, she touched his sleeve. "Dear Lord Herbert, do not be so unhappy," she said softly. "You really have no right to be, you know." "No right?" He looked up suddenly. "If you knew, you would not say that." "I should always say it. As long as you have friends--friends who love you, and would do anything for you, why should you make yourself so miserable?" "I want more than a friend--even than friendship." "What?" "I want love." Again she gazed into his eyes and paused. Her face was very white--whiter than his. Then she spoke. "Are you so sure you have not got that love?" she asked. Her own voice trembled now. Arden started and a look of something almost like fear came into his face. He could hardly speak. "Love?" he repeated, and he felt he could say nothing more. "Yes, I mean it." So she chose her fate. She thought there was a touch of the divine in poor Arden's expression as he heard the words. Then his face grew pale, the light faded from his eyes, and his head sank on his breast. Laura did not at first realise what had happened. She felt so strongly herself, that nothing in his manner would have surprised her. She heard nothing of the hum of the voices in the room, or if she did, she heard the harmony of a happy hymn, and the great branches of candles were the tapers upon an altar in some sacred place. Still Arden did not move. Laura bent down and looked at his face. "Lord Herbert!" She called him softly. "Herbert, what is the matter?" No answer came. She looked round wildly for help. At that moment the dance was just over and Ghisleri passed near her with Donna Adele on his arm. Laura rose and overtook him swiftly, touching his arm in her excitement. "Lord Herbert has fainted--for heaven's sake, help him!" she cried, in a low voice. Pietro Ghisleri glanced at the sofa. "Excuse me," he said hastily to Donna Adele, and left her standing in the middle of the room. He bent down and felt Arden's forehead and hands. "Yes, he has fainted," he said to Laura. "Show me the way to a quiet place." Thereupon he took his unconscious friend in his arms and followed Laura quickly through the surging crowd that already filled the room, escaping in haste from the heat as soon as the dance was over in the ball-room beyond. For a few seconds one of those total silences fell upon the party which always follow an accident. Then, as Ghisleri disappeared with his burden, every one began to talk at once, speculating upon the nature of Lord Herbert Arden's indisposition. Heart disease--epilepsy--nervous prostration--most things were suggested. "Probably too much champagne," laughed Donna Adele in the ear of the lady nearest to her. CHAPTER III. It is perhaps useless to attempt to trace and recapitulate the causes which had led Laura Carlyon to the state of mind in which she had found courage to tell Arden that she loved him. There might be harder moments in store for her, but this had been the hardest she had known hitherto. Nothing short of a real and great love, she believed, could have carried her through it, and she had been conscious for some days that if the opportunity came she meant to do what she had done. In other words, she had been quite sure that Arden loved her and that she loved him. This being granted, it was in accordance with her character to take the initiative. With far less sympathy than she felt in all her thoughts, she would have understood that a man of his instincts would never speak of his love to her unless almost directly bidden to do so. Laura was slow to make up her mind, sure of her decision when reached, and determined to act upon it without consulting any one. Many people said later that she had sacrificed herself for Lord Herbert's expected fortune, or for his position. A few said that she was a very good woman and that, finding herself neglected, she had decided to devote her life to the happiness of a very unhappy man for whom she felt a sincere friendship. That was at least the more charitable view. But neither was at all the right one. She honestly and really believed that she loved the man: she saw beyond a doubt that he loved her, and she took the shortest and most direct way of ending all doubts on the subject. On that same night when Arden had quite recovered and had gone home with Ghisleri, she spoke to her mother and told her exactly what had happened. The Princess of Gerano opened her quiet brown eyes very wide when she heard the news. She was handsome still at five and forty, a little stout, perhaps, but well proportioned. Her light brown hair was turning grey at the temples, but there were few lines in her smooth, calm face, and her complexion was still almost youthful, though with little colouring. She looked what she was, a woman of the world, very far from worldly, not conscious of half the evil that went on around her, and much given to inward contemplation of a religious kind when not actively engaged in social duty. She had seen Laura's growing appreciation of Arden and had noticed the frequency of the latter's visits to the house. But she had herself learned to like him very much during the last month, and it never suggested itself to her that he could wish to marry Laura nor that Laura could care for him, considering that he was undeniably a cripple. It was no wonder that she was surprised. "Dear child," she said, "I do not know what to say. Of course I have found out what a really good man he is, though he is so fond of that wild Ghisleri--they are always together. I have a great admiration for Lord Herbert. As far as position goes, there is nothing better, and I suppose he is rich enough to support you, though I do not know. You see, darling, you have nothing but the little I can give you. But never mind that--there is only that one other thing--I wish he were not--" She checked herself, far too delicate to hurt her daughter by too direct a reference to Arden's physical shortcomings. But Laura, strange to say, was not sensitive on that point. "I know, mother," she said, "he is deformed. It is of no use denying it, as he says himself. But if I do not mind that--if I do not think of it at all when I am with him, why should any one else care? After all, if I marry him, it is to please myself, and not the people who will ask us to dinner." The young girl laughed happily as she thought of the new life before her, and of how she would make everything easy for poor Arden, and make him quite forget that he could hardly walk. Her mother looked at her with quiet wonder. "Think well before you act, dear," she said. "Marriage is a very serious thing. There is no drawing back afterwards, and if you were to be at all unkind after you are married--" "O mother, how can you think that of me?" "No--at least, you would never mean it. You are too good for that. But it would break the poor man's heart. He is very sensitive, it is not every man who faints when he finds out that a young girl loves him--fortunately, not every man," she added with a smile. "If every one loved as we do, the world would be much happier," said Laura, kissing her mother. "Do not be afraid, I will not break his heart." "God grant you may not break your own, dear!" The Princess spoke in a lower voice, and turned away her face to hide the tears that stood in her eyes. "Mine, mother!" Laura bent over her as she sat in her dressing-chair. "What is it?" she asked anxiously, as she saw that her mother's cheek was wet. "You are very dear to me, child," murmured the Princess, drawing the young head down to her breast, and kissing the thick black hair. So the matter was settled, and Laura had her way. It is not easy to say how most mothers would have behaved under the circumstances. There are worldly ones enough who would have received the news far more gladly than the Princess of Gerano did; and there are doubtless many who would refuse a cripple for a son-in-law on any condition whatever. Laura's mother did what she thought right, which is more than most of us can say of our actions. The Prince was almost as much surprised as his wife when he learned the news, but he was convinced that he had nothing to say in the matter. Laura was quite free to do as she pleased, and, moreover, it was a good thing that she should marry a man of her own faith, and ultimately live among her own people, since nothing could make either a Catholic or a Roman of her. But he was not altogether pleased with her choice. He had an Italian's exaggerated horror of deformity, and though he liked Lord Herbert, he could never quite overcome his repulsion for his outward defects. There was nothing to be done, however, and on the whole the marriage had much in its favour in his eyes. The engagement was accordingly announced with due formality, and the wedding day was fixed for the Saturday after Easter, which fell early in that year. Not until the day before the Princess told the news to every one did Arden communicate it to Ghisleri. He had perfect confidence in his friend's discretion, but having said that he would not speak of the engagement to any one until the Princess wished it, he kept his word to the letter. He asked Pietro to drive with him, far out upon the campagna. When they had passed the last houses and were in the open country he spoke. "I am going to marry Miss Carlyon," he said simply, but he glanced at Ghisleri's face to see the look of surprise he expected. "Since you announce it, my dear friend, I congratulate you with all my heart," answered Pietro. "Of course I knew it some time ago." "You knew it?" Arden was very much astonished. "It was not very hard to guess. You loved each other, you went constantly to the house and you spent your evenings with her in other people's houses, there was no reason why you should not marry--accordingly, I took it for granted that you would be married. You see that I was right. I am delighted. Ask me to the wedding." Arden laughed. "I thought you would never enter one of our churches!" he exclaimed. "I did not know that I had such a reputation for devout obedience to general rules," answered Ghisleri. "As for your reputation, my dear fellow, it is not that of a saint. But I once saw you saying your prayers." "I dare say," replied Pietro, indifferently. "I sometimes do, but not generally in the Corso, nor on the Pincio. How long ago was that? Do you happen to remember?" "Six or seven years, I fancy--oh, yes! It was in that little church in Dieppe, just before you went off on that long cruise--you remember it, too, I fancy." "I suppose I thought I was going to be drowned, and was seized with a passing ague of premature repentance," said Ghisleri, lighting a cigarette. "What a queer fellow you are!" observed Arden, striking a light in his turn. "I was talking with Miss Carlyon about you some time ago, and I told her you were a sinner, but a righteous one." "A shade worse than others, perhaps, because I know a little better what I am doing," answered Ghisleri, with a sneer, evidently intended for himself. He was looking at the tomb of Cecilia Metella, as it rose in sight above the horses' heads at the turn of the road, and he thought of what had happened to him there years ago, and of the consequences. Arden knew nothing of the associations the ruin had for his friend, and laughed again. He was in a very happy humour on that day, as he was for many days afterwards. "I can never quite make you out," he said. "Are you good, bad, or a humbug? You cannot be both good and bad at once, you know." "No. But one may be often bad, and sometimes do decently good deeds," observed Ghisleri, with a dry laugh. "Let us talk of your marriage instead of speculating on my salvation, or more probable perdition, if there really is such a thing. When is the wedding day?" Arden was full of plans for the future, and they drove far out, talking of all that was before the young couple. On the following day the news was announced to the city and the world. The world held up its hands in wonder, and its tongue wagged for a whole week and a few days more. Laura Carlyon was to marry a penniless cripple of the most dissipated habits. How shocking! Of course every one knew that Lord Herbert had not fainted at all on that night at the Palazzo Braccio, but had succumbed, in the natural course of events, to the effects of the champagne he had taken at dinner. That was now quite certain. And the whole world was well aware that his father had cut him off with a pittance on account of his evil ways, and that his brother had twice paid his gambling debts to save the family name from disgrace. Englishmen as a race, and English cripples in particular, were given to drink and high play. The man had actually been the worse for wine when talking to Laura Carlyon in her mother's house, and Ghisleri had been obliged to carry him out for decency's sake before anything worse happened. Scandalous! It was a wonder that Ghisleri, who, after all, was a gentleman, could associate with such a fellow. After all, nobody ever liked Laura Carlyon since she had first appeared in society, soon after dear Donna Adele's marriage. It was as well that she should go to England and live with her tipsy cripple. She was good-looking, as some people admitted. She might win the heart of her brother-in-law and induce him to pay her husband's debts a third time. They were said to be enormous. The men were, on the whole, more charitable. Conscious of their own shortcomings, they did not blame Lord Herbert very severely for taking a little too much "extra dry." They did, however, abuse him somewhat roundly at the club, for having gone to the Gerano party at all when he should have known that he was not steady. Of the facts themselves they had not the slightest doubt. Unfortunately for one of them who happened to be declaiming on the subject, but who was really by no means a bad fellow, he did not notice that Ghisleri had entered the room before he had finished his speech. When he had quite done, Ghisleri came forward. "Arden is my old friend," he said quietly. "He never drinks. He has a disease of the heart and he fainted from the heat. The doctor and I took him home together. I hope that none of you will take up this disgusting story, which was started by the women. And I hope Pietrasanta, there, will do me the honour to believe what I say, and to tell you that he was mistaken." Ghisleri was not a pleasant person to quarrel with, and moreover had the reputation of being truthful. His story, too, was quite as probable as the other, to say the least of it. Don Gianbattista Pietrasanta glanced quickly from one to the other of the men who were seated around him as though to ask their advice in the matter. Several of them nodded almost imperceptibly, as though counselling him to do as Ghisleri requested. There was nothing at all aggressive in the latter's manner, either, as he quietly lit a cigarette while waiting for the other's answer. Suddenly a deep voice was heard from another corner of the room. The Marchese di San Giacinto, giant in body and fortune, had been reading the paper with the utmost indifference during all the previous conversation. All at once he spoke, deliberately and to the point. "It is no business of mine," he said, "as I do not know Lord Herbert Arden except by sight. But I was at the dance the other night, and half an hour before the occurrence you are discussing, Lord Herbert was standing beside me, talking of the Egyptian difficulty with the French ambassador. I have often seen men drunk. Lord Herbert Arden was, in my opinion, perfectly sober." Having delivered himself of this statement, San Giacinto put his very black cigar between his teeth again and took up the evening paper he had been reading. In the face of such men as Ghisleri and the Marchese, it would have been the merest folly to continue any opposition. Moreover, Pietrasanta was neither stupid nor bad, and he was not a coward. "I do not know Lord Herbert Arden myself," he said without affectation. "What I said I got on hearsay, and the whole story is evidently a fabrication which we ought to deny. For the rest, Ghisleri, if you are not quite satisfied--" He stopped and looked at Pietro. "My dear fellow," said the latter, "what more could I have to say about the affair? You all seemed to be in the dark, and I wanted to clear the matter up for the sake of my old friend. That is all. I am very much obliged to you." After this incident there was less talk at the clubs, and in a few days the subject dropped. But the world said, as usual, that all the men were afraid of Ghisleri, who was a duellist, and of San Giacinto, who was a giant, and who had taken the trouble to learn to fence when he first came to Rome, and that they had basely eaten their words. Men were such cowards, said the world. Lord Herbert and Laura lived in blissful ignorance of what was said about them. The preparations for the wedding were already begun, and Laura's modest trousseau was almost all ordered. She and Arden had discussed their future, and having realised that they must live in a very economical fashion for the present and so long as it pleased Heaven to preserve Arden's maternal uncle among the living, they decided that the wedding should be as quiet and unostentatious as possible. The old Prince, however, though far too conscientious to have settled a penny of his inherited fortune upon Laura, even if she had chosen to marry a pauper, was not ungenerous in other ways, and considered himself at liberty to offer the pair some very magnificent silver, which he was able to pay for out of his private economies. As for Donna Adele, she presented them with a couple of handsome wine-coolers--doubtless in delicate allusion to the fictitious story about the champagne Lord Herbert was supposed to have taken. The implied insult, if there was any, was not at all noticed by those who had never heard the tale, however, and Adele had to bide her time for the present. Meanwhile the season tore along at a break-neck pace, and Lent was fast approaching. Everybody saw and danced with almost everybody else every night, and some of them supped afterwards and gambled till midday, and were surprised to find that their nerves were shaky, and their livers slightly eccentric, and their eyes anything but limpid. But they all knew that the quiet time was coming, the Lent wherein no man can dance, nor woman either, and they amused themselves with a contempt for human life which would have amounted to heroism if displayed in a good cause. "They" of course means the gay set of that particular year. As the Princess of Gerano gave regular informal dances, and two balls at the end of Carnival, she and her daughter were considered to belong more or less to the company of the chief merry-makers. The Savelli couple were in it, also, as a matter of course. Gouache was in it when he pleased, a dozen or fifteen young members of the diplomatic corps, old Spicca, who always went everywhere, the Contessa dell' Armi, whose husband was in parliament and rarely went into society, Ghisleri and twenty or thirty others, men and women who were young or thought themselves so. About three weeks before Ash Wednesday, Anastase Gouache, the perennially young, had a brilliant inspiration. His studio was in an historical palace, and consisted of three halls which might have passed for churches in any other country, so far as their size was concerned. He determined to give a Shrove Tuesday supper to the gay set, with a tableau, and a long final waltz afterwards, by way of interring the mangled remains of the season, as he expressed it. The supper should be at the usual dinner hour instead of at one o'clock, because the gay set was not altogether as scarlet as it was painted, and did not, as a whole, care to dance into the morning of Ash Wednesday. The tableau should represent Carnival meeting Lent. The Contessa dell' Armi should be in it, and Ghisleri, and Donna Adele, and possibly San Giacinto might be induced to appear as a mask. His enormous stature would be very imposing. The Contessa, with her classic features and violet eyes, would make an admirable nun, and there would be no difficulty in getting together a train of revellers. Ghisleri, lean, straight, and tall, would do for a Satanic being of some kind, and could head the Carnival procession. The whole thing would not last five minutes and the dancing should begin at once. "Could you not say something, my friend?" asked Gouache, as he talked the matter over with Ghisleri. "I could, if you could find something for me to say," answered the latter. "But of what use would it be?" "The density of the public," replied the great painter, "is, to use the jargon of science, as cotton wool multiplied into cast iron. You either sink into it and make no noise at all, or you knock your head against and cannot get through it. You have never sent a picture to the Salon without naming it, or you would understand exactly what I mean. They took a picture I once painted, as an altar piece, for a scene from the Decameron, I believe--but that was when I was young and had illusions. On the whole, you had better find something to say, and say it--verse, if possible. They say you have a knack at verses." "Carnival meeting Lent," said Ghisleri, thoughtfully. Then he laughed. "I will try--though I am no poet. I will trust a little to my acting to help my lame feet." Ghisleri laughed again, as though an amusing idea had struck him. That night he went home early, and as very often happened, in a bad humour with himself and with most things. He was a very unhappy man, who felt himself to be always the centre of a conflict between opposing passions, and he had long been in the habit of throwing into a rough, impersonal shape, the thoughts that crossed his mind about himself and others, when he was alone at night. Being, as he very truly said, no poet, he quickly tore up such odds and ends of halting rhyme or stumbling prose, either as soon as they were written, or the next morning. Whatever the form of these productions might be, the ideas they expressed were rarely feeble and were indeed sometimes so strong that they might have even shocked some unusually sensitive person in the gay set. Being, as has been said, in a bad humour on that particular evening, he naturally had something to say to himself on paper, and as he took his pencil he thought of Gouache's suggestion. In a couple of hours he had got what he wanted and went to sleep. The great artist liked the verses when Ghisleri read them to him on the following day, the Contessa consented to act the part of the nun, and the affair was settled. It was a great success. Gouache's wife, Donna Faustina, had entered into her husband's plans with all her heart. She was of the Montevarchi family, sister to the Marchesa di San Giacinto, the latter's husband being a Saracinesca, as every Italian knows. Gouache did things in a princely fashion, and sixty people, including all the gay set and a few others, sat down to the dinner which Anastase was pleased to call a supper. Every one was very gay. Almost every one was in some fancy dress or mask, there was no order of precedence, and all were placed where they would have the best chance of amusing themselves. The halls of the studio, with their magnificent tapestries and almost priceless objects of art, were wonderful to see in the bright light. Many of the costumes were really superb and all were brilliant. No one knew what was to take place after supper, but every one was sure there was to be dancing, and all were aware that it was the last dance before Easter, and that the best dancers in Rome were all present. One of the halls had been hastily fitted up as a theatre, with a little stage, a row of footlights, and a background representing a dark wall, with a deep archway in the middle, like the door of a church. When every one was seated, a deep, clear voice spoke out a little prologue from behind the scenes, and the figures, as they were described, moved out from opposite sides of the stage to meet and group themselves before the painted doorway. Let prologue and verse speak for themselves. "It was nearly midnight--the midnight that ends Shrove Tuesday and begins Ash Wednesday, dividing Carnival from Lent. I left the tables, where all the world of Rome was feasting, and pretending that the feast was the last of the year. The brilliant light flashed upon silver and gold, dyed itself in amber and purple wine, ran riot amongst jewels, and blazed upon many a fair face and snowy neck. The clocks were all stopped, lest some tinkling bell should warn men and women that the day of laughter was over, and that the hour of tears had struck. But I, broken-hearted, sick in soul and weary of the two months' struggle with evil fate, turned away from them and left them to all they loved, and to all that I could never love again. "I passed through the deserted ball-room, and my heart sank as I thought of what was over and done. The polished floor was strewn with withered blossoms, with torn and crumpled favours from the dance, with shreds of gauze and lace; many chairs were overturned; the light streamed down like day upon a great desolation; the heated air was faint with the sad odour of dead flowers. There was the corner where we sat, she and I, to-night, last week, a week before that--where we shall never sit again, for neither of us would. I shivered as I went out into the night. "Through the dark streets I went, not knowing and not caring whither, nor hearing the tinkling mandolines and changing songs of the revellers who passed me on their homeward way." At this point a mandoline was really heard in the very faintest tones from behind the scenes, playing scarcely above a whisper, as it were, the famous "Tout pour l'amour" waltz of Waldteuffel. "Suddenly," the voice resumed, above the delicate notes of the instrument, "the bells rang out and I knew that my last Carnival was dead." Here deep-toned bells struck twelve, while the mandoline still continued. "Then, all at once, I was aware of two figures in the gloom, advancing towards the door of a church in front of me. The one was a woman, a nun in white robe and black hood, whose saintly violet eyes seemed to shine in the darkness. The other was a monk." The Contessa dell' Armi came slowly forward, her pale, clear face lifted and thrown into strong relief by the black head-dress, grasping a heavy rosary in her folded hands. Behind her came San Giacinto, recognisable only by his colossal stature, his face hidden in the shadow of a black cowl. Both were admirable, and a murmur of satisfaction ran through the room. "As they reached the door," continued the reader, "a wild train of maskers broke into the street." Ghisleri entered from the opposite side, arrayed somewhat in the manner of Mephistopheles, a mandoline slung over his shoulder, on which he was playing. Donna Adele and a dozen others followed him closely, in every variety of brilliant Carnival dress, dancing forward with tambourines and castanets, their eyes bright, their steps cadenced to the rhythm of the waltz tune which now broke out loud and clear--fair young women with flushed cheeks, all life, and motion, and laughter; and young men following them closely, laughing, and talking, and singing, all dancing in and out with changing steps. Then all at once the music died away to a whisper; the nun and the monk stood back as though in horror against the church door, while the revellers grouped themselves together in varied poses around them, Ghisleri the central figure in the midst, bowing with a diabolical smile before the white-robed nun. "In front of all," said the voice again, "stood one whose face I shall never forget, for it was like my own. The features were mine, but upon them were reflected all the sins of my life, and all the evil I have done. I thought the other revellers did not see him." Again the music swelled and rose, and the train of dancers passed on with song and laughter, and disappeared on the opposite side of the stage. Ghisleri alone stood still before the saint-like figure of the Contessa dell' Armi, bowing low and holding out to her a tall red glass. "He who was like me stayed behind," continued the reader, "and the light from his glass seemed to shine upon the saintly woman's face, and she drew back as though from contamination, to the monk's side for protection. I knew her face when I saw it--the face I have known too long, too well. Then he who was like me spoke to her, and the voice was my own, but as I would have had it when I have been worst." As the reader ceased Ghisleri began to speak. His voice was strong, but capable of considerable softness and passionate expression, and he did his best to render his own irregular verses both intelligible and moving to his hearers, in which effort he was much helped by the dress he wore and by the gestures he made use of. "So we meet at the last! You the saint, I the time-proved sinner; You the young, I the old; I the world-worn, you the beginner; At the end of the season here, with a glass of wine To discuss the salvation and--well--the mine and thine Of all the souls we have met this year, and dealt with, Of those you have tried to make feel, and those I've felt with: Though, after all, dear Saint, had we met in heaven Before you got saintship, or I the infernal leaven That works so hot to kill the old angel in me-- If you had seen the world then, as I was able to see Before Sergeant-Major Michael gave me that fall,-- Not a right fall, mind you, taking the facts in all,-- We might have been on the same side both. But now It is yours to cry over lost souls, as it's mine to show them how They may stumble and tumble into the infernal slough. So here we are. Now tell me--your honour true-- What do you think of our season? Which wins? I? You? Ha, ha, ha! Sweet friend, you can hardly doubt The result of this two months' hard-fought wrestling bout. I have won. You have lost the game. I drive a trade Which I invented--perhaps--but you have made. Without your heaven, friend Saint, what would be my hell? Without your goodness, could I hope to do well With the poor little peddler's pack of original sin They handed me down, when they turned me out to begin My devil's trade with souls. But now I ask Why for eternal penance they gave me so light a task? You have not condescended from heaven to taste our carnival feast, But if you had tasted it, you would admit at least That the meats were passably sweet, and might allure The nicest of angels, whose tastes are wholly pure. Old friend--I hate you! I hate your saintly face, Your holy eyes, your vague celestial grace! You are too cold for me, whose soul must smelt In fires whose fury you have never felt. But come, unbend a little. Let us chatter Of what we like best, of what our pride may flatter,-- Salvation and damnation--there's the theme-- Your trade and mine--what I am, and what you seem. Come, count the souls we have played for, you and I, The broken hearts you have lost on a careless jog of the die, Hearts that were broken in ire, by one short, sharp fault of the head, Souls lifted on pinions of fire, to sink on wings of lead. We have gambled, and I have won, while you have steadily lost, I laughing, you weeping your senseless saintly tears each time you tossed. So now--give it up! Dry your eyes; your heaven's a dream! Sell your saintship for what it is worth, and come over--the Devil's supreme! Make Judas Iscariot envy the sweets of our sin-- Poor Judas, who ended himself where I could have wished to begin! A chosen complexion--hell's fruit would not have been wasted Had he lived to eat his fill at the feast he barely tasted. Ah, my friend, you are horribly good! Oh! I know you of old; I know all your virtues, your graces, your beauties; I know they are cold! But I know that far down in the depths of your crystalline soul There's a spot the archangel physician might not pronounce whole. There's a hell in your heaven; there's a heaven in my hell. There we meet. What's perdition to you is salvation to me. Ah, the delicate sweet Of mad meetings, of broken confessions, of nights unblest! Oh, the shadowy horror of hate that haunts love's steps without rest, The desire to be dead--to see dead both the beings one hates, One's self and the other, twin victims of opposite fates! How I hate you! You thing beyond Satan's supremest temptation, You creature of light for whom God has ordained no damnation, You escape me, the being whose searing hand lovingly lingers On the neck of each sinner to brand him with five red-hot fingers! You escape me--you dare scoff at me--and I, poor old pretender, Must sue for your beautiful soul with temptation more tender Than a man can find for a woman, when night in her moonlit glory Silvers a word to a poem, makes a poem of a commonplace story! So I sue here at your feet for your soul and the gold of your heart, To break my own if I lose you--Lose you? No--do not start. You angel--you bitter-sweet creature of heaven, I love you and hate you! For I know what you are, and I know that my sin cannot mate you. I know you are better than I--by the blessing of God!-- And I hate what is better than I by the blessing of God! What right has the Being Magnificent, reigning supreme, To wield the huge might that is his, in a measure extreme? What right has God got of his strength to make you all good, And me bad from the first and weighed down in my sin's leaden hood? What right have you to be pure, my angel, when I am foul? What right have you to the light, while I, like an owl, Must blink in hell's darkness and count my sins by the bead-- While you can get all you pray for, the wine and the mead Of a heavenly blessing, showered upon you straight-- Because you chance to stand on the consecrate side of the gate? Ah! Give me a little nature, give me a human truth! Give me a heart that feels--and falls, as a heart should--without ruth! Give me a woman who loves and a man who loves again, Give me the instant's joy that ends in an age of pain, Give me the one dear touch that I love--and that you fear-- And I will give my empire for the Kingdom you hold dear! I will cease from tempting and torturing, I will let the poor sinner go, I will turn my blind eyes heavenward and forget this world below, I will change from lying to truth, and be forever true-- If you will only love me--and give the Devil his due!" It had been previously arranged that at the last words the nun should thrust back his Satanic majesty and take refuge in the church. But it turned out otherwise. As he drew near the conclusion, Ghisleri crept stealthily up to the Contessa's side, and threw all the persuasion he possessed into his voice. But it was most probably the Contessa's love of surprising the world which led her to do the contrary of what was expected. At the last line of his speech, she made one wild gesture of despair, and threw herself backward upon Ghisleri's ready arm. For one moment he looked down into her white upturned face, and his own grew pale as his gleaming eyes met hers. With characteristic presence of mind, San Giacinto, the monk, bent his head, and stalked away in holy horror as the curtain fell. CHAPTER IV. As the curtain went down, a burst of applause rang through the room. The poetry, if it could be called poetry, had assuredly not been of a high order, and as for the sentiments it expressed, a good number of the audience were more than usually shocked. But the whole thing had been effective, unexpected, and striking, especially the ending, over which the world smacked its lips. "I do not like it at all," said Laura Carlyon to Arden, as they left the seats where they had sat together through the little performance. "They looked very well," he answered thoughtfully. "As for what he said, it was Ghisleri. That is the man's character. He will talk in that way while he does not believe a word he says, or only one out of ten." "Then I do not like his character, nor him," returned the young lady, frankly. "But I should not say it to you, dear, because he is your best friend. He shows you all the good there is in him, I suppose, and he shows us all the bad." "No one ever said a truer thing of him," said Arden, limping along by her side. "But I admire the man's careless strength in what he does." "It is easy to use strong language," replied Laura, quietly. "It is quite another thing to be strong. I believe he is weak, morally speaking. But then, how should I know? One only guesses at such things, after all." "Yes, it is all guess-work. But I think I understand him better to-night than before." A moment later the sound of dance music came from the most distant and the largest of the rooms. Ghisleri and the Contessa dell' Armi were already there. She was so slight of figure, that she draped her nun's dress over her gown, and had only to drop it to be herself again. They took a first turn together, and Ghisleri talked softly all the time as he danced. "Shockingly delightful--the whole thing!" exclaimed Donna Adele, watching them. "How well they acted it! They must have rehearsed very often." "Quite often enough, I have no doubt," said the Marchesa di San Giacinto, with a laugh. An hour or two passed away and Laura Carlyon found herself walking about with Ghisleri after dancing with him. He was a very magnificent personage in his scarlet, black and gold costume, and Laura herself looked far more saintly in her evening gown than the Contessa dell' Armi had looked in the dress of a nun. The two made a fine contrast, and some one said so, unfortunately within hearing of both Adele Savelli and Maddalena dell' Armi. The latter turned her cold face quickly and looked at Laura and Ghisleri, but her expression did not change. "What a very uncertain person that dear Ghisleri is!" observed Donna Adele to Pietrasanta, as she noticed the Contessa's movement. She spoke just so loud that the latter could hear her, then turned away with her companion and walked in the opposite direction. Meanwhile Ghisleri and Laura were together. The young girl felt an odd sensation as her hand lay on his arm, as though she were doing something wrong. She did not understand his life, nor him, being far too young and innocent of life's darker thoughts and deeds. She had said that she disliked him, because that seemed best to express what she felt--a certain vague wish not to be too near him, a certain timidity when he was within hearing which she did not feel at other times. "You did not mean any of those things you said, did you, Signor Ghisleri?" she asked, scarcely knowing why she put the question. "I meant them all, and much more of the same kind," answered Pietro, with a hard laugh. "I am sorry--I would rather not believe it." "Why?" "Because it is not right to think such things, nor even to say them in a play." Ghisleri looked at her in some surprise. Laura felt a sort of impulse of conscience to say what she thought. "Ah! you are horribly good!" laughed Ghisleri, quoting his own verse. Laura felt uncomfortable as she met his glance. He really looked very Satanic just then, as his eyebrows went up and the deep lines deepened between his eyes and on his forehead. "Either one believes or one does not," she said. "If one does--" She hesitated. "If one does, does it follow that because God is good to you, He has been good to me also, Miss Carlyon?" His expression changed, and his voice was grave and almost sad. Laura sighed almost inaudibly, but said nothing. "Will you have anything?" he asked indifferently, after the short pause. "A cup of tea?" "Thanks, no. I think I will go to my mother." Ghisleri took her to the Princess's side and left her. "You seemed to be having a very interesting conversation with Miss Carlyon just now," said the Contessa dell' Armi as he sat down beside her a quarter of an hour later. "What were you talking about?" "Sin," answered Ghisleri, laconically. "With a young girl!" exclaimed the Contessa. "But then--English--" "You need not raise your eyebrows, nor talk in that tone, my dear lady," replied Ghisleri. "Miss Carlyon is quite beyond sarcasms of that sort. Since you are curious, she was telling me that it was sinful to say the things you were good enough to listen to in the tableau, even in a play." "Ah? And you will be persuaded, I dare say. What beautiful eyes she has. It is a pity she is so clumsy and heavily made. Really, has she got you to promise that you will never say any of those things again--after the way I ended the piece for you?" "No. I have not promised to be good yet. As for your ending of the performance, I confess I was surprised." "You did not show it." "It would hardly have been in keeping with my part, would it? But I can show you that I am grateful at least." "For what?" asked the Contessa, raising her eyebrows again. "Do you think I meant anything by it?" "Certainly not," replied Ghisleri, with the utmost calmness. "I suppose your instinct told you that it would be more novel and effective if the Saint yielded than if she played the old-fashioned scene of crushing the devil under her foot." "Would you have let yourself be crushed?" "By you--yes." Ghisleri spoke slowly and looked steadily into her eyes. The Contessa's face softened a little, and she paused before she answered him. "I wish I knew--I wish I were sure whether I really have any influence over you," she said softly, and then sighed and looked away. It was very late when the party broke up, though all had professed the most positive intention of going home when the clock struck twelve. The Princess of Gerano offered Arden a seat in her carriage, and Pietro Ghisleri went away alone. As he passed through the deserted dining-room, and through the hall where he had sat so long with the Contessa, he could not help glancing at the corner where they had talked, and he thought involuntarily of the prologue to the tableau. His face was set rather sternly, but he smiled, too, as he went by. "It is not my last Carnival yet," he said to himself, as he drew on a great driving-coat which covered his costume completely. Then he went out. It is very hard to say whether he was a sentimental man or not. Men who write second-rate verses when they are alone, generally are; but, on the other hand, those who knew him would not have allowed that he possessed a grain of what is commonly called sentimentality. The word probably means a sort of vague desire to experience rather fictitious emotions, with the intention of believing oneself to be passionate by nature, and in that sense the weakness could not justly be attributed to Ghisleri. But on this particular night he did a thing which many people would undoubtedly have called sentimental. He turned aside from the highway when he left the great palace in which Gouache lived, and he allowed himself to wander aimlessly on through the older part of the city, until he stopped opposite to the door of a church which stood in a broad street near the end of the last by-way he had traversed. The night was dark and gloomy and the stillness was only broken now and then by a distant snatch of song, a burst of laughter, or the careless twang of a guitar, just as Ghisleri had described it. Indeed it was by no means the first time that he had walked home in the small hours of Ash Wednesday morning, after a night of gaiety and emotion. It chanced that the church upon which he had accidentally come was the one known as the Church of Prayer and Death. It stands in the Via Giulia, behind the Palazzo Farnese. He realised the fact at once, and it seemed like a bad omen. He stood still a long time, looking at the gloomy door with steady eyes. "Just such a place as this," he said, in a low tone. "Just such a church as that, just such a man as I am. Is this the comedy and was this evening the reality? Or is it the other way?" He called up before his eyes the scene in which he had acted, and his imagination obeyed him readily enough. He could fancy how the monk and the nun would look, and the train of revellers, and their movements and gestures. But the nun's face was not that of the Contessa. Another shone out vividly in its place. "Just God!" ejaculated the lonely man. "Am I so bad as that? Not to care after so much?" He turned upon his heel as though to escape the vision, and walked quickly away, hating himself. But he was mistaken. He cared--as he expressed it--far more than he dreamed of, more deeply, perhaps, in his own self-contradictory, irregular fashion than the woman of whom he was thinking. People talked for some time of the Shrove Tuesday feast at Gouache's studio. Then they fell to talking about other things. Lent passed in the usual way, and there was not much change in the lives of the persons most concerned in this history. Ghisleri saw much less of Arden than formerly, of course, as the latter was wholly absorbed by his passion for his future wife. As for the world, it was as much occupied with dinner parties, musical evenings, and private theatricals as it had formerly been with dancing. The time sped quickly. The past season had left behind it an enormous Corpus Scandalorum Romanorum which made conversation both easy and delightful. How many of the unpleasant stories concerning Lord Herbert Arden, Laura Carlyon, Pietro Ghisleri, and Maddalena dell' Armi could have been distinctly traced to Adele Savelli, it is not easy to say. As a matter of fact, very few persons excepting Ghisleri himself took any trouble to trace them at all. To the average worldly taste it is as unpleasant to follow up the origin of a delightfully savoury lie, as it is to think, while eating, of the true history of a beefsteak, from the meadow to the table by way of the slaughter-house and the cook's fingers. Holy week came, and the muffled bells and the silence in houses at other times full and noisy, and the general air of depression which results, most probably, from a certain amount of genuine repentance and devotion which is felt in a place where by no means all are bad at heart, and many are sincerely good. The gay set felt uncomfortable, and a certain number experienced for the first time the most distinct aversion to confessing their misdeeds, as they ought to do at least once a year. As far as they were concerned, Ghisleri's verses expressed more truth than they had expected to find in them. Ghisleri himself was rarely troubled by any return of the qualm which had seized him before the door of the Church of Prayer and Death, and never again in the same degree. If he did not go on his way rejoicing, he at all events proceeded without remorse, and was wicked enough and selfish enough to congratulate himself upon the fact. Arden and Laura were perfectly happy. They, at least, had little cause to reproach themselves with any evil done in the world since they had met, and Arden had assuredly better reason for congratulating himself. It would indeed have been hard to find a happier man than he, and his happiness was perfectly legitimate and well founded. Whether it would prove durable was another matter, not so easy of decision. But the facts of the present were strong enough to crush all apprehension for the future. It was not strange that it should be so. He could not be said to have led a lonely life. His family were deeply attached to him, and from earliest boyhood everything had been done to alleviate the moral suffering inevitable in his case, and to make his material existence as bearable as possible, in spite of his terrible infirmities. But for the unvarying sympathy of many loving hearts, and the unrelaxing care of those who were sincerely devoted to him, Arden could hardly have hoped to attain to manhood at all, much less to the healthy moral growth which made him very unlike most men in his condition, or the comparative health of body whereby he was able to enjoy without danger much of what came in his way. He was in reality a much more social and sociable man than his friend Ghisleri, though he did not possess the same elements of success in society. He was, indeed, sensitive, as has been said, in spite of his denial of the fact, but he was not bitter about his great misfortune. Hitherto only one very painful thought had been connected with his deformity, beyond the constant sense of physical inferiority to other men. He had felt, and not without reason, that he must renounce the love of woman and the hope of wedded happiness, as being utterly beyond the bounds of all human possibility. And now, as though Heaven meant to compensate him to the full for the suffering inflicted and patiently borne, he had won, almost without an effort, the devoted love of the first woman for whom he had seriously cared. It was almost too good. Love had taken him, and had clothed him in a new humanity, as it seemed to him, straightening the feeble limbs, strengthening the poor ill-matched shoulders, broadening and deepening the sunken chest that never held breath enough before wherewith to speak out full words of passionate happiness. Love had dawned upon the dusk of his dark morning as the dawn of day upon a leaden sea, scattering unearthly blossoms in the path of the royal sun, breathing the sweet breeze of living joy upon the flat waters of unprofitable discontent. To those who watch the changing world with its manifold scenes and its innumerable actors, whose merest farce is ever and only the prologue to the tragedy which awaits all, there is nothing more wonderful, nothing more beautiful, nothing more touching--perhaps few things more sacred--than the awakening of a noble heart at love's first magic touch. The greater miracle of spring is done before our eyes each year, the sun shines and the grass grows, it rains and all things are refreshed, and the dead seed's heart breaks with the joy of coming life, bursts and shoots up to meet the warmth of the sunshine and be kissed by the west wind. But we do not see, or seeing, care for none of these things in the same measure in which we care for ourselves--and perhaps for others. We turn from the budding flower wearily enough at last, and we own that though it speak to us and touch us, its language is all but strange and its meaning wholly a mystery. Nature tells us little except by association with hearts that have beaten for ours, and then sometimes she tells us all. But the heart itself is the thing, the reality, the seat of all our thoughts and the stay of all our being. Selfishly we see what it does in ourselves, and in others we may see it and watch it without thought of self. It is asleep to-day, lethargic, heavy, dull, scarce moving in the breast that holds it. To-morrow it is awake, leaping, breaking, splendidly alive, the very source of action, the leader in life's fight, the conqueror of the whole opposing world, bursting to-day the chains of which only yesterday it could not lift a link, overthrowing now, with a touch, the barriers which once seemed so impenetrable and so strong, scorning the deathlike inaction of the past, tossing the mountains of impossibility before it as a child tosses pebbles by the sea. The miracle is done, and love has done it, as only love really can. But it must be the right sort of love and the heart it touches must be neither common nor unclean in the broad, true sense--such a heart, say, as Herbert Arden's, and such love as he felt for Laura, then and afterwards. "My life began on the evening when I first met you, dear," he said, as they sat by the open window on Easter Day, looking down at the flowers on the terrace behind the Palazzo Braccio. "You cannot make me believe that you loved me at first sight!" Laura laughed happily. "Why not?" he asked gravely. "No woman ever spoke to me as you did then, and I felt it. Is it strange? But it hurt me, too, at first, and I used to suffer during that first month." "Let that be the first and the last pain you ever have by me," answered the young girl. "I know you suffered, though I cannot even now tell why. Can you?" "Easily enough," said Arden, resting his chin upon his folded hands as they lay upon the white marble sill of the window, scarcely less white than they. The attitude was habitual to him when he was in that place. He could not rest his elbow on the slab as Laura could, for he was too short as he sat in his chair. "Easily?" she asked. "Then tell me." "Very easily. You can understand it too. When I knew that I loved you, I knew--I believed, at least, that another suffering had been found for me, as though I had not enough already. Of course, I was hopeless. How could I tell, how could any one guess that you--you of all women--with your beauty, your youth, your splendid woman's heart--could ever care for me? Oh, my darling--dear, dearest--is there no other word? If I could only tell you half!" "If you could tell me all, you would only have told half, love," said Laura. "There is mine to tell, too--and it is not a little." She bent down to him and softly kissed the beautiful pale forehead. The bright flush came to Arden's cheek and died away again in the happy silence that followed. But he raised his head, and his two hands took one of hers and gently covered it. "You must always be the same to me," he said, almost under his breath. "You have given me this new life--do not take it from me again--the old would be impossible now, not to be lived." "It need never be lived, it never shall be, if I live myself," answered Laura. "If only I could make you sure of that, I should be really happy. But you do not really doubt it, Herbert, do you?" "No, dear, to doubt you would be to doubt everything--though it is hard to believe that it can all be so good, and last." "It does not seem hard to me. Perhaps a woman believes everything more easily than a man does. She needs to believe more, I suppose, and so she finds it easy." "No woman ever needed to believe as much as I," answered Arden, thoughtfully. He still held her hand, and passed one of his own lightly over it, just pressing it now and then, as though to make sure that it was real. "Except yourself, dear one," he added a moment later, with a sharp, short breath, as though something hurt him. Laura was quick to understand him, and to feel all that he felt. She heard the little sigh and looked into his face and saw the expression of something like pain there. She laid her free hand upon his shoulder and gazed into his soft brown eyes. "Herbert dear," she said, "I know what you are thinking about. I was put into the world to make you forget those things, and, God willing, I will. You shall forget them as completely as I do, or if you remember them they shall be dear to you, in a way, as they are to me." A wonderful look of loving gratitude was in his face, and he pressed her fingers closely in his. "Tell me one thing, Laura--only this once and I will not speak of it again. When you touch me--when you lay your hand on my shoulder--when you kiss my forehead--tell me quite truly, dear, do you not feel anything like--like a sort of horror, a kind of repulsion, as if you were touching something--well--unpleasant to touch?" Poor Arden really did not know how much he was loved. Laura's deep eyes opened wide for an instant, as he spoke, then almost closed again, and her lips quivered. Then suddenly without warning the bright tears welled up and overflowed. She hid her face in her hands and sobbed bitterly. "Oh, Herbert," she cried, "that you should think it of me, when I love you as though my heart would break!" With a movement that would have cost him a painful effort at any other time, Arden rose and clasped her to him and tried to soothe her, caressing her thick black hair, and kissing her forehead tenderly, with a sort of passionate reverence that was his own, and speaking such words as came to his lips in the deep emotion of the moment. "Forgive me, darling, how could I hurt you? Laura--sweetheart Laura--beloved--do not cry--I know it now--I shall never think of it again. No, dear, no--there, say you have forgiven me!" "Forgiven you, dear--what is there to forgive?" She looked up with streaming eyes. "Everything, love--those tears of yours, first of all--" She dried her eyes and made him sit down again before she spoke, looking out of the window at the flowers. "It is not your fault," she said at last. "I have not shown you how I love yet--that is all. But I will, soon." "You have shown it already, dear--far more than you know." The world might have been surprised could it have seen the two together--the tipsy cripple, as it called Arden, and the girl who loved Francesco Savelli, as it unhesitatingly denominated Laura. It would have been a little surprised at first, and then, on mature reflection, it would have said that it was all a comedy, and that both acted it very well. Was it not natural that Arden should want a pretty wife and that Laura should take any husband that presented himself, since she could get no better? And in that case why should not each act a comedy to gain the other's hand? The world did that sort of thing every day, and what the world did Arden and Laura could very well afford to do; and after all, it was not of the slightest importance, since they were both going away, so why should one talk about them? The answer to that last question is so very hard to find that it may be left to those who put it. Donna Adele seemed satisfied, and that was the principal consideration for the present. "My poor sister!" she exclaimed to Ghisleri one day. "Step-sister," observed Pietro, correcting her. "Oh, we were always quite like real sisters," answered Adele. "Of course, my dear Ghisleri, I know what a splendid man Lord Herbert is, in everything but his unfortunate deformity. Any one can see that in his face, and besides, you would not have chosen him for your friend if he were not immensely superior to other men." Ghisleri puffed at his cigarette, looked at her, laughed, and puffed again. "But that one thing," continued Adele, "I cannot understand how she can overlook it, can you? I assure you if my father had told me to marry Lord Herbert, I should have done something quite desperate. I think I should almost have refused. I would almost rather have had to marry you." "Really?" Pietro showed some amusement. "Do you think you could have loved me in the end?" he inquired as though he were asking for information of the most commonplace kind. "Loved you?" Adele laughed rather unnaturally. "It would have been something definite, at all events," she added. "Either love or hate." "And you do not believe that your step-sister can ever love or hate Arden? There is more in him than you imagine." "I dare say, but not of the kind I should like. Besides, they say that though he never drinks quite too much, he is sometimes very excited and behaves and talks very strangely." "They say that, do they? Who are 'they'?" Ghisleri's eyes suddenly grew hard, and his jaw seemed to become extremely square. "They? Oh, many people, of course. The world says so. Do not be so dreadfully angry. What difference can it make to you? I never said that he drank too much." "If you should hear people talking about him in that way," said Ghisleri, quietly, "you might say that the story is not true, since there is really no truth in it at all. Arden is almost like an invalid. He drinks a glass of hock at breakfast and a glass or two of claret at dinner. I rarely see him touch champagne, and he never takes liqueurs. As for his being excited and behaving strangely, that is a pure fabrication. He is the quietest man I know." "It is really of no use to be so impressive," answered Adele. "It makes me uncomfortable." "That is almost as disagreeable a thing as to meet a looking-glass when one comes home at seven in the morning," observed Pietro. "Let us not talk about it." Donna Adele had gone as near as she dared to saying something unpleasant about Lord Herbert Arden, and Ghisleri had checked her with a wholesome shock. In his experience he had generally found that his words carried weight with them, for some reason which he did not even attempt to explain. If the truth were known, it would appear that Adele was at that time much inclined to like Ghisleri, and was willing to sacrifice even the pleasure of saying a sharp thing rather than offend him. The short conversation here reported took place in her boudoir late in the afternoon, and when Ghisleri went away his place was soon taken by the Marchesa di San Giacinto--a lady of sufficiently good heart, but of too ready tongue, with coal-black, sparkling eyes, and a dark complexion relieved by a bright and healthy colour--rather a contrast to the rest of the Montevarchi tribe. "Pietro Ghisleri has been here," observed Adele, in the course of conversation. "To meet Maddalena, I suppose," laughed the Marchesa, not meaning any harm. "No. They did it once, and I told Pietro that I would not have that sort of thing in my house," said Adele, with dignity. As a matter of fact, she had not dared to say a word to Ghisleri on the subject, but he and the Contessa had decided that Adele's drawing-room was not a safe place for meeting, and it was quite true that they had carefully avoided finding themselves there together ever since. But Adele was well aware that Flavia San Giacinto and Ghisleri were by no means intimate, and were not likely to exchange confidences; and though the Marchesa was ready enough at repeating harmless tales in the world, she was reticent with her husband, whom she really loved, and whose good opinion she valued. "Was he amusing?" asked Flavia. "He sometimes is." "He was not to-day, but the conversation was. You know how intimate he is with Laura's little lord?" "Of course! What did he say?" "And you remember the story about the champagne at the Gerano ball, when he carried Arden out of the room and put him to bed?" "Perfectly," answered the Marchesa, with a smile. "Yes. Well, I pressed him very hard to-day, to find out what the little man's habits really are. You see he is to be of the family, and we must really find out. My dear, it is quite dreadful! He says positively that Arden never touches liqueurs, but when I drove him to it, he had to admit that he drinks all sorts of wines--Rhine wine, claret, burgundy, champagne--everything! It is no wonder that it goes to his head, poor little fellow. But I am sorry for Laura." "After all," said Flavia, "one cannot blame him much, if he tries to be a little gay. He must suffer terribly." "Oh, no, one cannot blame him," assented Adele. Flavia San Giacinto was somewhat amused, knowing, as she did, that Adele had herself originated the tale about Lord Herbert. And late that evening the temptation to repeat what she had heard became too strong for her. She told it all in the strictest confidence to her dearest friend, Donna Maria Boccapaduli. But Donna Maria was a little absent-minded at the moment, her eldest boy having got a cold which threatened to turn into whooping cough, and her husband having written to her from the country, asking her to come down the next day and give her advice about some necessary repairs in the castle. On the following afternoon--it was still during Lent--she met the Contessa dell' Armi on the steps of a church after hearing a sermon. The Contessa was very pale and looked as though she had been crying. "Only think, my dear," began Donna Maria. "It is quite true that Lord Herbert drinks. Adele knows all about it." "Does she?" asked the Contessa, indifferently enough. "How did she find it out?" "Ghisleri told her ever so many stories about it yesterday afternoon--in the strictest confidence, you know." "Indeed! I did not think that Signor Ghisleri was the sort of man who gossiped about his friends. Good-bye, dear. I shall see more of you when Lent is over." Thereupon the Contessa got into the carriage with rather an odd expression on her face. As she drove away alone, she bit her lip, and looked as though she were trying to keep back certain tears that rose in her eyes. CHAPTER V. On the Saturday succeeding Easter, Lord Herbert Arden and Laura Carlyon were married. The ceremony was conducted, as they both desired, very quietly and unostentatiously, as was becoming for a young couple who must live economically. Few persons were asked to be present at the wedding service, and among them was Pietro Ghisleri. He had seen English weddings before, but he looked on with some curiosity and with rather mixed feelings of satisfaction and regret. He thought of his own life as he stood there, and for one moment he sincerely wished that he were only awaiting his turn to be dealt with as Arden was, to be taken by the hand, joined to the woman he loved, and turned out upon the world a well-behaved, proper, married man. The next moment he smiled faintly and rather bitterly. Marriage had not been instituted for men like him, thought Ghisleri. If it had been, it would hardly have been so successful an institution as it has proved itself. As for the young couple, he wished them well. Arden was almost the only man for whom he felt any attachment, and he had the most sincere admiration for Laura. Without feeling anything in the least resembling affection for the lovely English girl, he was conscious that he thought of her very often. Her eyes, which he called holy, and saintly, and sweet, and dark in his rough rhymed impressions of the day, haunted him by night, like the eyes of a sad angel following him in his unblest wanderings through life. Of love for her, he felt not the slightest thrill. His pulse never quickened when she came, nor was he at all depressed by her departure. If he had cared for her in the very least, it must have caused him some little pain to see her married to another before his eyes. Instead, the only passing regret he felt, was that he could not himself stand in some such position as Arden, but by another woman's side. To that other he gave all, as he honestly believed, which he had to give. It was long, too, since the very possibility of loving a young girl had crossed his mind, and since his early youth there had not been anything approaching to the reality of such a love in his life. And yet he knew that he was in some degree under Laura's influence, and in a way in which he was assuredly not under that of the Contessa dell' Armi. The consciousness of this fact annoyed him. There was a good deal of a certain sort of loyalty in his nature, bad as he believed himself to be, and bad as many honest and good people who read this history will undoubtedly say that he was. If such badness could be justified or even excused, it would not be hard to find some reasonable excuses for him, and after all he was probably not worse than a hundred others to be found in the society of every great city. He thought he was worse, sometimes, as he had told Arden, because he himself also thought that he was more fully aware than most men of what he was doing and of the consequences of his deeds. It is most likely, considering his character, that at that time Laura Carlyon represented to him a species of ideal such as he could admire with all his heart at a distance, and so nearly coinciding with his own as to be very often in his thoughts in the place of the one he had so long ago contracted for himself. All this sounds very complicated, while the facts in the case were broadly plain. He appreciated Laura in the highest degree, and did not love her at all. He was sincerely glad that his best if not his only intimate friend should marry her, and when he bid them good-bye he did not feel the smallest twinge of regret except as at a temporary parting from two persons whom he liked. "You must come and stop with us this summer," said Arden, looking up at him with flushed and happy face. "You know how glad my brother always is to see you. Besides, you are an old friend of my wife's, if any further reasons are necessary. She wants you to come too." "Of course I do," said Laura, promptly, as she held out her hand. Strange to say, she had felt far less of that unpleasant, half-timid, half-pained dislike for Ghisleri, since she had grown used to the idea of being Herbert Arden's wife. And now that her name was really changed, and she was forever bound to her husband, she felt it not at all. It was strange, considering the circumstances, that she should have the certainty that Arden could and would protect her, come what might. The poor little shrunken frame certainly did not suggest the manly strength to shield a woman in danger, which every woman loves to feel. The thin, white hand would have been but a bundle of threads in Ghisleri's strong grip. And yet Laura Arden, as she now was to be called, knew that she would trust her husband to take her part and win against a stronger and a worse man than Ghisleri, should she ever be in need; and, what is more, Ghisleri saw that she did, and his admiration rose still higher. There must be something magnificent in a woman who could so wholly forget such outward frailness and deformity in the man she loved, as to forget also that sometimes in life a man's hand may need that same common brute strength, just to match it against another's, for a woman's dear sake. Such love as that, thought Pietro, must be supremely noble, unselfish, and lasting. Being founded upon no outward illusion, there was no reason why anything should undermine it, nor why the foundation itself should ever crumble away. That was his view, and, on the whole, it was not an unjust one. For the facts were true. If, when they drove away to the station, Herbert Arden had suddenly, by magic, been clothed in the colossal frame and iron strength of San Giacinto himself, Laura would have felt no safer nor more perfectly shielded and guarded from earthly harm than she really did while she was pulling up the window lest her husband should catch cold even in the mild April air, and lovingly arranging the heavy silk scarf about his neck. They went southward by common consent, as indeed they did everything. They would go to England later in the year, in June perhaps, when it was warmer. In the meanwhile Arden's brother had offered them his yacht, and they could cruise for a month in the Mediterranean, almost choosing their own climate day by day, and wholly independent of all the manifold annoyances, inconveniences, and positive sufferings which beset the path of young married couples who have not yachts at their disposal. What both most desired was to be alone together, to have enough of each other at last, free from the tiresome daily little crowd of social spectators, and this they could nowhere accomplish so pleasantly and completely as in the luxuriously fitted vessel lent them by Arden's brother. The latter had not seen fit to come to the wedding, but Arden had in no way taken it amiss, though the world had found plenty to say on the subject, and not by any means to Arden's credit. The said brother was a decidedly eccentric person of enormous wealth, who hated anything at all resembling publicity or public ceremony, and was, moreover, a very bad correspondent. "I am very glad to hear of your engagement, my dear old brother," he wrote. "They say Miss Carlyon is good and beautiful. I have no doubt she is, though I do not at this moment recollect knowing any woman who was both. I have sent the yacht to Naples for you, if you care for a cruise. Keep her as long as you like, and telegraph if you want her sent anywhere else--Nice, for instance, or Venice. Ask your wife to wear the pearls by way of making acquaintance at second hand. They are what I could find. I send a man with them, as they might get lost. Now good-bye, dear boy, enjoy yourself and come to us as soon as you can. Yours ever, HARRY. "P.S. As it is often such a bore to draw money in those funny Italian towns, I enclose a few circular notes which may be useful. Bess and the children are all well and send love and lots of congratulations. I suppose you have written to Uncle Herbert." The few circular notes thus casually alluded to amounted to two thousand pounds, and it would be unsafe to speculate on the value of the pearls which the messenger brought on his person and delivered safely into Arden's hands. "Harry" was not over-lavish, except where his brother was concerned, and always inwardly regretted that Herbert needed so little and insisted upon living within his modest income. To "give things to Herbert" was one of the few real pleasures he extracted from his great fortune. On the present occasion Arden was glad to accept the money, for he had the very most vague notions of the expense of married life, and had anticipated real economy during his honeymoon, which, of course, could not be quite as pleasant to Laura as having plenty of money to spend. That last little difficulty being removed, he felt that he could give himself up light-hearted to the idyl of perfect love which Laura had brought into his existence. And forthwith the idyl began, delicate, gentle, lovely as love's life can be where soul and heart are in harmony, heart to soul, while purity teaches innocence what it is to be man and wife. The harmony was real. Laura and her husband had much in common, intellectually and morally. Not, indeed, that she made any pretence to superior intelligence or extended culture. Even had she possessed very remarkable capabilities, the surroundings in which she had been brought up had not been of a nature to develop them beyond the average. But she was not especially gifted, except perhaps in having a good memory and a somewhat unusually sound judgment in most matters. Yet she was not without taste, and such as she had was not only both healthy and refined, but coincided to an extraordinary degree with Arden's own. Both liked the same authors, the same general kind of art, the same things in nature, and very generally the same people. Both were perhaps at that time somewhat morbidly inclined to a sort of semi-transcendentalism, Arden by nature and circumstances, and Laura by attraction. It must not be supposed that they went to any lengths in that direction. They did not speculate on spiritual marriage, nor did they agree with that famous philosopher who at the last was sure that the earth was turning into a bun and the sea into lemonade in order that man might eat, drink, and be happy without effort. They did not pursue improbable theories nor offer subtle perfumes before the altar of impossibility. But they felt a certain almost unnatural indifference to the concrete world, and lived in a world of ideas, thoughts, and affections which were quite their own. It was impossible to predict whether such an existence would last, or whether it would ultimately change into one more evidently stable, if also less removed from earth. For the present, at least, both were indescribably happy. The question how far it is possible for one of two loving beings to forget and grow unconscious of very great physical defect in the other is in itself interesting as showing how far, in a well-organised nature, the immaterial can get the better of grosser things. To explain what Laura felt would be to explain the deepest impulses of humanity, and those may attempt it who feel themselves equal to the task and are attracted by it. The fact, as such, is undeniable. On the whole, too, it may be said that there is no great reason why a very refined intelligence should not overlook material considerations as completely as in the majority of cases the more coarsely planned consciousness forgets the existence of intellectual and moral deformity. Such extreme refinement may not be durable. There is a refinement of nature, inborn, delicate, and sensitive, and there is a refinement which depends for its existence upon youth and innocence. Laura possessed all the latter, and something of the former as well. She would have been shocked and deeply wounded had she been told that she had married Herbert Arden out of pity, and yet pity had undeniably given the first impulse to her love. The circumstances, too, were favourable for its growth. Neither had felt much regret in leaving Rome. Apart from her affection for her mother, Laura had never found much that was congenial in the city in which she had been brought up as though it had been her birthplace. As for Arden himself, he was too much accustomed to travelling from place to place to prefer one city to another in any great degree. So the two were alone together and desired nothing beyond what they had, which, perhaps, is the ideal condition for lovers. To most people, however, the honeymoon is a terrible trial--probably because most young couples are not very desperately in love with each other. They wander aimlessly about in all directions, a sort of joint sacrifice, perpetually tortured and daily offered up on the altar of the diabolical courier, crushed beneath the ubiquitous Juggernaut hotel-keeper, bound continually in new and arid places to be torn by the vulture guide, and ultimately sent home more or less penniless, quite temperless, and perhaps permanently disgusted with one another and with married life. And yet the absurd farce is kept up, in ninety and nine cases out of a hundred, because custom sanctions it--as though the sanction of custom were necessary when two people wish to be harmlessly happy in their own way. But with the Ardens it was quite different. They were quite beyond the regions of the guide, the courier, and the hotel-keeper, and they loved each other so much that neither ever irritated the other, a condition of existence probably closely resembling that of the saints in paradise. Nothing could exceed Laura's watchfulness and care where Arden's health was concerned, and, fortunately for her, he was not one of those men who resent being constantly taken care of. Indeed, poor man, he needed all she gave him in that way, for the winter season with its unusual gaiety and the necessary exposure to a certain amount of night air in all weathers, had severely tried his constitution. But now the sea and the southern sun strengthened him, and sometimes there was even something like healthy colour in his face. Happiness, too, is said to be a good medicine, better perhaps than any in the world, and Arden had his share of it, and a most abundant share. Never, he said to himself, had a man been so blessed as he, nor at a time when he so little expected blessings, having made up his mind that all he could hope for had already been given him in this world. He almost forgot that he was a cripple, as he sat in his deep cane chair by Laura's side, looking from her to the dancing light on the water, and from the blue water to her dark eyes again. He seemed to go every day through a round of beauty, from one delicious vision to another, returning between each to that one of all others which he loved best, and knew to be all his own. And those same eyes of Laura's grew less sad than they had been in the beginning. The sunlight got into them, as into dark jewels, and made stars of light about their central depths. The soft wind blew on her clear white cheek and lent her natural, healthy pallor a warmth it had not before. Her very step grew more elastic, and the firm, well-shaped hands seemed more than ever strong. Almost beautiful before, there were moments when she was quite beautiful indeed, as innocent girlhood changed to pure womanhood in the sweet southern air. Laura read aloud a great deal in the intervals of conversation, and the days passed almost too quickly. The vessel was a large steam-yacht, of the modern type, comfortable in the extreme, and capable of accommodating a large party--for two persons it was almost palatial. Whatever the weather, cool or hot, rainy or dry, rough or fair, there was always a place where they could install themselves in the morning or the afternoon, and talk and read to their hearts' content. They had no fixed plan either in their wanderings, but went where their fancy took them, to Palermo, to Messina, to Syracuse. They sat together in the vast ruined theatre above magic Taormina, and gazed on the sunlit sea and Etna's snowy crest. They went to Malta, they drove, side by side, through the lovely gardens of Corfu. They ran in fair weather up to the lagoons of Venice, and wandered in a gondola through the wide canals and narrow water lanes of the most beautiful city in the world. Then down the long Adriatic again, past Zara and Xanthe, round Matapan to the Piræus--then, when they had had their fill of Athens, away by one long run to Sicily again, to Algiers next, and then to Barcelona and the Spanish coast, homeward bound at last, towards England. For the weather was growing warm now, and Laura noticed that she saw less often in Arden's face the colour she had watched with such pleasure during the first weeks. There was no cause for anxiety, she thought, but it was possible that he needed always an even temperature, neither cold nor hot, and it was time to reach England, before the July sun had scorched the southern land. And throughout all this quiet time the song of happiness was ever in their ears. The world they cared so little for, and which had taken the trouble to say such disagreeable things about them, was left infinitely far behind in their new life. From time to time letters reached Laura from Rome, and Arden had one from Ghisleri, containing little detailed news, but full of angry threats at a kind of general undefined enemy, which might be humanity taken all together, or might be some one particular person whom the writer had in his mind. Pietro generally wrote in that way. Rarely, indeed, did he mention people by name, and then only when he had something to say to their credit. It was a part of what Arden called his absurd reticence, and which, absurd or not, was certainly exaggerated. Possibly Ghisleri had, at some time in his youth, experienced the extremely unpleasant consequences of being indiscreet, and had promised himself not to succumb to that form of weakness again. At all events, he found that though Arden sometimes laughed at him, he never got into trouble through being discreet, and other people were not disposed to be merry at his expense. It was a long time since he had quarrelled with any one, and, having turned peaceable, the world promptly accused him of cynicism and indifference, an accusation which did not annoy him at all. Indeed, it was rather convenient than otherwise, that people should think of him as they did, since the result was that less was expected of him than of most people. Laura's mother wrote loving letters, full of simple household news, and of solicitude for her daughter and Arden, asking many questions as to their plans for the future, and continually expressing the hope that they would spend the coming winter in Rome. "What do you think of it?" Laura asked one day, as they sat together on deck in the sunshine. "That is one of those things which you must decide, dear," answered Arden. "Of course I suppose I ought to spend the winter in the south as usual. I do not believe I could stand England in December and January. There are lots of delightful southern places where we could stay a few months, besides Rome--but then, in Rome you will have your mother. That makes a great difference." "You are first now, love," said Laura. "You come before my mother--much as I love her." "Darling--how good you are!" He took her hand and kissed it softly. "Not half as good as I ought to be. But there are two things to be considered, dear. There is the climate, as you say, and then there is a social question we have never talked about--it seems so far away now. In the first place, does Rome really suit you? Are you always well there, as you were last winter?" "Oh, yes. I have always been perfectly well in Rome, and I like the place immensely, besides." "And you have your friend, Signor Ghisleri, too. That is another point. On the other hand, I do not think either of us would ever wish to stay a whole winter with my mother and step-father. We must live somewhere by ourselves, and we shall have to live very quietly." "The more quietly the better. Is that the social question, darling?" "No," answered Laura, "but it is connected with it. There is something I never spoke of. Did it ever strike you, when you first knew me, that somehow I was not so much liked as other girls in society? Do not think I ask the question out of any sort of vanity. I want to know what your impression was. Tell me quite frankly, will you?" "Of course I will. It did strike me--I never knew whether you were aware of it. I even tried to find out the reason of it, and to some extent I believe I did." "Did you?" asked Laura, with sudden interest. "I wish I knew--I have so often thought about it all." Arden laughed, leaning back in his chair and looking at her face. "It is the most absurd story I ever heard," he said. "I ought not even to say I heard it, for I guessed it from little things that happened. People think that your step-sister's husband, Savelli, is in love with you, and I suppose they imagine that you have something to do with it--encouraged him, and that sort of thing. I am quite sure that Donna Adele--am I to call her Adele now?--is jealous, for I have witnessed the manifestation with my own eyes. It is all too utterly ridiculous, but as you are quite English you were at a disadvantage, and were not as popular as you ought to have been." He laughed again, and this time Laura joined in his laughter. "Is that it?" she cried. "Poor Francesco! To think of any one suspecting that he could be in love with me, when he is so perfectly happy with his wife! And he is always so nice, and talks to me more than any one. Whenever I am stranded at a party, he comes and takes care of me." "That is probably the origin of the gossip," observed Arden, still smiling. "But I do not think we shall have any nonsense of that sort now. Do you think your mother understood it all?" "No--and I believe she was far less conscious that there was anything wrong, than I was. Poor Francesco! I cannot help laughing." Laura was sincerely amused by the tale, as she well might be, and as Pietro Ghisleri would have been, had he heard it. The story Arden had put together out of the evidence he had was, as a matter of fact, the very converse of the one actually circulated. "I do not see," said he, "why this bit of fantastic gossip need be taken into consideration, when we are talking of our winter in Rome. What difference can it possibly make?" "For you, dear--and a little for me, too. Neither of us would care to go back to a society where there was anything to make us disliked. As you say, there are plenty of other places, and as for my mother, she could come and see us, and stop a little while, and I am sure she would if we asked her." "Do you mean to say, Laura, that you seriously believe our position would not be everything it ought to be?" asked Arden, in some surprise. "Oh, no; it would be all right, of course. Only we might not be exactly the centre of the gay set." "Which neither of us care to be in the least." "Not in the least. We are our own set, you and I--are we not?" Laura thought of what Arden had told her for a long time afterwards, and tried to explain to herself by his theory all the infinitesimal details which had formerly shown her that she was not a universal favourite. But the story did not cover all the ground. Of one thing, however, she became almost certain--Adele was her enemy, for some reason or other, and was a person to beware of, should Laura and her husband return to Rome. It had taken her long to form this conviction, but being once formed it promised to be durable, as her convictions generally were. It was with sincere regret that the couple left the yacht at last. They had grown to look upon it almost as a permanent home, and to wish that it might be so altogether. Nevertheless Laura could not but see that Arden's health improved again as they reached a cooler climate and travelled northward towards his brother's home. The season was not yet over in London, but "Harry" did not like London much, and did not like the season there at all. What the Marchioness thought about it no one knows to this day, but she appeared to resign herself with a good grace to the life her husband chose to lead. The latter welcomed his brother and Laura in his own fashion, with an odd mixture of cordiality and stiffness, the latter only superficial, the former thoroughly genuine and heartfelt, as Arden explained to his wife without delay. Existence in an English country house was quite new to her, and but for the abominable weather for which that year remained famous, she would at first have enjoyed it very much. The rain, however, seemed inexhaustible. Day after day it poured, night after night the heavy mists rose from park, and woodland, and meadow, and moor. It seemed as though the sun would never shine again. Arden never grew weary of those long days spent with Laura, nor indeed was she ever tired of being with the man she loved. But being young and strong, she would gladly have breathed the bright air again, while he, on his part, lost appetite, caught cold continually, and grew daily paler and more languid. Little by little Laura became anxious about him and her care redoubled. He had never looked as he looked now, even when most worn and wearied out with the life of society he had led in Rome before his marriage. His face was growing thin, almost to emaciation, and his hands were transparent. Laura made up her mind that something must be done at once. It was clear that he longed for the south again, and it was probable that nothing else could restore him to comparative strength. "Let us go away, Herbert," she said one day. "You are not looking well, and I believe we shall never see the sun again unless we go to the south." "No," answered Arden, "I am not well. I shall be all right again as soon as we get to Rome." He seemed to take it for granted that Rome should be their destination, and on the whole Laura was glad of it. She would be glad to see her mother, too, after so many months of separation. So it was decided, and before long they were once more on their way. It was not an easy journey for either of them. Arden was now decidedly out of health, and needed much care at all times, while Laura herself was so nervous and anxious about him that she often felt her hand tremble violently when she smoothed his cushion in the railway carriage, or poured him out something to drink. She would not hear of being helped, when her husband's man, who had been with him since his boyhood, privately entreated her to take a nurse, and to give herself rest from time to time, especially during the journey. "We must not let his lordship know how ill he is, Donald," she answered gently. "You must be very careful about that, too, when you are alone with him. He will be quite well again in Rome," she added hopefully. Donald shook his head wisely, and refrained from further expostulation. He had discovered that his new mistress did not easily change her mind upon any subject, and never changed it at all when she thought she was right in regard to Lord Herbert's health. And in due time they reached the end of their journey, and took up their quarters in the old house known as the Tempietto, which stands just where the Via Gregoriana and the Via Sistina end together in the open square of the Trinità de' Monti--a quarter and a house dear to English people since the first invasion of foreigners, but by no means liked or considered especially healthy by the Romans. CHAPTER VI. Meanwhile, the lives of some of the other persons concerned in this history were less idyllic, and very probably more satisfactory to themselves. Having survived the season, and having borne the severe Lenten mortification implied in not capering nightly to the tune of two or three fiddles and a piano, the world arose after Easter like a giant refreshed with wine, and enjoyed a final fling before breaking up for the summer. Having danced with the windows shut, it now danced with the windows open, and found the change delightful, as indeed it is. Instead of sitting in corners together, the couples who had anything to say to one another now stood or sat in the deep embrasures, glancing up at the starlit sky to see whether the dawn were yet breaking. As for the rest, there was little change at all. The little Vicomte de Bompierre had transferred his attentions from the Marchesa di San Giacinto to Donna Maria Boccapaduli, and the Marchesa, who was in love with her husband, did not seem to care at all, but remained on the best of terms with Donna Maria, to the latter's infinite satisfaction. The Contessa dell' Armi attracted more attention because some one had started the report that dell' Armi himself was in a state of jealousy bordering upon delirium, that he had repeatedly struck her, and that he spent the few hours he could spare from this unwholesome exercise and from his parliamentary duties in tearing out his hair by the handful. The picture of dell' Armi evoked by these stories was striking, dramatic, and somewhat novel, so that every one was delighted. As a matter of fact, the Count did not care a straw for his wife, rarely saw her at all, and then only to discuss the weather. He had married her in order that her fortune might help him in his political career, he had got what he wanted, and he was supremely indifferent to the rest. The sad part of the matter was--if any one had known the truth--that poor Maddalena dell' Armi had been married out of a convent, and had then and there fallen madly in love with him, her own husband. He had resented her excessive affection, as it interfered with his occupations and amusements, and after an interval of five years, during which the unhappy young wife shed endless tears and suffered intensely, he had the satisfaction of seeing that she no longer loved him in the least, and rather avoided him than otherwise. In taking a fancy to Pietro Ghisleri he thought she had shown considerable discrimination, since every one knew that Ghisleri was a very discreet man. The amazing cynicism of his view altogether escaped him. He was occupied in politics. If he had observed it, he would have undoubtedly laughed as heartily as he did when a lady on the outskirts of society told him that he was supposed to be a jealous husband. But the rest of the world watched Maddalena and Pietro with great interest. They had quarrelled--or they had made it up--they had not danced together during one whole evening--they had danced a waltz and then a quadrille, the one after the other--Maddalena had been crying--by a coincidence, Ghisleri looked unusually strong and well--Pietro, again, was looking somewhat haggard and weary, and the Contessa met the world that evening with a stony stare. There was endless matter for speculation, and accordingly the world speculated without end, and, as usual, to no purpose. Ghisleri was absolutely reticent, and Maddalena was a very proud woman, who, in spite of her past sufferings, did her best not to let any one suspect that she and her husband were on bad terms. She was also unhappy in the present about a very different matter, concerning which she was not inclined to speak with any one. Donna Adele's last decided attempt to defame Lord Herbert Arden had, to a certain extent, been successful, but it had also produced another result of which Adele did not know, but which would have given her even greater satisfaction. It had almost caused a quarrel between Ghisleri and the Contessa. It will be remembered that the latter heard the story from Donna Maria Boccapaduli on the steps of a church in Holy Week. She was at the time more unhappy than usual. Something had touched the finer chords of her nature, and she felt a sort of horror of herself and of the life she was leading--very genuine in its way, and intensely painful. Donna Maria's story was revolting to her, for just then everything and everybody seemed to be false--even Ghisleri. She did not even stop, as she would have done at any other time, to weigh the value of the story, and to ask herself whether it were likely that he could thus deliberately betray his friend, and especially to Adele Savelli whom she believed he disliked. Even with her he was reticent, and she had never quite assured herself of his opinion concerning Adele, but she had watched him narrowly and had drawn her own conclusions. And now, if he had betrayed the man whom he called his friend, he must be capable of betraying the woman he loved. "Is it true that you have been talking to Donna Adele Savelli about your friend Arden?" she asked, when they met later on the same afternoon. "Quite true," answered Ghisleri, indifferently. "We were talking about him yesterday afternoon." "Do you mind telling me what you said?" asked the Contessa, her eyes hardening and her whole face growing scornful. "I have not the least objection," said Ghisleri, coldly. He at once gave her all the details of the conversation as far as he could remember them; his memory was accurate in such matters and he scarcely omitted a word. "Am I to believe you or her?" asked the Contessa when she had listened to the end. "As I am speaking the truth, it might be as well to believe me." "And how am I to know that you are speaking the truth, now or at any other time? You would not change colour, nor look at me less frankly, if you were telling me the greatest falsehood imaginable. Why should I believe you?" "I am sure I do not know," answered Ghisleri. "I would only like to be sure whether, as a general rule, you mean to believe me in future, or not. If you do not, I need not say anything, I suppose. Conversation would be singularly simplified." "You would not be so angry with me now, if your story were true," said the Contessa, with a forced laugh. "A man may reasonably be annoyed at being called a liar even by a lady," retorted Ghisleri. "And you do not take the least trouble to defend yourself--" "Not the least. Why should you believe my defence any more than my plain statement? You have rather a logical mind--you ought to see that." "Are you trying to quarrel with me? You will succeed if you go on in this way." "No. I am doing my best to answer your questions. I should be very sorry to quarrel with you. You know it. Or are you going to doubt that too?" "From the tone in which you say it, and from the way you act, I am inclined to." "You are in a very unbelieving humour to-day." "I have reason to be." "Am I the cause?" "Yes." The Contessa was not quite sure why she said it, but for the moment she felt that it was true, as perhaps it was in an indirect way. "Do you know that although you have asked me a great many questions which I have answered as well as I could, you have not told me what it is I am accused of saying?" "You are accused of saying," answered the Contessa, looking straight into his eyes, "that your friend Lord Herbert Arden is in the habit of taking too much wine. Is that so nice a thing to have said?" Ghisleri's face darkened, and the blood throbbed in his temples. "As I have told you precisely what I really said," he replied, "I shall say nothing more. Only this--if you have any sense of justice left, which I begin to doubt, you will ask San Giacinto whether he thinks it probable that I would say such a thing. That is all. I suppose you will believe him." "I do not think I believe any one. Besides, as you say, he can only testify to your character, and say that the thing is improbable. Of course he would do that. Men always defend each other against women." "He can tell you something more if he chooses," answered Ghisleri. "If he chooses!" The Contessa's scornful expression returned. "If he tells me nothing you will remind me of that word, and say that he did not choose. How you always arrange everything beforehand to leave yourself a way of escape." "I am sorry you should think so," said Ghisleri, gravely. "I am sorry that I have to think so. It does not increase my self-respect, nor my vanity in my judgment." They parted on very bad terms that day, and two or three days more passed before they saw each other again. The Contessa had almost made up her mind that she would not speak to San Giacinto at all, and Ghisleri began to think that she wished to break with him permanently. Far more sensitive than any one supposed, he had been deeply wounded by her words and tone, so deeply indeed that he scarcely wished to meet her for the present. The world did not fail to see the coldness that had come between them, and laughed heartily over it. The Contessa, said the world, thought that the way to keep Ghisleri was to be cold to him and encourage Pietrasanta, but she did not know dear Ghisleri, who did not care in the very least, who had not a particle of sensitiveness in him, and had never really loved any one but the beautiful Princess Corleone who died of fever in Naples five years ago, and of whom he never spoke. But as chance would have it, the Contessa found herself talking to San Giacinto one evening, when she was feeling very lonely and unhappy, and her half-formed resolution broke down as suddenly as it had presented itself. The giant looked at her keenly for a moment, bent his heavy black brows, and then told her the story of what had taken place at the club. He, who saw most things, and talked little of them, noted the gradual change in her face, and how the light came back to it while he was speaking. She understood that the man whom she had accused of betraying his friend had faced a roomful of men in his defence, and on the very ground now under discussion, and she repented of what she had done. Then she swore vengeance on Adele Savelli. The world saw that a reconciliation had taken place, and concluded that Maddalena dell' Armi had abandoned her foolish plan of trying to attract Ghisleri by being cold to him. Ghisleri, indeed! As though he cared! "But I have no particular wish to be revenged on Donna Adele," objected Ghisleri, when the Contessa spoke to him on the subject. "That sort of thing is a disease of the brain. There are people who cannot see things as they are. She is one of them." "How indifferent you are!" sighed Maddalena. "I wonder whether you were always so." "Not always," answered Pietro, thoughtfully. In due time the short Easter season was over, the foreigners departed, and many of the Romans followed their example, especially those whose country places were within easy reach of the city, by carriage or by rail. The Contessa went to pay her regular annual visit at her father's, near Florence,--her mother had long been dead,--and Ghisleri remained in Rome, unable to make up his mind what to do. Something seemed to bind him to the town this year, and though he went away for a day or two from time to time, he always came back very soon. Even his damaged old castle did not attract him as it usually did, though he had begun to restore it a little during the last few years, a little at a time, as his modest fortune allowed. There was an odd sort of foresight in his character. He laughed at the idea of being married, and yet he had a presentiment that he would some day change his mind and take a wife. In case that should ever happen, Torre de' Ghisleri would be at once a beautiful and an economical retreat for the summer months. Though he had a reputation for extravagance and for living always a little beyond his income, he was in reality increasing his property. He was constantly buying small bits of land in the neighbourhood of his castle, with a vague idea that he might ultimately get the old estate together again. He generally bought on mortgage, binding himself to pay at a certain date, and as he was a very honourable man in all financial transactions, he invariably paid, though sometimes at considerable sacrifice. He said to himself that unless he were bound he would inevitably throw away the little money he had to spare. It was a curiously practical trait in such an unruly and almost lawless character, but he did such things when he could, and then thought no more about them until a fresh opportunity presented itself. He was a man whose life and whole power of interest in life were almost constantly absorbed by the two or three persons to whom he was sincerely attached, a fact never realised by those who knew him--a passionate man at heart, and one who despised himself for many reasons--a man who would have wished to be a Launcelot in fidelity, a Galahad in cleanness of heart, an Arthur for justice and frankness, but who was indeed terribly far from resembling any of the three. A man liable to most human weaknesses, but having just enough of something better to make him hate weakness in himself and understand it in others without condemning it too harshly in them. He had the wish to overcome it in his own character and life, but when the victory looked too easy it did not tempt him, for his vanity was of the kind which is only satisfied with winning hard fights, and rarely roused except by the prospect of them, while quite indifferent to small success of any kind--either for good or evil. And this year, for some reason which he did not attempt to explain to himself, he lingered on in Rome, living a lonely life, avoiding the club where many of his acquaintances still congregated, taking his meals irregularly at garden restaurants, and spending most of his evenings in wandering about Rome by himself. The old places attracted him strongly. Many associations clung to the shady streets, the huge old palaces, and the dusky churches. Ten years of such a life as he had led had left many traces behind them, many sensitive spots in his complicated nature which inanimate things had power to touch keenly and thrill again with pain or pleasure. There was much that was sad, indeed, in these recollections, but there were also many memories dear and tender and almost free from the sting of self-reproach. He was not one to crave excitement for its own sake, nor to miss it when it was past. It often chanced, indeed, that he could find the few things that pleased him, the few people he liked, in the midst of the world's noisiest fair, but he would always have preferred to be alone with them, to meet with them when he was quite sure of being altogether himself and not the overwrought, nervous being which he came to be during the rush of the season, in spite of his undeniable physical strength. Those who need excitement most are either those who have never lived in it, or those unhappily morbid beings who cannot live without it, because by force of habit it has become the only atmosphere which their lungs can breathe and in which they can act more or less normally. Ghisleri followed the Ardens in imagination as they pursued their wedding trip. He rarely knew exactly where they were, but he was familiar with all the places they were visiting, and he liked to fancy them enjoying together all there was to be seen and done. Had he not himself still been young, he would almost have fancied that he felt a fatherly interest in their doings. Then he heard that they were in England, and at last, when he had made up his mind to go away for a month or two, he learned that Arden was in bad health. He was distressed by the news, and wished he could see his old friend, if only for a day, to judge for himself of his condition. But that was impossible at present. He was not always free to dispose of his time as he pleased, and as he had been during the past months. Moreover, the world was not quite just when it said that Ghisleri did not "care," as it expressed the state of mind it attributed to him. Between going to England, and going to Vallombrosa, near Florence, he did not hesitate a moment. So the autumn came round again, and when he returned to his lodging in Rome, he found that the Ardens were already installed in the Tempietto. The Savelli couple were still out of town at the family castle in the Sabines, but the Prince and Princess of Gerano had come back. Ghisleri found both Laura and Arden greatly changed. The latter's appearance shocked him especially, and he felt almost from the first that his friend was doomed. The man who was not supposed to care spent at least one sleepless night, turning over in his mind the various possibilities of life and death. On the following morning at twelve o'clock, he climbed the steps to the Trinità de' Monti, and asked to see Lady Herbert Arden alone, a request which was easily granted, as her husband now rarely rose until one, and then only for a few hours. Laura's eyes looked preternaturally large and deep--almost sunken, Ghisleri thought--and she had grown thin, and even paler than she usually was when in good health. He took the seat she pointed to, by the open fire, and stared into the flames absently for some seconds. It was a rather dreary morning early in November, and the air in the streets was raw and damp. At last he looked up. "You are anxious about your husband, Lady Herbert?" he said. Laura sighed, and opened her white hands to the warmth, as she sat on the other side of the fireplace. But she said nothing. She could not deny what he had told her, for she was in mortal anxiety by day and night. "It is very natural," said Ghisleri, trying to speak more cheerfully. "But I do not think there is any very serious reason for anticipating danger. I have known Arden many years, and I have often known him to be ill before now." Laura glanced nervously at Pietro, and looked away again almost instantly. There was a frightened look in her face as though she feared something unexpected. Perhaps she was afraid of believing too readily in Ghisleri's comforting view. "All the same," he continued, "there is no denying that he is in very bad health. Forgive me if I seem officious. I do not love him as you do, of course, but we have been more or less good friends these many years--since very long before you knew him." "More or less good friends!" repeated Laura, in a disappointed tone. "Herbert calls you his best friend." "I dare say he has many better than I am," answered Ghisleri, quietly. "But I have certainly never liked any man as much as I like him. That is why I come to you to-day. Do you not think that he should be taken care of, or, at least thoroughly examined by the best specialist to be found?" "I have thought of it," said Laura, after a short pause. "Of course the doctor comes regularly, but I do not think he is a really great authority. I am afraid that anything like a consultation might alarm Herbert. I see how determined he is to be cheerful, but I cannot help seeing also that he is despondent about himself." "There need be nothing like a consultation. Will you trust me in this matter?" Laura looked at him. She felt, on a sudden, the old, almost inexplicable, timid dislike of him with which she had long been familiar, and she hesitated before she answered. "Could I not manage it myself?" she asked abruptly. "It would seem more natural." Ghisleri's face grew slowly cold, and his eyes fixed themselves on the fire. "I thought I might be able to help you," he said. "Have you any particular reason for distrusting me as you do, Lady Herbert?" Laura's face contracted. She was not angry, but she was sorry that she had shown him what she thought, and it was hard to answer the question truthfully, for she was not really sure whether she had any excuse for doubting his frankness or not. In the present instance she assuredly had none. "I should certainly never distrust you where Herbert is concerned," she said, after a short pause. "It is only that it seems more natural, as I said, that I should be the one to speak to him and to arrange about the specialist's visit." "Very well. Forgive me, as I begged you to at first, if I have seemed officious. I will come and see your husband this afternoon." The consequence of this conversation was that Laura, being even more seriously alarmed than before, since she realised that Ghisleri himself was anxious, spoke to Arden about the necessity for seeing a better doctor, breaking it to him with all the loving gentleness she knew how to use with him, and Arden consented without much apparent reluctance to being examined by a man who had a great reputation. The latter took a long time before he gave an opinion, and ultimately declared to Laura that her husband was consumptive and would probably not live a year. Laura suffered in that moment as she would not have believed it possible to suffer, and it was long before she could compose herself enough to go to Arden. It was of course impossible to tell him all the doctor had said. She told him that his lungs were delicate, and that he must be very careful. "It seems to me I am always very careful," said Lord Herbert, patiently. She looked at him and saw for the hundredth time how ill he seemed. She tried to turn quickly and leave the room, but she could not. Suddenly the passionate tears broke out, and she fell on her knees beside his chair and clasped the poor little body in her arms. "Oh, Herbert, my love,--my love!" she sobbed. Then he felt that he was doomed. Had she loved him less, she could have kept the secret better. But he was brave still. "Hush, darling, hush!" he said, gently stroking her coal-black hair with his transparent hand. "You must not believe these foolish doctors. I have been just as ill before." But the mischief was done, and she felt that she had done it, and her remorse knew no bounds. In spite of his courage, Arden lost heart. The next time Ghisleri saw him he was much worse. Laura went out and left the two together. "Has anything worried you?" asked Ghisleri. "You look tired." Arden was silent for a long time, and his friend knew that he was carefully weighing his answer. "Yes," he said at last, "something has worried me very much. I can trust you not to speak--never to speak, even to my wife, of what I am going to say--especially if anything should happen," he added, as though with a painful afterthought. "I will never speak of it," replied Pietro, gravely. "I know you will not. We had a consultation the other day. Of course they were very careful not to tell me what they thought, but I could not help guessing it. You know how truthful my wife is--she could not deny it when I put the question directly. It is all up with me, my dear fellow, and I know it. I am consumptive. It will last a year at the most." "I do not believe a word of it!" exclaimed Ghisleri, with unusual heat. "You are not in the least like a consumptive man!" "The doctor is a good specialist," said Arden, quietly. "But that is not all. I have been so happy--I am so happy in many ways still--that I am weak enough to cling to my life, such as it is. But there is something else, Ghisleri. I knew I was ill, and I knew there was danger--but this is different. I had hoped to see my child, even if I were to die. I do not hope to see it now--you understand? Those things are always inherited." A deadly paleness came over Arden's face, and his clear brown eyes seemed unsteady for a moment. His face twitched nervously, and his hands were strained as they grasped the arms of his chair. Ghisleri looked very grave. "I repeat that I believe the doctor to be wholly mistaken. It would hardly be the first time that doctors have made such mistakes. Consumptive people do not behave as you do. They always feel that they are getting well, until the very last, and they have a regular cough, not to be mistaken, and they eat a great deal. You are quite different." "But he examined, me so carefully," objected Arden, though he could not help seeing a ray of hope. "I cannot help that. He was mistaken." That afternoon Ghisleri telegraphed to a great European celebrity whom he knew in Paris, to come if possible at once, no matter at what sacrifice of money. Forty-eight hours later the man of genius was breakfasting with Pietro in his rooms. "I will ask leave to bring you as a friend," said the latter. "I have begged you to come on my own responsibility." He wrote a note to Laura, explaining that an old acquaintance, a man of world-wide fame, was spending a couple of days with him, and begged permission to introduce him. He might amuse Arden, he said. He did not mention the doctor's profession. It was just possible that neither Arden nor Laura had ever heard of the man who was so great in a world not theirs. Laura asked them both to tea by way of answer. As it turned out, the Ardens had a very vague idea that the Frenchman was a man of science. In the course of conversation he admitted that he had studied medicine, and then went on to talk about the latest news from Paris, social, artistic, and literary. Arden was charmed with him, and Laura was really grateful to Ghisleri for helping to amuse her husband. Would they both come to luncheon the next day? They would, with pleasure, and they went away together. "Well?" asked Ghisleri, as they walked towards the Pincio in the early dusk, just to breathe the air. "I think he may live," answered the great man. "I believe it is a trouble of the heart with an almost exhausted vitality." Laura was left alone with her husband. Whether it was the doctor's personal influence, or whether Arden was really momentarily better, she could not tell, but he looked as he had not looked for two months. "That man delights me," he said dreamily. "I do not know what there is about him, and it is very foolish--but I fancy that if he were a doctor, he might cure me--or keep me alive longer," he added, with a sort of reluctant sadness. Laura looked at him in surprise. "He said he had studied medicine," she answered. "Shall I ask Signor Ghisleri, if, as a friend, he would come and give his opinion?" "It is too much to ask of a stranger." "Nothing is too much to ask," she said quietly. In her own room she wrote a note to Pietro. With many apologies, she explained to him that her husband was so delighted with Ghisleri's friend, that she believed it might make a difference if, as a doctor--since he was one--the latter would be willing to see him once and give his opinion. Pietro smiled when he read the note. On the following day the great man went again to the Tempietto, and with many protestations of incompetence did as he was requested, assuring Lady Herbert that it was only in deference to her wishes that he did so. "You are not consumptive--in the least, and you may even become strong," he said, after a very long and thorough examination. "That, at least," he added, "is my humble opinion." Arden's face brightened suddenly. But Laura and Ghisleri remained alone together for a moment afterwards, while the doctor was already putting on his coat. "After all," said Laura, despondently, "it was to please Herbert. The man says that his opinion is not worth very much." "He is the greatest living authority on the subject," answered Ghisleri. "You may safely take his opinion." Laura's face expressed her surprise, and at the same time, an unspeakable relief. "Are you sure?" she asked, in trembling tones. "Ask your doctor. He will tell you. Will you forgive me my little trick, Lady Herbert? As he was here, I thought you might like to see him." Ghisleri put out his hand to take his leave, and Laura pressed it warmly. "If I had ever had anything to forgive, I would forgive you--for your great kindness to me," she said, and the tears were almost in her eyes. "It is you who should forgive me for not trusting you when you first spoke. How wrong I was!" "Nonsense!" exclaimed Ghisleri. "It was very natural." And so it seemed to him, perhaps. But such little tricks, as he called what he had done, cost money, and that year Ghisleri did not buy the bit of land which stood next on the list in his scheme for reacquiring the old estate. CHAPTER VII. Arden's health improved, at first very rapidly, and then more slowly, as he seemed to approach what, for him, was a normal condition of strength. The month of December was fine, and he was able to drive out constantly, to be up most of the day, and to talk with acquaintances without any great fatigue. As a natural consequence, too, Laura regained in a very short time all that she had lost, and her eyes no longer looked sunken and haggard nor her face unnaturally pale. Her gratitude to Ghisleri was boundless, and as the days went on and Arden had no relapse, she began to wonder how she could ever have felt anything approaching to dislike for the man to whom she almost owed her husband's life. Pietro, on his part, came often to the house and saw the change that had taken place in her manner towards him. He was pleased, though he had not thought of producing any impression upon her by what he had done solely for Arden's sake, for he had long admired her, and felt that she was very like a certain ideal of woman of which he never talked. But his pleasure was not very genuine, after all. He hardly believed that Laura's mood would last, because he had hitherto had little experience of lasting moods in women. For the present, at least, she believed in him and was grateful. About this time Donna Adele, her husband, and his father and mother all came back from the country, and at or near the same period the great majority of the old society stagers appeared again as forerunners of the coming season. The gay set was not yet all assembled, and it was even reported that some of them would not come at all, for there was financial trouble in the air, and many people had lost money, or found their incomes diminished by the general depression. Nevertheless, when Christmas came, few of the familiar faces of the previous year were missing, and those few have not been seen in this history. "This is the beginning," said Gouache to Ghisleri. "You may remember that charming description of chaos in the sacred writings: 'in the beginning darkness was over all the earth'--very like Rome before the season begins. The resemblance ends there, my dear friend. The sentence which follows would hardly be applicable. Are we to have another Shrove Tuesday feast this year for the sake of giving sin a last chance? Have you another diabolical production ready?" "I am afraid not," answered Ghisleri. "Besides, one should never repeat a good thing." "That is what my wife says," observed Anastase, thoughtfully. "That dear woman! But for her, I should do nothing but repeat my successful pictures--if possible by a chemical process. It would be so easy! That is the way the modern galleries of old masters are formed. There is a little man in the Via da' Falegnami who turns out the article at a fixed price, including the cost of the green wood for smoking the Rembrandts, and the genuine old panels for doing the Botticellis. I often go to see him. He knows more about grinding colours, and about vehicles and varnishes, and the price of lamp-black than any artist I ever knew. He painted that portrait of Raphael by himself--by Raphael, I mean, for Prince Durakoff last year, and found the documents to prove its existence among his papers. It took him six months, but it was well done, especially the parchments. There was even the receipt for the money paid to Raphael for the picture by the Most Excellent House of Frangipani, signed by the painter himself--I mean by Raphael. Cheap, at ten thousand francs. Durakoff paid the dealer eighty thousand without bargaining. He did not reflect that if it had been genuine it would have been worth five hundred thousand, and, if not, that it was not worth fifty centimes." "Rather like a friend," observed Ghisleri. "Friendship is a matter of fortune," said Gouache, "as love is a question of climate." "You are not usually so cynical. What has happened?" "My wife has been amusing me, this morning, with an account of society's opinions on various subjects. One-half of her friends assure her that black is white, and the other half tell her it is a vivid yellow. That is called conversation. They give it you with tea, milk, and sugar, between five and seven in the afternoon." Gouache seemed to be in a somewhat communicative frame of mind. As a matter of fact he often was with Ghisleri, whom he trusted more than most men. "What was it all about?" inquired the latter. "People, people, and then people again. What does everybody talk about? Silly stories about Lady Herbert Arden and Savelli, and about Lord Herbert himself, and his dissipated life. The Ardens do not seem to be liked. He is a great friend of yours, is he not?" "Yes, we have known each other almost ten years." Ghisleri began to smoke, rather gloomily, for he perceived that there was trouble in store for Laura. "It is Donna Adele who does all the mischief," continued Gouache, putting a dash of bright blue into the face of the portrait he was painting, a proceeding which, as Ghisleri noticed with some surprise, improved the likeness. "It is Donna Adele. You know the old story. Savelli loved Miss Carlyon but could not marry her. Donna Adele never forgave her, and she will end by doing her a great deal of harm. She pretends that Savelli has told her that Lady Herbert is already talking to him and to everybody of her own wretched married life--rather hinting that if Savelli would care to depart this life of respectability she would go with him, a proposition which, of course, Savelli scorns in the most virtuous and approved fashion, rolling his fine paternal language as in the fourth act of a tragedy at the Comedie Française. I suppose you cannot stop this sort of thing, can you?" "I will try," said Ghisleri, in a tone that made Gouache look round from his painting. He had not often witnessed even such a slight manifestation of real anger on Pietro's part, as was apparent in the enunciation of the three words. "You might, perhaps, better than any one else," observed Gouache. "From other things she has said, it is quite apparent that she would like to see you at her feet." Ghisleri looked at Anastase rather sharply, but said nothing. It was not the fact that Donna Adele wished him to pay her more attention that struck him; he was wondering what the other remarks might have been, to which Gouache alluded. They might have been directed against the Contessa--or they might have been such as to show that Adele suspected Ghisleri of an attachment for Laura Arden since he now went so often to the house. As Gouache did not volunteer any further information, however, Ghisleri thought it wiser to ask no questions, and he was inclined to infer that the aforesaid observations had been directed against Maddalena dell' Armi. Ghisleri went away in a very bad humour. So long as the gossip came from the men, he had a very simple and definite course open to him, and he knew that his personal influence was considerable. But when the worst things said were said by women, there seemed to be no remedy possible. It would not be an easy matter to go to Adele and tax her with lying, slandering, and evil speaking. She would very properly be angry, and would of course deny that she had ever spoken on the matter, her friends would support her in her denial, and he would be no further advanced than before. He could not possibly go to Francesco Savelli and demand of the latter an explanation of Donna Adele's conduct. That was out of the question. To let Donna Adele know that both Laura and Arden were quite unconscious of her attacks and, in their present life of almost enforced retirement, were likely to remain in ignorance of them, might annoy Donna Adele, but could do no good. It would be positively unkind to speak to the Princess of Gerano and ask her to use her influence with her step-daughter, but Ghisleri thought he had struck a possibility at last--he could go to old Gerano himself and explain matters. After all, Gerano was Adele's father and had some authority over her still. Ghisleri came rather hastily to the conclusion that this would be the wisest course to follow, and acted almost immediately upon his decision, for it chanced that he found the Prince at the club, and had the opportunity he needed within half an hour after forming his plan of action. He approached the subject coolly and diplomatically, while Gerano blandly listened and puffed at a cigarette. Donna Adele, he said, had of course no intention of injuring her step-sister, but she was too young to know the weight a careless tale often carried with it in the world, and had no idea of the harm she was doing. No one, not even the Prince himself, was ignorant of the fact that Don Francesco Savelli's first inclination had been rather for Miss Carlyon than for Donna Adele, but that it had been a mere young man's fancy, without any importance, and that having yielded to parental authority, Don Francesco was now a perfectly happy man. Perhaps Donna Adele had not been able to forget this apparent slight upon her beauty and charm, as far as her step-sister was concerned, though well aware that her husband thought no more about Lady Herbert. It was natural and womanly in her to resent it. But that was not a good reason why she should say--as she seemed to be saying constantly--that Lady Herbert was very much in love with Don Francesco. Here Ghisleri paused, and the Prince opened his eyes very wide at first, and then almost shut them as he scrutinised his companion's face. He knew the man well, however, and guessed that the matter must be serious indeed, since he took the trouble to treat it in such earnest. "I suppose," said Gerano, "that you are quite prepared to support your words if any question arises. This is a strange tale." "Yes," answered Ghisleri. "I am always ready." He spoke with such gravity that the Prince was impressed. Pietro went on to say that Donna Adele, doubtless out of pure carelessness, had certainly, by a foolish jest, suggested the story that Lord Herbert was very intemperate, a story which Ghisleri had last year been obliged to deny in the most formal manner in the very room in which they were now talking, to a number of men. The tale had of late been revived in a form even more virulent than before, and such untruths, even when they have originated in a harmless bit of fun, could damage a man's reputation for life. "Of course they can, and they do," asserted the Prince, who was becoming rather anxious. "As, for instance," continued Ghisleri, "it is now said that Lady Herbert Arden, your step-daughter, now talks to Don Francesco and to everybody--which probably means the few persons who circulate the myth--about her wretched married life, and other suggestions which I will not repeat are added, which are very insulting to her. For my part, my business is to defend Arden, who is my friend, and who is unfortunately too ill to defend himself should all this come to his ears. I do not say that this last addition concerning Lady Herbert's confidences comes from Donna Adele Savelli. But it is undoubtedly current, and proceeds directly from the former gossip, as its natural consequence." "Evidently," said the Prince, who kept his temper admirably, in consideration of the gravity of the case. "And now what do you expect me to do?" "You are Donna Adele's father," answered Ghisleri. "She is assuredly ignorant of the harm she has caused. It would seem quite natural if you suggested to her that it is in her power to undo what she has unintentionally done." "How, may I ask? By an apology?" Gerano did not like the idea, but Ghisleri smiled. "That would make matters worse," he said. "She could put everything right merely by saying a few pleasant things about the Ardens to half a dozen people of her acquaintance--at random. Donna Maria Boccapaduli, the Marchesa di San Giacinto, the Contessa dell' Armi--even Donna Faustina Gouache. She might ask the Ardens to dinner--" "I observe that you do not name any men," observed the Prince. "It is not the men who have been talking, so far as I know--nor if they did, would their gossip do so much damage." "That may be. As for the rest, I will say this. You have said some exceedingly unpleasant things to me this afternoon, but I know you well enough to be sure that you are not only in earnest, but wish to avert trouble rather than cause it. Otherwise I should not have listened to you as I have. I am very deeply attached to my only child, though I am also very fond of my step-daughter. However, I will take this question in hand and find out the truth, and do what I can to mend matters. If I find you have been misinformed, I will ask the favour of another interview." "I shall always be at your service." They parted rather stiffly, but without any nearer approach to hostility than was implied in the last formal words they exchanged. Gerano walked slowly homeward, revolving the situation in his mind, and wondering how he should act in order to get at the truth in the case. Being very fond of his wife, his first impulse was to tell her the whole story, and to take counsel with her before doing anything definite. It would have been better had he gone directly to Donna Adele, though he might not have accomplished anything at all, and might have believed her, and might also have quarrelled with Ghisleri afterwards. But he did not foresee the consequences. The Princess was very much overcome by the account he gave her of his interview with Ghisleri, of whom she had a high opinion as a man of truthful character, bad as he seemed to be in other respects. She knew instinctively and at once that every one of his statements must have been perfectly well founded, and that if he had erred it had assuredly not been in the direction of exaggerating the facts. She was in much the same position as her husband, except that her own daughter was the victim, while his was the aggressor. It was strange that in so many years neither should have understood Adele's character well enough to suspect that she could be capable of any treachery, and yet both were now convinced that the case against her was not by any means a fiction. The Princess was now in the gravest distress, and she could not keep back her tears as she tried to find arguments in Adele's favour, wishing to the last to defend her husband's child, while never for a moment losing sight of her own. She was an eminently good woman, but very far from worldly-wise. Indeed, as events proceeded that day, there seemed to be a diminution of wisdom in the action of each in turn as compared with that of the last person concerned. Ghisleri had not really allowed himself time to consider the situation in all its bearings before speaking to Gerano, or he might not have spoken at all. Gerano, next, had scarcely hesitated in confiding the whole affair to his wife, and she, in despair, turned to the one person of all others with whom she was really most in sympathy, to Laura Arden herself, regardless of the consequences to every one concerned. Lord Herbert was resting before dinner, and she found her daughter alone. Her heart was almost bursting, and she poured out the story in all its details, accurately, as she had heard it, though hardly knowing what she said. At first Laura was tempted to laugh. She had been so much happier of late that laughing had grown easy, but she very soon saw the real meaning of the situation, and she grew pale as she silently listened to the end. Then her mother broke down again. "And I have loved her so!" cried the poor lady. "Almost as I have loved you, my child! To think of it all--oh, it is not to be believed!" Laura was not at that moment inclined to shed tears. It was almost the first time in her life when she was really angry, for her temper was not easily roused. It was not destined to be the last. Dry-eyed and pale, she sat beside the Princess, holding her hands, then drying her fast flowing tears, then caressing her, and saying all she could to soothe and calm her, while almost choking herself to keep down the rage she felt. Her eyes had been opened at last, and she saw what the story really was at which Arden had made such a poor guess. As the Princess grew more calm, she began to look at her daughter in surprise. "What is the matter, darling?" she asked anxiously. "Are you ill, dear, you look so changed!" "I am angry, mother," answered Laura, quietly enough. "I shall get over it soon, I dare say." Even her voice did not sound like her own. It was hollow and strange. Her mother was frightened. "I have done very wrong to tell you, Laura," she said, realising too late that the revelation must have been startling in the extreme. "I do not know," answered Lady Herbert, still speaking in the same peculiar tone, and with an effort. "Adele and I meet constantly. Of course we have been brought up like real sisters, and though we were never intensely fond of one another we talk about everything as if we were. I will be careful in future. This may not be all true, but there is truth in it, if you have remembered exactly what Signor Ghisleri said--or rather, if the Prince has." The Princess started slightly. Laura had always called Gerano father, as though she had really been his daughter, but the shock had been very sudden, and she found it hard to call by that name the man whose daughter was Adele Savelli. "I hope it will turn out to be all a mistake!" exclaimed the Princess, weakly, and on the point of bursting into tears again. "Until we are sure of it, I shall try and behave as usual to Adele, if we have to meet," said Laura. "After that, if it is all true--I do not know--" When the Princess went home, she was a little frightened at what she had done, and repented bitterly of having yielded to her own unreasoning longing to talk the matter over with Laura--natural enough indeed, when it is remembered that the two loved one another so dearly. It had been a mistake, she was sure, and she would have given anything to undo it. She only hoped that she should not be obliged to explain to her husband. Laura sat alone by the fireside. Herbert was lying down and would not appear until dinner time, so that she had almost an hour in which to think over the situation. She determined to master her anger and to look the matter in the face calmly. After all, it was only gossip, town-talk, insignificant chatter, which must all be forgotten in the light of the true facts. So she tried to persuade herself, at least, but she found it a very hard matter to believe her own statement of it all. The more she thought it over, the more despicable it all seemed in her eyes, the more savagely she hated Adele. She could have borne the story about herself better, if it had come alone, but she could neither forgive nor find an excuse for what had been said against her husband. To know that people openly called him intemperate--a drunkard, that would be the word! Him, of all living men! The assertion was so monstrous that all Laura's resolution to control herself gave way suddenly, and she, in her turn, burst into a flood of tears, hot, angry, almost agonising, impossible to check. She might have been proud to shed them, for they showed how much more she loved her husband than she cared for herself, but she was conscious only of the intense desire to face Adele, and do her some grievous bodily hurt and be revenged for the foul slander cast on Herbert Arden. She opened and shut her hands convulsively, as though she were clutching some one and strangling the breath in a living throat. Every drop of blood in her young body was fire, every tear that rolled down her pale cheek was molten lead, every beat of her angry pulse brought an angry thought to her brain. How long she remained in this state she did not know. She did not hear her husband's laboured, halting step on the soft carpet, and before she was aware of his presence he was standing before her, with a look of pain and almost of horror in his delicate face. That was the most terrible moment in his life. Highly sensitive as he was, loving her almost to distraction as he did, he had always found it hard to understand her love for him. To suspect that all of it was pity, or that a part of it had grown weak of late, was almost impossible to him, and yet the possibility of doubt was there. He had entered the room as usual, without any precaution, but she had not heard him; he had seen her apparently struggling with herself and with some unseen enemy, in a paroxysm of grief and rage. Instantly the doubt rose supreme and struck him, like a sudden blow in the face. "She has found out her mistake too late--she does not love me, and she longs to be free." That was what Herbert Arden said to himself as he stood before her, and the horror of it was almost greater than he could bear. Yet there was a great and manly courage in his narrow breast. He felt that he must die, but she should not suffer any more than was necessary until then. He drew the best breath he could, as though it were his last. She started, wild-eyed, as he spoke. "Laura darling--it has been a terrible mistake--and it is all my fault. Will you forgive me, dear one? I thought that you would love me--I see how it is when you are alone. No woman could have borne this bondage of yours as you have borne it since you have found out--" "Herbert! Herbert!" cried Laura, in sudden agony. She thought he was going mad before her eyes. "No, dear," he said, with an immense effort, and making a gesture with his hand as though to keep her in her place. "It is better to say it now, and it need never be said again. Perhaps I should not have the strength. I see it all. You are so kind and good that you will never show it to me--but when you are alone--then you let yourself go--is it any wonder? Are you to blame? You see that you have made the great mistake--that it was all pity and not love--and you long to be free from me as you should be, as you shall be, dear." A wild cry broke from Laura's very heart when she realised what he meant. "Love! Darling--Herbert! I never loved you as I love you now!" She did not know that she spoke articulate words as she sprang to her feet and clasped him in her arms, half mad with grief at the thought of what he must have suffered, and loving him as she said she did, far beyond the love of earlier days. But he hardly understood yet that it was really love, and he tried to look up into her face, almost fainting with the terrible strain he had borne so bravely, and still struggling to be calm. "Laura darling," he said, in a low voice, "it was all too natural. Unless you tell me what it was that made you act as I saw you just now, how can I understand?" She turned her deep eyes straight to his. "Do you doubt me still, Herbert?" she asked. And she saw that he could not help doubting. "But if I tell you that what I was thinking of would pain you very much, and that it would be of no use--" "It cannot be like the pain I feel now," he answered simply. She realised that what he said was true. Then she told him the whole story, as she knew it. And so, in a few hours, the conversation Ghisleri had held with Gouache began to bear fruit in a direction where neither of them had suspected it possible that their words could penetrate. Arden had allowed himself to sink into a chair at Laura's side, and he listened with half-closed eyes and folded hands while she spoke. Under ordinary circumstances he would probably have betrayed some emotion, and might have interrupted her with a question or two, but the terrible excitement of the last few minutes was followed by a reaction, and he felt himself growing colder and calmer every moment, while his heart, which had been beating furiously when he had first spoken to her, seemed now about to stand still. As she proceeded, however, he was aware of the most conflicting feelings of happiness and anger--the latter of the quiet and dangerous sort. He saw at once that he had been utterly mistaken in doubting Laura's love, and from that direction peace descended upon his heart; but when he heard what the world was saying of her, he felt that weak as he was, he had the sudden strength to dare and do anything to avenge the insult. He was human enough, too, to resent bitterly the story about himself, though that, after all, was but a secondary affair in comparison with the gossip about Laura. When she had finished, he rose slowly, and sat upon the arm of her easy-chair, drawing her head to his shoulder. He kissed her hair tenderly. "My beloved--can you forgive me?" he asked, in a very gentle voice. "My darling--that I should have doubted you!" "I am glad you did, dear--this once," she answered. "You see how it is. You are all the world to me--the mere thought that any one can hurt you by word or deed--oh, it drives me mad!" And she, who was usually so very calm and collected, again made that desperate gesture with her hands, as though she had them on a woman's throat and would strangle out the life of her in the grip of her firm fingers. "As for me, it matters little enough," said Arden, taking her hands and stroking them as though to soothe her anger. "Of course it is an absurd and disgusting story, and I suppose some people believe it. But what they say of you is a very different matter." "I do not think so," broke in Laura, indignantly. "Of course every one knows that we love each other, and that it is all a lie--but when such a tale is started about a man--that he drinks--oh, it is too utterly vile!" "Dear--shall we try and forget it? At least for this evening. Let us do our best. You have made me so happy in another way--I suffered in that moment very much." She looked up into his face as he sat on the arm of the chair, and she saw that he looked very ill. The scene had been almost too much for him, and she realised that when he spoke of forgetting it was because he could bear no more. "Yes, love," she said, "we will put it all away for this evening and be happy together as we always are." Each was conscious, no doubt, that the other was making a great effort, but neither of them referred to the matter again that night. They talked of all manner of subjects, rather nervously and resolutely at first, then naturally and easily as ever, when the deep sympathy which existed between them had asserted itself. During two hours, at least, they nearly forgot what had so violently moved them both. When Arden laid his head upon his pillow, his anger had not subsided, but he knew that his love had taken greater strength and depth than ever before. He spent a sleepless night indeed, but when he rose in the morning he did not feel tired. Something within him which was quite new seemed to sustain him and nourish him. He could not tell whether it was love for Laura, or anger against the woman who slandered her, or both acting at once, and he did not waste much time in speculating upon his mental condition. He had formed a resolution upon which he meant to act without delay. It was a rainy morning, chilly and raw again, as the weather had been earlier in the year. "Give me warm clothes, Donald," he said to his man. "I am going out." "Going out, my lord! In this weather!" Donald's face expressed the greatest anxiety. "Never mind the weather," said Arden. "Give me warm clothes, and send for a closed carriage." Donald obeyed, shaking his head, and muttering in detached expressions of disapproval. He was a privileged person. CHAPTER VIII. Arden, for the first time in his life, paid no attention to Laura's remonstrances when she tried to prevent him from going out in the rain, and he would not hear of her accompanying him on any condition. He assured her that with his fur coat, and in a closed carriage with a foot-warmer, he was as safe as at home in the drawing-room, and he gave her to understand that he had a small surprise in store for her, of which all the effect would be spoiled if she went with him. Very reluctantly she let him go. Even after he was gone, when she heard the brougham rattling down the Via Gregoriana, she was tempted to open the window and call the driver back. Then she reflected that she was probably foolish in being so anxious, since he now seemed almost as well as ever. When he left the house, Arden drove to a certain studio, and then and there bought a small picture which Laura had admired very much, and had been two or three times to see. To the artist's surprise, he insisted upon carrying it away with him at once, just as it was. Then he told the coachman to drive to the Palazzo Savelli. He sent up his card and asked to see Don Francesco, and at once received an answer, begging him to go up stairs. Francesco was very much surprised by the visit, and could not conceive what had brought Lord Herbert Arden to him at eleven o'clock in the morning. He awaited him in a vast and gloomy drawing-room in which there was no fire. The walls were hung with old portraits of the Savelli in armour, the carpet was of a sombre hue, and the furniture consisted of three superb marble tables with carved and gilt feet, and sixteen chairs of the style of Louis the Fourteenth's reign, all precisely alike, and standing side by side against the walls. Francesco Savelli stood facing the door, his yellow hair, blue eyes, and fresh complexion contrasting strongly with the dark background. He was a fine-looking fellow, with a mild face, a quiet manner, and a good deal of old-fashioned formality, which latter, however, seemed to wear off every evening in society, coming back as soon as he returned to the dim and shadowy halls of his home. The connexion between him and Arden was in reality so distant, that they had never assumed even the outward forms of intimacy, though their wives called each other sister. Savelli disliked Lord Herbert because he was a cripple, and chiefly because he had married Laura Carlyon. Arden, on his side, was more or less indifferent to Francesco, but treated him always with a shade more warmth than an ordinary acquaintance, as being, in a sense, a member of his wife's family. Savelli came forward as Arden entered. The servant allowed the heavy curtain to drop, closed the door, and went out, and the two men were left alone. "Good morning, my dear Arden," said Savelli, taking his hand. "I hope you are quite well. Pray be seated." "Good morning. Thanks." Both spoke in French. They sat down, side by side, on the stiff, high-backed gilt chairs, and each looked at the other. "I have something especial to say to you," began Arden, in his calm and even voice--a man quicker-witted than Savelli would have noticed the look of determination about the smooth-shaven lips and the prominent chin--the look of a man who will not be trifled with, and will say what he means in spite of all difficulties and all opposition. "I am entirely at your service," answered Don Francesco, politely. "Thanks. I have thought it best to come to you directly, because my business concerns your wife and mine, and it is better that we should settle such matters between us without the intervention of others." Savelli opened his eyes in surprise, but said nothing, only making a slight inclination of the head in answer. Arden continued in the cool and collected manner with which he had begun. "A number of outrageous lies," he said slowly, "are in circulation concerning my wife, and some of them concern myself. May I inquire whether you have heard them?" "It would facilitate matters, if you would tell me something of their nature," observed Savelli, more and more astonished. "There is no difficulty about that. I can even repeat them to you, word for word, or nearly so. It is said, in the first place, that my wife is very much in love with you--" "With me?" cried Savelli, startled out of his formality for once. "Yes--with you--and that she has loved you long. Secondly, it is said that I am a confirmed drunkard, and that my wife leads a most unhappy existence with me in consequence. It is further stated that she makes no secret of this supposed fact, but complains loudly to her friends, and especially selects you for her confidence in the matter." "That is totally untrue," said Don Francesco, gravely. "She has never spoken of you to me except in terms of the highest praise." "I am aware that it is not true, but I am much obliged to you for your very plain statement. I will go on. It is asserted that my wife has given you to understand that she loves you, and that, if you would consent, she would be ready to leave me and Rome in your company. These things, it appears, are current gossip, and are confidently stated as positive truths." "I have not heard any of them, except some vague reports about yourself, to the effect that you once took too much wine at the Gerano's house. But Ghisleri made a scene about it at the club, and I have heard no more of the absurd story." "I did not know that Ghisleri had actively taken my part," answered Arden. "But the story has now reached the form in which I repeated it. For myself, I care very little. It is on account of its connexion with the tales about my wife that I have told it to you." "May I ask who your informant is?" "My wife." "And hers?" "A reliable and truthful person, whom I shall not name at present. The affair concerns you and me. I have not come to the most important point, which will explain why I came to you." "I supposed that you came, as to a connexion of the family, to ask advice or assistance." "No. That is not it. I do not need either, thank you. I come to you because all these stories are distinctly traceable to Donna Adele Savelli." Francesco started violently, and almost rose from his seat, his face flushing suddenly. "Lord Herbert--take care!" he cried in a loud and angry voice, and with a passionate gesture. "Be calm," said Arden, in an unnaturally quiet tone. "If you strike me, you will be disgraced for life, because I am a cripple. But I assure you that I am not in the least afraid of you." "You are wrong!" exclaimed Savelli, still furious, and turning upon him savagely. "Not at all," returned the Englishman, unmoved. "I came here to settle this business, and I have not the smallest intention of going away until I have said all I meant to say. After that, if you are inclined to demand satisfaction of me, as is the custom here, you can do so. I will consider the matter. I shall probably not exchange shots with you, because I believe that duelling is wrong. But let me say that I do not in the least mean to insult you, nor, as I think, have I been lacking in civility to-day. I have given you a number of facts which I have every reason for believing to be true. You will in all likelihood have no difficulty in finding out whether they are true or not. If we, jointly, are convinced that the statements are false, I shall be happy to offer you my best apologies; if not, and if you are convinced that Donna Adele has been slandering my wife, I shall expect you to act upon your conviction, as a man of honour should, and take measures to have these reports instantly and fully denied everywhere by Donna Adele herself. I think I have stated the case plainly, and what I have said ought not to offend you, in my opinion." "It is certainly impossible to be more plain," answered Savelli, regaining something of his outward calm. "As to what may or may not give offence, opinions may differ in England and in Italy." "They probably do," returned Arden, coolly. "It is not my intention to offend you." Francesco Savelli looked at the shrunken figure and the thin hands with an odd sensation of repulsion and respect. He had been very far from supposing that Herbert Arden possessed such undeniable courage and imperturbable coolness, and not being by any means a coward himself, he could not help admiring bravery in others. He was none the less angry, however, though he made a great effort to keep his temper. He did not love his wife, but he had all the Roman traditions concerning the sacredness of the family honour, which he now felt was really at stake, and he had all a Roman's dread of a public scandal. "I must beg you once more to tell me by whom these stories were told to Lady Herbert," he said, after a pause. "I cannot do so, without consulting that person," answered Arden. "I do not wish to drag other people into the affair. You will be able to find out for yourself, and probably through members of your own family, how much truth there is in it all." "You positively refuse to tell me?" "I have said so. If you wish to be confronted with the person in question, I will consult that person, as I said before." "And if I then, on my side, positively refuse to do anything without having previously spoken to that person--to him or to her--what then?" "In my opinion, you will be allowing a state of things to continue which will not ultimately reflect credit upon you or yours. Moreover, you will oblige me to take some still more active measures." "What measures?" "I do not know. I will think about it. And now I will wish you good morning." He got upon his feet, and stood before Savelli. "Good morning," said the latter, very stiffly. "Allow me to accompany you to the hall." "Thanks," said Arden, as he began to move towards the door in his ungainly, dislocated fashion, while Savelli walked slowly beside him, towering above him by a third of his own height. Arden shivered as he slipped on his fur coat in the hall, for it had been very cold in the drawing-room though he had scarcely noticed the fact in his preoccupied state of mind. While driving homeward, he looked at the little picture as it stood opposite to him on the seat of the carriage. It was one of those exquisite views of the Campagna, looking across the Tiber, which Sartorio does so wonderfully in pastel. "She will be glad to have it," said Arden to himself, "and she will understand why I went out alone." He was tolerably well satisfied with the morning's work. It had seemed to him that there was nothing else to be done under the circumstances, and he certainly did not choose the least wise course, in going directly to Savelli. He did not regret a word of what he had said, nor did he feel that he had said too little. As he anticipated, Laura suspected nothing, and was delighted with the picture. She scolded him a little for having insisted upon going out on such a morning, especially for her sake, but as the clouds just then were breaking and the sunshine was streaming into the room, she felt as though it could not have been a great risk after all. Before they had finished luncheon, a note was brought in. Laura laughed oddly as she read it. "It is an invitation to dinner from Adele," she said. "It is for the day after to-morrow, shall we accept?" Arden's face grew thoughtful. He could not be sure whether the invitation had been sent before his interview with Savelli, or since. It was therefore not easy to decide upon the wisest course. "Better to accept it, is it not?" asked Laura. "It is of no use to make an open breach." "No. It is of no use. Accept, dear. It is more sensible." Neither of them liked the thought of dining at the Palazzo Savelli just then, and Laura, at least, knew that she would find it hard to behave as though nothing had happened. Both would have been very much surprised, could they have known why they were asked, and that the idea had originated with Pietro Ghisleri. On the previous evening, Gerano had taken pains to see his daughter alone at her own house, on pretence of talking to her about business. With considerable skill he had led the conversation up to the required point, and had laid a trap for her. "Do you see much of the Ardens just now?" he asked. "No. We do not meet often," answered Adele, with a little movement of the shoulders. "I wish you did. I wish you saw them every day," observed the Prince, more gravely. "Do you, papa? Why?" "You might find out something that I wish very much to know. It would not be hard at all. We are rather anxious about it." "What is the matter?" asked Adele, with sudden interest. "That is it. There is a disagreeable story afloat. More than one, in fact. It has reached my ears on good authority that Arden drinks far too much. You know what a brave girl Laura is. She hides it as well as she can, but she is terribly unhappy. Have you any idea whether there is any truth in all this?" Adele hesitated a moment, and looked earnestly into her teacup, as though seeking advice. The moment was important. Her father had brought her own story back to her for confirmation, as it were. It might be dangerous to take the other side now. Suddenly she looked up with a well-feigned little smile of embarrassment. "I would rather not say what I think, papa," she said, with the evident intention of not denying the tale. "But, my dear," protested her father, "you must see how anxious we are on Laura's account. Really, my child, have a little confidence in me--tell me what you know." "If you insist--well, I suppose I must. I am afraid there is no doubt about it. Laura's husband is very intemperate." "Ah me! I feared so, from what I had heard," said the Prince, looking down, and shaking his head very sadly. "You see, the people first began to talk about it last year, when he was in such a disgraceful condition in your house, and Pietro Ghisleri had to take him home." "Yes, yes!" Gerano still shook his head sorrowfully. "I ought to have known, but they told me it was a fainting fit. And the worst of it is, my dear Adele, that there are other stories, and worse ones, too, about Laura. I hear that she is seriously in love with Francesco. Poor thing! it is no wonder--she is so unhappy at home, and Francesco is such a fine fellow, and always so kind to her everywhere." "No, it is no wonder," assented Adele, who felt that she was launched, and must go to the end, though she had no time to consider the consequences. "I suppose there is really some evidence about Arden's habits," resumed the Prince. "Of course he will deny it all, and I would like to have something to fall back upon--to convince myself more thoroughly, you understand." Adele paused a moment. "Arden has a Scotch servant," she said presently. "It appears that he is very intimate with our butler, who has often seen him going into the Tempietto with bottles of brandy hidden in an overcoat he carries on his arm." "Dear me! How shocking!" exclaimed the Prince. "So old Giuseppe has actually seen that!" "Often," replied Adele, with conviction. "But then, after all--so many men drink. If it were not for Laura--poor Laura!" "Poor Laura,--yes, as I said, it is no wonder if she has fallen in love with Francesco--such a handsome fellow, too! She has shown good taste, at least." The Prince laughed gently. "At all events, you are not jealous, Adele; I can see that." "I?" exclaimed Adele, with indignant scorn. "No, indeed!" Gerano began to feel his pockets, as though searching for something he could not find. Then he rang the bell at his elbow. "I have forgotten my cigarettes, my dear, I must have left them in my coat," he said. The old butler answered his summons in person, for Gerano knew the usage of the house and had pressed the button three times, unnoticed by Adele, which meant that Giuseppe was wanted. "I have left my cigarettes in my coat, Giuseppe," said the Prince. Then as the man turned to go, he called him back. "Giuseppe!" "Excellency!" "I want you to do a little commission for me. I have a little surprise for Donna Laura, and I do not want her to know where it comes from. It must be placed on her table, do you see? Now Donna Adele tells me that you are very intimate with Lord Herbert's Scotch servant--" "I, Excellency?" Giuseppe was very much astonished. "Yes--the man with sandy grey hair, and a big nose, and a red face--a most excellent servant, who has been with Lord Herbert since he was a child. Donna Adele says you know him very well--" "Her Excellency must be mistaken. It must have been some other servant who told her. I never saw the man." "You said Giuseppe, did you not?" asked the Prince very blandly, and turning to Adele. She bit her lip in silence. "Never mind," he continued. "It is a misunderstanding, and I will manage the surprise in quite another way. My cigarettes, Giuseppe." The man went out, and Adele and the Prince sat without exchanging a word, until he returned with the case, Gerano all the time looking very gentle. When the servant was gone a second time, the Prince's expression changed suddenly, and he spoke in a stern voice. "Now that you have sufficiently disgraced yourself, my daughter, you will begin to make reparation at once," he said. Adele started as though she had been struck, and stared at him. "I am in earnest," he added. "What do you mean, papa?" she asked, frightened by his manner. "Disgraced myself? You must be mad!" "You know perfectly well what I mean," answered her father. "I have been playing a little comedy with you, and I have found out the truth. You know as well as I that everything you have repeated to me this evening is absolutely untrue, and there is some reason to believe that you have invented these tales and set them going in the world out of jealousy, and for no other reason, with deliberate intention to do harm. Even if it were not you who began, it would still be disgraceful enough on your part to say such things even to me, and you have said them to others. That last vile little invention about the bottles was produced on the spur of the moment--I saw you hesitate. You are responsible for all this, and no one else. I will go into the world more in future than I have done hitherto, and will watch you. You are to make full reparation for what you have done. I insist upon it." "And if I deny that I originated this gossip, and refuse to obey you, what will you do?" asked Adele, defiantly. "You are aware that under the present laws I can dispose of half my property as I please," observed the Prince. "Laura has nothing--" He stopped significantly. Adele turned pale. She was terrified, not so much at the thought of losing the millions in question, but at the idea of the consequence to herself in her father-in-law's house. Casa Savelli counted upon the whole fortune as confidently as though it were already theirs. She knew very well how she should be treated during the rest of her life, if one-half of the great property were lost to her husband's family through her fault. "You are forcing me to acknowledge myself guilty of what I never did," she said, still trying to make a stand. "What do you wish me to do?" "You will everywhere say nice things about Laura and her husband. You will say that you are now positively sure that Arden does not drink. You will say that there is no truth whatever in the report that Laura is in love with Francesco, and that you are absolutely certain that the Ardens are very happy together. Those are the principal points, I believe. You will also at once ask them to dinner, and you will repeat your invitation often, and behave to both in a proper way." Adele laughed scornfully, though her mirth had something of affectation in it. "Say pretty things, and invite them to dinner!" she exclaimed. "That is not very hard. I have not the slightest objection to doing that, because I should do it in any case, even if you had not made me this absurd scene." "In future, my child, before you call anything I do or say absurd, I recommend you to think of the law regarding wills, to which I called your attention." Adele was silent, for she saw that she was completely in her father's power. Being really guilty of the social misdeeds with which she was charged, she was not now surprised by his manner. What really amazed her was the display of diplomatic talent he had made, while entrapping her into what amounted to a confession. She had never supposed him capable of anything of the kind. But he was a quiet man, much more occupied in dealing with humanity in the management of his property than most people realised. No genius--certainly,--for if he had been, he would not have told the whole story to his wife, as he had done on the previous evening, but possessing the talent to choose the wise course at least as often as not, which is more than can be said for most people. There was something of the old-fashioned father about him, too, and he showed it in the little speech he made before leaving Adele that evening. "And now, my dear daughter," he said, rising and standing before her as he spoke, "I have one word more to say before I go. You are my only child, and, in spite of all that has happened, I love you very much. I do not believe that you have ever done anything of the kind until now, and I do not think you will fall into the same fault in the future. If you do all that I have told you to do, I shall never refer to the matter after this, and we will try and forget it. But you have learned a lesson which you will remember all your life. Jealousy is a great sin, and slander is not only vile and degrading, but is also the greatest mistake possible from a worldly point of view. Remember that. If you wish to be successful in society, never speak an unkind word about any one. And now good night, my dear. Do what I have bidden you, and let us think no more about it." Having concluded his sermon, Gerano kissed Adele on the forehead, as he was accustomed to do. She bent her head in silence, for she was so angry that she could not trust herself to speak, and he left her at the door and went home. All things considered, she knew that she had reason to be grateful for his forbearance. She was quite sure that her father-in-law would have behaved differently, and the stories she had heard of old Prince Saracinesca's temper showed clearly that the race of violent fathers was by no means yet extinct. She was not even called upon to make a formal apology to Laura in her father's presence, which was what she had at first expected and feared. Nothing, in fact, was required of her except to avoid gossip and treat the Ardens with a decent show of sisterly affection. She could scarcely have got better terms of peace, had she dictated them herself. But she was far too angry to look at the affair in this light and far too deeply humiliated to forgive her father or the Ardens. If anything were necessary to complete her shame, it was the knowledge that she was utterly unable to cope with Gerano, who could disinherit her and her children of an enormous sum by a stroke of the pen, if he pleased; and he would please, if she did not obey him to the letter. With a trembling hand she wrote the invitation required of her and gave it to be taken in the morning. Then she sat down and tried to read, taking up a great French review and opening it hap-hazard. The article chanced to be one on a medical subject, written by a very eminent practitioner, but not at all likely to interest Adele Savelli. But she felt the necessity of composing herself before meeting her husband when he should come home from the club, and she followed the lines with a sort of resolute determination which belonged to her character at certain moments. It was very hard to understand a word of what she was reading, but she at last became absorbed in the effort, and ultimately reached the end of the paper. In the meantime, Francesco Savelli had spent his day in deliberately thinking over the situation, and he had determined, very wisely, that it would be a great mistake to speak to his wife on the subject. He went over in his mind all the men of his acquaintance whom he might consult with safety and with some prospect of obtaining a truthful answer to his question, and he saw that they were by no means many. Wisdom and frankness are rare enough separately, but rarer still in combination in the same person, though a few are aware that the truest wisdom is the most consistent frankness. Most of those of whom Savelli thought were men considerably older than himself, and not men with whom he had any great intimacy. The Prince of Sant' Ilario and his cousin, the Marchese di San Giacinto, Spicca, the melancholy and sarcastic, and perhaps Pietro Ghisleri--there were not many more, and the last named, who was the nearest to him in point of age, was not, as Savelli thought, very friendly to him. On the whole, he determined to wait and bide his time, watching Adele carefully, and collecting such evidence as he could while studiously keeping his own counsel. He saw very little of his wife on that day, and when he next spoke to her about the Ardens, her manner was so cordial and apparently sincere, that he at once formed an opinion in her favour, as indeed he desired to do, though it was more for the sake of his family as a whole, than for her own. "I have asked them to dinner," she said, "because we never see anything of them, any more than if they were not in Rome. Shall we have my father and the Princess, too? It will make a family party." "By all means," answered Savelli, who did not enjoy the prospect of having the Ardens as the only guests, after what had recently passed between himself and Lord Herbert. "By all means--a family party--a sort of rejoicing over Arden's recovery." "Dear Arden!" exclaimed Adele. "I like him now. I used to have the greatest antipathy for him because he is a cripple, poor fellow! I suppose that is natural, but I have quite got over it." "I am very glad," observed Francesco. "You and Laura were brought up like sisters--there ought never to be any coldness between you." "Oh, as for Laura, there never has been the least difference since we were children. We are sisters still, just as we used to be when you first came to the house. Do you remember, Francesco--four years ago? I used to think you liked Laura better than me. Indeed I did! It was so foolish, and now you are always so good to me that I see how silly I was. It never was true, carissimo, was it?" "No, indeed!" answered Savelli, with an awkward laugh, and turning away his face to hide the colour that rose in his cheeks. "Of course not. And as for Laura, she is so much in love with her husband that I believe she was dreaming of him even then, before she had ever seen him, and long before she was old enough to think of marrying any one. How she loves him! Is it not wonderful?" Francesco glanced at his wife, and he believed that he was not mistaken in her. There was a look of genuine admiration almost amounting to enthusiasm in her face. He suppressed a slight sigh, for he still loved Laura in his helpless and hopeless way. "Yes," he said, "it is wonderful, all things considered." "But then," concluded Adele, "with Arden's beautiful character--well, I am not surprised." CHAPTER IX. Adele Savelli was a very good actress, and she deceived her husband without much trouble, making him believe that she had never felt ill-disposed towards Laura, and that the repulsion she had felt for Arden had depended upon his deformity, to which she had now grown accustomed, as was quite natural. She had aways been careful not to speak out her mind upon the subject to Francesco, and had been more than cautious in other respects. She was far too clever a woman to let him hear the gossip she had originated except through outsiders, in the way of general conversation, and now she found it easy to change her tactics completely without doing anything to rouse his suspicion. She seemed very much preoccupied, however, in spite of her efforts to seem cheerful and agreeable during the two days which preceded the dinner party her father had obliged her to give. There were domestic details, too, which gave her trouble, and she had more than enough to occupy her. Her maid had been very ill, too, and was barely beginning to recover. Every woman of the world knows what it means to be suddenly deprived of a thoroughly good maid's services just at the opening of the season. That was one more annoyance among the many she encountered, and, in her opinion, not the smallest. There was, of course, no open humiliation in what she was now forced to do, but she felt the shame of defeat very keenly whenever she thought of her interview with her father. It was not surprising that her hatred of the Ardens should suddenly take greater proportions under circumstances so favourable to its growth. And she hated them both with all her heart, while preparing herself to receive them with open arms and protestations of affection. But she did everything in her power to make the meeting effective. She even went so far as to buy pretty little gifts for the Prince and Princess of Gerano, and for Laura and Arden, which she took the trouble to conceal with her own hands in the folds of each one's napkin just before dinner; pretty little chiselled silver sweetmeat boxes for the two ladies, and tiny matchboxes for the men. Both the elder Savelli being away at the time, she arranged everything according to her own taste, which was excellent, thus taking advantage of her position as temporary mistress of the house. There were flowers scattered on the table, a form of decoration of which the old butler disapproved, shaking his head mournfully as he carried out Adele's directions. She did not over-act her part when the evening came, for she knew how to be very charming when she pleased, and she meant on the present occasion to produce a very strong impression upon every one present at dinner. She succeeded well. The Ardens themselves were surprised at the pleasant feeling which seemed to pervade everything. Gerano looked at his daughter approvingly, repeatedly smiled, nodded to her, and at last drank her health. Don Francesco was delighted, for he saw in his wife's manner the strongest refutation of all that Arden had told him two days earlier. Moreover, he had Laura Arden on his left and was at liberty to talk to her as much as he pleased, which was in itself a great satisfaction, especially as she herself was more than usually cordial, being determined not to betray herself. Francesco looked across the table at Arden more than once, with a significant glance, and inwardly congratulated himself upon having said nothing to his wife about the difficulty. Arden looked ill. He had caught cold during that interview with Savelli in the icy drawing-room, and even an ordinary cold told quickly upon his appearance in his weak state of health. But he did all in his power to seem cheerful and talked more than usually well, so that his wife alone knew that he was making an effort. So the dinner passed off admirably--so well, indeed, that when all were going home, Laura and her mother looked at one another as though they could hardly believe what they had seen and heard. The Princess of Gerano began to doubt the truth of the accusations against Adele, and even Laura fancied that they must have been very much exaggerated. The Prince, himself, the only one of the party who had heard the slander from Adele's own lips, sentence by sentence, and almost word for word as Ghisleri had repeated it to him, wisely held his peace, while by no means so wisely believing that his daughter had repented and was carrying out his instructions in all sincerity. He kissed her affectionately on the forehead when he went away, and she felt that she had won a victory. "You look a little pale, my child," he said. "I have noticed it all the evening. Be very careful of your health, my dear." "Yes, papa--but I am quite well, thank you," answered Adele. Yet she did not look well. There was an odd, half-frightened look in her eyes when they were all gone and she was left alone with her husband. But he did not notice it, and made it easy for her, bestowing infinite praise upon her tact and talent as a hostess. Though she did not hear all he said, she was vaguely pleased, that, after spending the whole evening at Laura's side, he should stay at home instead of going to the club, and find so many pleasant things to say. In spite of her success, however, she spent a restless night. Laura looked anxiously at Arden's face when they got home. He looked worse, and coughed two or three times in a way she did not like. "You are very tired, dear," she said. "You had better not get up to-morrow. The rest will do you good." "I think you are right," he answered. "I need rest." The next morning his cold was worse, and he did not rise. He seemed restless and nervous, too, perhaps from the fatigue of the previous evening. The doctor came and said there was no danger, as the cold was not on the lungs, and that the best thing to be done was to stay in bed two or three days. Later in the afternoon Pietro Ghisleri called, and Laura, at Arden's express desire, received him alone, promising to bring him into the bedroom afterwards. Several days had passed since they had met. Ghisleri was looking fresher and less nervous than the last time Laura had seen him. He, on his part, saw that she was anxious again, for there were dark shadows under her eyes as there had been when she had first returned from England. "Is there anything wrong?" he asked, as soon as they met. "Herbert has a bad cold," she answered. "The doctor says it is nothing serious, but he coughs, and I am worried about him." Ghisleri reminded her that there was nothing the matter with Arden's lungs, and that a cough might be a very insignificant affair, after all. Then she told him of the dinner party on the previous evening, dwelling at length on the tact and amiability Adele had displayed. Pietro was inclined to smile, when he understood that what he had said to Gerano had borne fruit so soon. He was quite sure that before night he should hear of some even more amiable doings on Adele's part, for he guessed at once that the Prince had forced her to change her behaviour. But he kept his reflections to himself. There was no reason why any one but Gerano should ever know that he had been concerned in the matter. He had no idea that everything had been repeated through the family, till it had reached Laura herself. "Donna Adele has great social talent," he remarked, finding, as usual, the one thing to be said in her favour. "Indeed she has!" assented Laura, with a constrained little laugh, and looking into his blue eyes. Ghisleri made no sign, however, and presently began to talk of other matters. He always felt a singular satisfaction in being with Laura, and this year he noticed that it was growing upon him. The impression he had first formed of her, when she had appeared in society, was confirmed year by year, and appealed to a side of his nature of which few people suspected the existence. It depended largely on Laura's looks, no doubt, which strongly suggested the high predominance of all that was good over the ordinary instincts of average human nature. He felt a sort of reverence for her which he had never felt for any one; he knew that she was good, he imagined that she was almost saintly in her life, and he believed that she might, under certain circumstances become, in the best religious sense, a holy woman. Had he seen her on that evening when Arden had found her strangling an imaginary enemy in a fit of exceedingly human anger, he could hardly have accepted the evidence of his senses. All that was good in her appealed directly through all that was bad in him to the small remnant of the better nature which had survived through his misspent life. It did not, indeed, rouse in him the slightest active desire to imitate her virtues. The very idea that he could ever be virtuous in any sense, brought a smile to his face. But he could not help admiring what he knew to be so very far beyond his sphere--what he believed, perhaps, to be even further from his reach than it actually was. He had reached that almost morbid stage of self-contempt in which a man, while still admiring goodness in others, checks even the aspiration towards it in his own heart, because he is convinced that it cannot be really genuine, and looks upon it as one of the affectations most to be despised in himself. He had got so far sometimes as to refuse a very wretched beggar a penny, merely because he doubted the sincerity of the charitable impulse which impelled his hand towards his pocket--laughing bitterly at himself afterwards when he thought of the poor wretch's disappointed face, and going back to find him again, perhaps, and to bestow a silver coin, simply because he could not resist the temptation to be kind. Such unhealthy conditions of mind may seem inconceivable and incomprehensible to men of other nature, all whose thoughts are natural, logical, and sound. They exist, none the less, and not by any means necessarily in persons otherwise weak or morbid. The very absurdity of them, which cannot escape the man himself, makes him seem still more despicable in his own eyes, increases his distrust of himself and gives rise, completing the vicious circle, to conditions each time more senselessly self-torturing than the last. It is hard to bring such men to see how untenable their own position is. They will not even believe that a good instinct underlies the superstructure of morbid fancy, and that the latter could not exist without it. Ghisleri looked long at Laura and admired her more than ever, realising at the same time how deeply her personality was impressed in his thoughts, and how vividly he was able at all times to evoke her outward image, and the conception he had formed of her character. He almost hated old Spicca for having said that no one could possibly be as good as she looked. In her own self she was the most overwhelming refutation of that remark; but then, he reflected, Spicca did not know her well enough, and habitually believed in nothing and in nobody. At least every one supposed that was Spicca's view of the world. Before long Laura took Pietro to see Arden, and left the two together. "There is something seriously wrong with me, Ghisleri," said his friend. "I am going to be very ill. I feel it." It was not like him to speak in that way, for he was brave and generally did his best to hide his sufferings from every one. Ghisleri looked at him anxiously. His face was drawn and pinched, and there were spots of colour on his cheeks which had not been there a few hours earlier. "Perhaps you have a little fever with the cold," suggested Pietro, in a reassuring tone. "It often happens in this country." "I dare say," replied Arden. "It may be so. At all events, your specialist was right about the main thing, and I am no more consumptive than you are. But I feel--I cannot tell why--that I am going to be very ill indeed. It may be an impression, and even if I am, I shall probably weather it." "Of course you will." But Ghisleri was in reality alarmed. "I am so glad you came to-day," continued Arden, speaking more rapidly. "If I should get worse to-morrow, really ill, you know--you must write to my brother. I would not ask my wife to do it for worlds. Do you understand?" "Perfectly--but I do not believe there will be any reason--" "Never mind that!" exclaimed Arden, interrupting him almost impatiently. "If there is any reason, you will write. I cannot tell you all about it. Of course I may not be delirious, you know, but again, I may be--one is never sure, and then it would be too late. Uncle Herbert is alive still, thank God, and quite well, and if anything should happen to me, his will would be worth nothing. Laura would not get a penny and would be dreadfully poor. Henry must do something for her. Do you understand me? He must. You must see to it, too, or he will never think of it--kind as he is. Those things do not strike him. You see I have only my small portion--which is little enough, as you know, because there are so many sisters--and they are not all rich, either. We could not go on living in this way long--but Henry was very generous. He sent me two thousand pounds when we were married, and the yacht too, so that we spent very little--" "You are exhausting yourself, my dear fellow," said Ghisleri, growing more anxious as he listened to the sick man's excited talk. "You have told me all this before, and your brother knows it too; he will not allow Lady Herbert--" "One never can tell what he will do," broke in Arden, raising himself a little on his elbow, and facing his friend. His eyes were unnaturally brilliant. "He is so eccentric. And Laura must have money--she must have plenty--not that she is extravagant, but you know how she was brought up in the Gerano's house, and I should never have thought of marrying her, but for Uncle Herbert's money." "You would both have been perfectly happy on a hundred a year," observed Pietro. "People are when they love each other as you do." Arden's face softened at once, and Ghisleri saw that he was thinking of his wife. He was silent for a few moments. "That is all very well," he said, suddenly rousing himself again. "That might do so long as I should be there to make life smooth for her. But when she is left alone--especially here--Ghisleri, I do not like to think that she must live here after I am gone--" "For Heaven's sake do not begin to talk in that way, Arden! It is perfectly absurd. You only have a cold, after all!" "Perhaps so. I believe I have something worse. Never mind! I was saying that I could not bear to think of her living here without me. It is quite true. No--it is not sentiment--something much more reasonable and real. There are people here who hate us both, who positively hate us, and who will make her life unbearable when there is no one to protect her--the more so, if she is poor. And besides, you know what will happen before long--oh, I cannot think of it!" Ghisleri did not answer at once, for it was not clear to him how Arden had discovered that he had enemies. But the latter waited for no answer, and went on after a few seconds, still speaking excitedly. "You see," he said, "how necessary it is that Harry should come--that you should write to him--that he should be made to understand--he must do something for Laura, Ghisleri--he really must." There was something painful in the persistent repetition of the thought, and then, oddly enough, Pietro started as he heard his own name pronounced almost without an interval, immediately after that of Laura. It sounded very strangely--Laura Ghisleri--he had never thought of it before. A moment later he scorned himself for thinking of it at all. "My dear Arden," he said, "you are really making yourself ill about nothing. Put it all out of your mind for the present, and remember that I am always ready if you need anything. You have only to send for me, and besides, I shall come every day until you are quite well." "Thank you, my dear fellow, you are a good friend. Perhaps you are right. But as I lie here, thinking of all the possibilities--" "You are beginning again," interrupted Ghisleri. "I must go away or you will talk yourself into a fever." At that moment Laura re-entered the room. She started a little when she saw her husband's face. "How do you find him?" she asked quickly of Ghisleri. "He has a cold," answered the latter, cheerfully, "and perhaps there is a little fever with it. I am going to leave him, for he ought to keep quiet and not tire himself with too much talking." He shook hands with Arden. Laura followed him out into the passage beyond. "He is very ill!" she exclaimed, in a low voice, touching his sleeve in her excitement. "I can see it. He never looked like that." "It may not be anything serious," answered Ghisleri. "But he ought to see the doctor at once. I have a cab down stairs, and I will go and find him and bring him here. Keep him quiet; do not let him talk." "Yes. You are so kind." She left him and went back to Arden's bedside. He was tossing uneasily as though he could not find rest in any position, and the great round spots on his cheeks had deepened almost to a purple colour. He scarcely seemed to notice her entrance, but as she turned to move something on the table, after smoothing his pillow, he caught her suddenly by the skirt of her frock. "Laura! Laura! do not go away!" he cried. "Do not leave me alone." "No, love, I am not going," she answered gently, and sat down by his side. Ghisleri was not gone long. By a mere chance he found the doctor at home, and brought him back. Then he waited in the drawing-room to hear the result of the visit. The physician's face was graver when he returned, and Laura was not with him. "Is it anything serious?" asked Ghisleri. "I am afraid so. I shall be better able to tell in a couple of hours. The fever is very high, the other symptoms will develop before long, and we shall know what it is." "What do you think it might be?" "It might be scarlet fever," answered the doctor. "I am afraid it is. But say nothing at present. You should get a nurse at once, for some one must sit up with him all night. I will send him something to take immediately, and I will come back myself in about two hours." They went away together, but when the doctor returned, he found Ghisleri waiting for him in the street. It was now five o'clock and quite dark. Pietro remained down stairs while the visit lasted. "Well?" he asked, when the physician came down again. "It is scarlet fever, as I was afraid--one of the most sudden cases I ever knew. They have not got a nurse yet, the idea seems to frighten Lady Herbert." "I will see to it," said Ghisleri. "By the bye, it is contagious, is it not? I have a visit to pay before dinner; ought I to change my clothes?" The doctor smiled. He did not know Ghisleri, and fancied that he might be timid. "It is not contagious yet," he answered, "or hardly at all. I do not think there is any danger." "There might be a little--even a very little, you think?" asked Pietro, insisting. "Of course it can do no harm to change one's clothes," replied the other, somewhat surprised. "You have told Lady Herbert exactly what must be done, I suppose. In that case I shall not go up." The doctor was confirmed in his suspicion that Ghisleri was afraid of catching the fever, and got into his carriage, musing on the deceptive nature of appearances. Pietro wrote a few words on his card, telling Laura that he would be back before dinner time with the best nurse to be found, and sent it up by the porter. Then he drove home as quickly as possible, dressed himself entirely afresh, and went to see the Contessa dell' Armi. "I have come," he said, after the first greeting, "to tell you that you will not see me for several days. Arden has got the scarlet fever, and I shall be there taking care of him, more or less, until he is out of danger." "Can they not have a nurse for him?" asked Maddalena, raising her eyebrows. "There will be a nurse, too. I am going to get one now and take her there." "You do not seem anxious to consult me in the least," said the Contessa. "You never do nowadays." "What do you mean? Do you think this is a case of consulting any one? I do not understand." "Do you think you have any right to risk your life in this way? Do you think you contribute to my happiness by doing it? And yet I have heard you say that my happiness is first in your thoughts. Not that I ever believed it." "You are wrong," answered Ghisleri, gently. "I would do almost anything for you." "What a clever reservation--'almost' anything. You know that if you did not put it in that way, I should tell you not to go near the Ardens until there is no danger of catching the fever." "Of course," assented Pietro. "You ought not to be so diplomatic. You used to talk very differently. Do you remember that evening by the waterfall at Vallombrosa? You have changed since then." Her classic face began to harden in the way he knew so well. "There is no question of diplomacy," he said quietly. "Arden has been my friend these ten years, and he is in very great danger. I mean to take care of him as long as I am needed because I do not trust nurses, and because Lady Herbert is anything but strong herself at the present time, and may break down or lose her head. As for risking my life, there is no risk at all in the matter. I have very little belief in contagion, though the doctors talk about it." "I suppose you have just seen him," observed the Contessa, who was determined to find fault. "You do not seem to ask yourself whether I share your disbelief." "Since you ask," said Ghisleri, with a smile, "I admit that I changed my clothes before coming to see you, for that very reason. Some people do believe in danger of that kind." "I am glad you admit it. So I am not to see you until Lord Herbert is quite well again. I will not answer for the consequences. I have something to say to you to-day. Are you in a hurry?" "Not in the least." "It will not take long. I have discovered another proof of your desertion. You know what pleasant things Adele Savelli says about me--and you, too. I have told you more than once exactly what was repeated to me. Did you ever take any steps to prevent her talking about me?" "No, I never did. I do not even see how I could. Can I quarrel with Francesco Savelli, because his wife spreads scandalous reports about you? It would look singularly like fighting your battles." "And yet," retorted the Contessa, speaking slowly, and fixing her eyes on his, "there is no sooner something said against Lady Herbert Arden, than you show your teeth and fight in earnest. Can you deny it?" "No, I do not lie," answered Ghisleri. "But I did not know that you were aware of the fact. Some one has been indiscreet, as usual." "Of course. That sort of thing cannot be a secret long. All Rome knows that there was a dinner of reconciliation at the Palazzo Savelli last night, that every one embraced every one else, that Adele looks like death to-day, and is going about everywhere saying the most delightful things about the Ardens, in the most horribly nervous way. You see what power you have when you choose to use it." She spoke bitterly, though she was conscious that the right was not all on her side, and that Ghisleri, as he said, could defend the Ardens without fear of adverse criticism, whereas it would be a very different matter if he entered the lists in her defence. "You are not quite just to me, my dear lady," he said, after a moment's reflection. "You are not the wife of my old friend, and an otherwise indifferent person--" "Quite indifferent?" She looked keenly at him. "Quite," he answered, with perfect sincerity. "A person is indifferent whom one neither loves nor calls an intimate friend. Yet Lady Herbert is beautiful and good, and is admirable in many ways. But the world knows that I am no more in love with her than with Donna Adele, and I am quite free, therefore, to defend her." "Of course you are. The only thing that surprises me is your alacrity in doing so. You do not generally like to give yourself trouble for indifferent people. But then, as Arden really is your friend--" She stopped, with a little impatient movement of the shoulders. "I wish you could bring yourself for once to believe that I am not altogether insincere and calculating in everything I do," said Ghisleri, weary of her perpetual suspicion. "I wish I could," she answered coldly. "But how can I? There are such extraordinary inconsistencies in your character, such contradictions--it is very hard to believe in you. And yet," she added sadly, "God knows I must--for my own sake." "Then do!" exclaimed Pietro, with energy. "Make an end of all this doubting. Have I ever lied to you? Have I ever made a promise to you and not kept it? How have I deceived you? And yet you never trust me altogether, and I know it." "It is not that--it is not that!" repeated Maddalena. "What you say is all true, in its way. It is--how shall I say it--you did not deceive me, but I was deceived in you. You are not what I thought you were. You used to say that you would stand at nothing--that my word was your law--all those fine phrases you used to make to me, and they all seem to come to nothing when reality begins." "If you would tell me what you expect me to do, you would not find me slow in doing it." "That is the thing. If you loved me as you say you do, would you need any direction? Your heart would tell you." "You are angry with me now, because you do not wish me to take care of Arden--" "Can I wish that you should be willing to cut yourself off from me for a week--or two weeks? I suppose that is your idea of love. It is not mine." "Then be frank in your turn. You have the right to ask what you please of me. Say plainly that you wish me to give up the idea, to leave Arden to the doctors and the nurses, and I will obey you unhesitatingly." "I would not have the sacrifice now--not as a gift," murmured Maddalena, passionately. "If you could think of doing it, you shall do it. I will force you to it now. I will not see you until Arden does not need you any more--not even if you never go near him. If you do not think of me naturally, I would rather that you should never think of me again." Ghisleri rose and went to the fireplace, and looked at the objects on the mantelpiece for a long time, without seeing them. There was a strange conflict in his heart at that moment. He could not tell whether he loved her or not--that he had loved her a very short time since, he was sure. At the present juncture it would be very easy to tell her the truth, if his love were no longer real, and to break with her once and for ever. Did she love him? Cruelly and coldly he compared her love with that of another whom he had sacrificed long ago--a memory that haunted him still at times. That had been love indeed. Was this also love, but of another kind? Then, suddenly, he despised himself for his fickleness, and he thought of what Maddalena had done and risked for him, and for him alone. "Maddalena," he said, and his voice shook as he came to her side, and took her small white hand. "Forgive me, forgive me all there is to forgive. I am a brute sometimes. I cannot help it." Her lip trembled a little, but her face did not relax. "There is nothing to forgive," she said. "It is I who have been mistaken." CHAPTER X. Ghisleri left the Contessa's house anything but calm. To hate himself and the whole world in general, with one or two unvarying exceptions, was by no means a new sensation. He was quite familiar with it and looked upon it as a necessary condition of mind, through which he must pass from time to time, and from which he was never very far removed. But he had rarely, in his ever-changing life, been in such strange perturbation of spirit as on this particular evening. He was almost beyond reasoning, and he seemed to be staring at the facts that faced him in a day-dream horribly like reality. He knew that if he really loved Maddalena, he would sacrifice his friend, even after what the Contessa had said, and that, after a day or two, she would probably relent. Nor did the sacrifice seem a very great one. People were ill all the year round, were taken care of by the members of their own family and by nurses, and recovered or died as the case might be. He had no especial knowledge to help him in watching over Herbert Arden, though he believed himself quiet and skilful in a sick-room, and had more than once done what he could in such cases. He felt, indeed, that he was more deeply attached to the man than he had supposed himself to be, but he had not imagined that, at the critical moment, that attachment would outweigh all consideration for Maddalena Delmar. And yet, he not only clung to the belief that he loved her, but was conscious that there was a broad foundation of truth for that belief to rest upon. He asked himself in vain why he was at that moment going from her house to Arden's, and he found no answer. That Laura herself contributed in any way to strengthen his resolve was too monstrous to be believed, even by himself, against himself. He was not so bad as that yet. He laughed bitterly at his inability to comprehend his own motives and impulses, as he drove to the little convent of the French Sisters of the "Bon Secours," to ask for the best nurse they could give him. It was strange, too, that he should be coming directly from Maddalena's side to the habitation of a community of almost saintly women--stranger still, that he should be on his way to a house where, during the next few days, he expected to spend his time in the society of a woman who ranked even higher than they in his exalted estimate of her character. He got the nurse, and she was despatched in the company of another sister in a separate cab, while Ghisleri followed in his own. When they reached the house, they found that Arden was much worse. His mind was wandering, and, though he constantly called for Laura, he did not know her when she came to his side, trying to keep back the scalding tears, lest they should fall on him as she bent down to catch his words. The doctor had been sent for a third time in great haste. Meanwhile, the sister went about her duties silently and systematically, making herself thoroughly familiar with the arrangements of the room, and preparing all that could be needed during the night, so far as she could foresee the doctor's possible instructions. She smoothed Arden's pillows with a hand the practised perfection of whose touch told a wonderful tale of life-long labour among the sick. "Madame should not be here," she said to Ghisleri, in a quiet, even voice. "It may soon be contagious." Laura heard the words as she stood on the other side of the bed, watching every passing expression on Arden's flushed face. "I will not leave him," she said simply. The sister did not answer. She had done her duty in giving the warning, and she could do no more. When she had finished all her arrangements, she sat down, accustomed to husband her strength always, against the strain that must inevitably fall upon it day by day. She took out her small black book and began to read, glancing at Arden at regular intervals of about a minute. Ghisleri entreated Laura to take some rest, or at least to follow the sister's example and sit down, since nothing could be done. She did not seem to understand. He was glad he had come, for he fancied she was losing her head already. He stood beside her watching his friend and waiting for the doctor, who appeared before long. "It is one of the most extraordinarily virulent cases I ever knew," he said to Ghisleri, when the two were alone together in the drawing-room, for Laura would not leave her husband's side for a moment. "I hardly know what to make of it, though of course there can be no doubt as to what it is. It is better that you should know how serious the case is. I presume you are an intimate friend of Lord Herbert Arden's?" "Yes, an old friend." "And you are not afraid of catching the fever?" asked the doctor. "Not in the least." "Oh, I thought from a question you asked--" He hesitated. "I was going to see a friend, and I wanted to be on the safe side," said Ghisleri. "I am glad of that; it is just as well that there should be a man at hand. Shall you spend the night here?" "Yes," replied Ghisleri. "Very good. I have told the sister to send for me if the temperature rises more than two-tenths of a degree centigrade higher than it is now. It ought to go down. If I am called anywhere I will leave the address at my lodgings, where one of my servants will sit up all night. I confess that I am surprised by the case. In Rome the scarlet fever is rarely so dangerous." Thereupon the doctor took his leave and Ghisleri remained alone in the drawing-room. He sat down and took up a book. For the present it seemed best not to go back to Arden's room. His constant presence might be disagreeable to Laura, since she could not be induced to leave her husband as yet. Ghisleri's turn would come when she was exhausted, or when he had an opportunity of persuading her to take some rest. Until then there was nothing to be done but to wait. A servant came in and put wood on the fire and turned down a lamp that was smoking a little. He inquired of Ghisleri whether her ladyship would wish any dinner served, and Pietro told him to keep something in readiness in case she should be hungry. He himself rarely had much appetite, and to-night he had none at all. He tried to read, without much success, for his own thoughts crowded upon each other so quickly and tumultuously that he found it impossible to concentrate his attention. The clocks struck half-past eight, nine, ten, and half-past ten, and still he sat motionless in his place. Again the Italian servant came in, put wood on the fire and looked to the lamps. Did the Signore know what orders were to be given for the night? The Signore did not know, as her ladyship was still with his lordship, and was not to be disturbed, but some food must be kept ready in case she needed it. Eleven, half-past, twelve. Again the door opened. There was something awful in the monotony of it all, Ghisleri thought, but this time Donald appeared instead of the Italian, who had been sent to bed. After making very much the same inquiries as the latter, Donald paused. "His lordship is very ill, sir, as I understand," he said. He had known Ghisleri as his master's friend for years. "Yes, Donald, he is very ill," answered Ghisleri, gravely. "It is scarlet fever, the doctor says. We must all help to take care of him." "Yes, sir." The few insignificant words exchanged with the servant seemed to rouse Ghisleri from the reverie in which he had sat so many hours. When Donald was gone he rose from the chair and began to walk up and down the drawing-room. The inaction was irksome, and he longed to be of use. He would have gone to Arden's room, but he fancied it would be better to let Laura stay there without him, until she was very tired, and then to take her place. She would be more likely to rest if she had a long watch at first, he thought. As a matter of fact, an odd sort of delicacy influenced him, too, almost without his knowing it,--an undefined instinct which made him leave her with the man she so dearly loved in the presence only of a stranger and a woman, rather than intrude himself as the third person and the witness of her anxiety. As he turned for the fiftieth time in his short, monotonous walk, he saw Laura entering at the opposite end of the room. She was dressed all in white, in a loose robe of some soft and warm material, gathered about the waist and hanging in straight folds. Her heavy black hair was fastened in a great knot, low at the back of her head. The light fell full upon her pale face and deep, dark eyes as she caught sight of Ghisleri, and stood still at the door, her hand upon the curtain as she thrust it aside from before her. She was so really beautiful at that moment that Pietro started and stared at her. "I did not know you were here," she said softly. He came forward to meet her. "I will take my turn when you are willing to go and rest," he answered. "I have waited for that reason. How is he now?" "Much more quiet," answered Laura. "The sister persuaded me that my being there perhaps prevented his going to sleep, and so I came away. She will call me if there is any change. Oh! if he could only sleep!" Ghisleri knew how very improbable such a fortunate circumstance was at the outset of such a severe illness, but he said nothing about it. Any idea which could give Laura hope was good in itself. She sank into a deep chair by the fire and watched the flames, her chin resting on her hand. She seemed almost unconscious of Ghisleri's presence as he stood leaning against the mantelpiece and looking down at her. "I will go and see how he is," he said at last, and went towards the door. Just as he touched the handle she called him in an odd tone as though she were startled by something. "Signor Ghisleri! Please come back." He obeyed, and resumed his former attitude. "I am very nervous," she said, with a little shiver. "Please do not leave me--I--I am afraid to be alone. If you wish to go, we will go together." Ghisleri concealed his surprise, which was considerable. The wish she expressed was very foreign to her usually quiet and collected nature. He saw that her nerves were rudely shaken. "It is very weak of me," she said presently, in an apologetic tone. "But I see his face all the time, and I hear that dreadful wandering talk--I cannot bear it." "I do not wonder," answered Pietro, quietly. "You must be very tired, too. Will you not lie down on the sofa, while I sit here and wait? It would be so much better. You will need your strength to-morrow." "That is true," she said, as though struck by the truth of the last words. She crossed the room and lay down upon a large sofa at a little distance from the fire, arranged the folds of her dress with that modest, womanly dignity some women have in their smallest actions, clasped her hands, and closed her eyes. Pietro sat down and looked at her, musing over the strange combination of circumstances which formed themselves in his life. It seemed odd that he should be where he was, towards the small hours of the morning, watching over one of the women he admired most in the world, keeping his place at her especial request, when he had in reality come to help in taking care of her husband. How the world would wag its head and talk, he thought, if it could guess where he was! For a long time Laura did not move, and he was sure that she was still awake. Then, all at once, he saw her hands relax and loosen from each other, her head turned a little on the dark velvet cushion, and she sighed as she sank to sleep. She was less quiet after that. Her lips moved, and she stirred uneasily from time to time, evidently dreaming over again the painful scenes of the evening. Ghisleri rang the bell, crossed the room swiftly, and opened the door without noise. Donald appeared in the hall outside. "Her ladyship has fallen asleep on the sofa," said Pietro. "She does not wish to be left alone. Is there any woman servant awake in the house?" "No, sir. Her ladyship sent her maid to bed." "Never mind. Go and sit quietly in the drawing-room, in case she should need anything, while I go and see how Lord Herbert is." "Very good, sir." The world would have been even more surprised now than before, especially if it could have understood the meaning of what Ghisleri did, and the refined reverence implied in his unwillingness to remain in the drawing-room longer than necessary. It would not have believed in his motive, and it would have added that he was very foolish not to enjoy the artistic pleasure of watching over the beautiful woman in her sleep as long as he could, more especially as she had gone to the length of asking him to do so. But Ghisleri thought very differently. He entered the sick-room, and sat down by the bedside. Arden was in a restless state between waking and unconsciousness, moaning aloud without articulating any words, his face flushed to a deep purple hue, his eyes half open and turned up under the lids, so that only the white was visible. The sister was seated by the table, on which stood a small lamp, the light being screened from Arden by a makeshift consisting of the cover of a bandbox supported by a few heavy books. When Ghisleri had entered she had glanced at him, and explained by a sign that there was no change. Neither he nor she thought of speaking during the hour that followed. The sister had a watch before her on the table, and at regular intervals she rose, poured a spoonful of something into Arden's mouth, smoothed his pillow, saw that he was as comfortable as he could be, and went back to her seat. At the end of the hour she took Arden's temperature with the fever thermometer, and wrote down the result on a sheet of paper. It had fallen one-tenth of a degree since midnight. "It generally does towards morning," said the sister, in a low voice, in answer to Ghisleri's inquiry as to whether this was a really favourable symptom of a change for the better. The night passed wearily. Pietro felt that he was of little use, unless his presence in the house afforded Laura some sort of moral support. So far as the nursing was concerned, the sister neither needed nor expected any assistance. Towards five o'clock, Laura entered the room. On waking from her sleep, she had seen Donald seated in Ghisleri's place, and had wondered why the latter had gone away. "He seems better," she whispered, bending over her husband, and softly smoothing the thick brown hair from his forehead. "The temperature has fallen," answered Ghisleri, giving her the only encouragement he could. "Thank God!" Laura sat down by the opposite side of the bed. Presently, by a sign, she asked Ghisleri whether he would not go home. "I will wait in the drawing-room until the doctor comes, and the other sister has arrived for the day," he said, coming to her side. She merely nodded, and he quietly went out. Before long, Donald brought him some coffee, and he sat where he had sat in the early part of the night, anxiously awaiting the doctor's coming. There was little enough to be learned, when the latter actually came. A very bad case, he said, so bad that he would not be averse to asking the opinion of a colleague,--and later, the same colleague came, saw Arden, shook his head, and said that it was the worst case he had ever seen, but that the treatment so far was perfectly correct. There was nothing to be done, but to take the best care possible of the patient. Ghisleri had no hope whatever, and Laura became almost totally silent. She could not be paler than she was, but Pietro almost fancied that she was growing hourly thinner, while the sad eyes seemed to sink deeper and deeper beneath the marble brow. He went home for a few hours to dress, and returned at midday. The loss of one night's rest had not even told upon his face, but his expression was grave and reserved in the extreme, and his manner even more than usually quiet. Laura had not slept since her nap in the drawing-room, and looked exhausted, though she was not yet really tired out. Ghisleri thought it was time to speak seriously to her. "My dear Lady Herbert," he said, "forgive me for being quite frank. This is not a time for turning phrases. You must positively rest, or you will break down and you may be dangerously ill yourself." "I do not feel tired," she said. "Your nerves keep you up. I entreat you to think of what I say, and I must say it. You may risk your own life, if you please; it is natural that you should run at least the risk of contagion, but you have no right to risk another life than your own by uselessly wearing out your strength. Besides, Arden is unconscious now; when he begins to recover he will need you far more, and will not need me at all." A very slight blush rose in Laura's pale cheeks, and she turned away her face. A short pause followed. "I think you are right," she said at last. Then, without looking at him, she left the room. Ghisleri watched her until she disappeared, and there was a strange expression in his usually hard blue eyes. It seemed as though the woman could do nothing without touching some sensitive, sympathetic chord in his inner nature, though her presence left him apparently perfectly cold and indifferent. Yet he had known himself so long, that he dreaded the sensation, and his ever-ready self-contempt rose at the idea that he could possibly find himself capable of loving his friend's wife, even in the most distant future. Besides, there was nothing at all really resembling love in what he felt, so far as he could judge. If it ever developed into love, it would turn out to be a love so far nobler than anything there had been in his life, as to be at present beyond his comprehension. He did not see Laura again for several hours. He spent the day in Arden's room, and for the first time felt that he was of use when his strength was needed to lift the frail body from one bed to the other. Arden grew rapidly worse, Ghisleri thought, and the doctor confirmed his opinion when he came for the third time that day. "To be quite frank," he said gravely, as he took leave of Pietro in the hall, "I have no hope of his recovery, and I doubt whether he will last until to-morrow night." This was no surprise to Ghisleri, who knew how little strength of resistance lay in the crippled frame. He bent his head in silence as the physician went out, and he almost shivered as he thought of what was before him. He knew now that he must stand by Laura's side at the near last moment of great suffering, when she was to see the one being she loved pass away before her eyes. He was more than ever glad that he had induced her to rest. Arden's mind was still wandering, and she could be of no immediate use. So the day ended at last and the night began and wore on, much like the previous one, saving that the anxiety of all was trebled. The other sister had returned, and Ghisleri saw by her face that she had no hope. With the same faultless regularity she performed her duties through the long hours. Towards midnight Laura and Ghisleri met in the drawing-room. For several minutes she stood in silence before the fire. Pietro could see that her lips were trembling as though she were on the point of bursting into tears. He knew how proud she must be, and he moved away towards the door. She heard his step behind her, and without turning round she beckoned to him with her hand to stay. He came back and stood at a little distance from her. Still she was silent for a moment; then she spoke. "It is coming," she said unsteadily. "You must help me to bear it." "I will do my best," answered Ghisleri, earnestly. Another pause followed. Then again she made a gesture, hurried and almost violent, bidding him leave her. Before he could reach the door he heard her first sob, and as he closed it behind him the storm of her passionate grief broke upon the silence of the night. He was not a man easily moved to any outward demonstration of feeling, but the tears stood in his eyes as he went back to Arden's bedside, and they were not for the friend he was so soon to lose. The sick man was unconscious and lay quite still on his back with closed lids. The sister was on her feet, watching him intently. She shook her head sadly when Ghisleri looked at her. The end was not far off, as she in her great experience well knew. In hot haste Pietro sent for the doctor, with a message saying that Lord Herbert was dying. But when he came he admitted reluctantly that he could do nothing; there was no hope even of prolonging life until morning. "Lady Herbert should be told the truth," he said. "If you wish it I will wait in another room until the end." "I think it would be better. Lady Herbert knows that there is no hope, but she will feel less nervous if you are at hand. How long do you expect--?" "He will not live many minutes after he comes to himself, I should say. The little strength there was is all gone. There will be a lucid interval of a few moments, and then the heart will stop. It was always defective." "Then Lady Herbert ought to be with him now, in case it comes," said Ghisleri. He left the doctor in the little room which Arden had used as a study, and went back to the drawing-room, feeling that one of the hardest moments of his life had come. Laura was seated in a deep chair, leaning back, her eyes half-closed and her cheeks still wet with tears. She started as Ghisleri entered. "The doctor has seen him again," he said. "If you are able, it would be better--" He stopped, for he saw that she understood. They went back together. As they entered the room they heard Arden's weak voice. "Laura, darling, where are you?" he was asking. Ghisleri saw that he was quite in possession of his faculties and went quietly out, leaving him with his wife and the sister. "I am here, love," Laura answered, coming swiftly up to his side and supporting him as he tried to sit up. "It was so long," he said faintly. "I am so glad you have come, dear." "You must not try to talk. You must not tire yourself." "It can make no difference now," he answered, letting his head rest upon her shoulder. "I must speak, dear one--this once before I die. Yes, I know I am dying. It is better so. I have had in you all that God has to give, all the happiness of a long life, in these short months." He paused and drew a painful breath. Laura's face was like alabaster, but she did not break down again now until all was over. "I owe it all to you--my life's love. You have given me so much, and I have given you so little. But God will give it all back to you, dear, some day. There is one thing I must say--oh, my breath!" He gasped in an agonised way, and almost choked. Laura thought it was the end, but he rallied again presently. "One thing, darling--you must remember, if you have loved me--ah, and you have, dear--that no promise binds you. You must try and think that if you forego any happiness for the memory of me, you will be taking that same happiness from me as well as from yourself. It will be right and just that you should marry if you wish to." "Oh, Herbert! Herbert!" cried Laura, pressing him to her, "do not talk so!" "Promise me that you will never think yourself bound," he said earnestly, speaking with more and more effort. "I shall not die happily unless you do." Laura bowed her head. "I promise it, dear, because you wish it." "Thank you, love." He was silent for some time. He seemed to be thinking, or at least trying to collect his last thoughts. "If it is a little girl, call her Laura," he said, in a breaking voice. "Then I shall know her in heaven, if she comes to me before you." "Or else Herbert," said Laura, softly. He moved his head a little in assent. "Darling," he said presently, "always remember that my last breath is a blessing for you." Very tenderly she pressed him to her heart and kissed him. Not till long afterwards did she realise the perfect unselfishness of the man's end, nor how every word so painfully spoken was meant to forestall and soothe her coming sorrow. "Say a prayer for me, darling--it is not far off. Say something in your own words--they will be better heard." Still supporting him against her breast, Laura raised her eyes heavenwards. The sister, little used to seeing men die without comfort of Holy Church, knelt down by the table. Then Laura's soft voice was heard in the quiet chamber. "Almighty God, I beseech Thee to receive the soul of this pure and true-hearted man amongst the spotless ones that are with Thee, to forgive all his sins, if any are yet unforgiven, and to render to him in heavenly joy all the happiness he has brought her who loves him on earth, through our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen." She ceased, forcing back the tears. He moved his head a little and kissed the hand that supported him. A long silence followed. "I thought Ghisleri came to the door with you and went out again," he said very feebly. "Would you like to see him, darling?" "Yes. He is a dear friend--better in every way than any one knows." At a word from Laura the sister rose and called Pietro. He was waiting in the passage. He came to the bedside and stood opposite to Laura, bending down and pressing Arden's wasted hand; he was very pale. "Ghisleri--dear old friend--good-bye--I am going. Take care of her--you and Harry--" He gasped for breath. "So help me God, I will do my best," answered Pietro, solemnly. Arden gave him one grateful look. Then with a last effort he drew Laura's face to his and kissed her once more. "Love--love--love--" The light went out in his eyes and Herbert Arden was dead, dying as he had lived of late, and perhaps all his life, unselfish in every thought and deed. With a cry that seemed to break her heart, Laura fell forward upon the shadowy form that seemed so unnaturally small as it lay there under the white coverlet. Ghisleri knelt in silence a few minutes beside his dead friend, and then rose to his feet. "She has fainted," said the sister softly. "If you could lift her with me--" But Ghisleri needed no help as he lifted the unconscious woman in his arms and carried her swiftly from the room. He laid her upon the very sofa on which he had seen her fall asleep on the previous night, and rang for Donald as he had then done. "His lordship is dead," he said in a low voice, as the Scotchman entered. "Her ladyship has fainted. Please send me her maid." Donald turned very white and left the room without a word. When Laura came to herself the women were with her and Ghisleri was gone. With an experienced man's coolness he gave all necessary orders, and foresaw details which no one else would have remembered. Then he went back to the chamber of death. No strange, unloving hands should touch the frail body of the man he had known so well. Pietro Ghisleri, who, as the world said, "never cared," was oddly sensitive at times. On that memorable night he would let no one help him in performing the last offices for Herbert Arden. When Laura next saw her husband, the calm and beautiful face lay on its snowy pillow surrounded with masses of white flowers. That was at daybreak. Late on the following night Ghisleri followed the men who bore the heavy burden down the stairs. A quiet-looking woman of middle age met them and crossed herself as she waited for them to pass her on the landing. She came to take care of Herbert Arden's son. CHAPTER XI. The season had begun, but Pietro Ghisleri had little heart for going into the world. Apart from the very sad scenes of which he had been a witness so recently, he really mourned the loss of his friend with a sincerity for which few would have given him credit. It would, of course, have been an exaggeration to act as though Arden had been his brother and to cast himself off from society for several months; but during a fortnight after he had laid Lord Herbert in the Protestant Cemetery at Monte Testaccio, he was seen nowhere. He went, indeed, to the house of the Contessa dell' Armi, but he made his visits at hours when no one else was received, as everybody knew, and he consequently saw none of his acquaintances except in the street. Twice daily at first, and then once, he went to the door of the Tempietto and sent up for news of Laura and the child. Strange to say, after the first three or four days the news became uniformly good. Ghisleri learned that the little boy had come into the world sound and strong at all points, without the slightest apparent tendency to inherit his father's physical defects which, indeed, had been wholly the result of accident. The Princess of Gerano who, by Laura's express wish, had been kept in ignorance of Arden's illness on the first day and had not learned that he was seriously ill until he was actually dead, had now established herself permanently at the Tempietto, and her presence doubtless did much towards hastening her daughter's recovery. It was wonderful that Laura should have escaped the fever, still more so that she should rally so rapidly from a series of shocks which might have ruined an ordinary constitution; but Laura was very strong. The Princess told Ghisleri that the child seemed to have taken Herbert's place. He was to be called Herbert too, and the other dearly loved one who had borne the name was never spoken of. No one would ever know what Laura felt, but those who knew her well guessed at the depth of a sorrow beyond words or outward signs of grief. In the meanwhile life revived in her and she began to live for her child, as she had lived for her husband, loving the baby boy with a twofold love, for himself and for his father's sake. Ghisleri had written to the Marquess of Lulworth, Arden's brother, but a letter from him to Arden himself arrived on the day after the latter's death, telling him that Lord and Lady Lulworth were just starting to go round the world in their yacht. The Lulworths were people whose movements it was impossible to foretell, and after sending a number of telegrams to ports they were likely to touch at, Ghisleri abandoned all hope of hearing from them for a long time. Meanwhile, he ascertained that Laura was likely to be hampered for ready money. Her mother's private resources were very slender, and Laura was far too proud to accept any assistance from Adele Savelli's father. She could not dispose, as a matter of fact, of anything which her husband had left her except the actual ready money which happened to be in the house; for she could not even draw upon his letters of credit until the will was proved and the legal formalities all carried out. It was natural, too, that at such a time she should neither be aware of her position nor give a thought to such a trivial matter as household expenses. One morning Donald came to Ghisleri's rooms in considerable distress, to ask advice of his master's old friend. He would not disturb Lady Herbert, he said, and he was ashamed to tell the Princess that there was no money in the house. Ghisleri's first impulse was to give him all the cash he had; but he reflected that in the first place the sum might not be sufficient, for Donald, in a rather broken voice, had referred to "the necessary expenses when his lordship died," and which must now be met: and secondly, Pietro felt that when Laura came to know the truth she would not like to find herself under a serious obligation to him. "Donald," he said, after a few moments' reflection, "it is none of my business, but you have been a long time with Lord Herbert, and you are a Scotchman, and the Scotch are said to be careful; have you saved a little money?" "Well, yes sir," answered Donald; "since you ask me, I may say that I have saved a trifle. And I am sure, sir, it would be most heartily at her ladyship's disposal if I could go home and get it." "You need not go for it, Donald. I will lend you the equivalent, in our money, of a couple of hundred pounds. You can then pay everything, and when the law business is finished and you come to settle with her ladyship, you can say that you advanced the sum yourself. That will be quite true, because I lend it to you, personally, as money for your use, and when you get it back you will pay it to me. Do you see?" "Yes, sir; it is a good way, too. But if you will excuse me, sir, you might very well lend the money to her ladyship's self without pretending anything." "No, Donald, I would rather not. Do you understand? Lady Herbert would much rather borrow from you than from a stranger." "A stranger, sir! Well, well, if his poor lordship could hear you call yourself a stranger, sir!" "One who is no relation. She might feel uncomfortable about it, just as you would rather come to me than go to the Princess of Gerano." "Yes, sir. When you put it in that way. I see it." So Ghisleri took Donald with him to a banker's and drew upon his slender resources for five thousand francs, which he gave to the Scotchman in notes. It had seemed to him the simplest way of providing for Laura's immediate necessities, while keeping her in ignorance of the fact that any necessity at all really existed. The sensation of helping her with money was an odd one, he confessed to himself, as he sent Donald home and walked idly away in the opposite direction through the crowded streets. As he strolled down the Corso thinking of Laura's position, he came suddenly upon Donna Adele Savelli, alone and on foot. Even through the veil she wore he could see that she was very much changed. She had grown thin and pale, and her manner was unaccountably nervous when she stopped and spoke to him. "Have you been ill?" he inquired, scrutinising her face. "No, not ill," she answered, looking restlessly to the right and left of him and avoiding his eyes. "I cannot tell what is the matter with me. I cannot sleep of late--perhaps it is that. My husband says it is nothing, of course. I would give anything to go away for a month or two." "You, who are so fond of society! Just at the beginning of the season, too! How odd. But you should be careful of yourself if you are losing your sleep. Insomnia is a dangerous disease. Take sulphonal in small doses. It does real good, and it never becomes a habit, as chloral does." "Sulphonal? I never heard of it. Is it really good? Will you write it down for me?" Ghisleri took one of his cards and wrote the word in pencil. "Any good chemist will tell you how much to take. Even in great quantities it is not dangerous." "Thanks." Donna Adele left him rather abruptly, taking the card with her and holding it in her hand, evidently intending to make use of it at once. Ghisleri had good cause for not liking her and wondered inwardly why he had suggested a means of alleviating her sufferings. It would have been much better to let her bear them, he thought. Then he laughed at himself--any doctor would have told her what to take and would probably have given her a store of good advice besides. Nearly a month had passed when Ghisleri was at last admitted to see Laura. He found her lying upon the same sofa on which she had slept a few hours during the memorable night before her husband died. She was even thinner now, he thought, and her eyes seemed to be set deeper than ever, while her face was almost transparent in its pallor. But the look was different--it was that of a person growing stronger rather than of one breaking down under a heavy strain. She held out her hand to him and looked up with a faint smile as he came to her side. The greeting was not a very cordial one, and Ghisleri felt a slight shock as he realised the fact. She could not help it. As Herbert Arden breathed his last, the old sense of vague, uneasy dislike for Pietro returned almost with the cry she uttered when she lost consciousness. It was quite beyond her control, although it had been wholly forgotten during those hours of suffering and joint nursing which preceded her husband's death. Ghisleri was quite conscious of it, and was inwardly hurt. It was hard, too, to talk of indifferent subjects, as he felt that he must, carefully avoiding any allusion to the time when they had last been together. "How do you pass the time?" he asked, after a few words of commonplace greeting and inquiry. "It must be very tiresome for you, I should think." "I never was so busy in my life," Laura answered. "You have no idea what it is to take care of a baby!" "No," said Ghisleri, with a smile, "I have no idea. But your mother tells me he is a splendid child." "Of course I think so, and my mother does. You shall see him one of these days--he is asleep now. Would you like to know how my day is passed?" And she went on to give him an account of the baby life that so wholly absorbed her thoughts. Ghisleri listened quietly as though he understood it all. He wished, indeed, that it were possible to talk of something else, and he felt something like a sensation of pain as Laura constantly called the child "Herbert," just as she had formerly been used to speak of her husband. Nevertheless, he was conscious also of a certain sense of satisfaction. During the month which had elapsed she had learned to hide her great trouble under the joy of early motherhood. There was something very beautiful in her devotion to the child of her sorrow, and hurt though Ghisleri was by her manner to him, she seemed more lovely and more admirable than ever in his eyes. He said so when he went to see Maddalena dell' Armi late in the afternoon. "I have seen Lady Herbert to-day," he began. "It is the first time since poor Arden died." "Is she very unhappy?" asked the Contessa. "She must be, for she never speaks of him. She talks of nothing but the child." "I understand that," said Maddalena, thoughtfully. "And then, it is such a compensation." "Yes." Ghisleri sighed. He was thinking of what her life might have been if children had been born to her, and he guessed that the same thoughts were in her mind at the time. "Did you ever think," she asked after a short pause, "what would become of me if you left me? I should be quite alone; do you realise that?" Ghisleri remembered how nearly he had broken with her more than once and his conscience smote him. "I would rather not think of it," he said simply. "You should," she answered. "It will come some day. I know it. When it does I shall turn into a very bad woman, much worse than I am now." "Please do not speak so; it hurts me." "That is a phrase, my dear friend," said Maddalena. "I always tell you that you are too fond of making phrases. You ought not to do it with me. You are not really at all sensitive. I do not even believe that you have much heart, though you used to make me believe that you had." "Have I shown you that I am heartless?" "That is always your way of answering. You are a very strange compound of contradictions." "Do you know, my dear lady, that you are falling into the habit of never believing a word I say?" "I am afraid it is true," assented Maddalena, sadly. "And yet I would not be unjust to you for the world. You have given me almost the only happiness I ever knew, and yet, from having believed too much, I know that I am coming to believe too little." "And you even think it is a mere phrase when I tell you that your distrust hurts me." "Sometimes. You are not easily hurt, and I do not believe either--" She stopped suddenly in the midst of her speech. "What?" asked Ghisleri. "I will not say it. I say things to you occasionally which I regret later. I told you that I would not be unjust, and I will try not to be. Be faithful, if you can, but be honest with me. Do not pretend that you care for me one hour longer than you really do. It would be dreadful to know the truth, but it is much worse to doubt. Will you promise?" "Yes," answered Pietro, gravely. "I have promised it before now." "Then remember it. Be sure of what you mean and of yourself, if you can,--be quite, quite sure. You know what it would mean to me to break. I have not even a little child to love me, as Laura Arden has. I shall have nothing when you are gone--nothing but the memory of all the wrong I have done, all that can never be undone in this world or the next." Ghisleri was moved and his strong face grew very pale while she was speaking. He had often realised it all of late, and he knew how greatly he had wronged her. It was not the first time in his life that he had been so placed, and that remorse, real while it lasted, had taken hold of him even before love was extinct. But he had never felt so strongly as he felt to-day, and he did his best to comfort himself with the shadowy medicine of good resolutions. He had honestly hoped that he might never love woman again besides Maddalena dell' Armi, and as that hope grew fainter he felt as though the very last poor fragments of self-respect he had left were being torn from him piecemeal. She, on her part, was very far from guessing what he suffered, for she was unjust to him, in spite of her real desire not to be so, and it was in a measure this same injustice which was undermining what had been once a very sincere love--good in that one way, if sinful and guilty in all other respects. Unbelief is, perhaps, what a man's love can bear the least; as a woman's may break and die at the very smallest unfaithfulness in him she loves, and as average human nature is largely compounded of faithlessness and unbelief, it is not surprising that true love should so rarely prove lasting. Ghisleri saw no one after he left Maddalena on that day. He went home and shut himself up alone in his room, as he had done many times before that in his life, despairingly attempting to see clearly into his own heart, and to distinguish, if possible, the right course from the wrong in the dim light of the only morality left to him then, which was his sense of honour. And the position was a very hard one. He knew too well that his love for Maddalena was waning, and he even doubted whether it had ever been love at all. Most bitterly he reproached himself for the evil he had already brought into her existence, and for the suffering that awaited her in the future. Again and again he went over in his mind the hours of the past, recalling vividly each word and gesture out of the time when the truest sympathy had seemed to exist between them, and asking himself why it might not take a new life again and be all that it once had been. The answer that suggested itself was too despicable in his eyes for him to accept it, for it told him that Maddalena herself had changed and was no longer the same woman whom he had once loved, and whom he could love still, he fancied, if she were still with him. It seemed so utterly disloyal to cast any of the blame on her that the lonely man put the thought from him with an angry oath. Of that baseness at least he would not have to accuse himself. He would never, by the merest suggestion, suffer himself to think one unkind thought of Maddalena dell' Armi. But the great question remained unsolved. Was what was now left really love in any sense, or not, and if not must he keep his promise and tell her the truth, or would it be more honourable to live for her sake by a rule of devotion and faithfulness which his strong will could make real in itself and in the letter, if not in the spirit? He knew that she was in earnest in what she had said. If she knew that he had ceased to love her, she would feel utterly alone in the world, and might well be driven to almost any lengths in the desperate search for distraction. She had not said it, but he knew that in her heart she would lay all the sins of her life at his door and that in this at least she would not be wholly unjust. With such a character as Ghisleri's it is not easy to foresee what direction impulse will take when it comes at last. He was quite capable of giving up the attempt to understand himself and of leaving the whole matter to chance, with a coolness which would have seemed cruel and cynical if it had not been the result of something like despair. He was capable, if he failed to reach a conclusion by logical means, of tossing up a coin to decide whether he should tell poor Maddalena dell' Armi that he did not love her, or else stand by her in spite of every obstacle and devote his whole life to the elaborate fiction of an unreal attachment. Strangely enough Laura Arden played a part, and an important one, in bringing about his ultimate decision. He assuredly had no thought of loving her, nor of the possibility of loving her at that time. He would even have thought it an exaggeration to say that he was devotedly attached to her in the way of friendship. And yet he felt that she exercised a dominating influence over his mind. He found himself laying the matter before her in imagination, as he should never be likely to do in fact, and submitting it to her judgment as to that of a person supremely capable of distinguishing right from wrong and false from true. It was singular, too, that he should make no comparison between her and Maddalena, though possibly no such comparison could have been made. But he compared himself with her--the depth of his moral degradation in his own eyes with the lofty purity of thought and purpose which he attributed to her. The consequence could hardly fail to be a certain aspiration, vague and almost sentimental, to become such a man as might not seem to her wholly unworthy of trust. This did not help him much, however, and when at last he went to bed, having forgotten to go out and dine, and weary of the hard problem, he was not much further advanced than when he had sat down to think of it last in the afternoon. In the morning everything seemed simpler, and the necessity for immediate decision disappeared. He had not yet by any means reached the point of not loving Maddalena at all, and until he did there was no reason why he should form any plan of action. It would in any case, be very hard to act upon such a plan, for the dreaded moment would in all likelihood be a stormy one, and he could not foresee in the least what Maddalena herself would do. After that he felt for a long time much more of the old sympathy with her than he had known of late, and he tormented himself less often with the direction of his own motives and thoughts. He saw much of Laura, too, in those days, and spent long hours beside her as she lay upon her sofa. He always left her with a sensation of having been soothed and rested, though he could not say of her that she was much inclined to talk, or showed any great satisfaction at his coming. Probably, he thought, she was willing to see him so often because he had been Arden's friend. He did not understand that she did not quite like him and that his presence was often irksome to her, for she was far too kind by nature to let him suspect it. He only thought that he was in her eyes a perfectly indifferent person, and he saw no reason for depriving himself of her society so long as she consented to receive him. They rarely talked of subjects at all relating to themselves, either, and their conversation turned chiefly upon books and general topics. Ghisleri read a good deal in a desultory way, and his memory was good. It interested him, too, to propound problems for her judgment and to see how nearly she would solve them in the way he expected her to choose. He was rarely mistaken in his expectations. Little by little, though Laura's principal feeling in regard to him did not change perceptibly, she became interested in his nature, beginning to perceive that there were depths in it which she had not suspected. "Are you a happy man?" she once asked him rather abruptly, and watching the expression of his face. "Certainly not at present," he answered, looking away from her as though to hinder her from reading his thoughts. "Why do you ask that?" "Forgive me. I should not put such a question, I suppose. But you interest me." "Do I?" He glanced quickly at her as he spoke, and she saw that he was pleased. "I am very glad that you should take any interest in me,--of any kind whatever. Would you like to know why I am unhappy?" "Yes." "I can only tell you in a general way. I make no pretence to any sort of goodness or moral rectitude, beyond what we men commonly include in what we call the code of honour. But I am perpetually tormented about my own motives. Knowing myself to be what I am, I distrust every good impulse I have, merely because it is not a bad one, because my natural impulses are bad, and because I will not allow myself to act any sort of comedy, even in my own feelings. That sort of honesty, or desire for honesty, is all I have left--on it hangs the last shred of my tattered self-respect." "How dreadful!" Laura's deep eyes rested on him for the first time with a new expression. There was both pity and wonder in their look--pity for the man and wonder at a state of mind of which she had never dreamed. "Does it seem dreadful to you?" he asked. "If you really feel as you say you do," answered Laura, "I can understand that you should be very unhappy." "Why do you doubt that I feel what I have told you?" Ghisleri wondered, as he asked the question, whether he was ever to be believed again by any woman. "Do you think I am untruthful?" "No," said Laura, quickly. "Indeed I do not. On the contrary, I think you very scrupulously exact when you speak of things you know about. But any one may be mistaken in judging of himself." "That is precisely the point. I am afraid of finding myself mistaken, and so I do not trust my own motives." "Yes--I see. But then, if you do what is right, you need not let your motives trouble you. That seems so simple." "To you. Do you remember? I once told you that you were horribly good." "I am not," said Laura, "but if I were, I should not see anything horrible in it." "I should, and I do. When I see how good you are I am horrified at myself. That is what I mean." "Why do you so often talk about being bad? You will end by making me believe that you are--if I do not believe it already." "As you do, I fancy. What difference can it make to you?" "Everything makes a difference which lowers one's estimate of human nature," Laura answered, with a wisdom beyond her age or experience. "After all, to go back to the point, the choice lies with you. You know what is right; do it, and give up wasting time on useless self-examination." "Useless self-examination!" repeated Ghisleri, with rather a sour smile. "I suppose that is what it really is, after all. How you saints bowl over our wretched attempts at artificial morality!" "No; do not say that, please, and do not be so bitter. I do not like it. Tell me instead why you cannot do as I suggest. If a thing is right, do it; if it is wrong, leave it undone." "If I could tell you that, I should understand the meaning of this life and the next, instead of being quite in the dark about the one and the other." Laura was silent. She was surprised by the result of the question she had at first put to him, and was at the same time conscious that she did not feel towards him as she had hitherto felt. Not that she liked him any better. She was perhaps further than ever from that, though her likes and dislikes did not depend at all upon the moral estimate she formed of people's characters. But she understood what he meant far better than he guessed, and she pitied him and wished that she could say something to make him take a simpler and more sensible view of himself and the world. He interested her much more than half an hour earlier. They did not return to the subject the next time they met, and Ghisleri fancied she had forgotten what he had said, whereas, in reality, she often thought of it and of him. Before long she was able to go out, and they met less frequently. She began to lead the life which she supposed was in store for her during the remainder of her existence. The only difference in the future would be that by and by she would not wear black any longer, that next year she would move into a more modest apartment, and that as time went on little Herbert would grow up to be a man and Laura would be an elderly woman. Matters had been settled at last in England, and the momentary embarrassment which so much distressed Donald had ceased. The good man had felt somewhat guilty when Laura had thanked him for using what she supposed to be his savings in order to save her trouble. But he remembered what Ghisleri had told him and held his tongue, afterwards going early in the morning to Pietro's lodgings to repay the loan. Laura had heard from the Lulworths, too. Ghisleri's letter and one of his telegrams had reached them at the same time somewhere in South America. Lulworth wrote himself to Laura and there was a deep, strong feeling in his few words which made her like him better than ever. He did not speak of coming back, and she thought it quite natural that he should stay away. He only said in a postscript that if she chose to go to England his house was at her disposal, but that he himself might be in Rome during the following winter. But she would not have gone to England for anything. Her mother's presence was a quite sufficient reason for staying where she was, and she knew also that her modest income would seem less restricted in Italy. The Princess of Gerano had proposed to her to come and live in the palace, but Laura would not do that--she would never put herself under any obligation to Adele's father, much as she herself was attached to him. Her mother represented to her that she was too young to live quite alone, but Laura remained unshaken in her determination. "Herbert protects me," she said quietly, but the Princess did not feel sure what she meant by the words, nor whether the Herbert in question was poor Arden, or the baby boy asleep in his cradle in the next room. There was in either case a certain amount of truth in what she said. Great sorrow is undeniably a protection to a woman, and so is her child, under most circumstances. "And as for my living alone," added Laura, "Signor Ghisleri is the only man I receive, and people would be ingenious to couple his name with mine." CHAPTER XII. Adele Savelli followed Ghisleri's advice, and took the new medicine he had so carelessly recommended. At first it did her good and she regained something of her natural manner. But her nerves seemed to be mysteriously affected and terribly unstrung. Her husband, watching her with the cool judgment of a person neither prejudiced by dislike nor over-anxious through great affection, came to the conclusion that she was turning into one of those nervous, hysterical women whom he especially disliked, and whom she herself professed to despise. The world, for a wonder, was at a loss to find a reason for her state, and contented itself with suggesting that the family skeleton in Casa Savelli had probably grown restless of late, and was rattling his bones in his closet in a way which disturbed poor dear Adele, who was such a delicately organised being. To what particular tribe the Savellis' skeleton belonged, the world was not sure. Some said that he was called Insanity, some whispered that his name was Epilepsy, and not a few surmised that his nature was financial. As a matter of fact, no one knew anything about him, though every one was sure that he was just now in a state of abnormal activity, and that his antics accounted for Adele's pale face and startled eyes. There was no doubt of the fact that she was ill, though she would scarcely admit it, and went through the season with a sort of feverish, unnatural gaiety. Being in reality no relation at all to Laura, she merely wore black for three weeks as a token of respect, but did not especially restrict herself in the matter of amusements even during that time, and when it was over, she threw herself into the very central whirl of the gay set with a sort of desperate recklessness which people noticed and commented upon. They were careful, however, not to speak too loud. Adele Savelli was very popular in society, and a very important person altogether, so that the world did not dare to talk about her as it discussed poor Laura Arden. And it found much good to say of Adele. It was so nice of her, it remarked, to change completely in her way of speaking of her step-sister, since the latter had lost that wretched little husband of hers. He, of course, as every one knew, had fallen a victim to his abominable habit of drinking brandy. It was all very well to call it scarlet fever--the world was well aware what that meant. The name of the thing was delirium tremens, and they said the last scene was quite appalling. The cripple, in the violence of the crisis, had twice sprung up and thrown down Ghisleri, who was a very strong man, nevertheless, and who had behaved in the most admirable way. He had not allowed any one to be present except the doctor, and it was impossible to extract a word of the truth from him. That was how it happened and, well--after all, it was a great mercy, and it was no wonder that Laura should have recovered so easily from the shock, and should already be beginning to amuse herself with Ghisleri. There was no doubt about that, either, for he went there every day, as regularly as he went to see the Contessa dell' Armi. And it was really angelic of Adele to stand up so resolutely for her step-sister, considering how the latter had always behaved. Adele took so much trouble to deny the stories that were circulated, that some people learned them for the first time through her denial. In this, as in many other things, Adele was consistent. She denied everything. "It is not even true," she said to Donna Maria Boccapaduli, "that Laura has the evil eye." But as she said it, she quickly folded her two middle fingers over her bent thumb, making what Italians call "horns" with the forefinger and little finger. Donna Maria saw the action, instinctively imitated it, and fell into the habit of repeating it whenever Laura was mentioned. "Why do you do that?" asked the Marchesa di San Giacinto of her the next day. "Eh--my dear! Poor Laura Arden is a terrible jettatrice, you know. Adele says it is not true, but she makes horns behind her back all the same, just as every one else does." Thereupon the Marchesa did the same thing, wondering that she should so long have been ignorant that Laura had the evil eye. In a week's time all Rome made horns when Laura was mentioned. At a dinner party a servant broke a glass when she was being discussed, and at once every one laughed and stuck up two fingers. San Giacinto, who, lean as he was, weighed hard upon sixteen stone, sat down upon a light chair in Casa Frangipani, just as he was saying that this new story about Laura was all nonsense, and the chair collapsed into a little heap of straw and varnished sticks under his weight. It was no wonder, people said, that Arden should have fainted that night at the Palazzo Braccio, for Laura had just accepted him. They seemed to have forgotten how they had interpreted that very scene hitherto. The world was not at all surprised that he should have died in the first year of his marriage, considering that he had married a notorious jettatrice. Look at poor Adele herself! She had never been well since that dinner at which the reconciliation with Laura was sealed and ratified. Pietro Ghisleri should be careful. It was very unwise of him to go and see her every day. Something awful would happen to him. Indeed it had been noticed that he was not looking at all well of late. That dreadful woman would kill him to a certainty. Ghisleri was furious when the tale reached him, as it did before long. He knew very well how dangerous a thing it was to have the reputation of possessing the evil eye. It is a strange fact that at the present day such things should be believed, and well-nigh universally, by a cultured society of men and women. And yet it is a fact, and an undeniable one. Let it once get abroad that a man or a woman "projects"--to translate the Italian "jetta"--the baneful influence which causes accidents of every description, and he or she may as well bid farewell to society forever. Such a person is shunned as one contaminated; at his approach, every hand is hidden to make the sign of defence; no one will speak to him who can help it, and then always with concealed fingers kept rigidly bent in the orthodox fashion, or clasped upon a charm of proved efficacy. Few, indeed, are those brave enough to ask such a man to dinner, and they are esteemed almost miraculously fortunate if no misfortune befalls them during the succeeding four and twenty hours, if their houses do not burn, and their children do not develop the measles. Incredible as it may appear to northern people, a man or woman may be socially ruined by the imputation of "projecting," when it is sustained by the coinciding of the very smallest accident with their presence, or with the mention of their names, and quite enough of such coincidences were actually noted in Laura's case to make the reputation of being a jettatrice cling to her for life. Ghisleri knew this, and his wrath was kindled, and smouldered, and grew hot, till it was ready to burst out at a moment's notice and do considerable damage. "It is an abominable shame," he said to Maddalena dell' Armi. "It is all Adele Savelli's doing. She has taken a new departure. Instead of starting bad reports as true, she begins by denying things of which nobody ever heard. I am quite sure she is at the bottom of it, but I do not see how I can stop the story." "You seem to care a great deal," said Maddalena. "Yes. I do care. If it would do any good, I would call out Francesco Savelli and fight about it." "For Laura Arden's sake?" It was the first time she had ever heard Ghisleri even hint that he would do so much for any one, though she knew that he would for herself. "No," he answered, with sudden gentleness. "Not for Lady Herbert's sake, my dear lady. I would do it because, just when he was dying, Arden told me that I must take care of her, and I mean to do my best, as I promised him." "You are quite right," answered Maddalena, taking his hand and pressing it a little. "I would not have you do otherwise, if I could--if I had all the influence over you which I have not. But oh--if you can help fighting--please--for my sake, if you care--" Maddalena's cold face and small classic features expressed a great deal at that moment, and there were bright tears in her violet eyes. In her own way she loved him more than ever. He was deeply touched as he tenderly kissed the hand that held his. "For your sake, I will do all that a man can do to avoid a quarrel," he said earnestly. "I know you will," she answered. During a few moments there was silence between them, and Maddalena recovered control of herself. "That is the true reason why I ask you," she said. "There are plenty of others which you may care for more than I. You would not care to have it said that you were fighting her battles. Will you promise not to be angry if I tell you something you will not like--something I know positively?" "Yes. I promise. What is it?" "People are beginning to say already that you are making love to her, and that you are always at the house." "The brutes!" exclaimed Ghisleri, fiercely. "Who says that?" "The women, of course. The men are much too sensible, and none of them care to quarrel with you." "Oh!" Pietro contented himself with the exclamation, and controlled his anger as best he could. "Was I wrong to tell you?" asked Maddalena. "No, indeed. I am very glad you have told me. I shall be more careful in future." "It will make very little difference. You know the world as well as I do, and better. People have begun to say that you go to see Lady Herbert every day--they will still say it after you have not been to her house for months." "Yes. That is the way the world talks. I hope this will not reach her ears--though I suppose it ultimately will. Some dear kind friend will go and tell her in confidence, and give her good advice." "Probably. That is generally the way. Only, as she is in deep mourning and receives very few people, it may be a little longer than usual in such cases before the affectionate friend gets at her. Then, too, the idea that she is a jettatrice will keep many of her old acquaintances away. You know how seriously they take those things here." It will be remembered that both Maddalena and Ghisleri were from the north of Italy, where the superstition about the evil eye is much less general amongst the upper classes than in Rome and the south. Pietro himself had not the slightest belief in it, and he had so often laughed at it in conversation with the Contessa that if she had ever had any vague tendency to put faith in the jettatura, it had completely disappeared. But both of them were thoroughly familiar with the society in which they lived, and understood the position in which Laura was placed. "I will help you as much as I can," said Maddalena, "though I cannot do much. At all events, I can laugh at the whole thing and show that I do not believe in it. But as for the rest,--placed as I am, I can hardly make an intimate friend of Lady Herbert Arden, much as I like her." She spoke sadly and a little bitterly. Ghisleri made no reference to the last remark when he answered her. "I shall be very sincerely grateful for anything you can do to help the wife of my old friend," he said. "And I think you can do a good deal. You have great influence in the gay set--and that means the people who talk the most--Donna Adele, Donna Maria Boccapaduli, the Marchesa di San Giacinto, and all the rest, who are, more or less, your intimates. It is very good of you to help me--Lady Herbert needs all the help she can get. Spicca is a useful man, too. If he can be prevailed upon to say something particularly witty at the right moment, it will do good." "I rarely see him," said Maddalena. "He does not like me, I believe." "He admires you, at all events," answered Ghisleri. "I have heard him talk about your beauty in the most enthusiastic way, and he is rarely enthusiastic about anything." Maddalena was pleased, as was natural. She chanced to be in one of her best humours on that day, and indeed of late she had been much more her former self when she was with Ghisleri. A month earlier, the discussion about Laura Arden could not have passed off so peaceably, for the Contessa would then have resented anything approaching to the intimacy which now appeared to exist between Lady Herbert and Pietro. The latter wondered what change had taken place in her character, but accepted her gentle behaviour towards him very gratefully as a relief from a former phase of jealous fault-finding which had cost him many moments of bitterness. As he saw, from time to time, how her cold face softened, he almost believed that he loved her as dearly as ever, though the illusion was not of long duration. He left her, on that afternoon, with a regret which he had not felt for some time at the moment of parting, and he would gladly have stayed with her longer. They agreed to meet in the evening at one of the embassies, where there was to be a dance. In the mean time, they were to dine out at different houses, and the Contessa had a visit to make before going to the ball. Pietro was sorry that he had promised not to quarrel about the story of the evil eye. The affair irritated him to an extraordinary degree, and though he had grown calmer under Maddalena's influence, his anger revived as he walked home and thought over it all. He dined that evening in Casa San Giacinto, and found himself placed between Donna Maria Boccapaduli and Donna Christina Campodonico. The latter was a slim, dark, graceful woman of five and twenty, remarkably quiet, and reported to be very learned, a fact which contributed less to her popularity than her own beauty and her husband's rather exceptional reputation. Gianforte Campodonico was a man whom Ghisleri would have liked if they had not known each other some years previously in circumstances which made liking an impossibility. He respected him more than most people, for he had fought a rather serious duel with him in days gone by, and had seen the man's courage and determination. Campodonico was the brother of the beautiful Princess Corleone who had died in Naples shortly after the above-mentioned duel, and who was said to have been the love of Ghisleri's life. Gianforte, for his sister's sake, had made up his mind to kill Ghisleri or to die in the attempt, with a desperate energy of purpose that savoured of earlier ages. He was, moreover, a first rate swordsman, and the encounter had remained memorable in the annals of duelling. Ghisleri had done all in his power to avoid the necessity of fighting at all, but Campodonico had forced him into it at last, and the weapons had been foils. The world said that Ghisleri was not to be killed so easily. He was as good a fencer as his adversary, and was left-handed besides, which gave him a considerable advantage. The result was that he defended himself successfully throughout one of the longest duels on record, until at last he almost unintentionally ran Gianforte through the sword arm and disabled him. The latter, humiliated and furious at his defeat, had demanded pistols then and there, and Ghisleri had professed himself ready, and had placed himself in the hands of his seconds. But both his own friends and Gianforte's decided that honour was satisfied, and refused to be parties to any further fighting, so that Campodonico had been obliged to accept their verdict. He sought an opportunity of quarrelling again, however, for he was a determined man, and he would probably have succeeded in the end; but at this juncture the Princess died after a short illness, and after exacting a solemn promise from both men that they would never fight again. That was the last act of her brief life of love and unhappiness, and it was at least a good one. Loving her with all their hearts, in their different ways, both Ghisleri and Campodonico respected the obligation they had taken as something supremely sacred. Ghisleri went and lived alone in a remote village of the south for more than a year afterwards, and Gianforte spent an even longer period in almost total seclusion from the world, and in the sole society of his widowed mother. Three years before the time now reached in this chronicle, he had married, as people said, for love, and for once people were right. His elder brother bore the title, and as there was another sister besides the Princess Corleone, Gianforte's portion had been small, for the family was not rich, and he and his wife lived very modestly in a small apartment in the upper part of the city, the Palazzo Campodonico having long ago passed into the hands of the Savelli. And now, at the San Giacinto's dinner table, Ghisleri found himself seated next to Donna Christina, and nearly opposite to her husband. It had long been known and generally understood that Pietro and Gianforte had buried their enmity with the beautiful woman about whom they had fought, and that they had no objection to meeting in the world, and even to conversing occasionally on general subjects, so that there was nothing surprising in the fact that at a dinner of eighteen persons they should be asked together. It chanced that, by the inevitable law of precedence, Ghisleri sat where he did. Donna Christina of course knew the story above related, and in her eyes it lent Ghisleri a somewhat singular interest. Now it happened, towards the end of dinner, that some one mentioned Lady Herbert Arden. Instantly Donna Maria, on Pietro's right, made the sign of the horns with both hands, laughing in a foolish way at the same time. Ghisleri saw it, and a glance round the table showed him that the majority of the guests did the same thing. "How can you believe in such silly tales?" he asked, turning to Donna Maria. "Everybody does," answered the sprightly lady. "Why should not I? And besides, look at the facts--San Giacinto had the name of the lady we do not mention on his lips when he broke that chair the other day--there, I told you so!" she exclaimed suddenly. Young Pietrasanta, who, as it happened, had been the one to speak of Laura Arden, had upset a glass, which, being very delicate and falling against a piece of massive silver, was shivered instantly. The claret ran out in a broad stain. "Allegria--joy!" laughed the lady of the house. Italians very often utter this exclamation when wine is spilled. It is probably a survival of some primeval superstition. "Joy!" repeated Pietrasanta, with quite a different intonation. "If ever I mention that name again!" "You see," said Donna Maria triumphantly to Ghisleri. "There is no doubt about it." "I beg your pardon for contradicting you," answered Ghisleri, coldly, "but I think there is so much doubt that I do not believe in the possibility of the evil eye at all, much less in the ridiculous story that Lady Herbert Arden's name can upset a glass of wine or break a chair." "I agree with you," said Donna Christina, in her quiet voice, on Pietro's other side. "It is almost the only point on which my husband and I differ--is it not true, Gianforte?" she asked, speaking across the table to Campodonico. There had been a momentary lull in the conversation after the little accident, so that he had heard what had been said. "It is quite true," he answered. "I believe in the jettatura, just as most people do, but my wife is a sceptic." "And do you really believe that Pietrasanta upset his glass because he mentioned Lady Herbert?" asked Pietro. "Yes, I do." Their eyes met quietly as they looked at each other, but the whole party became silent, and listened to the remarks exchanged by the two men who had once fought such a memorable fight. Gianforte Campodonico was a very dark man, of medium height, strongly built, and not yet of an age to be stout, with bold aquiline features, keen black eyes, and a prominent chin. A somewhat too heavy moustache almost quite concealed his mouth. At first sight, most people would have taken him for a soldier. Of his type he was very handsome. "Can you give any good reason for believing in anything so improbable?" asked Ghisleri. "There are plenty of facts," answered Campodonico, calmly. "Any one here will give you fifty--a hundred instances, so many indeed, that you cannot attribute them all to coincidence. Do you not agree with me, Marchese?" he asked, appealing to the master of the house, whose opinion was often asked by men, and generally accepted. "I suppose I do," said the giant, indifferently. "I never took the trouble to think of it. Most of us believe in the evil eye. But as for this story about Lady Herbert Arden, I think it is nonsense in the first place, and a malicious lie in the second, invented by some person or persons unknown--or perhaps very well known to some of you. Half of it rests on that absurd story about the chair I broke in Casa Frangipani. If any of you can grow to be of my size, you will know how easily chairs are broken." There was a laugh at his remark, in which Campodonico joined. "But it is true that you were speaking of the lady one does not mention at the moment when the chair gave way," he said. "Yes," said San Giacinto, "I admit that." "I agree with San Giacinto, though I do not believe in the evil eye at all," said Ghisleri. "And I will go a little further, and say that I think it malicious to encourage the story about Lady Herbert. She has had trouble enough as it is, without adding to it gratuitously." "I do not see that we are doing her any harm," observed Campodonico. "The gossip may be perfectly indifferent to her now," said Ghisleri. "She is most probably quite ignorant of what is said. But in the natural course of events, two or three years hence she will go into the world again, and you know what an injury it will be to her then." "You are looking very far ahead, it seems to me. As for wishing to do her an injury, as you call it, why should I?" "Exactly. Why should you?" "I do not." "I beg your pardon. I think every one who contributes to the circulation of this fable does harm to Lady Herbert, most distinctly." "In other words, we are not of the same opinion," said Campodonico, in a tone of irritation. "And I express mine because poor Arden was my oldest friend," answered Ghisleri, with the utmost calm. "If I cannot persuade you, let us agree to differ." "By all means," replied Gianforte, and he turned and began to talk with the lady on his right. Donna Christina leaned towards Ghisleri and spoke to him in a very low voice, quite inaudible to other ears than his, as the hum of general conversation rose again. "Is it true," she asked, "that you and my husband agreed, years ago, that you would never quarrel again?" Ghisleri looked at her in cold surprise. He was amazed that she should refer to that part of his past life, of which no one ever spoke to him. "It is true," he answered briefly. "I am very glad," said Donna Christina. "I thought you were near a quarrel just now about this absurd affair. You hate each other, and Gianforte is very hot-tempered." "There is no danger. But I am sorry you think that I hate your husband. He is one of the few men whom I really respect. There are other reasons why I should not hate him, and why I should not be surprised if he hates me with all his heart, as I dare say he does, from what you say." He glanced at her, but she did not answer at once. She was still young and truthful, and it did not occur to her to be tactful at the expense of veracity. "I am glad you defended Lady Herbert as you did," she said, after a short pause. "It was nice of you." Then she turned and talked with the man on her other side. Donna Maria Boccapaduli had been waiting for her opportunity and attacked Ghisleri as soon as he had ceased talking with his other neighbour. "Tell me," she said, "you like Laura Arden very much, do you not?" Of course she made the sign at Laura's name. "Yes. She is a very charming woman." "She ought to be grateful to you. She would be, if she knew how you stood up for her just now." "I should be sorry if she ever came to know that she needed to be defended," answered Ghisleri, almost indifferently. "She will, of course. It will be all over Rome to-night that you and Campodonico almost quarrelled about her. She is sure to hear about it. Why do you take so much interest in her?" "Because her husband was my friend," Pietro replied, rather wearily. "I just said so." "You need not be so angry with me because I ask questions," said Donna Maria with a laugh. "I always do--it is the way to find out what one wants to know." "And what do you want to know?" "You will be angry if I ask you." "Then ask me something else." "But I want to know so much," objected Donna Maria, with an expression that made Ghisleri smile. "Then you must take the risk," he said. "It is not very great." "Well, then, I will." She dropped her voice almost to a whisper. "Is the lady in question--I mean--is she the sort of woman you can imagine falling in love with?" "I do not think I should ever fall in love with her," answered Ghisleri, without betraying emotion or surprise. "Why not? There must be some reason. So many men have said the same thing about her." "She is too good a woman for any of us to love. We feel that she is too far above us to be quite human as we are." "What a strange man you are, Ghisleri! I should never have dreamt that you could say such a thing as that. It is not at all like your reputation you know, and not in the least like those delightfully dreadful verses you addressed to the saint last year on Shrove Tuesday at Gouache's studio. I should think that Mephistopheles would delight in making love to saints." "In real life Mephistopheles would get the worst of it, and be shown to the door with very little ceremony." "I doubt that. Every woman likes a spice of devilry in the man she loves--and as for being shown to the door, that is ridiculous. Is there any reason in the world why you should not fall in love with a woman exactly like the unmentionable lady and marry her, too, if you love her enough--or little enough, according to your views of married life? You are quite free, and so is she, and you said yourself that in the course of time she would naturally come back to the world." "No," said Ghisleri, thoughtfully, "I suppose there is no reason why I should not ask Lady Herbert Arden to marry me in four or five years, except that I do not love her in the least, and that she would most certainly refuse me. And those are two very good reasons." The dinner was over and the party returned to the drawing-room. Ghisleri stood a little apart from the rest, examining a painting with which he had long been familiar, and slowly inhaling the smoke of a cigarette. It was a small copy of one of Zichy's famous pictures illustrating Lermontoff's "Demon"--the one in which Tamara yields at last, in the convent, and throws her arms round the Demon's neck. Prince Durakoff had ordered the copy and had presented it to the Marchesa di San Giacinto. Ghisleri had always liked it, and had a photograph of the original in his rooms. He now stood looking at it and recalling the strange, half allegorical romance of which the great Russian made such wonderful poetry. Presently he was aware that some one was standing at his elbow. He turned to see who it was, and found himself face to face with Gianforte Campodonico, who was looking at him with an expression of indescribable hatred in his black eyes. CHAPTER XIII. Pietro at once realised the situation and the meaning of the look he saw. Something was passing in his old enemy's mind which had passed through his own while he was looking at the picture, for Campodonico and Ghisleri were both thinking of the extraordinary resemblance between poor Bianca Corleone and the Tamara of Zichy's painting. That resemblance, striking in a high degree, was the reason why Ghisleri liked it, and had a photograph of it at his lodging. He regretted now that he should have been so tactless as to stand long before it when Campodonico was in the room. It was too late, however, and there was nothing to be done but to meet the man's angry look quietly, and go away. It was unfortunate that there should have been any discussion between them at dinner, too, for Campodonico, as his wife said, was hot-tempered in the extreme, and Ghisleri, though outwardly calm, had always been liable to outbreaks of dangerous anger. There was, indeed, in the present instance, a very solemn promise given to a dying woman beloved by both, to keep them from quarrelling, and both really meant to respect it as they had done in past years. But to see Ghisleri calmly contemplating a picture which seemed intended to represent Bianca Corleone falling into the arms of a demon lover, was almost too much for the equanimity of Gianforte, which was by no means at any time very stable. Moreover, he not only hated Ghisleri with his whole heart as much as ever, but he despised him quite as much as Pietro despised himself, and probably a little more. He would never have forgiven him, at the best; but he might have respected him if Ghisleri had honoured Bianca's memory by leading a different life. It made his blood sting to think that a man who had been loved to the latest breath by such a woman as Bianca should throw himself at the feet of Maddalena dell' Armi--not to mention any of the others for whom Pietro had felt an ephemeral passion during the last six years and more. And Pietro, on his side, knew that Campodonico was right in judging him as he judged himself, harshly and without mercy. Unfortunately, Pietro's judgments on himself generally came too late, when the evil he hated had already been done, and self-condemnation was of very little use. He had great temptations, too--far greater than most men, and was fatally attracted by difficulty in any shape. On the present occasion he really desired to avoid doing the least thing which could irritate Campodonico, and if the latter had not done what he did Pietro would certainly have gone quietly away. He could not help being a little surprised at the persistent stare of his old adversary, considering that for years they had met and acted with perfectly civil indifference towards one another. Nevertheless, he relit his cigarette which had gone out, and made a step towards the other side of the room. To Campodonico, the calm expression of his face seemed like scorn, and he became exasperated in a moment. He called the other back. They were at some distance from the other guests, and out of hearing if they spoke in low tones. "Ghisleri!" Campodonico pronounced the name he detested with an almost contemptuous accent. Pietro knew that an exchange of unfriendly words was inevitable. He turned instantly and came close to Gianforte, standing before him and looking down into his fierce eyes, for he was by far the taller man. "What is it?" he asked, controlling his voice wonderfully. "Do you not think there are circumstances under which one is justified in breaking a solemn promise?" asked Campodonico. "No. I do not." "I do." "I am very sorry. I suppose you mean to say that you wish to quarrel with me again. Is that it?" "Yes." "You will find it hard. I shall do my very best to be patient whatever you do or say. In the first place, I begin by telling you that I sincerely regret having irritated you twice, as I have done this evening, the second time, as I know, very seriously." "I did not ask you for an apology," said Gianforte, with contempt. "But I have offered you one which you will find it hard not to accept." "You were not formerly so ready with excuses. I dare say you have grown cautious with age, though you are not much older than I." "Perhaps I have." Ghisleri grew slowly pale, as he bore one insult after the other for the dead woman's sake. "In other words, you are a coward," said Campodonico, lowering his voice still more. Pietro opened his lips and shut them without speaking. He glanced at the passionate white face of the woman in the picture before he answered. "I do not think so," he said. "But I make no pretence of bravery. Have you done?" "No. You make a pretence of other things if not of courage. You pretend that you will not quarrel now because of the promise you gave." "It is true." "I do not believe you." "I am sorry for it," answered Pietro. "And do you mean to tell me that the promise binds us? If you had acted as a man should, if you had led a life that showed the slightest respect for that memory, it might be binding on me still." "I think it is." Ghisleri was trembling with anger from head to foot, but his voice was still steady. "I do not," answered Gianforte, scornfully. "If she were here to judge us, if she could see that the man who was loved to the last by Bianca Corleone--God give her rest!--would live down to such a level, would live to throw himself at the feet of a Maddalena dell' Armi--ah, I have touched you now!--she would--" Ghisleri's face was livid. "She whose name you are not more worthy to speak than I, never meant that I should not defend a good and helpless woman because the liar who accuses her chances to be called Gianforte Campodonico." "And the one who defends her, Pietro Ghisleri," retorted Gianforte. "Where can my friends find yours?" "At my lodging, if that suits them." "Perfectly." Campodonico turned on his heel and slowly went towards the group at the other end of the room. Ghisleri followed him at a distance, lighting a fresh cigarette as he walked. He had recovered his composure the moment he had felt himself freed from the obligation to bear the insults heaped upon him by Bianca Corleone's brother. It must not be supposed that no one had watched the two as they stood talking before the picture. More than one person had noticed the fierce look in Campodonico's eyes, and the unnatural paleness of Ghisleri's face. One of these was Donna Maria Boccapaduli. "I suppose you have been discussing that painting," she said carelessly to Pietro. "People always do." "Yes," answered Ghisleri, as indifferently as he could. "And what was the result of the discussion?" "We agreed to differ." Pietro laughed a little harshly. As soon as possible he excused himself and got away, for he had only just the time necessary to find a couple of friends and explain matters, before going to the ball to meet the Contessa, as he had promised to do. He had forgotten an important detail, however, and as he passed Campodonico who was also going away, and without his wife, on pretence of an engagement at the club, he stopped him. "By the by," he said, "I suppose we are ostensibly quarrelling about a painter, or something of that sort." "Yes--anything. Zichy, for instance. Everybody saw us looking at the picture. You like it and I do not." "Very well." So they parted, to meet, in all probability, at dawn on the following morning, in a quiet place outside the city. Ghisleri found two friends in whose hands he placed himself, telling them that he was quite indifferent to the weapons, and only desired to meet his adversary's wishes as far as possible, since the affair was very insignificant. He remarked in an indifferent tone that, as he had once fought with Campodonico, using foils, and as the latter had not seemed satisfied on that occasion, he had no objection to pistols, if the opposite side preferred them. He wished everything to be arranged as amicably as possible, he said, and without any undue publicity. He left them at his lodging and departed to keep his engagement at the embassy. As he drove through the bitter air in an open cab, he meditated on his position, and wondered what Maddalena would say when she learned that he had been out with his old adversary. She should not know anything about the encounter until it was over, if he could keep it from her. At all events, he reflected, he had done all that a man could do to keep out of a quarrel, as he had promised her he would, and he had been driven to break a promise of a far more sacred nature than the one he had given her. If she knew the truth, too, it was for her, and for her alone, that he was to fight. He wondered whether people would say it was for Laura Arden's sake, on account of the discussion about the evil eye which had taken place at table. The suggestion annoyed him very much, but he reached his destination before he had found time to reason out the whole case, or to decide what to do. In any event it would be better if people thought that he had taken the foils in defence of an unprotected widow like Laura, than for the good name of the Contessa dell' Armi. She was there before him, looking very lovely in a gown of palest green, half covered with old lace. The shade suited her fair hair and dazzling skin, and she looked taller in faint colours, as short women do. He found her seated in one of the smaller rooms through which he had to pass on his way to the great ball-room, and she was surrounded by four or five men of the gay set, all talking to her at once, all trying to be extremely witty, and all wishing that the others would go away. But the Contessa held her own with them, making no distinction, and keeping up the lively, empty, rattling conversation without any apparent difficulty. Pietro sat down in the circle, and made a remark from time to time, to which she generally gave a direct answer, until, little by little, she was talking with him alone, and the others began to drop away as they always did in the course of half an hour when Ghisleri appeared in Maddalena's neighbourhood. It was a thing perfectly understood, as a matter not even worth mentioning. "Will you get me something to drink?" she said when only Spicca was left by her side. Pietro went off towards the supper-room, which was rather distant, and as a dance was just over and the place was crowded, it was some minutes before he could get what he wanted, and go back to her with it. Spicca looked at him with an odd expression of something between amusement and sympathy as he rose and left the two together, and Ghisleri at once saw that something unusual had occurred in his absence, for Maddalena was very pale, and her hand shook violently as she took the glass he brought her. "What is the matter?" he asked anxiously, as he sat down. "Something very disagreeable has happened," she answered, looking round nervously. The sofa on which they sat stood out from one side of a marble pillar, with its back to the side of the room the guests crossed who went directly to the ball-room, and facing the side by which they went from the ball-room to the rooms beyond, and to the supper-room, for there were four doors, opposite each other, two of which opened into the great hall where the dancing was going on. Maddalena was seated at the end of the sofa which was against the pillar, so that a person passing through behind her might easily not notice her presence. "Pray tell me what it is," said Ghisleri. "Just as you went to get me the lemonade, I heard two people talking in a low voice behind me," said Maddalena. "They must have stopped first by the door--I looked round afterwards and saw them, but I do not know either of them--some new people from one of the other embassies, or merely foreigners here on a visit. They spoke rather bad French. There was a man and a lady. They saw you cross the room and the lady asked the man who you were, and the man told her, saying that he only knew you by sight. The lady uttered an exclamation, and said that you were the one man in Rome whom she wished to see because you had been loved by--you know whom I mean--I know it hurts you to speak of her, and I understand it. The man laughed and said there had been others since, and that there was especially a certain Marquise d' Armi, as he called me, who was madly in love with you. The most amusing part of the whole thing, concluded the man, was that you were perfectly indifferent to her, as everybody knew. It was horrible, and I almost fainted. Dear old Spicca went on talking, trying to prevent me from hearing them. It was just like him." The Contessa's lip trembled, and her eyes glittered strangely as she looked at Pietro. "It is horrible," he said, in a low voice. He had thought that he had felt enough emotions during that day, but he was mistaken. Even now there were more in store for him. He was deeply shocked, for he guessed what she must have suffered. "Horrible--yes! But oh--can you not tell me it is not true? Do you not see that my heart is breaking?" "No, dearest lady," he answered tenderly, trying to soothe her. "Not one word of it is true. How can you make yourself unhappy by thinking such a thing?" Maddalena drew a painful breath. He spoke very kindly, but there was no ringing note of passion in his voice as there had once been. With a sudden determination that surprised him, she rose to her feet. "Take me to the ball-room," she said hurriedly. "I shall cry if I stay here." It was almost a relief to Ghisleri to see her accept the first man who presented himself as a partner and whirl away with him into the great hall. He stood leaning against the marble door-post, watching her as she wound her way in and out among the many moving couples. He was conscious that he might very possibly never see her again. Campodonico would of course select pistols, and meant to kill him if he could. He might succeed, though duels rarely ended fatally now-a-days. And if he did, Maddalena dell' Armi would be left to her fate. He was horror-struck when he thought of it. She might never know why he had fought, and she would perhaps believe to her last day that he had sacrificed his life for Laura Arden. He could leave a letter for her, but letters often fell into the wrong hands through faithless servants when the people who had written them were dead. Besides, would she believe his words? She had very little faith in his love for her. He sighed bitterly as he thought how right she was in that. He could see the pale, small, classic features, and the half pitiful, half scornful look of the beautiful mouth. "His last bit of comedy!" she would exclaim to herself, as she tossed his last note into the fire. And again she would be right, in a measure. In the case of risking sudden death, he said to himself that it was indeed a strange bit of comedy. He knew that he did not love her as he should. Why should he fight for her, then? But his manliness rose up at this and smote his cynicism out of the field for a time. That little he owed Maddalena, at least--he could not do less than defend her, at whatever cost, and he knew well enough that he always would. As for his wish that she might know it, that was nothing but his own detestable vanity. For his own part, he wished with all his heart that the next morning might end his existence. He had never valued his life very highly, and of late it had been so little to his taste that he was more than ready to part with it, even violently. The future did not appall him, although, strangely enough, he was very far from being an unbeliever, and had been brought up to consider a sudden end, in mortal sin, as the most horrible and irreparable of misfortunes. To him, in his experience of himself, no imaginable suffering could be worse than the self-doubt, the self-contempt, and the self-hatred which had so often tormented him during the past years. If he were to be punished for his misdeeds with the same torture, even though it were to be never-ending, at least he should bear the pain of it alone, such as it was, without the necessity for hiding it and for going through the daily mummery of life with an indifferent face. And in that state there would be no more temptation of the kind he feared. What he had done up to the hour of death would close the chronicle of evil, and in all ages there would be no more. He was used to such refinements of cruelty as perdition could threaten him with, for he had practised them upon his own heart. So the man "who did not care" stood watching the ball, and people envied him his successes, and his past and present happiness, and all that he had enjoyed in his three-and-thirty years of life, little dreaming of what was even then passing in his thoughts, still less that he was waiting for the message which should inform him of the place and hour fixed for encountering the man who most hated him in the world, and who had once before vainly attempted to take his life. At the other end of the great hall the Contessa dell' Armi had paused in her waltz to take breath, and found herself next to Donna Maria Boccapaduli. "You have not heard the news," said the latter in a low voice, bending towards Maddalena, and holding up her fan before her face. "We have all been dining at Casa San Giacinto, sixteen of us besides themselves--the two Campodonico, ourselves, Pietrasanta--ever so many of us. Ghisleri was there, next to me, and there was a discussion about the evil eye, because Pietrasanta broke a glass just as he uttered the name of the lady we do not mention--you know which--Ghisleri's friend. And then, I do not know how it was, but Ghisleri and Campodonico contradicted each other about it, because Campodonico said she was a jettatrice and Ghisleri said she was not, you know. After dinner the two went and talked in whispers at the other end of the big room, and Ghisleri looked ghastly white, and Campodonico was so angry that his eyes were like coals. A few minutes later, they both went away in a great hurry--Campodonico left his wife there. It certainly looks as though there were to be a duel to-morrow. You know how they hate each other, and how they fought long ago about that wonderful Princess Corleone who died. I can remember seeing her before I was married." The Contessa listened to the end. She could not have grown paler than she was on that evening, but while Donna Maria was speaking the shadows deepened almost to black under her eyes, and the veins in her throat swelled and throbbed so that they hurt her. She succeeded in controlling all other outward signs of emotion, however, and when she spoke her voice was calm and quiet. "I hardly believe that those two will fight," she said. "But, of course, they may. We shall probably know to-morrow." Making a little sign to her partner, she began to dance with him again, and continued to waltz until the music ceased a few minutes later. She stopped near the door where Ghisleri was standing, and looked at him. He immediately came to her side, and she left the man she had been dancing with and moved away with Pietro towards a distant room, not speaking on the way. They sat down together in a quiet corner, and he saw that she was very much moved and probably very angry with him. "Will you please to tell me the truth?" she said, in a hard voice. "I have something to ask you." "Yes. I always do," he answered. "Is it true that there is a quarrel between you and Don Gianforte Campodonico?" "Yes--it is true," replied Ghisleri, after hesitating a few seconds. "And that you had a discussion with him about Lady Herbert at the San Giacinto's dinner table?" "Yes," admitted Ghisleri, who saw that his worst fears were about to be realised. "Are you going to fight?" asked Maddalena, in a metallic tone. "Yes. We are going to fight." "So you have already forgotten what you promised me this afternoon. You said you would do all a man could do to avoid a quarrel--for my sake. Six hours had not passed before you had broken your word. That is the sort of faith you keep with me." Pietro Ghisleri began to think that his misfortunes would never end. For some time he sat in silence, staring before him. Should he tell her the whole story? Should he go over the abominable scene with Campodonico, and tell her all the atrocious insults he had patiently borne for Bianca Corleone's sake, until Maddalena's own name had seemed to set him free from his obligation to the dead woman? He reflected that it would sound extremely theatrical and perhaps improbable in her ears, for she distrusted him enough already. Besides, if she believed him, to tell her would only be to afford his own vanity a base satisfaction. This last view was perhaps a false one, but with his character it was not unnatural. "I have kept my word," he said at last, "for I have borne all that a man can bear to avoid this quarrel." "I am sorry you should be able to bear so little for me," answered Maddalena, her voice as hard as ever. "I have done my best. I am only a man after all. If you had heard what passed, you would probably now say that I am right." "You always take shelter behind assertions of that kind. I know it is of no use to ask you to tell me the whole story, for if you were willing to tell it, you would have told it to me already. No one can conceal fact as you can and yet never be caught in a downright falsehood. Half an hour ago, when we were sitting in that other room, you knew just as well as you do now that you were to fight to-morrow, and you had not the slightest intention of telling me." "Not the slightest. Men do not talk about such things. It is not in good taste, and not particularly honourable, in my opinion." "Good taste and honour!" exclaimed the Contessa, scornfully. "You talk as though we were strangers! Indeed, I think we are coming to that, as fast as we can." "I trust not." "The phrase, again! What should you say, after all? You must say something when I put the matter plainly. It would not be in good taste, if you did not contradict me when I tell you that you do not love me. All things considered, perhaps you do not even think it honourable. You are very considerate, and I am immensely grateful. Perhaps you are thinking, too, that it would be more decent, and in better taste on my part, to let you go, now that I have discovered the truth. I am almost inclined to think so. I have seen it long, and I have been foolish to doubt my senses." "For Heaven's sake, do not be so bitter and unjust," said Ghisleri earnestly. "I am neither. Do you know why I have clung to you? Shall I tell you? It may hurt you, and I am bad enough to wish to hurt you to-night--to wish that you might suffer something of what I feel." "I am ready," answered Pietro. "Do you know why I have clung to you, I ask? I will tell you the truth. It was my last chance of respecting myself, my last hold on womanliness, on everything that a woman cares to be. And you have succeeded in taking that from me. You found me a good wife. You know what I am now--what you have made me. Remember that to-morrow morning, when you are risking your life for Lady Herbert Arden. Do you understand me? Have I hurt you?" "Yes." Ghisleri bowed his head, and passed his hand over his forehead. What she said was terribly, irrefutably true. The vision of true love, revived within the last few days, and delusive still that very afternoon, had vanished, and only the other, the vision of sin, remained, clear, sharp, and cruelly well-defined. He made no attempt to deny what she said, even in his own heart, for it would not be denied. "I cannot even ask you to forgive me that," he said at last in a low tone. "No. You cannot even ask that, for you knew what you were doing--I scarcely did. Not that I excuse myself. I was willing to risk everything, and I did, blindly, for the sake of a real love. You see what I have got. You cannot love me, but you shall not forget me. Heaven is too just. And so, good-bye!" "I hope it may be good-bye, indeed," said Ghisleri. "Not that--no, not that!" exclaimed Maddalena. "I wish you no evil--no harm. I had a right to say what I have said. I shall never say it again--for there will be no need. Take me back, please." She rose to go, and her finely chiselled face was as hard as steel. In silence they went back to the supper-room, and a few moments later Ghisleri left her with Francesco Savelli and went home. On his table he found a note from his seconds, as had been arranged, naming the place and hour agreed upon for the duel, and stating that they would call for him in good time. He tossed it into the fire which still smouldered on the hearth, as he did with everything in the nature of notes and letters which came to him. He never kept a scrap of writing of any sort, except such as chanced to be connected with business matters and the administration of his small estate. He hesitated long as to whether he should write to Maddalena or not, sitting for nearly half an hour at his writing-table with a pen in his fingers and a sheet of paper before him. After all, what could he write? A justification of himself in the question of fighting with Campodonico? What difference could it make now? All had been said, and the end had come, as he had of late known that it must, though it had been abrupt and unexpected at the last minute. It was all the same now whether he should afterwards be said to have fought for Laura or for Maddalena. Besides, in real truth, if it were known, he was fighting for neither. Gianforte's old hatred had suddenly flamed up again, and if he had spoken Maddalena's name it was only because he found that no other means could prevail upon the man he hated to break his solemn vow, and because he knew that no man would bear tamely an insult of that kind cast upon a woman he was bound in honour to defend. But all that had been only the result of circumstances. The quarrel was really the old one in which they had fought so desperately, long ago. The dead Bianca's memory still lived, and had power to bring two brave men face to face in a death struggle. Ghisleri rose from the table and stood before the photograph of the picture which had brought matters to the present pass. For the thousandth time he gazed at the wonderful likeness of her he had loved, perfect in all points, as chance had made it under the hand of a man who had never seen her. "I made a promise to you once," he said, in a low voice, "and I have kept it as well as I could. I will make another, for your dear sake and memory. I will not again bring unhappiness upon any woman." Sentimental and theatrical, the world would have said. But the man who could bear to be unjustly called liar and coward rather than break his oath was able to keep such a promise if he chose. And he did. So far as he was humanly able, too, in the world to which he belonged, he kept the first one also; for, when they bent over him as he lay upon the wet grass a few hours later, the pistol he held was loaded still. The world said that he had been shot before he had time to fire, because he was trying to aim too carefully. But Gianforte Campodonico bared his head and bent it respectfully as they carried Pietro Ghisleri away. "There goes the bravest man I ever knew," he said to his second. CHAPTER XIV. The report that Ghisleri had been killed by his old adversary in a quarrel about Laura Arden spread like wildfire through society. It was not until San Giacinto formally proclaimed that he had been to Ghisleri's lodging, and that, although shot through the right lung, he was alive and might recover, that the world knew the truth. It was of course perfectly evident that Laura was the cause of the difference. Even San Giacinto had no other explanation to suggest, when he was appealed to, and could only say that it seemed incredible that two men should fight with pistols at a dangerously short distance, because the one said that Lady Herbert was a jettatrice, and the other denied it. If Campodonico had been less universally liked than he was, he would have become very unpopular in consequence of the duel; for, although few persons were intimate with Ghisleri, he also was a favourite with the world. The Gerano faction was very angry with both men, though Adele was secretly delighted. It was a scandalous thing, they said, that a duel should be fought about a young widow, whose husband had not been buried much more than two months. Both should have known better. And then, Campodonico was a young married man, which made matters far worse. Duelling was an abominable sin, of course; but Ghisleri, at least, was alone in the world and could risk his soul and body without the danger of bringing unhappiness on others. Gianforte's case was different and far less pardonable. But Casa Gerano and Casa Savelli belonged rather to the old-fashioned part of society, though Adele and her husband were undeniably in the gay set, and there were many who judged the two men more leniently. The world had certainly been saying for some time that Ghisleri went very often to see Lady Herbert, and was neglecting Maddalena dell' Armi. The cruel words the Contessa had overheard at the Embassy were but part of the current gossip, for otherwise mere strangers, like those who had spoken, could not have already learned to repeat them. If, then, Ghisleri was in love with Laura Arden, it was natural enough that he should resent the story about the evil eye. Meanwhile, poor man, no one could tell whether he could ever recover from his dangerous wound. The Contessa dell' Armi was one of the very first to know the truth. She had spent a miserable and sleepless night, and it was still very early in the morning when she sent to Ghisleri's lodgings for news. She was very anxious, for she knew more than most people about the old story, and she guessed that Campodonico would do his best to hurt Pietro. But she had no idea that pistols were to be the weapons, and Ghisleri's reputation as a swordsman was very good. Short of an accident, she thought, nothing would be really dangerous to him. But then, accidents sometimes happened. The answer came back, short and decisive. He was shot through the very middle of the right lung, he had not fired upon his adversary, and he lay in great danger, between life and death, in the care of a surgeon and a Sister of Charity, neither of whom left his side for a moment. Maddalena did not hesitate. She dressed herself in an old black frock she found among her things, put on a thick veil, went out alone, and drove to Pietro's lodgings. Such rash things may be done with impunity in Paris or London, but they rarely remain long concealed in a small city like Rome. He was still unconscious from weakness and loss of blood. His eyes were half closed and his face was transparently white. Maddalena stood still at the foot of the bed and looked at him, while the doctor and the nurse gazed at her in surprise. During what seemed an endless time to them she did not move. Then she beckoned to the surgeon, and led him away to the window. "Will he live?" she asked, hardly able to pronounce the words. "He may. There is some hope, for he is very strong. I cannot say more than that for the present." For a few moments Maddalena was silent. She had never seen the doctor, and he evidently did not know her. "My place should be here," she said at last. "Would an emotion be bad for him--if he were angry, perhaps?" "Probably fatal," answered the surgeon with decision. "If he is likely to experience any emotion on seeing you, I beg you not to stay long. He may soon be fully conscious." "He cannot know me now?" she asked anxiously. "No. Not yet." "Not if I went quite near to him--if I touched him?" The doctor glanced back at the white face on the pillow. "No," he answered. "But be quick." Maddalena went swiftly to the bedside, and, bending down, kissed Ghisleri's forehead, gazed at him for a moment, and then turned away. She slipped a little gold bracelet formed of simple links without ornament or distinctive mark from her wrist, and put it into the Sister's hand. "If you think he is dying, give him this, and say I came and kissed him. If he is in no danger, sell it, and give the money to some poor person. Can I trust you, my sister?" "Yes, madame," answered the French nun quietly as she dropped the trinket into her capacious pocket. With one glance more at Ghisleri's face, the Contessa left the room. A quarter of an hour later she was at home again. The servants supposed that she had gone to an early mass, as she sometimes did, possibly to pray for the soul of the Signor Ghisleri. The man who had gone for news of him had not failed to inform the whole household of Pietro's dangerous state, and as Pietro was a constant visitor, and was generous with his five-franc notes, considerable anxiety was felt in the lower regions for his welfare, and numerous prayers were offered for his recovery. Maddalena sent to make inquiries several times in the course of the day, and towards evening was informed that there was more hope, but that if he got well at all it would be by a long convalescence. She herself saw no one, and no one ever knew what she suffered in those endless hours of solitude. Laura Arden heard of the duel through her mother, who was very angry about it, as has been seen. Laura herself was greatly shocked, for at first almost every one thought that Ghisleri must die of his wound. Having been brought up in Rome, in the midst of Roman ideas, she had not the English aversion to duelling, nor, being an Anglican, had she a Catholic's horror of sudden death. She did not even yet really like Ghisleri. But she was horror-struck, though she could hardly have told why, at the thought that the strong man who had been with her when her husband died, and whom she had talked with so often since, should be taken away without warning, in the midst of his youth and strength, for a word said in her defence. Of course the Princess told her all the details of the story as she had heard them, laying particular stress upon the fact that the duel had been fought for Laura. The seconds in the affair had gravely alleged a dispute about the painter Zichy as the true cause of the quarrel, but the world had found time to make up its mind on the previous evening, and was not to be deceived by such absurd tales. "It is not my fault, mother, if they fought about me," said Laura. "But I am dreadfully distressed. I wish I could do anything." "The best thing is to do nothing," answered the Princess, "for nothing can do any good. The harm is done, whether it has been in any way your fault or not. To think it should all have begun in that insane superstition about the evil eye!" "I never even knew that I was suspected of being a jettatrice. People must be mad to believe in such things. You are right, of course. What could any of us do except make inquiries? Poor man! I hope he will get over it." "God grant he may live to be a better man," said the Princess, devoutly. She had never had a very high opinion of Ghisleri's moral worth, and late events had confirmed her in the estimate she had made. "One thing I must say, my dear," she continued. "If he recovers, as I pray he may, you must see less of him than hitherto. You cannot let people talk about you as they will talk, especially after this dreadful affair." "I will be very careful," Laura answered. "Not that there is any danger. The poor man will be ill for weeks, at the best, and the summer will be almost here before he is out of the house. Then I shall be going away, for I do not mean to keep Herbert here during the heat." The Princess was quite used to hearing Laura speak of the little child in that way, and she had never once referred to her husband by name since his death. She meant that the one Herbert should take the place of the other, once and for always, to be cared for and loved, and thought of at every hour of the day. She had silently planned out her life during the weeks of her recovery, and she believed that nothing could prevent her from living it as she intended. Everything should be for little Herbert, from first to last. She looked at the baby face, in which she saw so plainly the father's likeness where others could see only a pair of big brown eyes, plump cheeks, and a mouth like a flower, and she promised herself that all the happiness she would have made for the one who had been taken should be the lot of the one given to her almost on the same day. Her future seemed anything but dark to her, though its greater light had gone out. The anguish, the agonising anxiety, the first moment's joy, and at last the full pride of motherhood, had come between her and the past, deadening the terrible shock at first, and making the memory of it less keen and poignant afterwards, while not in any way dimming the bright recollection of the love that had united her to her husband. She could take pleasure now in looking forward to her boy's coming years, to the time when he should be at first a companion, then a friend, and then a protector of whom she would be proud when he stood among other men. She could think of his schooldays, and she could already feel the pain of parting from him and the joy of meeting him again, taller and stronger and braver at every return. And far away in the hazy distance before her she could see a shadowy but lovely figure, yet unknown to-day--Herbert's wife that was to be, a perfect woman, and worthy of him in all ways. It might be also that somewhere there were great deeds for Herbert to do, fame for him to achieve, glory for him to win. All this was possible, but she thought little of it. Her ambition was to know him some day to be all that his father had been in heart, and to see him all that his father should have been in outward form and stature. More than that she neither hoped nor asked for, and perhaps it was enough. And so she dreamed on, while no one thought she was dreaming at all, for she was always active and busy with something that concerned the child, and her attention never wandered when it was needed. Her mother watched her and was glad of it all. To her, it seemed very merciful that Arden should have died when he did, fond as she herself had been of him. She had not believed that Laura could be permanently happy with such a sufferer, and she had never desired the marriage, though she had done nothing to oppose it when she saw how deeply her daughter loved the man she had chosen. She was very much relieved when she saw how Laura behaved in her sorrow, and realised that there was no morbid tendency in her to dwell over-long on her grief. One thing, which has already been mentioned, alone showed that Laura felt very deeply,--she never spoke of Arden, even to her mother. On this point there seemed to be a tacit understanding between her and Donald. The faithful old servant seemed to know instinctively what she wished done. When all was over, and while Laura was still far too ill to be consulted, he had taken all Arden's clothes and other little effects, even to his brushes and other dressing things, and had packed everything in his dead master's own boxes as though for a long journey. The boxes themselves he locked up in a small spare room, and laid the key in the drawer of Laura's writing-table with a label on which were written the words, "His lordship's effects." Laura found it the first time she came to the drawing-room, and was grateful to the old Scotchman for what he had done. But she could not bring herself to speak of it, even to Donald, though he knew that she was pleased by the look she gave him. Of course, her manner was greatly changed from what it had been. She never laughed now, and rarely ever smiled, except when she held the child in her arms. But there was nothing morbid nor brooding in her gravity. She had accepted her lot and was determined to make the best of it according to her light. In time she would grow more cheerful, and by and by she would be her old self again--more womanly, perhaps, and certainly more mature, but not materially altered in character or disposition. The short months which had sufficed for what had hitherto been the chief acts of her life had not been filled with violent or conflicting emotions, and it is emotion more than anything else which changes the natures of men and women for better or for worse. The love that had been born of mingled pity and sympathy of thought had risen quickly in the peaceful, remote places of her heart, and had flowed smoothly through the sweet garden of her maidenly soul, unruffled and undeviating, until it had suddenly disappeared into the abyss of eternity. It had left no wreck and no ruin behind, no devastation and no poisonous, stagnant pools, as some loves do. The soil over which it had passed had been refreshed and made fertile by it, and would bear flowers and fruit hereafter as fragrant and as sweet as it could ever have borne; and at the last, in that one great moment of pain when she had stood at the brink and seen all she loved plunge out of sight for ever in the darkness, she had heard in her ear the tender cry of a new young life calling to her to turn back and tend it, and love it, and show it the paths that lead to such happiness as the world holds for the pure in heart. She was calm, therefore, and not, in the ordinary sense, broken by her sorrow,--a fact which the world, in its omniscience, very soon discovered. It did not fail to say that she was well rid of her husband, and that she knew it, and was glad to be free, though she managed with considerable effort to keep up a sufficient outward semblance of mourning to satisfy the customs and fashions of polite society--just that much, and not a jot more. But Adele Savelli said repeatedly that all this was not true, and that only a positively angelic nature like Laura's could bear such an awful bereavement so calmly. It was a strange thing, Adele added, that very good people should always seem so much better able to resign themselves to the decrees of Providence than their less perfect neighbours. Of course it could not be that they were colder and felt less than others, and consequently could not suffer so much. Besides, Laura must have loved Arden sincerely to marry him at all, since it appeared to be certain that the rich uncle who was to have left him so much money only existed in the imagination of the gossips, and had evidently been invented by them merely in order to make out that Laura had a secret reason for marrying that uncle's favourite nephew. But then, people would talk, of course, and all that the relations of the family could do was to deny such calumnious reports consistently and at every turn. Adele was looking very ill when the season came to an end. She had grown thin, and her eyes had a restless, hunted look in them which had never been there before. Her husband noticed that she was very much overcome when she heard the first report to the effect that Ghisleri was killed. She seemed particularly horrified at the statement that the original cause of the duel had been the reputation for possessing the evil eye which Laura Arden had so suddenly acquired, and which, as she herself had been the very first to say, was so utterly unfounded. It was evidently a very great relief to her to hear, later in the day, that Pietro was not yet dead, and might even have a chance of recovery. No one could tell what Gianforte Campodonico thought of the matter. He shut himself up obstinately and awaited events. It is not probable that he felt any remorse for what he had done, or that he would have felt any if he had left Ghisleri dead on the field, instead of with a bare chance of life. He had taken the vengeance he had longed for and he was glad of it, but the impression he had of the man was not the same which he had been accustomed to for so many years. He, who generally reflected little, asked himself whether he could have found the courage to bear what Ghisleri had borne for the sake of the promise they had made together, and which he had been the first to break. He was a brave man, too, in his way, and it would not have been safe to predict that he would fail at any given point if put to the test. But he was conscious that, in the present case, Ghisleri had played the nobler part, and he was manly enough to acknowledge the fact to himself, and to respect his adversary as he had not done before. If he stayed at home and refused to be seen in the world or even at his club immediately after the duel, it was because he would not be thought willing to glory in his victory. But, before many days were gone by, it became apparent, so far as the world could judge, that Pietro Ghisleri would not die of the dangerous wound he had received. It would have killed most men, the surgeon said, but Ghisleri was not like other people. He, the doctor, had never seen a stronger constitution, nor one so perfectly untainted by any hereditary evil or weakness. Such blood was rare now, especially in the old families, and such strength would have been rare in any age. He had no longer any hesitation in saying that the patient had a very fair prospect of recovery, and might possibly be as healthy as ever before the end of the summer. The Sister of Charity went about with Maddalena's bracelet in her pocket, feeling very uncomfortable about it, since she had been quite sure from the first that there was something very sinful in the whole affair. But she was quite ready to fulfil her promise if Ghisleri showed signs of departing this life, which he did not, however, either when he first regained consciousness or later. So she, on her part, said nothing, and waited for the day when she might deliver up the trinket to the Mother Superior, to be sold for the poor, as Maddalena had directed. In that, at least, there could be no harm, and she was very thankful that she was not called upon to deliver the message to Ghisleri himself, for that, she felt sure, would have been sinful, or something very like it. The surgeon was surprised by something else in the case. As a general rule, when a man fights a desperate duel in the very middle of the season, and especially such a man as he knew Ghisleri to be, and is severely hurt, he finds himself cut off from society in the midst of some chain of events in which the whole present interest of his life is engaged. He is consequently disturbed in mind, impatient of confinement, and feverishly anxious to get back to the world,--a state of temper by no means conducive to convalescence. Ghisleri, on the contrary, seemed to have forgotten to care for anything. No preoccupation appeared to possess him; no desire to be back again in the throng made him restless. He was perfectly calm and peaceful, always patient, and always resigned to whatever treatment seemed necessary. The Sister wondered much that a man of such marvellous gentleness and resignation could have found it in him to commit mortal sin in fighting a duel, and, perhaps, far down in her woman's heart, she did not wonder at all at what Maddalena had done on that first morning. The surgeon said that Ghisleri's sweet temper had much to do with his rapid recovery. It need not be supposed from this that his character had undergone any radical change, nor that he was turning, all at once, into the saint he was never intended to be. It was very simple. The events of the night preceding the duel had brought his life to a crisis which, once past, had left little behind it to disturb him. First in his mind was the consciousness that his love for Maddalena dell' Armi was gone for ever, and that she herself expected no return of it. That alone was enough to change his whole existence in the present, and in the immediate future. Then, too, he felt that he had at least settled old scores with Campodonico and had in a measure expiated one, at least, of his past misdeeds, almost at the cost of his life. Morally speaking, too, he had kept his oath to Bianca Corleone, for under the utmost provocation he had refused to fight in the old quarrel, and even when driven to bay and forced upon new ground by Campodonico's implacable hatred, he had stood up to be killed without so much as firing at Bianca's brother. There was a deep and real satisfaction in that, and he was perhaps too ill as yet to torture himself by stigmatising it as a bit of vanity. The world might think what it pleased. Maddalena might misjudge his motives, and Gianforte might triumph in his victory--it all made no difference to him. He was conscious that to the best of his ability he had acted according to the dictates of true honour, as he understood it; and at night he closed his eyes and fell peacefully asleep, and in the morning he opened them quietly again upon the little world of his invalid's surroundings. He was not happy, however. What he felt, and what perhaps saved his life, was a momentary absence of responsibility, an absolute certainty that nothing more could be required of him, because, in the events in which he had played a part, that part had been acted out to the very end. He even went so far as to believe that, if he had died, it would not have made any difference to any one, except that his death might possibly have been an added satisfaction to Campodonico. He would have left no sorrowing heart behind to mourn him, nor any gap in any circle which another man could not fill up. Herbert Arden, the only friend who would have really regretted him, was already dead, and there was no one else who stood to him in any relation of acquaintance at all so close as to be called friendship. All this contributed materially to his peace of mind, though in one respect he was mistaken. There was one person who loved him still, for himself, though she knew well enough that his love for her was dead. And it was of her, though he was mistaken about her, that he thought the most during the long hours when he lay there quietly watching the sunbeams stealing across the room when it was fine, or listening to the raindrops pattering against the windows when the weather was stormy. In her was centred the great present regret of his life, and for her sake he felt the most sincere remorse. He asked himself, as she had asked him, what was to become of her, now that he had left her. The fact that she had been really the one to speak the word and cause the first break did not change the truth in the least. It had been his fault from the first to the last. He had not broken her heart, perhaps, because hearts are not now-a-days easily broken, if, indeed, they ever really were; but he had ruined her existence wantonly, uselessly, on the plea of a love neither pure nor lasting, and he fully realised what he had done. What chance had she ever had against him--she, young, inexperienced, trusting, wretchedly unhappy with a husband who had despised and trodden out the simple, girlish love she had offered--what chance had she against Pietro Ghisleri, the hardened, cool-headed man of the world, whose only weakness was that he sometimes believed himself sincere, as he had with her? He was not happy as he thought of it all. There had been little manliness in what he had done, and not much of the honour which he called his last shred of morality. And yet, in the world in which he had his being, few men would blame him, and none, perhaps, venture to condemn him. But that consideration did not cross his mind. He was willing to bear both condemnation and blame, and he heaped both upon himself in a plentiful measure. Nevertheless, he was conscious of being surprised at the calmness of his own repentance, as he called it rather contemptuously, and he wished himself, as usual, quite different from what he was. And yet he had not forgotten the semi-theatrical resolution to change his life, which he had made on the night before the duel, still less had he any intention of breaking it. He had always laughed at men and women who made sudden and important resolutions under the influence of emotion, and, on the whole, he had never seen any reason for looking upon such gratuitous promises as valid, unless there had been witnesses to them, and human vanity afterwards came into play. But now, in his own case, he meant to try the experiment. It made no difference whether he were vain about it or not, if he succeeded, nor, if he failed, whether he scorned his own weakness a little more than before. No one would ever know, and since by Laura Arden's rigid standard of right and wrong the end to be gained belonged distinctly to the right, he would be in a measure following her advice in regard to life in general. Deeper down in his nature, too, there lay another thought which he would not now evoke, lest he should himself condemn it as sentimental. That secret promise had been honestly intended, and had been addressed to the memory of one who, though long dead, still had a stronger influence over him than any one now living. He hardly dared to acknowledge the truth of this and the real meaning of what he had done, lest, if he failed hereafter, he should have to accuse himself of faithlessness towards the one woman to whom he had been really true, and whom, if she had lived, he would have loved till the end, in spite of obstacles, in spite of mankind, in spite, he added defiantly, of Heaven itself. All this he tried to keep out of sight, while firmly resolving, in his own cynical way, to try the experiment of goodness for once, and to do no more harm in the world if he could help it. He thought of Laura Arden, too, in his long convalescence, and her image was always pleasant to his inner vision, as the impression she had produced on him was soothing to recall. There were times when her holy eyes seemed to gaze at him out of the darker corners of the room, and he tried often to bring back her whole presence. The pleasure such useless feats of imagination gave him was artistic if it was anything, because he admired her beauty and had always delighted in it. He tried to fancy what she was doing, on certain days when he thought more of her than usual, and to follow her life a little, always trying in a vague way to fathom the secret of the character that was so wonderful in his estimation. And always, when he had been thinking of her, he came back to the contemplation of his own immediate interests with a renewed calm and with a peaceful sense that there might yet be better days in store for him--possibly days in which he should himself be better than he had been heretofore. How the world would have jeered, could it have suspected that Pietro Ghisleri was thinking almost seriously of such a very commonplace subject as moral goodness, as he lay on his back, day after day, in the quiet of his room. How gladly would Adele Savelli have changed places with the man who, as she thought, for the sake of a bit of gossip she had invented out of spite, had nearly lost his life! CHAPTER XV. When Ghisleri was at last able to go out of the house, his first visit was to Maddalena dell' Armi. He had written a line to say that he was coming, and she expected him. The meeting was a strange one, for both felt at first the constraint of their mutual position. Ghisleri looked at her face, which had been so hard when he had last seen it, and he saw that it had softened. There were no signs of suffering, however, and her expression was almost as placid as his own. He raised her hand to his lips and sat down opposite to her. Then the light fell on his face and she saw how changed he was. She remembered how he had looked when she had seen him after he was wounded, and she saw that he was almost as pale now as then, and that he was thin almost to emaciation. "Are you really growing strong again?" she asked in a tone of anxiety. "Yes, indeed," he answered with a smile. "I feel as though I were quite well--a little gaunt and weak, perhaps, but that will soon pass. And you--how have you spent your time in all these weeks since I last saw you?" "Very much as usual," replied Maddalena, and suddenly a weary look came into her eyes. "If you care to know--as long as you were really in danger I did not go out. Then I went everywhere again, and tried to amuse myself." "Did you succeed?" asked Ghisleri, trying hard to speak cheerfully. There had been something hopeless in Maddalena's tone which shocked him and pained him. "More or less. Why do you ask me that?" "Because I am interested." "Do you care for me in the least--in any way?" she asked abruptly. "You know that I do--" "How should I know it?" Ghisleri did not reply at once, for the question was not easily answered. Maddalena waited in silence until he should speak. "Perhaps you are right," he said at last. "You have no means of knowing it, and I have no means of proving it. Dearest lady, since we have both changed so much, do you not think you could believe a little in my friendship?" "We ought to be friends--you should be my best friend." "I mean to be, if you will let me." A long silence followed. Maddalena sat quite still, leaning back in a corner of the sofa and looking at a picture on the opposite wall. Ghisleri sat upright on a chair at a little distance from her. "You say that you will be my friend, if I will let you," she said slowly, after several minutes. "Even if you could imagine that I could not wish it, you ought to be my best friend just the same. If I made you suffer every hour of the day as I did on that last night, you ought to bear it, and never have one unkind thought of me. No; do not answer me yet: I have much more to say. You know that I have always told you just what I have felt, when I have told you anything about myself. I was very unhappy when we met at that ball--or, rather, when we parted--so unhappy that I hardly knew what I said. I ought to have waited and thought before I spoke. If I could have guessed that you were to be wounded--well, it is of no use now. I am very, very fond of you. In spite of everything, if you felt the least love for me still, however little, I would say, 'Let us be as we were, as long as it can last.' As it is--" She paused and looked at him. He knew what she meant. If there were a spark of love, she would forget everything and take him back on any terms. For a moment the old struggle was violently resumed in his heart. Ought he not, for her sake, to pretend love, and to live out his life as best he could in the letter of devotion if not in the true spirit of love? Or would not such an attempt necessarily be a failure, and bring her more and more unhappiness with each month and year? He only hesitated for an instant while she paused; then he determined to say nothing. That was really the turning-point in Pietro Ghisleri's life. "As it is," continued Maddalena, a little unsteadily, but with a brave effort, "nothing but friendship is possible. Let it at least be a true and honest friendship which neither of us need be ashamed of. Let all the world see it. Go your way, and I will go mine, so far as the rest is concerned. If you love Lady Herbert, marry her, if she will have you, when her mourning is over." "I do not love Lady Herbert at all," said Ghisleri with perfect truth. "Well--if you should, or any other woman. Let the world say what it will, it cannot invent anything worse than it has said of me already. You owe me nothing--nothing but that,--to be a true friend to me always, as I will be to you as long as I live." She put out her hand, and he took it and pressed it. As she felt his, the bright tears started to her eyes. "What is it?" he asked tenderly, bending towards her as he spoke. "Nothing," she answered hastily. "Your hand is so thin--how foolish of me! I suppose you will grow to be as strong as ever?" He saw how she still loved him, in spite of all. It was not too late even now to renew the comedy, but his resolution had grown strong and unalterable in a few moments. "You are much too good to me," he said softly. "I have not deserved it--but I will try to." "Do not let us speak of all this any more for the present," she replied. "Since we are friends, let us talk of other things, as friends do." It was not easy, but Ghisleri did his best, feeling that the effort must be made sooner or later and had therefore best be made at once. He kept up the conversation for nearly half an hour, and then rose to go. "Are you not very tired?" asked Maddalena, anxiously. "Not at all. I am much stronger than I look." "Indeed I hope you are!" she answered, looking at him sadly. "Good-bye. Come soon again." "Yes, I will come very soon." Ghisleri went out and had himself driven about the city for an hour in the bright spring weather. It was all new to him now, and he looked at people and things with a sort of interest he had long forgotten to feel. A few of his acquaintances recognised him at once, and waved their hats to him if they chanced to be men, or made pretty gestures with their hands if they were women. But the greater number did not know him at first, and stared after the death-like face and the gaunt figure wrapped in a fur coat that had grown far too wide. He was very glad that the first meeting with Maddalena was over, for he had looked forward to it with considerable anxiety. Something like what had actually been said about friendship had been inevitable, as he now saw, but he had not realised how much he was still loved, nor that Maddalena could so far humiliate herself as to show that she cared for him still, and to offer a renewal of their old relations. Even now, could he have seen her pale and tear-stained face as she sat motionless in the place where he had left her, he might possibly have been weak enough to yield, strong as his determination was not to do so. But that sight was spared him, and he was glad that he had held his peace when she had paused to give him an opportunity of speaking. It was far better so. To act a miserable play with her, no matter from what so-called honourable motive of consideration, would be to make her life far more unhappy than it would ultimately be if she knew the truth. He was satisfied with what he had done, therefore, when he went back to his rooms and lay down to rest after the fatigue of his first day out. But the meeting had left a very sad and painful impression, and all that he felt of remorse and regret for what he had done was doubled now. He hated to think that by his fault she was cast upon the world, with little left to save her, "trying to amuse herself," as she had said, and he wondered at her gentleness and kindness to himself, so different from her behaviour at their last meeting. That, at least, comforted him. In a woman who could thus forgive there must be depths of goodness which would ultimately come to the surface. He remembered how often he had thought her hard, unjust, unkind, and, above all, unbelieving, in the days that succeeded the first outbursts of unreasoning love, and how, even while loving her, he had not always found it easy not to judge her harshly. She was very different now. Possibly, since she felt that she had lost her old power over him, she would be less impatient with him when she did not understand him, and when he displeased her. Come what might, treat him as she would, he owed her faithful allegiance and service--and those at least he could give. He could never atone to her, but in the changing scenes of the world he might, by devoting to her interest all the skill and tact he possessed, make her life happier and easier. Before night he received a note from Laura Arden. She wrote that she had seen him driving, though he had not seen her pass, as he had been looking in the opposite direction. If he was able to bear the fatigue of making a call, she begged that he would come to her at any hour he chose to name, as she wished to speak to him. He answered at once that he would be at her house on the following day at three o'clock. He knew very well what she wanted, and why she did not wait until he came of his own accord. She meant to speak to him of the duel, and her questions would be hard to answer, since she was probably in ignorance of many details of his former life, familiar enough to people of his own age. He knew, of course, that the world said he had really fought on her account, and that he could never prevail upon the world to think otherwise. But he was very anxious that Laura herself should know the truth. She might forgive him for having let people believe that she had been concerned in the matter rather than Maddalena dell' Armi, out of womanly consideration for the latter, but she would assuredly not pardon him if she continued to suppose that he had made her the subject of useless gossip. The situation was not an easy one. At the appointed hour he entered her drawing-room. He was almost startled by her beauty when he first saw her standing opposite to him. She had developed in every way during the many weeks since he had seen her. The perfectly calm and regular life she led had produced its inevitable good effect. She, on her part, was almost as much shocked by his looks as Maddalena had been. "Have I not asked too much of you?" she inquired, pushing forward a comfortable chair for him, and arranging a cushion in it. "Not at all. Thanks," he added, as he sat down, "you are very good, but pray do not imagine that I am an invalid." "I only saw you in the street," she said, almost apologetically. "I did not realise how desperately ill you still looked. Please forgive me." "But I should have come to-day or to-morrow in any case," protested Ghisleri. "After what has happened--yes, I think I know why you sent for me. You have heard what every one is saying. The men who came to see me before I could go out told me all about it. I knew beforehand that it would turn out as it has, though we gave our seconds another excuse, as you have probably also heard, and which, if the truth were known, was much nearer to betraying the cause of the quarrel than any one supposed. Am I right? You wished to ask me why I had the impertinence to fight a duel about you. Is that it?" "I would not put it in that way," said Laura. "But I did wish to ask you why you took the matter up so violently. Please do not enter into the question now--you are not strong enough. I am very sorry indeed that I wrote to you." "You need not be, for I am quite able to tell you all about it. I have thought the matter over, and I think you will forgive me if I tell you the whole story from beginning to end. It is a confidence, and I have not the least fear that you will betray it. If you are not willing to hear it, you will always believe that I have wantonly made you the talk of the town. It is entirely to justify myself in your eyes that I ask you to listen to what I am going to say. Some points may shock you a little. Have I your leave?" "Yes--if you really wish to tell me for your own sake. For mine, I do not ask you to tell me anything." "It is for my own sake. I am quite selfish. When you have heard all, you will know more or less the history of my life, of which many people know certain details." He paused and leaned back in his deep chair, closing his eyes a moment as though he were collecting his thoughts. Laura settled herself to listen, turning in her seat so as not to face him, but so that she could look at him while he was speaking. "I have never told any one this story," he began, "for I have never had any good reason for doing so. When I was a very young man I loved the Princess Corleone, who was, by her maiden name, Donna Bianca Campodonico, the daughter of the old Duca di Norba who died of paralysis, and own sister to Gianforte Campodonico, with whom I fought this duel. I loved that lady with all my heart to the day of her death, and being young and tactless, I showed it too much. Her brother, Gianforte, hated me in consequence, because there was talk about his sister and me--and our names were constantly coupled together. I did my best to remain on civil terms with him, but at last he insulted me openly and we fought. This first duel took place a little more than six years ago, in Naples, where Donna Bianca lived after her marriage. Campodonico did his best to kill me, and at last I ran him through the arm. On the ground, without heeding the slight wound which disabled his right arm, he demanded pistols, but the seconds on both sides refused, and declared the affair terminated. As the original challenge had come from me, his position was quite untenable. He sought occasion after that to insult me again, but I avoided him. Then the Princess fell ill. Two days before she died, she had herself carried into the drawing-room, and sent for me. Her brother was already there. She made us both promise that for her sake we would never quarrel again. We joined hands and solemnly bound ourselves, for we knew she was dying. Then I took leave of her. I never saw her again, and I shall not see her hereafter." He paused a moment, but not a muscle of his face betrayed emotion. Laura had listened with breathless interest. "Do not say that," she said softly. "I lived alone for a long time," continued Ghisleri, without heeding her remark. "Then at last I came back to the world, and did many things, mostly bad, of which I need not speak. I fell a little in love, now and then, and at last somewhat more seriously with a lady of whom we will not speak, against whose good name no slander had ever been breathed. Now I come to the events which caused the duel. People have been saying that you have the evil eye and are a jettatrice. The absurd tale is repeated from mouth to mouth, and will ultimately make society here unbearable for you. You are enough of a Roman to understand that. There was a big dinner at San Giacinto's one night, and Campodonico and I sat opposite to each other. He believes in this nonsense and I do not. Pietrasanta mentioned your name, and accidentally broke a glass at almost the same moment. Then a discussion arose about the existence of such a thing as the evil eye, and Campodonico and I talked about it across the table, while everybody listened. We exchanged a few rather incisive remarks, but nothing more. That was the end of the matter so far as you were concerned, and it was owing to this discussion that people said we fought on your account." "I see," said Laura. "It was all a mistake, then?" "Yes. But I suppose Campodonico was irritated. In the drawing-room I lit a cigarette, and stood some time looking at a copy of Zichy's picture of Tamara falling into the Demon's arms. Tamara chances to be a very striking likeness of the Princess Corleone, and if I had reflected that Campodonico might have also noticed the fact, I would not have stood there looking at it as I did. But I forgot. Before I knew it, he was at my elbow, evidently very angry, for he perfectly understood why I liked the picture. He asked me whether I did not think that a solemn promise such as we had made might be broken under certain circumstances. I said I did not think so. He lost his temper completely, and said I was a coward. I still refused to quarrel with him, and he grew more and more insulting, until at last he began a sentence which I would not let him end, to the effect that, could Donna Bianca have been there to judge us both, she might wish the promise broken--I suppose that would have been his inference--if she could have seen that the man she had loved had fallen so low as to love the lady to whom I referred a little while ago. He named her. I answered that Donna Bianca never meant that our promise should shield the liar who slandered a good and defenceless woman, because his name chanced to be Campodonico. We told our seconds that we had quarrelled about the talent of Zichy, the painter of the picture, because no immediate and better excuse suggested itself. That is the whole story." "It is a very strange one," said Laura, in a low voice, and looking up at his pale face. "If people only knew the truth about what they see! Tell me, Signor Ghisleri, is it a fact that you did not fire at him?" "Yes." "Why did you not?" "Because--if you really care to know--I still felt bound to my promise, and I should never have forgiven myself if I had hurt him. Will you say that you understand the rest of the story, and will you forgive me if I let it be thought that the duel was about you?" "Indeed I forgive you," Laura answered without hesitation. "You acted splendidly all through, and I would not--" "Please do not praise me," said Ghisleri, interrupting her with word and gesture. "Whatever I did was only the consequence of former actions of mine, most of which were bad in themselves. Besides, I have told you all this by way of an apology, and I thank you very sincerely for accepting it. Let the matter end there." "Very well. That need not prevent me from thinking what I please, need it?" "I shall always be really grateful for any kind thought you give me." Laura was silent for a moment. She was surprised to find that her old feeling of dislike for him had greatly diminished. She had not even noticed it when he had entered the room, for she had been at once struck by his appearance of ill-health, and her first instinct had been that of sympathy for him. And now, whatever effect his personality produced on her, she could hardly conceal her admiration of his conduct. He had told the story very simply, and she felt that he had told it truthfully, and that she was able to judge of the man from a new point of view. She could not but appreciate the courage he had shown in bearing insult, and at last, in not returning his adversary's fire, and he rose in her estimation because he had done these things for the sake of a woman he had really loved. "May I ask you one question?" she inquired after the pause. "Of course, and I will answer it if I can." "I dare say you remember something you told me about yourself a long time ago--how you distrust yourself, and torment yourself about everything you do. Will you tell me whether you have found any fault with your own conduct in this affair, apart from everything which went before the dinner party at which you met Don Gianforte? It would interest me very much to know." Ghisleri thought over his answer for a few seconds before he gave it. "Except in so far as I involved your name in the affair," he said, "I do not think I reproach myself with anything very definite." He had hardly finished speaking when the door opened, and Donald announced Don Francesco and Donna Adele Savelli. A very slight shadow passed over Laura's face, as she rose to meet her step-sister, but Ghisleri remained cold and impassive. Adele started perceptibly, as Laura had done, when she saw him, and Ghisleri was struck by the change in her own appearance. Her expression was that of a woman who is in almost constant pain, and who has grown restless under it, and fears its return at any moment. Her eyes turned uneasily, glancing about the room in all directions, and avoiding the faces of those present. She was pale, too, and looked altogether ill. "I am so glad to see you, Ghisleri," she said, after she had kissed the air somewhere in the neighbourhood of Laura's cheek. "I had no idea you were out already, and as we are going away to-morrow, I was afraid I might not meet you." "Are you going out of town so soon?" asked Ghisleri, in some surprise. "Yes, I am ill, and they say I must go to the country. Do you remember when you met me in the street, and recommended sulphonal? I took it, and it did me good for some time. But then, all at once, I found it did not act so well, and I lost my sleep again. I want the doctors to give me something, but they say all those things become a habit--chloral, you know, and morphia, and a great many things. As if I cared! I would not mind any habit if I could only sleep--and I see things all night--ugh! it is horrible! Have you ever had insomnia? It is quite the most dreadful thing in the world." She shuddered, and Ghisleri could see well enough that the suffering to which she referred was not at all imaginary. "No," he answered. "I have never had anything of that kind. When I go to bed at all I sleep five or six hours very soundly." "How I envy you that! Even five or six hours--I, who used to sleep nine, and always ten after a ball. And now I very often do not close my eyes all night. The sulphonal did me so much good. Can you not tell me of something else?" "The best way to get over it would be to find out what causes it, and cure that," observed Ghisleri. "Generally, too, a quiet and healthy life, exercise, plain food, and a good conscience will do good." He laughed a little as he spoke, and then he noticed that Adele was looking at him rather strangely. He wondered idly whether her mind were wandering in some other direction. "Of course," he continued, "you have no idea of what produces the trouble. If you could find that out, it would be simpler." "Yes, indeed," assented Adele, with a forced smile. "If all that is necessary were to have a good conscience and walk an hour or two every day, I should soon get well." "I have no doubt you will in any case. Are you going to Gerano, or to your own place?" "To Gerano. It is warmer. Castel Savello is too high for the spring. I should freeze there. It would be a charity if you would drive out and spend a day or two with us, when you are stronger. I wish you would come out and see us, Laura," she said, turning to her step-sister, to whom Francesco was talking in a low voice. "You used to like Gerano when we were girls. Do you remember dear old Don Tebaldo, who used to shed tears because you were a Protestant?" "Indeed I do. I hear he is alive still. It is two years since I was there the last time. Francesco has been telling me all about your illness. I am so sorry. I should think you would do better to consult some good specialist. But, of course, the country can do you no harm." "I hope not," said Adele, with sudden despondency. "I have borne enough already. I could not bear much more." "Nobody can understand what is the matter with her," observed Francesco, and his tone showed that he did not care. "You have let her dance too much this winter," said Laura, addressing him. "You ought to keep her from over-tiring herself." "It is not easy to prevent Adele from doing anything she wishes to do," answered Savelli. "This winter she has insisted on going everywhere. I have warned her a hundred times, but she would not listen to me, and of course this is the result." "When did it begin?" asked Ghisleri, who seemed interested in Adele's mysterious illness. "When did you first lose your sleep?" "You remember," she answered. "We were just talking of our meeting in the street, and the sulphonal. It was about that time--a little before that, of course, for I had been suffering several days when I met you." "Ah, yes--I remember when that was," said Ghisleri, in a tone of reflection. He joined in the conversation during a few minutes longer, and then took leave of the three. Formerly he would have gone to spend an hour or two with Maddalena, but he had no inclination to do so now. He would gladly have stayed with Laura if the Savelli couple had not come. He wished to be alone, now, and to think over what he had done. It was the first time that he had ever told the story of his love for Bianca Corleone to any one, and calm as he had seemed while telling it, he had felt a very strong emotion. He was glad to be at home again, alone with his own thoughts, and with the picture that reminded him of the dead woman. He knew that she would have forgiven him for speaking of her to-day as he had spoken, and to such a woman as Laura Arden. For in his heart he compared the two. There had been grand lines in Bianca Corleone's character, as there were in that of her passionate brother, as Ghisleri believed there must be in Laura Arden's also, and great generosities, the readiness to go to any length for the sake of real passion, the power to hate honestly, to love faithfully, and to forgive wholly--all things which Pietro missed in himself. And Laura had to-day waked the memory of that great love which had once filled his existence, and which had not ended with the life that had gone out before its day, in all its beauty and freshness. He was grateful to her for that, and he sat long in his chair after his lonely meal, thinking of her and of the other, and of poor Maddalena dell' Armi, whose very name, sounding in his imagination, sent a throb of remorse through his heart. A pencil lay near him and he took a sheet of paper and began to write, as he often did when he was alone, scribbling verses without rhyme, and often with little meaning except in their connection with his thoughts. He was no poet. "A sweet, dark woman, with sad, holy eyes, Laid her cool hand upon my heart to-day, And touched the dear dead thing that's buried there. Her saintly magic cannot make it live, Nor sting once more with passionate deep thrill The bright torn flesh where my lost love breathed last. "She has no miracles for me--nor God Forgiveness, nor earth healing--nor death fear. I think I fear life more--and yet, to live Were easy work, could I but learn to die; As, if I learned to live, I should hate death. But I cannot hate death--not even death-- Since that is dead which made death hateful once; Nor hate I anything; let all live on, Just and unjust, bad, good, indifferent, Sinner and saint, man, devil, angel, martyr-- What are they all to me? Good night, sweet rest-- I wish you most what I can find the least. We meet again soon. Have you heard the talk About the latest scandal of our town? No? Nor have I. I care less than I did About the men and women I have known. Good night--and thanks for being kind to me." CHAPTER XVI. Donna Adele Savelli was ill. There was no denying the fact, though her husband had ignored it as long as possible, and was very much annoyed to find that he could not continue to do so until the usual time for moving to the country arrived. As has been said already, the world attributed her ill-health to some unexpected awakening of the family skeleton, and when the Savelli couple suddenly retired to Gerano, it was sure that Francesco had lost money and that they had gone for economy. But there was no lack of funds in Casa Savelli. That ancient and excellent house had, as a family, a keen appreciation of values great and small, and continued to put away more of its income in safe investments than any one knew of. Nor was there any other trouble to account for Adele's illness, so far as any member of the household could judge. Every one else was well, including the children. Everybody was prosperous. It was not conceivable that Adele should have taken Herbert Arden's death to heart in a way to endanger her own health. She might, perhaps, feel some remorse for having spoken of him as she had--for Savelli had discovered that something, at least, of the gossip could be traced to her--but she could not be supposed to care so much as to fall ill. What she suffered from was evidently some one of those mysterious nervous diseases which, in Francesco's opinion, modern medical science had invented expressly in order that it might deal with them. Unfortunately, the particular man of learning who could cure Adele was not forthcoming. The doctors who were consulted said that something was preying on her mind, and when she assured them that this was not the case, they shrugged their shoulders and prescribed soothing medicines, country air, and exercise. She particularly dreaded the night, and could not bear to be left alone for a moment after dark. She said she saw things; when asked what things she saw, she seemed to draw upon her imagination. Francesco began to fear that she might go mad, though there was no insanity in the Braccio family. The prospect was not pleasing, and he would have greatly preferred that she should die and leave him at liberty to marry Laura Arden. He never dreamed that the latter would refuse to wed the heir of all the Savelli, if he were free to ask her hand, and in his cautious, unenterprising fashion he loved her still, while remaining religiously faithful to his wife--and not, on the whole, treating her unkindly. The consequence of all this was that he made her try the simple cure suggested by the doctors, and accompanied her to Gerano in the early spring. The hereditary stronghold from which the head of the Braccio family took his principal title was a vast and gloomy fortress in the lower range of the Sabine mountains, situated in a beautiful country, and overlooking the broad Campagna that lay between it and the distant sea. The great dark walls were flanked by round towers, and were in some places ten and twelve feet thick, so that the deep embrasures of the windows were in themselves like little rooms opening off the great halls behind. The furniture was almost all old, and was well in keeping with the vaulted ceilings, the frescoed friezes, and the dark marble door-posts. Donna Adele's sleeping-chamber was as large as most of the drawing-rooms in the Palazzo Braccio, and her dressing-room was almost of the same size. To reach the hall in which she and her husband dined, it was necessary to traverse five other rooms and a vaulted passage fifty or sixty yards long, in which the steps of any one who passed echoed and rang on the stone pavement, and echoed again during some seconds afterwards in a rather uncanny fashion. The sitting-room was next to the dining-hall, and consequently also at a great distance from the bedrooms. There was more of comfort in it than elsewhere, for the walls were hung with tapestries, and there was a carpet on the floor, whereas in the other apartments there were only rugs thrown down here and there, where they were most needed; here, too, the doors had heavy curtains. But, on the whole, a more ghostly and gloomy place than the castle of Gerano could hardly be imagined, especially at dusk when the blackness deepened in the remote corners and recesses of the huge chambers, and the sculptured corbels of grey stone, high up at the spring of each arch, grew shadowy and alive with hideous grimaces in the gathering dimness. Adele had never been subject to any fear of the supernatural, and the old place was so familiar to her from childhood, that she had looked forward with pleasure to seeing it again. She was attached to almost everything connected with it, to the walls themselves, to her own rooms, to the ugly corbels, to the lame old warder, Giacomo, and to his wife who helped him to take care of the rooms. She was a woman quite capable of that sort of feeling, and capable, indeed, of much more, had it fallen in her path. She could not have hated as she did, if she had not had some power to love also. Circumstances, however, had developed the one far more than the other, for her first great passion had been jealousy. She and Francesco reached the castle in the afternoon of the day following their visit to Laura Arden. The weather was fine and the westering sun streamed through the broad windows and lent everything a passing air of life and almost of gaiety. During the first hours, Adele felt that she must soon be better, and that she could find some rest at last in the atmosphere which recalled her childish days and all her peaceful girlhood. But when the sun was low and the golden light turned to purple and then to fainter hues, and died away into twilight, she shivered as she sat in the deep window-seat, and she called to her husband, telling him to order the lamps. "You used to like the dusk," he observed, as he tugged at the old-fashioned bell-rope. "I cannot imagine what makes you so afraid of being in the dark." "Nor I," she said nervously. "It must be part of my illness. Please have as much light as possible, and lamps in the passage and in our rooms as well." "I suppose candles will do," answered Savelli. "I do not believe there are more than half a dozen lamps out here. Your people always bring them when they come." "Oh, candles, then--anything! Only let me have plenty of light. If there were no night, I should get well." "Unfortunately, nature has not provided that form of cure for invalids," said Savelli, with a laugh. "But we will do our best," he added, always willing to humour his wife in anything reasonable. The servants' quarters were very far away, and several minutes elapsed before a man appeared, and Francesco could give the necessary orders. The gloom deepened, and Adele came from her place at the window, evidently in some sort of distress. She sat down close to her husband--almost cowering at his side. He could not see her face clearly, but he understood that she was frightened. "I wish you would tell me what it is you see in the dark," he said, with a sort of good-natured impatience. "Oh, please do not talk about it!" she cried. "Talk to me of something else--talk, for Heaven's sake, talk, until they bring the lamps! I sometimes think I shall go mad when there is no light." It is not a particularly easy affair to comply, at short notice, with such a request for voluble conversation, especially when there is no extraordinary sympathy between two people, nor any close community of ideas. But it chanced that Savelli had been reading the papers he had brought with him, and he began to tell Adele the news he had read, so that he managed to keep up a fairly continuous series of sentences until the first lamp was placed on the table. "Thank you, Carissimo," she said. "No shade!" she exclaimed quickly, as the man was about to slip one over the light. "Do you feel better now?" inquired Francesco, with some amusement. "Yes--much better," she answered, drawing a long breath, and seating herself by the table in the full glare of the unshaded lamp. "I only ask one thing," she continued: "Do not leave me if you can help it, and go with me when we go to our room. I am ashamed of it, but I am so nervous that I am positively afraid to be alone." "Would it not be better to have a nurse out, to stay with you all the time?" inquired Francesco, who had an eye to his own liberty and comfort, and had no idea of spending several weeks in perpetual attendance on his wife. "And there is your maid, too. She might help." "I have taken such a dislike to that woman that I hate the sight of her." "I suppose that is a part of your illness," answered her husband philosophically. On that first evening he scrupulously fulfilled her wishes, and followed her closely when she went from room to room. He was in a certain degree anxious, for her allusion to possible madness coincided with his own preconceived opinion of her case, and he dreaded such a termination very greatly. He saw that what she said was quite true, and that she was unaffectedly frightened if he left her side for a moment. On the following day he sent a messenger to the city to procure a nurse, for he saw that he could not otherwise count on an hour's freedom. Being a careful man, he wished that Adele might have been contented to be followed about by her maid and a woman from the place, but she refused altogether to agree to such an arrangement. In her nervous condition, she could not bear the constant presence of a person for whom she felt an unreasoning repulsion. Moreover, she had almost decided to send Lucia away and to get some one more congenial in her place. Several days passed in this way, and if she was no better she was not worse. She drove and walked in the spring sunshine, and felt refreshed by the clear air of the country, but the nights were as unbearable as ever,--endless, ghostly, full of imaginary horrors, although the lamps burned brightly in her room till sunrise, and the patient nurse sat by her bedside reading to herself, and sometimes reading aloud when Adele desired it. Occasionally, and more often towards morning, snatches of broken sleep interrupted the monotony of the long-drawn-out suffering. Adele had implored the doctor who had charge of her case to give her opiates, or at least chloral; but he had felt great hope that the change to a country life would produce an immediate good effect, and had represented to her in terms almost exaggerated the danger of taking such remedies. The habit once formed, he said, soon became a slavery, and in nervous organisations like hers was very hard to break. People who took chloral often ended by taking morphia, and Donna Adele had doubtless heard enough about the consequences of employing this drug to dread it, as all sensible persons did. Adele was very far from being persuaded, but as she could not procure what she wanted without a doctor's order, which she could not obtain, she was obliged to fall back on the sulphonal which Ghisleri had recommended to her. She took it in large quantities, but it had almost ceased to produce any effect, though she attributed the little rest she got to its influence. The doctor was to come out and see her at the end of a week, unless sent for especially. Before the seven days were out, however, a crisis occurred, brought about by a slight accident, which made his presence imperatively necessary. One evening, immediately after dinner, Adele had seated herself in a low chair by the table in the drawing-room, and had taken up a novel. For a wonder, it had interested her when she had begun it in the afternoon, and she returned to it with unwonted delight, looking forward to the prospect of losing herself in the story during a few hours before going to bed. Not far from her Savelli sat with that day's papers, gleaning the news of the day in an idle fashion, and smoking a cigarette. He rarely smoked anything else, but for some reason or other, he had, on this particular night, discovered that only a cigar would satisfy him. Many men are familiar with that craving, but the satisfaction of it rarely leads to distinct and important results. Francesco rose from his seat, laid down his paper, and went in search of what he wanted, well knowing that he could get it much faster than by a servant, and forgetting that he must leave his wife alone for a few minutes in order to go to his dressing-room where he kept the box. As has been said, the drawing-room was carpeted, and his step made very little noise. Adele, intensely interested in what she was reading, paid less attention to his movements than usual, and indeed supposed that he had only risen to get something from another table. The heavily curtained door which opened upon the great vaulted passage before mentioned was behind her as she sat, and she did not realise that Francesco was gone until she heard his echoing footsteps on the stone pavement outside. Then she started, and almost dropped her book. She held her breath for a moment and then called him. But he walked quickly, and was already out of hearing. Only the booming echo reached her through the curtains, reverberated, and died away. There was nothing to be done but to wait, for she had not the courage to face the dim passage alone and run after him. She clutched her book tightly and tried to read again, pronouncing almost aloud the words she saw. A minute or two passed, and then she heard the echo again. Francesco was returning. No, it was not his walk. She turned very pale as she listened. It was the step of a very lame man, irregular and painful. The novel fell to the ground, and she grasped the arms of her chair. It was exactly like Arden's step; she had heard it before, in the gallery at her father's palace, where the floor was of marble. Nearer and nearer it came, in a sort of triple measure--two shorts and a long, like an anapæst--and the sharp click of the stick between. She tried to look behind her, but her blood froze in her veins, and she could not move. Every instant increased her agony of fear. A moment more and Herbert Arden would be upon her. Suddenly a second echo, that of Francesco Savelli's firm, quick step reached her ears. Then she heard voices, and as the curtain was lifted she recognised the tones of old Giacomo, the lame warder, who had met her husband in the passage, and was asking for the orders to be given to the carter who started for Rome every other night and brought back such provisions as could not be obtained in Gerano. Adele sank back in her chair, almost fainting, in her sudden relief from her ghostly fears. Savelli talked some time with Giacomo. With a great effort at self-command, Adele took up her novel again and held it before her eyes, while her heart beat with terrible violence after having almost stood still while the fright had lasted. Then Francesco came in, with a lighted cigar between his teeth. "Do you wish to send anything to Rome--any message?" he asked. "Nothing else, Giacomo," he said, as he saw that she shook her head. "Good rest, Excellency," she heard Giacomo say. Then the curtain dropped, the door was closed from without, and she listened once more to the lame man's retreating footsteps--terribly like Herbert Arden's walk, though she was not frightened now. "I asked you not to leave me alone," she said, as Savelli resumed his seat and took up the paper again. "It was only for a minute," he answered indifferently. "I wanted a cigar. I hope you were not frightened this time." "No. But I might have been. Another time, please ring for what you want." Savelli, who was already deep in the local news about Rome, made an inarticulate reply intended for assent, and nothing more was said. Adele took up her book again and did her best to read, but without understanding a word as she followed the lines. That night, in despair, she swallowed a larger dose of sulphonal than she had ever taken before. The consequence was that towards two o'clock she fell asleep and seemed more quiet than usual, as the nurse watched her. An hour passed without her waking, then another, and then the dawn stole through the panes of the deep windows, and daylight came at last. The room was quite light, and Adele was generally awake at that hour. But this morning she slept on. The nurse was accustomed to take away the lamps as soon as Adele needed them no longer, not extinguishing them in the room on account of the disagreeable smell they made. It chanced on this occasion--or fate had decreed it--that one of these gave signs of going out. The nurse rose very softly and took it away, moving noiselessly in her felt slippers, passing through the open door of the dressing-room in order to reach the corridor in which the lamps were left to be taken and cleaned at a later hour. She set the one she carried upon a deal table which stood there, and tried to put it out, so as to leave no part of the wick still smouldering, lest it should smoke. She was a very careful and methodical woman, and took pains to be neat in doing the smallest things. Just now, too, she was in no hurry, for it was broad daylight, and Adele would not be nervous if she awoke and found herself alone. And Adele was awake. She opened her eyes wearily, realised that there was no one beside her, and sat up staring at the bright window. Being nervous, restless, and never at any time languid, she got up, threw a wrapper over her, and went to the door of the dressing-room, meaning to look at the rising sun, which was visible from the window on the other side, the dressing-room itself being at one of the angles of the castle, with a door leading from the corner of it into the tower. Adele paused on the threshold, started, stared at something, turned, and uttered a piercing scream of terror. A moment later she fell in a heap upon the floor. She had distinctly seen Herbert Arden's figure standing at one of the windows, his head and hands alone concealed by the inner shutter which, by an accident, was not wide open, but was turned about half-way towards the panes. He was dressed in dark blue serge, as she had often seen him in life, with rather wide trousers almost concealing the feet, and a round jacket. She had even seen how the cloth was stretched at the place where his shoulder was most crooked, and how it hung loosely about his thin figure below that point. He was standing close to the window, with his back almost quite turned towards her, apparently looking out, though the shutter hid his face. The whole attitude was precisely as she had often noticed it when he was alive, and chanced to be looking at something in the street--the misshapen, protruding shoulder, the right leg bent in more than the other, not a detail was missing as she came upon the vision suddenly in the cold morning light. The nurse was at her side almost instantly, bending over her and raising her as well as she could. A moment later the maid rushed in,--she slept on the other side of the corridor where the nurse had left the lamp,--and then Francesco Savelli himself, who temporarily occupied a room next to Adele's and who appeared, robed in a wide dressing-gown of dark brown velvet, and showing signs of considerable anxiety. He reached the door before which his wife had fainted and lifted her in his arms. As he regained his upright position, his eyes naturally fell upon the figure standing at the window. His sight was not remarkably good, and from the fact of the shutter being half closed the dressing-room was darker than the sleeping-chamber. The impression he had was strong and distinct. "Who is that man?" he asked, staring at what he saw, while he held Adele's unconscious form in his arms. The nurse and the maid both started and looked round. The latter laughed a little, involuntarily. "It is not a man, Excellency," she said. "It is Donna Adele's serge driving cloak. I hung it there last night because there are not enough hooks in the dressing-room for all her Excellency's things." She went to the window and took the mantle, which had been hung upon the knob of the old-fashioned bolt by the two tapes sewn under the shoulders for the purpose. The folds of the lower part had taken the precise shape of a man's wide trousers, and the cape, falling half way only, hung exactly like a jacket, the fulness caused by gathering the upper portion together at one point, giving the appearance of a hump on a man's back. "That was what frightened her," said Savelli, as he turned away with his burden. "I do not wonder--the thing looked just as Lord Herbert did when he used to stand at the window." Adele came to herself in a state of the utmost prostration. Her husband explained to her carefully what had happened, and tried to persuade her that she had been the victim of an optical illusion, but though she did not deny this, he could see that the occurrence had produced a very deep impression on her mind, and had perhaps had an even more serious effect on her nerves. He despatched a messenger to Rome for the doctor, and after doing all he could left her to the care of her nurse and maid and went out for a walk in the hills, glad to be free for a while from the irksome task imposed upon him when he remained at home. While making the most desperate attempts to control herself, Adele was in a state of the wildest and most conflicting emotion. Her strength returned, indeed, in a certain measure after a few hours, but her distress seemed rather to increase than to diminish, when she was able to walk about the room and submit to being dressed. Her maid irritated her unaccountably, too, and at last, giving way to the impulse she had felt so long, she told her that she must go at the end of the month. The maid, Lucia by name, had for some time expected that her days in Casa Savelli were numbered, for Adele had shown her dislike very plainly of late, so that the woman did not show much surprise, and accepted her dismissal respectfully and quietly, promising herself to tell tales in her next place concerning Adele's toilette which, though without the slightest foundation, would be repeated and believed all over Rome. Later in the day Adele shut herself up in her room, at the time when the sunshine was streaming in and making everything look bright and cheerful. She stayed there a long time, and the thoughtful Lucia, watching her through the keyhole, saw with surprise that her mistress spent almost an hour upon her knees before the dark old crucifix which hung above the prayer-stool opposite to the door of the dressing-room. She noticed that Adele from time to time beat her breast, and then buried her face in her hands for many minutes. The nurse was asleep far away and Lucia was quite safe. At last Adele rose, and as though acting under an irresistible impulse sat down at a table on which she kept her own writing materials, and began to write rapidly. For a long time she kept her seat, and her hand moved quickly over the paper. Then, when she seemed to have finished, she took up the sheets as though she meant to read them over, and did in fact read a few lines. She dropped the paper suddenly, and Lucia saw the look of horror that was in her white face. She seemed to hesitate, rose, turned, and made two steps towards the crucifix, then returned, and hastily folded up the lengthy letter and slipped it into a large envelope, on which she wrote an address before she left the table a second time. When she opened the door of the dressing-room to call Lucia, the maid was quietly seated by a window with a piece of needle-work, and rose respectfully as her mistress entered. "Send me Giacomo," said Adele, holding the letter in her hand, but as Lucia went towards the door, she stopped her. "No," she said suddenly. "Take this to him yourself; tell him to have it registered at once, and to bring me back the receipt from the post-office. Tell him to be careful, as it is very important. I am going to lie down. Come to me some time before sunset." Lucia took the letter and went out into the corridor. Adele listened a moment, then went back into her room, bolting the door behind her, as well as turning the key in the lock. Since her fright in the morning, she instinctively barricaded herself on that side. But at present the sunshine was so bright and the place was so cheerful that her fears seemed almost groundless. She lay down and closed her eyes. In spite of all the emotions of terror she had suffered on the previous evening and to-day, and although the writing of any letter so long as the one she had just finished must necessarily be very tiring, she felt better than she had been for a long time, and would perhaps have fallen asleep if the doctor had not arrived from Rome soon afterwards. On learning all that had happened, he yielded at last to necessity, and gave her chloral to take in small doses, showing her how to use it. It was evident that unless she slept she must break down altogether before long, and it was no longer safe to let nature have her own way. He had brought the medicine with him, and gave it into Francesco's keeping, cautioning him not to let her use it in larger quantities than he had prescribed. After giving various pieces of good advice he returned to the city. Lucia gave her mistress the receipt for the registered letter, and Adele put it away in the small jewel-case she had brought with her to the country. That night she took the chloral, and fell asleep peacefully before half-past eleven o'clock, not to awake until nearly nine on the following morning. She felt so much better for the one night's rest that she went for a long walk with her husband, ate well for the first time in many weeks, and went to bed again almost without having felt a sensation of fear all day nor during the evening. Once more the chloral had the desired effect, and on the second morning she began to imagine that she was recovering. The world looked bright and cheerful, the swallows wheeled and darted before her windows, and the thrushes and blackbirds sang far down among the fruit-trees. Even Francesco was less tiresome and unsympathetic than usual. She was in such a good humour that she almost repented of having dismissed Lucia. Then the blow came. The post brought her a letter addressed in a small, even handwriting, very plain and entirely without flourish or ornament--such a hand as learned men and theologians often write. The contents read as follows: "MOST EXCELLENT PRINCESS, I have to inform you that I have just received, registered, and evidently addressed by your most excellent hand, an envelope bearing the Gerano postmark, but containing only four blank sheets of ordinary writing paper. As I cannot suppose that your Excellency has designed to make me the object of a jest, and as it is to be feared that the blank paper has been substituted for a writing of importance, by some malicious person, I have immediately informed your Excellency of what has occurred. Awaiting any instruction or enlightenment with regard to this subject which it may please you, most Excellent Princess, to communicate, I write myself "Your Excellency's most humble, obedient servant, "BONAVENTURA, R.R. P.P.O. Min." Now Padre Bonaventura of the Minor Order of St. Francis was Adele's confessor in Rome. After the long struggle which Lucia had watched through the door, Adele's conscience had got the upper hand, aided by the belief that in following its dictates she would be doing the best she could towards recovering her peace of mind. Not being willing to go to the parish priest of Gerano, who had known her and all her family from her childhood, and who was by no means a man able to give very wise advice in difficult cases, and being, moreover, afraid of rousing her husband's suspicions if she insisted upon going to Rome merely to confess, she had written out a most careful confession of those sins of which she accused herself, and, as is allowable in extreme cases, had sent it by post to Padre Bonaventura. The news that such a document had never reached its destination would have been enough to disturb most people. CHAPTER XVII. Laura Arden's plans for the summer were not by any means settled, but she was anxious to leave Rome soon, both because travelling in the heat would be bad for little Herbert, and because she wished to quit the rather expensive apartment in which she had continued to live after her husband's death. A far smaller and less pretentious dwelling would be amply sufficient for her next winter, and in the meantime she intended to go to some quiet town either in Switzerland or by the seaside, and to keep as much alone as possible. Her mother might be willing to spend a month or two with her, and Laura would be very glad of her company, but there was no one else whose society she desired. She could, of course, go to England and stay at her brother-in-law's house in solemn and solitary state, but she feared the long journey for her child, and she cared little for the sort of existence she must lead in the magnificent country-seat, in the absence of the Lulworths themselves. It would be pleasant to lead a very simple and quiet life somewhere out of the world, and as far as possible from the scene of all her sufferings. If Adele and Francesco had not appeared while Ghisleri was making his first visit, she would probably have asked his advice. He had been almost everywhere, and being himself fond of solitude, would in all likelihood have told her of some beautiful and secluded spot where she could live in the way she desired. But in the presence of her step-sister she had not cared to speak on the subject. After they had left her she thought a long time of Ghisleri and his story, and, for the first time in her life, she wished she might see him again before long. He had shown her a side of himself which she had neither seen nor guessed at before, and she began to understand, dimly at first and then more clearly, the strong liking her husband had always shown for him. He was capable of deep and earnest beliefs and of high and generous impulses, in spite of his contempt for himself and of the irregular life he led. His present existence, so far as she knew anything of it, she condemned as unworthy. She was not, however, a woman so easily shocked at the spectacle of evil in the lives of others as might have been expected. There was a great deal of sound good sense in the composition of her character, and she had seen enough of the world to have learnt that perfection is a word used to define what is a little better than the average. What she had disliked in Ghisleri from her first acquaintance with him was not connected with his reputation, of which, at that time, she had known very little. Besides, though people called him fast and wild and more or less heartless, he was liked, on the whole, as much as any unmarried man in society. He was known to be honourable, courageous, and very discreet, and the latter quality almost invariably brings its reward in the end. That he should have been entangled in more than one love affair was only what was to be expected of such a man, at two or three and thirty years of age, and no one really considered him any the worse on that account, while the great majority of women thought him vastly more interesting for that very reason. Laura was not, perhaps, so entirely different from the rest of her sex as Ghisleri was fond of believing. Her education had not been that of young Roman girls, it is true, and the singular circumstances of her short married life had not developed her character in the same direction as theirs generally was by matrimony. But in real womanliness she was as much a woman as any of them, liable to the same influences and to the same class of enthusiasms. Because she had loved and married Herbert Arden, it did not follow that she could not and did not admire all that was brave and generous and strong, independently of moral weakness and faults. Arden himself, indeed, though he had excited her pity by his physical defects, had commanded her respect by the manly courage he showed under all his sufferings. She had been able to forget his deformity in the superior gifts of intelligence and heart which had unquestionably been his, and, after all, she had loved him most because she had felt that but for an accident he would have been pre-eminently a manly man. Cripple as he was, she had always known that she could rely on him, and her instinct had always told her that he could protect her. But she had never trusted Ghisleri. He had the misfortune to show his worst side to most people, and he had shown it to her. She had seen more than once that he was ready to undertake and carry out almost anything for his friend's sake, and she had been honestly grateful to him for all he had done. But she had not been able, until now, to shake off that feeling of distrust and timid dislike she had always felt in his presence. She had, indeed, succeeded tolerably well in hiding it from him, but it had always made her cold in conversation and somewhat formal in manner, and he, being outwardly a rather formal and cold man had, so to say, put himself in harmony with her key. For the first time in their acquaintance, and under pressure of what he considered necessity, he had suddenly unbent, and had told her the principal story of his life with a frankness and simplicity that had charmed her. From that hour she judged him differently. After that first visit, he went often to see her, and on each occasion he felt drawn more closely to her than before. "You are very much changed," he said to her one day. "Do you mind my saying it?" "Not in the least," Laura answered, with a smile. "But in what way am I different?" "In one great thing, I think. You used to be very imposingly calm with me. You never seemed quite willing to speak freely about anything. Now, it is almost always you who make me talk by making me feel that you will talk yourself. That is not very clearly put, is it? I do not know whether you ever disliked me--if you did, you never showed it. But I really begin to think that you almost like me. Is there any truth in that?" "Yes--a great deal." She smiled again. "More truth than you guess--for I do not mind saying it since it is all over. I did not like you, and I used to try and hide it. But I like you now, and I am quite willing that you should know it." "That is good of you--good as everything you do is. But I would really like to know why you have changed your mind. May I?" "Because I have found out that you are not what I took you for." "Most discoveries of that kind are disappointments," observed Ghisleri, with a dry laugh. "That is just the sort of remark I used to dislike you for," said Laura. "The world is not all bad, and you know it. Yet out of ten observations you make, nine, at least, would lead one to believe that you think it is." "Excepting yourself, we are all as bad as we can be. What is the use of denying it?" "We are not all bad, and I do not choose to be made an exception of. I am just like other people, or I should be if I were placed as they are. I not only am sure that you are not a bad man, but I am quite convinced that in some ways you are a very good one." "What an odd mistake!" "Why do you persistently try to make yourself out worse than you are, and to show your worst side to the world?" "I suppose that is the side most apparent to myself," answered Ghisleri. "I cannot help seeing it." "Because you are not Launcelot, you take yourself for Cæsar Borgia--" "That would be flattering myself too much. Borgia was by far the more intelligent of the two. Say Thersites." "I know nothing about Thersites." "Then say Judas. There seems to be very little difference of opinion as to that personage's moral obliquity," Ghisleri laughed. "Very well," said Laura, gravely. "I suppose you have no doubt, then, that Judas would have acted as you did in your affair with Don Gianforte. He would, of course, have submitted to insult rather than break a promise, and would have allowed--" "Will you please stop, Lady Herbert?" Ghisleri fixed his blue eyes on her. "No, I will not," answered Laura, with decision. "What I like about you is precisely what you try the most to hide, and I mean to see it and to make you see it, if possible. You would be much happier if you could. I suppose that if the majority of people could hear us talking now, they would think our conversation utterly absurd. They would say that you were posing, in order to make yourself interesting, and that I was enough attracted by you to be deceived by the comedy. Is not that the way the world would look at it?" "Probably," assented Ghisleri. "Perhaps I am really posing. I do not pretend to know." "I am willing to believe that you are not, if you will let me, and I would much rather. In the first place, you are, at all events, not any worse than most men one knows. That is evident enough from your actions. Secondly,--you see I am arguing the case like a lawyer,--if you had not a high ideal of what you wish to be, you would not have such a poor opinion of what you are. Is that clear?" "If there were no right, there could not possibly be any wrong. But black would be black, even if you could only compare it with blue, green, and yellow, instead of with white." "I am not talking of chromolithographs," said Laura. "What I say is simple enough. If you did not wish to be good, and know what good means, and if you had not a certain amount of goodness in you, you would not think yourself so bad. And you are unhappy, as you have told me before now, because you think all your motives are insincere, or vain, or defective in some way. I suppose you wish to be happy, and if you do, you must learn to find some satisfaction in having done your best. I have said precisely what I mean, and you must not pretend to misunderstand me." "Think yourself good, and you will be happy," observed Ghisleri. "That is the modern form of the proverb." "Of course it is, and the better reason you really have for thinking yourself good, the more real and lasting your happiness will be." Ghisleri laughed to himself, and at himself, as he went away, for being so much impressed as he was by what Laura said. But he could not deny that the impression had been made and remained for some time after he had left her. There was a healthy common-sense about her mind which was beginning to act upon the tortuous and often morbid complications of his own. She seemed to know the straight paths and the short cuts to simple goodness, and never to have guessed at the labyrinthine ways by which he seemed to himself to be always trying to escape from the bugbear sent to pursue him by the demon of self-mistrust. He laughed at himself, for he realised how utterly impossible it would always be for him to think as she did, or to look upon the world as she saw it. There had been a time when he had thought more plainly, when a woman had exerted a strong influence over him, and when a few good things and a few bad ones had made up the sum of his life. But she was dead, and he had changed. Worse than that, he had fallen. As he sat in his room and glanced from time to time at the only likeness he had of Bianca Corleone, he thought of Beatrice's reproach to Dante in the thirty-first canto of the "Purgatory": "And yet, because thou'rt shamed of me in all Thy sin, and that in later days to come Thou mayst be brave, hearing the Siren's voice Sow deep the seed of tears and hear me speak. So shalt thou know how thou should'st have been moved By my dead body in ways opposite. Nor art nor nature had the power to tempt thee With such delight as that fair body could In which I lived--which now is scattered earth-- And if the highest joy was lost to thee By my young death, what mortal living thing Should have had strength to drag thee down with it?" As he repeated the last words he started for they reminded him with painful force of Gianforte Campodonico's insulting speech, and he detested himself for even allowing the thought to cross his mind--for allowing himself to repeat Beatrice's words up to that point. It was he who had dragged down Maddalena dell' Armi to his level, not she who had made him sink to hers. And yet Campodonico had said almost the same thing as Beatrice, and certainly without knowing it. In his heart he knew that Bianca might have reproached him so, but then, deeper still, he knew that the reproach, from her lips, would have fallen on himself alone, and would never have been meant for Maddalena. Ghisleri fell to thinking over his own life and the lives of others, in one of those black moods which sometimes seized him and in which he believed in no one's motives, from his own upward. In the course of his lonely and bitter meditations, he came across an idea which at first seemed wild and improbable enough, but which, little by little, took shape as he concentrated his attention upon it, and at last chased every other memory away. He was not naturally an over-suspicious man, but when his suspicions were once roused he was apt to go far in pursuit of the truth, if the matter interested him. He rose and got a book from the shelves which lined one side of the wall, and began to turn over the pages rapidly, until he stopped at the place he was looking for. He read three or four pages very carefully twice over and returned the volume to its place. Then he sat down to think, and did not move for another quarter of an hour. At the end of that time he called his servant, a quiet, hard-working fellow from the Abbruzzi, who rejoiced in the name of Bonifazio. "Do you happen to know," he asked, "if there was much scarlet fever in the city last winter? I have always wondered how poor Lord Herbert caught it." Bonifazio had known Lord Herbert for years, just as Donald had known Ghisleri, for the two friends had often made short journeys together, taking their servants with them. The Italian thought a long time before he gave an answer. "No, Signore. I do not remember hearing that there were many cases. But then, I am not in the way of knowing. It may have been." "You are a very discreet man, Bonifazio," said Ghisleri. "Lord Herbert fell ill on the day after he had dined in Casa Savelli. Do you think you could find out for me whether any one of the servants had the scarlet fever at that time?" "Perhaps, signore. I will try. I know Giuseppe, the butler, who is a very good person, but who is not fond of talking. When there is such an illness they either send the servants to the hospital, in the Roman houses, or else they put them in an attic and try not to let any one know. For the rest, I will do what I can. You say well, Signore, for it is possible that the blessed soul of the Milord caught the fever at the dinner in Casa Savelli." "That is what I think," said Ghisleri. And he thought a good deal more also, which he did not communicate to his man. Bonifazio, as his master said, was discreet. He was also very patient and very uncommunicative, as the men of the Abbruzzi often are. They make the best servants when they can be got, for, in addition to the good qualities most of them possess in a greater or less degree, they are almost always physically very strong men, though rarely above middle height, and often extremely pale. Ghisleri knew that so soon as Bonifazio had anything to tell, he would tell it without further question or reminder. Several days passed, during which Ghisleri, who gained strength rapidly, began to resume his former mode of life, went to the club, saw his friends, and made a few visits. He went more than once to Maddalena's house and stayed some time with her when he found her alone. Little by little he fancied that her look was changing and growing more indifferent. He was glad of it. He wished that he might be to her exactly what she was to him. That, indeed, could never be, but he wished it were possible. He knew that when she ceased to love him altogether, she could never feel friendly devotion, gratitude, or respect for him, and he felt all three for her in a far greater degree than she could imagine. On the whole, during that time their relations were peaceable, and altogether undisturbed by the frequent differences that had so often nearly estranged them from one another in earlier days. There was, of course, an air of constraint about their meetings, more evident in Maddalena's manner than in Ghisleri's, and the latter hardly hoped that this could ever quite wear off and leave at last a sincere and true friendship behind it. That was, indeed, the best that could be hoped for either of them, and he had no right to expect the best, nor anything approaching to it. One evening as he was dressing for dinner, Bonifazio gave him the news he desired. It had not been easy to extract any communication on the subject from old Giuseppe, the Savelli's butler, but such as he had at last given was clear, concise, and to the point. There had been a case of scarlet fever in the house. Donna Adele's maid had taken it, and was just convalescent at the time when the Ardens dined with Adele and her husband. The woman's name was Lucia, and on falling ill she had been at once removed to a distant room in the upper part of the palace. The case had been rather a severe one, Giuseppe believed, and it was only within the last few weeks that Lucia seemed to have regained her strength. She was at present at Gerano with her mistress, but had written to the wife of the Savelli's porter saying that she had been dismissed, and was to leave at the end of the month, and asking for assistance in finding a new place. Ghisleri was satisfied for the present. It was quite clear that Arden must have caught the fever that killed him so suddenly in Casa Savelli. Whether Donna Adele had in any way communicated the contagion was another matter, and not easily decided. Her inexplicable nervousness, beginning about the time that Arden died, might be accounted for on the ground that she was aware of having been the unintentional cause of his illness, and felt that by a little precaution she might have averted the catastrophe. The idea was constantly present in Ghisleri's mind, but it lacked detail and clearness, and constituted at most a rather strong suspicion. Of course it was quite possible, and, considering Adele's character, more than likely, that she had never been near the maid during her illness. If she had never had the scarlet fever herself, it was quite certain. But that was a point easily settled, and was a very important one. On the following day, Ghisleri called at the Palazzo Braccio. The Princess received him, as she always did, without any signs of satisfaction, but without marked coldness. To her he was always "that wild Ghisleri," and she thoroughly disapproved of him, wishing that he would not visit her daughter so often. He was quite aware of the feeling she entertained towards him, and was always especially careful in his conversation with her. In spite of her long residence in Rome, as a Roman, and among Romans, she had remained altogether English in nature. Laura, English on both sides by her birth, had far less of prejudice than her mother, and was altogether more of a cosmopolitan in every way. On the present occasion, Ghisleri led the conversation so as to speak of her. He began by asking the Princess where she herself meant to spend the summer, and whether she intended to be with her daughter. "I hope to be with her a great part of the time," she answered. "I do not like to think of her as travelling about the world alone. Indeed, I do not at all approve of her living without a companion, as she insists upon doing. She is far too young, and people are far too ready to talk about her." "She has such wonderful dignity," answered Ghisleri, "that she could do with impunity what most women could not do at all. Besides, her mourning protects her for the present, and her child. She is looking wonderfully well--do you not think so?" "Yes. When one thinks of all she has suffered, it is amazing. But she was always strong." "I should suppose so. Any one else would have caught the scarlet fever." "As for that," said the Princess, unsuspiciously, "people rarely have it twice." "She has had it, then." "Oh, yes. Both the girls had it at the same time, when they were little things. Let me see--Laura must have been six years old then. They had it rather badly, and I remember being terribly anxious about them." "I see," answered Ghisleri, carelessly. "That accounts for it. But to go back to what we were speaking of, I wonder that Lady Herbert does not spend the summer with you at Gerano, if you go there as usual." "I do not think she will consent to that," said the Princess, rather coldly. "She says she prefers the north for the baby. It is quite true that it is often very hot at Gerano." "Donna Adele was good enough to ask me to go out and spend a day or two while she is there. It must be very pleasant just now, in the spring weather." "Why do you not go?" asked the Princess, with more warmth, for she preferred that Ghisleri should be where he could not see Laura every day, as she believed he now did. "You would be doing them both a kindness. Poor Adele was obliged to go to the country against her will--she is in such a terribly nervous state. I really do not know what to make of it." "What news have you of her?" inquired Ghisleri, in a tone of polite solicitude. "Is she at all better?" "She was better after the first few days. Then it appears that she had a fright--I do not quite understand how it was from what Francesco wrote to my husband--but it seems to have been one of those odd accidents--optical illusions, I suppose--which sometimes terrify people." "How very unfortunate! What did she fancy she saw?" "It was absurd, of course!" answered the Princess, who had no special reason for being reticent on the subject. "It seems that there was a blue cloak of hers hanging somewhere in her dressing-room,--at a window, I believe,--and she went in suddenly very early in the morning before it was quite broad daylight, and took the cloak for a man. In fact she thought it was poor dear Arden. You know he always used to wear blue serge clothes. Francesco saw it himself afterwards and says that it was extraordinarily like. But I cannot understand how any one in their senses could be deceived in that way. Adele is dreadfully overwrought and imaginative. She has danced too much this winter, I suppose." When Ghisleri went away he was almost quite persuaded that Adele was conscious of having communicated the fever to Arden. Of course, it might all be mere coincidence, but to him the evidence seemed strong. He wrote a note to Adele, asking whether he might avail himself of her invitation, and spend a day at Gerano. Her answer came by return of post, begging him to come at once, and to stay as long as possible. The handwriting was so illegible that he had some difficulty in reading it. To judge from that, at least, Adele was no better. Before leaving Rome, he thought it best to inform Laura of his intended visit. He had never spoken of her step-sister in a way to make her suppose that he disliked her, but Laura knew very well what part he had played at the time when Adele was spreading slanderous reports, for her mother had repeated the story precisely as the Prince had told it to her. Ghisleri, of course, was not aware of this, for Arden had not mentioned the matter to him, unless his reference to the enemies he and Laura had in Rome, during the last conversation he had with his friend, could be taken as implying that Ghisleri knew as much as he himself. But in any case, he was sure that Laura would be surprised at his going to Gerano, even for a day, and it was better to warn her beforehand, and if possible give her some reasonable explanation of his conduct. He chose to refer his visit at once to motives of curiosity, together with a natural desire to breathe the purer air of the country, now that he was able to make the short journey without fatigue or danger. "I have never been to Gerano," he added. "It is said to be a wonderful place--one of the finest mediæval castles in this part of the world. I really wish to see it--they say the air is good--and since Donna Adele is so kind as to ask me, I shall go." "You would see it better if you went when my mother and step-father are there. He would show you everything and give you all sorts of historical details which Adele has forgotten and which Francesco never knew." "No doubt, but there is one objection," answered Ghisleri. "They have never asked me. I am not a favourite with the Princess. I am sure you know that." "She thinks you are very wild," said Laura, with a smile. "She disapproves of you on moral grounds--not at all in the way I used to--and still do, sometimes," she added, incautiously. "Still?" "Oh, it is very foolish! Do not talk about it. When are you going out?" Laura had undeniably felt a sudden return of her old distrust in him, when she had heard of the visit. It was natural enough that she should, considering what she knew. She suspected some new and tortuous development of his character, and would have instinctively drawn back from the intimacy she felt was growing up between him and herself, had she not by experience found out that she might be quite wrong about him after all. She tried, at the present juncture, to shake off the sensation which was now far more distasteful to her than it had formerly been, in proportion as she had fancied that she understood him better. But she could not altogether succeed. It was too strange, in her opinion, that he should willingly be Adele's guest, and put himself under even a slight obligation to her. It showed, she thought, how individual views could differ in regard to friendship. She was even rather surprised to find that she was asking herself whether, if Gianforte and Christina Campodonico possessed a habitable castle and invited her to stop with them, she would accept, considering that Gianforte had almost killed her husband's best friend. She unhesitatingly decided that she would not, and resented Ghisleri's willingness to receive hospitality from one who, as he well knew, had foully slandered both Arden and herself. Her doubts were certainly justifiable to a certain extent. But there was no immediate probability that they would be cleared away for the present. Ghisleri understood her perfectly, and wondered whether he were not risking too much in endangering a friendship so precious to him for the sake of following out a suspicion which might, in the end, prove to have been altogether without foundation. On the other hand, his natural obstinacy of purpose when once called into play was such as not to leave the smallest hesitation in his mind between doing what he had determined to do, or not doing it, when he had once made up his mind, irrespective of consequences. Having lost sight of the virtue of constancy, he clung to a vicious obstinacy as a substitute. CHAPTER XVIII. When Adele had read Padre Bonaventura's letter twice over and had realised its meaning, she behaved like a person stunned by an actual blow. She sank into the nearest chair, utterly overcome. She had barely the presence of mind to tear up the sheet of paper into minute shreds, which she gathered all in one hand, until she could find strength to scatter them out of the window. The position was a terrible one indeed, and for a long time she was unable to think connectedly about it, or of anything else. But for the two nights of sound sleep she had got by taking the chloral, she must inevitably have broken down. As it was, her strong constitution had asserted itself so soon as she had been able to rest, and she was better able to meet this new and real trouble than she had been to face the imaginary horror of Herbert Arden's presence in her dressing-room. But even so, half an hour elapsed before she was able to rise from her seat. She tossed the scraps of paper out of the window and watched them as the wind chased them in all directions, upwards and downwards, upon the castle wall. Then, all at once, she began to think, and her brain seemed to act with an accuracy and directness it had never had before. Either the letter had been opened in the house or at the post-office. It could not have been opened in Rome, or at least, the probabilities were enormously against such an hypothesis. It was scarcely more like that the man at the Gerano post-office should have ventured to tamper with a sealed envelope coming from the castle, and for which he had given a receipt before taking charge of it. He could not have the smallest interest in reading Donna Adele's correspondence, and he had everything to lose if he were caught. He would certainly not have supposed that she or her husband, having but lately left the city, were sending back a sum of money in notes large enough to make it worth his while to incur such a risk. In other words, the theft had been committed in the house, and no one but Lucia could have been the thief. Lucia had been summarily dismissed; Lucia was the only servant in the establishment who had serious cause for discontent; Lucia had guessed from the address that the letter contained something at least of the nature of a confession, and had resolved to hold her mistress in her power. Moreover, it was possible--barely possible--that Lucia knew something else. In any case, she had read every word Adele had written with her own hand, and Adele knew very well why the woman had not returned the sheets to the envelope after mastering their contents. She was utterly, hopelessly, and entirely in Lucia's power. The maid would go from her to a new situation, and wherever she might be would always be able to control Donna Adele's life by merely threatening to betray what she knew to the person or persons concerned. Adele felt that her courage was almost failing her in this extremity, at a time when she needed more than she had ever possessed. And yet it was necessary to act promptly, for the maid might even now be engaging herself with some one else. Come what might, she must never leave Casa Savelli, if it cost Adele all the money she could beg of her husband or borrow of her father to keep the woman with her. First of all, however, she must regain some sort of composure, lest Lucia should suspect that the post had brought her news of the loss of the document. She looked at herself in the glass and scrutinised every feature attentively. She was very pale, but otherwise was looking better than two days earlier. Any kind of stimulant, as she knew, sent the blood to her face in a few minutes, and she saw that what she needed was a little colour. A teaspoonful of Benedictine cordial, of which she had a small flask in her dressing-case, was enough to produce the desired effect. The doctor had formerly recommended her to take it before going to sleep, but she did not like such things, and the flask was almost full. She saw in the mirror that the result was perfectly satisfactory, and when she at last met her husband he remarked that her appearance was very much improved. "I feel so much better!" she exclaimed, knowing that she was speaking the first words of a comedy which would in all probability have to be played during the rest of her life. "I always said that if they would only give me something to make me sleep I should get well at once." She walked again on that day, and by an almost superhuman effort kept up appearances until bedtime, even succeeding in eating a moderately abundant dinner. That night she told Lucia that, on the whole, she would prefer to keep her, that she had always been more than satisfied with her services, and that if she had suddenly felt an aversion to her, it was the result of the extreme nervousness she had suffered of late. Now that she could sleep, she realised how unkind she had been. Lucia humbly thanked her, and said that she hoped to live and die in the service of the most excellent Casa Savelli. Thereupon Adele thanked her too, said very sweetly that she was a good girl and would some day be rewarded by finding a good husband, and ended by giving her five francs. She reflected that to give her more might look like the beginning of a course of bribery, and that to give nothing might be construed as proceeding from the fear of seeming to bribe. The second day could not be harder than the first, she said to herself, as she swallowed her chloral and laid her head upon the pillow, to be read to sleep by the nurse. She slept, indeed, that night, but not so well as before, and she awoke twice, each time with a start, and with the impression that Lucia was reciting the contents of the lost letter to Laura Arden and a whole roomful of the latter's friends. Under the circumstances, she behaved with a courage and determination admirable in themselves. Few women could have borne the constant strain upon the faculties at all, still fewer after such illness as she had suffered. But she was really very strong, though everything which affected her feelings and thoughts reacted upon her physical nature as such things never can in less nervously organised constitutions. She bore the excruciating anxiety about the lost confession better than the shadowy fear of the supernatural which still haunted her in the hours of the night. On the third day she begged her husband to increase the dose of chloral by a very small quantity, saying that if only she could sleep well for a whole week she would then be so much better as to be able to give it up altogether. Savelli hesitated, and at last consented. Since she had seemed so much more quiet he dreaded a return of her former state, for he was a man who loved his ease and hated everything which disturbed it. The doctor had particularly cautioned him to keep the chloral put away in a safe place, warning Francesco that the majority of persons who took it soon began to feel a craving for it in larger quantities, which must be checked to avoid the risk of considerable damage to the health in the event of its becoming a habit. It was, after all, only a palliative, he said, and could never be expected to work a cure on the nerves except as an indirect means to a good result. Francesco kept the bottle in his dressing-bag, which remained in his own room and was fitted with a patent lock. He yielded to Adele's request on the first occasion, and she went with him as he took the glass back to strengthen the dose. "Why do you keep it locked up?" she said. "Do you suppose I would go and take it without consulting you?" "The doctor told me to be careful of it," he answered. "The servants might try a dose of it out of curiosity." He took what he considered necessary and locked the bag again, returning the key to his pocket. Two or three days passed in this way. Adele began to feel that she longed for the night and the soothing influence of the chloral, as she had formerly longed for daylight to end the misery of the dark hours. The days were now made almost intolerable for her by the certainty that her maid knew her secret, and by the necessity for treating the woman with consideration. Yet she could do nothing, and she knew that she never could do anything to lessen her own anxiety, as long as she lived. She was much alone, too, during the day. She walked or drove with her husband during two or three hours in the afternoon, but the rest of the time hung idly on her hands. It is true that his society was not very congenial, and under ordinary conditions she would rather have been left alone than have been obliged to talk with him. At present, however, she thought less when she was with him, and that was a gain not to be despised. She had quite forgotten that she had asked Ghisleri to come out and spend a day or two, when his note came, reminding her of the invitation, and asking if he still might accept it. Francesco liked him, as most men did, and was glad that any one should appear to vary the monotony of the dull country life with a little city talk. He bade her write to Pietro to come and stay as long as he pleased, if she herself cared to have him. She concealed her satisfaction well enough to make Francesco suppose that she wished the guest to come for his sake rather than her own. Ghisleri started early, taking his servant with him, and reached Gerano in time for the midday breakfast. Francesco Savelli received him with considerable enthusiasm, and Adele's habitually rather forced smile became more natural. Both felt in different ways that the presence of a third person was a relief, and would have been delighted to receive a far less agreeable man than their present guest. They overwhelmed him with questions about Rome and their friends. "Of course you have seen everybody and heard everything, now that you are so much better," said Adele, as they sat down to breakfast in the vaulted dining-room. "You must tell us everything you know. We are buried alive out here, and only know a little of what happens through the papers. How are they all? Have you seen Laura again, and how is the baby? My step-mother writes that she is going to spend the summer with them in some place or places unknown. I never thought of her as a grandmother when my own children were born--of course she is not my mother, but it used to seem just the same. What is Bompierre doing? And Maria Boccapaduli? I am dying to hear all about it." Ghisleri laughed at the multitude of questions which followed each other almost without a breathing-space between them. "Donna Maria would have sent you her love if she had known that I was coming to Gerano," he answered. "As for Bompierre, he is an inscrutable mixture of devotion and fickleness. He attaches himself to the new without detaching himself from the old. He worships both the earthly and the Olympian Venus. He is a good fellow, little Bompierre, and I like him, but it is impossible for any man to adore women at the rate of six at a time. I begin to think that he must be a very deep character." "That is the last thing I should say of him," observed Savelli, who was deficient in the sense of humour. "How literal you are, Francesco," laughed his wife. "And yourself, Ghisleri--tell us about yourself. Are you quite well again? You still look dreadfully thin, but you look better than when I saw you last. What does your doctor say?" "He says that if I do not happen to catch cold, or have a choking fit, or a cough, or any of fifty things he names, and if I do not chance to get shot in the same place again, in the course of a year or two I may be as good a man as ever. It appears that I have a good constitution. I always supposed so, because I never had anything the matter with me, so far as I knew." "No one will ever forgive Gianforte!" exclaimed Adele. "If you had died, he would have had to go away for ever. Everybody says he was utterly in the wrong." "The matter is settled," said Ghisleri, "and I do not think either of us need have anything to say about the other's conduct in the affair. I suppose you have heard that the ministry has fallen," he continued, turning to Savelli. "Yesterday afternoon--the old story, of course--finance." "For Heaven's sake do not begin to talk politics at this hour," protested Adele. "To-night, when I am asleep, you can smoke all the cigars in the house, and reconstitute a dozen ministries if you like. I want to hear all about my friends. You have not told me half enough yet." "Where shall I begin? Ah, by the bye, there is an engagement, I hear. I have not left cards because it is not official. Pietrasanta and Donna Guendalina Frangipani--rather an odd match, is it not?" "Pietrasanta!" exclaimed Adele. "Who would have thought that! And Guendalina, of all people! But they will starve, my dear Ghisleri; they will positively not have twenty thousand francs a year between them." "No," said Savelli, "you are quite right, my dear--twelve--seventeen--eighteen thousand five hundred, almost exactly." Savelli was intimately acquainted with the affairs of his friends, and both parties were related to him in the present case. He prided himself upon his extreme exactness about all questions of money. So they talked and gossiped throughout the meal. Ghisleri knew just what sort of news most amused his hostess, and as usual he succeeded in telling her the truth about things and people without saying anything spiteful of any one. He had resolved, too, that he would make himself especially agreeable to the couple in their voluntary exile. He had come with a set purpose, and he meant to execute it if possible. As he was evidently not yet strong, Savelli proposed that they should drive instead of walking. Ghisleri acceded readily, though he would have preferred to stay at home after having travelled nearly thirty miles in a jolting carriage during the morning. The sensation of physical fatigue which he constantly experienced since he had been wounded was new to him and not at all pleasant. Nothing of any importance occurred during the afternoon. The conversation continued in much the same way as it had begun at breakfast, interspersed with remarks about agriculture and the probabilities of crops. Savelli understood the financial side of farming better than Ghisleri, but the latter had a much more practical acquaintance with the capabilities of different sorts of land. After they had returned to the castle, Francesco left Ghisleri with his wife in the drawing-room, and went off to his own quarters to talk with the steward of the estate. Tea was brought, but Pietro noticed that Adele did not take any. "I suppose you are afraid that it would keep you awake at night," he remarked. "How is your insomnia? Do you sleep at all?" "I am getting quite well again," Adele answered. "You know I always told you that I needed something really strong to make me sleep. The doctor has given me chloral, and I never wake up before eight or nine o'clock. It is a wonderful medicine." "Insomnia is one of the most unaccountable things," said Ghisleri, in a meditative tone. "I knew a man in Constantinople who told me that at one time he never slept at all. For three months he literally could not lose consciousness for a moment. I believe he suffered horribly. But then, he had something on his mind at the time which accounted for it to a certain extent." "I suppose he had lost money or something of that kind," conjectured Adele, stirring two lumps of sugar in a glass of water. "No, it was much worse than that. He had accidentally killed his most intimate friend on a shooting expedition in the Belgrad forest." Ghisleri heard the spoon rattle sharply against the glass, as Adele's hand shook, and he saw that she bent down her head quickly, pretending to watch the lumps of sugar as they slowly dissolved. "How terrible!" she exclaimed, in a low voice. "Yes," answered Ghisleri, in the same indifferent tone. "But if you will believe it, he had the courage to refuse chloral, or any sort of sleeping-draught, though he often sat up reading all night. He had been told, you see, that the habit of such things was much more dangerous than insomnia itself, and he was ultimately cured by taking a great deal of exercise. He had an extraordinary force of will. I believe he has never felt any bad effect from what he endured. You know one can get used to anything. Look at the people who starve in public for forty days and do not die." "We shall see Pietrasanta and his wife doing that for the next forty years," said Adele, with a tolerably natural laugh. "They ought to go into training as soon as possible if they mean to be happy. They say nothing spoils the temper like hunger. Were you ever near being starved to death on any of your travels, Ghisleri?" "No; I never got further than being obliged to live on nothing but beans and bad water for nine days. That was quite far enough, though. I got thin, and I have never eaten beans since." "I do not wonder. Fancy eating beans for nearly a fortnight. I should have died. And where was it? Were you imprisoned for a spy in South America? One never knows what may or may not have happened to you--you are such an unaccountable man!" "That never happened to me. It was at sea. I took it into my head to go to Sardinia in a small vessel that was sailing from Amalfi with a cargo of beans to bring back Sardinian wine. We were becalmed, and got short of provisions, so that we fell back on the beans. They kept us alive, but I would rather not try it again." "What endless adventures you have had! How tame this society life of ours must seem to you after what you have been accustomed to! How can you endure it?" "It is never very hard to put up with what one likes," answered Ghisleri, "nor even to endure what one dislikes for the sake of somebody to whom one is attached." "If any one else said that, it would sound like a platitude. But with you, it is quite different. One feels that you mean all you say." Adele was evidently determined to be complimentary, and even more than complimentary, to-day. She was never cold or at all unfriendly with Ghisleri, whom she liked and admired, and whom she always hoped to see ultimately established as a permanent member of her own immediate circle, but he did not remember that she had ever talked exactly as she was talking now, and he attributed her manner to her nervousness. He laughed carelessly at her last remark. "I am not used to such good treatment," he said, "though I never can understand why people take the trouble to doubt one's word. It is so much easier to believe everything--so much less trouble." "I should not have thought that you were a very credulous person," answered Adele. "You have had too much experience for that." "Experience does not always mean disillusionment. One may find out that there are honest people as well as dishonest in the world." If Laura Arden had been present she would have been more than ever inclined to distrust Ghisleri just then. She would have wondered what possessed him to make him say things so very different from those he generally said to her. As a matter of fact, he wished Adele to trust him, for especial reasons, and he knew her well enough to judge how his speeches would affect her. She had betrayed herself to him a few minutes earlier and he desired to efface the impression in her mind before leading her into another trap. "Do you think the world is such a very good place?" she asked. "Have you found it so?" "It is often very unjustly abused by those who live in it--as they are themselves by their friends. Belief on the one side must mean disbelief on the other." This time Adele gave no sign of being touched by the thrust. She was too much accustomed to whatever sensations she experienced when accidental or intentional reference was made to her astonishing talent for gossip. "As for that," she said quite naturally, "every one talks about every one else, and some things are true just as some are not. If we did not talk of people how should we make conversation? It would be quite impossible, I am sure!" "Oh, of course. But if there is to be that sort of conversation, it can always take the form of a discussion, and one can put oneself on the right side from the beginning just as easily as not. It saves so much trouble afterwards. The person who is always on the wrong side is generally the one about whom the others are talking. If we could hear a tenth of what is said about ourselves I fancy we should be very uncomfortable." "Yes, indeed. Even our servants--think how they must abuse us!" "No doubt. But they have a practical advantage over us in that way. When they really know anything particularly scandalous about us they can convert it into ready money." Ghisleri had not the least intention of conveying any hidden meaning by his words, for he was of course completely ignorant of the occurrence which had disturbed Adele's whole life more than any other hitherto. But he noticed that she again bent over her glass and looked into it, though the sugar was by this time quite dissolved. Her hand shook a little as she moved the spoon about in the sweetened water. Then she drank a little, and drew a long breath. "That is always a most disagreeable position," she said boldly. "We were talking about it the other day. I wish you had been there. Gouache was telling a foreigner--Prince Durakoff, I think it was--the old story of how Prince Montevarchi was murdered by his own librarian because he would not pay the man a sum of money in the way of blackmail. You know it, of course. The two families, the Montevarchi and the Saracinesca, kept it very quiet and no one ever knew all the details. Some people say that San Giacinto killed the librarian, and some say that the librarian killed himself. That is no matter. What would you have done? That is the question. Would you have paid the money in the hope of silencing the man? Or would you have refused as the old Prince did? Gouache said that it was always a mistake to yield, and that Montevarchi did quite right." Ghisleri considered the matter a few moments before he gave an answer. He was almost sure by this time that she actually found herself in some such position as she described, and that she really needed advice. It was characteristic of the man who had been trying to make her betray herself and had succeeded beyond his expectation, that he was unwilling to give her such counsel as might lead to her own destruction. In his complicated code, that would have savoured of treachery. He suddenly withdrew into himself as it were, and tried to look at the matter objectively, as an outsider. "It is a most difficult question to answer," he said at last. "I have often heard it discussed. If you care for my own personal opinion, I will give it to you. It seems to me that in such cases one should be guided by circumstances as they arise, but that one can follow very safely a sort of general rule. If the blackmailer, as I call the person in possession of the secret, has any positive proof, such as a written document, or any other object of the kind, without which he or she could not prove the accusation, and if the accusation is really of a serious nature, then I think it would be wiser to buy the thing, whatever it is, at any price, and destroy it at once. But if, as in most of such affairs, the secret is merely one of words which the blackmailers may speak or not at will, and at any time, I believe it is a mistake to bribe him or her, because the demand for hush-money can be renewed indefinitely so long as the person concerned lives, or has any money left with which to pay." Adele had listened with the greatest attention throughout, and the direct good sense of his answer disarmed any suspicion she might have entertained in regard to the remark which had led to her asking his advice. She reasoned naturally enough that if he knew anything of her position, and had come to Gerano to gather information, he would have suggested some course of action which would throw the advantage into his own hands. But she did not know the man. Moreover, in her extreme fear of discovery, she had for a moment been willing to admit that he might know far more than was in any way possible, if he knew anything at all; whereas in truth he was but making the most vague guesses at the actual facts. It was startling to realise how nearly she had taken him for an enemy, after inviting him as a friend, and in perfectly good faith, but as she thought over the conversation she saw how naturally the remarks which had frightened her had presented themselves. There was her own insomnia--he had an instance of a man who had suffered in the same way. A remark about unjust abuse of other people--that was quite natural, and meant nothing. Blackmail extorted by servants--she had herself led directly to it, by speculating upon what servants said of their masters. It was all very natural. She made up her mind that she had been wrong in mistrusting his sincerity. Besides, she liked him, and her judgment instinctively inclined to favour him. "I think you are quite right," she said, after a few moments' thought. "I never heard it put so directly before, and your view seems to be the only sensible one. If the secret can be kept by buying an object and destroying it, then buy it. If not, deny it boldly, and refuse to pay. Yes, that is the wisest solution I have ever heard offered." Ghisleri saw that he had produced a good effect and was well-satisfied. He turned back to a former point in order to change the subject of the conversation. "That old story of the Montevarchi has interested me," he said. "I wish I knew it all. Without being at all of an historical genius, I am fond of all sorts of family histories. Lady Herbert was saying yesterday that there are many strange legends and stories connected with this old place, and that your father knows them all. You must know a great deal about Gerano yourself, I should think." "Oh, of course I do," answered Adele, with alacrity. "I will show you all over the castle to-morrow morning. It is an enormous building, and bigger than you would ever suppose from the outside. I will show you where they used to cut off heads--it is delightful! The head fell through a hole in the floor into a heap of sawdust, they say. And then there is another place, where they threw criminals out of the window, with four seats in it, two for the executioners, one for the confessor, and one in the middle for the condemned man. They did those things so coolly and systematically in those good old days. You shall see it all; there are the dungeons, and the trap-doors through which people were made to tumble into them; there is every sort of appliance--belonging to family life in the middle ages." "I shall be very glad to see it all if you will be my guide," said Ghisleri. They continued to talk upon indifferent subjects. At dinner Pietro took much pains to be agreeable, and succeeded admirably, for he was well able to converse pleasantly when he chose. Though extremely tired, he sat up till nearly midnight talking politics with Savelli, as Adele had foreseen, and when he was at last shown to his distant room by Bonifazio, who had spent most of his day in studying the topography of the castle, he was very nearly exhausted. CHAPTER XIX. Pietro Ghisleri slept soundly that night. Of late, indeed, he had become less restless than he had formerly been, and he attributed the change to the weakness which was the consequence of his wound. There were probably other causes at work at that time of which he was hardly conscious himself, but which ultimately produced a change in him, and in his way of looking at the world. He stood at his open window early in the morning, and gazed out at the fresh, bright country. The delicate hand of spring had already touched the world with colour, and the breath of the coming warmth had waked the life in all those things which die yearly, and are yearly raised again. Ghisleri felt the morning sun upon his thin, pale face, and he realised that he also had been very near to death during the dark months, and he remembered how he had wished that he might be not near only to dying, but dead altogether, never to take up again the play that had grown so wearisome and empty in his eyes. But now a change had come. For the first time in years, he knew that if the choice were suddenly offered him at the present moment he would choose to live out all the days allotted to him, and would wish that they might be many rather than few. There was, indeed, a dark spot on the page last turned, of which he could never efface the memory, nor, in his own estimation, outlive the shame. In his day-dreams Maddalena dell' Armi's coldly perfect face was often before him with an expression upon it which he feared to see, knowing too well why it was there--and out of a deeper depth of memory dead Bianca Corleone's eyes looked at him with reproach and sometimes with scorn. There was much pain in store for him yet, of the kind at which the world never guessed, nor ever could. But he would not try to escape from it. He would not again so act or think as to call himself coward in his own heart's tribunal. He looked out at the distant hills, and down at the broad battlements and massive outworks of the ancient fortress, and fell to thinking rather idly about the people who had lived, and fought, and quarrelled, and slain each other, within and around those enormous walls, and then he thought all at once of Adele Savelli, and of his suspicions regarding her. He was in a particularly charitable frame of mind on that morning, and he suddenly felt that what he had almost believed on the previous night was utterly beyond the bounds of probability. It seemed to him that he had no manner of right to accuse any one of the crime he had imputed to her, on the most shadowy grounds, and absolutely without proof, unless the coincidence of her uneasy behaviour, with certain vague remarks of his own, could be taken as evidence. He sat down to think it all over, drinking his coffee by the open window, and enjoying the sunshine and the sweet morning air. The whole world looked so good and innocent and fresh as he gazed out upon it, that the possibilities of evil seemed to shrink away into nothing. But as he systematically reviewed the events of the past months, his suspicion returned almost with the force of conviction. The coincidences were too numerous to be attributed to chance alone. Adele's distress of mind was too evident to be denied. Altogether there was no escaping from the conclusion that willingly or unwillingly she had been consciously instrumental in bringing about Arden's illness and death. Her questions about the wisest course to pursue in cases of blackmail, pointed to the probability if not the certainty that some third person was acquainted with what had happened, and this person was in all likelihood the maid Lucia. So far his reasoning took him quickly and plausibly enough, but no further. How the scarlet fever had been communicated from Lucia to Herbert Arden was more than Ghisleri could guess, but if Adele was really in the serving woman's power, it must have been done in such a way as to make what had happened quite clear to the latter. After thinking over all the possibilities, and vainly attempting to solve the hard problem, Ghisleri found himself as much at sea as ever, and was driven to acknowledge that he must trust to chance for obtaining any further evidence in the matter. Meanwhile Adele had determined to follow his advice. Her anxiety was becoming unbearable, and she felt that she could not endure such suspense much longer. To accuse Lucia directly of having opened the letter and committed the theft would be rash and dangerous. There was a bare possibility that some one else might have done the deed. She must in any case be cautious. "Lucia," she said that morning, while the woman was doing her hair, "do you remember that some days ago I gave you a letter to be registered, and that you brought back the receipt for it from the post-office?" "Yes, Excellency, I remember very well." Lucia had been expecting for a long time that her mistress would question her and she was quite prepared. She had good nerves, and the certainty that the great lady was altogether in her power made her cool and collected. "A very extraordinary thing happened to that letter," said Adele, looking up at her own face in the glass, to give herself courage. "It was rather important. I had written to Padre Bonaventura, asking spiritual guidance, and I particularly desired an answer. But he wrote to me by return of post, saying that when he opened the envelope he found only four sheets of blank paper without a word written on them. You see somebody must have thought there was money in the letter." "They are such thieves at the post-office!" exclaimed Lucia. "But this is a terrible affair, Excellency! What is to be done? The post-master must be sent to the galleys immediately!" In Lucia's conception of the law such a summary course seemed quite practicable. "I am afraid that would be very unjust, and could do no good at all," said Adele. "I am quite sure that the post-master would not have dared to open a letter already registered, and for which he had given a receipt. As for any one in the house having done it, I cannot believe it either. I gave it into your hands myself and you brought me back the stamped bit of paper--it is there in my jewel case. I only wish you to find out for me, very quietly and without exciting suspicion, who took that letter to the post. If I could get it back I would give the person who brought it to me a handsome reward. You understand, Lucia, how disagreeable it is to feel that a letter concerning one's most sacred feelings is lost, and has perhaps been read by more than one person." "I cannot imagine anything more dreadful! But be easy, Excellency. I will do all I can, and none of the servants shall suspect that I am questioning them." "I shall be very much obliged to you, Lucia," said Adele. "Very much obliged," she repeated, with some emphasis. "It is only my duty to serve your Excellency, who has always been so good to me," answered Lucia, humbly. Adele knew that there was nothing more to be said for the present, and she congratulated herself on having been diplomatic in her way of offering the bribe. Lucia would now in all likelihood take some time to decide, but for the present she would certainly not part with the precious document. Adele felt sure that it had neither been destroyed nor sent out of the castle. Lucia probably kept it concealed in a safe corner of her own room, under lock and key, and to attempt to get possession of it by force would be out of the question. As in most Italian houses, the servants all locked their own rooms and carried the keys about with them. Lucia, of course, did like the rest. But Lucia, on her side, distrusted her mistress. Knowing what she now knew of Adele, she believed her capable of almost anything, including the picking of a lock and the skilful abstraction of the letter from its secret hiding-place. As soon as she was at liberty she went and got the paper and concealed it in her bosom, intending to keep it there until she could select some safe spot in a remote part of the castle, where she might put it away in greater safety. To carry it about with her until Adele took her back to Rome would be rash, she thought. Adele might suspect where it was at any moment, and force her to give it up. Or it might be lost, which would be even worse. Adele herself felt singularly relieved. She had very little doubt but that Lucia would come to terms. She might, indeed, ask a very large sum, and it might be very inconvenient to be obliged to find it at short notice. But the sole heiress to an enormous estate would certainly be able to get money in some way or other. In the meantime Lucia would not offer it to any one else, since of all people her mistress would be willing to make the greatest sacrifice to obtain possession of it. On the whole, therefore, Adele's anxiety diminished on that day, and she seemed better when she met her husband and Ghisleri in the great court-yard where they were sunning themselves and continuing their talk about politics. "I promised that I would show you the castle," she said to Pietro. "Would it amuse you to go with me now? Francesco does not care to come, of course, and he always has his business with the steward to attend to before breakfast." Pietro expressed his readiness to follow her from the deepest dungeon to the topmost turret of the castle. "Have you slept well?" he asked, as they moved away together. "You are looking much better this morning." "Yes. I feel better," she answered. "Do you know I think your coming has had something to do with it. You have cheered us with your talk and your news. We were fast falling into the vegetable stage, Francesco and I." Ghisleri smiled, partly out of politeness and partly at his own thoughts. "I am glad to have been of any use," he said. "I will do my best to be amusing as long as you will have me." "You need not take it as such an enormous compliment," Adele laughed. "Of course, you are very agreeable,--at least, you can be when you choose,--but the great thing is to have somebody, anybody one knows and likes a little, in this dreary place. Shall we begin at the top or the bottom? The prisons or the towers? Which shall it be?" "If there is a choice, let us begin in the lower regions," answered Ghisleri. "Do you like me a little, Donna Adele?" he asked, as she led the way along the curved and smoothly paved descent which led downwards to the subterranean part of the fortress. She laughed lightly, and glanced at him. She had always wished to make a conquest of Pietro Ghisleri, but she had found few opportunities of being alone with him, for he had never been among the assiduous at her shrine. She knew also how much he admired Laura Arden, and she suspected him of being incipiently in love. It would be delightful to detach him from that allegiance. "Yes," she said, "I like you a little. Did you expect me to like you very much? You have never done anything to deserve it." "I wish I could," answered Ghisleri, with complete insincerity. "But I am afraid I should never get so far as that." "Why not?" "When a woman loves her husband--" He did not finish the sentence, for it seemed unnecessary. "I do not want you to make love to me," Adele answered, "though I believe you know how to do it to perfection. It is often a very long way from liking very much to loving a very little. This is the place where old Gianluca kept his brother Paolo in prison for eighteen years. Then Gianluca died suddenly one fine morning, and Paolo was let out by the soldiers and immediately threw Gianluca's wife out of the window of the east tower, and cut off the heads of his two sons on the same afternoon. I will show you where that was done when we go up stairs. Paolo was an extremely energetic person." "Decidedly so, I should say," assented Ghisleri. "You are all descended from him, I suppose." "Yes, he took care that we should be, by killing all the other branches of the family. Those hollows in the stone are supposed to have been made by his footsteps. Think what a walk! It lasted eighteen years. But it is an airy place and not damp. Those windows were there then, they say. Do you see that deep channel in the wall? It leads straight up through the castle to the floor of the little passage between the old guard-room and one of the towers. There used to be a trap-door--it was still there when I was a little girl, but my father has had a slab of stone put down instead. They used to entice their dearest and most familiar enemies up there, and just as the man set foot on the board a soldier in the tower pulled a bolt in the wall and the trap-door fell. It is two hundred feet, they say. It was so cleverly managed! They say that the last person who came to grief there was a Monsignor Boccapaduli in the year sixteen hundred and something, but no one ever knew what had become of him until the next generation." Familiar from her childhood with every corner of the vast building, she led Ghisleri through one portion after another, telling such of the tales of horror as she remembered. Little by little they worked their way to the upper regions. In the guard-room, a vast hall which would have made a good-sized church, she showed him the great slab of stone the Prince had substituted for the wooden trap-door of former days, and which had merely been placed over the yawning chasm without plaster or cement, its own weight being enough to keep it in position. They passed over it and ascended the stairs in the tower, emerging at last into the bright sunshine upon one of the highest battlements. They sat down side by side on a stone bench. "It is pleasanter here," said Adele. "There is a sort of attraction about those dreadful old places down below, because one never quite realises all the things that happened there, and it is rather like an old-fashioned novel, all full of murder and sudden death. But the sunshine is much nicer, is it not? Shall we stay up here till it is time for breakfast?" "By all means. It is a delightful place for a good talk." Ghisleri was tired, and glad to sit down. "Then you must talk to me," continued his companion. "Between the stairs and playing guide, I have no voice left. What will you talk about? Tell me all about your own castle. They say it is very interesting. I wish I could see it!" "After Gerano it would seem very tame to you. It is mostly in ruins, and what there is left of it is very much the worse for wear. I would not advise you to take the trouble to stop, even if you should ever pass near it." "That is a way you have of depreciating everything connected with yourself," said Adele. "Why do you do it?" "Do I?" asked Ghisleri, carelessly. "I suppose I have the idea that it is better to let people be agreeably surprised, if there is to be any surprise at all. When you have heard that a man is insufferable, if he turns out barely tolerable you think him nice." "Then it is mere pose on your part, with the deliberate intention of producing an effect?" "Probably--mere pose." Ghisleri laughed; he looked at the woman at his side and wondered whether he could ever find out the truth about Arden's death, and the connexion with it which, as he believed, she must have had. She, on her part, did not even guess that he suspected her. The thought had crossed her mind on the previous afternoon, but she had very soon dismissed it. She found relief and change from the monotonous suffering of the past days in talking to him, and she tried to enjoy what she could without allowing her mind to wander back to its chief preoccupation. Ghisleri was very careful not to rouse her suspicion by any accidental reference to what filled his thoughts as much as it did her own, and they spent more than half an hour in aimless and more or less amusing conversation. Gerano did not offer any very great variety of amusement. After breakfast, there was the usual interval for smoking and coffee, and after that the usual drive of two or three hours in the hills. Then, tea and small talk, the dressing hour, the arrival of the post with the morning papers from Rome, dinner, more smoking, and more conversation, and bed-time was reached. It was not gay, and when he retired for the night Ghisleri was beginning to wonder how long he could endure the ordeal with equanimity. He was not generally a man very easily bored, and the reasons which had brought him to Gerano were strong enough in themselves to make him ready to sacrifice a good deal, but he realised that he was not making any advance in the direction of discovering the secret. He had learned more in the first few hours of his stay than he had learned since, and so far as he could see, he was not likely to find out anything more. He had noticed, too, the improvement in Adele's appearance on that day. It was possible that she had already acted upon the general advice he had given her, and that she had insured the silence of the person she dreaded, if any such person existed. But it was equally possible that no one knew what she had done, and that she had not meant anything by the question. The third day passed like the second, and the fourth began without promising any change. Adele appeared as usual at eleven o'clock and spent an hour with Ghisleri. They were becoming more intimate by this time than they had ever been before during their long acquaintance, and Adele flattered herself that she had made an impression. Ghisleri would not forget the hospitality she had offered him, and next year would be more often seen in the circle of her admirers. She even imagined that he might fall into a sort of mild and harmless flirtation, if she knew how to manage him. A little before the hour for breakfast she went to her room. Lucia was there, as usual, waiting in case she should be needed. As she retouched Adele's hair, and gave a final twist with the curling tongs to the ringlets at the back of her mistress's neck, she began to speak in a low voice and in a somewhat hurried manner. "I have found out who took the letter, Excellency," she said. "It is in a safe place and no one else has seen it. The person will give it to me at once if the reward is large enough." Adele's eyes sparkled, and a little colour rose in her cheeks. Lucia watched the reflection of her face in the mirror. "How much does she ask?" she inquired, without hesitation, and with a certain business-like sharpness in her tone. There was a moment's pause, as Lucia withdrew the tongs from the little curl. "She asks five thousand francs," she said, in some trepidation, for she had hardly ever in her life even spoken of so large a sum. "That is a great deal," answered Adele, pretending to be surprised, while doing her best to conceal her satisfaction. "I have not so much money out here; indeed, Don Francesco has not either. She must wait until we go to Rome." "A year, if your Excellency pleases," said the maid, blowing scent upon a transparent handkerchief from an atomizer. "In the meanwhile I should like to have the letter. I suppose she would accept my promise--written, if she requires it?" "Of course she would, and she would give me the papers at once--or instead of a promise, I have no doubt she would be perfectly satisfied with a bit of jewelry as a pledge." "That would be simpler," said Adele, coldly. She could not but be astonished at the woman's cool effrontery, though it was impossible to refuse anything she asked. "I will give you a diamond for her to keep as a pledge," she added, "but I want the letter this afternoon." "Yes, Excellency." During the midday meal Adele was by turns absent and then very gay. She seemed restless and uneasy during the coffee and cigarette stage of the afternoon. Ghisleri watched her with curiosity. Fully half an hour earlier than usual she went to her room to get ready for the regulation drive. Lucia was waiting for her, pale as death and evidently in a state of the greatest agitation. Without a word Adele unlocked her jewel case, took out a little morocco covered box, opened it, and glanced at a pair of diamond ear-rings it contained, shut it again and held it out to Lucia. To her surprise the woman drew back, clearly in great terror, and trying to get behind the long toilet table as though in fear of bodily harm. "What is the matter?" asked Adele, in surprise. "Where is the letter? Why do you not give it to me?" "A great misfortune has happened," gasped Lucia, hardly able to speak. "I cannot get it from the person." "What!" Adele's voice rang through the room. "Do you want more money now? What is this comedy?" "The letter is not there--I--she does not know where it is. It is lost--Excellency--" "Lost? Where did you hide it?" Lucia was almost too frightened by this time to tell connectedly what had happened, but Adele understood before long that the maid had looked about for a safe place in which to hide the precious document, and had at last decided to slip it under the great slab of stone which has been already mentioned as covering the opening of the oubliette between the guard-room and the tower. Lucia had found that on one side, owing to the irregularity of the old pavement, there was room to lay the folded papers, and that she could just slip her hand in so as to withdraw them again. She was, of course, quite ignorant that the stone covered a well of which the shaft penetrated to the lowest foundation of the castle, and that one touch of her hand, or a gust of wind, was enough to send the light sheets over the edge close to which she had unwittingly placed them. Adele still pretended to be angry, but she drew a long breath of relief. She knew the exact spot at which to look for what she wanted. She locked up her diamonds again, scolding Lucia for her carelessness all the time, and doing her best to be very severe. Lucia bore all that was said to her very meekly, for she had expected far worse. In her opinion some one had accidentally discovered the letter, and taken it, and would make capital out of it as she had meant to do. Her disappointment was as great, as the sum of five thousand francs had seemed to her enormous, but her fear soon vanished when she saw that Adele had no intention of doing her any bodily injury, nor, apparently, of dismissing her again. That the papers were really gone from the place of concealment she knew beyond a doubt. She had lit a taper in her effort to find them, and had thrust it under the slab, bending low and looking into the crevice. Nothing white of any sort had been visible. Adele dressed herself for going out and left the room. But instead of joining her husband and Ghisleri at once, she turned out of the main passage by the cross corridor which led to the court-yard, went out and walked quickly down the inclined road by which she had led Ghisleri to Paolo Braccio's dungeon. There, where the shaft of the oubliette came down, she was quite sure of finding the little package of sheets which meant so much to her and which had almost meant a fortune to Lucia. She crossed the worn pavement rapidly. There was plenty of light from the grated windows high up under the vault, and she could have seen the paper almost as soon as she entered the place. She stopped short as she reached the foot of the channel in the wall. There was nothing there. She stared up into the blackness above in the hope of seeing a white thing caught and sticking to the stones, but she could not distinguish the faintest reflection of anything. Yet she was convinced that the thing must have fallen all the way. The shaft, as she well knew, was quite perpendicular and the masonry compact and well finished. The object of those who had built it had been precisely to prevent the possibility of the victim catching on a projection of any sort while falling. Adele turned pale and leaned against the wall, breathing hard. If Lucia had acted differently she might have been suspected of having told a falsehood, and of keeping the letter back in order to extort a larger sum for it at some future time. But Lucia had evidently been frightened. Moreover, the woman was undoubtedly ignorant of the existence of the well under the stone, or, she would never have been so foolish as to choose such a place for hiding anything so valuable, and it was clear that she had no idea of the manner in which the package had disappeared. That it must have reached the bottom, Adele was quite sure. In that case some one had been in the dungeon before her and had picked it up, but who the some one might be she had no means of conjecturing. She hardly knew how she reached the court-yard again. It cost her a superhuman effort to walk. In the passage she met her husband. "What is the matter?" he asked, as soon as he saw her face. "I feel very ill--I wanted to breathe the air." She seemed to be gasping for breath. Francesco drew her arm through his and walked with her to her room. She was clearly not in a state in which she could think of going out. Savelli went back and explained to Ghisleri, who, if anything, was glad to escape from the monotonous drive. He got a book and shut himself up in his room to read. That evening Savelli told him that Adele was worse, and was in a state of indescribable nervous agitation. It was clearly his duty to go away, if Adele were about to be seriously ill, and he told Bonifazio to pack his things that night. If matters did not improve, he would leave on the following morning. Though Francesco was not much affected by his wife's sufferings, the dinner was anything but brilliant, for he anticipated a renewal of all the annoyance of the first few days. Moreover, if Adele was liable to sudden relapses of this kind at any moment, and without the smallest reason or warning, his life would, before long, be made a burden to him. As the husband of a permanent invalid he could hope for very little liberty or amusement. A wife may go into the world without her husband, because he is supposed to be occupied with more important affairs, but a husband who frequents parties when his wife is constantly suffering, is considered heartless in the extreme. That, at least, is society's view of the mutual obligation, and if it is not the just one, it is at least founded upon the theory of woman's convenience, as most of society's views are. Francesco was easily prevailed upon to give Adele an increased dose of chloral, in the hope that she might sleep, and consequently give him less trouble on the next day. But in this conclusion he was mistaken. She awoke in great pain, suffering, she said, from a violent headache, and so nervous that her hand trembled violently and she was hardly able to lift a cup to her lips when the nurse brought her tea. Savelli did not attempt to keep Ghisleri when the latter announced his intention of returning to town, though he pressed him to come out again, as soon as Adele should be better. The man who drove Pietro back was instructed to bring the doctor out to Gerano, with fresh horses, and especially not to forget five hundred cigarettes which Francesco wanted for himself. Ghisleri left many messages for Adele, and departed with Bonifazio, very little wiser than when he had arrived, but considerably more curious. CHAPTER XX. It was a relief to be with Laura Arden again for an hour on the day after his return, as Ghisleri felt when he was installed beside her in the chair which had come to be regarded as his. She received him just as usual, and he saw at once that if she had at all resented his visit to Adele, she was not by any means inclined to let him know it. There was a freshness and purity in the atmosphere that surrounded her which especially appealed to him after his visit to Gerano. Whatever she said she meant, and if she meant anything she took no trouble to hide it. He compared her face with her step-sister's, and the jaded, prematurely world-worn look of the one threw the calm beauty of the other into strong relief. He felt no pity for Adele. What she was, she had made herself, and if she suffered, it was as the direct and inevitable consequence of the life she had led and of the things she had done. So, at least, it seemed to him, and if he could have known the whole truth at that time, he would have seen how right he was. The ruthless logic of cause and effect had got Adele into its will and was slowly grinding her whole existence to dust. "It is strange," he said to Laura, "that you and your step-sister should be so unlike in every way. It is true that you are not related, but you were brought up in the same house, by the same people, and yet I do not believe you have a single idea in common." "No," answered Laura, "we have not. We do not like the same persons, nor the same things, nor the same thoughts. We were made to be enemies--and I suppose we are." It was the first time she had ever said so much to him, and even now there was no rancour in her tone. "If all enemies were like you, at least, this would be a very peaceful world." "You do not know me," answered Laura, with a smile. "I have a bad temper. I could tell you something about it. I once felt as though I would like to strangle a certain person, and as though I could do it. Do not imagine that I am all saint and no sinner." "I like to imagine all sorts of nice things about you," said Ghisleri. "But I could never make them nice enough." "That is just it. It would need an enormous imagination." "But I am not sure that I should like to think of you as being on very good terms with Donna Adele, and I am almost glad to hear you admit that you are enemies. There is a satisfaction in knowing that you are human, as well as in believing you to be good." "How is Adele?" Laura asked. "The last I heard was that she was much worse. She behaves in the most unaccountable way. She has the look of a woman in some very great mental distress--pursued and haunted by something very painful from which she cannot escape." "I had the same feeling about her the last time I saw her. I know that look very well. I have seen it in your face, sometimes, as well as in hers." "In mine?" Ghisleri looked keenly at her, as though to ascertain whether she meant more than she said, for the first time in his acquaintance with her. "When did I ever show you that I was in trouble?" he asked. "That was some time ago. You have changed since your illness. You used to look harassed sometimes, like a man who has a wound in the heart. Perhaps it is only something which depends on the way your eyes are made. The first time I ever noticed it was--yes, I remember very well--it was more than a year ago, that night when you spoke your poem in the Shrove Tuesday masquerade. It was not when you were talking to me. You looked perfectly diabolical then. It was later. I saw you standing alone in a doorway after a dance." "What a memory you have! I was probably in a bad humour. I generally am, even now." "Why do you say even now?" asked Laura, watching his face. "Oh, I hardly know," he answered. "All sorts of things have happened to me since then, to simplify my existence. At that time it was very particularly complicated." "And how have you simplified it?" She put the question innocently enough, and quite thoughtlessly, not even guessing at the truth. "It has been simplified for me. It came near being simplified into being no existence at all. A few inches made the difference." "Yes," said Laura, thoughtfully, "the greatest of all differences to you." "And none at all to any one else," added Ghisleri, with a dry laugh. She turned her great dark eyes upon him. The lids drooped a little as she scrutinised his face somewhat coldly, but with an odd interest. "I suppose that might be quite true," she said at last. "Perhaps it is. But I do not like you any the better for saying it in that way." Ghisleri was silent, but he met her gaze quietly and without flinching, until she looked away. She sighed a little as she took up a bit of embroidery she was doing for some garment of little Herbert's. "Why do you sigh?" he asked, not expecting that she would answer the question. "For some one," she said simply, and she began to make a few stitches. He knew that she was thinking of Maddalena dell' Armi, and his heart smote him. "I was wrong to say it," he answered, in a more gentle tone. "There was perhaps one exception to the rule." Ghisleri grew even more careful of his speech after that. But he did not see Laura often before she went away northward for the summer. The spring was going fast, and the time was coming when Rome would be its quiet old-fashioned self again for those few who loved it well enough to face the heat of July and August. Almost every one was thinking of going away. The Prince and Princess of Gerano were going out to the castle earlier than usual, for the news of Adele grew steadily worse. Francesco now had the doctor out regularly three times a week, and was forced to lead an existence he detested. His wife was by this time quite unable to get rest without taking very large quantities of chloral, and at times her sufferings were such that it seemed almost advisable to give her morphia. Every one, however, who brought intelligence from Gerano agreed in saying that she did her best to keep up, and seemed to dread the idea of an illness which might keep her permanently in her room. Whenever she felt able she insisted on driving out and on going through the regular round of monotonous country occupations. Her father and step-mother therefore determined to go out and help Francesco to take care of her, and make her existence as bearable as possible. Amongst all her friends she was spoken of with the utmost compassion, and no one ever suggested that her illness could proceed from any such cause as Ghisleri believed to be at the root of it. A few days before Laura Arden was to go away Donald came to Pietro's room in the morning, with a very grave face. Lady Herbert, he said, thought that Ghisleri would understand why she did not write, but sent Donald in person with a verbal message. She was going away, and was about to give up the apartment in which she had spent the winter, without any intention of taking it again in the following year. There were certain things that had belonged to Lord Herbert--Lady Herbert had no home and did not like to send them to Lord Lulworth--would Ghisleri take charge of them in her absence? Pietro, of course, assented, and two hours later Donald arrived with a large carriage load of boxes. Ghisleri looked on with a very unpleasant sensation in his throat as his old friend's effects were brought up stairs and deposited in a room where he kept such things of his own. When they were all piled together in a corner, he took an old green curtain and covered them with it, spreading it carefully over them with his own hands. Then he locked the door and went away. Some men and women when they die seem to leave something of life behind them, which the mere sight of anything that has belonged to them has power to recall most vividly to the perceptions of those who have known them and loved them. Ghisleri understood Laura Arden's feeling about her husband's belongings. He knew, or thought he knew, that from the moment her child had been given to her, she had desired that no material object should revive the sorrow she had felt so deeply. The memory she cherished was wholly spiritual, and upon its remaining so her peace of mind largely depended. The one Herbert was to live in the other--and there must not be two. Not every one, perhaps, would have understood her so readily. The day came for bidding her good-bye. It was with a somewhat heavy heart that he went up the stairs of her house for the last time. Much of the little happiness he had known during the past months was associated with the place and with her, and not a little of the sorrow as well. The drawing-room was bare, and had lost the comfortable, inhabited look which even a furnished lodging takes from all the little objects a woman brings to it, and which she alone knows how to dispose and arrange as though they were in constant use, thereby at once producing the impression that the habitation she has chosen has been lived in long. Once more Ghisleri sat in the familiar chair near the open window, and once more Laura took her place in the corner of the great sofa. "I have come to say good-bye," he began. "You are still decided to go to-morrow, I suppose." "Yes. I have not changed my plans. Please do not come to the station to see me off, nor send flowers, nor do any of the things which are generally done. I would rather not see any one I know after leaving this house." "May I write to you?" asked Ghisleri. "Of course. Why not?" "I do not know, I am sure. I thought it better to ask you. Some women hate correspondence except with their nearest and dearest. I will give you the news of Rome during the wild gaiety of July and August." "Are you not going away at all?" asked Laura, in some surprise. "You ought to; it will do you good." "I hardly know. I like to be alone in summer. It gives one time to think. One has a chance of leading a sensible life when nobody is here to see. The days pass pleasantly--plenty of reading, a diet of watermelon and sherbet, and a little repentance--it is magnificent treatment for the liver." Laura looked at him and then laughed very softly. "You seem amused," said Ghisleri, gravely. "What I say is quite true--the result of long experience." "I was not laughing at what you said, but at the idea that you should still think it worth while to make such speeches to me." "If I can make you laugh at all it is worth while." "At all events, it is good of you to say so. Which of the three subjects do you mean to take for your letters to me--your reading, your food, or your repentance?" "The food would be the simplest and safest topic. You can read for yourself what you please. Repentance, when it is not a habit, is rarely well done. But one can say the most charming things about strawberries, peaches, and figs, without ever offending any one's taste." "I think you grow worse as you grow older," said Laura, still smiling. "But if you would take your programme seriously, it would not be a bad thing, I fancy. Seriously, however, you ought to get away from Rome." "I should be tempted to go and stay a week near you, if I went away at all," said Ghisleri. Laura did not answer at once. She glanced at him with a vague suspicion in her eyes which disappeared almost instantly, and then took two or three stitches in her embroidery before she spoke. "I would rather you should not do that," she said at last. "I may as well tell you what I think about it. To me, and to you, it seems thoroughly absurd that you should not see me whenever we choose to meet. There are many reasons why I should look upon you as a friend, and why you should come more often than any other man I know. But the world thinks differently. My mother has spoken to me about it more than once, and in one way she is right. You know what a place this is, and how every one talks about everybody. Unfortunately, I believe that you are one of the men about whose private affairs society is most busy. I cannot help it now. I have no right to say anything about your life, past or present, but you have told me enough about yourself to make me understand why there is always gossip about you, and why there always will be. Then, too, you will never make people believe that you did not fight that duel about me, for you cannot tell any one what you told me. The consequence is, that you and I look at it all from one point of view, and the world sees it from quite another. I think it is better to say all this once, and to be done with it. As we shall not meet for several months, people will forget to talk. Am I right to speak to you?" "Perfectly right," answered Ghisleri. An expression of pain had settled on his lean face while she had been talking, and did not disappear at once. Laura saw it and was silent for a moment. "I am sorry if I have hurt you," she said presently. "Perhaps I was wrong." "No, you were quite right," Ghisleri replied. "You would have been very wrong indeed not to tell me. If you did not, who would? But I had no suspicion of all this. I believed that for once they might let me alone, considering what you are--and what I am. The contrast might protect you in the eyes of some persons. Lady Herbert Arden--and Pietro Ghisleri." He pronounced his own name with the utmost bitterness. "Please do not speak of yourself in that way," said Laura, with something like entreaty in her voice. "It is true enough," he answered. "An intelligent being might understand that I could be useful to you, but not that you--" He stopped short, and his tone changed. "I am talking nonsense," he said briefly, by way of explaining the truth. "I think you are, in a way," said Laura, quietly. "It is your old habit of exaggeration. You make me an impossible creature between an archangel and the good mamma in children's story books, and you refer to yourself as to a satanic monster whom no honest woman could call her friend. You are quite right. It is sheer nonsense. If you stay in Rome to repent, as you suggest in fun, do it in earnest. I am not talking of your sins, which are not half so bad as you pretend, but of this silly view you insist upon taking of your own life. If you must think perpetually of yourself, judge yourself by some reasonable standard. You live in the world and you have no right to expect to find that you are a saint. If that is what you wish, take vows, turn monk, and starve yourself up to heaven if you can. And if you chance to think of me, do not set me on a pedestal, and build a church over me, and pray at me. I do not like that sort of thing--it is all unnatural and absurd. I am a woman and nothing else, better than some by force of circumstances, and not so good as some others, perhaps for the same reason. All the rest that you imagine is sentimental trash, and not worth the time it takes you to think it. You will not be wasting your summer if you can get rid of it all by the time we meet in the autumn." For once in his life, Ghisleri was taken by surprise. He had not had any idea that Laura could express herself so strongly on any point, still less that she could talk so plainly about himself. He was far too manly, however, not to be pleased, and his expression changed as he listened to her. She smiled as she finished, and began to make stitches again. "No one ever gave me so much good advice in so short a time," he said, with a laugh. "You have a wonderful power of condensing your meaning. Do you often talk in that way?" "Not often. I think I never did before. Do you not think there is some sense in what I say?" "Indeed, I begin to believe that there is a great deal," Ghisleri answered. "At all events, I shall not forget it. Perhaps you will find me partially reformed when you come back. You must promise to tell me." "It will take me some time to find out. But if I succeed I will tell you." His mood had changed for the better, and he talked of Laura's plans during nearly half an hour. At last he rose to go. "Good-bye," he said, rather abruptly. She looked up quietly as she took his hand, and pressed it without affectation. "Good-bye. I wish you a very pleasant summer--and--since we are parting--I thank you with all my heart for the many kind and friendly things you have done for me." "I have done nothing. Good-bye, again." He turned and she stood looking at his retreating figure until he had disappeared through the door. "I believe there is more good in that man than any one knows," she said to herself. Then she also left the room and went to see whether little Herbert were awake, and to busy herself with the last arrangements for his comfort during the journey. Ghisleri knew that another parting was before him in the near future. As usual, Maddalena dell' Armi was going to spend a considerable part of the summer with her father in Tuscany. He went to see her tolerably often, and their relations had of late been to all appearances friendly and undisturbed. But he doubted whether the final interview before they separated for several months could pass off without some painful incident. He knew Maddalena's character well, and if he did not know his own, it was not for want of study. He almost wished that he might, on that day, choose to call at a time when some other person was present, for then, of course, there could be no show of emotion on either side, nor any words which could lead to such weakness. He went twice to the house during the week which intervened between Laura Arden's departure and the day fixed for Maddalena's, saying each time that he would come again, a promise to which the Contessa seemed indifferent enough. She would always be glad to see as much of him as possible, she said. The last day came. She was to leave for Florence on the following morning. Ghisleri rang, was admitted, and found her alone. "I knew you would come," she said, "though it is so late." "Of course. Did I not say so? I suppose you are still decided to go to-morrow." He was conscious that he was saying the very same indifferent words which he had said a few days earlier to Laura, and Maddalena answered him almost as Laura had done. "Yes. Of course you must not come to the station. That is understood, is it not?" "Since you wish it, I will certainly not come. So we are saying good-bye until next season," he continued, breaking the ice as it were, since he felt it must be broken. "I will try and not be emotional, and I ask you to believe--this once--that I am in earnest. I have something to say to you. May I? Will you listen to me? You and I cannot part with two words and a nod of the head, like common acquaintances." "I will hear all you care to say," answered Maddalena, simply. "And I will try to believe you." He looked at the pale face and the small, perfect features before he spoke, to see if they were as hard as they often were. But for the moment the expression was softened. The evening glow played softly upon the bright hair, and threw a deep, warm light into the violet eyes, as she turned towards him. "What is it?" she asked, as he seemed to hesitate. "Has anything happened? Are you going to be married?" The question shocked him in a way he could not explain. "No. I am not thinking of marrying. We have been a great deal to each other, for a long time. But for my fault--and it is, of course, my fault--we might be as much in one another's lives as ever. We used to meet in the summer, but that will not happen this year. When you come back, we may both be changed more than we think it possible to change at present." "In what way?" "I do not know. Perhaps, when we meet again, we shall feel that we are really and truly devoted friends. Perhaps you may hate me altogether--" "And you me." "No, that is not possible. I am not very sure of myself as a rule. But that, at least, I know." "I hope you are right. If you are not my friend, who should be? So you think I hate you. You are very wrong. I am still very fond of you. I told you so the other day. You should believe me. Remember, when it all ended, it was you who had changed--not I. I am not reproaching you. I might say that you should have known yourself better than to think that you could be faithful; but you might tell me--and it would be quite as just--that I, a woman, knew what I was doing and had been taught to look upon my deeds as you never could. But it was you who changed. If you had loved me, I should have loved you still. Little things showed me long ago that your love was waning. It was never what it was in those first days. And now I have changed, too. I love what was once, but if I could have your love now as it was at its strongest and best, I would not ask for it. Why should I? I could never trust it again, and anything is better than that doubt. And I want no consolation." "Indeed, I should have very little to offer you, worth your accepting," said Pietro, in a low voice. "If I needed any, the best you could give me would be what I ask,--not as consolation at all, but as something I still believe worth having from you,--and that is your honest friendship." Ghisleri was moved in spite of himself. His face grew paler and the shadows showed beneath his eyes where Maddalena had so often seen them. "You are too kind--too good," he said, in an unsteady tone. The last time he had said almost the same words had been when he made his first visit to her after his long illness. Then she had been touched, far more than he. She looked at him for a few moments and saw that he felt very strongly. "Do not distress yourself," she said gently. "Pray do not--it hurts me, too. I mean what I say. I do not believe you can be faithful in love now--to any one. You gave all you had to give long ago. But I have watched you since we became what we are now, and I will do you justice. I do not know any man who can be a more true and devoted friend. You see, I meant what I said." "If it is true--if I can be a friend to any one, I will be one to you. But that is not what I would have, if I could choose." "What would you have, then?" "What is impossible. That is what one would always like. Let us not talk of it. It does no good to wish for what is beyond wishing. I thank you for what you have said--dear. I shall not forget it. Few women could be so good as you are to me. You would have the right to be very different if you chose." "No, I should not. There are reasons--well, as you say, let us not talk about it. We have made up our minds to meet and part as we should--kindly always, lovingly as friends love, truthfully now, since there is nothing left for us to distrust." She had never spoken to him in this way in all the meetings that had followed his recovery. He wondered if there had been any real change in her nature, or whether this were not at last the assertion of her natural self. She spoke so seriously and quietly that he could not doubt her. "I have seen that you can act in that way," she continued presently. "You have done more for the sake of the mere memory of your friend than many men would do for love itself." "Not so much as I would do for the memory of love," said Ghisleri, turning his face away. "Was it so sweet as that?" she asked. "Yes." "And yet you have loved better and longer in other days." "As I was a better man," he said, finding no other answer, for he knew it was true. Maddalena sighed. Perhaps she had hoped that this last time he would say what he had never said--that he had loved her better than Bianca Corleone. "You must have been different then." She spoke a little coldly, in spite of herself. A moment later she smiled. "How foolish it is of me to think of making comparisons, now that it is all over," she said. "So you are not coming to Tuscany this summer, and I shall not see you till next autumn. Why do you not come?" "I want to be alone a long time," answered Ghisleri. "It is much better. I am bad company, and besides, I am not strong enough to wander about the world yet. I need a long rest." "It seems so strange to think of you as not being strong." "Yes--I who used to be so proud of my strength. I believe that was my greatest vanity when I was very young." "How full of contradictions you are!" Maddalena exclaimed, as she had often done before. Ghisleri said nothing, for he knew it better than she could. It was growing late, for the sun had gone down and the twilight deepened in the room. He rose to go, and took her hand as she stood up beside him. "Good-bye," he said, almost in a whisper. "May God forgive me, and bless you--always." "Good-bye--dear." He went out. It had been a strange meeting, and the parting was stranger still. Very often, throughout the long summer months which followed, Ghisleri thought of it, recalling every word and gesture of the woman who had loved him so deeply, and for whom he had nothing left but the poor friendship she was so ready to accept. But that at least he could give her, kindly, lovingly, and truthfully, as she herself had said, and he was grateful to her for asking it of him, though no kindness of hers could heal the wound he had given himself in injuring her. He thought less harshly of the world for half a year or so after that day, and began to believe that it might not be so abominable a place as he had sometimes been inclined to think it. He wrote to Maddalena from time to time, short letters, which said little, but which she was glad to receive and which she often answered in the same strain, with a small chronicle of small doings made to bear the weight of a sweeping comment now and then. Little enough of interest there was in any of those epistles, but there was a general tone in them which assured each that the other had not forgotten that last meeting. Ghisleri did not write to Laura, though he could hardly have told why, especially as he had spoken of doing so. Possibly he felt that she would not understand him through a letter as she did when they were face to face, and he feared to make a bad impression. Of Adele Savelli he had news often, through people who were in intimate correspondence with her and with her step-mother, who spent the greater part of the summer at Gerano. From all accounts she had begun to improve with the warm weather, and though she still looked ill and greatly changed from her former self, she was said to be very much better. It was commonly reported that morphia had saved her, and it was whispered that she was a slave to it in consequence. Ghisleri cared very little. He had almost given up the idea that she had been concerned in bringing on Arden's illness, and even if he sometimes still thought she had been, he saw the impossibility of going any further than he had gone already in the attempt to discover the truth. CHAPTER XXI. Before attempting to chronicle the events which were the ultimate consequences of those already described, it will be necessary to explain how it was that very little worth recording occurred during nearly three years after the day on which Pietro Ghisleri said good-bye to the Contessa dell' Armi, when she was going to make her customary visit to her father. In the natural course of things, every one returned in the following autumn, in more or less lively expectation of the season to come. Laura Arden expected nothing of it, in the way of amusement, nor did she look forward to anything of the sort in her life as possible for many seasons to come. Maddalena dell' Armi, on the other hand, expected much, and was, on the whole, disappointed. Ghisleri had grown indifferent to such a degree as to be almost unrecognizable to his friends. He went out very little, and was said to be busy with some speculation in which he was ruining himself, but of which, as a matter of fact, he had never even heard. Adele Savelli went everywhere, thin, nervous, and careworn, and apparently driven to death by the necessity for excitement. There were people who said she was going mad, and others who said she lived on morphia and that it must ultimately kill her. The division of opinions concerning the nature of her malady still existed, and the wildest stories were sent adrift at a venture down the dangerous rapids of conversation. Donna Adele had quarrelled about Laura with her father, who had disinherited her as far as he was able, and she led a life of daily torment in Casa Savelli in consequence. That was one of the tales. Then it was stated that Francesco's passion for Laura Arden had suddenly developed to heroic proportions, and that his wife was eating her heart out. Thirdly, there was a party which asserted confidently that Adele herself was in love with Pietro Ghisleri, who did not even take the trouble to go and see her more than once or twice a month. The only point upon which opinion was unanimous was Laura Arden's personal and undivided responsibility for all the evil that happened to Adele Savelli. In the first year, so long as Laura never went into the world, the reputation society had given her harmed her very little, and but for the extremely thoughtful kindness of one or two communicative friends, she might have remained in ignorance of it altogether. As it was, she was indifferent, except when she was amused by the still current accusation of possessing the evil eye. That Laura was an undoubted and dangerous jettatrice was now commonly accepted as a matter of fact. Since Ghisleri and Campodonico had fought, the men had been circumspect in their remarks, but there were few who did not make the sign when they saw her go by. If anything had been needed to prove the fact, there was the issue of the duel. The man who had taken Laura's side had nearly lost his life, though he had fought several times previously without ever receiving any serious hurt. That was proof positive. Adele's illness, too, dated almost from the day of her reconciliation with Laura, and seemed likely to end fatally. Then, almost at the same time, the Contessa had broken with Ghisleri in the most heartless way, as the world said. For the world knew something about that, too, and could have told the whole story most exactly as it had never happened, and detailed several conversations accurately which had never taken place. Poor Ghisleri! The world pitied him sincerely, and hated Laura Arden for being the evil-eyed cause of all his misfortunes. How could he still go to see her, knowing, as he must, how dangerous it was? Had she not almost killed him and Adele, as well as quite killing her husband? People who touched Laura Arden's hand would do well to shut themselves up and lie safe at home for four and twenty hours, until the power of the jettatura was past. Those black eyes of hers meant no good to any one, in spite of her inspired, nun-like looks. All these things were said, repeated, affirmed, denied, discussed, and said again in the perpetual vicious circle of gossip, while the persons most concerned lived their own lives almost altogether undisturbed by the reports affecting them. No one refused to bow to Laura Arden in the street, although she was supposed to have the power of bringing murder, pestilence, and sudden death on those who went too near her. Nobody ventured to condole with Adele Savelli upon her husband's flighty conduct, still less upon the supposed loss to her of half the Gerano estate. Nor did any one express to Ghisleri anything like sympathy for having been so abominably treated by the Contessa. Such frankness would have been reprehensible and tactless in the extreme. Adele Savelli's existence was in reality far more wretched than any one could have supposed at that time, and it was destined to be made yet more miserable before a second year had elapsed. In the spring of the year following that described in the last chapter, the Contessa Delmar surprised Ghisleri with a very startling piece of news. They were talking together in the grand stand at one of the May races. "You know I always tell you everything I hear that seems to be of any importance," she said. "We generally know what to believe. I heard a story last night which is so very odd that there may be some truth in it. As it may be nothing but a bit of mischief, I will not name the person who told me. It is said that more than a year ago, when Adele Savelli thought she was dying out at Gerano, she did not wish to confess to the parish priest, whom she had known all her life, and so she wrote out a general confession and sent it to a priest here in Rome. Is that possible, do you think?" "Such things have been done," answered Ghisleri. "I do not know what the rule is about them, but the case is possible." "I was not sure. Now they say that this confession of Adele's never reached its destination, and that a copy of it, if not the original, is in circulation in society, passing quietly from hand to hand. That is a strange story, is it not?" "A very strange story." Pietro's face was grave, for he remembered many circumstances which this tale might explain. "And what is the confession said to contain?" he asked, after a pause. "Some extraordinary revelations about Adele's social career; it is even hinted that there is something which might bring very serious consequences upon her if it were known, though what it is no one can find out. That is what I heard, and I thought it worth while to tell you. I think, so far as I am concerned, that I shall deny it. It looks improbable enough, on the face of it. One need not say that its very improbability makes one think it cannot be all an invention." "No. I think you are wise--and charitable as well. If there is any truth in it, Donna Adele will have another illness when it reaches her ears. I suppose people have not failed to say that it was Lady Herbert who had the confession stolen through a servant." "Strange to say, no one has said that yet, but they will," added Maddalena, with conviction. "Here comes Savelli--take care! Will you put fifty francs for me on the next race? Here is the note." There was no exaggeration in the Contessa's account. The story was actually in circulation, if the lost confession was not. Unlike the majority of such tales, however, this one was not openly repeated or commented upon where more than two people were present. It disappeared and reappeared in unexpected places like the river Alpheus of old, but its shape was not materially changed. It was told in whispers and under terrible oaths of secrecy, and occasionally--very rarely, indeed--the mere word "Confession," spoken in casual conversation, made people smile and look at each other. There was not even a scandalous little paragraph in any of the daily papers, referring to it. For there are moments when society can keep its secrets, strangely communicative as it is at other times. The houses of Savelli and Gerano were too important and, in a way, too powerful still, to be carelessly attacked. Indeed, society very much preferred that neither the one nor the other should be attacked at all, and behaved so carefully in this one instance, that it was very long before any one discovered that a few weeks before the rumour had been set afloat Francesco Savelli had himself summarily dismissed Adele's maid for the really serious offence of helping her mistress to procure more morphia than the doctor's orders allowed. It was longer still before any one knew that the maid's name was Lucia, and that she had immediately found a situation with Donna Maria Boccapaduli. What was never known to the public at all was that when Savelli sent her out of the house, Lucia had threatened to make certain revelations injurious to the family if he persisted, but that Francesco had not paid the slightest attention to the menace, nor even spoken of it to his wife. He was selfish, cold, and was very far from admirable as a man, but he had been brought up in good traditions, and had the instincts of a gentleman when his own comfort was not endangered by them. All Ghisleri's suspicions revived at the news Maddalena gave him. Again he took down the medical work he had consulted on the evening when the idea that Adele was in some way guilty of Arden's death had first flashed across his mind, more than a year previously. Again he read the chapter on scarlet fever carefully from beginning to end, and sat down to think over the possibilities in such a case, and once more, after several days of serious consideration, he grew sceptical, and abandoned the attempt to fathom the mystery, if mystery there were. He knew that even without that, Adele might have written many things to her confessor in confidence which, if repeated openly in the world, would do her terrible harm. He was quite sure that all the infamous slanders on Laura and her husband could ultimately be traced to Adele alone, and it was possible that the stolen document contained a full account of them, though how any sane person could be rash enough to trust such a statement to the post was beyond Ghisleri's comprehension. He did not know that Adele had hardly been responsible for her actions on that day and on many succeeding ones. He had seen, while at Gerano, that she was far from well, but she had been apparently in full possession of her senses. That she should have entrusted to paper the confession that she had wilfully and successfully attempted to make Herbert Arden catch the scarlet fever in her own house, he could not believe, though he thought it possible that the crime might have actually been committed. He saw strong reasons for thinking that the confession had either been destroyed, or had never really been shown, but that some third person had known something of its contents and had perhaps betrayed the knowledge in a fit of anger. The Contessa dell' Armi could never tell him anything further than she had communicated at the races, and she, as he knew, was intimate with many who would be acquainted with all the current gossip. Strange to say, the story neither developed nor changed; and contrary to his expectations and to Maddalena's own, no one ever suggested that Lady Herbert Arden had been instrumental in causing the confession to be stolen. The men did not talk about the story at all, or, at least, no one ever hinted at it when Ghisleri was present. Laura saw him often during that winter, though not so regularly as in the first months which had succeeded her husband's death. It was evident to Pietro that the Princess was seriously disturbed by his frequent visits to her daughter, and he willingly restricted them rather than give offence to the elderly lady. As was to be expected, he gradually became more intimate with Laura as time went on. There were strong bonds of friendship between them, and the elements of a deep sympathy. On more than one occasion each had spoken to the other the whole thoughts of the moment, as people like themselves rarely speak to more than one or two persons who come into their lives. Ghisleri felt that Laura was taking the place of everything in his existence for which he had formerly cared, and the thought of love for any woman had never been so far from him as during that year and the following summer. He began to take a pleasure in small things that concerned her, which he had rarely found in the great emotions of his former life. Occasionally, when he was in a bad temper, he sneered at himself and said that he was growing old, and was only fit to be the guardian of distressed widows and fatherless children. But in spite of such moments, he was sometimes conscious of something not unlike happiness, and he was, on the whole, far more cheerful and less discontented with himself than he had formerly been. "It is the calm before the storm," he said to Laura one day, with a laugh. "Something appalling is going to happen to me before long." "I do not believe it," she answered, confidently. "You have lived such an existence of excitement for so many years, that you cannot understand what peace means now that you have tried it. Of course if you go in search of emotions again, you will find them. They grow on every bush, and are as cheap as blackberries." Laura laughed a little, too, as she made the reply. She thought much of Ghisleri now, and she could hardly realise what her life would be without him. Little Herbert first, then her mother, then Pietro--so the three stood in their respective order when she thought of her rather lonely position in the world. For she was very lonely, even when Arden had been dead eighteen months or more. Her old acquaintances rarely came to see her, and when they did there was a constraint in their manner which told of fear, or dislike, or both. The idle tale of the evil eye which she had so heartily despised once upon a time had done its work. In the following year, when, in the natural course of events, she would have gone out occasionally in a very quiet way, she found herself almost cut off from society. Even then she did not care so much as might have been expected. But her mother was in despair. She and the Prince constantly had Laura to dine with them, and always asked at the same time two or three friends with whom she had formerly been more or less intimate. But when it became known that "to dine quite informally" meant that the person invited was to meet Laura Arden, it became very hard to find evenings when any one chanced to be free to accept an invitation to the Palazzo Braccio. Incredible as it may seem, Laura was almost ostracised. No one who has not seen the social ruin which such a reputation as hers brings with it, could believe how complete it can be. Ghisleri ground his teeth in impotent anger against the stupid and cruel superstition which possessed his fellow-citizens, and which in a year or two would inevitably drive Laura to leave Rome, as it had driven others before then. He could do nothing, for the thing was never mentioned before him, and moreover he would be far more careful now than he had ever been not to be drawn into a quarrel on Laura's account. For he was well aware that his position towards her was anomalous and might very easily be misunderstood in a society where almost all were prejudiced against her. He supposed that the world expected him to marry her when a little more time had passed, and he knew that nothing was further from his thoughts. It was at this time, just two years after Herbert Arden's death, that he began to torment himself, perhaps with better reason than in former days. Knowing as he did what might be said, and what in all likelihood was said about his friendship for Laura, the advisability of discontinuing his visits almost altogether presented itself for consideration, and would not be summarily annihilated by any specious argument. It had formerly seemed to him treacherous even to think of loving Arden's wife, though the thought had rarely crossed his mind even as the wildest hypothesis until some time after his friend had been dead and buried. It now seemed as impossible as ever to love her, but he was obliged by the commonest of common sense considerations to admit that such an affection would not imply the smallest breach of faith to Arden's memory. She was a widow, and any man who knew her had a right to love her and to ask her hand if he so pleased. That right, then, was his also, if ever he should need to avail himself of it. But it was precisely because he did not love Laura Arden that the doubt as to his own conduct arose. As he had no intention of asking her to marry him, could he and should he put her in such a position as to favour speculation in regard to her? Unquestionably he should not. But in that case, what was he to do? The old, ignoble, worldly instinct told him to create a diversion by causing gossip in other directions, where scandal would be easily manufactured, and then to procure himself the liberty of doing what he pleased behind the world's back, so to say. But to his credit it must be admitted that he did not entertain the idea for a moment. It disgusted him and he sought for a solution elsewhere, trying, in his imagination, every conceivable expedient by which he fancied that he might enjoy Laura's society without compromising her in any way. In such cases, however, it is hard to find a stratagem which shall at once satisfy the exigencies of the situation, and an honest man's conscience and sense of honour. He had long given up the custom of going to see Laura every other day, and when she was at her mother's house he was rarely invited, on account of the Princess's prejudice against him, and which no good conduct on his part seemed capable of destroying. To give up seeing Laura altogether was a sacrifice so great that he did not feel strong enough to make it; nor, perhaps, would Laura herself have understood it. Yet, unless he kept away from her for a long time, he knew that the all-wise world would continue to say that he saw her every day. The more he thought about it, the harder he found it to come to any decision. Considering the terms on which he now saw her, and that in former times they had more than once spoken of the same matter, he at last reluctantly resolved to lay the question before her, and to let her decide what he should do. He hated to ask advice of any one, and he detested even the appearance of shifting responsibility upon another. But he could see no other way. Laura found it as hard to come to a determination as he had. During the last six months he had become almost a necessary part of her life, and she would have turned to him as naturally as he now turned to her for counsel in any difficult situation. Her own character was too simple and straightforward to demand the elaborate explanations of the nature of friendship, which he required of himself; but when he put the difficulty before her she saw it plainly enough. "For myself, I am perfectly indifferent," she said at last. "I do not see why I should sacrifice anything because there are people bad enough to imagine evil where there is none. You and I need no justification of our friendship, and as I cannot see that I, at least, am much in debt to the world, it is not clear to me why I should care what it says. But I have to consider my mother." "And yourself, in spite of what you say," answered Ghisleri. "You yourself are first--your mother next." "Of course you, as a man, look at it in that light. But if it were not for my mother, do not imagine that I should take any notice of what people choose to say. They have said such vile things of me already that they can hardly invent anything worse. If it were perfectly indifferent to you, I do not say but that I might prefer to be careful." "If what were indifferent?" asked Ghisleri, who did not understand the rather enigmatic speech. "If you were quite an indifferent person to me--which you are not." Her eyes met his frankly, and she smiled as she spoke. There was not a trace of timidity or shyness in the speech. She had no reason whatever for concealing the fact that she liked him. But he, on his part, experienced an odd sensation, the meaning of which was by no means clear to him. He could not have told whether it partook more of satisfaction or of disappointment, but it was a distinct emotion of a kind which he had never expected to feel in her presence. "I am glad you like me," he said. "I should be very unhappy if you did not. I value your friendship more than anything in the world." "You have earned it if ever a man did," she answered. "It is enough that I have it. I do not know how I have deserved anything half so precious." "I know more of what you have done for me than you suppose," said Laura. "Never mind that. The facts are simple enough. We are good friends; we depend, for a certain amount of happiness, upon seeing one another often; because the world does not understand, it expects us to sacrifice our inclinations. For my part, I refuse. There is only one person to be consulted--my mother, who is dearer to me than any friend can be. I will speak to her and make her see the truth. In the mean time do nothing, and forget all this absurd complication. It is only the unreal shadow of an artificial morality which has no foundation nor true existence whatever. You know that better than I." Ghisleri laughed. "When you choose to express yourself strongly, you do not lack force," he said. "In the old days I used to fancy that if you spoke out plainly, your sentiments would take the form of a prayer, or a hymn, or something of that sort." "I am much more human than you think me," Laura answered. "I told you so once, and you would not believe me." Laura therefore took the matter into her own hands, and spoke to her mother about it. But the Princess was not easily persuaded, and when the summer came the two were still at variance. A woman like Laura's mother is hard to move when she has allowed a prejudice to take firm root in her mind, and becomes altogether obstinate when that prejudice is tolerably well founded. It was an unquestionable fact that Ghisleri had always been considered a dangerous and rather fast man, whose acquaintance did not improve a woman's reputation, and the Princess of Gerano had no means of understanding his real character. It was a constant wonder to her that Laura should like him. The excellent lady never at all realised that the blood of poor Jack Carlyon was in his daughter's veins, and that, sooner or later, it might make itself felt and produce rather unexpected results. Carlyon's chief characteristic had been his recklessness of consequences. If the Princess had remembered that, she would have understood better why Laura had married Herbert Arden in spite of his deformities, and why she made an intimate friend of Pietro Ghisleri in spite of his reputation. But Laura had never shown any subversive tendencies in childhood or early youth, and her fearless truthfulness, her rather melancholy and meditative nature when a young girl, and her really charitable heart had combined with her pale beauty and saintly eyes to make her mother suppose her infinitely more submissive, obedient, and nun-like than she actually was. After long and patient discussion Laura turned rather suddenly. "I am not a child, mother," she said. "I know Signor Ghisleri very much better than you, and better than most people can. I know enough of his past life to understand that, although he has done many foolish things and some cruel ones, he is not what I call a bad man, and he has changed very much for the better during the last two years. I will not give up his friendship for the sake of pleasing a set of people who do not even pretend to like me." "Laura, Laura, take care! You are falling in love with that man, and he is not fit to be your husband." "In love?" Laura's deep eyes flashed angrily, for the first time in her mother's recollection of her. "You do not know what you are saying, mother." The Princess sighed, and turned her face away. She attributed the extraordinary change in her daughter to Ghisleri's bad influence, and her prejudice against him increased accordingly. She could not see that the girl had developed in the course of years into a fully grown woman whose character had not turned out to be what she had expected. And Laura was very angry at the suggestion that she could possibly love Ghisleri--quite unjustifiably so, her mother considered. But here, again, the elder woman did the younger an injustice. Love was very far from Laura's thoughts just then, though her friendship for Pietro was assuming an importance it had not had before. She did not speak again for some minutes, and when she did, she spoke quietly and without any show of anger. Her tone was not hard, nor was anything she said either cutting or defiant, but the Princess felt that there was to be no appeal from the verdict. "Dearest mother," she said, "I never did anything and I never will do anything with the intention of displeasing or hurting you. But I have my own life to lead, and my own responsibilities to bear, in my own way. There are some things in which I must judge for myself, and one of them is in the matter of choosing my friends." "If you had chosen any one but that wild Ghisleri!" sighed the Princess. "A man who knew him better than either you or I can, loved him dearly, and when he was dying bade him take care of me. The promise then made has been faithfully kept. I will not shut my door to my husband's old friend, who has become mine, merely because the world is what it is--a liar, an evil speaker, and a slanderer." Laura was a little pale, and the lids drooped over her eyes as though to hide something she would not show. It was the first time she had ever spoken of Herbert Arden since her child had been born. If the world had been aware that the matter of her intimacy with Ghisleri had been under discussion, it would have been much delighted by her decision. It would really have been too unkind of Laura to deprive it of a subject of conversation full of never-flagging interest. For not a day passed without a reference to Pietro's devotion to her, and the reference was rarely made without a dash of spite and a little flavouring of social venom. Laura was not to be forgiven for having made Ghisleri prefer her company to that of a score of other women, all, in their own estimation, as good-looking as she, and infinitely more agreeable. Ghisleri himself accepted the situation, since Laura wished him to do so, though he was constantly uneasy about his own position. It seemed to him that if there were the slightest danger of giving colour to any serious slander on her name it must be his duty to disobey her and altogether discontinue his visits. And he knew also that he would naturally be the last person to hear what was common gossip. The season, however, passed on quietly enough until Lent began, bringing the period of mortification and fasting during which society uses its legs less and its tongues more. This, it may be here again said for the sake of clearness, was the Lenten season of the second year after Arden's death, and after the final break between Ghisleri and Maddalena dell' Armi. At that time several events occurred which it is necessary to chronicle in greater detail, for the better understanding of this history, and for the more complete refutation of the story which passed commonly current for some time afterwards, and which very nearly brought about the most irreparable consequences. CHAPTER XXII. During nearly a year a large number of persons had been acquainted with the story of Adele's written confession, but, as has been shown, the matter was considered so serious as to deserve secrecy--the highest social honour which can be conferred on truth. It had never reached the ears of any member of the Savelli or of the Gerano families, and but for Maddalena dell' Armi, Ghisleri himself would never have heard it. Although Adele was suffering the dire results of her evil deeds in the shape of almost incurable morphinism, the principal cause of her first fears and consequent illness no longer troubled her as it had once done. She now believed that the confession had, after all, caught upon some projection or in some crevice of the masonry in the shaft of the oubliette at Gerano, and that it would never be heard of again. It was incredible, she thought, that if any person had found it and read it, he or she should not attempt to extort a large sum of money for it. But no one appeared to demand anything. That was sufficient proof that no one possessed the document, and it must therefore have remained safely where it had fallen. Her one and only fear was lest something should happen to that part of the castle which might make repairs necessary, and possibly lead to the discovery of the letter. But that was improbable in the extreme. The massive walls had stood as they were during nearly four centuries, and did not show any signs of weakness. As for Lucia, if she ever betrayed the secret, or hinted to her present mistress that there was a secret to betray, and if any story got afloat by her agency, Adele could deny it, and her position was strong enough in the world to force most people to accept her denial. She almost laughed at the idea. The principal statement contained in the confession would seem almost grotesque in its improbability. She knew very well that if she ever heard such an action imputed to her worst enemy she would not believe it; she would not even take the trouble to repeat it, because nothing was more foolish than to get the reputation of telling incredible tales. She was quite sure of this, for when she mentally tried the position she found that she could not have given credence to such a legend even if any one had accused Laura Arden of having done the deed. And as she hated Laura with a whole-hearted hatred that did not hesitate at trifles, she considered the argument to be conclusive. Her hatred grew as the fatal effects of the morphia began to unsettle her brain and disturb the strong power of self-control which had borne her through so many dangers. The necessity for keeping up an outward show of good relations with her step-sister on pain of the severest financial punishment if she angered her father, irritated her extremely. She was well aware that, in spite of the reconciliation and of her own behaviour, the world still chose to believe most of the things she had formerly said of Laura, and that the latter's position was anything but enviable. Nevertheless, Laura seemed to survive very well, and in Adele's opinion had obtained far more than her share of good things. That she had really suffered terribly, in her own way, by the death of her husband, none knew better than Adele, and that, at least, was a satisfaction. But in other ways she was singularly fortunate. Her little boy was as sturdy and strong and sound as any mother could have wished; for deformity which is the result of accident is not inherited. Moreover, there seemed to be little doubt but that the uncle from whom Arden had expected a large fortune would now leave his money to little Herbert. Laura was, of course, decidedly poor at present, judging from Adele's point of view, but in the life she led she needed very little money, and what she had sufficed for her wants. She was evidently quite contented. Then, as though the rest were not enough, she had what Adele called a monopoly of Pietro Ghisleri, who acted as though he intended to marry her, and whom she received as though she meant to accept him. As Laura Arden, society could treat her as it pleased, but as Ghisleri's wife, society would not only open its arms to her, but would in all likelihood espouse her cause in any future difference or difficulty. Ghisleri would know how to assure her position, and would have no difficulty in making her respected, for he was a most particularly unpleasant person to quarrel with and it was not every one who had Campodonico's luck. Of course, there might yet be time to prevent the marriage, and Adele rashly resolved that if that were possible she would accomplish it. Of late she had begun to include Ghisleri in her hatred of Laura, having finally given up the attempt to attract him into her immediate circle. He was always the same with her, and never, in the course of years, had seemed willing to advance beyond the limits of ordinary and friendly acquaintance, though she had often tried to draw him further. The ordinary methods failed with him. He could not be tempted into making confidences, which step is one of the first and perhaps the most important in the ordinary, business-like flirtation. He was apparently indifferent to praise as he was to blame, except from one or two persons. He never had an enemy, to ruin whom he needed a woman's help--a short method of reaching intimacy which is not to be despised in dealing with refined bad people. Least of all, was he a man who could be led to compromise himself in a woman's eyes in such a way as to consider it his duty to make love to her. Adele had tried all these approved ways of beginning a serious flirtation with Pietro, but had failed each time, and it enraged her to see that Laura could keep him without any stratagem at all, by sheer force of attraction. For she had no belief at all in their platonic friendship. One or the other, or both, must be in love, for the very simple and well-known reason that a permanent close friendship between man and woman within certain limits of age was an utter impossibility. Laura was perhaps too foolish to realise the fact, but Ghisleri was certainly not the man to forget it. She disliked him because she had not been able to attract him herself, and she hated him for being attracted by Laura. She now made up her mind that unless she could ruin him in Laura's estimation, the marriage could not be prevented, and she began to revolve the chances for accomplishing her purpose. Her intelligence was not what it had been, for it was subject now to fits of abnormal activity and to a subsequent reaction, in which she was not always perfectly well aware of what was going on around her. In the one state she was rash, over-excited, nervous; in the other she was dull and apathetic, and lost herself in hazy dreams of a rather disconnected character. The consequence was that she found it very hard to hit upon any consecutive plan which presented even the faintest hope of success. Several times she was on the point of doing something very foolish, when she had almost lost control of herself, and she was only saved by the long habit of worldly tact which would probably survive all her other faculties if they were wrecked by the habit which was killing her. But she grew distrustful of herself and of her powers, and a new suffering was added to the many she already had to bear, as she gradually became conscious of the terrible change in herself. She tried to find out all she could about Pietro Ghisleri. At that time all Rome was going mad about making money by speculation, and all sorts of dishonest transactions necessarily went on under cover of greater ones honest in themselves. Adele did her best to ascertain whether Ghisleri were connected with any of them, or with any affair whatever of a nature which could be criticised. But she failed altogether. He looked on at the general rush for money with perfect indifference, and was quite content with the little he already possessed. It struck Adele that a card scandal would do him as much harm as anything, and she made inquiries as to his fondness for play, but was informed that he rarely played at all, and generally lost a little if he did. He was hard to catch. So far as she could learn, he had changed his mode of life very considerably during the past two years. It was quite certain that he had definitely broken with Maddalena dell' Armi, though no one was really sure of the exact date at which the rupture had taken place. They were both clever people who kept their secrets to themselves on the simple plan that, if a thing is not to be known, it should not be told. Laura was the only other woman whom he visited regularly, and his doings were far too well known to make it possible to float a scandal about him in connexion with some one else, which should reach Laura's ears. Besides, Laura would not care. She was quite capable of not taking the slightest notice, just as in former times she had not cared whether he saw Maddalena every day or not. All she wanted, thought Adele, was that Ghisleri should be at her feet--and there he was. At last she hit upon the rather wild plan of asking Ghisleri himself what she had better do. There was something diabolical in the idea of taking his own advice in order to ruin him, which appealed to her in the present state of her brain and nerves. They often met in society, and she caught sight of him that very night at a Lenten party in Casa Montevarchi--one of the last ever given in that house, by the by, for the family was ruined soon afterwards. She followed him in the crowd and touched his shoulder with her fan. "Will you give me your arm?" she asked. "Thanks. I want to sit down somewhere. There is a sofa over there." "You still come to these talking matches, I see," said Ghisleri, as they sat down. "It must be for the sake of saying something interesting, for it can certainly not be in the hope of hearing anything of the kind." "You can still make sharp speeches," laughed Adele. "I thought my step-sister had converted you, and that you were turning into a sort of Saint Propriety." "Oh, you thought so," said Pietro, coolly. "Well, you see you were mistaken. There is as little of propriety about me as usual, or of saintship either." He looked at the worn and dilapidated features of the woman beside him, at her hollow cheeks and lustreless eyes, and he almost pitied her. He wondered how she had the courage to keep up the comedy and to face the world as she did, night after night, old before her youth was half over, ugly when she had been pretty but two years earlier, weary always, and haunted by the shadow of the poison to which she was a slave. "You need not be angry," she answered. "I did not mean anything disagreeable. I wish you would say more sharp things, it is refreshing to hear a man talk after listening to a pack of little boys." "Why do you listen to them?" "They amuse me for five minutes, and when I have tolerated them as long as that I cannot get rid of them. Then I begin to long for a little serious talk with a man like you--a man one can ask a question of with the hope of getting a reasonable answer." "You are very good to put it in that way," said Ghisleri. "Have you any particular question to ask me now? I will be as intensely reasonable as I can in my reply, on condition that it is a thing of which I know nothing whatever." "What an extraordinary restriction!" exclaimed Adele. "Not at all. If I should know anything about the matter in hand it would be sure to be so little that it would confuse me and hamper the free working of my imagination, which might otherwise produce interesting and even startling effects. You may have heard that a little knowledge is dangerous. That is the meaning of the proverb." "I knew I should get something original from you. You always say something which no one else would." "And you always discover in me some new and beautiful quality which had escaped my notice," answered Ghisleri. "Is it with a view to getting some particular sort of answer to the question you meditate, that you flatter me so nicely before asking it?" "Of course," laughed Adele. "What did you expect? But I do not think you would answer the question at all. You would give me a dissertation on something else and then go away and leave me to be torn to pieces by the little boys again." "What an awful death!" laughed Ghisleri. "I will not leave you. I will protect you against whole legions of little boys." "You look as if you could. You are quite as strong as ever now, are you not? You never feel any pain from your wound?" "Never," answered Pietro, indifferently. "Was that the grave question to which you wanted a serious and well-considered reply?" "Do not be absurd!" cried Adele, with a laugh. "One has to make civil inquiries of that kind sometimes. It is a social duty. Even if I hated you I should ask if you were well." "Of course. The old-fashioned poisoners in the middle ages did that. It was of no use to waste expensive poison on a man who was ill and might die without it. They practised economy." "What a horrible idea!" exclaimed Adele, shuddering. "Horrible ideas were the fashion then," pursued Ghisleri. "I have thought a great deal about those times since you showed me those interesting places at Gerano, nearly two years ago. The modern publisher of primers would have made his fortune under the Borgia domination. Fancy the titles: 'Every man his own executioner, a practical guide for headsmen, torturers and poisoners, by a member of the profession (diploma) with notes, diagrams, and a special table of measurements and instructions for using the patent German rack, etc.' Does not that sound wildly interesting? They would have had it on the drawing-room table in every castle. It would have been a splendid book for hawkers. Gerano made me think of it." Adele laughed in rather a forced way, and her eyes moved uneasily, glancing quickly in one direction and another. "You would have been a dreadful person in those times, I am quite sure," she said. "You would have been a monster of cruelty." "Of course I should. So should we all. But we manage those little things so easily now, and so much more tastefully." "Exactly," said Adele, who saw her chance and an opportunity of turning the conversation at the same time. "I would like your views upon modern social warfare. If you wished to ruin your enemy, how would you go about it?" "A man or a woman?" asked Ghisleri, calmly. "Oh, both. A man first. It is always harder to injure a man than a woman, is it not?" "So they say. Do you wish to kill the man or to ruin him altogether, or only to injure him in the eyes of the world?" "Take the three in the other order," suggested Adele. "A mere injury first--and the rest afterwards." "Very well. I have something very neat in the killing line--to use the shopkeeper style. I will keep it to the end. Let me see. You wish to do a man a great injury--enough, say, to make a woman who loves him turn upon him. Is that it?" "Yes, that would do very well," said Adele, as though she were discussing the fashion of a new frock. "If you happen to be a good hand at forgery," answered Ghisleri, with perfect equanimity, "write a number of letters purporting to be from him to another woman. Put anything you like into them, take them to the woman who loves him, and ask a large sum for them. She will probably pay it and leave him. You will accomplish your object and earn money at the same time. If you cannot forge his handwriting, forge that of an imaginary woman--that is easy enough--and follow the same course as before. It is almost sure to succeed." "What a surpassingly diabolical scheme!" exclaimed Adele, with a laugh. "Yes, I flatter myself it is not bad. Of course you can make the matter public if only you are sure of the forgery being good, or of an imaginary woman being forthcoming at the right moment. But, on the whole, the finest way of ruining a man before the world is to steal his money. No reputation can stand poverty and slander at the same time." "But it is not always easy to steal a man's money," objected Adele. "Oh, yes, unless a man is very rich. Bring a suit against his title, and if he fights it, the lawyers will eat up all he has. Then you can play the magnanimous part and say that you give up the suit out of pity for him. That is very pretty, too. But the prettiest of all is the new way of killing people, because nobody can possibly find you out." "What do you make them die of?" asked Adele nervously. "Cholera--typhus--fever, almost anything you please. It is a convenient way because the epidemic of the day is generally the most ready to hand. What did you say? I beg your pardon, I thought you spoke. Yes, it is delightful, and in most cases I believe it is almost sure to succeed. I dined with Gouache last night, and Professor Wüsterschinder, the great German authority on cutting up live rabbits, you know, was there. A charming man--speaks French like a human being, and understands Italian well. I liked him very much. The conversation turned upon murder. You know Gouache has a taste for horrors, being the gentlest and kindest of men. The professor told a long story of a doctor who murdered the father, mother, and aunt of a girl whom none of the three would let him marry. He did it in the course of medical treatment, with three different vegetable poisons--masterly, the professor said. There was an inquiry and they dug everybody up again, and all that sort of thing, but no one could positively prove anything and the doctor married the girl after all." "You seem full of horrors this evening," said Adele, moving one shoulder in a restless, jerking way which was becoming a habit. "I always am," answered Ghisleri, turning his cold blue eyes on her. "I know the most horrible things and am always just on the point of saying them." "Please do not!" exclaimed Adele, shrinking away from him into the corner of the sofa, almost in physical fear of him now. "I was telling you about the cholera trick, or I was going to tell you. The other story was only the prelude. After giving it to us with a number of details I have forgotten, Professor Wüsterschinder launched out about the wonders of science, as those men always do, and positively made me uncomfortable with the numbers of unfortunate rabbits and puppies he cut to shreds in his conversation. Then he came to the point and began to explain how easy it is to murder people by natural means like typhus. It is done by taking the--good Heavens, Donna Adele, what is the matter!" Adele had uttered a short, low cry, and her face had turned very white. Her lips were contorted in an expression of anguish such as Pietro had never seen, and her fingers were twisting together as though they would break. "Can I do anything?" he asked, anxiously. He feared she was going to be seized by some kind of convulsion, but the woman's strong will helped her even then. "Hold my fan before my arm," she managed to say, and she felt for something in her pocket with her right hand. In a moment she produced a tiny syringe with a point like a needle, and a little bottle. With incredible quickness and skill she filled the syringe, pricked the skin on her left arm, and ran the point into it, and then pressed the tiny piston slowly till it would go no further. In little more than one minute she had put everything into her pocket again, and taking her fan from Ghisleri's hand, leaned back in the corner of the sofa, with a sigh of relief. "I am afraid I made you nervous," he said, in a tone of apology. "Not at all," she answered. "I had forgotten to take my morphia before coming--that was all. I suffer terribly with pains in my head when I do not take it." "And is the pain gone already?" asked Ghisleri, in some surprise, and wondering how she would answer. "Oh, no! But it will be gone very soon. I am quieter when I know I have taken the morphia. Of course," she said, with a forced laugh, "you must not suppose that I take it often, not even every day. I believe it is very bad in large quantities." "Of course." Ghisleri could hardly help smiling at the poor attempt to disclaim any slavery to the fatal drug, contradicting, as it did, what she had said but a moment before. For the third time since Arden's death the conviction came upon him that Adele had been the responsible cause of it, and this time it was destined to be permanent. The theory of coincidence was exhausted, and he abandoned it. The stories he had told her about Professor Wüsterschinder, the great German authority, were quite true, and Ghisleri's eyes had been opened on the previous evening to the possibilities of evil disclosed by modern science. He was not yet sure of what Adele had done, but he was convinced that the general nature of the process she had employed to communicate the fever to Arden was similar to those which the professor had described, and that she must, in all probability, have got the necessary information from a scientific book or article on the subject, which she had either procured expressly, or which had perhaps fallen under her eyes by chance. She, on her part, had been desperately frightened, as she had good cause to be, for it was almost inconceivable to her that he could have accidentally gone so near the mark as he was going when her cry had stopped him. She felt that if he had pronounced the next half a dozen words, she must have gone mad there and then in the drawing-room where she sat, and she had instinctively prevented him proceeding any further. Then in the convulsion of terror she felt, she had resorted to her sole comforter, the morphia, and it had not played her false. In a short time its influence was at work and indeed the mere act of taking it was in itself soothing in the extreme. She felt herself growing calm again and more able to face the new difficulties and terrors that had arisen in her path. And they were many. She had no doubt now that Ghisleri had either read the lost confession or had spoken with some one who had. It was appalling to think that in that very room there might be a score of persons who knew what that letter contained as well as he. The morphia helped her wonderfully. But it was clear that Ghisleri had her in his power. An idea flashed across her mind. It was so simple that she wondered how she had not thought of it before. The letter had really fallen to the bottom of the shaft. Ghisleri, interested perhaps in the story of Paolo Braccio, had strolled down to the dungeon again by himself and had seen the paper lying there. In that case he alone knew of its existence or of its contents, besides herself and Lucia. The thought was so agreeable, compared with the alternative of supposing that all society knew the details of her evil deeds, that she clung to it. Then she looked at the man who, as she supposed, had power to dispose of her existence at his pleasure, and she wondered whether he had a price. All men had, she had heard. But as it seemed to her now, this particular man would not be like the generality, or else the price he would set on her letter would be of the kind which she could not possibly pay, because she would never be able to obtain for him what he might want. The feeling she had known in the first months of her torment returned upon her now, and very strongly--the awful feeling of degradation compared even with the worst of the people she knew. In her eyes, Ghisleri, with all his misdeeds, seemed a being of superior purity and goodness. He had never done what she had done, nor anything approaching to it in the most distant way. He had faced men in fair fight, and hurt them, and been almost mortally hurt himself, but he had never stabbed an enemy in the back nor dealt a blow in the dark. He had loved more than one woman, and had been loved in return, but no one had ever hinted that a woman's confidence had passed his lips, nor that he had ever spoken lightly of any woman's good name. If he had done evil, he had done it fairly, defiantly, above board, and in the light of day. Adele envied him with all her heart as he sat there beside her, confident in his own honourable reputation--as honour is reckoned in the world--and free to go and to come and to do what seemed good in his own eyes without a second thought of the consequences or the least fear of betraying himself. There was not at that moment one person in the room with whom she would not have been only too glad to exchange places, station, fortune, name, reputation--everything. And she fancied Ghisleri knew it, as indeed he almost did, and she feared to meet his eyes. The silence had lasted so long that it was fast becoming awkward. It was rarely indeed that Ghisleri forgot the social duty of destroying silence ruthlessly the moment it appears, with any weapon which comes to hand, from a feather to a bombshell. But on the present occasion his thoughts were so many and so complex as to fill his mind completely for a few minutes, so that all outward considerations sank into insignificance. The effort was made at last by Adele, the one of the two who had by far the most at stake in playing her part. "Are you aware," she began, with an attempt at playfulness which was almost weird, "that you have not spoken a single word during the last quarter of an hour? Have you quite forgotten my existence? My dear friend, you are growing almost rude in your old age!" "Good manners were never anything but an affectation with me," answered Ghisleri. "But you are quite right. There are little conventions of that sort which must be respected if society is to keep together and hold up its head--though why it should not lay down that same head and let itself go to pieces is beyond my comprehension. Present company is always excepted, you know--so you and I would survive as glorious and immortal relics of a by-gone civilisation." He hardly knew what he was saying, but he let the words run on with the easy habit of talking and saying nothing which sometimes saves critical situations for those who possess it and which can be acquired by almost any one who is not shy. The first step in studying that useful accomplishment is to talk when everybody else is talking, and not to pay the slightest attention to the sounds which pass one's lips. Any noise will do, bad or good--as the bearer of the good news to Aix put it--only, if possible, from the first let the noise take the shape of words. As every one else is talking, no one will hear you. Some of Mother Goose's rhymes are excellent for such practice, but those who prefer to recite the Eton grammar will obtain a result quite as satisfactory in the end. No one listens, and it makes no difference. You will then get a reputation for joining cheerfully in the talk of the day. But if you sit looking at your plate because you have nothing to say, the givers of dinner parties will curse you in their hearts, and will rarely ask you to eat their food, which treatment, though it will ultimately prolong your life, will not contribute to your social success. Gradually, if you practise the system assiduously, you will be able to walk alone, so to say. By attraction, your unconscious phrases will become exactly like those of your neighbours. You will then only need to open your mouth, stretch the vocal chords, and supply the necessary breath, and admirably constructed inanities will roll out, even when everybody is listening, and while you are gaining time to select in your mind a sufficiently cutting epithet with which to adorn your friend Smith Tompkins's name when it is mentioned, or while you are nicely calculating the exact amount of money you can ask the said Smith Tompkins to lend you the next time you have lost at baccarat. CHAPTER XXIII. The state of certainty in regard to Adele's doings, at which Ghisleri had now arrived, seemed to make any action in the matter useless if not practically impossible. He ascertained without difficulty the law concerning such attempts to do bodily injury as he was quite sure she had made. The crime was homicide when the attempt led to fatal results. There was no doubt of that. On the other hand, even if it should seem advisable to bring Adele to justice, and to involve both the Savelli and Gerano families in an affair which would socially ruin them for at least one whole generation, in case Adele were convicted, yet the positive proofs would be very hard to produce, and the ultimate good to be gained would be infinitesimally small compared with the injury done to innocent persons. The best course was to maintain the most absolute secrecy and to discourage as far as possible any allusions others might make to the mystery of the lost letter. Ghisleri, too, understood human nature far too well to suppose that Adele had in the first instance desired or expected to kill Herbert Arden. She had most probably only meant to cause Laura the greatest possible anxiety and trouble by bringing a dangerous illness upon her husband. Scarlet fever, as is well known, is not often fatal to adults in Italy, and such cases as Arden's in which death ensues within eight and forty hours, are so rare as to be phenomenal in any part of the world. But Ghisleri had found them described in the book he chanced to possess, under the head of "rudimentary cases ending fatally"--and it was there stated that they were the consequence of "a very violent infection." Adele, in practising some one of the methods of fever-poisoning which the great professor had described so vividly at Gouache's, had of course not known exactly what result she was about to produce. She had assuredly not foreseen that Arden would die, and had very probably not even believed that he would really take the fever at all. As for the wish to do harm, Pietro explained that naturally enough. He knew that the dinner of reconciliation must have been brought about by the Prince of Gerano, and he guessed that in the interview between the father and the daughter Adele had been deeply humiliated by being forced to yield and by the necessity of openly retracting what she had said of Arden and Laura. In a woman whose impulses were naturally bad, and whose mind had never been very well balanced, it was not very hard to explain how the idea had presented itself, if chance had at that moment thrown the necessary information into her way. The whole story was now sufficiently connected from first to last, and Ghisleri, as he thought over it, saw how all the details he remembered confirmed the theory. He recollected the doctor's remarks about the case, and how surprised he had been by its extraordinary violence. He recalled vividly all that he had heard of Adele's behaviour immediately after the dinner party, and his own impression of her appearance when he had met her in the street and had recommended her a soporific, was extremely distinct, as well as her behaviour whenever, in the course of the past two years, he had said anything intentionally, or not, which she could construe as referring to her crime. The chain was complete from the beginning to the end and her present dangerous state was the direct consequence of the very first slander she had cast on Laura Arden. What Ghisleri felt when he was fully persuaded that Adele Savelli had brought about the death of his best friend, is not easily described. In natures like his, the desire for vengeance is very strong--strongest when most justified. The instinct which demands life for life is always present somewhere in the natural human heart and, on the whole, the great body of human opinion has in most ages approved it and given it shape in law--or sanction, where laws have been or still are rudimentary. Ghisleri was not therefore either unusually cruel or bloodthirsty in wishing that Adele might expiate her crime to the full. But in this case, even if capital punishment had not been abolished in Italy, the law would not have applied it, and personal revenge without the law's assistance being out of the question in the nineteenth century, Pietro could hardly have invented a worse fate than actually awaited his friend's murderess. There was a grand logic, as it seemed to him, in the implacable retribution which was pursuing and must before long overtake Adele Savelli. He could enjoy the whole satisfaction of the most complete vengeance without so much as raising a finger to hasten it. That was the first result of his cogitations, and he was very well pleased with it. He bought books containing accounts of morphinism and calmly tried to calculate how long Adele had to live, what precise phenomena her end would exhibit, and to decide whether she would lose her mind altogether before the physical consumption of the tissues destroyed her body. But before long he became disgusted with himself, for he was not cruel by nature, though capable of doing very cruel things under the influence of passion. It was probably not from any inherent nobility of character, but rather out of the commonest pity combined with a rather uncommon though material refinement of taste, that he at last turned from his study and contemplation of Adele's sufferings and resolutely put her and them out of his mind. "Heaven can do with her what it pleases. I will think no more about it," he said to himself one day, and the saying was profoundly characteristic of the man. He had never been an unbeliever since the last years of his boyhood, when, like many boys in our times, he had already fancied himself a man, and had thought it manly to believe in nothing. But such a state of mind was not really natural to him, nor even possible for any length of time. Of his intimate convictions he never spoke, for they concerned no one, and no one had a right to judge him. But that he really had certain convictions no one who knew him well could doubt, and on certain occasions they undeniably guided his actions. Laura Arden had not heard even the faintest hint about the lost letter, and it became one of Ghisleri's principal occupations to keep the story from her. She was, of course, not in the way of hearing it unless some unusually indiscreet person should take pains to acquaint her with it; but such people are unfortunately not uncommon, and Pietro knew that at any moment Laura might hear something which would make her look at her husband's death in a new light. The shock would be terrible, he knew, and he did not like to think of it. He little suspected that when the story reached her ears it would be so distorted as to convey a very different meaning to her, nor did he guess the part he himself was to play in what followed. A month and more passed away without any incident of importance. He saw Laura constantly and met Adele occasionally in society. The latter always greeted him with a great affectation of cordiality, but evidently avoided conversing with him alone. Her expression when she looked at him was invariably smiling, but the eyes which had grown so strange under the daily influence of the poison had something in them on the rare occasions when they met his that might have warned him had he suspected danger. But he anticipated nothing of that sort for himself. He supposed rather that she felt herself to be in his power and feared him, so that she would carefully avoid doing anything which might provoke him. But in this he was very much mistaken. He neither knew that she believed her lost letter to be in a safe place, where no one could find it and where it must ultimately turn to dust, nor realised how far her mind was already unbalanced. Still less did he understand all the causes for which she so sincerely hated him. Even had he felt that she was an active adversary, he would have undervalued her power to do him harm. Adele meditated her last stroke a long time. Though Ghisleri had frightened her terribly during the conversation she had herself asked for on that memorable evening in Casa Montevarchi, he had also suggested the very idea of which she had long been in search. She turned it over, twisted it, so to say, into every possible shape, and at last reached a definite plan. There was already something of madness in the scheme she ultimately adopted, and which she carried out with an ingenuity and secrecy almost beyond belief. Laura Arden was surprised one morning by receiving a letter addressed to her in an unknown handwriting, which she at once judged to be that of a woman, though it was small, cramped, and irregular. "Madam," the letter began, "I apply to your well-known charitable heart in the greatest conceivable distress. My husband, who was for a long time in the service of one of the noblest Roman families as a clerk in the steward's office, lost his position in the ruin which has lately overtaken that most excellent house. He walks the streets from sunrise to sunset in search of employment, and returns at night to contemplate the spectacle of misery afforded him by his starving family. Misery is upon us, and there is no bread, nor even the commonest food, such as day labourers eat, with which to quiet the piteous cries of our children." There followed much more to the same effect. The style was quite that of a woman of the class to which the writer claimed to belong, and the appeal for help, though couched in rather flowery language, had a ring of truth in it which touched Laura's heart. It had, indeed, been copied, with a few alterations, from a genuine letter which Adele Savelli had chanced to receive. The concluding sentences stated that the applicant, "who had never known poverty before was ashamed, for her husband's sake, to give the name which had so long been respectable. If Lady Herbert Arden was moved to pity and would give anything--the very smallest charity--would she put it into an envelope and send it to 'Maria B.' addressed to the general post-office?" Laura hesitated a moment, and then slipped a five franc note with her card into an envelope and addressed it as requested in the letter. On the next day but one she received a second, full of gratitude, and expressing the most humble and sincere thanks for the money, but not asking for anything more. This also was copied from a genuine communication, and the style was unmistakably the same. Adele had answered the first by sending a larger sum than Laura had given, in order that the reply might be relatively effusive. A week passed, and Laura heard no more from Maria B., and had almost forgotten the incident when a third letter came, imploring further assistance. Laura was far from rich, and gave all she could in the way of charity to such poor people as she considered to have an especial claim upon her consideration. On this occasion, therefore, she made no reply. This was exactly what Adele expected, and suited her plan admirably. After a sufficient time had elapsed to make it quite plain that Laura did not intend to answer the second appeal, another communication came through the post. The tone this time, was, if possible, more humble and piteous than before. After enumerating and discanting upon the horrible sufferings the family underwent, and declaring that unless some charitable Christian would give assistance in some shape, even were it but a loaf of bread, the whole household must inevitably perish, and after adding that father, mother, and all four children--the latter of tender age--expected to be turned into the street by a hard-hearted landlord, Maria B. made a distinct proposition. Contemptible as it must appear in the eyes of a great and rich English lady to take advantage of having discovered a secret in order to beg a charity, necessity knows no law. The ex-clerk was in possession of certain letters written by a near connexion of Lady Herbert's to a person with whom the latter was intimately acquainted, and whom, it was commonly reported, she was about to marry. These letters, five in number, referred to a transaction of a very peculiar nature, which it would be advisable not to make public, for the sake of the persons concerned. It was very far from Maria B.'s thoughts to degrade herself by setting a price upon the documents. If Lady Herbert cared to possess them they should be hers, and any small reward she might be willing to give would be humbly and thankfully accepted. In order that she might judge of the nature of the letters in question, Maria B. enclosed a copy of the one last written before the transaction alluded to had been concluded. Lady Herbert would be able to understand the names from the initials used by the copyist. Laura, even then, did not suspect in the least what she was about to find. She unfolded the separate sheet which had dropped from the letter when she had opened it, and began to read with an expression of curiosity and some amusement. "MY DEAR G.:--Of course I understand your position perfectly and I have known you long enough to be sure that you will take every advantage of it, short of doing me an open injury, which would hardly be for your own good. I know perfectly well, also, where you found the paper at Gerano, for I went to the spot myself to look for it, and it was gone. You had been there before me--by chance, no doubt, since you could not possibly guess that there was anything there worth finding. It is quite clear that if you really circulate that letter among our mutual friends, you will subject me to the ridicule of all Rome and to an amount of humiliation which I am not prepared to endure. You see I am quite willing to come to terms. But I think your demand is really out of all proportion to the circumstances. A hundred thousand francs for a miserable scrap of paper! Absurd, my friend. You are not the accomplished scoundrel I took you for if you suppose that I will pay that. Fifty thousand is the most I can possibly offer you. If you are satisfied with that, wear a gardenia in your coat to-night at the Frangipani dance. As for my behaviour in public, you need not warn me. I can keep my countenance almost as well as you. A.S." The letter dropped from Laura's hands before she had read to the end. An instant later she took it up again and tore it to the smallest shreds. She had heard of cases of blackmail, but never of anything so infamous as this. She did not hesitate long, but wrote within the hour a few lines to Maria B. in which she warned the latter not to dare to proceed with her abominable fraud, and rather rashly threatened her with the law if she attempted anything further of the same kind. As for speaking to Ghisleri about it, the idea never crossed her thoughts. Again three days passed. Then, one morning, the post brought a large and rather bulky letter, registered and addressed in a round, ornate, clerk's hand. Adele had got the address written at the post-office on pretence that her own handwriting was not legible enough. Laura supposed that the missive contained a business communication from her banker, and opened it without the least suspicion. It contained three greyish-blue envelopes of the paper now very commonly used for daily correspondence. All three were opened in a peculiar way, and precisely as Laura had more than once seen Ghisleri open a letter in her presence. He had a habit of tearing off a very thin strip along one edge, with so much neatness as almost to give the paper the appearance of having been cut with a sharp instrument. All three were addressed to him, moreover, in Adele Savelli's handwriting, without any attempt at disguise. Laura held them in her hand, turned them over, and saw the tiny prince's coronet over a single initial which Adele had used for years. There was no mistaking the authenticity of everything about the envelopes. Laura's heart stood still. There was no word of explanation from her former correspondent, but Laura recollected that the latter had said that the letters were five in number, whereas these were only three. It was clear that the remaining two had been kept back as a tacit threat in case the request for money were not complied with. Laura's first impulse was to treat them as she had treated the copy Maria B. had at first sent her, and to tear them into minute shreds, without so much as glancing at the contents. But a moment's reflection made her change her mind. She slipped them all back into the large envelope and locked them up in the drawer of her writing-table, putting the key into her pocket. Then she wrote a note to Ghisleri, asking him to come and see her as soon as possible, and despatched Donald with it immediately. She sat down to wait, strangely affected by what had happened. It is hardly to be wondered at, if the whole thing seemed inexplicable. Even at first she could not suspect Pietro Ghisleri. She would hardly have believed him capable of such an action as he was accused of had she seen him write the letters to which these of Adele were supposed to be answers. And yet those answers were there in the drawer, within reach of her hand. She had not the slightest doubt but that the original of which she had already seen a copy was amongst them. She could take it out and read it if she pleased. It was damning evidence--but she would not have believed in Ghisleri's guilt for twice as much proof as that. The one thing she was forced to admit was that Adele had really written the letters, though when, or for what purpose, or in what connexion, she could not guess. The whole thing might turn out to be some Carnival jest carried on by correspondence, and of which she had never heard. That was the only explanation she could find, as she waited for Pietro Ghisleri. He came within the hour. "Has anything happened?" he asked, as he took her hand. "I thought there was something anxious about your note." "Something very strange has happened," she answered, looking into his bright blue eyes, and acknowledging for the hundredth time that she would believe him in spite of any testimony to the contrary. "Sit down," she said. "I have something to give you which seems to belong to you. I will tell you the story afterwards." She opened the drawer again and handed him the envelope. He looked at it in surprise. "Am I to read what is inside?" he asked. "See for yourself." He took out the letters and looked at them as he had first looked at the outer address. Then, realising that they were addressed to himself, his expression changed. He recollected Adele's handwriting though she had rarely written to him anything more than an invitation, and he knew the paper on which she wrote. But where or when he had received these particular ones, or how they had got into Laura's hands, was a mystery. "What are they?" he asked. "Are they old invitations? Why have they been sent to you?" "I believe them to be forgeries," said Laura, "or else that they refer to some standing jest you and she once may have kept up for a time. I have not read them, but I have read a copy of one of them which was sent me, and I know what they are about. I will tell you the whole story afterwards. See for yourself, as I said before." Ghisleri drew out the first sheet. "If they are forgeries, they are very cleverly done," he said, with a laugh. "The person has even imitated my way of opening a letter." His face grew very grave, as Laura watched it while he was reading, and his brow knit together angrily. He read the second and the third, and she could see his anger rising visibly in his eyes as he silently looked at her each time he had finished one of them. When he had reached the end of the last he did not speak for some moments. "Did you say that you knew what these letters were about?" he asked at length, in a steady, cold voice. "I think so. I read a copy of one of them almost without knowing what I was doing. Adele pretends that you are trying to get money from her for a letter of hers you found at Gerano." "Yes, that is what they are about. It is her doing, but it is my fault." "Your fault!" exclaimed Laura. "But surely there never even was such a letter as she refers to. Do you understand at all?" "Yes, I understand much too well. She has done this for a distinct purpose. Tell me in the first place one thing. Do you still trust me in the face of such evidence as this?" "I trust you as much as ever," answered Laura. "Thank you," he said simply, and he looked into her deep eyes a moment before he continued. "There are two stories to tell, yours and mine. Tell yours first. Tell me how you came by the copy you speak of. Who sent it to you, and when?" As briefly as she could, Laura gave him all the details she could remember from the day she had received the first request for help from Maria B. It was painful to her to repeat what she could of the substance of the copy sent her, but she went through with it to the end. "That letter is not among these," said Ghisleri, thoughtfully. "It is one of the two which have been kept back for future use. Now let me tell you what I can remember. Do not be surprised that I should never have told you the story before. Since you can trust me in such a matter as this, you will believe me when I say that there was a good reason for not telling you." He gave a concise account of the conversation which had taken place between himself and Adele at the Montevarchi's party, omitting only what referred to his own suspicions concerning the manner of Arden's death. If possible, he meant always to conceal that side of the question from Laura. But it was necessary to tell her something about the document constantly mentioned in the letters. "There is a story in circulation," he said, "to the effect that when Donna Adele was ill at Gerano nearly two years ago, she was unwilling to confess to the parish priest, and wrote a confession to be sent to her confessor in Rome. A servant stole it, says the story, and it is supposed to be in existence, passing from hand to hand in society. It is quite possible that she believes that I bought it of the thief. But I doubt even that. She has most probably regained possession of it before attempting this stroke. And this is almost what I suggested to her in a general way, and laughing, as one way of ruining a man. I remember my own words--an injury that would make a woman who loves a man turn upon him. Substitute friendship for love, and the case is almost identical." "Yes," Laura answered thoughtfully. "Substitute friendship for love." She hardly knew why she repeated the words, and a moment later a faint colour rose in her cheeks. "She has done this thing, therefore, with the deliberate intention of ruining me in your eyes," said Ghisleri. "And she has utterly failed to do so, or even to change my opinion of you a little. But it is very well done. There are people who would have been deceived. The idea of forging--it is not forging--of writing imaginary letters to you herself is masterly." "I do not think she is quite sane. The morphia she takes is beginning to affect her brain. She does not always know what she is doing." "You take far too merciful and charitable a view," answered Laura, with some scorn. "No, on the contrary, if she were quite what she used to be, she would be more dangerous--she would not make mistakes. Two or three years ago she would not have gratuitously thrown herself into danger as she has now. She would not have made such a failure as this." "And what a failure it is! Do you know? It was very puzzling at first. To know positively that you never could have received those letters, and yet to see that they are still in existence, addressed to you, and opened in your peculiar way. I felt as though I were in a dream." "I wonder you did not feel inclined to believe me guilty. The evidence was almost as strong as it could be. In your position I should have hesitated." "Would you have believed such a thing of me, if it had been just as it is, only if the letters had gone to you instead of to me?" asked Laura. "Certainly not!" exclaimed Ghisleri, with strong emphasis. "That would be quite another matter." "I do not see that it would. You would have been exactly in my position, as you hinted a moment ago." "I was not thinking of you. The day I do not believe in you I shall not believe in God. You are the last thing I have left to believe in--and the best, my dear friend." He was very much in earnest, as Laura knew from the tone of his voice. But she would not look at him just then, because she felt that he was looking at her, and she preferred that their eyes should not meet. "Will you do anything about this?" she asked, after a pause, and not referring to what he had last said. "Will you destroy those vile things?" "Since they are addressed to me, I suppose I have a right to do so," answered Ghisleri, and he began slowly to tear up the sheets of the first letter. "There can be no doubt about their being genuine?" asked Laura, with sudden emotion. "Not at all, I should say. But you are the best judge of that. You should know her handwriting better than I. If you like," he added, with a short laugh, "I will go and show them to her and ask her if she wrote them. Shall I?" "Oh, no! Do not do that!" exclaimed Laura, who knew that he was quite capable of following such a course as he suggested. There was apparently nothing to be done. Laura believed that any attempt to make use of the two remaining letters would be as abortive as the first, and there could certainly be no use in keeping those which had been sent. On the contrary, it was possible that if they were preserved, chance might throw them into hands in which they might become far more dangerous than they were. "Shall I write to Maria B., whoever she is?" asked Laura. "You might send her another five francs," answered Ghisleri, grimly. "It would show her how much you value the documents she has for sale." "I will," said Laura, with a laugh. "How furious she will be! Of course it is Adele who gets these things." "Of course. Five francs is quite enough." And Laura, little knowing or guessing how it would be used against her, sent a five-franc note with her card in an envelope and addressed it. On the card she had written in pencil, "For Maria B., with best thanks." "There is one other thing I would like to do," she said. "But I do not know whether you would approve. It would give me such satisfaction--you know I am only a woman, after all." "What is that?" asked Ghisleri, "and why should you need my approval?" "Only this. To-morrow, and perhaps the next day, when she is quite sure I must have received those letters, I would like to drive with you in an open carriage where we should be sure to meet Adele. I would give anything to see her face." Ghisleri laughed. The womanly side of Laura's nature was becoming more apparent of late, and its manifestations pleased and surprised him. He thought Laura would hardly have seemed human if she had not wished to let Adele see how completely the attempt had failed which she had so ingeniously planned and carried out. "If anything would make the town talk, that would," he answered. "The only way to manage it would be to get the Princess to go with you and then take me as--" He stopped short, rather awkwardly. "I should rather go without her," said Laura, turning her face away to hide her amusement at the slip of the tongue of which he had been guilty. In Rome, for Ghisleri to be seen driving with the Princess of Gerano and her daughter would have been almost equivalent to announcing his engagement to Laura. CHAPTER XXIV. Adele had not anticipated such complete failure in the first instance. The five-franc note with Laura Arden's card told her plainly enough what her step-sister thought of the matter, but she had no means of finding out whether Ghisleri had been informed of what she had done or not, and her efforts to extract information from him when she met him were not successful. His tone and his manner towards her were precisely the same as formerly, and he was as ready as ever to enter into desultory conversation with her; but if she ventured to lead the talk in such a direction as to find out what she wanted to know, he instantly met her with a counter-allusion to her doings which frightened her and silenced her effectually. So the months passed in a sort of petty skirmishing which led to no positive result, and she secretly planned some further step which should complete those she had already taken, reverse Laura's judgment, and completely ruin Pietro Ghisleri with her and before the world. The uneasy workings of her unsettled brain grew more and more tortuous every day, until at last she felt unable to reason the question out without the help of some experienced person. She felt quite sure that there must be some way out of all her difficulties, by a short cut to victory, and that a clever man, a good lawyer, for instance, if he could be deceived into believing the story she had concocted, would know how to make use of it against her enemies. The difficulty was two-fold. In the first place she must put together such a body of evidence as no experienced advocate could refuse as ground for an action at law, and, secondly, she must find the said advocate and explain the whole matter to him from her own point of view. The action would be brought in self-defence against Pietro Ghisleri, who would be accused of having systematically attempted to levy blackmail. That was the crude form in which the idea suggested itself to Adele when she set to work. Her conviction now was that Pietro was only partially aware of the substance of the lost confession, and that the letter containing it was still at Gerano. This being the case, she could freely speak of it to her lawyer and describe the contents in any way she pleased, so as to turn the existence of the document to her own advantage. In the letters she had sent Laura and in the other two which she kept by her for future use, she had been careful never to say anything conclusive. Maria B. had indeed spoken of the transaction as being ended, but that could be interpreted as the unfounded supposition of a person not fully acquainted with the facts, and desirous of making money out of them as far as possible. The hardest thing would probably be to produce the woman who was supposed to have written to Laura, in case she should be needed. Money well bestowed, however, would do much towards stimulating the memory of some indigent and unscrupulous person, and the part to be played would, after all, be a small and insignificant one. On the other hand, the weak point in the case would be that Adele, while able to produce an unlimited number of her own letters to Ghisleri, would not have a single line of his writing to show. She could, indeed, fall back upon her own natural sense of caution, and declare that she had destroyed all he had written, in the mistaken belief that it would be safer to do so, and her lawyer could taunt his opponent with his folly in not doing likewise; but that would, after all, be rather a poor expedient. Or it might be pretended that Pietro had invariably written to her in a feigned handwriting signing himself, perhaps, with a single initial, as a precaution in case his letters should fall into the wrong hands. In that case she could produce whatever she chose. The best possible plan would be to extract one or two short notes from him upon which an ambiguous construction might be put by the lawyers. All this, Adele reflected, would need considerable time, and several months must elapse before she could expect to be ready. Her mind, too, worked spasmodically, and she was subject to long fits of apathy and extreme depression in the intervals between her short hours of abnormal activity. She knew that this was the result of the morphia she took in such quantities, and she resolved to make a great effort to cure herself of the fatal habit, if it were not already too late. As has been said more than once, Adele Savelli had possessed a very determined will, and it had not yet been altogether destroyed. Having once made up her mind to free herself if she could, she made the attempt bravely and systematically. The result was that, in the course of several months, she had reduced the amount of her daily doses very considerably. The suffering was great, but the object to be gained was great also, and she steeled herself to endure all that a woman could. She was encouraged, also, by the fact that her mind began to act more regularly and seemed more reliable. Physically, she was growing very weak and was becoming almost emaciated. Francesco Savelli watched her narrowly, and it was his opinion that she could not last long. The Prince of Gerano was very anxious about her all through the spring which followed the events last described, and his wife, though she was far less fond of Adele than in former times, could not but feel a sorrowful regret as she saw the young life that had begun so brightly wearing itself away before her eyes. But the Princess had consolations in another direction. Laura Arden seemed to grow daily more lovely in her mature beauty, and Herbert was growing out of his babyhood into a sturdy little boy of phenomenal strength and of imperturbably good temper. Laura was headstrong where Ghisleri was concerned, but in all other respects she was herself still. The first consequence of Adele's attempt to break the strong friendship which united Laura and Pietro, was to draw them still more closely together, and to make Laura, at least, more defiant of the world's opinion than ever. As for Ghisleri, he almost forgot to ask himself questions. The time to separate for the summer was drawing near, and he knew, when he thought of it, what a different parting this one would be from the one which had preceded it a year earlier. But he tried to think of the present and not of the weary months of solitude he looked forward to between June and November or December. He remembered, in spite of himself, how he had more than once enjoyed the lonely life, even refusing invitations to pleasant places rather than lose a single week of an existence so full of charm. But another interest had been growing, slowly, deep-sown, spreading its roots in silence, and fastening itself about his heart while he had not even suspected that it was there at all. Little by little, without visible manifestation, the strong thing had drawn more strength from his own life, mysteriously absorbing into itself the springs of thought and the sources of emotion, unifying them and assimilating them all into something which was a part, and was soon to be the chief part, of his being. And now, above the harrowed surface of that inner ground on which such fierce battles had been fought throughout his years of storm, a soft shoot raised its delicate head, not timidly, but quietly and unobtrusively, to meet the warm sunshine of the happier days to come. He saw it, and knew it, and held his peace, dreading it and yet loving it, for it was love itself; but not knowing truly what the little blade would come to, whether it was to bloom all at once into a bright and poisonous flower of evil, bringing to him the death of all possible love for ever; or whether it would grow up slowly, calm and fair, from leaf to shrub, from shrub to sapling, from sapling at last to tree, straight, tall, and strong, able to face tempest and storm without bending its lofty head, rich to bear for him in the end the stately blossom and the heavenly fruit of passionate true love. For before the day of parting came Pietro Ghisleri knew that he loved Laura Arden. Ever since that moment when she had quietly given him Adele's letter and had told him that she would believe no evil of him, he had begun to suspect that she was no longer what she had been to him once and what she had remained so long, a friend, kind, almost affectionate, for whom he would give all he had, but only a friend after all. It was different now. The thought of bidding Laura good-bye, even for a few months, sent a thrill of pain through his heart which he had not expected to feel--the small, sharp pain which tells a man the truth about a woman and himself as nothing else can. The prospect of the lonely summer was dreary. Ghisleri was surprised, and almost startled. During nearly two years and a half he had honestly believed that he could never love again, and if a sincere wish, formulated in the shape he unconsciously chose, could be called a prayer, he earnestly prayed that so long as he lived he might not feel what he had felt very strongly twice, at least, since he had been a boy. But such a man could hardly expect that such a wish, or prayer, could be granted or heard, so long as he was spending many hours of each succeeding week in the company of Laura Arden. In the full strength of manhood, passionate, sensitive beneath a cold exterior, always attracted by women, and almost always repelled by men, Pietro Ghisleri could hardly expect that in one moment the capacity for loving should be wholly rooted out and destroyed by something like an act of will, and as the consequence of his being disappointed and disgusted by his own fickleness. The new passion might turn out to be greater or less than the two which had hitherto disturbed his existence, but it could hardly be greater than the first. It would necessarily be different from either, in that it would be hopeless from the beginning, as he thought. For where he was very sincere, he was rarely very confident in himself, if the stake was woman's love, a fact more common with men who are at once sensitive and strong than is generally known. But his first impulse was not to go away and escape from the temptation, as it would have been some time earlier. There was no reason for doing that, as he had reflected before, when he had considered the advisability of breaking off all intercourse with Laura for the sake of silencing the world's idle chatter. He was perfectly free to love her, and to tell her so, if he chose. No one could blame him for wishing to marry her; at most he might be thought foolish for desiring anything so very improbable as that she should accept him. But he was quite indifferent to what any one might think of him excepting Laura herself. One resolution only he made and did his best to keep, and it was a good one. He made up his mind that he would not make love to her, as he understood the meaning of the term. Possibly, as he told himself with a little scorn, this was no resolution at all, but only a way of expressing his conviction that he was quite unable to do what he so magnanimously refused to attempt. For his instinct told him that his love for Laura had already taken a shape which differed wholly from all former passions, one unfamiliar to him, one which would need a new expression if it continued to be sincere. But that he doubted. He was quite ready to admit that when Laura came back in the autumn, this early beginning of love would have disappeared again, and that the old strong friendship would be found in its place, solid, firmly based, and unchanged, a permanent happiness and a constant satisfaction. He was no longer a boy, to imagine that the first breath of love was the forerunner of an all-destroying storm in which he must perish, or of a clear, fair wind before which the ship of his life was to run her straight course to the haven of death's peace. He had seen too much fickleness in himself and in others to believe in any such thing; but if he had anticipated either it would have been the tempest. On the whole, he did the wisest thing he could. He changed nothing in his manner towards Laura and he waited as calmly as he was able, to see what the end would be. Once only before Laura went away the conversation turned upon love, and oddly enough it was Laura who brought up the subject. She had been talking about little Herbert, as she often did, planning out his future according to her own wishes and making it happy in her own way, even to sketching the wife he was to win some five and twenty years hence. "I should like her to be very fair," she said. "Herbert will be dark, as I am, and they say that contrasts attract each other most permanently. But of course, though she must be beautiful, she must have ever so many other good points besides. In the first place, she must be capable of loving him with all her heart and soul. I suppose that is really the hardest thing of all to find." "The 'one-great-passion' sort of person, you mean, I fancy," observed Ghisleri, with a smile. "A rare bird--I agree with you." "I doubt whether the individual exists," said Laura. "Except by accident, or when the course of true love runs so very smoothly that it would need superhuman ingenuity to fall off it." "You are a constant revelation to me!" Ghisleri laughed, and looked at her. "What is there surprising about what I said? You are not a believer in the universal stability of the human heart, are you?" "Hardly that! But women very often are--at first. And then, when they see that change is possible, they are apt to say that there is no such thing as true love at all, whereas we know that there is." "In other words, you think that I take the sensible view. After all, what is the use of expecting humanity to be superhuman?" "I always like the way in which you put things," said Ghisleri, thoughtfully. "That is exactly it. Homo sum. I am neither angel, nor ape, but man, and at present, I believe, no near relation of the seraph or the monkey." "And as a man, changeable. So am I, as a woman, I have no doubt. Every one must be, and I do not think it is fair to respect people who do not change at all because they never have the chance." "One cannot help it. Human nature instinctively places the man who has only loved once above the man who has shown that he can love often. It is connected with the idea of faith and loyalty." "Often--that is too much. There comes the question of the limit. How often can a man love sincerely?" "Three times--not more," answered Ghisleri, with conviction. "Why not two, or four? How can you lay down the law in that way?" "It is very simple. I think that no love is worth the name which does not influence a man strongly for at least ten years. Any really great passion will do that. But human life is short. Let a man fall in love at twenty, and three periods of ten years each will bring him to fifty. A man who falls in love after he is fifty is a rarity, and generally an object of ridicule. That seems to me a logical demonstration, and I do not see why it should not apply to a woman as well as to a man." "Yes, I think there is truth in that," said Laura. "At all events, it looks true. Besides, there is something quite reasonable in the idea that a man naturally has three stages, when he is twenty years old, thirty, and forty. I should imagine that the middle stage, while he is still developing, might be the shortest." It was impossible for Ghisleri to imagine that Laura was referring to his own life, but the remark was certainly very applicable to himself, so far. Would the third stage be permanent, if he really reached it? He was inclined to think that nothing about him had much stability, for within the last two years he had come to accept the fact as something which was part of his nature and from which there was no escape, despise the weakness and hate it as he would. It was a singular coincidence that since he had tormented himself less he had become really less changeable. A month later he parted from Laura, to all outward appearances as quietly and calmly as in the previous year. If there were any difference, it was in her manner rather than in his. She said almost sadly that she was sorry the time had come, and that she looked forward to the meeting in the autumn as to one of the pleasantest things in the future. The words she spoke were almost commonplace, though even if taken literally they conveyed more than she had ever said before. But it was quite clear that she meant more than she said. When she was gone Ghisleri felt more lonely than he had for years, and every interest seemed to have died out of his existence. He tried to laugh at himself for turning into a boy again, but even that diversion failed him. He could not even find the bitter words it had once amused him, in a grim way, to put together. Then he left Rome, weary of the sights and sounds of the streets, of the solitude of his rooms, of the effort to show some intelligence when he was obliged to talk with an acquaintance. He went to his own place in Tuscany and passed his time in trying to improve the condition of things. He knew something of practical architecture, and he rebuilt a staircase, and restored the vaulting in a part of the little castle to which he had never done anything before, and which had gone to ruin during the last hundred years or more, since it had last been inhabited. For he, his father, and his grandfather had been only sons, and his mother having died when he was a mere boy, his father had taken a dislike to Torre de' Ghisleri and had lived the remainder of his short life in Florence. Hence the general dilapidation of the old place which was not, however, without beauty. The occupation did him good, and the sight of the old familiar faces of his tenants and few retainers was pleasant, after facing the museum of society masks during seven months and more. But he felt that even here he could not stay any great length of time without a change, and as the summer advanced his restlessness became extreme. He came down to Rome for a week in August. The first person he met in the street was Francesco Savelli, who stopped to speak with him. Ghisleri never voluntarily stopped any one. "How is Donna Adele?" he asked, after they had exchanged the first greetings. "Very nervous," answered Savelli, shaking his head with the air of concern he thought it proper to affect whenever he spoke of his wife's illness. "The nerves are something which no one can understand. I can tell you a story, for instance, about something which happened the other day--to be accurate, in June, when we were at Gerano. Do you remember the oubliette between the guard-room and the tower? Yes--my wife said she showed it to you. We were all staying together--all the children, her father, and the Princess and two or three friends. One morning she said she was quite sure that if we took up that slab of stone and lowered a man into the shaft, we should find a skeleton hanging there--Heaven knows what she imagined! The Prince said he had looked into the shaft scores of times when the trap-door still existed and there was a bar across the passage to prevent any one from going near; that he himself had ordered the stone to be put where it was and knew all about the place. The only skeleton ever found in the castle had been discovered walled up in the thickness of the north tower, with a little window just opposite the face, so that the individual must have died looking at the hills. Nobody knew anything about it. But my wife insisted, and grew angry, and at last furious. It was of no use, of course. You know the old gentleman--he can be perfectly rigid. He answered that no one should touch the stone, that if she yielded to such ideas once, she would soon wish to pull Gerano to pieces to count the mice, and that if she could persuade my father to knock holes in the walls at Castel Savello, that was the affair of the Savelli, but that so long as he lived she should not make any experiments in excavation under his roof. If you will believe me, she had a fit of anger which brought on an attack of the nerves, and she never went out of her room for three days in consequence. Do you wonder that I am anxious?" "Certainly not. It would be amazing if you were indifferent. The story gives one the idea that she is subject to delusions. I am very sorry she is no better. Pray remember me to her." Thereupon Ghisleri passed on, inwardly wondering how long it would be before Adele became quite mad. Two days later he received a note from her. She had heard from her husband that he was in Rome, she said, and wrote to ask a great favour of him. He was doubtless aware of her father's passion for manuscripts, which was well known in Rome. It was reported that a certain dealer had bought Prince Montevarchi's library after the crash, and she very much wished to buy a very interesting manuscript of which she had often heard her father speak, and which contained an account of the famous, or infamous, Isabella Montevarchi's life, written with her own hand--a sort of confession, in fact. As she did not know the exact title of the document, if it had any, she would call it a confession, though, of course, in a strictly lay sense. Now, she inquired, would Ghisleri, for old friendship's sake, try to obtain it for her at a reasonable price? She knew, of course, that such an original would be expensive, but she was prepared to discuss the terms if not wholly beyond her means. She sent her note by the carrier, as that was generally quicker than writing by the post, she said. Would Ghisleri kindly answer by the same means? The man would call again on the next day but one. That would perhaps give time to make preliminary inquiries. With which observation, and with best thanks in anticipation of the service he was about to render, Adele called herself most sincerely his. Ghisleri was not an extremely suspicious man, but he would have given evidence of almost infantine simplicity if he had not seen that there was something wrong about Adele's note. It was certainly very well planned, and if Laura had never shown him the letters Adele had sent her, it might very possibly have succeeded. On ascertaining the price set by the dealer on the manuscript, he would probably have written a few words, stating in a business-like way the sum for which the so-called confession could be bought. In all likelihood, too, he would have only dated his note by the day of the week, omitting altogether the month and the year. He saw at a glance how easily a communication of that kind might have taken such a shape as to be very serviceable against him, and how hard it might have been to show that he was writing about a genuine transaction concerning a manuscript actually for sale. He determined to be very careful. His first step was to find out the name of the dealer who had bought the Montevarchi library. He next ascertained that what Adele wanted was still unsold, and that he must therefore necessarily enter into correspondence with her. After that he sought out a young lawyer whom he had employed once or twice within the last few years when he had needed legal advice in regard to some trifling point, and laid the whole matter before him. This young man, Ubaldini by name, had rapidly acquired a reputation as a criminal lawyer, and had successfully defended some remarkable cases, but, as he justly observed, acquitted prisoners of the classes in which crimes are common, pay very little, and condemned criminals pay nothing at all. He was therefore under the necessity of taking other kinds of business as a means of support. The last murderer who had escaped the law by Ubaldini's eloquence had sent him a bag of beans and a cream cheese, which was all the family could afford in the way of a fee, but upon which a barrister who had a taste for variety could not subsist any length of time. Ghisleri explained at considerable length the whole story, as far as it has been told in these pages, and expressed the belief that Donna Adele Savelli was intent upon ruining him for what, after all, seemed very insufficient reasons. "When a woman lives on morphia and the fear of discovery, instead of food and drink, I would not give much for the soundness of any of her reasons," said Ubaldini, with a laugh. "What shall we do with the Princess? Shall we convict her of homicide, or bring an action for defamation, which we are sure to win? I like this case. We shall amuse ourselves." "I do not wish to bring any accusation nor any action against Donna Adele Savelli," answered Ghisleri. "All I wish to do is to protect myself. Of course I should be curious to know what became of that written confession of hers, if it ever existed. But at present I wish you to have certified copies made of all my letters to her, and to keep the originals of those she writes me. If she makes such another attack on me as the last one, I will ask you, perhaps, to take the matter up. In the mean time, I only desire to keep on the safe side." "In a case like this," said the lawyer, "it is far safer to attack than to wait for the enemy. Be careful in what you write, at all events. It would be wiser to show me the letters before you send them. One never can tell at what point the error of omission or commission will be made, upon which everything will depend. As a bit of general advice, I should warn you always to date every sheet on which you write anything, always to mention the name of the dealer when you speak of him, and invariably to give in full the correct title by which the manuscript is known. If you do that, and take good care that the dealer knows you perfectly each time you see him, and remembers your visits, it will not be easy to manage. But Donna Adele Savelli is evidently a clever person, whether her reasons for hating you are good or bad. That little trick of sending her own letters to the other lady was masterly--absolutely diabolical. The reason she failed was that she struck too high. She over-reached herself. She accused you of too much. That shows that although her methods are clever her judgment is insufficient. The same is true of this last attempt. By the bye, have you ever mentioned me to her, so far as you can recollect?" "No, I believe not." "Then avoid doing so, if you please. It is always better to keep the opposite party in ignorance of one's lawyer's name until the last minute." "Very well." As soon as Ghisleri was gone Ubaldini wrote a draft of a letter to Adele, as follows: "EXCELLENCY:--At the decease of a client of humble station a number of papers have come under my notice and are now in my hands. One of them, of some length, has evidently gone astray, for it is written by your Excellency and apparently addressed to a member of the clergy, besides containing, as one glance told me, matter of a private nature. It is my wish to restore it immediately, and I therefore write to inquire whether I may entrust it to the post-office, or whether I shall hand it sealed to your Excellency's legal representative. I need not add the assurance that so far as I am concerned the matter is a strict secret, nor that I desire to restore the document as a duty of honour, and could not consider for a moment the question of any remuneration. "Deign, Excellency, to receive graciously the expression of profoundest respect with which I write myself, "Your Excellency's most humble, obedient servant, "RINALDO UBALDINI, _Advocate_." CHAPTER XXV. As Ghisleri had anticipated, Adele kept up a lively correspondence with him for some time. All her letters were duly filed by Ubaldini, who took certified copies of Pietro's replies, but did not mention what he himself had done in the matter. Adele bargained sharply until Ghisleri wrote to her as plainly as he well could that the manuscript was not to be had for less than the sum he had repeatedly named, and that he could do nothing more for her. Thereupon she answered that she would consider the matter, and did not write again. Pietro, after waiting several days, left Rome again, and returned to Torre de' Ghisleri, glad to be relieved at last from the irksome and dangerous task of writing concise and lawyer-like communications about a subject which did not interest him at all. Meanwhile Adele had been through a series of emotions of which Pietro knew nothing, and which very nearly drove her to increasing her daily doses of morphia again. On receiving Ubaldini's very respectful and straightforward letter, she had felt that she was saved at last, though it definitely destroyed the illusion by which she had so long persuaded herself that the confession was still in the oubliette at Gerano. Without much hesitation she wrote to Ubaldini, and laid a bank-note for five hundred francs in the folded sheet. She begged him to send a special messenger with the sealed packet to Castel Savello, and requested him, in spite of his protest, to accept the enclosed sum to cover expenses. During forty-eight hours she enjoyed to the full the anticipation of at last getting back the letter which had cost her such terrible anxiety at various times during the past two years and a half. Then came Ubaldini's answer, though when she opened it she had no idea that it was from him. He had made his clerk both write and sign the fair copy of the first letter, which had been written on paper not stamped with an address. He now wrote with his own hand upon the paper he kept for business correspondence upon which, of course, the address was printed. There was consequently not the slightest resemblance between the two letters. But Adele was not prepared for the contents. The first thing she noticed was her bank-note, carefully pinned inside the sheet. Even the form of addressing her was not the same, and the one now employed was the correct one, the Savelli being one of the families in which the title of Prince and Princess belongs indiscriminately to all the children, and consequently to the wives of all the sons. The letter was as follows: "SIGNORA PRINCIPESSA:--I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of a communication from your Excellency, in which you request me to send a certain sealed packet to Castel Savello by a special messenger, and enclosing a bank note for five hundred francs (Banca Romana S. 32/0945) which I return herewith. I take the occasion to say that I know nothing whatever of the sealed packet referred to, and I beg to suggest that your Excellency may have accidentally addressed the letter to me instead of to some other person, perhaps in using a directory. If, however, it was written in answer to one supposed to have been indited to you by me, the letter must have been composed and sent by some designing person in the hope of intercepting the reply and gaining possession of the money, which I am glad to be able to send back to its original owner. Believe me, Signora Principessa, "Your Excellency's most obedient, "RINALDO UBALDINI." The shock was almost more than Adele could bear, and the room reeled with her as she comprehended what had happened, so far as she was able to understand it all. The truth did not strike her, however. What she believed was what the lawyer suggested, that some person had played a trick on her, and had made use of Ubaldini's name and address in the hope of getting the money he or she naturally expected that she would send as compensation for such an important service. The hardest to endure was the disappointment of finding that she was not to have the confession after all. The point proved was that, whether it were still in the oubliette or had been found and carried off, there was in either case at least one person at large who knew it existed, and who knew that the contents would be greatly to her disadvantage if known. And if one person knew it, she argued, all Rome might be acquainted with the story, and probably was. But the comforting conviction that the letter was still safe at Gerano did not return. There was a tone about the first communication disclaimed by Ubaldini, which forced upon her the belief that the writer knew everything, and could ruin her at a moment's notice. What Ubaldini gained was the certainty that the story which Ghisleri described as current gossip was a fact, and a very serious one. He had played detective instead of lawyer, and he had been very successful. He knew also, that, as he had acted altogether in the interests of his client, Ghisleri, and had returned Adele's money, no objection could, strictly speaking, be made to the stratagem, however it might be looked upon by gentlemen and men of the world, like Ghisleri himself. But Ubaldini was a lawyer, and it was not his business to consider what the fine world would think of his doings. He filed Adele's letter with the copies of his own. In the course of a few days, Adele, who was all the time carrying on her correspondence with Pietro, gathered some hope from the latter's answers. She had a suspicion that he might keep all the notes he received from her, and after the first she was as careful never to mention the manuscript except as "the confession," as he, on his part, was always to write out its title in full. It struck her, however, that a man playing such a part as she wished to have it thought that he was playing, would naturally use some such means for making his letters seem commonplace if they should fall into the wrong hands, and it would be easy to persuade her friends that the autobiographic writings of Isabella Montevarchi meant Adele Savelli's confession, by common consent, though she herself had not taken the trouble to use such a long title more than once. The thought elated her, and comforted her in a measure for the disappointment she had suffered, and which had shaken her nerves severely. She now spent much time in going over the correspondence, weighing each word in the attempt to establish its exact value if regarded from the point of view of a systematic attempt to extort money. With a relative coolness which would not have disgraced a strong man, and which showed how far she had recovered control of herself by diminishing the doses of morphia, she set to work to put her case together on the supposition that she meant to lay it before her husband, for instance, or any other intelligent person, with a request for advice. And the case, as she put it, was better than might have been expected, though it depended ultimately, for its solidity, on the supposition that the confession could never be found. In the first place, she intended to admit that she had been jealous of Laura for years, and to own frankly that she had often said cruel and spiteful things of her, and of Arden, just as everybody she knew said spiteful things of somebody. She would even admit that she had first set afloat the rumour that Lord Herbert was intemperate, and that Laura had the evil eye. She could then point out that her conduct had suddenly changed in deference to her father's wishes, that there had been an open reconciliation, not very heartfelt on her part at first, but made sincere by the remorse she felt after Arden's death. For she meant to go even so far as to confess that Arden might have caught the scarlet fever in her house, seeing that her maid was only just recovering from it at the time. The woman's illness had been kept strictly secret, and she had been, from the first, taken to a distant part of the palace, so that Adele had not believed there could be any danger. Even her husband had not known what the maid's illness was, and poor Lucia had pleaded so hard not to be sent to the hospital that Adele had yielded. But to prove, she would say, how little fear of contagion she had, her own children had not been sent into the country. The Palazzo Savelli was big enough to have had a whole infirmary in one part of it, completely isolated from all the rest. Nevertheless, she had always felt that there was a possibility of Arden's last illness having been taken at that dinner-party, and her secret remorse had caused her the greatest suffering. Between that and a nervous disorder from which she had little hope of ever recovering, she had fallen very ill, and had gone to Gerano. While there, her conscience had so pricked her in the matter of her past unkindness to her step-sister and to Arden, that although she had been to confession at Easter, she wrote a long letter to her confessor in Rome, going again over the full details of the past winter. From that point she could tell the truth, without even sparing Lucia, until she came to the discovery that it was Ghisleri himself who had picked up the letter, or confession, under the shaft of the oubliette. And here she would lay great stress on Ghisleri's attachment to Laura, and consequent dislike of herself. The well-known fact that Pietro had fought a desperate duel merely because Campodonico said that Lady Herbert Arden might have the evil eye, sufficiently showed to what lengths he would go in her defence. Nothing more would really be needed. But there was plenty more. All Rome knew that he had broken with Maddalena dell' Armi for Laura's sake, and that he had exhibited the most untiring devotion ever afterwards. Never, since the death of the Princess Corleone, Adele would boldly assert, had he been faithful to any one woman for such a length of time. That was a strong point. The Princess of Gerano herself could testify to her own anxiety about Laura since Ghisleri had been so much with her. Laura herself had behaved in the most admirable manner ever since the reconciliation, but Ghisleri, in constituting himself her champion, had become, so to say, more royalist than the king, and more catholic than the pope. His dislike, if not his positive hatred, for Adele was apparent at every step in the story. He did not, it is true, speak of it to any one, but his reticence was a well-known peculiarity of his character. It was when he was alone in conversation with Adele that he showed what he felt. But his manner was always courteous and rather formal. It was by sarcastic hints that he conveyed his meaning. Nevertheless, Adele had maintained the outward forms of friendly acquaintance, and once, some six months after Arden's death, when matters had not been so bad as they now were, she had asked him to stay a few days at Gerano. Lucia could testify that he was there at the time when the confession disappeared, and Lucia, who had attempted to extort money for it, and would have succeeded if the document had been forthcoming, had naturally been as interested as any one to find it. Not until some time later had Adele suspected that it had been picked up by Ghisleri. The thing, of course, had not any very great value, but what woman, Adele would ask, could bear to think that the most private outpourings of her soul to her spiritual director were in the hands of a man who hated her, and who could, if he pleased, circulate them and make them the talk of the town? When Ghisleri, in the following winter, had begun to torment her systematically by quoting little phrases and expressions which she remembered to have written in the letter, she had at last boldly taxed him with having it in his possession, and he, with the unparalleled cynicism for which he was famous, had laughed at her and owned the truth. Every one would allow that this was very like him. She had threatened to complain to her husband, and he had expressed the utmost indifference. He was a known duelist and a dangerous adversary, and for her husband's sake she had held her tongue, while Ghisleri continued to make her life miserable with his witticisms. Then she had once asked him what he would consider an equivalent for the letter. He had laughed again, and had said that he would take a large sum of money in exchange for it, which, he added, he would devote to building a small hospital in the village of Torre de' Ghisleri, saying that it would be for the good of her soul to found a charity of that kind. She would not undertake to say whether he would have employed the money for that purpose or not, if she had given it to him. Possibly he would. But she had not been able to dispose of any such sum as he had then named. Under her marriage contract she controlled only her pin-money, and her father allowed her nothing out of the great fortune which would some day be hers. She and Ghisleri had corresponded about the matter in town, by notes sent backwards and forwards. She, on her part, had at that time thought she was doing wisely in burning his, but he had been less careful. He had, in fact, been so grossly negligent as to leave five of them at one time in the pocket of one of his coats. It was through his tailor to whom the coat had been sent for some alteration or repair that two of these notes had come back to Adele. A woman, apparently a seamstress, had come to her with them one day, and had offered them to her for sale, together with a card of Lady Herbert Arden's enclosed in an envelope addressed to "Maria B." at the general post-office. On the card were written the words: "For Maria B., with best thanks." The woman confessed that she was in great distress, that she had found the letters in a coat upon which she was working, had easily ascertained who Ghisleri was, and what his relations towards Lady Herbert were, and had appealed to the latter for help, offering the letters in exchange for any charity, and actually sending three of them when she had only received five francs. Lady Herbert had then sent her fifty francs more with the card in question, but the poor woman thought that very little. She bitterly repented not having brought them all at once to Donna Adele. Of course they belonged to her, and Donna Adele had a right to them all, without payment. But the woman was very poor. Adele had unhesitatingly given her a hundred francs and had kept the two notes and the card, which proved at least that even at that time she had been corresponding with Ghisleri and protesting her inability to pay the sum he demanded, and that Laura Arden was aware of the correspondence, and had been willing for Ghisleri's sake to pay money to obtain it. For a long time after this Adele had made no further attempt, but had avoided finding herself alone in conversation with Pietro, as many people had indeed noticed, because she could not bear to be perpetually annoyed by his reference to his power over her. Yet, out of fear lest some harm should befall her husband, she had still held her peace. Early in the preceding summer, shortly before leaving for her annual visit to Gerano, Ghisleri had managed to be alone with her, and had not lost the opportunity of inflicting another wound, which had revived all her old desire to obtain possession of the lost letter. He had, indeed, almost admitted that unless she would reconsider the matter he would send it to one of her friends to read. The Montevarchi library was then about to be sold, and many persons were talking of the famous confession of Isabella Montevarchi. By way of safety, Adele, in agreeing to think the whole thing over once more, had told him that when writing she should speak of her own letter as though it were this well-known manuscript. She had already some experience of his carelessness in regard to notes. Against his own statement, and against her own secret positive conviction, yet to give him one chance, as it were, she had made one desperate effort to have the oubliette opened and searched. Her father would remember how angry she had been, and, indeed, she had lost her temper, being always ill and nervous. He had positively refused. Then, in despair, she had reopened negotiations with Ghisleri, whose demands, though not so high as formerly, were still quite beyond her means. As a matter of fact, the dealer had asked an exorbitant price for the manuscript, being well aware of its historical importance, which was little less than that attaching to the famous manuscript account of the Cenci trial. Adele was in despair. She had no means of raising such a sum as Ghisleri required, except by selling her jewels, which she could not possibly do without exciting her husband's suspicions. She was powerless. Had any woman ever been placed in such a situation? Ghisleri's last letter distinctly stated that he could do nothing more for her if she refused to buy the confession of Isabella Montevarchi at the price he had last named. Those were his very words. They meant that unless she paid, he would make use of the letter he had. He even added, that in that case the manuscript would probably before long be disposed of elsewhere, as though to make his meaning clearer. Her position was very strong, Adele thought, as she reached the end of her statement as she first drew it up in her own mind. A clever lawyer could doubtless make it even stronger, for he would know how to take advantage of every point, and how to call attention to the strongest and pass smoothly over the weaker links in the chain. The real danger, and the only real danger, lay in the possibility that the confession itself might be found and might be produced, with all which she said it contained, and with the one central black statement of which she made no mention in working up the case. But who could produce it? If any one had it, that man was Ghisleri, who had more than once gone very near the truth in the hints he had thrown out. Say that he had it--suppose the hypothesis a fact. Its being in his possession would be the most ruining evidence of all. He would not dare to show it, for though it might ruin her, it would be far worse ruin to him, for it would of itself suffice to prove the truth of every word of her story, and he would not only incur the full penalty of the law for a most abominable attempt at levying blackmail, but his very memory would be blasted for ever as that of the most dastardly and cowardly villain ever sent to penal servitude. As for herself, she felt that she had not long to live, and if worse came to worst, a little over-dose of morphia would end it all. She would have had her triumph, and she would have seen Laura's face by that time. It did not occur to her to ask herself any question about the origin of a hatred so implacable as to make the sacrifice of life itself seem easy in the accomplishment of its end. She was not able to trace the history of her jealousy backwards by a firm concentration of memory, as she was able by the force of vivid imagination to construct the vengeance she anticipated in the future. That the most dire revenge should be contemplated, pursued, and ultimately executed for the sake of a wrong wholly imaginary in the first instance is not altogether novel in the history of humanity. There are minds which under certain conditions cannot judge of the past as they can of events present and to come. Adele's hatred of Laura Arden amounted almost to a fixed idea. It had begun in very small things. Its origin lay, perhaps, in the simple fact that Laura was beautiful whereas Adele had been barely pretty at her best, and its first great development had been the consequence of Francesco Savelli's undisguised preference for the step-sister of his future wife. All the young girl's jealousy and vain nature had been roused and wounded by the slight, and as years had gone by and Savelli showed no signs of forgetting his early attachment to Laura, the wound had grown more sore and more angry until it had poisoned Adele's character and heart to the very core. The worst deed she ever did had not perhaps been the worst in intention. She had not been at all sure that Arden would take the fever, and she had assuredly not meant nor ever expected that he should die. Chance had put the information into her hands at a moment when, through Laura, as it seemed to her, she was suffering the most cruel humiliation she had ever known. On that memorable evening when her father had forced her to submit to his will, and when she was looking forward with bitter loathing to what was very like a public reconciliation, she had been left alone. In attempting to control herself and to regain some outward calm, she had taken up a review and had forced herself to read the first article upon which she opened, and which happened to be a very dull one on the bacilli of various diseases. But one passage had struck her forcibly--the plain account of a case which had recently been observed, in which few medical terms occurred, and which a child could have understood. The extreme simplicity of the facts had startled her, and she had suddenly resolved that Laura and Arden should have cause to remember the reconciliation which would cost her vanity so dear. But she had no intention of doing murder. In her heart she had hardly believed that any result would follow, and remorse had taken hold of her almost at once, simultaneously with the horrible fear of discovery which has more than once driven men and women mad. But remorse is by no means repentance. With it comes often what has been called the impossibility of pardoning the person one has injured, and the insane desire to wreak vengeance upon that person for the acute sufferings endured in one's own conscience. Given the existence of this desire in a very violent degree, and admitting the inevitable disturbance of the faculties ensuing upon the long and vicious abuse of such a poison as morphia, Adele's ultimate state becomes comprehensible. She was, indeed, as Ghisleri had said to Laura, hardly sane, and her incipient madness having originally resulted from jealousy, the latter naturally remained the ruling influence in her unsettled brain, and attained proportions hardly credible to those who have not followed the steps by which the human intelligence passes from sanity to madness. And now that she had worked up her case against Ghisleri, as a lawyer would express it, and had convinced herself that she could tell a long and connected story in which almost every detail should give colour to her principal assertion, she hesitated as to the course she should pursue. It was not in her power to send for a lawyer and to bring an action at law against Pietro, without her husband's consent, and she knew how hard that would be to obtain. Francesco Savelli was by no means a cowardly man, and would, if necessary, have exposed his life in a duel with Ghisleri, not for his wife's sake, but for the sake of the family honour. But he had the true Roman's abhorrence of publicity and scandal, and would make great sacrifices to avoid anything of the kind. Her own father might be willing to take the matter up, but it was extremely hard to deceive him. She knew, however, that if he were once persuaded of the justice of her cause, he would go to any length in her defence and would prove an implacable enemy to the man who, as he would suppose, had injured her. The great difficulty lay in persuading him at the outset. But for the unfortunate fact that he had already once detected her in falsehood, the matter would have been far easier. It was true that she meant to admit all he had then forced her to own, and much more besides, in order to show how high a value Ghisleri set upon the confession which contained a concise account of her doings. But he would, in any case, be prejudiced against her from the first. One thing was in her favour, she thought. The Princess of Gerano did not like Ghisleri, and would in all likelihood be ready to believe evil of him, and to influence her husband, good and just woman though she was. There was one other person to whom Adele could apply--Prince Savelli himself. She thought of him last and wondered why she had not remembered him first. He was a man of singular energy, courage, and coolness, whose chief fault was a tendency to overestimate beyond all limits the importance of his family and the glory of his ancient name. She knew that he was abnormally sensitive on these points and that if she could rouse his ever ready pride, he would hesitate at nothing in order to bring retribution upon any one rash enough to insult or injure any member of his family. And he lived a life of his own and cared little for the world. His passion, strangely enough, was of a scientific kind. He was an astronomer, had built himself an observatory on the top of the massive old palace, and spent the greater part of his time there. Such existences, in the very heart of society, are not unknown in Rome. Prince Savelli had remained what he was by nature, a true student, and was perfectly happy in his own way, caring very little for the world and hardly ever showing himself in it. The Princess was a placid person, extremely devout, but also extremely selfish. It was from her that Francesco inherited his disposition and his yellow hair. It struck Adele that if she could win her father-in-law's sympathy and rouse him to action in her behalf, it would be far easier to persuade her own father that she was in the right. Gerano had a boundless respect for the elder Savelli's opinion, though if he had known him better, he would have discovered that his judgment was far too easily influenced where his exaggerated family pride was concerned. A long time passed before Adele finally made up her mind to the great attempt. Ghisleri had already returned to Rome and Laura Arden was expected in two or three weeks, according to news received by her mother. An incident, trivial in itself, at last decided her to act at once. She and Francesco were dining with the Prince and Princess of Gerano as they did regularly once a week. As a rule nobody was invited to these family meetings, but on that particular evening Gianforte Campodonico and Donna Christina had been asked. It was convenient to have them when Laura was not there, and they were much liked in Casa Gerano where, as has been said, Ghisleri was not a favourite. There was, moreover, a distant relationship between the families of Braccio and Campodonico of which, as they liked one another, both were fond of speaking. Adele looked very ill. By this time her complexion was of a pale yellow, and she was thin to absolute emaciation. In spite of her determined efforts to break the habit that was killing her, or perhaps as a first consequence of them, she was liable to moments of nervousness in which she could hardly control herself and in which she did not seem to remember what had happened a few minutes earlier. Her sufferings at such times were painful to see. She could hardly keep her hands from moving about in a helpless fashion, and her face was often slightly contorted. Very rarely, on fine days when she had been driving, a little colour came into her ghastly cheeks. It was easy to see that only her strong will supported her continually, and that women more weakly organized would long ago have succumbed to the effects of the poison. When she felt that she was liable to a crisis of the nerves she was careful to stay at home, but occasionally she was attacked unawares, more or less violently, when she had believed herself well enough to go out. When this happened she sat in silence while the suffering lasted, and did her best to keep her unruly hands clasped together. By a strong effort she sometimes succeeded in concealing from others what she felt, but the exertion of her will made her irritable to the last degree, if she was called upon to speak or forced to try and join in the conversation. CHAPTER XXVI. The dinner passed off quietly and pleasantly enough until towards the end, when the conversation turned upon the coming season, and all began to speculate as to whether it would be gay or dull, as people always do when they meet after the long separation in the summer. "There will be all the usual pleasant things," observed Francesco Savelli, who loved society as much as his wife did. "Let me see. There will be the evenings in Casa Frangipani, and they will give their two balls as usual at the end. The Marchesa di San Giacinto will do as she did last year--a dance and a ball alternately after the fifteenth of January. Of course Casa Montevarchi does not exist any more since the crash, but that is the only one. Then there are your evenings," he continued, turning to the mistress of the house, "and there are ours, of course, and I suppose Gouache and Donna Faustina will give something at the studio. Have you seen her this year, Adele?" He looked across the table at his wife, and saw that she was beginning to suffer from an unexpected attack. He knew the symptoms well, and was aware that there was nothing to be done but to leave her alone and take no notice of her. She merely nodded in answer to his question, and he went on speaking. "Gouache always does something original," he said. "Do you remember that supper on Shrove Tuesday years ago? It was the most successful thing of that season. By the bye, I saw Ghisleri yesterday. He has come back." It was rather tactless of him to drag Ghisleri's name into the conversation in the presence of Campodonico. But the Princess of Gerano was even more tactless than he. "That wild Ghisleri!" she immediately exclaimed, as she always did when Pietro was mentioned. "Ghisleri is no worse than the rest of us, I am sure," said Campodonico, anxious to show that he was not in the least annoyed. "He has as many good qualities as most men, and perhaps a few more." "It is generous of you to say that," observed Donna Christina, looking at her husband with loving admiration. "I do not see that there is much generosity about it, my dear," he answered warmly. "It would be very spiteful of me not to give him his due, that is all. He is brave and honourable, and that is something to say of any man. Besides, look at his friends--look at the people who like him, beginning with most of you here. That is a very good test of what a man is." He looked straight at Adele Savelli as he spoke, for no special reason except that he always looked straight at somebody when he was speaking. He was hot-tempered, passionate, generous, and truthful, and there was a great directness about everything he did and said. But at that moment Adele was in great pain and was doing her best to hide it. She fancied that Campodonico had noticed what was the matter. "Why do you look at me in that way?" she asked irritably, but with a nervous attempt at a laugh. "I do not know," answered Gianforte. "I suppose I expected you to agree with me. I know Ghisleri is a friend of yours." "How do you know that?" Adele's irritation increased rapidly. "Have you any reason to suppose that I am particularly fond of him? Have I ever done anything to show it?" "Why are you so much annoyed?" asked Savelli, who generally felt uncomfortable when his wife was in such moods, and feared that she would say something to make herself and him ridiculous. "You always liked him." Adele's hand twitched and moved on the table against her will, and she upset some salt. The little incident sufficed to make her lose her head completely. "If people knew what Pietro Ghisleri really is, there is not a house in Rome where he would be received," she said angrily. The dead silence which followed this categorical statement brought her to her senses too late. Campodonico was the first to speak. "I should find it very hard to believe that Ghisleri ever committed a dishonourable action," he said gravely. "That is a very serious statement, Donna Adele." "Yes, indeed," put in the Prince, turning to his daughter. "You should consider what you are saying, my dear, before going so far as that. I think you ought to explain yourself. We may not all like Ghisleri, and if we please we are at liberty to say so here, in the family; but it is quite another matter to say that he is not a fit person to associate with us. To say that, you must be quite sure that he has done something disgraceful, of which we are all in ignorance." "I quite agree with you," said Francesco Savelli. "You only make yourself ridiculous by saying such things," he added, looking coldly at his wife, for he was anxious that none of the ridicule should reflect upon himself, especially in Campodonico's presence. "I am sure, when I call Ghisleri wild," said the Princess, "I mean nothing more than that he is fast. But I am very sorry to have brought about such a discussion. Adele, my dear, what do you mean? Are you in earnest?" "One does not say such things for nothing," answered Adele, angrily. "Then I wonder that you receive him," said the Prince, coldly. "I hope you will explain to me by and by what you refer to." "I will, some day," said Adele, in a low voice. She felt that she had cast the die, and she hardly saw how she could draw back. "In that case, we will say no more about the matter at present," said the master of the house, in a tone of authority. "I had meant to ask you for news of your brother," he said, turning to Campodonico. "I was very sorry to hear that he had been ill. Is he better?" Gianforte answered, and every one made an effort to restore the outward calm which had been so disturbed by Adele's speech. Soon after dinner she went home, and instead of going to his club as usual Francesco got into the carriage with her. "I insist upon knowing what you meant by your accusation against Ghisleri," he said, as soon as they were driving away. "I will not tell you," Adele answered firmly. "You will find it out in time--quite soon enough, I daresay." "I have the right to know. In the world in which we live one makes oneself ridiculous by saying such things. Everybody will laugh at you, and then you will expect me to take your part." "I shall not expect anything of the sort, for I am not so foolish. You never had the slightest affection for me, and you have lost such little decent regard for me as you once felt, because I am always ill and it gives you trouble to be considerate. You would not raise a finger to help me or protect me unless you were afraid of the world's opinion. I have known that a long time, and now that I am in trouble I will not come to you. Why should I? You are only waiting for me to die, in order to ask Laura to marry you. It would annoy you extremely if I lived long enough to give her time to marry Ghisleri." "I think remarks of that sort are in the worst possible taste," answered Savelli, "besides being without the least foundation in truth. I will beg you not to make any more of them. As for what you say about Ghisleri, if you refuse to tell me what you know I shall ask advice of my father, as that is the only proper course I could follow under the circumstances." "For once we agree!" exclaimed Adele, with a scornful laugh. "That is precisely what I mean to do myself, and I will go to him to-morrow morning and tell him the whole story. But I will not tell it to you. He may, if he pleases, and thinks it best." "In that case I have nothing more to say," answered Francesco. "You could not select a more fit person than my father." "I am perfectly well aware of the fact." Adele, womanlike, was determined to have the last word, no matter how insignificant. Both were silent during the remainder of the drive home. At the foot of the grand staircase Francesco left his wife and got into the carriage to be driven to his club. He reflected on the truth of Adele's observation, when she had said that she might live until Laura and Ghisleri were married, and he was by no means pleased as he realised how probable that contingency was. Since she had become a slave to morphia he had, of course, been at some pains to ascertain the limits of the disease, and the possible duration of it, and he was aware that some persons lived for many years in spite of a constant and increasing abuse of the poison. Adele once more went over the whole story in her mind, preparing the details of it and polishing all the parts into a harmonious whole. In spite of what she had suffered that evening she would not increase her dose, though she knew that she must very probably spend a sleepless night. She profited by the hours to review the story she intended to tell her father-in-law. At eleven o'clock on the following morning she sent up to inquire whether he would see her, and he at once appeared in person at the door of her boudoir,--a tall, bearded man of fifty years or more, slightly stooping, not over-carefully dressed, wearing spectacles, and chiefly remarkable for his very beautifully shaped hands, with which he made energetic gestures at almost every minute, when speaking. Adele began in some trepidation to explain how, on the previous evening, she had lost her temper and had been betrayed into making a remark about Ghisleri of which her husband had demanded an explanation. She felt, she said, that the matter was so serious as to justify her in referring it at once to the head of the family, who might then act as he thought best with regard to keeping it a secret or informing his son of what had happened. She did not fail to add that one of her motives in refusing to tell what she knew to Francesco, was her anxiety for his safety, since the affair concerned herself and he would undoubtedly take it up as a personal matter and quarrel with the dangerous man who had so long been her enemy. The Prince approved this course with a grave nod, and waited for more. Then she told her story from beginning to end. She of course took advantage of the fact that her father-in-law was but slightly acquainted with Ghisleri to paint his character with the colours best suited to her purpose, while asserting nothing about him which could be in direct contradiction to the testimony of others. She spoke very lucidly and connectedly, for she knew the lesson well and she was conscious that her whole existence was at stake. One fault, one little error sufficient to cast suspicion on her veracity, might be enough to ruin her in the end. She concluded by a well-turned and pathetic allusion to her state of health, which indeed was pitiable enough. She knew that she was dying, but it would make death doubly painful to think that such an enemy as Ghisleri was left behind to blacken her memory and perhaps hereafter to poison the thought of her in her children's hearts. She also read extracts from Ghisleri's letters and showed Laura's card, before mentioned. As she proceeded she watched the Prince's face, and she saw that she had produced the right impression from the first. The plausibility of the tale, as she told it, was undeniable, and might have shaken the belief in Ghisleri's integrity in the minds of men who knew him far better than the elder Savelli. As she had anticipated, the latter took up the question as one deeply affecting the honour of his name. He was very angry in his calm way, and his blue eyes flashed through his great gold-rimmed spectacles, while his slender, energetic white hand clenched itself and opened frequently upon his knee. "You have done right in coming to me directly," he said, when she had finished and was wiping away the tears which, in her nervous state, she had found easy to bring to her eyes. "Francesco would not have known how to act. He would probably have done the villain the honour of fighting with him. But I will bring him to justice. The law provides very amply for crimes of this sort. I confess I am strongly tempted to go and speak to the man myself. Francesco could not resist the temptation, but he is almost a boy. The cowardly scoundrel of a Tuscan!" He thrust back his long, greyish-brown hair from his forehead with one hand, and shook the other in the air as though at a real adversary. When he did that he was always roused to real anger, as Adele knew. She feared lest he should do something more or less rash which would not ultimately be of any advantage to her. "Would it not be wise to speak to my father?" she asked. "He knows a great deal about the law, I believe." "Yes, perhaps so. Gerano is a very sensible man. As this affects you, besides Francesco and all of us, it might be as well to consult him, or at all events to put him in possession of all the facts. In the meanwhile, you know I am a methodical man. I must have proper notes to go upon from the first. If it does not pain you too much to go over the main points once more, I will write down what I need." "And I will hand you these papers to keep," said Adele, giving him the correspondence, which comprised the greater number of Ghisleri's letters, the two of her own which she had not sent to Laura, the two she had received from the lawyer Ubaldini, and Laura Arden's card in its envelope to "Maria B." With regard to Ubaldini, she told exactly what had happened, and what she had written, for that incident at least was still a mystery to her, and she thought it unwise to conceal what might subsequently come to light through other persons. "I have heard of this fellow," said the Prince, thoughtfully. "He is a very clever criminal lawyer. I should not wonder if Ghisleri had already consulted him. One may expect anything after what you have told me." Adele recapitulated the story with extraordinary exactness, stopping and repeating those portions of it which her father-in-law desired to note. "I have never seen a more complete chain of evidence," exclaimed the latter, when he had finished and was folding up the sheets neatly to match the size of the letters Adele had given him. "There is no court of justice in the world that would not convict a man of extortion on such testimony, and if there is one, I hope it is not in Rome." "I hope not," said Adele, who would have smiled had she been alone. "But you may find it harder to convince my father than a Roman jury. He is prejudiced in Ghisleri's favour--like most people who do not know him as I do." "He shall change his prejudices before long," answered Savelli, in a tone of certainty. "I will send word to him to expect me after breakfast, and I will explain the whole matter to him and show him the letters. If he does not at once understand, it would be better that we should both come to you together. You would make it clearer than I could, perhaps. But it seems clear enough to me. What an infamous affair--and how you must have suffered!" "It is killing me!" said Adele, in a low voice. Savelli left her with many expressions of kindly sympathy. He was not a good judge of human nature, for he lived too much in his studies and in the world of mathematics to understand or appreciate the motives of men and women. But he was kind of heart and affectionate by disposition. So far as he knew, Adele had been a good wife to his eldest son, and was the mother of strong, well-grown children who bore the ancient name in which he took such pride. Moreover, Adele had the honour of lending still greater lustre to the race by means of the great Braccio inheritance, which was all to come to the Savelli through her. She was, therefore, a very important personage, as well as a dutiful daughter-in-law and a good mother, in the eyes of the head of the house, and it would no more have crossed his mind that the story she had just told him was a fabrication, from first to last, than that the Greenwich Almanack for the year could be a fraud and a malicious misstatement of the movements of the heavenly bodies. Moreover, the evidence was, on the whole, such as would have staggered the faith of most of Ghisleri's acquaintances. The Prince lost no time in going to see Gerano, prepared at all points and armed with the papers Adele had given him. The interview lasted fully two hours, and when it was over, Adele's father was almost as thoroughly persuaded of Ghisleri's guilt as Savelli himself. His face was very grave and thoughtful as he leaned back in his easy-chair and looked into his old friend's clear blue eyes. "The man should be tried, convicted, and sent to the galleys," said Gerano. "There can be no doubt of the justice of that, if all this can be established in court. Remember I do not doubt my daughter's word, and it would be monstrous to suppose that she has invented this story. Whatever the truth about it may be, it must be thoroughly investigated. But there may be a good deal of exaggeration about it, for I have known Adele to over-state a case. There is a great difference between shutting one's door on a man, or turning him out of his club, and bringing an accusation against him which, if proved, will entail a term of penal servitude. You see that, I am sure. Do you not think that we ought to go and see Ghisleri together, tell him what we have learned, and ask him to justify himself if he can?" "I think it would be wiser to consult the lawyers first," answered Savelli. "If they are of opinion that he is a criminal, there is no reason why we should give him warning that he may defend himself, as though he were an honest man. If they believe that this is not a case for the law, there will always be time for us to go and see him, since no open steps will have been taken." Gerano was obliged to admit that there was truth in this, though his instinct told him that Ghisleri should be heard before being accused. He was one of those men whose faith being once shaken is not easily re-established, and he could not forget that his daughter had once deceived him, a fact with which Savelli was now also acquainted, since Adele had told him the whole truth about that part of the story, but to which he attached relatively little importance as compared with Ghisleri's villanous conduct in attempting to extort money from a member of the Savelli family. The two agreed upon the lawyer whom they would consult, and on the next day the first meeting took place at the Palazzo Braccio. The man they employed was elderly, steady, and experienced, and rather inclined to be over-cautious. He refused to give any decisive opinion on the case until he had studied it in all its bearings, thoroughly examined the letters, and ascertained the authenticity of the card on which Lady Herbert had written her thanks in pencil. This, of course, was the only one of the documents in evidence of which he could doubt the genuineness, since it was the only one which had not come direct from the hand of the writer. Oddly enough, the lawyer attached very great weight to it, for he said that it proved conclusively that Lady Herbert Arden had considered the matter as serious and had really paid money--whether a small or a large amount mattered little--in order to get possession of some of the letters which proved Ghisleri's guilt. It would be very useful if the woman "Maria B." could be traced and called as a witness, but even if she could not be found, Lady Herbert could not refuse her evidence and would not, upon her oath, deny having sent the money or having received Adele's letters in return for it. Considering the terms of intimacy on which she stood with Ghisleri, the point was a very strong one against the latter's innocence. The two princes were of the same opinion. Gerano was for asking Laura directly if she knew of the affair, but was overruled by Savelli and the lawyer, who objected that she might give Ghisleri warning. Gerano could not move in the matter without the consent of the other two, and resigned himself, though he looked upon the card as very doubtful evidence, and suggested that it might have been found accidentally by the woman who had come to Donna Adele, and used by her as an additional means of inducing the latter to give her money. But neither Prince Savelli nor the lawyer was inclined to believe in any accident which could weaken the chain of evidence they held. There was no further meeting for several days, during which time the lawyer was at work in examining every point which he considered vulnerable. Being himself a perfectly honest man and having received the information he was to make use of from the father and father-in-law of the lady concerned, it would have been very strange if he had entertained any doubts as to her veracity. Adele had thought of this herself and was satisfied that throughout all the preliminaries her position would be as strong as she could wish it to be. The struggle would begin when Ghisleri was warned of what was now being prepared against him, and began to defend himself. Of one thing she was persuaded. If he had the confession in his hands, he would not produce it. Nothing could prove her case so conclusively as his avowal that the letter was in his hands. If he could demonstrate that he had never seen it and was wholly ignorant of its contents, her own case would fall through. The action, however, if brought, would be a criminal one, and he would not be allowed to give his own evidence. It would be hard, indeed, to find any one who could swear to what would be necessary to clear him. The lawyer came back to his clients at last, and informed them that it was his opinion that there was sufficient evidence for obtaining a warrant of arrest against Pietro Ghisleri, and that in all probability the latter would be convicted, on his trial, of an infamous attempt to extort money from the Princess Adele Savelli, as he called her in his written notes. He warned them, however, that Ghisleri would almost undoubtedly be admitted to bail, that he was a man who had numerous and powerful friends in all parties, that he would doubtless be granted a first and second appeal, and that the publicity and scandal of the whole case would be enormous. On the whole, he advised his clients to settle the matter privately. He would, if they desired it, accompany them to Signor Ghisleri's lodgings, and state to him the legal point of view with all the clearness he had at his command. It was not impossible, it was even probable, that Ghisleri would quietly give up the document in question, and sign a paper binding himself never to refer to its existence again and acknowledging that he had made use of it to frighten the Princess Adele Savelli. The said document could then be returned to her and the affair might be considered as safely concluded. The lawyer did not believe that Signor Ghisleri would expose himself to certain arrest and probable conviction, when he had the means of escaping from both in his hands. Socially the two gentlemen could afterwards do what they pleased, and could of course force him to leave Rome with ignominy, never to show himself there again. Prince Savelli, on the whole, concurred in this view. The Prince of Gerano said that he had known Ghisleri long and well, and that the latter would probably surprise them by throwing quite a new light on the case, though he would not be able to clear himself altogether. He, Gerano, was therefore of the same opinion as the others, and he quietly reminded Savelli that he had been the first to propose visiting Ghisleri and demanding a personal explanation. On the same evening Pietro received a note. Prince Savelli and the Prince of Gerano presented their compliments to Signor Ghisleri, and begged to ask whether it would be convenient to him to receive them and their legal adviser on the following morning at half-past ten o'clock, to confer upon a question of grave importance. Ghisleri answered that he should be much honoured by the visit proposed, and he at once sent word to Ubaldini to come to him at eight o'clock, two hours and a half before he expected the others. He at once suspected mischief, though he had hardly been prepared to see it arrive in such a very solemn and dignified shape. He asked Ubaldini's opinion at once, when the latter came as requested. "It is impossible to say what that good lady has done," said the young lawyer after some moments of thoughtful consideration. "You may take it for granted, however, that both Prince Savelli and the Prince of Gerano believe that you are in possession of the lost letter, and that they will make an attempt to force you to give it up. You would do well not to speak of me, but you can say that you foresaw that Donna Adele intended to make use of your letters when she wrote the first one, asking you to purchase the manuscript for her, and that you have kept copies of your answers, as well as the originals of her communications. If we are quick about it, we can bring an action against her for defamation before she can do anything definite." "I will never consent to that," answered Ghisleri, smiling at Ubaldini's ideas of social honour. "Why not?" asked the lawyer, in some surprise. "You would very probably win it and cast her for heavy damages." "I would certainly never do such a thing," replied Pietro. "I should not think it honourable to bring any such action against a lady." Ubaldini shrugged his shoulders, being quite unable to comprehend his client's point of view. "I cannot do anything to help you, until we know what these gentlemen have to say," he observed. "If you wish it, I will be present at the interview, but it is as well that they should not find out who your lawyer is, until something definite is to be done." Ghisleri agreed, and Ubaldini went away, promising to hold himself at his client's disposal at a moment's notice. Pietro sat down to think over the situation. Danger of some sort was evidently imminent, but he could only form a very vague idea of its nature, and Ubaldini had certainly not helped him much, sharp-witted and keen as he was. Ghisleri, who, of course, could not see the case as Adele had stated it to her father-in-law, and as it was now to be stated to himself, could not conceive it possible that he could be indicted for extortion on such slender evidence as he supposed she had been able to fabricate. He imagined that she desired his social ruin, and above all, to make him for ever contemptible in the eyes of Laura Arden; and this he well knew, or thought that he knew, she could never accomplish. Laura had not yet returned, and he was glad, on the whole, that she was away. Matters were evidently coming to a crisis, and he believed that whatever was to happen would have long been over by the time she was in Rome again. If she had already arrived he would have found it hard not to tell her of what occurred from day to day, and, indeed, he would have felt almost obliged to do so for the sake of her opinion of him, seeing how frankly and loyally she had acted in the case of the letters she had received from the supposititious "Maria B." On the other hand, he longed to see her for her own sake. The summer months had been desperately long and lonely. He did not remember that he had ever found the time weigh so heavily on his hands as this year, both at Torre de' Ghisleri and in Rome. He forgot his present danger and the interview before him in thinking of Laura Arden, when Bonifazio threw open the door and announced Prince Savelli, the Prince of Gerano, and the Advocato Geronimo Grondona. CHAPTER XXVII. Ghisleri rose to meet his visitors, who greeted him gravely and sat down opposite him so that they could all look at his face while speaking. Prince Savelli naturally spoke first. "We have come to you," he said, "upon a very difficult and unpleasant affair. In the first place, I must beg you to listen to what I have to say as calmly as you can, remembering that we have not come here to quarrel with you, but to act on behalf of a lady. This being the case, we claim to be treated as ambassadors, to be heard and to be answered." "You speak as though you were about to make a very disagreeable communication," answered Ghisleri. "The presence of Signor Grondona either shows that you intend to make use of what I may say, or that your business is of a legal nature. If the latter supposition is the true one, it would be much better that we should leave the whole matter to our respective lawyers rather than run the risk of useless discussion. But if your lawyer is here to watch me and make notes, I would point out that I have a right to resent such observation, and to request you to find some other means of informing me of your meaning. As you tell me that you are acting for a lady, however, and claim personal immunity, so to say, for yourselves, I am willing to listen to you and to consider what you say as proceeding from her and not from you. But in no case have you any claim to be answered. That is the most I can do towards helping you with your errand. Judge for yourselves whether you will execute it or not." "I will certainly not go away without saying what I have come to say," replied Savelli, fixing his bright, spectacled eyes upon Ghisleri's face. "We are here to represent Donna Adele Savelli--let that be understood, if you please. She wishes you to hand over to us a certain letter, of the nature of a confession, which you found at Gerano about two years and a half ago, and which you still hold." Ghisleri was less surprised than might have been expected. His face grew slowly pale as he listened, steadily returning the speaker's gaze. "I promised you personal immunity from the consequences of what you were about to say," he answered slowly. "It was a rash promise, I find, but I will keep it. You may inform Donna Adele Savelli that although it is commonly said in the world that she has actually lost such a letter as you mention, I have never seen it, nor have I any knowledge of its contents. Further, I demand, as a right, to be told upon what imaginary evidence she ventures to bring such an outrageous accusation against me." The Advocato Grondona smiled, but the two noblemen preserved an unmoved manner. Of the two, Gerano was the more surprised by Ghisleri's answer. He had believed that a letter really existed, and was in the latter's hands, but that it would not prove to have the importance his daughter attached to it. Prince Savelli produced a bundle of papers from his pocket. "I am quite prepared," he said. "I will state my daughter-in-law's case as accurately as I can, and as nearly as possible in her own words, a great part of which I have here, in the form of notes." "It is understood that Donna Adele Savelli is speaking, gentlemen. On that understanding you have my permission to proceed. I will not interrupt you." Savelli began to speak, and, as he had promised, he stated the case as he had heard it from Adele and, on the whole, very much as she had summed it up in her own mind before going to him. Ghisleri sat with folded arms and bent brows, listening to the wonderfully connected chain of false testimony she brought against him, with all the courage and calmness he could command. "Have you done?" he inquired in a voice shaking with anger, when Savelli had finished. "Yes," answered the latter coolly. "I believe that is all." "Then I have to say that a more villanous calumny was never invented to ruin any man. Good morning, gentlemen." He rose, and the three others were obliged to rise also. "And so you positively refuse to give up the letter?" inquired Savelli; there was an angry light in his eyes, too. "I have given you my answer already. Be good enough to convey it to Donna Adele Savelli." "Are you aware, Signore," said the lawyer, stepping in front of his two clients, "that upon such evidence as we possess you are liable to be indicted for an attempt to extort money from the Princess Adele Savelli?" "You are not privileged, like these gentlemen," said Ghisleri, white to the lips. "If you venture to speak again, my servant will silence you. I have already hinted that this interview is ended," he added to Savelli and Gerano. The three went out in silence and left him alone. With characteristic coolness he sat down to recover from the violent shock he had sustained, and to reflect upon his future conduct, before sending for Ubaldini and consulting with him. He had almost expected the demand to restore a document he did not possess, but he was not prepared for the well-constructed story by which Savelli, Gerano, and their lawyer had been persuaded of his guilt. The lawyer's words had placed the whole affair in a light which showed how thoroughly convinced the three men were of the justice of their accusation, and Ghisleri understood well enough that Savelli intended to take legal steps. What those steps might be, Pietro had not the least idea. He rang for Bonifazio and sent him out to buy the Penal Code. It was probably the wisest thing he could do under the circumstances, as he did not even know whether, if he were arrested, he should be admitted to bail or not. He saw well enough that an order for his arrest might very possibly be issued. Grondona was far too grave and learned a lawyer to have uttered such a threat in vain, and was not the man to waste time or words when action was possible. If he had spoken as he had, he had done so for his clients' advantage, in the hope that Ghisleri might be frightened at the last minute into giving up the letter. In that way all publicity and scandal could have been avoided. But it was clear that the die was cast, and that war was declared. More than ever, he was glad that Laura Arden was not in Rome. The thought that if she were present she would necessarily have to follow the course of events little by little, as he must himself, and the certainty that she knew the truth and would feel the keenest sympathy for him, made him rejoice at her absence. When she learned what had taken place, she would know all the circumstances at once, including Ghisleri's proof of his innocence, which, as he felt sure, would be triumphant. In the meantime, she should be kept in ignorance of what was occurring. Having decided this point, he began to think of choosing some person to whom, if he were actually arrested, he might apply for assistance in the matter of obtaining bail. There was no time to be lost, as he was well aware. Since Savelli really believed him guilty of the abominable crime with which he was charged, it was not likely that time would be given him to leave the country, as his adversaries would naturally expect that he would attempt to do. They had probably gone straight from his lodging to the office of the chief of police,--the questore, as he is called in Italy,--and if they succeeded, as in all likelihood they would, in getting a warrant for his arrest, he might expect the warrant to be executed at any moment during the day. It was extremely important that he should be prepared for the worst. He thought of all the men he knew, and after a little hesitation he decided that he would write to San Giacinto. The latter had always been friendly to him, and Pietro remembered how he had spoken at the club, years ago, when Pietrasanta was gossiping about Arden's supposed intemperance. San Giacinto's very great moral weight in the world, due in different degrees to his character, his superior judgment, and his enormous wealth, made him the most desirable of allies. While he was waiting for Bonifazio's return, Ghisleri occupied himself in writing a note advising San Giacinto of the circumstances, and inquiring whether he might ask him for help. The servant returned as he finished, and handed his master the little yellow-covered volume with an expression of inquiry on his face. Ghisleri looked at him and hesitated, debating whether it would be wise to warn the man of what might take place at any moment. There was much friendliness in the relations between the two. Bonifazio had been with Pietro many years and perhaps understood the latter's character better than any one. The servant was almost as unlike other people, in his own way, as Ghisleri himself, and was in two respects a remarkable contrast to him. He was imperturbably good-tempered in the first place, and, in the second, he was extremely devout. But there were resemblances also, and it was for these that Ghisleri liked him. He was honest to a fault. He had more than once proved himself to be coolly courageous in some of his master's dangerous expeditions. Finally, he was discretion itself, and reticent in the highest degree. That such an otherwise perfect creature should have defects was only to be expected. Bonifazio was as obstinate as flint when he had made up his mind as to how any particular thing was to be done. He was silently officious, in his anxiety to be always ready to fulfil his master's wishes, and often annoyed him in small ways by thrusting services upon him which he did not require. On rare occasions he would insist upon giving very useless and uncalled-for advice. Faithful and devoted in every way, he wholly disapproved, on religious grounds, of Ghisleri's mode of life, even so far as he was acquainted with it. He considered that Pietro lived and had lived for many years in seven-fold deadly sin, and he daily offered up the most sincere prayers for Pietro's repentance and reformation. Twice a year, also, he privately presented the parish priest with a small charity out of his savings, requesting him to say a mass for Ghisleri's benefit. Obstinate in this as in everything else, he firmly believed that his master's soul might ultimately be saved by sheer prayer-power, so to say. These last facts, of course, did not come within Ghisleri's knowledge, for Bonifazio made no outward show of pious interest in Pietro's spiritual welfare, well knowing that he could not keep his situation an hour, if he were so unwise as to risk anything of the kind. But his silent disapproval showed itself in his mournful expression when Pietro had done anything which struck him as more than usually wicked and wild. The question of informing him that the police might be expected at any moment was not in itself a serious one. He would assuredly disbelieve the whole story, and vigorously deny the accusation when acquainted with both. Ghisleri determined to say nothing and immediately sent him out again with the note for San Giacinto. He then took up the Penal Code, and found the article referring to the misdeed of which he was accused. It read as follows: ART 409. Whosoever, by in any way inspiring fear of severe injury to the person, the honour, or the property of another, or by falsely representing the order of an Authority, constrains that other to send, deposit, or place at the disposal of the delinquent money, objects, or documents having any legal import whatsoever, is punished with imprisonment for a term of from two to ten years. The law was clear enough. With regard to bail, he discovered with some difficulty that in such cases it could be obtained immediately, either on depositing the sum of money considered requisite according to circumstances, or by the surety of one or more well-known persons. San Giacinto answered the note by appearing in person. When he undertook anything, he generally proceeded to the scene of action at once to ascertain for himself the true state of the case. Ghisleri explained matters as succinctly as possible. "You will hardly believe that such things can be done in our day," he said as he concluded. "I have seen enough in my time, and amongst my own near connexions, to know that almost anything conceivable may happen," answered the giant. "Meanwhile I shall not leave you until the police come, or until we know definitely that they are not coming. My carriage is below and has orders to wait all day and all night." "You do not mean to say you really intend to stay with me?" asked Ghisleri, who was not prepared for such a manifestation of friendship. "That is my intention," replied the other, calmly lighting a long black cigar. "If it lasts long, I will sleep on your sofa. If, however, you prefer that I should go to Savelli and make him tell me what he intends to do, I am quite ready. I think I could make him tell me." "I think you could," said Ghisleri, with a smile, as he looked at his friend. The huge, giant strength of the man was imposing in itself, apart from the terribly determined look of the iron features and deep-set eyes. Few men would have cared to find themselves opposed to San Giacinto even when he was perfectly calm, hardly any, perhaps, if his anger was roused. The last time he had been angry had been when he dragged the forger, Arnoldo Meschini, from the library to the study in Palazzo Montevarchi more than twenty years earlier. His hair was turning grey now, but there were no outward signs of any diminution in his powers, physical or mental. "In any case," he said, "some time must elapse. It will need the greater part of the day to get a warrant of arrest." Ghisleri would have been glad to end his suspense by allowing his friend to go directly to Savelli, as he had proposed to do. But considering what he had already shown himself ready to do, Pietro did not wish to involve him in the affair any further than necessary. "Is it of any use to send for my lawyer?" asked Ghisleri, well aware of San Giacinto's superior experience in all legal matters. "There is not the least hurry," answered the latter. "If the affair is brought to trial, there will be time enough and to spare. But if it amuses you, let us have the man here and ask his opinion. It can do no harm." Accordingly Ubaldini was sent for. He looked very grave when Ghisleri had repeated all that Savelli had told him. "But the mere fact that I consulted you when I did," said Ghisleri, "and had copies of my answers made, ought to prove at once that I knew even then what Donna Adele wished to attempt." But Ubaldini only shrugged his shoulders. "That will be against you," answered San Giacinto. "It will be said that you were well aware of what you were doing, and that you were taking precautions in case of exposure. Even if Lady Herbert were here to give evidence, it would not help you much. After all, Donna Adele's story about the seamstress is plausible, and Lady Herbert took your explanation on faith." "Lady Herbert shall not be called as a witness, if I can help it," said Ghisleri. "It is bad enough that her name should appear at all." "The difficulty," observed Ubaldini, "is that every point can be turned against you from first to last. I am afraid that even my little stratagem has done no good. I wished to find out whether the confession really existed, and I thought it best that you should be in ignorance of the steps I took and of the result I obtained, in case you should be called upon to swear to anything in a possible action brought by you for defamation. The less an innocent man knows of the facts of a case, when he is on his oath, the better it generally turns out for him. The first thing to be done is to find the dealer with whom you negotiated for the purchase of the manuscript. His evidence will be the strongest we can get. Of course, even to that they will answer that you would not be so foolish as to write what looked like an account of a genuine transaction without lending an air of truth to it, in case of necessity, by actually making inquiries about it. If it is found that the prices named in your letters agree with those asked by the dealer, they will say that you cleverly chose a very valuable work, and determined to be guided by the value of it, in appraising the letter you held. If the prices did not agree, they would say that even if the transaction were genuine, you had conducted it dishonestly; but then, as a matter of fact, the discovery was a good proof that it was a mere sham. Of course, too, you will have friends, like the Signor Marchese here present, who will swear to your previous character; but you must not forget that in a case like this the great body of educated public and social opinion is with the woman rather than the man." "In other words," said Ghisleri, with a laugh, "I am to stand my trial for extortion, and am very likely to be convicted. You are not very encouraging, Signor Ubaldini, but I suppose you will find a word to say in my defence before everything is over." "I will do my best," answered the young lawyer, thoughtfully. "I would like to know where this confession is. One thing is quite certain: if it had got into the hands of a dishonest person, Donna Adele would have heard of it before now, and would have tried to buy it, as she did try to get it from the maid Lucia, according to her own account, and from me. In the meanwhile, I will go and examine the dealer. Will you kindly give me his name and address." Ghisleri wrote both on a card and Ubaldini went away. Before Ghisleri and San Giacinto had been alone together half an hour, he came back, looking rather pale and excited. "It is most unfortunate," he exclaimed. "The devil is certainly in this business. The man was buried yesterday. He died of apoplexy two days ago." "Nothing surpasses the stupidity of that!" cried San Giacinto, angrily. "Why could not the idiot have lived a fortnight longer?" Ghisleri said nothing, but he saw what importance both his friend and the lawyer had attached to the dead man's testimony. There was little hope that his clerk would be able to say anything in Ghisleri's favour. He had of course only spoken with the dealer himself, generally in a private room and without witnesses. He began to fear that his case was even worse than he had at first supposed. "The best possible defence, in my opinion," said Ubaldini, "is to tell your own story and compare it, inch by inch, with theirs. I believe that, after all, yours will seem by far the more probable in the eyes of any court of justice. Then we will question Donna Adele's sanity, and bring a couple of celebrated authorities to prove that people who use morphia often go mad and have fixed ideas. Donna Adele's delusion is that you are the possessor of her confession. If we cannot prove that it has been all this time in the hands of some one else, we may at least be able to show that there is no particular reason why it should have been in yours, that you are certainly not in need of fifty thousand francs, and that, so far as any one knows, you are not the man to try and get it in this way if you were. We will do the best we can. I got a man off scot free the other day who had murdered his brother in the presence of three witnesses. I proved that one was half-witted, that the second was drunk, and that the third could not possibly have been present at all, because he ought to have been somewhere else. That was a much harder case than this. The jury shed tears of pity for my ill-used client." "I will do without the tears," said Ghisleri, with a smile, "provided they will see the truth this time." San Giacinto kept his word, and refused to leave Ghisleri's lodging that night, sending Bonifazio to his house for clothes and necessaries, and ordering fresh horses and another coachman and footman to replace those that had waited all day. He distinctly objected to cabs, he said, because they were always too small for him; and if Ghisleri was to be arrested, he intended to drive with him to the prison in order to give bail for him immediately. And so he did. On the following day Rome was surprised by a spectacle unique in the recollection of its inhabitants, high or low. The largest of the large open carriages belonging to Casa San Giacinto was seen rolling solemnly through the city, bearing Pietro Ghisleri, the Marchese di San Giacinto himself, and two policemen, who looked very uncomfortable as they sat, bolt upright, side by side, with their backs to the horses. A few hours later, the same carriage appeared again, Pietro and the giant being still in it, but without the officers of the law. San Giacinto insisted upon driving his friend six times round the Villa Borghese, six times round the Pincio, and four times the length of the Corso, before taking him back at last to his lodgings. "It will produce a good effect," he said; "most people are fools or cowards, or both, and imitation as a rule needs neither courage nor wisdom. Come and dine with us to-morrow night, and I will have a party ready for you who do not belong to the majority. I shall go to the club now and give an account of the day's doings." "Why not wait and let people find out for themselves what has happened?" asked Pietro. "Will it do any good to talk of it?" "Since people must talk or die," answered San Giacinto, "I am of opinion that they had better tell the truth than invent lies." When he was gone Ghisleri wondered what had impelled him to take so much trouble. It would have been quite enough if he had appeared at the right moment to give security for him, and that alone would have been a very valuable service. But San Giacinto had done much more, for his action had shown the world from the first that he intended to take Ghisleri's side. The latter, who was always surprised when any one showed anything approaching to friendship for him, was exceedingly grateful, and determined that he would not in future laugh at the idea of spontaneous human kindness without motive, as he had often laughed in the past. Meanwhile San Giacinto went to his club. A score of men were lounging in the rooms, and most of them had been talking of the new scandal, though in a rather guarded way, for no one wished to quarrel either with Ghisleri or his ally. On seeing the latter go to the smoking-room, almost every one in the club followed him, out of curiosity, in the hope that he would give some explanation of what had occurred. They were not disappointed. San Giacinto stood with his back to the fireplace, looking at each face that presented itself before him. "Gentlemen," he began: "I see that you expect me to say something. I will. I do not wish to offend any one; but, with the exception of all of ourselves here assembled, most people tell lies, consciously or unconsciously, when they do not know the truth, and sometimes when they do, which is worse. So I mean to tell you the truth about my driving with Ghisleri and two policemen to-day, and the reason why I have been driving with him all the afternoon. After that you may believe what you like about the matter. The facts are these. Yesterday Ghisleri wrote me a note telling me that he expected shortly to be arrested on a charge of extortion and asking if I would be bail for him. That is what I have done. The accusation comes from Casa Savelli, and declares that for two years and a half Ghisleri has had possession of that letter belonging to Donna Adele which she wrote to her confessor, which was lost on the way, and of which we have all heard vague hints for some time. Casa Savelli says that Ghisleri has been trying to make her pay money for it, and has otherwise made her life unbearable to her by means of it. There are letters of Ghisleri's referring to the manuscript of Isabella Montevarchi's confession which was for sale this autumn, and Casa Savelli says that this manuscript was spoken of in order to disguise the real transaction contemplated. Ghisleri says it is a plot to ruin him, and that he has been aware of it ever since last spring. Meanwhile he has actually been arrested and I have given bail for him. That is the story. I drove about with him this afternoon to show that I, for my part, take his side, and believe him to be perfectly innocent. That is what I had to say. I am obliged to you for having listened so patiently." As he turned to go away, not caring for any further discussion at the time, he was aware that a dark man of medium height, with very broad shoulders and fierce, black eyes, was standing beside him, facing the crowd. "I am entirely of San Giacinto's opinion," said Gianforte Campodonico, in clear tones. "I believe Ghisleri utterly incapable of any such baseness. Donna Adele Savelli is a relation of mine, but I will stand by Ghisleri in this, come what may. I hope that no one will have the audacity to propose any action of the club in the case, such as requesting him to withdraw, until after the trial." "But when a man is indicted for crime, and has been arrested--" began some one in the crowd. "I said," repeated Gianforte, interrupting the speaker in a hard and menacing voice, "that I hoped no one would have the audacity to propose that the club should take any action in the case. I hope I have made myself clearly understood." Such was the character and reputation of Campodonico that the man who had begun to speak did not attempt to proceed, not so much from timidity, perhaps, as because he felt that in the end two men like Gianforte and San Giacinto must carry public opinion with them. As they stood side by side before the fireplace, they were as strong and determined a pair of champions as any one could have wished to have. "You are quite right," said San Giacinto, in an approving tone. "Of course I have neither the power nor the right to prevent discussion. Every one will talk about this case and the trial, and as it is a public affair every one has a right to do so, I suppose. I only wish it to be known that I believe Ghisleri innocent, and I am glad to see that Campodonico, who knows him very well, is of my opinion." After this there was nothing more to be said, and the crowd dispersed, talking together in low tones. The two men who had undertaken Ghisleri's defence remained together. San Giacinto looked down at his young companion, and his stern face softened strangely. A certain kind of manly courage and generosity was the only thing that ever really touched him. "I am glad to see that there are still men in the world," he said. "Will you have a game of billiards?" The first result of this was that there was relatively very little talk about Ghisleri among the men when they were together. It is probable that both San Giacinto and Campodonico would have spoken precisely as they did, if all the assembled tribe of Savelli and Gerano had been present to hear them; and when the two families heard what had been said, they were very angry indeed. Unfortunately for them, nothing could be done. As San Giacinto had rightly put it, the trial was to be a public affair, and every one had a right to his own opinion. But there were not wanting those who sided with the Savelli, for though Ghisleri had few enemies, if any, besides Adele, yet there were many who were jealous of him for his social successes, and who disliked his calm air of superiority. The story became the constant topic of conversation in most of the Roman families, and many who had for years received Ghisleri immediately determined that they would be very cautious and cool until he should prove his innocence to the world. He himself, during the days which followed, saw much of San Giacinto, who told him what Campodonico had said at the club. CHAPTER XXVIII. When Laura Arden returned to Rome, she was met by her mother with a full account of what had taken place. Under any ordinary circumstances the Princess of Gerano would have been very merciful in her judgment and would assuredly not have hastened to give her daughter every detail of the last great scandal. But she had never liked Ghisleri, and she had feared that Laura was falling in love with him, and he with Laura. Moreover, neither her love for her own child nor Adele's shortcomings had destroyed all her affection for the latter, and under her husband's influence she had lately come to look upon Ghisleri as a monster of iniquity and on Adele as little less than a martyr. She spared Laura nothing as she told the story, and was unconsciously guilty of considerable exaggeration in explaining the view the world in general took of the case, though that was bad enough at best. Laura's dark eyes flashed with indignation as she listened. "I do not believe a word of this story, mother," she said. "As for the part I am supposed to have played in it, you had better know the truth at once. When I got those letters, I sent for Signor Ghisleri, and gave them to him. We knew at once that they came from Adele herself." She told her mother exactly what had occurred, and how she had believed in him then, and should believe in him still. The Princess sighed and shook her head. "There is very little left to believe in, my dear," she said, "trustful though you are, to a fault. I hope you will at all events not receive him until after the trial. Indeed, it will be quite impossible--I am sure you would not think of it. If he has any sense of decency left, he will not call." "I will not only receive him," answered Laura, without hesitation: "whenever he chooses to come, but if he does not come of his own accord, I will make him. What is the use of friendship, if it will not bear any test?" "I suppose it is of no use to discuss the matter," said the Princess, wearily. "You will do as you please. I do not recognise you any longer." As soon as her mother was gone, Laura wrote a note to Pietro, telling him that she had heard all the story, that she believed in him as firmly as ever, and begging him to come and see her on the following day at the usual hour. The last words dropped from her pen naturally. It seemed but yesterday that they had spoken of meeting "at the usual hour" on the morrow of the day after that. Ghisleri's heart beat faster as he broke the seal, and when he came to the words he was conscious that its beating annoyed him. He knew, now, that he loved her well, as he had loved but once before in his life. But he determined that he would not go and see her. He blessed her for believing in his innocence, but there were many strong reasons against his going to her house, or even seeing her. Merely on general grounds he would have kept away, while under the accusation which hung over him, as even the Princess of Gerano had anticipated that he would, and feeling as he did that he loved her in good earnest, it would have seemed absolutely dishonourable to renew their former relations until he had cleared himself. He wrote her a short note. "MY DEAR FRIEND:--I am deeply touched by your wishing to see me, and I am more than ever grateful for your friendship and for the faith you have in me. But I will not come to you at present. I am accused of a crime worse than most crimes, in my opinion, and the world is by no means altogether on my side. When I have cleared myself publicly, I will come and thank you--if I can find words for the thanks you deserve. "Most gratefully and faithfully, "PIETRO GHISLERI." He was not prepared for the answer which came within the hour in the shape of a second note, short, vigorous, and decisive. It seemed hard to realise that the sweet, dark woman with deep, holy eyes, as he had once described her, could be the writer of such determined words. "MY DEAR SIGNOR GHISLERI:--I care for the world and its opinion much less than you do for my sake, or than you suppose I do for myself. I mean to see you, and to have it known that I see you, and I will. If you are not here to-morrow at precisely one o'clock I will go to your lodgings and wait for you if you are out. People may say what they please. "Ever yours sincerely, "LAURA ARDEN." Ghisleri read the note over several times, to be quite sure that he had not misunderstood it, and then burned it, as he had always burned everything in the nature of writing until his last difficulties had begun. He saw that Laura had forced the situation, and he knew her well enough not to doubt that she would execute her threat to the letter, and wait for him, watch in hand, on the morrow. He hated himself for being glad, for he knew that the world she despised would give her little credit for her generous act. Yet, in spite of his self-contempt, he was happy. Five minutes before one o'clock on the next day he rang at her door. She had returned as usual to the small apartment she had occupied since leaving the Tempietto. He found her dressed for walking, all in black, and looking at the clock. As he entered she turned and laughed happily. There was a faint colour in her cheeks too. "I knew you would not let me ruin my reputation for the sake of your obstinacy," she said, as she came forward to meet him. "In four minutes I would have left the house." She grasped his hand warmly as she spoke. "No," he said, "I could not have done that. What ways you have of forcing people to obey you! But you are very wrong; I still maintain that." "Sit down," she said, "and let us talk of more interesting things. I must hear the whole story from your own lips, though I am sure my mother did her best to be quite truthful; but she does not understand you and never will, as I begin to think." "Tell me first how you are, and about Herbert," said Ghisleri. "You will hear quite enough of this miserable affair. It will keep a day or two." "It need not keep so long as that," answered Laura, "I can tell you the news in a few words. I am perfectly well. Herbert is perfectly well too, thank God, and has outgrown his clothes twice and his shoes four times since we have been away. Since I last wrote great things have happened. I have been in England again at last, and have stayed with the Lulworths. You see I am in mourning. Uncle Herbert died a month ago. I never saw the old gentleman but once, for he lived in the most extraordinary way, in complete isolation. You know that--well, he is dead, and he has left all the fortune to my Herbert, with a life interest in one-quarter of it for me, besides an enormous allowance for Herbert's education. That is all there is to tell." "It is good news indeed," said Ghisleri. "I am so glad. It will make an immense difference to you, though of course you have known of it a long time." "It will not make so much difference as you fancy. I shall go on living much as I do, for I have had almost all I wanted in these years. But I am glad for Herbert's sake, of course. And now begin, please, and do not stop until you have told me everything." "Needs must, when you will anything," Ghisleri answered, with a faint smile. So he told her the story, while she listened and watched him. She had developed in strength and decision during the last year, more rapidly than before, and he felt in speaking to her as though she had power to help him and would use it. He was grateful, and more than grateful. Within the last few weeks he had learned that the strongest and most determined men may sometimes need a friend. He had long had one in her, and he had found a new one in San Giacinto; but though the latter's imposing personality had more influence in the world than that of any man Ghisleri knew, there was that in Laura's sympathy which gave him a new strength of his own, and fresh courage to face the many troubles he expected to encounter before long. For man gets no such strength in life to do great deeds or to bear torments sudden and sharp or mean, little and harassing, as he gets from the woman he loves, even though he does not yet know that she loves him again. "I hope I do not take my own side too much," he said, as he ended the long tale, "though I suppose that when a man is perfectly innocent he has a right to say hard things of people who accuse him. For my own part, I believe that Donna Adele is mad. There is the ingenuity of madness in everything she does in this affair. No sane person could invent such a story almost out of nothing, and make half the world believe it." "She may be mad," Laura answered, "but she is bad, too. It will all come out at the trial, and she will get what she deserves." "I hope so. But do you know what I really expect? Unless it can be proved that the confession has been all the time in the safe keeping of some person who has not even read it, I shall be convicted and imprisoned. I am quite prepared for that. I suppose that will come to me by way of expiation for my sins." "Please do not talk like that," cried Laura. "It is absurd! There is no court in the world that would convict you--a perfectly innocent man. Besides I shall give my evidence about those letters. I shall insist upon it. That alone would be enough to clear you." "I am afraid not. Even my lawyer thinks that your testimony would not help me much. After all, you know what happened. I told you that I was innocent, and you believed me. Or, if you please, you believed me innocent before I said I was. There is only your belief or my word to fall back upon, and neither would prove anything in court. Ubaldini says so. I really expect to be convicted, and I will bear it as well as I can. I will certainly not do anything to escape from it all." He had hesitated as he reached the last words, but he saw that Laura understood. "You should not even think of such things," she said gravely. "You are far too brave a man to take your own life even if you were convicted, and you shall not be. I tell you that you shall not be!" she repeated, with sudden energy. "No one can tell. But I am inclined to think that if you were angry you might terrify judge and jury into doing whatever you pleased." He laughed a little. "You have grown so strong of late that I hardly recognise you. What has made the change?" "Something--I cannot explain it to you. Besides--was I ever a weak woman? Did I ever hesitate much?" "No, that is true. Perhaps I did not use the right word. You seem more active, more alive, more determined to influence other people." "Do I? It may be true. I fancy I am less saint-like in your opinion than I was. I am glad of it. You used to think me quite different from what I was. But I know that I have changed during this summer. I feel it now." "So have I. The change began before you went away." Ghisleri glanced at her, and then looked at the wall. A short silence followed. Both felt strangely conscious that their former relation had not been renewed exactly where it had been interrupted by their separation in the summer. But there was nothing awkward about the present break in the conversation. "In what way have you changed?" asked Laura at last. She had evidently been thinking of his words during the pause. "Indeed I should find it hard to tell you now," Ghisleri answered, with a smile at the thought uppermost in his mind. "I would rather not try." "Is it for the worse, then?" Laura's eyes sought his. "No. It is for the better. Perhaps, some day, if all this turns out less badly--" He stopped, angry with himself for having said even that much. "Shall you have more confidence in me when the trial is over?" asked Laura, leaning back and looking down. "Have I shown that I believe in you, or not, to-day?" Had she known what was so near his lips to say, she might not have spoken. "You have done what few women would have done. You know that I know it. If I will not say what I am thinking of, it is for that very reason." His fingers clasped each other and unclasped again with a sharp, nervous movement. "I am sorry you do not trust me altogether," said Laura. "Please do not say that. I do trust you altogether. But I respect you too. Will you forgive me if I go away rather suddenly?" He rose as he spoke and held out his hand. "You are not ill, are you?" Laura stood up, looking anxiously into his face. Unconsciously she had taken his hand in both of her own. "No--I am not ill. Good-bye!" "Come to-morrow, please. I want to see you often. Promise to come to-morrow." Her tone was imperative, and he knew that she had the power to force him to compliance. He yielded out of necessity, and left her. When he was in the street he stood still a few moments, leaning upon his stick as though he were exhausted. His face was white. Oddly enough, what he felt recalled an accident which had once happened to him. On a calm, hot day, several years earlier, he had been slowly sailing along a southern shore. The heat had been intense, and he had thrown himself into the water to get a little coolness, holding by a rope, and allowing himself to be towed along under the side of the boat. Then one of the men called to him loudly to come aboard as quickly as he could. As he reached the deck, the straight black fin of a big shark glided smoothly by. He could remember the shadow it cast on the bright blue water, and the sensation he experienced when he saw how near he had unconsciously been to a hideous death. Like many brave but very sensitive men, he had turned pale when the danger was quite past and had felt for one moment something like physical exhaustion. The same feeling overtook him now as he paused on the pavement before the house in which Laura Arden lived. An instant later he was walking rapidly homeward. At the corner of a street he came suddenly upon Gianforte Campodonico. Both men raised their hats almost at the same moment, for their relations were necessarily maintained upon rather formal terms. Ghisleri owed his old adversary a debt of gratitude for his conduct at the club, but a rather exaggerated sense of delicacy hindered Pietro from stopping and speaking with him in the street. Campodonico, however, would not let him pass on and stood still as Ghisleri came up to him. "I wish to thank you with all my heart for the generous way in which you have spoken of me," said Ghisleri, grasping the other's ready outstretched hand. "You have nothing to thank me for," replied Gianforte. "Knowing you to be a perfectly honourable and honest man, I should have been a coward if I had held my tongue. You have a good friend in San Giacinto, and I suppose I cannot be of much use to you. But if I can, send for me. I shall never like you perhaps, but I will stand by you, because I respect you as much as any man living." "I thank you sincerely," said Ghisleri, pressing his hand again. "You are very generous." "No, but I try to be just." They parted, and Ghisleri pursued his way, meditating on the contradictions of life, and wondering why at the most critical moment of his existence the one man who had come forward unasked and of his own free impulse to defend him publicly and to offer his help, should be his oldest and most implacable enemy. He was profoundly conscious of the man's generosity. The world, he said to himself, might not be such a bad place after all. But he did not guess how soon he was to need the assistance so freely proffered. He went home at once. Bonifazio closed the door behind him and followed him respectfully into the sitting-room. "I beg pardon, signore," he began, standing still as he waited for Ghisleri to turn and look at him. "Do you need money?" asked the latter carelessly. "No, signore. You have perhaps forgotten that you gave me money yesterday. It is something which I have had upon my conscience a long time, and now that you are falsely accused, signore, it is my duty to speak, if you permit me." "Tell me what it is." Ghisleri sat down at his writing-table, and lit a cigarette. "It is a very secret matter, signore. But if I keep it a secret any longer, I shall be doing wrong, though I also did wrong in coming by the information I have, though I did not know it. I have also been to a lawyer who understands these matters, and takes an interest in the case, and he has told me that unless some saint performs a miracle nothing can save you at the trial. So that I must give my evidence. But if I do, the Princess Adele will go to the galleys, and the house of Savelli will be quite ruined. For the Princess murdered Lord Herbert Arden, and tried to murder Donna Laura, as we call her. She invited them to dinner and gave them napkins which she with her own hand had poisoned with infection of the scarlet fever, her maid Lucia having had it at the time. And Lord Herbert died within three days, but Donna Laura did not catch it. And I have read how she did this, and many other wicked things, in a letter written with her own hand. For it was I who found the confession they speak of, when I went alone to look at the old prisons at Gerano, while you and the signori were out driving. And now I do not know what to do, but I had to speak in order to save you, and you must judge of the rest, signore, and pardon me if I have done wrong." Ghisleri knew the truth at last, and his lean, weather-beaten face expressed well enough the thirst for vengeance that burned him. He waited a few moments and then spoke calmly enough. "Have you got the confession here?" he asked. "If it is found in my house it will ruin me, though it may ruin Donna Adele too." "I understand, signore. Have no fear. I read it through, because I found it open and the leaves scattered as it must have fallen, though how it fell there I do not know. But it is still at Gerano. If you will allow me, I will explain what I did. When I had read it, I put it into my pocket, saying to myself that it was a difficult case for the conscience. And I thought about it for more than an hour while I walked about the castle. Then I went and got an envelope and I put the leaves into it thinking that perhaps it would be wrong to burn it. So I wrote on the outside: 'This was found in the prison of the castle of Gerano by Bonifazio di Rienzo,' and I also wrote the date in full. Then at the tobacconist's shop in the village I bought some wax, and took a seal I have, which is this one, signore. It has 'B.R.' on it. And I sealed the letter with much wax, so that the tobacconist laughed at me. But I did not let him see what was written on the envelope. Then I took it to the parish priest whose name is Don Tebaldo, and who seemed to me to be a very respectable and good man. I told him in confidence that I had found something which it was not possible for me to give to the rightful owner, but which I thought it would be wrong to destroy, because the rightful owner might some day make inquiry for it and wish to have it. He asked many questions, but I would not answer them all, and he did not know what the letter was about nor that it was a confession. So I begged him to put it into another envelope and to seal it again with his own seal, and I gave him what was left of the wax I had bought. Then he did as I asked him, and wrote on the back: 'This was brought to me to be kept, by one Bonifazio di Rienzo, until the owner claims it. But it is to be burned when I die.' And there it is to this day, for I have made inquiries and Don Tebaldo is alive and well, and God bless him! So I come to tell you all this, in order that you may act as you see fit, signore. For Don Tebaldo can swear that I gave him the letter on the day I found it and I can swear that you never knew anything of it." Ghisleri looked at his faithful old servant, whose round brown eyes met his so steadily and quietly. "I can never thank you enough, my dear Bonifazio," he said. "You have saved me. I will not forget it." "As for that, signore, I will not accept any present, and I humbly beg you not to offer me any, for it would be the price of blood, such as Judas Iscariot received, seeing that the Princess Adele will go to the galleys." "You need not be afraid of that, Bonifazio," answered Ghisleri. "Casa Savelli will easily prove that she was mad, as I believe she is, and she will end her life in a lunatic asylum. But you must not bring either Don Tebaldo or the letter here. Go at once to the Marchese di San Giacinto and tell him exactly what you have told me, and that I sent you. He will know what to do. Take money with you and execute his orders exactly without returning here, no matter what they are. I can do without you for a week if necessary, and I wish to know nothing of the matter until it is over." "Yes, signore," answered Bonifazio, and without more words he left the room and went directly to San Giacinto's house. The latter received him in his study, and listened to his story with calm attention. Then, without making any remark, he smoked nearly half a cigar, while Bonifazio stood motionless, respectfully watching him. Then he rang the bell, and gave the man who answered it instructions to order out a sort of mail-cart he used for driving himself, and the strongest horses in the stable. "You must come with me," he said to Bonifazio. "We can be back before midnight." Then he began to write rapidly. He wrote a note to his cousin, the Prince of Sant' Ilario, another to Gianforte Campodonico, and then a rather longer one to Savelli. In the last mentioned, he informed the Prince that he would appear on the morrow, with Campodonico and Sant' Ilario, and that he desired to be received by Savelli himself in the presence of Francesco and Adele, as he had a communication of the highest importance to make. In his usual hard way he managed to convey the impression that it would be decidedly the worse for the whole house of Savelli and for Adele in particular if his request were not complied with to the letter. By the time he had finished a servant announced that the carriage was waiting. San Giacinto thrust a handful of black cigars and a box of matches into his outer pocket. "Come," he said to Bonifazio, "I am ready. It is a long drive to Gerano." It was nearly three o'clock in the afternoon when they started, and the days were very short and the weather threatening. But the horses were splendid animals, and there were few roads between Rome and the Abbruzzi which San Giacinto did not know well. He was acting as he always did, swiftly, surely, and in person, trusting to no one, and making himself alone responsible for the result. Before one o'clock in the morning he was back, bringing with him a mild and timid old priest, muffled in a horse blanket against the bitter wind. But the sealed packet containing Adele Savelli's confession was in his own pocket. On his table he found three notes, which satisfied him that everything would take place as he had hastily planned it before his departure. Campodonico expressed his readiness to serve Ghisleri in any way, Sant' Ilario said that he was ready to support San Giacinto in anything he undertook, though he had never been intimate with Ghisleri, who was much younger than he. Savelli answered coldly that he would receive the three men as requested, adding that he hoped the communication would prove to be of such importance as to justify putting his daughter-in-law to the inconvenience which any prolonged interview caused her in her present state of ill-health. San Giacinto smiled rather grimly. He did not think that his visit to Casa Savelli need be a very long one. Before he went to bed, he debated whether he should send word to Gerano to be present also, but he ultimately decided not to do so. It seemed useless to make Adele's father witness his daughter's humiliation, though he meant not to spare either Savelli or his son. Towards Adele he was absolutely pitiless. It was his nature. If she had been dying, he would have found means to make her listen to what he had to say. If she had been at the very last gasp he would have forced his way to her bedside to say it. He was by no means a man without faults. Meanwhile Ghisleri was pacing his room in solitude, reflecting on the sudden change in all the prospects of the future, and wondering how matters would be managed, but feeling himself perfectly safe in San Giacinto's hands, and well understanding that he was not to be informed of what had happened until all was over. That San Giacinto would face all the assembled Savelli and force them then and there to withdraw all charges against Ghisleri, the latter was sure, and, on the whole, he was glad that he was not to witness their discomfiture. But it was not only of his being in one moment cleared of every accusation that he thought. The consequences to himself were enormous. He remembered the sickening horror he had felt that afternoon when he realised how nearly he had told Laura that he loved her. In four and twenty hours there would be nothing to hinder him from speaking out what filled his heart. If he chose to do so, he might even now write to her and tell her what he had struggled so hard to hide when they had been face to face. But he was not the man to write when there was a possibility of speaking, nor to trust to the black and white of ink and paper to say for him what he could say better for himself. Then the old doubt came back, and he spent a night of strange self-questioning and much useless moral torment. Was this the last, the very last of his loves? He remembered how a little less than three years earlier he had bid good-bye to Maddalena dell' Armi, saying to himself that he could never again feel his heart beat at a woman's voice, nor his face turn pale with passion for a woman's kiss. And now he loved again, perhaps with little hope of seeing his love returned, but with the mad desire to stake his fate upon one cast, and win or lose all for ever. He had never felt that irresistible longing before, not even when he had first loved Bianca Corleone in his early days. Then, it was true, he had been very young, and Bianca had not been like Laura. She had been young herself as he was, and had loved him from the first, almost without hiding it. There had been little need for words on either side, for love told his own tale plainly. Yet it seemed to him now that if he had then thought Bianca as cold as he had reason to believe that Laura was, he might have resigned himself to his fate at the beginning--he might not have found the strength he now had to risk such a defeat as perhaps waited him, to run any danger, now that he was free, rather than live in suspense another day. CHAPTER XXIX. Sant' Ilario and Gianforte Campodonico rang at San Giacinto's door half an hour before the time the latter had appointed for his descent upon Casa Savelli. He had not explained the situation in the hurried notes he had written them on the previous day, and they did not know what was to take place. "It is very simple," said San Giacinto, coolly. "The whole story was a lie from beginning to end, as I always believed. The confession was found at Gerano and deposited with the parish priest under seal on the same day. I went to Gerano and brought the priest and the letter back. Here it is, if you wish to see the outside of it, and the priest is waiting in the next room. This is the document which Donna Adele will have signed an hour hence." He produced a sheet of stamped paper from the drawer of his writing-table and read aloud what was written upon it, as follows: "I, the undersigned, being in full possession of my faculties, and free of my will, hereby publicly withdraw each and every one of the accusations I have made, publicly or privately, either in my own person or through my father, the Prince of Gerano, or my father-in-law, Prince Savelli, my husband, Francesco, Prince Savelli, or through any other persons purporting to represent me, against Pietro Nobile Ghisleri; and I declare upon my oath before God that there is not and never was any truth whatsoever in any one of the said accusations upon which the said Pietro Nobile Ghisleri was unjustly arrested and accused of extortion under Article 409 of the Penal Code. And I further declare that the letters of his which I hold do and did refer directly to the purchase of the manuscript writings of Donna Isabella Montevarchi which were at that time for sale, and to no other manuscript or writing whatsoever; and further, I declare that no such person as 'Maria B.' was ever known to me, but that I wrote the letters received from 'Maria B.' by Lady Herbert Arden, and that I withdrew her answers myself from the general post-office. And if I have done anything else to strengthen the false accusation against the said Pietro Nobile Ghisleri such as may hereafter come to light, this present retraction and denial shall be held to cover it by anticipation. And hereunto I set my hand and seal in the presence of Don Giovanni Saracinesca, Prince of Sant' Ilario, of Don Giovanni Saracinesca, Marchese di San Giacinto, and of Don Gianforte Campodonico di Norba, who in my presence and in the presence of each other are witnesses of this act." San Giacinto ceased reading, and looked at his two companions. Campodonico was grave, but Sant' Ilario smiled. "If you can make her sign that, you are stronger than I supposed, Giovanni," said the latter. "So it seems to me," said Gianforte. "I do not think she will offer much resistance," answered San Giacinto, quietly pocketing the confession and the document he had just read. "I suppose what I am going to do is unscrupulous, but I do not think that Donna Adele has shown any uncommon delicacy of feeling in this little affair. Let us go and see whether she has any objection to signing her name." Don Tebaldo, the priest, and Bonifazio followed the three gentlemen in a cab to the Palazzo Savelli, and all five went up the grand staircase together. Neither Don Tebaldo nor the servant had received any instructions beyond being told that if they were called into the room when the reading took place, they were to answer truthfully any questions which might be put to them. Prince Savelli met them all in an outer drawing-room, the same indeed in which poor Herbert Arden had talked with Francesco a few days before his death. He was coldly courteous to San Giacinto, but greeted the others somewhat more warmly. "May I ask what the nature of your communication is?" he inquired of the former. "I prefer to explain it in the presence of Donna Adele, as it concerns her directly," answered San Giacinto: "It is useless to tell a story twice." The extremely high and mighty head of all the Savelli stared up at the giant through his big spectacles. He was not at all used to being treated with so little consideration. But the other was a match for him, and stood carelessly waiting for the master of the house to lead the way. "Considering whom you represent," said the Prince, "your manner is somewhat imperative." San Giacinto's heavy brows bent in an ominous frown, and Savelli found it impossible to meet the gaze of the hard, deep-set eyes for more than a few seconds. "I represent an innocent man, whom you and yours are trying to ruin. As for my manners, they were learned in an inn and not in Casa Savelli. I shall be obliged if you will lead the way." Sant' Ilario suppressed a smile. He had seen his strong cousin in more than one such encounter, but he had never seen any one resist him long. Savelli did not reply, but turned and went before them and opened the door. They passed through another drawing-room and through a third, and then found themselves in Adele's boudoir. She was seated in a deep chair near the fire, warming her transparent hands at the flame. Her face was exactly of the colour of the yellow ashes of certain kinds of wood. It seemed impossible that any human being could be so thin as she seemed, and live. But there was yet some strength left, and her strong will, aided by the silent but insane satisfaction she felt in Ghisleri's ruin, kept her still in a sort of animation which was sometimes almost like her old activity. She had, of course, been warned of the impending interview, but she thought that San Giacinto had come to propose some compromise to the advantage of Ghisleri, and her father-in-law and husband were inclined to share her opinion; she meant to refuse everything, and to say that she would abide the judgment of the courts. She did not rise when the party entered, but held out her hand to each in succession. Francesco Savelli stood beside her, and also shook hands with each, but made no remark. "Sit down," said Prince Savelli, moving forward a chair. "Thank you," answered San Giacinto, "but it is useless. We shall stay only long enough for Donna Adele to sign a paper I have brought with me. We do not wish to disturb you further than necessary. With your permission I will read the document." And thereupon, standing before her, he read it slowly and distinctly. Prince Savelli gradually turned pale, for he knew the man, and guessed that he possessed some terribly sure means of enforcing his will. But Adele laughed scornfully and her husband followed her example. "Is there any reason why I should sign that very singular and untrue declaration?" she asked, with contempt. San Giacinto looked at her steadily for a moment, and without reasoning she began to feel afraid. "I have a strong argument in my pocket," he said. "For I have your confession here, and the priest with whom it has been deposited since the day it was found is waiting in the hall, if you wish to see him." Adele shook from head to foot, and her hands moved spasmodically. She made a great effort, however, and succeeded in speaking. "The fact that it has been in a place where Ghisleri knew how to find it is the last proof of his guilt we required," she said, mechanically repeating the words she had heard her father-in-law use more than once. "Ghisleri never saw it and never knew where it was until yesterday," answered San Giacinto. "If you will oblige me by signing this paper, I will not trouble you any further." "I will not sign it, nor anything of such a nature," said Adele, desperately. "You are perfectly free to do as you please," answered San Giacinto. "And so am I. Since you positively refuse, there is nothing left for me to do but to go away. But I forgot to tell you that the humble person who found it was able to read, and read it, before taking it to the priest, and that he has informed me most minutely of the contents. I see you are annoyed at that, and I am not surprised, for in half an hour it will be in the hands of the attorney-general. Good morning, Princess." In the dead silence that followed one might have heard a pin fall, or a feather. San Giacinto waited a few moments and then turned to go. Instantly Adele uttered a sharp cry and sprang to her feet. With a quickness of which no one present would have believed her capable, she was at his side, and holding him back by the arm. He turned again and looked calmly down at her. "You do not mean to do what you threaten?" she cried, in abject terror. "I mean to take this sealed document to the attorney-general without losing a moment," he answered. "You know very well what will happen if I do that." Both Savelli and his son came forward while he was speaking. "I will not allow you to hint in my house that anything in that confession could have any consequences to my daughter-in-law," said the Prince, in a loud voice. "You have no right to make any such assertions." "If Donna Adele wishes it, I will break the seal and read her own account," answered San Giacinto. He put his hand into the breast pocket of his coat and drew out the packet. Altogether losing control of herself, Adele tried to snatch it from his hand, but he held it high in air, and his vast figure towered above the rest of the group, still more colossal by the gesture of the upstretched arm. "You see for yourselves what importance Donna Adele attaches to this trifle," he said, in deep tones. "You would do well to persuade her to sign that paper. That is the only exchange I will take for what I hold. She knows that every word written there is true--as true as every word she has written here," he added, glancing up at the sealed letter. "I will wait one minute more by that clock, and then I will go." The two Savelli gazed at Adele in undisguised astonishment and horror. It was clear enough from her face and terrified manner that San Giacinto spoke the truth, and that the confession he held contained some awful secret of which they were wholly ignorant. "What is the meaning of all this, Adele?" asked the Prince, sternly. "What does that confession contain?" But she did not answer, as she sank into a chair before the table, and almost mechanically dipped a pen into the ink. San Giacinto laid the formal denial before her, holding the confession behind him, for he believed her capable of snatching it from him and tossing it into the fire at any moment. She signed painfully in large, sloping characters that decreased rapidly in size at the end of each of her two names. The pen fell from her hand as she finished, and San Giacinto quietly laid the sealed letter before her. If she had been on the point of fainting, the sight recalled her to herself. She seized it eagerly and broke the seals, one after the other. Then she went to the fire, assured herself that the sheets were all there, and were genuine, and thrust the whole into the flames, watching until the last shred was consumed. Meanwhile San Giacinto silently handed the pen to Sant' Ilario, who signed and passed it to Gianforte. He in his turn gave it to San Giacinto, and the transaction was concluded. The two cousins, as though by common instinct, glanced at the page on which was written twice "Giovanni Saracinesca," and each thought of all the pain and anxiety the coincidence had caused in days long gone by. The last time they had signed a document together had been in the study of the Palazzo Montevarchi more than twenty years earlier, when they were still young men. "You see for yourselves," said San Giacinto, turning to the two Savelli as he neatly folded the paper, "that Donna Adele desires no further explanation, and wishes the contents of the letter she has burned to remain a secret. So far as I am concerned I pledge my word never to divulge it, nor to hint at it, and I have reason to believe that those who are acquainted with it will do the same. So far as one man can answer for another, I will be responsible for them. With regard to the finding of the letter and to the manner of its being kept so long, I leave Don Tebaldo, the parish priest of Gerano, to explain that. You can question him at your leisure. Our mission is accomplished, and Pietro Ghisleri's innocence is established for ever. That is all I wished. Good morning." After burning the confession Adele had let herself fall into the deep chair in which she had been sitting when the three friends entered the room. Her head had fallen back, and her jaw dropped in a ghastly fashion. She looked as though she were dead; but her hands twitched convulsively, rising suddenly and falling again upon her knees. It was impossible to say whether she was conscious or not. The two Savelli, father and son, stood on the other side of the fireplace and looked at her, still speechless at her conduct, which they could only half understand, but which could mean nothing but disgrace to her and dishonour to them. The elder man seemed to suffer the more, and he leaned heavily against the chimney-piece, supporting his head with his hand. Neither the one nor the other paid any attention to the three men as they silently left the room. San Giacinto begged Don Tebaldo to wait a short time, and then to send a messenger inquiring whether the Prince wished to see him, and if not, to return at once to the palace in which San Giacinto lived. Then he took Bonifazio with him as well as Campodonico and Sant' Ilario, and went at once to Ghisleri's lodging. They found him breakfasting alone in a rather sketchy fashion, for Bonifazio had not been allowed by San Giacinto to return to his master until everything was accomplished. He showed some surprise when he opened the door himself, and found the three together on the landing. "Is anything the matter?" he inquired, as he ushered them into the sitting-room, where he had been taking his meal. "On the contrary," said San Giacinto, "we have come to tell you that nothing is the matter. This paper may amuse you; but it is worth keeping, as Campodonico and my cousin can testify, for their names appear in it as witnesses." Ghisleri read the contents carefully, and they could see how his brow cleared at every word. "You have been the best friend to me that any man ever had," he said, grasping San Giacinto's huge hand. "You could have done it quite as well yourself, only I knew you would not do it at all," answered the latter. "I have no scruples in dealing with such people, nor do I see why any one should have any. But you would have gone delicately and presented Donna Adele with the confession, and then when she had burned it before your eyes, you would have told her that you trusted to her sense of justice to right you in the opinion of the world." Ghisleri laughed. He was so happy that he would have laughed at anything. After giving him a short account of what had taken place, all three left him, going, as they said, to breakfast at the club, and inform the world of what had happened. And so they did. And before the clock struck eight that night, Bonifazio had received a hundred visiting cards, each with two words, "to congratulate," written upon it in pencil, and four invitations to dinner addressed to Pietro Ghisleri. For the world is unconsciously wise in its generation, and on the rare occasions when it has found out that it has made a mistake, its haste to do the civil thing is almost indecent. In eight and forty hours the whole Savelli family and the Prince and Princess of Gerano had left Rome, and Ghisleri found it hard to keep one evening a week free for himself. But in the afternoon of that day on which San Giacinto had so suddenly turned the tables upon Pietro's adversaries, Pietro went to see Laura Arden. She, of course, was in ignorance of what had occurred, and was amazed by the change she saw in his face when he entered. "Something good has happened, I am sure!" she exclaimed, as she came half-way across the room to meet him with outstretched hands. "Yes," he said, "something very unexpected has happened. The confession has been found, Donna Adele has admitted that the whole story was a fabrication, and she has signed a formal denial of every accusation, past, present, and to come. I am altogether cleared." "Thank God! Thank God!" Laura cried, wringing his two hands, and gazing into his eyes. "You are glad," he said. "I suppose I knew you would be, but I could not realise that it would make so much difference to you." "In one way it makes no difference," she said more quietly, as she sat down and pointed to his accustomed place. "I knew the truth from the beginning. But it is for you. I saw how unhappy you were yesterday. Now tell me all about it." He told her all that had taken place since he had left her on the previous day, as it has been told in these pages, and his heart beat fast as he saw in her eyes the constant and great interest she felt. "And so I am quite free of it all at last," he said, when he had finished. "And you will be happy now," answered Laura, softly. "You have been through almost everything, it seems to me. Do you realise how much I know of all your life? It is strange, is it not? You are not fond of making confidences, and you never made but one to me, when you could not help yourself. Yes; it is very strange that I should know so much about you." "And still be willing to call me your friend?" added Ghisleri. "I do not know how you can--and yet--" He stopped. "The reason is," he said suddenly, "that you have long been a part of my life--that is why you know me so well. I think that even long ago we were much more intimate than we knew or dreamed of. There were many reasons for that." "Yes," Laura answered. "And then, after all, I have known you ever since I first went out as a young girl. I did not like you at first, I remember, though I could never tell why. But as for your saying that you cannot see why I should still be your friend, I do not understand how you mean it. It seems to me that you have done much to get my friendship and to strengthen it, and nothing to lose it. Besides, you yourself know that you are not what you were. You have changed. You were saying so only yesterday, and you said the change was for the better." "Yes, I have changed," said Ghisleri. "It is of no use to deny it. I do not mean in everything, though I do not lead the life I did. Perhaps it all goes together after all." "That is not very clear," observed Laura, with a low laugh. Ghisleri was silent for a moment. "I do not think of you as I did," he said. "That is the greatest change of all." Laura did not answer. She leaned back in her seat, and looked across the room. "I never thought it would come," he said. "For years I honourably believed I could be your friend. I know, now, that I cannot. I love you far too deeply--with far too little right." Still Laura did not speak. But she turned her face from him, laying her cheek against the silken cushion behind her. "Perhaps I am doing very wrong in telling you this," said Ghisleri, trying to steady his voice. "But I made up my mind that it was better, and more honest. I do not believe that you love me, that you ever can love me in the most distant future of our lives. I am prepared for that. I will not trouble you with my love. I will never speak of it again--for I can never hope to win you. But at least you know the truth." Slowly Laura turned her face again and her eyes met his. There was a deep, warm light in them. She seemed to hesitate. Then the words came sharply, in a loud, clear voice, unlike her own, as though the great secret had burst every barrier and had broken out against her will by its own strength, sudden, startling, new to herself and to the man who heard it. "I love you now!" Ghisleri turned as deadly pale as when Gianforte's bullet had so nearly gone through his heart. The words rang out in the quiet room with an intensity and distinctness of tone not to be described. He had not even guessed that she might love him. For one moment they looked at one another, both white with passion, both trembling a little, the black eyes and the blue both gleaming darkly. Then Ghisleri took the two hands that were stretched out to meet his own, and each felt that the other's were very cold. As though by a common instinct they both rose, and stood a moment face to face. Then his arms went round her. He did not know until long afterwards that when he kissed her he lifted her from the ground. It had all been sudden, strange, and unlike anything in his whole life, unexpected beyond anything that had ever happened to him. Perhaps it was so with her, too. They remembered little of what they said in those first moments, but by and by, as they sat side by side on the sofa, words came again. "I knew it when you went away last summer," said Ghisleri. "And then I thought I should never tell you." "And I found it out when I left you," answered Laura. "I found that I could not live without you and be happy. Did you guess nothing when I made you come to me yesterday? Yesterday--only yesterday! It seems like last year. Did you think it was mere friendship?" "Yes, I thought it was that and nothing more--but such friendship as I had never dreamed of." "Nor any one else, perhaps," said Laura, with a happy smile. "For I would have come, you know, in spite of every one. What would you have done then, I wonder?" "Then? Do not speak of yesterday. What could I have done? Could I have told you that I loved you with such an accusation hanging over me? No, you know that. It was only yesterday that I asked you to let me leave you rather suddenly--did you not guess the reason?" "I thought you were ill--no--well, it crossed my mind that you might be a little, just a little, in love with me." She laughed. "I felt ill afterwards. I was horrified when I thought how nearly I had spoken." "And why should you not have spoken, if it was in your heart?" asked Laura, taking his hand again. "Why should you have thought, even for a moment, that I could care what people said. You are you, and I am I, whether the world is with us or against us. And I think, dear, that we shall need the world very little now. Perhaps it will change its mind and pretend it needs us." "There is no doubt of that. It always happens so. Why should we care?" He paused a moment, then, as his eyes met hers, the great dominating passion broke out again: "Ah--darling--heart's heart--beloved! There are not words to tell you how I love you and bless you, and worship you with all my soul. What can I say, what can I do, to make you understand?" "Love me, dear," she said, "and be faithful, as I will be." And their lips met again. They loved well and truly. Strange, some may say, that a love of that good kind should have begun in friendship on the one side, and indifference if not dislike on the other. But neither had understood the other at all in the beginning. The world-tired and world-weary man had not guessed at the real woman who lived so humanly, and could love so passionately, and whom nature had clothed with such saint-like, holy beauty as to make her seem a creature above all earthly feeling and all mortal weakness. Her eyes had seemed fixed on far-distant, heavenly sights, gazing upon the world only to wonder at its vanity and to loathe its uncleanness. Her best and her greatest thoughts had been, he fancied, of things altogether divine and supernatural, of love celestial, of beatific vision, of the waters of paradise, of goodness and of God. And something of all this there was in her, but there was room for more both in heart and soul, and more was there--the deep, human sympathy, the simple strength to love one man wholly, the singleness of thought and judgment to see the good in him and love it, and to understand and forgive the bad--and far down in the strong, quiet nature was hidden the passion but newly awakened whose irresistible force would have broken every barrier and despised every convention, respecting only its own purity in taking what it loved and desired, and would have at any cost, save the defilement of the soul it moved. Small wonder that when it awoke at last unresisted and meeting its like, it burst into sight with a sudden violence that startled the woman herself, and amazed the man who had not suspected its existence. But she, on her side, had learned to know him more slowly, not ever analysing him, nor trying to guess at his motives, but merely seeing little by little how great and wide was the discrepancy between the hard, sceptical, cynic thoughts he expressed so readily, and the constant, unchangingly brave effort of his heart to do in all cases what was honourable, just, and brave according to his light. She saw him ever striving, often failing, sometimes succeeding in the doing of good actions, and she saw the strange love of truth and simplicity which pervaded and primarily moved the most complicated character she had ever known. He who at first had seemed to her the most worldly of all worldly men, was in reality one whose whole life was lived in his own heart for the one, or two, or three beings who had known how to touch it. To all else he was absolutely and coldly indifferent. She had, indeed, as she said, guessed at last that he loved her a little and more than a little, and she had known for months before he spoke that he was really a part of her life and of all her thoughts and actions. But she had not asked herself what she would do or say when the great moment came, any more than she had accused herself of being unfaithful to the memory of the man whose dying words had bidden her to be happy, if she would have him rest in peace. And now that she loved again, so differently, so passionately, so much more humanly, she realised all the great unselfishness of him who was gone and who had not been willing to leave in her heart the least seed of future self-accusation or the least ground for refusing anything good which life might have in store for her. She saw that she could take what was offered her, freely, without one regret, without one prick of conscience, or one passing thought that Herbert Arden would have suffered an instant's pain could he have known what was passing in the existence of the woman who had loved him so well. Late on that afternoon, Ghisleri went to see Maddalena dell' Armi. There was a drop of bitterness in his cup yet, and something hard for him to do, but he would not let the woman who had sacrificed everything for him in days gone by learn the news from a stranger. "I have come to tell you that I am going to marry Lady Herbert Arden," he said gently, as he took her hand. She looked up quickly, and for a moment he felt a strange anxiety. "I knew that you would, long ago," she answered. "I am glad of it. No, do not think that is a phrase. I do not love you any more. Are you glad to know it? I wish I did. But I am far too fond of you not to wish you to be happy if you can. You are my dearest and best friend. It is strange, is it not? Think of me kindly sometimes, in your new life. And--and do not speak my name before her, if you can help it. She knows what we were to each other once, and it might hurt her." "How changed you are!" exclaimed Ghisleri. But he pressed the hand that lay near him. "I am trying to be a good woman," she answered simply. "If there were more like you, the world would be a better place," he said. CHAPTER XXX. "Just fancy, my dear," exclaimed Donna Maria Boccapaduli to the Marchesa di San Giacinto on the evening of the following day, "Pietro Ghisleri is going to marry Laura Arden, after all! That horrid, spiteful, wicked Adele will die of rage. And they say that the old uncle is dead and has left Laura one of those enormous English fortunes one reads about, and they are going to take the first floor of your brother's palace--your husband says he will buy it some day--I hope he will--and Laura is going to rebuild Ghisleri's queer little castle in Tuscany. What a delightful series of surprises! And two days ago every one believed he was on the point of being sent to prison for ever so many years. But I was always sure he was innocent, though of course one did not like to have him about while the thing was going on." "Giovanni said from the first that it was all an abominable lie," answered the Marchesa. "And Giovanni is generally right. What a charming house it will be! Of course they will give balls." "They say that in the confession there was a full account of the way in which she started the story of the evil eye--what nonsense it was! You have only to look into Laura Arden's eyes--do you think she is as beautiful as Corona Saracinesca ever could have been?" "No, no," exclaimed the Marchesa, who had known the Princess of Sant' Ilario more than twenty years earlier. "No one was ever so beautiful as Corona. Laura is much shorter, too, and that makes a difference. Laura reminds one of a saint, and Corona looked an empress--or what empresses are supposed to be like. But Laura is a beautiful woman. There is no one to compare with her now but Christina Campodonico, and she is too thin. What a good looking couple Ghisleri and his wife will make. He has grown younger during the last two years." "No wonder--when one thinks of the life he used to lead. Every time he quarrelled with Maddalena he used to get at least five pounds thinner. I wonder how she takes it." "She is far too clever a woman to show what she thinks. But I know she has not cared for him for a long time. They have not quarrelled for two years at least, so of course there cannot be any love left on either side. They still sit in corners occasionally. I suppose they like each other. It is very odd. But I shall never understand those things." The last remark was very true, for Flavia Saracinesca loved her giant husband with all her heart and always had, and she knew also that Maria Boccapaduli was the best of wives and mothers, if she was also the greatest of gossips. What the two ladies said to each other represented very well the world's opinion, hastily formed, on the spur of the moment, to meet the exigencies of the altered situation, but immutable now. It shrugged its shoulders as it referred to its past errors of judgment, and said that it could not have been expected to know that Adele Savelli was raving mad when she was allowed to go everywhere just like a sane being, although her eyes had undeniably had a wild look for some time, and she might have been taken for a galvanised corpse. For of course it was now quite certain that she had been out of her mind from the very beginning, seeing that she had concocted her dreadful plot without the slightest reason. As for the old story that Laura Arden loved Francesco, that was downright nonsense! It was another of Adele's scandalous falsehoods--or insane delusions, if you chose to be so good-natured as to use that expression. If anything, it was Francesco who loved Laura, and he ought to be ashamed of himself, considering what a fortune his wife had brought him. But human nature was very ungrateful, especially when it bore the name of Savelli. They did not seem at all thankful for that dear Ghisleri's forbearance. He could have brought an action against them for any number of things--defamation, false imprisonment--almost anything. But he had acted with his usual generosity, and told every one that he had always believed Adele to be insane, and bore no one the least ill-will, since he had been put to no inconvenience whatever, thanks to San Giacinto's timely action. And, said the world, when a man consistently behaved as Pietro Ghisleri had done, he was certain to get his reward. What could any man desire more than to have that dear, beautiful, good Laura Arden for his wife, especially since she was so immensely rich? Doubt the justice of Heaven after that, if you could! As for the world, it meant to tell them both how sorry it was that it had misunderstood them. Of course it would be sinful not to hope that Adele might some day get well, but she had her deserts, and if she ever came back to society, people would not care to meet her. She might go mad again at any moment and try to ruin some one else, and might succeed the next time, too. That was the way in which most people talked during the season, and the world acted up to its words as it generally does when there are balls and dinners to be got by merely being consistent. It was much more agreeable, too, to live on terms of pleasant intercourse with Laura and her betrothed, and much easier, because it is always tiresome to keep up a prejudice against really charming people. But Adele was not mad as people said, and as the two families gave out. There had undoubtedly been a strain of insanity through all her conduct, and that might, some day, develop into real madness. She was sane enough still, however, to suffer, and no such merciful termination to her sufferings as the loss of her reason would be seemed at all imminent. The strong will and acute intelligence had survived, for the poisonous drug she loved had attacked the body, which was the weaker portion of her being. Adele was hopelessly paralysed. The last great effort had been too much for the over-strung nerves. Her hands still moved convulsively, but she could not direct them at all. Her jaw had dropped, as it almost always does in advanced cases of morphinism, and her lower limbs were useless. Day after day she sat or lay before the fire in her room at Castel Savello, as she might remain for years, tended by paid nurses, and helpless to do the slightest thing for herself--through the short days and the long nights of winter, hardly cheered by the sunshine when spring came at last, longing for the end. It was indeed a dreadful existence. Nothing to do, nothing to think of but the terrible black past, nothing to occupy her, save the monotonous tracing back of her present state to her first misdeeds, step by step, inch by inch, in the cold light of an inexorable logic. It was hard to believe what her confessor told her, that she should be grateful for having time and reason left to repent of what she had done, and to expiate, in a measure, the evil of her life. As yet, that was the only comfort she got from any one. She had disgraced the name of Savelli, she was told, and no suffering could atone for that. She felt that she was hated and despised, and that although everything which money could do was done to prolong her wretched being, her death was anticipated as a relief from her detested presence in the household upon which she had brought such shame. It would be hard to conceive a more fearful punishment than she was made to undergo, forcibly kept alive by the constant care and forethought of the most experienced persons, and allowed only just so much of the morphia as was positively necessary. She had no longer the power to grasp the little instrument. If she had been able to do that, she would have found rest for ever, as she told herself. And they cruelly diminished the dose, though they would not tell her by how much. She would live longer, they said, if the quantity could be greatly reduced. She begged, implored, entreated them not to torture her. But they could hardly understand what she said, for the paralysis had made her speech indistinct, and even if they could have distinguished the meaning of all her words they would have paid no attention to them. The orders were strict and were rigidly obeyed in every particular. She was to be made to live as long as possible, and life meant torment, unceasing, passing words to describe. How long it might last she had no idea. She could only hope against hope that it might end soon. The news of Laura's engagement and approaching marriage had been kept from her for some time, it being feared that it might agitate her, but she was told at last, and the knowledge of her step-sister's happiness was an added bitterness in what remained to her of life. Vividly she saw them before her, Laura in her fresh beauty, Ghisleri in his strength, little Herbert with his father's eyes--the eyes that haunted Adele Savelli by night and gazed upon her by day out of the shadowy corners of her room. The three were ever before her moving, as she fancied, through a garden of exquisite flowers, in a clear, bright light. That was doubtless the way in which her diseased brain represented their happiness, for she had loved flowers in the old days, and had associated everything that was pleasant with them in her thoughts. But she hated them now, as she hated everything, even to her own children, whom she refused to see because they reminded her of better times, and her step-mother, whom she was obliged to receive because the good lady would take no denial. The Princess was, indeed, one of her most regular and kindly visitors. A very constant and good woman, she would not and could not turn upon Adele as all the rest had done, even to her own father, who in the bitterness of his heart, had said that he would never see his daughter again, alive or dead. But Adele hated her none the less, and dreaded her long homilies and exhortations to be penitent, and the little printed prayers and books of devotion she generally brought with her. For the Princess was deeply concerned for the welfare of Adele's soul, and being very much in earnest in the matter of religion, she did what she could to save it according to her own views. Possibly her sermons might hereafter bear fruit, but for the present the wretched woman who was forced to listen to them found them almost unbearable. And so her unhappy days dragged on without prospect of relief or termination, no longer in any real meaning of the word a life at all, but only a consequence, the result of what she had made herself when she had been really alive. The Princess of Gerano was the last person won over to a good opinion of Ghisleri, but before the wedding day she had formally avowed to Laura that she had been mistaken in him. She had been most of all impressed by his dignity during the very great difficulties in which he had been placed, and by his gentle forbearance when his innocence had been established and when no one would have blamed him if he had cursed the whole Savelli and Gerano tribe by every devil in Satan's calendar. Instead, he had uniformly said that he had believed Donna Adele to be mad, and that what had happened had therefore not come about by any one's fault. She told Laura that there must be more good than any one had dreamt of in a man who could act as Pietro did under the circumstances, and perhaps she was right. At all events, she was convinced and having once reached conviction she took him to her heart and found that he was a man much more to her taste, and much more worthy of Laura than she had supposed. For the rest, the match was an admirable one. Ghisleri was certainly very far from rich, but he was by no means a pauper, and what he possessed had been wisely administered. He was neither a prince, nor the son of a princely house, but there was many a prince of Europe, and more than one of the Holy Empire, too, whose forefathers had been trudging behind the plough long after the Nobili Ghisleri had built their tower and held their own in it for generations. Then, too, whatever the Princess might think of his past and of his reputation, he had rather a singular position in society, and was respected as many were not, who possessed ten times as many virtues as he. She admitted quite frankly that she had been wrong, and she made ample amends for her former cold treatment of him by the liking she now showed. "I shall never be able to think of you as a serious married man, my dear friend," said Gouache one day when Ghisleri was lounging in the studio with a cigarette, after they had breakfasted together. "I hope you will," was the laconic answer. "No, I never shall. I have always had a sort of artistic satisfaction in your character--for there was much that was really artistic about you, especially as regards your taste in sin, which was perfect and perhaps is still. But marriage is not at all artistic, my dear Ghisleri, until it becomes unhappy, and the husband goes about with a revolver in every pocket, and the wife with a scent bottle full of morphia in hers, and they treat each other with distant civility in private, and with effusive affection when a third person is present, especially the third person who has contributed the most to producing the artistic effect in question. Then the matter becomes interesting." "Like your own marriage," suggested Ghisleri, with a laugh. Gouache and Donna Faustina had not had an unkind thought for one another in nearly twenty years of cloudless happiness. "Ah, my friend, you must not take my case as an instance. There is something almost comic in being as happy as I am. We should never make a subject for a play writer, my wife and I, nor for a novelist either. No man would risk his reputation for truthfulness by describing our life as it is. But then, is there anything artistic about me? Nothing, except that I am an artist. If I had any money I should be called an amateur. To be an artist it is essential to starve--at one time or another. The public never believe that a man who has not been dangerously hungry can paint a picture, or play the fiddle, or write a book. If I had money I would still paint--subjects like Michael Angelo's Last Judgment with the souls of Donna Tullia, Del Ferice, and Donna Adele Savelli frying prominently on the left, and portraits of my wife and myself in the foreground on the right with perfectly new crowns of glory and beatific smiles from ear to ear. If you go on as you have been living since the reformation set in, you will have to bore yourself on our side too, with a little variation in your crown to show what a sinner you have been." "I am quite willing to be bored in your way," answered Ghisleri, laughing again. The marriage took place late in February, to the immense delight of the world, and with the unanimous applause of all society. The newspapers gave minute accounts of all the gowns, and of all the people who wore them, and surprised Ghisleri by informing him that his ancestors had been Guelphs, whereas he had some reason to believe that they had been Ghibellines, and by creating him a commander of the order of Saint Maurice and Saint Lazarus, whereas he was an hereditary Knight of Malta. The description of Laura was an extraordinary contribution to the literature of beauty, and left nothing to be desired except a positive or two to contrast with the endless string of superlatives. Ghisleri and Laura left Rome with a little caravan of servants. Neither the faithful Donald nor the equally faithful Bonifazio could be left behind, and there was Laura's maid, and little Herbert's nurse, both indispensable. The boy was overjoyed by the arrangement which gave him the advantage of Pietro's society "for every day," as he expressed it, and especially at the prospect of living all the summer in a real castle. He was three years old and talked fluently, when he talked at all--a strong, brave-looking little fellow, with clear brown eyes and a well-shaped head, set on a sturdy frame that promised well for his coming manhood. Ghisleri delighted in him, though he was not generally amused by very small children. But they always came to him of their own accord, which some people say is a sign of a good disposition in a man, for children and animals are rarely mistaken in their likes and dislikes. San Giacinto and Gianforte Campodonico went to the station to see them off after the wedding, and threw armfuls of roses and lilies of the valley into the carriage before the door was finally shut by the guard as the preliminary bell was sounded. "Without you two, we two should not be here," said Ghisleri, as he shook hands with them both. "No," added Laura happily. "But we should have been together, if it had been in prison. Good-bye, dear friends." The train moved away, and the two men were left on the platform, waving their hats to the last. "That is a good thing well done," said San Giacinto, lighting a cigar. "They will be happy together." "Yes," said Gianforte, thoughtfully. "I think they will. Women love that man, and he knows how to love them." San Giacinto looked down at him and said nothing. He knew something of Bianca Corleone's short, sad life, and of what had passed between her brother and Ghisleri. He liked them both more than almost any of the younger men he knew, and he honestly admired them for their behaviour towards each other. He guessed what thoughts were passing through Campodonico's mind as he looked after the train that was bearing away Pietro Ghisleri, a married man at last. For Gianforte was saying to himself that though he could neither wholly forget nor freely forgive the past, he could have loved him had fate been different. If ten years ago Ghisleri could have married Bianca, and if Bianca could have lived, the two would have been happy, for even Gianforte admitted that both had loved truly and well until the end. But that was a dream and reality had raised the impassable barrier between men who might have been firm friends. Their hands might stretch across it, and grasp one another from time to time, and their eyes might read good faith and the will to be generous each in the other's soul, but nearer than that they could never be, for the sake of the beautiful dead woman who would not be forgotten by either. One more picture and one word more, and the curtain must fall at last. In the early summer Laura and her husband were at Torre de' Ghisleri in the Tuscan hills. The small castle was very habitable as compared with its former condition, and small as it was by comparison with such fortresses as Gerano, was by no means the mere ruined tower which many people supposed it to be. The square grey keep from which it took its name was flanked by a mass of smaller buildings, irregular and of different epochs, all more or less covered with ivy or with creepers now in bloom. The wide castle yard, in the midst of which stood the ancient well with its wonderfully wrought yoke of iron, its heavy chain, and its two buckets, had been converted into a garden long ago for the bride of some Ghisleri of those days, and the plants and trees had run almost wild for a hundred years, irregularly, as some had survived and others had perished in the winter storms. Here a cypress, there an oak, further on again three laurels, of the Laura Regia kind, side by side in a row, then two cypresses again, growing up straight and slim and dark out of a plot of close-cut grass. And there were roses everywhere, and stiff camelia trees and feathery azaleas and all manner of bright, growing things without order or symmetry, beautiful in their wildness. But in and out there were narrow paths, in which two might walk together, and these were now swept and cared for as they had never been in Pietro's bachelor days. Other things were changed too, but not much, and for the better. A woman's hand had touched, had waked a sweet new life in the old place. The afternoon sun, still above the low surrounding hills, cast the shadow of the tower across the lawn and upon the flowers beyond. There were chairs before the arched doorway, and a garden table. Laura sat watching the swallows as they flew down from the keep to the garden and upwards again in their short, circling flight. A book she had not even thought of reading lay beside her. At her elbow sat Ghisleri in a white jacket, with a straw hat tilted over his eyes which little Herbert was trying to get at, as he rode on Pietro's knee. The man's face had changed wonderfully during the last six months. All the hardness was gone from it, and the contemptuous, discontented look that had once come so readily was never seen now. "You never told me it was so beautiful," said Laura, still watching the swallows and gazing at the flowers. "When we first came, and I looked out of the window in the morning, I thought I had never seen any place so lovely. You used to talk of it in such a careless way." "It is you who make it beautiful for me," answered Ghisleri. "A year ago it seemed dull and ugly enough, when I used to sit here and think of you." "I was not the first woman you had thought of, on this very spot, I daresay," said Laura, with a happy laugh. "No, dear, you were not." He smiled as he admitted the fact. "But you were the last, and unless you turn out to be as bad as you seem to be good, you will have no successor." "What's successor mean?" lisped Herbert, desisting from his attempt to get at the hat and listening. "Somebody who comes after another," answered Laura. "I will try to be good, dear," she said to Ghisleri, laughing again. "So'll I," exclaimed Herbert promptly, doubtless supposing that it was expected of him. "Yes," said Ghisleri, thoughtfully. "I have sat here many a time for hours, dreaming about you, and wishing for you, and trying to see you just as you are now, in a chair beside me. Yes, I have thought of other women here, but it is very long since I wished to see one there--if I ever did. I hardly ever came here when I was very young." There was a pause. His voice had a little sadness in it as he spoke the last words--not the sadness of regret, but of reverence. He was thinking of Bianca Corleone. Then Laura laid her hand upon his arm, and her eyes met his, for he turned as he felt her touch. "Dear, you would have been happy with her," she said very gravely. "But I will be all to you that woman can be to man, if I live to show you how I love you." "No woman ever was what you are to me already," he answered. "No woman, living or dead. You have done everything for me since I first knew you well, and you did much more than you know before I knew what you really were. There can be nothing in the world beyond what you have given, and give me." "I wish I were quite, quite sure of that," said Laura, still looking into his face. "You must be--you shall be!" he said, with sudden energy, and his glance lightened with passion. "You must. Words are not much, I know, nor oaths, nor anything of that sort. But I will tell you this--and by the light and goodness of God, it is true. If I could doubt for one moment that I love you beyond any love I have ever dreamed of, I would tear out my heart with my hands!" "What's love?" asked little Herbert timidly, for he was afraid that it must be something very dreadful as he watched Ghisleri's pale face and blazing eyes. But the lips that might have answered could not; they were sealing the truth they had spoken, upon others that had uttered a doubt for the last time. THE END. LIST OF WORKS BY MR. F. MARION CRAWFORD. IN THE PRESS. A NEW NOVEL. PIETRO GHISLERI. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. In the uniform edition of Mr. Crawford's Novels. THE NOVEL. WHAT IT IS. By F. MARION CRAWFORD, author of "Children of the King," "Saracinesca," etc., etc. Uniform with the pocket edition of William Winter's Works. With photogravure portrait. 18mo, cloth, 75 cents. *.* Also a large-paper limited edition. 12mo, $2.00. "Mr. Crawford in the course of this readable little essay touches upon such topics as realism and romanticism, the use of dialect, the abuse of scientific information, the defects of historical fiction. Mr. Crawford's discussion of what does and what does not constitute the novel will be read with eager interest by the large company of his sincere admirers in this country."--_Beacon._ CHILDREN OF THE KING. A Tale of Southern Italy. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. "A sympathetic reader cannot fail to be impressed with the dramatic power of this story. The simplicity of nature, the uncorrupted truth of a soul, have been portrayed by a master-hand. The suddenness of the unforeseen tragedy at the last renders the incident of the story powerful beyond description. One can only feel such sensations as the last scene of the story incites. It may be added that if Mr. Crawford has written some stories unevenly, he has made no mistakes in the stories of Italian life. A reader of them cannot fail to gain a clearer, fuller acquaintance with the Italians and the artistic spirit that pervades the country."--M.L.B. in _Syracuse Journal_. MACMILLAN & CO. take pleasure in announcing that they have added the following volumes (with the author's latest revisions) to their uniform edition of the Works of Mr. F. Marion Crawford, thereby enabling them to issue a complete edition of all his novels: A ROMAN SINGER. New Edition, revised and corrected. TO LEEWARD. PAUL PATOFF. AN AMERICAN POLITICIAN. New Edition, revised and partly rewritten. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS NEW UNIFORM AND COMPLETE EDITION. 12mo, cloth. Price $1.00 each. "Mr. F. Marion Crawford is," as Mr. Andrew Lang says, "the most 'versatile and various' of modern novelists. He has great adaptability and subtleness of mind, and whether dealing with life in modern Rome or at the court of Darius at Shushan, in the wilds of India or in the fashionable quarter of New York, in the Black Forest or in a lonely parish of rural England, he is equally facile and sure of his ground; a master of narrative style, he throws a subtle charm over all he touches." _TO BE PUBLISHED IN JUNE_: PIETRO GHISLERI. Children of the King. Don Orsino, A sequel to "Saracinesca" and "Sant' Ilario." The Three Fates. The Witch of Prague. Khaled. A Cigarette-maker's Romance. Sant' Ilario, A sequel to "Saracinesca." Greifenstein. With the Immortals. To Leeward. A Roman Singer. An American Politician. Paul Patoff. Marzio's Crucifix. Saracinesca. A Tale of a Lonely Parish. Zoroaster. Dr. Claudius. Mr. Isaacs. WORKS BY HENRY JAMES. A NEW VOLUME OF STORIES. 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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Obvious typographical and printer errors have been corrected without comment. On page 324: There was no opening quote mark to match the closing quote at the end of the first paragraph on this page. The text does not clearly define where the opening quote mark should be, and so it has been added before the phrase: "who had never known...." On the first page of the Ads section, an asterism is represented in this plain-text version as *.* Other than the above, no effort has been made to standardize internal inconsistencies in spelling, capitalization, punctuation, grammar, etc. The author's usage is preserved as found in the original publication. 
44311	----	CORLEONE THE NOVELS OF F. MARION CRAWFORD. _New Uniform Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each._ MR. ISAACS: A Tale of Modern India. DOCTOR CLAUDIUS: A True Story. ROMAN SINGER. ZOROASTER. TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. KHALED: A Tale of Arabia. WITCH OF PRAGUE. THREE FATES. MARION DARCHE: A Story without Comment. CHILDREN OF THE KING. KATHERINE LAUDERDALE. MARZIO'S CRUCIFIX. PAUL PATOFF. WITH THE IMMORTALS. GREIFENSTEIN. SANT' ILARIO. CIGARETTE-MAKER'S ROMANCE. PIETRO GHISLERI. DON ORSINO. RALSTONS. CASA BRACCIO. ADAM JOHNSTONE'S SON. ROSE OF YESTERDAY. TAQUISARA. A Novel. CORLEONE. VIA CRUCIS. A Romance of the Second Crusade. Crown 8vo. 6s. IN THE PALACE OF THE KING. Crown 8vo. 6s. MARIETTA: A Maid of Venice. Crown 8vo. 6s. WHOSOEVER SHALL OFFEND. Crown 8vo. 6s. THE HEART OF ROME: A Tale of the "Lost Water." Crown 8vo. 6s. CECILIA: A Story of Modern Rome. Crown 8vo. 6s. LOVE IN IDLENESS. A Bar Harbour Tale. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. CORLEONE A Tale of Sicily BY F. MARION CRAWFORD London MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1905 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT 1896 BY F. MARION CRAWFORD _First Edition (2 Vols. Globe 8vo) 1897_ _Second Edition (Crown 8vo) 1898_ _Reprinted 1902, 1905_ CHAPTER I 'If you never mean to marry, you might as well turn priest, too,' said Ippolito Saracinesca to his elder brother, Orsino, with a laugh. 'Why?' asked Orsino, without a smile. 'It would be as sensible to say that a man who had never seen some particular thing, about which he has heard much, might as well put out his eyes.' The young priest laughed again, took up the cigar he had laid upon the edge of the piano, puffed at it till it burned freely, and then struck two or three chords of a modulation. A sheet of ruled paper on which several staves of music were roughly jotted down in pencil stood on the rack of the instrument. Orsino stretched out his long legs, leaned back in his low chair, and stared at the old gilded rosettes in the square divisions of the carved ceiling. He was a discontented man, and knew it, which made his discontent a matter for self-reproach, especially as it was quite clear to him that the cause of it lay in himself. He had made two great mistakes at the beginning of life, when barely of age, and though neither of them had ultimately produced any serious material consequences, they had affected his naturally melancholic temper and had brought out his inherited hardness of disposition. At the time of the great building speculations in Rome, several years earlier, he had foolishly involved himself with his father's old enemy, Ugo del Ferice, and had found himself at last altogether in the latter's power, though not in reality his debtor. At the same time, he had fallen very much in love with a young widow, who, loving him very sincerely in her turn, but believing, for many reasons, that if she married him she would be doing him an irreparable injury, had sacrificed herself by marrying Del Ferice instead, selling herself to the banker for Orsino's release, without the latter's knowledge. When it was all over, Orsino had found himself a disappointed man at an age when most young fellows are little more than inexperienced boys, and the serious disposition which he inherited from his mother made it impossible for him to throw off the impression received, and claim the youth, so to speak, which was still his. Since that time, he had been attracted by women, but never charmed; and those that attracted him were for the most part not marriageable, any more than the few things which sometimes interested and amused him were in any sense profitable. He spent a good deal of money in a careless way, for his father was generous; but his rather bitter experience when he had attempted to occupy himself with business had made him cool and clear-headed, so that he never did anything at all ruinous. The hot temper which he had inherited from his father and grandfather now rarely, if ever, showed itself, and it seemed as though nothing could break through the quiet indifference which had become a second outward nature to him. He had travelled much, of late years, and when he made an effort his conversation was not uninteresting, though the habit of looking at both sides of every question made it cold and unenthusiastic. Perhaps it was a hopeful sign that he generally had a definite opinion as to which of two views he preferred, though he would not take any trouble to convince others that he was right. In his own family, he liked the company of Ippolito best. The latter was about two years younger than he, and very different from him in almost every way. Orsino was tall, strongly built, extremely dark; Ippolito was of medium height, delicately made, and almost fair by comparison. Orsino had lean brown hands, well knit at the base, and broad at the knuckles; Ippolito's were slender and white, and rather nervous, with blue veins at the joints, the tips of the fingers pointed, the thumb unusually delicate and long, the nails naturally polished. The elder brother's face, with its large and energetic lines, its gravely indifferent expression and dusky olive hue, contrasted at every point with the features of the young priest, soft in outline, modelled in wax rather than chiselled in bronze, pale and a little transparent, instead of swarthy,--feminine, perhaps, in the best sense of the word, as it can be applied to a man. Ippolito had the clear, soft brown eyes which very gifted people so often have, especially musicians and painters of more talent than power. But about the fine, even, and rather pale lips there was the unmistakable stamp of the ascetic temperament, together with an equally sure indication of a witty humour which could be keen, but would rather be gentle. Ippolito was said to resemble his mother's mother, and was notably different in appearance and manner from the rest of the numerous family to which he belonged. He was a priest by vocation rather than by choice. Had he chosen deliberately a profession congenial to his gifts, he would certainly have devoted himself altogether to music, though he would probably never have become famous as a composer; for he lacked the rough creative power which hews out great conceptions, though he possessed in a high degree the taste and skill which can lightly and lovingly and wisely impart fine detail to the broad beauty of a well-planned whole. But by vocation he was a priest, and the strength of the conviction of his conscience left the gifts of his artistic intelligence no power to choose. He was a churchman with all his soul, and a musician with all his heart. Between the two brothers there was that sort of close friendship which sometimes exists between persons who are too wholly different to understand each other, but whose non-understanding is a constant stimulant of interest on both sides. In the midst of the large and peaceable patriarchal establishment in which they lived, and in which each member made for himself or herself an existence which had in it a certain subdued individuality, Orsino and Ippolito were particularly associated, and the priest, when he was at home, was generally to be found in his elder brother's sitting-room, and kept a good many of his possessions there. It was a big room, with an old carved and gilded ceiling, three tall windows opening to the floor, two doors, a marble fireplace, a thick old carpet, and a great deal of furniture of many old and new designs, arranged with no regard to anything except usefulness, since Orsino was not afflicted with artistic tastes, nor with any undue appreciation of useless objects. Ippolito's short grand piano occupied a prominent position near the middle window, and not far from it was Orsino's deep chair, beside which stood a low table covered with books and reviews. For, like most discontented and disappointed people who have no real object in life, Orsino Saracinesca read a good deal, and hankered after interest in fiction because he found none in reality. Ippolito, on the contrary, read little, and thought much. After Orsino had answered his remark about marriage, the priest busied himself for some time with his music, while his brother stared at the ceiling in silence, listening to the modulations and the fragments of tentative melody and experimental harmony, without in the least understanding what the younger man was trying to express. He was fond of any musical sound, in an undefined way, as most Italians are, and he knew by experience that if he let Ippolito alone something pleasant to hear would before long be evolved. But Ippolito stopped suddenly and turned half round on the piano stool, with a quick movement habitual to him. He leaned forward towards Orsino, tapping the ends of his fingers lightly against one another, as his wrists rested on his knees. 'It is absurd to suppose that in all Rome, or in all Europe, for that matter, there is nobody whom you would be willing to marry.' 'Quite absurd, I suppose,' answered Orsino, not looking at his brother. 'Then you have not really looked about you for a wife. That is clear.' 'Perfectly clear. I do not argue the point. Why should I? There is plenty of time, and besides, there is no reason in the world why I should ever marry at all, any more than you. There are our two younger brothers. Let them take wives and continue the name.' 'Most people think that marriage may be regarded as a means of happiness,' observed Ippolito. 'Most people are imbeciles,' answered Orsino gloomily. Ippolito laughed, watching his brother's face, but he said nothing in reply. 'As a general rule,' Orsino continued presently, 'talking is a question of height and not of intelligence. The shorter men and women are, the more they talk; the taller they are, the more silent they are, in nine cases out of ten. Of course there are exceptions, but you can generally tell at a glance whether any particular person is a great talker. Brains are certainly not measurable by inches. Therefore conversation has nothing to do with brains. Therefore most people are fools.' 'Do you call that an argument?' asked the priest, still smiling. 'No. It is an observation.' 'And what do you deduce from it?' 'From it, and from a great many other things, I deduce and conclude that what we call society is a degrading farce. It encourages talking, when no one has anything to say. It encourages marriage, without love. It sets up fashion against taste, taste against sense, and sense against heart. It is a machinery for promoting emotion among the unfeeling. It is a--' Orsino stopped, hesitating. 'Is it anything else?' asked Ippolito mildly. 'It is a hell on earth.' 'That is exactly what most of the prophets and saints have said since David,' remarked the priest, moving again in order to find his half-smoked cigar, and then carefully relighting it. 'Since that is your opinion, why not take orders? You might become a prophet or a saint, you know. The first step towards sanctity is to despise the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. You seem to have taken the first step at a jump, with both feet. And it is the first step that costs the most, they say. Courage! You may go far.' 'I am thinking of going further before long,' said Orsino gravely, as though his brother had spoken in earnest. 'At all events, I mean to get away from all this,' he added, as though correcting himself. 'Do you mean to travel again?' inquired Ippolito. 'I mean to find something to do. Provided it is respectable, I do not care what it is. If I had talent, like you, I would be a musician, but I would not be an amateur, or I would be an artist, or a literary man. But I have no talent for anything except building tenement houses, and I shall not try that again. I would even be an actor, if I had the gift. Perhaps I should make a good farmer, but our father will not trust me now, for he is afraid that I should make ruinous experiments if he gave me the management of an estate. This is certainly not the time for experiments. Half the people we know are ruined, and the country is almost bankrupt. I do not wish to try experiments. I would work, and they tell me to marry. You cannot understand. You are only an amateur yourself, after all, Ippolito.' 'An amateur musician--yes.' 'No. You are an amateur priest. You support your sensitive soul on a sort of religious ambrosia, with a good deal of musical nectar. Your ideal is to be Cardinal-Protector of the Arts. You are clever and astonishingly good by nature, and you deserve no credit for either. That is probably why I like you. I hate people who deserve credit, because I deserve none myself. But you do not take your clerical profession seriously, and you are an amateur, a dilettante of the altar. If you do not have distractions about the vestments you wear when you are saying mass, it is because you have an intimate, unconscious artistic conviction that they are beautiful and becoming to you. But if the choir responded a flat "Amen" to your "per omnia sæcula sæculorum," it would set your teeth on edge and upset your devout intention at the beginning of the Preface. Do you think that a professional musician would be disturbed in conducting a great orchestra by the fact that his coat collar did not fit?' Ippolito smiled good humouredly, but did not answer. 'Very well,' continued Orsino at once, 'you are only an amateur priest. It does not matter, since you are happy. You get through life very well. You do not even pretend that you do any real work. Your vocation, as you call it, was a liking for the state of priesthood, not for the work of a priest. Now I do not care about any state in particular, but I want work of some sort, at any cost. I was never happy but once, during that time when I worked with Contini and got into trouble. I preferred it to this existence, even when we got into Del Ferice's clutches. Anything rather than this.' 'I thought you had grown indifferent,' said Ippolito. 'Indifferent? Yes, I am indifferent--as a machine is indifferent when the fire is out and there is no steam. But if the thing could think, it would want work, as I do. It would not be satisfied to rust to pieces. You ought to know a little theology. Are we put into the world with a purpose, or not? Is there an intention in our existence, or is there not? Am I to live through another forty or fifty years of total inactivity because I happen to be born rich, and in a position--well, a position which is really about as enviable as that of a fly in a pot of honey? We are stuck in our traditions, just as the fly is in the honey--' 'I like them,' said Ippolito quietly. 'I know you do. So does our father. They suit you both. Our father is really a very intelligent man, but too much happiness and too much money have paralysed him. His existence seems to have been a condition of perpetual adoration of our mother.' 'He has made her happy. That is worth something.' 'She has made him happy. They have made each other happy. They have devoured a lifetime of happiness together in secret, as though it were their lawful prey. As they never wanted anything else, they never found out that the honey of traditions is sticky, and that they could not move if they would.' 'They are fond of us--' 'Of course. We have none of us done anything very bad. We are a part of their happiness. We are also a part of their dulness; for they are dull, and their happiness makes us dull too.' 'What an idea!' 'It is true. What have we accomplished, any of us four brothers? What shall we ever accomplish? We are ornaments on the architecture of our father's and mother's happiness. It is rather a negative mission in life, you must admit. I am glad that they are happy, but I should like to be something more than a gargoyle on their temple.' 'Then marry, and have a temple of your own!' laughed Ippolito. 'And gargoyles of your own, too.' 'But I do not want that sort of happiness. Marriage is not a profession. It is not a career. 'No. At least you might not turn a dilettante husband, as you say that I am an amateur priest.' Ippolito laughed again. Orsino laughed dryly, but did not answer, not being in a humour for jesting. He leaned back in his chair again, and looked at the carved ceiling and thought of what it meant, for it was one of those ceilings which are only to be found in old Roman palaces, and belong intimately to the existence which those old dwellings suggest. Orsino thought of the grim dark walls outside, of the forbidding gateway, of the heavily barred windows on the lower story, of the dark street at the back of the palace, and the mediævalism of it all was as repugnant to him as the atmosphere of a prison. He had never understood his father nor his grandfather, who both seemed born for such an existence, and who certainly thrived in it; for the old Prince was over ninety years of age, and his son, Sant' Ilario, though now between fifty and sixty, was to all intents and purposes still a young man. Orsino was perhaps as strong as either of them. But he did not believe that he could last as long. In the midst of an enforced idleness he felt the movement of the age about him, and he said to himself that he was in the race of which they were only spectators, and that he was born in times when it was impossible to stand still. It is true that, like many young men of to-day, he took movement for progress and change for improvement, and he had no very profound understanding of the condition of his own or of other countries. But the movement and the change are facts from which no one can escape who has had a modern education. Giovanni Saracinesca, Orsino's father, known as Prince of Sant' Ilario, since the old Prince Saracinesca was still living, had not had a modern education, and his mother had died when he was a mere child. Brought up by men, among men, he had reached manhood early, in close daily association with his father and with a strong natural admiration for him, though with an equally strong sense of personal independence. Orsino's youth had been different. He was not an only son as Sant' Ilario had been, but the eldest of four brothers, and he had been brought up by his mother as well as by his father and grandfather. There had been less room for his character to develop freely, since the great old house had been gradually filled by a large family. At the same time there had also been less room for old-fashioned prejudices and traditions than formerly, and a good deal less respect for them, as there had been, too, a much more lively consciousness of the outer world's movements. The taking of Rome in 1870 was the death-blow of mediævalism; and the passing away of King Victor Emmanuel and of Pope Pius the Ninth was the end of Italian romanticism, if one may use the expression to designate all that concatenation of big and little events which make up the thrilling story of the struggle for Italian unity. After the struggle for unity, began the struggle for life,--more desperate, more dangerous, but immeasurably less romantic. There is all the difference which lies between banking and fighting. And Orsino was aware of qualities and feelings and opinions in his father and mother which he did not possess, but which excited in him a sort of envy of what he regarded as their simplicity. Each seemed to have wanted but one thing in life since he could remember them, and that was the other's love, in possessing which each was satisfied and happy. Times might change as they would, popes might die, kings might be crowned, parties might wrangle in political strife, and the whole country might live through its perilous joys of sudden prosperity and turn sour again in the ferment that follows failure,--it was all the same to Giovanni and Corona. As Orsino had told his brother, they had devoured a lifetime of happiness together in secret. He would have added that they had left none for others, and in a sense it might have been true. But he preferred not to say it, even to Ippolito; for it would have sounded bitter, whereas Orsino believed himself to be only indifferent. Proud men and women hide their griefs and sufferings, when they have any. But there are some who are so very proud that they will hide their happiness also, as though it might lose some of its strength if anyone else could see it, or as if it could be spoiled by the light like a photograph not yet fixed. People sometimes call that instinct the selfishness of love, but it is more like a sort of respect for love itself which is certainly not vulgar, as all selfishness is. It was not probable that either Giovanni or Corona should change in this respect, nor, indeed, in any other, for they had never been changeable or capricious people, and time had made solid their lives. To each other they were as they had always been, but to others Giovanni was a man advanced in middle life and the beautiful Corona Saracinesca was a rose of yesterday. She could never be anything but beautiful, even if she should live to extreme old age; but those who had known her in her youth had begun to shake their heads sadly, lamenting the glory departed, and seeing only in recollection a vision of it, while they could not see the value of what remained nor appreciate something which had come with years. Strangers who came to Rome and saw the Princess of Sant' Ilario for the first time, gazed in silent surprise at the woman who for nearly a quarter of a century had been the most beautiful in Europe, and they wondered whether, even now, anyone could be compared with her. The degeneration of age had not taken hold upon her. The perfect features were as calm and regular as fate, the dark skin had still its clear, warm, olive tint, which very rarely changed at all perceptibly; her splendid eyes were truthful and direct still, beneath the strong black eyebrows. There were silver threads in the magnificent hair, but they were like the lights on a raven's wing. She was straight and strong and graceful still, she had been compared to velvet and steel--slighter perhaps than in her full perfection, for she had in her some of that good Saracen blood of the south, which seems to nourish only the stronger and the finer tissues, consuming in time all that is useless; wearing away the velvet, but leaving the steel intact almost to the very last. There could be but one such woman in one race, and it seemed in some way natural that she should have been sisterless, and should have borne only sons. But as though nature would not be altogether defeated and stayed out of balance, the delicate feminine element had come to the surface in one of the Saracinesca men. It was too fine to be womanish, too high to be effeminate, as it showed itself in Ippolito, the priest-musician. But it was unmistakably something which was neither in the old Prince, nor in Giovanni, nor in any of the other three brothers, and it made between him and his mother a bond especially their own, which the rest acknowledged without understanding, and respected without feeling that Ippolito was preferred before them. For it was not a preference, but a stronger mutual attraction, in which there was no implied unfairness to the rest. It is one of the hardest things in the world to explain, and yet almost everyone understands it, for it has nothing to do with language, and everything to do with feeling. We human beings need language most to explain what is most remote from our humanity, and those who talk the most of feeling are often those that feel the least. For conveying a direct impression, what is the sharpened conciseness of Euclid, or the polished eloquence of Demosthenes, what is the sledgehammer word blow of Æschylus, or the lightning thrust of Dante's two-edged tongue, compared with a kiss, or a girl's blush, or the touch of a mother's hand--or the silent certainty of two-fold thought in one, which needs neither blush, nor touch, nor kiss to say that love is all, and all is love? And that bond which is sometimes between mother and son is of this kind. It is not strange, either, that the father who looks on should misunderstand it, since it is the most especially human feeling which is often the least comprehensible to those who do not feel it, for the very reason that language cannot convey the impression of it to others. Nothing is less ridiculous than love, except death. Yet a man in love is very frequently ridiculous in the eyes of his friends and of the world, the more so in proportion as he shows the more plainly what he feels. Yet most of those who laugh at him have probably been in love themselves. A cynic would say that the humour of it lies in the grim certainty which others feel that it cannot last. Fear is terribly real to him who feels it, but a man who is frightened without cause is always laughable and generally contemptible. It is true that whereas we are all human and feel humanly, humanity is very hard to understand--because understanding is not feeling, any more than the knowledge of evil is temptation, or than the knowledge of good is virtue. The best description of a sunset cannot convey much to a man born blind, though it may awaken longings in him, and sharpen the edge of his old suffering upon the roughness of a new regret. And yet a description means very much more to most people than an explanation. Sant' Ilario had long ago accepted the fact that his wife was in some mysterious way drawn to her second son, more than to the others. It would be saying too much, perhaps, to assert that Corona was glad when Ippolito took orders and the vow of celibacy. She was not an imaginative woman, nor nervous, nor in any way not normal. Nor were the Saracinesca by any means an excessively devout family, nor connected with the history of the Church, as many Roman families are. On the contrary, they had in former times generally opposed the popes when they had not been strong enough to make one of their own, and the absence of any womanly element in the great house, between the untimely death of the old Prince's wife, and Giovanni Saracinesca's marriage with the Duchessa d'Astrardente nearly thirty years later, had certainly not favoured a tendency to devotional practices. When young Ippolito made up his mind to be a priest, the aged head of the family growled out a few not very edifying remarks in his long white beard. Even ten years earlier, he might have gone into a rage about it, which might have endangered his life, for he had a terrible temper; but he was near the end, now, and it would have taken more than that to rouse him. As for Giovanni, he was not especially pleased either, for he had never been fond of priests, and he assuredly did not care to have any in the family. Yet, in spite of this prejudice, there seemed to him to be a certain fitness in the event, against which it would be useless to argue, and after a little discussion with his wife, he accepted it as more or less inevitable. But Corona was satisfied, if not glad, and what she felt was very like gladness, for, without reasoning at all, she knew that she should be jealous of any woman who came between her and Ippolito. She had never been able to think of a possible wife for him--as she often thought of wives for her other sons--without a sharp thrust of pain which could not be anything but jealousy. It was not exactly like what she should have felt, or fancied that she should have felt, if Giovanni had been momentarily attracted by some other woman. But it was not at all like anything else in the world. She did not know how far Ippolito was aware of this, but she knew beyond doubt that he was instinctively drawn to her, as she was to him. She had that intuitive certainty, which women know so well, that in a moment of danger he would think first of her, precisely as her husband would. Such instincts are, perhaps, but shadowy inklings of the gray primeval past, when women and children knew to whom they must look for protection against man and beast; but they are known to us all in connection with those we love best, though they may never cross our thoughts when we are alone. There was between her and Ippolito a sort of constant mutual echoing of thought and feeling; that sort of sympathy which, between people of sensitive and unhealthy organisation, leads to those things, not easily explained, to which the name of telepathy has lately been attached as a tentative definition. But these two were not unhealthy, nor morbidly sensitive, nor otherwise different from normal human beings. Corona had never been ill in her life, and if Ippolito had been thought delicate in his boyhood, it was by contrast with the rest of a family remarkable for most uncommon health and strength. All this has seemed necessary in order to explain the events which at this time took place in the Saracinesca household. Nothing unusual had occurred in the family for many years, excepting Orsino's rather foolish and most unlucky attempt to occupy himself in business at the time of the great building speculation, and his first love affair, to which reference was made in the beginning of this somewhat explanatory chapter. CHAPTER II When the notorious Prince of Corleone died without much ceremony in a small second-class hotel in Nice, and was buried with no ceremony at all worth mentioning, at the expense of the hotel keeper, his titles and what was left of his lands and other belongings went to his brother's children, since his brother was dead also. The Corleone people were never long-lived, nor had their alliances as a rule conduced to long life in others, who had been their wives and husbands. Superstitious persons said that there was upon the whole family the curse of a priest whom they had caused to be shot as a spy in order to save themselves during the wars of Napoleon in Italy. It was even said that they saw, or thought they saw, this priest when they were about to die. But as priests are plentiful in the south of Italy, it might very well be that their vision was not a vision at all, but simply some quite harmless living ecclesiastic who chanced to be passing at the time. It is true that they were said to notice always a small red hole in his forehead and another in his left cheek, but this also might have been only an effect of imagination. Nevertheless they were unfortunate, as a race, and several of them had come to violent or otherwise untimely ends within the century. The name, Corleone, was only a title, and the town from which it was taken had long ago passed into other hands. The family name was Pagliuca d'Oriani. As often happens in Italy, they went by whichever one of the three names happened to be most familiar to the speaker who mentioned them. At the time of the Prince's death there were living his brother's widow and four children, consisting of three sons and one daughter; and there was another branch of the family, calling themselves Pagliuca di Bauso, with whom this history is not at present concerned. The widowed lady was known in Sicily as Donna Maria Carolina Pagliuca. Her eldest son was Tebaldo, to whom came from his uncle the title, Prince of Corleone; and his two brothers were named Francesco and Ferdinando. Their sister, a girl seventeen years of age, was Vittoria, and was the youngest. In the ordinary course of events, being of the south, the three sons as well as their father and mother would have each borne a distinctive title. Corleone, however, had begun life by quarrelling with his younger brother; and when the latter had died, and the property had been divided according to the code introduced after the annexation of Naples and Sicily, he had absolutely refused to allow his brother any title whatsoever. He could not prevent the division of the lands, of which, however, he had by far the larger share; but he could keep the titles, with which the law of succession does not concern itself, and he did so out of spite. Moreover, he injured and defrauded his brother by every means in his power, which was at that time considerable; and the result was that the said brother and his family became very poor indeed, and retired to live in a somewhat barbarous region of Sicily, very much in the manner of farmers and very little in the style of gentlefolks. He died of the cholera when his eldest son, Tebaldo, was barely of age, and Vittoria was a little girl at a convent in Palermo. The three young men lived almost in the surroundings of Sicilian peasants, but with the pride and more than the ordinary vanity of a race of nobles. There might not have been much difference had their uncle been generous to them, instead of at once transferring and continuing to them his hatred of their father. But as they were placed, and with their characters, the result was inevitable. They grew up to be at once idle and vindictive, grasping and improvident, half cunning and half fierce, physically brave and morally mean. The many faults and the few virtues were not evenly distributed among them, it is true, for each had some greater or less share of them all. Tebaldo was the most cunning, Francesco the most licentious, Ferdinando was the boldest and the most rash of them all,--perhaps the best, or, at all events, the least bad. The house which remained to them, with a little land around it, was known as Camaldoli to the peasants and the people of the neighbourhood, though its original name had been Torre del Druso--the Tower of the Druse, or of the fiend, as one chooses to interpret it. It was a good-sized, rambling, half-fortified old monastery, looking down from a gentle elevation in the high valley on one side, and having a deep gorge at the back, through which a torrent tumbled along over dark stones during three-quarters of the year. There was a sort of rampart above this chasm, and at one end rose a square tower with ruined crenellations, built of almost black tufo. It was evidently this tower which had given the place its more ancient name, before the monks had built their white plastered building against it and the rampart, with the little church in the inner court. The village of Santa Vittoria was about three-quarters of a mile distant, hidden by the spur of the hill, and separated from Camaldoli by a barren stretch of burnt lava and scoriæ, which had descended long ago from some lower crater of the volcano. Far above all, Etna's enormous cone rose against the dark blue eastern sky like a monstrous, streaked sugar loaf. On each side of the great burnt strip between Santa Vittoria and Camaldoli, the woods and fields stretched north and south towards Messina and Catania, and westwards beyond the valley rose a great range of mountains covered high with forests of chestnut trees. No houses were visible from Camaldoli, nor any shed nor hut which could have served for a human habitation, for it was a wild and lonely country. The three brothers lived with their mother at Camaldoli, and were served in a rough fashion by three men and four women, almost all of whom were expected to do almost anything, from stable work to cooking and waiting at table. There was a sort of slovenly abundance of coarse food and drink, but there was little else, and many a well-to-do peasant lived better than the sister-in-law and the nephews of Prince Corleone. Donna Maria Carolina scarcely ever left the house in winter or summer. She had been married from a convent, a mere child, had enjoyed a brief taste of luxury and something of happiness at the beginning of life, and had spent the years of subsequent poverty between spasmodic attempts to make gentlemen of her wild sons, bitter outbursts of regret for her marriage, and an apathetic indifference such as only comes upon women of southern races when placed in such hopeless situations as hers. She was a thin, dark woman, with traces of beauty, dressed generally in shabby black, but strangely fond of cheap and tasteless ornaments, which contrasted horribly with her worn-out mourning. As her sons grew up they acquired the habit of contradicting everything she said. Sometimes she argued her point, whatever it might be, and generally in total ignorance of the subject. Her arguments frequently ended in a passionate appeal to the justice of Heaven, and the right feeling of the saints, though the matter under discussion might not be more important than the planting of a cabbage, or the dressing of a dish of greens. Or else, as sometimes happened, she silently bent her brows, while her once handsome mouth curled scornfully, and from her scarcely parted lips one word came in an injured and dramatic tone. 'Villani!' she would exclaim. The word may be translated 'boors,' and the three boys did not like it, for it is an outrageous insult from a man to a man. But it is worth noting that such rudeness to their mother did not go beyond flat contradiction in argument, and when she called her sons boors, they bore it in silence, and generally went away without a retort. There are no Italians without some traces of manners and of that submission to parents which belonged to the old patriarchal system of the Romans. It must be remembered, too, so far as this and the rest of their behaviour may be concerned, that although their father died when they were young, he had lived long enough to give them something, though not much, in the way of education, chiefly by the help of the parish priest of Santa Vittoria, and to teach them the rudimentary outward manners of young gentlemen. And these they were quite able to assume when they pleased. He had succeeded in having them taught at least enough to pass the very easy examination which entitles young men to serve but a year and a few weeks in the army, instead of the regular term; and he had taken first Tebaldo, then Tebaldo and Francesco, and then all three in successive years to Messina and Palermo for a fortnight at a time, so that they were not wholly ignorant of the world beyond Camaldoli, Santa Vittoria, and the one or two larger towns which lay within a day's ride of their remote abode. It must not be forgotten, either, in order to understand how the brothers were able afterwards to make a tolerably decent appearance in Rome, that Italians have great powers of social adaptation; and, secondly, that the line between the nobility and the people is very clearly drawn in most parts of the country, especially in the matter of manners and speech, so that what little the young men learned from their father and mother belonged distinctively to their own class and to no other. Even had they been outwardly less polished than they really knew how to appear, their name alone would have admitted them to society, though society might have treated them coolly after a nearer acquaintance. Vittoria, their sister, remained at the convent in Palermo after their father's death. He, poor man, seeing that his house did not promise to be a very fit place for a young girl, and especially not for one delicately organised as his daughter seemed to be, had placed her with the nuns while still a young child; and under the circumstances this was by far the wisest thing he could do. The nuns were ladies, and the convent was relatively rich. Possibly these facts had too much weight with Pagliuca, or perhaps he honestly believed that he should be able to pay regularly for Vittoria's education and living. Indeed, so long as he lived he managed to send small sums of money from time to time, and even after his death Donna Maria Carolina twice remitted a little money to the nuns. But after that nothing more was sent for a long time. Fortunately for herself, Vittoria was extremely unlike her turbulent brothers and her disappointed mother, and by the time she was ten years old she was the idol of the religious household in which she had been placed. Even had she been very different, of low birth, and of bad temper, the nuns would have kept her, and would have treated her as kindly as they could, and would have done their best by her, though they would very justly have required her to do something towards earning her living under their roof when she grew older. But apart from the child's rare charm and lovable disposition, being of an old and noble name, they would have considered her unfit for menial work, though cast adrift and helpless, and they would have thought her quite as worthy of their sympathy as though she had belonged to the family of one among themselves. All this, however, was quite forgotten in their almost exaggerated affection for the child. They showed their love for her as only such women could; for though there were a dozen other daughters of nobles under their care, of ranging ages, the nuns let no one know that Vittoria was brought up by their charity after her father's death. They gave her all she needed of the best, and they even gave her little presents which she might think had been sent from home. They told her that 'her mother desired her to have' a Book of Hours, or a writing-case, or a silk handkerchief, or any such trifles. Her mother, poor lady, doubtless did desire it, though she never said so. It was a pious and a gentle fraud, and it prevented the other girls from looking down upon her as a charity scholar, as one or two of them might have done. In dress there was no difference, of course, for they all dressed alike, and Vittoria supposed that her parents paid for her things. She was a very lovely girl as she grew up, and exquisite in all ways, and gentle as she was exquisite. She was not dark as her brothers were, nor as her mother. It is commonly said that all the region about Palermo is Saracen, but that the ancient Greek blood survives from Messina to Catania; and the girl certainly seemed to be of a type that differed from that of her family, which had originally come from the other side of the island. Vittoria had soft brown hair and clear brown eyes of precisely the same colour as the delicate, arched eyebrows above them, a matching which always helps the harmony of any face. There was a luminous clearness, too, in the skin, which both held and gave back the light like the sheen of fine satin in shadow. There was about all her face the dream-like softness of well-defined outline which one occasionally sees in the best cut gems of the Greeks, when the precious stone itself has a golden tinge. The features were not faultless by any standard of beauty which we call perfect, but one would not have changed the faults that were there to suit rule and canon. Such as they were, they will appear more clearly hereafter. It is enough to say now that Vittoria d'Oriani had grace and charm and gentleness, and, withal, a share of beauty by no means small. And she was well educated and well cared for, as has been seen, and was brought up very differently from her brothers. The existence of the Pagliuca at Camaldoli was not only tolerably wild and rough, as has been seen; it was, in a measure, equivocal; and it may be doubted whether all the doings of the three brothers, as they grew up, could have borne the scrutiny of the law. Sicily is not like other countries in this respect, and, at the risk of wearying the reader, it is better that something should be said at the outset concerning outlawry and brigandage, in order that what follows may be more clearly understood. Brigandage in Sicily has a sort of intermittent permanence which foreigners cannot easily explain. The mere question which is so often asked--whether it cannot be stamped out of existence--shows a total ignorance of its nature. You may knock off a lizard's tail in winter with a switch, as most people know, but you cannot prevent the tail from growing again in the spring and summer unless you kill the lizard outright. Brigandage is not a profession, as most people suppose. A man does not choose it as a career. It is the occasional but inevitable result of the national character under certain conditions which are sure to renew themselves from time to time. No one can change national character. The success of brigandage, whenever it manifests itself, depends primarily upon the almost inaccessible nature of some parts of the island, and, secondly, upon the helplessness of the peasants to defend themselves in remote places. It is manifestly impossible to arm a whole population, especially with weapons fit to cope with the first-rate repeating rifles and army revolvers which brigands almost invariably carry. It is equally impossible to picket troops all over the country, at distances not exceeding half a mile from station to station, in every direction, like cabbages in a field. No army would suffice. Therefore when a band is known to have formed, a large force is sent temporarily to the neighbourhood to hunt it down; and this is all that any government could do. The 'band,' as it is always called, may be very small. One man has terrorised a large district before now, and the famous Leone, when at last surrounded, slew nearly a score of men before he himself was killed, though he was quite alone. Almost every band begins with a single individual, and he, as a rule, has turned outlaw to escape the consequences of a murder done in hot blood, and is, in all probability, a man of respectable birth and some property. It is part of the national character to proceed instantly to bloodshed in case of a quarrel, and quarrels are, unfortunately, common enough. The peasants break one another's heads and bones with their hoes and spades, and occasionally stab each other with inefficient knives, but rarely kill, because the carabineers are constantly making search for weapons, even in the labourers' pockets, and confiscate them without question when found. But the man of some property rarely goes abroad without a shot-gun, or a revolver, or both, and generally knows how to use them. He may go through life without a serious quarrel, but should he find himself involved in one, he usually kills his man at once, or is killed. If there are witnesses present to prove beyond doubt that he has killed in self-defence, he may give himself up to the nearest station of carabineers, and he is sure of acquittal. Otherwise, if he can get away, his only course is to escape to the woods without delay. This seems to be the simple explanation of the fact that such a large proportion of brigands are by no means of the lowest class, but have often been farmers and men of property, who can not only afford good weapons, but are able to get licenses to carry them. Brigands are certainly not, as a rule, from the so-called criminal classes, as foreigners suppose, though when a band becomes very large, a few common criminals may be found in the whole number; but the brigands despise and distrust them. These things also account for the still more notable fact that the important bands have always had friends among the well-to-do landed proprietors. Indeed, they have not only friends, but often near relations, who will make great sacrifices and run considerable risks to save them from the law. And when any considerable number of brigands are caught, they have generally been betrayed into an ambush by these friends or relations. Sometimes they are massacred by them for the sake of a large reward. But to the honour of the Sicilian character, it must be said that such cases are rare, though a very notable one occurred in the year 1894, when a rich man and his two sons deliberately drugged six brigands at a sort of feast of friendship, and shot them all in their sleep, a massacre which, however, has by no means ended the existence of that particular band. As for the practices of the bandits, they have three main objects in view: namely, personal safety, provisions wherewith to support life, and then, if possible, money in large sums, which, when obtained, may afford them the means of leaving the country secretly and for ever. With regard to the first of these ends, they are mostly young men, or men still in the prime of strength, good walkers, good riders, good shots, and not rendered conspicuous marks at a distance by a uniform. As for their provisions, when their friends do not supply them, they take what they need wherever they find it, chiefly by intimidating the peasants. In the third matter they have large views. An ordinary person is usually quite safe from them, especially if armed, for they will not risk their lives for anything so mean as highway robbery. It is their object to get possession of the persons of the richest nobles and gentlemen, from whom they can extort a really large ransom. And if they once catch such a personage they generally get the money, for the practice of sending an ear or a piece of nose as a reminder to relations is not extinct. Few Sicilian gentlemen who have lands in the interior dare visit their estates without a military escort when a 'band' is known to be in existence, as happens to be the case at the present time of writing. It chanced that such a band was gathered together, though not a large one, within a few years of Pagliuca's death, and was leading a precarious and nomadic life for a time not far from Santa Vittoria. It was said that the Pagliuca men were on good terms with these brigands, though of course their mother knew nothing about it. In the neighbourhood no one thought much the worse of the brothers for this. When brigands were about every man had to do the best he could for himself. The Corleone, as many of the peasants called them, were well armed it is true, but they were few, and could not have resisted any depredations of the brigands by force. On the other hand, they had the reputation of being brave and very reckless young men, and even against odds might send a bullet through anyone who tried to carry off a couple of their sheep, or one of their mules. They knew the country well, too, and might be valuable allies to the carabineers, which meant that they could be useful friends to the outlaws if they chose. Everyone knew that they were poor, and that it would not be worth while to take one of them in the hope of a ransom, and no one was surprised when it was hinted that they sold provisions to the brigands for cash when they could get it, and for credit when the brigands had no money, a credit which was perfectly good until the outlaws should be taken. There was very little direct proof of this alliance, and the Pagliuca denied it in terms which did not invite further questioning. To make a brilliant show of their perfect innocence, they led a dozen carabineers about for two days through a labyrinth of forest paths and hill passes, and brought them three times in forty-eight hours to places where a fire was still smouldering, and remains of half-cooked meat were scattered about, as though the brigands had fled suddenly at an alarm. It was very well done, and they received the officer's thanks for their efforts, with sincere expressions of regret that they should have been unsuccessful. In one of the camps they even found the skin of a sheep which they identified as one of their own, with many loud-spoken curses, by the brand on the back. It was all very well done, and the result of it was that the carabineers often applied for news of the brigands at Camaldoli, a proceeding which of course kept the d'Oriani well informed as to the whereabouts of the carabineers themselves. It was certainly as well in the end that Vittoria should have stayed at the convent in Palermo during those years, until the death of the old Corleone suddenly changed the existence of her mother and brothers. He died, as has been said, without much ceremony in a small hotel at Nice. He died childless and intestate, as well as ruined, so far as he knew at the time of his death. The news reached Camaldoli in the shape of a demand for money in payment of one of his just debts, from a money-lender in Palermo who was aware of the existence of the three Pagliuca brothers, and knew that they were the Prince's heirs-at-law. It took a whole year to unravel the ruin of the dead man's estate. What he had not sold was mortgaged, and the mortgages had changed hands repeatedly during the tremendous financial crisis which began in 1888. There were debts of all kinds, just and unjust, and creditors by the hundred. The steward of the principal estate absconded with such cash as he happened to have in hand as soon as he heard of Corleone's death. An obscure individual shot himself because the steward owed him money, and this also was talked of in the newspapers, and a good deal of printed abuse was heaped upon the dead rake. But one day Ferdinando Pagliuca entered the office of one of the papers in Palermo, struck the editor in the face, forced him into a duel, and ran him through the lungs the next morning. The editor ultimately recovered, but the Pagliuca had asserted themselves, and there was no more scurrilous talk in the press about poor dead Corleone. Things turned out to be not quite so bad as he had imagined. Here and there a little property had escaped, perhaps because he hardly knew of its existence. There was a small house in Rome, in the new quarter, which he had bought for a young person in whom he had been temporarily interested, and which, by some miracle, was not mortgaged. The mortgages on some of the principal estates in Sicily had found their way to the capacious desk of the Marchese di San Giacinto, whose name was Giovanni Saracinesca, and who represented a branch of that family. San Giacinto was enormously rich, and was a singular combination of old blood and modern instincts; a man of honour, but of terrible will and a good enemy; a man of very large views and of many great projects, some of which were already successfully carried out, some in course of execution, some as yet only planned. In the great crisis, he had neither lost much nor profited immediately by the disasters of others. No one called him grasping, and yet everything worth having that came within his long reach came sooner or later into his possession. When land and houses lost value, and everything in the way of business was dull and dead, San Giacinto was steadily buying. When all had been excitement and mad speculation, he had quietly saved his money and waited. And in the course of his investments he had picked up the best of the Corleone mortgages, without troubling himself much as to whether the interest were very regularly paid or not. Before long he knew very well that it would not be paid at all, and that the lands would fall to him when Corleone should have completely ruined himself. The Pagliuca family moved to Rome before the settlement of the inheritance was finished, and Vittoria was at last taken from the convent and accompanied her mother. Ferdinando alone remained at Camaldoli. The family established themselves in an apartment in the new quarter, and began to live well, if not extravagantly, on what was still a very uncertain income. Tebaldo, who managed all the business himself, succeeded in selling the house in Rome advantageously. Through San Giacinto he made acquaintance with a few Romans, who treated him courteously and regarded him with curiosity as the nephew of the notorious Prince Corleone. As for the title, San Giacinto advised him not to assume it at once, as it would not be of any especial advantage to him. San Giacinto was on excellent terms with all his Saracinesca relations, and very naturally spoke to them about the d'Oriani. In his heart he did not like and did not trust Tebaldo, and thought his brother Francesco little better; but, in spite of this, he could not help feeling a sort of pity for the two young men, whose story reminded him of his own romantic beginnings. San Giacinto was a giant in strength and stature, and it is undoubtedly true that in all giants a tendency to good-nature and kindliness will sooner or later assert itself. He was advancing in years now, and the initial hardness of his rough nature had been tempered by years of success and of almost phenomenal domestic felicity. He was strong still in body and mind, and not easily deceived; but he had grown kind. He pitied the Pagliuca tribe, and took his wife to see Donna Maria Carolina. He persuaded the Princess of Sant' Ilario to receive her and make acquaintance, and the Marchesa di San Giacinto brought her to the palace one afternoon with Vittoria. Corona thought the mother pretentious, and guessed that she was at once bad-tempered and foolish; but she saw at a glance that the young girl was of a very different type, and a few kindly questions, while Donna Maria Carolina talked with the Marchesa, explained to Corona the mystery. Vittoria had never been at home, even for a visit, during the ten years which had elapsed since she had been placed at the convent, and her mother was almost a stranger to her. She was not exactly timid, as Corona could see, but her young grace was delicately nurtured, and shrank and froze in the presence of her mother's coarse-grained self-assertion. 'Shall we marry her in Rome, do you think, Princess?' asked Donna Maria Carolina, nodding her head indicatively towards her daughter, while her eyes looked at Corona, and she smiled with much significance. Vittoria's soft brown eyes grew suddenly bright and hard, and the blood sprang up in her face as though she had been struck, and her small hands tightened quietly on her parasol; but she said nothing, and looked down. 'I hope that your daughter may marry very happily,' said Corona, with a kind intonation, for she saw the girl's embarrassment and understood it. The Marchesa di San Giacinto laughed quite frankly. Her laughter was good-humoured, not noisy, and distinctly aristocratic, it is true; but Vittoria resented it, because she knew that it was elicited by her mother's remark, which had been in bad taste. Corona saw this also. 'You always laugh at the mention of marriage, Flavia,' said the Princess, 'and yet you are the most happily married woman I know.' 'Oh, that is true!' answered the Marchesa. 'My giant is good to me, even now that my hair is gray.' It was true that there were many silver threads in the thick and waving hair that grew low over her forehead, but her face had lost none of its freshness, and her eyes had all their old vivacity. She was of the type of women who generally live to a great age. Donna Maria Carolina rose to go. In saying good-bye, Corona took Vittoria's hand. 'I am sorry that it is so late in the season, my dear,' she said. 'You will have little to amuse you until next year. But you must come to dinner with your mother. Will you come, and bring her?' she asked, turning to Donna Maria Carolina. The Marchesa di San Giacinto stared in well-bred surprise, for Corona was not in the habit of asking people to dinner at first sight. Of course her invitation was accepted. CHAPTER III San Giacinto and his wife came to the dinner, and two or three others, and the d'Oriani made a sort of formal entry into Roman society under the best possible auspices. In spite of Corona's good taste and womanly influence, festivities at the Palazzo Saracinesca always had an impressive and almost solemn character. Perhaps there were too many men in the family, and they were all too dark and grave, from the aged Prince to his youngest grandson, who was barely of age, and whose black eyebrows met over his Roman nose and seemed to shade his eyes too much. Ippolito, the exception in his family, as Vittoria d'Oriani was in hers, did not appear at table, but came into the drawing-room in the evening. The Prince himself sat at the head of the table, and rarely spoke. Corona could see that he was not pleased with the Pagliuca tribe, and she did her best to help on conversation and to make Flavia San Giacinto talk, as she could when she chose. From time to time, she looked at Orsino, whose face that evening expressed nothing, but whose eyes were almost constantly turned towards Vittoria. It had happened naturally enough that he sat next to her, and it was an unusual experience for him. Of course, in the round of society, he occasionally found himself placed next to a young girl at dinner, and he generally was thoroughly bored on such occasions. It was either intentional or accidental on the part of his hosts, whoever they might be. If it was intentional, he had been made to sit next to some particularly desirable damsel of great birth and fortune in the hope that he might fall in love with her and make her the future Princess Saracinesca. And he resented in gloomy silence every such attempt to capture him. If, on the other hand, he chanced to be accidentally set down beside a young girl, it happened according to the laws of precedence; and it was ten to one that the young lady had nothing to recommend her, either in the way of face, fortune, or conversation. But neither case occurred often. The present occasion was altogether exceptional. Vittoria d'Oriani had never been to a dinner-party before, and everything was new to her. It was quite her first appearance in society, and Orsino Saracinesca was the first man who could be called young, except her brothers, with whom she had ever exchanged a dozen words. It was scarcely two months since she had left the convent, and during that time her mind had been constantly crowded with new impressions, and as constantly irritated by her mother's manner and conversation. Her education was undoubtedly very limited, though in this respect it only differed in a small degree from that of many young girls whom Orsino had met; but it was liberal as compared with her mother's, as her ideas upon religion were broad in comparison with Donna Maria Carolina's complicated system of superstition. Vittoria's brown eyes were very wide open, as she sat quietly in her place, listening to what was said, and tasting a number of things which she had never seen before. She looked often at Corona, and wished that she might be like her some day, which was quite impossible. And she glanced at Orsino from time to time, and answered his remarks briefly and simply. She could not help seeing that he was watching her, and now and then the blood rose softly in her cheeks. On her other side sat Gianbattista Pietrasanta, whose wife was a Frangipani, and who was especially amused and interested by Vittoria's mother, his other neighbour, but paid little attention to the young girl herself. A great writer has very truly said that psychological analysis, in a book, can never be more than a series of statements on the part of the author, telling what he himself fancies that he might have felt, could he have been placed in the position of the particular person whom he is analysing. It is extremely doubtful whether any male writer can, by the greatest effort of imagination, clothe himself in the ingenuous purity of thought and intention which is the whole being of such a young girl as Vittoria d'Oriani when she first enters the world, after having spent ten years in a religious community of refined women. The creature we imagine, when we try to understand such maiden innocence, is colourless and dull. Her mind and heart are white as snow, but blankly white, as the snow on a boundless plain, without so much as a fence or a tree to relieve the utter monotony. There is no beauty in such whiteness in nature, except when it blushes at dawn and sunset. Alone on snow, and with nothing but snow in sight, men often go mad; for snow-madness is a known and recognised form of insanity. Evidently our imagination fails to evoke a true image in such a case. We are aware that maiden innocence is a state, and not a form of character. The difficulty lies in representing to ourselves a definite character in just that state. For to the word innocence we attach no narrow meaning; it extends to every question that touches humanity, to every motive in all dealings, and to every purpose which, in that blank state, a girl attributes to all human beings, living and dead. It is a magic window through which all good things appear clearly, though not often truly, and all bad things are either completely invisible, or seen in a dull, neutral, and totally uninteresting shadow of uniform misunderstanding. We judge that it must be so, from our observation. This is not analysis, but inspection. Behind the blank lies, in the first place, the temperament, then the character, then the mind, and then that great, uncertain element of heredity, monstrous or god-like, which animates and moves all three in the gestation of unborn fate, and which is fate itself in later life, so far as there is any such thing as fatality. Behind the blank there may be turbulent and passionate blood, there may be a character of iron and a man-ruling mind. But the blank is a blank, for all that. Catherine of Russia was once an innocent and quiet little German girl, with empty, wondering eyes, and school-girl sentimentalities. Goethe might have taken her for Werther's Charlotte. Good, bad, or indifferent, the future woman is at the magic window, and all that she is to be is within her already. Vittoria d'Oriani was certainly not to be a Catherine, but there was no lack of conflicting heredities beneath her innocence. Orsino had thought more than most young men of his age, and he was aware of the fact, as he looked at her and talked with her, and carried on one of those apparently empty conversations, of which the recollection sometimes remains throughout a lifetime, while he quietly studied her face, and tried to find out the secret of its rare charm. He began by treating her almost as a foreigner. He remembered long afterwards how he smiled as he asked her the first familiar question, as though she had been an English girl, or Miss Lizzie Slayback, the heiress from Nevada. 'How do you like Rome?' 'It is a great city,' answered Vittoria. 'But you do not like it? You do not think it is beautiful?' 'Of course, it is not Palermo,' said the young girl, quite naturally. 'It has not the sea; it has not the mountains--' 'No mountains?' interrupted Orsino smiling. 'But there are mountains all round Rome.' 'Not like Palermo,' replied Vittoria, soberly. 'And then it has not the beautiful streets.' 'Poor Rome!' Orsino laughed a little. 'Not even fine streets! Have you seen nothing that pleases you here!' 'Oh yes,--there are fine houses, and I have seen the Tiber, and the Queen, and--' she stopped short. 'And what else?' inquired Orsino, very much amused. Vittoria turned her brown eyes full upon him, and paused a moment before she answered. 'You are making me say things which seem foolish to you, though they seem sensible to me,' she said quietly. 'They seem original, not foolish. It is quite true that Palermo is a beautiful city, but we Romans forget it. And if you have never seen another river, the Tiber is interesting, I suppose. That is what you mean. No, it is quite reasonable.' Vittoria blushed a little, and looked down, only half reassured. It was her first attempt at conversation, and she had said what she thought, naturally and simply. She was not sure whether the great dark young man, who had eyes exactly like his mother's, was laughing at her or not. But he did not know that she had never been to a party in her life. 'Is the society in Palermo amusing?' he inquired carelessly. 'I do not know,' she answered, again blushing, for she was a little ashamed of being so very young. 'I left the convent on the day we started to come to Rome. And my mother did not live in Palermo,' she added. 'No--I had forgotten that.' Orsino relapsed into silence for a while. He would willingly have given up the attempt at conversation, so far as concerned any hope of making it interesting. But he liked the sound of Vittoria's voice, and he wished she would speak again. On his right hand was Tebaldo, who, as the head of a family, and not a Roman, sat next to Corona. He seemed to be making her rather bold compliments. Orsino caught a phrase. 'You are certainly the most beautiful woman in Italy, Princess,' the Sicilian was saying. Orsino raised his head, and turned slowly towards the speaker. As he did so, he saw his mother's look. Her brows were a little contracted, which was unusual, but she was just turning away to speak to San Giacinto on her other side, with an otherwise perfectly indifferent expression. Orsino laughed. 'My mother has been the most beautiful woman in Europe since before I was born,' he said, addressing Tebaldo rather pointedly, for the latter's remark had been perfectly audible to him. Tebaldo had a thin face, with a square, narrow forehead, and heavy jaws that came to an overpointed chin. His upper lip was very short, and his moustache was unusually small, black and glossy, and turned up at the ends in aggressive points. His upper teeth were sharp, long, and regular, and he showed them when he smiled. The smile did not extend upwards above the nostrils, and there was something almost sinister in the still black eyes. In the front view the lower part of the face was triangular, and the low forehead made the upper portion seem square. He was a man of bilious constitution, of an even, yellow-brown complexion, rather lank and bony in frame, but of a type which is often very enduring. Such men sometimes have violent and uncontrolled tempers, combined with great cunning, quickness of intelligence, and an extraordinary power of taking advantage of circumstances. Tebaldo smiled at Orsino's remark, not at all acknowledging that it might be intended as a rebuke. 'It is hard to believe that she can be your mother,' he said quietly, and with such frankness as completely disarmed resentment. But Orsino in his thoughts contrasted Tebaldo's present tone with the sound of his voice when speaking to the Princess an instant earlier, and he forthwith disliked the man, and believed him to be false and double. Corona either had not heard, or pretended not to hear, and talked indifferently with San Giacinto, whose vast, lean frame seemed to fill two places at the table, while his energetic gray head towered high above everyone else. Orsino turned to Vittoria again. 'Should you be pleased if someone told you that you were the most beautiful young lady in Italy?' he enquired. Vittoria looked at him wonderingly. 'No,' she answered. 'It would not be true. How should I be pleased?' 'But suppose, for the sake of argument, that it were true. I am imagining a case. Should you be pleased?' 'I do not know--I think--' She hesitated and paused. 'I am very curious to know what you think,' said Orsino, pressing her for an answer. 'I think it would depend upon whether I liked the person who told me so.' Again the blood rose softly in her face. 'That is exactly what I should think,' answered Orsino gravely. 'Were you sorry to leave the convent?' 'Yes, I cried a great deal. It was my home for so many years, and I was so happy there.' The girl's eyes grew dreamy as she looked absently across the table at Guendalina Pietrasanta. She was evidently lost in her recollections of her life with the nuns. Orsino was almost amused at his own failure. 'Should you have liked to stay and be a nun yourself?' he inquired, with a smile. 'Yes, indeed! At least--when I came away I wished to stay.' 'But you have changed your mind since? You find the world pleasanter than you expected? It is not a bad place, I daresay.' 'They told me that it was very bad,' said Vittoria seriously. 'Of course they must know, but I do not quite understand what they mean. Can you tell me something about it, and why it is bad, and what all the wickedness is?' Orsino looked at her quietly for a moment, realising very clearly the whiteness of her life's unwritten page. 'Your nuns may be right,' he said at last. 'I am not in love with the world, but I do not believe that it is so very wicked. At least, there are many good people in it, and one can find them if one chooses. No doubt, we are all miserable sinners in a theological sense, but I am not a theologian. I have a brother who is a priest, and you will see him after dinner; but though he is a very good man, he does not give one the impression of believing that the world is absolutely bad. It is true that he is rather a dilettante priest.' Vittoria was evidently shocked, for her face grew extraordinarily grave and a shade paler. She looked at Orsino in a startled way and then at her plate. 'What is the matter?' he asked quickly. 'Have I shocked you?' 'Yes,' she answered, almost in a whisper and still looking down. 'That is,' she added with hesitation, 'perhaps I did not quite understand you.' 'No, you did not, if you are shocked. I merely meant that although my brother is a very good man, and a very religious man, and believes that he has a vocation, and does his best to be a good priest, he has other interests in life for which I am sure that he cares more, though he may not know it.' 'What other interests?' asked Vittoria, rather timidly. 'Well, only one, perhaps--music. He is a musician first, and a priest afterwards.' The young girl's face brightened instantly. She had expected something very terrible, perhaps, though quite undefined. 'He says mass in the morning,' continued Orsino, 'and it may take him an hour or so to read his breviary conscientiously in the afternoon. The rest of his time he spends over the piano.' 'But it is not profane music?' asked Vittoria, growing anxious again. 'Oh no!' Orsino smiled. 'He composes masses and symphonies and motetts.' 'Well, there is no harm in that,' said Vittoria, indifferently, being again reassured. 'Certainly not. I wish I had the talent and the interest in it to do it myself. I believe that the chief real wickedness is doing nothing at all.' 'Sloth is one of the capital sins,' observed Vittoria, who knew the names of all seven. 'It is also the most tiresome sin imaginable, especially when one is condemned to it for life, as I am.' The young girl looked at him anxiously, and there was a little pause. 'What do you mean?' she asked. 'No one is obliged to be idle.' 'Will you find me an occupation?' Orsino asked in his turn, and with some bitterness. 'I shall be gratified.' 'Is not doing good an occupation? I am sure that there must be plenty of opportunities for that.' She felt more sure of herself when upon such ground. Orsino did not smile. 'Yes. It might take up a man's whole life, but it is not a career--' 'It was the career of many of the saints!' interrupted Vittoria, cheerfully, for she was beginning to feel at her ease at last. 'Saint Francis of Assisi--Saint Clare--Saint--' 'Pray for us!' exclaimed Orsino, as though he were responding in a litany. Vittoria's face fell instantly, and he regretted the words as soon as he had spoken them. She was like a sensitive plant, he thought; and yet she had none of the appearance of an over-impressionable, nervous girl. It was doubtless her education. 'I have shocked you again,' he said gravely. 'I am sorry, but I am afraid that you will often be shocked, at first. Yes; I have no doubt that to the saints doing good was a career, and that a saint might make a career of it nowadays. But you see I am not one. What I should like would be to have a profession of some sort, and to work at it with all my might.' 'What a strange idea!' Vittoria looked at him in surprise; for though her three brothers had been almost beggars for ten years, it had never struck them that they could possibly have a profession. 'But you are a noble,' she added thoughtfully. 'You will be the Prince Saracinesca some day.' Orsino laughed. 'We do not think so much of those things as we did once,' he answered. 'I would be a doctor, if I could, or a lawyer, or a man of business. I do not think that I should like to be a shopkeeper, though it is only a matter of prejudice--' 'I should think not!' cried Vittoria, startled again. 'It would be much more interesting than the life I lead. Almost any life would be, for that matter. Of course, if I had my choice--' He stopped. Vittoria waited, her eyes fixed earnestly on his face, but she said nothing. Somehow she was suddenly anxious to know what his choice would be. He felt that she was watching him, and turned towards her. Their eyes met in silence, and he smiled, but her face remained grave. He was thinking that this must certainly be one of the most absurd conversations in which he had ever been engaged, but that somehow it did not appear absurd to himself, and he wondered why. 'If I had my choice--' He paused again. 'I would be a leader,' he added suddenly. He was still young, and there was ambition in him. His dark eyes flashed like his mother's, a warmer colour rose for one instant under his olive skin; the fine, firm mouth set itself. 'I think you could be,' said Vittoria, almost under her breath and half unconsciously. Then, all at once, she blushed scarlet, and turned her face away to hide her colour. If there is one thing in woman which more than any other attracts a misunderstood man, it is the conviction that she believes him capable of great deeds; and if there is one thing beyond others which leads a woman to love a man, it is her own certainty that he is really superior to those around him, and really needs woman's sympathy. Youth, beauty, charm, eloquence, are all second to these in their power to implant genuine love, or to maintain it, if they continue to exist as conditions. It mattered little to Vittoria that she had as yet no means whatever of judging whether Orsino Saracinesca had any such extraordinary powers as might some day make him a leader among men. She had been hardly conscious of the strong impression she had received, and which had made her speak, and she was far too young and simple to argue with herself about it. And he, on his part, with a good deal of experience behind him and the memory of one older woman's absolute devotion and sacrifice, felt a keen and unexpected pleasure, quite different from anything he remembered to have felt before now. Nor did he reason about it at first, for he was not a great reasoner and his pleasures in life were really very few. A moment or two after Vittoria had spoken, and when she had already turned away her face, Orsino shook his head almost imperceptibly, as though trying to throw something off which annoyed him. It was near the end of dinner before the two spoke to each other again, though Vittoria half turned towards him twice in the mean time, as though expecting him to speak, and then, disappointed, looked at her plate again. 'Are you going to stay in Rome, or shall you go back to Sicily?' he asked suddenly, not looking at her, but at the small white hand that touched the edge of the table beside him. Vittoria started perceptibly at the sound of his voice, as though she had been in a reverie, and her hand disappeared at the same instant. Orsino found himself staring at the tablecloth, at the spot where it had lain. 'I think--I hope we shall stay in Rome,' she answered. 'My brother has a great deal of business here.' 'Yes. I know. He sees my cousin San Giacinto about it almost every day.' 'Yes.' Her face grew thoughtful again, but not dreamily so as before, and she seemed to hesitate, as though she had more to say. 'What is it?' asked Orsino, encouraging her to go on. 'Perhaps I ought not to tell you. The Marchese wishes to buy Camaldoli of us.' 'What is Camaldoli?' 'It is the old country house where my mother and my brothers lived so long, while I was in the convent, after my father died. There is a little land. It was all we had until now.' 'Shall you be glad if it is sold, or sorry?' asked Orsino, thoughtfully, and watching her face. 'I shall be glad, I suppose,' she answered. 'It would have to be divided among us, they say. And it is half in ruins, and the land is worth nothing, and there are always brigands.' Orsino laughed. 'Yes. I should think you might be very glad to get rid of it. There is no difficulty about it, is there?' 'Only--I have another brother. He likes it and has remained there. His name is Ferdinando. No one knows why he is so fond of the place. They need his consent, in order to sell it, and he will not agree.' 'I understand. What sort of a man is your brother Ferdinando?' 'I have not seen him for ten years. They are afraid of--I mean, he is afraid of nothing.' There was something odd, Orsino thought, about the way the young girl shut her lips when she checked herself in the middle of the sentence, but he had no idea what she had been about to say. Just then Corona nodded slightly to the aged Prince at the other end of the table, and dinner was over. 'I should think it would be necessary for San Giacinto to see this other brother of yours,' observed Orsino, finishing the conversation as he rose and stood ready to take Vittoria out. The little ungloved hand lay like a white butterfly on his black sleeve, and she had to raise her arm a little to take his, though she was not short. Just before them went San Giacinto, darkening the way like a figure of fate. Vittoria looked up at him, almost awe-struck at his mere size. 'How tall he is!' she exclaimed in a very low voice. 'How very tall he is!' she said again. 'We are used to him,' answered Orsino, with a short laugh. 'But he has a big heart, though he looks so grim.' Half an hour later, when the men were smoking in a room by themselves, San Giacinto came and sat down by Orsino in the remote corner where the latter had established himself, with a cigarette. The giant, as ever of old, had a villainous-looking black cigar between his teeth. 'Do you want something to do?' he asked bluntly. 'Yes.' 'Do you care to live in Sicily for a time?' 'Anywhere--Japan, if you like.' 'You are easily pleased. That means that you are not in love just at present, I suppose.' San Giacinto looked hard at his young cousin for some time, in silence. Orsino met his glance quietly, but with some curiosity. 'Do you ever go to see the Countess Del Ferice?' asked the big man at last. Orsino straightened himself in his chair and frowned a little, and then looked away as he answered by a cross-question, knocking the ash off his cigarette upon a little rock crystal dish at his elbow. 'Why do you ask me that?' he inquired rather sternly. 'Because you were very much attracted by her once, and I wished to know whether you had kept up the acquaintance since her marriage.' 'I have kept up the acquaintance--and no more,' answered Orsino, meeting his cousin's eyes again. 'I go to see the Countess from time to time. I believe we are on very good terms.' 'Will you go to Sicily with me if I need you, and stay there, and get an estate in order for me?' 'With pleasure. When?' 'I do not know yet. It may be in a week, or it may be in a month. It will be hot there, and you will have troublesome things to do.' 'So much the better.' 'There are brigands in the neighbourhood just now.' 'That will be very amusing. I never saw one.' 'You may tell Ippolito if you like, but please do not mention it to anyone else until we are ready to go. You know that your mother will be anxious about you, and your father is a conservative--and your grandfather is a firebrand, if he dislikes an idea. One would think that at his age his temper should have subsided.' 'Not in the least!' Orsino smiled, for he loved the old man, and was proud of his great age. 'But you may tell Ippolito if you like, and if you warn him to be discreet. Ippolito would let himself be torn in pieces rather than betray a secret. He is by far the most discreet of you all.' 'Yes. You are right, as usual. You have a good eye for a good man. What do you think of all these Pagliuca people, or Corleone, or d'Oriani--or whatever they call themselves?' Orsino looked keenly at his cousin as he asked the question. 'Did you ever meet Corleone? I mean the one who married Norba's daughter,--the uncle of these boys.' 'I met him once. From all accounts, he must have been a particularly disreputable personage.' 'He was worse than that, I think. I never blamed his wife. Well--these boys are his nephews. I do not see that any comment is necessary.' San Giacinto smiled thoughtfully. 'This young girl is also his niece,' observed Orsino rather sharply. 'Who knows what Tebaldo Pagliuca might have been if he had spent ten years amongst devout old women in a convent?' The big man's smile developed into an incredulous laugh, in which Orsino joined. 'There has certainly been a difference of education,' he admitted. 'I like her.' 'You would confer a great benefit upon a distressed family, by falling in love with her,' said San Giacinto. 'That worthy mother of hers was watching you two behind Pietrasanta's head, during dinner.' 'Another good reason for going to Sicily,' answered Orsino. 'The young lady is communicative. She told me, this evening, that you were trying to buy some place of theirs,--I forget the name,--and that one of her brothers objects.' 'That is exactly the place I want you to manage. The name is Camaldoli.' 'Then there is no secret about it,' observed Orsino. 'If she has told me, she may tell the next man she meets.' 'Certainly. And mysteries are useless, as a rule. I do not wish to make any with you, at all events. Here are the facts. I am going to build a light railway connecting all those places; and I am anxious to get the land into my possession, without much talk. Do you understand? This place of the Corleone is directly in my line, and is one of the most important, because it is at a point through which I must pass, to make the railway at all, short of an expensive tunnel. Your management will simply consist in keeping things in order until the railway makes the land valuable. Then I shall sell it, of course.' 'I see. Very well. Could you not give my old architect something to do? Andrea Contini is his name. The houses we built for Del Ferice have all turned out well, you know.' Orsino laughed rather bitterly. 'Remind me of him at the proper time,' said San Giacinto. 'Tell him to learn something about building small railway stations. There will be between fifteen and twenty, altogether.' 'I will. But--do you expect that a railway in Sicily will ever pay you?' 'No. I am not an idiot.' 'Then why do you build one, if that is not an indiscreet question?' 'The rise in the value of all the land I buy will make it worth while, several times over. It is quite simple.' 'It must take an enormous capital,' said Orsino, thoughtfully. 'It needs a large sum of ready money. But the lands are generally mortgaged for long periods, and almost to two-thirds of their selling value. The holders of the mortgages do not care who owns the land. So I pay about one-third in cash.' 'What becomes of the value of a whole country, when all the land is mortgaged for two-thirds of what it is worth?' asked Orsino, carelessly, and half laughing. But San Giacinto did not laugh. 'I have thought about that,' he answered gravely. 'When the yield of the land is not enough to pay the interest on the mortgages, the taxes to the government, and some income to the owners, they starve outright, or emigrate. There is a good deal of starvation nowadays, and a good deal of emigration in search of bread.' 'And yet they say that the value of land is increasing almost all over the country,' objected Orsino. 'You count on it yourself.' 'The value rises wherever railways and roads are built.' 'And what pays for the railways?' 'The taxes.' 'And the people pay the taxes.' 'Exactly. And the taxes are enormous. The people in places remote from the projected railway are ruined by them, but the people who own land where the railways pass are indirectly very much enriched by the result. Sometimes a private individual like myself builds a light road. I think that is a source of wealth, in the end, to everyone. But the building of the government roads, like the one down the west coast of Calabria, seems to destroy the balance of wealth and increase emigration. It is a necessary evil.' 'There are a good many necessary evils in our country,' said Orsino. 'There are too many.' '_Per aspera ad astra._ I never knew much Latin, but I believe that means something. There are also unnecessary evils, such as brigandage in Sicily, for instance. You can amuse yourself by fighting that one, if you please; though I have no doubt that the brigands will often travel by my railway--and they will certainly go in the first class.' The big man laughed and rose, leaving Orsino to meditate upon the prospect of occupation which was opened to him. CHAPTER IV Orsino remained in his corner a few minutes, after San Giacinto had left him, and then rose to go into the drawing-room. As he went he passed the other men, who were seated and standing, all near together and not far from the empty fireplace, listening to Tebaldo Pagliuca, who was talking about Sicily with a very strong Sicilian accent. Orsino paused a moment to hear what he was saying. He was telling the story of a frightful murder committed in the outskirts of Palermo not many weeks earlier, and about which there had been much talk. But Tebaldo was on his own ground and knew much more about it than had appeared in the newspapers. His voice was not unpleasant. It was smooth, though his words were broken here and there by gutturals which he had certainly not learned on his own side of the island. There was a sort of reserve in the tones which contrasted with the vividness of the language. Orsino watched him and looked at him more keenly than he had done as yet. He was struck by the stillness of the deep eyes, which were slightly bloodshot, like those of some Arabs, and at the same time by the mobility and changing expression of the lower part of the face. Tebaldo made gestures, too, which had a singular directness. Yet the whole impression given was that he was a good actor rather than a man of continued, honest action, and that he could have performed any other part as well. Near him stood his brother Francesco. There was doubtless a family resemblance between the two, but the difference of constitution was apparent to the most unpractised eye. The younger man was stouter, more sanguine, less nervous. The red blood glowed with strong health under his brown skin, his lips were scarlet and full, his dark moustache was soft and silky like his short, smooth hair, and his eyes were soft, too, and moistly bright, very long, with heavy drooping lids that were whiter than the skin of the rest of the face. Francesco was no more like his sister than was Tebaldo. Orsino found himself by his father as he paused in passing, and he suddenly realised how immeasurably nearer he was to this strong, iron-gray, middle-sized, silent man beside him, than to any other one of all the men in the room, including his own brothers. Sant' Ilario had perhaps never understood his eldest son; or perhaps there was between them the insurmountable barrier of his own solid happiness. For it is sorrow that draws men together. Happiness needs no sympathy; happiness is not easily disturbed; happiness that is solidly founded is itself a most negative source of the most all-pervading virtue, without the least charity for unhappiness' sins; happiness suffices to itself; happiness is a lantern to its own feet; it is all things to one man and nothing to all the rest; it is an impenetrable wall between him who has it and mankind. And Sant' Ilario had been happy for nearly thirty years. In appearance, as was to be anticipated, he had turned out to be like his father, as the latter had been at the same age. In temper, he was different, as the conditions of his life had been of another sort. The ancient head of the house had lost his Spanish wife when very young, and had lived many years alone with his only son. Giovanni had met with no such misfortune. His wife was alive and still beautiful at an age when many women have forgotten the taste of flattery; and his four sons were all grown men, straight and tall, so that he looked up to their faces when they stood beside him. Strong, peaceable, honest, rather hard-faced young men, they were, excepting Ippolito, the second of them, who had talent and a lovable disposition in place of strength and hardness of character. They were fond of their father, no doubt, and there was great solidarity in the family. But what they felt for Sant' Ilario was perhaps more like an allegiance than an affection, and they looked to him as the principal person of importance in the family, because their grandfather was such a very old man. They were accustomed to take it for granted that he was infallible when he expressed himself definitely in a family matter, whereas they had no very high opinion of his judgment in topics and questions of the day; for they had received a modern education, and were to some extent imbued with those modern prejudices compared with which the views of our fathers hardly deserved the name of a passing caprice. Orsino thought that there was something at once cunning and ferocious about Tebaldo's way of telling the story. He had a fine smile of appreciation for the secrecy and patience of the two young men who had sought occasion against their sister's lover, and there was a squaring of the angular jaws and a quick forward movement of the head, as of a snake when striking, to accompany his description of the death-blow. Orsino listened to the end and then went quietly out and returned to the drawing-room. Vittoria d'Oriani was seated near Corona, who was talking to her in a low tone. The other ladies were standing together before a famous old picture. The Marchesa di San Giacinto was smoking a cigarette. Orsino sat down by his mother, who looked at him quietly and smiled, and then went on speaking. The young girl glanced at Orsino. She was leaning forward, one elbow on her knee, and her chin supported in her hand, her lips a little parted as she listened with deep interest to what the elder woman said. Corona was telling her of Rome many years earlier, of the life in those days, of Pius the Ninth, and of the coming of the Italians. 'How can you remember things that happened when you were so young!' exclaimed Vittoria, watching the calm and beautiful face. 'I was older than you even then,' answered Corona, with a smile. 'And I married very young,' she added thoughtfully. 'I was married at your age, I think. How old are you, my dear?' 'I am eighteen--just eighteen,' replied Vittoria. 'I was married when I was scarcely seventeen. It was too young.' 'But you have always been so happy. Why do you say that?' 'What makes you think that I have always been happy?' asked the Princess. 'Your face, I think. One or two of the nuns were very happy, too. But it was different. They had quite another look on their faces.' 'I daresay,' answered Corona, and she smiled again, and looked proudly at Orsino. She rose and crossed the room, feeling that she was neglecting her older guests for the young girl, who was thus left with Orsino again. He did not see Donna Maria Carolina's quick glance as she discovered the fact, and made sure of it, looking again and again at the two while she joined a little in the conversation which was going on around her. She was very happy, just then, poor lady, and almost forgot to struggle against the accumulated provincialisms of twenty years, or to be anxious lest her new friends should discover that her pearls were false. For the passion for ornament, false or real, had not diminished with the improvement in her fortunes. But Orsino was not at all interested in Vittoria's mother, and he had seen too much to care whether women wore real jewelry or not. He had almost forgotten the young girl after dinner when he had sat down in a corner of the smoking-room, but San Giacinto's remark had vividly recalled her face to his memory, with a strong desire to see her again at once. Nothing was easier than to satisfy such a wish, and he found himself by her side. Once there, he did not trouble himself to speak to her for several moments. Vittoria showed considerable outward self-possession, though it was something of an ordeal to sit in silence, almost touching him and not daring to speak, while he was apparently making up his mind what to say. It had been much easier during dinner, she thought, because she had been put in her place without being consulted, and was expected to be there, without the least idea of attracting attention. Now, she felt a little dizzy for a moment, as though the room were swaying; and she was afraid that she was going to blush, which would have been ridiculous. Now, he was looking at her, while she looked down at her little white fan that lay on the white stuff of her frock, quite straight, between her two small, white-gloved hands. The nuns had not told her what to do in any such situation. Still Orsino did not speak. Two minutes had crawled by, like two hours, and she felt a fluttering in her throat. It was absurd, she thought. There was no reason for being so miserable. Very probably, he was not thinking of her at all. But it was of no use to tell herself such things, for her embarrassment grew apace, till she felt that she must spring from her seat and run from the room without looking at him. The fluttering became almost convulsive, and her hands pressed the little fan on each side, clenching themselves tightly. Still he did not speak. In utter despair she began to recite inwardly the litany of the saints, biting her lips lest they should move and he should guess what she was doing. In her suppressed excitement the holy personages raced and tumbled over each other at a most unseemly rate, till the procession was violently checked by the gravely indifferent tones of Orsino's voice. Her hands relaxed, and she turned a little pale. 'Have you been to Saint Peter's?' he enquired calmly. He was certainly not embarrassed, but he could think of nothing better to say to a young girl. On the first occasion, at dinner, he had asked her how she liked Rome. At all events it had opened the conversation. He remembered well enough the half dozen earnest words they had exchanged; and there was something more than mere memory, for he knew that he half wished they might reach the same point again. Perhaps, if the wish had been stronger and if Vittoria had been a little older, it might have been easier. 'Yes,' she said. 'My mother took me as soon as we came. She was very anxious that we should pay our devotion to the patron saint.' Orsino smiled a little. 'Saint Peter is not the patron of Rome,' he observed. 'Our protector is San Filippo Neri.' Vittoria looked up in genuine surprise. 'Saint Peter is not the patron saint of Rome!' she exclaimed. 'But--I always thought--' 'Naturally enough. All sorts of things in Rome seem to be what they are not. We seem to be alive for instance. We are not. Six or seven years ago we were all in a frantic state of excitement over our greatness. We have turned out to be nothing but a set of embalmed specimens in glass cases. Do not look so much surprised, signorina--or shocked--which is it?' He laughed a little. 'I cannot help it,' answered Vittoria simply, her brown eyes still fixed on him in wonder. 'It is--it is all so different from what I expected--the things people say--' She hesitated and stopped short, turning her eyes from him. The light was strong in the room, for the aged Prince hated the modern fashion of shading lamps almost to a dusk. Orsino watched Vittoria's profile, and the graceful turn of her young throat as she looked away, and the fine growth of silky hair from the temples and behind the curving little ear. The room was warm, and he sat silently watching her for a moment. She was no longer embarrassed, for she was not thinking of herself, and she did not know how he was thinking of her just then. 'I wonder what you expected us to be like,' he said at last. 'And what you expected us to say,' he added as an afterthought. It crossed his mind that if she had been a married woman three or four years older he might have found her very amusing in conversation. He could certainly not have been talking in detached and almost idiotic phrases, as he was actually doing. But if she had been a young married woman, her charm would have been different, and of a kind not new to him. There was a novelty about Vittoria, and it attracted him strongly. There was real freshness and untried youth in her; she had that sort of delicacy which some flowers have, and which is not fragility, the bloom of a precious thing fresh broken from the mould and not yet breathed upon. He wondered whether all young girls had this inexpressible something, and if so, why he had never noticed it. 'I am not quite sure,' answered Vittoria, blushing a little at the thought that she could have had a preconceived idea of Orsino Saracinesca. The reply left everything to be desired in the way of brilliancy, but the voice was soft and expectant, as some women's voices are, that seem just upon the point of vibrating to a harmonic while yielding the fundamental tone in all its roundness. There are rare voices that seem to possess a distinct living individuality, apart from the women to whom they belong, a sort of extra-natural musical life, of which the woman herself cannot control nor calculate the power. It is not the 'golden voice' which some great actresses have. One recognises that at the first hearing; one admits its beauty; one hears it three or four times, and one knows it by heart. It will pronounce certain phrases in a certain way, inevitably; it will soften and swell and ring with mathematical precision at the same verse, at the identical word, night after night, year after year, while it lasts. Vittoria's voice was not like that. It had the spontaneity of independent life which a passion itself has when it takes possession of a man or a woman. Orsino felt it, and was conscious of a new sensitiveness in himself. On the whole, to make a very wide statement of a general truth, Italian men are moved by sense and Italian women are stirred by passion. Between passion and sense there is all the difference that exists between the object and the idea. Sense appreciates, passion idealises; sense desires all things, passion hungers for one; sense is material, though ever so æsthetised and refined, but passion clothes fact with unearthly attributes; sense is singly selfish, passion would make a single self of two. The sensual man says, 'To have seen much and to have little is to have rich eyes and poor hands'; the passionate man or woman will 'put it to the test, to win or lose it all,' like Montrose. Sense is vulgar when it is not monstrous in strength, or hysterical to madness. Passion is always noble, even in its sins and crimes. Sense can be satisfied, and its satisfaction is a low sort of happiness; but passion's finer strings can quiver with immortal pain, and ring with the transcendent harmony that wakes the hero even in a coward's heart. Vittoria first touched Orsino by her outward charm, by her voice, by her grace. But it was his personality, or her spontaneous imagination of it, which made an indelible impression upon her mind before the first evening of their acquaintance was over. The woman who falls in love with a man for his looks alone is not of a very high type, but the best and bravest men that ever lived have fallen victims to mere beauty, often without much intelligence, or faith, or honour. Orsino was probably not aware that he was falling in love at first sight. Very few men are, and yet very many people certainly begin to fall in love at a first meeting, who would scout the idea as an absurdity. For love's beginnings are most exceedingly small in the greatest number of instances. Were they greater, a man might guard himself more easily against his fate. CHAPTER V At that time a young Sicilian singer had lately made her first appearance in Rome and had been received with great favour. She was probably not destined ever to become one of the chief artists of the age, but she possessed exactly the qualifications necessary to fascinate a Roman audience. She was very young, she was undeniably beautiful, and she had what Romans called a 'sympathetic' voice. They think more of that latter quality in Italy than elsewhere. It is what in English we might call charm, and to have it is to have the certainty of success with an Italian public. Aliandra Basili was the daughter of a respectable notary in the ancient town of Randazzo, which lies on the western slope of Mount Etna, on the high road from Piedimonte to Bronte and Catania, within two hours' ride of Camaldoli, the Corleone place. It is a solemn old walled town, built of almost black tufo, though many of the houses on the main street have now been stuccoed and painted; and it has a very beautiful Saracen-Norman cathedral. Aliandra's life had been very like that of any other provincial girl of the middle class. She had been educated in a small convent, while her excellent father, whose wife was dead, laboured to accumulate a little dowry for his only child. At fifteen years of age, she had returned to live with him, and he had entertained good hopes of marrying her off before she was seventeen. In fact, he thought that he had only to choose among a number of young men, of whom any one would be delighted to become her husband. Then, one day, Tebaldo and Francesco Pagliuca came riding down from Camaldoli, and stopped at the notary's house to get a small lease drawn up; and while they were there, in the dusty office, doing their best to be sure of what old Basili's legal language meant, they heard Aliandra singing to herself upstairs. After that they came to Randazzo again, both separately and together, and at last they persuaded old Basili that his daughter had a fortune in her voice and should be allowed to become a singer. He consented after a long struggle, and sent her to Messina to live with a widowed sister of his, and to be taught by an old master of great reputation who had taken up his abode there. Very possibly Basili agreed to this step with a view to removing the girl to a distance from the two brothers, who made small secret of their admiration for her, or about their jealousy of each other; and he reflected that she could be better watched and guarded by his sister, who would have nothing else to do, than by himself. For he was a busy man, and obliged to spend his days either in his office, or in visits to distant clients, so that the motherless girl was thrown far too much upon her own resources. Tebaldo, on the other hand, realised that so long as she lived in Randazzo, he should have but a small chance of seeing her alone. He could not come and spend a week at a time in the town, but he could find an excuse for being longer than that in Messina, and he trusted to his ingenuity to elude the vigilance of the aunt with whom she was to live. In Messina, too, he should not have his brother at his elbow, trying to outdo him at every turn, and evidently attracting the young girl to a certain extent. To tell the truth, Aliandra's head was turned by the attentions of the two young noblemen, though her father never lost an opportunity of telling her that they were a pair of penniless good-for-nothings and otherwise dangerous characters, supposed to be on good terms with the brigands of the interior, and typical 'maffeusi' through and through. But such warnings were much more calculated to excite the girl's interest than to frighten her. She had an artist's nature and instincts, and the two young gentlemen were very romantic characters in her eyes, when they rode down from their dilapidated stronghold, on their compact little horses, their beautiful Winchester rifles slung over their shoulders, their velvet coats catching the sunlight, their spurs gleaming, and their broad hats shading their dark eyes. Had there been but one of them, her mind would soon have been made up to make him marry her, and she might have succeeded without much difficulty. But she found it hard to decide between the two. They were too different for comparison, and yet too much alike for preference. Tebaldo was a born tyrant, and Francesco a born coward. She was dominated by the one and she ruled the other, but she was not in love with either, and she could not make up her mind whether it would on the whole be more agreeable to love her master or her slave. Meanwhile she made rapid progress in her singing, appeared at the opera in Palermo, and almost immediately obtained an engagement in Rome. To her father, the sum offered her appeared enormous, and her aunt was delighted by the prospect of going to Rome with her during the winter. Aliandra had been successful from the first, and she seemed to be on the high road to fame. The young idlers of rich Palermo intrigued to be introduced to her and threw enormous nosegays to her at the end of every act. She found that there were scores of men far handsomer and richer than the Pagliuca brothers, ready to fall in love with her, and she began to reflect seriously upon her position. Artist though she was, by one side of her nature, there was in her a touch of her father's sensible legal instinct, together with that extraordinary self-preserving force which usually distinguishes the young girl of southern Italy. She soon understood that no one of her new admirers would ever think of asking her to be his wife, whereas she was convinced that she could marry either Tebaldo or Francesco, at her choice and pleasure. They were poor, indeed, but of as good nobility as any of the rich young noblemen of Palermo, and she was beginning to find out what fortunes were sometimes made by great singers. She dreamed of buying back the old Corleone estates and of being some day the Princess of Corleone herself. That meant that she must choose Tebaldo, since he was to get the title. And here she hesitated again. She did not realise that Francesco was actually a physical coward and rather a contemptible character altogether; to her he merely seemed gentle and winning, and she thought him much ill used by his despotic elder brother. As for the third brother, Ferdinando, of whom mention has been made, she had rarely seen him. He was probably the best of the family, which was not saying much, and he was also by far the least civilised. He was undoubtedly in close communication with the brigands, and when he was occasionally absent from home, he was not spending his time in Messina or Randazzo. Time went on, and in the late autumn Aliandra and her aunt went to Rome for the season. As has been seen, it pleased fortune that the Pagliuca brothers should be there also, with their mother and sister, Ferdinando remaining in Sicily. When the question of selling Camaldoli to San Giacinto arose, Ferdinando at first flatly refused to give his consent. Thereupon Tebaldo wrote him a singularly temperate and logical letter, in which he very quietly proposed to inform the government of Ferdinando's complicity with the brigands, unless he at once agreed to the sale. Ferdinando might have laughed at the threat had it come from anyone else, but he knew that Tebaldo's thorough acquaintance with the country and with the outlaws' habits would give him a terrible advantage. Tebaldo, if he gave information, could of course never return to Sicily, for his life would not be safe, even in broad daylight, in the Macqueda of Palermo, and it was quite possible that the mafia might reach him even in Rome. But he was undoubtedly able to help the government in a raid in which many of Ferdinando's friends must perish or be taken prisoners. For their sakes Ferdinando signed his consent to the sale, before old Basili in Randazzo, and sent the paper to Rome; but that night he swore that no Roman should ever get possession of Camaldoli while he was alive, and half a dozen of the boldest among the outlaws swore that they would stand by him in his resolution. Aliandra knew nothing of all this, for Tebaldo was far too wise to tell anyone how he had forced his brother's consent. She would certainly have been disgusted with him, had she known the truth, for she was morally as far superior to him and to Francesco as an innocent girl brought up by honest folks can be better than a pair of exceedingly corrupt young adventurers. But they both had in a high degree the power of keeping up appearances and of imposing upon their surroundings. Tebaldo was indeed subject to rare fits of anger in which he completely lost control of himself, and when he was capable of going to any length of violence; but these were very unusual, and as a general rule he was reticent in the extreme. Francesco possessed the skill and gentle duplicity of a born coward and a born ladies' man. They both deceived Aliandra, in spite of her father's early warning and her old aunt's anxious advice. Aliandra was successful beyond anyone's expectations during her first engagement in Rome, and she was wise enough to gain herself the reputation of being unapproachable to her many admirers. Only Tebaldo and Francesco, whom she now considered as old friends of her family, were ever admitted to her room at the theatre, or received at the quiet apartment where she lived with her aunt. On the night of the dinner-party at the Palazzo Saracinesca, Aliandra was to sing in Lucia for the first time in Rome. Both the brothers had wished that they could have been at the theatre to hear her, instead of spending the evening in the society of those very stiff and mighty Romans, and both made up their minds separately that they would see her before she left the Argentina that night. Tebaldo, as usual, took the lead of events, and peremptorily ordered Francesco to go home with their mother and sister in the carriage. When the Corleone party left the palace, therefore, Francesco got into the carriage, but Tebaldo said that he preferred to walk, and went out alone from under the great gate. He was not yet very familiar with the streets of Rome, but he believed that he knew the exact situation of the palace, and could easily find his way from it to the Argentina theatre, which was not very far distant. The old part of the city puzzled him, however. He found himself threading unfamiliar ways, dark lanes, and winding streets which emerged suddenly upon small squares from which three or four other streets led in different directions. Instinctively he looked behind him from time to time, and felt in his pocket for the pistol which, like a true provincial, he thought it as necessary to carry in Rome as in his Sicilian home. Presently he looked at his watch, saw that it was eleven o'clock, and made up his mind to find a cab if he could. But that was not an easy matter either, in that part of the city, and it was twenty minutes past eleven when he at last drew up to the stage entrance at the back of the Argentina. A weary, gray, unshaven, and very dirty old man admitted him, looked at his face, took the flimsy currency note which Tebaldo held out, and let him pass without a word. The young man knew his way much better within the building than out in the streets. In a few moments he stopped before a dingy little door, the last on the left in a narrow corridor dimly lit by a single flame of gas, which was turned low for economy's sake. He knocked sharply and opened the door without waiting for an answer. There were three persons in the small, low dressing-room, and all three faced Tebaldo rather anxiously. Aliandra Basili, the young Sicilian prima donna who had lately made her appearance in Rome, was seated before a dim mirror which stood on a low table covered with appliances for theatrical dressing. Her maid was arranging a white veil on her head, and beside her, very near to her, and drawing back from her as Tebaldo entered sat Francesco. Tebaldo's lips moved uneasily, as he stood still for a moment, gazing at the little group, his hand on the door. Then he closed it quickly behind him, and came forward with a smile. 'Good evening,' he said. 'I lost my way in the streets and am a little late. I thought the curtain would be up for the last act.' 'They have called me once,' answered Aliandra. 'I said that I was not ready, for I knew you would come.' She was really very handsome and very young, but the mask of paint and powder changed her face and expression almost beyond recognition. Even her bright, gold-brown eyes were made to look black and exaggerated by the deep shadows painted with antimony below them, and on the lids. The young hand she held out to Tebaldo was whitened with a chalky mixture to the tips of the fingers. She was dressed in the flowing white robe which Lucia wears in the mad scene, and the flaring gaslights on each side of the mirror made her face and wig look terribly artificial. Tebaldo thought so as he looked at her, and remembered the calm simplicity of Corona Saracinesca's mature beauty. But he had known Aliandra long, and his imagination saw her own face through her paint. 'It was good of you to wait for me,' he said. 'I daresay my brother helped the time to pass pleasantly.' 'I have only just come,' said Francesco, quickly. 'I took our mother home--it is far.' 'I did not know that you were coming at all,' replied Tebaldo, coldly. 'How is it going?' he asked, sitting down by Aliandra. 'Another ovation?' 'No. They are waiting for the mad scene, of course--and my voice is as heavy as lead to-night. I shall not please anyone--and it is the first time I have sung Lucia in Rome. My nerves are in a state--' 'You are not frightened? You--of all people?' 'I am half dead with fright. I am white under my rouge. I can feel it.' 'Poor child!' exclaimed Francesco, softly, and his eyes lightened as he watched her. 'Bah!' Tebaldo shrugged his shoulders and smiled. 'She always says that!' 'And sometimes it is true,' answered Aliandra, with a sharp sigh. A double rap at the door interrupted the conversation. 'Signorina Basili! Are you ready?' asked a gruff voice outside. 'Yes!' replied the young girl, rising with an effort. Francesco seized her left hand and kissed it. Tebaldo said nothing, but folded his arms and stood aside. He saw on his brother's dark moustache a few grains of the chalky dust which whitened Aliandra's fingers. 'Do not wait for me when it is over,' she said. 'My aunt is in the house, and will take me home. Good night.' 'Goodbye,' said Tebaldo, looking intently into her face as he opened the door. She started in surprise, and perhaps her face would have betrayed her pain, but the terribly artificial rouge and powder hid the change. 'Come and see me to-morrow,' she said to Tebaldo, in a low voice, when she was already in the doorway. He did not answer, but kept his eyes steadily on her face. 'Signorina Basili! You will miss your cue!' cried the gruff voice in the corridor. Aliandra hesitated an instant, glancing out and then looking again at Tebaldo. 'To-morrow,' she said suddenly, stepping out into the passage. 'To-morrow,' she repeated, as she went swiftly towards the stage. She looked back just before she disappeared, but there was little light, and Tebaldo could no longer see her eyes. He stood still by the door. Then his brother passed him. 'I am going to hear this act,' said Francesco, quietly, as though unaware that anything unusual had happened. Before he was out of the door, he felt Tebaldo's hand on his shoulder, gripping him hard and shaking him a little. He turned his head, and his face was suddenly pale. Tebaldo kept his hand on his brother's shoulder and pushed him back against the wall of the passage, under the solitary gaslight. 'What do you mean by coming here?' he asked. 'How do you dare?' Francesco was badly frightened, for he knew Tebaldo's ungovernable temper. 'Why not?' he tried to ask. 'I have often been here--' 'Because I warned you not to come again. Because I am in earnest. Because I will do you some harm, if you thrust yourself into my way with her.' 'I shall call for help now, unless you let me go,' answered Francesco, with white lips. Tebaldo laughed savagely. 'What a coward you are!' he cried, giving his brother a final shake and then letting him go. 'And what a fool I am to care?' he added, laughing again. 'Brute!' exclaimed Francesco, adjusting his collar and smoothing his coat. 'I warned you,' retorted Tebaldo, watching him. 'And now I have warned you again,' he added. 'This is the second time. Are there no women in the world besides Aliandra Basili?' 'I knew her first,' objected the younger man, beginning to recover some courage. 'You knew her first? When she was a mere child in Randazzo,--when we went to her father about a lease, we both heard her singing,--but what has that to do with it? That was six years ago, and you have hardly seen her since.' 'How do you know?' asked Francesco, scornfully. He had gradually edged past Tebaldo towards the open end of the passage. 'How do you know that I did not often see her alone before she went to Messina, and since then, too?' He smiled as he renewed the question. 'I do not know,' said Tebaldo, calmly. 'You are a coward. You are also a most accomplished liar. It is impossible to believe a word you say, good or bad. I should not believe you if you were dying, and if you swore upon the holy sacraments that you were telling me the truth.' 'Thank you,' answered Francesco, apparently unmoved by the insult. 'But you would probably believe Aliandra, would you not?' 'Why should I? She is only a woman.' Tebaldo turned angrily as he spoke, and his eyelids drooped at the corners, like a vulture's. 'You two are not made to be believed,' he said, growing more cold, 'I sometimes forget, but you soon remind me of the fact again. You said distinctly this evening that you would go home with our mother--' 'So I did,' interrupted Francesco. 'I did not promise to stay there--' 'I will not argue with you--' 'No. It would be useless, as you are in the wrong. I am going to hear the act. Good night.' Francesco walked quickly down the passage. He did not turn to look behind him, but it was not until he was at the back of the stage, groping his way amidst lumber and dust towards the other side, that he felt safe from any further violence. Tebaldo had no intention of following. He stood quite still under the gaslight for a few seconds, and then opened the door of the dressing-room again. He knew that the maid was there alone. 'How long was my brother here before I came?' he asked sharply. The woman was setting things in order, packing the tinsel-trimmed gown which the singer had worn in the previous scene. She looked up nervously, for she was afraid of Tebaldo. 'A moment, only a moment,' she answered, not pausing in her work, and speaking in a scared tone. Tebaldo looked at her and saw that she was frightened. He was not in the humour to believe anyone just then, and after a moment's silence, he turned on his heel and went out. CHAPTER VI 'What strange people there are in the world,' said Corona Saracinesca to her husband, on the morning after the dinner at which the Corleone family had been present. Giovanni was reading a newspaper, leaning back in his own especial chair in his wife's morning room. It was raining, and she was looking out of the window. There are not many half-unconscious actions which betray so much of the general character and momentary temper, as an idle pause before closed window panes, and a careless glance down into the street or up at the sky. The fact has not been noticed, but deserves to be. Many a man or woman, at an anxious crisis, turns to the window, with the sensation of being alone for a moment, away from the complications created by the other person or persons in the room, free, for an instant, to let the features relax, the eye darken, or the lips smile, as the case may be--off the stage, indeed, as a comedian in the side scenes. Or again, when there is no anxiety, one goes from one's work, to take a look at the outside world, not caring to see it, but glad to be away from the task and to give the mind a breathing space. And then, also, the expression of the features changes, and if one stops to think of it, one is aware that the face is momentarily rested. Another, who has forgotten trouble and pain for a while, in conversation or in pleasant reading, goes to the window. And the grief, or the pain, or the fear, comes back with a rush and clouds the eyes and bends the brow, till he who suffers turns with something like fear from the contemplation of the outer world and takes up his book, or his talk, or his work, or anything which can help him to forget. With almost all people, there is a sudden change of sensation in first looking out of the window. One drums impatiently on the panes, another bites his lip, a third grows very still and grave, and one, perhaps, smiles suddenly, and then glances back to the room, fearing lest his inward lightness of heart may have betrayed itself. Corona had nothing to conceal from Giovanni nor from herself. She had realised the rarest and highest form of lasting human happiness, which is to live unparted from the single being loved, with no screen of secret to cast a shadow on either side. Such a life can have but few emotions, yet the possibility of the very deepest emotion is always present in it, as the ocean is not rigid when it is quiet, as the strong man asleep is not past waking, nor the singer mute when silent. Corona had been moving quietly about the room, giving life to it by her touch, where mechanical hands had done their daily work of dull neatness. She loosened the flowers in a vase, moved the books on the table, pulled the long lace curtains a little out from under the heavy ones, turned a chair here and a knickknack there, set the little calendar on the writing-table, and moved the curtains again. Then at last she paused before the window. Her lids drooped thoughtfully and her mouth relaxed, as she made the remark which caused Giovanni to look up from his paper. 'What strange people there are in the world!' she exclaimed. 'It is fortunate that they are not all like us,' answered Giovanni. 'Why?' 'The world would stop, I fancy. People would all be happy, as we are, and would shut themselves up, and there would be universal peace, the millennium, and a general cessation of business. Then would come the end of all things. Of whom are you thinking?' 'Of those people who came to dinner last night, and of our boys.' 'Of Orsino, I suppose. Yes--I know--' He paused. 'Yes,' said Corona, thoughtfully. Both were silent for a moment. They thought together, having long been unaccustomed to think apart. At last Giovanni laughed quietly. 'Our children cannot be exactly like us,' he said. 'They must live their own lives, as we live ours. One cannot make lives for other people, you know.' 'Orsino is so apathetic,' said Corona. 'He opens his eyes for a moment and looks at things as though he were going to be interested. Then he closes them again, and does not care what happens. He has no enthusiasm like Ippolito. Nothing interests him, nothing amuses him. He is not happy, and he is not unhappy. You could not surprise him. I sometimes think that you could not hurt him, either. He is young, yet he acts like a man who has seen everything, done everything, heard everything, and tasted everything. He does not even fall in love.' Corona smiled as she spoke the last words, but her eyes were thoughtful. In her heart, no thoroughly feminine woman can understand that a young man may not be in love for a long time, and may yet be normally sensible. 'I was older than he when you and I met,' observed Giovanni. 'Yes--but you were different. Orsino is not at all like you.' 'Nor Ippolito either.' 'There is more of you in him than you think, Giovanni, though he is so gentle and quiet, and fond of music.' 'The artistic temperament, my dear,--very little like me.' 'There is a curious tenacity under all that.' 'No one has ever thwarted him,' objected Giovanni. 'Or, rather, he has never thwarted anybody. That is a better way of putting it.' 'I believe he has more strength of character than the other three together. Of course, you will say that he is my favourite.' 'No, dear. You are very just. But you are more drawn to him.' 'Yes--strangely more--and for something in him which no one sees. It is his likeness to you, I think.' 'Together with a certain feminility.' Giovanni did not speak contemptuously, but he had always resented Ippolito's gentle grace a little. He himself and his other three sons had the strongly masculine temperament of the Saracinesca family. He often thought that Ippolito should have been a girl. 'Do not say that, Giovanni,' answered his wife. 'He is not rugged, but he is strong-hearted. The artistic temperament has a certain feminine quality on the surface, by which it feels; but the crude creative force by which it acts is purely masculine.' 'That sounds clever,' laughed Giovanni. 'Well, there is dear old Guache, whom we have known all our lives. He is an instance. You used to think he had a certain feminility, too.' 'So he had.' 'But he fought like a man at Mentana; and he thinks like a man, and he certainly paints like a man.' 'Yes; that is true. Only we never had any artists in the family. It seems odd that our son should have such tendencies. None of the family were ever particularly clever in any way.' 'You are not stupid, at all events.' Corona smiled at her husband. For all the world, she would not have had him at all different from his present self. 'Besides,' she added, 'you need not think of him as an artist. You can look upon him as a priest.' 'Yes, I know,' answered Giovanni, without much enthusiasm. 'We never were a priest-breeding family either. We have done better at farming than at praying or playing the piano. Ippolito does not know a plough from a harrow, nor a thoroughbred colt from a cart-horse. For my part I do not see the strength you find in him, though I daresay you are right, my dear. You generally are. At all events, he helps the harmony of the family, for he worships Orsino, and the two younger ones always pair together.' 'I suppose he will never be put into any position which can show his real character,' said Corona, 'but I know I am right.' They were silent for a few minutes. Presently Giovanni took up his paper again, and Corona sat down at her table to write a note. The rain pattered against the window, cheerfully, as it does outside a room in which two happy people are together. 'That d'Oriani girl is charming,' said Corona, after writing a line or two, but not looking round. 'Perhaps Orsino will fall in love with her,' observed her husband, his eyes on the newspaper. 'I hope not!' exclaimed Corona, turning in her chair, and speaking with far more energy than she had yet shown. 'It is bad blood, Giovanni--as bad as any blood in Italy, and though the girl is charming, those brothers--well, you saw them.' 'Bad faces, both of them. And rather doubtful manners.' 'Never mind their manners! But their faces! They are nephews of poor Bianca Corleone's husband, are they not?' 'Yes. They are his brother's children. And they are their grandfather's grandchildren.' 'What did he do?' 'He was chiefly concerned in the betrayal of Gaeta--and took money for the deed, too. They have always been traitors. There was a Pagliuca who received all sorts of offices and honours from Joaquin Murat and then advised King Ferdinand to have him shot when he was caught at Pizzo in Calabria. There was a Pagliuca who betrayed his brother to save his own life in the last century. It is a promising stock.' 'What an inheritance! I have often heard of them, but I have never met any of them excepting Bianca's husband, whom we all hated for her sake.' 'He was not the worst of them, by any means. But I never blamed her much, poor child--and Pietro Ghisleri knew how to turn any woman's head in those days.' 'Why did we ask those people to dinner, after all?' enquired Corona, thoughtfully. 'Because San Giacinto wished it, I suppose. We shall probably know why in two or three years. He never does anything without a reason.' 'And he keeps his reasons to himself.' 'It is a strange thing,' said Giovanni. 'That man is the most reticent human being I ever knew, and one of the deepest. Yet we are all sure that he is absolutely honest and honourable. We know that he is always scheming, and yet we feel that he is never plotting. There is a difference.' 'Of course there is--the difference between strategy and treachery. But I am sorry that his plans should have involved bringing the Corleone family into our house. They are not nice people, excepting the girl.' 'My father remarked that the elder of those brothers was like an old engraving he has of Cæsar Borgia.' 'That is a promising resemblance! Fortunately, the times, at least, are changed.' 'In Sicily, everything is possible.' The remark was characteristic of Giovanni, of a Roman, and of modern times. But there was, and is, some truth in it. Many things are possible to-day in Sicily which have not been possible anywhere else in Europe for at least two centuries, and the few foreigners who know the island well can tell tales of Sicilians which the world at large could hardly accept even as fiction. CHAPTER VII During the ensuing weeks Orsino saw Vittoria d'Oriani repeatedly, at first by accident, and afterwards because he was attracted by her, and took pains to learn where she and her mother were going, in order to meet her. It was spring. Easter had come very early, and as happens in such cases, there was a revival of gaiety after Lent. There were garden parties, a recent importation in Rome, there were great picnics to the hills, and there were races out at the Capannelle; moreover, there were dances at which the windows were kept open all night, until the daylight began to steal in and tell tales of unpleasant truth, so that even fair women drew lace things over their tired faces as they hurried into their carriages in the cold dawn, glad to remember that they had still looked passably well in the candle-light. At one of these balls, late in the season, Orsino knew that he should meet Vittoria. It was in a vast old palace, from the back of which two graceful bridges crossed the street below to a garden beyond, where there were fountains, and palms, and statues, and walks hedged with box in the old Italian manner. There were no very magnificent preparations for the dance, which was rather a small and intimate affair, but there was the magnificent luxury of well-proportioned space, which belonged to an older age, there was the gentle light of several hundred wax candles instead of the cold glare of electricity or the pestilent flame of gas, and all night long there was April moonlight outside, in the old garden, whence the smell of the box, and the myrtle, and of violets, was borne in fitfully through the open windows with each breath of moving air. There was also, that night, a general feeling of being at home and in a measure free from the oppression of social tyranny, and from the disturbing presence of the rich social recruit, who was sown in wealth, so to say, in the middle of the century, and who is now plentifully reaped in vulgarity. 'It is more like the old times than anything I remember for years,' said Corona to Gianforte Campodonico, as they walked slowly through the rooms together. 'It must be the wax candles and the smell of the flowers from the garden,' he answered, not exactly comprehending, for he was not a sensitive man, and was, moreover, considerably younger than Corona. But Corona was silent, and wished that she were walking with her husband, or sitting alone with him in some quiet corner, for something in the air reminded her of a ball in the Frangipani palace, many years ago, when Giovanni had spoken to her in a conservatory, and many things had happened in consequence. The wax-candles and the smell of open-air flowers, and the glimpses of moonlight through vast windows may have had something to do with it; but surely there are times and hours, when love is in the air, when every sound is tuneful, and all silence is softly alive, when young voices seek each the other's tone caressingly, and the stealing hand steals nearer to the hand that waits. There was no one to prevent Orsino Saracinesca from persuading Vittoria to go and sit down in one of the less frequented rooms, if he could do so. Her mother would be delighted, her brothers were not at the ball, and Orsino was responsible to no one for his actions. She had learned many things since she had come to Rome, but she did not understand more than half of them, and what she understood least of all was the absolute power which Orsino exerted over her when he was present. He haunted her thoughts at other times, too, and she had acquired a sort of conviction that she could not escape from him, which was greatly strengthened by the fact that she did not wish to be free. On his part, his mind was less easy, for he was well aware that he was making love to the girl with her mother's consent, whereas he was not by any means inclined to think that he wished to marry her. Such a position might not seem strange to a youth of Anglo-Saxon traditions; for there is a sort of tacit understanding among the English-speaking races to the effect that young people are never to count on each other till each has got the other up the steps of the altar, that there is nothing disgraceful in breaking an engagement, and that love-making at large, without any intention of marriage, is a harmless pastime especially designed for the very young. The Italian view is very different, however, and Orsino was well aware that unless he meant to make Vittoria d'Oriani his wife, he was doing wrong in his own eyes, and in the eyes of the world, in doing his best to be often with her. One result of his conduct was that he frightened away other men. They took it for granted that he wished to marry her, dowerless as she was, and they kept out of his way. The girl was not neglected, however. San Giacinto had his own reasons for wishing to be on good terms with her brothers, and he made his wife introduce partners to Vittoria at dances, and send men to talk to her at parties. But as soon as Orsino came upon the scene, Vittoria's companion disappeared, whoever he happened to be at the time. The Italian, even when very young, has a good deal of social philosophy when he is not under the influence of an emotion from which he cannot escape. He will avoid falling in love with the wrong person if he can. 'For what?' he asks. 'In order to be unhappy? Why?' And he systematically keeps out of the way of temptation, well knowing his own weakness in love matters. But Orsino was attracted by the girl and yielded to the attraction, though his manner of yielding was a domination over her whenever they met. His only actual experience of real love had been in his affair with the Countess del Ferice, before her second marriage. She was a mature woman of strong character and devoted nature, who had resisted him and had sacrificed herself for him, not to him. He had been accustomed to find that resistance in her. But Vittoria offered none at all, a fact which gave his rather despotic nature a sudden development, while the absence of opposition made him look upon his disinclination to decide the question of marriage as something he ought to have been ashamed of. At the same time, there was the fact that he had grown somewhat cynical and cold of late years, and if not positively selfish, at least negatively careless of others, when anything pleased him, which was not often. It is bad to have strength and not to use it, to possess power and not to exert it, to know that one is a personage without caring much what sort of a person one may be. That had been Orsino's position for years, and it had not improved his character. On this particular evening he was conscious of something much more like emotion than he had felt for a long time. San Giacinto had lain in wait for him near the door, and had told him that matters were settled at last and that they were to leave Rome within the week to take possession of the Corleone lands. The deeds had been signed and the money had been paid. There were no further formalities, and it was time to go to work. Orsino nodded, said he was ready, and went off to find Vittoria in the ballroom. But there was a little more colour than usual under his dark skin, and his eyes were restless and hungry. He was passing his mother without seeing her, when she touched him on the sleeve, and dropped Campodonico's arm. He started a little impatiently, and then stood still, waiting for her to speak. 'Has anything happened?' she asked rather anxiously. 'No, mother, nothing--that is--' He hesitated, glancing at Campodonico. 'I am going to Sicily with San Giacinto,' he added in a low voice. Corona could not have explained what she felt just then, but she might have described it as a disagreeable chilliness creeping over her strong frame from head to foot. An hour later she remembered it, and the next day, and for many days afterwards, and she tried to account for it by telling herself that the journey was to make a great change in her son's life, or by arguing that she had half unconsciously supposed him about to engage himself to Vittoria. But neither explanation was at all satisfactory. She was not imaginative to that extent, as she well knew, and she at last made up her mind that it was an idle coincidence of the kind which some people call a warning, and remember afterwards when anything especial happens, though if nothing particular follows, they forget it altogether. 'Why are you going? Has it anything to do with the Corleone?' she asked, and she was surprised at the unsteadiness of her own voice. 'Yes. I will tell you some other time.' 'Will you?' 'Yes, certainly.' She looked into his eyes a moment, and then took Campodonico's arm again. Orsino moved on quickly and disappeared in the ballroom they had left, wondering inwardly at his mother's manner as much as she was then wondering herself, and attributing it to her anxiety about his position with regard to Vittoria. Thinking of that, he stopped short in his walk just as he caught sight of the young girl in the distance, standing beside her mother. A man was before her evidently just asking her to dance. Orsino watched them while he tried to get hold of himself and decide what he ought to do. Vittoria came forward and swept out with her partner into the middle of the room. Orsino slipped back a little behind a group of people, so that she should not easily see him, but he watched her face keenly. Her eyes were restless, and she was evidently looking for him, and not thinking of her partner at all. As they came round to his side, Orsino felt the blood rise in his throat, and felt that his face was warm; and then, as they swung off to the other side of the big ballroom, he grew cool again, and asked himself what he should do, repeating the question rather helplessly. She came round once more, and just as he felt the same heat of the blood again, he saw that her eyes had caught his. In a flash her expression changed, and the colour blushed in her face. A moment later she stopped, and remained standing with her partner so that Orsino could see the back of her head. She half turned towards him two or three times, instinctively; but she would not turn quite round so as to look at him. She knew that she must finish the dance before he could come to her. But he, deeply stirred, and, at the same time, profoundly discontented with himself, suddenly left the room and went on till he stood all alone, out on one of the bridges which crossed the street to the garden at the back of the palace. The bridge was in the shadow, but the white moonlight fell full upon the fountain and the walks beyond; and moonlight has an extraordinary effect on people who do not habitually live in camps, or out of doors, at night. The sun shows us what is, but the moon makes us see what might be. Orsino leaned against the stone parapet in the shadow, and made one of those attempts at self-examination which every honourable man has made at least once in his life, and which, with nine men out of ten, lead to no result, because, at such times the mind is in no state to examine anything, least of all itself. Indeed, no healthy-minded man resorts to that sort of introspection unless he is in a most complicated situation, since such a man is normally always perfectly conscious of what is honourable and right, without any self-analysis, or picking to pieces of his own conscience. But Orsino Saracinesca was in great difficulty. He did not question the fact that he was very much in love with Vittoria, and that this love for a young girl was something which he had never felt before. That was plain enough, by this time. The real question was, whether he should marry her, or whether he should go away to Sicily with San Giacinto and try to avoid her in future until he should have more or less forgotten her. He was old enough and sensible enough to foresee the probable consequences of marrying into such a family, and they were such as to check him at the outset. He knew all about the Pagliuca people, as his father did, and the phrase 'the worst blood in Italy' was familiar to his thoughts. Vittoria's mother was, indeed, a harmless soul, provincial and of unusual manners, but not vulgar in the ordinary sense of the word. Vittoria's father was said to have been a very good kind of man, who had been outrageously treated by his elder brother. But the strain was bad. There were hideous stories of treachery, such as Giovanni had quoted to his wife, which were alone enough to make Orsino hesitate. And then, there were Vittoria's brothers, for whom he felt the strongest repulsion and distrust. In many ways it would have been wiser for him to marry a girl of the people, a child of Trastevere, rather than Vittoria d'Oriani. He did not believe that any of the taint was on herself, that in her character there was the smallest shade of deceit or unfaithfulness. He found it hard to believe that she was really a Corleone at all. His arguments began from a premiss which assumed her practically perfect. Had he been alone in the world, he would not have hesitated long, for he could have married her and taken her away for ever--he was enough in love for that. But such a marriage meant that he should bring her brothers intimately into his father's house; that he and his own family must accept Tebaldo and Francesco Pagliuca, and possibly the third brother, whom he did not know, as near relations, to be called, by himself at least, 'thee' and 'thou,' and by their baptismal names. Lastly, it meant that Vittoria's mother and his own should come into close terms of intimacy, for Maria Carolina would make the most of the connection with the Saracinesca. That thought was the most repugnant of all to the young man, who looked upon his mother as a being apart from the ordinary world and entitled to a sort of veneration. Maria Carolina would not venerate anybody, he thought. On the other side, there was his honour. He did not care what the young men might think, but he had certainly led the girl herself to believe that he meant to marry her. And he was in love. Compared with giving up Vittoria, and with doing something which seemed dishonourable, the accumulated wickedness of generations of the Corleone shrank into insignificance. There was a sort of shock in his mind as he brought up this side of the question. Had there been any difficulty to be overcome in winning Vittoria's own consent, it would have been easier to decide. But he knew that he had but a word to say, and his future would be sealed irrevocably in a promise which he never would break. And in a day or two he was to leave Rome for a long time. It was clear that he ought to decide at once, this very night. His nature rejected the idea of taking advice, and, generally, of confiding in anyone. Otherwise, he might have laid the matter before his mother, in the certainty that her counsel would be good and honourable. Or he might have told his favourite brother the whole story, and Ippolito would assuredly have told him what was right. But Orsino was not of those who get help from the judgment or the conscience of another. It seemed to him that he stayed a long time on the bridge, thinking of all these things, for the necessity of finally weighing them had come upon him suddenly, since San Giacinto had given him warning to get ready for the journey. But presently he was aware that the distant music had changed, that the waltz during which he had watched Vittoria was over, and that a square dance had begun. He smiled rather grimly to himself as he reflected that he might stand there till morning, without getting any nearer to a conclusion. He turned his back on the moonlight impatiently and went back into the palace. In the distance, through an open door, he saw faces familiar to him all his life, moving to and fro rapidly in a quadrille. He watched them as he walked straight on towards the ballroom, through the rather dimly lighted chamber with which the bridge communicated. He was startled by the sound of Vittoria d'Oriani's voice, close beside him, calling him softly but rather anxiously. 'Don Orsino! Don Orsino!' She was all alone, pale, and standing half hidden by the heavy curtain on one side of the door opening to the ballroom. Orsino stood still a moment, in great surprise at seeing her thus left to herself in an empty room. Then he went close to her, holding out his hand. 'What is the matter?' he asked in a low voice, for several men were standing about on the other side of the open door, watching the dance. 'Nothing--nothing,' she repeated nervously, as he drew her aside. 'Who left you here alone?' asked Orsino, in displeasure at some unknown person. 'I--I came here--' she faltered. 'I slipped out--it was hot, in there.' Orsino laughed softly. 'You must not get isolated in this way,' he said. 'It is not done here, you know. People would think it strange. You are always supposed to be with someone--your partner, or your mother. But I am glad, since I have found you.' 'Yes, I have found you,' she said softly, repeating his words. 'I mean--' she corrected herself hurriedly--'I mean you have found me.' Orsino looked down to her averted face, and in the dim light he saw the blush at her mistake--too great a mistake in speech not to have come from a strong impulse within. Yet he could hardly believe that she had seen him go out that way alone, and had followed in the hope of finding him. They sat down together, not far from the door opening upon the bridge. The colour had faded again from Vittoria's face, and she was pale. During some moments neither spoke, and the music of the quadrille irritated Orsino as he listened to it. Seeing that he was silent, Vittoria looked up sideways and met his eyes. 'It was really very warm in the ballroom,' she said, to say something. 'Yes,' he answered absently, his eyes fixed on hers. 'Yes--I daresay it was.' Again there was a pause. 'What is the matter?' asked Vittoria at last, and her tone sank with each word. 'I am going away,' said Orsino, slowly, with fixed eyes. She did not start nor show any surprise, but the colour began to leave her lips. The irritating quadrille went pounding on in the distance, through the hackneyed turns of the familiar figures, accompanied by the sound of many voices talking and of broken laughter now and then. 'You knew it?' asked Orsino. 'How?' 'No one told me; but I knew it--I guessed it.' Orsino looked away, and then turned to her again, his glance drawn back to her by something he could not resist. 'Vittoria,' he began in a very low tone. He had never called her by that name before. The quadrille was very noisy, and she did not understand. She leaned forward anxiously towards him when she spoke. 'What did you say? I did not hear. The music makes such a noise!' The man was more than ever irritated at the sound; and as she bent over to him, he could almost feel her breath on his cheek. The blood rose in him, and he sprang to his feet impatiently. 'Come!' he said. 'Come outside! We cannot even hear each other here.' Vittoria rose, too, without a word, and went with him, walking close beside him, and glancing at his face. She was excessively pale now; and all the golden light seemed to have faded at once, even from her hair and eyes, till she looked delicate and almost fragile beside the big dark man. 'Out of doors?' she asked timidly, at the threshold. 'Yes--it is very warm,' answered Orsino, in a voice that was a little hoarse. Once out on the bridge, in the shadow, over the dark street, he stopped, and instantly his hand found hers and closed all round it, covering it altogether. Vittoria could not have spoken just then, for she was trembling from head to foot. The air was full of strange sounds, and the trees were whirling round one another like mad black ghosts in the moonlight. When she looked up, she could see Orsino's eyes, bright in the shadow. She turned away, and came back to them more than once; then their glances did not part any more, and his face came nearer to hers. 'We love each other,' he said; and his voice was warm and alive again. She felt that she saw his soul in his face, but she could not speak. Her eyes looking up to his, she slowly bent her little head twice, while her lips parted like an opening flower, and faintly smiled at the sweetness of an unspoken word. He bent nearer still, and she did not draw back. His blood was hot and singing in his ears. Then, all at once, something in her appealed to him, her young delicacy, her dawn-like purity, her exquisite fresh maidenhood. It seemed a crime to touch her lips as though she had been a mature woman. He dropped her hand, and his long arms brought her tenderly and softly up to his breast; and as her head fell back, and her lids drooped, he kissed her eyes with infinite gentleness, first the one and then the other, again and again, till she smiled in the dark, and hid her face against his coat, and he found only her silky hair to kiss again. 'I love you--say it, too,' he whispered in her ear. 'Ah, yes! so much, so dearly!' came her low answer. Then he took her hand again, and brought it up to his lips close to her face; and his lips pressed the small fingers passionately, almost roughly, very longingly. 'Come,' he said. 'We must be alone--come into the garden.' He led her across the bridge, and suddenly they were in the clear moonlight; but he went on quickly, lest they should be noticed through the open door from within. The air was warm and still and dry, as it often is in spring after the evening chill has passed. 'We could not go back into the ballroom, could we?' he asked, as he drew her away along a gravel walk between high box hedges. 'No. How could we--now?' Her hand tightened a little on his arm. They stopped before a statue at the end of the walk, full in the light, a statue that had perhaps been a Daphne, injured ages ago, and stone-gray where it was not very white, with flying draperies broken off short in the folds, and a small, frightened face that seemed between laughing and crying. One fingerless hand pointed at the moon. Orsino leaned back against the pedestal, and lovingly held Vittoria before him, and looked at her, and she smiled, her lips parting again, and just glistening darkly in the light as a dewy rose does in moonlight. The music was very far away now, but the plashing of the fountain was near. 'I love you!' said Orsino once more, as though no other words would do. A deep sigh of happiness said more than the words could, and the stillness that followed meant most of all, while Vittoria gently took his two hands and nestled closer to him, fearlessly, like a child or a young animal. 'But you will not go away--now?' she asked pleadingly. Orsino's face changed a little, as he remembered the rest of his life, and all he had undertaken to do. He had dreamily hoped that he might forget it. 'We will not talk of that,' he answered. 'How can I help it, if it is true? You will not go--say you will not go!' 'I have promised. But there is time--or, at least, I shall soon come back. It is not so far to Sicily--' 'Sicily? You are going to Sicily?' She seemed surprised. 'I thought you knew where I was going--' he began. 'No--I guessed; I was not sure. Tell me! Why must you go?' 'I must go because I have promised. San Giacinto would think it very strange if I changed my mind.' 'It is stranger that you should go--and with him! Yes--I see--you are going to take possession of our old place--' Her voice suddenly expressed the utmost anxiety, as she sprang from one conclusion to another without a mistake. She pressed his hands tightly, and her face grew pale again with fear for him. 'Oh please, please, stay here!' she cried. 'If it were anywhere else--if it were to do anything else--' 'Why?' he asked, in surprise. 'I thought you did not care much for the old place. If I had known that it would hurt you--' 'Me? No! It is not that--it is for you! They will kill you. Oh, do not go! Do not go!' She spoke in the greatest distress. Orsino was suddenly inclined to laugh, but he saw how much in earnest she was. 'Who will kill me?' he asked, as though humouring her. 'What do you mean?' Vittoria was more than in earnest; she was almost in terror for him. Her small hands clung to his arm nervously, catching him and then loosing their hold. But she said nothing, though she seemed to be hesitating in some sort of struggle. Though she loved him with all the whole-hearted impulses of her nature, it was not easy to tell him what she meant. The Sicilian blood revolted at the thought of betraying her wild brother, who had joined the outlaws, and would be in waiting for Orsino and his cousin when they should try to take possession of the lands. 'You must not go!' she cried, suddenly throwing her arms round his neck as though she could keep him by force. 'You shall not go--oh, no, no, no!' 'Vittoria--you have got some mad idea in your head--it is absurd--who should try to kill me? Why? I have no enemies. As for the brigands, everyone laughs at that sort of thing nowadays. They belong to the comic opera!' He let himself laugh a little at last, for the idea really amused him. But Vittoria straightened herself beside him and grew calmer, for she was sensible and saw that he thought her foolishly afraid. 'In Rome the outlaws belong to the comic opera--yes,' she answered gravely. 'But in Sicily they are a reality. I am a Sicilian, and I know. People are killed by them almost every day, and the mafia protects them. They are better armed than the soldiers, for they carry Winchester rifles--' 'What do you know about Winchester rifles?' asked Orsino, smiling. 'My brothers have them,' she said quietly. 'And the outlaws almost all have them.' 'I daresay. But why should they wish to kill me? They do not know me.' Vittoria was silent a moment, making up her mind what she should tell him. She was not positively sure of anything, but she had heard Francesco say lately that Camaldoli was a place easier to buy than to hold while Ferdinando was alive, and she knew what that meant, when coupled with the occasional comments upon Ferdinando's mode of life, which escaped in Francesco's incautious conversation at home. To a Sicilian, the meaning of the whole situation was not hard to guess. At the same time Vittoria was both desperately anxious for Orsino and afraid that he might laugh at her fears, as he had done already. 'This is it,' she said at last in a low and earnest voice. 'It has nothing to do with you or your cousin, personally, nor with your taking possession of Camaldoli, so far as I am concerned. But it is a wild and desolate place, and all through this year a large band of outlaws have been in the forests on the other side of the valley. They would never have hurt my brothers, who are Sicilians and poor, and who did not trouble them either. But you and your cousin are great people, and rich, and not Sicilians, and the mafia will be against you, and will support the brigands if they prevent you from taking possession of Camaldoli. You would be opposed to the mafia; you would bring soldiers there to fight the outlaws. Therefore they will kill you. It is certain. No one ever escapes them. Do you understand? Now you will not go, of course, since I have explained it all.' Orsino was somewhat puzzled, though it all seemed so clear to her. 'This mafia--what is it?' he asked. 'We hear it spoken of, but we do not any of us really know who is the head of it, nor what it can do.' 'It has no head,' answered the young girl. 'Perhaps it is hard to explain, because you are not a Sicilian. The mafia is not a band, nor anything of that sort. It is the resistance which the whole Sicilian people opposes to all kinds of government and authority. It is, how shall I say? A sentiment, a feeling, a sort of wild love of our country, that is a secret, and will do anything. With us, everybody knows what it is, and evil comes to everyone who opposes it--generally death.' 'We are not much afraid of it, since we have the law on our side,' said Orsino, rather incredulously. 'You are not afraid because you do not understand,' answered Vittoria, her voice beginning to express her anxiety again. 'If you knew what it is, as we know, you would be very much afraid.' She spoke so simply and naturally that it did not occur to Orsino to be offended at the slight upon his courage. 'We shall take an escort of soldiers to please you,' he said, smiling, and drawing her to him again, as though the discussion were over. But her terror for him broke out again. She had not told him all she knew, still less all she suspected. 'But I am in earnest!' she cried, holding herself back from him so that he could see her eyes. 'It is true earnest, deadly earnest. They mean to kill you--in the end, they will! Oh, tell me that you will not go!' 'San Giacinto has bought the place----' 'Let him go, and be killed, then, and perhaps they will be satisfied! What do I care for anyone but you? Is it nothing, that I love you so? That we have told each other? That you say you love me? Is it all nothing but words, mere words, empty words?' 'No, it is my whole life, dear----' 'Then your life is mine, and you have no right to throw it away, just to please your cousin. Let him get a regiment of soldiers sent there by the government to live in Santa Vittoria. Then after three or four years the brigands will be all gone.' 'Three or four years!' Orsino laughed, in spite of himself. 'Ah, you do not know!' exclaimed Vittoria, sadly. 'You do not know our country, nor our people. You think it is like Rome, all shopkeepers and policemen, and sixty noble families, with no mafia! You laugh now--but when they have killed you I shall not live to laugh again. Am I your life? Then you are mine. What will there be without you, when they have killed you? And the Winchester rifles shoot so far, and the outlaws aim so straight! How can you be saved? Do you think it is nothing that I should know that you are going to your death?' 'It is an exaggeration,' said Orsino, trying to soothe her. 'Such things are not done in a civilised country in the nineteenth century.' 'Such things? Ah, and worse, far worse! Last year they buried a man up to his neck in the earth, alive, and left him there to die, in the woods not far from Camaldoli, because they thought he was a spy! And one betrayed some of the band last summer, and they did not kill him at once, but caught him and tortured him, so that it took him three days to die. You do not know. You laugh, but you do not know what people there are in Sicily, nor what Sicilians will do when they are roused. Promise me that you will not go!' 'Even if all you tell me were true, I should go,' answered Orsino. 'Will nothing keep you from going?' asked the girl, piteously. 'You will laugh at all this when I come back to you. You will wonder how you could have tried to frighten me with such tales.' She looked at him a long time in silence, and then her lip quivered, so that she quickly raised one hand to her mouth to hide it. 'It would have been better if I had never left the convent,' she said in a broken voice. 'When they have killed you, I shall go back and die there.' 'When I come back, we shall be married, love--' 'Oh, no--not if you go to Camaldoli--we shall never be married in this world.' The slight and graceful girl shook all over for a moment, and then seemed to grow smaller, as though something crushed her. But there were no tears in her eyes, though she pressed her fingers on her lips as though to force back a sob. 'Let us go back,' she said. 'I want to go home--I can pray for you, if I cannot save you. God will hear me, though you do not, and God knows that it will be your death.' He put his arm about her and tried to comfort her, but she would not again lift her face, and he kissed her hair once more, when they were again in the shadow on the bridge. Then they waited till no one was passing through the small room, and went in silently to find her mother. She stopped him at the door of the ballroom. 'Promise me that you will not speak to my mother nor my brothers about--about us,' she said in a low voice. 'Very well. Not till I come back, if you wish it,' he answered. And they went in amongst the people unnoticed. CHAPTER VIII Vittoria realised that it was beyond her power to keep Orsino in Rome, and she was in great trouble. She had begged him not to speak of their betrothal, scarcely knowing why she made the request, but she was afterwards very glad that she had done so. To her, he was a condemned man, and her betrothal was a solemn binding of herself to keep faith with a beloved being who must soon be dead. She did not believe that she could really outlive him, but if Heaven should be so unkind to her, she had already made up her mind to return to the convent where she had been educated, and to end her days as a nun. The acute melancholy which belongs to the people of the far south, as well as of the far north, of Norway and of Sicily or Egypt alike, at once asserted itself and took possession of her. The next time Orsino saw her he was amazed at the change. The colour was all gone from her face, her lips were tightly set, and her brown eyes followed him with a perpetual, mute anxiety. Her radiance was veiled, and her beauty was grievously diminished. It was at a garden party, in a great, old villa beyond the walls, two days after the dance. Orsino had not been able to see her in the meantime, and had wisely abstained from visiting her mother, lest, in any way, he should betray their joint secret. She was already in the garden when he arrived with Corona, who caught sight of Vittoria from a distance and noted the change in her face. 'Vittoria d'Oriani looks ill,' said the Princess, and she went towards her at once. She was too tactful to ask the girl what was the matter, but she saw how Vittoria's eyes could not keep from Orsino, and she half guessed the truth, though her son's face was impenetrable just then. An old friend came up and spoke to her, and she left the two alone. They quietly moved away from the more crowded part of the garden, walking silently side by side, till they came to a long walk covered by the interlacing branches of ilex trees. Another couple was walking at some distance before them. Orsino glanced down at Vittoria, and tried to say something, but it was not easy. He had not realised how the mere sight of her stirred him, until he found himself speechless when he wished to say many things. 'You are suffering,' he said softly, at last. 'What is it?' 'You know,' she answered. 'What is the use of talking about it? I have said all--but tell me only when you are going.' 'To-morrow morning. I shall be back in a fortnight.' 'You will never come back,' said Vittoria, in a dull and hopeless tone. She spoke with such conviction that Orsino was silent for a moment. He had not the smallest belief in any danger, but he did not know how to argue with her. 'I have thought it all over,' she went on. 'If you try to live there, you will certainly be killed. But if you only go once, there is a chance--a poor, miserable, little chance. Let them think that you are coming up from Piedimonte, by way of Randazzo. It is above Randazzo that the black lands begin, all lava and ashes, with deep furrows in which a man can lie hidden to shoot. That is where they will try to kill you. Go the other way, round by Catania. It is longer, but they will not expect you, and you can get a guide. They may not find out that you have changed your plan. If they should know it, they could kill you even more easily on that side, in the narrow valley; but they need not know it.' 'Nothing will happen to me on either side,' said Orsino carelessly. Vittoria bent her head and walked on in silence beside him. 'I did not wish to talk about all that,' he continued. 'There are much more important things. When I come back we must be married soon--' 'We shall never be married if you go to Sicily,' answered Vittoria in the same dull voice. It was a fixed idea, and Orsino felt the hopelessness of trying to influence her, together with a pardonable impatience. The couple ahead of them reached the end of the walk, turned, met them, and passed them with a greeting, for they were acquaintances. Where the little avenue ended there was a great fountain of travertine stone, behind which, in the wide arch of the opening trees, they could see the Campagna and the Sabine mountains to the eastward. Vittoria stopped when they reached the other side of the basin, which was moss-grown but full of clear water that trickled down an almost shapeless stone triton. The statue and the fountain hid them from any one who might be coming up the walk, and at their feet lay the broad green Campagna. They were quite alone. The young girl raised her eyes, and she looked already as though she had been in an illness. 'We cannot stay more than a moment,' she said. 'If people see us going off together, they will guess. I want it to be all my secret. I want to say goodbye to you--for the last time. I shall remember you always as you are now, with the light on your face.' She looked at him long, and her eyes slowly filled with tears, which did not break nor run over, but little by little subsided again, taking her grief back to her heart. Orsino's brows frowned with pain, for he saw how profoundly she believed that she was never to see him again, and it hurt him that for him she should be so hurt, most of all because he was convinced that there was no cause. 'We go to-morrow,' he said. 'We shall be in Messina the next day. On the day after that go and see my mother, and she will tell you that she has had news of our safe arrival. What more can I say? I am sure of it.' But Vittoria only looked long and earnestly into his face. 'I want to remember,' she said in a low voice. 'For a fortnight?' Orsino smiled lovingly, and took her hand. 'For ever,' she answered very gravely, and her fingers clutched his suddenly and hard. He still smiled, for he could find nothing to say against such possession of presentiment. Common sense never has anything effectual to oppose to conviction. 'Goodbye,' she said softly. 'Goodbye, Orsino.' She had not called him by his name yet, and it sounded like an enchantment to him, though it was a rough name in itself. The breeze stirred the ilex leaves overhead in the spring afternoon, and the water trickled down, with a pleasant murmur, into the big basin. It was all lovely and peaceful and soft, except the look in her despairing eyes. That disturbed him as he met it and saw no change in it, but always the same hopeless pain. 'Come,' he said quietly, 'this is not sensible. Do I look like a man who is going to be killed like a dog in the street, without doing something to help myself?' Her eyes filled again. 'Oh, pray--please--do not speak like that! Say goodbye to me--I cannot bear it any longer--and yet it kills me to let you go!' She turned from him and covered her eyes with her hands for a moment, while he put his arm round her reassuringly. Then, all at once, she looked up. 'I will be brave--goodbye!' she said quickly. It was a silent leave-taking after that, for he could not say much. His only answer to her must be his safe return, but as they went back along the walk she felt that she was with him for the last time. It was like going with him to execution. Orsino walked back to the city alone, thinking over her words and her face, and wondering whether there could be anything in presentiments of evil. He had never had any himself, that he could remember, and he had never seen anybody so thoroughly under the influence of one as Vittoria seemed to be. Before dinner he went to see San Giacinto, whom he found alone in his big study, sitting in his huge chair before his enormous table. He was so large that he had his own private furniture made to suit his own dimensions. The table was covered with note-books and papers, very neatly arranged, and the gray-haired giant was writing a letter. He looked up as Orsino entered and uttered a sort of inarticulate exclamation of satisfaction. Then he went on writing, while Orsino sat down and watched him. 'Do you happen to have a gun license?' asked San Giacinto, without looking up. 'Of course.' 'Put it in your pocket for the journey,' was the answer, as the pen went on steadily. 'Is there any game about Camaldoli?' enquired Orsino, after a pause. 'Brigands,' replied San Giacinto, laconically, and still writing. He would have said 'woodcock' in the same tone, being a plain man and not given to dramatic emphasis. Orsino laughed a little incredulously, but said nothing as he sat waiting for his kinsman to finish his letter. His eyes wandered about the room, and presently they fell on a stout sole-leather bag which stood by a chair near the window. On the chair itself lay two leathern gun-cases obviously containing modern rifles, as their shape and size showed. With a man's natural instinct for arms, Orsino rose and took one of the weapons out of its case, and examined it. 'Winchesters,' said San Giacinto, still driving his pen. 'I see,' answered Orsino, feeling the weight, and raising the rifle to his shoulder as though to try the length of the stock. 'Most people prefer them in Sicily,' observed San Giacinto, who had signed his name and was folding his note carefully. 'What do you want them for?' asked the younger man, still incredulous. 'It is the custom of the country to carry them down there,' said the other. 'Besides, there are brigands about. I told you so just now.' San Giacinto did not like to repeat explanations. 'I thought you were joking,' remarked Orsino. 'I never did that. I suppose we shall not have the luck to fall in with any of those fellows, but there has been a good deal of trouble lately, and we shall not be particularly popular as Romans going to take possession of Sicilian lands. We should be worth a ransom too, and by this time the whole country knows that we are coming.' 'Then we may really have some excitement,' said Orsino, more surprised than he would show at his cousin's confirmation of much that Vittoria had said. 'How about the mafia?' he asked by way of leading San Giacinto into conversation. 'How will it look at us?' 'The mafia is not a man,' answered San Giacinto, bluntly. 'The mafia is the Sicilian character--Sicilian honour, Sicilian principles. It is an idea, not an institution. It is what makes it impossible to govern Sicily.' 'Or to live there,' suggested Orsino. 'Except with considerable tact. You will find out something about it very soon, if you try to manage that place. But if you are nervous you had better not try.' 'I am not nervous, I believe.' 'No, it is of no use to be. It is better to be a fatalist. Fatalism gives you your own soul, and leaves your body to the chemistry of the universe, where it belongs. If your body comes into contact with something that does not agree with it, you die. That is all.' There was an admirable directness in San Giacinto's philosophy, as Orsino knew. They made a final agreement about meeting at the station on the following morning, and Orsino went home a good deal less inclined to treat Vittoria's presentiments lightly. It had been characteristic of San Giacinto that he had hitherto simply forgotten to mention that there might be real danger in the expedition to Camaldoli, and it was equally in accordance with Orsino's character to take the prospect of it simply and gravely. There was a strong resemblance between the two kinsmen, and Orsino understood his cousin better than his father or any of his brothers. He had already explained to his mother what he was going to do, and she had been glad to learn that he had found something to interest him. Both Corona and Sant' Ilario had the prevailing impression that the Sicilian difficulties were more or less imaginary. That is what most Romans think, and the conviction is general in the north of Italy. As Orsino said nothing about his conversation with San Giacinto on that last evening, his father and mother had not the slightest idea that there was danger before him, and as they had both noticed his liking for Vittoria, they were very glad that he should go away just then, and forget her. The old Prince bade him goodbye that night. 'Whatever you do, my boy,' he said, shaking his snowy old head energetically, 'do not marry a Sicilian girl.' The piece of advice was so unexpected that Orsino started slightly, and then laughed, as he took his grandfather's hand. It was oddly smooth, as the hands of very old men are, but it was warm still, and not so feeble as might have been expected. 'And if you should get into trouble down there,' said the head of the house, who had known Sicily seventy years earlier, 'shoot first. Never wait to be shot at.' 'It is not likely that there will be much shooting nowadays,' laughed Sant' Ilario. 'That does not make my advice bad, does it?' asked old Saracinesca, turning upon his son, for the least approach to contradiction still roused his anger instantly. 'Oh no!' answered Giovanni. 'It is very good advice.' 'Of course it is,' growled the old gentleman, discontentedly. 'I never gave anyone bad advice in my life. But you boys are always contradicting me.' Giovanni smiled rather sadly. It was not in the nature of things that men over ninety years old should live much longer, but he felt what a break in the household's life the old man's death must one day make, when the vast vitality should be at last worn out. CHAPTER IX Orsino travelled down to Naples with San Giacinto in that peculiar state of mind in which an unsentimental but passionate man finds himself when he is leaving the woman he loves in order to go and do something which he knows must be done, which he wishes to do, and which involves danger and difficulty. San Giacinto did not say much more about brigands, or the mafia, but he talked freely of the steps to be taken on arriving in Messina, in order to get a proper escort of soldiers from Piedimonte to Camaldoli, and it was perfectly clear that he anticipated trouble. Orsino was surprised to find that he expected to have four or five carabineers permanently quartered at Camaldoli, by way of protection, and that he had already applied in the proper quarter to have the men sent to meet him. Then he began to talk of the projected railway and of the questions of engineering involved. Orsino felt lonely in his society, and it was a sensation to which he was not accustomed. It was long since he had known what it was to miss a woman's eyes and a woman's voice, and he had not thought that he should know it again. As the train ran on, hour after hour, he grew more silent, not wondering at himself, but accepting quite simply the fact that it hurt him to leave Vittoria far behind, and that he longed for her presence more and more. He could not help thinking how easy it would be for him to refuse to go on, and to take the next train back from Naples to Rome, and to see her to-morrow. He would not have done such a thing for the world, but he could not escape from the rather contemptible pleasure of thinking about it. Late in the afternoon the steamer that was to take them to Messina got under way--an old-fashioned, uncomfortable boat, crowded with people of all kinds, for the vessel was to go on to Malta on the next day. At the bad dinner in the dim cabin the tables were full, and many of the people were talking in the Maltese dialect, which is an astonishing compound of Italian and Arabic, perfectly incomprehensible both to Arabs and Italians. They stared at San Giacinto because he was a giant, and evidently talked about him in their own language, which irritated Orsino, though the big man seemed perfectly indifferent. Neither cared to speak, and they got through their abominable dinner in silence and went up to smoke on deck. Orsino leaned upon the rail and gazed longingly at the looming mountains, behind which the full moon was rising. He was not sentimental, for Italian men rarely are, but like all his fellow-countrymen he was alive to the sensuous suggestions of nature at certain times, and the shadowy land, the rising moon, the gleaming ripple of the water, and the evening breeze on his face, brought Vittoria more vividly than ever to his mind. He looked up at San Giacinto, and even the latter's massive and gloomy features seemed to be softened by the gentle light and the enchantment of the southern sea. Unconsciously he was more closely drawn to the man of his own blood, after being jostled in the crowd of doubtful passengers who filled the steamer. It was not in his nature to make confidences, but he wished that his friend and kinsman knew that he was in love with Vittoria and meant to marry her. It would have made the journey less desolate and lonely. He was still young, as San Giacinto would have told him, with grim indifference, if Orsino had unburdened his heart at that moment. But he did not mean to do that. He leaned over the rail and smoked in silence, looking from the moon to the rippling water and back again, and wishing that the night were not before him, but that he were already in Messina with something active to do. To be doing the thing would be to get nearer to Vittoria, since he could return with a clear conscience as soon as it should be done. At last he spoke, in a careless tone. 'My grandfather gave me some advice last night,' he said. 'Never to marry a Sicilian girl, and always to shoot first if there were any shooting to be done.' 'Provided that you do not marry the Corleone girl, I do not see why you should not take a Sicilian wife if you please,' answered San Giacinto, calmly. 'Why should a man not marry Vittoria d'Oriani?' enquired Orsino, startled to find himself so suddenly speaking of what filled him. 'I did not say 'a man' in general. I meant you. It would be a bad match. It would draw you into relationship with the worst blood in the country, and that is a great objection to it. Then she is a niece, and her brothers are nephews, of that old villain Corleone who married one of the Campodonico women. She died of unhappiness, I believe, and I do not wonder. Have you noticed that none of the Campodonico will have anything to do with them? Even old Donna Francesca--you know?--the saint who lives in the Palazzetto Borgia--she told your mother that she hoped never to know a Corleone by sight again. They are disliked in Rome. But you would never be such an arrant fool as to go and fall in love with the girl, I suppose, though she is charming, and I can see that you admire her. Not very clever, I fancy,--brought up by a museum of old Sicilian ladies in a Palermo convent,--but very charming.' It was an unexpectedly long speech, on an unexpected theme, and it was fortunate that it contained nothing which could wound Orsino's feelings through Vittoria; for, in that case, he would have quarrelled with his cousin forthwith, not being of a patient disposition. As it was, the young man glanced up sharply from time to time, looking out for some depreciatory expression. He was glad when San Giacinto had finished speaking. 'If I wished to marry her,' said Orsino, 'I should not care who her relations might be.' 'You would find yourself caring a great deal afterwards, if they made trouble with your own people. But I admit that the girl has charm and some beauty, and it is only fools who need clever wives to think for them. Good night. We may have a long day to-morrow, and we shall land about seven in the morning. I am going to bed.' Orsino watched the huge figure as it bent low and disappeared down the companion, and he was glad that San Giacinto had taken himself off without talking any more about Vittoria. He stayed on deck another hour, watching the light on the water, and then went below. He and his cousin had a cabin together, and he found the old giant asleep on the sofa, wrapped in a cloak, with his long legs resting on a portmanteau and extending half across the available space, while he had widened the transom for his vast shoulders by the help of a camp stool. He slept soundly, almost solemnly, under the small swinging oil-lamp, and there was something grand and soldier-like about his perfect indifference to discomfort. In a corner of the cabin, among a quantity of traps, the two rifles stood upright in their leathern cases. It was long before Orsino fell asleep. He was glad when they got ashore at last in the early morning. Messina has the reputation of being the dirtiest city in all Italy, and it has the disagreeable peculiarity of not possessing a decent inn of any sort. San Giacinto and Orsino sat down in a shabby and dirty room to drink certain vile coffee which was brought up to them on little brass trays from a café at the corner of the street. San Giacinto produced a silver flask and poured a dose of spirits into his cup, and offered Orsino some; but the younger man had not been bred in the country and had never acquired the common Italian habit of strengthening bad coffee with alcohol. So he consoled his taste with cigarettes. San Giacinto found that it would be impossible to proceed to Camaldoli till the following day, and the two men spent the morning and most of the afternoon in making the necessary arrangements. It was indispensable to see the officer in command of the carabineers and the prefect of the province, and San Giacinto knew that it would be wiser to send certain supplies up from Messina. 'I suppose that someone is there to hand the place over?' said Orsino. 'Tebaldo Pagliuca said that we should make enquiries of an old notary called Basili, in Randazzo, as his brother, being displeased with the sale, would probably refuse to meet us. Basili is to have the keys and will send a man with us. We shall have to rough it for a day or two.' 'Do you mean to say that they have locked the place up and left it without even a servant in charge?' asked Orsino. 'Apparently. We shall know when we get there. I daresay that we may have to make our own coffee and cook our own food. It is rather a lonely neighbourhood, and the people whom Ferdinando Pagliuca employed have probably all left.' 'It sounds a little vague,' observed Orsino. 'I suppose we shall find horses to take us up?' 'That is all arranged. We shall go up in a carriage, with four or five mounted carabineers, who will stay with us till they are relieved by others. They will all be waiting at the town of Piedimonte, above the station. I daresay that ruffian has carried off the furniture, too, and we may have to sleep on the floor in our cloaks.' 'It would have been sensible to have brought a servant with us.' 'No. Servants get into the way when there is trouble.' Orsino lighted another cigarette and said nothing. He was beginning to think that the whole thing sounded like an expedition into an enemy's country. They were dining in a queer little restaurant built over the water, at the end of the town towards the Faro. It was evidently the fashionable resort at that time of the year, and Orsino studied the faces of the guests at the other tables. He thought that many of them were like Tebaldo Pagliuca, though with less malignity in their faces; but now and then he heard words spoken with the unmistakable Neapolitan accent, showing that all were not Sicilians. 'They killed a carabineer close to Camaldoli last week,' said San Giacinto, thoughtfully dividing a large slice of swordfish, which is the local delicacy. 'One of them put on the dead soldier's uniform, passed himself off for a carabineer, and arrested the bailiff of the Duca di Fornasco that night, and marched him out of the village. They carried him off to the woods, and he has not been heard of since. He had given some information against them in the winter, so they will probably take some pains to kill him slowly, and send his head back to his relations in a basket of tomatoes in a day or two.' 'Are those things positively true?' asked Orsino, incredulous even now. 'The story was in the paper this morning, and I asked the prefect. He said it was quite exact. You see the rifles may be useful, after all, and the carabineers are rather more indispensable than food and drink.' Again Orsino thought of all Vittoria had told him, and he realised that whether the wild tales were literally true or not, she was not the only person who believed them. Just then a long fishing-boat ran past the little pier, close to the place where he was sitting at table. Six men were sending her along with her sharp stern foremost, as they generally do, standing to their long oars and throwing their whole strength into the work, for they were late, and the current would turn against them when the moon rose, as everyone knows who lives in Messina. Orsino did not remember that he had ever seen just such types of men, bare-headed, dark as Arabs, square-jawed, sinewy, fierce-eyed, with grave, thin lips, every one of them a fighting match for three or four Neapolitans. They were probably the first genuine Sicilians of the people whom he had ever seen, and they were not like any other Italians. San Giacinto watched them too, and he smiled a little, as though the sight gave him satisfaction. 'That is the reason why there is no salt-tax in Sicily,' he said. 'That is also the reason why Italy is ruled by a single Sicilian, by Crispi. Good or bad, he is a man, at all events--and those fellows are men. I would rather have one of those fisherman at my elbow in danger, than twenty bragging Piedmontese, or a hundred civilised Tuscans.' 'But they are treacherous,' observed Orsino. 'No, they are not,' answered the older man thoughtfully. 'They hate authority and rebel against it, and the mafia idea keeps them together like one man. Successful revolution is always called patriotism, and unsuccessful rebellion is always branded as treachery or treason. I have heard that somewhere, and it is true. But what we want in Italy is men, not ideas; action, not talk; honesty, not policy.' 'We shall never get those things,' said Orsino, who was naturally pessimistic. 'Italian unity has come too late for a renascence, and too soon for a new birth.' San Giacinto smiled rather contemptuously. 'You are an aristocrat, my dear boy,' he answered. 'You want the clear wine without the filthy, fermenting must.' 'I think we have the same name, you and I,' observed Orsino. 'Yes, but I should be what I am, if I had been called Moscetti.' 'And I?' inquired Orsino, his eyes kindling a little at the implied contrast of powers. 'If you had been plain Signor Moscetti, you would have been a very different kind of man. You would have worked hard at architecture, I suppose, and you would have acquired an individuality. As it is, you have not much more than the individuality of your class, and very little of your own. You are a product, whereas I was forced to become a producer when I was very young--a worker, in other words. Socially, I am a Saracinesca, like you; morally and actually, I have been a man of the people all my life, because I began among the people. I have made myself what I am. You were made what you are by somebody who lived in the twelfth century. I do not blame you, and I do not boast about myself. We like each other, but we are fundamentally different, and we emphatically do not like the same things. We are different kinds of animals that happen to be called by the same name.' 'I tried to work once,' said Orsino, thoughtfully. 'A man cannot do that sort of work against the odds of sixty-four quarterings and an unlimited fortune. But you had the instinct, just as I have it. You and I have more in common with those fishermen who just went by, than we have with most of our friends in Rome. We are men, at all events, as I said of Crispi.' Orsino was silent, for he was not in the humour to argue about anything, and he saw the truth of much that his cousin had said, and felt a hopelessness about doing anything in the world with which he had long been familiar. The sun had gone down, leaving a deep glow on the Calabrian mountains, on the other side of the straits, and the water rippled with the current like purple silk. To the left, the heights above Scilla were soft and dreamy in a wine-coloured haze, and the great lighthouse shot out its white ray through the gathering dusk. To the right, the royal yards and top-gallant rigging of the vessels in the harbour made a dark lace against the high, white houses that caught the departing twilight. It was near moonrise, and the breeze had almost died away. The lights of the city began to shine out, one by one, then quickly, by scores, and under the little jetty, where the two men sat, the swirling water was all at once black and gleaming as flowing ink. Far off, a boat was moving, and the oars swung against the single tholes with an even, monotonous knocking that was pleasant to hear. Orsino poured out another glass of the strong black wine and drank it, for the air was growing chilly. San Giacinto did the same and lighted a cigar. They sat almost an hour in silence, and then went slowly back to their squalid hotel on the quay. CHAPTER X On the following day Orsino and San Giacinto descended from the train at the little station of Piedimonte d'Etna, 'the foot of Mount Etna,' as it would be translated. It is a small, well-kept station near the sea, surrounded by gardens of oranges and lemons, and orchards of fruit trees, and gay with vines and flowers, penetrated by the intense southern light. The sky was perfectly cloudless, the sea of a gem-like blue, the peach blossoms were out by thousands, and the red pomegranate flowers had lately burst out of the bud, in splendid contrast with the deep, sheeny green of the smooth orange leaves. The trees had an air of belonging to pleasure gardens rather than to business-like orchards, and the whole colouring was almost artificially magnificent. It was late spring in the far south, and Orsino had never seen it. He had been on the Riviera, and in Sorrento, when the orange blossoms were all out, scenting the sea more than a mile from land, and he had seen the spring in England, which, once in every four or five years, is worth seeing; but he had not dreamt of such dazzling glories of colour as filled the earth and sky and sea of Sicily. It was not tropical, for there was nothing uncultivated nor unfruitful in sight; it seemed as though the little belt of gardens he saw around him must be the richest in the whole world, and as though neither man nor beast nor flower nor fruit could die in the fluid life of the fragrant air. It was very unexpected. San Giacinto was not the kind of man to give enthusiastic descriptions of views, and the conversation on the previous evening had prepared Orsino's mind for the wild hill country above, but not for the belt of glory which Sicily wears like a jewelled baldric round her breast hidden here and there as it were, or obliterated, by great crags running far out into the sea, but coming into sight again instantly as each point is passed. In the heap of traps and belongings that lay at his feet on the little platform, the two repeating rifles in their leathern cases were very good reminders of what the two men had before them on that day and for days and weeks afterwards. 'Winchesters,' observed the porter who took the things to the carriage behind the station. 'How did you know that?' asked Orsino, surprised at the man's remark. 'As if they were the first I have carried!' exclaimed the man with a grin. 'Almost all the signori have them nowadays. People say they will kill at half a kilometre.' 'Put them inside,' said San Giacinto, as they were arranging the things. 'Put them on the back seat with that case.' 'Yes, the cartridges,' said the porter knowingly, as he felt the weight of the package. 'And God send you no need of them!' exclaimed the coachman, a big dark man with a stubbly chin, a broad hat, and a shabby velvet jacket. 'Amen!' ejaculated the porter. 'Are you going with us all the way?' asked San Giacinto of the coachman, looking at him keenly. 'No, signore. The master will drive you up from Piedimonte. He is known up there, but I am of Messina. It is always better to be known--or else it is much worse. But the master is a much-respected man.' 'Since he has come back,' put in the porter, his shaven mouth stretching itself in a grim smile. 'Has he been in America?' asked Orsino, idly, knowing how many of the people made the journey to work, earn money, and return within a few years. 'He has been to the other America, which they call Ponza,' answered the man. The coachman scowled at him, and poked him in the back with the stock of his whip, but San Giacinto laughed. Ponza is a small island off the Roman coast, used as a penitentiary and penal settlement. 'Did he kill his man?' inquired San Giacinto coolly. 'No, signore,' said the coachman, quickly. 'He only gave him a salutation with the knife. It was a bad knife,' he added, anxious for his employer's reputation. 'But for that--the master is a good man! He only got the knife a little way into the other's throat--so much--' he marked the second joint of his middle finger with the end of his whip--'and then it would not cut,' he concluded, with an apologetic air. 'The Romans always stab upwards under the ribs,' said San Giacinto. 'One knows that!' answered the man. 'So do we, of course. But it was only a pocket knife and would not have gone through the clothes, and the man was fat. That is why the master put it into his throat.' Orsino laughed, and San Giacinto smiled. Then they got into the carriage and settled themselves for the long drive. In twenty minutes they had left behind them the beautiful garden down by the sea, and the lumbering vehicle drawn by three skinny horses was crawling up a steep but well-built road, on which the yellow dust lay two inches thick. The coachman cracked his long whip of twisted cord with a noise like a quick succession of pistol shots, the lean animals kicked themselves uphill, as it were, the bells jingling spasmodically at each effort, and the dust rose in thick puffs in the windless air, under the blazing sun, uniting in a long low cloud over the road behind. San Giacinto smoked in silence, and Orsino kept his mouth shut and his eyes half closed against the suffocating dust. After the first half-mile, the horses settled down to a straining walk, and the coachman stopped cracking his whip, sinking into himself, round-shouldered, as southern coachmen do when it is hot and a hill is steep. From time to time he swore at the skinny beasts in a sort of patient, half-contemptuous way. 'May they slay you!' he said. 'May your vitals be torn out! May you be blinded! Curse you! Curse your fathers and mothers, and whoever made you! Curse the souls of your dead, your double-dead and your extra-dead, and the souls of all the horses that are yet to be born!' There was a long pause between each imprecation, not as though the man were thinking over the next, but as if to give the poor beasts time to understand what he said. It was a kind of litany of southern abuse, but uttered in a perfunctory and indifferent manner, as many litanies are. 'Do you think your horses are Christians, that you revile them in that way?' asked Orsino, speaking from the back of the carriage, without moving. The man's head turned upon his slouching shoulders, and he eyed Orsino with curiosity. 'We speak to them in this manner,' he said. 'They understand. In your country, how do you speak to them?' 'We feed them better, and they go faster.' 'Every country has its customs,' returned the man, stolidly. 'It is true that these beasts are not mine. I should feed them better, if I had the money. But these animals consist of a little straw and water. This they eat, and this they are. How can they draw a heavy carriage uphill? It is a miracle. The Madonna attends to it. If I beat them, what do I beat? Bones and air. Why should I fatigue myself? There are their souls, so I speak to them, and they understand. Do you see? Now that I talk with you, they stop.' He turned as the carriage stood still, and addressed the spider-like animals again, in a dull, monotonous tone, that had something business-like in it. 'Ugly beasts! May you have apoplexy! May you be eaten alive!' And he went on with a whole string of similar expressions, till the unhappy brutes strained and threw themselves forward and back to kick themselves uphill again spasmodically, as before. It seemed very long before they reached the town, dusty and white under the broad clear sun, and decidedly clean; spotless, indeed, compared with a Neapolitan or Calabrian village. Here and there among the whitewashed houses there were others built of almost black tufo, and some with old bits of effective carving in a bastard style of Norman-Saracen ornament. The equine spiders entered the town at a jog-trot. Orsino fancied that but for the noise of the bells and the wheels he could have heard their bones rattle as their skeleton legs swung under them. They turned two or three corners and stopped suddenly before their stable. 'This is the master,' said the coachman as he got down, indicating a square-built, bony man of medium height who stood before the door, dressed in a clean white shirt and a decent brown velveteen jacket. He had a dark red carnation in his button-hole and wore his soft black hat a little on one side. In the shadow of the street near the door stood five carabineers in their oddly old-fashioned yet oddly imposing uniforms and cocked hats, each with a big army revolver and a cartridge case at his belt, and a heavy cavalry sabre by his side. They were tall, quiet-eyed, sober-looking men, and they saluted San Giacinto and Orsino gravely, while one, who was the sergeant, came forward, holding out a note, which San Giacinto read, and put into his pocket. 'I am San Giacinto,' he said, 'and this gentleman is my cousin, Don Orsino Saracinesca, who goes with us.' 'Shall we saddle at once, Signor Marchese?' asked the sergeant, and as San Giacinto assented, he turned to his men and gave the necessary order in a low voice. The phantom horses were taken out of the carriage, and the two gentlemen got out to stretch their legs while the others were put in. The carabineers had all disappeared, their quarters and stables being close by; so near, indeed, that the clattering of their big chargers' hoofs and the clanking of accoutrements could be plainly heard. 'The master is to drive us up to Camaldoli,' observed Orsino, lighting a cigarette. 'Yes,' replied his companion. 'He is a smart-looking fellow, but for my part I prefer the other man's face. Stupidity is always a necessary quality in servants. The master looks to me like a type of a "maffeuso."' 'With five carabineers at our heels, I imagine that we are pretty safe.' 'For to-day, of course. I was thinking of our future relations. This is the only man who can furnish carriages between Camaldoli and the station. One is in his power.' 'Why should we not have carriages and horses of our own?' asked Orsino. 'It is a useless expense at present,' answered San Giacinto, who never wasted money, though he never spared it. 'We shall see. In a day or two we shall find out whether you can have them at all. If it turns out to be possible, it will be because you find yourself on good terms with the people of the neighbourhood.' 'And turn "maffeuso" myself,' suggested Orsino, with a laugh. 'Not exactly, but the people may tolerate you. That is the most you can expect, and it is much.' 'And if not, I am never to move without a squad of carabineers to take care of me, I suppose.' 'You had better go armed, at all events,' said San Giacinto, quietly. 'Have your revolver always in your pocket and take a rifle when you go out of the house. The sight of firearms has a salutary effect upon all these people.' The fresh horses had been put in, very different from the wretched creatures that had dragged the carriage up from the station, for they were lean indeed, but young and active. San Giacinto looked at them and remarked upon the fact as he got in. 'Of course!' answered the philosophical coachman; 'the road is long and you must drive up as high as paradise. Those old pianos could never get any higher than purgatory.' 'Pianos?' 'Eh--they have but three legs each, and they are of wood, like a piano,' answered the man, without a smile. 'You also heard the music they made with their bones as we came along.' The master mounted to his seat, and at the same moment the carabineers came round the corner, already in the saddle, each with his canvas bread-bag over his shoulder and his rifle slung by his stirrup. They were mounted on powerful black chargers, well-fed, good-tempered animals, extremely well kept, and evidently accustomed to long marches. The carabineers, foot and horse, are by far the finest corps in the Italian army, and are, indeed, one of the finest and best equipped bodies of men in the world. They are selected with the greatest care, and every man has to prove that neither he nor his father has ever been in jail, even for the slightest misdemeanour. The troopers and the men of the foot corps rank as corporals of the regular army, and many of them have been sergeants. In the same way each degree of rank is reckoned as equal to the next higher in the army, and the whole corps is commanded by a colonel. There are now about twenty-five thousand in the whole country, quartered in every town and village in squads from four or five, to twenty or thirty strong. The whole of Italy is patrolled by them, day and night, both by high roads and bridle-paths, and on the mainland they have effectually stamped out brigandage and highway robbery. But in Sicily they are pitted against very different odds. The road rises rapidly beyond Piedimonte, winding up through endless vinelands to the enormous yoke which unites Etna with the inland mountains. Orsino leaned back silently in his place, gazing at the snow-covered dome of the volcano, from the summit of which rose a thin wreath of perfectly white smoke. From time to time San Giacinto pointed out to his companion the proposed direction of his light railway, which was to follow the same general direction as the carriage road. The country, though still cultivated, was lonely, and the barren heights of Etna, visible always, gave the landscape a singular character. To the westward rose the wooded hills, stretching far away inland, dark and mysterious. They halted again in the high street of a long, clean village, called Linguaglossa, and some of the carabineers dismounted and drank from a fountain, being half choked with the dust. The master of the vehicle got down and dived into a quiet-looking house, returning presently with a big, painted earthenware jug full of wine, and a couple of solid glasses, which he filled and held out, without a word, to San Giacinto and Orsino. The wine was almost black, very heavy and strong. They quenched their thirst, and then the man swallowed two glasses in succession. San Giacinto held out some small change to him to pay for the drink. But he laughed a little. 'One does not pay for wine in our country,' he said. 'They sell a pitcher like this for three sous at the wineshops, but this is the house of a very rich signore, who makes at least a thousand barrels every year. What should one pay? One sou? That is as much as it is worth. A man can get drunk for five sous here.' 'I should think so! It is as strong as spirits,' said Orsino. 'But the people are very sober,' answered San Giacinto. 'They have strong heads, too.' They were soon off again, along the endless road. Gradually, the vinelands began to be broken by patches of arid ground, where dark stone cropped up, and the dry soil seemed to produce nothing but the poisonous yellow spurge. It was long past noon when the dark walls and the cathedral spire of Randazzo came into sight. They found Basili's house, and the notary, whose daughter was already famous in Rome, was at work in his dingy study, with a sheet of governmental stamped paper before him. He was a curious compound of a provincial and a man of law, with regular features and extremely black eyebrows, the rest of his hair being white. Orsino thought that he must have been handsome in his youth. Everything was prepared according to the orders San Giacinto had written. Basili handed over a big bunch of keys, most of which were rusty, while two of them were bright, as though they had been recently much used. He hardly spoke at all, but looked at his visitors attentively, and with evident curiosity. He called a man who was in readiness to go with them. 'Shall we find anybody at the house?' enquired Orsino. 'Not unless someone has been locked in,' was the answer. 'Nevertheless, it might be safer not to go straight to the door, but to get under the wall, and come up to it in that way. One never knows what may be behind a door until it is open.' San Giacinto laughed rather dryly, and Orsino looked hard at Basili to discover a smile. 'But, indeed,' continued the notary, 'there are too many bushes about the house. If I might be so bold as to offer my advice, I should say that you had better cut down the bushes at once. You will have time to begin this evening, for the days are long.' 'Are they unhealthy?' enquired Orsino, not understanding in the least. 'Unhealthy? Oh, no. But they are convenient for hiding, and there are people of bad intentions everywhere. I do not speak of Don Ferdinando Pagliuca, believe me. But there are persons of no conscience, who do not esteem life as anything. But I do not mean to signify Don Ferdinando Pagliuca, I assure you. Gentlemen, I wish you a pleasant journey, and every satisfaction, and the fulfilment of your desires.' He bowed them out, being evidently not inclined to continue the conversation, and they drove on again, the man whom he had sent with them being beside the padrone on the box. He had a long old-fashioned gun slung over his shoulder, evidently loaded, for there was a percussion cap on the nipple of the lock. Orsino thought Randazzo a grim and gloomy town in spite of its beautiful carved stone balconies and gates, and its Saracen-Norman cathedral, and he was glad when they were out in the country again, winding up through the beginning of the black lands. San Giacinto looked about him, and then began to get out one of the Winchesters, without making any remark, Orsino watched him as he dropped the cartridges one by one into the repeater and then examined the action again, to see that all was in working order. 'You understand them, I suppose?' he asked of Orsino. 'Yes, of course.' 'Then you had better load the other,' said the big man quietly. 'As you please,' answered Orsino, evidently considering the precaution superfluous, and he got out the other rifle with great deliberation. They were going slowly up a steep hill, and the carabineers were riding close behind them at a foot pace. The two gentlemen could, of course, not see the road in front. The padrone and Basili's man were talking in a low tone in the Sicilian dialect. Suddenly, with a clanging and clattering, two of the troopers passed the carriage at a full gallop up the hill. The sergeant trotted up to San Giacinto's side, looking sharply ahead of him. Basili's man slipped the sling of his gun over his head in an instant, and laid the weapon across his knees, and Orsino distinctly heard him cock the old-fashioned hammer. San Giacinto still had his rifle in his hand, and he leaned out over the carriage to see what was ahead. There was nothing to be seen but the two carabineers charging up the steep road at a gallop. 'There was a man on horseback waiting at the crest of the hill,' said the sergeant. 'As soon as he saw us he wheeled and galloped on. He is out of sight now. They will not catch him, for he had a good horse.' 'Have you had much trouble lately?' asked San Giacinto. 'They killed one of my men last week and used his uniform for a disguise,' answered the soldier, gravely. 'That fellow was waiting there to warn somebody that we were coming.' The troopers halted when they reached the top of the hill, looked about, and made a sign to the sergeant, signifying that they could not catch the man. The sergeant answered by a gesture which bade them wait. 'Touch your horses, Tatò,' he said to the padrone, who had neither moved nor looked round during the excitement, but who immediately obeyed. The carriage moved quickly up the hill, till it overtook the carabineers. Then San Giacinto saw that the road descended rapidly by a sharp curve to the left, following a spur of the mountain. No one was in sight, nor was there any sound of hoofs in the distance. To the right, below the road, the land was much broken, and there was shelter from sight for a man and his horse almost anywhere for a mile ahead. When Orsino had finished loading the rifle, he looked about him, and saw for the first time the black lands of which Vittoria had spoken, realising the truth of what she had said about the possibility of a man hiding himself in the fissures of the lava, to fire upon a traveller in perfect security. With such an escort he and his companion were perfectly safe, of course, but he began to understand what was meant by the common practice of carrying firearms. It is impossible to imagine anything more hideously desolate and sombrely wild than the high ground behind Mount Etna. The huge eruptions of former and recent times have for ages sent down rivers of liquid stone and immeasurable clouds of fine black ashes, which have all hardened roughly into a conformation which is rugged but not wholly irregular, for the fissures mostly follow the downward direction of the slope, westward from the volcano. All over the broad black surface the spurge grows in patches during the spring, and somehow the vivid yellow of the flowers makes the dark stone and hardened ash look still darker and more desolate. Here and there, every two or three miles, there are groups of deserted huts built of black tufo, doorless and windowless, and almost always on the edge of some bit of arable land that stretches westward between two old lava beds. The distances are so great that the peasants move out in a body to cultivate these outlying fields at certain times of the year, and sleep in the improvised villages until the work is done, when they go back to the towns, leaving the crops to take care of themselves until harvest time. In the guerilla warfare which breaks out periodically between the carabineers and the outlaws, the stone huts are important points of vantage, and once or twice have been the scene of hard-fought battles. Being of stone, though roughly built, and being pierced with mere holes for windows, they are easily defended from within by men armed with repeaters and plentiful ammunition. After the little excitement caused by the pursuit of the unknown rider, two of the troopers rode before the carriage, and three followed it, while all got their rifles across their saddle-bows, ready for action. They knew well enough that as long as they kept together, even a large band of brigands would not attack them on the open road, but there were plenty of narrow places where the earth was high on each side, and where a single well-directed volley might easily have killed many of the party. Since the outlaws' latest invention of shooting the carabineers in order to disguise themselves in their uniforms, the troopers were more than ever cautious and on the alert against a surprise. But nothing happened. The single horseman had disappeared altogether, having probably taken to the broken land for greater safety, and the carriage jogged steadily on across the high land, towards its destination, with a regular jingling of harness bells, and an equally rhythmic clanking of sabres. 'A little quicker, Tatò,' said the sergeant to the padrone, from time to time, but no one else said anything. Both San Giacinto and Orsino were weary of the long drive when, at an abrupt curve of the road, the horses slackened speed, to turn out of the highway, to the right. 'There is Camaldoli,' said Tatò, turning round to speak to them for the first time since they had started. 'You can see the Druse's tower above the trees, and the river is below.' So far as the two gentlemen could see there was not another habitation in sight, though it was no very great distance to the village of Santa Vittoria, beyond the next spur of Etna. The ancient building, of which only the top of one square black tower appeared, was concealed by a dense mass of foliage of every kind. Below, to the right and towards the mountain stream which Tatò called a river, the land was covered with wild pear trees, their white blossoms all out and reflecting the lowering sun. Nearer the building, the pink bloom of the flowering peaches formed a low cloud of exquisite colour, and the fresh green of the taller trees of all kinds made a feathery screen above and a compact mass of dark shadow lower down. The narrow drive was thickly hedged with quantities of sweetbrier and sweet hawthorn, which increased as the road descended, till it filled everything up to a man's height and higher. The way was so narrow that when the carabineers tried to ride on each side of the carriage, they found it impossible to do so without being driven into the tangle of thorns at every step. The whole party moved forward at a quick trot, and Orsino understood what Basili the notary had said about the bushes, so that even he laid his rifle across his knees and peered into the brambles from time to time, half expecting to see the muzzle of a gun sticking through the green leaves and white flowers. The avenue seemed to be about half a mile long. In the middle of it the trees were so thick as to make it almost gloomy, even in the broad afternoon daylight. The road was rough and stony. Suddenly the horse of one of the carabineers ahead stumbled and fell heavily, and the other trooper threw his horse back on its haunches with an exclamation. Almost at the same instant, the sharp crack of a rifle rang through the trees on the right; and the bullet, singing overhead, cut through the branches just above the carriage, so that a twig with its leaves dropped upon Orsino's knees. Another shot, fired very low down, struck a spoke of one of the carriage wheels, and sent the splinters flying, burying itself somewhere in the body of the vehicle. Another and another followed, all fired either far too high or much too low to strike any of the party. As the shots all came from the same side, however, the sergeant of carabineers sprang to the ground and plunged into the brush on that side, his rifle in his hand, calling to his men to follow him. San Giacinto stood up and knelt on the cushion of the carriage, though he knew that he could not fire in the direction taken by the carabineers, lest he should hit one of them by accident. 'Keep a lookout on your side, too!' he cried to Orsino. 'Shoot anybody you see, and do not miss. They may be on both sides, but I think not.' Strangely enough, from the moment the soldiers entered the brush, not another shot was fired. Clearly the assailants were beating a hasty retreat. At that moment something black stirred in the bushes on Orsino's side. Instantly his rifle was at his shoulder, and he fired. San Giacinto started and turned round, bringing up his own weapon at the same time. 'I believe I heard something fall,' said Orsino, opening the door of the carriage. Tatò had disappeared. Basili's man had followed the soldiers into the brush. In an instant both the gentlemen were in the thicket, Orsino leading, as he followed the direction of his shot. CHAPTER XI Orsino's gloved hand trembled violently as he pushed aside the tangle of sweetbrier, trying to reach the place where the man upon whom he had fired had fallen. 'Let me go first,' said San Giacinto. 'I am bigger and my gloves are thicker.' But Orsino pushed on, his heart beating so hard that he felt the pulse in his throat and his eyes. He had been cool enough when the bullets had been flying across the carriage, and his hand had been quite steady when he had aimed at the black something moving stealthily in the bushes. But the sensation of having killed a man, and in such a way, was horrible to him. He pushed on, scratching his face and his wrists above his gloves, in the sharp thorns. The bushes were more than breast high, even to his tall figure, but San Giacinto could see over his head. 'There!' exclaimed the giant, suddenly. 'There he is--to your right--I can see him!' Orsino pushed on, and in another moment his foot struck something hard that moved a little, but was not a stone. It was the dead man's foot in a heavy shooting-boot. They found him quite dead, not fallen to the ground, but half sitting and half lying in the thorns. He had fallen straight backwards, shot through the temples. The eyes were wide open, but without light, the handsome face perfectly colourless, and the silky, brown moustache hid the relaxed mouth. His rifle stood upright in the bush as it had fallen from his hand. His soft hat was still firmly planted on the back of his head. Orsino was stupefied with horror and stood quite still, gazing at the dead man's face. San Giacinto looked down over his shoulders. 'He looks like a gentleman,' he said in a low voice. The chill of a terrible presentiment froze about Orsino's heart. As he looked, the handsome features became familiar, all at once, as though he had often seen them before. 'We had better get him out to the road,' said San Giacinto. 'The carabineers may identify him. The sooner, the better, though you were perfectly justified in shooting him.' He laid his hand upon Orsino's shoulder to make him move a little, and the young man started. Then he bit his trembling lip and stooped to try and lift the body. As he touched the velveteen coat, the head fell suddenly to one side, and Orsino uttered an involuntary exclamation. He had never moved a dead man before. 'It is nothing,' said San Giacinto, quietly. 'He is quite dead. Take his feet.' He pushed past Orsino and lifted the head and shoulders, beginning to move towards the road at once, walking backwards and breaking down the bushes with his big shoulders. They got him out upon the road. The carriage horses were standing quite still, with their heads hanging down as though nothing had happened. They had plunged a little at first. In the road before them stood the trooper who had been thrown, holding his own and another charger by the bridle. The cause of the accident was clear enough. A pit had been treacherously dug across the road and covered with sticks and wood, so as to be invisible. Fortunately the horse had escaped injury. The others were tethered by their bridles to the back of the carriage. In the brush, far to the right, the tall bushes were moving, showing where the other four carabineers were searching for the outlaws who had fired, if, indeed there had been more than one. They laid the dead man in the middle of the road, on the other side of the ditch, out of reach of the horses' feet, and the trooper watched them without speaking, though with a satisfied look of approval. 'Do you know him?' asked San Giacinto, addressing the soldier. 'No, Signor Marchese. But I have not been long on this station. The brigadiere will know him, and will be glad. I came to take the place of the man they killed last week.' Orsino looked curiously at the young carabineer, who took matters so quietly, when he himself was struggling hard to seem calm. He would not have believed that he could ever have felt such inward weakness and horror as filled him, and he could not trust himself to speak, yet he had no reason to doubt that he had saved his own life or San Giacinto's by firing in time. 'I see why the other ones fired so wildly,' said San Giacinto. 'They were afraid of hitting their friend, who was to do the real work alone, while they led the carabineers off on a false scent on the other side. This fellow felt quite safe. He thought he could creep up to the carriage and make sure of us at close quarters. He did not expect that one of us would be on the lookout.' 'That is a common trick,' said the soldier. 'I have seen it done at Noto. It must have been a single person that fired, and this man was also alone. If he had been with a companion, the gentleman's shot would have been answered and one of you would have been killed.' 'Then it was the other man who was waiting on horseback in the road to warn this one of our coming?' 'Evidently, Signor Marchese.' Still Orsino stood quite still, gazing down into the dead man's face, and feeling very unsteady. Just then nothing else seemed to have any existence for him, and he was unaware of all outward things excepting that one thing that lay there, limp and helpless, killed by his hand in the flash of an instant. And as he gazed, he fancied that the young features in their death pallor grew more and more familiar, and at his own heart there was a freezing and a stiffening, as though he were turning into ice from within. The sergeant and the troopers came back, covered with brambles, hot and grim, and empty-handed. 'Did any of you fire that other shot?' he asked, as soon as he was in the road. 'I did,' said Orsino. 'I killed this man.' The sergeant sprang forward, and his men pressed after him to see. The sergeant bent down and examined the dead face attentively. Then he looked up. 'You have killed rather an important person,' he said gravely. 'This is Ferdinando Pagliuca. We knew that he was on good terms with the outlaws, but we could not prove it against him.' 'Oh, yes,' said Tatò, the padrone, suddenly appearing again. 'That is Don Ferdinando. I know him very well, for I have often driven him. Who would have thought it?' Orsino had heard nothing after the sergeant had pronounced the name. He almost reeled against San Giacinto, and gripped the latter's arm desperately, his face almost as white as the dead man's. Even San Giacinto started in surprise. Then Orsino made a great effort and straightened himself, and walked away a few paces. 'This is a bad business,' said San Giacinto in a preoccupied tone. 'We shall have the whole mafia against us for this. Has the other man escaped?' 'Clean gone,' said the sergeant. 'You had better luck than we, for we never saw him. He must have fired his shots from his horse and bolted instantly. We could not have got through the brush with our horses.' Orsino went and leaned against the carriage, shading his eyes with his hands, while San Giacinto and the soldiers talked over what had happened. The sergeant set a couple of men to work on the brambles with their sabres, to cut a way for the carriage on one side of the pitfall that covered the road. 'Put the body into the carriage,' said San Giacinto. 'We can walk. It is not far.' He roused Orsino, who seemed to be half stunned. 'Come, my boy!' he said, drawing him away from the carriage as the soldiers were about to lay the body in it. 'Of course it is not pleasant, but it cannot be helped, and you have rendered the government a service, though you have got us into an awkward position with the Corleone.' 'Awkward!' Orsino's voice was hoarse and broken. 'You do not know!' he added. San Giacinto did not understand, but made him fall back behind the carriage, which jolted horribly with its dead occupant, as Tatò forced his horses to drag it round the end of the ditch. The carabineers, still distrustful of the thick trees and the underbush, carried their rifles and led their horses, and the whole party proceeded slowly along the drive towards the ancient house. It might have been a quarter of a mile distant. Orsino walked the whole way in silence with bent head and set lips. They emerged upon a wide open space, overgrown with grass, wild flowers, and rank weeds, through which a narrow path led straight up to the main door. There had been a carriage road once, following a wide curve, but it had long been disused, and even the path was not much trodden, and the grass was beginning to grow in it. The front of the house presented a broad, rough-plastered surface, broken by but few windows, all of which were high above the ground. The tower was not visible from this side. From the back, the sound of water came up with a steady, low roar. The door was, in fact, a great oak gate, studded with big rusty nails, paintless, gray, and weather-beaten. Regardless of old Basili's advice, San Giacinto walked straight up to it, followed by the notary's man with the bunch of keys. The loneliness of it all was beyond description, and was, if possible, enhanced by the roar of the water. The air was damp, too, from the torrent bed, and near one end of the house there were great patches of moss. At the other side, towards the sun, the remains of what had been a vegetable garden were visible, rank broccoli and cabbages thrusting up their bunches of pale green leaves, broken trellises of cane, half fallen in, and overgrown with tomato vines and wild creeping plants. A breath of air brought a smell of rotting vegetables and damp earth to San Giacinto's nostrils, as he tried one key after another in the lock. They got in at last, and entered under a gloomy archway, beyond which there was a broad courtyard, where the grass grew between the flagstones. In the middle was an ancient well, on the right a magnificently carved doorway led into the old chapel of the monastery. On the left, opposite the chapel, a long row of windows, with closed shutters in fairly good condition, showed the position of the habitable rooms. 'Is that a church?' asked San Giacinto of Basili's man. 'Take the dead man in and leave him there,' he added, as the man nodded and began to look for the key on the bunch. They took Ferdinando Pagliuca's body from the carriage, which stood in the middle of the courtyard, and carried it in and laid it down on the uppermost step of one of the side altars, of which there were three. Orsino followed them. It was a very dilapidated place. There had once been a few frescoes, which were falling from the walls with age and dampness. High up, through the open windows from which the glass had long since disappeared, the swallows shot in and out, bringing a dark gleam of sunshine on their sharp, black wings. Although the outer air had free access, there was a heavy, death-like smell of mould in the place. The altars were dismantled and the gray dust lay thick upon them, with fragments of plaster here and there. Only on the high altar a half-broken wooden candlestick, once silvered, stood bending over, and a little glazed frame still contained a mouldering printed copy of the Canon of the Mass. In the middle of the floor a round slab of marble, with two greenish bolts of brass, bore the inscription, 'Ossa R. R. P. P.' covering the pit wherein lay the bones of the departed monks who had once dwelt in the monastery. The troopers laid Ferdinando's body upon the stone steps in silence, and then went away, for there was much to be done. Orsino stayed behind, alone, for his cousin had not even entered the church. He knelt down for a few moments on the lowest step. It seemed a sort of act of reverence to the man whom he had killed. Mechanically he said a prayer for the dead. But his thoughts were of the living. The man who lay there was Vittoria d'Oriani's brother, the brother of his future wife, of the being he held most dear in the world. Between him and her there was her own blood, shed by his hand. The shot had done more than kill Ferdinando Pagliuca; it had mortally wounded his own life. He asked himself whether Vittoria, or any woman, could marry the man who had killed her brother. In time, she might forgive, indeed, but she could not forget. No one could. And there were her other brothers, and her mother, and they were Sicilians, revengeful and long pursuing in their revenge. Never, under any imaginable circumstances, would they give their consent to his marriage with Vittoria, even supposing that she herself, in the course of years, could blot out the memory of the dead. He might as well make up his mind that she was lost to him. But that was hard to do, for the roots of growing love had struck deep and burrowed themselves in under his heart almost unawares, from week to week since he had known her, and to tear them up was to tear out the heart itself. He went to the other side of the dim chapel and rested his dark forehead against the mouldering wall. It was as though he were going mad then and there. He drew himself up and said, almost aloud, that he was a man and must act like a man. No one had ever accused him of being unmanly, and he could not tamely bear the accusation from himself. All the old hackneyed phrases of cynical people he had known came back to him. 'Only one woman, and the world was full of them'--and much to that same effect. And all the time he knew that such words could never fit his lips, and that though the world was full of women, there was only one for him, and between her and him lay the barrier of her own brother's blood. He turned as he stood, and saw the straight, dark figure, with its folded hands, lying on the steps of the altar opposite--the outward fact, as his love for Vittoria was the inward truth. The horror of it all came over him again like a surging wave, roaring in his ears and deafening him. It could have been but one degree worse if Vittoria's brother had been his friend, instead of his enemy, and if he had killed him in anger. He remembered that he had expected to send his mother a long and reassuring telegram on this day, and that he had told Vittoria that she should go to the Palazzo Saracinesca and hear news of him. There was a telegraph station at Santa Vittoria, three-quarters of a mile from Camaldoli, but he was confronted by the difficulty of sending any clear message which should not contain an allusion to Ferdinando Pagliuca's death, since the carabineers would be obliged to report the fact at once, and it would be in the Roman papers on the following morning. That was a new and terrible thought. There would be the short telegraphic account of how Don Orsino Saracinesca had been attacked by brigands in a narrow road and had shot one of the number, who turned out to be Ferdinando Corleone. Her mother, who always read the papers, would read that too. Then her brothers--then Vittoria. And his own mother would see it--his head seemed bursting. And there lay the fact, the source of these inevitable things, cold and calm, with the death smile already stealing over its white face. San Giacinto stalked in, looking about him, and the sound of his tread roused Orsino. 'Come,' he said, rather sternly. 'There is much to be done. I could not find you. The man is dead; you did right in killing him, and we must think of our own safety.' 'What do you mean?' asked Orsino, in a dull voice. 'We are safe enough, it seems to me.' 'The sergeant does not seem to think so,' answered San Giacinto. 'Before night it will be known that Ferdinando Pagliuca is dead, and we may have half the population of Santa Vittoria about our ears. Fortunately this place will stand a siege. Two of the troopers have gone to the village to try and get a reinforcement, and to bring the doctor to report the death, so that we can bury the man. Come--come with me! We will shut the church up till the doctor comes, and think no more about it.' He saw that Orsino was strangely moved by what had happened, and he drew him out into the air. The carriage was being unloaded by Tatò and the notary's man, and the horses had all disappeared. The sergeant and the two remaining troopers were busy clearing out a big room which opened upon the court, with the intention of turning it into a guardroom. Orsino looked at them indifferently. A renewed danger would have roused him, but nothing else could. San Giacinto led him away to show him the buildings. 'Your nerves have been shaken,' said the older man. 'But you will soon get over that. I remember once upon a time being a good deal upset myself, when a man whom I had caught in mischief suddenly killed himself almost in my hands.' 'I shall get over it, as you say,' answered Orsino. 'Give me one of those strong cigars of yours, will you?' He would have given a good deal to have been able to confide in San Giacinto and tell him the real trouble. Had he been sure that any immediate good could come of it, he would have spoken; but it seemed to him, on the contrary, that to speak of Vittoria might make matters worse. They wandered over the dark old place for half an hour. At the back, over the torrent, there was one long wall with a rampart, terminating in the evil-looking Druse's tower. The trees grew thick over the stream, and there was only one opening in the wall, closed by double low doors with heavy bolts. The whole building was, in reality, a tolerably strong fortress, built round the four sides of a single great courtyard, to which there was but one entrance,--besides the little postern over the river. 'I should like to send a telegram to Rome,' said Orsino, suddenly. 'It is not too late for them to get it to-night.' 'You can send it to Santa Vittoria by the doctor, when he goes back.' Orsino went down into the court and got a writing-case out of his bag. It seemed convenient to write on the seat of the carriage, but just as he was going to place his writing things there, he saw that there were dark wet spots on the cushions. He shuddered, and turned away in disgust, and wrote his message, leaning on the stone brink of the well. He telegraphed that San Giacinto and he had arrived and were well, that they had met with an attack, and that he himself had killed a man. But he did not write Ferdinando's name. That seemed useless. The doctor arrived, and the carabineers brought a couple of men of the foot brigade to strengthen the little garrison. As they entered, San Giacinto saw that four rough-looking peasants were standing outside the gate, conversing and looking up to the windows; grim, clean-shaven, black-browed men of the poorer class, for they had no guns and wore battered hats and threadbare blue cloaks. San Giacinto handed the doctor over to the sergeant and went outside at once. The men stared in silence at the gigantic figure that faced them. In his rough dark clothes and big soft hat, San Giacinto looked more vast than ever, and his bold and sombre features and stern black eyes completed the impression he made on the hill men. He looked as though he might have been the chief of all the outlaws in Sicily. 'Listen!' he said, stepping up to them. 'This place is mine now, for I have bought it and paid for it, and I mean to keep it. Your friend Ferdinando Pagliuca is dead. After consenting to the sale, he dug a pitfall in the carriage road to stop us, and he and a friend of his attacked us. We shot him, and you can go and look at his body in the chapel, in there, if you have curiosity about him. There are eleven men of us here, seven being carabineers, and we have plenty of ammunition, so that it will not be well for anyone who troubles us. Tell your friends so. This is going to be a barrack, and there will be a company of infantry here before long, and there will be a railway before two years. Tell your friends that also. I suppose you are men from the Camaldoli farms.' Two of the peasants nodded, but said nothing. 'If you want work, begin and clear away those bushes. You will know where there are tools. Here is money, if you will begin at once. If you do not want money, say what you do want. But if you want nothing, go, or I shall shoot you.' He suddenly had a big army revolver in one hand, and he pulled out a loose bank note with the other. 'But I prefer that we should be good friends,' he concluded, 'for I have much work for everybody, and plenty of money to pay for it.' The men were not cowards, but they were taken unawares by San Giacinto's singular speech. They looked at each other, and at the bushes. One of them threw his head back a little, thrusting out his chin, which signifies a negation. The shortest of the four, a broad-shouldered, tough-looking fellow stepped before the rest. 'We will work for you, but we will not cut down the bushes. We will do any other work than that. You will not find anybody here who will cut down the bushes.' 'Why not?' asked San Giacinto. 'Eh--it is so,' said the man, with a peculiar expression. The other three shrugged their shoulders and nodded silently, but kept their eyes on San Giacinto's revolver. 'We are good people,' continued the man. 'We wish to be friends with every one, and since you have bought the estate, and own the land on which we live, we shall pay our rent, when we have anything wherewith to pay, and when we have not, God will provide. But as for the bushes, we cannot cut them down. We wish to be friends with every one. But as for that, signore, if you have no axes nor hedging knives, we have them. We will bring them, and then we will go away and do any other work for you. Thus we shall not cut down the bushes, but perhaps the bushes will be cut down.' San Giacinto laughed a little, and the big revolver went back into his pocket. 'I see that we shall be friends, then,' he said. 'When you have brought the hatchets, then you can come inside and help to clean the house. Then I will give you this money for your work this evening and to-morrow.' The men spoke rapidly together in dialect, so that San Giacinto could not understand them. Then the spokesman addressed him again. 'Signore,' he said, 'we will bring the hatchets to the door, but it is late to clean the house this evening. We do not want the money to-night. We will return in the morning and work for you.' 'There are three hours of daylight yet,' observed San Giacinto. 'You could do something in that time, I should think.' 'An hour and a half,' replied the man. 'It is late,' he added. 'It is very late.' The other three nodded. San Giacinto understood perfectly that there was some other reason, but did not insist. He fancied that they were suspicious of his own intentions with regard to them, and he let them go without further words. As he turned back, the village doctor appeared under the arch, leading his mule. He was a pale young fellow from Messina, who had been three or four years at Santa Vittoria. San Giacinto offered him an escort back to the village, but he refused. 'If I could not go about alone, my usefulness would be over,' he said. 'It is quite safe now. They will probably kill me the next time there is a cholera season.' 'Why?' 'They are convinced that the government sends them the cholera through the doctors, to thin the population,' answered the young man, with a dreary smile. 'What a country! It is worse than Naples.' 'In some ways, far worse. In others, much better.' 'In what way is it better?' asked San Giacinto, with some curiosity. 'They are terrible enemies,' said the doctor, 'but they can be very devoted friends, too.' 'Oh--we have had a taste of their enmity first. I hope we may see something of their friendship before long.' 'I doubt it, Signor Marchese. You will have the people against you from first to last, and your position is dangerous. Ferdinando Corleone was popular, and he had the outlaws on his side. I have no doubt that many of the band have been hidden here. It is a lonely and desolate house, full of queer hiding-places. By the bye, are you going to bury that poor man here? Shall I send people down from Santa Vittoria with a coffin, to carry him up to the cemetery?' 'You know the country. What should you advise me to do? We must give him Christian burial, I suppose.' 'I should be inclined to lift up the slab in the church and quietly drop him down among the monks,' said the doctor. 'That would be Christian burial enough for him. But you had better consult the sergeant about it. If he is taken up to Santa Vittoria, there will be a great public funeral, and all the population will follow, as though he were a martyr. If you bury him without a priest, they will say that you not only murdered him treacherously, but got rid of his body by stealth. Consult the sergeant, Signor Marchese. That is best.' The doctor mounted his mule and rode away. San Giacinto closed and barred the great gate himself before he went back into the court. He found Orsino in the midst of a discussion with the sergeant, regarding the same question of the disposal of the body. 'I know his family,' Orsino was saying. 'Some of them are friends of mine. He must be decently buried by a priest. I insist upon it.' The sergeant repeated what the doctor had said, namely, that a public funeral would produce something like a popular demonstration. 'I should not care if it produced a revolution,' answered Orsino. 'I killed the man like a dog, not knowing who he was, but I will not have him buried like one. If you are afraid of the village, let them send their priest down here, dig a grave under the floor of the church, and bury him there. But he shall not be dropped into a hole like a dead rat without a blessing. Besides, it is not legal--there are all sorts of severe regulations--' 'There is one against burying any one within a church,' observed the sergeant. 'But the worst that could happen would be that you might have to pay a fine. It shall be as you please, signore. In the morning we will get a priest and a coffin, and bury him under the church. I have the doctor's certificate in my pocket.' Orsino was satisfied, and went away to be alone again, not caring where. But San Giacinto and the carabineers proceeded to turn the great court into something like a camp. There were all sorts of offices, kitchens, bake-houses, oil-presses, and storerooms, which opened directly upon the paved space. The men collected old wood and kindling stuff to make a fire, and prepared to cook some of the provisions which San Giacinto had brought for the night, while he and the sergeant determined on the best positions for sentries. Orsino wandered about the great rooms upstairs. They were half dismantled and much dilapidated, but not altogether unfurnished. Ferdinando had retired some days previously to the village and had taken what he needed for his own use, but had left the rest. There was a tolerably furnished room immediately above the great gate. Orsino opened the window wide, and leaned out, breathing the outer air with a certain sense of relief from oppression. Watching the swallows that darted down from under the eaves to the weed-grown lawn, and up again with meteor speed, and catching in his face the last reflections of the sun, which was sinking fast between two distant hills, he could almost believe that it had all been a bad dream. He could at least try to believe it for a little while. But the sun went down quickly, though it still blazed full on the enormous snowy dome of Etna, opposite the window; and the chill of evening came on while it was yet day, and with it came back the memory of the coldly smiling, handsome face of dead Ferdinando Pagliuca, and the terrible suggestion of a likeness to Vittoria, which had struck at Orsino's heart when he had found him in the bushes, shot through the head. It all came back with a sudden, drowning rush that was overwhelming. He turned from the window, and, to occupy himself, he went and got his belongings and tried to make the room habitable. He knew that it was in a good position for the night, since it was not likely that he should sleep much, and he could watch the gate from the window, for his share of the defence. CHAPTER XII As was perhaps to be expected, considering the precautions taken, the friends of Ferdinando Pagliuca gave no sign during the night. The carabineers, when they are actually present anywhere, impose respect, though their existence is forgotten as soon as they are obliged to move on. Orsino lay down upon a dusty mattress in the room he had chosen. He had been down to the court again, where San Giacinto ate his supper from the soldier's improvised kitchen, by the light of a fire of brush and scraps of broken wood, which one of the men replenished from time to time. But Orsino was not hungry, and presently he had gone upstairs again. About the middle of the night, San Giacinto, carrying a lantern, opened his door, and found him reading by the light of a solitary candle. 'Has all been quiet on this side?' asked the big man. 'All quiet,' answered Orsino. San Giacinto nodded, shut the door, and went off, knowing that the young man would rather be alone. An hour later, Orsino's book dropped from his hand, and he dozed a little, in a broken way. Outside, the waning moon had risen high above the shoulders of Etna, not a breath was stirring, and only the distant roar of the water came steadily up from the other side of the old monastery. Orsino dreamed strange, shapeless dreams of vast desolateness and empty darkness, in which he had no perception by sight, and heard only the unbroken rush of water far away. Then, in the extreme blackness of nothing, a dead face appeared, with wide and sightless eyes that stared at him, and he woke and turned upon his side with a shudder, to doze again and dream again, and wake again. It was a horrible night. Towards morning the dream changed. In the darkness, together with the sub-bass of the torrent, a voice came to him, in a low, long-drawn lamentation. It was Vittoria's voice, and yet unlike hers. He could hear the words: 'Me l'hanno ammazzato! Me l'hanno ammazzato!' It was Vittoria d'Oriani wailing over her brother's body. Orsino heard the words and the voice distinctly. She was outside his door. She had dragged the corpse up from the church in the dark, all the long, winding way, to bring it to him and reproach him, and to weep over it. He refused to allow himself to awake, as one sometimes can in a dream, for he knew, somehow, that he was not altogether dreaming. There was an element of reality in the two sounds of the river and the voice, interfering with each other, and the voice came irregularly, always repeating the same words, but the river roared on without a break. Then there was a sound of moaning without words, and then the words began again, always the same. Orsino started and sat up, wide awake. He was sure that he was awake now, for he could see that the light outside the window was gray. The dawn was beginning to drink the moonlight out of the air. He heard the voice distinctly. 'Me l'hanno ammazzato!' it moaned, but much less loudly than he had heard it in his dream. 'They have killed him for me,' is the meaning of the words. Orsino sprang from the bed, and opened the door, which was opposite the window. The long corridor was dark and quiet, and he turned back and opened the casement, and looked out. The words were half spoken again, but suddenly ceased as he threw the window open. In the dim gray dawn he saw a muffled figure crouching on the stones by the gate, slowly swaying forwards and backwards. The wail began again, very soft and low, and as though the woman half feared to be heard and yet could not control herself. Orsino watched her intently for a few moments, and then understood. It was some woman who had loved Ferdinando Pagliuca, and who came in the simple old way to mourn at the door of the house wherein he lay dead. Her head was covered with a black shawl, and her skirts were black, too, but her hands were clasped about her knees, and visible, and looked white in the dawn. The young man drew back softly from the window, and sat down upon the edge of the bed. He, of all men, had no right to silence the woman. She did no harm, wailing for the dead man out there in the cold dawn. She was not the only one who was to mourn him on that day. In a few hours his sister would know, his mother, his brothers, and all the world besides, though the rest of the world mattered little enough to Orsino. But this woman's grief was a sort of foretaste of Vittoria's. She was but a peasant woman, perhaps, or at most a girl of the small farmers' class, but she had loved him, and would hate for ever the man who had killed him. How much more should the slayer be hated by the dead man's own flesh and blood! The light grew less gray by quick degrees, and there were heavy footsteps in the corridor. Then came a knock at the door, and a trooper appeared in his forage cap. 'We have made the coffee, signore,' he said, on the threshold. He held out a bright tin pannikin from which the steam rose in fragrant clouds. The physical impression of the aromatic smell was the first pleasant sensation which Orsino had experienced since he had pulled the trigger of his rifle on the previous afternoon. If we could but look at things as they are, we should see that there is neither love nor hate, neither joy nor grief, nor hope nor fear, that will not at last efface itself for a moment before hunger and thirst; so effectually can this dying body mask and screen the undying essence. Orsino drank the hot coffee with keen physical delight, though the woman's wailing came up to his ears through the open window, and though he had known a moment earlier that the stealing dawn was the beginning of a day which might end in a broken heart. But the trooper heard the voice, and went to the window and looked out, while Orsino drank. 'Ho, there!' he cried roughly. 'Will you go or not?' He turned to Orsino. 'She has been there since two o'clock,' he explained. 'We heard her through the closed gate.' 'Let her alone,' said Orsino authoritatively. 'She is only a woman, and can do no harm; and she has a right to her mourning, God knows.' 'There will be a hundred before the sun has been up an hour, signore,' answered the soldier. 'The people will collect about her, for they will come out of curiosity, from many miles away. It will be better to get rid of them as fast as they come.' 'You might let that poor woman in,' suggested Orsino. 'After all, I have killed her lover--she has a right to see his body.' 'As you wish, signore,' answered the trooper, taking the empty pannikin. Orsino got up and looked out again, as the man went away. The girl had risen to her feet, and stood looking up to the window. Her shawl had fallen back upon her shoulders, and disclosed a young and dishevelled but beautiful head, of the Greek type, though the eyes were somewhat long and almond-shaped. There was no colour in the olive-pale cheeks, and little in the parted lips; and the hand that gathered the shawl to the bosom was singularly white. The regular features were set in a tragic mask of grief, such as one very rarely sees in the modern world. When she saw Orsino, she suddenly raised both hands to him, like a suppliant of old. 'They have killed him!' she cried. 'They have killed my bridegroom! Let me see him! let me kiss him! Are they Christians, and will not let me see him?' 'You shall see him,' answered Orsino. 'I will let you in myself.' 'God will render it to you, signore. And God will render also to his murderer a bad death.' She sat down upon the stones, thinking, perhaps, that it would be long before the gate was opened; and she began her low moan again. 'They have killed him! They have murdered him!' But Orsino had already left the window and the room. He had understood clearly from her words and face that she was no light creature, for whom Ferdinando had conceived a passing fancy. He had meant to marry her, perhaps within a few days. There was in her face the high stamp of innocence, and her voice rang fearless and true. Ferdinando had never been like his brothers. He had meant to marry this girl, doubtless a small farmer's daughter, from her dress; and he would have lived happily with her, sinking, perhaps, to a lower social level, but morally rising far higher than his scheming brothers. Orsino had guessed from his dead face, and from what he had heard, that Ferdinando had been the best of the family; and in a semi-barbarous country like the interior of Sicily, the young Roman did not blame him overmuch for having tried to resist the new owners of his father's house when they came to take possession. San Giacinto and the sergeant objected on principle to admitting the girl, but Orsino insisted, and at last opened the gate himself. She had covered her head and face again, and followed him swiftly and noiselessly across the court to the door of the church. As though by instinct she turned directly to her lover's body, where it lay before the side altar, and with a low wail like a wounded animal, she fell beside it, with clasped hands. Orsino left her there alone, closing the door softly, and came out into the court, where it was almost broad daylight. The men had drunk their coffee and were grooming their black chargers tethered to rusty rings in the wall. The old stables were between the court and the rampart. The two foot-carabineers were despatched to Santa Vittoria to get a coffin for the dead man and a priest to come and bury him. From the church came every now and then the piteous echo of the girl's lamentations. Then there was a knocking at the gate, and someone called from without. One of the troopers looked out through the narrow slit in the stone, made just wide enough to let the barrel of a gun pass. Half a dozen peasants were outside, and the soldiers could see two more coming down the drive towards the house. He asked what they wanted. 'We wish to speak with the master,' said one, and two or three repeated the words. They were the men who had brought the tools on the previous evening, with a number of others, the small tenants of the little estate. San Giacinto went and spoke with them, assuring them that he would be a better landlord than they had ever had, if they would treat him well, but that if he met with any treachery, he would send every man of them to the galleys for life. It was his way of making acquaintance, and they seemed to understand it. While he was speaking a number of men and women appeared in the drive, headed by the two soldiers who had gone to the village. Close behind them, swaying with the walk of the woman who carried the load upon her head, a white deal coffin caught the morning light. Then more people, and always more, came in sight, up the drive. Amongst them walked a young priest in his short white 'cotta' over his shabby cassock, and beside him came a big boy bearing a silver basin with holy water, and the little broom for sprinkling it. The two trudged along in a business-like way, and all the people were talking loudly. It seemed to San Giacinto that half the population of the village must have turned out. He stepped back and called to the troopers to keep the gate, and prevent the crowd from entering. Then he waited outside. The people became silent as they came near, and he looked at them, scrutinising their faces. Some of the men had their guns slung over their shoulders, but many were only labourers and had none. Many scowling glances were turned on San Giacinto as the crowd came up to the gate, and he began to anticipate trouble of some sort. The troopers had their rifles in their hands as they formed up behind him. The tenants of Camaldoli mixed with the crowd, evidently not wishing to identify themselves with their new landlord. 'What do you want?' asked San Giacinto, in a harsh, commanding voice. The priest came close to him, and bowed and smiled, as though the occasion of meeting were a pleasant one. Then he stood aside a little, and a strapping woman who carried the coffin on her head marched in under the gate between the soldiers, who made way for her. And behind her came her husband, a crooked little carpenter, carrying a leathern bag from which protruded the worn and blackened handle of a big hammer. The third comer was stopped by the sergeant. He was a ghastly pale old man, with a three-days' beard on his pointed chin, and he was dressed in dingy black. 'Who are you?' asked the sergeant sharply. 'I am one without whom people are not buried,' answered the old man, in a cracked voice. 'You have a carpenter and a priest, but there is a third--I am he, the servant of the dead, who give no orders.' The sergeant understood that the man was the parish undertaker, and let him pass also. Meanwhile San Giacinto repeated his question. 'What do you all want?' he asked in a thundering tone, for he was annoyed. 'If it please you, Signor Marchese,' said the priest, 'these, my parishioners, desire the body of Don Ferdinando Corleone, in order to bury it in holy ground, for he was beloved of many. Pray do not be angry, Excellency, for they come in peace, having heard that Don Ferdinando had been killed by an accident. Grant their request, which is a proper one, and they shall depart quickly. I answer for them.' As he spoke the last words in a tone which all could hear, he turned to the crowd, as though for their assent. 'He answers for us,' said many of them, in a breath. 'Good, Don Niccola! You answer for us. We are Christians. We wish to bury Don Ferdinando properly.' 'I have not the slightest objection,' said San Giacinto. 'On the contrary, I respect your wish, and I only regret that I have not the means of doing more honour to your friend. You must attend to that. Be kind enough to wait here while the priest blesses the body.' The priest and the boy with the holy water passed in, and the gate closed upon the crowd. While they had been talking, the carpenter and his wife had entered the court. Basili's man led them to the door of the church and opened it. The woman marched in with her swinging stride, and one hand on her hips, while the other steadied the deal coffin. 'Where is he?' she asked in a loud, good-natured voice, for the church seemed very dark after the morning light outside. She was answered by a low cry from the steps of the side altar, where the unhappy girl lay half across her lover's body, looking round towards the door, in a new horror. The woman uttered an exclamation of surprise, and then slowly swung her burden round so that she could see her husband. 'Help me, Ciccio,' she said, in a matter-of-fact way. 'They are always inconvenient things.' The man held up his hands and took the foot, while his wife raised her hands also and shifted the weight towards him little by little, until she got hold of the head. The loose lid rattled as they set the thing down on the floor. Then the woman took the rolled towel on which she had carried the weight, from her head, undid it, wiped her brow with it, and looked at the girl in some perplexity. 'It is the apothecary's Concetta,' she said, suddenly recognising the white features in the gloom. 'Oh, poor child! poor child!' she cried, going forward quickly, while her husband took the lid from the coffin and began to fumble in his leathern bag for his nails. As the woman approached the step, Concetta threw her arms wildly over her head, stiffened her limbs straight out, and rolled over and over upon the damp pavement, in one of those strange fainting fits which sometimes seize women in moments of intense grief. The carpenter's wife tried to lift her, and to bend her arms, so as to get hold of her; but the girl was as rigid as though she were in a cataleptic trance. 'Poor child! Poor Concetta!' exclaimed the carpenter's wife, softly. Then, bending her broad back, she raised the girl up by main strength, getting first one arm round her and then the other, till she got her weight up and could carry her. Her crooked little husband paid no attention to her. Women were women's business at such times. The big woman got the girl out into the morning sunshine in the court, meeting the eccentric undertaker and the priest, who were talking together outside. San Giacinto came forward instantly, followed by Orsino, who had been wandering about the rampart over the river when the crowd had come. San Giacinto took the unconscious girl's body from the woman, with ease. 'Come,' he said, carrying her before him on his arms. 'Get some water.' He entered the room where the men had slept on some straw and laid Concetta down, her arms still stiffened above her head. One of the troopers brought water in a pannikin. San Giacinto dashed the cold drops upon the white face, and the features quivered nervously. 'Take care of her,' he said to the woman. 'Who is she?' 'She is Concetta, the daughter of Don Atanasio, the apothecary. She was to marry Don Ferdinando next week. But now that they have killed him, she will marry someone else.' 'Poor girl!' exclaimed San Giacinto compassionately, and he turned and went out. Orsino was standing by the door, looking in, and he had heard what the woman had said. It confirmed what he had guessed from the girl's own words. He wondered how it was possible that the action of one second could really cause such terrible trouble in the world. From the open door of the church came the sound of the regular blows of a hammer. The work had been quickly done and the carpenter was nailing down the lid of the coffin. The priest, who had stayed in the early sunshine for warmth, hung a shabby little stole round his neck, and took the holy water basin and the little broom from the boy, and entered the church to bless the body before it was taken away. As it was not advisable to let in the crowd, the six soldiers lifted the coffin and bore it out of the gate. Then the peasants laid it on a bier which had been brought after them and covered it with a rusty black pall. The priest walked before it, and began to recite the psalms for the dead. The women covered their heads, and some of the men uncovered theirs, and a few joined in the priest's monotonous recitations. A quarter of an hour later, San Giacinto, watching from the gate, saw the last of the people disappear up the drive. But the carpenter's wife had stayed with Concetta. 'It is a bad business,' said the old giant to himself, as he turned and went in. CHAPTER XIII The taking possession of Camaldoli had turned out much more difficult and dangerous than even San Giacinto had anticipated, for the catastrophe of Ferdinando Pagliuca's death had at once aroused the anger and revengeful resentment of the whole neighbourhood. He made up his mind that it would be necessary for himself or Orsino to return to Rome at once, both in order to see the Minister of the Interior, with a view to obtaining special protection from the government, and to see the Pagliuca family, in the hope of pacifying them. The latter mission would not be an easy nor an agreeable one, and San Giacinto would gladly have undertaken it himself. On the other hand, he did not trust Orsino's wisdom in managing matters in Sicily. The young man was courageous and determined, but he had not the knowledge of the southern character which was indispensable. Moreover, he was not the real owner of the lands, and would not feel that he had authority to act independently in all cases. It was, therefore, decided that Orsino should go back to Rome at once, while San Giacinto remained at Camaldoli to get matters into a better shape. It was a dreary journey for Orsino. He telegraphed that he was coming, found that there was no steamer from Messina, crossed to Reggio, and travelled all night and all the next day by the railway, reaching Rome at night, jaded and worn. He found, as he had expected, that all Rome was talking of his adventure with the brigands, and of the death of Ferdinando Pagliuca, and of the probable consequences. But he learned to his surprise how Tebaldo had been heard to say at the club on the previous afternoon that Ferdinando was no relation of his, and that it was a mere coincidence of names. 'Nevertheless,' said Sant' Ilario, 'we all believe that you have killed his brother. Tebaldo Pagliuca has no mind to have it said that his brother was a brigand and died like a dog. He says he is not in Sicily, but left some time ago. As no one in Rome ever saw him, most people will accept the statement for the girl's sake, if not for the rest of the family.' Orsino looked down thoughtfully while his father was speaking. He understood at once that the story being passably discreditable to the d'Oriani, he had better seem to fall in with their view of the case, by holding his peace when he could. His father and mother, as well as the old Prince, insisted upon hearing a detailed account of the affair in the woods, however, and he was obliged to tell them all that had happened, though he said nothing about the fancied resemblance of Ferdinando to Vittoria, and as little as possible about the way in which the people had carried off the man's body with a public demonstration of sorrow. After all, no one had told him that Ferdinando was the brother of Tebaldo. He had taken it for granted, and it was barely possible that he might have been mistaken. 'There may be others of the name,' he said, as he concluded his story. His mother looked at him keenly. Half an hour later he was alone with her in her own sitting-room. 'Why did you say that there might be others of the name?' she asked gravely. 'Why did you wish to imply that the unfortunate man may not have been the brother of Don Tebaldo and Donna Vittoria?' Orsino was silent for a moment. There was reproach in Corona's tone, for she herself had not the slightest doubt in the matter. He came and stood before her, for he was a truthful man. 'It seemed to me,' he said, 'that I might let him have the benefit of any doubt there may be, though I have none myself. The story will be a terrible injury to the family.' 'You are certainly not called upon to tell it to everyone,' said Corona. 'I only wished to know what you really thought.' 'I am sorry to say that I feel sure of the man's identity, mother. And I want you to help me,' he added suddenly. 'I wish to see Donna Vittoria alone. You can manage it.' Corona did not answer at once, but looked long and earnestly at her eldest son. 'What is it, mother?' he asked, at last. 'It is a very terrible thing,' she answered slowly. 'You love the girl, you wish to marry her, and you have killed her brother. Is not that the truth?' 'Yes, that is the truth,' said Orsino. 'Help me to see her. No one else can.' 'Does anyone know? Did you speak about it to her mother, or her brothers, before you left? Does Ippolito know?' 'No one knows. Will you help me, mother?' 'I will do my best,' said Corona thoughtfully. 'Not that I wish you to marry into that family,' she added. 'They have a bad name.' 'But she is not like them. It is not her fault.' 'No, it is not her fault, and she has not their faults. But for her brothers--well, we need not talk of that. For the sake of what there has been between you two, already, you have a sort of right to see Vittoria.' 'I must see her.' 'I went there yesterday, after we read the news in the papers,' said Corona. 'Her mother was ill. Later your father came in and said he had seen Don Tebaldo at the club. You heard what he said. They mean to deny the relationship. In fact, they have done so. I can therefore propose to take Vittoria to drive to-morrow afternoon, and I can bring her here to tea, in my own sitting-room. Then you may come here and see her, and I will leave you alone for a little while. Yes--you have a right to see her and to defend yourself to her, and explain to her how you killed that poor man, not knowing who he was.' 'Thank you--you are very good to me. Mother--' he hesitated a moment--'if my father had killed your brother by accident, would you have married him?' He fixed his eyes on Corona's. She was silent for a moment. 'Yes,' she answered presently. 'The love of an honest woman for an honest man can go farther than that.' She turned her beautiful face from Orsino as she spoke, and her splendid eyes grew dreamy and soft, as she leaned back in her chair beside her writing-table. He watched her, and a wave of hope rose slowly to his heart. But all women were not like his mother. Early on the following morning she wrote a note to Vittoria. The answer came back after a long time, and the man sent up word that he had been kept waiting three-quarters of an hour for it. It was written in a tremulous hand, and badly worded, but it said that Vittoria would be ready at the appointed time. Her mother, she added, was ill, but wished her to accept the Princess's invitation. Vittoria had grown thin and pale, and there was a sort of haunted look in her young eyes as she sat beside Corona in the big carriage. Corona herself hesitated as to what she should say, for the girl was evidently in a condition to faint, or break down with tears, at any sudden shock. Yet it was necessary to tell her that Orsino was waiting for her, and it might be necessary also to use some persuasion in inducing her to meet him. 'My dear,' said Corona, after a little while, 'I want you to come home with me when we have had a little drive. Do you mind? We will have tea together in my little room.' 'Yes--of course--I should like it very much,' answered Vittoria. 'We shall not be quite alone,' Corona continued. 'I hope you will not mind.' Corona Saracinesca had many good qualities, but she was not remarkably clever, and when she wished to be tactful she often found herself in conflict with the singular directness of her own character. At the same time, she feared to let the girl at her side see how much she knew. Vittoria looked so pale and nervous that she might faint. Corona had never fainted. The girl naturally supposed that Orsino was still in Sicily. They were near the Porta Salaria, and there was a long stretch of lonely road between high walls, just beyond it. Corona waited till they had passed the gate. 'My dear,' she began again, taking Vittoria's hand kindly, 'do not be surprised at what I am going to tell you. My son Orsino--' Vittoria started, and her hand shook in her companion's hold. 'Yes--my son Orsino has come back unexpectedly and wishes very much to see you.' Vittoria leaned back suddenly and closed her eyes. Corona thought that the fainting fit had certainly come, and tried to put her arm round the slight young figure. But as she looked into Vittoria's face, she saw that the soft colour was suddenly blushing in her cheeks. In a moment her eyes opened again, and there was light in them for a moment. 'I did not know how you would take it,' said Corona, simply, 'but I see that you are glad.' 'For him--that he is safe,' answered the young girl, in a low voice. 'But--' She stopped, and gradually the colour sank away from her face again, and her eyes grew heavy once more. The trouble was greater than the gladness. 'Will you see him, in my own room?' asked the elder woman, after a pause. 'Oh, yes--yes! Indeed I will--I must see him. How kind you are!' Corona leaned forward and spoke to the footman at once, and the carriage turned back towards the city. She knew well enough how desperately hard it would be for Vittoria to wait for the meeting. She knew also, not by instinct of tact, but by a woman's inborn charity, that it would be kind of her to speak of other things now that she had said what was necessary, and not to force upon Vittoria the fact that Orsino had revealed his secret, still less to ask her any questions about her true relationship to Ferdinando Pagliuca, which might put her in the awkward position of contradicting Tebaldo's public statement. But as they swept down the crowded streets, amongst the many carriages, Vittoria looked round into Corona's face almost shyly, for she was very grateful. 'How good you are to me!' she exclaimed softly. 'I shall not forget it.' Corona smiled, but said nothing, and ten minutes later the carriage thundered under the archway of the gate. Corona took Vittoria through the state apartments, where they were sure of meeting no one at that time, and into her bedroom by a door she seldom used. Then she pointed to another at the other side. 'That is the way to my sitting-room, my dear,' she said. 'Orsino is there alone.' With a sudden impulse she kissed her on both cheeks and pushed her towards the door. CHAPTER XIV Orsino heard the door of his mother's bedroom open, and rose to his feet, expecting to see Corona. He started as Vittoria entered, and he touched the writing-table with his hand as though he were unsteady. The young girl came forward towards him quickly, and the colour rose visibly in her face while she crossed the little room. Orsino was white and did not hold out his hand, not knowing what to expect, for it was the hand that had killed her brother but two days ago. Vittoria had not thought of what she should do or say, for it had been impossible to think. But as she came near, both her hands went out instinctively to touch him. Almost instinctively, too, he drew back from her touch a little. But she did not see the movement, and her eyes sought his as she laid her fingers lightly upon his shoulders and looked up to him. Then the sadness in his face, that had been almost like fear of her, relaxed toward a change, and his eyes opened wide in a sort of hesitating surprise. Two words, low and earnest, trembled upon Vittoria's lips. 'Thank God!' In an instant he knew that she loved him in spite of all. Yet, arguing against his senses that it was impossible, he would not take her at her word. He took both her hands from his shoulders and held them, so that they crossed. 'Was he really your brother?' he asked slowly. 'Yes,' she answered faintly, and looked down. Perhaps it seemed to her that she should be ashamed of forgiving, before he had said one word of defence or uttered one expression of sorrow for what he had done. But she loved him, and since she had been a little child she had not seen her brother Ferdinando half a dozen times. It was true that when she had seen him she had been drawn to him, as she was not drawn to the two that were left, for he had not been like the others. She knew that she should have trusted Ferdinando if she had known him better. Orsino began his defence. 'We were fired upon several times,' he said. Her hands started in his as she thought of his danger. 'I saw a man's coat moving in the brush,' he continued, 'and I aimed at it. I never saw the man's face till we found him lying dead. It was not an accident, for bullets cut the trees overhead and struck the carriage.' Again her hands quivered. 'It was a fight, and I meant to kill the man. But I could not see his face.' She did not speak for a moment. Then, for the first time, she shrank a little, and withdrew her hands from his. 'I know--yes--it is terrible,' she said in broken tones; and she glanced at him, and looked down again. 'Do not speak of it,' she added suddenly, and she was surprised at her own words. It was the woman's impulse to dissociate the man she loved from the deed, for which she could not but feel horror. She would have given the world to sit down beside him and talk of other things. But he wished the situation to be cleared for ever, as any courageous man would. 'I must speak of it,' he answered. 'Perhaps we shall never have the chance again--' 'Never? What do you mean?' she asked quickly. 'Why not?' 'You may forgive me,' he answered earnestly. 'You know that I would have let him shoot me ten times over rather than have hurt you--' 'Orsino--' She touched his arm nervously, trying to stop him. 'Yes--I wish I were in his grave to-day! You may forgive, but you cannot forget--how can you?' 'How? If--if you still love me, I can forget--' Orsino's eyes were suddenly moist. It seemed as though something broke, and let in the light. 'I shall always love you,' he said simply; as men sometimes do when they are very much in earnest. 'And I--' She did not finish the sentence in words, but her hand and face said the rest. 'Sit down,' she said, after a little silence. They went to a little sofa and sat down together, opposite the window. 'Do you think that anything you could do could make me not love you?' she asked, looking into his face. 'Are you surprised? Did you think that I should turn upon you and accuse you of my brother's death, and say that I hated you? You should not have judged me so--it was unkind!' 'It has all been so horrible that I did not know what to expect,' he said. 'I have not been able to think sensibly until now. And even now--no, I have not judged you, as you call it, dear. But I expected that you would judge me, as God knows you have the right.' 'Why should I judge you?' asked Vittoria, softly and lovingly. 'If you had lain in wait for him and killed him treacherously, as he meant to kill you, it would have been different. If he had killed you, as he was there to kill you--as he might have killed you if you had not been first--I--well, I am only a girl, but even these little hands would have had some strength! But as it is, God willed it. Whom shall I judge? God? That would be wrong. God protected you, and my brother died in his treachery. Do you think that if I had been there, and had been a man, and the guns firing, and the bullets flying, I should not have done as you did, and shot my own brother? It would have been much more horrible even than it is, but of course I should have done it. Then why are you in such distress? Why did you think that I should not love you any more?' 'I did not dare to think it,' answered Orsino. 'You see, as I said, God willed it--not you. You were but the instrument, unconscious and innocent. It is only a little child that will strike the senseless thing that hurts it.' 'You are eloquent, darling. You will make me think as you do.' 'I wish you would, indeed I wish you would! I am sorry, I am grieved, I shall mourn poor Ferdinando, though I scarcely knew him. But you--I shall love you always, and for me, as I see it, you were no more the willing cause of his death than the senseless gun you held in your hand. Do you believe me?' She took his hand again, as though to feel that he understood. And understanding, he drew her close to him and kissed her young eyes, as he had done that first time, out on the bridge over the street. 'You have my life,' he said tenderly. 'I give you my life and soul, dear.' She put up her face suddenly, and kissed his cheek, and instantly the colour filled her own, and she shrank back, and spoke in a different tone. 'We will put away that dreadful thing,' she said, drawing a little towards her own end of the sofa. 'We will never speak of it again, for you understand.' 'But your mother, your brothers,' answered Orsino. 'What of them? I hear that they do not acknowledge--' he stopped, puzzled as to how he should speak. 'My mother is ill with grief, for Ferdinando was her favourite. But Tebaldo and Francesco have determined that they will act as though he were no relation of ours. They say that it would ruin us all to have it said that our brother had been with the brigands. That is true, is it not?' 'It would be a great injury to you,' answered Orsino. 'Yes. That is what they say. And Tebaldo will not let us wear mourning, for fear that people should not believe what he says. This morning when the Princess's note came, Tebaldo insisted that I should accept, but my mother said that I should not come to the house. They had a long discussion, and she submitted at last. What can she do? He rules everybody--and he is bad, bad in his heart, bad in his soul! Francesco is only weak, but Tebaldo is bad. Beware of him, for though he says that Ferdinando was not his brother, he will not forgive you. But you will not go back to Sicily?' 'Yes, I must go. I cannot leave San Giacinto alone, since I have created so much trouble.' 'Since poor Ferdinando is dead, you will be safer--I mean--' she hesitated. 'Orsino!' she suddenly exclaimed, 'I knew that he would try to kill you--that is why I wanted to keep you here. I did not dare tell you--but I begged so hard--I thought that for my sake, perhaps, you would not go. Tebaldo would kill me if he knew that I were telling you the truth now. He knew that Ferdinando had friends among the outlaws, and that he sometimes lived with them for weeks. And Ferdinando wrote to Tebaldo, and warned him that although he had signed the deed, no one should ever enter the gate of Camaldoli while he was alive. And no one did, for he died. But the Romans would think that he was a common brigand; and I suppose that Tebaldo is right, for it would injure us very much. But between you and me there must be nothing but the truth, so I have told you all. And now beware of Tebaldo; for, in spite of what he says, he will some day try to avenge his brother.' 'I understand it all much better now,' said Orsino, thoughtfully. 'I am glad you have told me. But the question is, whether your mother and your brothers will ever consent to our marriage, Vittoria. That is what I want to know.' 'My mother--never! Tebaldo might, for interest. He is very scheming. But my mother will never consent. She will never see you again, if she can help it.' 'What are we to do?' asked Orsino, speaking rather to himself than to Vittoria. 'I do not know,' she answered, in a tone of perplexity. 'We must wait, I suppose. Perhaps she will change, and see it all differently. We can afford to wait--we are young. We love each other, and we can meet. Is it so hard to wait awhile before being married?' 'Yes,' said Orsino. 'It is hard to wait for you.' 'I will do anything you like,' answered Vittoria. 'Only wait a little while, and see whether my mother does not change. Only a little while!' 'We must, I suppose,' said Orsino, reluctantly. 'But I do not see why your mother should not always think of me as she does to-day. I can do nothing to improve matters.' 'Let us be satisfied with to-day,' replied Vittoria, rather anxiously, and as though to break off the conversation. 'I was miserably unhappy this evening, and I thought you were in Sicily; and instead, we have met. It is enough for one day--it is a thousand times more than I had hoped.' 'Or I,' said Orsino, bending down and kissing her hand more than once. The handle of Corona's door turned very audibly just then, and a moment later the Princess entered the room. Without seeming to scrutinise the faces of the two, she understood at a glance that Vittoria had accepted the tragic situation, as she herself would have done; and that if there had been any discussion, it was over. Vittoria coloured a little, when she met Corona's eyes, realising how the older woman had, as it were, arranged a lovers' meeting for her. But Corona herself did not know whether to be glad or sorry for what had happened. Nor was it easy for anyone to foresee the consequences of the present situation. It was only too clear that the young people loved each other with all their hearts; and Corona herself was very fond of Vittoria, and believed her to be quite unlike her family. Yet at best she was an exception in a race that had a bad name; and Corona knew how her husband and his father would oppose the marriage, even though she herself should consent to it. She guessed, too, that Vittoria's mother would refuse to hear of it. Altogether Orsino had fallen in love very unfortunately, and Corona could see no possible happy termination to the affair. Therefore, against her own nature and her affection for her son, she was conscious of a certain disappointment when she saw that the love between the two was undiminished, even by the terrible catastrophe of Ferdinando's death. It would have been so much simpler if Vittoria had bidden goodbye for ever to the man who had killed her brother. CHAPTER XV Ippolito Saracinesca was, perhaps, of all the household the most glad to see his favourite brother at home again so soon. He missed the companionship which had always been a large element in his life. 'I shall go with you when you return,' he said, sitting on the edge of Orsino's table, and swinging his priestly legs in an undignified fashion. 'Are you in earnest?' asked Orsino, with a laugh. 'Yes. Why not? You say that there is a church on the place, or a chapel. I will say mass there for the household on Sundays, and keep you company on week-days. You will be lonely when San Giacinto comes back. Besides, after what has happened, I hate to think that you are down there alone among strangers.' 'Have you nothing to keep you in Rome?' asked Orsino, much tempted by the offer. 'Nothing in the world.' 'There will be no piano at Camaldoli.' 'I suppose there is an organ in your church, is there not?' 'No. There is probably one in the church of Santa Vittoria. You could go and play on it.' 'How far is it?' 'Three-quarters of a mile, I was told.' 'As far as from the Piazza di Venezia to the Piazza del Popolo.' 'Less. That is a mile, they always used to say, when the loose horses ran the race in carnival.' 'It would be just a pleasant walk, then,' said Ippolito, already planning his future occupations at Camaldoli. 'I could go over in the afternoon, when the church is closed, and play on the organ an hour or two whenever I pleased.' 'I have no idea what sort of thing the Santa Vittoria organ will turn out to be,' answered Orsino. 'It is probably falling to pieces, and has not been tuned since the beginning of the century.' 'I will mend it and tune it,' said Ippolito, confidently. 'You?' Orsino looked at his brother's delicate hands and laughed. 'Of course. Every musician knows something about the instruments he plays. I know how an organ is tuned, and I understand the mechanism. The old-fashioned ones are simple things enough. When a note goes wrong you can generally mend the tracker with a bit of wire, or a stick, as the case may be--or if it is the wind chest--' 'It is not of the slightest use to talk to me about that sort of thing,' interrupted Orsino, 'for I understand nothing about organs, nor about music either, for that matter.' 'I will take some tools with me, and some kid, and a supply of fine glue,' said Ippolito, still full of his idea. 'How about the rooms? Is there any decent furniture?' Orsino gave him a general idea of the state of Camaldoli, not calculated to encourage him in his intention, but the young priest was both very fond of his brother, and he was in love with the novelty of his idea. 'I daresay that they have not too many priests in that part of the country,' he said. 'I may be of some use.' 'We got one without difficulty to bury that poor man,' answered Orsino. 'But you may be right. You may be the means of redeeming Sicily.' He laughed. He was, indeed, inclined to laugh rather unexpectedly, since his interview with Vittoria. He was far too manly and strong to be saddened for any length of time by the fact of having taken the life of a man who had, undoubtedly, attempted to murder him by stealth. He had been oppressed by the certainty that the deed had raised an insurmountable barrier between Vittoria and himself. Since he had found that he had been mistaken, he was frankly glad that he had killed Ferdinando Pagliuca, for the very plain reason that if he had not done so, Ferdinando Pagliuca would have certainly killed him, or San Giacinto, or both. He had no more mawkish sentiment about the horror of shedding human blood than had embarrassed his own forefathers in wilder times. If men turned brigands and dug pitfalls, and tried to murder honest folk by treachery, they deserved to be killed; and though the first impression he had received, when he had been sure that he had killed his man, had been painful, because he was young and inexperienced in actual fighting, he now realised that but for the relationship of the dead man, it had not only been excusable, but wise, to shoot him like a wild beast. His own people thought so too. It was natural, therefore, that his spirits should rise after his interview with Vittoria. On that day he had already been busy in carrying out San Giacinto's directions, and on the following morning he went to work with increased energy. Corona watched him when they met, and the presentiment of evil which had seized her when he had first spoken of going to Sicily became more oppressive. She told herself that the worst had happened which could happen, but she answered herself with old tales of Sicilian revenge after long-nourished hatred. She was shocked when Ippolito announced his intention of accompanying his brother. Ippolito was almost indispensable to her. The old Prince used to tell her that her priest son answered the purpose of a daughter with none of the latter's disadvantages, at which Ippolito himself was the first to laugh good-naturedly, being well aware that he had as good stuff in him as his rough-cast brothers. But Corona really loved him more as a daughter than a son, and because he was less strong than the others, she was not so easily persuaded that he was safe when he was away from her, and she half resented the old gentleman's jest. She especially dreaded anything like physical exposure or physical danger for him. She was a brave and strong woman in almost every way, and would have sent her other three sons out to fight for their country or their honour without fear or hesitation. But Ippolito was different. Orsino might face the brigands if he chose. She could be momentarily anxious about him, but the belief prevailed with her that he could help himself and would come back safe and sound. One of the reasons, an unacknowledged one, why she had been so ready to let Ippolito follow his inclination for the church, was that priests are less exposed to all sorts of danger than other men. San Giacinto's Sicilian schemes suddenly seemed to her quite mad since Ippolito wished to accompany his brother and share in any danger which might present itself. But Ippolito was one of those gently obstinate persons whom it is hard to move and almost impossible to stop when they are moving. He had made up his mind that he would go to Camaldoli, and he met his mother's objections with gentle but quite unanswerable arguments. Had there ever been an instance of a priest being attacked by brigands? Corona was obliged to admit that she could remember none. Was he, Ippolito, accomplishing anything in the world, so long as he stayed quietly in Rome? Might he not do some good in the half-civilised country about Camaldoli and Santa Vittoria? He could at least try, and would. There was no answer to this either. Was not Orsino, who was melancholic by nature, sure to be wretchedly lonely down there after San Giacinto left? This was undoubtedly true. 'But the malaria,' Corona objected at last. 'There is fever there, all summer, I am sure. You are not so strong as Orsino. You will catch it.' 'I am much stronger than anybody supposes,' answered Ippolito. 'And if I were not, it is not always the strong people that escape the fever. Besides, there can be none before June or July, and Orsino does not expect to stay all summer.' He had his way, of course, and made his preparations. Orsino was glad for his own sake, and he also believed that the change of existence would do his brother good. He himself was not present when these discussions took place. Ippolito told him about them. Orsino wished to see Vittoria again before leaving Rome, but Corona refused to help him any further. 'I cannot,' she said. 'You had a right to see her that once. At least, I thought so. It seemed to be a sort of moral right. But I cannot arrange meetings for you. I cannot put myself in such a position towards that family. One may do in a desperate situation what one would absolutely refuse to do every day and in ordinary circumstances.' 'Going away, not knowing when I may come back, does not strike me as an ordinary circumstance,' said Orsino, discontentedly. 'You must see that for me to cheat Vittoria's mother and brothers by bringing her here to see you secretly, is to sacrifice all idea of dignity,' answered Corona. 'I had not looked at it in that light, nor called it by that name.' 'But I had, and I do. I am perfectly frank with you, and I always have been. I like the girl very much, but I do not wish you to marry her on account of her family. It is one thing to object to a marriage on the score of birth or fortune. You know that I should not, though I hope you will marry in your own class. Happiness is, perhaps, independent of the details of taste which make up daily life, but it runs on them, as a train runs on rails--and if a bad jolting is not unhappiness, it is certainly discomfort.' 'You are wise, mother. I never doubted that. But this is different--' 'Very different. That is what I meant to say. There would, perhaps, be no question of that sort of moral discomfort with Vittoria; she has been well brought up in a convent of ladies, like most of the young girls you meet in the world, like me, like all the rest of us. It is different. It is her family--they are impossible, not socially, for they are as good as anybody in the way of descent. Bianca Campodonico married Vittoria's uncle, and no one thought it a bad match until it turned out badly. But that is just it. They are all people who turn out badly. Tebaldo Pagliuca has the face of a criminal, and his brother makes one think of a satyr. Their mother is a nonentity and does not count. Vittoria is charming. I suppose she is like someone on her mother's side, for she has not the smallest resemblance to any of the others. But all the charm in the world will not compensate you for the rest of them. And now you have had the frightful misfortune to kill their brother. Did you never hear of a vendetta? The southern people are revengeful. The Corleone will never acknowledge to the world that Ferdinando was one of them, but they will not forget it, against you and yours, and your children. I meet those young men in the street, and they bow as though nothing had happened, but I know well enough that if they could destroy every one of us, they would. Can I put myself in the position of cheating such people by bringing Vittoria here to see you secretly? It is impossible. You must see it yourself.' 'Yes,' answered Orsino. 'I suppose I must admit it. It would be undignified.' 'Yes, very. The word is not strong enough. You must help yourself. I do not propose any solution of the difficulty. You love the girl. Heaven forbid that I should stand in the way of honest love between honest man and woman. But frankly, I wish that you did not love her, and that she did not love you. And I cannot help you any more, because I will not humiliate myself to deceive people who hate me, and you, and all of us, even to our name.' 'Do you think they do? Would they not be glad to see Vittoria married to me? After all, I am a great match for a ruined family's only daughter, and if Tebaldo Pagliuca is anything, he is grasping, I am sure.' 'Yes, but he is more revengeful than grasping, and more cunning than revengeful--a dangerous enemy. That is why I hate to see Ippolito go with you to the south. Some harm will come to him, I am sure. The Corleone have the whole country with them.' 'I will answer for him,' said Orsino, smiling. 'Nothing shall happen to him.' 'How can you answer for him? How can you pledge yourself that he shall be safe? It is impossible. You cannot spend your life in protecting him.' 'I can provide people who will,' answered the young man. 'But you are wrong to be so timid about him. No one ever touches a priest, in the first place, and before he has been there a fortnight, all the people will like him, as everybody always does. It is impossible not to like Ippolito. Besides, Tebaldo Pagliuca has no reason for going to Sicily now that the place is sold. Why in the world should he go? Little by little we shall gain influence there, and before long we shall be much more popular than the Corleone ever were. San Giacinto has written to me already. He says that everything is perfectly quiet already,--that was twenty-four hours after I left,--that he had twenty men from the village at work on the house, making repairs, and that they worked cheerfully and seemed to like his way of doing things. Since Ferdinando is dead there is no one to lead an opposition. They are all very poor and very glad to earn money.' 'It may be as you say,' said Corona, only partially reassured. 'I do not understand the condition of life there, of course, and I know that when you promise to answer for Ippolito you are in earnest, and will keep your word. But I am anxious--very anxious.' 'I am sorry, mother,' replied Orsino. 'I am very sorry. But you will soon see that you have no reason to be anxious. That is all I can say. I will answer for him with my life.' 'That is a mere phrase, Orsino,' said Corona, gravely, 'like a great many things one says when one is very much in earnest. If anything happened to him, your life would be still more precious to me than it is, if that were possible. You all think that because I am often anxious about him, he is my favourite. You do not understand me, any of you. I love you all equally, but I am not equally anxious about you all, and my love shows itself most for the one who seems the least strong and able to fight the world.' 'For that matter, mother, Ippolito is as able to fight his own battles as the strongest of us. He is obstinate to a degree hardly anyone can understand. He has the quiet, sound, uncompromising obstinacy of the Christian martyrs. People who have that sort of character are not weak, and they are generally very well able to take care of themselves.' 'Yes, I know he is obstinate. That is, when he insists upon going with you.' Corona was very far from being satisfied, and Orsino felt that in spite of what she had said she was in reality laying upon him the responsibility for his brother's safety. He himself felt no anxiety on that score, however. In Rome, many hundreds of miles away from Camaldoli, even the things which had really happened during his brief stay in Sicily got an air of improbability and distance which made further complications of the same sort seem almost impossible. Besides, he had the promise of the Minister of the Interior that a company of infantry should shortly be quartered at Santa Vittoria, which would materially increase the safety of the whole neighbourhood. Orsino's principal preoccupation was to see Vittoria again, alone, before he left. In the hope of meeting her he went to a garden party, and in the evening to two houses where she had gone frequently during the winter with her mother. But she did not appear. Her mother was ill, and Vittoria stayed at home with her. Her brothers, on the contrary, were everywhere, always smiling and apparently well satisfied with the world. It was said that Tebaldo was trying to marry an American heiress, and Orsino twice saw him talking with the young stranger, who was reported to have untold millions, and was travelling with an aunt, who seemed to have as many more of her own. He looked at the girl without much curiosity, for the type has become familiar in Europe of late years. Miss Lizzie Slayback--for that was her name--was undeniably pretty, though emphatically not beautiful. She was refined in appearance, too, but not distinguished. One could not have said that she was 'nobody,' as the phrase goes, yet no one would have said, at first sight, that she was 'somebody.' Yet she had an individuality of her own, which was particularly apparent in her present surroundings, a sort of national individuality, which contrasted with the extremely denationalised appearance and manner of Roman society. For the Romans of the great houses have for generations intermarried with foreigners from all parts of Europe, until such strongly Latin types as the Saracinesca are rare. Miss Slayback was neither tall nor short, and she had that sort of generally satisfactory figure which has no particular faults and which is extremely easy to dress well. Her feet were exquisite, her hands small, but not pretty. She had beautiful teeth, but all her features lacked modelling, though they were all in very good proportion. Her head was of a good shape, and her hair was of a glossy brown, and either waved naturally or was made to wave by some very skilful hand. She had dark blue eyes with strong dark lashes, which atoned in a measure for a certain uninteresting flatness and absence of character about the brows and temples, and especially below the eyes themselves and at the angles, where lies a principal seat of facial expression. She spoke French fluently, but with a limited and uninteresting vocabulary, so that she often made exactly the same remarks about very different subjects. Yet her point of view being quite different from that of Romans, they listened to what she said with surprise, and sometimes with interest. Her aunt was not really her aunt, but her uncle's wife, Mrs. Benjamin Slayback, whose maiden name had been Charlotte Lauderdale--a fact which meant a great deal in New York and nothing at all in Rome. She was an ambitious woman, well born and well educated, and her husband had been a member of Congress, and was now a senator for Nevada. He was fabulously rich, and his wife, who had married him for his money, having been brought up poor, had lately inherited a vast fortune of her own. Miss Lizzie Slayback was the only daughter of Senator Slayback's elder brother. Orsino was told a great many of these facts, and they did not interest him in the least, for he had never thought of marrying a foreign heiress. But he was quite sure from the first that Tebaldo had made up his mind to get the girl if he could. The Slaybacks had been in Rome about a month, but Orsino had not chanced to see them, and did not know how long Tebaldo might have known them. It was said that they did not mean to stay much longer, and Tebaldo was doing his best to make good his running in the short time that remained. It chanced that the first time Orsino came face to face with Tebaldo was when the latter had just been talking with Miss Slayback and was flattering himself that he had made an unusually good impression upon her. He was, therefore, in a singularly good humour, for a man whose temper was rarely good and was often very bad indeed. The two men met in a crowded room. Without hesitation Tebaldo held out his hand cordially to Orsino. 'I am very glad to see you safely back,' he said, with a great appearance of frankness. 'You are the hero of the hour, you know.' For a moment even Orsino was confused by the man's easy manner. Even the eyes did not betray resentment. He said something by way of greeting. 'I have had some difficulty in making out who the brigand was whom you shot,' continued Tebaldo. 'It is an odd coincidence. We think it must have been one of the Pagliuca di Bauso. There is a distant branch of the family--rather down in the world, I believe--it must have been one of them.' 'I am glad it was no nearer relation,' answered Orsino, not knowing what to say. 'No near relative of mine would have been likely to be in such company,' answered the Sicilian, rather stiffly, for he was a good actor when not angry. 'No--of course not--I did not mean to suggest such a thing. It was an odd coincidence, of course.' Orsino tried not to look incredulous. Tebaldo was about to pass on, when an idea presented itself to Orsino's mind, of which he had not thought before now. Slow men sometimes make up their minds suddenly, and not having the experience of habitually acting upon impulses, they are much more apt to make mistakes, on the rare occasions when they are carried away by an idea, and do so. It seemed to him that if he were ever to speak to either of Vittoria's brothers about marrying her, this was the moment to do so. It would be impossible for Tebaldo, in an instant, to deny what he had just now said, and it would be hard for him to find a pretext for refusing to give his sister to such a man. The whole thing might be carried through by a surprise, and Orsino would take the consequences afterwards, and laugh at them, if he were once safely married. Tebaldo had already turned away to speak to someone else, and Orsino went after him and called him back. 'There is a matter about which I should like to speak to you, Don Tebaldo,' he said. 'Can we get out of this crowd?' Tebaldo looked at him quickly and sharply, before he answered by a nod. The two men moved away together to the outer rooms, of which there were three or four, stiffly furnished with pier tables and high-backed gilt chairs, as in most old Roman houses. When they were alone, Orsino stopped. 'It is an important matter,' he said slowly. 'I wish to speak with you, as being the head of your family.' 'Yes,' answered Tebaldo, and the lids drooped, vulture-like, at the corners of his eyes, as he met Orsino's look steadily. 'By all means. We shall not be interrupted here. I am at your service.' 'I wish to marry your sister, and I desire your consent,' said Orsino. 'That is the whole matter.' It would have been impossible to guess from the Sicilian's face whether he had ever anticipated such a proposition or not. There was absolutely no change in his expression. 'My sister is a very charming and desirable young girl,' he said rather formally. 'As there seems to be a good deal of liberty allowed to young girls in Rome, as compared with Sicily, you will certainly pardon me if I ask whether you have good reason to suppose that she prefers you in any way.' 'I have good reason for supposing so,' answered Orsino, but he felt the blood rising to his face as he spoke, for he did not like to answer such a question. 'I congratulate you,' said Tebaldo, smiling a little, but not pleasantly. 'Personally, I should also congratulate myself on the prospect of having such a brother-in-law. I presume you are aware that my sister has no dowry. We were ruined by my uncle Corleone.' 'It is a matter of perfect indifference,' replied Orsino. 'You are generous. I presume that you have inherited some private fortune of your own, have you not?' 'No, I am dependent on my father.' 'Then--pardon my practical way of looking at the affair,' said Tebaldo, accentuating his smile a little, 'but, as a mere formality, I think that there must be some proposal from the head of your house. You see, you and Vittoria will be dependent on an allowance from your father, who, again, is doubtless dependent on your grandfather, Prince Saracinesca. As my poor sister has nothing, there must necessarily be some understanding about such an allowance.' 'It is just,' answered Orsino, but he bit his lip. 'My father has an independent estate,' he added, by way of correction. 'And my mother has all the Astrardente property.' 'There is no lack of fortune on your side, my dear Don Orsino. You are, of course, sure of your father's consent, so that an interview with him will be a mere formality. For myself, I give you my hand heartily and wish you well. I shall be happy to meet the Prince of Sant' Ilario at any time which may be agreeable to him.' Orsino felt that the man had got the better of him, but he had to take the proffered hand. Mentally he wondered what strange monster this Tebaldo Pagliuca could be within himself, to grasp the hand that had killed his brother less than a week ago, welcoming its owner as his brother-in-law. But he saw that the very simple and natural request for an interview with his father would probably prove a source of almost insurmountable difficulty. 'I had hoped,' he said, 'to have had the pleasure of seeing Donna Vittoria here this evening. I shall be obliged to return to Sicily in a day or two. May I see her at your house before I go?' Tebaldo hesitated a moment. 'You will find her at home with my mother to-morrow afternoon,' he answered almost immediately. 'I see no reason why you should not call.' 'But your mother--' Orsino stopped short. 'What were you going to say?' enquired Tebaldo, blandly. 'You will be kind enough to tell her that I am coming, will you not?' Orsino saw that he was getting into a terribly difficult situation. 'Oh yes,' Tebaldo answered. 'I shall take great pleasure in announcing you. She is better, I am glad to say, and I have no doubt that this good news will completely restore her.' Orsino felt a vague danger circling about his heart, as a hawk sails in huge curves that narrow one by one until he strikes his prey. The man was subtle and ready to take advantage of the smallest circumstance with unerring foresight while wholly concealing his real intention. 'Come at three o'clock, if it is convenient,' concluded Tebaldo. 'And now--' he looked at his watch--'you will forgive me if I leave you. I have an engagement which I must keep.' He shook hands again with great cordiality, and they parted. Tebaldo went out directly, without returning to the inner rooms, but Orsino went back to stay half an hour longer. Out of curiosity he got a friend to introduce him to Miss Lizzie Slayback. The girl looked up with a bright smile when she heard the great name. 'I have so much wanted to meet you,' she said quickly. 'You are the man who killed the brigand, are you not? Do tell me all about it!' He was annoyed, for he could not escape, but he resigned himself and told the story in the fewest possible words. 'How interesting!' exclaimed Miss Slayback. 'And we all thought he was the brother of Don Tebaldo. You know Don Tebaldo, of course? I think he is a perfect beauty, and so kind.' Orsino had never thought of Tebaldo Pagliuca as either kind or beautiful, and he said something that meant nothing in reply. 'Oh, you are jealous of him!' cried the girl, laughing. 'Of course! All the men are.' Orsino got away as soon as he could. As a necessary formality he was introduced to Mrs. Slayback. He asked her an idle question about how she liked Rome, such as all Romans ask all foreigners about whom they know nothing. 'How late is it safe to stay here?' she asked, with singular directness, by way of an answer. 'Rome becomes unhealthy in August,' said Orsino. 'The first rains bring the fever. Until then it is perfectly safe, and one can return in October without danger. The bad time lasts for six weeks to two months at most.' 'Thank you,' answered Mrs. Slayback with a little laugh. 'We shall not stay till August, I think. It would be too hot. I suppose that it is hot in June.' 'Yes,' said Orsino, absently. 'I suppose that you would find it hot in June.' He wanted to be alone, and he left her as soon as he could. He walked home in the warm night and reviewed his position, which had suddenly become complicated. It was clear that he must now speak to his father, since he had committed the folly of making his proposal to Tebaldo. It was almost certain that his father would refuse to hear of the marriage on any consideration, and he knew that his mother disapproved of it. It was clear also that he could not avoid going to call upon Vittoria and her mother on the following afternoon, but he could not understand why Tebaldo had pretended to be so sure that he should be received, when he himself was tolerably certain that Maria Carolina would refuse to see him. That, however, was a simple matter. He should ask for her, and on being told that she could not receive, he should leave his card and go away. But that would not help him to see Vittoria, and it was in order to see her alone before he left that he had suddenly determined to make his proposal to Tebaldo. He had got himself into a rather serious scrape, and he was not gifted with more tact than the rest of his bold but tactless race. He therefore decided upon the only course which is open to such a man, which was to take his difficulties, one by one, in their natural order and deal with each as best he could. He had nothing more to hope from his mother's intervention. He knew her unchangeable nature and was well aware that she would now hold her position to the last. She would not oppose his wishes, and that was a great deal gained, but she would not help him either. Early on the following morning he went to Sant' Ilario's own room, feeling that he had a struggle before him in which he was sure to be defeated, but which he could not possibly avoid. His father was reading the paper over his coffee by the open window, a square, iron-grey figure clad in a loose grey jacket. The room smelt of coffee and cigarettes. Sant' Ilario's perfect contentment and happiness in his surroundings made him a particularly difficult person to approach suddenly with a crucial question. His serene felicity made a sort of resisting shell around him, through which it was necessary to break before he himself could be reached. He looked up and nodded as Orsino entered. Such visits from his sons were of daily occurrence, and he expected nothing unusual. It was of no use to beat about the bush, and Orsino attacked the main question at once. 'I wish to speak to you about a serious matter, father,' he said, sitting down opposite Sant' Ilario. 'I wish Sicily were in China, and San Giacinto in Peru,' was the answer. 'It has nothing to do with San Giacinto,' said Orsino. 'I want to be married.' Sant' Ilario looked up sharply, in surprise. His eldest son's marriage was certainly a serious matter. 'To whom?' he enquired. 'To Vittoria d'Oriani,' said Orsino, squaring his naturally square jaw, in anticipation of trouble. Sant' Ilario dropped the paper, took his cigarette from his lips, and crossed one leg over the other angrily. 'I was afraid so,' he said. 'You are a fool. Go back to Sicily and do not talk nonsense.' The Saracinesca men had never minced matters in telling each other what they thought. 'I expected that you would say something like that,' answered Orsino. 'Then why the devil did you come to me at all?' enquired his father, his grey hair bristling and his eyebrows meeting. But Orsino was not like him, being colder and slower in every way, and less inclined to anger. 'I came to you because I had no choice but to come,' he answered quietly. 'I love her, she loves me, and we are engaged to be married. It was absolutely necessary that I should speak to you.' 'I do not see the necessity, since you knew very well that I should not consent.' 'You must consent in the end, father--' 'I will not. That ends it. It is the worst blood in Italy, and some of the worst blood in Europe. Corleone was a scoundrel, his father was a traitor--' 'That does not affect Donna Vittoria so far as I can see,' said Orsino, stubbornly. 'It affects the whole family. Besides, if they are decent people, they will not consent either. It is not a week since you killed Ferdinando Pagliuca--Vittoria's brother--' 'They deny it.' 'They lie, I believe.' 'That is their affair,' said Orsino. 'The fact does not beautify their family character, either,' retorted Sant' Ilario. 'With the whole of Europe to choose from, excepting a dozen royalties, you must needs fall in love with the sister of a brigand, the niece of a scoundrel, the grand-daughter of--' 'Yes--you have said all that. But I have promised to marry her, and that is a side of the question of which you cannot get rid so easily.' 'You did not promise her my consent, I suppose. I will not give it. If you choose to marry without it, I cannot hinder you. You can take her and live on her dowry, if she has one.' 'She has nothing.' 'Then you may live by your wits. You shall have nothing more from me.' 'If the wits of the family had ever been worth mentioning, I should ask nothing more,' observed Orsino, coldly. 'Unfortunately they are not a sufficient provision. You are forcing me into the position of breaking my word to a woman.' 'If neither her parents nor yours will consent to your marriage, you are not breaking your engagement. They will not give her to you if you cannot support her. Of course you can wait until I die. Judging from my father, and from my own state of health at present, it will be a long engagement.' Orsino was silent for a moment. He did not lose his temper even now, but he tried to devise some means of moving Sant' Ilario. 'I spoke to Tebaldo Pagliuca last night,' he said, after a pause. 'In spite of what you seem to expect, he accepted my proposition, so far as he could.' 'Then he is an even greater villain than I had supposed him to be,' returned Sant' Ilario. 'That is no reason why you should force me to humiliate myself to him--' 'Send him to me, if you are afraid to face him. I will explain the situation--I will--' 'You will simply quarrel with him, father. You would insult him in the first three words you spoke.' 'That is very probable,' said Sant' Ilario. 'I should like to. He has been scheming to catch you for his sister ever since the evening they first dined here. But I did not think you were such a childish idiot as to be caught so easily.' 'No one has caught me, as you call it. I love Vittoria d'Oriani, and she loves me. You have no right to keep us apart because you did not approve of her grandfather and uncle.' 'No right? I have no right, you say? Then who has?' 'No one,' answered Orsino, simply. 'I have the power, at all events,' retorted his father. 'I would not have you marry her--would not? I will not. It is materially impossible for you to marry with no money at all, and you shall have none. Talk no more about it, or I shall positively lose my temper.' It occurred to Orsino that it was positively lost already, but as he kept his own, he did not say so. He rose from his seat and calmly lighted a cigarette. 'Then there is nothing more to be said, I suppose,' he observed. 'Nothing more on that subject,' answered Sant' Ilario. 'Not that I have the least objection to saying over again all I have said,' he added. 'At all events, you do not pretend that you have any objection to Donna Vittoria herself, do you?' 'No--except that she has made a fool of you. Most women make fools of men, sooner or later.' 'Perhaps, but you should be the last person to say so, I think.' 'I married with my father's consent,' replied Sant' Ilario, as though the fact were an unanswerable argument. 'If I had made to him such a proposition as you are making to me, he would have answered in a very different way, my boy, I can tell you!' 'In what way?' asked Orsino. 'In what way? Why, he would have been furiously angry! He would have called me a fool and an idiot, and would have told me to go to the devil.' Orsino laughed in spite of himself. 'What are you laughing at?' enquired Sant' Ilario, sharply, growing hot again in a moment. 'Those are exactly the words you have been saying to me,' answered Orsino. 'I? Have I? Well--that only proves that I am like my father, then. And a very good thing, too. It is a pity that you are not more like me than you are. We should understand each other better.' 'We may yet understand each other,' said Orsino, lingering in the vain hope of finding some new argument. 'No doubt. But not about this matter.' Seeing that it was useless to prolong the discussion, Orsino went away to think matters over. He had been quite sure of his father's answer, of course, but that did not improve the situation at all. It had been a necessity of conscience and honour to go to him, after speaking to Tebaldo on the previous evening, because it was not possible to take his answer for granted. But now it became equally a duty of honour and self-respect to communicate to Tebaldo what Sant' Ilario had said, and to do so was a most unpleasant humiliation. He cared nothing for the fact that his father's refusal might almost seem like an insult to Tebaldo Pagliuca, though he could not quite see how he could make the communication without giving offence. The real trouble was that he should be practically obliged to take back what he had said, and to say that after all, in the face of his family's objections, he could not marry Vittoria at present, and saw no prospect of being able to marry her in the future. At the same time he wondered how much Tebaldo had told his mother. She also, according to Vittoria's statement, would oppose their marriage with all her power. Yet Tebaldo had professed himself quite certain that she would receive Orsino when he called. There was something mysterious about that. Orsino made up his mind that he would ask for Tebaldo a quarter of an hour before the time named by the latter, and get over the disagreeable interview before making an attempt to have a word with Vittoria alone. CHAPTER XVI Orsino reached the Corleone's house before three o'clock on that afternoon. They lived on the second floor of a large new building in the Via Venti Settembre, 'Twentieth of September Street,' as it would be in English, so named to commemorate the taking of Rome on that day in 1870. A porter in livery asked Orsino whom he wished to see, rang an electric bell, spoke through a speaking-tube, took off his cocked hat in order to listen for the answer, and finally told Orsino that he would be received. There is always something mysterious to the looker-on about any such means of communication at a distance, when he does not hear the voice speaking from the other end. It would not have surprised Orsino, if he had heard, as the porter did, that the answer came back in Tebaldo Pagliuca's voice; but he would then not have been so much surprised, either, at being admitted so readily. Tebaldo, in fact, had told the porter to send the visitor up, for he had been waiting for the porter's bell; but he then told his servant that a gentleman was coming upstairs to see him, who was to be shown into the drawing-room at once, whither Tebaldo himself would presently come. Tebaldo had been quite sure that his mother and sister would be at home at that hour, since the former was not yet well enough to go out; he had been equally sure that his mother would refuse to receive Orsino; he had, therefore, so arranged matters that Orsino should be ushered into her presence unexpectedly, and to accomplish this he had lain in wait in the neighbourhood of the speaking-tube, which came up into the hall of his apartment just inside the door opening upon the stairs. So far the explanation of what happened is quite simple. It would be a different thing to unravel the complicated and passionate workings of Tebaldo's intricate thoughts. In the first place, in spite of his behaviour in public, he hated Orsino with all his heart for having unwittingly killed his brother, and, important as the advantages would be if Vittoria married the heir of the great house, they by no means outweighed his desire for revenge. Tebaldo was not an inhuman monster, though a specialist might have said that he had a strong tendency to criminality. He was capable of affection in a certain degree, apart from mere passion. He was unscrupulous, treacherous, tortuous in his reasonings; but he was above all tenacious, and he was endowed with much boldness and daring, of the kind which cast a romantic glamour over crimes of violence. It had been one thing to threaten Ferdinando with the law, if he refused to sign the deed by which Camaldoli was to be sold. It was quite another matter to give his sister to the man who had shot Ferdinando like a wild animal. There the man's humanity had revolted, though Orsino had not guessed it, when they had met and talked together at the party on the previous evening. On the other hand, his cunning bade him not to put himself in the position of refusing Orsino's request, seeing that he denied his own relationship with his dead brother. It was easy enough for him to bring Orsino and his mother unexpectedly face to face, and to let the young man hear from her lips what she thought of such a union, if indeed the interview should ever get so far as that. Tebaldo could then calmly intrench himself behind his mother's refusal, and yet maintain outward relations with Orsino, while waiting for an opportunity to avenge his brother, which was sure to present itself sooner or later. Orsino mounted the stairs resolutely, squaring himself to meet Tebaldo and tell him of Sant' Ilario's refusal as briefly and courteously as he could. At the same time he was half painfully and half happily conscious of Vittoria's presence in the house. The pain and the pleasure were intermittent and uncertain. A servant was waiting and holding the door ajar. 'Don Tebaldo said that he would see me,' said Orsino, mechanically. The man bowed in silence, shut the door upon the landing, and then led the way through the little hall and the antechamber beyond, opened a door, and stood aside to let Orsino pass. As the door closed behind him, he heard a short and sharp cry in the room, like the warning note of certain fierce wild animals. It was followed instantly by an exclamation of terror in another voice. At the same instant he was aware that there were two women in the room,--Maria Carolina d'Oriani and her daughter. The mother had been lying on a couch, and on seeing him had started up, supporting herself on her hand. The room was half darkened by the partly closed blinds. Maria Carolina was dressed in a loose black gown with wide sleeves that showed her thin, bare arms, for the weather was warm. Her white face was thin and ghastly, and her dark eyes gleamed as they caught a little of the light from the window. Orsino stood still two paces from the door. 'Assassin!' The one word--a word of the people, hissed from her dry lips with such horror and hatred as Orsino had never heard. There was silence then. Vittoria, as white as her mother, and in an agony of terror, had risen, shrinking and convulsed, grasping with one hand the heavy inner curtain of the window. Slowly the lean, dark woman left her seat, raising one thin arm, and pointing straight at Orsino's face, her head thrown back, her parched lips parted and showing her teeth. 'Murderer!' she cried. 'You dare to show me your face--you dare to show me the hands that killed my son! You dare to stand there before God and me--to hear God's curse on you and mine--to answer for blood--' Her lips and throat were dry, so that she could not speak, but choked, and swallowed convulsively, and her eyes grew visibly red. Orsino was riveted to the spot and speechless. For a moment he did not even think of Vittoria, cowering back against the curtain. The woman's worn face was changed in her immense wrath, and he could not take his eyes from her. She found her voice again, painfully, fighting against the fiery dryness that choked her. 'With his innocent blood on your hands, you come here--you come to face his very mother in her sacred grief--to see my tears, to tear out the last shreds of my heart, to revile my mother's soul--to poison the air that breathes sorrow! But you think that I am weak, that I am only a woman. You think, perhaps, that I shall lose my senses and faint. It would be no shame, but I am not of such women.' Her voice gathered fulness but sank in tone as she went on. Still Orsino said nothing, for it was impossible to interrupt her. She must say her say, and curse her curse out, and he must listen, for he would not turn and go. 'You have come,' she said, speaking quickly and with still rising fury. 'I am here to meet you. I am here to demand blood of you for blood. I am here to curse you, and your name, and your race, your soul and their souls, dead and living, in the name of God, who made my son, of Christ, who died for him, of the Holy Saints, who could not save him from the devil you are--in the name of God, and of man, and of the whole world, I curse you! May your life be a century of cruel deaths, and when you die at last with a hundred years of agony in you, may your immortal soul be damned everlastingly a thousand-fold! May you pray and not be heard, may you repent and not be forgiven, may you receive the Holy Sacraments to your damnation and the last Unction with fire in hell! May every living creature that bears your name come to an evil before your eyes, your father--your mother--the men and women of your house, and your unborn children! Blood--I would have blood! May your blood pay for mine, and your soul for my son's soul, who died unconfessed in his sins! Go, assassin! go, murderer of the innocent! go out into the world with my mother's curse on you, and may every evil thing in earth and hell be everlastingly with you and yours, living and dead! Blood!--blood!--blood!' Her voice was suddenly and horribly extinguished in the last word, as an instrument that is strained too far cracks in a last discordant note and is silent. She stood one moment more, with outstretched hand and fingers that would still make the sign of one more unspoken curse, and then, without warning, she fell back in a heap towards the couch. Simultaneously, Vittoria and Orsino sprang forward to catch her, but even before Vittoria could reach her she lay motionless on the floor, her head on the edge of the sofa, her hands stretched out on each side of her, her thin fingers twitching desperately at the carpet. A moment later, they were still too, and she was unconscious, as the two began to lift her up. For an instant neither looked at the other, but as Orsino laid the fainting woman upon the couch, he raised his eyes to Vittoria's. The girl was still overcome with fear at the whole situation, and trembling with horror at her mother's frightful outbreak of rage and hate. She shook her head in a frightened, hopeless way, as she bent down again and arranged a cushion for Maria Carolina. 'Why did you come--why did you come?' she almost moaned. 'I told you--' Orsino saw that if there was to be any explanation, he must seize the opportunity at once. 'I felt that I must see you before leaving,' he answered. 'Last night I told your brother Tebaldo that we were engaged to each other. He asked me to come at three o'clock, and said that your mother would receive me--I sent up word to ask--I was told to come up.' 'We knew nothing of your coming. It must have been the servant's fault.' She did not suspect her brother of having purposely brought about the meeting. 'Now go!' she added quickly. 'Go, before she comes to herself. Do not let her see you again. Go--please go!' 'Yes--I had better go,' he answered. 'Can I not see you again? Vittoria--I cannot go away like this--' As he realised that it might be long before he saw her again, his voice trembled a little, and there was a pleading accent in his words which she had never heard. 'Yes--no--how can I see you?' she faltered. 'There is no way--no place--when must you leave?' Maria Carolina stirred, and seemed about to open her eyes. 'Go--please go!' repeated Vittoria, desperately. 'She will open her eyes and see you, and it will begin again! Oh, for Heaven's sake--' Orsino kissed her suddenly while she was speaking, once, sharply, with all his heart breaking. Then he swiftly left the room without looking back, almost trying not to think of what he was doing. He closed the door behind him. As he turned to look for the way out, in his confusion of mind, the door opposite, which was ajar, opened wide, and he was confronted by Tebaldo, who smiled sadly and apologetically. Orsino stared at him. 'I am afraid you have had an unpleasant scene,' said the Sicilian, quickly. 'It was a most unfortunate accident--a mistake of the servant, who took you for the doctor. The fact is, my mother seems to be out of her mind, and she will not be persuaded that Ferdinando is alive and well, till she sees him. She was so violent an hour ago that I sent for a doctor--a specialist for insanity. I am afraid I forgot that you were coming, in my anxiety about her. I hope you will forgive me. Of course, you have seen for yourself how she feels towards you at present, and in any case--at such a time--' He had spoken so rapidly and plausibly that Orsino had not been able to put in a word. Now he paused as if expecting an answer. 'I regret to have been the cause of further disturbing your mother, who indeed seems to be very ill,' said Orsino, gravely. 'I hope that she will soon recover.' He moved towards the outer hall, and Tebaldo accompanied him to the door of the apartment. 'You will, of course, understand that at such a time it will be wiser not to broach so serious a matter as my sister's marriage,' said Tebaldo. 'Pray accept again my excuses for having accidentally brought you into so unpleasant a situation.' He timed his words so that he uttered the last when he was already holding the door open with one hand and stretching out the other to Orsino, who had no choice but to take it, as he said goodbye. Tebaldo closed the door and stood still a moment in thought before he went back. As he turned to go in, Vittoria came quickly towards him. 'How did it happen that Don Orsino was brought into the drawing-room?' she asked, still very pale and excited. 'I suppose the servant took him for the doctor,' said Tebaldo, coolly, for he knew she would not stoop to ask questions of the footman. 'I am very sorry,' he added. He was going to pass on, but she stopped him. 'Tebaldo--I must speak to you--it will do as well here as anywhere. The nurse is with her,' she said, looking towards the drawing-room. 'She fainted. Don Orsino told me in two words, before he went away, that he had spoken to you last night, and that you had told him to come here to-day.' 'That is perfectly exact, my dear. I have no doubt you have found out that your admirer, our brother's assassin, is a strictly truthful person. He insisted upon seeing you; it was impossible to talk at ease at a party, and I told him to come here, intending to see him myself. I told him to come at three o'clock--I daresay you know that, too?' 'Yes--he said it was to be at three o'clock.' Tebaldo took out his watch and looked at it. 'It is now only four minutes to three,' he observed, 'and he is already gone. He came a good deal before his time, or I should have been in the antechamber to receive him and take him into my room, out of harm's way, where I could have explained matters to him. As it is, I was obliged to show him out with some apology for the mistake.' 'How false you are!' exclaimed Vittoria, her nostrils quivering. 'Because I refuse to ruin you, and our own future position here? I think I am wise, not false. Yes, I myself assured him last night that he did not kill our brother, but one of the Pagliuca di Bauso. I took the hand that did it, and shook it--to save your position in Roman society. You seem to forget that poor Ferdinando had turned himself into an outlaw--in plain language, he was a brigand.' 'He was worth a score of his brothers,' said Vittoria, who was not afraid of him. 'You talk of saving my position. It is far more in order to save your own chance of marrying the American girl with her fortune.' 'Oh yes,' answered Tebaldo, with perfect calm. 'I include that in the general advantages to be got by what I say. I do not see that it is so very false. On the one hand, Ferdinando was my brother. I shall not forget that. On the other, to speak plainly, he was a criminal. You see I am perfectly logical. No one is obliged to acknowledge that he is related to a criminal--' 'No one is obliged to lie publicly, as you do,' broke in Vittoria, rather irrelevantly. 'As you make me lie--rather than let people know what kind of men my surviving brothers are.' 'You are not obliged to say anything. You do not go out into the world just now, because you have to stay with our mother. I will wager that you have not once told the lie you think so degrading.' 'No--I have not, so far. No one has forced me to.' 'You need only hold your tongue, and leave the rest to me.' 'You make me act a lie--even in not wearing mourning--' 'Of course, if you make morality and honesty depend upon the colour of your clothes,' said Tebaldo, scornfully, 'I have nothing more to say about it. But it is a great pity that you have fallen in love with that black Saracinesca, the assassin. It will be a source of considerable annoyance and even suffering to you, I daresay. It even annoyed me. It would have been hard to refuse so advantageous an offer without accusing him of Ferdinando's death, which is precisely what I will not do, for the sake of all of us. But you shall certainly not marry him, though you are inhuman enough to love him--a murderer--stained with your own blood.' 'He is not a murderer, for it was an accident--and you know it. I am not ashamed of loving him--though I cared for Ferdinando more than any of you. And if you talk in that way--if you come between us--' she stopped. 'What will you do?' he asked contemptuously. 'I will tell the truth about Ferdinando,' she said, fixing her eyes upon him. 'To whom, pray?' 'To Miss Slayback and her aunt,' answered Victoria, her gentle face growing fierce. 'Look here, Vittoria,' said Tebaldo, more suavely. 'Do you know that Orsino Saracinesca is going back to Camaldoli? Yes. And you know that Ferdinando had many friends there, and I have some in the neighbourhood. A letter from me may have a good deal to do with his safety or danger, as the case may be. It would be very thoughtless of you to irritate me by interfering with my plans. It might bring your own to a sudden and rather sad conclusion.' Vittoria turned pale again, for she believed him. He was playing on her fears for Orsino and on her ignorance of the real state of things at Camaldoli. But for the moment his words had the effect he desired. He instantly followed up his advantage. 'You can never marry him,' he said. 'But if you will not interfere with my own prospects of marriage, nothing shall happen to Saracinesca. Otherwise--' he stopped and waited significantly. Exaggerating his power, she believed that it extended to giving warrant of death or safety for Orsino, and her imagination left her little choice. At all events, she would not have dared to risk her lover's life by crossing Tebaldo's schemes for himself. 'I am sorry for the American girl,' she said. 'I like her for her own sake, and I would gladly save her from being married to such a man as you. But if you threaten to murder Don Orsino if I tell her the truth, you have me in your power on that side.' 'On all sides,' said Tebaldo, scornfully, as he saw how deep an impression he had made on the girl. 'I hold his life in my hand, so long as he is at Camaldoli, and while he is there you will obey me. After that, we shall see.' Vittoria met his eyes fiercely for an instant, and then, thinking of Orsino, she bent her head and went away, going back to her mother. She found her conscious again, but exhausted, lying down on the couch and tended by the nurse, who had been in the house since the news of her son's death had prostrated Maria Carolina. She looked at Vittoria with a vague stare, not exactly recollecting whether the girl had been in the room during her outburst of rage against Orsino or not. Vittoria had been behind her all the time. 'Is he gone?' asked Maria Carolina, in a faint and hollow voice. 'I am sorry--I could have cursed him much more----' 'Mother!' exclaimed Vittoria, softly and imploringly, and she glanced at the nurse. 'You may go now,' she said to the latter, fearing a fresh outburst. 'I will stay with my mother.' The nurse left the room, and the mother and daughter were alone together. They were almost strangers, as has been explained, Vittoria having been left for years at the convent in Palermo, unvisited by any of her family, until her uncle's death had changed their fortunes. It was impossible that there should be much sympathy between them. There was, on the other hand, a sort of natural feeling of alliance between the two women of the household as against the two men. Maria Carolina was mentally degraded by many years of a semi-barbarous life at Camaldoli, which had destroyed some of her finer instincts altogether, and had almost effaced the effect of early education. She looked up to Vittoria as to a superior being, brought up by noble ladies, in considerable simplicity of life, but in the most extreme refinement of feeling on all essential points, and in an atmosphere of general cultivation and artistic taste, which had not been dreamed of in her mother's youth, though it might seem old-fashioned in some more modern countries. The girl had received an education which had been good of its kind, and very complete, and she was therefore intellectually her mother's superior by many degrees. She knew it, too, and would have despised her mother if she had been like her brothers. As it was, she pitied her, and suffered keenly when Maria Carolina did or said anything in public which showed more than usual ignorance or provinciality. They had one chief characteristic in common, and Ferdinando had possessed it also. They were naturally as frank and outspoken as the other two brothers were deceitful and treacherous. As often happens, two of the brothers had inherited more of their character from their father, while the third had been most like his mother. She, poor woman, felt that her daughter was the only one of the family whom she could trust, and looking up to her as she did, she constantly turned to her for help and comfort at home, and for advice as to her conduct in the world. But since Ferdinando's death her mind, though not affected to the extent described by Tebaldo in speaking with Orsino, had been unbalanced. Nothing which Vittoria could say could make her understand how the catastrophe had happened, and though she had formerly liked Orsino, she was now persuaded that he had lain in wait for her son and had treacherously murdered him. Vittoria had soon found that the only possible means of keeping her quiet was to avoid the subject altogether, and to lead her away from it whenever she approached it. It would be harder than ever to accomplish this since she had seen Orsino. She lay on her couch, moaning softly to herself, and now and then speaking articulate words. 'My son, my son! My handsome boy!' she cried, in a low voice. 'Who will give him back to me? Who will find me one like him?' Her lamentations were like the mourning of a woman of the people. Vittoria tried to soothe her. Suddenly she sat up and grasped the girl's arm, staring into her face. 'To think that we once thought he might marry you!' she cried wildly. 'Curse him, Vittoria! Let me hear you curse him, too! Curse him for your soul's sake! That will do me good.' 'Mother! mother!' cried the girl, softly pressing the hand that gripped her arm so roughly. 'What is the matter with you?' asked the half-mad creature fiercely, as her strength came back. 'Why will you not curse him? Go down on your knees and pray that all the saints will curse him as I do!' 'For Heaven's sake, mother! Do not begin again!' 'Begin! Ah, I have not ended--I shall not end when I die, but always while he is alive my soul shall pursue him, day and night, and I will--' she broke off. 'But you, too--you must wish him evil--you, all of us--then the evil will go with him always, if many of us cast it on him!' She was like a terrible witch, with her pale face and dishevelled hair, and gaunt arms that made violent gestures. 'Speak, child!' she cried again. 'Curse him for your dead brother!' 'No. I will never do that,' said Vittoria. A new light came into the raving woman's eyes. 'You love him!' she exclaimed, half choking. 'I know you love him--' With a violent movement she pushed Vittoria away from her, almost throwing her to the ground. Then she fell back on the couch, and slowly turned her face away, covering her eyes with both her hands. Her whole body quivered, and then was still, then shook more violently, and then, all at once, she broke into a terrible sobbing, that went on and on as though it would never stop while she had breath and tears left. Vittoria came back to her seat and waited patiently, for there was nothing else to be done. And the sound of the woman's weeping was so monotonous and regular that the girl did not always hear it, but looked across at the half-closed blinds of the window and thought of her own life, and wondered at all its tragedy, being herself half stunned and dazed. It was bad enough, as it appeared to her, but could she have known it all as it was to be, and all that she did not yet know of her brother Tebaldo's evil nature, she might, perhaps, have done like her mother, and covered her eyes with her hands, and sobbed aloud in terror and pain. That might be said of very many lives, perhaps. And yet men do their best to tear the veil of the future, and to look through it into the darkened theatre which is each to-morrow. And many, if they knew the price and the struggle, would give up the prize beyond; but not knowing, and being in the fight, they go on to the end. And some of them win. CHAPTER XVII Tebaldo's own affairs were by no means simple. He had made up his mind to get Miss Lizzie Slayback for his wife, and her fortune for himself; but he could not make up his mind to forget the beautiful Aliandra Basili. The consequence was that he was in constant fear lest either should hear of his devotion to the other, seeing that his brother Francesco was quite as much in love with the singer as he was himself, and but for native cowardice, as ready for any act of treachery which could secure his own ends. By that weakness Tebaldo held him, for the present, in actual bodily fear, which is more often an element even in modern life than is generally supposed. But how long that might be possible Tebaldo could not foresee. At any moment, by a turn of events, Francesco might get out of his power. Aliandra's season in Rome had been a great success, and her career seemed secured, though she had not succeeded in obtaining an immediate engagement for the London season, which had been the height of her ambition. She had made her appearance too late for that, but the possibility of such a piece of good fortune was quite within her reach for the ensuing year. Being in reality a sensible and conscientious artist, therefore, and having at the same time always before her the rather vague hope of marrying one of the brothers, she had made up her mind to stay in Rome until July to study certain new parts with an excellent master she had found there. She therefore remained where she was, after giving a few performances in the short season after Lent, and she continued to live very quietly with her old aunt in the little apartment they had hired. A certain number of singers and other musicians, with whom she had been brought into more or less close acquaintance in her profession, came to see her constantly, but she absolutely refused to know any of the young men of society who had admired her and sent her flowers during the opera season. With all her beauty and youth and talent, she possessed a very fair share of her father's profound common sense. Of the two, she very much preferred Francesco, who was gentler, gayer, and altogether a more pleasant companion; but she clearly saw the advantage of marrying the elder brother, who had a very genuine old title, for which she could provide a fortune by her voice. There were two or three instances of such marriages which had turned out admirably, though several others had been failures. She saw no reason why she should not succeed as well as anyone. Tebaldo, on his part, had never had the smallest intention of marrying her, though he had hinted to her more than once, in moments of passion, that he might do so. Aliandra was as obstinate as he, and, as has been said, possessed the tenacious instinct of self-preservation and the keen appreciation of danger which especially characterise the young girl of the south. She was by no means a piece of perfection in all ways, and was quite capable of setting aside most scruples in the accomplishment of her end. But that desired end was marriage, and there was no probability at all that she should ever lose her head and commit an irrevocable mistake for either of the brothers. She saw clearly that Tebaldo was in love with her, as he understood love. She could see how his eyes lighted up and how the warm blood mantled under his sallow brown skin when he was with her, and how his hand moved nervously when it held hers. She could not have mistaken those signs, even if her aunt, the excellent Signora Barbuzzi, had not taken a lively interest in the prospects of her niece's marriage, watching Tebaldo's face as an old sailor ashore watches the signs of the weather and names the strength of the wind, from a studding-sail breeze to a gale. What most disturbed Aliandra's hopes was that Tebaldo was cautious even in his passion, and seemed as well able to keep his head as she herself. His brother often told her that Tebaldo sometimes, though rarely, altogether lost control of himself for a moment, and became like a dangerous wild animal. But she did not believe the younger man, who was always doing his best to influence her against Tebaldo, and whom she rightly guessed to be a far more dangerous person where a woman was concerned. Francesco had once frightened her, and she was really afraid to be alone with him. There was sometimes an expression which she dreaded in his satyr-like eyes and a smile on his red lips that chilled her. Once, and she could never forget it, he had managed to find her alone in her room at the theatre, and without warning he had seized her rudely and kissed her so cruelly while she struggled in his arms that her lips had been swollen and had hurt her all the next day. Her maid had opened the door suddenly, and he had disappeared at once without another word. She had never told Tebaldo of that. Since then she had been very careful. Yet in reality she liked him better, for he could be very gentle and sympathetic, and he understood her moods and wishes as Tebaldo never did, for he was a woman's man, while Tebaldo was eminently what is called a man's man. Aliandra was, as yet, in ignorance of Miss Slayback's existence, but she saw well enough that Tebaldo was concealing something from her. A woman's faculty for finding out that a man has a secret of some sort is generally far beyond her capacity for discovering what that secret is. He appeared to have engagements at unusual times, and there was a slight shade of preoccupation in his face when she least expected it. On the other hand, he seemed even more anxious to please her than formerly, when he was with her, and she even fancied that his manner expressed a sort of relief when he knew that he could spend an hour in her company uninterrupted. When she questioned him, he said that he was in some anxiety about his affairs, and his engagements, according to his own account, were with men of business. But he never told what he was really doing. He had not even thought it necessary to inform her of the sale of Camaldoli. Though she was a native of the country, he told her precisely what he told everyone in regard to Ferdinando Pagliuca's death. 'Eh--you say so,' she answered. 'But as for me, I do not believe you. There never was but one Ferdinando Pagliuca, he was your brother, and he was a friend of all the brigands in Sicily. You may tell these Romans about the Pagliuca di Bauso, but I know better. Do you take me for a Roman? We of Randazzo know what a brigand is!' 'You should, at all events,' answered Tebaldo, laughing, 'for you are all related. It is one family. If you knew how many brigands have been called Basili, like you!' 'Then you and I are also related!' she laughed, too, though she watched his face. 'But as for your brother, may the Lord have him in peace! He is dead, and Saracinesca killed him.' Tebaldo shrugged his shoulders, but showed no annoyance. 'As much as you please,' he answered. 'But my brother Ferdinando is alive and well in Palermo.' 'So much the better, my dear friend. You need not wear mourning for him, as so many people are doing at Santa Vittoria.' 'What do you mean?' asked Tebaldo, uneasily. 'Did you ever hear of Concetta, the beautiful daughter of Don Atanasio, the apothecary?' asked Aliandra, quietly smiling. Tebaldo affected surprise and ignorance. 'It is strange,' continued the singer, 'for you admire beauty, and she is called everywhere the Fata del' Etna--the Fairy of Etna--and she is one of the most beautiful girls in the whole world. My father knows her father a little--of course, he is only an apothecary--' she shrugged her shoulders apologetically--'but in the country one knows everybody. So I have seen her sometimes, as at the fair of Randazzo, when she and her father have had a biscuit and a glass of wine at our house. But we could not ask them to dinner, because the mayor and his wife were coming, and the lieutenant of carabineers--an apothecary! You understand?' 'I understand nothing beyond what you say,' said Tebaldo. 'You did not consider the apothecary of Santa Vittoria good enough to be asked to meet the mayor of Randazzo. How does that affect me?' 'Oh, not at all!' laughed Aliandra. 'But everything is known, sooner or later. Ferdinando, your brother, was at the fair, too--I remember what a beautiful black horse he had, as he rode by our house. But he did not come in, for he did not know us. Now, when Don Atanasio and Concetta went out, he was waiting a little way down the street, standing and holding his horse's bridle. I saw, for I looked through the chinks of the blinds to see which way Concetta and her father would go. And your brother bowed to the ground when they came near him. Fancy! To an apothecary's daughter! Just as I have seen you bow to the Princess of Sant' Ilario in the Villa Borghese. She is Saracinesca's mother, is she not? Very well. I tell you the truth when I tell you that Don Ferdinando took the two to dine with him in the best room at the inn. They say he thought nothing good enough for the apothecary's daughter, though he was of the blood of princes! But now Concetta wears mourning. Perhaps it is not for him? Eh?' Aliandra had learned Italian very well when a child, and was even taking lessons in French, in order to be able to sing in Paris. But as she talked with Tebaldo she fell back into her natural dialect, which was as familiar to him as to herself. He loved the sound of it, though he took the greatest pains to overcome his own Sicilian accent in order not to seem provincial in Rome. But it was pleasant to hear it now and then in the midst of a life of which the restraints were all disagreeable to him, while many of them were almost intolerably irksome. 'How much better our language is than this stilted Roman!' he exclaimed, by way of suddenly turning the conversation. 'I often wish you could sing your operas in Sicilian.' 'I often sing you Sicilian songs,' she answered. 'But it is strange that Concetta should wear mourning, is it not?' 'Leave Concetta alone, and talk to me about yourself. I have never seen her--' 'Do not say such things!' laughed Aliandra. 'I do not believe much that you say, but you will soon not let me believe anything at all. Everyone has seen Concetta. They sing songs about her even in Palermo--La Fata del' Etna--' 'Oh, I have heard of her, of course, by that name, but I never remember seeing her. At all events, you are ten times more beautiful than she--' 'I wish I were!' exclaimed the artist, simply. 'But if you think so, that is much.' 'It would be just the same if you were ugly,' said Tebaldo, magnanimously. 'I should love you just as I do--to distraction.' 'To distraction?' she laughed again. 'You know it,' he answered, with an air of conviction. 'I love you, and everything that belongs to you--your lovely face, your angelic voice, your words, your silence--too much.' 'Why too much?' 'Because I suffer.' 'There is a remedy for that, my dear Tebaldo.' 'Tell me!' 'Marry me. It is simple enough! Why should you suffer?' Her laughter was musical and sunny, but there was a little irony in its readiness to follow the words. 'You know that we have often spoken of that,' he answered, being taken unawares. 'There are difficulties.' 'So you always say. But then it would be wiser of you not to love me any more, but to marry where you do not find those difficulties. Surely it should be easy!' She spoke now with a little scorn, while watching him; and as she saw the vulture-like droop of his eyelids she knew that she had touched him, though she could not quite tell how. She had never spoken so frankly to him before. 'Not so easy as you think,' he replied, with a rather artificial laugh. 'Then you have tried?' she asked. 'I had thought so! And you have failed? My condolences!' 'I? Tried to marry?' he cried, realising how far she was leading him. 'What are you making me say?' 'I am trying to make you tell the truth,' she answered, with a change of tone. 'But it is not easy, for you are clever at deceiving me, and I wonder that you cannot deceive the woman you wish to marry.' 'I do not wish to marry anyone,' he protested. 'No--not even me. Me, least of all, because I am not good enough to marry you, though you are good enough to pursue me with what you call your love. I am only an artist, and you must have a princess, of course. I have only my voice, and you want a solid fortune. I have only my honour, but you want honours through your wife for yourself, and you would tear mine to rags if I yielded a hair's-breadth. You make a mistake, Don Tebaldo Pagliuca. I am a Sicilian girl and I came of honest people. You may suffer as much as you please, but unless you will marry me, you may go on suffering, for you shall not ruin me.' She spoke strongly, with a strange mixture of theatrical and commonplace expressions; but she was in earnest, and he knew it, and in her momentary anger she was particularly fascinating to him. Yet her speech made no real impression upon his mind. He tried to take her hand, but she drew it away sharply. 'No,' she said. 'I have had enough of this love-making, this hand-taking, and this faith-breaking. You sometimes speak of marrying me, and then you bring up those terrible, unknown difficulties, which you never define. Yes, you are a prince--but there are hundreds of them in our Italy. Yes, I am only an artist, but some people say that I am a great artist--and there are very few in Italy, or anywhere else. If it is beneath your dignity to marry a singer, Signor Principe di Corleone, then go and take a wife of your own class. If you love me, Tebaldo Pagliuca, as an honest man loves an honest woman--and God knows I am that--then marry me, and I, with my voice, will make you a fortune and buy back your estates, besides being a faithful wife to you. But if you will not do that, go. You shall not harm my good name by being perpetually about me, and you shall not touch the tips of my fingers with your lips until you are my lawful husband. There, I have spoken. You shall know that a Sicilian girl is as good as a Roman lady--better, perhaps.' Tebaldo looked at her in some surprise, and his mind worked rapidly, remembering all she had said during the preceding quarter of an hour. She spoke with a good deal of natural dignity and force, and he was ready to admit that she was altogether in earnest. But his quick senses missed a certain note which should have been in her tones if this had been a perfectly spontaneous outburst. It was clear, as it always had been, that she wished to marry him. It was not at all clear that she loved him in the least. It struck him instantly that she must have heard something of his attention to the foreign heiress, and that she had planned this scene in order to bring matters to a crisis. He was too sensible not to understand that he himself was absurdly in love with her, in his own way, and that she knew it, as women generally do, and could exasperate him, perhaps, into some folly of which he might repent, by simply treating him coldly, as she threatened. During the silence which followed, she sat with folded arms and half-closed eyes, looking at him defiantly from under her lids. 'You do me a great injustice,' he said. 'I am sorry,' she answered. 'I have no choice. I value my good name as a woman, besides my reputation as an artist. You do not justify yourself in the only way in your power by explaining clearly what the insuperable difficulties are in the way of our marriage.' The notary's daughter did not lack logic. 'I never said that they were insuperable--' 'Then overcome them, if you want me,' answered Aliandra implacably. 'I said that there were difficulties, and there are great ones. You speak of making a fortune by your voice, my dear Aliandra,' he continued, his tones sweetening. 'But you must understand that a man who is a gentleman does not like to be dependent on his wife's profession for his support.' 'I do not see that it is more dignified to depend on his wife's money because she had not earned it by hard work,' retorted the singer scornfully. 'It is honestly earned.' 'The honour is entirely yours,' said Tebaldo. 'The world would grant me no share in it. Then there are my mother's objections, which are strong ones,' he went on quickly. 'She has, of course, a right to be consulted, and she does not even know you.' 'It is in your power to introduce me to your mother whenever you please.' 'She is too ill to see anyone--' 'She has not always been ill. You have either been afraid to bring an artist to your mother's house, which is not flattering to me, or else you never had the slightest intention of marrying me, in spite of much that you have said. Though I have heard you call your brother Francesco a coward, I think he is braver than you, for he would marry me to-morrow, if I would have him.' 'And live on what you earn,' retorted Tebaldo, with ready scorn. 'He has as much as you have,' observed Aliandra. 'Your uncle left no will, and you all shared the property equally--' 'You are not a notary's daughter for nothing,' laughed Tebaldo. 'That is true. But there was very little to share. Do you know what was left when the debts were paid? A bit of land here in Rome--that was all, besides Camaldoli. Both have been sold advantageously, and we have just enough to live decently all together. We should be paupers if we tried to separate.' 'You are nothing if not plausible. But you will forgive me if I say that this difficulty has the air of being really insuperable. You absolutely refuse to share what I earn, and you are absolutely incapable of earning anything yourself. That being the case, the sooner you go away the better, for you can never marry me, on your own showing, and you are injuring my reputation in the meantime.' 'I am engaged in speculations, in which I hope to make money,' said Tebaldo. 'I often tell you that I have appointments with men of business--' 'Yes, you often tell me so,' interrupted Aliandra, incredulously. 'You are cold, and you are calculating,' retorted Tebaldo, with a sudden change of manner, as though taking offence at last. 'It is fortunate for me that I am not hot-headed and foolish,' replied Aliandra, coolly. They parted on these terms. She believed that her coldness would bring him to her feet if anything could; but he was persuaded that his brother had betrayed him and had told her about the American heiress. CHAPTER XVIII Orsino made his preparations for returning to Sicily with a heavy heart. His situation was desperate at present, for he had exhausted his ingenuity in trying to discover some means of seeing Vittoria a last time. To leave San Giacinto to do what he could with Camaldoli and refuse to go back at all, for the present, which seemed to be his only chance of a meeting with Vittoria, was a course against which his manliness revolted. Even if there had been no danger connected with the administration of the new estate, he would not have abandoned his cousin at such a time, after promising to help him, and indeed to undertake all work connected with the place. San Giacinto was a busy man, to whom any sacrifice of time might suddenly mean a corresponding loss of money, for which Orsino would hold himself responsible if he brought about the delay. But as it was, since the position he had promised to fill was a dangerous one, nothing could have induced him to withdraw from the undertaking. It would have seemed like running away from a fight. It was a consolation to have his brother's company, as far as anything could console him, though he could not make up his mind for some time to confide in Ippolito, who had always laughed at him for not marrying, and who could probably not understand why he had now allowed himself to fall in love with one of the very few young women in the world whom he might be prevented from marrying. He was grave and silent as he put together a few books in his own room, vaguely wondering whether he should ever read them. Ippolito was collecting a number of loose sheets of music that lay on the piano, on a chair beside it, on the table among Orsino's things, and even on the floor under the instrument. He had taken off his cassock, because it was warm, and he wore a grey silk jacket which contrasted oddly with his black silk stockings and clerical stock. From time to time, without taking his cigar from his lips, he hummed a few notes of a melody in the thin but tuneful voice which seems to belong to so many musicians and composers, interrupting himself presently and blowing a cloud of smoke into the air. Now and then he looked at Orsino as though expecting him to speak. At last, having got his manuscript music into some sort of order, he sat down at the piano to rest himself by expressing an idea he had in his head. 'How glad you will be not to hear a piano at Camaldoli,' he said, stopping as suddenly as he had begun. 'It is a horrible instrument,' Orsino said, 'but it never disturbs me, and it seems to amuse you.' Ippolito laughed. 'That is what you always say, but I know you will be glad to be rid of it, and it will do me good to play the organ at Santa Vittoria for a change. As that is three-quarters of a mile away, it will not disturb you.' 'Nothing disturbs me,' replied Orsino, rather sadly. Ippolito made up his mind to speak at last. 'Orsino,' be began quietly, 'I know all about you and Donna Vittoria. As we are going to be so much together, it is better that I should tell you so. I hate secrets, and I would rather not make a secret of knowing yours--if it is one.' Orsino had looked round sharply when the priest had first spoken, but had then gone back to what he was doing. 'I am glad you know,' he said, 'though I would not have told you. I have spoken to our father and mother about it. The one calls me a fool, and the other thinks me one. They are not very encouraging. As for her family, her mother curses me for having killed her favourite son, and her brothers pretend that she is mad and then intrench themselves behind her to say that it is impossible. I do not blame them much--Heaven knows, I do not blame her at all. All the same, Vittoria and I love each other. It is an impossible situation. I cannot even see her to say goodbye. I wish I could find a way out of it!' He laughed bitterly. 'I wish I could,' echoed his brother. 'But I am only a priest, and you call me a dilettante churchman, at that. Let us see. Let us argue the case as though we were in the theological school. No--I am serious--you need not frown. How many things can happen? Three, I think. There are three conceivable terminations. Either you part for ever and forget each other--' 'You may eliminate that,' observed Orsino. 'Very well. Or else you continue to love each other, in which event you must either succeed in getting married, or not, and those are the other two cases.' 'One does not need to be a theologian to see that. Similarly a man must either live or die, and a door must be either open or shut, on pain of not being a door at all.' 'I have not finished,' objected Ippolito. 'In fact, I have only begun. For the sake of argument, we will assume first that you continue to love each other, but cannot get married.' 'That is the present position.' 'It is not a position which usually lasts long. At the end of a certain time you will naturally cease to love each other, and we obtain a second time the case which you at first eliminated.' 'Eliminate it again,' said Orsino gravely. 'Very well. There remains only one possible issue, after your eliminations. You must be married. On any other assumption you will forget each other. Now in such cases as yours, how do people act? You are a layman, and it is your business to know.' 'When both are of age they "respectfully require" their respective parents to give their consent. If it is refused, they marry and the law protects them.' 'So does the church,' said the priest. 'But it does not provide them with an income afterwards, nor in any way guarantee them against the consequences of family quarrels. Those are subdivisions of the case which you can neither modify nor eliminate.' 'Well,' said Orsino wearily, 'what do you conclude for all this?' Ippolito's gentle face grew suddenly grave, and seemed squarer and more like his brother's. 'From what I know of the world,' he answered, 'I conclude that men who mean to do things, do them, and let the consequences take care of themselves. If you mean to marry Vittoria d'Oriani, you will marry her, without any help and without anyone's advice. If you do not mean to marry her, you will not, because, under the circumstances, she can assuredly not marry you, as women have been known to marry husbands almost against their will.' 'You have a singularly direct way of putting things,' observed Orsino, thoughtfully. 'That is simply the result of your eliminations,' answered the priest. 'If you do not love her enough to take her in spite of everything and everybody, you must restore into the list of possibilities the certainty that before long you will not love her at all. For I conceive that half a love is no better as a basis of warfare than half a faith. I do not mean to breed war with our father and mother. That is a serious matter. I am only pursuing the matter to its logical conclusion and end, in words, as you will have to do in your acts, sooner or later.' 'Meanwhile I am doing nothing,' said Orsino. 'And I am horribly conscious that I am doing nothing.' 'You are going away,' remarked Ippolito. 'That is not inaction.' 'It is worse than inaction--it is far worse than doing nothing at all.' 'I am not so sure of that. It is sometimes a good thing to force an interval between events. In the first place, I often hear it said that a separation strengthens a great passion, but destroys a small one. All passions seem great when the object is present, but distance brings out the truth. By the time you have been a month at Camaldoli you will know whether it is essential to your happiness to marry Vittoria d'Oriani, or not.' 'And suppose that it is? We come back to the same situation again.' 'Yes--we come back to the eternal situation of force against force.' 'And you mean that I should use force? That is--that I should marry her and take all the consequences, no matter what they may be?' 'I do not mean that you should. I distinguish. I mean that you will, that is all. I am not considering the moral ground of the action, but the human source of it. Your marriage may be the cause of great difficulties and complications, but if you are persuaded that it is quite necessary to your life to marry that young lady, you will marry her. It is by no means an impossible thing to accomplish, nor even a very difficult one.' 'You do not tell me how far it is a matter of conscience to consider the consequences.' 'It is of no use to tell courageous men that sort of thing,' said the priest. 'They take the consequences, that is all. No man who ever wanted a thing with his whole heart ever stopped to consider how his getting it would affect other people, unless the point of honour was involved.' 'And there is no point of honour here, is there?' asked Orsino, as a man asks a question to which he knows the answer. 'You know what you have said to Donna Vittoria,' answered Ippolito. 'I do not.' 'I have asked her to marry me, and she has consented.' Orsino laughed a little drily. 'That is the way one puts it, I believe,' he added. 'Then I should say that unless she, of her own accord, releases you from your word, the point of honour lies in not withdrawing it,' replied the priest. 'If you did, it would mean that you were not willing to take the risks involved in keeping it, would it not?' 'Of course it would. I wish you could make our father see that.' 'People of the previous generation never see what happens in ours. They only infer what ought to happen if all their own prejudices had been canonical law for fifty years.' 'That is sedition,' laughed Orsino, whose spirits had risen suddenly. 'No, it is criticism, and criticism is only called sedition under despotic governments. There is no reason why grown men, like you and me, should not criticise their fathers and mothers up to a certain point, within limits of respect. We honour them, but they are not gods, that we should worship them. When we were little boys we supposed that our father knew everything about everything. We are aware, now, that we understand many things which have grown up in our day much better than he does. To go on supposing that he knew everything, in spite of evidence, would be a gross form of superstition. Superstition, I suppose, means a survival, to wit, the survival of some obsolete belief. That is exactly what it would be in us to artificially maintain the belief of our childhood in our parents' omniscience. Has your love for Donna Vittoria anything to do with the actual amount of her knowledge at any moment? No. But love appears to be made up of passion and affection. Therefore affection is independent of any such knowledge in its object. Therefore we love our parents quite independently of what they know or do not know about life, or mathematics, and we may, consequently, criticise such knowledge in them on its own merits, without in the least detracting from our affection for themselves.' 'You are a very satisfactory brother,' said Orsino, smiling at his brother's speech. 'But I am not sure that you are a strictly orthodox priest on the question of family relations.' 'I give you a theory of such relations,' answered Ippolito. 'In actual practice I believe that our mother is one of the wisest women living, without being in the smallest degree intellectual. It is true that my experience of women is limited, but I hear a great deal of talk about them. She is fond of Donna Vittoria, I am sure.' 'Yes--very. But she sees fifty reasons why I had better not marry her.' 'So do I,' said Ippolito, calmly. 'You? Why, you have been urging me to marry her in spite of everything!' 'Oh no. I have only proved to you that if you love her enough, you will marry her in spite of everything. That is a very different thing.' 'Priest!' laughed Orsino. 'Sophist!' 'Anything you like,' answered Ippolito, swinging round on the piano-stool and striking a chord. 'All the same, I hope you may marry her, and have no bad consequences to deal with, and I will help you if I can.' 'Thank you,' said Orsino; but his voice was drowned by a burst of loud and intricate music, as Ippolito's white fingers flew over the piano while he stared at the ceiling, his head thrown back, his cigar sticking up from between his teeth, he himself apparently unaware of what his hands were doing, and merely listening to the music. Orsino was momentarily cheered and encouraged by all his brother had said, but the situation was not materially improved thereby. It was, indeed, almost as bad as it could be, and an older and wiser man than Orsino would have expected that something must occur before long, either to improve it, or to cut it short at once and for ever, for the simple reason that it could neither last, as it stood, nor be made more difficult by anything which could happen. CHAPTER XIX When Orsino and Ippolito reached Camaldoli everything seemed to be quiet, and San Giacinto himself was greatly encouraged by the turn matters had taken. During the first day or two after Orsino's departure there had still been considerable curiosity among the people of Santa Vittoria, and more than once San Giacinto had made little speeches, in his direct manner, to the peasants and villagers who hung about in the neighbourhood of the big old house. But after that he had not been disturbed, and everything appeared to be progressing favourably. The year was one of abundance, the orange crop, which in Sicily is all gathered before May, had turned out well, the grapes promised an abundant vintage, and even the olives had blossomed plentifully, though it was still too early to make accurate predictions about the oil. On the whole the prospects for the year were unusually satisfactory, and San Giacinto congratulated himself on having chanced to buy the place in a good year. In an agricultural country like that part of Sicily, the temper of the people is profoundly affected by the harvest. The outlaws had not been heard of in the neighbourhood since Ferdinando Pagliuca's death. They were said to be in the region about Noto, at some distance from Camaldoli, towards the south-west. San Giacinto was surprised at not having even received an anonymous letter from one of Ferdinando's friends. He did not suppose that the present pacific state of things could last for ever, but he had been prepared to meet with a great deal more opposition in what he did. On the other hand, he was hindered at every step by small difficulties which always seemed to be perfectly natural. If he wished to build a bit of wall, he found it impossible to obtain stone or quicklime, though there were plenty of masons professing themselves ready to work. He pointed to a quantity of slaked lime drying in a deep tank near the gate of Santa Vittoria. 'Eh,' said the head mason, shaking his head, 'that belongs to the mayor, and he will not sell it.' And, in fact, the mayor flatly refused to part with a single hodful of the lime, saying that he himself was going to repair his house. The masons said that by and by it could be got from the lime-burners, who had sold their last burning to a man in Randazzo. Stone was to be had for the quarrying, in the black lands above Camaldoli, but there were no quarrymen in Santa Vittoria, and the gang of them that lived higher up Etna had taken a large contract. 'Patience,' said the head mason, gravely. 'In time you will have all you want.' As the bit of wall was not a very important matter, San Giacinto did not care to go to the expense of bringing material from a great distance, and decided to wait. Meanwhile he hired certain men from Bronte to come and clear out all the bush and scrub from among the trees. They came without tools. He gave them tools that belonged to the tenants of Camaldoli, the same which the latter had lent him on the first day to make a clearing close to the house. The Bronte men worked for two hours and then came out of the brush and sat down quietly in the sun. 'The tools are not good for anything,' they said gravely. 'We cannot work with them.' 'What is the matter with them?' asked San Giacinto. 'They are dull. They would not cut strings.' 'Take them away and have them ground,' said San Giacinto. 'Are there knife-grinders in this country?' asked the men. 'Where are they? No. They come, they stay a day, perhaps two days, and they go away.' San Giacinto looked at the men thoughtfully a moment, then turned on his heel and left them to their own devices. He began to understand. The men neither wished to refuse to work for him, nor dared to do the work they undertook, when its execution would in any way improve the defensive conditions of Camaldoli. San Giacinto came back when the men were gone, with two or three of the soldiers, took a hatchet himself, and leading the way proceeded to cut away the thorns and brambles, systematically clearing the ground so as to leave no cover under which an armed man could approach the house unnoticed. He regularly devoted a part of each day to the work, until it was finished. As soon as Ferdinando's body had been removed, there had been no difficulty in getting men to work indoors, and by the time Orsino arrived, considerable improvements had been effected. But the men would not have begun work in a house where an unburied dead person was still lying. The three Saracinesca strolled up to Santa Vittoria late in the afternoon, San Giacinto and Orsino carrying their rifles, while Ippolito walked along with his hands behind him, just catching up his little silk mantle, staring hard at all the new sights of the road, and mentally wondering what sort of instrument he should find in the little church. The place was a mere village without any mediæval wall, though there was a sort of archway at the principal entrance which was generally called the gate. Just beyond the shoulder of the mountain, away from Camaldoli, and about fifty yards from this gateway of the village, was a little white church with a tiled roof. It had a modern look, as though it had been lately restored. Then the village straggled down the rough descent towards the shallow valley beyond, having its own church in the little market-place. It was distinctly clean, having decently-paved streets and solid stone houses with massive mullions, and iron balconies painted red. There were a few small shops of the kind always seen in Italian villages. The apothecary's was in the market-place, the general shop was in the main street, opposite a wine-seller's, the telegraph office--a very recent innovation--was over against the chemist's and was worked by the postmaster, and in what had once been a small convent, further on, at the outskirts of the town, the carabineers were lodged. At San Giacinto's request, fifty men of the line infantry had been quartered in the village within the last few days, the order having been telegraphed from Rome on Orsino's representations to the Minister of the Interior. The people treated the men and their two young officers civilly, but secretly resented their presence. Nowadays, every Italian village has a walled cemetery at some distance from it. The burial-ground of Santa Vittoria overlooked Camaldoli; being situated a quarter of a mile from the little white church and on the other side of the hill, so that it was out of sight of the village. It was a grimly bare place. Four walls, six feet high, of rough tufo and unplastered, enclosed four or five acres of land. A painted iron gate opened upon the road, and against the opposite wall, inside, was built a small mortuary chapel. The cemetery had not been long in use, and there were not more than a score of black crosses sticking in the earth to mark as many graves. There was no pretence at cultivation. The clods were heaped up symmetrically at each grave, and a little rough grass grew on some of them. There was not a tree, nor a flower, nor a creeper to relieve the dusty dreariness of it, and the road itself was not more dry and arid. The little grass that grew had pushed itself up just in the gateway, where few feet ever passed, and everyone knows what a desolate look a grass-grown entrance gives to any place, even to a churchyard. There were low, round curbstones on each side of the gate. The three gentlemen strolled slowly up the hill in the warm afternoon sunshine, talking as they came. Ippolito was a little ahead of the others, for he was light on his feet, and walked easily. 'That is the cemetery,' observed San Giacinto to Orsino, pointing at the hill. 'That is where they buried your friend Ferdinando Corleone on the day you left. I suppose they will put up a monument to him.' 'His brothers will not,' answered Orsino. 'They disown all connexion with him.' 'Amiable race!' laughed San Giacinto. 'There is a figure like a monument sitting outside the gate,' he added. 'Do you see it?' 'It is a woman in black,' said Orsino. 'She is sitting on something by the roadside.' They were still a long way off, but both had good eyes. 'She is probably resting and sitting on her bundle,' observed San Giacinto. 'She is sitting on a stone,--on one of the curbstones,' said Ippolito. 'She has her head bent down.' 'He sees better than either of us,' said Orsino, with a laugh. 'I wonder why nobody ever expects a priest to do anything particularly well except pray? Ippolito can walk as well as we can, he sees better, he could probably beat either of us with a pistol or a rifle if he tried, and I am sure he is far more clever in fifty ways than I am. Yet everyone in the family takes it for granted that he is no better than a girl at anything that men do. He was quite right about the woman. She is bending over--her face must be almost touching her knees. It is a strange attitude.' 'Probably some woman who has a relation buried in the cemetery--her child perhaps,' suggested Ippolito. 'She stops at the gate to say a prayer when she goes by.' 'Then she would kneel, I should think,' answered Orsino. Almost unconsciously they all three quickened their pace a little, though the hill grew steeper just there. As they drew near, the outline of the woman in black became distinct against the dark tufo wall behind her, for the sunlight fell full upon her where she sat. It was a beautiful outline, too, full of expression and simple tragedy. She sat very low, on the round curbstone, one small foot thrust forward and leading the folds of the loose black skirt, both white hands clasped about the higher knee, towards which the covered head bent low, so that the face could not be seen at all. Not a line nor fold stirred as the three men came up to her. Orsino recognised Concetta, though he could not see her features. Her exceptional grace betrayed itself unmistakably, and he should have known anywhere the white hands that had been lifted up to him when he had stood at the window in the grey dawn. But he said nothing about it to San Giacinto, for he understood her grief, and he could not have spoken of her without being heard by her just then. But Ippolito went up to her, before his brother could hinder him. She was a lonely and unhappy creature, and he was one of those really charitable people who cannot pass by any suffering without trying to help it. He stood still beside her. 'What is your trouble?' he asked gently. 'Can anyone help you?' She did not move at first, but a voice of pain came with slow accents from under the black shawl that fell over her face, almost to her knee. 'God alone can help the dead,' it answered. 'But you are alive, my child,' said Ippolito, bending down a little. The covered head moved slowly from side to side, denying. 'Who are you, that speak of life?' asked the sorrowful young voice. 'Are you the Angel of the Resurrection? Go in peace, with Our Lady, for I am dead.' Ippolito thought that she must be mad, and that it might be better to leave her alone. His brother and cousin had gone on, up the road, and were waiting for him at a little distance. 'May you find peace and comfort,' said the young priest, quietly, and he moved away. But he turned to look back at her, for she seemed the saddest woman he had ever seen, and her voice was the saddest he had ever heard. Something in his own speech had stirred her a little, for when he looked again she had raised her head, and was lifting the black shawl so that she could see him. She was about to speak, and he stopped where he was, two paces from her, surprised by her extraordinary beauty and unnatural pallor. 'Who are you?' she asked slowly. 'You are a stranger.' 'I am Ippolito Saracinesca, a priest,' answered the young man. At the name, she started, and her sad eyes opened wide. Then she saw the other two men standing in the road a little way off. Slowly, and with perfect grace, she rose from her low seat. 'And those two--there--who are they?' she asked. 'They are also Saracinesca,' said Ippolito. 'The one is my brother, the other is my cousin. We are three of the same name.' He answered her question quite naturally, but he felt sure that she was mad. By this time San Giacinto was growing impatient, and he began to move a few steps nearer to call Ippolito. But the latter found it hard to turn away from the deep eyes and the pale face before him. 'Then there were three of you,' said Concetta, in a tone in which scorn sharpened grief. 'It is no wonder that you killed him between you.' 'Whom?' asked Ippolito, very much surprised at the new turn of her speech. 'Whom?' All at once there was something wild in her rising inflexion. 'You ask of me who it was whom you killed down there in the woods? Of me, Concetta? Of me, his betrothed? Of me, who prayed to your brother, there, that I might be let in, to wash my love's face with my tears? But if I had known to whom I was praying, there would have been two dead men lying there in the Chapel of Camaldoli--there would have been two black crosses in there, behind the gate--do you see? There it is! The last on the left. No one has died since, but if God were just, the next should be one of you, and the next another, and then another--ah, God! If I had something in these hands--' She had pointed at Ferdinando's grave, throwing her arms backwards, while she kept her eyes on Ippolito. Now, with a gesture of the people, as she longed for a weapon, she thrust out her small white fists, tightly clenched, towards the priest's heart, then opened them suddenly, in a despairing way, and let her arms fall to her sides. 'Saracinesca, Saracinesca,' she repeated slowly, her voice sinking; 'three Saracinesca have made one widow! But one widow may yet make many widows, and many mourning mothers, and the justice of Heaven is not the justice of man.' San Giacinto and Orsino had gradually approached Ippolito, and now stood beside him, facing the beautiful, wild girl, in her desolation. Grave and thoughtful, the three kinsmen stood side by side. There was nothing theatrical or unreal in the situation. One of themselves had killed the girl's betrothed husband, whom she had loved with all her soul. That was the plain fact, and Orsino had never ceased to realise it. Unhesitatingly, and in honourable self-defence, he had done a deed by which many were suffering greatly, and he was brought face to face with them in their grief. Somehow, it seemed unjust to him that the girl should accuse his brother and his cousin of Ferdinando's death. As she paused, facing them, breathless with the wave of returning pain, rather than from speaking, Orsino moved forward a little in front of Ippolito. 'I killed Ferdinando Corleone,' he said, gravely. 'Do not accuse us all three, nor curse us all three.' She turned her great eyes to his face, but her expression did not change. Possibly she did not believe him. 'The dead see,' she answered slowly. 'They know--they know--they see both you and me. And the dead do not forget.' A flying cloud passed over the sun, and the desolate land was suddenly all black and grey and stony, with the solemn vastness of the mountain behind. Concetta drew her shawl up over her head, as though she were cold, and turned from the three men with a simple dignity, and knelt down on the rough, broken stones, where the blades of coarse grass shot up between, close to the gate, and she clasped her hands together round one of the dusty, painted iron rails. 'Let us go,' said San Giacinto's deep voice. 'It is better to leave her, poor girl.' She did not look back at them as they walked quietly up the road. Her eyes were fixed on one point and her lips moved quickly, forming whispered words. 'Maria Santissima, let there be three black crosses! Mother of God, three black crosses! Mother of Sorrows, three black crosses!' And over and over again, she repeated the terrible little prayer. CHAPTER XX The three men entered the village and walked through the main street. The low afternoon sun was shining brightly again, and only the people who lived on the shady side of the street had opened their windows. Many of them had little iron balconies in which quantities of magnificent dark carnations were blooming, planted in long, earthenware, trough-like pots, and hanging down by their long stalks that thrust themselves between the railings. Outside the windows of the poorer houses, too, great bunches of herbs were hung up to dry in the sun, and strings of scarlet peppers had already begun to appear, though it was early for them yet. Later, towards the autumn, the people hang up the canteloup melons of the south, in their rough green and grey rinds, by neatly-made slings of twisted grass, but it was not time for them yet. In some of the houses the people were packing the last of the oranges to be sent down to Piedimonte and thence to Messina for England and America, passing each orange through a wooden ring to measure it, and rejecting those that were much too small or much too large, then wrapping each one separately in tissue paper, while other women packed them neatly in thin deal boxes. The air smelt of them and of the carnations in the balconies, for Santa Vittoria was a clean and sweet village. The cleanliness of the thoroughbred Oriental, a very different being from the filthy Levantine, begins in Sicily, and distinguishes the Sicilians of the hills from the Calabrians and from the Sicilians of such seaport towns as Messina. Moreover there are no beggars in the hill towns. San Giacinto had his pocket full of letters for the post office, and wished to see the lieutenant in command of the soldiers; but Orsino had nothing to do, and Ippolito had made up his mind not to return to Camaldoli without having seen the organ in the church. The two brothers went off in search of the sacristan, for the church was closed. They found him, after some enquiry, helping to pack oranges in a great vaulted room that opened upon the street. He was a fat man, cross-eyed, with a sort of clerical expression. 'You wish to see the organ,' he said, coming out into the street. 'Truly you will see a fine thing! If you only do not hear it! It makes boom, boom, and wee, wee--and that is all it makes. I wager that not even ten cats could make a noise like our organ. Do you know that it is very aged? Surely, it remembers the ark of Noah, and Saint Paul must have brought it with him. But then, you shall see; and if you wish to hear it, I take no responsibility.' Ippolito was not greatly encouraged by such a prospect. 'But when you have a festival, what do you do?' he enquired. 'We help it, of course. How should one do? Don Atanasio, the apothecary, plays the clarinet. He is a professor! Him, indeed, you should hear when he plays at the elevation. You would think you heard the little angels whistling in Paradise! I, to serve you, play the double bass a little, and Don Ciccio, the carpenter, plays the drum. Being used to the hammer, he does it not badly. And all the time the organ makes boom, boom, and wee, wee. It is a fine concert, but there is much sentiment of devotion, and the women sing. It seems that thus it pleases the saints.' 'Do not the men sing too?' asked Orsino, idly. 'Men? How could men sing in church? A man can sing a 'cantilena' in the fields, but in church it is the women who sing. They know all the words. God has made them so. There is that girl of the notary in Randazzo, for instance--you should hear her sing!' 'I have heard her in Rome,' said Orsino. But she sings in a theatre.' 'A theatre? Who knows how a theatre is made? See how many things men have invented!' They reached the door of the church. 'Signori, do you really wish to see this organ?' asked the sacristan. 'There is a much better one in the little church outside the gate. But the day is hot, and if you only wish to see an organ, this one is nearer.' 'Let me see the good one, by all means,' said Ippolito. 'I wish to play on it--not to see it! I have seen hundreds of organs.' 'Hundreds of organs!' exclaimed the man to himself. 'Capers! This stranger has travelled much! But if it is indeed not too hot for you,' he said, addressing Ippolito, 'we will go to Santa Vittoria.' 'It is not hot at this hour,' laughed Orsino. 'We have walked up from Camaldoli.' 'On foot!' The fat sacristan either was, or pretended to be, amazed. 'Great signori like you to come all that distance on foot!' 'What is there surprising in that?' enquired Ippolito. 'We have legs.' 'Birds also have legs,' observed the man. 'But they fly. It is only the chickens that walk, like poor people. I say that money is wings. If I were a great signore, like you, I would not even walk upstairs. I would be carried. Why should I walk? In order to be tired? It would be a folly, if I were rich. I, if you ask me, I like to eat well, to drink well, and then to sleep well. A man who could do these three things should be always happy. But the poor are always in thought.' 'So are the rich,' observed Ippolito. 'Yes, signore, for their souls, for we are all sinners; but not for their bodies, because they have always something to eat. What do I say? They eat meat every day, and so they are strong and have no thought for their bodies. But one of us, what does he eat? A little bread, a little salad, an onion, and with this in our bodies we have to move the earth. The world is thus made. Patience!' Thus philosophising, the fat man rolled unwieldily along beside the two gentlemen, swinging his keys in his hand. 'If I had made the world, it should be another thing,' he continued, for he was a loquacious man. 'In the first place, I would have made wine clear, like water, and I would have made water black, like wine. Thus if the wine-seller put water into his wine, we should all see it. Another thing I would have done. I would have made corn grow on trees, like olives. In that way, we should have planted it once in two hundred years, as we do the olive trees, and there would have been less fatigue. Is not that a good thought?' 'Very original,' said Orsino. 'It had never struck me.' 'I would also have made men so that their hair should stand on end when they are telling lies, as the donkey lifts his tail when he brays. That would also have been good. But the Creator did not think of it in time. Patience! They say it will be different in Paradise. Hope costs little, but you cannot cook it.' 'You are a philosopher,' observed Ippolito. 'No, signore,' answered the sacristan. 'You have been misinformed. I am a grocer, or, to say it better, I am the brother of the grocer. When it is the season, after Santa Teresa's day, I kill the pigs and salt the hams and make the sausages. I am also the sacristan, but that yields me little; for although there is much devotion in our town at festivals, there is little of it among private persons. Sometimes an old woman brings a candle to the Madonna, and she gives a soldo to have it lighted. What is that? Can one live with a soldo now and then? But my brother, thanks be to Heaven, is well-to-do, and a widower. He makes me live with him. He had a son once, but, health to you, Christ and the sea took the boy when he was not yet twenty. Therefore I live with him, to divert him a little, and I kill the pigs, speaking with respect of your face.' 'And what do you do during the rest of the year?' enquired Orsino, as they neared the gate. 'Eh, I live so. According to the season, I pack oranges, I trim vines, I make the wine for my brother, and the oil, I take the honey and the wax from the bees, I graft good fruit upon the wild pear trees--what should I do? A little of everything, in order of eat.' 'But your brother seems to be rich. Have you nothing?' 'Signore, to me money comes like a freshet in spring and runs away, and immediately I am dry. But to my brother it comes like water into a well, and it stays there. Men are thus made. The one gives, the other takes; the one shuts his hand, the other opens his. My mother, blessed soul, used to say to me, "Take care, my son, for when you are old, you will go in rags!" But thanks be to Heaven, I have my brother, and I am as you see me.' They came to the little church with its freshly whitewashed walls and tiled roof. 'This is the chapel of Santa Vittoria,' said the fat sacristan. 'The church in the town is dedicated to Our Lady of Victories, but this is the chapel of the saint, and there is more devotion here, though it is small, and at the great feast of Santa Vittoria the procession starts from here and goes to the church, and returns here.' 'It looks new,' observed Ippolito. 'Eh, if all things were what they seem!' The man chuckled as he turned the key in the lock. 'You shall see inside whether it is new. It is older than Saint Peter's in Rome.' And so it was, by two or three centuries. It was a dark little building, of the Norman period, with low arches and solid little pillars terminating in curiously-carved capitals. It had a little nave with intercommunicating side chapels, like aisles. Over the door was a small loft containing the organ, the object of Ippolito's visit. In the uneven floor there were slabs with deep-cut but much-worn figures of knights and prelates in stiff armour or long and equally stiff-looking robes, their heads surrounded by almost illegible inscriptions. Over the principal altar there was a bad painting of Saint Vittoria, half covered with ex-voto offerings of silver hearts, while on each side of the picture were hung up scores of hollow wax models of arms, legs, and other parts of the human body, realistically coloured, all remembrances of recoveries from illness, accident, and disease, attributed to the beneficent intervention of the saint. But above, in the little vault of the apse, there were some very ancient and well-preserved mosaics, magnificently rich in tone. There was, of course, no dome, and the dim light came in through low windows high up in the nave, above the lower side chapels. The church was clean and well kept, and on each side there were half a dozen benches painted with a vivid sky-blue colour. The two brothers looked about, with some curiosity, while the fat sacristan slowly jingled his bunch of keys against his leg. 'Here the dead walk at night,' he observed, cheerfully, as the two young men came up to him. 'What do you mean?' asked Orsino, who had been much amused by the man's conversation. 'The old Pagliuca walk. I have seen their souls running about the floor in the dark, like little candle flames. A little more, and I should have seen their bodies too, but I ran away. Soul of my mother! I was frightened. It was on the eve of Santa Vittoria, five years ago. The candles for the festival had not come, though we had waited all day for the carrier from Piedimonte. Then he came at dark, for he had met a friend in Linguaglossa, and he was a drunkard, and the wine was new, so he slept on his cart all the way, and it was by the grace of the Madonna that he did not roll off into the ditch. But I considered that it was late, and that the office began early in the morning, and that many strangers came from Bronte and the hill village to our festa, and that it would be a scandal if they found us still dressing the church in the morning. So I took the box of candles on my back and came here, not thinking to bring a lantern, because there is always the lamp before the altar where the saint's bones are. Do you understand?' 'Perfectly. But what about the Pagliuca?' 'My brother said, "You will see the Pagliuca"--for everyone says it. But I had a laugh at him, for I thought that a dead man in his grave must be as quiet as a handkerchief in a drawer. So I came, and I unlocked the door, thinking about the festival, and I came in, meaning to take a candle from the box and light it at the altar lamp, so that I might see well to stick the others into the candlesticks. But there was the flame of a candle burning on the floor. It ran away from me as I came in, and others ran after it, and round and round it. Then I knew that I saw the souls of the old Pagliuca, and I said to myself that presently I should see also their bodies--an evil thing, for they have been long dead. Then I made a movement--who knows how I did? I dropped the box and I heard it break, and all the candles rolled out upon the floor as though the dead Pagliuca were rattling their bones. But I counted neither one nor two, but jumped out into the road with one jump. Santa Vittoria helped me; and it was a bright moonlight night, but as I shut the door, I could see the souls of the Pagliuca jumping up and down on the pavement. I said within me, when the dead dance, the living go home. And my face was white. When I came home, my brother said, "You have seen the Pagliuca." And I said, "I have seen them." Then he gave me some rum, and I lay in a cold sweat till morning. From that time I will not come here at night. But in the daytime it is different.' Orsino and Ippolito knew well enough that in old Italian churches, where many dead are buried under the pavement, it is not an uncommon thing to see a will-o'-the-wisp at night. But in the dim little church, with the dead Pagliuca lying under their feet, there was something gruesome about the man's graphic story, and they did not laugh. 'Let us hope that we may not see any ghosts,' said Orsino. 'Amen,' answered the sacristan, devoutly. 'That is the organ,' he said, pointing to the loft. He led the way. On one side of the entrance a small arched door gave access to a narrow winding staircase in the thickness of the wall, lighted by narrow slits opening to the air. Though the loft had not appeared to be very high above the pavement, the staircase seemed very long. At last the three emerged upon the boarded floor, at the back of the instrument, where four greasy, knotted ropes hung out of worn holes in the cracked wood. The rose window over the door of the church threw a bright light into the little forest of dusty wooden and metal pipes above. The ropes were for working the old-fashioned bellows. Ippolito went round and took the thin deal cover from the keyboard. He was surprised to find a double bank of keys, and an octave and a half of pedals, which is very uncommon in country organs. He was further unprepared to see the name of a once famous maker in Naples just above the keys, but when he looked up he understood, for on a gilded scroll, supported by two rickety cherubs above his head, he read the name of the donor. 'FERDINANDUS PALIUCA PRINCEPS CORLEONIS COMES SANCTAE VICTORIAE SICULUS DONAVIT A.D. MDCCCXXI.' The instrument was, therefore, the gift of a Ferdinando Pagliuca, Prince of Corleone, Count of Santa Vittoria, probably of one of those Pagliuca whose souls the fat sacristan believed he had seen 'jumping up and down the pavement.' The sacristan tugged at the ropes that moved the bellows. Ippolito dusted the bench over which he had leaned to uncover the keys, slipped in, swinging his feet over the pedals, pulled out two or three stops, and struck a chord. The tone was not bad, and had in it some of that richness which only old organs are supposed to possess, like old violins. He began to prelude softly, and then, one by one, he tried the other stops. Some were fair, but some were badly out of tune. The cornopean brayed hideously, and the hautboy made curious buzzing sounds. Ippolito promised himself that he would set the whole instrument in order in the course of a fortnight, and was delighted with his discovery. When he had finished, the fat sacristan came out from behind, mopping his forehead with a blue cotton handkerchief. 'Capers!' he exclaimed. 'You are a professor. If Don Giacomo hears you, he will die of envy.' 'Who is Don Giacomo?' 'Eh, Don Giacomo? He is the postmaster and the telegrapher, and he plays the old organ in the big church on Sundays. But when there is a festival here, a professor comes to play this one, from Catania. But he cannot play as you do.' Orsino had gone down again into the church while Ippolito had been playing. They found him bending very low over an inscription on a slab near the altar steps. 'There is a curious inscription here,' he said, without looking up. 'I cannot quite read it, but it seems to me that I see our name in it. It would be strange if one of our family had chanced to die and be buried here, ages ago.' Ippolito bent down, too, till his head touched his brother's. 'It is not Latin,' he said presently. 'It looks like Italian.' The fat sacristan jingled his keys rather impatiently, for it was growing late. 'Without troubling yourselves to read it, you may know what it is,' he said. 'It is the old prophecy about the Pagliuca. When the dead walk here at night they read it. It says, 'Esca Pagliuca pesca Saracen.' But it goes round a circle like a disc, so that you can read it, 'Saracen esca Pagliuca pesca'--either, Let Pagliuca go out, the Saracen is fishing, or, Let the Saracen go out, Pagliuca is fishing.' '"Or Saracinesca Pagliuca pesca"--Saracinesca fishes for Pagliuca,' said Ippolito to Orsino, with a laugh at his own ingenuity. 'Who knows what it means!' exclaimed the sacristan. 'But they say that when it comes true, the last Corleone shall die and the Pagliuca d'Oriani shall end. But whether they end or not, they will walk here till the Last Judgment. Signori, the twilight descends. If you do not wish to see the Pagliuca, let us go. But if you wish to see them, here are the keys. You are the masters, but I go home. This is an evil place at night.' The man was growing nervous, and moved away towards the door. The two brothers followed him. 'The place is consecrated,' said Ippolito, as they reached the entrance. 'What should you be afraid of?' 'Santa Vittoria is all alone here,' answered the man, 'and the Pagliuca are more than fifty, when they come out and walk. What should a poor Christian do? He is better at home with a pipe of tobacco.' The sun had set when they all came out upon the road, and the afterglow was purple on the snow of Etna. CHAPTER XXI Vittoria d'Oriani had very few companions. Corona Saracinesca really liked her, for her own sake, and was sorry for her because she belonged to the family which was so often described as the worst blood in Italy. Corona and San Giacinto's wife had together presented the Corleone tribe in Roman society, but they were both women of middle age, without daughters who might have been friends for Vittoria. On the other hand, though the Romans had accepted the family on the endorsement, as it were, of the whole Saracinesca family, there was a certain general disinclination to become intimate with them, due to the posthumous influence of their dead uncle, Corleone of evil fame. The Campodonico people were unwilling to have anything to do with them, even to the gentle and charitable Donna Francesca, who had been a Braccio, and might therefore, perhaps, have been expected to condone a great many shortcomings in other families. Pietro Ghisleri, who generally spent the winter in Rome, refused to know the d'Oriani, for poor dead Bianca Corleone's sake; and his English wife, who knew the old story, thought he was right. The great majority of the Romans received them, however, very much as they would have received foreigners who had what is called a right to be in society, with civility, but not with enthusiasm. Vittoria had, therefore, met many Roman girls of her own age during the spring, but had not become intimate with any of them. It was natural that when her brother made the acquaintance of Mrs. and Miss Slayback, and when the young American took what is usually described in appalling English as a violent fancy to Vittoria, the latter should feel that sort of gratitude which sometimes expands into friendship. They saw much of each other. It is needless to say that they had not an idea in common, and it would have been very surprising if they had. But on the other hand they had that sort of community of feeling which is a better foundation for intimacy than a similarity of ideas. Miss Lizzie Slayback was not profound, but she was genuine. She had no inherited tendency to feel profound emotions nor to get into tragic situations, but she was full of innocent sentiment. Like many persons who do not lead romantic lives, she was in love with romance, and she believed that romance had a sort of perpetual existence somewhere, so that by taking some pains one could really find it and live in it. Her fortune would be useful in the search, although it was unromantic to be rich. She had not read 'Montecristo,' because she was told that Dumas was old-fashioned. She was not very gifted, but she was very clever in detail. She did not understand Tebaldo in the least, for she was no judge of human nature, but she knew perfectly well how to keep him at arm's length until she had decided to marry him. She was absolutely innocent, yet she had also the most absolute assurance, and bore herself in society with the independence of a married woman of thirty. 'It is our custom in my country,' she said to Vittoria, who was sometimes startled by her friend's indifference to the smaller conventionalities. The two young girls spoke French together, and understood each other, though a third person might not at first have known that they were speaking the same language. Vittoria spoke the French of an Italian convent, old-fashioned, stilted, pronounced with the rolling southern accent which only her beautiful voice could make bearable, and more or less wild as to gender. Lizzie Slayback, as has been said, spoke fluently and often said the same things because she had a small choice of language. Occasionally she used phrases that would have made a Frenchman's hair feel uneasy on his head, and her innocent use of which inspired disquieting doubts as to the previous existence of the person who had taught her. 'We think,' she said, 'that it is better to enjoy yourself while you are young, and be good when you grow old, but in Europe it seems to be the other way.' 'No one can be good all the time,' answered Vittoria. 'One is good a little and one is bad a little, by turns, just as one can.' 'That makes a variety,' said Miss Slayback. 'That is why you Italians are so romantic.' 'I never can understand what you mean by romantic,' observed Vittoria. 'Oh--everything you do is romantic, my dear. Your brother is the most romantic man I ever saw. That is why I think I shall marry him,' she added, as though contemplating a new hat with a view to buying it, and almost sure that it would suit her. 'I do not think you will be happy with him,' said Vittoria, rather timidly. 'Because he is romantic, and I am not? Well, I am not sure.' 'There! You use the word again! What in the world do you mean by it?' Miss Slayback was at a loss to furnish the required definition, especially in French. 'Your brother is romantic,' she said, repeating herself. 'I am sure he looks like Cæsar Borgia.' 'I hope not!' exclaimed Vittoria. 'Surely you would not marry--' she stopped. 'Cæsar Borgia?' enquired Lizzie Slayback, calmly. 'Of all people, I should have liked to marry him! He was nice and wicked. He would never have been dull, even nowadays, when everybody is so proper, you know.' 'No,' laughed the Italian girl, 'I do not think anybody would have called him dull. He generally murdered his friends before they were bored by his company.' Miss Lizzie laughed, for Vittoria seemed witty to her. 'If I had said that at a party,' she answered, 'everybody would have told me that I was so clever! I wish I had thought of it. May I say it, as if it were mine? Shall you not mind?' 'Why should I? I should certainly not say it myself, before people.' 'Why not?' 'It would not be thought exactly--oh--what shall I say? We young girls are never expected to say anything like that. We look down, and hold our tongues.' 'And think of all the sharp things you will say when you are married! That is just the difference. Now, in the West, where I come from, if a girl has anything clever to say, she says it, even if she is only ten years old. I must say, it seems to me much more sensible.' 'Yes--but there are other things, besides being sensible,' objected Vittoria. 'Then they must be senseless,' retorted Miss Lizzie. 'It follows.' 'There are all sorts of customs and traditions in society that have not very much sense perhaps, but we are all used to them, and should feel uncomfortable without them. When the nuns taught me to do this, or that, to say certain things, and not to say certain other things, it was because all the other young girls I should meet would be sure to act in just the same way, and if I did not act as they do, I should make myself conspicuous.' 'I never could see the harm in being conspicuous,' said Miss Slayback. 'Provided one is not vulgar,' she added, by way of limitation. 'Do you not feel uncomfortable, when you feel that everyone is looking at you?' 'No, of course not, unless I am doing something ridiculous. I rather like to have people look at me. That makes me feel satisfied with myself.' 'It always makes me feel dreadfully uncomfortable,' said Vittoria. 'It should not, for you are beautiful, my dear. You really are. I only think I am, when I have good clothes and am not sunburnt or anything like that--I never really believe it, you know. But when people admire me, it helps the illusion. I wish I were beautiful, like you, Vittoria.' 'I am not beautiful,' said the Sicilian girl, colouring a little shyly. 'But I wish I had your calmness. I am always blushing--it is so uncomfortable--or else I am very pale, and then I feel cold, as though my heart were going to stop beating. I think I should faint if I were to do the things you sometimes do.' 'What, for instance?' laughed the American girl. 'Oh--I have seen you cross a ballroom alone, and drive alone in an open carriage--' 'What could happen to me in a carriage?' 'It is not that--it is--I hardly know! It is like a married woman.' 'I shall be married some day, so I may as well get into the habit of it,' observed Miss Lizzie, smiling and showing her beautiful teeth. In spite of such inconclusive conversations, the two girls were really fond of each other. When Mrs. Slayback looked at Tebaldo's sharp features, her heart hardened; but when she looked at Vittoria, it softened again. She was a very intelligent woman, in her way, and, having originally married for his money a man whom she considered beneath her in social standing and cultivation, she wished to improve his family in her own and her friends' eyes by making a brilliant foreign marriage for his niece. 'Princess of Corleone' sounded a good deal better than 'Miss Lizzie Slayback,' and there was no denying the antiquity and validity of the title. There were few to be had as good as that, for the girl's religion was a terrible obstacle to her marrying the heir of any great house in Europe in which money was not a paramount necessity. But Tebaldo assured her that he attached no importance whatever to such matters. Lizzie was in love with him, and he took pains to seem to be in love with her. Mrs. Slayback did not give more weight to her niece's inclinations and fancies than Tebaldo gave to his religious scruples. The girl was highly impressionable to a very small depth, skin deep, in fact, and below the shallow gauge of her impressions she suddenly became hard and obstinate like her uncle. She had an unfortunate way of liking people very much at first sight if she chanced to meet them when she was in a good humour, and quite regardless of what they might really be. She had said to herself that Tebaldo was 'romantic,' and as his life hitherto might certainly have been well described by some such word, he had no difficulty in keeping up the illusion for her. He saw that she listened with wonder and delight to his tales of wild doings in Sicily, and he had not the slightest difficulty in finding as many of them to tell her as suited his purpose. He had been more intimately connected with one or two of his stories than he chose to tell her; but he was ready at turning a difficulty of that sort, and when he introduced himself he treated his own personality and actions with that artistic modesty which leaves vague beauties to the imagination. Never having had any actual experience of the rude deeds of unbridled humanity, Miss Lizzie liked revengeful people because they were 'romantic.' She liked to think of a man who could carry off his enemy's bride in the grey dawn of her wedding day, escape with her on board a ship, and be out of sight of land before night--because such deeds were 'romantic.' She liked to know that a band of thirty desperate men could bid defiance to the government and the army for months, and she loved to hear of Leone, the outlaw chief, who had killed a dozen soldiers with his own hand in twenty minutes, before he fell with twenty-seven bullets in him--that was indeed 'romantic.' And Tebaldo had seen Leone himself, many years ago, and remembered him and described him; and he had seen most of the people whose extraordinary adventures he detailed to the girl, and had known them and spoken with them, had shot with them for wagers, had drunk old wine of Etna at their weddings, and had followed some of them to their graves when they had been killed. A good many of his acquaintances had been killed in various 'romantic' affairs. Everything he told her appealed strongly to Lizzie Slayback's imagination, and he had the advantage, if it were one, of being really a great deal like the people he described, daring, unscrupulous, physically brave and revengeful, very much the type which is so often spoken of in Calabria with bated breath, as 'a desperate man of Sicily.' For the Italian of the mainland is apt both to dread and respect the stronger man of the islands. In addition to his accomplishments as a story-teller, Tebaldo possessed the power of seeming to be very much in love, without ever saying much about it. He flattered the girl, telling her that she was beautiful and witty and charming, and everything else which she wished to be; and when his eyelids were not drooping at the corners as they did when he was angry, he had a way of gazing with intense and meaning directness into Lizzie Slayback's dark blue eyes, so that Vittoria would no longer have envied her, for she blushed and looked away, half pleased and half disturbed. Aliandra Basili thought Francesco much more ready and apt to anticipate her small wishes and to understand her thoughts than his brother. But when he chose to take the trouble, with cool calculation, Tebaldo knew well enough how to make a woman believe that he was taking care of her, which is what many women most wish to feel. With Aliandra, whom he loved as much as he was capable of loving anyone, Tebaldo felt himself almost too much at his ease to disguise his own selfishness. But he gave himself endless trouble for Miss Slayback, and she was sometimes touched by little acts of his which showed how constantly she was in his mind--as indeed she was, much more than she knew. In her moments of solitude, which were few, for she hated to be alone, she reflected more than once that her money must seem a great inducement to a poor Italian nobleman; but she was too much in love with the 'romantic' to believe that Tebaldo wished to marry her solely for her fortune. It was too hard to believe, when she looked at her own face in the mirror and saw how young, and pretty, and smiling she really was. Her dark lashes gave her blue eyes so much expression that she could not think herself not loved, a mere encumbrance to be taken with a fortune, but not without, in exchange for a title. She was fond of her refined but not very remarkable self, and it would have been hard to convince her that Tebaldo's silent looks and ever-ready service meant nothing but greed of money. Very possibly, she admitted, he could not have thought of marrying her if she had been poor, but she believed it equally certain that if she had been an ugly, rich, middle-aged old maid, he would never have thought of it either. Besides, Tebaldo had watched with great satisfaction the growing intimacy between her and his sister, and he took care to play his comedy before Vittoria as carefully as before Miss Slayback herself. Vittoria, as he knew, was very truthful, and if her friend asked questions about him, she would repeat accurately what he had said in her presence, if she gave any information at all. To his face, Vittoria accused him of wishing to marry for money, but so long as he affirmed that he loved Miss Slayback, Vittoria would never accuse him behind his back, nor tell tales about his character which might injure his prospects. Though he knew that she rarely believed him and never trusted him, he knew that he could trust her. That fact alone might have sufficiently defined their respective characters. CHAPTER XXII Tebaldo had not been at all willing to believe that Aliandra Basili really meant to treat him differently after the meeting in which she had defined her position so clearly, but he soon discovered that she was in earnest. She was not a person to change her mind easily, and she had decided that it was time to end the situation in one way or the other. Tebaldo must either marry her, or cease to persecute her with his attentions. In the latter case she intended to marry Francesco. Like most successful singers, and, indeed, like most people who succeed remarkably in any career, she possessed the extraordinary energy which ultimately makes the difference between success and failure in all struggles for pre-eminence. Many have the necessary talent and the other necessary gifts; few have, besides these things, the restless, untiring force to use them at all times to the extreme limit of possibility. People who have the requisite facility but not the indispensable energy find it so hard to realise this fact that they have inverted our modern use of the word 'genius' to account for their own failures. The ancients, and even the mediævals, when beaten in a fair fight by men more enduring than themselves, were always ready to account for their defeat on the ground of a supernatural intervention against them. Similarly the people who are clever enough to succeed, nowadays, but not strong enough, nor patient enough, attribute to the man who surpasses them some sort of supernatural inspiration, which they call genius, and against which they tell themselves that it is useless to strive. Socrates called his acute sense of right and wrong his familiar spirit, his dæmon; but in those days of the supremacy of the greatest art the world has ever seen, or ever will see, at a time when most people still believed in oracles, no one ever attributed any such familiar spirit to Sophocles, to Praxiteles, nor to Zeuxis, nor to any other poets, sculptors, or painters. The Muses had become mere names even then, and the stories about them were but superstitious fables. That restless energy was part of the Sicilian singer's nature. Whether her other gifts were great enough for greatness remained to be seen, and the question had nothing to do with Tebaldo Pagliuca. Her singing gave him pleasure, but it was not what chiefly attracted him. He was in love with her in a commonplace and by no means elevated way, and artistic satisfaction did not enter into his passion as a component factor. There was nothing so elevated about it. Aliandra's very womanly nature made her vaguely aware of this, and she had a physical suspicion, so to say, that if Tebaldo ever lost his head, he would be much more violent than his brother, who had frightened her so badly one evening at the theatre. She was inclined to think that it would not be safe to irritate Tebaldo too much; yet she was sure that it was of no use to prolong the present ambiguous situation, in which she was practically accepting and authorising the love of a man who would not marry her if he could help it. After she had finally told him what she meant to do, nothing could move her, and she entirely refused to see him alone. Hitherto she had used her privilege as an artist in this respect, and had often sent away her worthy aunt, the Signora Barbuzzi, during his visits. But now, when he came, the black-browed, grey-haired, thin-lipped old woman kept her place beside her niece on the little green sofa of the little hired drawing-room, her withered fingers steadily knitting black silk stockings. This was her only accomplishment, but it was an unusual one, and she was very proud of it, and of her wonderful eyes, which never needed glasses, and could count the minute black stitches even when the light was beginning to fail on a winter's afternoon. Then Tebaldo sat uneasily on his chair, and wished the old woman might fall dead in an apoplexy, and that he had the evil eye, and by mere wishing could bring her to destruction. And Aliandra leaned back in the other corner of the sofa, behind her aunt, and smiled coolly at what Tebaldo said, and answered indifferently, and looked at her nails critically but wearily when he said nothing, as if she wished he would go away. And he generally went at the end of half an hour, unable to bear the situation much longer than that, after he had discovered that the Signora Barbuzzi was in future always to sit through his visits. 'And now, my daughter,' said the aunt one day when he had just gone, 'the other will come in a quarter of an hour. The sun sets, the moon rises, as we say.' Which invariably happened. Francesco did not like being caught with Aliandra by his brother, as has been already seen. He had, therefore, hit upon the simple plan of spying upon him, following him at a distance until he entered Aliandra's house, and then sitting in a little third-rate café opposite until he came out. Tebaldo, who was extremely particular about the places he frequented, because he wished to behave altogether like a Roman gentleman, would never have entered any such place as Francesco made use of for his own purposes. Francesco knew that, and felt perfectly safe as he sat at his little marble table, with a glass of syrup and soda water, his eyes fixed on the big front door which he could see through the window from the place he regularly occupied. He was also quite sure that, as Tebaldo had always just left the house when he himself came, there was no danger of his elder brother's sudden appearance. The Signora Barbuzzi was decidedly much more civilised than her brother, the notary of Randazzo, for she had been married to a notary of Messina, which meant that she had lived in much higher social surroundings. That, at least, was her opinion, and Aliandra was too wise to dispute with her. She had given the deceased Barbuzzi no children, and in return for her discretion he had left her a comfortable little income. Notaries are apt to marry the sisters and daughters of other notaries, and to associate with men of their own profession, for they generally have but little confidence in persons of other occupations. The Signora Barbuzzi might have been a notary herself, for she had the avidity of mind, the distrustfulness, the caution about details, and the supernormal acuteness about the intentions of other people which are the old-fashioned Italian notary's predominant characteristics. She looked like one, too. 'For my part, my daughter,' she said to her niece, shaking her head twice towards the same side, as some old women frequently do when they are knitting a stocking, 'for my part, I should send them both away for the present. They will not marry, for they have no money. Who marries without money? I see that you earn a great deal, but not a fortune. If you should marry Tebaldo or Francesco, and if you should not earn the fortune you expect, you would find yourself badly off. But if you can earn ten times, twenty times what you have earned this winter during the next four or five years, then you can marry either of them, because they will want your money as well as yourself.' Aliandra said nothing for some minutes, for she saw the truth of her aunt's advice. On the other hand, she was young and felt quite sure of success, and she did not feel sure that some unexpected turn of fortune might not suddenly bring about an advantageous marriage for one of the two men. 'I am not the Patti,' she said thoughtfully. 'I am not the Melba. I am only the little Basili yet, but I have a remarkable voice and I can work--' 'Voices are treacherous,' observed the cautious old woman. 'They sometimes break down. Then you will only be the daughter of Basili the notary again.' 'My voice will not break down,' answered Aliandra, confidently. 'It is a natural voice, and I never make any effort. My master says it is the voices which are incomplete at first and have to be developed to equalise them, which break down sometimes.' 'You may have an illness,' suggested the Signora Barbuzzi. 'Then you may lose your voice.' 'Why should I have an illness? I am strong.' The handsome girl leaned back on the sofa and raising her arms clasped her hands behind her head, resting them against the wall--a splendidly vital figure. 'We are mortal,' observed the old woman, sententiously. 'When God pleases to send us a fever, goodbye voice!' 'Have I some sin on my soul that Heaven should send me a fever?' asked Aliandra, rather indignantly. 'What have I done?' 'Nothing, nothing, my daughter! Who accuses you? You are an angel, you are a crystal, you are a little saint. I have said nothing. But a fever is a fever for saints and sinners.' 'I am not going to have a fever, and I am not going to lose my voice. I shall make a great reputation and earn a great deal of money.' 'Heaven send it you thus!' answered the Signora Barbuzzi, devoutly. 'But I shall make Tebaldo jealous of Francesco, so that he will not be able to see out of his eyes for jealousy. Then he will marry me. But if not, I will marry the other, whom I like better.' 'Indeed, jealousy is a weapon, my dear. A bad mule needs a good stick, as they say. But for my part, I am a notary's daughter, the widow of a notary--may the Lord preserve him in glory!--and the sister of a notary. I am out of place as the aunt of an artist. With us we have always said, who leaves the old road to take the new, knows what he leaves but not what he shall find. That is a good proverb. But your life is on a new road. You may find fortune, but no one knows. At least, you have bread, if you fail, and you risk nothing, if you remain a good girl.' 'So far as that goes!' Aliandra laughed scornfully. 'My head will not turn easily.' 'Thank Heaven, no. There is the other one,' added the old woman, as she heard the door-bell ring. 'Shall I leave you alone with him, my daughter?' 'Why should you?' asked Aliandra, indifferently. 'What have I to say to him?' She was perhaps not quite as indifferent as she seemed, for Francesco attracted her. On the other hand, she did not wish to be attracted by him so long as there was a chance of marrying the other brother, and her aunt's presence was a sort of precaution against an improbable but vaguely possible folly which she distinguished in the future. On his part, Francesco always did his best to make a favourable impression on the Signora Barbuzzi, considering her friendship indispensable. He fancied that it must be a comparatively easy thing to please an old chaperon who got little attention from anyone, and he used to bring her bunches of violets from time to time, which he presented with a well-turned speech. He might as well have offered a nosegay to the deceased Barbuzzi himself, for all the impression he produced by his civilities to the hard-headed, masculine old woman. He was not discouraged, however, and though he wished her anywhere but where she was, he bore her presence with equanimity and made himself as agreeable as he could. He was far too sharp-sighted himself not to see what Aliandra was doing, but he had no means of acting upon her feelings as she was trying to act upon Tebaldo's, and he had the low sort of philosophy which often belongs to sensual people, and which is perhaps not much higher than the patience of the cat that crouches before the mouse's hole, waiting for its victim to run into danger. He was no match, however, for the two women, and he very much overestimated the attraction he exercised upon Aliandra. It was, in a manner, a sort of disturbing influence rather than an attraction, and Aliandra avoided it until she was forced to feel it, and when she felt it, she feared it. Yet she liked him, and was surprised at the contradiction, and distrusted herself in a general way. She was not much given to self-examination, and would probably not have understood what the word meant; but, like a young wild animal, she was at once aware of the presence of danger, and was tempted towards the cause of it, while her keen natural instinct of self-preservation made her draw back cautiously whenever the temptation to advance was particularly strong. This was the situation of Aliandra with regard to the two brothers respectively. Her interest lay with the one, her inclination, so far as it was one, with the other, and she distrusted both in different ways, fearing the one that was a coward, but distrusting more the one who was the braver and more manly of the two, but also incomparably the more deceitful. They, on their part, were both in love with her, and not in very different ways; but though Tebaldo was the bolder in character, he was the one more able to be cautious where a woman was concerned, while he was also capable of jealousy to a degree inconceivable to Francesco. CHAPTER XXIII The world would go very well, but for the unforeseen. The fate of everyone in this story might have been very different if Gesualda, old Basili's maid of all work, had not stopped to eat an orange surreptitiously while she was sweeping down the stone stairs early in the morning, before the notary was dressed. She was an ugly girl, and had not many pleasures in life; Basili was old and stingy and fault-finding, and she had to do all the work of the house,--the scrubbing, the cooking, the serving, the washing, and the mending. She did it very well; in the first place because she was strong, secondly because she was willing and sufficiently skilful, and lastly because she was very unusually ugly, and therefore had no distractions in the shape of love-making. She was also scrupulously honest and extremely careful not to waste things in the kitchen. But fruit was her weakness, and, being a Sicilian, she might have been capable of committing a crime for the sake of an orange, or a bunch of grapes, or a dozen little figs, if they had not been so plentiful that one could always have what one could eat for the mere asking. Her only shortcoming, therefore, was that she could not confine herself to eating her oranges in the kitchen. She always had one in her pocket. A cynical old lady once said that the only way to deal with temptation was to yield to it at once, and save oneself all further annoyance. Gesualda yielded to the temptation to eat the orange she had in her pocket, when she had resisted it just long enough to make the yielding a positive delight. She felt the orange through her skirt, she imagined how it looked, she thought how delicious it would be, and her lips were dry for it, and her soul longed for it. There was always a quiet corner at hand, for the notary lived alone. In an instant the orange was in her hands, her coarse fingers took the peel off in four pieces with astonishing skill, the said peel disappeared temporarily into the pocket again, and a moment later she was happy. Her whole part in this history consisted in the eating of a single orange on the dark stone stairs, yet it was an important one, for out of all the thousands of oranges she had eaten during her life, that particular one was destined to be the first link in a long and tragic chain of circumstances. Whether the orange was not quite ripe, so that the peel did not come away as easily as usual, or whether she was made a little nervous by the fact that her master might be expected to appear at any moment, a fact which enhanced the delight of the misdeed, neither she herself nor anyone else will ever know. As usual, she ran her sharp, strong thumb-nail twice round the fruit, crosswise, dug her fingers into the crossing cuts thus made, and stripped the peel off in a twinkling, thrusting the four dry pieces into her pocket. And as usual, in another moment, she was perfectly, blissfully happy, for it was a blood-orange, and particularly sweet and juicy, having no pips, for it had grown on a very old tree, and those are the best, as everyone knows in the orange country of the south. But fate tore off a tiny fragment of the peel, a mere corner of one strip, thick, and the shiny side upwards, all slippery with its aromatic oil, and placed it cunningly just on the edge of one of the worn old stone steps, above her in the dark turning. Then fate went away, and waited quietly to see what should happen, and Gesualda also went away, down to her kitchen, to begin and prepare the vegetables which she had bought at daybreak of the vendor, a little way down the street. The bit of peel lay quite quietly in the dark, doing as fate had bidden it, and waiting likewise. Now, fate had reckoned exactly how many paces Basili the notary would take from his room to the head of the stairs, in order to know with which foot he would take the first step downwards, and hence to calculate whether the bit of peel should be a little to the right or a little to the left. And it lay a little to the left: for the left foot, as fate is aware, is the unlucky foot, except for left-handed people. Basili was a right-handed man; and as he came downstairs in his great, flapping leathern slippers, he put the smoothest spot of the old sole exactly upon the shiny bit of peel. All of which shows the astonishing accuracy which fate can bring to bear at important moments. This was the beginning of the end of this history. Basili fell, of course, and, as it seemed to him, he fell backwards, forwards, sideways, and upside down, all in a moment; and when he came to the bottom of the stairs, he had a broken leg. It was not a bad break, though any broken leg is bad, and the government surgeon was at home, because it was early in the morning, and came and set it very well, and Basili lay in a sunny room, with pots of carnations in the window, drinking syrup of tamarind with water, to cool his blood, and very much disturbed in his mind. Gesualda sat on the steps all the morning, moaning and beating her breast, for she had found the little piece of orange-peel, groping in the dark, and she knew that it had all been her fault. For penitence, she made a vow, at first, not to eat an orange till the master was recovered. Later in the day, she went to confession, in order to ease her soul of its burden, and she told her confessor that she could not possibly keep the vow, and that she had already twice undergone horrible temptation since the accident, at the mere sight of an orange. Thereupon the confessor, who was a wise little old man, commuted her self-imposed penance to abstinence from cheese, which she scrupulously practised for a whole month afterwards, until the notary was on his feet for the first time. But by that time a great many things had happened. Basili lay in his sunny room, finding it difficult to understand exactly what had happened to him. He had never been ill in his life, excepting once when he had taken a little fever, as a mere boy. He was a tough man, not so old as he looked, and he had never thought it possible that he could be laid on his back and made perfectly helpless for a whole month. He had ground his teeth while they had been setting his leg, but in spite of the pain he had been thinking chiefly of the check to his business which must be the inevitable result of such a long confinement. He had a shabby little clerk who copied for him, and was not altogether stupid, but he trusted no one with the affairs of his clients, and he was a very important person in Randazzo. Moreover, a young notary from Catania had recently established himself in opposition to him, and he feared the competition. He was very lonely, too, for the clerk, after presenting his condolences, had seized the opportunity of taking a holiday, and there was nobody but Gesualda in the house. In the afternoon she got her mother to take her place while she went to confession. Basili was very lonely indeed, for the doctor would not let him receive his clients who came on business, fearing fever for his patient. The day seemed very long. He called for paper and pen, and in spite of the surgeon's prohibition, he had himself propped up in bed, and wrote a letter to his daughter. He told her of his accident, and begged her to come to him, if she could do so without injuring the course of study she had undertaken. Time was precious to Aliandra, for her master generally left Rome at the end of June, and she had only learned about half of Aida, the opera she had undertaken to study, and which was a necessary one for her future career. But she made up her mind at once to go to her father, for a fortnight, after which time, in the ordinary course of things, he would probably be able to spare her. She was very fond of him, for her mother had died when she had been very young, and Basili had loved the child with the grim tenderness peculiar to certain stern characters; and afterwards, when once persuaded that she had both voice and talent for the stage, he had generously helped her in every way he could. He had missed her terribly, for she had not been in Sicily since the previous autumn, and it was natural that he should send for her to keep him company during his recovery. She, on her part, looked forward with pleasure to a taste of the old simple existence in which she had been so happy as a child. She left her maid in Rome, and her aunt stopped in Messina, intending to come up to Randazzo a few days later and pay her brother a visit. Before leaving Rome Aliandra told both Tebaldo and Francesco where she was going, and that she intended to return in a fortnight in order to study with her teacher until he should leave Rome. She maintained her attitude of coldness towards Tebaldo to the last. He complained of it. For once, the Signora Barbuzzi had left the room unbidden, judging, no doubt, that before going away for some time Aliandra might wish to see Tebaldo alone, and possibly have some further explanation with him. 'Look here,' he said roughly, 'you have treated me in this way long enough, and I have borne it quietly. Be reasonable--' 'That is exactly what I am,' answered Aliandra. 'It is you who are unreasonable.' 'Because I love you, you say that I am unreasonable!' he retorted, his patience giving way suddenly. 'Because you burn me--bah! find words! I cannot. Give me your hand!' 'Only in one way. I have told you--' 'Give me your hand.' He came quite close to her. She held her hands behind her and looked at him defiantly, her head high, her eyes cold. 'If you want my hand--you must keep it,' she said. She was very handsome just then, and his heart beat faster. There was a tremor in his voice when he spoke again, and his fingers shook as he laid them lightly on her shoulder, barely touching her. There is a most tender vibration in any genuine passion under control, just before it breaks out. Aliandra saw it, but she distrusted him, and believed that he might be acting. 'I cannot bear this much longer,' he said. 'It is killing me.' 'There is no reason why it should,' she answered coldly. 'You know what you have to do. I will marry you whenever you please.' He was silent. The vision of Miss Lizzie Slayback with her millions, and with all his own future, rose before him. He seemed to see it all behind the handsome head, on the ugly flowered paper of the wall. That stake was too heavy, and he could not afford to risk it. Yet, as he met Aliandra's hard eyes and cruelly set mouth, her resistance roused him as nothing ever had before. 'You hesitate still,' she said scornfully. 'I do not think your love will kill you.' 'Yours for me will not hurt you, at all events,' he answered rudely. 'Mine? Oh--you may think of that as you please.' She shrugged her shoulders like a woman of the people, and turned from him indifferently; leaving him standing near the door, growing pale by quick degrees, till his face was a faint yellow and his eyes were red. 'I believe you love my brother,' he said hoarsely, as she moved away. She stopped and turned her head, as she answered. 'His is by far the more lovable character,' she said in a tone of contempt. 'I should not blame any woman for preferring him to you.' 'It will be better for him that you should not prefer him.' His face was livid now. Aliandra laughed, and turned so that she could see him. 'Bah! I believe you are a coward after all. He need not fear you, I fancy.' 'Do you really think me a coward?' asked Tebaldo, in a low voice, and his eyes began to frighten her. 'You behave like one,' she answered. 'You are afraid of the mere opinion of society. That is the reason why you hesitate. You say you love me, but you really love only that you call your position.' 'No,' he answered, not moving. 'There are other reasons. And you are mistaken about me. I am not a coward. Do not say it again. Do you understand?' Again she shrugged her shoulders, as though to say that it mattered little to her whether he were a coward or not. But she did not like the look in his eyes, though she did not believe that he would hurt her. She had heard of his occasional terrible outbreaks of anger, but had never seen him in one of them. He was beginning to look dangerous now, she thought. She wondered whether she had gone too far, but reflected that, after all, if she meant to exasperate him into a promise of marriage, she must risk something. 'Do not make me say it,' she replied, more gently than she had spoken yet. Few feminine retorts are more irritating than that one, of which most women know the full value, but in some way it acted upon Tebaldo as a counter-irritant to his real anger. 'No,' said Tebaldo, and his eyelids suddenly drooped, 'you shall say something else. As you are just going away, this is hardly the moment to fix a day for our marriage.' She started slightly at the words, and looked at him. His eyes were less red, and the natural brown colour was coming back in his cheeks. She thought the moment of danger past. 'I shall be back in a fortnight,' she answered. 'There will be time enough when you come back,' he said in his usual tone of voice. 'Provided that you do not change your mind in the meantime,' he added, with a tolerably easy smile. 'Do not forget that you love Francesco.' He laughed, for he was really a good actor. She laughed too, but uneasily, more to quiet herself than to make him think that she was in a good-humour again. 'I never forget the people I love,' she said lightly. Then with a quick gesture and movement, as though wholly forgiving him, she kissed her fingers to him, laughed again, and was out of the room in a moment, leaving him where he was. He stood still for three or four seconds, looking at the door through which she had disappeared, longing for her--like a fool, as he said to himself. Then he went out. It had been a singular parting, he thought, and if he had not been at her mercy by one side of his nature, he said to himself that he would never have spoken to such a woman again. There was a frankly cynical determination on her part to marry him, which might have repelled any man, and which, he admitted, precluded all idea of love on her side. In spite of it all, his hand trembled when he had touched her sleeve at her shoulder, and he had not been quite able to control his voice. In spite of it all, too, he hated his brother with all his heart, far more bitterly than ever before, for what Aliandra had said of him. Something more would have happened on that day if he had known that Francesco was sitting in the little third-rate café opposite Aliandra's house, waiting to see him come out. He would, however, have been momentarily reassured had he further known that the Signora Barbuzzi, for diplomatic reasons, returned to the sitting-room and was present during the whole of Francesco's visit. Aliandra left Rome the next morning. She did not care to tire herself by travelling very fast, so she slept in Naples, and did not reach Randazzo until the third day, a week after her father's accident. CHAPTER XXIV Tebaldo felt a sort of relief when Aliandra was gone. He missed her, and he longed for her, and yet, every time that he thought of Lizzie Slayback, he was glad that Aliandra was in Sicily. He felt more free. It was easier to bear a separation from her than to be ever in fear of her crossing the heiress's path. That, indeed, might have seemed a remote danger, considering the difference that lay between the lives of the American girl and the singer. But Miss Slayback was restless and inquisitive; she liked of all things to meet people who were 'somebody' in any department of art; she had heard of Aliandra Basili and of the sensation her appearance had created during the winter, and she was quite capable of taking a fancy to know her. Miss Lizzie generally began her acquaintance with any one by ascertaining who the acquaintance's acquaintances might be, as Tebaldo well knew, and if at any moment she chose to know the artist, it was probable that his secret would be out in a quarter of an hour. Then, too, he saw that he must precipitate matters, for spring was advancing into summer, and if his engagement were suddenly announced while Aliandra was in Rome, he believed that she would very probably go straight to Miss Slayback and tell her own story, being, as he could see, determined to marry him at any cost. He was therefore very glad that she was gone. But when the hour came round at which he had been accustomed to go and see her every day he missed her horribly, and went and shut himself up in his room. It was not a sentimentality, for he was incapable of that weak but delicate infusion of sentiment and water from which the Anglo-Saxon race derives such keen delight. It was more like a sort of physical possession, from which he could not escape, and during which he would have found it hard to be decently civil to Miss Slayback, or indeed to any other woman. At that time his whole mind and senses were filled with Aliandra, as though she had been bodily present in the room, and her handsome head and vital figure rose distinctly in his eyes, till his pulse beat fast in his throat and his lips were dry. Two days after Aliandra's departure, Tebaldo was in this state, pacing up and down in his room and really struggling against the intense desire to drive instantly to the railway station and follow Aliandra to Sicily. Without a knock the door opened, and Francesco entered. 'What do you want?' asked Tebaldo, almost brutally, as he stopped in his walk. 'What is the matter with you?' enquired the other in some surprise at his brother's tone. 'What do you want, I say?' Tebaldo tapped the floor impatiently with his foot. 'Why do you come here?' 'Really, you seem to be in an extraordinary frame of mind,' observed Francesco. 'I had no intention of disturbing you. I often come to your room--' 'No. You do not come often. Again--what do you want? Money? You generally want that. Take it--there on the table!' He pointed to a little package of the small Italian notes. Francesco took two or three and put them carefully into his pocket-book. Tebaldo watched him, hating him more than usual for having come at that moment. He hated the back of his neck as Francesco bent down; it looked so smooth and the short hair was so curly just above his collar. He wondered whether Aliandra liked to look at the back of Francesco's neck, and his eyes grew red. 'So Aliandra has gone,' observed Francesco, carelessly, as he returned the purse to his pocket and turned to his brother. 'Have you come here to tell me so?' asked Tebaldo, growing rapidly angry. 'Oh no! You must have known it before I did. I merely made a remark--why are you so angry? She will come back. She will probably come just when you are ready to marry Miss Slayback.' 'Will you leave my affairs to me, and go?' Tebaldo made a step forward. 'My dear Tebaldo, I wish you would not be so furious about nothing. I come in peace, and you receive me like a wild animal. I am anxious about your marriage. It will be the salvation of our family, and the sooner you can conclude the matter, the better it will be for all of us.' 'I do not see what advantage you are likely to gain by my marriage.' 'Think of the position! It is a great advantage to be the brother of a rich man.' 'In order to borrow money of him. I see.' 'Not necessarily. It will change our position very much. The danger is that your friend Aliandra may spoil everything if she hears of Miss Slayback.' 'Either go, or speak plainly,' said Tebaldo, beginning to walk up and down in order to control the impulse that was driving him to strike his brother. Francesco sat down upon the edge of the writing-table and lighted a cigarette. 'It is a pity that we should be always quarrelling,' he said. 'If you had not come here, we should not have quarrelled now,' observed Tebaldo, thrusting his hands into his pockets, lest they should do Francesco some harm. 'We should have quarrelled the next time we met,' continued the latter. 'We always do. I wish to propose a peace, a compromise that may settle matters for ever.' 'What matters? There are no matters to settle. Let me alone, and I will let you alone.' 'Of course, you really mean to marry Miss Slayback? Do you, or do you not?' 'What an absurd question! If I do not mean to marry her, why do you suppose I waste my time with her? Do you imagine that I am in love with her?' He laughed harshly. 'Exactly,' answered Francesco, as though his brother's question seemed perfectly natural to him. 'The only explanation of your conduct is that you wish to marry the girl and get her money. It is very wise. We are all delighted. Vittoria likes her for her own sake, and our mother will be very happy. It will console her for Ferdinando's death, which has been a great blow to her.' 'Well? Are you satisfied? Is that all you wish to know?' Tebaldo stopped before him. 'No. Not by any means. You marry Miss Slayback, and you get your share. I want mine.' 'And what do you consider your share, as you call it?' enquired Tebaldo, with some curiosity, in spite of his ill temper. 'It does not seem likely that you mean to marry them both,' said Francesco, swinging one leg slowly and blowing the smoke towards the window. 'Both--whom?' 'Both the American and Aliandra. Of course, you could marry Aliandra in church and the American by a civil marriage, and they might both be satisfied, if you could keep them apart--' 'What an infernal scoundrel you are,' observed Tebaldo, slowly. 'You are certainly not the proper person to point out my moral shortcomings,' retorted Francesco, coolly. 'But I did not suppose that you meant to marry them both, and as you have very wisely decided to take the American girl, I really think you might leave Aliandra to me. If you marry the one, I do not see why I should not marry the other.' 'If I ever find you making love to Aliandra Basili,' said Tebaldo, with slow emphasis, 'I will break every bone in your body.' But he still kept his hands in his pockets. Francesco laughed, for he did not believe that he was in present bodily danger. It was not the first time that Tebaldo had spoken in that way. 'You are ready to quarrel again! I am sure I am perfectly reasonable. I wish to marry Aliandra Basili. I have kept out of your way in that direction for a long time. I should not mention the matter now, unless I were sure that you had made up your mind.' 'And--' Tebaldo came near to him, but hesitated. 'And--excuse me--but what reason have you for supposing that Aliandra will marry you?' 'That is my affair,' answered Francesco, but he shrank a little and slipped from his seat on the table to his feet, when he saw his brother's face. 'How do you mean that it is your affair?' asked Tebaldo, roughly. 'How do you know that she will marry you? Have you asked her? Has she told you that she loves you?' Francesco hesitated a moment. The temptation to say that he was loved by Aliandra, merely for the sake of giving his brother pain, was very great. But so was the danger, and that was upon him already, for Tebaldo mistook the meaning of his hesitation, and finally lost his temper. His sinewy hands went right at his brother's throat, half strangling him in an instant, and then swinging him from side to side on his feet as a terrier shakes a rat. If Francesco had carried even a pocket knife, he would have had it out in an instant, and would have used it. But he had no weapon, and he was no match for Tebaldo in a fury. He struck out fiercely enough with his fists, but the other's hands were above his own, and he could do nothing. He could not even cry out, for he was half choked, and Tebaldo was quite silent in his rage. There would have been murder, had there been weapons within the reach of either. When Tebaldo finally threw him off, Francesco fell heavily upon one knee against the door, but caught the handle with one hand, and regained his feet instantly. 'You shall pay me yet,' he said in a low voice, his throat purple, but his face suddenly white. 'Yes. This is only something on account,' said Tebaldo, with a sneer. 'You shall have the rest of the payment some other time.' But Francesco was gone before the last words had passed his brother's lips. The door closed behind him, and Tebaldo heard his quick footsteps outside as he went off in the direction of his own room. The angry man grew calmer when he was alone, but now and then, as he walked up and down, and backwards and forwards, he clenched his hands spasmodically, wishing that he still had his brother in his grip. Yet, when he reflected, as he began to do before long, upon what had really happened, he realised that he had not, after all, had much reason for taking his brother by the throat. It was the hesitation that had made his temper break out. But then, it might have meant so much. In his present state, the thought that perhaps Aliandra loved Francesco was like the bite of a horse-fly in a raw wound, and he quivered under it. He could not get away from it. He fancied he saw Francesco kissing Aliandra's handsome mouth, and that her eyes smiled, and then her eyelids drooped with pleasure. His anger subsided a little, but his jealousy grew monstrously minute by minute, and his wrath smouldered beneath it. He remembered past days and meetings, and glances Aliandra had given his brother, such as she had never bestowed upon himself. She did not love him, though she wished to marry him, and was determined to do so, if it were possible. But it flashed upon him that she loved Francesco, and had loved him from the first. That was not quite the truth, though it was near it, and he saw a hundred things in the past to prove that it was the truth altogether. He was human enough to feel the wound to his vanity, and the slight cast upon him by a comparison in which Francesco was preferred to him, as well as the hurt at his heart which came with it. He did not know of Francesco's daily visits, but he suspected them and exaggerated all he guessed. Doubtless Francesco had seen her again and again alone, quite lately, while Tebaldo had been made to endure day after day the presence of Aliandra's aunt in the room. Again the red-lipped vision of a kiss flashed in the shadow of the room, a living picture, and once more his eyes grew red, and his hands clenched themselves spasmodically, closing on nothing. She had said that she preferred Francesco. She had almost admitted that she loved him, and he could remember how cold her eyes had been while she had been saying it. There had been another light in them for his brother, and she had not held her hands behind her back when Francesco had held out his. Or else she had, laughingly. And then she had put up her face, instead, for him to kiss. Tebaldo ground his teeth. His jealousy got hold of him in the vitals and gnawed cruelly. Everything in his own room made him think of Aliandra, though there was not one object in a score that could possibly have any association with her, nor any right to remind him of her, as he tried to tell himself. But his watch, lying on the toilet table, made him think of her watch, a pretty little one he had given her. His gloves made him think of her gloves, his books recalled hers, his very chairs, as they chanced to stand about the room, revived the memory of how other chairs had stood when he had parted from her. The infinite pettiness of the details that irritated him did not shock his reason as would have happened at any other time. On the contrary, the more of them sprang up, the more they stung him. Instead of one gadfly, there were hundreds. And all the time there was the almost irresistible physical longing to go to her, and throw over everything else. He went out, for he could not bear his room any longer. It was still hot in the streets in the early afternoon, and there was a fierce glare all through the new part of the city where there were many white houses in straight rows along smoothly-paved streets. Tebaldo walked in the shade, and once or twice he took off his hat for a moment and let the dry, hot breeze blow upon his forehead. The strong light was somehow a relief as he grew accustomed to it, and his southern nature regained its balance in the penetrating warmth. He walked quickly, not heeding his direction, as he followed the line of broad shade and passed quickly through the blazing sunshine that filled the crossing of each side street. He regained his normal state, and presently, being quite calm, he stopped and quietly lighted a cigar. Like many men of ardent and choleric temperament, he neither smoked nor drank much, but there were times, like the present, when smoking helped him to think quietly. Before the cigar was half finished he was at the door of the hotel at which Miss Slayback and her aunt were staying. He was glad that he had decided to see her on that afternoon, and he attributed the good sense, as he would have called it, which had ultimately brought him to her door, to the soothing influence of the tobacco. Miss Slayback was alone in the sitting-room. The blinds were closed, but the windows were open, and the warm breeze stirred the white curtains. It was an ordinary hotel sitting-room, like hundreds of others, but Miss Lizzie had not been satisfied with such mediocrity of surroundings, and had taken much pains to give the room an inhabited look. She had, of course, bought several hundred objects of no particular value, as rich women who visit Rome for the first time invariably do, and most of them were in sight in her sitting-room. There were photographs by the score, pinned to the walls and standing on tables, and heaped together in a corner. The photograph is the unresistible temptation to women. There were three or four clever water-colour studies of men and women in costume, such as one sees everywhere in Rome; there were half-a-dozen bronzes copied, in the unfinished, wholesale manner, from the antique; there was the inevitable old choir book of the psalms, with the old musical notation that is still used for plain chaunt, written on parchment and opened at the page which presented the best illuminated capital letter; there were three or four pieces of old embroidered vestments, draped over the backs of chairs, and there were several vases containing fresh flowers and dry wild grasses from the Campagna. And there was Miss Lizzie Slayback. She was exceedingly pretty in a sort of nondescript dress, between a tea-gown and something else; for though it was adorned with ribbons and laces, after the manner of tea-gowns, it was short-skirted when she stood up. In fact, it was 'a little creation' of her own, as her dressmaker would have said, thereby disclaiming all responsibility for its eccentricity. But it was distinctly becoming, and Miss Lizzie knew it. There is a great difference, morally, between being vain and being æsthetically aware of one's advantages and good points. Vanity is even more blind than love, but there is something really and healthily artistic in judicious and successful self-adornment. Vanity paints its eyes, and rouges its cheeks, and dyes its hair, and laces its waist till its ribs crack. Good taste cuts its clothes according to its figure and its age, instead of pinching its body to fit its clothes. Vanity is full of affectation; good taste presents the best it has to view, so far as it can, and hides what is less good, without attempting to distort it, because what is not good cannot be made to look good, by torture, to eyes that understand. The vain woman interprets the statement that she is clay, in a literal sense, and tries to violently model her clay into the Venus of her dreams. The woman of taste accepts the fact that she is not a goddess and makes the best of her mortality as she has received it. Miss Slayback was very pretty, and even Tebaldo Pagliuca admitted the fact, though he was not in the least in love with her. She smiled and looked ten times prettier than before, as he entered the room. 'My aunt is supposed to be out,' she said, as he sat down. 'But she is in the next room. So it is quite proper.' She laughed a little at her own speech, for she was still amused by European ideas of propriety, and she would have been surprised if anyone had been shocked by her receiving Tebaldo alone, when Mrs. Slayback was really asleep in the next room, during the heat of the afternoon. Tebaldo smiled courteously, leaned back a little in his small, low armchair, and fixed his eyes upon her face in silence. His expression might have deceived an older and a wiser woman. 'I am very glad to find you alone,' he said softly, after an emphatic pause of admiration. 'Your aunt is one of the most charming women in the world, of course, but--' 'But she is not always necessary,' interrupted Miss Slayback. 'Do you want to see my new embroidery? I bought it this morning--' 'No. I do not care about your embroideries. I came to see you, not vestments.' 'It is not a vestment. It is an altar cloth--' 'It is not you, at all events,' said Tebaldo, fixing his eyes upon her again. 'I want you and only you--to-day, to-morrow, and for ever.' His voice was well modulated. Miss Lizzie looked down, thoughtfully, but she did not blush. Tebaldo leaned forward a little, gazing earnestly into her face. But she looked down and said nothing, for she wished him to say more. It was pleasant to hear, and though her eyes were bent upon the carpet, she could really see his face quite distinctly. 'I think you see and understand that I love you devotedly,' he said in soft tones. It was not easy for him, with his ideas, to make the statement in cold blood, so to say. But that was evidently what she expected, and he did his best. 'You must have seen it,' he continued. 'You must have understood it. I have tried to express it to you with the most profound respect, with that respect which I have felt for you from the first, and shall always feel, and wish to feel, for my wife.' Possibly Miss Lizzie, not being a Latin, would have been willing to hear less about respect and more about love. But he managed to make his tone convey something of that also. She looked up, slowly raising her long black lashes, till her dark blue eyes met his. 'You know,' she said, with an odd mixture of gentleness and wilfulness, 'if I marry you, you must always let me do exactly as I please.' Tebaldo had known her long enough to be past the stage in which she could surprise him. The conception of American life which he had formed from her conversation was somewhat fantastic. 'You would not be so frank if you meant to misuse your liberty,' he answered wisely. 'Do not be so sure!' laughed Miss Lizzie, gaily. But Tebaldo wanted a more binding reply to his proposal. 'Please do not laugh,' he said. 'Your answer--your consent will transport me to paradise.' 'I hope not,' answered the girl, still laughing a little. 'I prefer you on earth, if I am to marry you.' 'You are adorable!' exclaimed Tebaldo, understanding that he must accept her jesting humour. 'Yes? Am I?' She smiled. 'But you see that I adore you, worship you--love you! Everyone does--' 'I do not want everyone--' 'But me? That is the question. Do you--' 'Oh yes! I want you,' she answered, interrupting him. 'Please let me think a moment. I am making up my mind.' Thereupon Miss Lizzie got up from her seat. Tebaldo rose also, wondering what she might be going to do to help her mind in making itself up. He rather expected that she meant to go into the next room to consult her aunt before giving her final answer. But she had no intention of doing that. She went to the window, and looked through the slats of the closed blinds, into the hot glare outside. Tebaldo remained standing close to the chair in which he had been sitting. As has been said, she could no longer surprise him, but he watched the ways and manners of the American young girl with interest, even while he grew nervous as he thought of the magnitude of the stake he hoped to win. Miss Lizzie stayed some time at the window, without moving. When she suddenly turned back into the room, and came straight up to Tebaldo, her face was a little paler than usual; but he could not see it, for the light was behind her. Her manner had quite changed now, and she spoke very gravely. 'I have not known you very long, and you are asking me to put my whole life in your hands,' she said. 'I like you very much. I care for you so much that I am going to trust you, though I know you so little. I am going to say yes.' She laid her hands in his trustfully, and looked up into his face. His lids half veiled his eyes, for the triumph in his look was not the triumph of love, and he knew it. No sane man is without some good impulse, be he ever so bad. 'I thank you with all my heart,' he said, wisely choosing simple words now; and he pressed her hands gently. 'I shall try to make you happy,' he added. It all seemed very strange to her. Possibly something warned her even then that he was very false, more false than she could have understood. She had expected, shyly and with a little not quite unpleasant trepidation, that he would suddenly catch her in his arms and kiss her a score of times, quickly, as no one had ever kissed her. Yet there he stood, quite calm, just pressing the tips of her fingers, as though he were afraid of hurting her, and saying that he meant to make her happy. She was disappointed, though she would not have admitted that she was. She little guessed that the bad man had just then chanced to feel one of the few good impulses that ever disturbed him. At that moment it would have seemed considerably worse to him to act as she really expected that he would than it would have seemed to cut Francesco's throat in his sleep. Explain those things who can. There is good in human nature, even at its worst; and it comes to the surface unexpectedly. Francesco, whose character was on the whole far less evil and malevolent, would have had no such scruple. To him a woman was a woman, and nothing more. But Tebaldo either loved or did not love, and the woman he did not love was not a woman at all in his eyes. And since in this case she chanced to be an innocent girl, his manliness--for he was manly and physically brave--revolted at the idea of offending her innocence. An old-fashioned theologian might say that a man who has no good in him is not properly fit to be damned. Such a man would have no free-will, and could not, therefore, logically be punished for anything he did. That was not Tebaldo Pagliuca's case, at all events. Miss Lizzie stood still a moment, looking up to his face, after he had spoken; then she drew away her hands, and sat down again, feeling rather shy, for the first time since she had been a child. It seemed strange that it should all be over, and that she was to be married. Tebaldo began a little speech. 'You have made me very happy,' he said; and he formed a number of fairly well-turned phrases, in which to express his satisfaction, which was genuine, and his affection, which was not. She did not hear him, for her own thoughts seemed louder than his smoothly-spoken words. She was happy, and yet she was uncomfortable, in an undefined way, and did not know what was the matter. He did not seem to expect any response just then, and she let him talk on. Then she was aware that he was repeating a question. 'May I announce our engagement?' he was asking, for the second time. 'Of course!' she exclaimed, suddenly realising the sense of his words. 'It is not a thing to be concealed. I will tell my aunt at once. You must come and see her this evening--no, we are going somewhere--I forget where! Come to-morrow, please.' 'And when--?' He purposely left the sentence incomplete, filling the question with one of the long looks he had employed so often, with such success. 'When what? Oh! You mean, when shall we be married? Let me see. It is May now. I shall have to go to Paris, of course. You will come, will you not?' 'Could we not be married first, and go to Paris afterwards?' enquired Tebaldo. But Miss Lizzie had no intention of being hurried to the altar without having got the full amount of enjoyment out of buying beautiful clothes, and Tebaldo was obliged to content himself with a promise that the wedding should take place early in the autumn. She wished to be married in Rome by an archbishop, if not by a cardinal. Tebaldo agreed to the whole college of cardinals, if necessary. When he went away, he walked more slowly. The sun was very low, and the air was growing cooler. He sauntered down towards the Corso, well pleased with his own prospects and thinking out the details of his future with intense satisfaction. Tebaldo was no spendthrift fool to waste his wife's fortune on absurd frivolities, or to gamble it away in mad speculations. He meant to build up the Corleone once more, and make his family far greater than it had ever been. He did not know exactly how rich Miss Slayback was, but his guessing was, if anything, under the truth, and he had seen enough of her to know that she desired to be a personage, and was attracted by the idea of rank. He knew that she and her aunt had taken pains to enquire into the validity of his titles. He smiled when he remembered how cheaply he had held them in the old days at Camaldoli, when he would have sold his birthright for a new rifle, and a title or two for a supply of ammunition; and he admired in himself the transformation from the rough country gentleman, hardly one step above the tenant farmer of the Sicilian hills, to the fashionable young nobleman, engaged to be married to a great heiress, and already on the point of restoring to his family all its ancient magnificence. He walked the length of the Corso and back before he went home. He had hardly entered his room when there was a light knock at the door. Vittoria entered, looking pale and frightened. 'What was the matter between you and Francesco?' she asked as soon as she had shut the door behind her. 'The matter?' Tebaldo looked at her curiously, wondering whether she knew anything about Aliandra Basili. 'We quarrelled, as usual,' he said briefly. 'It must have been worse than usual,' said Vittoria, in a low voice. 'He is gone.' 'Gone? Where? Gone out to dinner?' Tebaldo affected to laugh carelessly. 'No. I think he is gone to Sicily,' answered the young girl. Tebaldo uttered an exclamation of surprise, and his expression changed as he looked at his sister. 'Yes,' she continued. 'He made a terrible scene with me and our mother--not exactly a scene, perhaps--it was all about you. He said that he was going, that he could not live in the house any longer, that he should never come back again. He said--' she hesitated. 'What more did he say?' 'He was half mad, I think. He said it was better to be an outlaw than live under such a brother as you, and that he would pay you for what you had done to him in the way you least expected.' 'What makes you think that he is gone to Sicily?' asked Tebaldo, very quietly, while his lids drooped at the corners. 'He looked for the trains in the newspaper, and I heard him say 'Reggio' and 'Messina.' We tried to quiet him--we did what we could. But he packed a quantity of things in a hurry, and went off in a cab, looking at his watch, and saying that he had barely time. Mother fell into one of those terrible fits of crying that she has sometimes, and she is ill again. I thought it best to tell you.' 'Certainly,' said Tebaldo, thoughtfully. 'And now that you have told me, please go away, for I must dress.' She was already turning, for she was used to his peremptory ways, but he stopped her. 'I may as well tell you, Vittoria,' he said; 'I am engaged to be married to your friend Miss Slayback. I hope that, as the marriage will be so advantageous to our family, you will not criticise me to her too much. I am not quite so bad as you sometimes think.' Vittoria looked at him in silence for three or four seconds before she spoke. 'I shall say nothing to injure you with her,' she said slowly, and at once left the room. CHAPTER XXV Aliandra was received in Randazzo with that sort of ovation which only Italians accord to a successful artist; and her father's house was filled for a whole day with the respectable townsmen and their wives and daughters, who came to greet her and congratulate her. For the newspapers had informed them of her successes in Rome, and the Sicilian papers had exaggerated the original reports tenfold. The mayor and his wife, the municipal officers, the grey-haired lieutenant of carabineers with his pretty daughter, the rector, the curate, the young emigration agent of the big steamship company with his betrothed bride and her mother, the principal shopkeeper with his wife and children, the innkeeper--in short, all that represented the highest fashion in Randazzo, including Don Tolomeo Bellini, the most important tenant farmer on the great Fornasco estate as well as a small freeholder, whose ancestors had been privileged to bear arms, and who, therefore, ranked as a gentleman and stamped the cheeses from his dairy with a little five-pointed coronet. Basili had formerly hoped to get him for a son-in-law, and he would have been considered a very good match for the notary's daughter. All Randazzo talked of the singer's return, and the poor people crowded the street to get a look at her. The mayor said she was an honour to the province and to Sicily, and the rector, who had baptized her, expressed his hope that she might be always as good as she was famous, for he distrusted the name of art, but wished the girl well for her father's sake and her own. Don Atanasio, the apothecary of Santa Vittoria, tried to persuade his daughter to go with him down to Randazzo and pay Aliandra a visit. 'It will divert you a little from your sorrow, my daughter,' he said, shaking his head. Concetta's dark eyes turned slowly towards her father with a wondering look, as though she were amazed at his audacity and yet pitied his inability to measure her grief. 'The dead need no amusements,' she said, gravely. 'They are very quiet. They wait.' 'Eh--but the living,' objected Don Atanasio. 'We are alive, you know.' Concetta did not heed what he said. 'The dead are very quiet. They wait for the Judgment and the Resurrection--the judgment of blood, and the resurrection of the innocent. Then they will be alive again.' Don Atanasio sighed, for his unhappy daughter was no longer like other women. She was of those simple beings for whom life has but one purpose after love has taken possession, and from whom the loved one, dying, takes all purpose away for ever. The old man sighed and looked sideways at her, and a tear ran down his thin, straight nose, and fell upon the plaster he was spreading on the marble slab before him; but his daughter's dark eyes were dry. She was sitting on a little low stool behind one end of the counter, where she could not be seen by any one who might chance to come into the shop. Her head was screened by the great old-fashioned marble mortar. Don Atanasio laid down the broad mixing-knife he was using, pushed back the black broadcloth cap which Concetta had once embroidered with a design of green leaves, wiped his spectacles, turned away to blow his nose with a large coloured handkerchief, and turned back again to take a long look at the girl. He laid his hand gently on her head, pressing her forehead back until she looked up into his face. 'You wish to make me die also,' he said slowly. 'What have I done that you wish to make me die?' She looked at him very sadly, and then quickly got hold of his other hand and kissed it with a sort of devotion. She was very fond of him. He patted the back of her head affectionately. 'In truth, my dear,' he said gently, 'if I see you always thus, I shall not live long, for I have only you in the world, and the rest does not matter. But it is not that, since I would die to make you happy. What should it be for me? I am old. I am of no use. They will have another apothecary in Santa Vittoria. That is nothing. My thoughts are for you.' 'Do not think for me,' answered the girl. 'I sit here quietly. I do no harm. And then, when it is later, I go to see my dead one every day.' 'But it is not good to do this always,' objected Don Atanasio, coaxingly. 'That is why I say come down with me to Randazzo to-morrow, and let us go and see the notary Basili, who has broken his leg, and his daughter, the great singer, who has come back from Rome to visit him. She is a good girl, and you can make a little conversation with her. It will be a diversion, a sober diversion, and the air will do you good, and the movement.' She kissed his hand again, then dropped it, and drew up her black shawl over her head, for she heard a step on the threshold. Don Atanasio heard it too, and immediately took up his mixing-knife and went to work again at the plaster. The newcomer was the lieutenant who commanded the infantry men quartered in Santa Vittoria. He asked for six grains of quinine in three doses. He was a quiet young fellow, scrupulously neat in his close-fitting tunic with its turned-down velvet collar, his small red moustache, carefully trimmed, and his red hair parted behind and well brushed below his cap. He had singularly bright blue eyes with rough red eyebrows and a bright and healthy but much-freckled complexion. Don Atanasio proceeded to weigh out the little doses of the valuable drug, and the officer watched him as he cut the clean white paper into smaller sizes and neatly folded each package. 'Do you know all those Pagliuca brothers?' he asked suddenly. The apothecary stopped in his work and looked at him keenly. The officer was a Piedmontese, and was, therefore, unpopular in the south. 'Eh!' ejaculated the apothecary. 'They formerly lived here. I have seen them.' Concetta did not stir in her hiding-place at the end of the counter, behind the marble mortar. The officer was silent for a moment, and the apothecary hastily folded the last package, slipping one end of the doubled paper into the other, as chemists do, and taking up another sheet of paper in which to wrap the three doses together. 'One of them has suddenly returned here,' said the officer. 'He is in the neighbourhood, and is not here for any good purpose. Most probably he has come to do some injury to the gentleman who killed his brother, the brigand.' In spite of herself Concetta drew a sharp breath between her teeth. The officer's eyes turned inquisitively towards the corner where she sat. 'It is the cat,' said Don Atanasio, calmly. 'One lira and fifty centimes, Signor Lieutenant,' he added, handing the officer the package across the counter. 'They say that it is Francesco Pagliuca who has come back, and that he was seen this morning in Randazzo,' said the young man, while he counted out the money in big coppers; for, as usual in the south, there was a scarcity even of the flimsy little paper notes. 'We do not know him by sight, you see,' he continued, 'and I should be very glad of any information, if you should see him in the village. One thirty--forty--fifty--there it is.' He laid the last copper on the marble slab. 'A thousand thanks, Signor Lieutenant,' said Don Atanasio, collecting the coins. 'And you will let us know if you see the young man?' asked the officer. 'You shall be served,' replied the apothecary, gravely. The officer thanked him, nodded, and went out, with a little clattering of his light sabre. When he was gone, Don Atanasio's grave face relaxed in a smile. 'And those are the men who expect to rule us Sicilians,' he said in a low voice, more to himself than to his daughter. 'They wish to catch a man. What do they do? They warn his friends by asking questions. What can such people catch? A crab, as we say, that will bite their own fingers. Then they complain. They are like children. They do not even know what the mafia is, and they come to Sicily.' Concetta sat quite still in her corner, thinking. It seemed to her sure that Francesco Pagliuca had come to kill Orsino Saracinesca, for his brother's sake. That was what the officer thought, and all the soldiers would be looking out for Francesco, and on the smallest excuse he would be arrested on mere suspicion. It did not strike her that he could possibly have come for any other purpose, and her one desire was that Orsino should be killed. That was man's work, that killing, and she would leave it to the men. But if none of them would do it, she would some day take her father's gun and wait for Orsino at the cemetery, for he often passed that way. She was not afraid to kill him, but she considered it to be the duty and business of the Corleone men. They had prior rights, and, besides, they were men. A woman should not do any killing so long as there were men to do it, except in self-defence. It was clearly her duty, she thought, to warn Francesco that the soldiers were aware of his presence in the neighbourhood. It would be much wiser of him, she reflected, to communicate with the outlaws who were about Noto, and get half a dozen resolute fellows to help him. She had no knowledge of his character, though she had often met him, and she supposed him to be like his brothers, bold and determined. So she wished to warn him, in order that he might safely accomplish what she supposed must be his purpose. The difficulty lay in finding him. Her father might help her, perhaps, but it was doubtful. It was quite certain that he could not say or do anything which could thwart Francesco's plans, but, on the other hand, she knew that he would be careful not to seem to help him, for he had to keep on good terms with the authorities, for the simple reason that he held a government license as apothecary, which could easily be taken from him. 'Did you know that Francesco Pagliuca had come back?' she asked, after a long silence, during which the plaster had been finished, folded up, and laid aside ready to be called for. 'I knew,' answered Don Atanasio, but he did not seem inclined to say anything more. 'Why did you not tell me, father?' asked the girl. 'It might have given you pain, my child. And then, one does not say everything one knows. One forgets many things. He slept at the house of Don Taddeo, the grocer.' 'Where is he now? Is he still here?' 'Who shall say where he is? Heaven knows where he is. I cannot know everything.' He answered with a little irritation, for he understood that Concetta wished to see her dead lover's brother, and he could not understand how any good could come of the meeting. Concetta rose slowly to her feet and came out from behind the counter. She had grown very thin, but she was not less beautiful. She drew her black shawl together under her chin, and it fell over her forehead to her eyes. There was no disguise in it, for everyone knew her, but she felt that it gave her some privacy in her grief, even in broad day and in the street. 'I go to breathe the air,' she said quietly, moving towards the door. 'Go, my daughter, you need it,' answered the apothecary. He watched her sadly, and as she went out he moved to the entrance of the shop and looked after her. Tall, sad, and black, and graceful, she walked smoothly along the shady side of the street, which was deserted in the blazing noon. Don Atanasio did not go in again till she had turned the corner and was out of sight. She found the grocer's brother, the fat and cross-eyed sacristan, eating dark brown beans out of an earthen bowl with an iron fork, in the open shop. No one else was there. It was a cool, vaulted place, with a floor of beaten cement and volcanic ashes, and a number of big presses in a row behind a long walnut counter, black and polished with age. Hams and sides of bacon hung from the ceiling, and the air smelt of salt pork, cereals, and candles. The fat man sat on a bench, in his shirt sleeves, eating his beans with a sort of slow voracity. He looked up as Concetta's shadow darkened the door. 'Will you accept?' he asked, lifting his earthen bowl a little as he spoke. 'Thank you, and good appetite,' answered the girl. 'How are you?' 'Always to serve you, most gentle Concetta,' said the man. 'What do you need?' 'Eat,' replied Concetta, sitting down upon a rush-bottom chair. 'I do not come to disturb you. Are you all alone?' She peered into the shadows at the back of the shop. 'Eh, you know how it is? Taddeo eats and then goes to sleep, and while he sleeps I keep the shop. In truth, it needs no great merchant to do that, for no one comes at this hour.' 'And you and your brother do not eat together?' 'Generally we do, but to-day, who knows how it was? He ate first and went to sleep. Then I brought my beans here for company. This is our conversation. I open my mouth, and before I can speak the beans answer me. This I call, indeed, conversation.' 'And Francesco Pagliuca, with whom does he converse upstairs?' asked Concetta, lowering her voice. The man looked up quickly, with his mouth full, as though to see whether she were in earnest and knew the truth. A glance convinced him that she did. 'He went to Randazzo at dawn,' he said, almost in a whisper. 'He makes love with the notary's daughter there.' Concetta did not believe that this could be the only reason for Francesco's return. 'Why does he not stay at Randazzo, then?' she enquired. 'Why should he come here at all? It is a long way.' 'Perhaps he is afraid of Basili's friends,' suggested the fat man. 'Or he prefers to sleep here because the air is better. He will certainly not tell us why he comes.' 'Is he coming back this evening?' 'I think so, for he has a box here with his clothes, and other things. But for charity's sake, tell no one.' 'I?' Concetta laughed in a cold way, without a smile. 'I wish to warn him that the soldiers know he was in Randazzo yesterday, and are looking out for him.' She told the man of the lieutenant's visit to her father's shop, and he listened attentively. 'I could wait for him in the road,' he said. 'He thought that the soldiers would not know him here, because they are all new men. But they have seen him in Randazzo and have sent word. They think that he has come on account of the Saracinesca, but he has followed the notary's daughter from Rome. They cannot touch him so long as he does no harm.' 'They may prevent him from doing it,' said Concetta, looking steadily at the man. 'That would be a pity,' he answered gravely. 'I will wait for him in the road.' 'But if he comes by the bridle-path over the hills, you will miss him.' 'I do not think he will do that, for it is a bad road, and he had my brother's best horse to ride.' 'Go and wait in the bridle-path,' said Concetta. 'I will wait in the road, towards Camaldoli.' 'He will not come before sunset,' observed the sacristan. 'That crazy priest of the Saracinesca, Don Ippolito, comes to play the organ in Santa Vittoria every day, and pays me to blow the bellows, and he never goes away till twenty-three o'clock.' Twenty-three of the clock is half an hour before the sun sets, at all times of the year, by the old reckoning, which is still in use in the south. 'You can send a boy to blow the bellows,' suggested Concetta. 'You cannot trust anyone to warn Francesco Pagliuca.' They both supposed that since enquiry was being made for him, he would be in imminent danger of arrest, with or without any legal grounds, an opinion sufficiently indicative of the state of the country. The man stared blankly at the wall for a few seconds after Concetta had last spoken, then nodded, and began to eat again. The girl rose from her chair, and moved towards the door with her graceful, slowly-cadenced step. She had done what she had come to do and was quite sure of the man, as indeed she had reason to be, for the mafia protects its own, and generally has its own way in the end, in spite of governments and soldiers. If Concetta and the fat sacristan asked no one to help them, it was because it was such a very simple matter to warn Francesco of danger, that they needed no assistance. But as they needed none, they told no one what they were going to do. Concetta came home again to the quiet little shop, and Don Atanasio bolted the glass door, and they both went upstairs to dinner. The girl ate a little better than usual, and sipped half a glass of strong, black wine. 'The air did you good,' observed her father, looking at her. 'Eh, this human body! What is it? Who shall ever understand it? You go out every afternoon, when it is cool, for two hours, and it does you no good, and you eat no more than a bee takes from a flower. And to-day you go out for half an hour into a heat that would burn up paving-stones, and you come back with an appetite. So much the better. It is not I that should complain, if you ate the house and the walls, poor child.' 'When the heart is thirsty for blood, the body is not hungry for meat,' said the beautiful, white-faced girl, in her clear, low voice. CHAPTER XXVI Ippolito and Orsino had already acquired certain fixed habits in their several occupations, so that they rarely failed to meet at the same regular hours and then separate again, each doing the same or similar things day after day. Such regularity becomes a second nature in remote places where there is little chance that anything unexpected should happen. Orsino had really not enough to do, after he had once familiarised himself with his surroundings. So long as San Giacinto had remained, it had been different, for he had great plans, and had spent much time in riding about the country with an engineer from Palermo who was to build the light railway round Etna. San Giacinto had now gone back to Rome, however, leaving his cousin in charge of Camaldoli, with directions to manage things with an easy hand, so as not to prejudice the people against the work of the railway when it should be begun. To do this meant, practically, to leave the tenants to their own devices, unless it were possible to help them in any way to which they should not object. At the same time, there were certain defensive measures which were always necessary, for no one knew when the brigands might grow weary of Noto and appear on the slopes of Etna again to avenge their friend Ferdinando Pagliuca. Orsino used to ride about a good deal, more for the sake of exercise than for anything he could accomplish, and he carried his rifle now as a matter of habit, but rarely took one or two of the carabineers with him. He began to believe that there were not really any outlaws at all, and that Ferdinando's unknown friend had left that part of the country. Ippolito, as a priest, went about unarmed, and, being naturally fearless, he rambled about as he pleased. Almost every day he walked to Santa Vittoria and spent an hour at the organ. Orsino accompanied him, when there was any reason for going to the village, but it did not amuse him to hear his brother's music. In fact, it was rather a relief to him not to hear the piano constantly at his elbow, as he heard it when Ippolito played in their joint sitting-room in Rome. On the afternoon of the day on which Concetta had walked to the grocer's shop, Ippolito strolled up to the small church as usual. There was a little lame boy who had discovered the priest's habits, and used to hang about in the afternoon in the hope of earning a penny by calling the fat sacristan to come and blow the organ. He was not strong enough to blow it himself, and was content and glad to get a copper or two for limping into the village with his message. Ippolito now had a key of his own to the church, and went inside while the man was coming. Each day, during the twenty minutes or so which generally elapsed, he worked at the back of the instrument, repairing with bits of wire a number of trackers that ran from the pedals to a wooden stop set up on one side of the organ. At some former time the connexions had been repaired with waxed string, which the hungry church mice had gnawed to pieces. It was a troublesome job, requiring patience and some mechanical skill, as well as two or three simple tools which Ippolito had brought from Rome and now left in the organ until the work should be finished. Instead of the sacristan, a big boy appeared on this particular day, the same who had carried the holy water for the priest who had come down to Camaldoli when Ferdinando had been killed. He explained that the sacristan had been sent on an errand to Bronte by his brother, the grocer, and had left him, the boy, to do duty at the bellows if needed. Ippolito thought nothing of the matter, and sat down to make music, as usual. The days were growing very long, and he generally regulated his stay in the church by the sun rather than by his watch. Sometimes the fat sacristan came round from behind, perspiring, and declaring that his brother needed him at home. Meanwhile Concetta had gone down the road to the cemetery just beyond the shoulder of the hill, out of sight of the village and the little church in which Ippolito was playing the organ. It was her hour, and he had grown used to seeing her sitting on the curbstone by the churchyard gate every day when he went home just before sunset. When she passed the church and heard the music through the door that was left ajar, she knew also who was there, and her eyes darkened as she went by, and she drew her shawl more closely about her head. And she recognised the priest's light step when he came by the cemetery gate an hour later, and she always turned her face away that she might not see him. The people knew her, too, and most of them pitied her, and all respected her sorrow. Some of the labourers who came down from the hill farm, by the paths that turned into the main road just at the end of the churchyard, used to touch their hats when they passed her, and, when she chanced to be looking, she nodded gravely acknowledging their greeting. They knew she was half mad, but the madness of a great sorrow has always been respected by simple folks who feel seldom, but keenly, and think little. The peasants generally passed about sunset on their way into the village. To-day Concetta came to the gate as usual, and when she reached it Francesco was no longer uppermost in her thoughts. At the sight of the black cross that marked the last grave on the left, the whole world vanished again, and her sorrow came down like a darkness between her and all life. She stood with dry eyes and compressed lips, grasping the iron rails that were hot with the level sun, and out of the long, low mound rose the face and figure of the well-loved man. There can be nothing intellectual in the spasm of a great sorrow, in the blind grasping upon emptiness for what is not, in the heart-famine that no living thing can satisfy. Such grief brings no thoughts, for it is the very contrary of thinking. It is only when each returning convulsion has subsided that thought comes back, and then it comes uncertainly like the sense of touching a small object through a heavy pall. Concetta had no consciousness of the passing of time, as she stood at the gate, nor for a long while afterwards, when she had sat down upon the curbstone in her accustomed attitude, with her shawl drawn down over her face, shielding it from the low rays of the sinking sun, and from the sight of the world that was so desolate for her. As spring warmed to summer, no one passed that way who could help it, for the road was dusty and hot. Two of the foot-carabineers passed her, returning to Santa Vittoria from their regular patrol of the high-road, their carbines slung over their shoulders and their pipeclayed cross-belts gleaming white in the sun. They knew her, too, and barely glanced at her as they went by. She did not even raise her head, though she remembered, now, that she had come to wait for Francesco Pagliuca, and she was glad that the patrol had marched up again, for he must be following them, and could thus not be met by them. She knew that he would come on horseback. As she strained her ears to catch the distant sound of hoofs, the savage longing for revenge began to burn again in her heart. Surely he must have come for that, and not really for love of Aliandra Basili. If he reached the cemetery in time, he could kill Ippolito, the priest, as he came down from the church. She would show him just where to stand with his gun, at the corner of the wall, and she would stand beside him; and then, if he were quick, he could get down half-way to Camadoli, near the cross-roads and kill Orsino too, when he came up hastily to see his dead brother. The vision of much blood reddened before her aching eyes, as she listened for the horse's hoofs. If only he could come before Ippolito, she thought, and she listened also for the priest's light step behind her. Francesco came first. She saw him far down the road before the first sound reached her. He was riding leisurely up the steep way, a broad hat drawn over his eyes, against the level sun, that gleamed like fire on the barrel of his rifle. She could see that from time to time he looked behind him quickly. He was warned already, she thought. So much the better. If only he would quicken his speed a little. Ippolito almost always passed the graveyard before the sun was quite down. Her heart beat very fast as she heard the clink of the horse's iron shoes against the stones, and then the rattle of the tiny pebbles that flew up and fell to right and left at every step. She rose when he was within fifty yards of her, and threw the black shawl back from her splendid black hair. He knew her face and would stop when he recognised her. She remembered the sound of his voice, and how he had said in her hearing that she was very beautiful, and once when she had been alone in her father's shop, he had come in and had talked strangely, and she had been a little frightened, but Ferdinando had entered just then. She remembered it all distinctly. It did not matter, now, for he had come to avenge Ferdinando. The bullets that should do justice were already in the Winchester that gleamed so red in the setting sun. She stood upright, with her head thrown back, that he might recognise her. He stopped beside her. 'Concetta!' he exclaimed, smiling, as he smiled at every pretty woman. 'What brings you here? What are you doing out here in the road alone?' She hardly saw that he smiled, in her own earnestness. 'That brings me here,' she said, pointing through the iron gate. 'Do you see? It is the last one on the left, with the black cross.' Francesco looked. 'I see a grave,' he said indifferently. 'It is your brother's grave,' said the girl. 'Ferdinando lies there.' 'Oh--I understand.' The young man glanced up and down the road, and dismounted from his horse, passing his arm through the bridle. He advanced close to the gate, and looked through it in silence for several seconds. 'Poor fellow!' he exclaimed, turning away again, but without any very strong feeling in his tone. Concetta grasped his arm roughly, to draw him after her, and spoke rapidly into his ear. 'The priest Saracinesca will be coming down the road from the village at any moment. Come quickly, come with me. Behind the corner of the wall. You can shoot him from there, and I will hold your horse.' She dragged him along and the horse followed, led by his arm. 'No one will come. When he is dead, mount quickly and ride down to the cross roads above Camaldoli, by the fields, and wait behind the shrine. I will run all the way and tell the other Saracinesca that his brother is dead in the road. He will run out,--from behind the shrine you can kill him easily. Then ride for the woods of Noto. The brigands are there, and you will be safe.' Almost before he knew where she was leading him, he found himself behind the corner of the cemetery, on the side away from the village. In digging the foundations of the wall, the dark tufo had been broken out of the earth and piled high up at a short distance, so that there was a sort of deep trench between the wall and the heap of stones, out of which the poisonous yellow spurge grew in great bunches. It would have been impossible to select a better spot for an ambush in what was really an open country. With the unconscious ease of a country-bred woman, Concetta, taking the bridle, backed the horse into the trench so as to leave room in front of him for herself and Francesco to be under cover of the wall. She had scarcely done speaking when they were already in position. 'Get your rifle ready!' she said in a whisper, at the same time taking hold of the leathern belt by which the Winchester was slung. 'He may be here at any moment. Be quick!' 'But I do not wish to kill anybody,' said Francesco, at last, with an uneasy laugh. Concetta started and stared at him, too much astonished to despise him yet. 'You do not wish to kill the Saracinesca!' Her face expressed blank amazement. 'But then, why have you come?' 'Not to murder anyone, at all events. You are quite mad.' 'Mad? I? Mad? Is not the body of your murdered brother lying there, on the other side of that wall? Does not his blood cry out for the blood of those who killed him? Have you not come to do justice? Have I not brought you to a safe place? And you call me mad!' 'Quite mad,' reiterated Francesco, coolly. She stared at him a moment longer, and an immense contempt rose in her eyes. 'Give me your rifle,' she said in a different tone. 'I will kill him, since you are afraid.' 'I am not in the least afraid,' answered Francesco, with the too ready resentment against a woman's accusation of cowardice, which a real coward always shows. 'Not that I see why I should risk being sent to penal servitude because my brother got himself killed in a foolish affair--' 'Foolish?' Concetta's black eyes blazed suddenly from contempt to anger. 'Foolish, yes! Ferdinando--I am sorry for him, of course--but he was a fool.' The back of one little white hand had struck him across the mouth, almost before the word was out. 'Infame!' she cried, using the strongest word in her language. He did not care for the light blow, still less for the word. She was matchlessly beautiful in her anger, as the blood rose a little in her white cheeks, and her nostrils dilated with wrath. The shawl had fallen almost to the ground, and revealed her perfect throat and exquisitely graceful figure as she faced him. The colour rose in his face, and his lips reddened, and his eyes sparkled badly. Almost before the hand that had struck him had fallen to her side, he had caught her in his arms, and his lips were on hers, smothering her, hurting her, and he was forcing her backwards against the heap of stones--not twenty yards from his brother's grave. She was lithe and strong, but she was no match for him. Yet, defending herself as she could, like a wild animal, she bit his lip half through, and as he started under the pain she wrenched her head aside and screamed with all her might, once, before he got one of his hands over her mouth. But her scream had been heard. She had judged rightly that Ippolito Saracinesca would be coming along the road in a few moments, to meet his death, as she had hoped. Instead, he saved her, for at her cry, being but a few yards from the corner of the wall, he sprang forward, saw a woman struggling against a man, recognising neither, leapt into the trench and had Francesco by the back of the collar in a moment, twisting the tough starched linen with all the might of his by no means weak white hands. As Orsino had always said, Ippolito was more of a man than anybody suspected, and there was the good blood of his good race in him, and all the fearlessness. In an instant he had dragged Francesco backwards, half strangled, up the little declivity of the trench, and out into the middle of the road. So far he had done nothing more, perhaps, than was necessary to save the girl. But having got him out, the man's instinct against the wretch that does violence to a woman took possession of him, and holding Francesco by the back of the collar in front of him with his right hand, he struck him half a dozen times quickly and violently on the side of the head with his left fist, till Francesco, stunned and choked, suddenly fell in a heap in the road. Concetta had struggled to her feet at once, and stood leaning against the corner of the wall. With a mad horror she saw that she had been saved by the man she had wished to kill. The horse leisurely picked its way up through the stones and stood waiting in the road. At that moment, four peasants coming home from the hill farm came down into the road from behind the other end of the long wall of the cemetery. They naturally glanced downwards before going up towards the village, and seeing the priest standing over a fallen man, they hurried to the spot. Francesco was already beginning to get to his feet. Ippolito drew back a little to be ready if he should be attacked, as he naturally expected. But a moment later the peasants had recognised Francesco, had helped him up, and were dusting his clothes, while they scowled at Ippolito. 'It is well that you come, friends,' said Concetta's clear, low voice. 'A moment later and another Saracinesca would have killed another Pagliuca.' Ippolito stared at her, dumbfounded by her speech, and then looked at the grim and angry faces of the lean brown men who surrounded Francesco. He could not conceive that a woman whom he had saved from worse than death but a moment earlier should turn upon him instantly, as she was doing. But she could not help it, for she was half mad, and the idea of injuring the Saracinesca was always uppermost in her unsettled brain. She had come to warn Francesco of danger, because she had loved his brother, and loved the name; and she had done her best to make him do a murder then and there. 'Help Don Francesco to his horse,' she said to the peasants. 'Take him round to the back of Don Taddeo's house--not through the village--you will meet the carabineers, and he is bleeding. They would see; there would be questions. Go quickly--the patrol passed half an hour ago; the next will come out in half an hour more.' She foresaw everything. In a moment the men had helped Francesco to the saddle, and they were moving away. He had not uttered a word, surprised, bruised, and terrified as he was, and his lip was bleeding where Concetta had bitten it. His face was white with fear, and he held a handkerchief to his mouth, as he slowly rode away, leaving Concetta and Ippolito standing in the road together. Ippolito faced the girl quietly enough, but he meant to ask for an explanation of some sort. 'Did you think that I should accuse him, though he is--what he is?' she asked, speaking first. 'You saved me from that infamous beast--yes. I thank you, though you are my enemy. But do not think that I value myself higher than the blood of my bridegroom whom you killed. I would rather lose body and soul together than not hurt a Saracinesca if I could, kill you, if I could, give your bodies to dogs, if I could, send you unconfessed to hell, if I could. And you thought that I would turn and accuse a Corleone when I could accuse a Saracinesca? You do not know us.' She turned from him scornfully before he could answer a word. She had found her little shawl, and she drew it about her face as she moved away. He stood still a moment, looking after her in mute surprise. Then he shook his head and turned towards Camaldoli, not yet understanding that the beautiful girl was not quite sane, but speculating upon women in general, as good priests sometimes do in total ignorance of the subject. Orsino looked grave when Ippolito told him at supper what had happened. 'The girl is mad,' he said sadly, for he was himself the cause of her madness. 'And she is a Sicilian. We understand these people very little, after all. I sometimes think we never shall.' 'Nobody could possibly understand that kind of woman,' observed Ippolito. 'No. Put such a scene as that on the stage, if it were possible, and the audience would hiss it, as a monstrous improbability. They would say that the girl would fall at the feet of her preserver, forget her hatred for ever, or possibly turn it all against the man from whom she had been saved. Unfortunately things are different in real life. Poor Concetta will hate us all the more because one of us has helped her in danger. It is true that she is mad. All the people say so.' 'Because she sits half the day outside the cemetery? It is not a month since Ferdinando died. One need not be mad to feel a great sorrow for a whole month.' 'No. Perhaps not. I should like to know what that fellow is here for. It means no good to anyone. I have no doubt that he is in communication with the outlaws, and she is quite capable of trying to help them to catch us.' 'Then you really believe in the existence of the brigands, after all,' said Ippolito, with a laugh, for Orsino did not often speak of the outlaws seriously. 'We all know that they exist. But we have trouble in realising that they do. We know the names of many of them. Everybody does. But of course, with so many soldiers about, we feel safe. I wish you would carry a weapon, Ippolito.' 'I? I am a priest. Nobody will touch me.' 'Do not be too sure. There are even priests who wear a revolver under their cassocks down here.' 'I could hardly carry a rifle,' remarked Ippolito, laughing again. 'And imagine carrying a knife in these days--one of us! It sounds like the last century.' 'A knife is a very good weapon, nevertheless. The peasants say that a knife has more shots in it than a revolver, and does not miss fire.' 'I hate the idea of carrying a weapon.' 'Yes, no doubt. But suppose that matters had turned out a little differently to-day, and that Francesco Pagliuca, instead of being an abject coward, had turned upon you and fought you for his life. What could you have done with your hands?' 'A priest has no business to be fighting,' said Ippolito. 'When he fights he must take the consequences.' 'But you could not escape it to-day. The cause was just and urgent. As a man, you could not have done otherwise.' 'Certainly not. I admit that, and the fellow was scared. He had a Winchester rifle across his back. It got into the way when I twisted his collar, I remember. Do you know that I never struck anyone before? It was rather a curious sensation.' 'You have struck me often enough,' laughed Orsino. 'You used to fight like a wildcat when we were little boys. It is a pity that you turned priest.' 'I am very glad I did,' said Ippolito. 'Besides, I do not like fighting. It was different when we were children and pummelled each other.' 'Look here,' said Orsino. 'I shall feel anxious about you after this affair. Unless you will carry some weapon, I shall have you escorted to Santa Vittoria and back by a carabineer.' 'How absurd!' 'I will, I assure you. If you were like that miserable Francesco Pagliuca, I should send four men with you. But I know that you could make a pretty good defence alone, if you had anything to fight with.' 'Of course if you insist in that way, I must. I utterly refuse to be followed about by soldiers. It is too ridiculous. Have you got a knife? Something that is easy to carry--' 'Two or three,' answered Orsino. 'There is a very nice bowie knife--one of those American things made in England. It is convenient, for it has a cross-hilt and a leathern sheath.' He rose from the table and opened a drawer in an old-fashioned press, from which he produced the weapon in question. 'There is a saddler in Rome who gets these things,' he observed, showing it to his brother. 'You see it is really a dagger, for there is no spring. It is made solid and straight and would go through anything, I should think. Look at the thickness of the back of the blade, will you? And the point is extremely fine. You could engrave with it, and yet it is as strong as the rest.' Ippolito turned the knife over and over. 'At all events it will be useful in cutting up the bits of leather I use for mending the old organ,' he observed. 'My pocket knife is of hardly any use.' He sheathed the knife-blade and dropped it into the deep side pocket of his cassock. 'Imagine me carrying a bowie knife!' he exclaimed, still inclined to laugh. 'Imagine the feelings of Francesco Pagliuca this afternoon, if he had thought you had one in your pocket, when you were behind him and twisting his collar.' Orsino smiled grimly. 'My hands were good enough for such a beast,' answered Ippolito in a tone of disgust. Thus it was that Ippolito began to go armed, much against his will, for he took his profession as a priest and a man of peace seriously. Orsino was not even then half satisfied, and intended before long to try and persuade him to carry a revolver instead of a knife. But up at Santa Vittoria there was much talk of another sort on that evening. As generally happens in such cases in Sicily, the carabineers and the soldiers, though on the lookout for Francesco Pagliuca, were in profound ignorance of the fact that he was now lodging for the second night at the house of Taddeo the grocer, though there was now hardly a man in the village who did not know it. The soldiers in Sicily are matched as one to a thousand against a whole population of the most reticent people in the world, bound together by that singular but half-defined force, which is the mafia. Knowing the country perfectly and well acquainted with the unchanging hours of the regular patrols in the neighbourhood, Francesco might have stayed ten days in Santa Vittoria in spite of the soldiers, even if he had been guilty of the crimes which he did not at all mean to commit. Not a human being would have informed against him, and if anyone had betrayed him, the betrayer's own life would not have been worth much. They did not think any the better of him, nor any the worse, because he was innocent of any misdeed. He was a part of the idea of the mafia, a born Sicilian, who, somehow, had been obliged to give up his birthright to Romans, who were as much foreigners to the people of Santa Vittoria as Englishmen could have been. It was their duty, to a man, for Sicily's sake and their own, to stand by him as a Sicilian against all authority whatever. Besides, they knew him, the Romans had killed his brother, whom they had also known, and both he and his had always helped the outlaws against the government. The peasants remembered and told their children how the Corleone brothers had once led a dozen carabineers about the hills for two days in search of the brigands, taking good care not to catch them. It was not probable that the soldiers should ever get any information against such popular persons, except by stratagem or accident. And now Francesco sat in a long upper room at the back of Taddeo's house, bathing his sore face with vinegar and water and telling his story to the grocer and his brother, in his own way. And in many humble little houses, the men were talking in low tones, telling each other how the 'priest of the Saracinesca' had fallen upon Francesco Pagliuca, after they had quarrelled over Ferdinando's grave, and had treacherously twisted his collar and beaten him before he could get his gun into his hand. And they discussed the matter in whispers. And one man, who had loved Ferdinando, said nothing, but went out quietly from his house and walked down over the black lands and set fire to three haystacks on the Camaldoli estate, because the corn was not yet harvested, and there was nothing else to burn at that time of year. In the morning everyone heard of it and was glad, but no one ever knew who had set fire to the hay, for the man who did it did not tell his wife. But neither did Concetta tell her father truly what had happened to her. She had been at the cemetery, she said, and the two gentlemen had met, the priest and the layman, and had quarrelled, she knew not about what, and the priest of the Saracinesca had caught Francesco Pagliuca unawares by the neck. So her story corresponded with that of the peasants and with that of Francesco. For two reasons she could not tell her father the truth. If he had known it, he would never have allowed her to leave the village alone again. And he would most certainly have risen from the table, and would have gone straight to Taddeo's house, where Francesco was, to kill him at once, though Don Atanasio was an old man, having married very late in life. It was true that since it was all over, and she had cast the blame upon Ippolito, the hatred of her offended maidenhood for her cowardly assailant was slowly and surely waking; and her white cheeks blushed scarlet as though they had been struck, when she thought of it all. But it was better that her father should not know, and she held her peace. It was hardest of all to feel that she had almost had Francesco's rifle in her hands, and that if he had not assailed her, there might by this time have been one Saracinesca less in the world. It would have done her good to see the haystacks flaming down in the valley, and it would have brought a smile of satisfaction to her tragic face to have heard what the peasants were whispering to one another in all the little houses of the village that night. No one said that it was a shame for an armed man to have been beaten by an unarmed priest. They felt personally injured by what they called the treachery of the latter in choking his antagonist, and they softly cursed the Romans, and vowed to hurt them if they could. Generations of their fathers had known generations of the Corleone, had been ground and rack-rented by them, and had resisted their extortions with a cunning that had often been successful. But now that the Pagliuca had lost their birthright, that was all forgotten in the fact that they were Sicilians, injured by Romans. No one said in defence of the Saracinesca that San Giacinto had paid the Pagliuca more than twice the actual value of Camaldoli. In the eyes of the peasants their old masters had been ignominiously ejected from their home by Romans, and Ferdinando had done a brave and honourable deed in trying to resist them. It was the duty of every good Sicilian to stand by the Pagliuca against the Romans and against the authorities, come what might. If this young Roman priest had the overbearing courage to beat a Pagliuca on the high-road in broad daylight, what might not his tall, black-browed brother be expected to do, or what deed of violence might not follow at the hands of the grey-haired giant who had been at Camaldoli, and who had momentarily terrorised everyone? No one's life or property was safe while the Saracinesca remained in the country. And they meant to remain. They had cut down the brush around the house so that no one could creep up with a rifle under safe cover, and they had strengthened the gate and were restoring the tower. They had turned the monastery into a barrack for the carabineers, and had quartered a company of infantry in the village. Their power and their evident influence in Rome, since they had obtained troops for their protection, made them ten times more hateful to men who hated all authority. They wished that Ippolito had wounded Francesco slightly with some weapon. Then he might have been arrested, and there was not a man in the village who would have said a word in his favour. Many would have perjured themselves to testify against him, in the hope that he might really be sent to prison. The fact that he was a priest went for nothing. He was not their own priest, and more than one churchman had been in trouble in Sicily, before now. CHAPTER XXVII Francesco was no more able to understand Concetta's conduct than Ippolito himself. He had expected a very different termination to the affair, for he knew well enough that if the four peasants had caught him as Ippolito had, they would very probably have torn him limb from limb, in the most literal and barbarous sense of the word, in spite of any sympathy they might have felt for his family until then. He vaguely understood that Concetta had saved him for his dead brother's sake, and out of hatred for the Saracinesca; but there was a sort of reckless self-sacrifice in her act which it was beyond his cowardice and selfishness to comprehend. He rarely addressed the saints, but he inwardly thanked them for his safety as he rode round the outskirts of the village and the back of Taddeo's house. He was still in a tremor of fear, but he knew that he could easily twist and exaggerate the story of the ignominious beating he had received, and thereby account for his pallor and his nervousness. He knew that anything would be believed against the Saracinesca. It would be hard to give a single reason for his having chosen to come up to Santa Vittoria to find a lodging, when he had left Rome in order to see Aliandra in Randazzo. His timidity might have had something to do with his decision, making him prefer the village where he was sure of finding friends, whatever he might do, to the large town where there was no one upon whom he could count. He had also told Basili, when he had been to see him, that he had business in Santa Vittoria. Vaguely, too, he guessed that Tebaldo might know where he was and follow him. But he had not the slightest intention of doing any harm to the Saracinesca, of whom, in his heart, he had always been afraid. As soon as Concetta had spoken, he had known that he was safe, though it was long before the effect of his fright had passed off. After what she had said, he knew that no one in Santa Vittoria would believe any statement which Ippolito might make about the encounter, and he set himself to enlarge upon the impression she had given so as to show himself in the most advantageous light possible. He was not injured, and his bruises, though painful, had not disfigured him, for Ippolito had struck him on the side of the head. As for his lip, he told Taddeo that Ippolito had at first picked up a stone and wounded him in the mouth with it. Taddeo was ready to believe anything, and so was his brother, the fat sacristan, who had waited for Francesco in the bridle-path until a late hour, and grievously lamented having missed the fight, for in spite of his fat and his odd smile and the cast in his eye, he was fond of fighting for its own sake, and no coward, except in the presence of what he believed to be supernatural and therefore irresistible. Having eaten his supper and refreshed his spirits and nerves with some of Taddeo's strongest wine, Francesco went to sleep in the great, old-fashioned trestle bed, in sheets that smelt of lavender, though they were of coarse linen. And early in the morning he got up, feeling almost quite himself, and rode down to Randazzo in the early dawn. An uncomfortable sensation assailed him as he passed the wall of the cemetery, but he looked away and rode on, thinking of Aliandra Basili, and concocting the story he should tell her to account for his wounded lip. Of all things, he desired to make a good impression on her and her father, for he had come from Rome with the determination to marry her if he could. It did not seem impossible, with Tebaldo out of the way, for she liked him, and Basili himself would think it a good thing for his daughter to marry a Pagliuca. Francesco's native cowardice had kept him out of the sort of daring mischief which gives a man a bad character. He did not gamble, he did not drink, and he could have a title, of course, according to the southern custom of distributing that sort of social distinction through all the members of a family. Aliandra might do far worse, Basili thought; and though he knew that she had made up her mind to get Tebaldo if she could, he also knew Tebaldo well enough to judge that, as the head of his family, he would try to make an ambitious and rich marriage. He frankly told Francesco that he had little influence with his daughter, but that so far as he himself was concerned, he approved of the marriage. Francesco had an equal share of the small family fortune with his brother and sister, and it had been increased by the addition of Ferdinando's, since the latter had left no will. In former times Basili had warned his daughter against the brothers, but their existence had changed since then. They now had a social position, and friends in Rome, and were altogether much more deserving of consideration. Francesco found the notary's broken leg a distinct advantage in his courtship; for Basili was, of course, helpless to move, in his room upstairs, and when the young man had paid him a visit, he and Aliandra had the house to themselves without fear of interruption. Then the two could stay as long as they pleased in the sitting-room below, with the blinds half closed and hooked together, and it was a cool and quiet place just so high above the street that people could not look in as they passed along outside. Aliandra had been flattered by the young man's pursuit, as was natural, but she had by no means given up the idea of marrying Tebaldo. She would have preferred that Francesco should not come all the way down from Santa Vittoria every day, but she could not refuse to see him when he came. She had temporarily returned, with a good deal of pleasure and amusement, to the primitive social state in which she had been brought up, and she was no longer able to tell a servant to say that she was not at home. Gesualda, the maid of all work, would not have understood any such order. Besides, Francesco always made a pretence of having come to see how Basili was doing, and invariably went upstairs to the latter's room, as soon as he entered the house. In the middle of the day he went to the inn for his dinner, because Aliandra dined with her father, but an hour later he returned and stayed until it was time for him to ride away in order to reach Santa Vittoria before dark. It was a long ride, and as he rode the same horse every day he saved his animal's strength as much as possible. To-day, everything happened as usual. At the accustomed hour he appeared, put up his horse in Basili's stable beside the notary's brown mare, flicked the dust from his boots and gaiters, and went in to see Aliandra and her father. The stable was in a little yard on one side of the house, entered by a wooden gate from the street, and accessible also from the house itself by a side door which led down three or four steps. The notary was in a good humour, for the doctor said that he was doing well, and hoped to get him on his feet again in a shorter time than had at first been expected. He was beginning to like Francesco because the young man took some pains to amuse him, having an object to gain, and treated him with even more deference than the principal notary of a provincial town had a right to expect. It was amusing to be told about Rome, and to hear a great many things explained which had always been more or less a mystery to one who had never left the island. It was pleasant, too, to hear of his daughter's triumphs from one who had assisted at them all, and who now spoke with the authority of a man of the world, representing the opinion of the Roman aristocracy. Now and then, when Francesco spoke of some especial passage in an opera by which Aliandra had raised a storm of enthusiasm, Basili would ask her what the music was like; and then, without effort or affectation, as though it was a pleasure to her, her splendid voice burst out, true and clear and fresh, and sang what the old man wished to hear. Then the peasants and people passing through the street would stop to listen, and even the ugly Gesualda, peeling potatoes or shelling peas in the kitchen, paused in her work and had a vision of something beautiful and far above her poor comprehension. On this morning, Francesco did his best to be agreeable, though his head ached and his lip was swollen. He refused to say much about the latter. Aliandra was sure to hear, in a day or two, the story which the peasants would tell each other about the affair, and which would certainly redound to his credit. He said that he had met with a slight accident in going home, and when Aliandra pressed him for an account of it, he said that it was nothing worth mentioning and turned the subject quickly. He did not wish to let her know that he had been worsted by a Saracinesca. The peasants would be sure to concoct a story of treachery, much more to his own glory than anything he could put together, and which would probably contain a number of details that might not agree with those of his own invention. Aliandra did not ask any more questions about it, even after they had gone downstairs and sat talking in the front room as usual. Her feeling for him had not changed at all. She was not in love with him any more than before she had left Rome, but he still attracted her in the same rather unaccountable way, and she never felt quite sure of what he might do or say when they were alone together. Yet she felt safer in being with him in her father's house than she had felt in Rome, even under the protection of the Signora Barbuzzi. He pressed her to marry him, at every meeting. Sometimes she laughed at him, sometimes she gave reasons why she could not accept him, sometimes she refused to listen altogether, and told him that he must go away if he could not talk more reasonably. But he was not easily discouraged; he knew how to make love better than Tebaldo, and after all she liked him. Tebaldo, when with her, was apt to be either cross-tempered, or over-elated, and almost too much at his ease, for he was far too much moved by her mere presence, and by the atmosphere that surrounded her, to have control of his words and his looks, as he had when he was with Miss Slayback. He was often abrupt with Aliandra, and there are few outward faults which a woman dislikes more in a possible husband than abruptness. Yet Aliandra perpetually did her best to please Tebaldo. Francesco, on the other hand, used every means in his power to please her. It was no wonder that she liked him better than his brother. He had many of the ways which appeal to all women, and he was clever at hiding those weaknesses which they despise quite as heartily as men can. A born coward not only fears danger, but fears, above all things, to show that he is afraid, and is keenly aware of anything, even in conversation, which can show him in his true light. If he is skilful, as well as cowardly, he will often succeed in deceiving brave men, who are the least suspicious, into the belief that he is as fearless as they. He finds it far easier to deceive women, who always attach much more importance to mere words than men do. It was a warm and sultry afternoon, for the wind was from the south-east and had in it something of the suffocating fumes of the volcano over which it blew. The blinds were drawn together and hooked, in the Italian way, so as to let in plenty of air and little light. Aliandra had established herself on the stiff, old-fashioned sofa, putting up her feet, to be more at her ease, and Francesco sat beside her, close to the window, smoking and talking to her. It was very quiet. Now and then footsteps passed along the street outside, and sometimes the sound of peasants' voices was heard, discussing prices or some bit of local gossip. Francesco had eaten his dinner at the inn and had come back, Basili was dozing upstairs on his couch, and Gesualda, the maid of all work, was probably eating oranges in the kitchen, or asleep in her chair, with the cat on her knees. There is nothing so peaceful in the whole world as the calm that descends on all things in the far south after the midday meal. 'This is better than Rome,' observed Francesco, looking at Aliandra's handsome profile. 'For a change--yes,' answered the singer, idly. 'I should not care for it always.' 'I can imagine that it might be dull, if I were alone.' Aliandra turned her head slowly and looked at him gravely for a moment. Then she smiled. 'If you were alone here,' she said, 'you would not have the excitement of taking care of a father with a broken leg, as I have.' 'Excitement!' Francesco laughed. 'Yes. I imagined what your existence would be like, so I came all the way from Rome to help you pass the time.' 'How merciful! But I am grateful, for though I love my father dearly, a broken leg as a subject of conversation, morning, noon, and night, leaves something to be desired.' 'I suppose the old gentleman is anxious about himself and talks about his leg all the time.' 'When you are not there, he generally does. You do him good, I am sure.' 'And so you are grateful to me for coming? Really?' 'Yes. What did you expect?' 'I would rather have less gratitude and more--what shall I say?' 'Anything you like--within certain limits!' Aliandra laughed softly. 'I might say too much, and that might offend you. Or too little, and that would certainly bore you.' 'Could you not say just enough? Sometimes you say it very well. You can be tactful when you like.' 'If I say that I should like more love, you will think it too much. If I say affection, it is too little, and must seem ridiculous.' Aliandra looked away from him, and rested her head against the hard back of the sofa for a moment. 'Why do you wish to marry me?' she asked suddenly, without turning to him. 'You could do much better, I am sure.' 'A man cannot do better than marry the woman he loves,' said Francesco, softly. 'He can marry a woman who loves him,' suggested Aliandra, laughing again. 'You cannot be serious very long,' he retorted. 'That is one reason why I love you. I hate serious people.' 'I know you do, and that makes me doubt whether you can ever possibly be serious yourself. Now, to marry a man who is not serious--' 'Or a woman who is not,' interrupted the young man. 'Is folly,' said Aliandra, completing her sentence. 'Then neither you nor I should ever marry at all. That is the conclusion, evidently. But you began by asking me why I wish to marry you. I answered you. It is simple. I love you, and I have loved you almost since you were a child. You know something about my life in Rome, do you not? Have you ever heard that I cared for any other woman?' 'How should I hear? I am not of your world, and though you know how I live, I know nothing of what you do when you are not with me. How should I? Have I allowed any of the men in society to make my acquaintance? You speak as though I had friends who might be friends of yours, yet you know that I have none. What you say may be quite true, but I have no means of knowing.' 'There is Tebaldo,' said Francesco. 'He knows all about me, and would not be likely to attribute to me any virtue which I do not possess. Has he ever told you that I was making love to anyone else?' 'No,' answered Aliandra, thoughtfully. 'That is true.' 'And he hates me,' observed Francesco. 'He would not lose a chance of abusing me, I am sure.' Aliandra made no answer at first, for what he said was quite true, though she did not care to admit it. 'You two are antipathetic to each other,' she said at last, using the phrase because it was vague and implied no fault on either side. 'You will never agree. I am sorry.' 'Why should you care, whether we agree or not?' 'Because I like you both. I should wish you to be good friends.' 'I am glad you include us both in one category,' said Francesco. 'You say that you like us both.' 'Well--what of that?' 'There is a beautiful indifference about the expression. If Tebaldo is satisfied, I suppose that I should be. But I am not. I am made of different stuff. I cannot say, "I love you" in one breath, and "I will not marry you" in the next.' Aliandra started perceptibly and looked at him. He had a well-affected air of righteous contempt. 'I am in earnest,' he continued, as she said nothing. 'I do not know whether I could do better for myself, as you say, or not. I suppose you mean that I might marry the daughter of some Roman prince, with a dowry and sixteen quarterings. Perhaps I might, for I have a good name of my own and an equal share of the property. I do not know and I do not care, and I shall certainly never try to make any such marriage, because I will either marry you or no one. I will not, I could not--nothing could induce me, neither fortune, nor position, nor anything else in the world.' He had a very convincing way of speaking when he chose, and for the first time, perhaps, Aliandra hesitated and thought that she might do worse than accept him for a husband. She thought him handsome as he sat beside her, leaning forward a little and speaking earnestly, and she mistook his masculine vitality for real manliness, which is a common mistake with young women of little experience. Besides, he made no reservations, and Tebaldo made many. Yet it was hard to give up her dream of being a real princess, the wife of the head of an old family, for she was very ambitious in more ways than one. Francesco had said very much the same things before now, it was true, so that there was no novelty in them for her. But his importunity was beginning to make an impression upon her, as contrasted with his brother's determined avoidance of the question of marriage. Still she said nothing, but her face betrayed her hesitation. He bent nearer to her, and spoke still more earnestly. There was no affectation in his speech now, for though his passions were evanescent, they had all the heat of his vital temperament as long as they lasted. The fact that he had carefully weighed the advantage to be got by marrying an artist who had youth, beauty, honesty, a small but solid inheritance to expect, and very possibly fame and fortune in the near future, did not make him cold nor calculating when he was close beside that beauty and youth which had at first attracted him. Her eyes softened dreamily from time to time as he spoke, and she made no attempt to withdraw the hand of which he had taken possession. He spoke quickly, warmly, eloquently, and without reserve, for he had nothing to conceal, and nothing to fear but her refusal. The words were not carefully chosen, nor the phrases very carefully turned, but they had the accent of sincerity, for his whole being was moved as he spoke. They had also the merit of not being too few nor too short; for that is often a merit in women's eyes. A woman loves to hear the whole tale of love, from the beginning to the end, and feels herself somehow cheated by the short and broken sentences which are often all that a strong man can command, though his hand trembles and his lips are white with emotion which the weak never feel. In the tender shadow of the half-darkened room, his eyes filled hers till she could not look away, and his speech grew softer and was broken by little silences. Aliandra was falling under the spell of his voice, of the hour, of her own warm youth, and of his abundant vitality. The blinds, hooked together against the bars, shook a little, perhaps with the sultry afternoon breeze, and all at once there was less light in the room. Aliandra moved a little, realising that she was falling under the man's influence. 'But Tebaldo!' she exclaimed. 'Tebaldo!' she repeated, still clinging to her long-cherished hope, as though she owed it a sort of allegiance for its own sake. Francesco laughed softly, and pressed the hand he held. 'Tebaldo is going to marry the American girl with the great fortune,' he said quietly. 'You need not think of Tebaldo any more.' Again the blind creaked a little on its hinges. But Aliandra started at what Francesco said, and did not hear the window. She sat upright on the sofa. 'What American girl?' she asked. 'I never heard of her. Has this been going on a long time?' 'About two months--' The blind creaked a third time as he spoke. 'There is someone under the window!' cried Aliandra, lowering her voice and looking round. 'It is the wind,' said Francesco, indifferently. 'The south-east wind blows up the street and shakes the blinds.' Aliandra leaned back again, and he took her hand once more. 'It is quite well known in Rome,' he continued. 'The engagement is not actually announced, but it will be very soon. They say she has many millions, and she is very pretty--insignificant, fair with blue eyes, but pretty. He has done very well for himself.' Aliandra was silent. The news meant the absolute destruction of a project she had long hoped to realise, and with which she had grown familiar. But she knew, as it fell to pieces before her eyes, that she had never firmly believed in its success, and there was a sort of relief in feeling that she was freed from the task set her by her own ambition, while at the same time she was hurt by the disappointment of failure, and a sudden keen resentment against Tebaldo prompted her to yield to Francesco's entreaties on his own behalf. He held her hand and waited for her to speak. The silence lasted long, for the notary's daughter was afraid of herself and of making up her mind hastily. The blind creaked again, more loudly than before, and she turned her head nervously. 'I am sure there is someone under the window!' she said. 'I wish you would look!' 'I assure you it is only the wind,' answered Francesco, as before. 'I know, but please look. I am nervous. The scirocco always makes me nervous.' 'It is not the weather, Aliandra,' he said softly, and smiling, with his eyes in hers. 'You are not nervous, either. It is--it is--' he bent nearer to her face. 'Do you know what it is?' Though he was so near, forcing her with his eyes, he had no power over her now. She could not help looking anxiously over his shoulder at the hooked blinds. She was not listening to him. 'It is love,' he said, and his red lips gave the word a sensuous sound, as they came nearer to her face. She did not hear him. The rich colour in her face faded all at once, and then with a sharp cry she stood upright, pushing him away from her. 'I saw a hand on the window sill!' she exclaimed. 'It is gone again.' Francesco rose also. He was annoyed at the untoward interruption, for he fancied that the hand must have belonged to some boy in the street, playing outside and climbing up a little way to jump down again, as boys do. 'It is ridiculous!' he said in a tone of irritation, and going to the window. He looked down between the blinds that were ajar, expecting to see a peasant boy. Instead, there was Tebaldo Pagliuca's face, yellow in the sun, as though he had a fever, and Tebaldo's bloodshot eyes looking up to his, and the thin, twisted lips smiling dangerously. 'Come outside,' said Tebaldo, in an odd voice. 'I want to speak with you.' But Francesco only heard the first words. His abject terror of his brother overcame him in an instant, and he almost ran into Aliandra's arms as he sprang back. 'It is Tebaldo!' he whispered. 'Let him in. Keep him here, while I go away through the stable-yard!' And before she could answer or realise exactly what he meant, he had left her standing alone in the middle of the room. In ten seconds he had made sure that the gate of the stable-yard was fast inside, and he was saddling his horse. It was done in less than a minute somehow. Then he listened, coming close to the gate. He heard Aliandra speaking with Tebaldo at the open window, a moment later he heard the street door open and close, and he knew that Tebaldo was in the house. Very softly and quickly he unbolted the yard gate. He swung it wide, reckless of the noise it made, and in an instant he was in the saddle and galloping for his life up the deserted street. It was well that he had known the house thoroughly, and that Aliandra had obeyed him and admitted Tebaldo at once. She was braver than Francesco, by many degrees, though she was no heroine; but she was scared by the look in the man's face, as he entered without a word, and looked round the room slowly for his brother. 'Where is he?' he asked. Before Aliandra could find any answer, the loud noise of clattering hoofs filled the room. Tebaldo was at the window almost before the sound had passed, and the thrust of his open hand smashed the fastenings so that the blinds flew wide open. He looked out and saw his brother galloping away. He knew the house too, for he had been in it many times, and he knew also that Basili's brown mare was a good beast, for the notary was a heavy man and often had to ride far. Without even glancing at Aliandra he turned to the door. But she was there before him, and held it closed, though she was frightened now. 'You shall not go,' she tried to say. 'Shall not?' he laughed harshly, as his hands caught her. He did not hurt her, for he loved her in his way, but a moment later she found herself turned round like a leaf in a storm, and the door had closed behind him. It seemed to her but a second more, and she had not been able to think what she should do, when the sound of flying hoofs passed the window again. She ran to look out, and she saw the brown mare already far up the street. Tebaldo could ride, and he had not wasted time in saddling. Bareback he rode the mare with her halter for a bridle, as he had found her. Aliandra realised that he had no rifle. At all events he would have to overtake his brother in order to kill him, and Francesco had the start of him by several minutes. He knew it, but he guessed what Tebaldo would do, and he kept his horse at full speed as the road began to wind upward to the black lands. He glanced behind him just before each turning, expecting to see his pursuer. But a clear start of four minutes meant a mile, at the pace he had ridden out of the town. He kept the horse to it, for he was riding for the wager of his life. But the animal had been put to it too suddenly after his feed, without as much as a preliminary walk or trot to the foot of the hill, and even in his terror Francesco saw that it would be impossible to keep the pace much longer. But he could save distance, if he must slacken speed, if he followed the footpath by which the peasants had made short cuts between each bend of the road and the next. They were hard and safe in the heat, and his horse could trot along them fairly well, and even canter here and there. And then, when he was forced to take the high-road for a few hundred yards, he could break once more into a stretching gallop. If he could but reach that turn, just beyond the high hill, where Ferdinando's friend had once waited for San Giacinto, he believed that he could elude Tebaldo in the black lands. It was a terrible half-hour, and he gasped and sweated with fear, as he urged his horse up that last long stretch of the road which could not be avoided. His heart beat with the hoof-falls, and the sweat ran down upon his velvet coat, while he felt his hands so cold that it was an effort not to drop the reins. But the beast had got his wind at last, and galloped steadily up the hill. It was growing suddenly dark, and there was a feverish yellow light in the hot air. A vast thunderstorm was rolling over Etna, and another had risen to meet it from the west, hiding the lowering sun. Only overhead the air was calm and clear. The first clap of the thunder broke in the distance, and went rolling and echoing away from the volcano to the inland mountains. As he reached the top of the hill, Francesco felt the big drops of rain in his face like a refreshment, though they were warm. The thunder pealed out again from the mountain's side with a deafening explosion. He turned in his saddle and looked back. The road was straight and long, and he could see far. Tebaldo was in sight at last, almost lying on the mare's bare back as she breasted the hills, his hand along her neck, his voice near her ear while she stretched her long brown body out at every stride. Francesco's teeth chattered as he spurred his horse for another wild effort. He could break from the road now, just before the wide curve it made to the left, and he knew the bridle-paths and all the short cuts and byways through the black lands, as few men knew them except that one man, his brother, who was behind him. In his haste to escape he had left his rifle in Basili's hall. It was so much the less weight for his horse to carry, but it left him defenceless, and he knew that Tebaldo must be armed. The storm broke and the rain came down in torrents. His horse almost slipped in jumping the ditch to get off the main road, but recovered himself cleverly, and long before Tebaldo had reached the top of the hill Francesco was out of sight. He might have felt safe then, from almost any other pursuer. But he knew Tebaldo, and now and then his teeth chattered. He told himself that he was chilled by the drenching rain, but in his heart he knew it was fear. Death was behind him, gaining on him, overtaking him, and he felt a terrible weakness in all his bones, as though they were softened and limp like a skeleton made of ropes. It was hard to think, and yet he had to ease his mind. Tebaldo was lighter than he, and he rode without saddle or bridle. To take the shortest way through the black lands was to be surely overtaken in the long run. It might be best to take the longest, and perhaps Tebaldo might get before him, and give him a chance to turn back to Randazzo. But as he looked down at the path his heart sank. The heavy rain had already softened the ground in places and his horse's hoofs made fresh tracks. There was no mistaking them. There was only one way, then, and it must be a race, for only speed could save him. Whichever way he might turn in and out of the fissures and little hollows, he must leave a trail in the wet, black ashes, which anyone could follow. Don Taddeo's best horse was one of the best horses in that part of the country, as Francesco knew, and more than a match for the notary's brown mare, had other things been alike. But there was the difference of weight against him, and, moreover, Tebaldo was the better rider. There was less than three-quarters of a mile between them now, but if he could keep the pace, that would do. He followed the shortest path, which was also the best, because it was naturally the one most used by travellers. The rain fell in torrents, and the air was dusky and lurid. Again and again the great forked lightnings flashed down the side of the mountain, and almost at the instant the terrible thunder crashed through the hissing rain. Francesco felt as though each peal struck him bodily in the back, between the shoulders, and his knees shook with terror as he tried to press them to the saddle, and he bent down as if to avoid a shot or a blow, while his ears strained unnaturally for the dreaded sound of hoofs behind. Yet he scarcely dared to turn and look back, lest while he looked his horse might hesitate, or turn aside to another path through the black wilderness. Under the lurid light the yellow spurge had a horribly vivid glow, growing everywhere in big bunches among the black stones and out of the blacker soil. It almost dazzled him, as he rode on, always watching the path lest he should make a mistake and be lost. Then the wind changed in a moment and came up behind him in gusts, and brought to his ears the sound of terror, the irregular beat of a horse's hoofs, cantering, pacing, trotting, according to the ground. It was fearfully near, he thought. He had just then his choice of taking to the road again for half a mile or more, or of following the bridle-path that turned off amongst the spurge and the stones. There was a broad, deep ditch, and the rain had made the edges slippery and there was a drop of several feet, and little space to take off. It was a dangerous leap, but the greater fear devoured the less, and Francesco did not hesitate, but put the good horse at it. It would be a relief to get a stretching gallop along the road again. The horse cleared it well, and thundered up the highway, as glad as his rider to be out of the intricate paths again. Francesco breathed more freely, and presently turned in his saddle as he galloped, and looked back. He could see nothing, but every now and then a gust of wind brought the sound of hoofs to him. Just as he neared the end of the half-mile stretch he distinctly saw Tebaldo come up to the leap. The rain had ceased for a moment, and in the grey air he could see tolerably well how the brown mare took off. For an instant he gazed, absolutely breathless. Horse and rider disappeared into the ditch together, for the mare had not cleared it. She might be injured, she might be killed, and Tebaldo with her. With a wild welling up of hope Francesco galloped along the road, already half sure that the race was won and that he could reach a safe place in time. The highway was level now for two or three miles over the high yoke, below which, on the other side, Camaldoli lay among the trees. He settled down once more to a long and steady gallop, and the going was fairly good, for the volcanic stuff used in making the road drank up the rain thirstily and was just softened by it without turning to mud. His terror was subsiding a little. But all at once from far behind came the regular galloping, tramping tread of the horse his brother was riding. He turned as though he had been struck, and there, a mile behind him, was a dark moving thing on the road. They had not been injured, they had not been killed, they were up and after him again. And again his teeth chattered and his hands grew cold on the reins. The entrance to the avenue of Camaldoli was in sight, and he set his teeth to keep them still in his head. It was half a mile from the entrance to the house, and little more than that to Santa Vittoria. But if he turned into the entrance Tebaldo would cut across the fields and might catch him under the trees, caring little who might be there to see. It was safer to make for Santa Vittoria. He passed the turn of the road at a round pace, and the good horse breasted the hill bravely. But on the smooth highway the difference in weight began to tell very soon. Tebaldo was clearly in sight again now, stretching himself along the mare's body, his head on her neck, his voice close to her ear, riding like vengeance in a whirlwind, gaining at every stride. Francesco's horse was almost spent, and he knew it. He had spurs and used them cruelly, and the poor beast struggled to gallop still, while the lean brown mare gained on him. The sun was low among the lurid clouds, and sent a pale level glare across the desolate land. Before the cemetery gate, her black clothes and her black shawl drenched with the thunderstorm and clinging to her, Concetta sat in her accustomed place, bent low. Francesco scarcely saw her as he rode up the last stretch for his life. But, as he passed her, his horse stumbled a little. Francesco thought he shied at the black figure, but it was not that. Four, five, six strides more, and the brave beast stumbled again, staggered as Francesco sprang to the ground, and then rolled over, stone dead, in the middle of the road. Francesco did not glance at him as he lay there, but ran like a deer up the last few yards of the hill. The little church was just on the other side, and it might be open. Tebaldo was not two hundred yards behind him, and had seen all and was ready, and the lean mare came tearing on. She took the dead horse's body in her desperate stride, just as Francesco burst into the church. With all his strength he tried to force the bolt of the lock across the door inside, for the key was outside where Ippolito had left it when he had entered. He could not move it, and he heard the thunder of hoofs without. If Tebaldo had not seen him enter, the mare would gallop past the closed door to the gate of the town. In wild fear he waited the ten seconds that seemed an age. The clattering ceased suddenly, and some one was forcing the door in behind him. Francesco's lips moved, but he could not cry out. He ran from the door up the aisle. When Tebaldo had killed him, on the steps of the altar, he sheathed the big knife, with which he had done the deed at one blow, and instantly dropped it through the old gilded grating under the altar itself, behind which the bones of the saint lay in a glass casket. No one would ever look for it there. As though the fever that had burned him were suddenly quenched in the terrible satisfaction of murder, the natural colour returned to his face for a moment, and he grew cold. Then all at once he realised what he had done, and he knew that he must escape from the church before any one surprised him. He turned away from the altar and found himself face to face with Ippolito Saracinesca, who had been at work at the back of the organ, while he was waiting for the fat sacristan as usual, and had come down the winding stairs as soon as he had heard the noise of running feet, without even going to the front of the loft to see who was there. Tebaldo stood stock-still, facing the priest while one might have counted a score. He knew him well and was known to Ippolito. But Ippolito could not see who it was that lay dead across the steps, for the face was downwards. Tebaldo looked at the churchman's calm and fearless eyes and knew that he was lost, if he could not silence him. Before Ippolito spoke, for he was too much surprised and horror-struck to find anything to say, and was rather thinking of what he ought to do, the Sicilian was on his knees, grasping his sleeve with one hand and crossing himself with the other. He began the words of the Confession. A moment more and he was confessing to Ippolito as to a priest, and under the sacred seal of silence, the crime of having slain his brother. Ippolito could not stop him, for he had a scruple. He could not know that the man did not at once truly repent of what he had done, and in that case, as a priest, he was bound to hear and to keep silence for ever. Tebaldo knew that, and went to the end, and said the last Latin words even while getting on his feet again. 'I cannot give you absolution,' said the young priest. 'The case is too grave for that. But your confession is safe with me.' Tebaldo nodded, and turned away. He walked firmly and quickly to the door, went out and closed it behind him. He had already made up his mind what to do. He met the fat sacristan less than twenty paces from the church. He had known him all his life, and he stopped him, asking him where he was going. The man explained. 'Don Ippolito will not need you to blow the organ to-day,' said Tebaldo, gravely. 'He has just killed my brother in the church. I have turned the key on him, and am going to fetch the carabineers.' The fearful lie was spoken with perfect directness and clearness. The man started, stared at Tebaldo, and grew pale with excitement, but he could not believe his ears till Tebaldo had repeated the words. Then he spoke. 'We thought he had killed him yesterday afternoon by the cemetery,' he said. 'And now he has really done it! Madonna! Madonna! And another of them killed Don Ferdinando!' 'What is that about the cemetery?' asked Tebaldo. 'Tell me as we go, for I am in a hurry.' 'It is better that I stay,' said the man. 'He knows the lock and he may be able to slip the bolt from the inside, for he is very strong. He almost killed Don Francesco last night with his hands and only a stone he picked up.' He told Tebaldo in a few words the story which the peasants had already invented. 'I am glad you have told me,' said Tebaldo. 'It explains this horrible murder. I will go for the carabineers at once. There is no more time to be lost. Stay here and watch the door.' He knew he could trust the man to do his worst against a Roman, and he walked rapidly into the town. Ippolito watched Tebaldo until the door closed behind him. He was a very honourable as well as a very good man, and though as a priest he felt that he must give the murderer the benefit of a doubt, he felt as a man that the doubt could not really exist, and that Tebaldo had intentionally put him under the seal of confession in order to destroy his power of testifying in the case. The clever treachery was revolting to him. He turned to look at the dead man, suddenly hoping that there might be some life left in him after all. He went and knelt beside him on the step of the altar and turned his body over so that it lay on its back. He felt the sort of pitying repulsion for anything dead which every sensitively organised man or woman feels, but he told himself that it was his duty to make sure that Francesco was not alive. There was no doubt about that. Even he, in his inexperience, could not mistake the look in the wide-open, sightless eyes. He shuddered when he remembered how only twenty-four hours ago he had struck the poor dead head again and again with all his might, and he thanked Heaven that he had not struck harder and more often. He looked for the wound. It was on the left side low down in the breast, and must have gone to the heart at once. There was blood on both his hands, but very little had run down upon the steps. He got his handkerchief from the side pocket of his cassock, and started as he felt there the sheathed knife which Orsino had made him carry. There was no water in the church, except a little holy water, and he could not defile that, so he wiped his hands as well as he could on his handkerchief, and put the latter back into his pocket. Suddenly he realised that he ought to be doing something, and he stood up, and looked about in hesitation. He asked himself how far the secret of confession bound him, and whether it could be regarded as a betrayal to call the authorities at once. Someone might have seen Tebaldo leave the church, and to give the alarm at once might be to fasten suspicion upon him. The rule about the secrecy of confession is very strict. The sacristan might be expected to appear at any moment, too. Ippolito looked at his watch and wondered why the man had not come already. He was in great difficulty, for the case was urgent. Being alone, too, he did not like to shut up the church, leaving the dead man there alone. But he was sure that the sacristan would come in a few moments. It was more than half an hour since he had sent the lame boy to find him. It was wiser to wait for him and send him for the doctor and the carabineers. He paced up and down before the altar rail rather nervously, glancing every now and then at the dead man. But the sacristan did not come. He thought it would be charitable to straighten out the lifeless limbs and cross the hands upon the breast, and he went up the steps and did so. When it was finished, he found more blood on his hands, and again rubbed away as much as he could with his handkerchief. Once more he paced the stone floor. Then he remembered that in his excitement he had not even said a prayer, and he knelt awhile by the rail, repeating some of the psalms for the dead in a low voice. He rose and walked again, and his eyes fell on the queer words in worn, raised letters on the slab in the floor--'Esca Pagliuca pesca Saracen'--and again he was struck by the way in which his own name, or something very like it, could be made out of the letters. He walked down the church, intending to look out and see whether the sacristan were coming. He was surprised to find the door locked. Then, all at once, he heard the sound of many voices, speaking loudly and coming nearer. He could distinguish his own name, spoken again and again in angry tones by someone with a loud voice. CHAPTER XXVIII Ippolito moved a step backwards when he heard the key turned in the lock, for the door opened inwards. It swung wide, a moment later, and he faced a multitude of angry eyes. There was Tebaldo pointing to him with an evil smile on his thin lips, and his lids falling at the angles like those of a vulture that scents death. There was the young red-haired lieutenant of infantry, gazing sharply at him; there was a corporal, with three or four of the foot-carabineers in their forage-caps. These represented the law. But pressing upon them, around them, and past them, was also a throng of angry men, and with them half a dozen women, and some children, even little ones, and the lame boy who waited every day to call the sacristan, and the fat sacristan himself, with the disturbing cast in his eye. In the background, just within the door when all had entered, and leaning against the doorpost, stood Concetta, her shawl falling back from her head, her splendid eyes gleaming with insanity. 'Take him,' said Tebaldo, harshly. 'There lies my brother, before the altar, and his blood is on this man's hands.' Then came a discordant chorus of cries and curses from the crowd. 'Take the priest of the Saracinesca! Handcuff him! Put him in chains! Curses on his soul, and on the souls of his dead!' 'He tried to kill him with a stone yesterday!' 'He has done it to-day, the assassin!' 'Let us burn him alive! Let us tear him to pieces! Death to the Roman!' 'Let me get my hands upon his face!' screamed a dishevelled woman. And a child, that stood near, spat at him. Ippolito had stepped backwards before them and faced them, pale and staring in amazement and horror. He could not understand, at first. The hideous treachery was altogether beyond his belief. Yet Tebaldo's outstretched hand pointed at him, and it was Tebaldo's voice that was bidding the soldiers take him. Their faces were impenetrable. Only the young Piedmontese officer, used to another world in the civilised north, betrayed in his expression the sort of curiosity one sees in the looks of people who are watching wild beasts in a cage. 'You had better clear the church,' he said to the carabineers. 'This confusion is unseemly.' He was not their officer, but they at once began to obey him. The crowd resisted a little, when the big men pushed them back with outstretched arms, as one gathers canes in the brake, to bind them together before cutting them off at the roots. 'They will let him go, like his brother,' growled an old man, fiercely. 'They will send him to Rome, and then let him go free, because he is a Roman,' said the crooked little carpenter. And the little boy spat at Ippolito again, and dodged the hand of one of the soldiers and ran out. With protesting cries, and with many curses and many evil threats, the people allowed themselves to be pushed out without any violence. 'I am the sacristan,' said the fat man, objecting; and they let him stay. 'I am Concetta,' said the dark girl, gravely. 'Let her stay,' advised the sacristan. 'She saw the priest beat him yesterday.' Ippolito had not spoken a word. He had folded his arms, and stood waiting for the confusion to end. He was fearless, but he could not realise, at first, that he might be seriously accused of the murder, and he believed that he should be set free very soon. He understood the treachery now, however, and his clear eyes fixed themselves on Tebaldo's face. When the church was cleared, and the door fastened, the corporal stepped up to him. Two of his men had gone to examine the body, and to search for the weapon. 'You are accused of having killed that gentleman,' said the corporal, quietly. 'He is quite dead, and you are in the church with him. There is blood on both your hands. What have you to say?' 'I did not kill him,' said Ippolito, simply. 'When I saw that he was lying before the altar, I examined him, to see if he were dead. That is how I soiled my hands.' The two men came back from the altar. They had ascertained that Francesco had been killed by a knife-thrust, but had not found the knife. 'I regret that I must search you,' said the corporal, in his quiet, determined voice. 'You will find a knife in my pocket,' answered Ippolito, very pale, for he saw how all evidence must go against him. The corporal looked up sharply, for he himself was surprised. Ippolito emptied his pockets, not wishing to submit to the indignity of being searched. He at once produced the sheathed bowie knife and the handkerchief, which was deeply dyed with blood and not yet dry. Some of it had stained the yellow leathern sheath in several places. The corporal drew out the weapon, which was bright and spotless, returned it to its sheath, and then held up the handkerchief by two corners. It is very easy to wipe blood from burnished steel, provided it is done instantly, and the corporal had a wide experience of such matters. He concluded that Ippolito might have cleaned the knife with the pocket handkerchief. He handed both objects to one of his men. Tebaldo's lids had quivered and his lips had moved a little as he looked on. It seemed as though some supernatural power were conspiring in his favour against his enemy. But he said nothing. The young officer opened his blue eyes very wide, and thoughtfully twisted his small, red moustache. Ippolito emptied the other pocket of his cassock, and produced a small volume of the Breviary, containing the offices for the spring, a little flexible morocco pocket-book, containing a few bank-notes, and an ivory-handled penknife. 'It is enough,' said the corporal. 'These things do not interest us. Your name,' he added, taking out his note-book and pencil. 'Ippolito Saracinesca.' 'Son of whom?' 'Of Don Giovanni Saracinesca, Prince of Sant' Ilario, of Rome.' 'Age?' 'Twenty-seven years.' 'Your occupation?' 'A priest.' 'Present residence?' 'Rome. I am staying with my brother at Camaldoli.' The corporal noted the answers rapidly in his book, and returned it to his pocket, buttoning his tunic again. Then he was silent for a moment. 'You have already given your account of the affair,' he said presently to Tebaldo. 'It is not necessary to repeat it. But this girl--what has she to say?' He turned to Concetta. Gravely, but with gleaming eyes, the pale and beautiful girl came forward and faced Ippolito. 'Yesterday at sunset I was at the gate of the cemetery,' she said. 'This man's brother, who lives at Camaldoli, shot this Don Tebaldo's brother, to whom I was betrothed, and he is buried in the cemetery. Therefore, I go every day to the gate, to visit him. Yesterday Don Francesco came up the road and was speaking to me. He who lies there dead was talking with me but yesterday. God give his soul peace and rest. Then this priest, coming down from Santa Vittoria, fell upon him from behind treacherously, and choked him by the collar, and beat him upon the head, so that he fell down fainting. But certain peasants came by that way and lifted him up and took him into our village, but the priest went down to Camaldoli. This I saw, and this I tell you. And now two Saracinesca have killed two Pagliuca.' She ceased speaking, and her white hands drew her shawl over her head, for she was in church, where a woman's head should be covered. 'Do you admit the truth of what this girl says?' asked the corporal, turning to Ippolito. 'It is true that I beat Francesco Pagliuca with my hands yesterday afternoon.' 'Do you not admit also that you killed him to-day, in this church, with that knife? Don Tebaldo testifies that he saw you do it.' The young priest drew himself up to his height, and his clear gaze riveted itself on Tebaldo's half-veiled eyes. The good man faced the bad silently for many seconds. 'Did you testify that you saw me kill your brother?' asked Ippolito, at last. 'I did, and I shall repeat my testimony at the proper time,' answered Tebaldo, steadily. But under the clear, high innocence that silently gave him the lie, his eyelids dropped more and more, till he looked down. 'Do you admit that you killed him?' asked the corporal again. 'I did not kill him.' 'But you must necessarily know who did, if you did not,' said the soldier. 'The sacristan says that you sent a boy for him some time ago. The man is only just dead, as my men have seen. You must have been in the church when he was killed, and you must have seen the man who did it.' Ippolito had not seen the deed done, but he had seen the murderer. It would be hard to answer on the one point and not on the other, and by the very smallest slip he might unintentionally say something which might end in the betrayal of the secret told him in confession. He therefore kept silent. 'You say nothing? You insist in saying nothing?' asked the corporal. 'I say nothing beyond what I have said. I did not do it.' 'And you,' continued the soldier, addressing Tebaldo, 'you testify that you saw this man do it?' 'I do. Those things would bear evidence without me.' added Tebaldo, pointing to the knife and the bloody handkerchief, which latter one of the soldiers held by a single corner in order not to soil his fingers. 'Those things, and the man's hands,' he added. 'Moreover, his brother killed my other brother, as everyone knows, and he himself admits that he assaulted Francesco only last night. You can hardly hesitate about arresting him, corporal. The fact that he is a Roman and that we are Sicilians is hardly a sufficient defence, I think.' The corporal understood that he had no choice. He was a very sensible man and had seen much service in Sicily, and whenever there was bloodshed he was inclined to attribute the crime to a Sicilian rather than to an Italian. He liked Ippolito's face and innocent eyes and would have given much to feel that he had a right to leave him at liberty. But he had to admit that the evidence was overpoweringly strong against the accused. At first sight, indeed, it seemed perfectly absurd to suppose that a young churchman of a sensitive organisation and educated in a high state of civilisation should suddenly, wilfully, and violently stab to death such a man as the carabineer believed Francesco Pagliuca to have been; a man against whom the authorities had been warned, as being likely on the contrary to do the Saracinesca some injury, if he could; a man who had grown up in a wild part of Sicily, imbued with the lawless ideas of the mafia; a man, in fact, who though a nobleman by birth was looked upon as a 'maffeuso,' and whose brother had certainly had friendly relations with outlaws. It was not to be denied that the carabineers and the soldiers were all strongly prejudiced in favour of the Saracinesca, as against the Corleone. At the same time, the evidence was overwhelming, and was the more so because Ippolito was so obstinately silent and would say nothing in self-defence beyond making a general denial of the charge. In his difficulty the corporal turned to the officer of the line, both as his military superior and as a man of higher education than himself. He wanted support. He begged the lieutenant to speak with him in private for a moment, and they moved away together to one of the side chapels. Ippolito folded his arms and paced up and down before the carabineers, in profound and distressing perplexity. Tebaldo leaned against a pillar and watched him with evil satisfaction. Concetta went and knelt down, facing the altar, by a pillar on the opposite side, and the fat sacristan stood still in the background, watching everybody. The lieutenant shook his head from time to time while the corporal went over the case. 'For my part,' said the officer at last, 'I will wager my honour as a soldier that the priest did not kill him. But you will have to arrest him, not because of the feeling in the village, but simply because the evidence appears to be so strong. There is something here which we do not understand. But soldiers are not called upon to understand. It is always our duty to act to the best of our ability on what we can see. Understanding such things belongs to the law. I advise you to take him to your quarters and get him away from here to-night. He will make no resistance, of course.' The corporal was satisfied, though he did not like the duty, and he came back to Ippolito. 'It is my duty to arrest you,' he said, in a tone which expressed some respect and much annoyance. Ippolito had stopped in his walk and turned when he heard the soldier's footsteps behind him. 'You must do what you think right,' he said calmly. 'I am ready.' The corporal gave an order to his men, and requested Ippolito to walk between them. Then he himself opened the door of the church. A multitude of people had assembled outside, and there were now at least three times as many as had at first followed Tebaldo and the carabineers. Many more were hurrying down from the gate, and there was the confused sound of many voices, talking angrily. But when Ippolito appeared there was silence for a moment. Then, from far back in the crowd, came a single cry, loud, high, derisive, and full of hatred. 'Assassin!' The word rang out, and was immediately taken up and repeated by a hundred men and women, with a sort of concentrated fury that hissed out the syllables, as though each were a curse. Ippolito faced the people calmly enough, walking between the four carabineers, who marched two and two on each side of him, and the evening light shone full upon his clear-cut features and his innocent, brave eyes. He needed courage as well as innocence to bear him through the ordeal, for he knew that but for the handful of soldiers, the crowd would have made short work of tearing him to pieces in their fury. For once, the soldiers were on their side against the hated Italians of the mainland. The people applauded them and their corporal, and the infantry officer, as they went by. The children ran before, crying out to the people who were still coming down from the village. 'Here comes the priest of the Saracinesca!' they shouted. 'Here comes the assassin!' 'Assassin! assassin!' Ippolito heard the word a thousand times in five minutes. And some of the people spoke to the soldiers and the corporal. 'Give him to us, Uncle Carabineer!' cried the crooked carpenter. 'What has the law to do with him? Give him to us! We will serve him half roasted and half boiled!' All the people who heard laughed at this and jeered at Ippolito. 'See the blood on his hands!' screamed the carpenter's big wife, suddenly catching sight of the red stains. 'See the blood of Sicily on the priest's hands!' A yell rose from all the multitude, for a hundred had heard the woman's high, shrill voice, and the rest took up the cry, so that the children who went before ran back to see what was the matter. One was the woman's child. She caught him in her strong arms and raised him up to see, as she marched along. 'See the good Sicilian blood!' she cried into the boy's ear. 'Curses upon the souls of his dead!' yelled the child, half mad with excitement. All the people surged along together, running and jostling one another to keep the priest in sight. And the children whistled and made cat-calls and strange noises, and the women screamed, and the men cursed him in their hard voices. Bareheaded he walked between the soldiers, looking far ahead and not seeing or not wishing to see the people, nor to understand what they said. He had but one thought--not to break the faith of his priestly order by betraying the confession. Had he known that death was before him, he would not have yielded. Suddenly something struck him on the shoulder, and he started, and his face changed. Someone had thrown a rotten orange at him, well aimed, and as it smashed upon his shoulder, some of the yellow juice spurted upon his cheek. For one moment the calm look was gone, and the clear features set themselves sternly, and the eyes flashed with human anger at the indignity of the insult. The crowd screamed with delight, and pushed the soldiers upon each other. 'Halt!' cried the carabineer corporal. In a moment his great army revolver was in his hand, and all his men, watching him, had theirs ready. 'We are acting in the name of the law,' he said, in a loud voice. 'If anything more is thrown at us, we shall disperse you, and you must take the consequences.' 'The orange was not thrown at you,' cried the carpenter's wife. 'I have warned you,' said the corporal. 'Stand off, there! Fall back! Make way!' And he kept his revolver in his hand, as the people slunk away to right and left, cowed by the sight of the weapon. After that there was less noise for a while, though he did not pretend to control that, nor to hinder them from saying what they pleased. And presently they began again, and the hissing words filled the air, and pierced the young priest's ears. But he said nothing, and his face was cold and pale again, as he walked on, fearless and innocent, keeping the real murderer's secret for the sake of his own churchman's vow, and holding his head high amidst the insults and the jeers of the multitude. It was a long way, for they had to march through the whole town to reach the quarters of the carabineers in the old convent on the other side. Ippolito would have marched a whole day's journey without wincing, if it had fallen to his lot, but he was glad when the wooden gates of the yard were loudly shut behind him, and he was at last free from his enemies. He looked round, and Tebaldo was gone, and Concetta, and the sacristan, as well as all the rest, except the carabineers. The officer of the line had gone home to write a despatch to his colonel, and Ippolito was alone with the carabineers. Meanwhile the little lame boy whom Ippolito employed, and who had a sort of half-grateful, half-expectant attachment for the kind priest, had done a brave thing, considering his infirmity. Seeing what was happening at the church and hearing what all the people said, he quietly slipped away and limped down to Camaldoli to warn Orsino Saracinesca. It took him a long time to get there, for he was very lame, having one leg quite crooked from the knee, besides some natural deformity of the hip. But he got to the gate at last, and it chanced that Orsino had just come in from riding and was standing there, his rifle slung behind him, when the little boy came down. At first Orsino could not understand, and when he partly understood, he could not at first believe, the story. The boy's account, however, was circumstantial, and could not possibly have been invented. Then, when he felt sure that his brother was accused of Francesco's murder, Orsino's face darkened, and he called for his horse again and mounted quickly. The little lame boy looked up to him wistfully, beginning to limp along, and Orsino bent over in his saddle and picked him up with one hand by his clothes, and set him before him, though he was a dirty little fellow. Then he galloped off up the hill. But the boy begged to be let down to the ground at the cemetery, for he said that his mother would kill him if she knew that he had warned Orsino. The crowd was still lingering in the streets as the big man on his big horse came thundering along the paved way, his rifle at his back and the holsters on his saddle, his face stern and set. It was as well that he did not meet Tebaldo Pagliuca just then. It was one thing to throw an orange at an unarmed priest, and to scream out curses at him; it was quite another to stand in the way of Orsino Saracinesca, with nearly thirty shots to dispose of, mounted on his strong horse, and in a bad temper. The people shrank aside in silence, and looked after the hated Roman as he galloped by towards the carabineers' quarters. He struck the gate with his heavy boot by way of knocking, without dismounting. A man on duty inside asked who he was, for there were orders to keep the gate shut on account of the crowd. 'Saracinesca!' answered Orsino. The gate swung back, and he rode in and asked for the corporal, dismounted, threw the bridle to the soldier, and went into the house. The corporal met him in the corridor. 'What is the meaning of this?' asked Orsino. 'Is it true that you have arrested my brother?' 'I was obliged to do so,' answered the corporal, quietly enough. 'I consulted the lieutenant and he also advised it. I am sorry, but it was evidently my duty.' 'Release him at once,' said Orsino, in a tone of authority. The corporal shook his head. 'I cannot do that,' he answered. 'You are at liberty to see him, but he is a prisoner.' 'You are the best judge of your own conduct. You know what you are doing. I shall telegraph to the Ministry in Rome at once.' 'The Ministry will not order Don Ippolito's release,' answered the corporal, with conviction. Orsino stared at him, and laughed rather roughly. 'You are mad,' he replied. 'You will lose your stripes for this, if nothing worse happens to you. I advise you to let my brother out at once.' 'Signor Don Orsino,' said the corporal, gravely, 'I am an old soldier. I am specially instructed to protect you and your interests here. Yet, in the execution of my duty, I have been absolutely obliged to arrest your brother, the Reverend Don Ippolito, for killing Don Francesco Pagliuca, in the church of Santa Vittoria, this afternoon. The evidence was such that I should have risked degradation and punishment, if I had refused to arrest him. It is not for me to judge of his possible guilt, which to me, personally, seems impossible. I could only act as a non-commissioned officer of carabineers is obliged to act by the terms of our general orders. I say this to you personally, but I am answerable for the act to my superiors, and they do not often overlook mistakes. If you will come with me into my private room, I will tell you all the details of the case, and show you the knife and the bloodstained handkerchief which we found in Don Ippolito's pocket. I and my men will do all in our power to serve you, as we are instructed to do; but to release Don Ippolito without further proceedings is absolutely out of the question.' Orsino's expression changed while the man was speaking, for he judged him to be what he was, an honourable soldier with a vast amount of common sense. He followed him into the little room which had been the parlour of the convent, and sat down beside the plain deal table on which lay several day-books and a heap of large ruled paper with printed headings over the columns, half filled with neat writing. A little lamp with a green shade was already burning. Orsino sat down and listened patiently to all the corporal had to say. When the latter had finished, he had said more than enough to prove to any sane person that he had done his duty. There was the fact of the quarrel on the previous day. It mattered little that Orsino knew the true cause of the scuffle in the road, and that the corporal had not known it till Orsino told him. The fact of violence remained. There was the singularly continuous chain of circumstantial evidence got in the church. And there was Ippolito's obstinate silence. 'I see,' said Orsino, gravely. 'I beg your pardon. You have done right. That Francesco Pagliuca was killed by his brother Tebaldo, I am convinced.' 'By his own brother?' exclaimed the carabineer, incredulously. 'That is what I believe; but I have no evidence. I should like to see Don Ippolito, if you please.' 'I am glad that you understand me,' said the corporal, who was used to being misjudged. He led the way to a door in the corridor, and opened it. It was not locked, and he simply closed it by the latch, after admitting Orsino. The room was a large one, overlooking the ample courtyard, but the two windows were heavily barred, as indeed were all those on the lower floor of the old convent. On one side, against the wall, stood a low trestle bed, covered with one of the soldiers' brown blankets. There was a deal table that had been painted green, an iron washstand, and half a dozen rush-bottomed chairs. On the table stood a small lamp, with a shade precisely like the corporal's own, and beside it there was a big jug of wine and a heavy glass tumbler into which nothing had as yet been poured. The corporal had brought the wine himself, supposing that Ippolito would need it. It was the soldier's idea of comfort and refreshment. Ippolito sat by the other side of the table, and started to his feet as Orsino entered. He smiled rather sadly, for he knew that he was in a very terrible and dangerous situation. So far as he could see, he might be sent to penal servitude for Tebaldo's crime, for nothing could have induced him to break his vow and betray the secret. Orsino grasped his outstretched hand. 'I knew you would come,' said Ippolito, with a glad intonation. 'Who called you? They all hate us here. You should have heard how they cursed me and all of us, in the street. Somebody threw a rotten orange at me, and hit my shoulder, but the carabineers kept them in order after that.' Orsino said something under his breath, and looked steadily into his brother's eyes. At last he spoke, and asked one question, quietly, coaxingly, as though only half hoping for an answer: 'Did Tebaldo kill him, or did he not?' Ippolito's eyelids quivered at the suddenness of the question. His soul abhorred a lie, and most of all one to proclaim the innocence of such a man. To answer the truth was to betray the confession and to break his solemn vow before God, as a priest. Silence, perhaps, was equivalent to casting suspicion on the murderer. But he kept silent, for he could do nothing else. CHAPTER XXIX Ippolito was silent, and he turned away from his brother, half fearing lest even his eyes should assent to the accusation against Tebaldo. He went towards the window, through which the afterglow of the sunset was still faintly visible, and then, as though changing his mind, he came back to the table and sat down, keeping his face from the lamp as much as possible. Orsino took another chair. 'It is not right to accuse anyone of such a crime without evidence,' said Ippolito, slowly. Orsino did not answer at once. He took two cigars from his pocket and silently offered one to his brother, and both began to smoke, without speaking. They were so much in sympathy, as a rule, that there would have been nothing surprising in their silence on any ordinary occasion. But the elder man now felt that there was a mystery of which Ippolito was making a secret; he knew his brother's extraordinary but perfectly quiet tenacity when he chose not to speak of anything, and he turned the whole situation over in his mind. He was in possession of all the details known to the carabineers, and of another piece of information which had not reached them, but which he was keeping to himself until it might be of use. For one of his men had seen from a long way off how a man riding bareback had chased a man on a saddled horse up the long straight hill to the cemetery, and he had told Orsino of the fact before the lame boy had arrived, though he admitted that he had not been able to recognise the riders. Orsino himself had found Taddeo's horse lying dead in the road just beyond the gate of the graveyard, and his own horse had shied at it. He recognised the dead beast, which was well known as one of the best horses in the country, and he had seen in a flash that it was not injured, and had not been shot, whereat he had concluded that it had probably been ridden to death in the race his man had described. Ippolito had told him, after the scuffle on the previous evening, that Concetta had directed the peasants to take Francesco to Taddeo's house. Distrusting Tebaldo altogether, as Orsino did, it was not extraordinary that he should hit on something very near the truth, by a single guess founded on what he knew. He was in total ignorance of Aliandra's connexion with the story, and he had no idea why the one brother should have been chasing the other. But he had often heard of Tebaldo's fits of ungovernable fury. Vittoria herself had told Orsino that, at such times, Tebaldo was more dangerous than a wild beast, and she had also told him that her brothers often quarrelled. Orsino guessed that such a quarrel had taken place to-day, somewhere on the road, and that it had ended in Francesco's killing his horse, reaching the church on foot, and being overtaken by his brother and stabbed a few seconds later, as had really happened. Orsino was not very clever in the ordinary sense of the word, but his mind was direct and logical, when he exerted it. He went a step farther in his guessing, and concluded that Ippolito had not seen the murder, nor perhaps Tebaldo himself, but that Tebaldo had seen him. The priest had come down from the organ loft, had found the body lying on the steps, and had moved it, while Tebaldo had conceived the idea of accusing him of the deed. He explained Ippolito's silence by attributing to him, as a very conscientious man, the most extreme fear of bringing an accusation for which he had no ocular evidence. Though the train of thought is not easily expressed in words, it was a sufficiently reasonable one. When had followed it out, he knocked the ashes from his cigar, and looked at his brother. 'I am going to tell you what I think,' he said, 'for you are making a mystery of the truth out of some scruple of conscience.' Ippolito shaded his eyes with his hand, resting his elbow on the table. He felt his brow moisten suddenly with anxiety, lest Orsino should somehow have guessed the secret, and his fears increased as his brother told him of the race, of the dead horse, and of the conclusions he had drawn. In his painful position the young priest might have been forgiven for wishing that, altogether without his agency, Orsino might find out the truth. But he did not. As Orsino had once said of him, he had in him the stuff that sent martyrs to the stake in old days. He honestly hoped, with all his heart, that Orsino might not hit on the true story, and he was relieved when he heard the end of his brother's deductions. As a man, he was most anxious for his own immediate release, and he was willing that the murderer should be brought to justice. But as a priest, he felt horror at the thought that he, who had received the confession, might in anyway whatever help to bring about such a result. At that moment he wished that Orsino would go away, since he had not, at the first attempt, fathomed the secret. He might succeed the second time. 'I partly understand why you are silent,' said Orsino. 'It is not good to accuse a man who may be innocent. Neither you nor I should care to do that. But I am not the Attorney-General. You can surely speak freely to me. You know that anything you say is safe with me, and it is not as though you should be suggesting to me a suspicion which I had not already formed by myself. Do you not trust me? It is hardly even a case of trust! What could I say? That you, the accused, have the same impression which I have. But I will not even say that. The point is this: You were on the spot, in the church. Your guess at the truth must be incomparably more valuable than mine. That is what I am trying to make you understand.' He gently patted the table with his hand, emphasising the last words, while he leaned forward to see his brother's face. But the latter turned away and smoked towards the window. 'Is that all true, or not?' Orsino asked, in a tone of insistence. 'What?' asked Ippolito, fearing to commit himself. 'That you can trust me not to put you in the position of accusing an innocent man.' 'Yes; of course it is true.' Orsino looked at him thoughtfully for a few seconds. 'When you asked me what was true, just now, before you answered me, you asked the question because you were afraid that your answer might include my guess as to what happened. I suppose my guess was not altogether right, since you were afraid of assenting to it. I wish you would look at me, Ippolito! What is all this? Is there to be no more confidence between us, because a mere look might mean that you suspect Tebaldo Pagliuca?' Ippolito faced him, and smiled affectionately. 'If you, or our father, or any man like us, were in my position, you would act exactly as I am acting,' he said slowly. 'You are perfectly innocent, and yet you act like a man who is afraid of incriminating himself?' said Orsino, growing impatient at last. 'I am perfectly innocent, at all events,' answered Ippolito, with something like a laugh. 'I am glad that you are so light-hearted about it all. I am not. If we cannot catch the man who really killed Francesco before to-morrow morning, you will be taken down to Messina and imprisoned until we can bail you out, if bail is accepted at all, which I doubt. You run a good chance of being tried for murder. Do you realise that?' 'I cannot help it, if it comes to that,' said Ippolito, quietly puffing at his cigar. 'You can at all events say something to help me in proving your innocence--' 'I am sorry to say that I cannot.' Orsino made an impatient movement, uncrossing and recrossing one knee over the other. 'You could if you chose,' he said. 'But there is no more terrible obstacle to common sense than a morbidly scrupulous conscience. What do you suppose our people will think, in Rome?' 'They will not think me guilty, at all events,' answered the priest. His manner changed. 'I tell you frankly, Orsino,' he said, his face growing square, as it sometimes did, 'if I knew that I was to be sent to penal servitude for this, I would not say one word more than I have said already. It is quite useless to question me. Do your best to save me,--I know you will,--but do not count on me for one word more. Consider me to be a lay figure, deaf and dumb, if you please, mad, if you choose, an idiot, if it serves to save me, but do not expect me to say anything. I will not.' Orsino knew his brother well, and knew the manner and the tone. There was unchangeable resolution in every distinct syllable and in every quiet intonation. His own irritation disappeared, for he realised that Ippolito must have some great and honourable reason for keeping silence. 'So long as you are here, unless we find the murderer to-night, you will be shut up in this room,' said Orsino, after a pause. 'No preliminary examination can take place here, where there is not even an office of the Prefecture. They would naturally take you to Randazzo, but Messina would be better. We should have more chance of getting you out on bail at once if we went to headquarters.' 'Randazzo is a cooler place,' observed Ippolito thoughtfully. 'What in the world has that to do with it?' asked Orsino, in surprise. 'Only that if I am to be kept in prison all summer, I should prefer a cool climate.' 'Really--' Orsino almost laughed at his calmness. 'That is absurd,' he said. 'We shall certainly have the power to get you out provisionally.' 'I hope so. Let them take me to Messina, if you think it best.' 'I will make the corporal telegraph for authority at once. It would be well if we could get off before morning and avoid the rabble in the street. Have you had supper?' 'No. They brought me some wine. There it is--but I do not want anything. Shall you telegraph to our people? It would be better. They might see it in the papers.' 'Of course. I shall send them a full account, and shall send the same telegram to the Minister of Justice. I know him very well, and so does our father.' 'Send me up some clothes and my dressing things by a trooper, will you?' said Ippolito. They made a few more arrangements, but Orsino abstained from asking any more questions, and presently he left his brother alone, and after speaking with the corporal he mounted his horse and rode slowly out of the court into the street, towards the telegraph office. Half an hour later he was on his way down to Camaldoli. The people of the village had mostly gone into their houses, and the streets were almost deserted, for the short twilight was over, and it was already night. He tried to see ahead of him in the gloom as he came near the cemetery, for he expected to find the grocer's horse still lying in the road. But it had been taken away already. He had hesitated, at first, as to whether he should seek out Tebaldo and try to force the truth from him by sheer violence, but he had given up the idea at once as being absurd. If he failed, as he might fail,--for Tebaldo was desperately brave,--he should simply be creating fresh evidence of the hatred which existed between the two families, not to mention the fact that any such encounter might easily end in more bloodshed. Even to his unimaginative mind there seemed to be a strange fatality in the whole story. He had killed one brother in self-defence, or in what the law considered to be that, and now Ippolito was accused of murdering another of the brothers. It was wiser to leave the third alone, and to trust to the law to prove Ippolito's innocence. Orsino was not a man who instinctively loved violence and fighting, as some men do. He felt that if San Giacinto had been present he would somehow have managed to set Ippolito free and get Tebaldo imprisoned in his place, by sheer strength and the power of terror which he exerted over so many people, but which, to do him justice, he did not abuse. The giant was an extraordinary man, mentally and physically, and always put action before logic, and logic before sentiment. Orsino, on the contrary, generally wished to think out every matter to the end before acting, though he was neither slow nor timid when he had ultimately made up his mind. So far as he could do so, he had decided and acted; and his thoughts reverted to the situation itself, and most directly, now, to his love for Vittoria. He had been looking forward to seeing her before long, for he had begun to understand that his presence in Camaldoli was not often necessary for many days at a time; and of late, during his lonely rides, he had given himself up to planning some means of meeting her during his next visit to Rome. She was the principal and central being in his whole daily life. The separation was not one of distance only, for there were other and almost insuperable obstacles to his marriage. After Ferdinando's death, after Maria Carolina d'Oriani's terrible imprecations, after his own father's absolute refusal to listen to the proposal, it seemed almost impossible that he should ever really marry Vittoria. And now, as though to crush the last possibility out of existence, this new and terrible disaster had fallen like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. Orsino was not very easily roused, but persistent opposition had the effect of slowly increasing the tension of his nature. Events had this effect upon him in a cumulative way. And his moral force slowly rose, as water in a huge embanked reservoir, into which, being empty, the little stream trickles idly, as though it had no force at all; but ever quietly flowing in from the source, it covers the bottom little by little, and still flows in, day by day, week by week; and the water rises slowly and very surely, gathering its terrible, incompressible weight into itself from the streamlet, till the body of it is deep and broad, and its weight is millions of tons, calm and still and ever rising; and then, one day, the freshet comes hissing down the bed of the stream, and the last rise in the reservoir is sudden and awful. The huge embankment quivers and rocks, and bursts at last; and the pent-up strength of the water is let loose in one moment, and sweeps howling and roaring down the valley, carrying death in its bosom and leaving utter desolation behind. As he rode down through the silent night, the man wondered when he thought of the emptiness in which his life had once moved, of how little he had cared for anything, of the imperturbable indifference with which he had thought of all the world. For he was beginning to feel his strength in him, matched against the resistance of events. A girl had wrought the change; and even in his great perplexity and trouble, his face softened in the dark as he thought of her. Yet he knew, as grown men do, that only half the secret was in her, and that the other half was in himself. For the strength of love is that it is the source of all existing life, and is a law which men and women obey, as atoms are subject to gravitation. That is the strength of it. But the beauty of love, and the happiness, and the nobility, are of a higher and finer essence, not suddenly to be seen, grasped, and taken, but distilled in life's alembic of that which was before life, and shall be afterwards, for ever. Orsino was not imaginative, and his nature was not of that kind which is commonly called spiritual, which is given to contemplation, and delights in the beautiful traceries of the soul's guesswork. He vaguely understood that there was more between his father and mother and in their happiness than he would have called love, though there was nothing for which he might not hope. At present his love was that great natural law, from which, if one comes within the sphere of its attraction, there is no more escape than there is from hunger and thirst. He dignified it in his own person, by his inheritance of high manliness and honour. It did not dignify him. Vittoria lent it, by her being, the purity and loveliness of something half divine while wholly human, but it gave her nothing in return. Love can be coarse, brutal, violent, and yet still be love. According to the being it moves, we say that it is ennobled or debased. Orsino saw the monster of impossibility rising between him and Vittoria, and though he said nothing to himself and formed no resolutions, he felt something within him rising to meet the impossible, and put it down. And beyond the obstacles he saw Vittoria's face clearly, with the light on it, watching him, and her eyes expecting him, and her lips moving to form words that should bid him come. He rode slowly on through the blackness, for the road descended rapidly, and it was not safe to urge his horse. A deep, resentful melancholy settled upon him in the damp night air. There was nothing hopeless in it, for it was really the sensation of a new strength; and as the Greeks knew long ago, all great strength is grave and melancholic as Melancholia herself. He thought of his brother sitting alone in the room where he was confined. He thought of Francesco's body lying in the little church, waiting to be buried, as Ferdinando's had lain, barely a month ago. He thought of the widowed mother, twice bereaved, half crazed with suffering already, destined to waken on the morrow to meet another death-wound. He thought of Vittoria, alone with that mother, cut off from himself as he was cut off from her, mourning with horror, if not with grief, for the brother who had been nothing to her while he lived. Then he was glad that he had not sought out Tebaldo and tried to force the truth from him. Things were bad enough, without more violence to make them worse. But most of all he wondered at Ippolito's silence, and afterwards when he had tasted his lonely supper he sat long in his place, staring at the empty chair opposite, and trying to force his intelligence to penetrate the mystery by sheer determination. CHAPTER XXX Tebaldo felt safe that night when he set his thirsty lips to a big jug of thin wine and water and drained the whole contents at a draught, while the fat sacristan stood waiting at the door of the room in the grocer's house. He had been giving the man directions about the disposal of the funeral. It was the room Francesco had occupied, and his things lay about in disorder, as he had left them early in the morning when he had ridden down to Randazzo for the last time. The man who had killed him had been under a terrible physical and mental strain, ever since he had left Rome, in the insanity of his jealousy. Now that all was over, he fancied that he should be able to think connectedly and reason about the future. He sent the man away with the empty jug and sat down, feeling in his pocket for a cigar. He had none, and he rose again, and began to look among his brother's belongings for something to smoke. A strange sensation came over him, all at once. It seemed as though Francesco could not be dead after all. His things seemed to have his life in them. The leathern valise lay open on the floor, one side filled with fresh linen that had been disturbed in pulling something out, a heap of half-unfolded clothes in the other side keeping up the flap that divided the two. A pair of black silk braces had fallen out upon the floor; a coat lay upon the chair close by; there was a clean handkerchief on the table, a smart note-book with a silver clasp, a small bottle of Eau de Lubin, a new novel in a paper cover, a crumpled newspaper two days old, and a pink pasteboard box of Egyptian cigarettes, open and less than half empty. Tebaldo took one and lighted it mechanically at the flame of the candle, wondering how it could be that Francesco would never want his cigarettes again. Surely he would come in, presently, and take one, and then would begin the old bickering and quarrelling that had gone on for years. Now that it was all over, Tebaldo's first feeling among all these objects was that he missed his brother, whom he had always so utterly despised and whom he had bitterly hated with all his heart. He had not the sort of real timidity under a superficial recklessness which begins to feel the terror of remorse almost as soon as the irrevocable deed is done. But, little by little, as he turned over the things and puffed at the cigarette, a kind of stealing horror surrounded him, and would not leave him. It had nothing to do with any suspicion of the supernatural, and he intended to lie down and try to sleep in the bed in which Francesco had slept on the previous night. It had nothing to do with fear of discovery, for he felt safe and was outwardly brave to recklessness. It was rather the horror of having done, almost unwittingly, what no power could undo, and of having utterly destroyed, at a blow, something to which he had been accustomed all his life. And this strangely piercing regret clashed continually with the expectation, arising out of long habit, of suddenly seeing Francesco appear in person where all his belongings were lying about, in the room he had last inhabited. He was reckless, unscrupulous, choleric, almost utterly bad, but he was human, as all but madmen are. He felt safe, but just then he would have risked any danger for the sake of seeing Francesco open the door and walk in. He threw away his cigarette and sat down to think. His eyes fixed themselves, as his chin rested on his hand and his elbow on the table, and a long time passed before he moved. But when he got up, he had taken hold of himself again and was ready to begin his life once more. His weaknesses did not last long. Francesco was dead. If it had been to do over again, he would not have done it. He could not have done it at all, in cold blood,--perhaps no man could,--and there had been much to rouse him. But since it was done, Francesco could never again make love to Aliandra, and there was the evil satisfaction of having successfully thrown the guilt upon a Saracinesca, of all people, and so cleverly that the accused man would, in all probability, be condemned. He had made up his mind at the instant as to what he should say, and he had said it all to the corporal of carabineers. He and his brother had met in Randazzo at Basili's house, and intending to come up to Santa Vittoria, had laid a wager, the one who first entered the little church to be the winner, and Tebaldo had agreed to ride bareback and allow his brother a start of five minutes. Francesco had killed his horse and had run for the church on foot, and Tebaldo had entered two or three minutes late. Doubtless, he had said, Francesco, in his haste to win the bet, had run against Ippolito, and in a moment the quarrel of the previous day had been renewed more violently. Francesco was unarmed, and the priest had stabbed him instantly, just as Tebaldo came in. The wager had been a reckless and foolish one, no doubt, but there was nothing impossible in the story, which perfectly accounted for the wild riding, in case, as had really happened, anyone had seen the two men on the road. No one but Aliandra Basili knew how they had left her father's house, and she, for her own sake, and certainly for Francesco's, would not tell what she knew. She was sure to say that Tebaldo had borrowed the horse, and she would not let her father know that the brothers were quarrelling about her. Nevertheless, she knew that much, and would guess the rest, and being a woman, there was a possibility that she might volunteer her evidence when she should hear that the innocent priest was upon his trial. It was necessary to see Aliandra at once. The crude cynicism which was at the root of the man's strange character came to the surface again, as he followed out his train of thought and discovered, at the end of it, where the weak point of his safety lay. He slept little that night, though he was weary from the mad ride and shaken by the strain under which he had lately lived. Again and again he dreamed that he was doing the deed, and awoke each time with a start in the dark. And the familiar perfume of Francesco's dressing things disturbed him, even through the stale smoke of the cigarette he had smoked. Yet one of his chief characteristics was that he was always ready and not easily surprised. Waking, he realised each time where he was, who he was, what he had done, and the fact that he must be up early in the morning, and each time he laid his head upon the pillow again with the determination to sleep and get the rest he needed. Apart from the elements of fear and honour, and in so far as the mere act of killing is concerned, there is but a difference of degree between the homicide who has stabbed a man in anger, and the soldier who has killed one enemy, or ten, in battle. In most cases the homicide is pursued by a fear of consequences to which the soldier is not subject. Tebaldo felt himself safe. He had lost no time in so fully indemnifying Taddeo, the grocer, for the death of his horse, that the excellent 'maffeuso' had no difficulty in providing him with another in the morning. He rode up to the carabineers' quarters and gave notice of his movements before going down to Randazzo, for he did not wish to appear to leave Santa Vittoria without informing the authorities. He was told that Ippolito had been taken to Messina before dawn, and that Orsino had accompanied him. He had decided that his brother should be buried on the following day, and meanwhile the coffin lay in the little church surrounded by many burning candles, and preparations were being made for a solemn requiem. Many of the people went in, on their way to their work, and knelt a moment to say a prayer for the soul of Francesco Pagliuca, and a short but heartfelt one for the destruction of all the Saracinesca in this world and the next. This seemed to them but simple justice, though the more devout of them were aware that it was sinful to wish death to anyone. Tebaldo dismounted at the door of the church, and bade a loiterer hold his horse while he went in. He knew that the whole population would think it strange and unnatural if he should pass by, on his business, without stopping, after giving such elaborate orders for the funeral. For his own part, he would gladly have escaped the ugly necessity, not because the hypocrisy of it was in the least repugnant to him, but because he had the natural animal dislike of revisiting a place where something terrible had happened. It was so strong that he grew pale as he went in under the door and walked up the aisle to the catafalque. But the whole place seemed changed. He had no realisation of the fact that his brother's body lay in the angular thing under the black pall. There was a strong smell of incense and many lights were burning. He felt that he was observed, and his nerves were singularly good. He knelt some time with bent head at the foot of the coffin, then crossed himself, rose, and went out. The people about the door made way for him respectfully. There were two or three of the very poor among them. No one begs in that part of Sicily, but Tebaldo gave them the copper coins he had loose in his pocket, and passed on. 'God will render it to you,' said the poor people, kissing the backs of their own fingers towards him as a way of kissing his hand by proxy. 'God bless you! The Madonna accompany you!' As he mounted, one old woman touched his knee and then kissed the hand with which she had touched it. He nodded gravely and rode away, glad to turn his back on the church at last and get out upon the high-road. The news of Francesco's death had already reached Randazzo by a wine-carrier who had come down with a load in the night. Tebaldo expected that this would be the case, and he considered that his interview with Aliandra would be facilitated thereby. He went to the inn and put up his horse. The people treated him with a grave and sympathising respect. He had arrived there on the previous day with a few belongings, but in the suddenness of events the landlord did not consider it strange that he should not have returned during the night. Tebaldo did not volunteer any explanations, but went to his room, refreshed himself, changed his clothes, and then told the landlord that he was going to see Basili, the notary. This, also, seemed quite natural, in such a case, as Basili had always been the Corleone's man of business. Gesualda opened the door, and he at once saw, by the gravity in her ugly face as she greeted him, that she knew what had happened. She ushered him into the front room downstairs and went up to call Aliandra, for Tebaldo said that he wished to see her before visiting her father. He stood waiting for the young girl, and going to the window he saw that the fastenings of the blinds were broken, and he remembered that he must have broken them when he forced them to look out after Francesco. The fact brought the whole scene vividly to his memory again, with all its details, and he remembered, by the connexion of little events, much that he had forgotten. Notably he recalled distinctly the very few words he had spoken to Aliandra during a meeting which had scarcely lasted two minutes, but which, by the operation of his anger, had hitherto seemed almost a blank in his recollection. Aliandra entered the room and spoke to him first. To his own surprise, he started nervously at the sound of her voice, as though she were in some way connected with Francesco, and should have been dead with him, or he alive with her. For since his brother's sudden departure from Rome, the two had been constantly linked in his mind by his desperate jealousy. Aliandra wore a loose black silk morning gown, and she was pale. She did not come up to Tebaldo, after she had closed the door, but seemed to hesitate and laid her hand upon the back of a chair, looking at him earnestly. His face was grave, for he knew his risk. 'I have just heard,' she said in a low voice. 'Yes,' he said after a short pause. 'I thought that you must know. I wished to see you at once, so I came, though he is not buried yet.' 'I am glad,' she answered, 'for I do not understand. It all seems so strange and terrible.' 'It is. Sit down beside me, and I will try to tell you. It will not be so hard as it was to tell the authorities up in Santa Vittoria yesterday. I love you, Aliandra. That is why I came to you.' It was true that he loved her, but that was not the reason of his coming. Yet he spoke simply and sincerely, and she said nothing, but sat down at a little distance from him and folded her bands, waiting for him to tell his story. 'I love you,' he repeated slowly and thoughtfully. 'When he left Rome, I knew that he must come to you, and as soon as I could get away, I followed him, sure that I should find him here, for I was jealous of him, jealous to madness. People laugh at jealousy. They do not know what it is.' He paused. 'No,' she answered gravely, for she remembered how he had looked when he had entered the house on the previous afternoon. 'No. People do not understand what it is. Go on, please.' 'It is a hell in soul and body. When I came here yesterday, I meant to come in at once. As I passed under the window I heard your voices distinctly. There was no one in the street, and I leaned against the wall and heard what you said. I touched the blinds once or twice, moving them a little, so as to hear better. Then I heard him tell you that falsehood about my engagement to Miss Slayback, and I put my hand on the sill, to draw myself up and deny it. But I struck my head under the blinds that were pushed out. Then I heard him come to the window, and I asked him to come outside. You know how he fled, while I was here, and I took your father's mare, without saddle or bridle, and chased him.' 'Yes, you frightened me,' said Aliandra, as he paused again. 'I had to tell my father that you had borrowed the mare. She came back of her own accord and was standing outside the stable gate this morning, waiting to be let in, all covered with mud. Please go on quickly.' 'It rained. There was a terrible thunderstorm. I overtook him two or three miles on, where the road winds, for he saw that it was senseless to run away as though I wished to injure him.' 'You looked as though you did,' said Aliandra, thoughtfully. 'I do not wonder that he fled.' 'I do not say that if I had found him here, I might not have handled him roughly,' said Tebaldo, wisely. 'But the gallop cooled us both, I suppose. And you know that when he chose he had a gentle, good-natured way of speaking that disarmed one. Yes--we quarrelled about you at first for a while, and then, being cooler, as I said, we rode quietly along together, though we did not say much. On the more level part of the road higher up, he began to talk of the horse he was riding, which belonged to Taddeo, the grocer, and was a good beast, but I said that your father's mare was the fleeter, and he denied it. At last he proposed that we should settle the question by racing up to the town. The one who got into the little church of Santa Vittoria outside the gate was to win. I gave him four minutes' start by my watch, because I was lighter and was riding bareback. Do you understand?' He looked at her keenly and expectantly, for the story sounded very plausible to him. She nodded slowly, in answer, with a little contraction of the eyelids, as though she were weighing the possibilities. 'I had him in sight, and then I fell with the mare at a jump, for I had no bridle and could not lift her properly. But we were not hurt, and I got on again. I saw him again before me on the long, straight stretch up to the cemetery. Taddeo's horse must have had an aneurism, I should think, for just beyond the gate it rolled over stone dead. I saw Francesco jump off as the beast staggered, for he knew what was the matter. But he meant to win the bet and be in the church first. He ran up the last bit like a deer, and disappeared over the shoulder of the hill. It all happened in a moment, and I had still a quarter of a mile to make. Seeing that he must win, I did not hurry the mare, but she took fright at the dead horse and bolted up the last bit. At the church I got off and hitched the halter to a stake that had been driven into the ground for a banner at the last festa. I did it carelessly, I suppose, for the mare got loose. I do not know. When I entered the church I saw my brother wrestling with Ippolito Saracinesca on the steps of the altar, and the priest had a big knife in his hand and struck him before I was half-way up the church.' Tebaldo was now excessively pale, and there was a nervous tremor in his voice. Aliandra was almost as pale as he, but still her lips were a little drawn in, and she kept her eyes on him. 'You have heard the rest,' said Tebaldo, and his mouth was so dry that he could hardly speak. 'I locked the priest into the church, which has no other door, and I went for the carabineers. They took him down to Messina early this morning, before the people were about in the streets, and he will be committed for trial without doubt. His hands were covered with blood, and he had the knife in his pocket. He had cleaned the blade carefully on his pocket handkerchief, like a fool, instead of throwing it away into a corner. As for the reason of the murder, Francesco and he had come to blows on the day before yesterday in the road. The priest admitted the fact. Heaven only knows what they were quarrelling about, but it must have begun again in the church. At all events, that is what happened, and my poor brother is dead. God rest his soul.' 'Amen,' said Aliandra, mechanically. Tebaldo wiped the moisture from his pale forehead, glad that he had told his story and told it so well. It was, indeed, a marvellously lucid narrative, in which he had taken full advantage of every available fragment of truth to strengthen and colour the general falsehood. Aliandra, like any reasonable person, would have found it hard to believe that a man supposed to have the manners and civilisation of a modern gentleman could do what Tebaldo had really done. But, on the other hand, it was even harder to see how the deed could have been done by one who was not only just as civilised, but a churchman besides. She had been terribly shocked by the news of Francesco's death, which had reached her only a few minutes before Tebaldo had appeared. She remembered the latter's face, and the terror of the former on the previous afternoon, she remembered that the other brother had been a brigand, or little better, and she knew many stories of the Pagliuca's wild doings before they had gone to Rome. It would have surprised her far less if Gesualda, who had heard the story from the carter himself, had told her that one brother had killed the other, than it did to be told that the guilty man was a Roman, a priest, and a Saracinesca. But Tebaldo's story was plausible, and she had to admit that it was as she thought it over. He had evidently been under a strong emotion while telling it, too, and the fact was in his favour, in her eyes, for she had been fond of Francesco. 'Have you told me the whole truth?' she asked suddenly, after a long silence. 'Of course I have told you the truth,' he answered, with a half-startled, nervous intonation. 'You have not always done so,' said she, leaning back in her chair. 'But I do not see why you should conceal anything from me now.' 'You will see it all in the account of the trial.' 'It is terrible!' she exclaimed, realising once more what it all meant. 'Terrible, terrible,' she repeated, passing her hand over her eyes. 'Only yesterday he was here, sitting beside me, telling me--' She stopped short. 'Yes, I heard what he told you,' said Tebaldo, in an altered voice. 'It is of no use to go over it.' 'I was fond of him,' she answered. 'I was very fond of him. I have often told you so. It is dreadful to think that we shall never see him again--never hear his voice--' Her eyes filled with tears, for beyond the first horror of his death there was the sadness. He had been so young, so full of life and vitality. She could hardly understand that he was gone. The tears welled over slowly and rolled down her smooth cheeks, unheeded for a few moments. 'I wish I knew the truth,' she said, rousing herself, and drying her eyes. 'But I have told you the truth,' answered Tebaldo, with a return of nervous impatience. 'Yes, I know. But there must be more. What was there between him and the priest? Why did they fight in the road? It all seems so improbable, so mysterious. I wish I knew.' 'You know all that I know, all that the law knows. I cannot invent an explanation.' 'It is a mystery to you, too, then? You do not understand?' 'I do not understand. No one knows all the truth but Ippolito Saracinesca. He will probably tell it in self-defence. If he could prove that my brother attacked him first, it would make a great difference. He will try to make out that he killed him in self-defence.' 'It is very mysterious,' repeated Aliandra. They talked in the same way for some time. Gradually her distrust of him disappeared, because he did not try to prove too much, and his own story, as he went over the points, seemed to her more and more lucid. He took advantage of little questions she put to him, from time to time, in order to show her how very complete the account was, and how utterly beyond his own comprehension he thought the fight at the cemetery on the day before the murder. He was amazingly quick at using whatever presented itself. Her doubts did not really leave her, and they would return again after he was gone, but they sank out of her reach as she listened to him. Then she made him go upstairs with her and tell the whole story to her father. Tebaldo submitted, but the strain on him was becoming very great, and the perspiration stood in great drops on his brows, as he went over it all for Basili. He knew that the notary was a man not easily deceived, and was well aware that his opinion would be received with respect by the principal people in Randazzo. He was, therefore, more careful than ever to state each point clearly and accurately. He saw, moreover, that Aliandra was listening as attentively as before. Possibly, now that he was no longer speaking directly to her, her doubts were coming to the surface again. But Tebaldo's nerves were good, and he went to the end without a fault. The notary only asked three or four simple and natural questions, and he did not seem surprised that Tebaldo should not know the cause of the disagreement between his brother and Ippolito. Aliandra went downstairs with Tebaldo. She seemed to expect that he should go away, for she stood still in the hall at the foot of the stone staircase. 'When are you going back to Rome?' he asked, for he wished to see her again. 'As soon as my father can spare me,' she answered. 'I shall have to go down to Messina to give my evidence,' he said. 'When the funeral is over, to-morrow morning, I shall come here, and go on to Messina the next day. May I see you to-morrow afternoon?' To his surprise, she hesitated. She herself scarcely knew why she did not at once assent naturally. 'Yes,' she said, after a pause. 'I suppose so, if you wish to.' 'I do wish to see you,' he answered. 'You have no reason to doubt that, at all events.' 'You speak as though I had reason to doubt other things you have said.' She watched him keenly, for the one incautious little speech had weakened the effect he had produced with such skill. 'You pretended to doubt,' he answered boldly. 'You asked me if I was telling you the truth about my brother. That was doubting, was it not? You always do. I think you do not even believe that I love you.' 'I only half believe it. Are you going over the discussion we had in Rome, again?' 'No. It would be useless.' 'I think so too,' she said, and her grey eyes grew suddenly cold. He sighed and turned from her, towards the door. It was the first perfectly natural expression of feeling that had escaped him, and it was little enough. But it touched her unexpectedly, and she felt a sort of pity for him which was hard to bear. That one audibly-drawn breath of pain did more to persuade her that he really loved her than all the words he had ever spoken. She called him back when his hand was already on the door. 'Tebaldo--wait a moment!' Her voice was suddenly kind. He turned in surprise, and a softer look came over his drawn and tired features. 'I shall be very glad to see you when you come,' she said gently. 'I do not know why I hesitated--I did not mean to. Come whenever you like.' She held out her hand, and he took it. 'You may think the worst you will of me, Aliandra,' he said. 'But do not think that I do not love you.' 'I believe you do,' she answered in the same gentle tone, and she pressed his hand a little. Just as he was about to open the door, her eyes fell upon the rifle Francesco had left standing in the corner. Take your brother's gun,' she said. 'I do not like to see it here. I am sad enough already.' He slipped the sling over his shoulder without speaking, for the odd sensation that Francesco was not dead, after all, came over him as on the previous evening, and with it the insane longing to see his brother alive. He felt that his face might betray him, and he went out hastily into the noon-day glare. The heat restored the balance of his nerves, as it generally did, and when he reached the inn he was calm and collected. Aliandra went upstairs to her father's room, and sat down beside his couch, in silence. The sunlight filtered through the green blinds, and brought the warm scent of the carnations from without. The notary lay back, with half-closed eyes, apparently studying the queer outline of his splinted leg as it appeared through the thin, flowered chintz coverlet. 'For my part,' he said, without moving, and as though concluding a train of thought which he had been following for a long time, 'I do not believe one word of the story, from beginning to end.' 'You do not believe Don Tebaldo's story?' asked Aliandra, more startled than surprised. 'Not one word, not one half word, not one syllable,' replied the notary, emphatically. 'We can say it between ourselves, my daughter. If my sister were here, I should not say it, for she is not discreet. It is a beautiful story, well composed, logical, studied, everything you like that is perfect. It must have taken much thought to put it together so nicely, and it is not intelligence that Tebaldo Pagliuca lacks. But no one will make me believe that a quiet little Roman priest could have killed one of those Corleone in that way. It is too improbable. It is a thing to laugh at. But it is not a thing to believe.' 'I do not know what to say,' answered Aliandra, all her doubts springing up again. 'We are not called upon to say anything. The law will take its course, and if it condemns an innocent Italian--well, it has condemned many innocent Sicilians. The one will pay for the other, I suppose. But as for the facts, that is a different matter. I daresay the priest had a knife of his own in his pocket, but it was not the knife that killed Pagliuca. Now, I do not wish to imply that Don Tebaldo killed him--' 'That is impossible!' exclaimed Aliandra. 'He could not come here and talk about it so calmly. The mere idea makes me shiver. What I think is that someone else killed him,--a brigand, perhaps, for some old quarrel, and that Tebaldo has thrown the blame on the priest, just because he is a Saracinesca.' 'Perhaps. Anything is possible, except that the priest killed him. But as we know nothing, it is better to say nothing. It might be thought that we favoured the Romans.' 'It is strange,' said Aliandra. 'When he is speaking, I believe all he says, but now that he is gone, I feel as you do about it He said he should come back to-morrow.' 'It is of no use for you to see him again. Why does he come here? I do not wish to be involved in this affair. Make an excuse, if he comes, and do not see him.' 'Yes,' answered Aliandra. 'I will manage not to see him. It is of no use, as you say.' Tebaldo rode back to Santa Vittoria to bury his brother. Almost the whole population followed the funeral from the church to the cemetery, and it was easy to see how the people looked at the matter. Tebaldo received a summons to appear and give his evidence in two days, and he left the village early in order to have time to spend in Randazzo with Aliandra before taking the afternoon train from Piedimonte to Messina. One thing only he had left undone which he had intended to do, for it had been impossible to accomplish it without attracting attention. He had meant to get into the little church alone and recover the knife he had dropped through the grating that stood before the glass casket in which the bones of the saint were preserved. As the details of those short and terrible moments came back to him, he remembered that the thing had not dropped far. He had heard it strike the stone inside immediately, and though it was improbable that the grating should be opened for a long time, yet the weapon was there, waiting for someone to find it, and possibly for some to recognise it, for he had possessed it several years. The first requiem mass for Francesco had been sung in the parish church, for the curate had said that Santa Vittoria must be reconsecrated by the bishop before mass could be celebrated there again, the crime committed being a desecration. Tebaldo thought it just possible that at the bishop's visit the grating might be opened in order to show him the casket. But this was by no means certain. On the whole he believed himself safe, for there was no name on the sheath of the knife, and he did not remember that he had ever shown it to anyone who could identify it as belonging to him. He had sent for a carriage and drove down to Randazzo, stopping at the inn, as usual. He knocked at the door of the notary's house a few minutes later, expecting to be admitted by Gesualda. To his surprise, no one came to let him in. He knocked twice again with the same result, and was about to go away, when Basili's man, the same who had accompanied San Giacinto and Orsino to Camaldoli, opened the stable gate and came up to him. 'There is the notary,' he said. 'No one else is at home. The Signorina Aliandra has taken Gesualda and is gone out to visit friends in the country. They will not come back before to-morrow. The notary sleeps.' Tebaldo was very much surprised and disconcerted. He remembered how kindly and gently Aliandra had spoken when he had parted from her, and he could not understand. She had left no message, and it was clear enough that she had gone away in order to avoid him. He went back to the inn, a good deal disturbed, for if she wished to avoid him, it must be because she had some suspicion. That was the only conclusion which he could reach as he thought the matter over. It was by no means absolutely logical, being suggested by the state of his conscience rather than by the operation of his reason. He was disturbed and nervous, and he realised with a vague trepidation that instead of forgetting what he had done, and becoming hardened to the consciousness of it, he was suffering from it more and more as the hours and days went by. Little things came back to their lost places in his memory, which might have been noticed by other people, and might betray him. To himself, knowing the truth, the story he had invented looked far less probable than it appeared to those who had heard it from him. He thought of writing to Aliandra, for he was bitterly disappointed at not seeing her; but when he considered what he could say in a letter, he saw that he could only tell her of his disappointment. What he unconsciously longed for, was the liberty to speak out plainly to someone, and tell the whole truth, with perfect safety to himself. But that desire was still vague and unformulated. There was no possibility of waiting till the next day to see Aliandra when she returned. He was expected to appear on the following morning in Messina, to give his evidence, and he had no choice but to go at once. He left Randazzo with a heavy heart, and a feverish sensation in his head. CHAPTER XXXI Ippolito was committed for trial on the charge of having killed Francesco Pagliuca in the church of Santa Vittoria, and Tebaldo Pagliuca was the principal witness against him. That was the result of the preliminary examination in Messina. No one believed that Ippolito had committed the crime, neither the judge nor the prefect of the province, nor the carabineers who had arrested him and brought him down. Yet the evidence was such that it was impossible to acquit him, and his obstinate silence, after a simple denial of the charge, puzzled the authorities. It was the expressed opinion of the judge that, in any case, and supposing that the priest were guilty, it was not a murder, but a homicide committed in a struggle, which had been the result of a quarrel entirely unaccounted for. Taking Tebaldo's own story as true, it was clear that Francesco's appearance in the church had been too sudden and unexpected to allow of the smallest premeditation on Ippolito's part. Tebaldo said that he had come in and seen the two fighting. The judge observed that, if a struggle had taken place, it was more than probable that Francesco, coming suddenly upon Ippolito, had sprung upon him to avenge himself for having been maltreated by the priest on the previous day. Here Orsino rose and told the story of that first quarrel, as he had heard it from his brother immediately after it had occurred. On being questioned, Ippolito admitted the perfect truth of the story, and the judge ordered that Concetta's evidence should be taken at Santa Vittoria by a deputy of the court. Tebaldo had been in complete ignorance of the truth about Concetta, but he saw that it would be best to take the judge's view. For all he knew, he said, his brother might have attacked Ippolito on entering the church. Ippolito was at liberty to say so, if he chose, observed Tebaldo. The fact did not militate against his own story, in the least. On the contrary, it accounted for the struggle. Francesco was unarmed, however. Tebaldo was prepared to swear to that, and did. Ippolito did not know it, and, being attacked suddenly, might have drawn his knife and defended himself. The worst of all this was that it lent a faint air of probability to the accusation, of which Tebaldo, with his usual quickness, took advantage at once. But the judge, in his heart, was no more inclined to believe Ippolito guilty than before, though he saw no way of acquitting him. The young priest stood calm and self-possessed between the carabineers throughout the whole examination, and his quiet eyes made Tebaldo uncomfortable. San Giacinto arrived from Rome before the hearing was finished, and entered the court-room when Tebaldo was speaking. There was something so gloomily ominous about the grey old giant's eyes that even Tebaldo's voice changed a little as he spoke. San Giacinto had twice, in serious affairs, been the means of clearing matters up suddenly and completely, and as Orsino grasped his huge hand, he felt that all would be well. The judge admitted Ippolito to bail, and San Giacinto offered himself and was accepted as surety, being a large landowner in Sicily and a person well known throughout the country. The trial would probably not take place before the autumn, but there is a great latitude allowed in Italy, in the matter of bail, except when the prisoner is charged with premeditated murder. 'I think,' said San Giacinto to the judge, when the proceedings were officially closed, 'that it would be worth your while to visit Santa Vittoria in person.' Tebaldo heard and listened, and he thought of the knife under the altar. If the judge should go to the church and insist upon examining everything thoroughly, it might be found. 'The second hearing will not come before me,' observed the judge. 'Nevertheless--' He hesitated a moment and then spoke in a lower tone. 'The case interests me very much,' he said. 'I should like to see the place where it happened. I might take that country girl's evidence myself, and visit the church at the same time. Yes, I think I shall accept the suggestion.' Though he had lowered his voice, Tebaldo had heard most of what he had said, and more than enough to increase the fear of discovery, which was rapidly growing up in the place of the cynical certainty of safety which he had at first felt. Nor had the examination gone so absolutely against Ippolito as he had hoped. The judge and the officials were evidently in sympathy with the accused man, and Tebaldo had been heard with a sort of cold reserve which suggested a doubt in his hearers. Like Aliandra and her father, they all felt the utter improbability of the story, as they compared the accused with the accuser, though they had been obliged to admit just so much as they had no means of denying. The view taken by the law on the strength of the whole evidence can be summed up in a few words. Francesco Pagliuca had assaulted a young country girl on the high-road. She had screamed for help. Ippolito Saracinesca had been near and had saved her and soundly beaten her assailant. On the very next occasion of meeting him by accident, Francesco had rushed at the priest to repay his score of blows, and the priest, taken unawares, had defended himself with a knife he had about him, and which his brother had insisted that he should carry, for the very reason that he might, at any moment, be assaulted by Francesco. It was not justifiable homicide, assuredly, but there were a great many extenuating circumstances. That was as much as the men of the law could say for Ippolito, on the evidence; but not one of them believed that he had killed Francesco. The three Saracinesca men left the court together and drove away in a closed carriage. They decided that Orsino and Ippolito should return to Rome at once and quiet the family by their appearance, while San Giacinto went up to Camaldoli, to keep matters in order as far as he could. Orsino offered to go back alone, if San Giacinto would accompany his brother, but the big man preferred to take matters into his own hands, as he usually did when there was a crisis of any sort. When the two brothers were alone in their compartment in the train that left Reggio that evening. Orsino drew a long breath. The sunset glow was over the hills, and the rushing breeze that blew in through the open window was sweet and clean to the taste after the foul air of filthy Messina and the almost more poisonous atmosphere of the court-room. Orsino looked out in silence for a few moments, too glad to speak to Ippolito. When he looked round at last, he saw that his brother was leaning back in the opposite corner, with closed eyes, one hand thrust into the bosom of his cassock, the other lying upon the seat behind him. Orsino watched him, expecting that presently he would open his eyes and begin to talk. But Ippolito had fallen asleep almost instantly in his corner, exhausted by the long strain of days and nights spent in terrible anxiety. No one ever knew what he had suffered during that time. Though of a fibre different from his father and his brothers, he was strong and healthy, but in those few days he had become thin and white, so that he looked positively delicate now, as he leaned back in his corner. His anxiety had not been all for himself. It was a fearful thing, indeed, to be accused of murder, and be led like a murderer through a yelling rabble, to be lodged in a prison, to be thrust forward to the bar of a crowded court-room to answer for a great crime. But it was worse to be accused by the real murderer and to be bound by one of the most solemn of all vows to keep that murderer's secret and bear his accusation without giving one hint of the truth. It was no wonder that at the first relief from such a tension, he should fall asleep at last, and Orsino was glad when he saw and partly understood. He had slept little himself since the night of Francesco's death, but he could not have rested now, for he still had much anxiety and many things to disturb his peace. He was in profound ignorance of what had happened to Vittoria and her mother, though he had been almost hourly in communication with his own family. Corona's first impulse had been to leave Rome instantly and join her sons, and it had been with the greatest difficulty that Giovanni had persuaded her to await the result of the preliminary hearing. He himself was afraid to leave her, and he had perfect confidence in San Giacinto. He was in reality most preoccupied about his wife; for he, like everyone else, was struck from the first by the outrageous improbability of the accusation. He hardly ate or slept, himself, it was true, but he was all along perfectly certain that Ippolito must be at liberty in a few days, and that the whole truth must be known before long. Corona said little after she had consented to remain at home, but she suffered intensely. The beautiful high features were like a white marble mask, and when she spoke at all, her words were brief, nervous, almost hard. Her eyes were like black steel, and her figure grew slighter, and seemed to grow taller, too. Giovanni thought that the little, soft, grey streaks in her intensely black hair were suddenly growing broad and silvery. He was almost more anxious for her than for Ippolito. But she never broke down in any way. She showed herself to the world, in her carriage, as if nothing had happened, though she received no one during those days. She knew how to bear suffering, for she had borne much in early life, and Giovanni needed not to fear for her. He hardly left her. They so belonged to each other that it was easier to bear trouble together. Possibly, though he did not know it, he looked to her in his anxiety quite as much as she looked to him. It would have been hard to say; for where there is such sympathy, such trust, and such love, there is also a sort of community of courage and of strength and of endurance for a joint suffering. When the news of the decision in Messina came, however, Giovanni considered the trouble to be at an end. Corona only smiled faintly as they read the telegram together. 'At liberty on bail,' she said slowly. 'That is not an acquittal. He is still accused of the murder.' 'Long before the trial we shall have discovered the truth,' answered Giovanni, confidently. 'Until we do, he is still accused of the murder,' repeated Corona, with slow insistence. She had not believed it possible that he could be held for trial. But the gladness of a near meeting with him stole upon her anxiety. As soon as the first greetings were over, he went with her to her own sitting-room, and they remained alone together. For a long time she held his hands and looked into his eyes, while he spoke to her. 'Do not ask me any questions, mother dear,' he said, smiling at her. 'You know that I did not kill the poor man, and no one believes that I did. Do not let them torment me with all sorts of questions. If I could answer them, I should have answered them at once. I cannot.' Still she did not speak, for Orsino had written and telegraphed every detail, and had again and again spoken of Ippolito's inexplicable silence. 'Mother, trust me, and do not ask me questions,' said the young priest, earnestly. 'Yes,' she said at last. 'I trust you, and I always have. I was not hesitating, my dear, and I shall never ask you anything about it, nor allow anyone else to do so, if I can prevent it. But it has dawned on me--the truth I wanted. I believe I understand.' A startled look came into Ippolito's eyes, and his hands closed suddenly upon hers. He opened his lips to speak, but could not find wise words, for he believed that she had guessed the truth, by some extraordinary and supernormal process of intuition. 'No,' she said reassuringly, 'do not be afraid. I shall not even tell you what I think, and I shall certainly not tell anyone else. But--' She stopped suddenly. 'But what?' he asked, in the utmost anxiety, searching her eyes. 'Nothing that I need say, my dear boy,' she answered quietly. 'It is better to say nothing about such things when one is not sure. Sit down beside me, and let us be together as we used to be before all this happened.' He sat down, and they remained long together. There was but one opinion in Rome. Everyone said that Tebaldo Pagliuca knew more about his brother's death than he chose to tell, and had managed to cast the burden of evidence against Ippolito. Hundreds of people called at the Palazzo Saracinesca, and Ippolito had scores of notes from friends, congratulating him on having regained his liberty. Old Donna Francesca Campodonico came to see Corona, a saintly, shadowy woman, who lived alone in a beautiful old palace near the Tiber. 'A Corleone, my dear!' she said. 'What do you expect? We are told to love our enemies, it is true, but we are at liberty to love them as enemies, and not as friends. In order to do that it is necessary to distinguish them, and the more clearly we draw the line, the better.' 'It is refreshing to hear you speak of anyone as an enemy,' answered Corona, with a smile. 'My dear,' said Donna Francesca, 'I am very human, I assure you. Never have anything to do with a Corleone or a Braccio. There is very little to choose between us. We are hereditary sinners!' She was a Braccio herself, and Corona laughed, though she knew there was truth in the saying. The Braccio people had many friends, but so far as the Corleone were concerned, all Rome agreed with Donna Francesca, and congratulated the Saracinesca, quite regardless of the fact that Ippolito was not really acquitted. But Corona was not as she had been before, and her eyes followed Ippolito about, when he was within sight, with a sort of wondering, anxious expression that showed how perpetually her thoughts were occupied with him. CHAPTER XXXII Orsino made an attempt to see Vittoria on the day after his return. The liveried porter put his ear to the speaking-tube as of old, and then, shaking his head, told Orsino that the ladies could see no one. He volunteered the information that Donna Maria Carolina was very ill, and that her servants believed her to be out of her mind, since the death of her second son. The young lady did not go out every day, he said. When she did, he always heard her tell the coachman to drive to the Hotel Bristol. There were two sisters of the French order of the Bon Secours who took turns as nurses, with her mother. The doctor came twice daily, and sometimes three times. The porter had asked the doctor about Donna Maria Carolina, and he had answered that she was in no danger of her life. That was all. The porter, as has been said, volunteered the information; but if he did so, it was because he knew Orsino and had read in the newspaper a full account of Francesco's death, and of the hearing at Messina. Being a good Roman, he felt personally outraged at the idea that any member of a great old Roman house should be accused of killing a Sicilian gentleman. He might kill him, if he chose, the porter thought, but it was an abominable insult to accuse him of it. The man had never liked Francesco, who had been stingy and self-indulgent, spending money on himself, but never giving a present to a servant if he could help it, and generally ready to find fault with everything. Tebaldo was not mean. Orsino, when he gave at all, gave lavishly, and he gave whenever he happened to think of it, as he did to-day. The porter bowed low, as much to the bank-note as to the heir of all the Saracinesca, and Orsino went away. He wondered why Vittoria went to the Hotel Bristol whenever she went out. He remembered having once or twice left cards there on foreigners, but he could not remember their names. He might recognise them, however, if he saw them, and he drove to the hotel at once. Looking down the list of the guests, he immediately came upon the names of Mrs. and Miss Slayback, and he remembered how it had been said of late that the young American girl was to marry Tebaldo Pagliuca. It was tolerably clear that these were the people whom Vittoria visited when she went out at all. Orsino remembered that he had been introduced to them at some party. Without the smallest hesitation he sent up his card to Mrs. Slayback, and in a very short time was requested to go upstairs. Mrs. Slayback received him with cool interest, and showed no surprise at his visit. 'I have been in Sicily most of the time since I had the pleasure of being introduced, or I should have done myself the honour of calling sooner,' said Orsino, rather formally. 'Of course,' answered Mrs. Slayback. 'I quite understood.' She was silent, as though expecting him to open the conversation. That, at least, was what he thought. 'You are staying in Rome very late,' he began. 'Of course it is cool here compared with Sicily, and June is really one of our best months, but, as a rule, foreigners are afraid of the heat.' But she had not wanted that sort of conversation, and had only been making up her mind how she should speak, being taken at short notice by his visit. He was a good deal surprised at what she said. 'Please do not talk about the weather, Don Orsino,' she began. 'I am very glad that you have come to see me, for I am in great perplexity. I know that you will tell me the truth, and you may help me. Will you?' 'Certainly,' answered Orsino, becoming grave at once. 'Anything that I could do--' He waited. 'My niece is engaged to be married to Don Tebaldo Pagliuca. She is an orphan, a niece of my husband's, and is--well--rich, to say the least of it. She has fallen in love with this young Sicilian and insists upon marrying him. The Romans say that it is a family of brigands. You shot one of them in self-defence not long ago, and now the papers say that your brother has killed Don Francesco, whom we knew. It is rather an awful double tragedy for civilised modern life, you know. Such things happen with us in the West, though not so often as formerly, but they do not happen to people who live in New York, for instance.' 'I hope not,' said Orsino, gravely. 'Sicily is a good deal less civilised than your West, I fancy. But I assure you that my brother did not kill Francesco Pagliuca, though I believe he knows who did kill him. He only tells me that he did not, and I am willing to give my word for him, on the strength of his.' 'But Don Tebaldo gave evidence on oath that he saw your brother do it,' objected Mrs. Slayback. 'And Don Tebaldo is engaged to marry your niece,' answered Orsino. 'You will allow me to say that the fact silences me.' 'I hope not,' said Mrs. Slayback, 'for I do not wish my niece to marry him. I come to you for an argument against the marriage. I do not wish to silence you, as you call it.' 'You know Don Tebaldo very well,' replied Orsino. 'You have probably formed an opinion about his character. I am in a very difficult position with regard to him, myself.' He wondered whether Vittoria, growing intimate with the American girl, had spoken of him. 'Your position cannot be half so hard as mine.' Mrs. Slayback spoke with a conviction which reassured him, and he merely bent his head a little, as though assenting to what she said. 'It is clear,' she continued, 'that since you know that Don Tebaldo has sworn to this evidence, while you yourself, on your brother's word, are willing to swear to the contrary, you believe that Don Tebaldo is deliberately perjuring himself. That is perfectly clear, is it not?' Orsino said nothing, but he could hardly keep from smiling a little at her directness. 'Very well,' she went on; 'should you allow your niece, or your sister, or anyone belonging to you, to marry a man who has deliberately perjured himself?' 'You are perfectly logical,' said Orsino. 'Oh, perfectly! I always was thought so, in my family. And now that you have helped me so far, for which I am really very grateful, can you tell me whether Don Tebaldo is coming back to Rome at once?' 'I am sorry, but I know nothing of his movements. I believe you know his sister, Donna Vittoria, very well, do you not? I should think she might be able to tell you. His mother is very ill, poor lady.' He had taken the first possible opportunity of introducing Vittoria's name. 'Vittoria comes to see Lizzie whenever she can get out for an hour,' answered Mrs. Slayback. 'But yesterday, when she was here, she did not know anything about her brother. I think she does not like to talk of him, for some reason or other. Have you seen her lately?' She asked the question very naturally and easily. 'No,' said Orsino. 'Her mother is ill, and she has no one else with her. She could not receive me, of course.' 'I suppose not. She could in America. She is sure to Come to-morrow afternoon about five o'clock, I should think, unless her mother is much worse. We shall be very glad to see you if you like to come in for a cup of tea.' 'You are very kind--very kind, indeed, and I will come with pleasure,' Orsino answered, surprised and delighted by the unexpected invitation. 'That is,' said Mrs. Slayback, as though correcting herself, and not heeding his answer, 'that is, you know, if you have no objection to meeting Donna Vittoria after all this dreadful business. If you have, come in the next day, and we shall be alone, I daresay.' Again Orsino found it hard not to smile, though he was very far indeed from anything like mirth. 'It would be more likely that Donna Vittoria might object to seeing me,' he said. 'Oh no!' replied Mrs. Slayback, with alacrity. 'I think she likes you, by the way she sometimes speaks of you, and she does not believe her brother any more than you or I do, I can see, though she does not quite say so. Indeed, I hardly understand her. She wears black, of course, and they see no one since that poor man's death, but she comes here just the same. As for being sad, she was always sad, ever since I knew her.' 'She has had enough to sadden her,' said Orsino, gravely. 'None of us who have been concerned in this dreadful affair can be anything but sad just now.' When he went away he could not make up his mind as to whether Mrs. Slayback knew anything of his love for Vittoria or not. Foreigners, and especially Americans, were unlike other people, he thought. It never would have occurred to any Roman lady, a mere acquaintance, to ask him to come for a cup of tea and meet two young girls. An intimate friend might have done it, in order to do him a service, but not a mere acquaintance. But foreigners were different, as he knew. He pondered the question all night, and the next day seemed very long until it was time to go up to the Hotel Bristol at five o'clock. He thought the correct Swiss porter's face relaxed a little when he saw the card Orsino gave, as if he had been told to expect him. This was the more apparent when Orsino was ushered upstairs at once. He heard an exclamation in Vittoria's voice as he entered the drawing-room, and then for a moment he seemed to himself to lose consciousness, as he advanced. He had not known what it would be to be brought face to face with her after all that had happened. Neither she nor Miss Slayback saw anything unusual in his face as he came forward, and the latter certainly had no idea how disturbed he was, as she smilingly held out her hand to him. Vittoria had uttered the one little cry of surprise, and then she felt very cold and frightened for a moment, after which she apparently regained her composure. 'My aunt is lying down in the next room, so it is perfectly proper,' said Miss Slayback, in the very words she had used to Tebaldo. Her voice brought Orsino back to lively consciousness at once, and as he sat down nearly opposite to the two young girls, he glanced from the one to the other quickly, before looking long at Vittoria. Miss Lizzie seemed worn and harassed, he thought, and much less pretty than when he had last seen her. There was a nervous restlessness about her, and she was unable to sit still for a moment without moving her hands, or her head, or her shoulders, to look round, when there was nothing to look at. Vittoria's gentle young face was undeniably sad. She did not look weary like her friend, for she was not naturally nervous; but there was something shadowy and half ethereal about her eyes and features that moved Orsino strangely. He made a civil remark to Miss Slayback, in order not to be silent, and she answered him in short, broken little sentences. Somehow the whole position seemed odd to him. All at once Miss Lizzie rose to her feet. 'I knew I had forgotten something!' she said. 'It is the day for letters to catch the French steamer, and I have not written to Uncle Ben. I always write him a line once a week. Do you mind amusing Don Orsino, Vittoria? Just a moment, you know--I can write a letter in ten minutes.' And before Vittoria could answer, she was gone, talking as she went, and not looking back. As the door closed after her, Orsino was beside Vittoria, with both her hands hidden in his and looking into her face. She met his eyes for a moment, and her head sank on his breast, as though she were very tired. 'It is not meant to be, love,' she said, and he could but just hear the words. 'It shall be, whether it is meant or not,' he answered, bending down to her little ear. 'It is all too terrible!' She shook her head against his coat, hiding her face. 'Nothing but death, death, everywhere--my poor brothers--one after the other.' She roused herself and laid her hands upon his shoulders, looking up suddenly into his face with wide, searching eyes. 'Tell me that Ippolito did not kill him!' she begged. 'Tell me that it is not true! I shall believe you. I cannot believe myself, when I say it.' 'It is not true,' answered Orsino, earnestly. 'I will pledge you what you will for my brother, my word of honour--everything. It is not true,' He repeated the words slowly and emphatically. 'I know it is not, when you say it.' Her head sank upon his shoulder. 'But it is all so terrible, so horrible! Tebaldo killed him. I know it. I knew he would, when I saw his face that night, after they had quarrelled. Tebaldo has put it upon your brother--I know it, though I do not know how it was.' He kissed her hair, for he could not see her face. 'It is a worse crime than if Ippolito had killed him to defend himself,' she said. 'I feel--I do not know--but I love you so--and yet--oh, Orsino, Orsino! How will it all end?' She rocked herself a little, to and fro, her forehead against his coat, and her hand twisted painfully upon his, but there were no tears in her voice, for she had shed all she had in the lonely nights since she had seen him last. 'It shall end in our way,' said Orsino, in the low tone that means most with a man. 'You and I? Married?' Again she shook her head. 'Oh no! It will be different--the end! I am not cowardly, but this is killing me. My mother--' She lowered her voice still more, and hesitated. 'My mother is going mad, they say.' Orsino wondered how fate could do more than it had done upon the Corleone. 'Nothing shall take you from me,' he said, his arms going round her and folding her to him. 'Nothing, neither death, nor madness, nor sorrow.' She was silent for a moment, and the mirage of happiness rose in the mist of tears. 'But it is not possible,' she said, as the brief vision faded. 'You know it is not possible. Ippolito did not do it--I know. There is not that to separate us. But you could not take the sister of such brothers as mine have been to be your wife. How could you? And your father, your mother--all that great family of yours--they would not have me, they would not--oh, it is impossible! Do not talk to me of it, love. It will make it harder to die.' 'To die? You?' His voice rang with life. Suddenly, and for the first time since he had loved her, he pressed her head gently backwards, and his lips met hers. She started, and a little shiver ran to her small hands, and her eyelids dropped till they closed, and still he kissed her, long and passionately. And the colour rose slowly in her cheeks when her pulse beat again, for it had stopped a moment, and then she hid the scarlet blush against his coat, and heard the heavy, mysterious beating of his heart through flesh and bone and cloth,--the strong, deep sound which no woman forgets who has heard it, and has known that it was for her. 'You can make me live,' she said softly. 'But not without you,' she added, drawing a deep breath between. 'Together,' he answered. 'Always together, to the very end.' Then, by degrees, as the great wave of passion subsided, they talked more quietly, he with perfect confidence in the future, and she more hopefully, and they forgot Miss Lizzie and her letter, till they heard her move the handle of the door. They both started. 'Does she know?' asked Orsino, quickly. 'I never told her,' Vittoria had time to answer, before Miss Slayback could hear. 'I have written such a nice long letter to Uncle Ben,' said the young girl, airily. 'I hope you have not bored yourselves! Not that I am very amusing myself,' she added, pausing before a mirror, on her way along the side of the room. 'And I am a perfect fright! Just look at my eyes. Oh, well, it does not matter! Don Orsino does not mind, and I am sure you do not, Vittoria, do you?' It was the girl's way of trying to jest at what was a real pain, if it was not a very great sorrow. It was not very successful, and her worn little face betrayed her, as well as the dark lines under her eyes. She had believed herself very much in love with Tebaldo, and, to tell the truth, she was in love with him still, so far as she had yet any idea of what it meant to be in love. But she had just made up her mind that she could never marry him. It was not possible to marry into such a family, where everybody was always killing everybody else, as Mrs. Slayback expressed it. The friends of the Saracinesca had found a great deal to say about the previous history of the whole tribe of Pagliuca d'Oriani, including the Corleone of old, during the last four days, and much of it had got into the Roman papers, which all took part against the Sicilians. Romance was very well, up to a certain point, Miss Lizzie thought, but it was necessary to draw the line somewhere, and she had drawn it now. Yet her heart ached for the fierce-eyed Sicilian, all the same, and her small face was weary and careworn. CHAPTER XXXIII Tebaldo's nerves were beginning to give way. It was of no use for him to argue with himself, and tell himself that the knife would not be found. He knew that the possibility existed. No one in Santa Vittoria would look for it, but there was the bishop, who would shortly reconsecrate the church, and there was the judge, who had told San Giacinto that he might go up to visit the scene of the murder. The bishop might order the grating to be opened in order to see the bones of the saint; and the judge, accustomed to the ways of criminals, might insist upon a search, seeing that the murder had taken place within arm's length of the altar. In his broken dreams, the judge and the bishop appeared separately and together and turned into each other, and invariably found the knife, and then Tebaldo was suddenly in the court-room, at the bar, where Ippolito had stood, instead of on the witness stand, and he heard all the people yell and curse his name, as the villagers of Santa Vittoria had cursed the young priest. As in the old days of torture a man was drawn up by his hands to the high vault of the prison, and then dropped all at once with a hideous wrenching and tearing of the joints till his feet were but a foot from the floor, so Tebaldo's sudden waking was but a sudden change of agony renewed each time and each time more unendurable, till the fear of dreaming was outdone by the dread of returning to consciousness. When he was awake he imagined impossible schemes for getting possession of the knife unobserved. It might have seemed simple enough to go up to Santa Vittoria, call the sacristan, and have the church opened for him. Then he could have invented an excuse for sending the fat man away while he quietly reached down through the grating and felt for the knife. In his ordinary state of mind and health he would have done that, and there were ninety-nine chances in a hundred that he would have succeeded. But it looked differently to him now. In the first place, a sheer physical horror of going back to the village at all had taken the place of the cynical indifference which had at first left his cunning and his coolness free to act. Everyone who has dealt with humanity under the influence of pain or fear knows that the effect of either is cumulative, and that in each individual there seems to be a limit beyond which the nerves will resist no more, and the will-power altogether ceases. A man may bear a certain grievous pain on the first day without a sign; on the second day he will grind his teeth; on the third he will wince; later he will groan, writhe, and at last break down, like a mere child, under one-tenth of the suffering he bore manfully and silently at first. And it is the same with any given fear. In a smaller degree it is so also in the matter of losing one's temper under constantly-renewed irritation of the same kind. Even in another direction, but in one which equally concerns the nerves, this thing is true. Often, in a farce on the stage, an indifferent action passes unnoticed; it recurs and excites attention; again it comes, and the audience smile; once more, and they laugh, and cannot control their laughter each time the action is repeated, until a certain capacity for being moved to mirth again and again in one direction, which varies in each individual, is momentarily paralysed. People afterwards realise with surprise, and sometimes with a little shame, the emptiness of the absurdities at which they have laughed so heartily; as many a man has despised himself for having been angry at a trifle, and wondered at his own weakness in having winced under an insignificant pain. But the trifle is only the drop that overfills the cup at last. So Tebaldo had almost reached the limit of endurance, and the mere idea of going back to the village and the church was intolerable to him. It seemed to him that even if he could make up his mind to the attempt, he should be sure to fail. The sacristan would come back unexpectedly and find him with his hand through the grating, groping after the knife; or the lame boy, who always hung about the gate, would look in and see him. Yet he could not have locked himself into the church, for that also would have excited suspicion. The idea that he might get some one else to recover the weapon for him took hold of him by degrees. At first it appeared to be madness to trust any one with his secret, and his keen sense rejected the plan with scorn. But it suggested itself again and again with increasing persistence, because the mere thought that he might get the thing back without going to Santa Vittoria in person was an inexpressible relief, and he began to try and think of some person whom he could trust to be prompt and secret. At first he thought of asking someone in Santa Vittoria. The fat sacristan, whom he had known for years, could do it easily. But Tebaldo recognised at once that he had no hold upon the man, who might betray him at any moment. Money would tempt the fellow, but no sum could silence him afterwards, if he should demand more, as was very probable. Besides, it would be necessary to write to him, and the man might lose the letter, even if he were able to read it well enough to understand, which was doubtful. There was Don Atanasio, the apothecary. He would do much out of hatred for the Saracinesca, as his daughter had done already. But he was a cautious old man, dependent, in a large measure, upon the government, and would not be inclined to endanger his position to oblige Tebaldo. It would not do to risk a refusal. Then it occurred to the wretched man that women had more than once saved men who loved them from desperate danger, and that, after all, he might do worse than to tell Aliandra the truth. If she were willing, she could go up to Santa Vittoria on a pretext and visit the little church, and get rid of the sacristan. Then, if she wore a wide cloak, she could kneel down on pretence of looking through the grating, and her slim woman's arm could run through it in a moment, and her hand could not fail to find the knife. He could remember, now, exactly at how many inches from the left he had dropped it through. The details came back to him with vivid clearness, though at first he had almost quite forgotten them. He almost made up his mind to go to Aliandra for assistance, and the half-decision was a sudden and immense relief. He could eat and drink, and he felt that he should sleep. Immediately his mind outran this first plan, and he saw himself in Rome again, in three or four days at the most, engaged to marry the great heiress, resuming his regular life of wise courtship, and discussing with his future wife the details of a brilliant existence. He drove away the subconsciousness that the thing was not yet done, and revelled in visions in which there was no fear. But that did not last long, for he could not sleep, after all; and the knowledge that he must act quickly grew constantly more disturbing, till he rose in the night and sat by the open window, working out his plan. He must go to Randazzo again and see Aliandra; then he must wait at the inn, while she went up to Santa Vittoria. The hours of waiting would be hard to bear, but at the end of them there would be freedom. She would come back, and he should see her pass. He should go to her father's house. She would meet him at the door and draw him into the familiar sitting-room, and a moment later the weapon would be in his hand. After all, if he once had it, she could have no proof against him, beyond her mere assertion, if she should ever turn against him. For the sake of his love for her, she would never do that, he thought. He telegraphed to Tatò at dawn to meet him at the Piedimonte station. It was a Thursday, and he felt sure that the judge would not be at leisure to go up to Santa Vittoria before Sunday. It was most probable, too, that the bishop would choose the Sunday to reconsecrate the church, and it occurred to Tebaldo that it would be strange if the two should meet as they were always meeting in his dreams. But there was plenty of time before that, and all would come right. Aliandra would not refuse to do him this service. Tatò met him at Piedimonte in person, instead of sending down his man, and in obedience to Tebaldo's telegram he had brought a light conveyance in which the two sat side by side, with Tebaldo's little valise at their feet, and his rifle between them. They were old acquaintances, for Tatò had driven the Corleone family for years himself, and by deputy, as it were, while he had been serving his time in Ponza. He had a profound respect for Tebaldo, for he knew how the latter with his brothers had long ago led the soldiers astray when pursuing the brigands in the neighbourhood of Camaldoli There was probably no man in that part of the country who knew as much about people of all sorts and conditions, and about their movements, as the smart-looking owner of the stable at Piedimonte, nor anyone who could keep his own counsel better. He was a thorough type of the 'maffeuso,' at all points, as San Giacinto had at first observed to Orsino. San Giacinto had always believed that the man had known of Ferdinando's intended attack, and of the pitfall in the avenue. Tatò told Tebaldo that he had driven San Giacinto alone up to Camaldoli on the previous evening, returning during the night. 'What courage!' he exclaimed, with some genuine admiration, as he spoke of the big man. 'After all that has happened! He is a man of iron, full of courage and blood.' 'There was no particular danger in driving up to Camaldoli,' observed Tebaldo, indifferently. Tatò looked at him curiously for a moment, to see whether he were in earnest. 'Then you do not know?' he enquired. 'They are in the woods above Maniace.' 'They' means the outlaws, or the carabineers, as the sense requires. Tebaldo looked quickly at Tatò in his turn. 'How many?' he asked. 'A dozen or fifteen,' said Tatò. 'There is Mauro, and Leoncino, and the one they call Schiantaceci--he was a gentleman of Palermo, but no one knows his real name, and the Moscio--eh, there are many! Who knows all their names? But Mauro is with them.' 'Leoncino is a good man,' observed Tebaldo, quite naturally. 'Souls of his dead! You have spoken the truth. It was he that wore the carabineer's uniform when they took the Duca di Fornasco's bailiff. He has a face like a stone. Yet Mauro himself is the best of them, though he is often ill with his liver. You know the life they lead. The food is sometimes good, but sometimes it is badly cooked, and they eat in a hurry, and then that poor Mauro's liver troubles him.' 'Why have they come over from Noto? Do you know?' 'For a change of air, I suppose,' answered Tatò, imperturbably. 'But they say that the Fornasco is coming from Naples. Perhaps they would like to try for the Saracinesca. Who knows what they want?' 'Do the carabineers know that they are near Maniace?' 'How should they know? Mauro and the Leoncino rode into Santa Vittoria yesterday afternoon to see--good health to you--to see where Don Francesco died. They asked the little lieutenant of infantry to tell them the way to the church, as though they were strangers. Do you think he has their photographs in his pocket? He took them for two farmers going from Catania to Randazzo.' 'They might have caught San Giacinto last night when you drove him up,' said Tebaldo. 'If everyone knew where to look for money, there would be no poor men,' returned Tatò. 'They did not know about the Saracinesca, and the carabineers do not know about them. Thus the world goes. Each man turns his back on his fortune and chases flies. Should you not like to see the Moscio, Don Tebaldo? You know that it was he who helped that angel of paradise, Don Ferdinando. He goes everywhere, for he is not known.' 'Yes. I should like to see him. But I do not care to go up to the Maniace woods, for I am known, though he is not. How can I see him? I should like to ask him about my brother.' 'Where shall you stay to-night?' enquired Tatò. 'At the inn at Randazzo. I am not going to Santa Vittoria. I have business with Basili.' 'I will arrange it,' answered Tatò. 'Leave it to me.' Tebaldo assented and remained silent for some time. As they drove on, nearer and nearer to Randazzo, the folly of his present plan became clear to him, and in the place of Aliandra, as an agent for getting back the knife, the possibility of employing the young outlaw known as the Moscio presented itself, and the possibility of confiding freely in a man whose position was ten times more desperate than his own, and whose evidence could never be of any value in the eyes of the law. Mauro himself was under obligations to Tebaldo, who could have betrayed him to the authorities on more than one occasion, less than a year earlier. Again and again both Mauro and the Moscio, as well as three or four others of the band, had been at Camaldoli, and the Corleone had given them food and drink and ammunition at a time when a great effort had been made to catch them. 'Are you quite sure of being able to send a message to the Moscio?' asked Tebaldo. 'Leave it to me,' said Tatò, again. 'I have a little bundle for him in the back of the waggon. How do I know what is in it? It feels like new clothes from the tailor in Messina. The Moscio is fond of good clothes. He writes to his tailor, who sends the things when he can, by a sure hand. You know how they live, as well as I do. They always wear new clothes, and give their old things to the peasants, because they can only carry little with them. And then, they are well brought up and are accustomed to be clean. But I speak as though you were a Roman. You know how they live. The Moscio will have his bundle this afternoon, and this evening he will come down and have supper with you at Randazzo, at the inn. I know this, therefore I asked if you wished to see him, and not another.' Before Randazzo was in sight, Tebaldo had quite made up his mind to confide in the outlaw, and he could hardly have believed that he had left Messina that morning with the firm intention of imploring Aliandra to help him. But he looked forward to seeing her and to spending most of the afternoon with her. He was disappointed. Everything happened exactly as at his last visit. Basili's man appeared at the door of the house, instead of from the stable, and gave precisely the same message. Aliandra had taken Gesualda to the country to visit some friends, and had not come back. No one knew when she meant to come. 'Tell me something else,' said Tebaldo, offering the man money, for he knew that the story could not be true. The man threw back his head in refusal. 'You might give me also Peru,' he answered 'This is the truth, and this I have told you.' 'I should like to see Signor Basili,' said Tebaldo, thinking that he might get into the house. 'The notary sleeps,' answered the man, stolidly, and he began to shut the door. To force an entrance seemed out of the question, and Tebaldo went away angry and disappointed. He could see that it would be of no use to try again, for the same answer would be given to his enquiries. It was enraging to know that the woman he loved was within a few yards of him, and able to keep him away from her. But his anger was a relief from the perpetual anxiety about the knife, which was wearing out his nerves, day and night. In the afternoon he shut himself up in the room he had taken and tried to write to Aliandra, but he was in no condition for composing love-letters. He could find nothing but reproaches for her unkindness in refusing to admit him; and as soon as he had expressed them, he felt that his own words exhibited him in an absurdly undignified position. Besides, he was really waiting in the unconscious hope of explaining her conduct to himself, when he knew that it was as yet inexplicable. Meanwhile he tore up the pages he had covered, and threw the whole blame upon Basili, unwilling to admit that the woman he loved could turn against him. In the hot hours of the afternoon he shut the windows and dozed restlessly on a hard sofa, and his evil dreams came upon him once more and tormented him, waking him again and again just when the sweetness of rest was within reach. At last, his body being very weary, the dreams could no longer wake him, and tortured him at their will while he lay in a heavy sleep. It was already dark when he awoke with a start. The door had opened, and a youth was standing beside him holding a candle in a brass candlestick, shading the flame a little with the other hand and looking down into his face. 'I regret that I disturb you,' said the young man, in a gentle, girlish voice. 'I hope you have slept well?' Tebaldo was already sitting up on the sofa, and had recognised the Moscio. The outlaw could not have been more than twenty-two years old, and looked a mere boy. He was of medium height, delicately made, very carefully shaved, and dressed with a sort of careless good taste, wearing a black velvet jacket, immaculate linen, riding-trousers with gaiters, patent leather shoes, and silver-plated spurs. He was hatless, and his short, soft brown hair curled all over his head, close and fine, like curly Astrachan fur. There was a tender, youthful freshness in his skin, and he had beautiful teeth. He had studied for the bar and had been driven to outlawry because, failing to pass his final examination, he had shot his teacher through the head at the first opportunity. But he had killed a number of men since then and had almost forgotten the incident. Tebaldo rose to his feet and greeted him. 'A friend told me you were here and wished to see me,' said the Moscio. 'I am at your service, though to tell the truth I am somewhat ashamed to meet you, after that unfortunate affair at Camaldoli.' 'Why?' asked Tebaldo. 'I do not see----' 'It was I that fired over the carriage to draw away the escort,' replied the other. 'Your poor brother was too enthusiastic. I was afraid that something would happen to him, for the plan did not seem to be very well thought out. In a manner I feel responsible for his misfortune, for I should not have consented to what he proposed. I hope, however, that there need be no bad blood between you and me on that account.' 'Ferdinando was always foolish,' answered Tebaldo. 'It was certainly not your fault.' 'And now you have had another misfortune in the family,' said the youth, sadly. 'I take the first opportunity of offering you my most sincere condolence.' Tebaldo knew that with such a man it was better to be frank, or to say nothing. He bowed gravely, and proposed that they should have supper. The Moscio answered with equal gravity, and made a little bow on his side, by way of acknowledgment. 'I was about to ask you to be my guest,' he said. 'I supped with you at Camaldoli the last time we met. We might have supper here in your room,' he suggested. 'But I fear to inconvenience you--' 'Not at all,' replied Tebaldo. 'I prefer it also. We shall be more at liberty to talk.' 'For that matter,' said the brigand, 'the conversation in the public room is often amusing and sometimes instructive. The lieutenant of carabineers sat at the table next to me the last time I spent the evening here. He was very friendly and asked my opinion about catching the Moscio.' 'If you prefer to have supper downstairs, let us go down,' said Tebaldo, laughing a little. 'But the fact is that I wished to consult you on a little matter of my own.' 'In that case, it is different. But it was I that proposed your room.' While the waiter came and went, preparing the table, the two men talked a little, continuing to exchange small civilities. The waiter knew them both perfectly well, and they knew him. In twenty minutes they sat down opposite each other, as proper and quiet a pair to see as one could have found in that part of the country. The Moscio had good manners, of a slightly provincial sort, and a little too elaborate. He watched Tebaldo quietly, with a view to profiting by the example of a gentleman who had lately been much in the capital. He ate sparingly, moreover, and mixed his black wine with a large proportion of water. Tebaldo watched the girlish face, the bright, quiet eyes, and the child-like complexion of the man who had done half a dozen murders, and envied him his evident peace of mind. He knew, however, that his guest would not stay long, and that it was necessary to tell him the story. The Moscio gave him an opportunity of doing so, almost as soon as the waiter had gone away. 'It was with the deepest regret that I heard of Don Francesco's accident,' he said, looking up at Tebaldo. 'For that matter,' answered Tebaldo, boldly, 'I killed him myself.' 'I always supposed so,' replied the outlaw, quite unmoved. 'Are you going to join us, if you are found out? It would be a pleasure to have you among us, I need not assure you. But, of course, so long as there is no suspicion, you will remain in the world. I should, in your place. Poor Ferdinando, whom we all loved as a brother, liked the life for its own sake. Poor man! If he had ever made an enemy, he would have killed him, but having none, his hands were clean as a child's. And in his very first affair, he was shot like a quail by a Roman. Heaven is very unjust, sometimes. Yes, we all thought that you must have sent Francesco to paradise yourself and put the blame on the priest. It was well done. The priest will go to the galleys for it, I daresay.' The youth's manner was as quiet as though he were speaking of the most ordinary occurrences. The knowledge of what he really was, and of what desperate deeds of daring he had done, somehow acted soothingly upon Tebaldo's nerves, for he needed just such an ally. 'Yes,' he said. 'It was done well enough. But I made a little mistake which I hope you will help me to rectify for the sake of any service I may have done you all before I sold Camaldoli.' 'Willingly,' answered the Moscio, with courteous alacrity. 'But if it is for to-night, I hope you can lend me half a dozen Winchester cartridges, for I am a little short.' Tebaldo explained briefly what he wanted. The Moscio smiled quietly. 'Nothing could be easier,' he said, when Tebaldo had finished. 'I will ride into the village to-morrow morning and get your knife. But, for another time, I should advise you to keep your weapon about you when you have used it. If you are caught, it is because you are suspected already on some good ground, and the weapon makes little difference. But if you get away quietly, you leave no evidence behind you.' 'That is true,' answered Tebaldo, thoughtfully. 'But there is no name on the knife.' 'Nevertheless, someone might recognise it as yours, if anyone had ever seen it.' 'No one ever saw it, excepting my brothers and, perhaps, my sister, when it lay on my table. But your advice is good. I might have saved myself much disquiet if I had brought it away.' The Moscio made Tebaldo explain very exactly to him where the knife lay. He knew the village and the position of the little church well enough. They talked over the details of the matter for a while, speaking in low tones. 'I suppose you do not want the thing when I have recovered it,' observed the outlaw, with a smile. 'I should like to see it,' answered Tebaldo. 'Then I should throw it away, I suppose.' 'Again?' The Moscio smiled in a rather pitying way. 'Then you might wish to get it back a second time. It has no name on it, you say. If it is a good knife, I shall put it into my own pocket, with your permission, as a remembrance of this very pleasant meeting.' 'I should like to see it once,' repeated Tebaldo. 'You do not trust me? After trusting me with the story? That is not right.' 'I have proved that I trust you,' replied Tebaldo. 'But the thing makes me dream; I shall not get a good night's rest till I have seen it. Then keep it, by all means.' 'I see!' The brigand laughed a little in genuine amusement. 'I understand! Forgive me for thinking that I was not trusted. You have nerves--you do not sleep. We have a friend with us who is troubled in the same way. Do you remember the man we call Schiantaceci? He killed his sweetheart for jealousy, and began in that way. That was five years ago, in Palermo. If you will believe it, he dreams of her still, and often cannot sleep for thinking of her. Some men are so strangely organised! Now there is our captain Mauro himself. Whenever he has killed anybody, he gets a gold twenty-franc piece and puts it into a little leathern purse he carries for that purpose.' 'Why?' asked Tebaldo, with some curiosity. 'For two reasons. In the first place, he knows at any time how many he has killed. And secondly, he says that they are intended to pay for masses for his soul when he is killed himself. One tells him that someone will get the gold, if he is killed. He answers that Heaven will respect his intention of having the masses said, even if it is not carried out when he is dead. That man has a genius for theology. But I must be going, Don Tebaldo, for I do not wish to tire my horse too much, and I have far to ride.' 'I will not keep you. But how shall I see the knife? You cannot come down again to-morrow.' 'We should be glad to see you in the forest, if you can find us. Mauro would be delighted. I have no doubt you will be able to find your way, for you know the woods as well as we do. I cannot tell you where we are, for we have a rule against that, but I daresay you can guess.' 'I will come,' answered Tebaldo. 'If you come alone, you will be safe,' said the Moscio. 'Safer than you are here, perhaps, while your knife is lying under the altar of Santa Vittoria. But it will not be there any longer, to-morrow night.' The Moscio protested courteously, when Tebaldo thanked him, and he took leave of his entertainer. His coolness was perfectly unaffected, and was the more remarkable as he was certainly a rather striking young man on account of his good looks, his extremely youthful appearance, his perfectly new clothes, and a certain gentleman-like ease in all he did. He was known by sight to hundreds of people in various parts of the island, but he did not believe that any of them would betray him, and he passed the open door of the guest-room, where the lieutenant of carabineers was playing dominoes with the deputy prefect, with perfect indifference, though there was a large reward on his head, and he was well known to the landlord and the waiter. To tell the truth, he was utterly fearless, and would never have allowed himself to be taken alive. But, on their side, if they were ever tempted by the reward, they knew how short and how terrible their own lives would be if they betrayed him to his death. The man who betrayed Leone still lives, indeed. He is a blind beggar now, without feet or hands, in the streets of Naples. He left Sicily with his life, such as the outlaws left it to him, to be an example and a terror to the enemies of the mafia. Nor did the waiter show by any sign or word that he knew anything about the guest who had gone, when he came to clear the little table in Tebaldo's room. He did his work silently and neatly and went away. Tebaldo sat a long time by the open window, thinking over what he had done, and he congratulated himself on having acted wisely in an extremity from which there had been no other escape. It all looked easy and simple now. To-morrow night, he thought, he should be sure of his safety. Then he would return to Rome again. His thoughts reverted more easily now to the dreams which Rome suggested, and he fell asleep with a sense of present relief mingled with large hopes for the immediate future. The Moscio, on his part, would not perhaps have responded so promptly to Tebaldo's message, nor have undertaken so readily to carry out Tebaldo's wishes, if there had been nothing for the outlaws to gain thereby. But the alliance of such a man was not to be neglected at any time. He had served them in the past, and he could be of considerable service to them now. Mauro had made up his mind to take one of the Saracinesca, if the capture were possible, and to extort an enormous ransom, sufficient to allow him to leave the country with what he should consider a fortune. He was well informed, and he recognised that a family which had such power as the Saracinesca had shown in getting Ippolito's case heard and disposed of in a few days, and, previously, in persuading the authorities to move a body of troops to Santa Vittoria, must be able to dispose of a very large sum of money. Moreover, as the Moscio had frankly admitted, the outlaws had all believed that Tebaldo had killed his brother, and, consequently, that he could be completely dominated by any one who had proof of the fact. The Moscio had taken advantage of this instantly, as has been seen. Tebaldo, though now on bad terms with the Saracinesca, was well acquainted with their habits and characters, and knew, also, the bypaths about Camaldoli, as none of the brigands themselves did. He could be of the greatest use in an undertaking which must require all the skill and courage of the band. For it was no light thing to carry off such a man as San Giacinto or Orsino, protected as they were by a force of carabineers in their own dwelling, and by the fifty soldiers of the line who were quartered in Santa Vittoria. When Tatò's message had arrived, Mauro had not only advised the Moscio to go down at once, but had instructed him to use every means in his power, even to threatening Tebaldo with a revelation of his former services, in order to get from him the truth about Francesco's death, as a means of controlling him in the future. It had been an easy task, as has been seen, and when the Moscio returned to the band that night, his account of the meeting was heard with profound attention and interest. Mauro, who had a curious taste for churches, would have gone himself to Santa Vittoria, had he not been there on the previous day. A second visit might have roused suspicion, whereas, since the murder, no one was surprised if a stranger asked to see the place where it had happened. The Moscio was, therefore, directed to go himself, as he had intended. The outlaws were encamped at that time in certain abandoned huts which the Duca di Fornasco had built as a safe retreat for some of his people during the cholera season of 1884. They were so completely hidden by underbrush and sweet hawthorn that it required a perfect knowledge of their locality to find them at all; but having been built on an eminence in the hills, in order to obtain the purest air, it was easy to keep a lookout from them by climbing into the big trees which surrounded them on all sides. A spring, situated on the eastern slope, at a distance of three hundred yards, supplied the outlaws with water for themselves and their horses. Tebaldo, in former days, had led the carabineers to this spring, in their search for the band, but though the soldiers fancied that they had then quartered the hill in all directions, Tebaldo had skilfully prevented them from coming upon the disused huts in the brush, wisely judging that it could be of no use to betray such a hiding-place, which might be useful to his friends in the future. The Moscio knew that Tebaldo would probably make first for the spot when he came to keep his engagement on the following day. CHAPTER XXXIV The Moscio slung saddle-bags over his saddle, as though he were travelling some distance, and led his horse down from the huts by bypaths in the woods till he came to a place where the trees descended almost to the road, so that he could reach the latter without crossing any open country. Before emerging from cover he looked long and carefully up and down the valley to be sure that no carabineers were in sight, who might be surprised at seeing a well-dressed man come out of the forest. A few peasants were visible, straggling along the road, and far away a light waggon was ascending the hill. The Moscio led his horse carefully across the ditch, and then mounted in leisurely fashion and rode slowly away towards Santa Vittoria. The outlaw, who may at any moment need his horse's greatest powers, spares him whenever he can, and when not obliged to escape some danger will hardly ever put him to a canter. It was a full hour before the village was in sight. Once on the highway, the Moscio felt perfectly at his ease, and barely took the trouble to glance behind him at a turn of the road. He had excellent papers of various descriptions about him, including a United States passport of recent date, in which he appeared as an American citizen, and a proper discharge as corporal from the military service, together with a highly commendatory letter from the captain of the troop in which the unlucky individual to whom the paper had belonged had served his time in Milan. He also possessed a gun-license in the same man's name, and the description of him which accompanied it suited him very well. Some of the papers he had bought at a good price, and some he had taken without much ceremony, because they suited him. To-day he did not even carry a gun and was, in reality, altogether unarmed, though he would naturally have been supposed to have a pistol or a knife about him, like other people in Sicily. If anyone had asked his name, he would have said that he was Angelo Laria of Caltanissetta, a small farmer. The name corresponded with the papers of the soldier, and as he was unarmed it would have been hard to find any excuse for arresting him on a mere suspicion. If a man carries so-called forbidden weapons, on the other hand, the carabineers can arrest him for that offence alone, if they find it out, and can hold him till he can prove his identity. A knife, such as one can stab with, is forbidden, and the special license, which is required to carry a pistol, is not often granted except to very well known persons, though a vast number of people really carry revolvers without any license at all. The Moscio dismounted at the gate, walked up the street with his horse, enquired for the sacristan, and brought him back to the little church with the keys. 'Have the goodness to hold my horse' he said to the fat man. 'I only wish to look at the church for curiosity, and I will go in alone.' The sacristan did not know him by sight, but with a true Sicilian's instinct recognised the 'maffeuso' in his manner. He proposed, however, to tether the horse to an old stake that was driven into the ground near the door, in order to go in with the stranger and explain how the priest had murdered Francesco. He had got the account off very glibly by this time. 'My friend' said the Moscio, 'in those saddle-bags I have important papers and a quantity of valuable things, the property of an aunt of mine who is dead, and may the Lord preserve her in glory! I am taking these things myself; for greater safety, to my cousin, her son, who lives in Taormina. Now the reason why I begged you to hold my horse is not that I fear for him, though he is a good animal, but because some evilly-disposed person might steal the property of my poor aunt. You understand, and you will have the goodness to hold the horse while I go in.' The sacristan looked at him and smiled. The Moscio smiled very sweetly in answer, pushed the door open and went in, closing it behind him and leaving the keys on the outside. But when he was in the church, he took from his pocket a small wedge of soft pine wood, gently slipped it in under the door and jammed it noiselessly. It would have been rather difficult to open the door from the outside after that. Then he walked leisurely up the church, his spurs ringing loudly so that the sacristan might hear through the door that he was in no hurry. He went up the altar steps, and smiled as he noticed a few round, dark spots on the marble, and one irregular stain. That was the very place where it had happened. He knelt down and tried to put his arm through the grating, but the space was too narrow. With the same leisurely certainty he slipped off his velvet jacket and laid it on the altar, rolled up his sleeves, and tried again, with his bare arm. No one, seeing him in his coat, and glancing at his small hands, would have suspected the solid muscles above. Even now the grating was too close. It was of light iron, however, and twisted in a decorative design. He easily forced a scroll in one direction, a winding stem in another, and got his hand down to the bottom of the depression in which the glass casket was placed. He withdrew the knife, and slipped it into the pocket of his riding-breeches; then he readjusted the iron ornaments, buttoned his shirt-sleeve, and put on his jacket. As he walked down the church again he took the weapon out. The broad blade was stuck in its black leathern sheath, and it required all his strength to loosen it. When he got it out, he saw that the steel was covered with dark rust. It was a pity, he thought, as he dropped it into his pocket again, for it had evidently been a good knife. He would clean it with sand and a brick, and sharpen it on a stone, during the evenings, not because he could not have got a better one easily enough, but because it was an agreeable and interesting remembrance. He drew the wedge from under the door without making any noise and went out into the open air. The fat sacristan had lit a clay pipe with a wild cherrywood stem, and was slowly walking the horse up and down in the shade. The Moscio took a small note from a neat pocketbook. Even when notes are scarce, in the wild finances of modern Italy, the outlaws manage to have them because they are easily carried. 'Do you wish me to change it for you?' enquired the sacristan, holding the flimsy bit of paper between his thumb and finger. 'Keep it for yourself, my friend, with a thousand thanks,' replied the Moscio. But the sacristan refused, and held the note out to him, returning it. 'We are not of that kind,' he said, with dignity. 'We do not wish to be paid for courtesy.' 'There are doubtless many poor persons in the village,' answered the Moscio, smiling, and beginning to mount. 'You will do me a favour by giving the money to those who need it, requesting them to pray for the soul of my poor aunt.' 'In that case it is different,' replied the fat man, gravely. 'I thank you in the name of our poor people. As for me, I am always here to serve you and your friends.' The Moscio glanced at the man's face as the last words were spoken. Tebaldo had told him who the sacristan was, and had described him accurately. 'A greeting to your brother, Don Taddeo the grocer,' said the outlaw, settling himself in the saddle. The sacristan looked up sharply. Being cross-eyed, it was almost impossible to know with which eye he was looking at one. But the expression did not change as he answered. 'Thank you. You shall be obeyed. Our service to your friends.' They understood each other perfectly well, and the Moscio rode slowly away into the brilliant light, leaving the fat man to lock up the church and go home. The outlaw had made a friend of him, but had not thought fit to ask him any questions about the state of the village or the movements of the Saracinesca. It was of no use to go any further than necessary at a first meeting, and the band had plenty of good sources of information. Tebaldo spent the morning in a sort of feverish anxiety against which he struggled in vain. He went out for a stroll and passed twice before Basili's house. The weather was beginning to be hot, and the blinds were as tightly closed as though the house were not inhabited. As he passed for the second time he fancied he heard Aliandra's voice singing softly in the distance. He could hardly have been mistaken, for it had the quality and carrying power, even when least loud, which distinguish the great voices of the world, the half a dozen in a century that leave undying echoes behind them when they are still. His blood rushed up in his throat at the sound and almost choked him, so that he pulled at his collar with his finger, as if it were too tight. He had not intended to try to see her again, but the fascination of the light and distant song was more than he could resist He knocked and waited on the little steps outside the door. He was sure that he heard someone moving upstairs and approaching a window, and he guessed that he could be seen through the slats of the blinds. A long time passed and he heard no sound. Then, as usual, the stable-man came to the door, with his faithful, stolid face. He began to give the customary answer. 'The Signorina Aliandra has gone to the country with--' 'Let me come in,' said Tebaldo, interrupting the man roughly. He was active, strong, and in a bad temper, and before the man could hinder him, Tebaldo had pushed himself into the house and was shutting the door behind him. 'And the notary is asleep,' said the man, concluding the formula, in a tone of surprise and protest, but attempting no further resistance. 'Wake him, then!' cried Tebaldo, his naturally smooth voice rising to a high and almost brassy tone. 'And the devil take you, your mother, and both your souls!' he added, relapsing into dialect in his anger. He must have been heard to the top of the house, and by Gesualda in her kitchen. Immediately there came a sound of footsteps from above. But Tebaldo was already mounting the stairs. Aliandra was coming down to meet him, her face flushed with annoyance and her eyes sparkling. 'What is this, Don Tebaldo?' she asked, as soon as she caught sight of him. 'By what right do you--' He interrupted her. 'Because I mean to see you,' he answered. 'When you are in the country with Gesualda visiting your friends, one ought not to hear you singing in Randazzo as one passes your house.' Aliandra was not really very angry that he should have got in, for she was beginning to find her father's company a little dull. But she made a movement of annoyance as though displeased at having betrayed herself by her singing. 'Well--go down to the sitting-room,' she said. 'I cannot turn you out, since you have got in.' They descended, and she sent away the stable-man, and made Tebaldo go into the front room, leaving the door open, however, as she followed him. His anger disappeared when her manner changed. He took her hand and tried to make her sit down, but she smiled and shook her head. 'I cannot stay,' she said. 'But as for your having been kept out, that is really my father's doing. I suppose he is right, but I am glad to see you for a moment. I was afraid you had gone back to Rome.' 'Not without seeing you. But what absurd idea possesses your father--' 'Hush! Not so loud! The doors are open upstairs, too, and one hears everything.' 'Then I will shut the door--' 'No, no! Please do not! He would scold, for he would certainly know. Besides, you must go.' 'I do not understand you at all,' said Tebaldo, lowering his voice. 'The last time I saw you, you were just like yourself again, and now--I do not understand. You are quite changed.' 'No. I am always the same, Tebaldo.' Her voice was suddenly kind. 'I told you the whole truth in Rome, once for all. Why must I say it over again? Is it of any use?' 'It never was of any use to say it at all,' answered Tebaldo. You do not believe that I love you--' 'You are wrong. I do believe it--as much as you do yourself!' She laughed rather irrelevantly. 'Why do you laugh?' he asked. 'Such love is a laughing matter, my dear Tebaldo. I am not a child. It is better that love should end in laughter than in tears.' 'Why should it end at all?' 'Because you are engaged to marry another woman, dear friend. A very good reason--for me.' She laughed again. 'You have only a dead man's word for it,' said Tebaldo, grimly. 'Unfortunately he is where he cannot take it back. But I can for him. It is not true.' He set his eyes, as it were, while he looked at her, in order to make her believe that he was telling the truth. But she knew him well, for she had known him long, and she doubted him still. She shook her head. 'It may not be literally true,' she said. 'But practically it is the fact. You mean to marry the American. That is why neither my father nor I wish you to come to the house. You injure my reputation here, in my own town, as you do in Rome. If you loved me, you would not wish to do that. I have held my head high at the beginning, and that is the hardest. I did not mean to say it over again, but you force me to. Do you want me? Marry me. If you were a rich man, I suppose I should be ashamed to speak as I do. But we are both poor, you for a nobleman and I for an artist. So there is no question of interest, is there? I have not seen your American heiress. She may be handsomer than I, for I am not the most beautiful woman in the world. She is rich. That is her advantage. She may be a good girl, but she is no better than I, the singer, the notary's daughter, who have nothing in my whole life to blush for. Look at me, now, as I am. You know me. Choose between us, and let this end. I am willing to marry you if you want me, but I am not willing to sacrifice my good name to you, nor to any man in Europe, king, prince, or gentleman. Here I stand, and you may look at me for the last time, compare me with your foreign young lady, and make up your mind definitely. If it is to be marriage, I will marry you at once. If not, I will not see you again, if I can possibly help it, either here or in Rome.' As she finished her long speech she crossed her arms behind her and faced him rather proudly, drawing herself up to her full height, smiling a little, but with an earnest look in her eyes. She had never looked so handsome. The few days of country life had completely rested her young face. 'You are frank, at all events,' said Tebaldo, half mechanically, for he was thinking more of her than of her words. 'And it is time that you should be frank, too,' she answered. 'You must make your choice, and abide by it Aliandra Basili or the American girl.' He was silent, for he was in a dilemma and was, besides, too nervous from all he had been through to like being driven to a sudden decision. On the other hand, her beauty stirred him now, as it had not done before, and the idea of giving her up was unbearable. She looked at him steadily for several seconds. More than once his lips parted, as though he were going to speak, but no words came. Gradually her mouth grew scornful and her eyes hard. All at once she laughed a little harshly and turned towards the door. 'You have chosen,' she said. 'Good-bye.' But the passionate longing that had assailed him outside, in the street, at the sound of her voice, had doubled and trebled now. As she turned, the folds of her gown followed her figure in a way that drove him mad. 'Aliandra!' he cried, overtaking her in an instant, and catching her in his arms. She struggled a little as he forced her head backwards upon his shoulder. 'You!' He kissed the word upon her lips again and again. 'You! You!' he repeated. 'I cannot live without you, and you know it! Yes--I will marry you--before God, I will--' And many passionate, broken words and solemn vows mingled with his kisses as he stood there pressing her to him. It was not a noble love, but it was genuine and fierce, as all the man's passions were, whether for love, or hatred, or revenge. It was when he had let them drive him to reckless deeds that his other nature asserted itself, calm and treacherous and self-contained. As for Aliandra herself; she had saved her self-respect, though few people might respect her for what she had done. She was not a very romantic or sentimental young woman, but according to her lights she was a good girl. She had been taught to consider that all men were originally and derivatively bad, and that every woman had a genuine right to make the most advantageous marriage she could. She did not in the least expect that Tebaldo would be faithful to her, but she firmly intended to be an honest wife, on general principles. What she most wanted was his name, for which she meant to earn a fortune by her art. She had never been in love and, therefore, did not believe that love had any real existence, a view not uncommon with very young people who have no particular sentimentality in their composition. And so rigid were her ideas in one direction that she resented the demonstrative way in which Tebaldo expressed his decision. He was almost beside himself, for his nerves had been already unstrung, and her beauty completely dominated him for the time being, so that he forgot even Miss Slayback's millions, his own evil deeds, and his meeting with the outlaw. There was nothing which he was not ready to do. Basili should draw up the marriage-contract at once, and on the following morning they would be formally betrothed. Only the fact that he could not with propriety be married within less than three months of his brother's death recalled him to himself. The afternoon was already advancing when he left the house and went back to the inn, half dazed and almost forgetful alike of past and future, as he walked up the street. Before he had gone a hundred yards, however, he had regained enough composure to think of what he had to do, and when he reached the inn, no one would have supposed that anything unusual had happened to him. As he rode out of the town half an hour later, he vaguely wondered at himself for what he had done, and wondered, also, how he could get out of his present difficult position. He looked at his watch, and saw that it was growing late. He had far to ride, and had intended to start much earlier in the afternoon. He had the innkeeper's best horse, but it was rather a slow animal, not to be compared with Basili's brown mare. He quickened his pace as well as he could, however and cantered along the more level stretches of the high-road. At the first opportunity he struck off into a bridle-path to the right which led westward towards the heights above Maniace. He had ridden several miles, in and out among the little undulations of the upper valley, when he came out upon a broad bit of meadow, such as one occasionally finds in that region, just beyond the black lands. He put his horse at a gallop, taking advantage of the chance to gain a little time, and riding diagonally for a point at the opposite side from which the bridle-path led up to the hills, as he well knew. He was less than half-way across the grass when he heard the heavy tread of horses galloping after him, with the clanking of arms and a sound of deep voices calling out to him. He looked round, but he knew already that he was followed by mounted carabineers, and that they could overtake him easily enough. After a moment's hesitation he drew rein and waited quietly for the troopers to come up. He wished that he had carried his rifle across his saddle-bow instead of at his back, for he at first believed that there was some information against him from Santa Vittoria, and that they meant to arrest him. On the other hand, to have unslung his rifle, after seeing that they were carabineers, would have been to acknowledge that he feared them. His mind worked quickly as he sat still in his saddle, waiting for them. But when they were fifty yards away one of them spoke, and reined in his charger. 'It is Don Tebaldo Pagliuca!' he exclaimed in a tone of surprise, and in the desolate stillness of the lonely field, Tebaldo heard the words and understood that he had been mistaken for someone else. The other trooper laughed a little, and they both trotted up to Tebaldo, saluting when they were near him. 'I beg your pardon,' said the older soldier. 'We took you for a stranger. It is a lonely place, and we have news that the brigands are somewhere in the neighbourhood. I trust we have not annoyed you, signore. Accept our excuses.' Tebaldo smiled easily. 'You took me for an outlaw,' he said 'It is natural enough, I am sure. Do you know your way? Can I be of any service to you?' The elder trooper asked one or two questions about the directions in which the bridle-paths led. He evidently knew the country tolerably well, and Tebaldo was wise enough not to deceive him. After a few moments' conversation, he offered the men a couple of cigars, which they gratefully accepted and hid in the inner pockets of their tunics, after which they saluted again and rode away in the direction whence they had come. In disturbed times such patrols are to be met with occasionally on almost every practicable bridle-path, and the foot-carabineers scramble up and down through the country in pairs, even where there are no paths at all. As he rode on alone Tebaldo was aware that his heart was beating faster than usual. He had been startled by the unexpected meeting, and for one moment had expected to be arrested. He now reflected that he had no real cause to fear any such catastrophe, since, by this time, the Moscio had certainly recovered the knife, which represented the only possible evidence against him. But the physical impression remained, and it was very like fear. He had rarely been afraid of anything in his life, and the sensation was disturbing, for it warned him that the strain on his whole nature was beginning to weaken him. He pressed on, urging his lazy horse whenever the ground permitted, and cutting across through the woods, from one bridle-path to another, as often as he could, shortening the way to gain time. He was near the foot of the hill on which the outlaws were camping and was just about to cross the streamlet which ran down from the spring, when a man in tweed clothes, that had an English look, quietly stepped out from behind a bush and stood in his way, at the water's edge, holding a rifle in his hand. Tebaldo's horse stopped of his own accord. 'Your name, if you please,' said the outlaw, civilly. 'Tebaldo Pagliuca. I come by appointment to visit one of your friends.' 'Name him, if you please.' 'The Moscio,' said Tebaldo, knowing that if the names had not agreed with those given to the sentinel as a pass, the man would probably have killed him instantly as a spy. 'I will show you the way,' said the brigand, slinging his rifle on his shoulder. 'I know the way perfectly,' answered Tebaldo. 'Pray do not trouble yourself.' 'It is a pleasure,' returned the other, and he cleared the little stream at a bound. Tebaldo guessed that he was not altogether trusted even now. As the man walked up the hill he whistled softly, and in a few moments, emerging from the brush into a little clearing, Tebaldo saw the Moscio waiting for him. It was dusky under the trees, but Tebaldo could see the pleasant smile on the girlish face. The Moscio had his rifle under his arm, and was smoking a cigarette. The man who had led Tebaldo to the spot disappeared into the brush, returning to his post by the stream. Tebaldo dismounted. 'Have you met anyone?' enquired the outlaw shaking hands. 'No,' answered Tebaldo, 'not since I left the high-road.' He had reflected that he had done unwisely in not turning back with the carabineers and riding with them as far as the road, in order to disarm any possible suspicions, and he knew that the Moscio would think so too. He should, if necessary, have even waited till the next day before coming up to the camp, but his anxiety to see the knife safe in the Moscio's possession had outweighed everything else. 'So much the better,' answered the outlaw, unsuspiciously. 'By the bye, here is your knife. Is this it?' He held it out to Tebaldo, who took it eagerly, his fingers closing round the sheath, as though he were afraid of dropping it. He breathed hard between his teeth once or twice, as he looked at it in sheer satisfaction. 'It is yours, I suppose?' observed the Moscio, interrogatively, for Tebaldo had forgotten to speak. 'There was no other.' 'Yes. I thank you. I am very grateful to you.' The words were as sincere as any the man had ever uttered, and he handed the knife back. 'Not at all,' answered the outlaw. 'It was interesting to see the place. I am glad to have served you. Since you have taken the trouble to come so far, will you accept our hospitality this evening? You can hardly get back to Randazzo to-night. Mauro is in a very good humour this evening, and the weather is pleasant. You will not suffer much inconvenience. The huts are quite dry. We will try and make you some return for your former hospitality.' Tebaldo accepted readily enough, and they began to ascend the hill at once. It was some distance to the top. The Moscio turned to the right at a big, old chestnut tree. 'That is not the best way,' remarked Tebaldo. 'Keep on another ten yards and then turn to the left. There is an old bridle-path on the other side of the hawthorn bushes.' The Moscio laughed softly. 'It is a pity that you are not with us,' he said. 'You know the paths better than we do.' 'I was born near here,' answered Tebaldo. 'I have known these woods since I was a boy.' 'I wish I had. I sometimes lose my way in this part of Sicily.' The path began exactly where Tebaldo had said that it did, the entrance being hidden by hawthorn and blackberry bushes. He went on a few steps, doubled behind the brambles, and led the Moscio along a much better way than the outlaws had discovered for themselves. The outlaw appreciated the advantage, and reflected that Tebaldo could help the band in a thousand ways if he chose. Without passing by the spring, they suddenly found themselves at the top of the hill. The path stopped abruptly against the back of one of the wooden huts, having formerly crossed the summit at this point. 'Let me go first,' said the Moscio, and he passed Tebaldo and his horse and went round the corner of what was really little more than a shed, roughly enclosed with half-rotten planks. Various exclamations of surprise greeted their appearance from an unexpected quarter. 'Our friend, Don Tebaldo Pagliuca,' said the Moscio, addressing a number of men who were sitting and lying about on the dry ground. 'He knows the woods better than we, and has shown me a new path from the big chestnut tree.' 'He is welcome,' said Mauro, in a dull and muffled voice, but with some cordiality. He and most of the others rose and greeted Tebaldo warmly. Some had known him already, and almost all had known Ferdinando well. They were a strange-looking set of men. Most of them were well dressed, and so far as their clothes were concerned might have been taken for a party of southern country gentlemen and rich young farmers, camping during a day's shooting. Mauro, who was by far the oldest, might have been seven or eight and thirty years of age, but not more, and most of the others were evidently under thirty. They were all strong-looking, with the toughened appearance of men accustomed to live in the open air and to take exertion as a matter of course. The Moscio alone had preserved his marvellous, child-like freshness of complexion. The 'Moscio' means the 'soft,' being similar to our English word 'mush,' and the youth's looks accounted for the name, while his remarkable strength and utter fearlessness contrasted rather comically with the epithet. The peculiarities in the appearance of his companions were chiefly in their faces and expressions. Most of them had the oddly sinister, unchanging smile with something contemptuous in it which so often characterises adventurers, both within the pale of society and beyond its bounds. Such men do not laugh easily. In their eyes, too, there was the look one sees in those of some Red Indians and of dangerous wild animals aware of pursuit and always inclined to turn at bay rather than escape. Tebaldo felt, rather than saw, the glances that were turned upon him as he stood in their midst, still holding his horse by the bridle. Mauro himself was dark, clean shaven, close cropped, and already bald on the top of his head. He had often disguised himself successfully as a priest, for he had been educated in a seminary, had turned atheist, had been a journalist, and had finally got into trouble by shooting his editor in consequence of a quarrel which had apparently begun about a question of grammar, but had in reality been connected with politics, so that the deed had been regarded as an act of justice and patriotism by the mafia. There had been a reward of twenty thousand francs on Mauro's head, dead or alive, for several years, and photographs of the famous brigand were sold everywhere in Palermo, Messina, and Catania, but there was not a carabineer in the island who could boast of having seen the man himself. He was taciturn and reticent, too, though he could be fluent enough when he pleased; and although he put a gold piece into his purse for everyone he killed, as the Moscio had said, he could never be induced to tell how many there were in the little leathern bag. He never did anything unnecessarily, but was capable of the most blood-curdling cruelty when any end was to be gained, and was merciless to informers when they fell into his hands, not exactly out of love for inflicting pain, but in order to inspire a salutary terror. He was extremely temperate in his habits and simple in his clothes, though his weapons were always of the best and of the newest device, and he had a large account with the leading bank of Palermo. He intended to emigrate, he said, when he should be rich enough, but those who knew him did not believe that he could be satisfied to settle down as a well-to-do proprietor in the Argentine Republic. The Moscio always said that Mauro would yet repent of his ways, enter a monastery, mortify the flesh, and die in the odour of sanctity. Whereat Mauro generally nodded thoughtfully, as though he himself regarded such a termination to his career as quite within the bounds of possibility. As for the rest of the band, none of them were in any way so remarkable as their leader. The man known as Leoncino was believed to be a son of the famous Leone, and boasted of it. He had stabbed a rival in a village love affair, after having been brought up rather mysteriously in the house of a rich farmer. Schiantaceci was undoubtedly a gentleman by birth, a sad young fellow, with a drooping brown moustache, fiery eyes, and a very sweet voice in which he often sang softly on a summer's evening when it was not dangerous to make a noise in the camp. No one knew his real name. In a fight he always behaved as though he wished to be killed, which is generally the surest way of killing others. Among the rest there were men of all classes. There was a man who had been mayor of his village, there was a butcher, there were three or four deserters from the army, who had each killed a comrade, and one who had attacked his lieutenant but had not killed him. There was a chemist's apprentice who had poisoned his master, and an actor who had strangled his manager's wife in a love quarrel. There were also two anarchists who had escaped imprisonment under Crispi's rule. But there was not one in the number who had done less than two murders at the time when Tebaldo went up to the camp. One of the outlaws led his horse away, and he sat down by Mauro a little apart from the rest. In the middle of the open space a fire was burning down to a bed of coals. It had been very carefully built and slowly fed so as to produce the smallest possible amount of smoke. A well-cleaned gridiron was stuck upright in the earth by the handle, and at the entrance to one of the huts the man who was a butcher was cutting a huge piece of fresh meat into steaks. After the first greetings, the men relapsed into silence, and paid little attention to Tebaldo. Mauro talked with him in low tones. The chief seemed, indeed, unable to speak loud. He asked many questions about the Saracinesca, but he would have considered it a breach of civility to refer to the truth about Francesco's death. 'These Saracinesca are naturally antipathetic to you,' he observed, 'and I daresay you would not be sorry if one of them put his ears in pawn at my bank.' 'They are a powerful family,' answered Tebaldo, cautiously. 'If one of them were taken by you, there would be reinforcements of carabineers throughout Sicily.' 'These carabineers are much like flies,' said Mauro, thoughtfully. 'They come in swarms, they buzz, and they fly away again, leaving nobody much the worse. It means a little more caution for a month or two. That is all. But the Saracinesca would pay a good sum to keep the young heir's nose on his face, and San Giacinto would probably write a cheque at my dictation before he were half roasted.' He spoke quietly and in a reflective tone. 'For my part,' replied Tebaldo, 'I wish them no good, as you may imagine. But the younger Saracinesca is in Rome. San Giacinto came back last night, it is true, but he is safe at Camaldoli.' 'Safe is a relative term when we are in the neighbourhood,' remarked Mauro. 'Especially if you will give us your assistance,' he added. 'On the whole, it would be more convenient to take San Giacinto. He could write the cheque, and I could cash it almost before there were any alarm, holding him until we got the money. If we took the young one, we should have to communicate with the family. That is always disagreeable.' 'You might have difficulty in cashing the cheque,' suggested Tebaldo. 'None whatever,' replied Mauro. 'You are quite mistaken. That is always easy, though of course money in cash is preferable. A cash transaction is always better, as a mere matter of business.' Tebaldo had not by any means anticipated that he was to be called in as an ally in such an affair, and did not like the prospect at all. He promised himself that he would return to Rome as soon as possible. For the present he put aside the extremely complicated position in which he was placed by having given two promises of marriage. He felt uncomfortable, too, and chilly. He shivered a little, and Mauro noticed it, and called for a cup of wine. Tebaldo swallowed it eagerly and felt better. 'It will be necessary for you to help us,' said Mauro, presently, and in a tone of quiet decision. 'No one knows the land about Camaldoli as well as you do, and the approaches to the house.' 'I would rather not be involved in the capture,' answered Tebaldo. 'I am sure you will not refuse,' replied Mauro, smiling at him. 'It will be a little return for the service the Moscio has done you. He was very glad to help you, of course, but you must not forget that you are one of us now, and that we always help each other when we can. I am sure you will not refuse.' Tebaldo glanced sideways at the quiet, priest-faced man who had been the terror of Sicily for years. He realised that the outlaw had spoken the truth, and that he might at any moment have to turn outlaw himself, if the secret of the knife were known. He knew the brigands and their ways. They would keep faith with him, even at the risk of their own lives, but he must submit to their conditions. They had him in their power, and he must help them if they required him to do so. If he refused, information would be in the hands of the carabineers in twelve hours, which would drive him into outlawry, if he escaped at all. But if he helped them, they would stand by him. He had not foreseen such a situation. 'What is it that you wish me to do?' he enquired after a short pause. 'I will tell you,' answered Mauro. 'There are now only four carabineers quartered at Camaldoli, and as they ride on patrol duty like the rest, there are never more than two in the house at a time. There is San Giacinto himself, so that there are three men to deal with. The rest of the people are Sicilians, and will give no trouble.' 'San Giacinto is equal to two or three ordinary men,' observed Tebaldo. 'Is he?' Mauro spoke indifferently. 'One man is very like another, at the end of a rifle-barrel,' he continued, 'and if one pulls the trigger, they are all exactly alike. The point is this. We intend to surprise Camaldoli to-morrow night. You must lead us by the ways you know to the low rampart at the back, behind the stables and over the river. There is a way up on that side, but we do not know it. We shall find a ladder resting against the wall on that side. A friend will place it there.' 'Why do you not get him to show you the way?' asked Tebaldo. 'He lives in the house,' answered Mauro. 'The gates are shut at Ave Maria, and there is a roll-call of the servants and men. San Giacinto, or whichever of the Saracinesca is there, locks the gate himself and keeps the keys in his own room. They all go to bed early, and the house is always quiet between midnight and two o'clock. There is no moon just now, and if we can get round to the back without rousing the dogs, or attracting attention in any way, we can get possession of the place in five minutes. The carabineers sleep in a room on the court. They have to sleep sometimes, like other people. Barefooted we shall make no noise on the stones. Leave the rest to us.' 'And have they no sentinels at night?' enquired Tebaldo. 'Do they keep no watch?' 'No. The house would be hard to enter without a ladder at the one weak point. One would be sure to rouse everybody before one got in. But once in the court, we can silence the two carabineers in a moment, and then we shall be fifteen to one against San Giacinto. I would not give much for his safety, then. The main thing is to reach the ladder quietly and all together. The paths are difficult, there is water in the stream still, and we must know where to ford it in the dark, for we could not safely approach from the other side. Your help is absolutely necessary to this enterprise. As I said, I am quite sure that you will give it--quite sure.' He emphasised the last words a little, and Tebaldo knew what he meant. There was no choice. 'I will do as you wish,' he said reluctantly. 'I will come here before sunset, and when it is time I will lead you by the shortest way.' The Moscio's eyes were watching him and met his own as he looked up. CHAPTER XXXV The two carabineers who had met Tebaldo in the field had treated him with the greatest civility, but when he was out of hearing they discussed the rather singular meeting. The more they thought of it, the more strange it seemed to them that he should have been riding alone, without so much as a portmanteau, by way of luggage, towards the Maniace woods, and at such an hour. It must be remembered that before Francesco's death, and since Ferdinando's, the authorities had everywhere been warned against the Corleone family, in the expectation of some outrage against the Saracinesca or their property; and the impression was universal that Ippolito had not killed Francesco, while many who had known the brothers since they had been wild boys at Camaldoli believed that Tebaldo had done the deed, or that he had caused it to be done, and had cleverly managed to throw the guilt upon the priest. The carabineers quartered in the neighbourhood all believed this and scouted Tebaldo's story of a race. They had no more opinion of the law's wisdom than the outlaws whom they were continually hunting, for their experience had shown them how easily the law could be defeated in a country where the whole population was banded together to defy it. The troopers discussed the question as they rode down to Randazzo. They had seen nothing else worth mentioning, on their patrol, and when they reported themselves to the sergeant at quarters, they told him exactly what had passed. The sergeant was the one who had at first accompanied the Saracinesca to Camaldoli. He dismissed the troopers to their supper, thought the matter over, and went to the inn to find the lieutenant. The latter was playing dominoes, as usual, with the deputy prefect, before going home to supper. He was a grey-haired man of forty, prematurely aged by hard service and constant anxiety, a tall, spare figure, the perfection of military neatness in his dress, with a grave manner and a rare but kindly smile. For the rest, he was brave, honourable, and energetic, and, like the men under him, he was not much inclined to believe in the law on its own recommendation. He was as firmly persuaded as they that Tebaldo was a bad character, and had quietly watched him on the several occasions on which he had lately appeared at the inn. He went outside with the sergeant and listened to his story attentively. 'The brigands are in the Maniace woods,' he said at last. 'They left Noto some days ago. But one might as well try to find pins in a ploughed field, on a dark night. It would take at least five hundred men to beat the woods through and surround the fellows.' 'A thousand, sir,' suggested the sergeant, by way of comment. 'It took a regiment to catch Leone alone, in the old days.' The lieutenant broke off the end of a black cigar thoughtfully, but seemed to forget to light it, becoming suddenly absorbed in his own reflections. The sergeant stood patiently at attention. 'Have we any information this evening?' asked the officer, suddenly, as though he were looking for something. 'No, sir.' 'Any arrests to-day? Any suspicious characters?' 'No, sir.' The lieutenant seemed dissatisfied, and looked a long time at his unlighted, black cigar, in deep thought. 'Very well. Good-night, sergeant.' He nodded and turned away, but looked round before he had made two steps. 'Have two men ready all night, in case I should need them,' he added. 'Yes, sir.' The sergeant saluted again, and went back to his quarters. The officer returned to his game of dominoes. He made one or two moves and then called the servant. 'Don Tebaldo Pagliuca is staying in the house, is he not?' he enquired. 'Present my compliments and ask if he will not come down and play a game.' 'The signore is out, Signor Lieutenant,' answered the servant. 'Indeed? I am sorry. I suppose he is strolling in the town. It is cooler in the streets.' 'I do not know,' the man replied, though he knew very well that Tebaldo had the innkeeper's horse. The officer nodded, as though satisfied, and went on with his game. The deputy prefect looked at him enquiringly, but he vouchsafed no information. The official representative of the government was a rather foolish man, very much afraid of the Sicilians and of doing anything to attract the ill-will of the mafia. The lieutenant sat over the game later than usual. The windows of the public room, which was at once the dining-room and the café of the clean little inn, looked upon the main street and were open, for the air was hot. It would have been impossible not to hear Tebaldo's horse if he came back. But he had not come when the officer went home. The latter's own lodging was also on the main street, towards the upper gate, and Tebaldo would have to pass it to reach the inn. The lieutenant sat up very late, but still Tebaldo did not come. 'They have either taken him,' reasoned the officer, 'and in that case he will not come back at all. Or else he is on good terms with them and is spending the night with them, and will return in the morning.' But at seven o'clock in the morning, being about to show himself at his window, the lieutenant heard the tread of a shod saddle horse in the street. It was Tebaldo, looking pale and weary, leaning a little forward and dangling his feet out of the stirrups, as though he had ridden far and wished to rest himself. He had the unmistakable look of a man who has worn his clothes twenty-four hours, and the soldier's sharp eyes, looking after him when he had passed the window, saw little bits of bramble and leaf clinging to his coat. The lieutenant shaved himself carefully and thoughtfully and dressed with his usual scrupulous care. When he had buckled on his heavy cavalry sabre, he opened a drawer in an old Sicilian cabinet and took out two little Derringer pistols, examined them to see that they were properly loaded, and slipped one into each pocket of his trousers. The tight swallow-tailed tunic of his uniform made it impossible to carry a revolver concealed. He might be going to risk his life as well as his reputation on that morning. When he left his lodging, he went first to the quarters of the carabineers and gave the sergeant an order. Then he went straight to the inn, and asked to be shown to Tebaldo Pagliuca's room. An hour had passed since the latter had come back. The servant looked up in surprise, for though the officer and Tebaldo were on terms of civility, the man knew that they were not well acquainted. He had to obey, however, and led the way up one flight of stairs, and knocked at a door on the landing. 'Come in,' answered Tebaldo's voice, indifferently, for he supposed it was the servant. The officer entered at once, taking off his cap. 'Good morning, Don Tebaldo,' he said courteously, before the other could speak. 'Pray forgive my intrusion, but could you lend me your revolver for a few hours? I suppose you have one? My only one is out of order, and I prefer to carry one for what I have to do. I should be extremely obliged.' 'Certainly,' answered Tebaldo, rather coldly, but a good deal surprised by the request. He crossed the room and took the weapon from a table, with its leathern case. 'I should be glad if you could return it by two o'clock,' he said, 'as I am going away.' 'Certainly,' replied the officer, quietly taking the revolver out of its case. 'It is loaded, I see. Thank you. Now Don Tebaldo, will you kindly sit down for a few moments? I wish to speak to you.' He held the revolver in his right hand, and his quiet gray eyes looked gravely at the man he had caught. Tebaldo started at the sudden change of tone, and faced him, in renewed surprise. 'I borrowed your revolver in order to speak with you,' said the lieutenant, 'for I have heard that you have a sudden and violent temper. But I wish to speak in a quiet and friendly way. Shall we sit down?' He took a chair with his left hand. 'I am at a loss to understand you,' answered Tebaldo, with rising anger. 'What do you want?' 'I will explain. I am aware that you have spent the night with the brigands, who are friends of yours. You will either lead me to them, or you will go to prison. I have a couple of men downstairs, waiting. Now choose.' 'This is outrageous!' Tebaldo's voice rang high, as he sprang forward. But the sight of the revolver's muzzle close to his face stopped him, though his eyes blazed with fury. 'It is of no use to be angry,' said the officer, who was perfectly cool. 'Choose, if you please.' 'It is outrageous! You cannot prove anything against me!' 'You are mistaken,' answered the other, boldly. 'I can prove many things.' 'What? What can you prove?' 'I do not intend to provide you with the means of defending your case by telling you what I know. But I give you your choice. I have full power to do so. Lead me and my men to a place where we can catch Mauro, and I give you my word of honour that no accusation shall be brought against you. Refuse to do so, and I give you my word that you will be handcuffed in five minutes and taken to Messina this afternoon. You know, of course, that complicity with a band of outlaws entails penal servitude.' He saw plainly enough that he had not risked his reputation for nothing. Tebaldo was brave still, though he was unstrung and broken, but his face now showed the perplexity he could only feel if he were really in the situation the officer had prepared for him. 'I deny the whole charge,' he said, after a moment's thought. 'This is an outrage for which you will have to answer. Be good enough to stop threatening me and leave my room.' The lieutenant drew a nickel whistle from the bosom of his tunic with his left hand. 'If I whistle for my troopers,' he said, 'you will be in handcuffs in five minutes. I will count twenty while you make your choice. One, two, three--' and he continued to count. Tebaldo grew pale by quick degrees, as he listened, and his heart beat violently with excitement. The officer reached twenty in his counting, and raised the big whistle to his lips. 'Stop!' exclaimed Tebaldo, hardly able to speak. 'Well?' asked the officer, holding the whistle ready near his mouth. 'You give me your word of honour that no accusation whatever shall be brought against me?' 'None on the ground of complicity with the brigands,' answered the lieutenant. 'I give you my word as an officer.' 'There is no other to bring.' Tebaldo was white. 'None that concerns me,' replied the other, coolly. 'There is a good deal of diversity of opinion about your brother's death, as you must know.' 'This is an insult--' 'Oh no! I do not accuse you at all. I only wish to limit my own promise to the matter in hand. I have done so, and I understand that you agree, do you not?' 'By force, for I suppose I must,' replied Tebaldo, in a sullen tone. 'You must further engage to protect me from the mafia, when you have caught the fellows,' he added. 'You shall have an escort wherever you go and as long as you please to remain in the country.' 'That will not be long,' said Tebaldo, almost to himself. 'So much the better. And now, if you please, at what time shall we start this evening?' Tebaldo inwardly cursed himself for having trusted the Moscio in the first instance, but he quickly reflected that he might still improve his position in the eyes of the officer and thereby, perhaps, have less to fear in the future. 'Look here, lieutenant,' he said, changing his tone and sitting down. 'I have been forced into this, from first to last. I was riding by myself yesterday afternoon, in the country I know so well, and I had not the slightest idea that the outlaws were in the neighbourhood. I met a couple of your men, who at first took me for one of the brigands myself, and then recognised me and apologised, telling me that the band was in the neighbourhood. They rode off, and I took a short cut through the woods. I came upon the encampment unexpectedly.' The officer listened attentively and gravely. Tebaldo proceeded. 'In former years, even a year ago, when we lived at Camaldoli before selling the place, we were obliged, as a matter of personal safety, to put up with a great deal from these men, and if we had informed against them, we should have been murdered. That is how it happened that my brother Ferdinando knew some of them. You know the conditions of the country as well as I do.' 'I wish I did!' exclaimed the soldier, devoutly. 'You know them well enough, at all events. Poor gentlefolk, as we were then, cannot always help themselves. Yesterday afternoon I found myself suddenly surrounded by the whole band. There are fifteen of them. One of them recognised me, and a long discussion began. They wish to get into Camaldoli to-night and carry off the Marchese di San Giacinto.' 'Fifteen armed men might do it,' observed the officer. 'There are only two troopers there at night.' 'Yes. But the brigands do not know the way to the weak point at the back. I will explain.' Tebaldo told the whole truth now, for he saw that his best chance of safety lay in that direction. Then he proceeded to exculpate himself. 'They also gave me my choice, something in your manner,' he went on. 'They offered, by way of alternative, to roast me alive, if I refused to show them the way to-night, and they assured me of what I knew perfectly well, namely, that if I did not keep the appointment they could murder me wherever I might be. This was because I insisted on coming here again before to-night. It was not easy, but they yielded at last. However, it was very late by the time we had come to an agreement, and I could not have got back to Randazzo, for there was no moon, and the woods are dark and full of pitfalls. I got back this morning, and intended to go down to Messina and catch the train at Reggio to-night, and take my chance of safety in Rome. They never could get up to the back of Camaldoli without me. There you have the whole story in a nutshell.' 'I see,' answered the officer, who only believed half of the plausible story. 'You were in a most difficult position. But it is now in your power to do the country a great service. All that is necessary is that you should lead the band to the foot of the wall, as you promised. I will take care of the rest. In the woods it is impossible to catch them. But it is important that we should recognise you, in order not to kill you by mistake if there is any fighting, as there probably will be, though I hope to take most of them alive. The wisest thing would be that you should be the first to mount the ladder, by agreement, on the ground that you can lead them inside, whereas they might lose their way.' 'Yes--that is best. It is a very complicated place, like a labyrinth, between the rampart and the court.' 'You will pardon me for reverting to the conditions,' said the lieutenant, suavely. 'You realise, of course, that in case you should not wish to carry out your part of them, you are always in the power of the law, unless you turn outlaw yourself, which, in your position, you would hardly like to do.' 'I understand my position perfectly,' answered Tebaldo, coldly. 'I shall lead the band to the foot of the ladder at about one o'clock, I fancy.' 'Thank you,' said the officer. 'I am much obliged for the loan of your revolver, which I return to you, as you may need it this evening.' He laid it on the table, bowed civilly, and went out, leaving the betrayer to his own reflections. CHAPTER XXXVI Tebaldo would have given half his life and all his soul to undo the work of the past twenty-four hours. But it was now absolutely impossible for him to draw back. His only chance of future safety lay in serving the government, though he did not like to think what his fate might be if he should fall into the hands of any friend of the outlaws after betraying them. Yet, short of joining them outright, he could not possibly escape arrest if he did not carry out the conditions of his agreement with the lieutenant; and, if once arrested, the latter would only need to tell exactly what had happened in order to convict him of complicity with brigands and send him to penal servitude. He was literally caught in a vice and could not move without ruining himself. It was early in the afternoon when he set out to ride to the Maniace woods again. In spite of everything, he had been to Basili's house and had seen Aliandra again. Though what he was going to do was not noble, it was dangerous, and the sight of the woman he loved cheered him in his need. He looked ill, and said that he had a touch of the fever, and Aliandra believed him, and was very kind and gentle with him. He was really too naturally courageous, with all his hideous faults, not to enjoy the passing moment to the full. His marriage with Miss Slayback looked less and less possible, as Aliandra's influence gained the ascendant, and he formally bound himself to marry the Sicilian girl. It was like a pleasant dream between two spells of torture, and as he rode up towards the woods it faded again into an improbability, and the ugly present truth rose in its place. Even to him, the idea of such a deliberate betrayal as he contemplated was revolting. He was far too much a Sicilian to think otherwise. Apart from any apprehension for his own subsequent safety, he honestly detested the thought of leading men who trusted him to certain destruction, no matter how bad they might be. Even the fact that they had forced him to be their guide, against his will, had little weight. He knew instinctively that if there were any worldly honour concerned in so dishonourable a matter, it should have bidden him either refuse to serve the law and let the law do its worst against him, or turn outlaw and warn the band they were in danger. Ten days earlier he might have had the boldness to do either the one or the other, but he lacked it now. His character was momentarily and perhaps permanently broken, and though he still had the physical courage to face violent danger, he grasped at any means of returning to a peaceful existence, like the veriest coward. All through the long ride in the desolate lands and the lonely forest, and throughout the evening that followed, his mind laboured painfully against the secret and overwhelming shame of what he meant to do, and as he sat resting among the outlaws he hardly spoke, except in answer to a question from Mauro or the Moscio, and made a bare pretence of eating a little for the sake of appearances. Again and again he felt impelled to open his lips and warn his companions of their danger, and once his resolution almost broke down. But as he glanced at Mauro's quietly superior smile, a sort of sullen resentment got hold of him against the man who had forced him into his present position, and he held his peace. Once or twice he thought of the knife which the Moscio had in his pocket, but he knew that a brigand's evidence would be worth nothing in law, and would be regarded as a mere attempt at vengeance for having been betrayed. It had been very different so long as the knife had lain under the altar, where anyone might find it. There were hundreds of knives like this one in Italy, and there could be nothing surprising in the fact that one belonging to a brigand should be rusty with blood. The bare assertion of the Moscio would not be worth much. It was Mauro's intention to kill the carabineers in their sleep, if possible, to bind and gag San Giacinto and get him out through the postern gate, and to bind in the same way all the Sicilian servants in the house, so that they could neither free themselves nor make a noise. They would themselves prefer this, and would submit patiently, as they generally did in such affairs, because if they were not made fast they would afterwards be blamed for not immediately giving an alarm, whereas if they roused the village they would expose themselves to Mauro's vengeance as informers. It must be admitted that the position of the servants was not precisely enviable. The postern of Camaldoli would then be locked again by means of the keys found in San Giacinto's room, and the keys would be thrown into the river. San Giacinto, bound on a horse, would be conveyed to a safe hiding-place before morning, and all would be over. The brigands would be many miles away by that time, scattering over the country as they usually did, while three or four of the strongest and most desperate remained with Mauro to guard San Giacinto until he should see fit to ransom himself by writing a cheque. It was all very well planned. Tebaldo was instructed to disappear from the scene as soon as he had led the band to the foot of the wall. 'I had better go up the ladder first,' he suggested. 'You will lose your way in the narrow passages between the rampart and the stables. The place is like a labyrinth on that side.' 'Of course,' said Mauro, 'if you will help us further, we shall be greatly obliged, but that was not in the agreement, so I did not venture to hope--' He stopped, smiling politely. 'It will be better that I lead you into the court,' answered Tebaldo. 'If the carabineers are lodged there, as you say, they can only be in one room, for there is only one that would be at all suitable. It has a very small window, and in this weather they will leave the door open for coolness.' The night was clear, but there was no moon. Under the trees it was very dark, but the starlight made each opening and clearing faintly visible ahead, between the stems, as Tebaldo led the way down the hill, with the unerring certainty of a true path-finder. Again and again Mauro, who followed him closely, thought that he was taking a wrong turning, but Tebaldo never made a mistake as he swiftly and surely walked along, giving warning of any slight obstacle in a low monotonous voice, and now and then turning his head a little to listen for those behind. They led six horses among them, Tebaldo's and five others, of which one was for San Giacinto, one for Mauro himself, and three others for the Moscio, Leoncino, and Schiantaceci. The remaining outlaws were to return at once to the huts in the woods and get their horses there. It was characteristic of Mauro and his companions that they trusted Tebaldo's knowledge of the country, and followed him blindly after he had left the paths familiar to them. In and out he led them, always as far as possible under cover of trees and bushes, now and then over a stretch of dewy grass, then down into a little ravine, across a fork of a rough road, through more than one rivulet, ankle-deep, and always by a way which the horses could safely follow, since that was essential. At last he halted and looked at his watch by the starlight, for he had good eyes. 'It is a little early,' he said to Mauro, in a whisper. 'We are near. You can hear the water at the rapids where we must ford the river. It is not midnight yet, and we can reach the rampart in a quarter of an hour. Are you going to leave anyone with the horses? This would be the best place, for there are few trees between this and the water.' He felt cold. His feet were wet, and a cool night breeze blew down the valley. He turned up the collar of his coat and shivered audibly. Mauro offered him a silver flask, and he swallowed a few drops of liquor. 'We will do as you think best,' said the chief. 'If you think this is a good place, we will tether the horses here, and give them their nosebags to keep them quiet.' In a few minutes the horses were tied up to separate trees by their halters, each out of reach of the other, and each had his nose in a small bag of corn. One had been brought especially for Tebaldo's, as the precaution was an important one to hinder any of the animals from neighing. 'We may as well go on,' said Mauro. 'They have been in bed an hour by this time, and a man in his first sleep is not so easily waked.' Tebaldo's heart was beating hard as he once more led the way. It had troubled him often of late. He felt ill, too, and his bones ached. But he did not stumble nor hesitate, as he led the fifteen men down to the ford. He shivered again as he glanced at the grey, rushing water that sparkled here and there in the starlight, at the eddies. Mauro was already taking off his boots, and all the rest silently followed his example. On the other side of the rapids the brambles grew low down to the water's edge, and the tall eucalyptus trees made black shadows. Higher up, wild olive trees and wild figs grew out of the tangled mass of vegetation that covered the fifty or sixty feet of the precipitous ascent, all indistinguishable in the dim light. High above all, to the right, the outline of the gloomy Druse's tower was sharp and dark against the sky, and the straight line of the rampart was drawn like a black band over the more uncertain shadows below. Tebaldo whispered to Mauro to follow him carefully through the water, and the whispered word went back from mouth to mouth along the line till it reached the Moscio, who brought up the rear. From step to step, knee-deep in the cold stream, Tebaldo felt for his footing in the familiar ford. He had known every inch of it since he had been a child, but the freshets often changed the bed, bringing great stones down in the winter rains, which sometimes lodged on the solid rock that came to the surface at that point and produced the ford. And Tebaldo felt his way cautiously with his bare feet. Reaching the other side, he followed the edge of the water down stream for a little way, till all the men had got out of the water and were following him, barefooted, over the stones. Then he touched Mauro to warn him that the ascent was about to begin, and each man touched the other in warning, from first to last. With their rifles on their backs and their revolvers slung in front to be ready, the fifteen men followed their guide slowly and silently upwards. Here and there the rock jutted out among the bushes, affording a firm foothold to naked feet and hands. Again, they had to climb up by the gnarled roots of a twisted fig tree, each man trying the wood with his hands before trusting to it. Even if a bough or dry stick had cracked, the sound could not have been heard above the steadily monotonous roar of the stream below. They moved like mountaineers, without haste, but without a pause. The rampart was not more than twenty feet high above the final ledge, a rough wall of hewn stones, pierced all along the top by little slits for defence from the gallery inside. Tebaldo glanced to the right and left, and saw the ladder in its place. It was one of those very long ones used by the peasants for gathering olives, made of two light and half-trimmed poles, sharpened at the lower ends to stick into the moist ground and thus obtain a hold from below without throwing too much weight on the branches above, and with rungs nearly two feet apart. Tebaldo went to the foot of the ladder and listened, though the river would have prevented him from hearing any but a very loud sound from within. His heart beat in his ears like a strong muffled drum. Mauro was close behind him, and touched him on the shoulder and pointed upwards to hasten his movements. But he felt as though he were paralysed. Mauro was impatient to get to work, and pushed him quietly aside. It was so dark that those behind could not see what happened. Mauro stepped upon the ladder first, the next man pressed after him, and the rest followed his companions, while Tebaldo stood in the shadow, dazed and shaking with excitement. But as the last man silently ascended, his wits returned, and he thought of his own safety. Peering up at the sky, he saw the man's dark figure disappear over the top of the wall. With one strong effort he loosened the ladder, and in an instant sent it flying down, end foremost, through the bushes. Three steps he took under the shadow of the wall, and he plunged desperately down through the tangle, escaping for his life. He was swinging himself from a crooked root to a rock when an unearthly scream pierced the darkness, so loud and terrible that it might have been uttered close to his ear. He dropped ten feet in the dark, and before he touched the ground, even while he was still in mid-air, the quick fire of repeating rifles half deafened him. He rolled down, scrambled to his feet, jumped again, caught the bough of a tree, and swung himself out over the water, and still the rifle-shots cracked through the roar of the river. He plunged on, for he was below the ford, almost sank, found bottom, saved himself, and fled like a grey wolf in the starlight, right across the open, barefooted as he was. The firing had not ceased when he was in the saddle, on Mauro's horse, galloping madly along the broken ground up the valley, towards the high-road to Santa Vittoria. Still he heard shots, and glancing back he saw the dim flash of the next, above the wall. Then he rode for his life, standing with his bare feet in the stirrups, his heart beating with the furious gallop, and terror behind him,--the terror he had never felt before, and which even now was not common bodily fear. He had given way at the last to a horror of shame at the thought of leading those men to destruction, to pass unhurt himself through the waiting soldiers, to be face to face with the officer who had cowed him into such a betrayal, to meet San Giacinto's gloomy scorn, to be thanked by him with the contempt he deserved, for having served the law he had so often defied. He rode for his life from the thing he had done, rather than from the fear of any pursuit. The fight had been short and deadly. Mauro had reached the top and had dropped to the pavement of the gallery within the rampart. It was deserted, and all was quite still. He counted his men, till he saw the head of the last appearing at the top of the ladder. Then with his rifle slung ready, with his knife in his right hand and his revolver in his left, he crept noiselessly along the stones to the entrance of a passage leading inwards. It was quite light in the starlight by comparison with the darkness in the tangle under the trees. He went on a few paces ahead of his men and turned again. Suddenly there was a tall man in front of him, who whispered as he came up. 'Are they come? Pass me, and you are safe!' That was all, for he had been taken for Tebaldo in the gloom. In a flash he understood, and with a single movement drove his knife straight to the man's heart. The trooper groaned as he died. Then, in a moment, the passage was full of soldiers, before, behind, everywhere. Mauro yelled to his men to escape, his muffled voice breaking into the wild scream Tebaldo had heard. At the same moment he fired. The men saw each other in the flashes of their rifles, till the flashes only lighted up thick clouds of smoke and they groped their way to kill each other. For the outlaws died hard, and their aim was cool and true when they could see, and when they could not, they felt for flesh with the muzzles of their Winchesters and fired when they struck anything soft, alive or dead. But they knew each other by their chief's name. 'Mauro, Mauro!' they repeated, as they jostled each other in the smoke. But Mauro was dead in the dark already with a dozen bullets in him, and though five soldiers of the line lay in a heap around him and under him, the gold pieces that should have counted them were never to be slipped into the little soft leathern bag. Still a few shots were fired, here and there, for some of the men had managed to get upon the roof of the low buildings between the stables and the rampart, and the more active of the soldiers pursued them. When all was quiet save the sound of many distant voices, and only now and then an awful groan came up out of the thick smoke, one man, who had thrown away his empty rifle and pistol, felt his way among the dead, with a knife in his hand, groping before him with the other for any living thing that might come in his way. But by some miracle he crept on and found no one, and was suddenly at the rampart and alone. He glanced quickly to right and left for the ladder, and saw that it was gone. 'Judas Iscariot!' he said in a low voice, as he thought of Tebaldo. Then, leaving his tale of dead behind him, he unhesitatingly got over the wall, turned his face to it, and let himself down, feeling for crevices in the stones with his naked feet. And his small, strong fingers found impossibly small holding, but it sufficed for a while, and when he could hold no more, he pushed himself backwards with a little spring and dropped ten feet to the ledge. No one had fought more desperately for himself and his comrades than the Moscio, but fate had saved him once more, and he made his way quickly down to the stream, forded it almost without wetting himself, coolly found his boots among the many that waited for those who should never need them again, shod himself, picked out his own horse, and rode away towards the Maniace woods. He had found time to notice that Mauro's horse was gone, and he knew that Tebaldo had taken it because it was the best. 'Judas Iscariot!' he repeated quietly, as he rode away, without a scratch, from that hideous carnage, man enough to wish, perhaps, that he had found his death where so many had fallen. For it had been a terrible fight, at close quarters. Since the famous Leone had been killed, there had been no such bloody encounter between outlaws and troops. The trap had been well laid, but even the brave old officer of carabineers had not counted on having to deal with such desperate men. Of the outlaws, five only were alive and all more or less badly wounded. The Moscio had got away unhurt, and nine were stone dead. There had been no chance of even offering quarter, for they had fired instantly as soon as they had seen themselves surrounded, and their Winchesters had done fearful work in a few moments. Four carabineers and seventeen of the line were carried out into the court, one by one, and were laid side by side on the stones, under the stars. A dozen or fifteen more were wounded, among whom were both the officer of the carabineers and the young red-haired lieutenant of foot. As for San Giacinto, a bullet had taken off the top of his ear and had just scored the grey hair above it. A thin line of blood ran down the side of his dark face as he bent to examine Mauro's body, with a lantern in his hand. Something told him that the priest-faced man had been the famous chief, and one of the surviving outlaws confirmed the fact, being brought up handcuffed to recognise the dead men one by one. San Giacinto coldly wished that he might find Tebaldo Pagliuca among the slain, and said so. 'Never fear,' said the wounded outlaw, with an ugly smile. 'Traitors die slowly in Sicily,--but they always die.' He refused to answer any questions, of course, like the others who were taken, beyond identifying the dead, and they all swore that no one had escaped, and that Tebaldo had been mistaken in saying that there had been fifteen instead of fourteen. 'But the famous Moscio?' asked San Giacinto, who had heard of the youth. 'Where is he?' 'The Moscio?' The outlaw repeated the name with a blank look. 'I never heard the name,' he added gravely. CHAPTER XXXVII Tebaldo slackened his speed at last and attempted to concentrate his thoughts. Exhausted as he was by exertion and by the ever-increasing strain on his faculties, it was not easy to think at all. But his bare feet, chilled in the cold stirrups, drew his attention to the present necessity of being shod as soon as possible. He could reach Randazzo long before dawn and get into the inn by knocking and rousing the man who slept on the ground-floor. He could invent some story to explain why he had ridden home on another horse. In the dark, with only a taper or a lantern, the man would not notice his bare feet, and he could get to his room in safety. After that, he did not know what he should do. He felt that if he could not get rest soon, he must fall ill. As a matter of fact, he was ill already, with the dangerous fever of the south, as the sudden chills he had lately felt would have told him at any other time. He made up his mind that he must reach the inn; he put his horse to a canter again and got to Randazzo just as the first pallor of the dawn threw the dark outline of Etna into stronger relief against the sky. Everything happened as he had hoped. The sleepy man-servant gave him the key of the stable, and he hitched his horse in a stall, came back, entered the house, and reached his room in safety, the man not having noticed that he was barefoot. He locked the door and almost staggered to his bed, falling upon it as he was, in his wet clothes. A moment later he was asleep. It seemed but a moment more and he was waked by a loud knocking. He started up in one of those hideous dreams of fear, of which the whole length takes but an instant of time. The knocking was the sound of rifle-shots, and he was once more plunging down through the tangle below Camaldoli. Then he saw that it was broad daylight outside, and he heard the voice of the officer of carabineers speaking to him from without in a friendly tone. Forgetting or not caring how he looked, he opened the door. The grey-haired lieutenant entered. He was already shaved and dressed with his usual scrupulous neatness, but he was extremely pale, and his arm was in a black sling. 'I am sorry to disturb you,' he said, 'though, as it is nearly twelve o'clock, I had expected to find you up. The fact is, I should be very much obliged to you if you could make it convenient to go to Rome--or Paris, if you please. One of the brigands escaped us last night.' 'Only one?' asked Tebaldo, mechanically. 'Only one. We suppose that it must have been the famous Moscio.' 'The Moscio?' 'We suppose so. Whoever it was, he has lost no time in telling what has happened, and your share in the business. You are not safe even in the town of Randazzo, unless you will consent to go about between a couple of carabineers like a prisoner. I am sorry to say that you had better go at once. The population is roused against you. You know what they are.' 'Yes. I know.' Tebaldo leaned against the table. 'I can protect you with soldiers,' continued the officer, his own voice weak from loss of blood. 'But your position will be a very unpleasant one. I have sent for a carriage for you and will give you a strong escort, but for your own safety, as well as for the quiet of the country, I must beg you to start as soon as you can dress and get your things together. To-day you may get away quietly. To-morrow your appearance might cause something like a riot.' 'I knew how it would end,' said Tebaldo, faintly. 'Very well. I will get ready.' The lieutenant was in reality exaggerating the danger of the man's position, though quite unintentionally. He would certainly not have been safe in such a place as Santa Vittoria, but it was extremely unlikely that he should be attacked in Randazzo, though he might very probably have been insulted in the streets. The Moscio had in reality seen but one man with whom he had spoken before dawn, but he was the woodcutter who had chiefly supplied the outlaws with provisions during their stay in the forest of Maniace, and he had come up as usual to know if they wanted anything on that day, being as yet ignorant of the fight at Camaldoli. But as he came down, the man had met an acquaintance and had repeated the story without telling how he had learned it. Before noon the facts were known far and wide from Santa Vittoria to Randazzo, substantially as the Moscio knew that they had happened. The feeling against Tebaldo was at once infinitely stronger than that against the carabineers and soldiers. To a certain extent the brigands always terrorised the country, and many of the better sort of people were heartily glad to know that the band of Mauro had been finally destroyed, though they did not say so, lest some survivor should wreak vengeance on them. But there was no difference of opinion in regard to Tebaldo. It was not exactly treachery to carry people off by force and extort a ransom from them, as the outlaws did. But to lead men who trusted him into a trap prepared for them by the troops was a betrayal which no Sicilian could forgive Tebaldo, even though it might have had some good results, and the name of Judas, which the Moscio had spoken alone in the solitude, was on every tongue. It is of no use to waste words in trying to explain this feeling, which most people will understand. The fact was that the whole population shared it, as Tebaldo knew that they must, since the story had become known. He recognised at once that he ought to accept the officer's advice and get away as soon as he could. He would write to Aliandra from Messina, but he was sure that she must despise him now, like everyone else. To all intents and purposes he was a fugitive, as he drove out of the town, half an hour later, in a closed carriage with the ragged shades drawn down. Possibly he remembered, as he shivered in his corner beside the carabineer, how the light had fallen on Ippolito Saracinesca's face in the street of Santa Vittoria scarcely ten days earlier, how the people had cursed the innocent man, and had thrown things at him, trying to bruise him from a distance. Another carabineer sat opposite in the carriage, and one was on the box beside the driver. Tebaldo vaguely understood that even the soldiers despised him, but he was almost past caring what they thought. The fever was slowly gaining on him, and his nerves were utterly broken. His face was like a yellow mask, and he hung his head so that his chin rested on his breast. He reached Messina in a dream and went to the wretched hotel there. He was not able to go on to Rome that night, and a doctor who was sent for said that he had the 'perniciosa' fever. On the following morning, in Randazzo, Aliandra was sitting alone in her room. She had heard of all that had happened. Twenty people had been to see the notary on the previous day, and the story had been repeated again and again, till she knew every word of it by heart. She was ashamed of ever having wished to marry such a man. That was her first sensation, and it had not left her yet. Though she was strong and sensible, she had shut herself up in her own room and had cried for hours, not for Tebaldo, but with shame and anger at herself. She hated him now, far more than she had ever cared for anyone in her short life, and she was glad when she heard that he was gone, for she never wished to see him again. It was a perfectly simple state of mind. The man was a despicable traitor, in her view, and she hated herself for having ever believed in him. Her shame at the whole thing was not her own secret. That made it worse. Her father's friends knew very well that Tebaldo often came to the house and was in love with her, and had not been rebuffed. The lieutenant of carabineers himself generally came once a week to pay a visit, for he liked Basili. All the townsfolk knew it. It was a reproach, and a public one, it was a blot on her good name, and she felt it all the more painfully because she had never done anything to be ashamed of. Again and again, through the night and in the morning, the burning tears of anger at herself ran over and scalded her cheeks, and then dried as her anger rose against Tebaldo. This morning she had just been through one of these storms of tears in the solitude of her room, when Gesualda knocked at the door. Poor, ugly Gesualda, whose innocent little sin of eating an orange on the stairs one day had started the avalanche of fate that ended in the destruction of Mauro's band, the death of Francesco Pagliuca, and the ruin of Tebaldo, would have died of horror had she known that all these things were the direct consequences of Basili's broken leg, which had brought Aliandra to Randazzo, followed by the two brothers. She entered quietly and stupidly enough. 'Signorina,' she said, 'dry your eyes, for there is one who would speak with you downstairs.' 'Who is it?' asked Aliandra, impatiently. 'Will they ever let me alone? What does he want?' 'Do not be angry, signorina,' answered the woman. 'It is a young gentleman from Messina, who has a parcel for you in his hands and begs that you will kindly receive it yourself.' 'A parcel from Messina? Well--' Aliandra hesitated, but her curiosity was roused. 'Tell him that I will come down immediately,' she concluded. A few minutes later she descended the stairs, having plunged her face into cold water and done her best to remove the traces of her tears. She entered the front room and met a girlish-looking youth with close and curling brown hair, and extremely well dressed in light grey. A rather delicate hand held out a parcel to her, as he bowed respectfully. 'I was commissioned to hand you this parcel, signorina,' said the Moscio. 'It is from one of your greatest admirers.' 'From whom is it?' she asked quickly, as she took the heavy little package. 'That is your friend's secret. He only begs that you will open it when you are alone. It contains a little surprise for you. I thank you for your kindness in receiving me, signorina. Good morning.' He bowed and moved quickly towards the door. 'But you, signore--what is your name? I am infinitely obliged--' 'My name is Angelo Laria, signorina. Good morning.' Before she could stop him, he had left the room, and she heard the front door shut immediately afterwards. She looked out through the closed blinds, and there was no one within sight. It was as though she had dreamed of the visitor. Then she felt the package, shook it, weighed it, began to undo it, changed her mind, and went swiftly up the stairs to her own room. It might be an ornament or a jewel, she thought, sent to the celebrated singer by an unknown admirer--possibly the well-dressed young gentleman who had brought it was himself the giver, in spite of what he said. At all events she would look at it in private. She bolted the door of her room, sat down near the window in order to have plenty of light, and opened the parcel carefully. It contained a letter sealed, addressed to her, and folded round the black leathern sheath of Tebaldo's knife. She took the letter in one hand and the knife in the other, turning over the latter curiously. But she was too much a Sicilian not to have heard of such messages, and she guessed that the letter contained either a threat or a warning. She tore open the envelope and read the contents eagerly. There were two large sheets, tolerably closely written in excellent handwriting, and beginning as follows:-- 'Signorina,--We, who are beyond laws, do not betray even our enemies to the law, much less our friends. We have little, but we have honour. The man to whom this knife belonged has neither, and against him, and such as he, we warn women like yourself, who are young, beautiful, and honest. These words are not written to the incomparable artist, the matchless singer, the wonder of Sicily, and the pride of the nation. They are addressed to you--simply as Aliandra Basili, an honourable Sicilian maiden, the daughter of an honest Sicilian notary. It is known to us all that you have put your faith and trust in Tebaldo Pagliuca. Consider what is here written, your own honour and your father's name, and do not marry one who has betrayed his friends to death and captivity, and who, moreover, murdered his own brother with the weapon I now place in your hands. Judas was an honourable man compared with your betrothed husband, Tebaldo Pagliuca.' Aliandra stopped at this point, read the last sentences again, and glanced at the knife she still held in one hand. With a movement of horror and disgust she threw it from her. Then she hesitated, rose, picked it up, and hid it in a drawer before she continued reading. The letter went on to tell the story of the last four days in detail, from the time when Tebaldo had sent for the Moscio to sup with him at the inn, till Tebaldo's departure from Randazzo. Aliandra did not pause till she reached the last sentences, but there was the bright red flush of anger and shame in her cheeks. There is perhaps no such cruel shame in human nature as that a woman feels at the disgrace of the man she has accepted as husband or lover. She paused, bit her lips, and then read to the end. 'This is not an anonymous letter, signorina. I who write to you am known as the Moscio, but many people call me Angelo Laria. I am he who by a miracle escaped from the massacre the night before last, when all my friends were dead or taken and I had not a shot left to fire. When I leave you I am going to the inn where Tebaldo Pagliuca stayed, for I will not send such a letter as this and then slink away like a thief. It is in your power, if you have read this at once, to inform the authorities and have me taken. I am not even armed. We, who have no law, do not betray our friends, but we warn our women against such men as Tebaldo Pagliuca, and we know that they will not betray us treacherously as he did.' There was no signature, for none was necessary. There were few in Sicily who had not heard the name of the Moscio, and many strangely romantic stories were told of him. Some may think that, considering what the man was, Aliandra should have delivered him up forthwith to justice. She would as soon have stabbed her father in the back. But gradually, as she leaned back in her chair, staring at the wall, the angry flush subsided from her cheeks and a dreamy look came into her face. 'This outlaw is at least a man and a brave one,' she said to herself, as she thought of him. The Moscio was quite safe, so far as she was concerned. She folded the letter carefully, returning it to its envelope, and then, taking the stout paper in which it had been wrapped, she opened the drawer, took the knife and rolled it up with the letter again, tying it, as she had received it. After that she took sealing-wax and sealed it with the little emblem of Sicily which she carried on a thin chain with other trinkets--the three legs growing out of a human head, for the three capes of the triangular island. Tebaldo had disappeared without a word, and she naturally believed that he had gone to Rome to escape the vengeance of the Moscio and of any friends the latter might have. Aliandra was sure he must know that she would never see him again, for though many of the details written by the outlaw were new to her, besides the main fact of Francesco's murder, the fact of the betrayal of the band by Tebaldo was public property. He had gone to Rome without so much as attempting to defend himself. And now she had in her hands the proofs that Tebaldo had killed his brother, or what she believed to be proofs, though the law might have thought differently. She had, at least, the certainty, for it did not enter her head that the Moscio could be trying to deceive her. Yet she would not take these proofs to the deputy prefect, nor show them to her father. She was not a detective. The idea of giving the murderer up was repugnant to her, though in a less degree than the thought of informing against the Moscio himself. She wondered what Tebaldo would do next. Thinking it over, she came to the rather unexpected conclusion that he had gone to Rome in order to marry the American heiress at once. At first this seemed wild, but she grew accustomed to the thought in a few moments, and it impressed her. There would be much in favour of the plan, if he could carry it out. Once married to Miss Slayback and her millions, Tebaldo could leave Italy for ever and spend the rest of his life as he pleased. The mafia could not pursue him to a foreign country. Even in Rome he would be comparatively safe, for Rome, she thought, was a very civilised capital, and one man could not easily wait for another in the Villa Borghese as he could at the turning of a lonely Sicilian road. The more she thought of it, the more certain she felt that he meant to marry Miss Slayback. All the details of her last interview with Francesco came back vividly. Knowing, now, that Tebaldo had killed him, she was more willing than before to believe everything Francesco had said. Tebaldo had loved her, in a fierce and brutal way, but he had never meant to marry her at all. He had meant something else. Her cheeks burned once more, and her eyes flashed dangerously. He should not marry Miss Slayback, either, she thought. Then she reflected a little more calmly on her own position, and she decided to leave Randazzo at once. After what had happened, she could not stay in her native town, ashamed to show her face in the streets. Even the outlaw had known that she was engaged to marry Tebaldo Pagliuca. The very children would point at her. Her father was much better, and she communicated her decision to him. He was very grim and silent about it all, but he thought she was wise. He should soon be on his legs again; at all events, she had helped him to get over the most tiresome part of his recovery from the accident, and he now attended to his business regularly with his clerk and received his clients in his room. Aliandra made her preparations and left on the following day, in the very carriage which had taken Tebaldo to the station of Piedimonte. And she, too, had the old carriage closed and drew down the ragged blinds. The boys in the street did not know who was inside, but they had heard how Tebaldo had driven away, and seeing the blinds down, they ran along by the door, yelling in derision. 'Another betrayer! Another Judas! Curses on the souls of his dead!' they cried. The coachman lashed at them with his whip, and they fell behind, but Aliandra had understood, and her eyes flashed and the burning blush came back. She had telegraphed to her aunt, and the Signora Barbuzzi met her at the station in Messina. They reached Rome on the second day, a little less than a fortnight after they had left, and early in the afternoon. CHAPTER XXXVIII Maria Carolina was not exactly insane, but she was entirely unbalanced, and seemed to have no sane judgment in ordinary matters. Her first outbursts of grief had subsided into a profound religious melancholy, and she insisted upon being taken to a convent in which she might end her days in peace. She seemed utterly regardless of the fact that her daughter would be left alone until her surviving brother came back, if he ever returned at all, and that such a man, even as she knew him, was no fit guardian for a young girl. The doctors said that in all probability, if she were not allowed to do what she wished, she would really go mad, in her present state. They suggested that she should retire to one of the convents where ladies were received who wished to go into a religious retreat, and that one of the Sisters of the Bon Secours should obtain permission to live with Vittoria for a few days until her brother arrived. Vittoria, worn out with anxiety and sorrow, did not know how to face this new difficulty. Miss Lizzie Slayback insisted that she should come and stay with her and her aunt at the hotel. After a little hesitation, she accepted, for it seemed the only solution of the difficulty. The American girl had become sincerely attached to her Italian friend, and felt herself drawn to Vittoria for the sake of having been on the point of marrying Tebaldo, a state of mind which is natural to some characters and utterly unnatural to others. It was a generous impulse, at all events. Vittoria went with her mother to the convent and helped her to install herself, and on the same afternoon she moved with her maid to the Hotel Bristol. She was like a lovely shadow. 'I am so tired,' she said, when she sat down at last beside Miss Lizzie. 'Rest, dear, rest,' answered the American girl, drawing the weary head down to her shoulder. As the hours went by, and she felt the freedom of not being obliged to go back to the sadness of her mother's society, Vittoria revived a little. But her life was almost more than she could bear. The papers had been full of the capture of Mauro's band, and of her brother's share in it, for the story had spread like wildfire over Sicily. Even the Roman papers made scathing allusions to Tebaldo's possible relations with the brigands, and while congratulating the government on its victory, made sarcastic enquiries into the state of the betrayer's conscience. It was indeed hard for Vittoria to bear. She had no news of Tebaldo himself, who seemed to have disappeared mysteriously. Her mother had practically abandoned her in her selfish and half-insane sorrow. She felt herself utterly alone in the world. Orsino gravely read the articles in the papers, and wished that he could silence them for Vittoria's sake. Had there ever been so much as a mention of her name, or even of her mother's, he would have taken active measures to do so. But the editors were careful never to allude to Tebaldo's family, and it was out of the question to hinder them from speaking of him as they chose. So far as Orsino knew, the man was quite able to defend himself. Sant' Ilario read the accounts aloud to his father and to Corona. Sometimes Ippolito listened, but Orsino always made an excuse for leaving the room, preferring to read the news for himself. There was a perpetual subdued anxiety in the great household, on Ippolito's account, with an eager expectation that in the course of the present events the mystery of Francesco's death should be cleared up. Their friends looked upon the affair very much as though it had taken place in Africa or the South Seas, for Sicily seems very remote to Roman society. They laughed at the idea that Ippolito could really ever be brought to trial. Even the Minister of Justice, who was a friend of Sant' Ilario's, smiled and said that the law had means of putting off the trial for a long time in order that satisfactory evidence might be obtained. But no such evidence was forthcoming. The judge who had heard the case in Messina had been to Santa Vittoria, but had met with the most complete substantiation of Tebaldo's own story. He had not even thought of causing the grating under the altar to be opened. Nothing new transpired, and Ippolito resolutely held his tongue. In order to avoid being questioned by his many acquaintances, he saw as few people as he could, and spent much time over his music in Orsino's room. The two brothers were as fond of each other as ever, but when they were together they were much more silent than formerly. The secret preoccupation of each conflicted with that of the other, and the peace between them depended upon silence for its security. Nor did anyone in the household know that Orsino had seen Vittoria several times at Mrs. Slayback's, still less that the American lady and her niece always managed to leave the two alone together for a while on such occasions. Orsino was determined that nothing should come between him and Vittoria, but at the present juncture it was impossible for him to insist upon his family's consent to his marriage. Vittoria, on her side, had given up all hope, though her love gained upon her sorrows in the struggle for her soul. She was too lonely not to love her love for its companionship, too weary not to love Orsino for his strength, and yet too desolate to believe that happiness could wait for her while the cruel hours and days crawled slowly on. It had seemed easy long ago--a month or a little more, at most--when Orsino had first gone to Sicily. It had seemed possible when he had come back that first time, even though he had killed her own brother in self-defence. But there was no more possibility now. She felt that this was the end of her race. Some fearful thing must happen to Tebaldo, and she should be left alone, the last of the long and evil line of the Corleone. It would be better for her, too, to go back to the convent, to the dear old nuns who knew her and had loved her and would take her back as a sister, now, to end her days in peace and innocence and devotion. Her name should be forgotten, and while she lived she could pray that the evil of it might be forgiven and the remembrance of it blotted out among men. Once or twice she had spoken in this way to Orsino, but he had stopped her suddenly and almost roughly. Come what might, he meant to marry her, and he would. That was all he said, but he meant it, and she had moments of belief when she heard the words and saw his face. He admitted, when she pressed him, that neither his father nor his mother would at present give their consent, and that there was little to choose between them, and that they were people whose minds being once made up, would not easily change. And Vittoria sadly answered that they were right, and that she should feel and act as Corona did, were she in Corona's place. Yet still Orsino smiled gravely and said that they should not hinder him at the last, for that he, too, had made up his mind, and that he was their son and like them, and could be as stubborn as they. Vittoria could not say that Orsino had once wavered in his determination since that night when he had kissed her on the bridge outside the ballroom. He was always the same, and it was small wonder that her weariness should find rest in his strength. But when he was gone, her courage sank again. She was seated alone one afternoon in Mrs. Slayback's drawing-room. The two ladies were out, but Vittoria would not drive with them in their big open carriage, to meet her old acquaintances and to feel that she was pointed out as the sister of Tebaldo Pagliuca, who had betrayed Mauro and his band. She went for little walks in the morning with Miss Lizzie, before it was hot, and sometimes in the afternoon she took a closed cab and drove to the convent to see her mother. To-day she was at home, and she had come into the drawing-room and established herself in the corner of a sofa, with a book, trying to read. But she could not care for what the book said, and the volume dropped upon her lap, while her head fell back and the low sunlight filtered through the blinds and gilded her brown hair, leaving her sad young face all in the shadow. Suddenly the door opened wide, and one of the servants of the hotel announced a visitor, in a pompous tone. 'The Signorina Basili!' he said, waited for Aliandra to enter, and he closed the door. Aliandra came in swiftly and stood before Vittoria, who half rose from her seat, startled by the singer's sudden appearance. Aliandra held something in her hand. She had never seen Vittoria, and the sunlight made the girl's hair look fair. She had ordered the servant to show her to Miss Slayback's drawing-room without announcing her, and she naturally took Vittoria for Miss Lizzie. Her handsome face was faintly flushed with anger and excitement, and her dark eyes gleamed. 'I have brought you this,' she said, holding out the Moscio's parcel, 'from the man who has deceived us both, who wished to marry you and ruin me, who has come back to marry you now--' 'Who? What?' asked Vittoria, half frightened, but mechanically taking the parcel. 'Tebaldo Pagliuca,' answered Aliandra, too much excited to notice that Vittoria spoke in Italian with an Italian's accent. 'Tebaldo Pagliuca, who betrayed his friends the outlaws to death, Tebaldo Pagliuca, who is trying to marry you for your fortune, Tebaldo Pagliuca, who killed his own brother Francesco on the steps of the altar with the knife that is in that package--' 'Merciful God!' The young girl's voice rang breaking through the room, as she sank back. 'Tebaldo Pagliuca, who confessed the crime to the priest,' continued Aliandra, working herself into a fury, 'who accused the priest of the murder, knowing that he would die with the secret rather than betray a confession--Tebaldo Pagliuca, the traitor, the betrayer, the false accuser, the murderer! The story is there, with the knife, in the paper--read it, and give him his answer when he comes to-day to kiss your hands--' 'Mercy of Heaven! Mercy of God!' moaned Vittoria, still too strong to faint or not to hear and understand every word. Aliandra believed that she had done what she had come to do. She had foiled Tebaldo effectually and for ever in any attempt he might make to marry the American heiress. With a glance at the girl's bent head, and at the soft, brown hair that looked so fair in the flecks of sunshine, she turned and left the room as quickly as she had entered it. Vittoria started as she heard the door close, looked up, and then glanced at the package in her hand. She did not quite remember what she did after that, till she found herself locked into her own room, breaking the violet seals from the brown paper, cutting the string with her nail scissors, tearing the stout paper to pieces with her little hands, her heart beating with horror and her eyes already frightened by the expectation of the knife they were to see. She saw it, a moment later, and then her heart stood still, for she had seen it many times in Tebaldo's room, during that winter, and once she had borrowed it of him to cut a strong cord from a parcel. Then came the letter, and the long and painful reading of the hideous tale. She spent a terrible half-hour, and then she sat still for a long time, and her face was almost restful. At last she rose, quite calm and decided, and began to dress herself to go out. In a quarter of an hour she was ready, and she went downstairs alone and told the porter to get her a cab. 'Palazzo Saracinesca,' she said to the cabman, 'and drive under the gate!' She went up the great staircase and asked for Corona. The footman hesitated to say whether the Princess would receive or not. Vittoria fixed her eyes on him and spoke quietly in a tone he understood. 'Be good enough to take me to the Princess's room,' she said. 'The matter is urgent.' She followed the man through the long succession of state drawing-rooms till he knocked at a side door, and immediately opened it inwards. Corona was at her table writing a note. She looked up quickly, bending her brows, and rose rather formally. She had always liked Vittoria for herself, but she had good cause to hate her name, and she had avoided the possibility of meeting the lonely girl of late. Vittoria went forward and spoke first. 'I should not have come to you for a small matter,' she said. 'But I have come to make a reparation.' 'There is none to make,' answered Corona. 'You have done nothing--' She paused, not understanding. 'You shall see. Will you sit down? It may take some time to explain--or, rather, to read. There is only one question which I must ask you first. Has Don Ippolito been acquitted or not?' Corona's face darkened. 'He has not,' she answered. 'He is at liberty on San Giacinto's security.' 'Here are the proofs of his innocence,' said Vittoria, simply, as she produced her package and laid it on Corona's lap. Corona opened her eyes in surprise, and her expression changed. 'My brother Tebaldo did it,' continued Vittoria. 'He forced your son, as a priest, to hear his confession, because Don Ippolito surprised him in the church. Then he accused him of the murder, knowing that he would keep the secret.' Corona stared, realised what the girl meant, and suddenly grasped her wrist, looking into her face. She saw the truth there, but Vittoria understood the doubt. 'When you have read, you will understand better,' said the young girl, pointing to the package. Corona said nothing, but her fingers were quick to find the letter. Vittoria rose softly and went to the window and looked out. Her hands rested on the cold stone sill and twitched nervously from time to time, but she would not turn round. She knew that what was shame and horror to her, was the joy of heaven to the mother of the accused man. Corona read in silence, intently, quickly, almost desperately. She was a generous woman. When she had finished, and the weight had fallen from her heart at last, she rose and went to Vittoria. The girl heard her step and turned. Corona was holding out both hands. 'What shall I do to make you know how grateful I am?' she asked. 'What should you do?' asked Vittoria, sadly. 'It was justice, so I came at once. The great singer--the Basili--came into the room an hour ago. I was alone. She took me for Miss Slayback, with whom I am staying, and before I could speak she had told the truth and given me the package and was gone. So I brought it to you. I trust you to spare my poor brother if you can. Keep the secret, if you can, now that you know the truth. Perhaps something else may prove Don Ippolito innocent long before the trial. But if nothing else will do--why then, you have his innocence in your hands.' 'Where is he?' asked Corona. 'Where is your brother?' 'I do not know. It is several days since he has telegraphed. He never writes. The Basili spoke as though he were in Rome, but I do not think he is. I will go home, please. I am a little tired. You will keep the secret if you can, will you not?' 'Yes. No one shall know it unless it is necessary. But you, child--' She put her arm round Vittoria, for the girl looked shadowy and faint as she leaned against the table by the window. Vittoria straightened herself, and opened and shut her eyes once or twice as though waking. 'There is nothing the matter,' she said rather proudly. 'I am very well. I am glad that you are happy.' 'You have given me back my life,' answered Corona. 'Some day--but there are no thanks for such things.' Vittoria began to go towards the door. She wanted no thanks, yet somehow she had hoped that Corona would speak differently, remembering how she had once been left by her with Orsino in that very room. The Princess walked with her to the hall. 'I shall not forget this, my dear,' she said, almost solemnly, as she pressed the passive little hand. 'I shall come and see you soon.' As Vittoria drove back to the Piazza Barberini, she felt as though the very desolation of loneliness were beside her in the shabby little cab. But Corona had never been a woman of many words, and she meant more than she said when she told Vittoria that she should not forget. CHAPTER XXXIX Corona regretted the promise of secrecy which Vittoria had obtained from her, as soon as she found herself alone and able to think over the situation calmly. She had no secrets from her husband, and few of any kind, and it was hard to keep silence when Giovanni discussed Ippolito's position and the possibilities of obtaining the evidence necessary to clear Ippolito. She had, indeed, the sort of satisfaction which a woman feels all the more keenly when she feels it alone, with the certainty that everyone else will soon know what she knows, for she saw that Ippolito had behaved with almost heroic constancy. But she would soon begin to long for the moment when others would see that he was a hero. Being naturally a calm woman, and somewhat reserved, even with her own family, her face did not betray her at first. Yet she hardly dared to look at Ippolito that evening, lest her happiness should break like light from her eyes. Her difficulty was a considerable one, however, and puzzled her at first. In her own room she read and re-read the Moscio's letter, and her maturer judgment told her what neither Aliandra nor Vittoria had understood in their impetuosity. The law would look upon this so-called evidence as a piece of vengeance on the part of a brigand, and would attach little value to it. Why, the law would ask, since the brigand professed to hold proofs that could ruin his enemy, had he not sent them to the carabineers? The answer must take the very unsatisfactory form of a dissertation on Sicilian character in general, and on that of the Moscio in particular; whereas, while he was still at large, his character could be but an unknown quantity. It might be proved, of course, that the knife had belonged to Tebaldo. But it would be hard to show how the Moscio had come by it. To demonstrate Ippolito's innocence something more was necessary. Corona made up her mind that she would see Tebaldo himself and force him to a confession of his crime. It did not occur to her to fear such a meeting, or even to hesitate, after she had once made up her mind. The difficulty lay in finding the man immediately. She did not believe that Vittoria had deceived her in saying that she did not know where her brother might be, but she supposed that he would soon come to Rome, and decided to wait for him. She sent frequently to enquire at the house where the Corleone had lived. The servants knew nothing. She wrote a note to Vittoria at Mrs. Slayback's, but Vittoria had no news. Corona wrote to the Minister of Justice. She knew him very well, and told him that in the matter of the accusation against her son she wished to communicate with Don Tebaldo Pagliuca, but could not find out where he was. To her surprise the Minister's answer gave her the information she wished. Tebaldo, said the note, was dangerously ill in Messina at a certain hotel. Owing to the strong feeling which existed against him in Sicily, it had been thought necessary to protect him, and the government was, therefore, kept constantly apprised of his condition through the office of the prefect of Messina. He was very ill indeed, and was not expected to recover. The information was clear, but the thought that Tebaldo might die without having cleared Ippolito was anything but reassuring. Corona's instinct was to start at once, but she remembered her promise to Vittoria, and did not see how she could make such a journey without informing her husband and giving some explanation of her conduct. She went to his room as soon as she knew what she must do. 'Giovanni,' she said, 'I wish you to go to Sicily with me at once. I must go to Messina.' Giovanni looked at her sharply in surprise. 'Are you ill, my dear?' he enquired. 'Is it for a change? Is anything the matter?' Corona laughed, for she had never been ill in her life. The mere idea seemed ludicrous to her. 'Can you imagine me ill?' she asked. 'No. I will tell you what I can. Someone has told me something, making me promise not to tell anyone else--' 'Your informant is a woman, dear,' observed Giovanni, smiling. 'Never mind who it was. But from what was told me I know that if I can go to Messina I can get evidence which will clear Ippolito completely. So I came to you.' 'Are you positively sure?' asked Sant' Ilario. 'It is a long journey.' 'We shall travel together,' answered Corona, as though that answered every objection. 'I should like it very much. Do you wish to start to-day?' 'Yes. The man is said to be dying at a hotel in Messina.' It amused them both to make a mystery of going away together, though it was not the first time that they had done such a thing, and Sant' Ilario's presence lightened the anxiety which Corona still felt as to the result of the journey. They reached Messina at evening and drove to the wretched hotel where Tebaldo lay dying, for there was no other in the city, in which they could have lodged at all. Half an hour later Corona entered the sick man's room. The sister who was nursing him rose in surprise as the Princess entered, and laid her finger on her lips. Tebaldo appeared to be asleep. 'Is he better?' whispered Corona. But the sister shook her head and pointed to his face. It was like a yellow shadow on the white pillow, in the soft light of the single candle, before which the nurse had set a book upright on the table, as a shade. Corona stood still by the side of the bed and looked down at what remained of the man who had done such terrible deeds during the last month. The colourless lips were parted and displayed the sharp, white teeth, and the half-grown beard gave something wolfish to the face. The lids were not quite closed and showed the whites of the eyes. Corona felt suddenly that he was going to die in his unconsciousness without speaking. Even if he revived for a moment, he might not understand her. The candle flickered, and she thought the lids quivered. 'He is dying,' she said in a low voice. 'But he must speak to me before he dies.' 'Are you his mother, madam?' asked the sister, in a whisper. 'No!' Corona's great eyes blazed upon the nun's face. Then she spoke gently again. 'I am the mother of the priest he falsely accused. Before he dies he must tell the truth.' A faint smile moved the wasted lips, and the lids slowly opened. Then he spoke, almost naturally. 'You have come to see me die. I understand.' 'No,' said Corona, speaking clearly and distinctly. 'I have come to hear the truth about my son, from your own lips, as I know it from others--' The yellow face shivered and the eyes stared. There was a convulsive effort of the head to rise from the pillow. 'Who told you?' The question gurgled in the throat. 'Your sister told me--' 'I have no sister.' The head fell back again, and the twisting smile took possession of the lips. 'Vittoria is your sister. You are Tebaldo Pagliuca.' Corona bent down towards him anxiously, for she feared that he was wandering, and that the truth must escape her at last. 'Oh no! Vittoria is not my sister. I remember when she was brought to Camaldoli by the outlaws when I was a boy.' Corona bent lower still and stared into the open eyes. Their expression was quite natural and quiet, though the voice was faint now. 'It is better that someone should know,' it said. 'I know, because I saw her brought. The brigands stole her from her nurse's arms. Vittoria is the daughter of Fornasco. They frightened my father and mother--they brought the child at night--in trying to get a ransom they were all taken, but none of them would tell--there is a paper of my father's, sealed--in Rome, among my things. He always said that we might be accused, though they managed to make people believe it was my mother's child, for fear of the brigands--I cannot tell you all that. You will find it in the papers.' The eyelids closed again, but the lips still moved. Corona bent down. 'Water,' said the parched whisper. They gave him drink quickly, but he could hardly swallow it. He was going fast. 'Call the doctor,' said Corona to the nurse. 'He is dying. Has he seen a priest? Call my husband!' 'I had sent for a priest,' answered the nurse, leaving the room hastily. For many minutes Tebaldo gasped painfully for breath. In his suffering Corona raised the pillow with his head upon it, tenderly and carefully. 'You are dying,' she said softly. 'Commend your soul--pray for forgiveness!' It was horrible to her belief to see him dying unconfessed in his many sins. 'Quickly--lose no time!' she urged. 'Think of God--think of one prayer! It may be too late in a moment--' 'Too late?' he cried suddenly, with a revival of strength. 'Too late? But I shall catch him on the hill! Gallop, mare, gallop--there, there! So! We shall do it yet. I am lighter than old Basili! One more stretch! There he is! Gallop, mare, gallop, for I shall catch him on the hill!' One hand grasped the sheet like a bridle, the other patted it encouragingly. Corona stared and listened breathlessly, half in horror, half in expectation. She did not hear the door open, as someone came in. The dying man raved on. 'What? Down? He has killed his horse? It shied at the woman in black! He will try the church door--on, mare, gallop! We shall catch him there!' A hideous glare of rage and hatred was in the burning eyes. The twisted and discoloured lips set themselves like blue steel. The right hand struck out wildly. Then the eyes fixed themselves upon the young priest who stood beside Corona, and whom she had not seen till then. Tebaldo sat up as though raised by a spring, suddenly. He grasped the priest's ready hands and looked up into his face, seeing only him, though the doctor and the nurse were close by. 'I confess to Almighty God,' he began-- And word for word, as he had confessed to Ippolito alone in the little church, he went through the whole confession, quickly, clearly, in a loud voice, holding the priest's hands. Who should say that it was not a true confession now? That at the last, the dream of terror did not change to the reality of remorse? The priest's voice spoke the words of forgiveness, and he bent down above Corona's kneeling figure, that the dying man might hear. But before the last merciful word was spoken, the last of the Corleone lay stone dead on his pillow. He was buried beside his two brothers in the little cemetery of Santa Vittoria, for the sister had promised him that, when he knew that he was dying. And outside the gate, when it was all over, a figure in black came and knelt down upon the rough, broken stones, and two white hands grasped the painted iron rails, and a low voice came from beneath the little black shawl. 'Mother of God, three black crosses! Mother of God, three black crosses!' And there were three black crosses, side by side. CHAPTER XL It might have been a long and difficult matter to establish Vittoria's identity, if Maria Carolina had been really insane, as it had been feared that she might be. She was beyond further suffering, perhaps, when the third of her sons was dead, but her mind was clear enough under the intense religious melancholy that had settled upon her in her grief. The fact of her having been willing and anxious to leave Vittoria at such a time now explained itself. The girl was not her daughter, and in the intensity of her sorrow the bereaved mother felt that she was a stranger, if not a burden. Yet she kept the secret, out of a sort of fear that even after eighteen years the revelation of it might bring about some unimaginably dreadful consequence to herself, and as though the Duca di Fornasco could still accuse her of having helped to steal his child, by receiving her from the brigands. The fact was that the outlaws had terrified the Corleone at the time, threatening them with total destruction if they refused to conceal the infant. They were poor and lived in an isolated neighbourhood, more or less in fear of their lives, at a time when brigandage was the rule, and when the many bands that existed in the island were under the general direction of the terrible Leone. They had yielded and had kept the secret with Sicilian reticence. Tebaldo alone had been old enough to partly understand the truth, but his father had told him the whole story before dying, and had left him a clearly-written account of it, in case of any future difficulty. But Maria Carolina was alive still, and sane, and she told the truth clearly and connectedly to a lawyer, for she was glad to sever her last tie with the world, and glad, perhaps, that the stolen child should go back to her own people after all. Among her possessions were the clothes and tiny ornaments the infant had worn. Vittoria's first sensation when she knew the truth was that of a captive led into the open air after years of confinement in a poisonous air. She had been the daughter of a race of ill fame, fatherless, and all but motherless. Her three brothers had come to evil ends, one by one. She had been left alone in the world, the last representative of what so many called 'the worst blood in Italy.' She had been divided from the man she loved by a twofold bloodshed and by all the horror of her last surviving brother's crimes. Many and many a time she had stared into her mirror for an hour at night, not pleased by her own delicate loveliness, but asking herself, with heart-broken wonder, how it was possible that she could be the daughter of such a mother, the sister of such brothers, the grandchild of traitors and betrayers to generations of wickedness, back into the dim past. She had never been like them, nor felt like them, nor acted as they did, yet it had seemed mad, if not wicked, to doubt that she was one of them. And each morning, meeting them all again and living with them, there had come the shock of opposition between her inheritance of honour and their inborn disposition to treachery and crime. And now, it was not true. There was not one drop of their blood in her veins. There was not in her one taint of all that line of wickedness. It had all been a mistake and a dream and an illusion of fate, and she awoke in the morning and was free--free to face the world, to face Corona Saracinesca, to marry Orsino, without so much as a day of mourning for those who had been called her brothers. The fresh young blood came blushing back to the delicate cheeks, and the radiance of life's spring played on the fair young head. 'How beautiful you are!' exclaimed Miss Lizzie, throwing her arms round her. And Vittoria blushed again, and her eyes glistened with sheer, unbounded happiness. 'But I shall never know what to call you,' laughed Miss Lizzie. 'I am Vittoria still,' answered the other. 'But I am Vittoria Spinelli--and I come of very respectable people!' She laughed happily. 'I am related to all kinds of respectable people! There is my father, first. He is on his way to see me--and I have a brother--a real brother, to be proud of. And I am the cousin of Taquisara of Guardia--but I am Vittoria still!' Rome went half mad over the story, for the Romans had all been inclined to like Vittoria for her own sake while distrusting those who had composed her family. The instinct of an old and conservative society is very rarely wrong in such matters. The happy ending of the tragedy of the Corleone was a sincere relief to every one; and many who had known the Duca di Fornasco in the days when his infant daughter had been carried off and had seen how his whole life had been saddened during eighteen years by the cruel loss, rejoiced in the vast joy of his later years. For he had many friends, and was a man honoured and loved by those who knew him. 'I have always believed that I should find you, my dear child,' he said, when his eyes had cleared and he could see Vittoria through the dazzling happiness of the first meeting. 'But I have often feared to find you, and I never dared to hope that I should find you what you are.' It seemed to her that the very tone of his voice was like her own, as his brown eyes were like hers. And later, he took Orsino's hand and laid it in his daughter's and pressed the two together. 'You loved more wisely than you knew,' he said. 'But I know how bravely you loved, when you would not give her up, nor yield to anyone. Your father will not refuse to take my daughter from my hands, I think.' 'He will be as proud to take her as I am,' said Orsino. 'Or as I am to give her to such a man as you.' So Orsino was married at last, and this tale comes to its happy end. For he was happy, and his people took his wife to themselves as one of them, and loved her for her own sake as well as for his; and they loved her, too, for the many troubles she had so bravely borne, under the disgrace of a name not her own. But neither were her sorrows hers, any more. 'Such things can only happen in Italy,' said Mrs. Slayback, after the wedding. 'I am glad that nothing worse happened,' answered her niece, thoughtfully. 'To think that I might have married that man! To think that I cared for him! But I always felt that Vittoria was not his sister. If I ever marry, I shall marry an American.' She laughed, though there was a little ache left in her heart. But she knew that it would not last long, for she had not been very desperately in earnest, after all. THE END _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. 
5227	----	SANT' ILARIO BY F. MARION CRAWFORD AUTHOR OF "MR. ISAACS," "DR. CLAUDIUS," "ZOROASTER," "A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH," ETC. TO My Wife THIS SECOND PART OF "SARACINESCA" IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED CHAPTER I. Two years of service in the Zouaves had wrought a change in Anastase Gouache, the painter. He was still a light man, nervously built, with small hands and feet, and a delicate face; but constant exposure to the weather had browned his skin, and a life of unceasing activity had strengthened his sinews and hardened his compact frame. The clustering black curls were closely cropped, too, while the delicate dark moustache had slightly thickened. He had grown to be a very soldierly young fellow, straight and alert, quick of hand and eye, inured to that perpetual readiness which is the first characteristic of the good soldier, whether in peace or war. The dreamy look that was so often in his face in the days when he sat upon a high stool painting the portrait of Donna Tullia Mayer, had given place to an expression of wide-awake curiosity in the world's doings. Anastase was an artist by nature and no amount of military service could crush the chief aspirations of his intelligence. He had not abandoned work since he had joined the Zouaves, for his hours of leisure from duty were passed in his studio. But the change in his outward appearance was connected with a similar development in his character. He himself sometimes wondered how he could have ever taken any interest in the half-hearted political fumbling which Donna Tullia, Ugo Del Ferice, and others of their set used to dignify by the name of conspiracy. It seemed to him that his ideas must at that time have been deplorably confused and lamentably unsettled. He sometimes took out the old sketch of Madame Mayer's portrait, and setting it upon his easel, tried to realise and bring back those times when she had sat for him. He could recall Del Ferice's mock heroics, Donna Tullia's ill-expressed invectives, and his own half-sarcastic sympathy in the liberal movement; but the young fellow in an old velveteen jacket who used to talk glibly about the guillotine, about stringing-up the clericals to street-lamps and turning the churches into popular theatres, was surely not the energetic, sunburnt Zouave who had been hunting down brigands in the Samnite hills last summer, who spent three-fourths of his time among soldiers like himself, and who had pledged his honour to follow the gallant Charette and defend the Pope as long as he could carry a musket. There is a sharp dividing line between youth and manhood. Sometimes we cross it early, and sometimes late, but we do not know that we are passing from one life to another as we step across the boundary. The world seems to us the same for a while, as we knew it yesterday and shall know it to-morrow. Suddenly, we look back and start with astonishment when we see the past, which we thought so near, already vanishing in the distance, shapeless, confused, and estranged from our present selves. Then, we know that we are men, and acknowledge, with something like a sigh, that we have put away childish things. When Gouache put on the gray jacket, the red sash and the yellow gaiters, he became a man and speedily forgot Donna Tullia and her errors, and for some time afterwards he did not care to recall them. When he tried to remember the scenes at the studio in the Via San Basilio, they seemed very far away. One thing alone constantly reminded him disagreeably of the past, and that was his unfortunate failure to catch Del Ferice when the latter had escaped from Rome in the disguise of a mendicant friar. Anastase had never been able to understand how he had missed the fugitive. It had soon become known that Del Ferice had escaped by the very pass which Gouache was patrolling, and the young Zouave had felt the bitterest mortification in losing so valuable and so easy a prey. He often thought of it and promised himself that he would visit his anger on Del Ferice if he ever got a chance; but Del Ferice was out of reach of his vengeance, and Donna Tullia Mayer had not returned to Rome since the previous year. It had been rumoured of late that she had at last fulfilled the engagement contracted some time earlier, and had consented to be called the Contessa Del Ferice; this piece of news, however, was not yet fully confirmed. Gouache had heard the gossip, and had immediately made a lively sketch on the back of a half-finished picture, representing Donna Tullia, in her bridal dress, leaning upon the arm of Del Ferice, who was arrayed in a capuchin's cowl, and underneath, with his brush, he scrawled a legend, "Finis coronat opus." It was nearly six o'clock in the afternoon of the 23d of September. The day had been rainy, but the sky had cleared an hour before sunset, and there was a sweet damp freshness in the air, very grateful after the long weeks of late summer. Anastase Gouache had been on duty at the Serristori barracks in the Borgo Santo Spirito and walked briskly up to the bridge of Sant' Angelo. There was not much movement in the streets, and the carriages were few. A couple of officers were lounging at the gate of the castle and returned Gouache's salute as he passed. In the middle of the bridge he stopped and looked westward, down the short reach of the river which caught a lurid reflection of the sunset on its eddying yellow surface. He mused a moment, thinking more of the details of his duty at the barracks than of the scene before him. Then he thought of the first time he had crossed the bridge in his Zouave uniform, and a faint smile flickered on his brown features. It happened almost every day that he stopped at the same place, and as particular spots often become associated with ideas that seem to belong to them, the same thought almost always recurred to his mind as he stood there. Then followed the same daily wondering as to how all these things were to end; whether he should for years to come wear the red sash and the yellow gaiters, a corporal of Zouaves, and whether for years he should ask himself every day the same question. Presently, as the light faded from the houses of the Borgo, he turned away with an imperceptible shrug of the shoulders and continued his walk upon the narrow pavement at the side of the bridge. As he descended the step at the end, to the level of the square, a small bright object in a crevice of the stones attracted his attention. He stooped and picked it up. It was a little gold pin, some two inches long, the head beaten out and twisted into the shape of the letter C. Gouache examined it attentively, and saw that it must have been long used, for it was slightly bent in more than one place as though it had often been thrust through some thick material. It told no other tale of its possessor, however, and the young man slipped it into his pocket and went on his way, idly wondering to whom the thing belonged. He reflected that if he had been bent on any important matter he would probably have considered the finding of a bit of gold as a favourable omen; but he was merely returning to his lodging as usual, and had no engagement for the evening. Indeed, he expected no event in his life at that time, and following the train of his meditation he smiled a little when he thought that he was not even in love. For a Frenchman, nearly thirty years of age, the position was an unusual one enough. In Gouache's case it was especially remarkable. Women liked him, he liked them, and he was constantly in the society of some of the most beautiful in the world. Nevertheless, he turned from one to another and found a like pleasure in the conversation of them all. What delighted him in the one was not what charmed him most in the next, but the equilibrium of satisfaction was well maintained between the dark and the fair, the silent beauty and the pretty woman of intelligence. There was indeed one whom he thought more noble in heart and grander in symmetry of form and feature, and stronger in mind than the rest; but she was immeasurably removed from the sphere of his possible devotion by her devoted love of her husband, and he admired her from a distance, even while speaking with her. As he passed the Apollo theatre and ascended the Via di Tordinona the lights were beginning to twinkle in the low doorways, and the gas-lamps, then a very recent innovation in Rome, shone out one by one in the distance. The street is narrow, and was full of traffic, even in the evening. Pedestrians elbowed their way along in the dusk, every now and then flattening themselves against the dingy walls to let a cab or a carriage rush past them, not without real risk of accident. Before the deep, arched gateway of the Orso, one of the most ancient inns in the world, the empty wine-carts were getting ready for the return journey by night across the Campagna, the great bunches of little bells jingling loudly in the dark as the carters buckled the harness on their horses' backs. Just as Gouache reached this place, the darkest and most crowded through which he had to pass, a tremendous clatter and rattle from the Via dell' Orso made the hurrying people draw back to the shelter of the doorsteps and arches. It was clear that a runaway horse was not far off. One of the carters, the back of whose waggon was half-way across the opening of the street, made desperate efforts to make his beast advance and clear the way; but the frightened animal only backed farther up. A moment later the runaway charged down past the tail of the lumbering vehicle. The horse himself just cleared the projecting timbers of the cart, but the cab he was furiously dragging caught upon them while going at full speed and was shivered to pieces, throwing the horse heavily upon the stones, so that he slid along several feet on his head and knees with the fragments of the broken shafts and the wreck of the harness about him. The first man to spring from the crowd and seize the beast's head was Anastase. He did not see that the same instant a large private carriage, drawn by a pair of powerful horses, emerged quickly from the Vicolo dei Soldati, the third of the streets which meet the Via di Tordinona at the Orso. The driver, who owing to the darkness had not seen the disaster which had just taken place, did his best to stop in time; but before the heavy equipage could be brought to a stand Anastase had been thrown to the ground, between the hoofs of the struggling cab-horse and the feet of the startled pair of bays. The crowd closed in as near as was safe, while the confusion and the shouts of the people and the carters increased every minute. The coachman of the private carriage threw the reins to the footman and sprang down to go to the horses' heads. "You have run over a Zouave!" some one shouted from the crowd. "Meno male! Thank goodness it was not one of us!" exclaimed another voice. "Where is he? Get him out, some of you!" cried the coachman as he seized the reins close to the bit. By this time a couple of stout gendarmes and two or three soldiers of the Antibes legion had made their way to the front and were dragging away the fallen cab-horse. A tall, thin, elderly gentleman, of a somewhat sour countenance, descended from the carriage and stooped over the injured soldier. "It is only a Zouave, Excellency," said the coachman, with a sort of sigh of relief. The tall gentleman lifted Gouache's head a little so that the light from the carriage-lamp fell upon his face. He was quite insensible, and there was blood upon his pale forehead and white cheeks. One of the gendarmes came forward. "We will take care of him, Signore," he said, touching his three-cornered hat. "But I must beg to know your revered name," he added, in the stock Italian phrase. "Capira--I am very sorry--but they say your horses--" "Put him into my carriage," answered the elderly gentleman shortly. "I am the Principe Montevarchi." "But, Excellency--the Signorina---" protested the coachman. The prince paid no attention to the objection and helped the gendarme to deposit Anastase in the interior of the vehicle. Then he gave the man a silver scudo. "Send some one to the Serristori barracks to say that a Zouave has been hurt and is at my house," he said. Therewith he entered the carriage and ordered the coachman to drive home. "In heaven's name, what has happened, papa?" asked a young voice in the darkness, tremulous with excitement. "My dear child, there has been an accident in the street, and this young man has been wounded, or killed--" "Killed! A dead man in the carriage!" cried the young girl in some terror, and shrinking away into the corner. "You should really control your nerves, Faustina," replied her father in austere tones. "If the young man is dead, it is the will of Heaven. If he is alive we shall soon find it out. Meanwhile I must beg you to be calm--to be calm, do you understand?" Donna Faustina Montevarchi made no answer to this parental injunction, but withdrew as far as she could into the corner of the back seat, while her father supported the inanimate body of the Zouave as the carriage swung over the uneven pavement. In a few minutes they rolled beneath a deep arch and stopped at the foot of a broad marble staircase. "Bring him upstairs carefully, and send for a surgeon," said the prince to the men who came forward. Then he offered his arm to his daughter to ascend the steps, as though nothing had happened, and without bestowing another look on the injured soldier. Donna Faustina was just eighteen years old, and had only quitted the convent of the Sacro Cuore a month earlier. It might have been said that she was too young to be beautiful, for she evidently belonged to that class of women who do not attain their full development until a later period. Her figure was almost too slender, her face almost too delicate and ethereal. There was about her a girlish look, an atmosphere of half-saintly maidenhood, which was not so much the expression of her real nature as the effect produced by her being at once very thin and very fresh. There was indeed nothing particularly angelic about her warm brown eyes, shaded by unusually long black lashes; and little wayward locks of chestnut hair, curling from beneath the small round hat of the period, just before the small pink ears, softened as with a breath of worldliness the grave outlines of the serious face. A keen student of women might have seen that the dim religious halo of convent life which still clung to the young girl would soon fade and give way to the brilliancy of the woman of the world. She was not tall, though of fully average height, and although the dress of that time was ill-adapted to show to advantage either the figure or the movements, it was evident, as she stepped lightly from the carriage, that she had a full share of ease and grace. She possessed that unconscious certainty in motion which proceeds naturally from the perfect proportion of all the parts, and which exercises a far greater influence over men than a faultless profile or a dazzling skin. Instead of taking her father's arm, Donna Faustina turned and looked at the face of the wounded Zouave, whom three men had carefully taken from the carriage and were preparing to carry upstairs. Poor Gouache was hardly recognisable for the smart soldier who had crossed the bridge of Sant' Angelo half an hour earlier. His uniform was all stained with mud, there was blood upon his pale face, and his limbs hung down, powerless and limp. But as the young girl looked at him, consciousness returned, and with it came the sense of acute suffering. He opened his eyes suddenly, as men often do when they revive after being stunned, and a short groan escaped from his lips. Then, as he realised that he was in the presence of a lady, he made an effort as though to release himself from the hands of those who carried him, and to stand upon his feet. "Pardon me, Madame," he began to say, but Faustina checked him by a gesture. Meanwhile old Montevarchi had carefully scrutinised the young man's face, and had recognised him, for they had often met in society. "Monsieur Gouache!" he exclaimed in surprise. At the same time he made the men move on with their burden. "You know him, papa?" whispered Donna Faustina as they followed together. "He is a gentleman? I was right?" "Of course, of course," answered her father. "But really, Faustina, had you nothing better to do than to go and look into his face? Imagine, if he had known you! Dear me! If you begin like this, as soon as you are out of the convent--" Montevarchi left the rest of the sentence to his daughter's imagination, merely turning up his eyes a little as though deprecating the just vengeance of heaven upon his daughter's misconduct. "Really, papa--" protested Faustina. "Yes--really, my daughter--I am much surprised," returned her incensed parent, still speaking in an undertone lest the injured man should overhear what was said. They reached the head of the stairs and the men carried Gouache rapidly away; not so quickly, however, as to prevent Faustina from getting another glimpse of his face. His eyes were open and met hers with an expression of mingled interest and gratitude which she did not forget. Then he was carried away and she did not see him again. The Montevarchi household was conducted upon the patriarchal principle, once general in Rome, and not quite abandoned even now, twenty years later than the date of Gouache's accident. The palace was a huge square building facing upon two streets, in front and behind, and opening inwards upon two courtyards. Upon the lower floor were stables, coach-houses, kitchens, and offices innumerable. Above these there was built a half story, called a mezzanino--in French, entresol, containing the quarters of the unmarried sons of the house, of the household chaplain, and of two or three tutors employed in the education of the Montevarchi grandchildren. Next above, came the "piano nobile," or state apartments, comprising the rooms of the prince and princess, the dining-room, and a vast suite of reception-rooms, each of which opened into the next in such a manner that only the last was not necessarily a passage. In the huge hall was the dais and canopy with the family arms embroidered in colours once gaudy but now agreeably faded to a softer tone. Above this floor was another, occupied by the married sons, their wives and children; and high over all, above the cornice of the palace, were the endless servants' quarters and the roomy garrets. At a rough estimate the establishment comprised over a hundred persons, all living under the absolute and despotic authority of the head of the house, Don Lotario Montevarchi, Principe Montevarchi, and sole possessor of forty or fifty other titles. From his will and upon his pleasure depended every act of every member of his household, from his eldest son and heir, the Duca di Bellegra, to that of Pietro Paolo, the under-cook's scullion's boy. There were three sons and four daughters. Two of the sons were married, to wit, Don Ascanio, to whom his father had given his second title, and Don Onorato, who was allowed to call himself Principe di Cantalupo, but who would have no legal claim to that distinction after his father's death. Last of the three came Don Carlo, a young fellow of twenty years, but not yet emancipated from the supervision of his tutor. Of the daughters, the two eldest, Bianca and Laura, were married and no longer lived in Rome, the one having been matched with a Neapolitan and the other with a Florentine. There remained still at home, therefore, the third, Donna Flavia, and the youngest of all the family, Donna Faustina. Though Flavia was not yet two and twenty years of age, her father and mother were already beginning to despair of marrying her, and dropped frequent hints about the advisability of making her enter religion, as they called it; that is to say, they thought she had better take the veil and retire from the world. The old princess Montevarchi was English by birth and education, but thirty-three years of life in Rome had almost obliterated all traces of her nationality. That all-pervading influence, which so soon makes Romans of foreigners who marry into Roman families, had done its work effectually. The Roman nobility, by intermarriage with the principal families of the rest of Europe, has lost many Italian characteristics; but its members are more essentially Romans than the full-blooded Italians of the other classes who dwell side by side with the aristocracy in Rome. When Lady Gwendoline Fontenoy married Don Lotario Montevarchi in the year 1834, she, no doubt, believed that her children would grow up as English as she herself, and that her husband's house would not differ materially from an establishment of the same kind in England. She laughed merrily at the provisions of the marriage contract, which even went so far as to stipulate that she was to have at least two dishes of meat at dinner, and an equivalent on fast-days, a drive every day--the traditional trottata--two new gowns every year, and a woman to wait upon her. After these and similar provisions had been agreed upon, her dowry, which was a large one for those days, was handed over to the keeping of her father-in-law and she was duly married to Don Lotario, who at once assumed the title of Duca di Bellegra. The wedding journey consisted of a fortnight's retirement in the Villa Montevarchi at Frascati, and at the end of that time the young couple were installed under the paternal roof in Rome. Before she had been in her new abode a month the young Duchessa realised the utter hopelessness of attempting to change the existing system of patriarchal government under which she found herself living. She discovered, in the first place, that she would never have five scudi of her own in her pocket, and that if she needed a handkerchief or a pair of stockings it was necessary to obtain from the head of the house not only the permission to buy such necessaries, but the money with which to pay for them. She discovered, furthermore, that if she wanted a cup of coffee or some bread and butter out of hours, those things were charged to her daily account in the steward's office, as though she had been in an inn, and were paid for at the end of the year out of the income arising from her dowry. Her husband's younger brother, who had no money of his own, could not even get a lemonade in his father's house without his father's consent. Moreover, the family life was of such a nature as almost to preclude all privacy. The young Duchessa and her husband had their bedroom in the upper story, but Don Lotario's request that his wife might have a sitting-room of her own was looked upon as an attempt at a domestic revolution, and the privilege was only obtained at last through the formidable intervention of the Duke of Agincourt, the Duchessa's own father. All the family meals, too, were eaten together in the solemn old dining-hall, hung with tapestries and dingy with the dust of ages. The order of precedence was always strictly observed, and though the cooking was of a strange kind, no plate or dish was ever used which was not of solid silver, battered indeed, and scratched, and cleaned only after Italian ideas, but heavy and massive withal. The Duchessa soon learned that the old Roman houses all used silver plates from motives of economy, for the simple reason that metal did not break. But the sensible English woman saw also that although the most rigid economy was practised in many things, there was lavish expenditure in many departments of the establishment. There were magnificent horses in the stables, gorgeously gilt carriages in the coach-houses, scores of domestics in bright liveries at every door. The pay of the servants did not, indeed, exceed the average earnings of a shoe-black in London, but the coats they wore were exceeding glorious with gold lace. It was clear from the first that nothing was expected of Don Lotario's wife but to live peaceably under the patriarchal rule, making no observations and offering no suggestions. Her husband told her that he was powerless to introduce any changes, and added, that since his father and all his ancestors had always lived in the same way, that way was quite good enough for him. Indeed, he rather looked forward to the time when he should be master of the house, having children under him whom he might rule as absolutely and despotically as he was ruled himself. In the course of years the Duchessa absorbed the traditions of her new home, so that they became part of her, and as everything went on unchanged from year to year she acquired unchanging habits which corresponded with her surroundings. Then, when at last the old prince and princess were laid side by side in the vault of the family chapel and she was princess in her turn, she changed nothing, but let everything go on in the same groove, educating her children and managing them, as her husband had been educated and as she herself had been managed by the old couple. Her husband grew more and more like his father, punctilious, rigid; a strict observant in religious matters, a pedant in little things, prejudiced against all change; too satisfied to desire improvement, too scrupulously conscientious to permit any retrogression from established rule, a model of the immutability of an ancient aristocracy, a living paradigm of what always had been and a stubborn barrier against all that might be. Such was the home to which Donna Faustina Montevarchi returned to live after spending eight years in the convent of the Sacro Cuore. During that time she had acquired the French language, a slight knowledge of music, a very limited acquaintance with the history of her own country, a ready memory for prayers and litanies--and her manners. Manners among the Italians are called education. What we mean by the latter word, namely, the learning acquired, is called, more precisely, instruction. An educated person means a person who has acquired the art of politeness. An instructed person means some one who has learnt rather more than the average of what is generally learnt by the class of people to whom he belongs. Donna Faustina was extremely well educated, according to Roman ideas, but her instruction was not, and was not intended to be, any better than that imparted to the young girls with whom she was to associate in the world. As far as her character was concerned, she herself knew very little of it, and would probably have found herself very much embarrassed if called upon to explain what character meant. She was new and the world was very old. The nuns had told her that she must never care for the world, which was a very sinful place, full of thorns, ditches, pitfalls and sinners, besides the devil and his angels. Her sister Flavia, on the contrary, assured her that the world was very agreeable, when mamma happened to go to sleep in a corner during a ball; that all men were deceivers, but that when a man danced well it made no difference whether he were a deceiver or not, since he danced with his legs and not with his conscience; that there was no happiness equal to a good cotillon, and that there were a number of these in every season; and, finally, that provided one did not spoil one's complexion one might do anything, so long as mamma was not looking. To Donna Faustina, these views, held by the nuns on the one hand and by Flavia on the other, seemed very conflicting. She would not, indeed, have hesitated in choosing, even if she had been permitted any choice; for it was clear that, since she had seen the convent side of the question, it would be very interesting to see the other. But, having been told so much about sinners, she was on the look-out for them, and looked forward to making the acquaintance of one of them with a pardonable excitement. Doubtless she would hate a sinner if she saw one, as the nuns had taught her, although the sinner of her imagination was not a very repulsive personage. Flavia probably knew a great many, and Flavia said that society was very amusing. Faustina wished that the autumn months would pass a little more quickly, so that the carnival season might begin. Prince Montevarchi, for his part, intended his youngest daughter to be a model of prim propriety. He attributed to Flavia's frivolity of behaviour the difficulty he experienced in finding her a husband, and he had no intention of exposing himself to a second failure in the case of Faustina. She should marry in her first season, and if she chose to be gay after that, the responsibility thereof might fall upon her husband, or her father-in-law, or upon whomsoever it should most concern; he himself would have fulfilled his duty so soon as the nuptial benediction was pronounced. He knew the fortune and reputation of every marriageable young man in society, and was therefore eminently fitted for the task he undertook. To tell the truth, Faustina herself expected to be married before Easter, for it was eminently fitting that a young girl should lose no time in such matters. But she meant to choose a man after her own heart, if she found one; at all events, she would not submit too readily to the paternal choice nor appear satisfied with the first tolerable suitor who should be presented to her. Under these circumstances it seemed probable that Donna Faustina's first season, which had begun with the unexpected adventure at the corner of the old Orso, would not come to a close without some passage of arms between herself and her father, even though the ultimate conclusion should lead to the steps of the altar. The men carried the wounded Zouave away to a distant room, and Faustina entered the main apartments by the side of the old prince. She sighed a little as she went. "I hope the poor man will get well!" she exclaimed. "Do not disturb your mind about the young man," answered her father. "He will be attended by the proper persons, and the doctor will bleed him and the will of Heaven will be done. It is not the duty of a well-conducted young woman to be thinking of such things, and you may dismiss the subject at once." "Yes, papa," said Faustina submissively. But in spite of the dutiful tone of voice in which she spoke, the dim light of the tall lamps in the antechambers showed a strange expression of mingled amusement and contrariety in the girl's ethereal face. CHAPTER II. "You know Gouache?" asked old Prince Saracinesca, in a tone which implied that he had news to tell. He looked from his daughter-in-law to his son as he put the question, and then went on with his breakfast. "Very well," answered Giovanni. "What about him?" "He was knocked down by a carriage last night. The carriage belonged to Montevarchi, and Gouache is at his house, in danger of his life." "Poor fellow!" exclaimed Corona in ready sympathy. "I am so sorry! I am very fond of Gouache." Giovanni Saracinesca, known to the world since his marriage as Prince of Sant' Ilario, glanced quickly at his wife, so quickly that neither she nor the old gentleman noticed the fact. The three persons sat at their midday breakfast in the dining-room of the Palazzo Saracinesca. After much planning and many discussions the young couple had determined to take up their abode with Giovanni's father. There were several reasons which had led them to this decision, but the two chief ones were that they were both devotedly attached to the old man; and secondly, that such a proceeding was strictly fitting and in accordance with the customs of Romans. It was true that Corona, while her old husband, the Duca d'Astrardente, was alive, had grown used to having an establishment exclusively her own, and both the Saracinesca had at first feared that she would be unwilling to live in her father-in-law's house. Then, too, there was the Astrardente palace, which, could not lie shut up and allowed to go to ruin; but this matter was compromised advantageously by Corona's letting it to an American millionaire who wished to spend the winter in Rome. The rent paid was large, and Corona never could have too much money for her improvements out at Astrardente. Old Saracinesca wished that the tenant might have been at least a diplomatist, and cursed the American by his gods, but Giovanni said that his wife had shown good sense in getting as much as she could for the palace. "We shall not need it till Orsino grows up--unless you marry again," said Sant' Ilario to his father, with a laugh. Now, Orsino was Giovanni's son and heir, aged, at the time of this tale, six months and a few days. In spite of his extreme youth, however, Orsino played a great and important part in the doings of the Saracinesca household. In the first place, he was the heir, and the old prince had been found sitting by his cradle with an expression never seen in his face since Giovanni had been a baby. Secondly, Orsino was a very fine child, swarthy of skin, and hard as a tiger cub, yet having already his mother's eyes, large, coal-black and bright, but deep and soft withal. Thirdly, Orsino had a will of his own, admirably seconded by an enormous lung power. Not that he cried, when he wanted anything. His baby eyes had not yet been seen to shed tears. He merely shouted, loud and long, and thumped the sides of his cradle with his little clenched fists, or struck out straight at anybody who chanced to be within reach. Corona rejoiced in the child, and used to say that he was like his grandfather, his father and his mother all put together. The old prince thought that if this were true the boy would do very well; Corona was the most beautiful dark woman of her time; he himself was a sturdy, tough old man, though his hair and beard were white as snow, and Giovanni was his father's ideal of what a man of his race should be. The arrival of the baby Orsino had been an additional argument in favour of living together, for the child's grandfather could not have been separated from him even by the quarter of a mile which lay between the two palaces. And so it came to pass that they all dwelt under the same roof, and were sitting together at breakfast on the morning of the 24th of September, when the old prince told them of the accident which had happened to Gouache. "How did you hear the news?" asked Giovanni. "Montevarchi told me this morning. He was very much disturbed at the idea of having an interesting young man in his house, with Flavia and Faustina at home." Old Saracinesca smiled grimly. "Why should that trouble him?" inquired Corona. "He has the ancient ideas," replied her father-in-law. "After all--Flavia--" "Yes Flavia, after all--" "I shall be curious to see how the other one turns out," remarked Giovanni. "There seems to be a certain unanimity in our opinion of Flavia. However, I daresay it is mere gossip, and Casa Montevarchi is not a gay place for a girl of her age." "Not gay? How do you know?" asked the old prince. "Does the girl want Carnival to last till All Souls'? Did you ever dine there, Giovannino?" "No--nor any one else who is not a member of the most Excellent Casa Montevarchi." "Then how do you know whether it is gay or not?" "You should hear Ascanio Bellegra describe their life," retorted Giovanni. "And I suppose you describe your life to him, in exchange?" Prince Saracinesca was beginning to lose his temper, as he invariably did whenever he could induce his son to argue any question with him. "I suppose you deplore each other's miserable condition. I tell you what I think, Giovanni. You had better go and live in Corona's house if you are not happy here." "It is let," replied Giovanni with imperturbable calm, but his wife bit her lip to control her rising laughter. "You might travel," growled the old gentleman. "But I am very happy here." "Then what do you mean by talking like that about Casa Montevarchi?" "I fail to see the connection between the two ideas," observed Giovanni. "You live in precisely the same circumstances as Ascanio Bellegra. I think the connection is clear enough. If his life is sad, so is yours." "For downright good logic commend me to my beloved father!" cried Giovanni, breaking into a laugh at last. "A laughing-stock for my children! I have come to this!" exclaimed his father gruffly. But his features relaxed into a good-humoured smile, that was pleasant to see upon his strong dark face. "But, really, I am very sorry to hear this of poor Gouache," said Corona at last, returning to the original subject of their conversation. "I hope it is nothing really dangerous." "It is always dangerous to be run over by a carriage," answered Giovanni. "I will go and see him, if they will let me in." At this juncture Orsino was brought in by his nurse, a splendid creature from Saracinesca, with bright blue eyes and hair as fair as any Goth's, a contrast to the swarthy child she carried in her arms. Immediately the daily ovation began, and each of the three persons began to worship the baby in an especial way. There was no more conversation, after that, for some time. The youngest of the Saracinesca absorbed the attention of the family. Whether he clenched his little fists, or opened his small fat fingers, whether he laughed and crowed at his grandfather's attempts to amuse him, or struck his nurse's rosy cheeks with his chubby hands, the result was always applause and merriment from those who looked on. The scene recalled Joseph's dream, in which the sheaves of his brethren bowed down to his sheaf. After a while, however, Orsino grew sleepy and had to be taken away. Then the little party broke up and separated. The old prince went to his rooms to read and doze for an hour. Corona was called away to see one of the numberless dressmakers whose shadows darken the beginning of a season in town, and Giovanni took his hat and went out. In those days young men of society had very little to do. The other day a German diplomatist was heard to say that Italian gentlemen seemed to do nothing but smoke, spit, and criticise. Twenty years ago their manners might have been described less coarsely, but there was even more truth in the gist of the saying. Not only they did nothing. There was nothing for them to do. They floated about in a peaceful millpool, whose placid surface reflected nothing but their own idle selves, little guessing that the dam whereby their mimic sea was confined, would shortly break with a thundering crash and empty them all into the stream of real life that flowed below. For the few who disliked idleness there was no occupation but literature, and literature, to the Roman mind of 1867, and in the Roman meaning of the word, was scholarship. The introduction to a literary career was supposed to be obtained only by a profound study of the classics, with a view to avoiding everything classical, both in language and ideas, except Cicero, the apostle of the ancient Roman Philistines; and the tendency to clothe stale truisms and feeble sentiments in high-sounding language is still found in Italian prose and is indirectly traceable to the same source. As for the literature of the country since the Latins, it consisted, and still consists, in the works of the four poets, Dante, Tasso, Ariosto, and Petrarch. Leopardi is more read now than then, but is too unhealthily melancholy to be read long by any one. There used to be Roman princes who spent years in committing to memory the verses of those four poets, just as the young Brahman of to-day learns to recite the Rig Veda. That was called the pursuit of literature. The Saracinesca were thought very original and different from other men, because they gave some attention to their estates. It seemed very like business to try and improve the possessions one had inherited or acquired by marriage, and business was degradation. Nevertheless, the Saracinesca were strong enough to laugh at other people's scruples, and did what seemed best in their own eyes without troubling themselves to ask what the world thought. But the care of such matters was not enough to occupy Giovanni all day. He had much time on his hands, for he was an active man, who slept little and rarely needed rest. Formerly he had been used to disappear from Rome periodically, making long journeys, generally ending in shooting expeditions in some half-explored country. That was in the days before his marriage, and his wanderings had assuredly done him no harm. He had seen much of the world not usually seen by men of his class and prejudices, and the acquaintance he had thus got with things and people was a source of great satisfaction to him. But the time had come to give up all this. He was now not only married and settled in his own home, but moreover he loved his wife with his whole heart, and these facts were serious obstacles against roughing it in Norway, Canada, or Transylvania. To travel with Corona and little Orsino seemed a very different matter from travelling with Corona alone. Then there was his father's growing affection for the child, which had to be taken into account in all things. The four had become inseparable, old Saracinesca, Giovanni, Corona, and the baby. Now Giovanni did not regret his old liberty. He knew that he was far happier than he had ever been in his life before. But there were days when the time hung heavily on his hands and his restless nature craved some kind of action which should bring with it a generous excitement. This was precisely what he could not find during the months spent in Rome, and so it fell out that he did very much what most young men of his birth found quite sufficient as an employment; he spent a deal of time in strolling where others strolled, in lounging at the club, and in making visits which filled the hours between sunset and dinner. To him this life was new, and not altogether tasteful; but his friends did not fail to say that Giovanni had been civilised by his marriage with the Astrardente, and was much less reserved than he had formerly been. When Corona went to see the dressmaker, Giovanni very naturally took his hat and went out of the house. The September day was warm and bright, and in such weather it was a satisfaction merely to pace the old Roman streets in the autumn sun. It was too early to meet any of his acquaintance, and too soon in the season for any regular visiting. He did not know what to do, but allowed himself to enjoy the sunshine and the sweet air. Presently, the sight of a couple of Zouaves, talking together at the corner of a street, recalled to his mind the accident which had happened to Gouache. It would be kind to go and see the poor fellow, or, at least, to ask after him. He had known him for some time and had gradually learned to like him, as most people did who met the gifted artist day after day throughout the gaiety of the winter. At the Palazzo Montevarchi Giovanni learned that the princess had just finished breakfast. He could hardly ask for Gouache without making a short visit in the drawing-room, and he accordingly submitted, regretting after all that he had come. The old princess bored him, he did not know Faustina, who was just out of the convent, and Flavia, who amused many people, did not amuse him in the least. He inwardly rejoiced that he was married, and that his visit could not be interpreted as a preliminary step towards asking for Flavia's hand. The princess looked up with an expression of inquiry in her prominent blue eyes, as Sant' Ilario entered. She was stout, florid, and not well dressed. Her yellow hair, already half gray, for she was more than fifty years old, was of the unruly kind, and had never looked neat even in her best days. Her bright, clear complexion saved her, however, as it saves hundreds of middle-aged Englishwomen, from that look of peculiar untidiness which belongs to dark-skinned persons who take no trouble about their appearance or personal adornment. In spite of thirty-three years of residence in Rome, she spoke Italian with a foreign accent, though otherwise correctly enough. But she was nevertheless a great lady, and no one would have thought of doubting the fact. Fat, awkwardly dressed, of no imposing stature, with unmanageable hair and prominent teeth, she was not a person to be laughed at. She had what many a beautiful woman lacks and envies--natural dignity of character and manner, combined with a self-possession which is not always found in exalted personages. That repose of manner which is commonly believed to be the heirloom of noble birth is seen quite as often in the low-born adventurer, who regards it as part of his stock-in-trade; and there are many women, and men too, whose position might be expected to place them beyond the reach of what we call shyness, but who nevertheless suffer daily agonies of social timidity and would rather face alone a charge of cavalry than make a new acquaintance. The Princess Montevarchi was made of braver stuff, however, and if her daughters had not inherited all her unaffected dignity they had at least received their fair share of self-possession. When Sant' Ilario entered, these two young ladies, Donna Flavia and Donna Faustina, were seated one on each side of their mother. The princess extended her hand, the two daughters held theirs demurely crossed upon their knees. Faustina looked at the carpet, as she had been taught to do in the convent. Flavia looked up boldly at Giovanni, knowing by experience that her mother could not see her while greeting the visitor. Sant' Ilario muttered some sort of civil inquiry, bowed to the two young ladies and sat down. "How is Monsieur Gouache?" he asked, going straight to the point. He had seen the look of surprise on the princess's face as he entered, and thought it best to explain himself at once. "Ah, you have heard? Poor man! He is badly hurt, I fear. Would you like to see him?" "Presently, if I may," answered Giovanni. "We are all fond of Gouache. How did the accident happen?" "Faustina ran over him," said Flavia, fixing her dark eyes on Giovanni and allowing her pretty face to assume an expression of sympathy--for the sufferer. "Faustina and papa," she added. "Flavia! How can you say such things!" exclaimed the princess, who spent a great part of her life in repressing her daughter's manner of speech. "Well, mamma--it was the carriage of course. But papa and Faustina were in it. It is the same thing." Giovanni looked at Faustina, but her thin fresh face expressed nothing, nor did she show any intention of commenting on her sister's explanation. It was the first time he had seen her near enough to notice her, and his attention was arrested by something in her looks which surprised and interested him. It was something almost impossible to describe, and yet so really present that it struck Sant' Ilario at once, and found a place in his memory. In the superstitions of the far north, as in the half material spiritualism of Polynesia, that look has a meaning and an interpretation. With us, the interpretation is lost, but the instinctive persuasion that the thing itself is not wholly meaningless remains ineradicable. We say, with a smile at our own credulity, "That man looks as though he had a story," or, "That woman looks as though something odd might happen to her." It is an expression in the eyes, a delicate shade in the features, which speak of many things which we do not understand; things which, if they exist at all, we feel must be inevitable, fatal, and beyond human control. Giovanni looked and was surprised, but Faustina said nothing. "It was very good of the prince to bring him here," remarked Sant' Ilario. "It was very unlike papa," exclaimed Flavia, before her mother could answer. "But very kind, of course, as you say," she added, with a little smile. Flavia had a habit of making rather startling remarks, and of then adding something in explanation or comment, before her hearers had recovered breath. The addition did not always mend matters very much. "Do not interrupt me, Flavia," said her mother, severely. "I beg your pardon, were you speaking, mamma?" asked the young girl, innocently. Giovanni was not amused by Flavia's manners, and waited calmly for the princess to speak. "Indeed," said she, "there was nothing else to be done. As we had run over the poor man--" "The carriage--" suggested Flavia. But her mother took no notice of her. "The least we could do, of course, was to bring him here. My husband would not have allowed him to be taken to the hospital." Flavia again fixed her eyes on Giovanni with a look of sympathy, which, however, did not convey any very profound belief in her father's charitable intentions. "I quite understand," said Giovanni. "And how has he been since you brought him here? Is he in any danger?" "You shall see him at once," answered the princess, who rose and rang the bell, and then, as the servant's footsteps were heard outside, crossed the room to meet him at the door. "Mamma likes to run about," said Flavia, sweetly, in explanation. Giovanni had risen and made as though he would have been of some assistance. The action was characteristic of the Princess Montevarchi. An Italian woman would neither have rung the bell herself, nor have committed such an imprudence as to turn her back upon her two daughters when there was a man in the room. But she was English, and a whole lifetime spent among Italians could not extinguish her activity; so she went to the door herself. Faustina's deep eyes followed her mother as though she were interested to know the news of Gouache. "I hope he is better," she said, quietly. "Of course," echoed Flavia, "So do I. But mamma amuses me so much! She is always in a hurry." Faustina made no answer, but she looked at Sant' Ilario, as though she wondered what he thought of her sister. He returned her gaze, trying to explain to himself the strange attraction of her expression, watching her critically as he would have watched any new person or sight. She did not blush nor avoid his bold eyes, as he would have expected had he realised that he was staring at her. A few minutes later Giovanni found himself in a narrow, high room, lighted by one window, which showed the enormous thickness of the walls in the deep embrasure. The vaulted ceiling was painted in fresco with a representation of Apollo in the act of drawing his bow, arrayed for the time being in his quiver, while his other garments, of yellow and blue, floated everywhere save over his body. The floor of the room was of red bricks, which had once been waxed, and the furniture was scanty, massive and very old. Anastase Gouache lay in one corner in a queer-looking bed covered with a yellow damask quilt the worse for a century or two of wear, upon which faded embroideries showed the Montevarchi arms surmounted by a cardinal's hat. Upon a chair beside the patient lay the little heap of small belongings he had carried in his pocket when hurt, his watch and purse, his cigarettes, his handkerchief and a few other trifles, among which, half concealed by the rest, was the gold pin he had picked up by the bridge on the previous evening. There was a mingled smell of dampness and of stale tobacco in the comfortless room, for the windows were closely shut, in spite of the bright sunshine that flooded the opposite side of the street. Gouache lay on his back, his head tied up in a bandage and supported by a white pillow, which somehow conveyed the impression of one of those marble cushions upon which in old-fashioned monuments the effigies of the dead are made to lean in eternal prayer, if not in eternal ease. He moved impatiently as the door opened, and then recognising Giovanni, he hailed him in a voice much more lively and sonorous than might have been expected. "You, prince!" he cried, in evident delight. "What saint has brought you?" "I heard of your accident, and so I came to see if I could do anything for you. How are you?" "As you see," replied Gouache. "In a hospitable tomb, with my head tied up like an imperfectly-resurrected Lazarus. For the rest there is nothing the matter with me, except that they have taken away my clothes, which is something of an obstacle to my leaving the house at once. I feel as if I had been in a revolution and had found myself on the wrong side of the barricade--nothing worse than that." "You are in good spirits, at all events. But are you not seriously hurt?" "Oh, nothing--a broken collar-bone somewhere, I believe, and some part of my head gone--I am not quite sure which, and a bad headache, and nothing to eat, and a general sensation as though somebody had made an ineffectual effort to turn me into a sausage." "What does the doctor say?" "Nothing. He is a man of action. He bled me because I had not the strength to strangle him, and poured decoctions of boiled grass down my throat because I could not speak. He has fantastic ideas about the human body." "But you will have to stay here several days," said Giovanni, considerably amused by Gouache's view of his own case. "Several days! Not even several hours, if I can help it." "Things do not go so quickly in Rome. You must be patient." "In order to starve, when there is food as near as the Corso?" inquired the artist. "To be butchered by a Roman phlebotomist, and drenched with infusions of hay by the Principessa Montevarchi, when I might be devising means of being presented to her daughter? What do you take me for? I suppose the young lady with the divine eyes is her daughter, is she not?" "You mean Donna Faustina, I suppose. Yes. She is the youngest, just out of the Sacro Cuore. She was in the drawing-room when I called just now. How did you see her?" "Last night, as they brought me upstairs, I was lucky enough to wake up just as she was looking at me. What eyes! I can think of nothing else. Seriously, can you not help me to get out of here?" "So that you may fall in love with Donna Faustina as soon as possible, I suppose," answered Giovanni with a laugh. "It seems to me that there is but one thing to do, if you are really strong enough. Send for your clothes, get up, go into the drawing-room and thank the princess for her hospitality." "That is easily said. Nothing is done in this house without the written permission of the old prince, unless I am much mistaken. Besides, there is no bell. I might as well be under arrest in the guard-room of the barracks. Presently the doctor will come and bleed me again and the princess will send me some more boiled grass. I am not very fat, as it is, but another day of this diet will make me diaphanous--I shall cast no shadow. A nice thing, to be caught without a shadow on parade!" "I will see what I can do," said Giovanni, rising. "Probably, the best thing would be to send your military surgeon. He will not be so tender as the other leech, but he will get you away at once. My wife wished me to say that she sympathised, and hoped you might soon be well." "My homage and best thanks to the princess," answered Gouache, with a slight change of tone, presumably to be referred to his sense of courtesy in speaking of the absent lady. So Giovanni went away, promising to send the surgeon at once. The latter soon arrived, saw Gouache, and was easily persuaded to order him home without further delay. The artist-soldier would not leave the house without thanking his hostess. His uniform had been cleansed from the stains it had got in the accident, and his left arm was in a sling. The wound on his head was more of a bruise than a cut, and was concealed by his thick black hair. Considering the circumstances he presented a very good appearance. The princess received him in the drawing-room, and Flavia and Faustina were with her, but all three were now dressed to go out, so that the interview was necessarily a short one. Gouache made a little speech of thanks and tried to forget the decoction of mallows he had swallowed, fearing lest the recollection should impart a tone of insincerity to his expression of gratitude. He succeeded very well, and afterwards attributed the fact to Donna Faustina's brown eyes, which were not cast down as they had been when Sant' Ilario had called, but appeared on the contrary to contemplate the new visitor with singular interest. "I am sure my husband will not approve of your going so soon," said the princess in somewhat anxious tones. It was almost the first time she had ever known any step of importance to be taken in her house without her husband's express authority. "Madame," answered Gouache, glancing from Donna Faustina to his hostess, "I am in despair at having thus unwillingly trespassed upon your hospitality, although I need not tell you that I would gladly prolong so charming an experience, provided I were not confined to solitude in a distant chamber. However, since our regimental surgeon pronounces me fit to go home, I have no choice but to obey orders. Believe me, Madame, I am deeply grateful to yourself as well as to the Principe Montevarchi for your manifold kindnesses, and shall cherish a remembrance of your goodness so long as I live." With these words Gouache bowed as though he would be gone and stood waiting for the princess's last word. But before her mother could speak, Faustina's voice was heard. "I cannot tell you how dreadfully we feel--papa and I--at having been the cause of such a horrible accident! Is there nothing we can do to make you forget it?" The princess stared at her daughter in the utmost astonishment at her forwardness. She would not have been surprised if Flavia had been guilty of such imprudence, but that Faustina should thus boldly address a young man who had not spoken to her, was such a shock to her belief in the girl's manners that she did not recover for several seconds. Anastase appreciated the situation, for as he answered, he looked steadily at the mother, although his words were plainly addressed to the brown-eyed beauty. "Mademoiselle is too kind. She exaggerates. And yet, since she has put the question, I will say that I should forget my broken bones very soon if I might be permitted to paint Mademoiselle's portrait. I am a painter," he added, in modest explanation. "Yes," said the princess, "I know. But, really--this is a matter which would require great consideration--and my husband's consent--and, for the present---" She paused significantly, intending to convey a polite refusal, but Gouache completed the sentence. "For the present, until my bones are mended, we will not speak of it. When I am well again I will do myself the honour of asking the prince's consent myself." Flavia leaned towards her mother and whispered into her ear. The words were quite audible, and the girl's dark eyes turned to Gouache with a wicked laugh in them while she was speaking. "Oh, mamma, if you tell papa it is for nothing he will be quite delighted!" Gouache's lip trembled as he suppressed a smile, and the elderly princess's florid cheeks flushed with annoyance. "For the present," she said, holding out her hand rather coldly, "we will not speak of it. Pray let us know of your speedy recovery, Monsieur Gouache." As the artist took his leave he glanced once more at Donna Faustina. Her face was pale and her eyes flashed angrily. She, too, had heard Flavia's stage whisper and was even more annoyed than her mother. Gouache went his way toward his lodging in the company of the surgeon, pondering on the inscrutable mysteries of the Roman household of which he had been vouchsafed a glimpse. He was in pain from his head and shoulder, but insisted that the walk would do him good and refused the cab which his companion had brought. A broken collar-bone is not a dangerous matter, but it can be very troublesome for a while, and the artist was glad to get back to his lodgings and to find himself comfortably installed in an easy chair with something to eat before him, of a more substantial nature than the Principessa Montevarchi's infusions of camomile and mallows. CHAPTER III. While Giovanni was at the Palazzo Montevarchi, and while Corona was busy with her dressmakers, Prince Saracinesca was dozing over the Osservatore Romano in his study. To tell the truth the paper was less dull than usual, for there was war and rumour of war in its columns. Garibaldi had raised a force of volunteers and was in the neighbourhood of Arezzo, beginning to skirmish with the outlying posts of the pontifical army along the frontier. The old gentleman did not know, of course, that on that very day the Italian Government was issuing its proclamation against the great agitator, and possibly if he had been aware of the incident it would not have produced any very strong impression upon his convictions. Garibaldi was a fact, and Saracinesca did not believe that any proclamations would interfere with his march unless backed by some more tangible force. Even had he known that the guerilla general had been arrested at Sinalunga and put in confinement as soon as the proclamation had appeared, the prince would have foreseen clearly enough that the prisoner's escape would be only a question of a few days, since there were manifold evidences that an understanding existed between Ratazzi and Garibaldi of much the same nature as that which in 1860 had been maintained between Garibaldi and Cavour during the advance upon Naples. The Italian Government kept men under arms to be ready to take advantage of any successes obtained by the Garibaldian volunteers, and at the same time to suppress the republican tendencies of the latter, which broke out afresh with every new advance, and disappeared, as by magic, under the depressing influence of a forced retreat. The prince knew all these things, and had reflected upon them so often that they no longer afforded enough interest to keep him awake. The warm September sun streamed into the study and fell upon the paper as it slowly slipped over the old gentleman's knees, while his head sank lower and lower on his breast. The old enamelled clock upon the chimney-piece ticked more loudly, as clocks seem to do when people are asleep and they are left to their own devices, and a few belated flies chased each other in the sunbeams. The silence was broken by the entrance of a servant, who would have withdrawn again when he saw that his master was napping, had not the latter stirred and raised his head before the man had time to get away. Then the fellow came forward with an apology and presented a visiting-card. The prince stared at the bit of pasteboard, rubbed his eyes, stared again, and then laid it upon the table beside him, his eyes still resting on the name, which seemed so much to surprise him. Then he told the footman to introduce the visitor, and a few moments later a very tall man entered the room, hat in hand, and advanced slowly towards him with the air of a person who has a perfect right to present himself but wishes to give his host time to recognise him. The prince remembered the newcomer very well. The closely-buttoned frock-coat showed the man's imposing figure to greater advantage than the dress in which Saracinesca had last seen him, but there was no mistaking the personality. There was the same lean but massive face, broadened by the high cheekbones and the prominent square jaw; there were the same piercing black eyes, set near together under eyebrows that met in the midst of the forehead, the same thin and cruel lips, and the same strongly-marked nose, set broadly on at the nostrils, though pointed and keen. Had the prince had any doubts as to his visitor's identity they would have been dispelled by the man's great height and immense breadth of shoulder, which would have made it hard indeed for him to disguise himself had he wished to do so. But though very much surprised, Saracinesca had no doubts whatever. The only points that were new to him in the figure before him were the outward manner and appearance, and the dress of a gentleman. "I trust I am not disturbing you, prince?" The words were spoken in a deep, clear voice, and with a notable southern accent. "Not at all. I confess I am astonished at seeing you in Rome. Is there anything I can do for you? I shall always be grateful to you for having been alive to testify to the falsehood of that accusation made against my son. Pray sit down. How is your Signora? And the children? All well, I hope?" "My wife is dead," returned the other, and the grave tones of his bass voice lent solemnity to the simple statement. "I am sincerely sorry--" began the prince, but his visitor interrupted him. "The children are well. They are in Aquila for the present. I have come to establish myself in Rome, and my first visit is naturally to yourself, since I have the advantage of being your cousin." "Naturally," ejaculated Saracinesca, though his face expressed considerable surprise. "Do not imagine that I am going to impose myself upon you as a poor relation," continued the other with a faint smile. "Fortune has been kind to me since we met, perhaps as a compensation for the loss I suffered in the death of my poor wife. I have a sufficient independence and can hold my own." "I never supposed--" "You might naturally have supposed that I had come to solicit your favour, though it is not the case. When we parted I was an innkeeper in Aquila. I have no cause to be ashamed of my past profession. I only wish to let you know that it is altogether past, and that I intend to resume the position which my great-grandfather foolishly forfeited. As you are the present head of the family I judged that it was my duty to inform you of the fact immediately." "By all means. I imagined this must be the case from your card. You are entirely in your rights, and I shall take great pleasure in informing every one of the fact. You are the Marchese di San Giacinto, and the inn at Aquila no longer exists." "As these things must be done, once and for always, I have brought my papers to Rome," answered the Marchese. "They are at your disposal, for you certainly have a right to see them, if you like. I will recall to your memory the facts of our history, in case you have forgotten them." "I know the story well enough," said Saracinesca. "Our great-grandfathers were brothers. Yours went to live in Naples. His son grew up and joined the French against the King. His lands were forfeited, he married and died in obscurity, leaving your father, his only son. Your father died young and you again are his only son. You married the Signora Felice--" "Baldi," said the Marchese, nodding in confirmation of the various statements. "The Signora Felice Baldi, by whom you have two children--" "Boys." "Two boys. And the Signora Marchesa, I grieve to hear, is dead. Is that accurate?" "Perfectly. There is one circumstance, connected with our great-grandfathers, which you have not mentioned, but which I am sure you remember." "What is that?" asked the prince, fixing his keen eyes on his companion's face. "It is only this," replied San Giacinto, calmly. "My great-grandfather was two years older than yours. You know he never meant to marry, and resigned the title to his younger brother, who had children already. He took a wife in his old age, and my grandfather was the son born to him. That is why you are so much older than I, though we are of the same generation in the order of descent." "Yes," assented the prince. "That accounts for it. Will you smoke?" Giovanni Saracinesca, Marchese di San Giacinto, looked curiously at his cousin as he took the proffered cigar. There was something abrupt in the answer which attracted his attention and roused his quick suspicions. He wondered whether that former exchange of titles, and consequent exchange of positions were an unpleasant subject of conversation to the prince. But the latter, as though anticipating such a doubt in his companion's mind, at once returned to the question with the boldness which was natural to him. "There was a friendly agreement," he said, striking a match and offering it to the Marchese. "I have all the documents, and have studied them with interest. It might amuse you to see them, some day." "I should like to see them, indeed," answered San Giacinto. "They must be very curious. As I was saying, I am going to establish myself in Rome. It seems strange to me to be playing the gentleman--it must seem even more odd to you." "It would be truer to say that you have been playing the innkeeper," observed the prince, courteously. "No one would suspect it," he added, glancing at his companion's correct attire. "I have an adaptable nature," said the Marchese, calmly. "Besides, I have always looked forward to again taking my place in the world. I have acquired a little instruction--not much, you will say, but it is sufficient as the times go; and as for education, it is the same for every one, innkeeper or prince. One takes off one's hat, one speaks quietly, one says what is agreeable to hear--is it not enough?" "Quite enough," replied the prince. He was tempted to smile at his cousin's definition of manners, though he could see that the man was quite able to maintain his position. "Quite enough, indeed, and as for instruction, I am afraid most of us have forgotten our Latin. You need have no anxiety on that score. But, tell me, how comes it that, having been bred in the south, you prefer to establish yourself in Rome rather than in Naples? They say that you Neapolitans do not like us." "I am a Roman by descent, and I wish to become one in fact," returned the Marchese. "Besides," he added, in a peculiarly grave tone of voice, "I do not like the new order of things. Indeed, I have but one favour to ask of you, and that is a great one." "Anything in my power--" "To present me to the Holy Father as one who desires to become his faithful subject. Could you do so, do you think, without any great inconvenience?" "Eh! I shall be delighted! Magari!" answered the prince, heartily. "To tell the truth, I was afraid you meant to keep your Italian convictions, and that, in Rome, would be against you, especially in these stormy days. But if you will join us heart and soul you will be received with open arms. I shall take great pleasure in seeing you make the acquaintance of my son and his wife. Come and dine this evening." "Thank you," said the Marchese. "I will not fail." After a few more words San Giacinto took his leave, and the prince could not but admire the way in which this man, who had been brought up among peasants, or at best among the small farmers of an outlying district, assumed at once an air of perfect equality while allowing just so much of respect to appear in his manner as might properly be shown by a younger member to the head of a great house. When he was gone Saracinesca rang the bell. "Pasquale," he said, addressing the old butler who answered the summons, "that gentleman who is just gone is my cousin, Don Giovanni Saracinesca, who is called Marchese di San Giacinto. He will dine here this evening. You will call him Eccellenza, and treat him as a member of the family. Go and ask the princess if she will receive me." Pasquale opened his mental eyes very wide as he bowed and left the room. He had never heard of this other Saracinesca, and the appearance of a new member of the family upon the scene, who must, from his appearance, have been in existence between thirty and forty years, struck him as astonishing in the extreme; for the old servant had been bred up in the house from a boy and imagined himself master of all the secrets connected with the Saracinesca household. He was, indeed, scarcely less surprised than his master who, although he had been aware for some time past that Giovanni Saracinesca existed and was his cousin, had never anticipated the event of his coming to Rome, and had expected still less that the innkeeper would ever assume the title to which he had a right and play the part of a gentleman, as he himself had expressed it. There was a strange mixture of boldness and foresight in the way the old prince had received his new relation. He knew the strength of his own position in society, and that the introduction of a humble cousin could not possibly do him harm. At the worst, people might laugh a little among themselves and remark that the Marchese must be a nuisance to the Saracinesca. On the other hand, the prince was struck from the first with the air of self-possession which he discerned in San Giacinto, and foresaw that the man would very probably play a part in Roman life. He was a man who might be disliked, but who could not be despised; and since his claims to consideration were undeniably genuine, it seemed wiser to accept him from the first as a member of the family and unhesitatingly to treat him as such. After all, he demanded nothing to which he had not a clear right from the moment he announced his intention of taking his place in the world, and it was certainly far wiser to receive him cordially at once, than to draw back from acknowledging the relationship because he had been brought up in another sphere. This was the substance of what Prince Saracinesca communicated to his daughter-in-law a few minutes later. She listened patiently to all he had to say, only asking a question now and then in order to understand more clearly what had happened. She was curious to see the man whose name had once been so strangely confounded with her husband's by the machinations of the Conte Del Ferice and Donna Tullia Mayer, and she frankly confessed her curiosity and her satisfaction at the prospect of meeting San Giacinto that evening. While she was talking with the prince, Giovanni unexpectedly returned from his walk. He had turned homewards as soon as he had sent the military surgeon to Gouache. "Well, Giovannino," cried the old gentleman, "the prodigal innkeeper has returned to the bosom of the family." "What innkeeper?" "Your worthy namesake, and cousin, Giovanni Saracinesca, formerly of Aquila." "Does Madame Mayer want to prove that it is he who has married Corona?" inquired Sant 'Ilario with a laugh. "No, though I suppose he is a candidate for marriage. I never was more surprised in my life. His wife is dead. He is rich, or says he is. He has his card printed in full, 'Giovanni Saracinesca, Marchese di San Giacinto,' in the most correct manner. He wears an excellent coat, and announces his intention of being presented to the Pope and introduced to Roman society." Sant' Ilario stared incredulously at his father, and then looked inquiringly at his wife as though to ask if it were not all a jest. When he was assured that the facts were true he looked grave and slowly stroked his pointed black beard, a gesture which was very unusual with him, and always accompanied the deepest meditation. "There is nothing to be done but to receive him into the family," he said at last. "But I do not wholly believe in his good intentions. We shall see. I shall be glad to make his acquaintance." "He is coming to dinner." The conversation continued for some time and the arrival of San Giacinto was discussed in all its bearings. Corona took a very practical view of the question, and said that it was certainly best to treat him well, thereby relieving her father-in-law of a considerable anxiety. He had indeed feared lest she should resent the introduction of a man who might reasonably be supposed to have retained a certain coarseness of manner from his early surroundings, and he knew that her consent was all-important in such a case, since she was virtually the mistress of the house. But Corona regarded the matter in much the same light as the old gentleman himself, feeling that nothing of such a nature could possibly injure the imposing position of her husband's family, and taking it for granted that no one who had good blood in his veins could ever behave outrageously. Of all the three, Sant' Ilario was the most silent and thoughtful, for he feared certain consequences from the arrival of this new relation which did not present themselves to the minds of the others, and was resolved to be cautious accordingly, even while appearing to receive San Giacinto with all due cordiality. Later in the day he was alone with his father for a few minutes. "Do you like this fellow?" he asked, abruptly. "No," answered the prince. "Neither do I, though I have not seen him." "We shall see," was the old gentleman's answer. The evening came, and at the appointed hour San Giacinto was announced. Both Corona and her husband were surprised at his imposing appearance, as well as at the dignity and self-possession he displayed. His southern accent was not more noticeable than that of many Neapolitan gentlemen, and his conversation, if neither very brilliant nor very fluent, was not devoid of interest. He talked of the agricultural condition of the new Italy, and old Saracinesca and his son were both interested in the subject. They noticed, too, that during dinner no word escaped him which could give any clue to his former occupation or position, though afterwards, when the servants were not present, he alluded more than once with a frank smile to his experiences as an innkeeper. On the whole, he seemed modest and reserved, yet perfectly self-possessed and conscious of his right to be where he was. Such conduct on the part of such a man did not appear so surprising to the Saracinesca household, as it would have seemed to foreigners. San Giacinto had said that he had an adaptable character, and that adaptability is one of the most noticeable features of the Italian race. It is not necessary to discuss the causes of this peculiarity. They would be incomprehensible to the foreigner at large, who never has any real understanding of Italians. I do not hesitate to say that, without a single exception, every foreigner, poet or prose-writer, who has treated of these people has more or less grossly misunderstood them. That is a sweeping statement, when it is considered that few men of the highest genius in our century have not at one time or another set down upon paper their several estimates of the Italian race. The requisite for accurately describing people, however, is not genius, but knowledge of the subject. The poet commonly sees himself in others, and the modern writer upon Italy is apt to believe that he can see others in himself. The reflection of an Italian upon the mental retina of the foreigner is as deceptive as his own outward image is when seen upon the polished surface of a concave mirror; and indeed the character studies of many great men, when the subject is taken from a race not their own, remind one very forcibly of what may be seen by contemplating oneself in the bowl of a bright silver spoon. To understand Italians a man must have been born and bred among them; and even then the harder, fiercer instinct, which dwells in northern blood, may deceive the student and lead him far astray. The Italian is an exceedingly simple creature, and is apt to share the opinion of the ostrich, who ducks his head and believes his whole body is hidden. Foreigners use strong language concerning the Italian lie; but this only proves how extremely transparent the deception is. It is indeed a singular fact, but one which may often be observed, that two Italians who lie systematically will frequently believe each other, to their own ruin, with a childlike faith rarely found north of the Alps. This seems to me to prove that their dishonesty has outgrown their indolent intelligence; and indeed they deceive themselves nearly as often as they succeed in deceiving their neighbours. In a country where a lie easily finds credence, lying is not likely to be elevated to the rank of a fine art. I have often wondered how such men as Cesare Borgia succeeded in entrapping their enemies by snares which a modern northerner would detect from the first and laugh to scorn as mere child's play. There is an extraordinary readiness in Italians to fit themselves and their lives to circumstances whenever they can save themselves trouble by doing so. Their constitutions are convenient to this end, for they are temperate in most things and do not easily fall into habits which they cannot change at will. The desire to avoid trouble makes them the most courteous among nations; and they are singularly obliging to strangers when, by conferring an obligation, they are able to make an acquaintance who will help them to pass an idle hour in agreeable conversation. They are equally surprised, whether a stranger suspects them of making advances for the sake of extracting money from him, or expresses resentment at having been fraudulently induced to part with any cash. The beggar in the street howls like a madman if you refuse an alms, and calls you an idiot to his fellow-mendicant if you give him five centimes. The servant says in his heart that his foreign employer is a fool, and sheds tears of rage and mortification when his shallow devices for petty cheating are discovered. And yet the servant, the beggar, the shopkeeper, and the gentleman, are obliging sometimes almost to philanthropy, and are ever ready to make themselves agreeable. The Marchese di San Giacinto differed from his relations, the Saracinesca princes, in that he was a full-blooded Italian, and not the result of a cosmopolitan race-fusion, like so many of the Roman nobles. He had not the Roman traditions, but, on the other hand, he had his full share of the national characteristics, together with something individual which lifted him above the common herd in point of intelligence and in strength. He was a noticeable man; all the more so because, with many pleasant qualities, his countrymen rarely possess that physical and mental combination of size, energy, and reserve, which inspires the sort of respect enjoyed by imposing personages. As he sat talking with the family after dinner on the evening of his first introduction to the household what passed in his mind and in the minds of his hosts can be easily stated. Sant' Ilario, whose ideas were more clear upon most subjects than those of his father or his wife, said to himself that he did not like the man; that he suspected him, and believed he had some hidden intention in coming to Rome; that it would be wise to watch him perpetually and to question everything he did; but that he was undeniably a relation, possessing every right to consideration, and entitled to be treated with a certain familiarity; that, finally and on the whole, he was a nuisance, to be borne with a good grace and a sufficient show of cordiality. San Giacinto, for his part, was deeply engaged in maintaining the exact standard of manners which he knew to be necessary for the occasion, and his thoughts concerning his relatives were not yet altogether defined. It was his intention to take his place among them, and he was doing his best to accomplish this object as speedily and quietly as possible. He had not supposed that princes and princesses were in any way different from other human beings except by the accidents of wealth and social position. Master of these two requisites there was no reason why he should not feel as much at home with the Saracinesca as he had felt in the society of the mayor and municipal council of Aquila, who possessed those qualifications also, though in a less degree. The Saracinesca probably thought about most questions very much as he himself did, or if there were any difference in their mode of thinking it was due to Roman prejudice and tradition rather than to any peculiarity inherent in the organisation of the members of the higher aristocracy. If he should find himself in any dilemma owing to his ignorance of social details he would not hesitate to apply to the prince for information, since it was by no means his fault if he had been brought up an innkeeper and was now to be a nobleman. His immediate object was to place himself among his equals, and his next purpose was to marry again, in his new rank, a woman of good position and fortune. Of this matter he intended to speak to the prince in due time, when he should have secured the first requisite to his marriage by establishing himself firmly in society. He meant to apply to the prince, ostensibly as to the head of the family, thereby showing a deference to that dignity, which he supposed would be pleasing to the old gentleman; but he had not forgotten in his calculations the pride which old Saracinesca must naturally feel in his race, and which would probably induce him to take very great pains in finding a suitable wife for San Giacinto rather than permit the latter to contract a discreditable alliance. San Giacinto left the house at half-past nine o'clock, under the pretext of another engagement, for he did not mean to weary his relations with too much of his company in the first instance. When he was gone the three looked at each other in silence for some moments. "He has surprisingly good manners, for an innkeeper," said Corona at last. "No one will ever suspect his former life. But I do not like him." "Nor I," said the prince. "He wants something," said Sant' Ilario. "And he will probably get it," he added, after a short pause. "He has a determined face." CHAPTER IV. Anastase Gouache recovered rapidly from his injuries, but not so quickly as he wished. There was trouble in the air, and many of his comrades were already gone to the frontier where the skirmishing with the irregular volunteers of Garibaldi's guerilla force had now begun in earnest. To be confined to the city at such a time was inexpressibly irksome to the gallant young Frenchman, who had a genuine love of fighting in him, and longed for the first sensation of danger and the first shower of whistling bullets. But his inactivity was inevitable, and he was obliged to submit with the best grace he could, hoping only that all might not be over before he was well enough to tramp out and see some service with his companions-in-arms. The situation was indeed urgent. The first article of the famous convention between France and Italy, ratified in September, 1864, read as follows:-- "Italy engages not to attack the actual territory of the Holy Father, and to prevent, even by force, all attack coming from outside against such territory." Relying upon the observance of this chief clause, France had conscientiously executed the condition imposed by the second article, which provided that all French troops should be withdrawn from the States of the Church. The promise of Italy to prevent invasion by force applied to Garibaldi and his volunteers. Accordingly, on the 24th of September, 1867, the Italian Government issued a proclamation against the band and its proceedings, and arrested Garibaldi at Sinalunga, in the neighbourhood of Arezzo. This was the only force employed, and it may be believed that the Italian Government firmly expected that the volunteers would disperse as soon as they found themselves without a leader; and had proper measures been taken for keeping the general in custody this would in all probability have followed very shortly, as his sons, who were left at large, did not possess any of their father's qualifications for leadership. Garibaldi, however, escaped eighteen days later, and again joined his band, which had meanwhile been defeated by the Pope's troops in a few small engagements, and had gained one or two equally insignificant advantages over the latter. As soon as it was known that Garibaldi was again at large, a simultaneous movement began, the numerous Garibaldian emissaries who had arrived in Rome stirring up an attempt at insurrection within the city, while Garibaldi himself made a bold dash and seized Monte Rotondo, another force at the same time striking at Sutbiaco, which, by a strange ignorance of the mountains, Garibaldi appears to have believed to be the southern key to the Campagna. In consequence of the protestations of the French minister to the court of Italy, and perhaps, too, in consequence of the approach of a large body of French troops by sea, the Italian Government again issued a proclamation against Garibaldi, who, however, remained in his strong position at Monte Rotondo. Finally, on the 30th of October, the day on which the French troops re-entered Rome, the Italians made a show of interfering in the Pope's favour, General Menatiea authorising the Italian forces to enter the Papal States in order to maintain order. They did not, however, do more than make a short advance, and no active measures were taken, but Garibaldi was routed on the 3d and 4th of November by the Papal forces, and his band being dispersed the incident was at an end. But for the armed intervention of France the result would have been that which actually came about in 1870, when, the same Convention being still valid, the French were prevented by their own disasters from sending a force to the assistance of the Pope. It is not yet time to discuss the question of the annexation of the States of the Church to the kingdom of Italy. It is sufficient to have shown that the movement of 1867 took place without any actual violation of the letter of the Convention. The spirit in which the Italian Government acted might be criticised at length. It is sufficient however to notice that the Italian Government was, as it still is, a parliamentary one; and to add that parliamentary government, in general, exhibits its weakest side in the emergency of war, as its greatest advantages are best appreciated in times of peace. In the Italian Parliament of that day, as in that of the present time, there was a preponderance of representatives who considered Rome to be the natural capital of the country, and who were as ready to trample upon treaties for the accomplishment of what they believed a righteous end, as most parliaments have everywhere shown themselves in similar circumstances. That majority differed widely, indeed, in opinion from Garibaldi and Mazzini, but they conceived that they had a right to take full advantage of any revolution the latter chanced to bring about, and that it was their duty to their country to direct the stream of disorder into channel which should lead to the aggrandisement of Italy, by making use of Italy's standing army. The defenders of the Papal States found themselves face to face, not with any organised and disciplined force, but with a horde of brutal ruffians and half-grown lads, desperate in that delight of unbridled license which has such attractions for the mob in all countries; and all alike, Zouaves, native troops and Frenchmen, were incensed to the highest degree by the conduct of their enemies. It would be absurd to make the Italian Government responsible for the atrocious defiling of churches, the pillage and the shocking crimes of all sorts, which marked the advance or retreat of the Garibaldians; but it is equally absurd to deny that a majority of the Italians regarded these doings as a means to a very desirable end, and, if they had not been hindered by the French, would have marched a couple of army corps in excellent order to the gates of Rome through the channel opened by a mob of lawless insurgents. Anastase Gouache was disgusted with his state of forced inaction as he paced the crowded pavement of the Corso every afternoon for three weeks after his accident, smoking endless cigarettes, and cursing the fate which kept him an invalid at home when his fellow-soldiers were enjoying themselves amidst the smell of gunpowder and the adventures of frontier skirmishing. It was indeed bad luck, he thought, to have worn the uniform during nearly two years of perfect health and then to be disabled just when the fighting began. He had one consolation, however, in the midst of his annoyance, and he made the most of it. He had been fascinated by Donna Faustina Montevarchi's brown eyes, and for lack of any other interest upon which to expend his energy he had so well employed his time that he was now very seriously in love with that young lady. Among her numerous attractions was one which had a powerful influence on the young artist, namely, the fact that she was, according to all human calculations, absolutely beyond his reach. Nothing had more charm for Gouache, as for many gifted and energetic young men, than that which it must require a desperate effort to get, if it could be got at all. Frenchmen, as well as Italians, consider marriage so much in the light of a mere contract which must be settled between notaries and ratified by parental assent, that to love a young girl seems to them like an episode out of a fairy tale, enchantingly novel and altogether delightful. To us, who consider love as a usual if not an absolutely necessary preliminary to marriage, this point of view is hardly conceivable; but it is enough to tell a Frenchman that you have married your wife because you loved her, and not because your parents or your circumstances arranged the match for you, to hear him utter the loudest exclamations of genuine surprise and admiration, declaring that his ideal of happiness, which he considers of course as quite unattainable, would be to marry the woman of his affections. The immediate result of a state in which that sort of bliss is considered to be generally beyond the grasp of humanity has been to produce the moral peculiarities of the French novel, of the French play, and of the French household, as it is usually exhibited in books and on the stage. The artist-Zouave was made of determined stuff. It was not for nothing that he had won the great prize which brought him to the Academy in Rome, nor was it out of mere romantic idleness that he had thrown over the feeble conspiracies of Madame Mayer and her set in order to wear a uniform. He had profound convictions, though he was not troubled with any great number of them. Each new one which took hold of him marked an epoch in his young life, and generally proved tenacious in proportion as he had formerly regarded it as absurd; and it was a proof of the sound balance of his mind that the three or four real convictions which he had accumulated during his short life were in no way contradictory to each other. On the contrary, each one seemed closely bound up with the rest, and appeared to bring a fresh energy to that direct action which, with Anastase, was the only possible result of any belief whatsoever. There was therefore a goodly store of logic in his madness, and though, like Childe Harold, he had sighed to many, and at present loved but one, yet he was determined, if it were possible, that this loved one should be his; seeing that to sigh for anything, and not to take it if it could be taken, was the part of a boy and not of a strong man. Moreover, although the social difficulties which lay in his way were an obstacle which would have seemed insurmountable to many, there were two considerations which gave Anastase some hope of ultimate success. In the first place Donna Faustina herself was not indifferent; and, secondly, Anastase was no longer the humble student who had come to Rome some years earlier with nothing but his pension in his pocket and his talent in his fingers. He was certainly not of ancient lineage, but since he had attained that position which enabled him to be received as an equal in the great world, and had by his skill accumulated a portion of that filthy lucre which is the platform whereon society moves and has its exclusive being, he had the advantage of talking to Donna Faustina, wherever he met her, in spite of her father's sixty-four quarterings. Nor did those meetings take place only under the auspices of so much heraldry and blazon, as will presently appear. At that period of the year, and especially during such a time of disturbance, there was no such thing as gaiety possible in Rome. People met quietly in little knots at each other's houses and talked over the state of the country, or walked and drove as usual in the villas and on the Pincio. When society cannot be gay it is very much inclined to grow confidential, to pull a long face, and to say things which, if uttered above a whisper, would be considered extremely shocking, but which, being communicated, augmented, criticised, and passed about quickly without much noise, are considered exceedingly interesting. When every one is supposed to be talking of politics it is very easy for every one to talk scandal, and to construct neighbourly biography of an imaginary character which shall presently become a part of contemporary history. On the whole, society would almost as gladly do this as dance. In those days of which I am speaking, therefore, there were many places where two or three, and sometimes as many as ten, were gathered together in council, ostensibly for the purpose of devising means whereby the Holy Father might overcome his enemies, though they were very often engaged in criticising the indecent haste exhibited by their best friends in yielding to the wiles of Satan. There were several of these rallying points, among which may be chiefly noticed the Palazzo Valdarno, the Palazzo Saracinesca, and the Palazzo Montevarchi. In the first of these three it may be observed in passing that there was a division of opinion, the old people being the most rigid of conservatives, while the children declared as loudly as they dared that they were for Victor Emmanuel and United Italy. The Saracinesca, on the other hand, were firmly united and determined to stand by the existing order of things. Lastly, the Montevarchi all took their opinions from the head of the house, and knew very well that they would submit like sheep to be led whichever way was most agreeable to the old prince. The friends who frequented those various gatherings were of course careful to say whatever was most sure to please their hosts, and after the set speeches were made most of them fell to their usual occupation of talking about each other. Gouache was an old friend of the Saracinesca, and came whenever he pleased; since his accident, too, he had become better acquainted with the Montevarchi, and was always a welcome guest, as he generally brought the latest news of the fighting, as well as the last accounts from France, which he easily got through his friendship with the young attaches of his embassy. It is not surprising therefore that he should have found so many opportunities of meeting Donna Faustina, especially as Corona di Sant' Ilario had taken a great fancy to the young girl and invited her constantly to the house. On the very first occasion when Gouache called upon the Princess Montevarchi in order to express again his thanks for the kindness he had received, he found the room half full of people. Faustina was sitting alone, turning over the pages of a book, and no one seemed to pay any attention to her. After the usual speeches to the hostess Gouache sat down beside her. She raised her brown eyes, recognised him, and smiled faintly. "What a wonderful contrast you are enjoying, Donna Faustina," said the Zouave. "How so? I confess it seems monotonous enough." "I mean that it is a great change for you, from the choir of the Sacro Cuore, from the peace of a convent, to this atmosphere of war." "Yes; I wish I were back again." "You do not like what you have seen of the world, Mademoiselle? It is very natural. If the world were always like this its attraction would not be dangerous. It is the pomps and vanities that are delightful." "I wish they would begin then," answered Donna Faustina with more natural frankness than is generally found in young girls of her education. "But were you not taught by the good sisters that those things are of the devil?" asked Gouache with a smile. "Of course. But Flavia says they are very nice." Gouache imagined that Flavia ought to know, but he thought fit to conceal his conviction. "You mean Donna Flavia, your sister, Mademoiselle?" "Yes." "I suppose you are very fond of her, are you not? It must be very pleasant to have a sister so nearly of one's own age in the world." "She is much older than I, but I think we shall be very good friends." "Your family must be almost as much strangers to you as the rest of the world," observed Gouache. "Of course you have only seen them occasionally for a long time past. You are fond of reading, I see." He made this remark to change the subject, and glanced at the book the young girl still held in her hand. "It is a new book," she said, opening the volume at the title-page. "It is Manon Lescaut. Flavia has read it--it is by the Abbe Prevost. Do you know him?" Gouache did not know whether to laugh or to look grave. "Did your mother give it to you?" he asked. "No, but she says that as it is by an abbe, she supposes it must be very moral. It is true that it has not the imprimatur, but being by a priest it cannot possibly be on the Index." "I do not know," replied Gouache, "Prevost was certainly in holy orders, but I do not know him, as he died rather more than a hundred years ago. You see the book is not new." "Oh!" exclaimed Donna Faustina, "I thought it was. Why do you laugh? Am I very ignorant not to know all about it?" "No, indeed. Only, you will pardon me, Mademoiselle, if I offer a suggestion. You see I am French and know a little about these matters. You will permit me?" Faustina opened her brown eyes very wide, and nodded gravely. "If I were you, I would not read that book yet. You are too young." "You seem to forget that I am eighteen years old, Monsieur Gouache." "No, not at all. But five and twenty is a better age to read such books. Believe me," he added seriously, "that story is not meant for you." Faustina looked at him for a few seconds and then laid the volume on the table, pushing it away from her with a puzzled air. Gouache was inwardly much amused at the idea of finding himself the moral preceptor of a young girl he scarcely knew, in the house of her parents, who passed for the most strait-laced of their kind. A feeling of deep resentment against Flavia, however, began to rise beneath his first sensation of surprise. "What are books for?" asked Donna Faustina, with a little sigh. "The good ones are dreadfully dull, and it is wrong to read the amusing ones--until one is married. I wonder why?" Gouache did not find any immediate answer and might have been seriously embarrassed had not Giovanni Sant' Ilario come up just then. Gouache rose to relinquish his seat to the newcomer, and as he passed before the table deftly turned over the book with his finger so that the title should not be visible. It jarred disagreeably on his sensibilities to think that Giovanni might see a copy of Manon Lescaut lying by the elbow of Donna Faustina Montevarchi. Sant' Ilario did not see the action and probably would not have noticed it if he had. Anastase pondered all that afternoon and part of the next morning over his short conversation, and the only conclusion at which he arrived was that Faustina was the most fascinating girl he had ever met. When he compared the result produced in his mind with his accurate recollection of what had passed between them, he laughed at his haste and called himself a fool for yielding to such nonsensical ideas. The conversation of a young girl, he argued, could only be amusing for a short time. He wondered what he should say at their next meeting, since all such talk, according to his notions, must inevitably consist of commonplaces. And yet at the end of a quarter of an hour of such meditation he found that he was constructing an interview which was anything but dull, at least in his own anticipatory opinion. Meanwhile the first ten days of October passed in comparative quiet. The news of Garibaldi's arrest produced temporary lull in the excitement felt in Rome, although the real struggle was yet to come. People observed to each other that strange faces were to be seen in the streets, but as no one could enter without a proper passport, very little anxiety gained the public mind. Gouache saw Faustina very often during the month that followed his accident. Such good fortune would have been impossible under any other circumstances, but, as has been explained, there were numerous little social confabulations on foot, for people were drawn together by a vague sense of common danger, and the frequent meetings of the handsome Zouave with the youngest of the Montevarchi passed unnoticed in the general stir. The old princess indeed often saw the two together, but partly owing to her English breeding, and partly because Gouache was not in the least eligible or possible as a husband for her daughter, she attached no importance to the acquaintance. The news that Garibaldi was again at large caused great excitement, and every day brought fresh news of small engagements along the frontier. Gouache was not yet quite recovered, though he felt as strong as ever, and applied every day for leave to go to the front. At last, on the 22d of October, the surgeon pronounced him to be completely recovered, and Anastase was ordered to leave the city on the following morning at daybreak. As he mounted the sombre staircase of the Palazzo Saracinesca on the afternoon previous to his departure, the predominant feeling in his breast was great satisfaction and joy at being on the eve of seeing active service, and he himself was surprised at the sharp pang he suffered in the anticipation of bidding farewell to his friends. He knew what friend it was whom he dreaded to leave, and how bitter that parting would be, for which three weeks earlier he could have summoned a neat speech expressing just so much of feeling as should be calculated to raise an interest in the hearer, and prompted by just so much delicate regret as should impart a savour of romance to his march on the next day. It was different now. Donna Faustina was in the room, as he had reason to expect, but it was several minutes before Anastase could summon the determination necessary to go to her side. She was standing near the piano, which faced outwards towards the body of the room, but was screened by a semicircular arrangement of plants, a novel idea lately introduced by Corona, who was weary of the stiff old-fashioned way of setting all the furniture against the wall. Faustina was standing at this point therefore, when Gouache made towards her, having done homage to Corona and to the other ladies in the room. His attention was arrested for a moment by the sight of San Giacinto's gigantic figure. The cousin of the house was standing before Flavia Montevarchi, bending slightly towards her and talking in low tones. His magnificent proportions made him by far the most noticeable person in the room, and it is no wonder that Gouache paused and looked at him, mentally observing that the two would make a fine couple. As he stood still he became aware that Corona herself was at his side. He glanced at her with something of inquiry in his eyes, and was about to speak when she made him a sign to follow her. They sat down together in a deserted corner at the opposite end of the room. "I have something to say to you, Monsieur Gouache," she said, in a low voice, as she settled herself against the cushions. "I do not know that I have any right to speak, except that of a good friend--and of a woman." "I am at your orders, princess." "No, I have no orders to give you. I have only a suggestion to make. I have watched you often during the last month. My advice begins with a question. Do you love her?" Gouache's first instinct was to express the annoyance he felt at this interrogation. He moved quickly and glanced sharply at Corona's velvet eyes. Before the words that were on his lips could be spoken he remembered all the secret reverence and respect he had felt for this woman since he had first known her, he remembered how he had always regarded her as a sort of goddess, a superior being, at once woman and angel, placed far beyond the reach of mortals like himself. His irritation vanished as quickly as it had arisen. But Corona had seen it. "Are you angry?" she asked. "If you knew how I worship you, you would know that I am not," answered Gouache with a strange simplicity. For an instant the princess's deep eyes flashed and a dark blush mounted through her olive skin. She drew back, rather proudly. A delicate, gentle smile played round the soldier's mouth. "Perhaps it is your turn to be angry, Madame," he said, quietly. "But you need not be. I would say it to your husband, as I would say it to you in his presence. I worship you. You are the most beautiful woman in the world, the most nobly good. Everybody knows it, why should I not say it? I wish I were a little child, and that you were my mother. Are you angry still?" Corona was silent, and her eyes grew soft again as she looked kindly at the man beside her. She did not understand him, but she knew that he meant to express something which was not bad. Gouache waited for her to speak. "It was not for that I asked you to come with me," she said at last. "I am glad I said it," replied Gouache. "I am going away to-morrow, and it might never have been said. You asked me if I loved her. I trust you. I say, yes, I do. I am going to say good-bye this afternoon." "I am sorry you love her. Is it serious?" "Absolutely, on my part. Why are you sorry? Is there anything unnatural in it?" "No, on the contrary, it is too natural. Our lives are unnatural. You cannot marry her. It seems brutal to tell you so, but you must know it already." "There was once a little boy in Paris, Madame, who did not have enough to eat every day, nor enough clothes when the north wind blew. But he had a good heart. His name was Anastase Gouache." "My dear friend," said Corona, kindly, "the atmosphere of Casa Montevarchi is colder than the north wind. A man may overcome almost anything more easily than the old-fashioned prejudices of a Roman prince." "You do not forbid me to try?" "Would the prohibition make any difference?" "I am not sure." Gouache paused and looked long at the princess. "No," he said at last, "I am afraid not." "In that case I can only say one thing. You are a man of honour. Do your best not to make her uselessly unhappy. Win her if you can, by any fair means. But she has a heart, and I am very fond of the child. If any harm comes to her I shall hold you responsible. If you love her, think what it would be should she love you and be married to another man." A shade of sadness darkened Corona's brow, as she remembered those terrible months of her own life. Gouache knew what she meant and was silent for a few moments. "I trust you," said she, at last. "And since you are going to-morrow, God bless you. You are going in a good cause." She held out her hand as she rose to leave him, and he bent over it and touched it with his lips, as he would have kissed the hand of his mother. Then, skirting the little assembly of people, Anastase went back towards the piano, in search of Donna Faustina. He found her alone, as young girls are generally to be found in Roman drawing-rooms, unless there are two of them present to sit together. "What have you been talking about with the princess?" asked Donna Faustina when Gouache was seated beside her. "Could you see from here?" asked Gouache instead of answering. "I thought the plants would have hindered you." "I saw you kiss her hand when you got up, and so I supposed that the conversation had been serious." "Less serious than ours must be," replied Anastase, sadly. "I was saying good-bye to her, and now--" "Good-bye? Why--?" Faustina checked herself and looked away to hide her pallor. She felt cold, and a slight shiver passed over her slender figure. "I am going to the front to-morrow morning." There was a long silence, during which the two looked at each other from time to time, neither finding courage to speak. Since Gouache had been in the room it had grown dark, and as yet but one lamp had been brought. The young man's eyes sought those he loved in the dusk, and as his hand stole out it met another, a tender, nervous hand, trembling with emotion. They did not heed what was passing near them. As though their silence were contagious, the conversation died away, and there was a general lull, such as sometimes falls upon an assemblage of people who have been talking for some time. Then, through the deep windows there came up a sound of distant uproar, mingled with occasional sharp detonations, few indeed, but the more noticeable for their rarity. Suddenly the door of the drawing-room burst open, and a servant's voice was heard speaking in a loud key, the coarse accents and terrified tone contrasting strangely with the sounds generally heard in such a place. "Excellency! Excellency! The revolution! Garibaldi is at the gates! The Italians are coming! Madonna! Madonna! The revolution, Eccellenza mia!" The man was mad with fear. Every one spoke at once. Some laughed, thinking the man crazy. Others, who had heard the distant noise from the streets, drew back and looked nervously towards the door. Then Sant' Ilario's clear, strong voice, rang like a clarion through the room. "Bar the gates. Shut the blinds all over the house--it is of no use to let them break good windows. Don't stand there shivering like a fool. It is only a mob." Before he had finished speaking, San Giacinto was calmly bolting the blinds of the drawing-room windows, fastening each one as steadily and securely as he had been wont to put up the shutters of his inn at Aquila in the old days. In the dusky corner by the piano Gouache and Faustina were overlooked in the general confusion. There was no time for reflection, for at the first words of the servant Anastase knew that he must go instantly to his post. Faustina's little hand was still clasped in his, as they both sprang to their feet. Then with a sudden movement he clasped her in his arms and kissed her passionately. "Good-bye--my beloved!" The girl's arms were twined closely about him, and her eyes looked up to his with a wild entreaty. "You are safe here, my darling--good-bye!" "Where are you going?" "To the Serristori barracks. God keep you safe till I come back--good-bye!" "I will go with you," said Faustina, with a strange look of determination in her angelic face. Gouache smiled, even then, at the mad thought which presented itself to the girl's mind. Once more he kissed her, and then, she knew not how, he was gone. Other persons had come near them, shutting the windows rapidly, one after the other, in anticipation of danger from without. With instinctive modesty Faustina withdrew her arms from the young man's neck and shrank back. In that moment he disappeared in the crowd. Faustina stared wildly about her for a few seconds, confused and stunned by the suddenness of what had passed, above all by the thought that the man she loved was gone from her side to meet his death. Then without hesitation she left the room. No one hindered her, for the Saracinesca men were gone to see to the defences of the house, and Corona was already by the cradle of her child. No one noticed the slight figure as it slipped through the door and was gone in the darkness of the unlighted halls. All was confusion and noise and flashing of passing lights as the servants hurried about, trying to obey orders in spite of their terror. Faustina glided like a shadow down the vast staircase, slipped through one of the gates just as the bewildered porter was about to close it, and in a moment was out in the midst of the multitude that thronged the dim streets--a mere child and alone, facing a revolution in the dark. CHAPTER V. Gouache made his way as fast as he could to the bridge of Sant' Angelo, but his progress was constantly impeded by moving crowds--bodies of men, women, and children rushing frantically together at the corners of the streets and then surging onward in the direction of the resultant produced by their combined forces in the shock. There was loud and incoherent screaming of women and shouting of men, out of which occasionally a few words could be distinguished, more often "Viva Pio Nono!" or "Viva la Repubblica!" than anything else. The scene of confusion baffled description. A company of infantry was filing out of the castle of Sant' Angelo on to the bridge, where it was met by a dense multitude of people coming from the opposite direction. A squadron of mounted gendarmes came up from the Borgo Nuovo at the same moment, and half a dozen cabs were jammed in between the opposing masses of the soldiers and the people. The officer at the head of the column of foot-soldiers loudly urged the crowd to make way, and the latter, consisting chiefly of peaceable but terrified citizens, attempted to draw back, while the weight of those behind pushed them on. Gouache, who was in the front of the throng, was allowed to enter the file of infantry, in virtue of his uniform, and attempted to get through and make his way to the opposite bank. But with the best efforts he soon found himself unable to move, the soldiers being wedged together as tightly as the people. Presently the crowd in the piazza seemed to give way and the column began to advance again, bearing Gouache backwards in the direction he had come. He managed to get to the parapet, however, by edging sideways through the packed ranks. "Give me your shoulder, comrade!" he shouted to the man next to him. The fellow braced himself, and in an instant the agile Zouave was on the narrow parapet, running along as nimbly as a cat, and winding himself past the huge statues at every half-dozen steps. He jumped down at the other end and ran for the Borgo Santo Spirito at the top of his speed. The broad space was almost deserted and in three minutes he was before the gates of the barracks, which were situated on the right-hand side of the street, just beyond the College of the Penitentiaries and opposite the church of San Spirito in Sassia. Meanwhile Donna Faustina Montevarchi was alone in the streets. In desperate emergencies young and nervously-organised people most commonly act in accordance with the dictates of the predominant passion by which they are influenced. Very generally that passion is terror, but when it is not, it is almost impossible to calculate the consequences which may follow. When the whole being is dominated by love and by the greatest anxiety for the safety of the person loved, the weakest woman will do deeds which might make a brave man blush for his courage. This was precisely Faustina's case. If any man says that he understands women he is convicted of folly by his own speech, seeing that they are altogether incomprehensible. Of men, it may be sufficient for general purposes to say with David that they are all liars, even though we allow that they may be all curable of the vice of falsehood. Of women, however, there is no general statement which is true. The one is brave to heroism, the next cowardly in a degree fantastically comic. The one is honest, the other faithless; the one contemptible in her narrowness of soul, the next supremely noble in broad truth as the angels in heaven; the one trustful, the other suspicious; this one gentle as a dove, that one grasping and venomous as a strong serpent. The hearts of women are as the streets of a great town--some broad and straight and clean; some dim and narrow and winding; or as the edifices and buildings of that same city, wherein there are holy temples, at which men worship in calm and peace, and dens where men gamble away the souls given them by God against the living death they call pleasure, which is doled out to them by the devil; in which there are quiet dwellings, and noisy places of public gathering, fair palaces and loathsome charnel-houses, where the dead are heaped together, even as our dead sins lie ghastly and unburied in that dark chamber of the soul, whose gates open of their own selves and shall not be sealed while there is life in us to suffer. Dost thou boast that thou knowest the heart of woman? Go to, thou more than fool! The heart of woman containeth all things, good and evil; and knowest thou then all that is? Donna Faustina was no angel. She had not that lofty calmness which we attribute to the angelic character. She was very young, utterly inexperienced and ignorant of the world. The idea which over-towers all other ideas was the first which had taken hold upon her, and under its strength she was like a flower before the wind. She was not naturally of the heroic type either, as Corona d'Astrardente had been, and perhaps was still, capable of sacrifice for the ideal of duty, able to suffer torment rather than debase herself by yielding, strong to stem the torrent of a great passion until she had the right to abandon herself to its mighty flood. Faustina was a younger and a gentler woman, not knowing what she did from the moment her heart began to dictate her actions, willing, above all, to take the suggestion of her soul as a command, and, because she knew no evil, rejoicing in an abandonment which might well have terrified one who knew the world. She already loved Anastase intensely. Under the circumstances of his farewell, the startling effect of the announcement of a revolution, the necessity under which, as a soldier, he found himself of leaving her instantly in order to face a real danger, with his first kiss warm upon her lips, and with the frightful conviction that if he left her it might be the last--under all the emotions brought about by these things, half mad with love and anxiety, it was not altogether wonderful that she acted as she did. She could not have explained it, for the impulse was so instinctive that she did not comprehend it, and the deed followed so quickly upon the thought that there was no time for reflection. She fled from the room and from the palace, out into the street, wholly unconscious of danger, like a creature in a dream. The crowd which had impeded Gouache's progress was already thinning when Faustina reached the pavement. She was born and bred in Rome, and as a child, before the convent days, had been taken to walk many a time in the neighbourhood of Saint Peter's. She knew well enough where the Serristori barracks were situated, and turned at once towards Sant' Angelo. There were still many people about, most of them either hurrying in the direction whence the departing uproar still proceeded, or running homewards to get out of danger. Few noticed her, and for some time no one hindered her progress, though it was a strange sight to see a fair young girl, dressed in the fashion of the time which so completely distinguished her from Roman women of lower station, running at breathless speed through the dusky streets. Suddenly she lost her way. Coming down the Via de' Coronari she turned too soon to the right and found herself in the confusing byways which form a small labyrinth around the church of San Salvatore in Lauro. She had entered a blind alley on the left when she ran against two men, who unexpectedly emerged from one of those underground wine-shops which are numerous in that neighbourhood. They were talking in low and earnest tones, and one of them staggered backward as the young girl rushed upon him in the dark. Instinctively the man grasped her and held her tightly by the arms. "Where are you running to, my beauty?" he asked, as she struggled to get away. "Oh, let me go! let me go!" she cried in agonised tones, twisting her slender wrists in his firm grip. The other man stood by, watching the scene. "Better let her go, Peppino," he said. "Don't you see she is a lady?" "A lady, eh?" echoed the other. "Where are you going to, with that angel's face?" "To the Serristori barrack," answered Faustina, still struggling with all her might. At this announcement both men laughed loudly and glanced quickly at each other. They seemed to think the answer a very good joke. "If that is all, you may go, and the devil accompany you. What say you, Gaetano?" Then they laughed again. "Take that chain and brooch as a ricordo--just for a souvenir," said Gaetano, who then himself tore off the ornaments while the other held Faustina's hands. "You are a pretty girl indeed!" he cried, looking at her pale face in the light of the filthy little red lamp that hung over the low door of the wine-shop. "I never kissed a lady in my life." With that he grasped her delicate chin in his foul hand and bent down, bringing his grimy face close to hers. But this was too much. Though Faustina had hitherto fought with all her natural strength against the ruffians, there was a reserved force, almost superhuman, in her slight frame, which was suddenly roused by the threatened outrage. With a piercing shriek she sprang backwards and dashed herself free, sending the two blackguards reeling into the darkness. Then, like a flash she was gone. By chance she took the right turning and in a moment more found herself in the Via di Tordinona, just opposite the entrance of the Apollo theatre. The torn white handbills on the wall, and the projecting shed over the doors told her where she was. By this time the soldiers who had intercepted Gouache's passage across the bridge, as well as the dense crowd, had disappeared, and Faustina ran like the wind along the pavement it had taken the soldier so long to traverse. Like a flitting bird she sped over the broad space beyond and up the Borgo Nuovo, past the long low hospital, wherein the sick and dying lay in their silence, tended by the patient Sisters of Mercy, while all was in excitement without. The young girl ran past the corner. A Zouave was running before her towards the gate of the barrack where a sentinel stood motionless under the lamp, his gray hood drawn over his head and his rifle erect by his shoulder. At that instant a terrific explosion rent the air, followed a moment later by the dull crash of falling fragments of masonry, and then by a long thundering, rumbling sound, dreadful to hear, which lasted several minutes, as the ruins continued to fall in, heaps upon heaps, sending immense clouds of thick dust up into the night air. Then all was still. The little piazza before San Spirito in Sassia was half filled with masses of stone and brickwork and crumbling mortar. A young girl lay motionless upon her face at the corner of the hospital, her white hands stretched out towards the man who lay dead but a few feet before her, crushed under a great irregular mound of stones and rubbish. Beneath the central heap where the barracks had stood lay the bodies of the poor Zouaves, deep buried in wreck of the main building, the greater part of which had fallen across the side street that passes between the Penitenzieri and the Serristori. All was still for many minutes, while the soft light streamed from the high windows of the hospital and faintly illuminated some portion of the hideous scene. Very slowly a few stragglers came in sight, then more, and then by degrees a great dark crowd of awestruck people were collected together and stood afar off, fearing to come near, lest the ruins should still continue falling. Presently the door of the hospital opened and a party of men in gray blouses, headed by three or four gentlemen in black coats--one indeed was in his shirt sleeves--emerged into the silent street and went straight towards the scene of the disaster. They carried lanterns and a couple of stretchers such as are used for bearing the wounded. It chanced that the straight line they followed from the door did not lead them to where the girl was lying, and it was not until after a long and nearly fruitless search that they turned back. Two soldiers only, and both dead, could they find to bring back. The rest were buried far beneath, and it would be the work of many hours to extricate the bodies, even with a large force of men. As the little procession turned sadly back, they found that the crowd had advanced cautiously forward and now filled the street. In the foremost rank a little circle stood about a dark object that lay on the ground, curious, but too timid to touch it. "Signor Professore," said one man in a low voice, "there is a dead woman." The physicians came forward and bent over the body. One of them shook his head, as the bright light of the lantern fell on her face while he raised the girl from the ground. "She is a lady," said one of the others in a low voice. The men brought a stretcher and lifted the girl's body gently from the ground, scarcely daring to touch her, and gazing anxiously but yet in wonder at the white face. When she was laid upon the coarse canvas there was a moment's pause. The crowd pressed closely about the hospital men, and the yellow light of the lanterns was reflected on many strange faces, all bent eagerly forward and down to get a last sight of the dead girl's features. "Andiamo," said one of the physicians in a quiet sad voice. The bearers took up the dead Zouaves again, the procession of death entered the gates of the hospital, and the heavy doors closed behind like the portals of a tomb. The crowd closed again and pressed forward to the ruins. A few gendarmes had come up, and very soon a party of labourers was at work clearing away the lighter rubbish under the lurid glare of pitch torches stuck into the crevices and cracks of the rent walls. The devilish deed was done, but by a providential accident its consequences had been less awful than might have been anticipated. Only one-third of the mine had actually exploded, and only thirty Zouaves were at the time within the building. "Did you see her face, Gaetano?" asked a rough fellow of his companion. They stood together in a dark corner a little aloof from the throng of people. "No, but it must have been she. I am glad I have not that sin on my soul." "You are a fool, Gaetano. What is a girl to a couple of hundred soldiers? Besides, if you had held her tight she would not have got here in time to be killed." "Eh--but a girl! The other vagabonds at least, we have despatched in a good cause. Viva la liberta!" "Hush! There are the gendarmes! This way!" So they disappeared into the darkness whence they had come. It was not only in the Borgo Nuovo that there was confusion and consternation. The first signal for the outbreak had been given in the Piazza Colonna, where bombs had been exploded. Attacks were made upon the prisons by bands of those sinister-looking, unknown men, who for several days had been noticed in various parts of the city. A compact mob invaded the capitol, armed with better weapons than mobs generally find ready to their hands. At the Porta San Paolo, which was rightly judged to be one of the weakest points of the city, a furious attack was made from without by a band of Garibaldians who had crept up near the walls in various disguises during the last two days. More than one of the barracks within the city were assaulted simultaneously, and for a short time companies of men paraded the streets, shouting their cries of "Viva Garibaldi, Viva la liberta!" A few cried "Viva Vittorio!" and "Viva l'Italia!" But a calm observer--and there were many such in Rome that night--could easily see that the demonstration was rather in favour of an anarchic republic than of the Italian monarchy. On the whole, the population showed no sympathy with the insurrection. It is enough to say that this tiny revolution broke out at dusk and was entirely quelled before nine o'clock of the same evening. The attempts made were bold and desperate in many cases, but were supported by a small body of men only, the populace taking no active part in what was done. Had a real sympathy existed between the lower classes of Romans and the Garibaldians the result could not have been doubtful, for the vigour and energy displayed by the rioters would inevitably have attracted any similarly disposed crowd to join in a fray, when the weight of a few hundreds more would have turned the scale at any point. There was not a French soldier in the city at the time, and of the Zouaves and native troops a very large part were employed upon the frontier. Rome was saved and restored to order by a handful of soldiers, who were obliged to act at many points simultaneously, and the insignificance of the original movement may be determined from this fact. It is true that of the two infernal schemes, plotted at once to destroy the troops in a body and to strike terror into the inhabitants, one failed in part and the other altogether. If the whole of the gunpowder which Giuseppe Monti and Gaetano Tognetti had placed in the mine under the Serristori barracks had exploded, instead of only one-third of the quantity, a considerable part of the Borgo Nuovo would have been destroyed; and even the disaster which actually occurred would have killed many hundreds of Zouaves if these had chanced to be indoors at the time. But it is impossible to calculate the damage and loss of life which would have been recorded had the castle of Sant' Angelo and the adjacent fortifications been blown into the air. A huge mine had been laid and arranged for firing in the vaults of one of the bastions, but the plot was betrayed at the very last moment by one of the conspirators. I may add that these men, who were tried, and condemned only to penal servitude, were liberated in 1870, three years later, by the Italian Government, on the ground that they were merely political prisoners. The attempt in which they had been engaged would, however, even in time of declared war, have been regarded as a crime against the law of nations. Rome was immediately declared under a state of siege, and patrols of troops began to parade the streets, sending all stragglers whom they met to their homes, on the admirable principle that it is the duty of every man who finds himself in a riotous crowd to leave it instantly unless he can do something towards restoring order. Persons who found themselves in other people's houses, however, had some difficulty in at once returning to their own, and as it has been seen that the disturbance began precisely at the time selected by society for holding its confabulations, there were many who found themselves in that awkward situation. As the sounds in the street subsided, the excitement in the drawing-room at the Palazzo Saracinesca diminished likewise. Several of those present announced their intention of departing at once, but to this the old prince made serious objections. The city was not safe, he said. Carriages might be stopped at any moment, and even if that did not occur, all sorts of accidents might arise from the horses shying at the noises, or running over people in the crowds. He had his own views, and as he was in his own house it was not easy to dispute them. "The gates are shut," he said, with a cheerful laugh, "and none of you can get out at present. As it is nearly dinner-time you must all dine with me. It will not be a banquet, but I can give you something to eat. I hope nobody is gone already." Every one, at these words, looked at everybody else, as though to see whether any one were missing. "I saw Monsieur Gouache go out," said Flavia Montevarchi. "Poor fellow!" exclaimed the princess, her mother. "I hope nothing will happen to him!" She paused a moment and looked anxiously round the room. "Good Heavens!" she cried suddenly, "where is Faustina?" "She must have gone out of the room with my wife," said Sant' Ilario, quietly. "I will go and see." The princess thought this explanation perfectly natural and waited till he should return. He did not come back, however, so soon as might have been expected. He found his wife just leaving the nursery. Her first impulse had been to go to the child, and having satisfied herself that he had not been carried off by a band of Garibaldians but was sound asleep in his cradle, she was about to rejoin her guests. "Where is Faustina Montevarchi?" asked Giovanni, as though it were the most natural question in the world. "Faustina?" repeated Corona. "In the drawing-room, to be sure. I have not seen her." "She is not there," said Sant' Ilario, in a more anxious tone. "I thought she had come here with you." "She must be with the rest. You have overlooked her in the crowd. Come back with me and see your son--he does not seem to mind revolution in the least!" Giovanni, who had no real doubt but that Faustina was in the house, entered the nursery with his wife, and they stood together by the child's cradle. "Is he not beautiful?" exclaimed Corona, passing her arm affectionately through her husband's, and leaning her cheek on his shoulder. "He is a fine baby," replied Giovanni, his voice expressing more satisfaction than his words. "He will look like my father when he grows up." "I would rather he should look like you," said Corona. "If he could look like you, dear, there would be some use in wishing." Then they both gazed for some seconds at the swarthy little boy, who lay on his pillows, his arms thrown back above his head and his two little fists tightly clenched. The rich blood softly coloured the child's dark cheeks, and the black lashes, already long, like his mother's, gave a singularly expressive look to the small face. Giovanni tenderly kissed his wife and then they softly left the room. As soon as they were outside Sant' Ilario's thoughts returned to Faustina. "She was certainly not in the drawing-room," he said, "I am quite sure. It was her mother who asked for her and everybody heard the question. I dare not go back without her." They stopped together in the corridor, looking at each other with grave faces. "This is very serious," said Corona. "We must search the house. Send the men. I will tell the women. We will meet at the head of the stairs." Five minutes later, Giovanni returned in pursuit of his wife. "She has left the house," he said, breathlessly. "The porter saw her go out." "Good Heavens! Why did he not stop her?" cried Corona. "Because he is a fool!" answered Sant' Ilario, very pale in his anxiety. "She must have lost her head and gone home. I will tell her mother." When it was known in the drawing-room that Donna Faustina Montevarchi had left the palace alone and on foot every one was horrorstruck. The princess turned as white as death, though she was usually very red in the face. She was a brave woman, however, and did not waste words. "I must go home at once," said she. "Please order my carriage and have the gates opened." Giovanni obeyed silently, and a few minutes later the princess was descending the stairs, accompanied by Flavia, who was silent, a phenomenon seldom to be recorded in connection with that vivacious young lady. Giovanni went also, and his cousin, San Giacinto. "If you will permit me, princess, I will go with you," said the latter as they all reached the carriage. "I may be of some use." Just as they rolled out of the deep archway, the explosion of the barracks rent the air, the tremendous crash thundering and echoing through the city. The panes of the carriage-windows rattled as though they would break, and all Rome was silent while one might count a score. Then the horses plunged wildly in the traces and the vehicle struck heavily against one of the stone pillars which stood before the entrance of the palace. The four persons inside could hear the coachman shouting. "Drive on!" cried San Giacinto, thrusting his head out of the window. "Eccellenza--" began the man in a tone of expostulation. "Drive on!" shouted San Giacinto, in a voice that made the fellow obey in spite of his terror. He had never heard such a voice before, so deep, so strong and so savage. They reached the Palazzo Montevarchi without encountering any serious obstacle. In a few minutes they were convinced that Donna Faustina had not been heard of there, and a council was held upon the stairs. Whilst they were deliberating, Prince Montevarchi came out, and with him his eldest son, Bellegra, a handsome man about thirty years old, with blue eyes and a perfectly smooth fair beard. He was more calm than his father, who spoke excitedly, with many gesticulations. "You have lost Faustina!" cried the old man in wild tones. "You have lost Faustina! And in such times as these! Why do you stand there? Oh, my daughter! my daughter! I have so often told you to be careful, Guendalina--move, in the name of God--the child is lost, lost, I tell you! Have you no heart? no feeling? Are you a mother? Signori miei, I am desperate!" And indeed he seemed to be, as he stood wringing his hands, stamping his feet, and vociferating incoherently, while the tears began to flow down his cheeks. "We are going in search of your daughter," said Sant' Ilario. "Pray calm yourself. She will certainly be found." "Perhaps I had better go too," suggested Ascanio Bellegra, rather timidly. But his father threw his arms round him and held him tightly. "Do you think I will lose another child?" he cried. "No, no, no--figlio mio--you shall never go out into the midst of a revolution." Sant' Ilario looked on gravely, though he inwardly despised the poor old man for his weakness. San Giacinto stood against the wall, waiting, with, a grim smile of amusement on his face. He was measuring Ascanio Bellegra with his eye and thought he would not care for his assistance. The princess looked scornfully at her husband and son. "We are losing time," said Sant' Ilario at last to his cousin. "I promise you to bring you your daughter," he added gravely, turning to the princess. Then the two went away together, leaving Prince Montevarchi still lamenting himself to his wife and son. Flavia had taken no part in the conversation, having entered the hall and gone to her room at once. The cousins left the palace together and walked a little way down the street, before either spoke. Then Sant' Ilario stopped short. "Does it strike you that we have undertaken rather a difficult mission?" he asked. "A very difficult one," answered San Giacinto. "Rome is not the largest city in the world, but I have not the slightest idea where to look for that child. She certainly left our house. She certainly has not returned to her own. Between the two, practically, there lies the whole of Rome. I think the best thing to do, will be to go to the police, if any of them can be found." "Or to the Zouaves," said San Giacinto. "Why to the Zouaves? I do not understand you." "You are all so accustomed to being princes that you do not watch each, other. I have done nothing but watch, you all the time. That young lady is in love with Monsieur Gouache." "Really!" exclaimed Sant' Ilario, to whom the idea was as novel and incredible as it could have been to old Montevarchi himself, "really, you must be mistaken. The thing is impossible." "Not at all. That young man took Donna Faustina's hand and held it for some time there by the piano while I was shutting the windows in your drawing-room." San Giacinto did not tell all he had seen. "What?" cried Sant' Ilario. "You are mad--it is impossible!" "On the contrary, I saw it. A moment later Gouache left the room. Donna Faustina must have gone just after him. It is my opinion that she followed him." Before Sant' Ilario could answer, a small patrol of foot-gendarmes came up, and peremptorily ordered the two gentlemen to go home. Sant' Ilario addressed the corporal in charge. He stated his name and that of his cousin. "A lady has been lost," he then said. "She is Donna Faustina Montevarchi--a young lady, very fair and beautiful. She left the Palazzo Saracinesca alone and on foot half an hour ago and has not been heard of. Be good enough to inform the police you meet of this fact and to say that a large reward will be paid to any one who brings her to her father's house--to this palace here." After a few more words the patrol passed on, leaving the two cousins to their own devices. Sant' Ilario was utterly annoyed at the view just presented to him, and could not believe the thing true, though he had no other explanation to offer. "It is of no use to stand here doing nothing," said San Giacinto rather impatiently. "There is another crowd coming, too, and we shall be delayed again. I think we had better separate. I will go one way, and you take the other." "Where will you go?" asked Sant' Ilario. "You do not know your way about---" "As she may be anywhere, we may find her anywhere, so that it is of no importance whether I know the names of the streets or not. You had best think of all the houses to which she might have gone, among her friends. You know them better than I do. I will beat up all the streets between here and your house. When I am tired I will go to your palace." "I am afraid you will not find her," replied Sant' Ilario. "But we must try for the sake of her poor mother." "It is a question of luck," said the other, and they separated at once. San Giacinto turned in the direction of the crowd which was pouring into the street at some distance farther on. As he approached, he heard the name "Serristori" spoken frequently in the hum of voices. "What about the Serristori?" he asked of the first he met. "Have you not heard?" cried the fellow. "It is blown up with gunpowder! There are at least a thousand dead. Half the Borgo Nuovo is destroyed, and they say that the Vatican will go next---" The man would have run on for any length of time, but San Giacinto had heard enough and dived into the first byway he found, intending to escape the throng and make straight for the barracks. He had to ask his way several times, and it was fully a quarter of an hour before he reached the bridge. Thence he easily found the scene of the disaster, and came up to the hospital of Santo Spirito just after the gates had closed behind the bearers of the dead. He mixed with the crowd and asked questions, learning very soon that the first search, made by the people from the hospital, had only brought to light the bodies of two Zouaves and one woman. "And I did not see her," said the man who was speaking, "but they say she was a lady and beautiful as an angel," "Rubbish!" exclaimed another. "She was a little sewing woman who lived in the Borgo Vecchio. And I know it is true because her innamorato was one of the dead Zouaves they picked up." "I don't believe there was any woman at all," said a third. "What should a woman be doing at the barracks?" "She was killed outside," observed the first speaker, a timid old man. "At least, I was told so, but I did not see her." "It was a woman bringing a baby to put into the Rota," [Footnote: The Rota was a revolving box in which foundlings were formerly placed. The box turned round and the infant was taken inside and cared for. It stands at the gate of the Santo Spirito Hospital, and is still visible, though no longer in use.] cried a shrill-voiced washerwoman. "She got the child in and was running away, when the place blew up, and the devil carried her off. And serve her right, for throwing away her baby, poor little thing!" In the light of these various opinions, most of which supported the story that some woman had been carried into the hospital, San Giacinto determined to find out the truth, and boldly rang the bell. A panel was opened in the door, and the porter looked out at the surging crowd. "What do you want?" he inquired roughly, on seeing that admittance had not been asked for a sick or wounded person. "I want to speak with the surgeon in charge," replied San Giacinto. "He is busy," said the man rather doubtfully. "Who are you?" "A friend of one of the persons just killed." "They are dead. You had better wait till morning and come again," suggested the porter. "But I want to be sure that it is my friend who is dead." "Then why do you not give your name? Perhaps you are a Garibaldian. Why should I open?" "I will tell the surgeon my name, if you will call him. There is something for yourself. Tell him I am a Roman prince and must see him for a moment." "I will see if he will come," said the man, shutting the panel in San Giacinto's face. His footsteps echoed along the pavement of the wide hall within. It was long before he came back, and San Giacinto had leisure to reflect upon the situation. He had very little doubt but that the dead woman was no other than Donna Faustina. By a rare chance, or rather in obedience to an irresistible instinct, he had found the object of his search in half an hour, while his cousin was fruitlessly inquiring for the missing girl in the opposite direction. He had been led to the conclusion that she had followed Gouache by what he had seen in the Saracinesca's drawing-room, and by a process of reasoning too simple to suggest itself to an ordinary member of Roman society. What disturbed him most was the thought of the consequences of his discovery, and he resolved to conceal the girl's name and his own if possible. If she were indeed dead, it would be wiser to convey her body to her father's house privately; if she were still alive, secrecy was doubly necessary. In either case it would be utterly impossible to account to the world for the fact that Faustina Montevarchi had been alone in the Borgo Nuovo at such an hour; and San Giacinto had a lively interest in preserving the good reputation of Casa Montevarchi, since he had been meditating for some time past a union with Donna Flavia. At last the panel opened again, and when the porter had satisfied himself that the gentleman was still without, a little door in the heavy gate was cautiously unfastened and San Giacinto went in, bending nearly double to pass under the low entrance. In the great vestibule he was immediately confronted by the surgeon in charge, who was in his shirt sleeves, but had thrown his coat over his shoulders and held it together at the neck to protect himself from the night air. San Giacinto begged him to retire out of hearing of the porter, and the two walked away together. "There was a lady killed just now by the explosion, was there not?" inquired San Giacinto. "She is not dead," replied the surgeon. "Do you know her?" "I think so. Had she anything about her to prove her identity?" "The letter M embroidered on her handkerchief. That is all I know. She has not been here a quarter of an hour. I thought she was dead myself, when we took her up." "She was not under the ruins?" "No. She was struck by some small stone, I fancy. The two Zouaves were half buried, and are quite dead." "May I see them? I know many in the corps. They might be acquaintances." "Certainly. They are close by in the mortuary chamber, unless they have been put in the chapel." The two men entered the grim place, which was dimly lighted by a lantern hanging overhead. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the ghastly details. San Giacinto bent down curiously and looked at the dead men's faces. He knew neither of them, and told the surgeon so. "Will you allow me to see the lady?" he asked. "Pardon me, if I ask a question," said the surgeon, who was a man of middle age, with a red beard and keen grey eyes. "To whom have I the advantage of speaking?" "Signor Professore," replied San Giacinto, "I must tell you that if this is the lady I suppose your patient to be, the honour of one of the greatest families in Rome is concerned, and it is important that strict secrecy should be preserved." "The porter told me that you were a Roman prince," returned the surgeon rather bluntly. "But you speak like a southerner." "I was brought up in Naples. As I was saying, secrecy is very important, and I can assure you that you will earn the gratitude of many by assisting me." "Do you wish to take this lady away at once?" "Heaven forbid! Her mother and sister shall come for her in half an hour." The surgeon thrust his hands into his pockets, and stood staring for a moment or two at the bodies of the Zouaves. "I cannot do it," he said, suddenly looking up at San. Giacinto. "I am master here, and I am responsible. The secret is professional, of course. If I knew you, even by sight, I should not hesitate. As it is, I must ask your name." San Giacinto did not hesitate long, as the surgeon was evidently master of the situation. He took a card from his case and silently handed it to the doctor. The latter took it and read the name, "Don Giovanni Saracinesca, Marchese di San Giacinto." His face betrayed no emotion, but the belief flashed through his mind that there was no such person in existence. He was one of the leading men in his profession, and knew Prince Saracinesca and Sant' Ilario, but he had never heard of this other Don Giovanni. He knew also that the city was in a state of revolution and that many suspicious persons were likely to gain access to public buildings on false pretences. "Very well," he said quietly. "You are not afraid of dead men, I see. Be good enough to wait a moment here--no one will see you, and you will not be recognised. I will go and see that there is nobody in the way, and you shall have a sight of the young lady." His companion nodded in assent and the surgeon went out through the narrow door. San Giacinto was surprised to hear the heavy key turned in the lock and withdrawn, but immediately accounted for the fact on the theory that the surgeon wished to prevent any one from finding his visitor lest the secret should be divulged. He was not a nervous man, and had no especial horror of being left alone in a mortuary chamber for a few minutes. He looked about him, and saw that the room was high and vaulted. One window alone gave air, and this was ten feet from the floor and heavily ironed. He reflected with a smile that if it pleased the surgeon to leave him there he could not possibly get out. Neither his size nor his phenomenal strength could assist him in the least. There was no furniture in the place. Half a dozen slabs of slate for the bodies were built against the wall, solid and immovable, and the door was of the heaviest oak, thickly studded with huge iron nails. If the dead men had been living prisoners their place of confinement could not have been more strongly contrived. San Giacinto waited a quarter of an hour, and at last, as the surgeon did not return, he sat down upon one of the marble slabs and, being very hungry, consoled himself by lighting a cigar, while he meditated upon the surest means of conveying Donna Faustina to her father's house. At last he began to wonder how long he was to wait. "I should not wonder," he said to himself, "if that long-eared professor had taken me for a revolutionist." He was not far wrong, indeed. The surgeon had despatched a messenger for a couple of gendarmes and had gone about his business in the hospital, knowing very well that it would take some time to find the police while the riot lasted, and congratulating himself upon having caught a prisoner who, if not a revolutionist, was at all events an impostor, since he had a card printed with a false name. CHAPTER VI. The improvised banquet at the Palazzo Saracinesca was not a merry one, but the probable dangers to the city and the disappearance of Faustina Montevarchi furnished matter for plenty of conversation. The majority inclined to the belief that the girl had lost her head and had run home, but as neither Sant' Ilario nor his cousin returned, there was much speculation. The prince said he believed that they had found Faustina at her father's house and had stayed to dinner, whereupon some malicious person remarked that it needed a revolution in Rome to produce hospitality in such a quarter. Dinner was nearly ended when Pasquale, the butler, whispered to the prince that a gendarme wanted to speak with him on very important business. "Bring him here," answered old Saracinesca, aloud. "There is a gendarme outside," he added, addressing his guests, "he will tell us all the news. Shall we have him here?" Every one assented enthusiastically to the proposition, for most of those present were anxious about their houses, not knowing what had taken place during the last two hours. The man was ushered in, and stood at a distance holding his three-cornered hat in his hand, and looking rather sheepish and uncomfortable. "Well?" asked the prince. "What is the matter? We all wish to hear the news." "Excellency," began the soldier, "I must ask many pardons for appearing thus---" Indeed his uniform was more or less disarranged and he looked pale and fatigued. "Never mind your appearance. Speak up," answered old Saracinesca in encouraging tones. "Excellency," said the man, "I must apologise, but there is a gentleman who calls himself Don Giovanni, of your revered name---" "I know there is. He is my son. What about him?" "He is not the Senior Principe di Sant' Ilario, Excellency--he calls himself by another name--Marchese di--di--here is his card, Excellency." "My cousin, San Giacinto, then. What about him, I say?" "Your Excellency has a cousin---" stammered the gendarme. "Well? Is it against the law to have cousins?" cried the prince. "What is the matter with my cousin?" "Dio mio!" exclaimed the soldier in great agitation. "What a combination! Your Excellency's cousin is in the mortuary chamber at Santo Spirito!" "Is he dead?" asked Saracinesca in a lower voice, but starting from his chair. "No," cried the man, "questo e il male! That is the trouble! He is alive and very well!" "Then what the devil is he doing in the mortuary chamber?" roared the prince. "Excellency, I beseech your pardon, I had nothing to do with locking up the Signor Marchese. It was the surgeon, Excellency, who took him for a Garibaldian. He shall be liberated at once---" "I should think so!" answered Saracinesca, savagely. "And what business have your asses of surgeons with gentlemen? My hat, Pasquale. And how on earth came my cousin to be in Santo Spirito?" "Excellency, I know nothing, but I had to do my duty." "And if you know nothing how the devil do you expect to do your duty! I will have you and the surgeon and the whole of Santo Spirito and all the patients, in the Carceri Nuove, safe in prison before morning! My hat, Pasquale, I say!" Some confusion followed, during which the gendarme, who was anxious to escape all responsibility in the matter of San Giacinto's confinement, left the room and descended the grand staircase three steps at a time. Mounting his horse he galloped back through the now deserted streets to the hospital. Within two minutes after his arrival San Giacinto heard the bolt of the heavy lock run back in the socket and the surgeon entered the mortuary chamber. San Giacinto had nearly finished his cigar and was growing impatient, but the doctor made many apologies for his long absence. "An unexpected relapse in a dangerous case, Signor Marchese," he said in explanation. "What would you have? We doctors are at the mercy of nature! Pray forgive my neglect, but I could send no one, as you did not wish to be seen. I locked the door, so that nobody might find you here. Pray come with me, and you shall see the young lady at once." "By all means," replied San Giacinto. "Dead men are poor company, and I am in a hurry." The surgeon led the way to the accident ward and introduced his companion to a small clean room in which a shaded lamp was burning. A Sister of Mercy stood by the white bed, upon which lay a young girl, stretched out at her full length. "You are too late," said the nun very quietly. "She is dead, poor child." San Giacinto uttered a deep exclamation of horror and was at the bedside even before the surgeon. He lifted the fair young creature in his arms and stared at the cold face, holding it to the light. Then with a loud cry of astonishment he laid down his burden. "It is not she, Signor Professore," he said. "I must apologise for the trouble I have given you. Pray accept my best thanks. There is a resemblance, but it is not she." The doctor was somewhat relieved to find himself freed from the responsibility which, as San Giacinto had told him, involved the honour of one of the greatest families in Rome. Before speaking, he satisfied himself that the young woman was really dead. "Death often makes faces look alike which have no resemblance to each other in life," he remarked as he turned away. Then they both left the room, followed at a little distance by the sister who was going to summon the bearers to carry away her late charge. As the two men descended the steps, the sound of loud voices in altercation reached their ears, and as they emerged into the vestibule, they saw old Prince Saracinesca flourishing his stick in dangerous proximity to the head of the porter. The latter had retreated until he stood with his back against the wall. "I will have none of this lying," shouted the irate nobleman. "The Marchese is here--the gendarme told me he was in the mortuary chamber--if he is not produced at once I will break your rascally neck---" The man was protesting as fast and as loud as his assailant threatened him. "Eh! My good cousin!" cried San Giacinto, whose unmistakable voice at once made the prince desist from his attack and turn round. "Do not kill the fellow! I am alive and well, as you see." A short explanation ensued, during which the surgeon was obliged to admit that as San Giacinto had no means of proving any identity he, the doctor in charge, had thought it best to send for the police, in view of the unquiet state of the city. "But what brought you here?" asked old Saracinesca, who was puzzled to account for his cousin's presence in the hospital. San Giacinto had satisfied his curiosity and did not care a pin for the annoyance to which he had been subjected. He was anxious, too, to get away, and having half guessed the surgeon's suspicions was not at all surprised by the revelation concerning the gendarme. "Allow me to thank you again," he said politely, turning to the doctor. "I have no doubt you acted quite rightly. Let us go," he added, addressing the prince. The porter received a coin as consolation money for the abuse he had sustained, and the two cousins found themselves in the street. Saracinesca again asked for an explanation. "Very simple," replied San Giacinto. "Donna Faustina was not at her father's house, so your son and I separated to continue our search. Chancing to find myself here--for I do not know my way about the city--I learnt the news of the explosion, and was told that two Zouaves had been found dead and had been taken into the hospital. Fearing lest one of them might have been Gouache, I succeeded in getting in, when I was locked up with the dead bodies, as you have heard. Gouache, by the bye, was not one of them." "It is outrageous---" began Saracinesca, but his companion did not allow him to proceed. "It is no matter," he said, quickly. "The important thing is to find Donna Faustina. I suppose you have no news of her." "None. Giovanni had not come home when the gendarme appeared." "Then we must continue the search as best we can," said San Giacinto. Thereupon they both got into the prince's cab and drove away. It was nearly midnight when a small detachment of Zouaves crossed the bridge of Sant' Angelo. There had been some sharp fighting at the Porta San Paolo, at the other extremity of Rome, and the men were weary. But rest was not to be expected that night, and the tired soldiers were led back to do sentry duty in the neighbourhood of their quarters. The officer halted the little body in the broad space beyond. "Monsieur Gouache," said the lieutenant, "you will take a corporal's guard and maintain order in the neighbourhood of the barracks--if there is anything left of them," he added with a mournful laugh. Gouache stepped forward and half a dozen men formed themselves behind him. The officer was a good friend of his. "I suppose you have not dined any more than I, Monsieur Gouache?" "Not I, mon lieutenant. It is no matter." "Pick up something to eat if you can, at such an hour. I will see that you are relieved before morning. Shoulder arms! March!" So Anastase Gouache trudged away down the Borgo Nuovo with his men at his heels. Among the number there was the son of a French duke, an English gentleman whose forefathers had marched with the Conqueror as their descendant now marched behind the Parisian artist, a young Swiss doctor of law, a couple of red-headed Irish peasants, and two or three others. When they reached the scene of the late catastrophe the place was deserted. The men who had been set to work at clearing away the rubbish had soon found what a hopeless task they had undertaken; and the news having soon spread that only the regimental musicians were in the barracks at the time, and that these few had been in all probability in the lower story of the building, where the band-room was situated, all attempts at finding the bodies were abandoned until the next day. Gouache and many others had escaped death almost miraculously, for five minutes had not elapsed after they had started at the double-quick for the Porta San Paolo, when the building was blown up. The news had of course been brought to them while they were repulsing the attack upon the gate, but it was not until many hours afterwards that a small detachment could safely be spared to return to their devastated quarters. Gouache himself had been just in time to join his comrades, and with them had seen most of the fighting. He now placed his men at proper distances along the street, and found leisure to reflect upon what had occurred. He was hungry and thirsty, and grimy with gunpowder, but there was evidently no prospect of getting any refreshment. The night, too, was growing cold, and he found it necessary to walk briskly about to keep himself warm. At first he tramped backwards and forwards, some fifty paces each way, but growing weary of the monotonous exercise, he began to scramble about among the heaps of ruins. His quick imagination called up the scene as it must have looked at the moment of the explosion, and then reverted with a sharp pang to the thought of his poor comrades-in-arms who lay crushed to death many feet below the stones on which he trod. Suddenly, as he leaned against a huge block, absorbed in his thoughts, the low wailing of a woman's voice reached his ears. The sound proceeded apparently from no great distance, but the tone was very soft and low. Gradually, as he listened, he thought he distinguished words, but such words as he had not expected to hear, though they expressed his own feeling well enough. "Requiem eternam dona eis!" It was quite distinct, and the accents sounded strangely familiar. He held his breath and strained every faculty to catch the sounds. "Requiem sempiternam--sempiternam--sempiternam!" The despairing tones trembled at the third repetition, and then the voice broke into passionate sobbing. Anastase did not wait for more. At first he had half believed that what he heard was due to his imagination, but the sudden weeping left no doubt that it was real. Cautiously he made his way amongst the ruins, until he stopped short in amazement not unmingled with horror. In an angle where a part of the walls was still standing, a woman was on her knees, her hands stretched wildly out before her, her darkly-clad figure faintly revealed by the beams of the waning moon. The covering had fallen back from her head upon her shoulders, and the struggling rays fell upon her beautiful features, marking their angelic outline with delicate light. Still Anastase remained motionless, scarcely believing his eyes, and yet knowing that lovely face too well not to believe. It was Donna Faustina Montevarchi who knelt there at midnight, alone, repeating the solemn words from the mass for the dead; it was for him that she wept, and he knew it. Standing there upon the common grave of his comrades, a wild joy filled the young man's heart, a joy such as must be felt to be known, for it passes the power of earthly words to tell it. In that dim and ghastly place the sun seemed suddenly to shine as at noonday in a fair country; the crumbling masonry and blocks of broken stone grew more lovely than the loveliest flowers, and from the dark figure of that lonely heart-broken woman the man who loved her saw a radiance proceeding which overflowed and made bright at once his eyes and his heart. In the intensity of his emotion, the hand which lay upon the fallen stone contracted suddenly and broke off a fragment of the loosened mortar. At the slight noise, Faustina turned her head. Her eyes were wide and wild, and as she started to her feet she uttered a short, sharp cry, and staggered backward against the wall. In a moment Anastase was at her side, supporting her and looking into her face. "Faustina!" During a few seconds she gazed horrorstruck and silent upon him, stiffening herself and holding her face away from his. It was as though his ghost had risen out of the earth and embraced her. Then the wild look shivered like a mask and vanished, her features softened and the colour rose to her cheeks for an instant. Very slowly she drew him towards her, her eyes fixed on his; their lips met in a long, sweet kiss--then her strength forsook her and she swooned away in his arms. Gouache supported her tenderly until she sat leaning against the wall, and then knelt down by her side. He did not know what to do, and had he known, it would have availed him little. His instinct told him that she would presently recover consciousness and his emotions had so wholly overcome him that he could only look at her lovely face as her head rested upon his arm. But while he waited a great fear began to steal into his heart. He asked himself how Faustina had come to such a place, and how her coming was to be accounted for. It was long past midnight, now, and he guessed what trouble and anxiety there would be in her father's house until she was found. He represented to himself in quick succession the scenes which would follow his appearance at the Palazzo Montevarchi with the youngest daughter of the family in his arms--or in a cab, and he confessed to himself that never lover had been in such straits. Faustina opened her eyes and sighed, nestled her head softly on his breast, sighing again, in the happy consciousness that he was safe, and then at last she sat up and looked him in the face. "I was so sure you were killed," said she, in her soft voice. "My darling!" he exclaimed, pressing her to his side. "Are you not glad to be alive?" she asked. "For my sake, at least! You do not know what I have suffered." Again he held her close to him, in silence, forgetting all the unheard-of difficulties of his situation in the happiness of holding her in his arms. His silence, indeed, was more eloquent than any words could have been. "My beloved!" he said at last, "how could you run such risks for me? Do you think I am worthy of so much love? And yet, if loving you can make me worthy of you, I am the most deserving man that ever lived--and I live only for you. But for you I might as well be buried under our feet here with my poor comrades. But tell me, Faustina, were you not afraid to come? How long have you been here? It is very late--it is almost morning." "Is it? What does it matter, since you are safe? You ask how I came? Did I not tell you I would follow you? Why did you run on without me? I ran here very quickly, and just as I saw the gates of the barracks there was a terrible noise and I was thrown down, I cannot tell how. Soon I got to my feet and crept under a doorway. I suppose I must have fainted, for I thought you were killed. I saw a soldier before me, just when it happened, and he must have been struck. I took him for you. When I came to myself there were so many people in the street that I could not move from where I was. Then they went away, and I came here while the workmen tried to move the stones, and I watched them and begged them to go on, but they would not, and I had nothing to give them, so they went away too, and I knew that I should have to wait until to-morrow to find you--for I would have waited--no one should have dragged me away--ah! my darling--my beloved! What does anything matter now that you are safe!" For fully half an hour they sat talking in this wise, both knowing that the situation could not last, but neither willing to speak the word which must end it. Gouache, indeed, was in a twofold difficulty. Not only was he wholly at a loss for a means of introducing Faustina into her father's house unobserved at such an hour; he was in command of the men stationed in the neighbourhood, and to leave his post under any circumstances whatever would be a very grave breach of duty. He could neither allow Faustina to return alone, nor could he accompany her. He could not send one of his men for a friend to help him, since to take any one into his confidence was to ruin the girl's reputation in the eyes of all Rome. To find a cab at that time of night was almost out of the question. The position seemed desperate. Faustina, too, was a mere child, and it was impossible to explain to her the social consequences of her being discovered with him. "I think, perhaps," said she after a happy silence, and in rather a timid voice--"I think, perhaps, you had better take me home now. They will be anxious, you know," she added, as though fearing that he should suspect her of wishing to leave him. "Yes, I must take you home," answered Gouache, somewhat absently. To her his tone sounded cold. "Are you angry, because I want to go?" asked the young girl, looking lovingly into his face. "Angry? No indeed, darling! I ought to have taken you home at once--but I was too happy to think of it. Of course your people must be terribly anxious, and the question is how to manage your entrance. Can you get into the house unseen? Is there any way? Any small door that is open?" "We can wake the porter," said Faustina, simply. "He will let us in." "It would not do. How can I go to your father and tell him that I found you here? Besides, the porter knows me." "Well, if he does, what does it matter?" "He would talk about it to other servants, and all Rome would know it to-morrow. You must go home with a woman, and to do that we must find some one you know. It would be a terrible injury to you to have such a story repeated abroad." "Why?" To this innocent question Gouache did not find a ready answer. He smiled quietly and pressed her to his side more closely. "The world is a very bad place, dearest. I am a man and know it. You must trust me to do what is best. Will you?" "How can you ask? I will always trust you." "Then I will tell you what we will do. You must go home with the Princess Sant' Ilario." "With Corona? But--" "She knows that I love you, and she is the only woman in Rome whom I would trust. Do not be surprised. She asked me if it was true, and I said it was. I am on duty here, and you must wait for me while I make the rounds of my sentries--it will not take five minutes. Then I will take you to the Palazzo Saracinesca. I shall not be missed here for an hour." "I will do whatever you wish," said Faustina. "Perhaps that is best. But I am afraid everybody will be asleep. Is it not very late?" "I will wake them up if they are sleeping." He left her to make his round and soon assured himself that his men were not napping. Then before he returned he stopped at the corner of a street and by the feeble moonlight scratched a few words on a leaf from his notebook. "Madame," he wrote, "I have found Donna Faustina Montevarchi, who had lost her way. It is absolutely necessary that you should accompany her to her father's house. You are the only person whom I can trust. I am at your gate. Bring something in the way of a cloak to disguise her with." He signed his initials and folded the paper, slipping it into his pocket where he could readily find it. Then he went back to the place where Faustina was waiting. He helped her out of the ruins, and passing through a side street so as to avoid the sentinels, they made their way rapidly to the bridge. The sentry challenged Gouache who gave the word at once and was allowed to pass on with his charge. In less than a quarter of an hour they were at the Palazzo Saracinesca. Gouache made Faustina stand in the shadow of a doorway on the opposite side of the street and advanced to the great doors. A ray of light which passed through the crack of a shutter behind the heavy iron grating on one side of the arch showed that the porter was up. Anastase drew his bayonet from his side and tapped with its point against the high window. "Who is there?" asked the porter, thrusting his head out. "Is the Principe di Sant' Ilario still awake?" asked Gouache. "He is not at home. Heaven knows where he is. What do you want? The princess is sitting up to wait for the prince." "That will do as well," replied Anastase. "I am sent with this note from the Vatican. It needs an immediate answer. Be good enough to say that I was ordered to wait." The explanation satisfied the porter, to whom the sight of a Zouave was just then more agreeable than usual. He put his arm out through the grating and took the paper. "It does not look as though it came from the Vatican," he remarked doubtfully, as he turned the scrap to the light of his lamp. "The cardinal is waiting--make haste!" said Gouache. It struck him that even if the man could read a little, which was not improbable, the initials A. G., being those of Cardinal Antonelli in reversed order would be enough to frighten the fellow and make him move quickly. This, indeed was precisely what occurred. In five minutes the small door in the gate was opened and Gouache saw Corona's tall figure step out into the street. She hesitated a moment when she saw the Zouave alone, and then closed the door with a snap behind her. Gouache bowed quickly and gave her his arm. "Let us be quick," he said, "or the porter will see us. Donna Faustina is under that doorway. You know how grateful I am--there is no time to say it." Corona said nothing but hastened to Faustina's side. The latter put her arms about her friend's neck and kissed her. The princess threw a wide cloak over the young girl's shoulders and drew the hood over her head. "Let us be quick," said Corona, repeating Gouache's words. They walked quickly away in silence, and no one spoke until they leached the Palazzo Montevarchi. Explanations were impossible, and every one was too much absorbed by the danger of the situation to speak of anything else. When they were a few steps from the gate Corona stopped. "You may leave us here," she said coldly, addressing Gouache. "But, princess, I will see you home," protested the latter, somewhat surprised by her tone. "No--I will take a servant back with me. Will you be good enough to leave us?" she asked almost haughtily, as Gouache still lingered. He had no choice but to obey her commands, though for some time he could not explain to himself the cause of the princess's behaviour. "Goodnight, Madame. Good-night, Mademoiselle," he said, quietly. Then with a low bow he turned away and disappeared in the darkness. In five minutes he had reached the bridge, running at the top of his speed, and he regained his post without his absence having been observed. When the two women were alone, Corona laid her hand upon Faustina's shoulder and looked down into the girl's face. "Faustina, my child," she said, "how could you be led into such a wild scrape?" "Why did you treat him so unkindly?" asked the young girl with flashing eyes. "It was cruel and unkind--" "Because he deserved it," answered Corona, with rising anger. "How could he dare--from my house--a mere child like you---" "I do not know what you imagine," said Faustina in a tone of deep resentment. "I followed him to the Serristori barracks, and I fainted when they were blown up. He found me and brought me to you, because he said I could not go back to my father's house with him. If I love him what is that to you?" "It is a great deal to me that he should have got you into this trouble." "He did not. If it is trouble, I got myself into it. Do you love him yourself that you are so angry?" "I!" cried Corona in amazement at the girl's audacity. "Poor Gouache!" she added with a half-scornful, half-pitying laugh. "Come, child! Let us go in. We cannot stand here all night talking. I will tell your mother that you lost your way in our house and were found asleep in a distant room. The lock was jammed, and you could not get out." "I think I will simply tell the truth," answered Faustina. "You will do nothing of the kind," said Corona, sternly. "Do you know what would happen? You would be shut up in a convent by your father for several years, and the world would say that I had favoured your meetings with Monsieur Gouache. This is no trifling matter. You need say nothing. I will give the whole explanation myself, and take the responsibility of the falsehood upon my own shoulders." "I promised him to do as he bid me," replied Faustina. "I suppose he would have me follow your advice, and so I will. Are you still angry, Corona?" "I will try not to be, if you will be sensible." They knocked at the gate and were soon admitted. The whole household was on foot, though it was past one o'clock. It is unnecessary to describe the emotions of Faustina's relations, nor their gratitude to Corona, whose explanation they accepted at once, with a delight which may easily be imagined. "But your porter said he had seen her leave your house," said the Princess Montevarchi, recollecting the detail and anxious to have it explained. "He was mistaken, in his fright," returned Corona, calmly. "It was only my maid, who ran out to see what was the matter and returned soon afterwards." There was nothing more to be said. The old prince and Ascanio Bellegra walked home with Corona, who refused to wait until a carriage could be got ready, on the ground that her husband might have returned from the search and might be anxious at her absence. She left her escort at her door and mounted the steps alone. As she was going up the porter came running after her. "Excellency," he said in low tones, "the Signor Principe came back while you were gone, and I told him that you had received a note from the Vatican and had gone away with the Zouave who brought it. I hope I did right---" "Of course you did," replied Corona. She was a calm woman and not easily thrown off her guard, but as she made her answer she was conscious of an unpleasant sensation wholly new to her. She had never done anything concerning which she had reason to ask herself what Giovanni would think of it. For the first time since her marriage with him she knew that she had something to conceal. How, indeed, was it possible to tell him the story of Faustina's wild doings? Giovanni was a man who knew the world, and had no great belief in its virtues. To tell him what had occurred would be to do Faustina an irreparable injury in his eyes. He would believe his wife, no doubt, but he would tell her that Faustina had deceived her. She cared little what he might think of Gouache, for she herself was incensed against him, believing that he must certainly have used some persuasion to induce Faustina to follow him, mad as the idea seemed. Corona had little time for reflection, however. She could not stand upon the stairs, and as soon as she entered the house she must meet her husband. She made up her mind hurriedly to do what in most cases is extremely dangerous. Giovanni was in her boudoir, pale and anxious. He had forgotten that he had not dined that evening and was smoking a cigarette with short sharp puffs. "Thank God!" he cried, as his wife entered the room. "Where have you been, my darling?" "Giovanni," said Corona, gravely, laying her two hands on his shoulders, "you know you can trust me--do you not?" "As I trust Heaven," he answered, tenderly. "You must trust me now, then," said she. "I cannot tell you where I have been. I will tell you some day, you have my solemn promise. Faustina Montevarchi is with her mother. I took her back, and told them she had followed me from the room, had lost her way in the house, and had accidentally fastened a door which she could not open. You must support the story. You need only say that I told you so, because you were out at the time. I will not lie to you, so I tell you that I invented the story." Sant' Ilario was silent for a few minutes, during which he looked steadily into his wife's eyes, which met his without flinching. "You shall do as you please, Corona," he said at last, returning the cigarette to his lips and still looking at her. "Will you answer me one question?" "If I can without explaining." "That Zouave who brought the message from the Vatican--was he Gouache?" Corona turned her eyes away, annoyed at the demand. To refuse to answer was tantamount to admitting the truth, and she would not lie to her husband. "It was Gouache," she said, after a moment's hesitation. "I thought so," answered Sant' Ilario in a low voice. He moved away, throwing his cigarette into the fireplace. "Very well," he continued, "I will remember to tell the story as you told it to me, and I am sure you will tell me the truth some day." "Of course," said Corona. "And I thank you, Giovanni, with my whole heart! There is no one like you, dear." She sat down in a chair beside him as he stood, and taking his hand she pressed it to her lips. She knew well enough what a strange thing she had asked, and she was indeed grateful to him. He stooped down and kissed her forehead. "I will always trust you," he said, softly. "Tell me, dear one, has this matter given you pain? Is it a secret that will trouble you?" "Not now," she answered, frankly. Giovanni was in earnest when he promised to trust his wife. He knew, better than any living man, how well worthy she was of his utmost confidence, and he meant what he said. It must be confessed that the situation was a trying one to a man of his temper, and the depth of his love for Corona can be judged from the readiness with which he consented to her concealing anything from him. Every circumstance connected with what had happened that evening was strange, and the conclusion, instead of elucidating the mystery, only made it more mysterious still. His cousin's point-blank declaration that Faustina and Gouache were in love was startling to all his ideas and prejudices. He had seen Gouache kiss Corona's hand in a corner of the drawing-room, a proceeding which he did not wholly approve, though it was common enough. Then Gouache and Faustina had disappeared. Then Faustina had been found, and to facilitate the finding it had been necessary that Corona and Gouache should leave the palace together at one o'clock in the morning. Finally, Corona had appealed to his confidence in her and had taken advantage of it to refuse any present explanation whatever of her proceedings. Corona was a very noble and true woman, and he had promised to trust her. How far he kept his word will appear hereafter. CHAPTER VII. When San Giacinto heard Corona's explanation of Faustina's disappearance, he said nothing. He did not believe the story in the least, but if every one was satisfied there was no reason why he should not be satisfied also. Though he saw well enough that the tale was a pure invention, and that there was something behind it which was not to be known, the result was, on the whole, exactly what he desired. He received the thanks of the Montevarchi household for his fruitless exertions with a smile of gratification, and congratulated the princess upon the happy issue of the adventure. He made no present attempt to ascertain the real truth by asking questions which would have been hard to answer, for he was delighted that the incident should be explained away and forgotten at once. Donna Faustina's disappearance was of course freely discussed and variously commented, but the general verdict of the world was contrary to San Giacinto's private conclusions. People said that the account given by the family must be true, since it was absurd to suppose that a child just out of the convent could be either so foolish or so courageous as to go out alone at such a moment. No other hypothesis was in the least tenable, and the demonstration offered must be accepted as giving the only solution of the problem. San Giacinto told no one that he thought differently. It was before all things his intention to establish himself firmly in Roman society, and his natural tact told him that the best way to accomplish this was to offend no one, and to endorse without question the opinion of the majority. Moreover, as a part of his plan for assuring his position consisted in marrying Faustina's sister, his interest lay manifestly in protecting the good name of her family by every means in his power. He knew that old Montevarchi passed for being one of the most rigid amongst the stiff company of the strait-laced, and that the prince was as careful of the conduct of his children, as his father had formerly been in regard to his own doings. Ascanio Bellegra was the result of this home education, and already bid fair to follow in his parent's footsteps. Christian virtues are certainly not incompatible with manliness, but the practice of them as maintained by Prince Montevarchi had made his son Ascanio a colourless creature, rather non-bad than good, clothed in a garment of righteousness that fitted him only because his harmless soul had no salient bosses of goodness, any more than it was disfigured by any reprehensible depressions capable of harbouring evil. There is a class of men in certain states of society who are manly, but not masculine. There is nothing paradoxical in the statement, nor is it a mere play upon the meanings of words. There are men of all ages, young, middle-aged, and old, who possess many estimable virtues, who show physical courage wherever it is necessary, who are honourable, strong, industrious, and tenacious of purpose, but who undeniably lack something which belongs to the ideal man, and which, for want of a better word, we call the masculine element. When we shall have microscopes so large and powerful that a human being shall be as transparent under the concentrated light of the lenses as the tiniest insect when placed in one of our modern instruments, then, perhaps, the scientist of the future may discover the causes of this difference. I believe, however, that it does not depend upon the fact of one man having a few ounces more of blood in his veins than another. The fact lies deeper hidden than that, and may puzzle the psychologist as well as the professor of anthropology. For us it exists, and we cannot explain it, but must content ourselves with comparing the phenomena which proceed from these differences of organisation. At the present day the society of the English-speaking races seems to favour the growth of the creature who is only manly but not masculine, whereas outside the pale of that strange little family which calls itself "society" the masculinity of man is more striking than among other races. Not long ago a French journalist said that many of the peculiarities of the English-speaking peoples proceeded from the omnipresence of the young girl, who reads every novel that appears, goes to every theatre, and regulates the tone of conversation and literature by her never-absent innocence. Cynics, if there are still representatives of a school which has grown ridiculous, may believe this if they please; the fact remains that it is precisely the most masculine class of men who show the strongest predilection for the society of the most refined women, and who on the whole show the greatest respect for all women in general. The masculine man prefers the company of the other sex by natural attraction, and would perhaps rather fight with other men, or at least strive to outdo them in the struggle for notoriety, power, or fame, than spend his time in friendly conversation with them, no matter how interesting the topic selected. This point of view may be regarded as uncivilised, but it may be pointed out that it is only in the most civilised countries that the society of women is accessible to all men of their own social position. No one familiar with Eastern countries will pretend that Orientals shut up their women because they enjoy their company so much as to be unwilling to share the privilege with their friends. San Giacinto was pre-eminently a masculine man, as indeed were all the Saracinesca, in a greater or less degree. He understood women instinctively, and, with a very limited experience of the world, knew well enough the strength of their influence. It was characteristic of him that he had determined to marry almost as soon as he had got a footing in Roman society. He saw clearly that if he could unite himself with a powerful family he could exercise a directing power over the women which must ultimately give him all that he needed. Through his cousins he had very soon made the acquaintance of the Montevarchi household, and seeing that there were two marriageable daughters, he profited by the introduction. He would have preferred Faustina, perhaps, but he foresaw that he should find fewer difficulties in obtaining her sister for his wife. The old prince and princess were in despair at seeing her still unmarried, and it was clear that they were not likely to find a better match for her than the Marchese di San Giacinto. He, on his part, knew that his past occupation was a disadvantage to him in the eyes of the world, although he was the undoubted and acknowledged cousin of the Saracinesca, and the only man of the family besides old Leone and his son Sant' Ilario. His two boys, also, were a drawback, since his second wife's children could not inherit the whole of the property he expected to leave. But his position was good, and Flavia was not generally considered to be likely to marry, so that he had good hopes of winning her. It was clear to him from the first that there must be some reason why she had not married, and the somewhat disparaging remarks concerning her which he heard from time to time excited his curiosity. As he had always intended to consult the head of his family upon the matter he now determined to do so at once. He was not willing, indeed, to let matters go any further until he had ascertained the truth concerning her, and he was sure that Prince Saracinesca would tell him everything at the first mention of a proposal to marry her. The old gentleman had too much pride to allow his cousin to make an unfitting match. Accordingly, on the day following the events last narrated San Giacinto called after breakfast and found the prince, as usual, alone in his study. He was not dozing, however, for the accounts of the last night's doings in the Osservatore Romano were very interesting. "I suppose you have heard all about Montevarchi's daughter?" asked Saracinesca, laying his paper aside and giving his hand to San Giacinto. "Yes, and I am delighted at the conclusion of the adventure, especially as I have something to ask you about another member of the family." "I hope Flavia has not disappeared now," remarked the prince. "I trust not," answered San Giacinto with a laugh. "I was going to ask you whether I should have your approval if I proposed to marry her." "This is a very sudden announcement," said Saracinesca with some surprise. "I must think about it. I appreciate your friendly disposition vastly, my dear cousin, in asking my opinion, and I will give the matter my best consideration." "I shall be very grateful," replied the younger man, gravely. "In my position I feel bound to consult you. I should do so in any case for the mere benefit of your advice, which is very needful to one who, like myself, is but a novice in the ways of Rome." Saracinesca looked keenly at his cousin, as though expecting to discover some touch of irony in his tone or expression. He remembered the fierce altercations he had engaged in with Giovanni when he had wished the latter to marry Tullia Mayer, and was astonished to find San Giacinto, over whom he had no real authority at all, so docile and anxious for his counsel. "I suppose you would like to know something about her fortune," he said at last. "Montevarchi is rich, but miserly. He could give her anything he liked." "Of course it is important to know what he would like to give," replied San Giacinto with a smile. "Of course. Very well. There are two daughters already married. They each had a hundred thousand scudi. It is not so bad, after all, when you think what a large family he has--but he could have given more. As for Flavia, he might do something generous for the sake of---" The old gentleman was going to say, for the sake of getting rid of her, and perhaps his cousin thought as much. The prince checked himself, however, and ended his sentence rather awkwardly. "For the sake of getting such a fine fellow for a husband," he said. "Why is she not already married?" inquired San Giacinto with a very slight inclination of his head, as an acknowledgment of the flattering speech whereby the prince had helped himself out of his difficulty. "Who knows!" ejaculated the latter enigmatically. "Is there any story about her? Was she ever engaged to be married? It is rather strange when one thinks of it, for she is a handsome girl. Pray be quite frank--I have taken no steps in the matter." "The fact is that I do not know. She is not like other girls, and as she gives her father and mother some trouble in society, I suppose that young men's fathers have been afraid to ask for her. No. I can assure you that there is no story connected with her. She has a way of stating disagreeable truths that terrifies Montevarchi. She was delicate as a child and was brought up at home, so of course she has no manners." "I should have thought she should have better manners for that," remarked San Giacinto. The prince stared at him in surprise. "We do not think so here," he answered after a moment's pause. "On the whole, I should say that for a hundred and twenty thousand you might marry her, if you are so inclined--and if you can manage her. But that is a matter for you to judge." "The Montevarchi are, I believe, what you call a great family?" "They are not the Savelli, nor the Frangipani--nor the Saracinesca either. But they are a good family--good blood, good fortune, and what Montevarchi calls good principles." "You think I could not do better than marry Donna Flavia, then?" "It would be a good marriage, decidedly. You ought to have married Tullia Mayer. If she had not made a fool of herself and an enemy of me, and if you had turned up two years ago--well, there were a good many objections to her, and stories about her, too. But she was rich--eh! that was a fortune to be snapped up by that scoundrel Del Ferice!" "Del Ferice?" repeated San Giacinto. "The same who tried to prove that your son was married by copying my marriage register?" "The same. I will tell you the rest of the story some day. Then at that time there was Bianca Valdarno--but she married a Neapolitan last year; and the Rocca girl, but Onorato Cantalupo got her and her dowry--Montevarchi's second son--and--well, I see nobody now, except Flavia's sister Faustina. Why not marry her? It is true that her father means to catch young Frangipani, but he will have no such luck, I can tell him, unless he will part with half a million." "Donna Faustina is too young," said San Giacinto, calmly. "Besides, as they are sisters and there is so little choice, I may say that I prefer Donna Flavia, she is more gay, more lively." "Vastly more, I have no doubt, and you will have to look after her, unless you can make her fall in love with you." Saracinesca laughed at the idea. "With me!" exclaimed San Giacinto, joining in his cousin's merriment. "With me, indeed! A sober widower, between thirty and forty! A likely thing! Fortunately there is no question of love in this matter. I think I can answer for her conduct, however." "I would not be the man to raise your jealousy!" remarked Saracinesca, laughing again as he looked admiringly at his cousin's gigantic figure and lean stern face. "You are certainly able to take care of your wife. Besides, I have no doubt that Flavia will change when she is married. She is not a bad girl--only a little too fond of making fun of her father and mother, and after all, as far as the old man is concerned, I do not wonder. There is one point upon which you must satisfy him, though--I am not curious, and do not ask you questions, but I warn you that glad as he will be to marry his daughter, he will want to drive a bargain with you and will inquire about your fortune." San Giacinto was silent for a few moments and seemed to be making a calculation in his head. "Would a fortune equal to what he gives her be sufficient?" he asked at length. "Yes. I fancy so," replied the prince looking rather curiously at his cousin. "You see," he continued, "as you have children by your first marriage, Montevarchi would wish to see Flavia's son provided for, if she has one. That is your affair. I do not want to make suggestions." "I think," said San Giacinto after another short interval of silence, "that I could agree to settle something upon any children which may be born. Do you think some such arrangement would satisfy Prince Montevarchi?" "Certainly, if you can agree about the terms. Such things are often done in these cases." "I am very grateful for your advice. May I count upon your good word with the prince, if he asks your opinion?" "Of course," answered Saracinesca, readily, if not very cordially. He had not at first liked his cousin, and although he had overcome his instinctive aversion to the man, the feeling was momentarily revived with more than its former force by the prospect of being perhaps called upon to guarantee, in a measure, San Giacinto's character as a suitable husband for Flavia. He had gone too far already however, for since he had given his approval to the scheme it would not become him to withhold his cooperation, should his assistance be in any way necessary in order to bring about the marriage. The slight change of tone as he uttered the last words had not escaped San Giacinto, however. His perceptions were naturally quick and were sharpened by the peculiarities of his present position, so that he understood Saracinesca's unwillingness to have a hand in the matter almost better than the prince understood it himself. "I trust that I shall not be obliged to ask your help," remarked San Giacinto. "I was, indeed, more anxious for your goodwill than for any more material aid." "You have it, with all my heart," said Saracinesca warmly, for he was a little ashamed of his coldness. San Giacinto took his leave and went away well satisfied with what he had accomplished, as indeed he had good cause to be. Montevarchi's consent to the marriage was not doubtful, now that San Giacinto was assured that he was able to fulfil the conditions which would be asked, and the knowledge that he was able to do even more than was likely to be required of him gave him additional confidence in the result. To tell the truth, he was strongly attracted by Flavia; and though he would assuredly have fought with his inclination had it appeared to be misplaced, he was pleased with the prospect of marrying a woman who would not only strengthen his position in society, but for whom he knew that he was capable of a sincere attachment. Marriage, according to his light, was before all things a contract entered into for mutual advantage; but he saw no reason why the fulfilment of such a contract should not be made as agreeable as possible. The principal point was yet to be gained, however, and as San Giacinto mounted the steps of the Palazzo Montevarchi he stopped more than once, considering for the last time whether he were doing wisely or not. On the whole he determined to proceed, and made up his mind that he would go straight to the point. Flavia's father was sitting in his study when San Giacinto arrived, and the latter was struck by the contrast between the personalities and the modes of life of his cousin whom he had just left and of the man to whom he was about to propose himself as a son-in-law. The Saracinesca were by no means very luxurious men, but they understood the comforts of existence better than most Romans of that day. If there was massive old-fashioned furniture against the walls and in the corners of the huge rooms, there were on the other hand soft carpets for the feet and cushioned easy-chairs to sit in. There were fires on the hearths when the weather was cold, and modern lamps for the long winter evenings. There were new books on the tables, engravings, photographs, a few objects of value and beauty not jealously locked up in closets, but looking as though they were used, if useful, or at least as if some one derived pleasure from looking at them. The palace itself was a stern old fortress in the midst of the older part of the city, but within there was a genial atmosphere of generous living, and, since Sant' Ilario's marriage with Corona, an air of refinement and good taste such as only a woman can impart to the house in which she dwells. The residence of the Montevarchi was very different. Narrow strips of carpet were stretched in straight lines across cold marble floors, from one door to another. Instead of open fires in the huge chimney-places, pans of lighted charcoal were set in the dim, empty rooms. Half a dozen halls were furnished alike. Each had three marble tables and twelve straight-backed chairs ranged against the walls, the only variety being that some were covered with red damask and some with green. Vast old-fashioned mirrors, set in magnificent frames built into the wall, reflected vistas of emptiness and acres of cold solitude. Nor were the rooms where the family met much better. There were more tables and more straight-backed chairs there than in the outer halls, but that was all. The drawing-room had a carpet, which for many years had been an object of the greatest concern to the prince, who never left Rome for the months of August and September until he had assured himself that this valuable object had been beaten, dusted, peppered, and sewn up in a linen case as old as itself, that is to say, dating from a quarter of a century back. That carpet was an extravagance to which his father had been driven by his English daughter-in-law; it was the only one of which he had ever been guilty, and the present head of the family meant that it should last his lifetime, and longer too, if care could preserve it. The princess herself had been made to remember for five and twenty years that since she had obtained a carpet she must expect nothing else in the way of modern improvements. It was the monument of a stupendous energy which she had expended entirely in that one struggle, and the sight of it reminded her of her youth. Long ago she had submitted once and for ever to the old Roman ways, and though she knew that a very little saved from the expense of maintaining a score of useless servants and a magnificent show equipage would suffice to make at least one room in the house comfortable for her use, she no longer sighed at the reflection, but consoled herself with making her children put up with the inconveniences she herself had borne so long and so patiently. Prince Montevarchi's private room was as comfortless as the rest of the house. Narrow, high, dim, carpetless, insufficiently warmed in winter by a brazier of coals, and at present not warmed at all, though the weather was chilly; furnished shabbily with dusty shelves, a writing-table, and a few chairs with leather seats, musty with an ancient mustiness which seemed to be emitted by the rows of old books and the moth-eaten baize cover of the table--the whole place looked more like the office of a decayed notary than the study of a wealthy nobleman of ancient lineage. The old gentleman himself entered the room a few seconds after San Giacinto had been ushered in, having slipped out to change his coat when his visitor was announced. It was a fixed principle of his life to dress as well as his neighbours when they could see him, but to wear threadbare garments whenever he could do so unobserved. He greeted San Giacinto with a grave dignity which contrasted strangely with the weakness and excitement he had shown on the previous night. "I wish to speak to you upon a delicate subject," began the younger man, after seating himself upon one of the high-backed chairs which cracked ominously under his weight. "I am at your service," replied the old gentleman, inclining his head politely. "I feel," continued San Giacinto, "that although my personal acquaintance with you has unfortunately been of short duration, the familiarity which exists between your family and mine will entitle what I have to say to a share of your consideration. The proposal which I have to make has perhaps been made by others before me and has been rejected. I have the honour to ask of you the hand of your daughter." "Faustina, I suppose?" asked the old prince in an indifferent tone, but looking sharply at his companion out of his small keen eyes. "Pardon me, I refer to Donna Flavia Montevarchi." "Flavia?" repeated the prince, in a tone of unmistakable surprise, which however was instantly moderated to the indifferent key again as he proceeded. "You see, we have been thinking so much about my daughter Faustina since last night that her name came to my lips quite naturally." "Most natural, I am sure," answered San Giacinto; who, however, had understood at once that his suit was to have a hearing. He then remained silent. "You wish to marry Flavia, I understand," remarked the prince after a pause. "I believe you are a widower, Marchese. I have heard that you have children." "Two boys." "Two boys, eh? I congratulate you. Boys, if brought up in Christian principles, are much less troublesome than girls. But, my dear Marchese, these same boys are an obstacle--a very serious obstacle." "Less serious than you may imagine, perhaps. My fortune does not come under the law of primogeniture. There is no fidei commissum. I can dispose of it as I please." "Eh, eh! But there must be a provision," said Montevarchi, growing interested in the subject. "That shall be mutual," replied San Giacinto, gravely. "I suppose you mean to refer to my daughter's portion," returned the other with more indifference. "It is not much, you know--scarcely worth mentioning. I am bound to tell you that, in honour." "We must certainly discuss the matter, if you are inclined to consider my proposal." "Well, you know what young women's dowries are in these days, my dear Marchese. We are none of us very rich." "I will make a proposal," said San Giacinto. "You shall give your daughter a portion. Whatever be the amount, up to a reasonable limit, which you choose to give, I will settle a like sum in such a manner that at my death it shall revert to her, and to her children by me, if she have any." "That amounts merely to settling upon herself the dowry I give her," replied Montevarchi, sharply. "I give you a scudo for your use. You settle my scudo upon your wife, that is all." "Not at all," returned San Giacinto. "I do not wish to have control of her dowry---" "The devil! Oh--I see--how stupid of me--I am indeed so old that I cannot count any more! How could I make such a mistake? Of course, it would be exactly as you say. Of course it would." "It would not be so as a general rule," said San Giacinto, calmly, "because most men would not consent to such an arrangement. That, however, is my proposal." "Oh! For the sake of Flavia, a man would do much, I am sure," answered the prince, who began to think that his visitor was in love with the girl, incredible as such a thing appeared to him. The younger man made no answer to this remark, however, and waited for Montevarchi to state his terms. "How much shall we say?" asked the latter at length. "That shall be for you to decide. Whatever you give I will give, if I am able." "Ah, yes! But how am I to know what you are able to give, dear Marchese?" The prince suspected that San Giacinto's offer, if he could be induced to make one, would not be very large. "Am I to understand," inquired San Giacinto, "that if I name the amount to be settled so that at my death it goes to my wife and her children by me for ever, you will agree to settle a like sum upon Donna Flavia in her own right? If so, I will propose what I think fair." Montevarchi looked keenly at his visitor for some moments, then looked away and hesitated. He was very anxious to marry Flavia at once, and he had many reasons for supposing that San Giacinto was not very rich. "How about the title?" he asked suddenly. "My title, of course, goes to my eldest son by my first marriage. But if you are anxious on that score I think my cousin would willingly confer one of his upon the eldest son of your daughter. It would cost him nothing, and would be a sort of compensation to me for my great-grandfather's folly." "How?" asked Montevarchi. "I do not understand." "I supposed you knew the story. I am the direct descendant of the elder branch. There was an agreement between two brothers of the family, by which the elder resigned the primogeniture in favour of the younger who was then married. The elder, who took the San Giacinto title, married late in life and I am his great-grandson. If he had not acted so foolishly I should be in my cousin's shoes. You see it would be natural for him to let me have some disused title for one of my children in consideration of this fact. He has about a hundred, I believe. You could ask him, if you please." San Giacinto's grave manner assured Montevarchi of the truth of the story. He hesitated a moment longer, and then made up his mind. "I agree to your proposal, my dear Marchese," he said, with unusual blandness of manner. "I will settle one hundred and fifty thousand scudi in the way I stated," said San Giacinto, simply. The prince started from his chair. "One--hundred--and--fifty--thousand!" he repeated slowly. "Why, it is a fortune in itself! Dear me! I had no idea you would name anything so large---" "Seven thousand five hundred scudi a year, at five per cent," remarked the younger man in a businesslike tone. "You give the same. That will insure our children an income of fifteen thousand scudi. It is not colossal, but it should suffice. Besides, I have not said that I would not leave them more, if I chanced to have more to leave." The prince had sunk back into his chair, and sat drumming on the table with his long thin fingers. His face wore an air of mingled surprise and bewilderment. To tell the truth, he had expected that San Giacinto would name about fifty thousand as the sum requisite. He did not know whether to be delighted at the prospect of marrying his daughter so well or angry at the idea of having committed himself to part with so much money. "That is much more than I gave my other daughters," he said at last, in a tone of hesitation. "Did you give the money to them or to their husbands?" inquired San Giacinto. "To their husbands, of course." "Then allow me to point out that you will now be merely settling money in your own family, and that the case is very different. Not only that, but I am settling the same sum upon your family, instead of taking your money for my own use. You are manifestly the gainer by the transaction." "It would be the same, then, if I left Flavia the money at my death, since it remains in the family," suggested the prince, who sought an escape from his bargain. "Not exactly," argued San Giacinto. "First there is the yearly interest until your death, which I trust is yet very distant. And then there is the uncertainty of human affairs. It will be necessary that you invest the money in trust, as I shall do, at the time of signing the contract. Otherwise there would be no fairness in the arrangement." "So you say that you are descended from the elder branch of the Saracinesca. How strange are the ways of Providence, my dear Marchese!" "It was a piece of great folly on the part of my great-grandfather," replied the other, shrugging his shoulders. "You should never say that a man will not marry until he is dead." "Ah no! The ways of heaven are inscrutable! It is not for us poor mortals to attempt to change them. I suppose that agreement of which you speak was made in proper form and quite regular." "I presume so, since no effort was ever made to change the dispositions established by it." "I suppose so--I suppose so, dear Marchese. It would be very interesting to see those papers." "My cousin has them," said San Giacinto. "I daresay he will not object. But, pardon me if I return to a subject which is very near my heart. Do I understand that you consent to the proposal I have made? If so, we might make arrangements for a meeting to take place between our notaries." "One hundred and fifty thousand," said Montevarchi, slowly rubbing his pointed chin with his bony lingers. "Five per cent--seven thousand five hundred--a mint of money, Signor Marchese, a mint of money! And these are hard times. What a rich man you must be, to talk so lightly about such immense sums! Well, well--you are very eloquent, I must consent, and by strict economy I may perhaps succeed in recovering the loss." "You must be aware that it is not really a loss," argued San Giacinto, "since it is to remain with your daughter and her children, and consequently with your family." "Yes, I know. But money is money, my friend," exclaimed the prince, laying his right hand on the old green tablecover and slowly drawing his crooked nails over the cloth, as though he would like to squeeze gold out of the dusty wool. There was something almost fierce in his tone, too, as he uttered the words, and his small eyes glittered unpleasantly. He knew well enough that he was making a good bargain and that San Giacinto was a better match than he had ever hoped to get for Flavia. So anxious was he, indeed, to secure the prize that he entirely abstained from asking any questions concerning San Giacinto's past life, whereby some obstacle might have been raised to the intended marriage. He promised himself that the wedding should take place at once. "It is understood," he continued, after a pause, "that we or our notaries shall appear with the money in cash, and that it shall be immediately invested as we shall jointly decide, the settlements being made at the same time and on the spot." "Precisely so," replied San Giacinto. "No money, no contract." "In that case I will inform my daughter of my decision." "I shall be glad to avail myself of an early opportunity to pay my respects to Donna Flavia." "The wedding might take place on the 30th of November, my dear Marchese. The 1st of December is Advent Sunday, and no marriages are permitted during Advent without a special licence." "An expensive affair, doubtless," remarked San Giacinto, gravely, in spite of his desire to laugh. "Yes. Five scudi at least," answered Montevarchi, impressively. "Let us by all means be economical." "The Holy Church is very strict about these matters, and you may as well keep the money." "I will," replied San Giacinto, rising to go. "Do not let me detain you any longer. Pray accept my warmest thanks, and allow me to say that I shall consider it a very great honour to become your son-in-law." "Ah, indeed, you are very good, my dear Marchese. As for me I need consolation. Consider a father's feelings, when he consigns his beloved daughter--Flavia is an angel upon earth, my friend--when, I say, a father gives his dear child, whom he loves as the apple of his eye, to be carried off by a man--a man even of your worth! When your children are grown up, you will understand what I suffer." "I quite understand," said San Giacinto in serious tones. "It shall be the endeavour of my life to make you forget your loss. May I have the honour of calling to-morrow at this time?" "Yes, my dear Marchese, yes, my dear son--forgive a father's tenderness. To-morrow at this time, and---" he hesitated. "And then--some time before the ceremony, perhaps--you will give us the pleasure of your company at breakfast, I am sure, will you not? We are very simple people, but we are hospitable in our quiet way. Hospitality is a virtue," he sighed a little. "A necessary virtue," he added with some emphasis upon the adjective. "It will give me great pleasure," replied San Giacinto. Therewith he left the room and a few moments later was walking slowly homewards, revolving in his mind the probable results of his union with the Montevarchi family. When Montevarchi was alone, he smiled pleasantly to himself, and took out of a secret drawer a large book of accounts, in the study of which he spent nearly half an hour, with evident satisfaction. Having carefully locked up the volume, and returned the sliding panel to its place, he sent for his wife, who presently appeared. "Sit down, Guendalina," he said. "I will change my coat, and then I have something important to say to you." He had quite forgotten the inevitable change in his satisfaction over the interview with San Giacinto, but the sight of the princess recalled the necessity for economy. It had been a part of the business of his life to set her a good example in this respect. When he came back he seated himself before her. "My dear, I have got a husband for Flavia," were his first words. "At last!" exclaimed the princess. "I hope he is presentable," she added. She knew that she could trust her husband in the matter of fortune. "The new Saracinesca--the Marchese di San Giacinto." Princess Montevarchi's ruddy face expressed the greatest astonishment, and her jaw dropped as she stared at the old gentleman. "A pauper!" she exclaimed when she had recovered herself enough to speak. "Perhaps, Guendalina mia--but he settles a hundred and fifty thousand scudi on Flavia and her heirs for ever, the money to be paid on the signing of the contract. That does not look like pauperism. Of course, under the circumstances I agreed to do the same. It is settled on Flavia, do you understand? He does not want a penny of it, not a penny! Trust your husband for a serious man of business, Guendalina." "Have you spoken to Flavia? It certainly looks like a good match. There is no doubt about his being of the Saracinesca, of course. How could there be? They have taken him to their hearts. But how will Flavia behave?" "What a foolish question, my dear!" exclaimed Montevarchi. "How easily one sees that you are English! She will be delighted, I presume. And if not, what difference does it make?" "I would not have married you against my will, Lotario," observed the princess. "For my part, I had no choice. My dear father said simply, 'My son, you will pay your respects to that young lady, who is to be your wife. If you wish to marry anyone else, I will lock you up.' And so I did. Have I not been a faithful husband to you, Guendalina, through more than thirty years?" The argument was unanswerable, and Montevarchi had employed it each time one of his children was married. In respect of faithfulness, at least, he had been a model husband. "It is sufficient," he added, willing to make a concession to his wife's foreign notions, "that there should be love on the one side, and Christian principles on the other. I can assure you that San Giacinto is full of love, and as for Flavia, my dear, has she not been educated by you?" "As for Flavia's Christian principles, my dear Lotario, I only hope they may suffice for her married life. She is a terrible child to have at home. But San Giacinto looks like a determined man. I shall never forget his kindness in searching for Faustina last night. He was devotion itself, and I should not have been surprised had he wished to marry her instead." "That exquisite creature is reserved for a young friend of ours, Guendalina. Do me the favour never to speak of her marrying anyone else." The princess was silent for a moment, and then began to make a series of inquiries concerning the proposed bridegroom, which it is unnecessary to recount. "And now we will send for Flavia," said Montevarchi, at last. "Would it not be best that I should tell her?" asked his wife. "My dear," he replied sternly, "when matters of grave importance have been decided it is the duty of the head of the house to communicate the decision to the persons concerned." So Flavia was sent for, and appeared shortly, her pretty face and wicked black eyes expressing both surprise and anticipation. She was almost as dark as San Giacinto himself, though of a very different type. Her small nose had an upward turn which disturbed her mother's ideas of the fitness of things, and her thick black hair waved naturally over her forehead. Her figure was graceful and her movements quick and spontaneous. The redness of her lips showed a strong vitality, which was further confirmed by the singular brightness of her eyes. She was no beauty, especially in a land where the dark complexion predominates, but she was very pretty and possessed something of that mysterious quality which charms without exciting direct admiration. "Flavia," said her father, addressing her in solemn tones, "you are to be married, my dear child. I have sent for you at once, because there was no time to be lost, seeing that the wedding must take place before the beginning of Advent. The news will probably give you pleasure, but I trust you will reflect upon the solemnity of such engagements and lay aside---" "Would you mind telling me the name of my husband?" inquired Flavia, interrupting the paternal lecture. "The man I have selected for my son-in-law is one whom all women would justly envy you, were it not that envy is an atrocious sin, and one which I trust you will henceforth endeavour---" "To drown, crush out and stamp upon in the pursuit of true Christian principles," said Flavia with a laugh. "I know all about envy. It is one of the seven deadlies. I can tell you them all, if you like." "Flavia, I am amazed!" cried the princess, severely. "I had not expected this conduct of my daughter," said Montevarchi. "And though I am at present obliged to overlook it, I can certainly not consider it pardonable. You will listen with becoming modesty and respect to what I have to say." "I am all modesty, respect and attention--but I would like to know his name, papa--please consider that pardonable!" "I do not know why I should not tell you that, and I shall certainly give you all such information concerning him as it is proper that you should receive. The fact that he is a widower need not surprise you, for in the inscrutable ways of Providence some men are deprived of their wives sooner than others. Nor should his age appear to you in the light of an obstacle--indeed there are no obstacles---" "A widower--old--probably bald--I can see him already. Is he fat, papa?" "He approaches the gigantic; but as I have often told you, Flavia, the qualities a wise father should seek in choosing a husband for his child are not dependent upon outward---" "For heaven's sake, mamma," cried Flavia, "tell me the creature's name!" "The Marchese di San Giacinto--let your father speak, and do not interrupt him." "While you both insist on interrupting me," said Montevarchi, "it is impossible for me to express myself." "I wish it were!" observed Flavia, under her breath. "You are speaking of the Saracinesca cousin, San Giacinto? Not so bad after all." "It is very unbecoming in a young girl to speak of men by their last names---" "Giovanni, then. Shall I call him Giovanni?" "Flavia!" exclaimed the princess. "How can you be so undutiful! You should speak of him as the Marchese di San Giacinto." "Silence!" cried the prince. "I will not be interrupted! The Marchese di San Giacinto will call to-morrow, after breakfast, and will pay his respects to you. You will receive him in a proper spirit." "Yes, papa," replied Flavia, suddenly growing meek, and folding her hands submissively. "He has behaved with unexampled liberality," continued Montevarchi, "and I need hardly say that as the honour of our house was concerned I have not allowed myself to be outdone. Since you refuse to listen to the words of fatherly instruction which it is natural I should speak on this occasion, you will at least remember that your future husband is entirely such a man as I would have chosen, that he is a Saracinesca, as well as a rich man, and that he has been accustomed in the women of his family to a greater refinement of manner than you generally think fit to exhibit in the presence of your father." "Yes, papa. May I go, now?" "If your conscience will permit you to retire without a word of gratitude to your parents, who in spite of the extreme singularities of your behaviour have at last provided you with a suitable husband; if, I say, you are capable of such ingratitude, then, Flavia, you may certainly go." "I was going to say, papa, that I thank you very much for my husband, and mamma, too." Thereupon she kissed her father's and her mother's hands with great reverence and turned to leave the room. Her gravity forsook her, however, before she reached the door. "Evviva! Hurrah!" she cried, suddenly skipping across the intervening space and snapping her small fingers like a pair of castanets. "Evviva! Married at last! Hurrah!" And with this parting salute she disappeared. When she was gone, her father and mother looked at each other, as they had looked many times before in the course of Flavia's life. They had found little difficulty in bringing up their other children, but Flavia was a mystery to them both. The princess would have understood well enough a thorough English girl, full of life and animal spirits, though shy and timid in the world, as the elderly lady had herself been in her youth. But Flavia's character was incomprehensible to her northern soul. Montevarchi understood the girl better, but loved her even less. What seemed odd in her to his wife, to him seemed vulgar and ill-bred, for he would have had her like the rest, silent and respectful in his presence, and in awe of him as the head of the house, if not in fact, at least in manner. But Flavia's behaviour was in the eyes of Romans a very serious objection to her as a wife for any of their sons, for in their view moral worth was necessarily accompanied by outward gravity and decorum, and a light manner could only be the visible sign of a giddy heart. "If only he does not find out what she is like!" exclaimed the princess at last. "I devoutly trust that heaven in its mercy may avert such a catastrophe from our house," replied Montevarchi, who, however, seemed to be occupied in adding together certain sums upon his fingers. San Giacinto understood Flavia better than either of her parents; and although his marriage with her was before all things a part of his plan for furthering his worldly interests, it must be confessed that he had a stronger liking for the girl than her father would have considered indispensable in such affairs. The matter was decided at once, and in a few days the preliminaries were settled between the lawyers, while Flavia exerted the utmost pressure possible upon the parental purse in the question of the trousseau. It may seem strange that at the time when all Rome was convulsed by an internal revolution, and when the temporal power appeared to be in very great danger, Montevarchi and San Giacinto should have been able to discuss so coolly the conditions of the marriage, and even to fix the wedding day. The only possible explanation of this fact is that neither of them believed in the revolution at all. It is a noticeable characteristic of people who are fond of money that they do not readily believe in any great changes. They are indeed the most conservative of men, and will count their profits at moments of peril with a coolness which would do honour to veteran soldiers. Those who possess money put their faith in money and give no credence to rumours of revolution which are not backed by cash. Once or twice in history they have been wrong, but it must be confessed that they have very generally been right. As for San Giacinto, his own interests were infinitely more absorbing to his attention than those of the world at large, and being a man of uncommonly steady nerves, it seems probable that he would have calmly pursued his course in the midst of much greater disturbances than those which affected Rome at that time. CHAPTER VIII. When Anastase Gouache was at last relieved from duty and went home in the gray dawn of the twenty-third, he lay down to rest expecting to reflect upon the events of the night. The last twelve hours had been the most eventful of his life; indeed less than that time had elapsed since he had bid farewell to Faustina in the drawing-room of the Palazzo Saracinesca, and yet the events which had occurred in that short space had done much towards making him another man. The change had begun two years earlier, and had progressed slowly until it was completed all at once by a chain of unforeseen circumstances. He realised the fact, and as this change was not disagreeable to him he set himself to think about it. Instead of reviewing what had happened, however, he did what was much more natural in his case, he turned upon his pillow and fell fast asleep. He was younger than his years, though he counted less than thirty, and his happy nature had not yet formed that horrible habit of wakefulness which will not yield even to bodily fatigue. He lay down and slept like a boy, disturbed by no dreams and troubled by no shadowy revival of dangers or emotions past. He had placed a gulf between himself and his former life. What had passed between him and Faustina, might under other circumstances have become but a romantic episode in the past, to be thought of with a certain tender regret, half fatuous, half genuine, whenever the moonlight chanced to cast the right shadow and the artist's mind was in the contemplative mood. The peculiar smell of broken masonry, when it is a little damp, would recall the impression, perhaps; an old wall knocked to pieces by builders would, through his nostrils, bring vividly before him that midnight meeting amid the ruins of the barracks, just as the savour of a certain truffle might bring back the memory of a supper at Voisin's, or as, twenty years hence, the pasty grittiness of rough maize bread would make him remember the days when he was chasing brigands in the Samnite hills. But this was not to be the case this time. There was more matter for reminiscence than a ray of moonlight on a fair face, or the smell of crumbling mortar. There was a deep and sincere devotion on both sides, in two persons both singularly capable of sincerity, and both foresaw that the result of this love could never be indifference. The end could only be exceeding happiness, or mortal sorrow. Anastase and Faustina were not only themselves in earnest; each knew instinctively that the other would be faithful, a condition extremely rare in ordinary cases. Each recognised that the obstacles were enormous, but neither doubted for a moment that means would be found to overcome them. In some countries the marriage of these two would have been a simple matter enough. A man of the world, honourable, successful, beginning to be famous, possessed of some fortune, might aspire to marry any one he pleased in lands where it is not a disgrace to have acquired the means of subsistence by one's own talent and industry. Artists and poets have sometimes made what are called great marriages. But in Rome, twenty years ago, things were very different. It is enough to consider the way in which Montevarchi arranged to dispose of his daughter Flavia to understand the light in which he would have regarded Faustina's marriage with Anastase Gouache. The very name of Gouache would have raised a laugh in the Montevarchi household had any one suggested that a woman of that traditionally correct race could ever make it her own. There were persons in Rome, indeed, who might have considered the matter more leniently. Corona Sant' Ilario was one of these; but her husband and father-in-law would have opened their eyes as wide as old Lotario Montevarchi himself, had the match been discussed before them. Their patriarchally exclusive souls would have been shocked and the dear fabric of their inborn prejudices shaken to its deepest foundations. It was bad enough, from the point of view of potential matrimony, to earn money, even if one had the right to prefix "Don" to one's baptismal name. But to be no Don and to receive coin for one's labour was a far more insurmountable barrier against intermarriage with the patriarchs than hereditary madness, toothless old age, leprosy, or lack of money. Gouache had acquired enough knowledge of Roman life to understand this, and nothing short of physical exhaustion would have prevented his spending his leisure in considering the means of overcoming such stupendous difficulties. When he awoke his situation presented itself clearly enough to his mind, however, and occupied his thoughts throughout the remainder of the day. Owing to the insurrection his departure was delayed for twenty-four hours, and his duty was likely to keep him busily engaged during the short time that remained to him. The city was in a state of siege and there would be a perpetual service of patrols, sentries and general maintenance of order. The performance of labours almost mechanical left him plenty of time for reflection, though he found it hard to spare a moment in which to see any of his friends. He was very anxious to meet the Princess Sant' Ilario, whose conduct on the previous night had seriously alarmed him. It was to her that he looked for assistance in his troubles and the consciousness that she was angry with him was a chief source of distress. In the course of the few words he had exchanged with her, she had made it sufficiently clear to him that although she disapproved in principle of his attachment to Faustina, she would do nothing to hinder his marriage if he should be able to overcome the obstinacy of the girl's parents. He was at first at a loss to explain her severity to him when she had left her house to take Faustina home. Being wholly innocent of any share in the latter's mad course, it did not at first enter his mind that Corona could attribute to him any blame in the matter. On the contrary, he knew that if the girl's visit to the ruined barracks remained a secret, this would be owing quite as much to his own discretion and presence of mind as to the princess's willingness to help him. Not a little, too, was due to good luck, since the least difference in the course of events must have led to immediate discovery. A little thought led him to a conclusion which wounded his pride while it explained Corona's behaviour. It was evident that she had believed in a clandestine meeting, prearranged between the lovers at the instigation of Gouache himself, and she had probably supposed this meeting to be only the preliminary to a runaway match. How, indeed, could Faustina have expected to escape observation, even had there been no revolution in Rome, that night? Corona clearly thought that the girl had never intended to come back, that Gouache had devised means for their departure, and that Faustina had believed the elopement possible in the face of the insurrection. Anastase, on finding himself in the small hours of the morning with Faustina on his hands and knowing that discovery must follow soon after day-break, had boldly brought her to the Palazzo Saracinesca and had demanded Corona's assistance. As the artist thought the matter over, he became more and more convinced that he had understood the princess's conduct, and the reflection made him redden with shame and anger. He determined to seize the first moment that presented itself for an explanation with the woman who had wronged him. He unexpectedly found himself at liberty towards five o'clock in the afternoon and made haste at once to reach the Palazzo Saracinesca. Knowing that no one would be allowed to be in the streets after dark, he felt sure of finding Corona without visitors, and expected the most favourable opportunity for talking over the subject which distressed him. After waiting several minutes in one of the outer halls he was ushered in, and to his extreme annoyance found himself in the midst of a family party. He had not counted upon the presence of the men of the household, and the fact that the baby was also present did not facilitate matters. Old Saracinesca greeted him warmly; Sant' Ilario looked grave; Corona herself looked up from her game with little Orsino, nodded and uttered a word of recognition, and then returned to her occupation. Conversation under these circumstances was manifestly impossible, and Gouache wished he had not had the unlucky idea of calling. There was nothing to be done, however, but to put on a brave face and make the best of it. "Well, Monsieur Gouache," inquired the old prince, "and how did you spend the night?" He could scarcely have asked a question better calculated to disturb the composure of everyone present except the baby. Anastase could not help looking at Corona, who looked instinctively at her husband, while the latter gazed at Gouache, wondering what he would say. All three turned a shade paler, and during a very few seconds there was an awkward silence. "I spent the night very uncomfortably," replied Anastase, after hesitating a little. "We were driven from pillar to post, repelling attacks, doing sentry duty, clearing the streets, marching and countermarching. It was daylight when I was relieved." "Indeed!" exclaimed Sant' Ilario. "I had supposed that you had remained all night at the Porta San Paolo. But there are many contradictory accounts. I was in some anxiety until I was assured that you had not been blown up in that infernal plot." Gouache was on the point of asking who had told Giovanni that he had escaped, but fortunately checked himself, and endeavoured to turn the conversation to the disaster at the barracks. Thereupon old Saracinesca, whose blood was roused by the atrocity, delivered a terrible anathema against the murderous wretches who had ruined the building, and expressed himself in favour of burning them alive, a fate, indeed, far too good for them. Anastase profited by the old gentleman's eloquence to make advances to the baby. Little Orsino, however, struck him a vigorous blow in the face with his tiny fist and yelled lustily. "He does not like strangers," remarked Corona, coldly. She rose with the child in her arms and moved towards the door, Gouache following her with the intention of opening it for her to go out. The prince was still thundering out curses against the conspirators, and Anastase attempted to say a word unobserved as Corona passed him. "Will you not give me a hearing?" he asked in a low tone, accompanying his words with an imploring look. Corona raised her eyebrows slightly as though surprised, but his expression of genuine contrition softened her heart a little and rendered her answer perhaps a trifle less unkind than she had meant it to be. "You should be satisfied--since I keep your secret," she said, and passed quickly out. When Gouache turned after closing the door he was aware that Sant' Ilario had been watching him, by the fixed way in which he was now looking in another direction. The Zouave wished more and more fervently that he had not come to the house, but resolved to prolong his visit in the hope that Corona might return. Sant' Ilario was unaccountably silent, but his father kept up a lively conversation, needing only an occasional remark from Gouache to give a fillip to his eloquence. This situation continued during nearly half an hour, at the end of which time Anastase gave up all hope of seeing Corona again. The two men evidently did not expect her to return, for they had made themselves comfortable and had lighted their cigarettes. "Good-bye, Monsieur Gouache," said the old prince, cordially shaking him by the hand. "I hope we shall see you back again alive and well in a few days." While he was speaking Giovanni had rung the bell for the servant to show the visitor out, an insignificant action, destined to produce a rather singular result. Sant' Ilario himself, feeling that after all he might never see Gouache alive again, repented a little of his coldness, and while the latter stood ready to go, detained him with a question as to his destination on leaving the city. This resulted in a lively discussion of Garibaldi's probable movements, which lasted several minutes. Corona in the meantime had taken Orsino back to his nurse, and had bidden her maid let her know when the visitor in the drawing-room was gone. The woman went to the hall, and when Giovanni rang the bell, returned to inform her mistress of the fact, supposing that Gouache would go at once. Corona waited a few minutes, and then went back to the sitting-room, which was at the end of the long suite of apartments. The result was that she met Anastase in one of the rooms on his way out, preceded by the footman, who went on towards the hall after his mistress had passed. Corona and Gouache were left face to face and quite alone in the huge dim drawing-room. Gouache had found his opportunity and did not hesitate. "Madame," he said, "I beg your pardon for trespassing on your time, but I have a serious word to say. I am going to the frontier and am as likely to be killed as any one else. On the faith of a man who may be dead to-morrow, I am wholly innocent of what happened last night. If I come back I will prove it to you some day. If not, will you believe me, and not think of me unkindly?" Corona hesitated and stood leaning against the heavy curtain of a window for a moment. Though the room was very dim, she could see the honest look in the young man's eyes and she hesitated before she answered. She had heard that day that two of her acquaintances had fallen fighting against the Garibaldians and she knew that Anastase was speaking of a very near possibility when he talked of being killed. There were many chances that he was telling the truth, and she felt how deeply she should regret her unbelief if he should indeed meet his fate before they met again. "You tell me a strange thing," she said at last. "You ask me to believe that this poor girl, of her own free will and out of love for you, followed you out of this room last night into the midst of a revolution. It is a hard thing to believe---" "And yet I implore you to believe it, princess. A man who should love her less than I, would be the basest of men to speak thus of her love. God knows, if things had been otherwise, I would not have let you know. But was there any other way of taking her home? Did I not do the only thing that was at all possible to keep last night's doings a secret? I love her to such a point that I glory in her love for me. If I could have shielded her last night by giving up my life, you know that I would have ended my existence that very moment. It would have done no good. I had to confide in some one, and you, who knew half my secret, since I had told you I loved her, were the only person who could be allowed to guess the remainder. If it could profit her that you should think me a villain, you might think me so--even you, whom I reverence beyond all women save her. But to let you think so would be to degrade her, and that you shall not do. You shall not think that she has been so foolish as to pin her faith on a man who would lead her to destruction--ah! if I loved her less I could tell you better what I mean." Corona was moved by his sincerity, if not by his arguments. She saw all the strangeness of the situation; how he had been forced to confide in some one, and how it seemed better in his eyes that she should know how Faustina had really behaved, than think that the young girl had agreed to a premeditated meeting. She was touched and her heart relented. "I believe you," she said. "Forgive me if I have wronged you." "Thank you, thank you, dear princess!" cried Gouache, taking her hand and touching it with his lips. "I can never thank you as I would. And now, good-bye--I am going. Will you give me your blessing, as my mother would?" He smiled, as he recalled the conversation of the previous evening. "Good-bye," answered Corona. "May all blessings go with you." He turned away and she stood a moment looking after him as he disappeared in the gloom. She was sorry for him in her heart and repented a little of having treated him so harshly. And yet, as soon as he was gone she began to doubt again, wondering vaguely whether she had not been deceived. There was an odd fascination about the soldier-artist which somehow influenced her in his favour when he was present, and of which she was not conscious until he was out of her sight. Now that she was alone, she found herself considering how this peculiar charm which he possessed would be likely to affect a young girl like Faustina, and she was obliged to acknowledge that it would account well enough for the latter's foolish doings. She could not look into Gouache's eyes and doubt what he said, but she found it hard afterwards to explain the faith she put in him. She was roused from her short reflection by her husband who, without being observed by her, had come to her side. Seeing that she did not return to the sitting-room when Gouache was gone he had come in search of her, and by the merest chance had overheard the last words which had passed between her and Anastase, and had seen how the latter fervently kissed her hand. The phrase in which she had wished him good luck rang unpleasantly in his ears and startled the inmost sensibilities of his nature. He remembered how she had blessed him once, in her calm, gentle way, on that memorable night of the Frangipani ball nearly three years before, and there was a similarity between the words she had used then and the simple expression which had now fallen from her lips. Giovanni stood beside her now and laid his hand upon her arm. It was not his nature to break out suddenly as his father did, when anything occurred to disturb his peace of mind. The Spanish blood he had inherited from his mother had imparted a profound reserve to his character, which gave it depth rather than coldness. It was hard for him to speak out violently when under the influence of emotion, but this very difficulty of finding words and his aversion to using them made him more sincere, more enduring and less forgiving than other men. He could wait long before he gave vent to his feelings, but they neither grew cool nor dull for the waiting. He detested concealment and secrecy more than most people, but his disinclination to speak of any matter until he was sure of it had given him the reputation of being both reticent and calculating. Giovanni now no longer concealed from himself the fact that he was annoyed by what was passing, but he denied, even in his heart, that he was jealous. To doubt Corona would be to upset the whole fabric of his existence, which he had founded upon her love and which had been built up to such great proportions during the past three years. His first impulse was to ask an explanation, and it carried him just far enough to lay his hand on his wife's arm, when it was checked by a multitude of reflections and unconscious arguments which altogether changed his determination. "I thought he was gone," he said, quietly enough. "So did I," replied Corona, in a cooler tone than she generally used in speaking to her husband. She, too, was annoyed, for she suspected that Giovanni had been watching her; and since, on the previous evening he had promised to trust her altogether in this affair, she looked upon his coming almost in the light of an infringement upon the treaty, and resented it accordingly. She did not reflect that it was unlikely that Giovanni should expect her to try to meet Gouache on his way out, and would therefore not think of lying in wait for her. His accidental coming seemed premeditated. He, on his side, had noticed her marked coldness to Anastase in the sitting-room and thought it contrasted very strangely with the over-friendly parting of which he had chanced to be a witness. Corona, too, knew very well that the last words spoken were capable of misinterpretation, and as she had no intention of telling her husband Faustina's story at present she saw no way of clearing up the situation, and therefore prepared to ignore it altogether. They turned together and walked slowly back in the direction of the sitting-room, neither speaking a word until they had almost reached the door. Then Giovanni stopped and looked at his wife. "Is it part of last night's secret?" he asked, almost indifferently. "Yes," answered Corona. "What could you suppose it was? I met him by accident and we exchanged a few words." "I know. I heard you say good-bye. I confess I was surprised. I thought you meant to be rude to him when we were all together, but I was mistaken. I hope your blessing will profit him, my dear!" He spoke quite naturally and without effort. "I hope so too," returned Corona. "You might have added yours, since you were present." "To tell the truth," said Giovanni, with a short laugh, "I fancy it might not have been so acceptable." "You talk very strangely, Giovanni!" "Do I? It seems to me quite natural. Shall we go into the sitting-room?" "Giovanni--you promised to trust me last night, and I promised to explain everything to you some day. You must keep your promise wholly or not at all." "Certainly," answered Sant' Ilario, opening the door for his wife and thus forcing the conversation to end suddenly, since old Saracinesca must now hear whatever was said. He would not allow the situation to last, for fear lest he should say something of which he might repent, for in spite of his words he did not wish to seem suspicious. Unfortunately, Corona's evident annoyance at having been overheard did more to strengthen the feeling of resentment which was growing in him than what he had heard and seen a few moments earlier. The way in which she had reproached him with not adding his blessing to hers showed plainly enough, he thought, that she was angry at what had occurred. They both entered the room, but before they had been long together Giovanni left his wife and father and retired to his own room under pretext of writing letters until dinner-time. When he was alone, the situation presented itself to his mind in a very disagreeable light. Corona's assurance that the mystery was a harmless one seemed wholly inadequate to account for her meeting with Gouache and for her kind treatment of him, especially after she had shown herself so evidently cold to him in the presence of the others. Either Giovanni was a very silly fellow, or he was being deceived as no man was ever deceived before. Either conclusion was exasperating. He asked himself whether he were such a fool as to invent a misconstruction upon occurrences which to any one else would have seemed void of any importance whatsoever; and his heart answered that if he were indeed so senseless he must have lost his intelligence very recently. On the other hand to suspect Corona of actually entertaining a secret passion for Gouache was an hypothesis which seemed too monstrous to be discussed. He sat down to think about it, and was suddenly startled by the host of little circumstances which all at once detached themselves from the hazy past and stood out in condemnation of his wife. Gouache, as he himself had acknowledged, had long worshipped the princess in a respectful, almost reverential way. He had taken every occasion of talking with her, and had expressed even by his outward manner a degree of devotion he never manifested to other women. Giovanni was now aware that for some time past, even as far back as the previous winter, he had almost unconsciously watched Corona and Anastase when they were together. Nothing in her conduct had excited his suspicions in the least, but he had certainly suspected that Gouache was a little inclined to idolise her, and had laughed to himself more than once at the idea of the French artist's hopeless passion, with something of that careless satisfaction a man feels who sees a less favoured mortal in dangerous proximity to a flame which burns only for himself. It was rather a contemptible amusement, and Giovanni had never indulged in it very long. He liked Gouache, and, if anything, pitied him for his hopeless passion. Corona treated the Zouave in her grand, quiet way, which had an air of protection with it, and Giovanni would have scoffed at the thought that she cared for the man. Nevertheless, now that matters had taken such a strange turn, he recollected with surprise that Gouache was undeniably the one of all their acquaintance who most consistently followed Corona wherever they met. The young man was a favourite in society. His great talent, his modesty, and above all what people were pleased to describe as his harmlessness, made everybody like him. He went everywhere, and his opportunities of meeting the princess were almost numberless. Giovanni had certainly watched him very often, though he was hardly conscious of having bestowed so much attention on the French artist-soldier, that he never failed to glance at his wife when Anastase was mentioned. Now, and all at once, a hundred details rushed to his recollection, and he was staggered by the vista of incidents that rose before his mind. Within the last twenty-four hours, especially, the evidence had assumed terrible proportions. In the first place there had been that scene in the drawing-room, enacted quietly enough and in a corner, while there were twenty persons present, but with the coolness of two people of the world who know what surprising things may be done unobserved in a room full of people. If Anastase had kissed Corona's hand a little differently, and with the evident intention of being seen, the action would have been natural. But there was a look in Gouache's face which Giovanni remembered, and an expression of kindness in Corona's eyes that he had not forgotten; above all they had both seemed as though they were sure that no one was watching them. Indeed, Sant' Ilario now asked himself how he had chanced to see what passed, and the only answer was that he generally watched them when they were together. This was a revelation to himself, and told much. Then there was her midnight expedition with Gouache, a far more serious matter. After all, he had only Corona's own assurance that Faustina Montevarchi had been in any way concerned in that extraordinary piece of rashness. He must indeed have had faith in his wife to pass over such conduct without a word of explanation. Next came the events of that very afternoon. Corona had been rude to Gouache, had then suddenly left the room, and in passing out had exchanged a few words with him in a low tone. She had met him again by accident, if it had been an accident, and fancying herself unseen had behaved very differently to the young man. There had been a parting which savoured unpleasantly of the affectionate, and which was certainly something more than merely friendly. Lastly, Corona had evidently been annoyed at Giovanni's appearance, a fact which seemed to conclude the whole argument with a terrible certainty. Finding himself face to face with a conclusion which threatened to destroy his happiness altogether, Giovanni started up from his chair and began to walk backwards and forwards in the room, pausing a moment each time he turned, as though to gather strength, or to shake off an evil thought. In the light of his present reflections an explanation seemed inevitable, but when he thought of that he saw too clearly that any explanation must begin by his accusing his wife, and he knew that if he accused her justly, it would only end in a denial from her. What woman, however guilty, would not deny her guilt when charged with it. What man either, where love was concerned? Giovanni laughed bitterly, then turned pale and sat down again. To accuse Corona of loving Gouache! It was too monstrous to be believed. And yet--what did all those doings mean? There must be a reason for them. If he called her and told her what he felt, and if she were innocent, she would tell him all, everything would be explained, and he would doubtless see that all this damning evidence was no more than the natural outward appearance of perfectly harmless circumstances of which he knew nothing. Ay, but if they were harmless, why should she implore him to ask no questions? Because the honour of some one else was concerned, of course. But was he, Giovanni Saracinesca, not to be trusted with the keeping of that other person's honour as well as Corona herself? Had they ever had secrets from each other? Would it not have been simpler for her to trust him with the story, if she was innocent, than to be silent and ask him to trust her motives? Far simpler, of course. And then, if only a third person's feelings were at stake, what necessity had there been for such a sentimental parting? She had given Gouache a blessing very like the one she had given Giovanni. Worst of all, were not the circumstances the same, the very same? Giovanni remembered the Frangipani ball. At that time Corona was married to Astrardente, who had died a few days afterwards. Giovanni had that night told Corona that he loved her, in very passionate terms. She had silenced him, and he had behaved like a gentleman, for he had asked her pardon for what he had done. She had forgiven him, and to show that she bore no malice had spoken a kind of benediction--a prayer that all might be well with him. He knew now that she had loved him even then when she repelled him. And now that she was married to Giovanni, another had come, and had talked with her, and exchanged words in a low tone even as he himself had once done. And she had treated this man roughly before her husband, and presently afterwards had allowed him to kiss her hand and had sent him away saying that she forgave him--just as she had formerly forgiven Giovanni--and praying that all blessings might go with him. Why was it not possible that she loved this man, too? Because she was so grandly beautiful, and dark and calm, and had such a noble fearlessness in her eyes? Other women had been beautiful and had deceived wiser men than Giovanni, and had fallen. Beauty was no argument for the defence, nor brave eyes, nor the magnificent dignity of movement and speech--nor words either, for that matter. Suspense was agony, and yet a twofold horror seemed the only issue, the one inevitable, the other possible. First, to accuse this woman whom he loved so dearly, and then, perhaps, to hear her deny the charge boldly and yet refuse all explanation. Once more Giovanni rose from his deep chair and paced his room with regular strides, though he scarcely saw the carpet under his feet, nor realised any longer where he was. At last he stopped and laughed. The sound was strange and false, as when a man tries to be merry who feels no mirth. He was making a desperate effort to shake off this nightmare that beset him, to say to himself that he was but a fool, and that there was no cause for all this suffering which he was inflicting on his heart, nor for all these questions he had been asking of his intelligence. It was surely not true! He would laugh now, would laugh heartily within the next half hour with Corona herself, at the mere thought of supposing that she could love Gouache, Gouache, a painter! Gouache, a Zouave! Gouache, a contemptibly good-natured, harmless little foreigner!--and Corona del Carmine, Duchessa d'Astrardente, Principessa di Sant' Ilario, mother of all the Saracinesca yet to come! It was better to laugh, truly, at such an absurd juxtaposition of ideas, of personalities, of high and low. And Giovanni laughed, but the sound, was very harsh and died away without rousing one honest echo in the vaulted room. Had Corona seen his face at that moment, or had she guessed what was passing in his mind, she would have sacrificed Faustina's secret ten times over rather than let Giovanni suffer a moment longer as he was suffering now. But Corona had no idea that he could put such a construction upon her doings. He had shown her nothing of what he felt, except perhaps a slight annoyance at not being put in possession of the secret. It was natural, she thought, that he should be a little out of temper, but as she saw no way of remedying the trouble except by exposing to him the innocent girl whom she had undertaken to protect, she held her peace and trusted that her husband's displeasure would soon be past. Had there been more time for reflection on the previous evening, in the interval between her learning from the porter that Giovanni knew of her absence, and her being confronted with Giovanni himself, she might have resolved to act differently; but having once made up her mind that he ought not to know the truth for the present, opposition only strengthened her determination. There was nothing wrong in the course she was pursuing, or her conscience would have spoken and bidden her speak out. Her nature was too like Giovanni's own, proud, reserved, and outwardly cold, to yield any point easily. It was her instinct, like his, to be silent rather than to speak, and to weigh considerations before acting upon them. This very similarity of temper in the two rendered it certain that if they were ever opposed to each other the struggle would be a serious one. They were both too strong to lead a life of petty quarrelling; if they ceased to live in perfect harmony they were only too sure to come to open hostility. There is nothing which will wound pride and raise anger so inevitably as finding unexpected but determined opposition in those who very closely resemble ourselves. In such a case a man cannot fall back upon the comfortable alternative of despising his enemy, since he has an intimate conviction that it would be paramount to despising himself; and if he is led into a pitched battle he will find his foe possessed of weapons which are exactly like his own. Giovanni and Corona were very evenly matched, as nearly resembling each other as is possible for a man and a woman. Corona was outwardly a little the colder, Giovanni a little the more resentful of the two. Corona had learned during the years of her marriage with Astrardente to wear a mask of serene indifference, and the assumed habit had at last become in some degree a part of her nature. Giovanni, whose first impulses had originally been quicker than they now were, had learned the power of waiting by constant intercourse with his father, whose fiery temper seemed to snatch at trifles for the mere pleasure of tearing them to pieces, and did injustice to the generous heart he concealed under his rough exterior. Under these circumstances it was not probable that Sant' Ilario would make any exhibition of his jealousy for some time to come. As he paced the floor of his room, the bitterness of his situation slowly sank from the surface, leaving his face calm and almost serene. He forced himself to look at the facts again and again, trying bravely to be impartial and to survey them as though he were the judge and not the plaintiff. He admitted at last that there was undoubtedly abundant matter for jealousy, but Corona still stood protected as it were by the love he bore her, a love which even her guilt would be unable to destroy. His love indeed, must outlast everything, all evil, all disgrace, and he knew it. He thought of that Latin poet who, writing to his mistress, said in the bitterness of his heart that though she were to become the best woman in the world he could never again respect her, but that he could not cease to love her, were she guilty of all crimes. He knew that if the worst turned out true that must be his case, and perhaps for the first time in his life he understood all the humanity of Catullus, and saw how a man might love even what he despised. Happily matters had not yet come to that. He knew that he might be deceived, and that circumstantial evidence was not always to be trusted. Even while his heart grew cold with the strongest and most deadly passion of which man is capable, with jealousy which is cruel as the grave, the nobility of his nature rose up and made him see that his duty was to believe Corona innocent until she were proved unfaithful. The effort to quench the flame was great, though fruitless, but the determination to cover it and hide it from every one, even from Corona herself, appealed to all that was brave and manly in his strong character. When at last he once more sat down, his face betrayed no emotion, his eyes were quiet, his hands did not tremble. He took up a book and forced his attention upon the pages for nearly an hour without interruption. Then he dressed himself, and went and sat at table with his father and his wife as though nothing had occurred to disturb his equanimity. Corona supposed that he had recovered from his annoyance at not being admitted to share the secret for which she was unconsciously sacrificing so much. She had expected this result and was more than usually cheerful. Once old Saracinesca mentioned Gouache, but both Corona and Giovanni hastened to change the subject. This time, however, Giovanni did not look at his wife when the name was pronounced. Those days were over now. CHAPTER IX. The excitement which had reigned in Rome for weeks past was destined to end almost as suddenly as it had begun. The events which followed the 22d of October have been frequently and accurately described; indeed, if we consider the small number of the troops engaged and the promptness with which a very limited body of men succeeded in quelling what at first appeared to be a formidable revolution, we are surprised at the amount of attention which has been accorded to the little campaign. The fact is that although the armies employed on both sides were insignificant, the questions at stake were enormous, and the real powers which found themselves confronted at Monte Rotondo and Mentana were the Kingdom of Italy and the French Empire. Until the ultimatum was presented to Italy by the French Minister on the 19th of October, Italy hoped to take possession of Rome on the pretext of restoring order after allowing it to be subverted by Garibaldi's guerillas. The military cordon formed by the Italian army to prevent Garibaldi's crossing the frontier was a mere show. The arrest of the leader himself, however it was intended by those who ordered it, turned out in effect to be a mere comedy, as he soon found himself at liberty and no one again attempted to seize him. When France interfered the scale turned. She asserted her determination to maintain the Convention of 1864 by force of arms, and Italy was obliged to allow Garibaldi to be defeated, since she was unable to face the perils of a war with her powerful neighbour. If a small body of French troops had not entered Rome on the 30th of the month, the events of 1870 would have occurred three years earlier, though probably with different results. It being the object of the general commanding the Pope's forces to concentrate a body of men with whom to meet Garibaldi, who was now advancing boldly, the small detachments, of which many had already been sent to the front, were kept back in Rome in the hope of getting together something like an army. Gouache's departure was accordingly delayed from day to day, and it was not until the early morning of the 3d of November that he actually quitted Rome with the whole available corps of Zouaves. Ten days elapsed, therefore, after the events last described, during which time he was hourly in expectation of orders to march. The service had become so arduous within the city that he could scarcely call a moment his own. It was no time to think of social duties, and he spent the leisure he had in trying to see Faustina Montevarchi as often as possible. This, however, was no easy matter. It was a provoking fact that his duties kept him busily occupied in the afternoon and evening, and that the hours he could command fell almost always in the morning. To visit the Palazzo Montevarchi on any pretext whatever before one o'clock in the day was out of the question. He had not even the satisfaction of seeing Faustina drive past him in the Corso when she was out with her mother and Flavia, since they drove just at the time when he was occupied. Gouache told himself again and again that the display of ingenuity was in a measure the natural duty of a man in love, but the declaration did not help him very much. He was utterly at a loss for an expedient, and suffered keenly in being deprived of the possibility of seeing Faustina after having seen her so often and so intimately. A week earlier he could have borne it better, but now the separation was intolerable. In time of peace he would have disobeyed orders and thrown up his service for the day, no matter what the consequences turned out to be for himself; but at the present moment, when every man was expected to be at his post, such conduct seemed dishonourable and cowardly. He submitted in silence, growing daily more careworn, and losing much of the inexhaustible gaiety which made him a general favourite with his comrades. There was but one chance of seeing Faustina, and even that one offered little probability of an interview. He knew that on Sunday mornings she sometimes went to church at an early hour with no one but her maid for a companion. Her mother and Flavia preferred to rise later and attended another mass. Now it chanced that in the year 1867, the 22d of October, the date of the insurrection, fell on Tuesday. Five days, therefore, must elapse before he could see Faustina on a Sunday, and if he failed to see her then he would have to wait another week. Unfortunately, Faustina's early expeditions to church were by no means certain or regular, and it would be necessary to convey a message to her before the day arrived. This was no easy matter. To send anything through the post was out of the question, and Gouache knew how hard it would be to find the means of putting a note into her hands through a servant. Hour after hour he cudgelled his brains for an expedient without success, until the idea pursued him and made him nervous. The time approached rapidly and he had as yet accomplished nothing. The wildest schemes suggested themselves to him and were rejected as soon as he thought of them. He met some of his acquaintances during the idle hours of the morning, and it almost drove him mad to think that almost any one of them could see Faustina any day he pleased. He did what he could to obtain leave in the afternoon or evening, but his exertions were fruitless. He was a man who was trusted, and knew it, and the disturbed state of affairs made it necessary that every man should do precisely what was allotted to him, at the risk of causing useless complications in the effort to concentrate and organise the troops which was now going forward. At last he actually went to the Palazzo Montevarchi in the morning and inquired if he could see the princess. The porter replied that she was not visible, and that the prince had gone out. There was nothing to be done, and he turned to go away. Suddenly he stopped as he stood under the deep arch, facing the blank wall on the opposite side of the street. That same wall was broad and smooth and dark in colour. He only looked at it a moment, and then to excuse his hesitation in the eyes of the porter, he took out a cigarette, and lit it before going out. As he passed through the Piazza Colonna a few minutes later he went into a shop and bought two large tubes of paint with a broad brush. That night, when he was relieved from duty, he went back to the Palazzo Montevarchi. It was very late, and the streets were deserted. He stood before the great closed doors of the palace and then walked straight across the street to the blank wall with his paint and brush in his hands. On the following morning when the Montevarchi porter opened the gates his eyes were rejoiced by some most extraordinary specimens of calligraphy executed upon the dark stones with red paint of a glaringly vivid hue. The letters A. G. were drawn at least four feet high in the centre, and were repeated in every size at irregular intervals for some distance above, below, and on each side. The words "Domenica," Sunday, and "Messa," mass, were scrawled everywhere in capitals, in roundhand, large and small. Then to give the whole the air of having been designed by a street-boy, there were other words, such as "Viva Pio IX.," "Viva il Papa Re," and across these, in a different manner, and in green paint, "Viva Garibaldi," "Morte a Antonelli," and similar revolutionary sentiments. The whole, however, was so disposed that Gouache's initials and the two important words stood out in bold relief from the rest, and could not fail to attract the eye. Of the many people who came and went that day through the great gate of the Palazzo Montevarchi two only attached any importance to the glaring scrawls on the opposite wall. One of these was Faustina herself, who saw and understood. The other was San Giacinto, who stared at the letters for several seconds, and then smiled faintly as he entered the palace. He, too, knew what the signs meant, and remarked to himself that Gouache was an enterprising youth, but that, in the interest of the whole tribe of Montevarchi, it would be well to put a stop to his love-making as soon as possible. It was now Saturday afternoon and there was no time to be lost. San Giacinto made a short visit, and, on leaving, went immediately to the Palazzo Saracinesca. He knew that at four o'clock Corona would probably not yet be at home. This turned out to be the case, and having announced his intention of waiting for her return he was ushered into the sitting-room. As soon as the servant was gone he went to Corona's writing-table and took from it a couple of sheets of her paper and two of her envelopes. These latter were stamped with a coronet and her initials. He folded the paper carefully and put the four bits into his pocket-book. He waited ten minutes, but no one came. Then he left the house, telling the servant to say that he had called and would return presently. In a few minutes he was at his lodgings, where he proceeded to write the following note. He had taken two sheets in case the first proved a failure:-- "I have understood, but alas! I cannot come. Oh, my beloved! when shall we meet again? It seems years since Tuesday night--and yet I am so watched that I can do nothing. Some one suspects something. I am sure of it. A TRUSTY PERSON will bring you this. I love you always--do not doubt it, though I cannot meet you to-morrow." San Giacinto, who had received a tolerable education and had conscientiously made the best of it, prided himself upon his handwriting. It was small, clear, and delicate, like that of many strong, quiet men, whose nerves do not run away with their fingers. On the present occasion he took pains to make it even more careful than usual, and the result was that it looked not unlike the "copperplate" handwriting a girl would learn at the convent, though an expert would probably have declared it disguised. It had been necessary, in order to deceive Gouache, to write the note on the paper generally used by women of society. As he could not get any of Faustina's own, it seemed the next best thing to take Corona's, since Corona was her most intimate friend. Gouache had told San Giacinto that he was engaged every afternoon, in hopes that he would in turn chance to mention the fact to Faustina. It was therefore pretty certain that Anastase would not be at home between four and five o'clock. San Giacinto drove to the Zouave's lodgings and asked for him. If he chanced to be in, the note could be given to his old landlady. He was out, however, and San Giacinto asked to be allowed to enter the room on the pretext of writing a word for his friend. The landlady was a dull old creature, who had been warming herself with a pot of coals when San Giacinto rang. In answer to his request she resumed her occupation and pointed to the door of the Zouave's apartment. San Giacinto entered, and looked about him for a conspicuous place in which to put the letter he had prepared. He preferred not to trust to the memory of the woman, who might forget to deliver it until the next day, especially if Gouache came home late that night, as was very likely. The table of the small sitting-room was littered with letters and papers, books and drawings, so that an object placed in the midst of such disorder would not be likely to attract Gouache's attention. The door beyond was open, and showed a toilet-table in the adjoining chamber, which was indeed the bedroom. San Giacinto went in, and taking the note from his pocket, laid it on an old-fashioned pincushion before the glass. The thing slipped, however, and in order to fasten it firmly he thrust a gold pin that lay on the table through the letter and pinned it to the cushion in a conspicuous position. Then he went out and returned to the Palazzo Saracinesca as he had promised to do. In doing all this he had no intention of injuring either Gouache or Faustina. He perceived clearly enough that their love affair could not come to any good termination, and as his interests were now very closely bound up with those of the Montevarchi, it seemed wisest to break off the affair by any means in his power, without complicating matters by speaking to Gouache or to Faustina's father or mother. He knew enough of human nature to understand that Gouache would be annoyed at losing the chance of a meeting, and he promised himself to watch the two so carefully as to be able to prevent other clandestine interviews during the next few days. If he could once sow the seeds of a quarrel between the two, he fancied it would be easy to break up the relations. Nothing makes a woman so angry as to wait for a man who has promised to meet her, and if he fails to come altogether her anger will probably be very serious. In the present case he supposed that Faustina would go to the church, but that Gouache, being warned that he was not to come, would not think of keeping the tryst. The scheme, if not profound, was at least likely to produce a good deal of trouble between the lovers. San Giacinto returned to the Palazzo Saracinesca, but he found only the old prince at home, though he prolonged his visit in the hope of seeing Corona or Sant' Ilario. "By the bye," he said, as he and his companion sat together in the prince's study, "I remember that you were so good as to say that you would let me see those family papers some day. They must be very interesting and I would be glad to avail myself of your offer." "Certainly," replied Saracinesca "They are in the Archives in a room of the library. It is rather late now. Do you mind waiting till to-morrow?" "Not in the least, or as long as you like. To tell the truth, I would like to show them to my future father-in-law, who loves archaeology. I was talking about them with him yesterday. After all, however, I suppose the duplicates are at the Cancelleria, and we can see them there." "I do not know," said the prince, carelessly, "I never took the trouble to inquire. There is probably some register of them, or something to prove that they are in existence." "There must be, of course. Things of that importance would not be allowed to go unregistered, unless people were very indifferent in those days." "It is possible that there are no duplicates. It may be that there is only an official notice of the deed giving the heads of the agreement. You see it was a friendly arrangement, and there was supposed to be no probability whatever that your great-grandfather would ever marry. The papers I have are all in order and legally valid, but there may have been some carelessness about registering them. I cannot be sure. Indeed it is thirty years at least since I looked at the originals." "If you would have them taken out some time before I am married, I should be glad to see them, but there is no hurry. So all this riot and revolution has meant something after all," added San Giacinto to change the subject "Garibaldi has taken Monte Rotondo, I hear to-day." "Yes, and if the French are not quick, we shall have the diversion of a siege," replied Saracinesca rather scornfully. "That same taking of Monte Rotondo was one of those gallant deeds for which Garibaldi is so justly famous. He has six thousand men, and there were only three hundred and fifty soldiers inside. Twenty to one, or thereabouts." It is unnecessary to detail the remainder of the conversation. Saracinesca went off into loud abuse of Garibaldi, confounding the whole Italian Government with him and devoting all to one common destination, while San Giacinto reserved his judgment, believing that there was probably a wide difference between the real intentions of the guerilla general and of his lawful sovereign, Victor Emmanuel the Second, King of Italy. At last the two men were informed that Corona had returned. They left the study and found her in the sitting-room. "Where is Giovanni?" she asked as soon as they entered. She was standing before the fireplace dressed as she had come in. "I have no idea where he is," replied Saracinesca. "I suppose he is at the club, or making visits somewhere. He has turned into a very orderly boy since you married him." The old man laughed a little. "I have missed him," said Corona, taking no notice of her father-in-law's remark. "I was to have picked him up on the Pincio, and when I got there he was gone. I am so afraid he will think I forgot all about it, for I must have been late. You see, I was delayed by a crowd in the Tritone--there is always a crowd there." Corona seemed less calm than usual. The fact was, that since the affair which had caused her husband so much annoyance, some small part of which she had perceived, she had been trying to make up to him for his disappointment in not knowing her secret, by being with him more than usual, and by exerting herself to please him in every way. They did not usually meet during the afternoon, as he generally went out on foot, while she drove, but to-day they had agreed that she should come to the Pincio and take him for a short drive and bring him home. The plan was part of her fixed intention to be more than usually thoughtful where he was concerned, and the idea that she had kept him waiting and that he had gone away caused her more regret than would have been natural in the ordinary course of events. In order to explain what now took place, it is necessary to return to Giovanni himself who, as Corona had said, had waited for his wife near the band-stand on the Pincio for some time, until growing weary, he had walked away and left the gardens. Though he manfully concealed what he felt, the passion that had been sown in his heart had grown apace and in a few days had assumed dominating proportions. He suspected everything and everybody while determined to appear indifferent. Even Corona's efforts to please him, which of late had grown so apparent, caused him suspicion. He asked himself why her manner should have changed, as it undoubtedly had during the last few days. She had always been a good and loving wife to him, and he was well pleased with her gravity and her dignified way of showing her affection. Why should she suddenly think it needful to become so very solicitous for his welfare and happiness during every moment of his life? It was not like her to come into his study early in the morning and to ask what he meant to do during the day. It was a new thing that she should constantly propose to walk with him, to drive with him, to read aloud to him, to make herself not only a part of his heart but a part of his occupations. Had the change come gradually, he would not have distrusted her motives. He liked his wife's company and conversation, but as they each had things to do which could not conveniently be done together, he had made up his mind to the existence which was good enough for his companions in society. Other men did not think of spending the afternoon in their wives' carriages, leaving cards or making visits, or driving round and round the Villa Borghese and the Pincio. To do so was to be ridiculous in the extreme, and besides, though he liked to be with Corona, he detested visiting, and hated of all things to stop a dozen times in the course of a drive in order to send a footman upstairs with cards. He preferred to walk or to lounge in the club or to stay at home and study the problems of his improvements for Saracinesca. Corona's manner irritated him therefore, and made him think more than ever of the subject which he would have done better to abandon from the first. Nevertheless, he would not show that he was wearied by his wife's attention, still less that he believed her behaviour to be prompted by a desire to deceive him. He was uniformly courteous and gentle, acquiescing in her little plans whenever he could do so, and expressing a suitable degree of regret when he was prevented from joining her by some previous engagement. But the image of the French Zouave was ever present with him. He could not get rid of Gouache's dark, delicate features, even in his dreams; the sound of the man's pleasant voice and of his fluent conversation was constantly in his ears, and he could not look at Corona without fancying how she would look if Anastase were beside her whispering tender speeches. All the time, he submitted with a good grace to do whatever she proposed, and on this afternoon he found himself waiting for her beside the band-stand. At first he watched the passing carriages indifferently enough, supposing that his own liveries would presently loom up in the long line of high-seated coachmen and lacqueys, and having no especial desire to see them. His position when in Corona's company grew every day more difficult, and he thought as he stood by the stone pillar at the corner that he would on the whole be glad if she did not come. He was egregiously mistaken in himself, however. As the minutes passed he grew uneasy, and watched the advancing carriages with a feverish anxiety, saying to himself that every one must bring Corona, and actually growing pale with emotion as each vehicle turned the distant corner and came into view. The time seemed interminable after he had once yielded to the excitement, and before another quarter of an hour had elapsed, Sant' Ilario turned angrily away and left the Pincio by the stairs that descend near the band-stand towards the winding drive by which the Piazza del Popolo is reached. It is not easy for a person who is calm to comprehend the workings of a brain over excited with a strong passion. To a man who has lost the sober use of his faculties in the belief that he has been foully betrayed, every circumstance, every insignificant accident, seems a link in the chain of evidence. A week earlier Giovanni would have thought himself mad if the mere idea had suggested itself to him that Corona loved Gouache. To-day he believed that she had purposely sent him to wait upon the Pincio, in order that she might be sure of seeing Gouache without fear of interruption. The conviction thrust itself upon him with overwhelming force. He fancied himself the dupe of a common imposition, he saw his magnificent love and trust made the sport of a vulgar trick. The blood mounted to his dark face and as he descended the steps a red mist seemed to be spread between his eyes and all surrounding objects. Though he walked firmly and mechanically, saluting his acquaintances as he passed, he was unconscious of his actions, and moved like a man under the influence of a superior force. Jealousy is that one of all the passions which is most sure to break out suddenly into deeds of violence when long restrained. Giovanni scarcely knew how he reached the Corso nor how it was that he found himself ascending the dusky staircase which led to Gouache's lodgings. It was less than a quarter of an hour since San Giacinto had been there, and the old woman still held her pot of coals in her hand as she opened the door. As she had pointed to the door when San Giacinto had come, so she now directed Giovanni in the same way. But Giovanni, on hearing that Anastase was out, began to ask questions. "Has any one been here?" he inquired. "Eh! There was a gentleman a quarter of an hour ago," replied the woman. "Has any lady been here?" "A lady? Macche!" The old creature laughed. "What should ladies do here?" Giovanni thought he detected some hesitation in the tone. He was in the mood to fancy himself deceived by every one. "Are you fond of money?" he asked, brutally. "Eh! I am an old woman. What would you have? Am I crazy that I should not like money? But Signor Gouache is a very good gentleman. He pays well, thank Heaven!" "What does he pay you for?" "What for? For his lodging--for his coffee. Bacchus! What should he pay me for? Strange question in truth. Do I keep a shop? I keep lodgings. But perhaps you like the place? It is a fine situation--just in the Corso and only one flight of stairs, a beautiful position for the Carnival. Of course, if you are inclined to pay more than Signor Gouache, I do not say but what---" "I do not want your lodgings, my good woman," returned Giovanni in gentler tones. "I want to know who comes to see your lodger." "Who should come? His friends of course. Who else?" "A lady, perhaps," said Giovanni in a thick voice. It hurt him to say it, and the words almost stuck in his throat. "Perhaps a lady comes sometimes," he repeated, pulling out some loose bank notes. The old woman's filmy eyes suddenly twinkled in the gloom. The sound of the crisp pieces of paper was delightful to her ear. "Well," she said after a moment's hesitation, "if a beautiful lady does come here, that is the Signore's affair. It is none of my business." Giovanni thrust the notes into her palm, which was already wide open to receive them. His heart beat wildly. "She is beautiful, you say?" "Oh! As beautiful as you please!" chuckled the hag. "Is she dark?" "Of course," replied the woman. There was no mistaking the tone in which the question was asked, for Giovanni was no longer able to conceal anything that he felt. "And tall, I suppose? Yes. And she was here a quarter of an hour ago, you say? Speak out!" he cried, advancing a step towards the old creature. "If you lie to me, I will kill you! She was here--do not deny it." "Yes--yes," answered the woman, cowering back in some terror. "Per carita! Don't murder me--I tell you the truth." With a sudden movement Giovanni turned on his heel and entered Gouache's sitting-room. It was now almost dark in the house and he struck a match and lighted a candle that stood on the stable. The glare illuminated his swarthy features and fiery eyes, and the veins stood out on his forehead and temples like strained and twisted cords. He looked about him in every direction, examining the table, strewn with papers and books, the floor, the furniture, expecting every moment to find something which should prove that Corona had been there. Seeing nothing, he entered the bedroom beyond. It was a small chamber and he had scarcely passed through the door when he found himself before the toilet-table. The note San Giacinto had left was there pinned upon the little cushion with the gold pin, as he had placed it. Giovanni stared wildly at the thing for several seconds and his face grew deadly white. There was no evidence lacking now, for the pin was Corona's own. It was a simple enough object, made of plain gold, the head being twisted into the shape of the letter C, but there was no mistaking its identity, for Giovanni had designed it himself. Corona used it for fastening her veil. As the blood sank from his head to his heart Giovanni grew very calm. He set the candle upon the toilet-table and took the note, after putting the pin in his pocket. The handwriting seemed to be feigned, and his lip curled scornfully as he looked at it and then, turning it over, saw that the envelope was one of Corona's own. It seemed to him a pitiable piece of folly in her to distort her writing when there was such abundant proof on all sides to convict her. Without the slightest hesitation he opened the letter and read it, bending down and holding it near the candle. One perusal was enough. He smiled curiously as he read the words, "I am so watched that I can do nothing. Some one suspects something." His attention was arrested by the statement that a trusty person--the words were underlined--would bring the note. The meaning of the emphasis was explained by the pin; the trusty person was herself, who, perhaps by an afterthought, had left the bit of gold as a parting gift in case Gouache marched before they met again. Giovanni glanced once more round the room, half expecting to find some other convicting piece of evidence. Then he hesitated, holding the candle in one hand and the note in the other. He thought of staying where he was and waiting for Gouache, but the idea did not seem feasible. Nothing which implied waiting could have satisfied him at that moment, and after a few seconds he thrust the note into his pocket and went out. His hand was on the outer door, when he remembered the old woman who sat crouching over her pan of coals, scarcely able to believe her good luck, and longing for Giovanni's departure in order that she might count the crisp notes again. She dared not indulge herself in that pleasure while he was present, lest he should repent of his generosity and take back a part of them, for she had seen how he had taken them from his pocket and saw that he had no idea how much he had given. "You will say nothing of my coming," said Giovanni, fixing his eyes upon her. "I, Signore? Do not be afraid! Money is better than words." "Very good," he answered. "Perhaps you will get twice as much the next time I want to know the truth." "God bless you!" chuckled the wrinkled creature. He went out, and the little bell that was fastened to the door tinkled as the latch sprang back into its place. Then the woman counted the price of blood, which had so unexpectedly fallen into her hands. The bank-notes were many and broad, and crisp and new, for Giovanni had not reckoned the cost. It was long since old Caterina Ranucci had seen so much money, and she had certainly never had so much of her own. "Qualche innamorato!" she muttered to herself as she smoothed the notes one by one and gloated over them and built castles in the air under the light of her little oil lamp. "It is some fellow in love. Heaven pardon me if I have done wrong! He seemed so anxious to know that the woman had been here--why should I not content him? Poveretto! He must be rich. I will always tell him what he wants to know. Heaven bring him often and bless him." Then she rocked herself backwards and forwards, hugging her pot of coals and crooning the words of an ancient Roman ditty-- "Io vorrei che nella luna Ci s'andasse in carrettella Per vedere la piu bella Delle donne di la su!" What does the old song mean? Who knows whether it ever meant anything? "I wish one might drive in a little cart to the moon, to see the most beautiful of the women up there!" Caterina Ranucci somehow felt as though she could express her feelings in no better way than by singing the queer words to herself in her cracked old voice. Possibly she thought that the neighbours would not suspect her good fortune if they heard her favourite song. CHAPTER X. Sant' Ilario walked home from Gouache's lodgings. The cool evening air refreshed him and helped him to think over what he had before him in the near future. Indeed the position was terrible enough, and doubly so to a man of his temperament. He would have faced anything rather than this, for there was no point in which he was more vulnerable than in his love for Corona. As he walked her figure rose before him, and her beauty almost dazzled him when he thought of it. But he could no longer think of her without bringing up that other being upon whom his thoughts of vengeance concentrated themselves, until it seemed as though the mere intention must do its object some bodily harm. The fall was tremendous in itself and in its effects. It must have been a great passion indeed which could make such a man demean himself to bribe an inferior for information against his wife. He himself was so little able to measure the force by which he was swayed as to believe that he had extracted the confession from a reluctant accomplice. He would never have allowed that the sight of the money and the prompting of his own words could have caused the old woman to invent the perfectly imaginary story which he had seemed so fully determined to hear. He did not see that Caterina Ranucci had merely confirmed each statement he had made himself and had taken his bribe while laughing to herself at his folly. He was blinded by something which destroys the mental vision more surely than anger or hatred, or pride, or love itself. To some extent he was to be pardoned. The chain of circumstantial evidence was consecutive and so convincing that many a just person would have accepted Corona's guilt as the only possible explanation of what had happened. The discoveries he had just made would alone have sufficed to set up a case against her, and many an innocent reputation has been shattered by less substantial proofs. Had he not found a letter, evidently written in a feigned hand and penned upon his wife's own writing-paper, fastened upon Gouache's table with her own pin? Had not the old woman confessed--before he had found the note, too,--that a lady had been there but a short time before? Did not these facts agree singularly with Corona's having left him to wait for her during that interval in the public gardens? Above all, did not this conclusion explain at once all those things in her conduct which had so much disturbed him during the past week? What was this story of Faustina Montevarchi's disappearance? The girl was probably Corona's innocent accomplice. Corona had left the house at one o'clock in the morning with Gouache. The porter had not seen any other woman. The fact that she had entered the Palazzo Montevarchi with Faustina and without Anastase proved nothing, except that she had met the young girl somewhere else, it mattered little where. The story that Faustina had accidentally shut herself into a room in the palace was an invention, for even Corona admitted the fact. That Faustina's flight, however, and the other events of the night of the 22d had been arranged merely in order that Corona and Gouache might walk in the moonlight for a quarter of an hour, Giovanni did not believe. There was some other mystery here which was yet unsolved. Meanwhile the facts he had collected were enough--enough to destroy his happiness at a single blow. And yet he loved Corona even now, and though his mind was made up clearly enough concerning Gouache, he knew that he could not part from the woman he adored. He thought of the grim old fortress at Saracinesca with its lofty towers and impregnable walls, and when he reflected that there was but one possible exit from the huge mass of buildings, he said to himself that Corona would be safe there for ever. He had the instincts of a fierce and unforgiving race of men, who for centuries had held the law in their own hands, and were accustomed to wield it as it seemed good in their own eyes. It was not very long since the lords of Saracinesca had possessed the right of life and death over their vassals, [Footnote: Until 1870 the right of life and death was still held, so far as actual legality was concerned, by the Dukes of Bracciano, and was attached to the possession of the title, which had been sold and subsequently bought back by the original holders of it.] and the hereditary traits of character which had been fostered by ages of power had not disappeared with the decay of feudalism. Under the circumstances which seemed imminent, it would not have been thought unnatural if Giovanni had confined his wife during the remainder of her days in his castle among the mountains. The idea may excite surprise among civilised Europeans when it is considered that the events of which I write occurred as recently as 1867, but it would certainly have evoked few expressions of astonishment among the friends of the persons concerned. To Giovanni himself it seemed the only possible conclusion to what was happening, and the determination to kill Gouache and imprison Corona for life appeared in his eyes neither barbarous nor impracticable. He did not hasten his pace as he went towards his home. There was something fateful in his regular step and marble face as he moved steadily to the accomplishment of his purpose. The fury which had at first possessed him, and which, if he had then encountered Gouache, would certainly have produced a violent outbreak, had subsided and was lost in the certainty of his dishonour, and in the immensity of the pain he suffered. Nothing remained to be done but to tell Corona that he knew all, and to inflict upon her the consequences of her crime without delay. There was absolutely no hope left that she might prove herself innocent, and in Giovanni's own breast there was no hope either, no hope of ever finding again his lost happiness, or of ever again setting one stone upon another of all that splendid fabric of his life which he had built up so confidently upon the faith of the woman he loved. As he reached the gates of his home he grew if possible paler than before, till his face was positively ghastly to see, and his eyes seemed to sink deeper beneath his brows, while their concentrated light gleamed more fiercely. No one saw him enter, for the porter was in his lodge, and on reaching the landing of the stairs Giovanni let himself into the apartments with a latch-key. Corona was in her dressing-room, a high vaulted chamber, somewhat sombrely furnished, but made cheerful by a fire that blazed brightly in the deep old-fashioned chimney-piece. Candles were lighted upon the dressing-table, and a shaded lamp stood upon a low stand near a lounge beside the hearth. The princess was clad in a loose wrapper of some soft cream-coloured material, whose folds fell gracefully to the ground as she lay upon the couch. She was resting before dressing for dinner, and the masses of her blue-black hair were loosely coiled upon her head and held together by a great Spanish comb thrust among the tresses with a careless grace. She held a book in her slender, olive-tinted hand, but she was not reading; her head lay back upon the cushions and the firelight threw her features into strong relief, while her velvet eyes reflected the flashes of the dancing flames as she watched them. Her expression was serene and calm. She had forgotten for the moment the little annoyances of the last few days and was thinking of her happiness, contrasting the peace of her present life with what she had suffered during the five years of her marriage with poor old Astrardente. Could Giovanni have seen her thus his heart might have been softened. He would have asked himself how it was possible that any woman guilty of such enormous misdeeds could lie there watching the fire with a look of such calm innocence upon her face. But Giovanni did not see her as she was. Even in the extremity of his anger and suffering his courtesy did not forsake him, and he knocked at his wife's door before entering the room. Corona moved from her position, and turned her head to see who was about to enter. "Come in," she said. She started when she saw Giovanni's face. Dazzled as she was by the fire, he looked to her like a dead man. She laid one hand upon the arm of the couch as though she would rise to meet him. He shut the door behind him and advanced towards her till only a couple of paces separated them. She was so much amazed by his looks that she sat quite still while he fixed his eyes upon her and began to speak. "You have wrecked my life," he said in a strange, low voice. "I have come to tell you my decision." She thought he was raving mad, and, brave as she was, she shrank back a little upon her seat and turned pale. "You need not be afraid of me," he continued, as he noticed the movement. "I am not going to kill you. I am sorry to say I am fool enough to love you still." "Giovanni!" cried Corona in an agonised tone. She could find no words, but sprang to her feet and threw her arms about him, gazing imploringly into his face. His features did not relax, for he was prepared for any sort of acting on her part. Without hurting her, but with a strength few men could have resisted, he forced her back to her seat, and then retreated a step before he spoke again. She submitted blindly, feeling that any attempt to thwart him must be utterly useless. "I know what you have done," he said. "You can have nothing to say. Be silent and listen to me. You have destroyed the greatest happiness the world ever knew. You have dishonoured me and mine. You have dragged my faith in you--God knows how great--into the mire of your infamous life. And worse than that--I could almost have forgiven that, I am so base--you have destroyed yourself--" Corona uttered a wild cry and sank back upon the cushions, pressing her hands over her ears so that she might not hear the fearful words. "I will not listen!" she gasped. "You are mad--mad!" Then springing up once more she again clasped him to her breast, so suddenly that he could not escape her. "Oh, my poor Giovanni!" she moaned. "What has happened to you? Have you been hurt? Are you dying? For Heaven's sake speak like yourself!" He seized her wrists and held her before him so that she was forced to hear what he said. Even then his grasp did not hurt her. His hands were like manacles of steel in which hers could turn though she could not withdraw them. "I am hurt to death," he said, between his teeth. "I have been to Gouache's rooms and have brought away your letter--and your pin--the pin I gave you, Corona. Do you understand now, or must I say more?" "My letter?" cried Corona in the utmost bewilderment. "Yes," he answered, releasing her and instantly producing the note and the gold ornament. "Is that your paper? Is this your pin? Answer me--or no! they answer for themselves. You need say nothing, for you can have nothing to say. They are yours and you know it. If they are not enough there is the woman who let you in, who saw you bring them. What more do you want?" As long as Giovanni's accusations had been vague and general, Corona had remained horrorstruck, believing that some awful and incomprehensible calamity had befallen her husband and had destroyed his reason. The moment he produced the proof of what he said, her presence of mind returned, and she saw at a glance the true horror of the situation. She never doubted for a moment that she was the victim of some atrocious plot, but having something to face which she could understand her great natural courage asserted itself. She was not a woman to moan and weep helplessly when there was an open danger to be met. She took the letter and the pin and examined them by the light, with a calmness that contrasted oddly with her previous conduct. Giovanni watched her. He supposed that she had acted surprise until he had brought forward something more conclusive than words, and that she was now exercising her ingenuity in order to explain the situation. His lip curled scornfully, as he fancied he saw the meaning of her actions. After a few seconds she looked up and held out the two objects towards him. "The paper is mine," she said, "but I did not write the letter. The pin is mine too. I lost it more than a month ago." "Of course," replied Giovanni, coldly. "I expected that you would say that. It is very natural. But I do not ask you for any explanations. I have them already. I will take you to Saracinesca to-morrow morning and you will have time to explain everything. You will have your whole life to use, until you die, for no other object. I told you I would not kill you." "Is it possible that you are in earnest?" asked Corona, her voice trembling slightly. "I am in earnest. Do you think I am a man to jest over such deeds?" "And do you think I am a woman to do such deeds?" "Since you have done them--what answer can there be? Not only are you capable of them. You are the woman who has done them. Do lifeless things, like these, lie?" "No. But men do. I believe you, Giovanni. You found these things in Monsieur Gouache's rooms. You were told I put them there. Whoever told you so uttered the most infamous falsehood that ever was spoken on earth. The person who placed them where they were did so in the hope of ruining me. Can you look back into the past and tell me that you have any other reason for believing in this foul plot?" "Reasons?" cried Giovanni, fiercely. "Do you want more reasons? We have time. I will give you enough to satisfy you that I know all you have done. Was not this man for ever near you last year, wherever you met, talking with you in low tones, showing by every movement and gesture that he distinguished you with his base love? Were you not together in a corner last Tuesday night just as the insurrection broke out? Did he not kiss your hand when you both thought no one was looking?" "He kissed my hand before every one," replied Corona, whose wrath was slowly gathering as she saw her husband's determination to prove her guilty. "There were people in the room," continued Giovanni in a tone of concentrated anger, "but you thought no one was watching you--I could see it in your manner and in your eyes. That same night I came home at one o'clock and you were out. You had gone out alone with that man, expecting that I would not return so soon--though it was late enough, too. You were forced to admit that you were with him, because the porter had seen you and had told me the man was a Zouave." "I will tell you the story, since you no longer trust me," said Corona, proudly. "I have no doubt you will tell me some very ingenious tale which will explain why, although you left my house alone, with Gouache, you reached the Palazzo Montevarchi alone with Faustina. But I have not done. He came here the next day. You treated him with unexampled rudeness before me. Half an hour later I found you together in the drawing-room. He was kissing your hand again. You were saying you forgave him and giving him that favourite benediction of yours, which you once bestowed upon me under very similar circumstances. Astrardente was alive and present at that dance in Casa Frangipani. You have me for a husband now and you have found another man whose heart will beat when you bless him. It would be almost better to kill you after all." "Have you finished?" asked Corona, white with anger. "Yes. That letter and that pin--left while I, poor fool, was waiting for you this afternoon on the Pincio--those things are my last words. They close the tale very appropriately. I wish I did not love you so--I would not wait for your answer." "Do you dare to say you love me?" "Yes--though there is no other man alive who would dare so much, who would dare to love such a woman as you are--for very shame." "And I tell you," answered Corona in ringing tones, "that, although I can prove to you that every word you say against me is an abominable calumny, so that you shall see how basely you have insulted an innocent woman, yet I shall never love you again--never, never. A man who can believe such things, who can speak such things, is worthy of no woman's love and shall not have mine. And yet you shall hear me tell the truth, that you may know what you have done. You say I have wrecked your life and destroyed your happiness. You have done it for yourself. As there is a God in Heaven--" "Do not blaspheme," said Giovanni, contemptuously. "I will hear your story." "Before God, this thing is a lie!" cried Corona, standing at her full height, her eyes flashing with just indignation. Then lowering her voice, she continued speaking rapidly but distinctly. "Gouache loves Faustina, and she loves him. When he left this house that night she followed him out into the street. She reached the Serristori barracks and was stunned by the explosion. Gouache found her there many hours later. When you saw us together a little earlier he was telling me he loved her. He is a man of honour. He saw that the only way to save her good name was to bring her here and let me take her home. He sent me a word by the porter, while she waited in the shadow. I ran down and found her there. We purposely prevented the porter from seeing her. I took her to her father's house, and sent Gouache away, for I was angry with him. I believed he had led an innocent girl into following him--that it was a pre-arranged meeting and that she had gone not realising that there was a revolution. I invented the story of her having lost herself here, in order to shield her. The next day Gouache came. I would not speak to him and went to my room. The servants told me he was gone, but as I was coming back to you I met him. He stopped me and made me believe what is quite true, for Faustina has acknowledged it. She followed him of her own accord, and he had no idea that she was not safe at home. I forgave him. He said he was going to the frontier and asked me to give him a blessing. It was a foolish idea, perhaps, but I did as he wished. If you had come forward like a man instead of listening we would have told you all. But you suspected me even then. I do not know who told you that I had been to his lodging to-day. The carriage was stopped by a crowd in the Tritone, and I reached the Pincio after you had gone. As for the pin, I lost it a month ago. Gouache may have found it, or it may have been picked up and sold, and he may have chanced to buy it. I never wrote the letter. The paper was either taken from this house or was got from the stationer who stamps it for us. Faustina may have taken it--she may have been here when I was out--it is not her handwriting. I believe it is an abominable plot. But it is as transparent as water. Take the pin and wear it. See Gouache when you have it. He will ask you where you got it, for he has not the slightest idea that it is mine. Are you satisfied? I have told you all. Do you see what you have done, in suspecting me, in accusing me, in treating me like the last of women? I have done. What have you to say?" "That you have told a very improbable story," replied Giovanni. "You have sunk lower than before, for you have cast a slur upon an innocent girl in order to shield yourself. I would not have believed you capable of that. You can no more prove your innocence than you can prove that this poor child was mad enough to follow Gouache into the street last Tuesday night. I have listened to you patiently. I have but one thing more to do and then there will be nothing left for me but patience. You will send for your servants, and order your effects to be packed for the journey to Saracinesca. If it suits your convenience we will start at eleven o'clock, as I shall be occupied until then. I advise you not to see my father." Corona stood quite still while he spoke. She could not realise that he paid no attention whatever to her story, save to despise her the more for having implicated Faustina. It was inconceivable to her that all the circumstances should not now be as clear to him as they were to herself. From the state of absolute innocence she could not transfer herself in a moment to the comprehension of all he had suffered, all he had thought, and all he had recalled before accusing her. Even had that been possible, her story seemed to her to give a perfectly satisfactory explanation of all his suspicions. She was wounded, indeed, so deeply that she knew she could never recover herself entirely, but it did not strike her as possible that all she had said should produce no effect at all. And yet she knew his look and his ways, and recognised in the tone of his voice the expression of a determination which it would be hard indeed to change. He still believed her guilty, and he was going to take her away to the dismal loneliness of the mountains for an indefinite time, perhaps for ever. She had not a relation in the world to whom she could appeal. Her mother had died in her infancy; her father, for whom she sacrificed herself in marrying the rich old Duke of Astrardente, was dead long ago. She could turn to no one, unless it were to Prince Saracinesca himself--and Giovanni warned her not to go to his father. She stood for some moments looking fixedly at him as though trying to read his thoughts, and he returned her gaze with unflinching sternness. The position was desperate. In a few hours she would be where there would be no possibility of defence or argument, and she knew the man's character well enough to be sure that where proof failed entreaty would be worse than useless. At last she came near to him and almost gently laid her hand upon his arm. "Giovanni," she said, quietly, "I have loved you very tenderly and very truly. I swear to you upon our child that I am wholly innocent. Will you not believe me?" "No," he answered, and the little word fell from his lips like the blow of a steel hammer. His eyes did not flinch; his features did not change. "Will you not ask some one who knows whether I have not spoken the truth? Will you not let me write--or write yourself to those two, and ask them to come here and tell you their story? It is much to ask of them, but it is life or death to me and they will not refuse. Will you not do it?" "No, I will not." "Then do what you will with me, and may God forgive you, for I cannot." Corona turned from him and crossed the room. There was a cushioned stool there, over which hung a beautiful crucifix. Corona knelt down, as though not heeding her husband's presence, and buried her face in her hands. Giovanni stood motionless in the middle of the room. His eyes had followed his wife's movements and he watched her in silence for a short time. Convinced, as he was, of her guilt, he believed she was acting a part, and that her kneeling down was merely intended to produce a theatrical effect. The accent of truth in her words made no impression whatever upon him, and her actions seemed to him too graceful to be natural, too dignified for a woman who was not trying all the time to make the best of her appearance. The story she had told coincided too precisely, if possible, with the doings of which he had accused her, while it failed in his judgment to explain the motives of what she had done. He said to himself that he, in her place, would have told everything on that first occasion when she had come home and had found him waiting for her. He forgot, or did not realise, that she had been taken unawares, when she expected to find time to consider her course, and had been forced to make up her mind suddenly. Almost any other woman would have told the whole adventure at once; any woman less wholly innocent of harm would have seen the risk she incurred by asking her husband's indulgence for her silence. He was persuaded that she had played upon his confidence in her and had reckoned upon his belief in her sincerity in order to be bold with half the truth. Suspicion and jealousy had made him so ingenious that he imputed to her a tortuous policy of deception, of which she was altogether incapable. Corona did not kneel long. She had no intention of making use of the appearance of prayer in order to affect Giovanni's decision, nor in order to induce him to leave her alone. He would, indeed, have quitted the room had she remained upon her knees a few moments longer, but when she rose and faced him once more he was still standing as she had left him, his eyes fixed upon her and his arms folded upon his breast. He thought she was going to renew her defence, but he was mistaken. She came and stood before him, so that a little distance separated him from her, and she spoke calmly, in her deep, musical voice. "You have made up your mind, then. Is that your last word?" "It is." "Then I will say what I have to say. It shall not be much, but we shall not often talk together in future. You will remember some day what I tell you. I am an innocent and defenceless woman. I have no relation to whom I can appeal. You have forbidden me to write to those who could prove me guiltless. For the sake of our child--for the sake of the love I have borne you--I will make no attempt at resistance. The world shall not know that you have even doubted me, the mother of your son, the woman who has loved you. The time will come when you will ask my forgiveness for your deeds. I tell you frankly that I shall never be capable of forgiving you, nor of speaking a kind word to you again. This is neither a threat nor a warning, though it may perhaps be the means of sparing you some disappointment. I only ask two things of your courtesy--that you will inform me of what you mean to do with our child, and that you will then be good enough to leave me alone for a little while." An evil thought crossed Giovanni's mind. He knew how Corona would suffer if she were not allowed either to see little Orsino or to know what became of him while she was living her solitary life of confinement in the mountains. The diabolical cruelty of the idea fascinated him for a moment, and he looked coldly into her eyes as though he did not mean to answer her. In spite of his new jealousy, however, he was not capable of inflicting this last blow. As he looked at her beautiful white face and serious eyes, he wavered. He loved her still and would have loved her, had the proofs against her been tenfold more convincing than they were. With him his love was a passion apart and by itself. It had been strengthened and made beautiful by the devotion and tenderness and faith which had grown up with it, and had surrounded it as with a wall. But though all these things were swept away the passion itself remained, fierce, indomitable and soul-stirring in its power. It stood alone, like the impregnable keep of a war-worn fortress, beneath whose shadow the outworks and ramparts have been razed to the ground, and whose own lofty walls are battered and dinted by engines of war, shorn of all beauty and of all its stately surroundings, but stern and unshaken yet, grim, massive and solitary. For an instant Giovanni wavered, unable to struggle against that mysterious power which still governed him and forced him to acknowledge its influence. The effort of resisting the temptation to be abominably cruel carried him back from his main purpose, and produced a sudden revulsion of feeling wholly incomprehensible to himself. "Corona!" he cried, in a voice breaking with emotion. He threw out his arms wildly and sprang towards her. She thrust him back with a strength of which he would not have believed her capable. Bitter words rose to her lips, but she forced them back and was silent, though her eyes blazed with an anger she had never felt before. For some time neither spoke. Corona stood erect and watchful, one hand resting upon the back of a chair. Giovanni walked to the end of the room, and then came back and looked steadily into her face. Several seconds elapsed before he could speak, and his face was very white. "You may keep the child," he said at last, in an unsteady tone. Then without another word he left the room and softly closed the door behind him. When Corona was alone she remained standing as he had last seen her, her gaze fixed on the heavy curtains through which he had disappeared. Gradually her face grew rigid, and the expression vanished from her deep eyes, till they looked dull and glassy. She tottered, lost her hold upon the chair and fell to the floor with an inarticulate groan. There she lay, white, beautiful and motionless as a marble statue, mercifully unconscious, for a space, of all she had to suffer. Giovanni went from his wife's presence to his father's study. The prince sat at his writing-table, a heap of dusty parchments and papers piled before him. He was untying the rotten strings with which they were fastened, peering through his glasses at the headings written across the various documents. He did not unfold them, but laid them carefully in order upon the table. When San Giacinto had gone away, the old gentleman had nothing to do for an hour or more before dinner. He had accordingly opened a solid old closet in the library which served as a sort of muniment room for the family archives, and had withdrawn a certain box in which he knew that the deeds concerning the cession of title were to be found. He did not intend to look them over this evening, but was merely arranging them for examination on the morrow. He looked up as Giovanni entered, and started from his chair when he saw his son's face. "Good heavens! Giovannino! what has happened?" he cried, in great anxiety. "I came to tell you that Corona and I are going to Saracinesca to-morrow," answered Sant' Ilario, in a low voice. "What? At this time of year? Besides, you cannot get there. The road is full of Garibaldians and soldiers. It is not safe to leave the city! Are you ill? What is the matter?" "Oh--nothing especial," replied Giovanni with an attempt to assume an indifferent tone "We think the mountain air will be good for my wife, that is all. I do not think we shall really have much difficulty in getting there. Half of this war is mere talk." "And the other half consists largely of stray bullets," observed the prince, eyeing his son suspiciously from under his shaggy brows. "You will allow me to say, Giovanni, that for thoughtless folly you have rarely had your equal in the world." "I believe you are right," returned the younger man bitterly. "Nevertheless I mean to undertake this journey." "And does Corona consent to it? Why are you so pale? I believe you are ill?" "Yes--she consents. We shall take the child." "Orsino? You are certainly out of your mind. It is bad enough to take a delicate woman--" "Corona is far from delicate. She is very strong and able to bear anything." "Don't interrupt me. I tell you she is a woman, and so of course she must be delicate. Can you not understand common sense? As for the boy, he is my grandson, and if you are not old enough to know how to take care of him, I am. He shall not go. I will not permit it. You are talking nonsense. Go and dress for dinner, or send for the doctor--in short, behave like a human being! I will go and see Corona myself." The old gentleman's hasty temper was already up, and he strode to the door. Giovanni laid his hand somewhat heavily upon his father's arm. "Excuse me," he said, "Corona cannot see you now. She is dressing." "I will talk to her through the door. I will wait in her boudoir till she can see me." "I do not think she will see you this evening. She will be busy in getting ready for the journey." "She will dine with us, I suppose?" "I scarcely know--I am not sure." Old Saracinesca suddenly turned upon his son. His gray hair bristled on his head, and his black eyes flashed. With a quick movement he seized Giovanni's arms and held him before him as in a vice. "Look here!" he cried savagely. "I will not be made a fool of by a boy. Something has happened which you are afraid to tell me. Answer me. I mean to know!" "You will not know from me," replied Sant' Ilario, keeping his temper as he generally did in the face of a struggle. "You will know nothing, because there is nothing to know." Saracinesca laughed. "Then there can be no possible objection to my seeing Corona," he said, dropping his hold and again going towards the door. Once more Giovanni stopped him. "You cannot see her now," he said in determined tones. "Then tell me what all this trouble is about," retorted his father. But Giovanni did not speak. Had he been cooler he would not have sought the interview so soon, but he had forgotten that the old prince would certainly want to know the reason of the sudden journey. "Do you mean to tell me or not?" "The fact is," replied Giovanni desperately, "we have consulted the doctor--Corona is not really well--he advises us to go to the mountains--" "Giovanni," broke in the old man roughly, "you never lied to me, but you are lying now. There has been trouble between you two, though I cannot imagine what has caused it." "Pray do not ask me, then. I am doing what I think best--what you would think best if you knew all. I came to tell you that we were going, and I did not suppose you would have anything to say. Since you do not like the idea--well, I am sorry--but I entreat you not to ask questions. Let us go in peace." Saracinesca looked fixedly at his son for some minutes. Then the anger faded from his face, and his expression grew very grave. He loved Giovanni exceedingly, and he loved Corona for his sake more than for her own, though he admired her and delighted in her conversation. It was certain that if there were a quarrel between husband and wife, and if Giovanni had the smallest show of right on his side, the old man's sympathies would be with him. Giovanni's sense of honour, on the other hand, prevented him from telling his father what had happened. He did not choose that even his nearest relation should think of Corona as he thought himself, and he would have taken any step to conceal her guilt. Unfortunately for his purpose he was a very truthful man, and had no experience of lying, so that his father detected him at once. Moreover, his pale face and agitated manner told plainly enough that something very serious had occurred, and so soon as the old prince had convinced himself of this his goodwill was enlisted on the side of his son. "Giovannino," he said at last very gently, "I do not want to pry into your secrets nor to ask you questions which you do not care to answer. I do not believe you are capable of having committed any serious folly which your wife could really resent. If you should be unfaithful to her, I would disown you. If, on the other hand, she has deceived you, I will do all in my power to help you." Perhaps Giovanni's face betrayed something of the truth at these words. He turned away and leaned against the chimney-piece. "I cannot tell you--I cannot tell you," he repeated. "I think I am doing what is best. That is all I can say. You may know some day, though I trust not. Let us go away without explanations." "My dear boy," replied the old man, coming up to him and laying his hand on his shoulder, "you must do as you think best. Go to Saracinesca if you will, and if you can. If not, go somewhere else. Take heart. Things are not always as black as they look." Giovanni straightened himself as though by an effort, and grasped his father's broad, brown hand. "Thank you," he said. "Good-bye. I will come down and see you in a few days. Good-bye!" His voice trembled and he hurriedly left the room. The prince stood still a moment and then threw himself into a deep chair, staring at the lamp and biting his gray moustache savagely, as though to hide some almost uncontrollable emotion. There was a slight moisture in his eyes as they looked steadily at the bright lamp. The papers and parchments lay unheeded on the table, and he did not touch them again that night. He was thinking, not of his lonely old age nor of the dishonour brought upon his house, but of the boy he had loved as his own soul for more than thirty years, and of a swarthy little child that lay asleep in a distant room, the warm blood tinging its olive cheeks and its little clinched hands thrown back above its head. For Corona he had no thought but hatred. He had guessed Giovanni's secret too well, and his heart was hardened against the woman who had brought shame and suffering upon his son. CHAPTER XI. San Giacinto had signally failed in his attempt to prevent the meeting between Gouache and Faustina Montevarchi, and had unintentionally caused trouble of a much more serious nature in another quarter. The Zouave returned to his lodging late at night, and of course found no note upon his dressing-table. He did not miss the pin, for he of course never wore it, and attached no particular value to a thing of such small worth which he had picked up in the street and which consequently had no associations for him. He lacked the sense of order in his belongings, and the pin had lain neglected for weeks among a heap of useless little trifles, dingy cotillon favours that had been there since the previous year, stray copper coins, broken pencils, uniform buttons and such trash, accumulated during many months and totally unheeded. Had he seen the pin anywhere else he would have recognised it, but he did not notice its absence. The old woman, Caterina Ranucci, hugged her money and said nothing about either of the visitors who had entered the room during the afternoon. The consequence was that Gouache rose early on the following morning and went towards the church with a light heart. He did not know certainly that Faustina would come there, and indeed there were many probabilities against her doing so, but in the hopefulness of a man thoroughly in love, Gouache looked forward to seeing her with as much assurance as though the matter had been arranged and settled between them. The parish church of Sant' Agostino is a very large building. The masses succeed each other in rapid succession from seven o'clock in the morning until midday, and a great crowd of parishioners pass in and out in an almost constant stream. It was therefore Gouache's intention to arrive so early as to be sure that Faustina had not yet come, and he trusted to luck to be there at the right time, for he was obliged to visit the temporary barrack of his corps before going to the church, and was also obliged to attend mass at a later hour with his battalion. On presenting himself at quarters he learned to his surprise that Monte Rotondo had not surrendered yet, though news of the catastrophe was expected every moment. The Zouaves were ordered to remain under arms all day in case of emergency, and it was only through the friendly assistance of one of his officers that Anastase obtained leave to absent himself for a couple of hours. He hailed a cab and drove to the church as fast as he could. In less than twenty minutes after he had stationed himself at the entrance, Faustina ascended the steps accompanied by a servant. The latter was a middle-aged woman with hard features, clad in black, and wearing a handkerchief thrown loosely over her head after the manner of maids in those days. She evidently expected nothing, for she looked straight before her, peering into the church in order to see beforehand at which chapel there was likely to be a mass immediately. Faustina was a lovely figure in the midst of the crowd of common people who thronged the doorway, and whose coarse dark faces threw her ethereal features into strong relief while she advanced. Gouache felt his heart beat hard, for he had not seen her for five days since they had parted on that memorable Tuesday night at the gate of her father's house. Her eyes met his in a long and loving look, and the colour rose faintly in her delicate pale cheek. In the press she managed to pass close to him, and for a moment he succeeded in clasping her small hand in his, her maid being on the other side. He was about to ask a question when she whispered a few words and passed on. "Follow me through the crowd, I will manage it," was what she said. Gouache obeyed, and kept close behind her. The church was very full and there was difficulty in getting seats. "I will wait here," said the young girl to her servant. "Get us chairs and find out where there is to be a mass. It is of no use for me to go through the crowd if I may have to come back again." The hard-featured woman nodded and went away. Several minutes must elapse before she returned, and Faustina with Gouache behind her moved across the stream of persons who were going out through the door in the other aisle. In a moment they found themselves in a comparatively quiet corner, separated from the main body of the church by the moving people. Faustina fixed her eyes in the direction whence her woman would probably return, ready to enter the throng instantly, if necessary. Even where they now were, so many others were standing and kneeling that the presence of the Zouave beside Faustina would create no surprise. "It is very wrong to meet you in church," said the girl, a little shy, at first, with that timidity a woman always feels on meeting a man whom she has last seen on unexpectedly intimate terms. "I could not go away without seeing you," replied Gouache, his eyes intent on her face. "And I knew you would understand my signs, though no one else would. You have made me very happy, Faustina. It would have been agony to march away without seeing your face again--you do not know what these days have been without you! Do you realise that we used to meet almost every afternoon? Did they tell you why I could not come? I told every one I met, in hopes you might hear. Did you? Do you understand?" Faustina nodded her graceful head, and glanced quickly at his face. Then she looked down, tapping the pavement gently with her parasol. The colour came and went in her cheeks. "Do you really love me?" she asked in a low voice. "I think, my darling, that no one ever loved as I love. I would that I might be given time to tell you what my love is, and that you might have patience to hear. What are words, unless one can say all one would? What is it, if I tell you that I love you with all my heart, and soul and thoughts? Do not other men say as much and forget that they have spoken? I would find a way of saying it that should make you believe in spite of yourself--" "In spite of myself?" interrupted Faustina, with a bright smile while her brown eyes rested lovingly on his for an instant. "You need not that," she added simply, "for I love you, too." Nothing but the sanctity of the place prevented Anastase from taking her in his arms then and there. There was something so exquisite in her simplicity and earnestness that he found himself speechless before her for a moment. It was something that intoxicated his spirit more than his senses, for it was utterly new to him and appealed to his own loyal and innocent nature as it could not have appealed to a baser man. "Ah Faustina!" he said at last, "God made you when he made the violets, on a spring morning in Paradise!" Faustina blushed again, faintly as the sea at dawn. "Must you go away?" she asked. "You would not have me desert at such a moment?" "Would it be deserting--quite? Would it be dishonourable?" "It would be cowardly. I should never dare to look you in the face again." "I suppose it would be wrong," she answered with a bitter little sigh. "I will come back very soon, dearest. The time will be short." "So long--so long! How can you say it will be short? If you do not come soon you will find me dead--I cannot bear it many days more." "I will write to you." "How can you write? Your letters would be seen. Oh no! It is impossible!" "I will write to your friend--to the Princess Sant' Ilario. She will give you the letters. She is safe, is she not?" "Oh, how happy I shall be! It will be almost like seeing you--no, not that! But so much better than nothing. But you do not go at once?" "It may be to-day, to-morrow, at any time. But you shall know of it. Ah Faustina! my own one--" "Hush! There is my maid. Quick, behind the pillar. I will meet her. Good-bye--good-bye--Oh! not good-bye--some other word--" "God keep you, my beloved, and make it not 'good-bye'!" With one furtive touch of the hand, one long last look, they separated, Faustina to mingle in the crowd, Gouache to follow at a long distance until he saw her kneeling at her chair before one of the side altars of the church. Then he stationed himself where he could see her, and watched through the half hour during which the low mass lasted. He did not know when he should see her again, and indeed it was as likely as not that they should not meet on this side of eternity. Many a gallant young fellow marched out in those days and was picked off by a bullet from a red-shirted volunteer. Gouache, indeed, did not believe that his life was to be cut short so suddenly, and built castles in the air with that careless delight in the future which a man feels who is not at all afraid. But such accidents happened often, and though he might be more lucky than another, it was just as possible that an ounce of lead should put an end to his soldiering, his painting and his courtship within another week. The mere thought was so horrible that his bright nature refused to harbour it, and he gazed on Faustina Montevarchi as she knelt at her devotions, wondering, indeed, what strange chances fate had in store for them both, but never once doubting that she should one day be his. He waited until she passed him in the crowd, and gave him one more look before going away. Then, when he had seen her disappear at the turning of the street, he sprang into his cab and was driven back to the barracks where he must remain on duty all day. As he descended he was surprised to see Sant' Ilario standing upon the pavement, very pale, and apparently in a bad humour, his overcoat buttoned to his throat, and his hands thrust in the pockets. There was no one in the street, but the sentinel at the doorway, and Giovanni walked quickly up to Gouache as the latter fumbled for the change to pay his driver. Anastase smiled and made a short military salute. Sant' Ilario bowed stiffly and did not extend his hand. "I tried to find you last night," he said coldly. "You were out. Will you favour me with five minutes' conversation?" "Willingly," answered the other, looking instinctively at his watch, to be sure that he had time to spare. Sant' Ilario walked a few yards up the street, before speaking, Gouache keeping close to his side. Then both stopped, and Giovanni turned sharply round and faced his enemy. "It is unnecessary to enter into any explanations, Monsieur Gouache," he said. "This is a matter which can only end in one way. I presume you will see the propriety of inventing a pretext which may explain our meeting before the world." Gouache stared at Sant' Ilario in the utmost amazement. When they had last met they had parted on the most friendly terms. He did not understand a word of what his companion was saying. "Excuse me, prince," he said at length. "I have not the least idea what you mean. As far as I am concerned this meeting is quite accidental. I came here on duty." Sant' Ilario was somewhat taken aback by the Zouave's polite astonishment. He seemed even more angry than surprised, however; and his black eyebrows bent together fiercely. "Let us waste no words," he said imperiously. "If I had found you last night, the affair might have been over by this time." "What affair?" asked Gouache, more and more mystified. "You are amazingly slow of comprehension, Monsieur Gouache," observed Giovanni. "To be plain, I desire to have an opportunity of killing you. Do you understand me now?" "Perfectly," returned the soldier, raising his brows, and then breaking into a laugh of genuine amusement. "You are quite welcome to as many opportunities as you like, though I confess it would interest me to know the reason of your good intentions towards me." If Gouache had behaved as Giovanni had expected he would, the latter would have repeated his request that a pretext should be found which should explain the duel to the world. But there was such extraordinary assurance in the Zouave's manner that Sant' Ilario suddenly became exasperated with him and lost his temper, a misfortune which very rarely happened to him. "Monsieur Gouache," he said angrily, "I took the liberty of visiting your lodgings yesterday afternoon, and I found this letter, fastened with this pin upon your table. I presume you will not think any further explanation necessary." Gouache stared at the objects which Sant' Ilario held out to him and drew back stiffly. It was his turn to be outraged at the insult. "Sir," he said, "I understand that you acted in the most impertinent manner in entering my room and taking what did not belong to you. I understand nothing else. I found that pin on the Ponte Sant' Angelo a month ago, and it was, I believe, upon my table yesterday. As for the letter I know nothing about it. Yes, if you insist, I will read it." There was a pause during which Gouache ran his eyes over the few lines written on the notepaper, while Giovanni watched him very pale and wrathful. "The pin is my wife's, and the note is written on her paper and addressed to you, though in a feigned hand. Do you deny that both came from her, were brought by her in person, for yourself?" "I deny it utterly and categorically," answered Gouache. "Though I will assuredly demand satisfaction of you for entering my rooms without my permission, I give you my word of honour that I could receive no such letter from the princess, your wife. The thing is monstrously iniquitous, and you have been grossly deceived into injuring the good name of a woman as innocent as an angel. Since the pin is the property of the princess, pray return it to her with my compliments, and say that I found it on the bridge of Sant' Angelo. I can remember the very date. It was a quarter of an hour before I was run over by Prince Montevarchi's carriage. It was therefore on the 23d of September. As for the rest, do me the favour to tell me where my friends can find yours in an hour." "At my house. But allow me to add that I do not believe a word of what you say." "Is it a Roman custom to insult a man who has agreed to fight with you?" inquired Gouache. "We are more polite in France. We salute our adversaries before beginning the combat." Therewith the Zouave saluted Giovanni courteously and turned on his heel, leaving the latter in an even worse humour than he had found him. Gouache was too much surprised at the interview to reason connectedly about the causes which had led to it, and accepted the duel with Sant' Ilario blindly, because he could not avoid it, and because whatever offence he himself had unwittingly given he had in turn been insulted by Giovanni in a way which left him no alternative but that of a resort to arms. His adversary had admitted, had indeed boasted, of having entered Gouache's rooms, and of having taken thence the letter and the pin. This alone constituted an injury for which reparation was necessary, but not content with this, Sant' Ilario had given him the lie direct. Matters were so confused that it was hard to tell which was the injured party; but since the prince had undoubtedly furnished a pretext more than sufficient, the soldier had seized the opportunity of proposing to send his friends to demand satisfaction. It was clear, however, that the duel could not take place at once, since Gouache was under arms, and it was imperatively necessary that he should have permission to risk his life in a private quarrel at such a time. It was also certain that his superiors would not allow anything of the kind at present, and Gouache for his part was glad of the fact. He preferred to be killed before the enemy rather than in a duel for which there was no adequate explanation, except that a man who had been outrageously deceived by a person or persons unknown had chosen to attack him for a thing he had never done. He had not the slightest intention of avoiding the encounter, but he preferred to see some active service in a cause to which he was devoted before being run through the body by one who was his enemy only by mistake. Giovanni's reputation as a swordsman made it probable that the issue would be unfavourable to Gouache, and the latter, with the simple fearlessness that belonged to his character, meant if possible to have a chance of distinguishing himself before being killed. Half an hour later, a couple of officers of Zouaves called upon Sant' Ilario, and found his representatives waiting for them. Giovanni had had the good fortune to find Count Spicca at home. That melancholy gentleman had been his second in an affair with Ugo del Ferice nearly three years earlier and had subsequently killed one of the latter's seconds in consequence of his dishonourable behaviour in the field. He had been absent in consequence until a few weeks before the present time, when matters had been arranged, and he had found himself free to return unmolested. It had been remarked at the club that something would happen before he had been in Rome many days. He was a very tall and cadaverous man, exceedingly prone to take offence, and exceedingly skilful in exacting the precise amount of blood which he considered a fair return for an injury. He had never been known to kill a man by accident, but had rarely failed to take his adversary's life when he had determined to do so. Spicca had brought another friend, whom it is unnecessary to describe. The interview was short and conclusive. The two officers had instructions to demand a serious duel, and Spicca and his companion had been told to make the conditions even more dangerous if they could do so. On the other hand, the officers explained that as Rome was in a state of siege, and Garibaldi almost at the gates, the encounter could not take place until the crisis was past. They undertook to appear for Gouache in case he chanced to be shot in an engagement. Spicca, who did not know the real cause of the duel, and was indeed somewhat surprised to learn that Giovanni had quarrelled with a Zouave, made no attempt to force an immediate meeting, but begged leave to retire and consult with his principal, an informality which was of course agreed to by the other side. In five minutes he returned, stating that he accepted the provisions proposed, and that he should expect twenty-four hours' notice when Gouache should be ready. The four gentlemen drew up the necessary "protocol," and parted on friendly terms after a few minutes' conversation, in which various proposals were made in regard to the ground. Spicca alone remained behind, and he immediately went to Giovanni, carrying a copy of the protocol, on which the ink was still wet. "Here it is," he said sadly, as he entered the room, holding up the paper in his hand. "These revolutions are very annoying! There is no end to the inconvenience they cause." "I suppose it could not be helped," answered Giovanni, gloomily. "No. I believe I have not the reputation of wasting time in these matters. You must try and amuse yourself as best you can until the day comes. It is a pity you have not some other affair in the meanwhile, just to make the time pass pleasantly. It would keep your hand in, too. But then you have the pleasures of anticipation." Giovanni laughed hoarsely, Spicca took a foil from the wall and played with it, looking along the thin blade, then setting the point on the carpet and bending the weapon to see whether it would spring back properly. Giovanni's eyes followed his movements, watching the slender steel, and then glancing at Spicca's long arms, his nervous fingers and peculiar grip. "How do you manage to kill your man whenever you choose?" asked Sant' Ilario, half idly, half in curiosity. "It is perfectly simple, at least with foils," replied the other, making passes in the air. "Now, if you will take a foil, I will promise to run you through any part of your body within three minutes. You may make a chalked mark on the precise spot. If I miss by a hair's-breadth I will let you lunge at me without guarding." "Thank you," said Giovanni; "I do not care to be run through this morning, but I confess I would like to know how you do it. Could not you touch the spot without thrusting home?" "Certainly, if you do not mind a scratch on the shoulder or the arm. I will try and not draw blood. Come on--so--in guard--wait a minute! Where will you be hit? That is rather important." Giovanni, who was in a desperate humour and cared little what he did, rather relished the idea of a bout which savoured of reality. There was a billiard-table in the adjoining room, and he fetched a piece of chalk at once. "Here," said he, making a small white spot upon his coat on the outside of his right shoulder. "Very well," observed Spicca. "Now, do not rush in or I may hurt you." "Am I to thrust, too?" asked Giovanni. "If you like. You cannot touch me if you do." "We shall see," answered Sant' Ilario, nettled at Spicca's poor opinion of his skill. "In guard!" They fell into position and began play. Giovanni immediately tried his special method of disarming his adversary, which he had scarcely ever known to fail. He forgot, however, that Spicca had seen him practise this piece of strategy with success upon Del Ferice. The melancholy duellist had spent weeks in studying the trick, and had completely mastered it. To Giovanni's surprise the Count's hand turned as easily as a ball in a socket, avoiding the pressure, while his point scarcely deviated from the straight line. Giovanni, angry at his failure, made a quick feint and a thrust, lunging to his full reach. Spicca parried as easily and carelessly as though the prince had been a mere beginner, and allowed the latter to recover himself before he replied. A full two seconds after Sant' Ilario had resumed his guard, Spicca's foil ran over his with a speed that defied parrying, and he felt a short sharp prick in his right shoulder. Spicca sprang back and lowered his weapon. "I think that is the spot," he said coolly, and then came forward and examined Giovanni's coat. The point had penetrated the chalked mark in the centre, inflicting a wound not more than a quarter of an inch deep in the muscle of the shoulder. "Observe," he continued, "that it was a simple tierce, without a feint or any trick whatever." On realising his absolute inferiority to such a master of the art, Giovanni broke into a hearty laugh at his own discomfiture. So long as he had supposed that some sort of equality existed between them he had been angry at being outdone; but when he saw with what ease Spicca had accomplished his purpose, his admiration for the skill displayed made him forget his annoyance. "How in the world did you do it?" he said. "I thought I could parry a simple tierce, even though I might not be a match for you!" "Many people have thought the same, my friend. There are two or three elements in my process, one of which is my long reach. Another is the knack of thrusting very quickly, which is partly natural, and partly the result of practice. My trick consists in the way I hold my foil. Look here. I do not grasp the hilt with all my fingers as you do. The whole art of fencing lies in the use of the thumb and forefinger. I lay my forefinger straight in the direction of the blade. Of course I cannot do it with a basket or a bell hilt, but no one ever objects to common foils. It is dangerous--yes--I might hurt my finger, but then, I am too quick. You ask the advantage? It is very simple. You and I and every one are accustomed from childhood to point with the forefinger at things we see. The accuracy with which we point is much more surprising than you imagine. We instinctively aim the forefinger at the object to a hair's-breadth of exactness. I only make my point follow my forefinger. The important thing, then, is to grasp the hilt very firmly, and yet leave the wrist limber. I shoot in the same way with a revolver, and pull the trigger with my middle finger. I scarcely ever miss. You might amuse yourself by trying these things while you are waiting for Gouache. They will make the time pass pleasantly." Spicca, whose main pleasure in life was in the use of weapons, could not conceive of any more thoroughly delightful occupation. "I will try it," said Giovanni, rubbing his shoulder a little, for the scratch irritated him. "It is very interesting. I hope that fellow will not go and have himself killed by the Garibaldians before I get a chance at him." "You are absolutely determined to kill him, then?" Spicca's voice, which had grown animated during his exposition of his method, now sank again to its habitually melancholy tone. Giovanni only shrugged his shoulders at the question, as though any answer were needless. He hung the foil he had used in its place on the wall, and began to smoke. "You will not have another bout?" inquired the Count, putting away his weapon also, and taking his hat to go. "Thanks--not to-day. We shall meet soon, I hope. I am very grateful for your good offices, Spicca. I would ask you to stay to breakfast, but I do not want my father to know of this affair. He would suspect something if he saw you here." "Yes," returned the other quietly, "people generally do. I am rather like a public executioner in that respect. My visits often precede a catastrophe. What would you have? I am a lonely man." "You, who have so many friends!" exclaimed Giovanni. "Bah! It is time to be off," said Spicca, and shaking his friend's hand hastily he left the room. Giovanni stood for several minutes after he had gone, wondering with a vague curiosity what this man's history had been, as many had wondered before. There was a fatal savour of death about Spicca which everybody felt who came near him. He was dreaded, as one of the worst-tempered men and one of the most remarkable swordsmen in Europe. He was always consulted in affairs of honour, and his intimate acquaintance with the code, his austere integrity, and his vast experience, made him invaluable in such matters. But he was not known to have any intimate friends among men or women. He neither gambled nor made love to other men's wives, nor did any of those things which too easily lead to encounters of arms; and yet, in his cold and melancholy way he was constantly quarrelling and fighting and killing his man, till it was a wonder that the police would tolerate him in any European capital. It was rumoured that he had a strange history, and that his life had been embittered in his early youth by some tragic circumstance, but no one could say what that occurrence had been nor where it had taken place. He felt an odd sympathy for Giovanni, and his reference to his loneliness in his parting speech was unique, and set his friend to wondering about him. Giovanni's mind was now as much at rest as was possible, under conditions which obliged him to postpone his vengeance for an indefinite period. He had passed a sleepless night after his efforts to find Gouache and had risen early in the morning to be sure of catching him. He had not seen his father since their interview of the previous evening, and had hoped not to see him again till the moment of leaving for Saracinesca. The old man had understood him, and that was all that was necessary for the present. He suspected that his father would not seek an interview any more than he did himself. But an obstacle had presented itself in the way of his departure which he had not expected, and which irritated him beyond measure. Corona was ill. He did not know whether her ailment were serious or not, but it was evident that he could not force her to leave her bed and accompany him to the country, so long as the doctor declared that she could not be moved. When Spicca was gone, he did not know what to do with himself. He would not go and see his wife, for any meeting must be most unpleasant. He had nerved himself to conduct her to the mountains, and had expected that the long drive would be passed in a disagreeable silence. So long as Corona was well and strong, he could have succeeded well enough in treating her as he believed that she deserved. Now that she was ill, he felt how impossible it would be for him to take good care of her without seeming to relent, even if he did not relent in earnest; and on the other hand his really noble nature would have prevented him from being harsh in his manner to her while she was suffering. Until he had been convinced that a duel with Gouache was for the present impossible, his anger had supported him, and had made the time pass quickly throughout the sleepless night and through the events of the morning. Now that he was alone, with nothing to do but to meditate upon the situation, his savage humour forsook him and the magnitude of his misfortune oppressed him and nearly drove him mad. He went over the whole train of evidence again and again, and as often as he reviewed what had occurred, his conviction grew deeper and stronger, and he acknowledged that he had been deceived as man was never deceived before. He realised the boundless faith he had given to this woman who had betrayed him; he recollected the many proofs she had given him of her love; he drew upon the store of his past happiness and tortured himself with visions of what could never be again; he called up in fancy Corona's face when he had led her to the altar and the very look in her eyes was again upon him; he remembered that day more than two years ago when, upon the highest tower of Saracinesca, he had asked her to be his wife, and he knew not whether he desired to burn the memory of that first embrace from his heart, or to dwell upon the sweet recollection of that moment and suffer the wound of to-day to rankle more hotly by the horror of the comparison. When he thought of what she had been, it seemed impossible that she could have fallen; when he saw what she had become he could not believe that she had ever been innocent. A baser man than Giovanni would have suffered more in his personal vanity, seeing that his idol had been degraded for a mere soldier of fortune--or for a clever artist--whichever Gouache called himself, and such a husband would have forgiven her more easily had she forsaken him for one of his own standing and rank. But Giovanni was far above and beyond the thought of comparing his enemy with himself. He was wounded in what he had held most sacred, which was his heart, and in what had grown to be the mainspring of his existence, his trust in the woman he loved. Those who readily believe are little troubled if one of their many little faiths be shaken; but men who believe in a few things, with the whole strength of their being, are hurt mortally when that on which they build their loyalty is shattered and overturned. Giovanni was a just man, and was rarely carried away by appearances; least of all could he have shown any such weakness when the yielding to it involved the destruction of all that he cared for in life. But the evidence was overwhelming, and no man could be blamed for accepting it. There was no link wanting in the chain, and the denials made by Corona and Anastase could not have influenced any man in his senses. What could a woman do but deny all? What was there for Gouache but to swear that the accusation was untrue? Would not any other man or woman have done as much? There was no denying it. The only person who remained unquestioned was Faustina Montevarchi. Either she was the innocent girl she appeared to be or not. If she were, how could Giovanni explain to her that she had been duped, and made an instrument in the hands of Gouache and Corona? She would not know what he meant. Even if she admitted that she loved Gouache, was it not clear that he had deceived her too, for the sake of making an accomplice of one who was constantly with Corona? Her love for the soldier could not explain the things that had passed between Anastase and Giovanni's wife, which Giovanni had seen with his own eyes. It could not account for the whisperings, the furtive meeting and tender words of which he had been a witness in his own house. It could not do away with the letter and the pin. But if Faustina were not innocent of assisting the two, she would deny everything, even as they had done. As he thought of all these matters and followed the cruelly logical train of reasoning forced upon him by the facts, a great darkness descended upon Giovanni's heart, and he knew that his happiness was gone from him for ever. Henceforth nothing remained but to watch his wife jealously, and suffer his ills with the best heart he could. The very fact that he loved her still, with a passion that defied all things, added a terrible bitterness to what he had to bear, for it made him despise himself as none would have dared to despise him. CHAPTER XII. As Giovanni sat in solitude in his room he was not aware that his father had received a visit from no less a personage than Prince Montevarchi. The latter found Saracinesca very much preoccupied, and in no mood for conversation, and consequently did not stay very long. When he went away, however, he carried under his arm a bundle of deeds and documents which he had long desired to see and in the perusal of which he promised himself to spend a very interesting day. He had come with the avowed object of getting them, and he neither anticipated nor met with any difficulty in obtaining what he wanted. He spoke of his daughter's approaching marriage with San Giacinto, and after expressing his satisfaction at the alliance with the Saracinesca, remarked that his son-in-law had told him the story of the ancient deed, and begged permission to see it for himself. The request was natural, and Saracinesca was not suspicious at any time; at present, he was too much occupied with his own most unpleasant reflections to attach any importance to the incident. Montevarchi thought there was something wrong with his friend, but inasmuch as he had received the papers, he asked no questions and presently departed with them, hastening homewards in order to lose no time in satisfying his curiosity. Two hours later he was still sitting in his dismal study with the manuscripts before him. He had ascertained what he wanted to know, namely, that the papers really existed and were drawn up in a legal form. He had hoped to find a rambling agreement, made out principally by the parties concerned, and copied with some improvements by the family notary of the time, for he had made up his mind that if any flaw could be discovered in the deed San Giacinto should become Prince Saracinesca, and should have possession of all the immense wealth that belonged to the family. San Giacinto was the heir in the direct line, and although his great-grand-father had relinquished his birthright in the firm expectation of having no children, the existence of his descendants might greatly modify the provisions of the agreement. Montevarchi's face fell when he had finished deciphering the principal document. The provisions and conditions were short and concise, and were contained upon one large sheet of parchment, signed, witnessed and bearing the official seal and signature which proved that it had been ratified. It was set forth therein that Don Leone Saracinesca, being the eldest son of Don Giovanni Saracinesca, deceased, Prince of Saracinesca, of Sant' Ilario and of Torleone, Duke of Barda, and possessor of many other titles, Grandee of Spain of the first class and Count of the Holy Roman Empire, did of his own free will, by his own motion and will, make over and convey to, and bestow upon, Don Orsino Saracinesca, his younger and only brother, the principalities of Saracinesca--here followed a complete list of the various titles and estates--including the titles, revenues, seigneurial rights, appanages, holdings, powers and sovereignty attached to and belonging to each and every one, to him, the aforesaid Don Orsino Saracinesca and to the heirs of his body in the male line direct for ever. Here there was a stop, and the manuscript began again at the top of the other side of the sheet. The next clause contained the solitary provision to the effect that Don Leone reserved to himself the estate and title of San Giacinto in the kingdom of Naples, which at his death, he having no children, should revert to the aforesaid Don Orsino Saracinesca and his heirs for ever. It was further stated that the agreement was wholly of a friendly character, and that Don Leone bound himself to take no steps whatever to reinstate himself in the titles and possessions which, of his own free will, he relinquished, the said agreement being, in the opinion of both parties, for the advantage of the whole house of Saracinesca. "He bound himself, not his descendants," remarked Montevarchi at last, as he again bent his head over the document and examined the last clause. "And he says 'having no children'--in Latin the words may mean in case he had none, being in the ablative absolute. Having no children, to Orsino and his heirs for ever--but since he had a son, the case is altered. Ay, but that clause in the first part says to Orsino and his heirs for ever, and says nothing about Leone having no children. It is more absolute than the ablative. That is bad." For a long time he pondered over the writing. The remaining documents were merely transfers of the individual estates, in each of which it was briefly stated that the property in question was conveyed in accordance with the conditions of the main deed. There was no difficulty there. The Saracinesca inheritance depended solely on the existence of this one piece of parchment, and of the copy or registration of it in the government offices. Montevarchi glanced at the candle that stood before him in a battered brass candlestick, and his old heart beat a little faster than usual. To burn the sheet of parchment, and then deny on oath that he had ever seen it--it was very simple. Saracinesca would find it hard to prove the existence of the thing. Montevarchi hesitated, and then laughed at himself for his folly. It would be necessary first to ascertain what there was at the Chancery office, otherwise he would be ruining himself for nothing. That was certainly the most important step at present. He pondered over the matter for some time and then rose from his chair. As he stood before the table he glanced once more at the sheet. As though the greater distance made it more clear to his old sight, he noticed that there was a blank space, capable of containing three lines of writing like what was above, while still leaving a reasonable margin at the bottom of the page. As the second clause was the shorter, the scribe had doubtless thought it better to begin afresh on the other side. Montevarchi sat down again, and took a large sheet of paper and a pen. He rapidly copied the first clause to the end, but after the words "in the male line direct for ever" his pen still ran on. The deed then read as follows:-- "... In the male line direct for ever, provided that the aforesaid Don Leone Saracinesca shall have no son born to him in wedlock, in which case, and if such a son be born, this present deed is wholly null, void and ineffectual." Montevarchi did not stop here. He carefully copied the remainder as it stood, to the last word. Then he put away the original and read what he had written very slowly and carefully. With the addition it was perfectly clear that San Giacinto must be considered to be the lawful and only Prince Saracinesca. "How well those few words would look at the bottom of the page!" exclaimed the old man half aloud. He sat still and gloated in imagination over the immense wealth which would thus be brought into his family. "They shall be there--they must be there!" he muttered at last. "Millions! millions! After all it is only common justice. The old reprobate would never have disinherited his son if he had expected to have one." His long thin fingers crooked themselves and scratched the shabby green baize that covered the table, as though heaping together little piles of money, and then hiding them under the palm of his hand. "Even if there is a copy," he said again under his breath, "the little work will look as prettily upon it as on this--if only the sheets are the same size and there is the same space," he added, his face falling again at the disagreeable reflection that the duplicate might differ in some respect from the original. The plan was simple enough in appearance, and provided that the handwriting could be successfully forged, there was no reason why it should not succeed. The man who could do it, if he would, was in the house at that moment, and Montevarchi knew it. Arnoldo Meschini, the shrivelled little secretary and librarian, who had a profound knowledge of the law and spent his days as well as most of his nights in poring over crabbed manuscripts, was the very person for such a piece of work. He understood the smallest variations in handwriting which belonged to different periods, and the minutest details of old-fashioned penmanship were as familiar to him as the common alphabet. But would he do it? Would he undertake the responsibility of a forgery of which the success would produce such tremendous responsibilities, of which the failure would involve such awful disgrace? Montevarchi had reasons of his own for believing that Arnoldo Meschini would do anything he was ordered to do, and would moreover keep the secret faithfully. Indeed, as far as discretion was concerned, he would, in case of exposure, have to bear the penalty. Montevarchi would arrange that. If discovered it would be easy for him to pretend that being unable to read the manuscript he had employed his secretary to do so, and that the latter, in the hope of reward, had gratuitously imposed upon the prince and the courts of law before whom the case would be tried. One thing was necessary. San Giacinto must never see the documents until they were produced as evidence. In the first place it was important that he, who was the person nearest concerned, should be in reality perfectly innocent, and should be himself as much deceived as any one. Nothing impresses judges like real and unaffected innocence. Secondly, if he were consulted, it was impossible to say what view he might take of the matter. Montevarchi suspected him of possessing some of the hereditary boldness of the Saracinesca. He might refuse to be a party in a deception, even though he himself was to benefit by it, a consideration which chilled the old man's blood and determined him at once to confide the secret to no one but Arnoldo Meschini, who was completely in his power. The early history of this remarkable individual was uncertain. He had received an excellent education and it is no exaggeration to call him learned, for he possessed a surprising knowledge of ancient manuscripts and a great experience in everything connected with this branch of archaeology. It was generally believed that he had been bred to enter the church, but he himself never admitted that he had been anything more than a scholar in a religious seminary. He had subsequently studied law and had practised for some time, when he had suddenly abandoned his profession in order to accept the ill-paid post of librarian and secretary to the father of the present Prince Montevarchi. Probably his love of mediaeval lore had got the better of his desire for money, and during the five and twenty years he had spent in the palace he had never been heard to complain of his condition. He lived in a small chamber in the attic and passed his days in the library, winter and summer alike, perpetually poring over the manuscripts and making endless extracts in his odd, old-fashioned handwriting. The result of his labours was never published, and at first sight it would have been hard to account for his enormous industry and for the evident satisfaction he derived from his work. The nature of the man, however, was peculiar, and his occupation was undoubtedly congenial to him, and far more profitable than it appeared to be. Arnoldo Meschini was a forger. He was one of that band of manufacturers of antiquities who have played such a part in the dealings of foreign collectors during the last century, and whose occupation, though slow and laborious, occasionally produces immense profits. He had not given up his calling with the deliberate intention of resorting to this method of earning a subsistence, but had drifted into his evil practices by degrees. In the first instance he had quitted the bar in consequence of having been connected with a scandalous case of extortion and blackmailing, in which he had been suspected of constructing forged documents for his client, though the crime had not been proved against him. His reputation, however, had been ruined, and he had been forced to seek his bread elsewhere. It chanced that the former librarian of the Montevarchi died at that time and that the prince was in search of a learned man ready to give his services for a stipend about equal to the wages of a footman. Meschini presented himself and got the place. The old prince was delighted with him and agreed to forget the aforesaid disgrace he had incurred, in consideration of his exceptional qualities. He set himself systematically to study the contents of the ancient library, with the intention of publishing the contents of the more precious manuscripts, and for two or three years he pursued his object with this laudable purpose, and with the full consent of his employer. One day a foreign newspaper fell into his hands containing an account of a recent sale in which sundry old manuscripts had brought large prices. A new idea crossed his mind, and the prospect of unexpected wealth unfolded itself to his imagination. For several months he studied even more industriously than before, until, having made up his mind, he began to attempt the reproduction of a certain valuable writing dating from the fourteenth century. He worked in his own room during the evening and allowed no one to see what he was doing, for although it was rarely that the old prince honoured the library with a visit, yet Meschini was inclined to run no risks, and proceeded in his task with the utmost secrecy. Nothing could exceed the care he showed in the preparation and use of his materials. One of his few acquaintances was a starving, but clever chemist, who kept a dingy shop in the neighbourhood of the Ponte Quattro Capi. To this poor man he applied in order to obtain a knowledge of the ink used in the old writings. He professed himself anxious to get all possible details on the subject for a work he was preparing upon mediaeval calligraphy, and his friend soon set his mind at rest by informing him that if the ink contained any metallic parts he would easily detect them, but that if it was composed of animal and vegetable matter it would be almost impossible to give a satisfactory analysis. At the end of a few days Meschini was in possession of a recipe for concocting what he wanted, and after numerous experiments, in the course of which he himself acquired great practical knowledge of the subject, he succeeded in producing an ink apparently in all respects similar to that used by the scribe whose work he proposed to copy. He had meanwhile busied himself with the preparation of parchment, which is by no means an easy matter when it is necessary to give it the colour and consistency of very ancient skin. He learned that the ligneous acids contained in the smoke of wood could be easily detected, and it was only through the assistance of the chemist that he finally hit upon the method of staining the sheets with a thin broth of untanned leather, of which the analysis would give a result closely approaching that of the parchment itself. Moreover, he made all sorts of trials of quill pens, until he had found a method of cutting which produced the exact thickness of stroke required, and during the whole time he exercised himself in copying and recopying many pages of the manuscript upon common paper, in order to familiarise himself with the method of forming the letters. It was nearly two years before he felt himself able to begin his first imitation, but the time and study he had expended were not lost, and the result surpassed his expectations. So ingeniously perfect was the facsimile when finished that Meschini himself would have found it hard to swear to the identity of the original if he had not been allowed to see either of the two for some time. The minutest stains were reproduced with scrupulous fidelity. The slightest erasure was copied minutely. He examined every sheet to ascertain exactly how it had been worn by the fingers rubbing on the corners and spent days in turning a page thousands of times, till the oft-repeated touch of his thumb had deepened the colour to the exact tint. When the work was finished he hesitated. It seemed to him very perfect, but he feared lest he should be deceiving himself from having seen the thing daily for so many months. He took his copy one day to a famous collector, and submitted it to him for examination, asking at the same time what it was worth. The specialist spent several hours in examining the writing, and pronounced it very valuable, naming a large sum, while admitting that he was unable to buy it himself. Arnoldo Meschini took his work home with him, and spent a day in considering what he should do. Then he deliberately placed the facsimile in his employer's library, and sold the original to a learned man who was collecting for a great public institution in a foreign country. His train of reasoning was simple, for he said to himself that the forgery was less likely to be detected in the shelves of the Montevarchi's palace than if put into the hands of a body of famous scientists who naturally distrusted what was brought to them. Collectors do not ask questions as to whence a valuable thing has been taken; they only examine whether it be genuine and worth the money. Emboldened by his success, the forger had continued to manufacture facsimiles and sell originals for nearly twenty years, during which he succeeded in producing nearly as many copies, and realised a sum which to him appeared enormous and which was certainly not to be despised by any one. Some of the works he sold were published and annotated by great scholars, some were jealously guarded in the libraries of rich amateurs, who treasured them with all the selfish vigilance of the bibliomaniac. In the meanwhile Meschini's learning and skill constantly increased, till he possessed an almost diabolical skill in the art of imitating ancient writings, and a familiarity with the subject which amazed the men of learning who occasionally obtained permission to enter the library and study there. Upon these, too, Meschini now and then experimented with his forgeries, not one of which was ever detected. Prince Montevarchi saw in his librarian only a poor wretch whose passion for ancient literature seemed to dominate his life and whose untiring industry had made him master of the very secret necessary in the present instance. He knew that such things as he contemplated had been done before and he supposed that they had been done by just such men as Arnoldo Meschini. He knew the history of the man's early disgrace and calculated wisely enough that the fear of losing his situation on the one hand, and the hope of a large reward on the other, would induce him to undertake the job. To all appearances he was as poor as when he had entered the service of the prince's father five and twenty years earlier. The promise of a few hundred scudi, thought Montevarchi, would have immense weight with such a man. In his eagerness to accomplish his purpose, the nobleman never suspected that the offer would be refused by a fellow who had narrowly escaped being convicted of forgery in his youth, and whose poverty was a matter concerning which no doubt could exist. Montevarchi scarcely hesitated before going to the library. If he paused at all, it was more to consider the words he intended to use than to weigh in his mind the propriety of using them. The library was a vast old hall, surrounded on all sides, and nearly to the ceiling, with carved bookcases of walnut blackened with age to the colour of old mahogany. There were a number of massive tables in the room, upon which the light fell agreeably from high clerestory windows at each end of the apartment. Meschini himself was shuffling along in a pair of ancient leather slippers with a large volume under his arm, clad in very threadbare black clothes and wearing a dingy skullcap on his head. He was a man somewhat under the middle size, badly made, though possessing considerable physical strength. His complexion was of a muddy yellow, disagreeable to see, but his features rendered him interesting if not sympathetic. The brow was heavy and the gray eyebrows irregular and bushy, but his gray eyes were singularly clear and bright, betraying a hidden vitality which would not have been suspected from the whole impression he made. A high forehead, very prominent in the upper and middle part, contracted below, so that there was very little breadth at the temples, but considerable expanse above. The eyes were near together and separated by the knifelike bridge of the nose, the latter descending in a fine curve of wonderfully delicate outline. The chin was pointed, and the compressed mouth showed little or nothing of the lips. On each side of his head the coarsely-shaped and prominent ears contrasted disagreeably with the fine keenness of the face. He stooped a little from the neck, and his shoulders sloped in a way that made them look narrower than they really were. As the prince closed the door behind him and advanced, Meschini lifted his cap a little and laid down the book he was carrying, wondering inwardly what had brought his employer to see him at that hour of the morning. "Sit down," said Montevarchi, with more than usual affability, and setting the example by seating himself upon one of the high-backed chairs which were ranged along the tables. "Sit down, Meschini, and let us have a little conversation." "Willingly, Signor Principe," returned the librarian, obeying the command and placing himself opposite to the prince. "I have been thinking about you this morning," continued the latter. "You have been with us a very long time. Let me see. How many years? Eighteen? Twenty?" "Twenty-five years, Excellency. It is a long time, indeed!" "Twenty-five years! Dear me! How the thought takes me back to my poor father! Heaven bless him, he was a good man. But, as I was saying, Meschini, you have been with us many years, and we have not done much for you. No. Do not protest! I know your modesty, but one must be just before all things. I think you draw fifteen scudi a month? Yes. I have a good memory, you see. I occupy myself with the cares of my household. But you are not so young as you were once, my friend, and your faithful services deserve to be rewarded. Shall we say thirty scudi a month in future? To continue all your life, even if--heaven avert it--you should ever become disabled from superintending the library--yes, all your life." Meschini bowed as he sat in acknowledgment of so much generosity, and assumed a grateful expression suitable to the occasion. In reality, his salary was of very little importance to him, as compared with what he realised from his illicit traffic in manuscripts. But, like his employer, he was avaricious, and the prospect of three hundred and sixty scudi a year was pleasant to contemplate. He bowed and smiled. "I do not deserve so much liberality, Signor Principe," he said. "My poor services--" "Very far from poor, my dear friend, very far from poor," interrupted Montevarchi. "Moreover, if you will have confidence in me, you can do me a very great service indeed. But it is indeed a very private matter. You are a discreet man, however, and have few friends. You are not given to talking idly of what concerns no one but yourself." "No, Excellency," replied Meschini, laughing inwardly as he thought of the deceptions he had been practising with success during a quarter of a century. "Well, well, this is a matter between ourselves, and one which, as you will see, will bring its own reward. For although it might not pass muster in a court of law--the courts you know, Meschini, are very sensitive about little things--" he looked keenly at his companion, whose eyes were cast down. "Foolishly sensitive," echoed the librarian. "Yes. I may say that in the present instance, although the law might think differently of the matter, we shall be doing a good deed, redressing a great injustice, restoring to the fatherless his birthright, in a word fulfilling the will of Heaven, while perhaps paying little attention to the laws of man. Man, my friend, is often very unjust in his wisdom." "Very. I can only applaud your Excellency's sentiments, which do justice to a man of heart." "No, no, I want no praise," replied the prince in a tone of deprecation. "What I need in order to accomplish this good action is your assistance and friendly help. To whom should I turn, but to the old and confidential friend of the family? To a man whose knowledge of the matter on hand is only equalled by his fidelity to those who have so long employed him?" "You are very good, Signor Principe. I will do my best to serve you, as I have served you and his departed Excellency, the Signor Principe, your father." "Very well, Meschini. Now I need only repeat that the reward for your services will be great, as I trust that hereafter your recompense may be adequate for having had a share in so good a deed. But, to be short, the best way to acquaint you with the matter is to show you this document which I have brought for the purpose." Montevarchi produced the famous deed and carefully unfolded it upon the table. Then, after glancing over it once more, he handed it to the librarian. The latter bent his keen eyes upon the page and rapidly deciphered the contents. Then he read it through a second time and at last laid it down upon the table and looked up at the prince with an air of inquiry. "You see, my dear Meschini," said Montevarchi in suave tones, "this agreement was made by Don Leone Saracinesca because he expected to have no children. Had he foreseen what was to happen--for he has legitimate descendants alive, he would have added a clause here, at the foot of the first page--do you see? The clause he would have added would have been very short--something like this, 'Provided that the aforesaid Don Leone Saracinesca shall have no son born to him in wedlock, in which case, and if such a son be born, this present deed is wholly null, void and ineffectual.' Do you follow me?" "Perfectly," replied Meschini, with a strange look in his eyes. He again took the parchment and looked it over, mentally inserting the words suggested by his employer. "If those words were inserted, there could be no question about the view the tribunals would take. But there must be a duplicate of the deed at the Cancellaria." "Perhaps. I leave that to your industry to discover. Meanwhile, I am sure you agree with me that a piece of horrible injustice has been caused by this document; a piece of injustice, I repeat, which it is our sacred duty to remedy and set right." "You propose to me to introduce this clause, as I understand, in this document and in the original," said the librarian, as though he wished to be quite certain of the nature of the scheme. Montevarchi turned his eyes away and slowly scratched the table with his long nails. "I mean to say," he answered in a lower voice, "that if it could be made out in law that it was the intention of the person, of Don Leone--" "Let us speak plainly," interrupted Meschini. "We are alone. It is of no use to mince matters here. The only way to accomplish what you desire is to forge the words in both parchments. The thing can be done, and I can do it. It will be successful, without a shadow of a doubt. But I must have my price. There must be no misunderstanding. I do not think much of your considerations of justice, but I will do what you require, for money." "How much?" asked Montevarchi in a thick voice. His heart misgave him, for he had placed himself in the man's power, and Meschini's authoritative tone showed that the latter knew it, and meant to use his advantage. "I will be moderate, for I am a poor man. You shall give me twenty thousand scudi in cash, on the day the verdict is given in favour of Don Giovanni Saracinesca, Marchese di San Giacinto. That is your friend's name, I believe." Montevarchi started as the librarian named the sum, and he turned very pale, passing his bony hand upon the edge of the table. "I would not have expected this of you!" he exclaimed. "You have your choice," returned the other, bringing his yellow face nearer to his employer's and speaking very distinctly. "You know what it all means. Saracinesca, Sant' Ilario, and Barda to your son-in-law, besides all the rest, amounting perhaps to several millions. To me, who get you all this, a paltry twenty thousand. Or else--" he paused and his bright eyes seemed to penetrate into Montevarchi's soul. The latter's face exhibited a sudden terror, which Meschini understood. "Or else?" said the prince. "Or else, I suppose you will try and intimidate me by threatening to expose what I have told you?" "Not at all, Excellency," replied the old scholar with sudden humility. "If you do not care for the bargain let us leave it alone. I am only your faithful servant, Signor Principe. Do not suspect me of such ingratitude! I only say that if we undertake it, the plan will be successful. It is for you to decide. Millions or no millions, it is the same to me. I am but a poor student. But if I help to get them for you--or for your son-in-law--I must have what I asked. It is not one per cent--scarcely a broker's commission! And you will have so much. Not but what your Excellency deserves it all, and is the best judge." "One per cent?" muttered Montevarchi. "Perhaps not more than half per cent. But is it safe?" he asked suddenly, his fears all at once asserting themselves with a force that bewildered him. "Leave all that to me," answered Meschini confidently. "The insertion shall be made, unknown to any one, in this parchment and in the one in the Chancery. The documents shall be returned to their places with no observation, and a month or two later the Marchese di San Giacinto can institute proceedings for the recovery of his birthright. I would only advise you not to mention the matter to him. It is essential that he should be quite innocent in order that the tribunal may suspect nothing. You and I, Signor Principe, can stay at home while the case is proceeding. We shall not even see the Signor Marchese's lawyers, for what have we to do with it all? But the Signor Marchese himself must be really free from all blame, or he will show a weak point. Now, when all is ready, he should go to the Cancellaria and examine the papers there for himself. He himself will suspect nothing. He will be agreeably surprised." "And how long will it take you to do the--the work?" asked Montevarchi in hesitating tones. "Let me see," Meschini began to make a calculation under his breath. "Ink, two days--preparing parchment for experiments, a week--writing, twice over, two days--giving age, drying and rubbing, three days, at least. Two, nine, eleven, fourteen. A fortnight," he said aloud. "I cannot do it in less time than that. If the copy in the Chancery is by another hand it will take longer." "But how can you work at the Chancery?" asked the prince, as though a new objection had presented itself. "Have no fear, Excellency. I will manage it so that no one shall find it out. Two visits will suffice. Shall I begin at once? Is it agreed?" Montevarchi was silent for several minutes, and his hands moved uneasily. "Begin at once," he said at last, as though forcing himself to make a determination. He rose to go as he spoke. "Twenty thousand scudi on the day the verdict is given in favour of the Signor Marchese. Is that it?" "Yes, yes. That is it. I leave it all to you." "I will serve your Excellency faithfully, never fear." "Do, Meschini. Yes. Be faithful as you have always been. Remember, I am not avaricious. It is in the cause of sound justice that I stoop to assume the appearance of dishonesty. Can a man do more? Can one go farther than to lose one's self-esteem by appearing to transgress the laws of honour in order to accomplish a good object; for the sake of restoring the birthright to the fatherless and the portion to the widow, or indeed to the widower, in this case? No, my dear friend. The means are more than justified by the righteousness of our purpose. Believe me, my good Meschini--yes, you are good in the best sense of the word--believe me, the justice of this world is not always the same as the justice of Heaven. The dispensations of providence are mysterious." "And must remain so, in this case," observed the librarian with an evil smile. "Yes, unfortunately, in this case we shall not reap the worldly praise which so kind an action undoubtedly deserves. But we must have patience under these trials. Good-bye, Meschini, good-bye, my friend. I must busy myself with the affairs of my household. Every man must do his duty in this world, you know." The scholar bowed his employer to the door, and then went back to the parchment, which he studied attentively for more than an hour, keeping a huge folio volume open before him, into which he might slip the precious deed in case he were interrupted in his occupation. CHAPTER XIII. Sant' Ilario could not realise that the course of events had been brought to a standstill at the very moment when his passions were roused to fury. He could not fight Gouache for the present and Corona was so ill that he could not see her. Had he wished to visit her, the old-fashioned physician would probably have forbidden him to do so, but in reality he was glad to be spared the emotions of a meeting which must necessarily be inconclusive. His first impulse had been to take her away from Rome and force her to live alone with him in the mountains. He felt that no other course was open to him, for he knew that in spite of all that had happened he could not bear to live without her, and yet he felt that he could no longer suffer her to come and go in the midst of society, where she must necessarily often meet the man she had chosen to love. Nor could he keep her in Rome and at the same time isolate her as he desired to do. If the world must talk, he would rather not be where he could hear what it said. The idea of a sudden journey, terminating in the gloomy fortress of Saracinesca, was pleasant to his humour. The old place was ten times more grim and dismal in winter than in summer, and in his savage mood he fancied himself alone with his wife in the silent halls, making her feel the enormity of what she had done, while jealously keeping her a prisoner at his mercy. But her illness had put a stop to his plans for her safety, while the revolution had effectually interfered with the execution of his vengeance upon Gouache. He could find no occupation which might distract his mind from the thoughts that beset him, and no outlet for the restless temper that craved some sort of action, no matter what, as the expression of what he suffered. He and his father met in silence at their meals, and though Giovanni felt that he had the old man's full sympathy, he could not bring himself to speak of what was nearest to his heart. He remembered that his marriage had been of his own seeking, and his pride kept him from all mention of the catastrophe by which his happiness had been destroyed. Old Saracinesca suffered in his own way almost as much as his son, and it was fortunate that he was prevented from seeing Corona at that time, for it is not probable that he would have controlled himself had he been able to talk with her alone. When little Orsino was brought in to them, the two men looked at each other, and while the younger bit his lip and suppressed all outward signs of his agony, the tears more than once stole into the old prince's eyes so that he would turn away and leave the room. Then Giovanni would take the child upon his knee and look at it earnestly until the little thing was frightened and held out its arms to its nurse, crying to be taken away. Thereupon Sant' Ilario's mood grew more bitter than before, for he was foolish enough to believe that the child had a natural antipathy for him, and would grow up to hate the sight of its father. Those were miserable days, never to be forgotten, and each morning and evening brought worse news of Corona's state, until it was clear, even to Giovanni, that she was dangerously ill. The sound of voices grew rare in the Palazzo Saracinesca and the servants moved noiselessly about at their work, oppressed by the sense of coming disaster, and scarcely speaking to each other. San Giacinto came daily to make inquiries and spent some time with the two unhappy men without wholly understanding what was passing. He was an astute man, but not possessed of the delicacy of feeling whereby real sympathy sometimes reaches the truth by its own intuitive reasoning. Moreover, he was wholly ignorant of having played a very important part in bringing about the troubles which now beset Casa Saracinesca. No one but himself knew how he had written the note that had caused such disastrous results, and he had no intention of confiding his exploit to any one of his acquaintance. He had of course not been able to ascertain whether the desired effect had been produced, for he did not know at what church the meeting between Faustina and Gouache was to take place, and he was too cunning to follow her as a spy when he had struck so bold a blow at her affection for the artist-soldier. His intellect was keen, but his experience had not been of a high order, and he naturally thought that she would reason as he had reasoned himself, if she chanced to see him while she was waiting for the man she loved. She knew that he was to marry her sister, and that he might therefore be supposed to disapprove of an affair which could only lead to a derogatory match for herself, and he had therefore carefully abstained from following her on that Sunday morning when she had met Anastase. Nevertheless he could see that something had occurred in his cousin's household which was beyond his comprehension, for Corona's illness was not alone enough to account for the manner of the Saracinesca. It is a social rule in Italy that a person suffering from any calamity must be amused, and San Giacinto used what talents he possessed in that direction, doing all he could to make the time hang less heavily on Giovanni's hands. He made a point of gathering all the news of the little war in order to repeat it in minute detail to his cousins. He even prevailed upon Giovanni to walk with him sometimes in the middle of the day, and Sant' Ilario seemed to take a languid interest in the barricades erected at the gates of the city, and in the arrangements for maintaining quiet within the walls. Rome presented a strange aspect in those days. All who were not Romans kept their national flags permanently hung from their windows, as a sort of protection in case the mob should rise, or in the event of the Garibaldians suddenly seizing the capital. Patrols marched everywhere about the streets and mounted gendarmes were stationed at the corners of the principal squares and at intervals along the main thoroughfares. Strange to say, the numerous flags and uniforms that were to be seen produced an air of festivity strongly at variance with the actual state of things, and belied by the anxious expressions visible in the faces of the inhabitants. All these sights interested San Giacinto, whose active temperament made him very much alive to what went on around him, and even Giovanni thought less of his great sorrow when he suffered himself to be led out of the house by his cousin. When at last it was known that the French troops were on their way from Civita Vecchia, the city seemed to breathe more freely. General Kanzler, the commander-in-chief of the Pontifical forces, had done all that was humanly possible to concentrate his little army, and the arrival of even a small body of Frenchmen made it certain that Garibaldi could be met with a fair chance of success. Of all who rejoiced at the prospect of a decisive action, there was no one more sincerely delighted than Anastase Gouache. So long as the state of siege lasted and he was obliged to follow the regular round of his almost mechanical duty, he was unable to take any step in the direction whither all his hopes tended, and he lived in a state of perpetual suspense. It was a small consolation that he found time to reflect upon the difficulties of his situation and to revolve in his mind the language he should use when he went to ask the hand of Montevarchi's daughter. He was fully determined to take this bold step, and though he realised the many objections which the old prince would certainly raise against the match, he had not the slightest doubt of his power to overcome them all. He could not imagine what it would be like to fail, and he cherished and reared what should have been but a slender hope until it seemed to be a certainty. The unexpected quarrel thrust upon him by Sant' Ilario troubled him very little, for he was too hopeful by nature to expect any serious catastrophe, and he more than once laughed to himself when he thought Giovanni was really jealous of him. The feeling of reverence and respectful admiration which he had long entertained for Corona was so far removed from love as to make Giovanni's wrath appear ridiculous. He would far sooner have expected a challenge from one of Faustina's brothers than from Corona's husband, but, since Sant' Ilario had determined to quarrel, there was no help for it, and he must give him all satisfaction as soon as possible. That Giovanni had insulted him by entering his lodgings unbidden, and by taking certain objects away which were practically the artist's property, was a minor consideration, since it was clear that Giovanni had acted all along under an egregious misapprehension. One thing alone puzzled Anastase, and that was the letter itself. It seemed to refer to his meeting with Faustina, but she had made no mention of it when he had seen her in the church. Gouache did not suspect Giovanni of having concocted the note for any purposes of his own, and quite believed that he had found it as he had stated, but the more the artist tried to explain the existence of the letter, the further he found himself from any satisfactory solution of the question. He interrogated his landlady, but she would say nothing about it, for the temptation of Giovanni's money sealed her lips. The week passed somehow, unpleasantly enough for most of the persons concerned in this veracious history, but Saturday night came at last, and brought with it a series of events which modified the existing situation. Gouache was on duty at the barracks when orders were received to the effect that the whole available force in Rome was to march soon after midnight. His face brightened when he heard the news, although he realised that in a few hours he was to leave behind him all that he held most dear and to face death in a manner new to him, and by no means pleasant to most men. Between two and three o'clock on Sunday morning Gouache found himself standing in the midst of a corps of fifteen hundred Zouaves, in almost total darkness and under a cold, drizzling November rain. His teeth chattered and his wet hands seemed to freeze to the polished fittings of his rifle, and he had not the slightest doubt that every one of his comrades experienced the same unenviable sensations. From time to time the clear voice of an officer was heard giving an order, and then the ranks closed up nearer, or executed a sidelong movement by which greater space was afforded to the other troops that constantly came up towards the Porta Pia. There was little talking during an hour or more while the last preparations for the march were being made, though the men exchanged a few words from time to time in an undertone. The splashing tramp of feet on the wet road was heard rapidly approaching every now and then, followed by a dead silence when the officers' voices gave the order to halt. Then a shuffling sound followed as the ranks moved into the exact places assigned to them. Here and there a huge torch was blazing and spluttering in the fine rain, making the darkness around it seem only thicker by the contrast, but lighting up fragments of ancient masonry and gleaming upon little pools of water in the open spaces between the ranks. It was a dismal night, and it was fortunate that the men who were to march were in good spirits and encouraged by the arrival of the French, who made the circuit of the city and were to join them upon the road in order to strike the final blow against Garibaldi and his volunteers. The Zouaves were fifteen hundred, and there were about as many more of the native troops, making three thousand in all. The French were two thousand. The Garibaldians were, according to all accounts, not less than twelve thousand, and were known to be securely entrenched at Monte Rotondo and further protected by the strong outpost of Mentana, which lies nearly on the direct road from Rome to the former place. Considering the relative positions of the two armies, the odds were enormously in favour of Garibaldi, and had he possessed a skill in generalship at all equal to his undoubted personal courage, he should have been able to drive the Pope's forces back to the very gates of Rome. He was, however, under a twofold disadvantage which more than counterbalanced the numerical superiority of the body he commanded. He possessed little or no military science, and his men were neither confident nor determined. His plan had been to create a revolution in Rome and to draw out the papal army at the same time, in order that the latter might find itself between two fires. His men had expected that the country would rise and welcome them as liberators, whereas they were received as brigands and opposed with desperate energy at every point by the peasants themselves, a turn of affairs for which they were by no means prepared. Monte Rotondo, defended by only three hundred and fifty soldiers, resisted Garibaldi's attacking force of six thousand during twenty-seven hours, a feat which must have been quite impracticable had the inhabitants themselves not joined in the defence. The revolution in Rome was a total failure, the mass of the people looking on with satisfaction, while the troops shot down the insurgents, and at times even demanding arms that they might join in suppressing the disturbance. The Rome of 1867 was not the Rome of 1870, as will perhaps be understood hereafter. With the exception of a few turbulent spirits, the city contained no revolutionary element, and very few who sympathised with the ideas of Italian Unification. But without going any further into political considerations for the present, let us follow Anastase Gouache and his fifteen hundred comrades who marched out of the Porta Pia before dawn on the third of November. The battle that followed merits some attention as having been the turning-point of a stirring time, and also as having produced certain important results in the life of the French artist, which again reacted in some measure upon the family history of the Saracinesca. Monte Rotondo itself is sixteen miles from Rome, but Mentana, which on that day was the outpost of the Garibaldians and became the scene of their defeat, is two miles nearer to the city. Most people who have ridden much in the Campagna know the road which branches to the left about five miles beyond the Ponte Nomentano. There is perhaps no more desolate and bleak part of the undulating waste of land that surrounds the city on all sides. The way is good as far as the turning, but after that it is little better than a country lane, and in rainy weather is heavy and sometimes almost impassable. As the rider approaches Mentana the road sinks between low hills and wooded knolls that dominate it on both sides, affording excellent positions from which an enemy might harass and even destroy an advancing force. Gradually the country becomes more broken until Mentana itself appears in view, a formidable barrier rising upon the direct line to Monte Rotondo. On all sides are irregular hillocks, groups of trees growing upon little elevations, solid stone walls surrounding scattered farmhouses and cattle-yards, every one of which could be made a strong defensive post. Mentana, too, possesses an ancient castle of some strength, and has walls of its own like most of the old towns in the Campagna, insignificant perhaps, if compared with modern fortifications, but well able to resist for many hours the fire of light field-guns. It was past midday when Gouache's column first came in view of the enemy, and made out the bright red shirts of the Garibaldians, which peeped out from among the trees and from behind the walls, and were visible in some places massed in considerable numbers. The intention of the commanding officers, which was carried out with amazing ease, was to throw the Zouaves and native troops in the face of the enemy, while the French chasseurs, on foot and mounted, made a flanking movement and cut off Garibaldi's communication with Monte Rotondo, attacking Mentana at the same time from the opposite side. Gouache experienced an odd sensation when the first orders were given to fire. His experience had hitherto been limited to a few skirmishes with the outlaws of the Samnite hills, and the idea of standing up and deliberately taking aim at men who stood still to be shot at, so far as he could see, was not altogether pleasant. He confessed to himself that though he wholly approved of the cause for which he was about to fire his musket, he felt not the slightest hatred for the Garibaldians, individually or collectively. They were extremely picturesque in the landscape, with their flaming shirts and theatrical hats. They looked very much as though they had come out of a scene in a comic opera, and it seemed a pity to destroy anything that relieved the dismal grayness of the November day. As he stood there he felt much more like the artist he was, than like a soldier, and he felt a ludicrously strong desire to step aside and seat himself upon a stone wall in order to get a better view of the whole scene. Presently as he looked at a patch of red three or four hundred yards distant, the vivid colour was obscured by a little row of puffs of smoke. A rattling report followed, which reminded him of the discharges of the tiny mortars the Italian peasants love to fire at their village festivals. Then almost simultaneously he heard the curious swinging whistle of a dozen bullets flying over his head. This latter sound roused him to an understanding of the situation, as he realised that any one of those small missiles might have ended its song by coming into contact with his own body. The next time he heard the order to fire he aimed as well as he could, and pulled the trigger with the best possible intention of killing an enemy. For the most part, the Garibaldians retired after each round, reappearing again to discharge their rifles from behind the shelter of walls and trees, while the Zouaves slowly advanced along the road, and began to deploy to the right and left wherever the ground permitted such a movement. The firing continued uninterruptedly for nearly half an hour, but though the rifles of the papal troops did good execution upon the enemy, the bullets of the latter seldom produced any effect. Suddenly the order was given to fix bayonets, and immediately afterwards came the command to charge. Gouache was all at once aware that he was rushing up hill at the top of his speed towards a small grove of trees that crowned the eminence. The bright red shirts of the enemy were visible before him amongst the dry underbrush, and before he knew what he was about he saw that he had run a Garibaldian through the calf of the leg. The man tumbled down, and Gouache stood over him, looking at him in some surprise. While he was staring at his fellow-foe the latter pulled out a pistol and fired at him, but the weapon only snapped harmlessly. "As the thing won't go off," said the man coolly, "perhaps you will be good enough to take your bayonet out of my leg." He spoke in Italian, with a foreign accent, but in a tone of voice and with a manner which proclaimed him a gentleman. There was a look of half comic discomfiture in his face that amused Gouache, who carefully extracted the steel from the wound, and offered to help his prisoner to his feet. The latter, however, found it hard to stand. "Circumstances point to the sitting posture," he said, sinking down again. "I suppose I am your prisoner. If you have anything to do, pray do not let me detain you. I cannot get away and you will probably find me here when you come back to dinner. I will occupy myself in cursing you while you are gone." "You are very kind," said Gouache, with a laugh. "May I offer you a cigarette and a little brandy?" The stranger looked up in some astonishment as he heard Gouache's voice, and took the proffered flask in silence, as well as a couple of cigarettes from the case. "Thank you," he said after a pause. "I will not curse you quite as heartily as I meant to do. You are very civil." "Do not mention it," replied Gouache. "I wish you a very good-morning, and I hope to have the pleasure of your company at dinner to-night." Thereupon the Zouave shouldered his rifle and trotted off down the hill. The whole incident had not occupied more than three minutes and his comrades were not far off, pursuing the Garibaldians in the direction of a large farmhouse, which afforded the prospect of shelter and the means of defence. Half a dozen killed and wounded remained upon the hill besides Gouache's prisoner. The Vigna di Santucci, as the farmhouse was called, was a strong building surrounded by walls and fences. A large number of the enemy had fallen back upon this point and it now became evident that they meant to make a determined resistance. As the Zouaves came up, led by Charette in person, the Reds opened a heavy fire upon their advancing ranks. The shots rattled from the walls and windows in rapid succession, and took deadly effect at the short range. The Zouaves blazed away in reply with their chassepots, but the deep embrasures and high parapets offered an excellent shelter for the riflemen, and it was no easy matter to find an aim. The colonel's magnificent figure and great fair beard were conspicuous as he moved about the ranks, encouraging the men and searching for some means of scaling the high walls. Though anxious for the safety of his troops, he seemed as much at home as though he were in a drawing-room, and paid no more attention to the whistling bullets than if they had been mere favours showered upon him in an afternoon's carnival. The firing grew hotter every moment and it was evident that unless the place could be carried by assault at once, the Zouaves must suffer terrible losses. The difficulty was to find a point where the attempt might be made with a good chance of success. "It seems to me," said Gouache, to a big man who stood next to him, "that if we were in Paris, and if that were a barricade instead of an Italian farmhouse, we should get over it." "I think so, too," replied his comrade, with a laugh. "Let us try," suggested the artist quietly. "We may as well have made the attempt, instead of standing here to catch cold in this horrible mud. Come along," he added quickly, "or we shall be too late. The colonel is going to order the assault--do you see?" It was true. A loud voice gave a word of command which was echoed and repeated by a number of officers. The men closed in and made a rush for the farmhouse, trying to scramble upon each other's shoulders to reach the top of the wall and the windows of the low first story. The attempt lasted several minutes, during which the enemies' rifles poured down a murderous fire upon the struggling soldiers. The latter fell back at last, leaving one man alone clinging to the top of the wall. "It is Gouache!" cried a hundred voices at once. He was a favourite with officers and men and was recognised immediately. He was in imminent peril of his life. Standing upon the shoulders of the sturdy comrade to whom he had been speaking a few minutes before he had made a spring, and had succeeded in getting hold of the topmost stones. Taking advantage of the slight foothold afforded by the crevices in the masonry, he drew himself up with catlike agility till he was able to kneel upon the narrow summit. He had chosen a spot for his attempt where he had previously observed that no enemy appeared, rightly judging that there must be some reason for this peculiarity, of which he might be able to take advantage. This proved to be the case, for he found himself immediately over a horse pond, which was sunk between two banks of earth that followed the wall on the inside up to the water, and upon which the riflemen stood in safety behind the parapet. The men so stationed had discharged their pieces during the assault, and were busily employed in reloading when they noticed the Zouave perched upon the top of the wall. One or two who had pistols fired them at him, but without effect. One or two threw stones from the interior of the vineyard. Gouache threw himself on his face along the wall and began quickly to throw down the topmost stones. The mortar was scarcely more solid than dry mud, and in a few seconds he had made a perceptible impression upon the masonry. But the riflemen had meanwhile finished reloading and one of them, taking careful aim, fired upon the Zouave. The bullet hit him in the fleshy part of the shoulder, causing a stinging pain and, what was worse, a shock that nearly sent him rolling over the edge. Still he clung on desperately, loosening the stones with a strength one would not have expected in his spare frame. A minute longer, during which half a dozen more balls whizzed over him or flattened themselves against the stones, and then his comrades made another rush, concentrating their force this time at the spot where he had succeeded in lowering the barrier. His left arm was almost powerless from the flesh-wound in his shoulder, but with his right he helped the first man to a footing beside him. In a moment more the Zouaves were swarming over the wall and dropping down by scores into the shallow pool on the other side. The fight was short but desperate. The enemy, driven to bay in the corners of the yard and within the farmhouse, defended themselves manfully, many of them being killed and many more wounded. But the place was carried and the great majority fled precipitately through the exits at the back and made the best of their way towards Mentana. An hour later Gouache was still on his legs, but exhausted by his efforts in scaling the wall and by loss of blood from his wound, he felt that he could not hold out much longer. The position at that time was precarious. It was nearly four o'clock and the days were short. The artillery was playing against the little town, but the guns were light field-pieces of small calibre, and though their position was frequently changed they made but little impression upon the earthworks thrown up by the enemy. The Garibaldians massed themselves in large numbers as they retreated from various points upon Mentana, and though their weapons were inferior to those of their opponents their numbers made them still formidable. The Zouaves, gendarmes, and legionaries, however, pressed steadily though slowly onward. The only question was whether the daylight would last long enough. Should the enemy have the advantage of the long night in which to bring up reinforcements from Monte Rotondo and repair the breaches in their defences the attack might last through all the next day. The fortunes of the little battle were decided by the French chasseurs, who had gradually worked out a flanking movement under cover of the trees and the broken country. Just as Gouache felt that he could stand no longer, a loud shout upon the right announced the charge of the allies, and a few minutes later the day was practically won. The Zouaves rushed forward, cheered and encouraged by the prospect of immediate success, but Anastase staggered from the ranks and sank down under a tree unable to go any farther. He had scarcely settled himself in a comfortable position when he lost consciousness and fainted away. Mentana was not taken, but it surrendered on the following morning, and as Monte Rotondo had been evacuated during the night and most of the Garibaldians had escaped over the frontier, the fighting was at an end, and the campaign of twenty-four hours terminated in a complete victory for the Roman forces. When Gouache came to himself his first sensation was that of a fiery stream of liquid gurgling in his mouth and running down his throat. He swallowed the liquor half unconsciously, and opening his eyes for a moment was aware that two men were standing beside him, one of them holding a lantern in his hand, the rays from which dazzled the wounded Zouave and prevented him from recognising the persons. "Where is he hurt?" asked a voice that sounded strangely familiar in his ears. "I cannot tell yet," replied the other man, kneeling down again beside him and examining him attentively. "It is only my shoulder," gasped Gouache. "But I am very weak. Let me sleep, please." Thereupon he fainted again, and was conscious of nothing more for some time. The two men took him up and carried him to a place near, where others were waiting for him. The night was intensely dark, and no one spoke a word, as the little party picked its way over the battle-field, occasionally stopping to avoid treading upon one of the numerous prostrate bodies that lay upon the ground. The man who had examined Gouache generally stooped down and turned the light of his lantern upon the faces of the dead men, expecting that some one of them might show signs of life. But it was very late, and the wounded had already been carried away. Gouache alone seemed to have escaped observation, an accident probably due to the fact that he had been able to drag himself to a sheltered spot before losing his senses. During nearly an hour the men trudged along the road with their burden, when at last they saw in the distance the bright lamps of a carriage shining through the darkness. The injured soldier was carefully placed among the cushions, and the two gentlemen who had found him got in and closed the door. Gouache awoke in consequence of the pain caused by the jolting of the vehicle. The lantern was placed upon one of the vacant seats and illuminated the faces of his companions, one of whom sat behind him and supported his weight by holding one arm around his body. Anastase stared at this man's face for some time in silence and in evident surprise. He thought he was in a dream, and he spoke rather to assure himself that he was awake than for any other reason. "You were anxious lest I should escape you after all," he said. "You need not be afraid. I shall be able to keep my engagement." "I trust you will do nothing of the kind, my dear Gouache," answered Giovanni Saracinesca. CHAPTER XIV. On the Saturday afternoon preceding the battle of Mentana, Sant' Ilario was alone in his own room, trying to pass the weary hours in the calculation of certain improvements he meditated at Saracinesca. He had grown very thin and careworn during the week, and he found it hard to distract his mind even for a moment from the thought of his misfortunes. Nothing but a strong mental effort in another direction could any longer fix his attention, and though any kind of work was for the present distasteful to him, it was at least a temporary relief from the contemplation of his misfortunes. He could not bring himself to see Corona, though she grew daily worse, and both the physicians and the attendants who were about her looked grave. His action in this respect did not proceed from heartlessness, still less from any wish to add to her sufferings; on the contrary, he knew very well that, since he could not speak to her with words of forgiveness, the sight of him would very likely aggravate her state. He had no reason to forgive her, for nothing had happened to make her guilt seem more pardonable than before. Had she been well and strong as usual he would have seen her often and would very likely have reproached her again and again most bitterly with what she had done. But she was ill and wholly unable to defend herself; to inflict fresh pain at such a time would have been mean and cowardly. He kept away and did his best not to go mad, though he felt that he could not bear the strain much longer. As the afternoon light faded from his chamber he dropped the pencil and paper with which he had been working and leaned back in his chair. His face was haggard and drawn, and sleepless nights had made dark circles about his deep-set eyes, while his face, which was naturally lean, had grown suddenly thin and hollow. He was indeed one of the most unhappy men in Rome that day, and so far as he could see his misery had fallen upon him through no fault of his own. It would have been a blessed relief, could he have accused himself of injustice, or of any misdeed which might throw the weight and responsibility of Corona's actions back upon his own soul. He loved her still so well that he could have imagined nothing sweeter than to throw himself at her feet and cry aloud that it was he who had sinned and not she. He tortured his imagination for a means of proving that she might be innocent. But it was in vain. The chain of circumstantial evidence was complete and not a link was missing, not one point uncertain. He would have given her the advantage of any doubt which could be thought to exist, but the longer he thought of it all, the more sure he grew that there was no doubt whatever. He sat quite still until it was nearly dark, and then with a sudden and angry movement quite unlike him, he sprang to his feet and left the room. Solitude was growing unbearable to him, and though he cared little to see any of his associates, the mere presence of other living beings would, he thought, be better than nothing. He was about to go out of the house when he met the doctor coming from Corona's apartments. "I do not wish to cause you unnecessary pain," said the physician, "but I think it would be better that you should see the princess." "Has she asked for me?" inquired Giovanni, gloomily. "No. But I think you ought to see her." "Is she dying?" Sant' Ilario spoke under his breath, and laid his hand on the doctor's arm. "Pray be calm, Signor Principe. I did not say that. But I repeat--" "Be good enough to say what you mean without repetition," answered Giovanni almost savagely. The physician's face flushed with annoyance, but as Giovanni was such a very high and mighty personage he controlled his anger and replied as calmly as he could. "The princess is not dying. But she is very ill. She may be worse before morning. You had better see her now, for she will know you. Later she may not." Without waiting for more Giovanni turned on his heel and strode towards his wife's room. Passing through an outer chamber he saw one of her women sitting in a corner and shedding copious tears. She looked up and pointed to the door in a helpless fashion. In another moment Giovanni was at Corona's bedside. He would not have recognised her. Her face was wasted and white, and looked ghastly by contrast with the masses of her black hair which were spread over the broad pillow. Her colourless lips were parted and a little drawn, and her breath came faintly. Only her eyes retained the expression of life, seeming larger and more brilliant than he had ever seen them before. Giovanni gazed on her in horror for several seconds. In his imagination he had supposed that she would look as when he had seen her last, and the shock of seeing her as she was, unstrung his nerves. For an instant he forgot everything that was past in the one strong passion that dominated him in spite of himself. His arms went round her and amidst his blinding tears he showered hot kisses on her death-like face. With a supreme effort, for she was so weak as to be almost powerless, she clasped her hands about his neck and pressed her to him, or he pressed her. The embrace lasted but a moment and her arms fell again like lead. "You know the truth at last, Giovanni," she said, feebly. "You know that I am innocent or you would not--" He did not know whether her voice failed her from weakness, or whether she was hesitating. He felt as though she had driven a sharp weapon into his breast by recalling all that separated them. He drew back a little, and his face darkened. What could he do? She was dying and it would be diabolically cruel to undeceive her. In that moment he would have given his soul to be able to lie, to put on again the expression that was in his face when he had kissed her a moment before. But the suffering of which she reminded him was too great, the sin too enormous, and though he tried bravely he could not succeed. But he made the effort. He tried to smile, and the attempt was horrible. He spoke, but there was no life in his words. "Yes, dear," he said, though the words choked him like hot dust, "I know it was all a mistake. How can I ever ask your forgiveness?" Corona saw that it was not the truth, and with a despairing cry she turned away and hid her face in the pillow. Giovanni felt an icy chill of horror descending to his heart. A more terrible moment could scarcely be imagined. There he stood beside his dying wife, the conviction of her sin burnt in upon his heart, but loving her fiercely still, willing in that supreme crisis to make her think she was forgiven, striving to tell the kind lie that nevertheless would not be told, powerless to deceive her who had so horribly betrayed him. Once more he bent over her and laid his hand on hers. The touch of her wasted fingers brought the tears to his eyes again, but the moment of passion was past. He bent down and would have comforted her had he known how, but not a word would form itself upon his lips. Her face was turned away and he could see that she was determined not to look at him. Only now and then a passionate sob shook her and made her tremble, like a thing of little weight shaken by the wind. Giovanni could bear it no longer. Once more he kissed her heavy hair and then quickly went out, he knew not whither. When he realised what he was doing he found himself leaning against a damp wall in the street. He pulled himself together and walked away at a brisk pace, trying to find some relief in rapid motion. He never knew how far he walked that night, haunted by the presence of Corona's deathly face and by the sound of that despairing cry which he had no power to check. He went on and on, challenged from time to time by the sentinels to whom he mechanically showed his pass. Striding up hill and down through the highways and through the least frequented streets of the city, it was all the same to him in his misery, and he had no consciousness of what he saw or heard. At eight o'clock in the evening he was opposite Saint Peter's; at midnight he was standing alone at the desolate cross-roads before Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, beyond the Lateran, and only just within the walls. From place to place he wandered, feeling no fatigue, but only a burning fever in his head and an icy chill in his heart. Sometimes he would walk up and down some broad square twenty or thirty times; then again he followed a long thoroughfare throughout its whole length, and retraced his steps without seeing that he passed twice through the same street. At last he found himself in a great crowd of people. Had he realised that it was nearly three o'clock in the morning the presence of such a concourse would have astonished him. But if he was not actually ill and out of his mind, he was at all events in such a confused state that he did not even ask himself what was the meaning of the demonstration. The tramp of marching troops recalled the thought of Gouache, and suddenly he understood what was happening. The soldiers were leaving Rome to attack the Garibaldians, and he was near one of the gates. By the light of flaring torches he recognised at some distance the hideous architecture of the Porta Pia. He caught sight of the Zouave uniform under the glare and pressed forward instinctively, trying to see the faces of the men. But the crowd was closely packed and he could not obtain a view, try as he might, and the darkness was so thick that the torches only made the air darker around them. He listened to the tramp of feet and the ring of steel arms and accoutrements like a man in an evil dream. Instead of passing quickly, the time now seemed interminable, for he was unable to move, and the feeling that among those thousands of moving soldiers there was perhaps that one man for whose blood he thirsted, was intolerable. At last the tramping died away in the distance and the crowd loosened itself and began to break up. Giovanni was carried with the stream, and once more it became indifferent to him whither he went. All at once he was aware of a very tall man who walked beside him, a man so large that he looked up, sure that the giant could be none but his cousin San Giacinto. "Are you here, too?" asked the latter in a friendly voice, as he recognised Giovanni by the light of a lamp, under which they were passing. "I came to see them off," replied Sant' Ilario, coldly. It seemed to him as though his companion must have followed him. "So did I," said San Giacinto. "I heard the news late last night, and only lay down for an hour or two." "What time is it?" asked Giovanni, who supposed it was about midnight. "Five o'clock. It will be daylight, or dawn at least, in an hour." Giovanni was silent, wondering absently where he had been all night. For some time the two walked on without speaking. "You had better come and have coffee with me," said San Giacinto as they passed through the Piazza Barbarini. "I made my man get up so that I might have some as soon as I got home." Giovanni assented. The presence of some one with whom he could speak made him realise that he was almost exhausted for want of food. It was morning, and he had eaten nothing since the preceding midday, and little enough then. In a few minutes they reached San Giacinto's lodging. There was a lamp burning brightly on the table of the sitting-room, and a little fire was smouldering on the hearth. Giovanni sank into a chair, worn out with hunger and fatigue, while the servant brought the coffee and set it on the table. "You look tired," remarked San Giacinto. "One lump or two?" Giovanni drank the beverage without tasting it, but it revived him, and the warmth of the room comforted his chilled and tired limbs. He did not notice that San Giacinto was looking hard at him, wondering indeed what could have produced so strange an alteration in his appearance and manner. "How is the princess?" asked the big man in a tone of sympathy as he slowly stirred the sugar in his coffee. "Thank you--she is very well," answered Giovanni, mechanically. In his mind the secret which he must conceal was so closely connected with Corona's illness that he almost unconsciously included her state among the things of which he would not speak. But San Giacinto looked sharply at him, wondering what he meant. "Indeed? I thought she was very ill." "So she is," replied Sant' Ilario, bluntly. "I forgot--I do not know what I was thinking of. I fear she is in a very dangerous condition." He was silent again, and sat leaning upon the table absently looking at the objects that lay before him, an open portfolio and writing materials, a bit of sealingwax, a small dictionary, neatly laid in order upon the dark red cloth. He did not know why he had allowed himself to be led to the place, but he felt a sense of rest in sitting there quietly in silence. San Giacinto saw that there was something wrong and said nothing, but lighted a black cigar and smoked thoughtfully. "You look as though you had been up all night," he remarked after a long pause. Giovanni did not answer. His eyes did not look up from the red blotting-paper in the open portfolio before him. As he looked down San Giacinto almost believed he was asleep, and shook the table a little to see whether his cousin would notice it. Instantly Giovanni laid his hand upon the writing book, to steady it before him. But still he did not look up. "You seem to be interested," said San Giacinto, with a smile, and he blew a cloud of smoke into the air. Giovanni was indeed completely absorbed in his studies, and only nodded his head in answer. After a few minutes more he rose and took the portfolio to a dingy mirror that stood over the chimney-piece of the lodging, and held up the sheet of red blotting-paper before the reflecting surface. Apparently not satisfied with this, he brought the lamp and set it upon the shelf, and then repeated the process. "You are an infernal scoundrel," he said in a low voice, that trembled with wrath, as he turned and faced San Giacinto. "What do you mean?" inquired the latter with a calmness that would have staggered a less angry man. Giovanni drew from his pocket-book the note he had found in Gouache's room. For a week he had kept it about him. Without paying any further attention to San Giacinto he held it in one hand and again placed the blotting-paper in front of the mirror. The impression of the writing corresponded exactly with the original. As it consisted of but a very few words and had been written quickly, almost every stroke had been reproduced upon the red paper in a reversed facsimile. Giovanni brought the two and held them before San Giacinto's eyes. The latter looked surprised but did not betray the slightest fear. "Do you mean to tell me that you did not write this note?" asked Giovanni, savagely. "Of course I wrote it," replied the other coolly. Giovanni's teeth chattered with rage. He dropped the portfolio and the letter and seized his cousin by the throat, burying his fingers in the tough flesh with the ferocity of a wild animal. He was very strong and active and had fallen upon his adversary unawares, so that he had an additional advantage. But for all that he was no match for his cousin's giant strength. San Giacinto sprang to his feet and his great hands took hold of Giovanni's arms above the elbow, lifting him from the ground and shaking him in the air as easily as a cat worries a mouse. Then he thrust him into his chair again and stood holding him so that he could not move. "I do not want to hurt you," he said, "but I do not like to be attacked in this way. If you try it again I will break some of your bones." Giovanni was so much astonished at finding himself so easily overmatched that he was silent for a moment. The ex-innkeeper relinquished his hold and picked up his cigar, which had fallen in the struggle. "I do not propose to wrestle with you for a match," said Giovanni at last. "You are stronger than I, but there are other weapons than those of brute strength. I repeat that you are an infernal scoundrel." "You may repeat it as often as you please," replied San Giacinto, who had recovered his composure with, marvellous rapidity. "It does not hurt me at all." "Then you are a contemptible coward," cried Giovanni, hotly. "That is not true," said the other. "I never ran away in my life. Perhaps I have not much reason to avoid a fight," he added, looking down at his huge limbs with a smile. Giovanni did not know what to do. He had never had a quarrel with a man who was able to break his neck, but who would not fight like a gentleman. He grew calmer, and could have laughed at the situation had it been brought about by any other cause. "Look here, cousin," said San Giacinto, suddenly and in a familiar tone, "I am as good a gentleman as you, though I have kept an inn. If it is the custom here to play with swords and such toys I will take a few lessons and we will have it out. But I confess that I would like to know why you are so outrageously angry. How did you come by that letter? It was never meant for you, nor for any of yours. I pinned it upon Gouache's dressing-table with a pin I found there. I took the paper from your wife's table a week ago yesterday. If you want to know all about it I will tell you." "And whom did you intend for the author of the letter? Whom but my wife?" "Your wife!" cried San Giacinto in genuine astonishment. "You are out of your mind. Gouache was to meet Faustina Montevarchi on Sunday morning at a church, and I invented the note to prevent the meeting, and put it on his table during the previous afternoon. I am going to marry Donna Flavia, and I do not mean to allow a beggarly Zouave to make love to my future sister-in-law. Since you took the note they must have met after all. I wish you had left it alone." Giovanni sank into a chair before the table and buried his face in his hands. San Giacinto stood looking at him in silence, beginning to comprehend what had happened, and really distressed that his comparatively harmless stratagem should have caused so much trouble. He looked at things from a lower point of view than Giovanni, but he was a very human man, after all. It was hard for him to believe that his cousin could have really suspected Corona of loving Gouache; but Giovanni's behaviour left no other explanation. On the other hand, he felt that whatever might be thought of his own part in the affair, it was Giovanni's own fault that things had turned out as they had, seeing that he had been guilty of a very serious indiscretion in entering Gouache's rooms unbidden and in reading what was meant for the Zouave. Giovanni rose and his face was pale again, but the expression had utterly changed in the course of a few seconds. He suffered horribly, but with a pain more easy to bear than that which had tortured him during the past week. Corona was innocent, and he knew it. Every word she had spoken a week ago, when he had accused her, rang again in his ears, and as though by magic the truth of her statement was now as clear as the day. He could never forgive himself for having doubted her. He did not know whether he could ever atone for the agony he must have caused her. But it was a thousand times better that he should live long years of bitter self-reproach, than that the woman he so loved should have fallen. He forgot San Giacinto and the petty scheme which had brought about such dire consequences. He forgot his anger of a moment ago in the supreme joy of knowing that Corona had not sinned, and in the bitter contrition for having so terribly wronged her. If he felt anything towards San Giacinto it was gratitude, but he stood speechless under his great emotion, not even thinking what he should say. "If you doubt the truth of my explanation," said San Giacinto, "go to the Palazzo Montevarchi. Opposite the entrance you will see some queer things painted on the wall. There are Gouache's initials scrawled a hundred times, and the words 'Sunday' and 'Mass' very conspicuous. A simple way, too, would be to ask him whether he did not actually meet Faustina last Sunday morning. When a man advertises his meetings with his lady-love on the walls of the city, no one can be blamed for reading the advertisement." He laughed at the conceit and at his own astuteness; but Giovanni scarcely heeded him or his words. "Good-bye," said the latter, holding out his hand. "You do not want to fight any more, then?" asked San Giacinto. "Not unless you do. Good-bye." Without another word he left the room and descended into the street. The cold gray dawn was over everything and the air was raw and chilly. There is nothing more dismal than early dawn in a drizzling rain when a man has been up all night, but Giovanni was unconscious of any discomfort, and there were wings under his feet as he hastened homeward along the slippery pavements. The pallor in his face had given way to a slight flush that gave colour and animation to his cheeks, and though his eyes were bright their expression was more natural than it had been for many days. He was in one of the strangest humours which can have sway over that unconsciously humorous animal, man. In the midst of the deepest self-abasement his heart was overflowing with joy. The combination of sorrow and happiness is a rare one, not found every day, but the condition of experiencing both at the same time and in the highest degree is very possible. Giovanni, indeed, could not feel otherwise than he did. Had he suspected Corona and accused her on grounds wholly frivolous and untenable, in the unreasoning outbreak of a foolish jealousy, he could not have been so persuaded of her guilt as to feel the keenest joy on finding her innocent. In that case his remorse would have outweighed his satisfaction. Had he, on the other hand, suspected her without making the accusation, he would have been happy on discovering his mistake, but could have felt little or no remorse. As it was, he had accused her upon evidence which most tribunals would have thought sufficient for a conviction, and on seeing all doubt cleared away he realised with terrible force the extent of the pain he had inflicted. While he had still believed that she had fallen, he had still so loved her as to wish that he could take the burden of her guilt upon his own shoulders. Now that her innocence was proved beyond all doubt, he had no thought but to ask her forgiveness. He let himself in with a latch-key and ran up the dim stairs. A second key opened the polished door into the dark vestibule, and in a moment more he was in the ante-chamber of Corona's apartment. Two or three women, pale with watching, were standing round a table, upon which something was heating over a spirit lamp. Giovanni stopped and spoke to them. "How is she?" he asked, his voice unsteady with anxiety. The women shook their heads, and one of them began to cry. They loved their mistress dearly and had little hope of her recovery. They had been amazed, too, at Giovanni's apparent indifference during the whole week, and seemed surprised when he went towards the door. One motioned to him to make no noise. He turned the latch very gently and advanced into the darkened chamber. Corona was lying as he had seen her on the previous evening, and there seemed to be little or no change in her state. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was scarcely perceptible. A nurse was nodding in a chair near the night light and looked up as Giovanni entered. He pointed to the door and she went out. All was so exactly as it had been twelve hours earlier that he could hardly realise the immense change that had taken place in his own heart during the interval. He stood looking at his wife, scarcely breathing for fear of disturbing her and yet wishing that she might wake to hear what he had to say. But she did not move nor show any signs of consciousness. Her delicate, thin hand lay upon the coverlet. He stooped down very slowly and cautiously, and kissed the wasted fingers. Then he drew back quickly and noiselessly as though he had done something wrong. He thought she must be asleep, and sat down in the chair the nurse had vacated. The stillness was profound. The little night light burned steadily without flickering and cast queer long shadows from the floor upwards over the huge tapestries upon the wall. The quaint figures of heroes and saints, that had seen many a Saracinesca born and many a one die in the ancient vaulted room, seemed to take the expressions of old friends watching over the suffering woman. A faint odour like that of ether pervaded the still air, an odour Giovanni never forgot during his life. Everything was so intensely quiet that he almost thought he could hear the ticking of his watch in his pocket. Corona stirred at last, and slowly opening her eyes, turned them gradually till they met her husband's gaze. At the first movement she made he had risen to his feet and now stood close beside her. "Did you kiss my hand--or did I dream it?" she asked faintly. "Yes, darling." He could not at once find words to say what he wanted. "Why did you?" Giovanni fell on his knees by the bedside and took her hand in both his own. "Corona, Corona--forgive me!" The cry came from his heart, and was uttered with an accent of despair that there was no mistaking. She knew, faint and scarcely conscious though she was, that he was not attempting to deceive her this time. But he could say no more. Many a strong man would in that moment have sobbed aloud and shed tears, but Giovanni was not as other men. Under great emotion all expression was hard for him, and the spontaneity of tears would have contradicted his nature. Corona wondered what had happened, and lay quite still, looking at his bent head and feeling the trembling touch of his hands on hers. For several seconds the stillness was almost as profound as it had been before. Then Giovanni spoke out slowly and earnestly. "My beloved wife," he said, looking up into her face, "I know all the truth now. I know what I have done. I know what you have suffered. Forgive me if you can. I will give my whole life to deserve your pardon." For an instant all Corona's beauty returned to her face as she heard his words. Her eyes shone softly, the colour mounted to her pale cheeks, and she breathed one happy sigh of relief and gladness. Her fingers contracted and closed round his with a tender pressure. "It is true," she said, scarcely audibly. "You are not trying to deceive me in order to keep me alive?" "It is true, darling," he answered. "San Giacinto wrote the letter. It was not even meant to seem to come from you. Oh, Corona--can you ever forgive me?" She turned so as to see him better, and looked long into his eyes. The colour slowly faded again from her face, and her expression changed, growing suddenly sad. "I will forgive you. I will try to forget it all, Giovanni. You should have believed me, for I have never lied to you. It will be long before I am strong again, and I shall have much time to think of it." Giovanni rose to his feet, still clasping her hand. Something told him that she was not a woman who could either forgive or forget such an injury, and her tone was colder than he had hoped. The expiation had begun and he was already suffering the punishment of his unbelief. He bore the pain bravely. What right had he to expect that she would suddenly become as she had been before? She had been, and still was, dangerously ill, and her illness had been caused by his treatment of her. It would be long before their relations could be again what they had once been, and it was not for him to complain. She might have sent him away in anger; he would not have thought her too unkind. But when he remembered her love, he trembled at the thought of living without it. His voice was very gentle as he answered her, after a short pause. "You shall live to forget it all, Corona. I will make you forget it. I will undo what I have done." "Can you, Giovanni? Is there no blood upon your hands?" She knew her husband well, and could hardly believe that he had refrained from taking vengeance upon Gouache. "There is none, thank God," replied Giovanni. "But for a happy accident I should have killed the man a week ago. It was all arranged." "You must tell him that you have been mistaken," said Corona simply. "Yes, I will." "Thank you. That is right." "It is the least I can do." Giovanni felt that words were of very little use, and even had he wished to say more he would not have known how to speak. There was that between them which was too deep for all expression, and he knew that henceforth he could only hope to bring back Corona's love by his own actions. Besides, in her present state, he guessed that it would be wiser to leave her, than to prolong the interview. "I will go now," he said. "You must rest, darling, and be quite well to-morrow." "Yes. I can rest now." She said nothing about seeing him again. With a humility almost pathetic in such a man, he bent down and touched her hand with his lips. Then he would have gone away, but she held his fingers and looked long into his eyes. "I am sorry for you, dear," she said, and paused, not taking her eyes from his. "Kiss me," she added at last, with a faint smile. A moment later, he was gone. She gazed long at the door through which he had left the room, and her expression changed more than once, softening and hardening again as the thoughts chased each other through her tired brain. At last she closed her eyes, and presently fell into a peaceful sleep. Giovanni waited in his room until his father was awake and then went to tell him what had happened. The old gentleman looked weary and sad, but his keen sight noticed the change in his son's manner. "You look better," he said. "I have been undeceived," answered Giovanni. "I have been mistaken, misled by the most extraordinary set of circumstances I have ever heard of." Saracinesca's eyes suddenly gleamed angrily and his white beard bristled round his face. "You have made a fool of yourself," he growled. "You have made your wife ill and yourself miserable in a fit of vulgar jealousy. And now you have been telling her so." "Exactly. I have been telling her so." "You are an idiot, Giovanni. I always knew it." "I have only just found it out," answered the younger man. "Then you are amazingly slow at discovery. Why do you stand there staring at me? Do you expect any sympathy? You will not get it. Go and say a litany outside your wife's door. You have made me spend the most horrible week I ever remember, just because you are not good enough for her. How could you ever dare to suspect that woman? Go away. I shall strangle you if you stay here!" "That consideration would not have much weight," replied Giovanni. "I know how mad I have been, much better than you can tell me. And yet, I doubt whether any one was ever so strangely mistaken before." "With your intelligence the wonder is that you are not always mistaken. Upon my soul, the more I think of it, the more I am amazed at your folly. You acted like a creature in the theatre. With your long face and your mystery and your stage despair, you even made a fool of me. At all events, I shall know what to expect the next time it happens. I hope Corona will have the sense to make you do penance." To tell the truth Giovanni had not expected any better treatment from his father than he actually received, and he was not in a humour to resent reproaches which he knew to be well deserved. He had only intended to tell the prince the result of what had occurred, and he relaxed nothing of his determination, even though he might have persuaded the old gentleman that the accumulated evidence had undoubtedly justified his doubts. With a short salutation he left the room and went out, hoping that Gouache had not accompanied the expedition to Mentana, improbable as that seemed. He was, of course, disappointed, for while he was making inquiries Gouache was actually on the way to the battle with his corps, as has been already seen. Giovanni spent most of the day in the house, constantly inquiring after Corona, and trying to occupy his mind in reading, though with little success. The idea that Gouache might be killed without having learned the truth began to take possession of him and caused him an annoyance he could not explain. It was not that he felt any very profound remorse for having wronged the man. His nature was not so sensitive as that. It was rather, perhaps, because he regarded the explanation with Anastase as a part of what he owed Corona, that he was so anxious to meet him alive. Partly, too, his anxiety arose from his restlessness and from the desire for action of some sort in which to forget all he had suffered, and all he was still suffering. Towards evening he went out and heard news of the engagement. It was already known that the enemy had fallen back upon Mentana, and no one doubted the ultimate result of the day's fighting. People were already beginning to talk of going out to take assistance to the wounded. The idea struck Giovanni as plausible and he determined to act upon it at once. He took a surgeon and several men with him, and drove out across the Campagna to the scene of the battle. As has been told, he found Gouache at last, after a long and difficult search. The ground was so broken and divided by ditches, walls and trees, that some of the wounded were not found until the middle of the next day. Unless Giovanni had undertaken the search Anastase might have escaped notice for a long time, and it was no wonder if he expressed astonishment on waking up to find himself comfortably installed in Saracinesca's carriage, tended by the man who a few days earlier had wanted to take his life. CHAPTER XV. Gouache's wound was by no means dangerous, and when he had somewhat recovered from the combined effects of loss of blood and excessive fatigue he did not feel much the worse for having a ball in his shoulder. Giovanni and the doctor gave him food and a little wine in the carriage, and long before they reached the gates of the city the Zouave was well enough to have heard Sant' Ilario's explanation. The presence of the surgeon, however, made any intimate conversation difficult. "I came to find you," said Giovanni in a low voice, "because everything has been set right in your absence, and I was afraid you might be killed at Mentana without receiving my apology." Gouache looked at his companion in some surprise. He knew very well that Sant' Ilario was not a man to make excuses without some very extraordinary reasons for such a step. It is a prime law of the code of honour, however, that an apology duly made must be duly accepted as putting an end to any quarrel, and Anastase saw at once that Giovanni had relinquished all intention of fighting. "I am very glad that everything is explained," answered Gouache. "I confess that I was surprised beyond measure by the whole affair." "I regret having entered your rooms without your permission," continued Giovanni who intended to go to the end of what he had undertaken. "The pin was my wife's, but the letter was written by another person with a view to influencing your conduct. I cannot explain here, but you shall know whatever is necessary when we are alone. Of course, if you still desire any satisfaction, I am at your service." "Pray do not suggest such a thing. I have no further feeling of annoyance in the matter." Gouache insisted on being taken to his own lodgings, though Sant' Ilario offered him the hospitality of the Palazzo Saracinesca. By four o'clock in the morning the ball was extracted and the surgeon took his leave, recommending sleep and quiet for his patient. Gouache, however, would not let Giovanni go without hearing the end of the story. "The facts are very few," said the latter after a moment's hesitation. "It appears that you had arranged to meet a lady on Sunday morning. A certain person whom I will not name discovered your intention, and conceived the idea of preventing the meeting by sending you a note purporting to come from the lady. As he could get none of her note-paper he possessed himself of some of my wife's. He pinned the note on your table with the pin you had chanced to find. I was foolish enough to enter your room and I recognised the pin and the paper. You understand the rest." Gouache laughed merrily. "I understand that you did me a great service. I met the lady after all, but if I had received the note I would not have gone, and she would have waited for me. Do you mind telling me the name of the individual who tried to play me the trick?" "If you will excuse my discretion, I would rather not. He knows that his plan failed. I should not feel justified in telling you his name, from other motives." "As you please," said Gouache. "I daresay I shall find him out." So the interview ended and Giovanni went home to rest at last, almost as much worn out as Gouache himself. He was surprised at the ease with which everything had been arranged, but he was satisfied with the result and felt that a weight had been taken from his mind. He slept long and soundly and awoke the next morning to hear that Corona was much better. The events of Saturday and Sunday had to all appearances smoothed many difficulties from the lives of those with whom my history is concerned. Corona and Giovanni were once more united, though the circumstances that had produced so terrible a breach between them had left a shadow on their happiness. Gouache had fought his battle and had returned with a slight wound so that as soon as he could go out he would be able to renew his visits at the Palazzo Montevarchi and see Faustina without resorting to any more ingenious stratagems. San Giacinto had failed to produce the trouble he had planned, but his own prospects were brilliant enough. His marriage with Flavia was to take place on the last of the month and the preliminaries were being arranged as quickly as possible. Flavia herself was delighted with the new dignity she assumed in the family, and if she was not positively in love with San Giacinto, was enough attracted by him to look forward with pleasure upon the prospect of becoming his wife. Old Montevarchi alone seemed preoccupied and silent, but his melancholy mood was relieved by occasional moments of anticipated triumph, while he made frequent visits to the library and seemed to find solace in the conversation of the librarian, Arnoldo Meschini. In the future of each of these persons there was an element of uncertainty which most of them disregarded. As Corona recovered, Giovanni began to think that she would really forget as well as forgive all he had made her suffer. Gouache on his part entertained the most sanguine hopes of marrying Faustina. Montevarchi looked forward with assurance to the success of his plot against the Saracinesca. San Giacinto and Flavia were engaged, indeed, but were not yet married. And yet the issue of none of these events was absolutely sure. The first matter with which we are concerned is the forgery of the clauses in the documents, which Meschini had undertaken to accomplish and actually finished in less than three weeks. It was indeed an easy task for a man so highly skilled in the manufacture of chirograhic antiquities, but he had found himself unexpectedly balked at the outset, and the ingenuity he displayed in overcoming the difficulties he met with is worth recording. It was necessary in the first place to ascertain whether there was a copy of the principal deed at the Chancery. He had no trouble in finding that such a copy existed, and was indeed fully prepared for the contingency. But when the parchment was produced, his face fell. It was a smaller sheet than the first and the writing was a little wider, so that the space at the foot of the first page was considerably less than in the original. He saw at once that it would be impossible to make the insertion, even if he could get possession of the document for a time long enough to execute the work. Moreover, though he was not actually watched while he read it, he could see that it would be almost impracticable to use writing materials in the office of the Chancery without being observed. He was able, however, to take out the original which he carried with him and to compare it with the copy. Both were by one hand, and the copy was only distinguished by the seal of the government office. It was kept, like all such documents, in a dusty case upon which were written the number and letter of the alphabet by which it was classified. Meschini hesitated only a moment, and then decided to substitute the original for the copy. Should the keeper of the archives chance to look at the parchment and discover the absence of the seal, Meschini could easily excuse himself by saying that he had mistaken the two, and indeed with that one exception they were very much alike. The keeper, however, noticed nothing and Arnoldo had the satisfaction of seeing him unsuspiciously return the cardboard case to its place on the shelves. He went back to his room and set to work. The longer he looked at the sheet the more clearly he saw that it would be impossible to make the insertion. There was nothing to be done but to forge a new document with the added words. He did not like the idea, though he believed himself fully able to carry it out. There was a risk, he thought, which he had not meant to undertake; but on the other hand the reward was great. He put forth all his skill to produce the imitation and completed it in ten days to his entire satisfaction. He understood the preparation of seals as well as the rest of his art, and had no difficulty in making a die which corresponded precisely with the wax. In the first place he took off the impression carefully with kneaded bread. From this with a little plaster of Paris he reproduced the seal, which he very carefully retouched with a fine steel instrument until it was quite perfect. Over this again he poured melted lead, thus making a hard die with which he could stamp the wax without danger of breaking the instrument. Once more he retouched the lead with a graving tool, using a lens for the work and ultimately turning out an absolutely accurate copy of the seal used in the Chancery office. He made experiments as he proceeded, and when he was at last satisfied he turned to the actual forgery, which was a longer matter and required greater skill and patience. Nothing was omitted which could make the fraud complete. The parchment assumed the exact shade under his marvellous manipulation. The smallest roughness was copied with faultless precision, and then by many hours of handling and the use of a little dust collected among the books in the library, he imparted to the whole the appearance of age which was indispensable. When he had finished he showed his work to old Montevarchi, but by an inherent love of duplicity did not tell him that the whole document was forged, merely pointing to the inserted clause as a masterpiece of imitation. First, however, he pretended that the copy had actually contained the inserted words, and the prince found it hard to believe that this was not the case. Meschini was triumphant. Again he returned to the Chancery and substituted what he had written for the first original upon which he had now to make the insertion. There was no difficulty here, and yet he hesitated before beginning. It seemed to him safer after all to forge the whole of the second as he had done the first. A slip of the pen, an unlucky drop of ink might mar the work and excite suspicion, whereas if he made a mistake upon a fresh sheet of parchment he could always begin again. There was only one danger. The Saracinesca might have made some private mark upon the original which should elude even his microscopic examination. He spent nearly a day in examining the sheet with a lens but could discover nothing. Being satisfied of the safety of the proceeding he executed the forgery with the same care he had bestowed upon the first, and showed it to his employer. The latter could scarcely believe his eyes, and was very far from imagining that the two originals were intact and carefully locked up in Meschini's room. The prince took the document and studied its contents again during many hours before he finally decided to return it to old Saracinesca. It was a moment of intense excitement. He hesitated whether he should take the manuscripts back himself or send them by a messenger. Had he been sure of controlling himself, he would have gone in person, but he knew that if Saracinesca should chance to look over the writing when they were together, it would be almost impossible to conceal emotion under such a trial of nerve. What he really hoped was that the prince would think no more of the matter, and put away the parcel without examining the contents. Montevarchi pondered long over the course he should pursue, his eyes gleaming now and then with a wild triumph, and then growing dull and glassy at the horrible thought of discovery. Then again the consciousness that he was committing a great crime overcame him, and he twisted his fingers nervously. He had embarked upon the undertaking, however, and he fully believed that it would be impossible to draw back even had he wished to do so. The insertions were made and could not be erased. It is possible that at one moment, had Montevarchi known the truth, he would have drawn back; but it is equally sure that if he had done so he would sooner or later have regretted it, and would have done all in his power to recover lost ground and to perpetrate the fraud. The dominant passion for money, when it is on the point of being satisfied, is one of the strongest incentives to evil deeds, and in the present case the stake was enormous. He would not let it slip through his fingers. He rejoiced that the thing was done and that the millions of the Saracinesca were already foredoomed to be his. It is doubtful whether he was able to form a clear conception of what would take place after the trial was over and the property awarded to his son-in-law. It was perhaps enough for his ambition that his daughter should be Princess Saracinesca, and he did not doubt his power to control some part of the fortune. San Giacinto, who was wholly innocent in the matter, would, he thought, be deeply grateful for having been told of his position, and would show his gratitude in a befitting manner. Moreover, Montevarchi's avarice was on a grand scale, and it was not so much the possession of more money for himself that he coveted, as the aggrandisement of his children and grandchildren. The patriarchal system often produces this result. He would scarcely have known what to do with a greater fortune than he possessed, but he looked forward with a wild delight to seeing his descendants masters of so much wealth. The fact that he could not hope to enjoy his satisfaction very long did not detract from its reality or magnitude. The miser is generally long-lived, and does not begin to anticipate death until the catastrophe is near at hand. Even then it is a compensation to him to feel that the heirs of his body are to be made glorious by what he has accumulated, and his only fear is that they will squander what he has spent his strength in amassing. He educates his children to be thrifty and rejoices when they spend no money, readily believing them to be as careful as himself, and seldom reflecting that, if he furnished them with the means, their true disposition might turn out to be very different. It is so intensely painful to him to think of wealth being wasted that he cultivates the belief in the thriftiness of those who must profit by his death. If he has been born to worldly state as well as to a great inheritance, he extends the desire of accumulation to the fortunes of his relations and descendants, and shows a laudable anxiety that they should possess all that he can get for them, provided it is quite impossible that he should get it for himself. The powers of the world have been to a great extent built up on this principle, and it is a maxim in many a great family that there is no economy like enriching one's relatives to the third and fourth generation. The struggle in Montevarchi's mind was so insignificant and lasted so short a time, that it might be disregarded altogether, were it not almost universally true that the human mind hesitates at the moment of committing a crime. That moment of hesitation has prevented millions of frightful deeds, and has betrayed thousands of carefully plotted conspiracies whose success seemed assured, and it is amazing to think what an influence has been exerted upon the destinies of the human race by the instinctive fear of crossing the narrow boundary between right and wrong. The time occupied in such reflection is often only infinitesimal. It has been called the psychological moment, and if the definition means that it is the instant during which the soul suggests, it is a true one. It is then that our natural repulsion for evil asserts itself; it is then that the consequences of what we are about to do rise clearly before us as in a mirror; it is then that our courage is suddenly strengthened to do the right, or deserts us and leaves us mere instruments for the accomplishment of the wrong. If humanity had not an element of good in it, there would be no hesitation in the perpetration of crime, any more than a wild beast pauses before destroying a weaker creature. Perhaps there is no clearer proof of the existence of a divine soul in man, than his intuitive reluctance to do what in the lower animals would be most natural. Circumstances, education, the accidents of life, all tend to make this psychologic moment habitually shorter or longer. The suspense created in the conscience, during which the intelligence is uncertain how to act, may last a week or a second, a year or a quarter of an hour; but it is a stage through which all must pass, both the professional criminal and the just man who is perhaps tempted to commit a crime but once during his life. Old Lotario Montevarchi had never been guilty of any misdeed subject to the provisions of the penal code; but he had done most things in his love of money which were not criminal only because the law had not foreseen the tortuous peculiarities of his mind. Even now he persuaded himself that the end was a righteous one, and that his course was morally justifiable. He had that power of deceiving himself which characterises the accomplished hypocrite, and he easily built up for San Giacinto a whole edifice of sympathy which seemed in his own view very real and moral. He reflected with satisfaction upon the probable feelings of the old Leone Saracinesca, when, after relinquishing his birthright, he found himself married and the father of a son. How the poor man must have cursed his folly and longed for some means of undoing the deed! It was but common justice after all--it was but common justice, and it was a mere accident of fate that Leone's great-grandson, who was now to be reinstated in all the glories of his princely possessions, was also to marry Flavia Montevarchi. The prospect was too alluring and the suspense lasted but a moment, though he believed that he spent much time in considering the situation. The thoughts that really occupied him were not of a nature to hinder the accomplishment of his plan, and he was not at all surprised with himself when he finally tied up the packet and rang for a messenger. Detection was impossible, for by Meschini's skilful management, the original and the official copy corresponded exactly and were such marvellous forgeries as to defy discovery. When it is considered that the greatest scientists and specialists in Europe have recently disagreed concerning documents which are undoubtedly of modern manufacture, and which were produced by just such men as Arnoldo Meschini, it need not appear surprising that the latter should successfully impose upon a court of law. The circumstances of the Saracinesca family history, too, lent an air of probability to the alleged facts. The poverty and temporary disappearance of Leone's descendants explained why they had not attempted to recover their rights. Nay, more, since Leone had died when his son was an infant, and since there was no copy of the document among his papers, it was more than probable that the child on growing up had never known the nature of the deed, and would not have been likely to suspect what was now put forward as the truth, unless his attention were called to it by some person possessed of the necessary knowledge. The papers were returned to Prince Saracinesca in the afternoon with a polite note of thanks. It will be remembered that the prince had not read the documents, as he had meant to do, in consequence of the trouble between Giovanni and Corona which had made him forget his intention. He had not looked over them since he had been a young man and the recollection of their contents was far from clear. Having always supposed the collateral branch of his family to be extinct, it was only natural that he should have bestowed very little thought upon the ancient deeds which he believed to have been drawn up in due form and made perfectly legal. When he came home towards evening, he found the sealed packet upon his table, and having opened it, was about to return the papers to their place in the archives. It chanced that he had a letter to write, however, and he pushed the documents aside before taking them to the library. While he was writing, Giovanni entered the room. As has been seen, the prince had been very angry with his son for having allowed himself to doubt Corona, and though several days had elapsed since the matter had been explained, the old man's wrath had not wholly subsided. He still felt considerable resentment against Giovanni, and his intercourse with the latter had not yet regained its former cordiality. As Sant' Ilario entered the room, Saracinesca looked up with an expression which showed clearly that the interruption was unwelcome. "Do I disturb you?" asked Giovanni, noticing the look. "Do you want anything?" "No--nothing especial." Saracinesca's eye fell upon the pile of manuscripts that lay on the table. It struck him that Giovanni might occupy himself by looking them over, while he himself finished the letter he had begun. "There are those deeds relating to San Giacinto," he said, "you might look through them before they are put away. Montevarchi borrowed them for a day or two and has just sent them back." Giovanni took the bundle and established himself in a comfortable chair beside a low stand, where the light of a lamp fell upon the pages as he turned them. He made no remark, but began to examine the documents, one by one, running his eye rapidly along the lines, as he read on mechanically, not half comprehending the sense of the words. He was preoccupied by thoughts of Corona and of what had lately happened, so that he found it hard to fix his attention. The prince's pen scratched and spattered on the paper, and irritated Giovanni, for the old gentleman wrote a heavy, nervous handwriting, and lost his temper twenty times in five minutes, mentally cursing the ink, the paper and the pen, and wishing he could write like a shopman or a clerk. Giovanni's attention was arrested by the parchment on which the principal deed was executed, and he began to read the agreement with more care than he had bestowed upon the other papers. He understood Latin well enough, but the crabbed characters puzzled him from time to time. He read the last words on the first page without thinking very much of what they meant. ".... Eo tamen pacto, quod si praedicto Domino Leoni ex legitimo matrimonio heres nasceretur, instrumentum hoc nullum, vanum atque plane invalidum fiat." Giovanni smiled at the quaint law Latin, and then read the sentence over again. His face grew grave as he realised the tremendous import of those few words. Again and again he translated the phrase, trying to extract from it some other meaning than that which was so unpleasantly clear. No other construction, however, could be put upon what was written, and for some minutes Giovanni sat staring at the fire, bewildered and almost terrified by his discovery. "Have you ever read those papers?" he asked at last, in a voice that made his father drop his pen and look up. "Not for thirty years." "Then you had better read them at once. San Giacinto is Prince Saracinesca and you and I are nobody." Saracinesca uttered a fierce oath and sprang from his chair. "What do you mean?" he asked, seizing Giovanni's arm violently with one hand and taking the parchment with the other. "Read for yourself. There--at the foot of the page, from 'eo tamen pacto.' It is plain enough. It says, 'On the understanding that if an heir be born to the aforesaid Don Leone, in lawful wedlock, the present instrument shall be wholly null, void and inefficacious.' An heir was born, and San Giacinto is that heir's grandson. You may tear up the document. It is not worth the parchment it is written upon, nor are we either." "You are mad, Giovannino!" exclaimed the prince, hoarsely, "that is not the meaning of the words. You have forgotten your Latin." "I will get you a dictionary--or a lawyer--whichever you prefer." "You are not in earnest, my boy. Look here--eo tamen pacto--that means 'by this agreement'--does it not? I am not so rusty as you seem to think." "It means 'on this understanding, however.' Go on. Quod si, that if--praedicto Domino Leoni, to the aforesaid Don Leone--ex legitimo matrimonio, from a lawful marriage--heres nasceretur, an heir should be born--hoc instrumentum, this deed--shall be null, worthless and invalid. You cannot get any other sense out of it. I have tried for a quarter of an hour. You and I are beggars. Saracinesca, Torleone, Barda, and all the rest belong to San Giacinto, the direct descendant of your great-grandfather's elder brother. You are simple Don Leone, and I am plain Don Giovanni. That is what it means." "Good God!" cried the old man in extreme horror. "If you should be right--" "I am right," replied Giovanni, very pale. With wild eyes and trembling hands the prince spread the document upon the table and read it over again. He turned it and went on to the end, his excitement bringing back in the moment such scholarship as he had once possessed and making every sentence as clear as the day. "Not even San Giacinto--not even a title!" he exclaimed desperately. He fell back in his chair, crushed by the tremendous blow that had fallen so unexpectedly upon him in his old age. "Not even San Giacinto," repeated Giovanni, stupidly. His presence of mind began to forsake him, too, and he sank down, burying his face in his hands. As in a dream he saw his cousin installed in the very chair where his father now sat, master of the house in which he, Giovanni, had been born, like his father before him, master of the fortresses and castles, the fair villas and the broad lands, the palaces and the millions to which Giovanni had thought himself heir, lord over the wealth and inheritances of his race, dignified by countless titles and by all the consideration that falls to the lot of the great in this world. For a long time neither spoke, for both were equally overwhelmed by the magnitude of the disaster that hung over their heads. They looked furtively at each other, and each saw that his companion was white to the lips. The old man was the first to break the silence. "At all events, San Giacinto does not know how the deed stands," he said. "It will make it all the harder to tell him," replied Giovanni. "To tell him? You would not be so mad--" "Do you think it would be honourable," asked the younger man, "for us to remain in possession of what clearly does not belong to us? I will not do it." "We have been in possession for more than a century." "That is no reason why we should continue to steal another man's money," said Giovanni. "We are men. Let us act like men. It is bitter. It is horrible. But we have no other course. After all, Corona has Astrardente. She will give you a home. She is rich." "Me? Why do you say me? Us both." "I will work for my living," said Giovanni, quietly. "I am young. I will not live on my wife." "It is absurd!" exclaimed the prince. "It is Quixotic. San Giacinto has plenty of money without ruining us. Even if he finds it out I will fight the case to the end. I am master here, as my father and my father's father were before me, and I will not give up what is mine without a struggle. Besides, who assures us that he is really what he represents himself to be? What proves that he is really the descendant of that same Leone?" "For that matter," answered Giovanni, "he will have to produce very positive proofs, valid in law, to show that he is really the man. I will give up everything to the lawful heir, but I will certainly not turn beggar to please an adventurer. But I say that, if San Giacinto represents the elder branch of our house, we have no right here. If I were sure of it I would not sleep another night under this roof." The old man could not withhold his admiration. There was something supremely noble and generous about Giovanni's readiness to sacrifice everything for justice which made his old heart beat with a strange pride. If he was reluctant to renounce his rights it was after all more on Giovanni's account, and for the sake of Corona and little Orsino. He himself was an old man and had lived most of his life out already. "You have your mother's heart, Giovannino," he said simply, but there was a slight moisture in his eyes, which few emotions had ever had the power to bring there. "It is not a question of heart," replied Giovanni. "We cannot keep what does not belong to us." "We will let the law decide what we can keep. Do you realise what it would be like, what a position we should occupy if we were suddenly declared beggars? We should be absolute paupers. We do not own a foot of land, a handful of money that does not come under the provisions of that accursed clause." "Wait a minute," exclaimed Giovanni, suddenly recollecting that he possessed something of his own, a fact he had wholly forgotten in the excitement of his discovery. "We shall not be wholly without resources. It does not follow from this deed that we must give to San Giacinto any of the property our branch of the family has acquired by marriage, from your great grandfather's time to this. It must be very considerable. To begin with me, my fortune came from my mother. Then there was your mother, and your father's mother, and so on. San Giacinto has no claim to anything not originally the property of the old Leone who made this deed." "That is true," replied the prince, more hopefully. "It is not so bad as it looked. You must be right about that point." "Unless the courts decide that San Giacinto is entitled to compensation and interest, because four generations have been kept out of the property." Both men looked grave. The suggestion was unpleasant. Such judgments had been given before and might be given again. "We had better send for our lawyer," said the prince, at last. "The sooner we know the real value of that bit of parchment the better it will be for us. I cannot bear the suspense of waiting a day to know the truth. Imagine that the very chair I am sitting upon may belong to San Giacinto. I never liked the fellow, from the day when I first found him in his inn at Aquila." "It is not his fault," answered Giovanni, quietly. "This is a perfectly simple matter. We did not know what these papers were. Even if we had known, we should have laughed at them until we discovered that we had a cousin. After all we shall not starve, and what is a title? The Pope will give you another when he knows what has happened. I would as soon be plain Don Giovanni as Prince of Sant' Ilario." "For that matter, you can call yourself Astrardente." "I would rather not," said Giovanni, with something like a laugh. "But I must tell Corona this news." "Wait till she is herself again. It might disturb her too much." "You do not know her!" Giovanni laughed heartily this time. "If you think she cares for such things, you are very much mistaken in her character. She will bear the misfortune better than any of us. Courage, padre mio! Things are never so black as they look at first." "I hope not, my boy, I hope not! Go and tell your wife, if you think it best. I would rather be alone." Giovanni left the room, and Saracinesca was alone. He sank back once more in his chair and folded his strong brown hands together upon the edge of the table before him. In spite of all Giovanni could say, the old man felt keenly the horror of his position. Only those who, having been brought up in immense wealth and accustomed from childhood to the pomp and circumstance of a very great position, are suddenly deprived of everything, can understand what he felt. He was neither avaricious nor given to vanity. He had not wasted his fortune, though he had spent magnificently a princely income. He had not that small affection for greatness which, strange to say, is often found in the very great. But his position was part of himself, so that he could no more imagine himself plain Don Leone Saracinesca, than he could conceive himself boasting of his ancient titles. And yet it was quite plain to him that he must either cease to be a prince altogether, or accept a new title as a charity from his sovereign. As for his fortune, it was only too plain that the greater part of it had never been his. To a man of his temperament the sensation of finding himself a mere impostor was intolerable. His first impulse had of course been to fight the case, and had the attack upon his position come from San Giacinto, he would probably have done so. But his own son had discovered the truth and had put the matter clearly before him, in such a light as to make an appeal to his honour. He had no choice but to submit. He could not allow himself to be outdone in common honesty by the boy he loved, nor could he have been guilty of deliberate injustice, for his own advantage, after he had been convinced that he had no right to his possessions. He belonged to a race of men who had frequently committed great crimes and done atrocious deeds, notorious in history, from motives of personal ambition, for the love of women or out of hatred for men, but who had never had the reputation of loving money or of stooping to dishonour for its sake. As soon as he was persuaded that everything belonged to San Giacinto, he felt that he must resign all in favour of the latter. One doubt alone remained to be solved. It was not absolutely certain that San Giacinto was the man he represented himself to be. It was quite possible that he should have gained possession of the papers he held, by some means known only to himself; such things are often sold as curiosities, and as the last of the older branch of whom there was any record preserved in Rome had died in obscurity, it was conceivable that the ex-innkeeper might have found or bought the documents he had left, in order to call himself Marchese di San Giacinto. Saracinesca did not go so far as to believe that the latter had any knowledge whatsoever of the main deed which was about to cause so much trouble, unless he had seen it in the hands of Montevarchi, in which case he could not be blamed if he brought a suit for the recovery of so much wealth. CHAPTER XVI. Giovanni was quite right in his prediction concerning Corona's conduct. He found her in her dressing-room, lying upon the couch near the fire, as he had found her on that fatal evening three weeks earlier. He sat down beside her and took her hand in his. She had not wholly recovered her strength yet, but her beauty had returned and seemed perfected by the suffering through which she had passed. In a few words he told her the whole story, to which she listened without showing any great surprise. Once or twice, while he was speaking, her dark eyes sought his with an expression he did not fully understand, but which was at least kind and full of sympathy. "Are you quite sure of all the facts?" she asked when he had finished. "Are you certain that San Giacinto is the man? I cannot tell why, but I have always distrusted him since he first came to us." "That is the only point that remains to be cleared up," answered Giovanni. "If he is not the man he will not venture to take any steps in the matter, lest he should be exposed and lose what he has." "What will you do?" "I hardly know. If he is really our cousin, we must give up everything without a struggle. We are impostors, or little better. I think I ought to tell him plainly how the deed is made out, in order that he may judge whether or not he is in a position to prove his identity." "Do you imagine that he does not know all about it as well as we ourselves?" "Probably not--otherwise he would have spoken." "The papers came back from Montevarchi to-day," said Corona. "It is gratuitous to suppose that the old man has not told his future son-in-law what they contain. Yes--you see it yourself. Therefore San Giacinto knows. Therefore, also, if he is the man he pretends to be, he will let you know his intentions soon enough. I fancy you forgot that in your excitement. If he says nothing, it is because he cannot prove his rights." "It is true," replied Giovanni, "I did not think of that. Nevertheless I would like to be beforehand. I wish him to know that we shall make no opposition. It is a point of honour." "Which a woman cannot understand, of course," added Corona, calmly. "I did not say that. I do not mean it." "Well--do you want my advice?" "Always." The single word was uttered with an accent implying more than mere trust, and was accompanied by a look full of strong feeling. But Corona's expression did not change. Her eyes returned the glance quietly, without affectation, neither lovingly nor unlovingly, but indifferently. Giovanni felt a sharp little pain in his heart as he realised the change that had taken place in his wife. "My advice is to do nothing in the matter. San Giacinto may be an impostor; indeed, it is not at all unlikely. If he is, he will take advantage of your desire to act generously. He will be forewarned and forearmed and will have time to procure all the proofs he wants. What could you say to him? 'If you can prove your birth, I give you all I possess.' He will at once see that nothing else is necessary, and if he is a rogue he will succeed. Besides, as I tell you, he knows what that deed contains as well as you do, and if he is the man he will bring an action against your father in a week. If he does not, you gain the advantage of having discovered that he is an impostor without exposing yourself to be robbed." "It goes against the grain," said Giovanni. "But I suppose you are right." "You will do as you think best. I have no power to make you follow my advice." "No power? Ah, Corona, do not say that!" A short silence followed, during which Corona looked placidly at the fire, while Giovanni gazed at her dark face and tried to read the thoughts that were passing in her mind. She did not speak, however, and his guesswork was inconclusive. What hurt him most was her indifference, and he longed to discover by some sign that it was only assumed. "I would rather do as you think best," he said at last. She glanced at him and then looked back at the blazing logs. "I have told you what I think," she answered. "It is for you to judge and to decide. The whole matter affects you more than it does me." "Is it not the same?" "No. If you lose the Saracinesca titles and property we shall still be rich enough. You have a fortune of your own, and so have I. The name is, after all, an affair which concerns you personally. I should have married you as readily had you been called anything else." The reference to the past made Giovanni's heart leap, and the colour came quickly to his face. It was almost as though she had said that she would have loved him as well had he borne another name, and that might mean that she loved him still. But her calmness belied the hasty conclusion he drew from her words. He thought she looked like a statue, as she lay there in her magnificent rest, her hands folded upon her knees before her, her eyes so turned that he could see only the drooping lids. "A personal affair!" he exclaimed suddenly, in a bitter tone. "It was different once, Corona." For the first time since they had been talking her face betrayed some emotion. There was the slightest possible quiver of the lip as she answered. "Your titles were never anything but a personal affair." "What concerns me concerns you, dear," said Giovanni, tenderly. "In so much that I am very sorry--sincerely sorry, when anything troubles you." Her voice was kind and gentle, but there was no love in the words. "Believe me, Giovanni, I would give all I possess to spare you this." "All you possess--is there not a little love left in your all?" The cry came from his heart. He took her hand in both of his, and leaned forward towards her. Her fingers lay passively in his grasp, and the colour did not change in her dark cheeks. A moment ago there had been in her heart a passionate longing for the past, which had almost betrayed itself, but when he spoke of present love his words had no power to rouse a responsive echo. And yet she could not answer him roughly, for he was evidently in earnest. She said nothing, therefore, but left her hand in his. His love, which had been as fierce and strong as ever, even while he had doubted her faith, began to take new proportions of which he had never dreamt. He felt like a man struggling with death in some visible and tangible shape. "Is it all over? Will you never love me again?" he asked hoarsely. Her averted face told no tale, and still her fingers lay inert between his broad hands. She knew how he suffered, and yet she would not soothe him with the delusive hope for which he longed so intensely. "For God's sake, Corona, speak to me! Is there never to be any love again? Can you never forgive me?" "Ah, dear, I have forgiven you wholly--there is not an unkind thought left in my heart for you!" She turned and laid the hand that was free upon his shoulder, looking into his face with an expression that was almost imploring. "Do not think it is that, oh, not that! I would forgive you again, a thousand times--" "And love me?" he cried, throwing his arms round her neck, and kissing her passionately again and again. But suddenly he drew back, for there was no response to his caresses. He turned very pale as he saw the look in her eyes. There were tears there, for the love that had been, for his present pain, perhaps, but there was not one faint spark of the fire that had burned in other days. "I cannot say it!" she answered at last. "Oh, do not make me say it, for the sake of all that was once!" In his emotion Giovanni slipped from the low chair and knelt beside his wife, one arm still around her. The shock of disappointment, in the very moment when he thought she was yielding, was almost more than he could bear. Had not her heart grown wholly cold, the sight of his agonised face would have softened her. She was profoundly moved and pitied him exceedingly, but she could not do more. "Giovanni--do not look at me so! If I could! If I only could--" "Are you made of stone?" he asked, in a voice choking with pain. "What can I do!" she cried in despair, sinking back and hiding her face in her hands. She was in almost as great distress as he himself. "Love me, Corona! Only love me, ever so little! Remember that you loved me once--" "God knows how dearly! Could I forget it, I might love you now--" "Oh, forget it then, beloved! Let it be undone. Let the past be unlived. Say that you never loved me before, and let the new life begin to-day--can you not? Will you not? It is so little I ask, only the beginning. I will make it grow till it shall fill your heart. Sweet love, dear love! love me but enough to say it--" "Do you think I would not, if I could? Ah, I would give my whole life to bring back what is gone, but I cannot. It is dead. You--no, not you--some evil thing has killed it. Say it? Yes, dear, I would say it--I will say it if you bid me. Giovanni, I love you--yes, those are the words. Do they mean anything? Can I make them sound true? Can I make the dead alive again? Is it anything but the breath of my lips? Oh, Giovanni, my lost love, why are you not Giovanni still?" Again his arms went round her and he pressed her passionately to his heart. She turned pale, and though she tried to hide it, she shrank from his embrace, while her lips quivered and the tears of pain started in her eyes. She suffered horribly, in a way she had never dreamed of as possible. He saw what she felt and let her fall back upon the cushions, while he still knelt beside her. He saw that his mere touch was repugnant to her, and yet he could not leave her. He saw how bravely she struggled to bear his kisses, and how revolting they were to her, and yet the magic of her beauty held his passionate nature under a spell, while the lofty dignity of her spirit enthralled his soul. She was able to forgive, though he had so injured her, she was willing to love him, if she could, though he had wounded her so cruelly; it was torture to think that she could go no further, that he should never again hear the thrill of passion in her voice, nor see the whole strength of her soul rise in her eyes when his lips met hers. There was something grand and tragic in her suffering, in her realisation of all that he had taken from her by his distrust. She sank back on her couch, clasping her hands together so tightly that the veins showed clearly beneath the olive skin. As she tried to overcome her emotion, the magnificent outline of her face was ennobled by her pain, the lids closed over her dark eyes, and the beautiful lips set themselves sternly together, as though resolved that no syllable should pass them which could hurt him, even though they could not formulate the words he would have given his soul to hear. Giovanni knelt beside her, and gazed into her face. He knew she had not fainted, and he was almost glad that for a moment he could not see her eyes. Tenderly, timidly, he put out his hand and laid it on her clasped fingers, then drew it back again very quickly, as though suddenly remembering that the action might pain her. Her heavy hair was plaited into a thick black coil that fell upon the arm of the couch. He bent lower and pressed his lips upon the silken tress, noiselessly, fearing to disturb her, fearing lest she should even notice it. He had lost all his pride and strength and dominating power of character and he felt himself unworthy to touch her. But he was too strong a man to continue long in such a state. Before Corona opened her eyes, he had risen to his feet and stood at some distance from her, resting his arm upon the chimney-piece, watching her still, but with an expression which showed that a change had taken place in him, and that his resolute will had once more asserted itself. "Corona!" he said at last, in a voice that was almost calm. Without changing her position she looked up at him. She had been conscious that he had left her side, and she experienced a physical sensation of relief. "Corona," he repeated, when he saw that she heard him, "I do not complain. It is all my fault and my doing. Only, let it not be hate, dear. I will not touch you, I will not molest you. I will pray that you may love me again. I will try and do such things as may make you love me as you did once. Forgive me, if my kisses hurt you. I did not know they would, but I have seen it. I am not a brute. If I were, you would put something of the human into my heart. It shall never happen again, that I forget. Our life must begin again. The old Giovanni was your husband, and is dead. It is for me to win another love from you. Shall it be so, dear? Is it not to be all different--even to my very name?" "All, all different," repeated Corona in a low voice. "Oh, how could I be so unkind! How could I show you what I felt?" Suddenly, and without the least warning, she sprang to her feet and made two steps towards him. The impulse was there, but the reality was gone. Her arms were stretched out, and there was a look of supreme anguish in her eyes. She stopped short, then turned away once more, and as she sank upon the couch, burying her face in the cushions, the long restrained tears broke forth, and she sobbed as though her heart must break. Giovanni wished that his own suffering could find such an outlet, but there was no such relief possible for his hardy masculine nature. He could not bear the sight of her grief, and yet he knew that he could not comfort her, that to lay his hand upon her forehead would only add a new sting to the galling wound. He turned his face away and leaned against the heavy chimney-piece, longing to shut out the sound of her sobs from his ears, submitting to a torture that might well have expiated a greater misdeed than his. The time was past when he could feel that an unbroken chain of evidence had justified him in doubting and accusing Corona. He knew the woman he had injured better now than he had known her then, for he understood the whole depth and breadth of the love he had so ruthlessly destroyed. It was incredible to him, now, that he should ever have mistrusted a creature so noble, so infinitely grander than himself. Every tear she shed fell like molten fire upon his heart, every sob that echoed through the quiet room was a reproach that racked his heart-strings and penetrated to the secret depths of his soul. He could neither undo what he had done nor soothe the pain inflicted by his actions. He could only stand there, and submit patiently to the suffering of his expiation. The passionate outburst subsided at last, and Corona lay pale and silent upon her cushions. She knew what he felt, and pitied him more than herself. "It is foolish of me to cry," she said presently. "It cannot help you." "Help me?" exclaimed Giovanni, turning suddenly. "It is not I, it is you. I would have died to save you those tears." "I know it--would I not give my life to spare you this? And I will. Come and sit beside me. Take my hand. Kiss me--be your own self. It is not true that your kisses hurt me--it shall not be true---" "You do not mean it, dear," replied Giovanni, sadly. "I know how true it is." "It shall not be true. Am I a devil to hurt you so? Was it all your fault? Was I not wrong too? Indeed--" "No, my beloved. There is nothing wrong in you. If you do not love me--" "I do. I will, in spite of myself." "You mean it, darling--I know. You are good enough, even for that. But you cannot. It must be all my doing, now." "I must," cried Corona, passionately. "Unless I love you, I shall die. I was wrong, too, you shall let me say it. Was I not mad to do the things I did? What man would not have suspected? Would a man be a man at all, if he did not watch the woman he loves? Would love be love without jealousy when there seems to be cause for it? Should I have married you, had I thought that you would be so careless as to let me do such things without interfering? Was it not my fault when I came back that night and would not tell you what had happened? Was it not madness to ask you to trust me, instead of telling you all? And yet," she turned her face away, "and yet, it hurt me so!" "You shall not blame yourself, Corona. It was all my fault." "Come and sit here, beside me. There--take my hand. Does it tremble? Do I draw it away? Am I not glad that it should rest in yours? Look at me--am I not glad? Giovanni--dear husband--true love! Look into my eyes. Do you not see that I love you? Why do you shake your head and tremble? It is true, I tell you." Suddenly the forced smile faded from her face, the artificial expression she tried so pathetically to make real, disappeared, and gave place to a look of horror and fear. She drew back her hand and turned desperately away. "I am lying, lying--and to you!" she moaned. "Oh God! have mercy, for I am the most miserable woman in the world!" Giovanni sat still, resting his chin upon his hand and staring at the fire. His hopes had risen for a moment, and had fallen again, if possible more completely than before. Every line of his strongly-marked face betrayed the despair that overwhelmed him. And yet he was no longer weak, as he had been the first time. He was wondering at the hidden depths of Corona's nature which had so suddenly become visible. He comprehended the magnitude of a passion which in being extinguished could leave such emotions behind, and he saw with awful distinctness the beauty of what he had lost and the depth of the abyss by which he was separated from it. Only a woman who had loved to distraction could make such desperate efforts to revive an affection that was dead; only a woman capable of the most lofty devotion could sink her pride and her own agony, in the attempt to make the man she had loved forgive himself. He could have borne her reproaches more easily than the sight of her anguish, but she would not reproach him. He could have borne her hatred almost better than such unselfish forgiveness, and yet she had forgiven him. For the first time in his life he wished that he might die--he, who loved life so dearly. Perhaps it would be easier for her to see him dead at her feet than to feel that he must always be near her and that she could not love him. "It is of no use, dear," he said, at last. "I was right. The old Giovanni is dead. We must begin our life again. Will you let me try? Will you let me do my best to live for you and to raise up a new love in your heart?" "Can you? Can we go back to the old times when we first met? Can you? Can I?" "If you will--" "If I will? Is there anything I would not do to gain that?" "Our lives may become so different from what they now are, as to make it more easy," said Giovanni. "Do you realise how everything will be changed when we have given up this house? Perhaps it is better that it should be so, after all." "Yes--far better. Oh, I am so sorry for you!" "Who pities, may yet love," he said in low tones. Corona did not make any answer, but for many minutes lay watching the dancing flames. Giovanni knew that it would be wiser to say nothing more which could recall the past, and when he spoke again it was to ask her opinion once more concerning the best course to pursue in regard to the property. "I still think," answered Corona, "that you had better do nothing for the present. You will soon know what San Giacinto means to do. You may be sure that if he has any rights he will not forget to press them. If it comes to the worst and you are quite sure that he is the man you--that is to say, your father--can give up everything without a suit. It is useless to undertake the consequences of a misfortune which may never occur. It would be reckless to resign your inheritance without a struggle, when San Giacinto, if he is an honest man, would insist upon the case being tried in law." "That is true. I will take your advice. I am so much disturbed about other things that I am inclined to go to all extremes at once. Will you dine with us this evening?" "I think not. Give me one more day. I shall be stronger to-morrow." "I have tired you," exclaimed Giovanni in a tone of self-reproach. Corona did not answer the remark, but held out her hand with a gentle smile. "Good-night, dear," she said. An almost imperceptible expression of pain passed quickly over Giovanni's face as he touched her fingers with his lips. Then he left the room without speaking again. In some respects he was glad that he had induced Corona to express herself. He had no illusions left, for he knew the worst and understood that if his wife was ever to love him again there must be a new wooing. It is not necessary to dwell upon what he felt, for in the course of the conversation he had not been able to conceal his feelings. Disappointment had come upon him very suddenly, and might have been followed by terrible consequences, had he not foreseen, as in a dream of the future, a possibility of winning back Corona's love. The position in which they stood with regard to each other was only possible because they were exceptional people and had both loved so well that they were willing to do anything rather than forego the hope of loving again. Another man would have found it hard to own himself wholly in the wrong; a woman less generous would have either pretended successfully that she still loved, or would not have acknowledged that she suffered so keenly in finding her affection dead. Perhaps, too, if there had been less frankness there might have been less difficulty in reviving the old passion, for love has strange ways of hiding himself, and sometimes shows himself in ways even more unexpected. A profound student of human nature would have seen that a mere return to the habit of pleasant intercourse could not suffice to forge afresh such a bond as had been broken, where two such persons were concerned. Something more was necessary. It was indispensable that some new force should come into play, to soften Corona's strong nature and to show Giovanni in his true light. Unfortunately for them such a happy conclusion was scarcely to be expected. Even if the question of the Saracinesca property were decided against them, an issue which, at such a time, was far from certain, they would still be rich. Poverty might have drawn them together again, but they could not be financially ruined. Corona would have all her own fortune, while Giovanni was more than well provided for by what his mother had left him. The blow would tell far more heavily upon Giovanni's pride than upon his worldly wealth, severe as the loss must be in respect of the latter. It is impossible to say whether Corona might not have suffered as much as Giovanni himself, had the prospect of such a catastrophe presented itself a few weeks earlier. At present it affected her very little. The very name of Saracinesca was disagreeable to her hearing, and the house she lived in had lost all its old charm for her. She would willingly have left Rome to travel for a year or two rather than continue to inhabit a place so full of painful recollections; she would gladly have seen another name upon the cards she left at her friends' houses--even the once detested name of Astrardente. When she had married Giovanni she had not been conscious that she became richer than before. When one had everything, what difference could a few millions more bring into life? It was almost a pity that they could not become poor and be obliged to bear together the struggles and privations of poverty. CHAPTER XVII. San Giacinto and Flavia were married on Saturday the thirtieth of November, thereby avoiding the necessity of paying a fee for being united during Advent, much to the satisfaction of Prince Montevarchi. The wedding was a brilliant affair, and if the old prince's hospitality left something to be desired, the display of liveries, coaches and family silver was altogether worthy of so auspicious an occasion. Everybody was asked, and almost everybody went, from the Saracinesca to Anastase Gouache, from Valdarno to Arnoldo Meschini. Even Spicca was there, as melancholy as usual, but evidently interested in the proceedings. He chanced to find himself next to Gouache in the crowd. "I did not expect to see you here," he remarked. "I have been preserved from a variety of dangers in order to assist at the ceremony," answered the Zouave, with a laugh. "At one time I thought it more likely that I should be the person of importance at a funeral." "So did I. However, it could not be helped." Spicca did not smile. "You seem to regret it," observed Gouache, who knew his companion's eccentric nature. "Only on general principles. For the rest, I am delighted to see you. Come and breakfast with me when this affair is over. We will drink to the happiness of two people who will certainly be very unhappy before long." "Ourselves?" "No. The bride and bridegroom. 'Ye, who enter, leave all hope behind!' How can people be so foolish as to enter into an engagement from which there is no issue? The fools are not all dead yet." "I am one of them," replied Gouache. "You will probably have your wish. Providence has evidently preserved you from sudden death in order to destroy you by lingering torture. Is the wedding day fixed?" "I wish it were." "And the bride?" "How can I tell?" "Do you mean to say that, as an opinion, you would rather be married than not? The only excuse for the folly of marrying is the still greater folly of loving a woman enough to marry her. Of course, a man who is capable of that, is capable of anything. Here comes the bride with her father. Think of being tied to her until a merciful death part you. Think of being son-in-law to that old man, until heaven shall be pleased to remove him. Think of calling that stout English lady, mother-in-law, until she is at last overtaken by apoplexy. Think of calling all those relations brothers and sisters, Ascanio, Onorato, Andrea, Isabella, Bianca, Faustina! It is a day's work to learn their names and titles. She wears a veil--to hide her satisfaction--a wreath of orange flowers, artificial, too, made of paper and paste and wire, symbols of innocence, of course, pliable and easily patched together. She looks down, lest the priest should see that her eyes are laughing. Her father is whispering words of comfort and encouragement into her ear. 'Mind your expression,' he is saying, no doubt--'you must not look as though you were being sacrificed, nor as though you were too glad to be married, for everybody is watching you. Do not say, I will, too loudly nor inaudibly either, and remember that you are my daughter.' Very good advice. Now she kneels down and he crosses to the other side. She bends her head very low. She is looking under her elbow to see the folds of her train. You see--she moves her heel to make the gown fall better--I told you so. A pretty figure, all in white, before the great altar with the lights, and the priest in his robes, and the organ playing, and that Hercules in a black coat for a husband. Now she looks up. The rings are there on the gold salver upon the altar. She has not seen hers, and is wondering whether it is of plain gold, or a band of diamonds, like the Princess Valdarno's. Now then--ego conjungo vos--the devil, my friend, it is an awful sight!" "Cynic!" muttered Gouache, with a suppressed laugh. "There--it is done now, and she is already thinking what it will be like to dine alone with him this evening, and several thousand evenings hereafter. Cynic, you say? There are no more cynics. They are all married, and must turn stoics if they can. Let us be off. No--there is mass. Well then, go down on your knees and pray for their souls, for they are in a bad case. Marriage is Satan's hot-house for poisonous weeds. If anything can make a devil of an innocent girl it is marriage. If anything can turn an honest man into a fiend it is matrimony. Pray for them, poor creatures, if there is any available praying power left in you, after attending to the wants of your own soul, which, considering your matrimonial intentions, I should think very improbable." Gouache looked at his companion curiously, for Spicca's virulence astonished him. He was not at all intimate with the man and had never heard him express his views so clearly upon any subject. Unlike most people, he was not in the least afraid of the melancholy Italian. "From the way you talk," he remarked, "one might almost imagine that you had been married yourself." Spicca looked at him with an odd expression, in which there was surprise as well as annoyance, and instead of making any answer, crossed himself and knelt down upon the marble pavement. Gouache followed his example instinctively. Half an hour later the crowd moved slowly out of the church, and those who had carriages waited in the huge vestibule while the long line of equipages moved up to the gates. Gouache escaped from Spicca in the hope of getting a sight of Faustina before she drove away with her mother in one of the numerous Montevarchi coaches. Sant' Ilario and Corona were standing by one of the pillars, conversing in low tones. "Montevarchi looked as though he knew it," said Giovanni. "What?" asked Corona, quietly. "That his daughter is the future Princess Saracinesca." "It remains to be seen whether he is right." Gouache had been pushed by the crowd into one of the angles of the pilaster while the two speakers stood before one of the four pillars of which it was built up. The words astonished him so much that he forced his way out until he could see the Princess of Sant' Ilario's beautiful profile dark against the bright light of the street. She was still speaking, but he could no longer hear her voice, some acoustic peculiarity of the columns had in all probability been the means of conveying to him the fragment of conversation he had overheard. Avoiding recognition, he slipped away through an opening in the throng and just succeeded in reaching the gate as the first of the Montevarchi carriages drew up. The numerous members of the family were gathered on the edge of the crowd, and Gouache managed to speak a few words with Faustina. The girl's delicate face lighted up when she was conscious of his presence, and she turned her eyes lovingly to his. They met often now in public, though San Giacinto did his best to keep them apart. "Here is a secret," said Gouache in a quick whisper. "I have just heard Sant' Ilario telling his wife that your sister is the future Princess Saracinesca. What does it mean?" Faustina looked at him in the utmost astonishment. It was clear that she knew nothing of the matter at present. "You must have heard wrong," she answered. "Will you come to early mass to-morrow?" he asked hurriedly, for he had no time to lose. "I will try--if it is possible. It will be easier now that San Giacinto is to be away. He knows everything, I am sure." "San Giacinto?" It was Gouache's turn to be astonished. But explanations were impossible in such a crowd, and Faustina was already moving away. "Say nothing about what I have told you," Anastase whispered as she left him. She bowed her lovely head in silence and passed on. And so the Marchese di San Giacinto took Flavia Montevarchi for his wife, and all Rome looked on and smiled, and told imaginary stories of his former life, acknowledging, nevertheless, that Flavia had done very well--the stock phrase--since there was no doubt whatever but that the gigantic bridegroom was the cousin of the Saracinesca, and rich into the bargain. Amidst all the gossip and small talk no one, however, was found who possessed enough imagination to foretell what in reality was very imminent, namely, that the Marchese might turn out to be the prince. The last person to suspect such a revelation was San Giacinto himself. He had indeed at one time entertained some hopes of pushing forward a claim which was certainly founded upon justice if not upon good law, but since Montevarchi had kept the documents relating to the case for many days, and had then returned them without mentioning the subject to his future son-in-law, the latter had thought it wiser to let the matter rest for the present, shrewdly suspecting that such a man as Montevarchi would not readily let such an opportunity of enriching his own daughter slip through his fingers. It has been already seen that Montevarchi purposely prevented San Giacinto from seeing the papers in order that he might be in reality quite innocent of any complicity in the matter when the proceedings were instituted, a point very important for the success of the suit. Half an hour afterwards San Giacinto was closeted with the old prince in the latter's study, which looked more than usually dismal by contrast with the brilliant assemblage in the drawing-rooms. "Now that we are alone, my dear son," began Montevarchi, who for a wonder had not changed his coat since the ceremony, "now that you are really my son, I have an important communication to make." San Giacinto sat down and any one might have seen from the expression of his square jaw and determined mouth that he was prepared for battle. He did not trust his father-in-law in the least, and would not have been surprised if he had made an attempt to get back the money he had paid into the lawyer's hands as Flavia's dowry. But San Giacinto had taken all precautions and knew very well that he could not be cheated. Montevarchi continued in a bland voice. "I have kept the matter as a surprise for you," he said. "You have of course been very busy during these last weeks in making your preparations for the solemn ceremony at which we have just assisted. It was therefore impossible for you to attend to the multifarious details which it has been my care, my privilege, to sift and examine. For it is a privilege we should value highly to labour for those we love, for those with whom we share our dearest affections. I am now about to communicate to you an affair of the highest importance, which, when brought to a successful termination will exercise a tremendous influence over all your life. Let me say beforehand, however, and lest you should suspect me of any unworthy motives, that I expect no thanks, nor any share in the immense triumph in store for you. Do not be surprised if I use somewhat strong language on such an occasion. I have examined everything, preserved everything, taken the best legal advice, and consulted those without whose spiritual counsel I enter upon no weighty undertaking. My dear son, you, and none other, are the real and rightful Prince Saracinesca." The climax to the long preamble was so unexpected that San Giacinto uttered a loud exclamation of surprise. "Do not be amazed at what I have told you," said Montevarchi. "The documents upon which the claims of the Saracinesca rest were drawn up by a wise man. Although he had not at that time any intention of marrying, he was aware that with heaven all things are possible, and introduced a clause to the effect that if he should marry and leave heirs direct of his body, the whole deed was to be null, void and ineffectual. I do not know enough of your family history to understand why neither he nor his son nor his grandson ever made any attempt to recover their birthright, but I know enough of law to affirm that the clause is still good. It is identical"--the prince smiled pleasantly--"it is identical in the original and in the copy preserved in the Chancery archives. In my opinion you have only to present the two documents before a competent court, in order to obtain a unanimous verdict in your favour." San Giacinto looked hard from under his overhanging brows at the old man's keen face. Then, suddenly, he stuck his heavy fist into the palm of his left hand, and rose from his chair, a gleam of savage triumph in his eyes. For some time he paced the room in silence. "I wish Giovanni no ill, nor his father either," he said at last. "Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Montevarchi, crossing himself. "And besides, as the property is all yours, that would be of no use." San Giacinto stared a minute, and then his deep voice rang out in a hearty laugh. He had an intimate conviction that his devout father-in-law was quite capable, not only of wishing evil to his neighbour, but of putting his wishes into execution if his interests could be advanced thereby. "No," he said, when his merriment had subsided, "I wish them no evil. But, after all, they must know what is contained in the papers they have in their possession, and they must know that I am the prince, and that they have kept me out of my inheritance. I will go and tell them so. Since there is no doubt about the case, I do not see why I should wait." "Nor I," answered Montevarchi, with the air of a man who has done his part and expects others to finish what he has begun. "It is fortunate that we have decided to go to Frascati instead of making a journey to the end of Europe. Not but that, as I have never seen Paris, I would have liked the trip well enough." "You will find Paris pleasanter when you are Prince Saracinesca." "That is true," replied San Giacinto, thoughtfully. There was the deep light of anticipated triumph in his eyes. "Will you see that the proper preliminary steps are taken?" he asked presently. "I will engage lawyers for you. But you will have to do the rest yourself. The lawyers might go out and talk it over with you in Frascati. After all, you are a young man of good sense, and will not have any sentiment about being alone with your wife." "For the matter of that, I anticipate much pleasure in the society of my wife, but when there is so much meat boiling, somebody must watch the pot, as we used to say in Naples. I am a practical man, you know." "Ah, that is a great quality, one of the very greatest! If I had spent my life in a perpetual honeymoon with the princess, Casa Montevarchi would not be what it is, my son. I have always given my best attention to the affairs of my household, and I expect that you will continue the tradition." "Never fear! If, by continuing the tradition, you mean that I should get what is mine, I will not disappoint you. Can you tell me when the case can be tried, and in what court it will be heard?" "With my influence," replied Montevarchi, "the case may be put through at once. A month will suffice for the preliminaries, a day for the hearing. Everything is settled at once by the exhibition of the documents which provide for you in the most explicit terms. You can come in from the country and see them for yourself if you please. But I consider that quite unnecessary. The lawyers will settle everything." "Pardon my curiosity, but I would like to know why you thought it best not to tell me anything of the matter until now." "My dear son, you were so busy with the preparations for your marriage, and the questions involved seemed at first so doubtful that I thought it best not to trouble you with them. Then, when I knew the whole truth the time was so near that I preferred to give you the information as a sort of wedding present." "A magnificent one indeed, for which I cannot find words to express my gratitude." "No, no! Do not talk of gratitude. I feel that I am fulfilling a sacred duty in restoring to the fatherless his birthright. It is an act of divine justice for the execution of which I have been chosen as the humble instrument. Do your duty by my dear daughter, and render your gratitude to heaven--quoe sunt Coesaris, Coesari, et quoe sunt Dei, Deo! Would that we could all live by that rule!" "To Saracinesca what is his, and to San Giacinto that which belongs to him--that is what you mean?" "Yes, my good son. I am glad to see that you understand Latin. It does you credit that amidst the misfortunes of your early life you should have so improved yourself as to possess the education necessary to the high rank you are about to assume. I tell you frankly that, in spite of your personal qualities, in spite of the great name and possessions which will soon be yours, if I had not distinguished in you that refinement and instruction without which no gentleman is worthy of the name, I would not have bestowed upon you the hand of that sweet creature whom I have cherished as a flower in the house of my old age." San Giacinto had made a study of old Montevarchi during a month past, and was not in the least deceived by his rounded periods and well expressed moral sentiments. But he smiled and bowed, enjoying the idea of attributing such flattery to himself in proportion as he felt that he was unworthy of it. He had indeed done his best to acquire a certain amount of instruction, as his father-in-law called it, and his tastes were certainly not so coarse as might have been expected, but he was too strong a man to be easily deceived concerning his own powers, and he knew well enough that he owed his success to his fortune. He saw, too, that Montevarchi, in giving him Flavia, had foreseen the possibility of his claiming the rights of his cousins, and if he had not been thoroughly satisfied with his choice he would have now felt that he had been deceived. He had no regrets, however, for he felt that even had he already enjoyed the titles and wealth he was so soon to claim, he would nevertheless have chosen Flavia for his wife. Of all the young girls he had seen in Rome she was the only one who really attracted him; a fact due, perhaps, to her being more natural than the rest, or at least more like what he thought a woman should naturally be. His rough nature would not have harmonised with Faustina's character; still less could he have understood and appreciated a woman like Corona, who was indeed almost beyond the comprehension of Giovanni, her own husband. San Giacinto was almost a savage, compared with the young men of the class to which he now belonged, and there was something wild and half-tamed in Flavia Montevarchi which, had fascinated him from the first, and held him by that side of his temperament by which alone savages are governed. Had the bringing of the suit been somewhat hastened it is not impossible that San Giacinto and his wife might have driven up to the ancient towers of Saracinesca on that Saturday afternoon, as Giovanni and Corona had done on their wedding day two years and a half earlier. As it was, they were to go out to Frascati to spend a week in Montevarchi's villa, as the prince and princess and all their married children had done before them. "Eh! what a satisfaction!" exclaimed Flavia, with a sigh of relief as the carriage rolled out of the deep archway under the palace. Then she laughed a little and looked up at her husband out of the corners of her bright black eyes, after which she produced a very pretty silver scent-bottle which her mother had put into her hand as a parting gift. She looked at it, turned it round, opened it and at last smelled the contents. "Ugh!" she cried, shutting it up quickly and making a wry face. "It is full of salts--horrible! I thought it was something good to smell! Did she think I was going to faint on the way?" "You do not look like fainting," remarked San Giacinto, who looked gigantic in a wide fur pelisse. He put out his great hand, which closed with a sort of rough tenderness over hers, completely hiding it as well as the smelling-bottle she held. "So it is a satisfaction, is it?" he asked, with a gleam of pleasure in his deep-set eyes. "If you had been educated under the supervision of the eccellentissima casa Montevarchi, you would understand what a blessed institution marriage is! You--what shall I call you--your name is Giovanni, is it not?" "Yes--Giovanni. Do you like the name?" "No--it reminds me of the head of John the Baptist. I will call you--let me see--Nino. Yes--that sounds so small, and you are so immensely big. You are Nino, in future. I am glad you are big. I do not like little men." She nestled close to the giant, with a laugh that pleased him. San Giacinto suddenly found that he was very much more in love than he had supposed. His life had been very full of contrasts, but this was the greatest which had yet presented itself. He remembered a bright summer's morning a few years earlier, when he had walked back from the church in Aquila with Felice Baldi by his side. Poor Felice! She had worn a very pretty black silk frock with a fine gold chain around her neck, and a veil upon her head, for she was not of the class "that wear hats," as they say in Rome. But she had forced her stout hands into gloves, and Giovanni the innkeeper had been somewhat proud of her ladylike appearance. Her face was very red and there were tears of pleasure and timidity in her eyes, which he remembered very well. It was strange that she, too, should have been proud of her husband's size and strength. Perhaps all women were very much alike. How well he remembered the wedding collation, the little yellow cakes with a drop of hard pink sugar in the middle of each, the bottles of sweet cordial of various flavours, cinnamon, clove, aniseseed and the like, the bright red japanned tray, and the cheaply gaudy plates whereon were painted all manner of impossible flowers. Felice was dead, buried in the campo santo of Aquila, with its whitewashed walls of enclosure and its appalling monuments and mortuary emblems. Poor Felice! She had been a good wife, and he had been a good husband to her. She was such a simple creature that he could almost fancy her spirit shedding tears of satisfied pride at seeing her Giovanni married to a princess, rich and about to be metamorphosed into a prince himself. She had known that he was a Marchese of a great family, and had often begged him to let her be called the Signora Marchesa. But he had always told her that for people in their position it was absurd. They were not poor for their station; indeed, they were among the wealthiest of their class in Aquila. He had promised to assert his title when they should be rich enough, but poor Felice had died too soon. Then had come that great day when Giovanni had won in the lottery--Giovanni who had never played before and had all his life called it a waste of money and a public robbery. But, playing once, he had played high, and all his numbers had appeared on the following Saturday. Two hundred thousand francs in a day! Such luck only falls to the lot of men who are born under destiny. Giovanni had long known what he should do if he only possessed the capital. The winnings were paid in cash, and in a fortnight he had taken up a government contract in the province of Aquila. Then came another and another. Everything turned to gold in his hands, and in two years he was a rich man. Alone in the world, with his two little boys, and possessed of considerable wealth, the longing had come over him to take the position to which he had a legitimate right, a position which, he supposed, would not interfere with his increasing his fortune if he wished to do so. He had left the children under the supervision of old Don Paolo, the curate, and had come to Rome, where he had lodged in an obscure hotel until he had fitted himself to appear before his cousins as a gentleman. His grave temper, indomitable energy, and natural astuteness had done the rest, and fortune had crowned all his efforts. The old blood of the Saracinesca had grown somewhat coarse by the admixture of a stream very far from blue; but if it had lost in some respects it had gained in others, and the type was not wholly low. The broad-shouldered, dark-complexioned giant was not altogether unworthy of the ancient name, and he knew it as his wife nestled to his side. He loved the wild element in her, but most of all he loved the thoroughbred stamp of her face, the delicacy of her small hands, the aristocratic ring of her laughter, for these all told him that, after three generations of obscurity he had risen again to the level whence his fathers had fallen. The change in his life became very dear to him, as all these things passed quickly through his mind; and with the consciousness of vivid contrast came the certainty that he loved Flavia far better than he had believed possible. "And what shall I call you?" he asked, rather bluntly. He did not quite know whether it would be wise to use any term of endearment or not. Indeed, this was the weak point in his experience, but he supplemented the deficiency by a rough tenderness which was far from disagreeable to Flavia. "Anything you like, dear," she answered. San Giacinto felt the blood rush to his head with pleasure as he heard the epithet. "Anything?" he asked, with a very unwonted tremour in his voice. "Anything--provided you will love me," she replied. He thought he had never seen such wicked, fascinating eyes. He drew her face to his and looked into them a moment, his own blazing suddenly with a passion wholly new to him. "I will not call you anything--instead of calling you, I will kiss you--so--is it not better than any name?" A deep blush spread over Flavia's face and then subsided suddenly, leaving her very pale. For a long time neither spoke again. "Did your father tell you the news before we left?" asked San Giacinto at last, when they were rolling over the Campagna along the Via Latina. "No--what?" "It is somewhat remarkable news. If you are afraid of fainting," he added, with rough humour, "hold your bottle of salts ready." Flavia looked up uneasily, wondering whether there were anything wrong about San Giacinto. She knew very well that her father had been glad to get rid of her. "I am not San Giacinto after all," he said quietly. Flavia started and drew back. "Who are you then?" she asked quickly. "I am Prince Saracinesca, and you are the princess." He spoke very calmly, and watched her face to see the effect of the news. "I wish you were!" she exclaimed nervously. She wondered whether he was going mad. "There seems to be no doubt about it," he answered, "your father informed me of the fact as a wedding present. He has examined all the papers and will send the lawyers out to Frascati to prepare the case with me." He told her the whole story in detail. As he proceeded, a singular expression came into Flavia's face, and when he had finished she broke out into voluble expressions of joy. "I always knew that I was born to be a princess--I mean a real one! How could I be anything else? Oh! I am so happy, and you are such a darling to be a prince! And to think that if papa had not discovered the papers, those horrid Sant' Ilario people would have had everything. Princess Saracinesca! Eh, but how it sounds! Almost as good as Orsini, and much nicer with you, you great big, splendid lion! Why did they not call you Leone? It is too good to be true! And I always hated Corona, ever since I was a little girl and she was the Astrardente, because she used to say I did not behave well and that Faustina was much prettier--I heard her say so when I was behind the curtains. Why did you not find it out ever so long ago? Think what a wedding we should have had, just like Sant' Ilario's! But it was very fine after all, and of course there is nothing to complain of. Evviva! Evviva! Do give me one of those cigarettes--I never smoked in my life, and I am so happy that I know it will not hurt me!" San Giacinto had his case in his hand, and laughed as he presented it to her. Quiet as he was in his manner he was far the happier of the two, as he was far more capable of profound feeling than the wild girl who was now his wife. He was glad, too, to see that she was so thoroughly delighted, for he knew well enough that even after he had gained the suit he would need the support of an ambitious woman to strengthen his position. He did not believe that the Saracinesca would submit tamely to such a tremendous shock of fortune, and he foresaw that their resentment would probably be shared by a great number of their friends. Flavia looked prettier than ever as she put the bit of rolled paper between her red lips and puffed away with an energy altogether unnecessary. He would not have believed that, being already so brilliant and good to see, a piece of unexpected good news could have lent her expression so much more brightness. She was positively radiant, as she looked from his eyes at her little cigarette, and then, looking back to him again, laughed and snapped her small gloved fingers. "Do you know," she said presently, with a glance that completed the conquest of San Giacinto's heart, "I thought I should be dreadfully shy with you--at first--and I am not in the least! I confess, at the very moment when you were putting the ring on my finger I was wondering what we should talk about during the drive." "You did not think we should have such an agreeable subject of conversation, did you?" "No--and it is such a pretty ring! I always wanted a band of diamonds--plain gold is so common. Did you think of it yourself or did some one else suggest the idea?" "Castellani said it was old-fashioned," answered San Giacinto, "but I preferred it." "Would you have liked one, too?" "No. It would be ridiculous for a man." "You have very good taste," remarked Flavia, eyeing him critically. "Where did you get it? You used to keep a hotel in Aquila, did you not?" San Giacinto had long been prepared for the question and did not wince nor show the slightest embarrassment. He smiled calmly as he answered her. "You would hardly have called it a hotel, it was a country inn. I daresay I shall manage Saracinesca all the better for having kept a hostelry." "Of course. Oh, I have such a delightful idea! Let us go to Aquila and keep the hotel together. It would be such fun! You could say you had married a little shop-keeper's daughter in Rome, you know. Just for a month, Nino--do let us do it! It would be such a change after society, and then we would go back for the Carnival. Oh, do!" "But you forget the lawsuit--" "That is true. Besides, it will be just as much of a change to be Princess Saracinesca. But we can do it another time. I would like so much to go about in an apron with a red cotton handkerchief on my head and see all the queer people! When are the lawyers coming?" "During the week, I suppose." "There will be a fight," said Flavia, her face growing more grave. "What will Sant' Ilario and his father say and do? I cannot believe that it will all go so smoothly as you think. They do not look like people who would give up easily what they have had so long. I suppose they will be quite ruined." "I do not know. Corona is rich in her own right, and Sant' Ilario has his mother's fortune. Of course, they will be poor compared with their present wealth. I am sorry for them--" "Sorry?" Flavia looked at her husband in some astonishment. "It is their own fault. Why should you be sorry?" "It is not exactly their fault. I could hardly have expected them to come to me and inform me that a mistake had been made in the last century, and that all they possessed was mine." "All they possessed!" echoed Flavia, thoughtfully. "What a wonderful idea it is!" "Very wonderful," assented San Giacinto, who was thinking once more of his former poverty. The carriage rolled on and both were silent for some time, absorbed in dreaming of the greatness which was before them in the near future, San Giacinto enumerating in his mind the titles and estates which were soon to be his, while Flavia imagined herself in Corona's place in Rome, grown suddenly to be a central figure in society, leading and organising the brilliant amusements of her world, and above all, rejoicing in that lavish use of abundant money which had always seemed to her the most desirable of all enjoyments. CHAPTER XVIII. Faustina Montevarchi was delighted when her sister was at last married and out of the house. The two had always been very good friends, but Faustina felt that she had an enemy in San Giacinto and was relieved when he was gone. She had no especial reason for her suspicions, since he treated her with the same quiet and amicable politeness which he showed to the rest of the household; but her perceptions were extraordinarily true and keen, and she had noticed that he watched her whenever Gouache was in the room, in a way that made her very uncomfortable. Moreover, he had succeeded of late in making Flavia accompany her to early mass on Sunday mornings on pretence of his wishing to see Flavia without the inevitable supervision of the old princess. The plan was ingenious; for Faustina, instead of meeting Gouache, was thus obliged to play chaperon while her sister and San Giacinto talked to their hearts' content. He was a discreet man, however, and Flavia was ignorant of the fact that Faustina and Anastase had sometimes met in the same way, and would have met frequently had they not been prevented. The young girl was clever enough to see why San Giacinto acted as he did; she understood that he was an ambitious man, and that, as he was about to ally himself with her family, he would naturally disapprove of her attachment to Gouache. Now that he was gone, she wondered whether he had devised any steps which would take effect after his departure. Faustina was quite as much in love as Gouache himself, and spent much time in calculating the chances of a favourable issue from the situation in which she found herself. Life without Anastase was impossible, but the probabilities of her becoming his wife in the ordinary course of events were very few, as far as she was able to judge, and she had moments of extreme depression, during which she despaired of everything. The love of a very young girl may in itself be both strong and enduring, but it generally has the effect of making her prone to extremes of hope and fear, uncertain of herself, vacillating in her ideas, and unsteady in the pursuit of the smaller ends of life. Throw two equal weights into the scales of a perfectly adjusted balance, the arm will swing and move erratically many times before it returns to its normal position, although there is a potential equilibrium in the machine which will shortly assert itself in absolute tranquillity. Love in a very young person is rarely interesting, unless it is attended by heroic or tragic circumstances. Human life is very like the game of chess, of which the openings are so limited in number that a practised player knows them all by heart, whereas the subsequent moves are susceptible of infinite variation. Almost all young people pass through the early stages of existence by some known gambit, which, has always a definite influence upon their later lives, but never determines the latter entirely. The game is played between humanity on the one side and the unforeseen on the other; but that which can really not be foretold in some measure rarely presents itself until the first effects of love have been felt, a period which, to continue the simile, may be compared in chess to the operation of castling. Then comes the first crisis, and the merest tyro knows how much may depend upon whether he castles on the king's side or on the queen's. Now the nature of Faustina's first love was such as to make it probable that it would end in some uncommon way. There was something fatal in the suddenness with which her affection had grown and had upset the balance of her judgment. It is safe to say that not one young girl in a million would have behaved as she had done on the night of the insurrection in Rome; not one in a hundred thousand would, in her position, have fallen in love with Gouache. The position of the professional artist and of the professional man of letters in modern European society is ill defined. As a man who has been brought up in a palace would undoubtedly betray his breeding sooner or later if transported to live amongst a gang of thieves, so a man who has grown to years of discretion in the atmosphere of studios or in the queer company from which most literary men have sprung, will inevitably, at one time or another, offend the susceptibilities of that portion of humanity which calls itself society. It is impossible that it should be otherwise. Among a set of people whose profession it is to do always, and in all things, precisely what their neighbours do, the man who makes his living by doing what other people cannot do, must always be a marked figure. Look at modern society. It cannot toil nor spin; it can hardly put together ten words in a grammatical sequence. But it can clothe itself. The man of letters can both toil and write good English, but his taste in tailoring frequently leaves much to be desired. If he would put himself in the hands of Poole, and hold his tongue, he might almost pass for a member of society. But he must needs talk, and his speech bewrayeth him for a Galilean. There are wits in society, both many and keen, who can say something original, cutting and neatly turned, upon almost any subject, with an easy superiority which makes the hair of the learned man stand erect upon his head. The chief characteristic of him who lives by his brains is, that he is not only able to talk consecutively upon some subject, but that he actually does so, which, in society, is accounted a monstrous crime against manners. Let him write what he wants to say, and print it; society will either not understand him at all, or will read his works with a dictionary in the secrecy of its own chamber. But if he will hold his tongue in public, society will give him a cup of tea and treat him almost like a human being for the sake of being said to patronise letters. Any one who likes society's tea may drink his fill of it in consideration of wearing a good coat and keeping his wits to himself, but he will not succeed in marrying any of society's sisters, cousins or aunts without a severe struggle. Anastase Gouache did not quite understand this. He sometimes found himself amidst a group of people who were freely discussing some person unknown to him. On such occasions he held his peace, innocently supposing that his ignorance was without any importance whatsoever, among a set of men and women with whom not to know every detail concerning every one else is to be little better than an outcast. "Now do tell me all about the Snooks and Montmorency divorce," says Lady Smyth-Tompkins with a sweetly engaging smile, as she holds out her hand. "I did not know there was such a case--I don't know the people," you answer. "Oh! I thought, of course, you knew all about it," Lady Smyth-Tompkins replies, and her features turn to stone as she realises that you do not know everybody, and leaves you to your own reflections. O Thackeray, snobissme maxime! How well you knew them! There are no snobs among the Latin races, but there is a worse animal, the sycophant, descended directly from the dinner-tables of ancient Rome. In old-fashioned houses there are often several of them, headed invariably by the "giornale ambulante," the walking newspaper, whose business it is to pick up items of news during the day in order to detail them to the family in the evening. There is a certain old princess who sits every evening with her needlework at the head of a long table in the dismal drawing-room of a gigantic palace. On each side of the board are seated the old parasites, the family doctor, the family chaplain, the family lawyer, the family librarian, the peripatetic news-sheet and the rest. "I have been out to-day," says her excellency. "Oh! Ah! Dear me! In this weather! Hear what the princess says! The princess has been out!" The chorus comes up the table, all the answers reaching her ears at once. "And I saw, as I drove by, the new monument! What a ridiculous thing it is." "Ho! ho! ho! Hah! hah! hah! Dear me! What a monument! What fine taste the princess has! Hear what the princess thinks of the monument!" "If you will believe it, the bronze horse has a crooked leg." "He! he! he! Hi! hi! hi! Dear me! A crooked leg! How the princess understands horses! The princess saw that he had a crooked leg!" And so on, for a couple of hours, in the cold, dimly-lighted room until her excellency has had enough of it and rises to go to bed, when the parasites all scuttle away and quarrel with each other in the street as they walk home. Night after night, to decades of years, the old lady recounts the little journal of her day to the admiring listeners, whose chorus of approval is performed daily with the same unvarying regularity. The times are changing now; the prince is not so easily amused, and the sycophant has accordingly acquired the art of amusing, but there still survive some wonderful monuments of the old school. Anastase Gouache was a man of great talent and of rising fame, but like other men of his stamp he preferred to believe that he was received on a friendly footing for his own sake rather than on account of his reputation. In his own eyes, he was, as a man, as good as those with whom he associated, and had as much right to make love to Faustina Montevarchi as the young Frangipani, for whom her father destined her. Faustina, on her part, was too young to appreciate the real strength of the prejudices by which she was surrounded. She could not understand that, although the man she loved was a gentleman, young, good-looking, successful, and not without prospects of acquiring a fortune, he was yet wholly ineligible as a husband. Had she seen this ever so clearly it might have made but little difference in her feelings; but she did not see it, and the disparaging remarks about Anastase, which she occasionally heard in her own family, seemed to her utterly unjust as well as quite unfounded. The result was that the two young people were preparing for themselves one of those terrible disappointments of which the consequences are sometimes felt during a score of years. Both, however, were too much in love to bear suspense very long without doing something to precipitate the course of events, and whenever they had the chance they talked the matter over and built wonderful castles in the air. About a fortnight after the marriage of San Giacinto they were seated together in a room full of people, late in the afternoon. They had been talking for some time upon indifferent subjects. When two persons meet who are very much in love with each other, and waste their time in discussing topics of little importance, it may be safely predicted that something unusual is about to occur. "I cannot endure this suspense any longer," said Gouache at last. "Nor I," answered Faustina. "It is of no use to wait any more. Either your father will consent or he will not. I will ask him and know the worst." "And if it is the worst--what then?" The young girl turned her eyes towards Anastase with a frightened look. "Then we must manage without his consent." "How is that possible?" "It must be possible," replied Gouache. "If you love me it shall be possible. It is only a question of a little courage and good-will. But, after all, your father may consent. Why should he not?" "Because--" she hesitated a little. "Because I am not a Roman prince, you mean." Anastase glanced quickly at her. "No. He wants me to marry Frangipani." "Why did you never tell me that?" "I did not know it when we last met. My mother told me of it last night." "Is the match settled?" asked Gouache. He was very pale. "I think it has been spoken of," answered Faustina in a low voice. She shivered a little and pressed her hands together. There was a short silence, during which Anastase did not take his eyes from her, while she looked down, avoiding his look. "Then there is no time to be lost," said Gouache at last. "I will go to your father to-morrow morning." "Oh--don't, don't!" cried Faustina, suddenly, with an expression of intense anxiety. "Why not?" The artist seemed very much surprised. "You do not know him! You do not know what he will say to you! You will be angry and lose your temper--he will be cruel and will insult you, and you will resent it--then I shall never see you again. You do not know--" "This is something new," said Gouache. "How can you be sure that he will receive me so badly? Have your people talked about me? After all, I am an honest man, and though I live by my profession I am not poor. It is true, I am not such a match for you as Frangipani. Tell me, do they abuse me at your house?" "No--what can they say, except that you are an artist? That is not abuse, nor calumny." "It depends upon how it is said. I suppose it is San Giacinto who says it." Gouache's face darkened. "San Giacinto has guessed the truth," answered Faustina, shaking her head. "He knows that we love each other, and just now he is very powerful with my father. It will be worse if he wins the suit and is Prince Saracinesca." "Then that is another reason for acting at once. Faustina--you followed me once--will you not go with me, away, out of this cursed city? I will ask for you first. I will behave honourably. But if he will not consent, what is there left for us to do? Can we live apart? Can you marry Frangipani? Have not many people done before what we think of doing? Is it wrong? Heaven knows, I make no pretence to sanctity. But I would not have you do anything--what shall I say? Anything against your conscience." There was a shade of bitterness in the laugh that accompanied the last words. "You do not know what things he will say," repeated Faustina, in despairing tones. "This is absurd," said Gouache. "I can bear anything he can say well enough. He is an old man and I am a young one, and have no intention of taking offence. He may say what he pleases, call me a villain, a brigand--that is your favourite Italian expression--a thief, a liar, anything he pleases. I will not be angry. There shall be no violence. But I cannot endure this state of things any longer. I must try my luck." "Wait a little longer," answered Faustina, in an imploring tone. "Wait until the suit is decided." "In order to let San Giacinto get even more influence than he has now? It would be a mistake--you almost said so yourself a moment ago. Besides, the suit may for years." "It will not last a fortnight." "Poor Sant' Ilario!" exclaimed Gouache. "Does everybody know about it?" "I suppose so. But nobody speaks of it. We all feel dreadfully about it, except my father and San Giacinto and Flavia." "If he is in a good humour this is the very time to go to him." "Please, please do not insist!" Faustina was evidently very much in earnest. With the instinct of a very young woman, she clung to the half happiness of the present which was so much greater than anything she had known before in her life. But Gouache would not be satisfied. "I must know the worst," he said again, as they parted. "But this is so much, better than the worst," answered Faustina, sadly. "Who risks nothing, wins nothing," retorted the young man with a bright smile. In spite of his hopefulness, however, he had received a severe shock on hearing the news of the intended match with young Frangipani. He had certainly never expected to find himself the rival of such a suitor, and his sense of possibility, if man may be said to possess such a faculty, was staggered by the idea. He suddenly awakened to a true understanding of his position in Roman society, and when he contemplated his discovery in all its bearings, his nerve almost forsook him. When he remembered his childhood, his youth, and the circumstances in which he had lived up to a recent time, he found it hard to realise that he was trying to marry such a girl, in spite of her family and in opposition to such a man as was now brought forward as a match for her. It was not in his nature, however, to be discouraged in the face of difficulties. He was like a brave man who has received a stunning blow, but who continues to fight until he has gradually regained his position. Gouache could no more have relinquished Faustina than he could have abandoned a half-finished picture in which he believed, any more than he had given up the attempt to break away the stones at the Vigna Santucci after he had received the bullet in his shoulder. He had acquired his position in life by indomitable perseverance and hopefulness, and those qualities would not now fail him, in one of the most critical situations through which he had ever passed. In spite of Faustina's warning and, to some extent, in spite of his own better judgment, he determined to face the old prince at once and to ask him boldly for his daughter. He had spoken confidently to Faustina of being married against the will of her father, but when he thought over this alternative he recollected a fact he had almost completely forgotten in considering his matrimonial projects. He was a soldier and had enlisted in the Zouaves for a term of years. It was true that by using the influence he possessed he might hope to be released from his engagement, but such a course was most repugnant to him. Before Mentana it would have been wholly impossible, for it would have seemed cowardly. Now that he had distinguished himself and had been wounded in the cause, the thing might be done without dishonour, but it would involve a species of self-abasement to which he was not prepared to submit. On the other hand, to wait until his term of service should have expired was to risk losing Faustina altogether. He knew that she loved him, but he was experienced enough to know that a young girl is not always able to bear the pressure exercised upon her when marriage is concerned. In Rome, and especially at that time, it was in the power of parents to use the most despotic means for subduing the will of their children. There was even a law by which a disobedient son or daughter could be imprisoned for a considerable length of time, provided that the father could prove that his child had rebelled against his just will. Though Gouache was not aware of this, the fact that a similar institution existed in his own country made him suspect that it was to be found in Rome also. Supposing that Montevarchi refused to accept him for a son-in-law, and that Faustina, on the other hand, refused to marry young Frangipani, it was only too probable that she might be locked up--in a luxuriously furnished cell of course--to reflect upon the error of her ways. It was by no means certain that in the face of such humiliation and suffering Faustina would continue her resistance; indeed, she could hardly be blamed if she yielded in the end. Gouache believed in the sincerity of her love because the case was his own; had he heard of it in the life of another man he would have laughed at the idea that a girl of eighteen could be capable of a serious passion. It is not necessary, however, to enter into an analysis of the motives and feelings of either Faustina or Anastase. Their connection with the history of the Saracinesca arose from what they did, and not from the thoughts which prompted their actions. It is sufficient to say that Gouache conceived the mad idea of asking Montevarchi's consent to his marriage and to explain the immediate consequences of the step he took. Matters were rapidly approaching a climax. San Giacinto had seen the lawyers at Frascati, and he had brought his wife back to Rome very soon in order to be on the spot while the case was being prepared. The men of the law declared that the matter was a very simple one and that no court could withhold its decision a single day after seeing the documents which constituted the claim. The only point about which any argument could arise related to the identity of San Giacinto himself, and no difficulty was found in establishing substantial proof that he was Giovanni Saracinesca and not an impostor. His father and grandfather had jealously kept all the records of themselves which were necessary, from the marriage certificate of the original Don Leone, who had signed the deed, to the register of San Giacinto's own birth. Copies were obtained, properly drawn up and certified, of the parish books and of the few government documents which were officially preserved in the kingdom of Naples before 1860, and the lawyers declared themselves ready to open the case. Up to this time the strictest secrecy was preserved, at the request of San Giacinto himself. He said that in such an important matter he wished nothing to transpire until he was ready to act; more especially as the Saracinesca themselves could not be ignorant of the true state of the case and had no right to receive notice of the action beforehand. As Corona had foreseen, San Giacinto intended to obtain the decision by means of a perfectly legal trial, and was honestly ready to court enquiry into the rights he was about to assert. When the moment came and all was ready, he went to the Palazzo Saracinesca and asked for the prince, who received him in the same room in which the two had met when the ex-innkeeper had made his appearance in Rome nearly three months earlier. As San Giacinto entered he felt that he had not wasted his time during that short interval. "I have come to talk with you upon a business which must be unpleasant to you," he began. "Unfortunately it cannot be avoided. I beg you to believe that it is my wish to act loyally and fairly." "I hope so," said Saracinesca, bending his bushy gray eyebrows and fixing his keen old eyes upon his visitor. "You need not doubt it," replied San Giacinto rather proudly. "You are doubtless acquainted with the nature of the deed by which our great-grandfathers agreed to transfer the titles and property to the younger of the two. When we first spoke of the matter I was not aware of the existence of a saving clause. I cannot suppose you ignorant of it. That clause provided that if Leone Saracinesca married and had a lawful heir, the deed should be null and void. He did marry, as you know. I am his direct descendant, and have children of my own by my first marriage. I cannot therefore allow the clause in question to remain in abeyance any longer. With all due respect to you, I am obliged to tell you quite frankly that, in law, I am Prince Saracinesca." Having thus stated his position as plainly as possible, San Giacinto folded his great hands upon his knee and leaned against the back of his chair. Saracinesca looked as though he were about to make some hasty answer, but he controlled his intention and rose to his feet. After walking twice up and down the room, he came and stood in front of his cousin. "Let us be plain in what we say," he began. "I give you my word that, until Montevarchi sent back those papers the other day, I did not know what they contained. I had not read them for thirty years, and at that time the clause escaped me. I do not remember to have noticed it. This may have been due to the fact that I had never heard that Leone had any living descendants, and should therefore have attached no importance to the words if I had seen them." "I believe you," said San Giacinto, calmly. The old man's eyes flashed. "I always take it for granted that I am believed," he answered. "Will you give me your word that you are what you assert yourself to be, Giovanni Saracinesca, the great-grandson and lawful heir of Leone?" "Certainly. I pledge my honour that I am; and I, too, expect to be believed by you." There was something in the tone of the answer that struck a sympathetic chord in Saracinesca's nature. San Giacinto had risen to his feet, and there was something in the huge, lean strength of him, in the bold look of his eyes, in the ring of his deep voice, that inspired respect. Rough he was, and not over refined or carefully trained in the ways of the world, cruel perhaps, and overbearing too; but he was every inch a Saracinesca, and the old man felt it. "I believe you," answered the prince. "You may take possession when you please. I am Don Leone, and you are the head of the house." He made a gesture full of dignity, as though resigning then and there his name and the house in which he lived, to him who was lawfully entitled to both. The action was magnificent and worthy of the man. There was a superb disregard of consequences in his readiness to give up everything rather than keep for a moment what was not his, which affected San Giacinto strangely. In justice to the latter it must be remembered that he had not the faintest idea that he was the instrument of a gigantic fraud from which he was to derive the chief advantage. He instinctively bowed in acknowledgment of his cousin's generous conduct. "I shall not take advantage of your magnanimity," he said, "until the law has sanctioned my doing so." "As you please," answered the other. "I have nothing to conceal from the law, but I am prejudiced against lawyers. Do as you think best. A family council can settle the matter as well as the courts." "Your confidence in me is generous and noble. I prefer, however, that the tribunal should examine the matter." "As you please," repeated Saracinesca. There was no reason for prolonging an interview which could not be agreeable to either party. The old man remained standing. "No opposition will be made to the suit," he said. "You will simply produce your papers in proper form, and I will declare myself satisfied." He held out his hand. "I trust you will bear me no ill-will," said San Giacinto rather awkwardly. "For taking what is yours and not mine? Not in the least. Good-evening." San Giacinto left the room. When he was gone, Saracinesca stood still for a moment, and then sank into a chair. His strong nature had sustained him through the meeting and would sustain him to the end, but he was terribly shaken, and felt a strange sensation of numbness in the back of his head, which was quite new to him. For some minutes he sat still as though dazed and only half conscious. Then he rose again, shook himself as though to get rid of a bad dream and rang the bell. He sent for Giovanni, who appeared immediately. "San Giacinto has been here," he said quickly. "He is the man. You had better tell your wife, as she will want to collect her things before we leave the house." Giovanni was staggered by his father's impetuosity. He had realised that the danger existed, but it had always seemed indefinitely far removed. "I suppose there will be some legal proceedings before everything is settled," he said with more calmness than he felt. "What is that to us? We must go, sooner or later." "And if the courts do not decide in his favour, what then?" "There is no doubt about it," answered the prince, pacing the room as his excitement returned. "You and I are nobody. We had better go and live in an inn. That man is honest. I hate him, but he is honest. Why do you stand there staring at me? Were you not the first to say that if we are impostors we should give up everything of our own free-will? And now you seem to think that I will fight the suit! That is your logic! That is all the consistency you have acquired in your travels! Go and tell your wife that you are nobody, that I am nobody! Go and tell her to give you a title, a name for men to call you by! Go into the market and see whether you can find a name for your father! Go and hire a house for us to live in, when that Neapolitan devil has brought Flavia Montevarchi to live in the palace where your mother died, where you were born--poor Giovanni! Not that I pity you any more than I pity myself. Why should I? You are young and have done this house the honour to spend most of your life out of it. But after all--poor Giovanni!" Saracinesca seized his son's hand and looked into his eyes. The young man's face was perfectly calm, almost serene in its expression of indifference to misfortune. His whole soul was preoccupied by greater and nobler emotions than any which could be caused by worldly loss. He had been with Corona again, had talked with her and had seen that look in her face which he had learned to dread more than he had ever dreaded anything in his life. What was life itself without that which her eyes refused? CHAPTER XIX. Prince Montevarchi was very much surprised when he was told that Anastase Gouache wished to see him, and as he was very much occupied with the details of the suit his first impulse was to decline the visit. Although he had no idea that matters had already gone so far between the Zouave and Faustina, he was not, however, so blind as the young girl had supposed him to be. He was naturally observant, like most men who devote their lives to the pursuit of their own interests, and it had not escaped him that Faustina and Gouache were very often to be seen talking together in the world. Had he possessed a sense of humour he might possibly have thought that it would be inexpressibly comical if Gouache should take it into his head to fall in love with the girl; but the Italians are not a humorous people, and the idea did not suggest itself to the old gentleman. He consented to receive Gouache because he thought the opportunity would be a good one for reading the young man a lecture upon the humility of his station, and upon the arrogance he displayed in devoting himself thus openly to the daughter of Casa Montevarchi. "Good-day, Monsieur Gouache," he said solemnly, as Anastase entered. "Pray be seated. To what do I owe the honour of your visit?" Anastase had put on a perfectly new uniform for the interview, and his movements were more than usually alert and his manners a shade more elaborate and formal than on ordinary occasions. He felt and behaved as young men of good birth do who are serving their year in the army, and who, having put on their smartest tunic, hope that in a half light they may be taken for officers. "Will you allow me to explain my position in the first place?" he asked, seating himself and twisting his cap slowly in his hands. "Your position? By all means, if you desire to do so. It is an excellent rule in all discourses to put the definition before the argument. Nevertheless, if you would inform me of the nature of the affair, it might help me to understand you better." "It is very delicate--but I will try to be plain. What I am, I think you know already. I am a painter and I have been successful. For the present, I am a Zouave, but my military service does not greatly interfere with my profession. We have a good deal of time upon our hands. My pictures bring me a larger income than I can spend." "I congratulate you," observed Montevarchi, opening his small eyes in some astonishment. "The pursuit of the fine arts is not generally very lucrative. For myself, I confess that I am satisfied with those treasures which my father has left me. I am very fond of pictures, it is true; but you will understand that, when a gallery is filled, it is full. You comprehend, I am sure? Much as I might wish to own some of the works of the modern French school, the double disadvantage of possessing already so many canvases, and the still stronger consideration of my limited fortune--yes, limited, I assure you---" "Pardon me," interrupted Gouache, whose face reddened suddenly, "I had no intention of proposing to sell you a picture. I am not in the habit of advertising myself nor of soliciting orders for my work." "My dear sir!" exclaimed the prince, seeing that he was on a wrong tack, "have I suggested such a thing? If my words conveyed the idea, pray accept all my excuses. Since you had mentioned the subject of art, my thoughts naturally were directed to my gallery of pictures. I am delighted to hear of your success, for you know how much interest we all feel in him who was the victim of such an unfortunate accident, due doubtless to the carelessness of my men." "Pray do not recall that! Your hospitality more than repaid me for the little I suffered. The matter concerning which I wish to speak to you is a very serious one, and I hope you will believe that I have considered it well before taking a step which may at first surprise you. To be plain, I come to ask you to confer upon me the honour of Donna Faustina Montevarchi's hand." Montevarchi leaned back in his chair, speechless with amazement. He seemed to gasp for breath as his long fingers pressed the green table-cover before him. His small eyes were wide open, and his toothless jaw dropped. Gouache feared that he was going to be taken ill. "You!" cried the old man in a cracked voice, when he had recovered himself enough to be able to speak. "Yes," answered Anastase, who was beginning to feel very nervous as he observed the first results of his proposal. He had never before quite realised how utterly absurd the match would seem to Montevarchi. "Yes," he repeated. "Is the idea so surprising? Is it inconceivable to you that I should love your daughter? Can you not understand--" "I understand that you are wholly mad!" exclaimed the prince, still staring at his visitor in blank astonishment. "No, I am not mad. I love Donna Faustina--" "You! You dare to love Faustina! You, a painter, a man with a profession and with nothing but what you earn! You, a Zouave, a man without a name, without--" "You are an old man, prince, but the fact of my having made you an honourable proposition does not give you the right to insult me." The words were spoken in a sharp, determined voice, and brought Montevarchi to his senses. He was a terrible coward and would rather go to a considerable expense than face an angry man. "Insult you, my dear sir? I would not think of it!" he answered in a very different tone. "But my dear Monsieur Gouache, I fear that this is quite impossible! In the first place, my daughter's marriage is already arranged. The negotiations have been proceeding for some time--she is to marry Frangipani--you must have heard it. And, moreover, with all due respect for the position you have gained by your immense talent--immense, my dear friend, I am the first to say it--the instability of human affairs obliges me to seek for her a fortune, which depends upon the vulgar possession of wealth rather than upon those divine gifts of genius with which you are so richly endowed." The change from anger to flattery was so sudden that Gouache was confounded and could not find words in which to answer what was said to him. Montevarchi's eyes had lost their expression of astonishment, and a bland smile played about the corners of his sour mouth, while he rubbed his bony hands slowly together, nodding his head at every comma of his elaborate speech. Anastase saw, however, that there was not the slightest hope that his proposal would ever be entertained, and by his own sensations he knew that he had always expected this result. He felt no disappointment, and it seemed to him that he was in the same position in which he had been before he had spoken. On the other hand he was outraged by the words that had fallen from Montevarchi's lips in the first moments of anger and astonishment. A painter, a man with a profession, without a name! Gouache was too human not to feel the sting of each truth as it was uttered. He would have defined himself in very much the same way without the least false pride, but to hear his own estimate of himself, given by another person as the true one, was hard to bear. A painter, yes--he was proud of it. A man with a profession, yes--was it not far nobler to earn money by good work than to inherit what others had stolen in former times? A man without a name--was not his own beginning to be famous, and was it not better to make the name Gouache glorious by his own efforts than to be called Orsini because one's ancestors had been fierce and lawless as bears, or Sciarra because one's progenitor had slapped the face of a pope? Doubtless it was a finer thing to be great by one's own efforts in the pursuit of a noble art than to inherit a greatness originally founded upon a superior rapacity, and a greater physical strength than had characterised the ordinary men of the period. Nevertheless, Gouache knew with shame that at that moment he wished that his name could be changed to Frangipani, and the fabric of his independence, of which he had so long been proud, was shaken to its foundations as he realised that in spite of all fame, all glory, all genius, he could never be what the miserly, cowardly, lying old man before him was by birth--a Roman prince. The conclusion was at once inexpressibly humiliating and supremely ludicrous. He felt himself laughable in his own eyes, and was conscious that a smile was on his face, which Montevarchi would not understand. The old gentleman was still talking. "I cannot tell you," he was saying, "how much I regret my total inability to comply with a request which evidently proceeds from the best motives, I might almost say from the heart itself. Alas! my dear friend, we are not all masters of our actions. The cares of a household like mine require a foresight, an hourly attention, an unselfish devotion which we can only hope to obtain by constant--" He was going to say "by constant recourse to prayer," but he reflected that Gouache was probably not of a religious turn of mind, and he changed the sentence. "--by constant study of the subject. Situated as I am, a Roman in the midst of Romans, I am obliged to consider the traditions of my own people in respect of all the great affairs of life. Believe me, I entreat you, that, far from having any prejudice against yourself, I should rejoice sincerely could I take you by the hand and call you my son. But how can I act? What can I do? Go to your own country, dear Monsieur Gouache, think no more of us, or of our daughters, marry a woman of your own nation, and you will not be disappointed in your dreams of matrimonial felicity!" "In other words, you refuse altogether to listen to my proposal?" By this time Gouache was able to put the question calmly. "Alas, yes!" replied the prince with an air of mock regret that exasperated the young man beyond measure. "I cannot think of it, though you are indeed a most sympathetic young man." "In that case I will not trespass upon your time any longer," said Gouache, who was beginning to fear lest his coolness should forsake him. As he descended the broad marble stairs his detestation of the old hypocrite overcame him, and his wrath broke out. "You shall pay me for this some day, you old scoundrel!" he said aloud, very savagely. Montevarchi remained in his study after Gouache had gone. A sour smile distorted his thin lips, and the expression became more and more accented until the old man broke into a laugh that rang drily against the vaulted ceiling. Some one knocked at the door, and his merriment disappeared instantly. Arnoldo Meschini entered the room. There was something unusual about his appearance which attracted the prince's attention at once. "Has anything happened?" "Everything. The case is won. Your Excellency's son-in-law is Prince Saracinesca." The librarian's bright eyes gleamed with exultation and there was a slight flush in his cheeks that contrasted oddly with his yellow skin. A disagreeable smile made his intelligent face more ugly than usual. He stood half-way between the door and his employer, his long arms hanging awkwardly by his sides, his head thrust forward, his knees a little bent, assuming by habit a servile attitude of attention, but betraying in his look that he felt himself his master's master. Montevarchi started as he heard the news. Then he leaned eagerly across the table, his fingers as usual slowly scratching the green cloth. "Are you quite sure of it?" he asked in a trembling voice. "Have you got the verdict?" Meschini produced a tattered pocket-book, and drew from it a piece of stamped paper, which he carefully unfolded and handed to the prince. "There is an attested note of it. See for yourself." Montevarchi hastily looked over the small document, and his face flushed slowly till it was almost purple, while the paper quivered in his hold. It was clear that everything had succeeded as he had hoped, and that his most sanguine expectations were fully realised. His thoughts suddenly recurred to Gouache, and he laughed again at the young man's assurance. "Was Saracinesca in the court?" he asked presently. "No. There was no one connected with the case except the lawyers on each side. It did not amount to a trial. The Signor Marchese's side produced the papers proving his identity, and the original deed was submitted. The prince's side stated that his Excellency was convinced of the justice of the claim and would make no opposition. Thereupon the court granted an order to the effect that the Signor Marchese was the heir provided for in the clause and was entitled to enjoy all the advantages arising from the inheritance; but that, as there was no opposition made by the defendants, the subsequent transactions would be left in the hands of the family, the court reserving the power to enforce the transfer in case any difficulty should arise hereafter. Of course, it will take several months to make the division, as the Signor Marchese will only receive the direct inheritance of his great-grandfather, while the Saracinesca retain all that has come to them by their marriages during the last four generations." "Of course. Who will be employed to make the division?" "Half Rome, I fancy. It will be an endless business." "But San Giacinto is prince. He will do homage for his titles next Epiphany." "Yes. He must present his ten pounds of wax and a silver bowl--cheap!" observed Meschini with a grin. It may be explained here that the families of the Roman nobility were all subject to a yearly tribute of merely nominal value, which they presented to the Pope at the Feast of the Epiphany. The custom was feudal, the Pope having been the feudal lord of all the nobles until 1870. The tribute generally consisted of a certain weight of pure wax, or of a piece of silver of a specified value, or sometimes of both. As an instance of the survival of such customs in other countries, I may mention the case of one great Irish family which to this day receives from another a yearly tribute, paid alternately in the shape of a golden rose and a golden spur. "So we have won everything!" exclaimed Montevarchi after a pause, looking hard at the librarian, as though trying to read his thoughts. "We have won everything, and the thanks are due to you, my good friend, to you, the faithful and devoted companion who has helped me to accomplish this act of true justice. Ah, how can I ever express to you my gratitude!" "The means of expression were mentioned in our agreement," answered Meschini with a servile inclination. "I agreed to do the work for your Excellency at a certain fixed price, as your Excellency may remember. Beyond that I ask nothing. I am too humble an individual to enjoy the honour of Prince Montevarchi's personal gratitude." "Yes, of course, but that is mere money!" said the old gentleman somewhat hastily, but contemptuously withal. "Gratitude proceeds from the heart, not from the purse. When I think of all the work you have done, of the unselfish way in which you have devoted yourself to this object, I feel that money can never repay you. Money is sordid trash, Meschini, sordid trash! Let us not talk about it. Are we not friends? The most delicate sensibilities of my soul rejoice when I consider what we have accomplished together. There is not another man in Rome whom I would trust as I trust you, most faithful of men!" "The Signor Principe is too kind," replied Meschini. "Nevertheless, I repeat that I am quite unworthy of such gratitude for having merely performed my part in a business transaction, especially in one wherein my own interests were so deeply concerned." "My only regret is that my son-in-law can never know the share you have had in his success. But that, alas, is quite impossible. How, indeed, would it be practicable to inform him! And my daughter, too! She would remember you in all her innocent prayers, even as I shall do henceforth! No, Meschini, it is ordained that I, and I alone, should be the means of expressing to you the heartfelt thanks of those whom you have so highly benefited, but who unfortunately can never know the name of their benefactor. Tell me now, did the men of the law look long at the documents? Did they show any hesitation? Have you any reason to believe that their attention was roused, arrested by--by the writing?" "No, indeed! I should be a poor workman if a parcel of lawyers could detect my handwriting!" "It is a miracle!" exclaimed Montevarchi, devoutly. "I consider that heaven has interposed directly to accomplish the ends of justice. An angel guided your hand, my dear friend, to make you the instrument of good!" "I am quite ready to believe it. The transaction has been as providential for me as for the Signor Marchese." "Yes," answered the prince rather drily. "And now, my dear Meschini, will you leave me for a time? I have appointed this hour to see my last remaining daughter concerning her marriage. She is the last of those fair flowers! Ah me! How sad a thing it is to part with those we love so well! But we have the consolation of knowing that it is for their good, that consolation, that satisfaction which only come to us when we have faithfully done our duty. Return to your library, therefore, Meschini, for the present. The consciousness of good well done is yours also to-day, and will soothe the hours of solitude and make your new labours sweet. The reward of righteousness is in itself and of itself. Good-bye, my friend, good-bye! Thank you, thank you--" "Would it be agreeable to your Excellency to let me have the money now?" asked the librarian. There was a firmness in the tone that startled Montevarchi. "What money?" he inquired with a well-feigned surprise. "I do not understand." "Twenty thousand scudi, the price of the work," replied Meschini with alarming bluntness. "Twenty thousand scudi!" cried the prince. "I remember that there was some mention of a sum--two thousand, I think I said. Even that is enormous, but I was carried away in the excitement of the moment. We are all liable to such weakness--" "You agreed to pay me twenty thousand scudi in cash on the day that the verdict was given in favour of your son-in-law." "I never agreed to anything of the kind. My dear friend, success has quite turned your head! I have not so much money at my disposal in the whole world." "You cannot afford to make a fool of me," cried Meschini, making a step forward. His face was red with anger, and his long arms made odd gestures. "Will you pay me the money or not?" "If you take this tone with me I will pay you nothing whatever. I shall even cease to feel any sense of gratitude--" "To hell with your gratitude!" exclaimed the other fiercely. "Either you pay me the money now, or I go at once to the authorities and denounce the whole treachery." "You will only go to the galleys if you do." "You will go with me." "Not at all. Have you any proof that I have had anything to do with the matter? I tell you that you are quite mad. If you wanted to play this trick on me you should have made me sign an agreement. Even then I would have argued that since you had forged the documents you had, of course, forged the agreement also. But you have nothing, not so much as a scrap of paper to show against me. Be reasonable and I will be magnanimous. I will give you the two thousand I spoke of in the heat of anticipation--" "You will give me the twenty thousand you solemnly promised me," said Meschini, with concentrated anger. Montevarchi rose slowly from his chair and rang the bell. He knew that Meschini would not be so foolish as to expose himself, and would continue to hope that he might ultimately get what he asked. "I cannot argue with a madman," he said calmly. He was not in the least afraid of the librarian. The idea never entered his mind that the middle-aged, round-shouldered scholar could be dangerous. A single word from Gouache, a glance of the artist's eye had cowed him less than an hour ago; but Meschini's fury left him indifferent. The latter saw that for the present there was nothing to be done. To continue such a scene before a servant would be the worst kind of folly. "We will talk the matter over at another time," he said sullenly, as he left the study by a small door which opened upon a corridor in communication with the library. Montevarchi sent the servant who answered the bell with a message begging Donna Faustina to come to the study at once. Since it was to be a day of interviews he determined to state the case plainly to his daughter, and bid her make ready to comply with his will in case the match with Frangipani turned out to be possible. He seemed no more disturbed by Meschini's anger than if the affair had not concerned him in the least. He had, indeed, long foreseen what would occur, and even at the moment when he had promised the bribe he was fully determined never to pay it. The librarian had taken the bait greedily, and it was his own fault if the result did not suit him. He had no redress, as Montevarchi had told him; there was not so much as a note to serve as a record of the bargain. Meschini had executed the forgery, and he would have to ruin himself in order to bring any pressure to bear upon his employer. This the latter felt sure that he would not do, even if driven to extremities. Meschini's nature was avaricious and there was no reason to suppose that he was tired of life, or ready to go to the galleys for a bit of personal vengeance, when, by exercising a little patience, he might ultimately hope to get some advantage out of the crime he had committed. Montevarchi meant to pay him what he considered a fair price for the work, and he did not see that Meschini had any means of compelling him to pay more. Now that the thing was done, he began to regret that he himself had not made some agreement with San Giacinto, but a moment's reflection sufficed to banish the thought as unworthy of his superior astuteness. His avarice was on a large scale and was merging into ambition. It might have been foreseen that, after having married one of his two remaining daughters to a man who had turned out to be Prince Saracinesca, his determination to match Faustina with Frangipani would be even stronger than it had been before. Hence his sudden wish to see Faustina and to prepare her mind for what was about to take place. All at once it seemed as though he could not act quickly enough to satisfy his desire of accomplishment. He felt as an old man may feel who, at the end of a busy life, sees countless things before him which he would still do, and hates the thought of dying before all are done. A feverish haste to complete this last step in the aggrandisement of his family, overcame the old prince. He could not understand why he had submitted to wasting his time with Gouache and Meschini instead of busying himself actively in the accomplishment of his purpose. There was no reason for waiting any longer. Frangipani's father had already half-agreed to the match, and what remained to be done involved only a question of financial details. As he sat waiting for Faustina a great horror of death rose suddenly and clearly before him. He was not a very old man and he would have found it hard to account for the sensation. It is a notable fact, too, that he feared death rather because it might prevent him from carrying out his intentions, than because his conscience was burdened with the recollection of many misdeeds. His whole existence had been passed in such an intricate labyrinth of duplicity towards others and towards himself that he no longer distinguished between the true and the untrue. Even in this last great fraud he had so consistently deceived his own sense of veracity that he almost felt himself to be the instrument of justice he assumed to be. The case was a delicate one, too, for the most unprejudiced person could hardly have escaped feeling sympathy for San Giacinto, the victim of his ancestor's imprudence. Montevarchi found it very easy to believe that it was permissible to employ any means in order to gain such an end, and although he might have regarded the actual work of the forgery in the light of a crime, venial indeed, though contrary to the law, his own share in the transaction, as instigator of the deed itself, appeared to be defensible by a whole multitude of reasons. San Giacinto, by all the traditions of primogeniture dear to the heart of the Roman noble, was the head of the family of Saracinesca. But for a piece of folly, hardly to be equalled in Montevarchi's experience, San Giacinto would have been in possession of the estates and titles without opposition or contradiction since the day of his father's death. The mere fact that the Saracinesca had not defended the case proved that they admitted the justice of their cousin's claims. Had old Leone foreseen the contingency of a marriage in his old age, he would either never have signed the deed at all, or else he would have introduced just such a conditional clause as had been forged by Meschini. When a great injustice has been committed, through folly or carelessness, when those who have been most benefited by it admit that injustice, when to redress it is merely to act in accordance with the spirit of the laws, is it a crime then to bring about so much good by merely sacrificing a scruple of conscience, by employing some one to restore an inheritance to its rightful possessor with a few clever strokes of the pen? The answer seemed so clear to Montevarchi that he did not even ask himself the question. Indeed it would have been superfluous to do so, for he had so often satisfied all objections to doubtful courses by a similar sophistry that he knew beforehand what reply would present itself to his self-inquiry. He did not even experience a sense of relief as he turned from the contemplation of what he had just done to the question of Faustina's marriage, in which there was nothing that could torment his conscience. He was not even aware that he ought to recognise a difference between the two affairs. He was in great haste to settle the preliminaries, and that was all. If he should die, he thought, the princess would have her own way in everything, and would doubtless let Faustina throw herself away upon some such man as Gouache. The thought roused him from his reverie, and at the same time brought a sour smile to his face. Gouache, of all people! He looked up and saw that Faustina had entered and was standing before him, as though expecting him to speak. Her delicate, angelic features were pale, and she held her small hands folded before her. She had discovered by some means that Gouache had been with her father and she feared that something unpleasant had happened and that she was about to be called to account. The vision of Frangipani, too, was present in her mind, and she anticipated a stormy interview. But her mind was made up; she would have Anastase or she would have nobody. The two exchanged a preliminary glance before either spoke. CHAPTER XX. Montevarchi made his daughter sit beside him and took her hand affectionately in his, assuming at the same time the expression of sanctimonious superiority he always wore when he mentioned the cares of his household or was engaged in regulating any matter of importance in his family. Flavia used to imitate the look admirably, to the delight of her brothers and sisters. He smiled meaningly, pressed the girl's fingers, and smiled again, attempting in vain to elicit some response. But Faustina remained cold and indifferent, for she was used to her father's ways and did not like them. "You know what I am going to say, I am sure," he began. "It concerns what must be very near your heart, my dear child." "I do not know what it can be," answered Faustina, gravely. She was too well brought up to show any of the dislike she felt for her father's way of doing things, but she was willing to make it as hard as possible for him to express himself. "Cannot you guess what it is?" asked the old man, with a ludicrous attempt at banter. "What is it that is nearest to every girl's heart? Is not that little heart of yours already a resort of the juvenile deity?" "I do not understand you, papa." "Well, well, my dear--I see that your education has not included a course of mythology. It is quite as well, perhaps, as those heathens are poor company for the young. I refer to marriage, Faustina, to that all-important step which you are soon to take." "Have you quite decided to marry me to Frangipani?" asked the young girl with a calmness that somewhat disconcerted her father. "How boldly you speak of it!" he exclaimed with a sigh of disapproval. "I will not, however, conceal from you that I hope--" "Pray talk plainly with me, papa!" cried Faustina suddenly looking up. "I cannot bear this suspense." "Ah! Is it so, little one?" Montevarchi shook his finger playfully at her. "I thought I should find you ready! So you are anxious to become a princess at once? Well, well, all women are alike!" Faustina drew herself up a little and fixed her deep brown eyes upon her father's face, very quietly and solemnly. "You misunderstand me," she said. "I only wish to know your decision in order that I may give you my answer." "And what can that answer be? Have I not chosen, wisely, a husband fit for you in every way?" "From your point of view, I have no doubt of it." "I trust you are not about to commit the unpardonable folly of differing from me, my daughter," answered Montevarchi, with a sudden change of tone indicative of rising displeasure. "It is for me to decide, for you to accept my decision." "Upon other points, yes. In the question of marriage I think I have something to say." "Is it possible that you can have any objections to the match I have found for you? Is it possible that you are so foolish as to fancy that at your age you can understand these things better than I? Faustina, I would not have believed it!" "How can you understand what I feel?" "It is not a question of feeling, it is a question of wisdom, of foresight, of prudence, of twenty qualities which you are far too young to possess. If marriage were a matter of feeling, of vulgar sentiment, I ask you, what would become of the world? Of what use is it to have all the sentiment in life, if you have not that which makes life itself possible? Can you eat sentiment? Can you harness sentiment in a carriage and make it execute a trottata in the Villa Borghese? Can you change an ounce of sentiment into good silver scudi and make it pay for a journey in the hot weather? No, no, my child. Heaven knows that I am not avaricious. Few men, I think, know better than I that wealth is perishable stuff--but so is this mortal body, and the perishable must be nourished with the perishable, lest dust return to dust sooner than it would in the ordinary course of nature. Money alone will not give happiness, but it is, nevertheless, most important to possess a certain amount of it." "I would rather do without it than be miserable all my life for having got it." "Miserable all your life? Why should you be miserable? No woman should be unhappy who is married to a good man. My dear, this matter admits of no discussion. Frangipani is young, handsome, of irreproachable moral character, heir to a great fortune and to a great name. You desire to be in love. Good. Love will come, the reward of having chosen wisely. It will be time enough then to think of your sentiments. Dear me! if we all began life by thinking of sentiment, where would our existence end?" "Will you please tell me whether you have quite decided that I am to marry Frangipani?" Faustina found her father's discourses intolerable, and, moreover, she had something to say which would be hard to express and still harder to sustain by her actions. "If you insist upon my giving you an answer, which you must have already foreseen, I am willing to tell you that I have quite decided upon the match." "I cannot marry him!" exclaimed Faustina, clasping her hands together and looking into her father's face. "My dear," answered Montevarchi with a smile, "it is absolutely decided. We cannot draw back. You must marry him." "Must, papa? Oh, think what you are saying! I am not disobedient, indeed I am not. I have always submitted to you in everything. But this--no, not this. Bid me do anything else--anything--" "But, my child, nothing else would produce the same result. Be reasonable. You tell me to impose some other duty upon you. That is not what I want. I must see you married before I die, and I am an old man. Each year, each day, may be my last. Of what use would it be that you should make another sacrifice to please me, when the one thing I desire is to see you well settled with a good husband? I have done what I could. I have procured you the best match in all Rome, and now you implore me to spare you, to reverse my decision, to tell my old friend Frangipani that you will not have his son, and to go out into the market to find you another help-meet. It is not reasonable. I had expected more dutiful conduct from you." "Is it undutiful not to be able to love a man one hardly knows, when one is ordered to do so?" "You will make me lose my patience, Faustina!" exclaimed Montevarchi, in angry tones. "Have I not explained to you the nature of love? Have I not told you that you can love your husband as much as you please? Is it not a father's duty to direct the affections of his child as I wish to do, and is it not the child's first obligation to submit to its father's will and guidance? What more would you have? In truth, you are very exacting!" "I am very unhappy!" The young girl turned away and rested her elbow on the table, supporting her chin in her hand. She stared absently at the old bookcases as though she were trying to read the titles upon the dingy bindings. Montevarchi understood her words to convey a submission and changed his tone once more. "Well, well, my dear, you will never regret your obedience," he said. "Of course, my beloved child, it is never easy to see things as it is best that we should see them. I see that you have yielded at last--" "I have not yielded in the least!" cried Faustina, suddenly facing him, with an expression he had never seen before. "What do you mean?" asked Montevarchi in considerable astonishment. "What I say. I will not marry Frangipani--I will not! Do you understand?" "No. I do not understand such language from my daughter; and as for your determination, I tell you that you will most certainly end by acting as I wish you to act." "You cannot force me to marry. What can you do? You can put me into a convent. Do you think that would make me change my mind? I would thank God for any asylum in which I might find refuge from such tyranny." "My daughter," replied the prince in bland tones, "I am fully resolved not to be angry with you. Your undutiful conduct proceeds from ignorance, which is never an offence, though it is always a misfortune. If you will have a little patience--" "I have none!" exclaimed Faustina, exasperated by her father's manner. "My undutiful conduct does not proceed from ignorance--it proceeds from love, from love for another man, whom I will marry if I marry any one." "Faustina!" cried Montevarchi, holding up his hands in horror and amazement. "Do you dare to use SUCH, language to your father!" "I dare do anything, everything--I dare even tell you the name of the man I love--Anastase Gouache!" "My child! My child! This is too horrible! I must really send for your mother." "Do what you will." Faustina had risen to her feet and was standing before one of the old bookcases, her hands folded before her, her eyes on fire, her delicate mouth scornfully bent. Montevarchi, who was really startled almost out of his senses, moved cautiously towards the bell, looking steadily at his daughter all the while as though he dreaded some fresh outbreak. There was something ludicrous in his behaviour which, at another time, would not have escaped the young girl. Now, however, she was too much in earnest to perceive anything except the danger of her position and the necessity for remaining firm at any cost. She did not understand why her mother was to be called, but she felt that she could face all her family if necessary. She kept her eyes upon her father and was hardly conscious that a servant entered the room. Montevarchi sent a message requesting the princess to come at once. Then he turned again towards Faustina. "You can hardly suppose," he observed, "that I take seriously what you have just said; but you are evidently very much excited, and your mother's presence will, I trust, have a soothing effect. You must be aware that it is very wrong to utter such monstrous untruths--even in jest--" "I am in earnest. I will marry Monsieur Gouache or I will marry no one." Montevarchi really believed that his daughter's mind was deranged. His interview with Gouache had convinced him that Faustina meant what she said, though he affected to laugh at it, but he was wholly unable to account for her conduct on any theory but that of insanity. Being at his wits' end he had sent for his wife, and while waiting for her he did not quite know what to do. "My dear child, what is Monsieur Gouache? A very estimable young man, without doubt, but not such a one as we could choose for your husband." "I have chosen him," answered Faustina. "That is enough." "How you talk, my dear! How rashly you talk! As though choosing a husband were like buying a new hat! And you, too, whom I always believed to be the most dutiful, the most obedient of my children! But your mother and I will reason with you, we will endeavour to put better thoughts into your heart." Faustina glanced scornfully at her father and turned away, walking slowly in the direction of the window. "It is of no use to waste your breath on me," she said presently. "I will marry Gouache or nobody." "You--marry Gouache?" cried the princess, who entered at that moment, and heard the last words. Her voice expressed an amazement and horror fully equal to her husband's. "Have you come to join the fray, mamma?" inquired Faustina, in English. "Pray speak in a language I can understand," said Montevarchi who, in a whole lifetime, had never mastered a word of his wife's native tongue. "Oh, Lotario!" exclaimed the princess. "What has the child been telling you?" "Things that would make you tremble, my dear! She refuses to marry Frangipani--" "Refuses! But, Faustina, you do not know what you are doing! You are out of your mind!" "And she talks wildly of marrying a certain Frenchman, a Monsieur Gouache, I believe--is there such a man, my dear?" "Of course, Lotario! The little man you ran over. How forgetful you are!" "Yes, yes, of course. I know. But you must reason with her, Guendalina--" "It seems to me. Lotario, that you should do that--" "My dear, I think the child is insane upon the subject. Where could she have picked up such an idea? Is it a mere caprice, a mere piece of impertinence, invented to disconcert the sober senses of a careful father?" "Nonsense, Lotario! She is not capable of that. After all, she is not Flavia, who always had something dreadful quite ready, just when you least expected it." "I almost wish she were Flavia!" exclaimed Montevarchi, ruefully. "Flavia has done very well." During all this time Faustina was standing with her back towards the window and her hands folded before her, looking from the one to the other of the speakers with an air of bitter contempt which was fast changing to uncontrollable anger. Some last remaining instinct of prudence kept her from interrupting the conversation by a fresh assertion of her will, and she waited until one of them chose to speak to her. She had lost her head, for she would otherwise never have gone so far as to mention Gouache's name, but, as with all very spontaneous natures, with her to break the first barrier was to go to the extreme, whatever it might be. Her clear brown eyes were very bright, and there was something luminous about her angelic face which showed that her whole being was under the influence of an extraordinary emotion, almost amounting to exaltation. It was impossible to foresee what she would say or do. "Your father almost wishes you were Flavia!" groaned the princess, shaking her head and looking very grave. Then Faustina laughed scornfully and her wrath bubbled over. "I am not Flavia!" she cried, coming forward and facing her father and mother. "I daresay you do wish I were. Flavia has done so very well. Yes, she is Princess Saracinesca this evening, I suppose. Indeed she has done well, for she has married the man she loves, as much as she is capable of loving anything. And that is all the more reason why I should do the same. Besides, am I as old as Flavia that you should be in such a hurry to marry me? Do you think I will yield? Do you think that while I love one man, I will be so base as to marry another?" "I have explained to you that love--" "Your explanations will drive me mad! You may explain anything in that way--and prove that Love itself does not exist. Do you think your saying so makes it true? There is more truth in a little of my love than in all your whole life!" "Faustina!" "What? May I not answer you? Must I believe you infallible when you use arguments that would not satisfy a child? Is my whole nature a shadow because yours cannot understand my reality?" "If you are going to make this a question of metaphysics--" "I am not, I do not know what metaphysic means. But I will repeat before my mother what I said to you alone. I will not marry Frangipani, and you cannot force me to marry him. If I marry any one I will have the man I love." "But, my dearest Faustina," cried the princess in genuine distress, "this is a mere idea--a sort of madness that has seized upon you. Consider your position, consider what you owe to us, consider--" "Consider, consider, consider! Do you suppose that any amount of consideration would change me?" "Do you think your childish anger will change us?" inquired Montevarchi, blandly. He did not care to lose his temper, for he was quite indifferent to Faustina's real inclinations, if she would only consent to marry Frangipani. "Childish!" cried Faustina, her eyes blazing with anger. "Was I childish when I followed him out into the midst of the revolution last October, when I was nearly killed at the Serristori, when I thought he was dead and knelt there among the ruins until he found me and brought me home? Was that a child's love?" The princess turned pale and grasped her husband's arm, staring at Faustina in horror. The old man trembled and for a few moments could not find strength to speak. Nothing that Faustina could have invented could have produced such a sudden and tremendous effect as this revelation of what had happened on the night of the insurrection, coming from the girl's own lips with the unmistakable accent of truth. The mother's instinct was the first to assert itself. With a quick movement she threw her arms round the young girl, as though to protect her from harm. "It is not true, it is not true," she cried in an agonised tone. "Faustina, my child--it is not true!" "It is quite true, mamma," answered Faustina, who enjoyed an odd satisfaction in seeing the effect of her words, which can only be explained by her perfect innocence. "Why are you so much astonished? I loved him--I thought he was going out to be killed--I would not let him go alone--" "Oh, Faustina! How could you do it!" moaned the princess. "It is too horrible--it is not to be believed--" "I loved him, I love him still." Princess Montevarchi fell into a chair and burst into tears, burying her face in her hands and sobbing aloud. "If you are going to cry, Guendalina, you had better go away," said her husband, who was now as angry as his mean nature would permit him to be. She was so much accustomed to obey that she left the room, crying as she went, and casting back a most sorrowful look at Faustina. Montevarchi shut the door and, coming back, seized his daughter's arm and shook it violently. "Fool!" he cried angrily, unable to find any other word to express his rage. Faustina said nothing but tried to push him away, her bright eyes gleaming with contempt. Her silence exasperated the old man still further. Like most very cowardly men he could be brutal to women when he was angry. It seemed to him that the girl, by her folly, had dashed from him the last great satisfaction of his life at the very moment when it was within reach. He could have forgiven her for ruining herself, had she done so; he could not forgive her for disappointing his ambition; he knew that one word of the story she had told would make the great marriage impossible, and he knew that she had the power to speak that word when she pleased as well as the courage to do so. "Fool!" he repeated, and before she could draw back, he struck her across the mouth with the back of his hand. A few drops of bright red blood trickled from her delicate lips. With an instinctive movement she pressed her handkerchief to the wound. Montevarchi snatched it roughly from her hand and threw it across the room. From his eyes she guessed that he would strike her again if she remained. With a look of intense hatred she made a supreme effort, and concentrating the whole strength of her slender frame wrenched herself free. "Coward!" she cried, as he reeled backwards; then, before he could recover himself, she was gone and he was left alone. He was terribly angry, and at the same time his ideas were confused, so that he hardly understood anything but the main point of her story, that she had been with Gouache on that night when Corona had brought her home. He began to reason again. Corona knew the truth, of course, and her husband knew it too. Montevarchi realised that he had already taken his revenge for their complicity, before knowing that they had injured him. His overwrought brain was scarcely capable of receiving another impression. He laughed aloud in a way that was almost hysterical. "All!" he cried in sudden exultation. "All--even to their name--but the other--" His face changed quickly and he sank into his chair and buried his face in his hands, as he thought of all he had lost through Faustina's folly. And yet, the harm might be repaired--no one knew except-- He looked up and saw that Meschini had returned and was standing before him, as though waiting to be addressed. The suddenness of the librarian's appearance made the prince utter an exclamation of surprise. "Yes, I have come back," said Meschini. "The matter we were discussing cannot be put off, and I have come back to ask you to be good enough to pay the money." Montevarchi was nervous and had lost the calm tone of superiority he had maintained before his interview with Faustina. The idea of losing Frangipani, too, made his avarice assert itself very strongly. "I told you," he replied, "that I refused altogether to talk with you, so long as you addressed me in that tone. I repeat it. Leave me, and when you have recovered your manners I will give you something for yourself. You will get nothing so long as you demand it as though it were a right." "I will not leave this room without the money," answered Meschini, resolutely. The bell was close to the door. The librarian placed himself between the prince and both. "Leave the room!" cried Montevarchi, trembling with anger. He had so long despised Meschini, that the exhibition of obstinacy on the part of the latter did not frighten him. The librarian stood before the bell and the latch of the door, his long arms hanging down by his sides, his face yellow, his eyes red. Any one might have seen that he was growing dangerous. Instead of repeating his refusal to go, he looked steadily at his employer and a disagreeable smile played upon his ugly features. Montevarchi saw it and his fury boiled over. He laid his hands on the arms of his chair as though he would rise, and in that moment he would have been capable of striking Meschini as he had struck Faustina. Meschini shuffled forwards and held up his hand. "Do not be violent," he said, in a low voice. "I am not your daughter, you know." Montevarchi's jaw dropped, and he fell back into his chair again. "You listened--you saw--" he gasped. "Yes, of course. Will you pay me? I am desperate, and I will have it. You and your miserable secrets are mine, and I will have my price. I only want the sum you promised. I shall be rich in a few days, for I have entered into an affair in which I shall get millions, as many as you have perhaps. But the money must be paid to-morrow morning or I am ruined, and you must give it to me. Do you hear? Do you understand that I will have what is mine?" At this incoherent speech, Montevarchi recovered something of his former nerve. There was something in Meschini's language that sounded like argument, and to argue was to temporise. The prince changed his tone. "But, my dear Meschini, how could you be so rash as to go into a speculation when you knew that the case might not be decided for another week? You are really the most rash man I ever knew. I cannot undertake to guarantee your speculations. I will be just. I have told you that I would give you two thousand--" "Twenty thousand'" Meschini came a little nearer. "Not a single baiocco if you are exorbitant." "Twenty thousand hard, good scudi in cash, I tell you. No more, but no less either." The librarian's hands were clenched, and he breathed hard, while his red eyes stared in a way that began to frighten Montevarchi. "No, no, be reasonable! My dear Meschini, pray do not behave in this manner. You almost make me believe that you are threatening me. I assure you that I desire to do what is just--" "Give me the money at once--" "But I have not so much--murder!! Ah--gh--gh---" Arnodo Meschini's long arms had shot out and his hands had seized the prince's throat in a grip from which there was no escape. There lurked a surprising strength in the librarian's round shoulders, and his energy was doubled by a fit of anger that amounted to insanity. The old man rocked and swayed in his chair, and grasped at the green table-cover, but Meschini had got behind him and pressed his fingers tighter and tighter. His eye rested upon Faustina's handkerchief that lay on the floor at his feet. His victim was almost at the last gasp, but the handkerchief would do the job better. Meschini kept his grip with one hand and with the other snatched up the bit of linen. He drew it tight round the neck and wrenched at the knot with his yellow teeth. There was a convulsive struggle, followed by a long interval of quiet. Then another movement, less violent this time, another and another, and then Meschini felt the body collapse in his grasp. It was over. Montevarchi was dead. Meschini drew back against the bookcases, trembling in every joint. He scarcely saw the objects in the room, for his head swam and his senses failed him, from horror and from the tremendous physical effort he had made. Then in an instant he realised what he had done, and the consequences of the deed suggested themselves. He had not meant to kill the prince. So long as he had kept some control of his actions he had not even meant to lay violent hands upon him. But he had the nature of a criminal, by turns profoundly cunning and foolishly rash. A fatal influence had pushed him onward so soon as he had raised his arm, and before he was thoroughly conscious of his actions the deed was done. Then came the fear of consequences, then again the diabolical reasoning which intuitively foresees the immediate results of murder, and provides against them at once. "Nobody knows that I have been here. Nothing is missing. No one knows about the forgery. No one will suspect me. There is no one in the library nor in the corridor. The handkerchief is not mine. If it was not his own it was Donna Faustina's. No one will suspect her. It will remain a mystery." Meschini went towards the door through which he had entered and opened it. He looked back and held his breath. The prince's head had fallen forward upon his hands as they lay on the table, and the attitude was that of a man overcome by despair, but not that of a dead body. The librarian glanced round the room. There was no trace of a struggle. The position of the furniture had not been changed, nor had anything fallen on the floor. Meschini went out and softly closed the door behind him, leaving the dead man alone. The quiet afternoon sun fell upon the houses on the opposite side of the street, and cast a melancholy reflection into the dismal chamber where Prince Montevarchi had passed so many hours of his life, and in which that life had been cut short so suddenly. On the table before his dead hands lay the copy of the verdict, the testimony of his last misdeed, of the crime for which he had paid the forfeit upon the very day it was due. It lay there like the superscription upon a malefactor's gallows in ancient times, the advertisement of the reason of his death to all who chose to inquire. Not a sound was heard save the noise that rose faintly and at intervals from the narrow street below, the cry of a hawker, the song of a street-boy, the bark of a dog. To-morrow the poor body would be mounted upon a magnificent catafalque, surrounded by the pomp of a princely mourning, illuminated by hundreds of funeral torches, an object of aversion, of curiosity, even of jest, perhaps, among those who bore the prince a grudge. Many of those who had known him would come and look on his dead face, and some would say that he was changed and others that he was not. His wife and his children would, in a few hours, be all dressed in black, moving silently and mournfully and occasionally showing a little feeling, though not more than would be decent. There would be masses sung, and prayers said, and his native city would hear the tolling of the heavy bells for one of her greatest personages. All this would be done, and more also, until the dead prince should be laid to rest beneath the marble floor of the chapel where his ancestors lay side by side. But to-day he sat in state in his shabby chair, his head lying upon that table over which he had plotted and schemed for so many years, his white fingers almost touching the bit of paper whereon was written the ruin of the Saracinesca. And upstairs the man who had killed him shuffled about the library, an anxious expression on his yellow face, glancing from time to time at his hands as he took down one heavy volume after another, practising in solitude the habit of seeming occupied, in order that he might not be taken unawares when an under-servant should be sent to tell the insignificant librarian of what had happened that day in Casa Montevarchi. CHAPTER XXI. Giovanni came home late in the afternoon and found Corona sitting by the fire in her boudoir. She had known that he would return before long, but had not anticipated his coming with any pleasure. When he entered the room she looked up quietly, without a smile, to assure herself that it was he and no one else. She said nothing, and he sat down upon the other side of the fireplace. There was an air of embarrassment about their meetings, until one or the other had made some remark which led to a commonplace conversation. On the present occasion neither seemed inclined to be the first speaker and for some minutes they sat opposite to each other in silence. Giovanni glanced at his wife from time to time, and once she turned her head and met his eyes. Her expression was cold and grave as though she wished him to understand that she had nothing to say. He thought she had never been so beautiful before. The firelight, striking her face at an upward angle, brought out clearly the noble symmetry of her features, the level brow, the wide, delicate nostrils, the even curve of her lips, the splendid breadth of her smooth forehead, shaded by her heavy black hair. She seemed to feel cold, for she sat near the flames, resting one foot upon the fender, in an attitude that threw into relief the perfect curves of her figure, as she bent slightly forward, spreading her hands occasionally to the blaze. "Corona--" Giovanni stopped suddenly after pronouncing her name, as though he had changed his mind while in the act of speaking. "What is it?" she asked indifferently enough. "Would you like to go away? I have been wondering whether it would not be better than staying here." She looked up in some surprise. She had thought of travelling more than once of late, but it seemed to her that to make a journey together would be only to increase the difficulties of the situation. There would be of necessity more intimacy, more daily converse than the life in Rome forced upon her. She shrank from the idea for the very reason which made it attractive to her husband. "No," she answered. "Why should we travel? Besides, with a child so young--" "We might leave Orsino at home," suggested Giovanni. He was not prepared for the look she gave him as she replied. "I will certainly not consent to that." "Would you be willing to take him with you, and leave me here? You could easily find a friend to go with you--even my father. He would enjoy it immensely." There was the shortest possible pause before she answered him this time. It did not escape him, for he expected it. "No. I will not do that, either. I do not care to go away. Why should I, and at such a time?" "I think I will go alone, in that case," said Giovanni quietly, but watching her face. She made no reply, but looked at him curiously as though she suspected him of laying a trap for her. "You say nothing. Is silence consent?" "I think it would be very unwise." "You do not answer me. Be frank, Corona. Would you not be glad to be left alone for a time?" "Why do you insist?" she asked with a little impatience. "Are you trying to make me say something that I shall regret?" "Would you regret it, if it were said? Why not be honest? It would be an immense relief to you if I went away. I could find an excellent excuse and nobody would guess that there was anything wrong." "For that matter--there is nothing wrong. Of course no one would say anything." "I know you will think that I have no tact," Giovanni observed with considerable justice. Corona could not repress a smile at the remark, which expressed most exactly what she herself was thinking. "Frankly--I think it would be better to leave things alone. Do you not think so, too?" "How coolly you say that!" exclaimed Giovanni. "It is so easy for you--so hard for me. I would do anything you asked, and you will not ask anything, because you would make any sacrifice rather than accept one from me. Did you ever really love me, Corona? Is it possible that love can be killed in a day, by a word? I wonder whether there is any woman alive as cold as you are! Is it anything to you that I should suffer as I am suffering, every day?" "You cannot understand--" "No--that is true. I cannot understand. I was base, cowardly, cruel--I make no defence. But if I was all that, and more too, it was because I loved you, because the least suspicion drove me mad, because I could not reason, loving you as I did, any more than I can reason now. Oh, I love you too much, too wholly, too foolishly! I will try and change and be another man--so that I may at least look at you without going mad!" He rose to his feet and went towards the door. But Corona called him back. The bitterness of his words and the tone in which they were spoken hurt her, and made her realise for a moment what he was suffering. "Giovanni--dear--do not leave me so--I am unhappy, too." "Are you?" He had come to her side and stood looking down into her eyes. "Wretchedly unhappy." She turned her face away again. She could not help it. "You are unhappy, and yet I can do nothing. Why do you call me back?" "If I only could, if I only could!" she repeated in a low voice. There was silence for a few seconds, during which Giovanni could hear his heart beat loudly and irregularly. "If I could but move you a little!" he said at last, almost inaudibly. "If I could do anything, suffer anything for you--" She shook her head sorrowfully and then, as though afraid that she had given him pain, she took his hand and pressed it affectionately--affectionately, not lovingly. It was as cold as ice. He sighed and once more turned away. Just then the door opened, and old Pasquale appeared, his face pale with fright. "Eccellenza, a note, and the man says that Prince Montevarchi has just been murdered, and that the note is from Donna Faustina, and the police are in the Palazzo Montevarchi, and that the poor princess is dying, and--" Corona had risen quickly with a cry of astonishment. Giovanni had taken the letter and stood staring at the servant as though he believed that the man was mad. Then he glanced at the address and saw that it was for his wife. "Faustina is accused of the murder!" she exclaimed. "I must go to her at once. The carriage, Pasquale, instantly!" "Faustina Montevarchi--killed her own father!" cried Giovanni in the utmost astonishment. Corona thrust the note into his hands. It only contained a few words scrawled in an irregular hand as though written in great emotion. "Of course it is some horrible mistake," said Corona, "but I must go at once." "I will go with you. I may be able to give some help." Five minutes later, they were descending the stairs. The carriage was not ready, and leaving orders for it to follow them they went out into the street and took a passing cab. Under the influence of the excitement they acted together instinctively. During the short drive they exchanged but few words, and those only expressive of amazement at the catastrophe. At the Palazzo Montevarchi everything was already in confusion, the doors wide open, the servants hurrying aimlessly hither and thither with frightened faces. They had just been released from the preliminary examination held by the prefect of police. A party of gendarmes stood together in the antechamber talking, while one of their number mounted guard at the door with a drawn sabre, allowing no one to leave the house. A terrified footman led Giovanni and Corona to the great drawing-room. The vast chamber was lighted by a single lamp which stood upon a yellow marble pier-table, and cast dim shadows on the tapestry of the walls. The old-fashioned furniture was ranged stiffly around the room as usual; the air was damp and cold, not being warmed even by the traditional copper brazier. The voices of the group of persons collected within the circle of the light sounded hollow, and echoed strangely in the huge emptiness. Dominant above the rest were heard the hard tones of the prefect of police. "I can assure you," he was saying, "that I feel the greatest regret in being obliged to assert my decision." Giovanni and Corona came forward, and the rest made way for them. The prefect stood with his back to the light and to the table, like a man who is at bay. He was of middle height, very dark, and inclining to stoutness. His aquiline features and his eyes, round in shape, but half veiled by heavy lids, gave him something of the appearance of an owl. When he spoke, his voice was harsh and mechanical, and he always seemed to be looking just over the head of the person he addressed. He made no gestures and held himself very straight. Opposite him stood Faustina Montevarchi, her face luminously pale, her eyes almost wild in their fixed expression. She held her hands clasped before her, and her fingers worked nervously. Around her stood her brothers and their wives, apparently speechless with horror, crowding together like frightened sheep before the officer of the law. Neither her mother, nor Flavia, nor San Giacinto accompanied the rest. It would be impossible to imagine a number of persons more dumb and helpless with fear. "Oh Corona, save me!" cried Faustina, throwing herself into her friend's arms as soon as she saw her face. "Will you be good enough to explain what has occurred?" said Giovanni, confronting the prefect sternly. "Do you mean to tell me that you have accused this innocent child of murdering her father? You are mad, sir!" "Pardon me, Signor Principe, I am not mad, and no one can regret more than I what has occurred here," replied the other in loud, metallic tones. "I will give you the facts in two minutes. Prince Montevarchi was found dead an hour ago. He had been dead some time. He had been strangled by means of this pocket handkerchief--observe the stains of blood--which I hold as part of the evidence. The Signora Donna Faustina is admitted to be the last person who saw the prince alive. She admits, furthermore, that a violent scene occurred between her and her father this afternoon, in the course of which his Excellency struck his daughter, doubtless in the way of paternal correction--observe the bruise upon the young lady's mouth. There is also another upon her arm. It is clear that, being young and vigorous and remarkably well grown, she opposed violence to violence. She went behind him, for the prince was found dead in his chair, leaning forward upon the table, and she succeeded in knotting the handkerchief so firmly as to produce asphyxia superinduced by strangulation without suspension. All this is very clear. I have examined every member of the household, and have reluctantly arrived at the conclusion, most shocking no doubt to these pacifically disposed persons, that this young lady allowed herself to be so far carried away by her feelings as to take the life of her parent. Upon this charge I have no course but to arrest her person, the case being very clear, and to convey her to a safe place." Giovanni could scarcely contain his wrath while the prefect made this long speech, but he was resolved to listen to the account given without interrupting it. When the man had finished, however, his anger burst out. "And do you take nothing into consideration," he cried, "but the fact that the prince was strangled with that handkerchief, and that there had been some disagreement between him and his daughter in the course of the day? Do you mean to say, that you, who ought to be a man of sense, believe it possible that this delicate child could take a hale old gentleman by the throat and throttle him to death? It is madness, I say! It is absurd!" "It is not absurd," answered the prefect, whose mechanical tone never changed throughout the conversation. "There is no other explanation for the facts, and the facts are undeniable. Would you like to see the body?" "There are a thousand explanations each ten thousand times as reasonable as the one you offer. He was probably murdered by a servant out of spite, or for the sake of robbing him. You are so sure of your idea that I daresay you did not think of searching the room to see whether anything had been taken or not." "You are under a delusion. Everything has been searched. Moreover, it is quite well known that his deceased Excellency never kept money in the house. There was consequently nothing to take." "Then it was done out of spite, by a servant, unless some one got in through the window." "No one could get in through the window. It was done out of anger by this young lady." "I tell you it was not!" cried Giovanni, growing furious at the man's obstinacy. "There is reason to believe that it was," returned the prefect, perfectly unmoved. Giovanni stamped his foot upon the floor angrily and turned away. Faustina had drawn back a little and was leaning upon Corona's arm for support, while the latter spoke words of comfort in her ear, such words as she could find at such a time. A timid murmur of approval arose from the others every time Giovanni spoke, but none of them ventured to say anything distinctly. Giovanni was disgusted with them all and turned to the young girl herself. "Donna Faustina, will you tell me what you know?" She had seemed exhausted by the struggle she had already endured, but at Sant' Ilario's question, she straightened herself and came forward again one or two steps. Giovanni thought her eyes very strange, but she spoke collectedly and clearly. "I can only say what I have said before," she answered. "My father sent for me this afternoon, I should think about three o'clock. He spoke of my marriage, which he has been contemplating some time. I answered that I would not marry Prince Frangipani's son, because--" she hesitated. "Because?" "Because I love another man," she continued almost defiantly. "A man who is not a prince but an artist." A murmur of horror ran round the little group of the girl's relations. She glanced at them scornfully. "I am not ashamed of it," she said. "But I would not tell you unless it were necessary--to make you understand how angry he was. I forgot--he had called my mother, and she was there. He sent her away. Then he came back and struck me! I put my handkerchief to my mouth because it bled. He snatched it away and threw it on the floor. He took me by the arm--he was standing--I wrenched myself out of his hands and ran away, because I was afraid of him. I did not see him again. Beyond this I know nothing." Giovanni was struck by the concise way in which Faustina told her story. It was true that she had told it for the second time, but, while believing entirely in her innocence, he saw that her manner might easily have made a bad impression upon the prefect. When she had done, she stood still a moment. Then her hands dropped by her sides and she shrank back again to Corona who put her arm round the girl's waist and supported her. "I must say that my sister's tale seems clearly true," said the feeble voice of Ascanio Bellegra. His thin, fair beard seemed to tremble as he moved his lips. "Seems!" cried Corona indignantly. "It is true! How can any one be so mad as to doubt it?" "I do not deny its truth," said the prefect, speaking in the air. "I only say that the appearances are such as to oblige me to take steps--" "If you lay a hand on her--" began Giovanni. "Do not threaten me," interrupted the other calmly. "My men are outside." Giovanni had advanced towards him with a menacing gesture. Immediately Faustina's sisters-in-law began to whimper and cry with fright, while her brothers made undecided movements as though wishing to part the two angry men, but afraid to come within arm's length of either. "Giovanni!" exclaimed Corona. "Do not be violent--it is of no use. Hear me," she added, turning towards the prefect, and at the same time making a gesture that seemed to shield Faustina. "I am at your service, Signora Principessa, but my time is valuable." "Hear me--I will not detain you long. You are doing a very rash and dangerous thing in trying to arrest Donna Faustina, a thing you may repent of. You are no doubt acting as you believe right, but your heart must tell you that you are wrong. Look at her face. She is a delicate child. Has she the features of a murderess? She is brave against you, because you represent a horrible idea against which her whole nature revolts, but can you believe that she has the courage to do such a deed, the bad heart to will it, or the power to carry it out? Think of what took place. Her father sent for her suddenly. He insisted roughly on a marriage she detests. What woman would not put out her whole strength to resist such tyranny? What woman would submit quietly to be matched with a man she loathes? She said, 'I will not.' She even told her father and mother, together, that she loved another man. Her mother left the room, her mother, the only one from whom she might have expected support. She was alone with her father, and he was angry. Was he an enfeebled invalid, confined to his chair, broken with years, incapable of an effort? Ask his children. We all knew him well. He was not very old, he was tall, erect, even strong for his years. He was angry, beside himself with disappointment. He rises from his chair, he seizes her by the arm, he strikes her in the face with his other hand. You say that he struck her when he was seated. It is impossible--could she not have drawn back, avoiding the blow? Would the blow itself have had such force? No. He was on his feet, a tall, angry man, holding her by one arm. Is it conceivable that she, a frail child, could have had the physical strength to force him back to his seat, to hold him there while she tied that handkerchief round his neck, to resist and suppress his struggles until he was dead? Do you think such a man would die easily? Do you think that to send him out of the world it would be enough to put your fingers to his throat--such little fingers as these?" she held up Faustina's passive hand in her own, before their eyes. "A man does not die in an instant by strangling. He struggles, he strikes desperate blows, he turns to the right and the left, twisting himself with all his might. Could this child have held him? I ask it of your common sense. I ask of your heart whether a creature that God has made so fair, so beautiful, so innocent, could do such terrible work. The woman who could do such things would bear the sign of her badness in her face, and the fear of what she had done in her soul. She would tremble, she would have tried to escape, she would hesitate in her story, she would contradict herself, break down, attempt to shed false tears, act as only a woman who has committed a first great crime could act. And this child stands here, submitted to this fearful ordeal, defended by none, but defending herself with the whole innocence of her nature, the glory of truth in her eyes, the self-conscious courage of a stainless life in her heart. Is this assumed? Is this put on? You have seen murderers--it is your office to see them--did you ever see one like her? Do you not know the outward tokens of guilt when they are before your eyes? You would do a thing that is monstrous in absurdity, monstrous in cruelty, revolting to reason, outrageous to every instinct of human nature. Search, inquire, ask questions, arrest whom you will, but leave this child in peace; this child, with her angel face, her fearless eyes, her guiltless heart!" Encouraged by Corona's determined manner as well as by the good sense of her arguments, the timid flock of relations expressed their approval audibly. Giovanni looked at his wife in some surprise; for he had never heard her make so long a speech before, and had not suspected her of the ability she displayed. He was proud of her in that moment and moved nearer to her, as though ready to support every word she had uttered. The prefect alone stood unmoved by her eloquence. He was accustomed in his profession to hear far more passionate appeals to his sensibilities, and he was moreover a man who, being obliged generally to act quickly, had acquired the habit of acting upon the first impulse of his intelligence. For a moment his heavy lids were raised a little, either in astonishment or in admiration, but no other feature of his face betrayed that he was touched. "Signora Principessa," he said in his usual tone, "those are arguments which may be used with propriety by the persons who will defend the accused before the tribunals--" Giovanni laughed in his face. "Do you suppose, seriously, that Donna Faustina will ever be brought to trial?" he asked scornfully. The prefect kept his temper wonderfully well. "It is my business to suppose so," he answered. "I am not the law, nor his Eminence either, and it is not for me to weigh the defence or to listen to appeals for mercy. I act upon my own responsibility, and it is for me to judge whether the facts are likely to support me. My reputation depends upon my judgment and upon nothing else. The fate of the accused depends upon a number of considerations with which I have nothing to do. I must tell you plainly that this interview must come to an end, I am very patient. I wish to overlook nothing. Arguments are of no avail. If there is any better evidence to offer against any one else in this house, I am here to take note of it." He looked coolly round the circle of listeners. Faustina's relations shrank back a little under his glance. "Not being able to find any person here who appears more likely to be guilty, and having found enough to justify me in my course, I intend to remove this young lady at once to the Termini." "You shall not!" said Giovanni, placing himself in front of him in a threatening attitude. "If you attempt anything of the sort, I will have you in prison yourself before morning." "You do not know what you are saying, Signor Principe. You cannot oppose me. I have an armed force here to obey my orders, and if you attempt forcible opposition I shall be obliged to take you also, very much against my will. Donna Faustina Montevarchi, I have the honour to arrest you. I trust you will make no resistance." The semi-comic phrase fell from his lips in the professional tone; in speaking of the arrest as an honour to himself, he was making an attempt to be civil according to his lights. He made a step forward in the direction of the young girl, but Giovanni seized him firmly by the wrist. He made no effort to release himself, however, but stood still. "Signor Principe, be good enough to let go of my hand." "You shall not touch her," answered Giovanni, not relinquishing his grasp. He was beginning to be dangerous. "Signor Principe, release me at once!" said the prefect in a commanding tone. "Very well, I will call my men," he added, producing a small silver whistle with his free hand and putting it to his lips. "If I call them, I shall have to send you to prison for hindering me in the execution of my duty," he said, fixing his eyes on Giovanni and preparing to sound the call. Giovanni's blood was up, and he would not have let the man go. At that moment, however, Faustina broke from Corona's arms and sprang forward. With one hand she pushed back Sant' Ilario; with the other she seized the whistle. "I will go with you!" she cried, speaking to the prefect. "I will go with him!" she repeated, turning to Giovanni. "It is a horrible mistake, but it is useless to oppose him any longer. I will go, I say!" An hysterical chorus of cries from her relations greeted this announcement. Giovanni made a last effort to prevent her from fulfilling her intention. He was too much excited to see how hopeless the situation really was, and his sense of justice was revolted at the thought of the indignity. "Donna Faustina, I implore you!" he exclaimed. "I can still prevent this outrage--you must not go. I will find the cardinal and explain the mistake--he will send an order at once." "You are mistaken," answered the prefect. "He will do nothing of the kind. Besides, you cannot leave this house without my permission. The doors are all guarded." "But you cannot refuse that request," objected Corona, who had not spoken during the altercation. "It will not take half an hour for my husband to see his Eminence and get the order--" "Nevertheless I refuse," replied the official firmly. "Donna Faustina must go with me at once. You are interfering uselessly and making a useless scandal. My mind is made up." "Then I will go with her," said Corona, pressing the girl to her side and bestowing a contemptuous glance on the cowering figures around her. By this time her sisters-in-law had fallen into their respective husband's arms, and it was hard to say whether the men or the women were more hopelessly hysterical. Giovanni relinquished the contest reluctantly, seeing that he was altogether overmatched by the prefect's soldiers. "I will go too," he said. "You cannot object to our taking Donna Faustina in our carriage." "I do not object to that. But male visitors are not allowed inside the Termini prison after dark. The Signora Principessa may spend the night there if it is her pleasure. I will put a gendarme in your carriage to avoid informality." "I presume you will accept my promise to conduct Donna Faustina to the place," observed Giovanni. The prefect hesitated. "It is informal," he said at last, "but to oblige you I will do it. You give your word?" "Yes--since you are able to use force. We act under protest. You will remember that." Faustina's courage did not forsake her at the last moment. She kissed each of her brothers and each of her sisters-in-law as affectionately as though they had offered to bear her company. There were many loud cries and sobs and protestations of devotion, but not one proposed to go with her. The only one who would have been bold enough was Flavia, and even if she had been present she would not have had the heart to perform such an act of unselfishness. Faustina and Corona, Giovanni and the prefect, left the room together. "I will have you in prison before morning," said Sant' Ilario fiercely, in the ear of the official, as they reached the outer hall. The prefect made no reply, but raised his shoulders almost imperceptibly and smiled for the first time, as he pointed silently to the gendarmes. The latter formed into an even rank and tramped down the stairs after the four persons whom they accompanied. In a few minutes the whole party were on their way to the Termini, Faustina with her friends in Sant' Ilario's carriage, the prefect in his little brougham, the soldiers on their horses, trotting steadily along in a close squad. Faustina sat leaning her head upon Corona's shoulder, while Giovanni looked out of the window into the dark streets, his rage boiling within him, and all the hotter because he was powerless to change the course of events. From time to time he uttered savage ejaculations which promised ill for the prefect's future peace, either in this world or in the next, but the sound of the wheels rolling upon the uneven paving-stones prevented his voice from reaching the two women. "Dear child," said Corona, "do not be frightened. You shall be free to-night or in the morning--I will not leave you." Faustina was silent, but pressed her friend's hand again and again, as though she understood. She herself was overcome by a strange wonderment which made her almost incapable of appreciating what happened to her. She felt very much as she had felt once before, on the night of the insurrection, when she had found herself lying upon the pavement before the half-ruined barracks, stunned by the explosion, unable for a time to collect her senses, supported only by her physical elasticity, which was yet too young to be destroyed by any moral shock. CHAPTER XXII. On the following morning all Rome rang with the news that the Saracinesca had lost their title, and that Faustina Montevarchi had murdered her father. No one connected the two events, but the shock to the public mind was so tremendous that almost any incredible tale would have been believed. The story, as it was generally told, set forth that Faustina had gone mad and had strangled her father in his sleep. Every one agreed in affirming that he had been found dead with her handkerchief tied round his neck. It was further stated that the young girl was no longer in the Palazzo Montevarchi, but had been transferred to the women's prison at the Termini, pending further examination into the details of the case. The Palazzo Montevarchi was draped in black, and before night funeral hatchments were placed upon the front of the parish church bearing the Montevarchi arms. No one was admitted to the palace upon any pretext whatever, though it was said that San Giacinto and Flavia had spent the night there. No member of the family had been seen by any one, and nobody seemed to know exactly whence the various items of information had been derived. Strange to say, every word of what was repeated so freely was true, excepting that part of the tale which accused Faustina of having done the deed. What had taken place up to the time when Corona and Giovanni had come may be thus briefly told. Prince Montevarchi had been found dead by the servant who came to bring a lamp to the study, towards evening, when it grew dark. As soon as the alarm was given a scene of indescribable confusion followed, which lasted until the prefect of police arrived, accompanied by a party of police officials. The handkerchief was examined and identified. Thereupon, in accordance with the Roman practice of that day, the prefect had announced his determination of taking Faustina into custody. The law took it for granted that the first piece of circumstantial evidence which presented itself must be acted upon with the utmost promptitude. A few questions had shown immediately that Faustina was the last person who had seen Montevarchi alive. The young girl exhibited a calmness which surprised every one. She admitted that her father had been angry with her and had struck her, but she denied all knowledge of his death. It is sufficient to say that she fearlessly told the truth, so fearlessly as to prejudice even her own family with regard to her. Even the blood on the handkerchief was against her, though she explained that it was her own, and although the bruise on her lip bore out the statement. The prefect was inexorable. He explained that Faustina could be taken privately to the Termini, and that the family might use its influence on the next day to procure her immediate release, but that his duty compelled him for the present to secure her person, that he was responsible, that he was only doing his duty, and so forth and so on. The consternation of the family may be imagined. The princess broke down completely under what seemed very like a stroke of paralysis. San Giacinto and Flavia were not to be found at their house, and as the carriage had not returned, nobody knew where they were. The wives of Faustina's brothers shut themselves up in their rooms and gave way to hysterical tears, while the brothers themselves seemed helpless to do anything for their sister. Seeing herself abandoned by every one Faustina had sent for Corona Saracinesca. It was the wisest thing she could have done. In a quarter of an hour Corona and her husband entered the room together. The violent scene which followed has been already described, in which Giovanni promised the prefect of police that if he persisted in his intention of arresting Faustina he should himself be lodged in the Carceri Nuove in twelve hours. But the prefect had got the better of the situation, being accompanied by an armed force which Giovanni was powerless to oppose. All that could be obtained had been that Giovanni and Corona should take Faustina to the Termini in their carriage, and that Corona should stay with the unfortunate young girl all night if she wished to do so. Giovanni could not be admitted. The prison of the Termini was under the administration of an order of nuns devoted especially to the care of prisoners. The prefect arrived in his own carriage simultaneously with the one which conveyed his prisoner and her friends. As the gate was opened and one of the sisters appeared, he whispered a few words into her ear. She looked grave at first, and then, when she saw Faustina's angel face, she shook her head incredulously. The prefect had accomplished his duty, however. The prison-gates closed after the two ladies, and the sentinel outside resumed his walk, while the carriages drove away, the one containing the officer of the law and the other Giovanni, who had himself driven at once to the Vatican, in spite of the late hour. The great cardinal received him but, to his amazement, refused an order of release. The sister who admitted Corona and Faustina took the latter's hand kindly and looked into her face by the light of the small lantern she carried. "It is some dreadful mistake, my child," she said. "But I have no course but to obey. You are Donna Faustina Montevarchi?" "Yes--this is the Princess Sant' Ilario." "Will you come with me? I will give you the best room we have--it is not very like a prison." "This is," said Faustina, shuddering at the sight of the massive stone walls, quite as much as from the dampness of the night air. "Courage, dear!" whispered Corona, drawing the girl's slight figure close to her and arranging the mantle upon her shoulders. But Corona herself was uneasy as to the result of the ghastly adventure, and she looked anxiously forward into the darkness beyond the nun's lantern. At last they found themselves in a small whitewashed chamber, so small that it was brightly lighted by the two wicks of a brass oil-lamp on the table. The nun left them alone, at Corona's request, promising to return in the course of an hour. Faustina sat down upon the edge of the little bed, and Corona upon a chair beside her. Until now, the unexpected excitement of what had passed during the last three or four hours had sustained the young girl. Everything that had happened had seemed to be a part of a dream until she found herself at last in the cell of the Termini prison, abandoned by every one save Corona. Her courage broke down. She threw herself back upon the pillow and burst into tears. Corona did not know what to do, but tried to comfort her as well as she could, wondering inwardly what would have happened had the poor child been brought to such a place alone. "What have I done, that such things should happen to me?" cried Faustina at last, sitting up and staring wildly at her friend. Her small white hands lay helplessly in her lap and her rich brown hair was beginning to be loosened and to fall upon her shoulders. The tears stood in Corona's eyes. It seemed to her infinitely pathetic that this innocent creature should have been chosen as the victim to expiate so monstrous a crime. "It will be all cleared up in the morning," she answered, trying to speak cheerfully or at least hopefully. "It is an abominable mistake of the prefect's. I will not leave you, dear--take heart, we will talk--the nun will bring you something to eat--the night will soon pass." "In prison!" exclaimed Faustina, in a tone of horror and despair, not heeding what Corona said. "Try and fancy it is not--" "And my father dead!" She seemed suddenly to realise that he was gone for ever. "Poor papa! poor papa!" she moaned. "Oh, I did not mean to be undutiful--indeed I did not--and I can never tell you so now--" "You must not reproach yourself, darling," said Corona, trying to soothe her and to draw the pitiful pale face to her shoulder, while she wound her arm tenderly about the young girl's waist. "Pray for him, Faustina, but do not reproach yourself too much. After all, dear, he was unkind to you--" "Oh, do not say that--he is dead!" She lowered her voice almost to a whisper as she spoke, and an expression of awe came over her features. "He is dead, Corona. I shall never see him again--oh, why did I not love him more? I am frightened when I think that he is dead--who did it?" The question came suddenly, and Faustina started and shuddered. Corona pressed her to her side and smoothed her hair gently. She felt that she must say something, but she hardly expected that Faustina would understand reason. She gathered her energy, however, to make the best effort in her power. "Listen to me, Faustina," she said, in a tone of quiet authority, "and try and see all this as I see it. It is not right that you should reproach yourself, for you have had no share in your father's death, and if you parted in anger it was his fault, not yours. He is dead, and there is nothing for you to do but to pray that he may rest in peace. You have been accused unjustly of a deed which any one might see you were physically incapable of doing. You will be released from this place to-morrow morning, if not during the night. One thing is absolutely necessary--you must be calm and quiet, or you will have brain fever in a few hours. Do not think I am heartless, dear. A worse thing might have happened to you. You have been suspected by an ignorant man who will pay dearly for his mistake; you might have been suspected by those you love." Corona sighed, and her voice trembled with the last words. To her, Faustina was suffering far more from the shock to her sensibilities than from any real grief. She knew that she had not loved her father, but the horror of his murder and the fright at being held accountable for it were almost enough to drive her mad. And yet she could not be suffering what Corona had suffered in being suspected by Giovanni, she had not that to lose which Corona had lost, the dominating passion of her life had not been suddenly burnt out in the agony of an hour, she was only the victim of a mistake which could have no consequences, which would leave no trace behind. But Faustina shivered and turned paler still at Corona's words. "By those I love? Ah no! Not by him--by them!" The blood rushed to her white face, and her hand fell on her friend's shoulder. Corona heard and knew that the girl was thinking of Anastase. She wondered vaguely whether the hot-headed soldier artist had learned the news and what he would do when he found that Faustina was lodged in a prison. "And yet--perhaps--oh no! It is impossible!" Her sweet, low voice broke again, and was lost in passionate sobbing. For a long time Corona could do nothing to calm her. The tears might be a relief to the girl's overwrought faculties, but they were most distressing to hear and see. "Do you love him very much, dear?" asked Corona, when the paroxysm began to subside. "I would die for him, and he would die for me," answered Faustina simply, but a happy smile shone through her grief that told plainly how much dearer to her was he who was left than he who was dead. "Tell me about him," said Corona softly. "He is a friend of mine--" "Indeed he is! You do not know how he worships you. I think that next to me in the world--but then, of course, he could not love you--besides, you are married." Corona could not help smiling, and yet there was a sting in the words, of which Faustina could not dream. Why could not Giovanni have taken this child's straight-forward, simple view, which declared such a thing impossible--because Corona was married. What a wealth of innocent belief in goodness was contained in that idea! The princess began to discover a strange fascination in finding out what Faustina felt for this man, whom she, Corona, had been suspected of loving. What could it be like to love such a man? He was good-looking, clever, brave, even interesting, perhaps; but to love him--Corona suddenly felt that interest in the analysis of his character which is roused in us when we are all at once brought into the confidence of some one who can tell by experience what we should have felt with regard to a third person, who has come very near to our lives, if he or she had really become a part of our existence. Faustina's present pain and sense of danger momentarily disappeared as she was drawn into talking of what absorbed her whole nature, and Corona saw that by leading the conversation in that direction she might hope to occupy the girl's thoughts. Faustina seemed to forget her misfortunes in speaking of Gouache, and Corona listened, and encouraged her to go on. The strong woman who had suffered so much saw gradually unfolded before her a series of pictures, constituting a whole that was new to her. She comprehended for the first time in her life the nature of an innocent girl's love, and there was something in what she learned that softened her and brought the moisture into her dark eyes. She looked at the delicate young creature beside her, seated upon the rough bed, her angelic loveliness standing out against the cold background of the whitewashed wall. The outline seemed almost vaporous, as though melting into the transparency of the quiet air; the gentle brown eyes were at once full of suffering and full of love; the soft, thick hair fell in disorder upon her shoulders, in that exquisite disorder that belongs to beautiful things in nature when they are set free and fall into the position which is essentially their own; her white fingers, refined and expressive, held Corona's slender olive hand, pressing it and moving as they touched it, with every word she spoke. Corona almost felt that some spiritual, half divine being had glided down from another world to tell her of an angel's love. The elder woman thought of her own life and compared it with what she saw. Sold to a decrepit old husband who had worshipped her in strange, pathetic fashion of his own, she had spent five years in submitting to an affection she loathed, enduring it to the very end, and sacrificing every instinct of her nature in the performance of her duty. Liberated at last, she had given herself up to her love for Giovanni, in a passion of the strong kind that never comes in early youth. She asked herself what had become of that passion, and whether it could ever be revived. In any case it was something wholly different from the love of which Faustina was speaking. She had fought against it when it came, with all her might; being gone, it had left her cold and indifferent to all she could still command, incapable of even pretending to love. It had passed through her life as a whirlwind through a deep forest, and its track was like a scar. What Faustina knew, she could never have known, the sudden growth within her of something beautiful against which there was no need to struggle, the whole-hearted devotion from the first, the joy of a love that had risen suddenly like the dawn of a fair day, the unspeakable happiness of loving intensely in perfect innocence of the world, of giving her whole soul at once and for ever, unconscious that there could be anything else to give. "I would die for him, and he would die for me," Faustina had said, knowing that her words were true. Corona would die for Giovanni now, no doubt, but not because she loved him any longer. She would sacrifice herself for what had been, for the memory of it, for the bitterness of having lost it and of feeling that it could not return. That was a state very different from Faustina's; it was pain, not happiness, despair, not joy, emptiness, not fulness. Her eyes grew sad, and she sighed bitterly as though oppressed by a burden from which she could not escape. Faustina's future seemed to her to be like a beautiful vision among the clouds of sunrise, her own like the reflection of a mournful scene in a dark pool of stagnant water. The sorrow of her life rose in her eyes, until the young girl saw it and suddenly ceased speaking. It was like a reproach to her, for her young nature had already begun to forget its trouble in the sweetness of its own dream. Corona understood the sudden silence, and her expression changed, for she felt that if she dwelt upon what was nearest to her heart she could give but poor consolation. "You are sad," said Faustina. "It is not for me--what is it?" "No. It is not for you, dear child." Corona looked at the young girl for a moment and tried to smile. Then she rose from the chair and turned away, pretending to trim the brass oil-lamp with the little metal snuffers that hung from it by a chain. The tears blinded her. She rested her hands upon the table and bent her head. Faustina watched her in surprise, then slipped from her place on the bed and stood beside her, looking up tenderly into the sad dark eyes from which the crystal drops welled up and trickled down, falling upon the rough deal boards. "What is it, dear?" asked the young girl. "Will you not tell me!" Corona turned and threw her arms round her, pressing her to her breast, almost passionately. Faustina did not understand what was happening. "I never saw you cry before!" she exclaimed in innocent astonishment, as she tried to brush away the tears from her friend's face. "Ah Faustina! There are worse things in the world than you are suffering, child!" Then she made a great effort and overcame the emotion that had taken possession of her. She was ashamed to have played such a part when she had come to the place to give comfort to another. "It is nothing," she said, after a moment's pause. "I think I am nervous--at least, I am very foolish to let myself cry when I ought to be taking care of you." A long silence followed, which was broken at last by the nun, who entered the room, bringing such poor food as the place afforded. She repeated her assurance that Faustina's arrest was the result of a mistake, and that she would be certainly liberated in the morning. Then, seeing that the two friends appeared to be preoccupied, she bade them good-night and went away. It was the longest night Corona remembered to have ever passed. For a long time they talked a little, and at length Faustina fell asleep, exhausted by all she had suffered, while Corona sat beside her, watching her regular breathing and envying her ability to rest. She herself could not close her eyes, though she could not explain her wakefulness. At last she lay down upon the other bed and tried to forget herself. After many hours she lost consciousness for a time, and then awoke suddenly, half stifled by the sickening smell of the lamp which had gone out, filling the narrow room with the odour of burning oil. It was quite dark, and the profound silence was broken only by the sound of Faustina's evenly-drawn breath. The poor child was too weary to be roused by the fumes that had disturbed Corona's rest. But Corona rose and groped her way to the window, which she opened as noiselessly as she could. Heavy iron bars were built into the wall upon the outside, and she grasped the cold iron with a sense of relief as she looked out at the quiet stars, and tried to distinguish the trees which, as she knew, were planted on the other side of the desolate grass-grown square, along the old wall that stood there, at that time, like a fortification between the Termini and the distant city. Below the window the sentry tramped slowly up and down in his beat, his steps alone breaking the intense stillness of the winter night. Corona realised that she was in a prison. There was something in the discomfort which was not repugnant to her, as she held the grating in her fingers and let the cold air blow upon her face. After all, she thought, her life would seem much the same in such a place, in a convent, perhaps, where she could be alone all day, all night, for ever. She could not be more unhappy behind those bars than she had often been in the magnificent palaces in which her existence had been chiefly passed. Nothing gave her pleasure, nothing interested her, nothing had the power to distract her mind from the aching misery that beset it. She said to herself a hundred times a day that such apathy was unworthy of her, and she blamed herself when she found that even the loss of the great Saracinesca suit left her indifferent. She did no good to herself and none to any one else, so far as she could see, unless it were good to allow Giovanni to love her, now that she no longer felt a thrill of pleasure at his coming nor at the sound of his voice. At least she had been honest. She could say that, for she had not deceived him. She had forgiven him, but was it her fault if he had destroyed that which he now most desired? Was it her fault that forgiveness did not mean love? Her suffering was not the selfish pain of wounded vanity, for Giovanni's despair would have healed such a wound by showing her the strength of his passion. There was no resentment in her heart, either, for she longed to love him. But even the habit of loving was gone, broken away and forgotten in the sharp agony of an hour. She had done her best to bring it back, she had tried to repeat phrases that had once come from her heart with the conviction of great joy, each time they had been spoken. But the words were dead and meant nothing, or if they had a meaning they told her of the change in herself. She was willing to argue against it, to say again and again that she had no right to be so changed, that there had been enough to make any man suspicious, that she would have despised him had he overlooked such convincing evidence. Could a man love truly and not have some jealousy in his nature? Could a man have such overwhelming proof given him of guilt in the woman he adored and yet show nothing, any more than if she had been a stranger? But the argument was not satisfactory, nor conclusive. If human ills could be healed by the use of logic, there would long since have been no unhappiness left in the world. Is there anything easier than to deceive one's self when one wishes to be deceived? Nothing, surely, provided that the inner reality of ourselves which we call our hearts consents to the deception. But if it will not consent, then there is no help in all the logic that has been lavished upon the philosophy of a dozen ages. Her slender fingers tightened upon the freezing bars, and once more, in the silent night, her tears flowed down as she looked up at the stars through the prison window. The new condition of her life sought an expression she had hitherto considered as weak and despicable, and against which she struggled even now. There was no relief in weeping, it brought her no sense of rest, no respite from the dull consciousness of her situation; and yet she could not restrain the drops that fell so fast upon her hands. She suffered always, without any intermittence, as people do who have little imagination, with few but strong passions and a constant nature. There are men and women whose active fancy is able to lend a romantic beauty to misfortune, which gives some pleasure even to themselves, or who can obtain some satisfaction, if they are poets, by expressing their pain in grand or tender language. There are others to whom sorrow is but a reality, for which all expression seems inadequate. Corona was such a woman, too strong to suffer little, too unimaginative to suffer poetically. There are those who might say that she exaggerated the gravity of the position, that, since Giovanni had always been faithful to her, had acknowledged his error and repented of it so sincerely, there was no reason why she should not love him as before. The answer is very simple. The highest kind of love not only implies the highest trust in the person loved, but demands it in return; the two conditions are as necessary to each other as body and soul, so that if one is removed from the other, the whole love dies. Our relations with our fellow-creatures are reciprocal in effect, whatever morality may require in theory, from the commonest intercourse between mere acquaintances to the bond between man and wife. An honest man will always hesitate to believe another unless he himself is believed. Humanity gives little, on the whole, unless it expects a return; still less will men continue to give when their gifts have been denounced to them as false, no matter what apology is offered after the mistake has been discovered. Corona was very human, and being outwardly cold, she was inwardly more sensitive to suspicion than very expansive women can ever be. With women who express very readily what they feel, the expression often assumes such importance as to deceive them into believing their passions to be stronger than they are. Corona had given all, love, devotion, faithfulness, and yet, because appearances had been against her, Giovanni had doubted her. He had cut the plant down at the very root, and she had nothing more to give. Faustina moved in her sleep. Corona softly closed the window and once more lay down to rest. The hours seemed endless as she listened for the bells. At last the little room grew gray and she could distinguish the furniture in the gloom. Then all at once the door opened, and the nun entered, bearing her little lantern and peering over it to try and see whether the occupants of the chamber were awake. In the shadow behind her Corona could distinguish the figure of a man. "The prince is here," said the sister in a low voice, as she saw that Corona's eyes were open. The latter glanced at Faustina, whose childlike sleep was not interrupted. She slipped from the bed and went out into the corridor. The nun would have led the two down to the parlour, but Corona would not go so far from Faustina. At their request she opened an empty cell a few steps farther on, and left Giovanni and his wife alone in the gray dawn. Corona looked eagerly into his eyes for some news concerning the young girl. He took her hand and kissed it. "My darling--that you should have spent the night in such a place as this!" he exclaimed. "Never mind me. Is Faustina at liberty? Did you see the cardinal?" "I saw him." Giovanni shook his head. "And do you mean to say that he would not give the order at once?" "Nothing would induce him to give it. The prefect got there before me, and I was kept waiting half an hour while they talked the matter over. The cardinal declared to me that he knew there had been an enmity between Faustina and her father concerning her love for Gouache--" "Her love for Gouache!" repeated Corona slowly, looking into his eyes. She could not help it. Giovanni turned pale and looked away as he continued. "Yes, and he said that the evidence was very strong, since no one had been known to enter the house, and the servants were clearly innocent--not one of them betrayed the slightest embarrassment." "In other words, he believes that Faustina actually did it?" "It looks like it," said Giovanni in a low voice. "Giovanni!" she seized his arm. "Do you believe it, too?" "I will believe whatever you tell me." "She is as innocent as I!" cried Corona, her eyes blazing with indignation. Giovanni understood more from the words than she meant to convey. "Will you never forgive?" he asked sadly. "I did not mean that--I meant Faustina. Giovanni--you must get her away from here. You can, if you will." "I will do much for you," he answered quietly. "It is not for me. It is for an unfortunate child who is the victim of a horrible mistake. I have comforted her by promising that she should be free this morning. She will go mad if she is kept here." "Whatever I do, I do for you, and I will do nothing for any one else. For you or for no one, but I must know that it is really for you." Corona understood and turned away. It was broad daylight now, as she looked through the grating of the window, watching the people who passed, without seeing them. "What is Faustina Montevarchi to me, compared with your love?" Giovanni asked. Something in the tone of his voice made her look at him. She saw the intensity of his feeling in his eyes, and she wondered that he should try to tempt her to love him with, such an insignificant bribe--with the hope of liberating the young girl. She did not understand that he was growing desperate. Had she known what was in his mind she might have made a supreme effort to deceive herself into the belief that he was still to her what he had been so long. But she did not know. "For the sake of her innocence, Giovanni!" she exclaimed. "Can you let a child like that suffer so? I am sure, if you really would you could manage it, with your influence. Do you not see that I am suffering too, for the girl's sake?" "Will you say that it is for your sake?" "For my sake--if you will," she cried almost impatiently. "For your sake, then," he answered. "Remember that it is for you, Corona." Before she could answer, he had left the room, without another word, without so much as touching her hand. Corona gazed sadly at the open door, and then returned to Faustina. An hour later the nun entered the cell, with a bright smile on her face. "Your carriage is waiting for you--for you both," she said, addressing the princess. "Donna Faustina is free to return to her mother." CHAPTER XXIII. When Giovanni Saracinesca had visited Cardinal Antonelli on the previous evening, he had been as firmly persuaded that Faustina was innocent, as Corona herself, and was at first very much astonished by the view the great man took of the matter. But as the latter developed the case, the girl's guilt no longer seemed impossible, or even improbable. The total absence of any ostensible incentive to the murder gave Faustina's quarrel with her father a very great importance, which was further heightened by the nature of the evidence. There had been high words, in the course of which the Princess Montevarchi had left the room, leaving her daughter alone with the old man. No one had seen him alive after that moment, and he had been found dead, evidently strangled with her handkerchief. The fact that Faustina had a bruise on her arm and a cut on her lip pointed to the conclusion that a desperate struggle had taken place. The cardinal argued that, although she might not have had the strength to do the deed if the contest had begun when both were on their feet, it was by no means impossible that so old a man might have been overcome by a young and vigorous girl, if she had attacked him when he was in his chair, and was prevented from rising by the table before him. As for the monstrosity of the act, the cardinal merely smiled when Giovanni alluded to it. Had not fathers been murdered by their children before, and in Rome? The argument had additional weight, when Giovanni remembered Faustina's wild behaviour on the night of the insurrection. A girl who was capable of following a soldier into action, and who had spent hours in searching for him after such an appalling disaster as the explosion of the Serristori barracks, might well be subject to fits of desperate anger, and it was by no means far from likely, if her father had struck her in the face from his place at the table, that she should have laid violent hands upon him, seizing him by the throat and strangling him with her handkerchief. Her coolness afterwards might be only a part of her odd nature, for she was undoubtedly eccentric. She might be mad, said the cardinal, shaking his head, but there was every probability that she was guilty. In those days there was no appeal from the statesman's decisions in such matters. Faustina would remain a prisoner until she could be tried for the crime. His Eminence was an early riser, and was not altogether surprised that Giovanni should come to him at such an hour, especially as he knew that the Princess Sant' Ilario had spent the night with Faustina in the Termini prison. He was altogether taken aback, however, by Giovanni's manner, and by the communication he made. "I had the honour of telling your Eminence last night, that Donna Faustina Montevarchi was innocent," began Giovanni, who refused the offer of a seat. "I trusted that she might be liberated immediately, but you have determined otherwise. I am not willing that an innocent person should suffer unjustly. I have come, therefore, to surrender myself to justice in this case." The cardinal stared, and an expression of unmitigated astonishment appeared upon his delicate olive features, while his nervous hands grasped the arms of his chair. "You!" he cried. "I, your Eminence. I will explain myself. Yesterday the courts delivered their verdict, declaring that my cousin San Giacinto is Prince Saracinesca, instead of my father, and transferring to him all our hereditary property. The man who found out that there was a case against us, and caused it to be brought to trial, was Prince Montevarchi. You may perhaps understand my resentment against him. If you recollect the evidence which was detailed to you last night you will see that it was quite possible for me to go to him without being observed. The door chanced to be open, and there was no one in the hall. I am perfectly acquainted with the house. Several hours elapsed between the time when Donna Faustina left her father and the moment when he was found dead in his chair. You can understand how I could enter the room unseen, how angry words naturally must have arisen between us, and how, losing my self-control, I could have picked up Donna Faustina's handkerchief which, as she says, lay upon the floor, and knotted it effectually round the old man's neck. What could he do in my hands? The study is far from the other rooms the family inhabit, and is near the hall. To go quietly out would not have been a difficult matter for any one who knew the house. Your Eminence knows as well as I the shallowness of circumstantial evidence." "And do you tell me, calmly, like this, that you murdered a helpless old man out of revenge?" asked the cardinal, half-indignantly, half-incredulously. "Would I surrender myself as the murderer, for a caprice?" inquired Giovanni, who was very pale. The cardinal looked at him and was silent for a few moments. He was puzzled by what he heard, and yet his common sense told him that he had no course but to liberate Faustina and send Giovanni to prison. He felt, too, that he ought to experience an instinctive repulsion, for the man before him, who, by his own showing, had been guilty of such a horrible crime; but he was conscious of no such sensation. He was a man of exceedingly quick and true intuitions, who judged the persons with whom he had business very accurately. There was a lack of correspondence between his intelligence and his feelings which roused his curiosity. "You have told me a very strange story," he said. "Less strange than the one your Eminence has believed since last night," returned Giovanni calmly. "I do not know. It is more easy for me to believe that the girl was momentarily out of her mind than that you, whom I have known all my life, should have done such a thing. Besides, in telling me your story, you have never once positively asserted that you did it. You have only explained that it would have been possible for a man so disposed to accomplish the murder unsuspected." "Is a man obliged to incriminate himself directly? It seems to me that in giving myself up I have done all that a man's conscience can possibly require--outside of the confessional. I shall be tried, and my lawyer will do what he can to obtain my acquittal." "That is poor logic. Whether you confess or not, you have accused yourself in a way that must tell against you very strongly. You really leave me no choice." "Your Eminence has only to do what I request, to liberate Donna Faustina and to send me to prison." "You are a very strange man," said the cardinal in a musing tone, as he leaned back in his chair and scrutinised Giovanni's pale, impenetrable face. "I am a desperate man, that is all." "Will you give me your word of honour that Faustina Montevarchi is innocent?" "Yes," answered Giovanni without the slightest hesitation, and meeting the gaze of the cardinal's bright eyes unflinchingly. The latter paused a moment, and then turned in his chair, and taking a piece of paper wrote a few words upon it. Then he rang a little hand-bell that stood beside him. His servant entered, as he was folding and sealing the note. "To the Termini prison," he said. "The messenger had better take my carriage," observed Giovanni. "I shall not need it again." "Take Prince Sant' Ilario's carriage," added the cardinal, and the man left the room. "And now," he continued, "will you be good enough to tell me what I am to do with you?" "Send me to the Carceri Nuove, or to any convenient place." "I will do nothing that can be an injury to you hereafter," answered the statesman. "Something tells me that you have had nothing to do with this dreadful murder. But you must know that though you may deceive me--I am not omniscient--I will not tolerate any contempt of the ways of justice. You have surrendered yourself as the criminal, and I intend to take you at your word." "I ask for nothing else. Put me where you please, do what you please with me. It matters very little." "You act like a man who has had an unfortunate love affair," remarked the cardinal. "It is true that you have just lost your fortune, and that may account for it. But I repeat that, whatever your motives may be, you shall not trifle with the law. You wish to be a prisoner. The law will oblige you so far as to comply with your request. I warn you that, after this, you can only obtain your freedom through a proper trial." "Pray let it be so. My motives can be of no importance. The law shall judge the facts and give its verdict." "The law will certainly do so. In the meantime, you will spend the day in a room of my apartments, and this evening, when it is dark, you will be quietly transferred to a place of safety--and secrecy. If the real murderer is ever found, I do not wish your life to have been ruined by such a piece of folly as I believe you are committing. You say you are a desperate man, and you are acting, I think, as though you were. Your family affairs may have led to this state, but they do not concern me. You will, however, be good enough to swear, here, solemnly, laying your hand upon this book, that you will not attempt to destroy yourself." "I swear," said Giovanni, touching the volume which the cardinal presented to him. "Very good. Now follow me, if you please, to the room where you must spend the day." Giovanni found himself in a small chamber which contained only a large writing-table and a couple of chairs, and which seemed to have been destined for some sort of office. The cardinal closed the door, and Giovanni heard him turn the key and remove it from the lock. Then, for the first time, he reflected upon what he had done. He had spoken the truth when he had said that he was desperate. No other word could describe his state. A sort of madness had taken possession of him while he was talking with Corona, and he was still under its influence. There had been something in her manner which had seemed to imply that he was not doing his best to liberate Faustina, and indeed, when he remembered that the girl's innocence was by no means clear to him, he ought not to have been surprised at Corona's imputation. And yet, he had now pledged his word to the cardinal that Faustina had not done the deed. Corona's unwillingness to admit that it was for her own sake she asked his help had driven him nearly out of his mind, and when she had at last said it, even reluctantly, he had immediately resolved to show her what he was willing to do for one word of hers when she chose to speak it. He had from that moment but one thought, to free Faustina at any cost, and no plan suggested itself to him but to surrender himself in the girl's place. As a matter of fact, he could not have accomplished his purpose so quickly or surely in any other way, and perhaps he could not have otherwise accomplished it at all. It had been quite clear to him from the first that the cardinal was prejudiced against Faustina, owing, no doubt, to the representations of the prefect of police. Giovanni had carried the evidence against her clearly in his mind, and as soon as he thought of the expedient he saw how it would have been quite possible for himself, or for any other man who knew the house, to commit the murder. As for the detail concerning the doors being open, there was nothing improbable in it, seeing that there were many servants in the establishment, and that each one would suspect and accuse one of his companions of the carelessness. Nothing was easier than to construct the story, and he had supposed that nothing would be simpler than to make the cardinal believe it. He had been surprised to find himself mistaken upon this point, but he felt a thrill of triumph that more than repaid him for what he had done, when he saw the messenger leave the room with the order to liberate Faustina. Corona had spoken, had asked him to do a hard thing for her sake, and her caprice was satisfied, it mattered little at what cost. She had given him an opportunity of showing what he would do for her, and that opportunity had not been thrown away. But as he sat alone in the little room the cardinal had assigned to him, he began to realise the magnitude of what he had been doing, and to see how his actions would be judged by others. He had surrendered himself as a murderer, and was to be treated as one. When the time came for the trial, might it not happen with him as with many another innocent man who has put himself into a false position? Might he not be condemned? Nothing that he could say hereafter could remove the impression created by his giving himself up to justice. Any denial hereafter would be supposed to proceed from fear and not from innocence. And if he were condemned, what would become of Corona, of his father, of little Orsino? He shuddered at the thought. What, he asked himself, would be the defence? Yesterday afternoon he had been out of the house during several hours, and had walked alone, he hardly remembered where. Since the crisis in his life which had separated him from Corona in fact, if not in appearance, he often walked alone, wandering aimlessly through the streets. Would any of his acquaintance come forward and swear to having seen him at the time Montevarchi was murdered? Probably not. And if not, how could it be proved, in the face of his own statement to the cardinal, that he might not have gone to the palace, seeking an opportunity of expending his wrath on the old prince, that he might not have lost his self-control in a fit of anger and strangled the old man as he sat in his chair? As he himself had said, there was far more reason to believe that the Saracinesca had killed Montevarchi out of revenge, than that a girl like Faustina should have strangled her own father because he had interfered in her love affairs. If the judges took this view of the case, it was clear that Giovanni would have little chance of an acquittal. The thing looked so possible that even Corona might believe it--even Corona, for whose sake he had rushed madly into such desperate danger. And to-day she would not see him; very possibly she would not know where he was. And to-morrow? And the next day? And all the days after that? He supposed that he would be allowed to write to her, perhaps to see her, but it would be hard to explain his position. She did not love him any longer, and she would not understand. He wondered how much she would care, if she really cared at all, beyond a discreet anxiety for his safety. She would certainly not comprehend a love like his, which had chosen such a sacrifice, rather than allow her wish to remain ungratified. How could she, since she did not love him? And yet, it was imperatively necessary that she should be informed of what had happened. She might otherwise suppose, naturally enough, that some accident had befallen him, and she would in that case apply to the police, perhaps to the cardinal himself, to find out where he was. Such a contingency must be prevented, by some means, before night. Until then, she would not be frightened by his absence. There would be time, perhaps, when he was removed to the prison--to the place of safety and secrecy, of which the cardinal had spoken, and which in all probability was the Holy Office. No questions were asked there. There were writing materials on the broad table, and Giovanni began a letter to his wife. After a few minutes, however, he stopped, for he saw from what he had written that he was in no condition to attempt such a task. The words came quickly and fluently, but they expressed what he had no intention of telling Corona again. His love for her was still uppermost in his mind, and instead of trying to explain what had occurred, he found himself setting down phrases that told of nothing but a mad passion. The thought of her cold face when she should read the lines arrested his hand, and he threw down the pen impatiently, and returned to his meditations for a while. What he wanted to do was to tell her in the fewest possible words that he was alive and well. What else should he tell her? The statement would allay any anxiety she might feel, and his absence would doubtless be a relief to her. The thought was bitter, but he knew that nothing exasperates a woman like the constant presence of a man she has loved, who loves her more than ever, and for whom she no longer feels anything. At last he took another sheet of paper and tried again. "Dear Corona--When you get this, Faustina will be at liberty, according to your wish. Do not be anxious if you do not see me for a few days, as I am called away on urgent business. Tell my father, and any of our friends who ask about me, that I am at Saracinesca, superintending the removal of such effects as are not to go to San Giacinto. I will let you know when I am coming back--Your affectionate GIOVANNI." He read the note over twice, and then folded it, addressing it to his wife. His face expressed the most profound dejection when he had finished his task, and for a long time he leaned back in his chair, gazing at the morning sunlight that slowly crept across the floor, while his hands lay folded passively upon the table. The end of his love seemed very bitter as he thought of the words he had written. A few weeks ago to leave Corona thus unexpectedly would have caused her the greatest pain. Now, he felt that he need say nothing, that it would be useless to say anything, more than he had said. It was nothing to her, whether he stayed in Rome or went to the ends of the earth; indeed, he suspected that she would be glad to be left alone--unless she should discover why he had gone, and whither. This last consideration recalled to him his situation, and for a moment he was horrified at his own rashness. But the thought did not hold him long, and presently he asked himself apathetically what it could matter in the end. The hours passed slowly, and still he sat motionless by the table, the folded letter lying before him. The cardinal had scarcely returned to his study when a second card was brought to him. The gentleman, said the servant, had assured him that his Eminence would receive him, as he had important information to give concerning the murder of Prince Montevarchi. The cardinal could not repress a smile as he read the name of Anastase Gouache. The young man entered the room, and advanced in obedience to the cardinal's friendly gesture. He was as pale as death, and his soft dark eyes had an expression of despair in them such as the great man had rarely seen. For the rest, he wore his uniform, and was as carefully dressed as usual. "Your Eminence has doubtless heard of this dreadful murder?" began Gouache, forgetting all formality in the extremity of his excitement. "Yes," said the cardinal, sitting down. "You have something to communicate concerning it, I understand." "Donna Faustina Montevarchi has been charged with the crime, and is in the prison of the Termini," answered the Zouave, speaking hurriedly. "I am here to ask your Eminence to order her release without delay---" "On what grounds?" inquired the statesman, raising his eyebrows a little as though surprised by the way in which the request was made. "Because she is innocent, because her arrest was due to the mistake of the prefect of police--the evidence was against her, but it was absurd to suppose that she could have done it---" "The prefect of police received my approval. Have you any means of showing that she is innocent?" "Showing it?" repeated Gouache, who looked dazed for a moment, but recovered himself immediately, turning white to the lips. "What could be easier?" he exclaimed. "The murderer is before you--I saw the prince, I asked him for his daughter's hand in marriage, he insulted me. I left the room, but I returned soon afterwards. I found him alone, and I killed him--I do not know how I did it---" "With Donna Faustina's handkerchief," suggested the cardinal. "Perhaps you do not remember that it was lying on the floor and that you picked it up and knotted it---" "Yes, yes! Round his neck," cried Gouache nervously. "I remember. But I saw red, everything swam, the details are gone. Here I am--your Eminence's prisoner--I implore you to send the order at once!" The cardinal had hitherto maintained a grave expression. His features suddenly relaxed and he put out his hand. "My dear Monsieur Gouache, I like you exceedingly," he said. "You are a man of heart." "I do not understand---" Anastase was very much bewildered, but he saw that his plan for freeing Faustina was on the point of failure. "I appreciate your motives," continued the statesman. "You love the young lady to distraction, she is arrested on a capital charge, you conceive the idea of presenting yourself as the murderer in her place--" "But I assure your Eminence, I swear--" "No," interrupted the other, raising his hand. "Do not swear. You are incapable of such a crime. Besides, Donna Faustina is already at liberty, and the author of the deed has already confessed his guilt." Anastase staggered against the projecting shelf of the bookcase. The blood rushed to his face and for a moment he was almost unconscious of where he was. The cardinal's voice recalled him to himself. "If you doubt what I tell you, you need only go to the Palazzo Montevarchi and inquire. Donna Faustina will return with the Princess Sant' Ilario. I am sorry that circumstances prevent me from showing you the man who has confessed the crime. He is in my apartments at the present moment, separated from us only by two or three rooms." "His name, Eminence?" asked Gouache, whose whole nature seemed to have changed in a moment. "Ah, his name must for the present remain a secret in my keeping, unless, indeed, you have reason to believe that some one else did the murder. Have you no suspicions? You know the family intimately, it seems. You would probably have heard the matter mentioned, if the deceased prince had been concerned in any quarrel--in any transaction which might have made him an object of hatred to any one we know. Do you recall anything of the kind? Sit down, Monsieur Gouache. You are acquitted, you see. Instead of being a murderer you are the good friend who once painted my portrait in this very room. Do you remember our charming conversations about Christianity and the universal republic?" "I shall always remember your Eminence's kindness," answered Gouache, seating himself and trying to speak as quietly as possible. His nervous nature was very much unsettled by what had occurred. He had come determined that Faustina should be liberated at any cost, overcome by the horror of her situation, ready to lay down his life for her in the sincerity of his devotion. His conduct had been much more rational than Giovanni's. He had nothing to lose but himself, no relations to be disgraced by his condemnation, none to suffer by his loss. He had only to sacrifice himself to set free for ever the woman he loved, and he had not hesitated a moment in the accomplishment of his purpose. But the revulsion of feeling, when he discovered that Faustina was already known to be innocent, and that there was no need for his intervention, was almost more than he could bear. The tears of joy stood in his eyes while he tried to be calm. "Have you any suspicions?" asked the cardinal again, in his gentle voice. "None, Eminence. The only thing approaching to a quarrel, of which I have heard, is the suit about the title of the Saracinesca. But of course that can have nothing to do with the matter. It was decided yesterday without opposition." "It could have nothing to do with the murder, you think?" inquired the statesman with an air of interest. "No. How could it?" Gouache laughed at the idea. "The Saracinesca could not murder their enemies as they used to do five hundred years ago. Besides, your Eminence has got the murderer and must be able to guess better than I what were the incentives to the crime." "That does not follow, my friend. A man who confesses a misdeed is not bound to incriminate any one else, and a man whose conscience is sensitive enough to make him surrender himself naturally assumes the blame. He suffers remorse, and does not attempt any defence, excepting such as you yourself just now gave me, when you said that the prince had insulted you. Enough to give a semblance of truth to the story. By the bye, is that true?" "It is and it is not," answered Gouache, blushing a little. "The poor man, when I began to explain my position, thought--how shall I say? He thought I wanted to sell him a picture. It was not his fault." "Poor man!" sighed the cardinal. "He had not much tact. And so, Monsieur Gouache, you think that the great Saracinesca suit has had nothing to do with the murder?" "It seems to me impossible. It looks rather as though he had been murdered by a servant, out of spite. It is hard to believe that any one not belonging to the house could have done it." "I think the public will agree with you. I will occupy myself with the matter. Perhaps I have got the man safe in that room, but who knows? If you had come first, you might have gone to the Carceri Nuove instead of him. After all, he may be in love too." The cardinal smiled, but Gouache started at the suggestion, as though it hurt him. "I doubt that," he said quickly. "So do I. It would be a strange coincidence, if two innocent men had accused themselves of the same crime, out of love, within twenty-four hours of its being committed. But now that you are calm--yes, you were beside yourself with excitement--I must tell you that you have done a very rash thing indeed. If I had not chanced to be a friend of yours, what would have become of you? I cannot help liking your courage and devotion--you have shown it in sterner matters, and in the face of the enemy--but you might have destroyed yourself. That would have been a great sin." "Is there no case in which a man may destroy himself deliberately?" "You speak of suicide? It was almost that you contemplated. No. The church teaches that a man who takes his own life goes straight to hell. So does Mohammed, for that matter." "In any case?" "In any case. It is a mortal sin." "But," objected Gouache, "let us suppose me a very bad man, exercising a destroying influence on many other people. Suppose, in short, for the sake of argument, that my life caused others to lose their own souls, and that by killing myself I knew that they would all become good again. Suppose then, that I suddenly repented and that there was no way of saving these people but by my own suicide. Would it not be more honourable in me to say, 'Very well, I will submit to damnation rather than send all those others to eternal flames?' Should I not be justified in blowing out my brains?" The cardinal did not know whether to smile or to look grave. He was neither a priest nor a theologian, but a statesman. "My dear friend," he answered at last. "The ingenuity of your suppositions passes belief. I can only say that, when you find yourself in such a bad case as you describe, I will submit the matter for you to the Holy Father himself. But I would strongly advise you to avoid the situation if you possibly can." Gouache took his leave with a light heart, little guessing as he descended the great marble staircase that Giovanni Saracinesca was the prisoner of whom the cardinal had spoken so mysteriously, still less that he, too, had falsely accused himself of having killed poor old Montevarchi. He wondered, as he walked rapidly along the streets in the bright morning sunshine, who the man was, and why he had done such a thing, but his thoughts were really with Faustina, and he longed to see her and to hear from her own lips the true version of what had happened. CHAPTER XXIV. Arnoldo Meschini was fully conscious of what he had done when he softly closed the door of the study behind him and returned to the library; but although he knew and realised that he had murdered his employer, he could not explain the act to himself. His temples throbbed painfully and there was a bright red spot in each of his sallow cheeks. He shuffled about from one bookcase to another, and his hands trembled violently as he touched the big volumes. Now and then he glanced towards one or the other of the doors expecting at every moment that some one would enter to tell him the news, if indeed any one at such a time should chance to remember the existence of the humble librarian. His brain was on fire and seemed to burn the sockets of his eyes. And yet the time passed, and no one came. The suspense grew to be unbearable, and he felt that he would do anything to escape from it. He went to the door and laid his hand upon the latch. For an instant the flush disappeared from his cheeks, as a great fear took possession of him. He was not able to face the sight of Montevarchi's body lying across that table in the silent study. His hand fell to his side and he almost ran to the other side of the library; then, as though ashamed of his weakness he came back slowly and listened at the door. It was scarcely possible that any distant echo could reach his ears, if the household had been already roused, for the passage was long and tortuous, interrupted by other doors and by a winding staircase. But in his present state he fancied that his senses must be preternaturally sharpened and he listened eagerly. All was still. He went back to the books. There was nothing to be done but to make a desperate effort to occupy himself and to steady his nerves. If any one came now, he thought, his face would betray him. There must be a light in his eyes, an uncertainty in his manner which would speak plainly enough to his guilt. He tried to imagine what would take place when the body was found. Some one would enter the room and would see the body. He, or she, would perhaps think that the prince was in a fit, or asleep--who could tell? But he would not answer the voice that called him. Then the person would come forward and touch him--Meschini forced himself to think of it--would touch the dead hand and would feel that it was cold. With a cry of horror the person would hasten from the room. He might hear that cry, if he left the door open. Again he laid his hand upon the latch. His fingers seemed paralysed and the cold sweat stood on his face, but he succeeded in mastering himself enough to turn the handle and look out. The cry came, but it was from his own lips. He reeled back from the entrance in horror, his eyes starting from his head. There stood the dead man, in the dusky passage, shaking at him the handkerchief. It was only his fancy. He passed his hand across his forehead and a sickly look of relief crept over his face. He had been frightened by his own coat, that hung on a peg outside, long and thin and limp, a white handkerchief depending from the wide pocket. There was not much light in the corridor. He crept cautiously out and took the garment from its place with a nervous, frightened gesture. Dragging it after him, he hastily re-entered the library and rolled up the coat into a shape that could not possibly resemble anything which might frighten him. He laid it upon the table in the brightest place, where the afternoon sun fell upon it. There was a sort of relief in making sure that the thing could not again look like the dead man. He looked up and saw with renewed terror that he had left the door open. There was nothing but air between him and the place where that awful shadow had been conjured up by his imagination. The door must be shut. If it remained open he should go mad. He tried to think calmly, but it was beyond his power. He attempted to say that there was nothing there and that the door might as well remain open as be shut. But even while making the effort to reason with himself, he was creeping cautiously along the wall, in the direction of the entrance. By keeping his eyes close to the wooden panelling he could advance without seeing into the corridor. He was within a foot of the opening. Convulsed with fear, he put out his hand quickly and tried to pull the heavy oak on its hinges by the projecting bevel, but it was too heavy--he must look out in order to grasp the handle. The cold drops trickled down from his brow and he breathed hard, but he could not go back and leave the door unclosed. With a suppressed sob of agony he thrust out his head and arm. In a moment it was over, but the moral effort had been terrible, and his strength failed him, so that he staggered against the wainscot and would have fallen but for its support. Some moments elapsed before he could get to a chair, and when he at last sat down in a ray of sunshine to rest, his eyes remained fixed upon the sculptured brass handle of the latch. He almost expected that it would turn mysteriously of itself and that the dead prince would enter the room. He realised that in his present condition he could not possibly face the person who before long would certainly bring him the news. He must have something to stimulate him and deaden his nerves. He had no idea how long a time had elapsed since he had done the deed, but it seemed that three or four hours must certainly have passed. In reality it was scarcely five and twenty minutes since he had left the study. He remembered suddenly that he had some spirits in his room at the top of the palace. Slowly and painfully he rose to his feet and went towards the other exit from the library, which, as in many ancient houses, opened upon the grand staircase, so as to give free access to visitors from without. He had to cross the broad marble landing, whence a masked door led to the narrow winding steps by which he ascended to the upper story. He listened to hear whether any one was passing, and then went out. Once on his way he moved more quickly than seemed possible for a man so bent and mis-shapen. The bright afternoon sun streamed in through the window of his little chamber, a relief from the sombre gloominess of the lofty library, where the straggling rays seemed to make the great hall more shadowy by contrast. But Meschini did not stop to look about him. In a closet in the wall he kept his stores, his chemicals, his carefully-composed inks, his bits of prepared parchment, and, together with many other articles belonging to his illicit business, he had a bottle of old brandy, which the butler had once given him out of the prince's cellar, in return for a bit of legal advice which had saved the servant a lawyer's fee. Arnoldo Meschini had always been a sober man, like most Italians, and the bottle had stood for years unopened in the cupboard. He had never thought of it, but, having been once placed there, it had been safe. The moment had come when the stimulant was precious. His fingers shook as he put the bottle to his lips; when he set it down they were steady. The liquor acted like an enchantment, and the sallow-faced man smiled as he sat alone by his little table and looked at the thing that had restored him. The bottle had been full when he began to drink; the level of the liquid was now a good hand's breadth below the neck. The quantity he had swallowed would have made a temperate man, in his normal state, almost half drunk. He sat still for a long time, waiting to see whether the draught would produce any other effect. He felt a pleasant warmth in his face and hands, the perspiration had disappeared from his brow, and he was conscious that he could now look out of the open door of the library without fear, even if his coat were hanging on the peg. It was incredible to him that he should have been so really terrified by a mere shadow. He had killed Prince Montevarchi, and the body was lying in the study. Yes, he could think of it without shuddering, almost without an unpleasant sensation. In the dead man's own words, it had been an act of divine justice and retribution, and since nobody could possibly discover the murderer, there was matter for satisfaction in the idea that the wicked old man no longer cumbered the earth with his presence. Strange, that he should have suffered such an agony of fear half an hour earlier. Was it half an hour? How pleasantly the sun shone in to the little room where he had laboured during so many years, and so profitably! Now that the prince was dead it would be amusing to look at those original documents for which he had made such skilfully-constructed substitutes. He would like to assure himself, however, that the deed had been well done. There was magic in that old liquor. Another little draught and he would go down to the study as though nothing had happened. If he should meet anybody his easy manner would disarm suspicion. Besides, he could take the bottle with him in the pocket of his long coat--the bottle of courage, he said to himself with a smile, as he set it to his lips. This time he drank but little, and very slowly. He was too cautious a man to throw away his ammunition uselessly. With a light heart he descended the winding stair and crossed the landing. One of Ascanio Bellegra's servants passed at that moment. Meschini looked at the fellow quietly, and even gave him a friendly smile, to test his own coolness, a civility which was acknowledged by a familiar nod. The librarian's spirits rose. He did not resent the familiarity of the footman, for, with all his learning, he was little more than a servant himself, and the accident had come conveniently as a trial of his strength. The man evidently saw nothing unusual in his appearance. Moreover, as he walked, the brandy bottle in his coat tail pocket beat reassuringly against the calves of his legs. He opened the door of the library and found himself in the scene of his terror. There lay the old coat, wrapped together on the table, as he had left it. The sun had moved a little farther during his absence, and the heap of cloth looked innocent enough. Meschini could not understand how it had frightened him so terribly. He still felt that pleasant warmth about his face and hands. That was the door before which he had been such a coward. What was beyond it? The empty passage. He would go and hang the coat where it had hung always, where he always left it when he came in the morning, unless he needed it to keep himself warm. What could be simpler, or easier? He took the thing in one hand, turned the handle and looked out. He was not afraid. The long, silent corridor stretched away into the distance, lighted at intervals by narrow windows that opened upon an inner court of the palace. Meschini suspended the coat upon the peg and stood looking before him, a contemptuous smile upon his face, as though he despised himself for his former fears. Then he resolutely walked towards the study, along the familiar way, down a flight of steps, then to the right--he stood before the door and the dead man was on the other side of it. He paused and listened. All was silent. It was clear to him, as he stood before the table and looked at the body, that no one had been there. Indeed, Meschini now remembered that it was a rule in the house never to disturb the prince unless a visitor came. He had always liked to spend the afternoon in solitude over his accounts and his plans. The librarian, paused opposite his victim and gazed at the fallen head and the twisted, whitened fingers. He put out his hand timidly and touched them, and was surprised to find that they were not quite cold. The touch, however, sent a very unpleasant thrill through his own frame, and he drew back quickly with a slight shiver. But he was not terrified as he had been before. The touch, only, was disagreeable to him. He took a book that lay at hand and pushed it against the dead man's arm. There was no sign, no movement. He would have liked to go behind the chair and untie the handkerchief, but his courage was not quite equal to that. Besides, the handkerchief was Faustina's. He had seen her father snatch it from her and throw it upon the floor, as he watched the pair through the keyhole. A strange fascination kept him in the study, and he would have yielded to it had he not been fortified against any such morbid folly by the brandy he had swallowed. He thought, as he turned to go, that it was a pity the prince never kept money in the house, for, in that case, he might have helped himself before leaving. To steal a small value was not worth while, considering the danger of discovery. He moved on tiptoe, as though afraid of disturbing the rest of his old employer, and once or twice he looked back. Then at last he closed the door and retraced his steps through the corridor till he gained the library. He was surprised at his own boldness as he went, and at the indifference with which he passed by the coat that hung, limp as ever, upon its peg. He was satisfied, too, with the result of his investigations. The prince was certainly dead. As a direct consequence of his death, the secret of the Saracinesca suit was now his own, no one had a share in it, and it was worth money. He pulled out a number of volumes from the shelves and began to make a pretence of working upon the catalogue. But though he surrounded himself with the implements and necessaries for his task, his mind was busy with the new scheme that unfolded itself to his imagination. He and he alone, knew that San Giacinto's possession of the Saracinesca inheritance rested upon a forgery. The fact that this forgery must be revealed, in order to reinstate the lawful possessors in their right, did not detract in the least from the value of the secret. Two courses were open to him. He might go to old Leone Saracinesca and offer the original documents for sale, on receiving a guarantee for his own safety. Or he might offer them to San Giacinto, who was the person endangered by their existence. Montevarchi had promised him twenty thousand scudi for the job, and had never paid the money. He had cancelled his debt with his life, however, and had left the secret behind him. Either Saracinesca or San Giacinto would give five times twenty thousand, ten times as much, perhaps, for the original documents, the one in order to recover what was his own, the other to keep what did not belong to him. The great question to be considered was the way of making the offer. Meschini sat staring at the opposite row of books, engaged in solving the problem. Just then, one of the open volumes before him slipped a little upon another and the page turned slowly over. The librarian started slightly and glanced at the old-fashioned type. The work was a rare one, which he had often examined, and he knew it to be of great value. A new thought struck him. Why should he not sell this and many other volumes out of the collection, as well as realise money by disposing of his secret? He might as well be rich as possess a mere competence. He looked about him. With a little care and ingenuity, by working at night and by visiting the sellers of old books during the day he might soon put together four or five hundred works which would fetch a high price, and replace them by so many feet of old trash which would look as well. With his enormous industry it would be a simple matter to tamper with the catalogue and to insert new pages which should correspond with the changes he contemplated. The old prince was dead, and little as he had really known about the library, his sons knew even less. Meschini could remove the stolen volumes to a safe place, and when he had realised the value of his secret, he would go to Paris, to Berlin, even to London, and dispose of his treasures one by one. He was amazed at the delights the future unfolded to him, everything seemed gilded, everything seemed ready to turn into gold. His brain dwelt with an enthusiasm wholly new to him upon the dreams it conjured up. He felt twenty years younger. His fears had gone, and with them his humility. He saw himself no longer the poor librarian in his slippers and shabby clothes, cringing to his employer, spending his days in studying the forgeries he afterwards executed during the night, hoarding his ill-gotten gains with jealous secrecy, afraid to show to his few associates that he had accumulated a little wealth, timid by force of long habit and by the remembrance of the shame in his early life. All that had disappeared under the potent spell of his new-found courage. He fancied himself living in some distant capital, rich and respected, married, perhaps, having servants of his own, astonishing the learned men of some great centre by the extent of his knowledge and erudition. All the vanity of his nature was roused from its long sleep by a new set of emotions, till he could scarcely contain his inexplicable happiness. And how had all this come to him so suddenly in the midst of his obscure life? Simply by squeezing the breath out of an old man's throat. How easy it had been. The unaccustomed energy which had been awakened in him by the spirits brought with it a pleasant restlessness. He felt that he must go again to his little room upstairs, and take out the deeds and read them over. The sight of them would give an increased reality and vividness to his anticipations. Besides, too, it was just barely possible that there might be some word, some expression which he could change, and which should increase their value. To sit still, poring over the catalogue in the library was impossible. Once more he climbed to his attic, but he could not comprehend why he felt a nervous desire to look behind him, as though he were followed by some person whose tread was noiseless. It was not possible, he thought, that the effects of his draught were already passing off. Such courage as he felt in him could not leave him suddenly. He reached his room and took the deeds from the secret place in which he had hidden them, spreading them out lovingly before him. As he sat down the bottle in his long coat touched the floor behind him with a short, dull thud. It was as though a footstep had sounded in the silent room, and he sprang to his feet before he realised whence the noise came, looking behind him with startled eyes. In a moment he understood, and withdrawing the bottle from his pocket he set it beside him on the table. He looked at it for a few seconds as though in hesitation, but he determined not to have recourse to its contents so soon. He had undoubtedly been frightened again, but the sound that had scared him had been real and not imaginary. Besides, he had but this one bottle and he knew that good brandy was dear. He pushed it away, his avarice helping him to resist the temptation. The old documents were agreeably familiar to his eye, and he read and re-read them with increasing satisfaction, comparing them carefully, and chuckling to himself each time that he reached the bottom of the sheet upon the copy, where there had been no room to introduce that famous clause. But for that accident, he reflected, he would have undoubtedly made the insertion upon the originals, and the latter would be now no longer in his possession. He did not quite understand why he derived such pleasure from reading the writing so often, nor why, when the surrounding objects in the room were clear and distinct to his eyes, the crabbed characters should every now and then seem to move of themselves and to run into each other from right to left. Possibly the emotions of the day had strained his vision. He looked up and saw the bottle. An irresistible desire seized him to taste the liquor again, even if he drank but a drop. The spirits wet his lips while he was still inwardly debating whether it were wise to drink or not. As he returned the cork to its place he felt a sudden revival within him of all he had experienced before. His face was warm, his fingers tingled. He took up one of the deeds with a firm hand and settled himself comfortably in his chair. But he could not read it through again. He laughed quietly at his folly. Did he not know every word by heart? He must occupy himself with planning, with arranging the details of his future. When that was done he could revel in the thought of wealth and rest and satisfied vanity. To his surprise, his thoughts did not flow as connectedly as he had expected. He could not help thinking of the dead man downstairs, not indeed with any terror, not fearing discovery for himself, but with a vague wonderment that made his mind feel empty. Turn over the matter as he would, he could not foresee connectedly what was likely to happen when the murder was known. There was no sequence in his imaginings, and he longed nervously for the moment when everything should be settled. The restlessness that had brought him up to his room demanded some sort of action to quiet it. He would willingly have gone out to see his friend, the little apothecary who lived near the Ponte Quattro Capi. It would be a relief to talk to some one, to hear the sound of a human voice. But a remnant of prudence restrained him. It was not very likely that he should be suspected; indeed, if he behaved prudently nothing was more improbable. To leave the house at such a time, however, would be the height of folly, unless it could be proved that he had gone out some time before the deed could have been done. The porter was vigilant, and Meschini almost always exchanged a few words with him as he passed through the gates. He would certainly note the time of the librarian's exit more or less accurately. Moreover, the body might have been found already, and even now the gendarmes might be downstairs. The latter consideration determined him to descend once more to the library. A slight chill passed over him as he closed the door of his room behind him. The great hall now seemed very gloomy and cold, and the solitude was oppressive. He felt the necessity for movement, and began to walk quickly up and down the length of the library between the broad tables, from one door to the other. At first, as he reached the one that separated him from the passage he experienced no disagreeable sensation, but turned his back upon it at the end of his walk and retraced his steps. Very gradually, however, he began to feel uncomfortable as he reached that extremity of the room, and the vision of the dead prince rose before his eyes. The coat was there again, on the other side of the door. No doubt it would take the same shape again if he looked at it. His varying courage was just at the point when he was able to look out in order to assure himself that the limp garment had not assumed the appearance of a ghost. He felt a painful thrill in his back as he turned the handle, and the cold air that rushed in as he opened the door seemed to come from a tomb. Although his eyes were satisfied when he had seen the coat in the corner, he drew back quickly, and the thrill was repeated with greater distinctness as he heard the bolt of the latch slip into its socket. He walked away again, but the next time he came back he turned at some distance from the threshold, and, as he turned, he felt the thrill a third time, almost like an electric shock. He could not bear it and sat down before the catalogue. His eyes refused to read, and after a lengthened struggle between his fears, his prudence and his economy, he once more drew the bottle from his pocket and fortified himself with a draught. This time he drank more, and the effect was different. For some seconds he felt no change in his condition. Presently, however, his nervousness disappeared, giving place now to a sort of stupid indifference. The light was fading from the clerestory windows of the library, and, within, the corners and recesses were already dark. But Meschini was past imagining ghosts or apparitions. He sat quite still, his chin leaning on his hand and his elbow on the table, wondering vaguely how long it would be before they came to tell him that the prince was dead. He did not sleep, but he fell into a state of torpor which was restful to his nerves. Sleep would certainly come in half an hour if he were left to himself as long as that. His breathing was heavy, and the silence around him was intense. At last the much-dreaded moment came, and found him dull and apathetic. The door opened and a ray of light from a candle entered the room, which was now almost dark. A foot-man and a housemaid thrust in their heads cautiously and peered into the broad gloom, holding the candle high before them. Either would have been afraid to come alone. "Sor Arnoldo, Sor Arnoldo!" the man called out timidly, as though frightened by the sound of his own voice. "Here I am," answered Meschini, affecting a cheerful tone as well as he could. Once more and very quickly he took a mouthful from the bottle, behind the table where they could not see him. "What is the matter?" he asked. "The prince is murdered!" cried the two servants in a breath. They were very pale as they came towards him. If the cry he uttered was forced they were too much terrified to notice it. As they told their tale with every species of exaggeration, interspersed with expressions of horror and amazement, he struck his hands to his head, moaned, cried aloud, and, being half hysterical with drink, shed real tears in their presence. Then they led him away, saying that the prefect of police was in the study and that all the household had been summoned to be examined by him. He was now launched in his part, and could play it to the end without breaking down. He had afterwards very little recollection of what had occurred. He remembered that the stillness of the study and the white faces of those present had impressed him by contrast with the noisy grief of the servants who had summoned him. He remembered that he had sworn, and others had corroborated his oath, to the effect that he had spent the afternoon between the library and his room. Ascanio Bellegra's footman remembered meeting him on the landing, and said that he had smiled pleasantly in an unconcerned way, as usual, and had passed on. For the rest, no one seemed even to imagine that he could have done the deed, for no one had ever heard anything but friendly words between him and the prince. He remembered, too, having seen the dead body extended upon the great table of the study, and he recalled Donna Faustina's tone of voice indistinctly as in a dream. Then, before the prefect announced his decision, he was dismissed with the other servants. After that moment all was a blank in his mind. In reality he returned to his room and sat down by his table with a candle before him. He never knew that after the examination he had begged another bottle of liquor of the butler on the ground that his nerves were upset by the terrible event. About midnight the candle burned down into the socket. Profiting by the last ray of light he drank a final draught and reeled to his bed, dressed as he was. One bottle was empty, and a third of the second was gone. Arnoldo Meschini was dead drunk. CHAPTER XXV. Corona was not much surprised when the messenger brought her carriage and presented the order for Faustina's liberation. When Giovanni had left her she had felt that he would find means to procure the young girl's liberty, and the only thing which seemed strange to her was the fact that Giovanni did not return himself. The messenger said he had seen him with the cardinal and that Sant' Ilario had given the order to use the carriage. Beyond that, he knew nothing. Corona at once took Faustina to the Palazzo Montevarchi, and then, with a promise to come back in the course of the day, she went home to rest. She needed repose even more than Faustina, who, after all, had slept soundly on her prison bed, trusting with childlike faith in her friend's promise that she should be free in the morning. Corona, on the contrary, had passed a wakeful night, and was almost worn out with fatigue. She remained in her room until twelve o'clock, the hour when the members of the family met at the midday breakfast. She found her father-in-law waiting for her, and at a glance she saw that he was in a savage humour. His bronzed face was paler than usual and his movements more sudden and nervous, while his dark eyes gleamed angrily beneath his bent and shaggy brows. Corona, on her part, was silent and preoccupied. In spite of the tragic events of the night, which, after all, only affected her indirectly at present, and in spite of the constant moral suffering which now played so important a part in her life, she could not but be disturbed by the tremendous loss sustained by her husband and by his father. It fell most heavily upon the latter, who was an old man, and whose mind was not engaged by any other absorbing consideration, but the blow was a terrible one to the other also. "Where is Giovanni?" asked Saracinesca brusquely, as they sat down to the table. "I do not know," answered Corona. "The last I heard of him was that he was with Cardinal Antonelli. I suppose that after getting the order to release Faustina he stayed there." "So his Eminence suffered himself to be persuaded that a little girl did not strangle that old tanner," remarked the prince. "Apparently." "If they had taken Flavia it would have been more natural. She would have inaugurated her reign as Princess Saracinesca by a night in the Termini. Delightful contrast! I suppose you know who did it?" "No. Probably a servant, though they say that nothing was stolen." "San Giacinto did it. I have thought the whole matter out, and I am convinced of it. Look at his hands. He could strangle an elephant. Not that he could have had any particular reason for liquidating his father-in-law. He is rich enough without Flavia's share, but I always thought he would kill somebody one of these days, ever since I met him at Aquila." "Without any reason, why should he have done it?" "My dear child, when one has no reason to give, it is very hard to say why a thing occurs. He looks like the man." "Is it conceivable that after getting all he could desire he should endanger his happiness in such a way?" "Perhaps not. I believe he did it. What an abominable omelet--a glass of water, Pasquale. Abominable, is it not, Corona? Perfectly uneatable. I suppose the cook has heard of our misfortunes and wants to leave." "I fancy we are not very hungry," remarked Corona, in order to say something. "I would like to know whether the murderer is eating his breakfast at this moment, and whether he has any appetite. It would be interesting from a psychological point of view. By the bye, all this is very like a jettatura." "What?" "Montevarchi coming to his end on the very day he had won the suit. In good old times it would have been Giovanni who would have cut his throat, after which we should have all retired to Saracinesca and prepared for a siege. Less civilised but twice as human. No doubt they will say now--even now--that we paid a man to do the work." "But it was San Giacinto who brought the suit--" "It was Montevarchi. I have seen my lawyer this morning. He says that Montevarchi sent the people out to Frascati to see San Giacinto and explained the whole matter to them beforehand. He discovered the clause in the deeds first. San Giacinto never even saw them until everything was ready. And on the evening of the very day when it was settled, Montevarchi is murdered. I wonder that it has not struck any one to say we did it." "You did not oppose the suit. If you had, it would have been different." "How could I oppose the action? It was clear from the beginning that we had no chance of winning it. The fact remains that we are turned out of our home. The sooner we leave this the better. It will only be harder to go if we stay here." "Yes," answered Corona sadly. "It will be harder." "I believe it is a judgment of heaven on Giovanni for his outrageous conduct," growled the prince, suddenly running away with a new idea. "On Giovanni?" Corona was roused immediately by the mention of her husband in such a connection. "Yes, for his behaviour to you, the young scoundrel! I ought to have disinherited him at once." "Please do not talk in that way. I cannot let you say--" "He is my own son, and I will say what I please," interrupted Saracinesca fiercely. "He treated you outrageously, I say. It is just like a woman to deny it and defend her husband." "Since there is no one else to defend him, I must. He was misled, and naturally enough, considering the appearances. I did not know that you knew about it all." "I do not know all, nor half. But I know enough. A man who suspects such a woman as you deserves to be hanged. Besides," he added irrelevantly, but with an intuitive keenness that startled Corona, "besides, you have not forgiven him." "Indeed I have--" "In a Christian spirit, no doubt. I know you are good. But you do not love him as you did. It is useless to deny it. Why should you? I do not blame you, I am sure." The prince fixed his bright eyes on her face and waited for her answer. She turned a little paler and said nothing for several moments. Then as he watched her he saw the colour mount slowly to her olive cheeks. She herself could hardly have accounted for the unwonted blush, and a man capable of more complicated reasoning than her father-in-law would have misinterpreted it. Corona had at first been angry at the thought that he could speak as he did of Giovanni, saying things she would not say to herself concerning him. Then she felt a curious sensation of shame at being discovered. It was true that she did not love her husband, or at least that she believed herself unable to love him; but she was ashamed that any one else should know it. "Why will you persist in talking about the matter?" she asked at length. "It is between us two." "It seems to me that it concerns me," returned Saracinesca, who was naturally pertinacious. "I am not inquisitive. I ask no questions. Giovanni has said very little about it to me. But I am not blind. He came to me one evening and said he was going to take you away to the mountains. He seemed very much disturbed, and I saw that there had been trouble between you, and that he suspected you of something. He did not say so, but I knew what he meant. If it had turned out true I think I would have--well, I would not have answered for my conduct. Of course I took his part, but you fell ill, and did not know that. When he came and told me that he had been mistaken I abused him like a thief. I have abused him ever since whenever I have had a chance. It was a vile, dastardly, foolish, ridiculous--" "For heaven's sake!" cried Corona, interrupting him. "Pray, pray leave the question in peace! I am so unhappy!" "So am I," answered Saracinesca bluntly. "It does not add to my happiness to know that my son has made an ass of himself. Worse than that. You do not seem to realise that I am very fond of you. If I had not been such an old man I should have fallen in love with you as well as Giovanni. Do you remember when I rode over to Astrardente, and asked you to marry him? I would have given all I am--all I was worth, I mean, to be in Giovanni's shoes when I brought back your answer. Bah! I am an old fellow and no Apollo either! But you have been a good daughter to me, Corona, and I will not let any one behave badly to you." "And you have been good to me--so good! But you must not be angry with Giovanni. He was misled. He loved me even then." "I wish I were as charitable as you." "Do not call me charitable. I am anything but that. If I were I would--" She stopped short. "Yes, I know, you would love him as you did before. Then you would not be Corona, but some one else. I know that sort of argument. But you cannot be two persons at one time. The other woman, whom you have got in your mind, and who would love Giovanni, is a weak-minded kind of creature who bears anything and everything, who will accept any sort of excuse for an insult, and will take credit to herself for being long-suffering because she has not the spirit to be justly angry. Thank heaven you are not like that. If you were, Giovanni would not have had you for a wife nor I for a daughter." "I think it is my fault. I would do anything in the world to make it otherwise." "You admit the fact then? Of course. It is a misfortune, and not your fault. It is one more misfortune among so many. You may forgive him, if you please. I will not. By the bye, I wonder why he does not come back. I would like to hear the news." "The cardinal may have kept him to breakfast." "Since seven o'clock this morning? That is impossible. Unless his Eminence has arrested him on charge of the murder." The old gentleman laughed gruffly, little guessing how near his jest lay to the truth. But Corona looked up quickly. The mere idea of such a horrible contingency was painful to her, absurd and wildly improbable as it appeared. "I was going to ask him to go up to Saracinesca to-morrow and see to the changes," continued the prince. "Must it be so soon?" asked Corona regretfully. "Is it absolutely decided? Have you not yielded too easily?" "I cannot go over all the arguments again," returned her father-in-law with some impatience. "There is no doubt about it. I expended all my coolness and civility on San Giacinto when he came to see me about it. It is of no use to complain, and we cannot draw back. I suppose I might go down on my knees to the Pope and ask his Holiness for another title--for the privilege of being called something, Principe di Cavolfiore, if you like. But I will not do it. I will die as Leone Saracinesca. You can give Giovanni your old title, if you please--it is yours to give." "He shall have it if he wants it. What does it matter? I can be Donna Corona." "Ay, what does it matter, provided we have peace? What does anything matter in this unutterably ridiculous world--except your happiness, poor child! Yes. Everything must be got ready. I will not stay in this house another week." "But in a week it will be impossible to do all there is to be done!" exclaimed Corona, whose feminine mind foresaw infinite difficulties in moving. "Possible, or impossible, it must be accomplished. I have appointed this day week for handing over the property. The lawyers said, as you say, that it would need more time. I told them that there was no time, and that if they could not do it, I would employ some one else. They talked of sitting up all night--as if I cared whether they lost their beauty sleep or not! A week from to-day everything must be settled, so that I have not in my possession a penny that does not belong to me." "And then--what will you do?" asked Corona, who saw in spite of his vehemence how much he was affected by the prospect. "And then? What then? Live somewhere else, I suppose, and pray for an easy death." No one had ever heard Leone Saracinesca say before now that he desired to die, and the wish seemed so contrary to the nature of his character that Corona looked earnestly at him. His face was discomposed, and his voice had trembled. He was a brave man, and a very honourable one, but he was very far from being a philosopher. As he had said, he had expended all his calmness in that one meeting with San Giacinto when he had been persuaded of the justice of the latter's claims. Since then he had felt nothing but bitterness, and the outward expression of it was either an unreasonable irritation concerning small matters, or some passionate outburst like the present against life, against the world in which he lived, against everything. It is scarcely to be wondered at that he should have felt the loss so deeply, more deeply even than Giovanni. He had been for many years the sole head and master of his house, and had borne all the hereditary dignities that belonged to his station, some of which were of a kind that pleased his love of feudal traditions. For the money he cared little. The loss that hurt him most touched his pride, and that generous vanity which was a part of his nature, which delighted in the honour accorded to his name, to his son, to his son's wife, in the perpetuation of his race and in a certain dominating independence, that injured no one and gave himself immense satisfaction. At his age he was not to be blamed for such feelings. They proceeded in reality far more from habit than from a vain disposition, and it seemed to him that if he bore the calamity bravely he had a right to abuse his fate in his own language. But he could not always keep himself from betraying more emotion than he cared to show. "Do not talk of death," said Corona. "Giovanni and I will make your life happy and worth living." She sighed as she spoke, in spite of herself. "Giovanni and you!" repeated the prince gloomily. "But for his folly--what is the use of talking? I have much to do. If he comes to you this afternoon please tell him that I want him." Corona was glad when the meal was ended, and she went back to her own room. She had promised to go and see Faustina again, but otherwise she did not know how to occupy herself. A vague uneasiness beset her as the time passed and her husband did not come home. It was unlike him to stay away all day without warning her, though she was obliged to confess to herself that she had of late shown very little interest in his doings, and that it would not be very surprising if he began to do as he pleased without informing her of his intentions. Nevertheless she wished he would show himself before evening. The force of habit was still strong, and she missed him without quite knowing it. At last she made an effort against her apathy, and went out to pay the promised visit. The Montevarchi household was subdued under all the outward pomp of a ponderous mourning. The gates and staircases were hung with black. In the vast antechamher the canopy was completely hidden by an enormous hatchment before which the dead prince had lain in state during the previous night and a part of the day. According to the Roman custom the body had been already removed, the regulations of the city requiring that this should be done within twenty-four hours. The great black pedestals on which the lights had been placed were still standing, and lent a ghastly and sepulchral appearance to the whole. Numbers of servants in mourning liveries stood around an immense copper brazier in a corner, talking together in low tones, their voices dying away altogether as the Princess Sant' Ilario entered the open door of the hall. The man who came forward appeared to be the person in charge of the funeral, for Corona had not seen him in the house before. "Donna Faustina expects me," she said, continuing to walk towards the entrance to the apartments. "Your Excellency's name?" inquired the man. Corona was surprised that he should ask, and wondered whether even the people of his class already knew the result of the suit. "Donna Corona Saracinesca," she answered in distinct tones. The appellation sounded strange and unfamiliar. "Donna Corona Saracinesca," the man repeated in a loud voice a second later. He had almost run into San Giacinto, who was coming out at that moment. Corona found herself face to face with her cousin. "You--princess!" he exclaimed, putting out his hand. In spite of the relationship he was not privileged to call her by her name. "You--why does the man announce you in that way?" Corona took his hand and looked quietly into his face. They had not met since the decision. "I told him to do so. I shall be known by that name in future. I have come to see Faustina." She would have passed on. "Allow me to say," said San Giacinto, in his deep, calm voice, "that as far as I am concerned you are, and always shall be, Princess Sant' Ilario. No one can regret more than I the position in which I am placed towards you and yours, and I shall certainly do all in my power to prevent any such unnecessary changes." "We cannot discuss that matter here," answered Corona, speaking more coldly than she meant to do. "I trust there need be no discussion. I even hope that you will bear me no ill will." "I bear you none. You have acted honestly and openly. You had right on your side. But neither my husband nor I will live under a borrowed name." San Giacinto seemed hurt by her answer. He stood aside to allow her to pass, and there was something dignified in his demeanour that pleased Corona. "The settlement is not made yet," he said gravely. "Until then the name is yours." When she was gone he looked after her with an expression of annoyance upon his face. He understood well enough what she felt, but he was very far from wishing to let any unpleasantness arise between him and her family. Even in the position to which he had now attained he felt that there was an element of uncertainty, and he did not feel able to dispense with the good-will of his relations, merely because he was Prince Saracinesca and master of a great fortune. His early life had made him a cautious man, and he did not underestimate the value of personal influence. Moreover, he had not a bad heart, and preferred if possible to be on good terms with everybody. According to his own view he had done nothing more than claim what was legitimately his, but he did not want the enmity of those who had resigned all into his hands. Corona went on her way and found Faustina and Flavia together. Their mother was not able to see any one. The rest of the family had gone to the country as soon as the body had been taken away, yielding without any great resistance to the entreaties of their best friends who, according to Roman custom, thought it necessary to "divert" the mourners. That is the consecrated phrase, and people of other countries may open their eyes in astonishment at the state of domestic relations as revealed by this practice. It is not an uncommon thing for the majority of the family to go away even before death has actually taken place. Speaking of a person who is dying, it is not unusual to say, "You may imagine how ill he is, for the family has left him!" The servants attend the Requiem Mass, the empty carriages follow the hearse to the gates of the city, but the family is already in the country, trying to "divert" itself. Flavia and Faustina, however, had stayed at home, partly because the old princess was really too deeply moved and profoundly shocked to go away, and partly because San Giacinto refused to leave Rome. Faustina, too, was eccentric enough to think such haste after "diversion" altogether indecent, and she herself had been through such a series of emotions during the twenty-four hours that she found rest needful. As for Flavia, she took matters very calmly, but would have preferred very much to be with her brothers and their wives. The calamity had for the time subdued her vivacity, though it was easy to see that it had made no deep impression upon her nature. If the truth were told, she was more unpleasantly affected by thus suddenly meeting Corona than by her father's tragic death. She thought it necessary to be more than usually affectionate, not out of calculation, but rather to get rid of a disagreeable impression. She sprang forward and kissed Corona on both cheeks. "I was longing to see you!" she said enthusiastically. "You have been so kind to Faustina. I am sure we can never thank you enough. Imagine, if she had been obliged to spend the night alone in prison! Such an abominable mistake, too. I hope that dreadful man will be sent to the galleys. Poor little Faustina! How could any one think she could do such a thing!" Corona was not prepared for Flavia's manner, and it grated disagreeably on her sensibilities. But she said nothing, only returning her salutation with becoming cordiality before sitting down between the two sisters. Faustina looked on coldly, disgusted with such indifference. It struck her that if Corona had not accompanied her to the Termini, it would have been very hard to induce any of her own family to do so. "And poor papa!" continued Flavia volubly. "Is it not too dreadful, too horrible? To think of any one daring! I shall never get over the impression it made on me--never. Without a priest, without any one--poor dear!" "Heaven is very merciful," said Corona, thinking it necessary to make some such remark. "Oh, I know," answered Flavia, with sudden seriousness. "I know. But poor papa--you see--I am afraid--" She stopped significantly and shook her head, evidently implying that Prince Montevarchi's chances of blessedness were but slender. "Flavia!" cried Faustina indignantly, "how can you say such things!" "Oh, I say nothing, and besides, I daresay--you see he was sometimes very kind. It was only yesterday, for instance, that he actually promised me those earrings--you know, Faustina, the pearl drops at Civilotti's--it is true, they were not so very big after all. He really said he would give them to me as a souvenir if--oh! I forgot." She stopped with some embarrassment, for she had been on the point of saying that the earrings were to be a remembrance if the suit were won, when she recollected that she was speaking to Corona. "Well--it would have been very kind of him if he had," she added. "Perhaps that is something. Poor papa! One would feel more sure about it, if he had got some kind of absolution." "I do not believe you cared for him at all!" exclaimed Faustina. Corona evidently shared this belief, for she looked very grave and was silent. "Oh, Faustina, how unkind you are!" cried Flavia in great astonishment and some anger. "I am sure I loved poor papa as much as any of you, and perhaps a great deal better. We were always such good friends!" Faustina raised her eyebrows a little and looked at Corona as though to say that her sister was hopeless, and for some minutes no one spoke. "You are quite rested now?" asked Corona at last, turning to the young girl. "Poor child! what you must have suffered!" "It is strange, but I am not tired. I slept, you know, for I was worn out." "Faustina's grief did not keep her awake," observed Flavia, willing to say something disagreeable. "I only came to see how you were," said Corona, who did not care to prolong the interview. "I hope to hear that your mother is better to-morrow. I met Saracinesca as I came in, but I did not ask him." "Your father-in-law?" asked Faustina innocently. "I did not know he had been here." "No; your husband, my dear," answered Corona, looking at Flavia as she spoke. She was curious to see what effect the change had produced upon her. Flavia's cheeks flushed quickly, evidently with pleasure, if also with some embarrassment. But Corona was calm and unmoved as usual. "I did not know you already called him so," said Flavia. "How strange it will be!" "We shall soon get used to it," replied Corona, with a smile, as she rose to go. "I wish you many years of happiness with your new name. Good-bye." Faustina went with her into one of the outer rooms. "Tell me," she said, when they were alone, "how did your husband manage it so quickly? They told me to-day that the cardinal had at first refused. I cannot understand it. I could not ask you before Flavia--she is so inquisitive!" "I do not know--I have not seen Giovanni yet. He stayed with the cardinal when the carriage came for us. It was managed in some way, and quickly. I shall hear all about it this evening. What is it, dear?" There were tears in Faustina's soft eyes, followed quickly by a little sob. "I miss him dreadfully!" she exclaimed, laying her head on her friend's shoulder. "And I am so unhappy! We parted angrily, and I can never tell him how sorry I am. You do not think it could have had anything to do with it, do you?" "Your little quarrel? No, child. What could it have changed? We do not know what happened." "I shall never forget his face. I was dreadfully undutiful--oh! I could almost marry that man if it would do any good!" Corona smiled sadly. The young girl's sorrow was genuine, in strange contrast to Flavia's voluble flippancy. She laid her hand affectionately on the thick chestnut hair. "Perhaps he sees now that you should not marry against your heart." "Oh, do you think so? I wish it were possible. I should not feel as though I were so bad if I thought he understood now. I could bear it better. I should not feel as though it were almost a duty to marry Frangipani." Corona turned quickly with an expression that was almost fierce in its intensity. She took Faustina's hands in hers. "Never do that, Faustina. Whatever comes to you, do not do that! You do not know what it is to live with a man you do not love, even if you do not hate him. It is worse than death." Corona kissed her and left her standing by the door. Was it possible, Faustina asked, that Corona did not love her husband? Or was she speaking of her former life with old Astrardente? Of course, it must be that. Giovanni and Corona were a proverbially happy couple. When Corona again entered her own room, there was a note lying upon the table, the one her husband had written that morning from his place of confinement. She tore the envelope open with an anxiety of which she had not believed herself capable. She had asked for him when she returned and he had not been heard of yet. The vague uneasiness she had felt at his absence suddenly increased, until she felt that unless she saw him at once she must go in search of him. She read the note through again and again, without clearly understanding the contents. It was evident that he had left Rome suddenly and had not cared to tell her whither he was going, since the instructions as to what she was to say were put in such a manner as to make it evident that they were only to serve as an excuse for his absence to others, and not as an explanation to herself. The note was enigmatical and might mean almost anything. At last Corona tossed the bit of paper into the fire, and tapped the thick carpet impatiently with her foot. "How coldly he writes!" she exclaimed aloud. The door opened and her maid appeared. "Will your Excellency receive Monsieur Gouache?" asked the woman from the threshold. "No! certainly not!" answered Corona, in a voice that frightened the servant. "I am not at home." "Yes, your Excellency." CHAPTER XXVI. The amount of work which Arnoldo Meschini did in the twenty-four hours of the day depended almost entirely upon his inclinations. The library had always been open to the public once a week, on Mondays, and on those occasions the librarian was obliged to be present. The rest of his time was supposed to be devoted to the incessant labour connected with so important a collection of books, and, on the whole, he had done far more than was expected of him. Prince Montevarchi had never proposed to give him an assistant, and he would have rejected any such offer, since the presence of another person would have made it almost impossible for him to carry on his business of forging ancient manuscripts. The manual labour of his illicit craft was of course performed in his own room, but a second librarian could not have failed to discover that there was something wrong. Night after night he carried the precious manuscripts to his chamber, bringing them back and restoring them to their places every morning. During the day he studied attentively what he afterwards executed in the quiet hours when he could be alone. Of the household none but the prince himself ever came to the library, no other member of the family cared for the books or knew anything about them. His employer being dead, Meschini was practically master of all the shelves contained. No one disturbed him, no one asked what he was doing. His salary would be paid regularly by the steward, and he would in all probability be left to vegetate unheeded for the rest of his natural lifetime. When he died some one else would be engaged in his place. In the ordinary course of events no other future would have been open to him. He awoke very late in the morning on the day after the murder, and lay for some time wondering why he was so very uncomfortable, why his head hurt him, why his vision was indistinct, why he could remember nothing he had done before going to bed. The enormous quantity of liquor he had drunk had temporarily destroyed his faculties, which were not hardened by the habitual use of alcohol. He turned his head uneasily upon the pillow and saw the bottles on the table, the candle burnt down in the brass candlestick and the general disorder in the room. He glanced at his own body and saw that he was lying dressed upon his bed. Then the whole truth flashed upon his mind with appalling vividness. A shock went through his system as though some one had struck him violently on the back of the head, while the light in the room was momentarily broken into flashes that pained his eyes. He got upon his feet with difficulty, and steadied himself by the bed-post, hardly able to stand alone. He had murdered his master. The first moment in which he realised the fact was the most horrible he remembered to have passed. He had killed the prince and could recall nothing, or next to nothing, that had occurred since the deed. Almost before he knew what he was doing he had locked his door with a double turn of the key and was pushing the furniture against it, the table, the chairs, everything that he could move. It seemed to him that he could already hear upon the winding stair the clank of the gens d'armes' sabres as they came to get him. He looked wildly round the room to see whether there was anything that could lead to discovery. The unwonted exertion, however, had restored the circulation of his blood, and with it arose an indistinct memory of the sense of triumph he had felt when he had last entered the chamber. He asked himself how he could have rejoiced over the deed, unless he had unconsciously taken steps for his own safety. The body must have been found long ago. Very gradually there rose before him the vision of the scene in the study, when he had been summoned thither by the two servants, the dead prince stretched on the table, the pale faces, the prefect, Donna Faustina's voice, a series of questions asked in a metallic, pitiless tone. He had not been drunk, therefore, when they had sent for him. And yet, he knew that he had not been sober. In what state, then, had he found himself? With a shudder, he remembered his terror in the library, his fright at the ghost which had turned out to be only his own coat, his visit to his room, and the first draught he had swallowed. From that point onwards his memory grew less and less clear. He found that he could not remember at all how he had come upstairs the last time. One thing was evident, however. He had not been arrested, since he found himself in his chamber unmolested. Who, then, had been taken in his place? He was amazed to find that he did not know. Surely, at the first inquest, something must have been said which would have led to the arrest of some one. The law never went away empty-handed. He racked his aching brain to bring back the incident, but it would not be recalled--for the excellent reason that he really knew nothing about the matter. It was a relief at all events to find that he had actually been examined with the rest and had not been suspected. Nevertheless, he had undoubtedly done the deed, of which the mere thought made him tremble in every joint. Or was it all a part of his drunken dreams? No, that, at least, could not be explained away. For a long time he moved uneasily from his barricade at the door to the window, from which he tried to see the street below. But his room was in the attic, and the broad stone cornice of the palace cut off the view effectually. At last he began to pull the furniture away from the entrance, slowly at first, as he merely thought of its uselessness, then with feverish haste, as he realised that the fact of his trying to entrench himself in his quarters would seem suspicious. In a few seconds he had restored everything to its place. The brandy bottles disappeared into the cupboard in the wall; a bit of candle filled the empty candlestick. He tore off his clothes and jumped into bed, tossing himself about to give it the appearance of having been slept in. Then he got up again and proceeded to make his toilet. All his clothes were black, and he had but a slender choice. He understood vaguely, however, that there would be a funeral or some sort of ceremony in which all the members of the household would be expected to join, and he arrayed himself in the best he had--a decent suit of broadcloth, a clean shirt, a black tie. He looked at himself in the cracked mirror. His face was ghastly yellow, the whites of his eyes injected with blood, the veins at the temples swollen and congested. He was afraid that his appearance might excite remark, though it was in reality not very much changed. Then, as he thought of this, he realised that he was to meet a score of persons, some of whom would very probably look at him curiously. His nerves were in a shattered condition, he almost broke down at the mere idea of what he must face. What would become of him in the presence of the reality? And yet he had met the whole household bravely enough on the very spot where he had done the murder on the previous evening. He sat down, overpowered by the revival of his fear and horror. The room swam around him and he grasped the edge of the table for support. But he could not stay there all day. Any reluctance to make his appearance at such a time might be fatal. There was only one way to get the necessary courage, and that was to drink again. He shrank from the thought. He had not acquired the habitual drunkard's certainty of finding nerve and boldness and steadiness of hand in the morning draught, and the idea of tasting the liquor was loathsome to him in his disordered state. He rose to his feet and tried to act as though he were in the midst of a crowd of persons. Ape-like, he grinned at the furniture, walked about the room, spoke aloud, pretending that he was meeting real people, tried to frame sentences expressive of profound grief. He opened the door and made a pretence of greeting an imaginary individual. It was as though a stream of cold water had fallen upon his neck. His knees knocked together, and he felt sick with fear. There was evidently no use in attempting to go down without some stimulant. Almost sorrowfully he shut the door again, and took the bottle from its place. He took several small doses, patiently testing the effect until his hand was steady and warm. Ten minutes later he was kneeling with many others before the catafalque, beneath the great canopy of black. He was dazed by the light of the great branches of candles, and confused by the subdued sound of whispering and of softly treading feet; but he knew that his outward demeanour was calm and collected, and that he exhibited no signs of nervousness. San Giacinto was standing near one of the doors, having taken his turn with the sons of the dead man to remain in the room. He watched the librarian and a rough sort of pity made itself felt in his heart. "Poor Meschini!" he thought. "He has lost a friend. I daresay he is more genuinely sorry than all the family put together, poor fellow!" Arnoldo Meschini, kneeling before the body of the man he had murdered, with a brandy bottle in the pocket of his long coat, would have come to an evil end if the giant had guessed the truth. But he looked what he was supposed to be, the humble, ill-paid, half-starved librarian, mourning the master he had faithfully served for thirty years. He knelt a long time, his lips moving mechanically with the words of an oft-repeated prayer. In reality he was afraid to rise from his knees alone, and was waiting until some of the others made the first move. But the rows of lacqueys, doubtless believing that the amount of their future wages would largely depend upon the vigour of their present mourning, did not seem inclined to desist from their orisons. To Meschini the time was interminable, and his courage was beginning to ooze away from him, as the sense of his position acquired a tormenting force. He could have borne it well enough in a church, in the midst of a vast congregation, he could have fought off his horror even here for a few minutes, but to sustain such a part for a quarter of an hour seemed almost impossible. He would have given his soul, which indeed was just then of but small value, to take a sip of courage from the bottle, and his clasped fingers twitched nervously, longing to find the way to his pocket. He glanced along the line, measuring his position, to see whether there was a possibility of drinking without being observed, but he saw that it would be madness to think of it, and began repeating his prayer with redoubled energy, in the hope of distracting his mind. Then a horrible delusion began to take possession of him; he fancied that the dead man was beginning to turn his head slowly, almost imperceptibly, towards him. Those closed eyes would open and look him in the face, a supernatural voice would speak his name. As on the previous afternoon the cold perspiration began to trickle from his brow. He was on the point of crying aloud with terror, when the man next to him rose. In an instant he was on his feet. Both bent again, crossed themselves, and retired. Meschini stumbled and caught at his companion's arm, but succeeded in gaining the door. As he passed out, his face was so discomposed that San Giacinto looked down upon him with increased compassion, then followed him a few steps and laid his hand on his shoulder. The librarian started violently and stood still. "He was a good friend to you, Signor Meschini," said the big man kindly. "But take heart, you shall not be forgotten." The dreaded moment had come, and it had been very terrible, but San Giacinto's tone was reassuring. He could not have suspected anything, though the servants said that he was an inscrutable man, profound in his thoughts and fearful in his anger. He was the one of all the family whom Meschini most feared. "God have mercy on him!" whined the librarian, trembling to his feet. "He was the best of men, and is no doubt in glory!" "No doubt," replied San Giacinto drily. He entertained opinions of his own upon the subject, and he did not like the man's tone. "No doubt," he repeated. "We will try and fulfil his wishes with regard to you." "Grazie, Eccelenza!" said Meschini with great humility, making horns with his fingers behind his back to ward off the evil eye, and edging away in the direction of the grand staircase. San Giacinto returned to the door and paid no more attention to him. Then Meschini almost ran down the stairs and did not slacken his speed until he found himself in the street. The cold air of the winter's day revived him, and he found himself walking rapidly in the direction of the Ponte Quattro Capi. He generally took that direction when he went out without any especial object, for his friend Tiberio Colaisso, the poor apothecary, had his shop upon the little island of Saint Bartholomew, which is connected with the shores of the river by a double bridge, whence the name, "the bridge of four heads." Meschini paused and looked over the parapet at the yellow swirling water. The eddies seemed to take queer shapes and he watched them for a long time. He had a splitting headache, of the kind which is made more painful by looking at quickly moving objects, which, at the same time, exercise an irresistible fascination over the eye. Almost unconsciously he compared his own life to the river--turbid, winding, destroying. The simile was incoherent, like most of his fancies on that day, but it served to express a thought, and he began to feel an odd sympathy for the muddy stream, such as perhaps no one had ever felt before him. But as he looked he grew dizzy, and drew back from the parapet. There must have been something strange in his face, for a man who was passing looked at him curiously and asked whether he were ill. He shook his head with a sickly smile and passed on. The apothecary was standing idly at his door, waiting for a custom that rarely came his way. He was a cadaverous man, about fifty years of age, with eyes of an uncertain colour set deep in his head. An ill-kept, grizzled beard descended upon his chest, and gave a certain wildness to his appearance. A very shabby green smoking cap, trimmed with tarnished silver lace, was set far back upon his head, displaying a wrinkled forehead, much heightened by baldness, but of proportions that denoted a large and active brain. That he took snuff in great quantities was apparent. Otherwise he was neither very dirty nor very clean, but his thumbs had that peculiar shape which seems to be the result of constantly rolling pills. Meschini stopped before him. "Sor Arnoldo, good-day," said the chemist, scrutinising his friend's face curiously. "Good-day, Sor Tiberio," replied the librarian. "Will you let me come in for a little moment?" There seemed to be an attempt at a jest in the question, for the apothecary almost smiled. "Padrone," he said, retiring backwards through the narrow door. "A game of scopa to-day?" "Have you the time to spare?" inquired the other, in a serious tone. They always maintained the myth that Tiberio Colaisso was a very busy man. "To-day," answered the latter, without a smile, and emphasising the word as though it defined an exception, "to-day, I have nothing to do. Besides, it is early." "We can play a hand and then we can dine at Cicco's." "Being Friday in Advent, I had intended to fast," replied the apothecary, who had not a penny in his pocket "But since you are so good as to invite me, I do not say no." Meschini said nothing, for he understood the situation, which was by no means a novel one. His friend produced a pack of Italian cards, almost black with age. He gave Meschini the only chair, and seated himself upon a three-legged stool. It was a dismal scene. The shop was like many of its kind in the poorer quarters of old Rome. There was room for the counter and for three people to stand before it when the door was shut. The floor was covered with a broken pavement of dingy bricks. As the two men began to play a fine, drizzling rain wet the silent street outside, and the bricks within at once exhibited an unctuous moisture. The sky had become cloudy after the fine morning, and there was little light in the shop. Three of the walls were hidden by cases with glass doors, containing an assortment of majolica jars which would delight a modern amateur, but which looked dingy and mean in the poor shop. Here and there, between them, stood bottles large and small, some broken and dusty, others filled with liquids and bearing paper labels, brown with age, the ink inscriptions fading into the dirty surface that surrounded them. The only things in the place which looked tolerably clean were the little brass scales and the white marble tablet for compounding solid medicines. The two men looked as though they belonged to the little room. Meschini's yellow complexion was as much in keeping with the surroundings as the chemist's gray, colourless face. His bloodshot eyes wandered from the half-defaced cards to the objects in the shop, and he was uncertain in his play. His companion looked at him as though he were trying to solve some intricate problem that gave him trouble. He himself was a man who, like the librarian, had begun life under favourable circumstances, had studied medicine and had practised it. But he had been unfortunate, and, though talented, did not possess the qualifications most necessary for his profession. He had busied himself with chemistry and had invented a universal panacea which had failed, and in which he had sunk most of his small capital. Disgusted with his reverses he had gravitated slowly to his present position. Finding him careless and indifferent to their wants, his customers had dropped away, one by one, until he earned barely enough to keep body and soul together. Only the poorest class of people, emboldened by the mean aspect of his shop, came in to get a plaster, an ointment or a black draught, at the lowest possible prices. And yet, in certain branches, Tiberio Colaisso was a learned man. At all events he had proved himself able to do all that Meschini asked of him. He was keen, too, in an indolent way, and a single glance had satisfied him that something very unusual had happened to the librarian. He watched him patiently, hoping to find out the truth without questions. At the same time, the hope of winning a few coppers made him keep an eye on the game. To his surprise he won easily, and he was further astonished when he saw that the miserly Meschini was not inclined to complain of his losses nor to accuse him of cheating. "You are not lucky to-day," he remarked at last, when his winnings amounted to a couple of pauls--a modern franc in all. Meschini looked at him uneasily and wiped his brow, leaning back in the rickety chair. His hands were trembling. "No," he answered. "I am not quite myself to-day. The fact is that a most dreadful tragedy occurred in our house last night, the mere thought of which gives me the fever. I am even obliged to take a little stimulant from time to time." So saying, he drew the bottle from his pocket and applied it to his lips. He had hoped that it would not be necessary, but he was unable to do without it very long, his nerves being broken down by the quantity he had taken on the previous night. Colaisso looked on in silence, more puzzled than ever. The librarian seemed to be revived by the dose, and spoke more cheerfully after it. "A most terrible tragedy," he said. "The prince was murdered yesterday afternoon. I could not speak of it to you at once." "Murdered?" exclaimed the apothecary in amazement. "And by whom?" "That is the mystery. He was found dead in his study. I will tell you all I know." Meschini communicated the story to his friend in a disjointed fashion, interspersing his narrative with many comments intended to give himself courage to proceed. He told the tale with evident reluctance, but he could not avoid the necessity. If Tiberio Colaisso read the account in the paper that evening, as he undoubtedly would, he would wonder why his companion had not been the first to relate the catastrophe; and this wonder might turn into a suspicion. It would have been better not to come to the apothecary's, but since he found himself there he could not escape from informing him of what had happened. "It is very strange," said the chemist, when he had heard all. Meschini thought he detected a disagreeable look in his eyes. "It is, indeed," he answered. "I am made ill by it. See how my hand trembles. I am cold and hot." "You have been drinking too much," said Colaisso suddenly, and with a certain brutality that startled his friend. "You are not sober. You must have taken a great deal last night. A libation to the dead, I suppose, in the manner of the ancients." Meschini winced visibly and began to shuffle the cards, while he attempted to smile to hide his embarrassment. "I was not well yesterday--at least--I do not know what was the matter--a headache, I think, nothing more. And then, this awful catastrophe--horrible! My nerves are unstrung. I can scarcely speak." "You need sleep first, and then a tonic," said the apothecary in a business-like tone. "I slept until late this morning. It did me no good. I am half dead myself. Yes, if I could sleep again it might do me good." "Go home and go to bed. If I were in your place I would not drink any more of that liquor. It will only make you worse." "Give me something to make me sleep. I will take it." The apothecary looked long at him and seemed to be weighing something in his judgment. An evil thought crossed his mind. He was very poor. He knew well enough, in spite of Meschini's protestations, that he was not so poor as he pretended to be. If he were he could not have paid so regularly for the chemicals and for the experiments necessary to the preparation of his inks. More than once the operations had proved to be expensive, but the librarian had never complained, though he haggled for a baiocco over his dinner at Cicco's wine shop, and was generally angry when he lost a paul at cards. He had money somewhere. It was evident that he was in a highly nervous state. If he could be induced to take opium once or twice it might become a habit. To sell opium was very profitable, and Colaisso knew well enough the power of the vice and the proportions it would soon assume, especially if Meschini thought the medicine contained only some harmless drug. "Very well," said the apothecary. "I will make you a draught. But you must be sure that you are ready to sleep when you take it. It acts very quickly." The draught which Meschini carried home with him was nothing but weak laudanum and water. It looked innocent enough, in the little glass bottle labelled "Sleeping potion." But the effect of it, as Colaisso had told him, was very rapid. Exhausted by all he had suffered, the librarian closed the windows of his room and lay down to rest. In a quarter of an hour he was in a heavy sleep. In his dreams he was happier than he had ever been before. The whole world seemed to be his, to use as he pleased. He was transformed into a magnificent being such as he had never imagined in his waking hours. He passed from one scene of splendour to another, from glory to glory, surrounded by forms of beauty, by showers of golden light in a beatitude beyond all description. It was as though he had suddenly become emperor of the whole universe. He floated through wondrous regions of soft colour, and strains of divine music sounded in his ears. Gentle hands carried him with an easy swaying motion to transcendent heights, where every breath he drew was like a draught of sparkling life. His whole being was filled with something which he knew was happiness, until he felt as though he could not contain the overflowing joy. At one moment he glided beyond the clouds through a gorgeous sunset; at another he was lying on a soft invisible couch, looking out to the bright distance--distance that never ended, never could end, but the contemplation of which was rapture, the greater for being inexplicable. An exquisite new sense was in him, corresponding to no bodily instinct, but rejoicing wildly in something that could not be defined, nor understood, nor measured, but only felt. At last he began to descend, slowly at first and then with increasing speed, till he grew giddy and unconscious in the fall. He awoke and uttered a cry of terror. It was night, and he was alone in the dark. He was chilled to the bone, too, and his head was heavy, but the darkness was unbearable, and though he would gladly have slept again he dared not remain an instant without a light. He groped about for his matches, found them, and lit a candle. A neighbouring clock tolled out the hour of midnight, and the sound of the bells terrified him beyond measure. Cold, miserable, in an agony of fear, his nervousness doubled by the opium and by a need of food of which he was not aware, there was but one remedy within his reach. The sleeping potion had been calculated for one occasion only, and it was all gone. He tried to drain a few drops from the phial, and a drowsy, half-sickening odour rose from it to his nostrils. But there was nothing left, nothing but the brandy, and little more than half a bottle of that. It was enough for his present need, however, and more than enough. He drank greedily, for he was parched with thirst, though hardly conscious of the fact. Then he slept till morning. But when he opened his eyes he was conscious that he was in a worse state than on the previous day. He was not only nervous but exhausted, and it was with feeble steps that he made his way to his friend's shop, in order to procure a double dose of the sleeping mixture. If he could sleep through the twenty-four hours, he thought, so as not to wake up in the dead of night, he should be better. When he made his appearance Tiberio Colaisso knew what he wanted, and although he had half repented of what he had done, the renewed possibility of selling the precious drug was a temptation he could not withstand. One day succeeded another, and each morning saw Arnoldo Meschini crossing the Ponte Quattro Capi on his way to the apothecary's. In the ordinary course of human nature a man does not become an opium-eater in a day, nor even, perhaps, in a week, but to the librarian the narcotic became a necessity almost from the first. Its action, combined with incessant doses of alcohol, was destructive, but the man's constitution was stronger than would have been believed. He possessed, moreover, a great power of controlling his features when he was not assailed by supernatural fears, and so it came about that, living almost in solitude, no one in the Palazzo Montevarchi was aware of his state. It was bad enough, indeed, for when he was not under the influence of brandy he was sleeping from the effects of opium. In three days he was willing to pay anything the apothecary asked, and seemed scarcely conscious of the payments he made. He kept up a show of playing the accustomed game of cards, but he was absent-minded, and was not even angry at his daily losses. The apothecary had more money in his pocket than he had possessed for many a day. As Arnoldo Meschini sank deeper and deeper, the chemist's spirits rose, and he began to assume an air of unwonted prosperity. One of the earliest results of the librarian's degraded condition was that Tiberio Colaisso procured himself a new green smoking cap ornamented profusely with fresh silver lace. CHAPTER XXVII. Sant' Ilario had guessed rightly that the place of safety and secrecy to which he was to be conveyed was no other than the Holy Office, or prison of the Inquisition. He was familiar with the interior of the building, and knew that it contained none of the horrors generally attributed to it, so that, on the whole, he was well satisfied with the cardinal's choice. The cell to which he was conveyed after dark was a large room on the second story, comfortably furnished and bearing no sign of its use but the ornamented iron grating that filled the window. The walls were not thicker than those of most Roman palaces, and the chamber was dry and airy, and sufficiently warmed by a huge brazier of coals. It was clear from the way in which he was treated that the cardinal relied upon his honour more than upon any use of force in order to keep him in custody. A silent individual in a black coat had brought him in a carriage to the great entrance, whence a man of similar discretion and of like appearance had conducted him to his cell. This person returned soon afterwards, bringing a sufficient meal of fish and vegetables--it was Friday--decently cooked and almost luxuriously served. An hour later the man came back to carry away what was left. He asked whether the prisoner needed anything else for the night. "I would like to know," said Giovanni, "whether any of my friends will be allowed to see me, if I ask it." "I am directed to say that any request or complaint you have to make will be transmitted to his Eminence by a special messenger," answered the man. "Anything," he added in explanation, "beyond what concerns your personal comfort. In this respect I am at liberty to give you whatever you desire, within reason." "Thank you. I will endeavour to be reasonable," replied Giovanni. "I am much obliged to you." The man left the room and closed the door softly, so softly that the prisoner wondered whether he had turned the key. On examining the panels he saw, however, that they were smooth and not broken by any latch or keyhole. The spring was on the outside, and there was no means whatever of opening the door from within. Giovanni wondered why a special messenger was to be employed to carry any request he made directly to the cardinal. The direction could not have been given idly, nor was it without some especial reason that he was at once told of it. Assuredly his Eminence was not expecting the prince to repent of his bargain and to send word that he wished to be released. The idea was absurd. The great man might suppose, however, that Giovanni would desire to send some communication to his wife, who would naturally be anxious about his absence. Against this contingency, however, Sant' Ilario had provided by means of the note he had despatched to her. Several days would elapse before she began to expect him, so that he had plenty of time to reflect upon his future course. Meanwhile he resolved to ask for nothing. Indeed, he had no requirements. He had money in his pockets and could send the attendant to buy any linen he needed without getting it from his home. He was in a state of mind in which nothing could have pleased him better than solitary imprisonment. He felt at once a sense of rest and a freedom from all responsibility that soothed his nerves and calmed his thoughts. For many days he had lived in a condition bordering on madness. Every interview with Corona was a disappointment, and brought with it a new suffering. Much as he would have dreaded the idea of being separated from her for any length of time, the temporary impossibility of seeing her was now a relief, of which he realised the importance more and more as the hours succeeded each other. There are times when nothing but a forcible break in the current of our lives can restore the mind to its normal balance. Such a break, painful as it may be at first, brings with it the long lost power of rest. Instead of feeling the despair we expect, we are amazed at our own indifference, which again is succeeded by a renewed capacity for judging facts as they are, and by a new energy to mould our lives upon a better plan. Giovanni neither reflected upon his position nor brooded over the probable result of his actions. On the contrary, he went to bed and slept soundly, like a strong man tired out with bodily exertion. He slept so long that his attendant at last woke him, entering and opening the window. The morning was fine, and the sun streamed in through the iron grating. Giovanni looked about him, and realised where he was. He felt calm and strong, and was inclined to laugh at the idea that his rashness would have any dangerous consequences. Corona doubtless was already awake too, and supposed that he was in the country shooting wild boar, or otherwise amusing himself. Instead of that he was in prison. There was no denying the fact, after all, but it was strange that he should not care to be at liberty. He had heard of the moral sufferings of men who are kept in confinement. No matter how well they are treated they grow nervous and careworn and haggard, wearing themselves out in a perpetual longing for freedom. Giovanni, on the contrary, as he looked round the bright, airy room, felt that he might inhabit it for a year without once caring to go out into the world. A few books to read, the means of writing if he pleased--he needed nothing else. To be alone was happiness enough. He ate his breakfast slowly, and sat down in an old-fashioned chair to smoke a cigarette and bask in the sunshine while it lasted. It was not much like prison, and he did not feel like a man arrested for murder. He was conscious for a long time of nothing but a vague, peaceful contentment. He had given a list of things to be bought, including a couple of novels, to the man who waited upon him, and after a few hours everything was brought. The day passed tranquilly, and when he went to bed he smiled as he blew out the candle, partly at himself and partly at his situation. "My friends will not say that I am absolutely lacking in originality," he reflected as he went to sleep. On the morrow he read less and thought more. In the first place he wondered how long he should be left without any communication from the outside world. He wondered whether any steps had been taken towards bringing him to a trial, or whether the cardinal really knew that he was innocent, and was merely making him act out the comedy he had himself invented and begun. He was not impatient, but he was curious to know the truth. It was now the third day since he had seen Corona, and he had not prepared her for a long absence. If he heard nothing during the next twenty-four hours it would be better to take some measures for relieving her anxiety, if she felt any. The latter reflection, which presented itself suddenly, startled him a little. Was it possible that she would allow a week to slip by without expecting to hear from him or asking herself where he was? That was out of the question. He admitted the impossibility of such indifference, almost in spite of himself. He was willing, perhaps, to think her utterly heartless rather than accept the belief in an affection which went no farther than to hope that he might be safe; but his vanity or his intuition, it matters little which of the two, told him that Corona felt more than that. And yet she did not love him. He sat for many hours, motionless in his chair, trying to construct the future out of the past, an effort of imagination in which he failed signally. The peace of his solitude was less satisfactory to him than at first, and he began to suspect that before very long he might even wish to return to the world. Possibly Corona might come to see him. The cardinal would perhaps think it best to tell her what had happened. How would he tell it? Would he let her know all? The light faded from the room, and the attendant brought his evening meal and set two candles upon the table. Hitherto it could not be said that he had suffered. On the contrary, his character had regained its tone after weeks of depression. Another day was ended, and he went to rest, but he slept less soundly than before, and on the following morning he awoke early. The monotony of the existence struck him all at once in its reality. The fourth day would be like the third, and, for all he knew, hundreds to come would be like the fourth if it pleased his Eminence to keep him a prisoner. Corona would certainly never suspect that he was shut up in the Holy Office, and if she did, she might not be able to come to him. Even if she came, what could he say to her? That he had committed a piece of outrageous folly because he was annoyed at her disbelief in him or at her coldness. He had probably made himself ridiculous for the first time in his life. The thought was the reverse of consoling. Nor did it contribute to his peace of mind to know that if he had made himself a laughing-stock, the cardinal, who dreaded ridicule, would certainly refuse to play a part in his comedy, and would act with all the rigour suitable to so grave a situation. He might even bring his prisoner to trial. Giovanni would submit to that, rather than be laughed at, but the alternative now seemed an appalling one. In his disgust of life on that memorable morning he had cared nothing what became of him, and had been in a state which precluded all just appreciation of the future. His enforced solitude had restored his faculties. He desired nothing less than to be tried for murder, because he had taken a short cut to satisfy his wife's caprice. But that caprice had for its object the liberty of poor Faustina Montevarchi. At all events, if he had made himself ridiculous, the ultimate purpose of his folly had been good, and had been accomplished. All through the afternoon he paced his room, alternately in a state of profound dissatisfaction with himself, and in a condition of anxious curiosity about coming events. He scarcely touched his food or noticed the attendant who entered half a dozen times to perform his various offices. Again the night closed in, and once more he lay down to sleep, dreading the morning, and hoping to lose himself in dreams. The fourth day was like the third, indeed, as far as his surroundings were concerned, but he had not foreseen that he would be a prey to such gnawing anxiety as he suffered, still less, perhaps, that he should grow almost desperate for a sight of Corona. He was not a man who made any exhibition of his feelings even when he was alone. But the man who served him noticed that when he entered Giovanni was never reading, as he had always been doing at first. He was either walking rapidly up and down or sitting idly in the big chair by the window. His face was quiet and pale, even solemn at times. The attendant was doubtless accustomed to sudden changes of mood in his prisoners, for he appeared to take no notice of the alteration in Giovanni's manner. It seemed as though the day would never end. To a man of his active strength to walk about a room is not exercise; it hardly seems like motion at all, and yet Giovanni found it harder and harder to sit still as the hours wore on. After an interval of comparative peace, his love for Corona had overwhelmed him again, and with tenfold force. To be shut up in a cell without the possibility of seeing her, was torture such as he had never dreamt of in his whole life. By a strange revulsion of feeling it appeared to him that by taking her so suddenly at her word he had again done her an injustice. The process of reasoning by which he arrived at this conclusion was not clear to himself, and probably could not be made intelligible to any one else. He had assuredly sacrificed himself unhesitatingly, and at first the action had given him pleasure. But this was destroyed by the thought of the possible consequences. He asked whether he had the right to satisfy her imperative demand for Faustina's freedom by doing that which might possibly cause her annoyance, even though it should bring no serious injury to any one. The time passed very slowly, and towards evening he began to feel as he had felt before he had taken the fatal step which had placed him beyond Corona's reach, restless, miserable, desperate. At last it was night, and he was sitting before his solitary meal, eating hardly anything, staring half unconsciously at the closed window opposite. The door opened softly, but he did not look round, supposing the person entering to be the attendant. Suddenly, there was the rustle of a woman's dress in the room, and at the same moment the door was shut. He sprang to his feet, stood still a moment, and then uttered a cry of surprise. Corona stood beside him, very pale, looking into his eyes. She had worn a thick veil, and on coming in had thrown it back upon her head--the veils of those days were long and heavy, and fell about the head and neck like a drapery. "Corona!" Giovanni cried, stretching out his hands towards her. Something in her face prevented him from throwing his arms round her, something not like her usual coldness and reproachful look that kept him back. "Giovanni--was it kind to leave me so?" she asked, without moving from her place. The question corresponded so closely with his own feelings that he had anticipated it, though he had no answer ready. She knew all, and was hurt by what he had done. What could he say? The reasons that had sent him so boldly into danger no longer seemed even sufficient for an excuse. The happiness he had anticipated in seeing her had vanished almost before it had made itself felt. His first emotion was bitter anger against the cardinal. No one else could have told her, for no one else knew what he had done nor where he was. Giovanni thought, and with reason, that the great man might have spared his wife such a blow. "I believed I was doing what was best when I did it," he answered, scarcely knowing what to say. "Was it best to leave me without a word, except a message of excuse for others?" "For you--was it not better? For me--what does it matter? Should I be happier anywhere else?" "Have I driven you from your home, Giovanni?" asked Corona, with a strange look in her dark eyes. Her voice trembled. "No, not you," he answered, turning away and beginning to walk up and down by the force of the habit he had acquired during the last two or three days. "Not you," he repeated more than once in a bitter tone. Corona sank down upon the chair he had left, and buried her face in her hands, as though overcome by a great and sudden grief. Giovanni stopped before her and looked at her, not clearly understanding what was passing in her mind. "Why are you so sorry?" he asked. "Has a separation of a few days changed you? Are you sorry for me?" "Why did you come here?" she exclaimed, instead of answering his question. "Why here, of all places?" "I had no choice. The cardinal decided the matter for me." "The cardinal? Why do you confide in him? You never did before. I may be wrong, but I do not trust him, kind as he has always been. If you wanted advice, you might have gone to Padre Filippo--" "Advice? I do not understand you, Corona." "Did you not go to the cardinal and tell him that you were very unhappy and wanted to make a retreat in some quiet place where nobody could find you? And did he not advise you to come here, promising to keep your secret, and authorising you to stay as long as you pleased? That is what he told me." "He told you that?" cried Giovanni in great astonishment. "Yes--that and nothing more. He came to see me late this afternoon. He said that he feared lest I should be anxious about your long absence, and that he thought himself justified in telling me where you were and in giving me a pass, in case I wanted to see you. Besides, if it is not all as he says, how did you come here?" "You do not know the truth? You do not know what I did? You do not guess why I am in the Holy Office?" "I know only what he told me," answered Corona, surprised by Giovanni's questions. But Giovanni gave no immediate explanation. He paced the floor in a state of excitement in which she had never seen him, clasping and unclasping his fingers nervously, and uttering short, incoherent exclamations. As she watched him a sensation of fear crept over her, but she did not ask him any question. He stopped suddenly again. "You do not know that I am in prison?" "In prison!" She rose with a sharp cry and seized his hands in hers. "Do not be frightened, dear," he said in an altered tone. "I am perfectly innocent. After all, you know it is a prison." "Ah, Giovanni!" she exclaimed reproachfully, "how could you say such a dreadful thing, even in jest?" She had dropped his hands again, and drew back a step as she spoke. "It is not a jest. It is earnest. Do not start. I will tell you just what happened. It is best, after all. When I left you at the Termini, I saw that you had set your heart on liberating poor Faustina. I could not find any way of accomplishing what you desired, and I saw that you thought I was not doing my best for her freedom. I went directly to the cardinal and gave myself up in her place." "As a hostage--a surety?" asked Corona, breathlessly. "No. He would not have accepted that, for he was prejudiced against her. I gave myself up as the murderer." He spoke quite calmly, as though he had been narrating a commonplace occurrence. For an instant she stood before him, dumb and horror-struck. Then with a great heart-broken cry she threw her arms round him and clasped him passionately to her breast. "My beloved! My beloved!" For some moments she held him so closely that he could neither move nor see her face, but the beating of his heart told him that a great change had in that instant come over his life. The cry had come from her soul, irresistibly, spontaneously. There was an accent in the two words she repeated which he had never hoped to hear again. He had expected that she would reproach him for his madness. Instead of that, his folly had awakened the love that was not dead, though it had been so desperately wounded. Presently she drew back a little and looked into his eyes, a fierce deep light burning in her own. "I love you," she said, almost under her breath. A wonderful smile passed over his face, illuminating the dark, stern lines of it like a ray of heavenly light. Then the dusky eyelids slowly closed, as though by their own weight, his head fell back, and his lips turned white. She felt the burden of his body in her arms, and but for her strength he would have fallen to the floor. She reeled on her feet, holding him still, and sank down until she knelt and his head rested on her knee. Her heart stood still as she listened for the sound of his faint breathing. Had his unconsciousness lasted longer she would have fainted herself. But in a moment his eyes opened again with an expression such as she had seen in them once or twice before, but in a less degree. "Corona--it is too much!" he said softly, almost dreamily. Then his strength returned in an instant, like a strong steel bow that has been bent almost to breaking. He scarcely knew how it was that the position was changed so that he was standing on his feet and clasping her as she had clasped him. Her tears were flowing FAST, but there was more joy in them than pain. "How could you do it?" she asked at length, looking up. "And oh, Giovanni! what will be the end of it? Will not something dreadful happen?" "What does anything matter now, darling?" At last they sat down together, hand in hand, as of old. It was as though the last two months had been suddenly blotted out. As Giovanni said, nothing could matter now. And yet the situation was far from clear. Giovanni understood well enough that the cardinal had wished to leave him the option of telling his wife what had occurred, and, if he chose to do so, of telling her in his own language. He was grateful for the tact the statesman had displayed, a tact which seemed also to show Giovanni the cardinal's views of the case. He had declared that he was desperate. The cardinal had concluded that he was unhappy. He had said that he did not care what became of him. The cardinal had supposed that he would be glad to be alone, or at all events that it would be good for him to have a certain amount of solitude. If his position were in any way dangerous, the great man would surely not have thought of sending Corona to his prisoner as he had done. He would have prepared her himself against any shock. And yet he was undeniably in prison, with no immediate prospect of liberty. "You cannot stay here any longer," said Corona when they were at last able to talk of the immediate future. "I do not see how I am to get out," Giovanni answered, with a smile. "I will go to the cardinal--" "It is of no use. He probably guesses the truth, but he is not willing to be made ridiculous by me or by any one. He will keep me here until there can be a trial, or until he finds the real culprit. He is obstinate. I know him." "It is impossible that he should think of such a thing!" exclaimed Corona indignantly. "I am afraid it is very possible. But, of course, it is only a matter of time--a few days at the utmost. If worst comes to worst I can demand an inquiry, I suppose, though I do not see how I can proclaim my own innocence without hurting Faustina. She was liberated because I put myself in her place--it is rather complicated." "Tell me, Giovanni," said Corona, "what did you say to the cardinal? You did not really say that you murdered Montevarchi?" "No. I said I gave myself up as the murderer, and I explained how I might have done the deed. I did more, I pledged my honour that Faustina was innocent." "But you were not sure of it yourself--" "Since you had told me it was true, I believed it," he answered simply. "Thank you, dear--" "No. Do not thank me for it. I could not help myself. I knew that you were sure--are you sure of something else, Corona? Are you as certain as you were of that?" "How can you ask? But you are right--you have the right to doubt me. You will not, though, will you? Hear me, dear, while I tell you the whole story." She slipped from her chair and knelt before him, as though she were to make a confession. Then she took his hands and looked up lovingly into his face. The truth rose in her eyes. "Forgive me, Giovanni. Yes, you have much to forgive. I did not know myself. When you doubted me, I felt as though I had nothing left in life, as though you would never again believe in me. I thought I did not love you. I was wrong. It was only my miserable vanity that was wounded, and that hurt me so. I felt that my love was dead, that you yourself were dead and that another man had taken your place. Ah, I could have helped it! Had I known you better, dear, had I been less mistaken in myself, all would have been different. But I was foolish--no, I was unhappy. Everything was dark and dreadful. Oh, my darling, I thought I could tell what I felt--I cannot! Forgive me, only forgive me, and love me as you did long ago. I will never leave you, not if you stay here for ever, only let me love you as I will!" "It is not for me to forgive, sweetheart," said Giovanni, bending down and kissing her sweet dark hair. "It is for you--" "But I would so much rather think it my fault, dear," she answered, drawing his face down to hers. It was a very womanly impulse that made her take the blame upon herself. "You must not think anything so unreasonable, Corona. I brought all the harm that came, from the first moment." He would have gone on to accuse himself, obstinate and manlike, recapitulating the whole series of events. But she would not let him. Once more she sat beside him and held his hand in hers. They talked incoherently and it is not to be wondered at if they arrived at no very definite conclusion after a very long conversation. They were still sitting together when the attendant entered and presented Giovanni with a large sealed letter, bearing the Apostolic arms, and addressed merely to the number of Giovanni's cell. "There is an answer," said the man, and then left the room. "It is probably the notice of the trial, or something of the kind," observed Giovanni, suddenly growing very grave as he broke the seal. He wished it might have come at any other time than the present. Corona held her breath and watched his face while he read the lines written upon one of the two papers he took from the envelope. Suddenly the colour came to his cheeks and his eyes brightened with a look of happiness and surprise. "I am free!" he cried, as he finished. "Free if I will sign this paper! Of course I will! I will sign anything he likes." The envelope contained a note from the cardinal, in his own hand, to the effect that suspicion had fallen upon another person and that Giovanni was at liberty to return to his home if he would sign the accompanying document. The latter was very short, and set forth that Giovanni Saracinesca bound himself upon his word to appear in the trial of the murderer of Prince Montevarchi, if called upon to do so, and not to leave Rome until the matter was finally concluded and set at rest. He took the pen that lay on the table and signed his name in a broad firm hand, a fact the more notable because Corona was leaning over his shoulder, watching the characters as he traced them. He folded the paper and placed it in the open envelope which accompanied it. The cardinal was a man of details. He thought it possible that the document might be returned open for lack of the means to seal it. He did not choose that his secrets should become the property of the people about the Holy Office. It was a specimen of his forethought in small things which might have an influence upon great ones. When Giovanni had finished, he rose and stood beside Corona. Each looked into the other's eyes and for a moment neither saw very clearly. They said little more, however, until the attendant entered again. "You are at liberty," he said briefly, and without a word began to put together the few small things that belonged to his late prisoner. Half an hour later Giovanni was seated at dinner at his father's table. The old gentleman greeted him with a half-savage growl of satisfaction. "The prodigal has returned to get a meal while there is one to be had," he remarked. "I thought you had gone to Paris to leave the agreeable settlement of our affairs to Corona and me. Where the devil have you been?" "I have been indulging in the luxury of a retreat in a religious house," answered Giovanni with perfect truth. Corona glanced at him and both laughed happily, as they had not laughed for many days and weeks. Saracinesca looked incredulously across the table at his son. "You chose a singular moment for your devotional exercises," he said. "Where will piety hide herself next, I wonder? As long as Corona is satisfied, I am. It is her business." "I am perfectly satisfied, I assure you," said Corona, whose black eyes were full of light. Giovanni raised his glass, looked at her and smiled lovingly. Then he emptied it to the last drop and set it down without a word. "Some secret, I suppose," said the old gentleman gruffly. CHAPTER XXVIII. Arnoldo Meschini was not, perhaps, insane in the ordinary sense of the word; that is to say, he would probably have recovered the normal balance of his faculties if he could have been kept from narcotics and stimulants, and if he could have been relieved from the distracting fear of discovery which tormented him when he was not under the influence of one or the other. But the latter condition was impossible, and it was the extremity of his terror which almost forced him to keep his brain in a clouded state. People have been driven mad by sudden fright, and have gradually lost their intellect through the constant presence of a fear from which there is no escape. A man who is perpetually producing an unnatural state of his mind by swallowing doses of brandy and opium may not be insane in theory; in actual fact, he may be a dangerous madman. As one day followed another Meschini found it more and more impossible to exist without his two comforters. The least approach to lucidity made him almost frantic. He fancied every man a spy, every indifferent glance a look full of meaning. Before long the belief took possession of him that he was to be made the victim of some horrible private vengeance. San Giacinto was not the man, he thought, to be contented with sending him to the galleys for life. Few murderers were executed in those days, and it would be a small satisfaction to the Montevarchi to know that Arnoldo had merely been transferred from his study of the library catalogue to the breaking of stones with a chain gang at Civitavecchia. It was more likely that they would revenge themselves more effectually. His disordered imagination saw horrible visions. San Giacinto might lay a trap for him, might simply come at dead of night and take him from his room to some deep vault beneath the palace. What could he do against such a giant? He fancied himself before a secret tribunal in the midst of which towered San Giacinto's colossal figure. He could hear the deep voice he dreaded pronouncing his doom. He was to be torn to shreds piecemeal, burnt by a slow fire, flayed alive by those enormous hands. There was no conceivable horror of torture that did not suggest itself to him at such times. It is true that when he went to bed at night he was generally either so stupefied by opium or so intoxicated with strong drink that he forgot even to lock his door. But during the day he was seldom so far under the power of either as not to suffer from his own hideous imaginings. One day, as he dragged his slow pace along a narrow street near the fountain of Trevi, his eyes were arrested by an armourer's window. It suddenly struck him that he had no weapon of defence in case San Giacinto or his agents came upon him unawares. And yet a bullet well placed would make an end even of such a Hercules as the man he feared. He paused and looked anxiously up and down the street. It was a dark day and a fine rain was falling. There was nobody about who could recognise him, and he might not have another such opportunity of providing himself unobserved with what he wanted. He entered the shop and bought himself a revolver. The man showed him how to load it and sold him a box of cartridges. He dropped the firearm into one of the pockets of his coat, and smiled as he felt how comfortably it balanced the bottle he carried in the other. Then he slunk out of the shop and pursued his walk. The idea of making capital out of the original deeds concerning the Saracinesca, which had presented itself to him soon after the murder, recurred frequently to his mind; but he felt that he was in no condition to elaborate it, and promised himself to attend to the matter when he was better. For he fancied that he was ill and that his state would soon begin to improve. To go to San Giacinto now was out of the question. It would have been easier for him to climb the cross on the summit of St. Peter's, with his shaken nerves and trembling limbs, than to face the man who inspired in him such untold dread. He could, of course, take the alternative which was open to him, and go to old Saracinesca. Indeed, there were moments when he could almost have screwed his courage to the point of making such an attempt, but his natural prudence made him draw back from an interview in which he must incur a desperate risk unless he had a perfect command of his faculties. To write what he had to say would be merely to give a weapon against himself, since he could not treat the matter by letter without acknowledging his share in the forgeries. The only way to accomplish his purpose would be to extract a solemn promise of secrecy from Saracinesca, together with a guarantee for his own safety, and to obtain these conditions would need all the diplomacy he possessed. Bad as he was, he had no experience of practical blackmailing, and he would be obliged to compose his speeches beforehand with scrupulous care, and with the wisest forethought. For the present, such work was beyond his power, but when he was half drunk he loved to look at the ancient parchments and build golden palaces in the future. When he was strong again, and calm, he would realise all his dreams, and that time, he felt sure, could not be far removed. Nevertheless the days succeeded each other with appalling swiftness, and nothing was done. By imperceptible degrees his horror of San Giacinto began to invade his mind even when it was most deadened by drink. So long as an idea is new and has not really become a habit of the brain, brandy will drive it away, but the moment must inevitably come when the stimulant loses its power to obscure the memory of the thing dreaded. Opium will do it more effectually, but even that does not continue to act for ever. The time comes when the predominant thought of the waking hours reproduces itself during the artificial sleep with fearful force, so that the mind at last obtains no rest at all. That is the dangerous period, preceding the decay and total collapse of the intellect under what is commonly called the fixed idea. In certain conditions of mind, and notably with criminals who fear discovery, the effects of opium change very quickly; the downward steps through which it would take months for an ordinary individual to pass are descended with alarming rapidity, and the end is a thousand times more horrible. Meschini could not have taken the doses which a confirmed opium-eater swallows with indifference, but the result produced was far greater in proportion to the amount of the narcotic he consumed. Before the week which followed the deed was ended, he began to see visions when he was apparently awake. Shapeless, slimy things crawled about the floor of his room, upon his table, even upon the sheets of his bed. Dark shadows confronted him, and changed their outlines unexpectedly. Forms rose out of the earth at his feet and towered all at once to the top of the room, taking the appearance of San Giacinto and vanishing suddenly into the air. The things he saw came like instantaneous flashes from another and even more terrible world, disappearing at first so quickly as to make him believe them only the effects of the light and darkness, like the ghost he had seen in his coat. In the beginning there was scarcely anything alarming in them, but as he started whenever they came, he generally took them as a warning that he needed more brandy to keep him up. In the course of a day or two, however, these visions assumed more awful proportions, and he found it impossible to escape from them except in absolute stupor. It would have been clear to any one that this state of things could not last long. There was scarcely an hour in which he knew exactly what he was doing, and if his strange behaviour escaped observation this was due to his solitary way of living. He did not keep away from the palace during the whole day, from a vague idea that his absence might be thought suspicious. He spent a certain number of hours in the library, doing nothing, although he carefully spread out a number of books before him and dipped his pen into the ink from time to time, stupidly, mechanically, as though his fingers could not forget the habit so long familiar to them. His eyes,--which had formerly been unusually bright, had grown dull and almost bleared, though they glanced at times very quickly from one part of the room to another. That was when he saw strange things moving in the vast hall, between him and the bookcases. When they had disappeared, his glassy look returned, so that his eyeballs seemed merely to reflect the light, as inanimate objects do, without absorbing it, and conveying it to the seat of vision. His face grew daily more thin and ghastly. It was by force of custom that he stayed so long in the place where he had spent so much of his life. The intervals of semi-lucidity seemed terribly long, though they were in reality short enough, and the effort to engage his attention in work helped him to live through them. He had never gone down to the apartments where the family lived, since he had knelt before the catafalque on the day after the murder. Indeed, there was no reason why he should go there, and no one noticed his absence. He was a very insignificant person in the palace. As for any one coming to find him among the books, nothing seemed more improbable. The library was swept out in the early morning and no one entered it again during the twenty-four hours. He never went out into the corridor now, but left his coat upon a chair near him, when he remembered to bring it. As a sort of precautionary measure against fear, he locked the door which opened upon the passage when he came in the morning, unlocking it again when he went away in order that the servant who did the sweeping might be able to get in. The Princess Montevarchi was still dangerously ill, and Faustina had not been willing to leave her. San Giacinto and Flavia were not living in the house, but they spent a good deal of time there, because San Giacinto had ideas of his own about duty, to which his wife was obliged to submit even if she did not like them. Faustina was neither nervous nor afraid of solitude, and was by no means in need of her sister's company, so that when the two were together their conversation was not always of the most affectionate kind. The consequence was that the young girl tried to be alone as much as possible when she was not at her mother's bedside. One day, having absolutely nothing to do, she grew desperate. It was very hard not to think of Anastase, when she was in the solitude of her own room, with no occupation to direct her mind. A week earlier she had been only too glad to have the opportunity of dreaming away the short afternoon undisturbed, letting her girlish thoughts wander among the rose gardens of the future with the image of the man she loved so dearly, and who was yet so far removed from her. Now she could not think of him without reflecting that her father's death had removed one very great obstacle to her marriage. She was by no means of a very devout or saintly character, but, on the other hand, she had a great deal of what is called heart, and to be heartless seemed to her almost worse than to be bad. In excuse of such very untheological doctrines it must be allowed that her ideas concerning wickedness in general were very limited indeed, if not altogether childish in their extreme simplicity. It is certain, however, that she would have thought it far less wrong to run away with Gouache in spite of her family than to entertain any thought which could place her father's tragic death in the light of a personal advantage. If she had nothing to do she could not help thinking of Anastase, and if she thought of him, she could not escape the conclusion that it would be far easier for her to marry him, now that the old prince was out of the way. It was therefore absolutely necessary to find some occupation. At first she wandered aimlessly about the house until she was struck, almost for the first time, by the antiquated stiffness of the arrangement, and began to ask herself whether it would be respectful to the memory of her father, and to her mother, to try and make a few changes. Corona's home was very different. She would like to take that for a model. But one or two attempts showed her the magnitude of the task she had undertaken. She was ashamed to call the servants to help her--it would look as though there were to be a reception in the house. Her ideas of what could take place in the Palazzo Montevarchi did not go beyond that staid form of diversion. She was ashamed, however, and reflected, besides, that she was only the youngest of the family and had no right to take the initiative in the matter of improvements. The time hung very heavily upon her hands. She tried to teach herself something about painting by looking at the pictures on the walls, spending a quarter of an hour before each with conscientious assiduity. But this did not succeed either. The men in the pictures all took the shape of Monsieur Gouache in his smartest uniform and the women all looked disagreeably like Flavia. Then she thought of the library, which was the only place of importance in the house which she had not lately visited. She hesitated a moment only, considering how she could best reach it without passing through the study, and without going up the grand staircase to the outer door. A very little reflection showed her that she could get into the corridor from a passage near her own room. In a few minutes she was at the entrance to the great hall, trying to turn the heavy carved brass handle of the latch. To her surprise she could not open the door, which was evidently fastened from within. Then as she shook it in the hope that some one would hear her, a strange cry reached her ears, like that of a startled animal, accompanied by the shuffling of feet. She remembered Meschini's walk, and understood that it was he. "Please let me in!" she called out in her clear young voice, that echoed back to her from the vaulted chamber. Again she heard the shuffling footsteps, which this time came towards her, and a moment afterwards the door opened and the librarian's ghastly face was close before her. She drew back a little. She had forgotten that he was so ugly, she thought, or perhaps she would not have cared to see him. It would have been foolish, moreover, to go away after coming thus far. "I want to see the library," she said quietly, after she had made up her mind. "Will you show it to me?" "Favorisca, Excellency," replied Meschini in a broken voice. He had been frightened by the noise at the door, and the contortion of his face as he tried to smile was hideous to see. He bowed low, however, and closed the door after she had entered. Scarcely knowing what he did, he shuffled along by her side while she looked about the library, gazing at the long rows of books, bound all alike, that stretched from end to end of many of the shelves. The place was new to her, for she had not been in it more than two or three times in her life, and she felt a sort of unexplained awe in the presence of so many thousands of volumes, of so much written and printed wisdom which she could never hope to understand. She had come with a vague idea that she should find something to read that should be different from the novels she was not allowed to touch. She realised all at once that she knew nothing of what had been written in all the centuries whose literature was represented in the vast collection. She hardly knew the names of twenty books out of the hundreds of millions that the world contained. But she could ask Meschini. She looked at him again, and his face repelled her. Nevertheless, she was too kindhearted not to enter into conversation with the lonely man whom she had so rarely seen, but who was one of the oldest members of her father's household. "You have spent your life here, have you not?" she asked, for the sake of saying something. "Nearly thirty years of it," answered Meschini in a muffled voice. Her presence tortured him beyond expression. "That is a long time, and I am not an old man." "And are you always alone here? Do you never go out? What do you do all day?" "I work among the books, Excellency. There are twenty thousand volumes here, enough to occupy a man's time." "Yes--but how? Do you have to read them all?" asked Faustina innocently. "Is that your work?" "I have read many more than would be believed, for my own pleasure. But my work is to keep them in order, to see that there is no variation from the catalogue, so that when learned men come to make inquiries they may find what they want. I have also to take care of all the books, to see that they do not suffer in any way. They are very valuable. There is a fortune here." Somehow he felt less nervous when he began to speak of the library and its contents and the words came more easily to him. With a little encouragement he might even become loquacious. In spite of his face, Faustina began to feel an interest in him. "It must be very hard work," she remarked. "Do you like it? Did you never want to do anything else? I should think you would grow tired of being always alone." "I am very patient," answered Meschini humbly. "And I am used to it. I grew accustomed to the life when I was young." "You say the collection is valuable. Are there any very beautiful books? I would like to see some of them." The fair young creature sat down upon one of the high carved chairs at the end of a table. Meschini went to the other side of the hall and unlocked one of the drawers which lined the lower part of the bookcases to the height of three or four feet. Each was heavily carved with the Montevarchi arms in high relief. It was in these receptacles that the precious manuscripts were kept in their cases. He returned bringing a small square volume of bound manuscript, and laid it before Faustina. "This is worth an enormous sum," he said. "It is the only complete one in the world. There is an imperfect copy in the library of the Vatican." "What is it?" "It is the Montevarchi Dante, the oldest in existence." Faustina turned over the leaves curiously, and admired the even writing though she could not read many of the words, for the ancient characters were strange to her. It was a wonderful picture that the couple made in the great hall. On every side the huge carved bookcases of walnut, black with age, rose from the floor to the spring of the vault, their dark faces reflected in the highly-polished floor of coloured marble. Across the ancient tables a ray of sunlight fell from the high clerestory window. In the centre, the two figures with the old manuscript between them; Faustina's angel head in a high light against the dusky background, as she bent forward a little, turning the yellow pages with her slender, transparent fingers, the black folds of her full gown making heavy lines of drapery, graceful by her grace, and rendered less severe by a sort of youthfulness that seemed to pervade them, and that emanated from herself. Beside her, the bent frame of the broken down librarian, in a humble and respectful attitude, his long arms hanging down by his sides, his shabby black coat almost dragging to his heels, his head bent forward as he looked at the pages. All his features seemed to have grown more sharp and yellow and pointed, and there was now a deep red flush in the upper part of his cheeks. A momentary light shone in his gray eyes, from beneath the bushy brows, a light of intelligence such as had formerly characterised them especially, brought back now perhaps by the effort to fix his attention upon the precious book. His large, coarse ears appeared to point themselves forward like those of an animal, following the direction of his sight. In outward appearance he presented a strange mixture of dilapidation, keenness, and brutality. A week had changed him very much. A few days ago most people would have looked at him with a sort of careless compassion. Now, there was about him something distinctly repulsive. Beside Faustina's youth and delicacy, and freshness, he hardly seemed like a human being. "I suppose it is a very wonderful thing," said the young girl at last, "but I do not know enough to understand its value. Do my brothers ever come to the library?" She leaned back from the volume and glanced at Meschini's face, wondering how heaven could have made anything so ugly. "No. They never come," replied the librarian, drawing the book towards him instinctively, as he would have done if his visitor had been a stranger, who might try to steal a page or two unless he were watched. "But my poor father was very fond of the books, was he not? Did he not often come to see you here?" She was thinking so little of Meschini that she did not see that he turned suddenly white and shook like a man in an ague. It was what he had feared all along, ever since she had entered the room. She suspected him and had come, or had perhaps been sent by San Giacinto to draw him into conversation and to catch him in something which could be interpreted to be a confession of his crime. Had that been her intention, his behaviour would have left little doubt in her mind as to the truth of the accusation. His face betrayed him, his uncontrollable fear, his frightened eyes and trembling limbs. But she had only glanced at him, and her sight wandered to the bookcases for a moment. When she looked again he was moving away from her, along the table. She was surprised to see that his step was uncertain, and that he reeled against the heavy piece of furniture and grasped it for support. She started a little but did not rise. "Are you ill?" she asked. "Shall I call some one?" He made no answer, but seemed to recover himself at the sound of her voice, for he shuffled away and disappeared behind the high carved desk on which lay the open catalogue. She thought she saw a flash of light reflected from some smooth surface, and immediately afterwards she heard a gurgling sound, which she did not understand. Meschini was fortifying himself with a draught. Then he reappeared, walking more steadily. He had received a severe shock, but, as usual, he had not the courage to run away, conceiving that flight would inevitably be regarded as a proof of guilt. "I am not well," he said in explanation as he returned. "I am obliged to take medicine continually. I beg your Excellency to forgive me." "I am sorry to hear that," answered Faustina kindly. "Can we do nothing for you? Have you all you need?" "Everything, thank you. I shall soon be well." "I hope so, I am sure. What was I saying? Oh--I was asking whether my poor father came often to the library. Was he fond of the books?" "His Excellency--Heaven give him glory!--he was a learned man. Yes, he came now and then." Meschini took possession of the manuscript and carried it off rather suddenly to its place in the drawer. He was a long time in locking it up. Faustina watched him with some curiosity. "You were here that day, were you not?" she asked, as he turned towards her once more. The question was a natural one, considering the circumstances. "I think your Excellency was present when I was examined by the prefect," answered Meschini in a curiously disagreeable tone. "True," said Faustina. "You said you had been here all day as usual. I had forgotten. How horrible it was. And you saw nobody, you heard nothing? But I suppose it is too far from the study." The librarian did not answer, but it was evident from his manner that he was very much disturbed. Indeed, he fancied that his worst fears were realised, and that Faustina was really trying to extract information from him for his own conviction. Her thoughts were actually very far from any such idea. She would have considered it quite as absurd to accuse the poor wretch before her as she had thought it outrageous that she herself should be suspected. Her father had always seemed to her a very imposing personage, and she could not conceive that he should have met his death at the hands of such a miserable creature as Arnoldo Meschini, who certainly had not the outward signs of physical strength or boldness. He, however, understood her words very differently and stood still, half way between her and the bookcases, asking himself whether it would not be better to take immediate steps for his safety. His hand was behind him, feeling for the revolver in the pocket of his long coat. Faustina was singularly fearless, by nature, but if she had guessed the danger of her position she would probably have effected her escape very quickly, instead of continuing the conversation. "It is a very dreadful mystery," she said, rising from her chair and walking slowly across the polished marble floor until she stood before a row of great volumes of which the colour had attracted her eye. "It is the duty of us all to try and explain it. Of course we shall know all about it some day, but it is very hard to be patient. Do you know?" she turned suddenly and faced Meschini, speaking with a vehemence not usual for her. "They suspected me, as if I could have done it, I, a weak girl! And yet--if I had the man before me--the man who murdered him--I believe I would kill him with my hands!" She moved forward a little, as she spoke, and tapped her small foot upon the pavement, as though to emphasise her words. Her soft brown eyes flashed with righteous anger, and her cheek grew pale at the thought of avenging her father. There must have been something very fierce in her young face, for Meschini's heart failed him, and his nerves seemed to collapse all at once. He tried to draw back from her, slipped and fell upon his knees with a sharp cry of fear. Even then, Faustina did not suspect the cause of his weakness, but attributed it to the illness of which he had spoken. She sprang forward and attempted to help the poor creature to his feet, but instead of making an effort to rise, he seemed to be grovelling before her, uttering incoherent exclamations of terror. "Lean on me!" said Faustina, putting out her hand. "What is the matter? Oh! Are you going to die!" "Oh! oh! Do not hurt me--pray--in God's name!" cried Meschini, raising his eyes timidly. "Hurt you? No! Why should I hurt you? You are ill--we will have the doctor. Try and get up--try and get to a chair." Her tone reassured him a little, and her touch also, as she did her best to raise him to his feet. He struggled a little and at last stood up, leaning upon the bookcase, and panting with fright. "It is nothing," he tried to say, catching his breath at every syllable. "I am better--my nerves--your Excellency--ugh! what a coward I am!" The last exclamation, uttered in profound disgust of his own weakness, struck Faustina as very strange. "Did I frighten you?" she asked in surprise. "I am very sorry. Now sit down and I will call some one to come to you." "No, no! Please--I would rather be alone! I can walk quite well now. If--if your Excellency will excuse me, I will go to my room. I have more medicine--I will take it and I shall be better." "Can you go alone? Are you sure?" asked Faustina anxiously. But even while she spoke he was moving towards the door, slowly and painfully at first, as it seemed, though possibly a lingering thought of propriety kept him from appearing to run away. The young girl walked a few steps after him, half fearing that he might fall again. But he kept his feet and reached the threshold. Then he made a queer attempt at a bow, and mumbled some words that Faustina could not hear. In another moment he had disappeared, and she was alone. For some minutes she looked at the closed door through which he had gone out. Then she shook her head a little sadly, and slowly went back to her room by the way she had come. It was all very strange, she thought, but his illness might account for it. She would have liked to consult San Giacinto, but though she was outwardly on good terms with him, and could not help feeling a sort of respect for his manly character, the part he had played in attempting to separate her from Gouache had prevented the two from becoming intimate. She said nothing to any one about her interview with Meschini in the library, and no one even guessed that she had been there. CHAPTER XXIX. In spite of his haste to settle all that remained to be settled with regard to the restitution of the property to San Giacinto, Saracinesca found it impossible to wind up the affair in a week as he had intended. It was a very complicated matter to separate from his present fortune that part of it which his cousin would have inherited from his great-grandfather. A great deal of wealth had come into the family since that time by successive marriages, and the management of the original estate had not been kept separate from the administration of the dowries which had from time to time been absorbed into it. The Saracinesca, however, were orderly people, and the books had been kept for generations with that astonishing precision of detail which is found in the great Roman houses, and which surpasses, perhaps, anything analogous which is to be found in modern business. By dint of perseverance and by employing a great number of persons in making the calculations, the notaries had succeeded in preparing a tolerably satisfactory schedule in the course of a fortnight, which both the principal parties agreed to accept as final. The day fixed for the meeting and liquidation of the accounts was a Saturday, a fortnight and two days after the murder of Prince Montevarchi. A question arose concerning the place of meeting. Saracinesca proposed that San Giacinto and the notaries should come to the Palazzo Saracinesca. He was ready to brave out the situation to the end, to face his fate until it held nothing more in store for him, even to handing over the inventory of all that was no longer his in the house where he had been born. His boundless courage and almost brutal frankness would doubtless have supported him to the last, even through such a trial to his feelings, but San Giacinto refused to agree to the proposal. He repeatedly stated that he wished the old prince to inhabit the palace through his lifetime, and that he should even make every effort to induce him to retain the title. Both of these offers were rejected courteously, but firmly. In the matter of holding the decisive meeting in the palace, however, San Giacinto made a determined stand. He would not on any account appear in the light of the conqueror coming to take possession of the spoil. His wife had no share in this generous sentiment. She would have liked to enjoy her triumph to the full, for she was exceedingly ambitious, and was, moreover, not very fond of the Saracinesca. As she expressed it, she felt when she was with any of them, from the old prince to Corona, that they must be thinking all the time that she was a very foolish young person. San Giacinto's action was therefore spontaneous, and if it needs explanation it may be ascribed to an inherited magnanimity, to a certain dignity which had distinguished him even as a young man from the low class in which he had grown up. He was, indeed, by no means a type of the perfect nobleman; his conduct in the affair between Faustina and Gouache had shown that. He acted according to his lights, and was not ashamed to do things which his cousin Giovanni would have called mean. But he was manly, for all that, and if he owed some of his dignity to great stature and to his indomitable will, it was also in a measure the outward sign of a good heart and of an innate sense of justice. There had as yet been nothing dishonest in his dealings since he had come to Rome. He had acquired a fortune which enabled him to take the position that was lawfully his. He liked Flavia, and had bargained for her with her father, afterwards scrupulously fulfilling the terms of the contract. He had not represented himself to be what he was not, and he had taken no unfair advantage of any one for his own advancement. In the matter of the suit he was the dupe of old Montevarchi, so far as the deeds were concerned, but he was perfectly aware that he actually represented the elder branch of his family. It is hard to imagine how any man in his position could have done less than he did, and now that it had come to a final settlement he was really anxious to cause his vanquished relations as little humiliation as possible. To go to their house was like playing the part of a bailiff. To allow them to come to his dwelling suggested the journey to Canossa. The Palazzo Montevarchi was neutral ground, and he proposed that the formalities should be fulfilled there. Saracinesca consented readily enough and the day was fixed. The notaries arrived at ten o'clock in the morning, accompanied by clerks who were laden with books, inventories and rolls of manuscript. The study had been selected for the meeting, both on account of its seclusion from the rest of the house and because it contained an immense table which would serve for the voluminous documents, all of which must be examined and verified. San Giacinto himself awaited the arrival of the Saracinesca in the great reception-room. He had sent his wife away, for he was in reality by no means so calm as he appeared to be, and her constant talk disturbed him. He paced the long room with regular steps, his head erect, his hands behind him, stopping from time to time to listen for the footsteps of those he expected. It was the great day of his life. Before night, he was to be Prince Saracinesca. The moments that precede a great triumph are very painful, especially if a man has looked forward to the event for a long time. No matter how sure he is of the result, something tells him that it is uncertain. A question may arise, he cannot guess whence, by which all may be changed. He repeats to himself a hundred times that failure is impossible, but he is not at rest. The uncertainty of all things, even of his own life, appears very clearly before his eyes. His heart beats fast and slow from one minute to another. At the very instant when he is dreaming of the future, the possibility of disappointment breaks in upon his thoughts. He cannot explain it, but he longs to be beyond the decisive hour. In San Giacinto's existence, the steps from obscurity to importance and fortune had, of late, been so rapidly ascended that he was almost giddy with success. For the first time since he had left his old home in Aquila, he felt as though he had been changed from his own self to some other person. At last the door opened, and Saracinesca, Giovanni, and Corona entered the room. San Giacinto was surprised to see Giovanni's wife on an occasion when the men alone of the family were concerned, but she explained that she had come to spend the morning with Faustina, and would wait till everything was finished. The meeting was not a cordial one, though both parties regarded it as inevitable. If Saracinesca felt any personal resentment against San Giacinto he knew that it was unreasonable and he had not the bad taste to show it. He was silent, but courteous in his manner. Giovanni, strange to say, seemed wholly indifferent to what was about to take place. "I hope," said San Giacinto, when all four were seated, "that you will consent to consider this as a mere formality. I have said as much through my lawyers, but I wish to repeat it myself in better words than they used." "Pardon me," answered Saracinesca, "if I suggest that we should not discuss that matter. We are sensible of your generosity in making such offers, but we do not consider it possible to accept them." "I must ask your indulgence if I do not act upon your suggestion," returned San Giacinto. "Even if there is no discussion I cannot consent to proceed to business until I have explained what I mean. If the suit has been settled justly by the courts, it has not been decided with perfect justice as regards its consequences. I do not deny, and I understand that you do not expect me to act otherwise, that it has been my intention to secure for myself and for my children the property and the personal position abandoned by my ancestor. I have obtained what I wanted and what was my right, and I have to thank you for the magnanimity you have displayed in not attempting to contest a claim against which you might have brought many arguments, if not much evidence. The affair having been legally settled, it is for us to make whatever use of it seems better in our own eyes. To deprive you of your name and of the house in which you were born and bred, would be to offer you an indignity such as I never contemplated." "You cannot be said to deprive us of what is not ours, by any interpretation of the word with which I am acquainted," said Saracinesca in a tone which showed that he was determined to receive nothing. "I am a poor grammarian," answered San Giacinto gravely, and without the slightest affectation of humility. "I was brought up a farmer, and was only an innkeeper until lately. I cannot discuss with you the subtle meanings of words. To my mind it is I who am taking from you that which, if not really yours, you have hitherto had every right to own and to make use of. I do not attempt to explain my thought. I only say that I will neither take your name nor live in your house while you are alive. I propose a compromise which I hope you will be willing to accept." "I fear that will be impossible. My mind is made up." "I propose," continued San Giacinto, "that you remain Prince Saracinesca, that you keep Saracinesca itself, and the palace here in Rome during your lifetime, which I trust may be a long one. After your death everything returns to us. My cousin Giovanni and the Princess Sant' Ilario--" "You may call me Corona, if you please," said the princess suddenly. Her eyes were fixed on his face, and she was smiling. Both Saracinesca and Giovanni looked at her in surprise. It seemed strange to them that she should choose such a moment for admitting San Giacinto to a familiarity he had never before enjoyed. But for some time she had felt a growing respect for the ex-innkeeper, which was quickened by his present generosity. San Giacinto's swarthy face grew a shade darker as the blood mounted to his lean cheeks. Corona had given him one of the first sensations of genuine pleasure he had ever experienced in his rough life. "Thank you," he said simply. "You two, I was going to say, have palaces of your own and cannot have such close associations with the old places as one who has owned them during so many years. You," he continued, turning to the old prince, "will, I hope, accept an arrangement which cannot affect your dignity and which will give me the greatest satisfaction." "I am very much obliged to you," answered Saracinesca promptly. "You are very generous, but I cannot take what you offer." "If you feel that you would be taking anything from me, look at it from a different point of view. You would be conferring a favour instead of accepting one. Consider my position, when I have taken your place. It will not be a pleasant one. The world will abuse me roundly, and will say I have behaved abominably towards you. Do you fancy that I shall be received as a substitute for the Prince Saracinesca your friends have known so long? Do you suppose that the vicissitudes of my life are unknown, and that no one will laugh behind my back and point at me as the new, upstart prince? Few people know me in Rome, and if I have any friends besides you, I have not been made aware of the fact. Pray consider that in doing what I ask, you would be saving me from very unpleasant social consequences." "I should be doing so at the cost of my self-respect," replied the old man firmly. "Whatever the consequences are to you, the means of bearing them will be in your hands. You will have no lack of friends to-morrow, or at least of amiable persons anxious to call themselves by that name. They will multiply this very night, like mushrooms, and will come about you freshly shaved and smiling to-morrow morning." "I am afraid you do not understand me," said San Giacinto. "I can leave you the title and yet take one which will serve as well. You would call yourself Prince Saracinesca and I should be Saracinesca di San Giacinto. As for the palace and the place in the mountains, they are so insignificant as compared with the rest that it could not hurt your self-respect to live in them. Can you not persuade your father?" He turned to Giovanni who had not spoken yet. "You are very good to make the proposal," he answered. "I cannot say more than that. I agree with my father." A silence followed which lasted several minutes. Corona looked from one to the other of the three men, wondering how the matter would end. She understood both parties better than they understood each other. She sympathised with the refusal of her husband and his father. To accept such an offer would put them in a position of obligation towards San Giacinto which she knew they could never endure, and which would be galling to herself. On the other hand she felt sorry for their cousin, who was evidently trying to do what he felt was right and generous, and was disappointed that his advances should be repelled. He was very much in earnest, or he would not have gone so far as to suggest that it would be a favour to him if they took what he offered. He was so simple, and yet so dignified withal, that she could not help liking him. It was not clear to her, however, that she could mend matters by interfering, nor by offering advice to the one or sympathy to the other. Saracinesca himself was the first to break the silence. It seemed to him that everything had been said, and that nothing now remained but to fulfil the requisite formalities. "Shall we proceed to business?" he inquired, as though ignoring all the previous conversation. "I believe we have a great deal to do, and the time is passing." San Giacinto made no reply, but rose gravely and made a gesture signifying that he would show the way to the study. Saracinesca made a show of refusing to go out first, then yielded and went on. San Giacinto waited at the door for Corona and Giovanni. "I will join you in a moment--I know the way," said the latter, remaining behind with his wife. When they were alone he led her towards one of the windows, as though to be doubly sure that no one could hear what he was about to say. Then he stood still and looked into her eyes. "Would you like us to accept such a favour from him?" he asked. "Tell me the truth." "No," answered Corona without the least hesitation. "But I am sorry for San Giacinto. I think he is really trying to do right, and to be generous. He was hurt by your father's answer." "If I thought it would give you pleasure to feel that we could go to Saracinesca, I would try and make my father change his mind." "Would you?" She knew very well what a sacrifice it would be to his pride. "Yes, dear. I would do it for you." "Giovanni--how good you are!" "No--I am not good. I love you. That is all. Shall I try?" "Never! I am sorry for San Giacinto--but I could no more live in the old house, or in Saracinesca, than you could. Do I not feel all that you feel, and more?" "All?" "All." They stood hand in hand looking out of the window, and there were tears in the eyes of both. The grasp of their fingers tightened slowly as though they were drawn together by an irresistible force. Slowly they turned their faces towards each other, and presently their lips met in one of those kisses that are never forgotten. Then Giovanni left her where she was. All had been said; both knew that they desired nothing more in this world, and that henceforth they were all to each other. It was as though a good angel had set a heavenly seal upon the reunion of their hearts. Corona did not leave the room immediately, but remained a few moments leaning against the heavy frame of the window. Her queenly figure drooped a little, and she pressed one hand to her side. Her dark face was bent down, and the tears that had of old come so rarely made silver lines upon her olive cheeks. There was not one drop of bitterness in that overflowing of her soul's transcendent joy, in that happiness which was so great and perfect that it seemed almost unbearable. And she had reason to be glad. In the midst of a calamity which would have absorbed the whole nature of many men, Giovanni had not one thought that was not for her. Giovanni, who had once doubted her, who had said such things to her as she dared not remember--Giovanni, suffering under a blow to his pride, that was worse almost than total ruin, had but one wish, to make another sacrifice for her. That false past, of which she hated to think, was gone like an evil dream before the morning sun, that true past, which was her whole life, was made present again. The love that had been so bruised and crushed that she had thought it dead had sprung up again from its deep, strong roots, grander and nobler than before. The certainty that it was real was overwhelming, and drowned all her senses in a trance of light. Faustina Montevarchi entered the drawing-room softly, then, seeing no one, she advanced till she came all at once upon Corona in the embrasure of the window. The princess started slightly when she saw that she was not alone. "Corona!" exclaimed the young girl. "Are you crying? What is it?" "Oh, Faustina! I am so happy!" It was a relief to be able to say it to some one. "Happy?" repeated Faustina in surprise. "But there are tears in your eyes, on your cheeks--" "You cannot understand--I do not wonder--how should you? And besides, I cannot tell you what it is." "I wish I were you," answered her friend sadly. "I wish I were happy!" "What is it, child?" asked Corona kindly. Then she led Faustina to a stiff old sofa at one end of the vast room and they sat down together. "What is it?" she repeated, drawing the girl affectionately to her side. "You know what it is, dear. No one can help me. Oh, Corona! we love each other so very much!" "I know--I know it is very real. But you must have a little patience, darling. Love will win in the end. Just now, too--" She did not finish the sentence, but she had touched a sensitive spot in Faustina's conscience. "That is the worst of it," was the answer. "I am so miserable, because I know he never would have allowed it, and now--I am ashamed to tell you, it is so heartless!" She hid her face on her friend's shoulder. "You will never be heartless, my dear Faustina," said Corona. "What you think, is not your fault, dear. Love is master of the world and of us all." "But my love is not like yours, Corona. Perhaps yours was once like mine. But you are married--you are happy. You were saying so just now." "Yes, dear. I am very, very happy, because I love very, very dearly. You will be as happy as I am some day." "Ah, that may be--but--I am dreadfully wicked, Corona!" "You, child? You do not know what it is to think anything bad!" "But I do. I am so much ashamed of it that I can hardly tell you--only I tell you everything, because you are my friend. Corona--it is horrible--it seems easier, more possible--now that he is gone--oh! I am so glad I have told you!" Faustina began to sob passionately, as though she were repenting of some fearful crime. "Is that all, darling?" asked Corona, smiling at the girl's innocence, and pressing her head tenderly to her own breast. "Is that what makes you so unhappy?" "Yes--is it not--very, very dreadful?" A fresh shower of tears accompanied the question. "Perhaps I am very bad, too," said Corona. "But I do not call that wickedness." "Oh no! You are good. I wish I were like you!" "No, do not wish that. But, I confess, it seems to me natural that you should think as you do, because it is really true. Your father, Faustina, may have been mistaken about your future. If--if he had lived, you might perhaps have made him change his mind. At all events, you can hope that he now sees more clearly, that he understands how terrible it is for a woman to be married to a man she does not love--when she is sure that she loves another." "Yes--you told me. Do you remember? It was the other day, after Flavia had been saying such dreadful things. But I know it already. Every woman must know it." There was a short pause, during which Corona wondered whether she were the same person she had been ten days earlier, when she had delivered that passionate warning. Faustina sat quite still, looking up into the princess's face. She was comforted and reassured and the tears had ceased to flow. "There is something else," she said at last. "I want to tell you everything, for I can tell no one else. I cannot keep it to myself either. He has written to me, Corona. Was it very wrong to read his letter?" This time she smiled a little and blushed. "I do not think it was very wrong," answered her friend with a soft laugh. She was so happy that she would have laughed at anything. "Shall I show you his letter?" asked the young girl shyly. At the same time her hand disappeared into the pocket of her black gown, and immediately afterwards brought out a folded piece of paper which looked as though it had been read several times. Corona did not think it necessary to express her assent in words. Faustina opened the note, which contained the following words, written in Gouache's delicate French handwriting-- "MADEMOISELLE--When you have read these lines, you will understand my object in writing them, for you understand me, and you know that all I do has but one object. A few days ago it was still possible for us to meet frequently. The terrible affliction which has fallen upon you, and in which none can feel deeper or more sincere sympathy than I, has put it out of your power and out of mine to join hands and weep over the present, to look into each other's eyes and read there the golden legend of a future happiness. To meet as we have met, alone in the crowded church--no! we cannot do it. For you, at such a time, it would seem like a disrespect to your father's memory. For myself, I should deem it dishonourable, I should appear base in my own eyes. Did I not go to him and put to him the great question? Was I not repulsed--I do not say with insult, but with astonishment--at my presumption? Shall I then seem to take advantage of his death--of his sudden and horrible death--to press forward a suit which he is no longer able to oppose? I feel that it would be wrong. Though I cannot express myself as I would, I know that you understand me, for you think as I do. How could it be otherwise? Are we not one indivisible soul, we two? Yes, you will understand me. Yes, you will know that it is right. I go therefore, I leave Rome immediately. I cannot inhabit the same city and not see you. But I cannot quit the Zouaves in this time of danger. I am therefore going to Viterbo, whither I am sent through the friendly assistance of one of our officers. There I shall stay until time has soothed your grief and restored your mother to health. To her we will turn when the moment has arrived. She will not be insensible to our tears and entreaties. Until then good-bye--ah! the word is less terrible than it looks, for our souls will be always together. I leave you but for a short space--no! I leave your sweet eyes, your angel's face, your dear hands that I adore, but yourself I do not leave. I bear you with me in a heart that loves you--God knows how tenderly." Corona read the letter carefully to the end. To her older appreciation of the world, such a letter appeared at first to be the forerunner of a definite break, but a little reflection made her change her mind. What he said was clearly true, and corresponded closely with Faustina's own view of the case. The most serious obstacle to the union of the lovers had been removed by Prince Montevarchi's death, and it was inconceivable that Gouache should have ceased to care for Faustina at the very moment when a chance of his marrying her had presented itself. Besides, Corona knew Gouache well, and was not mistaken in her estimate of his character. He was honourable to Quixotism, and perfectly capable of refusing to take what looked like an unfair advantage. Considering Faustina's strange nature, her amazing readiness to yield to first impulses, and her touching innocence of evil, it would have been an easy matter for the man she loved to draw her into a runaway match. She would have followed him as readily to the ends of the earth as she had followed him to the Serristori barracks. Gouache was not a boy, and probably understood her peculiarities as well as any one. In going away for the present he was undoubtedly acting with the greatest delicacy, for his departure showed at once all the respect he felt for Faustina, and all that devotion to an ideal honour which was the foundation of his being. Though his epistle was not a model of literary style it contained certain phrases that came from the heart. Corona understood why Faustina was pleased with it, and why instead of shedding useless tears over his absence, she had shown such willingness to let her friend read Gouache's own explanation of his departure. She folded the sheet of paper again and gave it back to the young girl. "I am glad he wrote that letter," she said after a moment's pause. "I always believed in him, and now--well, I think, he is almost worthy of you, Faustina." Faustina threw her arms around Corona's neck, and kissed her again and again. "I am so glad you know how good he is!" she cried. "I could not be happy unless you liked him, and you do." All through the morning the two friends sat together in the great drawing-room talking, as such women can talk to each other, with infinite grace about matters not worth recording, or if they spoke of things of greater importance, repeating the substance of what they had said before, finding at each repetition some new comment to make, some new point upon which to agree, after the manner of people who are very fond of each other. The hours slipped by, and they were unconscious of the lapse of time. The great clocks of the neighbouring church towers tolled eleven, twelve, and one o'clock, and yet they had more to say, and did not even notice the loud ringing of the hundred bells. The day was clear, and the bright sunlight streamed in through the high windows, telling the hour with a more fateful precision than the clocks outside. All was peace and happiness and sweet intercourse, as the two women sat there undisturbed through the long morning. They talked, and laughed, and held their hands clasped together, unconscious of the rest of the world. No sound penetrated from the rest of the house to the quiet, sunlit hall, which to Faustina's mind had never looked so cheerful before since she could remember it. And yet within the walls of the huge old palace strange things were passing, things which it was well that neither of them should see. Before describing the events which close this part of my story, it is as well to say that Faustina has made her last appearance for the present. From the point of view which would have been taken by most of her acquaintances, her marriage with Gouache was a highly improbable event. If any one desires an apology for being left in uncertainty as to her fate, I can only answer that I am writing the history of the Saracinesca and not of any one else. There are certain stages in that history which are natural halting-places for the historian himself, and for his readers if he have any; and it is impossible to make the lives of a number of people coincide so far as to wind them up together, and yet be sure that they will run down at the same moment like the clocks of his Majesty Charles the Fifth. If it were, the world would be a very different place. CHAPTER XXX. The scene in the study, while the notary read through the voluminous documents, is worth describing. At one end of the large green table sat San Giacinto alone, his form, even as he sat, towering above the rest. The mourning he wore harmonised with his own dark and massive head. His expression was calm and thoughtful, betraying neither satisfaction nor triumph. From time to time his deep-set eyes turned towards Saracinesca with a look of inquiry, as though to assure himself that the prince agreed to the various points and was aware that he must now speak for the last time, if he spoke at all. At the other end of the board the two Saracinesca were seated side by side. The strong resemblance that existed between them was made very apparent by their position, but although, allowing for the difference of their ages, their features corresponded almost line for line, their expressions were totally different. The old man's gray hair and pointed beard seemed to bristle with suppressed excitement. His heavy brows were bent together, as though he were making a great effort to control his temper, and now and then there was an angry gleam in his eyes. He sat square and erect in his seat, as though he were facing an enemy, but he kept his hands below the table, for he did not choose that San Giacinto should see the nervous working of his fingers. Giovanni, on the other hand, looked upon the proceedings with an indifference that was perfectly apparent. He occasionally looked at his watch, suppressed a yawn, and examined his nails with great interest. It was clear that he was not in the least moved by what was going on. It was no light matter for the old nobleman to listen to the documents that deprived him one by one of his titles, his estates, and his other wealth, in favour of a man who was still young, and whom, in spite of the relationship, he could not help regarding as an inferior. He had always considered himself as the representative of an older generation, who, by right of position, was entitled to transmit to his son the whole mass of those proud traditions in which he had grown up as in his natural element. Giovanni, on the contrary, possessed a goodly share of that indifference that characterises the younger men of the nineteenth century. He was perfectly satisfied with his present situation, and had been so long accustomed to depend upon his personality and his private fortune, for all that he enjoyed or required in life, that he did not desire the responsibilities that weigh heavily upon the head of a great family. Moreover, recent events had turned the current of his thoughts into a different direction. He was in his way as happy as Corona, and he knew that real happiness proceeds from something more than a score of titles and a few millions of money, more or less. He regarded the long morning's work as an intolerable nuisance, which prevented him from spending his time with his wife. In the middle of the table sat the two notaries, flanked by four clerks, all of them pale men in black, clean shaved, of various ages, but bearing on their faces the almost unmistakable stamp of their profession. The one who was reading the deeds wore spectacles. From time to time he pushed them back upon his bald forehead and glanced first at San Giacinto and then at Prince Saracinesca, after which he carefully resettled the glasses upon his long nose and proceeded with his task until he had reached the end of another set of clauses, when he repeated the former operation with mechanical regularity, never failing to give San Giacinto the precedence of the first look. For a long time this went on, with a monotony which almost drove Giovanni from the room. Indeed nothing but absolute necessity could have kept him in his place. At last the final deed was reached. It was an act of restitution drawn up in a simple form so as to include, by a few words, all the preceding documents. It set forth that Leone Saracinesca being "free in body and mind," the son of Giovanni Saracinesca deceased, "whom may the Lord preserve in a state of glory," restored, gave back, yielded, and abandoned all those goods, titles, and benefices which he had inherited directly from Leone Saracinesca, the eleventh of that name, deceased, "whom may the Lord preserve in a state of glory," to Giovanni Saracinesca, Marchese di San Giacinto, who was "free in body and mind," son of Orsino Saracinesca, ninth of that name, deceased, "whom may the Lord, etc." Not one of the quaint stock phrases was omitted. The notary paused, looked round, adjusted his spectacles and continued. The deed further set forth that Giovanni Saracinesca, Marchese di San Giacinto aforesaid, acknowledged the receipt of the aforesaid goods, titles, and benefices, and stated that he received all as the complete inheritance, relinquishing all further claims against the aforesaid Leone and his heirs for ever. Once more the reader paused, and then read the last words in a clear voice-- "Both the noble parties promising, finally, in regard to the present cession, to take account of it, to hold it as acceptable, valid, and perpetual, and, for the same, never to allow it to be spoken of otherwise." A few words followed, setting forth the name of the notary and the statement that the act was executed in his presence, with the date. When he had finished reading all, he rose and turned the document upon the table so that the two parties could stand opposite to him and sign it. Without a word he made a slight inclination and offered the pen to Saracinesca. The old gentleman pushed back his chair and marched forward with erect head and a firm step to sign away what had been his birthright. From first to last he had acknowledged the justice of his cousin's claims, and he was not the man to waver at the supreme moment. His hair bristled more stiffly than ever, and his dark eyes shot fire, but he took the pen and wrote his great strong signature as clearly as he had written it at the foot of his marriage contract five and thirty years earlier. Giovanni looked at him with admiration. Then San Giacinto, who had risen out of respect to the old man, came forward and took the pen in his turn. He wrote out his name in straight, firm characters as usual, but at the end the ink made a broad black mark that ended abruptly, as though the writer had put the last stroke to a great undertaking. "There should be two witnesses," said the notary in the awkward silence that followed. "Don Giovanni can be one," he added, giving the latter the only name that was now his, with a lawyer's scrupulous exactness. "One of your clerks can be the other," suggested Saracinesca, who was anxious to get away as soon as possible. "It is not usual," replied the notary. "Is there no one in the palace? One of the young princes would do admirably." "They are all away," said San Giacinto. "Let me see--there is the librarian. Will he answer the purpose? He must be in the library at this hour. A respectable man--he has been thirty years in the house. For that matter, the steward is probably in his office, too." "The librarian is the best person," answered the notary. "I will bring him at once--I know the way." San Giacinto left the study by the door that opened upon the passage. The others could hear his heavy steps as he went rapidly up the paved corridor. Old Saracinesca walked up and down the room unable to conceal his impatience. Giovanni resumed his seat and waited quietly, indifferent to the last. Arnoldo Meschini was in the library, as San Giacinto had anticipated. He was seated at his usual place at the upper end of the hall, surrounded by books and writing materials which he handled nervously without making any serious attempt to use them. He had lost all power of concentrating his thoughts or of making any effort to work. Fortunately for him no one had paid any attention to him during the past ten days. His appearance was dishevelled and slovenly, and he was more bent than he had formerly been. His eyes were bleared and glassy as he stared at the table before him, assuming a wild and startled expression when, looking up, he fancied he saw some horrible object gliding quickly across the sunny floor, or creeping up to him over the polished table. All his former air of humility and shabby respectability was gone. His disordered dress, his straggling grayish hair that hung from beneath the dirty black skullcap around his misshapen ears, his face, yellow in parts and irregularly flushed in others, as though it were beginning to be scorched from within, his unwashed hands, every detail of his appearance, in short, proclaimed his total degradation. But hitherto no one had noticed him, for he had lived between his attic, the deserted library and the apothecary's shop on the island of Saint Bartholomew. His mind had almost ceased to act when he was awake, except in response to the fear which the smallest circumstances now caused him. If he had dreams by night, he saw visions also in the day, and his visions generally took the shape of San Giacinto. He had not really seen him since he had met him when the prince lay in state, but the fear of him was, if anything, greater than if he had met him daily. The idea that the giant was lying in wait for him had become fixed, and yet he was powerless to fly. His energy was all gone between his potations and the constant terror that paralysed him. On that morning he had been as usual to the Ponte Quattro Capi and had returned with the means of sleep in his pocket. He had no instinct left but to deaden his sensations with drink during the hours of light, while waiting for the time when he could lie down and yield to the more potent influence of the opium. He had therefore come back as usual, and by force of habit had taken his place in the library, the fear of seeming to neglect his supposed duties forbidding him to spend all his time in his room. As usual, too, he had locked the door of the passage to separate himself from his dread of a supernatural visitation. He sat doubled together in his chair, his long arms lying out before him upon the books and papers. All at once he started in his seat. One, two, one two--yes, there were footsteps in the corridor--they were coming nearer and nearer--heavy, like those of the dead prince--but quicker, like those of San Giacinto--closer, closer yet. A hand turned the latch once, twice, then shook the lock roughly. Meschini was helpless. He could neither get upon his feet and escape by the other exit, nor find the way to the pocket that held his weapon. Again the latch was turned and shaken, and then the deep voice he dreaded was heard calling to him. "Signor Meschini!" He shrieked aloud with fear, but he was paralysed in every limb. A moment later a terrible crash drowned his cries. San Giacinto, on hearing his agonised scream, had feared some accident. He drew back a step and then, with a spring, threw his colossal strength against the line where the leaves of the door joined. The lock broke in its sockets, the panels cracked under the tremendous pressure, and the door flew wide open. In a moment San Giacinto was standing over the librarian, trying to drag him back from the table and out of his seat. He thought the man was in a fit. In reality he was insane with terror. "An easy death, for the love of heaven!" moaned the wretch, twisting himself under the iron hands that held him by the shoulders. "For God's sake! I will tell you all--do not torture me--oh! oh!--only let it be easy--and quick--yes, I tell you--I killed the prince--oh, mercy, mercy, for Christ's sake!" San Giacinto's grip tightened, and his face grew livid. He lifted Meschini bodily from the chair and set him against the table, holding him up at arm's length, his deep eyes blazing with a rage that would soon be uncontrollable. Meschini's naturally strong constitution did not afford him the relief of fainting. "You killed him--why?" asked San Giacinto through his teeth, scarcely able to speak. "For you, for you--oh, have mercy--do not--" "Silence!" cried the giant in a voice that shook the vault of the hall. "Answer me or I will tear your head from your body with my hands! Why do you say you killed him for me?" Meschini trembled all over, and then his contorted face grew almost calm. He had reached that stage which may be called the somnambulism of fear. The perspiration covered his skin in an instant, and his voice sank to a distinct whisper. "He made me forge the deeds, and would not pay me for them. Then I killed him." "What deeds?" "The deeds that have made you Prince Saracinesca. If you do not believe me, go to my room, the originals are in the cupboard. The key is here, in my right-hand pocket." He could not move to get it, for San Giacinto held him fast, and watched every attempt he made at a movement. His own face was deathly pale, and his white lips were compressed together. "You forged them altogether, and the originals are untouched?" he asked, his grasp tightening unconsciously till Meschini yelled with pain. "Yes!" he cried. "Oh, do not hurt me--an easy death--" "Come with me," said San Giacinto, leaving his arms and taking him by the collar. Then he dragged and pushed him towards the splintered door of the passage. At the threshold, Meschini writhed and tried to draw back, but he could no more have escaped from those hands that held him than a lamb can loosen the talons of an eagle when they are buried deep in the flesh. "Go on!" urged the strong man, in fierce tones. "You came by this passage to kill him--you know the way." With a sudden movement of his right hand he launched the howling wretch forward into the corridor. All through the narrow way Meschini's cries for mercy resounded, loud and piercing, but no one heard him. The walls were thick and the distance from the inhabited rooms was great. But at last the shrieks reached the study. Saracinesca stood still in his walk. Giovanni sprang to his feet. The notaries sat in their places and trembled. The noise came nearer and then the door flew open. San Giacinto dragged the shapeless mass of humanity in and flung it half way across the room, so that it sank in a heap at the old prince's feet. "There is the witness to the deeds," he cried savagely. "He forged them, and he shall witness them in hell. He killed his master in this very room, and here he shall tell the truth before he dies. Confess, you dog! And be quick about it, or I will help you." He stirred the grovelling creature with his foot. Meschini only rolled from side to side and hid his face against the floor. Then the gigantic hands seized him again and set him on his feet, and held him with his face to the eight men who had all risen and were standing together in wondering silence. "Speak!" shouted San Giacinto in Meschini's ear. "You are not dead yet--you have much to live through, I hope." Again that trembling passed over the unfortunate man's limbs, and he grew quiet and submissive. It was all as he had seen it in his wild dreams and visions, the secret chamber whence no sound could reach the outer world, the stern judges all in black, the cruel strength of San Giacinto ready to torture him. The shadow of death rose in his eyes. "Let me sit down," he said in a broken voice. San Giacinto led him to a chair in the midst of them all. Then he stood before one of the doors, and motioned to his cousin to guard the other. But Arnoldo Meschini had no hope of escape. His hour was at hand, and he knew it. "You forged the deeds which were presented as originals in the court. Confess it to those gentlemen." It was San Giacinto who spoke. "The prince made me do it," answered Meschini in low tones. "He promised me twenty thousand scudi for the work." "To be paid--when? Tell all." "To be paid in cash the day the verdict was given." "You came to get your money here?" "I came here. He denied having promised anything definite. I grew angry. I killed him." A violent shudder shook his frame from head to foot. "You strangled him with a pocket handkerchief?" "It was Donna Faustina's?" "The prince threw it on the ground after he had struck her. I saw the quarrel. I was waiting for my money. I watched them through the door." "You know that you are to die. Where are the deeds you stole when you forged the others?" "I told you--in the cupboard in my room. Here is the key. Only--for God's sake---" He was beginning to break down again. Perhaps, by the habit of the past days he felt the need for drink even in that supreme moment, for his hand sought his pocket as he sat. Instead of the bottle he felt the cold steel barrel of the revolver, which he had forgotten. San Giacinto looked towards the notary. "Is this a full confession, sufficient to commit this man to trial?" he asked. But before the notary could answer, Meschini's voice sounded through the room, not weak and broken, but loud and clear. "It is! It is!" he cried in sudden and wild excitement. "I have told all. The deeds will speak for themselves. Ah! you would have done better to leave me amongst my books!" He turned to San Giacinto. "You will never be Prince Saracinesca. But I shall escape you. You shall not give me a slow death--you shall not, I say--" San Giacinto made a step towards him. The proximity of the man who had inspired him with such abject terror put an end to his hesitation. "You shall not!" he almost screamed. "But my blood is on your head--Ah!" Three deafening reports shook the air in rapid succession, and all that was left of Arnoldo Meschini lay in a shapeless heap upon the floor. While a man might have counted a score there was silence in the room. Then San Giacinto came forward and bent over the body, while the notaries and their clerks cowered in a corner. Saracinesca and Giovanni stood together, grave and silent, as brave men are when they have seen a horrible sight and can do nothing. Meschini was quite dead. When San Giacinto had assured himself of the fact, he looked up. All the fierce rage had vanished from his face. "He is dead," he said quietly. "You all saw it. You will have to give your evidence in half an hour when the police come. Be good enough to open the door." He took up the body in his arms carefully, but with an ease that amazed those who watched him. Giovanni held the door open, and San Giacinto deposited his burden gently upon the pavement of the corridor. Then he turned back and re-entered the room. The door of the study closed for ever on Arnoldo Meschini. In the dead silence that followed, San Giacinto approached the table upon which the deed lay, still waiting to be witnessed. He took it in his hand and turned to Saracinesca. There was no need for him to exculpate himself from any charge of complicity in the abominable fraud which Montevarchi had prepared before he died. Not one of the men present even thought of suspecting him. Even if they had, it was clear that he would not have brought Meschini to confess before them a robbery in which he had taken part. But there was that in his brave eyes that told his innocence better than any evidence or argument could have proclaimed it. He held out the document to Saracinesca. "Would you like to keep it as a memento?" he asked. "Or shall I destroy it before you?" His voice never quavered, his face was not discomposed. Giovanni, the noble-hearted gentleman, wondered whether he himself could have borne such a blow so bravely as this innkeeper cousin of his. Hopes, such as few men can even aspire to entertain, had been suddenly extinguished. A future of power and wealth and honour, the highest almost that his country could give any man, had been in a moment dashed to pieces before his eyes. Dreams, in which the most indifferent would see the prospect of enormous satisfaction, had vanished into nothing during the last ten minutes, almost at the instant when they were to be realised. And yet the man who had hoped such hopes, who had looked forward to such a future, whose mind must have revelled many a time in the visions that were already becoming realities--that man stood before them all, outwardly unmoved, and proposing to his cousin that he should keep as a remembrance the words that told of his own terrible disappointment. He was indeed the calmest of those present. "Shall I tear it to pieces?" he asked again, holding the document between his fingers. Then the old prince spoke. "Do what you will with it," he answered. "But give me your hand. You are a braver man than I." The two men looked into each other's eyes as their hands met. "It shall not be the last deed between us," said Saracinesca. "There shall be another. Whatever may be the truth about that villain's work you shall have your share--" "A few hours ago, you would not take yours," answered San Giacinto quietly. "Must I repeat your own words?" "Well, well--we will talk of that. This has been a terrible morning's work, and we must do other things before we go to business again. That poor man's body is outside the door. We had better attend to that matter first, and send for the police. Giovanni, my boy, will you tell Corona? I believe she is still in the house." Giovanni needed no urging to go upon his errand. He entered the drawing-room where Corona was still sitting beside Faustina upon the sofa. His face must have been pale, for Corona looked at him with a startled expression. "Is anything the matter?" she asked. "Something very unpleasant has occurred," he answered, looking at Faustina. "Meschini, the librarian, has just died very suddenly in the study where we were." "Meschini?" cried Faustina in surprise and with some anxiety. "Yes. Are you nervous, Donna Faustina? May I tell you something very startling?" It was a man's question. "Yes--what is it?" she asked quickly. "Meschini confessed before us all that it was he who was the cause--in fact that he had murdered your father. Before any one could stop him, he had shot himself. It is very dreadful." With a low cry that was more expressive of amazement than of horror, Faustina sank into a chair. In his anxiety to tell his wife the whole truth Giovanni forgot her at once. As soon as he began to speak, however, Corona led him away to the window where they had stood together a few hours earlier. "Corona--what I told her is not all. There is something else. Meschini had forged the papers which gave the property to San Giacinto. Montevarchi had promised him twenty thousand scudi for the job. It was because he would not pay the money that Meschini killed him. Do you understand?" "You will have everything after all?" "Everything--but we must give San Giacinto a share. He has behaved like a hero. He found it all out and made Meschini confess. When he knew the truth he did not move a muscle of his face, but offered my father the deed he had just signed as a memento of the occasion." "Then he will not take anything, any more than you would, or your father. Is it quite sure, Giovanni? Is there no possible mistake?" "No. It is absolutely certain. The original documents are in this house." "I am glad then, for you, dear," answered Corona. "It would have been very hard for you to bear--" "After this morning? After the other day in Holy Office?" asked Giovanni, looking deep into her splendid eyes. "Can anything be hard to bear if you love me, darling?" "Oh my beloved! I wanted to hear you say it!" Her head sank upon his shoulder, as though she had found that perfect rest for which she had once so longed. Here ends the second act in the history of the Saracinesca. To trace their story further would be to enter upon an entirely different series of events, less unusual perhaps in themselves, but possibly worthy of description as embracing that period during which Rome and the Romans began to be transformed and modernised. In the occurrences that followed, both political and social, the Saracinesca bore a part, in that blaze of gaiety which for many reasons developed during the winter of the Oecumenical Council, in the fall of the temporal power, in the social confusion that succeeded that long-expected catastrophe, and which led by rapid degrees to the present state of things. If there are any left who still feel an interest in Giovanni and Corona, the historian may once more resume his task and set forth in succession the circumstances through which they have passed since that memorable morning they spent at the Palazzo Montevarchi. They themselves are facts, and, as such, are a part of the century in which we live; whether they are interesting facts or not, is for others to judge, and if the verdict denounces them as flat, unprofitable and altogether dull, it is not their fault; the blame must be imputed to him who, knowing them well, has failed in an honest attempt to show them as they are. THE END.